#my brain just decided to whack me in the face with Trauma

[uwua3]

hi, first of all your blog is so pretty damnnn! so are requests open? if they're open, can i request for jealous misumi headcanon?

thank you so much for being the first person to ever request! you’re the absolute best ♡ i really hope you like this~ have a happy, happy day!!!

summary: misumi knew he didn’t deserve you, but he wanted you more than anything

warnings: abandonment, depression, family trauma, insecurity, jealousy

author’s note: i wish to apologize for not seeing this sooner :( i hope you know i didn’t purposely ignore this because the moment i saw this, i became so happy! i am forever grateful for your request, thank you for everything! ♡

i purposely left the ending open! it’s up to you what decision you would have made with your relationship with misumi + i wanted to acknowledge misumi’s vulnerability because of his past; i felt as if growing up in a hostile, competitive environment leads to stunted emotions and not being able to understand one self. it’s a bit personal because i think most of us understand being afraid to take risks to go after what we want because we feel as if we don’t deserve it. i’m here to tell you, don’t let it build up, it’s better to disappoint someone for a moment than yourself for a lifetime! go for it! i believe in you!

word count: 1,489

music: want you more – harlequin gold

upon the rooftop.

🌻⚠️ ikaruga misumi

misumi didn’t realize how attached he became until it was too late

he’d casually come up to you with no clue why you turned so red when he held your hand, or when he refused to leave your side because he enjoyed your company

after all, he’s only recently discovered what having good friends is like!

but it’s hard to know the difference with misumi since he’s like this with everyone, always ready with his special triangle to make them smile—it honestly feels like you’re just like everyone else

you started thinking misumi’s affectionate & clingy behavior was a joke since he was so indifferent and unbothered by your attempts to drop hints that you’re interested

seriously... you once even told him you liked him straight to his face and he was lost in his daily town mapping to find the best triangles

did he respond? no. misumi just started rambling about the best hotspots of triangles that were around, much to your embarrassment

so you decided you shouldn’t waste your time on someone who didn’t even understand personal relationships and tried to move on, as much as it hurted to admit. how can you be romantically involved with someone who was incapable of having proper feelings? you knew you didn’t believe that... but it was for the best

yet, misumi was confused for the first time in a while. he was always sure: always knew the backroads to the next triangular treasure, always knew what time the members woke up and went to sleep, and always knew what mood they were in the moment he stepped into the room, but he couldn’t figure you out at all

he was slowly, but painfully, becoming aware of how you stopped returning his touches and didn’t even look at the gifts he brought back. but he didn’t know it wasn’t personal, but to you, it looked like misumi didn’t care you were with someone else all the time

when in reality, misumi trusted you 100% and thought you just had more friends, which was completely okay! misumi was very happy you had more people to talk to, pushing down the evil feelings of envy in a place only he knew. you were probably just busy being a social butterfly, right?

until one day, misumi saw you take off the “best friends” triangle necklace you two shared before heading out of the dorms to some person across the street

misumi was... what was this? he slouched down at the balcony, unmotivated to even go outside. he quickly jumped off to another adventure searching for triangles, but his coping mechanism was beginning to fail at giving him momentary distraction. what was this feeling? was he... jealous?

but, he couldn’t be! nothing belonged to misumi in this world. misumi grew up in a brutally blunt home that saw feelings as weakness. misumi had nothing to him because he didn’t deserve it... that was that

misumi came home to the mankai dorms with nothing that day, and you didn’t even notice

misumi thought he didn’t deserve you, and it was selfish of him to even think you’d pay attention to him when he couldn’t emote like everyone else (but it wasn’t really his fault, it’s just the way he was raised)

misumi became secluded from the others due to this realization. it was one internal struggle to another, the jealousy bringing past childhood trauma to the surface. misumi was afraid of exposing his past after maintaining an easygoing persona for so long

the mankai boys were on edge; they’ve never seen this side of misumi where it was like he was actually fully aware of his own actions. misumi would pop in every now and then to avoid suspicion, but his triangle trips became less frequent and his hyperfixiation even seemed exaggerated

none of them knew what to do, because you appeared exactly the same and misumi’s character had a full 180 flip like he was a stranger

but he didn’t act any different around you. misumi treated it like it was a street act; he was hurt, but you could never tell

but never fear, misumi’s jealousy was never angry; his fear was bearing any resemblance to his parents after his grandfather passed, so it’s not like he ever blamed you out of spite

in fact, misumi felt like it was all on him. he didn’t know what love was, or what a healthy romantic relationship looked like. so these feelings he had unintentionally held, came attacking his heart the moment he finally realized he liked you, a lot

it was a month after he saw you without your necklace. you were being loudly mocked downstairs in the dorms about your latest date, who you revealed was nothing special and the dating game was boring

the select group of matchmaker boys would groan about your recent endeavors, how they always ended up for nothing

misumi wanted to be the only one with the second date, he thought suddenly

misumi became scared as he laid in his own bed, alone because he couldn’t handle anything else. scared of ending up like his parents with an unhappy marriage and projecting his own insecurities onto you

but then he thought of his grandfather, who was very much in love with acting and woke up everyday to be involved in its craft until the day he died

that, was love. love was when misumi took you to his favorite triangle discoveries and when you actually cared about his strange coping mechanism. love was you wearing that necklace you two shared because he wanted to be the one closest to your heart. misumi loves you, it just took him a bit of jealousy and self–reflection to realize it

sitting up in his dark room and untangling himself from the messy sheets, misumi couldn’t hide behind his triangular daydreams anymore. he had to do something about you because you made him just as happy as his special protractor

he was ready for commitment. he was ready to reveal parts of himself that weren’t ideal, but honest enough so he could explain how he would need patience from you

so he felt everything. years of practice maintaing his calm composure and naive honesty cracked as it came down to this when he sprinted to find you. his door whacked open with a loud boom, alerting the rest of the members of his presence

misumi, with every care in the world at this point, grabbed your hands and pulled you from the boys, not saying a word despite your protests

he deserved this. after years of pretending, never having anything he ever wanted. he needed this. this spontanaeity, not planning out every move in his life. he didn’t need a plan, he needed you

up on the roof you both went even as you questioned him numerous times. but it was like he couldn’t hear you, your words carried away in the wind. you tried stopping him but he couldn’t just settle down, he needed to say it

“i want to take you to more than just triangle trips. i want to go wherever makes you happy, i want to make you happy.”

misumi rushed out, his mouth moving faster than his brain as he stared into your eyes with his fists clenched at his sides. he hadn’t changed his clothes in a few days, he looked like the state of his mind: a mess

it was so heartbreakingly truthful of him that misumi’s wavering posture was highlighted in the moon’s light, his shot of confidence suddenly dying when he glanced at your neck to see it without your triangle necklace

you had never seen him so erratic, so nervous, but so determined in anything. it looked like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, even though that one word would crush him

the silence was defeaning. misumi exhaled after holding his breath out of nervousness. shoving his hand in his pocket, misumi pulled out another necklace, but this time, much more unique and special to him

the triangle necklace was the first present he ever received with love

“i want to make you happy, like this made me when my grandfather gave it to me. please, take it.”

misumi stood in front of you, tall on the roof’s peak as he shined amongst the night life. for once, he threw out his methodical thinking and was doing what his heart wanted at the moment

misumi was so jealous. jealous of every person you stared at with that look in your sparkling eyes. he only wanted you to smile at him, hold his hand, never leave his side. the list goes on. he knew he didn’t deserve it, but he wanted it so bad—he never needed something so much as he did in that moment

glowing in the starlight laying in the center of his shaking palm, was his heart

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League International #7 (1987)

Kevin Maguire not really trying looks an awful lot like John Romita Jr at his best.

Ah! It feels good to be back! Taking a crack at John Romita Jr while he's just sitting there not doing anything particularly wrong. Just going about his business pretending to be a comic book artist! I don't know what John Romita's politics are but I bet he now agrees with Donald Trump on one thing: naming your kid after you is a huge fucking mistake. Was all that previous nonsense poisonous, vile, and toxic? I suppose one could argue the point. But I'd also guess that somebody arguing that point has never seen John Romita Jr's art. Or perhaps they have seen it and like it because they have a terribly underdeveloped sense of aesthetics. Otherwise nobody would argue with me at all! They'd just read the previous poisonous, vile, toxic nonsense and nod their heads in agreement while pausing for a second to snort a line of Adderall. Fine, I'm sorry, JRJR! Obviously you're an artist! Drawing squinty people with block heads and weird noses holding geometric guns without a single curve on them absolutely falls under the definition of art! Although I draw the line at accepting that Rob Liefeld is an artist. That's a bridge too far! What the fuck does that even mean, "a bridge too far"? It must be a term bombers in WWII used, right? "What the fuck do you mean, carpet bomb Dresden?! If we fly past the Geralthauskopfplatz Bridge, we're definitely getting scrawked by anti-aircraft flak, you bingehart!" Did that sound like an authentic American bomber pilot from the 40s? It's not like Catch-22 is my favorite book or something. Wait. Catch-22 is my favorite book. I guess I'm just no good at written impressions. I assure you it sounds exactly what you'd expect from an American pilot in the Forties if you heard me do the impression live. Also, this is probably the last month of my life where I'll be able to say, "Catch-22 is my favorite book." Because I'm over 500 pages into Gravity's Rainbow and it's just as fucking amazing as everybody who has pretended to read it says it is. This issue begins with Guy Gardner regaining consciousness after having been violently assaulted by his employer.

Why was the mouse glowing green?!

In my memory, Guy Gardner's change from dickhole to sweetest guy on the team came after Batman punched his lights out. But apparently that isn't the case. It's possible this new whack on the head is the cause or maybe it's something a bit later. I bet an editorial mandate came down which said they couldn't have Guy suffer serious head trauma from Batman punching him. So they had to add this new scene where Guy basically gives himself the head trauma that results in a catastrophic change in personality. The Justice League didn't quite finish destroying The Gray Man last issue so that story gets resolved pretty quickly this issue. Doctor Fate transported him to the Realms of Order where a big blob of Order disintegrates him. Which is what he ultimately wanted. It's what we all ultimately want. It's just you don't know that you want it until you've lived long enough for all the wonder to be bled out of life. That's why he's the Gray Man! Some people think life's too short but at 49, I'm beginning to suspect that it's way too fucking long.

This comic book passes the Reverse Bechdel Test: "Any story that has only one woman in it and every scene she's in, she's treated like a sexual object."

With The Gray Man out of the way, it's time to get to the important part of the story: turning the Justice League of America into Justice League International! I wonder how many people this change pissed off in the 80s? Fucking globalist woke elite bubble bullshit! People talk in derogatory terms about the coastal bubbles but they absolutely shouldn't. I won't disagree that I grew up in a totally different environment in the San Francisco Bay Area than people who grew up in the Midwest. A bubble? Sure. But it was a fucking good thing. I was recently showing the Non-Certified Spouse some of the station breaks from local stations in the late 70s and early 80s out of San Francisco and she was amazed at the representative shorts these stations presented, especially KTVU's "Bits and Pieces." Sure, there were the ones about ethics and morality humorously presented with a horse and bulldog puppet. But there were also the ones that showed different ethnicities and their lives, often ending with "I'm proud to be a Chinese American!" or "I'm proud to be a Black American!" The one about Japanese Americans even mentioned how Japanese families were put in interment camps during World War II. One was about Italian Americans and instead of Italian history, it just showed Italian art and various activities of people in the Italian community. One of the Japanese American shorts just had a Japanese American kid having to explain how he was tired of answering questions about being Japanese in America because he was fourth generation and just American as anybody else. But I guess that kind of commie pinko hogwash is why I'm a big fat America hating socialist! As I was saying before my politics politely interrupted (my politics interrupting impolitely would look like this: Trump voters should be forced to shit in their own mouths for all eternity), the main thrust of this story is to set up Justice League International. Judging by the cover, that means hiring some guy with a bucket on his head from Russia and Captain Atom, another white American male.

Ah yes! The introduction of the best character of the series: Big Barda!

Big Barda might not be on the team but at least there's another female character. Sure, Doctor Light was sort of on the team for three pages. And pretty soon, Fire and Ice will join. But it's mostly just been poor Black Canary having to put up with Booster and Blue Beetle's jokes about banging her. Max and J'onn discuss the United Nations possibly backing the Justice League while Superman talks respectfully with President Reagan. What a mistake! The biggest do-gooder on the planet normalizing fucking Ronald Reagan! He should be scolding him with a liberal smattering of Kryptonian tsk-tsks! That's when a Kryptonian gives you a little burst of heat vision every time you deny the AIDS crisis or invoke the spectre of Welfare Queens or destroy the economy by lowering the top marginal tax rates pretending that the money saved will trickle down to everyone instead of fat corporate cats simply keeping all the extra for bonuses and investors. Fuck that guy. I'm so mad now!

Of all the digs they could have taken with Reagan, they poke fun of his dementia?! Christ, Giffen and DeMatteis.

Hal Jordan drops by headquarters to give Guy a good talking-to but Guy doesn't need it because he's suffered a traumatic head injury on top of his brain damage alongside Batman's sucker punch to the face and now he's Mister Sweetbeans. And because he's acting so nice, nobody gives a shit that this is actually a medical emergency. Backing Maxwell Lord is a computer satellite in space. Is it Brother Eye already?! Are they already working together in 1987?! Or is it just some alien gizmo from the Millennium bullshit coming up? I don't remember! Heck, this Maxwell Lord might even be a Manhunter! Anyway, the satellite begins destroying shit on Earth with a giant heat beam. The Justice League, having nearly nobody who can do anything about it, doesn't call Superman to fix the problem. Instead, they decide to spend precious hours borrowing a space shuttle from STAR Labs to launch them into space to battle the space station. Also, they leave Guy Gardner back at headquarters on monitor duty. Because who needs the guy with experience battling in space with a ring that can protect every other member of the League while in space? Also the ring is the greatest weapon in the universe. So, you know, sideline that guy, right?

It's possible this was in the era where Superman couldn't survive in space either, really. But then that's even more incentive to get fucking Guy Gardner up there with them!

The Justice League manages to stop the satellite's destruction but mostly only because it was a huge set-up so every nation could see them save the world. Everybody wants them defending the planet now so the United Nations agrees to back them with one condition: two new members, one to pacify the U.S. and one to pacify the U.S.S.R.

I've read a lot of ridiculous things in comic books but Rocket Red's power levels being nearly equal to Captain Atom's might be the most ridiculous.

I love how Captain Atom's power level is 9+ but Rocket Red's power level is 8.43 instead of 8+. I guess the accuracy of whatever system they're using breaks down over 9. Captain Marvel quits the team and Batman steps down as leader so J'onn can lead. And that's about it, I guess! The issue ends with some kind of flim-flam about how its the 80s and we've become a global world and boundaries just don't work anymore and superheroes are cool as shit. I guess it's inspirational or something. There's still just one woman on the team though. Justice League International #7 Rating: B. Seven issues in and the Justice League has defeated two villains who weren't actual threats to anybody. They were just scams to get the Justice League some press. They also beat up and killed an old guy who was just frustrated with the boredom that came with the immortality the Lords of Order forced on him. So all in all, they're nearly as terrible as the New Titans who practically only ever battled relatives while putting the residents of New York City in danger every time.

[disabled-queen-hc-blog]

Hiii I’m the aide!anon and it was soooo wonderful! I thought the bit about the insurance and crystal having to leave was so real and hurt my heart. I want more!! Can see aide crystal being able to live with him & john’s reaction? Maybe their first night together?

Got this ask too: Can you write about the day the "insurance mumbo jumbo" gets sorted out that let's crystal stay with john 😊

Beta-ed by: @agnosticofgod and @psychosocial-ish

♚

When Crystal parked his car in the driveway of John’s flatthat morning, his stomach turned uncomfortably, although he wasn’t sure why.John wasn’t outside or in his doorway, shrieking and squeaking to greet him,but that wasn’t particularly abnormal. Some mornings, John could be as sluggishas the rest of them.

Still, Crystal couldn’t shake the feeling as he walked up toJohn’s door, a shiver running down his spine as he knocked. John groaned on theother side of the door, unlocking it quickly and shuffling back to the couch tocurl up.

“What? No hug? No good morning?” Crystal said as he walkedin, laughing although the feeling in his gut never left. He closed the doorbehind him, going over to John, who was rocking and grunting, mussing up hishair. Crystal took a seat next to him, head tilted.

“What’s up, mate? Rough night?” he asked, knowing John gotextremely irritable if he didn’t get at least 7 hours of sleep.

John nodded, rubbing his hands roughly all over his head,knotting up his hair.

“That’s fine, then. You have a free day today. You can goback to sleep now or after breakfast, if you want,” Crystal said, a hand gentlypatting John’s, hoping he’d stop the rough movements. It’d be Crystal who’dhave to comb the knots out and the idea didn’t seem appealing to him.

John looked up at him with wet eyes, signing “No”, thencurling back up to continue his rocking.

John was never one to turn down a nap. More alarm bells wentoff in Crystal’s head, but he swallowed down the urge to panic. Panicking wasnot allowed.

“What’s wrong then, John? Is it your pajamas? Too scratchy?Or-“ Crystal was cut off by John moaning. John scooted close to Crystal andsigned for his Pec cards. Crystal obliged, bringing him his Pec sheet and cardsand a tissue.

John ignored the tissue, shaking as he rapidly pointed atthe “I feel…” square followed by the “Sad” square.

“You’re sad? Wanna tell me why?” Crystal said, his heartbeginning to race. Something was wrong and for the first time, he had no ideawhat it was.

John pointed at “I feel…” and then the “Afraid” square.

“Afraid too? Did you have a bad dream?”

John shook his head. He grabbed the sheets, sifting throughthem until he found the one he wanted. He pointed to the word “Night” before hegrabbed Crystal’s arm and slapped it.

Crystal recoiled at the sudden violence, but assumed it wasJohn trying to say something. He wracked his mind but couldn’t come up withanything. He shot John a confused look.

John whimpered, pointing to “Night” again and then “Woman���.He slapped his own hand this time. His lower lip trembled all the while.

Night. Woman. Slap. Night. Woman. Slap. Night. Wo-

“John, did your night aide slap you?”Crystal said, his eyes wide, his voice brimming with disbelief. Thiscould not be what John was trying to tell him.

To Crystal’s horror, he nodded, erupting into cries after hedid.

Crystal’s brain turned into both an endless void and achaotic volcano, spewing anger.

Someone…laid a hand on John. Someone had the audacity to laya hand on John.

Crystal turned a deep scarlet, his limbs shaking. He wantedto scream and run after the bitch who dared touch John like that.

He had to keep his composure though. There was plenty oftime to shout and curse. Right now, he had to approach this as calmly as hecould.

Crystal straightened up, shaking the tension from his body.He took a few deep breaths, feeling his control come back to him.

He held John, who melted into him and sobbed, babbling in aheart wrenching voice. Crystal rocked himself and John, petting John’s hair andback, waiting for him to calm down. They could talk once all the fear escapedJohn’s body.

It wouldn’t be an hour until that happened. John sniffled ashe sipped his milk and nibbled his cheese on toast. Most mornings, he wouldmake it himself, but his ability to take care of himself seemed to havedisappeared, understandably so. Crystal didn’t mind making his breakfast. Itgave him time to think.

Crystal sat opposite to John once everything was put away,trying to figure out what questions to ask. John was brilliant. So smart andastute and bright. But Crystal also knew John was sensitive, vulnerable andmost of all, gullible. He could be swayed to do something or convinced tobelieve something so easily. He could only wonder what the hell this night aidedid.

“So, John, is it okay if I ask what happened?” Crystal askedsoftly, sliding over a pencil and paper for John to write if he couldn’t signit. John’s signing wasn’t very good.

John hesitated, looking down at the paper. He took anotherbite of his toast, setting it down on his plate, slowly signing, “John naughty.No bath. Angry.” He got teary eyed remembering it all. She was wearing red. Shesaid it was time for a bath. John was being bad and he said no. He didn’t wanta bath. He wanted to go to sleep. He was being naughty, she said. John tried torun to his room but she caught him. She grabbed his arm and slapped it. His armturned red too. He cried and she didn’t care. She said naughty boys getspanked. John wasn’t a boy though, but it hurt. He couldn’t stop crying and hefelt stupid and alone and very scared. He wished Crystal was there or thatmaybe he wasn’t so dumb so he could stop her being mean to him. He took a baththough. She was happy afterwards. Maybe he was being bad.

“The aide wanted you to take a bath. You didn’t want to. So,she slapped you?” Crystal clarified, his throat growing tight as he was forcedto say those words.

John nodded, signing “Naughty John” again. He deserved it.He was supposed to listen to his aides and he didn’t. His heart fluttered atthe thought of Crystal being mad at him too. “Sorry, Crystal.” He signed.

Crystal nearly reeled at John. He shook his head, holdinghis hands up. “John, no, no. No, no, no. Us aides are here to help you. We arenot your boss, your mum, your teacher, nothing. If anything, you are our boss.Remember how we talked about that?”

John remembered. Crystal had to have talks with John aboutnot being so obedient. He was an adult. He could decide what to do and what notto do. The aides just helped him keep things decent, healthy and reasonable.

“Right? So, if you didn’t want to talk a bath, you weren’tbeing naughty. You made a decision and the aide should have let you make thatdecision. She was the bad one, not you. John, you didn’t deserve what happenedto you at all,” Crystal said, stressing the last sentence.

John hummed something flat, looking around the kitchen. Hestill felt bad.

Crystal would work on that later. For now, he had a few morequestions.

“Can you show me where she hit you?” He wanted to see if shehad left any marks. When John showed him his arm, there was nothing. Not thathe wouldn’t believe John. It’d just make this harder to prove to others.

Crystal tenderly rubbed the spot on John’s arm before askinganother question. “Can you show me how she hit you?”

John was a little too eager to reenact this. He grabbedCrystal’s arm, yelling angrily as if he were the aide and whacked Crystal’sarm, not holding back. Fucking ouch. But he wanted to make surenothing was misinterpreted before bringing this up with the company that hiredthem out.

Crystal rubbed his own arm, satisfied with this. Now he onlyhad two more questions.

“Do you mind if I ring up your mum to tell her about this?”

John nodded.

“And are you okay with me telling the company about whatyour aide did? You can say no, but we can’t fix this if we stay quiet.”

John took a moment but he nodded again.

“Fantastic,” Crystal says, getting up to give John anotherhug before making a few difficult phone calls.

♚

“Crystal mad?” John asked his mother, who had gotten therein a record breaking 45 minutes after Crystal’s call.

John’s mum wasn’t good at BSL but could figure out thequestion from John’s face. She giggled, looking over her shoulder to ahot-headed Crystal on the phone, yelling and cursing every 3 seconds at who shebelieved to be the director of the company that sent out the aides.

“Yes. Quite mad. Not at you though, darling,” She said,handing John biscuit. John was on the floor, fiddling with a small amp as hismother continually fed him, something mothers seemed to do when stressed.

John munched on the biscuit and laughed. That was goodenough for him.

“How dare you call yourself a company based on quality whenyou don’t even do background checks on your aides! My client could have beenseriously hurt! And how exactly do you propose we get him comfortable againwith your service? He’s terrified of any aide besides myself working with himnow. How exactly do you think you can fix this? Throwing money at it won’t healthe trauma, you should know this, you bugger!”

John’s mum blushed, handing John another biscuit. He wasfull but he took it because he never got to eat so many sweets at once. Todaystarted off badly but his mum and Crystal were here and he was eating a lot ofbiscuits so maybe it was actually a good day. John happily hummed as he rippedout some unnecessary wires from the amp.

Crystal let out a big sigh, hanging up the phone and wipedhis face. He approached the two in the living room, his skin returning to it’snormal hue. “They’re definitely going to fire the woman. As for everythingelse, it’s up in the air. They might buy us out. A lawsuit wouldn’t look goodfor them, apparently. But as for the insurance stuff, that’s allyou, Lily. Left the phone nice and warm for you,” he said, laughing out ofexhaustion and humor. This was going to be a long and tedious process for theboth of them. John couldn’t talk, so it was just him and his mum. He was finewith that, though. John was worth every minute of it.

Lilian excused herself, ready to have to negotiate with theinsurance company. Oh, how fantastic healthcare was for those in need. She rolledher eyes at the thought.

Crystal plopped himself on the floor next to John, stealingan uneaten biscuit. “So, how’s it going over here? Working on the amp Freddiegave you?” he asked, looking at all the junk John had amassed around him.Wires, screwdrivers and circuit boards. John nodded with a grin, connecting twowires together.

At least he was happy. Crystal was scared of the next fewhours, though. When he’d have to leave. When John’s mum would be left alone todeal with him. She was pretty good at it, due to the fact that she had done sofor 18 years, but he still worried. John got easily put off by things. Henicked himself shaving once and refused to shave again for a month. Only aftera long and strenuous reintroduction could he handle controlling his beard. Thiswas much worse than a little cut. Would his bath time be ruined? His bedtimeroutine? All other aides that weren’t him?

“Tell me, John, when I go home tonight, you’ll be good toyour mum? You don’t have to bathe tonight, but you’ll be able to go to sleepfine?”

John stopped his tinkering to think.

“No woman?” John asked.

“No. That aide is never coming backhere. And no one else from that company either. Just you and your mum fortonight.”

“No Crystal?”

“No, you know the drill, mate. I leave at 7.” Crystal wishedit wasn’t so, but he didn’t want to get fired for over stepping boundaries.

“Sad. OK.” John returned to his amp, huffing.

One day, m-

“Crystal! Crystal! Get over here!” Lilian yelled, hopping asshe held the phone receiver, a hand over the speaker. Crystal perked up,heading over to the ecstatic, bouncing woman.

“Crystal! If the insurance can get ahold of your companytoday, they can authorize you to go full time with John.”

Crystal felt like he got the most loving punch to the heart.

“It would be temporary until all of this is fixed, but it’sa foot in the door, no?” she said, beaming.

He was at a loss for words. Who knew it would take somethingso despicable to make something so incredible.

He spent the next hour on the phone, on hold, talking withhis branch manager and then a higher up, going over qualifications and rulesand promising to go do additional training that next morning and like that. Hewas all John’s. Even if it was just for a week.

Crystal turned on his heels, grinning so big it hurt.

“John?” he called out, walking back to his client.

John hummed.

“Guess what? I’m staying.”

John screamed.

♚

Crystal chuckled, pushing John away from him. John laughed,shuffling closer to Crystal on the bed.

“You most certainly do not get read bedtime stories. I callfoul!” Crystal said, sitting even farther away from John. John honked, shovingthe book back into Crystal’s lap.

He was right. John’s bedtime routine was simple. Shower.Brush teeth. Brush hair. Climb into bed and sleep. He occasionally needed helpself-soothing, but that was it. A simple head rub and he was gone for thenight.

But he didn’t want the night to end so quickly. His bestfriend was here and was going to stay here for the very first time. He wantedto stretch it out for as long as possible. Hence the book.

“You little devil. Fine, fine. One chapter, okay?” Crystalsaid in a playfully stern voice. John nodded excitedly, wriggling under thecovers.

“Could you have picked a bigger book? Ugh. Okay, this is TheShining by Stephen King. Hm, that bloke sounds familiar. Alright, chapter 1…”

"’No. No hard feelings.’ Jack flashed the PR grinagain, but he was glad Ullman didn't offer to shake hands. There were hardfeelings. All kinds of them,” Crystal said, his voice trailing into a whisperonce he took a glance at a sleeping John.

This felt right. This felt good. No one could take care ofJohn like he did. No one could protect John like he did. This should’ve beenwhat he was doing for all these years, instead of leaving John’s safety tochance. This was a scenario that kept Crystal up at night and in a horribleway, he was glad it happened because it would never happen again.Never.

Quietly, Crystal set down the book, shut off the lamp andexited John’s room. He walked right into Lilian’s hug, hugging her back.

“Oh, this is a blessed day. I can finally breathe knowinghe’ll be in good hands all day and all night. You don’t know how much you’vehelped our family,” she said, sniffling as she squeezed Crystal.

Ma’am, you don’t know how much your son has helped me.

Crystal just smiled.

♚

Crystal awoke to some grunting and gentle pushes to hischest. He blinked as his vision came back, his eyes focusing on a grinningJohn, who was knelt besides him.

He was on the couch, a last-minute accommodation. His backached as he sat up, looking around the living room. It was still dark. Theclock read 6am.

“Good morning!” John signed, giggling. Crystal laughedhimself.

“Morning, you little devil.” He said, stretching, jointscrackling. It was still an hour before him and John usually started theirroutine, but what the hell? Things were changing. He and John were gonna moveinto a proper house. Their schedule would change. Everything was gonna change.

“So!” Crystal clapped his hands together. “You ready to havea great day, John?”

John shrieked.

His mother, who was sleeping on the other couch, woke with astart.

Crystal and John giggled, their foreheads touching.

[tesseractj]

The Truth, and too much of it

Here we go, Fanfic 1.

 I got the prompt for this at http://imagine-loki.tumblr.com/post/153439568024/imagine-you-and-loki-are-members-of-the-avengers

 Now, I am so new to all this and I probably need to learn tons more about Tumblr, presentation, etc. I also need a PC for this. Instead, I'll let it fly. 

 Summary: OC is a long time Avenger, gets kidnapped, gets drugged, gets rescued, and shares far more of her love life with Loki than she ever wanted to. Steve and Bruce want to hide, Tony wants to listen and Loki keeps prompting for more. 

 OC and basic universe is based on a much bigger fanfic I have been working on. Basically she's a shameless self-insert, Loki is doing better and is an Avenger, and everyone actually does live together when possible creating a nice family of happy Avengers. Definite references to smut, sex, kinks and NSFW stuff. Also minor references to a nebulous past trauma. 

 .................................................. 

 The trick to this drug seemed to be to turn the stream of consciousness into a personally interesting rant. I was slowly driving my captors nuts with it. 

 They asked about Iron Man’s weaknesses and got a rant about Tony’s inability to receive a cup of cocoa when handed to him, or his habit of ordering dinner before anyone had decided what to eat or cook. The best info they gained was his favorite drinks and favorite swimsuit model. That rant lasted a good hour, broken by attempt to steer the information to their needs. 

 “Nooo, weaknesses in the his suit design!” “Like clothes? Nope, he’s got a great designer for clothes. Perfect designs.” They learned his strange clothing choices, designer apparel with $2,000 cufflinks, and then a great deal about Pepper’s awesome wardrobe. They cut me off again when I started talking about the history of the color pink and child product consumerism. 

 “No, his suit, tell us about the Iron Man suit weaknesses!” 

 “Have you seen that thing? Who thinks red is a good color for a suit? Tony freakin’ Stark. I love the guy, but any chance it could be black, brown, camo? Noooooo. Red and Gold! Not that Steve’s suit is better. Still, he didn’t design it so I give him a break there. . . usually.” That devolved into a comparison of all Avengers’ gear designs, and more embarrassingly who looked hot in what.

 They tried asking about the defences for Avenger’s Tower and the compound. I had more trouble deflecting that. I couldn’t help but start talking about FRIDAY, but once I got myself talking about the AI’s personality I was off on a rant about the comparisons between her program, the TESS program in my Neural Interface and JARVIS. TESS won that comparison, after 15 minutes of one sided discussion. 

 “What is Nick Fury’s home address?” I laughed at the likelihood of anyone knowing that answer. No one could discover his favorite coffee, let alone his home address, codes, birthday, favorite color, etc. 

 “Does Black Widow fear anything?” I got in 15 minutes about how amazing spiders are, how they are related to horseshoe crabs, how insects were the first land animals and what does Natasha have to do with sea lions? 

 “Listen up! We don’t know what another dose of this will do.” Interrogator #3 held up another vial of whatever they kept dosing me with. “We’d prefer you sane and useful, at least until we sell you and your info to the highest bidder. You are really making that hard.” 

 “Maybe the drug is no good on me? Did you test it on normal humans or genetic experiments visiting from other universes? There’s only a few of us visitors hanging around, so, I’d be pretty supri-”

 “There’s more of you?” Interrogator #1 exclaimed, looking both excited and worried at the thought. 

 I almost winced, that was more info than I wanted to share, but,”More of me? Not on this planet that’s for sure. We tend to aggravate each other outside of specialized conditions.” “More visitors fro. . . what the hell was that?”

 I was saved from accidentally revealing anything by some very loud sounds coming from somewhere not too far off. I sighed in relief. “You all are in so much trouble now. If Nat, Bruce or Loki are here you are dead meat.” Now I explained how painfully dead those three would make my captors. 

 “. . . and after the Hulk puts you through a wall Loki will pull your insides out through any hole he finds. If you haven’t died yet he’ll-” 

 “Shut up! This can’t just be the drug. You must be insane! Who says all that so cheerfully? How did you take a question about the Hulk and turn it into a lecture about Black Holes, Stars Exploding and Poles?” I grinned at the remaining guy in the room. That had been a fun stream about Gamma Ray bursts, threats to life in the universe and Magnetic Pole reversal. 

 Huh, when did the other two guys leave the room? I was knew the drug was affecting my awareness, but that was worse than I thought. Oh well, the door was flying open and I was given a second off from having to answer anything as I watched Steve stop the final guys questions. 

 My awareness hazed out for the next bit until I was breathing fresh air and realized that I was explaining to Cap how medicines for mental illness had side effects like memory loss.

 “Is she alright? Let me see her!” I heard a pleasant, if urgent, voice cut through my mental fog. 

 “Loki! I told them they’d be in big trouble if you came. I knew you would be here. Did you rip anyone to shreds? Did Nat come and break some bones?” I asked happily, likely sounding almost drunk.

 Loki looked straight into my face, eyebrows drawn in confusion. Instead of answering me he turned to Steve, who had helped walk me outside. “What has happened to her, Captain? What have they done to her?”  

“It seems they had a truth serum of some sort. We gave Bruce samples and he’s already started analysing it on the Jet. We’ll know more by the time we get home.” 

 “Know more? I’m certain I could reveal everything we need from one of the prisoners,” Loki got a dangerous glint in his eye. 

 Steve was going to raise an objection, but I couldn’t keep my mouth closed. “Awww, I know I shouldn’t, but I love the way you look when you get all dangerous and angry.”

 Loki turned back to me in concern and surprise. Before he could ask for clarification on my apparent love of his dark side I continued with more helpful information. “It’s some sort of temporary inhibition release, like a truth serum thingie mixed with ativan mixed with alcohol. They said it calms the subject(me!), reduces or rids control of mind to mouth and encourages open thinking. I really don’t think they realized what open thinking means for me. They learned a lot about my love of sciency stuff and how I adore all of you guys, verrrry little about our defences or secrets.” 

 I looked more seriously over at Steve,”I was getting really loopy at the end there. It’s worth seeing if they got a record of anything in case something important slipped. I haven’t heard TESS, since the first dose, but she might be fully operational and have a record.” Always helpful to have an AI built into your brain, or adjacent to it, or whatever Stark called it.

 I felt a hand turn my face so I would look back at Loki. “But are you alright, love? Did they hurt you?” The concern on his face sobered me up as we started walking to the Jet. My general awareness seemed to be coming back as I also noticed a SHIELD team run past about twenty feel off, and Tony was talking to someone while pointing back at the building I had been held in. The Jet was only a few hundred feet away, like a little piece of home come to get me. 

 “I’ll be fine, I think it was just a few scratches and bruises. They insisted the drug needed high doses to hurt a normal brain, and you know my physiology would handle way more than a normal human brain.” I paused to look closer at him and say,”Sorry I got kidnapped, again. I really don’t want to worry anyone, especially you.” Memories of the previous, and much worse, abduction made me shudder lightly.

 I felt his arm pull me closer to him as we started up the ramp. He seemed to take a moment to breath the scent off my hair. “It’s hardly your fault. I do wish I could keep such events from occurring. However, I would like to return to a comment you made a moment ago.” 

 I looked up at him in confusion as we settled into the seats. “You enjoy my dangerous and angry look?”

 Even in my current state I felt a blush start, “Well, yeah. You know I think you are extra sexy when you are all serious, or protective and angry. It’s not like I never told you that, right? Or, wait, no, yeah, didn’t I mention it that first time we had the silk cords and candles, whe-” 

 “Uh, Juliana, you know Bruce and I are standing right here, right?” Steve asked in a soft but mortified tone. Bruce looked like he wanted to shrink into oblivion.

 Any blush I had before was nothing compared to the the heat I felt on my face now.  No, I hadn’t even thought about who else was on the plane. It was as if everything but Loki and I had disappeared. Loki had one of his freakin’ smirks going and I knew he felt no shame. “Oh good lord, I’m so sorry Steve. Hi Bruce, sorry. Umm, thanks guys for coming to rescue me and I can’t believe. . . stop smirking Loki!” I whacked him on the shoulder. 

 Bruce tried to sound understanding,”No, it’s fine, I get it. You are under the influence, so to speak, Don’t, don’t worry about it Jay. Just glad you’re okay.”

 “Don’t worry about what?” Tony’s load steps echoed into the Jet as he came onboard. His suit was on, helmet off, and he looked curious. 

 The answer came from the cockpit, which furthered my embarrassment,”It’s nothing Tony, that’s why we don’t have to worry.” Clint had heard me too.

 Everyone should have known Tony would have none of that. Loki’s smirk became a full grin as Tony said,”Oh no, it’s something.” He looked at me appraisingly, then pointed as he figured it out,”You're still drugged and started dishing out something good. What is it? Spill.” 

 My face hit my hands as I started,”Well, I was remembering the time Loki and I-”

 “TONY, no! No taking advantage of this. Sorry Jay, you don’t have to answer,” Steve interjected before things got too far. 

 “But daaaad, it was gonna be fun!” Tony whined.

 I got to grin as I watched Tony piss off Steve, which kept up until Natasha got on board and we prepared to head home. I learned that Thor had flown off for a date as soon as he heard I was rescued. That turned out to be a very good thing, because Loki wasn’t done with his fun. 

 A few minutes after take off I was finally quiet, staring at the spot I had been lying in after me last rescue. I wanted to curse the system of balances that made pain and fear a good substitute for all the bad things I could stop. It was worth it but. . . 

 ”Surely a simple smile did not merit such a violent response,” Loki spoke up, rubbing his shoulder as if I had actually hurt him. “I would love to hear more about what you were remembering. I can’t seem to place what you were speaking of,” he sounded almost thoughtful, under his blasted smile.

 “Oh good lord, Loki! Don't think I doubt you remember that perfectly well. Green silk cords, specialty candles, those flo-” 

 “Hmmm Hrmm,” Steve coughed as I turned red again.  

“Oh great, I am still just spewing out everything in my head. How long will this last?”

 I glanced over at Bruce, who was looking very uncomfortable. “Oh, um, I don’t really know. I’ve tried to hook FRIDAY in to TESS and they are running some numbers. Let me see. . . oh, looks like 3-6 hours?”

 I gasped,”Oh no, no no, is there a sedative, yeah, sedative you can give me? I am not ready for my inner dialogue here.” 

 “Jay, Juliana, you just sat with strangers for over 7 hours under the influence. We are much safer,” Steve tried to reason. 

“First off, I don’t care what those a-holes think of me. Second off, different circumstances lead to very different answers. I was in a clinical interrogation, it was easy to stay impersonal. You all are my family, it’s personal here. Third, look at Loki’s face! He’s planning mischief!” 

 Loki put on an air of hurt innocence,”I most certainly am not!” 

 “Ugh, we all know better darling. You might be subtle, but you are trouble,” I glared, with maybe a hint of love bleeding through.

 “I could be less subtle dear, if you like. Or I could,” he leaned in, close to my ear, “ask something very subtle, like what do you want?”

 Everybody else disappeared again as my answer took over. He made things worse by skating his fingers over my neck. “I want to strip your armor off, throw you down and kiss every part of you until you-” 

 “Loki, enough! That’s enough of this!” Steve sounded half panicked, half furious. He was trying to use his Captain America voice, though it sounded just a little off. 

 “Perhaps if you and Bruce are finding this uncomfortable, you could move farther away from our conversation,” Loki offered. 

 Tony snorted at that. He was having a grand time now. This was all he wanted out of a good truth serum debacle. Steve was flustered, I was flustered but showing my kinky side, and Loki was grinning like the happiest God of Mischief in the universe.

 Loki looked back at me,”You must be hungry after everything.” 

 “Seriously, using that voice and saying that? Of course I am hungry,” I said, trying to steer my thoughts to food, chocolate, fruit, oh no. “I would love to have some chocolate and, and, and,” I tried to fight it,” annnnd I would love to lick it off of you, bit by bit. I would paint both of us in it, and then use a whole strawberry. . .”

 Steve and Bruce fled as far as they could get. Tony’s eyes went wide as he gleefully listened to my fantasy. Loki got a different look in his eyes, promising fun down the line.

 It was a few days later that I thought back and realized something quite important. Every time I had started to get overwhelmed with memories from that previous trauma, Loki would step in an distract me with stupid salacious prompts. I couldn’t decide whether or not to thank him, or if I should explain that he could have picked a less embarrassing distraction. Then I remembered that look in his eyes, and how once I got a clean bill of health we made good use of green silk cords and plenty of chocolate. Not much more needed to be said, once I thought of that.

[itispossibleihaveissues]

And Who By Fire - chapter 18

Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Permanent injury, amputation, behavioural changes due to brain injury, dysfunctional relationships [big shock, I know] I will put any extras at the beginning of each chapter.

Summery:  Both Dick and Jason are caught in an explosion that changes everything. Burdened with a shared sense of guilt and isolation, they are forced to rely on each other. Together they might heal. Or possibly just kill each other.

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 15 16 17

Thanks for all the wonderful comments, kudos and support over the course of this fic - I've been incredibly grateful for all of them!

And a huge thank you to Brukesl17 for the betaing through my Dyslexic nonsense.

Notes: This is for Iamjasonssmirkingrevenge and is also all her fault.

Jason couldn't recall the exact sequence of events that lead to him being back in the Manor. Back in the bed that he had spent his early teens in, whacking off to the thought of being Robin and tearing a swath through the Gotham underworld. He would have objected if he had been in his right mind, but he had been to distraught to focus long enough to stop Bruce and Alfred loading them all into the car. So, here he was.

He had slept for an hour or two, completely wrung out by the events of the past few days. When he woke, it was with a clearer head, and in many ways, a lighter heart. It was all out in the open now – he just had to weather the consequences, but the crippling guilt no longer felt like it was going to burst out of him in some sort of toxic explosion. It was progress.  

He sat up in bed to find Bruce sitting across the room.

A great start.

Bruce was stony faced, but beside him was Jason's new prosthetic. That was surprising. B was far too used to fighting his battles tooth and nail to offer up a potential tool to an enemy. That meant it might be some form of peace offering. If that was the case, it was possible that if he could control his temper and if Bruce would just listen to him without making snap judgements or agree to disagree on a few things, then they might be able to come out of this mess with the possibility of at least having a civil relationship. Something Jason wanted for Dick and Tim’s sake, as well as his own.

“Jason,” Bruce rumbled.

Jason pushed himself up against the headboard in response to that tone of voice, he just couldn’t help himself.

“I understand that the trauma you and Dick both shared has forged a tight bond between you, and that is partly my fault for leaving you both to deal with the situation alone. I should have offered you more support. I plan to rectify that now. But the relationship has to end, it’s unbalanced and unhealthy.”

Jason has been expecting the attack, when it came, to be about the bomb, not he and Dick’s relationship. He may have got his hopes up a little early. Jason sighed, loudly and with all the frustration and tiredness he felt. “Bruce, I’m going to say this as politely as possible, and I’m going to use small words so that you understand: It’s none of your damn business, so back off .”

Bruce's brows drew down, and his jaw took on the same stubborn set that Dick's did when he was going to behave insufferably.

“It’s not up to you, it’s up to Dick,” Jason tired again. “He’s the one calling the shots right now. He was the one that instigated this, I spent a great deal of time trying to rebuff him, even though I didn’t really want to, I know it’s a bad idea. I know it's fucked up and weird, but it’s come to a point that I don’t give a crap. He wants to be with me for some God forsaken reason? Then I’m all in. If he wants me to leave and never come back, he has more than earned the right to expect that of me and I will do it.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry at the thought. He wasn’t sure if he was even convincing himself, but it was true.“Go interrogate Dick if you don’t believe me.”

Bruce made a tiny facial expression that Jason translated as discomfort.

“Goddamn it, old man. If you’re going to attempt more input into Dick's well-being you’re going to have to get over the sex thing. I know It’s not what any parent wants to deal with, but Dick’s not particularly subtle with his sexuality any more. He’s said things about people that I wish I could wipe from my memory, but you just have to learn how to deal with it. You have to, Bruce.”

“What people?” Bruce asked dubiously, and in Jason’s opinion, foolishly.

“Shall I start with Talia and move smoothly through to Slade Wilson? Not enough brain bleach in the world for that one.”

Bruce made another tiny facial expression. Horror, maybe disgust, Jason decided this time.

“Yeah. It’s gross, but it’s just part of who he is. We all have those nasty thoughts, it’s just his follow through and come out his mouth.”

There was a new expression on Bruce's face, but Jason couldn’t quite identify it. He shifted awkwardly and wished he didn’t have to have these kind of discussions when he was in his underwear in bed, it made him feel vulnerable.

Bruce leaned forward a fraction of an inch and steepled his fingers together “So, Jason,” he said, voice even, like the uncomfortable conversation they had just shared had happened in some alternate dimension. “What do you suggest Dick needs?”

This was a test. Bruce was clearly waiting to trap him in some way. But Jason was so over jumping through hoops for people. And he was kind of done with lying, even through omission. The past six months had more than taught him how toxic that shit could be. So the truth it was.

“What Dick needs , Bruce, first and foremost is his family, his friends and community. Hell, despite his very obvious problems with verbal diarrhoea, he’s still somehow making friends. Ms Singh from number 29 barely speaks English but they still manage to hang out. He even charmed her over-protective grandson into parrot sitting once. Did you know Dick speaks passable Urdu? Apparently it’s similar enough to Hindi to communicate.”

Bruce smiled slightly, a tiny twitch of his lips, “He has always had a head for languages.”

“It’s a very Dick thing to be good at,” Jason felt his own lips curve up into a wry smile.

“So you’re suggesting I spend more down time with him?”

“Yeah, but not too much. You know you’ll just fight like you always do. But he needs more than your company, he needs you to be open with him. Show you love him, but tell him too. You remember that time you came over after the vet stabbing incident and he told you he loved you?”

“I do. I didn’t realise you had heard that conversation.”

“I was flat out on the sofa, I heard it all. Anyway, when we spoke after and he was confused because he thought he told you that he loved you all time. That disconnect was disturbing to him. He needs to know that expressing himself is okay, he needs to know where his boundaries are and he needs to know that people still love him, even when he says Slade Wilson is the hottest villain he knows. Which is wrong on so many levels it’s nearly a disowning offence.”

While he watched Bruce struggle through another small facial tic of horror, it occurred to Jason that this could be the thing that finally mended the rift between Dick and Bruce, the one that had been there before Jason had come into the picture and put on the pixie boots. The love between them was obvious and strong, despite their tendency to come to blows over the simplest of things. It was the source of so much of Jason's jealousy when he was younger, and if he was honest with himself, now too. Maybe Tim was onto something when he said they had gained as well as lost.

Bruce remained silent, he seemed to be digesting Jason’s words rather than tearing into him for speaking his mind, so he figured he could push his luck a little. “On top of that, he needs proper help, his wild emotions and violent responses hurt him more than they ever hurt me. He needs to feel in control of his actions again. I know a little something about that myself,” he admitted ruefully.

Bruce was staring at him, another one of those inscrutable expressions on his face. “You really care about him, don’t you?”

“Of course I fucking do! That’s the whole point, Bruce!”

“Be that as it may, my opinion about your relationship hasn’t changed, Jason. I think it’s unhealthy and morally ambiguous at best.”

“You’re going to lecture me about moral ambiguity? You ? Who has been banging Catwoman, and Talia Al Ghul for fucksake? And God knows who else, you do seem to have a thing for the villains. And it seems to have rubbed off on Dick some, what with his currant weird fixation with Deathstroke. It’s no surprise that he’s latched onto me too.”’

Bruce was scowling at him, but then seemed to get his emotions in check. He drew in a tired sounding breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not because you’re a ‘villain,’ Jason, although all our lives would be easier if you stopped killing people. My life would be much less morally conflicted if you did.”

“Because you want to put me in jail?”

“Because the law is for everyone. And yes,” Bruce held up a hand to stop Jason's retort. “Yes, I know we also break the law, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. I don’t want you to go to jail, but if you murder people in cold blood, then I am obligated to put you there.”

“But now you won’t because it will piss Dick off, and you wouldn’t want that.”

“Talking with you is an exercise in frustration.”

Jason was kind of impressed that he could still make Bruce get the particular look of aggravation on his face. Alfred and Dick used to refer to it as the ‘Jay special.’

Bruce drew in another calming breath and continued in a surprisingly measured tone. “Even so, that was not the point I was going to make. It’s not about your status as a ‘criminal.’”

Jason could hear the quote marks and it made him seethe. But he miraculously managed to hold his tongue.

Bruce leant forward again, face serious. “It’s because A. Dick is your adopted brother, and that doesn't sit well with me, and won’t sit well with the rest of the League or anyone else. And B. he has brain damage. I'm not sure how much he can consent to this. I don’t think it would have happened at all if he hadn’t been injured.”

Jason sat straighter and placed his foot on the floor, covering his stump with the blanket. “Okay, let’s start with point A, before I ream you the fuck out over point B.”

Bruce mirrored Jason's position. A challenge, the prick. Jason wanted nothing more than to go to to toe with him, but he could hardly do that when he couldn’t stand unaided and his prosthetic was the other side of the room.

“If Dick was banging Tim, or Cass, that would be one thing. But me? We spent time together before I died, sure, but it wasn’t brotherly, it might have become that, if things had been different, but that wasn’t the way the dice fell. It’s more like if two overly competitive childhood friends hooked up. And we didn't even spend that much time together out of uniform, you made damn sure of that by constantly comparing us. You made me feel inferior, so I resented him. You made him feel like he was being replaced as your son as well as Robin so he resented me. That was fucking shit, B, you fucked us over good.”

Bruce opened his mouth, but Jason waved him off, he was warming to his rant now. “And I don’t give a fuck what you or the League or the papers think about it. Jason Todd, adopted son of Bruce Wayne, died . I don’t have a legal name any more, not one that’s actually mine. And you didn’t even adopt Dick until he was twenty! So in the eyes of the law,  we ain't even related.”

He sat back to watch Bruce sort through that. Disappointingly, he was keeping his face tightly controlled, with none of his usual tells on display.

“And the second issue?” Bruce asked, after a moment.

Jason held back the smug smile that wanted to creep onto his face. He had so won that round.  “Are you going to ban Dick from having relationships or sex of any kind?”

Bruce looked vaguely constipated, his eyes narrowing  with realisation of where this was going to go, but he said nothing, so Jason continued, “Just because he has brain damage, doesn't mean he’s not a person who has needs and wants. And what he really wants, is much the same as it has always been – a strong and sappy romantic relationship – and sex has always been a part of that for him. You can’t deny him that. You didn’t like Kory, but you couldn't stop him having a relationship with her. And you can’t choose for him now, either. He’s not a drooling vegetable, he can make his own decisions, although they are often impulsive and stupid, to be fair.”

Bruce digested that for a moment, while Jason resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably. He wished he had his prosthetic on, he felt vulnerable without it.

“You’ve changed, Jason,” Bruce said at last.

Jason scoffed. “No I haven’t, you’re just seeing me different.”

Bruce stood, and Jason tensed, but there was no threat in his posture or face, so he forced himself to relax slightly.

“That may be true, too. But you have changed,” Bruce said, he picked up the prosthetic and lay it next to Jason's bed.

“I haven't,” Jason said stubbornly.

“You have.”

“Have not!” This was a game Bruce would play with him as a kid, when Jason was attempting to bullshit his way into doing something stupid, like going on patrol with stomach flu. It was bittersweet now.

Bruce's lips twitched again. “Well, maybe not completely. But you have grown, we would never have been able to have this conversation six months ago.”

“I’ve had a crash course in controlling my temper. It hardly counts as amazing personal growth.”

“You still can’t take a compliment.”

“You still haven't given me one.”

Bruce sighed, but he still seemed amused. “Why must my family all be so stubborn?” he mused as he headed for the door.

“Karma,” Jason muttered, loudly.  Trying not to show his emotions on his face.

“Well, be that as it may, consider this your compliment: Your insight into Dick’s needs and behaviour and your obvious… affection for him, does you a great deal of credit. Rest now. I will think on what you’ve said, and speak to Dick when he wakes up.”

“Okay,” Jason said, stupidly.

  Jason was left feeling conflicted. There was a measure of forgiveness there, but the anger was also still simmering. Neither of them had apologised for the hurtful words said before – which in Jason's opinion meant they were still out there, festering. And Bruce was never going to be okay with this relationship, that much was obvious. Jason could live with that, but could Dick? Would they even be a relationship after the dust settled?

Feeling suddenly anxious Jason slipped to edge of the bed and began putting on his new prosthetic. It was a perfect fit, and instantly made him feel more centred. So much so he didn't even panic when the door opened while he was still in his shorts, contemplating his new leg.

“Hey,” Tim said, pushing into the room without even a by your leave. He was carrying two steaming mugs in his hands though, so Jason was inclined to forgive him.

“Earl Grey with milk, you heathen,” Tim said, handing over the cup of tea in his right hand and casually sitting in the chair Bruce had vacated.

“Thanks.” Jason casually attempted to put his pants on, without looking like he was flustered. Tim just sipped his tea impassively. “I thought you were grounded?” Jason asked.

Tim shrugged. “He’s not the boss of me.”

“Yes he is, you breaking the rules to come see me?”

Tim sniffed. “It’s hardly breaking the rules if it’s still within the house I live in.  That went okay didn’t it?” He looked mildly smug.  

“You were watching,” Jason said flatly. Because of course he was.

“Surveillance is how we show love.”

“Yeah? Well it’s creepy and weird.”

Tim just lifted a casual shoulder. “What now?”

Good question. Jason didn’t want to stay here and he didn’t want to be alone, alone he would start thinking about the things Bruce had said. Whether he was just lashing, out or if his words had come from the heart, didn’t matter, some of that shit had cut deep. “You missed the first show down,” Jason said, following his own line of thought. “It wasn’t so nice.”

“You know he probably didn’t mean anything awful he said. He loves you.”

“ Loved me. Young, starry-eyed me. Not the person I am now, not the fuck up screwing his favourite son. Or trying to anyway.”

Tim made a moue of distaste, but didn’t otherwise comment on the sex thing. “He finds you hard to deal with – hard to categorize. You make him feel very conflicted emotions so he responds aggressively. Dick does the same thing when he’s wound up. Even before the head injury it could be brutal.”

“Yeah, B didn’t like that comparison.”

“You do like to go the hard route don’t you?”

“Seems to be that way. Anyway, I guess I can’t do much except leave. I agree with Bruce when he suggests me and Dick spend some time apart. So I need to see if he wants the apartment. I have other places I can go.”

Tim’s brows drew down, and his mouth opened, to give some, no doubt infuriatingly good advice, when he was cut off by a screech from the hall.

“ Clunk fizz! ” That ear-splitting yell was followed up by some scuffling and a cry of, “Fucknugget!”

Tim and Jason looked at each other of a moment, before getting up and heading to the door. Jason opened it to find PB looking shifty and slightly ruffled. Behind him, the huge, hulking form of Titus was staring at him intently, his ears pricked forward and his head cocked curiously.

“Motherfucker,” PB tried, eyeing Titus suspiciously.

Titus gave a soft, ‘woof’ and wagged his tail.

“Made a friend, PB?” Jason asked, as the parrot sidled over and began climbing his pant leg.

“Motherfucker,” PB said again.

“ Woof ,” Titus said.

“I think they're communicating,” Tim was still sipping his tea, and looked very amused.

“Yeah, it’s like fucking Disney in here.” If PB was wandering the halls, where was Dick? There was never a freaking moment of downtime in Jason's life, what with Dick and the Parrot and his high maintenance family. “Do you think we need to mount a search party?” he asked.

“No, Dick is with B, they probably left the door open. PB isn’t a big fan of his namesake, so maybe he slipped out to come and complain about it to you.”

“Is that what happened?” Jason asked the bird, looking into his beady eye as he perched on his shoulder. He belatedly realised he must sound like an idiot, asking a bird a question like he was expecting an answer.

“Motherfucker,” PB told him, sullenly.

“ Woof !” Titus wagged his tail again.

“Okay then,” Jason said. “I’m going the fuck back to bed.”

  Jason next woke as the bed shifted beside him. A moment of panic was followed by recognition.

“Hey, Dick.”

“Hey, Jay.” Dick reached out and ran gentle fingers over the bruises on Jason’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Jason closed his eyes, but otherwise remained still under the caressing touch. “You have nothing to be sorry for. And I have too much. I would give my life to take it back.”

“I know. I know you regret what happened. I just wished you would have told me sooner. And I wish I had better control of how I react to things. I can’t stand this violence in me.”

“I deserved it.”

“Yeah, maybe you did, in theory. But not in practice. It’s the last thing in the world I want to do. I was mad enough I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“This time.”

Jason wanted to protest that, but there was truth in it. He could hold his own in a fight against Dick, he would probably lose, but he could defend himself. But if Dick had taken a gun out and threatened to shoot him, he would have let him. And as ridiculously unlikely as that particular scenario was, the emotional clusterfuck behind it was dangerous, for both of them.

“I think it’s a good idea if I stay here for a while,” Dick said, quietly.

Jason was glad of the darkness in the room, he didn’t think he would be able to hide the pain on his face otherwise. “You can take the apartment,” he said, and he thought his voice sounded mostly impassive.

“I don’t need it. Bruce is getting me some specialist help. Lots of it apparently, and time apart is a good idea. I need to process and learn to control my feelings more.”

“You can still have the apartment, though. It wouldn't feel right staying in it without you.” He didn’t think he could stand it, being there alone and knowing how he had fucked up their lives, how he had fucked up this stupid relationship, which was always destined to be a disaster. God, he felt like shit.  

Dick poked him on his bruised cheekbone. “Why do you sound so weird, do you have a cold coming on? Or did I break your nose? Anyway, you may as well stay, it has all your cripple gear already there, and that’s harder to move than my brain damage stuff.”

Despite himself, and his regret and guilt and grief, Jason snorted with laughter. Cripple gear and brain-damage stuff? Such a Dick thing to say, in both senses of the word.

“And anyway,” Dick said, poking him again, “It won’t be forever, I can come visit, and I’ll move back eventually.”

That was unexpected and let in a flood of glorious hope. Confusion and hope were uncomfortable bedfellows and Jason reached out and grabbed Dick’s fingers “You’re coming back?”

“Er, yeah?”  Dick sounded perplexed. “That is, if you want me to?”

Jason leaned to the side and switched the bedside lamp on, blinking at Dick in the sudden light. “So you’re just staying here for therapy? You’re not actually breaking up with me? I kind of need you to clarify.”

“Break up with you? Over a bit of violence and being blown up? Nah.” Dick pushed at him, “Shove over, there’s room in here for two.”

“Fucknugget.”

“Sorry, PB. Room in here for three.”

Jason sighed and shuffled over a bit, laying back and looking at the ceiling. It was the same as it had been when he was a kid. The whole room was kind of stuck in time. But everything else about the boy he had been had changed, was still changing. He wasn’t sure how he felt about those shifts yet. Dick pulled back the covers and let in all the chill air before clambering in beside him. PB walked across Jason’s face and over to Dick, who scooped him up and cuddled him like he was a fluffy kitten and not a half bald dinorat.

“So no, I don’t want to break up with you, Jason.” Dick said, after a moment. “I just need a little distance to get my head on straight.”

“Why wouldn’t you though?” Jason asked, baffled. “After everything?”

“Because I am totally and disgustingly in love with you, you dope.”

“Oh,” Jason said.

Dick snorted. “Oh he says, oh . Romance is not your strong suit is it? Nor is sex really, I guess, but I’m sure we can work on it.”

“Yeah thanks for that, Dickface.”

“For what?”

“Never mind. Bruce is going to have an aneurysm if he catches you in my bed tomorrow.”

“Don’t care.”

“You’re a rebel.”

Dick leaned over and kissed him on the nose. “I’m the original rebel wonder, don’t n ya know.”

“I did it better.” Jason was aware there was a dopey smile on his face but he couldn’t seem to tramp it down.

Dick waved an imperious hand above their heads. “You died, so it doesn’t count.”

“Ass,”

“Cooter flooter.”

“That’s still not a thing, Dick. Stop trying to make cooter flooter happen.”

“I can’t believe you’ve seen mean girls!” Dick said, delighted.

Jason decided not to remind him that they had in fact watched it together, not that long ago. The occasional gaps in Dick’s memory still upset him and Jason didn’t want to ruin this moment.

Dick snuggled down and into Jason’s space, so they were sharing the pillow. Unlike the first few times it had happened, having Dick invade his personal bubble felt pleasant and something in his chest loosened a little.

“I’m going to see the social worker tomorrow. Will you come too?” Dick asked.

“Don’t ruin the moment,” Jason said, and he could hear the whine in his own voice. He hated that sanctimonious asshat.

“Will you?”

“I guess, if I have to.” He would do whatever it took. But he didn’t have to like it.

“Because you love me too?”

“I guess, for my sins,” Jason sighed after a moment. God knows how it had happened, but he was kind of disgustingly, stupidly in love right back.

“You say the sweetest things,” Dick said with a smile in his voice.

“I know I do, I’m charming that way.”

“Anything to add, PB?” Dick asked. “Do you love us too?”

PB seemed to think about that for a moment, then ruffled his feathers and settled down on the pillow. “ Woof ,” he said, decisively.

Dick chuckled, the sound reverberating through Jason’s body, it felt good and he grinned into the darkness. He was missing a leg, and a working penis, but he had Dick and PB and Tim and some sort of semi truce with B. All things considered things were actually pretty awesome. There was still a long way to go, but he felt at peace and more hopeful than he probably had a right to be.

END NOTES:

So thats a wrap... mostly. I know some people are dying to know if Jason regains full use of his penis, so there is a follow up fic in the works (after this years Xmas exchange has been written.) Tentatively titled:

36 Times Jason and Dick Attempted to Have Sex (and mostly failed)

It will no doubt be very silly and contain gratuitous parrots.

Thanks again! <3

[lesbrarians]

Junkrat/Roadhog:: Trepidations

Well, Roadhog has officially gotten his own comic, and it was glorious -- but with that, Origins is no longer canon compliant, much to my dismay. I'm sorry if anyone was looking forward to a third installment of the series, but I think I'm probably going to be retiring it, ahhh. It's really important to me to stay true to canon, and I can't do that anymore with the reveal of how they met differing so much from my approach :c But I hope you enjoy this sendoff, it's a response to a request I got a longass time ago for the scene where Junkrat loses his arm from Roadhog's perspective. Thank you so much for reading!!

Title: Trepidations

Characters: Junkrat, Roadhog (+Ava and Rosa)

Rating: R

Summary:  Roadhog has seen -- and caused -- a lot of bloodshed in his life, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Told in Roadhog's perspective, this is a retelling of the scene in my Origins fic where Junkrat loses his arm, including what happened when he was unconscious. TW for traumatic amputation, gore, surgery, and general grossness.

---

Roadhog blamed himself.

In the aftermath of Piglet’s death, he let grief consume him, and Junkrat was the one to pay for his lapse in attention.

He tried to tell himself it wasn’t entirely his fault. Anyone would have been devastated by what he had been through. Seeing the pig you had adopted as your own pet carved open and roasting on a fire was enough to distract even the finest of bodyguards. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had a personal investment in Piglet, either -- the runt of the litter, with its oversized ears and brown spots, could have passed for one of the pigs he had raised twenty years ago. Piglet had been a reminder of better days, before radiation from the nuclear explosion had infiltrated his chest cavity and destroyed his already weak lungs. Before he’d realised that you could trust no one but yourself. Before he’d decided to go solo -- until, entirely against his will, Junkrat had wormed his way into his life.

Junkrat.

He knew something was wrong when he realised that Junkrat had gone unnaturally quiet. The little freak was never quiet. He couldn’t fall asleep at night without tossing and turning a good dozen times, accompanied by exaggerated sighs. Even when he took a leak, he talked to himself. Roadhog wasn’t sure whether he found the odd habit endearing or irritating. Either way, it was one of many quirks that made it impossible to ignore Junkrat’s presence. He was noisy, regardless of whether or not he had an audience.

When he realised that there was no distracted muttering or inane giggles coming from the bushes that Junkrat had disappeared through, his head snapped up.

“Junkrat.” He seized his scrap gun and charged in the direction of the shrubbery.

Roadhog was a man of instinct. He wasn’t quite as impulse-driven as his scatterbrained partner (when, he wondered, did he begin to view Junkrat as one half of a duo, instead of merely the trouble-seeking employer he was supposed to protect?), but violence was his knee-jerk reaction to just about every unforeseen circumstance.

The sight of Junkrat pinned to the ground under the weight of another Junker, with a bloody stump of an arm and a gag in his mouth that muffled his agonised screaming, was as unforeseen as circumstances came.

He acted on pure instinct. He fired his scrap gun, and his target’s head exploded in a gory mess of brain matter and viscera. Nothing he hadn’t seen before. He dragged the headless corpse off of Junkrat and tossed it aside, where the dead weight landed with a wet thump.

Junkrat gasped for air the second Roadhog ungagged him. “What the hell did I hire ya for?” he said, voice cracking. “I’m down a fuckin’ arm thanks to you! Yer supposed to -- how the bloody hell didn’t you see him?”

The words stung, but they were nothing compared to the pain Junkrat must have been in.

“I know,” Roadhog said. He tried to staunch the bleeding, but it was futile. He pulled his hand away to find it slick with blood, his fingers stained a bright red that he would see long after he’d washed it off. He’d thought he’d become desensitised to the sight over the years -- hell, he relished reducing someone to a bloody pulp --  but seeing his partner wounded was a thousand times worse than his most brutal kill.

“I’m sorry. I was distract--” He stopped himself. Grief was a poor excuse. Mourning Piglet shouldn’t have kept him from doing his job. If anything, Piglet’s slaughter should have served as a reminder to never let his guard down. The second you let yourself grow complacent, you got butchered. “I’m sorry,” he finished.

Junkrat’s severed arm lay on the ground between them like some kind of sick Halloween prop. Roadhog pushed it aside. It wasn’t a clean cut -- if the ragged edges were indicative of anything, Junkrat’s attacker had needed a few good whacks to successfully chop off the forearm -- and he wasn’t harboring any delusions that they would be capable of reattaching it.

Besides, the sight of it was freaking him out, if he was being perfectly honest with himself.

The vitriol seeped out of Junkrat, and he went limp. His breaths came in staccato bursts, harsh and shallow, like a cornered jackrabbit. “I’m gonna die,” he whimpered.

“No, you’re not,” Roadhog said with the practiced conviction of a man who spent the better part of his adult life lying to others. He fished for a bandanna from his back pocket. It wasn’t the cleanest thing, but it had to be better than exposing the gaping wound to the elements.

“Yes I am!” Junkrat wailed. “Just leave me alone to die!” If it had been any other moment, Roadhog would have rolled his eyes at Junkrat’s histrionics, but given the current circumstances, he could forgive him for being a little hysterical.

Still, he couldn’t help but growl, “Don’t be melodramatic. I just lost Piglet, I’m not losing you too.” He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince Junkrat or himself.

Junkrat gave him a watery smile. “You do care.” He reached his arm up towards Roadhog’s face, where it hung uselessly between them. Roadhog stared at the hovering stump, arrested by the sight of mangled flesh and bone. He tore his eyes away and went back to business. For all of his insistence that Junkrat wasn’t going to die, it was looking more likely by the minute. He needed to rig up some kind of tourniquet, anything to keep him from bleeding out until Roadhog could get him some proper medical assistance. The bandanna would work, but he needed something with enough tension to cut off the circulation in Junkrat’s arm. He reached for Junkrat’s belt and undid it, pulling it out of the loops of his shorts.

Junkrat’s giggle turned into a barely choked-back sob, and he managed a twisted smile. “What, now ya wanna get in my pants? This gets ya goin’?” He waved the bloody stump.

It was horribly, wildly inappropriate, and Roadhog couldn’t even begin to address everything that was wrong with Junkrat’s depraved little joke. “Shut. Up,” he said. It came out angrier than intended, but he was under a lot of mental strain at the moment, and Junkrat wasn’t helping. He wrapped the leather belt around Junkrat’s arm and yanked hard, tying off the makeshift tourniquet.

“You’re more scared than what I am,” Junkrat accused.

Roadhog ignored him. He was stressed, upset, guilt-ridden -- worried, even, but he wasn’t scared. “That’ll keep you alive for now. Still needs to come off before necrosis sets in,” he said, doing his level best to keep his voice impassive. His mind was racing, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. They were in the middle of nowhere, and even if he had known where the nearest hospital was, they weren’t exactly the kind of clientele that a respectable medical institution catered to. They’d be arrested the second Junkrat was stabilised. No, Roadhog had a better idea.

“I know someone,” he said, scooping Junkrat up to carry him to the sidecar. “From the Australian Liberation Front. She used to be a doctor before she was displaced.”

He hadn’t seen Dr. Ava Pennington in at least a decade. After the omnium explosion, he had stayed behind in the wreckage and carved out a place for himself on the outskirts of the cutthroat society that sprang up in its wake. With the radiation poisoning spreading to his already-weak lungs, the idea of donning a gas mask and starting a solitary life of crime had held a certain allure. He was angry, he’d lost everything he’d ever owned to the omnics, and he needed a fresh start in a place where no one knew his face or his name, where he didn’t have to answer to anyone but himself.

Ava, on the other hand… Roadhog imagined that if she hadn’t been married, Ava would have traveled down the same path as he had, perhaps even become Queen of Junkertown herself. Maybe he wouldn’t have minded the sad excuse for a city so much if Ava was the one in charge. But Rosa was a civilian, an innocent bystander as her wife conspired with the rest of the Australian Liberation Front to take out the omnium. Ava was eccentric, she preferred the isolation of the Outback, but she wasn’t willing to uproot Rosa and put her life in danger. Instead of staying behind and building Junkertown -- or, in Roadhog’s case, disdainfully watching from afar -- she and Rosa retired to their own quiet house on the outskirts of the Outback. They were well removed from both Junker society and civilised society, but close enough to commute. The last time he’d spoken to Ava, she had been talking about trying to do medicine part-time, aiming for three twelve-hour shifts a week as a trauma surgeon in the city. She’d know how to fix this.

Junkrat drew what remained of his arm close to his body and curled inward, hiding his face in Roadhog’s chest. “I don’t want any maggots in me,” he mumbled. “She’s not puttin’ them in me, I don’t want maggots in me, I won’t do it, you can’t make me.”

Roadhog had heard plenty of non sequiturs from Junkrat in the short time they had been together, but this one threw him for a loop. Baffled, he said, “Maggots-- No one’s putting maggots in you.”

“She’s not doin’ it, no, no.”

“I won’t let her put maggots in you.”

Junkrat closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay. Good. Okay.”

Roadhog settled Junkrat into the sidecar of his chopper. He wrapped the blanket they had bought for Piglet around Junkrat in a last-ditch attempt to keep him from slipping into irreversible shock. Night was quickly descending upon them, and once the blistering sun sunk below the horizon, a chill would settle through the desert -- the last thing a wounded Junkrat needed to contend with.

As he revved up the engine, a long-forgotten feeling gnawed at the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t until they were roaring through the Outback, kicking up a trail of dust in their wake, that he realised that Junkrat’s observation had been right -- for the first time in years, fear was clawing at his insides.

---

Junkrat had slipped into unconsciousness during the trip to Ava’s. The pain and physical exhaustion from the late hour proved too much for him, and, unable to cope, his body shut down. Roadhog scooped him up, letting the bloody stump of his arm dangle freely, and carried him to the house.

Junkrat’s scrawny body was tiny in his massive hands. It took little effort to shift his weight to one side and bang on the front door with deafening force.

Ava answered the door in her echidna-patterned pajamas, bedhead rendering her untamed mane of tightly-wound curls wilder than ever. Her jaw dropped, eyes widening as she looked up at Roadhog. “Mako--!”

“Fix him.” Roadhog held out Junkrat’s broken body. There would be time for pleasantries later. They had precious little time, and right now, he was more concerned with saving the life of this freak he barely knew than he was with greeting an old friend.

Ava shut her mouth and tried to peer around his massive frame. “Yeah, sure, I can fix that right up -- you got the broken off bits hiding back there?”

Roadhog glowered at her. “He’s dying, Ava,” he said coldly.

Ava couldn’t see his expression through the thick lenses of his gas mask, but she read his displeasure loud and clear. “Sorry, big fella, I hear you, that was in poor taste. Well, what are you just standing around for? Get him in here, let’s have a looky loo.”

She stood aside to let him in and shifted into doctor mode, striding into the kitchen with purpose. Junkrat shifted in Roadhog’s arms, tightening his grip on the bloody stump clutched to his chest, as if he knew his suffering was about to get much worse. Ava quickly sanitised the kitchen table, a facsimile of a sterile operating workspace, and Roadhog carefully lowered Junkrat onto it.

“Rosa, doll?” Ava called. “Come give me a hand!”

Ava’s wife appeared behind them, her round face furrowed with concern. “Honey...?” she said, pausing to drink in the scene before her.

“Hi.” Roadhog lifted a hand in greeting.

Rosa’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Mako!”

“It’s Roadhog now,” he reminded her. He’d made the decision to shed his birth name after the omnium incident, instead adopting the nickname bestowed upon him by Ava and some of the other Australian Liberation Front members. He’d earned a reputation as a roadhog from the other bikers in their gang of rebels, and he’d latched onto the moniker with a proud ferocity. As the Junker society rose from the ashes of the omnium explosion, he found that he was far from alone. Countless Junkers adopted names that fit their reinvented identities or places in Junkertown’s lawless society.

“Roadhog,” Rosa repeated, nodding. She looked past him at the man bleeding out on her kitchen table. “What do you need me to do?” she asked Ava, brown eyes alert and focused despite the late hour.

Ava had already snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and was undoing Junkrat’s tourniquet. “First things first: whip me up a couple litres of sterile saline solution,” she said. “Real slipshod job with the tourniquet here, Roadhog,” she added, handing him the old bandanna and belt.

“I was under a lot of pressure.” He stuffed the bloody bandanna back in his pocket and draped Junkrat’s belt over the back of a chair for safekeeping.

“No excuse for getting sloppy!” She wagged a reproachful finger at him. “I didn’t waste my expertise teaching you for you to go forgetting it the second the going gets tough!” She raised her voice to address Rosa, who was already pouring water into the electric kettle to prepare the saline solution. “Oh, and babe, change the sheets on the bed when you get a sec -- this poor sod’s gonna need somewhere to sleep after all this.”

Ava hefted her bag of tools onto the table and searched through it, pulling out various surgical instruments and muttering to herself as she took inventory. “Bone saw, suture anchors, scalpel, forceps…”

She noticed Roadhog looking at her and sensed his masked concern. “What do you look so worried for? I’m very good at my job, remember?” She grinned up at him. He presumed that it was intended to put him at ease, but there was something about Ava’s smile that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Not for the first time in his life, he was glad that she was on their side.

Ava held up two fingers. “Steps one and two to sorting out this mess: irrigation and surgical debridement,” she explained. “Layman’s terms, gonna flush out all the nasty debris in that gaping wound as best as I can and remove all the dead and contaminated tissue and any other foreign material that’s really lodged up in there. Once that’s done, then we can focus on closing it all up. How’s that saline looking, Rosa?”

She left Roadhog’s side to fetch the sterile solution that Rosa was mixing together. Roadhog leaned over Junkrat, searching his face for any signs of life. He thought he saw Junkrat’s eyes flutter open for the briefest of seconds. “I’m gonna fix this,” he muttered, his voice low so that only Junkrat could hear him -- if he even could. His grip on the conscious world seemed tenuous at best.

He stepped back as Ava returned with a jar of saline solution and eyed the row of gleaming surgical instruments she had arranged on the table. “Do you have anaesthesia?” he asked.

She shook her head, curls bouncing from side to side. “‘Fraid not. I’m not an anaesthetist, and that’s all highly regulated anyway. Let’s hope your man here has a high tolerance for pain, eh?”

Roadhog’s brow furrowed in concern. Life would be a lot easier for Junkrat if he could be knocked out during this ordeal.

Rosa placed a hand on his arm, and he flinched at the sudden contact. “He’s in good hands, Roadhog,” she said softly. She had a warm, wet washcloth in hand and used it to wipe the dried blood caked on Junkrat’s chest and face.

“The best!” Ava agreed jovially. She bent over Junkrat. “Oi, don’t know if you can hear me, but just hang in there, alright? This might sting just a tad, but never you worry, it’ll all be over soon!” She thumped Junkrat’s good arm in a somewhat reassuring gesture and started humming to herself as she began washing out the bloody stump with a steady stream of saline solution. Ava’s bedside manner perplexed Roadhog; she was so relentlessly cheerful in the face of grievous bodily injury, and her humming, while perfectly pleasant, felt oddly morbid. He thought he recognised the tune from the opening theme of an old, black-and-white horror film he’d seen back in the day. Frankenstein? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, perhaps?

“Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” Ava said out loud, as if she had read his mind. “Bach’s finest organ piece, in my humble opinion.” She bent her head closer to inspect the wound, cleansed of the surface dirt and grit. She reached for the scalpel and forceps and--

Junkrat whimpered, a sound so pitiful that it stabbed Roadhog in the heart.

He took a step closer. “What can I do?” he asked, peering over Ava’s shoulder and watching as she concentrated on excising a mutilated piece of tissue.

“Stop breathing down my neck, is what!” Ava said, shrugging him off.

There was no malice in her words, but still, Roadhog took a step back, suddenly self-conscious of the way his labored breathing wheezed through the filters of his gas mask.

“Actually, wash your hands and hold this a second.” He quickly obliged. She handed him the bloody scalpel, which he pinched between his thumb and forefinger until she held out her hand expectantly. “You’re real lucky you have me and my tools for this, you know. There’s more unsavory methods of debridement out there. Did you know that maggot therapy is a thing? Green bottle fly larvae will eat necrotic tissue, but it takes a few days, and between you and me, it’s pretty gross.”

All at once, Junkrat’s slurred rambling about maggots made perfect sense. Roadhog looked down at Junkrat and his peg leg with newfound clarity. Junkrat had told him all about how he’d lost his leg in an accident with one of his mines but failed to mention the gory aftermath.

He wondered what other things his partner had never shared with him.

Roadhog adopted the unofficial role of surgical technologist, handing Ava whatever instruments she needed. He watched the proceedings with a growing sense of dread, unable to look away. Ava activated the bone saw, and the electric buzzing gave way to a sickening grinding noise as she shaved off another two inches of severed bone.

“Exposed bone gets infected just like everything else,” Ava explained over the loud whirr, “and I need to hollow the arm out, so to speak. Create enough leftover skin to seal up this stub once all those fleshy bits are tidied up and anchored down. Related: get those suture anchors ready, I’m going to need them soon.”

Roadhog said nothing as Ava concentrated on rearranging the remaining tissue into what she referred to as a “soft tissue envelope -- sort of like a fatty cushion, it’ll make it less painful for him, especially if he ever wants to try for a prosthetic like that leg of his.” She drew the muscles over the radius and ulna and placed sutures through them, anchoring them to the severed bones.

Once everything was screwed down and secure, Ava declared that she no longer needed his assistance. Roadhog retreated to watch from a distance as Ava began the painstaking process of closing the wound, arranging the remaining flaps of skin just so and stitching it up.

“Oh, are you awake?” Ava said aloud. “I’m Dr. Ava Pennington --  you’re gonna be okay.”

Junkrat gave a groan, and Roadhog, who had sank heavily on a kitchen chair, knocked it over in his haste to stand up. By the time he reached the kitchen table, Junkrat’s eyes had closed and his jaw had gone slack. Still, hearing Junkrat’s voice and knowing that he was momentarily lucid eased some of the weight on Roadhog’s chest.

He sat back down, the sudden spike of adrenaline coupled with the rest of the night’s labors tuckering him out.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do but wait it out,” Ava finally announced, wiping her bloody hands on an old dishtowel. She turned to face Roadhog. “Change his dressings, keep an eye on the swelling, give him meds when he comes ‘round, and hope his li’l body’s strong enough to fight off infection. And try to make him comfortable in the meantime.”

“There’s fresh sheets on the bed,” Rosa added, “if you want to move him there.”

Roadhog nodded and stood up. His limbs felt like lead as he crossed the short distance to the kitchen table and picked Junkrat up.

Ava’s and Rosa’s house was a small, studio-style place where the kitchen, living room, and bedroom bled into one another. A flimsy, decorative sliding room divider offered the mere illusion of privacy; it didn’t extend far enough to cordon the bedroom off from the rest of the house. It creaked as Rosa pulled it open. Roadhog had the impression it was rarely used.

There were signs of their hosts’ interrupted lives -- Rosa’s book on the nightstand, Ava’s rumpled clothes on the floor, directly next to the laundry hamper that stood in the corner -- but the sheets were clean, and that was all that mattered, momentary guilt be damned.

Rosa pulled the covers back so that Roadhog could tuck Junkrat in. The three of them circled around the bed, eyeing their patient.

“What is he?” Ava asked.

Rosa gasped and swatted her wife. “Ava! He’s a human being!”

Ava cowered with a laugh, hands raised in surrender. “Not what I meant! Not what I meant! I meant, what’s he to you? I mean, I haven’t seen you in years, Mako -- last I saw of you, you were striking out on your own. Then you show up on my doorstep with some bloke who’s down an arm and a leg. What is he, boyfriend, business partner, friend...?” She waved her hand, encouraging him to fill in the blank.

Roadhog briefly considered it. “Partner in crime,” he answered. He wasn’t willing to define things further -- even calling Junkrat his partner in crime was being generous, given the turbulent start to their relationship.

Ava shrugged. “Works for me!”

There was a moment’s lull as they watched Junkrat twitch fitfully in his sleep.

“Bit of an odd-looking fella, isn’t he?” Ava said. “How’dya meet?”

“We won’t pry further,” Rosa hastened to add, planting her hands on her wife’s shoulders and pivoting her around.

“Oh, sure, plenty of time to catch up later!” Ava said, dutifully allowing Rosa to steer her towards the living room. “We should crash now, brilliant idea. It’s been a long night and your mate here needs his rest.” She paused, casting Roadhog a shrewd look. “You planning on staying up a little longer to keep an eye on him?”

He nodded mutely. He knew Ava expected a more thorough answer, but he didn’t see the sense in responding verbally when he could communicate the bare minimum silently.

She tapped the side of her nose with her finger. “I know you, old friend, you did the same with Riptide, remember?” Roadhog remembered. He’d looked after his fellow Australian Liberation Front member when he was injured, and the man had repaid him by robbing him blind. Roadhog had given up on trusting people after that. Ava -- and her wife, by extension -- was the exception to the rule. The jury was still out as far as Junkrat was concerned, but he had proven to be a man of his word thus far. He couldn’t count for shit, but he tried his hardest to adhere to their 50-50 rule.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Ava continued. “I’ve already got one patient, I don’t need you getting ill too! I might be good, but I can tell this guy’s gonna be a handful…”

“Ava, honey, why don’t you go get the sleeping bags set up?” Rosa said with as much sweetness as she could muster. She pushed Ava over the invisible line that separated the living room from the bedroom and extended the divider to block her from view.

“Can do!” Ava’s voice floated through the screen.

Rosa gave Roadhog an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry she’s… the way that she is. But you know all about that, don’t you?”

Roadhog nodded again and sank down in a chintzy armchair. He couldn’t tell if it belonged to the bedroom or the living room. He was very familiar with Ava’s matter-of-fact, occasionally insensitive remarks. She meant well -- as far as he could tell, anyway -- and he appreciated her candor. Her oddities had, in some bizarre way, prepared him for Junkrat’s quirks and spastic demeanor.

Rosa placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “She is right, though. You should get some sleep, Roadhog,” she said. “Stress and no sleep can’t be good for your health.”

“I can sleep when I’m dead.” He didn’t take his eyes off of Junkrat.

Rosa bit her lip but nodded. “If that’s how you feel.” She opened the linen closet and pulled out a patchwork quilt.

Roadhog finally looked up at Rosa as she draped the blanket over his shoulders.

“You have to take care of yourself too, you know,” she told him. “You’re no good to Junkrat if you run yourself ragged.”

“I’m no good to him now,” he said quietly.

Rosa gave him a small, sad smile. “I know,” she said. “I know you think that. But I’m sure he would say different.”

What the hell did I hire ya for? I’m down a fuckin’ arm thanks to you!

Roadhog didn’t share Rosa’s convictions. He drew the quilt down his shoulders and turned his attention back to Junkrat.

Rosa waited a few seconds for him to answer. When it became apparent that he had no such intentions, she stood up. “Well, promise you’ll at least try to catch a few winks then?”

Roadhog nodded wordlessly.

“Good.” Rosa stood up and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Ava and I will be in the living room, alright? Just give us a shout if you need us. The couch is all yours, whenever you’re ready to get some rest.”

Rosa extended the screen to its fullest width to afford Roadhog a modicum of privacy, leaving him to wonder how and when he had gotten so invested in the wellbeing of the little freak he had tried to kill just a few short months ago.

Junkrat squirmed on the bed, perspiration beading on his forehead, and struck out with his foot. The sheet tangled around his leg, and Roadhog realised that Junkrat was still wearing his peg leg.

He hadn’t given the peg leg much thought after their first encounter; Junkrat wasn’t the first Junker with a missing limb he’d met, and he used his prosthetic leg effortlessly. It was a natural extension, in Roadhog’s mind’s eye.

Still, he knew it couldn’t be comfortable to sleep in. There were nights where Junkrat didn’t remove it, nights where they were both on edge and needed to make a quick getaway. The next day, his usual awkward gait turned into a full-fledged limp, and Roadhog would catch him uncomfortably adjusting the socket. Nine times out of ten, Junkrat removed the prosthetic when he was sleeping. Hell, he’d done it their first night together -- a bold move, considering that not 24 hours prior, Roadhog had been attempting to kill him.

He couldn’t imagine the kind of pain Junkrat was in right now. The least he could do was make sure he was as comfortable as possible.

Roadhog stood up and approached the side of the bed. “Hey,” he muttered. He didn’t know if Junkrat could hear him in this state, but it didn’t feel right to touch Junkrat without telling him. Roadhog was leery of physical contact from anyone but the closest of friends, and while he doubted -- knew -- that Junkrat didn’t share his reservations, he didn’t want to violate Junkrat’s personal space. “Just gonna take off your leg for you. Hold still.”

Whether or not he heard him, Junkrat stopped fidgeting once Roadhog laid hands on him.

His skin was hot and clammy, a sure sign that a fever was sinking in.

Roadhog untangled Junkrat from the sheets twisted around his legs. He pushed the ragged fabric of Junkrat’s shorts up his right thigh to expose the junction where the socket of his peg leg met flesh. As he figured out how to detach the prosthetic, his thumb traced the scar tissue of Junkrat’s thigh. There was a nasty, twisted gash that ran up the inner part of the stump, and it reminded Roadhog of the battle scar that curved up the side of his own face.

He set the peg leg aside and removed the sock that covered the stump, and Junkrat sighed. Roadhog was sure that the prosthetic liner made the peg leg more comfortable to wear, serving as a barrier between the flesh of the residual limb and the prosthetic itself, but it had to feel good to let the stump breathe every now and then.

The armchair groaned as Roadhog sat back down, pulling it closer to the bedside. He closed his eyes. He was getting tired in spite of himself, but the thought of leaving Junkrat alone when he was feverish left a sour taste in his mouth. He wasn’t used to feeling guilt or compassion -- it had been a long time since he’d connected with anyone enough to particularly care about how his actions affected them.

He thought back to Ava’s question: what was Junkrat to him? He didn’t know how to define their relationship. He had never met anyone quite like Junkrat before. The man was an idiot. He baffled Roadhog on a daily basis. He didn’t listen, and Roadhog was still liable to hit him if he overstepped his physical boundaries. They hadn’t reached the point in this bizarre relationship they had cultivated where Roadhog was comfortable with Junkrat poking his belly, which he tended to do with suicidal regularity.

And yet. Junkrat made him laugh -- truly and genuinely laugh. He had been so good with Piglet. Not a lot of criminals would have been so agreeable to adopting a pet pig. He had been amenable to spending some of their hard-earned cash on luxuries for said pig, and only protested a little when Roadhog had insisted on getting baby oil for Piglet. Somehow, Junkrat had even gotten him to volunteer information about his life as Mako Rutledge, to talk about the pigs he raised before everything went south.

For better or worse, Junkrat was a part of his life now, and as loathe as he was to admit it, he was growing fond of the obnoxious asshole. Fond enough to feel regret, both on a professional and a personal level, for failing to protect him.

When he opened his eyes once more, he found that Junkrat’s brow was furrowed, his face contorted like he was having a particularly bad dream. No stranger to nightmares, Roadhog patted Junkrat’s hand in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. The wrinkle in Junkrat’s brow smoothed out slightly.

Roadhog fell asleep in the chair, his hand still covering Junkrat’s.

“Shut up,” he said when Ava woke him the following morning.

“I didn’t say anything,” she answered, grinning like the cat who caught the canary.

Junkrat surfaced long enough to take some painkillers, but he was in no condition to carry on a conversation with anyone and didn’t seem entirely aware of his surroundings. After blindly taking the medicine he was offered, he nodded off once more, his body shutting down in an attempt to sleep off the pain. Ava confirmed that his temperature had spiked, a sure sign of infection, and they took turns administering cold compresses.

Ava pulled out a puzzle for them to work on in their downtime, giving Roadhog something to focus on asides from his concern about Junkrat. That night, he decided to sleep on the couch -- it reassured him to stay with Junkrat, but sleeping upright in the chair was bad for his back, and he needed a good night’s rest. If he withdrew the screen, he could still keep an eye on the bed from the couch

He checked in on Junkrat before bed, fresh cold compress in hand, only to find that he had kicked his blankets off in his sleep and was shivering violently.

Roadhog frowned and dragged the covers back over him. It wasn’t exactly chilly in the house -- the quilt Rosa had given him the previous night had been more for comfort than to ward off the cold.  

Junkrat stilled for a few moments before thrashing them off again. He trembled like a leaf, curling up in an unconscious attempt to warm himself up.

Roadhog sighed. The fever had yet to break, and Junkrat’s body temperature was obviously swinging from one extreme to the other. He set the cold compress on the nightstand.

There was plenty of room in the king sized bed for him to lay down next to Junkrat, who was so skinny that Roadhog could count his ribs. He wrapped an arm around Junkrat’s waist and pulled him close, hoping that his body heat would be enough to strike that balance between too hot and too cold.

Junkrat stilled, all the tension in his muscles dissipating as he relaxed against Roadhog’s body. His good hand found Roadhog’s arm, and his fingers lightly brushed against his forearm.

Roadhog bent his head so that the snout of his mask snuffled against the ashy tips of Junkrat’s hair. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about how right this felt.

His last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was that he was going to have a hell of a time explaining this to Ava in the morning.

[missjackil]

We’ll Figure It Out (Pt 1)

gif art by @travellerintime thank you so much!

Summary: After recent events, Sam has been fighting insomnia. Dean wants to help him in any way possible. He need’s Sam to talk about his experience, and needs him to relax, and will do anything to get him there. Pairing: Sam Wincester / Dean Winchester Warnings: None Tags: WIncest, First Time, Season 12 Divergance, Bunker Sex, Depressed!Sam, Caring!Dean, Comfort, Slow Burn, not too smutty

                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dean’s eyes burn after what felt like 24 hours straight of reading articles on the internet about crazy events that might be in their wheelhouse. Nothing particularly jumped off the screen to him, so he took the last 2 swallows from his beer and decided to call it a night. Sam had gone to bed hours ago. A little earlier than normal, but he had been looking more tired than usual, and it’s probably just caught up to him.

 As he approached his bedroom door, Dean paused and listened to voices coming from Sam’s room. It sounded like the TV, but Sam doesn’t usually fall asleep with the TV on, so he decides to check on his brother.

“It’s open.” Sam says as he hears Dean’s signature “shave and a haircut” knock on his door. Dean opens the door to find Sam watching TV in the dark, sitting up on his bed, in his T-shirt and lounge pants, sipping from a tumbler of whiskey, also not normal Sam behavior. Dean is sure something is out of whack.

“Hey, you okay?” Dean asks as he gives Sam a once over look to see if there is anything visibly wrong.

“Yeah,” Sam says with a half smile, “just can’t sleep. Trying to take the edge off,” as he gestures with the tumbler. Dean glances over at the whiskey bottle on the night stand. Still 3/4 of the way full. Sam could probably still drive if he had to at this point, so Dean lets himself relax a little...his little brother isn’t sitting in the dark, brooding and getting drunk.

“Whatcha watching?” Dean takes a swig from the bottle himself.

Sam chuckles.  “Believe it or not, a documentary about Hitler. How conspiracy theorists don’t believe he died in 1945,”

Dean grins with pride.“Well, we know he didn’t. He died in 2016, from a bullet to the head, fired by yours truly.” They both smile and clink a glass to bottle and take another swig.

“Want some company?” Dean asks, and Sam slides over to make room on the bed for him. Dean takes a seat, puts his feet up, and pours 2 more fingers of whiskey into Sam’s glass, takes another swig from the bottle himself and sets it down on the nightstand.

Sam never admits it, but he likes when Dean is this close to him. If it was anyone else coming into his personal space like this, he would subtly move away a bit, but this was his big brother. He knows, for whatever reason, Dean likes to be touching him, or at least close enough to touch him if he needs to.

Dean isn’t good with words, but he always speaks volumes with touch. Sam is somewhat the opposite. He doesn’t need to be physical, he much prefers talking or listening to someone else talk, but for Dean, he happily accommodates him and allows him to be as close as he needs to be.

The brothers share several silent minutes, staring at the TV, absently sipping whiskey. Dean rests his right hand on Sam’s thigh. Sam is highly aware of it but isn’t sure if Dean realizes he has done so. Sometimes Dean would touch him in ways that you never see one brother touch another, but do it with such ease that Sam would try to brush it off as just a “Dean thing” even though it would always make his stomach leap a little.

Sam had lost all interest in whatever was on TV and focused on how Dean was touching him. There was no space between them, and though there was a good foot of bed left on either side, neither made any effort to separate. They were even propped up on the same pillow.

Dean absently thumbed the fabric of Sam’s pants. Sam had to wonder what this was doing for his brother. Was he even conscious of it? He didn’t plan on asking because it would surely make him stop, and Sam wanted to stay absorbed in this feeling.

Dean broke the silence by picking up the whiskey bottle again and offering more to Sam. Sam declined by showing he still had plenty in his glass, and Dean took another long swig and settled back in next to Sam. He looked at his face for a moment, trying to read him.

Sam looked content, but still had traces of melancholy in the lines of his forehead and cheeks. His eyes blinked slowly, as though he was in deep thought about so many things he kept hidden. Dean was sure he didn’t know half of what goes on in that huge brain of Sam’s. Experiences he never speaks of past vague comments, and hints about their severity.

Dean knew Sam kept things from him since they were little kids. It used to hurt him, thinking Sam didn’t trust him, but as they aged, and became closer, Dean knew it had nothing to do with trust, but with Sam not wanting to make these things really real. As if not speaking certain words, or describing certain events, would make them disappear.

  Dean thought back to a time when Sam was 12, and Dad had been missing for a week. The first time they hadn’t heard from him for more than 3 days. Normally, if Dad knew he would be gone for more than a week, he would send the boys to Bobby’s or rent them a motel in a safe town and be back before they overstayed the rent.

However, this time, Dad didn't come back or call and when the motel managers came asking for more money, the boys had to get resourceful. They gave the manager most of what was left of the food money to pay for 2 more days, then the boys set out trash picking to find anything they could sell to a thrift store or pawn shop.

Sam would be fine during the day, while they hunted for sellable items, but at night he would cry for hours. Trying to be quiet so Dean wouldn't hear. It never worked. Dean always heard him, and though usually, he would let him have his space, some nights it was too much to bare and Dean would lay down beside him. “It’s Ok Sammy, Dad will call soon. I promise”

Then came that day when Summer Vacation was 5 days over and the boys hadn’t been enrolled in school when Sam had a bit of a meltdown.

“Dean! What do we do?! School has already started and Dad isn’t here to enroll us!”

Dean tried to joke to get Sam to calm down “You have got to be the only 12-year-old in the country that doesn’t want summer vacation to last longer!”

But Sam was always too smart for his age and knew about how things worked in the real world. “Dean, if we don’t go to school, the motel managers are going to see us here and report us to Child Services!”

Dean countered “So? We’ll get dressed in the morning and leave like we’re going to school, and just hang out at the park or the mall or something.”

Sam threw his hands up in frustration, tears streaming down his face. “Dammit, Dean! If the Cops see us walking around during school hours, they will take us to Child Services and we’ll be put in Foster Care! We’ll be separated!”

Dean knew Sam wasn’t wrong, but he had to think of something before the kid had a real nervous breakdown. “Alright, I’ll call Uncle Bobby and see if he can come get us. We can stay there for years in case Dad is dead.”

No sooner had Dean said it, then Sam flew across the room and pushed him “DON’T SAY IT, DEAN!! DON’T YOU EVER SAY IT!”

Dean catches himself and gets a firm grip on Sam “Shit Sammy, what’s going on with you?” Sam broke down in tears “If you never say it, then it won't be true!”

Dean pulled his little brother in and wrapped his arms around him. “Okay Sammy, Dad’s fine, he’ll be back soon. Until then, we’ll figure it out, we always do.”  

Then just as if their father had felt their fear, he walked through the motel door. Bandaged and bruised with a broken leg, but welcomed both his sons into his arms. “I’m sorry boys, I'm so sorry.”

Sam isn’t generally superstitious, but he has a few quirks, this happened to be one. Something about not speaking the words about any fear. emotion, or trauma, made them easier to deal with. Speaking the words means someone else will hear, and if they hear, they’ll know, and then he won't be able to convince himself it’s not true.

In fact, when other people, even Dean, had called him a “freak”, he never really felt like he was until he called himself a freak, then it became real.  So that was his therapy of choice. Bury it, don't speak of it, and it’s not real.

The Hitler documentary had finished, with sadly, no mention of how Sam and Dean stopped The Thule Society, and Hitler himself, and had moved on to a documentary on Prohibition.  

Sam was 3 glasses of whiskey into a warm mellow buzz. Still not drunk, but looser. If Dean pressed any issue, he was sure he could get Sam to spill, but he didn’t want to pressure him, he wanted him to open up if he wanted to.

“You feeling okay Sammy?” Dean nudged him with his shoulder.

"Yeah, I’m fine, I'm just... I don’t know... maybe it’s all just weighing me down now.” Sam sat forward, bending his knees up and leaning arms on them. “We’ve had one hit after another. BIG hits, first me being tortured and uh.... the whole deal with Toni Bevel, to Mom being back and leaving, then our asses ending up in little Gitmo, and now this deal with Lucifer and his love child? Sometimes I can’t get my brain to shut down so I can rest.”

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” Dean asked with concern, he knew after seeing Sam go 5 days without sleep a few years back, that insomnia was stage 4 of an emotional breakdown.

“I did sleep yesterday, for a few hours,” Sam said, rubbing his face. “That's been the norm since prison. I sleep 3, maybe 4 hours a night if I get there. But sometimes, like tonight, I just can't get there.”  

Dean stared at the back of Sam’s head. resisting the urge to stroke his hair. It looked soft, and a little messy, making Dean want to smooth it out. He would never admit it, but he loved that Sam kept it long. He gives Sam’s hair one supportive stroke “Don’t worry about it Sam. we’ll figure it out, we always do.”

Dean wanted to help Sam sleep but didn’t know how.  He would offer him a sleeping pill from his own stash, but Sam wasn’t a fan of sedatives other than alcohol, because he could control the sedation level of the alcohol himself, and since he had a few drinks in him, Dean thought it might not be safe anyway. So, Plan B. “Hey Sammy, when was the last time I gave you a massage?”

“A massage?” Sam popped his head up startled by the question.

“Yeah, a massage. I used to give them to you after almost every hunt, then for some reason, you stopped asking.” Dean raised an eyebrow as if to say “Yeah, I did notice.”

Sam sat straight up on the bed, trying to think. “Um I don't know, I think maybe 4 or 5 years, since I had insomnia before?” It was. It had been just after Sam got a face full of Hell memories, that he avoided being touched most of the time, but Dean insisted, once he got Sam out of the mental ward and his head was feeling better. He wanted to make sure he would finally get a good night sleep, so he rubbed Sam’s back, neck, and shoulders until he was snoring.

“Do you want one? I think it will help you feel better.” Dean asked before proceeding.

“Uh yeah, sure? I think I have massage oil in the medicine cabinet actually,” Sam tried not to smile or look overly eager, but it wasn’t really working. Sometimes he would want to ask Dean for a massage, but it had been so long, and so much has happened, he was afraid they’d passed that level of closeness, and Dean would reject him. He knew deep down it wasn’t true but was still afraid to risk it.

Dean picked a bottle out of the medicine cabinet. Red with a black leaf stenciled on it. “All Natural Scented Massage Oil” Dean read from the bottle. He opened the cap and sniffed it. Gave a look of approval to the scent. It smelled like vanilla with a hint of cinnamon. He couldn’t help but wonder what it tasted like. He stuffed that thought away for another time. “Self-heating?” he read from the bottle “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam smiled, a little embarrassed but answered anyway. “It means it heats up when you touch it or put....” Sam stopped abruptly, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“Orrrrr what Sammy?” Dean grinned.

Sam let out a defeated sigh “Or if you put your mouth on it.”

Sam’s crooked grin, and the way he scratched his head let Dean know he was a little embarrassed.

“Wow, Sam gotta say I'm pretty impressed.  But wait! You can put your mouth on.....nevermind.”

Sam laughed “You’re an idiot.”

Dean relented with a follow through, he wanted to be able to get Sam relaxed into sleep. “Okay, weirdness over. Lay on your stomach, let's do this.”

Sam took his gentle orders and took his shirt off before he laid down. He brought the pillow down to the foot of the bed with him, and crunched it in his arms and rested his chin on it. He felt Dean squirt a generous amount of oil between his shoulder blades and down his back to just above the waistband of his pants. It was a little bit cold, but that wasn’t what made the chill run up his spine.

As soon as Dean put his hands on the middle of his back, Sam felt the oil getting warm beneath them. Automatically, Sam felt relief. Like laying back in a hot tub. He closed his eyes and let the feeling of his brother's hands spreading the oil around his back, pull him into a warm place he hadn’t felt in years. Before things got so crazy and weighed so heavily on their shoulders.

He thought to himself how he has never really given Dean a massage. He has rubbed out his shoulder before, or his bum knee, but never did this. This felt so awesome, that he felt like he should share the experience. Tomorrow maybe, or the next day, just not too soon after this, then it would just be weird.

                        Sam stared up at the TV, not really paying attention, but a commercial came on with a little boy complaining of a sore throat and his dad offering this children’s sore throat medicine, and Sam remembered when he was 7 and had strep throat. How raw and sore it was but the medicine the Doctor gave him smelled and looked horrible, and he refused to take it.

Dad got frustrated with him. “Sammy, you have to take it or you’re not going to get better and you’ll end up in the Hospital, and you know we don’t have time for that!”

Sam still refused, and Dad pushed the medicine bottle and spoon at Dean. “Here! Maybe you can get through to him,” and stomped out of the room.

Dean sat down on the bed next to his sick little brother. “C’mon Sammy, let's get you better. Here, I'll take some first and tell you if it tastes like ass okay?”

Dean poured himself a spoon full of this thick pink swill and swallowed the whole thing in one shot. He grimaced and gave an exaggerated gag, which made Sam laugh. “Now you do it, and if you swallow it without making a face, it means you’re stronger than me. You ready?”

Sam nodded and took down the whole spoonful. It did indeed taste like ass, but Sam fought back a gag put all his strength into not making a face. Dean ruffled his hair in pride. “You’re a bigger, stronger man than me, Sammy,” he said. Almost like prophecy.

Dean pressed firmly into the muscles in Sam’s back. Admiring, and almost envying the definition of them. Sam was still muscular, and healthy, but that didn’t stop Dean from worrying about the weight he had dropped over the past few years. He was watching him though. He was definitely eating, real food, not just rabbit food, and still enjoyed cheeseburgers and pizza more than a few times a month.

Maybe it was just because he runs regularly now. Before, Sam would work out, but running wasn’t part of his routine until after he had gotten his soul back.  Sam used to run a lot more on the job when he had no soul, maybe that’s something that stayed with him from the transition, the urge to run. Whatever it was, the muscle was still firm and defined, just more lean than bulky.  7 years ago, Sam would definitely beat him at arm wrestling, but Dean wasn’t so sure now.

Sam felt like he could fall asleep now, with very little effort, but it was so rare to feel this comfort and peace, that he wanted to savor it for as long as he could. His muscles were loosening up right along with his mind. He could sense every word Dean was saying with his hands, by the way, they moved. They never said “I love you” to each other in words, but it was always known by their actions.

He could hear those words coming from Dean’s hands right now, and he let himself be dragged down into it. Their actions of love for each other had gone from the simple things, like cooking each other a nice meal, to soul selling, and releasing The Darkness to save each other. What more could they possibly do to convey this message further?

Sam let his mind dip momentarily into the secret world he’s wanted to take Dean for years. The world where it didn't matter that they’re brothers, but only that they were each other's very heart and soul. Two sides of the same coin, and could express this bond any way they saw fit. For a moment, Sam imagined laying naked beside Dean. Flesh to flesh, with no walls and no rules. Wrapping each other in their arms, legs, and lips, until they were truly one single unit. It wasn’t about sex really, it was about completion.

Dean squeezed some more oil on Sam’s shoulders, and Sam immediately responded by arching his back and rocking his hips a little bit. Dean liked this... a lot. He felt a great satisfaction in being able to melt Sam under his hands.

He slid his hands up to Sam’s neck and gently moved his hair over to the side so he could press his thumbs into his nape. Sam let out a low moan and buried his face into the pillow as if to stifle it. “Does that feel good Sammy?” Dean said, knowing the answer already. He could read Sam like a braille book by the goosebumps raised on his skin. Sam didn’t answer, he didn’t need to.

                       Dean stayed in the zone. Kneading his brother’s neck and shoulders until the tightness melted away. It was working, Sam was relaxed and would start talking soon.  “Still with me Sammy?” Dean broke the silence.

Sam drew a long breath and assured Dean he was still awake and nodded “Yeah.”

“Dean? Can I asked you something?”

“Yeah, sure. Ask anything.” Dean could tell Sam was in a thoughtful place by the tone of his voice.

“Do you still regret being alive?” Sam asked, turning his head to the side so he could see Dean’s face. Dean didn’t expect this kind of question, and Sam could see he was trying to wrap his head around it.

“Seriously. When the faith healer healed you, and then Dad sold his soul, you kept saying you should have stayed dead. Do you still feel that way?”

Dean hadn’t given it much thought for a long time. In fact, every morning that he woke up on the cold side of a funeral pyre, and Sam was right there with him, was a good day for him. But it brought up a question for him as well. “No Sam, I don’t regret it. Do I wish it went down differently?  That Dad hadn't died in my place?"

"Yes... but  I'm happy to be alive.and I'm even more happy you still are too.” Dean approached his question, with his hands still on Sam’s back. No longer rubbing, just touching. “How about you Sammy? Do you still hate me for the whole Gadreel thing?”

Sam propped himself up on one arm and looked at Dean straight in the eyes. “I have never, and will NEVER hate you, no matter what you’ve done. Even if you stayed full on, foaming at the mouth Demon. You’re my brother and I lo..... “ Sam stopped himself from saying those words. This wasn’t the right time."

“I’ve forgiven you. I have. I no longer wish I was dead, and I'm grateful for every time you’ve saved me because I've gotten to save your ass just as much. My problem was always that possession is the worst thing ever for me, and you didn’t allow me to make that choice.”

Dean rubbed his face in frustration. He knew it would come up again someday, but they had been enjoying this time so much. Why did it have to be now? “Because you asked him, stupid!” Dean thought and automatically regretted it.  “Sam, I am never going to say I'm sorry for saving your life ever!”

“I know, and I’m not asking you to...I just want to know, to trust, that you won't ever do that to me again.” Sam kept his gaze on Dean’s face. He could see the pain in his jaw clenching.

Dean took a deep breath. “I am sorry Sam, I’m truly truly TRULY sorry I made that judgment call without your okay, and I won't promise I won't do everything completely in my power to keep you alive if the situation arises again. But, I will promise you, I’ll do everything I can to get your consent.”

Dean lowered his head, and Sam reached up and rubbed his arm. “Good. If it’s possible, you’ll figure it out.... But what if you can’t?”

Dean turned and started rubbing Sam’s back again. “ If I can’t, I’ll die right along side of you.

Both brothers were long past sleepy. The sun was probably coming up by now, but the lack of bedroom windows kept the room dimly lit by only the TV. Sam still didn’t feel like sleeping, and if Dean did, he wasn’t telling.

The massage had turned into light stroking of Sam’s back, while Dean rested his body alongside him, propped up on one arm. Dean’s mind was quiet, just enjoying the opportunity to be this close to Sam for so long, Touching him without any reason to stop. Sam was obviously okay with it. Maybe now he would tell Dean what was really making him sleepless.

“Sammy, tell me the truth. What’s keeping you from sleeping?”

Sam reached for his tumbler that he hadn't touched for 2 hours, but if he was going to talk, he needed a lubricant. He swallowed back the remainder of the glass and looked back up at the TV. He couldn't get it all out if he had to look Dean in the face, but maybe it was time to accept what was real and deal with it.

“It seems surreal to think I can say this and be perfectly literal.” Sam started with a chuckle, that was sprinkled with a little disbelief, with a side of sadness. “Dean, you know I’ve been tortured, by people, demons, witches, ghouls, ghosts, and even Lucifer himself. There is literally, no torture I haven’t endured.”

Dean knew this to be true. He himself had been tortured in Hell and even became a torturer, but he knew Sam endured more. It broke his heart to consider the things he knew happened in Hell, happened to his little brother.  Even now, while he can see Sam, hear him, feel him, and touch him, he knew part of him never came back.

Nothing Dean could define really, but there was a spark missing. The something in Sam that used to allow him to see the world as a giant Christmas present just waiting to be opened.  Sam was still hopeful and intrigued by the world around him, but he was no longer excited to unwrap the package.  Dean swallowed a lump in his throat, and continued rubbing Sam’s back with the palm of his right hand, and listened.

“I thought there was nothing anyone could do to me anymore, that I couldn’t recover from in a day or two, but the experience with Toni Bevel really kicked my ass, Dean.” Sam kept his eyes on the TV but Dean could hear the cracking in his voice.

“It’s okay Sammy, we don't have to do this now. Tonight, I just want you to feel better.”

“I can do this Dean. I need to.”  Sam rubbed his face and cleared his throat.  “Toni did her best to break me. I’ve told you most of it already. She shot me, burnt my foot, kept me in a cold shower for hours. The works, but then she did something I’ve never experienced really. She put a mind control spell on me. It didn’t only make me hallucinate, it controlled everything I was thinking.”

Dean looked at Sam, confused. He’s been possessed several times, and each time his mind and actions were controlled.

“I don’t get it. What do you mean? You’ve been under another's control before.”

“Not like this,” Sam continued, “She made me dream that we were having sex. Only it didn’t feel like a dream at all, it felt as real as you and me laying here right now.”

“But it was a dream right Sammy?” Dean was clearly having a hard time understanding what he was hearing.

“Yeah, it was a dream, but it didn’t feel like it was.” Sam sighed, trying to find the words that would make this make any sense at all. “I mean, this spell made me think I wanted to have sex with her, and I can tell you honestly, I wanted to do a thousand different things to her, but none of them were sexual. I thought you were dead, and I didn’t even care.”

“I’ve never been under the control of anyone or anything, including Lucifer, that changed how I actually thought. Like, what else could she have done, or can she do to me? I think part of what has been bothering me, is being afraid that she still has power over my mind. Or, that she could regain it at some point. And I could really hurt someone. Maybe even you.” Sam wiped a tear that escaped his right eye, and Dean gripped his shoulder firmly, to remind him he was safe.

“Well Sammy, that’s nothing I want you to worry about. We’ll have Cas come check you out and make sure you have no spells stowing away in your melon or anywhere else. And then we’ll go through the lore books to see if there’s any way we can prevent her from getting her claws in again.” Dean stroked Sam’s hair “And then we’ll hunt the bitch down and stab her in the brain. Okay?”

Sam turned and looked at Dean and smiled. “Yeah, I like that plan.”

Sam already felt lighter, cleaner. It was good to confront the issue and put a plan into action. He laid his chin back on his arms, and let Dean continue rubbing his back. Dean could tell Sam felt better, his muscles weren’t nearly as knotted as they were an hour ago, but he wasn’t convinced he got the whole story.

                                       “What else is there Sam? Anything  you want to tell me?” Dean asked, trying not to sound accusing or too pushy. He was happy with where Sam was right now. Slowly unraveling beneath his fingers,  He can’t think of a time in recent memory where Sam seemed this relaxed. It was good to know it was still possible.

Sam thought for a moment because he wasn’t completely sure what else was wrong. He had already told Dean what happened, and the fears left behind, and now they have a plan of action, but one thing still kept coming to the front of his mind.

“I guess that I just don’t like that being my last sexual experience. Even though it wasn’t real, it felt like it, and I don’t like that it stays in my mind that way.”

“Do you mean last like most recent, or last as in final sexual experience?” Dean asked with obvious alarm.

“Both I guess,” Sam answered. A bit puzzled himself at his own realization.

“Why do you think you might not have sex again?” Dean couldn’t even imagine having such a thought himself. Would he ever think of any sexual encounter as his last? God, he hoped not.

“Well, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I probably won't ever settle down with a woman, and I’d never bring someone into the life that isn't already in it, and if she was already in it, then I wouldn't want us to worry twice as much as before. So yeah, it’s probably my last.” Sam said with conviction.

“That’s bullshit Sam! You don’t need the white picket fence with a wife and 2.5 children to have sex, we can find you a nice girl on a dating app, or Piper, maybe we can look up Piper again and you guys could be, you know, like friends with benefits or something.”

Dean’s heart broke a little thinking of Sam never being touched or cared for in that way. Dean thought any woman in the world would be honored to be his girl. Hell, half the guys in the world too if he was into that. It was painful to hear him giving up so easily.

Sam was a little shocked at the look on Dean’s face. It never occurred to him that Dean ever gave it any thought.  However Sam didn’t mind the idea of never having a sexual relationship again, he only minded having mostly bad ones in his memories.

“Dean, you know I'm not really into one nighters.  I've had more meaningless sex then I’ve had good sex, and I’m just better off without it. “

Sam knew that wasn’t completely true. He would miss it, a man has needs after all, but he wouldn't miss the heartache. Not only with the fact that it wouldn’t be permanent, but the fact that he knew deep down, no romantic love could ever compare to the love he had for his brother. He had thought he could make a life with Jess or Amelia once, but in both cases, as soon as Dean was back in his life, he knew he would rather spend his life with him, than anyone else.

He never told Dean that, it sounded too pathetic, and maybe even wrong, but it was true. He couldn't admit it to Dean, even though he thought Dean might feel the same way since Dean never tried to settle down except for when he thought Sam was dead.

Sam remembered when he was soulless, that Dean had gotten pissed at Bobby for not telling him Sam was still alive.  Bobby had said he kept quiet because for once Dean had what he wanted, a good woman, a kid and a normal life, but Dean responded with “What I wanted was my brother, ALIVE!”

It made no sense to Sam at that moment, but he understood now. “We belong to each other and that's all”. He thought and closed his eyes.

Sam was quiet. Dean felt better about his brother’s state of mind but kept mulling over his words over the past several hours.  Still fixated on Sam’s back, still shiny and slick from the oil. Dean started tracing patterns on Sam’s skin with his finger. Drawing little symbols, barely noticeable across his shoulders and down his spine. He thought Sam might be asleep until he spoke.

“What are you drawing?” Sam said with a quiet curiosity in his voice.

“Warding sigils” Dean answered without stopping in his work

“For what?”

“I want to keep every living breathing, undead, creeping, crawling, evil piece of shit away from you forever Sammy.”

A fresh set of goose bumps rose over Sam’s skin. Dean smiled in satisfaction once again.

Sam raised himself up on his elbows to see Dean’s face. Dean was still settled on his left arm while drawing on Sam’s back.  Sam loved how he looked right now. His hair a little messy, smile lines in deep creases around his eyes.

“You really do want that, don't you? To keep anything that can hurt me away from me.”  

“Well, not everything maybe. I mean, I can still kick your ass, and I'm not going anywhere.” Dean’s green eyes nearly glowed in the dim light of the TV. Sam was lost in them.

Laws of the Universe be damned! He never felt more loved in his life than he did right now. He freed an arm from beneath the pillow and wrapped it around Dean’s back. Dean pressed his hand flat against Sam’s back and pulled himself in closer. They breathed in each other's air for just a moment before letting their lips touch, in a soft, cautious kiss.

Dean stroked Sam’s hair as he pulled away. As if promising the discussion wasn’t over. Sam’s eyes were opened wide and dark with arousal, tainted by a little fear that shown across his brow. There had been only one other time they accidentally kissed, and that was a decade or so ago, after too much beer and not enough weed at the Ozzy show, when they knew they couldn’t drive and ended up sleeping in the Impala in the stadium parking lot.

Neither remembered how it happened, and neither had spoken of it since. Sam recalled the event, and the awkwardness that surrounded the both of them in the following days, and silently prayed that wasn’t about to happen again.

Dean ran his thumb along Sam’s jawline, meeting his eyes. “Sammy,” Dean spoke in nearly a whisper “I’ll give you anything you want, you know that. But you have to tell me if this is what you want.”

Sam took a moment to process what he just heard, Dean was already on board, he just needed Sam’s consent on the matter. “It’s okay Dean, I want this.” and he smiled nervously. He could feel Dean trembling in time with his own.

Dean mimicked Sam’s smile. He wanted to take a moment to enjoy the want in his brother’s eyes before taking things to a level they’ve never been before.

“If we cross this line, Sammy, you have to promise me, no matter what shit this universe throws at us, that you won't take it back. You won't try to leave me again or pretend it never happened. I don’t think I could handle it.”

Dean was serious. He loved Sam, in every way imaginable. He was always willing to keep most of that to himself, but not anymore, not if they were going to break their own unspoken rule.

Sam worried about the same. How would Dean be tomorrow? Would they live and hunt in this painfully awkward silence for weeks, or months, before they just went back to the same old grind?

Sam wanted to give Dean everything, and take everything he had. And build on it. He wasn’t afraid to cross the line with his brother, honestly, of all the lines they’ve crossed for each other, this one was the least terrifying.

“I promise Dean, I won't leave you. You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

The smile on Sam’s face was so full of light and dimples, that Dean couldn’t wait to taste it. He kissed Sam hard and pulled him in so close that it hurt a little as Sam’s chest heaved against his own while trying to catch his breath. Their tongues fighting for dominance in each other's mouths. There was no turning back now.

Sam could barely breathe, and his heart was beating out of his chest. He could hear the thuds becoming more rapid in his ears, and a wave of dizziness threatened to make him pass out. This wasn’t the first time he's had a panic attack, but it was indeed the worst time to have one.

“Breathe through your nose Sam. It’s okay, this is Dean, he won't hurt you, you’re safe, just breathe.” Sam told himself. “Count to 20, try to remember the names of the High Schools you attended.” He tried to think of the names, but it was too hard to concentrate on anything other than staying conscious.

“Dean!” Sam uttered sharply, chest heaving but not releasing his brother from the death grip he had on his shoulder blades. He buried his face into the crook of Dean’s neck. “Stop, please slow down. Let… let me catch my breath.”

Dean stopped immediately and pulled back. He held Sam’s face in his hand to assess what was happening.

“You okay Sammy? I’ll stop, we don’t have to do this if you don't want to. Talk to me”

Sam flopped onto his back, squeezed his eyes shut and put his hand in his hair, nearly hyperventilating. He took a couple long deep breaths before trying to speak. Sweating and shivering at the same time “God my body is so fucking weird” he thought to himself and laughed a little at the idea of how stupid he must look right now.

“It’s okay, I’m okay…. I… I’m just … huh.. I’m just really nervous. Just slow down and let me breathe for a bit. It’ll pass.” And he knew it would. Sometimes when he had a panic attack before, he would go to his “happy place” in his mind to help calm him down.

That “happy place” however, was the image of him and his brother entwined in a naked embrace. And now that they were nearly in that situation, Sam was having a little trouble finding somewhere to redirect his anxiety.

Dean has always been sensitive to Sam’s anxiety, it wasn’t like he couldn’t relate, but sometimes he would joke about it, just to get Sam to smile, Sam didn’t like to be fussed over or to draw attention to himself, so Dean would try to lighten the mood. However this was an odd situation for them both, Dean pressed a hand on Sam’s chest, he could feel it cold a damp with sweat and his heart pounding beneath it.

“Let me get you some water.” Dean got off the bed and rinsed Sam’s glass in the sink and brought him some water. “Here, drink up” Sam swallowed it all in 2 gulps and laid back down, still breathing hard but more steady. Dean returned to his spot beside his brother, noticing the color returning to his cheeks.

“It’s passing,” Sam said. “Thanks, man… I'm glad you’re here”

“What was that about Sam? That was kinda scary.” Dean spoke with an air of concern in his voice.

“It was nothing really, just got freaked out for a moment, but I’m alright now.”

Dean was visibly curious as to what might have freaked Sam out.“Was it something I did? I told you we can take this as slow or as fast as you want.”

Sam felt sad for Dean, he could see he was being honest and was worried he did something wrong, but Sam reassured him. “No Dean, you didn’t do anything wrong, This is just new to me you know? This is a first, not only with you but with any guy. I've never even kissed a guy before.”

“Well I know that Sammy and neither have I, but I've been around many blocks with many women, and I just figure how much different can you be?”

Sam kicked Dean sharply in the shin and Dean laughed “OW Sammy! I was only kidding, I just want you to laugh is all. I'm sorry.” he smiled and kissed Sam’s head. “See? You’re feeling better aren’t you?”

“A little… yeah.”  Sam swallowed hard. Still visibly nervous, but Dean wanted to take every trace of anxiety away from his brother and erase it forever, but he could tell Sam’s brain was still working overtime.

“What if I disappoint you, Dean?” Sam met Dean’s eyes again.

“Disappoint me? How could you disappoint me? What, am I gonna get offended if you fall in love with me, or want to move in with me? ‘Cause, to be honest, Sammy, that ship has sailed.”

“No.” Sam rolled his eyes “you don’t get it. “ Sam propped himself up on his elbow and cupped Dean’s face with his hand. “I'm not … I'm not a woman. I don’t know how to do some… things. And I don’t know which roles we’re supposed to be playing in this.”

Dean took Sam’s hand and gently laid him back down. He ran his hand up Sam’s long forearm, and over his bicep. Sam’s eyes watching him, as he let his fingers trace the line of his clavicle. The hair on Sam’s chest was always thicker than his own, and always made Dean feel a little less masculine when their shirts were off, but now as he felt its softness under his fingers and how they stood on end a little bit as he traced a line down to Sam’s navel. If there had ever been any doubt, that Sam is not a woman, it was definitely squelched.

                                            Sam’s abs were tight and defined, and trembled under Dean’s hands as he stroked over the ridges. Looking down, Dean could see the huge bulge in Sam’s pants threatening to pop out of his waistband, and he teased his fingers just above and let his hand rest on Sam’s hip.

“Sammy,” Dean said as he gripped Sam’s hip and leaned himself into him. “I am fully aware that you’re not a woman. And to be completely honest with you…” He let his eyes wander down the length of Sam’s long body “looking at you right now? You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Sam’s breathing labored again, but not with anxiety this time, but excitement. He’s never heard words like that come out of anyone’s mouth directed at him in his life. He was always called “cute” and on occasions “attractive” but usually “big’ “tall” or “nerdy”. Does Dean really think he’s beautiful? He could feel his body heat rise from his feet to his head, and it was getting hard to keep his body still.

Dean grinned as Sam fidgeted alongside him.  “Tell you what. We don’t need to figure out any roles between us.” He sat up only long enough to take his shirt off, and lay back down, lying one leg across Sam’s. “How about we just do what feels good, and go from there?” Sam nodded in agreement.

Dean leaned down and gave Sam a quick teasing kiss on the lips, and moved his mouth over to whisper in his ear  “I want to peel your pajama pants off and eat you like a banana”

Sam didn’t even try to stifle his laugh “Seriously? Is that your best line?”

“Hm didn’t work?” Dean faked a perplexed look.

“Heh, no, not even a little.” Sam chuckled in response.

Dean looked around and found the bottle of massage oil and squirted a generous amount on Sam’s stomach. “Guess I’ll try something else.”

Dean smoothed the oil over Sam’s stomach, relishing in the way it expanded and contracted with his breathing. He moved his hand along Sam’s ribs and down his back pulling his bottom half in closer to his own and nudged his legs apart with his knee. Only 2 thin layers of fabric separated their growing erections.

Sam was fully on board with the proceedings and followed suit with a handful of oil for himself. He spread it with his huge hands down Dean’s back and grinned happily so see someone else in the room had goosebumps as well. He kissed Dean hard. Nipping at his lower lip while fighting the urge to devour him.

Kissing his chin and up his jawline, He could feel his own hard dick throbbing and threatening to explode before either of them were naked. He pressed himself into Dean’s hip and became aware quickly that Dean was not far behind, if at all. He hoped Dean would get the hint to move this along before he embarrassed himself.

Dean picked up on what Sam’s body was telling him and slipped a hand into his pants and squeezed the cheek of Sam’s tight ass. He held on for just a moment before letting his fingertips graze the back of Sam’s thigh. And there it was. A low agonizing moan escaped Sam’s throat, and Dean knew he found a sweet spot he would file away and use over and over again forever. Sam bucked his hips so hard, Dean knew he was close.

Sam’s hands were shaking. He tried to focus on keeping them steady so Dean didn’t think he won this little chicken fight. He slid his oil slicked hand into Dean’s pants to get a handful of his tight round ass too, and as much as he liked doing so, he decided these pants have to go and took the initiative to push Dean’s pants down far enough that Dean could kick them off the rest of the way.

Dean did so and returned the favor to Sam. Both took a moment to look at each other. They had seen each other naked many times but never aroused, and never took a moment to enjoy the whole package. Both were very well endowed. Sam was a bit longer, but Dean was thicker. Both were impressed, and neither were embarrassed at the moment.

Dean pulled Sam in as close as he could for the first hug they’ve ever had skin to skin, With no barriers. Sam clung to him as if he’d be sucked away into a void if he ever let go. The secret wish Sam had always hoped for, was happening right now and it was almost too much to bear.

He closed his eyes tight, trying to take a mental picture of this entire moment. The feel, the sounds, the smells… everything in the moment was more than he ever imagined. He fought back the urge to cry for the 3rd time today.

Sam was warm. Dean could feel his heartbeat against his own and he swore they were in perfect rhythm. But why wouldn’t they be? He always knew they shared the same heart and soul, and now they were even sharing the same body.

He kissed Sam’s shoulders and up his neck. He could feel Sam’s stubble scratching his cheek, also a very new feeling. He could feel Sam squirming and causing their erections to rub against each other. Dean put his left hand into Sam’s hair, that was now a little damp, and ran his right hand down to the small of his back that was now collecting beads of sweat mixing in with the oil.

Sam was digging his fingers into his back and biting his shoulder. Somewhat painfully too, so he tugged Sam’s head back by his hair, just far enough for him to kiss him again. Dean’s new favorite thing.  Kissing Sam. And he’s going to do it as often as he can.

Sam was nearing the point of no return, and trying his hardest to think of anything else besides the proverbial dam break that was coming too soon if he didn’t get a grip  “haha funny brain you’re so not helping.” Sam thought to himself. What was arousing him most was how aroused Dean was.

This was just Sammy, his annoying little brother who managed to break the world as often as he saved it, and Dean was always there to help pick up the pieces. He didn’t know if he deserved this much pleasure, but he was sure they deserved each other.

Dean kissed Sam deeply. No tongue wrestling now, this was just love. And not just love it was more. It was something the English language hadn’t developed a word for. Maybe because no one had ever experienced it. It was truly magic, and not the stale, half-assed magic they had seen and performed in their twisted, torn up lives, but …. Something.

Sam was overheating and dripping sweat down his face. Dean didn’t care. It even tasted good. It tasted like victory. Sam’s dick was hard enough to cut diamonds, and Dean wanted to tease just a little longer until he heard “Dean… please” come from his brother in a low breathy voice saturated in desperation.

He could almost see the words hanging in the air, and dripping all over him. Dean’s NEW new favorite thing. He collected some oil off Sam’s back and gently took Sam’s cock in his hand. “Ok, Sammy? Is this good?”

“God yes… that’s good.” Sam whispers as he takes Dean in hand as well. Stroking each other, and trying to find a good uniform rhythm was futile. Sam had a steel grip and a more rapid pace, while Dean was slower and paid more attention to the head of Sam’s dick. Oddly enough, it felt perfect for both. Sam is loud. Dean never knew this. He had never been in earshot of him while he had sex with anyone else. However, they were the same grunts and groans he made while fighting. Dean thought he might now get turned on every time he was in earshot of Sam fighting.

Sam could feel the build up threaten to overflow any second. “Dean… DEAN!!”

“Fuck! Sammy, you’re gonna make me come if you keep doing that” And with one hard grunt like he just pushed a boulder up a hill, Sam shot the warm fluids between their stomachs and down Dean’s hand, and Dean lost himself in response.

Dean thought he’s never come so hard in his life and was pretty sure Sam never had. Now they pressed together panting. Half laughing and completely spent. They shared a few light kisses before Dean grabbed his t-shirt so they could clean themselves off.

“You alright Sammy?” He watched Sam’s chest heave as he tried to catch his breath again

“Yeah, I'm good. I'm actually really good Dean. Thank you.”  Sam smiled in a way Dean had never seen and added that to the growing list of his new favorite things.

“You’re welcome. You know I'm here to please so if you ever…..” Dean let Sam fill in the blanks.

“Yeah, sure! I might even text you while you’re on the road someday.” Sam joked in response.

“Absolutely! But I'm gonna go take a leak. You get comfortable and we can pick this up when I get back."

“Yeah…. Sure.” Sam said with a big yawn.

Dean knew this exploration session was done for now, and as suspected, when he got back, Sam was snoring peacefully.

Dean slid behind him under the blankets. “Goodnight Sammy.” and kissed his head.

@winchesterprincessbride @eruthiawenluin @txdora thank you guys for all the help and inspiration!! Love you gals!

[scathach124]

“Fine, don’t say anything and make me worry.” MM

tw: ptsd/trauma mentions

Matthew knows what’s happening to him – he’s heard enough stories about men coming home hearing echoes of gunfire and people calling for help, of radio static and buildings crumbling from explosives. He would’ve thought that he hadn’t been stationed overseas long enough for him to have been affected, but he was wrong. Somehow, he’s more scared now than he was when actually having gunfire raining down all around him – it’s hard to remember he’s safely back in London with Mary, that he’s out of danger, and the gunfire he hears isn’t real.

Still, even though he knows what’s happening to him, he’s still sure he can shake it if he can remember it isn’t real. It only happens in his dreams or when he’s sitting alone at home, or when the television is turned on to the news. He’s glad no one else is usually around to see him when his panic attacks happen, and most of the time when he has a nightmare Mary is still fast asleep when he wakes up, panting and in a cold sweat.

This time, however, he wakes up to Mary kneeling beside him, still shaking him awake. She sighs with relief as Matthew gasps for breath, realizing he’s only in his bedroom. 

“Wha – what is it?” he murmurs. He turns over to the alarm clock on the nightstand – 2:41. 

“I heard you whimpering in your sleep – and you were sweating,” Mary explains. “Was it a nightmare?”

“Yeah,” Matthew mumbles, nodding as he rubs his face. His forehead is damp. “Yeah, it was just a nightmare. It’s nothing.”

Mary frowns like she doesn’t quite believe him. “Are you absolutely sure? ” 

Feebly, Matthew nods. “Yeah, I’m sure.” He turns away from Mary, feeling his damp shirt sticking to his back. His heart was still racing. “It’s nothing. It was just a bad dream.”

He hears Mary groan. “Matthew, I know it wasn’t nothing. You were calling out for someone—”

“I was probably just talking in my sleep,” Matthew murmurs, keeping his back towards Mary. He knows she means well, but he doesn’t want to discuss it anymore, at least in the middle of the night. 

“Matthew, tell me the truth.”

He stays quiet, hoping Mary will just go back to sleep. Even with his back turned to her, he knows she giving him a very cross look.

She finally lets out huffy sigh when he doesn’t answer her back. “Fine, don’t say anything and make me worry,” she grumbles. “Because I know you were calling out for one of the men in your squad. I’m not an idiot.”

Matthew turns around just enough to see her glaring at him, looking like she wanted to whack him upside the head but she knew better. “I think I know what’s going on,” she tells him.

“Do you?” Matthew asked.

“Yes, I think I do,” Mary answers. “I’ve suspected it’s been happening for a while but … why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I didn’t want to make it seem like it was such a big deal,” Matthew says with a sigh. “It … the flashbacks … they really only happen in my dreams. It’s not as bad as it is for other people.”

Mary mutters something under her breath that Matthew catches as, “you bloody idiot.” 

“You always do this,” she says aloud. “You always act like you shouldn’t bother anyone else with your problems.”

She’s right, of course. Matthew hates feeling like a burden, afraid to ask for help even when he desperately needs it. And he shouldn’t have been afraid to ask Mary for help – she understood him better than anyone. But he still feels ashamed to have to admit he’s having trouble. He had constantly assured her and everybody else that he was fine.

Mary lies back down on the bed, rubbing his back. “I’m going to help you with this, whether you like it or not. I’m not going to let you fight it on your own anymore. But don’t you dare keep anything like this from me again.”

Matthew sighs, regretting that he ever decided to hide something from Mary. “I’m sorry, I must have been making you so worried.”

“You were,” she replies, though not coldly. “But I do understand why you kept it from me. I did the same thing, when I had nightmares in uni after … after I was attacked. Though I hoped you’d be smarter than me and talk to someone about it.”

“It’s just …” Matthew pauses, searching for the right words in his tired brain. “I thought it wouldn’t happen to me. I wasn’t even in combat for most of the time I was there …” But just because he wasn’t fighting constantly didn’t mean he wasn’t haunted by it.

“Matthew, this isn’t something to be ashamed about. Listen to me: tomorrow we’re going to start finding help for you, and if anyone gives you a hard time about it, I’ll smack them.”

She means it of course – not just about the smacking, but that they’ll find help for him. Matthew knows it’s not so hopeless anymore. He rolls over on his back, gazing at Mary as he says, “What would I do without you?”

The first steps were always the hardest, but now that he had Mary’s support things felt just a little bit easier.