callowyn

The Road Is Long: a picspam

2012-12-26T03:27:49Z

My present for someone on insmallpackages, for the prompt: Picspam of roads (in deserts, forests, cities). Sources given where I could find them, though tumblr and pinterest conspire to make finding the original photograph very difficult sometimes.

venice P2140394 by *chryssalis on deviantART

Source unknown

New Orleans City Street by ~Mourge-stawk on deviantART

Google Maps screenshot of Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, New Orleans, LA, USA (by me)

Waterford Twilight II by *somadjinn on deviantART

Daybreak by Markus Grunau

Google Maps screenshot of Pivdennyi Bridge, Kiev, Ukraine (by me)

Railroad Bridge by ~rjdp1 on deviantART

Fox River Railroad Trestle 09 by `FantasyStock on deviantART

Stock 111 by ~UmbraDeNoapte on deviantART

Source unknown

Google Maps screenshot of Carterra General, Canillo, Andorra (by me)

Stelvio Pass, Italy (photographer unknown)

Foggy by Polusia

Source unknown

Road to Cobalt Skies by ~Book-of-Light-Stock on deviantART

Source unknown

Long desert highway by Glenn Nagel

Source unknown

Down the Road by ~JosiahT on deviantART

Broken Road by ~arkytraveler on deviantART

Northern Ireland by yes and yes

Red Dirt Road by ~kalalynn on deviantART

Tundra Path 1 by ~Arctic-Stock on deviantART

Source unknown

vista grande by Marc Crumpler (likethenight)

Dirt Road by ~sixwings on deviantART

Winding Road by birdyboo

Source unknown

Heavy Flowers by *Nelleke on deviantART

BBC Merlin set, Puzzle Wood, England (photographer unknown)

Aspen Cathedral, Vail, Colorado, USA (photographer unknown)

Source unknown

Snow landscape by ~iisjahstock on deviantART

This gave me all sorts of Supernatural feels so if you have roadtrippy fic or art recs, give them to meeee.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Fields of Red

2012-10-22T00:31:20Z

Title: Fields of Red
Author: callowyn
Word Count: 700
Pairing: none
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: vaguely suicidal thoughts
Summary: Poppies. Poppies will make him sleep.
Notes: This started its life as a tumblrfic here. Picture credit: Sabalan by Farshid Alizadeh.

Dean stumbles into the field after a fight with some screeching flying thing that looked kind of like a monkey, so the Wizard of Oz reference pops into his head as soon as he sees the red bursts scattered across the landscape. Poppies. Poppies will make them sleep. It was a reference to opium, Sam had explained once, but in Purgatory every metaphor becomes literal and the light floral scent wafting towards him carries an undertone of poison. Dean can already feel himself getting dizzy, watching the blood-red flowers undulating in the wind of an oncoming storm.

Shit, he thinks, his breath speeding up, but that just fills him with the scent of the flowers faster. He’s got a gun in one hand and a sharp stake in the other; neither will help him here. Dean is a creature of the flesh when it comes down to it, always preferred killing the things that bled when he cut them, whose bodies he could grab and break with his own hands. This subtlety, this innocuous beauty that cloaks its deadliness in a sweet scent, that kind of shit may fascinate Sam but it makes Dean’s skin crawl. Ruby-red looks so inviting but Dean likes his world in black and white, thanks, and now he's really having trouble staying upright.

He lurches back the way he came but he misjudges, or maybe the land is just playing tricks on him the way it loves to, because he steps right into more flowers. They waver in front of him like a mirage. Maybe they’re not even here, maybe he’s caught in some hungry thing’s illusion. Real or not, doesn't much matter; they can still kill him. He's fought and shredded and bled his way through Purgatory and he's gonna get done in by a field of flowers. Fucking great.

Dean’s on his hands and knees now. He's not really sure when that happened. The sky is getting darker and he hears trees rattling somewhere close by but all he can see are poppies. He didn't even like that stupid movie, just watched it because Sam did, and because at the end Dorothy goes back to Kansas and her family is alive. He tries to take shallow breaths, the way Dad taught them to breathe in a fire.

His eyes feel heavy and thick but Dean fights to keep them open. Sam will be pissed if he finds a way to pull Dean out of here and all he gets is a flower-smelling corpse—assuming no scavenger finds his body, assuming this field doesn’t just swallow him whole, tuck him into the ground to suck away his marrow and make those flowers even redder. But this is a damn sight better than some deaths he’s faced—he's not leaving anyone to have to fight without him, not letting anyone down, the only way a Winchester’s ever gonna die in their sleep. It would be so easy.

Help me, he thinks muzzily, and an open bloom brushes his cheek.

He retches. It clears his mind for a second, but not long enough to get out, just barely enough to crawl away from the flower that touched him. Dean lets his shaking arms collapse and curls up on the treacherously soft ground, tucking his nose into his jacket. It smells a little like whatever he just killed but still, inexorably, of poppies.

The sky has turned green and dangerous, the wind bending the heads of the poppies as it rushes over the field. Maybe a tornado will pluck him up and whirl him away and save him. But this is Dean Winchester's life, this is Purgatory, and if he can't save himself then nobody will because he has no one left. "Don't let me get killed by flowers," he mumbles at the sky, but as ever, it isn't listening.

His eyes slip closed. The scent presses him down like a physical thing, merciless and gentler than anything else he’s felt here. He feels a gust of wind rush over his body, just before he passes out, and it sounds like wings.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Unto Dust

2012-08-31T06:35:10Z

(aka NOVAKCEST PILOT FIC. FINALLY.)

Title: Unto Dust
Author: callowyn
Word Count: 7000
Rating: R for violence
Warnings: graphic violence, child death
Summary: In which the Red-Eyed Demon reminds Jimmy that you can't avoid your past forever, and Jacob finds that spending seven years as far from his brother as he can get is worth nothing when Jimmy shows up on his doorstep asking for help.

Notes: My friends, it has been many years since novakcest came into our lives, and now at last I present the first installment of actual canon. For those of you who are new/forgetful/still just plain confused, this is a Supernatural AU in which Jimmy Novak and his twin brother Jacob live lives very similar to the Winchesters.

A graphic to entice you, also by me:

Also available on AO3. Graphic rebloggable on tumblr.

In his dream they are ten years old and still young enough that to speak of one is to speak of the other. Jimmy recognizes the leftmost twin as himself only by process of elimination; his mind would know Jacob in any form. In memory their backyard stretches endlessly outward, the dry grass an oversaturated gold, and the lone beech tree in the middle of the yard reaches up past the clouds.

Jacob puts his hand on the trunk and without transition is high in the branches above him. Jimmy can feel his own hands wrap around the lowest branch and pull, even as his adult mind watches from afar as the scrape-kneed wild-haired ten-year-old climbs laboriously after his brother.

Every day of those earlier summers seemed interchangeable with the rest, but Jimmy knows in the unquestioning way of dreams that this is the day he and Jacob finally began construction of their treehouse, whose weathered boards remain in this beech even now. As soon as he thinks this, he sees the hammer in Jacob’s hand, the nails in his own. He is supposed to be handing Jacob the boards, he remembers. He tries to give the nails to his brother but instead they drop to the grass below.

If we make it waterproof I bet we could live up here even, says Jacob, apparently unaware that Jimmy is failing to do his part, apparently unaware that the house he’s building them is still in scrap-lumber pieces on the ground. Unafraid, Jacob is climbing even higher. We’ll salt the doors so it’s safe. And no one’ll be allowed in except us.

Jimmy suddenly remembers what else happened this day, that the sun was setting and they had nearly been done with the platform when Jacob leaned back a little too far and slipped off his branch. Jimmy remembers seeing his brother drop past him and remembers the sick crunch of Jacob’s arm when he landed on it.

But when he looks down he sees the tree has grown taller without them noticing, so high that a fall from this height would surely be fatal. Fear drums in Jimmy’s ears, petrifying him. He can’t let Jacob fall this time. Jimmy clings to the trunk, as though his own tenacity will be enough to avert his brother’s fate, too scared to move. But it’s too late, Jacob is slipping, Jacob is falling, and Jimmy reaches out in a hopeless instinct that is more supplication to heaven than belief that he can stop this.

His upturned hands catch a nail.

Jacob is gone and Jimmy clutches the nail to his chest, sure that the nail is somehow Jacob, but when he opens his hand again to be sure, there’s nothing but a line of blood across his palm. More seeps out as he watches, though he can’t feel the pain of it, pooling in his hand and dripping onto the floor where the tree used to be.

He is no longer ten years old—

he sees—

kneeling by the bloody puddle but where // the lights, what’s wrong with // something is laughing // where //

His house. Not the labyrinthine farmhouse he and Jacob grew up in, but the tiny split-level Jimmy and Amelia bought themselves in place of a honeymoon. Unlike the treehouse dream, everything here looks exactly as it does in reality, down to the advertisement for Tom’s Treecutting Services on the counter and the pile of Claire’s toys in the corner that both of them keep meaning to clean up. The clock’s numbers read 10:41. //

not his hands that are bleeding so // he can smell the // 10:41 // Amelia comes into the kitchen and // “sorry, sweetheart” // it’s not his // smells like //

Amelia lies on their kitchen floor, her blonde hair fanned out beneath her, and the blood is hers. The deep slice across her throat pulses out another rush of it, still hot. Her eyes stare glassily at nothing. Then her body goes up in flames. //

Jimmy wakes up.

“Daddy,” Claire says reproachfully, “you were yelling in your sleep again.”

Jimmy rolls over, groggy and disoriented, trying to slow his heartbeat. Amelia has burned in his dreams for the past two weeks straight, despite the sleeping pills Amelia insisted would help. He’s sure there’s some psychological explanation, some symbology behind his gruesome imaginings—after all, it’s almost the three-year anniversary of his mother’s last hunt, and the fire that took her life.

But hunting’s enough to leave horrors in anyone’s subconscious. Isn’t that why Jimmy put that life behind him, isn’t that what he’s protecting Claire and Amelia from? He should be glad that bad dreams and a handful of scars are the worst things that followed him out of his childhood.

Seeing that Jimmy is fully awake now, Claire knee-walks up the bed and plops down on Jimmy’s chest.

“Oof—hey, baby. Did I wake you up?” Jimmy squints at the alarm clock. "What time is it?" 10:41, his mind supplies, but no, it’s barely five past. Usually the details of his dreams fade within moments of waking, but this one lingers too clear in his mind.

“Not me,” says Claire, rolling her eyes with far too much exasperation for someone who is just barely four years old. “Mr. Lumps was napping.”

Jimmy huffs a laugh. Mr. Lumps is a stuffed animal of uncertain taxonomy that his mother gave Claire, some four-legged creature with large eyes, a dusty brown coat, and a white underbelly. Amelia thinks it might be a llama, Jimmy suspects it was meant to be a dog, and Claire, for her own mysterious reasons, insists he’s a deer. It’s much harder for Jimmy to let his paranoia trouble him when he has his daughter sitting on top of him talking about someone named Mr. Lumps.

Jimmy sits up slowly under Claire’s weight, tipping her backwards into his waiting hands, until he is fully upright with Claire giggling in his lap. His dreams don’t belong here. “Well, now that everyone’s awake,” Jimmy says, “how would you and Mr. Lumps like some pancakes?”

The kitchen is sunny, and warm for April, but empty. Jimmy takes the milk and eggs out of the fridge and pauses to peer into the dining room. “Claire, honey, where’s your mom?”

“She’s getting you a present,” Claire says, dragging her step-stool to the counter beside him.

“A present?” Jimmy tries to remember if there’s something significant about today’s date that he’s forgotten. Easter was last week, and Amelia already gave him his annual stash of creepy-eyed chocolate bunnies. He considers that yes, Amelia is the sort of person to get him a present for no reason at all, and marvels anew at whatever fluke of fate allowed her to love him back.

“I’m not s’posed to tell you cause it’s a secret, but secret secrets hurt someone so you just have to act really surprised when she gets back, okay?” Claire’s small face is very serious.

Secret secrets hurt someone—who taught her that, Jimmy wonders. It sounds like a nursery rhyme, recited with a sing-song lilt, but Jimmy’s mother taught him the exact opposite: never tell anyone what we do. Say whatever you have to, even if it means lying. Secrets keep people safe.

Of course he’s wanted to tell Amelia, he thinks, stirring the pancake batter viciously. They’re supposed to share everything, that’s what marriage means. But Jimmy can barely supply anecdotes of his childhood without having to wave away questions about what he and his brother were doing in a swamp outside St. Cloud in the first place. Amelia tells stories of learning how to skip rocks with her parents, not how to shoot different gauges of shotgun. Sometimes Jimmy wonders how she can understand him so well when she knows so little of his life.

But Amelia has a gift for bringing out the person he might have been, the parts of him that aren’t bloodstained and salt-gritty. If he tells her the truth, if she knows what he used to be, that person will cease to exist. He never wants to become something Amelia fears. She might leave. She might take Claire away from him and so he can’t tell her, he can’t risk it; even laying salt lines would raise too many questions about right minds and irrational behavior. And it’s been years since he last hunted, even longer since he failed to finish a job. What good would it do to tell her about the things that live in the dark when she might go her whole life without meeting them?

Lost in his thoughts and the steady sizzle of pancakes, Jimmy doesn’t hear the front door open. Claire jumps down from her stool. “Mommy!”

“Hey, baby.” Amelia walks into the kitchen and she’s fine, of course she’s fine, it’s only Jimmy’s paranoia that sweeps him with relief upon seeing her. He flips one pancake onto Claire’s plate and pours another, grinning like a fool. Above him a lightbulb burns out, and the rest flicker for a second.

“Did you get Daddy his present?” Claire asks in a loud whisper, tugging Amelia’s sleeve as Amelia kneels in front of her. Amelia’s hands are empty.

Amelia laughs, and something about the sound makes Jimmy uneasy. He sets down the spatula. What is wrong with the lights?

Amelia reaches out to take Claire’s face in her hands, brushing the wispy blonde hair out of Claire’s eyes. “I sure did. Wanna see?”

“Yes yes yes,” Claire chants, holding Amelia’s wrists. Amelia smiles at her, then at Jimmy.

Then her hands twist and with a loud crack she snaps Claire’s neck.

Claire drops.

“No!” yells Jimmy, but it’s too late; the demon throws him back against the wall.

“I’m surprised at you, Jimmy,” the thing says, Amelia’s voice laid over with hellfire. “I took this gig expecting a challenge. A Key of Solomon, at least; something fun.” It grins, toothy and feral, and it’s so far from Amelia that Jimmy can’t believe he was deceived. “But here you are, making pancakes for a toddler, and not even salt lines on the doors.” It lowers its voice. “What would your mommy say?”

“Let her go,” Jimmy snarls, struggling against the invisible force pinning him to the wall. He can’t stop staring at Claire, crumpled up frail as a fledgling bird, her face pointed towards him at such an unnatural angle. He’s waiting for her to get up, praying, but Jimmy has seen too much death not to know it when it’s lying in front of him. He turns back to the thing inside Amelia, cheeks wet. “Let her go!”

The demon’s eyes flick—not black, but fiery red. “Make me.”

“Exorcizamus te,” Jimmy says, calling on a hundred memories of his mother drilling him in this, a thousand more practicing with Jacob. “Omnis immundis spiritus, omnis satanica potestas—”

Amelia’s head whips back and forth, too fast, but then the demon giggles, and with another twist of its fingers, Jimmy is choking.

“Maybe that stuff works in the minor leagues,” says the demon, “but you gotta try a lot harder with me.” Jimmy gasps in a breath before his throat closes off again. The demon saunters closer, eyes still burning red, and runs its fingers through Jimmy’s hair in a gross parody of Amelia’s affection. “But you don’t even know how, do you?” it says. “You have no idea what you’re capable of.”

Its control relaxes for a second as it broods over him, and Jimmy forces out, “omnis—incursio—”

The demon’s face turns ugly, and it slams his head back against the wall. The lights above him spark and gutter. “You’re supposed to be so special,” it hisses, fingers digging into Jimmy’s chest, “but look at you. You’re not even a real hunter anymore. You’re too scared of your past to defend your own family. You’re weak. You’re pathetic.” It shakes him again. “He deserves better.”

Jimmy isn’t thinking, can’t do anything but repeat the exorcism over and over in his head, but at that his concentration slips, he loses his place. His mother used to tell them their family was special, hunting evil when no one else could, but all Jimmy ever wanted was to be normal. Maybe he was always deluding himself, thinking that nothing would ever come for him, but God, can’t he ever stop? Is this all he gets, seven years with Amelia, barely four with Claire, before they tear it all down?

No. He won’t let them. Claire might be—Claire is—but even if it’s too late for his daughter, Jimmy can still save his wife. “Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii. Omnis legio, omnis—”

The demon laughs, and the harsh sound throws Jimmy right back into his nightmare. “Sorry, sweetheart,” it says. “I’m on a tight schedule. No time for a trip down under.” It turns and walks back to where Claire lies staring blankly at the ceiling.

The demon lifts its nose, and Jimmy smells it a second later. Smoke.

It’s the pancake burning, of all things, left on the stove this whole time for someone who will never get to eat it. The demon’s face lights with glee. “Ooh,” it says, “that’s a wonderful idea.”

Its hand makes a fist, and Claire’s limp body slides across the floor and knocks into the far wall. As Jimmy watches, the demon drags her all the way up and onto the ceiling. “Your mother always set such a good example for your family,” it croons. “Let’s see how little Claire likes it, hm?” Claire’s fingers dangle loose like spiderwebs but her blue eyes are still open. The lights flicker again, and the shadows almost make it look like her face is moving.

With a snap of the demon’s fingers, Claire bursts into flames.

“Claire!” Jimmy screams, so loud it can’t just be in his head. Fire races across the ceiling, already eating away at the floorboards of the rooms above, and Jimmy can’t even move to shield his face from the heat. Unconcerned, the demon walks to the counter and picks up a knife.

No, Jimmy thinks, no no no no no no—

“You don’t give Amelia enough credit, you know,” says the demon conversationally. “She didn’t believe in demons up til the minute I jumped her bones, but she’s already trying to fight me off. She even found out my name, if you can believe it.” It sighs. “That’s a shame. I liked her.”

“Don’t,” Jimmy says, exorcism forgotten. “Please.”

“Sorry. Can’t have her spoiling the surprise,” says the demon. “But you know, I think our Amelia would have made a pretty good hunter.” Its smile, this time, is painfully familiar. “You should have trusted her.” And carefully, slowly, the demon cuts Amelia’s throat.

Later Jimmy can’t remember how he tears himself away from the wall, blind with rage and fire, or why another shove from the demon’s powers doesn’t stop him in his tracks. What he remembers is the black smoke pouring out of Amelia’s mouth, and falling to his knees beside Amelia where her blood pools underneath her, too late to stop. The clock reads 10:41 and the blood on Jimmy’s hands is not his.

Fire ravages around him, its hungry roar filling his ears. Jimmy stares down at Amelia, at the blood still pulsing weakly from her neck. The inferno above him has completely obscured what’s left of Claire. Part of Jimmy wants to let the fire take him, just let it end now because he has nothing left, no one to live for. Part of him is still hoping he’ll wake up.

Then a flame leaps up in front of him, and with a speed that must be supernatural, Amelia too is consumed.

Jimmy shies away on instinct, crawling with no direction or purpose except to escape the redoubled heat, the shapes in the fire. Smoke worms its way into his lungs, not demonic this time but just as deadly. He can’t breathe. Tears splinter his vision but he can’t blame the fire for that. He smells burning meat.

He moves. His hands sweep across the wall he’s following, looking for an exit, meeting only more hot blank surfaces. It’s like drowning, this smoke, and Jimmy remembers the summer they hunted a kelpie in its own lake, the way all that dark water could make you forget which way was up and you never knew you were swimming the wrong direction until you ran into the muddy bottom. Something creaks above him, fire eating away at the supports, and Jimmy can’t find his way out.

Then his fingers catch, and there’s a knob—a door, the front door, he must have made his way into the hallway without realizing it. The metal of the doorknob is hot enough to hurt but Jimmy scrabbles at it anyway. It turns, and a billow of smoke follows him as he tumbles out onto the lawn, gasping for breath.

Behind him, an explosion rocks the house to its foundations.

“Amelia!” Jimmy yells, but the smoke has scraped his voice down to a raspy whisper, too weak to even be heard over the rush of the fire that now towers over the house. Heat drives him back, and back further, until Jimmy is on all fours on the sidewalk, shivering and sobbing and too weak to move.

By the time the fire department arrives, there aren’t bodies left to salvage.

Sunday.

Jimmy wakes up in the hospital. He stumbles his way through the police’s questioning, but when Sheriff Mills arrives she doesn’t ask him to tell it again, just leans over the bed and wraps her arms around him. After a minute Jimmy remembers how his arms work, and then he can’t stop clutching at her, chest heaving with half-silent sounds of pain. She shushes him and pats his back, his hair, soft and soothing. The knowledge that Jimmy’s mother is dead flares up as sharp as it was three years ago, and the old grief piled on the new feels like the fire crawled inside him to claw up his insides.

Roger shows up later, and brings Jimmy home with him. Kate offers him a pot roast and the smell of it makes Jimmy want to throw up. He chokes down a piece of cornbread, a few glasses of water, and then he drops into their guest bed to mercifully empty sleep.

Monday.

He doesn’t salt the doors here, either. It’s a disservice to Roger and Kate, who took him in without question, who have always been here for him, but Jimmy imagines the demon rebuffed from this house when it entered his own so easily and he can’t do it.

He wishes the demon would come finish the job.

Tuesday.

Amelia’s parents tell him they’ve already contacted the rest of her family, that the funeral can wait until Sunday because there is no body to show. Corinne Harrison is the most composed woman Jimmy has ever met, but when Jimmy nods at her helpless “Claire too?”, she sits down like a house of cards collapsing. Steve asks him to explain over and over, how the stove must have sparked a gas leak of some kind, how some paints are just more flammable than others. The way there was no warning, none at all.

Wednesday.

He counts it a blessing that he sleeps without dreaming now: all the stories say God doesn’t take kindly to people who refuse to hear His message. Jimmy asks himself, then, what kind of God allows demons to possess innocent people without retribution. Whether he’s willing to believe in a God that watched Claire die, and did nothing.

Thursday.

Jimmy finds a tree and punches it until his knuckles bleed.

Friday.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Roger says, and Jimmy just laughs, because everyone keeps telling him this and they have no idea.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks Roger, best man at his wedding, best friend for these last seven years, and like the solid, dependable friend that he is, Roger says, “Anything.”

Jimmy tells him—not everything. Never everything. But he tells him about the dream, about how he’d seen Amelia go up in flames night after night. Knowing Roger won’t believe him, knowing this is a world that doesn’t recognize the supernatural when it’s right in front of them, Jimmy tells him it wasn’t a normal dream, just to hear the truth out loud. He looks up and for a second he could swear Roger is smiling.

When Roger speaks, though, his face is nothing but sympathy. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it, Jim,” he says. “Some things just can’t be stopped.”

Saturday.

Exorcizamus te, omnis spiritus immundi, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te: cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionis nenenum propinare. Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciæ, hostis humanæ salutis. Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei; contremisce et effuge. Invocato a nobis sancto et terribli Nomine quem inferi tremunt. Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos. Exorcizamus te.

Sunday.

It’s April. It rains.

Jimmy curls under his umbrella, looking into the muddy hole below his feet—six feet by four feet and six feet deep, pack those walls tight, boys, you don’t want them coming down on you—and his shoulders ache even knowing that this is one grave he won’t have to dig up again; the thick pine casket is empty. There is no coffin for Claire, just a tiny headstone beside Amelia’s, the kind that he used to trip over in the dark. The pastor delivers the eulogy and it’s just as well because Jimmy isn’t sure he can form words.

Is this it, then? His wife and his daughter stolen by evil incarnate, and Jimmy stands idly by as the idea of them is buried? How is he supposed to walk out of this graveyard knowing that every blond-haired child, every pair of blue eyes, every street in this little town will remind him of what he no longer has? He can’t. He can’t walk past their house one more time and see only ashes. He can’t pick up the pieces pretending this was all some tragic accident. He feels his breath coming faster and clenches his fists, willing himself not to fly apart.

No. He’s a hunter. He’ll find the red-eyed demon, track it to Hell and back if he has to, and then he’ll find some way to destroy it so utterly that even Hell couldn’t save it. He will find the demon, he has to, because at least then there will be justice—because if not vengeance than what, what does he have, what is he supposed to do?

“Hey,” Roger says at his side, “you okay?”

Jimmy breathes out, hard, and Roger winces. “You’re not,” he says, “course you’re not, hey. It’s gonna be okay, Jim.” He wraps his arm around Jimmy’s shoulders, protective and fraternal. “Let’s get you someplace a little quieter, right? You don’t want to be crowded by Amelia’s relatives. Hey, are any of your family here?”

Jimmy thinks, my family is dead.

Almost as if he heard him, Roger stops, and scans the crowd. “Where’s your brother?”

Jacob?

Jacob—is not here. Jacob has not even crossed Jimmy’s mind since the fire, a feat that seems impossible now he’s aware of it. But then, Jacob’s self-imposed exile has only been broken once, and that for their own mother’s funeral, where Jacob stayed just long enough to ruin Jimmy’s carefully-built calm before he disappeared again. Jacob hadn’t even come to Jimmy’s wedding; little surprise that Jimmy didn’t think of him at his marriage’s end.

“My brother,” he begins, then stops. Jacob is a hunter too, a better one than Jimmy after seven years more practice. Jimmy knows their mother went on hunts in Boston with Jacob, told him things that Jimmy didn’t want to know. Jacob might know what the demon was talking about. He’d have some idea of how to even begin hunting it. There’s also that small part of Jimmy that’s still ten years old and still wants his brother to be the brave one so he doesn’t have to.

Jacob would help Jimmy, wouldn’t he? After all this time, even after all that happened between them, wouldn’t Jacob be able to put that aside now, when Jimmy truly needs him?

He hates that he doesn’t know. He hates that Jacob is halfway across the country, wrapped up in his own petty problems and his own mysterious life with no idea what has just happened to Jimmy. Jacob should help Jimmy, whether he wants to or not; he owes Jimmy that much.

“Jimmy?” says Roger.

Jimmy blinks, and the graves are still there. “I gotta go,” he mumbles, taking a step back, then another. Roger says something else, reaching after him, but Jimmy has a path to follow now and he can’t let Roger talk him out of it. It’s possible he says this aloud, because Roger doesn’t try again. Instead he turns and intercepts the condolences of Amelia’s aunt, leaving Jimmy free to slip away unnoticed, back to the parking lot and his beat-up Honda with Claire’s carseat still buckled into the back.

He points himself toward Boston and drives.

Jacob’s had this same fucking headache since last Sunday. He tells Joseph he’s not going out after all, then lies and says maybe he’ll get some work done on his dissertation. Joseph and Kaycee give him the same dubious expression. Now that they’re dating they make the same faces sometimes, and it freaks Jacob out; how can they seem so similar when they don’t look anything alike? How can you fall in sync with someone? The same way you fall out of sync, probably.

The last thing he needs is to add more thoughts of Jimmy to this headache, so he leaves. Anyway he might work on his dissertation. Kaycee’s right that with his classes all finished there’s no excuse for him not to just get it done, get his PhD and finally start living in the real world, whatever that means. But Jacob’s been living in a world filled with ghosts and monsters since he was nine years old; maybe the real world won’t take him. The T is crowded this time of night but at least it’s not haunted anymore.

He sort of hopes Kurt isn’t in their apartment when he gets home, and that makes him feel like an asshole, but whatever, Kurt’s not the kind of guy to need Jacob around all the time. Right now Jacob just wants to pop some aspirin and go to sleep. He can’t find his key, and he turns the knob half-heartedly because he doesn’t want to go digging through his bag.

The door opens.

If Kurt were home, the lights would be on. Jacob’s senses snap to attention as he slowly pushes the door further. The hidden salt line’s not broken, but plenty of nasties can get past salt. Why did he leave his gun home today? Silver’s his next best bet; if he can sneak around whatever it is, get to his closet and grab the pistol… He creeps down the front hallway and peers into the kitchen: empty. He sidles into the living room.

Physics Macaw squawks at him and Jacob lets out a “fuck!” before he catches himself. He glares at the dim cage and the chirruping cockatoo inside, heart racing. One day he will kill that bird and stuff it, swear to God. He sees a figure come out of his bedroom, drawn by the noise, and Jacob tackles it before it can attack him.

“Ow,” it complains, but it knows how to fight—elbow to Jacob’s sternum, twist and a jab for the eyes which Jacob ducks to avoid. Their legs are too tangled to be of any use, but it keeps his opponent floored as Jacob dodges a punch, one, two, and he can feel the feint to the left before the other man even makes it. Jacob catches his arm and slams it to the ground. Gettin’ sloppy, Jimbo, he thinks—then he falters.

His opponent takes advantage of his slackened grip and flips them before Jacob can finish the thought. Just then a car drives down the street outside, headlights illuminating a sharp nose and disheveled black hair, and then Jacob is seventeen again, pinned and staring up at Jimmy with no idea what comes next.

“It’s me, you idiot,” Jimmy says, and he shoves Jacob harder against the floor before he stands up.

Jacob scrambles upright, afraid to look away in case this is some sort of migraine-induced hallucination. He fumbles for the lamp next to him and switches it on. Jimmy looks—

Terrible, actually. His eyes are bloodshot and he doesn’t appeared to have shaved for at least two days. His hair is messier than their scuffle alone would explain, and slightly greasy, when Jimmy’s the one who spent half their adolescence yelling at Jacob to use a comb, to shower before he left the house. More than that, Jimmy’s entire posture screams exhaustion, though he’s trying to hide it behind squared shoulders and a clenched jaw.

“What are you doing here?” Jacob asks finally. His first thought is that something’s happened to Mom except, of course, something already did happen to Mom, and Jacob had to be the one to tell Jimmy about that. Jimmy has his own life now, and Jacob made the unspoken promise to both of them that he’d stay out of it.

Jimmy’s mouth wavers. “I didn’t know if you—” Then he stops. He’s been looking around the apartment but now he looks at Jacob, that old familiar weighing of his brother, inevitably finding Jacob the lesser. The defective copy. This time Jimmy’s judgment isn’t followed by anger, though, or embarrassment, or even regret; what flashes across his face is very like despair.

“What?” Jacob asks, though the question’s as likely to scare Jimmy off as to get an answer. Jacob’s not good at not asking. “What happened?”

Wrong question, as always; Jimmy looks away and then he’s crying, choked little hitches of breath and tears that escape despite the fists clenched at his sides. Jimmy didn’t cry like this when they were kids—when he got hurt he’d let everyone know it, howling and screaming and coughing up snot, not concerned in the least with the way his face went splotchy-red. Now even these repressed cries are more than he allows, because as soon as Jacob moves closer, Jimmy grinds his palms against his eyes and tries to wipe it all away.

“What happened?” Jacob asks again, quieter.

Jimmy’s voice comes out remarkably level. “There was a demon,” he says, hands still pressed over his eyes. I will see no evil. “It got—Amelia.” A deep breath. “And Claire.”

Jacob has nothing remotely adequate to say to this. In his mind Amelia has remained the sixteen-year-old girl that made Jimmy ashamed of his family, but Jacob’s not an idiot, anyone could see how much Jimmy loved her. He knows what it’s like to lose the person you love most but he thought Jimmy would be spared that.

And Claire. It’s been three years since Jacob saw her at the funeral but he hasn’t forgotten. Only a year old, Claire wasn’t talking yet, but she’d squealed and giggled when she saw him, and when Amelia handed her over, Jacob's hands knew instinctively that they were holding something precious. Jimmy’s daughter—in a way, almost his own, their identical genes passed on into something Jacob wouldn’t ruin. Claire had burbled at him, cheerfully slapping Jacob’s face, and when Jacob looked up, Jimmy’s expression was softer than Jacob had ever seen it.

Jacob had held his niece for two, maybe three minutes. And now she’s gone.

I’m sorry, he thinks, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. Jacob was the one who left, he knows this, and maybe if he’d stayed he could have kept that awful look off Jimmy’s face. Jacob would have protected him—but didn’t Jimmy say he could look after himself, even with their mother dead?

“How’d it get in?” he asks, realizing only after he’s spoken that these should not have been the first words out of his mouth.

“Because I fucked up!” Jimmy yells. “Is that what you want to hear? I didn’t lay the salt lines, I didn’t paint devil’s traps all over my house, and it was my own stupid, stupid fault.” He’s shaking. He looks ready to throw another punch. This time, Jacob hugs him before either of them can back out.

They’d do this when they were little, if one of them got hurt. Touching each other like pain could be leached through physical contact. They’re supposed to get split everything right down the middle, that’s the rule, and Jacob will take his half so Jimmy doesn’t have to carry it anymore. Jimmy tucks his face into Jacob’s collarbone and Jacob just holds him, conjuring up and discarding sentences he could speak in their old twin-language: you’ll be okay and I’ll make it better and I’m here, I’m here. You’ve still got me.

Again, though, Jimmy doesn’t indulge his grief for long. Jacob lets go before Jimmy can push him away, and for a while they don’t speak, staring in opposite directions.

Not even salt lines? Mom had told him that Jimmy wasn’t hunting anymore, and of course Jacob remembers the screaming matches Jimmy’d started whenever Jacob let something slip in front of Amelia, but there’s leaving the life and there’s just plain recklessness. Jimmy could have found a way to ward himself without letting Amelia know. Kurt’s never even noticed the thin iron rods Jacob laid along each windowsill when he moved in, hollow tubes he’d filled with pure salt before welding them shut. Jacob hasn’t seen a demon since high school, relying on the salt alone to protect him here, but maybe a devil’s trap in blacklight paint or something, anything that couldn’t be seen to the naked eye—could paint the floor of a whole room if you wanted, like the panic room back home, though that would be a lot of leeway for the demon inside—

And he’s a terrible person, because his mind is whirring away on ways to prevent something that has already happened, and meanwhile Jimmy looks more and more like he regrets coming here. Jacob clears his throat.

“So what—what do you need?”

Jimmy’s surprised by the question, and that stings, that he didn’t think Jacob would be there for him. You haven’t been there for seven years, a treacherously honest part of him whispers, but he ignores that. At least it got Jimmy to look him in the eye.

“I want—” Jimmy pauses to scrub his face with his sleeve again. “You know more about this than I do,” he says finally. “I want to find the demon. I want to kill it.”

“You didn’t exorcise it either?” Jacob blurts, and immediately wants to punch himself.

Jimmy doesn’t break down again, though, just glares and says, “It wouldn’t let me. It wouldn’t let me say anything.” He rubs his throat. “And I’m not talking about sending it back to Hell. For all we know, they enjoy it down there. I want to kill it.”

“You can’t kill demons,” Jacob says automatically. The words trigger a hazy memory, some secret project Mom had mentioned just before she died, but he doesn’t try to remember it. He doesn’t like seeing Jimmy’s anger so close to the surface, like an oil slick just waiting for a spark to immolate him. “Anyway, aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?” he says. “You’ve still got the, y’know, funerals and stuff to arrange.”

Jimmy gives him an incredulous look, and Jacob doesn’t understand why until Jimmy says, “They’ve already happened. The funerals. Ame—the demon came a week ago.”

Ah, yes, Jacob had forgotten the faint stabbing sensation of learning everything about Jimmy’s life after the fact. Matter of fact, this is the first information he hasn’t gotten secondhand since Jimmy’s wedding invitation—though aside from the familiar handwriting on the envelope, that might as well have been from someone else too. “You waited a week?”

“My house burned to the ground,” Jimmy says coldly. “My wife and child are dead. If I’d run off to Boston the next minute, how do you think that would look?”

“You could have called,” says Jacob. Then, because his voice sounds pathetic and small even to his own ears, he tacks on, “And MIT isn’t Boston, it’s Cambridge.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows. Seeing through him as usual. “If I’d’ve called, would you have picked up?”

The of course sticks in Jacob’s throat, because he knows exactly which time Jimmy’s talking about, and he hadn’t. Before Jimmy was standing here, making every familiar thing in the apartment seem strange in comparison to the bone-deep familiarity he has with Jimmy—before Jacob had seen the weight of grief crushing his brother in front of his eyes—before this reminder of just how messed up Jimmy makes him, he’d been trying to live without Jimmy, and it had almost been working.

“Yeah,” says Jimmy to his silence. “That’s what I thought.”

Jacob takes a deep breath. “So, what?” he says. “You’re here because you want someone to hunt with?” And I’m your only choice, because Mom is dead and anyone else would tell you you brought this on yourself?

“Just until we find the demon,” Jimmy says. “I just—” His fists clench again. “I can’t just go back and act like—”

“Like none of this is real?”

It’s mean, petty the way he only ever gets around Jimmy, but goddammit, Jacob wants to hear Jimmy say that running away from everything their family is was a mistake. Instead he gets a wounded look that isn’t satisfying at all, and one quiet “Jacob.”

He has a life here. Kaycee’s birthday is next month and Jacob promised Joseph he would be the stripper in her cake. He and Kurt have finally settled into something where everyone’s needs are met and no one asks impossible things of him. He has books overdue at the library. He has a doctorate to earn, for god’s sake. “You don’t even know how long it’ll take,” he says. “Looking for one specific demon in Hell is like looking for one particular drop of water in Boston Harbor. Except in this analogy all the other drops of water also want to kill you. And you don’t even know if it’s in Hell.”

“It wasn’t like other demons,” Jimmy says hurriedly. “Its eyes were red, not black.”

Maybe a higher class of demon? That’ll narrow the field, at least. He’s pretty sure Rufus Turner has a book that says—wait. Wait. “And what happens when you still can’t find it? Are you just gonna keep chasing your tail in circles?” How long until you decide you want to be normal again?

“Then I’ll find other monsters.” Jimmy’s shoulders are high and tight around his neck. “Make sure something like this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“You want to hunt,” Jacob reiterates, feeling stupid, but the last time he remembers Jimmy enjoying a hunt was before they started high school. “You want to hunt with me.”

“I know you have things for you here,” Jimmy cuts in. “Friends, job, school, whoever you’re living with that likes v-necks so much. I mean, jeez, you have a pet bird.” Physics Macaw recognizes its cue, and lets out the laugh of the Wicked Witch of the West. Stuff it and mount it on the wall, Jacob is not even joking.

He also doesn’t know what to say next because yeah, he does have something here, a better life than he ever would have had in Pontiac. He’s not half of anything here. He doesn’t know what to do.

“So you don’t have to come,” Jimmy finishes. “I can do it by myself.”

But this isn’t about Jimmy wanting to hunt again. This is the same kamikaze impulse that Jacob remembers from the last summer before college, the anger channeled into a recklessness that led Jimmy, at seventeen, to chase down another, more ordinary demon with only an antipossession charm and a single bottle of holy water. That demon lured Jimmy deep into the woods beyond their house and sliced him up like so much raw meat and left him to die.

There had been times that summer when Jacob truly hated his brother, but he forgot it all the second he saw Jimmy bleeding out on the forest floor. Jimmy’s skin had gone an ugly white from blood loss but his eyes were still open, and he’d recognized Jacob. The only word he’d been able to say and it was Jacob’s name.

And still Jimmy didn’t salt his doors. And here Jimmy is, asking. So no, Jimmy can’t do it by himself, because Jacob isn’t going to let him. If he’s honest, he’s known this was how it would end from the moment he saw who he was fighting with.

“I’ll go pack,” Jacob says, and the raw gratitude on Jimmy’s face is worth everything.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Big Bang Art!

2012-06-21T05:26:32Z

Yes, it's spn_j2_bigbang time again, and I made art for ghostwriter056 's story, Roads Left In Both Our Shoes.

Pairing(s): Castiel/Claire, Dean/Castiel (mostly unrequited)
Rating: R
Word Count: ~20, 500
Warnings: A sexual relationship involving a minor, violence, character death, recreational drug use and language
Summary: The last prayer Castiel heard was Claire Novak’s. He’d made a promise to her father to protect her and that was what he’d meant to do when he picked her up from her house after disposing of her mother’s body (Croatoan ‘Verse)

You guys know how I feel about croatverse and Claire Novak.

The fic banner:

And an illustration of a scene early in the fic where Castiel goes to Claire's house to rescue her from croats, but lacks the power to fly back out—and so Claire offers the use of her soul.

Mmm. Soulfisting.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

A Softer SPN (part one)

2012-05-04T08:45:16Z

If you don't know of the webcomic A Softer World, you should be aware that it ranks nearly as high as Richard Siken on the list of Things That Are Totally Supernatural. See below for exhibits A through Obviously.(Click each comic for additional feelings in the form of tagfic tumblr posts.)

1.

2. (scarecrow version and its tumblr post)

3.

4.

5.

6. (any lady version)

7. (alternate version)

8. (Claire version and its tumblr post)

9. (Dean version)

10.

11.

12.

13.

Others have had this idea too, including all these by andrea_deer, these Novaks by metonomia, and these Novakcests by thegeminisage. JOIN THE FUN.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

like the clone wars only sexy

2012-02-09T18:40:51Z

As further proof that talking to me is dangerous, I got my dear beleaguered moragmacpherson to create a Selfcest Commentfic Meme! Basically, we're shipping characters with any other role played by their actor, including different versions of the same character, for a glorious narcissistic furor of crossovers and intensely personal boning.

Yes, novakcest prompts abound, and there's already been a fill: Hooked, for the prompt "Every scar the twins get makes them a little less symmetrical. Guess they'll just have to put matching marks on each other." IT'S PRETTY GREAT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT. And then come play on the meme with me! The more the cestier!

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Riverbed

2012-01-26T23:48:26Z

Title: Riverbed
Author: callowyn
Word Count: 1200
Pairing: Jimmy/Jacob preslash
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: It's winter and the river is running dry.
Notes: This started as a writing exercise responding to "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, inspired by my REAL-LIFE TRIP TO ACTUAL PONTIAC and the Vermillion River that runs through it. (How is this my first real novakcest fic? I guess I was too busy with the novakcest tumblr to write more than a paragraph without capslock.) Thank you thegeminisage and whynot for checking it over/having feelings at my feelings.

The red wheelbarrow tips its mouth toward the river as it always has, but the water that once washed rust over its body now trickles out of reach. Drought in winter comes quietly, just more greyness over the already-ashen landscape, high clouds that bear no snow and earth that cracks without frost. But the river recognizes the dry wind, and retreats into its deepest furrows, leaving the wheelbarrow aground.

Jacob scrapes a stick through the dirt caked onto the dulling paint, while behind him Jimmy climbs down the riverbank. Dead leaves skitter down the root-torn slope behind him, no rain or rot to glue them together.

This place, Jacob says, is just waiting for a wildfire.

Jimmy kicks a hollow clang out of the wheelbarrow. I don’t see it anywhere, do you?

Jacob sees a blue beer can wedged between two stones, a crow preening itself in the trees above them, a leaf brittle and askew in Jimmy’s hair. He moves to pluck it out half a second after Jimmy makes the same gesture, just another moment of meaningless synchronicity that they can’t seem to escape. Jimmy pauses, drops his hand with a resigned laugh. Fingers cold, Jacob reaches forward anyway and gives the leaf in Jimmy’s hair a stubborn pinch. It falls loose in shards.

Jacob likes to think he’s a hair-breadth taller than Jimmy these days, that there’s a slight upward tilt to Jimmy’s blue gaze. Something to make up for the seven minutes he’s forever trailing behind Jimmy, the gap that Jimmy treats like years sometimes. But what do differences matter when he and his brother are the only ones who can tell each other apart?

Yours is still there, Jimmy says.

Even now Jacob uses his brother as a mirror, touching his own head where he’d just brushed Jimmy’s. His scalp itches unspecifically when he finds nothing there, hands feathering around his ears and the back of his neck.

Jimmy takes pity, plucks a broken maple-seed spine from the top of Jacob’s head. Not taller after all, Jacob thinks.

Now help me find my baseball, Jimmy orders, and backs away.

It was Jacob’s wild throw that dropped the ball somewhere along this stretch of river, a spiteful instinct borne of Jimmy’s day-long needling. High banks shield the twins from the wind bending the trees on either side, but Jacob feels the cold creeping in around the folds of his scarf and pricking his already-numb face. His gloveless fingers he shoves into the gritty pockets of his coat. The sun is setting.

I don’t see why you’re so keen to be on the baseball team anyway, he says.

Jimmy casts a stone toward the river-dregs, but it falls short and buries itself in the mud. He says, We’re about to start high school.

So?

You’re not even helping, Jimmy says, you’re just standing there, and Jacob can see the shiver that travels across Jimmy’s shoulders and out along his elbows.

We could just use the other one.

There isn’t another one, Jimmy snaps. You cut it open, remember? You ruined it.

Jacob picks his way closer to the water. He doesn’t say, I just wanted to know what it looked like inside. He doesn’t say, I like to take things apart and you used to know that. He doesn’t say, you would have loved it.

The grubby ball, wherever it fell, lies indistinguishable among the silty debris within the river’s former borders. If Jacob had paper and pencil, if he knew exactly where he’d been standing when he threw the ball and exactly what velocity his frustration had given it, if he could measure the angles of his body as variables independent of Jimmy’s without them losing all meaning, he’d be able to find the stupid ball’s exact landing place and they could just go home.

Besides, says Jimmy, I like baseball.

Jacob moves down the river toward a sharp curve. The cornfield beyond has been tilled under for winter, leaving sky alone between the thin trees. The arched branches overhead feel like a roof. They could be the only people in the world.

What if the town caught fire? Jacob says. And we were down here, and we didn’t even know?

Don’t be horrible, says Jimmy.

It’s so dry, says Jacob, I bet there wouldn’t even be smoke. He looks at the ground. The baseball is resting at his feet.

Grass stains from earlier summers peek through the splashes of mud, misplaced color in the desaturated landscape. Jacob turns the ball between his hands and lets it smear dirt under his fingernails. He knows how to unpick the rough raised stitches and what it feels like to peel back the leather that even empty will keep its curve. He’s seen the white tangle of threads below the surface and knows there’s another web of grey underneath before the rubber-sheathed heart. Jimmy has renamed their games of catch practice so he can join a team of people who don’t know this, who have never asked why their most sacred object works the way it does. Jimmy, walking towards him, would never guess that the center of a baseball is cork riddled with holes.

You found it.

I told you I would, says Jacob. Jimmy holds out his hand.

But Jacob is seized again by the hot need to teach Jimmy a lesson, to take even some half-baked revenge for the shift between them that hasn’t happened yet but which Jacob can feel coming every time Jimmy moves away from him without thinking, every time he tells their jokes to people who don’t understand them, every time he forgets how to speak Jacob’s language.

So get it back, Jacob says.

Jimmy lunges, but Jacob is still half a step fleeter of foot and the leaves crunch beneath him as he skips out of the way. What’s wrong with you, Jimmy keeps demanding, what’s wrong with you, and there’s a sick feeling in Jacob’s stomach but he can feel his frozen cheeks pulling his grinning teeth bare.

Do you surrender? he asks, waggling the baseball. The dry air hurts to swallow.

But Jimmy doesn’t try to snatch the ball back. Instead his palms smack into Jacob’s chest and shove, hard, and Jacob’s stumbling feet catch the open rim of the red wheelbarrow, and then Jacob is face up in the mud and the water won’t wash over him because the river is gone but he can’t breathe. It feels like maybe his lungs have been empty for years.

Get up, Jimmy says. God, you’re such a jerk, Jacob, just get up.

Jacob doesn’t move. Everything is dry and cold and if a wildfire came through and peeled their outsides off it would still be Jacob’s skeleton lying in the dirt with the mud sucking him under. Jimmy swears at him, and then Jacob hears the shower of dry leaves that means Jimmy has climbed out of the riverbed. Jacob can’t imagine climbing out, can’t picture walking back to their lives through the wind. Instead he lies there, slowly sinking, smelling the mud and the things that died when the water left them.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

What Dreams May Come

2012-01-07T05:39:05Z

Title: What Dreams May Come
Author: callowyn
Word Count: 55
Pairing: Sam/Lucifer
Rating: PG
Warnings: vague Hell imagery
Summary: Sam dreams that he is not himself.
Notes: For the erasureathon challenge using gold_bluepoint's Supernatural/Eragon fusion Nocturnal Emissions, aka Please Don't Judge Me (Dragon Remix).

by instinct, by accident
Sam
fell

"Go to sleep,”

Sam shivers
"Don't be stupid. Go to sleep."

hazel human eyes with
toolarge toosharp grin

“it's not my dream."

rougher than a real human's, even here,
the feel of his dreaming heart

his alien-familiar pulse and
imaginary human skin

burning endlessly under the blazing
sun

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

in light of this latest upset

2011-12-21T19:37:58Z

Just want to remind everyone that I'm at Dreamwidth by callowyn, and that until the end of the year no invite is required to join. If you have a DW already, please tell me what it is so I can continue stalking you :D

I think it's funny that LJ's developers may do what all those DDOS attacks couldn't, and drive us out.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

jimmy and jacob are in love

2011-11-26T06:24:53Z

Today I give thanks for a joyously novakcestuous weekend! skullage has written TWO NEW NOVAKCEST FICS: My Body Still Both Light and Heavy With You (R, 770 words, sparring gone awry) and What My Damage Could Have Been (NC-17, 2500 words, anatomy porn after Jimmy learns about Jacob's acceptance to MIT). READ THEM. READ THEM NOW.

In the interest of keeping this party moving, I have collected several of my own novakcest ficlets for your viewing pleasure, courtesy of the novakcest tumblr.

1. August 31, 1993 (original post)

The kelpie takes three more children before their mother decides to hunt it on its own turf. She hadn’t exactly promised the twins balloons and a clown cake, but it’s not until they’re standing on the lake shore and she hands him an iron knife and an oxygen tank that Jimmy realizes this is how he’s going to spend his thirteenth birthday: muddy water seeping in around the edges of his goggles, his stomach fluttering with that same froth of fear and excitement that hasn’t dissipated since their first real hunt more than a year ago, listening to the sound of his own breath loud and mechanical in the silent water. Their mother glides on ahead, as they’d agreed, and for a while Jimmy is aware only of the cold murk slipping between his fingers, along his body. He has dreams like this sometimes, never able to tell the difference between swimming and flying.

Jacob elbows Jimmy for attention and executes a clumsy backflip, eyes crinkling behind the goggles despite the mask that gets in the way of his smile. Jimmy bubbles a laugh and pokes Jacob’s shoulder, then darts away—tag, you’re it. Caught up in the escape, in the cocoon of his self-contained breath, he doesn’t see the dark horse-like creature that rises up beneath him.

The kelpie’s teeth pierce down to the bones of his ankle. Jimmy tries to gasp and chokes on the plastic taste in his mouth, oxygen tank scraping the back of his neck as he’s dragged down through swirls of his own blood. He can’t see—

And then his vision fills with Jacob and he snaps back into himself, enough to remember the knife still clutched in one hand. He scores a line across the kelpie’s long face and it pulls away, both of them now staining the water dark. Jimmy imagines he can smell the rotten metallic tang, memories from previous hunts filling in where his nose only sucks uselessly in its plastic mask.

Jacob dives with a look Jimmy has seen too many times, one that’s crossed his own face more than once since they started fighting monsters and the monsters started fighting back. You hurt my brother. I’ll kill you.

But the kelpie must sense him coming, because just as Jacob nicks its flank it turns and lunges for him, and for one heart-stopping second Jimmy thinks it’s torn out the back of Jacob’s neck. The truth, when he furiously kicks close enough to see it, is almost as bad: Jacob’s mouthpiece has been torn out, the tube in shreds, and a well-placed wrench has the air tank bubbling out. Jacob flails his arms, grasping for the mouthpiece, but his eyes behind the mask are huge. Breathless.

Later Jimmy will learn that his mother emerged from the murk like an avenging angel, firing three iron bolts from a modified crossbow straight into the kelpie’s heart. What he knows at this moment is that Jacob’s never been good at holding his breath, and the kelpie below them is thrashing itself into a frenzy, and Jimmy’s ankle feels stabbed anew with every kick but Jacob can’t breathe and the surface is so very far above them—

And then he has one arm around Jacob’s waist and the other clapping his air supply against his twin’s mouth, and Jacob is alive enough to pull him closer as he takes his first breath.

2. Shotgun Shuts His Cakehole (original post)

When they were young, sitting shotgun was a punishment. Don’t make me come back there. Don’t make me separate you. A trip to the grocery store, the weekly schleps to church, the earliest times Sally packed the trunk with rifles and rocksalt. The game was always to push each other just far enough, annoying without angering, teasing without tempting Mom’s wrath.

That changed, with the same mysterious alchemy that drove Jimmy to find his own table at lunch. Maybe the process had been going on for a long time and Jacob hadn’t noticed, not until they were dragging the bags back to the car after a weekend in Indiana (werewolf, and it hadn’t gone well). “I call shotgun,” Jimmy said, and Jacob didn’t understand. And then there was Jimmy, sitting next to their mother, avoiding his eyes in the rearview mirror. Calling shotgun every time and winning, because Jacob never remembers the impenetrable distance between front seat and back seat until Jimmy chooses it for him. What is Jacob supposed to do, if not strap himself in and ride it out?

3. Halloween, 1995 (original post)

When they were fifteen, Jimmy saved up to buy himself a really good gangster costume, something that would make everyone glad he’d been invited to the Halloween party this year. He was still studying his reflection, adjusting the lapels of his coat and scooting the overlarge fedora further up on his head, when Jacob rattled down the stairs, apparently ready for his own night of solo trick-or-treating in the grubbiest of their three communal button-downs and his favorite pair of jeans. The only indication that this even formed a costume was the coil of rope tucked over one shoulder.

Jimmy met his brother’s eyes in the mirror. “Who’re you?”

“Indiana Jones,” Jacob said, with that particular scorn he saved just for Jimmy, and yeah, Jimmy should’ve known—Jacob had watched Raiders of the Lost Ark so many times that even Jimmy could identify it by the opening commercials on the VHS. “Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

Jimmy turned to glare properly and felt the fedora slide back down around his eyebrows.

“I’m gonna get way more candy than you,” Jacob added. He imitated the sound of a whip.

Jimmy suddenly saw how Jacob would look to anyone else, this boy who should’ve outgrown stupid traditions still clinging to a rope that no one would recognize. An itch formed where the hatband pressed against Jimmy’s forehead and the scrape of his fingernails didn’t soothe it. Why hadn’t Jacob left already? Why did he always make Jimmy witness his embarrassments, as though their shared face lifted half the responsibility?

“Here,” said Jimmy’s mouth without permission, and then he was taking the fedora he’d bought with his own money and pushing it onto Jacob’s messy hair and backing away again because personal space actually meant something for them these days. After a moment, Jacob touched the hat like he wasn’t entirely sure that had just happened either.

“Aren’t you gonna need this?”

“Yeah, well, you can’t fight Nazis without a hat.” Jimmy looked down at the trenchcoat, which seemed somehow lighter across his shoulders. “I can be John Constantine. He’s pretty cool.”

“Practically a hunter,” Jacob agreed, and that wasn’t what Jimmy meant but it’d been a while since Jacob grinned without malice so he didn’t say anything, not even when the smile slipped and something else crossed Jacob’s face. But “Coat looks good on you, Jimbo,” and then Jacob was past Jimmy and out the door.

Later Jimmy won’t remember whose house the party was at or whether anyone liked his costume after all; what he does hold on to is the way Jacob tipped Jimmy’s hat as he left, every inch the cocky adventurer, and how for a second there seemed nothing more natural than to follow him.

4. The Trials and Tribulations of Bobby Singer, Soccer Coach (original post)

“I started it,” says Jacob before they’ve even sat down. Except Jacob’s bleeding lip, you’d never know they’d been in a fight; the same could not be said for the four boys that had ended up in the nurse’s office. Jimmy glances up at Bobby, guilt written in the tight line of his mouth.

“Those are your teammates you just sent to the nurse,” Bobby tells Jimmy. He’s coached junior varsity soccer a long time, watched this kid go from awkward silences to overloud jokes to actual friendship with the rest of the team, and he’s not fool enough to think that’s got nothing to do with the way Jacob Novak has been getting himself deeper and deeper in trouble, not with how close the twins were only a few years back. But this is the first time he’s seen any sign of that mean streak in Jimmy, and for a second, catching the look on Jimmy’s face as he dragged him off the other boys, Bobby’d been downright scared of the boy.

He sighs and stares the Novak brothers down, wishing for a good stiff drink. “I guess I don’t need to warn you what’ll happen if this happens again.”

“It won’t,” says Jacob, directly to his brother, and adds something in harsh whispers about get yourself in trouble can fight my own goddamn battles why’d you even bother.

Jimmy looks Bobby in the eye and doesn’t say a single word.

5. Shuttered (original post)

Jacob’s always been aware of what’s in the clutter covering his desk, no matter how little sense it made to other people, so Joseph shouldn’t be able to hold up a photograph that doesn’t belong there and ask, “What’s this?”

It’s a sucker punch to the gut; it’s a memory out of place; it’s something Jacob thought he’d left behind. He had taken this picture with a camera he found at a church rummage sale, some summer a long time ago: Jimmy at the kitchen table, looking up just as the flash went off, wide-eyed and beginning a smile.

“Man, I know you’re homesick, but I don’t see how a picture of your own self is gonna help,” says Joseph, one eyebrow rising. “Given how you’re still right here.”

Jacob snatches the picture back a little too quickly, lays it face-down. He can still see Jimmy’s face perfectly, the quick grin of recognition he used to take for granted, and he can superimpose that last look of horrified disgust on it just as clearly. It’s not home Jacob’s sick for.

“Stop going through my stuff, asshole,” he says, and pushes the picture deep into the pile of papers, as though replacing it exactly where it was could undo the last two minutes (the last two years).

“This narcissism thing is getting weird,” Joseph mutters, but he must hear something in Jacob’s voice, because five years pass and he doesn’t mention it again.

6. The Usual Suspects (original post)

I’m a Virgo. I like long walks on the beach and double cheeseburgers. And I did not kill anyone.

Detective Diane Ballard hasn’t had this much trouble with a suspect since she joined the force. Even before the Novak twins start passing notes like teenagers in love, they’ve half convinced her that she has their names switched around, then with eerily accurate timing they both reclaim the names they came in with. She finds papers signed Starsky and Hutch, and she tries to remember how that show ended because she’s pretty sure one of them dies.

She doesn’t know which twin holds her wrists and tells her about ghosts, which one brings her along to dig up a girl tossed away like so much trash, which of them was there to see her lose faith in her partner. She doesn’t know who she has to thank for her life.

Additional reading/fap material lives on delicious. As ever, feel free to join the novakcest tumblr and make your own!

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Cambion Art

2011-10-11T22:22:09Z

There has been a tragic absence of Team Free Will 2.0 in my life of late, so I figured it was high time to post the illustrations I made to go with the Big Bang I beta'd/cowrote with thegeminisage:

CAMBION

Wordcount: 52k
Rating: R
Summary: When Jesse Turner's parents die in a house fire in 2019, Jesse comes back to the states to avenge them, hardened and mistrustful from years of being hunted. There he meets Ben Braeden and Claire Novak, both following the demon behind the attack in hopes it will lead them to the missing Sam and Dean. But Ben and Claire don't exactly trust half-demons, and Jesse sure as hell doesn't trust hunters. The reluctant partnership they enter into takes them to the fire-consumed ghost town of Centralia, PA in search of answers. There, Jesse must confront his powers once and for all, even if it means losing his humanity in the process.
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of Season 6. Graphic violence, minor character death, and one major character has died before the fic starts.

Masterpost on LJ
Full fic at AO3

Illustration descriptions are direct quotes from the fic and contain spoilers.

Jesse sighs and drops the duffel in the puddle by his feet. It takes both hands to pull the kitten out from beside the vending machine, and even then he gets scratched for his trouble. It's not until the kitten realizes Jesse's warmer than the concrete that it stops spitting and hissing and decides to dig its claws into Jesse's neck instead.

"No," Claire says, her eyes never leaving Castiel. She jerks in Ben's hold, breathing harshly, tears running down her face. "No, Ben. I can't, I've been looking for too long—"

"Please," Ben says. "Please, Claire, you can kill him later, I swear—I'll help you if you want me to but we can't now, people are gonna get hurt—Claire, please."

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Libations

2011-09-30T19:45:11Z

Title: Libations
Author: callowyn
Word Count: 1600
Pairing: Claire
Rating: PG-13 for horror
Warnings: none
Summary: Claire’s father promised her they would build a treehouse.
Notes: I actually wrote this for a class last semester (because I am shameless) and only recently remembered to post it. Thanks to thegeminisage for putting up with my birthing pains and zempasuchil for the beta! Cut text from Louise Glück's "Persephone the Wanderer."

Claire opens the back door and her father stumbles into her, even paler than he has been and panting harshly. Claire catches him on instinct, then feels the damp sweat stains through his shirt and wishes she hadn’t.

“Dad?” Her father’s rasping breath puffs against her neck, and she shudders. She nudges him with her shoulders until he balances on his own feet, staring glassily down at her. She looks away from his loose skin and shadowed eyes. “You’re supposed to stay in bed.”

Her father grips her shoulders, surprisingly hard for a man who’s been wasting away for months. “Claire,” he says. “Claire.” Claire remembers when she was very small and her father could lift her over his head without effort. Now she can see his bones pressing against his skin, fragile as twigs. A cut on his arm bleeds sluggishly, dripping onto his bare feet.

She can smell the sweat on him, the lingering sourness of disease, though the doctors have never been able to decide what it was that sapped his strength so quickly and utterly. She steps away, puts her hand on the door behind him.

“Don’t,” he says convulsively, grabbing at her again. “Don’t listen to it, Claire—”

So his mind is decaying as well as his body, Claire thinks. She kicks the screen door until it opens.

“Go back to bed, Dad,” she tells him, and leaves.

In the morning, Claire sees her mother standing in the doorway of her father’s room, a plate of toast clutched in her hands. Claire goes and stands beside her. The room is empty.

“Where did Dad go?”

There’s a very slight quiver in her mother’s voice when she says, “I’m not sure.”

From outside, Claire hears a hint of something like music.

Some impulse guides her to the tree in the backyard, an ash on the very edge of their property and the only thing taller than cornstalks for miles. Her mother had planted it when Claire was barely old enough to hold a shovel, watching in amazement as it grew from a sapling to a tall, sturdy tree faster than anyone could explain.

She can’t remember, now, when she had stopped sneaking out of bed to climb it, or why. Its branches curve just low enough to its squat trunk that Claire can grip one and lift herself onto it, blonde hair swinging behind her as she ascends immediately to the next branch, and the next. She straddles a branch twenty feet up and feels the rough bark rub against her back through her t-shirt. The grass beneath her rustles, dry and brittle from drought, a percussive counterpoint to the ringing in her ears.

In only the past week, the green-tinged buds have burst forth into leaves, young and green and clambering for sunlight. Claire reaches to touch one, to feel the life as it pulses through those delicate veins, then jerks her finger back. A dark blot smears across the leaf, courtesy of some unseen splinter, and the high, whispery note in her head gets louder. The tree shivers around her.

It gets harder to sleep. As soon as she lies down, Claire will catch strains of a music she has never heard before, some alien amalgam of reedy flutes and low humming and the sound of waves breaking. It’s always faint, too similar to the susurrus of her own blood for her to know if the song is real. So Claire lies awake, turning her head this way and that, hands flexing on the covers, trying to pick out a melody.

She gets up, one night, unable to keep her restless body still, and goes to the window. The ash tree is a solid figure on the horizon, rooted and permanent. Claire’s father promised her they would build a treehouse once it was big enough. The thought of being swayed to sleep among those branches soothes the itch in Claire’s mind. Her father is gone, she thinks, folding herself back under the blankets. Surely he won’t mind if she starts without him.

Claire pulls the measuring tape tight around the ash tree’s limbs, pausing every few moments to scribble numbers on the floor plan she drew up. The leaves are growing larger, brushing against her bare legs as she moves from branch to branch.

When Claire returns from the lumberyard with a pile of beams and plywood, her mother says, “You can’t build a treehouse all by yourself. You’re fourteen. You’ll fall and break your leg again.”

Claire doesn’t remember falling out of the tree, nine years old and fearless, but she remembers how quickly her yells brought her father running, remembers him scooping her up and cradling her all the way to the car, his thumb rubbing her knuckles in the ambulance as it took her away. She ignores her mother and drills into the ash’s trunk, humming under her breath.

The air gets drier and hotter, the grass on the lawn turning yellow and then brown. Claire drags the hose out to the ash tree and lets it trickle into the ground far beneath her, bolting in triangular supports as the tree shakes around her. Her hammer follows a beat she can’t quite discern. On the day she finally affixes the platform’s frame in place, an unseen branch slices deep into the meat of her forearm. Claire stares at her blood falling all the way down to the tree’s roots, mesmerized.

Her mother’s lips press tighter and tighter as she swipes antiseptic over the wound, gaze picking out the other scrapes and bruises on Claire’s pale skin.

“This is too dangerous,” her mother snaps. “For God’s sake, Claire, you’re dizzy.” It isn’t dizziness, though; Claire is only unaccustomed to the solidness of the ground beneath her. The music is louder now than she’s ever heard it.

Her mother tells her to stop building. But her mother leaves for work every morning and doesn’t return until sunset, and Claire can see the treehouse’s skeleton from her bedroom window, her head buzzing with the need to complete it. The tree braces her up, shades her with leaves that grow thicker and greener every day. Every day Claire finds it harder to put her tools aside, to slide back to the parched ground and walk on shaking legs to the silent house.

When Claire slips, and the ash scrapes open her thigh so fiercely that red seeps into the bark, long minutes go by before the pain penetrates her consciousness. Claire draws her leg up, curiously detached, and soon the hushing rhythm of the leaves drives it from her mind. She does not tell her mother.

And then, one day, the treehouse is finished.

That night, Claire gathers a blanket and a flashlight. She has resisted the urge to sleep in her treehouse during its construction, though this exertion of willpower combines with the maddeningly faint music to assure that the unrested shadows beneath her eyes keep pushing deeper against her skull.

Her mother catches her at the door, holding her by the shoulders just as her father had those many weeks ago. “I told you to stop, Claire,” she says. “Don’t go out there, please, it’s—it’s the middle of a thunderstorm.” Behind her mother Claire can see the tree, a verdant green crown on the brown landscape, and above it the gathering dark stormclouds. The unearthly music’s tempo is getting faster, her heartbeat with it.

“I finished it,” she says desperately. The wind rushes in and out of the door, tugging at her clothes. “Mom—let me go—“

“He’s not coming back,” her mother says, wide-eyed, fingers digging in, and Claire can feel her own bones creaking. She has pulled away and darted back to her bedroom before it registers whom her mother was talking about. But the realization soon sinks under the rising tide of sound as she inches open her window and climbs out into the green-grey sky.

The wind is on her at once, whipping through her hair and sliding down her back. The clouds rumble, but the ground is still dry when Claire alights, the grass crunching as she runs through it, racing as swiftly as the wind demands. The tree bends toward her like a man asking her to dance.

She doesn’t need a flashlight to climb these branches, familiar to her now as her own body. Twigs flick against her arms, her face, but the profusion of leaves strokes soft over the scratches. She doesn’t even notice how fast her breath is coming, nor the smile on her face. Claire reaches the treehouse and pulls herself inside just as the rain hits.

It’s beautiful. The fluttering leaves swirl in patterns of green and silver, rushing back against the roar of the storm. Water beats against the roof, the walls, flying in through the empty window and onto Claire where she lies gasping on the floor. One hand grips the tree trunk where it juts through and up, grounding her on her swaying bed, the creak of wood drowned out by the high trilling music that is finally loud enough for her to hear.

Claire sings, and the tree sings back.

The earth is still damp the next morning when Claire’s mother approaches the tree, draws close to the mess of broken wood scattered through the branches and over the yard. Claire’s body is gone, as she knew it would be. She drops to her knees among the roots, touches the faded drops of blood still visible on the thirsty ground. Then, even as her tears fall to join them, she looks up, head tilted toward the leaves.

She hears the indistinct whispers of music. The tree has never looked greener.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Dancing Tree

2011-09-13T04:25:38Z

Title: Dancing Tree
Author: callowyn
Notes: A poem I rediscovered from last May, based on (and titled after) the painting Dancing Tree by Egon Schiele.
Summary: Dean, rising.

What you bury along the road has
not your name but your face
so the crows will recognize it.
She has red eyes and you
kiss her anyway;
the trees are watching
over you. They follow
the mad beat of your heart and
the dance of running, hellbent—
You forget your brother.
You return, and the trees
by grace or sudden gale
fall down.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Dr. Phil would be proud

2011-08-06T21:33:36Z

Title: Couples Counseling
Artist: callowyn
Pairing: Sam/Castiel
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Summary: 6.22 coda. In which Sam prefers therapy to adulation, and the rule against chick flick moments is blatantly violated.
Notes: For sassy_otp's 31 Abominations fest, going on here.

Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

we are legion

2011-08-01T03:00:57Z

You guys. YOU GUYS. NOVAKCEST.

First and foremost, I want to alert those of you who do not already know that there is now a communal novakcest tumblr! We find pretty pictures, we claim they are Novaks, and it is glorious. (Many of these were collected to make the latest post from twoskeletons.) If you want to join us (AND YOU SHOULD), give me or Lass your email so we can invite you. :D

MORE IMPORTANTLY, THOUGH, THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL ADDITIONS TO THE JIMMY/JACOB FIC COLLECTION SINCE LAST WE SPOKE. When the latest round of blindfold_spn happened, it is possible that someone such as myself may have prompted Jimmy/Jacob. And then that others followed suit.

AND THEN THEY GOT FILLS.

Late Night Operator by wandersfound
Prompt: Jacob works as a phone sex operator (enter Cas-voice). Jimmy rings up, not knowing it's him. It's the first time they've spoken in years.
Set in SPN canon, shortly before 4.20 "The Rapture." R. ~2000 words.

Not If The World Were Ending by tawg
Prompt: Jacob's body is the same as Jimmy's, and that means he knows exactly how to put Jimmy back together.
Set in SPN canon, futurefic. NC-17. ~2600 words.

But How To Graph The Results? by tawg
Prompt: Jimmy has powers from being fed demon blood as a baby. Jacob is determined to find a logical, scientific basis. This calls for experimentation!
Set in novakcest verse, season two. NC-17. ~2200 words.

Trouble by skullage
Prompt: They encounter a siren. Sex happens.
Set in novakcest verse, season one. NC-17. ~1000 words.

I AM SERIOUSLY SO HAPPY FOR EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE. I really didn't expect that anyone would fill my prompt, let alone prompt more from this verse and have those filled too, and I am filled with such schmoopy love for all of you that I am embarrassing myself. I HAVE THE BEST FLIST EVER.

♥

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

the man who would be boyking

2011-07-08T08:48:17Z

Today's Novakcest post is presented in honor of glassyskies, whose birthday it was yesterday! She also wins the prize of being the first person to write a true novakcest fic. Twice. Thus I bring you the tale of Jimmy, the boy with the demon blood, exploring his Azazel-granted powers in season two, with assistance and UST from Jacob.

does jacob know about the dreams?
like nightmare, does jimmy pretend like he found out about it in a newspaper or something
and jacob being like which newspaper
and jimmy's like idk something on the internet?
jacob being like, that is not a legitimate source
and jimmy like TRUST ME JACOB
and jacob is like :hands:
max miller is the one putting jacob in danger that jimmy powers him out of
like sam in the closet etc, except jacob never knew, it's all new to him
jimmy pushing the closet away with his mind, jimmy with his mind on the gun
and he could do small things before, but never things like this
trapped in the closet and hearing the commotion upstairs and just freaking the fuck out because JACOB
and suddenly he finds it in him to power as he has never powered before
omg and of course it is his feelings for jacob that really tap into that
and jacob watching as jimmy deals with max miller, maybe a psychic tug of war over the gun
and jacob is like is this still my brother, what happened to my brother
because jacob's hunter instincts are still stronger at this point
if it's not human, should he kill it

BORN UNDER A BAD SIIIIIIGN

maybe instead of Jo, it was Jacob he pushed up against the bar
Jimmy gets really handsy when he's not himself
HANDING HIM A GUN AND BEGGING FOR DEATH, THEN SMACKING HIM AND PINNING HIM DOWN WHEN JACOB REFUSES
THE DEMON IS INSIDE HIM AND HE CAN'T DO AAAAANYTHING
HE CAN'T EVEN WARN JACOB
DEMON!JIMMY WOULD BE AMAZING FROM BOTH POVs
jimmy coming to after being possessed and the smoke on his breath like cigarettes, like that time they were fourteen and skipped school and bummed a smoke from some guy, shared it backwards and forwards until the tip was soggy
jimmy’s breath smells like that now, his breath ragged and fear making him tense, his movements stiff

wait who possesses jimmy? isn't meg already around at that point?
no she doesn’t come in until just before cold oak I thought
I mean, but could it be meg? BECAUSE ALL DEMONS ARE MEG LOLOLOL
hm yeah what if she possesses jimmy before they meet?
and then they exorcise her and then meet nicki aycox a couple months later
but when they meet jimmy doesn't know that meg was the one possessing him
OH MY GOD what if jimmy recognizes her as the demon who killed amelia and claire while she is inside him?
AND HE CAN'T DO ANYTHING
AND JACOB EXORCISES HER AND SHE IS LOST
because i mean if she's in YOUR HEAD, it's hard not to feel it
AND JIMMY WAS LIKE FUCK JACOB WE COULD HAVE KILLED HER RIGHT THEN
AND JACOB IS LIKE THAT WOULD HAVE MEANT KILLING YOU TOO
AND JIMMY IS LIKE, I DON'T CARE
like a slap in the face
and jacob's like...
because i mean when did jimmy get this unhinged? this volatile?
jimmy's control, falling apart
jimmy fraying at the seams

maybe when meg possesses jimmy she is like mmmm special child in his head
and all like "do you know, jimmy, do you know why you're like this? what those dreams mean?"
and jimmy's like no what what are you talking about
meg is like, you're one of my daddy's special kids!
we're like brothers!
jimmy is like FUCK YOU. I HAVE A BROTHER.
"you got a little bit of hell in you, jimmy. let's raise it."
and then at the end of the episode, MAYBE THAT'S WHEN THEY HAVE THE "KILL ME" CONVO:

JIMMY ALL DISTANT AND ACCEPTING
JACOB BEING ALL LIKE WTF MAN I'M NOT GONNA KILL YOU YOU CRAZY
and jacob is like no no no jimmy no look we will get tattoos it will be fine stop talking

MATCHING TATTOOS OVER THE HEART
probably after jimmy got possessed they were like, gotta make sure that NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN
is this also when they discover about devil's traps
and jimmy is like SHIT FUCKING DAMMIT I COULD HAVE PUT THOSE IN MY HOUSSSSSE
they never really did demons before this anyway so they are learning lots
what if one of jacob's mit friends was a tattoo artist who taught him how to do it
JIMMY IS ALL, WHAT IS THAT SINCE WHEN ARE YOU INTO TATTOOS
AND THEN JACOB WITH THE NEEDLE
OMG THE TENSION
JACOB ALL UP IN HIS PERSONAL SPACE AGAIN, WIPING AWAY THE BLOOD
TELLING THEMSELVES THAT THIS IS ALL FOR THE BEST ANYWAY
JIMMY KEEPING HIS EYES ON THE WALL
IGNORING EACH OTHER'S HARDONS
that split second where Jimmy hesitates and is going to ask for his to be put on the opposite side
except would that be worse, would they stand facing each other and be each other's reflection?
the needle feels hot, more like a brand.
Jimmy digs his fingers into Jacob's arm.
this will keep the evil out, they think.

WHAT ABOUT PLAYTHINGS OH GOD
WRITHING ON THE BED, YOU GOTTA KILL ME JACOB, PROMISE
I found the liquor cabinet, jacob
jimmy getting drunk on things: a theme jacob could do with less of
HUNGOVER JIMMY
jimmy never could hold his liquor
jimmy, you're drunk, just…
sleep it off, okay?
and jimmy just grabs jacob's faaaace

DRUNK JIMMY FLOPPING TO THE BED AFTER JACOB SHOVES HIM ASIDE
jacob off to the side just trying to get his shit together
waiting for his boner to go down
calm the fuck down, he says to himself
it's fine, it'll be fine, we can figure this out, pull yourself together
he's drunk, jacob tells himself you can't just let him touch you like–
he's drunk. stop.

when jimmy starts having the dreams and freaking out, jacob thinks they're grief-induced
"no it's real"
jimmy having a vision and jacob being like okay, now try to stay calm
jacob takes his pulse, checks jimmy's eyes
touching jimmy's neck, his wrists, getting all up in his space
poor jimmy watching people dieeeeeee

i want jacob coming up with scientific explanations for jimmy's psychic flashes
he is a scientist he wants to know what these are and what they can do
so he encourages jimmy to pursue his powers
is jacob, a little bit, the ruby here
if meg was like lol ur evil while she possessed jimmy, jimmy would freak out, right?
so jacob would have a lot of persuading to do before powers training
but jimmy you can't hold a gun if you don't know how to shoot it, that's practically the first lesson, come on this is for science
you have to know your enemy
because that's always been his method, you analyze it and see its component parts

idk maybe jacob's draw to the powers initially is more muted
fear mixed in with the curiosity
so it takes a few explosions before he's like okay fuck that we gotta get you trained up
maybe he just wants to find a way to stop the nightmares
small things, relative to what they can actually do

jacob studying it as a way to get to the heart of jimmy, but it's also what depersonalizes jimmy in his mind, not that jacob's aware of it.
it freaks jimmy out sometimes. like jacob is using a different part of his brain on jimmy
not the part jimmy's used to
this isn't jacob with jimmy, this is jacob with a microscope
and it unsettles jimmy because he is used to the former
jimmy has never really experienced science jacob!
science is what jacob did when jimmy wasn't there
jimmy doesn't like to see mit!jacob, which is basically what this is
come back, you weren't supposed to leave me for science again
science is jacob’s jess, his amelia
the OTHER WOMAN
DO YOUR BAR GRAPHS EVER GIVE YOU BONERS, JACOB
...no wait don't answer that

jacob is kind of predatory and greedy right now
jacob simultaneously detaching and becoming even more obsessive
jimmy as object of study an object of study, of desire, verboten.
jacob puts jimmy on a pedestal.
and then seeing jimmy consumed by revenge, more than anything else that starts to poke jimmy off the pedestal
jimmy meanwhile still grieving

DOES JACOB GET MAYBE A LITTLE POWER MAD
jimmy supple in his hands as never before
JIMMY LISTENING TO HIM DOING AS HE SAYS
oh fffffffffff are there very slight hints of hell!jacob
DIET HELL!JACOB
how do things work
this is why he's a great torturer, because he doesn't really care ABOUT torture
the torture is incidental to taking them apart, because he is CURIOUS
in some part of him he wants to take jimmy apart to find out how he works
jimmy, the perpetual mystery to him
i think jacob must know to some extent that there is something manipulative in his experiments
probably one of those things he doesn't wanna think about
i can also see him being like, as time goes on, he really does get wrapped up in the numbers and experiments, truly outside of jimmy himself
the dissociation thing
maybe this is what leads to jimmy snapping. i'm not just a fucking line graph, jacob.
jacob is not giving the affirmation jimmy needs
does jacob's scientific objectification scar jimmy a little bit
~THIS IS ALL YOU'RE GOOD FOR~
and jimmy’s own issues with the powers, the demon blood is him losing control of his very body
his mind has always had its dark corners but now his body does strange things without him meaning to
good thing he never went into the ministry then. laughing bitterly, what good would that have been
but maybe if he can control this he can control other things

so at first jimmy is like I AM EVIL AND BAD and jacob is like oooooh shiny
but then jacob sort of prods jimmy into self-exploration and jimmy is surprised by how good it feels
MASTURBATION METAPHOR

omg jimmy sending him things telepathically
IS IT STRONGER BECAUSE THEY ARE TWIIIINS
how often does jimmy do this? is this a power they practice? with the experiments?
IT'S VERY START STOP AT FIRST
COME ON JIMMY
AND OF COURSE THE FIRST THING HE TRANSMITS IS JUST GUT FEELING
WHICH IS JACOB
and idk if even jimmy knows what he's transmitting
just shaking and sweating and asking, "did it work? did you see?"
and jacob is like, yeah yeah try again
BECAUSE HE WANTS TO KNOW
HE WANTS TO SEE MORE
HE WANTS TO CONFIRM
DOES HE GET EMOTIONAL TRANSFER
CAN JACOB FEEL JIMMY'S REPRESSED WANT
I THINK IT KIND OF BLOWS HIM AWAY
LIKE WASN’T IT JIMMY WHO HAS ALWAYS PUSHED HIM AWAY
BUT THERE IS THIS
THERE IS STILL THIS
also frustrates him more, because jesus jimmy how can you ignore that
AND IT LIGHTS SOME ANGRY DESPERATE FUTILE HOPE IN HIM
AND HE IS LIKE
HE JUST WANTS MORE AND HE IS SNEAKY CREEPY ABOUT IT
because i mean also jimmy is still grieving and other issues, so jacob is not really gonna tackle this head on
he taught himself not to
that didn't work in the past so he's mining through jimmy's head for incest
passive aggressive seduction
it is also like a drug
jacob gets to liking the emotional transference
AND THEN JIMMY STARTS TO NOTICE LIKE, what are you seeing
and jacob lies some more and jimmy knows he's lying
maybe part of it is that jimmy is getting better at self-control
so he's like, sending less incestuous thoughts, which makes jacob even more manipulative
trying to get the desired results
biasing the results
WHICH IS REALLY UNSCIENTIFIC, JACOB
but jimmy trumps science
jimmy is always more than science more than anything

OH MY GOD MAYBE THE VERY FIRST TIME HE ACCIDENTALLY SHOVES SOME OF HIS GRIEF ONTO JACOB
AND IS THEN LIKE JAKE WHY ARE YOU CRYING
DOES JACOB HAVE TO EXCUSE HIMSELF
DOES HE APOLOGIZE PROFUSELY TO JIMMY
ARE THERE MORE COMFORT HUGS
AND IT IS LIKE THE MOST GEN OF HUGS
BUT PERHAPS ONE OF THE DEEPEST
BECAUSE LOSS, MOURNING, TRAPPEDNESS
RETURN, RECONCILIATION
because jacob isn't very good at empathy
but now he gets it
maybe this also contributes to him holding himself back when things turn porny
I mean, he still doesn't know what to say, but his hug is no longer a hesitant fumbling thing
this time he may cry nearly as much as jimmy
grief gives him the confidence of necessity
needing comfort himself makes it easier to give it

can he read jacob's thoughts too?
maybe it takes jimmy all season to master it though, he's not telepathic per se
he hasn't sharpened it that far
that's one he's scared of
for the longest time it's just flashes of emotion and instinct still
does he sometimes use this on hunts, high stress brings out his powers to protect jacob
maybe that's how jacob discovers the powers!
"what the fuck was that"
jimmy like I didn't do it on purpose!
jacob already knows about the dreams but this is something else
i think jimmy is more afraid than jacob is.
maybe he doesn't want to look inside jacob's mind
he's still to scared of himself and what he'll do
i'm not sure if jacob is scared, can he ever really be scared of jimmy?
if jacob's gonna be scared of jimmy, i think it would be more likely in s4
yeah, s2 jimmy is fighting him trying to stay a good person his morals aren't that warped yet
and he also doesn't want to get what he wants
he thinks being good, doing your duty, doing god's work, means that you shouldn't get whatever you want
that line between selflessness and self-righteous martyr complex

and jimmy wants to be special, he's kind of self-centered and tunnel vision-y in canon
in that once Castiel chose him, he drops Claire and Amelia like a hot potato
like he makes sure they're okay and he does love them...
though I wonder how much of his pursuit of Cas is out of selfless devotion to his faith, or because he really thinks he's that goddamn special.
he kind of lives in his own little world.

I liked what you said about jimmy wanting to be special
he never thought he was gonna be THIS special
and that's definitely a twins thing, you know, wanting something that makes you unique, and here is this strange power suddenly
i think we could use more twin angst
similarities and differences
which do they want, to be the same or not
and so maybe powers-wise, jimmy actually welcomes it
the powers make me so super special
and jacob is like guuuurl

IS JIMMY ALREADY HOOKED
the glimmers of addiction!
maybe in s2-s3 powers training replaces cigs as his drug of choice, and then demon blood
it is a combo of replacing smokes and forming a new addiction
in times of high stress, when he WOULD be out smoking, instead he picks up jacob's duffel with his mind and throws it against the wall
and it's the same rush
does jacob encourage him to focus on powers in lieu of cigs
he probably does
jimmy is at once getting more addicted and switching addictions
a deeper addiction than the addiction before
stop twitching, jimmy
and it's why meg was so easily, like... hey drink my blood, it'll boost up your powers
and jimmy was like AWESOME
I LOVE POWERS

NOSEBLEED JIMMY IS FOREVER RELEVANT
beating himself up for taking it too far, wanting to take it further
omg i am so down with them pushing the experiments too far for s2
WHAT IF JIMMY DOES THAT FOR JACOB?
COME ON JIMMY, JUST A LITTLE MORE
and jimmy's brain is like JFKLSJFKLDJFLJFD
bleeding from the nose, sure! from the ears! from the eyes!
and jacob is like, come on, jimmy, just try it one more time
this is a thing that jimmy submits to jacob for
because jacob knows where he's at with experiments and science
he knows how to science
"you pushed a closet, jimmy, can you do it again, it's not scientifically viable unless the results can be repeated"
okay, jimmy, this is 5 grams, raise it a foot off the table. now two feet. now with ten grams.
gives all sorts of explanation why this is the best course of action
and jimmy's like yes, you're right, okay

jacob's tests and jimmy submitting to them
what is it about jimmy's body, y'know
and then the possibility of retribution, jimmy exploring jacob's body through senses he didn't know he had
jimmy is tiiiiired and jacob is like "hold on, we're not done"
jimmy starting to be shaky on his feet but he doesn't want to let jacob down
you did so good that time, jimmy!

but i bet there is a scene where jimmy gets fed up and lashes out
SLAMS JACOB AGAINST THE WALL WITH HIS MIND
and then y’know
more Things They Don’t Talk About
accidents at first
jimmy would say they were all accidents
training going too far
jimmy's self-control is haywire
How can he get that look on jacob's face, that sound, without actually touching him

how far do they ever get in the s1/2 of almosts?
i mean, even without physical touching, does jimmy get jacob off with powers like, at least once?
I think jacob probably tried to get jimmy to fight him telekinetically, and that's what started it
like "come on man see if you can throw me across the room"
"you did it with a wardrobe"
and suddenly he feels this sort of pressure all over his body
but it's jimmy's gasp more than anything that makes him stumble
gasping with effort, yeah, but in pushing at jacob, it is like touching jacob
and jimmy is like ohhhh shit
yeah, and then it's like a confluence of other incidents, accidents, where jimmy feels jacob up
where he just slips or like, he instinctively is drawn to jacob
jacob as jimmy's center of gravity
the earth's core
at first jacob jumps, sort of twitchy, but then he pretends not to feel it in hopes that jimmy will take it farther
or maybe he tries to recreate circumstances where jimmy ends up feeling him up
ahaha I imagine the telekinesis is mostly just excruciatingly frustrating
because like once you have given someone an orgasm it's difficult to deny that
but just TOUCHING him, it's not his fault jacob gets off on it
he's not using his body so it doesn't count
or so he tells himself he tells himself
and he readily believes it because he aaaaaches for jacob

so jimmy doesn't mean to get jacob off, but jacob gets off anyway?
jimmy makes himself stop every time, just before he crosses that line
jacob is like FOR FUCK'S SAKE
WHY EVEN DO THIS THEN JIMMY
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING
jimmy's way of reminding jacob that he's still human, not just charts and figures
JIMMY IS THE BIGGEST COCKTEASE
jimmy is probably power tripping a little as well, in revenge for jacob's
this is almost passive aggressive, jimmy fighting back like this
it's like jacob dissociated the powers from his brother, like they're this thing that jimmy and jacob are doing together
jacob thinks he is in charge because he knows what the numbers mean
right. sure, jacob. sure you are in charge.
and jimmy must remind him
with boners
he fights back like this and jacob doesn't necessarily stop him
JACOB LETS IT HAPPEN AND PRETENDS HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IT IS
JIMMY, USING THE ONLY SHORTCUT HE KNOWS
JIMMY PRETENDING IT WAS AN ACCIDENT
THAT HE'S ALLOWED
OH GOD JIMMY WANTS IT SO MUCH
IT DOESN'T COUNT UNLESS THEY TOUCH
JIMMY JACKING OFF TO JACOB AND HATING HIMSELF
jacob doesn't call him on it because he doesn't want it to stop
jacob remembers that under all the analytical data, this thing that he is studying is very real
and very giving him a boner
and it's sort of like, jimmy allows himself this release outlet as long as no one acknowledges it directly, and jacob understands that
THE UNSPOKEN THING
jacob doesn't confront him because better this than nothing
A ~mutual understanding~?!
as soon as the sex things start the power moves back to jimmy's hands
he has always set the terms on how far they are allowed to go with each other
ALWAYS ABOUT CONTROL, JIMMY
and jacob, always desperate for what he can get.

In conclusion, forever angst. HAPPY BIRTHDAY glassyskies

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Incirrate

2011-07-02T05:55:23Z

Title: Incirrate
Authors: callowyn and twoskeletons
Word Count: 700
Pairing: Jensen/Castiel, Castiel/Misha, Jensen/Misha/Castiel
Rating: R
Warnings: thingstiel (tentacles, sex with stuffed animals) (hahaha oh god)
Summary: Jensen's stuffed octopus isn't quite the way he remembers it.
Notes: twoskeletons postulated Jensen/Castiel, and I suggested a variety of thingstiels he could be disguised as (the better to creep on you, my dear). The stuffed octopus was supposed to be a hypothetical example. And then tentacle porn happened, because we are both sick, sick people.

Inside the package is Cas, the stuffed octopus Jensen loved as a child but thought he had lost long ago, and which his sister just mailed to him for his birthday, though when he asks her about it she can't explain why it felt like a good idea, any more than he can explain to himself why he's started to need his arms around the thing when he goes to bed again, or why this is the best sleep he's had in ages, or why sometimes he half-wakes up and thinks it's hugging him back. Jensen tells himself he's going crazy—there's no reason for the worn-out plush tentacles to feel slimy, for god's sake. He doesn't think he would even notice those moments when they seem to stiffen and twitch under his hands, if he hadn't started having strange dreams.

One day Jensen brings Cas to set—Jared won't shut up about it, already talking like it's one of his dogs and mocking the name (it’s short for Butch Cassidy, thanks)—but Misha takes one look and refuses to touch it.

Jensen has never seen Misha react to anything the way he reacts to this octopus. Misha once held a live octopus in his hand—he can't possibly be scared of the plush version that Jensen's had since he was three months old. But Misha stares at the octopus's plastic eyes like they're the smoke before a housefire and won't touch it no matter how much Jared teases him.

"Aw, he just wants do be friends!" says Jared, holding Cas in one huge hand and waving it in Misha's direction. "Are you afraid he won't like you?"

Jensen blinks—the movement of the tentacles isn't quite in sync with the way Jared shakes them, a weird undulation laid over their flopping. When Misha leans back and looks at him, Jensen knows he saw it too.

"I'm afraid he'll like me too much," says Misha, and there's none of the usual dry humor in his voice. He gives Cas one last, long look, and walks out.

Jensen stuffs the octopus in his bag and doesn't mention it again.

Jensen doesn't understand who keeps taking Cas out of his bag. Jared swears up and down it wasn't him, and even though he laughed at Misha's freak-out, Jensen believes him. Whoever it is left Cas outside, in the dirt, and Jared may be a dick but he wouldn't mistreat Jensen's childhood toy like that. What none of them can explain are the thin, wavy marks in the dust, only in the direction Cas isn't facing, like someone dragged him along. Like he was moving.

It makes sense to Jensen somehow, that Cas could move by himself, though he wouldn't be able to explain why. When eight soft arms wind around him one night, it only feels strange because it's new; Jensen also feels relief, like pieces clicking into place. Didn't know those pieces were out of place to begin with. It starts with the tentacles sliding over Jensen’s skin, into his body, but they keep going deeper and deeper until he doesn’t ever stop feeling them inside him, slithering through his thoughts.

Jensen feels the prodding in his mind whenever he's on set: Cas wants Misha, and Misha's own fear is being slowly overshadowed by his fascination. Jensen catches him staring at Jensen's bag between takes, sees the way Misha will veer toward it when he enters Jensen's trailer until he catches himself. Jensen starts leaving Cas out more and more, waiting.

"This is weird, right?" Misha says, in the middle of a conversation about something entirely different. Jensen looks down to see one tentacle wrapped loosely around his own wrist, as if by accident, and another laid across the table toward Misha. He could explain this away easily.

Instead Jensen says, "I like weird," and when he kisses Misha, it's to the feeling of Cas slithering up his arm to curl around Jensen's throat.

When the tentacles unwind from around Jensen's neck to slither across Misha's stomach, he inhales sharply. And then Jensen and Cas are working in tandem, almost symbiotic, so despite the way Misha can't lay still and keeps looking at the door, he stays. One tentacle slides down again, down around his balls, and two sliding up: one around Misha's neck, one tracing his jaw and touching his mouth with patient curiosity. "Oh god," Misha says, and it slides in.

Jensen gets jealous, just a little, when Misha's limbs are wrapped in Cas's tentacles and Misha's face goes slack, but he feels a pulse threading through his body and down his spine, warm and amused. Then the tentacles do something that makes Misha jerk and cry out, and Jensen could swear Cas's plastic eye winks at him.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Bone Song

2011-07-02T02:40:52Z

Title: Bone Song
Authors: callowyn and twoskeletons
Word Count: 300
Pairing: Claire Novak/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: thingstiel (semi-necrophilia, I guess?)
Summary: Skeletons make the best boyfriends.
Notes: A commentfic/poem I wrote with twoskeletons , originally at this thread on thingstiel .

Skeletons make the best boyfriends.
Without the mutability of flesh, you can see the honesty of bones that much easier.
He lets her play xylophones on his ribcage.
His phalanges are like castanets.
He always has a smile for her.
Dry bones never slip out of your fingers.
The smooth dry skull against her lips, the phalanges combing through her hair—
Bracing herself against his ribs and feeling the empty wind blow through.
She puts her hand up his ribcage and says, Here. Here is where your heart would be.
He doesn't understand why she would want something so messy, so gaudy, so warm.

This is extraneous, he says. Runs his phalanges down her arms, down her back. You can do so much more with so much less.
He says, Why do you carry the weight of these muscles? Why do you tie yourself to yourself with these ebbing veins? He asks, Why are you hiding under this ever-moving skin?
His hands on her face. It's not this that I love.
Her skin makes itself anew twice in a single month; it was never meant to hold. And it tears so easily.
He says, I can make you free.

Be with me and you will never grow old. Don't you want to know the truth of yourself? Underneath this variability is a constant you deserve to know.
Let me play the music in your body. All the octaves in your ribcage, the percussion along your legs, the long white notes click-clacking.
The drumbeat of your heart is so muted. Your staccato breaths are nothing to the sharp notes I could kiss along your clavicle.
Peel back the silence: in your bones, something is singing.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Mother Mary

2011-06-28T21:26:22Z

Title: Mother Mary
Authors: callowyn and animus_wyrmis
Word Count: 3000
Pairing: Mary/Castiel, background John/Mary
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Summary: Mary Campbell Winchester could think of nothing worse than raising her sons as hunters. But she wasn't exactly given a choice.
Notes: I'm not sure if this could be categorized as fic, exactly, but I'd like to drag it from its obscure comment thread while simultaneously proving that starting conversations with me is a dangerous, dangerous thing. Thus I present to you an AU by animus_wyrmis and I, originally on her fic Fate, Tall, Delayed, about what Supernatural would be like if John had died and Mary raised the boys. I've edited it for cohesion but preserved the large swathes of capslock so you understand the depths of our emotion.

The Hunting Life

What would Mary do about Sam? She did the "save the person you love, take the bargain" thing once, would she know better a second time? Would that change her mind the next time or would it set a precedent? What if she is like Dean, sacrificing more and more of herself to keep her family safe, until she can't even remember how to refuse? Until there is nothing left of her but her sons, and still she saves, take this, take this, just leave them be. The mother who says, You are my children, you will do as I say, you will let me take the fall for ALL OF THE APOCALYPSE. They take and they take and they never understand what she has given them, because she refuses to think it is less than their due. MARY, GOING TO HELL FOR HER SONS.

Keeping her children in the dark! Letting the hunts pass her by, ignoring the calls, pretending to be normal. Shielding her new family from the sins of the old. She ought to know better. When angels come for her children she gives Dean money for takeout, the number of the neighbors next door, the frozen casseroles in the freezer, and she takes out guns she hasn't touched in years and contacts she's ignored all this time, and she goes out to take care of things, because her sons are not going to be weapons in this war.

Castiel telling Mary "your sons are chosen" and Mary telling him he'd best choose again. Zachariah's gradually crueler forms of persuasion. Michael talking to her with John's face, telling her to give in. "No," she says to Zachariah, "No," to Castiel, "No," to John and Lucifer and her mother and her father and her best friend from childhood. She's killed demons in familiar bodies and she'll kill angels just the same, just you wait and see.

YOU GET THE HELL OUT BEFORE I KILL YOU, and Sam and Dean staring at her, at the stranger she's threatening. This is not the PTA mom they know. People start asking questions, start saying she's snapped, so she takes her boys and she drives. Dean in the front seat with the maps, Sam in the back with a cooler of sandwiches, both eying each other at rest stops. "What's going on?" Sam whispers, and Dean shrugs, like, "Man, I don't know," and Mary kisses them both fiercely.

"Mom, I'm hungry, I wanna go home," says Sam, but Mary just shushes him, looking out the motel window, one hand on Sammy's head and the other holding her pistol. "This is home now," she tells them, and lets Dean put him to bed. "What are you doing, Mom?" Dean asks. "You can tell me," but Mary just shakes her head. He's not going to have to learn what she learned. She hated the way Dean's eyes lit up when he first saw her gun collection, but she hates even more the voice of the Campbells in the back of her mind, telling her she's already left their training too late. Mary doing her damnedest to shield Sam and Dean from the life she had, but pieces keep slipping through the cracks.

"How do you know how to do all this anyway?" Sam asks, and she doesn't know how to answer. Dean won't stop asking her to teach him everything, and when she finally gets fed up and asks him why, he looks at her like she's stupid and says, "So nothing gets Sammy."

"It's not your job to make sure nothing gets Sammy," Mary says, heartbroken and proud all at once, and ruffles his hair. ("Mo-om," Dean protests, and still she catches him with the salt, the knives.)

I wonder if John ever had that moment, looking at Dean and realizing just how far Dean took the pejorative to "watch out for Sammy." I wonder if Dean would be any more inclined to trust his mother with Sam than his father. Maybe more inclined to believe she'd do anything for Sammy but simultaneously less sure she would be able to? If Mom can really do anything, he wonders, what happened to Dad?

Does he ask that once? And Mary just sighs and says, "I made the wrong choice once, Dean. I couldn't do that twice." And Dean thinks, what does that even mean? Dean doesn't ask what happens if she makes another mistake. By now, he knows.

"Here, Sammy, I want you to learn how to load this."

"Mom's going to freak if she knows we're touching her guns!" Sam complains, but Dean just shakes his head. There are worse things.

Dean has been watching Mary strip guns for years now, but that's still different than feeling the weight of one in his hand, turning it to see all the parts fitting together. The first time he tries to shoot a sawed-off he's knocked flat on his ass, but he keeps trying; Dean can be patient with things worth waiting for. He takes Sam out to another abandoned field and braces to catch him on the kickback.

"Why do we have to learn this anyway?" Sam asks. Dean looks at him sharply, about to say, Don't whine, but Sammy's frowning and biting at his lip.

"I don't know," Dean says finally. "I think things are--are more dangerous. For us. After what happened."

Sam brooding in the backseat, not even rising to Dean's bait, until one day he goes to their mother and says, "I want to help." And Mary watches as her younger son goes from a whining child to this small person inspecting her Taurus with a crease in his forehead and his mouth pressed tight shut. Sam hugging his knees on the motel bed long past the time he should be asleep.

"Sam, honey," Mary says, and Sam just whispers, "I'm watching." Watching for what, she thinks, but doesn't ask.

Suddenly Sam starts rifling through her books, starts asking questions. What made the difference between werewolves and skinwalkers? Why do demons respond to Latin but no other languages? If you learned this from Grandpa, who did HE learn it from? How many monsters are out there really? Mommy, why do I sometimes dream the future?

Mary answers as honestly as she can, tries not to lie. She hates lying to her children. But dammit, she left that life so they would never have to know this, and so Mary finds herself saying, "Don't worry, Sammy, it's just a dream."

Oh god what if one of her assorted cousins came from another round of special children and she knows the signs, remembers the yellow-eyed demon in her father making deals. Sometimes she watches Sammy twitching in his sleep and thinks it might be kinder to just—but what kind of mother thinks that? She backs away from her sons on shaky legs and double-checks the salt lines.

She tries not to say anything, but Dean catches her watching Sammy too carefully. "What is it, Mom?" he asks. "What's going on? What are you worried about?" And Mary saying, too forcefully, "There is nothing wrong with your brother."

Dean doesn't need to be told there's nothing wrong with Sam; he knows his brother. Dean notices the way she stares at Sam sometimes and he starts to think, that's not Mom, can't be, Mom loves Sammy. He sees her fingers tapping against her gun sometimes and whispers Christo, Sam squirming in his arms. Dean watching his mother more and more closely, sleeping with a knife under his pillow. He knows his mom would never hurt Sammy. He knows. Still he finds himself waking up in the middle of the night, checking to make sure Sammy's still breathing. Dean can't articulate his thoughts, or refuses to; he's not choosing anyone because they're all on the same side, they're all a family, right? But still when Sam burrows against him in the musty motel bed, Dean angles himself between Sam and their mother. He'll take care of him no matter what.

Den comes in on her one day, sobbing, sobbing as hard as she did the day their dad died. "Mom?" he whispers, and she shakes her head. Dean's barely thirteen, she thinks, not old enough to know about this. She promised she wouldn't be like her own parents. "Mom?" he says again, and she thinks, If I don't tell him, is he going to get hurt? Is ignorance really bliss, what if something gets her like it got John, like the thing that's going after Sammy? What if her reluctance makes them too vulnerable, what if they let down their guard because they don't know what to guard against and she isn't fast enough to do it for them? And she asks herself, endlessly, what am I doing?

It's bad enough that Sammy's been in three fifth grades and it's only February. Her parents could do this from home, she remembers vaguely, but whenever she goes to the classifieds for a house she finds herself in the obituaries instead, halfway down the highway before her original purpose resurfaces. Maybe the next town, she thinks, the next hunt. Lawrence feels like a happy dream she once had. She's been running for so long, and there is always something behind her.

"Mommy, can we have a house someday?" Sam asks from the backseat as he tells her to take Exit 34b. Mary pretends not to hear the game Sam and Dean invent, watching the neat suburban houses out the window and choosing the one they would most like to live in. She doesn't have the heart to tell him he'll be lucky if he ever gets to stop running. She and Dean might be able to hunker down and hide, but Sammy shines like a beacon to Hell. They run for Sam and she can only pray they will never run from him.

Sometimes she even misses the housework, which she always used to complain about and John never did anything about. But now she finds herself wishing for a vacuum or her own washing machine. She remembers when John bought their first dryer, beaming with pride, and swallows hard. There was a time in her life, surely, when she had friends who couldn't drop a wendigo at fifty paces, when she had conversations that were neither about hex bags nor about who gets which side of the musty motel bed. Sometimes when she is tucking Dean to sleep he will ask, drowsily, for her to tell him a Lawrence story. That's all they are to him now. Sometimes she catches Sammy listening, his body too still and rigid to be asleep, but he never asks for a story himself. Dean mentions having play dates with the neighborhood kids and Sam's nose scrunches up in confusion. She tries to tell Sammy stories, it's just that they're all so caught up with the demon, with the fire. With the life they lead now. She wishes she knew how to tell him that their happy life in Lawrence had belonged to him too.

Lawrence stories: One time, Dad took you to a baseball game all by yourself and you almost caught a foul ball. Once you and Sammy and I went out for ice cream and Miss Saundra behind the counter let you scoop your own. One time you took swim lessons and jumped off the diving board.

Lawrence stories: You had a stuffed turtle when you were a baby, you loved that thing so much that no amount of washing could get the dirt off and you'd chewed one of its legs half off. When you saw Sammy in his crib for the first time, and he wouldn't stop crying no matter what any of us did, you ran off and got that turtle and bounced it on Sammy's stomach until both of you were giggling and you'd tipped yourself halfway into the crib with him. When you'd calmed down a little you looked up at me and said in your serious four-year-old voice, "Good job, Mommy."

"You always wanted to be a big brother," she tells Dean while he drifts off. "But you wanted a little sister."

"Ew, girls!" Dean mumbles, and Mary smiles.

"You said it was okay if we kept Sammy, though," she continues. "Since we'd gone to all the trouble to bring him home."

Mary was an only child! SHE DOESN'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAND. She thinks maybe her parents made good choices there. Maybe she should have, for instance, run off with another woman and lived on a communist commune. They could have had a horse. Free love, no angels. She shies away from the thought that she should have stopped at Dean.

She's so careful with birth control now. She knows she can't be pregnant and on the run, but she also can't handle a third child. What if the demon gets it, too? I couldn't raise a child not knowing his father, she tells herself fiercely, and I couldn't marry a civilian again. Sometimes her period is late and she spends long minutes in the bathroom, panicking, trying not to argue with herself about options, not admitting that she knows her next boy would be named "John."

Oh my god, though, who does this make the Adam? WHERE ARE THE DISTANT WINCHESTER COUSINS, THE ONES WHO NEVER EVEN STOOD A CHANCE? MAYBE THERE IS NO ADAM IN THIS VERSE. Heaven has no backup vessel. Does Mary have family who got out and had happy Adam lives with baseball games? Apparently not. No hunter who emerged unscathed, no one left so stupid as to say yes.

But the bloodline was on the Winchester side, wasn't it? WHAT IF RESURRECTED JOHN!MICHAEL OH FFFFFFFFFF. AND MARY RESOLUTE, TRYING TO BE RESOLUTE, BUT GOD IT'S HER HUSBAND. JOHN ALMOST AS HE WAS FRESH FROM THE WAR, LUCIFER MAKING SAM NEARLY UNRECOGNIZABLE, AND NEITHER SHE NOR DEAN CAN DECIDE WHICH OF THEM TO RUN TO. MARY CAUGHT BETWEEN WANTING TO SAY, GET THE HELL OUT, THE DEAD DON'T RISE, AND WANTING TO TACKLE HIM, AND WISHING SHE LOOKED FIFTEEN YEARS YOUNGER, AND MOST OF ALL WISHING HER FAMILY COULD JUST BE LEFT ALONE. THE SPLIT SECOND BEFORE SHE REALIZES WHAT'S WRONG ABOUT HIM, THINKING OH, YOU FOUND ME AGAIN, I ALWAYS KNEW YOU WOULD. Thinking, I knew you wouldn't let death stop us again. Thinking, I would have followed you if not for them. But now he's the one he has to protect their sons from. And then thinking, I fucked up once and I won't do it again. It's that as much as anything that makes her throw the blade at him.

Sammy's face when he sees her grappling with a man he doesn't know, Dean's face when he recognizes John. And the three of them in the car, headed away, Mary sobbing so hard she thinks she'll never be able to stop. Sam asking a million questions, Sam wanting to know who that was and why she's crying, and Dean clams up so tight she's afraid he'll never speak again.

"That was not your father," she says finally. "That was not your daddy," but that's the worst part, isn't it? That it was? Worse still because angels require consent, because whatever happened between John's resurrection and Michael taking him on was enough to make him say yes, and much as she hates to imagine John being tortured it's worse to think that he agreed right away. She should have taught him, she should have warned him, she should have kept him from dying in the first place. Mary should have known she couldn't be normal. She couldn't have that life, she couldn't have that husband, she put everyone in danger by trying and now they are all paying for it. Mary berating herself for buying into the American Dream just like her daddy always warned her about. She should've remembered what this life cost her family before trying to start one of her own.

Renegade

Do you think Henrickson's case is different? Assuming she's on the run from someone. Maybe assuming that she's on the run from whoever is doing the killings. Mary hates the pitying looks from motel staff who haven't divorced yet, seeing a woman on the run with two children, and she can just hear the horrible things they're assuming about John. Sam telling people he doesn't have a Dad, when Mary is behind him thinking you did, you did, he's gone but you had him.

Henrickson sighs and readies himself to trot out the "panicked mother" routine, and then Mary is leaving him handcuffed to a table with an apologetic pat on the knee, tucking her gun back into her jeans and calling for her sons. Victor spends a long time staring at the puddle that used to be human, absently picking the lock but also thinking about all the things those crazy witnesses used to say about Mary Winchester. "I know what you're running from," he'd said when he first brought her in, sympathetic and apologetic, looking at a woman on the run from a psycho boyfriend who kept after her. And Mary Winchester had looked at him appraisingly and said, "I doubt it." And now he thinks, shit.

I was about to wonder what her equivalent of "Great Escape" references would be, but then I remembered, she doesn't have a partner. She could have a whole team if she wanted and her parents to bail her out besides, but she burned those bridges, she won't ask them for help when there are so many strings attached. She'll break out soon enough. Mary works alone, because she wants to. Because she has to. Because you make those choices and you set your priorities and then you never, ever look back. Which makes it all the hard to stay away from her family, the ones she calls "Campbells" so she doesn't think about the Thanksgivings and Christmases and post-hunt celebrations or the way her parents never knew their grandchildren.

Meet the Campbells

Do you think Mary runs into Gwen when the boys are grown? And then doesn't know what to say, whether to admit who she is. She's stayed hidden this long, she thinks, and Gwen smiles the polite way of real hunters meeting amateurs. Mary grits her teeth when Gwen mistakes one of the ingredients in their hex bags and they have to start over. Gwen makes subtle jabs at anyone dumb enough to do this job with two snot-nosed kids as their backup—at least until Dean shoots the poltergeist that's about to throw her through a window.

She hears Gwen telling them about the life--her life--and shuts her eyes. Dean's eyes go wide when Gwen tells them how long she's been shooting guns, and Sammy says, "I wish we had cousins." No you don't, Mary thinks, and she can't helping wanting to call Gwen's father and demand to know why Gwen doesn't have any backup. She's only a few years older than Dean.

They meet other hunters and all of them feel vaguely familiar, off-limits and too close at once, the way family is. Sometimes Dean peers at them as though he, too, is trying to remember if he's seen these faces before. "How come we don't have any cousins?" Sammy demands. "How come you never talk about when you were a kid?"

"We never see Grandma and Grandpa anymore," Dean complains, but Mary knows what her parents would see in two not-so-young boys. Gwen tells her about the relatives dropping like flies and Mary can't match names to faces anymore, only knows that each step is bringing the demon closer to her Sammy. She'll do whatever it takes to keep her sons out of the line of fire.

Late at night she imagines picking up the phone and calling her cousins. Imagines a hunt where she can't pretend to be a nobody from Lawrence, a housewife turned hunter. Imagines saying, "Dean, Sammy, this is your family." She misses the feeling of an entire family having her back, the surety that if she doesn't get the shot someone else will. Then she runs across the group picture from an old family reunion and counts those among them left alive. The old families are dying around her, and they're safer apart. She repeats this to herself like a mantra. THE PUREBLOOD HUNTERS ARE DYING OUT. IT'S ALL MUGGLE-BORNS AND SQUIBS NOW. Mary's own stint as a Squib did not take. She should have known better.

Dean looks like her Uncle Daniel, something she never realized until she sees his picture in the paper, Dean's smile, his hair, and she carefully folds the paper over so her sons won't see, won't ask. Dean looks like John and her and the miscellaneous pieces of a dozen Campbells, but she can't think of a single family member who looks like Sammy. She refuses to think about the demon in his nursery and the concept of changelings. On Sammy's second hunt he gets knocked into a gravestone and concussed. When the doctors come back with brain scans and blood tests to tell her everything seems normal, she almost cries with relief.

She hopes Sammy doesn't know. She is extra careful to support him, to help him with his homework, to make sure he gets his hair cut. But Dean knows, she thinks. She sees it in the way his eyes narrow at her, in the way he is too protective of his brother. AND THEN DEAN WONDERS WHAT HE DID WRONG, WHY HIS MOM SEEMS SO MUCH MORE CONCERNED ABOUT SAMMY. He rationalizes quickly, of course: Sammy is special, Sammy's more important, Sammy needs protecting. From everyone.

She fucked up with her kids, she thinks. There's just not enough of her to be a mom and a hunter, to protect them from monsters and to protect them from this life and to protect Sammy from himself. She finds herself yelling at them even when she knows it'll make things worse, slapping them when they're in shock and she doesn't have time to coddle them out of it. She tells Sammy that they're just dreams and she doesn't want to hear about them, hoping they'll stop if he's not allowed to think about it. She understands her parents in ways she never wanted to. She hears her mother's voice echoing her own and hates herself for it.

Sammy stops telling her about the dreams but she thinks he still dreams them; Dean's face goes shuttered when he looks at her. He calls her ma'am instead of mom. "Dean," she says, but then she can't think how to continue. "Get those into the car," she says instead. Sometimes she catches Sam and Dean's hushed conferences about the dreams he's not supposed to be having anymore, the way Dean insists they whisper, tries to comfort his brother with assurances it's not real, though he never brings himself to shut Sammy down like Mary does. Dean is, she thinks, a better mother than she is.

Mary/Cas

MARY FACING DOWN THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN WITH A SWORD IN HER HAND AND A COCKY SMILE. "IF YOU WANT THEM, COME AND CLAIM THEM." AND HOLDING THE ANGEL-KILLING SWORD FEELS STRANGELY FAMILIAR, THOUGH SHE CAN'T REMEMBER WHY. ANGELS ARE WATCHING OVER YOU, SHE TOLD THEM, BUT IT WASN'T A PLATITUDE, IT WAS A WARNING.

MARY LEARNING ENOCHIAN. MARY BLACKMAILING CAS INTO SIGILING THEIR RIBS. PERHAPS MARY/CAS TIMES OMG OMG. BECAUSE UNLIKE THE OTHER ANGELS, CAS TAKES THE TIME TO WATCH THEM AND FIGURE OUT WHY MARY IS DOING THIS. Reluctantly impressed by her tenacity, her ability not only to fight but to wage war. The doubts creeping in: this human woman reminds him of his sister before she fell.

He finally meets her, a whir of wings, her defensive stance. "I'll make your boys invisible to the garrison," he promises, and her look doesn't soften but she says, "Let's talk." Cas isn't sure what to do with this impediment that refuses to be blasted aside, just as Mary isn't sure what to do with someone who is so dangerous to her sons but reminds her so much of John.

They have to play twenty questions to get to know each other, both of them too crafty not to lie. In the end do they know each other any better? Later Mary sifts through his answers, matches them with what she's heard of the other angels. The lies he told reveal almost as much as the truth. "What are we doing?" he asks her once, and she says, "I don't know," and is it a confession or a concession?

SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT SHE'S DOING. NO ONE DOES. But that, as she explains to Castiel, is what free will means.

This answer does not help Castiel! Mary gets him a philosophy primer. It has chapters on quantum. CAS ENVESSELS A PROBABILITY WAVE JUST TO UNDERSTAND. Never has his life been so untethered. By the time he makes it back it seems amazing that Mary stays true and solid in front of his eyes. CAS ALSO POPS INTO A PHYSICS LECTURE AND ASKS QUESTIONS. He kind of enjoys the problem sets too. Mary frowns at him when he tries to explain. In his mind Cas gives elementary particles their proper names: "Uriel" for neutrino, "Balthazar" for electron, "Michael" for gluon, "Gabriel" for graviton. Mary asks scathingly if that tree over there is named Leonardo. "No," Cas answers gravely, "that is Beruchiel."

Castiel argues with physics grad students in coffee shops and comes away with new music ideas. Mary buys him a CD player. LOLOLOL THIS MARKS THE EMERGENCE OF HIPSTER CAS. Only this is the seventies, so I guess he's...a hippie? CAS GOING BACK IN TIME JUST FOR WOODSTOCK. "Where have you been," Mary says suspiciously, and Cas grabs her around the waist and twirls her. "Have you been smoking?" she asks next.

CAS/MARY SLOWDANCING, I NEED IT. And she is like "I don't think I can fit on the head of a pin" and he is like "It's okay, neither would the Chrysler Building." The first time they have sex, Mary looks anxious, says, "I've not--since John--" and they take it super slow. (Mostly also because Castiel has NO IDEA what he's doing.) Mary coaching Castiel, "like this," coaxing out those brief flashes where his body's instincts take over, trying to ask what he wants when Cas has even less idea than she does. Doing her best not to compare this to anyone else.

Castiel not being sure, asking, "Humans really do this? For pleasure?" and remembering stories of angels who had children with humans, back before Noah. Those angels had fallen, he thinks. Cas knows the theory, of course, he has studied human sin, but the practical applications take him by surprise. He remembers his bafflement, his scorn, and doesn't know whether to be ashamed or to wish he could turn it now on himself.

I BET HE TRIES TO RESEARCH IT IN THE LIBRARY. AND WHEN MARY CATCHES HIM WITH THE PIZZA MAN VIDEO SHE LAUNCHES INTO A LONG TIRADE OF HOW PORN OPPRESSES WOMEN AND THE HARMFUL PORTRAYALS OF FEMALE SEXUALITY HAVE SET BACK THE MOVEMENT THIRTY YEARS AND SHE MAKES HIM READ BOOKS AND RAGES ABOUT THE DAYS BEFORE ROE V WADE AND AND AND and Cas just watches her sweeping around the room in a fury, confused and inexplicably fond, reminded of certain avenging angels he has known.

SHE SITS HIM DOWN WITH A BOOK OF FEMINIST CRITIQUE AND REFUSES TO DISCUSS ANYTHING FURTHER UNTIL HE CAN ADEQUATELY DEFINE "PATRIARCHY." Because at first, you know, Cas would just tilt his head at her and say that of course he knows they live in a patriarchy, is God not the Father? Mary narrows her eyes at the ceiling. "He's next on my list." That Mary Winchester shares a name with the Holy Mother does not escape his notice.

SHE MAKES HIM WATCH THAT SPECIAL ON PBS ABOUT HOW GOD HAD A WIFE. CAS READS THE DA VINCI CODE AND NIPS BACK TO BIBLICAL TIMES TO SEE WHAT THE REAL DEAL WITH THAT MAGDELENE CHICK WAS. HE IS SHOCKED TO DISCOVER THAT DAN BROWN HAS NOT DONE HIS RESEARCH AT ALL. ALSO, ANGELS AND DEMONS WAS PRACTICALLY FALSE ADVERTISING. THIS MAN IS NOT A PROPHET, CAS THINKS. HOW CAN HE POSSIBLY HAVE SO MANY DISCIPLES? WHY ARE THE WINCHESTER GOSPELS NOT BESTSELLERS LIKE THIS? CAS IS OFFENDED ON THE WINCHESTERS' BEHALF. THE EPIC LOVE STORY OF SAM AND DEAN IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN THIS DRIVEL. He resolves to have words with the NYT bestseller list. THEN HE FINDS OUT HARRY POTTER HAS SOLD LIKE EIGHTY TRILLION COPIES.

Cas vs. J.K. Rowling

WHO IS THIS LORD VOLDEMORT, CAS WONDERS, AND WHAT IS THIS PROCEDURE TO SPLIT SOULS? He contemplates variations on his war machine, wonders if splitting a soul is like splitting an atom. DEAR HUMAN AUTHOR, HOW EXACTLY DO YOU SPLIT SOULS? YOUR BOOKS WERE NOT VERY CLEAR. SINCERELY, CASTIEL, ANGEL, FALLING.

EXCUSE ME, JOANNA KATHLEEN, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THESE HORCRUXES YOU SAY. COULD YOU PLEASE DIRECT ME TO THE SNAKE CALLED NAGINI THAT I MIGHT INTERVIEW HER IN PERSON? MS ROWLING PLEASE RESPOND TO MY LETTERS. I HAVE SENT YOU SEVERAL ALREADY. I AM SENDING THIS ONE BY OWL IN CASE THAT IS EASIER FOR YOU.

MS. ROWLING I AM NOT SURE IF YOU RECEIVED MY PREVIOUS OWL SO I AM ENVESSELING THIS ONE TO ENSURE IT REACHES ITS DESTINATION. THIS BODY IS PARTIAL TO MICE AND CHEEZ-ITS.

PS MS. ROWLING, I NOTICED YOU DID NOT EXPLAIN IN YOUR BOOKS WHAT HAPPENED TO LUNA LOVEGOOD IN THE END. WAS SHE AN ANGEL? I UNDERSTAND HER. MS. ROWLING WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SET ME UP ON A BLIND DATE WITH LUNA? I DO NOT MEAN THAT LITERALLY, MS. ROWLING, I WOULD NOT WISH TO DEPRIVE MS. LOVEGOOD OF HER ABILITY TO SEE. MS. ROWLING WOULD YOU EXPLAIN MORE CLEARLY WHAT NARGLES ARE? I AM WORRIED I HAVE FOUND SOME.

MRS. ROWLING YOU MENTION A CAR THAT CAN FLY BUT INACCURATELY CLAIM IT IS A FORD ANGLIA WHEN IN ACTUALITY THE ONLY FLYING CAR IN EXISTENCE IS A CHEVROLET IMPALA, AND THAT IS ONLY WHEN TRANSPORTED BY AN ANGEL AKA ME. FURTHERMORE MS. ROWLING WHERE ARE THE ANGELS IN YOUR STORIES? I DID NOT SEE ANY AND I LOOKED VERY HARD. MRS. ROWLING I OBJECT TO YOUR REPRESENTATION OF HEAVEN AS THERE ARE NO CREEPY BABIES LYING AROUND HERE IN REALITY. THOSE GO IN THE WAR MACHINE. FURTHERMORE HOW WOULD ONE GO ABOUT PUTTING GHOSTS INTO THE WAR MACHINE? I COULD USE THEIR SOULS.

DEAR MS. ROWLING WOULD PUTTING ONE OR TWO SOULS BACK INTO PURGATORY COUNT AS MAKING HORCRUXES? I AM VERY KEEN NOT TO BE EXPLODED AGAIN. DEAR JKR, ALSO, ARE YOU SURE THAT MAKING HORCRUXES IS A BAD IDEA?

Team Mascots

TEAM FREE WILL: A PISSED-OFF MOTHER OF TWO AND MR. COMATOSE OVER THERE. SAM AND DEAN ARE MASCOTS.
THEY CAN KEEP THE SCOREBOARD. APOCALYPSE: 0. TEAM FREE WILL: 12
THEY ARE THE CHEERLEADERS. SAM IS ALL "MY SKIRT ITCHES" AND "THIS IS STUPID" AND "MY POM-POMS KEEP HITTING ME IN THE FACE," BUT DEAN IS TOTALLY INTO IT. GO TEEEEEEAM.
DEAN THINKS IT'S THE BEST THING EVER. HE HAS TO BE ON TOP OF THE PYRAMID THOUGH.
DEAN IS KING OF THE HILL, TOP OF THE HEAP!
GIMME A T! GIMME AN E! GIMME AN A! GIMME AN M!
I SAID BRRR
CAUSE IT'S COLD IN HERE
THERE MUST BE SOME HUNTERS IN THE ATMOSPHERE
"DEAN I AM NOT DOING A SPLIT!"
"COME ON, SAMMY, IT'S FOR MOM!"
"MOOOOOM DEAN DROPPED ME WHEN I DID A FLIP"
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT! YOU'RE A BAD FLYER!"
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT! MY TOP IS REALLY TIGHT AND IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE!"
"MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T EAT SO MUCH LUCKY CHARMS YOUR UNIFORM WOULD FIT YOU RIGHT!"
"MOOOOM! DEAN'S MAKING FUN OF ME!"
"SAM STARTED IT"
*slapfight*
"I DON'T CARE WHO STARTED IT, I'LL FINISH IT."
SO HELP HER SHE WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND.
IF SHE HEARS ONE MORE WORD, ONE MORE, IT WILL BE EARLY TO BED FOR EVERYONE AND NO DESSERT FOR A WEEK!
BUT MOM THAT'S JUST HOW MY VOLUPTUOUS LIPS GO.
...ARE YOU WEARING MY LIPSTICK?
"UHHHHHH IT WAS SAM'S IDEA!"
OH GOD THE OEDIPAL CONNOTATIONS OF BORROWED PANTIES.
SAM WOULD HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHAT OEDIPAL MEANS THOUGH.
SHUT UP, GEEK BOY. YOU'RE THE ONE PRETENDING TO BE TALL IN THOSE HEELS. AS IF!
MOOOOOOOM TELL DEAN I'M TALLER THAN HIM!
MOOOOOOOOM SAMMY KEEPS ERASING THE LINES WHERE YOU MEASURED US.
NO I DIDN'T STOP TATTLING!
(I am in love with the idea that motel rooms across America have pencil marks on doorjambs from where Sam and Dean wanted to know the exact height difference between them, bickering about what it had been last time because their basis for comparison is four states over, Sam crowing as the gap gets smaller and smaller. Dean accusing Sam of standing on tip-toe.)
"YOU'RE CHEATING, YOU'RE WEARING SHOES!"
"YOUR BOOTS HAVE THICKER HEELS THAN MINE! YOU'RE THE CHEATER, CHEATER!"
"I'M RUBBER AND YOU'RE GLUE AND EVERYTHING BOUNCES OFF OF ME AND STICKS TO YOU!"
"YEAH? WELL--WELL TODAY IS OPPOSITE DAY!"
Mary wishes she would hurry up and go deaf from gunfire.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

geek break

2011-06-28T20:07:22Z

I am going to be posting productive things later, like my assorted commentfic and an actual masterpost, but first I have to be completely obnoxious and self-congratulatory about making a Novakcest feed. Clicking that link will take you to the raw feed (or Google Reader, if you use it); you can also sign up for novakcest_feed on DW or novakcest_feed on LJ. I recommend Google Reader, as the formatting is much prettier, but both ways should work.

ANYWAY THIS IS PROBABLY REDUNDANT SINCE THE ONLY PEOPLE TO SEE THIS ARE ON MY FLIST BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS COOL. CARRY ON.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

texts from last novaks

2011-06-24T05:50:41Z

(As ever, those new to the delusion twoskeletons and I call novakcest should explore the posts delicioused here, most recent first.)

So I just spent hours on TFLN and one of these days I am really gonna have to do something about my novakcest goggles because you would not think the drunken debauchery of college students would have so much in common with twincestuous hunters. And yet.

(For reference: Jacob was friends with the Ghostfacers in high school and briefly went out with Ed Zeddmore. Ellen and Sally were hunting buddies, so Jo and Ash knew the twins a little bit growing up before Jacob joined grad student Ash at MIT. Joseph and Kaycee are both characters from Stonehenge Apocalypse and also Jacob's MIT friends. Kurt is Kurt Mendel, of Odyssey 5, who is basically Balthazar in scientist form and in this verse daylights as a biology professor at MIT.

Also, we are going to pretend that either of them would ever talk about their incest problems, so suspend your disbelief please. All texts are real ones posted to the site, though some have been superficially altered to suit. Not all events portrayed are "canon.")

HIGH SCHOOL

(jimmy): just bailed mom out of jail. Tell me i'm not the favorite child.

(jacob): Dude, we totally smoked up inside a church organ last night. Add this to the epic list.

(jacob, during a prank war): By the way, i got bored and just started putting my balls on every object in your room. One at a time.

(jacob): you're by far the better bro. your dick is more impressively sized, anyway
(jimmy): I hate that you know that from experience

(jimmy, after this): just found a sign outside my brothers door "not going to church, don't even try" and he is covered in vomit in his bed.

(jacob): I woke up this morning to 7 word documents that all said "remember to be extremely angry at your jerk of a brother." What the hell did you do to me last night?

(jimmy): do you remember waking up from your blackout, kissing me ever so softly on the stomach, and saying "i love you bro. so much." then passing back out?

(jimmy): I don't know what kind of drugs you were on last night but you kept trying to highlight my face because you said I was important.

(harry, to ed): everyone made a circle around them and startd chanting fight fight. they wernt fighting. they were dry humping.

(jo, to ash): Their bromance is so intense that they don't even eye-fuck when they see each other....they eye-make-love.

JACOB AND AMELIA CATFIGHT

(jacob): he told me he's been faithful to his girlfriend and is gonna try to stay that way. challenge accepted.

(amelia): HE HAS A FUCKING TWIN. HE HAS A TWIN. I'M NOT DRUNK THERE IS TWO OF THEM.

(ed): Are they still out there making out on the couch? How can we get them to leave?
(jacob): I'm gonna go stand naked in the kitchen with a knife.

(amelia): His brother walked in on us. Six times.

(jacob): i have this gut feeling friday is going to be interesting. And by interesting I mean I feel like im going to get punched in the face by his girlfriend.

(amelia, to jacob): I fucked your brother... Hey, at least we know he is not gay... You're welcome.

(jacob): He better hope I don't die soon. Because I would haunt his bitch ass and cock block 24/7

(amelia): I accidentally had sex with my boyfriend's twin last night...and he didn't stop me.
(a friend): How was it?
(amelia): Fantastic, but that's not the point.

(jacob): He's having sex with his gf again. Every thump of his bed against the wall is insulting to our one night stand.

THAT SUMMER

(jacob): literally every day that goes by where he doesn't talk to me makes me more determined to get him to have sex with me

(jimmy): My brain is officially off for summer until late august. If that guy wants to fuck me, he better do it soon.

(jacob): Instead of having sex, we spent the entire night making pillow forts and having sword fights. I think I'm in love.

(jacob, to jimmy): Would you like me to write a persuasive essay on how you should let me suck your dick?

(jacob): Tickle wars 95% of the time end in sex.

(jacob): normally I beat off every night before I go to bed even though my brother sleeps in the same room. So I was starting to last night, and he jumped out of bed and said "Fuck, I'm not listening to this shit again" We havent talked since.

(jimmy): im sorry i didt take advantage of you..iwaned to
(jacob): i wanted you to too

(jimmy, to jacob): I know it was you that I fucked last night... I can smell my disappointment all over the sheets

(jacob): Drunk me was responsible for doing it, but sober me was definitely cheering him on

(jimmy): I'm just saying, asking "Are you happy with me?" during a handjob is simply unfair and scientifically inadmissiable.

(jimmy): Lets date for the summer
(jacob): what?
(jimmy): Don't love me in September.

JACOB AT MIT

(jacob, to jimmy): only mom would pack illegal paraphernalia in a care package.

(kaycee): The cops just drove by on their loudspeaker going DO NOT DRINK THE WATAHH
(jacob): I love boston

(joseph): Shark Week. Kick off begins Sunday. The drinking game has been upgraded to include jumping/breaching sharks and Jake's not allowed to bring the harpoon. Period.

(joseph): We discussed how the marijuana was making the dopamine float around our nucleus accumbens last night when we were high. Yet another example of how our science classes are perverting our good times.

(jacob): Sorry for talking about super scientific shit so much last night, I know it bugs you sometimes when I don't shut up.
(ash): What? You sat on the couch for a solid 2 hours staring at your fingerprints and the only word that came out of your mouth was "how"

(joseph): I'm about two and a half drinks away from gay.
(jacob): I'm coming over.

(joseph): if you wouldnt have been fucking me hard and crazy like that then my bed wouldn't have broke. you owe me 500.
(jacob): so you admit it was good then??

(kaycee, about jacob): wtf he couldnt undo my bra, i asked him if it was his first time and he said "with a girl? yeah"

(jacob): She kept spanking me and talking about biomedical science.
(joseph): Aw, you fucked a pre-med? you're moving up in the world!
(jacob): Turns out getting tied up to two door handles and forced to repeatedly cum is actually a really good ab workout.

(kaycee, to jacob): We just found a knife wedged in between the cushions on the couch you guys fucked on...why is this?

(jacob): I fucking love fucking science majors-- she told me that she wanted to know if her gag reflex got better or worse with alcohol, and that her initial evidence had been inconclusive. So, next few weeks, yeah, gettin blown periodically. All I have to do is keep a log.

(jacob): I accidentally screamed the wrong name last night. He stopped for a second, said "fuck it, you're too hot to care," and then continued fucking me.

(jacob): I FOUND THE PROF I'M GOING TO FUCKKKK.

(jacob): Professor took us out for drinks. She said if I ordered the 64oz "Call a Cab," she'd give me an A. I drank it in 5 minutes. A+?

(jacob): i dont care if i had to wear a dress to fuck her, she was super hot and i stand by my decision

(jacob): Why are there so many empty soda cans in my room?
(joseph): You put them in a circle around your bed and said it was the best way to ward of the witches from hocus pocus....then you remembered you needed salt too. I'm assuming you havent gone to the bathroom yet.

(kaycee, to jacob): The university put out a message about those missing salt shakers... You should at least give back 60 of them.

(joseph, about jacob): I walked in on him shirtless licking the mirror while talking to his reflection. So yes, I definitely want to do shrooms the next time you get them.

(jacob): I'm at work, still drunk. Can you turn on the radio? If the station goes off the air I passed out.

(jacob, to joseph): Sooo, drunk me had the sense of mind to write down everything that happened last night.....I bet you thought you'd get away with what you did to my parrot.

(jacob, about kurt): My biology professor just used the phrase "dick fairy" in a sentence. No, it didn't make more sense in context.

(jacob): i just ran into our bio professor at the bar. apparently, he doesn't follow the "no slapping your students' asses" rule.

(jacob, about kurt): There's an official council for his ex boyfriends. They told me they 'look forward to the day I join them'.

(kurt): it's my sixth sense. If there's an orgy within 20 miles of me i'll know about it. Or be a part of it.

(joseph): Hey, kurt drew a penis on you and wrote my innitals. I had nothing to do w/ that.

(kurt, speaking for dr. sexy): it's not the walk of shame if you do it in cowboy boots.

ANGST

(jacob): The saltiness of my tears mix perfectly with the tequila.

(jacob, to jimmy): I miss your penis. I'm telling you this as a friend, like it's just a really great penis. You should be proud of it.

(jacob): IM SAVINNG ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU
(jimmy): I don't want it.

(jacob, about jimmy): More dangerous than a broken heart and a shotgun.

(jacob): do you ever facebook stalk someone so much you think their inside jokes are yours?
(kurt): its not stalking. its research.

(jacob): if i get the "i'm engaged" text one more time, i'm going to shoot myself in the face so my cats won't eat it when i die alone.

(jacob): I miss him.. What the hell did I get myself in to? I guess it will get better with time.
(kurt): No. Just liquor. Time's no good.

(jacob, to jimmy): you should come fucke me now because:1 i am not in love with you anymore, 2 i am drunk enough where i won't feel the n eed to kisx you awardly, 3we have unfinished business that i wpn't get -assed unyil orgamss have been had, 4 i really really want to

(jimmy): I have a voicemail from him at 1am. He starts to say something, but then throws up instead.

(jimmy, to jacob): Just checked my missed calls... why did you call me 37 times from 2:14 to 3:58?

(jacob, to kaycee): Apparently I was playing rock paper scissors against myself for 2 hours in the bathroom mirror.

(jimmy): i woke up to 115 texts from him all saying "do you love me??"

(jacob, to jimmy): when I'm not with you everything just looks like crayon scribble

AFTER THE WEDDING

(jacob): We shouldn't be alone together
(jimmy): you didn"t say that yesterday
(jacob): you weren't married yesterday

(jacob): What's the appropriate way to phrase "If you ever leave your wife give me a call. But we can still have sex periodically until then."??

(jacob): I could see myself reflected in his wedding band as i was going down on him.

(jimmy): Yeah. My legs are trembling...hard to walk. Feels like a neon arrow is pointing at me saying "just had sex (with not his wife)"

(jimmy, about amelia): We are so in love.
(jacob): so when's the next time you get to see your balls

(jimmy): Let me make this really simple. We woke up this morning and fucked three times. When I got up and took a shower she cleaned up the mess from last night and did the dishes. Then we went out and she bought me brunch. I don't give a FUCK how much you don't like her.

SALLY'S FUNERAL

(jacob): Can you get arrested or in trouble for punching a dead relative in a casket?

(jacob): Church boner. Awkwardddd

(jimmy): There's nothing like sitting directly behind someone you fucked 5 years ago at church on Easter Sunday.

(jacob): Is sexting at a funeral morally wrong?

RELIGIOUS DEBATES

(jacob): i got kicked out of Barns and Nobles cuz i put all the bibles in the fiction section

(jimmy, to jacob): Jesus was obviously not given an itemized list of your sins before he died for them

(jacob): just added God to my list of friends who can only see my limited profile on facebook. its such a relief to know that He can't watch me fuck up my life anymore.

(jimmy): We did a shot for each one. Father... son... and holy ghost. That wasn't enough though so we moved on to toasting dead relatives.

HUNTING SHENANIGANS

(jacob): I literally just wielded a katana to save a child's life. What did you do today?

(jimmy, folsom prison blues): oh and i'm sorry i sold you for three cigarettes last night

(jimmy): At what point did you actually think that you could throw knives safely?

(jacob): i think you broke pat's ankle when you drove over it... he's freaking out but on a more serious note i'm 99% sure i saw a werewolf

(jimmy): It's only 4 pm and I'm already way past my preferred quota of "could have died" moments

(jacob): This was worse than the time that I shot a bald eagle.

(jacob): i'm high and 74% sure there's a monster in my closet

(jimmy): All I remember is you saying that "fire will make it all better"

(jacob): I just fired a shotgun out of the back of a truck going 60. i am going to miss oregon.

(jimmy): the EMT asked how you broke your nose and you said, "you know, the usual wear and tear."

(jacob): A lesson I learned in the hospital....when you masturbate while attached to a heart monitor, it scares the nurses a lot.

(jimmy): a cemetary is a place for people to rest in peace and you just spermed all over their land
(jacob): Best text conversation ever. Other than the one we had about using blood for lube.

(jimmy): No flamethrowers. That is a direct order.

GENDERBENDER AUS

the one where they are both girls

(joseph): So did the night end well for you?
(jacob): I stole a traffic cone and drunk texted my sister because i couldn't think of any other girl

(kurt): Well fuck that. I mean, I made out with my cousin once. Who gives a fuck.
(jacob): I'll see your cousin, and raise you a sister.

(jacob, to kurt): Then you screamed "fuck her like shes not your sister tonight"

(jacob): I just told my sister I love her. I'm in no condition to drive.

the one where jimmy is a boy and jacob is a girl

(amelia): His sister just told me that she thinks i'm a stupid bitch and that by going thru with this I'm ruining his life.
(a friend): sounds like a hell of a rehearsal dinner

(jimmy): Do brothers usually kiss their sisters?

CAS PARTICIPATION

(jacob): There's a mirror laying face down next to me. A looooong full body mirror. By the looks of it it fell off the wall last night and was within centimeters of shattering on my head. Awesome.

(jacob): THERE WAS A HANDPRINT OF BLOOD ON MY SHOULDER

(cas, to jacob): I remember giving you a piggy back ride. I was like Jesus, and you were my cross. I fell so many times for you. This is true friendship.

(jacob): sorry about last night, sometimes people just get drunk and have sex witht heir friends
(cas): I know, I was there.

(jimmy): I think I left a blow job at your house. Can I come down and get it?
(cas): I gave it to your brother to give to you.

(cas, to balthazar): What started out as a threesome has become me sitting here watching them have sex... Can I get a ride home?

(jacob): I swear to God, I just heard my guardian angel tell us to stop.

APOCALYPSE

(jimmy, post-lucifer rising): There were so few words spoken that I'm not sure if it was make-up or break-up sex.

(lucifer, to jimmy): like i told you yesterday: virgins, blood, my name. do it.

(jacob, to jimmy): sorry about calling you the devil all night.

(jacob): Chicago was legit, ate some badass pizza and gave a cig to a crackhead..it's all i thought it would be

(jacob): Is it necrophilia if we're both dead?
(jimmy): We have zombies coming, and all you can think about is cock.

(jimmy): I have demons in me.

In conclusion, spam the comments with more. :D

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

the best idea

2011-06-15T03:17:09Z

Make it Work:
A Reality Show!AU Commentfic Meme

Because trashy television should be good for something.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

breaking teenage hearts like it's my job

2011-05-30T01:26:31Z

So Lass recently gave us all another snippet of Novakcest, the complete works of which can be found at my delicious (most recent first). And this in turn inspired glassyskies to write fic about teen!Novaks, a Jacob POV to go with her Jimmy POV from a few weeks ago, BOTH OF WHICH ARE FLAWLESS. In the interest of making her write even more fic of the twins being miserable and lovesick, I have compiled snippets of Jimmy's relationship with Amelia, high school era.

she enters the scene, what, sophomore year?
MAYBE SHE WAS NEW IN HIGH SCHOOL
JUST MOVED IN AND JIMMY SHOWS HER AROUND
don’t ppl do that in high school, like get assigned someone to show them around?
or maybe jimmy is in, like, peer counselors or something. because he would be.
she sticks close to jimmy, she doesn't have her own network of friends yet
and amelia is his breath of fresh air
amelia from the ~outside~
yeah, maybe she is jimmy's "out" by coming in
she is as open to him as anything because she is open to anyone here, as a noob
she doesn’t know the history and gossip, about jimmy's weirdo brother and how jimmy is kind of eccentric himself
does anyone ever say to her, really amelia? you're dating that novak kid?
isn't he a little...weird?
she just sees this nice boy who makes goofy jokes and is helpful and sweet
and jimmy's bad at feelings, it catches him unawares
jimmy's very comfortable around her, has a connection with her that feels real but not as tangled as jacob
(nothing could ever come close to jacob)
he's been trying to talk himself into liking girls for a while now, thank god it finally clicks

jimmy and amelia hang out at church
and they are both actually devout while those around them seem to pay lip service only
jimmy sees in amelia the compassion for humanity that he wants to have but doesn't quite
he fell in love with amelia because she was warm and caring and attentive and sensible
and she fell in love with him because he was a hero
like on some group date, when teenage shenanigans hurt someone, jimmy was the one who stepped up, took charge, saved the day
he's much more mature than most high school boys
and amelia appreciates that

omg the first date
visiting his house for the first time and jacob answers the door
the uncertain smile until she can figure out which one she's dealing with
but surely jimmy wouldn't be glaring at her like that
omg jacob opening the door for amelia
omg his face and amelia's face
jacob meanwhile trying to sort through his feelings: ugh amelia, ugh girls, ugh jimmy goddammit
oh god does jimmy get awkward and embarrassed about the salt lines when he brings her home
does he brush them away and then forget to put them back
so he can look normal
jacob sets them up again for jimmy when he forgets, hating himself

you don't mind that I have amelia over, do you jake
and jacob's like

SURE JIMMY
WHATEVER
I DON'T CARE
DO WHAT YOU WANT
jacob can hear them, whenever amelia comes over after school. he doesn't tell jimmy that.

when do jimmy and amelia first have sex, how old is he? like seventeen?
does jimmy think "gotta tell jacob" before he catches himself, they don’t talk about this stuff anymore
not since it stopped being hypothetical
one look at jacob later though and jimmy realizes jacob already knows
all stiff and awkward
when he started dating amelia, he thought jacob could be happy for him, and he acts that way, but in those first few seconds
he knows jacob's tells, is the thing
and this, jacob is barely trying
later he tells himself that jacob was already aiming for mit, already cutting ties
and jacob sees it as jimmy cutting ties, what with amelia
jimmy sees her and he is like perfect! everything I want!
but that's not quite true. she’s not all he wants.

YOU GUYS. I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU ALL HOW HAPPY I AM THAT THIS VERSE IS BECOMING A REAL THING. I LOVE ALL OF YOU AND YOUR BEMUSED FACES THAT ARE TOTALLY ASKING FOR MORE, YES THEY ARE, DON'T LIE TO ME.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

Shifters Lie

2011-05-17T09:30:16Z

Another Novakcest snippet, in honor of whynot /twoskeletons 's birthday! (For those of you unfamiliar with this verse, check out these links.)

Season one, equivalent of "Skin." The twins have just faced a shifter that took on Jimmy's persona and blabbed all about Jimmy's inappropriate incestuous love for Jacob. This leads to a tense moment between the twins, presented in our usual po-mo chat poetry format:

so jacob instigates it, right
a million false starts. "do you—" "was that—"
jimmy is like “what. was it what.”
jacob like, so shifter!you said some interesting things
jimmy was like WHAT I WHAT DEMONS LIE
SHIFTERS LIE ALSO
and jacob is saying all these things, reasons, imprecations
and then he leans in
and jimmy is like woah, heart beating all fast, and jacob is like "you said—"
and jimmy says "it wasn't me"
but in a way it is, because jimmy still has the memories
memories and memories of pushing his feelings aside, trying to be a good brother here
the present like the past, jacob clinging to him and jimmy trying to be a good brother
maybe it's that grief has changed him, or distance changed them, but he bends to jacob's touch this time
he can't mourn his family and hunt and quash this feeling all at the same time, he just doesn't have enough energy
something's gotta give
and then the sharp horror and horrifying relief that comes with giving in
with kissing back, daring to cup the back of jacob's head to pull him closer
this isn't going to end well for either of them

but jimmy stops it before they get to second base
and jacob's like, fuck you
fuck you you fucking hypocrite
didn't you feel anything just now
and jimmy just puts on his coat and leaves without saying anything
he's never been good at lying to his brother.

To which I added this visual aid (caps from oxoniensis , with all due credit to A Softer World):

♥♥♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY LASS ♥♥♥
IF I COULD GET THE REAL MISHA TO MAKE OUT WITH HIMSELF FOR YOU, I WOULD.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)

batten down the hatches

2011-04-07T00:58:45Z

I know a lot of you are in a tizzy about LJ's troubles, and I'd like to take this opportunity to echo this plea: ARCHIVE YOUR FIC. Even if you don't like that fandom anymore. Even if you wrote it ten years ago. Even if you hate it and everyone you know hates it. Someone will want it. Fandom will survive the death of a website, sure; the people that really care will find each other again. It's the years and years of work we've poured into it that are at risk. Don't let our communal history be lost to the whims of a single website.

I suggest Archive Of Our Own, which was created specifically by fans for fanfiction, with its own servers to ensure that no outside provider can go on deleting sprees. They have a handy import feature for fics on LJ and DW—it's maybe two minutes per fic, with a fairly straightforward method of warning and tagging. They're in the process of adding support for fanart and fanvids. Check out their FAQ for more info.

I'm callowyn on Dreamwidth, with seven invite codes to give away, and callowyn on AO3, with three invite codes. I'm not asking you move off LJ or to change the way you fandom. Just please, put your fanworks somewhere safe.

(Also posted on Dreamwidth.)