caranfindel

Die young, stay pretty

Genre: Gen
Length: About 4100 words
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Cordell Walker, Liam Walker, Bonham Walker, Abilene Walker, Micki Ramirez, Stan Morrison

A Walker fic? Yes! I wasn’t watching the show regularly, but I did watch 1.17, Dig. And I knew I needed a version with more whump. So here it is.

~~~

Emily was right, as usual.

“I wouldn’t ever dig my own grave.” Cordell had said that once, years ago. They were watching some forgettable movie (was it about cowboys? or maybe gangsters?) with a man being forced to dig a shallow grave at gunpoint. “If I’m gonna get shot anyway, why would I go through all that first? I’d just say no and let them shoot me then and there. Let the goons dig the hole.”

“But what if you wanted to use that time to think?” Emily had said. “To come up with a plan? Or to give someone else time to come rescue you?”

He’d laughed and pulled her closer. “I’m the cavalry, sweetheart. No one’s gonna rescue me. I do the rescuing. Nah, I’d just call his bluff and say go ahead and shoot me, you dumbass goon. And keep in mind, you’re gonna have to dig a hell of a big hole if you wanna hide all this.”

But she had been right, as she always was. Because now he’s being held at gunpoint by a couple of - a couple of goons, the only word for them is goons - and he’s digging a hole that is surely meant to be his grave. And he’s watching and waiting for his opening. After all, he was right about one thing: no one’s going to rescue him.

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Go on and kiss the girl
Genre: Het
Length: About 3800 words
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, OFC
Synopsis: A few years ago, several of us plotted out an entire alternate season 12, which would take place on a boat. Go take a look, it is marvelous. (Oh, all those missing friends; it makes me sad.) Anyway. I wrote one of the stories I pitched, though I changed it due to the original idea being a little too noncon. So here's Sam and Dean and a mysterious woman they find at sea...


~ ~ ~ ><> ><> ><> ~ ~ ~ ><> ><> ><> ~ ~ ~

Sam's the one who spots her. They're sitting on the deck drinking beer, and Dean's not necessarily watching the sun set over the ocean, because he's not that kind of person, even after a month of aimlessly drifting around the Gulf of Mexico on a borrowed boat. But he's not exactly ignoring it either. Sam, on the other hand, seems totally into this gazing-into-the-sunset business, until he suddenly stands up, thrusts his bottle into Dean's hand, and walks to the edge of the deck.

"You see that?"

"See what?"

"Shit!" Sam grabs the top of the rail and vaults right off the boat, swimming with long, even strokes toward something floating in the water. Crap, it's a person. A woman. Sam hooks an arm around her and hauls her back to the boat, where Dean lifts her onto the small sunbathing deck.

She's unconscious. And completely naked. She's young, mid-twenties maybe, lean and muscled like a swimmer. At first glance it looks like she has seaweed entangled in her long platinum blonde hair, but it's actually her hair itself, with highlights of green and purple twisting through that give it an iridescent mother-of-pearl sheen. Peeking through her hair is the soft pink shell of her ear, decorated with a quartet of small pearl earrings. Another pearl nestles in her navel. A pastel tattoo climbs up the outside of one pale leg, the barely-noticeable undulating pattern inked in ghostly shades of lavender and aquamarine.

Sam pulls himself onto the sunbathing deck and kneels over her, saltwater dripping from his hair onto her fair skin. He presses his fingertips against her throat. "She's breathing. Strong heartbeat."

"Where did she come from?"

"I don't know," Sam says, frowning in confusion. "She was just floating out there." He stands up and scans the horizon. "I didn't see any debris, or a lifeboat, or anything. Just her." He bends down to gather her in his arms. "Let's get her inside somewhere."

Sam's cabin is the one with a single queen-size bed (stupid rock-paper-scissors), so that's where they take her, lowering her gently onto the mattress. Dean lifts her slightly so Sam can slip one of his t-shirts over her head. Her skin is cool and silky against his fingers. Sam digs out a pair of clean swim trunks, hesitates self-consciously, then covers her with a blanket and places the trunks on the bed next to her. He stows the few things he'd actually unpacked back into his duffel. There doesn't seem to be anything else they can do for her, so they quietly close the door and Sam drops his bag on the second twin bed in Dean's cabin (seriously, stupid fucking rock-paper-scissors; never again).

"What now?" Dean asks.

Sam contemplates the door of his former cabin. "Leave her for now, I guess. It'll be completely dark soon, and neither of us is experienced enough to sail this thing at night, so we should stay put. We can head back to shore in the morning."


~ ~ ~ ><> ><> ><> ~ ~ ~ ><> ><> ><> ~ ~ ~

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… and says hello! Are any of you still following me? I can’t blame you if you’re not, considering that I dropped off the face of the earth.

(If we’re not following you, we can’t read this, so why are you talking to us?)

Fine. Be that way. Just know that I love and miss you all.

I’m not planning on signing up for spn_summergen this year because of Issues but I hope many of you are, and I look forward to reading all of it.

Anyway. If you’re here, say hi!

Hello friends! It's been a hot minute, hasn't it? I keep saying I'm going to be better about posting to LJ and I keep... not being better.

Anyway. This is a fic I was noodling around with for a while, and then the Now It's Perfect event happened (check it out!) and it gave me the impetus to finish it. And bonus - amberdreams created some fantastic art to go with!

~~~

Genre: Gen/gencest but Wincest-compliant, reference to Sam/Jessica
Length: About 7000 words
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, Jessica Moore, Jack Kline
Synopsis: This is Sam, learning how Heaven works


1: This is Heaven

They’re standing on a bridge and it’s real, everything is real, not little boxes of memories but his real brother, and it’s all a little too much for Sam to take in. He can’t keep looking at Dean. It’s like staring into the sun. He looks away, looks at trees and sky instead, and the Impala, Christ, even the Impala is here. But of course she is. It wouldn’t be Dean’s Heaven without her.

When he turns back, Dean is still smiling, practically radiating joy, but then his eyes narrow and his smile falters.

“What?” Sam asks. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just… I thought you’d last longer than this.”

“Longer than what?”

“Come on, man. I’ve been here for, like, an afternoon. Did you even have time to torch my corpse?”

“What? An afternoon? Dean, you’ve been gone…” So long. Sam can’t even say it, can’t think of the years, the decades that have passed since he last saw his brother. He clears his throat. “A long time, man. You’ve been gone a long time.”

“Couldn’t have been that long,” Dean says. “Look at you. It hasn’t even been a year, has it?”

Sam looks down at his steady hands, free of wrinkles and age spots. “Oh.”

“Seriously. How much time did you have, after me? What took you out?” Dean suddenly looks stricken. “You didn’t… I mean, I knew you’d be messed up, but I didn’t think…”

It takes Sam a moment to catch on. “No! No. I mean, there were times I wanted to, but no. I kept going. I stopped hunting, and I just…” He laughs. “Jesus, Dean, I don’t know why I look young. I got old. I got married and I had a kid and I got old.”

Dean’s face is alight with joy again. “You’ve got a wife? And a kid?”

“Well, the wife, ah, that wasn’t, that didn’t last very long. But the kid. He’s amazing. Not a kid any more, though. All grown up, and smart, and funny, and kind…”

But it’s so wrong. Dean died and Sam lived, lived an entire life without his brother’s physical presence in it, and it’s wrong to take pleasure in his life, in the child that he never would have had if his brother hadn’t died. And Dean needs to understand. He needs to know how much he still mattered.

“I didn’t just run off and start enjoying life, you know. It took a long time. But I finally realized that it wasn’t fair to you, and to everyone we lost, to waste the life I had. I had to go out and start living it.”

Dean puts his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Stop it, Sam. Stop apologizing for living. I hoped that’s what you would do. You think you should have spent the rest of your life moping around, mourning me? You think that’s what I wanted? That ain’t the life I would have picked out for you.” He grins. “Now get in the car and tell me about this kid of yours. Smart and funny? Takes after his dad and his Uncle Dean.”

They drive. It’s almost overwhelming after so many years. The old car, his old (young) body, the sight and sound of his brother in the driver’s seat… these should all be unfamiliar, but they’re immediately comfortable. This is where he should be.

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Genre: Gen, reference to Sam/Jessica
Length: About 1900 words
Rating: PG for language
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore, Pamela Barnes
Synopsis: Fifteen years of Sam Winchester’s life told through an inventory of his hoodies. Or, this is what happens when a technical writer takes a stab at fanfic.

Another weird format from me? Yes! These hoodies were originally identified by the extremely thorough and observant hells_half_acre and can be seen on the Hoodie page of "If Clothes Could Talk." Hell's Half Acre also provided the timeline I used to determine when Sam would have worn these hoodies.

~ ~ ~ ~

H.01: Grey fleur-de-lis hoodie

Figure 1:


Description: Light grey full-zip hooded sweatshirt with darker grey fleur-de-lis design on left chest, size XL, brand unknown

Provenance: Purchased by girlfriend at Macy's in Palo Alto in February, 2005 (see Note 1). Lost sometime around July, 2006 (see Note 2)

Note 1:

Please come with me, she said. I've just got to pick up some perfume for my mom's birthday. It will literally take ten minutes. Sam left his jacket in the car. He knew Macy's wasn't exactly Rodeo Drive, but it still wasn't somewhere he felt comfortable wearing his ratty canvas jacket. Jess steered him inside, wandering through displays of linens and cookware, wondering aloud if she was on the right floor. They ended up in menswear, where she stopped in front of a mannequin wearing the grey hoodie. Ooooh, she said. I like that. She yanked one off a hanger and held it up against Sam's chest. Try it on? For me? Sam shrugged it on over his t-shirt, shamefully grateful for a little warmth in the chilly mall. You look so good in that, she said. Would you do me a favor? If I buy it, would you wear it for me? We can call it an early birthday present.

It wasn't the type of clothing he'd normally buy for himself. It was a little more decorative, meant for a more fashion-forward type of guy. The type of guy Jessica wanted him to be, maybe? Okay. He could be that guy. He could do that, for her. She grinned, bundled the hoodie in her arms, and marched to the perfume counter. She paid for both items together so he never saw how much it cost, and ripped off the tag with perfect white teeth while waiting for the clerk to giftwrap her mother's perfume.

Sam Winchester had never bought his mother a birthday present; he had never been dressed by a girlfriend. He saw his new life, his new safe (not normal, safe) life seductively stretching out in front of him, a life where he was a citizen and someday maybe a lawyer and a husband and a father, and he had to hold his breath for fear that it would all blow away.

Note 2:

Sam wore the grey hoodie when he kissed Jess goodbye that night, and it was one of the few things he took with him when he drove away from Palo Alto for the last time. He didn't bother going through whatever belongings survived the fire. There wasn't anything to go back for; the only thing in the apartment that had ever mattered was gone. The hoodie was lost somewhere around the time of the car crash that should have killed his brother. He didn't mourn its loss. He wasn't ever going to be that guy after all.

---

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Genre: Gen
Length: About 2600 words
Rating: PG13 for language
Characters: Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, Steven Ray Morris, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Synopsis: Episode 2.17, Heart, as if it were discussed on the My Favorite Murder podcast.

Notes:This fic was inspired by two things: (1) a Tumblr post (which unfortunately I cannot find now) about Sam and Dean hearing about one of their own cases on a true crime podcast and realizing “hey that’s us!” and (b) At First I Was Afraid, a marvelous fic by themegalosaurus in which we learn Sam listens to the My Favorite Murder podcast. Huge thanks to LJ user hells_half_acre for providing a likely timeline for this episode.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[break for sponsors]

Karen: So, the case I’m doing is one that we had an email about. You know how we’ll pick a case and then we’ll see if anyone has sent in a hometown email about it? Well, this is that, but backward. A good friend of the victim sent this in as a hometown. And it was weird. And then Jay did some research and it got even weirder. So get ready for… the death of Madison Roberts.

Georgia: Weird, huh? Can’t wait.

Karen: Strap in, friend. My sources are… there’s an article in SFGate by Reese Williams, a San Francisco Examiner article by Elizabeth Aguilar, an LA Times article by Richard Wokowski, a Murderpedia article, and a very long and very insane thread on the Websleuths.com website.

Georgia: Insane by normal standards or insane by Websleuths.com standards?

Karen: Oh, honey. Just insane.

Georgia: [squeals]

Karen: Let’s go back to 2007. Madison Roberts is a 25-year-old legal assistant living in San Francisco. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s living her best life. I’m going to tell you — I’m not going to read the whole email, but I’m going to go ahead and tell you something that was in the email. According to her friend who wrote in, there are three guys in Madison’s life who, let’s say, have a crush on her. There’s her ex-boyfriend Kurt Mueller, there’s her boss Nate Mulligan, and there’s her neighbor, Glenn Dryden. Now, without hearing anything else, I want you to guess. If you thought one of these three guys would be accused of murdering Madison Roberts, who would it be?

Georgia: Ooooh! Well, normally I’d automatically go for the ex-boyfriend. But the fact that you’re asking this question makes me think it’s not him, so I’m going to say… the boss.

Karen: All right. Let’s see how that works out for you.

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Well! Been a while, hasn’t it? Who would have thought LJ would still be alive and kicking at this point? Or maybe not kicking. Maybe crawling. Maybe lying in a puddle of its own blood, slowly dying.

On that cheerful note.

Hope you’re doing well. I’m okay. Not having a lot of progress on anything I’m trying to write. I’m signed up for one bang that I’ll probably drop out of, and I don’t think I’m going to attempt Summergen. I mean, my ability to write to prompts is sketchy anyway, and this year I couldn’t even spit anything out for the latest OhSam Triple Play. If luscious hurt!Sam prompts don’t inspire me, what can? (Go read the ones that are there, though.)

I’m entertaining myself by finishing the one fic I am able to make headway on. Something that will probably entertain no one but me (gee, can’t wait to read it now, can you?). It’s the plot of 2.17 Heart as if it were a true crime discussed on the My Favorite Murder podcast. And in researching this fic, I discovered that something I thought about silver bullets - that they would be softer than lead bullets - is not true. It is the opposite of true. So. That’s interesting.

(No, it’s not. It’s really really not.)

Yeah, you’re right. Let me just wish a happy belated birthday to the amazing kalliel and crawl back into my hole. But hopefully I’ll pop up again soon.

Smooches!

…I’m following all of the cool kids and backing up my LJ to Dreamwidth. You can find me at https://caranfindel.dreamwidth.org/ or on AO3 or Tumblr as caranfindel.

Genre: Gen, angst
Length: About 4000 words
Rating: R for violent themes and suicidal ideation
Characters: Sam Winchester, Jody Mills
Synopsis: Dean doesn’t get to call the shots this time. Dean doesn’t get to demand that someone has to live.


Time to claim my Summergen fic! This was written for tifaching, which is extra cool because I think they wrote my first ever Summergen gift. I encourage you to check them all out, because there were some doozies this year. And thanks to my beta reader, the lovely monicawoe!

~~~

Dean has only been gone for a few months when Sam discovers the lump on Miracle's belly. "It's a very aggressive form of cancer," the veterinarian says. "I got as much as I could, but because of its location, it wasn't possible to get it all. Without treatment, he'll probably have three to four good months. Chemotherapy could buy him a few more months. But at his age…"

Dean would say do all the treatment, whatever it takes. But Dean doesn't get to call the shots this time. Dean doesn't ever get to decide again that someone has to live, no matter how peaceful the end that awaits them, no matter how painful and useless their life is, no matter how high the price of keeping them alive, no matter how ready they are to end it all. Dean doesn't get to demand that they keep living just because he can't stand losing them. And he doesn't get to go off and fucking die himself anyway and leave them alone. Dean doesn't get to do that again.

(Sam might, just possibly, be a little bitter.)

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