I'm thinking about how much Paul Leskowitz means to me as a trans character because it so accurately represents my own trans experience and my heart hurts I keep crying. I love Petscop.
He leaned back on the sofa, closing his eyes, the burn of the alcohol soothing, and saw a pair of warm, brown eyes, filled with compassion.
The only light that night, after 48 hours of living nightmares, was Lestrade’s uncomplicated presence. Straightforward, open, honest, all characteristics Mycroft wasn’t used to in the life chosen for him. Lestrade never asked anything in return, he was effortlessly a… friend.
Not a goldfish.
A Soul to Cling to (title taken by Sylvia Plath) in AO3 [G] (for the prompt filling at least)
Written for @mystradepromptsandscenarios “I’ve been up all night.”
While the story is finished in regards to the prompt, more to come and soon because I’m not that sadistic, even if Mycroft disagrees.
E | 11.9k | 1/3 | Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage (attempted), Graphic Depictions of Violence
Additional warnings: Implied/referenced child abuse, Implied/referenced sexual abuse, unhealthy relationships, trauma, angst, omitted tags for spoiler reasons
The school is… unprotected.
Voldemort gets resurrected early, and learns this very quickly.
Harry Potter likes his new teacher: he's a pretty man in his early thirties with a kind smile and dark hair and eyes - and he doesn't seem to hate him, unlike all the other teachers.
For a while, after everything with Jack, it’s quiet. Sam gets up at the same time every morning out of habit but there’s no real need. It feels like there’s something—untethered, in him. A flying line that used to be caught on concrete, and now that the anchor’s gone he doesn’t know what to lash it to. Dean seems to be doing better but Sam knows it’s the same for him. They stay apart a little, in those first days, but they keep running into each other in the library—Sam looking at the bookshelves and Dean coming in from the garage with grease on his hands, and they look at each other and kind of shrug, kind of smile, but it’s—strange. Like there’s been some weight, counterbalancing the world, and now that it’s gone—
Sam goes for runs. Dean works on the car. They watch movies they meant to see when they were in theaters, and which can be watched now in the den Dean built for them, a six pack of beer between them and Dean hogging the popcorn. They drive through Lebanon together, pick up mail and groceries, and they argue over whether they’re having that tater tot hotdish recipe Donna sent again or whether they’re going to eat something that has a single vegetable in it, at all. They go out onto the empty abandoned farmland behind the bunker, and Dean’s found some battered lawnchairs from somewhere, and they sit with their feet kicked out into the long grass and pass a bottle of whiskey back and forth, and they watch the day slowly sliding into sunset, and then into night, and when there’s stars overhead Dean says, “Damn,” softly, and Sam laughs, just as quiet. Yeah. Yeah, that—about sums it up.
There’s a hunt, finally. Sam wasn’t even really looking, but he’s got the Google alerts set up and the hunt finds them, instead. He’s sitting in the kitchen with the remains of breakfast around, staring at his laptop. Missing women. Strange details, from the police reports. A mystery, that the locals can’t solve, and he’s got his teeth in his lip and he’s half-considering whether to just close the laptop lid and go—another run, another chore, just to not see it, even though it’s not like he doesn’t want to go—when there’s a scuff, and Dean says, “Hey,” easy, and then he’s caught, sitting, and Dean pauses and then comes up behind him, and leans in with one hand on the table and the other on Sam’s back, reading over his shoulder. Sam takes a deep breath. It’s like a thousand times before. A piece that had been missing starts to slide into place.
“Huh,” Dean says. His breath smells like coffee and Sam wrinkles his nose. Dean reaches around his arm and scrolls down on the webpage, reading. “Shapeshifter?”
Sam lifts a shoulder. “Could be,” he says, and he tries not to put any inflection in it. He doesn’t even know how he feels—he doesn’t want to affect what Dean might feel, either way.
There’s a look, aimed at the side of his face. Dean’s fingertips on his back dig in, just a little, warm and heavy. “Only a five hour drive,” Dean says, slowly. He stands up straight, but his hand doesn’t move. “Three women?”
Sam closes his eyes. “So far,” he says, and Dean’s fingertips slip away, and when he looks again Dean’s standing there in his robe with wet hair, healthy and burden-free and giving Sam this—Sam doesn’t even know how to read that face. Steady eyes, soft curve to his mouth. He shrugs one shoulder, too, hands in his robe pockets, and Sam huffs, smiles and doesn’t know why. That it can be a shrug, maybe. That it doesn’t feel like the end of the world. Just a job.
“I could get packed up in fifteen,” Sam says, offering, and Dean’s eyes crinkle, but he nods, and turns on his heel, and that means—a decision. Sam takes a deep breath and feels that dangling tether latch onto solid ground again. It’s been a month, free, but that’s the thing. They’re free either way.
*
Sam breaks his ring finger. Dean gets hit so hard on his shin, the bruise sinking so deep and painful, that they both think there’s been a hairline fracture, but the x-ray is clean and he’s just told to keep his weight off it for a few days. Sam drives home, Dean snoozing solidly in the passenger seat, and Sam keeps the radio down low but listens to the albums he picks (Zeppelin II and then Presence and then Zep III, both sides repeated twice), and he keeps smiling, off and on, the whole way home through the dark, because—they saved two women and stopped a fourth from being hurt, and they got the shifter, and it turns out—there’s still a reason, here. Still something.
He gets a crutch from the infirmary so Dean can stump down the stairs, bitching the whole way. It’s two in the morning but Sam’s not tired. Dean says something about a shower and disappears into the halls, grumbling about asshole shifters who get in lucky shots, and Sam’s left standing in the library with their bags, and he—god. God.
He pours a drink, from the good stuff Dean keeps in the crystal decanter. He sips at the glass and then presses it to his forehead, and smiles at nothing, thinking back. What an annoying goddamn week that case was. And yet, and yet. It was…
He sits, at the table. He sets his glass on a spare bit of scratch paper and runs his fingers over the carved-in marks. His and Dean’s initials are already worn smooth, nearly, from nights just like this. When he couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t bear it. He can bear it, now. What a—gift.
Sam licks his lips. He sets his hand flat on the table, his splinted finger sticking out awkwardly. “Jack,” he says, to the empty air. The carved letters are rough, under his palm. “I guess—you can hear me. I haven’t—I haven’t been praying. I don’t know. It felt stupid. Weird. If you’re really a god now, then you know everything I might say. But maybe it…” He shakes his head and closes his eyes. The wood’s getting warm, from his palm sitting there. He takes a deep breath. “We went hunting, this week. I didn’t know if we’d—but it was exactly what we needed. We saved people, and we fixed something that was bad. Dean’s leg is gonna be okay. My hand hurts. But it’s—good. We did good. And it’s because of you, that we could do that, so I just wanted to say thank you.”
That’s what he’s been feeling, he realizes. All through the drive home. Just—thanks. That this is their life. That they can live it, now.
“Sam,” he hears, in Dean’s voice, and he opens his eyes, and—
Jack’s standing there, quiet, in the library. Dean’s leaned against the archway leading down to the map room with his crutch clutched in the other hand, and he glances at Sam but his eyes go right back to Jack.
He looks the same. Jeans, and that white jacket Sam picked out for him at the thrift store, and his hair falling softly over his forehead, and his face, set in gentle lines.
“Are you—” Sam cuts himself off. He doesn’t—what to say? What to ask?
“I heard you,” Jack says. He looks at Dean, frozen on the top stair. “Both of you.”
Sam’s attention snaps to Dean, who’s starting to flood up red in his ears. Jack smiles, small.
“I guess it’s…” Sam chews the inside of his lip. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to distract you or anything.”
“You didn’t,” Jack says, and of course not, because he’s—god.
“Why did you come?” Sam says.
Jack’s smile gets a little smaller, but doesn’t disappear. He doesn’t answer, either. Dean hitches his weight, puts a hand on the wall.
Sam licks his lips. There’s so much. “I guess—you already know anything I’d say, right?” Because he’s god. It keeps flooding up in Sam. That this kid, this sweet innocent kid that they’d done their best for, who Sam had taught to hold a gun and who Dean had taught to tie his shoes, he’s—everything. The alpha and omega, the spark of life in every cell. But that means he’s gone from them, too. Sam looks down at the table, trying not to show it. Knowing that Jack knows, either way.
“I know,” Jack says, like an echo. “But it’s good to say it, either way.”
Heat rises, at the back of Sam’s eyes. He smiles, even if it feels a little shaky, and when he looks up Jack’s just—himself. Exactly like Sam is going to remember him.
“Miss you, kiddo,” Dean says. His voice is thick. “And no one’s eating those dumb Sugar Smacks you made me get, either.”
“Yes, you are,” Jack says, giving Dean a look, and Sam laughs out loud, tears smarting at his eyes. “And you don’t have to miss me. I’m right here.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, and Jack smiles at him a little sidelong and then is—gone, without a rustle of feathers or a thunderclap or anything.
The library’s quiet. Amber lamplight, and the slight papery-dust smell of the air, and the wood under Sam’s hand. He pulls his hand back a little and looks. Dean’s knifework—angular but legible, and the edges still rough. He runs his thumb over the lines of the J. It’ll get smooth, eventually.
A flinching step, and Dean’s there, at his side. A hand, on his shoulder. “I’m no good at it,” Dean says, low, “but say thanks from me, too, okay.”
Sam knuckles away the wet from his eye. “Yeah,” he says, and has to clear his throat. “Yeah, I will.” Dean squeezes his shoulder. “And keep buying the Sugar Smacks, okay?”
Dean snorts. “I was gonna do that anyway,” he says, and Sam smiles, and gets a splinter from the table in his thumb. Dean helps pick it out with tweezers, under the lamplight. They get some sleep. They wake up again, to a cool and sunny morning, and get to live the life they choose.
