#and I kind of hate the web browser version

[betweenthings2]

Hey, what do you guys use to organize fic that's not Google Docs??? Microsoft OneNote is fucked and I'll lose if I try to have literal hundreds of Word documents.

[glimmeringwinchester]

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 – grace winchester has spent her life searching for approval from her father. when she and her brothers find themselves up against a nest of vampires, she realizes its okay to let bridges stay burned.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆(𝐒) – canon typical violence, ptsd, mention of anxiety, implied panic attacks/anxiety disorder, mentions of childhood abuse, additional violence, protective dean and sam, gracie finally stands up for herself, dean is serious when he says john will never hurt his sister again, fluff/comfort f you squint and really take it in, oc au

series: love was the law

Grace Winchester hasn’t been the same since finding her father, or, her father finding her. Even with him gone again, she flinches at every loud noise, recoils into herself at any innocent touch, and has somehow gotten quieter than she already was. She sits beside her brother at a small table, scrounging for another case to work and monster to kill. Sunlight falls into the diner from every angle, and it catches in her tousled hair somewhat angelically. She’s not paying attention to anything around her, entirely absorbed in the newspaper clippings she has between her fingers. 

“All right, dude, not a decent lead in all of Nebraska.” Dean’s voice is gruff and gravely, but it hardly breaks through the focus Grace has found. “What do you got?” 

“Well, I've been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, cd.   Dakota. Here – A woman in Iowa fell ten thousand feet from an airplane and survived.” Sam read off of his laptop, though even he didn’t sound too enthusiastic about that lead but it's all that he’s been able to come up with since opening his web browser. 

Dean shakes his head, hands clasped together as he abandons his paper for a while. “Sounds more like ‘that’s incredible!’ than the twilight zone.” 

“Yeah.” Sam sighs, and his fingers move against the keypad, evidently beginning a search for something else; something real. Grace stays locked into her newspaper, green eyes scanning the pages intently. 

“Hey, you know, we could just keep heading East – New York, Upstate. Could stop by and see Sarah again. Huh? She’s a cool chick, man. Smokin’.” Dean taunted, his smile broad and jesting. “You two seemed pretty friendly. What do you say?” 

Sam laughed, scratching at his head as he kept his eyes down and on the new webpage he’d pulled up. “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe someday. But in the meantime, we got a lot of work to do, Dean, and you know that.” 

“Yeah, you’re right.” Dean sighed acceptingly, turning his head to Grace who hadn’t shared any potential leads, but looked too interested in the paper to have not found something. “What’d you get, Gracie?” 

Both brothers sigh when they realize she’s not even listening to them, and tenderly Sam reaches out to put a hand on the newspaper. His heart breaks when Grace flinches, eyes wide and alert as she looks between Sam and Dean before eventually shrinking into herself and setting the paper down entirely. “Yeah?” She asks softly, not even slightly aware of why they want her attention. 

“Find anything? Sam and I got squat.” Dean asks again, only this time his tone is softer. He hates that for nineteen years, this was the only version of his sister that he’d ever known. He didn’t think she was capable of being any other way, but then she’d come back from Stanford and she’d been situationally bubbly and sharp witted. He hadn’t had the chance to realize that John drained the life from her when they were kids, but he knows now, and he hates that he can’t have everything. He can have John, but then he loses Grace. He can have Grace, but then he’s out of the only parent they have left. What Dean Winchester hates the most, is that he’d trade his father for his sister any day. 

“Oh, um, yeah. Daniel Elkins of Manning, Colorado was found mauled in his home. I know the name, I just can’t figure out from where, but it looks like the cops don’t know what to think. At first they thought it was some kind of bear attack, but now they found signs of a robbery.” Grace explains what she’d found, her voice as quiet as a whisper but she hasn’t been much louder since they’d connected with John. 

Dean rummages through his bag to find John’s journal, the name apparently sounding familiar to him too. Grace watches him intently, not because she’s interested, but because she’s been on edge for days now. “Here. Check it out.” Dean hands the journal to Grace once he’s found something relevant, and the youngest Winchester takes it into her hands with narrowed eyes. 

“It has to be the same Elkins.” Grace mumbles after a beat, looking up at Dean who nods agreeingly. 

“How can you be so sure?” Sam questions, pulling the journal into his own hands and out of his sisters. He misses the way that Grace’s eyes flicker downward with uncertainty, but Dean doesn’t, and he sighs internally. Grace hadn’t questioned her capabilities as a hunter when it had been just them out on their own. The eldest Winchester hates that someone he still needs can ruin everything good in his life just by being around. 

“It’s a Colorado area code.” She explains hesitantly, and Sam’s eyes soften when he realizes that she’d interpreted his genuine confusion as critical doubt. This had been the version of his sister that had shown up on his doorstep over a year ago. This was the version of his sister that he’d left behind without looking back. He doesn’t know how he left her so easily back then; not when he can finally see just how broken down she’d been. He misses the way she rolls her eyes whenever he questions her, and how she used to contribute to their conversations. He’d spent nineteen years not knowing that his baby sister could be somebody entirely different, but now that he knows that, now that he’s seen that version of her and had gotten to love her, he doesn’t want this. He hates this. 

“Alright. Manning, Colorado. Let's go.” Dean threw a crumpled up napkin on the table, beginning to pack away all of the books he’d pulled out from his bag. Sam doesn’t hesitate to follow his action, closing his laptop and reaching for the leather crossbody he refused to wear correctly. Grace grabs the paper she’d been reading, folding it in half before she stood up, waiting by the corner of the table for Sam before she turned to follow Dean. 

He held the door open for Grace, and the youngest Winchester whispered a soft ‘thank you’ as she passed. Dean shook his head, making eye contact with Sam before they followed their sister to the Impala. Daylight was precious and quickly fleeting, so after bags had been thrown into the trunk, all three siblings piled into the car and headed straight toward Colorado.

-

By the time they reached Manning, darkness had fallen over the town. Grace Winchester fought off a yawn as she crawled out of the backseat of the Impala, evidently not having won any measure of rest despite her prolonged silence that left the backseat quiet and still. She stumbled into Sam unintentionally, and her entire body seized with fear instinctively. Her firm-chested brother stepped away from her sadly, wondering what it was going to take to pull her out of her shell again. He hadn’t been much help the first time around. He knew too much, felt too much about her to ever think of intentionally provoking her. Jessica had been the one to breach her bubble of solitude. She’d been the one to drag Grace to parties and study groups. She’d been the one to spend hours in Grace’s room in silence, but eventually that silence became lively conversations that kept Sam awake when he was trying to get rest in before an exam. He might’ve had a little sister for the last twenty years of his life, but he doesn’t know the first thing about girls in general. 

“Gracie.” Dean calls for her quietly as he stands in front of the open trunk. He’s scrounging for weapons, but he has a flashlight already extended toward her. Grace takes it quickly, testing the battery before she nods and steps away, putting unnecessary distance between them. 

Dean throws one at Sam, not as cautious about his brother's reaction as he was about his sisters. If it was two weeks earlier, he would’ve thrown one at Grace without warning her, but it’s not two weeks ago, and his sister isn’t the same as she was then. It’s a realization that keeps hitting the Winchesters like a heavy punch, and each time it crosses their mind is as devastating as the first. 

They creep through the blanket of darkness with precision that only comes with practice. Grace is sandwiched between her brothers, the shift in attitude not enough to derail their routine. She stops behind Dean when they approach the front door of Elkin’s house. Insects chirp from all around her and her skin crawls, but at the very least she takes their presence as a sign of good things. At least it's not eerily quiet. They cross over the threshold with careful footsteps, shining their lights against surfaces in the distance. There isn’t much on show in Elkin’s property, but Grace supposes that fits the script of any hunter that she’s known. They all have a lot of things, but most of those things aren’t sentimental or personal. For a moment, Grace considers what her own home would look like if she ever found a way to have that small privilege. She thinks, at the very least, she’d display all of the childhood pictures they have. 

They creep further into the house until they find what was once Elkin’s study. Grace grimaces at the evident signs of a struggle, the sight unsettling given Daniel Elkin’s capabilities and knowledge. Something had happened here, that much was obvious. 

“Looks like the maid didn’t come today.” Dean commented sarcastically, sweeping his flashlight against the desk to his left. 

Sam peels away from his siblings to kneel by the door, his fingers trailing over whatever was thrown across the floor in a thin layer. Grace trailed farther away, shining her flashlight against the walls in the farthest corner. She craned her head when Sam called out, his voice even but laced with curiosity. “Hey, there’s salt over here, right inside the door.” 

“You mean protection-against-demon salt or ‘oops, I spilled the popcorn’ salt?” Dean didn’t even bother to glance back, too busy rifling through papers that Elkins had scattered around the place. 

“It’s clearly a ring.” Sam mused, brushing off his fingertips before he stood up, shining his light in Dean’s direction. “You think this guy Elkins was a player?” 

“Definitely.” Dean hummed with unmistakable certainty. His younger siblings frowned at his tone of voice and crept closer until they could look over his shoulder at the papers he was flipping to. They weren’t just random papers like Grace had assumed they were, but rather a spiral ring journal that held a striking resemblance to something they all knew. 

“That looks a hell of a lot like Dad’s.” Sam noted, his flashlight shining against the paper, bringing the black ink to light that was otherwise near perfectly concealed by the darkness of midnight. 

“Except this dates back to the ‘60s.” Dean informed his younger siblings of what he’d read on a page toward the front of the journal. There wasn’t time to waste. Whatever attacked Elkins could very well still be in the general area, and with that in mind, Dean grabbed the journal before he backed away from the study, crossing over the salt-lined threshold to find another area of the house. 

All of the other rooms held the same level of physical distress, which had the baby hairs at the nape of Grace’s neck standing up straight. Furniture was broken, glass was shattered, salt was scattered – it wasn’t a good sight, and all three of the Winchesters knew that. 

“Whatever attacked him, looks like there was more than one.” Dean muttered beneath his breath, creeping toward one of the far corners in the room while Sam and Grace crept toward another. “Looks like he put up a hell of a fight, too.” 

“Yeah.” Sam agreed, sounding breathless as he swept his gaze across all of the destruction that had occurred. Grace could remember what their motel room looked like at times when John got too involved in a case, and she couldn’t help but wonder if some of this had been a result of that same all-in dedication. It wasn’t the farthest fetched theory in the world, but it didn’t take away from the obvious struggle, so she kept it to herself. There was no point in sharing if what she had to say didn’t add any value to the case, John had taught her that when she was seven. 

Grace was rummaging through a pile of papers that looked like they could be leads for a case when Sam piped up a few feet behind her, his attention aimed on Dean. “Got something?” He inquired hopefully, and Grace’s head snapped to her brother immediately, her full attention on whatever it was that Dean was looking at. 

“I don’t know. Some scratches on the floor.” Dean mumbled, his fingers ghosting over the scratches that from where Grace was standing, looked to be surrounded by pools of blood. 

“Death throes maybe?” She questioned lightly, and Sam nodded in agreement, looking back at Dean who was already considering the possibility. 

“Maybe.” He agreed, but there was something beneath his eyes that had Grace looking in a different direction. She made a soft sound of understanding when Dean reached for a blank paper on the desk, grabbing a pencil and lowering it to the floorboard. She hadn’t even considered that as a possibility. Maybe she was getting dull, losing that only thing that made her valuable. “Or maybe a message.” Dean’s eyes widened as he pulled the paper away from the floor, the sliver of light that brightened the room falling against it at just the right angle. He held it out to Grace, “Look familiar?” 

The young woman reached for it curiously, familiarity crossing her features within the first handful of seconds. “Three letters, sex digits – the location and combination of a post office box. It’s a mail dorp.” She breathed the realization, her eyes wide as she trailed her gaze to the door. 

“That’s just the way Dad does it.” Dean didn’t think before he said it, but it’s as if he can see every wall his sister has let slip come right back up into place. He sighs with conflict that can’t be resolved right now, dusting off his hands as he makes his way back toward the Impala. Grace followed quickly, her footsteps falling into step with Dean’s unintentionally. Sam’s lips curved slightly at the sight. Their lives had been anything but traditional, but in his sister there was still an innocent little girl. For years she had followed Dean around everywhere, emulating his attitude, mimicking his movements. Their lives might’ve changed, but somewhere within them all were the kids they’d once been. 

-

 Grace stayed in the car when the boys ran in to retrieve whatever had been stashed at the post office box. She hadn't wanted to travel too far from the car in paranoid fear that they’d been tailed to the location, and neither Dean or Sam had been willing to fight her on the subject. It wasn’t really a three person job anyways, but as they rushed back to the Impala with a semi-crumpled envelope in hand, Dean couldn’t help but feel like something was missing; someone. He hopes whatever rut Grace had fallen into would end with time and patience, because he doesn’t know how to lead a hunt when she isn’t behind him keeping him in line. There might’ve been hunts when she was away at Stanford, but even back then he’d missed her. 

The door slammed as the eldest Winchester fell into the driver's seat of the car. Sam was hardly any different, and Grace swore her bones rattled at the force of metal meeting metal ahead of her. “J.W. – You think? John Winchester?” 

“I don’t know. Should we open it?” Dean questioned, his voice gravely with concern, but their attention was short lived as knocking on the window shattered their found sanctuary in the leather detailed car. Grace flinched into the farthest door, her eyes wide as they looked up to meet the reflection of her father. She’d known that they weren’t alone, but her heart still hammers in fear as she sweeps her gaze over the man she’s least expected to show up midway through a hunt. “Dad?” Dean called out, breathing heavily as he pulled away from the window just enough to see out of it clearly. 

John didn’t say anything, instead, he peeled open the back door and slid in right beside Grace on the leather seat. The youngest Winchester tried to remain unbothered, forcing her shoulders to drop and her hands to remain uncurled, but there was no way for her to completely rewire the instinctive reaction that happened whenever her father was close enough to touch. 

“Dad, what are you doing here? Are you all right?” Sam craned his neck to look back at John, but his green eyes found his sister instinctively. Grace was settled as close to the passenger side door as she could get without looking like she was trying to escape her fathers reach, and her shaking hands lay upright on her thighs like she’d been taught all of those years ago. He can still remember the first time John had backhanded her because she’d clenched her fingers into fists when he’d been ragging on her ‘disobedience’ and his heart lurched at the violent memory of blood dripping from her cheek after John’s ring had sliced her skin. He’d do anything to switch places with her, get her out of armshot from John, but he can’t. Instead, he can only hope that their fathers not here to antagonize her further. 

“Yeah, I’m okay.” John nodded, keeping his eyes on Sam, not allowing himself to even glance at Grace. The youngest Winchester doesn’t know what to make of the situation, but she knows that it's too early to rest entirely. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d flipped at the drop of a hat with no warning. “Look, I read the news about Daniel. I got here as fast as I could. I saw you two up at his place.”

Dean’s eyes trail to Grace, her insistence that she stay at the car while they went inside making more sense now than it did only moments ago. For once, she’d had a right to be on edge, and he hates that he hadn’t trusted her instincts more, but it was hard to know when her anxiety was trustworthy. She’d spent the better portion of the last week away from John looking over her shoulder without reason. “Why didn’t you come in, Dad?” Sam frowns, pulling Dean’s attention back to the conversation at hand. 

“You know why.” John huffed, his voice even and without any care for the wellbeing of his children. “Because I had to make sure you weren’t followed… by anyone… or anything. Nice job of covering your tracks, by the way.” Grace could scoff at the excuse. They would’ve been safer had he been in there with them, even if she wants nothing to do with him, he was the one that taught them that there was safety in numbers, and yet he’s always the first to be missing from a fight. 

“Ah, that was Gracie.” Dean shook his head, knowing he’d caught John in a trap. He wouldn’t take back what he’d said, no he was far too interested in keeping his pride intact to backtrack on his words so obviously, but the sour grimace that crossed his expression said everything that he wouldn’t. Had he known that Grace was the one to cover their tracks initially, he never would’ve praised her efforts, but he’d already done it, and for once Grace Winchester was getting validation for her efforts, even if it was muddled by the disgusted expression that fell upon their fathers browline. 

Unconsciously Grace pulled at the seam line in her black leggings, her bottom lip caught between her teeth tightly as she tried not to focus on how her father was so close she could feel the warmth radiating off of his skin. “Knock it off, girl.” John snapped when he became aware of the anxious movements his daughter was making to his left. The young woman, who still hadn’t even celebrated her twenty-first birthday and was really only a kid pretending to understand an adult world, stiffened at the reprimand, stilling her fingers on her thighs and straightening out her posture. 

“Wait, so you came all the way out here for this Elkins guy?” Sam frowned, and all three siblings bristled at the realization that they would never be enough for their father on their own. Something else always came before them, whether it was a hunt, or apparently a fallen friend. It shouldn’t sting anymore, they should be used to it, but Grace’s eyes still flickered to her lap in a moment of weakness. 

“Yeah.” John sighed, but there was no ounce of apology in his whispered words. “He was – he was a good man. He taught me a hell of a lot about hunting.” 

Grace frowned at that, knowing that most everyone John crossed paths with was brought up in some capacity. Whatever John learned, they learned to, and Daniel Elkins was not someone that Grace remembered from passing conversation. “You didn’t tell us about him.” Not everything had gone back to the way that it had been, because if it did, Grace never would’ve opened her mouth at all, let alone to question John’s relationship with another hunter. 

“I don’t gotta tell you shit, girl.” John’s eyes were ablaze with anger as he snapped his gaze toward his youngest child, and Grace didn’t hesitate to push herself closer to the door, her eyes wide as she stared back at her father whose short temper hadn’t gotten any better since she’d left home. “You better watch who you're talking back to. You got that?” He seethed, leaning closer until his breath fanned across her face and she was effectively pinned between the car door and his body. She wouldn’t be able to bail before his hands caught the fabric of her shirt, but her hand reached for the handle regardless. 

She nodded frantically, her breath hitching when his hand shot out to grab the fabric of her top. He pulled her closer, close enough to tell that he’d definitely had a drink sometime recently if the stench of beer on his breath was any indication of his alcoholic habits. “I said. You got that?” 

“Yes sir.” She forced the words off of her lips, hating how they felt like a mouthful of dry sand, but evidently that was enough to break through some of the anger that clouded his eyes with something dark and unwelcoming. He didn’t release the tight grip he had on her shirt however, and nervously Grace glanced down at the crumbled fabric that was one sharp tug away from tearing. 

“Dad, hey–” Dean called for John’s attention, and suddenly that anger melted away into something else, his gaze softening once it fell upon his boys. He shoved Grace away from him with more strength than what was necessary, and the young woman's head thumped against the window from the unexpected force of her fathers hand shoving her backward. She winced, but pursed her lips together to stop the audible pain from passing into the air and giving him another reason to put his hands on her. She was getting restless, anxious, her eyes were darting between all three men in the car, and whether she noticed or not, tears blurred in her waterline as her breathing hitched to something familiar and worrisome. “What happened with Elkins? Why did you never mention him?”

“We had a– we had kind of a falling out. I hadn’t seen him in years.” John’s voice softens, his eyes only on Dean as he speaks. Grace hates that even after years, he can’t even look at her without inflicting harm and pain. She doesn’t know what happened between them, can remember sparing moments when he hadn’t been horrible, but that was as far gone as Mary Winchester. It was like one day, he’d suddenly realized he hated her and had never tried to reframe his way of thinking. Even if she hated him, wanted nothing to do with him, it hurt to know that the only parent she has left doesn’t love her the way he was supposed to. “I should look at that.” He nods toward the envelope in Dean’s hand, and the eldest child doesn’t hesitate to hand it back to him. 

John peeled the envelope open carefully, unfolding the paper with a level of cation that he’d never applied to his own flesh and blood. With his gruff hands occupied, Grace raised her own to the collar of her shift, rubbing against the wrinkled fabric and where the neckline of her shirt had rubbed against sensitive skin harshly. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have fabric burns on her body, but as she presses her fingers over the reddened and irritated skin, every memory comes rushing back to her at once. “‘If you’re reading this, I’m already dead.’ That son of a bitch.” 

Dean’s eyebrows furrow, and Sam leans closer to the backseat, curiosity evident in his own green eyes. “What is it?” He questioned carefully. John had never treated him the way he’d been quick to treat Grace, but he’d taken his anger toward them out on her, and so the middle Winchester acted with caution. 

“He had it the whole time.” John shook his head, but that didn’t give any of his children anymore insight. 

“Dad, what?” Sam asked again, and Grace was already sick of them having to ask the same questions multiple times just to get some semblance of a straight answer from him. She doesn’t know why he still treats them like they’re not good enough to be involved in the hunts that he’s chasing, but with every passing second it gets on her nerves more and more. He was the one that dragged them into this life unapologetically. He was the one that had sent them coordinates and essentially led them on a wild goose chase, and yet he’s the one that keeps that an arms length away whenever they're together. 

“When you searched the place, did you see a gun–” 

Grace’s posture straightens even more, and despite everything she’s come to learn about avoiding John’s anger, she finds herself speaking up, filling in the blanks of his sentence the same way she’d fill in Dean’s. “An antique colt revolver?”

John’s gaze snapped to her, his hard eyes filled with anger and violent passion, but he didn’t comment immediately. Instead, he inclined his head, demanding more than what she’d already given; giving her permission to say more. “The gun wasn’t there, but the case was.” 

“For the love of god, girl!” He bellowed in frustration, and within seconds his hand was jutting out to make contact with her face. Grace squeaked when the stinging pain registered in her mind, her fathers handprint warm and throbbing against her cheek, but she didn’t recoil into herself like she wanted to. That would only fuel his anger more, and it seemed like in the years since she’d run away, he’d lost any kind of handle on it at all. 

“Dad, what the hell!” Sam yelled, his eyes looking straight at Grace who only shrugged off his concern. Dean’s nostrils flared with anger, his jaw locked with a protectiveness Grace remembers being more controlled, but he didn’t comment, didn't want to test the theory that John would still punish her further if they intervened in any way. They weren’t children anymore, him especially, but somehow he thinks John will always treat them like they are. 

“They have it.” John didn’t even bristle beneath the heated glares his sons were throwing at him, and realizing that harboring any ill feelings wasn’t going to get them anywhere tonight, Dean drew in a deep breath, trying to push the protective anger out from his rough exterior. 

“You mean whatever killed Elkins?” He asked calmly, but his eyes stayed on Grace, not unaware of how she was falling into a panic attack the longer John sat beside her. Her eyes that had once been so clear and green were glazed over with a dark fear that sent a chill down his spine. He still needed his father, still needed advice and direction, but he’d spend the rest of his life lingering in feelings of uncertainty if it meant keeping her safe and unharmed. 

“We got to pick up their trail.” John’s eyes flashed with urgency, and before any of the siblings could unpack the use of ‘we’ in his sentence, he was climbing out of the backseat and into the cold Colorado air. The youngest Winchester let out a sigh of relief she hadn’t even realized was collecting in her chest, deflating into the passenger side door as she finally brought her hand up to hold where her father had struck her. The skin throbbed and burned beneath her touch, and without even seeing the damage that had been done, she knew her eye would bruise from how his fingers brushed right beneath her waterline. Her lip quivers in an automatic response, but she refuses to cry in front of him – refuses to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d just broken yet another piece of her slowly dying heart. 

“Wait.” Sam called through the open window, both him and Dean leaning toward it. “You want us to come with you?” 

“If Elkins is telling the truth, we’ve got to find this gun.” John sighed, leaning into the window so that he could see both of his sons; the only two people he even cared about just slightly. Grace was just another box to check, or at least, that’s how she felt a majority of the time as she sat in her brother's shadows. It was hardly fair. John expected perfection from her, and yet he never gave her an ounce of what he did her brothers. The odds were always stacked against her, but somehow she’d survived this long. That had to count for something. 

“The gun? Why?” Sam continued to press for information, for a reason to put his life on this line for just another weapon, but John refused to give into the valid questioning. 

“Because it’s important, that’s why.” John argued, but for once, Sam wasn’t backing down to his bullshit excuses. If Grace wasn’t terrified of being dragged out of the car and beaten into a bloody pulp on the gravel road, maybe she would’ve said something too, but the sting against her cheek kept her firmly where she already was. 

“Dad, we don’t even know what these things are yet.” Sam tried to make their hesitancy known, but John was never the kind of man to take excuses of any kind. He’d give them just enough information to assure they weren’t going in completely blind, but nothing entirely helpful. Grace thought it must be some kind of sick game to him. There was no other explanation for his secrecy. 

“They were what Danny Elkins killed best… vampires.” All three siblings visibly recoiled at their fathers words, a combination of shock and fear filling their eyes as they craned their heads to look at their father. 

Dean’s eyes widened considerably, his gaze set on John firmly. “Vampires? I thought there was no such thing.” 

“You never even mentioned them, Dad.” 

“I thought they were extinct. I thought Elkins and others had wiped them out.” John hangs his head for a second, accepting his son's disbelief and concern. Grace doesn’t even want to consider what John’s reaction would’ve been if she’d been the one to question him on this. “I was wrong.”

Grace sighed quietly to herself as she sank deeper into the backseat of the Impala, itching to grab the blanket that was crumpled into a ball on the floor, but fighting against it. Instead, she listened to John prattle on about everything that he knew about vampires, her brothers giving him the same attention. “Most vampire lore is crap. A cross won’t repel them. Sunlight won’t kill them and neither will a stake to the heart. But the bloodlust – that part’s true. They need fresh human blood to survive. They were once people, so you won’t know it’s a vampire until it’s too late.” 

He didn’t say anything else other than that he’d tail them to the motel they’d scouted out a few miles West. The thought of him spending the night with them in a cramped motel room made her skin crawl, but there was no getting out of this. This is what Dean pulled them away from Stanford to do – find John – but Grace hadn’t realized just how much she’d begin to sacrifice just to see through these endless hunts. When he was far enough away to no longer hear the way that rocks and leaves crunched beneath his boots, Dean rolled the window up, starting the car with evident irritation in his posture. 

He didn’t pull away from the post office immediately, instead he turned toward the backseat, ushering Grace to come into view where the lights shone brightly over the center console. “Come here, Gracie. Let me see you.” 

“I’m fine, D.” The youngest of the trio whispered, tears still prickling her eyes as she cradled her cheek protectively. She sounded small, scared, and Dean hated that this was his fault. He dragged her back into this, he brought her into the search for John. Even if he hadn’t been the one to strike her, it felt like he did as he sat with the guilt of being the reason she’s here at all. 

“Gracie, let me see.” He insisted, reaching out for her. He hates that she flinches, hates that her eyes that aren’t so soft anymore pinch together in fear of another strike, but eventually she caves, leaning closer until her face is illuminated by the glow of the lights inside of the car. “He got you good, huh?” His thumb strokes across the visible mark of where his fathers palm had clapped against her soft skin, and Grace sucks in a breath between clenched teeth at the sting that comes forward with the continuous prodding and poking. 

“When doesn’t he.” Grace hummed humorlessly, and both of her brothers seem to deflate at the reminder that she’s used to this. They know that she is, know that she can handle constant pain and soreness, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow when they’re essentially helpless in the situation. “I’m fine, Dean. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.” 

Dean, for once in his life, doesn’t see John as being his entire world, and softly he tries to make that known to both of his siblings, but more so Grace who seems to only be holding on by a thread. “I can tell him to get lost–” 

“Don’t be an idiot.” Grace huffs, pulling away from his touch to slouch against the backseat. Dean wants to say that she’s handling this well, that she’s coming back out of her shell now that John’s no longer in sight, but he knows that it's only the adrenaline of having to be on her a-game that’s fueling this conversation right now. He knows that the second they pull away from this gravel road, she’ll become nothing more than a shadow of herself as she tries to keep everything that wants to come falling out inside. “Just… don’t try to get between us if something happens, okay? It’s not worth it.”  

“I sat there and did nothing for nineteen years–” 

“Yeah, because the one time you did say something, he held a machete to my throat and said he’d kill me!” Grace snapped, tears falling down her face as she finally broke. “This is not about you, Dean! This isn’t about either of you! It’s about me! About how he hates me so much that he’d rather threaten to kill me than apologize for hitting me so hard he fractured my ribs! You wanted him back, well guess what, here he is. Now can we please stop acting like this isn’t normal. Like you didn’t know this is exactly what would happen when you showed up at Stanford asking for help finding him!” 

“Gracie, I didn’t–”

“Yes, you did. Don’t even try to say you didn’t think this would happen again. It’s fine, Dean. Can you just drive, please? Before he comes out here again.” Grace melted into the leather seats beneath her weight, her arms crossed over her chest as she let her tears fall silently, not possessing the energy it would take to shut out her overwhelming emotions entirely. Sam sank into the passenger seat with a sigh, his eyes trailing to Dean who held the wheel tightly, tears glimmering in his own green eyes. Truth is, he did know this would happen, at least some buried part of him did. He’d been hopeful that things wouldn’t end up like this though; been hopeful that for once he could just have his family together without violence. He was stupid to think that grudges and anger would be so easily overcome, and he hates that he pulled Grace away from something good just for her to end up where she’d started. 

The engine revs as he pulls away from the post office, tension thick in the car as neither of the siblings say anything else, nobody knowing what to say. 

-

Despite the motel that they’d rented a room at, Grace hadn’t gotten so much as a wink of sleep in the hours that had elapsed from night to early morning. She couldn’t rest knowing that her father sat only a few inches away from the end of the bed that she shared with Sam, and she knows that he knows that despite doing her best to act like she wasn’t wide awake with her eyes closed. She shifts slightly beneath the heavy blankets, curling her hands into fists beneath the pillow as she hears the faint static of the police scanner hum to life and him grab his jacket that had been thrown against the chair he pulled away from the table. She barely keeps her body from flinching when his hand bats at her ankle that's beneath the covers, apparently mistaking her body for Sam’s as he calls for her brothers to get up. 

“Sam, Dean, let’s go.” He demands, but all her brothers do is groan in response as they try to cling onto sleep. Grace doesn’t have the same privilege, and quickly she slips out of bed, putting her sock-covered feet into the tennis shoes she’s had for nearly two years. Her heart hammers in her chest when she remembers how Jessica had skipped an entire day of classes near finals just to drag her to the mall and take advantage of all the year-end sales that were going on. It had been so long ago now that the laces that were once a shade of pink, were now muddied and twinged brown. Grace would do anything to go back to a time when she could tell that they were pink. “Picked up a police call.” 

“What happened?” Sam questioned, his voice filled with exhaustion as he peered up at John. Instinctively his hand reached out to feel Grace beside her, and when he came up with only warm sheets, he sat up fully, searching for her until he found her beside the nightstand separating the two beds, reaching for one of Dean’s jackets that she’d stolen weeks ago. 

“A couple called 911. They found a body in the street. Cops got there. Everyone was missing. It’s the vampires.” John explained gruffly, his gaze trailing to Grace when her realized that she was the only one ready to go. His posture stiffened, his eyes hardened and every last piece of Grace’s heart nearly broke as she watched him throw daggers at her. She would never be able to please him, but a small part of her still tries to show up her brothers hoping for scraps of his validation.  

“How do you know?” Sam questioned, finally throwing his feet over the side of the bed, meanwhile Dean still hadn’t moved an inch, his sleep-filled eyes riddled with conflicting emotions. 

“Just follow me, okay?” John huffed, already heading towards the door. Dean groaned, swinging his legs off of the bed and standing up finally. Grace didn’t avoid his quick glance intentionally, but it still cuts Dean as he sighs to himself. 

“Vampires.” He tries to downplay his obvious hurt, chuckling beneath his breath as he stuffed his bag full without any rhyme or reason. “It’s funnier every time I hear it.”

Grace and Sam rolled their eyes, both throwing their duffles over their shoulder and heading toward the door. Grace’s cheek wasn’t as inflamed as it had  been the night prior, but beneath her eyes was a purplish bruise that ached deep in her bones. Sam grimaced as the light caught on the undertone of yellow in the wounded flesh, and comfortingly he slung as arm over her shoulder once they passed through the threshold of the motel room. 

“Get any sleep last night?” He asked her softly, aiming his words for her alone to hear and take in. 

Grace sighed, shrugging his arm off of her and stepping the slightest inch ahead of him, creating distance that only isolated her breaking heart further. Regardless, she looked over her shoulder, a smirk of indifference resting against her bitten lips. “Nope.” She threw her ponytail over her shoulder as she continued toward Baby, not willing to let her father read any kind of emotion in her appearance. 

Sam sighed, craning his head to look at Dean when he finally emerged from the hotel room. “She’s gonna be fine, right?” It felt like a cheap question, one that undermined the severity of Grace’s experience with John, but Sam was desperate to hold out hope for his little sister bouncing back the second they could cut ties with John… if they ever cut ties with John. 

“This time Sammy… I don’t know.” Dean admitted with a reluctant sigh, hanging his head as he stepped forward, leaving Sam to follow after both of his siblings who were beginning to lose themselves into the roles that John Winchester had demanded they play over a decade ago. The soldier and the shadow. Sam knew exactly where he fit into that, and nausea pooled in his stomach at the thought of ever falling into the mold that John Winchester had crafted for him. 

-

“I don’t see why we couldn’t have gone over with him.” Sam rolled his eyes as he leaned his weight against the Impala, watching their father stalk back across the dirt road after what looked like a hostile chat with the town's local officers. Grace wasn’t all that bothered by essentially being benched from the game, but she stood at full attention beside the hood regardless of her personal feelings. It didn’t matter what she wanted, only that she was perfect and quiet. 

“Oh, don’t tell me it’s already starting.” Dean rolled his eyes in the same exasperation that Sam felt, turning his back to the crime scene as he addressed his little brother and willed his gaze not to trail to Grace who still hadn’t uttered as much as a word to him; not that she’d even said more than five words since climbing into the backseat of the Impala. 

Sam furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, both hands stuffed into his pockets as he looked at Dean. “What’s starting?” 

Grace rolled her eyes with a silent huff of annoyance, knowing exactly what Dean was referencing even if Sam was otherwise clueless. Neither sibling had time to fill their brother in though, stiffening their shoulders as John approached with his hands shoved into his pockets despite how he’d always reprimanded Grace when she was trying to seek warmth in the biting cold. She can still remember how he’d sliced at the seams of her coat pockets with an army knife when she was eight, rambling on about how he’d cut her hands off if she was just going to waste their usefulness to him. He’d shoved a shotgun at her seconds later, and she could grimace at the memory of being forced to shoot her first spirit with frozen and trembling fingers. 

“What do you got?” Dean questioned, stepping just slightly in front of Grace when he turned back around to face John. It wouldn’t do much if he tried to step toward her, but it was something at the very least. 

“It was them all right. It looks like they’re heading west. We have to double back to get around that detour.” John didn’t beat around the bush, but like always, didn’t give his children anything of value to hold onto and make their own conclusions about. Grace dug her toe into the dirt, not taking her eyes off of John as she listened to more of his bullshit with an expression of neutrality. 

Sam frowned, tilting his head to the side as he tried to unmake John’s reserve. “How can you be so sure?” He pushed, not willing to back down on getting the specifics. Grace was glad at least one of them had the gall to question him, because it certainly wasn’t going to be her, but she couldn’t help but think this was only making the situation worse for them as his questions started to chip away at John’s willingness to be civil. 

“Sam–” Dean sighed, trying to stop a fight from brewing so soon, but before he could try and disarm his younger brother’s irritation, Sam was raising his voice to be heard over the interruption. It seemed that both of their brothers didn’t know how to act around their father, but she didn’t either, so the insult that was forming at the tip of her tongue stayed unmoving and half-formed and she kept herself a silent observer to the chaos. “I just want to know we’re going in the right direction.” He clapped back at Dean and not so subtly made a dig at John, something that definitely would’ve gotten Grace into hot water with their old man. She’s surprised he hasn’t called her out for something already, but she doesn’t think he’s stupid enough to get on her case with the police just a few feet away. For now, she’s safe. 

John, surprisingly, didn’t bristle beneath Sam’s weak interrogation, but a quirk in the corners of his lips told Grace all that she needed to know. He thought this was funny; though dragging them around in the dark was some kind of power move. Over a year later and he really hadn’t changed all that much, if he did at all. “We are.” He assured in an unreasonably condescending tone, and thankfully, Sam wasn’t quick to take the bait of his reassurances. Grace couldn’t stand the slowly rising tempers, or more specifically feared the consequences of rising tempers, but a small part of her was glad that somebody was finally trying to stand their ground to John Winchester.

“How do you know?” Sam fired back, his eyes hard and slitted into thin lines that didn’t hold as much malice as he thought they did. 

“I found this.” John sighed, pulling his hands out of his pockets to hand Dean what looked to be a fang. Even though she still stood behind Dean, the glimmery of something white caught in the corner of her eye, and she knew enough about the case to make an educated assumption of what had her father so certain of where their next destination should be. 

“It’s a vampire fang.” Dean frowned, looking down at the tooth that was pinched between his thumb and forefinger. 

“No fangs – teeth. The second set descends when they attack.” Grace took the words in carefully, slightly disturbed by the mental image of an entire set of teeth emerging from what was once a human's gums that second they attacked their chosen victim. She’d been in this life a long time, had grown a thick stomach to a lot of things, but that mental image was beyond what she could stomach so early in the day. “Any more questions?” He directed his gaze to Sam, who looked to the ground in defeated annoyance but didn’t say anything else, letting his silence speak for itself. 

“Let’s get out of here. We’re losing daylight.” John took control like he always did, and Grace was the first to follow that order. She shuffled to the car door quickly, placing her hand on the silver handle as John walked back toward his truck. “And, Dean, why don’t you touch up your car before you get rust? I wouldn’t have given you the damn thing if I thought you were gonna ruin it.” 

Grace couldn’t help but roll her eyes, wondering where her father got the nerve to think so highly of himself and so horribly of them. She didn’t say anything in Dean’s defence, but when John had his back to them, still stalking toward his truck without even inquiring to gauge Dean’s reaction to his criticism, she looked toward her eldest brother with a grimace of sympathetic understanding, silently clearing the air that had grown tense and cold between them. Dean hadn’t done a lot of things right leading up to this moment, but at the end of the day he was still beneath their fathers thumb just like she was. 

Sam, however, smirked in amusement, not quite realizing the true sentiment of John’s words and what they were armed with. He never had understood how the petty digs cut the deepest for his overlooked siblings, but Grace was simply glad that he’d never learned to question his worth based on materialistic accomplishments. She’d deal with his crooked smirk if it meant sparing him the pain of coming to terms with how you're not good enough for the one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally without something to show for it. 

John pulled out around them, his engine revving as he pulled off onto the road. Sam was on his tail within seconds, one hand resting on the wheel as the other fell beside him. This wasn’t like old times, that much rang true, but Grace couldn’t decide if it was any better than their childhood had been when they weren’t even talking to each other like they used to. She wanted to talk to them, wanted to just be with them, but the paralyzing fear of it somehow getting back to John kept her silent and anxious in the backseat – the perfect little shadow. 

The car was silent for a while before Dean piped up from the passenger seat. “Vampires nest in groups of eight to ten. Smaller packs are sent out to hunt for food. Victims are taken to the nest, where the pack keeps them alive, bleeding them for days or weeks. I wonder if that’s what happened to that 911 couple.” 

“That’s probably what Dad’s thinking.” Sam hummed critically. “Of course, it would be nice if he just told us what he thinks.” 

“So it is starting.” Dean craned his head to look at Sam, his eyebrows raised in recognition. 

“What?” Sam looked back at him, his jaw clenched as he flickered his gaze between the road and Dean’s exasperated expression.

“Sam, we’ve been looking for Dad all year. Now we’re not with him for more than a couple of hours and there’s static already.” Dean didn’t comment on the silence falling off of their sister, but nobody was going to breach that conversation when this was how it had always been. Sam considers himself lucky to have gotten to know who Grace is without John’s influence in any capacity. 

“No.” Sam denied, “Look, I’m happy he’s okay, all right, and I’m happy that we’re all working together.” He admits, his words hanging heavily in the air before Dean ruins the stretched thin silence with a petulant mumble of ‘good’ beneath his breath. Grace shifts uncomfortably in the backseat, knowing that Sam’s words are only true to an extent, but she’s still unable to shake the uncomfortable weight of knowing that her brothers are enjoying this time spent with John in any capacity no matter how small. She hates that she can’t enjoy it too, hates that she’s so filled with fear she never fully leaves fight-or-flight mode. She’d love to sit here and say that in moments where things are good, or at least tolerable, she’s happy to be a family again, but that’s not the truth for her, and it never has been. She’d be perfectly fine never seeing John Winchester again and the weight of that breaks her heart for the little girl inside of her that worshiped the ground he walked. “It’s just the way he treats us like we’re children. He barks orders at us, Dean. He expects us to follow him without question. He keeps us on some crap need-to-know deal.” 

“He does what he does for a reason.” Dean defends their father like he always does because at the end of the day, it’s the only way he knows how to keep them all safe. Grace’s heart hurts for herself, but it hurts for her older brother who has always had to carry the responsibility of making sure they all come out the other side alive and relatively unscathed. She knows how much he’s sacrificed for them, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to inflict the most unimaginable pain on him when he gets into the mode of ‘Daddy’s Soldier’. Two things can be true at once, Grace knows that, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. 

“What reason?” Sam scoffs. 

“Our job! There’s no time to argue. There’s no margin for error, alright? It’s just the way the old man runs things.” Dean’s correct to an extent, but so is Sam, and Grace can see both sides of the battlefield as she lingers on the sidelines. She hates these fights, hates when neither of her brothers' sides are the right one to pick. Dean’s an extremist, but Sam’s too eager to find defiance. John Winchester is a horrible person, but at the end of the day he taught them everything they know, and he does know a thing or two that they haven’t ever needed to consider. 

“Yeah, well, maybe that worked when we were kids, but not anymore, alright?” Sam shook his head, his voice softening as he kept his gaze bouncing between Dean and the road ahead of them. “Not after everything we’ve been through, Dean. I mean, are you telling me you’re cool with just falling into line and letting him run the whole show?” 

“If that’s what it takes.” He admits, and even if Grace knew that he’d say that, it still hurts her to think that he considers her being slapped for something out of her control as ‘what it takes’ to complete a hunt. 

-

There hadn’t been much discussed between the siblings in the hours that had elapsed since the sun was positioned in the sky to when it had fallen beneath the trees to touch down on another piece of land somewhere far and hopefully less haunted by evil. But the silence that was becoming normal was abruptly dismantled by Dean’s phone ringing in his jacket pocket. Grace didn’t have to crane her neck to look at the caller ID to know that it was John, and with evident disinterest she sank further down in the backseat, listening to Dean’s end of the conversation. 

It was short, but her head perked up as he nodded in the passenger seat. “Yeah, Dad. Alright, got it.” He pulled the phone away from his ear, flipping it closed before he turned his head to Sam. “Pull off the next exit.” 

“Why?” Sam questioned, and this time Grace couldn’t help but sigh out loud as she let her head hit the window. 

“Cause Dad thinks we got the vampires trail.” Dean filled in the blanks, but there wasn’t really much information in the explanation. Grace understood the frustration Sam felt, but she was getting real tired of his sour attitude toward them both. 

“How?” There was a venom in Sam’s tone that Grace didn’t think Dean was blind to, but rather didn’t feel the need to play into anymore. 

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” Dean shrugged, and Sam’s jaws locked as he revved the engine, speeding around the truck and jerking the wheel until both cars were stopped in the dead center of the road. Grace sighed, sinking further down into the seat as Sam charged out of the car seething with frustration that he couldn’t suffer through anymore. “Oh, crap. Here we go.” 

The car jerked with the force of her brothers slamming the door seconds after one another, and despite every instinct telling her to stay in the car, to let them hash this out on their own, she couldn’t just leave them to face their father without her, so she stepped out of the car seconds later, ensuring that distance was kept between her and John. 

“What the hell was that?!” John came storming out of the truck, his nostrils flared and chin raised as he stomped his way toward Sam who didn’t back down at the show of confidence. 

“We need to talk.” The middle-child seethed, his chin raised all the same as Johns. 

“About what?” John spit, his eyes filled with a fire that was usually directed toward Grace. The youngest Winchester took a step back instinctively, stumbling into the Impala with a near soundless thud. Dean reached out tentatively, pulling her closer by her elbow if only to offer the smallest semblance of comfort. It didn’t do much to settle Grace’s nerves, but she appreciated the sentiment of it regardless. 

“About everything.” Sam’s voice was filled with fury, and Grace can’t think of a time when she’d heard him so beyond mad. She’s always hated conflict, but there’s something about seeing her calm, always level-headed brother so worked up that has her reeling for something to ground herself to. “Where are we going, Dad? What’s the big deal about this gun?” 

“Sammy come on, we can Q&A after we kill all the vampires.” Dean stepped forward, his breath fanning across the air as it dawned on Grace how truly cold it was. The mountains didn’t care about seasons, and the near frozen temperatures only showed that fact. 

“Your brother’s right. We don’t have time for this.” 

“Last time we saw you, you said it was too dangerous to be together. Now, out of the blue, you need our help. Now obviously something big’s going down, and we want to know what!” Sam was seething with anger, his jaw clenched and every muscle in his body rigid as he refused to back down. Grace shifted on her feet, inching closer to the chaos despite every instinct in her body telling her to stay away and keep distance between herself and her fathers fists. 

“Get back in the car.” John demanded, nodding toward the Impala. 

“No.” 

“I said get back in the damn car.” John stepped closer to Sam. Maybe it was seeing her brother in the position that she’d always been in, or maybe it was just finally her breaking point. Whatever the reason, Grace found herself pushing past Dean, pulling at Sam’s arm until she could position herself between her father and her brother. 

“He said no.” She growled, adrenaline rushing through her body as her fingertips buzzed with a sudden energy she hadn’t possessed before, or ever. “You cannot keep doing this! You cannot keep treating us like children and expecting us to act like soldiers! We’re not soldiers, Dad! We’re grown adults! Adults that are only here to help you! So why don’t you get your head out of your ass for one fucking minute to tell us what the hell is going on?!” Grace flinched when John’s hand came hurtling toward her already bruised face, but in a moment of confidence, or maybe stupidity, she caught his wrist between her ice cold finger tips, her hard eyes narrowed into thin daggers that looked a lot like his. “I am not a child that you can manipulate and abuse. Not anymore.” 

Grace doesn’t know when his wrist slipped from between her fingers, but she recognizes the sting of pain before she even realizes he’s reeled back to hit her again. Her nose pulses with every beat of her racing heart in her chest, and a trail of something warm and thick dirties her upper lips. She doesn’t have to wipe at her nose to know that it’s blood, and even though every part of her wants to fall to her knees and cry about how she’s back in this position when she’d promised herself the night she ran away that she’d never come back to this, she doesn’t so much as bristle as the breeze trails past her damp face. 

“I’ve had enough of your damn mouth.” John seethed, stepping forward to strike her again as Grace becomes increasingly aware of Dean’s raised voice beside her; the ringing between her ears finally dwindled down to silence as the shock of his previous blow ebbs away. 

“That’s enough! That’s enough, Gracie.” He pulls her back by the loose fabric of his jacket around her torso, but before she can shrug his hands off of her and step up to John again, the satisfaction of finally standing up for herself an addictive sensation, Dean is slotting his body between them, his shoulders squared and rigid. “That goes for you too. And I swear, if you ever put your fucking hands on her again, it won’t be her that fights back. You hear me? Do you hear me!” He raises his voice, but John doesn’t answer. All he does is scoff and shake his head, already making his way back to the truck. 

Grace huffs, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. She barely flinches at the blood that smears across her palm and the sleeve of Dean’s jacket, retreating back to the car with pent up anger weighing her down. She slams the door behind her, grumbling beneath her breath as she leans between the seats and sets her eyes on Sam. 

“Set my nose.” She demands gruffly, her eyes glazed over with residual anger and stinging pain. She’s not fully here with them, that much Sam can tell as he searches for glimpses of sweet green in her dark eyes. He doesn’t know how to handle the situation when he’s never seen her so… Sam doesn’t even have a word to describe Grace’s attitude at the moment, but it scares him to no end to consider how after an entire lifetime of abuse, tonight was her breaking point. Pride ripples off of his shoulders – pride in her, pride in himself – but he’s otherwise frozen as he looks at the young woman who bears no resemblance to his little sister at this moment. “Sam, set my fucking nose!” 

“Come here.” Dean’s voice is gruff as it washes across his two younger siblings, and Grace snaps her gaze toward him instantaneously out of learned instinct. She hadn’t heard him get in the car, hadn’t registered the door slamming shut or his presence in the slightest, but as the seconds pass her by and the engine in the truck revs beside them, she’s beginning to fall away from the front of disassociation that had tried to save her active mind from the trauma of confronting the man who scares her more than any monster or spirit ever could. She leans her head into Dean’s hands, already knowing what lies ahead of her as she pinches her eyes shut and nods her head in acceptance of the pain that’s to come. Dean doesn’t give her a countdown, but he feels around her nose for a couple of seconds before he’s gripping both sides of it and straightening it out. She groans, recoiling backward instinctively as another stream of blood falls above her lip. “You okay?” 

“Peachy.” Grace huffs, but as Sam straightens out the car and lets John pull out in front of them on the road again, she deflates entirely, suddenly feeling the weight of her exhaustion as she rubs at her swollen eyes. “You stuck up for me.” She muses softly, pulling at the tips of her fingers with anxious uncertainty, the invincibility that had washed over her when adrenaline was coursing through her veins slowly dissipating the longer she sat with the memory of recent events playing like a highlight reel in her head. 

Dean scoffed out a breath, but he nodded his head regardless after a handful of seconds passed by. “Yeah, yeah.” He shrugs her comment off, but her eyes are burning holes into his shoulder, and he can’t avoid the conversation despite how he wants to. Dean Winchester had never been good at emotional displays, but Grace very rarely gave him the choice of backing away from them. “I meant what I said Gracie, I did think this time would be different. The way he talked about the both of you when you were at Stanford – I just thought he’d at least try to turn a new leaf. Can we cut the chick-flick shit?” 

“No, because I am a chick. That rule only applies to Sammy and you know it.” The youngest Winchester huffed, uncrossing her arms only to drop them at her sides like they weighed too much for her to carry. “You know that wasn’t the first time he broke my nose?” 

For once, Dean didn’t try to shut down the conversation. For once, all he did was try his best to actually listen to Grace as she opened up her heart to him. He craned his head to peer into the backseat, comforted by the sight of her sprawled against the leather seats. She hadn’t sat like that in weeks, she’d been keeping herself closed off and small, but a piece of Dean’s heart heals as he keeps his eyes on her now. 

“I don’t remember him ever breaking your nose before.” Sam frowned, evidently paying more attention to the conversation than either Grace or Dean had first thought. Frustration and anger was still rolling off of his shoulder in waves, but he’d always been good at keeping his feelings away from Grace. Even if she wasn’t aware, she had been both of her brother's soft spots for as long as they could remember. 

“Because you weren’t there.” Grace says softly, her eyes saddened and brimming with tears. “Whenever Dad took me on hunts… they were never as long as he told you they were. Sometimes we’d be gone a week, but the hunt itself would only take two or three days. One time–” Grace looks down, her hands beginning to tremble at the memory that plays at the forefront of her mind like it had been burned there by someone sadistic and cruel. “One time, when I had the flu, he took me out to South Dakota to kill some pissed off spirit. Shit went wrong, and he just– he just flipped; finished the hunt himself and dragged me back to Bobby’s. He must’ve hit me a few hundred times. That was when he was the worst. When he didn’t have to worry about you asking questions, when he didn’t have anyone there to stop him. At, uh, at one point he punched me so hard that I fell over, and then he just kept kicking me. I don’t remember much honestly. It’s like… glimpses, flashes. All I really remember is that he kept throwing rocks at me, telling me to get up, yelling at me to get up. I tried, but I couldn’t and I puked all over myself. That pissed him off even more, he grabbed me by my shirt, pulled me up to my feet. He, uh, he had his hand around my neck. It was one of the first times he said he’d kill me and I actually believed him. If Bobby hadn’t gotten back from his own hunt, I really think he would’ve killed me that night.” Grace, despite herself, smiles sadly at the memory. She can’t look up at her brothers. She doesn’t want to know what they look like. But, she’s not done. Somehow, there’s more to the story that isn’t really a story at all. It’s her life. The tragic and twisted existence of Grace Campbell Winchester. “Bobby brought me inside. I didn’t think anything was broken, I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t leave it alone. I’ve never seen Bobby so scared, so terrified for anyone. The way he looked at me… I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. He looked at me like one wrong move would be enough to finish what Dad didn’t. He set my nose back in place, but I can’t even remember how Dad broke it. If it was his fist or his foot or one of the rocks he threw, I– I don’t know. I just know that I stayed with Bobby for a couple of days after that. Dad went off to do another hunt, or I don’t know, maybe he just got wasted at a bar and got a motel room somewhere. I just– all I remember is that four days later he showed up, told me to get in the car, and we drove back to that crappy ass motel he left you at. Before we got inside he told me not to tell you, that if I said anything, he’d have no problem killing me for real and making sure it hurt.” 

“Gracie, look at me.” Dean pleaded tenderly, his voice thick with tears as he searched for the only pair of eyes that could make him question doing something stupid and reckless but she refused to look at anything besides her blood stained hands in her lap. She doesn’t know what had changed her mind about sharing that specific encounter, but she doesn’t think she feels any lighter in the aftermath of its exposure. “Look at me, sweetheart. Please.” 

Grace’s bloodshot eyes trail up to meet Dean’s after a beat of thick silence, and her bottom lip trembles as she sets her gaze on his crestfallen green gaze. The green gaze that they share. The green gaze that is so entirely Mary it almost hurts Dean to even look at his sister and see someone so broken down they're hardly even recognizable. Mary would hate what they’ve become. Hate what John simultaneously made of them and unmade of them. Sometimes, he doesn’t even feel like a person. He’s got such a misconstrued sense of his own autonomy that life or death doesn’t feel like such a weighted gamble of cards. What Dean Winchester hates the most is that the two kids he gave his own childhood up for – to raise and nurture when nobody else was around to do it –, have the same troubles embedded deeply in their instincts. “You don’t have to say anything, Dean.” Grace deflated sadly, wanting to just move on, to focus on the hunt and maintaining pleasantries with their father who is undoubtedly stewing in his wild anger only a car ahead of them.

“No, I do. I do, Gracie. I should’ve said something to both of you a long time ago.” Dean shakes his head, so often forgetting that he hadn’t willfully been a silent observer of the abuse. Grace hates that he blames so much of her suffering on himself, but she’s guilty of the same fate when there’s nothing else to keep her mind busy. “I’m not going to let him lay another finger on you, and if does, if I’m not there to stop it and shit happens, you come and find me, and I’ll deal with it. You hear me, sweetheart? He so much as grabs you too tight and I’ll handle it. I’ll finish him.” 

“You know I don’t blame you right? Either of you.” She asked softly, her voice wavering as she breathed through her mouth, her nose still throbbing at the center of her face. She’d need ice and Advil whenever they had a chance to dig through their duffles, but for now, she could live with the reminder that she’d finally stood her ground in some capacity. “The only one I blame is Dad, and it looks like we’re stuck with him for the foreseeable future, so can you stop trying to dig your own grave? And can you please stop looking like you’re going to tear his head off? This is what you wanted, and maybe it didn’t turn out the way you hoped, but we still have a job to do and I cannot be the only one thinking straight. I mean, we’re up against fucking vampires, you should be bouncing off the walls and you should be stressed beyond belief because halloween came early.” 

“Halloween did not come early.” Sam huffs, a small smile cracking his stoic expression as he threw a glare at Grace over his shoulder, his grip on the wheel loosening just slightly as he let her words wash over him. He couldn’t promise his best behavior, but he could certainly try if it meant keeping her happy. 

“We’re literally up against Dracula and his evil family, Sammy. Halloween basically came early.” Grace rolled her eyes, feeling more like herself as she taunted her brother and his eternal hatred for anything related to the tail-end of October. 

“Freaking vampires, dude!” Dean bellowed, and that was all that it took for peace to be restored amongst the siblings, John’s presence no longer so daunting now that Grace knew they had each other's back in any circumstance. 

-

Grace stood between her brothers in broad daylight, concealed by only a couple of overgrown and intertwined branches as they scooped out the vampire nest from a distance. John stood only a few inches away, his eyes memorizing the terrain that they’d stumbled across intently. Dean grumbled at her side, shaking his head as he watched two vampires engage in a rushed conversation before slipping into the abandoned barn. One lingered by the doors, sweeping his gaze across the expanse of trees and shrubbery before he disappeared too. 

“Son of a bitch.” He muttered beneath his breath, “So they’re really not afraid of the sun?”

“No, direct sunlight hurts like a nasty sunburn. The only way to kill them is by beheading them.” Grace’s nose scrunched at the violent nature of their only true weakness, and subtly she was reminded of her reset nose when an ache ran deep through her bones. She stepped just slightly to the left, her forearm brushing against Dean’s as she created distance between her fathers body and her own. She could talk a big game about carrying on with the hunt and letting the past take up residence on a back burner, but instinct was something harder to control. Dean nudged her with his elbow, nodding just slightly to convey his watchful eye. He meant what he’d said. John Winchester would never lay another hand on her if he had any say in the matter; and he’d make sure he got a say this time around. “And, yeah, they sleep during the day. It doesn’t mean they won’t wake up.” 

“So I guess walking right in’s not our best option.” Dean assumed, and Grace was inclined to agree that walking right into a vampire's nest was a dumb play, but John’s reaction insinuated the very opposite. 

“Actually, that’s the plan.” He mused, nodding toward their cars parked a few feet away in a clearing not visible to the barn doors. They followed him cautiously, stepping over twigs and branches that would give away their position if even one of the creatures heard something suspicious. 

She pulled the trunk of the Impala open, her eyes training over the stuffed bear she’d taken possession of all of those weeks ago in Kansas. A saddened warmth spread through her chest at the memory of Mary burning before her own two eyes, but she pushed it aside. Now was not the time nor place to unpack her boatload of parental traumas. 

“Dad, I’ve got an extra machete if you need one.” Dean called over his shoulder as he looked to John who had his own trunk open and was scrounging through his collection of weapons for something specific. 

“Think I’m okay. Thanks.” He replied drying, unsheathing a machete that glimmered beneath the overcast sky. Its blade was impressive, not something that Grace had seen before, and the irony that he suddenly had a weapon of that nature in a hunt like this didn’t leave her entirely. For someone who said he’d never hunted a vampire and thought all they were all extinct, he certainly had the weapons and knowledge to disprove that. 

“Wow.” Dean hummed, turning back to the trunk. Grace’s fingers were curled together in a pattern that Dean hadn’t seen since his teenage years, but a broad smile broke across his lips as he shook his head. Years ago, they’d created a silent code for the times when their father was being nothing short of an arrogant dick. It was one of the only ways that they could get anything beneath his nose, and still Dean found humor in it, even if this time his smile was drawn from the stirrings of nostalgia that blossomed in his chest. 

“So… you boys really want to know about this colt?” Grace could only roll her eyes at the fact that her father refused to acknowledge her, but she didn’t say anything. Truth was, they did want to know, and she was willing to sacrifice her pride if it meant gaining precious insight. 

“Yes sir.” Sam replied, his attention snapping to John instantaneously. 

John sighed, and for a second his eyes lingered on Grace angled between his boys so perfectly that it looked like something natural. John couldn’t remember a time when his kids had been so at ease around him, and even if their shoulders were still rigid with tension, there was something about their closeness that struck him deeply. “It’s just a story… A legend, really. Well, I thought it was. Never really believed it until I read Daniel’s letter. Back in 1835, when Halley’s comet was overhead, the same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun… a special gun. He made it for a hunter – a man like us, only on horseback. The story goes he made thirteen bullets. This hunter used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. ‘Til somehow, Daniel got his hands on it. They say– they say this gun can kill anything.”

“Kill anything like supernatural anything?” Dean questioned, astonishment laced within his tone. Grace stood straighter at the realization, her gaze falling upon that hidden corner of the trunk where she’d tucked her precious bear in between a pocket knife and the first aid kit Dean kept. 

“Like the thing that killed Mom.” Grace whispered as she trailed her gaze back to John, looking at him with so much confidence he almost didn’t have a clapback for her direct mentioning of Mary. Almost. He opened his mouth, probably to threaten her into silence, but she stepped up closer, her voice even and calm as she raised her chin. “You do not have the right to take her away from me. Maybe I don’t remember her, but she is still my Mom. The only one I’ll ever have. So why don’t you just get on with it instead of wasting any more time that we don’t have.” 

John, for once in his life, listened. “Yeah, the demon.” He licked at his lips, shifting his gaze to Sam who stood in the same state of shock as Dean. “Ever since I picked up its trail, I’ve been looking for a way to destroy that thing. Find the gun… we may have it.” 

Grace nodded, looking directly at her father, no longer afraid to so much as meet his eye without explicit permission. “Well let’s go then. I’d say it's about twenty years overdue.” 

-

Grace climbed through a window after Sam, standing on piles of hay that sank beneath her weight. Dean was right behind her, and softly he closed the boards up after he’d climbed through, drowning them in near complete darkness before their eyes adjusted to the change in light. John was ahead of them, but what else lay ahead of them was incredibly daunting. At least four vampires laid asleep in makeshift hammocks, their arms folded over their stomachs as they assumed the same near identical positions. 

She kept close to Sam, and Dean kept close to her. They had each other's backs, and that was as much comfort as Grace was going to get before they managed to secure the gun. As they stalked through the barn, it became evident that it wasn’t just four vampires that surrounded them, but over a dozen, and chills crawled up her spine as she grimaced internally. She snapped ehr gaze to Dean when teh toe of his shoe clashed against an abandoned bottle of beer, his shoulder jostling the hammock that a vampire rested in soundly. Their eyes widened, and both siblings froze to gauge the reaction that was to come, but when nothing happened and the vampire settled back into sleep, Grace breathed a silent sigh of relief. 

“Dean, Gracie.” Sam whispered for their attention, crouched beside a woman that Grace could only see half off. She crept closer, blood stains coming into view. Sam was already busy trying to untie the ropes that bound the woman, but Grace and Dean snapped their gaze to the far corner of the room when they heard a muffled sound. 

“There’s more.” Dean whispered, and Grace nodded, already back on her feet and heading in the direction that they’d heard the slightest commotion from. Dean grabbed onto a metal lever, putting both of his hands around the cold material to dampen the noise, but a clanking squeak still echoed around the barn and Grace kept careful watch of the vampires surrounding them. One of the guys shifted in his sleep, but thankfully he remained that way. 

The quiet didn’t last long, and Grace flinched into Dean when a near demonic sounding scream came from the woman bound to the pole in the center of the barn. All at once the other vampires woke, bouncing to their feet as they took in the sight of intruders around them. 

John smashed a window in the corner of the barn, his eyes wild as he looked over his shoulders to locate his children; all three of them. “Kids, run!” He threw out the order, and they listened, but Grace faltered when her eyes caught something silver in the distance. She stumbled on her feet, but didn’t go back for the gun that caught her attention. There would be another opportunity, their had to be.

When sunlight broke across her face, she squinted at the intrusion of bright light, running through the wooded area where the calls of her brother's voices created an audible path. “Gracie! Dad!” 

“I’m right here. God, I’m right here, stop fucking yelling you idiot!” She groaned, batting her hand against Dean’s shoulder when she got close enough to reach them. Dean rolled his eyes at her attitude, but stopped calling for John, realizing that he was essentially giving their covered position away. “They have the colt.” She told her brothers, confirming that they were chasing the right lead for more than just a police scanner call. 

“They won’t follow. They’ll wait till tonight. Once a vampire gets your scent, it’s for life.” John panted as he came running up to them, and Grace could only roll her eyes at the fact that he was only thinking to tell them that small detail now. 

“What the hell do we do now?” Dean threw back at their father, evidently less than impressed with that simple answer. 

“You got to find the nearest funeral home, that’s what.” Dean reared back at the cheap solution, his eyes widening for a brief moment before he schooled his features. 

-

Grace stood beneath the cover of nightfall only a few feet away from where Dean had parked the Impala. There’s a crossbow at her side, arrows from John already loaded into the weapon. She doesn’t know what they are, but she doesn’t really care. All she knows is that he’d sent her and Dean out as bait, but not without shoving the weapons into her empty hands, demanding that she prove she hasn’t lost her worth in the years that it had been since they’d seen each other. She doesn’t want to think about how his eyes had flashed with something genuine as she nodded to the instruction, but she can't help but consider that maybe she doesn’t know him as well as she’d thought. Regardless, his sudden care for her wellbeing doesn’t change her opinion of him. If anything, it only pisses her off more. She doesn’t need him anymore; doesn’t want him. She’s long since abandoned the desire to win his affection and praise. All that she cares about is doing her part in keeping her brothers alive. 

She waits for the perfect moment before she reaches for the weapon, letting the arrows cut through the darkness of night only when she’s certain that she has the perfect shot. Both arrows pierce through the hearts of the vampires, and they crane their necks to face the expanse of trees behind them. Her heart is hammering, unable to recall the last time she’d even held a crossbow, but the knowledge that after all the time that had elapsed and she was still a perfect shot had her jogging toward her brother without concern. Sam and John were right behind her, and Grace couldn’t pinpoint when they’d arrived, but she smiled cheekily at Sam over her shoulder, wiggling her eyebrows tauntingly. For a second, she was just the girl he’d started to know at Stanford, and Sam had never been so glad to see that stupid smile in his life. 

“Barely even stings.” The woman calls over her shoulder, looking straight at Grace who still holds onto the weapon of choice for the night. She can only shrug, but John has more to say.

“Give it time, sweetheart. That arrows soaked in dead man's blood. It’s like poison to you, isn’t it?” Grace’s gaze trailed down to her fingers, suddenly aware of the fact that she’d touched both arrows to lace them into the weapon. She could roll her eyes at John’s inability to ever be truly transparent, but she pockets the complaint for a later date. The woman’s eyes began to grow heavy, and in second both vampires dropped to the ground. “Load her up. I’ll take care of this one.” 

The last thing Grace saw before she turned to help her brothers was John slicing the head of the vampire off with one clean blow. 

-

“Toss this on the fire. Saffron, skunk, cabbage, and trillium – it’ll block our scent and hers until we’re ready.” John hummed, a fire burning bright beside Grace as she stood in the middle of the woods beside her brothers. 

Dean coughed, pacing the rough terrain with understandable restlessness. “Stuff stinks.” He commented, and Grace could only shake her head at his reflection. 

“Well, that’s the idea. Dust your clothes with the ashes and you’ll stand a chance of not being detected.” Grace didn’t have to be told twice, mostly because it wasn’t her jacket she was ruining by spreading ash across her chest and sleeves. She shot Dean a cheeky smile, flaunting his ash covered jacket in a silly spin that had him chuckling and shaking his head. She’d never been so light in the presence of John, had never been so light in the presence of Dean, but new leaves had been turned since he’d punched her, and fear was something she muddled through so intensely. She could only hope it lasted, but if this was all that she ever got of ‘peace’, she’d take it as a win. 

“You sure they’ll come after her?” Sam questioned, looking back at John. 

“Yeah. Vampires mate for life. She means more to the leader than the gun. But the blood sickness is gonna wear off soon, so you don’t have a lot of time.” 

“Half-hour outta do it.” Dean hummed, stepping up to the conversation with Grace on his heels. 

“And then I want you out of the area as fast as you can.” Grace frowned at the ultimatum, or, direct order. She’d been thrown enough orders in her life to know when something was optional, and John’s direction to leave town was definitely not that. 

“Woah, Dad. You can’t take care of them all yourself.” Dean fought back, but John shook his head. 

“I’ll have her and the colt.” He tried to reason, but all Grace heard was bullshit masculinity and its inability to let anyone else help. She hadn’t thought for a second that things with him would be any different, but somehow she didn’t expect this. 

“But after, we’re gonna meet up, right? Use the gun together, right?” Sam questioned, his voice laced with something that Grace couldn’t determine. His words were pointed, level and directed, but there was still something else lingering in his civil tone. “You’re leaving again, aren’t you? You still want to go after the demon alone? You know, I don’t get you. You can’t treat us like this.” 

John looked toward the fire before his gaze swept back to Sam, who’d thrown his promise to the wind, but for once, Grace was right behind him, not bristling at the conflict that was beginning to rise between them. “Like what?” 

“Like children.” Sam snaps, the same argument eating away at him each time it slips away from focus unsolved and unaddressed.

“You are my children. I’m trying to keep you safe. All of you.” John looked right at Grace, and there was that genuinity again. She stepped back instinctively, her body partially concealed by Dean as she tried to make sense of his sudden care. She hated this. Hated that she’d finally been ready to cut her ties with him and this is how he acts; like the father she’d wanted when she was seven.

“Dad, all due respect, but that’s a bunch of crap.” Dean sighed, not willing to stand out in the cold and let their father lie to their faces to save his own ass another time. He’d endured this treatment for years, but he’d finally reached his limit.  

“Excuse me?” John recoiled, and both Grace and Sam turned their gaze to him, jaws hanging slack as they watched Dean make good on his promise that wasn’t solely aimed at the youngest Winchester. He’d meant what he said about sticking his neck out; not letting history repeat itself. But, he hadn’t meant it only for Grace. He’d meant it for Sam too, but more importantly, he meant it for himself. He didn’t want to be a soldier anymore; he couldn’t be. Not when he’d finally seen what could become of him if he just acted on his own impulses every once in a while. 

“You know what Gracie and Sammy and I have been hunting. Hell, you sent us on a few hunting trips yourself. You can’t be that worried about keeping us safe. I mean, fuck Dad, you’ve never been worried about keeping Gracie safe at all. That was my job. My responsibility. So why don’t you let it stay that way.” He prattled on, and Grace could only dip her head down at the mention of her name. She knows what he gave up for her, but she desperately wished he hadn’t had to. It’s not her fault that it happened, but that doesn’t lessen the guilt she carries. 

“It’s not the same thing, Dean.” John shook his head, but that only further frustrated his children who were damn near fed up with being kept in what seemed like eternal darkness. 

“Then what is it? Why do you want us out of the big fight?” 

“This demon… It's a bad son of a bitch. I can’t make the same moves if I’m worried about keeping you alive.” He relented, but even with his spoken word, little was actually revealed to the siblings. John Winchester just had a way of being elusive without even batting an eye. 

“You mean you can’t be as reckless.” Dean snapped back, going toe-to-toe with their father, tired of just being the little boy that listened and obeyed blindly. He’d played that role for twenty-six years, he couldn’t stand to fill the shoes for another second. 

“Look, I don’t expect to make it out of this fight in one piece. Your mothers death… it almost killed me.” Dean looked away at the mention of Mary, and John shook his head, growing teary. “I can’t watch my children die, too. I won’t.” 

“What happens if you die?” Dean’s voice wavered with the slightest indication of vulnerability before it grew cold and detached, his jaw clenching as he spoke. “Dad, what happens if you die and we could have done something about it? You know, I’ve been thinking. I think maybe Sammy’s right about this one. I think we should do this together.” He was pleading at this point, begging with John to let them see this through with him. Grace couldn’t admit it, but a piece of her yearned for the same thing as her brothers. She may hate the man, may despise his presence next to her, but she couldn’t be an orphan. She still can’t even begin to handle the fact that she’s already down one parent. “We’re stronger as a family, Dad. We just are. You know it.”

“We’re running out of time.” John nodded, entirely bypassing the point that Dean had been trying to drive home. Grace deflated behind her brother, taking a step away in wild defeat and discouragement. She hates the thought of being around John, but she wants to have a hand in righting her mothers death. It’s not fair that even after all of this, John still dangles any kind of closure over her head. Every part of her knows that he’s incapable of change, but a piece of her heart breaks as she realizes that nothing about them will ever be enough to get him to stay. “You do your time, and you get out of the area. That’s an order.” 

She scoffs as she shakes her head, turning her back to her brothers and her father as she made her way back to the Impala wordlessly. She’d fought for John to love her for years, she wouldn’t let herself waste anymore time on someone that had never been what he should’ve been for her. 

The door slams behind her, and she sinks into the leather seats wearing a pout of frustration. When Sam and Dean sink into the seats up front, a beat of silence passes before the engine roars to life and Dean pulls out onto the road like a bat out of hell, the timer already running out of time. 

-

Grace crawls through the window after her brothers, silently landing on the bails of hay that are stacked up against the boarded wall. She brushes her blood stained clothes off, grimacing at the hay that still sticks to her and sends prickly sensations down her spine whenever she moves. She creeps through the hallways wordlessly, grinning beside Dean as they sweep a coin off of the desk and listen to it clank as it hits the floor. She slips into the hallway, gripping tightly to a machete that conveniently is perched against the wall of the barn. She doesn’t let herself think about the irony of this nest of vampires housing the very weapons that can kill them, focusing instead on the plan at hand. 

She holds her breath as a vampire stalks through the barn searching for the cause of the sound, and when he’s just a few steps ahead of her, Dean pops out from the sideroom, a grin on his lips as he whispers, “Boo!” The vampire didn’t even have a chance to spin on his heels and search for Grace before she was wielding the machete with practiced ease, slicing his head clean off in a second. 

“That is either the coolest thing I’ve ever done on a hunt or the most disgusting.” She grimaces as blood drips down her face and further stains her clothing. She can’t tell what’s her blood or his anymore, but the satisfaction in knowing she’d killed the evil they stumbled across eased the disgust pooling in her belly as warm blood began to cool on her skin. 

She wiped a palm down her face, wiping the blood into the fabric of her pants as she followed Dean. When he had what he was searching for, he nodded toward the window where Sam was waiting with a machete from the trunk, having taken the role of lookout reluctantly. 

“We’re going back for him, aren’t we?” Grace questions as she lands on the ground, brushing off her clothes again as dirt and hay stick to her. 

“Obviously.” Dean retorted and Grace nodded promptly, not having it in her to argue about what their next move should be. Their father couldn’t handle what was coming his way, even if he didn’t know that, Grace did, and despite herself and every self-preservation tactic she’d learned since childhood, she couldn’t get herself to be the kind of person to walk away when showing up mattered most. 

-

The headlights from John’s truck shone brightly in the expanse of darkness as Grace and her brothers rushed through the wooded area toward the gravel road. Grace wielded a crossbow with elegance, hardly bristling as she aimed for the chest of a woman and shot blankly, the poison coated arrow piercing directly through the vampire's sternum. Sam was only steps ahead of her, but before Grace could make a move to shoot the approaching vampire, he’d gained the upper hand and wrangled Sam into his grip. 

“Don’t! I’ll break his neck.” He warned dangerously, hooking his arm around Sam’s neck with a threatening tightness that had Grace lowering the crossbow just slightly. Grace’s gaze trailed to Dean as leaves rustled beside her, and she found her brother gripping at the handle of a blood soaked machete with genuine fear shining brightly behind his green eyes. “Put the blade down.” He only tightened his grip when Dean looked to contemplate the ultimatum, and Sam began to gasp for air as his windpipe was crushed ruthlessly and slowly. 

“Dean!” Grace called, shaking her head as she dropped the crossbow fully, allowing it to dangle at her side as she looked back at Sam whose cheeks were beginning to redden with the lack of oxygen. 

The vampire, a man that Grace had no interest learning the name of, stared straight at Dean as the machete clanked at the impact of thin metal meeting the rough ground. “You people. Why can’t you just leave us alone? We have as much right to live as you do.” 

“I don’t think so.” Grace hadn’t even noticed her father pick himself up from the ground, but her gaze snapped to him at the sound of a gunshot firing. The colt glistened beneath the moonlight, one of its carefully crafted bullets slicing through the air before it embedded itself in the creature's head right between his deep eyes. Grace didn’t take another moment to take in the sight of blood slowly slipping from the wound, instead, she rushed to Sam, the crossbow forgotten in the clearing of brittle grass as her sneakers padded against the ground bringing her closer to where Dean held Sam upright by his shoulders. 

Sam shrugged Grace’s concerned hands off of him as he turned to fully watch the vampire succumb to his injury. Light flickered from the hole in his head before he dropped to his knees on the gravel, groaning in pain before everything became still.

“Kate, don’t!” Another vampire called when a girl cried out in distress, attempting to rush toward her fallen leader before she was held back protectively. It was only a handful of seconds later that car doors were slamming shut and the vampires that remained sped away, their headlights shining bright in the darkness before they ebbed away. 

Grace Winchester took one look at her father before she shook her head, abandoning the fight and turning toward the direction of where the Impala was parked in the near distance but out of earshot. The leaves crunched beneath her feet, but she said nothing as she sought out escape. 

-

Grace’s hair was damp as she sifted through clothing that her brothers had somehow strewn across the room in the few hours that they’d actually occupied the motel room. She’d finally washed the blood off of her body and traded in her soiled clothes for new ones, but even with the seven minute shower she still felt heavy and out of sorts. She sighed as she threw a flannel at Dean, deciding against stealing it for herself when she noticed the grease stain smeared along the left side of the thin article. She stood in only pink pajama pants and a Stanford t-shirt when the motel door creaked open again, her father finally making his presence known. 

“So, boys…” Grace could only shake her head in exasperation when her father entirely bypassed her existence, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care that much as she continued to sift through the random garments within reach. She threw a t-shirt on top of Sam’s duffle bag, wondering how they’d created such a mess in the first place when all they’d done was steal a handful of hours of rest. 

“Yes, sir.” Dean cleared his throat, turning around to face John fully. Sam stepped up beside him, unintentionally shielding Grace from John’s sight. The youngest Winchester didn’t notice, but the eldest did, and John squared his shoulders at the realisation that he was being barred from looking at his own daughter. 

“You ignored a direct order back there.” John continued, deciding that now wasn’t the time to breach any kind of conversation pertaining to Grace. 

“Yes, sir. But we saved your ass.” Dean made sure to highlight what mattered, and Grace could only manage a smirk as she settled into the realization that it wasn’t just a one time promise. Even if it would take time to truly separate himself from everything that he’d been blindly following for years, Dean was putting the effort in where it mattered. 

“You’re right.” John relented, and Grace frowned at the simple resolution, turning around to witness the conversation as she pulled an old hoodie over her head. She can’t even remember the last time she’d seen Dean wear a hoodie, but now wasn’t the time to question why he was still holding on to the tattered thing. 

“I am?” Dean questioned skeptically, taking a step closer to Sam when he caught the slightest glimpse of Grace moving in his peripheral. All three Winchesters were on edge, knowing exactly what kind of treatment Grace would be subjected to taking had this occurred only two years ago. Dean wasn’t going to let it happen now, but still he worried about not being able to prevent it. 

“It scares the hell out of me. You…you three are all I’ve got. But I guess we are stronger as a family.” Grace bristled at the words rolling off of John’s tongue, unable to picture a reality where her father ever admitted that she was worth bringing along. She hates that this is what she’s wanted for her entire life, and now that it's falling at her feet laced with sincerity, it feels wrong and misplaced. She hates that John is willing to step up, be the man he should’ve been albeit still with faults and ridged edges, but she’s already moved on. It’s too little too late. “So… we go after this damn thing…together.” 

“Yes, sir.” Dean and Sam nodded but Grace couldn’t just let that be all that was said after years of torment and abuse; after he’d just broken her nose and backhanded her like she was just an insignificant child. He’d burned the bridge to her heart a long time ago, and there was no way to restore scattered ashes. 

“I’ll help you, because she is my mom, and this is my fight as much as it is yours, but you are not my family. You will never be my family.” She spat uncaringly, slinging her dufflebag over her shoulder and heading for the door, stepping around her father and her brothers. The light from the lamps fell upon her face, catching on the swelling around her eyes and the bruising to her cheek bone. 

John Winchester might be ready to finally accept his only daughter, but Grace Winchester has no obligation to forgive the years of anguish he’d inflicted on her.

[lastbluetardis]

What Makes a Family (2/?)

Summary: Single parents Rose Tyler and James McCrimmon come together to embark on a whirlwind, passionate romance that seems to be the happy ending neither of them thought they’d get. But when James’s past comes back to haunt them and threatens to tear away everything they’ve built together, they must find a way to weather the storm that will either break them or draw them ever closer, all while answering the question of what it means to be a family.

💜 It’s back!! This is the new and improved version!! 💜

Ten x Rose AU

This Chapter: Teen, ~6800 words

AO3

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“There’s a new boy in my class!”

James McCrimmon looked up from the calendar he was putting together of assignments, projects, and lesson plans for the month of September: there were a few units he was shuffling around, but for the most part, he could use his old calendar from last school year. That was the best part about teaching, in his opinion: once he had his first year under his belt, everything else came much more easily, since he wasn’t starting from a completely blank slate.

His nine-year-old daughter, Alex, skipped cheerily through the door of his classroom, the French braid he’d done for her that morning miraculously still intact and bouncing off her shoulders. She flashed him a grin that stole his heart all over again, and he was suddenly aware of how much he’d missed her over the course of the school day.

“Hiya, darling,” he said, rolling his chair away from his desk and opening his arms for her. She dropped her school bag onto an empty desk, then vaulted into his lap. He gave her a big hug and pecked a kiss to her cheek. “What do you mean there’s a new boy in your class? It’s the first day; isn’t everyone new?”

Alex let out a sigh of the long-suffering. “Well, yeah, but I at least recognized everyone else. But David’s brand new. That’s his name. David. He just moved here, all the way from London.”

“Wow,” James said. “Must be hard for him, starting at a new school and not knowing anyone, huh?”

“I’m gonna be his friend,” Alex said brightly.

His heart swelled; Alex seemed to go through life making it her personal mission to love everyone she met. If only adults could be so kind. Other children, too. Far too many of Alex’s friendships fizzled out because she was too much for them to handle: too loud, too giddy, too energetic. Every time Alex came home crying that so-and-so didn’t want to be her friend anymore, a small piece of him died inside, buried with the friends he, too, had lost through the decades for the exact same reasons. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree at all in that regard.

“That’s very kind of you,” he murmured, kissing her cheek again. “How was the rest of your day? High and low?”

“Low: they had tinned pears for dessert at lunch.” Alex pulled the most disgusted face he’d ever seen on a nine-year-old, and James had to stifle a chuckle. He wasn’t sure if his daughter hated pears because he hated pears, or if she genuinely didn’t like the fruit of her own volition. Either way, if that was the worst part about her day, all was well. “It was so gross. I gave mine to Connor, and he gave me the banana his mum packed him in his lunch. High: I won the class spelling challenge and got a lolly. Miss Oswald was testing us to make sure we knew our vocabulary from last year. I did.”

“That’s wonderful, well done,” he praised.

“Your turn,” she prompted. “High and low.”

“Low: I’ve got all these worksheets to mark.” James gestured to the stack of algebra problems that he was using to gauge the sort of maths he needed to review before starting new material with his Year Sixes. He hoped his students remembered their basic arithmetic. “Love the teaching, hate the marking. And my high: I found some new slow cooker recipes that sound yummy. We can try one out this weekend, if you’d like.”

“Ooh, lemme see!”

James absently bounced his daughter in his lap as he pulled up his web browser’s bookmark tab where he’d saved the recipes. He opened each of the ones that caught his eyes in individual tabs, then began showing them to Alex in the order of what he thought she’d like best.

They spent the next few minutes reading the recipes together. While they did, James watched his daughter’s face intently, noting the ones that piqued her interest and the ones she wrinkled her nose at. She wasn’t necessarily a picky eater, per se, but she never consistently had a favorite food; one day she would love spaghetti, then the next wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, and would be back to loving it the following week. It certainly made meal planning a difficult chore.

“This sounds like Chinese takeaway,” Alex said, pointing to the recipe for chicken and broccoli. “Can we do this one?”

“Sure thing. We can stop by the shops after school on Friday to get everything we’ll need.”

“M’kay. I’m hungry,” she announced, hopping out of his lap.

“Yeah? All that talk of food make you a bit peckish?” James rolled his chair back to the mini-fridge he kept beneath his desk and rooted around for an apple and container of yogurt. Before he could ask “Which one do you want?”, Alex snatched the apple and bit into it. A droplet of juice dribbled down her chin.

James handed her a napkin and said, “Once I finish these worksheets, we’ll go home. Do you have anything to work on? Let me see your log book.”

Alex rummaged through her backpack and pulled out a small spiral-bound notebook calendar planner. She handed it to him, and he flipped it open to today’s date. Apart from “read for twenty minutes at home”, she had no other homework. Not surprising, considering it was the first day of school. No teacher he knew assigned homework on the first day.

“Right, once you finish your snack, I’ll let you watch something on YouTube ‘til I finish my grading.”

Alex rolled her eyes and nodded, her mouth too full for her to form a proper reply. He couldn’t help it; even though this was their normal routine—Alex joining him in his classroom at the end of every school day—he could never stop himself from reminding her of the schedule: that he had papers to grade or lessons to plan, so she needed to sit quietly for an hour working on her own schoolwork before they could go home for the night.

The sound of chewing became background noise as James worked swiftly through the problems he’d assigned his class. He had the answer key memorized, so it was a simple enough matter of granting the questions a check mark or an X. He was relieved to see that he wouldn’t need to do too much review, apart from reminding students how to work with fractions in their algebra. They seem to have forgotten that finding a common denominator when adding and subtracting was a requirement, not a suggestion.

He wrapped up his work earlier than usual, right as one of Alex’s YouTube videos came to an end. He stepped up to her, popped her earbuds out, and whispered, “Time to go home.”

She dutifully shut down the computer then set it in his desk drawer where it would be waiting for her tomorrow afternoon, as always.

James slung his bag over one shoulder and guided his child out of his classroom, locking the door behind him. There were a few other teachers milling about the halls, as well as the janitorial staff.

“Goodnight, Mr. O’Brien!”

“Goodnight, Miss McCrimmon.” Graham O’Brien, a kindly, recently-widowed gentleman, sketched a half-bow to Alex, making her giggle and follow up with a curtsey.

Alex bade goodnight to every soul they came across. She knew them all by name, and they, in kind, knew her. Not just as the daughter of one of the teachers, but as a cheery little girl who was genuinely kind to everyone. On more than one occasion over the years, a teacher or staff member came by to tell James of an encounter they had with Alex that had brightened their day, whether it was a card she’d made for them out of the blue, or how she’d complimented their new haircut.

When the pair returned home to their small, end-unit terraced house, the first thing Alex did was race to the back door to let in the bouncing, fluffy creature staring piteously at them through the glass.

“K9!” Alex cried, as though it had been weeks since she’d seen her dog rather than a few hours.

The black-and-while labradoodle danced around Alex’s legs, his entire back half wriggling with excitement and pleasure as Alex smothered him in kisses and scratches. He rolled onto his back, tongue lolling as Alex gave him ample belly rubs.

“Ready to go for a walk?” Alex cooed. “Ready for a walkie?”

K9 bounded to his feet at the “w” word, then eagerly followed his little mistress to her bedroom where she changed out of her school uniform. Likewise, James changed out of his work clothes and put on a worn pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt that would help combat the chill of the evening air. Summer was ending early, it seemed.

When he returned to the foyer, Alex was in the middle of securing the walking harness around their dog, who, despite his rapidly-wagging tail, was standing patiently.

“Got it?” James asked, double-checking her work, even though she’d been proficient with getting K9 harnessed up for years.

“Got it.” She clipped the lead to the harness. “Let’s go!”

K9 pranced in place while James grabbed the house key, then opened the front door. Despite the dog’s eagerness, he didn’t pull on his leash; rather, he let himself be guided out of the house by Alex and stayed right by her heel, letting her set the pace. Those months of obedience training when he was a puppy paid off, helped by the fact that K9 seemed to be a more intelligent than usual animal.

James snapped a quick photo of his child and dog on his phone, then fell into step with Alex. As they walked through the neighborhood, greeting anyone and everyone they passed, Alex continued to recount the minutiae of her school day.

“Miss Oswald assigned a project already,” Alex announced. “On the solar system, due in a couple weeks—September nineteenth. We’ve got to build a model with the sun and all eight planets, but we can include Pluto if we want to ‘cos we know he’s out there, and Miss Oswald said that ages ago Pluto used to be its own planet but then some scientists decided it wasn’t. How does that work? How can they just say a planet isn’t a planet when we know it’s a planet?”

James was about to explain exactly how and why Pluto was demoted, but his daughter barreled on, her question seemingly rhetorical.

“And we’ve got to try and make the planets’ sizes as accurate as possible. Not like, accurate, ‘cos obviously planets are massive, but to scale with each other. Roughly. So Jupiter has to be the biggest—well, the sun is the biggest, but you know what I mean—and Mercury has to be the smallest. And we can try to color-code them if we want, and I do want to, so we have to paint Mercury gray and Venus yellow and Earth green and blue and…”

It was impressive that she hadn’t paused to catch her breath yet, but rather continued to ramble on and on about her project. At least she’s excited about it, James thought. Unlike her project on Guy Fawkes last year.

The assignment had been to play pretend at being a museum tour guide with specialty knowledge of a famous historical figure. Each student was to stand in front of the class and talk for a few minutes about their person. The one mistake Alex’s teacher had made regarding the project was assigning the historical figure to the students, rather than letting them pick one. James understood the rationale; at that age, most eight-year-olds likely didn’t have much experience with historical figures to get a diverse enough representation that wasn’t solely old monarchs. But Alex struggled with the project because she was disinterested in the person she was assigned.

James had practiced with his daughter every night in the days leading up to the presentation, but she utterly refused to cooperate, and had rushed through the spiel of Guy Fawkes with no facts other than the gruesome details of his death. It had been no surprise, therefore, when James had been called into an after-school meeting with Alex and her teacher to discuss why her presentation had gone so poorly, even though she could recite fact after fact about Guy Fawkes when prompted.

Alex’s response had merely been, “Guy Fawkes is so boring. He was part of a failed plot to kill a king, got caught, then died, and now we’ve got Bonfire Night, which is the only good thing about him anyway.”

That had prompted James to tell her that lots of things in her life would be boring, but she needed execute even the most boring of tasks satisfactorily. He wasn’t sure how well the lesson sank in, considering she’d only done marginally better on the second chance her teacher had given her to complete the project. However, the teacher told James that, going forward, students could pick their historical figure, or be assigned one if they couldn’t come up with anyone to research.

Presently, Alex was listing everything she knew about the various planets, from their size to surface temperature to how many moons—if any—orbited around them. She even began to recite some of the names of the moons certain planets had, then asked another rhetorical question about why Earth’s moon didn’t have a proper name like all of the other moons, and that society should come up with a name for it.

James was struck with such pride that he’d created such a clever little human. He would have to tell Alex’s teacher, Clara, that this planet project would probably be Alex’s favorite assignment of the year.

After an hour of walking the familiar streets of their neighborhood, they arrived back home and started on dinner. Alex fed and watered K9 while James tended to their food, warming up leftover chicken parmesan and peas.

“Wanna be Eugene or Olaf?” Alex asked, holding up two blue cups with the respective Disney characters printed on them.

“Either,” he said absently, testing to see if their meals were heated through.

“Eugene, since your hair’s the same,” Alex said with a decisive nod. “I’m gonna be Belle.”

Alex filled their cups with water and plopped down in her usual seat at the kitchen table. Really, it had been a card table from his days at uni, but with just him and his daughter living in their small house, they didn’t need much more space than that.

James mentally rehearsed his lesson plans for the following day while he ate, only half-listening to Alex, who inexplicably still had more to talk about, then they worked together to clean up the dishes from their meal.

And that was their night. Years of engrained habits made for a predictable—if not a little dull—evening, even down to their dog knowing when Alex’s bedtime was. K9 dutifully sat on the floor at the foot of Alex’s bed while James tucked himself onto the edge of her twin-sized mattress to read a few chapters of Matilda together. The book was one of her favorites; they must have read it a dozen times together, enough so that James nearly had the whole thing memorized.

When he reached a good stopping point, James stuffed a bookmark between the pages and set the novel on Alex’s bedside table.

“I like Miss Honey,” Alex said, tucking her arm tightly around his waist and preventing him from leaving her bed yet. He melted back into the mattress, happy to give her more snuggles. “I don’t like Matilda’s mum and dad. They’re mean.”

“Yeah, they are,” he agreed, resting his cheek into her soft, chestnut locks.

“You’re not mean to me,” Alex continued.

“I try not to be. Funnily enough, I like you quite a lot,” he teased, poking her side.

Alex squirmed and breathed out a silent laugh. She yawned and hugged him tighter. “Hey Daddy?”

“Hey whatty?”

“I’m never gonna have any siblings, am I?”

James froze, mind whirring to figure out where the question had come from. Was it the book they’d just read? Matilda had an older brother, but as they established, the Wormwood family was rubbish.

“Well, never is quite the absolute,” he started, scratching at the back of his suddenly-hot neck. “It’s got a sort of finality, doesn’t it? Never…”

Alex sighed, her shoulders drooping. James cringed, and amended his daft response by gently saying, “No, you probably won’t have any siblings.”

“Why not?” she asked, frowning. “I hate being an only child. Everyone else has brothers and sisters except for me!”

James’s heart sank at her outburst. “I’m sure that’s not true. Loads of kids don’t have brothers or sisters—I never did.”

“We had to introduce ourselves to the class today and only one other kid in my class was an only child.” Alex sniffled, wiping at her eyes. “It’s not fair!”

James pulled her close, tucking his cheek to her hair and rubbing long, slow lines down her back. “I’m sorry, darling, but sometimes that’s just the way things are. Sometimes things in life aren’t fair, and it’s really crummy, but we need to find a way to be okay with it.”

She kept her face buried in his chest as she said, “Don’t you want more kids?”

James licked his lips. Alex loosely knew where babies came from and how they were made, but like most nine-year-olds, he didn’t think she truly understood the full picture, or the implications therein.

“Well, for starters, having a baby takes two people,” he hedged. “And it’s just me. So that rather throws a spanner in the works, doesn’t it?”

Alex stilled for a moment, then pulled back to look up at him. Her eyes weren’t nearly red enough for her to have been properly crying, but her distress was unmistakable nevertheless.

“Don’t you want to get married?” she asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s complicated.”

If he were being honest, James had considered marriage exactly once: when his on-again, off-again girlfriend, River, informed him that she was pregnant in the summer before their final year at university. And even then, it had been an impulsive proposal on his part. Though he’d only known about the baby for all of thirty seconds, he was determined not to be his father, who’d never acknowledged James’s existence, or his mother, who often left him in the care of his grandparents because she was too busy enjoying her youth to be weighed down by a child.

Thankfully River had knocked some sense into him, and the conversation of marriage had never gone further than those first few minutes.

But since then, there had never been anyone in James’s life he’d considered spending his forever with. There had been Joan, whom he’d dated for slightly over a year when Alex was a toddler, but there hadn’t been any sort of spark between them—just familiarity and a mutual desire not to be alone. Then there was Harry, who, until last Christmas, had been a fellow teacher that James regularly hooked up with after work parties and events. Harry had moved away to Wales, and James found that after the initial pang of loss, he didn’t really miss Harry at all.

He wondered if that meant there was something wrong with him, that nobody ever cared to stay long enough to want to stay forever.

“Well I think you should get married and have lots of babies so I can have lots of siblings,” Alex announced decisively, breaking him out of his maudlin thoughts.

“Duly noted.” James leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Time to get some sleep. I love you very much. Even if it’s just you and me forever, I’ll never be disappointed with our life.”

A hint of a smile flashed across her lips, and she leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Love you, too. Nighty night.”

He carefully slid off the mattress and tugged the blankets up to her shoulders. Alex grabbed them and hugged them tight to her chest, cocooning herself in their comfort, as she wriggled into the warm spot left behind by his body. He stroked her hair, brushing it away from her face, and moved to exit her room. On the way, he gave K9 a quick scratch behind his ears.

“Good boy. Keep her safe. Chase away her scary dreams.”

The dog snuffled, as though understanding his nightly assignment, and curled up on the floor in a way that he faced the door. James smiled fondly, and left.

He went back to the kitchen and sat with his computer at the table to get a few things finished for his class for the following morning. He proofread the algebra worksheets he’d be giving his students, and triple-checked that he knew how to do all of the practice problems correctly without looking at his notes.

However, the lessons review took longer than he would have liked because he kept getting distracted with the conversation he’d had with Alex. This wasn’t the first time she’d inquired about having siblings—and it probably wouldn’t be the last—but it was the first time she’d expressed such displeasure at being an only child.

Truthfully, James had never considered fatherhood until it had been thrust upon him unceremoniously. While she had turned out to be the best gift of his life, his daughter hadn’t exactly been planned. Though he’d flourished in fatherhood, his child would be hard-pressed to get a sibling, as his dating life over the past almost-decade had been non-existent apart from impersonal hookups on occasion. Even those had cooled in recent years.

Blowing out a tense breath, James stood up, not in the mood to do any more lesson prep, knowing his focus was finished for the night. Instead, he meandered to his bedroom and the locked briefcase he kept in the back of his closet beside his locked safe of sex toys that were surely covered in dust and cobwebs for how infrequently they were used nowadays.

He grabbed the briefcase and flicked the dial to reflect the correct number combination, and popped open the case. It was where he kept all important legal documents for himself and Alex, but at the very bottom of the stack was a small stash of near-pristine photographs. He picked them up, handling them gingerly as though his mere touch would ruin them, and began to leaf through them.

The top-most photograph had been taken by a helpful nurse on the morning of Alex’s birth. James smiled at the sight of his pink, wrinkly, furious-looking baby. Her brows were knitted and her little lips were puckered into a frown, as though she couldn’t believe the audacity of the universe to force her into existence.

At the time this photograph had been taken, James hadn’t yet held Alex. His baby was instead resting on her mother’s chest.

James’s eyes wandered to the wild-haired woman cradling Alex to her breast. River. Part of James balked to refer to River as Alex’s mother, because what kind of mother abandoned her newborn child without a word, without an explanation. What kind of mother walked away and never looked back? James hadn’t heard from River in the nine and a half years she’d been gone; he didn’t even know if she was still alive.

He forced his long-held resentment at bay, knowing that River’s leaving was probably for the best. If she’d stayed, James knew in his heart of hearts their relationship never would have lasted. It would have crumbled to ash, and River would have gotten primary custody of their daughter—James would’ve been lucky to see his child on a weekly basis. He couldn’t imagine not having Alex every day, not tucking her into bed every night and hearing her say, “Nighty night, Daddy. I love you.”

A physical ache lodged somewhere behind his ribs until he reminded himself that he did have Alex with him, and always would. No, despite the initial terror and pain of abandonment, things had worked out for the best. Still, despite knowing he was better off without River, sometimes he yearned for the comfort of being with someone he was familiar with; he could always lose himself in her, for better or worse. Nobody ever talked about how lonely it was being a single parent; it was always about how hard it was to be the sole caretaker of a young child, or how rewarding the joy of parenthood was. And it was hard, and rewarding, but it was also incredibly isolating. There weren’t many opportunities to go out and meet people; or, if he did get a chance to go out, it was usually to take Alex on a playdate, where he would hang out with other parents who all seemed to be happily married or otherwise taken.

How did people do this, go on dates? Sure, he’d gone on plenty of dates when he’d been an unencumbered bachelor, but that had been at university, where he’d been surrounded by other horny young adults looking for a bit of fun. It was almost as if that part of his life had been lived by someone else. Someone with charm and charisma, someone without a care in the world, who didn’t know the meaning of responsibility even if it smacked him in the face.

It had been so easy back then. He had made dozens of friends from sheer proximity, had been invited to loads of parties where it was no trouble at all to drunkenly make out with whomever caught his fancy that night. No strings attached.

But now, he found, he wanted some strings. Now that he’d begun fixating on Alex’s of question about whether he wanted to get married, he couldn’t stop. What would it be like, knowing there was someone he could come home to, could fix dinner with, could share the household chores with? How comforting would it be to know there was someone with whom he could share all of his secrets and fears and dreams?

The thought of this mysterious figment of his imagination lodged a lump in his throat that he had a hard time swallowing down.

James cursed, frustrated with and sorry for himself. He replaced the photographs—all of which featured the long-lost River Song—back into his briefcase, before returning it to his closet, once again locking his past firmly away. He was luckier than most. He had a wonderful child, a stable job, and a nice (albeit small) home. And a dog. How could he possibly want anything more than that?

Damn Alex and her questions. And damn himself for getting stuck on this train of thought. He was a twenty-nine-year-old single father, and being a father would always come first. He would never trade his child for anyone, not even if the universe would guarantee him his perfect soulmate in exchange. Alex was his life’s greatest achievement, his greatest gift, his greatest joy. But dating as a single dad was hard. Most people weren’t exactly content to be second-best in a relationship, because that’s what they would be. His daughter would take priority, and there was no compromising that.

If only there was a way to advertise up front what his expectations were in a relationship, he lamented.

That thought brought him pause. Advertise…

He lived in the twenty-first century, didn’t he? He had the entire internet at his disposal, humankind at the tips of his fingers.

Before he could lose his nerve, James grabbed his phone from his pocket to send a message to one of his oldest friends. “Hypothetically, if one were to sign up for a dating app, which app should one choose?”

He should have known better than to think this entire conversation could be a text thread. Barely a minute after he sent the message, his phone buzzed in his palm with an incoming call: Jack Harkness.

With a heavy exhale, James flopped onto his couch and accepted the call.

“Doth mine eyes deceive me, or is James McCrimmon actually trying to get laid?”

James rolled his eyes, even as a ghost of a grin pulled up the corners of his mouth. “Good evening to you, too, Jack. And it was a hypothetical scenario, remember?”

“Well, hypothetically, I think you’re looking for a shag.”

“No,” James said with more patience than his friend probably deserved, “I’m just, y’know, entertaining the possibility of going out on a date. Getting to know someone. That’s all.”

“Getting to know someone biblically?”

“Jack!”

His friend laughed boisterously on the other end of the phone. “All right, all right. You’ll want to avoid Tinder then. Loads of horny people on that app. I assume you’re not looking to shag on the first date? You haven’t done that since uni.”

James’s cheeks and ears heated a bit. “Well, I’m not opposed to it, if there’s chemistry. But I’d prefer to meet someone who’s interested in a long-term relationship. I don’t want any quick, meaningless flings. I want, well, I want a partner. And I want someone who knows how important Alex is to me, and who accepts that and won’t try to change it.”

“I hear you loud and clear.”

Jack then launched into a ten-minute spiel about the various dating apps James could try, as well as providing his opinion on which ones would probably work best for what James was looking for. James digested all of the information as it poured out of his friend’s mouth, making a mental list of pros and cons for the recommended apps.

Once his app of choice was downloaded onto his phone, James continued speaking to Jack for advice on how to best advertise himself.

“I’m a man, interested in any gender, looking for… why can’t I click both friendship and serious relationship?” James asked as he set up his profile. “I’d like to be friends with my future partner. Doesn’t everyone want to be friends with the person they’re dating?”

“Funnily enough, it often doesn’t cross peoples’ minds to be friends with their significant other,” Jack drawled. “Not like you can talk; you and River were just fuck buddies.”

James bristled a bit, even though Jack wasn’t exactly wrong. But there was a bit more nuance to it. At least that’s what James always told himself. “We were friendly enough. We appreciated each other’s company to keep seeing each other throughout our days at uni. And we shared enough fondness for one another that we moved in when we learned of the pregnancy.”

“Well, yeah, ‘cos you’re a decent guy,” Jack argued. “Anyone else would’ve scampered away and refused to acknowledge that they’d ever had sex with the girl they’d knocked up. You know, it’s funny… you did the stereotypically “woman” thing by doing the best by your child and staying for her, while River did the stereotypically “man” thing by swanning off to God knows where.”

“Wasn’t very funny from where I was sitting,” James grumbled.

“You know I didn’t mean it like haha-funny. Peculiar-funny is what I meant. You know I was furious with River, too.”

James sighed and rubbed the heel of his hands into his eyes. “Yeah, I know. Thanks. But we’re getting sidetracked. I’m just gonna click that I’m looking for something serious. Oh Jesus, how do I describe myself in five hundred characters or less?!”

“Hmm, let’s see… Single dad looking for a life partner but will show you a good time too. Flaming hot sexy teacher who would be down for some kinky roleplay…”

“I’m trying not to attract one-night stands, thanks,” James interrupted. “Shut up and let me think.”

It was more difficult than it should have been, but after a few minutes of typing, deleting, and editing, James finally read out his profile bio: “I’m interested in finding a romantic partner. I’m a single dad of a beautiful nine-year-old girl who is my whole world. We like to play board games together and take walks with our dog. She likes to experiment in the kitchen, so we’re always cooking and baking. We love to travel, and we make a point of visiting a city we’ve never been to on school holidays. We also enjoy quieter pastimes of visiting museums or art galleries. If any of this appeals to you, send me a message.”

James knew he’d done something wrong by the series of impatient sighs Jack let out the longer he rattled off his information.

“As delightful as Alex is, people want to date you, not your daughter,” Jack said, exasperated.

Face heating, James skimmed back over what he’d written and mumbled, “Well, it’s all true. I can help it. Alex is my life.”

“I know she is,” Jack said softly. “But you know you’re allowed to have a life apart from your child, right?”

“Pfft. Nobody ever told me that.” James groaned and scrubbed his hands down his face. “It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless. I’m nearly thirty and have no bloody idea how to get somebody to go on a date with me. I can’t even figure out online dating.”

“You’re a perfect catch for someone,” his friend soothed. “But to find that someone, we need to tailor your profile a little bit. I’m not saying to cut out all mentions of Alex, because your future partner should know how seriously you take this fatherhood thing. But you need to put more of yourself into it. Believe it or not, you’re a pretty great person. I have no regrets from our twelve-year friendship.”

Jack’s words did little to quell the acid churning through James’s gut. “Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe I should, I dunno, join a chess club and meet someone that way.”

“No no no, don’t give up yet,” Jack cajoled. “We can figure this out. There’s got to be someone on this damp little island who wants to fall in love with your ridiculously big heart and shag your clever little brains out. Let’s think: you’re dead clever and dead sexy. You know how to have a good time but can also enjoy a lazy day in. You’re a devoted dad and are eager to bring someone else into your tight-knit family unit. You’re looking for friendship and companionship with your romance.”

James hurriedly typed out all of Jack’s suggestions as he said them until they were hindered by the character count limit. They then spent time tweaking the phrasing and descriptions of the main aspects of James’s personality so that all of his strengths were put on clear display in a neat, concise bio.

“Oh bugger, I don’t have any photos of myself,” James muttered when he moved forward in his profile creation. “My phone is full of Alex, or she’s in all the photos with me.”

“That’s fine, as long as your face is there too. And not half out of frame.”

“No, I just… I don’t want my nine-year-old daughter’s face on an app meant for adults to find companionship in every definition of the word. What if some creep sees her and takes an interest and hacks my account and finds her and…”

James knew he was spiraling into an anxiety attack about something that had such a microscopic chance of happening, but he couldn’t help but think of one of his students last year, who had gone through the tribulations of a criminal trial because she’d been sexually abused by someone in her neighborhood.

“James, breathe,” Jack instructed, his voice firm but kind. “Let me send you some photos. Take a look, and see if you’re comfortable with them. Grab a glass of wine or something in the meantime.”

James did indeed pour himself a healthy measure of wine as he waited for whatever Jack was coming up with. To assuage his still-racing heart, James shuffled down the hall and poked his head into Alex’s room. She was safely in her bed, her blankets pulled up to her chin, her breathing deep and slow. His muscles unclenched, and he felt like he could breathe easily again.

“You still there?” Jack’s voice was faint from the living room, and James hurried back.

“Yeah, I’m here. What did you do?”

“Take a look. I texted you something.”

James set his wine on the coffee table and picked up his phone to look at his messages. Jack had sent him six photos. Alex was in four of them, and in each of those, he’d covered her face with a cartoonish image of a smiling orange flower in sunglasses.

“I didn’t even think of doing that,” James said sheepishly.

“I figured. Does that help?”

“Yeah. Loads. Thanks, Jack.”

James uploaded the photos, and hovered with his thumb overtop the publish profile button. “Do you… do you really think this will work?”

“I think it will work if you want it to work,” Jack answered. “Relationships take time and effort. You may find a few bad eggs along the way, but when you find some good ones, you need to make the effort to get to know them. This isn’t a magical fix. It’s just a way to stream-line conversation.”

James nodded. “Yeah. I’ll keep that in mind. Well. Here it goes.”

He held his breath, and pressed the button. The screen faded a little for a few seconds, before brightening back up with his new, shiny dating profile. Along with it, the app began showing him a rotating pool of potential matches for him. However, his brain was fried and he didn’t think he had the energy to read anyone else’s profile tonight. He closed the app and set his phone on his chest as he once again slouched into his couch.

He was about to work on ending the conversation with Jack when his friend asked, “If you don’t mind, why the sudden urge to start dating?”

James sighed. “I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.”

“You’re not middle-aged, so it’s more of a third-life crisis, but go on.”

James told Jack about Alex’s behavior at bedtime, and how upset she was that she didn’t have siblings, which led to him reevaluating what he wanted from life.

“I’m lonely,” he said at the end of his explanation. “I love my daughter with every fiber of my being, but…”

“But it’s not the same as having adult companionship,” Jack finished gently. “I get it. It’s okay, you know. You can be content with your life on the whole, but still wish for more.”

“It’s hard for me to acknowledge that without it feeling like I’m somehow displeased with Alex. Or I feel guilty because I’m admitting she’s not enough, when she is. Or I feel like I shouldn’t complain about my lot in life because I have the most perfect daughter in the world.”

“Well, you’re a bit biased on that assessment,” Jack teased. “But she is rather great, isn’t she?”

“The best,” James agreed. Then he let out a huge yawn. “Blimey, we’ve been chatting for an hour and a half. I should get to bed.”

“Yeah, me too. Give my love to Alex. When can Yan and I see her next? Wanna come over for dinner on Friday to celebrate the first week of school?”

“That sounds great. Thanks. We’ll bring dessert, as usual.”

“Perfect. See you then. Goodnight.”

James ended the call, then chugged the last of the wine in his glass before shuffling off to bed. When he stepped into his bedroom, though, a surprise waited for him: Alex was tucked under the blankets, and K9 was sprawled on the floor beside her.

Odd—he hadn’t heard her leave her room, and he’d just checked on her a half hour ago. James approached his daughter and pressed the backs of his fingers to her forehead, fearing an illness had drawn her to the comfort of his room. But her skin wasn’t any warmer than it ought to be.

She stirred at his touch, her eyelids lazily fluttering open. She blinked blearily, her gaze unfocused.

“Hiya, darling,” he whispered, kneeling in front of her. “You feel okay?”

“Marchin’ in the fields,” Alex slurred. “Keep up.”

James suppressed a chuckle as her eyes slid closed again. He stroked her hair away from her face, concluding that nothing more than sleepwalking—a habit she’d had since toddlerhood and was ever-so-slowly growing out of—had brought her to his bed. James left her where she was; she’d mosey back to her room if she wanted to.

Silently, he changed into pajamas, washed his face, and brushed his teeth before climbing into bed. Alex remained dead asleep, curled on her side facing away from him. His heart clenched with a flood of affection, and he leaned over to kiss the back of her head.

“Good night, sweetheart. Daddy loves you.”

[cyle]

Would you guys consider flipping the layout to the right side instead of the left (as well as making it collapsible)? I think part of the irritation of users comes from the fact that it looks almost identical to Twitter rather than being it’s own thing. Plus, we’re used to the drop downs appearing on the right. Recommended blogs and featured posts would have to be moved somewhere else, not sure where though. Just throwing a thought I had stewing in my brain.

Also, have you guys considered an opt out button to see what % of users opt out of the new design? Even if it’s temporary/for testing purposes, it could be interesting to test what % of old vs new users prefer the old UI!

making it collapsible is already coming, please read the announcement post. flipping it to the right side is not an option, sorry. i think we tried that in an early version and it didn't work well; there are other submenus already on the right side on a lot of pages, and reorganizing things even more would be difficult. just taking the main nav from the top right to the left sidebar was enough for now.

we are not going to make an "opt out". judging by the number of people i'm seeing comment on the new layout and talk about user scripts to revert to the old layout, i'd be surprised if more than 1% to 5% of people using desktop web regularly would actually opt out. this is exactly why we don't try to block user scripts or browser extensions like XKit -- they're for the people who want that level of control.

i don't think folks can really understand just how many people use tumblr and how this layout is actually significantly better for the vast majority of us. that's not to say hating it and wanting it to go back to the way it was is invalid -- of course that's valid -- but we're trying to do the most effective work we can for the most people, given our constraints. sometimes we make mistakes, but this time i feel very confident saying this change wasn't a mistake.

i hope in six months or a year from now people are making memes about the old layout like they do about all kinds of changes that are difficult in the short term but made sense over time.

[a-caterpillars-world]

So. I finished Homestuck.

Reading Homestuck in 2024, over a decade since it started, was definitely an experience. There was a lot that i was spoiled for, but a lot that took me by surprise, even though "spoilers" are just about everywhere. I'm glad I was able to go in blind, there's a lot that wouldn't have felt nearly as impactful had i known about it beforehand. I'm not great at just directionless rambling, so I'll organize it in the form of an FAQ of a sort, under a read more since I'm expecting this to be a longer post.

Did you enjoy yourself?

Honestly, yes. I know Homestuck has a kind of negative reputation, and now that I've finished I can certainly see where it comes from, but even considering all of that I can't say I had a bad time. I think Homestuck has a lot to love, even if there's also a lot to hate. Personally I think there's several elements and characters of Homestuck that deserve a better rep, there was a lot I read that was very funny or very narratively compelling even through all the obvious flaws. I had a good time, I don't regret picking up Homestuck.

Do you plan to read anything else related to Homestuck (eg Homestuck 2)?

Maybe! I'm not entirely sure how much I'm missing out on, or how much the various side stories impact the main canon. If one of them seems particularly interesting to me, I'll look into it, but right now I'm good. I'm not even entirely sure how deep the Homestuck rabbit hole goes, though I suppose I could look it up and find out for myself.

Do you have any favorites/what do you think about [character]?

This is a hard question to answer, as Homestuck is a series with a loooot of characters to talk about. If you want to know a more in-depth opinion on your favorites, send me an ask! I love conversation and even since I started my liveblog I've been open to asks being sent in even if we've never spoken. Maybe I'll make a tierlist to organize my favorites, that could be fun.

Should I read Homestuck?

It depends. Homestuck can be a very good and interesting story at times, but a lot of what makes it a great story is hidden behind layers of questionable-at-best humor and casual ableism. I think if you can approach it as it is and understand the flaws inherent to it, it's definitely worth at least checking out. And then if it isn't for you, then it isn't for you, but it did end up being for me so take it as you will. Even if you're just looking at it as a part of internet and webcomic history, I think it's not a waste of time to give it a read. Via the downloadable archive though, not the browser version. Homestuck suffered greatly from the death of Flash, so it's best to read on a version that can better support all the unique elements it utilized without much risk of it crapping out on you (like it did to me, in several key points including the finale.) I also recommend reading with a friend, preferably one who's read Homestuck before so you can talk about things as they come up naturally.

Final thoughts

Homestuck is a fascinating piece of internet history. It's a near-perfect capture of the humor and culture of the late 2000s and early 2010s, largely dependent on a web service that is now entirely defunct. Were it not for the actions of archivists and fans, it's entirely likely we could've lost massive chunks of an incredible piece of webcomic and fandom history. It certainly isn't for everyone, its flaws have been talked about with regularity by essayists and internet historians with the whole spectrum of opinions on it. Even with its flaws, though, it still puts together a quite lovely story, with several compelling characters and scenes that grab your attention and hold it tight. Not only do I not regret reading it, but I completely understand how Homestuck created such a storm of a fandom especially when it was being actively updated. I'm glad I read it, in the end. It brought me a lot of joy in the best moments, and even at the times when I was most frustrated with the story I can't say there was ever a point where it was too much for me. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to check on the liveblog, whether you're one of my friends or a stranger checking in from the Homestuck fandom. It has certainly been an interesting ride, and I'm glad that I got to take it, even if I am in fact several years late to the party. Until next time, everyone!

[stevetown]

On The New Tumblr Desktop Dash

I've been using the new Tumblr desktop dashboard for a few days now and I have some Thoughts that I thought would be useful to put out in to the wild. Most of the reaction I've seen has been...abnormally harsh about this UI update, so I think it would be interesting to actually go through the changes and point out what I like, what I don't, what I think could use some improvement, and maybe break down a little about why those Twitter comparisons are way off the mark.

More below the fold, but the tldr for me is - I think it's great! At the end of the day, I feel like I use the desktop version of Tumblr more and more since the change. Whereas before I used to just pick up my phone and refresh the app, now I get a hit of dopamine flipping over to the Tumblr tab when I need a work break.

The change is clean and logical, and as someone who came to Tumblr a year ago and still never quite grokked what all the icons at the top meant, having them spelled out is much nicer than guessing what they mean, even for someone who has become more familiar with the site. And to be clear, from what I can tell that's the goal of this change - to make it easier for newer people to use Tumblr and find their way around. Despite all the hate this change is getting, that is an unabashedly good thing.

The Left Nav

It's really, really clean. The old dash had a lot of unused space on the left, it makes sense to carve some of that out to have a menu that actually lays out what each icon means. The font size and style is comfortable without overcrowding. It just feels more...confident? Like these are the features Tumblr has. Use them! It's also just a more familiar web browser experience for anyone who has been using web apps since the dawn of email.

The badges also fit much nicer with the left nav. They don't float above an unclear icon, they're right next to what it says on the tin. You got 20 new posts to read, buddy. 5 new notifications. 1 anon ask. It's just better on my eyes.

I do understand the gut reaction that things are "too" cluttered. One of the first things I did was snooze Tumblr live and that helped me out a lot. Just removing all of the noise of live tags and loading-in thumbnails of people I'm not interested in watching went very far. It brought the post content further up on the screen.

A little before and after snoozing Live:

Explore

I didn't even know what Explore was used for before. It was a compass icon. I think I thought it was some kind of search? I can't remember if I ever clicked on it before. Explore is much more interesting to me. It makes me curious. For a site that struggles with getting new users to find new content, it's a beacon that says "Find some cool new stuff!"

My problem with Explore is that clicking on it...doesn't get me much. The landing page just takes me to a feed from @todayontumblr that almost never has any content that I'm interested in. The "For You" tab on my regular dash is where I go mining for new blogs, along with "Your Tags." If Staff finds this change leads to more Explore click-throughs, I'd love if the tab itself get some love and made it a hub for finding new content easier. Maybe mixing up a feed of any tags you're following, trending posts, and other algorithmically sorted goodies that I'll want to take off the shelf and put in my chronological dash. I want it to be a place with the goal of encouraging me to follow new blogs.

Live

The transition to the Live page doesn't feel good to me. You're taken to a totally different kind of page, and the UI jumps all the way to the left. It feels like you're going to a separate site. At least when you snooze Live it also removes the menu item. That's really nice! But I'll save Live thoughts for another day.

Activity/Messages/Inbox

I never knew how much I suspected these things were a bit redundant, but I'm glad now that they're separated and labeled correctly. I don't have to remember what the face icon/mail/lightning bolt all mean or why they're different. Things are much cleaner in that regard.

I don't really care for the popups when you click on them. Those do feel cluttered to me, like I'm going to lose sight of my dash, or the notifications. I don't have much UX advice here, other than to say I think I prefer how the Inbox is handled, where you're just taken to a full page view of the page. However maybe another solution would be how the Account and Settings icons are conducted...

Account/Settings

This is the section that sold me on the new dash. On the old dash, I found navigating the Account and Settings options...ephemeral. I was afraid I was going to lose my place if I didn't find the menu I needed. Here, having them slide out as a drawer, keeps me in place and lets me orient myself easier. It's made exploring settings overall frictionless. I've changed dash palettes like ten different times just because I could and it was easy to find. Maybe something similar for inbox/messages/activity would make the UI feel more consistent and less overcluttered-feeling?

I do notice that the Account dropdown adds a new scrollbar which makes things like the t logo and badges jump to the left. That can be a bit disorienting.

TumblrMart/Get a Domain

The Get a Domain menu item is fine, but TumblrMart feels like it needs some love. On a new refresh, clicking the icon loads for a total six seconds before the mart pops up. By this point, if I wasn't intentionally testing, I would have just moved on. Again, I also just don't like pop-ups like this. Feels loosey. Much prefer the full-spread domain page you get.

Create

This is maybe my least favorite change. Every time I switch to my Tumblr tab, I see it in the bottom left and think it's the "Where were we?" button. When I do want to create a post, it feels like I have to travel far to get to the button, and then I have to travel again when the dots come up to select what type of post I'm making.

I wonder if just tucking it at the bottom of the menu under "Get a domain" would be better? Or at the top of the menu? Not sure. I feel in my jellies there's a better spot for this one.

On Twitter

If I can address the most frequent criticism I see on this site, which is that @staff are trying hard to "ruin" Tumblr by "turning it into Twitter," I understand that gut reaction.

But I'd encourage folks to think about that for a minute. UIs change, and a left-aligned nav is extremely common for a reason. Since the dawn of email, menu navigation has been relegated to a left sidebar. Twitter is not "burning to the ground" because their nav bar was on the left. Having a left sidebar means literally nothing in the grand scheme of what makes a website what it is.

What, truly, has this nav update changed? It does not change the functionality of the site at its core at all. It doesn't change what you can post, how you can post, what content you find, reblogs, or tags. For a site that struggles with new users "getting" the site and finding their way around, this nav change makes it much easier to settle in with something a bit more ubiquitous to the modern browser-viewing experience.

Thus leading me to believe the only reason people hate on this change so vehemently is they don't want to see new users or any effort at all to attract them at all, and I think that's exclusionary crap. Knock it off.

Change is Scary!

That said, the change is scary! Having your muscle memory interrupted isn't fun and can take a while to get used to. Every change has a growing period. I get that. For me, I got over that period fairly fast, but I recognize this process is different for everyone, especially those who have been around here for a lot longer than I have.

The change is also open for valid criticism. There are usability and likely accessibility concerns for sure. Staff needs time to iterate, and they need to know what problems are actually worth fixing and addressing. "I hate it turn it back" doesn't help anyone - it doesn't help Staff, and it doesn't help new users who are trying find a new place on the internet to call home after *shakes fist at the rest of the internet.*

I really like this change as a starting point, and I can't wait to see it iterated on further.

And on a small end note, if you also have thoughts and opinions that you want to tell Staff, please, please, please remember there are other human beings on the other end of line.

[transsexula]

I hate that people are pushing AI art with the Common reasoning behind it being "art is so expensive and inaccessible to get into :("

While this CAN be true (see: marble sculpting, machine sewing, etc) this isn't the entire case.

You can find yarn at Thrift shops. You can find knitting/crochet needles and hooks at Thrift shops. You can get a $5 hand sewing kit that will last a very long time. All you really need is a couple different needle options, a thimble if you want to save ur fingers, and a ripped piece of clothing.

All you need to paint is cheap paints. Will they last long? Depends how you treat it. Keep ur eyes open for sales coupons and discounts. If you're dedicated to learning the craft, you can do as I did saving quarters and dollars that I didn't use for food and basic necessities to save up for mediocre art supplies and paper to practice my skills between shifts.

Like..... I don't want to take away how hard art can be when you are disabled. I know from experience that if you don't have energy, you don't have energy. If you're in pain, that comes first.

But even then. We have tools to make things easier. There's wrist supports of all sorts, there's tutorials on making things like yarn work more accessible. There's predictive correction for drawing software now! Sometimes it's AI, but not the kind that's stealing your artwork. Its the kind that reads your movements and cleans up the jitters in the linework for you.

There's so much out there!!!! Art is more accessible than ever!!!!! Hell if you have a half decent laptop blender still offers older versions of their software!!!! You don't need a top of the line computer to do that!!!!! Don't have a computer??? Obviously you must have a phone or other device to log into apps on!!! Download a free sculpting app. Download a flip-book animator. Use an online web browser based art tool. Put thought and care and love into your piece. Throw that shit together hastily. Idc but it will be better than trying to type out prompts till the machine gives you something close to what you want.

[sootonthecarpet]

hate how just looking at things online is like an inherently loaded economic and political choice now. do I want to familiarize myself with what the bigots that endanger my country are saying by checking out primary sources? I'm giving them 'clicks', boosting their ratings and potentially encouraging an algorithm to share their content more widely.

if I go to watch them speak on youtube they may make money directly off of this. if I download an ad blocker to get around this, I am taking away money from small time marginalized creators if I watch any of their videos without disabling it. if I want to read a news article that implies people like me are less than human, I have to accept that I am giving them the positive feedback of my engagement JUST by clicking on the link. depending how I am serviced this link (such as through an automated rec feed that came bundled with a default web browser) I run the risk of reinforcing to my personal device that I would like to be served more links from news sites that run stories implying people like me are less than human, rather than that every few months I will grudgingly observe bigotry with the intention of better guarding myself against it in the future.

every decision I make to look at or avoid something on most major websites, especially news, video platforms, and any social media site but tumblr, has to take into account not just "do I want to have seen this" but "do I want to concretely make this thing more popular and/or leave a trail of stored information registering me as somebody who wants to observe this thing?" I'm not on tiktok (I don't even log in to youtube) but the way the algorithm there works, prioritizing content you spend the most time looking at (or perhaps unable to look away from?) rather than content you mark yourself as 'liking', is something right out of one of my paranoid delusions.

the push for a more profitable internet is one of the driving forces behind our online panopticon and I've seen very little discussion about how this like. automatically makes the very basic act of trying to get context on the way bigots who want you dead are drumming up support into an action of direct support for bigots. yes, I know there are adblocks and archived page versions and all kinds of clever little workarounds. but when did we need a workaround to be able to see with our eyes without funding nazis? I could, let's say, walk into a library and pull a copy of mein kampf off the shelf and skim through it where I stood without having at any point provided money, validation, or a 'boost' in publicity to nazis active in my country, and potentially without anyone else becoming aware that I am reading a copy of mein kampf. if I wanna read a fox article because I know they're a wildly popular news network that has been on the cutting edge of american bigotry my whole life? I have validated fox news's siterunners with my pageview, left an enormous digital paper trail, potentially encouraged my device to show me more fox news articles, and potentially provided fox news with ad revenue they can use to more efficiently spread their dangerous lies and half-truths.

faced with meaningful and legitimate calls to de-platform hateful voices on an immediate interpersonal level, and sentiments like 'here are screenshots/wayback links, please don't give them the clicks' as the only pushback against this constant tracking and leveraging of our viewership (to say nothing of how often content creators rely on widespread outrage and hatewatching to gain engagement that their fans alone could never provide, and the subsequent pleas to avoid watching any bigoted content whatsoever lest you fall prey to their outrage marketing), the logical choice in the absence of someone else offering an easy workaround begins to look like self imposed ignorance and isolation; unless we have a great degree of computer literacy, or hacker friends with the same who can handhold us through our entire online presence, we are forced to either resort to knowingly funding bigots (and potentially marking ourselves as one), or to refusing to arm ourselves with knowledge altogether. YEAUGHHH 💢

[marquiskurtrambles]

I've been kind of cheating on Safari

Well, I guess "kind of" is an understatement, though irrelevant. I've been using Vivaldi (Vivaldi.com) again for the past few weeks as my default browser on macOS, and I'm pretty pleased with how it functions, especially compared to the very first version I used back in 2017. I also used it sparingly in recently as my Chromium browser for compatibility, but never as my main browser.

Besides the deep level of customization the browser offers, I'm overall pleased with some of its other features like web panels, the built-in mail client and reading list, and tab tiling/stacking. The built-in RSS reader is nice, too, since that means one less app to manage (though I do like NetNewsWire a lot). It felt kind of fun again to use the browser and make it feel like Safari from a parallel universe.

That's not to say that I hate Safari or think any less of it; in fact, I'm still pretty content with Safari and its deep integration with iOS and macOS. iCloud Keychain and the share menu, for example, aren't present in Vivaldi for macOS just yet. Likewise, compared to Mail.app on my Mac, the email client doesn't do things exactly as I expect, but I've adapted. Finally, Vivaldi isn't available on iOS yet, which is a shame; that said, I do hope it comes to iOS, especially for the iPad.

And, finally, I obviously had to get the merch.

[randomstarmuffin]

My @runefactorysecretsanta​ gift for ya_boi_nye is finally done!! Hope I did your favorite characters justice!! :)

Happy holidays!!!! I don’t want to take up too much room so I’m going to throw some rambling and extras under the cut lol

So I don’t think nye has a tumblr, but on their twitter i saw that they were into VTube and youtaite and i wanted to incorporate that in their gift somehow. Unfortunately.... the characters are kind of all already anime??? So drawing-wise, i figured it would be more fun to go with a more general YouTuber AU so I could put in some variety rather than just stills of singing or badly rendered 3D models (by which i am throwing shade on myself alone, VTube rigs are sick but i regrettably have no 3D skills lol)

I’ve actually,,, never played Frontier at all, so I apologize if anyone is wildly out of character!! The wiki is extremely sparse and I didn’t have time to watch too too much of the let’s play i found, so if they’re not right just chalk it up to the YouTuber ~performance~ aspect of this AU lmao.

Even though I’ve never played before and don’t know the characters Super well though, I still had a lot of fun thinking about this AU! If you want to know the specifics of everyone’s content:

Anette does parkour (fun facts, this particular move i drew is called a speed vault!) and a little bit of vlogging, and she’s friends with Erik (as in canon, if I did my research correctly lmao). She sometimes appears on his channel and vice versa, and he helps her film and edit and stuff sometimes. She lives and works with Mist and Rosetta and helps out with their online boutique. Mist is the idea woman who comes up with crazy stuff, Rosetta is the realist and bookkeeper who pulls those ideas together into something feasible and profitable, and Anette handles all the packaging and shipments and stuff! There’s always something weird going on in their apartment and everyone ends up there a lot, so some of Anette’s vlogs get really popular just because of how out there they are lmao. Oh, almost forgot, but her channel is “DeliveryIsFreestyle” bc... get it... free delivery... freestyle parkour / freerunning... Lol actually it was almost going to be “RunTheMail” because i couldn’t think of anything at first so i think this was the right move in the end :P

Erik has a gaming channel where he mostly plays farming and dating sims / otome, and we don’t read too far into whether or not RF exists in this universe for him to play even though I put the posters for frontier on his wall xD. The reason I picked Stardew for this thumbnail specifically is because A) I have it and could easily take screenshots and B) i read that he has a crush on Lara? And she’s like, kind of a nurse? And Maru is kind of a nurse? It’s a silly joke but I thought it would be funny to cockblock him from dating a nurse he has his eyes on even in video gaming with his friends lol. His channel is pretty self-explanatory (I was really hoping his farm would have a fun name when i was looking it up but it’s really just “Erik’s Farm” huh? ...but I probably shouldn’t judge, my dnd character’s wolf is named Wolf xD)

Lute paints!! I think he does a lot of speedpaints and mostly does traditional art, but I think he would have some digital skills hidden up his sleeve as well. And also I don’t know why at all bc I know the least about him out of all 4 of them, but I feel like he has done / does some of those like “how to draw anime” videos because I just think that’s funny. He has a bunch of really popular ones about overly complicated fantasy outfits. No this is not a callout for any series in particular why do you ask? Anyway, I’m not sure exactly how the line goes because I couldn’t find it, but the wiki mentions that he’ll say he’s not doing anything suspicious when he’s painting at the lake, so i thought it would be funny if there’s some kind of running gag with his subscribers where they point out suspicious things he does and he responds in the next video or whatever. The thumbnail I made definitely does just have a screenshot of rff that’s color-corrected and blurred, because I ran out of time but also wanted to differentiate the bg from the canvas ^^;  His channel was originally just “lute” in all lowercase but then i got to the part of the let’s play where he was introduced and he calls himself a “fledgling painter” so i thought this was more fun.

And Eunice has a cooking channel!! She specializes in baking, but she also has a whole playlist along the lines of “Nutritious Food Can Still Taste Good!” where she talks about healthy eating habits but doesn’t buy into diet culture bc I personally HATE diet culture lmao. I think when that gets popular, she also maybe does a side thing about easily accessible workouts for all sorts of people who want to get into shape? But with a focus on getting stronger / being active and Not a focus on Losing Weight necessarily. Promoter of healthy and happy living! I know how her events / dialogue can go in the game, i just happen to have Opinions About Things, so, that’s how she is in my version. Also, unrelated, but she’s very cute. Even though her braids were a bitch to draw hahaha. And i did end up drawing her just in her actual outfit even though i gave everyone else different clothes bc idk it just felt like it fit the aesthetic of a cooking vlog well?? And it’s not a super complicated one unlike others i could mention. Her channel is “Charming Sweets” and her cooking series is “My Cooking” because those are the titles of the books she has on her bookshelf at the start of the game :)

But that’s just all of *my* headcanons for the AU! If anyone else who knows them all better has their own ideas, please be my guest and imagine it however you like!!

Oh, also, fun facts, this is partially a screenshot of my actual web browser, lol, so if y’all want to know what all I have saved on my bookmarks bar and what my google profile pic is, now you know. However, i would like to not downplay how long i spent editing this in what was possibly the least efficient way to put it together how i wanted, rip, which is entirely the reason i am posting this so late LOL. Apologies for the delay, but technically it’s still the 27th here, so! Victory!

(speaking of the layout, did anyone catch the url? I’m disproportionately proud of the url. though i won’t lie part of me really wanted to put the rick roll url there just for my own amusement hahaha)

And, yeah! That’s the end of my spiel. Happy end-of-2020 to all, and an extra helping of that sentiment to nye!!!

[kikoqueenofrats]

TW mention of injury and bruises

Hey so remember when I said I’d post the fic if people gave the post enough attention?

Yeah I decided I didn’t need that and went ahead anyways-

So yeah, enjoy stick oc shenanigan's- 

Also @toastraccoon​ Because she let me rant about my two idiots and now they’re getting a story because of her-

Also yes this is gonna be in multiple parts-

It was just an average day for Mari. 

They were currently exploring a new desktop they had stumbled into. Like they always did, keeping an eye out for any user activity as humans usually didn't like seeing stick figures randomly appearing on their computer.

Mari had to stay alert at all times incase they were discovered, so they could leave the computer immediately after.

They checked the screen to see if the user of this computer was still asleep...yup, the poor guy had probably been working on some sort of writing project before Mari had stumbled in but now they were completely out of it, so Mari currently had free reign of the computer.

Well as free as they could be without completely wrecking it, Mari didn't feel the need to do that to a random person...even if they did end up being a stick hating jerk.

Mari whistled out a tune whilst they walked across the word document currently holding the users project. They began to think about the adventures they had been on and all the sticks they had met. None of them seemed to want to leave their desktop to explore the internet with Them, too content to leave the lives they were currently leading.

Oh well their loss.

A loud thud followed by a coughing fit brought Mari out of their thoughts. They looked towards the noise and noticed a small blue stick figure curled up on the floor.

Well that wasn't there before.

"HEY!!" Mari called out to them as they jumped down from the tab. The blue stick flinched, beginning to frantically look around before their eyes landed on Mari.

They jumped, backing away from Mari as much as they could, their eyes not leaving Mari's face.

Mari slowly made their way over, taking notice of how dirty and disheveled the blue stick was...and also the fact that they were shaking like a leaf.

"You okay?" Mari asked, kneeling in front of the blue stick so they wouldn't look as threatening.

The blue stick looked at them hesitantly, debating on whether or not they should answer that question, if they could answer that question.

They opened their mouth and what came out was a gravely version of their own voice.

"I...I'm not sure..I..."

That was all the blue stick could say before their throat closed up on them in favor of the tears that were now streaming down their face. 

Mari took that in, they weren't the best at dealing with this kind of problem, however Mari was determined to help this unfortunate stick. 

Blue was a mess, both physically and mentally, their body was covered in what looked like burn marks and dirt, there was a slight red tinge to some of the places on their body as well...most likely open wounds from whatever the poor stick went through.

"Hey...you look like you've been through a lot..do..uh..you wanna get clean? I can help" Mari wasn't sure how comforting they sounded...but it seemed to work.

The blue stick figure nodded slowly and tried to get to their feet.

Great! Mari knew just what to do, they quickly opened the internet browser and looked up a game they knew would help.

Mari didn't notice just how much the blue stick was struggling to stand on their own until they had located the game they were looking for. 

It was one of those, wash and dress this cute pet kind of game. The pet wasn't all that cute in Maris opinion...it was actually kind of creepy.

Mari quickly shook the thought away as they went to grab the blue stick. Mari should really try to put a name to them...

"Hey what's your name?" Mari asked as they gently took the blue sticks hand and pulled them to their feet "my name's Maroon...Mari for short, I gave it to myself pretty neat huh?"

The blue stick slowly nodded, trying to keep themselves from falling over again as the sudden movement had caused their head to spin.

After a while they replied, "I..don't really...have one" they smiled sheepishly, their voice still horse.

"That's okay" Mari replied "I'll give you one after we get you cleaned up and healed alright" They smiled as they pulled the blue stick onto the web page.

The blue stick nodded in response, still shaking slightly as they were forced to stand on their damaged legs. 

Mari quickly pulled out the shower head from the games task bar and pointed it at the blue stick. "I'm gonna turn the water on now, brace yourself" Mari grinned turning on the shower head before the blue stick could reply.

Despite the warning the Blue stick still yelled in surprise as the cold water hit their skin, they pulled their arms up in defense.

"It's okay, it's okay you'll be clean" Mari reassured continuing to move the shower head in an attempt to clean all of the dirt on the blue sticks body. 

After a while of this the blue stick was finally clean.

Whilst the blue stick was drying themselves off Mari quickly grabbed the Minecraft cube from off the main desktops task bar and began pulling out different ingredients for a potion and a brewing stand.

The blue stick may be clean, but the wounds were still there.

Mari just hoped this would work.

After finishing their task Mari pulled out the many ingredients for a potion of healing, they hadn’t done this in a while, but they had done this before so they were confident that they would get this right. After the mental reassurance they quickly began the brewing process. 

Mari then decided to figure out what they were going to call the blue stick figure whilst the potion was brewing.

Running over to the still open web page they began typing "different shades of blue" into the task bar.

The blue stick was still sitting on the edge of the web page, now bundled up inside the towel that was drying them. They were watching Mari curiously, wondering what they were doing.

After finishing their sentence and hitting search Mari waited for a few moments for the page to load before hitting the images part of the search results.

They jumped down and began randomly clicking the coloured squares and comparing them to the stick sitting a few feet away from them.

After doing this about two times Mari seemed to find a colour that matched, looking at the images name they turned to the blue stick figure smiling proudly.

"How do you like the name Cerulean... Cel for short?" They asked.

The blue stick thought about it for a few moments before nodding "yeah...that sounds nice" they smiled "thanks"

"No problem Cel!" Mari grinned before running off to go check on their potion.

It had just finished brewing by the time Mari got to it. They quickly grabbed the bottle from the stand and ran back.

"Here" Mari grinned excitedly holding the bottle out to Cel. Cel hesitated for a few moments before taking the bottle, "it'll help you feel better, trust me" Mari reassured them, noticing the hesitant look Cel had given them.

Cel nodded slowly before downing the entire thing at once. A few moments passed and nothing really changed...then slowly but surly Cel’s wounds began to heal. A few minuets later and all of Cel’s open wounds were gone. A few of the bruises remained however, but since the potion of healing mostly covered open wounds Mari was expecting this.

That didn’t mean they weren’t still incredibly relived.

"Yes! It worked!!" They grinned fist pumping in victory, frightening Cel slightly as a result. Mari didn’t notice this and continued "Now" Maris once excited face was now serious "what happened to you?".

Maris face softened as they noticed Cel nervously biting their lip. However they were anxious to find this information out and was about to push them more before Cel spoke. 

"My game...was attacked and...I was thrown into the icon...over there" Cel gestured in the direction of the smaller task bar on the desktop with a shaking hand. The one that contained the volume and WiFi icons.

Mari nodded along as Cel continued "It broke and...I guess I was sent here..." They shrugged. 

After a few minuets of silence Mari assumed Cel was finished.

"Wow...that sounds rough..." Mari mused "Well now I'm here...maybe I can help you" Cel seemed to perk up at that "you can?" They gasped, Mari nodded in reply.

"Yeah I can, I know the internet like the back of my hand!" Mari stated confidently, truth be told they were lying slightly...all they had been doing for the past few months was randomly jumping from one desktop to another...they didn't really have a way to plan out their routes.

But if this was the way to keep their new friend then they were all for it.

A groan echoed across the desktop and Mari tensed, Oh no the user's waking up!. They quickly grabbed Cel and yanked them away, in response Cel let out a startled yelp.

"We gotta go!" Mari gasped after arriving at their destination. They let go of Cels hand and grabbed onto the WiFi icon.

"Mari wa-" Cel gasped as Mari pulled, a large glowing hole akin to a rip in paper suddenly burst into existence as the icon broke and Mari turned to Cel again.

"Come one!" They ordered holding out their hand. Cel hesitated again, but decided that whatever Mari was freaking out over wasn't something Cel wanted to deal with so they took it.

With that, the duo jumped into the hole as the user watched in confusion...wondering if they were still asleep. 

[student-by-day]

back-to-school tools

‘tis the season again, so here are some handy websites and browser extensions i’ve discovered over the past few years that’ll hopefully make this year a bit easier for you. i’m taking high-school-level classes, but a lot of these should help with college/uni work, too!

feel free to reblog and add your own recommendations :)

the only ones you have to install and/or sign up for have an asterisk, but note that they’re all free either way.

L A N G U A G E   A R T S

planet ebook

this is my go-to for digital (and legal!) classic literature. i download the pdf files and upload them to places like one note to annotate, but epub and mobi versions are also available if you prefer those. no need to break your back over hauling textbooks and your required readings!

audible stories

this doesn’t have the widest selection of audio books, but it definitely has its uses! there are a lot of classics on there, which could come in handy for a literature or english class.

easybib

this is the best citation tool ever. i love that i can choose which style i want to use and what kind of media i’m researching with (books, journals, websites, etc.). if i need to, i can go in and edit any (citation) category i want, but that isn’t usually necessary because it can find stats that even i can’t while looking at the source. enter some info, copy ‘n paste the works cited list to your paper, and you’re done!

i recommend the web version and not the google docs add-on because the add-on doesn’t let you customize your citations

gradeproof* or grammarly*

these are both grammar/spelling checkers that provide plenty of stats, which are most useful for speeches. you can use these to see your character count, word count, number of sentences, syllables per word, words per sentence, readability, grade level, reading time, speaking time, etc.

wordcounter

this is a great alternative if you can’t/don’t want to install gradeproof or grammarly.

powerthesaurus

this is my go-to thesaurus... it has a ton of features if you go on the website (it’s not just for synonyms, though those are seemingly endless!). plus, if i don’t want to open a new tab, i can use the extension in my toolbar to see a brief list!

just a word of caution: look up any words you don’t know (because if you go far enough down the list, they’re not completely relevant anymore).

onelook

i use this reverse dictionary to find the word that’s on the tip of my tongue but i just can’t name (though it has a lot more features than that!).

cueprompter

this is the perfect teleprompter for any speeches you need to record (maybe for an online graduation? a virtual debate?).

xodo*

this is a great digital annotation tool (right in your browser) for those of you who don’t have an app like goodnotes on your ipad. you can upload files from your google drive, your device, or dropbox and draw on them, type notes, add comments, highlight, choose different underline patterns, add shapes/arrows, etc. all while customizing opacity, thickness, and colors. you’re also able to zoom in/out, change page width, rotate the page, change your layout (pdf, book, magazine), and choose a transition style.

A R T

canva*

i love this site to death---if you haven’t heard of it yet, what are you doing?? i can design everything from a resume to a powerpoint to a school dance flyer on this thing! there are beautiful templates to choose from, but if that’s not your thing (it isn’t mine either), then there are millions of photos, doodles, graphics, fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. to choose from. plus, you can even upload your own content. (i designed the header for this post on there!)

F O R E I G N   L A N G U A G E S

typeit

i hate having to remember all the keyboard shortcuts for special characters, so i just copy and paste from this international keyboard. choose a language, and you’re good to go. :)

audible stories

did i put this in two different categories? yes. audible stories has free audio books in english, spanish, french, german, portuguese, italian, dutch, and japanese! i recommend finding a children’s audiobook on there in your target language and pulling up an ebook online so you can improve your listening and comprehension skills. there’s no need to download any content, and it still saves your spot (even once you close the tab), which is a lifesaver!

duolingo*

i think we all know by now that this site is good for practicing your sentence-writing skills and gaining a little extra vocab. keep in mind that this only helps if you take notes on your mistakes and type answers out yourself as opposed to mindlessly clicking through multiple choice questions! duolingo stories are also great for working on your listening comprehension skills and some immersion.

linguno*

i use this site for conjugations because that’s its main asset, but there are other things you can look into if you like. i love that i can choose a section and a level (ex: a1 level one, a1 level two, a1 level three, etc.) or add my own list of words. the rest is super customizable too! you can also choose which tenses you want to work on and what set of pronouns you want to focus on (for example, european spanish uses “vosotros” while latin american spanish does not).

S C I E N C E

molview

build your own molecules or search ones that already exist to explore what they’re used for, their structure, their composition, 2-d/3-d models, formulas, molecular weight, etc.

ptable

this dynamic periodic table has a million features for each element, which makes it perfect for researching and figuring out why the table is laid out the way it is.

phet

this is basically a virtual stem lab---atom-builders, circuit-builders, wave simulations, and interactive tools galore! it covers physics, chemistry, biology, math, and html5, though i’ve only used first three categories, so i can’t exactly recommend the others.

M A T H

geogebra or desmos

these babies are graphing tools perfect for checking functions and all that jazz (they’re basically the exact same except geogebra has a couple more bells and whistles).

symbolab

use this to check your answers and review the steps if you’re stuck! when it gets into some nitty-gritty stuff, you have to have the paid plan to see some of the steps, but i think it’s helpful enough that you can stick with the free version. it covers pre-alg, alg, pre-calc, calc, functions, matrices & vectors, geometry, trig, stats, physics, chem, finance, conversions, etc. (i use this to avoid silly mistakes and the ixl rage that follows haha).

mathway*

this is very similar to symbolab except that it doesn’t show any steps at all unless you pay for a plan. you can use this for basic math, pre-alg, alg, trig, pre-calc, calc, stats, finite math, etc. as a cross-checker in case symbolab is being funky.

[allmightyneed]

Villain!All Might (Smite)x reader. part 2/20

link to part 1  

You pass weeks in a distracted, miserable state. Two, three, a month. Longer. At first, you chalk it up to the huge secret you now have to keep. A secret that feels as big as All Might himself. By a complete accident of time and place, you’ve come into possession of valuable intel on the most wanted criminal in Japan, possibly the world. Every day, you consider spilling the details to your best friend, who you also happen to work with. But how would you possibly bring it up?

“Oh, hey Kiko, guess what, I met a guy! Yeah… he’s super hot, tall, bit of a dark side. His name? I’m not sure, but professionally he goes by All Might.”

You can only imagine the confusion and disgust that would elicit. Even from Kiko, who usually tries to support your decisions, no matter how bad. The knowledge itself needles at you too, day after day. This information about his quirk could be the key to capturing him or bringing him down— forget using it to advance your own career. You could go to the police with this, you could go to Endeavor’s hero agency. You could change things. You could save lives. To your shame, that guilt isn’t strong enough to betray All Might’s confidence. He had trusted you. The number one villain trusted you with his secret identity, and apparently still does, because he hasn’t hunted you down and executed you. (Yet.)

Maybe he can’t. Your analytical mind spins theories in the absence of more definitive information. Maybe that muscle form takes a lot out of him, energy-wise. Maybe it’s too hard to maintain for long, and that’s why he sometimes disappears for days and weeks on end. And what about that whole coughing up blood thing?

By the third week, you’re using what little spare time you can find at work cobbling together a timeline of every documented All Might incident, closing in on a thousand entries in a hidden spreadsheet on your computer, and you’re only up to what most subject matter experts would consider the midway point of his active period. You haven’t found any patterns yet, nothing definitive, though as a foreigner yourself, his mysterious stint in America raises so many questions. 

“Hey!” A chipper voice and a knock-knock on your cubicle divider make you close the spreadsheet. You turn and see Kiko there, smiling and curious. 

“Hey!” 

“Whatcha working on?” 

“Oh, you know.” You wave your hand airily. “Nothing, really, just some busywork for Mr. Shimada.”

“Well, come on! It’s team lunch today.”

“Aw, really?”

“Yes. And you can’t skip. You’re looking too skinny.” That couldn’t be true, but the accusation reminds you of All Might, how he looked like he never got enough to eat. At least, one version of him. Kiko is sweet to be worried about you. She’s always so kind and considerate, always making sure you don’t bury yourself in your work, inviting you to lunch and for midday walks to get some sunlight. 

“Okay, okay. I’m not trying to get out of it.” You lock your computer screen and collect your jacket from the back of your chair. It will be nice to get a break outside of the office for sure. Given the sensitive nature of your work, your building is a secure one, with no windows and checkpoints to get in and out. Other than a few cultural holdouts, the workplace bears little resemblance to a traditional Japanese office, having adopted some more western practices, like cubicles and excessive use of PowerPoint. “Have you heard back from the Licensing Bureau?”

Kiko heaves a big sigh, which tells you that she hasn’t. “I thought I would last week at the latest, but nothing.”

You follow her into the elevator. “That’s weird. Don’t they usually send confirmation or denial pretty promptly?”

“Most petitioners receive the news right after their test.” She shrugs, throwing you a little smile as she precedes you into the lobby. “Guess I’m special.”

“Of course you are,” you laugh, rolling your eyes a little, but you mean it. She has pure hearted intentions about becoming a part-time volunteer hero. Discussion about the intricacies of Licensing Bureau policies and mailing schedules continues all the way to the barbecue restaurant where together you conclude, that her unusual quirk must be holding up their decision. It makes sense. Reanimation, her ability to create a zombie from a dead body, is dangerous and powerful, and is rightfully quite closely controlled. It’s also very much at odds with her sunny, happy personality. She rarely brings it up, but you know she regrets not having a more standard type of quirk. She’s also one of the few people who know about your quirk and has been a steadfast guardian of the secret.

Nothing much happens at the team lunch. Office gossip, rehashing the latest news, etc. Though, you do find out from Mr. Kawada, your supervisor, that you are one of two analysts who have been selected to support and consult on a new account the firm is taking on. So exclusive that you aren’t even allowed to know who the client is yet. You act grateful, mustering as much enthusiasm as you can— it’s a great opportunity— but inwardly, you’re daydreaming about All Might. That’s been happening more and more. 

When you get back to the office after lunch, you’re roped into a meeting with Mr. Kawada, and Mr. Shimada and the rest of the team leads. You know you should be paying attention but you zone out through most of it, replaying that fateful night in your head. 

A couple days later, the obsession reaches a critical level. You have to find him. Not as an analyst, not to bring him to justice. You just have to see him, and you don’t quite understand why, but it’s a need, a hunger that grows sharper and more potent each day. 

Riding the train to work, you start searching in your web browser. ‘All Might’. Too much noise. News articles from twenty different sources all about the same recent attacks clog the entire first page of results. When you get into the office, you go through the motions, sitting down at your workstation, logging in, all on autopilot. 

The only thing you can think about is All Might. As time has passed, you try harder and harder to keep fresh that image in your mind of how he looked in his other form. The skinny one, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He hadn’t been any less intense like that. 

You refine your searches, hitting wall after wall of no results or way too many. A passing coworker’s idol-themed lanyard catches your eye; you finally hit on an idea: ‘All Might fan club’. That gets you something. You navigate to the first result, an outdated page with a garish background and little animated pixel version of All Might in the corner of the screen. Dancing. you have to admit it’s kind of cute. Suddenly, loud sound plays through your computer’s speakers. 

“I am on a website! I am on a website!” It’s All Might’s voice— his villain voice, which has people in other cubicles peeking over the dividers at you to find the source of the noise. Panicking, you close the tab. Then, after making sure your computer’s volume is muted, you find your way back to that same page. Sure enough, there’s a link at the top titled I LOVE TO MEET MY FANS. Following it brings you to a listing of a mailing address and… yes. A phone number. 

Heart racing, you copy it down on a sticky note, tuck it in your purse and, before it can register in your mind as a bad idea, slip out of the office. 

The train back to your home stop is nearly empty in the middle of the day. A few tourists, old people, some kids playing hooky. 

You turn your phone over and over. It said he loves to meet his fans… what fans? Doesn’t everyone hate him? Maybe that’s how you should open the conversation. Hey Mr. All Might, I know you’re universally reviled but I thought I’d hit you up anyway. The idea makes you snort-laugh. No. Just keep it simple.

You: hi.

A few seconds later, during which you stare at your phone, the three ‘typing’ dots appear. Then go away, with no message coming through. Could this really be him? Or is it just some weirdo’s phone number? Some otaku impersonating All Might on the internet. Not like you are in any position to be accusing someone of obsession.

You: this is the girl you met in the alley. You pause for a second, thinking of how you could signal to him who you are. He might meet a lot of girls in alleys. 

You: I saw you shrink.

A moment later, he replies with your name. Shock hits you; you click the screen off, black then click it on again. Your name is still there.

Him: I tHOUT I told =you to standstill and bee silent. 

It’s him. With lots of typos, but it’s him.

Oh, god. What are you doing? 

You don’t reply again until you get inside your apartment. Standing just inside the front door, with your shoes still on, you write out three versions of a witty retort, and erase each one. Stupid. What are you even trying to get out of this? 

You: I think people deserve to know who you really are. 

Nothing. Nothing for an unbearable minute that feels like another week gone by.

You: I’m going to the media. 

You’re not. You don’t know why you just told him that.

The three dots appear and disappear, again, with no new text. You watch the screen for what seems like an eternity, still standing in your entryway with your purse on your shoulder. 

And then there’s a thundering knock on the door.

Link to part 3

[dramatip4-blog]

Java Tester Jobs

Put Together As Well As Execute Java Online.

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Content

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Test Automation With Selenium Webdriver.

Top Tips For Learning Java Programs.

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Tip # 3: Chrome Devtools: Imitating Network Conditions

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[goblin-gardens]

Good Day Meme

thanks @somanyjacks-writes​ for tagging me! This is so cute! I’ll tag.... @emboites​, @lesquatrechevrons​, @coraxes​ and anyone else who wants to do this!

Have you had a good day so far today? Medium ok. I ran out of my favorite coffee creamer a few days ago and I’m not going to the store until tomorrow so my mornings have tasted off for a while :( But it’s sunnier than yesterday was, and it’s still chilly but the random snow we got has melted, so my cat and I went on a walk through the back fields and that was nice.

What’s something you wish you could tell your younger self? Not to be a bummer here, but that it’s not normal for a 12 year old to feel suicidal and that therapy antidepressants really do help. 15 years later, I’ve figured out what works for me, but a head start on that could only have been good for me. And then I’d also tell me in senior year of high school that choosing colleges based on my boyfriend was the worst possible metric.

If you could share one song with someone for them to understand you, what would it be? idk!! I’ve never found a song that really “gets me” so I don’t know one that would help other people do that.  I don’t dance much but Grace Kelly by Mika is an exception. Does that count?

A song people maybe wouldn’t expect you to like but you do? It’s less of a song and more of a genre. The potential for triggering migraines stops me from enjoying most metal, but folk metal (turned down kind of quiet) is lots of fun. Also sea shanties.

Do you have a picture/poster in your room? Tons! My favorites are this enlarged version of an early (maybe original?) spine of Pride and Prejudiced, and this frog my friend Leo painted.

What’s your favourite software? umm? Web browsers?

Do you own nail polish/fave colour of nail polish? I actually prefer false nails to nail polish. They don’t chip as easily! And I can file them to a uniform length and shape and they won’t change, unlike my real nails. I don’t wear them very often though.

Favourite herb/spice? A cruel question. How can I choose? Paprika and cumin are top of the list though.

Do/can you lucid dream? No, sounds spooky.

If you could relive a day of your life, would you? Probably not. 

Favourite historical era? Love the look of Rococo, hate everything that lead to it. I do want to know what the Minoans were up to.

A common misunderstanding people have of you? Lately people have been thinking I’m a teenager. Maybe I should shave my head again.

[jessepinwheel]

okay, so this one broke containment (thanks, everyone). let's talk about the results! if you do not want to read this very long post, press J on your keyboard.

Google Docs - cloud-based, easy sharing/collaboration features, usable on computer and phone By and large the most popular option because of low barrier to access (most people have a gmail), the fact that it's free, has autosave, good sharing/collaborative writing features, and the ability to use it on pretty much any computer, tablet, or phone including chromebooks. I personally do not use Google Docs for writing purposes because it chugs when it comes to longer documents, and can't be used if your internet connection is spotty.

Microsoft Word/LibreOffice/OpenOffice/other office suites - application-based, rich text editing, lots of document and formatting features Microsoft Word is kind of the prime example of a word processor. It's very good for documents that need to be printed onto paper, and has a lot of good formatting options. Since it's an actual desktop app, it runs well even when there's hundreds of pages, and of course you can use it offline since it's saving things locally, or you can also save things to the Office 365 cloud services to access from multiple devices (I have never used these, so I don't know how well they work). I think these days there's also a Microsoft Word web app so you're able to use it in browser instead of having to download the application. A lot of people have access to Word for free through their school or job.

If you do not have access to Microsoft Word for free, or just hate Microsoft on principle, there are several open-source free alternatives such as LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice. I'm pretty sure these don't come with any cloud-based storage or backups, but there are ways to get around that (I'll get there later).

Notepad/Other Plaintext Editor - simple text, no formatting, lightweight, no distractions I did a very large amount of writing in Notepad some years back--I did my posting on forums, so I would type the HTML tags straight into the .txt file to copy directly to the forum page. Obviously you will not be doing any formatting for print, or putting in any pictures or tables or anything like that, but when you want to just get your story into words on the page, that can be a plus. Because .txt is so lightweight, you're never going to get any lag and the text files themselves are tiny and easy to share. Nobody (hopefully) is doing their final editing in a plaintext editor, but I didn't ask about editing, I asked about writing.

Some write-ins for plaintext editors: Vim, Emacs, Wordgrinder, Atom, Notepad++ (all free)

Scrivener - rich text, project binder style, many organizational tools for keeping documents straight or rearranging parts Scrivener is my long story (and audio drama script) writing application of choice. I was honestly kind of surprised that this many people used Scrivener--I was debating putting it on this poll at all.

In any case, it has a lot of really good features, primarily that it's a binder-style project writing application which lets you have all your different sections in different files, then compile them all together in whatever order you choose. You can keep all your notes and references within the same project file, and you can tag sections to keep track of what happens in what part, or what needs to be revised. It lets you do split-screen, so you can e.g., see your outline on one side and what you're writing on the other. It also lets you do version control for each document. It lets you export in many different formats (I personally write in Markdown and export as HTML for posting into AO3). You can also set daily word goals and things like that. Also has an iOS app but that's a separate purchase and I have no idea if it's any good.

It is not free--it is a one-time purchase. There are discounts for nanowrimo or if you have a .edu email. I have personally found it very worth the price, but you can judge that for yourself--it has a 30 day free trial, which is for 30 days of actual writing use, not 30 days from download. If the price tag is still too steep, try one of the write-in options in the next section.

Markdown Editors - easy export to HTML, simple layout, access to some formatting features I'm honestly very surprised that Markdown editors are so low. Markdown is basically plaintext+. It gives you the simplicity of plaintext but with the added bonus of things like italics, bold, underlines, hyperlinks, quotes, and some other things too, depending on the application. Since they're basically just .txt files but can be exported to other formats, they're just as lightweight as plaintext. Markdown editors generally let you export directly to HTML format, which you can then open in a plaintext editor and copy-paste directly into whatever website you post on.

I use Deepdwn (one time purchase) as my Markdown editor of choice for my shorter stories and for notes. Many Markdown applications are available for phone/tablet.

Notable write-in options: MarkText (free), Typora ($15), Obsidian (free)

Directly into the website you are going to post to - web accessible, rich text formatting, hubris I'm not going to say this is a good idea, because this one runs a decently high risk of having something close out/refresh without you wanting it to, and then losing some hundreds of words of progress. But for things like blog posts (like this one) or essays or other kinds of shorter writing, I will certainly write directly in Tumblr or Wordpress or whatever it is.

Writing directly into the website gives you the advantage of being able to access it from different devices, whether laptop or tablet or phone, and also gives you direct access to the formatting tools that you'll be using for that website, so you don't have to have weird copy-paste issues. Some people have reported doing their writing in Wattpad or Dreamwidth and then copying that over to the actual website where they're posting it, presumably because it's accessible from multiple devices and has built-in HTML tools. If you hate Google Docs and don't mind keeping your writing web-only, then using the drafts function is not a terrible solution. (Of course, some websites will purge drafts after a certain number of days. So watch out!)

Discord/other chat client - multiple device accessible, simple interface, collaboration Okay, I know this sounds insane, but hear me out. Some people do their writing in Discord (I have done some), and it helps reduce the pressure to get everything right and going back to make edits. It's also accessible from any device where Discord can be used, including phones, and many people already have Discord on their phone. I mostly use Discord when I want to do some writing someplace where using a laptop is really not feasible (e.g., the train or in a car), and then when I get home I can just copy-paste what I wrote in Discord into my main document.

Discord also lets you have different channels to organize what you write into different threads. And if you have friends who are interested in your writing, you can write directly with them and get live reactions, which is fun. People also do roleplay-type writing in Discord for what should be fairly obvious reasons. Of course, to publish, you'll have to copy stuff from Discord into an actual document, which can be tedious if you're not keeping up with it as you go, but it's surprisingly usable as a first draft. Downside, of course, is that you need internet for it to work.

A physical notebook/on physical paper - you know what paper is I don't need to tell you what a physical notebook is, but shoutouts to the people who said they did most of their writing in an Alphasmart or on a typewriter.

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Notable Write-Ins Okay, so those are the options I came up with, what are the options y'all came up with? Keep in mind that I have not used any of the below options and that my mentioning them here is not an endorsement, just that other people who have commented on this post use them.

Notes App I did actually consider putting this into the poll and I probably should have--I really underestimated how many people did their writing completely on their phones. So to all of you, sorry for not putting this as an option.

Pages Apparently this is like the Apple equivalent of Microsoft Word. I wouldn't know--I don't use Apple.

Wordpad A rich text editor which is kind of like a light version of Microsoft Word. Comes pre-installed with Windows.

Email Some people do their writing in their email. Sure. It's accessible via any web browser and a lot of them have apps you can use on your phone.

Obsidian I know I briefly mentioned this one in the Markdown section, but I think it's prominent enough that it deserves another mention. It's free, and technically a note-taking software instead of a word processor, but it's a Markdown editor with a lot of features and also has a free mobile app. There are a lot of plugins available if you want more features. Native syncing between apps is available for a subscription fee.

Miro/Trello/Notion Technically not writing apps, but project management/planning apps. Lets you use multiple pages to organize things. Free to use web-based apps.

Evernote Also technically not a writing app, but a free (with paid tiers) note-taking app with syncing capabilities. The free tier lets you sync between two devices.

OneNote Kind of like Evernote but Microsoft. Comes with Windows.

Zoho Writer Probably the most equivalent alternative to Google Docs, with collaborative features, online sync, and a mobile app. I have no idea how well it works.

CryptPad Also a Google Docs alternative, but this time it's open source. Accounts do not use an email. There are collaboration/sharing tools. Everything's encrypted to the extent where if you lose your username or password there's no way to recover or reset it, so make sure that doesn't happen.

yWriter A free word processor with similar binder format as Scrivener and automatic version control though less overall features.

Bibisco A novel-writing software with a lot of tools for story development and planning that also lets you write in scenes and chapters. Has a free version (which is sufficient to do plenty of writing and planning) and a premium version for a one-time purchase.

Campfire Write A writing software with a lot of different modules to help do worldbuilding and story planning. Has a mobile app. Free to try (has a word limit), then subscription service for unlimited access to the relevant features, or you can buy lifetime access.

PageFour A free (no longer updated) word processor also with pages/sections and outlining tools for novel writers.

Writemonkey A free, clean Markdown editor with a whole lot of features including bookmarks, writing statistics, typewriter mode, and document navigation. Extremely lightweight and can be used portable if you want to carry it and your writing files on a flash drive.

4thewords A gamified writing website where you write to fight monsters to encourage you to write more consistently. Free to try, then 4 dollars a month subscription (or less).

750 Words An online writing app that encourages you to write 3 pages (750 words) each day. Has progress tracking and some other features. Costs $5/month subscription after a 30 day trial.

Writer, the Internet Typewriter A web-based no-distraction typewriter app that also lets you work offline and export to multiple file types. Honestly reminds me a lot of Draft, which is what I used for a while before I transitioned to Scrivener and Deepdwn. (Draft recently shut down, unfortunately.)

CalmlyWriter A distraction-free no-frills word processor. Can be used in web app (no sync) or with a downloaded desktop app. Technically a paid app in the same way that WinRAR is a paid app--you can pay for it if you want or just not.

PureWriter A simple no-frills Markdown editor. Has a desktop and Android version.

FocusWriter A plaintext, basic RTF and ODT editor. Designed to be distraction-free, also supports custom themes and daily writing tracking/word count goals. Can be used portable, if you want to put both your writing program and your writing files on a flash drive.

Bear A Markdown editor with a desktop and mobile app. You can purchase a $1.49/month or $14.99/year subscription to use native syncing capabilities between all your devices.

Dabble A novel-writing application that can be used in web or as desktop app or on mobile, with syncing capabilities and many other features. Not a free app, requires a subscription fee or a (pretty expensive) lifetime purchase.

obviously there are many other applications, just peruse through the notes if you want more.

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What writing app should I use? Well, I can't really answer that for you. There's a lot of them available out there, and I just listed a bunch of options. Your needs as a writer will be different from other people's. For what it's worth, here's my take:

I need to be able to work on my project from multiple computers. Get Dropbox. Or some other syncing utility. But Dropbox is the one that I've used for the last 12+ years and it's never let me down. It's a syncing utility, not just cloud storage, so the files are still physically saved on your hard drive and you can use them all offline. That way, even if Dropbox explodes, you won't lose your files, and if your hard drive explodes, you can download them again from Dropbox. The free plan gives you 2GB storage (a huge amount if you're using it primarily for text files) and 3 devices. You can also download your files on any device via the website. Using a solid writing program that fits your needs (e.g., Scrivener) and a good syncing utility (e.g., Dropbox) will get you a lot farther than some web application that's kind of mediocre at both.

Dropbox also has a mobile app. I haven't really figured out how to use it so I can work on my files from my phone (I don't really use Dropbox on mobile, or do much writing on mobile), but it does have the ability to directly edit text files, so it's possible to do writing that way if you really want to.

You can get 500mb additional storage space by using a referral link (this will also give the referrer 500mb extra storage). You can use mine if you want to: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/AADItjJTrvtT5SiAXfQy6yq104a3SMJtm5A

I need to be able to work on my project from multiple computers including ones that I don't own (e.g., school, library). You'll want a web app. Google Docs is the most popular one, obviously, but you can also try some alternatives listed above like CryptPad or Zoho. Writer is also a web-based app--I have not personally used it but its features seem similar to Draft (now defunct) which I previously used and quite liked. Things like Notion, Miro, and Trello are also web apps that seem pretty popular, even if they're not actually writing software. Microsoft has its own web-based suite, so that could possibly be an option. Dropbox appears to have a web-based writing app you can use, but I honestly don't know anything about it or if it's like. good.

Alternately, you can use a portable writing app like FocusWriter or WriteMonkey on a flash drive along with all your writing files and just plug that in wherever you want to do writing, just remember to back up your files every so often so you don't lose your flash drive and also all your work.

Alternately alternately, you can think outside the box more. Using emails or blog posts/drafts will net you access on any web-enabled device. Discord can also be used on any computer if you don't mind compiling and cleaning it up afterwards.

In any of these cases you should probably back up your work every so often on your local hard drive because you never really know when things can go down.

I want to write on my phone and have it sync up on desktop. The most straightforward option for this will be Google Docs, but I personally find the app really clunky and I don't like writing in Google Docs in general.

A decent number of note-taking apps like Evernote have syncing capability between a desktop and a tablet or mobile device. Some of them have subscription fees.

Many web apps have been designed to be user-friendly even in a mobile browser. Some of the solutions in the above section will also work for this section.

Some sync utilities can be used between mobile and desktop, so you would be able to edit Markdown files (or rich text, though that's less likely) on your computer and on your phone. If this sounds like a solution for you, you'll need to do your own research. I hear you can use Dropbox for this, but I don't know enough to say.

The way I do things, which is hardly the most efficient, is that I'll write directly in Discord, then copy stuff from Discord into the relevant document when I get home. If I don't have internet access, I use a Markdown editor on my phone to write a new document, then upload that .md file to my private Discord so I can copy it into the actual document.

I want to share my stories with my friends/beta readers/other people in general. If you just want to share files, most cloud storage services like Box, Google Drive, whatever Microsoft's is, and yes, Dropbox, have the ability to share files and sometimes to comment on them. You can also directly share files via Discord or email or post your writing on a private blog.

If you want actual collaborative features, Google Docs is again probably the most straightforward way to do it, but CryptPad does also offer collaborative features (Zoho does too, but it looks like actual collaboration requires all participants to have an account). If both you and your collaborator have a Dropbox account you can have shared folders where anyone can edit any of the contents of the folder (I used to use these for animation collaborations).

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Personally, I use Scrivener for my long stories that need notes and planning documents and outlines (and also my audio drama, since it has some helpful scriptwriting features), or Deepdwn for my shorter more straightforward stories. Dropbox syncs my files between my desktop and my laptop so I can write from either one, and I can work on my documents offline (I just have to make sure I close out of the program before I work on it on the other computer to avoid sync conflicts). For sharing, I use Google Drive or just send files through Discord. I don't really do collaborative writing so I don't really have any personal advice about that.

I like to reflect on the results of my polls when they close, so hopefully this summary and discussion has been helpful. I'm sure I missed plenty of stuff, but you can look through the notes if you want more suggestions, or reblog with your own input. My notes are already being destroyed by this post, it's not like it can really get worse.

writer survey question time:

inspired by seeing screencaps where the software is offering (terrible) style advice because I haven't used a software that has a grammar checker for my stories in like a decade

if you use multiple applications, pick the one you use most often.