there is no witty title, only shivers.
CONTINUING TO BE COLD. BRRR.
BRRRRR.
I'm really struggling to write anything (ASIDE FROM DELAWARE RP HA HA HA) and it is pissing my life off and stressing me out to the maxxxx. I absolutely fucking refuse to hand my exchange fic over to a pinch hitter- IT'S A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE NOW- so I'm doing writing memes and maybe I'll try and write something new and unstressed and maybe, just maybe, I'll get my mojo back.
This is all Falmouth's fault >:O (And also mine. (But mostly Falmouth's.))
If all else fails, I've got the seven hour coachride up to Manc tomorrow. Fretting over a fic's quality somehow stops mattering after that long on a coach. IT'S LIKE MAGIC.
01. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
02. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
03. Write a ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the ficlet; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards! Put the song on repeat because you're a cheating cheater.
04. Do ten eight of these, then post them.
1. Jason Molina- Get Out Get Out Get Out
Wearing someone else’s body is like wearing shrinkwrap, or an ill-fitting suit. Another layer on top of yourself, rubbing against your soul with every step, and you feel like a strong wind would be enough to blow you back out again.
There are things you can do; there are things you can’t. An idiot's guide to possession: run, jump, pick things up- make good use of those opposable thumbs, baby, you’ll miss ‘em when they’re gone- you have a mean right hook. Try dancing. Try laughing.
Things you can’t do: taste or smell or hear, not really, unless you press yourself right up to the edges of your shiny, new skin. Borrowed body means borrowed senses- like listening to the world through headphones. The blood, the heart, you’re wrapped around it but you’re not part of it. Sometimes you can almost feel it-
“Sam,” you whisper. “C’mon. Make me feel it.”
He presses his hand into your back hard enough your borrowed skin will bruise.
You can almost-
2. Dead Can Dance- Rakim
Dean finds Sam sat in the yard, Indian style, head ducked low as he digs up the flower bed with his trowel. There’s a whole damn gardening set, spilled out across the yard- $10 from Walmart for the lot, Dean considers it a personal victory. Sam uses it more than his laptop these day.
“Hey,” Dean says, once he’s a couple feet away. Sam flinches, but when he looks up he’s smiling. His eyes are still kinda yellow, brighter than normal in the sunlight, but it’s fading. Castiel said it would fade. It’s okay.
“We’re gonna have tulips,” Sam says. He tosses Dean a bulb, then turns back to his gardening. He’s humming, a little.
Dean sits down next to his brother and rolls the bulb around in his palm. It’s ugly and small and covered in dirt. Put in the darkness, and it’ll come back out as something beautiful.
3. The String Quartet- God Put a Smile on Your Face
“A boy,” John whispers, all goofy and lovedrunk, tiny baby thing in his hands. “Another boy.”
“Go get Dean,” Mary whispers back. The baby turns into her chest the second John passes him back to her, mouthing at the sweatdamp fold of her nightgown. John looks like he might cry.
“We’re the luckiest people in the world,” he says. He touches a hand to her face- cold fingers. John’s always had cold fingers.
May 2nd. The baby’s staring up at her with wide, unfocussed eyes, and it’s May 2nd.
“Sam,” Mary breathes.
4. Heather Nova- Wicked Game
He knows it’s wrong. Technically wrong. When you’ve got demon blood inside of you, when you can move things with your mind, when you shoot possessed people and you can take a vampire’s head off with barbed wire- ethics kinda go out the window.
Sam always knew they were socially constructed, anyway. Why do you think he wanted to be a lawyer?
And, yeah, it’s illegal too, but he was brought up on credit card fraud, unregistered weapons, that one time they ran out of gas 100 miles away from the hunt and siphoned it out of a truck while Dad stood guard. He’s stolen cars. He’s killed people. Why do you think he wanted to be a lawyer?
He has this dream sometimes. Dean’s face.
Just Dean’s face.
5. Noonday Underground- Light Brigade
“Is this really necessary?” Castiel asks. Again.
Dean mutters something around the salt cartridge in his mouth, squinting down the barrel of his shotgun. He makes a small, dissatisfied noise and turns back to his cleaning.
“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” Castiel adds. “Obviously I want to help. I’m just not sure it’s the most effective way…”
“They’re coming,” Sam says from his spot by the window. He’s been watching since they got here, with his back to the room.
Dean grins. “You gotta use salt,” he says, loading his shotgun with a satisfied hum.
“I’m an angel,” Castiel points out. “I could just use my hands.”
“Yeah.” Dean shrugs. “But it’s more fun this way.”
6. U2- With or Without You
There’s something in the air. Beneath the heavy clutch of smoke and sulphur, there’s something in the air. The wind tastes electric.
Dean isn’t fast enough to catch Sam this time, as he slumps down onto his knees with blood trickling from his nose and his fingers grasping for purchase in the mud. He squints blearily up at Dean, murmurs, “Did I do it?”
“Yeah, Sam,” Dean says. “You did it. She’s gone.”
Sam let out a breathless laugh, the blood from his nose catching in the corners of his smile. He starts to slip sideways, but then there’s Dean’s shoulder propping him up.
“I broke the seal,” Sam says into the crook of Dean’s neck. “Lucifer’s coming now. I can…” He lifts his head up again with a shudder, pupils dilated into pools of black, drug trip wide. “Jesus, I can feel him.”
“Okay,” Dean says. “It’s gonna be okay.”
It smells like rain.
7. Feable Weiners- Ohh Aah
Dean thinks it was a book club or a study session or perhaps over some girly coffee, but the truth is Sam met Jess at a shooting range. He didn’t go often- just when he felt rusty or slow or guilty, and afterwards a different kind of guilt would keep him away for months.
The first thing he remembers thinking about her is that she had a great stance. The second thing, that her hair, tied up loosely at the back of her head with stray curls twisting everywhere, looked beautiful.
Then she hit the bulls-eye, and Sam invited her out for coffee.
“So how’d you get so good?” he asked.
She smiled at him, not even a little shy. “My dad’s big on hunting.”
“Funny,” Sam said. “Mine too.”
8. The Mountain Goats- Love Love Love
The lights are out when Dean gets home, and that’s about when he knows. Dad doesn’t bother with turning the lights on most of the time- he’s creeping out early, or getting back late, or they’re between hunts and there’s nothing he needs to see. Sam’s the big fan of electricity, always complaining about it being too dark to do his homework. When he was younger, Dean was pretty sure he was gonna end up needing glasses.
The lights are out, and that means Sam’s gone.
He finds dad sat on Sam’s bed, in the bedroom him and Dean share. Or shared. It looks like Sam left everything, pyjamas folded, clean socks dumped on the end of his bed.
Dad’s staring down at the floor.
“He’s gonna be dead in a week,” he says, voice rough.
“He won’t,” Dean says. “Sammy’s better than that.”
Dad doesn’t say anything else after that.
BRRRRR.
I'm really struggling to write anything (ASIDE FROM DELAWARE RP HA HA HA) and it is pissing my life off and stressing me out to the maxxxx. I absolutely fucking refuse to hand my exchange fic over to a pinch hitter- IT'S A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE NOW- so I'm doing writing memes and maybe I'll try and write something new and unstressed and maybe, just maybe, I'll get my mojo back.
This is all Falmouth's fault >:O (And also mine. (But mostly Falmouth's.))
If all else fails, I've got the seven hour coachride up to Manc tomorrow. Fretting over a fic's quality somehow stops mattering after that long on a coach. IT'S LIKE MAGIC.
01. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
02. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
03. Write a ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the ficlet; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards! Put the song on repeat because you're a cheating cheater.
04. Do ten eight of these, then post them.
1. Jason Molina- Get Out Get Out Get Out
Wearing someone else’s body is like wearing shrinkwrap, or an ill-fitting suit. Another layer on top of yourself, rubbing against your soul with every step, and you feel like a strong wind would be enough to blow you back out again.
There are things you can do; there are things you can’t. An idiot's guide to possession: run, jump, pick things up- make good use of those opposable thumbs, baby, you’ll miss ‘em when they’re gone- you have a mean right hook. Try dancing. Try laughing.
Things you can’t do: taste or smell or hear, not really, unless you press yourself right up to the edges of your shiny, new skin. Borrowed body means borrowed senses- like listening to the world through headphones. The blood, the heart, you’re wrapped around it but you’re not part of it. Sometimes you can almost feel it-
“Sam,” you whisper. “C’mon. Make me feel it.”
He presses his hand into your back hard enough your borrowed skin will bruise.
You can almost-
2. Dead Can Dance- Rakim
Dean finds Sam sat in the yard, Indian style, head ducked low as he digs up the flower bed with his trowel. There’s a whole damn gardening set, spilled out across the yard- $10 from Walmart for the lot, Dean considers it a personal victory. Sam uses it more than his laptop these day.
“Hey,” Dean says, once he’s a couple feet away. Sam flinches, but when he looks up he’s smiling. His eyes are still kinda yellow, brighter than normal in the sunlight, but it’s fading. Castiel said it would fade. It’s okay.
“We’re gonna have tulips,” Sam says. He tosses Dean a bulb, then turns back to his gardening. He’s humming, a little.
Dean sits down next to his brother and rolls the bulb around in his palm. It’s ugly and small and covered in dirt. Put in the darkness, and it’ll come back out as something beautiful.
3. The String Quartet- God Put a Smile on Your Face
“A boy,” John whispers, all goofy and lovedrunk, tiny baby thing in his hands. “Another boy.”
“Go get Dean,” Mary whispers back. The baby turns into her chest the second John passes him back to her, mouthing at the sweatdamp fold of her nightgown. John looks like he might cry.
“We’re the luckiest people in the world,” he says. He touches a hand to her face- cold fingers. John’s always had cold fingers.
May 2nd. The baby’s staring up at her with wide, unfocussed eyes, and it’s May 2nd.
“Sam,” Mary breathes.
4. Heather Nova- Wicked Game
He knows it’s wrong. Technically wrong. When you’ve got demon blood inside of you, when you can move things with your mind, when you shoot possessed people and you can take a vampire’s head off with barbed wire- ethics kinda go out the window.
Sam always knew they were socially constructed, anyway. Why do you think he wanted to be a lawyer?
And, yeah, it’s illegal too, but he was brought up on credit card fraud, unregistered weapons, that one time they ran out of gas 100 miles away from the hunt and siphoned it out of a truck while Dad stood guard. He’s stolen cars. He’s killed people. Why do you think he wanted to be a lawyer?
He has this dream sometimes. Dean’s face.
Just Dean’s face.
5. Noonday Underground- Light Brigade
“Is this really necessary?” Castiel asks. Again.
Dean mutters something around the salt cartridge in his mouth, squinting down the barrel of his shotgun. He makes a small, dissatisfied noise and turns back to his cleaning.
“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” Castiel adds. “Obviously I want to help. I’m just not sure it’s the most effective way…”
“They’re coming,” Sam says from his spot by the window. He’s been watching since they got here, with his back to the room.
Dean grins. “You gotta use salt,” he says, loading his shotgun with a satisfied hum.
“I’m an angel,” Castiel points out. “I could just use my hands.”
“Yeah.” Dean shrugs. “But it’s more fun this way.”
6. U2- With or Without You
There’s something in the air. Beneath the heavy clutch of smoke and sulphur, there’s something in the air. The wind tastes electric.
Dean isn’t fast enough to catch Sam this time, as he slumps down onto his knees with blood trickling from his nose and his fingers grasping for purchase in the mud. He squints blearily up at Dean, murmurs, “Did I do it?”
“Yeah, Sam,” Dean says. “You did it. She’s gone.”
Sam let out a breathless laugh, the blood from his nose catching in the corners of his smile. He starts to slip sideways, but then there’s Dean’s shoulder propping him up.
“I broke the seal,” Sam says into the crook of Dean’s neck. “Lucifer’s coming now. I can…” He lifts his head up again with a shudder, pupils dilated into pools of black, drug trip wide. “Jesus, I can feel him.”
“Okay,” Dean says. “It’s gonna be okay.”
It smells like rain.
7. Feable Weiners- Ohh Aah
Dean thinks it was a book club or a study session or perhaps over some girly coffee, but the truth is Sam met Jess at a shooting range. He didn’t go often- just when he felt rusty or slow or guilty, and afterwards a different kind of guilt would keep him away for months.
The first thing he remembers thinking about her is that she had a great stance. The second thing, that her hair, tied up loosely at the back of her head with stray curls twisting everywhere, looked beautiful.
Then she hit the bulls-eye, and Sam invited her out for coffee.
“So how’d you get so good?” he asked.
She smiled at him, not even a little shy. “My dad’s big on hunting.”
“Funny,” Sam said. “Mine too.”
8. The Mountain Goats- Love Love Love
The lights are out when Dean gets home, and that’s about when he knows. Dad doesn’t bother with turning the lights on most of the time- he’s creeping out early, or getting back late, or they’re between hunts and there’s nothing he needs to see. Sam’s the big fan of electricity, always complaining about it being too dark to do his homework. When he was younger, Dean was pretty sure he was gonna end up needing glasses.
The lights are out, and that means Sam’s gone.
He finds dad sat on Sam’s bed, in the bedroom him and Dean share. Or shared. It looks like Sam left everything, pyjamas folded, clean socks dumped on the end of his bed.
Dad’s staring down at the floor.
“He’s gonna be dead in a week,” he says, voice rough.
“He won’t,” Dean says. “Sammy’s better than that.”
Dad doesn’t say anything else after that.