Kevin Tran
Today's topic is Kevin for de_nugis, written for the Daily December Meme ( prompts post)
I love Kevin. A lot.
Everything about him is just great. I love that from the get-go he has very real person reactions to all the scariness being thrown at him. I like that his name can be elongated to Kevin Translate and that they use his dietary arc (he starts out vegan and ends up subsisting on hot dogs in a grungy boat) to show him giving up on life. He ends up so DGAF.
I tend to really love "you were chosen for this, it is your destiny" moments and the resulting horror. Kevin's situation is so upsetting and important, and he ends up so very lonely. He's forced into this position of saving the world, and has to resign himself to it. He never sees the life as glamorous. I love that he's just generally a good person thrown into a bad situation.
Relationships with other characters
I love the idea of Kevin as this kid who has older, badass friends who think he's great, even though they're not his friends by choice. I love his relationship with Sam and his relationship with Dean and his relationship with Cas and his relationship with Crowley, and how each is nuanced and different. I love imagining he has a tiny, unsquashable crush on Sam, how Sam this hot guy with a protective brother who Kevin sits up with all night, doing research. And although I didn't care for the episodes they were in, I love his mom being totally amazing and standing by him, and how Channing wasn't his be-all-end-all, true love girlfriend, but a normal high school girlfriend, the kind he should have been able to have if he were allowed to be a normal kid.
Hopes & Dreams
I'm sad Kevin's character arc ended. The rest of the show should have sneakily featured Kevin on the path to political office. This conviction spurred writing a fic I'm really proud of, Kevin Tran for President, in which Dean comes back from Purgatory to find Sam working as a barista at a coffee shop near Princeton, watching over Kevin Tran. And my recent minibang, I can see a dream down there, was soulbonded!Sam/Dean featuring Kevin helping Dean find a way to get the angel out of Sam. Dean somewhat blames things on Kevin so Sam won't be mad at him and Kevin is very unimpressed with all events, which is of course my favorite Kevin.
I also wrote a quick fic about how Kevin and Charlie end up living in the batcave (and then they did in canon!) called Not the gravity plan. Then, oddishly and I gleefully crafted this fun story about how the four of them live in the bunker, and suddenly Amelia shows up with Don! Awkward times! Dean of course had met Don once: "Never accept a joint from a guy named Don." - Coincidence? Of course not. Anyway, Amelia and Don are now on the run from Crowley, who is after Sam.
So suddenly everyone is living in the bunker. Sam stays up researching with Kevin. Amelia and Charlie talk cute animals. Don and Dean have awkward talks and Don sort of has a crush on Sam. Everyone has a crush on Sam. Kevin is generally stressed but learning to be ok again. Aaron shows up with the golem. Dean wanders around in his bathrobe realizing he's suddenly part of an army of nerds, how did his life end up this way?
In summation: Kevin Tran ♥
Fic Excerpts
You may stop reading now if you are not into reading unpolished excerpts from above fic.
*in which Charlie tries to help Kevin sell the houseboat
“Of course it matters,” says Charlie the next day when Kevin's rolled out of bed and into the main library room. “We could sell it on eBay!”
“I'm not going to...” Kevin leans toward her to whisper, “I'm not going to sell the boat.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, it's not even mine!”
Charlie doesn't even pretend to look remorseful. She's curled up in Kevin’s purple bean bag chair, proposing illegal activity like it's nothing. “Oh, technicalities." She waves a hand. "The owner was killed by a restless spirit. It's basically yours.”
When Kevin drops his head to the table though, she sighs. “Fine. How about I do all the shady stuff. You just give me the pertinent details. How many square feet did you say it was?”
“I don't even know what that means,” Kevin groans into his arms. He’s not supposed to know about square footage or boat sales. He doesn’t have a job. He didn’t even go to college!
“Ok, we'll look it up later. For now, how about quaint...gently used...” Charlie types out loud. “Waterfront location - ha! Anything else you can tell me?”
Kevin thinks for a second, eyes firmly squeezed shut. “The bed is ok,” he finally says. “But there's very poor ventilation. Also, there was no kitchen. I was living on hot dogs. And there's mold.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll downplay that.”
Kevin sighs, turns his cheek against his sleeve and listens to the scattered click of Charlie's typing.
“Are you ok?” Charlie asks some time later.
“I don’t know,” Kevin says just as he hears footfalls. He lifts his head, then darts a look at Dean, who is currently tripping over the one step and then glares back at it like he’s going to murder it.
Charlie follows Kevin’s eyes. “You know what?” she says louder, pointedly, causing Dean to look away from the step. “I would kill for some coffee.”
“Coming right up your highness,” Dean says, crosses the room to the hall to the kitchen, and disappears again. Kevin cannot even begin to fathom the dynamic of their relationship.
“Go on,” Charlie tells him. Kevin watches her save a couple images of the boat off Google Maps to add to the ad. She says, "Are you still having like, crazy heart palpitations and getting weird headaches?"
"Yeah.” He sinks lower in the chair. “I guess it's part of the prophet thing."
“Sorry. That sucks.”
“But hey, now I get to believe in God and all that for sure,” Kevin says. “My mom and I weren’t even religious.”
Charlie laughs. "No choice now!"
Kevin has to smile at that. Charlie is his favorite person, next to Sam. She’s an optimist and really smart and a good person on every front. Somehow she knows about the prophet thing and hasn’t run screaming.
"Well, all in all, you're doing a good job from where I'm sitting,” she tells him. “I mean, most people would totally freak out. But you're part of something, hanging out in a sweetass bunker with a sweetass library with," she talks out of the corner of her mouth like it doesn't echo in here, "a fineass guy all day, and most of the night. I mean, I'm just saying."
Kevin laughs nervously. He’s stopped demons with slingshots and home made salt bombs, but this crush thing isn’t good versus evil. His face gets hot even thinking about it. Dean would probably kill him if he found out.
“Chin up, Kevin,” Dean says when he comes back. He has four mugs, two of which he puts down in front of Kevin. “Or should I say, drink up. You look like you need it as bad as I do.”
“I don't get a third?” Kevin says, dragging them toward himself.
“The sass,” Dean says. “You and Sam should join a club or something.”
“Yes, I agree,” Charlie says meaningfully. “He and Sam have a lot in common.”
It’s impressive how Charlie can go from his best friend one second and complete traitor the next.
*in which Kevin has never had a crush on anyone like this
When Kevin goes to get Sam after his Library of Congress eBook download finishes, he finds him in what can only be, judging by the arsenal of weaponry displayed on all four walls, the bunker's weapons vestibule.
That is, it totally looks like a weapons vestibule except for the family picture on the bedside table and the bed that takes up half the room. Sam is passed out on it like an angel in the arms of death, his face smashed into the pillow, sheets twisted up under one hand.
Kevin fidgets in the doorway and watches the rise and fall of Sam's back. Sam looks peaceful. He wonders if he should wake him up, thinks he probably shouldn't. They'd stayed up until 6AM the night before researching fallen angels, got a few hours, and then kept at it this morning, books spread out between them and scattered all down the long table.
"Again?" a voice says from an inch behind Kevin.
Kevin would have literally jumped out of his skin if Dean didn't clamp a hand over his shoulder.
Dean pats him twice and says, "Wow, you're bouncing all over the place. Chill."
“I am,” says Kevin. “I am totally chill.”
“Right.”
"Hngm?" comes from the bed, and they both redirect their attention Sam-ways.
Dean steps into the room, right over that invisible line Kevin wasn't sure he should cross. "Morning, Princess."
"It's 8PM, Dean." Sam turns the digital clock just to make the point. It's after dinner and Sam slept most of the day. His feet hit the floor as he sits up. He gives Dean a once over and says, sounding suddenly more awake, "What happened to you?"
"Nothing," says Dean.
"Like hell, nothing."
Now that he really looks at him, Kevin sees that, yeah, Dean has a scrape cutting just over his eyebrow and a bruise on his neck. He didn't even know you could get bruises there, but this one's black and purple, "a real shiner" Dean responds when Sam says, "shit, Dean," and stands and takes Dean's face in his hands. He tips Dean's head to the side and then tugs Dean's shirt down to take a look, a finger crooked on the collar. Even though he exposes a lot more skin, he doesn't even reach the end of it. The bruise must go down Dean's chest.
“Yeah, well,” Dean says, but stays where he is under Sam’s hands.
Sam's hands aren't going anywhere soon, Kevin can tell.
So he recedes from the room as unobtrusively as he can. He hears the door click behind him. That eBook download will have to wait.
In bed later that night, as he listens to the static quiet of his bunker room, Kevin thinks about his life as it is now, the quick road that led him here. How he and Charlie got here two weeks ago but it feels like it’s been forever.
He and Sam have spent nights researching, running on coffee and bright lights. They don't even talk half the time. Instead, they lapse into a mutual quiet, Sam occasionally laughing when the record skips and Kevin yawning when it might be midnight. They shove books out of each others' way when their piles get too unruly at 2AM and only head to bed when their eyes won't stay open.
Kevin's lying under three soft blankets that are almost a century old, a sodium light flickering low and the word of God blurring behind his eyelids. Safe and sequestered away like this, he examines a thought he won't let himself entertain during waking hours. It’s not something worthwhile. He’s not in high school anymore, he tells himself, and it’s not like he actually wants to do anything about it.
Even so, he thinks as he falls asleep, he has never had a crush on anyone the way he has a crush on Sam Winchester.
*In which Jody Mills shows up at the door
This is the day the law finally catches up to them.
Kevin isn't wanted for anything, but he's on the run from demons and that is ten times worse, so when the woman at the door flashes a sheriff badge, well- he might be about to faint in relief.
"Hi there," she says, looking him up and down with obvious concern. "Are Sam and Dean here?"
"Who's asking?" he says, but waves her in when she raises an eyebrow at him.
"Don't worry kid," she says and steps past him to head down the metal staircase.
Kevin texts Sam, "there's a sheriff here I let her in, I'm sorry if you end up in jail again."
The sheriff's voice echoes up, "My name is Jody Mills. I'm an old friend."
"We haven't seen them for a couple hours," Amelia says. "You know how they are."
Charlie says, “Is there anything we can help you with?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. I've been holding on to some of their old stuff. About a dozen boxes that belonged to a mutual friend of ours. Books, I think. The real satanic kind that would get me landed in the cell myself or on the FBI's watch list if I'm not careful. Judging by this library, it looks like they've already got that covered. I haven't even opened most of them."
Don takes care of the boxes. His muscles are the size of...well, they're huge. Meanwhile, Kevin comes downstairs and collapses into an arm chair.
"Sit down and have a drink," Amelia tells him. Then, to Jody, "Sam and Dean are bound to be back sooner or later."
She take a chair. "Hey, thanks. Don't mind if I do."
She's nice. She's got a no-nonsense air about her that helps Kevin calm down a little. Well, it's that or the scotch Charlie pours him from the crystal decanter.
As they talk, feet propped up on boxes marked "Bobby," Kevin leans back and closes his eyes, the glass cooling his hand. He wonders at how his heart is still quick beating, then thinks, it's probably the uppers.
<< Dec. 12: My Absolute Favorite Thing to Do || Dec. 14: Places I love & Cats >>
I love Kevin. A lot.
Everything about him is just great. I love that from the get-go he has very real person reactions to all the scariness being thrown at him. I like that his name can be elongated to Kevin Translate and that they use his dietary arc (he starts out vegan and ends up subsisting on hot dogs in a grungy boat) to show him giving up on life. He ends up so DGAF.
I tend to really love "you were chosen for this, it is your destiny" moments and the resulting horror. Kevin's situation is so upsetting and important, and he ends up so very lonely. He's forced into this position of saving the world, and has to resign himself to it. He never sees the life as glamorous. I love that he's just generally a good person thrown into a bad situation.
Relationships with other characters
I love the idea of Kevin as this kid who has older, badass friends who think he's great, even though they're not his friends by choice. I love his relationship with Sam and his relationship with Dean and his relationship with Cas and his relationship with Crowley, and how each is nuanced and different. I love imagining he has a tiny, unsquashable crush on Sam, how Sam this hot guy with a protective brother who Kevin sits up with all night, doing research. And although I didn't care for the episodes they were in, I love his mom being totally amazing and standing by him, and how Channing wasn't his be-all-end-all, true love girlfriend, but a normal high school girlfriend, the kind he should have been able to have if he were allowed to be a normal kid.
Hopes & Dreams
I'm sad Kevin's character arc ended. The rest of the show should have sneakily featured Kevin on the path to political office. This conviction spurred writing a fic I'm really proud of, Kevin Tran for President, in which Dean comes back from Purgatory to find Sam working as a barista at a coffee shop near Princeton, watching over Kevin Tran. And my recent minibang, I can see a dream down there, was soulbonded!Sam/Dean featuring Kevin helping Dean find a way to get the angel out of Sam. Dean somewhat blames things on Kevin so Sam won't be mad at him and Kevin is very unimpressed with all events, which is of course my favorite Kevin.
I also wrote a quick fic about how Kevin and Charlie end up living in the batcave (and then they did in canon!) called Not the gravity plan. Then, oddishly and I gleefully crafted this fun story about how the four of them live in the bunker, and suddenly Amelia shows up with Don! Awkward times! Dean of course had met Don once: "Never accept a joint from a guy named Don." - Coincidence? Of course not. Anyway, Amelia and Don are now on the run from Crowley, who is after Sam.
So suddenly everyone is living in the bunker. Sam stays up researching with Kevin. Amelia and Charlie talk cute animals. Don and Dean have awkward talks and Don sort of has a crush on Sam. Everyone has a crush on Sam. Kevin is generally stressed but learning to be ok again. Aaron shows up with the golem. Dean wanders around in his bathrobe realizing he's suddenly part of an army of nerds, how did his life end up this way?
In summation: Kevin Tran ♥
Fic Excerpts
You may stop reading now if you are not into reading unpolished excerpts from above fic.
*in which Charlie tries to help Kevin sell the houseboat
“Of course it matters,” says Charlie the next day when Kevin's rolled out of bed and into the main library room. “We could sell it on eBay!”
“I'm not going to...” Kevin leans toward her to whisper, “I'm not going to sell the boat.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, it's not even mine!”
Charlie doesn't even pretend to look remorseful. She's curled up in Kevin’s purple bean bag chair, proposing illegal activity like it's nothing. “Oh, technicalities." She waves a hand. "The owner was killed by a restless spirit. It's basically yours.”
When Kevin drops his head to the table though, she sighs. “Fine. How about I do all the shady stuff. You just give me the pertinent details. How many square feet did you say it was?”
“I don't even know what that means,” Kevin groans into his arms. He’s not supposed to know about square footage or boat sales. He doesn’t have a job. He didn’t even go to college!
“Ok, we'll look it up later. For now, how about quaint...gently used...” Charlie types out loud. “Waterfront location - ha! Anything else you can tell me?”
Kevin thinks for a second, eyes firmly squeezed shut. “The bed is ok,” he finally says. “But there's very poor ventilation. Also, there was no kitchen. I was living on hot dogs. And there's mold.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll downplay that.”
Kevin sighs, turns his cheek against his sleeve and listens to the scattered click of Charlie's typing.
“Are you ok?” Charlie asks some time later.
“I don’t know,” Kevin says just as he hears footfalls. He lifts his head, then darts a look at Dean, who is currently tripping over the one step and then glares back at it like he’s going to murder it.
Charlie follows Kevin’s eyes. “You know what?” she says louder, pointedly, causing Dean to look away from the step. “I would kill for some coffee.”
“Coming right up your highness,” Dean says, crosses the room to the hall to the kitchen, and disappears again. Kevin cannot even begin to fathom the dynamic of their relationship.
“Go on,” Charlie tells him. Kevin watches her save a couple images of the boat off Google Maps to add to the ad. She says, "Are you still having like, crazy heart palpitations and getting weird headaches?"
"Yeah.” He sinks lower in the chair. “I guess it's part of the prophet thing."
“Sorry. That sucks.”
“But hey, now I get to believe in God and all that for sure,” Kevin says. “My mom and I weren’t even religious.”
Charlie laughs. "No choice now!"
Kevin has to smile at that. Charlie is his favorite person, next to Sam. She’s an optimist and really smart and a good person on every front. Somehow she knows about the prophet thing and hasn’t run screaming.
"Well, all in all, you're doing a good job from where I'm sitting,” she tells him. “I mean, most people would totally freak out. But you're part of something, hanging out in a sweetass bunker with a sweetass library with," she talks out of the corner of her mouth like it doesn't echo in here, "a fineass guy all day, and most of the night. I mean, I'm just saying."
Kevin laughs nervously. He’s stopped demons with slingshots and home made salt bombs, but this crush thing isn’t good versus evil. His face gets hot even thinking about it. Dean would probably kill him if he found out.
“Chin up, Kevin,” Dean says when he comes back. He has four mugs, two of which he puts down in front of Kevin. “Or should I say, drink up. You look like you need it as bad as I do.”
“I don't get a third?” Kevin says, dragging them toward himself.
“The sass,” Dean says. “You and Sam should join a club or something.”
“Yes, I agree,” Charlie says meaningfully. “He and Sam have a lot in common.”
It’s impressive how Charlie can go from his best friend one second and complete traitor the next.
*in which Kevin has never had a crush on anyone like this
When Kevin goes to get Sam after his Library of Congress eBook download finishes, he finds him in what can only be, judging by the arsenal of weaponry displayed on all four walls, the bunker's weapons vestibule.
That is, it totally looks like a weapons vestibule except for the family picture on the bedside table and the bed that takes up half the room. Sam is passed out on it like an angel in the arms of death, his face smashed into the pillow, sheets twisted up under one hand.
Kevin fidgets in the doorway and watches the rise and fall of Sam's back. Sam looks peaceful. He wonders if he should wake him up, thinks he probably shouldn't. They'd stayed up until 6AM the night before researching fallen angels, got a few hours, and then kept at it this morning, books spread out between them and scattered all down the long table.
"Again?" a voice says from an inch behind Kevin.
Kevin would have literally jumped out of his skin if Dean didn't clamp a hand over his shoulder.
Dean pats him twice and says, "Wow, you're bouncing all over the place. Chill."
“I am,” says Kevin. “I am totally chill.”
“Right.”
"Hngm?" comes from the bed, and they both redirect their attention Sam-ways.
Dean steps into the room, right over that invisible line Kevin wasn't sure he should cross. "Morning, Princess."
"It's 8PM, Dean." Sam turns the digital clock just to make the point. It's after dinner and Sam slept most of the day. His feet hit the floor as he sits up. He gives Dean a once over and says, sounding suddenly more awake, "What happened to you?"
"Nothing," says Dean.
"Like hell, nothing."
Now that he really looks at him, Kevin sees that, yeah, Dean has a scrape cutting just over his eyebrow and a bruise on his neck. He didn't even know you could get bruises there, but this one's black and purple, "a real shiner" Dean responds when Sam says, "shit, Dean," and stands and takes Dean's face in his hands. He tips Dean's head to the side and then tugs Dean's shirt down to take a look, a finger crooked on the collar. Even though he exposes a lot more skin, he doesn't even reach the end of it. The bruise must go down Dean's chest.
“Yeah, well,” Dean says, but stays where he is under Sam’s hands.
Sam's hands aren't going anywhere soon, Kevin can tell.
So he recedes from the room as unobtrusively as he can. He hears the door click behind him. That eBook download will have to wait.
In bed later that night, as he listens to the static quiet of his bunker room, Kevin thinks about his life as it is now, the quick road that led him here. How he and Charlie got here two weeks ago but it feels like it’s been forever.
He and Sam have spent nights researching, running on coffee and bright lights. They don't even talk half the time. Instead, they lapse into a mutual quiet, Sam occasionally laughing when the record skips and Kevin yawning when it might be midnight. They shove books out of each others' way when their piles get too unruly at 2AM and only head to bed when their eyes won't stay open.
Kevin's lying under three soft blankets that are almost a century old, a sodium light flickering low and the word of God blurring behind his eyelids. Safe and sequestered away like this, he examines a thought he won't let himself entertain during waking hours. It’s not something worthwhile. He’s not in high school anymore, he tells himself, and it’s not like he actually wants to do anything about it.
Even so, he thinks as he falls asleep, he has never had a crush on anyone the way he has a crush on Sam Winchester.
*In which Jody Mills shows up at the door
This is the day the law finally catches up to them.
Kevin isn't wanted for anything, but he's on the run from demons and that is ten times worse, so when the woman at the door flashes a sheriff badge, well- he might be about to faint in relief.
"Hi there," she says, looking him up and down with obvious concern. "Are Sam and Dean here?"
"Who's asking?" he says, but waves her in when she raises an eyebrow at him.
"Don't worry kid," she says and steps past him to head down the metal staircase.
Kevin texts Sam, "there's a sheriff here I let her in, I'm sorry if you end up in jail again."
The sheriff's voice echoes up, "My name is Jody Mills. I'm an old friend."
"We haven't seen them for a couple hours," Amelia says. "You know how they are."
Charlie says, “Is there anything we can help you with?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. I've been holding on to some of their old stuff. About a dozen boxes that belonged to a mutual friend of ours. Books, I think. The real satanic kind that would get me landed in the cell myself or on the FBI's watch list if I'm not careful. Judging by this library, it looks like they've already got that covered. I haven't even opened most of them."
Don takes care of the boxes. His muscles are the size of...well, they're huge. Meanwhile, Kevin comes downstairs and collapses into an arm chair.
"Sit down and have a drink," Amelia tells him. Then, to Jody, "Sam and Dean are bound to be back sooner or later."
She take a chair. "Hey, thanks. Don't mind if I do."
She's nice. She's got a no-nonsense air about her that helps Kevin calm down a little. Well, it's that or the scotch Charlie pours him from the crystal decanter.
As they talk, feet propped up on boxes marked "Bobby," Kevin leans back and closes his eyes, the glass cooling his hand. He wonders at how his heart is still quick beating, then thinks, it's probably the uppers.
<< Dec. 12: My Absolute Favorite Thing to Do || Dec. 14: Places I love & Cats >>