#they are just an average everyday run of the mill guy

[homosexual-fast-dancer]

[my-name-is-jefferooni]

Talking about the Chaotix Again at very very late hours in the night

It’s about to be midnight and it’ll probably be close to 1:00 AM by the time I finish this but I got a brain blast and it could not be left to die in my brain overnight as I slept so I’m bringing this motherfucking idea to light when I should very much be sleeping so I hope yall appreciate what I’m doing because only God knows how wrecked I’ll be in the morning or how long I’ll sleep in for.

(Pssst! Also check out my previous Chaotix analysis/ramble of sorts from like. A month ago. Still relevant to this post and acts as some extra context too.)

So, I decided to watch Adrenaline Dubs’s issue 17 dub, and there’s one thing I noticed during an exchange between Vector and Espio… I’ll get into the specifics of the exchange when I get to it because I gotta get to the additional context first!

The Chaotix, as I’ve pointed out beforehand in my previous analysis, are kind of just your average everyday family. Think Spy X Family, but they don’t really have any super secret identities to hide from each other and they’re all just young and dumb detectives trying to pay the bills. Thinking of them like this puts the Metal Virus into a much more tragic perspective than before, where they would’ve just been some of Sonic’s friends who just so happen to be the only ones who know the struggle of a shitty economy. Because now, if you take into account the fact that before meeting everyone in Heroes, these guys were just… A family. A ragtag, run-of-the-mill, silly and goofy family. Not related by blood, sure, but their bond was strong enough to call themselves a family even when they first met way back in Knuckles Chaotix! And ever since Heroes, they’ve just been trying to balance life, work, and fighting motherfucking eldritch horrors, demons, gods, mad scientists, and the like. Suffice to say, they ain’t really used to things such as the Metal Virus.

So, when it hits…

Their first reaction is to be skeptical or to panic. Charmy’s a very straightforward kid. He takes everything to heart and is way too pure for his own good, so naturally, he begins to panic! Espio also begins panicking, in his own way, as we see him begin to sweat and start thinking heavily about all the possibilities within like. Five seconds. Seriously, this mans needs therapy, his brain is working too fast for his emotions like Jesus Christ. And Vector… Well, Vector’s trying to stay calm. He’s not too worried, suggesting that they should all just wait for their next client, because the possibility of Eggman already being at their city was far too slim! While Charmy and Espio are so focused on the negatives, Vector is trying his hardest to not let this crisis get to his head. Because they surely have some more time, right? Surely, Eggman can’t already be here, right…?

He’s sorely mistaken when a Zombot then starts kicking down his door.

And suddenly he realizes that this is something much bigger than he initially anticipated.

Espio and Charmy immediately go on the offensive, but Vector stops them in a panic. His voice is tinged with terror and fear, something raw and sad in his voice that the other two can’t pinpoint. He grabs onto Charmy’s leg and screams at him to not touch the Zombots! If he does, he’ll be infected too, and that is the last thing Vector wants for his kid. Meanwhile, Espio is stricken with confusion, wondering why his kunai had no effect on the target…! Because that… That should’ve worked! It always worked! Even against Eggman robots! And then that’s when he realizes, when they ALL realize… That this isn’t just Eggman this time.

They run out of their home in fear, masking their terror with the noble deed of finding survivors. “Finding survivors…” They’ve never had to even suggest doing such a thing before.

Look at Vector right here. Yeah, I know, he looks pretty goofy holding that stop sign like that. But that’s kinda it, that’s the point! Vector is now resorting to ripping state property out of the ground, and using it as a weapon! Previously, he would’ve just used brute force, but now? He’s taking this seriously. Way more seriously than before.

And now we get to the exchange I mentioned at the beginning. Where Vector claims the docks are the best option. There’s an air of seriousness to it all, a clear lack of his usual goofiness and “Yeah sure it’s just Eggman” attitude. Vector genuinely cares right now, but most importantly, he’s taking it 100% seriously. Like he’s in a horror movie.

And, well, isn’t he? Aren’t they all technically in a horror movie at this point? So why not play the role as the heroes of the film? Why not act like the world is crumbling around them? Why not act like angsty, brooding teenagers in the 80’s? Why not pretend like they know what they’re doing?

The Chaotix are not used to any of this at all. They’ve never seen the horror films they watch actually come to life. It’s why they’re being so dramatic, like the world is ending right in front of their eyes, like they’re in a movie trailer or something! They’re putting up a front, pretending that it’s kinda like a movie of its own, and that the credits will eventually roll again.

They don’t have much hope, but they’d be damned if they didn’t use every last ounce of that hope to make it out of this alive. For Vector. For Charmy. For Espio. For each other. For Team Chaotix.

—

OKAY THANK GOD I GOT THAT DONE IN ONLY A HALF HOUR CUZ I DIDNT FINISH WATCHING THE DUB AND IM SURE THERE’S MORE TO COVER SO I CAN STILL DO IT TOMORROW LET’S GOOOOOO

Thanks for reading! Hope that was enjoyable! I’m having fun with adding all these screenshots to my analysis, it really adds a lot!

[ssaalexblake]

I love how Graham is just your average, decent, dude. He’s a retired bus driver, he likes to know he’s got food on him, play cards with his mates, make sure his grandson is okay! He’s like, not Flashy human, he’s not super intelligent or in possession of any weird superpowers other than being Really friendly. He’s like, a super skilled information gatherer because he knows the people you ask about things are the ones people see everyday but don’t take note of, he Probably has a really good memory for routes and things as well, actually, because of the bus driver thing. 

But he throws 13 for a loop consistently because he is one of the most emotionally intelligent companions the doctor has ever had. He might not be able to tell you who Tesla is, but this guy can tell what you’re feeling without having to be in the room with you for more than 5 minutes. He’s also Brilliant at low key conflict resolution, i’ve been noticing on my rewatch that in tense situations he’s usually the one making very careful statements that are designed to diffuse a situation, and that’s got to be on purpose. He knows People. He’s the one who has been quietly and subtly stopping their conversations over s12 from devolving into arguments. 

He, also, Cares. He cares too much to not make sure people are okay. He cares about being a good enough friend that the master deliberately trying to sow seeds of doubt in him about the doctor really didn’t do anything. He cares about 13 enough that he’ll check on her and make sure she’s okay even if she’s being an obstinate Ass. 

He also extends his emotional health to Himself, which isn’t the most common trait in emotionally intelligent characters? He does not travel with the doctor to run away from his grief, he does so to help him through it, which is so vastly in contrast with everything the doctor does it’s kind of astounding. He talks about his worries and problems with his friends, doesn’t think he can just get through it himself and reaches for the support of those around him, thinks to include them in his life. 

It’s why he interacts with 13 the exact same way he does with everybody else tbh, no awe, just Friend. Also, i personally think he views her as a kind of an intergalactic time travelling bus driver... So Solidarity and all. It’s also why he manages to throw 13 so much sometimes, people reaching out and just trying to be an average run of the mill friend to the doctor isn’t a common occurrence, she’s not used to the slower more sedate side of friendship Graham offers her. 

Anyway, yeah, Graham is great and is underappreciated. 

[yuzukult]

i’m bad too 18 || kdy & reader

title: i’m bad too - drabble series pairing: kim doyoung x reader genre: angst, fluff, eventual smut, goodboy!doyoung, nerdy!dy (basically he’s a dork) & badgirl!reader, hitman!au, oc-isn’t-a-hitman-but-she-could-be!au, word count: 1.8k warnings: none for this chapter a/n: just two more chapters left to the end !! :D taglist: @wownajaemin​​​​ @crescent-iak​​​​ @ncttboo​​​​ @byunbaekby​​​​​ @jinfizz​​ @doyoungyoung​​ @ahgayeah0305​​ @doyobun​​ @sexualitaeyong​ @mrkleelvr​​ @m1ss-foodi3​​ @hcwurld​​ ← previous chapter || next chapter →​​

Doyoung’s favorite drink is caramel coffee.

He doesn’t like it hot—you recall him mentioning, he prefers it iced, and he finishes it so fast that the cubes don’t melt and condensation doesn’t drip off the sides of the plastic cup.

So you shouldn’t be surprised that he’s at this very café. Especially since it is his spot, but it also shouldn’t be news to you when you’ve come here everyday for the past two weeks in hopes of running into him.

You wonder how he’s been doing. It’s been months since you’ve last seen him; forever ago since you saw him with that girl Karina, and you’re curious if he thinks about you as often as you think about him. He’s on your mind daily, sometimes by the hour depending on what you’re doing, and he feels like a drug you can’t quite quit (despite the shortage of time you’ve done fine without him).

And you admit willingly that your feelings for him come rushing back the moment you see that pretty smile dressed upon his lips when he laughs from his chest at the video his friend shows on his phone.

But you continue to sit in the corner of the shop, face behind your device as if you’re immersed in the technology when you’ve got your eyes on him the entire time.

Instagram doesn’t do justice. You never know what he’s really up to, you learn, because his feed only shows the happy pictures he poses for. But his stories—you stay for that. There’s some nights you’d catch him posting something with a scenery, a little heartfelt description written along the horizon, and it gives you a glimpse of how he’s vaguely feeling. Maybe they’re for you, well, you were hoping they were, but for a guy who isn’t the greatest in the romance department, he’s very artistic, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it weren’t for you.

Maybe it was for Karina.

Okay, there might be a slight chance that you were bitter about that chick. She hung out with Doyoung often, from what you speculate, possibly involved in the same friend group, having mutuals together (which, already is how she’s so different from you). She roughly reminds you of that emotion that runs through your veins when you first saw Doyoung talking to Joy; that clenched jaw, tightened fist, and a deep swallow to push down all your anger. Joy was just a friend, and you eventually learned that without having to go the hard route, but Karina… didn’t give you any reason to believe her friendly motives. But Doyoung isn’t yours, you have to remind yourself, and because he isn’t, there’s no need to get upset.

For one, the times you followed (don’t judge, you missed him but didn’t want to approach him if he wasn’t ready) him, Karina always stuck to Doyoung like glue. She was practically joined by the hip; batting her pretty long lashes, cheeks brushed with that coral pink blush like she’s all embarrassed because sweet boy Doyoung accidentally touched the back of her hand, and whenever she got the chance, she’d hold onto his arm tightly, pretending that she couldn’t catch her balance in those Ultraboost sneakers that were basically socks on a sole with no support.

“Ugh, you always do this,” one of his friends says, loud enough that you could hear from where you’re sitting. “How do you manage to beat me every time?”

“I learned the tricks,” Doyoung retorts, voice stable but his face all smug. “Doesn’t look like you did though.”

The other guy rolls his eyes before tossing his phone onto the table. “Forget that dumb game. I’m actually curious about something,” he begins, leaning over with his forearms pressed against the surface. There’s a mischievous smile that tugs on the ends of his mouth, and you rest back in your seat in curiosity when his tone changes. “You and Karina. What are the two of you?”

You nearly snap the pen you’d been fiddling in your hand.

Fucking Karina. Again. This bitch just keeps being brought up, doesn’t she?

Doyoung shifts in his seat, hands with his phone dropping onto his lap. A brow quirks, narrowing a strange gaze at his friend. “Why are you asking?”

“Mmm, heard there’s rumors going around about Karina liking you.”

“And,” Doyoung takes a sip of his iced coffee. “Why’s that matter?”

The friend clicks his tongue, groaning that Doyoung isn’t picking up the not-so-subtle hints. “Because. Have you seen her? Or are you just blind. She’s smokin’ hot like… literally any guy would want to get with her. And you too, which is kinda crazy—”

“—is it impossible to believe that someone attractive can like me?”

“I mean, no offense Doyoung, you don’t exactly look like the type that would sweep those types of girls off their feet. You spent most of the time indoors! Watching movies, playing games, maybe sometimes you go out to clubs and parties but barely and it’s with our geeky friends. Even I can come to terms that I’m a geek. Jocks or bad boys are what she would be into.”

Doyoung sighs. “Where are you going with this?”

“You should date her. Since, you know, you have that chance.”

He shrugs, bending the straw of his drink like he’s occupied with something else that’s going on in his mind. He’s quieter than usual, especially around a friend, and it’s left you pondering what’s got him so tied up. But then, you hear it.

“I’m waiting for someone.”

His guy scoffs in belief. “You’re waiting for someone. Who? That chick you were having friends with benefits with like a year ago? Dude, she was also out of your league. Rode a motorcycle, didn’t talk to anyone, hot, and somehow you got her attention. But dude, she’s been gone for a while now.”

Doyoung purses his lips. “Told her to come to me whenever she’s ready. Karina and I don’t really have something like… that. Not worth dropping the chances of her coming back and seeing me with Karina.”

“She’s got you that bad?”

A soft smile pulls on his lips, and he nods confidently. “Yeah, she does.”

When Doyoung and his friend pack up their bags to leave, he halts in his tracks. “Actually, you head out first. I’ll meet you later tonight, I won’t be going to the pre-game.”

The latter stares at Doyoung suspiciously. “Really? What’s up with you? Thought you said you were tagging along.”

“Yeah but… I gotta do something real quick. I’ll meet up with you.”

Strange, you think to yourself, because Doyoung seemed like he was going to leave too, until that very last second. Then, you notice something. When his friend leaves through those double doors, he turns and looks directly at you.

At you. Like he sees you.

You’re not a ghost, but you’re pretty good at camouflaging yourself with a crowd. You’re not the prettiest nor the ugliest, so being average has an advantage in this field, but Doyoung isn’t like normal people. He sees you, and even though you’re in a black baseball cap with casual clothes to match, he still can spot you in a sea of people.

“You’re here,” he says, his tone between a question and a statement. Part of you expects him to be angry, fuming with rage because you’re here instead of asking him to meet up. “You’re… actually here.”

“I’m surprised you found me,” you retort, standing up from your seat and gathering up your belongings. “I thought I was good at blending with people.”

“I’m in love with you, you expect me to not see the girl I’m head over heels for?”

You pause.

Bag not even slung over your shoulder, your heart does the complete opposite of your motions and races. He what?

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Doyoung straightens his posture, trying his best to read the expression on your face. “Why… Why haven’t you called or reached out? Were you not ready until now?”

“I thought… you had a girlfriend,” you admitted, and truthfully, you’re not sure how Doyoung manages to get you to spill out your insecurities so easily. His eyes widened, and before he could say anything else, you interrupt his train of thought. “But that was months ago. It’s fine. I trained, and I’m back in the field, and I wanted to see how you were doing, that's all.”

“But you didn’t want to call me?”

You clear your throat, drifting your gaze elsewhere. “Like I said before. Thought you had a girlfriend. I don’t want to interfere with anything in your life that could be normal.”

He has a finger on your chin, directing your attention back to him. Your heart skips a beat this time, air sucked out of your lungs from his stare, and you swallow. “I waited for you, though. If you’re ready to come back, please come back. I have never dated anyone since I left your place, and I don’t intend to either. I made a promise and I’m keeping it.”

You hated reporting here.

There’s something ominous about this warehouse; it’s not just the people who occupy it, but it’s the building itself. Outside, it looks like an abandoned stone mill. Worn down walls, windows shattered, and located in a dangerous neighborhood, secluded from all the up-and-coming buildings that are being constructed a couple blocks down. The cars that came for drop off didn’t come here either, so it made the building even more mysterious and seemingly empty.

But the moment you stepped in the front doors—it’s like a factory.

A factory that manufactured everything from guns, grenades, to bombs, and so on. Everything that you wore on missions, everything you held between your fingertips, and everything you utilized in the field were all made here.

The headquarters.

Upon entering, you had to go through security. Guns are to be logged in, identities are checked through the system, quick but yet thorough pat down, and phones are chipped until you leave the premises. Needless to say, they were careful and even someone like you with so much skill and worthiness cannot go undetected here.

“Boss is asking for you.” A gorgeous girl says, clipboard in her arms. She’s got her hair tied in a low bun, glasses on with thick frames, and a pencil skirt to pair with her white blouse.

“I asked for boss, but yeah, that.”

She nods, bowing her head just slightly and you’re wondering how she even got in this field. Shy, quiet, and fragile, she seems, and you wonder if she knows what’s actually happening around here. “Please follow me.”

She takes you down a narrow hallway, far from where the other workers were posted, and takes you through these metal doors that looked too heavy for her to push, but the guards standing by the sides do it for her instead.

“Head on in. He’s waiting.”

“Right,” you gesture her a head nod in thanks.

Taeyong is seated at his desk, two additional guards standing on either side of the wood, and he’s fidgeting with the pen in his hand. “Lookie here. Our star player. Ten’s little sister. What do I owe the honor?”

“I want out.”

[pterodactylterrace]

Guys Like You Chapter 7

Title: Guys Like You

Chapter: 7

Chapter Summary: Just an ordinary Sunday

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Smut. Alcohol consumption. 

{Prologue} {Chapter 1} {Chapter 2} {Chapter 3} {Chapter 4} {Chapter 5} {Chapter 6}

Just an ordinary Sunday. An ordinary Sunday with nothing special about it what so ever. Just your average, everyday, run of the mill Sunday.

Oh, except for that 'date' Faye had been freaking out about for days now. She was acting like a teenager again, and worst still, she knew she was. Should she do something special with her hair? Should she bother with makeup? What if she ended up getting a surprise pimple? Most importantly, what was she supposed to wear? Would it be weird to just show up in regular clothes, or would it be weirder to show up over dressed? Sure, she could actually ask him like a reasonable adult, but she refused to admit ignorance of what dating looked like anymore, so here she was, an hour before she was supposed to leave, staring at her closet in absolute terror and confusion.

There was one last resource she hadn't tapped into just yet. Her trump card. Possibly her last line of defense to keep from looking like an idiot. Or more like an idiot, depending on how you look at the situation.

"Briar!"

"Mommy, why you nakie?" Briar giggled as she came toddling into the room at top speed, wrapping her arms around her mother's leg.

"I'm not nakie, I have my underwear on." Faye pointed out, rolling her eyes. This child of hers. "Do you wanna pick out what Mommy wears when we go see Henry?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Briar gasped, hurrying over to her mother's closet and surveying the items hung up. "This one's pretty!" Briar gasped, grabbing the skirt of one of the dresses hung up. All in all, not a bad pick. Casual enough to not look like she was trying too hard, nice enough that she didn't look like a slob. Briar to the rescue, once again. Now the only problem was getting it on. This particular dress was backless with a litany of different ties crossing each other to make it fit just right. She hadn't worn this dress since she'd moved across the ocean. Now she didn't have her trusty siblings to help her get it on right, and Briar didn't know how to tie anything.

It took some doing, a lot of wiggling, and a bit of compromise as far as fit went, but she did eventually get it on. She tossed a denim jacket on to keep her back somewhat warm, deciding to quit while she was ahead and leave before she continued fussing with her appearance even more. She had her daughter, dressed in a little tulle dress with her hair up in pigtails. As far as Faye was concerned, she had everything she needed.

Henry greeted her at the door with a brilliant smile, a button up that was crying for mercy and the smell of something delicious wafting from the kitchen.

"Kal!" Briar squealed, rushing past Henry to hug the fluffy dog.

"It's great to finally have you over." Henry greeted, pulling Faye in for a hug as soon as she crossed the threshold.

"Thank you for inviting us." Faye responded, stealthily breathing him in as she returned his affectionate gesture. Why did this man have to smell so good?

"Dinner should be done soon."

"It smells great. I didn't know you could cook."

"Well I didn't expect you to cook anything. Not after that baking disaster." Henry teased, raising a brow at her.

"Hey now, cooking and baking are two different things. Baking is a science. Cooking is an art."

"Is that just a nice way of saying you can't follow directions?"

"How very rude of you, sir. Throwing my inability to follow directions at me."

"May I take your jacket? Or are the directions for removing it too complicated?"

"So very mean." Faye grumbled, letting her jacket slide off her shoulders and passing it off.

"Oh, now that's a doozy." Henry murmured to himself, tilting his head and gently skimming his fingers over the artwork covering her back.

"That's my big one." Faye chuckled, turning more to let him get a better look.

"I'm looking forward to uncovering more." Henry whispered in her ear, gently squeezing her shoulders and sliding past her to hang her jacket up. That fucking tease.

Faye scooped Briar up and followed her nose to the kitchen, snooping around to see what was cooking. A few different pots and pans were on the stove, and something was cooking away in the oven. She curiously cracked the oven door open and looked in, groaning softly at the smell of roasting meat. Faye jumped when she felt a hand on her hip, the oven door snapping shut as she turned to see Henry's amused face looking down at her.

"Are you ladies having fun?"

"Brockey?" Briar asked hopefully, reaching over for Henry to take her.

"I didn't forget your favorite." Henry chuckled, taking the toddler in one arm and reaching for the chopped vegetable on the nearby cutting board with the other. "Now I don't have princess plates, but the table is all set if you two would like to have a seat." He instructed, passing the placated toddler back to her mother.

Faye seated her daughter first, shaking her head when she saw three wine glasses, two already filled with wine, one holding what appeared to be chocolate milk.

"I take it the milk is for Briar?"

"If she won't drink it, I will." Henry shrugged, shooting Faye a cheeky grin over his shoulder.

Faye seated herself next to her daughter, smoothing her dress beneath herself and trying not to fidget. Just because she was nervous, didn't mean she had to act nervous, right? Maybe a  few sips of wine would help settle her nerves.

Three glasses of wine and one amazing meal later, Faye found herself sitting on Henry's couch, My Little Pony playing in the background to keep the half asleep toddler entertained while his fingers drew light patterns along her shoulders and arms. Her head rested on his shoulder, reluctantly forcing herself to break the domestic spell they found themselves trapped in.

"It's getting late." Faye pointed out, shifting her head to look up at her host. "We should probably get going."

"I'm not so sure you should be driving." Henry pointed out gently, glancing at her almost empty glass of wine.

"Gonna drive us home, then?" Faye giggled, nuzzling against his shoulder.

"Why don't you two just stay here for the night? Briar is already about to fall asleep on the rug." Henry chuckled, nodding toward the half asleep child on the floor.

"I didn't exactly plan on a sleep over."

"I have a spare room."

"Briar still has accidents, though. I don't want her ruining your mattress. Wait... I think I still have some diapers in the car!" Faye gasped, her eyes lighting up.

"I'll run out and get them, where are your keys?"

"In my jacket." Faye mumbled after a second of thinking, scooting over to allow Henry to stand.

After Faye woke up the toddler and got her changed, Henry scooped the little girl up, carrying her down the hall to the spare room to tuck her in, plugging in the night light he'd bought when he'd learned about her fear of the dark. He hadn't ever exactly planned on them staying over just yet, but thought it best to take precautions to keep the child placated and in her own room if they ever did stay over.

"Now, where were we?" Faye purred after he had pulled the door closed, wrapping her arms around his thick neck and leaning up on her tip toes to kiss at his jawline, her fingers toying with the hairs at the back of his neck.

"Faye, slow down." Henry chuckled, gently taking her elbows and moving her back.

"You don't want to?" Faye asked softly, uncertainty and insecurity written all over her face, tugging harshly at Henry's heart. This definitely wasn't how he planned on this night going.

"Shh, no tears." He soothed, wiping at the moisture she didn't even know was collecting in her eyes. Even though she had braced herself for rejection around every corner, she still found her heart breaking at the reality of it. She knew better than to get her hopes up. She had told herself time and time again not to even entertain the idea, but their last evening together on her couch continued echoing hope in her mind.

"I-I'm so sorry." Faye excused herself, pulling further away from him, looking away to hide her flushed face.

"Hey, no." Henry corrected, pulling her in close again. "Faye, I want this. I want you. Believe me, I really do, but not like this."

"What do you mean?" Faye sniffled softly, still not looking up at him, settling for resting her head against his chest.

"You're not even fit to drive right now, Faye. I'd only be taking advantage of you." Henry explained, gently running his fingers up and down her spine. "And I'm not going to do that."

"What if I just jump you then?" Faye pouted, her hand sliding up his thick thigh, feeling  emboldened by his admission.

"Then I'd say it's a good thing I'm a big boy that can take care of myself." Henry chuckled, grabbing her hand and lacing their fingers together.

"So you won't let me have any fun?" She pouted, finally turning her face to look up at him.

"Not like this. We'll see how you feel in the morning. Now let's get you off to bed." With that he scooped her up, chuckling at her grumbled of protest as he carried her down the hall to his bedroom, her complaints about being able to walk falling on deaf ears.

"But I'm not tired." Faye yawned as her final act of unconvincing defiance, cuddling into his chest as he pushed the door open.

"I'm sure you aren't, but it's getting late." Henry soothed, setting her down on the edge of the bed to rummage though his drawers to find her something to wear. Surely she wouldn't enjoy sleeping in her dress, no matter how beautifully it hugged every curve.

"Come on, let's get this off." Henry encouraged, tugging at the hem of her dress.

"Oh, change your mind?" Faye giggled, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

"No, I just don't think this is too comfortable to sleep in." Henry chuckled, helping her to her feet and turning her around to better access the ties holding her dress in place.

"Wait." Faye suddenly protested.

"What's wrong?" His hands, froze, his eyes snapping up to look at the back of her head.

"I'm not wearing a bra." Faye mumbled, wrapping her arms around herself in a hug. Of course, now she's shy. How was this the same girl that was trying to grope him not ten minutes earlier?

"Promise I won't look." Henry chuckled, shaking his head at his fickle house guest as he finished untying her dress, Faye reluctantly letting it fall away, all the while feeling she should have asked him to turn the lights off first. She quickly grabbed the shirt off the edge of the bed and pulled it on, glancing over her shoulder to find he had turned around, eyes averted to the wall as he waited, just like he promised.

"Thank you." Faye mumbled, tugging at the hem of the shirt, wishing it were just a little longer. "You know, I'm not that drunk." She tried one last time. "I'm tipsy at best."

"It still wouldn't be right." Henry shrugged, moving around her to pull down the blankets and gently usher her into bed.

"Wait, you are staying with me, right?" Faye half yawned, turning her big doe like eyes up to him.

"I don't know, are you going to keep your hands to yourself, Miss Warren?" Henry teased.

"I'll be good. Just want a cuddle." Faye assured, snuggling back into the bed, watching his every move as he went about preparing himself for bed, stripping out of the too tight button down, tossing it into the laundry as he absently scratched at his furry chest. His pants quickly followed in suit before he shut the lights off and clambered into bed next to her. Normally he would sleep bare, but decided it wouldn't be the best idea given the current circumstances.

"Now remember, hands to yourself, Miss Warren." Henry reminded, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead. Faye cuddled into him and drifted off into a dreamless sleep, happily curled into his side and breathing him in with a small smile etched on her face.

The next morning, Faye woke up to someone breathing in her ear and a rather heavy arm slung across her chest. She shifted her leg and couldn't help but smile to herself when her thigh brushed against something hard, moving her leg against it again with more purpose, rousing the slumbering man next to her.

"Mmm, good morning." He hummed, cracking his eyes open, his hips rolling toward her probing thigh.

"You know, I'm not drunk anymore." Faye pointed out, squealing when she found herself suddenly trapped beneath him.

"Is that right?" He hummed, pressing gentle kisses to her neck and shoulder, letting one hand gently glide up and down her side, slowly lifting the hem of her improvised nightgown as he went. It would seem she found herself in the presence of a morning person. A very eager morning person, complete with morning wood. He sat back on his heels as he slid her shirt off, biting his lip and groaning softly at the first glimpse of her naked chest.

"Fucking gorgeous." He growled, leaning in and kissing her left breast tenderly, basking in her low whines, her legs wrapping around his waist as he caught her nipple in his mouth, gently flicking it with his tongue. So soft. So tender.

Slowly he slid further down her body, gently untangling her legs from his torso as he descended, leaving small kisses and nips along her stomach, Faye's increased breathing and soft whimpers only spurring him on. His eyes caught a small bit of color creeping over her left side, his attention instantly diverting to the artwork decorating her ribs. "A little mermaid." He chuckled, his fingers gently tracing the lines before pressing a quick kiss to it, not missing her ticklish squirm. That would be something to remember for later.

Henry continued his descent, his unshaved scruff eliciting a shiver as it drug along her sensitive skin, finally coming to a rest at her lacy panties, humming to himself in appreciation. He definitely was a man that enjoyed seeing his lady in lace. His fingers skimmed along the top of her panties, Faye gasping and fighting to stay still as he pressed a hot, open mouthed kiss to her still clothed mound.

"What are you doing?" Faye gasped, sitting up on her elbows as he slid her panties to the side, her chest heaving in anticipation as she met his gaze.

"Do you want me to stop?" He asked, raising a brow, his fingers gently tracing where her leg met her body.

"I... you don't... have to do... that."

"I want to." Henry explained, leaning in and licking a stripe up between her nether lips, a strangled gasp catching in her chest. He shifted between her legs, hooking her knees over his broad shoulders for better access, pressing an absent minded to kiss to the water colored artwork decorating her thigh. He would have to take a closer look at that later but for now, he was a man on a mission.

He delved back in, his tongue eagerly exploring her glistening petals, chuckling to himself when her hips bucked up into his waiting mouth.

"Oh, you are definitely going to be sitting on my face later." Henry hummed to himself, laying a thick forearm over her hips to keep her still. "But for now, let me do the work."

His lips sealed around her sensitive bud, sucking gently as his tongue worked over it, her hips jerking with every flick of his tongue. Her fingers tangled themselves in his untamed curls, her nails scratching at his scalp as she tried to pull him closer. More. She needed more.

He worked over her sensitive clit, moaning softly at the way she would tug on his hair, her legs clamping on his head when she moaned out his name, her hips spasming even under his restraining arm as she came hard on his waiting tongue. It would appear his lady was easy to please.

"Taste so good, Faye." Henry whispered, planting one final kiss to her soaked folds before carefully pulling back.

"That was amazing." Faye panted, releasing his hair with shaking hands to push her own sweat dampened strands from her face.

"Your pussy tastes so good." Henry praised, slowly crawling up her body, licking his lips lewdly as he stared down at her with lust blown eyes.

"Really?" Faye mumbled, her brows knitting together. "Every boyfriend I've had acted like that was a chore. That's why I said you didn't have to."

"They don't know what they're missing." Henry snorted, pressing his still clothed erection against her swollen, sensitive folds, his shoulders slumping when a faint crying met his ears.

"Shit, the baby." Faye groaned, her face falling.

"Go on, make sure she's ok." Henry relented, reluctantly removing himself from her.

"What about you?" Faye asked, already pulling the borrowed shirt back on.

"I'll be out once I calm down a bit."

"I'm so sorry." Faye sighed, squeaking in surprise when he playfully swatted at her backside when she slid out of bed.

"Go check on the baby, I'll be out in a bit." Henry dismissed, unashamedly staring at her ass as she headed to the door.

"Enjoying the view?"

"More than you know."

"One of these days, we are going to seal the deal, Mr. Cavill." Faye assured, giving him a pointed look as she slipped out the door.

"I look forward to it." Henry sighed to himself. Hopefully that day was going to come soon. The wait was killing him.

@Xxxkatxo @Weallhaveadestiny

[walker-journal]

Seeking Sanctuary (Bex + Adam)

Participants: Bexley Ochsenstein (Spellcaster by Envy), Adam Walker (Hunter by Tapir)

Context: Two very unlike people encounter each other at the temple, and voice mutual doubts in a discussion about the nature of faith and identity. 

Content Warnings: Religious Idealization, Discussions of Sexism and Transphobia (civil discussion), Mentions of post-traumatic stress and military conflict

Faith for Adam was a complicated subject. You’d think that knowing for certain that demons, life after death, magic, and souls existing would make faith easy. Adam technically knew the answers to alot of questions your average believer struggled with. There was no dread mystique to supernatural evil when your parents had taught you which tentaclely organs the laser beams came from. But that was exactly the problem.

Adam had grown up with Hell and all your worst nightmares simply being objective fact, an everyday reality that needed to be fought with tactics, technology, and sacrifice.

But although Adam was well acquainted with the forces of darkness, the supposed other side of the equation was very noticeably absent. Where was the Light in all of this? 

Being a practical dude, Adam would’ve normally just dismissed tangential stuff that didn’t help you in the trenches, as Dad had...except...Adam had also warded off plenty of spooks with sacred symbols and watched with his own eyes as holy water burned undead killing machines to sterile dust.

What was the creator smoking? Fuck if Adam knew.

Adam turned his gaze from absently contemplating The Ark whose displayed scriptural scrolls dominated the front of the synagogue. There weren’t alot of people here today, but Adam found a familiar face in the pews nonetheless.

“How goes it Odelia?”

Prayer was something Bexley had never really gotten the hang of. She knew all the prayers to recite during Yom Kippur and Passover. She had memorized the passages for her bat mitzvah, and she had memorized enough to get through Temple. But when it came to personal prayer, when it came to sitting in Temple alone and staring up at the alter and around the pews, Bexley had no idea what to do. She hadn’t figured it out in her twenty years of life, the disconnect from her faith a struggle. It was something her parents had noticed, but never pointed out, because Bexley tried-- oh did she try-- to connect with the world the way she knew they wanted her to. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want to or couldn’t, but, rather, that she felt so outside of it.

She was not born in the right body. Though the Torah made no mentions of people like her, the bittersweetness of it still tunneled her vision of it. How was she supposed to connect with something that wanted to pretend she didn’t exist?

But she wasn’t here today about that part of her. She was here today about the part of her that kept exploding things. Breaking them. Nell’s pot still sat heavy on her mind. It was a ridiculous thing to be kneeling in a pew about, but here she was. She wanted whatever it was to stop. She wanted to have some sort of control over it. She was practically begging for the help when a voice cut through her mind.

“Adam?” She turned to look over at him, startled slightly. “I-- sorry. What’re you doing here? N-not that you can’t be here! I just...you don’t really seem the type to just...come to temple... “

Adam was generally inclined to agree with that assessment. Between dating a woman who had a Beanie Baby collection of demons and committing more degrees of murder than existed in any legal code, the Hunter was pretty sure Bex was being overgenerous with his being allowed in here.

“Last night’s DIE party was the kind you need to get sanctified after,” Adam asserted as he plopped down unceremoniously in the pew in front of Bex. “You should come sometime.” he wheedled playfully. “Make sure you have plenty to repent for on Saturday.”

But after a moment Adam paused, the mischief of flirting with a lawyer-dude’s girlfriend fading. Dark brown eyes looked over Bex again, this time without lewdness or jest.

“How’re you holding up Bex,” Adam asked quietly with more intentionality than the previous address.

As Bex looked at Adam, she tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that Nell saw in him. Maybe it was something she couldn’t see, because all she saw was a rather lewd frat boy, who sometimes had that far away sad look in his eyes. Maybe that was really just the persona he wanted others to see-- Bex could relate to that. The happy, chipper girl she pretended to be in public for her parents wasn’t who she was at all, and her being here right now sort of proved that. She had to look away from him, furrowing her brow and smoothing her palms down the front of her dress. She always tried to look nice when coming to Temple.

“I don’t think those kinds of parties are really my style,” she answered quietly. Took a moment to look around to make sure there wasn’t anyone too familiar in here with them. But it was relatively empty today, with only a few people milling about and the Rabbi making rounds before disappearing back into his office. Her eyes settled back on Adam and he had that sad look again. He even used her right name.

“I’m fine,” she said curtly, “just...getting used to being back in White Crest. Kind of a whole different world out there than it is here, you know?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What’s the real reason you’re here, Adam? Repentance also doesn’t seem up your alley.”

While Adam had been trained to deceive and achieve invisibility by fulfilling others assumptions, he wasn’t so far gone that Bex’s directness couldn’t still get a rise from him. Adam blinked and his face became briefly uncertain, as if the Hunter had flubbed a line in a script and broken character in front of an audience of one. “I’ve gotten in over my head,” the murderer admitted after a time.

“I’ve been trying to just tough it out,” the Hunter continued, referring to the abuse and torments of a demonic cult in the tone someone else might’ve used for minor health difficulties. “But I’ve running on fumes for so long now that like...eventually you’ve got nothing left. No more second winds, no just pushing on through,” the athlete explained.

“I’ve never like been close to really hitting that wall one other time before,” admitted Adam in memory of when his power and faith had shattered on Lyssa’s peak. “I’m uh, not liking my chances here.”

Adam encompassed the synagogue’s interior with a vague sweeping gesture that implied that perhaps the soldier wasn’t so much seeking redemption as reaching anything to keep from plummeting off a cliff.

“Do you prefer the world out there Bex?”

Bex looked at Adam and listened to his words. Whatever he was going through, it seemed rough on him, like it was wearing him down. Sands blasting down his walls and carving them away, smoothing them away. Eventually, they would become nothing. Just like hers. She felt a pull at her heart and she had to look away to not totally give up her shiny exterior. Cleared her throat and rubbed her eyes.

“Don’t you have like, people to help you?” she asked. “You know you don’t have to go it alone. That’s sorta the point of community.” She gestured to the area around them. There were so many other people he could’ve gone to bother, why did he have to choose her? Still, a sense of curiosity pulled at her. And empathy. She knew what it felt like to be at the end of your rope. Her hands wrung together.

“What, um-- what happened? If you don’t mind me asking. Are you okay?” Was he dying? Did Nell know? She paused at his question. “I...prefer the world that I know I can interact with. It’s easy to...pretend to be something there.”

“There is someone helping me”, Adam admitted, “and I’m thankful I’ve got her help on this, but uh... “ The Hunter ran a hand across the back of his neck. “That’s kinna the problem y’know? Worried I’m just going to drag her down with me.”

Bex seemed to genuinely inquire about his welfare, which was kinna touching. As always, Adam had to weigh the difference between the necessary lies and giving the other people enough of the truth as he could. “There is a group in town that I think are into some really dangerous stuff,” was definitely a criminal level of understatement. “But I need evidence and to catch them in the act to make a citizen’s arrest,” Adam concluded. It was technically a lie, but as closest to the spirit of the truth as he could manage without going straight into Twilight Zone territory.

It was dangerous to say out loud. But as much as Adam hated to admit it, against an adversary like Ma’al these hallowed walls were probably studier than any military bunker.

“Why do you wanna pretend Bex? What makes this place hard to interact with,” Adam asked slowly, kinna intuiting what she might mean in his gut, but not wanting to jump to conclusions here.

“Is it Nell?” Bex asked, blurting the words before she could stop them. She paused, recoiled and bit the inside of her cheek. “Sorry. Not to sound weird, but I met Nell on campus and then we got talking and she sort of told me about you guys.” She burned to ask Adam if he knew that his girlfriend claimed to be a witch, and wondered what his faith-- their faith-- would have to say about that. She wondered a lot of things about Adam, actually, and Nell was one of those things.

“I think...if she didn’t want to be helping, she would say so. I think worrying about that is pointless.” Not that Bex knew Nell super well, but from what she’d seen of her, Nell didn’t seem the sort to do something out of obligation. She shifted, and leaned back.

“Whatever you’re up to, it sounds illegal and dangerous, and I’m studying law, so maybe don’t tell me what you’re doing,” she pointed out quietly, giving another wary glance around. She scratched her knees awkwardly.

“That���s...complicated, I guess,” she mumbled, furrowing her brows. “I want to pretend because...maybe one day I can’t stop pretending and it’ll be real. I know this might seem strange, Adam, but the world isn’t kind to people like me. Out there, in here--” she gestured around them, “it’s all kind of the same.”

“Oh,” Adam mouthed, feeling like a dumbass. Adam was typically immune to embarrassment or society anxiety, one of those side benefits of being conditioned to ignore fear and pain that might trouble therapists. Normally Adam would only grin and make lewd implications at the prospect of women talking in private about him. It’d never bothered him before, but for some reason the thought of Nell specifically doing so brought on a precarious uncertainty. “Yeah you’re right, I know you're right,” Adam repeated, “but still…” Knowing something doesn’t mean it can’t fuck you head anyway.

“Don’t you think we need to do illegal and dangerous stuff sometimes?” pointed out the vigilante.

Adam watched Bex’s face as she explained, his expression softened by a touch of awkward compassion but not comprehension. “Look I uh...can’t pretend to know what it's like,” he admitted. “This world is pretty dickish to women and I’m definitely not innocent of that, but there’s gotta be somewhere, or somebody, that can feel like a safe place y’know?”

“But still...what?” Bex prodded. She didn’t mean to pry, but she was curious by nature. And she began to develop a sort of friendship with Nell, so concern wrought itself through her face as she watched Adam. He always seemed so typical, but for some reason, up close like this with him, he seemed somewhat...different. There was something mysterious about him, about the way he talked. The things he hinted at. The casualness of his attitude, and the ruffling of his brow at the mention of Nell. Bex looked back down.

“No, I don’t,” Bex said, repeating the mantra in her head that her parents always told her. Be good, be polite, be strong. She tried her best to follow those, but she didn’t get them all the time. “My family is pretty strict about that stuff.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle hollowly. “I was kinda hoping that’s what I’d find here,” she admitted quietly, “but no one ever answers me.”

Adam let out a long exhale between his lips as he tried to scrape together some words to describe a gut feeling. Visceral stuff didn’t tend to lend itself to explanation very well, but here goes: “I’ve mostly ever done casual relationships,” Adam began. “I can’t do halfway stuff like...I’m not wired that way,” admitted the young fanatic. “Either it’s just a fuck.” Adam put a hand on one side of the pew’s back. “Or you care enough about them to give up everything,” Adam’s hand shifted to the other side of pew, perhaps indicating that the Hunter’s conception of intimacy was either a roll in the sheets or devotion to the point of self-sacrifice.

“Nell and I are trying something new for both of us,” Adam posited,”I care about her, but also don’t want to go so all in we can’t find a way out,” the Hunter said, perhaps talking about two things at once. “But as I said, not so great at halfway.”

Bex’s desolate mirth at divine silence gave Adam pause. His dark brown eyes flicked up to the synagogue's arched ceiling, as if checking to see if any angels happened to be fluttering about the eves.

“When I was on tour in Saudi Arabia,” the young soldier began after a while, eyes still contemplating the interlacing triangle mosaics. “One of my squaddies was this dude named Hasan. I was a dumass...ok dumbasser.. teenager and didn’t know shit about Islam and my Arabic was terrible,” Adam continued. “But like, we were on patrol together alot so we talked about stuff. One day we were looking at this camp full of bodies all ripped apart and shit,” the Hunter continued with conversational casualness, neglecting to mention that he and Hasan were not patrolling the wastelands against their fellow men.

“Hasan prayed over them before we bared what was left and I asked him later how he could possibly feel close to God out here, with all the blood and fucking torn up meat all over the sand. I was kinna messed up and lost my cool,” the Hunter confessed numbly, as if assuming that Bex would rightly judge him for this unacceptable lapse of composure on the battlefield. “Hasan just said that even here, even in this, Allah is not absent, We are no farther from his presence, evil is just distracting us from it.”

Adam’s lips creased into a rueful smile, “we talked more after that, he told me about this sage Rabia who was like this zero-wave feminist who went into the desert to chill with God and do survivalism.” The Hunter’s tone indicated that he himself might have considered going full wilderness anarchist on multiple occasions. “She was super smart and kind to the people who went out there to learn from her, unless they were offering marriage in which case she told them to fuck off,”

Scholars might’ve contested this summary, but Adam had learned about Sufi mysticism from Hasan in between filling hordes of Alghouls full of silver buckshot, so perhaps parsimony was forgivable.  

“Anyway, Rabia’s whole deal I guess was that she found that like..mosques, patriarchy, the state and all that shit pulled her farther away from God,” Adam continued in the manner of someone who’d emotionally connected with what his brother in arms had described, even if neither of the young warriors really had a handle on the deeper theology. “Love was where she felt God. Love for herself, love even for the sand and all the scorpions, the joy of just being alive.”

Adam’s eyes finally left the ceiling and found Bex’s face. The young man scratched his temple in a sudden fit of bashfulness in the wake of reminiscence. “Ok uh, I dunno where I was going with that but...I’m shit at this...but I guess uh.. like ...maybe a temple is wherever you feel closer to God, even if that's a desert or even just a state of mind.”

“I’m still trying to find my temple,” the fallen Hunter admitted.

As Adam talked, Bex listened. Really listened. She’d had no idea he was a soldier, or that he’d been on tour. She’d gone to Jerusalem once with her parents, and her mother had looked down at her and told her to be on her best behavior, because she was already wrong for being in the temple of their God. She remembered the harsh look her father had given her as they’d entered and she was wearing a dress and her favorite shoes and he’d scoffed. Maybe that was where her disconnect had spawned from.

Adam’s story broke her heart a little.

Bex couldn’t even imagine the pain of seeing so much carnage. Her sheltered life had let her grow up in relative peace. Death was not a part of her life. Shame was, though. Shame and guilt. She could relate to him on those things, even if it pained her to admit that.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” she finally said quietly, “that you went through all that.” She’d judged him preemptively, but he was perhaps suffering more than most anyone else in this Temple. “You know, for a frat guy, you’re pretty wise,” seh tacked on quietly with a tease. Perhaps now she could see why Nell liked him so much.

“I don’t know Nell that well yet, but it sounds like you really care about her. I definitely can’t give relationship advice, I’ve never even been in a real one--” she gave pause, stuttering over her words. Frank, her current “boyfriend” was a cover, and she’d just given that up, “--until now! But...what I’m trying to say is, I think it’s okay to not know. I think figuring it out together is kinda like...the point, you know? Of being with someone like that. Of trying new things.” Things she only wished she could try, could have. He was looking at her with those bashful, knowing eyes and she had to look away.

“This place scares me,” she admitted quietly, “White Crest.” She rubbed her arm, pulling into herself. “My parents always kept me so locked away, even when I lived here. And now I’ve been back for almost two months and already I feel like this place is trying to change me, take me away from the person I’m supposed to be.” She looked up at the ceiling, mirroring his movements from moments ago. “I guess I just wanted answers.” The ceiling told her nothing, and she looked down to meet his eyes again.

“You and me both, then,” she answered his last statement, the same sort of broken admittance ringing in her voice, “Guess we’ll just have to keep searching, huh?” Because there had to be something better than this, for both of them.

Adam stared at Bex for a moment at her condolence, stunned, as if genuinely not understanding why a story of battlefield carnage had elicited that reaction.

“Well uh,” a red blush crept up Adam’s neck as if Bex’s compassion had unmanned him more then any debauchery or public streaking ever had. “It’s not ...I didn’t mean it like..” the Hunter insisted as if associating the long war with suffering was something unthinkable. Perhaps it was even literally unthinkable, an emotional descent Adam didn’t think he could survive.

“It’s an honor to serve,” Adam insisted quietly. Even disgraced, powerless, and at the edge breaking, the Hunter couldn’t abandon what was killing him.

“You’re pretty understanding for a church girl,” Adam answered back to the praise he didn’t deserve, the crease at the edge of his soft smile hinting at a deeper more serious compliment underneath the playful plaudit.

If Adam intuited something off about how abruptly and awkwardly Frank entered and left the conversation, he kept his peace.

There were things Adam wished he could tell Bex about White Crest, about why her fears were valid and his gut feeling that this city was in a liminal space between Earth and the fathomless unknown. But preserving supernatural secrecy was one of the sacred charges his ancestors had passed down, and Adam couldn’t bring himself to break it even when it seemed they’d abandoned him.

Besides, Bex seemed worried about White Crest killing her spiritually, while Adam had his hands full trying to prevent much more literal death in vamp infested graveyards.

“Yeah guess so…” Adam stood as if he were about to go, but paused, mulling over Bex’s words again. Locked up? Take her away from who she was meant to be? Aw shit. Uneasy vibes compelled Adam to speak even when his brain warned he should stay the hell outta this. “Hey Bex, like if its ever too much,” he began slowly, “I know people you stay with. On the other side of the country, or the Holy Land even.” Mom never turned away guests in need...well, human ones.

“Sorry if that’s pushy,” Adam ameliorated, “and you can tell me to fuck off. But like...offer open.”

His embarrassment was almost immediate and Bex couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little. He might’ve had a seeming heart of gold, but he still tried to apply certain standards of masculinity to himself. She supposed some things would never really change. Still, it didn’t discredit anything else he’d said, or that he’d done. “Well I did,” she answered, “mean it like that.”

At that, Bex snorted. “Church girl?” she chuckled, shaking her head. “Seriously? That’s what you think of me? Geez, I kinda hate that. Maybe I was right before, pretending I could solve my problems myself instead of coming here.” She was mostly teasing, but there was some truth to it. She hadn’t entirely found her purpose or sense of self within her faith yet, even as hard as she’d tried to. She had books about Jewish spiritualism-- Kabbalah as it were-- but after her parents had found the first one, their anger had made her never want to open one again, despite her curiosity for them. Despite what little she had read about it giving her a connection she’d never felt before.

His offer, however, was sudden and abrupt and not at all what she’d expected him to say. She blinked, confused, before softening her expression and shaking her head. “That’s real sweet of you to offer, Adam, but I could never take you up on that.” Her parents would never allow it. They’d brought her back here specifically to keep her close, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be let out of their grasp for a long time now.

Her expression fell again, as he stood and started to make his way out. “You know, Adam,” she said, a bit quieter now, “you’re a good guy. I can’t tell you what to do, but I think maybe letting people see this side of you more often might be nice.” She gave a gentle smile. “I’ll see you around. Tell Nell hi for me.”

[ohmrlove]

Hi! Can i ask a scenario for the mlqc boys as mobsters and thinks Mc is just the everyday civilian, when they find out Mc is apart of some kind of gang too? Thanks

Hi there! The boys as mobsters, hm? Interesting.

I could see Victor being a boss-type, Gavin being a hitman or right hand, Lucien being the under-the-table-arms-dealer who sometimes operates as the medic/cleaner, and Kiro relies more on his cannon role as Key, hacking and supporting from the tech side (and maybe makes music on the side for fun). I think he’s too friendly and likeable to stay undercover  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Slight warning for Lucien’s part because they talk about murder by hogs. Brief warning for Gavin’s part, as it mentions death.

🍷  Victor 🍷

He’s not lying when he says he’s a business man

Victor’s plays the CEO role so well that he sometimes forgets it’s just an image booster.

Most of his mob work happens through a very encrypted connection on a smaller, private laptop that he hides behind his huge desktop. Every now and then he organizes meetings at Souvenir, as it’s so exclusive and open at random

Victor was in the middle of telling Mr. Mills that everyone needed to leave (for an upcoming meeting) when he sees you and suddenly he doesn’t know what to say

Thankfully, he’s not wearing the apron. He just looks like a regular suit coming in for a chat

Mr. Mills plays wingman (acts as a regular host and chats you up) and help him get a little info on you

Victor gives you free dessert

He held a half-assed meeting that night

It’s a slow and steady venture into dating but after about 4 months he’s semi-regular at your apartment

Being the boss of a mafia branch, Victor has a growing suspicion that you’re also in one

You’re oddly organized, have unlabeled planners and journals that you never seem to mix up (but he can’t find them when you’re gone), and always have conveniently believable excuses for random outings

Your knife work in the kitchen has a deftness and purpose that catches his eye. It’s not the finesse of a regular chef.

Call it a hunch, but Victor knows He proves it by getting you jewelry with a tracker in it–anticipating that you won’t reject it because you don’t know that he knows–which leads him to a nondescript hideout of a female gang

Victor confronts you after you get home, opening with something disarming like ‘we have something else in common’

Neither of your factions are in a war against each other so it’s awkward for the next few days but ultimately there’s a peace of mind knowing you don’t have to worry about each other because you have the same kind of ‘family’ looking out for you

 🔬 Lucien 🔬

Lucien probably figures out you’re in the mafia pretty quickly. He’s big on body language and analysis

He has a hard time believing someone as gifted and beautiful as you is a simple maid but you do always smell like cleaning supplies (the story checks out).

You like to watch crime documentaries together

When you joke about wanting a pet pig for personal safety, Lucien knows that you know some stuff. Evil stuff. He’d casually but deliberately tell you something incorrect like, ‘Did you know a pig can eat a whole human if it’s really hungry? I’ve heard it works best with a lactating sow.’

“One pig can’t eat a whole human,” you correct him, “I’ve heard one pig can eat 10-14 pounds of sow feed in one sitting. And they also have trouble digesting teeth and hair. You’d need at least 10-15 pigs to eat an average-sized person.”

There’s a moment of silence where he gives you that ‘gotcha!’ shit-eating grin

He mentally compliments you for brushing it off so calmly. Nonchalantly. “Heard it on TV.”

But it’s the way he shifts closer and cozies up to you, tilting his head, that lets you know you’ve been caught

“Technically I don’t know anything,” you shrug. “I just clean.”

“Perhaps we could enlist your services sometime.” he plays with your hair and strokes the back of your neck with his thumb

It hits you. Of course he’d be in the mafia! He’s already tall and wicked smart, too good to be normal, right?!

Depending on the size of your mafia, Victor may write up a business deal to make you allies or just absorb your clan into his

📢 Gavin 📢

You were on your way home, vaguely aware of being tailed

It was actually a regular guy, not someone you’d been told to look out for

You planned to let him follow you around the corner, then beat the snot out of him, but an officer had different plans

Gavin had received several reports of a strange guy following girls home from the station and out of restaurants. He’d been playing a frustrating game of tag for about an hour, relying on reports

The perp was bouncing from girl to girl, likely just being obnoxious and walking off after too many rejections

He finally spots him, intending on checking him for weapons and to inform him of the many complaints

Gavin doesn’t know if he tackled him first, or if you roundhouse-kicked him back into the tackle

The guy’s on the ground, Gavin falls on top of him, and just stares in disbelief

That was cool! That was hot!

Gavin stumbles through a small statement/interview, asking if you’d reported him or had been around any of the other girls who’d reported him that nigh

tA few days later, he checks up on you. Now he gives you a nod when you pass each other in the streets.

Somehow it turns into dating. Gavin goes hardcore on the nighttime safety lectures and how to keep yourself safe at home (lock the doors, lock the windows, etc.)

You show him your pepper spray, your taser, and run through what you’d do if someone broke in

He’s a little nervous but has to admit you know your stuff. You give him this cute little smile that almost disarms him.

You’re really too calm running through all of this, like you don’t think you’d be in any danger. The suspect meter goes up.

Everything’s confirmed on date night. It’s a nice night–kind of chilly–but you’ve just finished eating at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and were heading back to your car when that spine-tingling sensation of someone coming at you arose

You didn’t know if they were there for you or Gavin (being a policeman can make a lot of enemies!) but you had a throwing knife in your pocket ready to go

The man ends up being mortally wounded but Gavin doesn’t ask you any questions until people who ‘owe him a favor’ get rid of the body

He was just grateful the area didn’t have a lot of cameras.

Once you get back to your apartment a small fight explodes. He learns you’re in the mafia, and you learn he’s in the mafia.

“You are worth that sacrifice,” you told him. “I don’t care who they were after. I just didn’t want them to hurt you. You mean a lot to me, you know?”

“That’s my line,” is all he says. There’s a huge, soft smile on his face. Both of you are tired from the yelling and the screaming, but the way he pats your head and presses his forehead to yours lets you know it’ll be okay.

🎤 Kiro 🎤

He has multiple personas and works very hard at keeping them organized. Kiro’s always juggling the public persona, the person he is with his boss, and being your boyfriend

It can be a tough job but he wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world! While hacking he’s erased hospital debts and all kinds of stuff!

When Victor gives him assignments, it’s mostly to canvas an area through cameras or dig through the financials of opposing clans to have insider knowledge to bring up during deals

Since he never really shows his face during deals (more Gavin than himself), Kiro’s content to keep at his little tech business. He helps people repair their electronics for next to nothing (Victor’s money keeps the lights on).

He met you while fixing your computer and boy is a NERVOUS MESS

Like, he dropped a screwdriver, hit his head on the counter picking a screw off the floor kind of flustered

Even through all the nervous babbling he’s cute and charming. You agree to a coffee date and Kiro’s sold

It isn’t until your phone breaks (you refuse to get a new one because they’re expensive) and you won’t let him look at it that he gets suspicious

You haven’t let him look at it for almost a week, and then suddenly it’s at a repair shop

Kiro gets the bright idea to see if your phone’s really dead, hacking into the GPS system

It wasn’t broke. You were just making trips to your mafia HQ.

He doesn’t know if he’s hurt or impressed that you could pull one over him. Then again, he never really looked at you that hard because he loves you.

Kiro decides to confront you, and waits until you get settled back in at his shop. The cameras are off (can’t let them see the confession), the blinds are down, and the CLOSED sign is up. His heartbeat is in his throat, but he lets you know that he knows

If you look like you’re going to leave, he throws himself under the bus.

It makes you come back to him, straddle him in his little work chair, and demand proof.

Once you see you’re in the same business, you relax. Kiro does, too.

“You can buy my silence with hugs, kisses, and food!” he jokes.

“Can I make a down payment?” you look up at him through your lashes and he turns beet red. He didn’t think you’d play into it!You break the work chair.

Hope you liked it!

[supernaturallyobsessedchic]

LAPD: Hunter’s Division

Part 1 - Missing Persons

Part Summary: Average everyday cops moonlighting as Hunters for the supernatural. But when their captain recognizes a run of the mill missing persons isn’t so ordinary, he enlists the help of his two Detectives, daughters of Dean and Sam Winchester.

Warnings: mentions of kidnappings/missing persons, fictional police call-signs, a teaser of a potential series.

Pairings: none really, OC!Reader duo (Ashley, Kaylee), Captain Dave Starsky, Captain Dean Winchester

My Masterlist

DTRH Series

~

Ashley woke up to her alarm. Six am sharp. She heads to the bathroom to shower first thing. The hot water waking her up, she hurries getting cleaned up after a night’s rest.

She dries her body up, wrapping her long dark brown hair in the towel, and dresses in her usual get up. Bright blue jeans, running Nike shoes, a plane white Tee and a red, black and white patterned flannel.

She makes herself a breakfast smoothie, toasted bagel with plane cream cheese. Putting it in a to-go baggy, she gets her purse, keys and phone and leaves to begin her workday. Driving to work in her old, Chevy SS Chevelle. You can tell its age, doors are different colors compared to the body, it’s been repaired more than its fair share. Rusted edges, dents, overall run down.

-

Kaylee woke up to her fourth alarm, she’s running late as usual. She rushes through her hot shower, tying her wet light brown hair in a messy bun. Dressing in her usual get up, black skinny jeans, black graphic tee spelling out Invincible, her favorite song by her favorite band, Skillet. And her black and white patterned flannel. And her black combat boots, never failed her on any job yet.

Rummaging through her kitchen she was able to grab a granola bar, brew herself some coffee adding probably way too much flavored creamer into her coffee mug, in pretty font saying, ‘fuck off’. Grabbing her wallet, that is big enough to hold her iPhone inside it, her keys to her dad’s ’67 Chevy Impala and she speeds off to work.

L.A’s finest policewomen in the district. The Winchester Girls.

-

“Winchester’s, get in here.” Ordered their Captain.

“What’s up Captain?” Kaylee asked.

“I’ll tell you what’s up, one your late again, third time in a row.” He tells her.

“And a new assignment for you two girls.” He says.

“Captain Starsky, I don’t think we can handle another one of these patrols you put us on.” Ashley speaks up.

“It’s not a patrol. It goes in line with your other department you work in. our Hunter’s Division. I brought it to your captain down there, and he agrees.” He tells them.

What could dad possibly want us to do now? Kaylee thought.

“What do you get for us then?” Kaylee asked.

“We have multiple missing persons, they fit a rep of one of the monsters you hunt, a Djinn.” He explains. “Missing without a trace, and we end up finding one of them, drained of blood.” He says.

“Could also be a vampire.” Kaylee adds.

“And a blue handprint.” Captain Starsky adds.

“That’s more like, an alpha Djinn. And my dad killed one years ago, hard to believe there’s more out there.” Ashley says.

“Yeah, well, either way, I need you girls to get to the bottom of it. Save the remaining girls, or at least find the Djinn and bring him in.” He orders.

“We’ll do our best on that last one.” Kaylee says.

“We at least want to try to treat these types of monsters as human. They want to be treated like humans, if they break the law they’ll be brought to justice like any human.” He explains.

I see that point. Kaylee mentally rolled her eyes.

“Get out there and catch this guy.” He ordered.

The girls nodded and headed out the door.

-

Walking into the lot the girls talked.

“This is a first, day cops telling us Hunters to do these assignments. This usually comes from my dad.” Kaylee says.

“I know, but I guess it’s crossing paths with the police and they need to stop these swarms of missing persons.” Ashley adds.

“One of the joys of having a hunter’s division in the police department.” Kaylee groaned.

“At least we’re making money, doing what we’re good at. Saving People.” Ashley says.

“Hunting things.” Kaylee adds.

“The Family Business.” They say in unison as they quote their dad, Dean Winchester, Captain of the Hunter’s Division.

As they near their cars.

“Hey, who’s car?” Kaylee asks.

“Mine.” Ashley says.

“If it starts more than once, we’ll take your car.” Kaylee shot at her.

Ashley groaned. “Fine, yours.” She says.

“You really need to own up and get yourself a new car.” Kaylee says.

“You’re one to talk.” Ashley says.

“Hey at least mine runs, more than once. Hasn’t died. And my dad has fixed her up more times than he can count.” Kaylee says as they near her car.

Her car roars to life as she turns the ignition. Ashley grabs the radio. “Zebra-3 here.” She calls over.

“Go ahead Zebra-3.” Dispatch says.

“Show us out and about at 0800 hours.” She says, looking at her watch.

“Roger Zebra-3.” Dispatch says.

-

They drive down the long street to their snitch. Huggy Bear.

The old bear runs a bar by the same name and has been the go-to snitch for the L.A police for years.

Kaylee parks her car in the back and they enter through the alleyway.

“Hey, how’s it goin’ kiddos?” Huggy Bear asked them as they entered.

The old bear still working at Huggy’s Bear’s Bar, and just like Starsky he looked as if he hasn’t aged a day.

“Oh, you know, the usual thing. People going missing, turning up dead.” Kaylee says.

The pair sit at his bar where he stood by the register.

“Then why would today be different than any other?” Huggy asked.

“Starsky thinks it runs in line with our Hunter Division, he thinks Djinn are kidnapping these people and killing them.” Kaylee answers.

“But Djinn like to hide out.” Huggy says.

The girls looked at him impressed.

“You know your monsters Hug.” Ashley says.

Huggy shrugs with a smirk. “Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t get around.” He says.

“But word on the street is, someone in your department made a demon deal and their time is up.” He adds.

“They didn’t happen to mention who, did they?” Kaylee asked.

“They did, even I’m shocked myself.” He says.

“Who, Huggy?” Ashley pressed.

“Your very own, Captains Starsky and Hutch.” He answers.

The girls looked at him as if he were growing two heads.

“I know, as I said, I was shocked too.” He says.

“That explains why and how they were able to not only get the position as Captain and Co-Captain, but also still get around like they were young again.” Ashley says.

“Huggy, going off that assumption, did you make any deals?” Kaylee asked.

“No, I just got good genes girl.” He answers.

“How much time do Starsky and Hutch have?” Ashley asked.

“This is their final year, so who knows when exactly they made a deal.” He answers.

“Keep an ear out on the missing persons, ‘kay Huggy.” Kaylee says.

“Sure, thing kid.” He says.

The girls exit where they came, getting into the Impala, on a mission. Get answers from Starksy and Hutch about their deal.

~

Copying and reposting someone else’s content is plagiarism and illegal. This work is property of supernaturallyobsessedchic. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These works contain material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of these works may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. An electronic reference link to the original posted work may be provided for purposes of promotion or assistance of publication by the readers discretion, if proper credits are given to the author in the re-post. 07/18/20

--

FEEDBACK IS MUCH APPRECIATED! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU ALL THINK. Shoot me an ask or a comment letting me know. :) More possible parts.

[harryandmolly]

Change of Pace  - 2 (Summer 2019)

cowritten by @achinglyshawn

summary: Shawn and Maya meet again 10 years after life got in the way of love

warnings: language

wc: 4.7k

-----------

Maya narrows her eyes. She lifts onto her pale pink painted toes and lowers again. She pops up and down a few times like the change in perspective will help her decide. 

Maya spent the last 12 years of her life on Wall Street but after a week of semi-retirement, she can’t get it together enough to decide where her new couch should go. The delivery guys were sweethearts about moving it once or twice when they dropped it off but it’s still not quite right. 

Maya feels her eyes begin to well up and she groans in frustration. Her emotions have been on a hair trigger since she handed in the keys to her park-facing three bedroom apartment and road tripped across the country in a rental Hyundai Elantra stuffed to the gills with her life and memories. 

She was bursting into nearly hysterical tears every three hours, on average. She has a theory that maybe the consequences of bottling her personal life up for those many years in favor of focusing on her career are finally catching up. They’re grabbing at her in short, hot spurts like the eruptions of Old Faithful (which she stopped and saw on the way between Marriotts on her weeklong journey). 

She has to believe that’s what it is, the emotional outburst problem. It has to be the result of refusing a life outside of Proctor, Garrett and Stern at the detriment of her emotional health and not like, this was a massive fucking mistake. 

Because when she thinks like that her chest starts to hurt and her fingers twitch like they’re looking for a BlackBerry to abuse. 

So she doubles down on the couch because that’s something she can fix. She tried it by the south window. She tried it facing the staircase where she’ll get the TV mounted. What hasn’t she tried yet?

Lying in child’s pose on her sandy floor. 

She’ll try that for a while until the tears dissipate.

+++

‘It seems like one of those nights, this place is too crowded, too many cool ki--’

Shawn startles from his deep, dreamless sleep. His fingers find snooze, but he knows he won’t fall asleep again. He gives himself a moment to stretch, yawn, groan, and to crack any joints that need it before he fumbles his way to the shower. 

It takes him a moment under the steaming water to realize he’s gone another night without having The Dream. 

Maybe the scare he had on the beach was enough to shock the dream from his system. Maybe the work he’s done on his willpower since drowning himself in Maya’s old facebook pictures is starting to take effect.

Either way, he prefers dreamless nothingness to waking up in need of a stiff drink. 

+

The shop mostly stays closed on the weekends, unless he’s behind schedule. As much as he loves his craft, there’s just so much time he can spend inhaling sawdust and lacquer fumes. He spends his free time playing guitar and piano, rather than sanding them down. 

Playing at the Avila Beach farmers’ market always feels a little like busking, but the Community Association pays him to do it, sets up a little stage near the coffee tent with an amp and a microphone, and he doesn’t leave his guitar case open at his feet. It’s a little less desperate that way. 

He doesn’t dwell on the fact that this is the best it’ll get for him, music wise. The sting of failure twisted his gut back when he lived in LA and couldn’t get any traction with a band to save his life, but he’s since found solace in his workshop. 

No one knows strings like he does, no one makes custom gear like he can, alone at his workbench with nothing but his tools and his passion. And that’s why he can afford to take off weekends. That’s why busking at the farmers’ market is enough. 

Shawn arrives at the market before it’s too busy, gets through the coffee line quickly enough so there’s time to spare before he has to set up the stage. His sips his latte as he watches the early morning patrons mill about, mostly gathered near the pastry tent because the chocolate croissants run out quickly and it’s first come, first served. 

When he eventually starts playing, he keeps it instrumental while the crowd is still thin. His fingers flick nimbly across the strings, a gentle early morning melody that blends with the birds singing in the trees. 

As the crowd grows, he turns up the volume on the amp and switches gears. He clears his throat and starts with The Outfield’s “Your Love.” 

It’s one of his favorites. 

(It was one of hers, too). 

Maya’s willpower is one of her strongest qualities. It’s gotten her through everything, through god knows how many 80 hours weeks, through struggling against the boys club atmosphere of New York finance, through learning to surf. It’s also allowed her stubbornness to box out pieces of her life that, without them, have left her empty. But she’s dealing with that in her own way now, one day at a time. 

But her willpower today pried her out of her outrageously comfortable bed where she’s been sleeping a full 12 hours each night since she arrived in Avila. She knows sleep deprivation doesn’t work like this, but she can’t help but assume her body is doing some catch up work. For once, when her body needs something, she lets it have it. 

She also needs food. On her way into town she stopped at Ralph’s and picked up a ton of junk that she’s eaten through in the past couple days but if she remembers correctly there’s a very fine farmers market toward the center of town. She rides her old bike down there with some reusable bags in her basket and headphones in her ears. 

It’s busy. There are a lot more vendors than she remembers, probably because farmers markets are cool again now. If the people are embracing it, so is she. She wanders past pastry booths with people lining up for oat milk lattes and croissants. She smiles politely as she looks over the wares, long vibrant stalks of celery, hearty pink radishes, little cups of homemade tomato sauce. 

She tugs one earbud out to ask about the price of a bouquet of wildflowers she’s drawn to when she’s knocked speechless and brainless by a familiar voice. 

Her body figures it out before her brain, it seems. She stands before this vendor with her mouth open, throat tensed to speak. She can’t. Her brain fell out of her ass somewhere behind her. She’s completely dumbstruck. 

It can’t be him. It can’t be him. 

Is it him?

She knows if she turns the corner from this booth to the center of the market, he’ll be there with a guitar and that voice. She closes her eyes and turns away from the vendor and lets her feet take her there. 

“You should really have a tip jar, sweetie,” a middle aged woman tells him with a hearty smile as he finishes “Your Love,” his fingers transitioning into the opening chords of “She Will Be Loved.” 

“Great idea, Mrs. Hansen,” he replies with a smile, but he doesn’t do this for tips. The tapping feet and careful applause are enough. 

He’s about halfway through the first verse when he realizes he’s started the song without really thinking. It’s another of Maya’s favorites. He’s not sure why he’s doing this to himself, other than it’s kind of cathartic. 

The dream, his panic attack on the beach, and the rhythm of her favorite songs thrumming in the back of his mind are all his body’s way of telling him to say goodbye. It’s been too long to still be holding onto a flame for someone who left him. Someone who has most certainly moved on from him, even if she is in Avila. He’s sure she’s got a husband or boyfriend with her wherever she is. Or a girlfriend, or wife, or whatever. Whichever.

Either way, he needs to let go.

So he gets into it. He feels the song, feels every word and sings them for her, like maybe she’ll hear them wherever she is and they’ll bring her some peace, too. Not that she needs any. 

He wouldn’t know.

“I don’t mind spending everyday, out on your corner in the pouring rain.” 

She resists the urge to keep her eyes shut as she turns the corner. Hearing him is shock enough. She’s worried if she sees him she’ll go full moron and like, drop everything she’s holding or scream or flop on the ground. 

She focuses on her breathing and pinning her eyes open with sheer force of will as her pulse pounds quick and heavy over the sound of his voice singing one of her favorite songs, which she is very sure is an evil coincidence. 

She’s glad to be next to one of the permanent stalls that’s sturdy enough to hold her when she rests against it. 

There he is. Her college sweetheart. It feels like a weak term, actually. College sweetheart makes it sound like puppy love when it wasn’t. It was the realest, rawest experience of her life. He’s a visceral reminder, skin and bone proof that Maya Lu had a heart once. 

He’s so fucking beautiful. He always was. He makes tall, dark and handsome… light somehow. He shines from the inside out. It’s magnetic. It’s addictive. It’s the first thing she fell in love with. 

She feels like she’s standing on a cliff holding her breath, waiting for a breeze. Waiting for him to see her.

He has fans, he guesses. A group of teenage girls gather at the foot of the stage about half way through the first chorus. He tries not to laugh. It’s flattering, really, and it makes something pleasant he hasn’t felt in a while bubble in his gut. 

There he goes again, being completely fucking pathetic. 

He sings a little sweeter for the girls, tries to direct his performance towards them for the most part. He smiles and scans their little cluster, grinning when they giggle after he makes eye contact with a few of them. 

He cuts a chorus to catch his breath and gets carried away with the instrumental. His eyes slip shut and he hangs his head as he focuses on the music, on the way it feels against his fingertips and echoes in his ears. He should be singing, but sometimes it’s nice just to listen. 

Eventually, he lifts his chin and brings his lips to the mic to sing before he opens his eyes. 

“I know where you hide alone in your car, know all of the things that make you who you are.”

His eyes open on his next inhale, and he focuses beyond the gaggle of girls on the market, watching the sea of people rock like gentle waves as they weave in and out of one another. It’s not the busiest day, but the size is decent. 

“I know that goodbye means nothing at all, comes back and begs me to catch her every time she falls.”

His gaze flicks beyond the crowd to the line of permanent stalls directly across from his stage. 

He nearly chokes on his words. 

It’s the surfer. The Maya lookalike. The sick joke his mind is playing on him. She’s there, leaning against one of the stalls and watching him. And fuck. She really, really looks like Maya from this distance. But she’s not. She’s a trick of the light. She’s not Maya. 

She’s not Maya. She’s not. 

She’s not.

He closes his eyes and sings. 

“Tap on my window, knock on my door…”

There’s something that stirs in her gut that after 12 years, he’s still so unmistakably… him.

There isn’t even a split piece of a moment that she doesn’t recognize everything about him. He’s exactly himself in every way that she hasn’t let herself miss in over a decade. The way he plays to the group of girls swooning over him at the edge of the stage, the way his lips and eyelids flutter as he gets lost in the instrumental portion of a song they shared. It’s comforting somehow.

Maya’s eyes fill just as soon as his find hers. And in the back of her head a little voice tells her this is the first thing she’s had legitimate reason to cry over in weeks.

Her fingers tighten around a bag of hen of the woods mushrooms to keep from shaking. Her body is responding where her brain can’t. She opens her mouth while her mind watches in horror. She goes to mouth something to him, something her brain doesn’t want her to say, but he closes his eyes and continues.

Maya snaps her mouth shut and swallows. Her face burns hot red against the shame of whatever she was about to try to say. Hasn’t she done enough to him?

Apparently not, because she’s not moving. Something in her keeps her sturdy even despite the shaking of her knees. This stubbornness honed by years of fighting against old white men, against expectations, against herself, it wants something from this. It wants her to stand here and stare at him until he’s done playing.

She doesn’t know what comes after that.

Nothing scares her more. Maya has spent her whole life knowing what was coming next. That’s part of why they didn’t work to begin with. The realization that being here, waiting him out will bring a reaction from him she can’t possibly predict, it’s the scariest thing she can imagine.

It’s funny how these things happen. That you can get out of bed and bike to buy some mushrooms and be faced with your worst fear you couldn’t even have put a label on if someone asked you this morning.

It doesn’t feel so funny right now though.

He can’t bring himself to open his eyes again. He half expects her to be a figment of his cruel imagination, but he doesn’t want to risk it until he’s finished singing. 

He lets the guitar wind the song down, the same way Adam Levine does when he plays it acoustic. He almost wishes he were behind a piano right now, an extra layer of protection between him and the ghost he hates that he misses so badly. 

But all he’s got are his guitar and these girls who keep giggling like he’s hot shit. He feels completely naked. 

He opens his eyes to see the crowd of girls before him has grown and they’re practically screaming. It’s grating now, though he would’ve found it flattering only moments ago. 

Before. 

His gaze shifts to the stalls and his breath stutters just like he knew it would. She’s there. Tall and strong and still wearing Maya’s beautiful face.

He has a strong, irrational urge to run across the market and kiss her. It’s stupid. It’s his romcom-rotted brain plunging head first into fantasy land, the same land where his dreams come from, the ones that feature Maya smiling and laughing and asking him to keep kissing her because she’s addicted. 

It’s terrible.

He sucks in a breath and musters a smile, giving the crowd of still cheering girls a little wave before ducking his head to murmur into the microphone. “Thanks, thank you so much. That’s one of my favorites.” 

He says it without thinking. His heart spasms in his chest when he realizes. He swallows against it, then sheds his guitar and tucks it into the stand. 

“I’m gonna take a brief coffee break, but I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Thanks again, everybody.” 

He gives a nod and feels super fucking awkward, but he can’t help it with his heart lodged in his throat and his mind reeling.

He tries not to run as he weaves through the crowd to get to Maybe-Maya, both because it would be terribly desperate and also because he doesn’t trust himself not to run home instead. 

He can’t do that though. He needs to know what’s real. He needs to see her. 

A family stops to pull pastries from their shopping bags just as he’s about to reach her, and he almost stumbles into them like an asshole. 

“I’m so sorry, excuse me—“ 

“Oh! You’re a lovely singer, very talented,” crows the mother, giving him a warm smile. 

“Ah— thanks, thank you,” he smiles back, but he can’t feel it. He can’t feel his face. 

“Enjoy your pastry!” he says by means of farewell as he skirts around them to reach his goal.

He comes to a tripping stop in front of her. He freezes, breath tight in his chest as he takes her in. She’s real. She’s fucking— Maya. 

“Maya?” 

“Shawn,” she rasps, shaking her head, “Fuck, that’s the first time I’ve said your name out loud in….”

She doesn’t finish that thought. She doesn’t think she needs to. 

She lifts a hand and lowers it again like it’s been slapped. She grew up in a very touchy, affectionate family and her first inclination is to hug people but that might not be appropriate now, so she keeps her hands to herself and chews on the inside of her cheek. 

Maya also tries not to look him up and down but my god, he looks great. He’s always been good looking, but the years have been good to him. He hasn’t gotten any taller, thank god, but his hair still falls in angelic curls against his forehead and curls around the tips of his ears. She remembers in an unwelcome flash how she used to tease him, nibbling on the shell of one ear and twirling a curl above the other around her finger. 

She snaps back in and looks up at him with a sheepish smile. 

“You sound… really great. I mean, you’ve always sounded great. Is that… that the same guitar?” 

He’s gaping like a fish and he knows it. He’d be embarrassed if he could feel anything other than utterly overwhelmed. She overwhelms him, she always has. 

Her sea salt-scratched voice sends a shiver down his spine, has his fingers curling into his palms. He swears he can smell her, but it’s probably just his visceral memories overriding his senses. 

His mouth snaps shut at the question and he clears his throat, pushing his hand into his hair. His fingers tug at his curls and he gives her a small, crooked smile. 

“It— yeah, actually. It is. You remember.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. An elated observation. 

She remembers his guitar. He guesses that’s pretty easy for her, considering it’s the only guitar he had back then and he played it for her constantly. But still. He wonders what else she might remember. 

He doesn’t ask, though. He feels like it’s not his place. She’s been on his mind lately, but that doesn’t mean he’s been on hers. He’s supposed to be beyond it. Beyond her. Beyond his chronic itch to fall in love with her again. He sang goodbye on stage and everything. 

Instead, he asks, “What are you doing in Avila?”

He’s suddenly aware of his nervous fingers in his curls, and he feels exposed. He drops his hand, shoves it into his back pocket and rocks back on his heels. He thumbs his lucky pick carefully, thinks about the sharp edges against his fingertips instead of the constellations of brown freckles splattered across Maya’s tanned skin. 

Maya feels a little guilty for being set a bit more at ease by his nerves. Somehow his nervousness offsets hers and makes her feel less alone in it. 

The way he tangles a hand in his hair and quirks a little sideways grin at her has her stomach rolling, her brain scrolling through a montage of a million tiny moments when she made him smile like that. 

Before she left. 

She licks her lips and tries to ease out of a flash of a memory of being tangled in naked limbs and sheets with Shawn while he played and sang for her as quietly as he could to keep from waking his roommate. Instead she feels dropkicked by it, and by his question. 

Her mouth goes dry. She blinks too quickly. “I uh… I bought a house.”

She bought a house. In Avila. Where he lives. Where he could run into her any time. Where he’s already run into her twice in one week. 

His stomach twists. This is a sick fucking joke. The universe is taunting him, dropping the woman he pushed away with idealism and romantic notions right back in his path. If he were still in his twenties he would think, This is it. It’s my chance. Our chance. She came back for me. 

It’s hard enough not thinking it now, as a fucking adult. 

But he’s not a kid anymore and he knows this isn’t fate or destiny but a fucked up, nauseating coincidence, and he needs to live his life like he’s over her. He needs to remember he’s not in college and she’s not his girlfriend and they’re basically strangers, now. 

“You— so like, you’re living here now?” 

He feels stupid for asking. She bought a house, idiot.

“I mean, duh, just— shit. The world is so fucking small,” he scrambles, overcorrects. He hates himself for it. It feels like there’s a part of him that still wants to impress her, wants to seem cool and collected and whatever else a beach townie is supposed to be. Instead, he feels young. Young and completely wrecked by just the thought of Maya existing anywhere near him. 

Being over her, even just acting like it, seems as though it might be impossible. 

It begins to dawn on her. He’s playing at the farmer’s market. That’s not something you do if you’re passing through a beach town on vacation. 

He lives here too. 

Heat prickles up Maya’s too-stiff body. She stares up at him and hopes he can’t see her horror, can’t tell that she’s calculating a lie in her head, something, anything to make this more bearable. Something that she can say out loud without crying. Something she can live with, rather than the truth.

“No,” she squeaks, “No, no, I’m… it’s a vacation house. My company mandates time off now because we had too many people losing their minds. So. I’m just… here for the summer.”

What?

Oh my god. 

Maya shrinks away from him into the stall that’s holding her up. 

Vacation. That makes more sense. He has no idea who her company is or what she really does, even. There were so many opportunities for her after she graduated, he never found out which one she chose to take. 

He hates that. He hates not knowing things about her. Before, he clung to old memories of her, facebook photos and old text messages from a time when he knew everything about her. It was better that way, better than dwelling on all the things he was missing with her. 

Now, standing in front of her, the weight of everything he doesn’t know about her hangs heavy on his shoulders. He doesn’t know what she did for her birthday back in September, he doesn’t know how often she talks to her mum, he doesn’t know her favorite restaurant or her current favorite song, even though he’s got all of her old ones burned into his memory like his own name. 

He doesn’t know if she’s single, and he hates himself for wondering about it. 

It doesn’t even matter. 

“Do you… so you live here then?” she almost pants over her pounding heart. 

Maya starts to feel a split, and it’s not unfamiliar. A piece of her could very happily melt right into Shawn and walk around with him for the rest of the day, catching up and relearning each other after so long. Another piece wants to run away, far away before she can do more damage. To him and herself. 

“I--” he hears himself chuckle, like he really is cool and casual and whatever, “I do, yeah. Moved here about ten years ago after LA sucked. Avila’s much more my speed.” 

He’s honest with her like he always was before, even though he doesn’t mean to be, consciously. It’s just like, his body’s natural reaction to her. He doesn’t want to think too much about it.

After LA sucked. What does that mean? She feels her brow furrow and she thinks back on what she may have heard about him any time in the last ten years. It’s not much, if anything at all. One of their friends ran into him at home in Toronto around the holidays years ago. Maya wrung her out for info but it was too quick an interaction to get much other than “damn, he looks good.” Maya could’ve guessed that on her own. 

She imagines him waking up late and sitting out on a balcony with his guitar. Maybe he’s got a job somewhere like at a gym as a personal trainer, or as a music teacher. 

After LA sucked. What does that mean?!

“I think you’ll like it here. It’s a nice spot for surfers,” he manages to continue with a smile that feels shaky at best. He hopes she doesn’t notice. 

The split goes cataclysmic when he mentions her surfing with a grimace. The unspoken truth between them is that summer they spent in Avila together when she taught him to surf and he taught her how to love. 

She can’t just stand here with him anymore. She has to get to higher ground before she drowns. 

“Well, I need to grab the rest of my stuff and get going. I have… I’m having a friend for dinner tonight.”

She’s not interested in catching up, apparently. She brushes off his surfing comment like she’s never heard the word before and doesn’t want to ask what it means. Shawn doesn’t know how to interpret that. And then he wonders if there’s even anything to interpret. Maybe she’s just wholly uninterested in talking to him. His heart deflates in his chest at the thought, and he feels betrayed by his own crumbling resolve. He’s not supposed to want her attention. 

He sucks in a breath and nods, taking a slight step back as if to clear a path for her to the rest of the market. 

“Yeah,” he says with a tight smile, “Of course, sure. There’s plenty of good stuff here, so. You know. Take your time.” 

He glances over his shoulder at the crowd of girls still milling around the stage. They’re there waiting to fawn and squeal and bathe him in attention, and he couldn’t care less. He wants to grab Maya by the shoulders and say, “Let me sing a song for you. Let me show you how nice life here can be.” 

But he’s not completely insane, so he doesn’t. 

He shrugs his shoulder and says, “Looks like I should probably get back to the stage anyway.” 

Maya looks over his shoulder at his adoring fanbase and cracks a genuine smile. “Yes, I can see you’ve got a harem waiting for you.”

Some things never change. 

“Shouldn’t keep them waiting, I guess.” 

Shawn wants to hug her, to feel her tucked underneath his arms where she fits so fuckingly perfectly. But even as she smiles at him, she looks ready to run, like each moment spent talking to him is more agonizing than the last, so instead he smiles and nods, then turns to weave his way through the crowd. 

He offers her a lopsided smile and bails. She refuses to watch him walk away. She closes her eyes, takes a couple deep breaths and turns. 

With her mushrooms, she picks up a few more bunches of fresh vegetables for a stir fry and… a bottle of wine because it feels very necessary now. 

Later that night, after a sunset that could put even Shawn’s smile to shame, she sits in a chair on her balcony with her bare feet up on the railing and the open bottle of wine swinging from her fingers. 

She wonders where he is. Maybe he’s got a cottage on the beach too. Maybe he’s looking at the same horizon she is. Maybe he’s not alone. 

Maya takes another drink.

---------

Taglist: @smallerinfinities @the-claire-bitch-project @achinglyshawn @infiniteshawn @mendesoft @singanddreamanyway @alone-in-madness @abigfatmess @shawnitsmutual @awkwardfangirl2014 @september-lace @grittyisaho @sinplisticshawn @rollingxstone @yslsaint @randi-eve @fallmoreinlove @heyits-claire @itrocksmysocks @parkerspicedlatte @simpledomain @abeautiful-and-cloudy-day @desire-to-live @jillian-nd @shawnwyr

[mattzerella-sticks]

Electing to Care (a Dean/Cas fic centered around voting) (ao3)

Dean Winchester has lived in Texas his whole life, and has seen it go red time after time, election after election. He never gave it a thought that there was something he could do to make a difference.

But then Sam drags him to a rally, where he meets someone who shows that one person can do just that. And the best way is to lead through example.

           There weren’t many things Dean Winchester would wake up early for. Work was a given, although ‘early’ is a fluid concept when you’re the owner of your own business. Some days a simple text saves him an hour or two from actually having to open his shop. Emergencies, as well, can rouse him from sleep much sooner than he’d like. His wants taking a backseat to the needs of his family and friends. However, on this morning – a morning of a rare day-off – it was neither of these two options that forced him to watch the wide, Texas sky bleed from marmalade to robin’s egg, jumping the chasm of the color wheel. The reason he’s conscious was because of a third, more sinister reason.

           Sam’s puppy-dog eyes.

           “Please, Dean,” his brother had begged him over dinner last night, “Eileen’s flight was cancelled, so she and Siobhan won’t be back until tomorrow night.” His wife and daughter were visiting with relatives over in Georgia, Sam exempt from travel because of a case. And while it wasn’t to be a long trip, their reunion has been forestalled by the reputed reliability of Delta airlines.

           Dean was nonplussed. “I don’t see why you can’t do this by yourself?”

           Sam sighed and started to explain, his fingers racing to keep up – a habit hard to break even while his wife’s eyes weren’t there. Dean couldn’t blame him, finding his own hands forming words seconds after he spoke. Although in contrast to Sam’s plea, Dean’s use of signs was centered on a key one: ‘no’.

           It was only when his brother pulled out his secret weapon that Dean finally surrendered, weakly nodding both head and fist.

           Which explains why he’s trapped in a crowd with strangers, his brother, and a half-empty tumbler of coffee barely doing its job.

           Even rubbing at his eyes under his shades doesn’t help. “Christ, Sammy,” Dean grouses, “How can you stand things like these?”

           His brother is too cheery for a man missing a wife. The night before he was like a dog waiting for its master to return home. And now, his tail is wagging as if Dean brought him to the park along with all the other pets. Sam turns to him, breaking from conversation with another group of young twenty-somethings. “It’s for a good cause,” he shrugs, “We’re all interested in the same thing.”

           Dean chuckles. “Yeah, surprisingly.” He casts another glance around at the crowd, amazed by the amount of Democrats who happen to live in Texas. When they first arrived at the park, Dean had expected twenty people at the most and five minutes before Sam sighed and freed him. What he wasn’t counting on was for people to show up. Now it’s been a half-hour since the thing was supposed to start, and Dean’s been gnawing on his arm like a trapped coyote.

           “What’s everyone waiting for anyway?”

           “This usually happens,” Sam tells him, “the guy running the rally gets caught up in talking to people he loses track of time.”

           Dean rolls his eyes. “Of course. Some two-bit politician in a three-piece suit, making sure ‘he’s got our vote’!” Sam doesn’t appreciate the jab, shooting him a bitch-face reminiscent of the time Dean sewed the cuffs of all his pants three inches shorter than they were. “It wasn’t funny, dude,” Sam snapped at him after work, “I had a meeting with my boss and all she could stare at were my ankles!” Dean couldn’t hear him over his own laughter.

           “He’s not like that,” Sam says, “Cas is pretty cool.”

           “Cas – you know the guy well?”

           “We’ve had a few conversations.” Sam smiles, gazing up towards the makeshift stage where a few people were milling about. “He actually started this organization himself, y’know, after the election.” Sam points to his white t-shirt, where the words ‘I Got the Blues’ stand out in fierce cobalt. There was another, similar shirt crumpled in the backseat of Baby, where Dean had tossed it, preferring his own black tee. “Wanted to be a part of the ‘rising Blue Wave in Texas’ as he called it.”

           Dean scoffs. “More power to him, but he does know Austin’s an anomaly, right? There’s not enough of a differing majority to make Texas look like anything else but an ugly, red sunburn – unfortunately.” He notices a few people shoot him some ugly looks, and he ignores them.

           Sam offers another reproachful look. “We came close. And with everything happening, especially in our own state, lots of people are looking to jump ship. You remember that protest against detention camps Eileen and I went to a month and a half ago?” How could Dean forget – it’s not everyday he gets a FaceTime from his sister-in-law telling him his baby brother was in jail. “We outnumbered the counter-protesters ten to one! You couldn’t even hear them. And – get this – Cas organized the whole thing.”

           “He’s really working hard for his votes.”

           “God, Dean, do you even follow the news?”

           “No – why?”

           “Cas isn’t running for any office.”

           “Wait,” Dean says, “you’re telling me this guy has nothing to gain from… any of this? Then why’s he putting in all this work?”

           Sam smiles again, a small one usually given to babies or toddlers when asking things like ‘why is the grass green’. “Because he just cares.”

           The words struck Dean into a sort of silence. Sam leaves him for a bit, then, ambling over to a few other people he knows. Which is fine with him, as he needs the solitude to process his thoughts.

           Caring is something Dean thought was antithetical to today’s society. What with everything going on in and around the world, numbing yourself was the only way to survive. Dean treated everything outside his personal sphere with a cool indifference. He has his opinions, but he can’t work up the energy to voice them anymore. No matter what, it always felt like he was being drowned out or being proven wrong. ‘Bisexuality is a real thing, dad’ is met with ‘you’ll find a nice girl someday’. ‘Stanford is so far away, Sammy’ seemed like a good argument at the time, but now that his brother is back with a good job and loving family, is now just a bad memory. ‘We can make it work, Lisa’ never had any foothold in reality. It’s why he hasn’t voted in a long time, since his vote won’t make a difference whether Texas finally breaks with tradition or stay entrenched in their past.

           Thankfully, he’s saved from drowning in his musings by the projected tapping of a life preserver. Dean refocuses on the stage as Sam makes his way back towards him. “Is it starting?” he asks.

           “Yep.” He points, “That right there is Cas.”

           Cas is… not what he was expecting. Given that he knows enough about politics to fill a leaky barrel, his mind crafted a caricature of a man. He thought he’d see a balding, somewhat pudgy guy waddle his way up the steps in a suit or – worse – a button-down with the sleeves rolled up so he can ‘get to work’. Instead, Cas is an average guy. He has a full head of dark hair that looks as styled as his own. And his choice in clothes is a mix of stuff Dean is sure is in his own closet. Aside from the ‘I Got the Blues’ in reverse colors, Cas has on a brown-and-blue plaid shirt, some khaki shorts and…

           “What kind of hippie sandals are those?”

           Sam scoffs at him. “Those are Tevas.”

           “Te-what now?”

           “Tevas,” Sam says, “they’re more than just a sandal. You can do a lot in ‘em like hike, bike, rock climb –“

           “So what you’re saying is you own a pair, too?”

           His response to Dean’s jab is very suspicious blanching. “Just shut up and watch…”

           He does. Not because Sam told him to but because Cas still had a surprise or two up his sleeves, like his voice. It was as gravelly as the road he and Sam would bike to reach the lake near their Uncle’s property every summer when they were still kids. And just as treacherous. One time Dean was tossed on his ass because he wasn’t paying attention, and the pebbles dug enough into his skin to scrape. He’s dealing with a similarly uncomfortable sensation. Except the only scraping caused by Cas’s coarse baritone is Dean’s dick at his zipper. ‘Probably the worst thing to do at a rally,’ he thinks, ‘is popping a boner.’

           Dean wills for his dick to stop pounding at the gate, regretting his decision to forgo underwear. “It’s warm,” he remembers saying earlier, “and I’ll be back in my sweats soon enough. Why waste a pair?” ‘What a fool I was…’

           “Hey, could you stop?” Sam whispers to him, eyes whipping back and forth between him and Cas, “I know this isn’t your thing but at least try to look like you’re having a good time – for me?”

           ‘You don’t even want to know the horrible good time I’m having here, Sammy.’ Still, for his brother, he musters up enough strength to grimace as Cas wraps up his speech. He motions for someone else, a woman, to come to the stand. They shake hands and hug, and he moves off to the side so she can have everyone’s attention.

           Except his eyes stay on Cas. He should be relieved now that the man’s siren song was over, except Dean’s left still spellbound. The woman was an easy out – Dean could have focused completely on her and her platform and depressed himself thoroughly enough to wilt his crotch. But no matter how hard he tries, he finds himself looking back over towards the other man.

           Watching him, Dean sees he’s completely enraptured with what she has to say. His body is turned toward her, profile blocking out the heavy sun, making it near blinding to gaze at him for too long. Dean was never one to shy from a challenge. If he stared long enough, he looked a lot like the saint Sam and others probably thinks he is.

           Without realizing, the crowd starts clapping and Dean is dragged from his contemplation. Sam hollers and cheers with the rest of them, nudging him to do the same. He nestles his coffee between his elbow and chest and claps.

           “Thank you,” Cas takes the microphone again, “That was as inspiring and empowering as always. Now, remember folks, if we want to get her elected to office, we need to –“ the crowd responds, “Vote!” “You need to tell your friends to –“ “Vote!” “Your family?” “Vote!”

           “Because what do we got?”

           “We got the blues!” There’s another uproar, and Dean startles at the ferocity of it.

           Cas laughs at it. “Thank you. To get your strength up for the long battle to midterms, please go and grab some complimentary brunch – on us.”

           “Brunch?”

           Dean noticed the tables near the back of the event, where he was sure some volunteers would be staffed to get unknowing suckers into signing petitions. When he and Sam arrived, all he saw was a few clipboards stacked at the end of one of the tables before his brother was dragging him towards the front. But if Sam didn’t have to be early to everything in his life, he might have been able to see the food being brought in. Or get a good place in line.

           Sam nods. “They always get somewhere good to cater. Since it’s brunch they might even have mimosas?”

           “Good,” Dean claps him on the back, “Hope you can carry all of it when you get back here.”

           “What?”

           “You brought me here,” Dean tells him, dialing up his own puppy-dog eyes, “It’s the least you could do.” They’re not as well executed as Sam’s but they get the job done. He’s enjoying the sight of Sam trudging into the crowd, getting smaller and smaller, when he feels a slight presence behind him.

           Dean doesn’t know what’s worse: that Cas is standing right there or that he’s even hotter up close. Details he couldn’t make out are now in sharp detail. Like the scruff dusting his chiseled jaw, or how his shirt clings tight, teasing at strong, defined muscles that are on display with his calves. Even now he’s at a loss because of the other man’s eyes – as blue as the party his shirt is touting.

           Cas holds a hand out to him. “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Castiel Novak, but you can call me Cas.”

           “Dean,” he replies, “Dean Winchester.” Cas’s hands are calloused and warm, a nice feeling even in this torturous heat. “And yeah, this is my first time – here, at a… my brother brought me.”

           “I take it your brother is Sam Winchester?”

           Dean raises a brow. “He’s talked about you,” Cas continues, explaining, “And I saw you two standing together in the crowd. Wasn’t that hard to put the pieces together.”

           “Yeah, he’s a hard one to miss.” He waits a beat, debating on what lie to use to exit the conversation before he ruins it. Only Cas isn’t as willing to let go as he is.

           “So, what did you think?”

           “Think of what?”

           “Of… this?”

           “Oh, um… it wasn’t that bad. Except it’s not really my thing…” Cas’s head tilts adorably, and Dean would appreciate it more if he wasn’t trying to forget the taste of his foot. Except it seems he’s not keen on taking it out of his mouth anytime soon. “Y’know, politics. I think you’re doing a nice thing but… I don’t know – I’ve never seen the point in Texas.”

           “Politics is everybody’s thing, Dean.” He winces, recognizing the tone in the other man’s voice as the one his teachers would use when he was caught ditching class. “Voting is what decides how this country is going to be run and by who. I mean, look at what happened two years ago. November is important because we need to reverse all that’s happened before it’s too late.”

           “But it’s like we’ve already been tossed in the crapper and flushed before we realized it,” Dean argues, “How can we climb out when we’re stuck in the sewers?” The analogy draws a smile to Cas’s lips.

           “I wouldn’t know,” he starts, “I’m not a plumber by trade.”

           “Really? Then what do you do besides… this?”

           “I’m a carpenter.” He gestures to the stage, “I actually built this myself with some leftover material from a few orders, as well as some recycled wood from old furniture.”

           “That’s… really cool,” Dean says, smiling, “I know a lot about tools, but not enough to do all that. But show me a car and I can strip and repair her in a day.”

           “Mechanic?”

           “Yeah, I own Singers’ Body Shop down on Enfield.”

           “I’ve heard good things about it – from your brother, actually,” Cas tells him, “He was helping me connect with some lawyers, to do some pro bono work with detained immigrants, and my truck was having a fit. My brother ended up bringing it over to a Jiffy Lube the day after, so I never got around to going.”

           “Damned chain stores,” Dean grouses, “If it’s the one I’m thinking of I’ll be seeing you soon enough.”

           Cas’s eyes twinkle at the thought. “I’m lucky you’d want to see me again after such a delightful first impression.”

           “Look, sorry if I’m a little grumpy.” Dean scrubs a hand down his face, choosing his words carefully. “It’s not because I don’t believe in what you’re doing, really. I think it’s cool. But… I don’t know if it’ll all work out, s’all. I saw how excited Sam and all our friends were when it looked like Hillary was going to win but then… he wouldn’t leave his house for a week. The world’s not gonna change enough in two years to ever fix everything so what’s the point and… I don’t know, it’s probably me being stupid or – whatever.”

           “Dean.” He looks up, Cas’s voice sighing in such a fond way his heart skipping over itself at the sound. “What you’re experiencing isn’t rare. Voter apathy is a terrible affliction, one that persists thanks to the machinations of others. The people in power who don’t deserve their positions have coasted on it for years, disenfranchising constituents so there won’t be any opposition. That’s what I fight against by hosting these rallies, registering voters, and staging protests – making it so people care again.”

           “Sounds like a hard job.”

           Cas smiles with his gums. “That’s easy. The tough part is when it comes time to vote – hoping that I’ve done enough to turn out enough people at the polls.”

           Dean looks over at the sprawling crowd, watching them mingle with each other. People of different races, young and old, smiling and laughing like there’s nothing waiting for them in the newspaper or on Twitter that’ll send them into a spiral. “From the looks of things, you might just do it.” He feels something flutter in his chest, and a warm feeling oozes its way down like butter on a warm slice of toast.

           “And you?”

           He turns back to Cas. “What about me?”

           “Will you be voting?”

           Dean wishes he wasn’t facing Cas. It’s hard to crush the dreams of the good-looking man with a kind heart when you’re swimming in his eyes. His face turns red, and he focuses more on Cas’s mouth when he says, “…I’m not sure.”

           He gets a clear view of when Cas frowns. “What I mean is,” Dean continues, “I haven’t voted in awhile… not even sure I’m registered…”

           “That’s an easy fix, Dean,” Cas says, “the deadline is months away and –“

           “Why does it matter, anyway?” he asks, voice small, “My vote won’t make a difference…”

           “All votes make a difference, Dean,” Cas tells him, Dean’s self-doubt like oil spilling into the sea of his eyes, his passionate response setting it all terrifyingly ablaze. “Yes, it is just one vote but it helps raise up all the others. Your vote is like your voice, and if enough people shout it can get people’s attention. Even if we end up losing, if we make the margin as thin as possible – people will notice. Although, I have good faith all the people who’ve been taking a back seat for so long are no longer willing to let others drive for them.”

           Sam was wrong, back then, when he said Cas ‘just cares’. Because from what he’s seen, Cas doesn’t do anything in ‘justs’. His actions are absolutes. His words are truths. And God help everyone if his dreams aren’t reality. He pours his heart into his work and into people, and makes everything shine like they’ve gotten a fresh coat of varnish. Even now, Dean feels his own storm clouds lightening, as if Cas’s bright disposition is forcing them out.

           “You sure?” Dean asks, teasingly, “Getting me to vote could be a point for the other side…”

           Cas huffs. “Really, Dean, I find that hard to believe.”

           Dean isn’t done playing with him. “Well, y’know, I haven’t really been paying attention to the news lately, I might just pick the names I like the most. I like cruising in my car, so maybe I’ll vote for –“

           “If you’d like,” Cas cuts him off, his own impish grin plastered to his face, “I could make a helpful suggestion?”

           “Oh?”

           Cas takes a step closer. The extra foot of distance was a barrier keeping all of Dean’s senses and wits about him. Now Cas has the higher ground. “I’m not doing anything later tonight. We could meet up for dinner, somewhere casual, and I could explain the current political climate,” his voice takes on a breathy quality, “just… like… this.”

           Dean nearly falls apart at the seams. The only thing keeping him together is that he has to respond. But his tongue has a stranglehold on his brain, and not much gets through. “You – you would?”

           “Of course,” Cas says, “I find it’s best to… act, rather then letting opportunities slip away. I wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that you’re interested in… voting.” Dean whines low in his throat. “And maybe after we can take it back to my place and discuss,” his hand brushes across Dean’s crotch, “polls.”

           It’s too much for Dean – and too good to be true. “You don’t,” he huffs, trying to get control of himself, “You don’t just say that to any pretty face at a rally, do you?”

           Cas doesn’t get offended, instead chuckling at Dean’s question. “I couldn’t say, I’ve never actually seen anyone with as pretty a face as yours come to one of my events.”

           “Really?”

           “It wasn’t Sam that I noticed first in the crowd.” That hits all of Dean’s spots, and nearly has him seeing stars. But as quickly as Cas’s advances started, he takes a step back, allowing Dean the lungful of air he so desperately needed. However, his smile doesn’t dim. “Here, take this.” Cas hands him a business card. “You can text me so I’ll have your number, and we can go from there. It was a real… pleasure, meeting you, Dean.”

           Dean responds with a meek, “You, too.”

           Cas moves back towards the stage, towards a group of people, as if nothing happened. He does get a noogie from a smaller, blond man, and Dean’s only sure it’s because of what happened when he winks at Dean while suggestively licking his lollipop. Dean doesn’t watch them for much longer.

           At least Sam chooses then to walk back. “So they were out of drinks,” he said, handing Dean a plate, “but I managed to get eggs and some pancakes for us. Although that’s all the bacon I could get and – Dean, are you listening?”

           “Huh?”

           “Are you all right?” Sam asks, fork held steady in the air, waiting to see if it would continue in its quest for food or be held off by something else.

           Dean shakes himself out of his daze. “What? Yeah, yeah I’m fine – thanks…”

           Sam lets it go. But halfway through his meal, Dean, who can’t leave well-enough alone, bothers him again.

           “Hey Sam, can you tell me more about this whole…” he waves with his fork, “I Got the Blues thing?”

Epilogue – November 6, 2018

           Dean steps out from the building, a sticker tacked onto his shirt, smiling. It brightens when he spies a familiar figure leaning up against Baby. “Hey,” he calls out, “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be harassing people to do their ‘civic duty’?”

           Cas chuckles and wraps his arms around Dean’s waist. “I was, and will be. Wanted to check up on you is all.” He places a firm kiss to Dean’s lips, nipping at them, begging for entrance. He lets him in. After a good few minutes of making out, they pull away. “So,” he asks, nose pressed to nose, “what did you think?”

           “About the kiss or voting?”

           “I already know you love my kisses.” He gives Dean another one, tacked onto the end of his sentence like a period, to prove a point. “How do you feel now that you’ve voted?”

           “It feels – well… it feels like…”

           “Like…?”

           “Like nothing’s changed.”

           Cas leans back, disbelief etched into his face. “Excuse me?” he asks, “What do you mean nothing’s –“ He cuts himself off, noticing the Cheshire grin Dean has failed to reign in. “You little shit.”

           “What?”

           “Why is it you like to get a rise out of me?”

           “I don’t like getting a rise out of you.” Even he knows it’s a lie, and doesn’t need to see the shrewd look in Cas’s eyes. But playing dumb has its rewards, and Dean loves to reap them. “And anyway, I’m not totally wrong. We won’t find out who won until later tonight so really, nothing haschanged.”

           “You’re so obstinate.”

           “Am not.”

           “This is just like the Tevas all over again.”

           “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

           Cas huffs out a laugh. “You said they were ugly, stupid, and even more hippie than Birkenstocks.”

           “And?”

           “You’re wearing them right now!” Dean bites down on his lower lip, stuffing his smile down like an overflowing envelope as he peeks down at his feet. Like Cas said, Dean has his own tan pair on. The other man bought them for Dean when he tried Cas’s on. He was very vocal about not liking them, but Cas could see past the front Dean put up.

           “Well I didn’t have any other shoes to wear because somebody hid them on me,” he lies, letting his smile bloom like a spring flower at how Cas rolls his eyes. “At least I don’t have to work in these, otherwise you’d really be getting an earful.” Another good thing about being your own boss – if he wanted to make sure his employees went out and voted, close the shop and make your day’s pay be dependent on whether or not they get a sticker.

           “At least one of us has the rest of their day free,” Cas sighs, “I still need to check in with everyone and do a few more sweeps to make sure people engaged in the democratic process.”

           “You love it though.”

           “Yeah.”

           “And hey, when you’re done, come to my place,” Dean tells him, “we can get in a good mood and examine some polls.” Cas’s laughter still sends a shiver down his spine.

           “I’ll do just that.” They stare at each other, saying everything they ever need to with their silence. Cas pecks Dean on the lips one last time. “I should get going.”

           “You should.”

           It’s another five minutes before he does.

[wanderingmendes]

I lowkey/highkey need some badboy Shawn in my life rn. like lay it on me man I’m ready. 💕

Take What You Want

Growing up, your parents were ones to try and shield the outside world from you. In no way did they keep you locked up all day, or anything of that sort, rather came up with elaborate stories to cover all the bad in the world.

Around the age of 5, you noticed the group of motorcycle’s that would pass by your house everyday before dinner time. A half an hour before dinner, every night you sat by your front window and patiently waited for the men dressed in all black to come zipping down the road on their bikes, and every day they did. 

Your mother noticed this however, and was quick to sit you down and warn you not to watch as they passed by, because they were no good, dangerous to everyone around them. And at the age of 5, you believed her. Yet, at the age of nearly 18, you still believed her.

You discovered over the years from people at school, or passing by on the street, that these motorcycles were a gang. They were no good to be around. However, you unfortunately also discovered Shawn Mendes. 

Shawn Mendes isn’t your average run of the mill guy, rather the only biker in the gang that was around your age. The gang was incredibly hard to get into, and somehow, Shawn managed to make his way in. People who went to school along with him weren’t sure wether to be afraid of him or to worship him. 

In no way were you ever infatuated with Shawn himself, just the gang, or rather the idea of the gang. Yes, Shawn was incredibly fun to stare at in 3rd period science class, his leather jacket draped over his shoulder, muscles rippling under his black t-shirt as he goes to take it off. That one curl hanging loosely onto his forehead, he was adonis himself. But, your interactions with him never went further than a smile here and there.

Something was off. You could tell by the way the air conditioning system was buzzing that a door downstairs had opened. It was past 2 in the morning and both your parents had decided to take a much needed, last minute vacation to Bora Bora. Heavy thudding footsteps are heard coming up the stairs and you quickly hop out of your bed, slamming your door shut, locking it behind you before grabbing your baseball bat out of your closet.

You listened closely for the footsteps as they slowed, thudding becoming more hesitant before stopping all together. You held your breath, body shaking as a hand knocked on your door. “Y/n?”

Your head shot up and you quickly made your way over to the door, swinging it open and glaring at the boy standing in front of you. “What the hell!”

Shawn goes to retort, but is quickly stopped, taking in your appearance. Your night shorts have now ridden all the way up your ass, exposing almost all of it, and your nipples were poking through a white tank top which hid absolutely nothing.  He leans back onto the door frame, eyes shamelessly scanning over you, “Y’look cute.”

You blush deeply, and go to shut the door only for him to barge into the room and grab the bat from your hand. He gently places it onto your mattress before turning to look at you, moonlight illuminating his face. “Ever rode a motorcycle?”

You take a step away from him, his presence intimidating you a bit and you shake your head no. 

He raises an eyebrow and comes a bit closer to you, “No as in ‘no i don't want to’ or no as in ‘my daddy said I can’t get on a bike?”

You flush and cross your arms over your exposed chest, “My dad won’t let me.”

He smirks, reaching out for you and pulling you into him, hands traveling down your sides and pausing at the small of your back. “How about we change that, yeah?”

You were puzzled to say the least, Shawn Mendes, a boy you had never once spoken a word to has broken into your house, hit on you multiple times and now wants to take you for a ride on his motorcycle. 

You shake your head and lean back to look at him, his hands traveling down your bare arms. “Why?”

He chuckles and leans his head down a bit closer to yours, “Wanna know a secret?” You nod, doe eyed looking up at him. “Your dad keeps tabs on me when he’s in town, doesn’t want me near you, told me so myself.” His eyes darken and he licks his lips, minty breath hitting your nose. “But, I want you. And I don’t get told what I can and can’t have.” He leans down and kisses you gently, you quickly return the kiss and he pulls away. “I take what I want.”

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

More Than You Bargained For (Part 1)

Summary: The reader is a Hollywood actress who believes she can take care of herself just fine. When a stalker comes after her, Jensen Ackles is hired to act as her private bodyguard...

Masterlist

Pairing: Bodyguard!Jensen x reader

Word Count: 2,500ish

Warnings: language, stalking

A/N: I hope you enjoy the first of this 8 part series!..

It was slightly disconcerting when you rounded the bottom of your stairs, spun around towards the front of the house and saw an unfamiliar man standing near your front door. He looked bored and slightly pissed off, eyes darting around everywhere before landing on you. He stiffened up, fixing his tie and clasped his hands behind his back, returning to ignoring you when Alex came out of the hall with a smile. He waved the man down towards where Alex’s resident office was, your eyes glued to them both.

Alex gave you a short smile while you glared in return. It was Sunday. You hated meetings on Sundays. Especially when you weren’t told by your stupid manager someone was going to be dropping by. Hopefully the uptight Hollywood prick in his fancy suit would give Alex his pitch and be gone by the time you got back from your run.

Three Days Earlier

“Mr. Ackles,” said the man that answered the front door, wearing a polite but forced smile. “Please come in.”

“How do you know that I’m Mr. Ackles?” asked Jensen, staring at the man. He seemed confused at the question, cocking his head. “You’ve never seen me before. I would bet you have no idea what the real Mr. Ackles looks like.”

“Uh...I’m not sure I follow,” said the man, Jensen rolling his eyes and stepping inside.

“What’s your name?” asked Jensen, the man glancing around nervously.

“Terry Gruben. I run the house for Y/N,” he said.

“Run the house?” asked Jensen, crossing his arms.

“I manage the grounds,” said Terry, scrunching his face up at Jensen, done with the tough guy thing. “Yard, house, everything in between.”

“Tell me Mr. Gruben, how many people are on the premises at the moment?” asked Jensen, Terry shrugging. “Mr. Gruben, is there any kind of security here? Apart from the basic system that isn’t even turned on?”

“Y/N finds it...irksome so we leave it off during the day,” said Terry. “You can call me Terry. Y/N doesn’t like-”

“Ms. Y/L/N will get her own debrief,” said Jensen, taking a deep breath. “I would like the names of every person that works or visits here. Friends, family, landscapers, you get the picture.”

“Why-”

“Because I asked for it. I have an appointment with Mr. Calvert and he informed me that he would be on time. Is that still accurate?” asked Jensen, hearing footsteps just down the hall.

“Ah, Jensen, nice to meet you in the flesh,” said a man about five or so years younger than himself, a few inches shorter but a solid build underneath his fitted suit. He was certainly a business man but there was something a little soft under his the features he was trying to make hard. Not an asshole unless he had to be. Good. “I’m Alex Calvert. We-”

“Yes, you spoke to an agency and they referred you to my personal services,” said Jensen, smoothing out his jacket. “Shall we?”

“Yes, let’s get down to it,” said Alex, waving Jensen to follow after, down a short hall that seemed to go into the home’s study.

It was a large room with tall ceilings that seemed too formal to fit with the feel of the house. Sure, the main foyer and front sitting room that Jensen had seen screamed staged and never used. But a closet door someone had forgotten to shut all the way with untied old sneakers hanging out said this place wasn’t as prim and proper as it pretended to be.

“Want a drink?” asked Alex, motioning for Jensen to take a seat at one of the large comfortable chairs near a fireplace. He scrunched up his nose, already disliking the lack of formality.

These people would be a pain in his ass if he took the job.

“No. You said this was very...urgent,” said Jensen, unbuttoning his suit jacket, taking a seat while Alex poured a small glass of bourbon for himself. He took a long swig of it, sitting with an almost silent sigh. He glanced at Jensen for a moment, looking him over.

“Can you keep things quiet?” asked Alex.

“While we might not have a contract in place, all information discussed thus far and at this meeting remains confidential,” said Jensen. Alex tapped his empty glass for a few seconds before he stood. He went to the large mahogany desk and opened the bottom drawer, turning back towards Jensen with a thick manilla folder.

“This is the average, run of the mill threats she gets on a monthly basis,” said Alex, handing the folder to Jensen, his eyes briefly flipping through it. “But this...” he said, picking up the folder from the end table Jensen’s had his eyes on the whole time, “This is something else.”

Jensen set the thick stack down on the floor, reaching for the thinner blue folder, tearing it open and leafing through the few sheets of paper there.

“The first letter was received just over a week ago?” asked Jensen.

“Every three days we’ve been getting them. The one on top came this morning,” said Alex, Jensen holding it up.

“This is not a death threat. This is a promise,” said Jensen, reading over the few words typed out carefully. “Your client-”

“Y/N,” said Alex, Jensen nodding.

“Ms. Y/L/N, has obviously attracted the attention of people before. These,” said Jensen, nudging the stack on the ground with his foot, “These are harmless threats as you know. An annoyance but nothing to take seriously.”

“I’ve worked in this industry long enough to know that. That’s why I called and asked for the best,” said Alex.

“Mr. Calvert, Ms. Y/L/N has no idea these letters even exist, does she?” asked Jensen. Alex’s face was blank but Jensen was able to read him easily enough. “I would advise you speak to Ms. Y/L/N before we move any further.”

“I am fully capable of making this arrangement for Y/N,” said Alex, squinting at Jensen.

“Why is that? Do you have a power of attorney I’m unaware of?” asked Jensen, cocking his head.

“I am Y/N’s manager. I am also her older brother,” said Alex.

“Her brother,” said Jensen, raising an eyebrow.

“Y/N was adopted by my family when we children,” said Alex. “She’s been a part of my life for the past fifteen years.”

“You got to be what, 27?” asked Jensen, earning a nod back. “You’re barely older than she is.”

“Do you have any siblings?” asked Alex. Jensen didn’t see the point in answering but Alex wasn’t budging.

“Two. Older brother, younger sister,” said Jensen with a sigh, Alex smirking a little.

“If someone sent a letter like that to your stubborn as hell little sister, wouldn’t you do everything you could to make sure she was safe? Even if it’d piss her off for probably the rest of her life?” asked Alex.

“I understand your point but unless Ms. Y/L/N signs the contract, if I even want to take her on as a client, I will not work for her Mr. Calvert,” said Jensen as he stood up, buttoning his jacket, tugging it back into place.

“I will handle Y/N. We both know you already want the job so-”

“How would you know I want the job?” asked Jensen, curious if more than anything.

“Because according to the agency, you take the cases they don’t give to their normal guys,” said Alex. “You’re quote, ‘A glutton for punishment,’ according to them.”

“Then I’m sure you’ve heard why I don’t technically work for them,” said Jensen, clenching his jaw.

“We aren’t talking about paparazzi bugging her or some overzealous fan that wants a picture. This guy-”

“Wants to tear Ms. Y/L/N apart. Very slowly too if he has his way,” said Jensen.

“Should we talk the details now or do you want to keep wasting both of our times before you finally agree?” said Alex.

“I think I might be warming up to you Mr. Calvert.”

Present

You were sweaty and hot when you were running back around to the front of the house. You absolutely hated the first home Alex had helped you find when you moved out of his place into your own. It was prissy and old and it reminded you way too much of when you were a kid. After a month of complaining to him everyday, you tracked down this place.

There were plenty of things you hated about this one too but it had a big back yard, huge with a ton of space for parties he’d told you. You liked it because it had tall trees and was quiet, ample amount of room to go run a few laps around the edge of the property when you didn’t want to face the world.

“Ms. Y/L/N,” said the man in the suit from the foyer, stepping out from behind your shed with such a confident stance, you moved out of the way to avoid smashing into him. You stumbled right beside him, one of his hands catching your arms and pulling you upright like you were nothing. He released you and you tried to get your breath back, spotting Alex exit the shed.

“Alex, Mr....” you said, the man nodding.

“Mr. Ackles,” he said, back as stiff as a board, feet firmly planted in the ground like some sort of statue.

“I appreciate you coming all the way out to my home but could we do this pitch another time? I normally don’t work on Sundays,” you said. Mr. Ackles turned to Alex, his eyes cold.

“Ms. Y/L/N signed the contract we agreed to yet she doesn’t appear to know who I am,” said Mr. Ackles. “Mr. Calvert, please tell me you did not forge her signature.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Alex, giving you a guilty smile. “Hey, so you know how I said it’d be kind of a good idea to get you a bodyguard? This-”

“I said you could look into getting me one. I didn’t want one,” you said, crossing your arms. “I’m sorry to waste your time Mr. Ackles but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I’ve counted approximately 37 weak spots along your perimeter where you could be grabbed. This shed being one of them. Now, as it looks like you are at the end of your run, your body is fatigued, dehydrated, slow and off balance, all proven to me already when you tripped. If I had wanted to take advantage of this weak spot with you in your current state, I don’t think you’d be capable of anything Ms. Y/L/N apart from ending up a kidnapping victim or worse,” said Mr. Ackles. You panted a few more times, blinking up at him and his pretty face. Oh Alex was a damn bastard. He knew exactly what your type was and this guy was all that and then some.

You weren’t letting it fool you though.

“He can get the fuck out,” you said to Alex, glaring at your brother.

“No...he technically can’t,” said Alex, rubbing the back of his head.

“What the fuck did you do, Alex?” you said, growling at him, hands clenching into fists.

“You were correct. She is very stubborn,” said Mr. Ackles, your gaze going to him.

“Excuse me but I didn’t invite you onto my property so you can get the fuck off it,” you said, turning back to Alex. “Who the hell is he and why is he not leaving, Alex?”

“Okay, first off, it’s your own fault for not reading that contract. I always tell you to read that shit,” said Alex.

“I pay you to read it you ass clown,” you said. “What did you-”

“Mr. Ackles, Jensen here, is your private bodyguard until both parties agree to terminate the contract. You technically did sign it you know so it’s your own fault,” said Alex.

“I knew you were pulling something over on me, making me sign something that late at night,” you said, turning to your supposed bodyguard. “Listen, Jensen. This is bull and you know it, I know it so I’m sorry for the trouble but this contract is done. I will pay you for your services thus far and we’ll both go our separate ways.”

“I don’t agree to end the contract, therefore it is in place and you are my client. Also my name is Mr. Ackles,” said Jensen. If your eyes could have gone any wider, you weren’t sure they’d still be in your head.

“Do I need to get a lawyer involved here?” you said, crossing your arms.

“Mr. Calvert, I believe we should allow Ms. Y/L/N to clean up and we can address this issue directly,” said Jensen, walking back towards the front of the house.

“What is going on Alex?” you asked, throwing up your hands, ready to deck him for doing something like that to you. “You’re my manager for six years and you never once did something like this. Fuck, you’re my brother! You sign me up to sell my kidney on the black market too?”

“Y/N,” said Alex, surprised he wasn’t giving you his annoyed older brother face for once. “Do what he said. Finish your run and clean up. Meet me in my office when you’re done. There’s something you need to know.”

A/N: Read Part 2 here!

@baconlover001 @jensenackesl @captainemwinchester @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @anokhi07 @akshi8278 @fandom--shipper

@zeusmyster @atc74 @aingealcethlenn @pillow223 @alilianamendez @dancingalone21 @smoothdogsgirl @docharleythegeekqueen @blushingdean @ayeeitsemry @jaelami @roxyspearing @kickasscas67 @gallifreyansass @untitled39887 @charliebradbury1104 @quiddy-writes @arryn-nyxx @poukothenerd @feelmyroarrrr @mrsbatesmotel53 @idalinette @evyiione @jayankles @samisimportant @maddieburcham1 @demonic-meatball @hey-um-misha @flufy07 @its-not-a-tulpa @whit85-blog @mrswhozeewhatsis @extreme-supernatural-lover @tardis-full-of-fallen-angels @spn-ficfanatic

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@cherryblossom292

[thefamilyineverknew]

Turning 47: pt. III

“Despacito”

Previously on Turning 47: Your DNA results are in, Professor Lightner...Mmm, Culver’s...Hi Kurt, I think you may be my son....what the WHAT?!...

At a time like this, time ceases to exist, if only momentarily. There had been a fabric disruption, a shifting of tectonic plates. I think I was thinking of thinking, but it was more a feeling of feeling. None of it had a proper term or name. So I just sat there and finished my fries and diet root beer (another luxury I indulged greatly back in the U.S.).

I got in the car. The key worked, so there was that, and I plugged in the coordinates for New Harmony. Still, it took me awhile to get back out on the road, not because of my state of mind (I don’t think), but because the navigator was directing me to weave all around this big box shopping complex where the restaurant was placed. Aggravating. What are archeologists of 2000 yrs forward going to make of these sprawling Byzantine parking lots?

Anyway, I got on the road with this new knowledge just kinda humming in the background. “I just made contact with my birth mother...huh”. “Her name is Arla...huh”... “Wow”...”Huh...”. That her name was Arla was very interesting to me, you see, because it is also the name of the major dairy producer in Sweden. I have some Arla yogurt in my fridge as I write this (one of my favorite things when I first moved here was Yoggi, a super smooth, but thick, pourable yogurt made by Arla). I thought there was a sly joke being made by the universe here; mother’s milk. It is a nice coincidence.

Then a thought occurs to me that had previously never entered my mind; I caused someone else’s body to change by simply being. My mother carried me to term, and all the while she transformed around me. It had honestly never crossed my mind. No longer was I simply plopped down from outer space, first person on earth. I am here because of someone. Someone who has a name, who is alive!

On the road, day turns to dusk, and I am nearing New Harmony. Now, for those of you who do not know, this town is not your average, everyday, run-of-the mill small towns; it has a very peculiar history that the townspeople prize and keep up. New Harmony began as an experimental utopian village in about 1810, set up by residents who moved from Harmony, Pennsylvania; thus, New Harmony. They built all the structures according to their bylaws, ideals, and standards. About ten years in, a newly moneied robber baron bought out the town and set up his own, newer utopian settlement. This lasted another decade or so. From that time til now, the village has grown from these roots. It is speckled with the work of world-class artists and architects, like Philip Johnson, and has been a center of scientific research and discovery.

It’s placement, surrounded by an acute river bend, makes it more akin to an island. Residents drive golf carts instead of cars. It has a real eerie charm to it, and this is what I was driving into with my mind already swirling.

I arrive at my friends’ in the dark. The vibe of Savannah, of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was all around. Marc & Amanda invite me in, hugs, offer a beer. We hadn’t seen each other in at least 10 years, though we are facebook-close. We reveled, commiserated about the state of things, marveled at Michelle Wolf’s roast at the correspondent’s dinner, and then I reiterated the story, parts I & II....when suddenly this noise starts coming from the darkness outside. What IS that? My friends know what’s up as we go to the door. There’s this guy standing in the middle of the street, wailing on bagpipes, just going for it. Sure, that fits just right. It was their neighbor from across the street, a bagpiper who has toured with Sting. Definitely right.

The next morning, we get up and go to their café in town, Black Lodge Coffee Roasters. Yes! Twin Peaks. It fits. They opened this café after moving here from Nashville 10 years ago, and every detail matches their aesthetic and standards of quality (do make a point to visit, it’s the nicest little café in weirdest little spooky town you’ll find). I ran into another old friend from Nashville there, designer Griffin Norman, who, by virtue of being a regular patron with creative scheduling, was working behind the bar as a barista. He gave me one of his provocative IMMIGRANT t-shirts (and took the photo in my current profile pic).

So all this while, I’m kinda just sitting on this new information, this new discovery, while bathing in an unexpected environment. I hadn’t written back to Arla, and wouldn’t for another week while I’m in Nashville. I’m just sitting with it, like a heavy blanket on a sofa.

I know the next leg of my journey after Nashville will take me to Garden City, Kansas for my cousin Matt’s wedding, but from there...?

[friendly-neighborhood-michelle]

Hey 😄 I wanted a one shot, where peter tries to hide his identity to the reader. He tries to convince her by visiting, her, wearing the spiderman suit telling, he is not Peter. And she 'believe' him. And she flirts 'spiderman man' to make Peter jelous. I dont now if that make any sense 💕

I hope you enjoy :) i got a bit carried away lol but ending is very cliche, as requested ;)

Style: one shot

Word Count: 1969

Warnings: slight cursing, fluff, and a silly/stupid peter parker

Masterlist

Request Here

Peter Parker. You’re average, everyday, run-of-the-mill, basic, boring, absent-minded, adolescent boy. Said no one ever.

Although he seemed like that on the outside, you refused to accept that fate for your best friend. He was funny, brilliant, and for some unknown reason, extremely and utterly confusing.

He would dart out of the room unexpectedly, only to come back out of breath and disheveled. You prayed to god he wasn’t running about, getting in a quickie with some rando girl every so often. Of course, your mind always brushed that away every time you thought of it, I mean, Peter wasn’t that kind of person. He was shy and extremely awkward. He’s fumble over his words and stumble over his feet. You played it off as hilarious, but really, you found it adorable. He was just so damn cute. When he’d blush, you’d blush. When he’d smile, you’d smile. When he’d cry, you’d cry.

You two had a connection no doubt, but you assumed Peter painted it in his mind as platonic. But for some goddamn reason, you couldn’t help but take it as love.

You were in love with Peter Parker.

I mean yes, he had perfect hair and a charming smile, anyone who likes guys knows that good hair is an absolute treasure and a cute smile could make your head spin uncontrollably, but it was Peter’s personality that got you hooked. He was passionate about doing the right thing, from giving a homeless citizen a hot meal to doing his chem homework done in time. The way he talked about his ambitions and love for his Aunt May, it drew you in.

Watching the smile on his face and light in his eyes captivated you, like sirens to a ship full of drunken sailors navigating the seas. But, instead of his lure taking you to a death-defying fate, it lead you straight to his heart.

You dared not ever confess your feelings, potentially risking the bond you thrived off of.

You just couldn’t escape, no matter how hard you tried.

Peter had done what he always had. He left in the middle of your after-school, study session at the library. You expected it by now, and you couldn’t tell if you were getting immune to it, or annoyed by it.

You never asked where he was going, but when he got back he always felt the need to give an excuse.

The first time;

“Sorry, May needed me.”

“Peter it’s fine, I don’t care. Just warn me before running off like that.”

The sixth time;

“Sorry ‘bout that, had to use the bathroom. It was an emergency.”

“You went to the bathroom. For 45 minutes??”

And today, the fourteenth time; (but who was counting)

“So sorry, I just got super hungry and went to Delmar’s for a quick bite.”

“Shit excuse Peter… but did you even get me anything?”

You didn’t understand. Why would he just keep running off, literally. It made absolutely no sense. But you ignored it, you trusted Peter. But you couldn’t help but wonder if he trusted you. Why would he lie to you? You thought you were closer than that.

So, you spoke up.

“Peter.”

“Yeah?” He stayed continued on with his homework.

“Why do you lie to me.” And with this, he froze.

“I don’t know what you mean Y/N.” Still, looking down at his paper, but this time not working.

“Peter. We should know each other better. You should know me better.” He looked up at you, only to meet a pair of disappointed eyes.

“We do know each other. I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re best friends.”

“Then why do you lie to me? You just run away and come back a long enough amount of time later. Only to return looking all messed up and with some lame excuse.”

“Y/N lis-” You cut him off.

“Do you not trust me?”

“No. You know I trust you Y/N. I just have a lot going on, I don’t want to drag you into a mess and disrupt your life with it.” He looked back down, and continued on with his work.

You looked forward again, huffing out a sigh of unsatisfaction. Your eye was caught by the muted television mounted onto the wall of the library. The commonly seen “Spider-Man” was shown successfully stopping a corner mart robbery.

That. That explained it. All of it.

It undoubtedly made no sense that the timid Peter Parker could be a superhero associated with Iron Man and The Avengers. But it was the closest thing you had to a truth. So you rolled with it.

“I get it now.” Peter ignored you, only offering a slight ‘hm’ in response.

“You’re Spider-Man.” As expected, Peter shot his head up.

“That’s ridiculous Y/N. Look at me, I’m no Spider-Man.” He stumbled over his words. A typical trait to the young boy.

“Peter stop it. I know it’s you. Granted, you don’t seem to match an outside appearance of such a brave, bold superhero. But the Peter I know, would stop at nothing to do good to his beloved Queens.” He hated you for that. For complimenting him and reminding him of the reason he does it all, showing off how well you knew your best friend.

“Y/N…” he really didn’t know how to get out of this one, and even for a brief second, you hoped you’d guessed right and he’d finally stop lying. But alas, “…I told you, I’m not Spider-Man. People will never see me the way they see him, it’s not even imaginable for a kid like me to be like him. So just drop it.”

You winced at the sharp-tipped words he let out. You didn’t want to fight with Peter, so you let it go. But you didn’t let him off the hook so easy, for the rest of your study session, you didn’t pipe a single word to him. You knew It’d kill him inside. Regardless of how it pained you to do such a thing, it was mandatory in order to knock some sense into him.

After arriving home, grabbing a snack, and heading to your room, you flopped down on your bed. Closing your eyes and letting out a shaky, annoyed sigh as to how the day had gone.

You reached over your head, eyes still closed, and pulled your pillow over your face. The cool touch of your pillowcase, engulfing your senses for a brief second. You relished the feeling, before being robbed of your tranquility by a slight ‘bang’ against your window.

You groaned, sitting up, and opening your eyes. The light coming from your room hurting your eyes for a moment, after getting used to the dark setting your eyelids provided. You stood up, dragging your feet over to the window, looking out for whatever could’ve hit your window.

You assumed something fell from a fire escape a few levels above yours, or a bird hitting the window a tad when perching on the sill. But what you found was all to comedic.

There he was, Peter. Well, Spider-Man. If Peter was Spider-Man, you’d known he was here to discourage you from your former accusations.

You opened the window and stepped out. Smirking at the overdramatic gesture.

“Hi.” Was all he said.

“Hey Pete. How’s the trouble in Queens tonight?” You smirked.

“I-I’m sorry, you must be mistaken.” Funny, Spider-Man was less confident than Peter when it came to playing something off.

“Oh, my bad. So Spider-Man,” you figured you have some fun an make Ol’ Petey jealous, “I just can’t help myself.” You placed a hand gently on his bicep. “Oh my,” you said dramatically, “You’re SO strong and brave,” you dramatically, again, bit your lip, “There’s no way you could be Peter. He’s nothing like the man you are Spidey.”

And with that, he was a goner.

“Wha-What do you mean, ‘no way,’ I-I mean he could be at least a-a little manly…  like m-me.” He choked out.

“Nope. No way in hell he could ever be as muscular and hot as you are.” It was so hard to not burst out in laughter right then and there. You didn’t care if by putting on this act you were hinting towards your longing crush on Peter. It was damn well worth it.

“Okay well, this Peter kid, who I don’t know,” He’d put an unnecessary emphasis on ‘don’t’, “is probably super hot, like, he sounds hot, you know, like, he, the way, he just, hot, you know, he’s gotta be at least a little?”

Again, you tried desperately not to laugh, as hard as it was, “No. No.” You shook your head, stepping closer to him, “Peter isn’t anywhere near as attractive as you are…. Then again, unless, you’re Peter.” You suggested with an all-knowing smirk.

“Ahaha, no-nope, just me, your friendly, neighborhood, good ol’ spider-man.” He nervously laughed out.

“If you say so…” You dragged on, hoping he’d jump in and finally come clean.

He stood his ground, agitating you a bit. You had to do it. You had to complete the mission no matter the stakes. You cringed at your future actions, but letting way to what was ultimately necessary.

“Well, since you’re not Peter, you won’t mind if I lifted your mask just a bit… and kissed you?” Bam. Just like that, he was done for.

You knew, because you two had previously talked about it, that Peter would never let you kiss someone you didn’t know first. You had always seen it as a ‘protective big brother’ type of thing, but really, it was born from any potential jealousy Peter didn’t want to ever encounter.

Hence, you leaned in. He didn’t stop you.

You lifted his mask gently. He didn’t stop you.

You lifted yourself on the balls of your feet and-

-he stopped you. Pushing a hand to your chest.

“Wa-wait. Y/N stop. I can’t let you do that.” You chuckled, causing him to become confused as to why you’d laugh at a rejection.

“I caught you.” He still didn’t catch on.

“I never told you my name.”

“Shit. Y/N. Please, do-don’t be mad at me.” He suddenly began to fear for your friendship.

“Peter I’m not mad.” You reassured him. “I just, I wish you felt like you could’ve told me. You know?”

“Yeah, I get it. I just didn’t want you to have to risk anything for knowing my secret.”

“I would’ve easily given that sacrifice… for you Peter.” You smiled tenderly as Peter lifted off his mask.

There he is. The boy you knew and loved, under that intimidating mask and you felt differently about.

“Sorry for trying to kiss you, I just did it because I knew you wouldn’t want me to kiss any guy I didn’t really know.” You looked down, a blush creeping its way onto your cheeks.

“It’s fine,” You met his eyes, “and, I didn’t stop you because of that.” It was now your turn to be confused by his statement.

“I-I wanted the first time we kissed, and yes, I kind of hoped it would eventually happen, but, I wanted it to be me, Peter Parker, to be able to say that they kissed you. Not some superhero who could take all the credit.”

And with that, all your fears, all your anxiety, all the hiding your feelings towards Peter all were simply swept away by the passing, quiet friend that was the new york breeze.

But you as well, were pushed in a way by that breeze, but not away from yourself or from Peter. But rather, drawing you in, into a gentle kiss.

And all the world, too, was swept away, by that knowing friend you called the breeze.

[softboywriting]

Honey| Werewolf!Shawn One Shot

It’s too late for me to properly title this. But I did it. Pleaseeeeee enjoy. tw:violence/fighting tw:choking/injury (by OC not Shawn)

Btw in this AU werewolves are a part of everyday society.

Summary: Shawn is your werewolf roommate.

Word count: 1,698

You knew what Shawn was when you met him. You could tell by the way he stood tall, his eyes just too golden brown for any normal guy. His skin was perfect, he was ripped but ate like a professional in an eating competition. Not that he didn’t work out, because he very obviously did, it was just that the amount of food and calories he consumed was alarming and if consumed by anyone else, would have made them gain weight rapidly. No, Shawn was no average run of the mill guy with a cheeky smile and a beautiful voice. He was a werewolf.

Your best friend, Maya, was hesitant to let him move into the flat with the two of you. She thought he could be dangerous or bring some unwanted trouble, but she was wrong. Shawn was sweet, caring and considerate of their space. He hardly ever left his dishes undone, he cleaned up the bathroom after himself and even took on the responsibility of cleaning the living room once a week. Overall he was the perfect roommate.

The two of you got close, staying up together while he worked on music and you studied for your upcoming tests and did homework. He was funny, he made you laugh with his stupid jokes and dumb impressions and he always went to you for advice about his song lyrics. He loved to call you Honey when he got real tired and you loved hearing him say it. The two of you never dated, never went beyond the talking and late night bonding. It just never came up.

However, there was thing about him that bothered you. Shawn would disappear for a week every month. He wouldn’t say he was leaving or when he would be back. He would just be gone and he would show up 5 to 7 days later as if nothing happened. You asked him once and he laughed and said it was a werewolf thing. You didn’t push for details.

It was almost that time of the month. In fact, you look at a calendar, it was three days after when he usually ditches. Your day started like normal, wake up, bathroom, breakfast. It’s while you're munching on a bagel that you hear a loud groan from Shawn’s room. You peek down the hall but ultimately decide to mind your business.

Ten minutes later Shawn is all but yelling. You drop the mug you were washing in the sink and run to his room. His door is locked and you bang on it. “Shawn?! Shawn?! Is everything okay? Why are you yelling?!”

Shawn doesn’t answer, per say. He makes a loud series of growls and throaty yells. It sounds like he is in pain and you don’t know what to do. You go for your phone, hands shaking as you scroll through your contacts to get ahold of your friend Lilly. Her boyfriend, Charlie, was a werewolf and he and Shawn worked together and hung out sometimes. They were on vacation in New York so you really hoped she would pick up. After a few rings Lilly picks up. “Lilly, hey it's me, yeah i’m fine. Listen I need to talk to Charlie, is he with you?”

Charlie picks up the phone and sounds like he’s just woken up. “Yeah? What’s wrong? Shawn alright?”

“No. Something is happening and I can’t get in his room. H-he’s yelling and making pained noises.” You hold the phone close to Shawn’s bedroom door. “Can you hear him?”

“You need to leave the house. Shawn is not stable right now. Can you go anywhere for a few days?” Charlie sounds dead serious and you’re starting to feel sick to your stomach.

“I don’t have anywhere to stay!” You’re racking your brain trying to think of anyone you could just drop in on. Your parents were two states away, your brother was stationed in Turkey with the Army for the fall. Maya wasn’t even there to help you find a place because she was on a work trip in LA.

“Listen, listen to me! You have to leave! Shawn could hurt you!” Charlie’s cool serious tone was now breaking. His voice shaking at the thought of what could happen to you. “Please, grab what you need and go check into a hotel!”

You hang up and go to grab a backpack from your room. You start shoving in clothes, some stuff off your dresser, your purse, a pair of shoes and your laptop. Shawn is still yelling, his voice sounding strained and it hurts you just to hear it. “Shawn I’m leaving! I’m sorry, Charlie said I should go!” you yell through the door, doubting he would even hear you. However at the mention of Charlie he gets louder and you hear something hit the door. You jump back with a yelp.

There is a loud thumping from the living room followed by what sounds like the front door being broken into. You’re torn between backing into your room and hiding, and finding out what that non Shawn related thumping was. In the end it doesn’t matter because you find out what made the noise before you have time to take three steps backward. A tall guy with olive skin, dark hair and iridescent blue eyes was making his way toward you.

“Get out of my house!” you shout at him, backing against the wall between Shawn’s room and the bathroom. The guy doesn’t stop, he doesn’t seem to care you’ve spoken. He picks up the pace and puts his hand around your throat as soon as he gets to you. You’re paralysed with fear, this man is going to kill you or eat you, which one you didn’t know. You cough, his hand tightening against your throat. It hurts, you grab at his wrist to stop him but it’s no use.

As you start to see dark spots in your vision, you hear a loud noise that can only be equated to taking a wall out with a large sledgehammer. Suddenly there is no longer a hand around your throat and you are gasping for air. You collapse to the floor, hands going to your neck as you struggle to get oxygen in. As your vision becomes less spotty, you hear another loud thump followed by the sound of splintering wood. Looking up, you can see the large intruder laying against the now badly dented wall across from you, body limp and eyes closed.

Shawn is standing between the two of you, chest heaving. He is shirtless, wearing only a pair of gym shorts and no socks or shoes. He looks down at you, and you see his eyes are glowing golden brown. His face is scrunched up in a snarl that looks like something out of a book of nightmares and his usually beautiful straight white teeth have large protruding fangs.

“S-shawn...please...” you don’t know what to say. Don’t eat me? Don’t kill me? You’re sure you’re going to die. Charlie said Shawn wasn’t stable, wasn’t himself. Rationally you knew you wouldn’t outrun a werewolf, you couldn’t fight one off either. You’re scared, heart in your throat. You close your eyes, duck your head against your knees and await the worst. You feel Shawn step closer. Heat is radiating off him and against your legs.

The next thing you know, his arms are around you. He’s pressing his face into your shoulder and breathing deep. “Honey?” he says, his voice strained, completely wrecked from the yelling and growling before. He pulls your arms away from your knees and gets his arms around your chest, hauling you forward onto his lap. He presses his face hard into the crook of your neck. “You smell so good, Honey.”

Tentatively, you put your hands on his back and he holds you closer. “Shawn...is that man...?” you ask, eyes trained on the man slumped just a few feet away.

Shawn shakes his head and slides his hands under your butt. “Wrap your legs around me,” he says, face still against your neck. You do as he says and he shifts a bit so he can get up while holding you against him. He carries you effortlessly to your bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him and dropping down onto the bed with you. Shawn is huge as he holds himself up over you, his eyes a less prominent golden brown now and his face returned to it’s normal way of being.

“What happened out there?”

“He wanted to hurt you, to hurt me. I couldn’t let that happen.”

You blink a few times, really trying to take in what has happened. “Shawn I don’t understand why he would want to hurt me I don’t even-” Shawn leans down and kisses you. His lips are hot and he’s....good lord...he is actually purring. It’s really the only way you can describe the low rumble coming from his chest, vibrating through his whole body.

“You smell like me,” he says in barely a whisper. “I’ve been leaving every month to protect you.”

You lick your lower lip, mind reeling from the kiss. “W-why not just move out?”

Shawn laughs, winces at his sore throat and rolls to lay beside you. “Because I love you. I’ve loved you for so damn long.” He rolls to press his face back to your neck. “Because I knew when I met you, when I smelled you, that I could never leave you again.”

It’s a lot to take in. You’d had feelings for Shawn for a while, but never acted on them because he never acted on them either. To learn he’s been in love with you, pining away while you came to his bedroom every night and talked, it was unreal. You think about it for a second and come to the conclusion that you’ve loved him for a long time too. “Shawn?”

“Yes?” he answers, breath warm on your skin.

“What do I smell like?”

He pulls away and props himself up on his elbow and looks down at you, “You smell like honey.”