bratfarrar | Entries tagged with fanfiction

This is a bit from that "Cody's accidental vacation" fic that I posted ages ago... don't know if I'll wind up actually using it, but it's been so long since I managed any sort of fiction, it's definitely worth a small celebration!

***

Cody's better than some--many, most--of his brothers at minimizing the time he's had to spend in med bays, but he's visited them often enough to know they're all functionally the same: shiny surfaces smelling of disinfectant, too-bright lighting that makes it impossible to sleep properly, ambient temperatures that are too warm or cold for the number of blankets provided, odd noises and interruptions and beds that always feel wrong. Even the sheets tend to be stiff and over-scrubbed, stinking of bleach; his sinuses always ache for the rest of the day whenever he has to spend more than a few minutes in one. The not-really-a-joke that gets passed through the ranks is that military med bays are designed like that so no one even thinks of malingering.

He's always scoffed more than laughed the few times it's been said within earshot of him, but his current situation is forcing him to reconsider the truth of it.

For one thing, 'med bay' really isn't the word for where he and the other injured troopers have been stashed by their--hosts? guards? Everything about the environment he's now in seems designed to encourage any inhabitants to relax: the bed is so comfortable, so perfectly balanced between 'soft' and 'firm' that he feels almost weightless. The sheets give off a faint soothing odor every time he moves; the pillowcase slides gently against his cheek; he is deliciously warm. The lights overhead are a soothing amber, and aside from occasional footsteps down the hall and the murmur of voices from the other bed in the room, the only sounds are of flowing water and birdsong, spilling in through the room's open window.

When he opens his eyes, the wall facing him is paneled in delicately-carved wood--flowers and faces and bizarre little animals--which continues up into the beams of a low-vaulted ceiling.

It may be partly the pain medication's fault, but Cody's pretty sure he never wants to leave this room again. Well, assuming there's a head attached.

Feeling satisfied

Indexing:

for the prompt "slow, vibrant, anxious + Clone Wars" from Alula

The platoon's moving at an absolute crawl, bad enough to make the back of Cody's neck itch like someone's staring at it. But the ground's entirely mud, and there's no helping it: sheer rock on one side and half a mile of recently-flooded river on the other--hence the mud. Theoretically Cody's body glove can keep him alive (briefly) in a vacuum, but he's pretty sure the mud's managed to seep through and is now slowly filling his left boot.

"Scouts say we're almost in sight of the break in the cliff, sir." Brick's dropped back in the column to keep pace with him. "Though given that Waxer's a hopeless optimist, I'm thinking we have another half hour, easy." One of his legs is completely coated in mud halfway up his thigh plate, while the other is pristine aside from a smudge on his greave. It's been a long and bloody campaign, and Cody's brain keeps seeing the muddy leg and thinking that it's an amputation.

"We'll lose daylight before then." He's careful to keep it from sounding like an accusation--the platoon's moving steadily, despite the hazardous footing, and they've had only a single fall so far, which probably qualifies as a minor miracle. Maybe some of General Kenobi's force-luck has rubbed off on them, but it's going to be impossible to keep everyone on their feet once they lose the light. "I want to tell you to pick up the pace, but I suspect that would be counterproductive."

Brick gives a full-body grimace. "Yes sir. Boil and Waxer made good speed on their scouting run, but they're also now completely( covered in mud )

Indexing:

First attempt at a fill for the prompt for the previous fic, set in the Evil that Walks Invisible AU. I like it, but another one of those that just refused to go any further.

There's a woolly bear crawling across the playing field, bringing the game to an absolute halt.

"You could just wait for it to leave on its own," Mary Beth proposes--ever the voice of reason--but is ignored by the boys as usual. She's not actually involved, anyhow, just watching from the sidelines after having run out of quizzes in the latest issue of Seventeen.

The older boys are squabbling over how to score it if someone hits the caterpillar instead of another marble; the younger boys are hunting through the grass for sticks to poke it with. Kyle keeps producing stalks from somewhere that crumple over at the slightest touch, but given how close-cropped the grass is where they are, that's still almost as good as a magic trick.

Sam ignores all the ruckus, more interested in the caterpillar itself: according to Dean, woolly bears are prime examples of minor naturally-occurring omens. This one's about twice as long and fat as Sam's thumb.

Feeling blah

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But one of the things that makes it Hell is that there are no moments alone--not really. Even when it seems likes you've been abandoned to your pain, there's still someone watching for the moment when the pain starts to slide into dull sameness. Not even the torturers are unobserved; after all, they're inflicting pain on themselves as well. Everything's a mind game--seeming mercy is just the opportunity for further barbarity.

She keeps waiting, though, watching for that sliver of a chance for something to change.

Even in Hell, there's such a thing as luck, and the demons now in control are the ones who knew how to lie in wait and seize it when it came. Ruby knows herself well enough to guess that she just doesn't have the strength of will to build herself up into something to be grappled with, but she's patient and sly and when her luck comes--the barest flicker of distraction in her supervisor/torturer/fellow slave as souls are shuffled from rack to knife--she flings herself into it, flings herself away, falls as fast and as far as she can, tucking her soul into a tiny mote of sparkling dust.

She'd put herself out entirely, so as to blend in better with the void around her, but that would mean ceasing to exist entirely, and if she's managed one fragment of luck, perhaps she can gather a few more and make something of them.

The absence of agony is dizzying, is nearly itself agony. Perhaps there's no real escape from it, here, but she exists quietly in this pocket of emptiness, and slowly remembers herself as she was before Hell. On Earth she'd had ambitions; they seem small and foolish now, as ephemeral and meaningless as a soap bubble. She's seen real power, now, and although she knows it's not for her, she can't help but thirst for it in her solitude.

The thing is, in Hell, someone is always watching. Even here, where there's no one and nothing but her. I see you, little soul, that someone says; a finger touches her and unwillingly she unfurls back into her full self once again. A pair of white eyes appears before her in the dark, and the sensation of a smile with teeth. You escaped the rack and knife.

"I just got lucky," she says; if she had a heart it would be fluttering like a frightened rabbit's. "I'm nothing special." Maybe she should've snuffed herself out after all; in her mind's eye, the knives flash bright and endlessly cruel.

So you did, the voice agrees. But that means you are special--there's no luck in Hell unless you make it yourself. A finger touches her again, traces the lines of her face and body into the endlessly roiling smoke that makes up the fabric of this place. And you had wit enough to flee, rather than stay and seek retribution on those who had injured you.

Ruby says nothing; it seems prudent.

Little soul, I have need of a clever agent, and you've shown yourself very clever indeed. Those eyes look through her and into her, and Ruby is so very, very frightened--but also a little bit flattered. No one's said nice things about her since she arrived Below. Yes, I think you'll do very nicely. How would you like to walk upon the face of the Earth again?

In Hell, nothing good ever comes of being seen, but Ruby got lucky once. Maybe this is her getting lucky again.

"I'm listening," she says.

Indexing:

For a prompt given to me by zmediaoutlet/deadlybride ~1.5 years ago: caterpillar, inadequate, marble. I have no idea when this is set, or why they didn't just camp out in the car like usual--hence why this is just a scene instead of a proper fic. :P

It definitely says something about the state of Sam's life that this isn't the first time he's camped out inside a mausoleum. It's probably not even the tenth time he's done so. Sam lives a sad and weird life, though he tries not to think about it too much anymore--he's learned that lesson, at least. Just do the next thing and try not to dwell on how he got to where he is, scrunched in a sleeping bag next to Dean on a cold marble floor, hoping that they calculated the cemetery guard's route correctly and he's not about to get a flashlight shone in his face.

"Go to sleep, Sam." Dean has his sleeping bag pulled up over his face, so it sounds a bit more like "oo oo eeeee aa", but Sam's learned over the years how to interpret his brother through toothpaste, pizza, the effects of vodka, the really good stuff, and a literal mouthful of chewy caramels, so this takes barely any effort.

"My legs keep going numb," he says, shifting in another futile effect to find an angle where he can get them both straight. He thinks a little longingly of the previous mausoleum they'd squatted in--that one had an actual oriental rug, was a good two feet wider, and had been long enough for Sam to straighten his legs and arms. Practically a palace!

Dean groans, and curls partially upright in a great swishing of sleeping bag fabric. The parking lot lights are too far away to provide much illumination, so the overall effect is rather like being attacked by a giant disgruntled caterpillar. "You are such a wuss," he says.

Given that Dean's the one who refused to stay at the by-the-hour motel on the other side of town because 'the sheets smell weird, Sam', it's definitely a case of pot and kettle.

"I could get nerve damage and you wouldn't care," Sam says, like he's twelve all over again, and rolls away dramatically to face the wall. Or would, if the wall were more than three inches away from his nose to begin with. In the process he smacks his elbow into the floor. "Ow."

Dean rears up a little further, visibly incredulous. "Did you manage to injure yourself while rolling over? You are such a princess."

"I don't even need a pea," Sam agrees, though he wouldn't say no to a pile of mattresses. "Look, I know it's probably two in the morning or something equally ridiculous, but can we give up and go back to the car? I'd rather drive the rest of the night on burned gas station coffee than try to stick it out here any longer."

Dean sighs and scrubs at his eyes with the backs of his hands. "I don't know why you're making such a fuss, given how many times we've done this before, but fine. You do the driving, not a single ding on the car, and I'll take over when we reach the state border or eight o'clock, whichever happens later." Sam has to wait for Dean to struggle out of the sleeping bag--and then out of the mausoleum entirely--before he has enough room to crowbar himself out as well. Between the two of them they get everything squared away again in couple of minutes and are back to the car well before the guard has a chance to finish his perfunctory walk through the rest of the cemetery.

"No more mausoleums unless they have rugs," Sam says after they've left town and the car's purring along, happy to be the highway again.

"But then they smell!" Dean protests from where he's stretched out in the back seat, and they're right back around to where they started: of the two of them, Sam's definitely not the one who's a wuss.

"Oh, go to sleep, you big baby," Sam says, and from there it's a comfortable bicker and empty roads, and even the coffee isn't so bad after all. All in all, a pretty good night, despite the literally rocky start.

Indexing:

For a prompt given to me by zmediaoutlet/

deadlybride ~1.5 years ago: caterpillar, inadequate, marble. I have no idea when this is set, or why they didn't just camp out in the car like usual--hence why this is just a scene instead of a proper fic. :P

It definitely says something about the state of Sam's life that this isn't the first time he's camped out inside a mausoleum. It's probably not even the tenth time he's done so. Sam lives a sad and weird life, though he tries not to think about it too much anymore--he's learned that lesson, at least. Just do the next thing and try not to dwell on how he got to where he is, scrunched in a sleeping bag next to Dean on a cold marvel floor, hoping that they calculated the cemetery guard's route correctly and he's not about to get a flashlight shone in his face.

"Go to sleep, Sam." Dean has his sleeping bag pulled up over his face, so it sounds a bit more like "oo oo eeeee aa", but Sam's learned over the years how to interpret his brother through toothpaste, pizza, the effects of vodka, the really good stuff, and a literal mouthful of chewy caramels, so this takes barely any effort.

"My legs keep going numb," he says, shifting in another futile effect to find an angle where he can get them both straight. He thinks a little longingly of the previous mausoleum they'd squatted in--that one had an actual oriental rug, was a good two feet wider, and had been long enough for Sam to straighten his legs and arms. Practically a palace!

Dean groans, and curls partially upright in a great swishing of sleeping bag fabric. The parking lot lights are too far away to provide much illumination, so the overall effect is rather like being attacked by a giant disgruntled caterpillar. "You are such a wuss," he says.

Given that Dean's the one who refused to stay at the by-the-hour motel on the other side of town because 'the sheets smell weird, Sam', it's definitely a case of pot and kettle.

"I could get nerve damage and you wouldn't care," Sam says, like he's twelve all over again, and rolls away dramatically to face the wall. Or would, if the wall were more than three inches away from his nose to begin with. In the process he smacks his elbow into the floor. "Ow."

Dean rears up a little further, visibly incredulous. "Did you manage to injure yourself while rolling over? You are such a princess."

"I don't even need a pea," Sam agrees, though he wouldn't say no to a pile of mattresses. "Look, I know it's probably two in the morning or something equally ridiculous, but can we give up and go back to the car? I'd rather drive the rest of the night on burned gas station coffee than try to stick it out here any longer."

Dean sighs and scrubs at his eyes with the backs of his hands. "I don't know why you're making such a fuss, given how many times we've done this before, but fine. You do the driving, not a single ding on the car, and I'll take over when we reach the state border or eight o'clock, whichever happens later." Sam has to wait for Dean to struggle out of the sleeping bag--and then out of the mausoleum entirely--before he has enough room to crowbar himself out as well. Between the two of them they get everything squared away again in couple of minutes and are back to the car well before the guard has a chance to finish his perfunctory walk through the rest of the cemetery.

"No more mausoleums unless they have rugs," Sam says after they've left town and the car's purring along, happy to be the highway again.

"But then they smell!" Dean protests from where he's stretched out in the back seat, and they're right back around to where they started: of the two of them, Sam's definitely not the one who's a wuss.

"Oh, go to sleep, you big baby," Sam says, and from there it's a comfortable bicker and empty roads, and even the coffee isn't so bad after all. All in all, a pretty good night, despite the literally rocky start.

Indexing:

This was originally intended to be a bit more substantial, but I got this far and then never managed to get it moving again. However, I quite like it, so here 'tis (and here's the fic it was supposed to be a coda for):

Dean's still sweet, even after his time downstairs--sweeter, perhaps, for having been so bruised. She'd expected him to shy from her, to smell the sulfur under her skin, but instead he opens himself to her, belly naked and pale and oh so soft beneath her fingernails. If anything, he's afraid of Sam--Sam's stated vendetta against Lilith, his potential condemnation, all the knife-sharp edges that came unsheathed in the absence of Dean.

Really, she could scarcely ask for a better setup--Sam thinking to use her as a tool in his revenge, Dean all but clinging to her as a shield against what Sam's become, Ruby in the middle playing both ends as hard as she can manage, both men twined around her little fingers.

Feeling mellow

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It's a joke, at first. Esau comes in splattered with blood and sweat and dirt and throws down the usual load of animal carcasses, for Jacob to skin and prepare as a meal. Jacob, despite his own sweat, feels it like a unspoken judgment, because it always is in their father's eyes, and for once he doesn't simply acquiesce when Esau demands food ahead of the communal meal.

"Give me your birthright and I'll think about it," he says, and it's a joke, it is, but it carries an edge honed by a lifetime of watching his brother spurn the management and care of their father's household--and being favored by their father because of it.

"I'm going to starve to death anyhow," Esau scoffs, and that's what turns it into something other than a joke. The slightest glimmer of dismay or amusement, and Jacob would've laughed it off and handed over a bowl of the stew he's tending. But when Esau simply accepts the bargain, Jacob can't help pressing the matter. Esau gets his stew, and his brother is left speechless in the cooking tent, suddenly and secretly rich beyond what he could've imagined an hour before.

He isn't sure whether to laugh or weep.

Indexing:

lost, eyes, useful [Supernatural | Ruby] -

itsnotmymind. A year and a half ago I offered to write prompt fics. This is rather delayed, but I hope it satisfies!

Hell is--well, it's not what Ruby expected. There's fire and spikes and knives, of course. And blood and screaming and chains, but it's all ... wobbly is probably the best word. Everything is both eternal and ephemeral, and there's an odd flux to it all that can be used to slide away if all attention is turned from you. Not that it ever is, but in the moments when she's the one torturing instead of being tortured (except it's all torture; even when she's the one holding the knife, it's with the anticipation of it being used on her. What seems like a relief is just there to provide contrast so that the pain bites deeper and more cruelly) and there's room to think a little beyond the immediate and eternal now, she can tell that there's a possibility, a permeability to the fabric of things. A second, a fraction of a second unobserved, and she knows she could be somewhere else.

But one of the things that makes it Hell is that there are no moments alone--not really. Even when it seems likes you've been abandoned to your pain, there's still someone watching for the moment when the pain starts to slide into dull sameness. Not even the torturers are unobserved; after all, they're inflicting pain on themselves as well. Everything's a mind game--seeming mercy is just the opportunity for further barbarity.

She keeps waiting, though, watching for that sliver of a chance for something to change.

( Even in Hell, there's such a thing as luck, after all. )

Indexing:

Written for

borgmama1of5's prompt of "filthy, edible, underwear [Supernatural | Dean or Sam]"

"All I'm saying," Sam repeats for the fourth time, with a sloppily emphatic gesture that has Dean moving his own beer back for safety, "All I'm saying is that it seems very unhygienic, and I wouldn't expect you, of all people, to think it was a good idea." He leans back in his chair, listing a little to the left, and folds his arms in a way that's probably supposed to look resolute but just reminds Dean of when he was a teenager sulking over driving privileges (or rather the lack thereof).

"All good sex is unhygienic," Dean counters, peeling the label off the bottle in short, soggy strips. "That's part of what makes it fun--it's the good kind of mess."

Sam frowns, and Dean can almost see the booze-soaked gears turning slowly inside his head. "Okay, but what exactly would you be eating?" is what he finally comes up with, and when Dean frowns back at him because the answer to that is obvious, he makes another emphatic gesture that would have beer all over the table if his bottle weren't mostly empty. "No, I mean, what's it made out of? 'Edible' covers a lot of ground, y'know? And if it's wearable *and* edible, it's gotta be, like, what--fondant? Not like it's going to be pie crust, even if you really wish it was."

"Okay, point," Dean finally admits, because Sam has him stumped there. "But give me a minute, I'll come up with something."

Sam grins at him and slouches all the way down in his chair. "You mean you're going to Google the reviews and see what it's actually made of."

"....Maybe."

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Remember when I used to write SGA AU fic? If not, here are all the previous fics. Or subsequent, rather, as this comes right at the beginning of things: John Sheppard's mother remaking herself for the sake of love.

The best term for it is probably 'body-shock'. She's watched Rob go about his life for long enough that she can fake the social interactions--at least enough not to draw too many questions--but all the demands and limitations of a physical form are distracting, to say the least. Her mother had always scolded her to mind her details, and so she had, and now she can barely think past the watering of her mouth when she strolls past a bakery with Rob and all the smells come rolling out upon her like a tide.

They're both mortal now, and she can feel life already slipping away from her, like water through fingers, the scouring away of mountains, and yet this body demands sleep, ungraciously charges her time for time spent. She refuses payment for two days and then the body collects its due with interest and sand scrubbed against her eyes.

Rob laughs at her, but gently, wonderingly, makes her take his bed and promises to still be there in the morning.

And he is, and they have pancakes with butter and syrup, and none of the delicacies of Atlantis at the height of her luxury could compare to the sweetness when he kisses her after.

Indexing:

2:30 AM ficlet for you, from the randomly generated prompt "soda interesting use". Puppy is currently pretending to attack my toes.

It works better than Sam expected, which is to say it works at all--not enough holy water in the coke to do more than make the demon yell, but between that and the sudden *sploosh* of the soda exploding out of the bottles, it’s enough for them to get the jump on it. Dean neatly trips the demon into the Solomon’s key, Sam does a quick check for any existing fatal injuries, and five minutes later they have a sobbing, sticky, de-possessed cheerleader on their hands.

“We’re not telling anyone about this ever,” Sam says, because while he’s all for sharing useful tips around what remains of their network of hunters, he’s well aware by now what kind of gossips they all are.

“Next time I’m going to try for a timed explosion,” Dean says, gleeful despite the amount of soda being transferred onto his shirt.

“Fine,” Sam sighs--he recognizes a lost cause when he sees one. “But you’re doing the laundry after.”

Indexing:

They sleep in the tent head-to-toe, like when they bed down in the car; at some point while Sam was hiking, Dean turned his pile of tangled bedding into an actual bedroll. It’ll be a mess again long before Sam wakes up, but the effort is appreciated. He doesn’t say so, though - at least not in so many words. But he laughs at Dean’s jokes about the two New Jersey hunters, and the statisticians, and the fire at the circus - even though that one causes a faint twinge of remembered grief, as is always true when he’s reminded of Jess.

Dean falls asleep first, breaths settling into a slow sigh that blends with the crickets into something a lullaby; Sam’s out not five minutes after Dean.

He’s awoken while it’s still dark by Dean smacking the bottom of his feet. “C’mon, Sam, get up.”

“I’m up,” he lies, automatically tucking the sheets and blankets closer around him. But Dean starts pinching at each toe systematically, and that’s enough for turn Sam into an irate, flailing ball of limbs, tumbling out of the tent in pursuit of a laughing Dean. And he’s willing and ready to throw down in a full-on wrestling match, pulse drumming with the injustice of Dean’s unprovoked attack - until Dean snags a surprisingly gentle hand in his hair and turns his face up to the sky.

It’s just in time for a streak of light to cut across, leaving Sam wondering his eyes are functioning properly. “Make a wish, Pinocchio,” Dean says, mocking and fond. He lets go of Sam’s hair, hooks his arm over Sam’s shoulder instead.

“Don’t need to.” They wind up lying catty-corner to each other, Dean’s head slotted into the crook of Sam’s neck; the touch warms Sam immeasurably, a small shield to ward off the pre-dawn chill. “We haven’t done this is a while,” he says after his tenth shooting star.

“Just want to get home mostly, I guess, after hunts. It’s different when you’re going to some place and not just away from.”

Maybe someday I'll polish this little 3-part thing into a real fic, but regardless, I hope you guys enjoyed it. ;)

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Continuing on from last week's snippet...

The beer's warm and the rim of the mouth slightly sticky with Dean's saliva, but Sam downs it without a thought, tension already bleeding off at the anticipation of alcohol. At least the lake seemed to be helping with the bites' itchiness. When Dean emerges from the tent again, he's stripped down to skivvies in lieu of a swim suit, towels a bundle under one arm, two fresh beers dangling from one hand. A moment later and he's nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Sam, squinting up at a kingfisher that's doing dive-bombing runs a couple of camp sites over.

According to the weather site Sam checked before they'd left, it had rained the night before, leaving the water a patchwork of quilt of water temperatures, from freezing to practically balmy. When they were younger it might've turned into a dunking competition, but they're now mature men in their thirties, so they finish their beers in silence, without incident. Dean drifts close enough to occasionally bump shoulders with Sam. "You hungry?" he asks eventually, just as Sam's begun to really notice the frigid patches of water down around his knees and feet. "I'm hungry."

"I could eat," Sam allows; breakfast was a while back, and lunch simply didn't happen--Dean still busy being put-upon and Sam so happy to be out and about with one-hundred percent unadulterated Dean that he just didn't care.

Empty beer bottles in hand, Dean splashes back to shore, singing something under his breath that Sam recognizes but can't quite place. It's not until Sam's halfway through his second set of hotdogs that he finally figures it out. "So, want to explain why exactly you were singing about keeping your maidenhead," he demands, just to see Dean almost inhale his latest beer. "And you keep saying I'm the girl."

"You're the one who recognized the song," Dean counters a good fifteen minutes later, as they're licking the first set of s'mores off their fingers. "Besides, it's Maddie Prior." And Sam had to concede the point, so he salutes with his burning marshmallow before blowing it out and making a second attempt. When Dean starts singing "Allison Gross" a little while later, Sam joins in on the chorus.

Indexing:

May or may not ever turn into a proper fic, but this bit seemed shareable.

In the end, Sam resorts to bribing Dean with three bags of marshmallows, one of those truly enormous Hershey’s chocolate bars, and a box of Graham crackers (sugar, not cinnamon).

“You know, we could just toast them outside,” Dean tries once they’re in the car, fingers tight on the steering wheel and back slightly hunched—like someone bracing himself for an attack. “Make a fire in the middle of the road—not like anyone else uses it.”

“You said I got a birthday wish.” Sam settles back against the seat, arms crossed, eyebrows up in exaggerated disappointment. “Building a fire in the road is not camping, and you know it.”

Dean shrugs without looking over at Sam. It could’ve meant either ‘Sorry I tried to welsh’ or ‘Worth a try’. “Just saying—I know your mattress is hard as a rock, and almost as lumpy, but at least there aren’t any actual rocks in it.”

“Head out to Waconda Lake,” Sam says instead of answering. Dean has him there, and perhaps he can feel Sam silently conceding the round; the tension drops from him and he slings his right arm across the back of the seat, a move that sends Sam straight back into the days when his brother was still young and stupid and cocky.

*

“We could’ve just gone to the other place,” Dean says for the fifth time in thirty minutes. “It’s closer.”

“Yeah,” Sam counters, “and it’s also where we dropped a defunct Hand of God.”

*

The camp grounds, when they finally get there, are empty–so they abandon their assigned site for one that’s literally spitting distance from the lake itself. The tent they’ve brought is one Dean found on one of his exploratory sessions into the vast sprawl of the bunker’s storage rooms. Army surplus, circa 1950, by the looks of it, and stinks of mothballs. But it’s actually large enough to fit the both of them, and they get to the lake in plenty of time for it to air out before nightfall.

When they were small, before John got the hang of scamming credit cards, they’d done a fair bit of camping, thanks to lots being so cheap. That lasted until around when Sam and Dean stopped fitting into a single sleeping back together. Twenty years later, though, there weren’t any bags in storage long enough to fit Sam comfortably, so he’s making do with a couple pillows and the blankets off his bed. Dean mutters under his breath about memory foam and rocks, but carefully lays out his own bag and pillow with military precision. Sam’s tangle of bedding looks unappealing in comparison, but right now he’d rather hike than fuss with bed linens.

He goes for the hike on his own, Dean staying at the campsite under pretense of getting their food supplies organized—which, Sam knows, was inevitable. When younger, he might have felt snubbed, but hey: Dean’s doing something he legitimately despises just because Sam wanted it.

Forty minutes in, he winds up in the middle of a mosquito swarm, runs back, all but throws himself into the lake beside where Dean’s sitting, feet in water, half-empty beer by his side. He’s pensive, but his mood lightens at Sam’s return, and he laughs over Sam running from mere mosquitos.

“A man who’s sawn off vamp heads with razorwire and you run from a couple of bugs?” But he leans over to hand Sam the remnants of his beer before getting up to fetch a couple of towels.

Indexing:

Later, Wooley estimates the trip down at fifteen or twenty minutes; to Cody it will remain forever as one of the most painful eternities in his short life. By the time they reach the flattish place that’s as far as the locals can safely ride their animals, his awareness of his surroundings has narrowed to the fraction of a second that his injured ankle spends supporting him with each alternating step. He’s run out of comparisons to unpleasant implements being shoved through his joint, and has reached the point of wholeheartedly considering amputation as an option. Wooley has to prop him against an outcropping of rock and even remove his bucket for him when Sixer leads the local captain over. He doesn’t know what he says in greeting to the man, and won’t be able to remember it later; his eventual AAR of the incident will have to be constructed from Wooley and Sixer’s own reports. Apparently he does well enough, as things continue in a cordial fashion.

Rivet forces Cody to take a dose of pain meds and someone else throws him up onto the back of one of the animals for a while, and then finally he’s shoved into a wagon with the general and Bliss and one of the locals is there with them, singing something soft and soothing.

Eventually the pain recedes enough for him to start noticing sensory details again—the wagon has wheels, but rolls so smoothly that with his eyes closed he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from a standard repulsar rig, and is made of some fine-grained wood that doesn’t snag his gloves when he tries running a hand over it. His bucket’s off, rolling loose against his left knee, his breath a steaming plume above him, just visible against the darkening evening sky, and the air is chill but not unpleasant against his exposed face. He’s shoulder-to-shoulder with someone else also wearing Phase 1 armor, which must be Bliss; he’s not going to entertain the possibility of another of his men getting injured while he’s been … unavailable.

When he manages to shove himself up enough to see something other than just sky, two more of his men are sitting with their legs hanging down over the back of the wagon—Bang-Bang and Jumbo, looks like, though the lighting makes it difficult to read their armor paint. He scuffs his good foot against the wagon bed, trying to brace himself enough to sit up properly, and they turn at the noise, Bang-Bang awkwardly crawling back to give him a hand.

“Good to see you functional again, sir.” Between the two of them they’re able to get Cody propped up in the corner without jostling Bliss too badly in the process.

“Good to be functional,” Cody says, and takes a moment to run a visual check on Bang-Bang. Tired but calm, no signs of unease at being disarmed—though given that Cody’s seen him placidly toss high explosives into droid gun embankments while dodging targeted enemy fire, that’s not the best gauge for how things are actually going. “You two my honor guard?”

“Just our turn to get a breather, sir, that’s all.” Flare beams at him from over Bang-Bang’s shoulder. “Though it’s about time for the next pair to swap in. D’you want me to go find the sergeant, sir?”

“And Sixer, if they’re both available,” Cody agrees, and Flare rolls himself out off the end of the wagon with the easy fluidity of a cadet, despite his armor.

Indexing:

A redux (not that anyone's reading these :P ) because there were a fair number of edits, and also there's no way I'm getting the next chapter finished in time to post today.

Wooley clearly doesn’t like it, from the way his expression goes completely blank, but Cody anticipated that. Rivet doesn’t say anything, just curls down so that his forehead touches Bliss’s. If his shoulders start shaking a little, Cody’s already turned away and tugging Wooley in the direction of the pilot seats and monitors. “Until Waxer and Boil get back, Sixer’s our best source of intel for planning this. And we’ll need to get everyone up now—Flare to take over comms, Bang-Bang and Jumbo and Pen to help Rivet start prepping Bliss and the general for transport. Alpha team will be handling contact with the locals, Pen and Bravo team our exfil if plan Aurek goes bad. Either way we’re going to need travoises or stretchers just to get the injured safely out of the shuttle.”

“Sir,” Wooley says, somehow combining both affirmation and unhappy question. He’s still holding himself awkwardly braced beneath Cody’s arm, and it’s uncomfortable, keeps pulling Cody off-balance and slowing him down, so Cody stops and risks falling over just so he can remove his bucket, resting his forehead against Wooley’s temple. Wooley softens enough to lean into it, even though the bruising on his face must hurt.

“If it was just the general’s injuries I’d probably give the order to abandon the shuttle and go to ground.” He pitches his voice so only Wooley can hear, because he can’t let on to anyone else just how dubious he feels about the orders he’s giving. But he needs Wooley fully on board to make this work and Wooley needs this lesson in making the best of an *osik* situation. “Aside from refusing to wake up he seems sound enough—we could probably just throw him over somebody’s shoulder without causing damage. Probably. That’s definitely not the case for Bliss, which means either we leave him behind, or leave a trail that any half-competent tracker could follow with his eyes shut. I don’t like either scenario, so I’m going to follow General Kenobi’s frequent example and take the third option instead. Understood?”

( it's getting a good response on AO3 at least )

Indexing:

Don't know if this will actually fit anywhere into Out of the Sweep of the Sea, so I might as well stash it here for the moment. One of the things I forgot to mention when I posted the first chapter of the fic is that this is really a crossover fic, it's just that the series it's crossed with doesn't exactly exist because I've never gotten around to writing it. Maybe someday--sooner rather than later, if this fic goes well. But the impetus behind the crossover aspect of the story was me reading the Star Wars Essential Guide to Warfare and realizing that the way I use magic in City Under Sea actually matches almost exactly with the way the Force is used in the EU, especially in the early history of the GFFA before the more familiar set of technology was developed. None of which shows up in this scene, but music is very important in the City Under Sea society because the way to do "magic" is by attuning youself properly to the resonance of the world around you. Rather akin to the way Jedi spend lots of time meditating....

Nothing could’ve prepared him for this—not the repetitive memory songs drilled into him as a cadet, Major Stacker’s collection of smazzo hits, even the joyous cadences that had accompanied their journey into the city—this is light made audible, this is a wall of sound that strikes him until he resonates with it, until the very air in his lungs shudders as though if he simply opened his mouth it would sing on his behalf. It’s too much—it’s like he’s being unmade, or remade, or removed from himself—and somehow not enough, like drowning on dry ground, like if he could somehow inhale the sound he would be able to breathe again for the first time in his brief life.

He doesn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he opens them again and finds they’re full of tears. A rough swipe of his hand clears most of it, but when he glances over Wooley is openly weeping; on his other side Kenobi’s face is dry, but he looks cracked-open and yearning, lost. Isolated, somehow, so Cody reaches out just enough to bump his elbow, to remind him that he’s not actually alone. Kenobi’s expression shutters at the touch, but when he turns to Cody it shifts to gratitude and he returns the gesture in a momentary burst of warmth against Cody’s unprotected forearm.

Wooley’s still crying when the music finally ebbs and subsides to something more sustainable, so Cody loops an arm around his neck and pulls him close, like the brothers they are. Here, for a little while, their ranks mean nothing. Wooley comes easily, presses his wet face against Cody’s shoulder as if he’s still a cadet in need of comfort, and they sit like that until the choir starts singing a fairly basic call-and-response that even outlanders like them can join in on after the first few verses—*Long life, good health, and light upon your way*.

Indexing:

Wooley clearly doesn’t like it, from the way his expression goes completely blank, but Cody anticipated that. Rivet doesn’t say anything, just curls down so that his forehead touches Bliss’s. If his shoulders start shaking a little, Cody’s already turned away, tugging Wooley in the direction of the pilot seats and monitors. “Until Waxer and Boil get back, Sixer’s our best source of intel for planning this. And we’ll need to get everyone up now—Flare to take over comms, Bang-Bang and Jumbo and Pen to help Rivet start prepping Bliss and the general for transport. Alpha team will be handling contact with the locals, Pen and Bravo team our exfil if plan Aurek goes bad. Either way we’re going to need travoises or stretchers just to get the injured safely out of the shuttle.”

“Sir,” Wooley says, somehow combining both affirmation and unhappy question. He’s still holding himself awkwardly braced beneath Cody’s arm, and it’s uncomfortable, keeps pulling Cody off-balance and slowing him down, so Cody stops and risks falling over just so he can remove his bucket, resting his forehead against the side of Wooley’s. Wooley softens enough to lean into it, even though the bruising on his face must hurt.

“If it was just the general I’d probably have us run.” He pitches his voice so only Wooley can hear, because he can’t let on to anyone else just how dubious he feels about the orders he’s giving. But he needs Wooley fully on board to make this work, and Wooley needs this lesson in making the best of an *osik* situation. “Aside from refusing to wake up he seems sound enough—we could probably just throw him over somebody’s shoulder without causing damage. Probably. That’s definitely not the case with Bliss, which means either we leave him behind, or leave a trail that any half-competent tracker could follow with his eyes shut. I don’t like either scenario, so I’m going to follow General Kenobi’s frequent example and take the third option instead. Understood?”

Wooley releases a long shuddering breath, the remaining tension easing out of his shoulders. “Understood, sir. Sorry, sir.” He’s only a few months younger than Cody, but sometimes it feels like decades. Or what Cody imagines decades might feel like, at any rate.

( Nothing to apologise for, Cody says )

Indexing:

Yeah, the community style editor is very broken

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

I wrote a thing!

fic: Schlepping It

fic fragment: Does anybody still play marbles?

fic: Recruitment

fic: Minus the Pea

fic: Minus the Pea

fic fragment: Ruby has some more good luck

fic fragment: Ruby has some more good luck

fic: Asking Price

fic: Recruitment

fic: A Serious Debate [spn]

ficlet: Leaves That Are Green [sga]

ficlet: Soda, Interesting Use Of

fic fragment: thus endeth the fluff

fic fragment: hello hello hello hello

fic fragment: The fluffiest fluff to ever fluff

unused fragment of Out of the Swing of the Sea

fic fragment: Out of the Swing of the Sea, ch. 2 (revised)

fic fragment: Cody experiences his first midwinter service

fic: Out of the Swing of the Sea, ch. 2 [star wars]

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