comment fic meme!

[mimblexwimble.livejournal.com]

Following the results of the poll we took last month (don't make it easy on us or anything, guys, haha!), we've decided to hold a comment fic meme once every three months. This gives everyone time to write and prompt to their heart's content, and allows us mods to keep up with y'all. And we're starting right now!

SPREAD THE WORD

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THE RULES

→ Leave a comment here with your prompt. This is a Sam-focused hurt/comfort community, so Sam should be the one in the hurt/comforted role. Your prompts may involve sick!Sam, hurt!Sam, angsty!Sam, basically anything that results in Sam being on the receiving end of hurt/comfort. (No rules against whumping other characters as well, of course, but you have to whump Sam first. ;) )
→ In your prompt, please state your desired characters or pairings. All genres/pairings welcome, but no real-person (RPF) prompts.

Example A: “Sam, Dean, gen, set in season 2. Sam has a vision and passes out. Cue caring!Dean and limp!Sam.”
Example B: “Sam/Dean, trauma. Sam is injured on a hunt, Dean freaks out when he thinks Sam might be dead.”

→ Post as many prompts as you like - but one prompt per comment. If you've got a couple, comment with each separately.
→ Prompts can be as short or detailed as you like. Remember though - more detail means less wriggle room for the writer, which might lower the chances of someone picking up your prompt.
→ Go through the prompts! If you find one you like, write a fic for it. There's no limit to how many users can reply to a prompt, or how many prompts someone can write for.
→ When replying to a prompt with your comment-fic, put ‘filled’ in your subject line and then anything else you want, like a title if you have one/part numbers. It’s not a big deal if you forget this step, but it will make it easier for people to find your fic.
→ Anon posting enabled.
→ NO SPOILERS FOR UNAIRED EPISODES.
→ Play nice - no flaming and no character bashing, period. Any comments that break this rule will be deleted without warning.
→ Feedback is catnip for writers. Leave some author-love!
→ No spam comments.
→ Contact one of the mods if you have a question.
→ Spread the Sam love - pimp this meme!
→ Have fun!

THE MASTER LIST

Headache by verucasalt123
Sam has a headache and Dean tries to make him feel better.

Taming the Dragon by mentholpixie
Dean finds out Sam has become addicted to some kind of very hard street drug (heroin, meth, cocaine, something like that) and tries (with or without success, surprise me) to help him kick.

Light Will Guide You Home by tahirire
Sam/Sarah Blake, anytime after they parted ways at the end of "Provenance." Because Sam needs non-monster lovin', and he's into dark-haired girls anyway.

The Shadow Dancer by running_hot
Sam has a high fever. A monster has Dean. The rescue would be going much better if Sam could tell which things were actually happening and which were in his head.

Touched By an Angel by mamapranayama
Fill in the gaps between when Cas took down Sam's wall in that alley, until Dean and Bobby get Sam back into the panic room.

Mo Bhràthair E A' Chantainn by ramblin_rosie
Dean and Sam had their own language when they were children, like twins sometimes do. In long car trips, to signal each other, to communicate in close quarters without their father knowing what they were saying. It faded over time, but now, with Sam so often broken form reality and Dean desperate, remembering that language is what saves them. Post 6x22.

In My Time... by jennytork
Sam on a spinal board. Don't mind why, how whatever, but Sam freaking out due to being strapped down, and Dean reassuring him that it will all be ok.

Eternity by emmram
What if the cage were timeless, or outside of time, and returning to time after being timeless had major repercussions? Physiological, where all Sam's heart rate and breathing rhythms and such were fouled up; psychological, where he no longer knows how to follow a conversation or text or train of thought consecutively without jumping about. Go wild: anything from nausea and dizziness to psychosis. Maybe strong rhythms, like waves or music with a regular beat, help ground him. Or sex, if you wanted to go the pairing route.

don't let me know we're invisible by mimblexwimble
ean finds out Sam has become addicted to some kind of very hard street drug (heroin, meth, cocaine, something like that) and tries (with or without success, surprise me) to help him kick.

Real by brokenangel6662
Post-6x22. Sam falls apart. Dean tries to help. That is all.

Folk Rememdies by anonymous
Giant jellyfish. Sam's in the water. Dean isn't. GO!

Into the Night by youaredriving
Sam starts sleepwalking - he walks into the cold night air (not very healthy), he hurts himself while asleep (like cutting or banging his head)

Turn Your Back by vail_kagami
From Cas's POV. Post 6x22. During one of Sam's worst breaks, Dean clings to his brother in just another cheap motel room that make up their lives. He holds Sam and whispers and tries to soothe him, desperation radiating off him as Sam gets worse. Unseen, Castiel watches the two people who'd called him family. He either doesn't know why he feels compelled to watch them suffer like this or realizes he still feels something for them (love/remorse). Would prefer no romantic attachments.

Untitled by verucasalt123
Sam smokes cigarettes. He knows it's a bad habit. He knows he smokes way more than he should. He keeps on smoking anyway.

Automatic Reflex by monicawoe
Sam lifts a car. Of course, Sam throws his back out doing it.

Near Miss by laurificus
Sam does not want to be comforted. Dean is like, 'Yeah well I don't want to make you feel better anyway'

Vegetable Pot Pie by ennyousai
Dean has to feed up a Sam who doesn't trust the world around him. Dean is the only person he sorta kinda trusts; he won't accept food unless Dean is the one who prepares it and offers it. Cue lots of cooking!Dean, talking soothingly and acclimating Sam to a domestic routine.

To Hold Your Broken Soul by authoressnebula
I just kind of loved remembering-hell!Sam, and would like to see more of him. Especially some physical h/c. Sam’s face is burned and he looks like he could use a Dean to clean him up and take care of him, you know? And if you want to move on to emotional h/c after that, that’s fine too.

Spiders from Mars by anonymous
Sam loses his hair (reason up to you) and he is embarrassed by his lumpy skull. Depending on the cause of the hair loss, I can actually see this as being either really lulzy or really sad and either is okay with me.

Most Likely To... by monicawoe
Sam meets old friends from Stanford and they don't recognize him, what with him and Dean swooping in all huge and violent with guns and knives and arcane rituals to rescue them all from some horrifying eldritch creature. And then his friends are all, "OMG! It's Psycho Sam who was a closet satanist and was wanted by the FBI!" And Sam is very conspicuously injured, but he and Dean can't stop to patch him up because the eldritch creature is still trying to rip their throats out. And Sam's feelings are hurt because his old friends are scared of him now.

And They Cry to See Your Face by honeylocusttree
Sam meets old friends from Stanford and they don't recognize him, what with him and Dean swooping in all huge and violent with guns and knives and arcane rituals to rescue them all from some horrifying eldritch creature. And then his friends are all, "OMG! It's Psycho Sam who was a closet satanist and was wanted by the FBI!" And Sam is very conspicuously injured, but he and Dean can't stop to patch him up because the eldritch creature is still trying to rip their throats out. And Sam's feelings are hurt because his old friends are scared of him now.

Cold Hard Truth by jpunkin
Sam suddenly knows when people are lying.

Bleed as it Grows by transfixeddream
Post-6.22. One comparatively minor issue in the mile-long list of all the ways Sam's been screwed up by the destruction of the Wall is the fact that he can't shave himself anymore. But it's eating at him, not just because he's irritated by the way being unshaven looks and feels so much as it is the principle of it-- the fact that he's so freaking scared to do something that used to be so easy before. But so much as touching a razor freaks him out because of all the unpleasant associations he now has with razors and blades in general, let alone scraping one across his face, and he can't get over it. Dean realizes it's upsetting him and decides to help out.

Alone Without You by tattooeddevil
Sam has a terminal heart condition. Dean rents a beach house.

It's All Fun and Games by cherry916
Sam and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Haircut

Do I Not Bleed? by greeneyes_fan
Robo!Sam is still human, even if he doesn't sleep. He comes down with a really horrific case of the 'flu: fever, chills, that nasty cough that settles right in your chest and makes it hurt to breathe, aching muscles, the whole nine yards. Dean knows how to deal with Sam when he's sick, but Robo!Sam is a whole other matter. How do you take care of a guy who not only views this sickness as just an annoying inconvenience and resists any and all forms of caretaking, but also can't/won't sleep which is the main thing that would help?

The Language of Angels by monicawoe
Post 6x22. Sometimes Sam's breaks aren't too disasterous, sometimes they're catastrophic. He'll scream and tremble and speak only enochian. Desperate to help, Dean, haltingly, learns some broken Enochian words so he can try to reach his brother. Gen preferred.

Pandamonium by mamapranayama
Sam gets mauled by an escaped panda or other cuddly animal at the zoo.

The Other Brother by radiumgirl
Sam and Adam are pulled from the cage at the same time. Sam is not right, and Adam, stuck as his caretaker, is not pleased (the reason for Adam not being the same kind of drooling mess is up to the author). Basically, Adam really really doesn't want to care and holds onto his resentment for dear life, but Sam is all psychotic and hopeless so it's kind of hard. Cue grudging compassion and Adam dragging Sam around the country, hitchhiking with truckers and stuff while trying to keep Sam's lunacy on the down-low, in search of anyone else who wants to take him, anyone at all. When he finally gets his chance to be rid of Sam for good and for keeps, he barely has one foot out the door before he notices Dean/Bobby/the psychiatric nurse/whoever trying to calm Sam down and doing it all wrong. Breaking up is so hard to do.

Big Brothers and Hot Dogs Never Mix by cherry916
Sam gets sick in the Impala. Not just a little, we're talking projectile vomiting, splattering and making a big huge mess. Any season, but not pre-series. Gen, please.

Relief by si_star_x
After a bad fall Sam badly bruises and/or cracks quite a few ribs, he's in agony and relies on Dean to help him through his simple everyday tasks.

Misplaced Comment Fic by greeneyes_fan
Hilarious. Cas rocks! No wait, you rock!

Where There's Smoke by roque_clasique
Sam smokes cigarettes. He knows it's a bad habit. He knows he smokes way more than he should. He keeps on smoking anyway.

True Colors tifaching
CRACK. Or whatever. Castiel and Balthazar go on a roadtrip together in order to rediscover their inner peacocks. (Don't ask, it's an angel thing.) Unfortunately, things go horribly awry and Sam ends up getting pecked half to death when the peacocks turn murderous. Luckily for him, Dean is awesome.

Mirror, Mirror purplehrdwonder
There's an old belief that you see your soul when you look into a mirror. Sam's soul has been in the Cage for hundreds of years. What does he see when he looks at his own reflection? What's in the mirror, staring back at him every morning when he tries to shave?

My life on paper glovered
Seems like after what happened when the wall fell, Sam's brain periodically reverts to amnesia under stress. He doesn't go into a coma, but whatever random triggers he has for his hell flashbacks, his consciousness sidesteps them by becoming blank!slate!Sam.

Sam's Soul brokenangel662
Sam's soul watches, terrified and desperately wanting to join his body as it gets dragged from the cage.

Another Point of View ceedeeandco
Post-wall: It’s not that Sam is hallucinating so much as he’s now capable of seeing into other dimensions. Which, of course, to the untrained eye, comes off as Sam hallucinating. Dean, unfortunately, is an untrained eye, and the inter-dimensional being who might have formerly conveniently let Dean in on the secret is currently off playing God somewhere. So, Dean is going to go with the “Sam hallucinates ALL THE TIME” theory and acts accordingly. Does he ever figure it out?

Metronome geek_chic_girl
OK, this is an odd idea I've had kicking around since 5.22. What if the cage were timeless, or outside of time, and returning to time after being timeless had major repercussions? Physiological, where all Sam's heart rate and breathing rhythms and such were fouled up; psychological, where he no longer knows how to follow a conversation or text or train of thought consecutively without jumping about.

Your Name in Lights by honeylocusttree
What torments Sam most about his memories of the Cage, after he gets a tenuous grip on the flashbacks and fear, is how he broke there: in the worst way a Winchester could possibly break. He remembers wishing Dean was there instead of him. Dean assumes that Sam is miserable and ashamed because of something done to him, instead of anything he'd done, and Sam is inconsolable. Does Dean ever figure it out? Can Sam ever move on?

Along Came a Spider by mamapranayama
As many cellars, abandoned houses, rotting warehouses, and other manky spaces as these guys have run through, I figure their chances of getting tagged have to be pretty high. Sam has a run-in with Lactodectrus mactrans, which in turn leads to all the fun and joy of latrodectism. Dean's there to do the motel rool triage (and the big brother thing) when the agonizing full-body cramps set in, of course. Mega-super bonus points and my eternal love for some kind of background plot, especially if it gives Sam occasion to be awesome, but mainly, I'd just love to see him in agony from Black Widow venom.

Lest Thou be Consumed by jpunkin
After being in the Cage, Sam can't even really tell when he's been hurt, no matter how bad it is. He'll get hurt in a hunt and not know till Dean freaks and tells him he's bleeding. He'll wander off barefoot, lost in his head, and Dean will wake up and run after him. His feet will be all cut up and bloody and Dean's panicking that he doesn't know what's wrong with his brother and doesn't know how to help him. Gen preferred.

Unable to Stay by youaredriving
Sam is a bit shell-shocked after a hunt (maybe an innocent person dies? Someone he knew/got to know?) and has blood on his hands, arms, and face. Thus, Dean has to gently remove his clothes, get him into the shower, get in after him, and bathe him. Sam, still very much out of it, is highly compliant. Afterwards, Dean gets him dressed and into bed. Maybe he cuddles with him, and/or tries to coax him out of his stupor.

Just Following Orders by ramblin_rose
Sam shoots his father. On purpose or accident -- repercussions are going to be severe in any case.

You Never Forget Your First by authoressnebula
The boys are arguing. And this happens to be the one and only time that Dean ever takes his anger out on Sam in a violent way. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he was really drunk. Maybe he was cursed. Maybe he was just really angry and he screwed up. The thing is, Sam actually gets hurt, and it's Dean's fault. Cue massive guilt and general awesomeness afterwards.
Brownie points if Sam thinks he deserved it for whatever reason. Or is angry about it. Or somehow scared of Dean.

The Cancer Inside by purplehrdwonder
Dean tangles with a djinn who grants you what you want most, with a wicked sense of what it probably thinks is humor. Dean's pissed at Sam, angry, just wants Sam to shut up and listen and grovel maybe a little bit more because hey, the guy jumpstarted the apocalypse and betrayed Dean. So yeah, Dean wants that. And in this world, Dean gets just that.

Cooler Than Me by authoressnebula
Wee!Sam (5-12) catches the eye of an infertile witch. She kidnaps him and casts a spell on him to make him believe that she is his mother.

Not Exactly Clarence by minviendha
Sam, Cas, gen, sometime in Season 5. Sam gets sick, and Cas is the only one who notices. Sam is ignoring the problem until it goes away; cue Cas trying (awkwardly) to take care of him.

To Be Redeemed by brokenangel6662
Sam falls apart. Dean tries to help. That is all.

Draining by 27_jaredjensen
Sam has the mother of all chest colds, a raging headache, draining fever, wracking chills. By all rights he should be in bed, but people are dying and bones need to be burned and Dean can't do it alone. So here they are, in the middle of a forest in the pouring rain, trying to light a stupid match because of course the lighter fluids all gone...you get the idea, right? One of those no good, pain in the ass, nothing going right, suck-the-life-from-your-bones days. Grumbling but protective Dean would be awesome.

Mother Instinct by norahy
Season 2: The boys are forced to crash at the Roadhouse for a time. Sam is hurt/sick/whatever and in bad shape, and Ellen decides the poor boy needs some serious mothering.

Comments

[kettle-o-fish.livejournal.com]

Post-wall: It’s not that Sam is hallucinating so much as he’s now capable of seeing into other dimensions. Which, of course, to the untrained eye, comes off as Sam hallucinating.

Dean, unfortunately, is an untrained eye, and the inter-dimensional being who might have formerly conveniently let Dean in on the secret is currently off playing God somewhere.

So, Dean is going to go with the “Sam hallucinates ALL THE TIME” theory and acts accordingly.

Does he ever figure it out?

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

That prompt is made of win.

[kettle-o-fish.livejournal.com]

Thanks! XD

[(Anonymous)]

I agree!!!

[kettle-o-fish.livejournal.com]

*nudges a plate of fresh-baked internet cupcakes your way*

[emmram.livejournal.com]

Oooooh. I was totally going to write this. :p

Filled: Another Point of View, 1/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

I see someone else is doing this, and this is... a little odd, but...

Another Point of View

I've been watching Sam Winchester off and on for his entire life. He was doomed from the moment his mother made that deal -- doomed for something, anyway -- and I can smell that kind of thing.

For much of his life it hasn't been safe to watch very closely. I can usually duck demons, but Sam went up against some very powerful demons, and angels? No. Just, no. Even if I were willing to take the risk, we have a policy about angelic entanglements. (So however much we wanted to, we couldn't tell their prophet he was a hack writer and we were giving his material to someone who would do it justice.)

Also, while Sam and his entire family are tragic as all get-out, they are epically tragic, and epic in general. This means my sister likes to watch them, too, and she doesn't put up with competition, so I was completely crowded out after Dean came back from Hell, apart from the period just after the devil got out when Sam was being very sad in a bar while Dean continued with heroic epic things, and that whole time I was too afraid of getting noticed to appreciate it. After the apocalypse fizzled, my sister lost interest, but while Sam with no soul was arguably tragic, he was also entering into black comedy territory, and-- Well, anyway, Sam with no soul made me want to throw up, and then when he got it back things were less tragic and more epic, and all told it's been years since I had a chance to sit back and drink in the tragedy that is Sam Winchester's lost chances, blighted future, endless losses, pride-before-a-fall, doomed loves, persistence in the face of certain doom, battered faith, guilt and self-loathing, fail and fail again...

Sorry, where was I?

(I would like to make it clear that I did not cause any of it. At all. Ever. Mom saw the potential for abuse, and she made sure I would never profit from any tragedy I influenced. If we're observing, it's nothing but that.)

Anyway, Sam was in a private sanitarium while Dean ran around trying to work out how to stop their possibly-ex-angel possibly-ex-friend from rampaging across the universe. It hadn't been anyone's first choice, but then Sam set fire to Bobby Singer's house trying to fight off zombies that weren't there. The damage wasn't as bad as it could have been, but they did have to conclude the hallucinations were out of control. (Actually, Sam had apparently concluded that after discovering he couldn't sleep at Bobby Singer's house because he kept hearing screaming in the panic room, and Bobby decided that after he found Sam trying to smash pixies with a hammer in the salvage yard. Dean was the hard sell.) It was very peaceful there, compared with everything going on outside, so I was happy to sit and take notes and imagine the Winchesters rendered in soliloquies.

Dean visited, a lot, so I wasn't surprised when the nurse told Sam his brother was here. Sam perked up. He'd spent most of the morning staring out the window and swatting hallucinatory insects. Or possibly pixies. (One advantage of sanitariums over hunters' residences was the reduced probability of finding potential deadly weapons under any newspaper you picked up.)

I wasn't surprised when Dean came in. I was surprised to see him accompanied by a neatly dressed young woman carrying a messenger bag. He just about had her by the elbow, in fact, and her posture was stiff enough it was clear she was not at all happy.

My sister.

(No, my other sister. My other other sister.)

Another Point of View, 2/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

Dean got rid of the aide as quickly as possible. "Sam, this is a little strange, but I've got someone who might be able to help." He tugged on my sister's arm. She gave him an icy look.

"Wait," Sam said. His voice was still hoarse. The previous day he'd been screaming at Hell for hours. "She's real? I thought she was like the other girl."

"No, Sammy, this one's real -- really here. A real girl would be stretching it."

My sister coughed. "The other girl is really here, too, although I will note she would have known to clear out if she ever checked her messages."

"What?" said Sam.

"What?!" said Dean.

"What the fuck, Urania!" said I, now an active participant and no longer invisible. Both humans stared at me, and I flushed. Urania wouldn't have looked out of place lecturing on astrology, but I'd been observing, not sharing, and things were really tense, and between everything I was wearing a ratty oversized black sweater and flannel pants with a pattern of little comedy-tragedy masks on them. And I hadn't done my hair.

"Dean -- and Sam -- this is my sister Melpomene. She's been stalking you but has never done anything, so don't get mad. Mel, you already know Dean, but apparently you don't know Polly's gone off the rails--"

"She's been off the rails since we found out angels were trying to end the world."

"I thought you were a hallucination," Sam said. "You looked at me in the shower!"

"You were brooding!"

"Mel, you perv. Polly's been depressed since we found out angels were trying to end the world. Now she's--"

"Killing people," Dean interrupted.

"...To make a long story short, yes, and not being terribly subtle about it," Urania was talking faster and faster, "so of course she got caught, by Dean here and by Euterpe at about the same time, and to keep Polly from getting staked Euterpe volunteered me to come and explain what it is Sam's been seeing the last few months, even though I'm about the only one with no interest in--"

"Polly's killing-- On purpose?" I asked, shocked. "Polyhymnia?" I knew (better than Urania did) Polly'd been more than a little erratic during the not-quite-apocalypse, but--

"You're supposed to be helping Sam," Dean ground out. "Pointing out a hallucination is really a stalker goddess you argue with for ten minutes isn't helping."

"That was never ten minutes," I said, but Urania ignored me.

"The reason Euterpe volunteered me is that Mel has been here a lot, so we are aware that a lot of what Sam has been seeing are not hallucinations in the sense that you usually mean."

Re: Another Point of View, 2/?

[ramblin_rosie]

*DYING* with laughter here--and I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid! XD Can't wait to see more!

Re: Another Point of View, 2/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

and I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!

Wondered if anyone would catch that! Thanks for commenting. More is coming.

Another Point of View, 3/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

Urania's tone was becoming suggestive of the professor she sometimes was. "He was -- you were -- seeing Melpomene even though she was unengaged and should have been unobservable. Mel, I think you said he was seeing aether-gnats?"

"Uh, I think so. I only see them half the time myself--"

"Aether-gnats fly around a plane over and eat natural psychic leakage. They're harmless. Most people get them from time to time. They aren't actually sitting on you, they just think they are, and you aren't supposed to be able see them. They're really there, you just... don't need to swat them. What else--"

"I think he sees Hell every few days..."

Sam glared at me, which I didn't understand until Dean snapped to attention. "Hell? You said you weren't hallucinating Hell--"

"I'm not -- it's different from the flashbacks. Those are..." Sam trailed off, eyes going distant, but snapped back to himself when Dean nudged him. "It's... different."

Urania nodded. "That's what I thought. You're not hallucinating it, you're seeing it."

"...What?"

"Hold on, I brought a visual aid." Urania pulled open her bag.

I groaned, but Urania has extensive experience ignoring people who say they don't want to hear about her physics or metaphysics or Gaia-knows-what. I recognized the folded cloth from, among other things, her attempted lecture on what asteroids in the solar system might become involved in the end of the world. (I couldn't tell you more than that because, to be honest, Thalia and I whispered through the whole thing.) Urania looked around for someplace to unfold it, clearly decided on the bed, and did so, ignoring the way Dean yanked Sam away from her. Sam gave him a bitchface, but actually seemed to be interested in the visual aid.

Instead of the usual solar system, the three-dimensional image which shimmered into view above the cloth was of well over a dozen featureless spheres orbiting one another in a complex system.

Urania touched the sphere in the center. "This one is our reality, but imagine it's a sphere made of curved spacetime instead of a sphere made of curved surface. The things orbiting it are--"

I moaned. "I'm sure they'd rather you explain it with less physics."

Re: Another Point of View, 3/?

[ramblin_rosie]

HEE! I dunno, Dean might actually enjoy the physics angle...

Another Point of View, 4/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, neither of the Winchesters shared my allergic reaction to the word spacetime. In fact, they seemed to follow the setup just fine. "If you look at it in way too many dimensions, Earth and Hell move in relation to each other, and this... thing shows how."

"Yes," Urania confirmed. She shot me a look I couldn't quite read, but which was probably some variant on 'See, they get it, why can't you?' I ignored her. "Among other spheres... this one represents Hell." She tapped one of the smaller spheres, and it turned reddish. "As you can see, the orbit is irregular, leading to Hell and Earth moving closer together and then apart again. The eccentricity isn't supposed to be this extreme, but I'm told after Purgatory emptied, it -- Purgatory, not Hell -- sort of deflated, lost its orbit, and is over here hung up on Yggdrasil, and both Hell and Heaven shifted."

Sam rubbed his eyes. "I'm seeing Hell when it's... close enough?"

"Yes."

"Can it see me?"

"That I can't tell you. But unless the orbits get catastrophically worse, it can't... do anything to you."

"God," Sam said.

"Okay," Dean said, grimly. "Okay. What about the zombies?"

"At your friend's house, right?" Urania barely waited for the confirmation. "And there were zombies there, once. Time. Indiscriminate crossdimensional perception can pick up things which happened in the past. Usually not the future, unless it's seconds ahead."

Sam blinked, startled out of his (beautifully tragic) Hell-contemplating funk. "I think -- I think that might have happened, too. Sometimes it seems like the nurse comes in twice--"

"Routines, yes, that would make it more likely."

Dean nodded. "And the fairies?"

"Probably seeing fairies. Most of them stay in their own plane, so they're more widespread -- um, parallel to Earth -- than you might think."

"What about-- Sometimes I think I hear the staff, in the hall, or -- I think I hear them talking about keeping someone drugged, unconscious, forever." He shivered. Dean looked torn between comforting his brother and not showing vulnerability in front of the big terrible goddesses.

Urania frowned. "I'm not sure about that. I mean, I can't rule out that you are having some hallucinations, just not as many as--"

I straightened. "That? No, that's real." Everyone stared at me with varying expressions of incredulity and/or horror. "What? You've got this room covered floor to ceiling, inclusive, in devil's traps and anti-angel sigils -- some of them in blood -- and salt lines and hex bags and about every other supernatural protective measure known to modern man. At least two-thirds of the staff think you're all Satanists, despite how every time you visit you say 'Christo' to everybody and spritz holy water around. A place that's going to put up with all that because you paid for it is going to be doing some other questionable stuff because someone else pays for it. And Urania, admit it, you made up 'indiscriminate crossdimensional perception' on the spot, didn't you?"

Re: Another Point of View, 4/?

[fourtenpm.livejournal.com]

more to come? this is really fun.

Re: Another Point of View, 4/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

Yes, eventually.

Another Point of View, 5/?

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

Sam looked sick. "Oh, god, I gotta get out of here."

"Mostly it's more senile former Mafia dons," I said, not sure if that helped. "Uh, the staff really like you -- some of them do, anyway -- because they say that even if you're all dangerously insane, at least they can be sure you're here because someone thought it was the best way to keep you safe--"

"Shut up," Dean snarled, even though I was sort of complimenting him. "Sam, it's all right, we didn't know and you didn't choose here anyway. If you're not really hallucinating we can go back to Bobby's -- or somewhere else--"

"Does it matter if I'm not technically hallucinating? I'm still reacting to things that aren't here here."

It sounded like a good point to me, but I elected not to point that out. Instead, I said, "At least you know not to try anti-psychotic medication." (The hospital staff weren't giving him antipsychotic medication; they'd decided he had a neurowhatsit condition.)

Urania reached into her bag again. "I thought you might say that, so in addition to my explanation, I have a partial solution." She pulled something out with a flourish. "These are, to my knowledge, the first inverse aether-glasses." When there was no applause, she elaborated, "Aether-glasses are used by old-world sorcerers to see things not of this dimension. Inverse aether-glasses are meant to let you see only things which are in this dimension. They work in laboratory conditions, but have not been field-tested."

The 'glasses' looked more like goggles, or eye protective gear. They had to be heavy-duty -- the lens equivalents were made out of lots of faceted crystals fitted together, and were probably at least an inch thick.

Dean snatched them before Urania could give them to Sam, looked through them, and frowned. "I can still see you."

"That's because we actually are all the way here. And no, Mel can't phase out like she was before, not now that you know she's here."

"Thanks for that," I muttered.

Sam took the goggle-glasses from Dean, carefully, and fitted them over his face. "I can't see the tentacle-rat things," he said, sounding relieved.

I flinched. "There are Erebus rats in here?" I felt an urge to jump onto a chair, not that that would help. Dean looked equally disturbed. (Dean and rats. Mmmmm.)

"Interstitial scavengers," Urania said before anyone could ask. "I don't know what they're doing here, but they shouldn't be dangerous to a human. Huh. How many are there?"

Sam took the goggles off, and his eyes flickered around the room. "Four right now. It changes. You can't see them?"

Urania shrugged. "We're not human, but we're from Earth. We're not supposed to be in more than one reality at once any more than you are. So, the glasses work at least partially."

"I can't see the leprechaun, either."

"The lepre--"

"Good. Now, for hearing things that aren't here here -- I don't have a prototype, just a proposal." Back into the bag.

I made a face. "Ew, where did you even get that?" It was a hideous Victorian-esque music box with a creepy Tinkerbell-type fairy figure on top. It probably turned in circles when the music box played.

Re: Another Point of View, 5/?

[ramblin_rosie]

Oh, dear. Poor Sam. :D Hey, at least the glasses work so far... and I love Urania so far.

Another Point of View, 6/7

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

"I borrowed it. This utilizes some very complex harmonics--"

"From whom?"

"I'd rather not say. Some very complex harmonics, to amplify sound from one plane of reality and dampen all other sound. It was made for a poet who had a serious thing about fairies--"

As she spoke, Urania had been winding the music box (and avoiding my eyes). She let it play. There was a dull, tinny sort of tune, but also a deeper, outside-human-hearing thrum, and then--

"--what a clever little muse, digging that up."

--we could all hear the leprechaun. Urania demonstrated, by talking and clapping, that it was hard to hear anything but the leprechaun, and there was some confused gesticulation, mostly between Urania and Dean; Sam looked like he was appreciating not hearing some of the other planes he'd probably been eavesdropping on.

"But where did you get it, hmm? Last I heard, after the gentleman died it found its way back to--"

Urania stuffed the music box back into her bag, closed the bag, dumped it on the bed, and sat on it, cutting off the tinny music and the leprechaun. I looked at her for a moment, then turned to Sam.

"What did he say? Name your price."

Sam opened his mouth to tell me, then stopped. "Your history with us. Your family's history with my family."

"Let's not get Clio into this," Urania said hastily.

"My immediate family's history, that I personally know of, with your family going back not further than your grandparents," I countered.

"Mel!"

"He said Taliesin."

"Did he." I glowered at Urania, who put a hand to her face.

(No woman is happy to discover her lover cheated on her with her sister. Taliesin... well. Let's say none of us have inspired any harp music in the last century.)

"I knew he had it, and Polly's life is at-- Is in the balance. Leave it, Mel. So, the music box makes you hear stuff from the fairy world, to the near-exclusion of other things. It should be possible to make a similar one for this world."

Re: Another Point of View, 6/7

[ramblin_rosie]

*SNERK*
Still enjoying this, and looking forward to the conclusion!

Another Point of View, 7/8

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

And that was where Urania stopped, utterly failing to deliver a proper dramatic finish -- she'd obviously been spending far too much time on scientific papers. In the absence of section headings, it took a minute for the rest of us to realize she was done.

"That's it?" Dean said.

Sam grimaced. "Dean, I just want to get out of here--"

"Yes, that's it, unless you'd rather give the glasses back." Urania was trying to un-crumple her bag. "You have an explanation, a partial solution, and you can have more of a solution in a while, assuming you call your friend to release Polyhymnia and allow us to leave unhindered."

"Didn't your sister promise Sam a family history?"

Urania shot me a Look. "Yes, I suppose she did. Maybe she can try to handle that while you deal with checking him out and, first, call Mr. Singer." As she spoke, Urania was pulling a phone from her bag. "I'm calling Euterpe."

"Be sure to mention how Taliesin's doing these days," I shot. She -- three guesses -- ignored me.

Dean looked disgruntled, but pulled his phone out as well. If Euterpe and Bobby were standing too close together, we could get a feedback loop going. Sam glanced at me.

"Is she older or younger?"

That's a more complicated question than it would be for a human, but I skipped the explanation and went with how we'd been playing it the last few centuries. "Older."

"I... was expecting that."

"She's not even oldest. That's..." Again, complicated. "Someone else. She's solidly in the middle. I mean, Polyhymnia's older than she is, and obviously she's not... not... It's this whole stupid situation, you know? She'd never hurt anyone normally. She wouldn't even touch the Crusades, all those troubadours had to handle it on their own--" I broke off. "Family history." Best to get it over with. "Nothing with your grandparents, I've been following off and on since your mother's deal, Calliope took notice after your father died and crowded me out completely when Dean came back from Hell, lost interest after you re-caged Lucifer, but took notice again after Echidna got out, and... that's it. Oh, except I think Clio could do something with you on the research front, and Urania could do something with Dean in her role as Muse of Electrical Engineering -- those two got saddled with all the social sciences and hard sciences, respectively -- but you've always been busy and it's not like they're short on prospects." He was staring at me, even paler than before. "What?"

"You've been... watching, all that time, and you never... never..."

"Not constantly. And I don't interfere with situations I'm observing. Not ever." Except on special occasions, as a gift for Thalia, who likes happy endings. Or, say, now. "That's assuming I could have. Minor goddess of theater, has-been pantheon, versus upper-level demons and angels? Squish."

Sam nodded, but he still didn't look happy. "I want you to stop now."

I snorted. "I have to stop now. It doesn't work if you know I'm here, or if I've directly influenced events."

"Good." He turned away from me, pointedly, and started examining Urania's magic glasses.

Trying to pretend I didn't feel rejected, I turned and left, fading into unnoticeability as I left the room. There was a drugged unconscious person down the hall who had to be plenty tragic. Not up to Winchester standards, sure, but if they didn't want my attention...

Another Point of View, 8/8

[ceedeeandco.livejournal.com]

"Mel! We're leaving!"

Urania had used up her bossing-me-around allowance for the next decade, but I followed anyway, behind Urania and the Winchesters and a flustered hospital administrator wondering why they were leaving so abruptly. The Winchesters departed in the Impala, the administrator went back inside, still flustered, and Urania and I stood in the shrubbery.

"Everything go okay?" asked Thalia, who'd been waiting outside. "Mel, I tried to tell you before they got here--"

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm fine." I leaned against her. "I lost my best tragic people."

"They let Polly go," Urania said, sounding tired. "Now I need to go see about another music box. Warn Calliope the Dvergar may want a really long song in payment, all right? And I may need Euterpe for the harmonics..." She blurred away.

"Talking to Calliope. Just want I want to do," I mumbled into Thalia's shoulder.

"I can call her," Thalia said. "Then I think there's an opera box with our name on it."

********

Aaaand that's it. Thanks for hanging in there!

Re: Another Point of View, 8/8

[ramblin_rosie]

HEE! Finally got back to finish reading--what a hoot! Thanks for sharing!

Re: Filled: Between What's Real and Make Believe

[elliemurasaki.livejournal.com]

Your links both go to the same place.