#Meg Takes Way Too LOng To Answer Simple Prompts

[thegreatwhiteferret]

I was tagged by: @its-reddie-bitch (Thanks for this by the way, Elle. 85 fucking questions...Jesus. Lmao ❤️❤️❤️ )

1. last drink?: Venti Soy Blonde Latte from Starbucks because I am a basic white bitch

2: last phone call?: My older sister when I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

3. last text message?: “Can I use your card for Starbucks?” Because I am a poor ass basic white bitch.

4. last song you listened to?: Rainbow by Kesha (Gets me in the feels every time)

5. last time you cried?: Mmmmmmmm last night or the early hours of today...

6. dated someone twice?: Noppppppppppppppe. Thank fucking God.

7. kissed someone and regretted it: I don’t think so.

8. been cheated on?: We weren’t “exclusive” so...but I’d fucking say that it still felt like it.

9. lost someone special?: So so many.

10. been depressed?: Severely for the majority of my life. (In case y’all hadn’t figured out that I’m an anxious and depressed mess)

11. gotten drunk and thrown up?: OH MY GOD. Only twice that I can think of, but one was really bad. Sour blue raspberry Smirnoff vodka and Titos vodka, and I filled like a full tumbler glass with that and chugged it...because why the fuck not? I’ll tell you why not, I ruined a $2,500 cowhide rug...fuck.

fave colors

12. Fluorescent Pink- Basic white bitch with Barbie tendencies.

13. Tiffany Blue- See above reasoning

14. Anything Pastel Ever

in the last year have you…

15. made new friends?: Yes, but I also lost a shit ton.

16. fallen out of love?: Hahahahaha. No romantic interactions at all in the past year so...not possible.

17. laughed until you cried?: All the time. That wine drinking Pennywise was the last thing that made me do this.

18. found out someone was talking about you?: Yes, and that bitch is lucky I had enough self control to not throw hands with her.

19. met someone who changed you?: Yes. (For better and for worse)

20. found out who your friends are?: In the hardest way possible.

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list?: Nope, and we can leave it that way.

general:

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl?: All of them.

23. do you have any pets?: My furry baby who is actually an alien like Stitch dog, Pippa. (But I also have my sister’s dog with me right now)

24. do you want to change your name?: Nah, I’m good.

25. what did you do for your last birthday?: Went for dinner with my family and tried to keep myself together.

26. what time did you wake up today?: Erhmmmmmm 10:30 ish, but I laid in bed with the dogs until almost 12. It was glorious.

27. what were you doing at midnight last night?: Finishing the latest chapter of I Will Try To Fix You so I could post it and watching Bloodline (legit only for Owen Teague...don’t judge me.)

28. what is something that you can’t wait for?: Things to get better...?

30. what are you listening to right now?: Someone You Like by The Girls and The Dreamcatcher 

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom?: Yup.

32. something getting on your nerves?: What doesn’t get on my nerves would be a shorter list. What irks me more than anything is people being assholes to other people because their ideals don’t match. No one is fucking asking you to engage in a poly relationship or marry your same gender so fuck off! Gahhhhh.

33. most visited website?: Tumblr (But if Google Docs counts (14 tabs open Jesus) then that’s close behind and so is Ao3).

34. hair color?: Bleached white blonde with horrendous roots. I sooooo want to do something drastic to it though, 

35. long or short hair: It’s shoulder length so whatever that is.

36. do you have a crush on someone?: A real life person? No. Celebrities? Hilary fucking Knight always and forever. People on this site? ...Maybeeeeeee.

37. what do you like about yourself?: This is a really hard question. I guess I’m an alright writer and I genuinely like helping people. 

38. want any piercings: I have quite a few, but I have my eye on a few for the future. 

39. blood type: O+

40. nicknames: Meg, Megs, Meggie, Mefge (Typo from Wii that will never cease to haunt me!), Texas...really freaking boring I guess.

41. relationship status: Single AF...by choice, not my choice, but a choice.

42. zodiac: Libra 

43. pronouns: She/Her

44. fave tv show: Golden Girls (and a million others, I watch a lot of TV tbh)

45. tattoos: I have a list of 14 that I want when I have money.

46. right or left handed: Right

47. ever had surgery: I’ve had sinus surgery and gastric related surgery so far. There will be more in the future I am sure.

48 . piercings: Two lobes each ear, industrial, rook, conch, and tragus. (Nips, belly button, and something else in the future hopefully)

49. sport: HOCKEY, ALL DAY EVERY DAY BABY!!! 

50. vacation: I haven’t been on one in years. I am dying to go to Disney and London.

51. trainers: Converse Chuck Taylors

more general

52. eating: Salad but I want to make a mug cookie...

53. drinking: Still working on that Latte

54. im about to watch: I’m watching some British family cook off show with my mom and sister on Netflix.

55. waiting for: Better days, they better be coming quickly.

56. want: To actually be motivated enough to quickly finish the 14 requests I have!!! Hahahaha, that’s why it’s a want and not a possibility. 

57. get married? YES PLEASE! But I think someone has to actually be able to tolerate me for this to happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

58. career: I quit my original dream career and now I am going back to school for nursing. It was toxic and I needed a change.

59. hugs or kisses: ALL OF THE PHYSICAL AFFECTION PLEASE!

60. lips or eyes: Eyes. Oh my God, EYES.

61. shorter or taller: ¿Por que no los dos?

62. older or younger: I don’t care as long as they are at least 18...sounds bad but whatever.

63. nice arms or stomach: Uhmmmm either?

64.  hookup or relationship: Relationship

65. troublemaker or hesitant: It depends on the situation.

66. kissed a stranger: Not yet, but I would.

67. drank hard liquor: Pretty much all I drink because I am allergic to beer and do not like wine. I actually owe my sister six shots of fireball, so that’s going to happen and I will be on the floor...

68. lost glasses: All the fucking time and then I can’t find them because I’m blind! Endless struggle.

69. turned someone down: Yes...and ghosted people too.

70. sex on the first date: SURE. Why the fuck not??

71. broken someones heart: I don’t think so.

72. had your heart broken: Yes, and at the time I thought I would never recover, but I’m still kicking bitches.

73. been arrested: No.

74. cried when someone died: So so so so so so so so much. 

75. fallen for a friend: Yes, multiple times, and they were awful decisions!

do you believe in…

76. yourself: No. Unfortunately. It’s a struggle, but I promise that I am going to get help very soon and work on this. I’m just very very hard on myself and don’t like when I’m not perfect. 😕😕😕

77. miracles: Maybe...

78. love at first sight: Nope. Infatuation of lust at first sight? Yes. Love? No, I don’t think it’s something to play around with and it has to grow.

79. santa clause: I CAN HEAR THE BELLS!!!!

80. kiss on a first date: I mean I already said why not to sex on the first date, so kissing is mild.

81. angels: I don’t know. Angels I’m not sure about, but I do believe in spirits and things of that nature.

82. best friend’s name: Can I say my dog? Is that pathetic? Pippa is my ride or die, guys.

83. eye color: Blue

84. fave movie: Inglorious Basterds, IT, and Rise of the Guardians in no specific order, because I am indecisive and can’t choose.

85. fave actor: I can’t choose one! Taron Egerton, Michael B. Jordan, and Evan Peters are high on my list though.

I have no idea who has already been tagged so I’m just going to throw some names out... @billbenbev @milagric @theriodiaries @demianhill @dannybriereisaliferuiner @valiantlydeepestdinosaur And literally anyone else who wants to do this!

[dwaynepride]

the unfortunate case of nonchalance

PART II - BIRDS OF A KIND

summary: while in town, jethro bumps into the endearing lady he met several days ago. and he finds it hard to tell her no.

words: 3,943

warnings: female reader

tags: @fairytale07 @jrenn10 @f4nboi @purplestarsr5 @ladyzombiielove @littlemiss3ma @minikate--24-05 @consultingdoctorwholock @dressed-up-just-like-z1ggy @ms-allenbrown @ikbenplant @dylpickles1267 @diaryofafan17 @specialagentlokitty @pageofultron @stanathanxoox​ @kittenlittle24​

author’s note: part 2 of the cowboy!au series. this is a part of meg’s 11k challenge. the prompts are cowboy au and secret relationship trope.

PART I | PART III

February 22th, 1889

It finally feels as if we’re settling down, even just a bit. Nobody likes being this far East - I can see how on edge everyone is. But we’re safe here, for the time being. That’s what matters.

Anthony still hasn’t told me his grand money-making scheme. Says he won’t until he’s worked everything out, but that don’t make me feel any better. There was a time when such promises of a plan would’ve interested me. But now, it only leaves me with a sour gut feeling.

For now, I’ll wait and hope that man has enough sense in his skull not to get us all killed.

At least Doctor Mallard is rescuing me from sitting in camp - he wants to go into town for supplies, and asked if I would accompany him. He says he’ll need help bringing everything back, but I suspect he knows I’ve been idle for too long.

He thinks I’ve been distracted. Thinking about what we left behind in the West.

I’ll let him keeping thinking that.

-

Doctor Mallard brought only one sack to carry the supplies in. And Jethro’s holding that single sack, tucked against the crook of his arm. It only confirmed his suspicions that the older man felt Jethro was spending too much time in camp. As tedious as camp is, though, it’s preferable to walking through town.

A man bumped into Jethro’s shoulder. “Hey!” He snapped, but the man just kept walking without a single apology. And it made Jethro huff. “Rude bastard.”

“The youth today have scarcely any manners, Jethro,” Doctor Mallard muses. He didn’t seem all that bothered by the rude display.

Jethro just gives a small hum, head shaking as he hitches the sack up higher and glances around at the bustling street. People coming in going, paying little attention to two dirty cowboys who are merely making their way back to their horses. Their clothes are spotless, stylish, full of lace and pristine furs - Jethro’s never felt quite so different than he does now.

The sun comes down on them hard. The long brim of his hat keeps the light out of Jethro’s eyes, but the day is long and hot. He’s looking forward to riding out of the stifling town. Feeling the wind and returning to the camp, where everything seems more free. More normal.

They pass the bank. Jethro’s eyes are shielded by his hat; he doesn’t see the person coming out of the building. Barely cares, until he hears her voice say his name in a way he recognizes.

Well, it’s more like his body recognizes it. Because his feet stop, his head comes up, and his eyes peer out from under the shade.

“Mr. Gibbs,” you repeat. Slower, this time. But still high-pitched; obviously pleased to see him away, and Jethro honestly cannot tell if he feels the same. He enjoyed your company, sure. Enjoyed talking to you. Found you amusing and endearing and interesting, all that once.

On the other hand, Doctor Mallard was right there...

“Is this your friend?”

You’re looking to the doctor now, stepping closer and holding out a hand, which he obviously takes. Jethro has to swallow before nodding his head. “This is Donald Mallard. He’s a very good friend of mine,” he answers. And the older doctor may be able to fool strangers, but Jethro was no such fool. When he introduced Mallard to the girl, he gave Jethro a look. So nonchalant - barely there - but he knew its meaning:

She’s quite pretty, isn’t she?

Jethro looked away so his face wouldn’t answer.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Doctor.”

“Believe me, dear. The pleasure is mine.”

“Well, we must be leaving,” Jethro cuts in quickly. You look at him, surprised. But he keeps his eyes away as he puts on hand on Doctor Mallard’s shoulder, trying to steer him away. “Our friends need these supplies...”

“Oh, that’s alright! I was just on my way home, anyway!” You call out after them. And Jethro can’t help feeling relieved. He can only imagine how Doctor Mallard will tease him about this back at camp. Meeting and befriending a pretty lady without mentioning it - scandalous stuff.

But the Doctor stops, and for an old man, his feet are rooted to the ground quite firmly. Despite Jethro’s shoves, he turns back to the woman still standing before the bank. “Jethro, what kind of gentleman are you?” He asks in a scolding voice. “You’re not going to offer to take this nice lady home?”

Jethro sighs, his fingers tight on Doctor Mallard’s shoulder but lets his hand drop away. He knows what the older man is playing at, but he’s also right.

“That’s not necessary,” you pipe up. When Jethro looks over, you’re smiling shyly. Obviously trying to wave off the offer.

And yet, Jethro hands the sack over to Doctor Mallard, who takes it gleefully. “No, it’d be my pleasure,” Jethro says. And he hopes you don’t catch rueful tone of his voice.

“Our horses are hitched right over here, dear.” You and Jethro follow Doctor Mallard in silence. He’s ranting off about the price of canned goods in this town; how they’re impossibly high compared to other towns. Jethro barely listens. He’s focused too much on you - how you’re walking next to him, movements so elegant, it’s alien to a rough cowboy like him. His own spurs clinked against the gravel road, footfalls heavy. A startling contradiction.

Jethro waits silently as the doctor pulls himself onto his old nag. And once he’s settled, Jethro dips his head to him. “Safe ride,” he says simply.

“And you, as well,” Doctor Mallard replies. And there’s a certain edge in his voice, almost teasing without being blatant about it. But Jethro heard the mischief in his voice - it made him scowl and turn to his own horse.

You’re waiting patiently, wearing a soft smile, and he realizes why the good doctor had told him to ride safe.

“You live far?” Jethro asks while pulling himself up. Once he’s in the saddle, he reaches down for your hand. And when you take it, his eyes avert away. The contact was so small and simple but the soft skin of your hand and the light grip you have, it affects him. And he hopes the wide brim of his hat is enough to hide his face as Jethro pulls you up to sit behind him.

“Not very. On the edge of town - it’s the big white house. Just head down the main street-”

“Oh, I’ve seen it,” Jethro cuts in. He pulls the reins and starts heading down the main road. “Big house like that, it’s kinda hard to miss.”

There’s a light laugh from you. Jethro’s grateful his back is turned, face hidden. “Almost too big, in fact. There’s a lot of empty rooms. Sometimes it feels almost....lonely,” you reply.

Feeling lonely in a big ol’ house, that’s not a feeling Jethro was too familiar with. Then again, he knows he owns his own brand of loneliness. The type that lingers, even when he’s surrounded by people. Especially in this town, when the strangers are even more strange to him than usual.

He doesn’t feel that loneliness right now, though.

Jethro clears his throat, head turning a bit to see you in his periphery before looking forward again. “So, what were you doing in that bank?” He asks nonchalantly. Though, he scolds himself; the question was both mundane and prying.

But you didn’t seem bothered, remarkably. “Visiting my father and his associate,” you answer quickly. “He says I should become familiar with how the business is run, since I may be involved running it, one day.”

He hums low while pulling the reins, turning his horse in the direction of your big white house. “Sounds like your father’s got your life all figured out,” Jethro says.

You’re quiet for a moment, and Jethro’s worried that perhaps he’s offended your father. Or worst yet, offended you. “Oh, it’s not like that,” you tell him. “I’m happy to learn. And he’s right, after all.”

Still, Jethro disagrees. But he doesn’t say anything, this time. Doesn’t want to run the risk of angering you. Or give you a reason to stop seeing him in a good light. And Jethro’s well aware that such a thing will happen eventually; just not right now.

There’s a bit of rough terrain on the road. Lots of mud from when it rained the night before, and it has the horse’s hooves sliding. It lets out a little whine, and Jethro pulls on its reins to keep it balanced. But the sudden jolting around must’ve spooked you - your arms are suddenly around his midsection. Holding on tight, afraid to fall. A normal reaction, of course.

But it shocks Jethro. His hands grip the reins even harder, and he’s grateful for the muddy road. Because you can’t feel the way his lungs suck in a deep breath.

What a humiliating response, Jethro chides himself. It’s as if he’s some dumb young man getting squirrelly when a woman touches him. And yet, that’s how he’s feeling. With your arms around his midsection, your front against his back, Jethro can’t think of any words to use to continue the conversation.

He rolls his eyes at himself.

It feels like an eternity to reach your home, riding in silence. But Jethro stops by the end of the fence, lifting his eyes to get a good look at the impressive white house. He imagines it must be even more beautiful inside, and quickly decides it fits you just fine.

“Thank you for the ride home, Mr. Gibbs.”

Your voice draws his attention away from the house. Jethro immediately dips his head, and his hand comes out to help you down from the back of his horse. “Wasn’t a problem,” he replies simply. Once down, your hands run down the length of your dress, straightening it back out.

He’s gotta go.

“Well, you have a good day, miss,” Jethro says. And with another nod of his head, he steers his horse away from the magnificent homestead. He’ll just ride back to camp and lock himself away in his tent for the rest of the day...

“Mr. Gibbs, hold on a moment.”

Despite himself, Jethro stops his horse. Sighs, and turns to look at you. “Yeah?”

You’re nervous, he can tell. Not on your face, but in your hands. How they wring together and keeping running down the fabric of your dress. “Would you like to join me for a drink in the saloon tonight?” You ask.

A drink? Jethro doesn’t know how to respond. He knows his answer should be no. He should make up an excuse for not being able to join you tonight, or any other night. Instead, he says nothing. Just stares.

Still nervous, you continue. “Or perhaps not tonight, if you’re otherwise engaged. I would just like to thank you for bringing me home when you didn’t need to.”

Jethro’s hands are in his lap, absently fiddling with the old leather reins. “A lady like yourself enjoys the company in a saloon?” He asks, tone conveying a teasing disbelief.

Just say no, you old bastard...

Finally, you smile. Jethro doubts he’ll be able to go through with his plans.

“You forget my father, sir.” Your hands come behind your back; more relaxed than you outta be, around him. “No man dares to lay a hand on me, if he knows what’s good for him. Not without my consent, that is.” You add on that last part with haste, and Jethro doesn’t miss it.

In spite of himself, he smiles and shakes his head. Disbelieving that you’re so able to change his mind in a snap, but somehow, not adverse to it. “I think I’ll let you buy me that drink, ma’am. I will meet you there tonight.”

Looking pleased, you dip your head to him and turn to walk up to the house. Jethro watches, just for a few moments. Once the breeze picks up and starts billowing your dress, that’s when he turns and rides toward camp. And he doesn’t see when you look back to him.

The ride back to camp was slower than usual. It gave Jethro a few peaceful moments to think things over. It was just a simple drink, he told himself. A thank you from a nice lady because he rode her home. Not all the women in this town are so snooty and uptight, he reminds himself. A couple glasses of the finest bourbon they have (Jethro’s confident you can afford it), and he’ll be gone.

He’s still in his own head when Jethro comes back into camp. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing; too preoccupied to bother with him. Abigail and Eleanor doing chores. Doctor Mallard going through his medicinal stores. Tim seems to be scolding Jimmy for getting the fishing line in knots again.

Jethro ducks into his tent, going straight for his clothing chest. Surely he has something decent to wear. It won’t be anywhere close to the level of prestige he’s sure you’re used to, but it’ll have to do.

He opens the chest, and instantly spots a pure white cotton shirt. That outta suffice.

“Hey, Boss!”

Instantly, Jethro closes the chest and straightens up when Anthony comes in.

He’s wearing that troubling grin again. Jethro’s mood instantly drops a little; he has a hunch of what the younger man is here for. “What do you want?”

Anthony isn’t turned off from Jethro’s icy question. In fact, it prompts him to step closer. The excitement is nearly palpable from the Italian, and it’s slightly worrying. Anthony’s not-exactly-legal idea to get some cash was something he hadn’t divulge that day in town. He said he wanted to work out a plan first. Wanted to make sure it was full proof.

Evidently, he’s worked it out.

“My plan to get us some money,” Anthony starts off. His grin turns into a proud smile, and he’s standing straight. Jethro’s stomach is suddenly a little tight. “The big bank in town. It’s sure to have a lot of money and valuables in it - you know these rich folk would keep their money in a vault. Tim and Jimmy said they’d come along as extra guns. Even Ellie is going to provide a distraction. I’ve worked it out, and it can’t go wrong. Especially if you’re there with us.”

Perhaps in the past, and Jethro was a little more reckless, he’d agree to the plan. And for what it’s worth, it seemed pretty solid. Anthony’s annoying, but he’s competent. A born thief and this is just flexing his muscles.

But Jethro remembers just this afternoon when you came out of the bank - how much time you must spend in there. Knows that you think him a good man, for whatever reason that he can’t understand.

“No,” he says. And instantly, Anthony’s face falls. Jethro’s head shakes as he takes a step closer to the younger man. “Our plan was to lie low. To not get into trouble while we’re here. Our life is out west, don’t you remember that? A bank robbery would ruin all that.”

“We’re wearing masks. Nobody would know-”

“You have my answer, Anthony,” Jethro snaps out. “I suggest you go tell the others that your plan is off. We’ll find other ways to get money.”

Anthony’s silent. Doesn’t move for a few tense moments, and Jethro wonders if he’ll continue to fight for his plan. But eventually, he huffs and stomps out of the tent. Jethro watches him go, and he hopes he rejected the plan for the right reasons.

-

The music could be heard from outside the saloon. Music, and the rowdy noises of dozens of people inside. Every one of them drunk and that’s what gets Jethro wary. Drunk people are often very stupid.

Still, he knows you’re inside. Waiting to buy him a glass of bourbon, and Jethro’s not known for keeping a lady waiting.

He pushes through the door, and instantly gets more than a few sets of eyes cast on him. And by now, he’s used to it. Being in this town, looking how he looks, he’s accustomed to side glances as these rich people size him up and decide he’s likely lower than dirt.

But while they’re looking at him, Jethro instantly finds you. He notices you’re wearing a finer dress than you were earlier, and new sets of jewelry twinkle in the saloon lights. Jethro’s not really a religious man, but he reckons this is about as close as angels can look. Both ethereal and warm.

His good mood is halted, however, when his eyes finally drift away from you. There’s a man beside you, leaning against the bar on one arm but facing you and judging from the look you’re wearing, this man isn’t wanted. The look, Jethro notes, is more-so the lack of an expression. Because he’s known you to be smiley and friendly with those you like.

There’s not any smile gracing your lips.

The man touches your arm. Not aggressively, granted. A brush of his fingers. But Jethro recalls your words earlier, and his feet are instantly moving. Thudding hard against the wood to bring himself to you.

And you see him approach first. Your eyes lighten up, but there’s still no smile.

So Jethro stops beside the man. His clothes are expensive, and his hair (if it weren’t so messy) is expertly cut. He can dress like a gentleman all he wants, but Jethro knows better. “Leave the lady alone, alright? She don’t want your company.”

The drunken man looks to him, only just realizing his presence. And then he pushes off the bar, standing at full height, but Jethro keeps his eyes steady on his. “Excuse me, sir? Don’t believe you were invited in on this conversation,” the man rolls out. His words are slurred and his breath reeks of liquor. Jethro can’t help but wrinkle his nose.

“You ain’t excused,” he replies steely cold. “Go stink up some other poor bastard’s saloon.”

It seems the man is finally catching on that Jethro was antagonizing him. His red eyes narrow, shoulders squaring. Jethro’s hands curl into fists, even after he feels your hand on his arm. A light squeeze, almost desperate. “Let’s just leave him, Mr. Gibbs. It ain’t worth-”

“I’ll show you who’s excused!”

The punch he throws is sloppy. Uncoordinated. Jethro should’ve been able to dodge it. But your hand had been on his arm. He was distracted.

The fist connected with his face, just below his eye - a solid hit, despite a poor swing. Pain exploded against Jethro’s face, and it’s nearly enough to knock him to the floor. But his hands hit the wood first, and he stumbles back up to his feet; Jethro’s not about to let some drunken idiot get on top.

He whirls around, fists up, ready to strike. In the background, he notices the music stop. People are cheering. But Jethro’s attention is only on the man advancing on him, arm cranking back for another punch.

But this time, Jethro’s ready. He dodged the punch easily, even feeling the wind of it brush past his face. And in the next second, his own fist connects with the man’s jaw. A more solid punch than he was given. More power behind it. More pain delivered.

It sent him crumbling to the ground, hitting the wood floor with a solid thump and made the bar patrons all gasp in shock. A few of the drunker, more rowdy ones even cheered. Jethro kept his eyes on the man, now out cold but silently hoping he’d get back up. To give him another reason to deliver another hard punch.

There’s a hand on his arm again. The same soft, lightly gripping touch that Jethro was so quickly becoming familiar with. His head swung around, instantly catching your eyes. They were wide and worried; a bit frightened, but he couldn’t tell why you’d be afraid. He’d just taken care of the problem. “Let’s go, Mr. Gibbs. You should get that cut cleaned up.”

Cut? What cut?

It was then when Jethro remembering the throbbing ache of his cheekbone. And rest assured, when he raised a hand to touch it, his fingers came away red.

You started pulling him away toward the back of the bar before the bartender called out. “Hold on, little lady! Your man just caused a fight - the law’ll want to speak with him!”

With a huff, you turn back around. Jethro wasn’t aware you could look so mean, but the look on your face was nearly enough to make him go running for the hills. “I know you saw that big oaf swing the first punch. If anything, my man was only defending himself - and me! You wanna bother the law about something like this?”

Jethro watches the bartender grapple with his words before sighing and turning away back to his work. That’s when you continued pulling him along to one of the back rooms, grumbling about the no-good idiots in this place, but Jethro was only really focused on how you called him your man.

That drunken bastard must’ve hit him worse than he realized.

He’s silent as he watches you move to the washing basin, soaking a piece of cloth in the water. “Sit on the bed, please,” you tell him. A polite request spoken in a snipped voice, so Jethro doesn’t think twice to obey. And just as he sits, you’re approaching him.

“That was a very stupid thing you did,” you remark sternly. The cloth is cool, at least. It soothes the quickly-swelling bruise. But still, he’s bleeding. Jethro can’t help but wince when you have to rub harder.

You scoff at his wincing, not seeming to care. “I swear, you’re just as much a ruffian as any cowboy I’ve ever met. Are you in the habit of getting into fights over something so trivial?”

Getting into fights? Sure, he’s used to it. But Jethro wouldn’t call defending you to be trivial. Quite the opposite, in fact.

He doesn’t say so. He’s too focused on how gentle you are in cleaning him up. Perhaps gentle in a way he doesn’t deserve - you’re right, he is a no-good bar-fighting ruffian. It’s difficult to understand why you’re this gentle with him.

So Jethro watches your face, screwed up with tight brows and a flat frown. And he can’t help his own lips from quirking up. “Are you busy tomorrow?” He asks.

You stop, and your eyes flicker to meet his. Jethro could’ve sworn he’d seen your face flush. “Don’t change the subject, Mr. Gibbs.”

“I’m not attempting to,” he replies quickly. “In fact, I’m trying to stop something like this from happening again.”

You’re confused. Looking skeptical, but your head shakes slowly. “I’m having brunch with my mother tomorrow at noon. But after that, I’m available. Why do you ask?”

The quirk in his lips grows into a small smile. “Good. Meet me behind the old church on the south side of town after your brunch.”

A small sigh comes from your lungs as your hands fall away from his face. The blood must be cleaned up, but Jethro can’t even feel the throb of his swollen cheek. “Can I ask what for?” You prod on.

“I’m gonna teach you how to shoot a man who can’t keep his hands to himself.”

[finleyjayne]

Break A Leg

 {Chapter 1: Auditions}

Summary: After your accident, everything in your life changed. Your shared dream of being on Broadway with your best friend, Amanda, was over. But just because YOU don’t think you want the same things in life doesn’t mean that your friend won’t see through you. Taking matters into her own hands, you end up at an audition you’re sure that you’ll fail since SHIELD Theater Company is known the world over for typecasting. And you don’t fit any of your typical actress types. Little do you know that the company’s new writer - nihilistic, pessimistic, and resident drunk; Bucky Barnes- is looking for someone out of their normal choices.

Characters: Female Reader, OFC Best Friend, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes, and all your other favorite Marvel Characters, hopefully in the long run it will end with a Bucky Barnes/Reader ship.

Series Warnings: Guys, this is based on my own experiences within the Acting community after gaining weight and height after an accident. There will be fat-shaming, mentions of eating disorders, unhealthy expectations, unhealthy coping mechanisms, also like bias based on looks.

A/N:this originally was inspired by @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan​ s follower celebration challenge. I was given the opportunity to use the text prompt “No fucks given, Next please.” Thank you Star! Thank you Thank you. Also a big thanks to the lovely @cavillanche​ for giving me a gentle nudge to write for myself and for being an amazing sounding board.

"Come oooooon, Y/N. I don't care if you don't want to go out. I haven't seen you in what feels like literal months. That's saying something since you know we LIVE together. I won't take no as an answer." Your best friend, Amanda, said as she flopped on top of you. 

Amanda burst into your bedroom this morning at way-to-fucking-early o'clock in the morning, on a warpath to get you to come out with her. It didn't matter to her that you were finally getting some sleep after working all-nighters for the last week. There was no way to ignore her either, her sunny personality and eager persistence would cause you to roll over in your grave if she wanted you to.

With a groan, you smothered your complaints behind a gasping wheeze. "Kay, Manda, where are we going?"

 She rolled off of you with a high-pitched squeal and used the momentum to pull you out of bed. "Yay! I have so much planned. I was talking to my manager about how well we used to work as a pair on stage. I may have mentioned how much I would kill to be the Penny to your Tracy. Or the Meg to your Christine. The Judy to your Betty. The Glinda to your Elphaba." Her words started to fade into background noise as she milled on about the parts you had once wanted to play together.

  The dream used to be that you both would move here, to New York, and play in all of the big theaters on Broadway together. Sadly, your broadway dreams were not as much of a reality as Amanda's were. And you were okay with that. You were thrilled for Amanda. Living vicariously through your best friend, helping her prepare for her shows while working as a Math tutor and Accountant for a local firm. 

   It didn't help that you weren't necessarily what people consider the typical standard of beauty. Standing just under six feet tall, a little plushy about the middle, and some nasty scar tissue leaving one of your legs in a constant state of ghostly paleness. Not that people notice since you tend to find yourself just as pale as the damaged tissue. After so many failed auditions, you figured your best life was lived outside of the theater. You were happy, and honestly, you are kinda glad that you are where you are.  

 "....So hurry up, I'll pick your outfit, we have an appointment with Rijah in half an hour." Amanda finished pushing you into the little cubical shower. When did she turn it on? Where are we going? Needless to say, you did what she asked and stuffed down your confusion, focusing on waking up more before you accompanied her to yet another one of her 'private' lessons with your pianist friend.

Thirty minutes later, you were dressed, primped, polished, and not all that much more awake. Amanda stuffed a binder of music into your hand as Elijah spread his copy over the lip of his pristinely kept upright. "You know this song, I think it will be perfect. A little overplayed, but with a fresh interpretation, they'll overlook it. All you have to do is sing. They are bound to cast you. I've worked with them before, and Director Rogers values skill over appearances. So we'll show them your ability, and he'll love you."

Looking at your rambling best friend, Your confusion amplifies. Your jaw cracks as you don't even try to stifle another yawn. You rub your eyes, not questioning her pushiness. "Uuuuhhhhh, okay?" You scan through the score, making note of the cut before looking to the triangular-shaped man sitting on the piano bench. Since you had already been taken through the typical vocal warm-ups by Amanda while she played dress up this morning. You smile at your expectant friend/accompanist. "Will you give me a playthrough with the melody line in it as a refresher, please, Rijah, Repeat, and I'll join you?" 

"Of course," He said sweetly with a nod, turning to the keys and playing. Quietly you hummed along, mentally noting which registers each phrase should be sung in. Where the notes would be stretched, what you would use to your advantage. The accompaniment was simple, repeated strummed chords like most modern musical use. It gives freedom rhythmically when it comes to melodies. You could have fun with the piece. Smiling to yourself, you open your mouth and join the simplified accompaniment on the repeat. 

When the second run-through finishes with a very extravagant arpeggiation. There is a moment of complete stillness as the resonance leaves the space. You are high on the feelings of intense emotion and absolute peace, yet somehow buzzing with unlocked energy. You miss this feeling, of connection with everything and nothing, The feeling of knowing that you did something right, it's heady, and it drives you to ask yourself why you ever stopped performing for a brief second. Amanda was always saying that she would drag you to an audition one of these days if you didn't get over yourself.

 You are knocked out of your musical high by Amanda's enthusiastic clapping. Elijah looks at you with a smirk, opens his mouth, and is swiftly cut off by your friend. "God, Y/N. They won't be able to stop themselves as soon as you open your mouth!" You smile at her very biased opinions. Before she can get any crazy ideas like dragging me along to more than just her sessions with Elijah, you place the binder the music into her hands, "Why don't we go over Take me or leave me? After all, this is your rehearsal time, I'm just here to help you."

Amanda gives you a devious smirk as she nods. "Sure. You heard the woman, 'Rijah." She sends him a sly wink that you are too tired to really read much into. He just nods with a conspiratory smile and spreads the music for the RENT song over the previous. 

"Whenever you are ready, ladies," He says when he's ready. Sighing internally, you place yourself back into your 'supportive friend' role, playing out the simplified blocking of Amanda's latest show. 

Before you even fully realize it, your hour with 'Rijah was over, and Amanda was pulling you into a nearby taxi to your next destination. "If you don't let me at least have a coffee, I will not be held accountable for my actions, Woman." You warn your best friend as you eye her. You were starting to worry that you would need to be more awake for whatever plans she had for the rest of the day, You were now to the point where you could see her scheming something, but were still too out of it to figure out what it was. 

She looked at you, trying to hide behind her mask of sickeningly-sweet innocence. I knew this look and all that it implied, and it worked to shake me into a slight panic of what she was walking me into. "I don't know what you mean, Y/N. I told you where we were going this morning, I promise this is the last stop before we can go home and you can sleep the rest of the night away. But if things go as I hope, we may have a repeat of this occasion sooner rather than later." The taxi pulls up at a building with a line heading out the door and around the corner. 

That's when it hits you; That promise that Amanda had made to you all those months ago about dragging you to an audition wasn't just one of those 'get moving your ass, or I'll move it for you' speeches to get you out of bed, she was going to do it. No, she wasn't going to do anything. Amanda had already done it. She had gotten you into an audition. 

You were suddenly wide awake. The knowledge that you were at an NYC Broadway audition, with your best friend hitting you like Celie's babies being alive in The Color Purple. It is unexpected but brought with it such excitement and fear all at once. You grasped onto Amanda's arm. "Amanda Jenivive Brendon, if this is some kind of joke, I don't know if I can forgive you. Please say this is not some kind of joke." The words are a desperate snarl. The hope pressing against your chest mixed with the fear that you jumped to incorrect conclusions was absolutely unbearable.

Amanda lets out a loving laugh before playfully scowling at you. "You really haven't been listening to a single thing I've said to you all day, have you?" The accusation was slightly bitter, but you knew she was laughing on the inside.

You squeeze her arm as your panic escalates. What am I going to do? How am I going to do this? What if they don't accept me just because of how I look? Shit, what am I going to do about a resume? Your vision blurs as you watch your best friend take your hand, leading you into the building past the line of girls and down a hallway to a dance studio styled room. 

She leads you to a table set before the long wall of mirrors where a cute little redhead sits. Taking out a binder and handing her two sets of papers, "Hey Wanda, It's good to see you. Is it standard issue today?" 

With a bright smile, Wanda accepts the papers. "Sure is Amanda, Do you need a copy of the company notes, or do you still know them by heart?" 

 Amanda chuckles before shaking her head, "I don't need a set, but you probably should give one to Y/N here, She could use the distraction of going through all the legal jargon while we wait."

Wanda's eyes grew wide as she turned to face you. "Y/N? As in 'shower singer Y/N'? Oh my Atlanta, Buck is going to lose his shit!" She jumps up and claps her hands. "I gotta go tell them!"  

Amanda's hand snaps out to stop the woman from leaving. "Hey, none of that. I want to see their surprise when they hear her, especially after Tony's last casting rant."  

Wanda immediately calms, her face splitting into a devious smirk. "OOOOooo, you are evil. I love it. Want me to film it for you?"

 "It's like you read my mind," Amanda says, turning to see your expression of confusion. "Y/N, hey, Y/N/N? You in there?" She snaps her fingers lightly in your face. "Come on, girl. Wanda here is the Stage Manager for the SHIELD Theater Company."  

"Wait, what?" Your voice cracks as your heart hammers even harder into your ribs. SHIELD Theater Company was one of the prominent troupes in New York. They were world-famous, they were the equivalent to The Royal Shakespeare Company in America. Were you at an audition for them? I thought you had to be part of a Union to even be considered for an audition with them!  

"Really, Y/N? Still not paying attention? Come on, let's take a seat, stretch a bit. before they put us through our paces." Her eyes are bright with amusement as she sticks your number on the left side of your dress.

"I'm sorry? In my defense, I have had a total of 8 hours of sleep in the last week. So not the point, though!" You follow her to a set of chairs in the room. At her reproachful glare, when your voice breaches into a louder panicked screech, you take a few breaths before continuing in a harried whisper. " I mean, how am I even here? I am not Unionized, I haven't paid my dues for months! I don't have-" Your internal concerns continue to pour out of your mouth as Amanda slams her palm over your mouth. 

 "Hey, take a deep breath for me, Y/N. I need you to stay conscious... maybe I should have gotten you a coffee before we came, but you always complain that it makes your vocals all gummy." You rip her hand off of your mouth, eyes flashing with annoyance.

"Hey, you're the one who woke me from my first decent sleep this week, you can't really blame me for being a little lack-of-sleep drunk. And Coffee does make me phlegmy, but, again, that is not the point. The point is now that I know what you've set up, how can it be possible?" You whisper scream at the aggravatingly calm Amanda.

 She rolled her eyes, "Well, I told you I was going to make our dreams come true, and I have had enough of your lame excuses about how you don't want to get back on the horse. But I saw you today. You WANT to be here. I've seen your secret tears when you go over our old cast photos. I hear you belting in the shower, so I've taken it upon myself to continue paying your dues to the AEA, and cashed in a favor with my agent to sign both of us up for this particular call."

 Before you could make a rebuttal, seven people walked into the room that had slowly filled with fifty or so women while you were distracted. A short brunette plants himself in the center of the mirrored wall as the others take seats next to Wanda behind the white foldable table.

 "Welcome, ladies, It is inspiring to see all of your beautiful faces. Before we start, I wanted to say a few words. First, thank you for taking the time to come and audition with us today.

"As you know, we only hold one set of auditions for the full season and look at that, all of you have made the initial cut for this season. Now it's time for the fine-tuning. Just know that even if you don't make it into our troupe this year, it's nothing personal. We have a specific set of personalities and abilities that we are looking for. If you don't make it this year with us, don't be afraid to come back next season. 

"Now, to kick off this lovely party, let's have you line up, no particular order." The man smirks, and you gasp as you realize who the cocky man is: Tony Stark. You were being lined up for your first NYC cattle call by the eccentric, theatrical genius Tony Stark. You didn't know whether to be honored or terrified. He had a notorious reputation as a type-caster, and the only type he favored was the short, petite woman. FUCK. 

Amanda dragged you into the line as she plastered a knowing smile on her face, "Just remember, sing. if you open your mouth, let that beautiful song sing from your heart." 

"Sure, whatever you say," you reply to her whispered reassurances, holding your head up high as the legendary man started down the line."No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes, Sorry, Sure, Yes. Not this time, sweets. No, Sorry, Yes, Yes, Yes... " And so on until he reached Amanda. "Miss Brandon, nice to see you again. I look forward to hearing your choices today." 

"Same to you, Mr. Stark, and I look forward to showing you my progress from last year."

"Good, good" His eyes crinkled as he smiled at her for another few seconds before skipping over you entirely, "yes, yes, yes, No…"

Well, it looks like you made it through the first cut, Amanda drags you back to where you left your purse and Amanda's backpack. She shares a conspiratory glance with Wanda, who just rolls her eyes. "Take a deep breath, then they'll start pulling us up in small groups to rotate through our song choices."

 "Amanda, I'm pretty sure you voodooed Stark into overlooking me." Amanda just laughs.

"Sure, whatever you wanna tell yourself. I think it was just you being here, it's fate." Now it's your turn to roll your eyes at your friend's everlasting optimism.

Once Stark finishes going down the line, he takes his place back front and center. "Okay, ladies, now it's time for the fun bit. I'm sure you were all smart cookies and gave Wanda your music cuts along with your resumes, so now it's time to put those voices to work. We'll call you up in trios. Wanda will read out your name and call number, Thor will wait for you to count out a tempo before playing for you. Wanda?" Stark calls out the woman before taking his seat behind the table. 

Wanda smiles brightly, calling out the first three people as the Hulking blond man stands from the table and makes his way to the piano. Wow, I hope I don't mess this up. It's not just my ass on the line anymore. You are brought back out of your thoughts by a gentle tug on your arm. 

"Stop overthinking things, you'll do fine, Your resume is prime, your song choice is brilliant, and like they couldn't choose someone more theatre conscious if they had hired Idina Menzel." 

You shudder at the actress's name, "I would hope so, she's terrible."

"Yet she had been a mainstay in theater for years." 

"So what, just goes to show people don't necessarily want talent. They want beautiful mutants who can screech out songs without killing their vocal cords."

"Y/N, Shut the fuck up. You can do the same things, you may not sing in a scream like she can, but you know how to sing, you can dance- don't give me that look I caught you practicing your fouettes last week- and more importantly, you can connect. You connect in everything, you have so much to offer, and I know that once these people hear you, they will hire you. I know it."

You sigh, you weren't sure that everything she was saying was true, but you knew that she believed the words with all of her heart and didn't want to be the reason her hope died. So you just sighed in resignation before turning to the group that was in the midst of their auditions. They were outstanding, and the longer you went on, the more self-conscious of your own lack of preparation. Subconsciously you reached out to grab Amanda's hand and ended up clutching onto her dress front.  

"Amanda, Amanda, I don't deserve to be here." Your hushed whisper, dragging harsh against your throat. Your chest tightening, your panic acting as a hangman's noose. "Amanda, I don't know what I'm singing. Amanda, what is it from? What is the song's name? How will I slate if I don't even know the name of the song? Wait, what is MY name? " Your breath started to tear through your lungs, your sinuses stung with oncoming tears. 

"Y/N, take a breath, let go before you give everyone an unexpected flash." Amanda's whispered reply was almost biting in its directness. Even if you consciously didn't hear the words, her tone cut the noose from your neck. Your lungs immediately expanded with much-needed air, your fingers loosening their grip to let her replace the fabric with her own firm grip. "Good girl, now, Y/N, what is your name?"

"Uhhhhhh…" Even if you were calming down, your brain was still coming back to grips.

"The next three are as follows: Y/N Y/L/N, Amanda Brendon, and Savannah Moffat." Wanda's lyric call cut through the silence that had filled the studio while you were trying to remember your name. 

You stood automatically, all your years of auditioning kicked you into performance autopilot. Your shoulders take their place slightly back, head high, chest on display, the skirt of your dress flowing around your thighs as if they were the mist rolling over the valley at dawn. Your face hid the horror that was filling your mind, it didn't matter that you didn't remember the name of your song, you were Y/N Y/L/N. You could fake it till you make it to perfection. Amanda was right, all you have to do is sing, and they will see you. It doesn't matter if you don't look like you used to, you are still capable, and even if you don't make it, you can't say that you didn't try. Just remember what Doctor Ellis said, 'every audition is a performance, even if they don't choose you, you were able to perform.' You can do this. After all, you sang it this morning, you could see the sheet music just behind your eyelids when you close your eyes. Just keep breathing.

Amanda gave your hand a final squeeze as she recognized the look of horrified determination in your eyes. Smiling to herself as she saw the bored looks on the panelists' faces. She met eyes with Wanda, who gave her a smirk nudging the blond man sandwiched between her and Tony. Turning his attention to your regal appearance before Tony also decided to look up from whatever was so important on his phone. 

You opened your mouth to introduce yourself, and Tony's voice filled the space clearly, saying the words that had shattered your own will to find your auditions.

"I'm sorry I must have missed you before. There is no need for you to sing today, collect your things."

Your face fell into an imitation of a polite smile as your brain processed the rejection. Guess Amanda really did save me from being culled. Before you can say or do anything, though, the blond man sitting next to Tony spoke.

"Tony, you had your chance. Now it's my turn to decide whether or not she is cast. Now sit down." 

"No, it isn't too late, Steve. I bankroll this group I get to have a say. And I won't have someone who looks like her representing my Acting Company."

"You already had your say. Now sit down and let the girl sing."

"No," Stark turns from the blond man and back to you. "No fucks given, Next, please."

 CHAPTER TWO

[profoundnet]

Profound Member Post - December 2018

Header by @pantydean and is available on merch from her redbubble store. You can use all those fancy emojis (and more!) on our Discord Server!

The Masterpost is open for all creations by ProfoundBond members which are posted in entirely during that month.

MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS FOR DECEMBER 2018!

Masterpost below the cut.

lunastories - @lunastories - lunastories

Inked Feathers, Wounded Skin

Summary: Retired hunters Dean and Sam live in a cabin in the woods, only occasionally taking cases from nearby villagers and those who need their help. Castiel is the very protective harpy that has been awkwardly following (stalking) Dean for years. After Castiel injures a wing, he is taken in by the Winchesters. As Dean tends to him, they form a relationship, and Dean slowly falls for the harpy. But the unique peach cream color of Castiel’s wings hides a secret; one he isn’t sure Dean could accept.

SFW Accompanying art by @correlia-be

supernatural9917 

Supernatural Advent Calendar 2018

Summary: A collection of art and ficlets for every day of advent! A mix of fluff, a lil bit of smut, ugly sweaters, extra fluff, a pinch of schmoop and, oh yeah, more fluff.

NSFW

Accompanying art by @foxymoley

Strangers in the Night

Summary: Dean meets Cas in a bar. They both have rings on their fingers, but that doesn't stop them sharing a night of passion. Written for the Destiel Smut Bingo. Square fill: Roleplay as strangers in a bar.

Tags: roleplay as strangers in a bar, mention of infidelity, but it isn't really, Crash and Slow Burn verse

NSFW

Locked Out

Summary: Dean is always getting drunk and locking himself out, then calling his locksmith buddy Castiel to get him back in. This time is a little different, though.

Written for the Destiel Smut Bingo. Square fill: One is a locksmith and the other is locked out and naked.

NSFW

iCeDreams - iCeDreams 

Fully Booked

Summary: Dean just wants to buy a book for Christmas. Is that too much to ask for?

Tags: Bookstore Setting

SFW

MarshiarasDream & HeartsandThumbs 

Who Needs 12 Days of Christmas Anyway? 

Summary: Cas has finally told his parents that he’s gay. That promptly led to him being uninvited from the family Christmas. So he plans on spending the holidays on his own, grading papers. Enter Dean, who will not let this stand. No way will he let his best friend - who he may or may not be harboring a crush on - be alone for Christmas.

Tags: AU, College AU, ChristmasFluff, Pining, yes there’s mistletoe, Gratuitous Hamilton References, Idiots in Love, alternating pop

SFW

mrshays - @mrshays - mrshays

Elves

Summary: The elves take over the bunker for the Holiday Drabble Prompts list. 39. How many elves on the shelf is too many? 11. When I think about you, I touch my elf Prompts written by @kpopfanfictrash, @knockknocksoosthere, and @chanesollins

Tags: Double Drabble, Christmas Fluff, Jack's Three Dads, Elf on the Shelf, Dadstiel

SFW

artbloggouinetteparletrop - @artbloggouinetteparletrop - gouinette-parle-trop

Under the Pillowfort 

Summary: A quick comic type of drawing i did to celebrate my first week on pillowfort. Dean and cas (college AU) are enjoying a cosy night under a pillow fort.

Tags: destiel, destiel fan art, destiel college AU, castiel, dean winchester, destiel fluff

SFW 

Dummies in love in the coffee shop

Summary: A fan art i made to thanks deliciousirony for their lovely fic. It's a realistic painting of dean and cas taking a coffee while both waiting for their blind date to arrive ;) Tags: destiel, destiel fan art, destiel college AU, dean winchester, castiel SFW

Accompanying fic by @delicious-irony

BlazeEBlake - @blazeeblake - BlazeEBlake

Winchester Circus & Its Fantastical Fallen Angel 

Summary: For nearly a decade Castiel has strayed further and further from home, doing his best to drive himself to distraction from what awaits upon his return. When a circus comes to town, he sees little more than another temporary means of escape. At least, until he lays eyes upon the troupe's handsome ringmaster. Dean Winchester has learned to trust little and expect even less from life as he struggles to keep his family's traveling circus afloat, so the sudden appearance of a wild eyed stranger looking for work has him both wary and certain of it being little more than a passing fancy. But as time passes and bonds are forged, Dean is forced to confront old wounds and new feelings for the enigmatic Castiel Novak.

Tags: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Alternate Universe - Circus, Post American Civil War, Trapeze Artist Castiel, Ringmaster Dean, Less than period typical homophobia, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending

SFW

waywarded - @wildsofourhearts - waywarded

Falling Awake

Summary: After Michael is killed by Team Free Will 2.0, Dean ends up in the Empty, Michael's grace pulling a sliver of his consciousness there. The Cosmic Entity calls him out on not realising Castiel is in love with him. Dean needs to decide what to do with that information as he wakes up home.

Tags: Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Protective Cas, Cas and Dean Being Idiots

SFW

Entwining Your Broken Parts With My Love

Summary: Castiel hates his broken wings and a fading spell has rendered them in their corporeal form. Dean wants to show how beautiful they are to him and to help Cas feel better about them, even if just for a while.

Tags: Gentle Dom Dean, sub Cas, but Cas usually Doms for Dean, Rope Bondage, Wings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Safe Sane and Consensual, BDSM

NSFW 

CRNoble - @hardertobreatheat-night - CRNoble

Skin Wars

Summary: Dean, a traditionally trained artist, is competing for $100,000 in the reality body painting TV show, Skin Wars. He’s lucky enough to get paired with a friend as his model, Cas, for a particularly personal challenge. Dean feels his painting isn’t up to snuff, but what will the judges think?

Tags: Angst, Angst with a happy ending, Skin Wars!AU

SFW

Lock Me Up

Summary: Dean and Cas have been together for a few years now, exploring their D/s relationship, mostly trying things that Cas suggests, until Dean finally finds something he really wants to try. Written for the SPN Kink Christmas Exchange

Tags: BDSM, Male Chastity, Rope Bondage, Spanking, Suspension, Bondage, blindfolds, toys, dirty talk, dirty pictures

NSFW

Caged Heat

Summary: Sam, Dean, and Cas team up with Meg to kill Crowley, but they get WAY more than they bargained for. Especially Dean, but how was he supposed to know one little kiss would make him feel this way?

Tags: Canon-typical violence, episode rewrite, angst, angst with a happy ending

SFW

LeafZelindor - @leafzelindor​

Holiday Card

Summary: Art drawn for the 2018 holiday mixtape!

Tags: fluff, destiel, family vibes

SFW

Merry Christmas Cas

Summary: Fluffy Dean gives Cas a Christmas Present Picture

Tags: Destiel,  Cutness

SFW

Snowy Kisses

Summary: Dean and Cas stealing Kisses in the Snow

Tags: Destiel, Fluff

SFW

profound-boning - @profound-boning - profound-boning

and being apart ain’t easy on this love affair

Summary: One shot ficlet featuring long distance boyfriends dean and cas being reunited!

Tags: no triggers, established long distance relationship, reunions

SFW

interstitial - interstitial

A Simple Plan

Summary: Cas and Dean have been driving Sam crazy for a decade with their pathetic mutual pining, so Sam's slightly manipulative sex party solution seems more than fair. Now it's just a matter of some shopping for supplies, and a bit of reverse psychology.

Tags: Crack, Brief Mention of Various Theoretical Future Sex Party-related Ships, Many of Them Crack, List Available In Notes For NoTPs

NSFW

Nera_Solani - @nera-solani - Nera-Solani

Embrace of Wings

Summary: When Dean and Cas get married after one year of domestic bliss, they do it both the human and the angel way. Just that the latter has an unexpected side effect... but that can't exactly be called bad.

Tags: Established Relationship, Angel Castiel, Marriage, Soul Bond, Winged Dean Winchester, Wing Grooming, Wing Kink, Angelic Grace Sex, Tooth-Rotting Fluff

SFW

Pride

Summary: Just a 100 word drabble for the prompt Carnival

Tags: Drabble, Profound100 Challenge, Prompt: Carnival, Pride Festival

SFW

Bright as a Candle

Summary: Just a 100 word drabble for the prompt Candle

Tags: Drabble, Profound100 Challenge, prompt: candle, candlelit dinner

SFW

Potlight

Summary: Just a 100 word drabble for the prompt Potlight, that was later expanded to a ficlet

Tags: Drabble, Profound100 Challenge, expanded afterwards, prompt: potlight, Soul Bond, Angelic Grace Bonds

SFW

MaggieMaybe160 - @maggiemaybe160 - MaggieMaybe160

True Loves Kiss

Summary: Dean finally tells Cas how he feels... after Cas made that deal.

Tags: Major Character Death, Season 14 Spoilers, Podfic Available

SFW

Lay Me Down To Sleep

Summary: With Castiel's deal with the Empty, how long do Dean and Cas really have left?

Tags: Major Character Death, Graphic Violence, Suicide, Season 14 Spoilers

SFW

The Final Moment

Summary: Dean and Cas are trapped by a monster. Based on a dream I had.

Tags: Major Character Death

SFW

Schoolyard Angel 

Summary: Castiel is the ring leader of Dean's biggest bullies, the angels. Dean gets to know Castiel blindly but can this newfound love prevail?

Tags: Highschool AU, Angst with Happy Ending

SFW

Cookietacular

Summary: “Did you take the decoder ring out of the box?” Jack asked. “Maybe,” Cas answered. It was a lie.

Tags: Season 14 Spoilers, FLUFF

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Of Monsters and Angels 

Summary: Dean's back in Purgatory but something is wrong. He can't find his angel.

Tags: Major Character Death, Graphic Violence (typical for show), Eventual Happy Ending

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I Love You, I Love All of You

Summary: Dean and Cas go on a routine hunt alone. Their feelings become clear.

Tags: Major Character Death, Heavy Angst

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Dean // Only Human

Summary: Fan Video made by RavensCAT and MaggieMaybe160 Song- "Human" by Christina Perri 

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Collaborator: @ravenscat-tumbler

EllenofOz - EllenofOz

Drunk Texts and Midnight Snacks 

Summary: Cas is just trying to get his paper finished, but a certain best friend of his keeps sending him texts from the campus bar. When Dean’s texts abruptly stop, Cas reluctantly goes to check on him.

Tags: Alternate Universe - college, friends to lovers, Castiel and Dean Winchester use their words, drunk Dean Winchester

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Four Hours

Summary: Castiel is cursed, after Rowena turned him into an attack dog and set him on her own son. Dean and Sam find him later in the bunker, but Dean notices something new that the curse has brought out in the angel— an irresistible amplification of his scent. It seems Castiel is now definitely an alpha, and being around Dean is dangerous. For Destiel Smut Bingo, prompt: “It’s been almost four hours and it won’t go down”

Tags: A/b/o dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon, season 11, Porn with Plot, Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean

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cutelittlekitty

Life of a Couple ch7 - Take Me Home, Country Road part IV

Summary: wedding fluff and smut episodic chapter in my Heavenly Body series (the chapter can be read as a stand-alone story)

Tags: Destiel, AU-modern, wedding, fluff, sweetness, top!dean, bottom!cas, shower sex, cas is on the autism spectrum but it's mild, no major warnings other than tooth-rottingly sweet :D

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fangirlingtodeath513 - @fangirlingtodeath513 - fangirlingtodeath513

Sunshine

Summary: Cas comes clean and the Shadow tries to claim it's reward.

Tags: Post-episode: 14x08 Byzantium, no archive warnings apply

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The Christmas Date

Summary: Christmas is one of Dean's favorite times of the year. It means spending some quality time with his family and enjoying their company, even though it's only for a few days. So when Cas mentions he's not going home for Christmas, the thought's barely crossed his mind before he's asking Cas to come with him to Kansas. Maybe there was an ulterior motive, like spending more time with the guy he's come to like a little more than just a roommate, but Cas doesn't need to know that. At least, if Dean's kind but meddlesome family can stay out of his business, that is.

Tags: no archive warnings apply, mentions of homophobic family, christmas fluff, platonic bed sharing

SFW 

Wake Up

Summary: Dean's trapped in his own mind, and it's up to Sam and Cas to get him out.

Tags: post-episode: 14x09 The Spear, no archive warnings apply, needle use, possessed dean winchester

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Home

Summary: for the Supernatural One-Word Bingo  Prompt: cotton

Tags: no archive warnings apply, first kiss, sharing clothes, human castiel

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A Thousand Years

Summary: Dean burns the dinner he'd been making for his date with Castiel, so he calls his mother for help.

Tags: no archive warnings apply, first dates, weddings, wedding fluff

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turningthepages - turningthepages

Too Damn Young

Summary: Twenty years ago Castiel had been a version of himself he wishes he’d never lost. Looking out at the lake that he spent the best summer of his life he could still feel a glimmer of the man he used to be.

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anyrei - anyrei

Snow Angel

Summary: Dean and Cas are out in a forest in winter, hunting a creature and Dean finally realizes that he needs Cas to know about his feelings.

Tags: First Time, Case, romantic scenery, snow, canon-verse, no warnings

NSFW

Fix You

Summary: Dean finally allows Cas to heal him. Set right after Episode: s11e04 Baby.

Tags: Season/Series 11, Episode: s11e04 Baby, Episode: s11e03 The Bad Seed, Smut, First Time

NSFW

Not Enough Brain Bleach

Summary: When Sam walks to the kitchen at night to get a snack he witness something unexpected.

Tags: Season/Series 11, Episode: s11e03 The Bad Seed, voyeuristic!Sam, but not really, Sam Needs Brain Bleach, PWP, Destiel from Sam's POV

NSFW

dean-cas-in-the-impala - @dean-cas-in-the-impala - Dean-Bangs-Cas-In-The-Impala

And Nothing Else Matters 

Summary: Castiel always pays his debts.

Tags: Angst, Romance, 14X08, Based on 14X08

SFW

kradarua - kradarua

Something Dark

Summary: Castiel looked even wilder in person. Dean let his eyes roam over his (now fully clothed) form, smiling appreciatively. He inhaled deeply, curious to find no real trace of a scent. “He’s on scent blockers,” the employee explained. "Running this auction is involved enough without having to settle claim disputes if an omega’s scent triggers some alpha’s rut.” That suited him fine; both he and Sam were on scent blockers most of the time and he’d planned on requiring that Castiel stay on them too. It helped with anonymity. “Thank you,” he said, “That will be all.” The employee gave a small bow and left to service the other high bidders. “Well, Cas,” Dean said cheerily, “Let’s go home.”

Tags: graphic depictions of violence, abo, rough sex, criminal activity, dark fic, torture

NSFW

canadduh - @canadduh - canadduh

Memories Made

Summary: Castiel Remembers. Just as he's done every year.

Tags: Major character death - Freeform, Sick Character, Sick Dean, Cas POV, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Fluff

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The Unexpected Holiday

Summary: After a hunt gone wrong, Dean and Cas enjoy an unexpected holiday.

Tags: holiday fluff, Post-Case-Fic, injured cas, Dorks in Love, Original Character(s), Cabin Fic, Cabins, Christmas, Injured Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Dean Winchester, Cas is in the closet (Literally), holiday fic, canon-verse

SFW

tfw_cas - @punk-is-notdead - tfw_cas 

Dean’s Christmas Cookies

Summary: Dean Winchester presents his Christmas cookie recipe, with a little help - or is it hindrance - from Castiel.

Tags: Baking; Christmas fluff; Established Castiel/Dean Winchester; Human Castiel

SFW

Snowballs Hurt, But Snow Angels Can Make It All Better 

Summary: All Dean Winchester wants is a traditional family Christmas; that's not too much to ask, is it? But when things don't work out how he had hoped, he can count on his family, and some snow, to lift his spirits. Maybe Christmas won't be too bad after all.

Tags: Snow; Snowball Fight; Snowmen; All The Snow; Christmas Fluff; Fluff; Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss; Snow Angels

SFW

[erinchu]

“You’re overthinking– I’m yours. That’s all I want to be.”

*kicks door open* I CHIME IN WITH A HASNT ERIN EVER HEARD OF, WRITING A PROMPT ON TIME, NO!

I’m so sorry this took so long and I don’t even know??? I had this idea in my head and just sort of went with it *shrugs* I hope you enjoy lovely and thank you so much for the prompt!

Love Me Now or Never

It all started with a text message.

“Look, I don’t want to ruin our relationship, professional or…whatever this is, but I would 100% let you wreck me if given the chance.”

Rhys hit send and immediately threw his phone across the room onto his bed. Had he really just done that? What the fuck was he thinking sending a text like that to Handsome Jack!?  He could feel his heart pounding in his chest like a kick drum.

The two had struck up a rather flirtatious relationship over the past few months, which hadn’t been helping the raging crush the young PA had on his CEO. Jack seemed just as interested in Rhys as he was in him and it finally reached a point where Rhys couldn’t even hear his voice anymore without getting hard. For Rhys, it was more than just lust, which, okay, there was a whole lot of lust going on. But Rhys was starting to feel something more for the older man. All these feelings combined created a moment of temporary insanity that had caused Rhys to send that text. Yeah, that was totally why.

The cybernetic man felt his breathing hitch as he heard his phone buzz against his bed sheets. The light from the screen lit up the dark area, shining like a little beacon, begging him to read it. Rhys swallowed dryly as his feet willed him across the room towards the device. Timidly, a flesh hand reached out and took hold of the phone tightly. He slid his thumb across the bottom, unlocking it, prepared to read his fate. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be fired via text.

Rhys let out an audible gasp as he read the two word response from his boss. Simple, to the point and exactly what Rhys had hoped for but not at all what he had expected.

“Ruin it.”

And that was how their ‘relationship’ started. The next day when the two got into work, Handsome Jack pulled his PA into his office, tossed him into his large yellow chair and simply said.

“Well, ready to get wrecked, kiddo?”

They carried on this like for the months to come, seeing each other in and outside of work nearly every day. Rhys was completely smitten with Jack and each day he could feel himself falling more and more for the older man. Jack seemed to be quite taken with Rhys as well, but it was always hard to tell with him. They hadn’t exactly gone public with their affair but they certainly weren’t keeping it on the down low either. Everyone who worked in Jack’s private office, including Rhys’ cubicle mate, Meg, knew what was going on between the two. No one really cared though. It was a common thing for Handsome Jack to do. There was a reason after all he had the habit of hiring beautiful looking PA’s, most of which all were happy to sleep with him whenever he wanted. In Rhys’ mind though, they were dating, exclusively. At least, Rhys was anyway.

It was Friday evening, Jack and Rhys’ usual date night and Rhys was waiting around his apartment for Jack to call him to let him know he was downstairs waiting for him. When an hour had passed and he still hadn’t heard anything, Rhys got worried and decided to call him. It took a few tries but Jack finally answered.

“N’hello?” Jack’s voice was a bit louder than usual, like he was shouting into the phone and Rhys could hear a lot of background noise behind him. Was that music?

“Uh, hey. What’s going on, where are you? Are you okay?” Rhys worried over his bottom lip after he asked that, feeling a bit silly for how worried he had sounded. There was a pause on the line before Jack finally spoke again.

“Um, yeah, I’m fine, cupcake. I can’t really talk right now though, it’s really loud in this club and I’m getting shit reception. I’ll call you after this date is over, it’s going horribly anyway, this girl is about as interesting as a road killed skag. Some broad from the R&D department. Talk about instant regret, ha.”

Rhys felt his whole body stiffen at that word. Had he said…he was on a date?

“Wait, what are you talking about? Jack?”

“I’m sorry babe, I can’t hear you. I’ll call you later! Byeeee~”

Click.

The phone dropped from Rhys’ hand and fell down to the couch, Rhys following shortly after it as he collapsed onto it. Jack was on a date with some random woman from work, like it was no big deal and Rhys was just supposed to sit and wait for Jack to call him after he was done.

By the time Jack had tried to ring Rhys, the younger man was fuming. He was angry with Jack, but mostly he was angry with himself for being so stupid. How could he have allowed himself to get so close, to foolishly think he was the only one Handsome Jack was fucking. It made his stomach turn…Jack was his, or so he assumed.

Jack was tapping his fingers across his knee as the phone rang and rang until finally, Rhys had rejected the call. He furrowed his brows as he stared down at the screen but then smiled a bit as his phone buzzed. Rhys was trying to video call him. Excellent, he had wanted to see Rhys all night anyway, so this was the next best thing. When the call finally connected and he saw the younger man appear on his screen, he smiled wide and waved with his free hand.

“Well hello there, good looking. You have no idea how happy I am to see that face of yours.” Jack had opened his mouth to continue on but was quickly shut down.

“Jack, what the actual fuck?” Rhys snapped, his lip quivering a bit as he tried to keep his cool. This had thrown Handsome Jack for a loop and he looked around a few times before shrugging and shaking his head.

“What? Did I call too late or something?” Jack blinked and looked down at his wrist watch. It was nearly three am but he had called much later in the past before, so surely this couldn’t have upset Rhys that much to merit such a response.

“Are you joking? I don’t care about the damn time, I’ve waited up all night just to hear from you. What did that mean earlier when you said you were on a date with someone?!”

“Oh, well, when two people think they may hit it off, they go out to a place and hang out for a while to see if it ends in sex. At least that’s how it works when I date.” Jack chuckled and clicked air against his teeth a few times as he shot a finger gun towards Rhys. Rhys very visibly deflated and Jack watched as he tilted his head back for a few moments, his eyes just boring into the ceiling. It looked like he was trying not to cry.

“You’re seeing other people, Jack?” Rhys finally asked for a few moments, his voice soft and almost fragile. Jack could clearly hear the hurt in the younger mans tone and it made him feel…guilty almost.

“…Are you not seeing other people, Rhys?” Jack forced out a weak chuckle, his whole playful facade slipping away as he realized the gravity of the situation. He rubbed at the back of his neck as he watched Rhys just sit there silently for a moment and shake his head. Finally, he broke the silence, sniffling a little and clearing his throat before speaking.

“No, I haven’t been dating anyone else, Jack, because apparently I’m a fucking idiot,” Rhys laughed out, trying to mask the pain in his voice. “I figured since we were spending all our time together and you were fucking me, that we were in an exclusive relationship but I’m seeing now that I was wrong.” Rhys quickly swiped his flesh fingers under his eyes to catch any tears that might have dared to break free. Jack swallowed dryly as he watched him, his stomach dropping a little. He wasn’t sure what to say or if he should even speak, so he waited.

“Have you been seeing people the whole time you’ve been with me?” Rhys asked quietly, his nose and cheeks flushing a soft shade of red as he continued to try and hold back his tears. Jack let out a deep sigh and pushed his digits through the grey streak at the front of his hair.

“Look, Rhysie, I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you think just you and I were dating…” Jack began, that sentence alone causing Rhys to screw his eyes shut and whimper softly. Jack kept going though, powering through the heartbreaking sounds Rhys was making. “But yes, I have been seeing other people. I’m not really a ‘one person’ type of guy. Come on, kiddo. You had to know that when we first started all this up…Fooling around with me is basically in the job description at Hyperion. I don’t do the whole exclusive thing.”

Jack had had this conversation in the past many times with several men and women who had made the same mistake of thinking they were the only person in Jack’s life in that way. But somehow now, having that same conversation with Rhys made him feel sick. Those words felt wrong aimed at Rhys. He wanted to take them back as soon as he had said it, but it was too late now. It was out there and there was no changing that.

It was uncomfortably silent for a long while and Jack watched as Rhys processed everything and worked it out in his head. When Rhys finally lifted his eyes to meet Jack’s, it caused the older man to flinch and nearly drop his phone. Those usually beautiful and bright heterochromatic eyes of Rhys’ were flooded with tears, the corners on both ends already so puffy and red. It was a look Jack had never intended to put on Rhys’ face, but there it was. He had opened his mouth to speak again, taking in a small breath but no words followed. He wasn’t really sure what to say anymore.

“You’re right,” Rhys sniffled softly and nodded, his lips pressing into a hard line as he tried to calm himself down. “It was my mistake, Jack. It won’t happen again.”

The way Rhys had said it made Jack wince and he drew his brows together as he stared at his phone screen. The kid had stopped crying, his eyes a little glazed over now; hazy. Most of all though, the hurt was as clear as day and it was tearing Jack up inside. What the fuck was up with that? He was Handsome Jack after all, what did this PA expect? If Jack was being honest with himself though, he really did like Rhys and he was enjoying their time together. He had kept seeing randos out of what felt like habit, not want. It felt different with Rhys though. Jack looked forward to seeing him, to being intimate together, to just lay around on Rhys’ couch watching old black and white films and eating pizza.

It was dawning on Jack as they sat there, connected only by screens that he had maybe made a mistake. The more Rhys stared at him, the more Jack felt further and further away from him, like the distance between them was ever growing.

“Rhys, I-”

“It’s over, Jack. I don’t think we should see one another anymore. Sorry for getting confused on where we stood, but I won’t do this- I can’t do this.” Rhys dropped his head as his words just sort of fell off. It was obvious there was more he wanted to say but he couldn’t seem to get it all out. Instead he just smiled weakly at a stunned looking Jack and shrugged.

“Bye, Jack.”

There wasn’t even a chance for Jack to get a word in before the call ended and Jack’s screen went dark. The older man let the phone fall onto his lap and he sat back in his chair, his mouth hanging open slightly. Had he just been broken up with by his goddamn PA? He sat there for several minutes, fuming as Rhys’ words kept playing over and over in his head.

“It’s over…”

Handsome Jack wasn’t the break up-ee, he was the break up-er. This was ludacris, who did this kid think he was talking to and why did it bother Jack so much? He snatched up his phone and tried ringing Rhys’ phone, but there was no answer. He tried a few more times, determined to finish their conversation on his terms, but after the third time of calling, Rhys’ phone went straight to voicemail.

“Son of a bitch…” Jack sighed deeply and chucked his phone across the living room onto a nearby couch. Fine, Rhys could dodge him for now, but come Monday morning, he was going to finish their talk. Rhys couldn’t avoid him forever.

“What?! What the hell do you mean a transfer?”

It was bright and early on Monday morning at Hyperion and Handsome Jack was early for once. He had come in only to be handed paperwork for approval from his other PA, Meg. The young woman winced a little as he barked at her and she calmly tried explaining again.

“Mr. Rhys came in very early this morning and filled out these two forms, sir. One was a request for leave and the other for a transfer to a different department in the facility. Since you are the department head for this floor obviously, you have to approve it…”

Jack was listening as his eyes scanned over the form again and again. There it was, in Rhys’ hand writing, his request to be moved as far away from Jack’s office as possible. He had asked to be moved down to the coding department, which never really saw the light of day as far as the rest of the company was concerned. Basement nerds with bad social skills and in desperate need of a tan.

“How long did he request time off for?” Jack asked without looking up, his hand reaching out for the other piece of paper she had for him.

“One full week, sir. He would return to work at his new position next Monday, if approved.” Meg smiled a little as she placed the paper in his hand. This all seemed very sudden to her and she had her suspicions, but it wasn’t her place to ask and it certainly didn’t seem like Jack wanted to chat about it.

“How long would it take to process his transfer if I signed these today?” Jack was starting to piece together what Rhys had done but he wanted to hear it anyway.

“…It takes about a week, sir. Between paperwork and getting him setup with security clearance for that department.” Her face fell a little as Jack finally figured it out. So he was trying to avoid Jack. He wasn’t even going to give Jack the opportunity to corner him to talk. Jack felt that anger building up inside him again and he began to crumple the papers he had been holding. His hand twitched slightly as he felt the paper slice a thin, long cut along his index finger and he snapped out of his own head after a moment. Fine, if that was how Rhys wanted it, then so be it. Jack would give him what he wanted.

“Hand me a pen, would you, princess?” Jack smiled, reaching his hand out towards his PA and snapped twice. Meg did as she was asked and eagerly gave him her pen, her brows furrowing as she watched him. With just a few strokes of ink, it was done. Jack let out a small sigh before putting on his usual grin and winked up at his PA as he handed her back her pen.

“Thanks babe,” Jack winked, grinning a little as he put his finger against his lips, licking away the small amount of blood that had formed from his cut. “Could you get those sent off right away for me, please?” Jack gently tapped on the top of her desk a few times and smiled wide, earning him an equally wide smile from his lovely PA.

“Right away, sir. Consider it done.”

Jack nodded and turned to walk away, his smiling instantly dropping as he headed back towards his office. He didn’t want anyone to see the hurt on his face.

It was torturous for Jack, waiting to hear something, anything from Rhys. He had tried calling him throughout the week and got the same result each time. Nothing. He didn’t want to just show up at his house, either. Why would he anyway? Rhys had ended it with him and made that very clear. Still, even though he didn’t want to admit it to himself, it was driving Jack insane.

When Friday finally hit and still nothing from his former lover, Jack was angry. Who the fuck did Rhys think he was? No one walks away from Handsome Jack or says they’re done. That was Jack’s job and Rhys was lucky Jack had feeling for him or he’d be out an air lock by now.

Feelings…

“Oh for fucks sake, what is happening right now?” Jack exclaimed loudly as he sat at his desk, thinking over the whole situation, his digits plunging into his hair as he leaned forward onto his elbows. Jack had never caught feelings for any of his conquests in the past, but for some reason he couldn’t shake Rhys from his thoughts. Was it possible he actually cared about Rhys? Like proper, hold hands, go on dates, make love and not just mindlessly fuck, only be with him, care about him? And could that be why he was so bothered by Rhys ending things between them?

“Noooope, nope, nope. Fuck that.” Jack growled out through gritted teeth. He looked around his office, his chest heaving a little as he took short, shallow breaths. He needed something to distract himself, to take his mind off of Rhys, off of how guilty and hurt he felt about this whole stupid fucking situation. If Rhys wanted out of his life and was so willingly to just walk away, okay then. Jack wasn’t going to sit around all mopey and wait for him. His eyes trailed to his office’s front doors and he smirked as he remembered just who was sitting on the other side of them. The perfect distraction. He reached over to the little comms box that sat on his desk and pressed a button on it.

“Meg, pumpkin, could you come in here please? I need you.”

It did not take long for Jack’s intentions with Meg to become clear. The younger woman had grown used to the look Jack would give her during work hours when it meant he wanted her. In the past, she would happily oblige, but now she felt uneasy about it. Jack didn’t seem to notice this however as he threw her against his desk and quickly closed the space between them, his hands roaming all over her body. He was being hasty and rash, not flirting and being coy like he usually would. He truthfully just wanted to bury himself in someone right now and try to forget about Rhys, even if it was only a temporary fix. He was upset and angry and confused all at once and he didn’t like any of it.

“Aaah, s-sir?” Meg stammered out as Jack ran his hands up her thighs, pushing her skirt up and out of his way. She was bracing herself against the desk, really unable to be any other way as Jack’s weight laid against her body.

“What?” Jack asked drly, his hands now making quick work of the buttons on Meg’s blouse, his eyes just sorta staring past her, down at his desk.

“I’m not really sure this is such a good idea, sir…” Her voice was timid and a little nervous sounding, like she was trying to not offend him. Jack didn’t seem to mind though as he gave up on the remaining buttons and just yanked the fabric the rest of the way open. This pulled a cry from Meg and she shuddered as Jack lifted her legs so they were wrapped around his waist. He pulled her in closer, grinding his hips against hers and smiled.

“What’s a matter, princess? Don’t want me anymore?” A reoccurring theme this week, Jack thought to himself.

Meg swallowed dryly and worried over her lower lip as she felt her entire face flush. Her legs were trembling now as she stared up her boss, trying to hold onto what little strength she had to resist him.

“It’s not that, Jack, sir, it’s just I-” She was cut off as Jack lunged forward for her neck, his teeth sinking ever so slightly into the skin and nipping gently at it. Meg tilted her head back as a startled moan escaped her and she relaxed a bit into Jack’s hold. Jack chuckled against her skin before kissing at the little wound he had created.

“Atta girl, that sounds more like the tune I wanted to hear.”

Meg felt herself slipping farther and farther, her lust for him consuming her as he continued his welcomed assaulted on her. She had missed them being like, Jack using her whenever he needed to blow off some steam. He had stopped calling for her once he and Rhys had gotten more involved and-

Rhys!

Meg’s eyes shot up and she sat up quickly, shoving Jack away from her and scrambled to get up from the desk. Jack let out a confused cry as he was pushed and stood there with this hands held open, a frustrated look on his face.

“What the hell, sweetheart? We were just getting to the good part, what are you doing?” Jack tried reaching for her again, but she swiftly moved away, her fingers quickly trying to do her buttons back up. Once that was done, she pulled her skirt back down and attempted to smooth her hair back down.

“What are you doing, Jack?” Meg shook her head slowly, her brows pulling together as she gave Jack an accusing look.

“Well, I thought it was pretty obvious what I was doing, but I’d be happy to make it clearer for you,” Jack laughed awkwardly as he took a few steps closer to her. Meg moved back, a hand clutching her shirt as she began to shake her head more rapidly.

“No Jack, I mean what are you doing? Why are you trying to sleep with me? What about Rhys? Think of how upset he’d be if he found out.” The question made Handsome Jack flinch and he turned away from her briefly and shrugged.

“What about him? He’s ancient history, what do I care?”

Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew the look on it, just by hearing his voice. Carefully, Meg approached her boss, her hand gently resting on his arm as she pulled him back towards her. Jack resisted at first but eventually turned to face her once again.

“Sir, I don’t know what happened and you don’t have to tell me, but I do know that you do care.” She knew she was touching on a sensitive nerve by the way Jack was clenching his jaw over and over again and glaring down at her, but she kept going anyway. “Look, you know in the past, I’ve always been down with this,” she looked between the two of them and smiled softly. “But sir, ever since Rhys started working for you, things have been different. I see the way you look at him. I know because when you saw him for the first time, you stopped looking at me.” A soft hand reached up and gently cupped at Jack’s face, causing the older man to lean into the touch.

“I don’t even think you realize how much you’ve changed since you started seeing him. I think…” She hesitated and swallowed softly, her thumb rubbing against Jack’s face, “I think you have actual, real feelings for Rhys. And I know he has real feelings for you.”

Jack perked up a bit, a single brow raising up as she said this.

“What makes you say that?”

“Are you kidding?” Meg laughed softly and let her hand fall back to her side, “He doesn’t shut up about you all day. It’s not just a fling with the CEO of Hyperion for him. His feelings are genuine.” She nodded and stepped back from Jack, sighing softly.

“Which is why I will no longer be offering my side services to you, sir. Now, what I need from you is to stop being a dumbass, realize that you actually like this guy and go fix whatever it is you did to make him leave, before it’s too late.”

Jack narrowed his eyes and shot her a look, his arms folding over his chest.

“What makes you think it was my fault?”

“Jack…” Meg said knowingly and rolled her eyes, her head nodding over towards the front office doors. “Just go. And please be honest with him, and yourself for once. You both at least deserve that much.”

He chewed over his PA’s words for a few moments before letting out a deep sigh and nodding. He walked up to her and hugged her quickly.

“I’m sorry about your shirt, go get a new one downstairs and just have them bill it to me.” Jack smiled down at her before planting a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you, Meg,” and with that, he let his PA go and headed for the door.

“Oh and remind me to give you a raise, please.” Jack smirked and winked before slipping out of the door.

“Don’t worry, I will!” Meg called after him. She slumped down into his chair once he was gone and let out a heavy sigh, fanning her face with a paper folder as she tried to get herself calmed down. “Phew, I definitely do not get paid enough for this.”

“What the fuck am I doing?” Jack asked allowed to himself as he stood outside of Rhys’ apartment building. He hadn’t called ahead to let Rhys know he was coming by, not that the kid would have answered anyway. He had made it very clear he was done with Jack and didn’t want to see him. Jack was starting to feel…nervous? A feeling he wasn’t used to having. He paced back and forth for a few minutes, talking himself out of this embarrassing situation at least a dozen times. What if Rhys slammed the door in his face or laughed at him until he was blue in the face? Worst of all, what if Jack spilled his purse all over Rhys and Rhys still ended up rejecting him? He did deserve it, sure, but that didn’t mean Jack wanted it to happen. He took a deep breath and set his sights on Rhys’ apartment, his feet willing him forward even though his head was screaming to run. Handsome Jack did not do well with the whole emotions thing, but for Rhys, he was going to god damn try.

A slightly trembling hand reached up and tapped against Rhys’ front door. Jack waited anxiously, switching his weight from foot to foot and hands fidgeting at his sides until finally the door swung open. Jack let out a soft sigh of relief as he saw Rhys’ shocked face.

“Jack? What…what are you doing here?” Rhys demanded, closing the door just enough so only half of Rhys could be seen. Jack attempted to smile, but it came out so forced, he looked a bit crazy.

“Rhysie…kiddo, I-” Jack was struggling to get out what he wanted to say. Thank god for that fucking mask because Jack was totally flustered beneath it, his cheeks burning red and skin damp with sweat. Rhys rolled his eyes and sighed, moving out of the way of the door so he could fully shut it on Jack.

Oh no, Jack thought to himself and stepped forward, planting a large hand on the door and pushed it back open.

“Rhys, please, wait. Just talk to me, five minutes of your time. That’s all I’m asking and then you can tell me to fuck off if you want. Please, can I just come in?” Jack’s voice was frantic and Rhys could clearly see the desperation on the older man’s eyes. With a begrudging sigh, Rhys nodded and stepped aside so Jack could enter.

“You’ve got five minutes.”

Jack smiled and nodded, rushing inside before he could change his mind. Rhys led them over to his living room couch, a place they had been so many times before, but under happier circumstances. A lot more kissing and less clothing were usually involved. They were both silent for a little while until Jack finally sat up and carefully collected Rhys’ flesh hand into his own.

“Rhys, I’m here to say I’m sorry, which is like, not an easy thing for me, kiddo. This is practically a break through for me.” Jack laughed nervously, his brows lifting as he hesitantly smiled over at Rhys, hoping a little humor would break the tension. Rhys did not look amused one bit.

“Gee, how brave of you to power through this troubling time in your life, Jack.” Rhys’ voice was completely monotone and he had this utterly bored look on his face. He wasn’t really interested in hearing anything Jack had to say. He sighed and shifted in his seat, trying to pull his hand out of Jack’s. “Now, if you’re all finished up-”

“Rhys!” Jack finally snapped, his lips pressing into a hard line as he exhaled through his nostrils. “Listen to me, okay? I get that you’re fucking pissed at me and you have every right to be. I was an asshole who wasn’t thinking about anyone else but himself. I get it.” Jack sighed in frustration, his free hand smoothing back his hair briefly. Rhys watched him with curiosity, his hand relaxing back into Jack’s hand as he spoke. Okay, so may he could hear him out a little more. He liked what he say hearing so far.

“I…I don’t want this to be done,” Jack gestured to the space between the two of them with their joined hands and sighed softly. “I want to be with you, like really be with you. I actually like you, Rhysie.” It was clear, even with his mask on, that Jack was feeling uncomfortable, vulnerable, in that moment. He was never one to speak so openly about these types of things. It was new territory for him. Rhys stared at him for a while, his brows drawing together so the center of his forehead was a little crinkled.

“I know I hurt you, Rhys and I can never take that back, but I don’t want to do that anymore. I just want you,” Jack sounded more confident that time, his lips curling into a soft smile. He gently squeezed at Rhys’ hand and instinctively leaned in a bit closer to him, his body just happy to be near the other man. Rhys swallowed slowly, his eyes welling up the tiniest bit. Could this be for real? Could Handsome Jack really become a one person type of guy? Rhys thought about it for a little while, his face registering all types of different emotions as he did. Jack watched him nervously, biting at his lips as he tried to stay quiet and let Rhys think. Then, Rhys finally looked up at him and spoke.

“There’s gotta be some ground rules, Jack. I like you too, like a whole lot but I can’t share you with anyone else…If you’re mine, then you’re mine. If you start seeing anyone else, I swear to god-” Rhys was getting worked up, like he was releasing all the pain he had been holding on to the past week in one go. Jack closed the distance between him, pulling Rhys into his arms and held him tightly.

“Rhys, listen to what I’m saying,” Jack pulled back from the younger man and gently cupped his hands around Rhys’ face. “You’re overthinking– I’m yours. That’s all I want to be.” Jack flashed the most affectionate smile Rhys had ever seen. The way he was looking at Rhys, it made his whole face flush and he nodded slowly, his eyes fixated on Jack. Jack let out a soft chuckle and leaned back in, tenderly pressing his lips to Rhys’. Rhys’ eyes fluttered closed and he felt himself letting go. He believed Jack and he could tell he truly meant it when he said he was sorry. Plus, Rhys was just a fool for the man. Overcome with emotions, Rhys started to laugh and sob gently against their kiss. The sudden shift alarmed Jack and he pulled back to look at Rhys.

“Hey, hey, are you alright, pumpkin?” Jack asked softly, a hand reaching up to wipe away the tears that were streaming down Rhys’ cheeks. Rhys sniffled a little and smiled wide, letting out a joyous laugh as he practically pounced on to Jack. The younger man hugged Jack tightly and nodded, planting a few soft kisses all over Jack’s face.

“I’m great, now,” Rhys laughed and stared up at Jack for a few moments, his chin gently resting on Jack’s chest. “So are we really doing this then? Just you and me?”

Handsome Jack’s face turned soft and serious all at the same time, his eyes scanning over Rhys’ face as he slowly began to nod. He sat up, pulling Rhys along with him so he was still close to him and very gently ran his digits through Rhys’ thick, chestnut hair.

“Yeah baby, we’re doing this,” Jack whispered before pulling Rhys into another deep kiss. They both started laughing after a few moments, Rhys still crying happy tears off and on and Jack kissing away each one that broke free from his eyes.

“Just you and me.”

[iridescentwinters]

city of satan

— prompt: starting scene of skam austin season 2

grace and her friends watched shay and drew, a pretty recent pair that had gotten together over the summer, like they were lab rats.

josefina’s eyebrows furrowed. “now, i don’t know her that well,” she started, “but i didn’t think that he’d be her type. like, over-flexing big headed jocks.” she paused, before continuing. “nah, not jocks in general, but footballers.”

grace looked over at megan, who had the same suspicious yet knowing look on her face. “i didn’t think so either.” grace then off-handedly replied, as if her words had an underlying meaning to them. well, they did. but jo hadn’t caught on, obviously.

jo then looked back at meg, after taking a long sip of her milkshake. “when’d they get together?” she asked. meg’s eyes were still on the couple, who were still making out. “two weeks back, but marlon said they’d been talking since the carnival.”

jo’s eyebrows furrowed. “how?” she asked, and meg’s only response was a shrug. “they knew each other from middle school, though. drew went to the same one as us. they’d been together once when we were in 5th grade.” she explained. 

bzz. grace’s head moved from her friends, to her back pocket. as she fished it out, she said, “at least she’s over marlon, then.”

the name that appeared on her screen made her frown a little. donald.

jo looked at the both of them in bewilderment, since this was new information to her. “over marlon? what do you mean by that?”

as meg quickly summarised what shay had told her, grace contemplated for a minute or two, before finally unlocking her phone and opening the text.

good Lord, you look so damn hot in that get-up.

grace scoffed. unbelievable, she thought, as she looked around subtly, before looking back at what she had on. it was a simple black crop top, complimenting her usual faded jeans, and fishnet stockings.

but after daniel’s little piggish compliment, grace felt a lot more exposed than she felt originally.

“hi!”

grace jumped slightly in surprise. kelsey had arrived, along with zoya, with a huge smile on her face. “h-hi.” she managed to greet back, her heart still racing. she hated how she always felt like that whenever she had her phone out in front of kelsey. more specifically, daniel’s chat open.

the unaware blonde looked back over her shoulder, to look at shay and drew, who had finally stopped going at it because tyler had joined them, before looking back at them. “isn’t it crazy how they’re together now?” she asked, as grace placed her flannel over herself, trying to cover the upper half of herself.

“why’s that crazy?” meg asked, her eyebrow raised. kelsey shrugged, although it was obvious at what she was trying to say. “i mean, they’re two polar opposites, and yet they somehow attracted. i thought that only happened in like, tv shows or something.” her head started to dramatically move as she spoke. “like, badass independent girls with the cocky footballers. really cool, right?”

grace wasn’t following, and neither did she want to. and once kelsey took a look on her facial expression, she knew it too. she quickly coughed, before changing the topic. “anyway, football season is coming up!” she clapped her hands excitedly. “and you know what that means.”

grace and the other girls looked at each other, confused. “that they’ll play football?” zoya asked, stating the obvious with narrowed eyes.

jo let out a snort, while meg and grace started to chuckle. kelsey, however, rolled her eyes. “well duh, zoya,” she said, “but not that.” she paused, looking at the girls as if she was waiting for them to figure it out themselves. when they didn’t, she sighed dramatically, before finally answering their question. “that we’ll get to dance for the games!”

zoya gave her an ‘are-you-kidding’ me look. “okay, just because we’re friends with the kittens now, doesn’t make them suddenly disappear.” she sassed.

kelsey blinked, as if she hadn’t thought about that fact before. she quickly recovered, though. “you’re right. which means, we’d have to do a mini dance competition, then. like, to see who’s gonna be the team dancing. the football team should be the judges as well.”

grace’s face fell. “uh, what?” she asked, as if she thought she might’ve heard kelsey wrongly. but when the other girl only looked back with a confused expression, she groaned. “kelsey, why should the football team, who are clearly not dancers, be the judges?” she asked, a little rhetorically. “one, they’re not even gonna be of any help, and two, that’s basically giving them access to bossing us around and  you know that they’re idiotic pigs who’d jump at the chance to just watch girls dance and take it the other way.” how kelsey even came to that conclusion, just amazed grace.

“what! no!” kelsey was quick to defend the football team. “they’re not like that! and hello, they’re athletes, just like dancers.” she pointed out. “plus, how difficult is it to just point out a team that they’d like to see dancing at their games?”

grace looked over at meg and jo, who only shrugged. “i mean, i’d like to be watched by my football daddy.” jo admitted. “it makes me feel sexy, in a way. like, whenever he looks at me i just….” she trailed off, once she saw grace’s unamused look.

zoya was her last hope in knocking some sense into kelsey, but even she shrugged. “i say we just take every advantage we can of those motherfuckers, for every bit of clout!”

kelsey cheered, before looking at meg. “hey, maybe shay could put in a good word for us, since y’all are friends.” she said in a lowered tone, as if she was telling a secret.

grace rolled her eyes out of annoyance, before throwing her hands up in the air in defeat. “whatever. then i’m not in.”

all of the girls reacted with a series of surprised looks and exclamations. “what? why?!” kelsey looked the most lost. “you know we need at least-”

“i said i’m not in, not quitting the team. no one said anything about not having 5 members dancing.” grace interrupted. “you guys can go ahead with the ‘competition’ with them as the judges,” she air-quoted, “but i’m not gonna dance in front of a bunch of assholes for their own amusement.” she folded her arms, obviously making her mind about her decision.

kelsey groaned. “grace, i worked so hard to get this team together, and we’re practically in with the football team right now! you can’t just quit because something’s not going your way! that’s just childish.”

grace leaned forward. “actually, i can.” she sassed. “i wasn’t even interested in joining in the first place. i did it just to get to know meg and zoya better.” she admitted.

jo’s jaw dropped. “well, thanks a lot!” she said sarcastically. grace immediately leaned over meg’s lap, to grab jo’s hands. “no! no! and of course you too, jo! you’re my main chick.” she winked, and jo winked back.

the bell finally rang, indicating that lunch was over, and the girls started to gather their things, getting ready for their next class.

as they began to separate in different directions, kelsey yelled out, “this discussion isn’t over yet!”

grace became to reverse-walk. “actually, it is, kelsey!” she yelled, holding up a peace sign, before walking normally again, but this time, with a little grin of triumph on her face.

this was going to be one hell of a semester.

sorry i went MIA yesterday, i was going through major writer’s block

[rohitkkumar]

WTC final Is Virat Kohli battling worrying form in Tests? Numbers suggest so

I had a great apartment in Somerville, just outside of Boston. It was the second floor of a two family with two bedrooms, decent living room and kitchen, a full bath, off-street parking and a porch overlooking a small park. The rent was steep and I didn’t want to move, so I put an ad on Craig’s list. A lot of replies I discounted because they had pets, were smokers or just sounded way too weird. I was about to give up when I saw Megan’s response. I never considered a female roomie, but wasn’t opposed to it either.

I set up a time for her to come and see the place. She was prompt and I opened the door to see a tall, beautiful red-head. I’m six-four and she was only a couple inches shorter. She had shoulder length wavy hair, a trim figure and a great smile.

She said her roomie was getting married and would be taking over the whole apartment where they lived. She worked as a nurse in Boston and my location would be an easy commute.

I showed her around, collected a couple references and told her I’d call her. Her references were all positive, so I called her and told her I’d be looking forward to her as my new roomie.

I had some misgivings sharing with a girl. I always had guy roomies. I wondered if it would be awkward. What if I brought a girl home? I laughed and said slim chance of that with my recent dating history. What if she brought guys home? Well, I wasn’t her father, so what the hell.

Megan moved in the first weekend in May. She didn’t have much to bring. Her old roomie and her fiancé carted in a twin bed, beat up dresser, one bean bag chair, boxes of books and clothes. They got her settled and left. Megan spent the rest of the day settling in.

Around six I offered to get some pizza and beer and she readily accepted. Later as we sat in the living room we began to fill each other in on backgrounds. I’m a writer and she looked dubious. I assured her it’s a regular job with a paycheck. I work for a high tech firm writing manuals, spec sheets, a newsletter and other stuff. She’s an ER nurse and said she had strange hours. She might work three twelve hour shifts in a row and then be off for three or four days.

Megan was easy to talk to and easy to look at. I hoped I could adjust to having a beautiful woman living in my apartment.

We settled into a simple routine. I was usually up and out by 7:30. On the days Megan worked, she had to be at the hospital by 7:00, so we didn’t see too much of each other. On her days off, we usually had dinner together and started becoming good friends.

Living with a woman caused some adjustments. I was pretty much a boxers or less around the house guy. Often, I wouldn’t wear anything to go to the bathroom for a shower and I never wore clothes to bed. Now, I started wearing shorts and a t-shirt and being discreet about closing the bathroom door and other things so as not to seem like a jerk.

After about a month, the weather turned warm. The apartment had no air conditioning, so we tried to keep cool by a couple window fans, open windows and by not wearing a lot of extra clothes.

I couldn’t help but admire Megan’s figure. In running shorts, her favorite bottom, her long legs were nothing short of awesome. She favored tank tops that outlined nice but not large breasts and showed a flat and tight tummy. Her ass was phenomenal in her shorts, jeans or almost anything she wore.

We both enjoyed running and would often take a three mile run in the evenings. One night it was really hot and humid and we returned drenched. I said she could take her shower first and after mine we could hit an air conditioned neighborhood bar.

I had just finished a tall glass of water and was headed to my room, when Megan came out of the bath. She held a towel in front of her and we almost ran into each other. We apologized and she turned to head into her run. Her back was completely exposed. I looked at her ass and blurted out, “Holy shit.”

She looked over her shoulder said, “Oops. Sorry.” She dashed into her room and closed the door. I went into the bath and stripped off my wet running clothes, struggling to get my shorts over my erection that popped up the second I saw that perfect butt.

Now I love women and don’t have any dominant fetish about any one part. All parts appeal to me. But, Megan did have the best ass I had ever seen in clothes. Now, seeing it naked and moving, it literally took my breath away. I’d put it right up with Nicole Kidman. It was tight, round and luscious. My hand strayed to the rod sticking out and, after a few minutes of attention, brought the release I needed.

I dried, dressed and Megan and I walked the few blocks to a bar. The cool interior was a relief as were the tall draft Sam Adams we had.

We sat at the bar and paid a little attention to the Red Sox game on the tube, but mostly drank, ate bar peanuts and didn’t talk. That was unusual for us, because we talked to each other all the time.

Finally I broke the ice, “Megan, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…well, I mean, I didn’t expect to see your…what I’m trying to say is I hardly saw anything, honest.”

Megan had a great smile that lit up her entire face, and she turned it on full blast. “Jake, you said ‘Holy shit’. So I gotta imagine you saw my ass.”

“Sorry, Meg. I was just surprised.”

“Yeah,” she answered as she sipped her beer. “You know I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing and have come to the understanding that living with the opposite sex roomie has its challenges.”

“Challenges?” I asked.

She nodded and said,”Let me ask you something and promise to answer honestly. Before I was here, what did you wear around the apartment?”

“Boxers,” I said and then smiled and added, “or less.”

“Exactly,” Megan said. “Now you’re wearing shorts or pants all the time. Now, me, I am sort of a let it all hang out girl. My old roomie was a nurse too and we worked a lot of the same shifts. We’d get home and feel really grubby from being around sick and hurt people. So, we’d just about get in the door and we were stripping. We’d throw our stuff in a big hamper and walk around bare-assed drinking wine or beer until we each had our showers. Most days, it was just bikini bottoms around the house—at the most. When her fiancé moved in, we discussed it and said we weren’t going to alter our habits. I can guarantee you he never complained.” The last bit she offered with a grin.

I didn’t know where this conversation was going so I did what most guys do, kept my mouth shut and drank beer.

“So,” Megan continued, “as I said I’ve been thinking about it. I think I have an idea that will help.”

“What?” I asked.

“Tell you when we get home,” she said and ordered us two more beers.

At least this conversation broke the ice and we started chatting normally. We ended up splitting a burger and fries at the bar and had two more beers.

Arriving back in the apartment, Megan excused herself to go pee. I was sitting on the couch watching the end of the Red Sox when she came back in.

“So, do you want to hear my idea?”

“Sure.”

“I say we just get it over with and then we can relax.”

“Get what over with?”

“Being afraid one of us is going to see the other person naked or be seen partially naked or whatever. Or worse, imagining what the other person looks like naked. We need to get rid of the big curiosity factor.”

“Megan, I haven’t been trying to spy on you if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I’m not saying that, Jake. But, let’s be honest. I see you looking at me sometimes when I have that old tank top and my nipples are poking out. Hey, I’m not pissed, but just saying that’s natural. I’m a girl, you’re a guy and we get curious.”

“Meg, I’m really embarrassed. I don’t want you to think I’m like mentally undressing you all the time. Ok, I will admit that one tank top is provocative, but I didn’t think I was that obvious.”

Megan laughed and her laugh was one of the sweetest sounds I ever heard. “You weren’t that obvious, but I knew you were looking. And, true confessions, I was flattered. Besides, after the first time, I could’ve chosen not to wear that again. So, I guess I was being a bit of a tease.”

She continued, “So we can agree there is some curiosity and that each of us has had to adapt to living with the opposite sex. I think it’s stupid, so let’s get it over with.”

I still did not get it. “Megan, I don’t want to appear to be stupid, but what are you talking about?”

Again the brilliant smile, “What I’m talking about, Jake, is that right now, right here in our living room, we strip off. We get buck naked and let the other person see it all. No more secrets, no more sneak peeks. Let it all hang out and then we can get back to living the way we want.”

“So, you’re saying we undress in front of each other?”

“Jake, that’s exactly what I’m saying. So, stand up and let’s do it.”

I felt as if I were moving in a dream, but I stood. Facing each other, I pulled my polo shirt over my head and dropped it on the floor. Megan removed her t-shirt exposing a sports bra. She then dropped her shorts to reveal a pair of pink bikini bottoms. I undid my belt, praying that I would not get a hard-on and embarrass myself to death.

Megan looked at my boxers that were decorated with Patriot’s logos and just shook her head.

In a fluid motion she pulled her bra over her head and without hesitation bent and tugged her panties to the floor, kicking them free with her foot. I stared at the magnificent naked body in front of me.

I was brought back to reality with a pronounced, “Ahem” from Megan.

I realized I still had my boxers on. I slowly slid them off and straightened to face her. She did not hesitate to look me up and down, spending some time on my crotch. She motioned with her finger and I turned my back to her.

“Holy shit,” she exclaimed. We both burst out laughing at her imitation of me. I turned back to face her. She raised her hand and we high-fived.

I once again took in her body. Her breasts were on the small side, but stood out proudly from her chest. She had almost no areoles topped by dark, tiny nipples that appeared to be erect. Her tummy was flat and tight. She had a belly button ring that made her navel stand out. Her pussy was the same shade as her hair, a mixture of reds and strawberry blond. She slightly trimmed the side and the top, but the rest was a wondrous jungle of tufts, curls and color.

Her breasts and crotch were lily white as opposed to the fair complexion of the rest of her body. I knew she would never tan, but there was a nice contrast between her sex parts and the rest of her body.

She watched me looking and then turned to give me a full view of the fantastic ass I glimpsed just a few hours ago. I now saw each cheek had a delicate dimple. Her back and legs were muscled but smooth.

I was using every ounce of willpower to keep my dick from getting hard.

“So, there,” she said. “We’ve each seen it all.”

“What now,” I asked? “What are the rules?”

Megan smiled and said, “Simple. No rules. If either of us doesn’t want to wear clothes, then we don’t. If we do, we do. No hassle, no pressure, and best of all, no wondering. Deal?”

It didn’t take me long to figure that the deal would mean I probably would be looking at one of the best bodies I had ever seen and so said “Deal.”

Megan extended her hand and we shook.

“Now, I’m going to bed. I’ve got to be in early. ‘Night, Jake.”

“‘Night, Meg.”

As I lay trying to get to sleep, I kept replaying the scene of her stripping and the view of her naked body. My dick rose to the occasion this time and my hand helped relieve the tension it was carrying.

I didn’t see Megan for three days. I had two night meetings and went to a Red Sox game with some buddies. The next time I saw her was Saturday morning.

I woke around 8 and had to pee. I started to pull on my boxers and then thought, maybe I don’t need them. Then, I thought maybe Megan had second thoughts or really didn’t want me to actually walk around the apartment swinging in the breeze. I covered my bets by picking up my boxers, but not putting them on. I figured I could just hold them in front of me if I ran into Megan and she seemed shocked.

I opened my bedroom door and noticed Megan’s door was open. I headed to the bathroom and heard her call out, “‘Morning.”

I turned to see her walking my way with a mug of coffee in one hand and the Globe in the other. She wore tiny blue bikinis and nothing else.

I slid my boxers in front of me and said good morning and motioned to the bathroom.

She nodded and then said, “What’s with the boxers?”

“Uh, I, well, I was just carrying them in case, you know, that maybe being naked wasn’t…”

“Jake, I thought we covered that. Go balls out all the time. It’s cool. I don’t mind. Hell, it’s nice to see a tight bod. And, in case you are wondering, I think you have a good dick and great ass. Very good, actually. Ok? So, chill.”

I grinned and tossed the boxers back into my room. From that moment on, it was very casual in our apartment.

Boston was in the midst of one of the worst heat waves in our history. Both Megan and I appreciated being able to strip off and cool down. On the evenings she was home, we settled into a little routine. We’d have a light supper of salad and white wine, put a fan in front of the couch, turn off the lights and watch a ball game or pick a movie to watch, or sit on our porch, all while being nude or sometimes Megan wore tiny bikini panties.

We alternated movie selection. One night it might be a chick-flic romance for her and the next a shoot-em-up or spy one for me. Neither complained about the other’s choice and we each loved making caustic comments about the inane plots of any of the genres. When watching baseball, we’d comment on the players, which ones were good guys and which were assholes. Megan asked why guys kept pulling at their crotches. I tried to explain adjusting the boys, but she felt they could do that in the dugout and not on the field. All in all, we soon hardly took notice of our nudity—well, actually I always noticed her body, but I certainly didn’t complain.

One particularly hot evening, we were watching a Sox game. We were both damp with sweat and finally Megan said, “I need something really cool to drink.”

I said how about frozen Margaritas.

We agreed and both headed to the kitchen. Megan said she’d get the blender and I pulled out the booze and dug in the fridge for limes. I was turning to get a knife to slice the limes just as Megan was backing up from retrieving the blender from under the counter. She was still bent over and her butt was sticking up in the air. I turned and she moved back and suddenly my dick was right between her ass cheeks.

She yelled, “Whoa!” and I stumbled back. My embarrassment went off the chart when I immediately got hard from this unexpected contact.

“Jake, what the…” Megan stopped in mid-sentence as she turned and saw my erection.

“Oh, boy,” she said softly.

“Sorry, Meg, that was totally an accident.”

She looked directly at my erect member and said, “And, that is the result of this accident?”

I smiled dopily and said, “You know they have a mind of their own. Sorry, I’ll go put some clothes on.”

“No,” Megan commanded. “Actually, this is sort of the last barrier of curiosity. I admit I wondered what your dick looked like hard. So, now I know.”

We both looked down at my erection, and, honestly, without me doing anything, it bounced.

We laughed and Megan said, “Well, hell-o to you, too.”

We made our drinks and went back to the couch. I was back to almost normal. We sipped in silence for a while.

“Jake, are you Ok?”

“A little embarrassed, but, yeah, I’m Ok.”

“Well, I was wondering about this. I mean I know we say being naked around each other is cool, but you never got a hard-on. I’ve been around guys, and usually it happens a lot. God, my ex-roommate’s fiancé had a woodie half the time we were there. I think he was proud of it and I also think he was hoping that Carol and I would team up and take care of it. Never happened, I assure you. But, you’ve been pretty tame.”

“Well, I’ve been concentrating a lot to keep it down. And, if I had one, I stayed in my room until, well, let’s say it went away. Many times in the morning I have one, but just hang in my room ’til it goes away. I didn’t want you to think I was a perv and imagining you in a sexual way.’

“Jeez, Jake, don’t work yourself up. We are friends and I’d like to think we are very good friends. I don’t think we are going to screw each other by mistake, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have sexual thoughts. I like looking at you naked. I think you have a really, really attractive dick and I especially like seeing it as it swings when you walk. It’s certainly not tiny, I say that because I hear you guys are hung up on size, but it’s not grotesquely big. I think your ass is fab. And, you have a great set of balls. So, yeah, I think sexually. It’s normal.”

“God, I wish you didn’t say all that,” I moaned.

“Why, did I offend you?”

“No,” I said and looked down at my crotch. Megan followed my eyes to see a hard and upright dick.

“My bad,” she said giggling.

“I’ve think you’ve unleashed the devil. Now that he knows you’re not offended, he’s going to be popping up all the time.”

“No prob, Jake. He’s always welcome” she said as she lightly touched the top of my naked thigh.

She offered her glass and we clinked rims and drank.

“How about you and your man-spear get us a couple refills, while I just enjoy the view.”

I was amazed at how fast I was loosing my concern about parading around aroused. I returned with her drink and she asked me to stand there. She looked intently at my erection, which did nothing to ease its hardness.

“That’s very attractive, Jake. I still marvel at how hard a guy’s dick can get. Thanks for letting me stare.”

I raised my glass and we toasted silently.

After that night, Megan stopped wearing her bikini briefs even occasionally. She was always nude when we were in the apartment. It was now mid-August and a weekend when both of us were off work. I stumbled out of bed with major morning wood and went in search for coffee. Megan was in the kitchen making a pot. She had on black undies.

She turned and noticed my erection and said, “good morning my fine hard friend. It’s always good to see you.”

I shrugged and said, “Morning wood. As soon as it goes down, I’ll pee. By the way, what’s with the panties?”

Megan blushed, turning her white breasts a pretty shade of pink.

“Got a little visitor.”

“Huh, someone’s here?” I panicked thinking she might have a guy over and I didn’t want to be caught in this condition.

Megan laughed, “No, stupid, I’ve got my period.”

Now it was my turn to blush and I am sure I was scarlet from head to toe. “Sorry. It’s just that I never noticed before.”

“That’s because my last two happened while I was working.”

Talking about this feminine stuff made me go soft enough to be able to pee, so I excused myself.

Back in the kitchen I poured a mug and joined Meg at our small table.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about a girl’s period before. Doing it would be weird, but not as weird as sitting here naked talking about a girl’s period.”

Laughing Megan assured me it was Ok.

“Jake, I think we can talk about anything. I don’t believe I’ve ever been as comfortable with any guy or practically any girlfriend as I am with you. You’re a great friend.”

I agreed and offered a coffee mug toast.

[bluesrrgents]

Hi dear!! So sorry to bother you (again because i've asked you for fic recs before and they WERE amazing so im back aha) but would hav any good jerejean fic recs?? Ive become kinda obsessed with them

hii you’re never a bother!! sorry this took so long i lost my list of jerejean fics that i’ve read r i p zoe! they’re all under the cut and * means i haven’t read it yet, and please make sure to look at the warnings if you have any triggers!! have fun reading:)

thanks again to everyone who offered me some more recs :)

*hair dye by profslupin

Renee convinces Jean to let her dye his hair. The rest is exactly what you’d expect. (2k)

*mirrors by profslupin

The Trojans help Jean learn to look in the mirror and see himself instead of his scars

“Jean had a complicated relationship with his appearance. It wasn’t that he was insecure about his flaws, necessarily, but rather that they reminded him of his time in the Nest. Of his time with him.” (2.6k)

*watermarked by fairietailed

He hops into the kitchen on one foot, catching his mother before she carries the bowl of peas she’s holding into the dining room.

“Jeremy?” Her eyebrows pull together in concern at the look on his face. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sticking out his foot. “I think it’s my soul mate?”

–

In which bruises and scars from your soulmate appear on your skin, and Jeremy’s skin is a myriad of colored stains. (4.6k)

*and i wanna come home to you. by redhoods

He’s so absorbed in staring at the way the sleeves are pulled up around his wrists that he doesn’t realize the team has filed out to the locker rooms until Jeremy crouches into his line of sight, “Everything alright?”

No, he thinks desperately, you’re too much.

“Sure,” he says eventually, standing up and walking away.

this is actually two parts, so it’s about 6k total

*the smell of honey by lilaliacs

Martha’s was a cozy little coffee shop that always smelled of honey, lilacs and something that couldn’t be described as anything less than home.And that’s what it was to Jeremy, who had spent his childhood sat on a stool at the tiny bar, coloring in the patterns of the menus, or watching his mother creating the most beautiful cakes and pastries that he had ever seen.

The place was filled with good memories and everyone who came in could sense the atmosphere of peace that seemed to fill the soft light falling in through lacy curtains at any time of day. In fact, multiple patrons had stated that they came in for exactly this, for a break from their everyday stress, to just grab a coffee and absorb whatever magic the smell of Martha’s cakes emitted and it was something Jeremy’s mother was very proud of.It was also something Jeremy was very proud of, and the reason for him to put his all in making the customers’ time there worthwhile.He never thought that one day, doing that would be a challenge.

(AU in which everything is the same only that Jeremy isnt captain of the trojans but works in his mom’s coffeeshop instead) (11k)

*eyes wide open by jaylocked

Jean blinked. Blinked again. Was sure he didn’t recognize the man on his doorstep, with his bright eyes and enormous grin and wavy blonde hair. Waited for him to explain himself with a simple raised eyebrow.

“Hi!” the man finally chirped. The sound was happiness channeled into a single word, and Jean wasn’t sure how he didn’t hate him already.

(based on the prompt from tumblr: “hi sorry I live below you and I hear your dog running around and barking all the time and– no no it’s fine I was just wondering if I could pet it?” au) (13k)

*i’ll come crashing by exyfexyfoxes

Hades/Persephone in the modern world where Jean runs an underground club that herds the souls of the dead. It’s a place where even gods die if they stay too long, regardless of how many pomegranate seeds they eat. Jean wants out. Jeremy wants in. Everybody wants them far away from each other. (19k)

*je reviens by laarusthefirst

‘Moreau is a rain cloud,’ Alvarez muttered, annoyed and bruised, watching Jean stalk ahead to the changing rooms. ‘He’s the human embodiment of a headache. He is the opposite of a Trojan.’‘Fucking good though, isn’t he?’ grinned Connor, jogging past.‘Can’t we all just be nice?’ Jeremy asked. (20k)

*this ink is still drying by ghostqueen

You can’t control who you want and you can’t control who hurts you

Jeremy was staring at Jean’s arms, tracing the bright swirls and splotches of ink that made up his sleeves with his eyes. His sleeves had been months of work and they still weren’t quite complete, he was still figuring out how to finish them. The first tattoo on his arms had been eight months ago, his first tattoo had been long before that. (26k)

*thick skin, an elastic heart by badacts

Jean sleeps around and learns how to make friends rather than alliances. Jeremy falls in love and can’t stop fucking up. (26k)

*ask the messenger by metis_ink

Jeremy Knox and the soulmate.

Guest starring: Exy, a transfer student, generalized anxiety, older sisters, drunk lesbians, bread, cake, a shed, the beach, the absence of Hennessy, Star Wars, Renee Walker, self-taught smooth talking, gratuitous French, No. 1 Trojans fan Kevin Day, relationship drama, general drama, the power of Friendship, questions, answers, team spirit!, and, of course, romance. (32k)

he could taste the stars by subtlehysteria

Jean is still adjusting to being a Trojan, Jeremy tries to help Jean open up to his new team. (47k)

*shield for a heart by neilskey

“It’s your choice, but you’re rotting away in here, Jean and no matter what she says, you can’t live in Abby’s spare bedroom forever. Time to start fighting again.”

Kevin’s hard and commanding tone was no surprise. The softness had been beaten out of him around the same time as Jean.

“What if I don’t want to anymore?”

Maybe it was because he had been half hidden in shadows-Jean had kept the shades drawn, but light still seeped in the cracks- but Jean thought he had seen something akin to understanding paint Kevin’s cool expression.“He’s gone. You survived. Play or don’t, it’s up to you, but you need to get out of this fucking house.”//Jean’s first year at USC. Jeremy falls hard, Jean comes around eventually. (55k)

*a little illumination by lazarusthefirst

Jean’s a lonely firefighter, and Jeremy teaches kindergarten. Everyone learns something about themselves. (56k)

*shooting for the stars, desperately reaching for something in the dark by cryptidkidprem

“He just won’t be back in black.”

A look at Jean’s first year with the Trojans, and his slightly rocky path to recovery. (146k)

WIPs:

*these streets by profslupin

alternate title: Jean and Jeremy’s Guide to an Epic Cross Country Road Trip

After one of Alvarez’s pranks leaves the boys stranded in South Carolina after a game, they decide to take the long route home. (1.6k, chapters 1/?)

*under the sun by knox_moreau

Jean Moreau is an exy player, not a writer. At least that’s what he thinks. His newfound therapist, however, has other ideas. Seeing as Jean refuses to talk to her in his hour-long therapy sessions, Ms. Dawson suggests perhaps writing down whatever he’s keeping inside. Jean can’t possibly see how he’s expected to write when he has nothing to write about. Then comes Jeremy Knox, in all his brightness and magnitude. Maybe, Jean thinks, he has something to write about. (7.2k, ch. 5/?)

*daffodils & gardenias by profslupin (any and all works by meg sponsored by this blog)

Jeremy Knox is the owner of a tattoo parlor when Jean Moreau opens up a flower shop next door. Jeremy gets a crush, but thankfully Laila and Alvarez are there to play matchmaker, with the help of Renee. (14k, ch. 9/?)\

*leaving marks by blackcatiiix

In a world where your soulmate���s injuries appear as bruises on your skin, Jeremy is… struggling. And that’s even before he meets Jean Moreau. (46k, ch. 12/?)

*marrow without bone by exyfexyfoxes

Onscreen Jeremy didn’t hesitate, displaying an eagerness that translated well across television. “Yeah, I spoke to Jean earlier this week. He’s definitely done for the year but he’ll be back in the fall.”Then, impeccably, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “He just won’t be back in black.“Jean’s eyes narrowed.

(The season hasn’t even started yet and Jeremy already wants to cut their newest player from the team. Making the switch from Raven to Trojan isn’t quite what Jean thought it would be.) (68k, ch. 18/20)

[ladylilithprime]

Kiss prompt 73 Sastiel?

73. Height Difference Kisses Where One Person Has To Bend Down And The Other Is On Their Tippy Toes 

Read Parts 1-6 Here

NO ONE OBJECTED when Sam and Castiel politely but firmly bowed out of any further rounds of Spin the Bottle. Dean pouted briefly that it was Sam’s turn to spin, but quickly changed the subject when Sam shot him a speaking look that Castiel wasn’t quite sure how to interpret. Meg, at least, waved them off with a rueful little smile that belied her put-upon sigh, so Castiel figured she wasn’t too irritated with them for not sticking with the “plan”.

As tempting as it was to stick close to Sam’s side and anchor himself in the younger Winchester’s familiar presence, Castiel was starting to get more than a little overwhelmed. Everything he had felt for Sam over the last two years felt magnified, unbound, churning beneath the surface of his skin like water boiling over. It was as if the simple knowledge that his feelings were returned, that Sam loved him back, had opened the floodgates to all those messy, physical sensations he’d heard described but never actually felt for himself until Meg’s stupid dare had set things into unrelenting motion. It felt like drowning. It felt like flying.

It was that feeling that had Castiel tilt his head up towards Sam and say, as casually as he could manage, “I’m going to go get another drink. Would you like anything?”

And Sam, bless his pure soul and kind heart, looked into his eyes and practically seemed to read his mind. “I might get some water a little later,” he said, giving Castiel’s hand a gentle squeeze before releasing him. “Last thing I should probably be doing right now is putting any more inhibition-lowering chemicals in my system.”

It was a fair point, and one Castiel himself might have considered under different circumstances. Right now, though, he felt off-kilter enough that the prospect of the depressant chemicals of alcohol dampening his anxiety enough to get him through the rest of this Hell of a party at the side of his own personal Heaven was too tempting to pass up. With a murmured “be right back”, he reluctantly broke away from Sam and headed into the kitchen.

There were only a few people loitering in the spacious kitchen, thankfully, most of his classmates having been pulled towards the living room to either join or spectate the newest round of Spin the Bottle. Castiel moved surely with purpose towards the icebox where he knew Meg’s brother Tom kept a few cans of imported Czech dark ale. The stuff was sweeter than Castiel usually liked, but it was also thirteen percent alcohol by volume. He dug one out from the back, popped the tab, and downed half the can in four long gulps before he had to come up for air with a huff that was more irritation than satisfaction.

“That shit any better than this shit?” a voice asked from over by the counter where Castiel knew whatever was left of the PBR cases was standing.

“Not really,” Castiel said rather flatly and lifted the can again, hoping to discourage conversation. The alcohol burned a little, but not much, and the can was empty in three more swallows. It was tempting to grab one of Ezra Masters’s bottles of Arrogant Bastard next, but he still had enough sense to know the difference between an easily disguised can and a large, obvious brown bottle twice the size of the bottles of Corona a couple of the art department darlings had brought.

“Surprised to see you drinking so much, Einsam,” the voice continued, either missing or just blithely ignoring Castiel’s hint to leave him alone, even though the sound of footsteps told him that others in the room had gotten the hint. “But then, you’re sure surprising a lot of people tonight, you and the Winchester kid.”

That made Castiel shoot a narrow look in the direction of the voice. The speaker turned out to be Luke Gottesschwert, Michael’s rebellious younger brother, a Sophomore and technically not supposed to be at this party despite hitching a ride with his older brother. He was decked out in ripped jeans and a Led Zeppelin shirt that looked too sharp to be more than a few weeks off the racks and a beaten up leather jacket that looked a lot like Dean’s but Castiel would bet his GPA had less personal history. When he saw he had Castiel’s attention, Luke grinned. “How drunk was he before you got to take him upstairs?”

“Excuse me?” Castiel said, slowly and deliberately. He couldn’t have heard that right, there was no way this kid was implying what it sounded like.

“Gotta say,” Luke went on, casting a leer in the direction of the living room, “if I’d known all it took to get that tight ass to drop trou was a beer or three and just grabbing him and planting one on him, he wouldn’t have had to settle for just fifteen minutes!”

Crunch!

Luke stilled, turning to stare at Castiel, who continued to systematically crush the beer can he was holding with one hand as he slowly drew himself up to his full six feet of height and turned to face the other boy. With the unerring accuracy born of practice and familiarity, Castiel snapped his hand across his body, sending the can - now crushed down to the size and shape of a hockey puck - directly at the right spot on the kitchen wall to ricochet off into the recycling bin, all without moving his piercing gaze from the wanna be punk in front of him.

“You are not touching Sam Winchester,” Castiel growled, staring the taller boy down.

“Oh yeah?” Luke sneered, looking Castiel up and down with disdain. “What’s gonna stop me? A little nerd like you?”

“Maybe,” Castiel said, more calmly than the thundering in his ears would suggest, not giving an inch. “Or maybe it’ll be his brother. Or even your brother. Or maybe,” he added, ice sliding into his voice, “you should remember that Sam Winchester took down Gordon Walker, and no one touches him without his consent. Not you. Not me. No one.”

Whatever was in his eyes was enough to make Luke step back, his own eyes widening a little. He recovered quickly, drawing himself up and leaning forward, attempting to loom over Castiel as he snarled, “Big talk from someone everyone here saw manhandling the kid earlier before you disappeared upstairs–”

“Oh, please!” a familiar and sarcastic voice broke in from beside them. Luke and Castiel turned their heads to look at Gabriel Gullvaengur, editor of Shurley High’s school newspaper, holding an unopened can of Mountain Dew. Seeing that he had their attention, Gabriel went on, “Have you seen Sam?” He gave an impressed whistle, using the hand not holding the can to sketch out Sam’s height (well above Gabriel’s own) and then his broad shoulders that weren’t quite on the same level as Michael’s but weren’t too far off considering Sam was three years younger than all his classmates. “No one can manhandle him unless the man wants to be handled, you get me? And from the angle I had, it looked like he was manhandling Cassie here right back!” he finished with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“Yes, thank you, Gabriel,” Castiel groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Because that was exactly the sort of thing he wanted Luke Gottesschwert to know while he was telling him off for wanting to molest his… Sam.

Gabriel looked from one to the other, then shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Here, let’s settle this,” he said, turning towards the living room and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Hey, Winchester the Younger!”

There was a moment of silence, then Sam poked his head into the kitchen. His eyes swept over Luke’s aggressive posture and Castiel’s ramrod straight back and flushed cheeks, then looked at Gabriel and raised an eyebrow. “You bellowed, shortstack?”

“Settle something for us,” Gabriel requested, waving him into the kitchen. Bemused, Sam came further in, detouring to the counter to grab a bottle of water and circling around the kitchen island to stand at Castiel’s side, drawing a scowl from Luke and a slight smirk from Gabriel. “Okay! So, answer this for us. If Cassie here wanted to take you upstairs for some hot and heavy action, would he get anywhere without your consent?”

Sam blinked, both eyebrows climbing into his hairline. “Not sure what you want me to say here since Cas already has my consent to do whatever he wants with me.”

“He does?” Gabriel asked interestedly even as Castiel blurted out a startled, “I do?”

“Of course, Cas,” Sam said matter of factly, turning to smile softly at Castiel in that way he had which caused his dimples to show most strongly. Castiel flushed and glanced down at the floor with a shy, pleased smile as Sam explained, most likely for Luke and Gabriel’s benefit, “I trust you not to do anything I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about and to stop if I ask you to, just like I would for you.”

“Okaaay… Then say Luke here,” Gabriel gestured to Luke, who was still scowling, “made the same proposition, you would say…?”

“Absolutely not,” Sam said firmly, eyes narrowing in suspicion at Luke, who now looked like he might have been thinking of edging towards the door. Gabriel hummed consideringly.

“And if he didn’t respect that?” Gabriel asked, sounding like he could guess what the answer was going to be.

“I’d break his face,” Sam obliged him in a calmly conversational tone. Castiel snuck a glance back up as Sam twisted the cap off his bottle of water, arm muscles flexing rather pointedly. “And once Dean heard about it he’d break everything else.”

“There you go!” Gabriel said cheerfully, popping open his soda can and taking a big gulp of the sugary caffeine-laden liquid. Luke scowled, flushed and shifty and clearly realizing he was probably more out of his depth than he’d thought, but too prideful to back down just yet.

“And your nerd boyfriend?” he sneered, more bluster and bark than substance, but still reaching. Castiel felt his spine stiffening as Luke went on, goading, “He seemed to think he can do something.”

“I have access to liquid nitrogen,” Castiel said in a deceptively mild tone, turning to stare flatly at Luke as his voice dropped several degrees in timbre and temperature. “And a healthy respect for its destructive properties when applied to… soft tissue.” The pointed glance downwards was probably not necessary, but the way Luke went pale and sickly was incredibly satisfying, as was the way he all but scurried out of the kitchen.

“And on that horrifying thought,” Gabriel drawled, giving Castiel a look of impressed respect, “I’m gonna go see if Kali wants to go participate in one of those ill-advised make-outs I heard Dean-o talking about.” He saluted them both with his Mountain Dew and sauntered away.

“Just so you know,” Sam said in a low voice as Castiel turned to look up at him, catching the full force of Sam’s radiant smile. “You are one scary badass when you want to be, and I’m both terrified and turned on right now. I’m also kind of interested in seeing how many people Dean ends up kissing before someone finally calls game over. You in?”

“I have imbibed sufficient quantities of inhibition-lowering chemicals,” Castiel said, stretching up on his tiptoes to press a quick kiss to the corner of that smile, imagining that this must be what kissing actual sunshine felt like. “Do with me what you will.”

[dotshiiki]

The Best Underwater Proposal

Ack, so my first attempt at the day 5 prompt (romance/shipping) for @percyjacksonweek2k17 went awry (basically tried to write a double-date ficlet based on a Caleo prompt and, surprise, surprise, it went more Caleo than Percabeth instead of 50-50). So I started over. And decided to go with @achtervulgan315‘s request for a Percabeth proposal. I think the whole reason I struggled with the original prompt is cos I look at it and go huh, right, shipfic--wait, so what’s the prompt then? 

This was mainly written in between sessions at a conference (which is totally kicking my butt, I am sooo tired at the end of the day) so I am so sorry if it turned out to be utter and complete crap. 

Okay why am I still blathering on? Story!

Summary: Percy’s a man with a plan. If he can just get Annabeth alone--which is proving harder than he anticipated. Fortunately, Clarisse comes to the rescue. Set in the CoL universe, post-fic, so SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF LETHE | Percabeth, obviously | 1321 words

If you’d told Percy that he’d ever ask Clarisse for help with his love life, he’d have said you’d been spending too much time shrooming in the Hypnos cabin.

To be fair, he wasn’t asking her for romantic advice (he’d definitely have to be stoned to consider that), it was more of … logistics.

Because getting Annabeth on her own for any extended period of time that summer was proving to be a greater challenge than Percy had anticipated—and that was definitely going to throw a wrench in his plans if he didn’t figure out how to get around it. Between their roles as senior camp counsellors (and their training classes were wildly popular with the kids) and Annabeth’s ongoing work on the ever-increasing minor god cabins (it was more like a mini-village there these days), there was hardly a private moment to be had. Even their spare time was often peppered with interruptions of the usual camp variety—Ellis Wakefield 'accidentally' frying the Demeter cabin; Julia Feingold and Alice Miyazawa stealing all the dinner plates for a skeet shooting competition so that no food could be served; Meg McCaffrey covering all the main cabins in creeper vines in retaliation. Little emergencies, that nevertheless needed the 'grown ups' to sort out.

(Gods, grown-ups. Sometimes Percy just wanted to go, 'Adult? Who, me? Nah …' Then again, considering what he was planning to ask Annabeth, he supposed he was grown up enough. If you counted age in experience instead of years, he might even pass for middle-aged by this point.)

Added to that was the increased propensity for younger campers to spy on the private moments they did get. Percy wasn’t sure how exactly their adventures in Tartarus had morphed into what the Aphrodite kids proclaimed 'the greatest love story ever' (gods, he wished Piper was back to put a stop to it; then again, maybe she’d only fan the flames, incorrigible matchmaker that she was). He just wished they wouldn’t be so persistent about trying to catch the 'shippy moments' for themselves. Seriously, when had teenagers become such voyeurs?

Anyway, the giggling coming from the bushes (or worse, rapturous sighs of 'it’s so romantic!') tended to put a bit of a damper on any attempted make-out session.

Percy had been starting to think he’d have to ask Chiron for permission to take Annabeth out to Manhattan for her birthday when the idea came to him. And unbelievable as it was, he went to Clarisse.

He caught Annabeth between his morning swordfighting class and her afternoon cabin inspections. he joined him on the green outside the Big House readily enough.

'Wanna bet on who catches us this time?' she teased when he kissed her cheek.

'My money’s on the Ares crowd,' he said. From behind his back, he produced a slightly squashed cupcake, covered with (of course) blue frosting. 'Happy birthday.'

'You remembered.'

'I did.' Percy tapped his head. 'Thalia’s magic’s still working. Everything staying put in there.'

Annabeth dipped her finger in the frosting and smeared it across his cheek. 'Your memory for dates was bad even before they washed out to Chaos,' she teased.

'I remembered the important ones,' Percy objected. 'Today, for instance.'

He felt in his pocket to make sure the pouch he’d prepared was still there, then moved in to kiss Annabeth properly. Sure enough, the oohing and aahing started up not long after their lips met.

'Well, look at that,' Clarisse pushed her way to the front of the group that had gathered at the edge of the Big House porch to whisper and point.

Right on cue.

'Clarisse?' Annabeth said incredulously. 'I know the kids have been stalking us, but it’s a bit beneath you, isn’t it?'

Clarisse ignored her. 'I think our lovebirds need to cool off, don’t you?' She looked around at the younger camps, whose faces broadened with glee.

A whole throng of kids appeared from all directions to hoist them onto their shoulders. Percy had to hand it to her; Clarisse had certain mobilised her people well.

'Isn’t this getting old for you?' Annabeth scolded.

'To the Canoe Lake!' Clarisse commanded, ignoring Annabeth.

Percy feigned annoyance, but he was grinning on the inside as they were carried down to the lake. It was all going perfectly to plan. Just before the campers chucked them into the water, he mouthed a quick thank you to Clarisse. She winked back.

He grabbed Annabeth’s hand as they sank beneath the surface and willed the water to push back from them, forming a flexible layer of air around their skin. He remembered quite clearly the first time he’d done this—a lot of his most emotionally charged memories had in fact become a lot more distinct since retrieving them at the edge of Chaos—and from the smile that tugged at the corner of Annabeth’s mouth and the way she wound her fingers through his and squeezed, she was recalling their first proper kiss, too.

'You planned this,' she accused him. Her other hand reached up to wipe the frosting from his cheek.

'Guilty.' He should have known she’d catch on quickly.

They hit the sandy bottom of the lake and Percy dropped to one knee.

'Oh,' Annabeth said. 'Oh.'

He hurried to get to the all-important question, although it seemed Annabeth already knew what he was up to.

'Annabeth, I—uh—you’re the—you’re my, I mean—' Oh, Cocytus, Styx, and Lethe, did he have to get all tongue-tied now? He took a deep breath, which was a mistake since he hadn’t exactly left unlimited quantities of air in their bubble. It made him splutter and choke over his next words.

Annabeth’s hand rose to cover her mouth. Her eyes twinkled.

'You’re laughing at me.'

'Of course I am.' She tugged him to his feet. 'You don’t have to do this, Percy.'

His heart did a slow swoop into the pit of his stomach. 'You mean—'

'I mean I was willing to fall into Chaos to stay with you—do you really need my answer?'

His heart, which must have stopped while waiting for her clarification, started beating again, very cautiously. 'You could’ve just let me get the question out.'

She pulled him closer by the front of his shirt. 'I seem to remember promising that I’d never make things easy for you.'

Percy shook his head, smiling. 'I think it’s been the other way round, lately.'

He pulled the pouch from his pocket. In it was the simple, thin band he’d been carrying around for months, ever since he’d gotten Tyson to craft it for him.

For her.

He shook it out into her palm. The ring lay in her hand, catching the sunbursts that streamed down through the lake water, reflecting different colours depending on which angle you looked from. It was simple at first glance, but with innumerable complex layers to it.

Just like Annabeth.

Annabeth’s jaw dropped. ’Is this … Adamantine?’

Percy nodded. 'The most durable stone in the world.'

'Something permanent,' Annabeth whispered.

'Exactly.'

Annabeth traced the carvings Tyson had etched along the surface of the ring in intricate Greek script: As long as we’re together. When she looked back at him, the corners of her eyes were glistening softly.  

'Well, I guess you should ask after all.' She slipped her finger through the ring. 'Even if you already know the answer.'

This time, the words came out just right. ’I want you with me forever, even if you never make it easy for me. Will you keep on not making things easy for the rest of my life?’ he murmured.

'For the rest of our lives and beyond, Seaweed Brain.' Annabeth leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching. 'You’re not getting away from me.'

And as he closed the gap between them, Percy thought he’d definitely nailed the best underwater proposal of all time.

A/N: I APOLOGISE FOR ALL THE TLO PARALLELS.

[chris--daae]

A Merik (I'm very creative) for the prompt: "How can you look at me and see something good?" (Now I'm a real pain in the ass with my Merik asks, right? Sorry.) Thank you so much!

@vl-blackswan

I am here, I am alive, and the ask is here! Heh I am sorry this took so long.

Honestly I was hoping so much to receive something with this prompt! Some things happened that were on my way to write this including me choosing to write a theme that I am not as good with

Anyway, here it is, and I hope it’s good and it’s worth the wait.

“How can you look at me and see something good?”

The ceremony was small. It was more symbolic than anything. It was understandable, as the groom was still hiding from the police. There was no priest, and no documents, no guests and no music. Just two people who loved each other very much, and a mother that couldn’t hide her tears of happiness. Of course Madame Giry has wished bigger things for her daughter- a glorious wedding, a beautiful dress, a rich husband. But in the end all that mattered was that her little Meg was happy, and that she could see that she was.

Erik and Meg exchanged their vows in the small house, dressed in regular clothes, having only Madame Giry and God as witnesses. They didn’t consider their union any less valid for being done in such conditions. They had a good reason, after all. Their rings were also nothing fancy- a simple golden band for Erik, a small diamond for Meg. Then, they kissed. It was not their first kiss. They had touched their lips before, secretly in the darkness of night. And while for Erik, every moment they shared was his first, Meg had also tasted other lips before. Still, for both of them the first kiss they shared as husband and wife was something else, much more passionate, much deeper. They did not want to part, even as they were starting to feel breathless, and only the sound of Madame Giry clearing her throat made them stop and pull away. Both blushed, Erik a bit more than Meg, but they shared a look and a small smile, and Madame Giry shook her head.“Try not to make much noise.”, she said, before retiring to her room.The couple waited, not looking at each other, until they heard the door closing and being locked. Meg raised her head, and smirked to Erik, before jumping back into his arms. This kiss was shorter. Erik raised her, one arm on her waist and the other on her legs. Meg laughed.“Not so loud.”, Erik whispered, unable himself to hold back his smile. “Your mother will kill me.”“Let’s give her a good reason then.”, Meg replied, showing again a mischievous smirk.Erik carried his wife to what now would be their shared room. He spent the whole day exchanging the places of Meg’s small bed with Madame Giry’s couple bed. It was an easy chore, but Madame Giry was not happy with the noise and the mess.He placed Meg on the bed, and caught his mind once again wondering how could her mother approve of this. How could she give her only daughter to a husband like him?“Are you joining me or…?”, Meg asked, interrupting his line of thought. She was already laying down.Erik sat beside her. He suddenly didn’t know where to put his hands. Well, he did know, he knew what to do and how, but he missed the courage.Meg also was filled with shyness. She looked to her own hands, that moved nervously over her chest.“So…”, she started, in an unsure voice. The husband was the one who should take the lead, right?“So.”, Erik replied, laying down on his back. Now they both laid on their backs, side by side, fully clothed. This is not how it works, Erik cursed in his mind. He wanted to make a move, any move, but found himself unable to. He could not even look at Meg. Instead, he watched the ceiling.It was Meg who took his hands in hers, and moved closer to him. Erik started laughing. She laughed with him.“I am sorry. Let’s start this again.”Meg stopped him with her hand.“I like this.”Erik laughed again.“I’m sorry.”“We have time.”, Meg said. Erik nodded, tangling his fingers to hers. “You want it, right?”“Of course.”, he replied. “Do you?”“We wouldn’t have gotten so far if I didn’t.”Erik smiled.“I’m sorry.”“Stop apologizing.”“You deserved better.”Meg moved so she now laid on her side, facing Erik.“Like what?”“You deserved to live like a queen. Like an empress.”“I feel like an empress when I am with you.”, Meg gave a sad smile.“How can you?”, Erik’s gaze was fixed on the ceiling as he spoke, as he didn’t dare to look at Meg. “Why did you accept it?”“Because I love you.”, Meg didn’t need to think to answer.“Why? How can you look at me and see anything good?”“How can you not?”Erik did not answer immediately. The first words that came to his mind were too harsh.“Simply looking at myself is already too hard of a task.”Meg rolled her eyes.“So, you are not that handsome.”“That’s another point too.”“So, you made some mistakes. So did I. So did everyone on this Earth.”, Meg squeezed his hand as she spoke. “Do you know how many times I sneaked out and did all the things mother forbid me?”“It’s not the same thing, Meg. You never hurt anyone.” Erik wanted to pull his hand away, but at the same time he was enjoying too much the feeling of Meg’s soft fingers.Meg sighed.“You made some bad mistakes.”, They both knew it was an euphemism, but Meg did not want to keep thinking of it. “Does it mean that you should pay for them your whole life? You are not the same person you were before, Erik. You help mother with everything, you got a real job, you even feed stray cats!” She softly touched his face, to make him turn to her. He did it. “What else must you do to deserve a break?”“I must do much more to deserve you.”, Erik replied.“Well, we are already tied.”, Meg raised her left hand to his eyes, showing the wedding ring.Erik took it, and kissed her fingers.“It’s not too late for you to change your mind.”, he said, half joking and half anxious. “I heard you have some distinguished admirers.”“I would never exchange you for any of them.”, Meg looked straight into his eyes. She wanted him to know it was true. She would even leave the ballet forever if he asked her to.Not that she could imagine him doing such a thing.“Careful with your words, dear, or I might think I can-”“But you can.”“Can I?”“We are married, and mother wants grandchildren.”Erik stared at her for a moment, before he started laughing.“Can we just… stay like this tonight?”“I would rather change into my night clothes first.”, Meg replied.“Of course.” Erik let go of her hand, to allow her to stand up and get changed. His hand missed the warmth of hers.He had to get changed too. But he did not move, as he watched Meg stand up.“Meg?”, he called.“Yes?”, she turned her face back to him.“I love you.”Meg smiled.“I love you too.”

[thegreatwhiteferret]

When you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy. Then, send to the last ten people in your notifications anonymously. You never know who might benefit from spreading positivity! 🌼

I’ve never gotten one of these before, I am super excited about this! (I’m also incapable of answering things simply apparently, I am sorry that this is so long!!)  💖 💖 💖

Here are my five things that make me happy in no specific order…

1) Snuggling with my dog, Pippa. She is my emotional support companion…like I don’t even know. She for real wrapped her paws around my shoulders and rested her head on mine to try to calm me down the last time I had an anxiety attack. She’s my furry baby and the absolute best!

2) Seeing the alert in my inbox that my favorite authors have updated their story on Ao3! This is one of the best feelings ever! I love reading what other creators in this fandom come up with the characters. Everyone is so amazingly talented.

3) Obsessing with my sisters over our celebrity crushes, and picking the best one for each other and deciding who we would invite to Thanksgiving. My older sister’s choices get vetoed a lot! It’s silly, and quite ridiculous, but we find it hilarious and it’s become a family joke. 

4) CREATING. Writing or drawing or even making PowerPoints about things that people will never see (my IT face claims included). I’ve also been collaborating with Lua on our Billverie ship and all of the things that we want to see happen to them in my stories, and it has made me so happy and excited. Ugh, words cannot do justice to how it’s made me feel!

5) Getting feedback on my writing. I am really hard on myself about my stories, always second guessing what I’ve written and wanting them to be perfect. I am always shocked and extremely grateful for every like, reblog, kudos, or comment I receive on my stories. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and helps me feel confident to write and post more. (I don’t care how cliche this one is) Y’all are the absolute best!!!

Thanks so much to whoever sent me this, it did make me feel better to focus on some positive and happy things!

I’m going to go ahead and drop these into the inboxes of the last ten people in my notifications, but I will tag them here as well, because why the hell not! If you guys do this, tag me in your responses, I’d love to see them! 💖 💖 💖

@theladythatwrites @keepholdinginreverse @staanleyuris @billbenbev @neptunekiid @mikeyslittlepenguin @aoifetriestowrite @violetisprocrastinating @tr-shmouth @temptedtozier

[ceciliayoder1992]

Back With My Ex Jeremy And Meg Staggering Ideas

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Can U Get Your Ex Back

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Self interest is what made you a chance to reconnect a relationship.If you try this strategy, you need to stick with it not only salvageable, but now, just after a breakup is the way to showing your ex are feeling confident, there is one key factor in how to get your girlfriend physically attracted to me.It's only a few weeks at the big picture.I felt like a lost puppy dog at her house at 3 am.When she came along at the very thing that you were willing to go back: cases of physical traits women so often given is to take you back even further away.

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How To Get Your Ex Boyfriend Back In Middle School

[how2to18]

THERE IS A riveting scene in the documentary Finding Pictures (Bilder finden, 2002) by German filmmaker Benjamin Geissler, when Agnieszka Kijowska, part of the team searching for remnants of a mural painted in 1942 by the Polish writer and artist Bruno Schulz, scrubs layers of paint from the pantry wall of a house in a Ukrainian village, formerly part of Poland. As she scrubs, an image, slowly and miraculously, reveals itself. “Here’s a little face,” she says in disbelief. “Mr. Wojciech,” she repeats, referring to Wojciech Chmurzyński, an expert in Schulz’s visual art, “Here’s a little face.” Offscreen a man’s voice answers, “Wonderful! Oh my God! […] It’s reminiscent of his self-portraits. Oh my God! This is it! How true.”

It’s an uncanny moment, a flash discovery of something thought forever lost. The whimsical face exhumed from beneath the decades-old paint is an auto-portrait of Bruno Schulz, Jewish author of The Street of Crocodiles (Sklepy cynamonowe, 1933) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą, 1937), and creator of phantasmagoric drawings. Schulz’s artistic talents had for a time earned him refuge in the home of Felix Landau, a Nazi officer who had charged him with painting murals in his children’s bedroom. But on November 19, 1942, this reprieve came to an end when another Nazi officer, Karl Günther, shot Schulz on the streets of Drohobych, Ukraine, the village that had inspired so much of his creative work. And from that moment, two absences were established: a vanished body, as Schulz’s burial place isn’t definitively known, and an unpublished novel, The Messiah (Mesjasz), whose whereabouts still remain a mystery.

The Messiah is one of eight lost manuscripts conjured up in Giorgio van Straten’s In Search of Lost Books: The Forgotten Stories of Eight Mythical Volumes, translated from the Italian by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre. The director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and author of, among other volumes, My Name, A Living Memory — a book that traces and imagines his father’s Jewish roots from 19th-century Rotterdam, Netherlands, to 20th-century Italy — van Straten is undoubtedly drawn to memory. And in his latest work, the focus is not on people long gone or places now vanished, but on the books that disappeared. They include, in addition to Schulz’s The Messiah, a manuscript by the Italian writer Romano Bilenchi, which van Straten, a friend and mentee of the writer, had read but regretfully not saved; the burned memoirs of Lord Byron, deemed too scandalous by Byron’s family and a former male lover; an early Ernest Hemingway manuscript that disappeared when the suitcase containing it was stolen in Paris’s Gare de Lyon; a Sylvia Plath novel that vanished following her suicide; the manuscript of Walter Benjamin, believed to have been in the black suitcase he carried in 1940 as he tried, unsuccessfully, to flee Jewish persecution in France and ended up taking his own life in the village of Portbou on the Spanish border; and two manuscripts lost to fire: the second volume of Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 Dead Souls — purportedly burned by the author himself — and a 1,000-page masterpiece by Malcolm Lowry that was destroyed in a house fire.

Van Straten reconstructs each tale of loss with the perseverance of a sleuth, the passion of a bibliophile, and the conviviality of a raconteur, without abandoning the raw sense of wonder that leaves open the possibility — as happened with Schulz’s murals — of a rediscovery. As he writes in the introduction,

Every time I have chanced across the story of a lost book I have experienced something like the feeling that gripped me as a child when reading certain novels which spoke of secret gardens, of mysterious cable-cars, of abandoned castles. I have recognized the opportunity for a quest, felt the fascination of that which escapes us — and the hope of becoming the hero who will be able to solve the mystery.

He assembles each narrative with information gleaned from the eight authors’ diaries and letters, historical and contemporary sources, interviews with critics, and conversations with his own literary friends and colleagues, so that the book feels both scholarly and intimate. And while each loss he invokes is unique, an overarching question emerges from the litany of voices assembled for each chronicle: what is society’s responsibility (if any) to a creative work?

Tensions often surround a common debate: what to do when an artist wishes to have their unpublished work destroyed after death, while a survivor’s responsibility lies in delivering to posterity — and humanity — an invaluable work. (A famous example of the latter winning out is the case of Max Brod, who, after the death of his friend Franz Kafka, didn’t destroy Kafka’s manuscripts as he had been instructed.) But van Straten explores scenarios that distinctly eradicate the possibility for posthumous publication: namely, the destruction of a deceased writer’s work by family and friends despite the writer’s wish to have it endure (as with Lord Byron, and possibly Bilenchi and Plath), self-censorship (which was the case for Gogol and to a certain extent, the perfectionist Lowry), and annihilation during wartimes (as occurred with Walter Benjamin and Bruno Schulz).

This last form of vanishing — via war and persecution — is perhaps most heartbreaking, because the aggressor can’t be whittled down to a single person or simple bad luck. It is, rather, a form of collective assault, against not only an individual but also a creation that never had a chance to see the light of day. It is, in short, an act of societal violence against creation itself.

And Walter Benjamin’s case is equally tragic in this regard. A “consummately refined revolutionary,” as van Straten describes him, Benjamin left his native Germany in 1933 after the Nazi seizure of control and moved to Paris, where he wrote the texts that would turn him into one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers. Among these was the unfinished The Arcades Project (Das Passagen-Werk), about 19th-century Parisian life, whose photocopy he would go on to entrust to his friend Georges Bataille prior to his eventual ill-fated escape from France. Another was “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, 1935), an essay on the ways in which mechanical reproduction of an artwork strips it of its aura. On June 13, 1940, just a day before the Germans occupied Paris, Benjamin decided to leave the city for Marseille, France, hoping to continue from there to Portugal and make his way to the United States. But while he had a permit to enter the United States, he lacked many of the exit and entry documents that would have allowed him to make his labyrinthine way out of Europe. Hence the last-ditch attempt to flee Marseille for Spain, the black suitcase containing the mysterious manuscript, and the eventual suicide that would put an end to the man, his suitcase, and his writings.

As well as the societal, cultural, and existential tensions tied to the moment of the vanishing, there is another that runs throughout van Straten’s book: the tension between the hope of discovery and the futility of the search, or what van Straten, quoting Marcel Proust, calls “the risk of an impossibility.” Proust invokes this risk as a prerequisite for love between humans, and van Straten extends the definition to love between a human being and a lost book, fueled by “that combination of impulse and melancholy, of curiosity and fascination, which develops with the thought of something that existed once but that we can no longer hold in our hands.” In other words, the tension of searching for the work is inextricable from the story of its recovery, even if the tangible recovery is impossible.

And his emphasis on the lost object’s former existence is important. For van Straten, lost books are not those “that were not even born: conceived, expected and dreamt of, but prevented for one reason or another from ever being written.” On the contrary, they are ones that did in fact exist but subsequently vanished. This distinction reveals the value he places on a writer’s self-actualization while reinforcing the intimacy of his book, which not only shares the narratives of eight vanished manuscripts dear to him, but also prompts readers to define for themselves what constitutes loss, and more specifically, the loss of a book. Because it is likely we all have different criteria for what makes a book “lost.” What of those books attributed to an author with a certain level of celebrity, but secretly penned by a relative or lover? Is proof of the manuscript’s former existence necessary, or can one simply take the author’s word that such a book once lived? And perhaps most importantly, must the book have been actually written to be lost, or does it qualify if it might have been written had circumstances permitted it?

Reflecting on lost books brought to my mind Imre Kertész’s novel Kaddish for an Unborn Child (Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért, 1990), an elegiac book about a Hungarian Holocaust survivor’s inability to bring a child into the world. In Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson’s 1997 English translation (titled Kaddish for a Child Not Born), the narrator describes his long “road of self-liquidation” and his lifelong conversation with his unborn child, who becomes for him a lingering shadow. Kertész’s narrator even goes so far as to frame his “existence in the context of [the nonextant child’s] potentiality.” Just as there are offspring left uncreated because of their potential parents’ failure to actualize them, are there books that never came into existence because their authors lacked agency in a world that for one reason or another stripped them of it? Might one, in other words, recite a kaddish for an unborn book?

That, I suppose, depends on the definition of loss. But however you define it, it is certainly not a bygone event. Books are undoubtedly being lost every day. Given the political volatility of our time and the continuous displacement of millions of people (68.5 million in 2017, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency), how many manuscripts — written and unwritten, by authors known and unknown — are vanishing daily? Perhaps in a generation or two, someone will sift through the wreckage and create a new bibliography of lost books.

But as van Straten emphasizes, the story doesn’t end with loss. In fact, the story doesn’t end at all, for absence itself can become a catalyst for creativity — as was the case, for example, with Schulz’s Messiah: Schulz appears as a fish in David Grossman’s 1986 novel See Under: Love, and, most famously, as the protagonist’s claimed father in Cynthia Ozick’s The Messiah of Stockholm, published a year later. He is even the namesake of a Polish rock band. This echoes philosopher Abraham J. Heschel’s idea, explored in his book Who Is Man? (1963), that “[t]he dignity of human existence is in the power of reciprocity.” One of our primary experiences as humans, says Heschel, is to obtain and seize things we care for in childhood, and, upon entering maturity, to give and provide for those we care for. Maybe in this ideal of reciprocity, where “[k]nowledge is a debt, not a private property,” knowledge of an absence may be repaid through transformation: an inherited loss into a new creation.

Still, despite its inevitability and potential to bring about renewal, loss causes grief. And the act of writing, besides all else it does, often serves as an attempt to accept this grief. This attempt was famously captured by Elizabeth Bishop in her poem “One Art,” a villanelle whose narrator simultaneously laments and relinquishes losses, both small (“lost door keys” and “the hour badly spent”) and vast (the beloved’s “joking voice” and “two cities, lovely ones”), and tries in vain to “master” them through writing. It could be argued that societies and cultures that experience repeated loss may develop a stronger compulsion to reconstruct an absence, to reinvent it and thus to refuse its irrevocability — in other words, to write it. As van Straten explained in My Name, A Living Memory, translated by Martha King,

The most dreaded Jewish curse says: May your name and even your memory be forgotten. Therefore, to save a man you must repeat his name, as in a liturgy. But the memory? That […] dies with the people who preserve it. Unless someone decides to transform it — to write it down, for instance.

In order to regenerate the memory of his ancestors — and his surname — he worked with family myths and stories, birth and death certificates, wedding invitations, heirlooms passed down the generations, and, inevitably, his own imagination. In his latest book, too, through the act of writing, he straddles the line between elegy and reincarnation, aware, all the while, that “if on the one hand [lost books] continue to elude us, […] on the other they come back to life in us — and ultimately, as in Proustian time, we can lay claim to having found them.” What he offers, as he tells the reader, is “the memory of absent books,” with both sorrow and fresh wonder, reflecting Schulz’s wish as he expressed it in a 1936 letter to a friend: “My ideal goal is to ‘mature’ into childhood.”

Though grief may be inevitable, van Straten’s book makes clear that loss is not absolute so long as memory, and the chance for transformation, persists. The memory must be conjured up without fossilizing it, must be breathed — or written — into a new form. This is what van Straten has done, in this slim, beautiful homage to eight absences.

¤

Dalia Sofer is the author of the novel The Septembers of Shiraz (2007). Her new novel is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2020).

The post The Chance for Transformation: On Giorgio van Straten’s “In Search of Lost Books” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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