#and apparently its fucking up everything in terms of sticking to source

[quixtrix]

we should not have faith in adi shankar

asmongold is a right wing streamer whos so bad at taking care of himself he used to wipe the blood from his GUMS on his wall. hes real nasty

[spooniechef]

Emergency Calories - Potato Salad (0-1 spoon)

I've been largely out of spoons lately, with weather changes, unexpected absences at work and resulting overtime, and all associated pain flares making most things difficult to impossible. I'm feeling better at the moment, so the next few posts are going to involve how I've survived the last few weeks. Because aches or no aches, we still need to eat, and UberEats is too damn expensive for all the time (especially with gluten intolerances).

Now, I've spent a good portion of my adult life fucking up potato salad. Somehow, I thought it was just ... potatoes, mayonnaise, done. Except ... not quite, apparently, because the mayonnaise would always seem to separate and it was never quite right. So I eventually started looking up recipes to find the common thread that makes other people's potato salad work when mine didn't. Took a good bit of searching, but I finally found it: vinegar. Or lemon juice - something acidic, anyway. As well as adding a certain amount of tart zinginess to the potato salad, it also seems to keep the mayonnaise creamy and smooth even when refrigeraged a few days. So while I got recipes from a lot of sources, I've never strictly used any of them, preferring to figure out the best way to do it by guess and by gosh so I can just thow everything together without thinking about it too much. So I'll give a basic overview and some notes for potential additions to jazz it up a bit. The great thing about potato salad is its versatility. Plus, potatoes are relatively cheap.

Here's what you'll need:

~2lbs (or 1kg-ish) potatoes

~1 cup mayonnaise

~1-2 tablespoons vinegar

Additions to taste (see notes)

The easiest way to do this in terms of potatoes is use baby new potatoes, cut into quarters. If you're doing anything larger, you probably want cubes about an inch square. Making sure the pieces are of uniform size is helpful. And I don't know how it is in other countries, but if you're in the UK, get more potatoes than you think you'll need. Our produce has been shit lately, and it's pretty standard to have to cut away bits of yick or just throw whole potatoes away.

Here's what you do:

Chop your potatoes and put them in to boil. Once boiled to reasonable softness (not mashable-soft, but not too firm either), drain and leave to cool and dry.

In a separate bowl, add the mayonnaise, vinegar, and whatever else you're putting into the dressing.

Add potatoes and fold until everything is fully covered.

Serve immediately and/or put in the fridge for later.

As I say, these are largely approximates because I measure it all by eye at the moment. It's pretty easy to get the hang of. Basically you want just enough vinegar to not have the mayonnaise swimming but enough to suit your tastes. And obviously you can jazz it up to suit you - here's some things that have been suggested in various recipes or just sound nice:

Hard-boiled egg

Crispy bacon bits

Dijon mustard

Chunks of dill pickle

Herbs and spices in general (paprika is usually suggested, as are chives, and obviously salt and pepper to taste, but I like adding onion salt, garlic pepper, and a little bit of celery salt)

Onions (I prefer green onions/scallions, but thin-sliced red onion can add some nice colour)

Honestly, play around with it, because potato salad is wonderfully versatile. Googling for recipes showed me that there are as many potato salad recipes as there are people, so I just left it at the absolute basics as a sort of a blank canvas to experiment on.

Potato salad lasts about five days in the fridge, and can be a meal in itself if done right, so it's great for a source of emergency calories. Enjoy!

(Oh, and side note: if you are gluten intolerant, do not try this as pasta salad. I tried to make pasta salad by the same principles and the dressing was fine but gluten-free pasta is disgusting cold. Even the good kind of gluten-free pasta. Sorry, fellow gluten-intolerants; we're going to have to stick with potatoes.)

[drwcn]

《Without Envy》- concubine/sleeper agent!wwx & prince!lwj 

[story board 1] [story board 2]   [story board 3]  [story board 4] 

long post: story board 5 →

Lan Wangji, as it turned, was a true gentleman. This was problematic for Wei Wuxian, who was tasked with getting close to him, because Hanguang-wang’s upstanding morals being rather unimpeachable rendered Wei Wuxian’s initial seduction efforts entirely unsuccessful. 

 Lan Wangji straight up ignored him. Whenever he came to visit Jiang Yanli it was always to speak with her and not Wei Wuxian. It was like Wei Wuxian, or A-Xian as he was known, did not exist to the prince. Whenever Wei Wuxian tried to “get close” to him, aka, making himself available to serve tea, meals and such, Lan Wangji would always dismiss him, or tell him to wait outside so Lan Wangji and Jiang Yanli could dine together alone. Needless to say, Wei Wuxian was getting increasingly frustrated. Entirely unbeknownst to Wei Wuxian however was the fact that Lan Wangji had noticed him from the start and was just trying to stop himself from doing something inappropriate. Truth is, Lan Wangji first saw Wei Wuxian at Jiang-fu during one of Lan Wangji’s visits to finalize the marriage between himself and Jiang Yanli. 

It was the dogs’ barking that got Lan Wangji’s attention first. That, and a young man’s agitated cursing.

“Fuck - ow! Princess that was not nice! I’m going to turn you into barbeque if you don’t cut this shi - Ow! Jasmine, give it here!” 

Lan Wangji’s personal guards Guo Ai and Sun Ting made to investigate the source of the ruckus and to tell off whoever dared to be so impertinent and disrespectful in a marquis’s manor, but Lan Wangji stopped them with a subtle gesture.  

Slowly, he approached the round archway looking into the garden and saw by the shrubs a handsome young man cradling a fuzzy tiny thing while trying his darnedest to fend off two relentless hounds. “Shoo, shoo, go bother your master!”

But the dogs wanted to play. Their bushy tails wagged happily.  

Eventually, the young man tired of the over enthusiastic canines, picked up a stick off the ground, and tossed it far over the garden walls. The dogs took off running, and he and the little creature he protected were allowed a moment’s peace. 

“Little tutu, it’s okay, the mean dogs are gone now. Don’t be afraid.” 

It was only then that Lan Wangji saw that the furry round thing was a small bunny, probably driven from its burrow by the aforementioned hounds that belonged to Jiang-xiao-gongzi. He watched, slightly transfixed, as the young man lifted the bunny and gently booped its nose against his own, his comely face scrunching up adorably in the process. 

So when Wei Wuxian arrived at the prince’s estate with Jiang Yanli, Lan Wangji cursed his luck. He had no intentions of becoming attracted or attached to anyone in his harem. His marriages were political games. Everything he did in his harem was calculated. The last thing he needed was for the Jins to think they could sink their claws into him. So he kept company with all his concubines equally, just to maintain the balance. Lan Wangji did not want Jin Ziyan to be the only man in his harem, which was why when Qin Su offered him Mo Xuanyu, he did not refuse. It was fortunate that Mo Xuanyu himself seemed eager to serve too, so Lan Wangji did not have to grapple with ethics there.  He was doing this for his country; everyone knew this. As long as he kept to his duties and divided his attentions equally, there would be trouble in his harem. Except...Lan Wangji wanted to see ‘A-Xian’ again. The more he wanted, the more he made himself keep his distance. He recognized the power dynamic that existed between this servant and himself, and that if he were to ask, A-xian was not really in a position to refuse. Besides, Jiang Yanli made no indications that she wanted her A-Xian to serve Lan Wangji. In fact, she seemed quite protective of him, always looking out for him wherever she could. She practically treated him like a little brother than a servant. As such, Lan Wangji was happy with the way things were. He could live with never knowing A-Xian more intimately. In fact, he did not want A-Xian to be ordered to serve him, or find out that A-Xian was just like every other man and woman in his harem, there to curry favours with him. It would be a shame if he turned out to be just another flower in the garden, another player in this game they played.  

Of course Wei Wuxian read this whole situation as: that little bastard Lan Wangji doesn’t like me. Xue Yang was charged with being Wei Wuxian’s correspondence between Gusu and Qishan but ended up just being the guy Wei Wuxian complained to.  —“Is this Hanguang-wang truly a paragon of virtues???” Wei Wuxian raged. “Aren’t princes supposed to be lechers? Wen Chao certainly is a sleeze. Wen Xu could be too for all we know. I’m young, fit, attractive and available. I know he likes men so why not me? He sleeps with Mo Xuanyu all the time apparently …Is Mo Xuanyu more attractive than me?!” Xue Yang: >_> God I miss murders. 

Wei Wuxian’s “opportunity” came when Jiang Yanli fell mysteriously ill about three months after she married Lan Wangji. When the physicians were left scratching their heads, Wei Wuxian quickly took the matter into his own hands. He needed Jiang Yanli alive; if she died before he made an impression on Lan Wangji, he could be sent away back to Jiang-fu and threaten his entire operation. What’s more, Jiang Yanli had been extremely kind to him in the last two years since he arrived at Gusu. She truly was the perfect lady; he would hate to see her suffer.  Through some crafty investigations, Wei Wuxian discovered that the cause of Jiang Yanli’s illness was a slow poison being laced into her food by Jin Ziyan’s orders. The motive of his actions were obvious enough; ever since Jiang Yanli married in, Lan Wangji seemed to be showing her extra favour, favours which he never distributed unevenly prior to her entering his household. Jin Ziyan did not want Jiang Yanli as a competition. She was a marquess’s dichu daughter, much higher in rank than either Qin Su or Luo Qingyang, and therefore posed serious threat to becoming Lan Wangji’s legal spouse. In a way, she was Jin Ziyan’s biggest competitor, and he couldn’t have that. What Jin Ziyan didn’t know was that Lan Wangji visited Jiang Yanli so much because he wanted to catch glimpses of Wei Wuxian, even though he dismissed Wei Wuxian from the room every time he saw him (the man was clearly a masochist). Wei Wuxian managed to sniff out the poison before it could cause lasting damages, but the effect of it was going on for long enough that Jiang Yanli still had an early term miscarriage before she even knew she was pregnant. Wei Wuxian, incensed by Jiang Yanli’s suffering, was ready to expose Jin Ziyan, but was ordered not to by Wen Zhuliu. ‘We still need Jin Ziyan’ was his reasoning. Still, Wei Wuxian managed to tip off the investigators such that they detected and put an end to the poisoning, but the culprit was ultimately never caught. As this played out, Wei Wuxian realized that now was his chance to get close to Lan Wangji. With Jiang Yanli recuperating...surely the Jiang family would want someone else of their clan to serve Lan Wangji in her place, someone who could keep Lan Wangji’s attention but would not replace Jiang Yanli’s place in the harem. It did not take much to lead Yu Ziyuan to the same conclusion. To ensure that he would have ample time with Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian secretly slipped a special sedative into Jiang Yanli’s food and drink to mimic the symptoms of a slow recovery. The sedative was one of Qishan’s secret formulations and could not be detected by Gusu’s finest doctors. But Jiang Yanli, bless her heart, did not want the boy who she’d come to see as a little brother to be used like an object. "A-niang, I don't want to force A-Xian to do things he doesn't want to. I will get better, dianxia will not abandon me." — Yu Ziyuan tsked, "Silly girl, serving Lan Wangji in your stead is his entire purpose for coming with you. Every family must plan for something like this; someone to hold onto Lan Wangji's interest while you're indisposed. Men are fickle, child. You need time to recover and someone will need to remind Hanguang-wang that you still matter when you’re ready again. We cannot let him forget you. Think of what this would mean for our clan." Much to Yu Ziyuan’s delight, Lan Wangji came to check on Jiang Yanli while she was visiting, and Madam Yu had no qualms making hints that it would be the Jiang family’s honour if Hanguang-wang allowed ‘A-Xian’ to serve him while Yanli recovered. Wei Wuxian did not protest. Why would he? This was his orchestration after all, but when he dared raise his gaze from the floor to look at Lan Wangji, he detected a hint of something in Lan Wangji’s face…something like disappointment. Wei Wuxian relayed this to Xue Yang and the other evil gremlin sucked on a candied apricot and said with a roll of his eyes： —“You’re so dense, shixiong, tsk. Men like Lan Wangji could have any man or woman he wants. If you go along with Madam Yu’s orders, you’ll just to be like everyone else, another ambitious servant trying to socially advance. He’ll fuck you and forget you within a blink of an eye.” — Wei Wuxian sipped his liquor and grimaced. “Fine, what do you suggest I do then? — Xue Yang smirked, “Oh, haven’t you heard? Men like roses with thorns. When you’re brought to him tonight, don’t play along. Don’t humour him. Refuse him.” — Wei Wuxian： >_> Is this how you got those Daoist priests in bed with you? — Xue Yang smirked shamelessly, “Worked, innit?”

Listen, Lan Wangji was fully prepared to have some emotionless sex with Wei Wuxian okay? Boy was prepared to just go through the motions. He was disappointed to know that A-Xian turned out to be no better than any other servant in his harem: eager to climb his bed.

Being a concubine was stupid work, Wei Wuxian realized belatedly. After dinner, Jiang Yanli bid him goodbye with worried eyes as the momos and gugus of Hanguang-fu dragged him away to be bathed and prepped for the prince’s enjoyment later that night. (gugu, momo - older female servants)

Wei Wuxian was not a dirty person - sure, he worked hard, but he bathed regularly - they did not have to scrub that roughly. As they practically scrapped off a layer of skin, the momos rattled on and on about how he should “conduct” himself in the presence of dianxia and how he should position himself to best please him. 

What the actual fuck. Wei Wuxian resisted the urge to pull a face. Did the ladies get the same banal talk? How fucking boring was the sex around here? Wei Wuxian wasn’t born yesterday alright? He knew how to fuck.  ...Well fine, he didn’t, but he and Xue Yang had sucked each other off once or twice, so that should count for something. 

Once the attendants were satisfied with the state of him - hair brushed, skin cleaned and lotioned, callouses removed - they rolled him in a large full-body sized blanket, placed him in a sedan and ordered the servants to carry him to Lan Wangji’s chamber. 

Wei Wuxian tried not to make an exasperated grimace when the servants literally picked him up like a log and deposited him on the prince’s large bed.

Fucking...seriously? 

He did not remember this bullshit when zhangjie married in...but then again Jiang Yanli did marry in. There was a ceremony and everything. Lan Wangji was very respectful that night, bowing to her before lifting her veil as a gentleman ought to. So what the fuck is this barbaric treatment? Just as he pondered on these questions, the tulle canopy parted, and Lan Wangji’s handsome face and broad chest came into view. Undressed to his inner most layer of robes and his ink black hair let loose, he looked very much like a man ready to ravish his new concubine, but somehow, Wei Wuxian could not detect a trace of interest on that jade-like face. 

Despite knowing this was all an act, just a means to an end, Wei Wuxian shivered when Lan Wangji reached for the edge of the blanket that encased him. 

He pulled the blankets closer, shrinking deeper inside. 

“Don’t be afraid,” said Lan Wangji. “I won’t hurt you.” 

Time to act, Wei Wuxian. Give it your best shot. 

“I’m not afraid.”  “Then why do you hide?”  Wei Wuxian waited a meaningful second before meeting Lan Wangji’s gaze dead on and said, “Because I don’t want to.”  Nonplussed, Lan Wangji raised an elegant eye brow in return. “Oh? Is that so? Or are those just words? Perhaps you've confused what kind of place a harem is. If you do not want to, why are you here?”

Is my act not convincing enough or is this stupid asshole so confident in his attractiveness that he thinks everyone must automatically want to fuck him? Slightly ticked off now, Wei Wuxian sat up, still holding the blanket to his chest and retorted hotly, “I am not confused, dianxia. Perhaps you are unable to comprehend the idea that someone as lowly as a servant would refuse when given the opportunity to ascend in rank, but nevertheless, that doesn’t change my position. I don't want to. I am here because Lianfang-jun appointed me; there was hardly any room in that decision for me to argue. If you are determined to have me, I will not resist, because I understand my place. But I am a person, not a thing or a broodmare for you breed. I have some dignity left, and at the very least, before you...before you hold me down and fuck me, I want you to know."

Wei Wuxian half wondered if his act had gone a little overboard. The expletives maybe were just a tad too dramatic, but then again...   ...seeing how Lan Wangji's entire stance shifted, maybe not. 

Lan Wangji withdrew his hand. He had mistaken Wei Wuxian’s initial unwillingness as coquettish posturing, but the heat in those dark, bright eyes could not be faked. 

“Those words could get you into a lot of trouble when spoken to the wrong person. Have the momos not taught you the rules?” 

Wei Wuxian squared his shoulders. “They have, but I place trust in Hanguang-wang’s reputation, that you are a true gentleman and would not force me against my will.” Then, just as he practiced, Wei Wuxian lowered his eyes. “I am a servant, your servant, and I know it is my duty to serve you in any way you command me, but I -...please find other use of me, dianxia, but not this.” 

 He startled a little when a warm hand found purchase under his chin and lifted up his face. Lan Wangji inspected him wordlessly with those cold, sharp eyes, searching for lies, for pretense. Wei Wuxian held his breath, praying he won’t be found out, but eventually, when the prince and his calculation deemed him good enough, he let go. 

“Very well.” 

Lan Wangji fetched a pair of clean inner robes and trousers from the wardrobe and handed them to Wei Wuxian. “Get dressed and move over.” Without waiting for Wei Wuxian to respond, he sat himself down on the edge of the bed and began to remove his socks and shoes. 

Wei Wuxian moved quickly, shrugging on the robes and tied it in place before shoving the trousers under the covers to try and pulling them up his legs. “You’re...you’re not leaving?” 

Lan Wangji glared at him over his shoulder. “This is my room, my bed. Why should I leave?” 

Right. Right.

“But you’re not...sending me away?” 

Lan Wangji frowned as though questioning his intelligence. “Would you like me to send you away? I should think that would reflect badly on you and your mistress.”   That did give Wei Wuxian pause. “Uh, well –”   “Your declining to be my bedfellow does not impede my fulfilling my side of the arrangement. You will leave in the morning, and the others will think that I found you pleasing enough to keep you the whole night. That should give Jiang-fu’ren and the Yunmeng Jiang clan sufficient face."   “I could sleep on the floor.” 

“Do you want to sleep on the floor?” Lan Wangji swung his legs onto the bed and arranged the blankets to his liking. “The doors are never locked. Servants and sentinels must be allowed in to check on me during the night for security purposes. It would not bode well if they found you lying on the floor.” 

Right, yeah that would defeat the whole purpose. 

“Oh.” 

Lan Wangji lay down and crossed his hands over his chest. “Lie down, sleep. I have morning court assembly, and I’m tired. If you’re going to stay, don’t be a disturbance.” 

Feeling like he’d lost all semblance of control in this situation, Wei Wuxian awkwardly laid himself down beside Lan Wangji. The bed was big enough for the two of them that there was space in between even when both of them lay flat on their backs. 

Lan Wangji lifted up just a second to blow out the bedside candle, and then there was total darkness.

Wasn’t I suppose to seduce him? What the fuck is this? Okay...maybe I have no idea how to seduce him...maybe I have no idea how to do anything that’s not straight up strangling him in his sleep. 

Wei Wuxian could feel his heart thudding in his chest, panic coiling tighter and tighter. He almost wished Lan Wangji had ignored his protest and took him, because then it’d be straight forward. As it were, he had no idea how to proceed now. 

Just as Wei Wuxian was being slowly consumed by his maelstrom of thoughts, Lan Wangi suddenly spoke into the dark. 

"I am not a heartless bastard, you should know."

Huh? 

"I never implied that."

“You did.” Lan Wangji gave a little shake of his head. “I do not want this anymore than the others in the harem. You said I treat my women like broodmares, but perhaps you have not considered that Gusu treats me like a stallion."   Wei Wuxian was momentarily speechless.    “Your mistress is very kind and gentle. I am sorry that the child in her belly was lost; I know she very much wanted to be a mother. I see that you are very protective of her, so you should know, I would never hurt her.  Even if she were to never recover her strength, I would not let harm come to her.”   Those words, softly spoken, tugged at Wei Wuxian’s conscience, if not his heartstrings. “Dianxia -”   “Sleep. Good night.”

The next morning Wei Wuxian woke up to knocking on the door. The sun was already high in the sky and the bed was empty of Lan Wangji’s presence.  A group of maids entered carrying a basin of water, towels and clean clothes. Wei Wuxian, dazed, asked, "Where's danxia?" One of the maid giggled. "Dianxia left at dawn to attend morning assembly at the palace. You must not know; he wakes up very early. He said not to wake you, and to let you sleep. He said," The others giggled with her. “He said that you've had a long night."

To the great surprise of everyone, Lan Wangji did not elevate Jiang Yanli’s servant A-Xian to concubine status after the ‘long night’ they had together. Instead he ordered A-Xian to be transferred to his court to be his close-quarter attendant, to serve him in his every day tasks.  Wei Wuxian did not exactly understand why Lan Wangji would make this particularly decision, but he did not complain. After all this was exactly what he wanted, to be close to Lan Wangji and earn his trust.  Lan Wangji, on the other hand, was content to have Wei Wuxian close by, secure in the knowledge ‘A-Xian’ did not wish to spread his legs to socially advance. Perhaps, if he dared to hope, he could finally have someone to speak to in this lonely manor full of people who only saw the crown hanging above his head.

Xue Yang was of the opinion that this was all going to end badly. He was right. 

[next]

[scapegrace74-blog]

New Ways of Turning into Stone, Chapter 6

A/N Where does the time go?  I lugged my laptop 7,000km round trip with the sole intention of working on this fic, but that apparently didn’t happen.  For those who found the last chapter hard to bear, I apologize in advance.  I am not quite finished being cruel.  With that said, trigger warning for character death, childhood disease, suicide ideation.  The chapter title is Sleeping in the Clouds.

The first five chapters are available on my AO3 page.

Five Months Later

A persistent mechanical bleating lifted Claire from the indeterminate depths of medicated sleep.  The emergency contact number she provided to all her patients was programmed to forward to her mobile, where a particularly aggravating ringtone ensured she would never miss a call.  Even at one am on a Tuesday night.

Fumbling for the device, she glanced at the unfamiliar number before answering.

“Doctor Beauchamp speaking.”  Her voice was gritty and rough.  She reached for a half-filled tumbler of water while waiting for the caller to identify themselves.  Over the line she could make out muted traffic noise, and perhaps a distant foghorn, but no-one spoke.

“Hello?” she inquired, torn between concern that a patient needed her and frustration that she might have been woken by a misdialed number.

“If you’re one of my patients, you need to talk to me so that I can help you.”

There was an intake of breath, a weepy sniffle, and then the click of the call being terminated.  A prickle of gooseflesh washed over her.  She couldn’t say exactly how, but she knew who had called, and that he needed her.

One of the grim perks of her job was that she had backdoor access to reverse look-up for telephone numbers, in cases where there was a threat of self-harm or harm to others.  As Claire hastily donned socks and grabbed a winter coat, she waited on hold for the PSAP operator to provide an address.

“We’re in luck, Doctor Beauchamp.  It wasna a mobile number.  In fact, tis a telephone booth.  Gote Lane, in Queensferry.  Down near the... umm, next tae the bridge.”

Without so much as a thank you, she hung up and frantically punched the app for an Uber.

Fifteen nail biting minutes and an excessive tip later, she stood in front of an empty phone booth.  Predictably, the directory had been torn out, leaving only a thin metal cord and car-key graffiti inside the cramped interior.  But on top of the phone itself she found a familiar ecru business card, her name and credentials embossed in black font.

“Damn it, Jamie,” she muttered to herself, palming the card.

If he’d hung up and started walking towards the bridge, she might be able to catch him if she ran all out, but something called her towards the nearby shore instead.

The tide was out, leaving a narrow strip of beach and sharp, slimy rocks exposed to the heavy air.  Her nostrils were assaulted by the briny vegetative rot of the retreating sea.

On a weathered bench facing the river, encircled by a cone of foggy streetlight, sat a man, his eyes trained on the smudgy lights of the Queensferry bridge hovering high above.  Even bundled in a heavy black jacket and watch cap, she would recognize his long limbs and the set of his shoulders anywhere.  She let out a long breath of relief.

She approached the bench cautiously, not certain if her presence would be welcome.  Instead of turning to greet her footsteps, Jamie addressed the bridge.

“Maggie passed t’day.  I called ‘cause I wanted ye tae know, but then I couldna find the words tae tell ye.”  Despite his refusal to look at her, his words were calm and without a hint of the bitterness she’d expected.

“Oh, Jamie.  I’m so terribly sorry.  I didn’t know her well, but she was a very special little girl who loved you dearly.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of her words, but didn’t reply.  She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, suddenly aware that she was still wearing her pajamas, her hair doubtless a veritable cumulus of tangled curls.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.  “I still have some contacts at the hospital, I could...” she broke off, knowing it was ridiculous to offer professional assistance when she’d been the one to sever their relationship.

“Would ye, if it’s no’ too much tae ask, would ye mind jus’ sittin’ here with me fer a bit?”

He finally turned to look at her, and she could see the spider web of red veins that surrounded his irises, testimony to his heartbreak.  His mouth, usually such an accurate barometer of his mood, was strangely inert.  She nodded, unable to deny him such a simple request.

It was the time of night when the daytime symphony of the city broke into its component parts, every passing car, every lapping wave a single instrument singing its own plaintive song.  They sat in silence for long enough that she could feel the damp creeping up the legs of her pajamas.

“Maggie loved tae cross that bridge,” Jamie said at last.  “She’d lower her window, rain or shine, and stick her wee arm out, sayin’ it felt like she was flyin’.”

Claire smiled at the image, trying to picture the little girl with the giant imagination.

“What colour was her hair, Jamie?” she asked.  “Was it red, like yours?”

“Nah, dark, like Jenny’s and our Da.  But wi’ curls like mine and my Ma’s.  A little like yours, actually, Sassenach.  That is, before the chemo took it away.”

She grimaced, not knowing what topic to choose that wouldn’t lead Jamie on a path directly back to his grief.

“She fought sae hard,” he continued before she could attempt another distraction, “but the cancer wouldna let her win.”  Tears were rolling down his cheeks, glinting in the sodium light like stars, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.  “She was the best person I knew.  Sounds strange tae say of a wee lass, but she truly was.  An’ it made me a better person tae love her.  What the fuck am I gonna do now?”

Jamie was looking straight at her, as though he truly expected her to offer useful guidance.  All her training, her professional distance, fell away in the face of one broken man.  She swallowed, searching for words that weren’t a platitude.

“You’re going to go on living, because she can’t.  Because your happiness, when you are ready to feel it again, will be a gift to her memory.”

Jamie sniffed, then wiped his sleeve across his face.  He placed his hand on the bench between them.  Without allowing herself to think, Claire reached for it, finding his skin surprisingly warm.  There was an agonizing fermata, when all the instruments held their breath, and then he turned his palm upwards to meet her own.  Beneath the fog the river slipped by, blending endlessly into the sea.

"Look, Jamie, I know it’s not the right time, but I want to tell you that I’m sorry.  For the way I treated you, and ended things, and...”

“Nay, Sassenach, it’s me who should apologize.  I had no right tae throw my diagnosis at ye like some kinda weapon.  An’ when I think of how I heedlessly brought up yer becoming a mother.  I, of all people.  Weel, suffice it tae say I’ve spent many an hour regretin’ my words an’ actions.”

She squeezed his hand, wordlessly declaring them equal in remorse.

“How have ye been?” he inquired, peering at her as though trying to read her state of mind on the planes of her face.  She chuckled, looking away when the intensity of his gaze became too much.

“About the same, I suppose.  Better some days than others.  Geillis has started ordering my lunches for me, so I no longer have any excuse not to eat.”  Jamie nodded, seemingly pleased with this news.

“And you?  Are you still seeing Dr. Rafferty?  I... uhh, I know his office requested your file.”

In fact, Giles Rafferty had called her the week after her confrontation with Jamie, wondering why his new patient’s record of treatment contained no more than his biographical details and the time and date of each of his appointments.  She told him the same thing she’d told Geillis when she asked the same question in significantly cruder terms: that her weekly interactions with Jamie had never led to a professional diagnosis or a recommended course of treatment.

“Aye. He’s a good man, although tragically immune tae my charms.  Unlike some.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Fraser,” she warned, although his rakish grin warmed her from the inside out.

“I’ll be darkening his doorway wi’ some frequency, after t’day,” he continued with a return to solemnity.

And yet you called me, Claire wanted to say, but didn’t.  When his beloved niece had slipped away, hers had been the number he had dialed, despite everything.  The very idea made her thoughts flit about like fireflies.

“I missed ye, Sassenach,” he confessed quietly after a time.

“I missed you too, Jamie.”

They sat together through the thin hours of the night, talking, sharing memories of Maggie, but mostly in silent companionship.  As dawn brightened the eastern sky, the fog began to lift, revealing an overcast sky.  The lights of the bridge blinked out, and the city’s music began anew.  Claire wished futilely that day would never break, knowing that it would bring them both the pain of two very different kinds of goodbye.

Her hand, when Jamie finally let it go, felt strange, as though it had been separated from its source.  She tucked it quickly into her pocket.

“I.. errr, I need tae be goin’,” Jamie said by way of apology.  “Ian and Jenn will be needin’ me.”

“Yes, of course.  I’ll just, um, call myself an Uber.”

They were both standing, neither seemingly knowing how to part.

Jamie opened his mouth, paused, shook his head in frustration, then looked away.  Her traitorous hand escaped her pocket and found its way to his chest.

“I’ll be thinking of you.  All of you.  If there’s anything, anything at all..”

“How long until your no’ my doctor anymore?  Ethically speakin’.”  He was looking at her in a way that made the fireflies whirlpool about.

“What?” she asked to buy herself some time to breath.

“Before I go an’ face everything that is wrong about t’day, I want tae ken, how long must I wait before I can kiss ye again wi’out riskin’ yer reputation?”

“There’s no written timetable,” she stalled.  “It’s a question of a doctor exerting undue influence or the exploitation of the patient’s trust, and there’s really...”

“Those rules are meant tae protect the patient, aye?  So I should be allowed tae waive them, no’?”

“Jamie...”

“Fine, let me rephrase my question.  Doctor Claire Beauchamp, when can I, James Fraser, ask ye tae look upon me as a potential suitor and no’ a former patient?  Six months?  A year?  Two years?”

“You really are the most infuriatingly stubborn man,” she huffed.

“Aye, I ken.  Sae, two years?  Do we have an agreement, Sassenach?”

“Fine, yes, two years, but Jamie, I don’t expect you to...”

A finger was placed across her lips, silencing her protests.

“Two years are naught if I can kiss ye again once they have passed.  Until then, Claire, please take care of yerself.”

She stood by the bench long after Jamie was gone, staring out across the river.  A flock of geese flew by in formation, broad wings nearly touching the surface of the water as it reflected the steel gray clouds above.  She thought of little Maggie, and her birdhouse surrounded by clouds.  A sob wrestled its way up her throat, surprising in its urgency.  And then, she allowed herself to cry.

[captainrexisboo]

Ice

-DJ Khaled voice- Another one.

What the fuck?? Four fics in just one weekend?? After two whole months of inactivity?? Aha, I am in no way as productive as you think I am. I’ve been sitting on all of these projects for almost three months now lmao- but they’re here now for your viewing pleasure, babes! This is a one shot Rex x Jedi!Reader, but they are not together. They do not get together. This is just Rex, pining for some oblivious Jedi General (you) and dealing with it by being grumpy and thinking he has the upper hand in teasing the reader. I left the gender of the reader pretty ambiguous I think? I hope?

No warnings apply, except I guess foul language if you don’t like that. And vague imaginings of semi steamy scenarios. Some angst if you squint. But really, it’s just fluffy pining, with a needy (and in denial) Rex. Comments, questions, reblogs and replies absolutely welcome and encouraged!

~

“T-take off the a-a-armor.”

The jaig eyes turned to you, the blue and white blending into the Pantoran ice and snow effortlessly. This would be the only environment suitable for their stark white armor as camouflage, and here you were demanding him stripped. Knowing you couldn’t read his bewildered expression, Rex tilted his head to you in a curious motion, “Why?”

“It’s fekkin’ f-freezin’ Cap,” you spoke through chattering teeth, pulling your robes tighter around you. He chuckled at your cursing, no other Jedi talked so blunt like you did, so casual. It was even worse when you were outside the temple, falling out of regulations and decorum the moment it was just you and your troopers. Hell, they didn’t even have to be your troopers. Force knows how often you’ve snuck around the barracks on Coruscant, going from battalion to battalion, whoever had furlough, making sure every clone gets at least a moment's worth of normalcy in their too-short life. Rex would be lying if he said it wasn’t endearing, and he may have felt a slight smidgen of pride that, aside from your own men, you seemed to find yourself in the 501st bunks the most.

“So? I’m perfectly toasty in this specialized insulated armor. You’re the one that decided not to wear your cold-assault gear until we got to the surface, General L/N,” Rex teased, drawing out your name and title nice and slow, biting back a bit of laughter at the way you scrunch your nose whenever you got annoyed, “Why would you want me to de-kit? To be cold with you?”

“Don’t c-call me that, Rex,” you bit out, groaning at the formality, and the chill going down your spine, “Y-you know I’m just Y/N.”

“I’ll stop calling you proper, when you stop being a Jedi,” he chided, prodding some more at the fire in the dim cavern, the only light being the glowing embers in front of you and whatever was being illuminated off the snow right at the mouth of the cave. Your ship had crashed into the freezing moon in the midst of a brutal blizzard, luckily right next to the base of a mountain with accessible caves. Unluckily, you were also 15 klicks west of your rendezvous point, with the wind and snow causing major damage to your transmitters and interfering with the signal in your commlinks. You weren’t going anywhere, or talking to anyone, until the storm let up.

You huffed at his strict persona, you know Rex only acted so dogmatic to rile you up. You saw how nonchalantly he acted around Anakin and Ahsoka, even Obi-Wan at times. No, with you it was entertainment, a game to see how much you could take before breaking, and he loved it. Even without the Force, you could see it in the shake of his shoulders at his quiet laughter, hear the coy smirk in the dip of his drawl, watching the extra swing in his stride as he walked away triumphant every time, so sure he had succeeded in driving you crazy. This time, he had nowhere to run.

Ignoring his baiting taunt, you crawled around the fire to sit right next to him, “P-please, Captain? I’m r-r-really kriffin’ c-cold, and while the fire is so delightful, I think i-it’d be in both o-our best interests to h-have a second source of heat.”

Rex nearly dropped his stick he was using to poke at the kindles, tensing slightly before clearing his throat, “Oh? And what ‘source of heat’ did you have in mind?”

“D-don’t play dumb,” you shivered again, pouting at how you stuttered while he sat a little too well composed for your liking, “I know the K-Kaminoans t-taught you all about s-s-survival tactics. I d-do it with my boys a-all the time. Strip to your b-blacks, m-me to my t-t-tunic, then I’ll wrap my robes around the two of us. B-body heat, Rex.”

Your boys. Your affectionate term for your ever-faithful battalion, that apparently frequently slept and cuddled with you in the most innocent and familiar of ways. Still, something about it made Rex’s stomach stir, his mouth twisting from a smirk into a silent snarl under his helmet. He wasn’t against ‘cuddle puddles’ with the vode, every single brother took part in them, and it wasn’t unusual to find a stray jedi or padawan compacted in the very middle of the pile. He knew for a fact that the 212th had regular arguments as to who’s turn it was to use General Kenobi as a pillow (and that Cody never partook in those bouts- no, he was always the General’s pillow). In theory, he knows it's more than a possibility for you to be a part of them, especially with your extremely relaxed extroverted personality, but actually hearing you say it out loud had something ugly rear its head to sour the Captain’s mood. He attempted to shoo the little creature away, trying to scare it off with a forced cough to make it scurry back into hiding and leave his inner peace alone. His mind clear again, he peered into your pleading doe eyes through his visor, seeing the flames flickering reflections off your irises in a whimsical dance. His gaze went lower, following the slope of your nose, before tracing the shape of your full pout, lips trembling and reddened from the cold, nearly beginning to chap. The slight clicking of your teeth as he watched you shiver under your robes made him resign to your request, sighing as he removed the cowled helmet, “Fine. Why you didn’t just wear your own cold-assault gear is beyond me, but I’ll help you stay warm this time.”

“Oh, thank the force,” you whimpered, immediately dropping the outermost robe from your shoulders, staying on your knees as he stood up to remove his layers. Rex nearly dropped his cuirass, watching you unwrap your tan-colored linen underneath to reveal a gripping white tunic, clinging to your every curve and muscle, no part of you left to the imagination except the actual flesh itself. You even discarded your boots and breeches, leaving you in opaque black tights. Without the safety of his helmet, Rex tore his eyes from you, desperate to hold onto some semblance of rectitude, taking a deep inhale through his nose before continuing his own removal. Rex could feel the tip of his nose numbing just slightly, shaking his head at what the hell was he doing-

“You know, if we get found like this-”

“We’ll s-say I got hypothermia and you were ‘d-doing your duty t-to protect the Jedi’,” you giggled, a little forced, hands coming up to rub at your shoulders, attempting to create some friction, but wincing at the iciness of your fingers, “Rex, hurry!”

Your whine of his name had him hesitant to remove the bottom half of his armor, already starting to feel something forbidden gathering in the depths of his stomach. He tried to fend off the feeling by turning his head to the stone wall and talking- though whether that was an effective decision remained to be seen. “I’m just saying, can’t you use the Force or whatever to warm yourself up? Isn’t that something you can do? I know you can use the Force for healing purposes, this’d be like that, right?”

“If I had f-followed the path of m-m-medical practice, sure,” your breath came out in little clouds as you puffed through another tremor, wrapping your dark robe around your shoulders as you waited for Rex to finish, “But, I didn’t, I chose the kn-n-nights, and so I’m here, and n-now I’m your problem.”

“My problem,” Rex grumbled under his breath as he sat back down, tugging at the final parts of his boots, not caring that you could actually hear him, “Skywalker is my problem. Tano is my problem. Kenobi can even be considered my problem at times, but you, General? No, no, no. You’re not my problem, you’re-”

Turning back around to face you, he nearly choked on his own spit. He hadn’t realized how close you were, and without his helmet, his nose brushed against yours in an innocent bunny kiss, the brief friction making him jump back nearly a foot away. A teasing chuckle left you at his skittish reaction, cocking your head to the side as you opened your robe back up and beckoned him closer, “Wrong way, Captain. C’mere.”

His throat felt tight, closing off almost everything, even air, and despite his discarded layers he was certain the back of his neck was beginning to sweat. The way you so carefully had folded your legs, thighs pillowing together in such an enticing way, leaning on your elbow to pronounce the slope of your hips and curve of your waist...he could so easily wrap his arms around you perfectly, before settling his head to rest on your chest and memorize the beat of your heart- the pinch of his nails digging into the meat of his palm drew him out of his mind before he could fall any further down that rabbit hole. He cleared his throat, throwing his gaze to the floor as his entire being tensed, “This…i-is not regulation, General.”

“Oh my maker you’ve been hanging out with Echo too much,” you groaned, throwing your head back dramatically, “Rex, please?”

He swallowed down a hard gulp of air, inching his way over to you, without looking up from the floor. You met him halfway, dragging your thickest robe behind you, and sighed in relief at the natural waves of heat coming off of him. Every single clone ran hot, and you trapped that heat by throwing the robes over the two of you, wrapping your hands around the back of Rex’s head and pulling him into your neck as you leaned against a standing rock.

One minute his eyes were counting cracks and jagged holes scattered over the cave floor, and the next they were gifted with a gracious view of your form, so close he could smell your clean body wash, a soft mint that tickled his nose, and he had to count to ten to control his breath so he didn’t just inhale you instead of oxygen. It was a concentrated effort made extremely difficult due to the delightfully sharp pressure of your nails against his scalp. You already felt like heaven, he had to tense himself from wanting to grab for more of you- which he didn’t have to do anyways. You had pulled him into you, his nose brushing over your neck, the tip still chilled, making a breathless giggle leave you, “Oh, your nose is s-so icy!”

“Who's fault is that,” Rex grumbled into you, mumbling to try to keep his lips from mouthing over your exposed collarbone. What he couldn’t stop was the delighted shiver that ran through him as your hands started massaging the tired planes of muscle in his back, making him lose a bit of discipline and dropping flush against you. He made a horrified sound, the breath strangled in his throat as he felt a nervous sweat thickly dripping over the back of his neck, before that sweet amused sound left you once again.

“Rex, you're so tense! Here, lemme just-”

Your hands worked in smooth motions, rubbing deep into his tired tissue. He could feel his eyes roll back into his head, biting the swell of his lip to keep any lewd sounds from leaving him, focusing on syncing his breath with the flow of your touches. His form was finally slack, keeping you trapped underneath him as his arms tentatively found their way around your waist, holding you to him, his face buried in the crook of your neck. You hummed at the coverage of him over you, leaning to nuzzle against the side of his head, the prick of his blond tickling the tip of your numbed nose. You whispered to him, eyelids growing heavy as you curled into him, “Thank you, Captain.”

Your breathing evened out, deep and slow, your hands coming to a rest, stopping on the small of his back and between his shoulder blades. Rex couldn’t believe it; you had fallen asleep in his arms. His eyes slowly peeked open, and he wiggled a bit, getting to a place where he faced you instead of the rock you were both leaning on. His eyes were nearly level with your jawline, he could trace the profile of your parted lips, still threatening to chap in the cold air, but your breath didn’t stutter anymore from the chill. He really was helping keep you warm.

He had dreamt about those lips, memorized the way they shaped his name, watched the direction you preferred to run your tongue over them while you were deep in thought. He licked his own lips in just that way, thinking about how maybe it’d feel if he were to do that to yours.

Maker, he was awful. Thinking about his wretched togue playing at your perfect lips, while you laid so peaceful and trusting underneath him.

Rex prided himself as a man of honor, he wasn’t so foolish as to attempt anything, but even just thinking about you in this vulnerable way as you let him hold you… he felt slimy, unworthy to be in your good graces. He let out a shuddering breath, not in the cold but in longing, exhaling your name as his arms brought you impossibly closer to him. For however long the two of you had, however long the storm lasted, he would treasure this. He would treasure you. 

He was a fool for fighting you on this. Being lulled by your breath to join you into rest as the blizzard raged on, the only thing he would change would be how late he was in agreeing to your conditions. When you both awoke, with the snow settled and communications running, when you were both with your respective teams, and yourself in proper gear, Rex would still have tonight in his memory. He would still be holding you in his arms, breathing you in, and playing the memory of your heartbeat, the soft thumping tempo so soothing, on repeat in his mind.

[metinthehallway]

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello! Here is a simple little 3.5k fic! I thank @goldenbluesuit for hosting this spectacular fic challenge! I love what I've read so far and I can’t wait to keep reading. Also, thank you to @lilacobscure and @arrogantstyles for beta-ing and just being...awesome. I hope you all like it. :) 

Warnings: mention of the word bloke from a non-Brit

Annie has had it. She’s holding two of her fluffiest pillows against both of her ears and has her white noise machine droning on at full volume. And she can still hear the sultry bass of Andy Williams singing his little heart out. She can hear him as clear as day, as if he were performing his very own live concert in the corner of her bedroom. Don’t even get her started on the Christmas lights. Annie had actually gone out and bought an eye mask in order to sleep, as her windows faced the neighbors front yard where Annie’s neighbor, apparently, was the sole reason their local supermarket was sold out of blow up decorations and string lights. 

Harry Styles didn’t even have a lot of real estate to work with in terms of space. But he really made every centimeter count. One morning mid-November, whilst getting her mail, Annie counted about fourteen deflated pop-up corpses staked to the frozen ground, multiple candy canes lining his driveway that were about half the size of her, and masses of tangled lights strung up across every visible square inch of his home. If that wasn’t enough, he had a carefully crafted playlist he turned on every night at eight p.m. sharp that was approximately three hours and forty-nine minutes long before it looped back to the beginning song. She thought, fleetingly, that she should invest in ear plugs.

Annie prides herself on being a patient and understanding person. The only reason why she hasn’t held a covert operation at three in the morning to mercilessly stab a hole in each blow-up, or cut every single criss-crossed wire, or even ambush her neighbor while he walks out his front door in nothing but a fuzzy pink robe and no shoes, demonstrating that universal, oh shit the ground is cold, oh shit, oh shit, jerking walk, is because he only recently moved in next door. She was not about to be the one to ask him to maybe take it easy on the city’s power source, that she also needs electricity for her home, and also how do you fall asleep with this godforsaken music?

Annie is not prideful in this moment. All it takes for her to snap is hearing, “It’s the hap-happiest season of all,” for the forty-fifth time. With a loud groan, she tears off her beautiful, beautiful down comforter and stomps into her shoes, scaring Cindy, her sleeping Persian cat, off the bed. It’s two thirty-six in the morning, she realizes in a far off thought that doesn’t seem to make it to the forefront of her brain, and makes her way over to Harry’s front door. She has the immature urge to punch a smiling Santa sat atop a sleigh filled with presents as she passes it. All the lights are off in his house and Annie doesn’t feel a bit of remorse as she raises a half-asleep arm and slams it against the sturdy oak door of Harry’s house. For a full minute, it’s silent and there appears to be no movement from behind the door. A sliver of apprehension begins to worm its way into Annie’s bones. 

There’s a better way to do this, Annie. Like, in daylight, during normal people hours. 

She starts to turn on her heel, continuing her internal chastising and also external chastising, muttering to herself like a lunatic, when she hears the tell-tale creak behind her and a porch light flickering to life. Annie stands there, her right hand over her eyes, shielding them from the harsh yellow rays. She can make out Harry’s figure, dressed in flannel pajama pants that look like they were previously crumpled on his bedroom floor, a white T-shirt on backwards and inside out, and his signature pink fuzzy robe. His hair sticks up hazardously, sort of like a halo illuminated by the bulb behind him. His eyes are puffy, brows furrowed together and indenting a line in the center of his forehead. Lips as pink as a rose purse together as nostrils flare.

“Is there something I might be able to help you with?” Harry asks, a slight lilt to his gravelly voice. It’s a polite enough question, however it holds an air of carefully restrained annoyance. For a moment, Annie thinks she would be annoyed as well if someone pounded at her front door in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning. She quickly dismisses the thought, actually raising her hand in the air and waving it off as if it was a tangible thing. Harry raises one eyebrow. 

“Good evening, well- morning, my name is Annie. I live next door, I’m twenty-two Ambrose Ave,” Annie starts. She doesn’t know why she announces her house number. She watches his eyes flick to his right where an engraved twenty-four lies, and back to hers. Annie shakes her head slightly before launching into a speech she never prepared.

“I’m here because I think the way you decorate is rude. Do you think, at all, of your neighbors? How do you fall asleep? Do you even have a job?! I never see you leave your house! Not that I’m keeping tabs, I’m just genuinely worried for your electric bill,” she continues, pausing to take a breath. “I have not had a single good nights rest since you started all of this, back in November. I have never hated the sound of Andy Williams’ voice more deeply than I do this holiday season.”

“Excuse me—,”

“Ah-ah! I’m not done, sir. Some of us are employed and have to work at eight a.m., some of us have cats that wake us up in the ass-crack of dawn anyway with their screeches and need all the sleep we can get. Do you know I had to buy a sleep mask because of you? Because of,” she pauses, a red rotating light from a candy cane passing over her face ominously as she turns around and gestures wildly to the commotion around her, “all this?”

“Can I just say—,”

“And the music. Are you eighty years old? The least you could do with this god-awful playlist is add some Mariah Carey, some Buble; even Ariana Grande has some sick Christmas tunes. The ones you chose haven’t been remastered since nineteen thirty-eight,” she finishes, eyes a little too wide, hair disheveled and falling in her face. Her hands are shaking and her heart is beating entirely too fast. Confrontation has never been Annie’s strong suit, evident of the lack of response from Harry as she cuts him off throughout the duration of her mini rant. He just peers back at her, face as still as stone as an uncomfortable silence falls between them. Frosty the Snowman rears its nasty head and Annie finds herself slowly closing her eyes and clenching her fists.

The second Annie starts to open her eyes, she hears the light closing of Harry’s front door and two locks click into place. She stands there, mouth slightly open as the early December chill works its way into her bones. She stares ahead of her and a murderous look takes over her face, cheeks red with the winter wind, lips chapped and tears starting to form on her lash line from the cold.

“What a fucking prick,” Annie mutters to herself. He can’t even respond to her? How childish. She turns around slowly, walking back through the winter wonderland, feeling defeated. She didn’t know what she expected to feel after finally expressing her thoughts, but she knew defeated was not it. 

As she crosses the threshold into her home, she thinks, maybe I could’ve handled that better. Annie prides herself on her patience. She was not patient that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the course of the month, Annie and Harry bump into each other way more than either of them would like. Once, when the mailman dropped off her mother’s monthly care package to Harry’s house, another when Annie had to begrudgingly ask to borrow his shovel when she found her car snowed in one early morning and a broken handle on her own. 

They’ve even begun to see each other in the aisles of their local supermarket. Annie enters the store, unsuspecting and looking for ingredients to make her world renowned charcuterie boards for a work fundraiser. She stops in her tracks and almost drops her jar of green olives when she sees a familiar head of frizzy brown hair. 

Harry is hyper-focused, reading the back of a spray cheese can. Annie tries to sneak by him and grab a box of herb filled crackers. Tries. She is unsuccessful, however, when her purse strap catches on a display and yanks her arm backwards, making her lose grip of the glass jar. Everything seems to happen in slow motion, as she watches the jar sail past Harry and hit the ground, glass exploding all over his shoes. The chattering happening around her ceases, as all of the blood in her body travels to her face. 

“Clean up in aisle four,” deadpans a nearby worker dressed in a horrid shade of neon green. He sighs heavily, murmuring under his breath that he doesn’t get paid nearly enough to be picking up all of these olives. 

Annie is mortified. She is unable to tear her focus away from Harry’s soaked suede shoes.  It’s only when he clears his throat and shifts his feet that she raises her head.

“I see… that you’ve really got a vendetta against me,” Harry scoffs, eyes trained on his feet, where the olive juice has to be seeping into his socks. No one likes wet socks. 

“That was completely on accident! I swear! Why is that display sticking three feet into the aisle anyway? That has to be a a safety violation,” Annie pushes out in a rush. There doesn’t seem to be enough air for her lungs in this store. Especially not with Harry now looking intensely at her, almost like he could see right through her. She folds under his gaze.

“It’s okay. I didn’t like these shoes much, to be fair,” Harry shrugs. 

“Really?”

“No,” Harry says. 

“Oh. Well, I can buy you a new pair. How much did you pay for those?” Annie asks, pulling out her wallet.

Harry raises a single eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth turning up and a dimple appearing out of thin air. 

“Too much. Really, it’s fine. The juice is translucent enough. I’ll just use them as house slippers,” he says. He opens his mouth to continue, but is interrupted by the loud squeaking of a bucket skidding across the floor. The neon green worker returns, a dingy looking mop in hand and a frown on his face. His free hand makes the shoo motion to Harry, starting to swipe at the floor, completely ignoring the glass scratching the linoleum that’s mixed in with the olives.

“Do you want any help?” Annie offers, stepping forward to at least pick up the larger shards scattered across the floor. The worker, whose name tag reads Roger, holds up a single pointer finger in her direction and shakes his head. Annie takes the hint, while Harry just shifts his gaze between Roger and the mess on the tiles, mouth somewhat agape. She nudges his shoulder with her own and gestures with her head for them to leave the aisle. 

Annie makes her way up to self-checkout, Harry following suit. They ring their items up in silence next to each other. They find themselves walking through the front door together, and it’s only when they’re outside in the sunshine that Harry lets out the deepest belly laugh Annie has ever heard. 

“Oh my god, my toes are so wet,” Harry says in between breaths. “Did you see the way that bloke’s vein was popping out of his neck? I thought he was about to commit second degree murder right in the condiment aisle.”

Annie’s heartbeat starts to pick up and she begins to laugh along with him. Tears form in both of their eyes and they sparkle in the cold afternoon sunlight. 

“I feel so bad! I don’t even like olives. They were just for my stupid charcuterie boards,” Annie says, laughter dying down. She sighs, wiping at her cheeks. She looks up, meeting Harry’s eyes. He looks down at her, smile fading slowly but his face still holding traces of warmth. 

“Well, I should be heading home. See you soon,” Harry bids his goodbye. Annie nods her head in his direction and turns, palming her keys and unlocking her car across the parking lot with a chirp. She unloads her groceries into the trunk and slides into the drivers seat, thinking for a brief moment about the shape of Harry’s smile. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The snow outside is falling. And it’s falling hard. So heavy and consistent that the power lines are drooping underneath the weight and the electricity in Annie’s house is flickering in and out. It’s Christmas Eve and all she wants to do is sleep the night away, then sleep the morning away, then sleep the weekend away. She draws back a curtain and peers at Harry’s lawn, the usual eyesore dark and covered in a blanket of sparkling white snow.

A sharp crack and the sound of something large tumbling to the ground close to Annie’s house makes both her and Cindy jump, eyes alert and tail all puffed out. She goes to open her front door to investigate and sees Cindy dart between her legs a second too late, a gray blur running into the stormy night.

“CINDY!” Annie yells, voice carrying eerily across the empty street. She takes off after the small cat, wearing only her pajamas and a pair of worn slippers. Annie loses her immediately in the snowfall. While outside, she sees the huge tree limb that fell onto Harry’s front yard, covering a third of his decorations, deeming a good chunk of them broken. She wonders for a short second why he hasn’t come out to check on the noise. 

Annie’s heart starts to race as she tries to get a rein on her growing panic. Cindy is a strictly indoor cat, only having been outside for vet visits. She thinks of what would bring her cat back home, yelling her name sweetly and kissing her teeth loudly. She starts to walk towards the tree line, snapping her fingers and chattering her teeth. 

“Annie?” She hears her name being called out from behind her. She throws her head over her shoulder and locks eyes with Harry, standing there in his infamous robe. He’s got his face turned away from the harsh wind and his face is scrunched up in confusion. “What on Earth are you doing out here?! Are you mental?” 

“Cindy got out! I don’t know where she went. She ran in this direction. She never goes outside, I don’t know what to do,” Annie exclaims, feeling the urge to tear at her hair. 

“Who’s Cindy?” Harry asks.

“My cat! She was scared by the branch falling and snuck right past me when I opened the door,” she explains, arms crossing over her chest as the chill of the night bites at her skin. She shivers, turning back towards the trees. They look like they’re beginning to come alive.

Harry looks her up and down and comes up behind her, wrapping that godforsaken robe around her shaking frame. She looks up at him, grateful for the extra layer. He has a serious look on his face, determined with a mix of compassion, and also curiosity. Annie is suddenly relieved that she has someone with her to handle the situation with more calm than she ever could.

“Why don’t you go inside and grab her favorite treats? And a blanket she loves? Something that smells like you would be best,” Harry says, listing off the necessary items as if he’s done this before. She looks at him, a bit puzzled, and he reads her expression easily.

“Our cats growing up were professional escape artists. I’ve done this once or twice,” he lets out a small chuckle. She nods and heads towards her house, grabbing everything they need and changing into a pair of winter boots and shrugging on a coat, shoving Harry’s robe towards him. 

“I got everything. Here’s your robe,” Annie says, unable to meet his eyes. She already feels indebted to him, and they haven’t even found Cindy yet. “Thank you for helping me. I’m just… scared,” she confesses, tears starting to well up. She presses her fists into her eyes roughly as if she could stop them from falling. 

Harry just nods, takes the garment, and starts shaking the treat bag. His deep voice carries into the night more than hers did as he walks around, zig-zagging across the snow. Annie holds Cindy’s favorite blanket that resides on her bed and wraps it around her. She follows Harry, both chorusing, Cindy! Cindy, baby! Come back! It’s too cold for you out here!

They walk the perimeter of Annie’s house, keeping to the tree line, when Harry shushes her. He stops in his tracks and listens to the silent night. Faintly, from the direction of Harry’s house, comes a small mewl. He walks briskly over, slowing his movements as he gets closer in order not to scare the small Persian. 

“Cindy? Where are you girl? Come out for your mama,” Harry half-whispers, half-shouts. He’s still shaking the treats lightly, starting to open them. From their right they can hear a crumpling of plastic, a flash of gray shooting out from underneath the collapsed blow-up of Santa on his sleigh. Annie cries out in relief as Cindy comes running towards them at full speed, crashing right into Harry’s legs. He scoops her up swiftly with one hand and holds a treat out to her in his other. 

“You had me so worried, Cindy! I cannot believe you. You want nothing to do with the outside world but decide to run out into the coldest night we’ve had so far! You’re crazy,” Annie half-sobs, holding the cats face in two hands. Cindy shakes the snow out of her fur and licks at Annie’s nose. Harry watches the interaction, feeling something unfolding in his own chest. He gestures for Annie to take her cat, picking long hairs out of his robe.

“I see everything’s all in order here, I’ll just—oh,” Harry lets out a grunt as this peculiar woman collides into his body, cat trapped between the two of them and licking at the pink fuzz surrounding Harry as if she were grooming a kitten. His eyes go a bit wide, arms frozen around Annie while she releases a string of, thank you so much, you have no idea how much she means to me, you didn’t have to do this but you did so I owe you, I’m sorry for what I said that night, I’m sorry about the olive juice, thank you, thank you, thank you, muffled into his chest. His hands find themselves resting on her back, stroking up and down in a means to calm her.

“Hey, hey… it’s okay. I know what it feels like. I’m glad she was okay,” Harry soothes. Annie pulls away, and a strange longing passes through his heart. He frowns slightly and clears his throat. 

“I’m going to go to bed now, and get this little gremlin inside. Thank you so much, Harry. I really do appreciate it, more than you know,” Annie says, a bit breathless. Snowflakes lay themselves to rest upon her eyelashes, lips pink from the cold and Harry has the innate urge to tuck a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. He blinks, forcing himself out of his head.

“Really, it’s no problem. I’ll be heading in as well. See you soon, Annie,” Harry declares. Annie realizes with a jolt that Harry just said her name for the first time. She’s suddenly overheating, and gives a single nod, holding Cindy tight to her body as she walks up the few steps to her front door. Harry watches her leave, only taking his eyes off her when he can’t see her anymore. He then turns around, looking at the demolition of his lawn. He inhales deep. 

“Fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry does a double take when he sees Annie outside his home the next morning, attempting to break apart the large tree branch. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the remainder of the season, Harry and Annie spend an inordinate amount of time together. From binge-watching their guilty pleasure TV shows to roaming the streets downtown at midnight, sharing the same love for empty places. It seemed as though, somewhere in the universe, a story began to unravel itself.

As the last snowflake melts on the first stem emerging from the soft ground, Harry kisses Annie. He wasn’t even planning on it. It was like second degree murder. He found himself looking at her looking at the bluest sky, the sky looking back at her like it wanted to kiss her as well; so he kissed her first. 

[katehuntington]

Title: Ride With Me (part eight) Fandom: Supernatural AU Characters series: Reader, Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, Ellen Singer-Harvelle, Jo Singer (Harvelle), Benny Lafitte, Ash Miles, Garth Fitzgerald IV, Castiel Novek, and many more. Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader (eventually) Word count: 5550 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family.  Summary part eight: It’s one of those days for Dean where everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. After one hell of a day, Bobby has to break the news to Ash, who doesn’t take the lay off well. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: About Today - The National (final scene). Check out ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Thank you @kittenofdoomage and @girl-with-a-fandom-fettishfor helping me. You girls are awesome betas. Thank you for your endless patience!

Ride With Me Masterlist

     7.30 AM, Monday morning. Several hundred hooves tremble the ground. Earthy colored dust has turned into dark mud overnight as the heavens unleashed a rainstorm that still hasn't stopped from raging down. The cattle moos anxiously, trying to stick together as a herd. Bobby’s dog, Rumsfeld, barks over the sound of it all, his enthusiastic calls trumped by the shouts and whistles of the wranglers.       "Yah!” Dean shouts, cutting off young stock that threatens to fan out.

     Droplets as big as marbles fall from the grey sky, the water caught in the brim of his hat pouring from it whenever he tips it down. It’s unusually cold this morning without sunshine to burn the night away. The long, leather coat he’s wearing protects him from that, but the rain started coming through the seams on his shoulders and elbows two hours ago and a steady drip down his neck has drenched his shirt already. Dean has been in the saddle since four o'clock, ever since the thunder woke him up and an eerie gut feeling began to unsettle him. Something was wrong, he felt it in his bones. As he stepped out onto the porch, he immediately noticed the distressed young stock on the wrong side of the fence. Apparently, the cattle panicked in the thunderstorm, took down a gate, and escaped the pen, splitting the herd in two. They were absolutely all over the place, roaming over more than forty acres. With a buyer coming in at 9 AM, he had to gather the two hundred cows and bulls fast, if he wanted to avoid a financial disaster.      So here they are; wet through, tired and miserable, trying to maneuver their horses on the slick surface. A perfect start for this dreadful Monday.

     A sharp whistle reverberates through the valley, requiring his attention. It's Bobby, looking over the mayhem from a small hill, calling his horse to a stand. “Dean, stragglers!”      His head wrangler notices three steers swaying away from the herd. Dean turns from the tail of the group and pushes his horse forward, but immediately senses the loss of grip in the slippery mud. Led’s hind legs skid from under his body, forcing the buckskin to the ground. As the horse's knees buckle, the experienced rider decides in a split second not to leave the sinking ship. Instead, he skillfully sticks to the saddle like he’s glued to the leather, and moves his weight to level out the balance. At the same time, he pulls Led’s nose from the ground and gives enough free rein right after, simultaneously pushing his heels into the horse’s flanks, encourages him to give it his everything to get back on his feet. His quick thinking enables the stallion to break the fall and thankfully; Led steadies himself. Dean breathes out; that was way too close.      “Well done, bud,” the rider soothes, ruffling the Quarter’s mane, glad that he was able to prevent a possibly painful crash.      “Hell of a save,” Benny comments from several yards away. “You alright?”      “I'm good,” Dean assures his best friend. “We need to round them up fast before this whole pasture turns into a mudslide.”      He pushes Led forward, who picks up speed carefully, smart enough to not make the same mistake twice. It takes a while to make up for the lost time, but then he wings the three bulls, guiding them back to the group. Slowly but surely, the wranglers manage to maneuver the large number of animals back into another secured pen. It’s past eight o’clock when Jo closes the last gate and they can all take a breather. Too bad they cannot head back to bed just yet, the day has only just begun.      “Next time you wake me up in the middle of the night, make sure it’s because there’s some hot gal waiting for me on my doorstep,” Ash mocks as he slows his horse down.      Dean looks aside, grinning at the guy that’s in charge of the cattle. “You have enough problems controlling your cows, let alone women, Ash.”      Benny laughs at that, so does Jo. He’s sure Bobby would have laughed at it too, if it wasn't for the troubling decision that has been made. The ranch owner rests his hand on the horn, taking in his dream team as the rain finally stops falling. Today is the day that he will sell over three-fourths of his cattle. Decades of blood, sweat and tears, sold for a dime. Damage control, they call that. It ain't pretty, but it’s necessary to prevent this place from drowning. What else is necessary is cutting down on personnel. Collateral damage is the term, Bobby believes. There’s that word again: damage.      “Is Rufus still dropping by at nine?” Dean, who held up his horse to ride next to his uncle, checks with him.      “Yeah, but you know Rufus. Could be eleven just as well,” Bobby mutters, aware of his old friend’s carelessness.      “Better ask Ellen to break out the Johnny Walker Blue if you're aiming for a good price,” his right hand suggests, before he halts at the tack up area.      The sound of horseshoes splashing on the wet surface draws Y/N’s attention. She parks her broom against the stable wall and peeks around the corner, spotting the wranglers under the Yucca tree, which seems to cry silently as tears of rain drip down from its branches.      “Garth! They're here!” she shouts at the stable boy on the other side of the barn.      The slender guy pops his head out of a stall, then walks out and closes the door behind him. Like the wranglers, he and the intern got up at four in the morning as well. During the weekend the stables aren't mucked out, which adds to the work on Monday, and with Bobby, Jo and Dean handling the breakout, the two of them had to feed and turn out the animals as well. Getting up early was the only way to get all the work done without falling behind.       As the dark rain clouds pass, everyone on the square gets off their horses. Y/N walks up to Bobby, sensing the low morale. No wonder, because all five wranglers are soaked, probably sore and tired too.      “I got him.” She takes over his chestnut named Seger. “Ellen has breakfast ready for you.”     “Thank you, Darlin’,” the old man mumbles, stiffly making his way to the cafeteria.      While tying up Seger, Y/N watches the ranch owner hobble off, wondering why he seems so burdened. When she glances back to loosen the horse’s cinch, a handsome cowboy catches her eye on the other side of the chestnut. Dean takes off Led’s bridle, the last waterdrops rolling from the dip of his hat. Mud splatters have sprayed across his leather overcoat, his boots covered in dirt. There are smudges on his face, along with a weekend stubble still on his strong jaw. The knuckles of his firm hands have a blue shade, so do his lips; he must be so cold after four hours in the pouring rain. With sympathy, she looks at him.        “Hell of a morning, huh?” she comments, trying to make small talk.      Dean looks up and pauses his action. He seems a little surprised by her voice, as if only just now he realized she was behind the horse next to him. The line parting his lips breaks in a small smile. It’s the first time he hears her use a word as such. His language is terrible, he throws in a variation of the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ wherever it fits. But Y/N on the other hand, coming from upstate, says ‘gosh’ at most, and uses terms such as ‘for heaven’s sake’, which he finds quite cute. Apparently she’s adapting to her company.       The wrangler scoffs. “You can say that again.”      He unbuckles the cinch and removes the saddle from Led’s back. The mud sticking to the saddle pad is hard to miss and it catches the intern’s eye. Led must have hit the ground at some point, how else would the animal have dirt caked thick in his coat on his entire side?      “Did you fall?” she asks.      Dean chuckles, slightly amused, while he puts the heavy saddle on the bar his horse is tied to as well. He heard that, the worry in her voice.      “Led slipped, but he was able to steady himself,” he reassures.      The cowboy returns his focus to the buckskin next to him as he turns the faucet of the water source. Led might be wet through just like his rider, but he’s covered in filth as well, and that's no way to bring a horse back to his stable. He quickly hoses down his Quarter, while Y/N washes Seger’s feet. When she’s done, she follows Benny and Jo as they return their horses to the stable. Coming back to pick up the saddle, Y/N finds her supervisor crouched down next to Led’s left front leg.      “Shit…” he curses, feeling the cannon bone.      The saddle is left on the bar. Instead, Y/N comes to see what Dean is annoyed with. With just one glance she can determine the swelling on the back of the leg, a little above the fetlock joint.      “Tendon?” she assumes, petting the horse on the shoulder.      Dean carefully feels the tissue, causing Led to flinch. It’s painful, but with all the fluid that is building up around the injury, it’s hard to tell what exactly is causing the reaction.       “Could be. He seemed sound after he tripped,” the wrangler contemplates. “Can you jog him?”      “Sure,” she replies, after which she unties the horse.      Y/N leads the beautiful Quarter in a straight line and starts to run after a few yards. With the first stride it’s already clear that Led is anything but even. Only the  click-clack  sound of Led’s shoes on the surface is enough to state the obvious.       “Well, that ain't good,” Dean sighs as Y/N walks the palomino back.      “You didn't feel him at all?” she checks with the wrangler.      “The poor bastard must have worked through the pain. He’s a tough horse,” Dean ponders, running his hand down Led’s face with sympathy. “I'll cool his leg for a while. Can you get a rug for him?”      “What about you?”       He shrugs selflessly. “I’ll skip breakfast.”      “You’re not skipping breakfast. You've been working nonstop since four AM, you deserve a break,” Y/N decides, strong-minded. “I have cooling leg boots which Led can wear while he's stabled. It works better than cooling with water.”      “Alright then.” He smiles, appreciating her firm response.      He takes over his horse and leads Led back to the barn without hasting him. Silently, Dean turns the Quarter in as his intern walks to the tack room to get the leg wrap and a rug, followed by a stop at the cafeteria to pick up two cool packs from the freezer. On her way over, she notices the handsome wrangler staring at nothing in particular, lost in thoughts. His fingers absently rub Led’s withers, who on his turn bends his neck and seeks the cowboy’s free hand, nuzzling his nose against his skin, as if he is trying to comfort his rider in return. Although it’s a heartwarming sight to see the man having a moment with the beautiful animal, Y/N can sense something is off about him. Not that she knows him all that well, but she can tell that he’s carrying a crippling weight. He’s quiet, for one. No smart answers or perky remarks that could easily be mistaken for flirting. There is also something about his eyes, something weary.       “Here you go,” she says, handing over the boot.      Dean takes it and straps around the injured leg, while Y/N lays a fleece rug on Led’s back to prevent the horse from cooling down too fast. When the wrangler rises to his feet and lets his fingers glide through Led’s golden coat while waiting for her to secure the rug, the silence is awfully evident.        “Are you okay?” she asks carefully.      Dean glances up, caught off guard by the question. For a moment he reckons she’s asking because of the almost crash and now Led’s injury, but when his eyes meet hers, he sees that the question is more layered than that. His first instinct is to throw her a cocky comment, that a little mud isn't ever going to bring him down, but he decides against it. He’s not sure if his hesitation is caused by her ability to read between the lines, but the young man suddenly feels vulnerable, intimidated even.      “Yeah, I'm fine,” he says. “Let’s eat. Don't know about you, but I'm starving.”     She fakes a smile. Of course, she could eat after a morning like today, but she was hoping Dean would take the opportunity to get it off his chest.       A pleasant heat and the smell of bacon and toast welcome them like it does every working day, when Y/N pushes open the door to the cozy personnel hangout. Ellen’s breakfast is always something to look forward to, but today it’s a true gift from heaven. The rest of the crew sits down after having changed into dry clothes and wait impatiently for their bacon and eggs, as Bobby finishes his plate first. When the door creaks, Ellen looks up from behind the stove.      “Oh honey, look at you,” she says when Dean follows you inside. “Did you drown out there? You're soaked through.”      Her nephew hangs his dripping coat and Sheplers on the hat rack above the heater and is welcomed by his aunt with a clean towel, a warm flannel and a pair of jeans      “Why don't you freshen up first and put on some dry clothes. Wouldn't want you to catch a cold,” she insists.      “Thanks, Ellen.” Dean takes the neatly folded pile from her arms after which he places a short, genuine kiss on her hair and moves to the backroom to change.      Y/N can't help but smile when she sits down, delighted to witness the wrangler’s soft side for the second time today. The warmth spreads through her like the hot coffee that she swallows down and settles in the pit of her stomach. She folds her fingers around the mug as she takes another sip, peering over the edge at the man she is losing her heart to as he closes the door behind him. A kick against the shin awakens her from a trance, the action causing her to almost choke on her coffee. Jo sits across the table, her deadly glare demanding to get it together. Flustered and caught, Y/N averts her gaze at the plate that Ellen just set down under her nose.       “Dig in while it’s still warm, sweety,” she insists, oblivious of how the intern feels about her nephew.      Y/N does so, partly as an excuse to not look Jo in the eye and be confronted with her judgment. But when Dean enters the room again, cleaned up and wearing a comfortable red plaid flannel, she just has to take him in for a second. Before Jo can kick her leg again, someone knocks on the glass window from outside the cafeteria. Everyone looks up at the doorway when an old friend of Bobby’s appears.      “Well, I'll be damned,” Ellen says, delighted. “If it ain't Rufus Turner.”      The African American with a pearl white smile and a rascal look in his eyes enters the cafeteria.      “Ellen Singer, you haven't changed a bit.” Rufus takes his hat off for her, but then he turns to face her husband at the head of the table. “But you on the other hand,” he pats Bobby on the back, “- you got old.”      The joke attracts a laugh from the others.      “Good to see you too, Rufus,” the ranch owner responds.      “Grab a plate and dig in. There’s plenty,” Ellen offers.      “I’d love to, but if you don't mind, I wanna get down to business. I've got places to be later.” He puts his hat back on and turns to the rest of the company. “Mind if I steal him for a bit?”      “By all means, steal away.” Ellen smiles politely.      Bobby gets up and excuses himself. When he has left the room, the workers finish their breakfast. Nobody says anything, and although Y/N doesn't understand what has caused the grim mood, she keeps her mouth shut. Instead, she takes in the people surrounding her. Jo, Ellen, and Dean seem to ignore the elephant in the room, while Garth, Benny and Ash exchange puzzled looks. Rufus’s visit to the ranch has stirred things up. Who is he? A business partner? A trader, maybe?           When the break is over and the crew gets back to work, the air is more suffocating than it is on a hot day. It has nothing to do with the weather, though.      “Why is Bobby selling stock?”      It’s Ash who asks as the gang walks down to the paddocks between the stables. The question breaks the silence, but it also adds to the tension. Jo and Dean exchange a look, but both keep quiet, which isn’t sufficient for the worker with the odd haircut.      “That’s why Rufus is here, ain’t it?” Ash pushes, a worry in his tone that seems foreign for the carefree guy.       The head wrangler sighs and turns to his friend.       “Look, business has been slow, y’all know that. Rufus is here to discuss the value of the cattle, to explore our options,” Dean tries to reassure not just him, but the rest of his staff.      When he can read from Ash’s face that his reassurance doesn’t have much effect, he adds a few words he might regret later.  “No need to worry just yet. We’ll figure it out. Now let’s get to work.”      And so everyone does, some left with a few questions, but the leader of the team has managed to take away most of the concern. All this time, the intern hasn’t said a word. The young woman with a master’s degree in business and a nose for bullcrap only observes. She observes Dean, when he glances at his cousin, troubled, right after Ash walks off to fill the hay barn in the main pastures. She observes Jo, who looks at the ground and keeps quiet, as the two of them walk over to the paddocks to turn the horses in. She observes Bobby Singer and Rufus Turner, who are seated on the back porch of the house, accompanied by a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, tied up in a dialogue that seems to be a negotiation more than it is a casual chat. She observes the handshake, the ‘glad to do business with you’ grin on Rufus’s face opposite of the defeat in the ranch owner’s eyes. So much for not needing to worry just yet.

     The early morning rain has cooled down the dusty lands and doesn’t allow the temperature to rise like it did the previous days. Clouds keep rolling in from the east, cutting off the sun. This weather suits Y/N better and she works extra hard now that her body doesn’t seem like it’s overheating. It gives her a good feeling that she is able to take some of the load from the other workers. Dean even allowed her to train two of the horses, since he had a meeting with Bobby. He didn’t return until an hour before supper. After dinner, Benny and Garth head to the shed to fix the tractor, that on top of everything else, started spilling oil. The rest of the crew is about to retreat back to the bunkhouse, when Bobby calls back one of the workers.      “Ash?” he says, his voice matching his serious expression. “Can you come into my office?”      “Sure thing, boss,” he responds, joining the ranch owner.      Dean can read from Ash’s facial expression that he’s uneasy, but doesn’t have a clue what is coming for him. The ranch hand who is in charge of the cattle probably assumes that Bobby is going to update him on the reason why Rufus was here. Shit, he wishes it was just a simple briefing. Poor bastard…      The head wrangler exhales as he walks on, shaking off the cold that hasn’t seemed to leave his body after the rainy morning. Jo follows him silently, kicking the clotty earth with her dragging feet, hands shoved down in the pockets of her denim jacket. Y/N is on his other side, wonderingly looking over at them every now and then. She has kept quiet long enough. So when they step up the stairs to the porch first, she drops the bomb.      “So, Ash is getting sacked, huh?”      Dean has stopped in his tracks and instantly shoots an angry glare at Jo. “You told her?!”      “I didn’t tell her jack shit!” she counters, insulted.       “She didn’t need to, Dean,” Y/N backs her up, having turned around before opening the front door. “Livestock sales have plummeted nationwide, yet Bobby is selling now, so times must be desperate. With no cattle to handle it’s only logical that Ash will be let go in order to cut down on costs. I have a business degree, remember? I can do the math. Here, you guys look like you can use these.”      During her flood of words, she had strolled to the fridge, taken out three beers, and popped the caps off with an opener. Not sure if he should be impressed or feel threatened by the intern’s knowledge, Dean takes the drink and has a swig of the brew. She’s right about more than a few things; he needed a beer.      “Is Bobby breaking it to him now?” she wonders.      Dean glances over at Jo, who leans back against the kitchen sink, nursing her bottle. It’s not something they would usually discuss with interns, but since she already seems to be fully aware of the situation and he trusts that she will keep this between them, he confirms with a nod.      “Damn…” Y/N ponders, biting her lip as her eyes drift away to nothing in particular. “How long has he been here?”      “For about five years now,” Jo thinks back, clearly sad about having to say goodbye to a good friend. “I can remember the day he arrived. He caught Dad’s eye at the Holbrook Rodeo, where he worked in the arena. He couldn’t keep a job long enough to rent himself a roof over his head, mostly because of his looks and his ‘fuck you’ attitude, but he was good with the bulls. That’s when Dad asked him to come work for him and for the first time, Ash found a place where he belonged. He’s been here ever since. Never stayed in one spot this long. Mom and Dad have a habit of taking the misfits under their wings.”      It’s quiet for a few long seconds, as Dean recalls Ash’s early days on the property. Then he goes back further, to the day he himself set foot on these lands, with nowhere else to go. They did exactly the same for him as they did for Ash; offered him a comfortable bed, warm food, a rewarding job. A safe haven where they didn’t have to worry about how to get through tomorrow, where they didn’t have to be scared. One would perhaps expect Bobby and Ellen to take Dean in, him being their nephew. But it didn’t matter that the funny looking bullfighter called Ash wasn’t related. He became family, too.      “How do you think he’s going to take it?”      It’s Y/N who breaks Dean’s train of thought.      He ponders for a moment before he answers. “I dunno. He’s a pretty chill guy these days, but this is so much more than just a job.”      Dean pauses, putting himself in Ash’s shoes for a moment. Who is he fooling? His friend is going to lose it.      “Guess we’re gonna find out in a moment,” Jo says, nodding at the portrait outside.      Y/N glances through the dirty window while Dean holds the bamboo fly curtain aside to step onto the porch. It’s Ash who approaches the bunkhouse, but he doesn’t have the swagger he usually has in his stride. The ranch hand is looking down at the ground, the soil he used to call home. Every muscle in his face tensed, balled fists move alongside him with each step. Dean watches the guy for a brief moment, then descends the stairs to meet with him, but Ash does not want any of it. Instead, his friend walks past him, dismissing the head wrangler.      “Ash. I--”      The words trigger something in the lean guy, because after taking two strides up the steps, he turns around, a pair of piercing eyes startling Dean.      “You knew, didn’t ya?” he questions, his voice heavy with frustration.      Dean needs a moment to recover, staring up at the cattle worker, but Ash doesn’t grant him that time.      “That whole ‘no need to worry, we’ll figure it out.’ It was bullshit and you know it. Hell, I ain’t surprised if you’re the one who decided that it was my ass to fire.”      There isn’t much Dean can say to that, because it’s true. He did know, he knew for a long time, and yes, it was him who told Bobby it had to be the man who’s standing before him right now.       “We…” Dean pauses to correct himself, because Ash is right; this is on him. “I didn’t have a choice.”       “Oh, but you did. Instead of telling me that things were gonna be A-okay, you could’ve told me what was gonna happen. But no, you were too fucking scared to look me in the eye and tell me the Goddamn truth,” the worker says accusingly.      Dean stares back at him, his jaw flexing, but then he looks away as he swallows down the guilt. He knew those words were going to bite him in the ass. When he straightens himself again, Jo has appeared in the doorway, with Y/N right behind her.      “Ash, we’re all sorry it went down as it did, and we wish it didn’t have to be like this--”      “Then why the fuck do I have to leave?!” he shouts at the daughter of the ranch owner, his eyes noticeably shimmering in the lights above the porch.      Jo isn’t impressed with his anger, on the contrary; she replies professionally calmly.       “I hate to see you go. Shit, we all do. But the ranch isn’t going to survive if Dad doesn’t cut costs,” she reminds him. “There’s barely any cattle left to maintain, and you were hired last.”      “Right. The ‘last in, first out’ rule. Then tell me, what the hell is  she  still doing here?”      Suddenly, the newest crewmember is dragged into the argument as Ash nods at Y/N. Her heart skips a beat when it dawns on her what he holds her accountable for; he thinks she stole his job. Shocked, Y/N looks at the man who directed the focus on her. It’s a side of him she didn’t know he had and is overwhelmed by the accusation, causing her mind to fail miserably when trying to form any kind of response. Feeling helpless and exposed, she glances at the other two, desperate for back up. Thankfully, the head wrangler got the message, because seeing Y/N’s expression change from compassionate to fearful, triggers something inside him.       “Y/N’s an intern,” Dean returns, the tone of his voice colder than a moment ago. “Y/N is still here because she doesn’t cost Bobby anything.”      But Ash disagrees. “She’s another mouth to fill, just like every single one of us. She has a horse here who needs a shit ton of feed--”      “- and she works hard for that,” Dean overrules him, staring him down. “Look, man. I know you’re pissed, I get it. But don’t you put this on her, it ain’t her fault.”       “Are you saying I don’t work hard for my pay?!” Ash snaps back angrily.      “I didn’t say that,” Dean rights, gesturing with a lowering hand to calm down. “I’m saying that down the line, Y/N is a free hand.”

     Ash scoffs at that, biting his lips as he looks away and clenches his fists, his knuckles pressed together in order to manage the exasperation. He’s so hurt and upset that he doesn’t even think about the consequences of the words that follow.       “Oh, she’s a free hand, alright,” he states, shooting the guy opposite of him a penetrating glare.       Jo gapes at Ash, mouth falling open, then turns her head to witness Y/N having the exact same reaction. Dean stares at Ash too, first in astonishment, wondering where he got the nerve to insinuate something like that. Within a second, that emotion is pushed aside by brewing anger. The need to defend her honor causes him to step towards Ash intimidatingly, but Jo gets in between before things escalate.      “Whoa, now! Can we just keep it cool and not get nasty?” she demands, having both Dean and Ash at arm’s length.       But Ash, apparently, isn’t done. “You’ve always been a screw around, man, but shit, I did not expect you to stab me in the back just to get in a girl’s pants,” he sneers, pushing Dean’s buttons and seriously applying for a punch in the face.      “This is fucking bullshit, Ash, and you know it!” Dean counters, so worked up over the allegation that his heart is beating out of his chest.       “Okay, that’s it! If you don’t shut your mouth right now I’m gonna pull out that mullet of yours!” Jo warns Ash before she turns to Dean. “And you need to walk it off, right now!”      The ranch owner’s daughter pushes him back gently in order to raise her finger at him sternly. He steps away, offering a little air to the suffocating clash, and so does Ash.      “Don’t bother, I’ll leave.” He scoffs. “That’s whatcha want, ain’t it?”       The cattle worker turns around, the rage slowly seeping from him, leaving the space for sadness and disappointment to fill. Y/N watches the guy, still mind-blown by all the words that were said, but now that a fight is avoided, she can only feel pity. The blame that he put on her and on Dean is only a response to his world crashing down on him. She cannot really condemn him for lashing out. After ten or more steps, the guy in a dirty shirt and a plaid jacket with the sleeves ripped off turns around. Normally everything about the guy is either hazardous or comical, depending on how well you know him, but not now. Not now that his eyes are glistening in pained emotion.     “This wasn’t just work, y’know. This is my life. This is home,” he says, his arms spread in desperation. “I thought that all of us here - that we were in this together. That we don’t turn our back on family.” He pauses, eyes fixed on Jo, then on Dean. He continues with a broken voice. “Y’all did exactly that.”      With those words, he turns away and heads off to his cattle, like he always does after dinner. Silenced, the three watch him leave, until Dean sighs and looks around lost, as if he hopes to find answers in the earth-colored gravel. He doesn’t look at Y/N, he’s doing everything to avoid her questioning, sympathetic gaze. When the air gets too thin to breathe, he walks away in the direction of the barn, off to his horses. The intern allows her eyes to linger on the defeated figure that becomes smaller as he drags his feet down the worn path to the stables, the grey sky above him that darkens by the minute only adding to the grim atmosphere. Instinctively, Y/N reaches for the handrail of the steps down the porch, intending to follow him, but Jo stops her.      “Let him be for a bit.”      Y/N halts and listens to her friend, then lets a breath slip from her dry lips. “So no one wins today, huh?”     “Nope. Not today,” Jo responds, moving through the doorway after throwing a glance at Ash’s silhouette in the far pasture. “Comin’? I have a bottle of something a-hell-of-a-lot-stronger-than-beer stashed somewhere.”       Y/N huffs and turns to join her. Jo pours her some rum in a jar, which she sips on silently as she looks out the window, watching the day end. But the alcohol cannot wash away her thoughts that are with the two ranch workers: the one who lost his friend, and the one who lost everything else as well.

Told you guys there was gonna be angst? Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part nine here

[petri808]

Everything Changes in a Flash

Psych!  You don’t need to wait two days.  

that gif is too adorable! @deku-smash​

Guess who!  It’s your secret Santa!  @diablothecat

​Didn’t wanna wait any longer to give this to you lol.  @kuroshironekoserver

​

I tried doing the Sengen ship but that was difficult since I don’t know them, so you get a Bakudeku BNHA/Dr. Stone crossover idea instead lol.  Frankly, I surprised myself, I kinda like this one.  Enjoy ;) 

Today was the day Izuku was gonna do it.  High school was almost over, and before they may scatter to the four winds, he needed to tell Katsuki everything.  It didn’t matter if he was turned down or not, at least he’d know the answer.  Well, of course it would hurt worse than breaking every bone in his body if Katsuki rejects him, but injuries heal in time.  That’s what he’ll tell himself, anyways.  

Thirteen years brought to a single moment in time, the last four struggling to cope with the realization Katsuki was more than just a childhood friend in his eyes, but a romantic crush in his heart.  It seemed, once he was no longer in the other’s shadow, Izuku’s true feelings found the strength to grow.  Katsuki…. Kaachan… a childhood nickname, turned secret endearment.  Every time he said it, the name brought a smile to his lips and an aching joy to his soul.  

“What’d ya want nerd?”

The pacing young man freezes as the voice of his unrequited sounds off behind him.  Every nerve sets off ricocheting signals along his skin as he uses all of his reserve to keep from setting off his quirk.  He turns on his heel in an abrupt motion.  

“Bakugou,” Izuku runs his hand shakily through his hair, “thank you for coming.”

“I got your note to meet by the old clubhouse,” he holds up a crumpled piece of paper.  “This better be good that I had to come all the way over here.”

‘Just breathe,’ Izuku reminds himself, ‘and stick to the script!’  He takes a couple of steps towards the broken-down shack they once called their hangout.  Well Bakugou’s hangout really, he was a nuisance to the blonde back then, always following him and his friends around.  The structure of old crates and worn pallet wood had mostly come apart, but the tree it was attached to still stood strong, and larger than he’d remembered.  

Izuku runs his hand along the bark, “do you remember this?”

Katsuki’s eyes narrow in on the old, skewed words carved into the tree trunk.  He moves in closer, close enough to Izuku that the heat radiating off the other man’s body makes his arm hairs stand on end.  His hand reaches out on impulse to follow Izuku’s hand movements, cutting off inches before it touches.  He pulls it back.

“Tch, yeah, what of it?”  Katsuki averts his eyes to the shack, a slight trepidation in his tone.  Izuku had carved their names onto the wood after they graduated primary school.  A show of their friendship, the boy had called it at the time, that would last as long as that tree stood firm.  Back then Katsuki had scoffed and never took it seriously.  So, this mouse of a boy idolized him, no surprise, a lot of the boys wanted to be his friend.  Fast forward to high school and that boy was now a young man on par with him.  Different yet equal in terms of strength and drive.  Katsuki had to admit to himself, the nerd had grown on him.

“I…”

Izuku opens his mouth to talk when a strange thud catches his attention.  Both men look down to find a stone bird lying near Katsuki’s feet.  That was odd, Izuku tips his head curiously, it was the second one he’d found that morning.  He looks up just as another one falls, landing a few feet away.

“What the hell is that?!” Katsuki growls.  He stomps over to this second bird and picks it up, turning it over in his hands.  “Is the sky raining statues?”  Though from where in cloudless skies?  

The gears in Izuku’s mind turns, analyzing the situation.  Was there a quirk causing this, another mad scientist?  Could it be a villain sending bombs disguised as bird statues?  They’d grown to be wary and careful now that their names were all over the news.  But nothing was making a whole lot of sense and very quickly, the carefully scripted afternoon was thrown out the window.  Katsuki himself was scanning the surrounding areas, his own sensibilities on high alert because of the strangeness of the event.

“You know…” as Izuku looks closer at the bird, “I don’t think this is just a statue…”  The details were almost too realistic to be made of sculpted concrete or stone.  He takes the second one from Katsuki and notices finer nuances that clearly make these two “statues” very different despite being the same species of bird.  “In fact…”

“What is that?!”  The blinding flash of light grabs their attention from a distance.  Now what is it?!  Katsuki turns quickly as if to take off in that direction, but not Izuku, something was seriously wrong!  A gale of wind funnels through the grove like a shock wave.  Birds take flight from the trees, only to start dropping one by one around them as stones. The light, something in the light was causing this.  It was growing brighter by the millisecond and heading in their direction!

There was no time to hesitate.

Izuku activates his blackwhip quirk and grabs Katsuki, pinning him against the tree.  The man growls and screams to be let go, but Izuku didn’t care, only wrapping the man tighter in its dark form.  He could barely hear Katsuki anymore above the whirring sound barreling towards them.  Without thinking and placing all his energy into his quirk, Izuku uses his body to shield Katsuki as best he can from whatever this light was about to do to them.

The light bathes them in its yellow hold of, no pain… Izuku remarks at first, but soon, the sensation in his feet starts to fade.  He couldn’t feel his feet!  His eyes widen, panicked!  How was he to protect his friend if he loses the ability to control his quirk?!  It was too dangerous to turn around to check on his friend, but he could hear Katsuki cussing up a storm.  Loud booms echo from the nearby areas.  From what little he can see, Izuku watches in horror as one than two airplanes crash into the ground and send billowing plumes of smoke rising into the air.  One of them was precariously close to the dam!  New cracking sounds funnel through the forest.  Izuku side eyes the stream running past them.  Oh no!    

“Grab onto the tree!”  Izuku shouts as the petrification reaches his torso.  “Bakugou, grasp onto the tree!!!”

“Why the fuck would I?!”

“Just do it!!”

It was the last words he could utter as the petrification completes its mission.  

Silence…. from Katsuki.  As the wall of water hits and washes him down stream, all Izuku can do is hope that his friend had finally listened to him.

Time.

How much of it had gone by?  Weeks, Years?  He had no clue.  Was there anyone left alive?  Living in a dark world behind stone eyelids, the only thing Izuku could do was think.  It was tough, wondering what had happened.  If any of their friends or family had survived.  Exactly what was he anyways?  Was he still alive and trapped in a stone body?  Or was it just his consciousness refusing to give in, with his body long dead.  The only thing that kept him from giving in to a deep sleep was his love for Katsuki.  If his mind was still alive, then by hell or back he was going to stay conscious!

Wait.  That’s strange, Izuku wonders one day.  Something about his body felt, lighter.  If that was the right word for it.  He still couldn’t move, see, or sense anything, and yet… what if he tried to…

Crack.

The faintest light strikes his vision.  Vision?!  Was the petrification finally wearing off?  Izuku wills his mind to push the body he hopes is still viable.  

Crack.

More light filters through, blinding like when you walk out of a dark movie theater into the bright lobby. Unable to shield himself from its glare, he refocuses on the mission and pushes again.  

Shatter!

Izuku falls to his knees amongst the pile of his broken stone shell.  He was free!  Alive!  He raises his hands up, gazing upon them in disbelief.  He was alive!  A drip falls on his head and he reaches up, finding a smear of something gooey.  He brings it to his nose and smells, shit?  Eww!  He wipes his hand quickly on a piece of stone.  Wait!  His smell is back!  Sight, smell, touch.  It was all real!  

The light source from the entrance was minimal, but he takes in more of the scene.  A cave with bats, hence the guano.  Apparently, he’d been washed into a cave.  Drips of water from the ceiling.  This location was partially underground and shielded him from the elements.  Guano…. Right!  Hydrogen and phosphate are high in acidity!  Could it have mixed with the water and over the years eroded away the stone?!  But, even if that was the case, it must have taken years for the process to happen.  Izuku’s shoulders slump.  His luck had been great that he’d been washed into a place that fixed him.  Now he needed to see if he could fix his friend too.

After leaving the cave, Izuku pauses a moment to take in the warmth of the sun’s rays.  Man, it was nice to feel heat again!  All those years of darkness and inactivity made the light hurt his eyes, but it was a minor inconvenience.  He shields his eyes from the glare, and it was only in that moment that he realized…. He was stark naked!  “Crap!” Izuku covers his mouth after letting out a swear word.  Something to clothe himself with just shot straight to number one on the priority list.  

The brush surrounding the cave was dense.  It appeared that the forest had overtaken the land once humans were no longer around to control it.  He pushes his way through, careful not to scrape against anything and risk injury.  If he were to hurt himself now, he would be really screwed.  “Ahhh!”  Izuku kicks a hard surface and trips over it.  “Oww!”  

Crack!

“Huh?”  He scrambles to his feet as more cracking resounds.  

“What… happened?”  The voice moans out, groggy like waking from a long sleep.  

Another human!  Izuku drops and crawls forward, pushing aside more vegetation that was covering the person.  “Todoroki?!”  Of all the people to run into!  

“Midoriya?”  The man sits up with his old friends help, “why am I naked on the ground?  And why are you naked too?”

Izuku blushes, “don’t you remember what happened?  The bright light turned us all to stone.  I don’t know how you ended up here, but I’m guessing that your proximity to the cave and water eroded the stone away like it did for me.  My kicking you cracked it and freed you.”

“I don’t understand the bit about the cave, but…” Shoto goes silent for a moment, “I was with my dad when the dam broke and that’s all I remember.”  He looks up at his friend, “so, you’re saying we were turned to stone?  Why?  How long ago was this?”

“I have no idea,” Izuku shrugs, “it happened too fast for any of us to know what caused it, but based on the overgrowth of the forest, it’s been a few centuries.”

Shoto stares at the man, “centuries?”  Izuku nods.  “That’s unfortunate.”

Izuku sits down beside his friend and runs his hand through his hair.  “At least there’s one thing we know, it’s that the stone can be broken and a person freed.  We were lucky it happened naturally for us, but if we want to help others, we’d need to speed up the process.”

“It’s amazing, Midoriya, you just woke up from a stone prison and the first thing on your mind is still to help others.”

“We’ll of course!” Izuku blushes but affirms his belief with a raised fist and determination in his eyes.  “If it turns out a villain was behind this, it’s our duty as pros to save as many as we can.”  And it was true to his self-less nature, he wanted to help who he could, but there was really one person he wanted to free over all of them.

That finally brings a small smile and shake of his head from Shoto.  “Any idea how to speed up the process?”

“If I’m remembering chemistry class, fermenting or rotting fruit contain traces of alcohol, mixed with the hydrogen and phosphate laced water, it could speed up the process of corroding the stone.”  

Shoto sticks out a hand to Izuku, “then let’s get started.”

For the next six months, the pair work to set up lodging and create the bare necessities for survival.  They’d been lucky to have awoken during the late spring, when the temperature was climbing, but soon enough they’d have to deal with winter.  With the use of their quirks, foraging and hunting wild game came easy enough, and with meat came the hides and skins for clothing.  Neither of the two men had any experience roughing it in the wild, but somehow, they made-due under the circumstances.

Whenever they had a chance, they gathered fruits to ferment, and stored them in a makeshift hot box near the cave to speed up the process.  Searching the area was another downtime activity.  Very little of the terrain could be figured out based on what they remembered of their time, too many trees and brush had reclaimed the area, and landslides or other natural phenomena had altered things even more.  Area’s they were sure once contained buildings and homes built of metal and wood had long since deteriorated.  

As for people, within the first week, Izuku had found Katsuki still stuck to the tree.  Izuku had breathed a sigh of relief to see that the man had actually listened for once and was gripping to the bark.  Vines had partially covered the stone edifice, but overall, the man was in one piece.  It was rare, but they found others, some broken beyond repair, but a handful of more still intact.  They made a note of the locations so that once they were able to solidify their formula, they could bring them back to life.  

And they tried.  Using stone birds as test subjects, the pair worked and reworked different combinations of the ingredients.  

“If only we could find Mina,” Izuku tiredly remarks, as he drops into a cross-legged position on the cave floor.  “Her acid quirk would come in really handy.”

“We’ll find her one day,” Shoto places a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “We’ll keep looking until we find our friends and family.”  He sits down, “but, I’ve been thinking, that we should be careful about who we bring back to life, I wouldn’t want to bring a villain back to life or anyone we know is a bad person.”

Izuku rubs his chin, “that is true.  It’s something we can assess as we go along.”  He didn’t like to think about the negatives, and frankly he was mostly concerned about Katsuki.  “Shoto, do you remember where Momo was at the time of the incident?”

That brings a rare blush to the man’s face, “She was supposed to still be at the dorms.”

“Yosh!  Then we need to figure out where UA used to be.  That’ll be one of our missions!”

Shoto chuckles.  He knew what his friend was alluding to.  “Plus, we may find others there as well.”

Winter came and went, bringing a burgeoning supply of water leaching through the cave’s ceiling. That was great for the two men, who in anticipation had made dozens of clay pots to catch the drippings with.  Izuku held out hope that now almost a year since they’d been freed, they were close to a break-through.  That last couple of test subjects had almost seemed promising, with the stone chipping away, but unfortunately not cracking.

One day, as Shoto was out hunting for dinner, Izuku had finished another distilled serum.  He places a bird on a flat stone-like table and pours a small amount of the mixture over it.  At first, the liquid simply runs over the hard stone, just like every other failed time.  But then, as he turns away to close the jar holding the serum, he hears a tiny noise, and as he looks over his shoulder, tiny cracks begin to spiderweb along the stones surface.  His eyes widen, surprised, excited!  It was working!  Izuku quickly grabs a makeshift wooden crate and places it over the bird, moments before the stone shatters.  He couldn’t let it get away, not before Shoto had returned.  Through the stick bars, it was clear the bird looked exactly as it should.  A bit panicked no doubt, confused from waking up and being stuck in a cage, but it was alive!  It was a miracle but being a nerd had finally paid off!  

“Todoroki!” Izuku shouts and waves as he sees the man walking back up to their home.  “it worked!  The latest serum worked!”

“That’s amazing,” Shoto smiles and drops the bundle of small game he’d collected.  He walks up to the cage, peering down at the bird.  “No side effects?”

Izuku shakes his head.  “Seems completely normal.”  He lifts the cage and they watch the bird fly away.  “See?”  Inside he was screaming with excitement.  All these years trapped, all the months working towards this moment.  “We can really save people Todoroki…” his voice trails out, quiet, pondering as if that was a new emotion.  Where once they would risk their lives to protect from harm, now they had the power to bring them back to life.  Including his Kaachan.  

“We’ll start with the ones we know, so they can help us too,” Shoto places a hand upon his friend’s shoulder, “but first, I’m sure there’s one in particular you’d like to revive.”  He smirks, “go, I’ll be working on dinner.”  With a last squeeze of his hand, Shoto walks away.

Kaachan…

“But wait!” Izuku turns quickly and calls after his friend.  “Momo too needs…”

“Midoriya, we haven’t found her yet.  You know where Bakugou is, go and heal him.”

“I promise Todoroki, we’ll find her next!”

“I know.”  Shoto smiles and turns back towards the hut.

As he stood there face to face with the man, he held dearest in all the world, his hands were shaking so badly it would be a miracle if Izuku didn’t crush the clay vial he held.  That would be a real pity with just the one dose left until they could make more.  Draped over his arm, he brought some clothing that should fit Katsuki, a small knapsack of food, and a flask of water.  

Fear and doubt creep over him as they did that fateful day so long ago.  What if Katsuki rejected what he had to say?  With the rest of the world asleep or long dead, there wouldn’t be many options for a long time to find another love.  Izuku closes his eyes in resolve, it didn’t matter.  He needed to free Katsuki from the stone prison that held him, it was the right thing to do.

He places the belongings on the ground and goes to work freeing his friend from the confines of vines and other vegetation that had collected around the man’s body.  ‘You kept him safe,’ he runs his hand along the tree bark, ‘thank you.’

Now the only thing holding Katsuki to the tree was the man’s stone fingers still gripped to the knotty bark.  If Izuku tried to move them, he risked breaking them.  He’ll just have to leave Katsuki in place and catch the man as he falls, but luckily the distance is only a couple of feet.  Here goes nothing!  With the help of his blackwhip quirk, the vial is taken and poured over Katsuki.  Izuku watches with bated breath as the viscous liquid covers the stone man from head to toe.      

Slowly cracks begin appearing, just as they did on the bird, then.  

Shatter!  Followed by a familiar growl.  

On impulse, Izuku had shielded himself from raining stone, but that also meant Katsuki had fallen on his own to the ground.  He whips his head back to the tree to see the man already getting to his feet.  Izuku blushes hard at the naked adonis and quickly averts his eyes to the sky.

“Somebody better explain what the hell has gone on!  I feel like I was stuck in some dark ass void forever!”

“Y-You were, Bakugou.  We were frozen for centuries in stone.”

“What!!”  He notices the pile of broken rubble around him.  “Then how’d I get unfrozen??”

“After breaking through, I figured out how to reverse it.  I’m sorry it took me longer to free you!  I worked as fast as I could.  He-here,” he picks up the clothes and such, handing it to the man, all the while keeping his gaze elsewhere, “right now only you, I, and Shoto are alive.”

“Tch, figures half and half is alive,” Katsuki snatches the clothes from Izuku and starts putting them on.  “So now what?”

“W-well, so, the world as we know it is gone.  The forest has reclaimed everything.  We’ve got a shelter built, created things we need to survive, and have been working on making more of this reverse serum to save others.”

“Oh.” Katsuki tears into a dried piece of meat.  “Why is it just the three of us?”

Izuku tenses up and nervously rubs he back of his neck.  “Speaking of that, you’re actually the first we’ve used the serum on because…. Before this all happened, do you remember how I had asked you to meet me by the tree?”

“Yeah, so what of it.”

“I have something I’ve been wanting to tell you, well, for a long time, and I just couldn’t do it because I was so scared of how you would react.  Then the whole disaster happened, and I thought I’d never get the chance, but now I do.  So, I chose you to be the first to be freed so I could even though...”

“Goddamnit nerd!  Stop rambling and get it out already!

“I’m in love with you!” Izuku shouts back at the top of his lungs, before choking and his voice dying away into a croak.  “Kaachan, I’m in love with you and I’m sure you don’t feel the same way, but I just needed to get it off my chest.  If you don’t want to stick around, I’ll…” his shoulders slump with a sigh, “I’ll understand, but you’re welcome to stay with us.”

“Are you done?”

Izuku nods.

Katsuki walks up and grasps Izuku’s chin hard, tilting it up, and forcing the shorter young man to look at him.  “I fucking hate you sometimes nerd…” he grins, “but I love your stupid ass more.”

“What?!”  This is not the reaction Izuku had expected!

“Just fucking deal with it!” Katsuki kisses Izuku hard and rough on the lips, just like his personality, then swiftly releases the man, who stumbles backwards and barely keeps his footing.  “Come on nerd, we ain’t got time to waste tap dancing in the forest.”  He grabs Izuku’s hand and starts dragging him towards the closest path he sees.  “So, where’s this shack of yours?”

“R-Right!” Izuku falls inline, still flustered but beaming from ear to ear.  He had his Kaachan again.  

And as they walk back to camp, the young man took stock of their lives.  Cut down in the beginning of their pro years and sent backwards to live out life like the Neolithic.  It would be a hard life no doubt, without the technology they’d come to rely on to make things easier.  But they had each other, and soon others, who together will rebuild the world, one stone at a time.    

[onion-souls]

Alright, Unearthed Arcana: New Subclasses for 2020.

That’s all the intro you’re getting.

The first entry is a Barbarian Path of the Beast. And right off the bat, we're getting thematic overlaps with both the Totem (outright listing that you have an indwelling bestial spirit) and the Sorcerer (someone in your family fucked a werewolf).

You know I had to do it to 'em

Its third level ability causes a transformation while raging, which is a very cool theme – you can chose between a Bite attack, Claws, or a Tail, and can switch between options with every rage, which is very nice. The Bite deals 1d8 piercing damage, and you can regain HP equal to your Con modifier if you damage a creature on your turn. It's very nice at third level, when 3-5 HP means a lot, even to a barbarian, but it never scales – it is if you hit on a turn, not per hit. So eventually you're just going to plateau at 4-5 for most of the game, until you hit 20th level, which doesn't count. Still, it can be a decent panic button in second tier play.

The Claws are a pitiful 1d6 slashing damage, but grant you one extra attack. What is interesting here is that you don't use a bonus action; it is inserted into your Attack Action Sequence. Unfortunately, apart from initiating your Rage, Barbarians don't have many Bonus Actions in their core features, and you have to use your claw attack to trigger this. Likewise, as this isn't a finesse weapon, it meshes poorly with the usually fantastic Barbarian/Rogue multiclass. The best solution might be the Ranger fixes from the New Class Features UA, but that is the single best 1 level dip in the game now (Still, bonus action, non-concentration Hunter's Mark is so good on this Barbarian). Still, this is your best source of damage output.

Finally, there is the tail, which is a 1d12 piercing damage weapon with reach. Apparently it's a spiny tail, so we're going for a manicore/scorpion/stegosaurus thing here. The damage is worse than the three attacks from claws, but this is a very nice options when you’re really hurting or need to hit a hovering creature, so Thargomize away!

RAWR

Now, the big issue I'm seeing here is that Barbarians experience a nasty damage fall off after 5th level; that rage damage bonus scaling is pitiful, so many Barbarians pick up Great Weapon Master and/or Polearm master. These options are incompatible with the transformation's weapons. So you’re basically stuck with piss-poor damage.

At 6th level, we get Bestial Soul, and I will never be able to remember that it's “bestial,” not “beastial.” This makes your natural weapons from Form of the Beast count as magical, a needed feature. Also, during any rest, you can chose one exploration option: a swim speed and water breathing OR a climb speed with a spider-climbing ability OR you can make an Athletics check to increase your Jump distance by that check's total. This gets hysterical if you get expertise in it through Rogue or Prodigy, by the way.

Infection Fury comes on at 10th level, and here we get that werewolf theme (though it's apparently a water-breathing, climbing, high jumping werewolf, which I am pretty sure you could build in Werewolf: the Apocalypse). You can curse a target that you hit while raging, and they must pass a Con-scaling Wisdom save or either use its reaction to make a melee attack against another creature it can see (your choice, however) OR suffers 2d12 psychic damage. Quite fun, unfortunately, you can only use Con Mod/long rest, but at least it has no action economy cost. And forcing it to use a reaction can function as a free disengage.

Finally, its 10th level feature is Call of the Hunt, which gives you support abilities. Very nice. Unfortunately, it is very, very composition dependent: you can choose [CON mod] allies within 30' of you to gain the Reckless Attack feature. You (singular) have advantage on saves against Frightened, and 5 HP per effected ally. And you can use this feature 5/long rest.

Here's another picture of Joe Manganiello with his shirt off.

So this feature is very problematic: the Reckless Attack feature is fantastic on a Barbarian. It's great on a melee fighter, rogue, ranger, or the like. It is worthless on any caster ally except maybe a melee cleric, and even then, it only might be marginally worth it; at level 14, even melee casters have better things to do than recklessly attack. If you have a huge. melee-heavy party, it’s great. Otherwise, eh... The Temp HP are nice, but will be eaten through in one round, and Barbarians at 14th level are not afraid of HP loss. Frightened is nice; but Charmed would have been much, much better.

And the Wolf Totem got a better version of this at level 3.

Which is the problem: a lot of this could have been new Totem Barbarian totems: we haven't had an expansion of features since SCAG, and it even fits the Core Feature + Animal-themed exploration + group feature themes of the Totem. I do like the Werewolfy theme of the Curse, which is unique and the most interesting idea here – I like the possibilities of the misdirected frenzied attack. The big thing that sticks out, in terms of design holes, is that it doesn't grant a bonus action to synergize with the Claws.

I just want to see a bit more here, especially if they increase the lycanthropic themes and push away from Totem's domain. Perhaps by integrating some druidic ideas. Which, btw, is a hilarious multiclass, since you can make your long-range tail attacks as something like a duck. Needs a bit more polish, but I like it.

4/5

Next up is the Way of Mercy Monk, which seems like another go at Way of Tranqulity’s healer. However, its flavor has some odd twists – they are wandering physicians with a strong theme of euthanasia. They also usually wear masks, - blank, weeping, skull, butterfly, laughing, or raven- and we’re 2 for 2 on the Bloodborne themes, here.

hoont.

This is also oddly heavy on assumed world lore for a subclass.

At 3rd level, you get proficiency in Insight OR Medicine and herbalism and poisoner's kits. You can also mend wounds as an action, spending 1 ki point to touch a creature to regain a Martial Arts Die + Wisdom Modifier, which is decent healing; big on numbers but mediocre on action economy; what fixes this is that you can replaced an unarmed strike during a Flurry of Blows with this healing touch.

Which is a funny visual, and contrasts heavily with that strong doctor theme earlier; this places it firmly in a more spiritual world of lay-on-hands.

You can also, once per turn, spend 1 ki on a strike to inflict an additional Martial Arts die of necrotic damage. If the target is incapacitated or poisoned, it's THREE dice. Alright, I'm interested. While everything is immune to the Poisoned condition, your Stunning Strike can inflict the Incapacitated condition, and is the best option here.

At 6th level, you become a fart demon. As a bonus action, you spend 1 ki point to create a 5' noxious aura for 1 minute until you're incapacitated or shut off your farts.. This miasma causes disadvantage on incoming ranged attacks, and forces any other creature to succeed on a Constitution save vs. poisoned until the end of your next turn and take poison damage equal to your Wisdom modifier. I'm a bit worried that this isn't that great; not only due to the common immunity, but monks don't want to wade into a tarpit; they're skirmishers. I wish this was a Barbarian rage feature, really.

Also, my brain is swimming trying to make this work with a Spore Druid multiclass on a Grappling Tortle.

At 11th level, Healing Technique lets you end one disease or the Blinded, Deafened, Paralyzed, or Poison conditions when you use your ki healing. Diseases just don't work in 5e, huh. This is OK, especially against Paralyzed.

At 17th, you get Hands of Mercy. You can use an action and 4 ki to force a creature to make a Con save or enter a state of suspended animation [paralyzed, immune to damage, curses, disease, or poisons] for a number of days equal to your monk level or until you chose to end the effect (no action required). The critter is basically dead for the period. And the language is simply touch, as a range and not a touch attack, so there's only one point of failure here. This is really strong, though you can only suspend one creature at a time. Odd themeing here, and it might be too strong, as it is effectively a save or die, as the PCs can still handle the body and the creature can be drowned or suffocated. Someone is definitely going to lose a big bad to a bucket of goblin piss.

VORPAL PILLOW

(Oddly, this is the only place where that euthanasia theme could possibly come up).

It seems like an interesting place for monk design to go, but it seems like it could run into the 4 Elements issue where the gameplay loop absolutely devours your ki.

3/5

Next up is the Paladin Oath of the Watchers, who are boarder patrol officers, like the Horizon Watcher Ranger. They fight extraplanar migrants looking for a new life in the material plane using a web of spies and snitches. Their tenets drive them to be on the look out for the “cunning, powerful, subversive” Other looking to corrupt civilization, inspire loyalty to your comrades, order, and people whose faces look like your face, and seek discipline against the terrors of foreigners.

Their Oath Spells are alarm (in case one of them starts walking around your store), chromatic orb (if they go for their gun), augury (for when they get away), moonbeam (for when they shapeshift), counterspell (against their sorcery), nondetection, aura of (racial) purity, banishment (for deportation), hold monster, and hallow (for the preservation of your sacred blood and soil).

Channel Divinity gives two options, one for turning extraplanar beings and forcing them to dash as their action on a wisdom save; the second allows your people's will to triumph over the predations of the Alien, granting advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to your allies for 1 minute. This is powerful, but dangerously similar to the racial abilities of the gnomes, who cannot be trusted.

At 7th level (increasing at 18th level), you emit an aura of alertness, adding your Aura's charisma bonus to Initiative, letting you form faster lynch mobs immune to reason.

At 15th level, Vigilante Rebuke allows you chastise those who would cast spells against you and your wards. When an ally within 30' of you succeeds on a saving through, you can use your reaction to deal 2d8+Charisma mod force damage to the spellcaster, punishing the degenerate intellectuals and entertainers for their wiles.

At 20th level, you can transform into a paragon of racial purity for 1 minute. You have truesight in a 120' radius, advantage on attack rolls against elementals, fey, fiends, and aberrations, and when you hit a creature, you can force them to make a charisma saving throw vs deportation. The undead are not effected, as the Watcher is dedicated to securing a future for wight children.

A mediocre subclass based too heavily around niche gameplay and weird, tone-deaf themes. 14/88.

Finally comes a Warlock patron that the Watcher Paladin would ask to step out of line for additional screening: The Noble Genie.

With this, the warlock class has come full circle, with its roots in the Sha'ir class from Al-Qadim, a 2e Forgotten Realms subsetting made by Midwestern guys whose knowledge of the Middle East came entirely from Sinbad movies. 

It was a different time.

Noble genies are the higher class of Elemental Planar deities, which oddly isn't too heavily reflected in the expanded spell list: fog cloud, sleep, enlarge/reduce, phantasmal force, create food and water, protection from energy, polymorph, phantasmal killer, Bigby's hand, and creation. Frankly, this is pretty bad, especially on a warlock. Fog cloud is redundant with Darkness (with its invocation support), Phantasmal Force is good but doesn't scale at all, Protection from Energy and Create Food and Water are too niche, and phantasmal killer is hot garbage. Polymorph and Bigby's Hand are some of the best spells in the game, however. The theme here makes you more like a genie rather than more capable of dealing with them.

At 1st level, your patron gives you a magical vessel that thematically feels more in line with the Pact Gifts – a tiny object that functions as a spellcasting focus. They give you a nice table of classical djinn-associated objects – oil lamps, urns, rings, bottles, lanterns, and statuettes. You can get it back with a 1-hour ceremony if lost.

The coolest thing here is that you can bind a willing creature within 100 feet of you to the thingy, connecting them to it with that whispy genie tail thingy.

The Thingy.

This tether lasts 1 hour, until repeated, or until someone dies – while connected, you gain a Charisma Mod a bonus to your Perception checks,and you can cast spells through the bound creature's space.

So this sounds kind of cool, but warlocks don't get many interesting touch spells, and rarely have issues with range anyway. It's a complicated feature with few shenanigans in practice. It also does very little with a familiar.

6th level brings a swappable (on long rest) elemental resistance that you share with your tethered creature.

Weirdly this is turning into a thing were you're healslutting a tank but you have no healing abilities. This could be interesting to roleplay with a Genasi Wild Surge Barbarian or magical-flavored fighter. Or maybe a Watcher, if you're fine with less Ge, more Nasi.

Phenomenal cosmic power...Overwatch is dead.

At 10th level, you can use your reaction to teleport-swap with your tethered creature, switching who gets hit with an attack. You also get a feature when you can send a creature to your patron's court, and here is where the Sha'ir mechanics come into play – you actually get to toss enemies into the elemental planes, where a djinni laughs at their dick while they are stunned. They get a Charisma throw, repeating every round. This is basically a weaker banishment cross with the flavor of Hurl Through Hell. It's OK, but the repeated saves are disappointing for a 10th level ability.

Your final ability, at 14th level, is Collector's call, which directly lets you attempt a Persuasion check against your Warlock Spell save DC, which is incredibly stupid, as you are either forced to gain Expertise in Persuasion through Bard/Rogue/Prodigy or advantage or this is a flat coin toss.

On a heads, you chose a creature within 60' to regain 8d6 hp and remove one condition (stunned and petrified sadly aren't here, but hey, HEAL SLUTTING IS GOOOO) OR cause disadvantage on saving throws and attacks on one creature for 1 round OR cast legend lore without components.You only get to try this once peer long rest unless you sacrifice 500 gp over 1 minute, which is a weird mechanic; the power of this scales very heavily on the rewards handed out by the DM.

Wow, that sucks, multiclass into something better than warlock. Overall, this is just bad. I like the idea of tethering, but warlocks don't have the spell-lists or support abilities to play this kind of role or exploit its abilities in a meaningful way.

This wants to multiclass with the Lore or Glamour Bard or the Paladin access to Aura Spells (letting your barbarian be the center of an aura of vitality sounds awesome). That is where you get your cool “placement” swap gameplay.

I really want a functioning sha’ir, but this isn’t it.

2/5

[syms-things-5]

Clear The Area - Chapter Two

Previous chapter HERE

Warning: Not explicit (yet); some mild language. 

Summary: 29-year-old nurse Sarah Bernette has worked hard to get where she is. Moving to Boston from a nowhere dump of a town, she’s studied hard and is grateful her stress is finally paying off. Despite being fostered repeatedly throughout her childhood, she’s since found some comfort in the form of her adopted parents, Jocelyn and Noah, and a pseudo-adoptive family of sorts in form of the Evans clan who have treated her as one of her own ever since she moved in with best friend, Shanna. Valuing them above all else, she appreciates their support even more when her long lost birth mother decides to reappear in her life after so many years, and is surprised to find out just how supportive Chris is in particular. As she struggles to maintain a firm grip on both her professional and private lives, she finds an ill-advised solace in her growing mutual attraction with him but how long before everything unravels and threatens to pull the rug out from underneath her?

Note: I apologise for my spelling/grammar errors. 

CHAPTER TWO

Sarah made very little effort to more that day. On occasion, and as often as she could, she preferred the relative safety of a self-made cocoon, with the excessive amount of pillows and duvet lying across her as she lounged on her bed, her wavy brunette locks in a messy bun. The alternative was a run followed by trash television (also one of her favourite guilty pleasures on a day like today) but both of those would have required her to get up and she didn’t feel like that just now. Even her phone telling her it was after one o’clock in the afternoon was enough to shame her into moving. The bedroom windows were as wide open as possible as was necessary for this time of year, and she slipped both feet out from under the covers to let the warm breeze caress her skin and envelope her space, calming her completely.

She must have fallen asleep quite early last night. Shan and Chris had left around 7p to head to their mom’s house, leaving Sarah to indulge in a much-needed shower before making her world-famous grilled cheese with as much as she could physically pack under the grill. She fell into a carb-induced come soon after.

When she woke, Shan had been making various noises around the flat, slamming a couple of drawers here and there before retiring to sleep. Sarah was too tired to check in on her to make sure everything was OK. Shan would no doubt fill her in when she saw her the next morning and they would inevitably catch up on each other’s gossip for the first time that week. Sarah had been working longer hours lately but as always, the first 20 minutes of the every morning was reserved for “Shan Time”; just listening to her vent for a little while. She never minded so much. It meant she didn’t have to pay attention to her own thoughts.

Today, though, she had a full 24 hours of freedom and was intending to make no effort whatsoever to move from her self-imposed exile. She had no plans; a rare treat for herself to do absolutely nothing.

Her laptop was open with numerous tabs keeping her entertained. She checked Facebook, spent 15 minutes on a Buzzfeed article about puppies, then read CNN. Always in that order on a day off. At some point, she’d stumbled upon a gossip article about Chris and Jenny and, against her better judgement, scanned the details. According to a “source”, it was lust at first sight. The pair of them hung out a lot at his apartment where he would hold his famous game nights - that detail she could 100% believe - and soon after she stopped her husband’s weekly visits to set. Her husband seemed quite nice actually, very non-threatening in his appearance, almost dorky, the complete opposite of Chris she realised which seemed a bit dubious. Indeed, Jenny herself appeared to be the complete opposite of who Chris usually pursued. She seemed nice enough, though, and an up-and-coming name in the comedy world. He mentioned her once or twice on the random weekends he would fly back to Boston for some down time during production. She was funny and outspoken. She was quirky too, both physically and intellectually. Sarah thought they might get along if they were to ever have the chance to meet in person. Nevertheless, she had picked up on a lot of insider knowledge thanks to knowing Chris over the years and could spot clickbait a mile away.

“I’m not so sure, y’know,” Sarah jumped as Shan climbed onto her bed behind her with a plate of toast and a fresh coffee in hand. She felt embarrassed to have been caught reading gossip about her brother but Shan seemed nonplussed. “About her. I reckon something happened and he’s burying his head in the sand about it.”

“Did he talk about her last night?”

“No, not really. Mom pushed it a few times and he got annoyed and left. Scott went after him, I think.” Shan seemed relatively blase about the whole thing as she sat cross-legged, munching on her toast. Sarah stole a mouthful of her coffee and closed the laptop, flinching at how sweet she liked it. “This is exactly what he does. He messes around and then doesn’t stick around long enough to deal with the consequences. He’s probably fucked up her relationship for good.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Oh, believe me. It’s textbook for him. He just does whatever he wants to do.” She finished her toast and took her mug back from Sarah. “What was your letter about?”

Sarah’s attention was quickly drawn towards her dresser table and to the brown envelope she’d forgotten about, currently sitting there unopened. She couldn’t bring herself to read its contents last night with how tired she felt and she was good at ignoring things when she wanted to. It was an exceptional talent of hers. 

“I haven’t looked yet.” She admitted. “I just have this...feeling nothing good’s gonna come of it.”

“Shan’s heart pinched for her friend. “Do you think it’s that lady again?”

“i don’t know. Maybe. I thought she would have given up by now but maybe she’s gone via the courts. I was reading about it online and apparently, they can request legal assistance when tracking down a child. Regardless of what the child wants. Can you believe that?”

She could. Shanna had found herself in a similar predicament some years earlier. Indeed, when they first met, their mutual experiences had been something of a conversation point and there followed many, many late nights talking until the small hours, drinking wine and putting the world to rights. It was the first time in her life Sarah had reached some sense of resolution and understanding about the whole thing.

It wasn’t common knowledge but Shan’s birth mother had contacted her a couple of years earlier via some handwritten letters and a few photographs. Turns out her parents had been childhood sweethearts who fell pregnant and ultimately decided they couldn’t raise the child together. There was also an allusion to some religious reason as well but Shan wasn’t altogether interested by that point. She recognised how unbelievably lucky she had been and didn’t want to rock the boar for something that may or may not make her life extra complicated. Sarah also sensed Lisa was struggling a bit with the contact as well although, outwardly, she was supportive of whatever decision Shanna decided to make. Chris and Scott on the other hand? Well, they were not pulling any punches. Chris in particular took the view it was some pathetic attempt to absolve themselves of guilt.

“Do you want me to open it?” Shan offered bringing Sarah back into the room. In all honesty, Shan would have done a lot more. She would have called up the Adoption Agency herself pretending to be Sarah and telling them in no uncertain terms where to stick it if she’d asked her to. It was one of Sarah’s favourite things about her; her unwavering loyalty to the people she loved the most. Act first, ask questions later. When she’d first met Carly, the oldest Evans’ child, she’d pulled her to one side and said “You’re stuck now”. She hadn’t looked back since.

Sarah pondered the letter before getting out of bed and collecting it from the table. She looked it over once more before opening the seam. It felt thicker than yesterday and there was definitely some kind of booklet enclosed. Just as she was about to pull the contents out, however, the front door slammed shut.

“Oh fuck. Sorry. I got annoyed with Chris always ringing the goddamn doorbell all the time so I just gave him the spare key, “ she remembered, quickly sliding off her bed and dashing out of the room. Sarah was going to follow her, another few minutes wasn’t going to make much difference. Then, just as she pulled the letter out a few extra centimetres, curiosity got the better of her. There, in black and white, was the name of biological mother: Charlotte.

Charlotte.

It didn’t sound like an older woman’s name to her. You know how some names have connotations of responsibility and authority and wisdom, and ‘Charlotte’ didn’t seem like one of them. It wasn’t a ‘Joanne’ or a ‘Susan’ or even a ‘Lisa’ now thought about it. Those names provoked feelings of comfort and reassurance. ‘Charlotte’ was the name of a twenty-something pretty blonde who had thousands of followers on Instagram and zero obligations. ‘Charlotte’ drove a swanky soft-top her father bought for her 21st birthday.

She was probably being petulant while staving off thoughts of Charlotte having been a teenage mother who couldn’t face the pressure of raising a child at such a young age. What if she herself had lived a troubled life and something bad had happened to her and she suddenly found herself bereft with a new born baby girl clinging to life in her arms? Or, like Shan’s mother, had some overbearing ogre of a grandmother shadowing her and telling her she would go to hell for having sex out of wedlock? Maybe she had been forced in some way to give her up outside of her control. Suddenly, Charlotte seemed like she could do with her sympathy.

Shan reappeared in Sarah’s doorway and paused before speaking noticing Sarah had the letter open in her hands. She gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Um Chris is here with some beers and stuff. I think Scott is coming over to watch a movie. I haven’t said anything about... you know...” She nodded towards the letter. Sarah smiled back at her but didn’t want to give away much more.

“Sure. I could do with a drink.”

*

A few hours had passed and they had been lying around the flat drinking beers and shouting at Iron Chef, Shan’s favourite lazy day programme. Scott had arrived not long after Chris but dipped in and out to have phone arguments with his boyfriend, Zach. Zach was his first boyfriend in some time that was considerably younger than him but seemed to fit in well with the family. It was perhaps fair to say that Chris was slightly less tolerant of him and possibly wary of any new figure in their lives given how much more visible he had become now that he was a living and breathing embodiment of a superhero. That said, Zach seemed nice and cute and funny, and Scott was clearly crazy about him and had been since Day One.

“Trouble in paradise.” quipped Chris as he walked into the kitchen. The front door was slightly ajar with Scott on the outside of the apartment, pacing up and down the hallway. Sarah had been washing up and wiping down the surfaces following dinner. Chris leaned back against the countertop next to her. “I don’t know why they insist on arguing so much. It’s just flogging a dead horse at this point.”

“He likes him a lot. When you like someone, you make it work not matter how hard things get.” she shoved him to move over a little so she could grab the sponge from behind where he was stood.

“No, you don’t. You ignore their calls and texts until they get the message. If not, you leave the country.” He smirked. Sarah shook her head in disbelief, chuckling, wondering if perhaps he was only half kidding.

“Do you think they’re getting anywhere?” he asked. She knew he was concerned deep down. He couldn’t help himself.

“I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve heard “you’re not listening to me” about seven times.”

Chris winced, folding his arms. They were both now staring at the front door when Scott suddenly returned. Without thinking, they tried their best to look as though they hadn’t just been eaves-dropping on his conversation. Chris reached for the spray, almost performing a full circle in panic. “So, I should just wipe this and then we’re done?”

Scott threw up his arms. “Oh pur-lease you guys. You don’t have to pretend that you couldn’t hear that. I know how loud I was talking.” 

“We weren’t listening!” Chris protested, feighing astonishment.

“You’re holding cleaning products, bro. You’re normally about as useful around the house as a wooden frying pan.”

The kitchen fell quiet as soon as Scott has walked back into the living room. Sarah wished she could have snapped a picture of the stunned look on Chris’ face right at that moment as he stood holding the Jif. He turned to look at her, offended.

“I clean.” he objected.

“are you trying to convince me or yourself?” she avoided eye contact, giggling to herself. She could feel the mock annoyance radiating off him as he stood to the side of her eyeline waiting for her to move. They could be here for some time. He resorted to spraying her hair.

“Hey! That was uncalled for!”

“I’m gonna tell mom you’re bullying me again.” He put the spray down and flashed her an eyebrow raise. She didn’t know why but she felt a blush cover her skin in that moment as he whispered almost intimidatingly close to her ear, “You missed a spot by the way.”

“What?! Where?” She jumped and he laughed out loud. Realising he had been kidding, she threw him a glare and the dishcloth. “If you’re not going to help you can get out of my kitchen.”

“Oh my god that was too easy! Seriously, Sarah, lighten up. It’s only gonna get messy again in a few hours.” He playfully attempted to grab the sponge from her hand but she held it aloft to one side out of his reach. He enjoyed messing with her. It was something he did when there wasn’t a lot else going on and she recognised this, fearing this was going to be the new norm for her now he was practically living here. She’d have to put the lock back on the bathroom door for sure. “Do you think you’ll be retiring to you bachelor pad anytime soon? Some of us have to get up early in the morning.”

His face lost its boyish glee in that moment and she felt like she had kicked a puppy. He picked the dishcloth back up and proceeded to dry a few plates, placing them in a neat pile to one side. He peeked at her from the corner of his eye.

“How about I repay you with beer and household chores?”

*

Next Chapter HERE

[prorevenge]

When enough is enough, people lose jobs and go to prison

This is my story. I finally feel like I can talk about this particular time in my life and appreciate what it took.

I’m not on mobile, so feel free to criticize my grammar. Although English is not my first language so temper the criticism.

WARNING: This is a VERY long post. TLDR at the end.

Background

This pro-revenge took place when I was in high school in the mid 2000s, a time in my country when there was much public outcry over bullying/hazing in boarding schools. A couple of students in different schools had died from injuries resulting from bullying. Other schools were rioting and burning shit. They were under increased scrutiny. It was a whole thing.

Personally, my life in high school was not fun. I was a fat boy with very low self-esteem going into my first year. The bullying I experienced quickly led to a depression. I was prone to self harm and recklessness and a bit of suicidal ideation. The thing that made high school particularly nightmarish though was the sexual abuse. Low-key comments about my sexuality from this group of about five boys in fourth form. They called me and my best friends gay. The social stigma associated with homosexuality here is really extreme. These boys would stalk and terrorize me. They left threatening notes under my sheets: “we’re going to fuck you up for being a fucking gay,” “we’re going to fucking rape you,” etc. So I had only one close friend who knew what was going on. Ironically, after an entire term of convincing everyone that I was gay, this same group began sexually abusing me. I’ll spare you the details, but my first year in high school was the worst time of my life. But you’re not here for my sad story, so moving on!

Sometime in the middle of the term, the vice principal (VP) of our school was changed due to the aforementioned public backlash from the bullying scandals. The previous VP was a decent man, but the new VP was not. He came with a well-earned reputation of being unnecessarily harsh, dishing out suspensions and expulsions like candy on Halloween.

The Last Straw

A few weeks after the new VP came in, and I’m having an incredibly shitty week that is really battering my mind (yes, the bullying and sexual abuse was still going on). Now, every Friday night, a group of kids used to climb through a window into the computer lab and play video games. The windows had bars on them, but a slim person could fit through. (I am not slim by any definition; unless the definition is fat). Among this group of kids was this troublemaker dude in my class and my dorm with the same common name. Turns out, the VP had confused the two of us, and I was the one who was in his crosshairs.

That Friday, the kids were caught. Some of them, including my namesake, managed to escape. The VP was called in and the students who were caught snitched. Security was sent to the dorms to bring the other culprits. Cue me being woken up at 3:00 am in the morning and dragged to ‘the scene of the crime’ to endure a beating for something I hadn’t done (corporal punishment was tacitly legal then/now). My explanation that there is clearly no way for me to fit through the window were met with more canings.

What really pissed me off was that the VP had us bring our belongings to his office at night for an inspection with the excuse of searching for stolen computer equipment. He came across my very private journal, and like the dick he was, he proceeded to ridicule me for having a diary in front of the teachers, watchmen, and the students I was bundled with. It didn’t help matters that I broke down and cried in front of them. I don’t think I have ever felt such humiliation in my life before. The following morning, we were suspended for two weeks.

Two weeks later, my parents took me back to school. I had only told them of the mistaken identity that I suspected and the wrongful accusation. They already knew about the bullying. I didn’t tell them about the VP going through my diary or the sexual stuff. I was still writhing in humiliation. The VP, being the absolute bunghole that he was, had convinced himself that I was the ringleader of this group of boys (again, mistaken identity), and thus deserved extra punishment. He ordered me to clear out a large patch of weeds and overgrown grass between the rugby pitch and the hockey field, about the size of a football field, using only a slasher.

Just as I’m about to head out, it starts raining and it’s the middle of July, so much cold (temperatures regularly dip to below 10 degrees (Celsius) at night). So instead of going to the field, I head to class to wait out the rain. A few minutes later, the VP barged in furious, interrupting the Geography lesson.

He proceeded to tear me a new one, even mentioning my private journal, and then he threatened to expel me if I left the field before I finished my punishment. Mind you, this was one of the best schools in our region. It had actually been my first choice. He then he proceeded to cane me again just to make his point stick.

At this point I just broke. All of this punishment was due to something that I had not done. I was completely innocent but this asswipe just couldn’t listen. The ridicule, the humiliation, the bullying, and the abuse all just came to a head at that point, and I decided to just fuck it all to hell.

So I walked out into the rain, slasher in hand, with not even a sweater. This was about four in the afternoon. I never returned.

I think the VP never really expected me to complete the punishment. But then, I doubt he had ever met someone who decided they had no more fucks left to give either. My initial plan was to crucify him with his own words.

Dusk fell with me cold and drenched ripping up ferns from the ground. By midnight, I was shivering and crying uncontrollably and it was too dark to see shit. I still persevered and started blindly cutting the grass, driven by this mad desire to just hurt. I really didn’t care who I hurt. Sure, a part of my motivation was that if I did get sick out here, the VP would be in a fuckload of trouble, but there was another part of me that was just like, “fuck it, life sucks anyways.”

By midnight, I was too cold to continue. I ran out of energy and just sat down under a tree. Towards dawn I was so cold from the rain and the wind that my shivers began reducing. It was impossible for me to sleep. The teachers finally found me there a couple of hours after dawn. Apparently, the teacher on duty had found my desk empty during morning study time (between 4:30 and 6:00 am). When he asked where I was, it came about that I had not been in bed the previous night either. He then called the VP and other teachers who began searching the school and they finally found me in the field.

The Pro-Revenge (Yaay! Its finally here!)

I don’t know much about what happened immediately after, I was so out of it. I do remember the teachers rushed me to the school nurse, who immediately recommended I be taken to the hospital. I spent a week there due to complications (pneumonia). And a very expensive week it was, all on the school’s dime. My parents were pissed as fuck, and I couldn’t blame them.

The school’s board of governors convened after my parents contacted them. The days before my parents and I were called in to speak before the board, I had the idea to just face my fears and put everything out in the open. I was just done with that school and everybody there. So on that day, in front of a group of musty old men in the boardroom, I finally shed my burden. I told them everything, my only motivation being to bury the piece of shit VP and my tormentors. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that scary before. From the mistaken identity, the suspension, the punishment in the rain, the threat to expel me if decided to seek shelter, and the crown jewel the bullying and the sexual abuse, I laid it all out. I knew that would definitely get their attention. The board called my best friend, who backed me up. The VP was in no position to win a he-said they-said contest with us at that moment.

The VP was fired that day. A few days later, a zero tolerance policy on bullying was announced. I think the board was acutely afraid of finding themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons. They didn’t want their school to be one of ‘those’ schools, despite the fact that it was one of the worst. Over the holidays my friend told me that things got really serious after that. People didn’t know why, but suddenly, any act of bullying was met with immediate and unconditional expulsion.

As for the boys who had been terrorizing me, they were arrested. My dad went to the police with the threatening notes I had been receiving all year long. The school board supported us in this, on the condition that we (my parents and I) do not take the story to the media. I was happy with that arrangement. I had no desire to be the face of male rape victims. We had a few meetings with an investigator from the public prosecutor’s office. A couple of months later, the office reached out, told us that the boys had plead guilty. One of them got off scot-free coz his dad was some senior army guy (corruption smh). Three of them got ten years each. The last one got eighteen. The topping: They were all in their fourth and final year. They got arrested just as they were about to sit for their national exams to go to university. Their lives are ruined and I have absolutely no remorse for them.

TL;DR: Abusers made my first year of high school a waking nightmare. Asshole vice principal was the final straw. I decided to face my fears and took them all down. Vice principal gets fired, (most of) my abusers get a decade + in prison.

(source) story by (/u/JimmyChinosKnowsNose)

[amazildoessomethingstupid]

Chapter 95: Love Again Part 2

Well boys we back on it again!  I hope you’re ready cause I’ve been spending most of this week after the response pumping out response images for this next part! So let’s waste no more time and jump right into it!

…

Oh shut up, you know you laughed at it.

So we start off with one of mah boi Bee’s favorite pages!  Just look at this great update of a page!  Just jam packed with so much stuff to sink your teeth into, and digest.   It’s a magnificent piece that is not only worth waiting 2 full days to see, but waiting 2 to 3 more days to see what’s next!  And while I was not a dedicated reader, waiting hours on end for when this page update I can only imagine how elated those readers who did wait, must’ve been to see this page!  

No wonder this chapter’s 50 pages long… AND IT CONTINUES!

Okay, okay, no I’m not really going to bitch about these splash pages and how fucking tedious and restless it would’ve made me as a serial reader to go into this.  Partly, because the way I’m reading these now and with the rant series of going chapter by chapter was all inspired by the great advice by Bear Kidney that he gave me years ago on the forum.  That the “proper” way to read BCB is as full chapters, and to just wait for them to be finished…

Which meant in order for an average person to read this “properly” they’d have to wait…

Five full months…

Sure!  But since we are reading this “properly” I will say that these splash pages do help to set the pace.  It  sets the tone for this scene pretty well and makes us slow down and appreciate what’s happening, and immerse ourselves into the past.  

But enough praise! You know what’s coming, I know what’s coming!  Let’s get to it!  I’m ready! I’m hungry for some strawberry pancakes! Let’s tear int-

Wait what?

Right when I have to transfer?  Wait, this is a flashback right?  Is she talking about the private school?  I thought we only learned about this private school thing this chapter.  What is she-

THEM?  Do what?  Uhhhhh What?!  A-am I missing something here?  This is a flashback to when Lucy attempts suicide, right?  This is after December, I thought that’s why she did that.  Is that not it?  Am I missing something?!  I THOUGHT I WAS ALL PREPARED WHAT THE HELL?  

Okay so this IS about the new school?  Okay. Why?  I thought what happened in December was enough!  Was it not enough?  Did that just push her further into this point?  Wait, no.  This had to be after December.  So the move was done because of December?  So the first course of action upon realizing Lucy had been acting depressed was to immediately move her to a new place?  No like therapy or anything?  No counseling?  What the…

Okay, hold that thought one second here, I need to resort to a third-party source on this shit.  

Hello?  Yes, I’m doing the rant and I am now not only angry but very confused!  You’ve read further into the comic than me, what the fuck is Lucy talking about here?!

….

WHAT?!  WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE WAS A SCENE WHERE THEY MENTIONED LUCY MOVING AWAY?!  I DON’T REMEMBER ANY SCENE LIKE…wait a second…

ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT THIS SCENE?!  HOLY CRAP, EVEN I FORGOT ABOUT THIS SCENE!  What the fuck?!  You mean this one little scene.   This little one-page moment shuffled in early, in a chapter that had its own memorable bits of drama and character moments that easily overshadow it; was not only meant to be a very important scene that hints at  one of the main reasons Lucy is trying to kill herself…BUT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO- NO WE WERE *EXPECTED* TO HOLD ONTO THIS ONE LITTLE BIT OF DIALOGUE FOR ALMOST FIVE FUCKING YEARS IF WE WANTED TO FULLY UNDERSTAND WHY LUCY’S ATTEMPTING TO KILL HERSELF?!  

Yeah, thinking about it I’m not that surprised, honestly.   And people think I’m crazy for looking this deeply into the comic and characters and motivations.  Apparently, I wasn’t looking hard enough!  Jesus, good thing I missed that.  If I knew that Sam was so on board with not letting Lucy have say on her treatment, or what happens to her, January would’ve crumbled apart!  Not to mention, according to this False Idol shouldn’t have happened since Lucy would’ve been moved away before the summer…

Hey by the way, do we get any follow up on what exactly Lucy did while she was in that private school? Like how was her treatment, care, and stuff?  How she was doing?

Why are you laughing?

Alright, I’m not gonna lie. I felt something there.  You got me, Taeshi.  This bit of paneling.  The build up, the expressions, it works here.  But sadly I’d be remised if I didn’t make this joke.

You know I had to do it to em’.

But instead she goes for the cannonball!  Bold move there, Cotton!  Let’s see if it pays off!

Oof!  She’s gonna lose a lot of points for not sticking the landing. But I still give it a 5/10 for style points.   Okay, okay, I joke but I gotta give props to this scene for well execution (…no pun intended)

The structure of this page is very well done, and reminds me of Korean style of web paneling which uses a lot of negative space and vertical structure to build tension, and slow down the reader’s pace by forcing them to scroll down in order to read forward.  If you’ve seen any of those Korean horror webcomics you’ll know what I mean.  It’s very effective, and it works to build this tension and intrigue into what happened.   It’s a very good trick, and Taeshi’s use of it here is very nice.  It’s just…

What….

What the fuck?  

WHAT THE FUCK?!  YOU BUILT THIS SCENE UP FOR YEARS AND THIS IS WHAT WE GET?!  YOU FUCKING HACK!  YOU WERE DOING SO WELL!  IF YOU JUST TOOK IT SLOW FOR ONE SECOND, AND NOT FUCKING GO OVER THE TOP WITH YOUR EXECUTION OF SCENES!  THE ONE TIME! THE ONE SCENE THAT DESERVED TO STAND ON ITS OWN AND HAVE A FUCKING OUNCE OF SUBTLETY AND REALISM, AND YOU COULDN’T FUCKEJWOIGHSLKDA;J

HGNGKJFJLGKFHBN LFKGJHLLJDFGKLJ;LHKGFLKJIUCUCBITCHLKJBVKJLHKJXHCVH

*WHUMP*

Uhhh…

WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED RANT TO BRING YOU BIOLOGY CLASS WITH DR. CAS MARIE!

Hello, kids!  Did you know, that hidden inside every animal including you, me, and sharks.  Is this thing we call a skeleman!  And he brings with him these things called “bones”  which are integral for not only fast movement, and articulation in our moving parts, but also they help keep our vital organs safe by surrounding our heart, lungs, and livers. We’ll get more into him in a second, but just know he lives inside almost every living creature!

Well except for invertebrates….

Fuck invertebrates! Think you’re so bad, just cause you ain’t got no bones!

But anyway, beyond that skeleman has with him his best friend.  MUSCLE MAN!  Who is sort of like a squishy version of the skeleman.  He is the one who keeps the skeleman safe.  For you see kids, the skeleman’s bones are very hard, pretty dense too if you drink your bone juice!  But that hardness makes him very brittle.  That’s why muscle man is here to add a tough layer on top of the skeleman. But that’s not all he does!  He sort of acts like a bunch of rubber bands that tighten up in order to perform actions and move those lazy bones!  Cause bones can’t move themselves.  Now these muscles are controlled subconsciously through the central nervous system.  That might sound like some big words, but the central nervous system when talking about the skeleman refers to the skull as well as the central part of the skeleman.  And what’s in the center of the skeleman? 

WHY IT’S THE SPINE OF COURSE!  And directly attached to that, is the brain!  The spine serves as the main messenger for the body to tell everything else what to do!  Limbs, organs, and all that good stuff.  It’s why the spine is the most important bone of them all!  Without a spine, you would literally not function, and die.  Now I know you’re all very intrigued, but before we go any further there’s a little experiment I’d like you folks at home to try real quick!

Take your hand, and place it on top of your belly.  Now give it a nice squish, just a little jiggle.  Now lift up your arm, and squish your hey babies with the other arm.  You feel that?  Feel that squish?  Feel that jiggle?  

That’s what’s known as “fat” like when I say “You fat fucking slob.” It makes our bodies more buoyant, as well as protect our nice tight muscle man, with a pliable squishy layer right under the skin!  Now of course, some parts of the body have more fat than others, as the fat is meant to protect vital parts of the body and its functions such as the breasts, the thighs, and of course the abdomen!  While we’re talking about skin, there’s an interesting fact about skin.  You see, skin is meant to withstand blunt force very well.  Often times, you’ll notice that skin will scrape, bruise, bend, and squish, but hardly break except for certain circumstances like if you used a sharp object on it.  This is because the skin is meant to absorb and be pliable enough that it’s a bit hard to tear with blunt force.  Usually whenever it does, it’s due to the skeleman’s bones breaking and causing a tear from under the skin for the blood to come out or when it is pinched between the hard bone and a hard surface such as asphalt.   This is why you’ll often hear the term “internal bleeding” thrown around during certain traumatic injuries. Because while the skin layer hasn’t broken, there is still something inside the body that is bleeding, but it’s not coming out of the body because of the skin layer!  Not to say of course, that you can’t of course break skin through sheer blunt force trauma.  But it would take a lot of force that would most definitely cause you more problems than just breaking the skin.  Now I hope you were taking lessons back there, because POP QUIZ HOTSHOT!  I got a surprise question for you~  With everything I’ve said about the human body and how it is able to take blunt force trauma, please tell me.

HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS HAPPEN? HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SURVIVE THAT?!  AND HOW DO YOU SURVIVE THAT WITHOUT ANY LOSS OF LIMB, SCARRING, OR LASTING EFFECT?!

I’m sorry, but you can not achieve that sort of blood splatter by sheer force of gravity alone. Or if you did, then this scene should’ve been more like this!

The only explanation I’ve heard that makes any sense is that there was just some random ass rock that was there that Lucy landed on that.  Which. Okay, then.  Okay, sure.  Yeah, okay. Then how the fuck do you survive that? That is no small wound based on the amount of blood that was expelled on impact.  And if this rock is big and sharp enough to cause that amount of blood loss on impact, it would be big and sharp enough to do immense damage to the abdomen. But oh that’s alright!  It’s just the abdomen, there’s nothing going on in there! It’s just your stomach, your liver, your kidneys, your colon, your womb (if you have one) your pancreas, your bladder, y’know stuff you don’t really need.  But of course if that gets compromised, and based on the force and damage you could easily break a rib, puncture a lung, and really fuck up your life. That’s not even counting what sort of damage the fall did on her arm!  That shoulder must be fucked!  Look at how its bent even!  You’re not moving that thing any time soon! Your pelvic bone must be shattered if this is the kind of force you took.  You are now a vegetable.  But that’s not even the biggest point!  That’s not the worst part, those things?  I know some of you are gonna say, “Oh Amazil, you’re not a doctor!   She could survive that!  People survive insane things like that all the time!”

Well okay, but riddle me this.  Let’s say the rock doesn’t kill her, and by some miracle none of her internals are FUBAR right now.  She didn’t cause a bone break, and destroy her limbs.  Remember what we said about the central nervous system.  The most important bone of the body is the spine and skull.  And one of the most vulnerable parts for the spine is the neck.  If you fall to the ground with enough velocity, the whiplash you should have from your body going from 60 to 0 in an instant should cause your neck to snap or leave you paralyzed for a good second if not immediately kill you because the force of momentum would carry all that velocity to make your head connect with the ground at its resting speed.  And while I know I said that skin is very hard to tear, y’know what makes it tear or break?  When the hard contact with the ground, meets hard contact with your hard skull!  If she landed so hard on a rock that blood spew out a good foot or two in front of her, how the hell does she not crack her head on the pavement?!  And don’t you give me no bullshit about the snow either!  I’m sorry Lucy, but by all accounts.

If this scene wasn’t a flashback and we knew Lucy wasn’t dead, there would be no doubt that she was fucking dead if we saw this.  

But it seems we aren’t alone in judging this scene.  Augustus is here too! (which we kinda already know because of how this scene was set up but nonetheless).  And he’s here to say

Wait, let me take a selfie an-

No…

Oh my fucking god…

OH MY GOD!  NO!

DO I EVEN NEED TO SAY WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS RIGHT HERE?!  

NO LUCY THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SAYING!  WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SAYING IS

Sgdslkhg;sldlkdshgknxcv;jhdf;kldgsasdn

Translation: OH GOD, PLEASE HELP THERE IS BLOOD CLEARLY POOLING IN MY MOUTH!  MY MOUTH IS FILLING WITH BLOOD!  THERE IS BLOOD IN MY LUNGS AND I CAN’T BREATHE!

Your body should be in shock right now!  You just suffered traumatic physical injury!  Your brain and body is still trying to comprehend what the fuck just happened.  You shouldn’t be this lucid, let alone this active and coordinated!  Not to mention, the first rule of dealing with someone who has suffered traumatic injury and is on the ground, is NEVER.  EVER. MOVE THE PERSON UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO, AND IF YOU DO, YOU DO IT VERY SLOWLY AND AS CAREFULLY AS POSSIBLE.  This is because like I mentioned, Lucy’s body has suffered a lot of damage. Her spine could and should be fucked up after that fall.  And the reason every EMT or anyone who has the basic knowledge of first aid will tell you not to fucking move if you’ve suffered a traumatic fall, is because if you move and your spine WASN’T fucked up by that fall, it very easily WILL get fucked up if you try to move the body while it’s still injured! They are very careful about that shit, because if you slip up you turn a situation from salvageable, to fucking vegetable in one solid motion!  All it takes is just curving your spine a bit immediately after it’s suffered from the shock an-

Oh yeah kinda like that. That might do it or-

Oof, yeah arching your back like that and trying to crawl after a fall.  Yeah that ought to do it.  Add on top of this, the aforementioned likelihood she broke a rib, and is probably suffering from a pierced lung and oh yeah

And if you’re not double-dead, you are at the very least fucking paralyzed, or require some serious physical therapy.  You are not walking away from this.

What was that?

“UP here”?  

I-is this not the ground floor?  Is there a lower part to this?  DID LUCY FALL ONTO ANOTHER LEDGE?  QUICK LUCY! YOU CAN JUST ROLL OVER; YOU DIDN’T HIT THE ACTUAL GROUND APPARENTLY! THERE’S MORE FALLING YOU CAN DO TO FINISH THE JOB!  

Wh-what?  I-it’s a cut?  It’s just a cut?  What the…How…What is this scene?!  You mean to tell me the only injury she got was some abdominal cut?!  From falling off a building?  What?  Did she just see the first 2-story building she came across and say “oh that looks good enough, yeah that should do it!”  I swear to god.  It’s almost like…

It’s almost like…

She didn’t want to die. Maybe she was just doing it for att-

NO! NO! DON’T YOU DARE! THAT’S NOT TRUE!  YOU TAKE THAT SHIT BACK!  THAT’S NOT A POSSIBILITY! LUCY DID NOT DO THAT!  SHE IS BETTER THAN THAT!  SHE DOES NOT DESERVE THAT!  AND I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT’S THE CASE!

So a girl jumps off a building to try and kill herself.  But the height she falls from is so low that the only damage she got was from some random ass cut that she no doubt wasn’t expecting.  Despite the assumed physical trauma that would’ve come if she jumped from a height any person would assume to be lethal enough; she doesn’t have any physical impairments, no lasting damage that we can see 9 months after the fact, no scar, no limp, she doesn’t even seem to be taking it very seriously in the current time.  How else would you explain that, except that she didn’t put much thought into it.  The kind of thought people who attempt suicide would, in planning out their attempt, climbing those stairs, knowing the area, and finally committing to it.  Despite all that contemplating, she didn’t go high enough to do anything more than get a freak accidental injury.  How is that not a sign that maybe she wasn’t really trying to die.  

But hey, I don’t read this junk.  I’m just going off what I see here.  I don’t know this character. Do you think that would be out of character for her at this point?  What other reason would you have for someone surviving this, but not dying?

….

Maybe they have a lower force of gravity in this world?

Hmm…

Or maybe Taeshi’s just a fucking hack who decided to go over the top and add a stupid gore effect that was far too much; instead of keeping the scene simple, subtle, and letting the action speak for itself, with a realistic tone and visual to keep things grounded (no pun intended).  

Atta’ girl!  I knew you had it in you!  

But it’s such a shame. Looking at this script, I’m already close to eclipsing the rant I made for the first part of this chapter and it was all for this one fucking moment.  And you can call me harsh all you want, but this seriously pissed me off.  I remember when this page came out, I was fuming.  I broke my vow of illiteracy to check the previous pages just because I had to know what the fuck lead to this, and what the fuck was happening.  This one panel haunts me and is one of the few moments in BCB that legitimately triggers me, because of how poorly handled it was.  

This should’ve been a fucking bombshell moment.  This should’ve been the moment that shut my cynical, hardass mouth up or glue my jaw straight to the floor.  It should’ve been an awe inspiring moment where Taeshi really showed us and reminded us just how fucking great she can be.  This was a moment that everyone was waiting for with bated breath.  I remember, I created January years ago specifically because we didn’t get this sort of scene.  We didn’t get to see Lucy’s last struggle, or giving in.  We were just told that she was gone and faded away, leaving us hollow and wanting for more.  Yearning for years and years for resolution to come.  

And this is what we got.

FUCKING YAMCHA’D!  

But y’know what’s the best part?  And if you know me, and are familiar with my stuff you know damn well what I’m talking about.  The absolute best part about this whole fucking thing?  

I beat Taeshi to the punch by miles.  And not only that, but (and this is what really pisses me off) reading this page showed me that I gave more fucking respect and thought into this character and this moment than Taeshi did.  Because, y’know why?  Because of this.

That’s right.  Lucy was supposed to cry out and deny and fight Sue in January to let her die. Kind of like…

HRMMMMMMMMMM Now don’t get it twisted.  I’m not trying to make a comparison in saying that my idea of having Lucy fight with Susan to let her die is the same thing happening here.  What I’m talking about here, is this wonderful thing in storytelling called TONE.  And this scene, starting with that panel and Lucy’s reaction to Augustus kills what should’ve been a serious, and somber tone by adding in this layer of mystery, and doubt, and mistrust, and fear.  Which COULD’VE been interesting and done well to make us invested.  

Like oh no, what’s he doing? Who is he calling?

Oh my god, is he calling Alejandro?  Is this how Lucy dies? (although, I doubt there would be much he could do since she’s already dying.  Putting Alejandro in that mix would’ve just been weird, what’s he gonna do?  Beat up her corpse or something?)

Oh what a relief!  He’s calling an ambulance how nice, this is so relieving except wait-

WE ALREADY KNOW THAT AUGUSTUS IS GOING TO SAVE HER!  SO ALL THAT BULLSHIT TENSION IS POINTLESS!  So what did we learn or get from this scene?

We see how Lucy tried to kill herself.  Which was poorly done.  

We see how she was conflicted after Curtain Call with Mike talking to her about stuff.  

We see that her moving to some other place and getting transferred to a new school wasn’t just something that happened in response to her suicide attempt but was pre-planned.  

Okay.  

Let me go make a call and see if any of this gets brought up or used later on.

Dude I’m being serious here. Why do you keep laughing?  I just want to know if anything comes from the information from this scene.  Otherwise, what’s the fucking point of dropping this bomb here other than because Lucy’s here now so we must have this scene now.  

STOP LAUGHING!  

But what am I saying? We haven’t even talked about January yet!  So let’s do that shall we?  Cause I know you think I’m just tooting my own horn by saying I put more thought into January’s suicide attempt scene but allow me to indulge myself.  As I dive into one of the best scenes I’ve ever written.  A scene that I put all my heart and mind into, to make it the best it could be.  Because this character deserves it.

Right off the bat it is meant to make the reader perk up and raise a red flag to note that something is going on and you need to take notice.  If you’ve read January, you’ll know that it is a very wordy comic.  It’s jampacked with panels, words, jokes, dramatic moments, and it is meant to be a very fast paced comic that rarely slows down or shuts up.  So when greeted by six panel pages that are wordless, and seemingly benign it is meant to illicit intrigue into the reader, to make them wonder why has the train slowed down.

It doesn’t waste your time either, as only two pages later do we get words again but it only adds more mystery into what’s going on.  The paneling is still broken up, and scarce.  And as the reader follows along, the tension and mystery builds.  The lack of panels, the more prevalent backgrounds, it is visually demanding the reader slow down and immerse themselves into this scene and what is going on.  Sue acting as the surrogate for the reader, as she gains the information and is left questioning in tandem with the reader.  

And just as it dawns on the reader what’s going on, it dawns on Susan.  The tension builds, and the question shifts.  No longer asking what’s going on with this scene, but rather:  How can Sue stop this?  Or Can she stop this?  

And at the same time, we are being drip fed Lucy’s words and perspective.  We know what’s about to happen, it’s no longer a mystery.  And the tension mounts until the final moment…

This is why I give props to the canon for its portrayal of Lucy’s jump.  It was well done, well paced.  It had this nice tension, and for that I appreciate it.  But where it differs is what happens after Lucy commits to killing herself.

You see, there was a lot of thought I had put into how exactly Lucy was going to kill herself. If you’ll allow me to be cold and dark for a moment; I went over a few different modes of suicide for Lucy.  And really thinking about which one would be the best one, not just for dramatic effect, not just for realism, but also which would be the best one for this scene.  It came down to what would be a method that Lucy could survive from if she attempted it (so no toaster bath); what would be a method that Susan could dramatically save Lucy from, while still being able to talk to Lucy and understand her (so no over the counter cocktail); and how can I make it absolutely 100% sure to the audience that both of these characters are committed to what they’re doing? And to me…

Nothing shows that more, than Lucy fully committed to kicking the chair out from under her; and Sue clinging to Lucy for dear life, physically and emotionally trying to prop her up even as Lucy has fully committed to giving up.  (if you’ve ever wondered how this overthinking, overanalyzing, cynical mind of mine works towards building my own stories.  This should give you a good idea of what I go over with these scenes when I take them seriously)

If you remember the comment I mentioned earlier about changing Lucy’s reaction to Sue’s rescue, this is what I changed, and how it elevates this scene.  Narratively, this should’ve been the moment where the reader catches a breath and relaxes knowing that Lucy’s safe now.  But instead the reader remains in Sue’s shoes, clinging to Lucy and wanting to tell her everything’s okay, but Lucy explains that it’s not.  We see into Lucy’s mentality.  And it heartbreaking, because it’s not yelled at, it’s not cried out, it’s spoken somberly, with expressions and responses that fully capture how hopeless Lucy feels, and how true she feels it is.

And when Lucy finally does yell, and shows emotion it isn’t done to add some extra tension or drama in actuality, this is a moment where Sue breaks through Lucy’s armor and she shows her vulnerability.  And even still the tone does not change.  The tension is still tight, and it refuses to let up.  But not only that.

This scene comes with a flashback, but instead of leaving us with more questions, or scratching our heads as to what it had to do with anything or what it means.  It adds context to the situation, and its message is meant to be absolutely clear to you why it’s happening and what it means for the story and for these characters.  This is Lucy’s moment.  This is where we see her at her lowest point.  Broken. Defeated.  Unable to cope or push on.  

But we’re reminded that there are two characters in this scene.  We see both sides of the coin fully understand what Sue is feeling right now. Guilty.  Ashamed. Stupid. Naïve.  This scene builds, exposes, and fleshes out its two main characters.  Showing each of their struggles.

It’s this scene that sets the stage for these characters, and it’s a jumping off point (again, no pun intended) for them to grow from.  This entire scene sets its serious tone from the start, and holds the reader hostage, keeping the tension up and forcing them to take this seriously because it has something to say.  

(god damn it, I really should’ve rephrased that to “cause I am not letting you go” that would’ve been so much better) But that’s its final message, and final note.  A promise that carries on, that is reflected in the characters every action from this point on.  Lucy’s suicide attempt is what kicks off(…no pun intended?) the rest of the story. It lingers over everything and is a main point that is brought back constantly, time and time again.  It is an integral part of not only Lucy’s character development, but Sue’s character development.  

And even when she does come down, and the reader is given a moment to take a breath and crack a joke. It’s clear that this is just the beginning, and there is a lot of work left to be done.  And things for the reader to look forward to.  Lucy’s suicide attempt was something that I knew I had to treat with the utmost respect, and love.  In the end, we don’t know what’s going to happen now, but we do know Lucy’s problem.  We completely understand and can empathize with her character, for what she’s feeling, what she’s going through right now.  

Nothing is left unclear.

You’re never asking what’s going on.

You’re not meant to search and assume the answers on your own.

It’s clear cut.

It’s gutwrenching.

It’s brutal.

But most importantly.

It’s fucking real.

You don’t doubt that Susan, with adrenaline pumping through her veins could force herself to hold Lucy up.  You don’t wonder how Lucy could survive her attempt.  You don’t wonder what is going through her mind.  Or why she’s being saved.  The scene is meant to be impactful (Jesus I just keep walking right into it.  God damn! I’m sorry, no pun intended) It deserves so much better than what it got. After everything that this comic did…This.

This just kills it for me. You had the opportunity to make this amazing, something more than just its premise.  But instead it just falls flat on its fa-OH GOD DAMN IT WHY CAN’T I STOP DOING THAT?!  I JUST CAN’T AVOID ACCIDENTALLY MAKING THESE DAMN PUNS!  

A friend of mine made a good point on how this chapter could’ve been salvaged.   First off fuck that blood splatter it’s gratuitous, it’s excessive, and it’s distracting.  Just imagine for a second that it wasn’t there.

(look I tried to clean it up, it’s getting really late and this is getting absurdly long) But imagine instead Lucy fell and we just see her lying on the ground.  Her mind is in shock.  She is struggling to move.  Her body feels almost numb.  She doesn’t know what’s going on, her mind hasn’t fully comprehended what has just happened.  We start to see blood slowly pool beneath her and blend into the snow.  Growing as she starts to feel the pain set in.  The chilly breeze cooling her wound and making her feel unbearably cold.  Her vision fades, the scene zooms out as she starts to accept her fate, maybe thinking of final apologies, lamenting on the things she’s done, the words she’s never said, the life she never lead.  And just as she’s about to pass out.

She sees a silhouette of Augustus.  It’s unclear what he does, why he’s there, or what happens to Lucy as she passes out unsure if it was even real, what will happen to her.

And THEN the chapter starts! And we see her, and the suicide attempt can stand on its own! (maybe you can insert Augustus’ point of view of the scene in the place of this scene when Lucy says “this is the boy who saved my life” and we can maybe see Augustus care a bit about Lucy, or how he really feels.   It also would’ve been better if this scene came out earlier in the comic when this was more fresh in our minds.  But let’s wrap it up shall we?

We get a nice few bits of Augustus interacting with Lucy’s family and it’s really heartwarming.  It’s so cute, and it is a wonderful reminder of how Lucy’s actions impact not only our main characters but their families.  Not to mention Augustus is just adorable, and seeing him interact in this new environment, with people who legitimately care for him is very refreshing.  I like it a lot.  

And come on, just look at how cute and amazing Lucy’s mom is.  She’s the best thing about this chapter.  It’s really nice to see Lucy’s family and how they act.  

and the chapter ends with cute Augustus finally finding a place to call home~

Overall, this comic is just a bunch of disappointments with one nice little light at the end.  There were many chapters I’d point to as infuriating but this one…

For what it set out to do, and what it tried to do, and what it should’ve done.  In a word it is utterly disappointing.  And leaves me so hollow.  

I give it a 2/10.  I hope to god that Taeshi does better.  I’d say it can’t get worse than this, but I keep hearing about this carnival chapter, and man…

I’ll see you guys when i miss the next update.  Till then, this is Lt_Amazil signing off.

[feelingsdusk-writes]

Worse than worse

Prompted by @ssree: A/B/O world where Bs are a neglected minority (A45/B10/O45), even if they're some of the most important members of society. Because Bs are immune to pheromones. Stiles is a B undercover spy. On a mission, Stiles poses as A/O (with fake pheromones, gotta love the R&D) and gets chosen by A/O Peter, who has issues with normal dynamic stereotypes (O's are airheads, A's are controlfreak douches) and Stiles doesn't set his hackles up like all the others. And Stiles just wants to complete his mission.

Peter is so, so tired right now. He has been for a while, actually. Of society, his family, his circumstances. So. Very. Tired.

The last thing he wanted was to have to attend a ball that will leave him with the same sour taste in his mouth as always in the end. Arrogant alphas, simpering omegas, all of them slaves to their own hormones and pheromones and no better than animals. No amount of alcohol can wash the foul taste that's already building in his mouth, barely one hour in.

Sadly, he had no say in the matter and here he is.

Then he spots him. He doesn't know what makes him pay attention, but he's glad anyways. The man is gorgeous, but that's not what catches his attention. What makes Peter giddy is the way he manipulates the alpha in front of him into snapping so badly that security sweeps in. Then the man feigns being horrified when Peter is sure he's ecstatic. It's beautiful and, since Peter has never been one to abstain from what he wants, he tells him so.

"So beautiful," Peter drawls and then he has to contain a delighted laugh when the man turns, a spark in his eyes that says that he's ready to destroy Peter.

Suddenly, Peter is not tired at all.

---

He called it.

Stiles fucking called it.

Did he say that loud enough for the ones in the back?

No?

HE CALLED IT.

There.

When he eventually gets out, he's going to repeat that until he loses his voice. And then he'll write it down, make copies of it and shove it in their faces. He'll let them keep their copy. Hell, he'll even frame it for them. The remaining copies will be stuck around the office, toilets included.

Because he called it, fuck dammit.

He said the mission was going to be the worst thing ever, and, just as he expected, this mission has turned out to be the worst thing ever. What's worse than the worst thing ever? Is that a thing? It has to be. Because once Stiles had to spend an entire week in the sewers and that was supposed to be the perfect example of the worst thing ever. And yet this is worse. So there must be a term whose definition is "worse than the worst thing ever".

And the mission isn't even over yet.

From bad intel to really bad luck, everything that could go wrong has gone epically wrong. (There's a horse hoof-shaped burn on Stiles' butt that's stinging like crazy, that's how bad the whole thing has gone! A hoof-shaped second degree burn! Stiles will have a hoof tattoo-like mark on his butt for who knows how long, fuck dammit!) Stiles is going to kill the intel and development people, he doesn't care if Danny or Lydia get pissed off for Stiles destroying their respective departments. This shit calls for retribution! The equipment failed, the intel was wrong, they deserve anything Stiles dishes out. Everything went wrong because of them!

Ok, fine, not exactly all. He's already gotten what he needed from his target's computer... even after said computer's OS crashed and nearly caught on fire. Physically. As in flames coming out of... Ok, whatever. Let bygones be bygones and all that shit. Stiles, hoof-shaped second degree burn on his ass cheek or not, needs to chill. He has the data and that's all that matters.

Now, he just has to figure how to send said data to base and then beat it. That would be wonderful. But, of fucking course, because this mission is the worst of the worst things ever, something is jamming the signal, which has made him lose contact with his handler and he hasn't been able to transfer it to headquarters. Sadly, that means that he has had to transfer the data to a memory stick (after having to patch the damn thing that was just seconds ago on fire with what he had in his pockets) and now he has to physically carry it outside the building. Which is no good but he'll have to make do.

He's taking a vacation after this.

(After making intel and development pay, that is.)

---

Just... fuck his life, ok?

His partner was able to slip out unnoticed but as he was trying to do the same, security showed up out of nowhere and he had to retreat towards a toilet or risk being caught otherwise. And sadly, an atypical and abrupt increase in security can only mean one thing: the breach has already been found out and they're trying to locate the source.

Maybe Stiles hasn't mentioned this before, but he really, really hates this mission.

(He has.)

(Like at least twenty times over the comms before he found himself alone.)

(After that he's been chanting it in his head.)

It's already been twenty minutes since that happened and he hasn't been able to leave yet, which just adds up to the shit-ton of things that have gone wrong in this operation so far. Right now, his only consolation for all his troubles is that Deaucalion and every single member of his merry band of human waste are going to be drawn out handcuffed in broad daylight when the bosses finally get their hands on the intel Stiles is carrying right now.

But first he has to leave this fucking place, dammit.

Which, again, brings him to his current situation, in which he's stuck in a ballroom, trying to make an alpha completely lose his shit out of sheer irritation and enjoying every second of it despite the dire circumstances. Now, Stiles would normally try to curve his vindictiveness when he's posing as an omega, but in his defense this alpha was asking for it. Begging. On his metaphorical knees even.

If there's a word Stiles despises, it's defective, with unnatural or it's various synonyms right after it on the podium. Especially so if they're being used to describe another human being. They get his hackles up and his level of viciousness goes first through the roof and then the stratosphere. Easily.

When he was a teen he would even get violent, but time (and the anger management therapy the State of California, his crying omega mom and disappointed™ alpha dad forced on him) toned down his knee-jerk reaction to those words. Don't get him wrong, his view on the whole thing is still pretty much the same, he has just learned to dish out his response in a much more undetectable and productive way.

Because, by definition of the majority of the population nowadays, Stiles himself is defective and unnatural. Doctors have tests to know it before babies like Stiles are born so that the parents can knowingly decide if they still want to have a Beta child or not. In some parts of the world people like Stiles are sacrificed, in others they have to be terminated before they're even born or face being persecuted and killed along with the parents that dared to defy the law and had them. Never mind that if an Alpha, an Omega and a Beta are examined side by side, physically speaking they are almost identical. The only thing that's different is that Betas can't produce any of the two kinds of pheromones or smell them when they're being emitted. That's it. The rest of their bodies work just fine. They have to eat, drink and sleep to survive just like everyone else. If they are female, they are perfectly able to get pregnant; if they are male, they can impregnate a woman. Just like every Alpha or Omega on the planet.

But again, since Betas lack of the equipment to process pheromones, don't go into a heat or a rut, and lack those instincts associated with them, they are defective. Hell, the very term "beta" is a slur that comes from the programming slang (first version of a program that has the necessary basics for it to run but it's incomplete). Betas may have made it their own, but that doesn't change its origins. That's the kind of world Stiles lives in.

And this asshole Alpha, who apparently also finds Omegas utterly vapid and vexing, has packed more Beta slurs in the twenty minutes Stiles has been there blending in than what he can stomach without popping a vessel if he doesn't answer somehow.

Admittedly, Stiles was running on a short fuse to begin with, but he knows he would have done this anyways because it may provide the necessary distraction to slip out unnoticed.

And no one beats Stiles at being an asshole, so by now he has lost count of the number of times he's had to bite his cheek and mask his glee covering his face coyly with his flute of champagne to avoid giving himself away. Asshole Alpha looks about ready to give in to the temptation of strangling him and it shouldn't be this amusing, but it is. Immensely so, in fact. Especially since Stiles is keeping up the hare-brained and innocent act flawlessly and drawing every single omega in the vicinity into the conversation, thus managing to crowd Asshole Alpha quite effectively.

A small pleasure in a completely shitty situation, that's exactly what this is. Now, if he could just leave somehow... But no, impossible. Security is still at every door and Stiles has no way of getting out without being caught with the memory stick and photographic evidence he has on himself.

Asshole Alpha finally snaps and lets out a threatening growl. Stiles forces himself to back off frightened instead of snickering delightedly, copying the reaction of every Omega around himself down to the distressed whimpers at the (he guesses by the reaction) onslaught of angry pheromones. Two guards swoop in almost immediately and make the man accompany them. He resists the temptation of waving cheekily at him as they drag him out and joins the horrified and appalled whispering left behind instead.

"So beautiful," someone drawls at his back and Stiles bites back an irritated groan before turning around to look at most possibly Asshole Alpha, take two.

His breath catches slightly when he takes in the new Alpha's appearance. Ok, wow. Asshole or not, that's one fine specimen of a man. Like, top model worthy wow. Stiles never thought he'd see anyone other than Tony Stark (who cares if it's a fictional character?) who would do justice to a goatee, but holy shit.

What. He may hate people and the dynamics they're run by, but that doesn't keep him from appreciating eye candy, ok? That's a completely different matter, after all. Also, eye candy or not, Stiles will destroy him anyways if he's a douche. It will even be sweeter, because good looking alphas are the epitome of privilege and the thought of being played by an Omega doesn't even enter the realm of possibilities for them.

"Hi," he chirps sweetly, looking at him through his eyelashes and tilting his head just so. Alpha's smile widens and Stiles fights a smug smirk. He's going to destroy him.

"Hello," Alpha purrs. "My name's Peter."

[jamesrbailey]

former drummer attacked my character on facebook, like a child. hilarious film at 11.

i mean, he was REALLY gonna set me right. he had words to say and i was gonna listen cause everything that he said is valid. everything he thinks about me is completely right. i oppress women (tell my mother, my niece, my girlfriend, and my sister), i hate gay people (tell my friend Heather Hawkins) and i'm against transgender people (tell my friend Allie French). let's not talk about the intimate conversations i have had with these people i mention, and the fact that these conversations consist of me rooting them on and giving them kudos for being who they are and owning their shit. to even go after him, at this point, is pathetic. consider the source? i don't even have to describe him like i usually would. thats the beauty of it. i don't even have to mention anything about him because everyone already knows, except for him. he thinks the sun shines out of his assholes, and he's gonna be a political pundit and run for office! HURRAH! virtue signallng at it's most pathetic and embarrassing worst. he created an entire scenario in his head about me and went with it, like he knew all about me and was gonna show me what for, and NONE of it made any sense. none of it will stick to me. not one negative thing he said about me is true. i got a million texts from friends assuring me that they didn't feel that way about me. my niece even texted me to tell me that he is wrong. I literally spent a day and a half calming people down and telling them that I KNOW that they dont think about me like that. i got an inbox of messages from people that i wont even mention, because i don't want to pull them into anything, i will never share our conversations with anyone. one on one conversation is private and it stays that way with me to me own detriment. out of all of that. what i learned is that people actually do care about me enough to come to my aid and tell me personally that they disregarded his tangent as bullshit, and that i have a lot of friends. more than i thought i had, that share mutual respect with me, and that fact right there is bigger and stronger than anything he could possibly do to me. now he has to live with that fact that he stirred up a big pot of shit out of petty reasons and hearsay that i "talked shit about him" like i could give a fuck about him at all enough to talk shit about him. if i said anything, it was the cold hard truth, and it's so ugly that he doesn't like it and can't accept it, and thats what caused his reaction. the truth, i will say here and now that i have no stock in talking shit about people. i have better things to do with my life then care about the nonsense of other peoples stupid lives, and i think that if anyone knows me, they know that about me. im not much of a people person. why would i go out of my way to talk shit? for what purpose? his petty little jealous argument of "im jay bailey and i think im bigger and better at everything and smarter than everyone" is complete projection. those we're his words, not mine. i have never pretended to be better than anyone else. again, if you know me, you know just how down on myself i get a lot of the time. im the first person to disregard myself, thats the way it is with depressed people. we tend to not like ourselves very much, but we work at it, so i for sure do not think very highly of myself at all. its quite the opposite actually. better at everything? i refuse to stand court martialed for my natural talents. i never asked for any of this. in fact, i tried to hide it from everyone for a very long time OUT OF FEAR OF THIS HAPPENING. im not better at things than anyone. i just pick things up faster. i was born like that. ask my mother, i started talking early, started walking early, started reading early. my mother tells me stories of me talking in the grocery store as a child and women coming up to her and asking how old i am because i looked way too small to be talking that way. through the years. my family has used the term "gifted", and i never understood what it meant until going out into the real world and seeing other people. it still struggle with that term cause i don't feel like im any different or gifted from anyone else. i just do shit and i do it to the best of my ability. why all the jealousy? i don't understand why i'm being made to feel ashamed for this? my brain doesn't shut off. it's not my fault. this isn't something i'm trying to do to people intentionally. i don't know what to tell anyone, some things just make sense to me that doesn't seem to make sense to anyone else, and there's a certain disconnect there between me and other people. i can't explain it. i can look at a computer just by sight and know exactly whats going on. i can look at a circuit and trace the flow of electricity with my eyes. this stuff just comes natural to me, i don't know why, but i am done apologizing for it because it makes other people feel insecure and ill equipped. im tired of being the measuring stick. im tired of being the blame target. the best thing that came out of all of that is that he outed himself to everyone. for one split second, the real him came out and everyone saw him in all his disgusting glory just how petty, and manipulative, and cruel and conniving he is. what a worm. no one had been exposed to that side of him before, but i lived with him for three years and i heard him shit talk every person on the planet, always making himself the victim, the drama queen, always somebody did this to "me". woe is me. it was exhausting and pathetic, but i shrugged it off because i simply wanted to play music and have a band. i just wanted to write songs. apparently, you have to bring your entire burden of bullshit with you into a band. i had not realized this. this was new ground for me. so at this point, the damage was done to him all by himself. i certainly didn't experience a crack on anything from my side of things. he yelled a lot of words at a brick wall, and felt better about himself for 5 minutes before going home and pissing in his pants. even if i did confront him in public and have words with him, it would be so completely pathetic that it would just be ugly. no one would want to see that. nothing would come from that. it would just be another turd in a sea of toilets flushing down the drain. but all the little lemmings of the internet had to have their bite of the pie and put in their witty quips, and stoke the fires, and point out the obvious, OH LOOK EVERYONE! WE'RE ALL MAKING OBSERVATIONS! YAAAAYY!! and none of them had anything better to do but goad it on and provoke more bullshit cause they just HAVE to have a comment. your un-importance is still a constant. thanks.

[feelingsdusk]

A/B/O world where Bs are a neglected minority (A45/B10/O45), even if they're some of the most important members of society. Because Bs are immune to pheromones. Stiles is a B undercover spy. On a mission, Stiles poses as A/O (with fake pheromones, gotta love the R&D) and gets chosen by A/O Peter, who has issues with normal dynamic stereotypes (O's are airheads, A's are controlfreak douches) and Stiles doesn't set his hackles up like all the others. And Stiles just wants to complete his mission.

Worse than worse.

Peter is so, so tired right now. He has been for a while, actually. Of society, his family, his circumstances. So. Very. Tired.

The last thing he wanted was to have to attend a ball that will leave him with the same sour taste in his mouth as always in the end. Arrogant alphas, simpering omegas, all of them slaves to their own hormones and pheromones and no better than animals. No amount of alcohol can wash the foul taste that's already building in his mouth, barely one hour in.

Sadly, he had no say in the matter and here he is.

Then he spots him. He doesn't know what makes him pay attention, but he's glad anyways. The man is gorgeous, but that's not what catches his attention. What makes Peter giddy is the way he manipulates the alpha in front of him into snapping so badly that security sweeps in. Then the man feigns being horrified when Peter is sure he's ecstatic. It's beautiful and, since Peter has never been one to abstain from what he wants, he tells him so.

"So beautiful," Peter drawls and then he has to contain a delighted laugh when the man turns, a spark in his eyes that says that he's ready to destroy Peter.

Suddenly, Peter is not tired at all.

---

He called it.

Stiles fucking called it.

Did he say that loud enough for the ones in the back?

No?

HE CALLED IT.

There.

When he eventually gets out, he's going to repeat that until he loses his voice. And then he'll write it down, make copies of it and shove it in their faces. He'll let them keep their copy. Hell, he'll even frame it for them. The remaining copies will be stuck around the office, toilets included.

Because he called it, fuck dammit.

He said the mission was going to be the worst thing ever, and, just as he expected, this mission has turned out to be the worst thing ever. What's worse than the worst thing ever? Is that a thing? It has to be. Because once Stiles had to spend an entire week in the sewers and that was supposed to be the perfect example of the worst thing ever. And yet this is worse. So there must be a term whose definition is "worse than the worst thing ever".

And the mission isn't even over yet.

From bad intel to really bad luck, everything that could go wrong has gone epically wrong. (There's a horse hoof-shaped burn on Stiles' butt that's stinging like crazy, that's how bad the whole thing has gone! A hoof-shaped second degree burn! Stiles will have a hoof tattoo-like mark on his butt for who knows how long, fuck dammit!) Stiles is going to kill the intel and development people, he doesn't care if Danny or Lydia get pissed off for Stiles destroying their respective departments. This shit calls for retribution! The equipment failed, the intel was wrong, they deserve anything Stiles dishes out. Everything went wrong because of them!

Ok, fine, not exactly all. He's already gotten what he needed from his target's computer... even after said computer's OS crashed and nearly caught on fire. Physically. As in flames coming out of... Ok, whatever. Let bygones be bygones and all that shit. Stiles, hoof-shaped second degree burn on his ass cheek or not, needs to chill. He has the data and that's all that matters.

Now, he just has to figure how to send said data to base and then beat it. That would be wonderful. But, of fucking course, because this mission is the worst of the worst things ever, something is jamming the signal, which has made him lose contact with his handler and he hasn't been able to transfer it to headquarters. Sadly, that means that he has had to transfer the data to a memory stick (after having to patch the damn thing that was just seconds ago on fire with what he had in his pockets) and now he has to physically carry it outside the building. Which is no good but he'll have to make do.

He's taking a vacation after this.

(After making intel and development pay, that is.)

---

Just... fuck his life, ok?

His partner was able to slip out unnoticed but as he was trying to do the same, security showed up out of nowhere and he had to retreat towards a toilet or risk being caught otherwise. And sadly, an atypical and abrupt increase in security can only mean one thing: the breach has already been found out and they're trying to locate the source.

Maybe Stiles hasn't mentioned this before, but he really, really hates this mission.

(He has.)

(Like at least twenty times over the comms before he found himself alone.)

(After that he's been chanting it in his head.)

It's already been twenty minutes since that happened and he hasn't been able to leave yet, which just adds up to the shit-ton of things that have gone wrong in this operation so far. Right now, his only consolation for all his troubles is that Deaucalion and every single member of his merry band of human waste are going to be drawn out handcuffed in broad daylight when the bosses finally get their hands on the intel Stiles is carrying right now.

But first he has to leave this fucking place, dammit.

Which, again, brings him to his current situation, in which he's stuck in a ballroom, trying to make an alpha completely lose his shit out of sheer irritation and enjoying every second of it despite the dire circumstances. Now, Stiles would normally try to curve his vindictiveness when he's posing as an omega, but in his defense this alpha was asking for it. Begging. On his metaphorical knees even.

If there's a word Stiles despises, it's defective, with unnatural or it's various synonyms right after it on the podium. Especially so if they're being used to describe another human being. They get his hackles up and his level of viciousness goes first through the roof and then the stratosphere. Easily.

When he was a teen he would even get violent, but time (and the anger management therapy the State of California, his crying omega mom and disappointed™ alpha dad forced on him) toned down his knee-jerk reaction to those words. Don't get him wrong, his view on the whole thing is still pretty much the same, he has just learned to dish out his response in a much more undetectable and productive way.

Because, by definition of the majority of the population nowadays, Stiles himself is defective and unnatural. Doctors have tests to know it before babies like Stiles are born so that the parents can knowingly decide if they still want to have a Beta child or not. In some parts of the world people like Stiles are sacrificed, in others they have to be terminated before they're even born or face being persecuted and killed along with the parents that dared to defy the law and had them. Never mind that if an Alpha, an Omega and a Beta are examined side by side, physically speaking they are almost identical. The only thing that's different is that Betas can't produce any of the two kinds of pheromones or smell them when they're being emitted. That's it. The rest of their bodies work just fine. They have to eat, drink and sleep to survive just like everyone else. If they are female, they are perfectly able to get pregnant; if they are male, they can impregnate a woman. Just like every Alpha or Omega on the planet.

But again, since Betas lack of the equipment to process pheromones, don't go into a heat or a rut, and lack those instincts associated with them, they are defective. Hell, the very term "beta" is a slur that comes from the programming slang (first version of a program that has the necessary basics for it to run but it's incomplete). Betas may have made it their own, but that doesn't change its origins. That's the kind of world Stiles lives in.

And this asshole Alpha, who apparently also finds Omegas utterly vapid and vexing, has packed more Beta slurs in the twenty minutes Stiles has been there blending in than what he can stomach without popping a vessel if he doesn't answer somehow.

Admittedly, Stiles was running on a short fuse to begin with, but he knows he would have done this anyways because it may provide the necessary distraction to slip out unnoticed.

And no one beats Stiles at being an asshole, so by now he has lost count of the number of times he's had to bite his cheek and mask his glee covering his face coyly with his flute of champagne to avoid giving himself away. Asshole Alpha looks about ready to give in to the temptation of strangling him and it shouldn't be this amusing, but it is. Immensely so, in fact. Especially since Stiles is keeping up the hare-brained and innocent act flawlessly and drawing every single omega in the vicinity into the conversation, thus managing to crowd Asshole Alpha quite effectively.

A small pleasure in a completely shitty situation, that's exactly what this is. Now, if he could just leave somehow... But no, impossible. Security is still at every door and Stiles has no way of getting out without being caught with the memory stick and photographic evidence he has on himself.

Asshole Alpha finally snaps and lets out a threatening growl. Stiles forces himself to back off frightened instead of snickering delightedly, copying the reaction of every Omega around himself down to the distressed whimpers at the (he guesses by the reaction) onslaught of angry pheromones. Two guards swoop in almost immediately and make the man accompany them. He resists the temptation of waving cheekily at him as they drag him out and joins the horrified and appalled whispering left behind instead.

"So beautiful," someone drawls at his back and Stiles bites back an irritated groan before turning around to look at most possibly Asshole Alpha, take two.

His breath catches slightly when he takes in the new Alpha's appearance. Ok, wow. Asshole or not, that's one fine specimen of a man. Like, top model worthy wow. Stiles never thought he'd see anyone other than Tony Stark (who cares if it's a fictional character?) who would do justice to a goatee, but holy shit.

What. He may hate people and the dynamics they're run by, but that doesn't keep him from appreciating eye candy, ok? That's a completely different matter, after all. Also, eye candy or not, Stiles will destroy him anyways if he's a douche. It will even be sweeter, because good looking alphas are the epitome of privilege and the thought of being played by an Omega doesn't even enter the realm of possibilities for them.

"Hi," he chirps sweetly, looking at him through his eyelashes and tilting his head just so. Alpha's smile widens and Stiles fights a smug smirk. He's going to destroy him.

"Hello," Alpha purrs. "My name's Peter."

[orionsangel86]

12x10 - “Pterodactyl Screeching into the void” - Part 1

My title is borrowed from @postmodernmulticoloredcloak comment on my crazy blogging after first watching this episode earlier. I feel like it is a fitting title for how this episode made me feel. To clarify, these are very very happy pterodactyls.

Steve Yokey wrote this episode and he appears to have well and truly taken up the gap left when Robbie Thompson sadly left the show. In fact this episode to me channels the ghost of Robbie in many different ways. From the fanfiction-esque moments of poor suffering third wheel Sam, to the meta nod to Charlie Bradbury, there is much of Robbie to be found here. Basically, it was bloody perfect.

I feel like there is so much to talk about in this episode that fandom will be chewing on it for months if not years to come. Yokey has picked up the characterisations brilliantly, and seems to have an understanding of what the fandom desperately craves in terms of Castiel, his character, his personality and his development. I adored his sass in this episode. Some other writers *cough*bucklemming*cough* struggle to really capture Castiel’s sass and humour. Showing their lack of understanding of Castiel’s persona and his intelligence and instead writing him in a way that is jarring and sometimes basically stupid. Castiel is far from stupid. In this episode he was written perfectly, in a way I haven’t seen since Edlund’s time. Is that a sweeping statement? Maybe. But I’m still riding my high so let me have it this time.

This episode gave us three of my favourite things. Badass and Sassy Castiel, Overprotective grumpy husband Dean, and poor long suffering brother Sam. (baring in mind this is how they are usually written in fanfiction nowadays this is exactly my jam and I am so so happy to see it play out on screen. Seriously who sold their soul to Crowley for this episode?)

This review will also be in two parts. Because I have so freaking much to say about it.

The first part will focus on destiel, the second on everything else including Castiel’s emotional arc (as separate from destiel), his relationships with angels, angels and gender and Lily Sunder’s character.

PART 1 - ALL THE DESTIEL

I’m still struggling to contain my excitement over this. The episode begins with Dean feeling very pissy about what happened at the end of the last episode. Castiel killed Billy to save the Winchesters regardless of the “cosmic consequences”. Castiel stands his ground that he doesn’t regret his decision. Dean is acting like a sulking child over the whole thing. Sam is cool with it. Because Sam is cool. He is also extremely fed up with being caught in the middle of a lovers spat.

And that’s just it isn’t it? How else can you possibly read it? This is a lovers spat. I have read this in fan fiction enough times to know exactly how this story goes. Funnily enough, the episode also goes the exact way of fanfiction (except for the explicit bits of course) and that makes me love it even more..

We start with Dean grumbling about Cas’s inability to track down Kelly Kline. It’s left to Sam to bring up Cas and whether or not they have spoken yet:

(gif source courtesy of @subcas)

We are 5 minutes into the episode, Sam is already so done, and I am having flashbacks to a fanfic I read recently… In fact I am pretty sure it was this one. 

No seriously read this extract pulled from this fanfic:

“Sam is witness to a lot of arguing, followed by one or both of them storming off in a huff. Long periods of excruciating silence stretch out between each altercation.  Sam never makes any move to intervene or get them to patch things up – Dean’s trying to figure out how to feel about that – but he always watches with careful concern and a raised eyebrow. Dean makes absolutely no effort to engage his brother on the topic, so he can only guess at what Sam makes of all this.

He tries to imagine what it must look like from Sam’s point of view – Dean getting irritated over nothing, sniping at Cas, fleeing without apologizing. Maybe Sam just thinks it’s all those perfectly reasonable aggravations, Cas being all up in his space and not backing off, Cas forgetting to refill the ice cube tray for the fifth time.

Then again, it’s Sam. It’s not like Dean doesn’t like Cas, or would get on his case so much even if he did, after all Cas has done for his sorry ass – even Dean’s not that much of a jerk. Sam must know that. He must know there’s something else going on. He probably understands exactly what Dean’s doing, maybe even better than Dean does himself.”

I mean COME ON. (also that is a awesome fic if you haven’t read it already… it gets pretty steamy further in the series. Cas is such a dom. Lmao.)

If we consider this entire conversation between Sam and Dean we immediately see a massive difference between their reactions to the Billy situation. Sam sees things objectively. He sees what Cas did, he knows that there could be bad consequences, but he understands that Cas did it for them, because he cared. He also respects Cas’s choice here and sticks up for him. Because Sam is not being unreasonable about his friends decision. Sam acts like a supportive friend. He gets it, it is his brother he is more fed up with.

Dean on the other hand is acting totally unreasonable. I haven’t even gotten to the conversation in the car when things start to get interesting because so far Dean is just being a jerk. Sam’s expressions tell us this straight away, before Cas even enters the scene. Why on earth would Dean act this way over a friend? He wouldn’t. It makes no sense. Just like in the fanfic I have quoted above. Something else is going on here, Dean is acting out for a completely other reason than what is apparent on first glance.

Once Cas does show up and things only get more awkward we get a brilliant moment which you can see giffed in its entirety here by @constiellation in which Sam is his poor awkward self stuck in the middle of a lovers spat that has been going on for the past week apparently. The way this moment calls back to 8x22 is completely thanks to the director Thomas J Wright knowing exactly what he is trying to show us in both episodes that poor Sam has been stuck in the middle of this domestic for years. (I should say a big thanks to @godshipsit for sending me the links to these posts since up until this point I have not been on my dash at all and therefore haven’t been gif hunting myself.)

The car scene drives home Sam’s terrible situation even further as he can’t even escape the immense *sexual* tension by moving to a different room.

LOOK AT THIS POOR BASTARD!!

Whilst I am sure that the intense tension and poor Sammy’s discomfort has been a major focal point here, the bit that I found most interesting was this exchange about Benjamin:

“Benjamin wouldn’t call for help lightly, he wouldn’t put himself in harm’s way if he could help it.”

“Wow this Benjamin seems like he is pretty cool, like he wouldn’t make any half-cocked knee jerked choices.”

What sets Dean off here is that Castiel’s description of Benjamin talks about Benjamin not putting himself in danger. That is why Dean thinks Benjamin is a cool guy. This is what Dean is digging at. This is our first clue into Dean’s real feelings about the Billy situation. He is pissed that Cas has potentially put himself in danger.

Cas’s response only pisses Dean off more:

“Yeah you know what I like about him, he’s sarcastic but he’s thoughtful and appreciative too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Enough that Dean almost crashes the Impala. This is practically unheard of. Cas and Dean are not on the same page at the moment. Cas thinks Dean is just being a jerk and unappreciative of his efforts, and Dean thinks that Cas is being too careless with his own life (which you can damn well talk Dean, making death deals last episode)

Then this scene gets even juicer as we get this story about Benjamin and his vessel. This is our first of three Angel/Human love stories in this episode (not including the forth and most important love story between Dean and Castiel of course).

Everything about the way Castiel describes Benjamin’s relationship with his vessel implies a romantic connection (“gave him everything, her trust, her body… its more than that, she’s not just his vessel she’s his…” “friend”.) It of course, is never explicitly said (and that is important) but I bet that the general audience picked up on THAT bit of subtext just from the way Sam said the word “friend” and isn’t that so interesting? How often has the word “friend” been used throughout the series to describe Dean and Castiel? Yet here it is being used specifically in a subtextual way to describe something completely non platonic.

Moving on to our next bit of destiel deliciousness is another moment of brotherly teasing.

The boys arrive at the diner to meet Ishim and Mirabel. Castiel’s sass is on point today with his “If I plan to do anything else stupid, I’ll let you know.”

Can I please take a moment to appreciate Sam’s face here: 

(Gif source thanks to @godshipsit - you are a blessing Alex)

On top of that expression of absolute GOLD is this moment:

“and you’re gonna storm in riiiiiighht…. Now.” And omg Sam totally has no more fucks to give with his brothers bullshit. He can see right through Dean’s drama to how he truly feels. Dean may act pissy with Cas but the moment Cas may be in danger Dean is all like “oh HELL NO.” Five minutes. He lasted five minutes. I love overprotective embarrassing husband Dean it is MY JAM.

 “These are my friends, my friends who don’t listen well”

*cue Dean practically sitting in Cas’s lap*

This is the best moment in the history of the show. Three grown ass huge men squeezing into a tiny diner seat. I LOVE IT. 

Ishim is such a tool, the way he speaks to Cas is awful but what is so so great is how Dean and also Sam stick up for him here. We so often seem to get Sam and Dean digging on Cas, talking him down and treating him like shit. The Winchesters are world weary and grumpy men and Cas often gets caught up in this. What we are shown here is just how defensive they get when other people try to do it. Because where the Winchester’s digging comes from a place of love, these angels nasty comments come from a place of hate. The Winchester’s won’t have it. 

Also SO MANY jokes to be had over the subtext of “no one talks to my husband like that BUT ME bitch” Oh DEAN.

Moving on to this beautiful flashback moment and our even more beautiful fem!castiel who wow what a good casting. But more on that in part 2. What I wanna talk about here is this moment:

(gif source once again thanks to @godshipsit)

We have our second angel/human love story of the episode between Lily and Akabel, or at least what we are led to believe is an angel/human love story that resulted in the birth of a Nephilim. The truth being that Akabel has pledged himself to protect Lily from Ishim at all costs. By the end of the episode, we are actually given the impression that their love was platonic rather than romantic or sexual. Akabel’s confusion when Castiel reads out the accusations is evident of that, as is Lily’s reaction to Dean and Sam’s attempts at reasoning with her later on.

However going back to the above gifset, Akabel argues to Ishim and the angel group that “How could anyone know [humans] and not love them?” at which point the camera cuts to Castiel. This my friends, is a nifty piece of editing which Supernatural has used on many occasions to add to the growing mountain of destiel subtext. Why cut to Castiel at this point? Because Castiel is going to experience this himself later in his lifetime. (by knowing and subsequently falling in love with Dean Winchester of course).

The third angel/human love story is next and it is a worst case scenario, dark and twisted tragedy and a massive subversion of the Dean/Cas story. It explores how an angel fell ‘in love’ with a human, but that human didn’t return his affections and therefore the angel became cold and murderous and obsessed. Ishim is a horribly twisted and dark Cas mirror highlighting what Castiel’s actual weakness is. Because Castiel nowadays cares more for the Winchesters than the world itself. “cosmic consequences” mean nothing when the Winchesters (and more specifically Dean) are in danger. The difference between Castiel and Ishim is that Ishim takes his anger out directly on the woman he loves, whereas Cas would never harm Dean. He instead makes decisions which have put the world in danger. 

I mentioned this previously, but the dark foreshadowing here is rather horrible. We have a terrified Lily left powerless whilst Ishim makes her watch as he kills her child. Claiming that she “broke his heart” so he will “break hers”. This is extreme. Where Lily is our Dean mirror and Ishim is Cas, who is Lily’s daughter? Sam. We have already seen this situation play out with our boys previously. Castiel, hurt and betrayed that Dean wouldn’t stand by his side to open purgatory and stop Raphael, breaks Sam’s wall and leaves him comatose. Its not the first time that Sam has been the one to get hurt in a fight between Dean and Cas. In an episode where he has constantly been trying to play peacemaker between them, could it be that Sam gets caught in a much bigger situation that started between Dean and Castiel? That perhaps the “cosmic consequences” Billy spoke of somehow end up hurting Sam? How could such a situation harm Dean and Cas’s relationship? Leaving Cas cold and hating human’s and Dean on a revenge mission to rival Gerard Butler’s in Law Abiding Citizen? Hopefully not. But with the emphasis at the start of this episode on the lovers spat and Cas not thinking before he acts, rather acting on his emotional need to keep Dean safe, and Dean’s anger possibly also being about Cas’s supposed obsession with him putting Dean first before the world… well, its not looking good for our boys basically. But then again I did say this was worst case scenario. 

The next moment that made my heart leap thanks to the destiel of it all:

(gif source thanks to @some-people-call-it-tragic )

This was preceded by a phone call that Dean made to Cas that only rang twice before his over protective nature kicked in and he ran back to the ‘safe house’ to go save his husband from Ishim. Leaving Sam to talk to Lily (its always Dean who goes back for Cas. Remember that.) After all the bitterness from the start of the episode, it is clear by this point that none of that matters if either of them are in danger.

“Who are you gonna believe? Your brother? Or some filthy ape?”  Ishim tries to make Cas choose him over Dean. Which is of course hilarious to anyone that has watched even just one Cas episode of the show.

“Always talking down at you, always mocking you”.

Whats great about this is how this is being said in front of Dean because Dean is getting called out here. Ishim has been nasty and rude to Cas all episode, IN FRONT OF DEAN. Through Ishim, Dean is able to see just what a jerk he has actually been. Its giving Dean the chance to think about his actions, because there is no way Dean will want to be put in the same boat as this asshole.

“Ya know Cas and I might not agree all the time, but at least he knows who his real friends are”

Look at these two badass hunting husbands forming a united front against the bad guy. Also “Friends” just like the “friends” of Benjamin and his vessel right?

Of course everything goes super bad after this and poor Cas gets beaten to shit by this absolute dick of an angel IN FRONT OF DEAN. All this crap that Ishim is coming out with is being said IN FRONT OF DEAN. Do you know why I love this so much? Because we have had crappy villains like Ishim saying this kind of shit to Cas since SEASON 9 and sometimes even earlier. Castiel has always just taken it, never said “no. You are wrong about me” and in the later seasons he has started to believe their words, adding to his depression and PTSD. He has been called weak and pathetic and expendable and a tool and every time he has been alone. We have never had Dean be there by his side to hear these words to argue against them. But that is EXACTLY what we get this episode. And it is ABOUT BLOODY TIME.

And then we get probably the most obvious moment for Destiel from the whole episode. To the point that if the general audience don’t see it now they are a bloody lost cause:

(gif source @godshipsit AGAIN because I am Alex’s biggest fan)

SERIOUSLY THOUGH. Let;s do a nice simple logic puzzle with what we know is canon:

Metatron says Castiel’s “true weakness is revealed”

Metatron says that that his weakness is “He is in love… with humanity”.

Metatron says “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but it was all about saving one man”

Ishim draped himself in the flag of heaven, but it was actually all about getting revenge on one woman.

Ishim said that he was “in love” with that woman.

Ishim called that woman his “human weakness”.

Ishim says that Cas also has a “human weakness”

Ishim threatens to cut out Castiel’s “human weakness”

Ishim goes to stab Dean.

Therefore can we please, finally accept that it is CANON that Dean=humanity. That Castiel is IN LOVE WITH humanity and that therefore

Castiel is in love with Dean Winchester.

Now that we have accepted that this is canon. Lets move on to the very next scene. This:

(gif source thanks to @codestielckles)

Now its Dean’s turn to get a choice. Blast away both angels, and Castiel will potentially die, or die himself. Of course Dean won’t do it. Dean would rather die fighting for Cas than risk Cas’s life. Ishim of course knows this to be true. “yeah, that’s what I thought” he says.

Also such an interesting shot of Cas looking at Dean in that moment because HOW MUCH does it remind you of that horrible moment from 10x22? What’s the betting that was also done intentionally? 10x22 was also directed by Thomas J Wright. This guy knows his stuff.

Thankfully Lily and Sam come in to save Dean from Ishim who really was just on a mission to kill Dean at this point probably because of his massive jealousy that Cas gets a human lover and he doesn’t.

Finally, probably the end scene we have been waiting for the past YEAR. The Winchesters actually TALKING to Cas and telling him what he NEEDS TO HEAR! I am all over this scene man I’m telling you I have been waiting for this I have been hoping and praying to Chuck for this! Dammit I am so happy about this!

“You’re not weak Cas you know that right?”

“Obviously you’ve changed, but its all been for the better.”

“And you’ve been with us every step of this long crazy thrill ride… and no matter how crazy it got, you never backed down”

“That takes real strength”

THANK YOU SAM AND DEAN AND THANK YOU STEVE YOKEY

*sips Cas hater tears*

And THEN we get this beauty which sums up Dean’s attitude all episode. It kinda actually sums up Dean’s attitude throughout the whole fucking show:

(Gif source thanks to @godshipsit again)

“I’m not mad, I’m worried.”

Exactly. Like how right at the beginning he picked on Cas after Cas mentioned Benjamin wouldn’t put himself in danger. Dean is worried about Cas. Dean is worried about his idiotic husband who cares more about saving him than he does himself and the world. Cas is blinded by his love for Dean. It is a problem and Dean ain’t happy about it. But it is all rooted in love.

And that’s it and I am exhausted!

I haven’t written so much meta on Destiel for one episode like EVER in my time in fandom. I doubt we have had an episode with THIS MUCH destiel in it since Goodbye Stranger. I can’t actually contain myself. Anyway, in summary. Destiel is canon. Destiel Exists. (Poor Jensen he must be so confused that season 12 skipped straight from episode 9 to episode 11) We have textual confirmation now (via a little bit of well applied but completely solid logic) that Castiel is in love with Dean and that Dean is an overprotective emotional mess when it comes to Cas being in danger (not that we didn’t know that already thanks to 11x18 among every other Cas-in-danger episode so far) This is undeniable.

Like I said in this episodes title. I am still pterodactyl screeching into the void about it. I don’t think I’ll stop going on about it for a long time yet.

I have more to say about this episode that is not specifically related to destiel coming up in part 2. Watch this space!