Also! No need to go nuts and start making new feeds — the old pru_feed on lj is being migrated as we speak, so just hold your horses! LJ support has me by gunpoint here, folks.

White Wedding pt 2/?

*

The reciprocal signing in Konoha was an enormously complex and politic affair—most of which Iruka missed since dawn of the second day of the third week, one of Gaara’s ANBU arrived at their doorstep.

Iruka’s instinctive draw for a kunai was distracted when Kakashi blurred into the room, stepping neatly and firmly in front of Iruka, looking casual as ever but radiating death as he said, “It’s still early for social calls, isn’t it?”

It was hard to see through the pressed-sand mask, just a gleam of eyes behind it, but Iruka thought that the ANBU looked deeply, deeply unamused, as wronged as any 6-year-old in time-out, actually.

“Yes,” he ground out, and reached to give Kakashi a small, ornamental scroll. “The Kazekage had me deliver this at first light.”

Looking around Kakashi, the ANBU told Iruka, “And I have instructions to extend an invitation to you for breakfast at the guest house with Kazekage-sama.”

“Oh,” Iruka said, voice distant, “I see—thank you.”

The ANBU nodded. “He’ll expect you in an hour,” he said, and disappeared in a choking dust-up of sand that had Iruka sending Kakashi for the kitchen broom.

“I recognize this is ultimately irrelevant,” Kakashi grumbled, dumping out the dustpan, “but I definitely think a storm of leaves are preferable to a sandstorm.”

“I’m glad you said it so I didn’t have to,” Iruka sighed, and went off to find something acceptable to wear.

*

Iruka chose to believe that Naruto squirmed all through milk-and-lemon tea due to an advanced case of engagement jitters, because the alternatives were far too appalling to consider. He suffered a brief moment of inspired insanity and considered pitching a fit at Naruto about premarital sex and talking about cows and milk—but thankfully a furiously-embarrassed Sand jounin shuffled in at that exact moment with a dish of Madelines and to refresh the cream pitcher.

Gaara offered them to Iruka, who took one woodenly.

Despite Iruka’s best efforts to convince him otherwise, Kakashi maintained that since Gaara’s invitation had named Iruka specifically, it freed Kakashi from all obligation to attend. Although, Iruka admitted, it was probably for the best Kakashi wasn’t in attendance to cause some sort of international incident—there was no way he’d allow Naruto to escape from the meeting unscathed.

When Naruto had met Iruka at the door of the guest house, he’d practically glowed with contentment—and the shock of it had carried Iruka through the corridors and into the formal tatami room, where he and Naruto and the Kazekage and about six dozen carefully hidden ANBU were now staring at one another uncomfortably.

“I’m glad you’re looking well,” Iruka said finally to Naruto, rolling his shoulders to try and ease the rising tension.

Grinning, Naruto said, “It was a good trip.”

Iruka was glad to see him happy with someone, anyone—even if it was the Kazekage, and God help them all. After the successive debacles of Sakura and what Kakashi liked, inappropriately, to call “The worst breakup in Konoha history,” of being friends with Sasuke, it was good to see Naruto happy without any strings attached, and Iruka allowed himself a moment of fuzzy-edged affection toward Gaara for putting an unshadowed smile on Naruto’s face.

“Sand has great ramen,” Naruto added.

Iruka bit back a laugh, and Gaara added flatly, “I have engaged the proprietor of Naruto’s favorite ramen stand in order to learn myself how to make noodles.”

Iruka stared.

“I am confident in my ability to master the art,” Gaara assured him.

“Gaara’s awesome like that,” Naruto enthused, reaching for a cookie.

Iruka stuffed another Madeline into his mouth so he wouldn’t do anything foolish like talk or breathe or burst into hysterical laughter.

It was nearly an hour later, when Gaara was finally called away from the brunch for official business, that Iruka finally relaxed, studying Naruto’s faint and constant blush.

“You’re really happy with him, aren’t you,” Iruka said.

Naruto ducked his head—plucked at the edges of his cushion.

“Most people would say you were making a mistake,” Iruka challenged, too casual, “taking on Gaara of the sand, you know.”

And he’d barely finished his sentence when Naruto’s head snapped back up, eyes fierce as he shot back, “And most people still say you’re making a mistake, letting Kakashi-pervert take advantage of you all these—” before he stopped himself, face going tomato-red even as Iruka started to laugh.

“Good,” Iruka said, grinning and reaching over to ruffle Naruto’s hair. “Good—I just needed to know you meant it. I’m happy for you,” he promised, mirroring Naruto’s flush now, “I really am.”

*

“Can you pass me the—thank you,” Kakashi said, taking the stack of bills from Iruka’s hand before turning back to their checkbook. “What were you saying?”

Iruka finished tallying up Konohamaru’s grade (14 out of 100—that kid was doomed to a life of prostitution or highway robbery, Iruka worried) and said again, “I was just saying, I think they’re going to be very happy together.”

Kakashi’s near-constant tapping at the calculator stopped. “Excuse me—are you giving this relationship your blessing?”

Iruka frowned, tapping his red pen on the next test paper. “Why not?”

Kakashi stared at him blankly. “It’s Gaara.”

“I think he’s a nice boy,” Iruka dismissed, turning back to his grading.

“Gaara is not a nice boy,” Kakashi replied, and Iruka looked up to see Kakashi pluck off his reading glasses and slap them down on top of the opened checkbook. “You don’t know him professionally—he’s vicious.”

Iruka rolled his eyes. “Okay,” he agreed.

“I wasn’t aware Naruto was serious,” Kakashi said, sounding stiff and ominous.

Smirking, Iruka said, “I didn’t know you cared. I always thought you felt like Naruto was your annoying stepchild.”

Kakashi raised his brows. “Naruto is my annoying stepchild.”

“And now, you can have Gaara as your annoying stepchild-in-law,” Iruka teased.

“He’s killed hundreds, you know,” Kakashi tried again.

Iruka stared at him for a long time.

“All right, fine,” Kakashi sulked, “I suppose that was a little bit hypocritical.”

*

Four days after Gaara and Naruto’s return to Konoha, Iruka was called to Tsunade-sama’s office so she could ask him if Kakashi was trying to start a war.

“It’s generally frowned-upon when ninja stalk leaders of other hidden villages while alliances are being signed,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words.

“If it’s any comfort,” Iruka said, “from what I can tell, Gaara is actually flattered.”

Tsunade frowned. “That Kakashi views him as a potential threat?”

Iruka shrugged. “That Kakashi cares enough to bully his potential son-in-law.”

Tsunade rubbed at her temples. “Sandaime never had to put up with any of this crap.”

*

I guess I better get crackin’.

AT

THESE

ROCK

STARS

HERE.

I want it baaaaaaack. I want season four noooooooow.

Okay! Also! I know I’ve already put this poll up, but it’s finally like, WORKING. Humor me!

Flicker, pt 3/?

Dean leans over to dial in a number from a magnet on the fridge—and then pulls the door open to snatch a beer. He puts the phone between his shoulder and his ear and pops the top on a counter, and Sam wants to scold him for that, but he doesn’t know if he does that here—if that’s a brother thing or a whatever the hell this is thing, but Dean just gives Sam a preemptive don’t shit bricks about it look Sam would know from any version of Dean.

“Yeah, hey, delivery please?” Dean says, and passes Sam his beer, digging around his pocket with his free hand.

Sam takes the bottle in numb fingers, feels the slick glass against the pads of his fingers, and thinks that Dean will keep his wallet in his back left pocket no matter where he goes, or who he is, or who they are to one another. Sam used to steal Dean’s beers all the time, partly because dealing with his brother long-term occasionally required alcohol abuse, but mostly because he could feel the lingering warmth of Dean’s mouth that way.

Sam remembers feeling bad about it, guilty, like he was taking advantage—but Sam thinks that back then, wherever he was, taking advantage was all he could ever take.

But that’s not true now, Sam thinks, and sets the bottle down, reaches over and threads his fingers—they aren’t shaking, they’ve always known this geography—through the hair at the back of Dean’s neck and draws him in. And Dean’s eyes are wide and amused but kisses Sam anyway, with the tinny sound of the pizza guy in the background confirming their order and the metal frames of his glasses cool on Sam’s cheek.

And Sam kisses—first—the corners of Dean’s mouth, and then the bow of his upper lip, scrapes his teeth on the soft sweet flesh on the inside of Dean’s pout. He licks his way into Dean’s mouth, sliding across teeth and tongue: Dean tastes like hops and Coke and still a little bit like the toothpaste Sam found on the bathroom counter, he tastes exactly like Sam has always imagined.

And it’s that thought the triggers the rush of desperation, of want like a chemical burn under his skin. Sam has been in a haze all this time, still dreaming, but the way Dean’s fingers are digging bruises into his hip is real, and so is the slight chip in one of Dean’s molars—and Sam’s suddenly knotting his fists in the fabric of Dean’s shirt, trying to climb inside.

“Okay,” Dean says when he pushes away for air. “We’ve totally just scandalized Papa Johns.”

“Don’t care,” Sam tells him and leans over to bite at the line of Dean’s chin.

“But they give us pizza,” Dean protests, but Sam decides not to be annoyed because Dean’s sliding his hands into the back pockets of Sam’s jeans. “It’s not like you can cook.”

Sam nips Dean harder for that. “I microwave.”

Dean hisses, and without a trace of irony in his tone, says, “God, you’re hot when you talk about cooking.”

Sam never thought that if he got this he’d get laughter, too, and he’s still laughing when Dean knocks them over onto the sofa and insinuates a thigh between Sam’s knees, slides his hands up Sam’s sides and down again, fingers intoxicating and warm and rough-heavy through the t-shirt—close enough to burn. He feels like after 43 years in the desert, he’s just tripped headfirst into a river, and he doesn’t know what to feel first in the rush of water on his skin.

Dean reaches up, thumb and fingers on the rims of his glasses, pulls them off and sets them on an end table—and it’s so easy and ordinary Sam can’t help but blurt out, “I never thought I’d get this—you.”

Dean stares at him for a long moment, braced over Sam on his elbows, before he says, “What the hell are you talking about? I’m easy. You picked me up at Fenway. And I paid for that beer I was waving around when I met you—I got myself drunk so you could pick me up at Fenway.”

Sam can’t really do anything but stare up at Dean, astonished, because that’s so easy—that’s just plane tickets and being in Boston and forcing himself to watch the Red Sox play. All Sam’s abstract plans to get here before meant selling off parts of himself, trading in pieces he doesn’t think he can lose—but more importantly, trading in pieces of Dean.

He slides a hand round Dean’s side, rests a loose fist at the small of Dean’s back. It takes a while before Sam can swallow down the sob thats lodged in his chest, but he does it, and keeps it down long enough to say, “Still—lucky me.”

*

A day later, Sam spends half an hour digging around his—expensive leather—briefcase trying to figure out where he works while Dean sprawls out asleep, face down on his side of the bed. It’s hard to make himself to when he could just take his pants back off and crawl back under the covers, but when Sam actually picks up the phone to call in sick to wherever the hell he works, Dean—unmoving—mumbles into his pillow:

“If you do not get the fuck out of this house and let me get some God damn writing done, Sammy, I swear to God. I will kill you and find some other hot, young piece to keep as my sexual plaything.”

Sam glares down at him. “Fine,” he says. “But your last book had three typos in it.”

He’s already halfway down the hall by the time hears Dean thud out of the bed, shouting, “What? Where? Son of a bitch!”

It’s Monday and Sam steps out onto the steamy morning street feeling like he can do anything, like he can have anything—and when he hears the sash of the third floor window being thrown open and Dean shouting down at him, “You motherfucker!” Sam thinks, nevermind, nevermind, because he already has it, everything that matters.

*

It turns out Sam works at Ropes & Gray, which is only less terrifying than being told he’s about to go have coffee with Satan—and only because Sam’s not entirely convinced he doesn’t still owe the Prince of Darkness anything for the many and sundry things he did to Dean over the weekend.

And then, once he gets over his panic attack and goes through security, the guy at the metal detector only says, “Morning, Mr. Winchester,” and doesn’t tackle him and call him a fraud or anything. Sam knows that if anything’s screaming, “I JUST PASSED MY LSATS, THAT’S ALL!” at the top of its lungs, it’s not the revoltingly expensive Armani he found in his closet and put on this morning. (He spent part of this morning’s traffic snarl depressed he’s apparently kind of a stereotypical gay man.)

Sam gives himself a mental slap and says, “Morning—” he checks the guard’s nametag “—Curtis.”

Curtis cocks a brow at him and hands Sam back his security tag. “Still can’t remember my name,” he says disapprovingly. “Kids these days.”

Sam flushes. “I’m sorry—I’m just having one of those mornings.”

Curtis waves him through, rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah—for the last six years.”

Elevator’s not much better, there’re two women having whispered arguments into the bluetooth earpieces and at one point Sam’s seriously concerned that they’re arguing with each other from different ends of the elevator. Nobody says hello to him, but it’s still the sleepy part of the morning, when everyone’s letting the coffee seep in—but by the time he reaches his floor there’re women in businesslike heels and men with their sleeves rolled up saying, “Morning, Sam,” and “Hey, Sam, have a nice weekend?”

Sam doesn’t have a corner office, he finds, but he has a window and a potted plant, and a half dozen photographs of he and Dean on his desk—a coffee mug with highlighters in it. He closes the door and sits in his Herman Miller desk chair and stares out across the Boston skyline for a long, long time, soaking in it until ten past eight somebody knocks on his door and says, “Sam? Sam? Hey, we need to go over those S-8s Hellerman’s filing tomorrow.”

*

My recent glomming onto NCIS for my hit of procedural drama-ness has resulted in a lot of throwbacks to teenaged fits of lust — which of course sent me trolling for information:

For those of you who have seen NCIS and remember the throwaway line in S1? About some guy who had tons of bank because he was the original importer of Swiss Army Knives into the country? I THINK THAT WAS ACTUALLY MICHAEL’S DAD. HIS MULTIMILLIONAIRE DAD WHO CUT HIM OUT OF THE FAMILY WHEN HE DECIDED TO PURSUE ACTING. SO BASICALLY: DINOZZO IS MICHAEL WEATHERLY.

This is what happens when you think of NO BACKSTORY for a character because it’s a procedural drama! Michael Weatherly worked in the tape library at ABC after being cut off to support his acting habit! He has a son! His son is named AUGUST. I — ! I — ! It’s all too much for me, really. D: D: D: Why haven’t he and I already made babies? I MEAN JUST LOOK AT HIM. GOD.

Of course, thinking about NCIS makes me think about Michael Weatherly makes me think about Dark Angel makes me think about what an APPALLING actress Jessica Alba was and still is to this day. Like seriously, I’m not kidding. Even though that sexual chemistry in the show (mmm) was sizzling off of the screen? She was just so bad — at everything. Which is only highlighted by the fact that if I’m to get my Michael Weatherly in glasses hit, I have to watch the damn show. Life = difficult.

THIS IS TOTALLY A LETTER THAT RODNEY WRITES ABOUT JOHN. GOD. I’M SORRY. I’LL GET TO HOUSE IN SECOND, I HAVE TO FALL DOWN AND WEEP LAUGHING SOME MORE NOW. God just — “She even makes me pancakes. And Alka-Seltzer when my tummy aches. If that ain’t love then I don’t know what love is.” — it’s SO JOHN AND RODNEY, ALL RIGHT? Clearly I am going through new episode withdrawal something awful.

And in other news, House last night:

Okay so, I don’t have a bulleted list about this episode, either — largely because I don’t think it hit me very hard one way or the other — the Patient of the Week was sympathetic, to me, but that’s for purely personal circumstances (only children who’ve been through seriously bouts of depression: HILARIOUS). But, here’s what I enjoyed:

(1) Chase being smart and figuring things out;
(2) Foreman wavering, because seriously — his job sucks, but his job also rocks;
(3) House and Wilson dosing each other with pills. Also? The scene where Robert Sean Leonard is trying to give that poor woman a breast exam and TWEAKING? Oh my God. I nearly fell off of the couch I was laughing so hard. It was WRONG. And yet AMAZING. I love that I never worry, really, about House bullying Wilson, because Wilson will do something shitty right back; it’s only when Wilson lays down and TAKES IT that I start getting freaked out PTSD flashbacks to Those Episodes Of Which We Do Not Speak.
(4) I LOVED Cuddy’s sentiment at the end — there are worse things to be than Greg House.
(5) Okay, who is not surprised that I don’t like Honey and hate where this is going? COME ON GUYS. YOU HAVE AN AWESOME WOMAN RIGHT THERE — HER NAME IS LISA CUDDY. And she is going to make babies with Wilson AND House. COME ON.

All in all? Good episode, some pretty stellar lines — will probably spend the rest of this season and the next wincing in agony over House dating somebody named after bee spit.

And also? Wilson’s “something personal”? Totally big gay Wilson. Who else is with me on this?

NCIS snapshot: hurry up and wait

Soldiers complained about hurry up and wait, but it afflicted more than the armed forces, and while at least Gibbs had always had something to clean with a toothbrush in the Marines, NCIS left a lot of time for staring at the ceiling tiles and digging through cold cases in the file room. So it really wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t realized the metropolitan police department had stolen one of his people until two days after it had already happened.

“What do you mean, ‘DiNozzo’s out,’” Gibbs snapped.

McGee kept mostly hidden behind his computer monitor. “He said he called you.”

Gibbs looked at his cell phone: four missed calls, two from DiNozzo, three new voicemails. He snapped it shut and then barked, “Well, he didn’t. Where did he say he was going?”

“Something about being farmed out to the DC PD,” Kate said, wandering past with her face buried in a forensics journal. “Morrow okayed it, from what DiNozzo said before he left.”

“Doesn’t anybody remember I’m his boss?” Gibbs growled.

Kate looked up at him and blinked, surprised. “Director Morrow said he sent you an email about it.”

While Gibbs couldn’t, conclusively anyway, prove that McGee was the one who’d started snickering behind him, he saw no problem with handing the man two decades worth of old cold cases needing to be inputted into the modern database and reveling in the look of utter despair on McGee’s face when he realized all the notes were written in longhand.

Gibbs spent the afternoon not sulking and prodding his email, deleting in quick succession all five from Morrow regarding personnel allocation — which Gibbs translated into “I’m prostituting your team. Gird McGee’s loins, he may be next” — as some sort of feeble peace gesture after all of the toes Gibbs had spent years stepping on. Gibbs fired back that he wouldn’t have trampled on anybody if they’d just get out of his way in the first place, and Morrow had written back, “Which is exactly why I sent DiNozzo and not you.”

At five he found Ducky and Abby in the lab discussing the Top Ten Stupidest Undercover Stings NCIS Could Be Conned Into Doing As A Result Of Gibbs’ Neurotic Need To Be Constantly Working — by the time Abby cleared her throat and said, “And then, tragically, as a result of Tony being bullied into trading his ass in the underground porno industry, he’s turned off from women forever and the entire heterosexual female contingent of North America comes after you with golf clubs and tennis rackets and baseball bats — “

“I get it, Abby,” Gibbs said, and then, because he recognized that which he couldn’t change and the fact that there was literally nothing to do, he went back to his house and sanded at the futtock of the ship until he heard Letterman come on.

Day two of Gibbs’ awareness DiNozzo was on loan, day four of DiNozzo being on loan, day six of nothing going on, Gibbs spent half the morning Google searching himself until he found some website called Vault.Com and a screed about his employee management that all but screamed “DiNozzo in a snit.” At four, there was a fire alarm. At eight thirty that night, watching something called “The Gilmore Girls” while he nicked himself six times trying to carve a mermaid for the ship, Gibbs recognized this might be construed as pathetic behavior for a man not considerably older than 37.

On day seven, DiNozzo was in the office when Gibbs stomped in with two extra large coffees from the Cosi on the corner and he viciously quashed an upwelling of something that might or might not have been affection when DiNozzo bounced out of his seat and chirped, “Morning, boss — miss me?”

“No,” Gibbs said honestly. He hadn’t. Prising the lid off of one of his coffees, he asked, “What were you up to with the boys in blue?”

“Consulting,” DiNozzo said proudly, and got cut off from saying anything else when Abby hit him with a sidetackle hug, which was about when Kate strolled in eating a bran muffin and managed to smile through her health consciousness long enough to look a shade too fond for what she claimed were her true feelings toward DiNozzo. Gibbs had always suspected they were better friends than they let on; it could be a liability — they’d plotted to burn his boat, and between Kate’s savvy and DiNozzo’s hutzpah, they might actually singe the damn thing.

“What kind of case was it?” McGee asked, still half-buried in old files and sounding desperate.

“Yeah, Tony, tell us about the case,” Abby cheered. “Was it cool to be back pounding the pavement?”

“It wasn’t pavement they were pounding, Abs,” DiNozzo said smirking. “Illegal porn distro — ex-Marine was the chief suspect and — Abs? Abby? Okay, it wasn’t that funny.”

“Oh, Tony,” Abby gasped, leaning heavily on him and heaving for breath, “you have no idea.”

Gibbs hid behind his monitor, stubbornly keeping his eyes glued to his login. He couldn’t believe nobody in the whole entire navy had managed to do anything to get him out of his God forsaken office.

Because it’s true. Sam Winchester’s BitchFace (TM) of caring, it’s money.

And FOR THE WIN:

Battered spouse John. Note the file name — I like to think of it as a command.

Send Tafadhali email — now, now, now, saying “UR AWESOME!!!1!” at mrtafadhali at yahoo dot com.