Looking at the stats of one of my series and can't figure out what "makes or breaks" a multi-chapter fic.
When does it fall apart for you? Does it fall apart? Do people engage more as the chapters go on?
I really thought that progression in a story with build up to a climax (quite literally in my case 😈) versus a one-shot style fic would attract more, but I'm no longer sure.
52 days between the first chapter being posted and the fourth.
279 vs 141 notes, with a decrease in each chapter.
No I am not complaining. I'm just genuinely curious.
(Also most of these notes are my own reblogs and likes so don't come at me)
if we're writing fics with more than one chapter (at the minimum 3) if it alright if the first chapter doesn't contain the specific prompt as long as the prompt is being built up to? i typically devote one chapter to establishing story and characters. the second chapter is usually where i get to the climax, because i just don't enjoy writing one shots. for example, like prompt 25, i would have the events leading up to the character losing their voice, and in chapter 2 they actually lose it
Hi Anon! Yes, as long as the prompt is included prominently in the fic as a whole, having a set up chapter is fine!
Happy whumping!
- mod claire
[Links to our Event Info, FAQs, Rules, Tagging and more]
A/N: the first part of this fic starts during 9.11 "First Born". Almost all major relationships will be slow burns but Sam x oc and Destiel are endgame
• PART ONE: THE ELDREDGE SIBLINGS •
Exordium (noun) -
the beginning or introductory part, especially of a discourse or treatise.
* * *
Sam’s body ached, and he felt dizzy all the time, but he kept going. He was a man on a mission, and his plan today was to find anything he could on the after-effects of being possessed by an angel. Recently freed from a prison in his own mind, he sat in the Bunker’s library across from Castiel. A stack of books had been pushed to the side of the table in favor of what must have been thirty folders, all in disarray.
They had come across a file a couple hours before that referenced a theoretical process the Men of Letters devised to use angel grace as the base for a tracking spell. Referenced also in the file was a tool needed to extract the grace and a detailed illustration of it. However, when Sam went to check where it was filed to have been, he found the shelf empty. So now he and Cas were trying to find where it might have been misfiled. They were having minimal luck.
Sam sighed, closing another file and tossing it onto the pile of already-read ones beside him, then grabbed another. Cas had been awfully quiet for the past twenty minutes, brow furrowed and perusing a folder.
“Sam.” Cas began, frowning at a file.
“You got something?” Sam sat up expectantly, closing the file he’d been skimming through.
“The note. In the margins.” He held out the paper for Sam to take. The rest of the file had been minimally useful, though this note referenced something Cas had never heard of.
“What do you think the ‘archivist’s index’ means?” Sam made a mildly mocking face, then looked up to see Cas lost in thought. “Cas?”
“Another file I was looking at—hold on.” He shuffled through a couple stacks of papers he had in front of him and then picked up a file, holding it out to Sam. “Look at the cover page.”
Sam read it aloud, “‘Comprehensive Digest of Angelic Grace and its Properties’?”
Cas made a face, “Keep going.”
Sam sighed and looked at the next line. “‘Filed by: Archivist D. Ianson’…”
Sam frowned, and stood, walking over to the cabinet in the library that held the records of membership, flipping through them until he came to the I’s, and then an entry for “IANSON, DURAND”.
“Says here that ‘D. Ianson’ was a guy named Durand. Durand Ianson.” Sam returned to the table, carrying the book to show Cas, “He was an archivist for the Men of Letters in the fifties, up until the Abaddon attack.”
“Did he die with the rest of them?” Cas asked.
“Don’t know.” Sam shook his head, “It seems like he dropped off the map right after the attack, though.” Sam closed the book for a moment, thinking.
“Maybe the index’s location is in this man’s file?” Cas suggested, tentatively hopeful.
Sam thought for a long moment, a frown on his face. “There’s actually a lot of stuff missing from the archives—stuff like this spell and other books and ledgers that should be there but aren’t. What if this guy knows where they are?”
“Well, Sam,” Cas frowned, “he’s probably long dead. It says there that he was born in 1919.”
“Right, but maybe that ‘index’ or whatever is with his stuff. Maybe his relatives have it?” Sam said hopefully.
After some thorough research, Sam found more information. Durand did not have any children and never married, but his younger brother, Magnus did. Magnus had two, the younger one being his only son, Tyler Ianson. It turned out that Tyler’s last-registered address was the same as his uncle Durand’s, leading Sam to conclude that Tyler was the heir to Durand’s things, which he felt was a safe guess. Upon further digging, however, he found that Tyler was also deceased, but he did have a child listed: Cathleen Eldredge. Sam also gained confidence from the fact that Cathleen seemed to still live in her father’s house. And, as an added bonus, they were only a couple hours’ drive away.
That same day, Sam and Cas made their way up the rickety steps of a victorian-era house that was in a slight state of decay. The porch wood creaked under them, and they shared a concerned look. Sam knocked on the door, the both of them pulling out their badges in preparation.
There was movement behind the door, then it opened, but only as far as the chain would allow, revealing a woman, probably in her early thirties. Her thick, waist-length, light-brown hair was twisted into a mildly messy bun at the back of her head, and her angular brows were furrowed into a preemptive scowl. She had dark brown eyes and wore a light blue henley over jeans and hiking boots. She looked back and forth between the two of them judgmentally, the sun illuminating a long, crooked scar that ran from her brow bone down the left side of her nose.
“What?” She asked gruffly, adjusting her grip on the door to reveal more of her hand, where she wore an intricate silvery ring on her third finger.
Sam blinked, glancing at Cas for a split second, seeing him frowning at her. Sam cleared his throat and turned his focus back to her, holding up his badge.
“Uh, hi, special agents Hammond and Russel.” Sam said quickly, both he and Cas stowing the badges in sync. “Are you Cathleen Eldredge?”
She didn’t answer for a moment, then shifted her weight relaxing a little. “Why d’you wanna know?”
“We’re here about your great uncle, Durand Ianson.” Cas supplied.
“Uh-huh.” She seemed unimpressed.
“We were wondering if he had any boxes of files left around from his job?” Sam stuffed his hands in his coat pockets.
She looked back and forth between them for a moment. “Yeah, okay, no.”
“No?” Cas quirked a brow, genuinely surprised.
“No.” She replied matter-of-factly, staring him right in the eye, before turning back to Sam. “You got a warrant, kid?”
“I—” Sam swallowed, trying and failing to hide that he took some offense to that, “—No, we don’t, but it would be really helpful to us if you could—”
“—Don’t care what you would or would not find helpful, buckaroo.” She interrupted, “Now, I’ve got shit to do, so, uh, come on back when you two boys get a warrant or y’ bring in the cavalry.”
Sam blinked animatedly, and Cas frowned as she shut the door on them. For a moment, there was silence, and then Sam sighed. They both turned, beginning to walk back towards the car.
“I’m assuming we’re not going to come back with ‘the cavalry’ as she says.” Cas looked at Sam out of the corner of his eye.
“No.” Sam nodded, stopping at the driver’s-side door of the car, “But we are coming back tonight.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon in their car, parked just around the corner, where they could still see the house easily. They went back and forth between idle talk and silence. Cas was feeling a bit tense about this plan, to say the least. He understood that this was currently a difficult time for Sam and that his anger towards Dean and grief over Kevin was bound to make him a bit reckless, but this felt extreme.
“Sam, are you sure this is a good idea?” Cas asked for the third time.
“Yes.” Sam replied through his teeth.
They were waiting for there to be any other kind of opening in which they could break in. Finally, Cathleen came out of the front door, headphones in. She walked over to the car in her driveway and got in. As soon as she pulled away from the stop sign at the end of the street, Sam was out of the car, Cas on his heels.
At the back of the house, Sam picked the lock while Cas stood watch. The door opened into a dark back hall. Along the wall, there were three sets of rain boots, and a mess of other shoes, under a row of coat hooks that had at least three pieces of outerwear on each hook. They stepped carefully. To the left, there was a doorway into a small office-like room, where there was a light left on. Across from it was the doorway into the kitchen, which led into the dining room, which had a doorway of its own near the front door. They continued down the corridor, coming to the entryway, where there was a staircase leading upstairs. Sam turned to look in what he assumed would be the living room, and paused, quirking a brow.
This room was by far the most well-taken care of in the house. At the center, there was tastefully mismatched living room furniture, and the walls were covered with a sky-blue wallpaper decorated in dark blue acanthus leaves. The wallpaper was visible around the floor-to-ceiling, dark wood bookcases that took up almost every wall. Above them, the vaulted ceiling was held up by similar dark wood and painted the same sky blue as the wallpaper. The only noise in the room came from an ornate clock hanging off the wall in the back, ticking gently on.
For a moment, Sam and Cas were paused, taking in the room with confused awe. It was really quite beautiful, and it felt somewhat out of place in this house, which was a bit dingier. Sam also couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that there was something odd about this room—something sinister.
“This is a lovely way of incorporating Victorian-era architecture with early-nineteen-hundreds decorating sensibilities.” Cas said idly, looking around at the bookcase on his side of the doorway.
Sam frowned deeply and turned to give Cas a quizzical look. Cas gave a sheepish shrug.
“When I was human, I went to the hospital once, and there was an interior-design magazine in the waiting room. I found it… fascinating.”
Sam opened his mouth to reply when he heard the familiar sound of a rifle cocking behind them.
“Cool story, dude.” An unfamiliar voice said.
Sam and Cas turned slowly around, raising their hands in surrender. It was a woman, a little younger than Cathleen, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a whole mess of earrings crawling up her ears. She looked a lot different from Cathleen, but there was a similarity to them that Sam couldn’t quite explain—perhaps it was in the nose or mouth, but he couldn’t be sure. She was also far taller than Cathleen—maybe even a little taller than Cas—dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants. She held the gun like she knew what she was doing with it, and had a long necklace hanging to just below her breasts, the pendant of which was what looked like a jade ring he couldn’t quite make out the details of.
“So, what’s crack-a-lackin’, boys?” She asked, looking back and forth between them.
“Uh…” Sam tried to think of something to say when Cas stepped in.
“We’re here looking for Durand Ianson’s index.” He supplied, which caused Sam to give him an exasperated look. Cas didn’t seem to notice this response.
“O… ‘kay?” She narrowed her eyes in confusion, “You wanna tell me why you need my great uncle’s index?”
“Your great uncle?” Sam frowned, “Wait, are you Cathleen’s—”
“—Sister, yeah.” She nodded slowly, “What’s it to you? What do you want the book for? Also, who are you?”
“Listen, we can explain—” Sam began when she interrupted.
“—Gimme a name, giant.” She said gruffly, jerking the gun slightly towards him.
“Sam. Sam Winchester.” He replied. He was about to continue when she cocked her head, frowning slightly.
“Sam Winchester.” She glanced from him to Cas. “And so is this your brother, Dean?”
“No—” Sam blinked, “—wait, you know who we are?”
“Yeah, of course.” She replied, “If that is who you are—”
She stopped, as though she was distracted by a thought in her mind. After a moment’s pause, she sighed and lowered her gun. Cas and Sam shared a mutually confused look as she tucked it into the umbrella rack beside the front door.
“You know, Cath’s not gonna like it very much when she comes home and finds you two here.” She said, crossing her arms. “Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t kick you out before she comes back and does worse.”
“Because we need help.” Sam replied quickly.
“What kind of help?” She asked, leaning on the doorway.
“It’s uh…” He swallowed, sharing a tense glance with Cas, “…it’s a long story.”
“Well,” She leaned around the doorway to look at the clock then relaxed again, “You’ve got about six hours before Cath comes back.”
Sam was now seriously confused. He shifted his weight, frowning at her. “I’m—I’m sorry, I don’t understand why you’re just… all of the sudden… willing to listen.”
She shrugged, “I’m bored.”
“You’re bored?” Cas cocked his head.
“Yes, usually.” She nodded to him before turning back to Sam, “And from what I know of the Winchesters, they’re usually tryin’ to be on the right side of things, so I’m more inclined to listen first, shoot later.”
Sam nodded as if to say “oh, well, yeah ‘try’ is the right word for it”, then took a breath and launched into the story.
“So, uh, basically, I was possessed by an angel, and while, um, he was, uh, using my body,” Sam faltered a bit, glancing away, “he killed a friend of ours.”
Cas watched her expression soften slightly, her eyes trained solely on Sam.
“The angel is gone now, but we’d like to find him. And—and there’s this, uh, archive we’ve been using, that was from the, uh, organization that your great uncle used to work for, but there’s, uh, some stuff missing from it, including the spell and instrument we would need to track the angel.” Sam finished, sighing dejectedly at the memory of Kevin’s loss. “We were hoping his index could… shed some light on it.”
“Huh.” She said, “An angelic tracking spell?”
“Yeah.” Sam nodded.
Her eyes flickered from him to Cas. With a jerk of her chin, she addressed him. “What’s your name, trench coat?”
“Uh, well, it’s an overcoat…” Cas drifted off and then shook his head, “Never mind. My name is Castiel.”
Her brows rose. “Like an angel?”
“Yes.” Cas nodded.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Sam interjected, bringing her attention back to him, “how do you know so much about us and the supernatural?”
She made a face that suggested the answer was obvious.
“Are you a hunter?” Cas asked.
“Pfft!” She scoffed, “Yeah, no, Cath isn’t big on us leaving this place, much less letting me go off hunting.”
Sam’s brow furrowed a bit further. Let her go somewhere? Was she not an adult? She looked like she was in her mid-twenties.
With that, she stepped forwards, holding out a hand. “Sadie. Sadie Eldredge.”
“Uh,” Sam quickly took it, and nodded, “uh, nice to meet you.”
She smirked at the hint of uncertainty in his voice, then shook Cas’s hand too. When that was done, she walked between them into the library.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had hunters come to use the library.” She said, grabbing a ladder from the side of the room and walking directly to a bookcase near the window. As she climbed, she continued, “Don’t get much of anybody visiting ‘round here anymore, but that’s by design, I suppose.”
“What does that mean?” Sam frowned, asking before he could stop himself but not expecting a real answer.
“Uh, ‘cause our parents were the ones who used to let hunters come use this library, and then when they died Cath wasn’t keen on keeping up the tradition.” Sadie leaned away from the ladder, grabbing a book without hesitation as if she knew exactly where everything was. “I’ll have to see what instrument you’re talking about—do you have any reference?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam fumbled to get his phone out and pull up the picture as she came back down, holding a thick, red book. He held out the phone so she could see.
“Oh!” She nodded, “Okay, I gotcha, yeah, we’ve got that somewhere, it might take me a bit to find it, though.”
“I’m—” Sam paused, trying to think of the best way to say this, “—Could we, uh, borrow the Index to re-organize our archive?”
Sadie narrowed her eyes slightly. “You don’t know how your own archive is organized?”
“No, it’s in disarray.” Cas supplied, “We would bring the book back if you wanted it returned.”
Sadie’s narrowed eyes flickered back and forth between them. “Who’d you say got you access to this archive, again?”
Sam and Cas shared a nervous glance, then both looked back at her.
“We, uh, live in the old Men of Letters bunker, where your great uncle used to work?” Sam wondered if that would mean anything to her, which it appeared to.
“You… you don’t work for them, do you?” She asked, holding the book a bit closer to her and seeming very concerned about this possibility.
“No, uh,” Sam shifted, “we’re legacies—me and my brother, Cas is our, uh, friend. We just live there. We use the stuff in it to help us hunt and we also just… live there.”
She was quiet for a long moment, frowning at him suspiciously. He was afraid again that she would not believe him, but then she relaxed.
“Alright.” She nodded, “Well, the Index is buried in the back yard, under the mulch beside the little magnolia tree.”
“It’s buried?” Sam frowned incredulously.
“Yep.” She replied, moving forwards to set the book down on the coffee table. “Shovels are leaning against the garage.”
She settled in, opening the red book to begin flipping through. Above her, Sam and Cas turned to look at each other.
“I’ll, um, go… dig it up.” Cas said slowly. He hesitated a moment, then walked off.
There was a moment of silence, where the ticking clock became audible once more. Slowly, Sam turned back to Sadie, where she was hunched over the book, flipping furiously through.
“Where… wait.” Sam frowned, and she looked up from her work. “Did your uncle steal all of this from the Men of Letters?”
“Yeah.” She smirked, “My dad always said it was because uncle D didn’t trust them.”
“Didn’t trust them?”
Sadie shrugged, “Uncle D was a weird guy, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“So… that was his only reason?” To Sam, this sounded rather preposterous.
“Well, no.” She sighed, “The Men of Letters started doing some… experiments that uncle D found to be… unethical.”
“What kinds of experiments?” Sam asked.
“Different stuff,” She shrugged a shoulder, “what really did it for him though was the experiments on possessed individuals.”
“Demons?”
“Mm.” She nodded, “And also, I mean, how do you think they came up with this theoretical spell you’re looking for?”
He opened his mouth to reply then closed it. This was a whole new side of the organization that he was just starting to understand. He hadn’t even considered how they would’ve come up with this spell.
“Once they started doing the experiments on demons and exorcisms, they started to wonder what the other side was workin’ with.” She stood, walking over to the opposite bookcase from where she’d retrieved the last book. Her fingers ran down the spines of binders, looking for something. “Ah.”
She pulled a thin, gray binder out and walked over to Sam. She held it out to him, and he carefully took it, waiting for more explanation before opening it. On the cover and spine, scrawled in black sharpie was:
He frowned, “What’s the X for?”
“Oh, it’s a rating on how upsetting the file is.” She replied matter-of-factly. “This one’s a ten.”
“What’s the highest?” He was almost afraid to hear the answer.
“Twelve.”
“Have you… ever… found a twelve?” He asked slowly.
“Yeah.” She nodded, growing a bit somber, “It… sucked to look at. I started organizing all of this when I was like nineteen, and I was definitely scarred by the file that was a twelve.”
“Oh.” He said, unsure of what else there was to say.
“My rating system is called ‘The Comprehensive Scale of Shitiness’.” She added, “Cause they’re always tryin’ to be comprehensive.”
He let out a nervous but partially amused snort of laughter, then she returned to the subject at hand.
“Well, anyways,” She returned to her conversational tone, “Uncle D was filing some new stuff for the Men of Letters when he came across these.”
Sam moved to open the binder when her hand appeared, keeping the cover down. With a frown, he looked up at her.
“I didn’t give it a ten for nothing. It’s pretty gruesome.” She warned.
With a deep sigh Sam nodded, “Yeah, I’m sure it is.”
She retracted her hand and moved back to the couch. Inside the binder was a file titled: Findings from the Dissection and Examination of Angelic Vessels.
“Fucking hell…” He muttered under his breath, flipping to the next page.
Sadie sat on the couch, one arm slung across the back, with her head tilted and her eyes trained on him. Her gaze flickered down, taking in all of him with a keen eye. Although she’d heard of the Winchesters, she was fudging it a bit on the details—she didn’t really know much about them at all. She did know he was telling the truth, however—let’s just say she had a reliable source.
Sadie, are you sure you should be letting them borrow the index? A voice asked in her head.
I’m gonna get collateral, don’t worry. She replied silently, Besides, it’s not like Cath goes out and uses the damn thing—she’ll never notice it’s gone.
Seems like a big risk, man.
Above them, there was a loud creak of wood. Sam’s head shot up and he glanced around with a frown, eyes falling back on Sadie.
“Is there… is there someone upstairs?” He asked.
“It’s an old house, Sam.” She replied easily, a gentle smile on her face. “You think that’s bad, you should try sleeping up there when it’s windy.”
He was unsure of how honest she was being with him, but he asked no further questions. Inside the binder was paperwork for at least five different subjects that were studied by the Men of Letters in the fifties. Four of them were former vessels, while the fifth was a currently-occupied human that they managed to capture. It was a very low-level angel, sent to Earth to observe, and the name it gave was Jacquelin. Accompanying the troublingly detailed charts of findings from both live and dead dissections were photos. Although they were grainy and colorless, they made Sam feel just as uneasy as seeing them in person would have.
“This is…” Sam shook his head slowly, lost for words.
“Barbaric?” Sadie suggested, “Inhumane?”
“Yeah, those are some words for it.” Sam swallowed, shutting the folder.
“Yeah, uncle D thought so too.” She sighed, “Though, all signs do point to him being a bit on the paranoid side, too, so it could be a combination of the two—the institution’s absolutely abhorrent behavior and a skittish librarian with paranoia.”
“I don’t know.” Sam set the folder down and took a seat in an armchair. “I think I’d be pretty paranoid, too, if I stole a bunch of stuff from a group that did that to people.”
She smiled at him, “Fair point.”
There was a long moment of silence, then Sam, donning a frown, spoke.
“Sadie?”
“Hm?” She looked up from where she’d been examining her nails.
“Why…” He narrowed his eyes slightly, “…why are you being so helpful?”
“What, you sayin’ you’re not trustworthy?” She smirked, making him sigh and smile despite himself.
“No, I just mean,” He took a breath, leaning his forearms onto his knees, “I just don’t… I don’t understand what you get out of this.”
For a long couple of seconds, she just stared at him, clearly trying to decide if she ought to be honest or not.
“Well, if you must know,” Sadie straightened, “I know you’re here with good intentions.”
Sam frowned. “How?”
“I have my ways.” She replied, and when he frowned, she added, “I mean, I believe you. Is there something you need to tell me?”
He let out another one of those amused snorts. “No, it’s not that.”
“No, I know.” She nodded, “But I do believe you. And besides, we haven’t had visitors in a long time.”
“How long?” He asked before he could stop himself.
“Must be about… nine years now?” She said that like it was no big deal.
“Nine years?” He was aghast.
She smirked, “Don’t worry, I get out of the house. I just meant we don’t have people over. It’s been about nine years since a hunter stopped by here to use the library. I always feel like she’s being neglected.”
A small smile broke on his face. “‘She’?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, blushing a little, “Not that anything needs to be assigned a gender, but yeah, she.”
For a second, they stared at each other.
“You know where everything is in here, don’t you?”
She smiled, “Well, who d’you think organized it all?”
Sam let out a soft chuckle, nodding. “Man, I wish we had someone to do that with ours.”
“Well, I won’t pretend like it didn’t take me about two years to get it all done.” She replied, glancing around the room, “I’m goin’ through now and scanning them all, but it takes forever.”
“Psh! Yeah, I’ll bet.” He nodded, glancing up at the bookcases. A thought occurred to him then. “Sadie, how did your great uncle move all of this stuff?”
“Uh, well, he had some help, I think.” She frowned, trying to remember, “I think maybe my grandad helped him with a car, but as the story goes, there was a day when all the Men of Letters were out, and uncle D was supposed to be on vacation, so he went then, and just grabbed as much as he could.”
Sam frowned, “But… why? I mean I understand disagreeing with their practices, but what’s the point of stealing all of this?”
“Well, to them, knowledge was power.” She said, “He wanted to set them back in their research, but he also wanted to kind of, uh… spit in their face, if you know what I mean?”
Sam let out another soft chuckle. “Yeah, I get you.” He thought for another moment, “But… why settle so close? I mean, the Bunker is only a couple hours from here.”
“Mm, well,” She sat up, “apparently he was just staying here temporarily—this is where he and my grandad grew up. And then…” She gave a shrug, “No one came looking.”
“Makes sense.” Sam snorted, then caught sight of her confused expression. “Oh, uh, they all got killed.”
“Oh.” Her brows rose.
“Yeah.” He nodded, “A demon.”
“One demon wiped them all out?” She quirked a brow.
“Yeah, it was a, uh, Knight of Hell.” Sam supplied, to which she gave a surprised frown.
“Wow, okay.” She let out a little chuckle, “Makes sense why they weren’t worried about some missing books, then.”
There was another pause, then he nodded towards the red book. “What’s that?”
“Oh! Right.” She scooted forwards in her seat, turning the book to him. Inside, there was a handwritten entry with the heading:
“Did you write this?” He glanced up from the book to her.
“Yeah, sorry if it’s hard to read.” She winced a bit, “They uh, were using some kind of paper that was easily damaged, so I put any loose spells I found into that book.”
“May I?” He held up his phone.
“Yeah, go for it.” She nodded, and he leaned forwards to take a photo.
When he was done, he sat back, frowning. “So, why did your parents open the library up to hunters?”
“They were socialists.” She replied with that same blunt, matter-of-fact tone that was inexplicably funny—and this was by design. When she’d gotten a soft chuckle out of him, she continued, “But, really, when uncle D died, he left everything to my dad, and my dad thought the knowledge ought to be made available for those actually doing the fighting. He never really looked through everything, he just kind of had a shelf where all the most important or most used stuff was, and the rest he’d fumble his way around ‘till he found.”
“Sounds like an organized guy.” Sam teased, making her smile.
“Yeah, dad was…” She paused in an unusual moment of genuine emotion, “…he was always bouncin’ around from task-to-task. He was always trying to do a million things at once, and it was always him who had to do it. My mom used to tease him about it incessantly.”
This made Sam smile a bit. At the back of the house, there was the sound of a door slamming, and moderately heavy footfalls before Cas appeared in the doorway. With a tired look, he shuffled to a halt and held up a dirty, airtight Tupperware with a black journal inside.
“This is it, right?” He asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded, standing as Sam did the same. “Did you uh, fill the hole back in?”
“Yes.” Cas nodded, “It looks just like it did when I started digging.”
“Good.” She replied, turning from him to Sam. “Now, you’re gonna bring that back, right?”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
“I’m gonna need some collateral.” She cocked her head, “Something you’ll come back for.”
He frowned for a moment, trying to think of what he had that he could part with. After tucking his phone into his coat pocket, he reached around to the back of his jeans, pulling out his handgun. Slowly, he turned it over in his hand, then released the magazine. He held out to her the rest of the weapon, but for a moment, she didn’t take it.
“It’s, uh,” He cleared his throat, “it was a gift from my brother. I’ll be back for it.”
Behind her, Cas’s brow furrowed with concern. This was a bad sign—the longer he spent apart from Dean, the more angry and reckless Sam seemed to become.
Sadie, however, was pleased with this offer and took the gun gently away from him. “I’ll keep it somewhere safe.”
“Thank you.” He nodded, tucking the magazine into his pocket.
“Mhm.” She set the weapon down on the table, grabbed the binder he’d left there, and walked back over to the bookcase.
Her careful hand slid the binder back into its place, then she squatted down to the cabinets beneath those shelves. Sam blinked in surprise—he hadn’t really noticed them. He wondered if he was slipping, just plain tired, or if it was because he’d been distracted.
After a moment of rummaging around, she pulled out a beat-up tin box and stood, kicking the cabinet gently closed behind her. With a smile, she walked over to hand it to him. After a moment of hesitation, he took it, opening the box to find the syringe they’d been looking for. He smiled, shutting it and meeting her gaze again.
“Thank you, Sadie.” He tapped the box gently, “I’ll, uh, bring this back too.”
She shook her head and waved him off. “No need. I just need the Index back. That thing creeps me out.”
“Alright.” He nodded with a small smile, then she walked them to the front door.
On the porch, he paused turning back to look at where she was leaning between the door and the doorway. That easy smile on her face made him feel a bit warm, like she could convince him to cheer up with a look alone.
“I’ll, uh, see you later, then.” Sam nodded, a bit stiff.
She nodded too, slower and much more relaxed than him. “I’ll be here.”
Cas and Sam gave her another nod, then went down the steps. As they reached the bottom and began walking on the front path, she called out after them.
“Hey!”
They both turned to look at her, but she was smiling at Sam.
“Good luck!” She smiled one last time before closing the door.
Cas’s eyes flickered from the now-closed front door to Sam. The man was smiling a bit to himself like he was cautiously pleased. Without another word, they started walking again, getting into their car and driving off.
For a long while, the street outside was quiet. Darkness hugged the buildings and it was all still. A beat-up red Subaru pulled to a halt in front of the house, and Cath stepped out. With a heavy sigh, she locked the car behind her and trudged up to the front door, two grocery bags in one hand.
“I’m back!” She called from the front hall, yanking her keys out of the lock. Now that she was home again, she locked all three of the locks on the door and slid the chain into place.
When that was settled, she walked over to look into the living room. Sadie glanced up from where she was sitting on the couch, reading.
“How was work?” Sadie asked.
“Shitty.” Cath replied flatly. She raised the bags, “I got food.”
“Cool.” Sadie stood, closing her book and taking the bags.
“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Cath asked, following her into the kitchen and sitting down as Sadie started unpacking the bags.
“Nah.” She replied.
Outside, a streetlamp flickered. From between the shadows of the two houses across the street, a woman in a dark coat slinked into view. She paused on the sidewalk, slowly tucking her hands into her pants pockets, cocking her head at the Ianson house. The streetlight flickered again, and she looked up with a scowl, her eyes black as the night surrounding her.
I don’t know if this like allowed but if there’s any longggg fic recommendations you guys have (old or new) i’d super love that
You definitely want to browse our MISC tag page - at the bottom you will see fic tags by length. Here are several to get you started. Enjoy! ~Lynne
Westerville Abbey Verse by @hkvoyage
Blaine is the second son of the earl of Westerville, and is considered the spare heir. After his 18th birthday, he attends the London Season to fulfill his duty of finding a wife. He soon realizes he is more attracted to the new footman. Kurt, who has just arrived at Westerville Abbey to work alongside his father, becomes equally as smitten with the earl’s youngest son. Will Blaine and Kurt be able to overcome their class differences in 1910s England? Will their forbidden love survive WW1? A Downton Abbey inspired historical Klaine AU.
~~~~~
Wake Me Up Inside Trilogy by MrsCriss2012
Kurt Hummel is a shy, insecure fifteen year old. Blaine Anderson is a thirty one year old musician. When their worlds collide, Blaine discovers he’s powerless to resist the lure of Kurt’s eyes and his exquisite voice, and Kurt begins a journey of awakening. *There is a large passage of time in this story meaning no illegal happenings!
~~~~~
All The Other Ghosts by rainjoy
It’s a big city for one more lost soul in a mask. Superhero AU.
Note: Read and download the pdf HERE or EPUB or read on LJ
Sequel: Grey on LJ or download the PDF or EPUB
Third in the verse: Gloves and Masks
~~~~~
Glory Verse by Cleverboots (Amberlovesocean)
Kurt is assaulted after singing at a school dance and is left for dead, thrown aboard an empty train car at the railroad freight yard to hide the crime.
He wakes up to find he’s been tossed off the car somewhere in an Oregon logging camp, 2500 miles from home. A curly-haired kid named Blaine finds Kurt and protects him by hiding him in his cabin and teaching him how to survive.
You're supposed to be the Prince of Wales and future King of England!
Death threats
I wish you were here
You're ruining my reputation - New
Coriolanus and no knickers - New
Multiple chapter fics
Are you following me Mr Hiddleston (last few chapters)
Zombies and Vampires (A continuation of Only Lovers Left Alive)
Divided love
I tend to go back and forth a lot between things, so some might be a while before they are uploaded/posted. Please do keep sending me prompt requests too! As soon as I get them I start working on them.
Since the season ended I've seen several people asking for fic recs to help get through the hiatus so I figured I'd compile some of my favorite multi-chapter/long fics and post them to make finding fics easier. Fics are in order of how easily I found them... Nothing else went in to the ordering after clarifying if they are completed or not. (If there's a demand for it I might go through and pull out some of my favorite oneshots as well, though that might take quite a bit of time to put together).
One last note: please at the very least leave kudos for the story when you read it. There is no reason not to, these are all really good fics and you literally just have to push a button at the end of the chapter, you don't even need an account.
Completed:
Open Heart Ranges (Ranch AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7353505/chapters/16703140
Under Control (It's You) (Hogwarts AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7018156/chapters/15975949
Pull Me Out Of The Dark (College Professors AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/8923510/chapters/20440294
Cryptozoology (College/Ghost/Pokémon Go AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7446238/chapters/16918249
Gus (Missing Moments S1): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7512943/chapters/17078158
say "hey" if you're gay (Alternative Meeting): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7338859
To Darkness (War/Military AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11529744/chapters/25882251
Kiss You Again (College AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7251676
it's like i wrote every note with my own fingers (80's High School AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11948871/chapters/27014448
Uncharted Territory (Season 1 Side Adventure): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7606648/chapters/17312620
Run With The Devil (Criminals AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7672735/chapters/17475028
My Best Friend and My Sister (Hogwarts AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7441243/chapters/16905265
Stop Making Eyes At Me (But I Don't Really Want You To) (Softball Rivals AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/10860639/chapters/24120285
Build Me Up From Bones (Reaper AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/8378512/chapters/19193929
What You're Worth (Arranged Marriage AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11886414/chapters/26844834
heartbeat pounding this is the moment (Equestrian-Olympics AU) http://archiveofourown.org/works/11963265/chapters/27052029
Ever Yours (Professor/Former FBI Agent AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11862750/chapters/26784885
Play Along (Slow Burn Season 1 AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11101545/chapters/24770760
i wish you'd live like you're made of glass (Supernatural-Nicole Season 1 AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11423940/chapters/25595316
What If We Weren't Cursed (No Earp Curse AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11661249/chapters/26239695
Anything By This Author (Mostly Oneshots): http://archiveofourown.org/users/Between_A_Dream/pseuds/Between_A_Dream
Anything By This Author (Longish AU's): http://archiveofourown.org/users/Half/pseuds/Half
Anything By This Author (Smut): http://archiveofourown.org/users/RaeDMagdon/pseuds/RaeDMagdon/works?fandom_id=9149275
Not Completed:
The Ten Times Waverly Earp was Definitely NOT on a Date with Nicole Haught (Missing Moments Season 1 (sort of)): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7638454/chapters/17391082
Get Lost (Horror Story): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7824859/chapters/17861275
One-Eighty (Mars/Astronaut AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/11340672/chapters/25380681
when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls (Canon-ish Werewolf-Nicole AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/12019983/chapters/27205419
Where the hell did you come from (One Night Stand/Gang AU): http://archiveofourown.org/works/7585363/chapters/17259580
I'm Ready (When You're Ready For Me) (Nicole-Centric Season 1): http://archiveofourown.org/works/8354329/chapters/19137553
