Tag: fanfic

It came slowly.

At first the world was a colorful blur of shapes and movement where nothing stayed or lasted for very long. Those were the times when everything was soothing and could cause delight. Other times were of darkness and cold that led to terror and to tears. Thankfully those were few and far between.

As time moved ever onwards, the shapes started to form figures and the smears of color settled into place. These were people and things, and suddenly there was a sense of permanence. If something left the field of view, it was not gone forever. It was just over there.

Over there became over here became back there and movement became something controlled and not something that happened. It was so cool!

Still… the dots didn’t quite connect. There was mama and papa and even if the long straight stuff that swayed around mama’s face looked wrong (shouldn’t it be curly? darker?), and papa didn’t have the short prickly stuff that grew under the part of his face that stuck out, they were still mama and papa and they knew everything. They had to be right, right?

Thoughts and limited understanding pushed forwards, and other things began to make sense. That was a table; you ate there. That was the kitchen, mama cooked there. You held hands with Papa when he wanted you to “walk”. Walking meant being up on two feet, instead of hands and knees.

Walking is what ultimately started it all.

Because with walking came falling, and with falling came cracking your head on a side table, and with cracking your head you became she.

A sob caught in her throat, and tiny hands hands lifted to poke at the cut bleeding sluggishly on her forehead and Papa was picking her up and brushing her fingers out of the way to get a good look. The blonde man looked relieved and a laugh bubbled out of his throat, “Just a bump, my cute little Tunafish! You’re so brave and strong! Not even any tears!”

I don’t cry over stupid things like bumping my head, she wants to say but the part of her that had been the all of her only a moment before held her back. It was also the part of her that kept her from freaking out and flailing about— who even was Papa? Her dad was a grown ass man nearly sixty, not this kid that looked like he might be her baby brother’s age.

Even as he cuddles and coos to her, she’s twisting in his arms to look around. The house is small and familiar and hers but not hers. It’s not the home of almost thirty years that she remembers, but it is the home of the her that was before her.

It’s all very confusing. There is the her that currently is, the thirty year old woman struggling to come to terms with abruptly becoming a toddler in someone else’s family. There is the her before her, that may have been a boy because that is most assuredly a penis all hanging out down there, who is still curled up somewhere inside her making it a bit easier to come to terms with the sudden physical gender switch.

Sort of. Maybe. Kinda? Look, dicks are creepy. They were creepy when she was the woman before the her (him?) before her, and they’re still creepy now.

It gets less confusing a few days later when she overhears her mama-not-mama answer the phone and say “Yes, this is Sawada Nana.” in that cheerful voice that soothes the her before her. It’s like a clarion call to the her that currently is.

Oh.

My.

God.

I am the insert in a self insert fanfic. What the shit, self?

Tobias is still trying to figure out how to react to his new found knowledge of just who exactly it was who fathered him, when the world turns upside down for everyone.

Tresspasser makes landfall, and suddenly the Yeerks are the least of their worries.

Because they’re fleeing the planet in droves, and Ax is terrified. The Andalite word for them translates to “world enders”. They are beasts of legend, nigh unstoppable.

They can be delayed. Individuals can be destroyed. But they keep coming.

The only method the Andalites have found to stop them is to destroy their target; destroy whatever world they’ve come for. It’s the same end regardless of how it gets there.

The Andalites won’t come now.

The Yeerks are fleeing.

Humanity is on it’s own.

(And tumblr needs to stop eating parts of my posts)

my very rough untitled ben/claire thing

The first time that Ben meets Claire, he’s nineteen and she has just turned seventeen. Although he’s still joe normal at this point, still thinks that the world is understandable and the supernatural only exists in television and movies, it’s a memorable first meeting.

It’s hard to forget pulling someone out of the wreckage of their car.

He doesn’t even know what happened that night. Only that he stumbled across the destroyed car and found an unconscious girl in the driver’s seat. He managed to get her out and checked her for injuries before calling the police.

Miraculously, she was uninjured. She also disappeared from the hospital over night. It was only later that he found out that her name was Claire Novak, and she had disappeared along with her mother five years earlier. They had left a dead body behind, and both had been wanted for questioning.

–

The second time that Claire and Ben meet, she is nineteen and he is twenty one. Even if she had been conscious when he pulled her from the wreck, she wouldn’t have recognized him as the same man. He’s lost a lot of the muscle and bulk that had helped to rescue her, and he has shaved all of his hair off. Curling away from his temple is a long line of stitches holding together a rather nasty looking gash.

She’s not impressed. She’s seen a lot of hunters take some pretty severe damage from stupid stunts, and this looks like just another idiot looking to get himself killed. Still… he’s the guy she’s here to see, the guy who jumped through all the hoops to even get her number, let alone the thousand and one checks she put him through just to make sure he was neither angel nor demon.

When they part, he has her personal cellphone number, and she has the first of many stories about how he got the head wound.

–

Their third meeting is a year later, when Claire finds herself on a hunt that crosses his. Claire has been tracking a demon for months, and Ben has found himself on a salt and burn directly in the demon’s path. It’s Ben’s first encounter with a real demon since he turned hunter, but Claire is stunned to discover that he actually knows what he’s doing.

They manage to exorcise the demon, and burn the ghost, all in the same two hour span. Claire manages two beers before she’s falling asleep, and Ben lets her crash in his motel room instead of the in the backseat of her car.

He’s still shaving his head, and she gets another story about the scar when he catches her staring at it. She smacks him upside the head in response. He promises to call her if anything demon related winds up on his radar.

He calls her every couple of weeks even when it doesn’t.

–

The fourth meeting is on purpose, with Claire bringing a blessed weapon to Ben so he can destroy the creature that has been plaguing a mid-western town for six months. It’s not an exaggeration, either; the creature feasts upon diseased souls, and the entire town is under quarantine when she arrives.

Claire kicks up a fuss when she finally tracks Ben down and discovers that his scar has split open. It’s not the puss and blood that scares her— it’s the ectoplasm slowly oozing out of it.

Ben kisses her to get her to shut up.

–

The fifth time doesn’t have anything to do with the supernatural or life threatening situations.

Ben takes her out to dinner and a movie, and they both wind up throwing popcorn at the screen. They really should have known better than to pick a vampire flick.

–

It’s not until she’s twenty-two that she finds out that the scar came from brain surgery, and it takes meeting his mother to learn that. He rolls his eyes and complains about losing his mystique thankyouverymuch mom.

THIS WAS NOT WHAT I MEANT TO WRITE. But you can have it anyways. Headcanonish stuff for Claire

characters:  Claire Novak
series: Supernatural
words: 429
summary: (Five times the victim)

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The first time that someone used her father’s disappearance to taunt her, all Claire could do was cry.

Daddy’s last words to her rung in her ears, echoing the nasty girl’s voice: her daddy didn’t want her. Her daddy left her because she wasn’t good enough for him. She is the reason that daddy is gone.

She’s only ten. She has no idea what it is that she did wrong, but she promises that if he comes home she’ll do better, be better. She’ll go to mass every day, and say grace, and she won’t even complain about it. She’ll make sure to change out of her Sunday best after church before she goes out to play. She promises all of this in her bedtime prayers, begging and pleading with God to bring her daddy back.

The second and third times that her classmates torment her, she locks herself into the girl’s washroom to escape it. She’s crying and heartbroken, but she’s also so mad that she throws her bag at the mirror and screams at daddy for leaving them. Why? What did she do that made him hate her so much that he left?

Mom tries to explain to her that it’s not her fault. She tries to tell her that daddy had been having some problems and just needs some time to himself, but Claire knows she’s lying. She’s heard mom crying late at night, and heard the phone calls, seen the flyers. Mom is trying so hard to find him, but he’s just gone.

The fourth time that some girl tries to make her cry, Claire hits her. It’s an accident in all honesty. The girl had backed her into a corner, and in trying to escape, she caught the other girl across the face with her hand.

The rules were pretty straight forwards: bullying was bad, but you got into a lot more trouble for fighting, and Claire was sent home while the other girl went to the nurse. Her mom wasn’t happy in the slightest. She yelled and cried and it made Claire feel terrible for putting more stress on her mother. She promised not to fight ever again.

Except that the fifth time that someone brought up her daddy, it wasn’t one of the girls in her class. It was the older brother of the girl that she’d hit, and when he started in on the same tirade, Claire lost it. With tears streaming down her face, she threw herself at him; biting and scratching and just trying to make him shut up.

The bullying didn’t stop.

But Claire eventually stopped crying.

I have… struggled with this one. Mostly because I keep changing things in the drabbles for Paved and Perdition which retroactively change this and the three or four drabbles that follow immediately after it.  

prompt: TEMPTATION
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline:  Waiting for the End 
characters: Gabriel, Laufey-Serenity
words: 1629
summary: (A conversation long over due)

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A little more than a century after the death of Christ, and Gabriel the Messenger is still on Earth. He has remained to watch over his Father’s fledgling religion, or so he tells Michael on the rare occasion that his brother thinks to question it. 

That, more than anything that has happened since Lucifer’s fall, is what hurts the most. Centuries ago, Michael would have been the constant watcher over his shoulder. He would have wanted to know everything that Gabriel was involved with, every message and all the possible trouble he could be getting into. He would be there to offer aid and even comfort. Once… well, once their brother would have been right there with Michael, scoffing and poking and prodding. He would teach Gabriel tricks here and there while Michael was distracted. 

Those times are long gone. Michael has gotten so wrapped up in training Raphael on how to be a ‘proper’ Archangel, that he has forgotten that Gabriel was already one. Michael has allowed himself to dwell on their brother’s Fall, and on the destruction of their family. He has turned a blind eye to the damage he has done to the Host while he sits and stews on whatever hateful things Lucifer whispers through the cracks in the Cage. He has allowed those spiteful words to strike all too deeply, and now he can barely see beyond the final battle. No matter how far in the future that may be.

That’s not something that Gabriel really wants to think about. He doesn’t want to consider how many of his younger brothers will die for their pissing contest, either. So he hides; he hides on Earth and guides the new church along the path that Father has set for it.

He’s gotten pretty good at hiding, though any angel with a drop of sense to their name can still find him. All they have to do is reach out for the curious squish-crunch of Grace forced into a form too small for it. Thankfully, most of the non-human entities that populate Earth aren’t quite to versed in feeling out an angel’s Grace; to them, he is Nal. He, or rather she, is one of them. She’s just another pagan looking to make something of herself.

It’s not a hard sell to make when sharing the body with a pagan woman. Laufey has stirred and brushed against his grace every few years since that first year, giving him glimpses of memory and knowledge of how to use her powers. It has helped him to weave the story that has bound them to the Nordic pagans, and has become such a familiar touch that he rarely notices it these days.

He thinks nothing of it when he feels her stir this time. Nothing, that is, until a soundless voice rips through his Grace alongside a memory. The pain that lances through their abdomen is so unexpected that for a second he loses control of the vessel and it crumples to the ground. 

“Nal!” it is the impetuous pagan that he has been whispering his father’s secrets to that catches him, hands curling protectively into her tunic. Gabriel can see greatness and power in the future of this nordic pagan, but without using powers far beyond what he has borrow from Laufey, he can’t say just how it comes to be. At the moment he is young and worried, hands shifting nervously to press against her abdomen and then her forehead.

Gabriel laughs slightly, and it is a weak, breathy sound as she pushes him away. “Settle down. I’m alright, it was just an unexpected kick.” The pagan’s brow furrows in confusion, but Laufey’s lips curve into a gentle smile that it had taken Gabriel thirty years to figure out. “Do not worry so, Borson. Nothing is wrong.”

“You are… certain?”

“Of course I am. Odin, if I didn’t know my own body, who else would?” Well, Gabriel supposes that Laufey would kwow the body better than he, and by the tug and pull of his grace it’s obvious that she is up and wants… something. To talk, most likely. It’s not really a conversation that he is looking forwards to, but it is one that needs to happen.

So she claps a hand on Odin’s shoulder, presses a kiss to his forehead, and whispers a blessing in Enochian into his hair. Odin makes a face at the kiss, and Gabriel finds himself laughing again. She braces himself against his shoulder as she lurches back to her feet. “I do believe, however, that it’s a sign that I need to head home. We will continue our discussion another time.”

“Yes, of course.” He’s still young enough that when a mother-figure uses that tone, he does not disagree with her, and it is a tone that Gabriel has forced himself to learn. She flashes another smile at him and flickers away, only going far enough to cover the sound of her wings. A moment later, and she is settling into the Garden; she needs time to commune with her Vessel, and this is the only place that she can think of where she won’t be bothered by angels or pagans or Christians. 

He takes an unneeded breath and then pulls up one of Laufey’s oldest memories for them to speak in. It is an ancient palace sitting room, all beautiful Grecian columns and white marble. Gabriel has never seen the long destroyed Palace of the Serenities, but it is obvious that this is where they are. The Earth is a cool blue orb that hangs in the sky over their heads.

“Gabriel.”

He turns to face her, wearing Farbauti’s face once more. Aside from her own, it is the only face of his that she would recognize. “Laufey.”

“Pandeia Serenity,” she corrects softly, looking up at the Earth instead of at him. “You have been Laufey for far long than I ever was.”

He shrugs awkwardly and steps up beside her. Her gaze shifts from the Earth to him for a moment, and her face is strangely blank.

“How long has it been?”

“One hundred and eighty-five years. Give or take.” Even as he is answering her, he realizes that he has never told her his true name, and he turns to ask how she knew. The slap takes him completely by surprise. 

“Two centuries, Gabriel? You took my life from me!”

Maybe it’s the heartache caused by Michael and Lucifer. Maybe it’s the pit in his stomach from watching Michael replace their brother with Raphael. Maybe it’s the century of hiding with the humans, or the decades of playing with the pagans. Maybe it’s just a part of Gabriel that was never allowed to flourish in his Father’s House. Whatever the reason, Gabriel grins wickedly as he laughs. “Oh Princess, the deal was that I healed your body and then I got to use it. There was no time limit on it.”

She makes a frustrated little squeak before she visibly collapses in on herself. “I want my life back, angel.”

Gabriel looks away with a frown, his moment of vindictive joviality vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Don’t we all.” All he wants is for Michael to open his eyes and see what he’s making Raphael and Anael and Uriel and all of their younger brothers into. He wants Lucifer to ask for forgiveness and come home. He wants to be able to walk through Heaven without thinking of ages long gone. 

“I still need a Vessel, Serenity. My job is not yet finished.”

“Why can’t you find someone else? Why does it have to be me?” her voice is plaintive with a note of desperation.

“Because you are the last of your line. No siblings, remember? You have no nieces or nephews that I could move on to.”

“My aunts—”

“Only have half the bloodlines necessary to host an angel of my power, Serenity.”

She is quiet for a long time, and Gabriel has to admit to himself that he would miss being Nal. Her skin has grown comfortable over the decades, and the pagan magics that are available to him through her body are unlike the powers that his Father had given him. A shift to a new Vessel would mean giving all that up.

And he knows that he doesn’t have any right to that power, and that he should give it all up, but at this point he is not sure if he can. He has become addicted to her magic, something that should be impossible for an angel and yet… here he is. 

“…I can still bare children.”

It takes a moment for Serenity’s words to filter through, and then the Archangel’s jaw drops. “What?”

Serenity looks rather displeased with her own line of thought, but she continues before Gabriel can get her shock under control. “I am still capable of baring children and continuing the line.”

“You would give up your own child to escape being my Vessel?” Gabriel’s face twists unpleasantly. “If I had had any doubt that you were a pagan—”

“Look,” she interrupts and her voice sounds strained even to her, “Endymion has not been reborn yet. A child of any other union would not be recognized by Mother. It’s… it’s not breaking my vows if they child is produced for a reason outside of continuing the royal line.”

“Except that it goes against that whole free will thing Father gave humanity.”

“The child won’t be human. Not enough to matter in any case. Gabriel. Please.”

“…I need to think about this, Serenity.”

As he slips out of their shared mental landscape, Gabriel is careful not to pay attention to the way his wings quiver. When he opens Laufey’s eyes, he ignores the way her stomach clenches. As he returns to Earth, he pretends her mouth isn’t dry.

This is a temptation he is not sure he can withstand.

Mary’s been bugging me for a couple of days. I should be finishing up Gabriel’s amazing pagan transformation, but here I am writing about the beloved missus Winchester. Le sigh.

Although this is set in the Wrapped Up ‘Verse, this piece is part of my personal head canon for the series and is therefore written without actually mentioning anything that happens in-verse. 

prompt: DEATH
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline:  Waiting for the End 
characters:  Mary Winchester
words: 707
summary: (that which comes after)

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There are a number of ghosts, spirits, and poltergeist who are unable to tell that they are dead; that they are something that doesn’t fit into the living world. This is part of what makes them rage against the living so hard, and it is what makes them dangerous. That dangerous is what gives hunters a reason to hunt. Years ago, Mary Winchester had been a hunter; back when she had been Mary Campbell. She had been a damn good one, too, regardless of how it had all come to an end. 

So she knows very well that she’s dead.

She never wanted to leave John and Dean and baby Sammy behind, never wanted her boys to grow up without their mother, or for John to have to learn to live on his own. They may have had their fights, but she loved him deeply. 

But Mary is no fool, and she knows that it’s that sort of thinking that creates the ghosts and spirits she’d hunted all her life. She was ready for the Reaper to come and collect, although the Reaper wasn’t quite as ready as she was. Apparently it had expected to have to debate her down in order to get her to cross over. 

That was how it was with the vast majority of hunters, and given that most of those died in the line of duty, that didn’t surprise Mary. She’d laughed a little and reached out to take the Reaper’s hand. 

The Reaper didn’t get the chance to collect. 

Apparently Mary’s ghost wasn’t the only thing left behind by that yellow eyed bastard. The being that was left in his wake was all darkness and malevolence, and apparently capable of possessing an unsuspecting Reaper. Mary couldn’t possibly leave that beast in her home, not with the way it attacked anyone who stepped through the doors. It fed off their fear, their anxiety, and their pain, and with the power of a reaper at it’s finger tips it could cause a lot of damage to it’s targets. 

Targets that Mary did her best to shield and protect. Most of them weren’t even aware that there was something in the house with them, chalking up disturbances to problems and damage left by the fire. Even John, was finally let back into the house to collect their surviving belongings, assume that something crashing to the ground where his foot had been moments before was just structural damage. She kind of wanted to smack him upside the head for being so obtuse.

He wasn’t quite as obtuse when he caught a glimpse of her. Their eyes met through a mirror as she threw herself between him and the spirit. She knows that John damn near broke his neck whipping around to try and see her, but she hadn’t learned how to cross over into the physical world that early on. She grappled with the spirit and managed to keep it away from John until he left. 

She’s careful to avoid reflective surfaces the next time John comes to the house.

He doesn’t come back a third time.

Mary doesn’t know what happened to her husband after that. She saw cleaning crews for the first few weeks, followed by the police when John turns up missing. He’s taken Sam and Dean with him and run, she learns. She’s kind of grateful for that. It’s hard enough to control the poltergeist around strangers, and she worries that it had been left behind to kill the rest of her family.

She knows that she would over extend herself if they were still here, and then where would they be?

She misses her family dearly, but she’s glad they’re not here. John will take care of them, raise them up right. They’d grow up strong and kind, and maybe they’ll be a little stubborn, but they’d come by that naturally. Both she and John could hold a grudge, after all. Despite that, and despite whatever damage that demon has done to her baby boy, they’ll be good boys. She’s sure of it.

She can feel the poltergeist stirring once again, and she sets herself for battle. She just needs to hold out here until a hunter can come along and rid her of her new companion.

well, I’ve spent two hours working on arts (20 minutes on Sai-Zo, 100 minutes on Jibriel, WIPs to come sometime tomorrow…) I think it’s time to get some Wrapped Up out there.

prompt:  BREAKFAST
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline: Waiting For The End
characters:  Usagi, Gabriel
words: 687
summary: (sweets and theology)

 ———————————————

Usagi loves her sweets and treats as much as the next girl, but this is more than a little ridiculous. Actually, it falls under “Absolutely 100%, Grade-A, Capslock Is Most Certainly Necessary, What The Eff Is Wrong With You” ridiculous. Seriously, it’s been two and a half hours and Gabriel is on his twenty-seventh bowl of ice cream. Bubblegum flavoured, this time.

But twenty-seven! Ugh, it just isn’t fair that he doesn’t get brainfreeze!

And he knows it; he’s grinning an ear-to-ear smile and acting as though every single damn bit is a freaking orgasm. Un. Fair.

Her frustration must finally get through that thick skull of his, because when he finishes bowl number twenty-eight he puts down his spoon instead of conjuring more. “Ah, now that is a good breakfast.”

She fumbles for a moment, stumbling over just what it is she’s going to call him before deciding to just not call him anything. “A two hour ice cream binge is not breakfast and oh my god I did not just say that.”

“I’m pretty sure you did, Moonface.” His smirk is tinted in maliciousness, but she doesn’t let that bother her. It’s just kind of his default smirk, and besides. They haven’t seen each other for a few reincarnations, she’ll give him some time to get used to her again. “So what did my favorite human call me out for?”

Usagi has been trying to figure this one out on her own for a month now. It has been a month of restless nights and research. A month of tantrums and fits, a month of brushing off her friends and family and worrying all of them. She’s at her wit’s end, which means the only thing she can do is to go directly to the source. 

“Laufey’s memories…” she hesitates to ask, but she really wants to know. She winds up looking down at her hands and fiddling with her ring. “…they don’t feel like they’re my memories. Not the way that Serenity’s do.”

Gabriel’s smile is surprisingly gentle for all that it is still a teasing grin. “You expected them to? Babe, Pandeia’s memories are bound up in your divinity. You’ll never escape them in any life where they wake up, and Usagi’s memories are from this life. I’d be worried if you didn’t feel a connection to those ones. Now Laufey… Laufey’s just a shade of a life a thousand reincarnations gone. Heck, maybe even two thousand. It’s no surprise that you can’t connect to them.”

“But you can still use my body.”

Gabriel’s amusement flickers for a moment, a troubled look entering his eyes before he masks it again. “Apparently.”

“Why? And how?” I might not connect to her memories very well, but I can definitely remember the state that you left her in.” It had featured rather prominently in her nightmares of late; from the blazing heat of sharing a physical form with an archangel, to the impenetrable darkness that Laufey had been unable to dig herself out of afterwards. She had died that way, locked within her own head and unable to interact with the world. 

It is a terrible way to die, whether in the here and now, or in the sixth century. 

“Why… I don’t know, Usagi.” He is being surprisingly candid with her, though that is likely due only to their long standing connection. “We… the other angels, I mean… we’ve always just assumed that the bloodline is the part that matters the most when it comes to a vessel. Of course, most souls don’t reincarnate back into humans every time they die. The nearest I’ve been able to figure is that your soul remembers my grace.”

Usagi frowns at him, opening her mouth to ask another question. Of course, that would be about the time that her grumbling stomach decides to interrupt. With her face flushing red, Gabriel smirks and snaps his fingers. 

The table is cleared of the debris of his frozen treat breakfast, though it’s certainly not empty. Oh no, now there are cakes of all different shapes, sizes, and flavours scattered across it. 

“Let’s finished breakfast before we get into the heavy-duty stuff, babe.”

haha oh man. Why do I keep writing Perdition drabbles? Ah well…

prompt:  FAMILY
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline:  Paved With Good Intentions
characters:  Sam/Jess, Gabriel
words: 654
summary: (family is more than blood)

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Sam and Jessica have only been ‘officially’ dating for about a month when Jessica had to break their plans for the evening. She looks annoyed and frustated, but it melts into a weak smile when he asks her why.

“A… cousin of mine is in town. He wants to play catch up.”

“Cousin?” the hesitation might have been slight, but it was obvious to someone who has spent so much time trying to weasel information on things that go bump in the night out of reluctant witnesses. There’s something more there, something that she doesn’t want to talk about, and for a moment his instincts scream at him to dig and pick at it, to find out what it is. Then her hand settles lightly on his shoulder and he reminds himself that he’s a normal guy now. 

He doesn’t have to dig or snoop for clues, especially not into his girlfriend’s life. There’s nothing supernatural or freaky about her, and he does his best to keep it all away from her. If she doesn’t like her cousin, it’s more than likely for some mundane reason.

“Ray is…” she huffs out a laugh that sounds more pained than amused at the thought of her cousin. “Well, he thinks he’s funny. He plays all of these nasty little jokes and pranks and people tend to get hurt in the aftermath. It’s just… I don’t want to throw you to the dogs without a three day briefing, at the least.”

Sam has to laugh at that. “No one is that bad, Jess.”

“Ray is.” She’s being unusually firm about this as her gaze moves to stare over his shoulder. Sam starts to turn to see what it is that she’s looking at, but her nails dig into his arm and he stops. He’s already turned enough that he can see someone out of the corner of his eye, standing maybe twenty feet away.

Jessica sighs and lets go of his arm. Sam takes this as permission to finish turning and take a good look at the man; he places his age around the mid-thirties, and it’s obvious even at a distance that he’s quite a bit shorter than either Jess or himself. His face is curiously blank of expression, though it’s fairly obvious to Sam that they’re being studied in return.

“That would be Ray,” Jess admits with a wry twist of her lips. “I should go distract him from whatever trick he’s plotting out right now. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” he can’t say no to her smile, even if her cousin has completely ruined their plans for the evening. Just because his relationship with his family has gone down the drain doesn’t mean that he’ll demand that Jessica breaks off her familial connections. That’s not his place to decide.

As Jessica pulls the shorter man into a hug, Sam doesn’t bother to deny the sharp pang of jealousy or the wish that things were better with Dean. It’s been over a year, but he’s still angry and bitter about Dad’s reaction to his decision; he doesn’t really want to try and fix things with him. Fixing things with Dean would mean calling his brother, and the last time they’d talked it had only driven home just how much he didn’t fit into the Winchester mold.

All he had wanted to so was celebrate his grades (top of the class! Can you believe that?) but he hadn’t even been able to get the news out before Dean had asked if he’d come to his senses yet. If he was going to finally come home and leave ‘all that junk’ behind. The call had ended in a shouting match and Sam had absolutely zero desire for a repeat performance.

He didn’t need family that wouldn’t support him; not when he had Jess and Brady and the rest of his friends. So he boxed away his jealousy and started back to his room.

He had reservations to reschedule.

prompt:  INTRODUCTIONS
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline:  Paved With Good Intentions
characters:  Sam, Jessica, Brady
words: 433
summary: (First meetings can be unexpected)

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It takes a month and a half of whining and wheedling for Sam to cave to Brady. He’s actually pretty proud of himself for this, as there is only so long a person can stand to listen to the hard partying loudmouth bitch and moan, and Sam has lasted longer than most of their mutual friends. It’s cold comfort to take with him when he finds himself ducking into a bar behind his friend at a quarter to midnight. 

He still caved, after all; caved and was dragged off for a night of karaoke. The laughter that’s ringing in the back of his head right now? That’s Dean’s. This is definitely one of those stories he is not going to tell his brother about. Ever.


Karaoke might be one of those normal guy in a normal life situations, but it had never factored into his own normal life plans. The upside was that it was a sports bar, and he could alw—

“TYSON!”

Sam is a pretty smart guy. He gets good grades and tends to breeze through the requirements to keep his scholarship going. It still takes the shouting woman actually jumping on Brady for him to connect the name. There are few people that call his friend by his given name, and Sam had almost forgotten that Brady wasn’t it.

“You are late!”

“Not by much,” Brady grins widely, and it’s all teeth. The blond woman wrapped around him leans back and Sam is embarrassed to discover that it’s his favorite stranger. 

“Two hours, Tyson. That is a whole lot of late!”

A distant part of Sam’s brain takes note that she’s pretty even when she’s mad, though most of it is caught up in her wide eyes and red cheeks. He might not have the same level of experience at cataloging the tells that his brother does, but the slight slur to her words and the way she’s swaying is enough to tell him that she’s started drinking without them. 

He really shouldn’t find that cute, but like everything else he’s ever noticed about her, he totally does.

Brady hasn’t lost an inch of his grin; if anything it’s gotten wider. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and then swings them around so that she can see Sam. The heat in his face makes it pretty obvious that he’s blushing, and he’s hoping like hell that between the drinks and the lighting, she doesn’t notice. He’s not prepared to meet the girl that’s been on his mind for over a year, but that’s taken out of his hands now.

“Rabbit, this is Sam. Sam, this is Jessica.”