#aj-carryon

[according2thelore]

Ohmygod this was my askkkk!! I am so so happy with thiss, rolling around it like a kitten I am sooo fed!!! Tysm!! The twist with it being their intention all along for ES!winchesters to find out…..I am dead, absolutely dead. You are so good, soo creative. ES!Sam you are in for a ride, and ES!Dean, you better get over with your hangups soon and accept what it is.

My imagination is running wild now and because of this being intentional, I am imagining LS!Winchesters now fully staging this setup, lure ES!Sam in it because he would be easier to convince and LS!Sam knows that Dean *deserves* to be with a version of himself, pre cage, pre demon blood, all pure and innocent and fiery and angry and confident - something he is only rarely these days. This Sam will take what he wants. So LS!Sam arranges this thing for LS!Dean and ES!Sam, tells his Dean to enjoy! And my oh my does he. ES!Sam is his to claim first now???? This precious thing, eager to please but also has this arrogance in him that makes him so so so much Sam. Meanwhile ES!Dean is off to run some errand (by LS!Sam's design) but he returns early and sees his baby bro with that older version of himself and LOSES IT. HOW DARE DEAN NOT ONKY DEFILE HIS OWN LITTLE BROTHER BUT ALSO ES!DEAN'S!!!!! HE IS FURIOUS AND YEARNING AND HATES IT THAT HE WASNT THE ONE AND STARTS STRAIGHT UP MURDER BUT LS!SAM MAYBE CALMS HIM???? OHMYGOD

(also??? thank you so much for correcting the misread ask???? I would have taken with greedy grabby hands if you had completely misread it also!! I am OBSESSED with this verse! You are the nicestestestest)

HIHIHIHI!!!!!

GAH! this ask was so cute and nice i was kickin' my lil feet!

this idea is so great! your mind!

this falls into a similar category as one of my most recent posts, and i wrote it accordingly. do i think that LS!Dean would deprive ES!Dean of being LS!Sam's "first" dean? no, i don't think so. that bastard is so possessive i think he can respect the insane-brotherwife grind.

so this is just a delightful hypothetical based on your prompt!

without further ado, enjoy!

"plan b?" dean asks, and sammy lifts his head from his arms. his temples throb with a headache.

dean is sitting across from him at the dining table, nursing a glass of something sam can smell from here. sam snags the glass and takes a sip that curdles his nose hairs before passing it back.

"were we really this stupid? like this dumb?" sammy groans, rubbing a hand through his hair. "i mean, i believe you would be this obtuse, but me? i was just studying for the LSAT like a year ago!"

"oh here comes the big fancy college boy with his big triangle words. you're still gagging for me so hard you're getting an aneurysm." dean rolls his eyes. sammy rolls his eyes right back.

it hadn't worked. they had set those little fuckers up, and expected at least a conversation to happen. but sammy just walked in on their younger selves in the kitchen the other day and they didn't even break apart abashedly! no awkward explanations at all! there wasn't even anything to explain--they were standing on opposite sides of the room!

"did we make it worse?" sammy asks. dean considers this.

"nah. we can fuck it up at least three times as bad if we put our heads together."

so they put their heads together.

~~~

"you want me to what?" sam asks, and there's that blush. sammy tilts his head away so the kid can't see him smile. it's going to make this so much harder if he thinks he's being laughed at.

"pour some sugar on me," dean says, waggling his eyebrows.

sam's face sours.

yup. made it harder.

"not really," sammy is quick to correct. "just...make it look like something's happening."

sam's eyes narrow.

"why?"

and isn't that the crux of the whole damn thing. sammy's done some weird things in his life. he's been to the past. he's been to the future. he's been to hell, been to alternate dimensions, and killed just about every type of monster one can think of.

and yet, having to explain why he and dean want to "parent trap" their own younger selves to said younger self might rank high on that list of weird.

"guy's in love with you." dean says, before sammy can say anything. sammy clenches his jaw. way to just jump into this thing.

sam blanches. "no. he's not. you're--he's my brother. you don't know what you're talking about."

"i don't know dean?" dean asks, eyebrow raised. sam sputters.

"well, you know you. but my dean is different. he's not--" heat creeps onto sam's cheeks, as if remembering the compromising position he caught them in the other day. "you."

dean mhmms flatly.

"then what's the harm? he walks in on this, is not jealous, and it doesn't do anything." sammy posits.

"easy for you to say! you have--" sam gestures at dean, but doesn't look at him. "if my dean caught me like that, if he knew--he'd...he'd never talk to me again. he'd...he'd be disgusted."

sammy and dean share a look. after having been tested so often, so deeply, and reaffirming their...bond--as chick-flick and meaningless as it sounds--the distance they had gained from this depth of anxiety removed the sting from it.

sammy will always remember working himself literally ill over it. but when he feels like that, he has the comfort of walking up to dean and biting down on the place where his neck and shoulder meet. he has the comfort of dean putting sticky notes that read "kick me" on the back, and then holding his face like he's the only thing that's ever mattered.

their younger selves deserve this. sammy has no idea if this is going to change the past. he doesn't know if these two will leave here tomorrow or in a week or in a year and be completely wiped-clean, or if they'll keep it all. but they deserve that comfort, that confirmation, that reassurance, as long as they can have it.

and honestly, fuck it. sammy wants a younger dean to be with his younger self. he sees their insecurities and their weird dance around each other and kciks himself for ever being so blind.

not having dean as soon as it was possible to have him will always be one of his biggest regrets.

so, sammy says,

"okay, listen. if it doesn't work, we have a mirror in 219 that erases the viewer's memories from the last 24 hours. all of 'em. so if we try this, and it doesn't work, we can slip it under dean's pillow, and he won't even remember. a zero sum game. no harm, no foul, right?"

sammy can feel dean's eyes on the side of his face, but he maintains intense eye-contact with his younger self.

no, they don't. they absolutely do not have that.

but for the first time, he can see something like hope in the kid's eyes, and--again, fuck it. in for a penny.

"he won't remember?" sam repeats, slowly.

"not a thing." sammy says, wondering if this counts as lying or self-delusion. sam is quiet for a long moment. he looks between him and dean for a few times, suspicion melting.

"yeah. okay." he says finally, looking at dean with a strange hunger in his eyes that brings sammy up short. oh shit. should he-- "i'm in."

~~~

getting dean out of the bunker is embarrassingly easy.

"you know what i would kill for right now?" sammy asks, suddenly, while they're all sitting around a table in the library. sam jolts, even though he had been expecting it. "pringles. do we have any pringles left?"

"oh, man." sam says, his eyes widen. "me, too."

even though they planned this out ten minutes ago, sammy's dean perks up like he's going to say something decidedly not-on-script. sammy shoots him a warning look. he sighs.

"whoops. i think i ate them all." dean looks at the table, like he's a football player forced to be in the school play for extra credit.

"oh." younger dean says. he sits up straight. he looks back and forth between the sams. "i mean. yeah. if we need a grocery run, i could go get some."

his nonchalant tone is belied by the fact his almost trips over his own feet to get up.

"i'll be back!" he calls, already in the doorway.

"god, i'm so fucking transparent." older dean mutters directly into his own palms as he hides his face in his hands. sam pats him on the back comfortingly.

forty-five minutes later, it's all in motion.

sammy knocks against the door twice as he hears dean's footsteps shuffle down the hallway, and rushes away, rounding the corner so dean won't be able to see him.

sam and older dean are set up in the garage. dean had pulled up one of the cars right next to the door so younger dean could see everything.

they had laid out clear ground rules: no actual kissing, no touching "bathing suit territory" (dean had proposed that addendum solemnly, and sam's face had screwed up, like he was considering if he actually felt anything but annoyance for his brother.)

they had decided on signals: two knocks when dean was coming, one knock if things were going to plan, three knocks for "i'll go get the mirror" for sam, and "oh shit we gotta have a plan c" for dean.

sammy had made sure the door was perfectly cracked to give dean some assurance of anonymity, and they had figured that was the best strategy, since dean was known apparently to peep when he suspected his older self and sammy were getting close.

sammy hadn't expected being able to hear sam and older dean's voices from down the hallway, but he can. he can also hear younger dean's footsteps falter as he gets closer to the door.

"no, you're doing it--" an aggravated sigh. "c'mere." a shuffling of limbs. "you see how the drive belt comes this way? we need to loop it around the--"

a pause.

"what're you lookin' at?" dean's voice has lowered an octave, and sammy shifts, a pavlov reaction to hearing dean like that.

"i'm just--" sam peters into silence. a gasp. younger dean's gasp. did he think it was sammy in the garage this whole time? sammy stifles a smile against his hand.

"you lookin' at me, sammy baby?"

"baby?" sam repeats indignantly, but is cut off by a gasp as something in the room clatters to the ground.

"yeah, that's right. you're my baby brother, aren't you? my baby brother. you like seein' me like this? bigger than you? i know my sammy likes it when i throw him around a little. show him who takes care of him."

sam is breathless, and sammy can hear it, when he says, "dean."

sammy wonders how they're set up. does dean have him pressed to the front of the car? hiked onto a table, like he and sammy were set up that first time?

he realizes that it's killing him not to know.

a coo, from dean. "oh. look at you, sweetheart. you're so hard, and i haven't even touched you yet. you think i could make you come just by talkin' to you? hm? you like big brother tellin' you how much he loves takin' care of you that much?"

sammy realizes that he's started to chub up in his jeans. and he also realizes that younger dean hasn't said anything yet. sammy's torn between wanting to look around the corner and see if he's still there and staying put.

what if sam was right, and younger dean's just not ready for this yet? sammy's dean had reassured him in no uncertain terms that he had been lusting after sam since a truly concerning age.

but what if the jealousy is too much? what if seeing them like that carves an impossible chasm?

"dean, i--i" sam sounds much more unsure, like he's losing control fast. sammy bites down hard on his tongue.

he makes a split-second decision.

he rounds the corner.

and dean's got a fucking gun.

sammy starts in a dead sprint just as dean kicks open the door to the garage.

"you sick fuck!" he yells. sammy's behind him in a second, pulling his arms back. dean's starts kicking immediately, even as sammy is able to pull him mostly off the ground.

"he's a kid!" dean's still yelling. "we promised, fucker! we promised!"

sammy looks around dean's flailing body, and sees sam's horrified face. he looks like he's about to be sick. older dean's leaned him up against the side of the car, and he's not even touching him, just standing a few inches away. sammy's dean has visibly paled.

"hey, that's not--" he starts, but dean's already going off again,

"get your goddamn hands off of him!" sammy starts hauling him away, and manages to kick the garage door closed--but not before dean shouts a parting shot, "you think he wants those disgusting fucking hands on him?!"

sammy manages to wrestle dean a couple steps down the hallway before dean starts to go limp.

"i'm calm," dean says, and his gun hand does actually go limp, so sammy starts to let him go.

"what the hell happened back there?" sammy asks, heartbeat in his throat. play dumb! play dumb!

dean tucks his gun back into his pants. he's looking at the wall over sammy's shoulder.

"he shouldnta' been sayin' that." dean mutters. "not his place to. sam is...never mind."

not his place to.

"his place?" sammy prompts. despite the fact that he's pretty sure he had a heart attack back there, he tries really, really hard not to smile. he's taking this very seriously.

dean's phrase is dangerously close to the point of all this, and sam should not celebrate because he's positive older dean and sam are powering through some angst (that sammy will have to deal with later) in the next room right now.

sammy feels like one of those tv show therapists with big glasses, armchair, and ballpoint pen. and how did that make you feel?

"i don't--" dean's eyes fall to his. "i don't know why i said that." his brows furrow. "i gotta go. i need some fresh air."

and without another word, dean turns around and walks away.

operation: go convince your brother to kiss you, but also not you is a-go.

before he walks away, sammy remembers the knock code: once for success, two for dean's arrival, three for failure. and honestly?

sammy knocks on the door once. and he trails after dean, barely resisting the urge to whistle.

oh yeah. they got this in the bag.

~~~~

@aj-carryon au contraire! you are the nicest! i hope you enjoyed this little ficlet, aj! (i hope that's your name, if not, then i hope you enjoyed, friend!)

your asks always make me giggle and twirl my hair, lol! kissing u on both cheeks!

-lizzy

[zmediaoutlet]

RULES: put 5 songs you actually listen to, then tag 10 people.

d'aw, thank you for thinking of me @stanfordsweater <3

I always thought the 'actually' in here was funny. Are people just pretending to listen to music? Here's five from the shuffle I do, really, actually listen to --

Sleeping on the Blacktop -- Colter Wall

Queen -- Perfume Genius

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters -- Elton John

Here Comes the Sun -- Yo-Yo Ma & James Taylor

Carry On Phenomenon -- Kishi Bashi

I guess that's relatively representative, lol. Hit me up, buds --

@mannequin3thereckoning, @anonajn, @nyxocity, @jamevaa, @felisblanco, @aj-carryon, @futuristicenthusiastlight, @candybarrnerd, @monstersandbrothers, @pendragony

[pbcnita]

Selfish heffas! 😠🤣😂😂😄 How are we supposed to focus our chi? Hahaaaaa #weedisnotadrug #carryon #naturesgifts #wearenatureschildren #ifitcomesfromtheearthitservesapurpose #spiritwillalwaysfindaway #everythingfromaplaceoflove #weusewhatwegot #intentionplusaction #brujalife #aje #witch #espiritita #ewe #herbs #osain #igotjokes #manifestingmagic https://www.instagram.com/p/B2C44gAH_b4/?igshid=1i7sekyshvjxl

[writewithurheart]

A Second Chance: Home Sweet Home

Chapter 11 of An Arrow/Chicago Med Crossover fic 

Summary:  When Oliver finds Tommy in CNRI, he thinks he's too late and is forced to flee to avoid the cops. But Tommy is rescued from the rubble. He survives his injuries and decides to use his second chance to help people the way he always wanted to.

Read on AO3 or ff.net or below: 

I’m not 100% sure what this is, but here! Have a new chapter!

...

Home Sweet Home

Chicago.

Once it had been his home away from home: the place he spent his summers with his mother and his cousin. Then it became his home permanently for several years when his father all but vanished from the face of the Earth. Turns out he’d spent all that time in Nanda Parbat, but at the time, all he’d been was a frightened preteen who’d lost his mother and his father in a short span of time.

It was in those years that he’d taken the name Connor Reese. It allowed him to hide within his aunt and uncle’s family, to become one of them instead of the Merlyn heir who had lost his mother.

And then his aunt died. 

Suicide, they called it.

It had messed Connor up for a long time. He’d been carted to therapist after therapist after that, Uncle Cornelius having decided they had waited too long and should have done that when he first came to them after the death of his own mother.

Malcolm had come to drag him back to Starling the summer before his freshman year of high school, but by then there was a part of him that had already made Chicago his home. He could tell in the relief that flooded his system as he stepped off the plane at O’Hare. It was in that first breath of Illinois air, the bite of the wind at his exposed skin, the cold he hadn’t felt in the last couple years when he was away in Riyadh.

He pulls the scarf tighter around his neck with a grin as he lifts a hand to hail a cab. The city looks just as he remembers it the last time he flew in to visit Claire, when he had the epic shouting match with Uncle Cornelius and vowed to never return to their house. It looks the same, and yet it also seems foreign to his eyes, eyes that have seen haggard, war-torn streets in Riyadh and Starling City. He can’t look down neat, manicured streets without seeing the potential for destruction and the ways to help stem the damage should the worst happen.

Maybe that’s what makes him a good trauma surgeon.

He’s trained for emergency situations, to look at a situation, assess the damage and treat the worst injuries so he can save the whole.

Chicago is his first step. A couple years ago, he entertained the idea of moving back to Starling to help with Oliver’s…mission, but that thought is a vestige of the past. He’s here to do a job, to make an impact in a large city were violence on the street sends kids to the hospital all the time, where they don’t have a vigilante looking out for the little people.

It’s his second home.

The apartment he got is far from extravagant. It might be nicer than what a surgical fellow still paying off med school loans would be able to afford. But he’s lucky enough to have no loans left over from med school to worry about. He could have gotten a better apartment, gotten Claire to shop around for him instead of surfing the web to find an acceptable one person apartment. He’ll have to go shopping for furniture soon. The only things in the room are boxes stacked neatly off to the side that hold his random knickknacks from when he was last in the states. But they take up a pitiful amount of space since he’d had Digg wait on sending the bigger pieces.  

Honestly, he really doesn’t know how much more he has. He left most of the furniture in his last apartment.

Either way, the apartment is eerily empty. The kitchen is recently updated and sleek, but the lack of table or couch in the main room makes it feel uninviting. His footsteps echo around the room as he walks up to the window and looks out at the city. He sprang for the room because of the view. It’s not stellar, but it’s also not a brick wall.  He can see mostly just other apartment buildings, but the view from the bedroom gives him a straight shot down a city block and a nice view of a slice of city life.

Connor turns to the rest of the room with a sigh.

That’s what he forgot: a bed.

He could, presumably, go out now and buy one. Sleep on the floor for a couple days until he finally relents and buys a bed frame to put it in. But he’s just spend almost twenty hours travelling to get here. He’s tired. As much as he tried to sleep on the plane, he couldn’t.  And for better or worse, he starts his new job in two days at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center.

Because who wants more than a couple days to acclimate to a new time zone?

Definitely not his smartest choice.

The way Connor rationalizes it, he was basically living in this timezone with his night shifts, so he could tough it out for the next two hours and then pass out. His sleepless nights and unusual sleep schedule for the last eight years have to help with something, like easing his way into a new time zone. He’d wake up and spend a day getting settled into his new apartment. Then tomorrow, with any luck, he’ll be accustomed to the new time zone and have enough time to make sure he looks presentable and to show up early to his first meeting with the Chief Administrator and the Head of Trauma.

It was a good plan, but one that hadn’t accounted for his need to find a bed.

Maybe he should have gotten a hotel room for the night…

Nanananananananana BATMAN!

Connor laughs as he plucks his phone from the pocket of his carryon bag. He stopped asking how Felicity changed his ringtones from a distance years ago. This one was one of his favorite changes.

“Hey, John.” He turns back to the window to look at the crowded streets and sidewalks.

“Connor. Sounds like you got home safe.” John Diggle’s voice sounds worn, the way it has since his falling out with Oliver. Connor doesn’t know all the details, but it involves kidnapping Lyla, leaving an infant unsupervised, and teaming up with Malcolm. A baby coos happily in the background.

“Yeah, you too. How did Sara like Disney World?”

John laughs. “She bypassed all the princess toys and wanted to go on all the ‘big kid rides’, which of course AJ found hilarious. I think it’s safe to say she’s not going to be anyone’s damsel in distress.”

“Just like her namesake.” Connor smiles softly at the reminder of a vibrant blonde who might have been his sister-in-law in another life.

“Just like her mother,” John corrects with chagrin. “Next thing I know she’ll be learning how to fire a gun and asking for weapons for her birthday instead of new clothes.”

Connor laughs at the image. He’s only met Lyla once and talked to her a couple times, but he gets the impression that’s not far off. She’s definitely a tough woman. “So I guess there’ll be no need to scare off any teenage boys.”

“Any daughter of mine will be able to take down any man who tries to do her wrong,” Lyla shouts from the background. “Won’t you, honey? And then Daddy and I will step in and take care of the mess. Yes we will.”

Threats and baby noises make an interesting combination.

“Hi, Lyla.”

“Connor. How’s Chicago?”

“Just like I remember. How’s everything there?”

“Good. Good. You start the new job tomorrow?”

“No. I’ve got a day to settle in.” He runs his hand over the back of his neck sheepishly. “I probably should have given myself a couple more days.”

“You forgot about furniture, didn’t you?” John asks.

Connor laughs. “Am I that predictable?”

“Felicity called it,” John supplies. “In her words: ‘Connor needs his stuff sent to his address.’ She bet you wouldn’t admit it and would buy all new things.”

She definitely knows him better than he knows himself. “She’s still out of town then.”

“She and his Royal Broodiness are still out of town. She reaches out regularly though.”

The bitterness in John’s voice has only festered since Oliver and Felicity drove off into the sunset like a sickeningly sweet happy ending of a romantic comedy. The cliché made Connor throw up a little in his mouth.

He was happy for his friends, of course. They deserved their happiness after a year of turmoil, but he’s equally happily that he doesn’t have to witness it. He’s gotten photo updates of their world tour. If you told him that Felicity and Oliver would be hiking and camping around the world, Connor would have laughed in their faces. Felicity was not the outdoorsy person. She preferred her computers, much like Connor preferred places filled with people.

“Well, next time you hear from her, tell her I said hi.”

“You’re not going to call her?”

Not when Oliver might be the one to pick up the phone. He can just imagine that disaster of a conversation. ‘Hey, Ollie. So I’m alive and your girlfriend’s known for years. Bye.’ He has no doubt he’d have Oliver at his door in record time with a reluctant Felicity right behind him. It’s been over two years, but he’s not ready to jump back into Thomas Merlyn. “Nah.”

John sighs, yet accepts his word as an answer. “Alright. Well, I’ll leave you to run out and buy a bed. I promise not to tell Felicity.”

He laughs. “Thanks, John. I’ll touch base with you once I’ve finally gotten settled in.”

“And if we don’t hear from you tomorrow, good luck with the new job.”

Lyla echoes the sentiment from further away and Connor grins.

“Thanks, guys. Talk to you later.”

“Bye!”

Connor smiles as he slips his phone into his back pocket and grabs his wallet and keys. He takes one last look at the barren apartment before heading out the door. His smile can’t be held back as the door clicks into place behind him. He can imagine his life here already: living in the city he grew up in, talking and skyping with the Diggles and Felicity, saving lives in the hospital. It’s all here in Chicago.

He finally feels like he’s home.

... 

Tagging peeps: @lynslogic @obesstion @fullychippedcreation