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itmighthavebeenintentional · 4 years

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Walk Me Home - Ch 10

Summary: Twenty-four years ago, Kimberly Harper met a boy who changed the course of her entire life before up and leaving one night. She spent years moving past the memories, building a stable, satisfying career as professor of folklore and mythology at the local university. Then the accidents start, and she’s forced to seek help among her hunter contacts. All it takes is a knock on her office door to send Kimber’s carefully built emotional walls crumbling to the ground.

Featuring: Teen Winchesters, high school romance, reunions, misunderstandings, high intensity emotional turmoil, Dean’s love of pie, Dean being adorable, Sam being adorable and maybe a bit nosy eventually, much group adorkable-ness, show-style investigation, mention of our favorite werewolf, gratuitous and obvious love of fall, DID I MENTION ROMANCE, fluff, smut, tension.

Warnings: Show level violence, show level parental neglect (let’s not John bash, I’m just saying), show-style witchcraft, show-level mental manipulation, stalking, bit of angst, sexual content (higher than show level),swearing, general yearning

Word Count: 1856

Author’s Note: Had some extra time today, so I figured I’d go ahead and post. We’ve reached the end, folks. Thank you to everyone for reading, reblogging, liking, and especially all the lovely comments. A million thanks to @mskathywriteswords , @fangirlxwritesx67 , and @cracksinthewalls for helping my story shine. @thoughtslikeaminefield , thank you for the lovely image for the story. I hope everyone enjoyed it all as much as I do.

Keep in Mind: There are a lot of flashbacks. I tried to write current events in present tense and flashbacks in past tense. Here’s hoping I got everything right!

Please read/heed the warnings. 18+ ONLY.

In Case You Missed It: Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 ItMightHaveBeenIntentional’s Masterlist

Chapter 10

“Sam looks really irritated,” Kimber whispers to Dean. The younger Winchester brother has just excused himself to the restroom, but the diner is pretty quiet, and she doesn’t want to risk Sam overhearing.

“Well, yeah,” Dean says, raising his coffee to take a deep, life-affirming slurp. He doesn’t bother to lower his tone or modulate his pitch in the slightest, and Kimber shoots him an exasperated look. “I stuck him with clean-up duty last night so I could get lucky. Not to mention, our room was the only free one at the motel, remember, so he either slept there or in his car. He’s not irritated, he’s pissed as hell and probably a little jealous.”

“But you didn’t get lucky last night,” Kimber says.

“Went home with my high school sweetheart, got to see her unmentionables, and spent the whole night in bed with her after eating semi-homemade apple pie. I’d say I got pretty damned lucky.”

She sends an elbow his way, but he’s expecting it and leans back so she overshoots and lands across his lap. She splutters indignantly as she rights herself while he takes another calm drink of his coffee.

“Seriously, though, he’s not pissed at you. The first few months after we left, the kid wouldn’t shut up about you. He practically worshipped you: hot, nerdy as hell, the whole package. And,” he adds, his teasing expression mellowing to one of genuine appreciation, “you really helped him out with that AP stuff. He got into Stanford because of you.”

“Shut up,” she says, her face heating. “He got into Stanford? That was him, and you know it. I just gave him some resources he didn’t know about, that’s all.”

“And I was able to keep up with all my AP classes no matter where we moved, which was a huge deal to me,” Sam says as he slides into the booth across from them. “You guys talking about me behind my back?”

“Always,” Dean smirks. “So, what’d you find out?”

“Does the name ‘Jim Weeks’ mean anything to you, Kimber?”

She frowns, setting her fork down on the edge of her plate. “It does. I helped him out, god, what...eight, nine years ago? He hadn’t been hunting very long, maybe a year or two, and he was investigating some...Let me think, hang on.” She closes her eyes, mentally shifting through years of research, both hers and others’.

“Human sacrifices. There was a symbol carved into all the victims. I helped him find the source, the deity it stood for. It was one of my closed cases; that’s why I didn’t bring it up. He called me a few weeks later, said he’d taken care of everything.”

“Well, he was wrong,” Sam says, his face grave. “I found his journal in the witch’s car. Jim documented you helping him, what you found, where you worked, and then how the case wrapped up. You actually helped him take down en entire coven of witches, guess he didn’t mention that part. Then he went on hunting for another seven and a half years, but a few months ago, he started to write about feeling like someone was watching him, tailing him from case to case.”

Sam pauses, giving her a moment to take in this new information, then he continues.

“Said he was starting to have periods of time where he didn’t remember stuff, would wake up in the middle of the road, in the middle of the woods. He wrote about finding a doll in his car one morning; it, uh..looked like him. Throat was slit, red paint, all of it.”

Sam clears his throat, flexing his fingers on the table top as he watches her carefully. Dean’s hand closes over hers under the table, and she realizes her fingers are shaking.

“Go on,” she says. She doesn’t want to hear what’s coming next, she really already knows, but she needs to hear it.

“The entries in his journal stop after that. The cover was soaked in dried blood. So...yeah. I did some checking, and Jim died a few months back. The scene was...nasty.”

“So, who was our nutbag?” Dean asks. His tone is rough as he squeezes Kimber’s fingers.

“I looked into the county records where Jim took down the coven. I don’t think he did too much research into the actual witches themselves; the coven included a family, a mom and dad and a teenager. Jim thought he got the whole coven, but maybe the teenager wasn’t at that meeting? At any rate, the papers from around then talked about the murdered couple’s missing child, and then the kid just dropped out of mention.”

“Okay, Jim was sloppy, and the kid survived, and what...swore revenge? How’d he find Jim again?”

“I found these folded up in the front of the journal,” Sam says, smoothing a couple of newspaper articles out on the table. The edges are frayed and ragged, torn rather than cut. There are dark smears on both, smudges and stains from who knows what, and Kimber’s gorge rises higher the longer she stares down at them.

The first article dates back to the first investigation, showing a grainy photograph of police and federal officers milling around behind crime scene tape. Kimber points to a figure off to the side, suited and facing the camera almost straight on.

“That’s Jim,” she says, her voice quiet. He looks painfully young in the photograph, and her chest twinges. The caption labels him as “FBI Special Agent Gaiman.”

She looks at the second article, which is much more recent. She notices immediately that the location is the same, the premise almost identical. “Town’s Dark Past Resurfaces After Nearly a Decade” reads the headline. She looks for Jim’s face, spotting it in the crowd once more, despite him aging considerably in the years since she met him.

“He used the same name again,” Dean says, shaking his head. “I mean, he didn’t have much choice, since it was probably the same cops on the case, but still. Probably how the witch found him. Might’ve started up the sacrifices again just to draw Jim out. Anything else in the car, Sam?”

Sam shakes his head, his mouth working as if he’s got a bad taste in his mouth. “More or less standard witch paraphernalia, a couple more knives. I didn’t see anything indicating we have anyone else to watch out for.”

Dean purses his lips, then looks to Kimber. “You doin’ okay?”

Kimber takes the question seriously, doing a quick bit of mental introspection. “Yeah, I think...I mean...Okay, so I’m still queasy, but I don’t feel like someone’s breathing down my neck anymore. I’m going to be jumpy for a while, and I am definitely not going to stop going to my Thursday night classes anytime soon. But, yeah. If I’m not completely okay at the moment, I know I’m going to be.”

“That’s my girl.” Dean leans over, pressing a kiss to Kimber’s cheek. Sam looks away, but not before Kimber catches the embarrassed smile on his face. Dean slides from the booth, strolling casually over to the register and grinning at the elderly waitress, who blushes and giggles as she takes the check from him.

“Dad wouldn’t let him call you,” Sam says quietly. Kimber’s eyes flash to Sam, startled.

“When we left. Dean wanted to. He tried to, but Dad said he couldn’t. Said you were a distraction we couldn’t afford. He absolutely forbade it. They got in a fight, the worst one I ever saw between them when we were kids, and Dad...he...well, he, uh...He put his foot down. And later, after Dad died...I think Dean was ashamed. Maybe. I dunno, but I think he didn’t feel like he could call you after all that time, felt like he’d let you down.”

Sam glances over his shoulder, and they both watch Dean lean down to whisper conspiratorially with the blushing waitress as he hands her his credit card. Dean turns back to Kimber, winking, and her last little bit of heartache flakes off and fades away.

“Maybe don’t hold it against him too much?” Sam says, his best puppy-dog face in place. Kimber has never seen such an earnest expression from a guy asking on behalf of another man before.

“So, what do we have on the docket, Sam?” Dean asks as he rejoins them. Kimber throws her arms around his neck, ignoring the twinge twinge of pain on the side of her throat, and kisses him soundly. He looks startled but pleased as she pulls away, eyes wide and cheeks ruddy.

“What was that for? I’m just askin’ so I can do it again.”

She clears her throat against an unexpected lump. Behind Sam, the waitress at the register gives her a double thumbs up. “I was just jealous of the attention you were giving the wait staff. Figured you thought I wasn’t paying you enough attention.”

Sam coughs discreetly, his mouth twitching from the effort of smothering his smile. “I actually don’t have any cases for us. I was thinking about going back to the bunker and reorganizing some of those files I‘ve been going through. You know, I could really use your help, Dean. Our inventories could use some alphabetizing, and-”

“Hard pass,” Dean says, flashing his brother a quick, mirthless smile.

“If you’re looking for something to do,” Kimber offers, then hesitates when Dean turns his focus to her. “Well, I mean...fall break is next week. There’s a harvest festival in town; we have a crafts fair and a big farmers market and a lot of baking competitions. It’s pretty fun. If...if you wanted to stay a little while, Dean.”

...

In the end, Dean stays nearly two weeks. They go to every single day of the festival, during which time, they pick out a new quilt for her bed and Dean makes himself actually sick at the pie tasting event. When he does finally leave, it’s with a promise to visit soon, and their phone numbers saved in each of their cells.

“I will say, I’m not overly fond of watching this car drive off,” Kimber says, hugging herself through the inadequate material of her sweater. The weather has turned genuinely cold, and she wishes she’d grabbed something heavier, but she hadn’t planned on staying outside for so long.

For some reason, though, she just can’t let go of him long enough for him to get into the car.

Dean rubs his hands briskly up and down her arms, his eyes sad and fond as they roam over her face. Before she can stop him, he pulls off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders and kissing her forehead.

“You look damned cute in my jacket,” he says gruffly. “One more for the road?”

And if her lips are still swollen and throbbing when he puts the car into gear and pulls away from the curb, if his hair looks like he came straight from bed, neither of them minds in the least.

…

The end.

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apathetic-revenant · 7 years

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by the skin of your teeth (part 2)

(part 1)

wow! I did not expect to get that much of a response to this. thanks everyone! this part is a lot longer than part 1 so uh...buckle up, I guess.

(I had to guesstimate a bunch of stuff here about the layout of the house and also about how Bill works. where the frick is Ford’s room anyway?)

Stan had carried his brother before. When they were teens, and he was starting to get some muscle and heft from boxing while Ford steadfastly remained as weedy as ever, Stan had delighted in picking his twin up and running around the house with him, to win arguments or make Ford take a break from studying or just because he could. Ford had always protested, but rarely as vehemently as he could have. Then there were times that Stan had carried him because Ford had needed help: when he'd twisted his ankle in gym class, or when he had come down with the flu and tried to go to school anyway only to pass out halfway through math class.

Carrying Ford had been a regular part of life, once upon a time. But, like so many things, it was no longer as easy as it had been.

Stan was hardly in boxing shape anymore, and he had been running on nothing but caffeine and nerves for too long, and Ford might still have been skinny and sickly but he was heavy enough to knock Stan down, which meant he was heavy enough to be a real pain to get up off the floor. For a moment, feeling his knees shake as he lifted his twin, Stan wasn’t sure they would be going anywhere.

But once he had Ford mostly upright with an arm over Stan’s shoulder, things got easier. Ford didn't seem to wake up entirely, but he shuffled his feet along and took a bit of the weight off Stan. And at least there was an elevator, so they didn't have to walk all the way up. (Which, who had an elevator in their basement, anyway? Then again, who had a giant scary doomsday portal thing in their basement?)

Ford muttered and mumbled occasionally as they walked, and once, when Stan bent down awkwardly to pick up that stupid book, Ford jerked his head up and cried, “No, no, can't, I can't-” But Stan never found out what it was Ford couldn't; he subsided and slumped back down again, his head lolling against Stan’s shoulder.

Once they finally made it out of the basement, Stan was faced with a new dilemma: where exactly to put Ford. The house was an absolute wreck, and he had no idea where to find a bed or couch or anything under all the mess. He tried asking Ford, but only got a faint “hnnnngh” sound in response.

Thankfully, there turned out to be a bedroom near the top of the stairs that seemed to have escaped most of the carnage. It was the barest spot in the house that Stan had seen so far, with a low couch, a desk, and little else. He lowered Ford onto the couch carefully and stood there for a moment, massaging his back and looking down at his brother.

He'd thought Ford had looked bad as soon as he'd opened the door-well, alright, as soon as he'd put the crossbow down, that had been fairly distracting- but in this first still, quiet moment, he could see that Ford was in even worse shape than he’d thought. His face was pale and ashen and too thin, and he had the heaviest shadows under his eyes that Stan had ever seen. His hair was in disarray, there was untidy stubble across his jaw, and he looked like he hadn't changed his clothes in several days at least. Not that Stan could really comment on hygiene much, but it wasn't like Ford to let things go like that.

Then again, it had been ten years. Did he really know what Ford was like anymore? What had happened to his brother since then?

Hell, what had happened to him?

Stan sighed and, not knowing what else to do, pulled off Ford’s shoes and laid them by the bed. As an afterthought he also took off his tie (why was Ford wearing a tie while he was alone in his own house anyway?) and put it on the bedside table with his glasses. He didn’t even bother trying to remove the trenchcoat, which Ford was still clutching around him like a security blanket.

Not that Stan could blame him. It was cold in the house. Did Ford not have the heat on? No wonder he’d gotten sick. And if Stan was cold, Ford had to be feeling even worse with that fever. There was one small, inadequate-looking blanket on the back of the couch, and nothing else useful in the room. It was getting dark outside, and the snow was falling even heavier than it was when Stan arrived. He’d had a difficult enough time getting to Ford’s house at all; he’d even parked the Stanleymobile back at the main road and walked the rest of the way, not trusting the look of that winding, uncleared drive. Getting away from Ford’s house was currently looking more or less impossible, but that was, apparently, exactly what his brother wanted.

“You just gotta make everything difficult, don’t you,” Stan muttered, throwing the lone blanket on top of Ford. After a moment’s thought, he shucked off his own jacket and added it over the top, then went off to see if he could find anything else.

Ford’s house was weird. Every surface was covered in clutter, most of which looked like it should be in a museum: strange scientific instruments, specimen jars with unsettling things floating in them, skulls and bones that didn’t belong to any animals he knew of, weird artifacts right out of a pulp adventure comic, and everywhere there were piles of paper like snowdrifts covering the furniture. Stan shifted through a few of them, hoping to find some clue to whatever strange situation Ford had gotten himself into, but none of them made the slightest bit of sense. Some were covered in equations or diagrams that made his head spin, some seemed to be written in some kind of code, and a disturbing few were just maddened scribbles, incomprehensible rants smeared with ink and graphite and occasionally...blood?

“Right,” Stan said out loud to the looming silence, putting down a paper that just had HE’S WATCHING written all over it in uneven letters. “I see what’s happened here. You’ve gone and landed yourself in the middle of a horror movie. Why am I not surprised?”

In one room-some kind of study, probably, judging by the way it seemed to be the eye of the paper hurricane-he found a space heater sitting in a corner. It was an innocuous enough object in the midst of all the craziness, aside from being a bit too close to an awful lot of very flammable paper, but Stan found himself stopping to consider it. How could his brother afford this house and all that expensive-looking equipment, but not afford to turn the heat on? Maybe it was just some strange quirk of frugality, but it struck him as odd all the same. He unplugged it and put it aside to pick up later; at least he could make Ford’s room a little warmer.

He also found a surprising amount of weapons-along with the crossbow Ford had greeted him with, there were some knives scattered across a desk, another one that was actually buried in the wall, a sword, some kind of sci-fi blaster looking thing, and, staring coldly up at him from an opened drawer, a pistol.

Stan stared at it for a long moment. It wasn’t like he was exactly unfamiliar with firearms, but this one, laying there unloaded and harmless, somehow felt more ominous and threatening than any other gun he had ever seen, including the ones that had been pointed directly at him. The other weapons he could maybe write off as being some nerd thing, for decoration or study rather than use, but this... What did Ford need with a gun? What did his shy, anxious, nerdy brother, who would let himself get punched and picked on and taunted to tears rather than ever throwing a blow himself, who would prefer doing a detailed drawing of a bug to swatting it, who had always needed Stan around to look after him and protect him...what was he doing with this?

He’s living out here in the sticks, Stan told himself, shoving the drawer closed. It’s probably just for protection. In case of...bears, or...hillbillies, or...whatever. Who knows what’s out there. He probably barely even knows how to use it.

Sure.

He did finally find a bedroom, or at least a room that contained a bed, albeit not one that looked like it had been used in some time, judging by the pile of books all over it. Deciding it would be easier to make Ford comfortable in the downstairs room than to move him again, he extricated the blankets and pillows and headed back downstairs. On the way, he saw from the corner of his eye something that looked like it might be a bathroom behind a barely cracked-open door and stopped. Maybe he could find some medicine. Not that he really knew what medicine he should even be using-hell, he didn’t even know what Ford was sick with-but it was worth a shot. You took aspirin for fevers, right? That couldn’t hurt him, at least.

He dropped the blankets and space heater in the hallway, pushed open the door, and froze.

There were sticky red smears all over the sink, along the edges of the cracked mirror, even on the wall and floor. Some were drawn-out splotches arranged in patterns of six; in other places there were little pools and splatters freely dribbled about. The little trash can was overfull of used bandages. A nearly empty roll of them sat on the sink alongside a bottle of hydrogen peroxide covered in red fingerprints.

Stan swallowed hard several times, trying to get the sudden awful taste out of his mouth. It shouldn’t have bothered him. He’d never been squeamish. Anyway, he’d seen more blood than this, and under worse circumstances...there wasn’t even that much, he told himself firmly, it was just all...spread around. It shouldn’t have bothered him.

But there was something eerie about it all. Something about the stark, half-told story in front of him, something about all the questions and implications he couldn’t quite pin down, something that was just wrong. The sick feeling that had been building in his stomach all evening was becoming too much to bear.

He shut the door, firmly, without bothering to look for any medicine, picked up his bundle, and hurried away.

He was almost back to the room when he heard a panicked shout that had him instantly breaking into a run. He shoved his way through the door with no idea what to expect and found Ford flailing around blindly; somehow he had gotten tangled up in Stan’s jacket and was trying to simultaneously extricate himself, find his glasses, and get off the couch.

“Stan!” he yelped, squinting desperately at the door. “Is that you? Are you alright? What happened? Oh, God-”

“Uh,” Stan said, coming forward slowly and setting the heater down on the floor. “I just went to see if I could find you some blankets, ‘cause it’s freezing in here. Do you not have heating in this place-”

“But what happened?” Ford demanded, shaking his head frantically. “How did I get up here?”

“You...passed out,” Stan said. “I carried you up here.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Nothing...nothing happened…?”

“No, nothing happened.” Ford had a wild, frightened look in his eyes, and he kept glancing back and forth between Stan and his own hands, as if expecting to see evidence of some terrible sin. “Everything’s fine, Sixer-”

Ford jumped as if Stan had swung a fist at him. “Don’t call me that!”

There was a moment of awful silence.

Stan set the bedding down on the couch with slow exaggerated movements. “Okay. Ford, what’s going on?”

“I...I can’t...it’s complicated,” Ford mumbled. “Stan, will you please-will you just take my journal and go?”

Stan sighed and sat down on the end of the couch. The anger was still there, like a heavy stone in his chest, almost too heavy to breathe around; but he was so damn tired and all his stupid tangled-up emotions felt dull and slow and far away, less like fresh reopened wounds and more like crooked old broken bones that had never been set right.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ford,” he said.

“Stanley, please-”

“Ford-”

“You don’t understand the stakes here-”

“Ford.”

“This isn’t just about me and you-I’m not trying to be cruel but you have to understand-”

“Ford.”

“I’ve made some terrible mistakes and the potential consequences-”

It was clear that Ford was on a roll now and not about to stop, a familiar enough circumstance, so Stan just patiently kept repeating, “Ford. Ford. Ford. Ford. Ford,” while his brother ambled on at length, making, as usual, exactly no sense.

“What, Stanley?” Ford finally snapped. “I’m trying to tell you something here-”

“And I’m trying to tell you something. Look outside.”

Ford whipped his head around to the little window above the couch, like he expected something terrible to be looming there. After a moment he finally pushed his glasses on and frowned. “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly. You don’t see anything because you can’t see anything because there is a blizzard going on outside and night is falling and also, for your information, I have enough gas left to make it maybe five miles and the Stanleymobile has been making a weird noise since I crossed the state line. So you see, Ford, I will not be leaving tonight, unless you want me to either wrap my car around a tree because I can’t see anything, or freeze to death after breaking down before I even get out of the county.”

Ford opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, and said, “You’re still driving that thing?”

Stan rolled his eyes. “She’s a good car, and way to miss the point.”

Ford bit his lip and absent-mindedly huddled under Stan’s jacket. Then he realized what he was doing and pushed the stained jacket away with a look of distaste that Stan, having seen what Ford’s house currently looked like, felt was rather hypocritical.

“Town is only a mile away,” Ford said, rallying somewhat. “You can get gas, and there’s a mechanic there-I think-”

“No,” Stan said.

“No? What do you mean, no-”

“I mean no, I can’t get gas, or see a mechanic, because I have no money, Ford.” Which hadn’t exactly stopped him more often than not, but Ford didn’t necessarily need to know that right now. “It took all I had to get here in the first place. I didn’t expect to be sent away again within half an hour. Although maybe I should have,” he added, half to himself.

Ford was staring at him like a sleep-deprived owl. Stan couldn’t bear it; he got up and began looking for somewhere to plug the space heater in.

“Were you in my office?” Ford asked, sounding peeved.

“I was looking for blankets. Your house is a wreck, by the way.” He cranked the heater up all the way and turned to find Ford still frowning at him.

“What?” he said.

“Why were you looking for blankets?”

Stan gave him a long look, just to make sure Ford had actually said what Stan thought he’d said. “You’re sick,” he said, slowly, like he was talking to a child. “And it’s way too cold in here.”

“I’m not sick,” Ford muttered.

Stan groaned. And to think Ford was supposed to be the smart one. “Did you miss the part where you passed out on me and I had to carry your ass all the way up the stairs? Or the part where you’re running a fever and shaking like a leaf? Or the-”

He very nearly said or the fact that your bathroom is covered in blood, but pulled up at the last moment. He wanted to ask about that-or, well, in a way he wanted to ask about that, and in another way he very much did not want to ask about it at all-but that was a discussion he wasn’t sure either of them were up to just now.

“I’m fine,” Ford said, apparently not noticing Stan’s stumble.

Stan rubbed at his eyes. He was very tired. “Look, Ford, can we just-can we just wait until morning? Can we talk about this then? Because I can’t go anywhere right now anyway, and you need to sleep-”

“I can’t sleep,” Ford snapped, and then immediately put the lie to his own words by letting out a jaw-cracking yawn. He looked horrified and struggled to sit up. “I can’t sleep. And you can’t stay here.”

It shouldn’t have hurt, not after everything else, not when Ford was just repeating the same thing he’d already said a million times. But it did.

Stan looked away. Snow was still falling thick and fast outside in swirls that caught the light for brief moments before disappearing into the dark. “You really want me gone that badly, huh.”

“It’s not like that,” Ford mumbled. His voice was thick with fatigue and his eyes were drooping behind his glasses. The valiant efforts of the plucky little space heater were clearly having an effect on him. “It’s not-it’s just-it’s not safe for you here.”

And that had to be just about the funniest damn thing Stan had heard in ten years, because he started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop. It just kept coming and coming and Ford was looking at him like he was crazy, which was even funnier because Ford was the one who had a house full of skulls and weird paranoid scribbling and blood in places blood should not have been, and it had been a very long day, no, a very long decade, and…

“Not safe?” he finally managed to croak out. “Not safe here? Oh my goodness me, whatever will I do? I’ve never been somewhere that wasn’t safe before.”

Ford’s only response was a light snore.

Stan blinked and looked over at him. Despite his protestations, Ford had apparently been unable to hold on to wakefulness; he was sound asleep, slumped back down with his face mushed against the couch and one arm hanging off.

“Right,” Stan said. “In the morning, then.”

He pushed the pillow under Ford’s head and spread the blankets out on top of it, and left his brother alone.

Stan, himself, would have quite liked to sleep, but there didn’t seem to be any clear surfaces in Ford’s house that would work well for that, and anyway he didn’t think he would have been able to fall asleep any time soon. He was tired, yes, god he was tired, but his head was too full, buzzing with more thoughts and questions and worries than he could keep track of, all blurring and tripping over each other in one big confusing mess. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep just yet, even if he could find anything to sleep on. Instead he paced around the house for a while, shivering, trying to figure out what to do, trying to at least stop thinking, and eventually found himself in the kitchen.

Even compared to the rest of the house the kitchen was a disaster area. It didn’t look like Ford had washed a dish in weeks. The sink was overflowing, and the mess spilled over onto the table and the stove and any other available surface. Some of them seemed to have things growing on them.

Stan paused in the doorway, chewing on his lower lip and thinking. There were a few strange odds and ends scattered about-a shrunken head, a throwing star, something’s spine-but, aside from the mess, this was easily the most normal looking room in the house. There didn’t seem to be any important experiments in progress that he might be interrupting, unless Ford was attempting to see if food gunk could become sentient.

Washing dishes was easy enough. He’d done it more often than he could count to earn meals; even he had a hard time screwing that up. And he had to do something, or he’d go crazy walking around his brother’s demented funhouse and worrying at himself.

Besides, he thought wryly as he started consolidating the dish piles, now at least Ford won’t be able to say I haven’t done anything worthwhile.

It went well enough, at first. He let himself sink into the work, concentrating on the motions: scrub, rinse, repeat, not thinking about what was wrong with Ford, or about the fight, or about what he was going to do next, or about whether he really had a chance of making things up, no, none of that, just scrub, rinse, repeat…

He didn’t know how long he’d been there, only that it was full dark outside and he had made a respectable enough dent in the dish pile, when he heard the crash.

He paused in the middle of scrubbing a particularly tough stain off a plate. Had something fallen over? There were certainly enough precarious piles scattered throughout the house…

“Oh man, this body is a mess! What’ve ya been doin’ to yerself, Sixer?”

Stan froze.

It was Ford’s voice, but it…

...wasn’t Ford’s voice.

He heard a door creaking open, footsteps, and another crash, like something-or someone- slamming into a wall.

“See, I can barely keep myself upright! Everything just keeps spinning around-whoops, here we go again!”

A painful-sounding thud. Stan winced instinctively, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t. He knew that was Ford, it had to be Ford, there was no one else in the house-but somehow he did not want to get any closer to the source of that voice.

Not that he had much choice, because by the sound of it the voice was coming closer to him.

“You’ve only got yourself to blame, you know!” Crash. Something rattled and fell over. “I didn’t put you in this state. That was aaaaaaaalll you, buddy.” Bang. It almost sounded as if Ford was deliberately throwing himself into the walls. “Things would really go a lot easier for you if you would just play along already! Not that I’m complaining. It’s pretty funny to watch you try to resist!”

Stan found himself looking around the room for a weapon of some kind, swearing quietly as he realized he’d left his knuckledusters in his jacket pocket, then pulled up short as he realized what he was doing. It was only Ford. He didn’t need to defend himself against Ford.

Did he-

“Wellllllwellwellwellwell, look who we have here!”

Stan turned slowly.

Ford was standing in the kitchen doorway, hands gripping either side of the frame, a wide, wide grin on his face.

Stan swallowed hard. “Ford, I-I think you should go back to bed.”

“You think? I don’t recall anyone asking you what you thought!” That grin was too wide. It almost looked painful. “Last I checked, I was the one who did the thinking and you were the one who ruined things for everybody! But who’s keeping track, eh?”

Ford had never talked to him like that. Ford could be exasperating and arrogant and self-centered, but Stan had never heard anything like that gleeful malice in his voice, never seen anything like that grin.

“Ford-” he began weakly.

Ford cocked his head to one side. “Ya know, I didn’t actually expect you to make it here. I mean, any sensible person woulda given up on ol’ Fordsy a long time ago. Then again, sensibility doesn’t exactly run in the Pines genepool, huh?”

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. There was something wrong with those eyes, but Stan couldn’t pin it down-maybe Ford just looked odd without his glasses. Maybe.

“Now that you are here, though…” Ford took a step forward. He was wobbling at the knees, but he didn’t seem to notice. “What say we make a deal?”

Stan found himself backing up against the sink. Soapy water was soaking into his t-shirt. “What are you talking about?”

“A deal, smart guy! You know all about deals, right? Bit of a deal-maker yourself, aren’tcha? Bit of a hustler? A conman? Lovable rogue-well, bit short on the lovable, but we’ll work with what we have.”

Ford kept walking towards him, step by staggering step, and with every step the voice in Stan’s head insisting that this was wrong wrong WRONG got louder and louder.

“What deal?” he said, trying to back up, but there was nowhere else to go.

“It’s simple! I have something you want, and you-well, you can do a few things for me.” Step. Step.

“Ford, I-I didn’t come here to beg,” Stan said. “I don’t-I don’t want-”

“Really? You don’t want? But there’s so much I have that you don’t! A cozy house, a college degree, a dream job-you name it! Don’t you ever get jealous of that? Doesn’t it make you wish your brother could spread the wealth around a little?”

Stan squirmed, his own words ringing in his ears.

Meanwhile, where have you been? Living it up in your fancy house in the woods, selfishly hoarding your college money because you only care about yourself!

“I can offer you a lot, Stanley.” Ford was real close now, and it must have been a trick of the light that made his eyes seem so wrong. Must have been, even though there was hardly any light in the room to begin with. “Money. Power. Or...ooooh, no. Better than even that. I know what you really want.”

“And what is that,” Stan muttered, scooting along the edge of the sink.

“Why, the love of your brother, of course!” Ford threw his arms wide. Stan flinched. “That’s all you’ve ever really wanted, isn’t it? To be loved. To be wanted. Why else would you come crawling back after ten years just because of two words on a postcard? Why would you even still be here when you came all this way just to get sent off again? You truly are desperate, aren’t you?”

He was close. He was too close.

“I can give you that. You want to be back in your brother’s good graces? Want to be forgiven for all your sins? Want to be pals again just like the good ol’ days? Just say the word, buddy!”

Stan tried to speak, to say...something, he didn’t know what, but his mouth was suddenly too dry. Of course he wanted that. He wanted nothing else more than that, and only a few hours ago he had briefly thought that he would get it, just like that.

You remember our plans to sail around the world on a boat?

But it hadn’t been that simple.

Things were never that simple.

Ford was watching him, and in the dim light Stan could almost tell what was wrong with his eyes, but not quite. His own eyes had never been much good, but Ford was the one who wore glasses, because that was how it worked. Ford was the brains and he was the brawn. Ford was the smart one and he was the one who wasn’t much of anything.

“And what’s my end of this deal supposed to be?” he asked, suddenly feeling far too tired for all this. Was this how Ford thought he worked? That he wouldn’t understand anything unless it was put in terms of a transaction? “Let me guess. You want me to take your book and go far away.”

“Go far away? Absolutely not!” Ford slammed his hand down on the edge of the sink, so hard it made Stan wince, but Ford didn’t even register it. “I want you to stay, Stanley. I want you here so you can help me with this project of mine. It’s almost done. Just needs a few more touches. Nothing complex. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I’m wearing out. You were always the strong one. So whaddya say, Stanley? Stay here and be my muscle? The brawn to my brains? And when it’s all over we’ll have a graaaaaand old time. There’ll be adventures like you wouldn’t believe…”

Ford extended his hand.

Stan looked at it.

Ford had been right about one thing. Stan was a conman and a hustler and, in general, a rogue, though he knew he wasn’t exactly a lovable one. For ten years his livelihood-such as it was-depended on reading people. Reading body language, studying tics, listening for the subtle inflections in a voice that told him what someone was feeling. It wasn’t even something he needed to think about anymore. It had become instinct, an automatic background process.

Which was good, because right now he wasn’t thinking much of anything. Right now his head seemed to be cavernously empty, washed out by that sick sideways grin and that intense stare boring right into him, but somewhere far away all that instinct and intuition still clicked along, and it was telling him, no, it was screaming at him that this person staring him down in the dark kitchen might have looked like his brother and sounded like his brother but it was not his brother.

“No,” he said.

Ford blinked, slowly and deliberately. “No?”

“No, I’m not making any damn deals with you,” Stan said. “You...I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Ford, but I think you’re sick and you need to go back to bed and...and...we’ll figure something out, okay?”

“Figure something out? But we already have! Didn’t you hear me? What could be easier? Just shake on it, and everything will be alright.”

“You really think it works like that?” Stan snapped. “You really...it’s been ten years. Yeah, I want to make up, I want everything to be better, but it’s not as easy as just...just making a deal, okay? Christ, Ford, I woulda thought even you would know better than that.”

Ford stared at him for a long moment. Stan braced himself, waiting for the explosion, waiting for the fight to begin again.

“Hm. Pity,” Ford said causally. “I could have used the extra hands. Oh well! If you’re not going to help, I’ll just have to get rid of you.”

Stan boggled at him. “You...what-”

There was, very suddenly, a knife in Ford’s hand, and it was coming straight for his face. Stan yelped and jumped backward, almost falling on the wet floor.

“Nothing personal, you understand,” Ford said cheerfully, still grinning, swinging the knife wildly. “But I can’t have you around here getting in the way if you’re not going to cooperate, and I can’t have you going away and being a loose end either! Especially not with that journal! It’s just so much easier if I take care of you right here and now!”

“What the-Ford!” He jerked back just barely in time to avoid being sliced across the face. “What are you doing-”

“I’m murdering you! Wow, you really are the dumb one, aren’t you?” Ford was moving fast, too fast for Stan to find an opening in the flashing steel. He tried to edge away around the table, but Ford had him pinned in the corner.

“You know, you oughta hear some of the things Fordsy thinks of you,” Ford said casually. Slice. Slice. Slice. He was wavering, shaking all over, but it only made the swings wilder, harder to dodge. “It’s delicious, really! Let me tell you, you really oughta have taken my deal, ‘cause you didn’t have a chance of making up with him on your own. He hates you!”

Slice. Stan felt the metal, felt the wetness starting to run down his face, but there wasn’t any pain. There should have been pain, shouldn’t there?

“Ford…” He could taste the salt and metal on his lips. “You...you don’t…”

“Oh, but he does.” Ford paused, grinning terribly, blood running down the knife and smearing across his hand. “He does. You think he woulda called you here if he didn’t think he could get some use outta you? But you couldn’t even get that right! Between you and me, pal, he thinks it woulda been better for everyone if you’d just done yourself in a long time ago! Taken a nice, dignified swan dive off the pier and ended a life of ruining everything you touch before it could get started-”

Stan punched him.

Ford went down like a sack of bricks.

Stan stood there for a moment, breathing hard, blood running down his face, staring at his brother lying crumpled on the kitchen floor and feeling the world go distant and strange.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fanfic #fanfic #scribulations #by the skin of your teeth #the stangst intensifies #I don't know if this merits any trigger warnings #but if anyone thinks it does #just say the word and I'll put them on #also I was born in 1994 I feel like I shouldn't be trusted to write fanfic set in the 80s

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Stranger Things: 5 Reasons Why Nancy Should Be With Jonathan (And 5 Reasons She Should Have Stayed With Steve)

Netflix's Stranger Things is not a show that focuses on things like love triangles or high school romances. At least, they don't focus on it much. But they still exist and the biggest love triangle has to be between Nancy Wheeler and the two men in her life: Steve Harrington and Jonathan Byers.

While the two didn't start off on the best of terms, they ended up handling the situation with as much grace as possible, and even developed a mutual respect for each other.

That is why they both have solid reasons that showcase why Nancy should be with them. Let's weigh in on who is the better fit for her with the reasons why Nancy should be with Jonathan

10 Be With Jonathan: He Always Cared About Her

Since the first moment we saw Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers on-screen together, it was evident there were feelings there, particularly on Jonathan's side. Even when he was worried about his missing brother and she was off in her new relationship with Steve Harrington, he still obviously cared for her.

Though his feelings were not fully realized until season 2, there were always the lingering glances and moments between the two that showed that Jonathan cared deeply for Nancy. He even let go of his beef with Steve by the end of season 1 once Steve made amends, likely because he wanted Nancy to be happy.

9 Stayed With Steve: He Was Nancy’s First Love

We can all probably agree that season 1 Steve Harrington was not the best. He was arrogant and selfish and definitely came across like the stereotypical popular jerk we all knew in high school. But regardless of that, Nancy still had feelings for him.

RELATED: Lucifer: 10 Things That Make Sense Only If You Read The Comics

Their relationship ended up growing into something deeper that made them each other's first love. Of course, over that time period, Steve also changed for the better - more on that later - but the truth of the matter is you never forget your first. Being that Steve was Nancy's first love, it stands to reason that it's hard for anyone else to measure up after that.

8 Be With Jonathan: They’re Connected By Their Little Brothers

One of the greatest things is when the person you're dating already gets along with your family. So it's rather perfect that Jonathan and Nancy already have connections to each other through their little brothers.

Mike Wheeler and Will Byers are best friends and also the younger siblings to the aforementioned couple. Time and time again, they have inadvertently brought Nancy and Jonathan closer together.

With all of the high-pressured situations they find themselves in, it's nice that they not only have each other but their younger brothers to keep them all connected when it matters the most.

7 Stayed With Steve: They Balance Each Other Out

Obviously, when we first met Nancy Wheeler, she seemed like the pretty, shy girl that maybe didn't typically fit into the popular crowd. Enter Steve Harrington.

The popular jock with great hair took notice of her and immediately brought her into the fold. You could say that opposites attracted in this case, which actually makes them rather perfect for one another.

Because they are, at times, so different from each other, they also balance one another out. They have a tendency to provide the other with what they need and at crucial moments, too. They manage to bring out the best in each other while still supporting each other in who they truly are.

6 Be With Jonathan: She Has A Nerdy Side, Too

Sure, Nancy became one of the popular kids by the end of season 1 when she fully embraced her relationship with Steve. But before that, the younger boys in her brother's group would make remarks that seemed like she had a nerdy past.

RELATED: Jurassic Park: 10 Questions We Still Want Answered

Apparently, she would dress up and be a part of their D&D sessions prior to her transformation to "cool girl". She may have pushed a lot of that to the wayside when she became popular, but once she started dating the social-outcast, Jonathan, and cared more about her future than what people think, we saw a whole new Nancy. But maybe that's who she was all along and Jonathan merely brought it out.

5 Stayed With Steve: He Is Good With Kids

Upon first meeting Steve Harrington, it's likely you would have never guessed that he would be so great with kids. But by the end of season 2, he was practically a babysitter or second mom, if you prefer, to the younger kids on Stranger Things.

Once he befriended Dustin and helped him with the Dema-dogs, he soon became acquainted with the entire group of pre-teens. He even stood up to bad boy Billy in defense of them, but sadly, he lost that fight.

Still, he has continued his caring friendship with the kids and his mentorship with Dustin. How swoon-worthy is that?

4 Be With Jonathan: They Have Great Chemistry

This may be in part due to the fact that Natalia Dyer, who plays Nancy, and Charlie Heaton, who plays Jonathan, are an actual real-life couple but their chemistry has been there since day 1.

Whenever the two star-crossed lovers are in a scene together, their chemistry lights up the screen and instantly has you rooting for those two crazy kids to finally make it.

It took them longer than we even expected to finally share their first kiss but once they did, there was no doubt that there was a deep connection brewing between the two. It's hard to fake that, and luckily, these two don't have to.

3 Stayed With Steve: He Is Selfless

Steve may try his best to act like he has a hard exterior and is a tough guy. But in actuality, he's a big softy who is truly selfless. Think about it: he left his friends behind when he realized what terrible people they were. He also helped a bunch of young kids he barely knew and put his life on the line for them.

RELATED: It Characters Sorted Into Their Hogwarts Houses

He even respected Nancy's wishes and let her go when he was still desperately in love with her and would have given it a second chance. Guys his age rarely show qualities like that and it's something that should be celebrated.

2 Be With Jonathan: She Chose Him Over Steve

No matter if you're Team Jonathan or Team Steve, the fact is that Nancy, in the end, chose Jonathan over Steve. While some may feel she made a mistake in doing that and that she would have been better off with Steve, others were ecstatic she was finally giving in to her growing feelings for Jonathan.

Regardless of what side of the coin you are on, Nancy must have chosen Jonathan for a reason. And that reason is she couldn't ignore that she was in love with Jonathan, and had fallen out of love with Steve.

At least she is still on good terms with her ex, it seems.

1 Stayed With Steve: He Became A Better Man Because Of Her

It's a rare thing when any person changes for another human being. Hell, it's rare for anyone to change, period. But Steve was ahead of his time and definitely more mature than the average guy because he changed for his love, Nancy Wheeler.

She made him see that he could be a better man and that there was more to life than being the most popular guy in school. Once he realized that, we saw him progressively make changes to who he was and honestly, we couldn't be happier with who he turned out to be. If that isn't reason enough to stay with him, we don't know what is.

NEXT: Stranger Things: 10 Most Heartbreaking Scenes, Ranked

source https://screenrant.com/stranger-things-reasons-nancy-with-jonathan-reasons-stayed-with-steve/

#screenrant

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thecorvidrotation · 7 years

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thoughts from my Raven Boys reread:

highlights include some rambling analysis of Adam and Ronan’s dynamic in the first book, yelling about how Gansey definitely has social anxiety, gushing about the Henrietta library, and trying to accept the fact that this is probably the best book out of the whole series. WOO. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Blue is impatient and vain along with being sensible and I love her for it because it helps her feel so real to me yknow? she constructs her difference so carefully and owns it and all that but unlike most YA protags she still feels BELIEVABLE in spite of how intentional she is about being “different” because she does it in a way that doesn’t feel contrived to me

there may be other issues with the writing in TRC but Maggie got that right good job

“I thought you were dead in a ditch” oh honey just wait :^)))))

I know we talk about Ronan’s oral fixation like.... all the time..... but. Okay I just really love this fidgety boy and his habit of chewing on those bracelets. Someone please get him a fidget cube or something

(jumping ahead to TRK but I loved the detail of Opal chewing on Adam’s watchband, it’s a nice tic for her and Ronan to share and it reminds you that she’s been living in his head for most of his life)

“All night. This was going to bother him all night” did you mean the moment I vowed to protect this socially anxious child with my life

Persephone is working on a graduate thesis?? She listens to angry music when she’s working on it??? Why didn’t we get to explore that more I have SO MANY questions (does she listen to Halestorm when writing like I do omg I would die)

“ARE YOU LISTENING, GLENDOWER? I AM COMING TO FIND YOU!” Gansey..... my nerdy son...... a dweeb.......

The gang doing traditional library research!! Digging through courthouse records of land ownership! Making maps!!!

Honestly I’m probably biased as a current library science student but I would read an entire book about the staff at the Henrietta Library dealing with these weird teens and their magic quest.

.....yeah i gotta put the rest under a read more this got SO MUCH LONGER than I meant it to be just like every other post I make whoops

Still really wishing that I’d gone into TRC without already knowing about Noah..... I mean That One Fan Comic was part of what got me interested in reading TRC but also I’ll never experience the Noah Reveal the way it was intended.... But at least I forgot which chapter that happened in so rereading it was kind of a surprise!

When Declan shows up at Monmouth and says Gansey’s gotten Ronan kicked out of Aglionby and Adam says “I don’t know when you both are going to see that only Ronan can keep himself in Aglionby. Some day, he has to pick for himself. Until then, you’re both wasting your time” like damn Adam, damn

listen those two are still basically in “best frenemies” mode at this point and Adam still gets Ronan better than most of the other characters, no wonder they end up together eventually

Ronan asking Blue if she wants to hold Chainsaw.............. aaaaahhhh god that GETS to me. he’s been acting like he doesn’t like her and doesn’t actually trust her but then he offers to let her hold his baby dream-bird

Ronan Lynch: acts like he doesn’t care, actually cares a whole lot

case in point while rereading TRB i got this really strong sense that while Ronan doesn’t have Gansey’s need to “fix” Adam’s situation, he’s not any happier about it? He doesn’t feel like helping Adam out is any of his business especially when Adam’s so stubborn about it but everything about Ronan in the ch.36 screams that he doesn’t like how things are (and, yknow, Gansey almost got got about 2 chapters before and Ronan’s feeling pretty helpless re: Gansey almost getting got so yeah he’ll fight Robert Parrish bc fuck, he’s gotta do something tonight he can’t just sit this out)

I can’t stand these two okay it’s the first goddamn book and essentially for all their fighting and grumbling deep down Adam and Ronan seem to.... legit respect each other? Or at least, they actually seem to understand what the other’s deal is, while Gansey’s trying desperately to somehow repair both of their situations as best he can and make everything okay because that’s all he really knows how to do (not well tho) and bc he cares about them and that’s how he shows it! But bc he cares about them he doesn’t get how either of them actually work, meanwhile those two are like “he can fuck himself over like this if he wants to idfc” and that. actually makes them better? at understanding the kind of person the other is??

ANYWAYS.

i’ll make all that a separate more coherent post later i promise MOVING ON THO

“Why a boy with a life as untroubled as Gansey’s would have needed to learn how to build such a swift and convincing false front of happiness was beyond her.” Gansey 👏 has 👏 social 👏 anxiety 👏 he’s 👏 my 👏 socially 👏 anxious 👏 son 👏

reasons i find Gansey relatable: (1) absolutely wretched eyesight and (2) a knack for social performance that doesn’t actually drown out the internal screaming but does manage to effectively hide it from everyone else (Gansey is much much MUCH smoother than I am tho which I assume is mainly bc my family isn’t wealthy old-money politically-engaged WASPs like his is, meaning I’ve grown up under comparatively much less pressure to conceal don’t feel)

“Cabeswater was as literal as Ronan was.” REALLY. WOW. YOU DON’T SAY.

if the one who sacrifices and the one who is sacrificed are both favored by the ley line, then Adam sacrificing himself makes him twice-favored which is. pretty intense. no wonder he ends up so very closely tied to the ley line and Cabeswater, huh... it’d be cool if that had been brought up again, maybe some implications that he’d been fated to be Gansey’s magician all along or something, idk

I should probably be emotional over the stuff with Noah’s family and his return and whatever but honestly, I can’t get past the fact that Adam knows how to operate a backhoe. what CAN’T this boy do goddamn

I’m looking forwards to tackling The Dream Thieves again since that’s The Book About My Dear Son, Ronan Lynch, A Horrible Beautiful Boy, but yeah it took me maybe only 3 chapters of this reread to realize that TRB is by far the best book. It set me up for a slightly different series when I first read it, I can’t say precisely why yet but coming out of it (and TDT) I expected some other story than what I got in Blue Lily and TRK.

anyways I’m gonna go back to cleaning my kitchen in order to emotionally prepare myself for the over-the-top bizarreness that is Kavinsky, hoo boy

#the raven cycle #trc #long post #trc reread #the raven boys #buckly up kids it's a wild ride #my post #100 #200

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