#so here's a low effort cas post (。_。)

[limeysims]

🫐 🫐 🫐 ✨

[floororangejuice]

BION Information master post!! (abibaz oc)

real image of me after making all of this or something

hit the read more to get blasted with everything or something

HEADS UP!! THINGS WILL BE PURPOSFULLY LEFT OUT OF SOME INFORMATION!

I want people to find some things out through hints and clues hidden in art, so there may be a big chunk missing! Also, his story isn't FULLY finished yet too, so there will be a lot more to come. This post will (if I remember to) be updated along with any major art/information I make about him! (FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS TOO!)

BASIC NEED-TO-KNOW INFO

Bion and Bryne are the same person. Bryne is the person/version of himself when he was alive, and Bion is the spirit that remains after death.

I just wanted to clarify this as this can be something that is easily mistaken if you see me draw them at different times/in different posts, sense at first look they can seem like completely different characters.

In my interp of abibaz, it takes place somewhere in the 90's, so that is also where his story takes place.

BASIC LORE (quick/low effort summary)

Bryne is a poor-ish guy living on his own and looking for a job and in some way ends up applying as an IT guy for the school. He applies for this job because it somewhat relates to his huge interest in computers, and he is already desperate enough for any job so this place seems perfect for him so far.

Upon entering the school for the first time, he can immediately tell something is off. He cant place his finger on exactly what it is but it does raise some red flags for him. Even so, he continues on for his interview and gets hired yadda yadda I dont really know how to explain that part and its not important.

Though, adding to his suspicions about this place, he has to meet and be around Alex now. I dont know how to word it in a good way, but basically he thinks Alex is a massive freak.

As time goes on, he gets more and more curious about what is happening in the school. Kids keep going missing, if there is any at all, and the place constantly smells like iron and rot. Bryne tries to research about the school online, trying to find any documents or reports about the school, like possible crimes that happened or any leads on the disappearances, but keeps coming up empty-handed.

This leads Bryne into a spiral, he keeps trying and trying to find information, it just seems right out of his reach. He spends most of his time at work in his own classroom, in the back with his personal computer most of the time because of this. That computer is like a sort of personal companion to him now, with how much time he has spent there alone with it.

Alex is aware of Bryne's researching, and after a while started to have his own fun with him. Setting up red herrings and letting information slip as a way to reel Bryne back into a game he almost had set up from the start.

Anyways, as time goes on Alex starts to get bored of this, and decides one night to finally get some real enjoyment out of this.

He was ready. The clock seemed to tick exceptionally slow that day, there was nothing different about that day from the rest, all but that usual feeling of dread seeming to hang heavier on Bryne's shoulders.

Alex slinked into his room, looming over him just watching him before making his presence known. He just started talking to Bryne, placing a hand on his shoulder and getting close to his level. Bryne could sense that something was wrong with this little meeting of his, though he did this type of thing this one felt wrong.

Bryne started to head out of his room and to the exit doors, hurrying his pace as he got further away from his room. Though when he finally reached the exit, he found the doors to be locked. No matter how much he tried he couldn't get them undone. He was now stuck here, unsure as to why. He started to panic, Bryne had always been weary of Alex, and now his suspicions have been proven. He was stuck there with a monster.

Now, I dont feel like I have the capability or patience to write the whole next segment, but to quickly summarize it: Bryne gets fucking hunted and chased through the school, becoming exhausted and more panicked over time and ends up heading back to his room, then Alex corners him there and kills him by giving him so much blunt force trauma to the face through smashing his face into a computer screen. yay!

I will probably try and write it out better at a later date when I have it more clearly thought out and have the energy to

anyways, here is a quick demonstration of what that looked like:

really good mock-up i know right

Anyways, after this there is a week period(important) of time where he is dead, his body rotting away, semi-untouched. Bion apears within one of the computers as, well, him, and has to re-learn what it feels like to exist again along with his newfound unstable emotions and overall physical form.

He now has a hatred for Alex that burns brighter than the sun, and in simple terms is extremely violent over even the mention of him.

I'll add more onto Bion's way of processing thought and emotion later, but it is a pretty key part in everything he does. He is extremely impulsive.

MORE ON BION

Bion is a massive recluse, hiding away in his computer most of the time, rarely ever coming out. The computer is his safe space, leaving it even voluntarily causes him to get horribly stressed. The only times he ever fully leaves is when he is driven by an extreme emotion. (usually anger)

Touching him is most times lethal, he is electrically charge. Holding onto him or touching him in general causes a feeling of numbness after a period of time, intensity varying on his emotion and the time touching him. (it feels like when one of your limbs falls asleep, but a bit more painfull)

GAME MECHANIC

If Bion was ever added in game, or if I felt like ever attempting to mass mod the game, his mechanic would be to locate Alex.

He would be a (mostly) neutral character, helping the player by showing where in the map Alex is with a pop-up map. It would only be accessible in his room. Along with this Alex would be unable to enter the room at all, but he could just camp at the door and completely trap you, so it would be wiser to be quick while in Bion's room.

Bion's room is also located in a semi-inconvenient spot, near the end of a very long corridor with the only exit down that hallway being one of the rooms with a red key required door. (I'll add a map of where his room is later)

He also has the chance of being a hostile character too. If you provoke him with enough questions about himself, his past, speak of Alex, or bring a special item to him. Any of these will result in him killing you instantly, or becoming one of the hostile character that chase you in the game from that point on.

I also have an idea with him for an Easter egg ending that is related to his lore, but i have to do some more developing on it before I explain it to the public.

EMOTIONS (?)

Because he is a spirit now, his reactions and emotions are alot more raw and intense, causing him to lash out often or go into violent spirals. He is his greatest enemy. (other than Alex)

His most common emotion that happens is rage, appearing whenever his mind starts going down a path of thoughts about how he was wronged, and the monster that he was wrongfully made into.

His rage and his fear of new things causes him to become more of a recluse than he already was. He cant even go out of his classroom without being reminded of how he was made into such a beast.

Bion can still feel and react like a normal person, and is still somewhat the same man he was. Whither that is good or bad is for you to decide.

The way he comes off when not in any fit of emotions is more flat and mechanical, being inside machinery for so long has changed the way he talks a bit, becoming more formal and thought out.

ART + MORE

Here are my Toyhouse pages for both Bryne and Bion where you can find most if not all of their art, which includes lore art.

(lore art will be specified in the bio of the images, and you can usually tell because there is more effort in the details)

BION

BRYNE

ALSO, Bion has a twitter account! its mostly fun silly stuff, but occasionally there will be lore related posts!

@B10NSC0MPUT3R <- link to his account!!!

btw this is going to be updated with more soon!!!!! im probably going to add some facts + more clarifications later!

[yooniesim]

SO lilsims*e went on a rant about defending early access creators during one of her last lives (4/24 - around 2 hours and 24 minutes) and let me tell you, it was quite something to watch someone completely misrepresent an argument like that.

I didn’t expect much of her, since she's friends with "charging 3 dollars for nipple overlays" littled*ca, but it was so low of her to claim that the people who are against editing a mesh for five minutes and putting it behind a paywall for WEEKS can't make CC of their own, specially since a lot of the people against EA are creators of amazing content here on simblr.

ps: it's also funny to watch perma paywallers get blamed for being the worst (they are), but it's not exclusively perma paywallers that doxx people 🫣🫣🫣

I've never watched her in my life and im not gonna start now lol. idc, she can have her opinion or w/e, she's entitled to that. but I know she upset several ppl with how she spoke to them during this stream (you're not the first person to tell me this) so hopefully she doesn't talk to any of her other followers like that in the future.

anyways, unconnected to her bc idk her, just going off some of the other things you said- it also confuses me when ppl say those critical of early access don't know how to make cc. We do know how to make cc, that's the problem. If we didn't, we wouldn't know about LODs or poly or hat chops or the amount of effort it takes to make an item. The ppl that don't know how to make cc are generally ok with it and I've had a few ppl tell me they became disillusioned with early access once they learned how to make cc. Or people that couldn't afford dlc and then when they finally got it one way or another, realizing that the cc they had was just slightly changed from items they get from ea's packs. I've heard both sentiments a lot.

also, yes, perma-paywallers have now become the boogeymen/scapegoat that creators can point to to make themselves look better whilst at the same time not doing anything to actually help. many early access creators only mentioned the doxxing ring to assure people that they would never do that and they are safe. that was the theme of most of their posts and there hasn't been a peep about it since. And I've never seen any big early access creators talk about their fellows (early access) that have also doxxed people or held any scummy business practices for that matter. Such as manipulating patreon's billing system for their own benefit to charge people twice. They never speak about any of the problems of the system and just go "permas are the real problem" without ever suggesting anything to be done about the permas or even just making their followers more aware of what the problem is or how to stay safe.

I don't really expect this to change. Right now, the sims 4 community is dominated by and built on a system of monetization. This includes not only paywallers of cc but simstubers that are fueled by ad revenue, sponsorships, and stream donations. They are all connected, to each other and to EA. And at the end of the day, it all comes back to money. So it will not change or be dismantled until the Sims 4 dies and they move on to the next thing that makes more money. I haven't found any solution for this other than just not paying them a cent, blocking them preferably, and keeping your own circle of people/followers aware of who isn't safe while just hoping for the best.

[bryony-rebb]

...Snippet Sunday, anyone? (Haha, you can always tell when I’ve run into a wall and start craving validation, because suddenly it’s all snippet posts! and ask memes! and ‘oh won’t you PLEASE be friends with me?‘!) Anyway this is not actually Frozen Teardrop compliant, and I still don’t know enough about FT to be compliant with it even if I wanted to; but I’m peripherally aware Treize has this dead brother, and had the timelines lined up for it I thought this would have been a fun use for him. Like, if you’re going to commit identity fraud.......

===

In AC182, he is still only six. He is father's son: a prince. Milliardo Peacecraft.

He is held by the collar of his coat by a horrible man, an Alliance man, whose enormous hand keeps him pinned in place.

In front of him, stands Treize. Not an adult, but when one is young enough nearly everyone else appears grown up by comparison. And Treize is tall, taller even than the grown woman standing beside him; tall and lean and impeccably polished, clothes perfectly tailored and not a hair out of place. The look in his eyes is perfectly controlled.

In contrast, the woman at his side looks positively deranged.

"Sweet boy," she murmurs, stepping forward and bending down to cup Milliardo's face. Matted tangles of hair swing down with her. He can see the sheen of oil on her skin, smell the unwashed musk whiffing from beneath her clothes with each small movement. "Poor, sweet boy." When she kisses his cheek, her breath is awful. Like a corpse.

And yet it's Treize, whose name he doesn't even know, whose presence commands his attention, whose impression lingers. Looking past the corpse woman, he sees him watching them, his expression measured and unreadable. Sunlight glinting off his hair gives him a copper halo. His eyes are very blue.

"Treize -- a word," says the horrible man who brought him here. That is it: the moment of their introduction.

"Of course, uncle. Shall we go in?"

Milliardo is frog-marched into the house. He squirms rebelliously and receives a violent shake for his troubles. Ahead of him, the odd woman drifts down the hall, ghostlike in her long, filmy nightdress, until she disappears.

Angeline, he later learns. Treize's mother.

Treize leads the rest of them to a comfortable sitting room at the back of the house, where windows overlook a wide lawn running down to a lake choked with cattails. A fire burns in the hearth and the first ice of winter clings to the lake's shore. Treize seats himself on a low sofa, at his ease, one arm draped over the sofa's back, an ankle hooked over his knee.

"Sit," the Alliance man tells Milliardo, like a dog; so Milliardo bares his teeth and snarls like one. The Alliance man gives him a single quick cuff upside the head and bears inexorably down on Milliardo's shoulder until he is kneeling on the floor.

Treize takes this in without comment, then listens to his uncle talk.

Impotent fury keeps sparking behind Milliardo's eyes, distracting him, but he sits up straight and pays attention when Treize, the minute after his uncle finishes speaking, calmly looks him in the eye and tells him, "No."

This is unprecedented.

Milliardo knows himself for a willful boy. He has, in his time, been known to argue back with the adults in his life and put on displays of defiance. But never with such aplomb. Always, with him, it has been a futile effort, doomed to overrule. When Treize says it, as an adult to an adult, there is little doubt but that he will have his way.

Somehow, despite being the child, there is no doubt that Treize is the one with authority here.

"Treize," says the horrible man impatiently, "be reasonable. The boy needs papers. He needs an identity. There is one here waiting for him; no one else outside these walls knows Vingt is dead-"

"Uncle Chilias, I understand your reasoning perfectly. The answer remains unchanged. This boy-" he glances at Milliardo "-will not assume my brother's name."

"Damn it, Treize, how else do you think these things are done? You can’t just conjure up a false identity from the aether and expect it to stand up to scrutiny. God's sake, with that blond hair he even looks the part!"

It's him. They're talking about him.

They're talking about him as if he isn't even here.

They're talking about turning him into someone else.

"You're a colonel in the Alliance army, uncle. I have no doubt you can find another way to get him papers."

"If this is about your mother-"

"It's of no matter what it is 'about,'" Treize smoothly interrupts, waving a hand in casual dismissal. He wields his authority from the sofa as easily as Milliardo's father did from a throne. "Now I'll thank you to stop asking; the boy may stay here as agreed, but that is as far as it goes."

The exchange as good as cements Treize's idol status to the six-year-old boy watching: what he wouldn't give in that moment for Treize's power of command. Then he would tell them.

He is Milliardo Peacecraft of the Cinq Kingdom. He always will be.

They can't change that.

No one can.

[falindrith]

some things in here are good points (larger watermarks, for one). However, it is also full of weird not really true info about the glaze project itself:

"glaze is a grift" - Glaze is an academic research project released for free. Only people being grifted here are grad students (that's a different post entirely). The paper itself won awards at a peer reviewed conference.

(USENIX Best Papers, https://www.usenix.org/conferences/best-papers, Retrieved on 2/28/24)

"glaze violated gpl/stole code" - True to the letter, however extremely easy to show that this was rapidly resolved by the researchers. 3 days! complete rewrite!

(Release Notes, https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/release.html, Retrieved on 2/28/24)

"glaze uses the same tech as stable diffusion" - yes because it was designed as an attack against a class of models called diffusion models, of which, stable diffusion is the most well-known open source implementation. It uses the same encoders to develop image perturbations that interfere with the latent embedding of the image in a way that is honestly pretty cool:

(Shawn Shan et al., “Glaze: Protecting Artists from Style Mimicry by Text-to-Image Models,” in 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23) (Anaheim, CA: USENIX Association, 2023), 2187–2204, https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/presentation/shan, p. 7)

To understand the above, you need to know that diffusion models represent what they're generating in a "feature space" (numbers). The authors noticed that style transfer could be combated if you knew which numbers in that feature space affected artist style. They then did something pretty clever: they computed what something would look like if you applied a public domain style to it, and then made it so that your input would look like the public domain style in the feature space. This is why there are artifacts in a glazed image; it's actually changing the image data so it looks different when the machine runs its encoder. The researchers' choice to then use stable diffusion (it's cited, [67] in section 5.2 step 2) to run style transfer should then make intuitive sense: if mr. AI then uses the same encoder the researchers did to fine tune his model, then their modified image will clog up his machinery just as shown in the paper.

"de-glazing images is as easy as upscaling it" - no it's not lmao read the paper. this is directly addressed:

(ibid, p. 13)

The overall point of this not being a perfect defense is actually something I agree with. Glaze is so narrow that it only encompasses fine-tuning (e.g. Dreambooth) so it wasn't really a global defense to begin with (nightshade does better, but not perfectly, in that regard, read their paper, it's cool). However, the actual claim that you can "just upscale it" in this post is easily proven false.

As an aside, Glaze can be de-glazed pretty well, but it is not a simple process. There is even a paper and open source code that does this (and it, too, is pretty cool): https://github.com/paperwave/Impress. Just to show that it's also like a published paper, here's the citation:

Jinghui Chen Bochuan Cao Changjiang Li, Ting Wang, Jinyuan Jia, Bo Li, “IMPRESS: Evaluating the Resilience of Imperceptible Perturbations Against Unauthorized Data Usage in Diffusion-Based Generative AI,” in The 37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), New Orleans, Louisiana, USA., 2023, https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19248.

way too much effort to put in to this post but like fr cite your got dam sources it's so easy (and free!) to do.

(and use a big watermark/low quality images when posting online that's also free and easy)

the darling Glaze “anti-ai” watermarking system is a grift that stole code/violated GPL license (that the creator admits to). It uses the same exact technology as Stable Diffusion. It’s not going to protect you from LORAs (smaller models that imitate a certain style, character, or concept)

An invisible watermark is never going to work. “De-glazing” training images is as easy as running it through a denoising upscaler. If someone really wanted to make a LORA of your art, Glaze and Nightshade are not going to stop them.

If you really want to protect your art from being used as positive training data, use a proper, obnoxious watermark, with your username/website, with “do not use” plastered everywhere. Then, at the very least, it’ll be used as a negative training image instead (telling the model “don’t imitate this”).

There is never a guarantee your art hasn’t been scraped and used to train a model. Training sets aren’t commonly public. Once you share your art online, you don’t know every person who has seen it, saved it, or drawn inspiration from it. Similarly, you can’t name every influence and inspiration that has affected your art.

I suggest that anti-AI art people get used to the fact that sharing art means letting go of the fear of being copied. Nothing is truly original. Artists have always copied each other, and now programmers copy artists.

Capitalists, meanwhile, are excited that they can pay less for “less labor”. Automation and technology is an excuse to undermine and cheapen human labor—if you work in the entertainment industry, it’s adapt AI, quicken your workflow, or lose your job because you’re less productive. This is not a new phenomenon.

You should be mad at management. You should unionize and demand that your labor is compensated fairly.

[youngtomhardy]

Me on film by Cin Lona in Los Angeles, CA.

I haven’t had a place where I can endlessly type out thoughts for awhile… I wanna tell you what’s really been going on behind the scenes with my career. The highs, lows and everything in between. If you followed me here, you’re a true medranhoe. These might be long, but I hope you find these interesting. <3 Here’s my story so far…

After releasing Fluids & going viral on twitter a few times, I was found by a team parented by Epic Records in 2020. In hindsight, it’s better that I never officially signed. We had our first meeting on March 15, 2020, can you believe? The next day, the world shut down and I didn’t hear from them for months. They had just spent a shit ton of money on lunch with me where they told me they were gonna put me on tour as an opener, promised me Rock in Rio within the first 2 years of working, and a huge deal with the parent company. I was devastated when the lockdowns started, but I understood. We were all scared.

Eventually we got to talking again and tried to work during the pandemic. The music industry collapsed and TikTok became the way to break artists. So they encouraged me to get on there & start making content. Then they linked me up with a personal trainer. Took care of the costs, put it onto my development budget. In between, they’d whisk me away to estates in Palm Springs, 5 star hotels in Venice, insanely expensive dinners in LA’s art district. It was a dream come true, it was too good to be true. I predicted this would happen in my teen years. I feel like I’ve already seen my life happen, but that’s for another post.

From there, I wrote a radio top 40 single with AJ, got my first sync deals, got Fluids in front of Mike Dean and a couple other huge name producers (they all love the song by the way) and started working on my album with my co-producer Dan. He’s gone on to work with BTS and Noah Cyrus which is fucking amazing & honestly will be a great little quip for press when my album drops. A win is a win. The songs are great, we worked on 5 songs together for the record.

Slowly but surely, things looked less and less promising with the team. Texts and calls got less frequent, my personal training sessions were cancelled. I knew what was happening. Another part of my story I’d already foreseen. Even through all of this, they remained so kind & supportive, for which I’m grateful. Regardless, I could feel them pulling away and that hurt.

In spite of going viral on tiktok over and over again, my streams and listeners rapidly rising, the deal never happened. It hurt so fucking bad. I cried and screamed and raged and ranted to anyone who would listen. I’m still not fully over it, but I have a little more clarity & peace now. It wasn’t my fault & I know this is common in the industry, but I guess I was just really hoping to bypass that part of the story. I’ve always been an impatient fuck.

So I picked myself up like always do and said fine, I’ll drop this album myself. Started the rollout and the music got attention from bigger names. All. By. Myself. Personal Heaven dropped and it got to Slayyyter. She told me she loved the song, wanted a session with me, and we became friends. She’s the first pop star in the industry that went out of her way to be kind & work with me. I’ve always admired her so much, I really hope one of the songs we worked on (or will work on) comes out one day. I’m seriously so grateful for her friendship.

Then I started working with Funk LeBlanc and we made a song that was an instant success with fans. ‘Do Your Thing, Babe!’ went viral 5 times all in different scales. The lowest viewed tiktok had 60k, the highest almost half a million. Labels got into my email again, ranging from EMI (they ghosted me after 1 email — why i’ll never know — but that one hurt) to smaller indie efforts. A new team reached out to me, this time with ties to Columbia. A dream label of mine. I’m still working with the imprint label now, but things are a little more low key. No promises of deals, no expensive dinners, no parties, just little meetings here and there — a friendship almost. I don’t know if this is better or not, but it feels good and genuine. They love the music, the image, and I really am so thankful to my first team for helping me curate that side of myself.

So now, I spend my days going to sessions, doing quick jobs for extra cash, playing with my puppy, and working out. Kim Petras recently followed me and I don’t really know why but I love her & hope it’s for my music. I’m hoping to get into sessions with her one day too, maybe a collab? Hopefully. I just gotta really make my mark. I may not be where I want to, but my god am I further along than where I was. My project is finally out in January. My heart once broken is finally healing. For the first time in a long time, the future looks bright and I’m happy.

- Disco Dad.

[bowlegsandbiceps]

Suptober Day 5: Nostalgia

General | De-Aged Sam Winchester & Big Brother Dean, Implied Destiel and Rowena/Sam | 2,005 Words

Read on AO3

Suptober Masterlist (A03)

“Cas.”

“Dee!” The small child in front of Dean raised its arms and made gimme hands.

“CAS!”

Dean took a step back from the small boy sitting where his brother used to be, his arms curling in as if cringing away. It looked like Sam at eighteen months, just the slightest swirl of brown hair near his forehead, the rest of him bald as a cue ball. The child blinked up at him, arms still outstretched but his smile wavered and his hands gestured more insistently.

“Castiel get your feathery ass over here!”

The sound of hurried footsteps loomed behind him and he felt the weight of Castiel’s hand on his shoulder as the other man came to stand beside him.

“What is it?”

Dean nodded down at the baby. Castiel looked at it and blinked.

“Who is that?”

Dean knew who it was. “I dunno.”

“Where’s Sam?” Castiel looked around and Dean felt the lump grow in his throat.

The child had clamored onto his knees and was crawling across the cement towards them. Dean recoiled and Castiel stepped in front of him on instinct. The child merely went around him and grabbed onto Dean’s pant leg, grunting as he pulled himself up to his feet.

“Dee!” He said again, chubby face gazing up into Dean’s. “Up!”

“Dean?” Castiel’s voice was cautious as Dean leaned down to pick the child up, settling him on his hip and the boy immediately rested his head against DEan’s chest, one thumb going into his mouth. “I… I think that’s Sam.”

Dean gulped, looking down into intelligent hazel eyes. “I think you’re right.”

#

Dean and Castiel sat at one of the large library tables each just staring at the baby they’d placed in the middle. Neither men had spoken the entire drive back to the bunker, Dean driving with Sam in his lap while the kid made vroom noises and held onto the wheel. The chair creaked as Castiel shifted in his seat. Sam blew a spit bubble then giggled when it popped. Dean put his head in his hands.

“What do we do?”

“I could try and heal him,” Castiel suggested and Dean looked up at him.

“You can heal this?” 

Castiel shrugged with guileless eyes.

Dean dropped his head. “I can’t raise this kid again, Cas.” Dean pressed his hands together, his mouth puckering against the knuckles of his thumbs as he looked at Sam with terrified eyes. “I did it once. I can’t do it again. I’m too fucking old.”

Castiel laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “We’ll fix him. We’ll call Rowena.” Dean snorted. “What? She has a vested interest in getting Sam back into his adult form.”

Dean closed his eyes, holding up and hand and gagging for good measure. “Don’t remind me.”

#

Rowena was in New York and wouldn’t arrive until morning. Dean bit the bullet and went out for supplies - bottles, diapers, wipes, baby food, and a pack of onesies he just guessed on the size. When he got back to the bunker he could hear Sam wailing from the other side of the heavy iron door and he nearly broke his neck in his effort to descend the stairs all at once.

Sam was sitting in the middle of the table in the exact same spot he’d been when Dean had left. Castiel was now standing, staring down at the hiccoughing child with his head canted to the side. Dean dropped all his bags on the floor and hurried over, bundling Sam up in the flannel Sam had been wearing before he de-aged and cradled him to his chest. Sam immediately stopped crying and rested his head on Dean’s shoulder.

“What the fuck, Cas?”

“I tried everything, Dean.” Castiel held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “He didn’t want to play with my keys. He didn’t want any mashed potatoes. He threw the cup of water I tried to give him. He didn’t urinate or defecate on himself-“

“He wanted to be held!” Dean stared at Castiel as if he were some kind of monster and Castiel leveled him with a glare.

“I tried that first. He didn’t want to be held.”

“Well looks like he does now,” Dean snarked, shrugging his shoulders up and Castiel rolled his eyes.

“He wanted to be held by you, Dean.”

Dean looked down, trying to see Sam’s face but the child turned further into his neck and sighed. Dean pursed his lips. “What’s your problem short stack?”

“Dee,” Sam started and began to babble, lifting his head about halfway through his diatribe. He looked to Cas who was staring at him critically as if trying to decipher every word and Sam immediately looked away.

“Do you think he’s all there? Like adult Sam but just…a baby?” Dean looked into his eyes and Sam huffed, grabbing onto Dean’s face with his hands. Dean didn’t bother to pull back, knowing from experience the kid didn’t let up with this kind of thing. He stuck his fingers in Dean’s mouth and Dean dutifully let him poke at his teeth.

“I don’t think so,” Castiel reached forward, pulling Sam’s hands out of Dean’s mouth and Sam slapped at him, reaching again for Dean’s lips.

“Are you-“ Dean cut off nearly biting the kid’s finger off. “Are you hungry or something?”

“Dee!” Sam exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and then he patted his tummy which made Dean laugh. 

“Yeah, the bear in there is growling huh?” Sam nodded emphatically and Dean bobbed his head with him. “Alright alright. Bottle it is.”

Castiel helped Dean carry the supplies into the kitchen and stood by as Dean went about making the bottle, formula mixed with a little cereal, with Sam perched on his hip. He huffed when he finally got the cap on and handed it to Sam who finally let go of his neck and grabbed the bottle, immediately shoving the nipple in his mouth. Dean looked up at Castiel.

“Like riding a bike,” Dean quipped looking down at Sam as his brother gazed up at him over the side of his bottle. “Right Sammy?”

Sam merely hummed. 

#

“You know, this isn’t so bad,” Dean mused gazing down at Sam who was now dressed in a diaper and onesie, sucking away at a pacifier. 

They were posted up on the couch in the Dean Cave, the TV playing Dora The Explorer in the background. Castiel’s gaze was fixed on the television and he was having trouble pulling his eyes away.

“He is much more enjoyable when he’s quiet,” Castiel admitted and Dean snorted a laugh, one finger trailing over the soft skin of Sam’s cheek. The baby shook his head.

“You know bedtime routine was always my favorite.” Dean smoothed the silky strip of hair near his forehead and Sam’s eyelids fluttered. “The winding down period at the end of the day. We’d be in some crap motel and Dad would have us all on one bed, Sammy between us while he talked us to sleep.”

“Talked you to sleep?”

A small smile pulled at Dean’s lips as one of Sam’s fat fists clutched at his finger. “Yeah, John Winchester did not sing. Or tell bedtime stories. He bored us to sleep with car maintenance tips and tricks.” Dean let out a spastic chuckle, marveling at the length of Sam’s lashes, the rosiness of his cheeks. “God, I’d forgotten all about that.”

Dean resettled, arms tightening around his brother and Sam’s eyelids fluttered, his head nuzzling into Dean’s armpit. Dean let his fingertips whisper across Sam’s forehead, a sense of longing settling in his bones. He glanced over at Castiel who was bent in half, intent on the TV.

“You know it wasn’t all bad. How we were raised.” Castiel glanced at him and then his gaze held. “I never thought I’d miss it but,” Dean let out a small chuckle, “This right here’s got me waxing nostalgic.” Dean chuckled again, gave a shake of his head. “It wasn’t all bad. Some of it was actually kind of great. You ever think about having kids, Cas?”

“It’s forbidden,” Castiel said, eyes back on the TV. “Angels can’t mate with humans.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah well, I ain’t got a uterus so we wouldn’t get one the old-fashioned way anyway. Seriously, man. You’ve never thought about it?”

Castiel looked back at Dean. “No. Have you?”

Dean shrugged. “Not really. Never figured I’d live long enough to raise one, plus I thought I’d had my fill with Sammy here.” Dean dipped his head, pressing a kiss to the child’s hairline.

“And now you want children?” Castiel’s voice was low and slow, clearly trying to discern if Dean was teasing him or not. Dean’s ears turned red.

“I dunno. No. Maybe.” Dean looked down at Sam and then looked back up at Castiel, his gaze helpless. Castiel merely smiled, reaching a hand out to rest on Dean’s shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze.

“I would be honored to raise a child with you, Dean.”

Dean looked back, a little grin pulling at his lips. “Yeah?” Castiel nodded seriously and Dean looked down at Sam. “What do you think, Sammy? You want a niece or nephew?”

Sam slept on.

#

“I take it back,” Dean insisted, gagging and covering his mouth as he lifted Sam up by the ankles, the dirty diaper sticking to his butt. “I never wanna do this again.” Dean looked over his shoulder at Castiel. “Hey, Mr. Angel of the Lord, you wanna give me a hand here, maybe toss this dirty diaper and hand me some wipes.”

“The smell is most unpleasant.”

Dean rolled his eyes, snatching the wipes Castiel offered. “No shit Sherlock. Get rid of that thing will you?” Dean gagged again.

#

“How on earth did you manage to turn your brother into a baby?” Rowena exclaimed by way of greeting.

“Dean, Rowena is here.”

Dean having startled awake cringed as Sam started to wail. “Yeah, Cas, I got that, thanks.”

“Was it a curse?” Rowena was kneeling down, trying to look into Sam’s face but he clutched at Dean’s flannel like a lifeline, hiding against his chest. “A spell?”

“A spell we think,” Castiel said over Sam’s sniffling sobs. Dean had hoisted him up over his shoulder and was rubbing his back rhythmically. Rowena frowned. “Sam was the first to enter the room-“

“Ah, I know exactly what this is.” Rowena smiled, triumphant. “You leave it to me, boys. Samuel will be grown again in no time.”

# 

“Rowena!” Dean yelled over the siren-like wail of the now giant baby sitting in the center of the library. 

“Don’t panic!” Rowena insisted, flipping through an old book while rummaging around in her bag.

“Panic?” Dean questioned. “There’s a ten-foot baby-“ His voice cut off as a hand clamped around his bicep and he was jerked off his feet to face plant into Sam’s clammy chest. The kid started to squeeze the life out of him and Castiel moved forward, trying to pry his arms off. “Rowena!”

#

“I can’t believe she turned me into a ten-foot baby,” Sam snorted from where he sat at the kitchen table, once again fully clothed and his normal age and size.

“You were quite agreeable up until then,” Castiel mused.

“Oh yeah, you get to practice your babysitting skills?” Sam asked and Castiel gave him a tart smile.

“No, you wouldn’t let anyone else touch you but Dean.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose, his gaze moving to his brother who stood at the stove, working on a grilled cheese. “Yeah, I’d forgotten what a clingy little shit you were back then.”

Sam scoffed. “Well, I still haven’t forgotten what an overbearing mother hen you were.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m never having kids. Dealing with my own childhood was enough.”

Dean glanced at Castiel who gazed back, and a small smile tugged at his lips. “It wasn’t so bad. Except for the diapers.”

[dashedwithromance]

Secret Moments In A Crowded Room - Princewitch

okay so DISCLAIMER im scared to post this because we’ve never really seen romantic wrath before so idk if people might think this is OOC but i wanted princewitch fluff desperately and cant wait til october. inspired by the teaser quote she released yesterday and ‘dress’ by taylor swift

-

The ball raged on around her, dancers swirling around impossibly fast, flashes of fabric catching the light of the serpent scones. On and on, all without her. Her husband sat to her right on his larger throne, staring into nothing. They had exchanged all of five words that evening.

She did not blame her husband for his coldness, not truly. If their positions were switched, and she had been forced to marry a random demon while still loving and grieving her murdered spouse, she doubted whether she would even manage civility. Pride continued his business, barely taking notice of his young wife, and she was glad, of that, at least. If he’d wanted her... a shudder snaked down her spine, curling in her gut. Her mind still echoed with the unnatural violation of Lust’s magic, and the thought of another demon prince perusing her like that was foul. There was only one prince she wanted, and his sin was wrath.

Dancing in Hell was nothing like she’d seen on the streets of Palermo. Nothing like the carefree dancing of Vittoria, so full of light and life and love that nothing seemed to touch her. Here, movements entwined with danger, every dance a flirtation with living death. People danced with weapons, exchanging daggers and rondels and rapiers like secret lovers. Jewelled garrottes hung around every neck, poisonous pearls glittering in various ornate hairstyles. An unholy masquerade indeed.

Her own mask was a fine decoration of gold and jewels. Metallic serpents entwined across the mosaic-like surface, darker cracks embedded across it. The mask had arrived one evening at her rooms, wrapped in luscious velvet. No letter accompanied it, the only sign of the sender being a golden snake that slithered up her arm before dissolving into sparks. The decoration matched her dress, a similar mosaic of black silk, lace, and golden serpents. Truly befitting a queen.

Fury burned through her as she watched the revellers pass her by. They danced without a care, members of the seven houses intermingling freely. She wanted to scream and shatter the very throne she sat on. How dare they dance as if mere months ago, one of their own had not been taking the hearts of witches? As if she did not sit on a dead witch’s throne? A witch who still had not found justice, who’s body had been ripped to shreds in the cruellest way imaginable?

“Careful, little queen.” Pride’s voice rumbled in her ear. He still did not look at her, but leaned closer to whisper, “Lest the people learn your ungrateful thoughts.”

Closing her eyes to avoid murdering the demon she’d married, she took a deep breath. The air smelt like fire and spirits and the sweat of colliding bodies. Suddenly, the sight of it all disgusted her. The dancing, the drinking, the living, all of it. Selfish, she knew – others were allowed to live despite Vittoria being denied the very same. But she couldn’t help it. She longed for nothing more than her sister to live, even if it meant sacrificing her life to the demon beside her. There was nothing to be done, however. Her sister was lost forever.

The night dwindled on, interrupted by the occasional violent thought towards her situation. Though, as contrary as it sounded, not all was dark about her time in Hell. She had one bright spot, one flame in the dark. Something she kept locked against her chest for fear of discovery.

Casting her eye across the room, she caught the gaze of the hidden secret. Prince Wrath leaned against the wall from across the room, his eyes flickering as they locked with hers. He was dressed in a sinfully beautiful suit, a pattern of golden serpents slithering up the fabric from the floor. The snakes seemed alive in the firelight. Perhaps they were. A smug sense of satisfaction ebbed through her when she realised they matched. No one else would notice – serpents weren’t exactly an uncommon motif in Hell – but they knew, and it was comfort enough. With a movement, so small she nearly missed it, he tilted his head towards the exit.

A thrill raced through her, paired with genuine, loving excitement. They had not been alone in much too long.

Things had not always been so relaxed between her and the prince of Wrath. Her first few weeks in Hell had been spent furiously glaring in his direction. He’d given her the ultimate cold shoulder until she’d nearly burned from it. She’d been full of fury at his leaving her – at the humiliation she felt from having the human audacity to trust a demon. One day, when they crossed each other in a hallway heading to court, her temper had bubbled to boiling.

She remembered yanking him into a nearby room – he let her, she realised now – and yelled at him for the cruelty of leaving her alone. Of giving her hope and wrenching it away, like a child suddenly filled with jealously over a shared toy.

The sheer incredulity on his face was the first indication she was mistaken. He laughed, a sardonic sound coated in disbelief.

“I left you?” His voice was low. The walls around them seemed to thrum in response to his deadly power.

“I left you?” He repeated, “I gave you all the tools to summon me, witch, and you refused. Too good for my help, perhaps.  I have no more responsibilities to you. Our deal is done.”

Wrath turned to leave, but by some miracle, she managed to dart in front of him. Her body was pressed against the door, the cold stone mixing with the heat she felt roaring off him. Emilia should’ve been afraid, should’ve been trembling in her gifted boots at the sight of him, but she wasn’t. Why, she couldn’t quite tell.

His gaze burned into hers, but her own was just as powerful.

“I tried everything to summon you after what Envy did, and you didn’t come.” She hissed. The wrath of a prince was one thing, but hell hath no fury like a witch scorned. “You left me. I was foolish enough to believe you would ca- that you would come for me once, but I will not be fooled twice.”

The look he gave her was indiscernible. Equal parts rage mixed with... something lighter. If anyone else looked at her like that, she would’ve described it as hopeful. But demons did not hope, no more than they loved.

He was scanning her face with the focus of a battle-hardened warrior. Whatever it was he found made him take a step back.

“What did you do wrong?” He muttered, almost to himself.

“I did nothing wrong,” She couldn’t help but fire back, “I did everything correctly – even used the ring you left for me in the drawer.”

At that, he stilled. Stilled and stopped breathing entirely.

Then, as if talking to someone who’d sustained a head injury, he said, “I didn’t leave you a ring. I left you my house seal, solid gold, of course, but no ring.” He went on to describe where he’d left it – the top drawer beside her bed – but she already knew.

The conclusion settled in her stomach like a stone. Another feeling, one she didn’t let herself scrutinise, unfurled within her.

“Someone didn’t want me to summon you.”

“Close. Someone wanted you to think I wouldn’t come.”

A question hung in the air, so loud neither could bring themselves to give it voice.

Would you have come, Prince Wrath? Would you have come to my aid when I needed you most? When I needed to know you were alright?

Keeping those treacherous thoughts under lock and key, she focused on another facet of the curious mystery.

“Who would it benefit? And who would’ve known what to switch – the house was warded, was it not?”

Silence from her princely counterpart.  

“Would the wards collapse with your ‘death’?”

The look on his face told her all she needed to know. Someone had stolen into the house and replaced the seal with a ring to deliberately throw off their efforts. Which meant-

He hadn’t abandoned her at all. Given her the cold shoulder, yes, when he believed she’d forgotten all about him.

What a hellish mess this all was.

From that moment on, the demon and the witch had become begrudging allies once more. Wrath had been furious one of his brothers would dare interfere with his affairs, and she needed an ally, desperately. While it rubbed against her pride to accept help, she knew it would’ve been foolish to refuse. She would be a vengeful queen, but even queens needed council.

Their alliance had turned to friendship, then burst into royal flames as they look the leap to lovers. In the candlelight of a stolen moment, Wrath had held her with more care than she’d known possible. Still Wrath, still echoing that immense power of his, but softer, somehow. Not gentle, not truly, but tender. It was not love, but it was fire and anger and care all pieced together in a ball of desire.  

Which led her to that moment, as she stole away from her husband’s masquerade ball. She had stayed long enough, and the party celebrated nothing of importance. Rather a show of unity between her and Pride, a display of wealth and power.

As she left the throne room she realised she had no idea where her prince had gone. Back to his rooms? No, they avoided meeting there. Being caught together in casual rooms could be explained away as strategic briefings, but being caught in the bedroom of her husband’s brother... did not leave for much escape room.

Just as she was about to curse his name, a snake slithered around her ankle, causing her to start. Was that Wrath’s laugh, she heard? Looking to her feet, the snake stared back up at her, its golden eyes winking in the candlelight of the hallway.

Of course. Wrath and his dramatics.  

The snake made its way down the hallway, keeping close to the wall to be inconspicuous. It led her to an offshoot of the main hallway, then came to a halt at the final door. The serpent dissolved into golden sparks as they reached their destination. She knocked quietly before letting herself in.

Wrath lay stretched out across a dark velvet lounge, watching her entrance. His mask dangled lazily from his fingers, the ribbon used to tie it brushing across the floor. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway, a toned chest peeking out from the fabric.

Deadly, dangerously beautiful.

And hers.

“You look exquisite,” He strode across the room before taking her in his arms. His hands quickly untied her mask before tossing it to the floor with haste. He took in her form for a moment, then tilted his face down to capture her lips with his own.

No matter how many moments they stole, it was never enough.

His kiss was liquid fire igniting the flame of her desire. One hand rested against her back, with the other cupping her face. She gasped against his mouth, revelling in how desperately hard his body felt against hers. Greedy hands slipped up his chest to unbutton the rest of his shirt. Pulling the material away, Emilia broke the kiss for a single second to gaze at her lover.

Smooth, tanned skin met her eyes, followed by a swift appreciation of the hard strength that lay beneath his trousers. He laughed as he caught her gaze, knowing exactly what she was admiring.

He kissed her again, this time grabbing the backs of her thighs and lifting her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist. The taste of him- Taste was her speciality, but there were no words to describe how perfectly Wrath kissed her.

After too long and never long enough, the lovers parted for breath. He still held her against his chest. In this position, she was the perfect height to rest her head in the crook of his neck. Their breathing echoed through the room in perfect harmony.

She could feel every rise and fall of his powerful, tattooed chest. Such lethal power contained within his body, yet he held her with all the tenderness the world could offer.

“You know,” He mused, “We never got to dance.”

“Are you asking?” A sly smile in his direction.

“Yes. Witch, will you dance with me.” He said witch the way men said love. She looked down at him, grinning.

“No. I can’t dance.”

He laughed. Such a bright sound for one bathed in darkness.

“Liar.”

“Fine. I don’t dance, because I’m awful at it.”

A teasing hand ran down her back.

“I’ll teach you.” At her raised brows, he continued with, “A queen must use every skill in her arsenal.”

Lowering her to the ground, he held out his hands for her to grasp.

“Place your right hand in mine, and left against my shoulder.” Even through the fabric of his shirt, she could feel the heat roaring off him. When she did as he instructed, he pulled their bodies together until not even an inch separated them. Emilia was fairly certain this wasn’t part of the dance, but she wasn’t going to interrupt. She quite liked this position, pressed against the prince of Wrath, his breath rustling her hair. His hand settled against her spine.

“This next bit is the most important, do you hear? It is crucial even that beginners like yourself get this right.” He teased, and she scowled back at him, though they both knew it was merely in jest.

“Tilt your chin up so you can gaze adoringly into my eyes.” He grinned down her scowl. “I want you to focus on how handsome I am, how talented, and forget everything else. Except how much you want to kiss me.”

She couldn’t help herself, she laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Perhaps.” His voice turned low and seductive as his hand slid down her spine, drawing her a little closer. “But you’re waltzing like a goddess now.” As he spoke, they started to move. Slowly, he stepped back and followed. To the side, and she followed again. On and on, their little box pattern continued, until Wrath picked up the paced and spun her around.

A gasp left her lips at the movement, but before she could overthink and stumble, he caught her once more with a smile.

“Who are you, and what have you done with the moodiest prince of Hell?”

He shook his head at her words, huffing a laugh as he did. She felt the truth bloom in his chest, he didn’t have to say it. These borrowed moments, these secret trysts... it was happiness, rare as it was, that fluttered between them. They both knew it couldn’t last, but for now, it was real. In that moment, it was all that mattered.

“Teasing witch,” He murmured, and kissed her. Kissed her as if they were not members of two rival houses, as if she was not an unwilling wife to his bastardly brother, as if there were not a chasm of reasons to keep them apart. Tomorrow would bring hellfire, and perhaps regret, but tonight was theirs.

They kissed until night dwindled away into day, and their secret was no longer safe. With the promise of “soon” and an unspoken “I miss you”, Wrath kissed her once more before exiting her side.

The queen of Hell picked up her mask from where it had been tossed across the floor, and stood still for a moment, taking a deep breath. The moment had passed, and she was no longer just Emilia, a powerhouse in her own right, and friend and lover of Wrath’s.

She was the Wicked Kingdom’s vengeful queen, and she would find her happiness once more, or burn the world trying.

-

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[aidanchaser]

Waterloo Station

Several folks said, “I would love to see more of Regulus and Sirius shenanigans!” after Chapter 18. Well, lo and behold, I actually have a deleted bit of Chapter 18 showcasing just that. The second draft was from Sirius’ perspective, but since Sirius lent his voice to In Memoriam, and we’re about to hit a short run of non-Harry chapters, I brought the chapter back to Harry in the third draft. (the first draft was an entirely different Harry chapter about breaking James out of prison, but that got pushed back in favor of some character development; we’ll get back to it, I promise.)

So here’s a short bit, taken out of my scraps. It’s headed with “MY DARLING” because it is one of several darlings I have killed while writing Deathly Hallows, but it’s the only one to earn the all-caps title. Thanks to the magic of fanfic, I can still share this darling with you. (the alternate title for this chapter should be: Sirius Accidentally Outs Himself as a Furry)

Padfoot hated the city. It was loud and there were so many people, each with their own scents and emotions. He supposed he should count himself lucky Harry had bled so much, or the trail would have been harder to follow.

He recognized the wizards on the platform easily. Their attire of slacks combined with hoodies or rain slickers paired with thick rubber work boots marked them easily as incompetently dressed Ministry employees. Sirius supposed they were keeping an eye open for someone stupid enough to come to the platform in search of Harry, someone just like him.

The platform had been scrubbed clean, but Padfoot could still detect Harry’s scent through the bleach. He didn’t board the train that pulled into the station, not yet. He waited, sniffing the entrance of the car carefully. He didn’t smell Harry or bleach. So he sat back and waited. A few Muggles scratched his ears as they passed or before boarding the train. Sirius let them without protest. 

He had learned that Muggles, by and large, enjoyed dogs as long as those dogs were gentle, still, and quiet. And if he was anything else — too loud, too quick, or too threatening — they were eager to chase him out or worse, catch him. It was a lesson he had learned early in his life, long before he had become Padfoot; it was just an easier lesson to follow when he was Padfoot. Something about a thick coat of fur, the eyes and ears of a predator, and four paws to run with made him far more comfortable and settled in his own skin than being a young boy in the middle of a war ever had. 

Another train pulled in, and this one, too, didn’t smell of Harry, but the third one did. He followed the Muggles into the carriage, and noticed a small black shadow slip in after him. It hid under the seat, and Sirius pointedly ignored it. He took a post at the door and waited, ready to check each stop this train made until he found Harry.

Regulus had tried desperately to talk him out of this, but Sirius had ignored him. Between him, Lily, and Remus, Sirius was the only one who could track down Harry, and if he didn’t, Lily and Remus would. Lily was far more likely to be recognized on the platform than Padfoot was, making Sirius not only the safest choice, but the most efficient choice, given Padfoot’s hunting instincts.

The first stop didn’t have even a whiff of Harry, but the second one did, though it was no longer paired with bleach. Sirius could only surmise that Harry had healed any open wounds before exiting the train and he felt both relieved and proud. 

That relief vanished almost as soon as he stepped off of the train. This station was enormous. It wasn’t just another Underground station; it was the biggest train station in London. Crowds hurried past, chasing after trains. Others clustered around kiosks and maps. Sirius’ heart sank. Harry could have boarded a train to practically anywhere from here, even Paris. 

The small black shadow slunk out of the carriage behind him and slipped into a tiny space beneath a nearby bin. Padfoot put his wet nose to the ground and followed Harry’s faint scent to a ticket station. From there it was difficult to determine where to go next. He thought he had a faint trail of Harry’s blood but it was unusual, mixed with something else.

“Pardon me, sir,” a nearby Muggle said, “but you need to have your dog on a lead at all times —”

“Oh,” a man looked down at Padfoot. “He’s not my dog.”

Sirius decided to follow the scent of Harry’s blood. It led him out of the station and away from the Underground service workers. The last thing he needed was for a well-meaning Muggle to try to help him find his owner. The few times it had happened in the past, he had always had James to bail it out.

Sirius shook off the stab of grief that came with the thought. It was always easier to shake off grief as Padfoot, as if the same abilities that heightened his physical senses dulled the sharper edges of his hurt. Besides, he reminded himself, there was nothing he could do for James right now, not until they were able to find whatever Death Eater prison he was being held in — and they had to believe he was being held. What Sirius could do was find Harry.

Though it had been less than twenty-four hours since Harry had passed through here, London had a way of making people invisible, of burying passersby in the scent of automobile smog and endless eateries. Sirius had to work hard to discern the scent of Harry’s blood through it all, but he managed to follow the trail south for less than a mile until it disappeared into a tall, brown-brick residential building.

Padfoot sat down on the pavement and evaluated his options. It would not be hard to sniff out Harry, if he truly was in this building, but a large dog was likely to be chased out of a private building. As Sirius, it wouldn’t be hard to charm his way into the building, but it might be harder to find Harry.

Padfoot barked softly at the bushes. The black cat that had been tailing him crawled out. He knew Regulus had no interest in helping him, and had only come along as emergency backup in case of a duel, but Padfoot gestured his head towards the building anyway.

The small, black cat stared at Padfoot, then back up at the building. Reluctantly, he slipped up the stairs and into the building on the heels of an unsuspecting resident.

Padfoot sniffed the stone retaining wall. Plenty of people had passed through here, but he didn’t smell Harry, not exactly. He definitely smelled the blood trail he had been following, but that wasn’t the same thing as Harry’s scent. He wondered if it was Greyback who had come through here, but Sirius was fairly certain that he would recognize Greyback’s scent if he came across it.

He wondered, briefly, if Regulus had been right when he had said that Sirius was better off staying with Remus and Lily, rather than hunting down Harry. The full moon was just two days away, and he knew Remus was nervous. Brewing the Wolfsbane Potion had been impossible this week. They had been moving too frequently to get together the ingredients, and they still hadn’t figured out where Remus was going to transform. Lily would need to be somewhere safe but on hand in case of emergency, and they couldn’t be anywhere too open that might put others at risk. Tonks had, kindly, suggested hers and her mother’s home, but that had only sent Remus into another downward spiral. Remus was wary enough of transforming around people he loved when he had the Wolfsbane Potion to keep his mind. He was never going to allow himself to lose control with Tonks so close at hand.

Sirius tried to shake his worries off. Remus was tomorrow’s problem. Harry was today’s.

Regulus returned from his investigation surprisingly quickly. He hurried across the street and over a low wall, into some plants. When he stepped out as himself, Sirius reluctantly followed and also used the wall as cover to return to his human form.

“What did you find?” Sirius asked.

Regulus smoothed the front of his cloak. “Harry isn’t there.”

“I know.”

“Then why did we come here?”

Sirius swung his legs over the wall. “Because someone here has information about Harry. Did you follow the blood trail?”

“It’s going to be a dead end.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t use that word.”

“The trail is cold, Sirius. We have no way to know where Harry has gone.”

“Give me a flat number and I’ll go myself.”

Regulus hesitated, but Sirius knew he would give in. They were stubborn, the both of them, but Regulus had never built up the tolerance for conflict that Sirius had. Sirius could thrive in the center of chaos; he’d had to in order to survive. Regulus, however, invested too much effort in fighting chaos. It was always going to be a losing battle.

Regulus crossed the street, back to the building. He pointed his wand at the lock, but it didn’t budge.

Sirius looked over Regulus’ shoulder. “Oh, it’s one of those keypads? <i>Alohomora</i> is no good.” He dug his own wand out and aimed a hot white spark. It fizzed and sputtered and then the lock clicked.

Regulus pulled the door open. “Did you break it?”

Sirius shrugged. “They malfunction all the time. Keeps the Muggle maintenance men employed.”

Regulus led Sirius upstairs to the top floor and gestured at a door near the stairwell. “The trail leads here. But I didn’t see, hear, or smell anything to indicate that Harry might be here. I can’t imagine Harry would have stayed in London.”

“No, but if whoever lives here had Harry’s blood on them, they might be able to tell us something.”

“And if that person is a Death Eater?”

“Then I guess we’ll duel them.” Sirius knocked on the door.

“We aren’t even going to try to disguise ourselves?” Regulus hissed at him, but Sirius couldn’t answer, because the door opened.

The gentleman in the doorway wore a fine Muggle suit. His skin was dark and he had a neatly trimmed beard and shaved head. He looked about Sirius’ age, and was about as tall, though definitely rounder in both face and build.

He looked over the two of them and raised a thick eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

Sirius held out his hand. “I hope so. My name’s Sirius.”

“Nigel Brooks,” he said, and shook Sirius’ hand warily. His eyes drifted over Sirius’ shoulder to Regulus, but Sirius had a feeling Regulus would not be keen on an introduction.

Sirius reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph. “We’re trying to find someone, and we think you might have run into him.” The picture of Harry was from Remus’ wedding. He had folded it over so that Ron and Hermione were hidden, along with most of the movement in the picture. Harry still blinked and his smile moved slightly, but Sirius hoped the Muggle would just think it a trick of the light.

Brooks took the photo to examine it more closely, then shrugged. “Might’ve seen him around.” He looked Sirius and Regulus over again. “You don’t look like police.”

Sirius glanced down at his worn jeans and leather jacket. “Hardly,” he said. “I’m his godfather. His mother’s awfully worried. We’re just trying to get some information.”

Brooks returned the photograph. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. Best of luck, though.”

He started to close the door, but Sirius wedged his foot in the door. “We know you saw him, and at the very least, got his blood on you. We’re just trying to find out where he might have gone. There are dangerous people after him.”

Nigel straightened, and Sirius recognized a familiar determination in his dark eyes. “If what you say is true, and if I really did run into a young man, injured and running for his life, then what makes you think I would tell the first strangers who knocked on my door anything about him?”

“We’re his family.”

“Family can’t be dangerous?” Brook’s voice was cold, and Sirius, while he appreciated the man’s desire to protect Harry, felt outmatched. He didn’t feel outmatched very often.

“His name is Harry,” Regulus said, “and all we want is to know that he’s alive. You don’t have to tell us where he went, just tell us that he’s safe.”

Brooks stared at Regulus for a moment, then opened the door so it was no longer pressing on Sirius’ foot. “He’s alive, as far as I know. There was a lot of blood, but his injuries weren’t as bad as they looked. I thought whoever was chasing him had torn his wrist open, but when he showed it to me, there wasn’t even a scratch. He refused to go to hospital, just said he wanted out of the city, so I put him on a train. That’s the last I saw of him.”

“Has anyone else come asking for him?”

“No. You’re the first.”

“Thank you for your help.” Regulus inclined his head. “Sirius, we’re done here.”

Sirius did not think they were done. He wanted to know exactly which train Harry had gotten on. But Regulus was already leaving.

“Reg — wait —” But Regulus did not wait. Sirius eyed Brooks, but he supposed Regulus was right. They weren’t going to get anything more out of this man.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“Sirius —” Brooks hesitated, and Sirius waited, hopeful.

But Brooks gave them neither a train nor destination. Instead, he handed Sirius a small business card. “If you find him, I’d like to know he’s alright.”

Sirius looked down at the plain white card. It had the man’s name printed on it and the contact information for an art gallery. 

“I’d find him faster if you’d tell me more.”

“He told me he was going to find his aunt and uncle,” Brooks said. “If you’re really his family, it shouldn’t be hard for you to track them down.” And he closed the door.

Sirius walked away, more confused than when they had arrived. He met Regulus at the bottom of the stairs.

“Did he tell you anything?” Regulus asked.

Sirius handed Regulus the business card. “He said Harry went to stay with an aunt and uncle. Do you think he meant Tonks and Remus?”

“I suppose that would be a simple way to explain their relationship to a stranger. Why would Harry go to Remus?”

“Maybe a fight with Greyback scared some sense in him.” Sirius found himself hoping it was true rather than believing it was true. Harry had been pushing them away all summer, and Sirius thought one duel unlikely to have changed Harry’s mind. Harry had his mother’s stubbornness, after all. 

Regulus handed the card back to Sirius. “I suppose there’s nothing else to do. We’ll just have to trust this man Brooks’ word that Harry is safe.”

“We’re hardly done.” Sirius was already walking back to the station at a brisk pace. “Now we show Harry’s photograph on the platforms. We start with the line headed for Tonks, and pray he didn't actually board a train to Paris.”

An unusual anger sparked in Regulus’ cold gaze as he hurried after Sirius. Not that Regulus never got angry, but he usually tempered it so well. “Harry is wanted by some of the most dangerous people in the world and you think it's a good idea to flash his picture around to every blasted Muggle in London — you’re also wanted by those same people! You can't just spend a day on a platform where they're surely to be looking for Harry — it’s absurd!”

Regulus' general frown of displeasure twitched with his outburst. His nose scrunched the tiniest bit and his already thin lips seemed to disappear. He looked so much like Narcissa. Sirius looked away, wishing his brother could wear someone else’s face. He wished, more often than not, that he could wear someone else’s face, too. Perhaps that was just another reason it was so much easier to be Padfoot.

“We’ll wear disguises.” Sirius surprised himself with the “we.” He had never wanted Regulus to come along on this hunt in the first place, but suddenly he was not keen on Regulus leaving him to it alone. “Hell we could even pretend to be Hit Wizards, deputised with hunting Harry down, if any wizards question us.”

“But the Muggles, Sirius! You’ll have to Obliviate every single one of them that you talk to, or else the Death Eaters or Hit Wizards or Muggle-born Registration Commision or Snatchers or any other group of wizards that want you and I dead could interrogate them and track it back to us — or worse back to Harry.”

“That will take us forever —”

“Why can't you just let Harry go? You know he got away from Greyback. Brooks put him on a train, helped him, made sure he wasn’t injured, so he must be safe somewhere. Isn’t that enough?”

“No. Not for me, and not for Lily nor Remus.” It wouldn’t be enough for James, either.

“You can't protect him from everything, Sirius. He’s seventeen now, and whatever Dumbledore’s asked of him —”

Anger flared hot and bright in Sirius' chest as he whirled on Regulus, and there was no Padfoot to soften the edges as he snarled Regulus words back at him. “‘Whatever Dumbledore’s asked of him’? Harry’s told us you're in on it so don't give me that hippogriff shit acting like you don't know. Like you're not keeping all the same secrets from us as Harry is. Like this is somehow less your fault, just because you slink away from arguments whenever you damn well please.”

Regulus’ temper faded from his face, replaced with an unusual, stricken expression that Sirius was not sure he had ever seen on his brother. Blacks felt many things, and usually felt them strongly, but fear? That wasn't something Sirius had seen in any of his cousins before, nor his brother.

But to Regulus’ credit, he did not transform into a cat and run away. He carefully schooled his expression back into its traditional calm and proud with a dash of disdainful form.

“I’ll help you find Harry,” he finally said in a quiet, almost apologetic voice. “But we Transfigure our disguises, no Polyjuice. It's too unreliable. And we Obliviate every Muggle we meet — don’t argue with me on this, Sirius! Yes, it will take longer, but it will keep Harry safer, and I trust that wherever he has run off to, he is indeed safe. We would have heard otherwise if he wasn't.”

Sirius took in several deep breaths to make sure his anger was cooled, at least enough that it would not attract the attention of those passing by them on the pavement, before speaking again. “Fine. Let’s do what we can today. And I want to put a word in the paper to Tonks, just in case he really did mean that he was on his way to her and Remus.”

“The paper? Sirius —”

“Not the <i>Prophet</i>. I’m not an idiot. Tonks, Remus, and I have a code we use for personals in the <i>Times</i>. Her idea. Said her dad used to use it in the first war to communicate with some of his Muggle-born friends, at first just after he and Andromeda eloped and had gone to ground to avoid her family, then as part of the war effort.”

Regulus shook his head. “It’s still risky —”

“It’s a war. There’s risk. Accept it and move on. The longer you whine about it, the longer nothing gets done.”

Regulus studied Sirius, and Sirius did not care for the intent look on Regulus’ face, almost like Regulus was trying to peer directly into his thoughts. It reminded him too much of their mother, trying to parse just how much trouble Sirius was in, just how much damage he had done.

But Regulus did not scold Sirius, nor criticise him. “I’m sorry,” he said instead. “You're right.”

Had Sirius been in a slightly better mood, he might have had a joke ready, made Regulus repeat his apology. As it stood, Sirius had trouble accepting it at all. Perhaps it was no real wonder he and Regulus had grown so far apart. Even when one reached out, the other couldn't bother to reach back.

He zipped up his jacket, suddenly cold, though it was only the middle of the afternoon, and kicked his boots against a nearby wall. It didn't lessen his frustration. 

And after a full day walking up and down train platforms, talking to and Obliviating every Muggle they met, Sirius was no less frustrated. The task ahead of them was enormous, and with each passing day that left them with no leads, it seemed more and more futile.

But there was nothing else to do. Lily and Remus did their part connecting with the Order, hunting down rumors of sightings of Harry, while Regulus and Sirius plodded on through Muggle after Muggle and Memory Charm after Memory Charm.

It was two full moons more before, finally, a Muggle woman frowned as she looked at the photo.

“I think… Goodness it’s been a while, but I think I did see him. Or I saw a boy who looked like him. Had red hair. I thought it odd with his complexion, but it was a dark sort of red, I suppose. The glasses… I can’t remember if he was wearing them or not. He was a twitchy lad, though, rather unhappy face. Is he in some sort of trouble?”

“No,” Sirius said, though it was not exactly true. He spoke quickly, anxious to get every detail out of this woman. “I’m his godfather, just trying to track him down. Can you tell me where he went?”

She pursed her lips. “I think… it must have been the rail line that goes out to Portsmouth — yes, I was visiting my sister that day, and I remember he had a large pack. I thought he must be on his way home from a walking tour.”

Sirius could not fathom what might have attracted Harry to Portsmouth. He wondered if it had something to do with Dumbledore. Maybe Regulus would know, but Regulus said nothing, mere stood at Sirius’ side, waiting to Obliviate this poor woman as soon as she was done talking.

“Do you know where he got off the train?” Sirius asked.

She frowned and handed the photograph back to Sirius. “I don’t know… he tripped over my bag on his way out. I felt awful. It… oh! It was Guildford. Yes, I remember, because —”

“Thank you so much for your time,” Regulus interrupted. Then, her eyes glassed over. She blinked at Sirius and Regulus, slowly, uncertain.

“Er — can I help you?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” Sirius grunted, and as soon as she was gone, he whirled on Regulus. “She might have had more information!”

“We needed to know where Harry had gone. Now we know. What else could she have told us? It’s not as if she followed him off the train. Besides, Sirius, she saw Harry over a month ago. There’s no way Harry’s still in Guildford, no reason he would stay in one place for so long.”

“Are you sure?” Sirius lowered his voice and tried to keep the threatening tone out of it, but he found it difficult. “You don’t know of anything in Guildford that might keep him there? Nothing to do with Dumbledore or You-Know-Who?”

Regulus’ stare was even, but that didn’t tell Sirius much. “Nothing. And if you can’t think of anything that would keep him there, then all we can do is go down there and see if some other Muggle happens to remember him passing through months ago — there’s just no sense in it. We know he got away safely. Let that be enough.”

Sirius was no longer listening to Regulus. He had plucked a map from a kiosk and was staring at Guildford on the network of spider web lines spiraling out from Waterloo Station, trying to make sense of why it had appealed to Harry.

“I’m an idiot,” he finally said.

“That’s nothing new,” Regulus said.

“Brooks told us where he was going from the beginning and I was too stupid to understand.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He was going to see his aunt and uncle, is what Brooks said. Not Tonks and Remus — his mum’s sister. Her Muggle family.”

“Does Harry even know them?”

“He knows they’re in hiding, and he knows their house will be empty — bloody hell I can’t believe I’m that thick.” Sirius balled the map up in his fist.

“Should we tell Lily and Remus —”

“Let’s make sure he’s there before we get their hopes up.” Sirius fought down another grunt of frustration. He had not felt this stupid in a long time, but how was he supposed to connect Harry to Petunia and Vernon, whom Harry had met perhaps twice in his life? He did not even wait to slip away to a hidden corner of the platform to Disapparate. He turned on the spot, in the midst of a crowd of Muggles, ignoring all of Regulus’ protests, and disappeared with a crack.

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. LXXXIV

It was a love story from the very beginning.

I Love You

(12x12)

Hi my beautiful friends, I will talk in this meta about the episode in which Case confessed his love. Did he? Or didn't he? Heheh let's see.

Dean Jealous and his contra-macho cool friend reaction

Oh yes, I'm gonna talk about that scene. I saw so many memes because Dean's dimples of discontent were loud. So get this...

MANDY: And how ‘bout you, handsome?

Gif credit @faramaiofnerdwoodforest

Dean's face here can't be taken by other thing than JEALOUSY, he is not amused with that girl throwing heart eyes to Cas. And he shows his dimples of discontent. Not amused at all. So, he post-reaction to this, with his mom on the table and that tough hunter too, he does what society waits for a friend to do when a girl is showing signs of flirtation to one of his friends...

But he overreacts and says a couple of silly things. One of them, Sam won't let go easily.

Gif credit @angvlicmish

This is the lie, because Dean doesn't want to teach Cas to conquer women. But he has to pretend he does. Because he wants to show the supportive friend he is. 'We've been looking for teachable moments' like 'We?' Sam and him? Sammy doesn't look as if he was waiting for this moment, besides, he knows what Dean feels for Cas, so... Dean is almost reaching the ridiculous line in here. Trying so hard to sound one thing, he is not.

Look at this...

SAM: The internet here sucks. I downloaded all the bunker’s files to a new archive, but we’re not getting any signal, so I’m j–

DEAN: [makes snoring noises and pretends to sleep] Nobody cares. Cas, here’s the thing you need to know about waitresses, okay? They get hit on all day long, so you gotta bring your A game. But, upside? [clicks tongue] They always smell like food.

WALLY: [nodding along with Dean, then pointing at him] They always smell like food.

First: Sam immediately changed the subject dragging them to the case and a difficulty he is having to get more info, and Dean! Dean just cut him off! He just can't let a waitress hitting on Cas' alone! Because is VERY IMPORTANT to him, to pretend he is helping him, because he is the waitress experienced friend, and try to low Castiel's expections into venture to do that!

Because... He says 'They always smell like food!" As if that were something sexy!

And Wally is just affirming that premise, and then Sam... Because he was interrupted by his brother's fake show, and because he knows what's the behind the scenes, he engages revengeful ...

SAM: Is that really an upside? They smell like food?

MARY: Okay– okay...

DEAN: Right? It’s great.

SAM: Why would you want them to smell like food?

Dean can't lie to Sam, because Sam knows the truth, he knows Dean is trying to kill every interest Castiel could ever have in hook up with any waitress in the world. Because he is jealous! And I believe Mary noticed that too, and just scolded their boys. Hehehe.

Then this?

Gif credit @angvlicmish

Okay, leaving to a side that his face is out of control, because he really thinks Cas is devastating handsome, he keeps with the cool friend that helps his friend, and the only one believing that story in that table is Wally, because he didn't live the Destiel drama. Dean is pretending like a good, because Wally is there. But Sam know, Mary knows, and even Cas knows.

Gif credit @angvlicmish

Dean is like 'I helped you, buddy, did you like that? I'm a cool friend.' and Cas is like 'Do you really want me to date this female, Dean?' just because the poor guy put so many effort on that. Geez. Dean is a mess... Heheheh.

I Love You

I will try to focus the meta in the 'I love you' scene, because before that, we have a very distressed Dean Winchester trying to save his angel. Dean is nervous, and in denying. Because his head can't process the fact of loosing Castiel for ever. He can't handle that lost, that's why he denies it.

Now, let's go to the famous scene. Did Cas said I Love You to Dean?

Gif credit @angvlicmish

If you rewatch the scene, previous to this confession, Castiel is looking at Dean straight in the eyes, then he drops his gaze and says these words, with a hint of shame.

But Dean's reaction can only been explained as someone who's hearing his best friend saying goodbye and giving up. And also, because in english language, this I LOVE YOU, could be sayed to a singular person of more than one. So, Dean thinks this I Love You was for them (Dean, Sam and Mary) that's why that face, is a face that says : ' Come one man, don't say it, you won't die, this is not the goodbye.'

I know a lot of people thinks Dean's reaction is because he wasn't prepared to receive a love confession, but I don't really think that. He is not prepared to say it. And in this take, he thinks this goodbye confession if for all the Winchesters in that room. Why do I think this? Because his reaction is very different when he sees Cas saying this to Sam and Mary.

Gif set credit @princessknoblauch 👇

Cas averts his eyes to Sam and Mary and Dean's face is of realization here.

He realizes the first I LOVE YOU was for him.

Why would Cas make that difference? Because the meaning are different. Even when he previously confess they are his family, he chooses to look at Dean first a confess one exclusive I love you for him.

Is platonic? Is romantic?

I truly believe is romantic, because there was shame in Cas' face, and he dropped his eyes before saying it. And I think Dean knew this deep inside.

But it could be taken otherwise, that's why it stays like a grey zone between them.

When Crowley comes and saves Castiel, Dean's face of relief is priceless, and there's this little finger touch Cas made over Dean's hand before left his hand go. They were close to be separated, what they don't know is, this is a foreshadow of Castiel's real death at the endo of the season, but also, Dean saying: "Let's go home" is foreshadowing too his own words in episode 13x06, when Castiel comes back to him.

To Conclude:

Episode 12x12 has Jealous!Dean, inside a hilarious scene, but it also has a sad foreshadow of Castiel's death.

Cas said confessed his love for the Winchesters as a family, but it was a special and exclusive confession he made to Dean, because the hint of shame and the dropped gaze, it meant more than just a platonic confession.

Dean's reaction is different to the second confession, because he realizes the first one was just for him.

I really hope you enjoyed this meta, see you in the next one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-deana @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @isthisdestiel @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@destielle @agusvedder @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @2musiclover2 @nickelkit @anon-non2 @cea1996

If you want to be added or removed from this list just let me know.

If you want to read the previous metas from season 12, here you have the links:

Vol. LXXV, LXXVI, LXXVII, LXXVIII, LXXIX, LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII, LXXXIII.

Buenos Aires, October 18th 2020, 7:35 PM.

[mallowstep]

how do you find the energy and motivation to write like... everyday?? i literally cannot write unless i am possessed by a thought in my brain and forced to spew out everything onto paper. and then i cant look at it again ot edit it. like, i really love writing and if im forced to do it for school i will, but i cant write for myslef.

practice.

first, i want to say that i am going to describe how i write, but it is not necessarily going to work for most people, because it has to do with my own psychology and mental health.

second, i want to say that i view writing as writing for pleasure or writing for work. poetry, for example, i write for pleasure, and i would not apply what i am going to discuss to poetry. that happens when i have something to say. it is OK to not want to write for work. that's acceptable and encouraged.

third, i want to dispel a myth. writing consistently is not about motivation. it is about discipline. and you should take heart in that, because motivation is hard to control. you can't force yourself to want to do something, no matter how hard you try. but if you build up discipline, you can learn to do it anyway.

i'm not going to go into that now, because i'm coming at this from the specific perspective of someone with adhd who uses pressure to force myself to function, which is...a hard balance to strike, and not something i can strictly recommend. it does work for some people. i think of it as an arch.

but i digress, i said i wasn't discussing the specifics of how i function in day-to-day life, lest i encourage others to do as i do.

okay. so. where am i going with all of this?

part one: a long, fairly incoherent ramble about me and mental health and writing

well. i don't think the idea of writing for yourself is very helpful to a lot of people. i do write for myself. but that doesn't get my ass in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. the thing that does that is not social obligation to others, either, it is the firm knowledge that putting words on paper is going to keep me from falling apart.

i don't do that for myself. i don't do that for anyone but the human need to hold yourself together. i am very happy i feel that need at the moment, and every time i have stopped writing* in the past ten years, i have lost that need.

* writing here should really be replaced with a broader term. creating things. making things. working with my hands and something real. but writing is the best thing i know to fill this in myself.

writing does not feel optional. i started writing seriously when i was not-quite-a-teenager and had untreated depression. it was desperate, then. the need to know i was capable of feeling emotions. since then, writing has been different things at different times. it has been a social need. it has been a creative need. it has been a demanding drive. it has been something i drag myself to do because i know it is good for me.

i don't have to write. i could paint, or draw, or knit, or code, or any number of things. i have used all of those things, and more, in the past, but writing is something i also enjoy.

sometimes writing is dragging myself to the keyboard. it is not always a flurry of words as an idea seizes me. it is, "i am publishing the next chapter of ashes because it is monday and that is what i do on mondays." but.

it is monday, and that is what i do on mondays.

i hate not posting every day. i hate it. i am Untethered. i spent ca. three weeks over the summer completely disconnected from time, but. i post ashes today, it is monday, i move on, i go through the days and they are not the same.

i hate not posting every day. i know that i would be doing better if i could just break through and start again, but figuring out how is hard. some things i know (ibtwicm is stressful because another person is involved, and that means that i cannot work with betas, even though the one i have is absolutely wonderful and i adore her), but other things are just that nebulous idea of not enough time to start.

i don't always have the energy to write. some days are bad. some days my head hurts. i don't have the expectation that i will never miss a day of posting. i've taken plenty of time off. but i like the rhythm.

anyway. let me try to turn that incoherent ramble about me into something...actionable?

part two: what i tangibly do

i have a schedule. that is not requisite, but it saves me from making decisions. i have a schedule and i have fics and one-shots and they all slot into that schedule by arc. i could have done it by anything, but arc was convenient.

anyway.

i figure out what i'm posting when i wake up in the morning, and i try to skim over what i've already got before starting my day. i flick back and forth between writing and whatever i am doing throughout the day.

(which is why, as i transition back into my normal pace, the thing i have been doing to fill the gap will diminish. less au chatter snippets etc, because that is what i have been doing instead of writing.)

by the evening, i'm usually close to done with the draft. i spend a solid chunk of time patching it up, then i do a round of edits, finish my other work, do line edits, and post.

if i have time after that, i start looking at tomorrow's post.

that's it. sometimes i don't want to work on something. too bad. it's on the schedule. or even, "too bad, we're posting something today." unless i am having a bad (read: low spoon) day, i do not waver in that expectation for myself.

in fact, i think the only way ibtwicm will get done is if the final chapter two chapters go up un-beta'd, because the deviation from routine makes me impossibly frustrated with them. we shall see.

anyway. i have spent years building the discipline to be able to do that. if you rely on motivation, do not think you can just flip over and magically learn how to turn an empty page into words because you told yourself that is what you are doing right now. so.

part three: how to build discipline

i said i won't be covering this, and i'm not Really. i'm going to tell you how to get started, and i am going to be the Bad Guy. i am not capable of doing this kindly. there are other, better, resources i encourage you to seek out.

so. you can't start by just. throwing yourself into it. it won't work, it'll be frustrating, etc.

you want to figure out what a reasonable word count/day is for you. i shoot for 3k words/day, but i figure as long as i'm above 1k, i'm happy.

[aside: if you are going to be writing a lot in a day, please take care of your body. have good posture. know how to hold yourself. etc. i credit years of playing piano as giving me strong wrists and nice, curved fingers, and exercises to build and strengthen the same muscles as you use for typing, but just keep this in mind.]

anyway, there's no right number. 100 words is enough. it should be -- what works for me is a number that's just slightly higher than what i can do comfortably, because it means i have to be focused, which keeps me on track. i think this is important. it is not the only way.

and then you just meet that goal. if you're new to this, writing 100 words every day might be hard. you don't have to limit yourself to 100, just hit 100 every. single. day.

eventually that will feel easy.

"i don't feel like writing," you will think, "but i've figured out how to get around that."

then you either feel happy with what you're doing or push your word count up.

me? i don't measure how many words i write, because i've already done all of that. for all i bemoan research and being stuck, i'm generally exceptionally effective. i don't think that's bragging; i think the number of asks i have answered with scenes i whipped out of nowhere demonstrate that.

i have spent years getting to the point where i can open up a blank page, on a day when i feel like crap (emotionally), when i have no ideas and no motivation and every word i put on paper feels robotic and stiff and terrible, and still finish what i started. it's hard work. it might not be worth the effort. but. that's what i do.

[dunkindestieldonuts]

The Beach Episode

6200 words, rated T (read on ao3) The Winchesters go on a beach vacation in southern California. (Wrote this a while ago but now that it’s finally summer beach weather, I thought I’d post it here too!)

Part I: Dean

Dean loves the beach.

Well, the idea of it anyway, seeing as this was his first time actually going for a vacation. He’d seen it enough in movies and on television to paint what he thought was a pretty accurate picture, though.

The long drive from Kansas to California had ended late that morning. Dean drove with the windows down once the highway ended, waiting for the telltale smell of salt on the air.

When the sea breeze finally hit his nose, he breathed in delightedly. They were still probably a few minutes away from seeing the sand but he was already itching to stretch his legs.

The road was straight for a while, but when it bent around a cluster of low hills…there it was. The ocean.

The sight of so much water took his breath away. The only thing his mind could relate it to was the seemingly never-ending plains of Nebraska, which were a total bitch to drive through. But instead of “HELL IS REAL” signs or dilapidated iron sheds to break up the vast expanse, there were sailboats and red-lined oil barges.

He turned left when the road ended at a bluff, but he kept looking at the water out the window, trying to spot paddleboarders around Sam in the passenger seat.

“Dean,” Sam said, “the road. We’re almost there.” He indicated the beach they’d chosen on the map of southern California spread out on his lap.

When they’d discussed where to go back at the bunker, Dean had insisted on the west coast. He wanted to watch the sunset with his family. To start their week-long vacation, they’d chosen a smaller beach, away from big crowds and attractions (although Eileen did want to try her hand at carnival games at some point during their stay).

They packed all the essential gear: blankets, beach chairs, picnic baskets, beach umbrellas, beach balls and baseball mitts, and a plethora of colorful sandcastle-building equipment that Jack helped pick out. Dean even bought matching Hawaiian shirts for himself and Cas at the first kitschy tourist shop he could find in the Golden State (his was covered in California landmarks and Cas’ was all about the Pacific Coast Highway).

He was looking forward to so many things, like the feel of the sand between his toes, the taste of salt on his lips. He was also very excited to get a piña colada or something similar. With a little umbrella, of course.

Dean probably pulled into the parking lot a little too quickly, judging by the look a surfer sitting in the back of a pickup gave him. He made sure to park far away from the guy.

The first thing he did when he got out of the car was change his shoes, throwing his boots into the trunk and grabbing some flip flops. He fed the meter an entire roll of quarters before helping everyone gather their things.

When they got everything out of the Impala, he rushed down the stairs of the lot, barely containing his excitement. Then someone grabbed the back of his shirt, stopping him from being run over by three bicyclists. He looked down to see a paved two-way bike lane between him and the sand.

“Thanks,” he said over his shoulder. Cas rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

They found a spot away from most of the other people and set up camp. Once the blankets were laid out and the umbrellas stuck in the sand, Dean surveyed their surroundings. He spotted a small building with the words “Surf Food Stand” painted on a surfboard above a serving window, and realized it was in fact lunchtime.

The building and its seating were directly on the sand. They sold food like hot dogs and smoothies, and rented various beach equipment. Dean immediately wanted to rent a surfboard. Sam told him it was a stupid idea, Dean didn’t even know how to surf, he was definitely going to hurt himself!

But it was a word from Cas that finally stopped him from going through with it. He reminded Dean they were staying for the week, and convinced him to sign up for surf lessons the next day. Cas even signed up with him.

They ordered food (Cas even let Jack get two smoothies when his son couldn’t decide between banana and mango) and took it back to their spot. There weren’t any tiny umbrellas, but it was all delicious.

☼ ☼ ☼

Dean sits cross-legged on their blanket with Cas behind him, rubbing sunscreen into his back. Cas has beautiful, broad hands, and Dean appreciates whenever they’re on him. And when Cas starts digging his thumbs into the knots just under the back of Dean’s neck, Dean makes a noise that has Sam looking over in disgust.

“Dude.”

“What? I’ve been driving for hours, I deserve a massage.”

Cas laughs behind him, placing a kiss on the back of Dean’s head. He stops the massage but continues with the sunscreen. He takes extra care to add multiple layers to Dean’s left shoulder.

This would be the first time since he got it that his new handprint tattoo would be out in the sun. He swore it was completely healed - this wasn’t his first tattoo after all - but Cas insisted that Dean still moisturize it daily (it was less of a pain than it sounded, since he could usually convince Cas to do it for him which often led to other fun activities).

When Cas is done he leans forward, putting his arms around Dean’s middle. He rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder. “Done.”

“Thank you.”

Dean leans back into him. He’s so comfortable in Cas’ arms now, like he belongs there. The physical aspect of their relationship was intimidating for Dean at first, but it was something Castiel wanted so he made the effort. The angel deserved to be shown affection in every way possible, deserved to be as happy as he made Dean.

It worked out well - Dean realized early on in the process that it was something he wanted, too. Something he’d been denying himself for a long time.

Really, it was just an extension of how they’d been before: the lingering gazes now ended in pecks on the cheek, the shoulder touching moved down the arm to hand holding.

The way they fit together made Dean sometimes wonder if they were made for each other, if they were always meant to be together. Something unbearably poetic or romantic like that. But then he thinks no, nothing about this is destiny or fate or someone’s grand design. They’d fought against that. Defeated it.

No, this was choice.

It’s all choice, which Dean believes makes what they choose from now on even better. He chose Cas. And Cas chose him, too.

Which is, wow, by the way. Cas is older than the beach they’re sitting on, had seen more in his existence than Dean could ever even begin comprehend…and yet the one thing he wants in all the universe is Dean. Dean couldn’t fully believe it for the longest time. He couldn’t believe it when Cas had first said the words. Wouldn’t believe it, until Cas explained that yes, he meant love love.

At some point Cas had practically begged him to stop asking questions riddled with self-doubt. Things like “You sure? Me? Really?” were always met with the same answer, sweet and sincere: “I’m sure. You. Really.” Then Cas would kiss his forehead, or hold his hand, or let him have the last chocolate chip cookie, and he’d know it was true.

Cas was also helping Dean see himself the way Cas saw him, the way all the people who love him saw him. Dean is a good man. He’d done so much for the world, so much for the people he cared about. And he does deserve nice things.

Nice things like someone who loves him unconditionally and without reserve. Nice things like seeing his brother finally escape the life and settle down with an awesome woman. Nice things like having a son to take care of.

And, maybe, nice things like getting to hang out on the beach with his family without having to stop the world from ending.

He turns his head to kiss Cas on the cheek before getting up to stand in front of everyone.

“Who wants to play pickle?” he asks, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

Eileen raises her hand. “Me!”

Dean grabs the baseball mitts and tosses one to her. “Sam? Jack? Cas?”

Jack jumps up with Cas close behind, but Sam shakes his head.

“Uh-uh, we’re ALL playing,” Dean says as he grabs Sam’s arm.

His brother rolls his eyes but he gets up. “What’s the point of asking ‘who wants to play’ if you’re just going to make us play?” Sam teases. Dean swats his arm.

He explains the rules to Jack and Cas as Eileen sets up the bases by making mounds of sand.

They don’t keep score while they play. Dean and Eileen let Jack be “safe” when they definitely could have tagged him out, the same mercy absent when Sam gets near them. Dean swears Cas kissed him just to distract him while Sam and Jack ran at least once, but Cas won’t admit to it.

Part II: Castiel

Castiel loves the ocean.

Unlike Dean, he had been many times. But he wasn’t going to brag about it. Most of that time had been spent in quiet observation rather than in volleyball tournaments anyway, so he doubted Dean wanted to hear about it.

Dean once told him in passing that people born near the ocean, in the fresh sea air, were healthier. He’d talked about the pull some experienced - people born near water often come back to it, almost always ended up living near it. Castiel could understand why.

Humans that lived around it always had gods for the sea. Often, the sea god was among the more important in the pantheon. Abzu of Mesopotamia was the father of all the other gods. Poseidon was one of the big three in Greece. In some cultures the sea was ruled by a multitude of deities.

The respect people had for the ocean was well-deserved. The fear, as well. It was one of the most dangerous natural forces. But humans were always trying to push the boundaries of their capabilities. They’d gone to space, after all.

Castiel found it interesting that humanity was able to travel through space better than through Earth’s oceans, that more people had been on the moon than had seen the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

He sometimes thought about the more philosophical reasons why they turned their eyes upward rather than down. When he started to spend more time around humans, he started to develop some hypotheses. Maybe humans want to look to the future, and the past is in the ocean. Life started there. Maybe they didn’t want to face Creation, but wanted to Create.

Of course, the simpler answer was that deep sea vessels were required to be approximately 1100 times stronger than spacecraft in order to withstand the pressure. But humans had almost always been more interested in the sky than the sea. There was more funding for space, more media regarding it.

And Castiel did love those stories as well. The stories humans told about space were often filled with hope, while the ocean was filled with monsters (to be fair, the Leviathan had come from the sea, and they were certainly monstrous). Most ocean tales were set on the surface anyway.

But the surface was fascinating, too. It’s near the surface where the most colorful fish in the Great Barrier Reef live: bright yellow butterfly fish, striking turquoise and orange parrotfish, beautifully striped angelfish. It’s at the surface where bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales play, where Portuguese men o’ war float to sting unsuspecting plankton.

He could watch the sea for eons. Had done so, in fact. During the beginning, most of the angels watched humanity. Castiel had often turned his eyes to nature, to the flora and fauna of the Earth. That in turn pointed his gaze to the sea, seeing as how more than three quarters of life on the planet was to be found under the waves (the vast majority even now as yet unidentified by human science).

Some of Earth’s oldest creatures resided still under the rollicking waves of the sea. Most sharks and the lobe-finned coelacanth had hardly changed in the millions of years they’d existed. Castiel knew, because he had watched.

He watched as life arose from the simple organic compounds found in the depths. He watched the first fish climb onto land. He watched as God flooded the world, as Moses parted the Red Sea. He watched humanity’s exploration, as well: Polynesian way finders discovering the tiniest of islands in the Pacific, the mad race to the South Pole that spanned the first few years of the 20th century, the first submarines.

☼ ☼ ☼

Castiel continues his watching today. He sits on a blanket watching Sam and Eileen help Jack make a sand castle, the shape oddly reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. He turns to tell Dean this, but Dean is lying down next to him under the shade of the umbrella, eyes closed under his sunglasses and hands folded behind his head.

Castiel takes the opportunity to let his eyes travel over Dean’s body, admiring the splattering of freckles across his chest. He lingers over Dean’s middle, which has gotten a bit squishy in their time being retired, which Castiel loves. It showed him that Dean was safe and healthy, eating more than he would if he was stressed or on endless hunts. He almost reaches out to poke Dean in the side, but he resists.

When his gaze reaches Dean’s face once again, he’s met with a pleased expression. Dean opens his eyes and smirks, lowering the sunglasses onto his nose.

“I can feel you starin’ at me.”

Castiel smiles down at him. “My apologies. Were you asleep?”

“Well, I’m up now.”

Dean sits up, puts his arms around Castiel, tucks his chin onto his shoulder, rubs his cheek against Castiel’s ear.

Castiel revels in the touch. It had taken Dean a while to be comfortable showing this level of affection, and another while before he was okay showing affection in public. Cas was patient with him, of course. The rewards were well worth it.

Sometimes Castiel got the urge to go overboard, to grab Dean’s face in the supermarket and kiss him till they both can’t breathe, to tell everybody and anybody who would listen at the bus stop that the man that he loves loves him back.

But right now he’s happy with a solid arm around his shoulders. He hums contentedly.

Dean shifts next to him. “Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Dean sighs heavily. His hands flex once, then he moves closer to Castiel, settling his body more fully against the angel’s.

“Does part of you hate me for taking this long?”

“No. No, Dean,” Castiel says without skipping a beat. “No part of me could ever hate you. Sometimes I lament the missed opportunities, and yet…even if we weren’t at this stage,” he pats Dean’s arm, “I could tell you loved me, in your own way. Although I thought that ‘way’ was different from mine. But it was enough for me then. I do very much like this, though.”

Dean is quiet for a moment. Castiel swears he can hear the montage of memories going through Dean’s brain. Maybe he’s thinking of all the times he could have told Cas how he felt, all the scenes that would have been different had they been together sooner. All the times he could have said “I love you.”

Castiel knows he’s done the same - gone back and played a scene out differently with only the tiniest of changes. Another sigh from his side makes him rest his head against Dean’s.

“Sometimes I hate myself for it,” Dean says quietly, barely audible over the crash of waves and squawk of seagulls.

“Don’t. Please.”

“I wanna make it up to you somehow.”

Castiel turns to kiss Dean’s temple. “You don’t have to,” he says into his hair.

“Yeah, but I’m gonna.”

“Hmm,” Castiel hums in thought. He looks out to the waves and watches them wash over the shore. The water looks beautiful and, Castiel thinks, inviting. “You could start by going into the water with me?”

He can almost feel the weight lift from Dean’s shoulders. “You got it, sunshine.”

Dean jumps up with newfound purpose and grabs both Cas’ hands to haul him up, dragging him towards the surf. When they pass the others, Sam looks up with a smile.

“We’re going swimming,” Castiel says enthusiastically, letting go of one of Dean’s hands to sign as much to Eileen when he sees her look up at them.

Sam jerks his head, confused. “Do you know how?”

“I don’t think so!” Cas says, smiling.

“Dean!”

“He’ll be fine!” Dean shouts over his shoulder.

They run together the rest of the way, chasing a wave as it recedes. Dean lets go of Castiel’s hand when his feet hit the water.

“Fuck, that’s cold!”

“Yes, the south-moving current off the coast here brings the cold water from Alaska,” Castiel says as he steps in. He shivers and continues. “Plus upwelling brings the deep ocean water towards the surface.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean says over his shoulder as he goes deeper.

“Indeed.”

Castiel follows him further. He stops when the water reaches his Enochian tattoo, and Dean wades back towards him.

Dean dives under a wave while Castiel hops up to float over it. He tries to spot Dean under the foam, but isn’t able to. Then he feels hands on his hips, and Dean pops up right in front of his face.

“Hey,” Dean says, smirking. Castiel wraps his arms around Dean’s neck.

“Hello.” He smiles before Dean kisses him. Another wave interrupts them.

Part III: Dean and Castiel

Later in the afternoon, Sam and Eileen relax on the beach chairs while Jack digs a hole big enough to stand in. Dean helped Jack dig most of it, but when his knees started to ache from the awkward angle he’d left the rest to the kid.

Now he stands with Cas at the water’s edge, their bare shoulders touching, shirts tucked into the back pockets of their swimsuits. Dean knows Cas could stand still for hours, days even, but he’s getting restless. He looks to the south and spots a small pier about a mile away.

“Walk with me?” Dean asks Cas. He holds his hand out. Cas grabs it with a smile, intertwining their fingers. With a wave at the rest of their family, they go off together.

They walk along the edge of the water, letting the sea wash away their footprints. Dean lets go of Cas’ hand only to run in front of him and splash him with a kick as a big wave comes around their feet. Cas kicks back, but Dean’s already out of range. He makes a pouty face and Dean returns to his side to plant a kiss on his cheek. The next time it’s Cas who gets the upper hand.

Further along, they walk through a flock of birds. They’re not seagulls, so Dean doesn’t recognize them. He asks Cas if he knows what they’re called, and yes, he does. The small gray and white ones with black beaks are sanderlings, specifically Calidris alba. There’s a few larger, longer-beaked marbled godwits, Limosa fedoa, mixed in as well.

“Do you know all the names for things?” Dean asks.

“I know most, yes.”

“That’s awesome, man,” Dean says sincerely.

He watches the sanderlings run back and forth, making it look as though they’re playing tag with the waves. Dean bends to pick up a small shell, no bigger than the fingernail of his thumb. He examines the alternating bands of oranges and white that mark its surface before offering it to Cas.

“I never really learned about this kinda stuff. Honestly I don’t know much about the natural world, y’know? Too focused on the supernatural.”

Cas nods, taking the shell and holding it up. “I could teach you some of it. Gould beanclam, Donax gouldii,” he says.

“Ah, I’m not smart enough to remember it.”

Cas stops walking, turning to fully face Dean with a serious look. “Don’t discredit yourself, Dean. You’re very smart. You didn’t have much of a formal education yet you still know so much. I would even rate the practical, useful knowledge you have over my list of factoids, because why would you ever need to know that scallops have up to 200 eyes unless you’re trying to impress someone with fun facts?”

Dean breathes out a laugh, just a sharp exhale through his nose. He turns to keep walking, using his elbow to nudge Cas along. To anyone else he would seem dismissive, but Cas can tell Dean appreciated what he’d said. He pockets the shell, thinking about where to put it in their room when they get back home.

“Guess so,” Dean says. “And I don’t hafta impress anyone anymore.” He grabs Castiel’s hand again. “You’re already impressed with me, right?”

“Of course, dear, you’re highly impressive,” Cas says just a little sarcastically. Dean squeezes.

“Hell yeah, I am.”

They walk in comfortable silence, watching the birds and the people.

Cas has to jump out of the way of a kid on a purple boogie board. Dean throws a foam football back to a group of players. Cas wonders if he should have brought a bottle of sunscreen so he could reapply it to Dean. Dean enjoys the heat on his back.

After about forty minutes, they reach the pier. They walk down it, avoiding skateboarders and glancing into fishermen’s buckets. Castiel comments on the interesting pale turquoise color of the railing as they lean over it to watch the surfers below.

To Dean’s delight, there is a small aquarium at the end of the pier. They put their shirts on and step inside.

A teenage girl in a blue vest greets them, offering to tell them about the cast of a seal skull she has in front of her. Dean listens receptively, glancing at Cas a few times to confirm if her facts are accurate. He nods each time.

They walk around the small space, sidestepping kids and appreciating the variety of creatures on display.

“You got a favorite fish?” Dean asks Castiel when they reach the kelp forest tank.

“Angelfish,” Cas says immediately.

Dean glares at him. “Wow. You couldn’t even say that with a straight face.”

Cas smiles, proud of his joke. He shrugs, turning back to the tank. “In sincerity, I don’t know if I could decide.” He leans towards the glass, following a Sheephead as it swims in front of the kelp. “They’re all charming in their own ways.”

Dean is uncharacteristically quiet in response, so Cas turns to him. There’s so much unrepressed love on Dean’s face that Cas almost asks him if something is wrong. But then Dean’s smirking at him, trademark confidence on his features.

“YOU’RE charming in your own ways,” he says, quirking an eyebrow.

Cas laughs. “Thank you, Dean.”

Before they head back, Dean leads Cas under the pier.

The sand is cooler and the waves are louder, echoing against the concrete above their heads. Dean leans against a pillar and pulls at Cas’ shirt. Dean goes to kiss him but is stopped by Cas bopping him on the nose with two fingers. He scrunches it in confusion, then he feels the heat bleed out of his face.

“You were getting sunburnt,” Cas says in explanation before kissing him.

Dean worries for a split second if anyone saw Cas heal him, but then Cas’ tongue is in his mouth and he can’t think anymore. Dean loses himself to the feeling of Cas against him for a minute, until some kids shouting nearby reminds him they’re surrounded by people. He pulls back and Cas follows the motion, trying to capture his lips again, but Dean stops him.

“Hey, uh, maybe we should keep it PG, yeah?”

Cas is still staring at his mouth, which makes Dean almost up it to PG-13, but then he flicks his eyes up to Dean’s. “Ah. This is not because you’re embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“No, no, I just don’t want some punk teenager yelling at us to get a room, y’know?”

“We could simply tell them we do have a room.” He keeps his hands steady on Dean’s hips.

Dean laughs. “Yeah, with my brother, his girl, and our son in it, so that’s not - nevermind, I’ll explain later.” He kisses Cas once, quick, then maneuvers himself out from in between Cas and the pillar. “C’mon, let’s walk back.”

On the way, Dean gets an idea.

“So, do you wanna come back here with me later tonight? We could watch the stars, just the two of us.”

“The moon is going to be almost full tonight, we wouldn’t see many stars.”

“Then we could do…something else.”

Cas quirks one eyebrow up in question. “What could we do?”

Dean does a double take, mischievous smile turning into a fond one when he realizes Cas doesn’t understand what he’s implying.

“Ah, you’ll see.”

They return to Jack and Sam hitting a beach ball back and forth, Eileen reading under the umbrellas. Dean runs up to steal the ball and sprints away with it, Sam on his heels. Cas joins Eileen.

“How is the book?” he signs.

“I’m almost halfway done and I still don’t know if I like the protagonist.”

Cas is about to ask if she thinks that was intentional on the author’s part when he hears Dean shout. He looks over just in time to see Sam catch up to his brother and tackle him into the water. Eileen giggles at the way Sam shakes his hair when they surface.

The beach ball rides a wave back to shore where Jack picks it up. He takes it to the blanket and places it next to Cas.

“Can I go swimming, Dad?” he asks.

“Did you reapply sunscreen while I was gone?”

“Yes.”

Cas turns to Eileen for confirmation. She nods.

“Okay.”

Jack smiles at him and Cas feels wonderful. Happy. So very happy. Eileen is smiling too, probably feeling something similar.

They watch as Jack skips down the sand to join the brothers. He runs into Dean’s arms, and Dean swings him around before throwing him into the water. He pops up a second later, laughing. Sam starts a splash war, and Cas and Eileen return to their literary conversation.

☼ ☼ ☼

Soon after they have a second round of hot dogs and burgers from the Surf Food Stand, it’s sunset.

Jack asks why the sky changes colors like that. Cas gives an incredibly detailed and scientific explanation, discussing the bending of light at different wavelengths through the atmosphere. Dean watches them fondly. He turns an equally fond look to Sam and Eileen, silently signing to each other. She’s sitting in Sam’s lap on the beach chair.

Dean sighs serenely, turning to watch the streaks of orange light dance on the water.

They pack up the Impala before it gets too dark. Once they’ve put everything away, they take a moment in the changing room near the parking lot to put on warmer clothes (and, by Dean’s instruction, to get all the sand off so none gets in Baby).

Already having changed into the dark gray hoodie and matching sweatpants Dean bought for him, Castiel takes the time to walk back down the sand to look out over the ocean.

He stands at the edge of the water, just far enough so the waves don’t reach his feet. He sees Venus shining in its place low in the sky. His tracks a few airplanes as they start their journey west over the Pacific.

Then Dean is standing next to him. Castiel looks over to see Dean looking out over the horizon. He admires Dean’s profile, appreciates how the blue light of just-after-sunset softens his features, how it makes his eyes look bluer than usual. He’s back in his usual jeans, with a dark blue hoodie on top.

“We’re ready to go,” Dean says after a moment.

“Okay.”

But neither of them move. They stand there together, silently listening to the steady roar of the waves. The breeze off the water stirs the hair on Cas’ forehead.

“You gonna tell me about it someday?” Dean asks.

“About what?”

“Y’know. All the time you were around before humanity.”

“That would take far too long.”

Dean makes a noise of agreement. “Then the highlights? Tell me what dinosaurs looked like, at least.”

He puts his arm around Castiel and turns him towards the car. He leaves his arm there as they walk across the sand, still warm despite the lack of sunlight. Cas lifts his hand to hold Dean’s where it rests on his shoulder.

“That would take the fun out of museum visits, wouldn’t it?” Cas says. “Me pointing out all the inaccuracies?”

Dean laughs. “Nah, that sounds like a blast.”

☼ ☼ ☼

The hotel room is small, but it has everything they need. Two queen beds take up most of the room, but there’s a coffee table with a small two-person sofa at the foot of one, as well as a small desk with one office chair. They had forgone fancier accommodations in order to be as close as possible to the beach. They were lucky they even found one room in this place, most hotels were already booked up. It was summer, after all.

Dean pulls a pack of cards out of his bag and slaps it down on the coffee table. He drags the chair over to the table for Cas and sits with Sam on the floor in front of the table, Jack and Eileen taking the sofa.

Dean argues for poker but Eileen talks him out of it, citing that the hunters would probably have an unfair advantage against Cas and Jack. They settle on a few rounds of blackjack without betting, despite Dean trying to get some started using the various snacks they’d brought with them (if some snacks are handed over wordlessly between the brothers as they play, no one comments on it).

When it’s time for bed, Jack goes to take his usual place in between Dean and Cas, but they persuade him to go for the other bed. They’re going for a night walk and don’t want to disturb him when they return. Jack just as happily settles in between Sam and Eileen, and Dean promises they won’t be long.

It’s a short few blocks from the hotel back to the beach. When they reach the sand, Cas glances at the empty lifeguard tower. “Is this allowed?”

Dean shrugs, a blanket rolled up under his arm. “Probably not, but who cares? It’s a pretty small beach, dude, no one’s gonna come check.”

Cas smiles conspiratorially, taking delight in this little rule breaking. “Okay.”

The light from the moon illuminates the beach so they have an easy time finding their way. It glints off the foam of the waves. The sand is cool under their feet.

Dean walks to where the sand starts to slope down to the water, so if they sit they won’t be seen from the sidewalk. He lays the blanket down and lies back on it.

“C’mere,” he says, opening his arms up and making a beckoning motion with his hands towards where Cas stands.

Castiel knows what he’s implying this time. He sinks down, knees on either side of Dean’s hips. He steadies himself on one elbow next to Dean’s head, the other resting softly on Dean’s chest. Dean reaches up to grab the back of his neck to bring him the rest of the way down.

Dean loves when Cas kisses him. It makes him feel loved, and it reminds him that he’s worth that love, too. And Castiel loves when Dean kisses him, too, of course. It floods him with relief because it shows him Dean feels the same way he does, because for so long he’d thought that wasn’t true. But it is. They love each other.

This particular kiss is deep, slow, filled with a heat it couldn’t have been with other people around to bear witness. It’s like the ones they save for totally private moments, when Jack is away at Sam and Eileen’s, when there are no wayward hunters taking refuge in the bunker with them, snacking on Dean’s baked goods (he was getting really good - they’d even had people stop by just for his cinnamon rolls).

With nothing but the moonlight and the crash of the waves around them, Dean lets himself be loudly enthusiastic, moaning and making breathy noises into Cas’ mouth. His hands roam up and down Cas’ sides, his fingers rake down Cas’ back. He’s probably exaggerating with the noise a bit, but Cas doesn’t seem to mind.

In fact, he takes it as his cue to go a little further. He runs his fingers under the hem of Dean’s shirt and hoodie, pushing them up so he can explore Dean’s torso with one hand.

Castiel’s hand is surprisingly warm against Dean’s skin. When it reaches his chest, Cas rolls a nipple in between his fingers, the way he knows Dean likes. Dean arches off the blanket into the touch, breaking their kiss to gasp and bite his lower lip. When he opens his eyes, Cas is looking down at him, very pleased with himself.

“Yes, you know how to turn me on. You don’t have to look so smug about it,” Dean says, slightly embarrassed under Cas’ gaze.

“Hmm,” Cas hums before pinching a little harder.

“Ah…”

“I’ve been wanting to touch you like this all day. When appropriate, of course.”

“Is that right?” Dean tries for cockiness, but he’s too breathless to pull it off.

Then Cas is on his neck, leaving sloppy open-mouthed kisses from his ear to where the hood of his sweatshirt covers his collarbone. Dean grabs a fistful of Cas’ hair just to have something to hold onto.

“Uh huh,” Castiel breathes into his neck. The feeling against his spit-slick skin makes Dean shiver.

Dean’s hips jerk up involuntarily, Castiel a solid weight on top of him. He almost whines, almost, when Cas pulls his hoodie back down over his stomach. But Castiel puts his mouth back on Dean’s and he forgives him. Then Cas starts moaning and moving his hips, and Dean isn’t exaggerating anymore.

When Cas moves to unbutton Dean’s jeans, he grabs Cas’ wrist.

“Okay, actually, hold on Cas,” he giggles. “We’re gonna have to slow down because we cannot have sex on the beach.”

“Why not? I thought that was the purpose of being here now.”

“Trust me, there are certain places you don’t want sand.”

“Hmmph.” Cas smushes his face into Dean’s chest and lets his whole weight fall on Dean, his arms splayed out on either side of them. “You’re probably right,” he murmurs into Dean’s sweatshirt.

Dean laughs, which jostles Cas’ head. “I know I’m right.” He gets one hand under Cas’ chin and lifts his head up to look into his eyes. “You should keep kissing me, though.”

Castiel smiles. “Okay.”

“And believe me, I’m flattered that you want me right here right now but - mmph!” Dean’s cut off by Cas covering his mouth with his own.

Dean was right about no one checking the beach. They aren’t interrupted.

After a while longer, Dean’s flip flop clad feet feel like they’re going to freeze off and Castiel realizes the late hour when he checks the moon’s position in the sky. They head back to the hotel.

They sneak back into the room as quietly as they can, but Cas insists they at least rinse off in the shower before going to sleep. When they emerge in their pajamas, they see Jack looking up at them from his spot in Sam and Eileen’s bed.

“Goodnight,” he whispers sleepily.

“Goodnight,” Dean whispers back. Cas goes over to kiss Jack on the top of his head before joining Dean under the covers.

☼ ☼ ☼

The rest of the week goes as planned. Some highlights:

Cas seems to be a natural at surfing, standing up on the board for almost every wave. Dean’s not as lucky, but he doesn’t hurt himself.

Eileen wins a huge unicorn for Sam at one of the shooting games on the Santa Monica Pier. It barely fits in the Impala.

Castiel spots a striped shore crab in the tide pools of Abalone Cove. It scuttles under a rock when the shadow of his finger passes over it as he points it out to Jack.

Dean finally gets his drink with a tiny umbrella at a very fancy beachside restaurant in Malibu.

[msmarvelouswinchester]

Love In Sin

Chapter 5

Summary - Special Agent Winchester is forced to go undercover with his frenemy Special Agent L/N when they try to track down a notorious drug dealer. How will Y/N and Dean complete their task? Will their relationship worsen or will new feelings emerge between them?

Pairing -AU Detective!Dean Winchester x Reader

Series Warnings - Angst, Slow burn, Fluff, Implied Smut, Mentions of crime and drug, Swearing.

Chapter Warnings - Slow burn, Swearing

Word Count - 2.3k (this is probably the longest chapter in the series)

A/N - I was supposed to post this in two parts but here ya go folks!

Beta'd by the amazing @deanwanddamons (she is awesome)

The dividers by the talented @talesmaniac89

Series Masterlist

“I'm never organising a party again! I am exhausted!” you exclaimed sitting on the floor.

Dean let out a low whistle as he looked around the room full of streamers. He had been out to do the grocery shopping in the meantime. He came back with a bunch of food items and pie. That man really loved his pie.

“I knew you worked better with food in your system” he laughed.

“Shut up!” you grumbled, “we need to go and meet the neighbours now. Let them know about our party.”

“Now?” Dean raised an eyebrow at you.

“Dean, the party is tomorrow.”

“Why can't I get some alone time with my wife?” He pouted.

“What?”

“You know we haven't christened the bedroom yet,” he wiggled his brows, making you roll your eyes.

“Don't you think you are taking this undercover a bit too seriously?” Raising your finger, you poke his chest. He immediately grabbed your hand, pulling you close.

“I like roleplay,” he smirked. You jerked your handout of his grip and glared at him.

“Okay, okay. Let's go.”

You got up and went to your room to get changed into something better than the pants and oversized t-shirt you were wearing.

“Where ya goin’?” Dean asked, following you into the room.

“Get out, Winchester. I need to change,” you said and pushed him out of the room.

“You know I am your hus-” He started saying in a cocky tone, but was cut off by you yelling ‘Shut up’ to him.

You changed into jeans and a flannel and finally came out of your room.

“You look great.”

“Thanks,” you said blushing slightly. Can this man just stop complimenting you every now and then?

You and Dean approached the first house which was apparently Castiel’s .

You rang the doorbell and waited for someone to open the door.

“Yes?” A young boy of around twenty opened the door..

“Hey, is Castiel there?” you asked.

“Dad? Yeah sure. Wait here. Let me get him,” the boy said and went back inside the house, leaving you standing in front of the door which he had closed with a slam.

“Who's ask-oh hey! The Campbells right? That was my son, Jack. Come on in,” Cas said and gestured at you to follow him.

You went inside the house and took a seat on the couch. Castiel's house was beautiful. It was full of antique collections. There were also beautiful antique portraits on the wall.

“Hey! Cas told me you guys moved in here today. I'm Meg,” The woman greeted you both, and took a seat on another couch in front of you.

“Hey. Nice to meet you. I'm Y/N and he's Dean. You have a really beautiful house.”

“Thank you. It's all because of Cas. He loves to collect antique pieces and now our house looks like a museum. You just got married right? That's a really beautiful ring,” Meg said, glancing at the ring on your hand.

“Thank you but it was actually his choice,” you said looking at Dean, “so he deserves all the credit.”

“You two make a cute couple,” Meg grinned. You blushed at her words and nervously tucked your hair behind your ears.

“Thanks. We are actually here to invite you and Cas to our housewarming party. Tomorrow at seven,” Dean said.

“Oh we will be there, for sure!” Cas smiled.

“Awesome. So, as we are new here, can you tell us anything about the other neighbours?” Dean asked, hoping to get some information out of Meg and Cas.

“We have been living in this area for almost two years now. It may come off as a beautiful neighbourhood but actually it's the worst. No one talks to anyone and some of the neighbours are downright rude,” Meg said, clearly annoyed by her neighbours.

“Really?”

“Yes. There is Rowena. She lives two houses down from us. She is extremely sophisticated, she is the CEO of the company called Herbs and Magic.It's a company which produces organic skin care products,” Meg said. She definitely had a lot of information about the people living in the area.

“So, she is like the queen bitch,” you joked.

“No. Actually she is kind of polite. The queen bitch is Amara. She lives with her brother Chuck . I think you may know Amara. She worked on “Love in Sin” and a bunch of other films.”

“Yeah, I have heard of that film, not that I have watched it. This neighbourhood is really one of a kind,” you chuckled.

“Tell me about it,” Cas laughed along with you, “I don't know why Meg loves this neighbourhood so much. All the people who live here are assholes.”

“Hey! Not all of them. There is Mick Davies and Arthur Ketch - they seem like nice people and you know why I chose this place. It's easier to get to work from here.”

“Well Mick and Arthur haven't talked to us at all,” Cas rolled his eyes.

“Where do you work?” You asked.

“I work at Chuck's company.” You shared a look with Dean.

“Chuck Shurley? The producer of the film Love in Sin?"

“Yeah that and he is like the God of the business industry!” Meg exclaimed, "You know about the Carver Industries which deals with automobile manufactures?"

“Uh-yeah, of course we have heard of him,” Dean said, "Rich neighbourhood!"

“Anyways, thank you so much Meg. We have wasted a lot of your precious time. We should go now. We have others to invite too,” you said and got up from the couch.

“It was so nice to talk to you. Let's meet up some other time. You know, just a girl's day out,” Meg said.

“Definitely! I love to have a girl's day out with you,” you said and Meg pulled you in a hug.

“And they are already making plans,” Dean joked, making Cas laugh out loud.

You and Dean left the Novak household and went to invite the other neighbours - all of them definitely lived up to their reputation.

“Well, that was interesting. The Novaks don't seem like someone to be the right hand person of Crowley. Rowena is the CEO of a company - why would she need to be partnered up with a drug dealer? And the Shurley’s? How did the bureau forget to mention such an important detail?” You asked.

You had ordered a pizza because you neither had the energy nor the will to cook.

Dean hummed at your words and bit into a slice of pizza. “We need to keep a close eye on all of them. The Shurleys are our top priority.”

“Yup,” you said and noticed Dean typing on his phone after he was done eating.

“I have briefed Mr. Singer about today's incidents. Let's call it a night. We have to be on our toes the whole day tomorrow,” Dean said, making you nod in agreement.

Your eyes trailed up his body as he stretched his hands, his biceps flexing under the thin material of his unbuttoned flannel. You continued to stare as he yawned and shook his head.

“Like what you see, sweetheart?” Dean said, a stupid smirk on his face. Your heart fluttered in your chest as you blushed at him - this man was surely doing things to you.

“Shut up,” you grumbled and left to go back to your room.

“Night!” You heard Dean call out to you.

“Night,” you replied to him.

You woke up in the morning to find an arm draped over your stomach. You froze when you realised it was Dean's arm. What was he doing in your bed? You remember clearly you went to bed alone in your own fucking room.

Dean was still asleep. He was spooning you from behind, his hot breath fanning against your bare skin which was not covered by your tank top. Goosebumps erupted on your skin. So he was a cuddler - no that's not the important thing now. Why was he in your bed?

You tried to remove his arm from your stomach and started to stir beside you.

“Hey, morning,” Dean said in a gruff voice. You looked back and saw him greeting you with his eyes closed. Damn that son of bitch for looking like a model from one of the fashion magazines in the morning whereas you looked like you had just fought a war.

“Morning. What are you doing in my bed?”

“You don't remember?” Dean asked, finally opening up his eyes - he really did have beautiful eyes.

“Nope,” you said, popping the ‘p’.

“So all that effort went to waste? Awesome,” Dean groaned and rolled to the other side of the bed.

“What happened Dean Winchester?” You narrowed your eyes at him.

“You had a nightmare. I woke up to hear you yelling and then your gorgeous mouth started saying my name. I tried to wake you up but you had turned into a sleeping beauty and I was too tired to kiss you awake so I climbed into the bed with you and voila! You calmed down and I think I fell asleep here,” Dean shrugged.

You observed him for a moment. He was straight up lying to you. If you had a nightmare that bad you would have remembered it. Why was he lying to you or maybe you really didn't remember? You wanted to ask him, but instead decided to drop the subject.

“Well then thanks. My nightmares are pretty intense,” you played along, “ready for today?”

Dean nodded and got out of your bed but stopped at the doorway and turned towards you.

“If you want to talk to me about your nightmares, I'm here for you, sweetheart,” he gave you a small smile.

You both got freshened up and Dean offered to cook you breakfast. You came down to the kitchen after some time to find Dean setting a plate of homemade waffles on the table.

“Smells nice in here,” you said.

“It tastes even better,” Dean gloated.

“Okay smartass,” you mumbled and sat down at the table. You ate a piece of the waffle.

“God Dean, these are so good,” you moaned, “you are an amazing cook.”

“I know,” Dean chuckled when you kept moaning after eating every piece of the waffle. You looked up at Dean and saw the tips of his ears had turned bright red and he was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. You immediately became embarrassed when you realised what you were doing. Your face became hot with embarrassment.

Dean cleared his throat and got up from his chair.

“I am going to take a shower,” he said.

“But you didn't eat your waffles.”

“I-uh,” he cleared his throat once again, “I'll eat those later.” Dean left the room in a hurry. You kept eating your breakfast in silence and decided to take a shower and get ready for the day after you were done with your food.

You went up to your room and grabbed a pair of fresh pants and a sweatshirt. You made your way towards the bathroom but before you could go into the shower, you collided with Dean, falling ungraciously on your ass.

“Shit, sorry,” he said and extended his hands at you.

You looked up at Dean and swallowed hard. He was shirtless and only in a towel. He had just come out of the shower and his hair was still wet, tiny droplets of water lining his hair and chest. You grabbed his hand and he pulled you up to your feet.

“Sorry, fault’s all mine. I-” your eyes travelled down to his body. You saw him smirk a little. That cocky bastard.

“My eyes are up her L/N,” Dean said.

“I-I should go,” you said, picking your belongings up from the floor and going to the bathroom.

The rest of the day until the party started was uneventful. You lazed around the house, occasionally asking about each other's lives and discussing about the case. Dean said since he was ‘the best husband in the world’ - his words, not yours- he would cook for the guests and you agreed with him, knowing you were a terrible cook yourself.

It was almost an hour before the party started, so you decided to start dressing up for the party. You decided to keep it simple and also because you had one dress with you. You chose a navy blue cocktail dress and paired it with some blue earrings. You looked at yourself in the mirror and your attention went to the diamond ring on your finger. It was for a job, but it still felt weird to look at the ring.

“You ready?” Dean knocked on your bedroom door.

“Yeah.”

“People have started to co-” Dean's words got stuck in his throat as he let his eyes roam your body.

“You,” Dean cleared his throat, “you look beautiful sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” you bit your lip to stop the blush which was threatening to spread on your face, “I'm almost done.”

You gave the final touches to your makeup - you chose to go for a light makeup. You took your phone from the nightstand and stepped your foot out of the room but was immediately pulled back by Dean, turning you around so fast that you almost had whiplash.

“Sorry, didn't mean to surprise you,” Dean said, “we are newly married, we should be a little handsy - honeymoon phase, as they call it. Maybe we have to kiss when we are downstairs,” Dean reasoned.

“Okay,” you said, nodding your head.

You left the room, swaying your hips a little but you couldn't hear the groan that left Dean’s lips.

“Hey gorgeous! You look lovely,” Meg exclaimed and pulled you into a hug as soon as she saw you coming down the stairs. That girl was such a hugger.

“Thanks Meg. Right back at you.. Where's Cas?” You asked looking around the room.

“Looking for me?” Cas popped up behind you, startling you, “you guys got yourself a lovely home.”

“Thank you guys!”

“Hey! Sorry but can I borrow Y/N for a second?” Dean came down the stairs and asked your neighbours.

“Yeah sure, Campbell,” Cas said and you followed Dean into a secluded corner of the house.

Let me know if you want to be tagged in the series!

Feedback is appreciated!

[todoshotoki]

𝙋𝘼𝙄𝙍𝙄𝙉𝙂: todoroki shoto x reader

𝙏𝙍𝙄𝙂𝙂𝙀𝙍 𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂: mentions of anxiety, anxiety attacks, mentions of past abuse, thoughts of suicide

𝙎𝙐𝙈𝙈𝘼𝙍𝙔: where your sweet sixteen isn’t as sweet as you thought it’d be

𝙒𝙊𝙍𝘿 𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙉𝙏: 2.6K

𝘼𝙐𝙏𝙃𝙊𝙍'𝙎 𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙀: these are my raw emotions from last night and i wrote this to cope. these situations are very much real to me and what happened to me the day before posting this so please be kind about it. i’m still trying to recover.

you were turning sixteen. the day you had been anticipating had finally come and you could barely sleep the night before.

your parents had offered your boyfriend, shoto todoroki, to accompany you for breakfast to celebrate your birthday. he, of course, accepted and pushed everything else that he had to attend to on that morning for you.

you got up early, dancing and skipping around your dorm room while picking out clothes. you had clothes you had never worn since you bought them and you were ready to show the world that you had been confident enough to wear them. you were humming while doing your makeup when three knocks were heard from your door.

you stop contouring your cheeks to get the door. your lover was standing at your door with a small bag in hand, presumably a gift. “happy birthday, (y/n),” he pecks you on the cheek and pulls you into a hug.

“thank you, sho, you’re so sweet,” this makes the boy’s eyes light up as he had passed the gift onto you. you had known how much he was trying to be more openly emotional so little phrases like that were sure to make him happy. “should i open it now or later?” you ask him, sitting back down at your vanity.

“you can open it now if you want. i personally think it would go well with what you’re wearing.” he says, giving you a hint as to what it could possibly be. you spare him a smile before unraveling the decorative paper to take out a black small box with a red and white bow on it.

you grinned at the little detail and untied the bow. you lifted the lid of the box with a gasp and took out the expensive earrings you and shoto had seen while window shopping in shibuya a few weeks back. he remembered you looking at it and wanting to buy it but taking a glance at the price and turning away almost immediately.

“you didn’t!” you swoon over the accessory, holding it up in the air. a subtle smile curled up on shoto’s lips as he saw you try them on. and they did in fact match what you wearing. you turn to him and give him yet another hug which was just as warm as the first, “thank you so much!”

“anything for you, baby,” his grin becoming wider, completely feeding off the praise you were giving him. “i’ll finish my makeup and we’ll be out of here, hold on,” you spin back around to look at the mirror.

the two of you soon head out the door to the common room. it was still rather early so only the early birds were up. “(y/n)-chan, hey! happy birthday!” izuku waves to you from his place on the couch next to tenya. “yes, happy birthday, (y/n)! i hope you two have fun and stay safe!” tenya calls right afterward. “thanks, you guys!” you call back before stepping into the elevator with your boyfriend.

“are you as excited as i am?” you ask shoto, rocking your body from your toes to your heels as the doors close. “more like nervous,” he sighs, scratching the back of his neck. “don’t worry, you’ll be fine! they loved you the first time and they’ll definitely still like you this time.”

you two walk out to the more populated areas in musutafu. you were meeting up at an american style diner and shouto had a bad of picky eating so you had chosen here on purpose. at first, he wanted whine and protest but you had brought up the point that “if you two were going to be dating then he couldn’t just live off of soba.”

once you had spotted your parents, you caught on quickly to the fact that they didn’t bring anything as a present. you ignored it, maybe it would show up later...

“(y/n)! shoto-kun! you’re finally here.” your mother clasped her hands in excitement. your parents were seated at a booth and the waiter must have did her round and asked if they wanted any drinks so there were two glasses of water in front of you.

“hi, mom! hi, dad!” you sat down closest to the window while shoo bowed in greetings to your parents before sitting down.

your parents continued to make small talk varying between the food and your school life. the whole time you were smiling, this year was so much different from the others.

your parents weren’t huge fans of celebrating birthdays and often treated them like normal days besides a gift so going out today was definitely a change of atmosphere.

“americans eat a lot, no wonder, (y/n) picked this place.” this remark from your mother made your smile falter a little bit but not too noticeably as you fiddled with your straw. shoto had scowled at the woman, but calmed down and started a conversation just between you and him.

once you all had finished eating, your dad got up and said, “well, i’m going back to work,” your raise an eyebrow, “already?” your smile almost faded this time. “i have to go run errands as well,” your mother says trailing behind your dad to head to her car.

“but-” you cut yourself short, sighing a bit to yourself, you were planning to take pictures with all three of them but your parents just rushed to disappear from this event completely. they hadn’t even thought to buy you a birthday present.

“don’t be upset, i’m here,” shoto caresses your cheeks knowingly, “we can go shopping if you’d like?” you shake your head at this. “it’s okay, sho,” your eyes dart away from his gaze of white and blue, “i’m not going to let it get to me. plus you have spent way too much money.” you say referring to the earrings that were dangling at the side of your cheeks.

“well, i could always use my dad’s card,” he wiggles his eyebrows uncharacteristically making you chuckle and hit him playfully. “pfft- no! let’s go back to the dorms.” he caved in, muttering some nonsense about wanting to make his father bankrupt which you just shake your head to.

you walked to the train station and took the first train back to u.a. amidst the train ride, you had gotten a message. it was one of many. it was an unsaved number and you assumed that it was was one of your old friends from middle school or something. you opened up the chat log.

the texts and calls all day had made you happy. people actually cared about you?

you checked the suggested name and your heart sunk so low in your stomach that you swore you were suddenly falling. you felt your blood begin to pump in your ears.

you felt a hand on your’s to which you flinched to. “hey, what is it?” shoto whispers, massaging your hand with his thumb, he didn’t want to peer at your phone for the sake of privacy. you just shook your head and shut off your phone. with trembling fingers and jagged breathing, you had put the phone in your bag.

you were not okay.

you were definitely not okay.

how could they do that to you? how could they do that so easily?

“i’ll be fine shoto, there’s nothing to worry about,” the use of his full name and the harshness in it made him looked like he had been kicked. his gaze almost made you want to crumble. it made your heart sink further and further and your nerves started to flare up again.

how could you possibly explain this to shoto?

oh, my abusive ex, just wished me happy birthday so i’m flipping out even though i haven’t seen them in two years and i still haven't recovered cause i haven't been treated or medicated for the trauma because my parents refuse to???

yeah right.

you became nauseous as the train movement was pushing you to the edge. everything they had done to you was manifesting once again and the shock was slowly spreading and decaying each and every one of your abilities to function. 

your muscles in your face felt heavy. you were aware every ounce in your body and how much effort it took to lug it around.

you were supposed to be happy today. it was your day.

what seemed to be something had just turned into nothing in the matter of moments. who knew a two letter phrase could fuck you up so easily.

you talked a lot with shoto for the remainder of the time left. you held his hand but you couldn’t feel your fingers, the buzzing of disassociating completely was crawling up on you and you wanted nothing but to scream.

it’s okay. you still got the cake, right? everyone in class 1a would love to share cake with you and shoto. you haven’t had a celebration with cake in so long that it became your only hope at this point.

but a part of you knew that this was another way of your brain coping with the stress. nobody had bought the cake for you. nobody had bough the candles for you. nobody had noticed it was your birthday until you took the initiative to tell them the day before. you were all doing this because nobody actually ca-

don’t think about that.

it was your birthday.

you were happy. you were happy.

your forced a smile on your lips as you trudged along the sidewalk to the dorms. everything was so heavy. you set it aside as the lack of sleep you were getting. you had to put more concealer under your eyelids this morning to cover up the dark circles.

it was that it was definitely that.

...

as the day drew to a close, you were still in your room from when you arrived at noon. you sat in your bed alone. you couldn’t bring the courage to ask your classmates to join you anymore.

you had kicked your sheets off your bed, blasting the air conditioning and sat upright to just feel something. 

you wanted to tear your skin a part, you wanted to shred every emotion you felt right now into shreds. the pulsating agony of the thoughts that nobody cared just triggered tears to well up in your eyes.

the stupid birthday cake.

you had built a realty that you wanted to come true but it was always to good to be true for you, wasn't it?

yes, you had gotten birthday wishes but your parents seemed like everything to you. they criticized and nagged you for things you took pride and joy in. they told you over and over that you were eating too much, too little, talking too loud, too much.

everything was wrong with you and if everything was wrong with you then they were all pretending.

they didn’t care. they never cared.

that’s why you sat there lighting your own dumb ass store bought cake with cheap ass flavorless frosting and spongy cake batter.

what were you trying to prove to yourself?

were you trying to prove that you were mentally stable? that you had people in your corner? let me tell you that was delusional thinking.

crying yourself to sleep on your birthday wasn’t something that you had thought would happen. it was supposed to be special. it was supposed to be different.

it was the first year where you thought you had friends and you weren’t being yelled at and hurt but even then nothing had changed. the ghost of trauma still loomed over your head.

nobody believed you, nobody would ever believe you, you had no bruises to show for it, no broken bones, just a twisted up mentality.

“sho...,” you whimper as the shivering wouldn’t ever stop. you felt your eyes well up in tears and just let them silently cascade down your face.

they looked so disinterested. they all could care less.

a few knocks at your door. “hey, (y/n)?” you heard softly at your door. it was izuku.

you didn’t want to answer. you bit down on your lip so the sobs wouldn’t start up again. it soon became almost too much as your chest tightened.

you covered your mouth as more and more tears streamed down your face and your body failed to take oxygen into your lungs.

maybe dying wasn’t that bad?

fuck, you were being so overdramatic.

“(y/n), we know you’re there...” another voice calls from your door. this time it was ochako. you still didn’t want to answer.

“just leave me alone,” you gasp out to yourself since you highly doubted that they would be able to hear you.

it hurt so bad being so alone. 

no matter how much time you spent. no matter how much love and affection was thrown your way it all seemed so fake.

another voice, “c’mon, (y/n), if you won’t answer them. can you answer me?” it couldn’t be other than your boyfriend’s. this made you feel torn between just sitting here and going to the door.

your feet carried you to the door. only shoto stood there now looking at the ruined makeup on your cheeks. “baby...” his soft voice was all it took for you to start ugly crying.

sobs and wails escape your lips and he close the door behind him, hushing you as he takes you into his arms. “you’re okay, it’s going to be okay.” he leads you to your bed and helps you lay down next to him.

between the combing through your hair with his fingers and the kisses that he left on your forehead, your anxiety soon slowed.

“listen to me, okay? whatever you’re thinking right now and whatever you’re doubting right now is all untrue. everyone loves you and even if some things didn’t work out, there’s always a next time, remember?” he hums, transferring some of his quirk to his fingertips to ground you a little bit more than just the sheets underneath you two.

“i’ll be okay, right?” you mumble, moving your ear to his beating heart.

“yes, of course, you will. we all have got you.” he hugs you a bit tighter for a moment, “it’s okay to cry. you’ve been through a lot. those feelings are valid and you will be able to conquer them eventually with one step at a time.”

you both laid their in silence intertwined. you inhaled the smell of peppermint from his shirt and finally said something.

“can i tell you something?” you ask him lowly. you could already feel the burning in your throat. “anything you want, sweetheart,” he nods. “well- um- i was mistreated... badly in the past.” you felt your voice start to fade with the words. you cleared your throat and punched your chest to get that choking feeling out.

“i don’t like saying it was this bad out loud because it sounds so stupid but i was manipulated and...” you trailed off into tears as your crying started up again. you felt his body run cold for a moment but he quickly recovered. “it’s okay, it’s okay, don’t worry... you don’t have to explain anything to me right now.”

you nod and sniffle, “okay... then i would like to tell you later,”

“alright, remember, i’m right here and i’ll never leave,” he hums, wiping away your tears, “rikido made a cake for you, do you still want to celebrate?”

this made a smile manifest on your lips, “of course!”

[mattzerella-sticks]

🌊What the Water Gave Him 🌊

Destiel-centric finale spec based on a post I made earlier, found here

Can be read on ao3 here

It was over. Chuck lost, Sam and Dean can live their lives how they want them. But their victory wasn't without losses. The biggest upset nearly taking Dean out of the game, happening so close to the final battle. Now he's on the other side, alive against all odds, but Sam knows he isn't happy. Not truly happy since the Empty stole his best friend.

But there's a chance they can save him. A slim chance. A risk that Dean's willing to take despite every logical nerve in Sam's body screaming at him to look for better options. That threading a needle this small is too dangerous. That they don't have to take on another big bad, not anymore. That they don't have to risk their lives anymore. Dean is far past the point of listening. Dead set on this mission, Sam can only watch.

And pray his brother proves him wrong.

           He stands along the water’s edge, gentle waves lapping the rocky shore. Barely licking at his boots while he gazes upon the beautiful, blue stretch of lake. Sun hanging low on the horizon, sky a far deeper color of orange than earlier.

           They’ve been at this for over an hour.

           Sam glances behind him, skin crawling as he sees nothing changed since last he looked. Jack stationed on one edge of the circle, Michael at the other. Dean between them, his eyes closed. Lying deathly still over the sigils scratched into the earth. His skin pale, and both hands tightly clasped around tan fabric folded over Dean’s lap.

           He hates this. What Dean’s doing. That Sam cannot help. And how it’s their only option.

           Jack saw this once before. A variation of it, actually. “When I killed Nick,” he said, handing out copies of photographs he printed out amongst their little group. “I found him in the middle of resurrecting Lucifer –“

           “If he just had a little more patience,” Dean sneered. “Chuck could’ve saved him a whole lot of effort, though I’d doubt it’d end any differently.” Adam nodded at Dean’s side, studying his copy with interest like Sam did. Trying to identify the scene Jack captured. Dean continued, not even addressing the image. “Do you think this can work?”

           “Given who we’re doing this for, no,” he admitted, “the spell Nick found would only open a portal to the Empty, wake Lucifer up. It would then be up to him to cross over, and with his amount of power that wouldn’t be difficult.” Jack then opened the book he brought, pushing it into the middle of the table. Pointing at an illustration. “But I think I can modify it. Although…”

           Sam set the photo down, facing Jack. “What is it Jack?”

           “I… well, it’d be very complicated,” he started, not meeting Sam’s gaze. “For it to work, me and Michael would need to use all of our power.”

           “To wake Cas? Jack, you did it before –“

           “When the Empty was asleep,” Jack said, “when they weren’t expecting it. When Cas hadn’t already ticked them off… they’ve already lost him once.”

           “And they won’t be keen on losing Cas again,” Dean added. A storm darkening his hooded stare. Sam watched him sink into his seat, memories from that awful night weighing on Dean. It haunted him, too. Finding Dean curled around himself the next morning, unresponsive, incoherently mumbling about their friend. Shoulder stained with dried blood. In time, he recovered as he always did. Sometimes though Sam feared he’d turn and there Dean would be. Shattered completely with no chance of putting those pieces together. Stuck in that helpless ball, trembling. Forever praying. That’s not the case now. No sign of careful fragility anymore, the storm passing. Back ramrod straight Dean carelessly flicked the photo away. “What else you need?”

           “Ingredients that we have here at the Bunker, I’m sure,” Jack continued, “a nice open space where we can perform the ritual. Something that belonged to Cas, that will resonate with his unique wavelength. And finally…” he trailed off near the end, faltering.

           “Jack,” Sam said, “What else?”

           “One of us would have to go in,” he told them, “but… there’s a chance they might not come back.” For the first second, there’s silence. The next –

           “Jack, there has to be –“

           “I’ll do it.”

           He whipped his head towards him, scowling at the grim determination of Dean’s face. Lips thinned in a small line. Brows bent aggressively. An expression that appeared whenever Dean grabbed onto the most idiotic, suicidal thought he had and stubbornly refused to surrender. He’d refuse any option other than what he decided. Arguing with him when he’s like that was impossible.

           Sam tried regardless.

           “There has to be another way,” Sam whispered, both men waiting as Jack and Michael recreated Nick’s sigil-work in the dirt. Leaning against Baby’s frame, drinking in silence. “Billie always threatened she’d throw us in there one day, why don’t we ask her –“

           “She’d never agree to it, Sammy. Too messy.” Dean wouldn’t look at Sam. Not since he exploded on Dean back at the Bunker. Called him selfish, that the last thing Cas wants is Dean endangering himself. His tantrum earned Sam a swift right hook he still has the bruise from, cheek mottled blue and green. Dean’s knuckles newly scabbed. “Billie plays by the universe’s rules… and we make our own.”

           “Yes, finally. Rules we fought so hard to make, I…” Sam sighed, “we were finished, Dean. No more big risks. We won. Facing the Empty… there’s no do-over button if you get stuck there.”

           “I’m okay with that.”

           “And yet you’re still doing this?”

           “It’s like I told you Sam,” he said, finally deigning Sam with a frigid glance. Steely resolve sharpening it, cutting through him. “Have been telling you. You don’t have a clue what’s really going on. If you knew… you’d see there’s no risk at all.”

           Sam’s temper flares now, pain edging his vision. “Then let me in, Dean. Tell me. Why are you so afraid of –“

           “I’m not afraid –“

           “You clearly are,” he hissed, “otherwise you wouldn’t be throwing yourself into another near-death experience instead of having a simple conversation with me.” Sam reels his anger back, softening. Pleading. “I want Cas here as much as you do, Dean. But there has to be another way.”

           Dean drained his bottle and then threw it. Far enough so when it exploded the glass wouldn’t touch them. “If it were Eileen stuck in there,” he said, “you’d know there wasn’t.”

           He paused. “Eileen? What’s that have to –“

           Jack called, saying they were ready. Dean stalked off towards them. Sam left behind in his confusion. “Do you have the anchor?”

           “Right here.” He showed Jack the trench coat, grip on it gentle like if he squeezed any tighter Dean might rip it. “Where do you want me?”

           Sam remembered Dean rambled on about its sturdiness. Boasting how he gassed the store clerk with half-truths to not draw suspicion when asking after ‘protective outerwear’. Buying it because he noticed a tear along the seam of Cas’s armpit. “I thought he’d stitch it up,” Dean laughed, whipping his purchase like a cape. Playing with it. Sam chuckled at his brother’s antics. “But he just shrugged and carried on like it was nothing. I asked him why he left it and he tells me that it’d be a waste of his grace.”

           “Then why didn’t you mend it for him?”

           “…What?”

           “Come on, Dean,” Sam said, “you’re a master with the needle. And I’m not talking about sewing gashes… do you recall the Luke Skywalker costume you made me from those stolen motel bed sheets?”

           Dean blushed, “I was just a kid then, Sammy…”

           “Still the best costume, better than any of those store-bought ones at school.”

           “Well… maybe I didn’t want to fix it,” he said, “that’s why. I mean… sure I could’ve. But then he’d rip it again and… it’s not like he can’t have another jacket! Cas needs a little more variety.”

           Sam snorted. “Yeah, because a slightly lighter brown is really crazy for him. What’s he even gonna do with it?”

           “Wear it?” Dean said, “Or… put it away, keep it here. Dude’s been living with us this long and how much stuff does he own? It might not be a huge change but it’s… it’s a start, Sam.”

           Dean was right in buying it. Ransacking Cas’s room, there wasn’t anything they could use for the spell save for the single, untouched trench coat hanging in his closet. As Sam leaves that memory, he realized too late the others began without him. Jack and Michael knelt like statues. His brother had left for the Empty.

           And he’s still there.

           Helpless while Dean pokes the bear in his cave. Sitting on the sidelines as he faces down an extraordinary being with limitless powers, like beating Chuck wasn’t pure luck. Like any of their efforts left a scratch on him. It was a group effort, what little remained of their family pitching in. Sending Chuck onto his next project. But this… it was just Dean. He was alone. And worse… Sam thinks his brother wanted it that way.

           If it were Eileen stuck in there, you’d know it wasn’t.

           When he wasn’t worrying about Dean, Sam mulled over his parting message. Trying to fit together the pieces Dean gave. He suspects it’s a simple picture. A niggling sense at the base of his skull tells Sam that the answer is clear. It always was. Except he looked past it, over and over, again and again. Never seeing the truth of it. Of Dean and Cas. Without either of them here, where he can observe them one more time – careful, in a way Sam hasn’t before – Sam doubts he will uncover much of anything.

           At least it distracts him from Dean. Until it doesn’t.

           Dean gasps, lurching forward. Coughing, spitting up bile and gagging on air. Michael collapses, exhausted. Jack almost follows but overcomes his dizziness. Sam, the only unaffected one, dashes towards. Rubs Dean’s back while he works through his nausea. How Dean lets him either shows he’s too woozy to know it’s him, or the earlier animosity was forgotten. As Dean claws at his shirt, gasping, repeating his name, Sam guesses the latter. “Yes, Dean?” he says, “What is it?”

           “Cas,” he says, voice hoarse and raw, “Where… where is he?”

           There weren’t any portals. Nor did a star shoot downwards from the sky. Their friend had not even blinked into existence with a smile and a familiar rumble.  “Cas,” Sam sighs, “Cas. Dean, I don’t think –“

           “Cas.”

           He scrambles to his feet, knocking Sam onto the ground. Dean runs across the shore and, when he reaches the lake, wades in. Fully dressed, madly waving the trench coat. Sam yells, but Dean ignores him. Hellbent on drowning himself.

           Except Sam misses it, again.

           Someone meets Dean halfway. Breaking through the lake’s surface, swimming to where the water rests above their waists. Drags his brother into a hug, spinning him. With raven hair, tanned skin, and blue eyes crinkled with joy and life and love. “Cas,” Sam says, “it’s… it worked?”

           “Of course it worked,” Jack says, “This is Dean and Cas.”

           Maybe Sam understands because of the off-hand way Jack spoke about the two men. Or, more likely, it’s when Cas – wrapped in the trench coat Dean bought him – sweeps Dean into his arms and kisses him. Dean melts under his touch, responding with an excitement that had been absent when Chuck left them alone for real. It doesn’t matter how. He finally gets it.

           Dean and Cas… they get their happy ending.

[oopshidaisyy]

July Fic Recs

a little late but here we go!

praying for sparks in the dark (in the heart) by susiecarter "Him," the Bat repeats, in a low and deceptively soft growl. "I don't know who he was," the man says immediately, taking this cue and running with it. "I don't, honest. Honest, I swear to god. Nobody did. He just showed up, that's all. Asking about you, asking everybody what they knew, if they'd ever seen you, what you'd done. Metropolis," the man adds belatedly. "He had that look, you know? Clean. Said his name was—Carr, or Kemp, or something. Something like that." (Or: in a universe where Bruce becomes aware that someone's looking into the Batman, he goes to the effort to track down Clark Kent. It doesn't play out quite the way either of them expected.) Clark/Bruce, 20k, E

having let go forever the fallacy of ever being alone by gyzym This time there are shitty dogeared paperbacks Arthur wouldn't be caught dead reading piled on the coffee table, and half-finished crosswords tucked into the bookshelves, and the far wall is hung with that tapestry they'd bought in a shit part of London on a whim. This time they've spent all day fixing their sink and there's a mug of yesterday's tea sitting on top of the television and it's not just Arthur's living room at all. Arthur/Eames, 16k, E

A Sure Thing by lightgetsin "Okay," Peter says, and there's a rasp in his voice. "Repeat after me: theft is not foreplay." Neal/Peter, 3k, E

perfect strangers by susiecarter Batman and Superman are fucking. Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are a great cover for fighting crime, and also might be dating. Bruce and Clark have no idea what they're doing; but they definitely aren't going to be able to talk themselves into stopping. Clark/Bruce, 15k, E

run to the river (dive in) by susiecarter MoS AU: With one successful fishing season already under his belt, Clark's finally getting comfortable on the Debbie Sue. He just wishes this guy Dixon hadn't signed on with them, because the way he watches Clark is really starting to give Clark the creeps. (Or: Bruce goes undercover looking for enhanced individuals before BvS instead of after—and finds one.) Clark/Bruce, 5k, M

Took Me By Surprise and Then by thehoyden After the second surgery in New York, Charles doesn’t anticipate anyone keeping vigil by his bedside — and certainly not Tony Stark. Charles/Erik, 5k, T

as to which may be the true by susiecarter It isn't difficult to go on in the wake of Superman's death. His resurrection, though, poses a problem—especially when it turns out there's no such thing as the right moment to explain that Martha Kent's obnoxious billionaire friend? Is also the man who tried really hard to shove a kryptonite spear through Clark's face. Clark/Bruce, 53k, M

Blue Devils by VillaKulla /blo͞o ˈdevəl/ noun, inf: a feeling of despondency, depression, or low spirits origins: Old American West Billy/Goody, 4k, M

Spree by thingswithwings "So, okay, Britta," Annie says, "this thing you gave me is seriously just a scrap of ripped looseleaf that says 'IOU one shopping spree at A Woman's Touch.' I do not even know what that is." Britta does an excited little leap in the air and claps her hands. "It's me deciding to help you discover your true womanhood." Britta/Annie, 4k, E

embroidery appreciation by Annie D Written for an anon on tumblr who requested Natasha and Tony as brotp, or Steve/Tony being schmoopy in love. This is a bit of both. Tony & Nat, 1k, T

and every map is blank by gyzym It's -- topography, Carlos thinks, of a person, of two people, it's so complicated, it's so much easier to just go it by yourself. He doesn't want to hurt Cecil but he doesn't want to keep any part of himself from Cecil, either, and it scares him that that's true, and it scares him to know it's what Cecil wants. Carlos/Cecil, 7k, T

trothplight by arriviste “What a metaphor,” Grantaire said bitterly. “I may dress your windows, but no more. We’ll greet each other in the streets, but you won’t admit me to your chambers or your hearts. I know all the words, all the empty speeches one needs to mouth for membership – I can rattle them off as well as you. Want me to prate Hébert or praise the Supreme Deity? Quote Rousseau or Marat? I can mum them; I don’t, because I don’t mean them, and because I’m an honest sceptic, I’m untrustworthy.” Enjolras/Grantaire, 4k, E

A-Wing, X-Wing, Y-Wait, B-Mine (Please) by ester_inc Finn keeps finding himself in situations where – no, wait, let's start over. Poe keeps ending up shirtless, nearly shirtless, or soaking wet, and somehow Finn is always there when it happens. The universe is either taunting him with what he can't have or rewarding him for good behavior, and Finn can't decide which is more likely. Either way, he's emotionally unprepared for, oh, let's be honest here: Poe's entire existence. It's fine. No big deal. He's working on it. Finn/Poe, 7k, E

Just Give Me Moments by barricadeur Enjolras comes home from a protest to a not-empty apartment. --- "What happened?" Grantaire says. His other hand grips Enjolras's shoulder, as if to keep him from pulling back, but Enjolras is so tired that the energy necessary to break away seems monumental. He lets Grantaire inspect him, says only, "I hit my head." "On someone's fist?" Enjolras/Grantaire, 1k, T

The Rare Gift by triedunture The prompt was "Dean receives an . . . unusual . . . Christmas gift from Castiel." The gift turns out to be wings. Dean/Cas, 4k, M

i love you now like i loved you then (this is the road and these are the hands) by theappleppielifestyle Somewhere in their phone calls after Derry 2.0, Richie and Eddie had decided to finally take that road trip. Richie would fly in from LA, then they’d drive back there from New York. It’ll be just like it could’ve been, Richie had said once. (Or, Eddie and Richie resume.) Richie/Eddie, 6k, M

i guess i should say thanks or some shit believe it or not, charles has a well-thought-out moral philosophy. he doesn’t follow it. but he has thought it out. alternatively: charles and erik douche it up in amsterdam. Charles/Erik, 17k, M

this is your sword, this is your shield by susiecarter Post-BvS, Diana and Lois start to develop a habit of protecting each other. But sometimes habits become ruts, and every now and then it's a good idea to break out of them. (Or: a whole bunch of times Diana and Lois looked out for each other, plus the time Lois ended up feeling like it might be worth it to be just a little less careful.) Diana/Lois, 9k, T

Family Portrait, c. 1840, oil on canvas by littlerhymes Lestat's latest favourite is a painter. Lestat/Louis, 2k, T

get religion quick (cause you’re looking divine) by brinnanza So it was fine. Even if Crowley couldn’t love him, he clearly liked him well enough, and that was almost the same thing. It no doubt would have continued to be fine, or at least fine-adjacent, were it not for a narrowly averted apocalypse and several bottles of a really quite nice Riesling Aziraphale had found in the back room of his newly restored bookshop. Aziraphale/Crowley, 4k, G