actuallybean

[actuallybean]

I just read your story "Tangled in You" and absolutely loved it! Could you please do a Sam version? 🥺��❤️ ~ @fuiabarcelos

Glad you loved it! I was more than happy to write a Sam version but with a twist! Enjoy :)

✦

You Were Mine*

As death closes in, you and Sam say the words you never dared to speak. But fate—or love—has other plans, and in the soft golden light of a second chance, your hearts finally come home. *Contains sexual material: Minors DNI, friends to lovers trope, Tangled inspired fic, angst, descriptions of blood, near death experience Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @catsinacottage Supernatural Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The lanterns sway gently in the soft hush of dusk, casting trembling halos of gold across the clearing. Strung between gnarled branches and rusted iron hooks hammered into ancient trees, they flicker like fireflies trapped in jars—caught somewhere between memory and magic. Their glow spills in fractured ribbons across the forest floor, filtering through the leaves as if the woods themselves are breathing with the light. It looks like something out of a storybook. The kind you used to believe in.

Back before you knew that monsters didn’t hide beneath your bed—they waited in the dark of the world with claws and teeth and bleeding hearts. Real. Named. Human, even, sometimes. And worse.

You sit shoulder to shoulder with Sam Winchester on the hood of the Impala, the warmth of the engine long gone but the metal still holding the day’s sun in its bones. The night is settling in slow and deep, the stars just beginning to stir behind the velvet curtain of the sky. One by one, they blink into being like distant eyes opening.

You say nothing.

But then again, you rarely do anymore. Not about the things that matter. Not about the ache in your ribs that never goes away. Not about the way his voice used to make you feel safe, or the way it now feels like a ghost when he says your name.

It’s been months since you found your way back into the Winchesters’ orbit—long stretches of lonely roads and salt-streaked motels trailing behind you like the tail of a comet. Years since you last crossed paths with them. Even longer since you saw Sam like this. He’s leaning back on his palms, long legs stretched out in front of him, the soft curls of his hair brushing his cheekbones in the breeze. His profile is backlit by lantern-light, all shadows and solemnity. There’s a quiet weight to him tonight, heavier than usual. You feel it even in the silence—especially in the silence.

And god, your heart aches with the sight of him.

You’ve loved Sam Winchester for years. Maybe forever, in some quiet, untraceable way. Before the world fell apart. Before you became what you are now—tired and sharp and a little bit broken around the edges. He’s always been the soft spot you tried not to lean on too much, in case it gave way.

But hunters don’t get happy endings. That’s the first rule they never write down. You learn it the hard way, over and over again. So you keep it to yourself. You hold it like a secret in your chest, warm and flickering and fragile as the lanterns above.

The cicadas hum their low-slung lullaby. Somewhere deep in the woods, an owl calls once and goes quiet.

You clear your throat, voice barely above a whisper. “Tomorrow’s hunt sounds like a mess.”

Sam shifts slightly beside you, just enough for your arms to brush. His voice, when it comes, is deep and low and thoughtful. “Yeah. It does.”

You glance sideways at him, searching his face. “You think the lore’s right? About the dagger?”

He exhales, slow and deliberate. “Maybe. There’s not a lot to go on. Just pieces. But if it really is a cursed blade, binding her soul to this plane—destroying it should break the hold.”

You nod slowly, watching how the golden light dances along his jawline. You can see the tension there, the way his muscles clench when he thinks too hard. When he worries. When he carries too much.

“And if it doesn’t?” you ask, more gently this time.

His jaw tightens further. “Then we improvise.”

You smile faintly. “You always did like a challenge.”

That earns you the smallest glance. His hazel eyes find yours in the dim light, and for a moment—just a moment—everything else slips away. The world quiets. The stars above hold their breath. And you wonder, wildly, painfully, if this might finally be the moment he leans in. If he might kiss you like you’ve imagined a thousand times before—soft and certain and slow, like he’s been waiting just as long.

But he doesn’t.

Of course he doesn’t.

Sam just looks at you with something unspoken in his gaze, something that flickers like the lanterns, and then it’s gone. His eyes fall away. His hand doesn’t move. The space between you remains heartbreakingly intact.

So you do what you always do. You smile like it doesn’t hurt. Like you didn’t just feel something unraveling inside you, delicate as silk, golden thread coming undone stitch by invisible stitch.

You look away. Back toward the trees. Back toward the stars.

And you pretend.

Because pretending is safer than hope.

✦

The hunt goes sideways.

Of course it does. In hindsight, it always does. That’s the part no one ever talks about in the stories—the inevitable moment where everything spirals out of control, where even the best-laid plans crumble beneath your boots like ash.

You should’ve known the second your hand touched the rusted gate, the moment it groaned open beneath your weight like it hadn’t been disturbed in decades. Should’ve trusted that instinct that curdled in your stomach when you stepped across the threshold of that decrepit manor squatting in the middle of nowhere, all broken windows and splintered wood and ivy choking the life out of the stone. The air inside was stagnant, thick with rot and something older—something wrong.

The place didn’t just smell like death. It felt like it. Heavy. Lingering. Ancient. Like the house had been holding its breath for centuries, waiting for someone dumb enough to come knocking.

Dean peels off to cover the east wing, shotgun in hand, jaw clenched in that way that means he’s expecting trouble. Sam takes the basement, lore book still half-open in his grip, muttering theories to himself as he disappears into the dark.

That leaves you with the attic.

The staircase groans beneath each step as you climb, every board threatening to give out beneath your boots. Dust hangs in the air like fog, glittering faintly in the beam of your flashlight. The higher you go, the colder it gets—unnatural cold, the kind that seeps into your bones and whispers beneath your skin.

At the top of the stairs, the attic door yawns open, waiting.

You step inside.

It’s worse than you expected.

The space is cramped and claustrophobic, lined with cobweb-choked rafters and old furniture covered in stained sheets. But at the far end of the room, framed by a broken, circular window, is the altar.

It’s unmistakable.

A jagged slab of stone sits atop a makeshift dais, soaked in layers of dried blood so dark it’s almost black. The air around it vibrates faintly, humming with power that scrapes across your senses like nails on glass. Carved into the floor in a loose, asymmetrical ring are runes you only half-recognize—some Celtic, some older, some that don’t belong to any language at all. Your fingers twitch toward your radio to call the boys. Your mouth parts—

But you don’t get the chance.

The air splits with a shriek that isn’t human.

She comes out of the wall like smoke and bone, her figure rippling in and out of existence, long hair whipping around her face like a tattered veil. Her eyes burn like coals. Her mouth stretches too wide, shrieking again, the sound rattling through the floorboards and down your spine.

You barely manage to draw your blade before she’s on you.

Steel meets spectral fury in a clash of light and shadow. You duck her first swipe, spin to block the second. Her claws drag sparks off your blade as you parry, backpedaling across the attic floor. She moves like lightning—unnatural and jerky, teleporting between flickers of lantern light. Every time you catch a glimpse of her face, it shifts, like she can’t remember who she used to be.

You slash across her chest. She vanishes. Reappears behind you. Her hands close around your throat and slam you into the altar.

You drive your elbow into her ribs, twist free, and manage to stagger back, gasping.

The room is spinning.

You can taste iron in the air.

She screams again and lunges.

This time, her blade catches you.

You barely see it—not until it’s already buried deep in your side. Not until the heat explodes through your torso and your legs buckle beneath you.

You cry out, stumbling, the pain immediate and white-hot and deep. The dagger rips free as you fall to your knees. Your vision blurs.

She looms over you, triumphant.

But something inside you—some desperate, raw instinct—surges to the surface. Maybe it’s adrenaline. Maybe it’s rage. Maybe it’s just the part of you that refuses to die on your knees.

You slam your hand against the altar.

Light explodes from your palm. Raw, blinding energy floods the runes carved into the floor. The altar groans, then cracks straight down the center with a thunderous crack that shakes the rafters.

The spirit screams.

Not in victory this time—but in rage. In fear.

She twists, writhes, her form flickering violently, breaking apart like shattered glass caught in a whirlwind. She lets out one final, piercing shriek—and then she’s gone.

The attic goes still.

The silence is deafening.

You fall back against the floor, breath heaving, your blood pooling hot and thick beneath you. There’s so much of it. Too much.

Your hand slips off your blade. Your fingers twitch. You try to reach for your radio, try to call Sam’s name, try to say anything—

But the world is already fading.

Your body is cold.

Your blood, warmer than anything else around you, spreads beneath you in a growing stain.

You saved them.

But you're not sure you’ll survive it.

✦

Sam finds you minutes later.

He doesn’t walk—he runs. The moment he hears the altar break and the spirit’s shriek rip through the manor like a siren, he's already moving. The hair on the back of his neck rises. Instinct grips him like a vice. His boots slam against the creaking floorboards as he charges up the stairs two, three at a time, shouting your name, heart clawing at his ribs like it’s trying to escape.

He bursts into the attic in a rush of breath and panic.

“Y/N!”

The sight of you slams into him like a freight train.

You’re lying on your side, slumped in a spreading pool of blood, pale as moonlight. The dagger lies discarded just a few feet away, still glinting with wet crimson. The altar is cracked and broken behind you, runes scorched black, the air still tingling with the last shreds of energy. But all Sam sees is you. All he hears is the wet rasp of your breathing and the whisper of blood dripping onto rotting wood.

He falls to his knees beside you so hard it knocks the breath from his chest.

“Y/N,” he gasps again, choking on your name now. His hands find your wound without thinking, pressing hard against it with shaking fingers. There’s so much blood. Too much. He knows that pressure won’t stop it, not like this, not with a gash this deep. His hands are already slick with it.

Your eyes flutter open at the sound of his voice.

“S-Sam?” you whisper, weak and slurred, the edges of your lips barely twitching into a ghost of a smile. “Hey.”

His throat tightens. “No—no, no. Stay with me. Stay awake.” His voice cracks as he speaks, raw with fear. “God—DEAN!” he screams, loud enough to shake the dust from the rafters. “DEAN! GET UP HERE!”

You wince faintly at the sound. He sees it and immediately lowers his voice again, brushing his palm across your forehead, his touch trembling. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. Just hang on, alright?”

Your hand fumbles for his—blind, searching—and he grabs it instantly, squeezing hard, grounding you to this plane like he can tether your soul to his. You squeeze back, weak and barely there, your skin already too cold.

“Hurts less than I thought it would,” you murmur, almost dreamily. Your eyes drift half-closed again, lashes fluttering like falling feathers.

“Stop,” he whispers, voice breaking. “Don’t—don’t say that.”

His eyes burn, his jaw clenched hard enough to ache, but it’s no use—he can’t stop the tears. They fall silently at first, then freely. Down his cheeks, onto your skin, into your hair. You feel the warmth of them where they land, and your heart aches with it. He’s crying for you.

“You’re going to be okay,” Sam says again, like if he says it enough times, it’ll be true. “I swear to God—you’re going to be okay. Dean’s coming. We’ll get help. We’ll—”

You smile. It’s soft. Painful. Your lips tremble.

“We both know that’s not true,” you say, voice barely audible now. The attic is growing darker around the edges. Or maybe that’s just your vision fading.

“Don’t do this,” he pleads, forehead furrowing as he leans closer, his free hand still pressed hard to your side. “Don’t give up on me. Not now. Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not giving up,” you whisper, eyes locking with his, barely there but burning with the last flicker of something golden. “I’m just… tired. So tired, Sam.”

Your fingers tighten weakly around his. He leans in, closer, trying to hear every last word, like he can collect them in his chest and keep them safe.

“I always wanted to tell you…”

His breath catches. “Tell me what?”

Your smile turns bittersweet. Your eyes shine with unshed tears.

“That I love you,” you breathe.

Sam stills. The world halts around him. Time doesn’t stop—but it bends. In the space between your heartbeat and his, everything else fades.

He shakes his head slightly, as if trying to hold himself together. “Y/N…”

“I should’ve said it before,” you continue, voice so quiet it sounds like wind through dry leaves. “But I didn’t want to ruin what we had. You were always… my best friend. But also…” You cough, and blood bubbles at the corner of your lips. Sam wipes it away with his thumb, hand shaking. “You’re also my everything.”

Tears fall harder now, steady and silent. He bows his head, his forehead pressing gently to yours, breath mingling with yours, warm and desperate.

“I love you too,” he whispers. “I’ve loved you for so long I don’t remember how to be without it. You were—” his voice cracks, and he exhales hard through his nose, struggling for control. “You were my dream, Y/N. My new dream.”

Tears spill down your cheeks now, mixing with his, warm and slow and full of everything you never had time to say.

“And you were mine,” you whisper, with the last ounce of strength you have left.

Your breath hitches.

Your chest rises once more—

—and falls.

Your eyes drift closed.

Your hand slips from his fingers.

And just like that, the world stops.

The lanterns above flicker.

The attic is silent.

Sam doesn’t move.

He just kneels there, forehead pressed to yours, your blood staining his clothes, his hands, his heart. The sobs don’t come right away. Just silence. A silence so complete it feels like grief itself has swallowed the air.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t go.”

But you already have.

✦

“No,” Sam chokes, the word breaking apart in his throat as he gathers your limp form into his arms. His voice is ragged, guttural—more animal than man. “No. No, no, please, don’t do this. Don’t go. Not like this. Not now.”

He clutches you tighter, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other pressed protectively against the wound that’s no longer bleeding but still far too fresh. His fingers are slick with your blood, warm and thick and terrifyingly still. The scent of it clings to him—copper and salt and loss.

He rocks you back and forth like he can sway time, like if he holds you tightly enough, the reaper will lose his grip.

His tears fall freely, silently, dripping onto your blood-matted hair, your pale cheeks, your cracked lips. They mix with the smear of dried blood on your skin, glistening in the low light like the remnants of a storm.

“Please,” he whispers again, the word barely audible, like a prayer swallowed by grief. “Please come back to me. I don’t know how to do this without you.”

His thumb brushes gently along your cheekbone, trembling. He memorizes the curve of your face, the stillness of your lashes, the way your lips have parted slightly—no breath, no sound. He presses his forehead to yours and lets another sob wrack through him.

“Please.”

A single tear slips from the corner of his eye. It falls slowly, catching what little light remains in the ruined attic.

And then—it lands on your cheek.

And the world shifts.

At first, it’s almost imperceptible. A hush. A change in the air. The kind of stillness that comes just before dawn, when the universe holds its breath.

Then comes the light.

Soft. Golden. Not harsh like fire or lightning, but warm and impossibly gentle, like sunlight through old curtains, like candlelight in a sacred space. It blooms slowly from the center of your chest, delicate and shimmering, casting dancing shadows along the walls. The glow pulses once—twice—and then spreads outward in thin threads, weaving across your skin like embroidery spun from the stars.

Sam jerks back slightly, his breath catching in his throat.

“Y/N?” he whispers, eyes wide, heart leaping between terror and awe.

The glow concentrates at your wound, threads of light stitching themselves across torn flesh with supernatural grace. The gash in your side begins to close, muscle and skin knitting together as if rewound by time itself. The blood vanishes. The bruises fade. Your skin warms beneath his hands.

Then—suddenly—you cough.

Violent. Wet. Alive.

Your body arches with the force of it as air rushes back into your lungs. Your eyes fly open, wide and wild and full of confusion. You gasp, like surfacing from deep water, like fighting your way out of a dream.

Sam stares, stunned, mouth agape, chest rising and falling in frantic disbelief.

“Y/N?” he gasps again.

You blink at him, dazed and pale, your voice raw and cracked from disuse. “Sam…?”

He releases a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. It tears out of him as he clutches you again, this time as if afraid you might disappear all over again. He buries his face against your hair and trembles, overcome.

“Oh my God,” you whisper hoarsely, one hand lifting weakly to press against his chest. “What happened?”

“You—” He pulls back just enough to look at you, cupping your face in both hands. His thumbs brush away the tears on your cheeks—your tears, now. “You died. You stopped breathing, you were gone. I thought I lost you.”

You swallow hard, trying to piece together the scattered memories. The altar. The spirit. The pain.

“I thought I was gone too,” you admit, voice shaking.

Sam laughs again, breathless, disbelieving. He leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead—soft, reverent. Then your cheek. Then your lips, desperate and lingering and full of everything he thought he’d never get to say.

You melt into it, still trembling, still trying to understand.

He kisses you like you’re made of light. Like you’re the miracle he didn’t believe in until this moment.

“You came back,” he murmurs between kisses, tears still falling. “You came back to me.”

And for the first time in your entire life as a hunter, as a wanderer, as someone who never thought they’d live to see a happy ending—

You believe in something like grace.

✦

The motel is silent that night.

It’s the kind of stillness that settles like a blanket after a storm—thick with the scent of rain, heavy with the memory of chaos. Outside, the world spins on uncaring, but inside this cheap roadside room, everything is still. Sacred. As if time itself has bowed its head and stepped aside.

Dean doesn’t say a word when the two of you return. He takes one look at your pale face, at the blood crusted along Sam’s collar, and nods grimly. No questions. Just a quiet, “I’ll give you some space,” before disappearing into the room next door, leaving behind only the faintest click of the door as it closes.

Sam doesn’t leave your side. Not for a second.

He helps you out of your bloodied clothes with care that borders on reverence, his fingers trembling as they undo every ruined button, slide off every torn sleeve. He’s quiet, but not from lack of things to say—more like he’s terrified if he speaks, it’ll all shatter again. That he’ll wake up and you’ll still be gone.

He cleans the dried blood from your skin with a warm cloth and gentler hands than you’ve ever felt. His touch lingers, reverent. He bandages your side, kissing your temple when you flinch, murmuring apologies he doesn’t need to say.

You reach for him the moment you’re settled under the covers.

And he comes to you without hesitation.

He slides beneath the blankets, curling his long frame around yours like a shield, like a promise. There’s no space left between you now. No walls. No pretending.

Just warmth. Just breath. Just the soft way his hand cups your cheek like he still can’t believe you’re real, alive, here in his arms.

“I don’t know what happened,” you whisper, your voice fragile, threading through the silence. “But I felt you. When you cried. I felt it call me back.”

Sam exhales shakily, his eyes shining in the dark. He presses a kiss to your temple, lingering there like he’s anchoring himself to you. “Then I’ll never stop crying over you,” he says quietly. “If that’s what it takes.”

A laugh, wet with relief, slips out of you. You turn, nuzzle into the curve of his neck, your lips brushing the pulse there. “Or maybe just… stay with me. For good.”

His hand slides down to cradle your jaw, tilting your face toward his. His eyes flicker down to your mouth. “Is this okay?”

You don’t answer with words.

You kiss him.

Slow. Deep. Achingly tender. A kiss that says thank you and I missed you and don’t you ever leave me again.

And the moment your lips meet, the years fall away.

Because it’s been so long. Years of late-night glances in the rearview mirror. Years of hands brushing when they shouldn’t. Years of swallowing the truth every time your heart clenched at the sound of his voice.

Years of aching, waiting, longing.

And now—there’s nothing left to hold back.

The kiss deepens quickly, raw and hungry and consuming. You feel the shift in him—how the tremble in his hands becomes something heavier, something rooted in need. He cups the back of your head, pulls you closer, as if trying to crawl inside your soul.

You drag your hands up beneath his shirt, palms roaming the hard planes of his chest, tracing the scars you’ve always imagined, learning him by touch. When you tug at the hem, he breaks the kiss just long enough to tear it over his head and toss it aside.

He’s beautiful in the soft motel light, all muscle and shadow and desperate, unspoken love. And he looks at you like you are the miracle—not what happened in that attic.

He’s careful helping you out of your top, careful not to jar your bandaged side. But his mouth is anything but careful. It’s hungry. Worshipful. His lips trail along your collarbone, your shoulder, your breast, leaving behind heat like a map of his longing.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers, voice hoarse and breaking. “I thought you were gone. I thought I’d never get to touch you again.”

“You didn’t,” you whisper back, breathless as his hands stroke down your sides, slow and reverent. “I’m yours, Sam. Always.”

You see it in his face—the way those words land, the way they undo him.

He kisses your ribs, the curve of your stomach, the inside of your thigh. By the time he hooks your underwear down your legs, you’re shaking—not from pain, but from the need of it, from the years you spent starving for this moment.

When he finally slides into you—slow and deep and perfect—it’s not rushed. It’s not frantic.

It’s home.

You gasp, arching into him, your hands gripping his shoulders like lifelines. He groans low in his throat, burying himself fully inside you, stilling for a moment like he’s trying to feel every second of it. Like he needs the proof you’re real from the way you wrap around him.

His forehead rests against yours, breath tangled with yours, bodies locked together in something so much deeper than sex.

He begins to move—long, slow thrusts that rock through you like waves, building heat and pressure with every stroke. His hands find yours, fingers lacing together as your hips rise to meet his, the rhythm gradually growing faster, rougher, needier.

The sound of your skin meeting fills the quiet room, underscored by your breathy moans, the way you whisper his name like it’s the only thing you know.

“Sam… oh, God…”

“I’ve got you,” he pants, voice low and wrecked. “I’ve got you, baby. I’m here.”

His lips claim yours again, devouring. His thrusts hit deeper, grinding against that aching place inside you that has you crying out and clinging harder.

He keeps you close—forehead to forehead, chest to chest—like he needs to feel your heartbeat against his to believe you’re really here.

When your climax builds, it crashes over you like a tidal wave—shattering and white-hot, your back arching off the bed, your mouth open in a soundless cry. He swallows your moans with a kiss, his own release not far behind as your walls flutter around him.

He groans your name like a prayer as he spills into you, trembling, his hands gripping your hips like he never wants to let go.

You stay like that afterward—entwined, breathless, boneless.

His arms tighten around you. His lips brush against your sweat-damp temple.

“I love you,” he says again, voice soft but sure. “You’re it for me. You always were.”

You smile through tears you don’t try to hide.

And for the first time in years, you feel whole.

[actuallybean]

Like Her

History doesn’t repeat. It haunts. And as their little sister bleeds tears onto the ceiling, the Winchesters realize the fire never really left—it was only waiting for her. *Contains lost of angst, f!reader, reader is the younger sister of Sam and Dean (2 years younger than Sam), near death experience, season 1 era Pairing: Winchester!Reader x The Winchester Men Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl @catsinacottage Supernatural Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The motel room stank of old sins.

The sour tang of stale cigarette smoke clung to the yellowed wallpaper, sinking into the worn upholstery like ghosts that wouldn’t leave. Bleach lingered beneath it, sharp and sterile, an unconvincing mask that failed to hide the coppery undercurrent of blood—faint, but there. Lingering. Everything about the place screamed abandonment and aftermath, as if violence had been a guest more than once and no amount of scrubbing could ever quite erase its memory.

Outside, the wind scraped dry leaves across the gravel lot. The neon vacancy sign buzzed weakly, casting intermittent red flickers through the thin, mustard-colored curtains. It was one of those nowhere places—a sagging roadside motel perched off a desolate stretch of Arkansas highway, surrounded by nothing but pines, power lines, and long shadows. A transient's haven. A hunter's hiding place. A graveyard for the forgotten.

Which, of course, was exactly why John Winchester had picked it.

You lay curled on the edge of one of the twin beds, pressed tightly against Sam. His flannel shirt was soft beneath your cheek, and his arm, warm and steady, served as a makeshift pillow. The mattress dipped beneath your combined weight, groaning quietly every time one of you shifted. The sheets were scratchy and pilled, tangled around your bare legs like vines. Polyester didn't breathe, and neither could you—not really.

Across the room, your father and Dean had claimed the other bed. They hadn’t even bothered to take off their boots, still clad in jeans and jackets, belts full of blades and weapons within arm’s reach on the nightstand between the beds. John slept lightly, if he slept at all, hand resting against the butt of his pistol, always prepared. Dean had fallen into a deeper rest, though even he twitched sometimes—restless, ever-listening, ever-ready.

It was strange, being this close to your father again.

After all these years of silence—calls unanswered, holidays skipped, hunts done alone without backup or even warning—his presence now felt like a weight on your chest. Like a pressure you weren’t ready for. His energy filled the room with something cold and disciplined, something grim and thunderous. You’d spent too long trying to forget how much it hurt to miss him. Now that he was here again, you didn’t know where to look, how to sit, what to say.

But you were trying. For Sam. For Dean. You always tried.

Still, your fingers wouldn’t stop trembling.

Even beneath the safety of Sam’s arm and the brittle illusion of rest, your hands were betraying you. Hours earlier, you’d been crouched on the cracked tile of a dive bar bathroom, stitching a jagged gash across a hunter’s abdomen with borrowed thread and shaking palms. The blood had soaked through the towel you’d pressed to his skin. You’d smelled it on your clothes all night. It was metallic and human and real—and when you looked up, halfway through a knot, John had been watching you.

Not with pride.

Not even with the sharp edge of frustration you were used to, the one that came with mistakes and failure and weakness.

No, it had been something else entirely. A quiet, haunted kind of stare. Hollow and heavy. Like he wasn’t looking at you at all—but through you. Past you. Like some long-dead memory had clawed its way back to life in your skin.

Like he thought he was watching Mary.

Like he thought he was losing her all over again.

You hadn’t said anything. What was there to say?

It wasn’t fair. You weren’t trying to be her. You hadn’t asked for her ghost to hang over your shoulders, to follow you into every hunt, to sleep in the silence between your father's words. You just didn’t want to be left behind anymore. You wanted to matter. You wanted to be chosen—if not by him, then at least by the family you still had.

Dean had noticed. Of course he had.

He always saw you. Even when you didn't want to be seen. He didn’t say anything—not then, not after—but when night fell and the motel light buzzed like a dying firefly outside, he let you take the bed beside Sam. No arguments. No teasing. He stayed with Dad.

It was his way of saying he knew. His way of offering you a little distance. A little peace.

Eventually, your eyes began to close, heavy with exhaustion, your breath syncing with Sam’s, slow and rhythmic. You could almost believe it was safe here, if only for a moment. If only because you were together. The room faded around you—walls blurring, night folding over your skin like a blanket. You were just beginning to drift off.

That was when the dream began.

✦

At first, it was just static—thin and harmless, like the low hum of an untuned television. A whisper of white noise under your skin, brushing faintly across the edges of your consciousness. You thought it might be part of the motel room: the failing AC unit clicking in the wall, the buzzing light outside, the sound of Dean shifting in his sleep.

But then it shifted.

The static thickened. Warped. Turned to ash.

Heat bloomed across your skin—sudden and smothering. Not sharp like fire, not biting like pain. It was wrong. It was heavy, a rolling suffocation that blanketed your chest, pressing into your lungs with a furnace’s breath. You tried to move, tried to sit up, call out, gasp—but your body was frozen. Trapped. Limbs useless. Mouth sealed shut.

The motel bed was gone. Sam’s warmth. The polyester sheets. All of it had vanished.

All that remained was smoke.

Thick, black, choking.

And beneath the smoke, something else. A smell that clawed at the back of your throat, turned your stomach, and reached through time to a memory so buried it should’ve been dust: burning plastic, cheap perfume, singed cotton.

Nursery wallpaper curling in flames.

The scent of loss.

The scent of her.

It filled your head like poison. A chemical memory you couldn’t escape, and in the middle of it—piercing through the smoke—came the scream.

It should’ve been your mother’s. You knew it was. You remembered it being hers. But when it tore through your skull this time, it didn’t sound like Mary Winchester anymore.

It was your own voice.

Twisted with the same agony. The same fear. Your throat cried out without moving, raw and breaking, echoing around the hollow, burning space like a warning siren that would never stop.

You were back in that room. The room. The one they’d never let you remember. The one no one ever talked about.

And then you saw it.

The shadows parted just enough for a silhouette to form—just enough for light to bend around it in all the wrong ways.

The yellow eyes came first.

Two blazing orbs, unnatural and wrong, molten with sickly gold light. They didn’t glow—they dripped, slick and wet like oil slicks in sunlight, like gasoline puddles catching fire. The black around them bled into the air, warping it, thickening it. You could smell it—sulfur and rot, rust and something older. Something hungry.

The fire behind it raged and danced, flickering in those yellow eyes like twin mirrors. But the demon didn’t speak. It never did. It didn’t need to.

It just watched.

Like it always had. Patient. Eternal. Like it had been waiting in the wings of your life for years, just beyond the curtain. Watching you grow. Watching you grieve. Watching you try so hard to be brave.

It had waited long enough.

And now, it was stepping through the smoke again. Silent. Certain. Its presence made the floor beneath you tremble, but still your body wouldn’t move. You were a child again—helpless and hollow.

The fire cast light across your face, and the demon tilted its head.

Then, finally, it spoke.

Its voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t echo or boom or rise in a theatrical growl. It was quiet. Almost gentle. Cruel in its softness. The kind of voice you lean in to hear, even when you don’t want to.

“You look just like her.”

The words hit harder than the heat. They slid into you like a knife made of ice, cold and sharp, slicing through your spine with precision.

Because it wasn’t a compliment.

It was a promise.

A curse.

A reminder that this thing knew you—deeply. Intimately. That it had stared into your mother’s eyes once, just as it stared into yours now. That it didn’t see you as a person. Just a reflection. A shadow. A second chance.

Another flame waiting to be lit.

You tried to scream. To wake up. To fight.

But the heat only grew. The fire roared louder. And the yellow eyes stayed fixed on yours, unblinking.

Unforgiving.

✦

You woke like you were drowning.

Air scraped down your throat like glass, jagged and frantic, and your lungs refused to cooperate. You sat up too fast, choking on your own breath, your chest heaving, your body trembling from the inside out. A sob caught somewhere deep in your ribcage—trapped there, swollen and tight like it didn’t belong in the world yet. Your hands clenched in the sheets, knuckles white, nails digging into the rough motel fabric.

Beside you, Sam stirred with a groggy grunt, the mattress dipping as he blinked himself awake.

“(Y/N)?” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep, low and soft like it might soothe whatever storm had gripped you. One hand lifted instinctively, reaching across the narrow space to find your arm, grounding you with the warm press of his palm.

“I’m fine,” you whispered, already untangling yourself from the tangle of sweat-damp sheets and swinging your legs over the edge of the bed. Your voice barely sounded like your own. Flat. Hollow. You didn’t wait for his reply.

“Just a dream,” you added quickly, trying to make it real by saying it out loud. But even your whisper felt like a lie.

“Wait—” Sam sat up straighter, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. The worry in his tone was immediate, cutting through the haze of sleep. “You sure?”

“I just need water,” you said, a little too fast, already rising to your feet. You caught the outline of his frown in the low motel light, his gaze still fixed on you, but you didn’t meet it. Couldn’t. Not yet.

Your bare feet touched down on the scratchy brown carpet, and you moved across the room in practiced silence, stepping carefully between the two beds. Dean was sprawled on top of the sheets on the far mattress, boots still on, one arm hanging over the edge, his pistol tucked beneath the pillow in a way only he could sleep through. Your father was next to him, perfectly still, his body tense even in rest. Both of them were out cold—at least for now.

You slipped past them, breathing shallow, and made your way to the motel kitchenette. Kitchenette was a generous word—it was a corner of the room with a chipped laminate counter, a dented mini-fridge humming faintly beneath it, and a metal sink that looked like it hadn’t seen a proper scrub in years.

The cabinet creaked when you opened it, hinges groaning under their own weight. Inside sat a small stack of flimsy paper cups, each one a little bent or stained with time. You pulled one free with a shaky hand and turned to the sink.

The faucet screeched when you twisted it, the sound slicing through the quiet like a knife. For a moment, nothing came—but then a sputter, then a splash. Cold water burst out in uneven streams, spraying against the paper cup in your grip.

You leaned forward, letting the faucet run as the water filled halfway. Your other hand braced against the counter, your weight sagging onto it like your bones were too tired to hold you up. The edge dug into your palm. You didn't care.

You brought the cup to your lips.

That was when the air changed.

Not a breeze. Not a sound.

Just a pressure.

Heavy. Invisible. Crawling down your spine like a hand that didn’t belong. The temperature didn’t drop, but your skin prickled, goosebumps erupting down your arms, the tiny hairs on the back of your neck lifting as if pulled by static. Your breath hitched halfway through a sip. You froze.

The room behind you was still dark. Still quiet.

But something was wrong.

It was like the world had stopped breathing.

No cars passed outside. No pipes moaned in the walls. No rhythmic rustle of Dean's shifting. The silence was unnatural. Too complete. As if the very air had been sucked out.

And then—you heard it.

A whisper.

Not words. Not a voice. Just sound.

A soft, slithering thread of noise, too low and too fluid to name. It slid across the back of your mind like oil, soaking into the cracks of your consciousness, pooling in the places that still remembered the dream.

Your skin crawled.

You turned—slowly. Too slowly.

And the light above the sink flickered.

Once. Then again.

You blinked, breath shallow, heart thudding against your ribs like it wanted out.

The mirror above the sink caught your movement. Your gaze.

And everything stopped.

Your reflection stood where you stood—same face, same limbs, same rumpled shirt clinging to your damp skin. But it wasn’t you. Not entirely.

Not anymore.

Its posture was too still. Too poised. Like a predator in the moment before the strike. And its eyes—

God.

Its eyes were yellow.

Molten and gleaming, as if someone had poured sunlight into ink and let it boil. The irises pulsed with something ancient and furious, something watching.

The same yellow that had haunted your nightmares.

The same yellow that had looked down on your mother’s burning body.

You opened your mouth to scream, and your reflection did not.

It just stared.

Mocking.

Unblinking.

You screamed.

Loud and sharp and real, this time—your voice tearing through the heavy silence like a blade through paper.

✦

John shot upright with a gasp, the breath torn from his lungs like he’d been pulled from the edge of a grave.

“(Y/N)?!”

The name ripped from his throat, raw and panicked, even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He turned in time to see the impossible—you, suspended midair in the center of the motel room, your limbs limp, your head lolling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Floating.

Floating.

Pinned to the ceiling like some grotesque, cosmic joke. A mirror of a nightmare he’d seen twice before—once in a nursery filled with love and lullabies, and once again in a college apartment reeking of burnt skin and sorrow.

Just like Mary. Just like Jessica. And now—you.

“No,” he whispered, the word crumbling in his mouth. “No. No. No.”

Tears streaked down your cheeks, glinting in the flickering light above as your arms trembled against the invisible force that held you there. You weren’t screaming, but your mouth moved—please—over and over, silently begging, your eyes wide with pure, animal terror. You looked down at them—your family—with eyes so heartbreakingly familiar, filled with the same desperation Mary had shown in her final seconds.

“DAD!” Sam’s voice cracked like it had been struck with lightning. He bolted upright, sheets flying off him as he launched across the room. “Y/N!”

Dean was already on his feet, instinctively reaching for the gun on the nightstand, but even he froze—just for a second. The sight of you up there, helpless and crying, stole the breath from his lungs.

“No—no—no—” John stumbled out of bed, knees buckling beneath him as his eyes stayed locked on the ceiling. “Not her. Not her.”

You whimpered, your mouth still forming the word—please. Your fingers twitched, twitching like they wanted to fight, to grab onto something, anything. But the demon’s grip held you still, an invisible snare too strong to resist. You couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. You could only sob, your breath stuttering in your chest as if your lungs no longer belonged to you.

Sam threw himself beneath you, arms raised like he could catch you from heaven. “Let her go!” he shouted, voice cracking beneath the weight of his panic.

Dean moved like lightning, stepping just beside Sam, his gun still clutched in white-knuckled fingers. “(Y/N), hold on!” he yelled, trying to sound steady, but his voice broke on the last word. His jaw clenched, and his eyes shone with something hotter than fear—fury.

Your stomach twisted violently. A deep, sick lurch that told you exactly what was coming. You knew it, remembered it—not just from stories, not just from nightmares.

From memory.

From blood.

From her.

The heat.

The fire.

The match had already been struck in your mind. You could feel it coming—the bloom of flames that would catch the ceiling, then your body. You could almost smell the smoke curling into your lungs. You could see it, curling at the edges of your vision, orange and black and red.

You braced yourself.

And then—everything dropped.

Without warning, without grace, the invisible grip released you.

You plummeted.

The wind tore past your face in a split second, and then—impact.

Sam caught you mid-fall, his arms wrapping around your limp form as the two of you crashed onto the mattress together. The force knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t let go. He just held you, hard and tight, his body curling protectively around yours.

Your limbs twitched violently, spasming with the aftershock of power you didn’t understand. Your back arched, and your scream tore from your throat in one long, guttural sound—loud enough to shake the windows. Raw enough to hurt.

“Dean, salt the doors—NOW!” John barked, snapping into motion, grabbing the flask of holy water from his duffel.

Dean moved faster than you’d ever seen him. His hands were shaking—shaking—but he didn’t stop. He dropped to his knees and poured long, unbroken lines of salt across every threshold, muttering Latin under his breath, the familiar prayers rolling off his tongue like muscle memory.

Sam rocked you in his lap, the way he used to when you were little and feverish, curled in a nest of blankets on the couch with a thermometer under your tongue. He held you like you were breakable, like you mattered more than anything else in the world.

“It’s okay. I got you. I got you,” he whispered into your hair, over and over, his voice cracking with each repetition. His arms were tight around you, one hand shielding the back of your head, the other clutching your wrist like he needed proof you were still real.

You clung to him, fists balled in the fabric of his shirt. You were shaking—violently, uncontrollably—and couldn’t seem to stop. Your teeth chattered. Your breath came in stutters. You pressed your face into his shoulder like the world might stop spinning if you just held on tight enough.

“I saw him,” you sobbed, the words barely audible, your voice hoarse and raw. “Sammy—I saw him.”

By the kitchenette, John stood frozen, the holy water flask forgotten in his hand. His face was pale, drenched in sweat, his chest rising and falling in rapid bursts. The gun he’d grabbed hung limply at his side, useless against a force like this. A force that had already taken everything from him once.

He looked at you like he was looking through time—through Mary. Through the nursery. Through the pain.

“I should’ve protected her,” he rasped, voice low, not quite meant for anyone’s ears. “I knew he’d come for her. I knew it. And I still—”

“You didn’t fail,” Dean snapped, kneeling beside the bed again, his voice harsh and cracked, but grounded in truth. His hands flew to the first aid kit, instinct kicking in even when he didn’t know what was broken. “We got to her. She’s okay.”

“She’s not okay,” John growled, eyes flashing. “She never should’ve been here. She never should’ve been involved.”

Your head jerked up slightly, your throat raw and mouth dry. “I’m not a kid anymore,” you gasped. “I didn’t ask for this. None of us did.”

For the first time that night, John really looked at you.

Not through you. Not past you. At you.

At your face—Mary’s cheekbones. His eyes. Dean’s jaw. Sam’s fire. You were pieces of all of them. And something more. Something of your own.

His grip on the gun loosened. It fell from his hand and landed with a soft, heavy thud on the carpet. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

“I couldn’t lose you too,” he said, the words barely audible. “I saw you up there and I—”

He didn’t finish. Couldn’t.

Dean moved closer to you, one hand gently cupping the back of your head, the other brushing your damp hair from your forehead. “You’re safe now,” he murmured, steady and certain, like he could will it into truth. “We’re not letting anything happen to you.”

Your bottom lip quivered. “I don’t want to die like Mom.”

“You won’t,” Sam said fiercely, cupping your cheek. “We won’t let that happen. I won’t.”

And the room fell silent again—but this time, it wasn’t suffocating.

It was thick with grief, yes. With unspoken guilt. With horror and exhaustion and trauma that would never fully go away.

But it was also filled with something else.

Family.

Eventually, you were tucked back into the bed—your head resting against Sam’s chest, his heartbeat thudding softly beneath your ear, one of his arms wrapped around your shoulders. Dean sat on the other side, his hand wrapped gently around yours, his thumb tracing slow, grounding circles against your knuckles.

They didn’t say anything else. They didn’t need to.

Across the room, John sat on the edge of the bed, unmoving. His eyes were locked on the ceiling.

He sat that way all night.

Watching. Waiting.

Praying the nightmare wouldn’t return. Praying it hadn’t already come true. Praying he hadn’t just seen his daughter die—again.

But mostly, he just watched you.

Like if he looked away, the demon might come back for you after all.

✦

The next morning broke in slow, golden fragments—sunlight bleeding through the cheap motel blinds in thin, crooked slats, painting the walls in uneven lines like a cage made of light. Dust floated in the stillness, catching in the soft rays, shimmering like ash suspended in the air. The room smelled faintly of stale sweat, cold coffee, and the phantom traces of salt and smoke that no amount of scrubbing could remove.

You were already awake, though you hadn’t moved.

Your head rested on the pillow beside Sam, who still breathed in deep, rhythmic pulls, one hand resting across your shoulder protectively even in sleep. Dean was slouched in the corner chair, boots kicked out, arms crossed, chin tucked against his chest—pretending to sleep but flinching at every creak of the motel walls. And John...

John Winchester stood by the window, rigid and silent, silhouetted by the fractured light bleeding past the blinds.

His hands were clenched behind his back. His shoulders drawn tight. He hadn’t said a word since the early hours of the morning, but you could feel the weight radiating off him—the guilt, the fear, the helpless anger he tried so hard to hide. He hadn't slept at all. He hadn't even sat down.

You pushed the covers off your legs quietly, rising without waking your brothers. Your body still ached from the night before, muscles sore, throat raw, a buzzing tremor under your skin that hadn’t faded with the dawn. But it didn’t matter. You weren’t going to let that stop you.

Not this time.

John didn’t turn when he heard your footsteps behind him. Not right away. His voice was gravel when it came—low and restrained.

“You’re not coming,” he said, flat and final, before you’d even opened your mouth. “That’s not up for debate.”

You stared at his back, at the tension wound into every muscle in his shoulders. The words weren’t a surprise. You’d known they were coming. You’d seen it in his eyes the moment he pulled you out of Sam’s arms, checked you over, and saw you breathing. He’d almost collapsed then—right there on the motel floor. But now he was in soldier mode again, the grief sealed away behind discipline and orders.

He finally turned to face you.

His expression was unreadable, but his eyes—his eyes were hollow with fear.

“You stay here with Sam and Dean. I’ll finish this hunt alone. It’s not safe. I won’t let that thing touch you again.”

You let the silence stretch between you, filled only with the hum of the fridge, the slow ticking of the wall clock, the distant groan of an 18-wheeler passing on the highway outside.

And then—for the first time in your life—you looked John Winchester dead in the eye and said, quietly but firmly, “I’m not staying behind.”

His jaw tightened. “(Y/N)—”

“Not anymore.”

You stepped closer, each word landing with steady, deliberate weight. Your voice didn’t shake. Not even once.

“I know what you’re trying to do. I get it. You think pushing me away is protecting me, but it’s not. You think if I stay behind, if I stay hidden, the demon won’t come back. But we both know it already has. Last night wasn’t a warning, Dad—it was a promise. And if I’m the one it wants, then keeping me on the sidelines won’t stop it.”

He flinched at that, just slightly, like you’d slapped him.

You didn’t stop.

“I’m not the kid you left behind anymore. I’ve hunted. I’ve trained. I’ve survived. And I’m not going to sit here and wait for that thing to find me alone in another motel room. I’m going with you. We do this together.”

John said nothing for a long moment.

His eyes searched your face—scanning, analyzing, desperate for some trace of innocence he could use to justify his fear. But there was none. Not anymore. You had your mother’s fire in your eyes. His stubbornness in your spine. Dean’s defiance in your posture. Sam’s heart in your voice.

You were every part Winchester.

“I won’t risk you again,” he said at last, quieter now, like he’d already lost the argument.

You stepped forward until only inches stood between you.

“Then don’t think of it as risking me,” you said softly. “Think of it as me risking him.”

Because if the demon wanted you… he’d have to go through all three Winchesters. The full weight of your family, your bloodline, your rage.

And this time?

This time, the flames wouldn’t win.

Not like they did in that nursery. Not like they did in that apartment. Not like they almost did last night.

You would not burn.

You would fight.

[actuallybean]

Hi, i really love your story holy virgin and I had to say this mc birthing scene reminded me of bella from twilight ( even though I'm not a fan of twilight) i can see the parallel between the two ladies bringing their baby into the world and their death scene, transformation/resurrection scene.

I can't wait for more love it

hahah i definitely had some inspo from that birth scene in twilight! im glad someone caught that! thank you <3

[actuallybean]

Hi girl!

I would love to request Sam x reader when Sam is soulless and reader is his gf. So when he came back she was so happy but quickly learned that this is not her Sam. She was heartbroken but decided to sit silently till they found a solution. But then Dean became vampire cos of Sam and she lost it. Full on screaming, crying and in the rage they got in a psyhical fight. She literally stomped him she was so mad. Emmm idk what will happen next it's up to you how you end that story. Hope you like it😁

Love me a good ol' angsty fic! Hope you enjoy :)

✦

Hollow Man

Sam came back from Hell, but left his soul behind. She stayed, hoping love could reach what was missing—until he let Dean fall. Then all she had left was fury. *Contains lots of angst, Souless!Sam, established relationship, physical fighting (domestic) Pairing: Souless!Sam Winchester x Reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl Supernatural Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The first time you saw Sam again, you thought you were dreaming.

For a moment, the world just… stopped.

You were in Bobby’s kitchen, sun bleeding through the grimy window, catching on the dust particles drifting lazy circles through the air. You’d been holding a glass—cold water trembling in your grip, condensation slipping down your knuckles—when the sound of the front door creaked open behind you. You didn’t think anything of it at first. The house always made noise, always groaned like it had secrets. But then came the voice. Deep. Quiet. Familiar.

“Hey.”

You turned, and the glass slipped from your fingers.

It shattered on the linoleum with a sound like a gunshot, but you didn’t even blink. Because there, in the doorway of Bobby Singer’s worn-down home, stood Sam Winchester.

Alive.

Your Sam.

Or so you thought.

He stood tall, broader than you remembered, body cutting a sharp silhouette against the sunlight pooling behind him. His face was shadowed—half in light, half in dark—like something out of a half-forgotten dream. Hazel eyes, sunken and hollow, locked onto yours. And your heart—your broken, grieving, goddamn heart—forgot how to beat.

For a moment, you didn’t move. Just stared.

Then your body acted before your mind could catch up.

You ran.

You crossed the room in a blink, socked feet slipping over shards of glass and water and grief. You threw yourself into him like gravity had been waiting for this moment all along, arms winding tight around his torso, hands fisting in the fabric of his jacket. You buried your face in his chest and inhaled so deeply your lungs burned, like if you breathed him in deep enough, he couldn’t disappear again.

“Sam,” you whispered. Over and over. Breathless. Shaking. “You’re here. You’re here. Oh my God, you’re here.”

You kissed his jaw, his neck, the stubble on his cheeks. You clutched at him like a lifeline, like your body remembered all the nights you curled into his and begged the universe to take you instead. Your voice cracked around the edges, splintered with all the months you’d spent holding back tears you thought would never find a reason to stop.

But his arms never came around you.

He didn’t return the hug.

He just stood there.

Still. Stiff. Like a statue someone had carved in his shape but forgotten to give it a soul.

You didn’t notice at first. You were too busy falling apart in his arms. Too busy letting relief flood into all the empty places his death had left behind. But as the seconds passed and he remained still—unmoving, unspeaking, untouched by your joy—you started to feel it. That creeping chill at the base of your spine. That hollow in your stomach.

When you pulled back enough to look up at him, his eyes weren’t filled with warmth or wonder or recognition. Just… emptiness. A distant sort of awareness. Like he knew who you were, but didn’t care.

“Sam?” you asked, voice small.

He blinked. A slow, mechanical thing. His jaw twitched, but he said nothing.

You tried again. “Say something.”

But he didn’t.

Behind you, you heard heavy boots tread softly across the floor. A hand touched your shoulder—calloused, familiar, careful. Dean.

His voice was rough, low. “We need to talk.”

You looked at him, confused, heart still racing with joy and dread tangled into one unbearable knot.

And then you saw it. The sorrow in Dean’s eyes. The regret.

That’s when the miracle soured.

That’s when you realized the man standing in front of you wasn’t your Sam.

Not really.

He had his face. His voice. His memories, maybe. But the soul? The spark? The love?

Gone.

And the nightmare had only just begun.

✦

You didn’t understand at first.

Your heart refused to let you.

Even as the days trudged forward in a dazed blur, you clung to hope like a child clutching a nightlight in a room full of shadows. You followed Sam the way you always had—shoulder to shoulder, stride for stride—mirroring his movements out of muscle memory more than anything. There was a rhythm to you two, a quiet language spoken through glances and footsteps and breath. Or there used to be. Now, it felt like trying to dance with a ghost.

You told yourself he was just... shaken up. Disoriented. How could he not be? He’d been to Hell. Actually been there. And no one comes back from a place like that the same. You whispered reassurances to yourself every night while lying on your side in a cramped motel bed, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to the steady rise and fall of Sam’s breath beside you.

He just needed time. That’s all. He needed you.

But days stretched into a week. Then two. Then three.

And Sam didn’t change.

He didn’t smile at you. Not once.

He didn’t reach for your hand when you brushed his. Didn’t kiss you before bed. Didn’t tuck a strand of hair behind your ear like he used to, all soft eyes and murmured affection. He didn’t even flinch when you cried—once, in the car, the silence around you pressing so hard on your chest that it cracked you open. Your sobs came like an ambush, violent and gasping, and Sam just kept driving. One hand on the wheel, one elbow resting on the window, his eyes fixed straight ahead like he didn’t even hear you.

You stopped telling jokes, because he never laughed.

Stopped trying to catch his gaze, because when you did, it was worse. When he looked at you, there was no warmth. No flicker of recognition. Just that cold, assessing stare—clinical, disinterested, like he was mentally cataloging your usefulness.

Like you were a stranger wearing familiar skin.

At first, you tried everything.

Soft touches. Softer words. You’d brush your fingertips along his wrist when you laid down beside him at night—your pinky barely grazing his as if even that small connection might spark something back to life. He only tolerated the shared bed “for appearances,” as he put it. He didn’t sleep close. Didn’t curl around you like he used to. Just lay flat, hands folded on his chest, like a corpse waiting to be buried.

And still, you tried.

“Do you remember our first hunt together?” you asked one night, your voice breaking the quiet like a stone through glass. “You let me take the shot even though I was shaking like a leaf. You said I needed to know I could do it.”

He didn’t look at you.

“Do you remember,” you whispered, “when you told me you loved me?”

That got his attention.

He turned his head slowly, eyes finding yours in the dim orange glow of the motel’s rusted bedside lamp. But there was nothing behind them. No softness. No memory. No love.

“I remember,” he said, voice flat. “It just doesn’t mean anything now.”

It felt like the air was sucked out of your lungs. You turned onto your back, stared at the ceiling, and let your tears slip into your hairline in silence.

Still, you told yourself to be patient.

Sam was back. That was what mattered.

Even if he was different. Even if he was distant. You could be the tether. His constant. His anchor. You’d love him enough for both of you until Dean, or Bobby, or someone found a way to fix whatever had gone wrong. Maybe his soul was… injured. Maybe it hadn’t caught up to his body yet. Maybe it was still clawing its way out of the pit.

You just had to wait.

He would come back to you.

He had to.

But the night that changed everything came quicker than you expected.

It came in blood. In betrayal. In the realization that sometimes, the monster isn’t just outside the motel door—it’s lying in the bed beside you, breathing evenly, eyes wide open in the dark.

And in that moment, every lie you’d told yourself unraveled.

And you finally understood.

This man may wear Sam Winchester’s face. But the man you loved was gone.

And maybe… he wasn’t coming back.

✦

“You knew.”

Dean’s voice came out cracked and guttural, like it had clawed its way up from somewhere too deep to name. His chest heaved with every breath, ribs expanding violently beneath his blood-slicked shirt. His body trembled, drenched in the sweat of agony and transformation, veins blackened and bulging like lightning bolts striking just beneath the surface. His eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight—feral, unsteady. His fangs hadn’t even fully retracted. And at the corner of his mouth, a smear of red still lingered, like a wound he’d inflicted on the world—or maybe himself.

“You knew he was gonna turn me,” Dean snarled, voice shaking now not just with anger, but heartbreak. “And you just… let it happen.”

The air around you felt scorched—too hot for midnight, too still for rage. You stood frozen, the breath caught hard in your throat, your heart slamming against your ribs like it wanted to tear itself free.

And Sam?

He stood a few feet away, on the other side of the wrecked Impala, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his coat. His face was unreadable, posture relaxed, like he was waiting in line at a goddamn diner and not standing in the middle of the junkyard where everything had just gone to hell.

“Yeah,” he said flatly. “We needed an inside man. It was the most strategic move.”

There was a moment—just a second—where your body forgot what to do with itself. Like your nerves didn’t know how to carry the weight of what you just heard. Then something twisted in your gut, hot and violent, and a sound tore from your throat—raw, unrecognizable, animal.

You surged forward.

“You let him get turned?” you screamed, your voice splintering like glass. “You stood there and watched it happen?!”

Sam didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. He looked at you like your outrage was just a mild inconvenience.

“I didn’t watch,” he replied calmly. “I walked away.”

That was it.

The dam broke.

You launched at him.

You didn’t even think. You moved. Hands curled into fists, teeth bared, you slammed into his chest with the full weight of your body, pummeling him again and again with wild, grief-fueled strikes. Your voice was a howl of anguish, your words tumbling out like fire set to gasoline.

“You son of a bitch! You goddamn monster!”

Your fists struck his chest, his shoulders, wherever you could reach. “You’re not him! You’re not my Sam, you’re just a hollow thing wearing his face!”

Tears streaked down your cheeks, hot and blinding. “I waited for you—I loved you—I held on when everyone else told me to let go!”

Sam caught your wrists like he was swatting away a fly—calm, surgical, uncaring. His fingers closed around you with a strength that should have terrified you, but all it did was enrage you more.

“Are you done?” he asked, as if your pain was a mild inconvenience. As if you were being dramatic.

The smirk, the shrug, the complete lack of empathy—it shattered you.

You screamed again and broke free of his grip with a wrench of your shoulder, shoving backward with your elbow before throwing a sharp, ruthless kick to his shin that made him stumble. And then—without thinking, without breathing—you hauled back and punched him. Hard.

Your knuckles cracked against his jaw with a sickening sound, pain radiating up your arm—but you didn’t care. You barely registered Bobby and Dean shouting behind you. Their voices were distant, muffled, like you were underwater and drowning in something red and raw and ancient.

You tackled him.

God, you tackled him—6’4”, all muscle and ice—and you slammed him down into the dirt and gravel of the salvage yard like grief had possessed your bones. You straddled him, knees planted on either side of his ribs, and rained punches down onto him, your hands moving like they weren’t yours, like the rage in your chest had taken over and decided to speak with fists instead of words.

Sam didn’t fight back.

He blocked a few hits. Deflected others. But he never hit you. Never pushed you off.

He just watched you.

Like you were pathetic.

Like this didn’t even register.

When your arms finally gave out, trembling and slick with sweat, when your sobs turned into stuttering gasps, he looked up at you with the same dead eyes you used to stare into every night with love.

“You know I don’t care that you’re upset, right?” he said.

The words sliced through you.

Your hands stilled against his chest, fingers curled like claws. Your breath caught, your heart broke.

“Dean being a vampire is a problem, sure,” Sam continued, unfazed. “But your little tantrum?” He blinked slowly, voice a blade. “Doesn’t register.”

That did it.

You shoved yourself off of him like his skin was acid, stumbling back, hands shaking, chest heaving. You wiped the blood from your knuckles onto your jeans—his or yours, you didn’t know, didn’t care.

Dean had gone silent behind you. Even Bobby wasn’t saying anything now.

You stared down at Sam as he stood slowly, brushing off his jacket like your grief was just dirt on his sleeve.

“You’re dead,” you whispered, voice shaking with fury and finality. “I don’t care what they brought back. It’s not you. I’d rather mourn you a thousand times over than live with… this.”

Sam tilted his head, as if pondering whether your words warranted a response.

Then he turned away.

Just turned.

And walked off into the dark like none of this had ever happened.

✦

Dean didn’t look at you when he sat down beside you.

The bench creaked under his weight, metal groaning in protest. He kept a wide berth between your bodies, like he was afraid to touch you—or maybe afraid of what might happen if he did. The night air was cool and still, the distant hum of crickets and rustling trees doing little to fill the silence between you.

You were seated on the edge of the junkyard, the gravel beneath your boots crunching softly whenever you shifted. Moonlight spilled in silver streaks across the wreckage—rows of forgotten cars turned to twisted bones beneath the stars. In another life, it might’ve felt peaceful. Now it felt like a graveyard.

Dean’s shoulders were tense, arms resting on his knees, hands clasped together like he was praying or trying not to tear something apart. His jaw worked slowly, like he was grinding his teeth, barely holding something back—not anger, necessarily. Hunger, maybe. Instinct. Rage. Regret. The venom of new instincts he hadn’t asked for, crawling beneath his skin.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low. Gruff. Like gravel dragged across rusted metal.

“You don’t have to forgive him,” he muttered, eyes locked on the dirt. “Hell, I never will.”

You didn’t answer at first.

There was nothing to say.

You watched the way his thumb rubbed absently at a scratch on his palm, the small, mindless motion of someone trying to ground themselves in a body that didn’t feel like home anymore. His shoulders were hunched, defensive, like he was waiting for you to argue. Or cry. Or break.

But all you said was, “I don’t want to forgive him.”

Your voice barely carried on the wind.

Dean’s head dipped, the corner of his mouth twitching in something like agreement—or maybe just acknowledgment. Then, after a long pause, he spoke again. Softer this time. Slower.

“But you still love him.”

You felt your chest tighten.

Your fingers curled into the fabric of your jeans, gripping tight like the truth might tear you apart if you didn’t hold onto something solid. Because that—that—was the cruelest part.

Of all the lies Sam had told, of all the damage he’d done, of all the choices that hollow thing wearing his skin had made... the part that hurt the most was what hadn’t changed.

You still loved him.

Even now.

You closed your eyes, letting your head tilt back toward the sky. The stars were sharp tonight—too bright, too distant. They looked like pinpricks in the fabric of the universe, like the whole damn thing could split open if you stared too hard.

“I still dream about him,” you whispered, voice breaking like thin glass. “Not the thing he is now. Him. My Sam.”

Dean didn’t move.

You kept talking. You had to.

“I dream about the way he used to tuck my hair behind my ear,” you said, your voice a ghost of itself. “He’d do it when he thought I was falling asleep. Real gentle. Like he was afraid he might wake me.”

You swallowed hard. Your throat burned.

“I remember how he’d sleep with his arm around my waist, like I was something fragile. Like holding me was the only way he knew how to rest. And his forehead would touch mine, and he’d whisper stuff like ‘I got you.’” You paused, lips trembling. “And he always meant it. God, he meant it.”

Dean exhaled sharply beside you, but he still didn’t interrupt. Didn’t look.

“I remember the way his hand felt in mine,” you murmured. “Not just the warmth. The weight. The way our fingers fit together like we were made that way. I remember it like... like breath. Like muscle memory.”

You wiped your face with the heel of your palm.

“And now he’s still here. He walks like him. Talks like him. Same voice, same face. But it’s not him. That love we had? It’s gone. And the thing that’s left doesn’t even miss it.”

A long silence stretched out between you, thick and suffocating.

Dean finally turned his head, just a little, casting you a side glance. His eyes were heavy—tired in a way that sleep would never fix. Bloodless lips pressed together in a tight line, jaw twitching with restrained emotion. You wondered if he was mourning Sam too, in his own way. Or if the betrayal had burned too hot to leave room for grief.

You let out a long, uneven breath.

“I think I’ll always love him,” you said at last, voice barely more than a whisper. “But I’ll never forgive what he became.”

Dean didn’t try to comfort you.

Didn’t put an arm around your shoulders or offer some hollow reassurance.

Instead, he just nodded once, eyes fixed forward again.

And in that quiet, under the endless sky and the wreckage of everything you’d once believed in, you both sat there—two broken things, side by side.

Not touching. Not speaking. Just existing.

And maybe, for tonight, that was enough.

✦

The next morning, you packed your bag.

The sun hadn’t even risen yet—just a thin gray light creeping through the curtains, casting long shadows across the bedroom floor. The house was still, wrapped in that heavy quiet that only comes after something irrevocable has happened. Dust floated in the dawn light like ash suspended in water. It felt like the world was holding its breath.

You moved slowly, methodically.

One shirt. Then another. The worn flannel Sam used to love on you—folded, then tucked beneath your jeans. Your boots. Your jacket. Toothbrush. Salt rounds. The photograph of the three of you from years ago—laughing outside a shitty diner in Nevada, Sam’s arm slung around your shoulder, Dean mid-eye-roll. You hesitated over it for a long moment before sliding it into the side pocket of your bag.

You didn’t say goodbye.

There was no one to say it to.

Dean stood in the kitchen when you came downstairs, still in yesterday’s clothes, leaning against the counter like he’d been awake all night. A mug of cold coffee sat untouched in front of him, his eyes heavy but alert.

He didn’t try to stop you.

He didn’t even ask where you were going.

He just looked at you—really looked at you—and gave the faintest nod.

Something in his face said I get it.

And maybe that was all the goodbye you needed.

Sam didn’t come to the door.

You didn’t expect him to. Not really. But some traitorous part of you—a small, stubborn fragment that still remembered what it was like to be loved by him—hoped he might. That he’d appear in the hallway, sleep-mussed and barefoot, rubbing the back of his neck the way he always did when he was nervous. That maybe, just maybe, he’d look at you like he used to.

Like you mattered.

But there was nothing.

No creaking floorboards. No hurried footsteps. No apology, no plea, no regret.

Just silence.

The same silence he’d given you since the day he came back.

You stepped out onto the porch, the old screen door groaning softly as it swung closed behind you. Morning dew clung to the grass, and the breeze was still tinged with the cold bite of night. You stood there for a moment, breathing it in. Letting the weight of it settle.

Then you walked to your car.

The engine turned over on the third try, coughing to life like even it didn’t want to go. You tossed your bag into the passenger seat, hands trembling as you gripped the wheel. The seat still smelled faintly of Sam—leather, and soap, and the ghost of something warm and familiar.

You didn’t cry at first.

Not until the tires crunched over the gravel drive. Not until Bobby’s house disappeared in the rearview mirror, swallowed by trees and mist and memory.

Then the tears came.

Silent at first—just a sting behind your eyes, a tightness in your chest. But soon they spilled over, hot and relentless, blurring the road ahead until the yellow lines ran like paint down a canvas. Your breath hitched. You blinked hard. You wiped your sleeve across your face again and again, but it didn’t stop.

You didn’t know where you were going.

Didn’t care.

You just drove.

Mile after mile. Exit after exit. Towns passed in a haze of neon signs and gas stations, none of them real enough to matter.

And still, even then—even then—you kept waiting.

Every time your phone buzzed. Every time headlights appeared in your mirror. Every time you slowed at a diner or pulled off for gas.

You kept waiting for the sound of wings. Footsteps. Tires. Anything.

Some desperate part of you—the part that refused to die, even after everything—still believed he’d come after you.

Still believed he’d realize what he’d done. That he’d remember what you meant to him.

That Sam, your Sam, was buried in there somewhere, clawing his way back.

But he never did.

The silence stretched on, long and empty.

And eventually, you stopped checking the rearview.

[actuallybean]

The Wolf and the Rose

He enters her world of velvet and gold with a wolf’s wariness, his hands more used to blade than ballroom. But she asks for a dance, and in the hush between heartbeats, he offers his hand. Beneath the chandeliers, something ancient and aching begins to stir. *Contains fluff, slight flirting, slight forbidden love aspects, first kiss, Geralt dancing Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Princess!Reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl Mics. Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The banners of your kingdom stirred in the high mountain wind like living things — long pennants of crimson and gold, the fabric rich and heavy with age, stitched through with the glint of metallic thread. At their center, proud and unwavering, was the ancient sigil of your House: a rearing stag with eyes like fire, crowned beneath a constellation of seven silver stars. The crest shimmered each time the breeze pulled the banners taut, and the stag seemed to move, to breathe, to challenge the very sky itself.

You stood motionless on the highest balcony of the castle’s southernmost tower, the stone beneath your slippers warm from the late-afternoon sun, yet your spine prickled with a chill not born of weather. From this great height, you could see nearly the entire breadth of the valley below, stretching out in ripples of green and gold all the way to the jagged edge of the world where the mountains tore into the heavens. It was there, winding through the narrow ribbon of a sun-dappled mountain pass, that you spotted the small procession making its way toward your gates — no parade of armored knights, no trumpets nor drums nor fluttering silks — only a lone figure mounted on a pale horse, riding steady as if the earth itself parted for him.

The horse was a ghost-white mare with a dark mane like spilled ink, her hooves stirring up dust that caught the light and hung suspended like golden mist. Her rider was clad in leather and steel, cloaked in the dust of the road and the shadow of legend. The slanting sunlight struck his hair — that unmistakable silver — and it shone like blades of polished moonlight, catching the eye like lightning glimpsed from a distant peak. He rode without fanfare, without need of escort, as though the mountains themselves had bowed to let him pass.

Geralt of Rivia.

The White Wolf.

He was more myth than man to most. To the bards, he was a walking song, a tale told in firelight. To your people, he was salvation incarnate. To you… he was something far more complicated. Far more dangerous.

It had been one moon’s turn since your father, the King, had summoned him in a hall full of trembling nobles and silver-tongued warriors — all of whom had refused to face the basilisk that had emerged from the caves of the western reaches, a shrieking nightmare of scales and venom that had left entire villages emptied of life. You remembered the way even the bravest among your guard had paled at the mention of its name. But Geralt had only nodded once, silent and unshaken, his golden eyes glittering like twin suns as he accepted the task.

You had watched him ride away into the setting sun, and though you had spoken little, something within you had followed him — your thoughts, your breath, your blood — they had all ridden at his side, haunted by the absence of his presence since.

And now… he had returned.

The gate horns had not yet sounded, and already your breath was caught behind your ribs, tight and frantic. His sword was sheathed across his back, dark with blood both dried and fresh — the proof of the beast’s death worn like a badge across his armor. He was dust-streaked and wind-battered, and yet he sat his horse with the poise of a king, his shoulders unbowed, his spine straight, his presence coiled like a storm held just at bay.

Your hand rested on the cold stone railing, knuckles white, though your expression remained sculpted in marble — serene, noble, unmoved. You were a princess of your house, a daughter of thrones, and no flutter of the heart should betray you. But still, the beat within your chest betrayed you cruelly, thrumming faster now with each step of that pale horse. Your heart — that treacherous, hopeful thing — skipped and leapt behind your ribs, alive with anticipation, dancing to a rhythm only he seemed to awaken.

You told yourself it was only gratitude. Only admiration.

And yet…

There was a part of you, buried deep and secret and burning, that whispered of what the night might bring. Not the pomp of feasts nor the clamor of a grateful court. But something quieter. Something unspoken. A glance held too long in the flicker of candlelight. A brushing of fingers beneath the weight of silence. A voice low and rough speaking your name like it belonged only to him.

He had returned.

And the storm you had held at bay with dignity and duty now began to stir.

✦

The Great Hall — ancient heart of the castle, seat of countless legends — had been transformed in his honor.

Where once stone walls loomed cold and shadowed, now firelight danced in waves across high-vaulted ceilings, chasing away the gloom and painting the arched beams in hues of honeyed gold. Great braziers lined the walls, their bellies glowing with flame, casting long, flickering shadows that swayed like spirits reborn. The air was thick with warmth and spice, heady with the mingled aromas of meat, wine, and wax.

The long banquet tables stretched from one end of the chamber to the other, groaning beneath the bounty prepared for this single night. Platters of spiced venison steamed in rich glazes, flanked by bowls of roasted chestnuts and thick, crusted breads still warm from the ovens. Honey-drizzled figs and candied plums glistened like jewels beside wheels of cheese laced with herbs and flowers. Sweet pear wine shimmered in glass decanters, catching the candlelight and scattering it across silver goblets and polished plates.

The chandeliers overhead had been strung with fresh ivy, the green glossy and wet with dew, laced through with white winter blossoms plucked from the royal gardens. Every beeswax candle had been lit, their golden flames steady in the breathless hush that hung just before the night’s crescendo. Music lilted in the background — a delicate symphony of plucked strings and low, resonant drums, like the heartbeat of the evening itself — slow, measured, and full of quiet promise.

You stood tall beside your father upon the raised dais, robed in the colors of your house, your hands folded neatly before you despite the pulse quickening in your wrists. Your posture was perfect, your chin lifted with poise learned over a lifetime — and yet your throat was tight with something you could not name. The weight of anticipation hung heavier than any crown.

And then, as the herald stepped forward, the hall shifted.

His voice rang out across the chamber, clear and deep, and the name he spoke rolled from stone to stone like distant thunder, cloaked in awe.

“Geralt of Rivia.”

The crowd quieted as if the wind itself had been cut from the air. And then the great oak doors creaked open, and he stepped into the hall.

The White Wolf.

He moved with the measured, effortless grace of a man long accustomed to being watched — not with vanity, but with caution. With readiness. He walked as though he trusted nothing, not even the ground beneath his boots, yet there was no fear in him. Only focus. Resolve.

His armor, though scrubbed of blood, still bore the scars of battle — dents along the vambraces, scratches across the breastplate like claw marks from something no ordinary man would have survived. His twin swords — one silver, one steel — were crossed behind him in their worn leather scabbards, the hilts catching the firelight like a warning. A wolf medallion hung against his chest, twitching faintly with unseen magic.

His face was shadowed by travel, his jaw dusted with stubble like frost on stone, and his white hair — pulled back but not tightly — was slightly damp from snowmelt. But it was his eyes that stopped you.

Not their color — though they were striking, golden like sunlit amber, feline and ancient — but the way they moved. Scanning the room not in admiration, nor wonder, but in calculation. As if every nobleman, every servant, every armed guard were another potential foe.

Until they found you.

His gaze caught yours like a hook in the chest. And for a moment — for a heartbeat suspended in eternity — the rest of the hall simply… vanished.

The murmurs. The music. The clinking of goblets and the scraping of boots against stone. All of it dropped away beneath the weight of that look. His eyes softened, just slightly. Just enough to feel like a secret held between you.

It struck you like a blow. No — like a flame blooming in your ribs. Hot and sudden and alive.

You did not blush. You would not. Not here. Not before so many eyes.

But gods, you wanted to.

You felt heat crawl up the column of your throat and press against your cheeks, and you swallowed it down like fire, hoping your skin would not betray you beneath the delicate embroidery of your gown.

Your father stepped forward then, his voice grand and full of warmth as it carried through the great hall. “Welcome, Witcher.” His hands were outstretched, his bearing kingly, but without stiffness. “You have done our people a service that shall not be forgotten, and for that, our gratitude knows no bounds.”

Geralt dipped his head — not a bow of submission, but one of respect. “Your Grace.”

“And for such a deed,” your father continued, his tone lightening with a touch of mirth, “you shall dine at our table, rest in our halls… and tonight, should the spirit seize you—” he grinned, eyes glinting as they swept the room “—you shall dance.”

A few chuckles rippled across the hall. The musicians paused, anticipating.

Geralt did not smile. Not quite. But the corner of his mouth twitched — just barely — and you caught it. A flicker of reluctant amusement. He glanced sideways, as if contemplating whether to slip away into shadow or remain rooted here, in this moment he had not asked for.

Your lips tugged upward before you could stop them, and you lowered your gaze to hide it.

That small, silent exchange hung between you like a breath not yet released.

He was a man forged for war, not for feasts. Yet here he stood, not as a monster-slayer or hired sword, but as something else.

A guest.

An honored one.

And if the gods were kind — or cruel — perhaps, before the night was through, he would be something more.

✦

Hours passed in a gilded haze of celebration — a blur of music, laughter, flickering torchlight, and the gentle clatter of silver against china. The Great Hall pulsed with life, filled to the soaring rafters with the perfume of crushed petals underfoot, spiced wine, and roasted meats, a heady concoction that lingered in the air like a spell. The firelight shimmered off silks and jewels, each noblewoman wrapped in fabrics imported from distant isles, their gowns embroidered with starlight, their necks heavy with gold. Lords in brocade doublets strutted like peacocks through the crowd, voices raised in good-natured boasts, while minstrels played reel after reel from a raised platform by the hearth.

And amid it all, you were perfect.

Every step, every smile, every nod of your head carried the careful poise of a princess raised for nights such as this — trained in the art of making conversation with men who thought themselves clever, and women who whispered sharp things behind sharpened fans. You moved from circle to circle with effortless grace, exchanging pleasantries with diplomats and earls, charming aging barons and dance-hungry squires. You were the epitome of royal decorum — a vision in moonlight-colored silk and silver-threaded embroidery, your laughter gentle, your touch feather-light on offered arms.

But your eyes — gods, your eyes — were traitors.

They strayed, again and again, to the one figure in the hall who seemed carved of a different world entirely.

Geralt.

He stood near the back of the chamber, half-shrouded in the shadow cast by an ivy-wrapped pillar, the firelight reluctant to kiss him too closely. He looked out of place and entirely himself, a contradiction draped in leather and steel amidst a sea of velvet and gold. The crowd had parted around him without realizing it — a quiet buffer of space born not of disdain, but of the undeniable gravity he carried. People simply did not press too close.

His shoulders, broad and unyielding, seemed too large for the delicacies of court. His jaw, set in habitual wariness, lacked the softness of someone who played at politics. His eyes — those golden, wolf-like eyes — scanned the room not with wonder, but with assessment, like a man calculating which exits were safest, which goblets were poisoned, which lords had blood on their hands.

And yet… he remained.

Uncomfortable, yes. Entirely unamused by the posturing of the nobility. But still, he stayed, as though honoring the feast not for its food or music, but because a promise had been made — and Geralt of Rivia did not break promises.

You watched him field three invitations to the dance floor, each more persistent than the last.

The first came from Lady Mariella, the daughter of a Viscount from the southern vineyards. She approached him like a swan gliding across a still lake, her hands fluttering with feigned shyness as she batted her lashes like moth wings. Her voice was all honey and soft suggestion, but Geralt only dipped his head and murmured something low — likely apologetic, but firm. She turned away with a pout curdled by disappointment.

The second was Ser Richem, the youngest son of a minor house, already half-drunk and emboldened by the hour. He clapped Geralt on the shoulder as if they were old friends and laughed too loudly at his own jest. When he offered a theatrical bow and an outstretched hand to draw the Witcher toward the crowd, Geralt’s answering look was more amused than irritated — a quiet, dangerous kind of amusement. Richem got the message. He slunk away, muttering about “wolves biting hands.”

And then came your cousin, Lady Isolde, lips painted like blood roses and a fan flicking open with a snap. Her smile was sharp, her waist cinched tight with ambition, and when he refused her — gently, with a shake of his head — she leaned in close, whispered something against his shoulder that made his brows twitch downward. You saw the exact moment Geralt’s jaw tightened. Isolde laughed and walked away, whispering behind her fan to no one in particular.

Still, he remained.

Still, he watched.

And still, you watched him.

You told yourself, more than once, to leave him be. To let him vanish into the edge of the room like a shadow fading with the candles. He did not belong here — not in this world of honeyed words and practiced smiles. The last thing a man like him needed was to be entangled in court games, lured onto a dance floor like some performing bear.

And yet… when your father caught your eye from across the hall, his expression warm and unreadable, he gave the smallest nod. The kind he rarely used. The kind that meant: You may do as you please, my dear. The choice is yours.

And just like that, your feet moved before your thoughts had caught them.

The silken hem of your gown whispered against the polished stone floor as you crossed the hall, weaving between courtiers and goblets and ribbons of song. You passed through the golden light and into the edge of shadow, where the fire’s reach dimmed and the room's laughter softened to a murmur.

Geralt didn’t see you at first. His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere distant, lost in thought — not in the hall, perhaps not even in the present. You wondered what battle he was replaying behind those amber eyes, what monster’s scream echoed in his ears louder than the music ever could.

But then you were there.

And slowly, he turned.

Your eyes met again, not across the hall this time, but inches apart — his height forcing you to tilt your chin, your gaze holding his like a thread pulled taut between you. Neither of you spoke, not yet. The noise of the celebration continued behind you like a world far away. For a moment, it was just the two of you in the quiet edges of something unspoken.

Your heart thudded — not out of fear, not even out of nerves. But recognition.

And a whisper of possibility.

You did not reach for his hand.

Not yet.

But it hovered, ever so slightly, as though you might.

✦

He didn’t notice you at first.

Which was a rare thing — not because you expected to be the center of attention, but because he usually noticed everything. Every shift of movement, every hush in a crowd, every unsheathed dagger disguised behind a silk sleeve. But now, here in the flickering half-light that pooled like liquid gold against the stone walls, he was still — for once — entirely unguarded.

So you waited.

A few quiet moments stretched between you, suspended like dust in the air.

From your place just beyond the reach of torchlight, you allowed yourself the liberty of watching him — not with the distant curiosity of a royal observing a visiting guest, but with the lingering attention of someone trying to memorize something unspoken. Something important.

The fire caught the edges of his profile — sharp, weathered, and still somehow beautiful in its refusal to soften. He stood with his weight slightly shifted to one leg, the stance of someone who never quite let go of battle-readiness, even here, even now. His fingers tapped idly against the leather at his thigh in an unconscious rhythm — slow and deliberate, keeping time with the music bleeding through the hall behind you. It wasn’t a soldier’s march or a bard’s melody. It was something else. Something older.

You followed the path of your gaze downward — to the wolf medallion resting against his chest, its silver surface dulled by time and blood and age, yet still catching the light with an eerie glint whenever he moved. The chain had bitten a permanent place into the armor beneath it. You wondered how long he had worn it. How many names had passed through his life while it remained a constant.

His expression was unreadable — not cold, but still, like a lake beneath moonlight. No ripples. No cracks. But there was something under the surface, something frayed and worn thin at the edges. Not exhaustion from the party — gods knew this wasn’t his kind of celebration — but something older. Heavier. A weariness etched into the bones.

The kind of tired that sleep wouldn’t mend.

You stepped closer, softly, as though not to startle a wild animal — or perhaps a ghost. Your voice, when you spoke, was light but edged with care. Not pity. Recognition.

“Are you always so solitary?” you asked, your words weaving through the quiet like a thread of silk.

His body tensed — not much, just the slightest pull in the shoulders — and then he turned. Slowly. His eyes snapped to yours, bright and feral in the firelight, like twin suns rising from shadow.

He blinked once. Then again. “Princess.”

Your smile curved, easy but not without meaning. “I thought I might find you here,” you said, folding your hands before you, your posture still regal — but softened by the quiet moment. “Skulking in corners is something of a specialty of mine too, you know.”

One silver brow lifted, the smallest gesture, but laced with intrigue. “Didn’t think princesses were allowed to skulk.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” you murmured, stepping forward — not enough to invade his space, but enough to be felt. “We’re trained to do it gracefully.”

The firelight caught the corner of his mouth as it twitched upward. Not a full smile. Not even half. But it was something. And gods, how rare that something was on his face.

You lingered in the silence that followed, letting it settle around you both — not awkward, but tentative, like the hush before rain. And then, quieter now, for him and no one else, you asked:

“Will you dance with me, Geralt?”

Your voice was low, stripped of its practiced tone — no longer the princess requesting out of duty or diplomacy. Just you, asking him.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, a flicker of calculation sliding across his features. You saw it — the reflexive refusal about to form on his tongue. You braced for it. He would say no. Of course he would say no. You knew this before you even walked toward him.

But then, before the words could leave him, his gaze faltered.

It dropped — just once — to your lips.

Then to your hands.

And then back again.

He was thinking.

Not out of caution. Not entirely. But because he was imagining it. You could see it in the slight shift of his shoulders, the quiet war between muscle and instinct. What it might feel like — his hand at your waist, the shape of your fingers tangled in his. The press of music against silence. The breath between two bodies not made for court, but pulled together anyway.

He sighed.

It was the kind of sigh that carried years behind it — a long-suffering thing, like a man who had faced specters and survived blizzards and slain horrors from deep woods… only to be bested by a question he hadn’t known he’d want to answer.

“I don’t dance,” he said finally.

His voice was rough, hoarse from disuse and restraint, but warmer than you’d expected. Not dismissive. Not cruel. Just… honest.

“You kill monsters with two swords,” you teased gently, tilting your head. “But you fear a dance?”

That earned a sound from him — a low grunt, half amusement, half protest. “I don’t fear it,” he muttered, shifting his weight. “I just… avoid it.”

You stepped closer still, now within the soft reach of him. Close enough to smell the faint scent of leather, steel, and something earthier beneath — pine, maybe. Wild things. The outside world that still clung to him like a second skin.

“One dance,” you said softly, your tone laced with invitation, not pressure. “That’s all.”

There was another silence.

A long one.

He looked at you like a man standing on the edge of a decision he didn’t want to make — but couldn’t quite walk away from either. His eyes flicked across your face, searching. For what, you didn’t know.

And then, slowly — deliberately — he offered his hand.

Calloused. Scarred. Worn from years of battle.

But steady.

So steady.

You reached forward, your fingers brushing his, and took it.

And for a moment, the world stilled.

The music faded.

The revelry disappeared.

There was only his hand in yours.

And the quiet promise of something neither of you had yet dared to name.

✦

The music had shifted.

Gone were the lively reels and clapping tambourines of earlier — the songs of celebration, of stomping boots and flushed cheeks and laughter spilled like wine. Now, the melody drifted softer, slower, more intimate. The kind of music that didn’t fill the space so much as it folded into it, slipping like silk between stone columns and the flickering warmth of candlelight.

Strings rose gently into the air, delicate and silver-sweet, weaving notes like moonlight through lace, threading through the hush that had descended over the hall. A violin carried the lead, its voice trembling like a held breath, accompanied by the faint echo of harp strings and the low, steady heartbeat of a drum barely touched. The room responded in kind — the dance floor clearing little by little, nobles stepping aside with goblets raised, cheeks flushed, attention shifting not to the musicians… but to you.

To him.

An unlikely pair.

You stood together in the very center of it all — beneath the enormous chandelier, its tiers aglow with beeswax candles that poured molten gold across the polished stone floor. Shadows flickered along the carved walls, caught in the glint of steel and the shimmer of your gown. Eyes were everywhere. Lords leaning forward. Ladies whispering behind embroidered fans. Whispers like silk threads drifted from table to table, surprise and curiosity mingling in every tongue.

But Geralt… looked only at you.

No shifting glances to the crowd. No glance over his shoulder for danger. Just you.

His gaze was steady — intense in a way that left your skin warm beneath the cool light. And when his hand came to rest at your waist, it was with a warrior’s caution… as though he were still unsure whether to hold you or guard you.

His other hand — calloused and worn, fingers inked faintly with old scars — held yours. Your hand looked small in his. Fragile. But you weren’t.

You’d never felt steadier.

His body, close to yours, held tension like a coiled spring. He stood as though bracing for impact, as if the entire act of dancing was a swordfight he hadn’t been trained to win. There was hesitation in every line of him — not from pride, but from fear of doing wrong, of misstepping, of tarnishing this moment with clumsy hands and a battle-born frame.

You felt the hesitation in the way he hovered — not touching too much, not pulling too close, his shoulders rigid beneath his armor. So you leaned in, just enough for your dress to brush against his boots, and looked up.

Your voice was low, soft as a secret. “Follow my lead.”

Something flickered in his eyes — that quiet fire that lived behind the gold. And he did.

At first, it was a faltering rhythm, a cautious mimicry of your steps. His feet shifted with deliberate care, his posture stiff but attentive. But then, slowly — as you moved, guiding him through the first turn — his tension began to ebb, muscle by muscle.

Geralt of Rivia, the infamous White Wolf, began to move like water.

Not the polished grace of a court-trained noble, no. His steps were not dainty. But they were… fluid. Powerful. His presence, that immovable force of steel and shadow, adapted to you — responding to your lead not with resistance, but with trust. It wasn’t elegance in the traditional sense. It was something older. Earthbound. Like the way rivers carve through mountains without permission.

His hand at your waist shifted slightly, his fingers spreading as he pulled you infinitesimally closer — enough to feel the warmth of his body seep through the fabric of your gown. His breath, shallow but controlled, stirred the loose tendrils of your hair. His eyes never left yours. Even as you turned. Even as you moved through the slow spiral of the dance, he watched you like a man committing something sacred to memory.

You didn’t speak.

There was no need.

Because his silence said everything.

It said you’re not like them — not part of the hollow, hollowed-out world he’d been summoned to perform in.

It said I don’t know how to do this… but I want to.

It said thank you, in a thousand different languages his voice didn’t know how to speak.

And perhaps… perhaps, it said stay.

The song should have ended long before it did. But the musicians, seeing the shift in the room — the hush, the collective leaning-in — played on. Each note carried with it the weight of suspended breath. The dance slowed into something that was no longer choreography, but communion. Every subtle turn became an exchange. Every brush of fingers — his thumb gliding slowly, absently, over the back of your hand — sent a ripple through your chest like the aftershock of a name whispered too gently to hear.

Your heart rose into your throat with each step.

Each moment.

Each glance that lingered too long.

Each time his hand tightened, just slightly, at your back, like he wasn’t quite ready to let go.

And then — finally, finally — the last note dissolved into silence.

A beat passed.

Then another.

And neither of you moved.

Around you, the Great Hall erupted into warm applause — polite, scattered, but charged with something else. Surprise. Approval. Fascination. A dozen voices rose in murmured speculation. But to you, it was all static. A distant echo in a dream.

Because Geralt was still looking only at you.

His wolf eyes, wide and unreadable, held something aching — something ancient and quiet and bruised at the edges. A question he couldn’t ask. A longing he’d never admit. A thousand miles of exile behind that gaze, and yet, for one stolen moment, he had chosen to stay here.

And then, in a voice so soft it barely reached your ears, he spoke.

“Thank you.”

You blinked, not trusting your breath, and smiled — gently. Genuinely. As if anything else would shatter the air between you.

“You’re welcome, Witcher.”

And still, neither of you let go.

✦

Later, when the revelry had finally begun to quiet — when the laughter had grown slurred and slouching, and the golden light of the hall spilled in ribbons onto cold stone — you slipped away. The fires had burned low, casting amber shadows that flickered like ghosts against the high walls, and the guests had begun to vanish one by one into their wine-heavy dreams. You left behind silk and song, stepping barefoot through the old corridors and out into the garden, your skirts trailing over dew-kissed stone.

The air was cooler here. Clean. Sweet with the scent of night-roses just beginning to bloom — their petals unfurling in the hush between midnight and dawn. You wrapped your arms around yourself, not from the cold, but from the ache that had been growing quietly in your chest since the moment the music ended. The ache that always came when something beautiful slipped too quickly through your fingers.

You stood in the shadows of a tall hedge, staring out across the moonlit grounds, listening to the wind comb gently through the trees. And then—

Footsteps. Heavy, measured. Familiar.

You didn’t turn. Not yet.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said, voice rough around the edges — like gravel softened by the wear of rivers and time.

You exhaled quietly, then turned, your eyes finding him in the silver light. He was half in shadow, but the moon caught him just enough. His white hair shimmered like frost, and the long scar that slashed down his cheek gleamed like a streak of starlight. For a long breath, you simply looked at each other.

“You came looking for me?” you asked at last, your voice low, almost unsure.

He stepped closer, the garden quiet but for the whisper of his boots in the grass. “I’m not used to people like you.”

You tilted your head. “Royalty?”

“No.” He paused, jaw tightening, then loosening again. “Kindness.”

That silenced you more than any declaration of war could have.

Your lips parted, but no answer came. The words you might have said fell flat in the face of his honesty. And there it was again — that solemn, unknowable gaze. But there was something in it now that hadn’t been there before. Not the wariness you’d come to recognize in him. Not the suspicion or the shadow of battles fought alone. No — this was something quieter. Gentler. A door opening by slow degrees.

He looked at you as though afraid he might break whatever had bloomed between you.

“I’ll be leaving in the morning,” he said, eventually, his tone unreadable. Final.

You nodded, slowly. You had known, hadn’t you? From the beginning. A man like him could never be tethered to palaces or politics. He belonged to the roads and the ruins, to the places that whispered of danger and dark things. But still, the confirmation carved something sharp in your chest.

“Of course,” you murmured, voice steadier than you felt.

He looked away for a moment, then back again — and when he spoke, his voice had shifted. Softer now. Vulnerable in a way that made your breath catch.

“But…” he said slowly, as though testing the weight of each syllable, “if your father were ever to need me again... if your kingdom were to call…”

Your heart fluttered like a startled bird in your chest. “Yes?”

“I would come,” he said, and this time, there was no hesitation. “No matter the distance. No matter the cost.”

Your eyes searched his face. And for the first time, there was no mask. Just him — raw, uncertain, trying.

“I’ll remember that,” you whispered.

His smile came then. Small. Crooked. Barely a thing at all, but it cracked something open inside you. It was the kind of smile a man wore only once he’d allowed the world to hurt him — and decided to hope again anyway.

He turned then, as though preparing to walk away. And maybe he would have. Maybe he would’ve let the moment end there.

But you reached for him.

Your hand caught his, warm and strong, fingers weaving into his with quiet insistence. He stopped. Looked down at your joined hands like they were something sacred. Something dangerous. Then he looked at you.

The silence stretched between you, but it wasn’t empty.

It was full. Of everything unspoken.

He stepped back toward you — just one pace, but it was enough. Enough to close the space. Enough to draw the heat of him into your skin. His free hand lifted slowly, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed, until it cupped the side of your face, rough thumb brushing over your cheekbone with a reverence that stole your breath.

“You don’t have to,” you whispered.

“I want to,” he said.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn’t hurried. It wasn’t perfect. It was careful and slow, lips just barely pressing against yours at first — as though waiting for you to vanish. But when you didn’t, when your hand tightened in his and your mouth opened slightly to meet him, his restraint faltered.

The second kiss was deeper. Warmer. Like the first sunrise after a long, cruel winter.

You melted into him, hands rising to his shoulders, fingers digging gently into the fabric of his shirt. He held you like he didn’t quite know how, but wanted to learn. And you let him. You gave him that moment — gave him the softness he’d never been offered before.

When he finally pulled away, you saw it — the grief in his eyes, yes. But also the wonder.

You touched his chest gently, right above the wolf medallion. His heart beat steadily beneath your palm.

“You can stay a little longer,” you whispered. “Just a little.”

He didn’t answer with words. He didn’t have to.

He simply held your hand, let the silence bloom around you both again — but this time, it was a silence of comfort. Of trust. Of something growing between two souls who had never expected to find each other in a world that so often took instead of gave.

And beneath the moonlight, among the roses and the soft rustle of wind, you stood together — not as a princess and a Witcher, but as something gentler.

As something just beginning.

[actuallybean]

Hi!! I saw your request were open and was wondering if you’d write some angsty Jon snow x reader? Maybe something concerning his scars? He gets wounded and the reader wants to help patch him up and he doesn’t want her to see?

Thank you so much either way 🫶🏻

Of course! I also decided to include the mention of Jon's burned sword hand, which he has in the books! I hope you enjoy :)

✦

Where the Flame Has Touched

Jon’s wounds run deeper than skin, and some he’s carried far too long in silence. When you find him in the godswood, bleeding and unwilling to let you see the damage, you refuse to leave him in the dark. In the hush of winter, you show him that even the burned and broken are still worth loving. *Contains mentions of blood, wound care, discussion of scarring, emotional vulnerability, intense angst, hurt/comfort, implied romance, soft longing, Post-Battle of the Bastards (canon-divergent) Pairing: Jon Snow x Reader Tag list: @mostlymarvelgirl Game of Thrones Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The godswood was a sanctuary of silence, untouched by the usual stirrings of Winterfell’s bustling heart. Only the slow, deliberate crunch of your boots breaking the frozen crust of grass dared to disturb the stillness. Each step released a faint cloud of breath into the cold air, mingling with the faint scent of pine and damp earth, a subtle reminder that life lingered beneath winter’s icy grasp.

Dusk hung low across the sky, the dying sun bleeding its last golden hues through the skeletal branches overhead. The heart tree stood sentinel, its ancient limbs clawing at the fading light, casting long, thin shadows that stretched like fingers across the snow-packed ground. The cold bit at your cheeks, the sharpness of winter settling deep into your bones, but here, beneath the vaulted canopy, the world felt suspended—fragile, sacred, as if time itself hesitated.

Behind you, Winterfell exhaled its comforting warmth—stone walls thick and steadfast, hearth fires crackling in distant chambers, the quiet murmur of lives carried on in the shadow of looming towers. But you had left all that behind to seek this quiet refuge. It was here, in this sacred stillness, that you found him.

Jon.

He was seated beneath the heart tree, the carved face on its trunk watching silently, eternal and indifferent. His black cloak lay around him in heavy folds, like spilled ink pooling against the pale, frozen earth. His boots, worn and scuffed from endless journeys, pressed firmly into the dirt beneath the thin layer of snow. His shoulders slumped forward, weighed down not by the chill of winter, but by the storm you could see raging silently in his eyes.

You paused, breath hitching in your throat, the urge to turn away sharp and sudden. To leave him to his solitude, to the burdens he carried alone. Almost, you stepped back toward the warmth of the castle.

But then, a subtle motion—a twitch beneath his ribs, a wince so fleeting it might have been mistaken for a shiver. You saw it. You always saw.

“Jon,” your voice broke the quiet like a gentle thread, soft but insistent.

He stiffened instantly, jaw tightening as he turned his head just enough to acknowledge you without truly facing you. His eyes, dark and stormy, flicked your way, but avoided meeting yours. His breath came in shallow puffs, curling white into the frosty air, fragile and fleeting.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice low and rough, before you even reached his side.

“No,” you whispered, stepping closer, crouching down in front of him. Your gloved hand reached out hesitantly, brushing the edge of his cloak with a tenderness born of worry. “You’re hurt.”

His shoulders tensed beneath your touch, muscles rigid with stubbornness. “It’s nothing.”

“But the blood—” Your fingers traced a dark stain on the wool, near his ribs, where the fabric clung damp and heavy. The scent hit you then—sharp, metallic, the unmistakable tang of fresh blood mingled with the pine-scented cold. You swallowed hard against the sudden knot in your throat.

Jon’s eyes flickered up again, shadowed and guarded, haunted by pain and pride both. They held a quiet desperation that made your heart ache.

“Jon—please,” you breathed, voice cracking with the weight of all the unspoken fear and longing. “Let me help you.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. The wind whispered through the branches overhead, carrying the last of the sun’s gold away into the approaching night. Then, slowly, reluctantly, he let out a breath you hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and his dark gaze finally met yours—raw, vulnerable, and broken.

And in that moment, the walls he’d built around himself cracked just enough for you to step inside.

✦

Something flickered across his face—a tremor deep within the stormy depths of his eyes, like a ghost stirring in the shadows of a haunted memory. For a brief moment, the rigid mask he wore—the walls of stoic control he’d built around himself—wavered, revealing a flicker of vulnerability that almost made your heart shatter.

Then, as if propelled by some sudden surge of restless pain, he sprang to his feet with a jerk far too abrupt for the fragile quiet of the godswood. His movements were uneven, unsteady, and the moment his back hit the rough bark of the ancient heart tree, he staggered as if the world itself had shifted beneath his feet.

You reached for him without thinking—instinct overriding caution, your hand stretching out to catch him before he fell. But as your fingers hovered near his arm, he recoiled. Not from you—never from you—but from the invisible chains of agony that gripped him tight.

His left arm curled protectively around his ribs, the slight rise and fall of his chest betraying the fierce struggle within. But it was his right hand that spoke volumes without words—the hand he always kept hidden beneath worn leather gloves, like a secret locked away from the world.

You knew what lay beneath those gloves. You knew the fire at Castle Black had done more than burn flesh—it had carved scars deep into his soul, scars that whispered stories of pain, survival, and the cruel forging of a boy into a man with a sword and no choice but to fight.

The air between you thickened, heavy with the weight of unsaid truths and unshared fears. You lowered your voice to a whisper, fragile as a secret shared in the dark.

“Take it off.”

He froze, every muscle taut, every breath held captive behind clenched teeth.

Your eyes dropped to the glove encasing his right hand, worn but unyielding. “Take it off, Jon. Please.”

A flicker of resistance flashed in his dark eyes. “I told you—”

“You don’t have to hide from me.”

But that was the unbearable truth, wasn’t it? He did have to hide. Beneath the armor of his titles, beneath the cold shield of silence, Jon Snow was still a boy—scarred, battered, haunted by fire and death and resurrection. And you were asking him to be seen, truly seen, in all his brokenness.

The wind picked up suddenly, threading through the trees with a mournful whistle, as if the godswood itself was crying out in sympathy.

Without meeting your gaze, without a word, he slowly peeled off the glove.

You sucked in a sharp breath—the sight was worse than you had imagined.

The skin of his right hand was a tortured landscape. Charred patches gleamed dark and shiny like molten glass cooled too fast, while other areas rippled and bubbled unevenly, as if the flesh beneath was still fighting its own battle to stay whole. The fingers, though still functional, bore the heavy testament of pain: red-brown scar tissue stretched tight over knuckles, the pads uneven and puckered where the fire had long ago blistered and scarred them. It was a cruel reminder of the boy who had once gripped a blade with innocence, now wielding a weapon scarred like his soul.

He said nothing—did not blink, did not shift. His gaze was locked downward, fixed on the scattered snowflakes melting slowly beneath his feet. His shoulders rose and fell with shallow breaths, each one a quiet battle against the storm raging within.

“I know it’s ugly,” he muttered finally, voice low and rough, heavy with shame and self-reproach.

You took a step closer, closing the distance between you. Your heart ached with a tenderness that burned hotter than any flame.

“It’s not,” you said, firm and gentle all at once.

His head snapped up, eyes wide with disbelief and something raw—hope, maybe, or fear.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said, voice breaking.

“I’m not lying.” Your fingers trembled slightly as you reached out, brushing the edge of the scarred skin with the gentlest touch you could summon. He flinched at first, but didn’t pull away.

“You survived,” you whispered, voice thick with emotion. “You fought. You bled. You saved lives with this hand.”

His voice cracked as he replied, “I killed with it.”

You shook your head, eyes shining with quiet conviction. “No. You protected. You saved. That hand carried the weight of every life you chose to defend.”

For a moment, silence stretched between you, the wind carrying away the last traces of doubt and fear. And there, beneath the ancient heart tree, in the fragile hush of winter’s dusk, Jon Snow allowed himself to be seen—not as a warrior scarred and broken, but as the man who had endured, who had survived, and who was still fighting to protect the world he loved.

✦

The silence between you stretched thick and heavy, like a fragile thread pulled taut between two worlds. It hung in the air, dense and unyielding, until finally, he spoke—his voice barely more than a breath, fragile and laden with something you couldn’t yet name.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he whispered, the words almost swallowed by the cold wind threading through the bare branches above. “Not like… this.”

You looked up at him, really looked. At the man carved from fire and shadow, shaped by loss and sacrifice, and bound by a love he believed he didn’t deserve. The boy who had borne the weight of so much and yet still stood, so desperately trying to hold himself together.

“But this is you, Jon. All of you,” you said softly, your voice steady but full of aching sincerity. “And I want to see all of you.”

For a long moment, his gaze held yours—raw, conflicted, unguarded. The walls he’d built so carefully, brick by brick, trembled and faltered. The restraint that had kept him standing cracked and shattered like ice underfoot.

Then, suddenly, he gave way.

He collapsed to his knees before you, the sharp edge of pain and exhaustion crashing through his defenses. Blood seeped slowly from his wound, darkening the pristine snow beneath him, a stark contrast against the cold white. Without hesitation, your arms wrapped around him, steady and unwavering, catching the weight of all the torment he carried.

You guided him gently down onto the frozen earth, pressing your palm to the side of his chest where the wound bled beneath the coarse wool of his tunic. The warmth of your hand was a fragile promise against the cold bite of winter and the ache of his injury.

“Let me help you,” you whispered, your forehead resting lightly against his, sharing a breath between you. “Let me heal you.”

He remained silent, neither refusing nor accepting, but in that quiet surrender, he allowed you in.

Carefully, you began to peel back the layers of his clothing—each fold revealing more of the man behind the armor. The wound was shallow, a mercy in itself, though angry and raw, fresh with pain. Likely from a blade that had grazed too close during training—an injury he’d hidden away, like so many others. Because that was who Jon was—silent in his suffering, carrying every burden alone.

From your flask, you poured melted snow over the wound, the cold liquid hissing softly as it met the raw flesh beneath. Your hands moved with practiced gentleness, steady despite the sharp intake of his breath when pain flickered across his features. His eyes remained closed, face taut with quiet endurance.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, voice thick with compassion.

He shook his head weakly. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” he said, his voice low but firm.

“Not for the wound,” you whispered, your fingers brushing softly against the tender skin, “but for not noticing sooner.”

His eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes dark and intense, shining with an unspoken vulnerability. “You always notice,” he said, his voice a fragile thread binding you both in that moment.

Your breath caught, the weight of those words settling deep in your chest.

Together, you worked in silence. Your fingers wrapped the wound with linen and herbs, careful and deliberate, as the chill of the godswood seeped into your bones. Yet, despite the biting cold that settled around you like a shroud, the space between your hands and his pulsed with a warmth far stronger—a quiet connection born from trust and care.

He never once looked away—not when your fingers grazed his burned hand again, tracing scars that spoke of fire and survival. Not when you pressed your palm gently over his heart, feeling the steady rhythm beneath, stubborn and fierce.

In that moment, beneath the watchful gaze of the heart tree and the fading light of dusk, you saw Jon—not as a warrior hardened by battles and loss, but as a man, fragile and human, deserving of care and love. And you vowed silently to hold that truth close, as fiercely as he had held his sword.

✦

When you were done, he spoke.

“I see them, you know,” he said quietly. “The men I’ve killed. The ones I couldn’t save. The ones I left behind. They all look at me in dreams.”

Your hand found his again, scarred and open.

“And what do I look like in your dreams?” you asked softly.

His gaze dropped to your joined hands, then to your face.

“Like mercy,” he said. “Like someone I don’t deserve.”

You leaned forward, your voice breaking like ice beneath weight. “Then I’ll stay, until you believe you do.”

Jon exhaled shakily, the sound of surrender.

And in the quiet of the godswood, beneath the watching heart tree, he let you hold him—burned hand, broken heart, bleeding side and all.

Because sometimes the deepest wounds weren’t the ones visible in firelight.

They were the ones healed only when someone refused to look away.

✦

When the last thread of your ministrations fell silent, a fragile stillness settled between you, heavy and sacred. The cold air wrapped around you both, thick with the scent of pine and the faint metallic tang of dried blood. For a long moment, neither of you spoke, as if the very act of breathing was too loud, too intrusive in this fragile space.

Then, quietly, his voice broke through the hush, rough and low, like gravel shifting underfoot.

“I see them, you know,” he said, eyes clouded with a haunted weight. “The men I’ve killed. The ones I couldn’t save. The ones I left behind.” His gaze lifted toward the twisted limbs of the heart tree, its ancient face carved deep into the bark, as if it too had witnessed the ghosts that trailed him like shadows. “They all look at me in dreams.”

You felt the tremor in his voice—the echo of countless battles waged both outside and within. You reached out instinctively, your fingers seeking his, finding the scarred surface of his right hand, worn and weathered but still steadfast and true. Your palm pressed gently against his, a tether in the shifting darkness.

“And what do I look like in your dreams?” you asked, voice barely above a whisper, fragile and full of quiet hope.

His gaze dropped slowly, drawn irresistibly to your joined hands, then flickered upward to meet your face. The storm in his eyes softened, vulnerability shining through the usual shield of stoicism.

“Like mercy,” he breathed, the word carrying the weight of a confession. “Like someone I don’t deserve.”

Your heart clenched at the pain wrapped inside those words, the rawness of self-doubt and despair. You leaned closer, your breath mingling with the cold night air, your voice breaking like ice melting beneath an unbearable weight.

“Then I’ll stay,” you promised softly, voice thick with emotion, “until you believe you do.”

A shaky exhale escaped him—a sound caught somewhere between surrender and relief, a breath finally freed after holding it so long.

And in the quiet sanctity of the godswood, beneath the watchful, timeless gaze of the heart tree, he let you hold him. Not just the man who had been burned and broken, not just the warrior whose side still bled beneath threadbare wool—but the soul laid bare in all its fractured beauty.

Because sometimes, the deepest wounds aren’t those seared by fire or carved by steel.

They are the ones hidden beneath the surface, silent and invisible, waiting to be healed only when someone refuses to turn away.

[actuallybean]

Holy Virgin* | Part Twenty-Two

You've shared everything with Sam but one thing—your faith. It’s never been a problem… until Heaven turns its gaze on you, and suddenly, devotion takes on a darker meaning. *Contains sexual material, pregnancy, thoughts of suicide/attempted suicide, virginity and has some religious themes: Minors DNI Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader, Dean Winchester x Reader (Platonic), Castiel x Reader (Platonic) Tag list: @mostlymarvelgirl @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @catsinacottage @ladykitana90 @sepho @kinavet Part Twenty-Three Supernatural Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Your body went still again.

Not the kind of stillness that comes from rest.

Not the kind that promises sleep or peace or healing.

No—this stillness was absolute. Unnatural. A quiet that devoured the room. Like the air itself recoiled from what it knew was coming.

And in that moment—just that breath of space between a heartbeat and a scream—Sam forgot how to breathe.

“No, no, no—(Y/N), stay with me—stay with me, please,” he begged, voice cracked and full of splinters, fingers digging into your shoulders as if his touch alone could anchor your soul. He shook you—softly at first, then harder, his panic rising in waves.

Your head lolled lifelessly to the side.

Your mouth was parted slightly, your lashes brushing your cheeks as your eyes began to roll back, losing what little light had sparked in them just moments ago.

Sam’s voice broke. “(Y/N)!”

But you didn’t stir.

Not even a twitch.

Jody stood at the foot of the bed, blood up to her wrists, your newborn swaddled awkwardly in a towel that had once been white. Her arms cradled him close to her chest, his tiny body slick with blood and amniotic fluid, unmoving. Her breath hitched as she adjusted her grip, her fingers trembling like leaves in a storm.

“He’s not crying,” she whispered, the words barely audible. “Why isn’t he crying?”

Dean shoved past the edge of the chaos, hands slick and shaking as he shoved another towel into Jody’s arms. “Here. Wrap him. Keep him warm—he’s probably just in shock—”

Jody nodded numbly, doing as she was told, bundling the boy into the makeshift cocoon of warmth. Her gaze flicked up—once to Sam, once to you, then back down to the newborn.

“Come on, sweetheart,” she whispered, rocking gently. “Give me a cry. Just one. Let me know you’re here.”

The baby’s chest rose and fell, but no sound came. His limbs twitched, weak and slow.

On the bed, beneath the violent hush of the room, blood spread beneath you like ink in water. It pooled at the seams of the bedding, soaking through gauze, towels, even the mattress below. Your abdomen—still raw, still open—gaped beneath a half-hearted patchwork of bandages. Your flesh was torn and trembling, body pale, eyes vacant.

Castiel had dropped to his knees beside you, palms glowing faintly blue as he pressed them to the gaping wound in your belly. The grace that once poured from him like a river now flickered dimly, like a dying candle.

“She’s hemorrhaging,” he said hoarsely, jaw clenched. “It’s not clotting. Her body is failing—too much blood loss. I can’t—”

Sam bowed over you again, forehead against yours, one hand tangled in your hair, the other trembling as it gripped your bloodied hand.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please, baby—stay with me. I can’t do this without you.”

A single tear rolled down his cheek and landed on your temple.

Then—

A flutter.

Your lashes twitched. Your lips quivered.

“Sam?” you whispered, voice thin as thread, barely audible.

His breath hitched. He jolted upright, eyes wide, clutching your hand like it was the last real thing left in the world.

“Yeah. Yeah—I’m here, sweetheart—I’m here.”

You blinked at him slowly, like you were trying to remember the shape of his face. Your lips were pale, bloodless. Your pupils unfocused.

“I saw her,” you murmured. “I saw Mary.”

Sam blinked in confusion. “Mary?”

“She had such soft eyes,” you said, a faint smile tugging at your lips. “Golden. Like morning light. She said not to be afraid.”

Dean froze where he stood, his breath caught somewhere between disbelief and grief.

“She said I was brave.”

You coughed once—wet, sharp—and more blood flecked your lips. Sam gently wiped it away with shaking fingers.

You didn’t notice.

“I saw Jesus too. I think. His eyes were so kind. He looked at me like… like I mattered.”

Dean’s hands pressed harder into your abdomen, trying to stop the bleeding. Castiel gritted his teeth, whispering incantations, prayers, anything, but the light beneath his palms was dimming.

“I saw Sally,” you breathed, the edges of your voice fraying like old fabric. “She told me the baby needed me. Said the baby… the baby’s light. Pure.”

Sam swallowed hard. “Your friend? The one from—”

“Mhm,” you hummed, already fading again. “She said… he’d change things. Said I wasn’t done.”

Jody stepped forward, her voice catching. “(Y/N). Look at me.”

You turned your head slightly.

Jody knelt beside you, her arms wrapped protectively around the small bundle in her towel. She leaned close.

“It’s a boy,” she whispered. “You have a son.”

Your eyes widened slowly, almost disbelieving. “A boy?”

“Yeah,” Jody said with a small, tear-choked smile. “A little boy.”

She gently angled the baby toward you so you could see him—his tiny, red face, his dark hair matted to his scalp, his little hands curled weakly beneath the folds of towel.

Your lips parted.

“My boy,” you whispered, wonder blooming in your fading voice. “He’s… beautiful.”

Sam smiled through his tears, kissing your forehead. “He is. He’s perfect. You did it.”

You inhaled sharply.

And then—

Everything in you gave out.

Your body slackened all at once, like something had been pulled loose from deep inside.

Your hand fell from Sam’s grasp.

Your chest… didn’t rise.

“(Y/N)?”

Sam leaned closer.

“(Y/N)—hey—no, no, no—look at me. Open your eyes—open your eyes!”

Dean’s hands were shaking now. “She’s going cold—”

Castiel looked up, his expression cracked open. “She’s slipping.”

“(Y/N)!” Sam screamed, clutching your face in both hands. “No—please—*stay with me—*don’t go—not now—not after this—not after everything!”

But your lips were still.

Your eyes, half-lidded, stared toward the ceiling without seeing it.

Your skin was losing what little warmth remained.

The silence grew fangs again.

And then—

A sound.

Small.

Wobbly.

But unmistakable.

The baby.

In Jody’s arms, your son let out a thin, warbled cry.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t strong.

But it was enough.

The first breath of life.

The echo of something holy.

Jody gasped, eyes wide with disbelief. “He cried. Oh my God—he’s breathing—he’s breathing.”

Everyone stilled.

But Sam didn’t move.

He was frozen, curled around your unmoving body, face buried in your neck, grief pouring from him in broken sobs that rattled the walls of the bunker.

Your son cried again—stronger this time.

And still…

You were silent.

✦

Sam’s hands trembled as he cradled your face, slick with blood and shaking so violently it was a miracle he could even hold you steady. His fingers, stained to the wrist in the deep, dark red of you, trembled as though they were trying to reverse time — to undo the agony etched across your skin, to pull the light back into your eyes, to will your soul back into your broken, bleeding body.

“Come on, (Y/N)...” His voice cracked, splintered, barely more than a breath, his words sticking in his throat like shards of glass. “Please. Open your eyes. Please—please come back to me.”

He pressed his forehead to yours, lips brushing your bloodied temple as his thumbs swept gently, helplessly, across your cheeks. The skin there was cold now. Too cold. Like something inside you had already left, like you were becoming hollow before he could stop it.

Behind him, the room had fallen into a deafening silence.

Dean stood frozen a few feet away, his hands slack at his sides, blood smeared across his arms from the effort to stop your bleeding. His face was bone-white, jaw clenched so tightly it looked like it might snap. He didn’t say a word — couldn’t. His eyes stayed locked on you, wide with disbelief, fury, and the dawning terror of loss.

Castiel stood next to him, his hands still faintly glowing with the dying shimmer of grace, but even that was fading now. His gaze dropped, expression unreadable — a strange mix of grief and acceptance that looked unnatural on the face of an angel. He had tried. They all had. But it hadn’t been enough.

The sheets beneath you were no longer white. They were saturated, soaked through and through with the heavy crimson of life lost. The gauze Jody had used earlier was now little more than a damp memory, discarded and useless. The floor beneath the bed was stained, a creeping tide of blood pooling out in every direction, as though the world itself was mourning you in silence.

Jody sat on the ground a few feet away, her legs folded beneath her in a numb, stunned crouch. Her arms were wrapped tightly around your newborn son, rocking him in the softest rhythm — a quiet, unconscious motion born from pure instinct. The towel she had wrapped him in was streaked with blood, her own sleeves soaked through, hands shaking as they clutched the child close. Her lips were pressed tight, no sound escaping — only the tracks of silent tears slipping down her cheeks. She didn’t sob. She didn’t scream. She simply held your son with the quiet grief of a mother who had seen too much — a hunter who had lost too many.

And further still, near the doorway, stood Rowena.

She was still. Too still. Her spine rigid, arms crossed tightly across her chest like she was holding herself together by force alone. But her face—Rowena’s face was raw. The cracks had broken open. Her makeup had smeared, her eyes were rimmed red, and her lips trembled as if her magic was fraying with every breath. She looked at Jody—at the bundle in her arms—and the grief in her expression shifted.

Became something darker.

“That child…” she whispered, and though the words were quiet, they cut through the silence like a blade.

Sam’s head turned slightly, barely able to register the sound through the fog of panic and heartbreak.

Rowena took a shaky step forward, her eyes wild, her voice rising with each word. “He’s… evil. That boy is darkness. Don’t you see? He’s the one who killed her. He’s what did this to her.”

Jody’s arms instinctively tightened around the baby, shielding him from the words like they were poison.

Rowena pointed a trembling finger toward the infant, breath coming in short, sharp bursts. “He’s not human. He can’t be. She’s gone because of him. He’s the demon’s spawn—he’s the end of everything—”

“Rowena, stop!” Dean barked, stepping forward, one hand shooting out to intercept her. His voice was sharp, brittle, like it had to break something else to keep from breaking itself. “That’s enough.”

Castiel moved beside her swiftly, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. His voice, low and calm, cut through the rising panic. “You know that’s not true. You know the child is not Lucifer’s. You’ve seen the signs.”

Rowena’s shoulders shook violently beneath his touch.

Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor in a tangle of velvet and grief. “She was so strong,” she whispered, her accent thick with sorrow. “She fought so hard… and still... gone.”

Her sobs broke free then — ugly, wrenching, human. She wept into her hands like someone had ripped the future out from under her feet.

Sam didn’t hear her.

Not really.

He was still curled over you, rocking your body gently as if he could coax warmth back into your limbs, life back into your lungs. His thumb traced the corner of your mouth, trying to memorize the shape of it, as if he could keep it, preserve it, protect it. His other hand was pressed to your sternum, hoping—desperately hoping—for the smallest rise, a breath, a twitch, a pulse.

“(Y/N)... you have to fight,” he whispered, voice hoarse, thick with tears. “You’re stronger than this. You’ve always been stronger than me. You can’t leave now. Not after everything. Not after him.”

He looked over his shoulder at the baby—your baby—cradled in Jody’s arms, a tiny bundle of blood and silence.

“You haven’t even held him yet,” Sam choked. “You don’t even know his name.”

He bent lower, pressing his forehead to yours again.

“Come back to me,” he whispered. “Come back to him. Please… please, don’t leave us.”

But still—you didn’t move.

Your chest remained still beneath his hand.

Your skin was turning cool again, lips dusted blue, the glow of life fading beneath the veil of death.

The silence thickened.

Grief pressed down from every corner of the room, wrapping itself around them all.

✦

The bunker was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful. It was the kind of stillness that settled like dust in the lungs—thick, unmoving, suffocating. The overhead lights, dimmed and flickering ever so faintly, cast long shadows across the walls, stretching into the corners like ghosts trying to fill the space you once did. The silence wasn’t empty. It was full—with memories, with grief, with the echo of your laughter that had long since gone quiet.

Every room seemed to ache with absence. The hum of the air vents, the creak of the pipes, the muted shuffle of feet on stone—each sound only reminded them of what was missing. Of who was missing.

In the living room, Jody sat curled in the armchair like a sentinel who had been there for centuries. The leather groaned beneath her weight, but she didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her arms cradled the infant close to her chest, her hold protective, reverent, as if the very act of letting go would shatter what was left of this fragile world. His tiny body was warm against her, a soft, breathing miracle tucked into the hollow of her embrace.

The baby slept, undisturbed by the heaviness pressing in from all sides. One of his hands had escaped the swaddle, fingers splayed in midair like he was reaching for something only he could see. His little mouth worked gently, almost imperceptibly, in a rhythm that matched the rise and fall of his chest. Every now and then, his feet twitched—small, involuntary movements that reminded Jody he was dreaming. Dreaming. Just days old, and already lost in a world she couldn’t follow him into. She wondered if you’d ever held him like this, even once, even for a second. Her throat tightened.

Jody looked down at him and found herself aching.

He was beautiful. Hauntingly so. She took in every detail like she was memorizing something sacred—because maybe she was. The soft swell of his cheek, pink and smooth. The gentle slope of his nose. The impossibly long lashes that lay like shadows against his skin. His tiny mouth, already prone to frowning in his sleep, tugged into a shape that stirred a memory.

A lump rose in her throat.

He looked like you.

He had your jawline—strong and sure even in its newness—and your brow, furrowed just enough to mimic that familiar expression of deep thought, or concern, or stubbornness. Jody could already see it in him—the quiet fire you carried in your bones. The strength that had once fought so hard to protect this little life now nestled in her arms.

Her fingers moved without thought, brushing gently over the baby’s soft, dark hair. It felt like silk under her touch, like something too pure for this world. Her hand lingered there, holding him steady, grounding both him and herself.

“He’s got your eyes,” she whispered into the quiet, voice catching on the edges of the words. She didn’t know who she was speaking to—maybe to the ghost of you still lingering in the air, maybe to herself. Maybe to the baby, who wouldn’t understand but deserved to hear it anyway.

She swallowed, her chest heavy. “You should be here. You should be the one holding him.”

The baby stirred slightly, lips parting in a soft sigh, but didn’t wake.

Jody blinked against the burn in her eyes. She leaned back further into the chair, pulling him tighter against her, as if her arms alone could shield him from all the things you hadn’t been able to. As if she could love him enough to make up for the hole that had been torn in the universe the day you left.

The bunker around her was still. But inside that silence, Jody held the last piece of you left in the world.

And she would never let go.

✦

Far down the hall, buried beneath the bunker’s reinforced concrete and the quiet hum of old power lines, Dean Winchester lay flat on his back atop his unmade bed. The room was dark save for the faint orange glow bleeding in from the crack beneath the door — emergency lighting, a reminder that somewhere, someone might still be trying to hold the world together. But not here. Not tonight.

The ceiling above him stretched blank and endless, a cracked canvas that had become a familiar refuge for his sleepless thoughts. He stared up at it like it might blink back, offer him something — a sign, a shimmer, a crack in the veil. But it remained still. Cold. Empty.

His jaw was clenched so tight it ached, a silent scream trapped behind molars ground raw. His hands, rigid at his sides, had curled into fists without him realizing. Nails bit into callused palms. His chest rose and fell with slow, uneven breaths that sounded louder than they should’ve — like each inhale took more effort than the last.

He didn’t know how long he’d been lying there like that, staring into nothing. Long enough that his eyes felt dry, raw in their sockets, but not from tears — there were none left. Just the kind of emptiness that came after. The kind that carved out hollow places inside of him and echoed.

Eventually, with a breath that trembled more than he meant it to, Dean closed his eyes. Not to sleep — he knew better — but to shut the world out. Just for a moment. Just long enough to pretend he still knew how to reach out. To hope.

He turned his head slightly, cheek brushing the worn flannel of his pillow, and his lips parted like it hurt to even form the words.

“Cas…”

The name cracked from his throat like a prayer torn from dry stone. Fragile. Barely a whisper.

His brows furrowed, and his voice broke again — quieter this time, like a child calling into a darkened room.

“I need to know. Is she…?” He swallowed, the lump in his throat thick and hot and stubborn. “Are you there? Are you with her?”

The silence that followed was not peaceful. It was a silence that screamed. Heavy and unnatural, pressing in from every angle, loud with the things not said. No flutter of wings. No breath of grace. No presence.

Just absence.

Just the walls. The dark. The hum.

Dean's heart thudded painfully against his ribs, too loud in his chest. The stillness of the room became unbearable — a vacuum of grief where even hope refused to live.

He pressed a hand over his face, palm rough against stubble, and drew in a breath so deep it rattled in his lungs. His shoulders shook, just once. Then again. Like something inside of him was cracking and he didn’t have the strength to stop it.

Still, the only answer he got was silence.

And it was the worst kind of torment — not rage, not grief, not punishment. Just the void. The not-knowing. The cruel, crushing weight of no sign at all.

✦

Rowena sat hunched at the kitchen table, a silhouette of quiet ruin beneath the dim flicker of the overhead light. The bunker around her was unnervingly silent — all that power and history and ancient magic built into the stone walls, and yet it offered no warmth, no comfort. Just echoing stillness. Just absence.

Before her, a porcelain teacup sat untouched, its floral rim stained with lipstick from hours earlier when she’d first poured it. The tea had long since gone cold, the faint curls of steam now only a memory. Still, she sat there, eyes fixed on the surface of the brew as though it might ripple with some prophetic message, some whisper from the other side. Something to explain. Something to soothe.

Her fingers were wrapped tight around the cup, knuckles pale and trembling slightly from the effort. Her nails — usually perfectly painted and sharp enough to be weapons — were chipped and uneven, as if she’d clawed through time and fate itself in desperation.

Rowena’s hair, once immaculately styled into cascading waves, hung limp and tangled around her shoulders. Stray strands clung to the tear-slick skin of her cheeks, her curls frizzed from hours of pacing, of collapsing, of holding her head in her hands when the grief twisted too hard in her chest.

The vibrant red of her lipstick had bled and smeared across her lips and cheekbones in ghostly trails, a silent map of how often she’d wiped her face, pressed shaking fingers to her mouth to keep from crying out. The kohl around her eyes had run, dark streaks tracing the hollows beneath — eyes that looked impossibly tired, shadowed with loss, rimmed with red.

Her gaze was locked on the tea, unfocused, haunted. The swirl of liquid inside the cup was all she could bring herself to look at, as if — with enough concentration — she could conjure an image, a vision, a reason.

The silence pressed in on her, a suffocating blanket of things unsaid. Her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of it — not just grief, but helplessness. Regret. Fury at the universe for stealing what little good had clawed its way into her cursed life.

Rowena MacLeod, powerful witch and survivor of centuries, sat crumbling at a kitchen table in the belly of a bunker built by men. And for once, not all the spells in the world could mend the crack that had split her open.

Her voice, when it finally came, was barely a whisper.

“Come back to us, darling girl…” she said to the tea. Or maybe to the silence. Or maybe to the ghosts that had taken up residence in her heart.

But no one answered.

Not even the dead.

✦

The war room was silent but for the frantic rustle of pages and the occasional scrape of a mug long gone cold.

Sam Winchester sat at the head of the long table like a crumbling statue — a relic of something once strong and whole, now hollowed out. The overhead lights cast harsh, sterile light onto the cluttered surface before him: open lore books stained with coffee, yellowed pages marked with frantic scribbles, printouts curled at the corners from restless fingers. His laptop sat open but forgotten, its glow casting flickering shadows on his face, highlighting every exhausted hollow.

He looked like death had touched him too. Like it hadn’t just stolen you — it had taken something from him, too, and left a broken man in its place. His eyes were red-rimmed and bruised from lack of sleep, skin pale and stretched thin over sharp cheekbones. The soft stubble on his jaw had thickened into something unkempt, and his shoulders curled inward like the grief itself had collapsed him.

He hadn’t left this room in days. Not really.

Not since you.

Dean had practically dragged him away from your side when it was over, when your body had gone slack in the bloody bed you'd shared, your chest forever stilled. Sam hadn’t wanted to move. Hadn’t wanted to breathe. He had clutched your hand for hours after your soul had slipped away, murmuring your name like a prayer, as if maybe — maybe — God would listen this time.

But no one came. No angels. No miracles.

Only Dean, standing in the doorway with silent tears and a soft “Sammy,” trying to get him to let go.

Sam had fought him. Cried. Begged. But Dean pulled him away anyway, arms locked around him like a brother trying to hold together a shattering dam.

Since then, Sam had sealed himself in the war room with the desperation of a man drowning. He tore through every book in the bunker, scouring lore and necromantic rituals, crossroads deals, obscure resurrection spells, anything — even things he would’ve once deemed too dark, too dangerous. None of it mattered now. The line had already been crossed the second you died.

And somewhere, just down the hallway, was the baby you died to bring into the world.

Your son.

His son.

Sam hadn’t held him. Hadn’t so much as looked at him. He couldn’t. Not when the boy’s very existence felt like a cruel twist of fate. He knew he was innocent, untouched by what had happened — a living, breathing piece of you. But to Sam, he was a raw wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. A reminder of what had been lost in exchange for life.

In your bedroom — no, his bedroom, your bedroom, theirs — your body lay still, covered now by a plain white sheet that could not hide the truth beneath. Blood had dried and turned rust-colored where it soaked into the mattress. The wound across your abdomen had been crudely stitched in urgency, the last attempt to bring your baby into the world as you slipped away.

Rowena had come after Dean called her. She’d taken one look at Sam and said nothing — only stepped into the room where you lay and stood in silence for what felt like hours. Then, gently, she’d offered to use a preservation spell. A fragile, cobbled-together mix of Celtic charm and ancient necromancy to slow decay — to keep your body untouched by time.

It wasn’t resurrection. Not yet. But it was the only way Sam could hold on. The only thing that kept him from unraveling entirely.

Dean hated it. Hated how your body stayed in that room like a ghost that wouldn’t pass on. He wanted to give you a hunter’s funeral. A pyre that kissed the sky in fire and ash, something worthy of the love and fire you carried in life. But Sam had said no. Begged him not to.

And so Dean relented. For now.

In the quiet of the war room, Sam’s hand trembled as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the small, silver ring he’d meant to give you.

He hadn’t even proposed yet.

It had been sitting in his pocket the day it happened, burning a hole in the fabric while he tried to find the perfect moment. He’d imagined giving it to you in bed, when the baby kicked and you laughed and told him to stop staring at you like you were the whole world.

But he had.

And now that world was gone.

The ring caught the light as he turned it in his fingers. His vision blurred with tears he could no longer hold back, and his breath hitched painfully in his throat.

“I was gonna ask you…” he whispered into the silence, the words breaking apart before they even left his mouth.

Then the dam broke.

A sob ripped from his chest like it had claws, dragging pain up from someplace so deep it had no name. He doubled over, elbows on the table, forehead pressed to his folded arms as he wept — not gentle, not quiet, but guttural, aching cries that echoed off the stone walls.

No one came. No one interrupted.

The bunker had grown used to this sound by now.

Sam Winchester, once a man of logic and reason, sat crumbling beneath the weight of love that could not be undone, grief that refused to soften, and the impossible hope that maybe — just maybe — there was still some way to bring you back.

And as the war room held him in its cold, watchful silence, the only answer to his cries was the ticking of time.

And the soft, distant cry of a baby down the hall.

✦

Five days had passed.

Five long, unspoken days, measured not in hours or minutes but in the aching stillness that settled like dust over every surface of the bunker.

Outside, the world went on. The sun rose and set without pause. Rain fell and dried. Cars sped along highways. People lived. Laughed. Fought. Loved. Died. But down here, beneath layers of concrete and earth, time had lost its meaning. The clocks ticked, but no one listened. The silence was too loud.

Inside the room you shared — once filled with soft laughter, quiet words in the dark, the sound of your pen scribbling in a journal, or your boots being kicked off after a hunt — now sat in suspended animation. The air felt heavier than it should have. Like it was mourning with them. Every breath taken was reluctant, reverent.

You lay beneath a thin white sheet, unmoving.

The faint rise of your body’s shape was just enough to recognize you, but not enough to pretend you were only sleeping. The color had long since drained from your skin. The warmth too. And yet, the room was kept cold, unnaturally so — the air conditioner humming endlessly to slow what could not be stopped. Candles lined the walls, not for light, but ritual. Protection. Preservation. A hope more desperate than practical.

Rowena sat beside you on the bed — not at the head, where a friend or healer might sit in comfort, but at the edge near your hip, as though unsure how close she deserved to be. Her spine was hunched, hands trembling in her lap, her usual grace swallowed by fatigue. The crimson of her dress dulled by shadows. Her curls had fallen loose from their careful pins, brushing her shoulders like a disheveled veil. And her eyes… gods, her eyes. Red-rimmed and glassy, heavy with magic and mourning.

She had done everything. Every spell she knew. Every ancient rite. Every forbidden word she once swore she’d never utter aloud again. Her voice had gone hoarse days ago from the incantations, and still she had not stopped. Until now.

Now, she sat in silence, save for the whisper of her final spell as it slipped past her lips.

Her fingers hovered inches above your chest, slow and shaking, sketching the invisible lines of the preservation charm — one last time. Old magic, older than even she liked to admit she knew, bloomed faintly in the air. A warm glow flickered over your body, gold threaded with silver, like sunlight on fresh snow.

It clung to you… and then, like a dying breath, it faded.

Rowena let her hand drop to her lap.

And with it, the silence returned.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Swallowed hard.

“That was the last time,” she said, her voice barely more than a tremor in the room’s stillness. Her words weren’t for you. Not anymore. Her head didn’t turn. “Sam… if she doesn’t come back soon…”

She paused — the weight of the words dragging her down like stones in her throat.

“…We’ll have to let her rest,” she finished, voice cracking. “Truly rest.”

At the door, Sam didn’t move. He stood like a statue, knuckles white where his hands were clenched at his sides. His eyes were fixed on you — not your body, but you, like he still saw you there, still believed you could hear him. His jaw was locked, the muscle twitching, his throat bobbing as he forced himself not to fall apart in front of Rowena. Again.

Then, without a word, he turned. Boots scuffed harshly on the floor as he left in a rush, the door swinging shut behind him harder than it should’ve.

Rowena remained.

And for a moment, she didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

Then… her composure gave way.

Her shoulders shook violently as sobs tore their way from her chest. No sound escaped her mouth — just gasping, helpless breath as the tears poured freely down her face. Hands trembling, she covered her eyes, as if not seeing you would make it easier.

But it didn’t. Nothing did.

Because even magic — powerful, ancient, impossible magic — couldn’t fix a heart that refused to beat.

And Rowena MacLeod, for all her power and pride, was just a woman mourning someone she loved.

✦

Elsewhere in the bunker — beneath layers of stone and silence — Dean Winchester sat hunched on the worn leather couch in the living room, the muted amber glow of a single table lamp casting long, tired shadows across his face. The air was heavy with the stillness of grief, of words left unspoken and rooms left too quiet. In his arms, nestled close against his chest, was your newborn son — the only piece of you left behind in a world that had taken far too much already.

Dean held him like something both sacred and breakable, as if his touch alone might fracture the fragile miracle sleeping in his arms. The baby was wrapped in a pale blue blanket, his tiny body warm and soft, his breathing slow and steady. One small fist peeked out from the folds of fabric, curling and uncurling in rhythmic sleep, fingers twitching like he was dreaming of something gentle.

Dean’s eyes didn’t leave the baby’s face — that impossibly small face with its perfect features. A button nose. Soft cheeks. Lips that trembled faintly as he sighed in slumber. But what stilled Dean most was how much of you he could see there — your shape in the curve of the child’s mouth, the quiet grace in the lashes that fanned over his cheeks. And it wrecked him. It hollowed out something already bleeding.

He blinked hard, jaw clenching against the sting behind his eyes. The grief clawed at him, unrelenting. Your voice still echoed in this bunker. In the nursery that waited with folded blankets and books you never got to read. In the notes you’d left in the journal. In the promise you made Dean repeat with you — that the baby would be loved, fiercely and wholly, by his uncle. That Sam would never have to do it alone.

But Sam wasn’t here. Not really. Not since the day you died.

The soft creak of a door caught Dean’s attention, but he didn’t move. He knew who it was before she even spoke. Jody stood at the edge of the room, quiet as a ghost, her figure framed by the low hallway light. Her eyes — always strong, always seeing more than most — softened as they landed on the scene before her. Dean holding your child like the world might steal him too.

She stepped in slowly, her voice quiet, as if afraid to break whatever fragile peace had settled over the moment. “Has Sam… said anything? About the baby?”

Dean didn’t answer right away. He kept his eyes down, watching the slow rise and fall of the baby’s chest. His jaw tensed, his throat moved like he was swallowing back gravel. When he finally spoke, it was barely audible — a raw scrape of sound pulled from somewhere deep. “No. Not a word.”

Jody sighed, a weary sound that filled the space between them like a cold wind. She moved closer, sinking slowly into the armchair across from Dean. Her tone shifted, no longer tentative — now there was steel beneath it, the kind born of heartbreak and hard-earned strength. “Dean… he made a promise. To her. To you. To this baby.”

Dean looked at her then, just briefly, and the pain in his eyes was unbearable. “I know,” he murmured, voice cracking. “I know, Jody. But he’s not—he’s not here. He’s walking around, breathing, but it’s like he’s not even in his body. Like he left with her.”

“He’s grieving,” Jody said gently, though her voice carried an edge. “We all are. But this little boy…” She nodded toward the baby, who stirred faintly in Dean’s arms. “He didn’t just lose a mother. He can’t lose his father too. Not like that.”

Dean exhaled through his nose, rough and shaky. “I’m trying, okay? I’m doing everything I can. I’ve been feeding him, changing him, rocking him when he cries. I sit in that nursery for hours, just so he doesn’t feel alone. But I’m not his dad, Jody.”

“No,” she said softly. “You’re not. But he has one. And Sam’s still in there, somewhere. Buried under all that guilt and pain. You just have to make him remember who he was before it swallowed him whole.”

Dean looked back down at the baby, one finger brushing gently across the downy hair on his head. The child sighed and shifted, nestling closer against Dean’s chest, instinctively seeking warmth, safety, love.

“He looks like her,” Dean whispered, like it was the only truth left in the world. “Every damn day, he looks more and more like her.”

Jody’s face crumpled, just slightly. “Then you know what she would want. She’d want him to grow up surrounded by love — not silence. She believed in Sam, Dean. So much. She trusted him with everything. Don’t let that trust die with her.”

The silence that followed was thick, pressing in like the walls themselves were mourning. Dean sat still, breathing shallowly, eyes fixed on the baby who held so many pieces of you it made his chest ache.

The room was still. Heavy with ghosts. With promises. With the sound of a baby’s breath, and the hope that somewhere, somehow, Sam would find his way back to the boy waiting for him. The boy who had your eyes.

✦

The war room was swallowed by darkness, broken only by the dull, uneven glow of an aging desk lamp perched precariously on the edge of the battered table. Its flickering orange light cast long, wavering shadows across the cracked stone walls, wrapping the room in a claustrophobic silence that felt as heavy as the weight pressing down on Sam Winchester’s chest.

Sam hadn’t moved in hours. Not a twitch, not a sigh beyond the slow, shallow rise and fall of his chest. He sat slumped over the cluttered table, his broad shoulders hunched as if trying to physically bear the crushing grief that squeezed his ribs tighter with every heartbeat. His gaze was fixed—empty, hollow—on the ancient symbols embossed and faded into the cracked leather of the tome before him. The pages, yellowed and brittle, lay still, untouched by curious fingers that once traced their words with hungry intent. But tonight, they remained frozen, as did Sam’s will to turn them.

His fingers rested limply on the worn cover, knuckles paling against the scuffed wood beneath. His breathing was slow, ragged—a barely audible struggle that sounded less like life and more like a man fighting to keep his soul afloat, treading water desperately to avoid the depths pulling him under. The loss had seeped into every fiber of him, unraveling the man who had once been unbreakable.

The heavy thud of boots echoed quietly as Dean stepped into the room. He didn’t announce himself — no knocking, no clearing of throat — just paused in the doorway, his broad frame silhouetted in the dim light. His eyes narrowed, taking in the broken figure of his brother, frozen in grief and silence like a statue carved from sorrow.

“Sam.”

The name fell softly at first, almost a question. No response. The stillness stretched on, oppressive and thick, swallowing the space between them.

Dean’s jaw tightened, his voice losing its gentleness and gaining an edge of steel. “Snap out of it.”

Sam flinched, barely—a flicker of life that was as fragile as a dying ember. But it was enough to pull Dean in, closing the distance with purposeful steps. His arms crossed over his chest, a shield and a challenge all at once.

“You can’t keep hiding in here,” Dean said, voice low but urgent, carrying the weight of all the unshed tears and sleepless nights. “I get it. I miss her too. Every damn minute since she left us.” His voice cracked, betraying the steel beneath. “But this? This isn’t what she would’ve wanted. She wouldn’t want you wasting away in the dark, drowning in silence while your son’s out there, needing his dad.”

That word — son — hit Sam like a fist to the gut, reverberating deep inside his hollow chest. It forced a painful breath to break free, ragged and uneven.

Dean took a step closer, the urgency softening as he lowered his voice. “He looks like her, you know.” His eyes softened, memories surfacing. “It’s kinda freaky, actually. Same nose. Same little frown when he sleeps.” The corner of Dean’s mouth twitched in a bittersweet smile, but his eyes stayed serious. “He deserves more than silence, Sam. And you need to see him — really see him.”

For a long moment, Sam said nothing. His eyes, rimmed red and glassy from too many sleepless nights and tears swallowed, finally lifted from the book to meet Dean’s. The raw exhaustion and sorrow swimming in his gaze cut deeper than any blade.

“I…” Sam’s voice was hoarse, as if he’d forgotten how to speak aloud. “I don’t know how.”

Dean’s expression softened, the brotherly toughness melting into something gentle but firm. “You don’t have to know how.” His hand reached out, briefly touching Sam’s arm — a lifeline, a promise. “You just have to try.”

The weight of the moment pressed down hard, thick silence swallowing the space as Sam sat frozen, battling the storm inside. Then, slowly, like a man pulling himself out of a deep mire, inch by aching inch, Sam rose to his feet.

The war room held its breath, the flickering lamp casting a tentative glow on a man stepping forward — fragile, broken, but still moving toward the faintest spark of hope.

✦

The living room was heavy with quiet — a hush woven from exhaustion and fragile hope. The soft rustle of blankets whispered against worn fabric, mingling with the steady, shallow breaths of those who had not slept properly in days. Warmth from the dim, golden light of the lamps softened the shadows, but it could not chase away the lingering ache that hung in the air like a low fog.

Rowena sat on the aged couch, her posture slightly hunched as she cradled your newborn son close to her chest. Her dark eyes, rimmed red and glossy from tears she hadn’t bothered to hide, stared into the distance with a mix of reverence and raw sorrow. The baby, swaddled snugly in a pale blanket, rested quietly against her, his tiny chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of peaceful sleep. His delicate fingers twitched gently, a small sign of life amid the stillness.

Nearby, Jody knelt on the soft rug, her thumb moving in slow, soothing circles against the baby’s back, a quiet balm in a storm of grief.

The door creaked open softly, and Sam stepped inside, followed closely by Dean. The air seemed to still further, as if the room held its breath. Jody’s eyes lifted immediately, searching the doorway with guarded hope, while Rowena shifted slightly, still clutching the infant with a protective grace.

Sam’s gaze was immediately drawn to the small bundle — so fragile, so new, so achingly real. His breath hitched, his throat tightening as years of pain and longing crashed against the fragile hope nestled in his arms.

His voice trembled when he finally spoke. “Can I…?” His eyes never left the baby. “Can I hold him?”

Rowena didn’t answer with words. Instead, she rose slowly and moved forward with a reverence that seemed almost sacred, carefully placing the newborn into Sam’s outstretched arms. Her hands lingered for a moment, as if reluctant to let go of the small life she’d protected through the worst of it.

Sam’s hands trembled as he cradled the baby — gentle but urgent, like he was holding the last fragile thread keeping him tethered to the world. His eyes traced every delicate feature for the first time, drinking in the soft sweep of downy hair, the button nose, the long, dark lashes resting against pale cheeks. The weight of it — the miracle and the heartbreak — cracked something deep inside him, a flood of warmth and grief tangled and overwhelming all at once.

His knees nearly gave out beneath him. “God…” he whispered, voice raw. “He looks just like her.”

Drawing the infant closer, Sam’s thumb brushed the baby’s cheek, tears spilling freely now — one warm trail tracing down his own worn face, then another. The walls of grief that had held him captive for so long trembled and finally began to give way.

And then, for the first time since the world had fractured, Sam smiled. It was soft, tentative, fragile — but real.

“What… what have you been calling him?” Sam asked after a long moment, still gazing down at the peaceful little face, the faint flutter of lashes like a secret being shared.

Jody shrugged gently, voice low but steady. “I just say ‘the baby’ or ‘your boy.’ We didn’t want to… pick anything yet.”

Dean, ever the reluctant joker even in dark times, smirked as he flopped onto the arm of the couch. “I’ve been calling him Jesus Jr.”

Sam blinked, lips twitching despite himself. “Jesus Junior?”

Dean shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. “What? You were out of it. I had to improvise.”

Rowena exhaled softly, a breath that was almost a laugh despite the exhaustion, and Jody shook her head with a fond, tired smile.

Sam’s smile faded into something more somber as his brows knit together in thought. “She had a baby name list. She’d been working on it for months.” His voice dropped, haunted. “I… I don’t know where it is now.”

Dean shrugged. “I looked everywhere. Checked her room top to bottom. No luck.”

Then, as if summoned by the weight of the moment, a soft whoosh of displaced air stirred the room. Castiel appeared silently behind them, his trench coat barely rustling, his expression calm but serious.

Everyone flinched except the baby, who shifted briefly in Sam’s arms but didn’t wake.

Castiel’s voice broke the tense silence, calm and measured. “Apologies for the abrupt entrance. I believe I may know where the list is.”

All eyes turned toward him, hope flickering in the dim light.

He stepped forward, solemn but steady. “When I used to read the Bible to her — late at night, before the baby was born — she often tucked small notes between the pages. Personal thoughts, sketches… once, I saw a piece of paper folded in between pages”

Sam stood, still holding the child carefully. “You think it’s still in her Bible?”

Castiel nodded, turning with purpose toward your room.

Moments later, he returned, cradling a worn, leather-bound Bible in his hands. The edges were soft from years of use, the pages yellowed and fragile. He opened it with deliberate care, flipping through with reverence until he stopped and placed a finger gently on a passage in the Book of Matthew — a verse about names, destiny, and meaning.

Tucked neatly between those pages was a folded scrap of paper. Castiel extracted it carefully and extended it to Sam.

Sam’s hands trembled as he took the paper, unfolding it slowly, the creases crackling softly in the stillness. His breath caught as his eyes scanned the handwriting — unmistakably yours — looping, familiar, real.

The list stretched before him: dozens of names, some crossed out in hurried scrawl, others underlined or circled, and one name marked with a small star and a tiny heart drawn delicately beside it.

A smile, fragile and bittersweet, touched Sam’s lips as tears pooled once more in his eyes. His gaze lifted, voice thick with love and quiet certainty.

“I think she already knew what his name would be.”

Eliorin.

✦

The bunker had slipped into a silence so profound it felt like the walls themselves were holding their breath. Night draped over every corridor and chamber like an oppressive, suffocating blanket—thick, unyielding, and endless. It was the kind of silence that made each exhale sound like a shout, every heartbeat a sudden, discordant drum in the vast emptiness. Time seemed to slow, stretch thin and fragile, as if the world itself had paused to mourn.

In the farthest bedroom, the one Sam now claimed as his own, shadows pooled heavily in the corners, swallowing the faint outlines of furniture. This was not the room that still held your still form — Dean had insisted, stern and unyielding, that Sam couldn’t stay there. Rowena had agreed, her voice cold but kind, warning that no man could find peace sleeping beside the ghost of a lost love. So Sam had moved here, into a room that was bigger than he needed, emptier than he could bear.

The crib sat quietly across the room, bathed in the soft, gentle glow of a nightlight that flickered intermittently, casting trembling shadows across the walls. Your son lay there, tiny and vulnerable, wrapped in a light blanket, his breaths soft and steady, warm and real. The rise and fall of his chest was a fragile heartbeat of life amidst the heavy stillness.

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped forward, elbows resting on knees, fingers loosely intertwined. His eyes, rimmed with exhaustion and haunted by sleepless nights, stared blankly at the floor. Sleep had become a stranger — an impossible luxury — since you stopped breathing. How could he rest when the world had fractured beneath his feet?

He ran a hand through his tangled hair, tugging at the roots in a restless, unconscious gesture. His breath came out in a slow, heavy sigh, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the silence. Finally, he rose, bare feet cold against the bunker’s unforgiving floor, clad only in faded sweatpants and a worn thermal shirt that did little to warm the chill that seeped from inside him.

He moved down the hallway, each footstep a soft tap against cold concrete, the only sound in the quiet night. He welcomed the noise — any small distraction from the weight pressing on his chest.

The kitchen light hummed faintly overhead as he entered. He reached for the water pitcher, filling a glass, and stood frozen for a moment, the cool glass resting in his palm as his gaze drifted aimlessly to the empty table. The stillness was a blank canvas, and in his mind, memories painted themselves in vivid strokes.

He saw you there: hair loosely pulled back in a careless bun, soft tendrils escaping to brush your cheek. You cradled a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, the other rocking your sleeping baby gently. The kitchen was bathed in golden morning light, sunlight streaming through the windows like liquid warmth. The aroma of eggs frying mingled with cinnamon-spiced coffee, filling the air with the comfort of home. Your laughter — light, musical, pure — floated effortlessly, wrapping the room in a gentle embrace.

He pictured himself leaning against the counter, cradling your son against his shoulder, exhausted but grinning like the luckiest man alive. That imagined morning, that fragile moment, was a balm he returned to again and again in the darkness.

But with each replay, the ache grew sharper.

Sam sucked in a breath, sharp and ragged, then let it go slowly. His fingers trembled as he brought one hand up to cover his face, jaw quivering beneath his palm. The tears he’d expected — begged for — stubbornly refused to fall. Instead, he lowered his hand, gripped the glass of water tightly, and turned back toward his room.

The hallway stretched long and empty before him, a ghostly corridor shrouded in shadows that flickered with the nightlight’s uncertain glow. The silence pressed closer, heavy and almost cruel.

He passed your old room without thinking, without even really seeing the door, cracked open just a little. It was a door he hadn’t dared approach for days.

As he approached his room, he froze.

There was a barely audible, a fragile sound that seemed almost imagined.

His heart thudded hard — once. Twice.

And then he heard it again.

A whisper.

So faint it might have been a trick of his mind.

He slowly walked towards the door left ajar, breath catching in his throat, eyes wide with disbelief and hope and fear all tangled together.

The cracked door beckoned silently.

His hand shook as he reached forward, fingertips brushing the worn wood. With a slow, trembling push, he eased the door open.

The glass slipped from his hand, shattering against the floor in a sudden, sharp sound that seemed impossibly loud in the heavy silence.

“Y/N?”

[actuallybean]

How dirty is too dirty?

Cause I’m thinking Arthur X Reader while John watches and takes notes on how to please a woman/have sex (reader consents and is into it)

Well lucky for you, I like to get my hand very dirty ;) Enjoy!

✦

Take Notes, Cowboy*

When the campfire burns low and the whiskey starts to settle, Arthur Morgan takes you to his tent for something slow and sinful. But neither of you expect John Marston to be lurking outside, quietly watching every moment. And you? You don’t stop him. *Contains sexual material: Minors DNI, Pre-RDR2 storyline, established relationship with Arthur, voyeurism, mentions of alcohol, fluff Pairing: Arthur Morgan x F!Reader x John Marston (Voyeurism) Tag list: @mostlymarvelgirl Red Dead Redemption Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The fire crackled loud and alive at the heart of camp, its golden flames licking toward the night sky like they were trying to warm the stars themselves. It cast a flickering halo of amber light across the clearing, dancing against worn canvas tents and weather-beaten faces, painting everything it touched in soft, molten gold and long, shifting shadows. The scent of woodsmoke clung to the air, thick and constant, woven with the bite of whiskey, the earth-sweet smell of horsehide, and the faint spice of Dutch’s cigars.

Someone was playing the guitar—not well, but with enough soul that no one minded. The tune stumbled like the man strumming it, half-drunk and grinning, while others gathered around the fire in loose, swaying clusters, singing off-key with the kind of joy only found at the bottom of a bottle. Laughter rolled over the camp in waves, rising and falling like the wind rustling through the leaves overhead. A bottle popped somewhere nearby, the cork launching into the dark like a firework as someone hollered in celebration.

You sat nestled at Arthur’s side, your back flush against the solid warmth of his chest. He was stretched out on a low log, legs spread wide, one arm slung heavy and possessive around your shoulders like he was anchoring you there—like he needed you close. He always got like this when he drank: less scowl, more smirk; less grit, more gentle. The edge in him softened just enough to show something sweeter underneath, something rare. Something that only surfaced when the night was thick and the world forgot to be cruel for a while.

His thumb stroked lazy circles into your bare arm, each pass warm and slow, more absent-minded than deliberate. But even that small touch felt electric. His fingers were calloused from reins and revolvers, rough from carving through the wild, but his touch was careful. Reverent, almost. Like he knew how to take his time. Like he enjoyed the wait.

Around you, life carried on—Dutch spinning Molly around in a sloppy, swaying dance, both of them laughing like they were made of younger days. Miss Grimshaw’s voice pierced the night from across camp, sharp and exasperated as she scolded Bill for something or other, while Jack giggled in the background, the high, unburdened laugh of a child who didn’t know what the world could take from him yet.

“You alright?” Arthur’s voice broke through the noise, low and rough, buzzing against the shell of your ear like smoke and thunder.

You turned your face up toward him, smiling softly. “Mmm,” you murmured, voice thick with contentment, “more than alright.”

That earned you a crooked smirk, barely there beneath the shadow of his hat brim, but you saw it—felt it in the shift of his arm, in the way his thumb slowed. His eyes, deep and dark beneath that ever-present hat, held yours for a long moment, heavy-lidded and unreadable, until they dropped—just for a second—to your mouth.

He smelled like firewood and tobacco, the sharp burn of whiskey lingering on his breath, and something earthy beneath it all—like leather soaked in sun and sweat and days spent chasing outlaws across the plains. His touch drifted lower, fingers gliding down the length of your arm with deliberate ease until they found the curve of your thigh. He rested his hand there, palm warm through the thin fabric of your skirt, fingers spread wide, possessive. Like he was claiming space he already knew belonged to him.

Your breath caught just a little.

“Arthur—”

“You been givin’ me those eyes all damn night,” he muttered, voice low and gravel-thick, his words brushing against your skin more than your ears. “Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

There was a rasp to his tone now, a kind of heat curling in every syllable. His gaze drifted to your legs, where his hand flexed once, slow and intentional, like he was testing how far he could go.

You bit your lip and leaned into him, turning your face so your lips were just beneath his ear, and whispered, “Then maybe you should do something about it.”

His breath hitched—barely—but you felt it. The slight tensing of his body, the way his hand squeezed just a little tighter on your thigh. The look he gave you then was all fire and hunger, half-lidded and molten in the firelight.

He didn’t need to be told twice.

✦

Without another word, Arthur stood—slow and unhurried, like a man who knew exactly what he wanted—and offered you his hand. The fire behind him framed his silhouette in gold, casting a glow along the edges of his broad frame, that familiar hat tipped low over his eyes. You took his hand without hesitation, his palm calloused and warm against your softer one, and he helped you to your feet like it was something sacred.

A few whistles and hoots rang out from the fire pit behind you—half-teasing, half-approving—but no one really paid much mind. The camp was awash in liquor and laughter, lost in the kind of night where the stars seemed closer, the troubles fewer. No one noticed as you slipped into the shadows, your steps silent across the grass and pine needles, Arthur’s hand never leaving yours.

You could feel the heat of him with every step.

His tent wasn’t far—just tucked off to the side of camp where the light of the fire barely reached. It was nestled between a cluster of tall trees, the thick trunks looming like quiet sentries, their leaves whispering in the breeze. Crates were stacked nearby—canned peaches, ammo, a lantern left burning low—but this part of camp was still. Quiet. Like it had been waiting for you.

Arthur pulled back the canvas flap and ducked inside first, turning just enough to catch your hand again and lead you in behind him. The fabric fell closed with a muted shhht, sealing you both inside with the scent of whiskey, gun oil, pine smoke—and him. It was darker here, the only light coming from a single flickering lantern hanging on a hook, casting the interior in amber shadows that trembled along the walls.

And then he was on you.

No warning. No hesitation. Just his mouth crashing into yours like a wave breaking against the shore, all heat and hunger and the kind of need that lived deep in the chest. His lips were rough, tasting of whiskey and heat and something feral. The scrape of his stubble against your cheek made you gasp into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound like it was something sweet.

His hands found your waist, large and sure, and they moved with purpose—bunching your skirt up in his fists, dragging the fabric higher and higher until the night air hit your thighs and you shivered beneath his touch. His fingers gripped tight, holding you like he couldn’t stand the thought of letting go, and he growled low in his throat.

“Goddamn,” he rasped, voice thick and reverent as he ran his hands along your legs, “you’re already warm…”

You let out a breathless laugh, clinging to the front of his shirt as you tugged his suspenders down. “You started it.”

He smirked against your mouth, but his eyes burned—dark and focused and starving. “Sure as hell gonna finish it too.”

Without another word, he swept you into his arms with an ease that stole your breath, lifting you like you weighed nothing. You barely had time to gasp before your back met the cot, bouncing once on the creaking canvas. The air whooshed from your lungs, but you didn’t have long to miss it—not when he dropped to his knees at the edge of the bed like a man offering a prayer, and you were the altar.

His broad shoulders wedged between your thighs, pushing them apart like it was his divine right, his hands trailing up your calves and over your knees as he bent closer. You felt his breath first—hot and damp against the inside of your thigh—then his lips. Open-mouthed kisses, slow and searing, dragging up your skin with maddening care. His tongue flicked out to taste you and your hips bucked reflexively, a whimper escaping your throat.

“Arthur,” you breathed, fingers knotting in his hair.

He looked up at you from between your legs, eyes half-lidded and dark with want. “Sweetest goddamn thing I ever tasted,” he murmured, voice ragged with awe.

Then he licked a long, deliberate stripe up your slit, groaning low like the flavor of you was something he could live off. He buried his face against you without shame, without pause, and your back arched off the cot, one hand flying to your mouth to stifle a moan that threatened to echo through the whole damn camp.

And that’s when you felt it.

A flicker of something… not inside, but outside. Beyond the flap.

Your head turned, pulse skipping a beat. At first, you thought it was the wind—the tent shifting, the fabric dancing—but it didn’t move. It stayed. A shape. A shadow.

Still.

Your breath hitched again, for a different reason now. Arthur didn’t notice—he was far too focused on dragging slow circles with his tongue, humming against you like he was enjoying dessert. But your eyes were fixed beyond his shoulder, toward the outline outside the canvas wall.

It didn’t stumble past. It didn’t speak.

It watched.

And then it leaned forward, just slightly—just enough for the light to catch a familiar glint of a belt buckle. A shape of a hat you knew too well.

John.

Your stomach twisted—but not with shame. Not with fear. You should’ve pulled away. Should’ve called out, should’ve done anything other than what you did.

But instead…

Something inside you tightened. Low in your belly. Deep in your core. The sight of him—watching, still as stone, silent and unmoving—sent a strange, electric thrill through you. You weren’t even sure if Arthur knew. You weren’t sure you wanted him to know.

Your thighs squeezed around Arthur’s head involuntarily, and he groaned in approval, gripping your hips tighter, like he thought he was the reason you were squirming. He didn’t know—didn’t see the way your eyes were locked on John’s shadow just beyond the flap, on the way he shifted ever so slightly when you moaned again, this time louder, maybe even on purpose.

You didn’t break eye contact with the shadow. Didn’t move.

And neither did he.

You were wet, achingly so, but now it was more than Arthur’s mouth or the heat of his touch—it was the weight of being seen. Of knowing he was out there, watching you come undone under Arthur’s tongue, silent and still like he was memorizing every sound, every twitch of your hips, every soft gasp you let slip.

And God help you…

You liked it.

✦

Arthur’s mouth moved over you with devastating patience—his tongue circling your clit in slow, deliberate swirls that felt too soft and too cruel all at once. Every flick sent jolts through your core, nerves sparking, hips twitching against his face like you couldn’t help it. His scruff rasped deliciously against your inner thighs, the scrape of it a perfect, punishing contrast to the heat of his tongue. You could feel every bristle, every slow drag of his stubble against your skin, like he wanted to leave his mark.

Your head tipped back, spine arching off the cot as pleasure coiled low in your belly, hot and thick like molten honey. But even as your eyelids fluttered, your gaze darted sideways—back to that silhouette.

It was still there. Unmoving. Silent. The outline of a man framed in faint moonlight filtering through the seams of the canvas flap. You could see the glint of a belt buckle when the breeze stirred the trees just right, sending soft shadows dancing across the tent. The curve of a shoulder. The brim of a hat tipped low.

John.

You moaned louder, drawing it out, your voice dripping with heat and wicked intent.

Just to see if he’d flinch.

But he didn’t.

He stayed.

Arthur’s tongue flattened suddenly, pressing firm against your clit, and then he began to flick—short, rhythmic strokes that made your thighs tremble and your nails dig into the cot. Your breath came in sharp, stuttering gasps as he worked you with precise, hungry movements, his grip tightening on your hips to hold you in place.

“Shit—Arthur, please—” Your voice cracked on a whimper, the tension building too fast, too sharp, too much.

He pulled back just barely, chin soaked and glistening, eyes dark with lust as he looked up at you from between your legs. “You gonna come for me?” he asked, voice thick, low, steeped in heat and pride. “Let me hear it, girl.”

You nodded frantically, lips parted, hair stuck to your damp forehead. Your gaze flicked again to that figure outside. The silhouette had shifted. Closer now. Not by much—just a step. The tent flap hadn’t moved, but he was undeniably still there.

Watching.

You whimpered and reached down with trembling fingers, grabbing a fistful of Arthur’s hair and guiding him right back to where you needed him. “Right there—don’t stop—fuck—please—”

He growled into you, the vibration making your whole body shudder. His mouth closed around your clit and sucked, firm and greedy, his tongue flicking side to side while his fingers dug bruises into your thighs. Your back bowed off the cot, thighs shaking as pleasure slammed into you like a freight train, ripping through you in waves.

Your orgasm hit like thunder—sharp, wet, and all-consuming—your whole body convulsing as you cried out his name like it was sacred. Your moans echoed against the canvas walls, and you didn’t care who heard.

Because John heard.

And he stayed.

You collapsed back into the cot, chest heaving, fingers twitching as aftershocks rippled through your limbs. Arthur rose between your legs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but his chin still gleamed with your slick. His hair was tousled from your grip, cheeks flushed, and his eyes…

His eyes were molten.

“You’re a goddamn vision,” he murmured, dragging his gaze over your body like he wanted to memorize every inch. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to your knee, then up your thigh, trailing along your skin like he couldn’t get enough of the taste of you.

You reached for him, breathless, brushing your thumb along his jaw. “We got company.”

Arthur froze. Then slowly turned his head toward the canvas flap.

“John.”

He didn’t shout it. Didn’t bark. Just said the name flatly, like a warning—or maybe an invitation. His voice was steady. Dangerous. Amused.

There was a beat of silence.

Then John’s voice came from outside, low and gruff. Not quite apologetic. “I—uh… was just…”

“Learnin’ somethin’?” Arthur cut in, smirking as he looked back at you.

Your soft laugh filled the tent, a purr of breathless mischief. “Let him stay,” you murmured, running your fingers along the collar of Arthur’s shirt. “I don’t mind.”

Arthur’s brow arched, something carnal lighting in his eyes. “No?”

You shook your head slowly. “Might be fun,” you whispered, tugging gently at his shirt. “Let him see how it’s done.”

He growled, deep and low in his chest, and grabbed your face with one hand to kiss you—rough, claiming, full of promise. When he pulled back, his voice was thick with heat. “You’re somethin’ else, darlin’.”

Then louder, to the man outside, “You hear that, Marston? Sit tight.”

A pause.

Then a gravel-thick reply. “Yeah.”

You didn’t even have time to savor the shiver that chased down your spine before Arthur was yanking his shirt over his head, tossing it aside with little ceremony. He loomed above you, all heat and muscle, skin scarred and golden in the lantern light. His hands were rough and fast, shoving your skirt higher, baring you fully to the warm night air.

Then came the belt.

The sound of it sliding through the loops, the heavy buckle clinking, the sound filthy in the quiet.

“You just keep lookin’ at me, girl,” he murmured, dragging the thick head of his cock through your folds, spreading you slick and wide. “Don’t pay him no mind. Just feel me.”

You cried out when he pushed into you—deep, slow, stretching you until he was seated to the hilt. The fullness made your breath catch, made your legs wrap around his waist instinctively.

Your fingers clutched at his arms, digging into the hard muscle, holding on like you were afraid you might come apart too fast.

Outside the tent, you heard a sharp inhale.

John.

Arthur started to move.

Slow. Deep. Measured. Each thrust deliberate, grinding his pelvis against yours, dragging the thick length of him in and out of you like he wanted it to echo—like he wanted the other man to hear.

“God, Arthur—so deep—”

“That’s right,” he growled into your neck, snapping his hips forward harder. “Let the boy hear how good you got it.”

You moaned louder—shameless, panting into the air, body rocking beneath him with every thrust. He was relentless now, fucking you with that same rugged control he used on the trail—calculated, brutal, perfect. His hand slid down between your bodies, fingers finding your clit and rubbing in tight, punishing circles that had you teetering on the edge again.

Outside, there was the faintest sound—John’s breath, fast and uneven. A creak of leather. A shift in weight. And your body reacted—your walls clenched hard around Arthur’s cock, a whimper breaking free of your throat.

“You like that?” Arthur rasped, not slowing. “You like bein’ watched while I ruin you?”

You nodded helplessly, mouth falling open, hips grinding up to meet his every thrust. “Yes—fuck, yes—”

His jaw clenched, brow furrowed with restraint. “Ain’t gonna last much longer if you keep squeezin’ me like that, sweetheart.”

“Then don’t,” you begged, nails dragging down his back. “Come with me—please—”

Your second climax hit harder than the first.

It ripped through you like lightning—white-hot and blinding, your cry loud and wild as your body arched into his. Arthur cursed, his rhythm stuttering for the first time as he drove deep, burying himself to the base.

Then with a low, feral growl, he came—thrusting once, twice more before spilling inside you, hot and thick. His entire body trembled above you, muscles locked, breath ragged as he buried his face in your neck.

And just beyond the canvas?

John watched it all.

Still silent. Still breathing hard.

And still very, very there.

✦

For a long, suspended moment, there was nothing but the soft symphony of aftermath.

Breath. Heat. The quiet, wet sounds of skin meeting skin, now slowed and sticky with sweat. Your heartbeat thundered in your ears, pulsing through every vein like a drum still echoing the rhythm Arthur had set inside you. The cot creaked gently beneath your tangled bodies, the air thick and heavy with sex and smoke and the sharp scent of pine wafting in through the seams of the tent.

Arthur’s weight settled over you, grounding and warm, his chest rising and falling in hard, uneven bursts. His skin was slick against yours, his hair damp where your fingers had tugged it, his lips parted slightly against your neck as he dragged in deep, struggling breaths. You could feel his heartbeat through your ribs, still racing. Still wild.

The lantern on the hook above you swayed just a little, casting a slow, golden spin of light across the canvas walls, catching on the curve of Arthur’s shoulder and the glisten of sweat along your collarbone. You blinked up at it, dazed, your body still twitching faintly from aftershocks.

Then—

A voice. Low. Rough. Awestruck.

“…Jesus Christ,” John muttered from outside.

You didn’t even try to hold in the laugh that bubbled up—it spilled out of you soft and breathless, a giggle against Arthur’s chest that made him huff through his nose, too.

“Guess he did learn somethin’,” you whispered, still grinning, voice thick with satisfaction and mischief.

Arthur shifted slightly, enough to prop himself up on one elbow so he could look down at you, his gaze heavy-lidded and dark but softened now, gentled by the haze of release. A bead of sweat slid slowly down the edge of his jaw as he reached up with his other hand and tucked a damp strand of hair behind your ear, his thumb lingering to trace the curve of your cheekbone.

There was something in his eyes—something wolfish and indulgent, hungry even in the quiet.

“Maybe next time,” he murmured, his voice like gravel soaked in honey, “we let him try too.”

Your breath caught.

Just a little.

But enough.

The words slithered into your ears like smoke, thick and seductive, and they stayed. They rooted deep. Your heart gave a sharp, eager kick in your chest, blood rushing low again, pooling heat between your legs where he still rested, softening but still inside you.

You tilted your chin, watching him. A slow, wicked smile unfurled on your lips—lazy and dangerous. “Maybe,” you whispered, drawing out the word like a dare, like a secret you weren’t ready to keep.

Outside, there was silence again.

But it wasn’t empty.

You could feel it—that weight. That tension. The charged quiet of John still standing just beyond the flap, still listening, still there. You could hear the faint shift of boots on packed earth, the uneven draw of his breath, slower now but no less heavy.

And it excited you.

The idea of being watched—touched—by someone else with Arthur’s blessing? With him watching too? The image sent another ripple through your body, and Arthur felt it. You saw his eyebrow lift slightly, felt the smirk twitch at the edge of his mouth.

“Well look at you,” he murmured, dragging the backs of his fingers down the slick center of your chest, along the rise and fall of your heaving ribs. “Ain’t even gone soft and you’re already gettin’ worked up again.”

You bit your lip, your thighs giving a little twitch around him. “Can you blame me?” you breathed.

Arthur lowered himself back over you, kissing the side of your neck slow and possessive, then nipped at your earlobe just enough to make you squirm.

“We’ll see what he’s made of,” he murmured against your skin. “Next time.”

Outside, the silence stretched—thick and humming with everything unsaid.

And under the warmth of Arthur’s body, still dizzy and wrecked and humming with desire, you smiled like sin.

Because you knew.

There would be a next time.

And John wouldn’t just be watching.

[actuallybean]

Unmasked

Tension runs high on the battlefield—and even higher over the comms—as you and Soap blur the line between friendly banter and something far more dangerous. But when your squad finally calls you both out, all that teasing threatens to combust. In war, nothing is certain… except maybe him. *Contains fluff, masked!reader, mentions of facial deformities, slow-burn, task force 141 mentioned, confession, first kiss Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl Mics. Masterlist | Main Masterlist

There were only two constants on Task Force 141.

One was Simon Riley. The other was you.

Or rather—Ghost and Raven.

Names forged not from birth, but from blood and silence. Names that echoed louder in briefing rooms and comms chatter than the ones your mothers whispered to you in lullabies long forgotten.

You and Ghost had carved your legends in the same jagged way: masked, silent, and merciless.

Where others wore their names like dog tags and badges of honor, you wore yours like shields. Ghost. Raven. Not aliases. Not nicknames. Armor.

You both kept your faces hidden, like secrets too sacred to be seen. You wore your trauma like a second skin, like camo, like the rifles slung over your shoulders—always ready, always loaded. On the battlefield, you didn’t walk. You glided. You stalked. You slipped between shadows and smoke like phantoms born from war.

Ghost had been a legend long before you ever set foot on the tarmac. The men spoke his name in the kind of reverence usually reserved for saints or nightmares. But you? You were something else entirely.

A myth.

A whisper.

The soft hush before the kill.

Ghost drew fire. Raven vanished into it.

You moved with a strange kind of grace—deadly, deliberate, and distant. A ripple of black feathers through the wreckage of combat, trailing just behind him, a dark specter carved from smoke and silence. When your boots hit foreign soil, enemies didn’t see you—they felt you. Like a shift in the wind. Like the cold before a storm. The wraith at Ghost’s side. His shadow, his mirror.

You wore a sleek, sculpted half-mask shaped like a raven’s beak. It curved from your high cheekbones down to the sharp line of your jaw, obsidian black, catching the glint of firelight and muzzle flash like shattered glass. It gleamed under bloodied moons and flickering halogen. The beak concealed the lower half of your face—an avian silhouette of steel and defiance, leaving only your eyes visible.

Your eyes told the story the mask never would.

The mask wasn’t for show. It wasn’t for mystique or intimidation. It was a line in the sand. A psychological bulwark. It was control, in a world that had ripped it from you again and again. Same as Ghost.

The others learned not to ask.

Price respected it. Always had. He was a man who understood boundaries, especially when the scars ran deeper than the skin. Soap had cracked jokes at first—charming, irreverent, trying to break through the ice like he always did. But even he stopped prying after the first few months, when he saw the way your eyes darkened at the questions. The way Ghost would shift subtly, stepping just slightly into your orbit, a silent barrier.

Because Ghost—he got it. Without needing to be told.

He never pushed. Never asked what the mask meant. He never tried to peek beneath it when you drank from your canteen or stitched yourself up in the corner of a field tent. He never stared too long when the wind caught your hair or the edge of your faceplate slipped during a mission.

He gave you privacy like it was sacred.

He gave you space like it was respect.

And somehow, over time, in the quiet hours between missions and the even quieter moments on rooftops, hidden from the world by more than just balaclavas and ceramic plates, something had begun to form. Something wordless. Unshakable. A mutual understanding born not from shared experience, but shared damage.

Not all ghosts haunt houses. Not all ravens bring omens.

Some wear vests and Kevlar, carry knives slick with history, and find solace only in the presence of another whose silence doesn’t feel empty—but earned.

You weren’t sure when it started. That unspoken tether. Maybe the first time your fingers brushed in the dark during recon, or the way he’d wordlessly passed you a cigarette on the ride back from a mission gone sideways. Maybe it was in the moments no one else noticed—the way you moved around each other, coordinated without speaking, fought like a rhythm already memorized.

There was no need for conversation. No backstories exchanged around the fire. You didn’t need to know what horrors shaped him, and he didn’t need to hear yours.

You saw each other. And that was enough.

In a world that kept trying to strip you bare, Simon Riley had never once tried to unmask you.

And in return—you never feared that he would.

Not until the day everything changed.

✦

Until Prague.

That was where everything cracked.

Where silence broke. Where shadows were peeled back under foreign streetlights and the past came screaming into the present with the sound of tearing fabric and shattering breath.

It was supposed to be simple.

A cold night. An urban maze. A snatch-and-grab.

Until it went sideways.

The mission had teeth now. It had claws. It had gone loud—screams on civilian comms, the sharp stutter of suppressed gunfire, the blur of red and blue lights bouncing off the stone facades of centuries-old buildings. The narrow alleys twisted like veins through the city’s old heart, clogged with snowmelt, trash bins, and parked cars dusted in sleet.

You ran.

Boots hitting the pavement hard, lungs dragging in frigid air that turned to steam in your throat. The target had fled the moment his safehouse door splintered open, sprinting like the devil was on his heels—because in a way, he was.

And you were right behind him.

You and Ghost.

Soap was down—twisted ankle after vaulting a slick wall in the chaos. Price stayed on overwatch, voice crackling in your ear through the comms, commanding calm in a storm of noise.

But here, in this twisted chase through Prague’s underbelly, there were no orders.

Only instinct. Muscle memory. Heartbeat.

You tracked the target through a graffiti-tagged underpass, past flickering streetlamps and shuttered storefronts. The city smelled of diesel and wet stone. Snowmelt dripped from rooftops and gutters, soaking the cracked pavement and making each step a risk.

He turned—sudden, sharp—into a half-collapsed lot that might’ve once been a factory or a warehouse, long dead now. The chain-link fence surrounding it sagged like a tired skeleton. The air grew heavier inside the lot, like it remembered what it used to be. Like it still held onto ghosts.

You bolted after him, your breath rasping, blade clutched tight in one hand, the other out to balance.

Ghost was just behind you—heavy footfalls, steady like thunder. You didn’t need to look back. You felt him.

Always.

The target stumbled. Slipped. Regained footing.

You gained on him.

Cornered him near the back fence, a stretch of rusted links held together by zip ties and desperation. He turned—wild-eyed, feral—panic etched into every twitch of his fingers. He didn’t beg. Didn’t run. He just swung.

The crowbar came out of nowhere.

He brought it down in a wide, desperate arc, all his fear and fury behind it. You ducked—barely. It scraped your shoulder, jarring the nerves down your arm, but you stayed upright.

You were about to strike—blade ready—when his free hand lunged.

Not for your weapon.

For your mask.

You didn’t see it coming. Didn’t register the movement until it was too late.

Fingers caught the edge of the elastic strap behind your head. Yanked. The sound of it snapping—too loud, too final—split the air like a gunshot.

And suddenly—

You weren’t Raven anymore.

Your mask tore clean off, sailing sideways and skidding through the grime-slicked slush. You froze. The world rushed in too fast—too raw against skin that hadn’t felt air like this in years.

The man paused.

Just for a heartbeat.

Eyes wide. Not in triumph. Not in fear. In confusion. In the kind of awe that doesn’t make sense when you’re facing a soldier and see, instead, a woman beneath the myth.

But then Ghost came.

Like a freight train.

Like the hand of God.

He collided with the bastard at full speed, every ounce of restraint long gone. There was no tactic in it, no protocol. Just violence. Furious, surgical. His fists found bone, and blood hit the snow like ink on canvas. He didn’t stop until the man was unconscious, barely breathing, broken beneath him.

Then—silence.

Just the faint buzz of a broken streetlight overhead. The metallic hum of city electricity. The wind threading between the bones of the building. Somewhere, far off, a siren wailed.

But here?

Only your breathing.

Your chest rose and fell too fast, your skin flushed with cold and shame. Your mask—your shield, your identity, your anchor—lay crumpled in the dirt, twisted and glinting like a broken wing.

You didn’t reach for it.

You couldn’t.

You stood there, frozen in place, sweat cooling on your skin, exposed in a way you hadn’t been in years. Your lips parted slightly. Your heart thundered loud enough you were sure he could hear it.

Because he had seen.

Not the target.

Him.

Ghost.

He stood slowly from the wreck of the man, shoulders heaving, chest expanding beneath his plate carrier. His balaclava clung to his face from the breath fogging out into the air, but his eyes never left you.

Brown. Sharp. Penetrating.

Seeing too much and still not moving.

You didn’t know what to do. You felt seventeen again, naked in the dark, hiding from the weight of a world that had never been kind. The wind touched your cheeks. Your lips. Your jaw. You flinched at it.

But Ghost didn’t say anything.

He didn’t stare.

He just stood there. A statue in tactical gear. A man built of nightmares and loyalty, eyes locked on yours, but softer now—somehow.

You couldn’t take it.

“Let’s move,” you muttered, your voice raw, barely more than a whisper ripped from the pit of your gut.

You turned. Shoulders rigid. Jaw set. You started walking, gravel crunching beneath your boots, pretending your pulse wasn’t beating like a war drum.

Ghost didn’t stop you.

✦

The debriefing was a blur.

Not the kind that comes from adrenaline or exhaustion—but the kind that felt like you were watching from behind glass. As if your body had remained behind in that filthy alley in Prague, next to the broken shape of your mask, while your mind floated somewhere far above this room, distant and fraying.

The conference room was quiet, sterile, too bright. The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly, casting everything in an unforgiving white glow that scraped against your nerves. You sat with your hood drawn low over your face, shadows cutting across your cheekbones. The standard-issue fleece draped over your shoulders like armor, like you could pretend the fabric was thicker than it was. Like it could hide more than your skin.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to. Price handled the formalities, voice steady and clipped, pacing slowly before the projection screen with arms crossed tight across his chest. His tone was professional, but you knew him too well not to hear the undertone of relief. The mission had technically succeeded. The high-value target was captured. Nobody had died.

At least, not officially.

Soap sat across from you, leg bouncing beneath the table, ice pack haphazardly strapped to his ankle, trying to lighten the room like he always did.

“Christ,” he muttered with a crooked grin, “target looked like he got flattened by a lorry. Or Ghost. Same thing, really.”

A few chuckles answered him—Price’s subtle exhale, Gaz’s amused grunt from the back corner.

No one mentioned your mask.

Not even Soap.

Not the fact that it hadn’t been on your face when you reentered the exfil van. That the mythical Raven had walked through the mist and bloodstained night without her mask nothing covering her face but the hard set of her jaw and the frost on her lashes.

Not the way your eyes had avoided every reflection. Every glance.

And not the way Simon Riley hadn’t said a single word since the moment it happened.

He sat across the room, still as a statue, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely in front of him. The fabric of his gloves flexed every now and then—small, barely perceptible movements, as if trying to rid them of something he couldn’t shake. The balaclava was still in place, dark and impassive, his eyes shadowed beneath the low brim of his cap.

He didn’t speak to you.

Not once.

Not during the exfil, where you’d sat opposite him in the back of the transport truck, the rush of city lights flickering against your skin while you kept your eyes trained on the floor. Not during the long, silent walk through the hangar bay where your boots echoed like gunshots on concrete. Not here. Not now.

And he didn’t look at you either.

And somehow, that was worse.

You could’ve handled disgust. You could’ve taken surprise, discomfort, even pity. You’d trained yourself for it—imagined it a hundred times, armored your mind for the day someone might see the truth beneath the mask.

But not this.

Not the distance. Not the silence. Not the quiet absence of him, sitting only a few feet away, and yet feeling like a shadow that had finally stepped out from under yours.

You tried not to let it show. You’d perfected that skill—stillness. Breathing shallow. Gaze fixed on the table, where the faint reflection of your own face stared back in the polished surface. You kept your expression carved from ice, your posture straight, hands folded in your lap with white-knuckled control.

But inside, it throbbed. Like a bruise forming where no one could see.

You weren’t sure what hurt more—being seen, or being ignored now that you had been.

When the meeting adjourned, Price gave a quiet nod, and everyone filed out. Soap tossed you a lazy salute, wincing slightly as he limped to the door. Gaz murmured something about checking recon footage. The door clicked behind them with a finality that made your stomach turn.

You stood slowly, your knees stiff, pulse roaring in your ears.

Ghost hadn’t moved.

You risked a glance at him—just one. Just a flicker.

He was already walking away.

Didn’t look at you. Didn’t speak. Just turned and vanished into the corridor like smoke through a crack in the wall, leaving nothing behind but the hollow weight in your chest.

✦

Hours later, long after the mission had been debriefed, long after the silence had taken root and bloomed inside your chest like a vine coiled tight around your lungs—

The knock came.

Three soft raps.

No urgency. No impatience. Just... presence.

Your quarters were dim. The overhead light stayed off. You preferred the softer glow of the bedside lamp—amber light bleeding gently across the walls, flickering faintly where the bulb threatened to go. It cast your shadow long and slender across the floor, stretching toward the window that stared into the black winter night.

You were seated on the edge of your bunk, hunched slightly forward, elbows on your thighs. In your hands: the shattered mask.

Raven’s beak, broken.

It rested in your lap like the last piece of a life that no longer fit. Your thumb slowly traced the jagged edge of the polycarbonate, catching on the cracked lines, on the sharp curve of where it had once covered your cheek. There was a dried smear of blood near the strap.

Yours.

You hadn’t tried to clean it. You hadn’t even moved from that position for almost an hour. The silence was companionable in its own strange way—familiar, if nothing else.

You didn’t need to ask who was behind the door. You already knew.

The knock was his voice before words.

You stood, not with purpose, but out of something that felt like muscle memory. Legs stiff, movements slow, fingers reluctant to let go of what remained of your mask. When you opened the door—

There he was.

Simon Riley. Still dressed in his combat pants and long-sleeved black shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up strong, scarred forearms. The balaclava still covered most of his face, familiar and unreadable, but— His eyes.

They weren’t hard tonight. Still guarded, yes. Always. But not distant. Not unreadable. They shimmered in the low light like two pieces of something warm left too long in the cold.

“Can I come in?” he asked quietly, his voice a low hum, softer than usual—not fragile, but deliberate. Careful.

You hesitated for just a moment before stepping aside. No words. Just space offered. A quiet invitation into a room that felt far more intimate than its gray walls suggested.

He entered slowly, like he didn’t quite trust himself to be here. His posture was rigid, hands clasped loosely behind his back like a soldier at rest—but not at peace.

You closed the door behind him with a soft click. The heater hummed in the background, low and constant, filling the silence with something like static. Your boots padded softly against the floor as you returned to your spot on the bed, mask still clutched like a relic in your fingers.

He stood for a long time without speaking.

And then—

“I didn’t mean to see.”

His voice was low. Rough. Full of gravel and regret and something else… something rawer. Not guilt, but reverence. Like he was trying to apologize for crossing a boundary he never meant to breach.

You didn’t look at him at first. Your gaze stayed on the cracked curve of the mask in your lap.

“Didn’t exactly have a choice,” you said softly, your voice nearly drowned by the hum of the heater and the war beating inside your chest.

“I know,” he murmured.

A pause.

Then he shifted his weight slightly, the soft scuff of his boot against the tile. “I would’ve turned around if I could. I just—my focus was on the target. Then I saw you. Without it.”

You finally looked up.

The distance between you was only a few feet, but it felt like a lifetime. And still, he didn’t come closer.

Your throat tightened.

“And?” you asked.

He hesitated.

Then his gaze lifted, locking with yours across the room.

“And you’re… pretty.”

The word fell between you like an unexpected offering. Quiet. Unpolished. Honest.

It felt strange in the air—not wrong, just out of place, like something delicate spoken too softly in a room built for violence.

You blinked. “What?”

He didn’t retreat. Didn’t flinch. Just stood there, unmoving, watching you with something in his eyes that you couldn’t name—something neither of you had ever dared bring into the open before now.

“I didn’t think that would be the first thing I’d think,” he admitted, voice rasping through the warmth of the room. “But it was.”

You lowered your eyes again, suddenly unable to hold the weight of his gaze. Heat bloomed uninvited in your chest, creeping into your cheeks, up your throat. The mask felt heavier in your lap now.

“It’s not about being pretty,” you murmured. “That’s not why I wear it.”

“I know,” he said gently. No correction. No misunderstanding. Just… recognition.

He took a breath. “Same reason I wear mine.”

You looked up again.

And this time, he met you without hesitation.

His eyes—God, his eyes. They burned with memory. With pain. And with a tenderness so quiet it felt like it might shatter under the wrong kind of breath.

“Some faces,” he said slowly, “carry too much history.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came out. You swallowed instead, your throat aching with emotion.

“It’s not vanity,” you whispered.

“I never thought it was.”

The room pulsed with something alive now. Not tension. Not fear. But something heavier. Recognition.

You bit your lip, your hands trembling slightly as they cupped the broken mask.

“It felt… wrong,” you said after a long silence. “You seeing me like that. I wasn’t ready.”

“I get it,” he replied, voice low and rough, like it was scraping through something inside him just to say it. “I wasn’t ready either.”

He took a breath. A long, shaky inhale. “But I’m not sorry I saw.”

Your eyes flicked up, wide, uncertain.

“Why?” you asked.

He stepped forward. Just one step. No more. But it felt enormous.

“Because it reminded me you’re real.”

The words were simple. But they cracked something open.

You stared at him.

“I hear you on comms. I see you fight. I trust you more than anyone out there,” he said, voice steady now, full of heat and quiet reverence. “But it’s easy to forget we’re still people under all this. Under the names. The gear. The masks.”

He paused, eyes soft. “I’ve never seen your face. Not once. And when I did…”

His voice dipped lower, almost reverent.

“You were more than Raven. You were you.”

Silence. Thick. Tangled with emotion. You tried to breathe through it, but the air felt too full, your lungs too small.

Your fingers curled around the edge of the mask in your lap, as if you might crush it if you held any tighter.

He took one more step forward, close now. Close enough for the heat of his body to reach you. But still he didn’t touch.

Still, he waited.

“And I liked what I saw,” he said softly. No smirk. No teasing. Just quiet truth.

The silence between you wasn’t tense anymore.

It had shifted—subtly, almost imperceptibly—into something else. Not cold. Not distant. But intimate in that still, bone-deep kind of way that didn’t need words to fill the gaps. The type of silence that wrapped around two people like smoke—fragile, lingering, and sacred.

The fire between you crackled softly in the quiet room. Somewhere behind the walls, rain tapped against the concrete in a slow, rhythmic pulse. The mission was behind you, but your heart hadn’t caught up. It still beat like it was waiting for the next bullet, the next command, the next mask to come back up.

Ghost sat across from you, quiet, his body still half-wrapped in the shadows, the balaclava casting his expression into unreadable half-light. But his eyes—those ever-watchful eyes—never left you now. Not like before, not like the debrief, when he’d kept his gaze down and away like your skin had turned to glass and he was afraid to see what was underneath.

Your voice broke the silence, low and rough as weathered stone. “You’ve never asked why I wear it.”

You didn’t expect him to answer right away, and he didn’t. He just watched you for a moment, like he was peeling back a layer with his silence alone. Then, finally, he shook his head.

“Didn’t need to,” he murmured. “We all have ghosts.”

A small, bitter breath of laughter escaped you—dry, humorless, but not entirely cold. “Some more than others.”

He held your gaze for a long moment. That look he gave you—it wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t pity, either. It was understanding. Quiet, unflinching understanding, the kind you didn’t come by easily. Not in this job. Not in this world.

Then he said, softly, “Tell me anyway. If you want.”

You hesitated. The words didn’t come easily. Your fingers toyed with the edge of your mask where it still rested in your lap, cool and weighty and familiar. You traced the sharp curve of its raven-beak design, letting it anchor you. For a moment, you thought about lying. About brushing it off with some vague, hardened soldier’s excuse.

But his voice had been so gentle. So careful. Like he was giving you a choice when so many others had taken it away.

So you exhaled and spoke, barely louder than a breath.

“I wear it because once… someone tried to erase my face.”

His eyes didn’t change, but his shoulders tensed. You saw it in the tight pull of fabric at his collar, the flicker of something unreadable in his gaze. He didn’t interrupt.

“Acid,” you continued, voice flatter now, more practiced. “Thrown at me. Point-blank. I was young. I didn’t even know what was happening until it was already eating through my skin.”

You paused, swallowed the lump rising in your throat, and went on.

“My right cheek. It’s not that bad anymore. Grafted. Almost smooth, thanks to the med teams and time. But for a long while, I couldn’t look in the mirror without flinching. And other people? They couldn’t either. Or they tried not to, which felt worse.”

His eyes were dark pools, endless in depth. They stayed on you, focused, quiet, unwavering.

“I stopped letting people look at me altogether. Started wearing the mask. First as a cover, then as armor. It’s not about fear,” you said, the words harder now, truer. “It’s about control. I get to decide when someone sees me. I get to choose what version of me walks into a room.”

For a moment, there was only the sound of rain, soft and steady like the world itself was listening.

His voice came low and quiet. “That makes sense.”

You looked up, your eyes meeting his across the firelight. “And you?” you asked, the question gentle but firm. “Why the mask?”

He was still for a long time, then drew in a breath that sounded deeper than most, like it scraped up from somewhere far beneath the man sitting in front of you.

“It’s different for me,” he said eventually. “I wear it because… when I’m Ghost, I’m not Simon.”

Your chest tightened at the name. You didn’t hear it often. Not in his voice.

“Simon’s… complicated,” he went on. “He’s got history. Pain. Regret. Names I can’t say and places I don’t talk about. And memories I can’t outrun. But Ghost—he’s clean. Efficient. Focused. Ghost is what the team needs. What I need, sometimes.”

You nodded, your voice soft. “Same.”

Then, slowly, he shifted—easing from where he sat to a crouch in front of you. There was no sudden movement, no dramatic gesture. Just quiet proximity. He didn’t touch you. Didn’t even reach out. He simply settled close enough that you could feel his presence like heat on your skin.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said, voice rough but sincere. “About what I saw.”

“I know.”

His eyes lingered on yours, searching, serious. “But I’d like to see you again.”

You blinked, surprised. “What… like a date?”

A dry chuckle rumbled low in his throat. “Christ, no pressure. Just…” He exhaled, shook his head slightly. “If there’s ever a time you feel safe. When you’re not in armor. When you want to be seen. I’d like to be the one who sees you.”

Something stirred in your chest—sharp and soft all at once.

You tilted your head, studying him. “Do you want me to see you too?”

His silence stretched, but it wasn’t empty.

You leaned in just a little, close enough to see the faint, pale scar that ran like a thin lightning strike above his right brow—just where the fabric of his mask clung to his skin.

Then, voice hushed like a secret, you whispered, “I think I already do.”

His eyes flinched—barely. The smallest shift, a twitch beneath the heavy shadow of his lashes. But it was the kind of movement that carried weight, the kind that whispered a hundred unspoken things. Hesitation. Fear. Hope.

You didn't say anything. You just waited.

The room around you felt suspended in time. The dull buzz of overhead lights filled the silence, a low, ambient hum that only seemed to magnify the way your hearts were both beating too loud in your chests. The scent of old stone, oil from weapons, and rain-dampened gear clung to the air between you. Somewhere far off, a door clicked shut. But neither of you flinched. Not now.

Then—after a breath that felt like a lifetime—he raised his hand.

Your breath caught in your throat.

You watched his gloved fingers move with purpose, slow and deliberate, to the edge of his balaclava. Watched them curl around the hem. There was a pause there—just a flicker of stillness as though his whole world, and maybe yours too, was about to tip.

He hesitated.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t reassure him. You didn’t break the moment by trying to soften it. This wasn’t a gesture that needed comforting—it needed truth. And you let him offer it in his own time.

Then, slowly—painfully slowly—he peeled the mask up.

It started with his jawline, revealed in fragments. Strong. Covered in the rough stubble of exhaustion and long missions and sleepless nights. The kind of face that had seen more dirt and blood than sunlight. The kind that didn’t belong in a room like this, gentle and quiet and trembling with something tender.

Next came his lips. Firm, full, slightly chapped from the cold. A small scar tugged at the corner of his mouth, like something had once tried to steal his smile and only half succeeded.

Then his nose. His cheekbones. Hard lines carved from life, not vanity. His face caught the low lighting like a relic—dim bronze and shadows—revealing the topography of a man who’d survived too much. A shallow gash still faintly pink near his left eye. A healed burn trailing just beneath his cheekbone. Ghost stories written into skin.

And then—finally—his eyes.

Simon Riley.

Not Ghost.

Not the mask. Not the reputation. Not the cold precision of Task Force 141’s reaper.

Just a man. Tired. Brave. Open.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He let you see him, truly see him, like someone offering up a secret they'd never let themselves speak aloud.

You didn’t gasp. You didn’t look away.

You didn’t flinch.

Instead, you lifted your hand—just as slow, just as reverent—and let your fingertips graze the side of his face. The warmth of his skin surprised you. Not because you expected him to be cold, but because somehow it made everything feel more real. More human. The calloused texture of him was soft beneath your touch where it curved toward the scar that ran jagged from temple to jaw.

He leaned into it.

Just slightly. Just enough.

He let you hold him there.

You let your palm rest against his cheek like it was something holy. And in a way, it was. Not sacred in the religious sense, but sacred in the way something fragile becomes precious just by surviving.

“Hi,” you breathed.

Your voice was quiet. Not hushed from fear, but reverent. As if saying anything louder might shatter this fragile, beautiful thing between you.

He let out the smallest breath—like the air in his lungs had been held for years.

“Hi,” he murmured back, voice low and rough with feeling. Simon, not Ghost. A man, not a mask.

Then, without preamble—no battlefield, no tension, no code names or combat edges—he leaned in.

And he kissed you.

Not hard. Not fast. It wasn’t the kind of kiss born of adrenaline or grief or heat. It wasn’t the way two people kissed when trying to forget the war they lived in.

It was the kind of kiss people don’t get often in this line of work.

Slow. Raw. Honest.

His lips moved against yours with the careful reverence of someone rediscovering what it meant to be touched without demand. To be seen without armor. His hand hovered near your jaw, not gripping, not claiming—just there, like a question.

You answered it by leaning in. By kissing him back like you meant it.

Like you saw him.

And he tasted like everything he never let himself say—salt and steel and silence. Like resilience. Like memory. Like the weight of ghosts finally being set down.

The world didn’t stop. The rain still fell outside. The mission would still come.

But for that single, sacred moment, it didn’t matter.

Because it was Simon. And it was you.

And for once, no one was hiding.

[actuallybean]

Loud and Clear

Tension runs high on the battlefield—and even higher over the comms—as you and Soap blur the line between friendly banter and something far more dangerous. But when your squad finally calls you both out, all that teasing threatens to combust. In war, nothing is certain… except maybe him. *Contains fluff, flirting, slow-burn, task force 141 teasing, eventual confession, first kiss Pairing: John "Soap" MacTavish x Reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl Mics. Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The static of the comms buzzed low and steady in your ear, a sound so constant it had become second nature—like the thrum of your pulse, the whisper of your own breath behind your mask. A hundred firefights and twice as many missions had taught you to tune it out, to let it melt into the background of your focus—until his voice cut through like a knife through gauze.

“Bravo Six, shift your position to grid three-seven. Y/N, keep your eyes on that east flank.”

Price’s voice was all gravel and command, dragging you back to the moment like a leash. You adjusted your grip on your rifle and slipped into the shadows of a crumbling concrete wall, boots crunching softly on the debris scattered through the alley. The heat shimmered off the broken asphalt in waves, thick and dry, coating your throat in dust and gunpowder.

“Copy,” you whispered into the mic, your tone clipped and calm. It was the voice of someone in control. Someone not distracted.

The lie barely settled on your tongue before it was obliterated by the low, honey-slick lilt of Johnny MacTavish cutting through the comms.

“Lookin’ good on that flank, bonnie.”

His accent was unmistakable—rich, teasing, and rough around the edges like a velvet blade. Even through the distortion, you could hear the smile that curled around every syllable. It dripped into your ear and sparked something dangerous just beneath your ribs.

You pressed your back to the wall, the rough concrete biting through the layers of your tactical gear, and bit down on the smirk tugging at your lips. “Eyes on the target, Sergeant.”

“I am,” he replied smoothly, and you could practically hear the wink in his voice. “Can’t help it when the view’s that distractin’.”

There was a beat—a breathless silence—and then Ghost’s voice slammed into the channel like a sledgehammer.

“Focus. Both of you.”

Cold. Unamused. The kind of tone that could freeze lava.

“Focused, sir,” Soap shot back instantly, with just enough crispness to sound obedient—but not nearly enough to hide the grin laced behind the words.

You didn’t respond, just huffed under your breath and raised your rifle again, your finger brushing the trigger guard as you swept the east quadrant through your scope. Civilians had long since cleared out. The buildings were hollowed husks, windows shattered like spiderwebs, laundry lines flapping like white flags in the breeze. Still, your skin prickled beneath your gear, heat crawling up your neck in a slow, traitorous wave. And it wasn’t the blistering midday sun to blame.

No. It was him.

It always was.

Johnny MacTavish had been a problem since day one. Smart-mouthed, battle-hardened, and recklessly charming in a way that made it hard to breathe. He was the kind of man who could draw a smile from you in a war zone, who knew just how to twist a compliment into a weapon. And somehow, you’d been matching him word for word since the moment you first locked eyes over a disassembled rifle and a betting pool.

The flirting had started as a joke. A dare. A whispered comment after a mission gone sideways and a round of drinks none of you had earned. But somewhere between the bullet casings and the caffeine-fueled briefings, it turned into something else. Something sharp. Electric. Addictive.

Over the comms, on rooftop stakeouts, during quiet hours in safehouses where the only light was the dull flicker of the kettle in the corner—he'd find you. Every time. With a wink. With a quip. With a brush of his shoulder as he passed by just a little too close.

You were dancing along the edge of something neither of you dared name. Teetering on a line drawn in blood and protocol and the very real possibility that one wrong step could mean losing everything—your job, your safety, your lives. And yet, you danced anyway.

Your scope glinted briefly in the light as you shifted, catching movement out of the corner of your eye—just a scrap of shadow darting between two buildings. Your voice went low and serious as you tapped your comm again.

“Movement. East alley. Single target—fast.”

“On my way to back you up,” Soap answered immediately, the flirt stripped from his tone, replaced with something heavier. Protective.

“I’ve got it,” you replied, more sharply than intended. “Just cover from your side. I’ll close the gap.”

A pause. Then a low chuckle, quieter this time, almost intimate.

“Aye. But if you get shot tryin’ to prove how capable you are, I will haunt you. Every night. Shirtless.”

Despite yourself, your laugh broke free—a quiet huff you couldn’t contain. “That’s a threat, MacTavish.”

“No, bonnie,” he murmured, voice dropping to something nearly private, like the others weren’t listening. “That’s a promise.”

“Soap,” Ghost cut in again, flat as ever.

“Right. Focusing.”

You shook your head, trying to clear the heat buzzing in your chest as you moved along the crumbled edge of the alley. You swept your scope over the rooftops, the windows, the broken lines of sight where a sniper might hide.

And still, beneath it all, was him. Always him.

Months of this—months of adrenaline-laced teasing and eyes that lingered too long in the dim light of safehouses. Months of private glances exchanged over weapon briefings and close quarters that left no room for breathing, let alone pretending you didn’t want more.

It was reckless.

It was stupid.

It was impossible.

And still—

God, still.

You wanted to cross that line so badly you ached with it.

✦

“You gonna cover me?” Soap’s voice was a low murmur through the comms, but the edge in it was all adrenaline. He was crouched near a rusted-out side door up ahead, one boot braced against the wall, the other toeing the cracked frame like he was sizing it up for a fight.

Your heart ticked higher with every passing second, but your voice came steady. Certain.

“Always.”

There was a brief pause, a flicker of static, and then, in a tone too flippant for the heat of the moment, he fired back, “Then marry me.”

You snorted. “Buy me a drink first.”

From the other end of the channel, Gaz’s groan was theatrical. “Jesus Christ. Every. Single. Mission.”

“Right?” Price chimed in, voice rough with amusement and years of this same damn song and dance. “It’s like eavesdropping on a slow-burn rom-com. Except with more grenades.”

“Oh, come off it,” Soap said, but he was laughing, and you didn’t even need to see him to picture the grin stretched across his face—cocky, boyish, infuriatingly charming.

“Professional disaster waitin’ to happen,” Ghost muttered, deadpan as ever.

You bit back a grin as you ducked beneath a blown-out window frame, shards of glass crunching faintly under your elbow pad as you propped yourself low. The room ahead was dimly lit, the flickering overhead fluorescents casting weak shadows. Through the fractured pane, you counted three hostiles. Two near the back, pacing like bored wolves, and one stationed at the glowing control console. From the tight formation, you guessed they weren’t expecting a breach. Good.

“Three inside,” you whispered into your comm. “Soap, left’s yours.”

“Copy that, love.”

Love. It slipped off his tongue like a reflex—casual, almost careless. But it landed like a bullet, soft and molten, lodged behind your ribs. It was a word he used often, sure. Like a comma, a space filler. But when he said it to you, it always felt like he meant it just a little more. And that was the dangerous part—you wanted to believe it.

You gave the silent count with your fingers. Three… two… one.

You breached together, synchronized like clockwork. The door caved under Soap’s boot, and you surged in behind him, rifles raised. Your boots thudded across the floor as gunfire cracked sharp and fast. The echo of it rattled off concrete walls, a short, brutal percussion. Targets dropped. The console operator barely turned before you had him down with a single, clean shot.

In less than ten seconds, the room was still.

You stood over one of the bodies, weapon still raised, your chest rising and falling in steady, measured breaths. The copper scent of blood mingled with the burnt sting of gunpowder. Sweat rolled down your temple beneath your helmet, trailing a slow line along your cheek.

Soap stepped up beside you, his gaze sweeping over the glowing monitors and flickering surveillance feeds before drifting—inevitably—to you.

“Clean work,” he said softly.

“You too.” You turned slightly toward him, and in the dim emergency lighting, your shoulders brushed. A small, accidental thing. But the contact sent a shiver down your spine. You didn’t pull away.

The silence that followed wasn’t tactical. It was personal. Too long to be coincidence. Too thick with something that didn’t belong on the battlefield.

“Hey,” he said, voice lower now, filtered through the private comm channel he’d switched to without a word. Just for you. “You ever think about it?”

You didn’t pretend to misunderstand, not this time. But you played it cool. “About what?”

“Us.”

Just that. Simple. Stark.

Your fingers tightened slightly around your rifle. You stared ahead at the glowing green screens, trying to stay focused on anything but the way your pulse was suddenly hammering in your ears.

He didn’t press. Didn’t elaborate. Just stood there—shoulder to yours, breathing calm and quiet as he waited.

And God, you hated him for asking that now. In a war zone. After months of toeing the line, of stolen glances and suggestive banter and almost touching.

“…Yeah,” you said finally. The word escaped like a secret. “I do.”

The moment stretched thin. You could feel him beside you, still and stunned. And then—

“Oi!”

Gaz’s voice exploded through the comms, back on the open channel.

“You two do realize you’re still live, yeah?!”

Your eyes snapped wide.

Soap blinked. “...Shit.”

“Ohhh, this is gonna be good,” Ghost muttered dryly. “Can’t wait for the wedding invites.”

“I want to be best man,” Gaz said, absolutely cackling now.

“I’m not sitting through a ceremony where you two read vows laced with bloody puns,” Price groaned, and this time, his exasperation sounded more like resignation.

“Just kiss already so we can all move on,” Ghost said with finality, like he was tired of your entire emotional arc.

Soap turned to you then, and even under the tactical lighting, his expression was unmistakable—that smirk, slow and cocksure, the kind that should be classified as a distraction. His eyes glittered with challenge.

“Well,” he murmured, shifting closer. “Permission to make this official, lieutenant?”

You cocked an eyebrow, the corner of your mouth lifting despite yourself. “You asking for a mission report… or a kiss?”

“Both,” he said, stepping forward until the space between you was nonexistent. “Preferably.”

The comms were still active. You could hear Gaz wheezing somewhere in the distance and Price muttering something about professionalism, but you didn’t care.

You grabbed the front of Soap’s vest and yanked him down.

The kiss was quick—but it was real. Decisive, like any good op. Like a line finally crossed, a fuse finally lit. His mouth was warm, sure, just a breath away from trembling.

When you pulled back, his grin was dazed and wide.

The comms went dead silent.

Not the usual kind of tactical quiet, either. Not the hushed lull between gunfire or the sharp, anticipatory silence that came before a breach. No—this was the stunned kind. The kind of silence that gaped, wide and stunned, like the entire squad had collectively stopped breathing.

Then, finally, Ghost’s voice crackled through, bone-dry and unmistakably smug:

“…Finally.”

A beat. Then Gaz piped in with a groan. “I owe Price fifty quid.”

Price didn’t miss a beat. “I said before the mission ends, you idiot.”

A choked laugh burst out of you before you could stop it, your forehead dropping briefly against Soap’s shoulder, still dizzy from the kiss. Your heart was hammering—not from adrenaline, not from the op, but from him. From the way he’d looked at you right before he leaned in. Like he’d been waiting years for it. Like he’d do it all over again without hesitation.

You pulled away, breathless but grinning, your lips tingling from the contact, your entire body buzzing like the aftermath of a detonation.

Soap blinked, slightly dazed. “Y’know, I was half-convinced you’d deck me instead.”

You raised an eyebrow, your smirk crooked. “I still might.”

He laughed—open, wide, real. That rare kind of laugh you’d only ever heard off-duty, in the safety of dark safehouses and tin-can barracks, when his shoulders weren’t so tense, when he let himself be. You’d always loved that sound. Hearing it now, up close, made something crack wide open in your chest.

The tension between you—months of it, maybe longer—finally snapped. Not with violence, not with denial. But with something warmer. Something electric. It unspooled from your ribs like static, like sparks dancing down a wire. All those glances, all those murmured quips, the late-night stakeouts where your knees brushed and no one pulled away. The endless back-and-forth over the comms, all bite and grin and not-so-subtle longing, had always felt like balancing on a wire stretched taut.

Now that wire was gone.

In its place: something real.

Something felt.

“Are you two done?” Ghost asked dryly. “We’ve got a job to finish, unless you plan to elope mid-op.”

You let out a breath and straightened your gear, fingers brushing over your rifle as you reset. “Yeah, yeah. All business now.”

Soap clapped a hand to your shoulder—brief, but firm, grounding. Then, with his signature boyish swagger, he jogged ahead toward the hallway, tossing a grin over his shoulder. “Let’s finish this. Then drinks. Then that proposal.”

You rolled your eyes—but your smile betrayed you. You fell into step behind him, boots silent over the cracked tile, weapon raised and ready. The mission wasn’t over. The fight still lay ahead. But your heart felt lighter than it had in months—hell, maybe longer. It beat with something more than duty now. Something sweet. Dangerous. Alive.

And sure, maybe it was reckless. Maybe it was a bad idea, wrapped in flirting and bad timing and the constant risk of not making it home.

But then again—love always had been.

It was messy. Wild. Ill-timed.

It didn’t wait for clearance.

It charged in headfirst, no backup, no plan B. Just heart and instinct and the gut-punch certainty that it was worth the risk.

You glanced ahead, watching Soap’s silhouette move down the corridor in fluid, practiced strides, the way his rifle was already raised, the way he never hesitated when it came to protecting the people he cared about.

And yeah—damn it—it felt good.

To stop pretending.

To finally feel something this real in the middle of so much wreckage.

Your comms crackled again, Ghost’s voice flat as ever. “If I hear any more flirting before this op is over, I’m muting both of you.”

Soap didn’t even slow his pace. “You’ll miss the proposal speech.”

“Oh, please,” Gaz groaned. “Spare us all.”

You laughed, your eyes locked ahead, a new fire under your skin.

There was a job to finish.

But after?

After, it was finally time to see where this thing went. No more pretending. No more waiting.

Just you and him, and whatever came next.

Together.

[actuallybean]

Holy Virgin* | Part Twenty-One

You've shared everything with Sam but one thing—your faith. It’s never been a problem… until Heaven turns its gaze on you, and suddenly, devotion takes on a darker meaning. *Contains sexual material, pregnancy, thoughts of suicide/attempted suicide, virginity and has some religious themes: Minors DNI Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader, Dean Winchester x Reader (Platonic), Castiel x Reader (Platonic) Tag list: @mostlymarvelgirl @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @catsinacottage @ladykitana90 @sepho @kinavet Part Twenty-Two Supernatural Masterlist | Main Masterlist

“(Y/N)?”

The name came out like a gunshot—sharp, guttural, and full of dread. Ripped from Sam’s throat like it had claws, dragging skin and hope with it on the way out.

He barely recognized his own voice.

You didn’t answer.

You didn’t move.

Your body was crumpled on the bed like a discarded marionette, limbs slack, too still. Your head had fallen to one side, your hair sticking to the sweat-drenched curve of your cheek, lips parted just enough to suggest you were still breathing—but the room was too quiet.

Far too quiet.

“No, no—(Y/N), hey—” Sam lurched forward, knees cracking against the metal frame as he scrambled to your side. His hands gripped your shoulders first, then your face, cupping it with trembling fingers. “Sweetheart—come on—stay with me—open your eyes, baby, please—look at me—”

Still nothing.

Your chest didn’t rise. Not even the barest twitch of your lashes. Your skin had gone pale, almost grey in the cold bunker light, and the silence stretched so wide it felt like it might swallow the entire world.

“Sam!” Jody’s voice cracked across the room like a whip, firm but shaking. “Check her pulse!”

For a second, he didn’t move. The words hung in the air, suspended in ice, and his mind stuttered like a broken reel.

Pulse.

Pulse.

He knew what that meant—he just couldn’t process it. Couldn’t look down. Couldn’t force his fingers to move.

Everything in his chest tightened like a fist clenching around glass.

Finally, he forced himself to look—eyes locking on the soft, vulnerable hollow of your throat. He pressed two fingers against the fragile artery there, praying to feel the flutter of life beneath his touch.

Nothing.

Not even a whisper.

His whole body jolted like it had been doused in ice water.

“Shit—” he gasped, his voice cracking, already splintering. “I—I don’t know if she’s—she’s not breathing, I—God—”

“Here.” Rowena’s voice cut through the fog, sharp as a blade. She was suddenly there, pressing something cool and silver into his hand. “Hold it to her mouth.”

It was a mirror—her compact. Elegant. Useless.

Sam fumbled with it like it burned. His hands were too big, too clumsy, shaking so hard it almost slipped through his fingers. He angled it over your lips, holding his own breath while he waited for a sign—for anything.

Fog.

Please let there be fog.

But the mirror stayed perfectly clear.

His stomach dropped. The world tilted on its axis.

She’s not breathing.

The room vanished in a swell of white noise.

Jody was shouting. Rowena was saying something, voice urgent. Machines blared alarms in the background—but it all faded beneath the roar of his own heartbeat. Loud. Violent. Desperate.

Then—something clicked. Like muscle memory kicking in after being drowned by panic.

He moved.

Fast.

Fierce.

He crawled onto the bed, knees sinking into the soaked sheets, his hand cradling the back of your head as he tilted it back. His other hand pinched your nose, and he leaned down with tears pouring off his face.

He kissed you like a man trying to resurrect a dream.

One breath.

Two.

Your body didn’t respond. Lips slack. Chest still.

“Fuck,” Sam rasped, voice hoarse. “No—no—don’t you fucking do this.”

He placed his hands over your sternum and began compressions, the heels of his palms slamming down hard. “One, two, three, four—come on—five, six, seven—breathe, baby—eight, nine—”

“Sam—” Jody said again, closer now. Her hand was on his shoulder, grounding but gentle.

He shook her off like a man possessed.

“Ten, eleven—God, no—twelve, thirteen—come back to me—fourteen, fifteen—don’t leave me—don’t you dare—”

His voice cracked on the last word.

Your chest bounced under each compression, but you remained limp beneath him. Unmoving. Unreachable.

And Sam—Sam was falling apart in real time. His face twisted in agony, tears dripping from his jaw as he fought against time, death, and the breaking of the world all at once.

“Please,” he whispered, breathless. “Please, baby—I can’t—I can’t lose you��I can’t—”

He dropped his forehead to yours for a brief second, sobbing against your skin, then pulled back to breathe for you again, voice rising in a raw, guttural cry.

“You said you’d stay,” he sobbed. “You promised me. You said we had more time.”

He slammed another round of compressions into your chest.

“Don’t do this. Don’t—fuckin’ do this to me,” he begged. “You said you’d stay. You said you’d—come back, come back, come back—”

✦

The air in the meadow shimmered, not just with light, but with something deeper—something holy. It was the kind of glow you didn’t see with your eyes so much as feel beneath your skin. Every blade of grass, every petal of every wildflower, seemed touched by the divine. Gold light floated like dust in the breeze, curling through the sky like it was dancing just for you.

Above, the heavens stretched out in hues too soft, too deliberate, to be anything other than crafted by something kind. Blush pinks bled into periwinkle, into bruised lavender, into the dusky blue of dreams not yet woken from. Clouds barely moved, suspended like breath held too long. And below, where your feet brushed the earth, flowers bloomed in your wake—lavender, yarrow, little blue forget-me-nots. Like the ground knew your name.

You sat cross-legged in the center of it all, the grass warm and plush beneath you like a memory of childhood, like quilts on the floor during sleepovers and sunbeams through kitchen windows. Your fingers sifted through the earth, tracing lazy circles. There was no pain in your joints, no ache in your spine. Your body felt light, unburdened, like it had never known suffering.

The wind stirred, cool and impossibly gentle, curling around you like arms that meant only to comfort. It carried no scent, but when you inhaled, you tasted things you hadn’t remembered in years—cinnamon tea at your grandmother’s table, the leather of your dad’s jacket, the clean cotton of freshly washed sheets. It wasn’t just air. It was memory, softened and safe.

And it was quiet. Not a hollow silence, but a full one. The kind of silence that swaddles you. That lets you rest without fear of what might come after. It was a silence that said you’re allowed to stop now.

You didn’t remember falling. You didn’t remember dying.

But you remembered this.

Your head tilted back, and for a moment, you closed your eyes.

Peace settled into your bones like a lullaby.

You looked down at your hands. They didn’t glow, but they shimmered faintly in the sunlight—clean, unmarred, without the bruises and scars that had told the story of your body’s survival. These hands had known battle. Now they looked like they’d never held a blade. Like they’d never held pain.

You breathed in again—slow, deep. It was the kind of breath that reached places in you long thought collapsed. And when you exhaled, it felt like letting go.

So when you heard her voice, you didn’t startle.

You welcomed it.

“Hey,” she said.

Your head turned slowly, eyes wide—and stopped.

Time stopped.

Your breath caught so hard in your chest you thought it might never move again.

Sally.

She was sitting right beside you in the grass, knees pulled to her chest like she had always sat when she wanted to gossip, or share a secret, or pull you out of a panic. Like sixteen years hadn’t carved her away from you. Like her body hadn’t been found in pieces in that old farmhouse. Like a demon hadn’t worn her smile while dripping in her blood.

But here she was.

Unchanged and yet completely whole.

Her long black hair fell in gentle waves down her back, just like it used to before she got impatient and chopped it with kitchen scissors. Her converse were scuffed—more gray than white now—and the left one was still doodled with sharpie stars. She wore that same oversized flannel jacket, the one she stole from your closet sophomore year and never gave back.

But her eyes. Her eyes were where you felt the difference.

They were calm now.

Not just peaceful—free.

You couldn’t speak.

“Sally?” you managed, barely more than a whisper.

She smiled. That crooked, troublemaking, secret-holding smile that used to precede late-night sneak-outs and gas station candy runs.

“Hi, trouble,” she said.

You didn’t wait.

You threw yourself into her arms with a gasp that broke mid-sob. Her embrace closed around you like it had never left, like it had been waiting all this time. She held you with both arms, hand pressing gently to the back of your head like she was sheltering you from a storm you’d already survived. She smelled like wildflowers and dollar store perfume and your old dorm room. She smelled like after-school bonfires and teenage invincibility.

She smelled like home.

“I missed you,” you said, your voice cracking like glass.

“I know,” she whispered back, her cheek pressed to your temple. “I missed you, too.”

You didn’t let go. Not at first. But when you finally did, it was only far enough to see her face again. To make sure she was really there.

“You’re really here?” you asked, your fingers still gripping the sleeves of her flannel.

She nodded, her expression soft. “Yeah. I’m here.”

You looked around—at the meadow, the open sky, the impossible glow of it all.

“Is this…?” You couldn’t finish the sentence.

Sally glanced up at the sky and back at you. “Something like it. Heaven, afterlife, peace. The words don’t really matter. It’s where we come when we’re almost ready.”

“Am I dead?”

The words dropped like pebbles into the stillness.

Sally’s gaze fell to her knees. “Sort of,” she said. “You’re right on the edge. The threshold. But it’s not final. You don’t have to go back. Not unless you choose to.”

Your heart tightened in your chest. Not from fear. But from the weight of understanding.

You sat back in the grass beside her, legs stretched out, hands resting on your thighs. Everything inside you was still trembling with the aftershock of being seen, being held, being safe.

“It’s beautiful here,” you whispered.

“Yeah,” she said, brushing a wild daisy between her fingers. “It’s everything we used to dream about when we were kids. Quiet. Gentle. Untouchable.”

You turned to her again.

“I’ve never felt this calm,” you said. “There’s no fear here. No waiting for the next loss. The next death. No blood. No monsters. I’m not looking over my shoulder.”

Your voice went quieter.

“And I don’t feel guilty anymore.”

Sally’s hand found yours in the grass.

“I know,” she said, voice thick with understanding. “That’s why it’s so hard to leave.”

You let her words settle. Let the breeze move through your hair and the warmth of the grass seep up into your spine.

Then you asked, “But I don’t belong here?”

Sally looked at you. Really looked. Her eyes were full of a kind of love that didn’t ask anything from you. Only offered.

“Not yet,” she said. “There’s still something calling you. Something you haven’t finished.”

A hush fell between you again. But it wasn’t the end.

It was a beginning, waiting for your choice.

You looked out at the hills in the distance, their slopes glowing in the twilight, as if the whole world was holding its breath. As if it, too, was waiting to see what you would do.

✦

Your body lay still—far too still.

Sam's knees dug into the unforgiving tile of the bunker floor, but he didn’t register the pain. His focus tunneled into a singular, terrifying reality: you weren’t breathing. His hands, trembling and slick with sweat, pressed down on your sternum in a rhythm that felt both frantic and useless.

One, two, three, four.

Again.

Again.

Each compression made your body jolt under his hands like a marionette with cut strings, but there was no life behind it. No twitch of your fingers. No flutter of eyelids. No breath.

His own breathing had turned erratic, ripped from his lungs in desperate gasps that echoed in the eerie stillness of the room. The little mirror Rowena had handed him lay forgotten beside your hip, the delicate glass now fogged from the single, lonely breath that had ghosted against it minutes ago—and never returned.

He’d felt your last exhale. Heard the silence that followed.

“Come on,” Sam muttered, voice raw and breaking, as he leaned over you. “Come on, come back to me. Please—please don’t do this.”

He tilted your chin, sealed his mouth over yours, and forced air into your lungs with two shaky, uneven rescue breaths. His jaw quivered as he pulled back, instantly resuming compressions, his palms bruising against the delicate rise and fall of your ribcage.

Jody knelt beside him now, her face pale and drawn, voice tight with the brittle edge of a woman holding herself together through sheer will. “I think—Sam, I think she still has a heartbeat. But it’s so slow. Slower than it should be. Sam…”

“She’s gonna breathe,” Sam snapped, his eyes locked on your face, begging for the smallest flicker of response. “She’s just—she’s in between, that’s all. She’s caught in between. I can get her back. I have to get her back.”

He didn’t wait for anyone’s reassurance. His arms shook with exhaustion, but he didn’t let up. The pads of his hands drove into your chest, again and again.

Your body jumped.

But still, nothing.

No breath. No reaction. No sign that your soul still clung to the body he held like it was glass.

Dean hovered in the doorway, his expression stunned and waxy, blood drying in sticky patches on his forearms and fingers. His jaw clenched, but his eyes were wide—wet—and locked on you. A soft tremor ran down his spine, sweat slicking his temples as if he’d just walked through fire.

Behind him, Castiel stood like stone, his mouth parted in a silent prayer. One hand reached toward you—halfway raised, like he might attempt something angelic—but even he looked unsure. Lost. Helpless.

Rowena crouched in the shadows of the hallway, whispering incantations in a voice so low it was nearly inaudible. Her hands shook, her lips pale. There was nothing in her spellbook for this.

Sam’s tears began to fall silently, trailing down his cheeks and dotting your collarbone. He hadn’t noticed them. His vision blurred, but he blinked it away.

“I got her into this,” he said hoarsely. “I—I told her it would be okay. I swore to her. I promised her she wouldn’t be alone, that I’d keep her safe—and look at her.” His voice cracked, collapsing into itself. “I lied.”

“You didn’t lie,” Jody said, a little too quickly. But her hands were hovering now. Searching. Then her brow furrowed, and her touch moved lower—to your belly.

She stilled.

Her fingers pressed again. Then to another spot. Her face darkened.

“Sam,” she said quietly. “I need you to listen to me.”

“I am listening,” he snapped, barely glancing her way as he resumed compressions. His voice was thick and angry with panic.

“No,” she said firmly, her voice now breaking. “You’re not. The baby’s not moving.”

Sam’s hands faltered. “What?”

“I’m not getting a response. I can’t feel a kick, no shifting. She’s not pushing anymore. It’s like the labor stalled—or something happened. I think... I think the baby’s stuck.”

Sam stared at her, horror blooming in his gut. “But she’s not even breathing—if we do anything else—”

“That’s why you’re going to keep doing CPR,” Jody said, grabbing his wrists and resetting them on your sternum. “You have to keep her blood circulating, keep oxygen flowing, keep her body working—even if it’s not hers doing it. It’s the only shot the baby has. And it might buy her a chance too.”

He obeyed without thinking. Desperation rendered him a machine.

One, two, three, four.

His whole body moved with the force of it, his shoulders hunched, arms screaming from the strain.

Jody turned to Dean, eyes wild. “Dean—come here. I need your help.”

He looked like he’d rather be shot again.

But he stepped forward anyway.

She guided his trembling hands to the underside of your swollen belly. “Press here. Firm, but not too hard. Maybe we can help the baby shift positions—if gravity does its job, maybe it’ll get things moving.”

Dean’s hands hovered.

“You sure?” he asked, voice hollow.

“No,” Jody said bluntly. “But we’re out of time.”

He nodded once.

Pressed.

Nothing.

Jody moved her hands around your belly like she could coax life out of you with just the right touch. She pressed her ear to your chest, listening again.

Nothing.

“No response,” she whispered. “No shift in position. No fetal movement. No sound.”

Sam was gasping, his mouth tasting salt—tears and sweat and the taste of your lips still clinging to his.

“She’s not coming back,” he whispered. “I can’t—I can’t feel her anymore. I don’t think she’s here.”

“She might still be,” Jody said, but her voice was unraveling. “And if she is—Sam, listen to me—if she is, and we don’t save the baby, she’ll never forgive us.”

There was silence for a moment.

Then Jody squared her shoulders.

“We need to do a C-section.”

Sam froze mid-compression. “What?”

“There’s no heartbeat,” she said, her voice shaking. “The baby’s losing time. If we wait, we lose them both.”

“You’re not a surgeon!” he shouted, his voice rising in pitch. “She’s not even stable. She’s not breathing! You want to—what? Cut her open? On the floor?!”

“I don’t want to,” Jody said. “But I have to. There’s no one else coming. There’s no time to move her. I’ve delivered babies—I’ve done C-sections. But not like this. Never like this. I know the risks. And I know what happens if we don’t try.”

Sam’s hands hovered above your chest, paralyzed.

“You’re asking me to let you kill her.”

“I’m asking you to let me try to save her,” Jody said, her voice fierce. “Save both of them, if we still can. But we’re down to seconds now, Sam. Seconds.”

The air in the bunker had gone sharp and cold, like the building itself was holding its breath.

Rowena had stopped chanting.

Castiel stepped forward at last, a soft light beginning to pulse in his palms, but it flickered—uncertain.

Dean looked from you to Sam.

And Sam…

Sam bowed his head.

He pressed his forehead against your damp skin and whispered through the tears, “Don’t leave me. Please. Please don’t leave me.”

Then he looked up.

And nodded.

“Do it.”

“I’m tired, Sal,” you whispered, the words catching on the edges of your breath like splinters. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said it out loud before. But I am. So tired.”

Your voice cracked at the end, not just from the weight of exhaustion, but from the years you’d spent pretending you weren’t. The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was heavy, sacred, like the pause between thunder and rain.

Sally turned to you slowly, her presence glowing soft and warm like lantern-light in the dark. Her eyes were the same as you remembered—kind, endlessly knowing, flecked with the gold you always swore wasn’t there but she insisted was. And now, looking at her in this strange space between life and not-life, you saw it. All of it. The shimmer. The quiet strength. The love that never faded, even in death.

“I know you’re tired,” she said, voice velvet and steel all at once. “But you’ve always been brave. Always. Even when we were kids. Remember that creep who tried to grab me at that concert in Dayton?”

You blinked through the burn of tears, your lips tugging into something small. Shaky.

“You mean when I threw my shoe at his face?”

She grinned. “It was a flip-flop.”

You let out a breath that stuttered in your chest—a laugh warped by a sob. “And it still left a bruise.”

“Damn right it did. You left your mark, alright.”

The smile faded slowly from your face. You looked at her, really looked, and the guilt you carried rose up like bile in your throat.

“But I couldn’t save you.”

The words barely made it out. You said them like they were a confession, like they were a curse you’d been carrying so long they fused to your ribs.

Sally’s expression didn’t flinch. If anything, it softened into something deeper—sad, but free. Forgiving.

“You were never supposed to,” she said gently.

You shook your head, but the tears were already falling, silent and hot.

“I tried,” you croaked. “God, I tried. But I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t strong enough. And after that night—I couldn’t let it happen again. Not to anyone else. That’s why I picked up the knife. The gun. The spells. That’s why I became a hunter. Because something took you and the world didn’t stop. Nobody else stopped it. So I had to.”

“And you did,” Sally said. “You stopped so many monsters. You saved people who never even knew you were there. But this? This fight?”

She reached out and touched your stomach—barely a brush, but it hit like lightning.

“This little one?” she whispered, eyes brimming. “They’re going to need you more than the world ever did.”

You stared at her, lips trembling. Your hand drifted instinctively to your belly, covering hers. The warmth was faint, like a coal buried in ash.

“I don’t know if I can be a mother,” you whispered.

“You already are,” Sally said simply, like it was the easiest truth in the world. “Even if you don’t feel it yet. You’re everything to them. You’re their whole world. They’ll need your strength. Your stubbornness. Your laugh. Your fury. Your love.”

You pressed your lips together, heart pounding, throat strangled with emotion.

“I don’t even know what they are, Sal. What if they’re not even… right? I don’t know if they’re God’s or Lucifer’s or some horrible joke the universe cooked up to punish me.”

Sally held your gaze.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said, voice like calm water. “You always do. And whatever they are—whatever this is—they’ll still be yours. And that’s what matters.”

You looked down, chest aching. Your hands shook as they cupped the swell of your stomach, unsure if you were trying to protect it—or apologize for it.

Then… the breeze shifted.

And for the first time, it meant something.

It wasn’t just air or sound. It was a cry—faint, but raw and gutting, echoing through the space between worlds. It threaded through your bones like music you’d forgotten how to dance to.

You stilled.

There, in the wind—like a prayer that had been screaming itself hoarse:

“Don’t do this. Don’t fuckin’ do this to me—”

Your head snapped up.

Your eyes found Sally’s, wide, startled. But she was already nodding.

“He’s calling you,” she said quietly. “He hasn’t stopped. Not since you fell. He’s begging. And he won’t stop.”

Sam.

It was Sam.

The sound of his voice—wrecked and cracking—slammed into your chest like a tidal wave. Your pulse thundered. You hadn’t heard anything so alive in so long. Not like this.

Grief tore itself from your limbs like it was fleeing your body.

You stood.

Sally smiled, proud and sad, all at once.

“You were tired,” she said. “But you’re not done.”

The breeze wrapped around you again—and this time, it wasn’t a breeze.

It was pulling.

You turned back to Sally, your eyes wet.

“Thank you,” you whispered. “For everything.”

She just smiled, soft and radiant.

“Go on, then,” she said. “He’s waiting.”

Terror rushed in like a tide. A crashing wave into your chest.

You closed your eyes.

And you breathed.

✦

The room tilted, as if the very air around them had thickened, twisting the world into a slow, disorienting spiral. The sterile bunker walls seemed to pulse with the pounding rhythm of unseen drums—his own heart echoing in his ears, relentless and unforgiving.

Sam’s hands froze mid-motion, pressed firmly against your chest, his fingers trembling slightly despite the urgency that gripped him. Time stretched thin, every second heavy with unspoken dread and fragile hope.

Dean stood a few feet away, rigid and still, his usually restless body caught in a cage of shock. His eyes were fixed on you, wide and unblinking, the lines of worry carved deep across his forehead. Blood still clung to his hands, a stark contrast against the pale tiles beneath his boots.

Rowena lingered silently in the corner, a shadow cloaked in silence. Her face, usually so expressive—smug, sharp, calculating—was unreadable now. There was no magic in her eyes, no fire. Just an unsettling calm that didn’t promise peace.

And then—

The tiniest, almost imperceptible flutter.

It was Jody who noticed it first. Her fingers, weathered and sure from years of battles and mercy alike, twitched softly against your belly. Her breath hitched, caught somewhere between disbelief and relief.

“There,” she whispered, voice barely audible over the charged stillness. “Did you feel that? A kick.”

Sam’s head snapped up so fast it nearly gave him whiplash.

“What?”

“That,” Jody said again, her hand hovering just inches from your skin, eyes wide and searching like a lifeline. “Right there. Movement.”

Dean’s breath caught, ragged and shallow, as his gaze dropped to the subtle rise and fall beneath your stretched skin.

“The kid,” he breathed out in a broken whisper, voice thick with disbelief, “they’re still in there. Still fighting.”

Hope flickered, fragile and fragile, like the last candle flame in a dark room. It wasn’t bold or bright. It was desperate. A tenuous thread clinging to the possibility of salvation.

Jody’s eyes locked on Sam’s, steady and imploring. “We might still have time,” she said carefully, her voice low but edged with urgency. “But not much. I need your answer—right now.”

Sam’s gaze dropped back to you.

Your lips were pale, almost ghostly against the rawness of your flushed cheeks. Sweat slicked your skin, mingling with the coppery tang of blood and the thick, suffocating silence that filled the space between heartbeats. The contours of your body beneath his hands felt both achingly familiar and heartbreakingly distant—as if you were both here and slipping further away with every breath he wished you’d take.

You were the woman he loved—the light in his darkest nights.

You were the woman he had failed.

And you were the mother to a child neither of you had asked for, yet whose fate was now entwined with theirs in ways none of them could understand.

Sam closed his eyes, swallowing the weight of grief, love, and terrifying responsibility that crashed over him in a single, suffocating wave.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Do it,” he whispered, voice raw, breaking, resolute.

The room held its breath with him, poised on the knife’s edge between loss and a fragile hope for new life.

✦

The room hung in a suffocating silence—too quiet, as if the very air was holding its breath, waiting for a miracle that seemed impossibly far away. Every heartbeat throbbed like a distant drum, a fragile rhythm clinging to the edges of despair.

Sam’s breath came in shallow, ragged pants, each one a desperate gasp trying to pull life back into a body that was slipping farther from him with every passing second. His chest rose and fell unevenly, raw emotion strangling the steady cadence he once knew.

In the corner, Rowena murmured under her breath, her voice fragile and trembling—a low litany that sounded like a prayer, or perhaps a spell woven from hope and desperation. Her usually commanding presence was fractured tonight, softened into something painfully human.

Your body lay still on the bed you shared with Sam—a tangled, broken sculpture of limbs and blood and fading warmth. The harsh yellow glow of the overhead light cast cruel shadows across your pale skin, making the blue tint to your lips all the more vivid, like frost on glass. Your belly, swollen and stretched beyond reason, lay motionless and silent, the very heart of this cruel, aching stillness.

Jody wiped her trembling hands on a towel saturated with your blood, the ragged fabric smeared and stained. She set it aside carefully, her fingers tightening around the cold steel of the knife she had prepared—a weapon so clinical, so mercilessly precise. Yet even in her steely grip, her hands betrayed her: they trembled with the weight of what must be done.

This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen. None of it.

Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, fragile but resolute. “Alright,” she said, turning slowly to the others. “I need to do this now.”

There was a pause—an almost sacred silence.

Then Dean stepped forward, the first to move. Since you’d been carried here, he had said little—his jaw clenched tight, eyes shadowed with a haunted intensity. He had followed orders, held pressure, moved supplies, silent but steady. Now, standing beside you, he lingered with a reverence born from heartbreak.

His gaze fell to your face, as if trying to memorize every delicate feature etched in pain and exhaustion. “You always said you were tougher than me,” he said, voice raw and cracked with emotion. “Guess... guess you win.”

His throat bobbed with a swallow he tried to mask. He bent forward and pressed a gentle kiss to your fevered forehead. “And I hope you got your dumb sushi boat,” he whispered, voice breaking. “The one you said you wanted after you gave birth... God, please wake up.”

Before anyone could see the tears shimmering in his eyes, he turned away, shoulders shaking with silent grief.

Rowena moved next, slow and deliberate, as though fighting an unseen tide urging her backward. She was never one for softness, yet tonight something fragile cracked through her usual armor. Her lips quivered, and when she brushed your hair aside, it was with a tenderness almost maternal.

“You always reminded me of me,” she said, voice thick with unspoken emotion. “The anger. The fire. The guilt.”

Her hand lingered on your cheek, warm despite the chill that had taken your body.

“I should have done more. Taken the burden from you. But I gave you more instead. I’m sorry,” she whispered, eyes glassy. “I hope there’s peace where you are, darling.”

Without another word, she stepped back, fading into the shadows.

Castiel was still. Silent. His usual calm was replaced by something heavier—a cosmic sorrow etched deep into his angelic face. He didn’t reach out, only looked upon you with eyes that held the weight of heaven and its unbearable cost.

“I brought this path to you,” he said softly. “I involved you in this war. I carried Heaven’s will into your hands, when you should have only carried your child.”

His eyes flickered, ancient and full of regret.

“I wish I could take your pain away. I would give anything to spare you this suffering. But I know... you would have chosen this anyway. Because that’s who you are.”

He bowed his head in silent benediction. “I hope you find peace, friend.”

And then there was Sam.

He hadn’t moved from your side all this time, his hands never ceasing their desperate rhythm of compressions, counting through clenched teeth, clutching you like a lifeline that was fraying by the second. His grief was raw, primal, a force that could tear worlds apart.

Now, finally, he paused. Just for a heartbeat.

He bent close, one hand weaving through the sweat-matted strands of your hair, the other still pressing against your sternum as if willing your heart to keep fighting—not just with the strength of flesh, but with every ounce of his own fractured soul.

“Please,” he whispered, voice breaking, tears falling freely onto your skin. “Please come back. I can’t do this without you.”

His lips trembled as he spoke. “You told me you’d fight. You said you’d make it. I believed you. I still do.”

His breath caught, voice cracking under the weight of his love and his guilt.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you sooner. Just—please. Come back. Come back to me.”

He pressed a gentle kiss to your temple, eyes squeezed tight in desperate prayer.

And then—

Jody gave a final nod, her jaw set with grim determination.

She looked at Sam, steady despite the chaos. “You hold her. Talk to her. Keep her grounded if she comes back. If not...”

Her voice broke, the words hanging heavy but unfinished.

Without hesitation, she pressed the tip of the blade against your belly—just above the curve where your child waited, trapped beneath skin and muscle, silent but still so fragilely alive.

The cold steel pierced your flesh.

Blood welled up around the knife like ink spilling on white paper.

Sam stiffened, cradling your hair with reverence, whispering to you, as though his voice could anchor you back from the void.

Jody cut slow, methodical, her face pale but unwavering.

“Almost there,” she murmured, breath shaky but steady. “Just hold on—”

Suddenly—

Your eyes snapped open, wild and fierce.

Your whole body arched, muscles tightening in a violent coil.

A guttural, ragged scream tore from your throat, raw with pain and confusion.

Sam jerked back, horror ripping through him as your hands flailed helplessly, mouth opening wide in a sobbing plea.

“NO—NO—STOP—WHAT—STOP IT—STOP—IT HURTS—”

Jody’s hands froze mid-cut, breath hitching.

“Oh my God—she’s awake—”

“You’re back,” Sam gasped, cupping your head like you were the most precious thing in the universe. “You’re back—oh God—it’s okay—”

But it wasn’t okay.

Not for you.

All you could feel was the white-hot agony searing through your abdomen, lungs burning with every ragged breath, your vision swimming in a tempest of red, white, and flickering flames. You tried to lift yourself, but your body screamed in protest, muscles refusing to obey. Your hands slapped frantically at Jody’s arms, the knife, your own blood-soaked stomach.

“SAM—SOMETHING’S WRONG—WHAT’S HAPPENING—WHY DOES IT HURT—”

“You’re in labor,” Sam gasped, voice breaking as he struggled to hold you gently but firmly. “You stopped breathing—we had to—”

“I’M DYING!” you sobbed, body shaking violently. “I CAN FEEL IT—IT HURTS—I DON’T WANT TO—SAM PLEASE—”

Jody pressed a hand to your belly, steadying you. “The baby’s still alive. But not for long. I need two more minutes—”

Your scream tore through the bunker, echoing against cold stone walls and metal pipes, a raw, primal sound filled with terror and pain.

“YOU’RE CUTTING ME OPEN—OH MY GOD—”

Sam buried his face in your neck, sobbing. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—just stay with me—please stay—”

Your body convulsed uncontrollably, breath shallow and ragged.

Jody’s hands moved faster now, soaked in blood, her voice strained. “I see the head—almost there—just a little more—”

“IT HURTS—” you wailed. “SAM—MAKE IT STOP—MAKE IT STOP—”

“Almost there,” Jody whispered, tears mingling with sweat on her cheeks. “Almost—”

The room became a maelstrom of pain, love, and desperate hope.

Your screams.

Sam’s pleading sobs.

Dean’s held breath.

And then—

A sharp, piercing cry.

High-pitched and alive.

Wet with the first breath of life.

The baby.

Jody held the tiny, fragile life in her blood-stained hands, tears streaming freely as she turned the newborn toward the room.

“He’s breathing,” Jody whispered, voice trembling. “Oh God. He’s breathing.”

But your body, finally spent, went slack beneath Sam’s desperate touch.

Panic surged again as Sam clutched your face, your hands, your heart.

“Hey—hey—stay with me,” he begged, voice cracking. “Don’t go. Not now. Look at me—look at me.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

Your lips moved.

And then—

Darkness claimed you once more.

[actuallybean]

MISC. MASTERLIST

Last Updated: 8/7/2025

BIGBY WOLF

One-shots

Nothing at the moment!

Series

Nothing at the moment!

Requests :)

Nothing at the moment!

GERALT OF RIVIA

One-shots

The Wolf and the Rose He enters her world of velvet and gold with a wolf’s wariness, his hands more used to blade than ballroom. But she asks for a dance, and in the hush between heartbeats, he offers his hand. Beneath the chandeliers, something ancient and aching begins to stir. *Contains fluff, slight flirting, slight forbidden love aspects, first kiss, Geralt dancing

Series

Nothing at the moment!

Requests :)

Nothing at the moment!

JOHN "SOAP" MACTAVISH

Loud and Clear Tension runs high on the battlefield—and even higher over the comms—as you and Soap blur the line between friendly banter and something far more dangerous. But when your squad finally calls you both out, all that teasing threatens to combust. In war, nothing is certain… except maybe him. *Contains fluff, flirting, slow-burn, task force 141 teasing, eventual confession, first kiss

Series

Nothing at the moment!

Requests :)

Nothing at the moment!

JOHN WICK

One-shots

Nothing at the moment!

Series

Nothing at the moment!

Requests :)

Nothing at the moment!

SIMON "GHOST" RILEY

One-shots

Unmasked Tension runs high on the battlefield—and even higher over the comms—as you and Soap blur the line between friendly banter and something far more dangerous. But when your squad finally calls you both out, all that teasing threatens to combust. In war, nothing is certain… except maybe him. *Contains mentions of facial deformities, masked!reader, slight slow-burn, some fluff, task force 141 mentioned, confessions, first kiss

Series

Nothing at the moment!

Requests :)

Nothing at the moment!

[actuallybean]

Bean i am back

Obvs no pressure however could you PLEASE do more twilight headcanons?

Current idea is how would Edward react to a reader who plays hard to get? Some NSFW would be amazing!

Thank youuuu

I gotchu babes! Enjoy :)

✦

Edward's Reaction to Hard to Get Reader HCs*

When you keep Edward at arm’s length with a playful, fiery resistance, his centuries of restraint threaten to shatter. The chase becomes an intoxicating battle of wills, where every stolen touch and lingering look ignites a hunger that refuses to be denied. In a night charged with fierce passion and tender obsession, Edward finally claims what he’s craved for so long—your heart and body completely. *Contains mentions of sexual material: Minors DNI, reader plays hard to get, fluff Pairing: Edward Cullen x Reader Tag list: @mostlymarvelgirl Twilight Masterlist | Main Masterlist

1. The Chase Is His Addiction You play hard to get with a smile, the ultimate challenge. Every time you pull away, Edward’s hunger sharpens, becoming more acute, more desperate. It’s a silent war of wills: your teasing distance, his relentless pursuit. Each encounter is a battle he’s determined to win, but you keep him guessing, never fully surrendering.

"You think you can hide from me," he murmurs, eyes glowing gold. "But I’m patient. And I will wait for every piece of you."

2. Touches That Burn and Soften His fingertips trace your skin like fire and ice—too gentle to scorch, but too intense to ignore. The way he touches is reverent and claiming all at once, a promise of what will come if you let go. You resist, but your body betrays you, shivering with every ghost of his contact.

"Every inch of you is mine to discover," he whispers, breath hot against your jaw. "And I’m not stopping until you’re trembling beneath me."

3. The First Kiss—Electric and Devouring When Edward finally presses his lips to yours, it’s not tentative—it’s all-consuming. His mouth moves with the hunger of centuries spent waiting. The kiss deepens quickly, his hands locking around your waist to pull you impossibly close, as if he could make you one with him in that moment.

"I’ve dreamed of this," he gasps between kisses, "and now I can’t let you go."

4. The Dance of Control and Surrender You resist, but it’s a beautiful resistance—like fire teasing the storm. Edward’s strength presses you into shadows, yet his touch is tender beneath the urgency. The tension between your stubbornness and his dominance is electric, a delicate balance where neither can fully control the other.

"You challenge me," he says low, "and I’m utterly captivated by every defiant heartbeat beneath my hands."

5. When Desire Breaks the Dam The moment Edward lets go of restraint, he becomes all-consuming. His kisses trail from your lips down your neck, marking you as his with breathless hunger. His hands roam, possessive and worshipful, learning the secret places where your defenses fall. You give in—softly, urgently—and the dam breaks with a rush that leaves you both breathless.

"You are mine," he breathes, voice rough. "In every way, now and forever."

6. The Night That Burns Into Memory When you finally surrender to him, Edward’s intensity is overwhelming. His strength, his speed, the sheer force of his desire create a night seared into your flesh and soul. Every touch, every kiss, every whispered word is a promise and a confession of his eternal obsession with you.

"I will never stop chasing you," he swears, voice thick with need. "Because you are my forever chase."

7. Afterglow of Fire and Tenderness In the quiet after the storm, Edward holds you close—his breath soft, his eyes full of something rare: vulnerability. The hard-to-get girl has melted into something infinitely more precious, and he guards you like a treasure beyond time.

"You make patience unbearable," he admits softly. "But you are worth every second."

8. His Touch Becomes Need, Not Restraint Edward’s hands roam with a desperate reverence, sliding beneath your shirt to trace the curve of your ribs, feeling the rapid beat of your heart under his fingertips. His lips find the sensitive skin just below your collarbone, sucking in a slow, demanding kiss that makes your breath hitch. You arch into him, every nerve alive, but still refuse to fully surrender—because the chase only sharpens the fire between you.

"Tell me you want this," he murmurs against your skin, "Tell me you want me as much as I want you."

9. Slow, Consuming Worship His mouth leaves a trail of heated kisses down your torso, worshipping every inch of exposed skin. Edward’s mouth closes over your nipple with a soft, possessive suck, his hand gripping your hip to keep you rooted in place. You gasp, fingers tangling in his hair, pulled between resistance and the dizzying pleasure only he can give. His voice is low, rough with need:

"You’re mine, even when you try to hide it."

10. A Battle of Breath and Desire Edward’s mouth claims yours again, tongue sliding over your lips with possessive greed. His hands are everywhere—on your back, your thighs, exploring, teasing, igniting fires beneath your skin. The slow crawl of his teeth grazing your neck makes your skin burn with a delicious ache, and you finally lose your last defenses, surrendering to the wild, overwhelming need he stirs in you.

"No more running," he breathes, "Not tonight. You’re all mine."

11. The Breaking Point Clothes fall away piece by piece, discarded in your wake as Edward’s touch grows more urgent, more claiming. His skin against yours is cold but the fire he sparks inside you is unbearable—raw, desperate, and infinite. His lips and hands move with a hunger centuries in the making, worshipping your body until you’re trembling, lost in waves of pleasure and need.

"You don’t know what it means to be desired like this," he whispers fiercely, "To be claimed so completely."

12. Sweat, Heat, and Whispered Confessions The room is thick with heat and your ragged breaths as Edward moves with a fierce tenderness, every kiss and touch a confession of obsession. His voice, low and rough, breaks through the haze of sensation:

"I want to memorize every sound you make," he promises, "Every shiver, every cry—because you are my forever."

[actuallybean]

Hello, I've noticed your GOT list was empty and decided to do an ask. I was wondering if you'd be interested in doing a Robb Stark x female reader that's from the modern era, so she somehow ended up in the north and is really knowledgeable on Futhark, including the fact that she does Tarot reading since she's obsessed about knowing the future in any shape of form. Not to mention, she's essentially a metal head, so her attire isn't always good in certain situations. It makes people think she's some kind of witch or a dark priestess.

This was a bit of a challenge but I think I got it to fit your request! Hope you enjoy :)

✦

Through the Veil of Iron and Snow

A modern metalhead stranded in the North uses her knowledge of runes and tarot to navigate a world of superstition and war. Robb Stark is drawn to the mysterious “witch” beneath her dark armor, and together they face a fate that only love can challenge. *Contains mentions of tarot card readings, runes, themes of dislocation, prejudice, slow-burn romance, mentions of magic and mysticism, rich emotional introspection, some soft sensuality and tension. Pairing: Robb Stark x Modern!Reader Tag list: @mostlymarvelgirl Game of Thrones Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The first time they saw you, truly saw you, it was in the hush between storms, when Winterfell sat swaddled in a blanket of stillness and snow whispered through the air like ash from a dying fire. You were curled at the roots of the ancient weirwood, its red leaves trembling above you like a thousand watching eyes. Frost laced the edges of your cloak, and your fingers—stained violet-black with ink and calloused from too many nights hunched over paper—brushed snow from a deck of cloth-bound cards that looked older than the godswood itself.

You did not belong here. Anyone with a half-sense of the world could see that from the moment you stumbled past the gates: a creature born of wind and storm, wrapped in a patchwork of cracked leather and faded black denim that no seamstress in the North had ever stitched. Your boots were worn down to their soles and crusted in half-melted frost, the color of old bruises. Silver rings clinked with every movement—dozens of them, each etched with sigils no one could read, whispering against one another like wind chimes made for the dead.

The guards drew steel before you even spoke. One thought you a wildling draped in theatrics. Another, more superstitious, muttered of forest witches and spies sent south in madness. You didn’t protest. You simply stood there in the swirling snow, head tilted like you were listening to something just beyond hearing, your breath fogging like incense.

It was Maester Luwin who intervened, not out of kindness but curiosity—his nature a balance of caution and fascination. You told him your story in riddles, voice rasped raw from the cold. You spoke of snowfields that weren’t mapped on any known land, of a ghost-moon that shimmered like oil on water, fractured and shifting. You said you had fallen asleep in a graveyard of pines, wrapped in the dead silence of a forest that didn’t breathe, and woke to a sky that was not your own. Time, you said, wasn’t a straight thing. It bent. Folded. Slipped sideways when you weren’t looking. You could feel it moving under your skin like smoke. You only wished your hands would stop shaking long enough to follow where it led.

They didn’t understand you. But fear has a way of pretending to be respect when uncertainty lingers too long. So they gave you a room—if it could be called that. Tucked in the oldest corner of the keep, half-forgotten and stone-deep, the chamber was a place where no fire ever lasted long and the walls wept with the cold. Wind howled through the cracks in the stone like a thing alive. It smelled of damp ash and time.

Still, you stayed. You lit candles that flickered with blue flame. You scratched the Elder Futhark into frost-laced windows with the edge of your ring, whispering words not meant for this realm. You dealt your cards by moonlight, knees to the stone, speaking low to things no one else could see, asking questions you never expected answers to. The North began to talk. Whispers bloomed like frostbite in the halls and hearths. The smallfolk called you many things—dark priestess, witch-borne, shadow-daughter, banshee in black. Some claimed they saw you vanish beneath the snow only to reappear at the heart tree before dawn. Others swore your eyes glowed when the moon reached its peak.

But Robb Stark, heir of Winterfell, watched you with quiet stillness.

He watched you the way wolves watch the edge of firelight: cautious, entranced, uncertain if they should run or draw closer. You did not speak to him—not then. You spoke to the weirwood like it was an old friend, like it had teeth and secrets, like it answered. You traced sigils into the bark with your fingertip and let snow gather on your lashes without blinking. Robb saw the ink that swirled like constellations across your forearms, the strange ring of metal around your throat, the silence you wore like a cloak. He saw how you flinched when touched, but leaned into wind as though it might carry you somewhere softer.

There was something in you—something splintered, quiet, vast. You looked like a girl carved from bone and star-shadow, dropped sideways through the cracks of the world. Misplaced. Disoriented. But never uncertain. Like wherever you came from, it had prepared you for this. For snow and stone and silence. For loss and hunger. For gods that didn’t answer unless begged in blood.

And Robb, bound by duty and frost and a name too heavy for his shoulders, found himself wondering—more often than he should—how someone could look so completely out of place, and yet seem as though they’d always belonged in the snow.

As though the North had simply remembered you.

And was waiting for the rest of them to catch up.

✦

You met him in the silence.

Not the silence of a quiet room, or of polite company, but the deep, aching stillness of a world holding its breath. Snow had fallen the night before—soft, dry, and unrelenting—and now the godswood lay blanketed in white, the weirwood tree standing like a bleeding sentinel in the hush of winter. Its red leaves barely stirred, as though even the wind dared not disturb this place.

It had been days since your arrival at Winterfell. Long, stuttering days spent in shadowed corners and colder rooms, where the stones breathed chill into your bones and even candlelight felt like a memory rather than a comfort. But the cold no longer shocked you. It had settled into your marrow, threaded through your veins, not unlike grief or the echo of something half-remembered. A presence, a weight, a wound that didn’t bleed.

You were kneeling at the base of the weirwood again, spine curved forward like a prayer in motion. Breath coiled in soft tendrils around your lips, disappearing into the air like whispered secrets. Before you, spread across a pelt worn smooth with use, the runes glinted faintly—each carved from bone or stone, the symbols etched deep with a care born of obsession. You laid them down slowly, fingers trembling not from cold but from ritual. This was the only language the world still seemed to understand.

The pelt itself was a recent trade: a kitchen boy, curious and wide-eyed, had offered it in exchange for a half-deck of battered tarot cards and a glimpse at whatever future you could conjure for him. You told him he’d be married twice—once for love, once for fear—and that his second wife would teach him the names of birds. He cried when you said it. You didn’t ask why.

The runes spoke of movement. Change. A crack in the pattern of time, like a breath held too long. You tilted your head, eyes tracing the alignment, trying to decipher the shape of what was coming.

Then you heard it.

The soft, deliberate crunch of boots breaking the snow. Slow. Measured. Heavy, not from carelessness but from the kind of awareness that only came with survival. You didn’t move, didn’t speak. The wind held its tongue. The godswood listened.

"If you keep drawing in the snow like that," a voice said, low and grain-rough, "the godswood will think you're trying to summon something."

You didn’t look up at first. His voice was deeper than you’d expected—not old, but lived-in, textured like wool drawn against a whetstone. There was a boy buried somewhere in that sound, but the man was louder.

"Who says I’m not?" you replied evenly, your fingers still hovering above the runes. "You mean to tell me it hasn’t worked yet? That’s disappointing."

There was a pause. A beat of quiet that could have gone any way.

Then he laughed.

Not sharply. Not with mockery or disbelief.

It was warm. Genuine. Like water breaking through a frozen river. You blinked, surprised, and finally turned your head.

He stood just beyond the reach of the weirwood’s long limbs, half-shadowed by crimson leaves and low light. Snow clung to the dark fur at his shoulders, glittering against the worn leather of his cloak. His hair was damp at the temples, curling slightly where it touched his brow. A sword hung at his hip, easy but unforgotten. And at his side stood the great direwolf—gray and ghostlike, with eyes like molten silver and a stillness that seemed carved from stone. They were both watching you.

"I’m Robb Stark," he said, stepping closer with the careful grace of someone who had spent his life walking the line between courtesy and war.

You studied him from beneath the hood of your lashes. His name wasn’t necessary; you’d heard it in the halls, muttered in reverence and worry, carved into expectations too large for a boy of nineteen. Still, you let your gaze drift to the sigil stitched across his chest—a direwolf, white and proud.

"I know who you are," you murmured, fingers idly brushing a rune back into place. "You’re the one everyone thinks is going to save the North."

His brows twitched faintly, as though you’d struck a bell inside him. There was no anger in his expression, only a flicker of something unreadable—a momentary shift behind his eyes that spoke of weight, and weariness, and things he hadn’t asked to carry.

"And who are you?" he asked, voice quieter now. Closer.

You turned back to your runes, watching the way your breath ghosted across the symbols. "Someone who doesn’t belong here."

"That much is obvious," he said after a moment, though there was no cruelty in his tone. His eyes flicked down to the fraying edge of your cloak, where a glimpse of your shirt peeked through—a black cotton relic of a world long past, the faded outline of Iron Maiden barely visible against your chest. His mouth twitched. "Your armor is… different."

You snorted, dragging your fingers through the snow as you pushed your hair out of your face. The strands stuck to your gloves like spider silk. "It’s not armor. It’s a statement."

Robb raised a brow. "And what does it say?"

For a moment, you simply looked at him. The sky had begun to darken above, the red of the weirwood deepening into something bloodier in the dying light. A wind stirred the branches overhead, and the rustling sounded like murmurs in an old tongue.

Your eyes caught the last glint of day. Unreadable. Bright. A little mad.

"It says," you whispered, "don’t underestimate me."

His gaze lingered on you—too long, perhaps. But not unkind. He looked like he wanted to ask more. Instead, he knelt beside you.

And for the first time since you’d arrived in this strange, frozen world…

You weren’t alone in the silence.

✦

Over the next few weeks, he kept appearing—not with fanfare, not with words, but with the steady persistence of snow building on rooftops. Quiet. Certain. Inevitable.

You never heard him approach, not really. Robb Stark moved through the godswood like he belonged to it—his presence folding into the hush of the trees, the weight of the sky. He rarely announced himself, and rarely needed to. You felt him before you saw him, a shift in the air, the faint crunch of distant boots, the watchful breath of a direwolf exhaled across the clearing like a benediction.

Sometimes he came to speak. Other times, he said nothing at all. He would linger at the edges, just beyond the spill of your breath in the frost, arms folded across his chest and fur dusted in snow. You often pretended not to notice at first, drawing your runes or laying your tarot with fingers steady and deliberate, as though trying to convince yourself that his attention didn’t settle like heat across your spine.

But it always did.

The godswood became a place of shared silences. Of pauses that carried meaning even without words.

On some days, his curiosity got the better of him.

He asked about the symbols you carved into the snow with bone-white runes and ink-stained fingertips—shapes older than Winterfell, older than this timeline, even. You told him they were called Elder Futhark, letters that hummed with ancient sound, a script that wasn’t just written, but felt. You explained that each one meant something different: change, protection, strength, chaos. That their arrangement mattered. That they whispered things to you in sleep and in snow.

He asked, too, about the cards—the tattered deck you guarded like relics, edges fraying, colors faded from too many worlds. You showed him the Lovers, the Tower, the Star. Told him they didn’t dictate fate, but reflected it. That they were mirrors. That they listened better than most people did.

And once, as the clouds bruised low in the afternoon sky and the cold sunk deeper into the soil, he asked about the music you hummed sometimes without realizing—odd, fragmented rhythms that sounded like distant storms or battles from another age.

"What is that?" he asked, tilting his head toward you where you crouched in the snow, your cloak wrapped tight and your lips barely moving.

You looked up, caught in the blur between memory and ritual. "Music."

"Of your people?"

"Sort of." You grinned, teeth flashing like a secret. "Of my past life, maybe."

He looked intrigued but puzzled. So you reached into your satchel, fingers numb but practiced, and pulled out a small, weatherworn speaker—barely palm-sized, its once-sleek surface scratched and dulled. Solar-charged. Faithfully humming with forgotten echoes of a world that no longer existed here.

You scrolled with care, thumb gliding across the cracked plastic until you found the right song.

A low crackle. A beat.

And then—Metallica.

The opening riff of Master of Puppets exploded into the clearing like a beast unchained, sharp and furious, churning through the quiet with a violence that startled the birds from their branches and sent Grey Wind stiffening beside his master.

Robb recoiled slightly, eyes wide as the music thundered around him like war drums echoing off the godswood. His brows knit together in something caught between horror and wonder, and he turned slowly to face you, as if unsure whether you’d just cursed the land or summoned a battle cry from another realm.

"This is…" He blinked. "This is music?"

You burst out laughing. Not a quiet chuckle, but a full-bodied, breathless laugh that made your ribs ache and your knees buckle. You fell back into the snow, gasping, your face tipped toward the bleak sky as the distorted guitar solo howled on.

He watched you like he couldn’t decide if you were mad or magic. Possibly both.

"I told you," you wheezed, grinning up at him. "You weren’t ready."

He smiled despite himself—slow, reluctant, but real.

And something shifted.

After that, you weren’t just the witch anymore.

Not just the strange girl who scribbled ancient symbols into frost and spoke of time like it was a river that could be crossed backwards. Not just the one who wore rings etched with dead languages and shirts that spoke of bands no one had heard of in any bard’s tale.

Now, you were his.

Or rather—that’s what people began to whisper.

Not to your face, not at first. But you felt it. In the sideways glances of the washerwomen, in the way the guards no longer tensed when you crossed the yard. In the half-smiles exchanged by stableboys who saw him walk with you in the evening snow, his gloved hands clasped behind his back while you spoke in low tones about worlds no one else could imagine.

You were his witch.

His shadow beneath the weirwood.

His seer in leather and denim.

They said you bewitched him, of course. That you charmed him with blood-songs and devil’s drums. That no girl with ink-black fingers and eyes like broken mirrors could win the favor of a Stark without poison or spell.

But they didn’t know what you knew.

That Robb Stark didn’t need enchantment.

He just needed someone to speak to without pretending. Someone who wasn’t afraid of what haunted him in the silences. Someone who didn’t ask him to save the world—only to sit beside her while she tried to remember which one she came from.

And so he did.

Again, and again.

✦

You saw his death in the cards.

Not once. Not in a passing flicker or a careless pull. No, it came again and again—persistent, deliberate, as though the universe had grown tired of hiding its cruelest secret.

The first time, it was during a quiet afternoon in the godswood. Late winter sun filtered through the red leaves like dying embers, casting molten shadows across the snow. Robb had brought you a steaming mug of tea—poorly steeped, but warm—and sat across from you on the worn fur pelt, his expression open and tired and young in a way that twisted something sharp in your ribs.

He asked a simple question. "What does the future look like for us?"

You hesitated only a breath before drawing the first card.

The Tower.

Your heart clenched. The air seemed to crack around you. That impossible spire of ruin stared up at you from the card face, black and jagged, struck by lightning mid-collapse, people tumbling from its heights in panic. A warning. An ending. A necessary obliteration.

You said nothing. Smiled too gently. Tucked the card back into the deck like folding a secret into cloth and prayed he wouldn’t see how your fingers trembled.

You didn’t tell him.

Not the first time.

Not the second, either—days later, when he kissed your hand by candlelight in that freezing room of yours, the fire barely clinging to life in the hearth. His lips were soft, reverent, as if your fingers were something sacred. Something to be worshipped. Your pulse had thundered in your ears, a wild, hopeless rhythm.

He asked again—"Will I be a good king?"

You didn’t want to answer. But you did. You reached for your deck.

Ten of Swords.

Not just death. Betrayal. A body laid low, pierced again and again, not from battle, but from those who once stood behind him. You stared at the image—those cold silver blades driven through the back of a man who never saw it coming—and swallowed the taste of iron.

You touched his jaw, offered him a half-smile, and murmured something vague about burdens and loyalty. He didn’t press.

Not that time.

But the cards kept showing you his end.

The Hanged Man followed next—when he lifted his tunic to show you the healing scar on his side from a sparring accident, proud and careless. You’d reached out to touch it, fingertips gentle. He flinched, not from pain, but from the intimacy. You didn’t realize you were crying until you looked down at the card you’d drawn moments before.

Suspension. Surrender. A sacrifice made too late.

You tried to change the method.

That night, under a moon like a pale coin and wind that howled like mourning, you set the cards aside and reached for the runes instead. If the Fates could be rewritten, perhaps the ancient language would be less cruel.

You lit your candles. Sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, the pelt beneath you stiff with old snowmelt, the air thick with silence. You scattered the runes with a trembling hand.

ᛃ — Jera. The harvest. The turning of seasons. Inevitable cycles.

ᛏ — Tiwaz. The warrior’s rune. Sacrifice for justice. For honor.

ᛟ — Othala. Heritage. Inheritance. A bloodline drawn and redrawn in ash.

The message was the same.

Fate. Sacrifice. Legacy.

It didn’t matter what tools you used—cards, runes, dreams, the haunted way the wind moaned through the halls of Winterfell. They all said the same thing: He will not grow old. He will not survive the war he was born into.

He was already a ghost.

To the world you’d come from, where kings died in ink and memory, he was a specter—a face in a book, a name in a line of tragedy. You’d known, hadn’t you? Even before the veil split. Even before time tore open its belly and spat you into the snow.

You knew who he was.

You knew how his story ended.

And yet here you were, drawn to him like the moon is drawn to the tide. Each moment with him was a theft from the hours fate had already claimed. Each laugh, each touch, each question he asked you with those wide, searching eyes was another pebble placed on the scale—weightless, maybe, but still tipping it toward something you didn’t have the power to stop.

He was not yours to save.

And you…?

You had come through the veil, perhaps, not to rewrite his story.

But simply to witness it.

To sit in the godswood beside a boy fated to be a king carved down by loyalty. To trace his smile with your gaze and pretend, if only for one winter, that the Tower would not fall.

But the cards did not lie.

And the runes, ancient and patient and cruel, whispered that love was never meant to soften fate.

Only to survive it.

✦

It was well past midnight when he found you.

The godswood was a cathedral of silence, shrouded in the hush of snow and shadow. Wind whispered through the red leaves of the weirwood, making them shiver like a thousand restless ghosts. The moon hung low and swollen in the sky, casting silver light that spilled through the branches like spilled milk, softening even the sharp edges of stone and bark.

You were a dark shape curled at the base of the weirwood, barely more than shadow and shivering breath. The bark of the tree pressed cold against your back, its red face gazing down like an ancient, indifferent god. Your hands trembled in your lap, blood trailing from your palms in thin, angry lines—your fingers still curled inwards, clawed tight around the hilt of your blade like it was the only thing tethering you to the earth.

Tears streaked your cheeks, but you didn’t sob like someone seeking comfort.

You broke like someone who had tried too long not to.

Each breath hitched in your chest like a wound reopening. Your whole body rocked forward, forward, again and again—like a penitent at a forgotten altar, or a tide begging the shore to take it back.

“I shouldn’t be here,” you gasped, voice hoarse and thin, your forehead nearly touching your knees. “I shouldn’t have come. I was never supposed to be here.”

Your shoulders shook with the effort of holding yourself together, as if grief had become a language too heavy for your bones.

“I’m not supposed to love you,” you whispered into the frozen hush. “I’m not supposed to love anyone here.”

You didn’t hear his approach. But suddenly, he was there.

Robb Stark.

The boy-king. The war-born. The man who should never have mattered to you at all.

He moved through the snow like he belonged to it, the moon catching on the edge of his furs, his breath forming pale ghosts in the air. He didn’t speak right away. He stood a few paces away, watching you with an expression carved from something softer than sorrow, something deeper than fear.

Then, slowly—so slowly, like you were a wounded doe caught in a hunter’s path—he knelt beside you. His weight pressed into the snow without a sound. His gloves were dusted with frost. His eyes, when they met yours, held that terrible, aching stillness you’d only seen in men who had already buried people they loved.

“You love me?” he asked quietly.

The words struck you like an arrow, clean and deep. You stilled.

You had never said it aloud.

Not to him.

Not to yourself.

It had lived inside you like a bruise, hidden beneath all the ink and prophecy, all the runes and rituals and lies you told yourself in the dark. You’d folded the truth away like a letter you never intended to send. You thought if you never gave it voice, it might not matter. Might not be real.

But here he was.

Saying it for you.

You stared at him, wide-eyed and wordless, your hands still trembling and bloodied, your lips parted as if the confession had shattered something open.

He didn’t look triumphant. He didn’t look afraid.

He looked sad.

“I see how you look at me,” he said, his voice barely more than a breath. “Even when you think I don’t see. Even when you’re hiding behind your cards like they’ll save you.”

You shook your head, fiercely, a small sound ripping from your throat.

“You don’t understand,” you said. “I saw your death, Robb. I see it again. And again. The Tower. The Ten. The Hanged Man. I read them every time you touch me, every time you speak like you have a future. And it never changes.”

He was silent, but not still.

“I laid out the runes,” you went on, voice cracking, salt on your lips and blood in your fists. “ᛃ. ᛏ. ᛟ. They say the same thing—fate, sacrifice, bloodline. Your end. I came through the veil, and all I’ve done is love something I was meant to mourn.”

Your blade dropped from your fingers, thunking lightly against the snow. Your hands, red with a mix of blood and ink, opened helplessly in your lap like ruined petals.

Robb moved forward.

Without hesitation, he reached for you.

He took your hands gently in his own, turning them over, inspecting the damage. His thumbs brushed along the fresh cuts with a reverence that made your chest ache. You flinched, expecting him to recoil at the sight of blood, of ruin, of whatever you had become.

But he didn’t flinch.

Not at the blood. Not at the ink smeared across your skin. Not at the frost that clung to your cloak and lashes like a shroud.

“I’m not afraid of what you’ve seen,” he said softly. “I’m only afraid of what you’re trying to carry alone.”

You opened your mouth, but no sound came.

“Maybe you weren’t sent here to witness it,” he said, lifting your hands to his chest. His heart beat strong beneath the layers of fur and leather, steady and warm. “Maybe you were sent to change it.”

You stared at him, something fragile and panicked rising in your throat.

“I can’t undo fate,” you said. “It doesn’t bend just because I want it to.”

“No,” he agreed. “But maybe it listens to love.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick with unsaid things—his hands cradling yours, the weirwood watching like an old god who had seen this pain before, and the weight of a future you weren’t meant to hold but refused to let go of.

And beneath it all, the feeling—terrible and radiant—that maybe the Tower didn’t have to fall.

Not if you could learn to stand in its place.

Together.

✦

That night, when the rest of Winterfell slept behind thick walls and shuttered torches, you knelt beneath the heart tree with trembling fingers and a blade dulled from too much hesitation.

The godswood was silent, save for the rustle of red leaves in the wind and the distant howl of a lone direwolf somewhere beyond the wall. Moonlight poured through the gnarled canopy like spilled milk, pooling around your hunched form in silver patches. Your breath came in sharp exhales, fogging the cold air as you pressed your blade to the pale, ancient bark of the weirwood.

You carved slowly, reverently. Not as a seer now, but as a mourner trying to make sense of her grief before it came.

Each rune bled from the tree like a wound—dark, thick sap welling in slow tears from the sacred wood. You let it stain your hands. Then, you pressed your palm to your chest, murmured a name you’d never dared whisper to the stars before: his. The warmth of your blood mixed with the chill of the gods’ ichor as you let the knife slice your skin, shallow but purposeful. Enough to mark your offering. Enough to bind your magic to something ancient and older than even your knowledge of fate.

The runes were jagged, uneven. Not your usual careful craft. But they were yours—made in pain, in longing, in defiance. You set them in a small circle on the snow-packed pelt beside you, watching as the blood froze almost instantly in the northern air. You could feel something shift as you completed the last rune. As if the gods—old, deep, unknowable—were listening now. Watching.

And for the first time since you’d fallen through time and space and reason, you didn’t ask for a vision. You didn’t beg for a warning or a path. You only asked—quietly, brokenly—for a second chance. For him.

For Robb Stark.

He found you there just as the snow began to fall again, thick and slow and soundless. His arms wrapped around you from behind like they’d always known how to hold you, like you were carved from the same red wood, shaped for this place and this moment. He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask questions. He only knelt and pulled you into him, pressing your bloodied fingers gently to his chest as if that might slow the unraveling of fate itself.

And you stayed like that—his brow against yours, your breath mingling in the quiet—until the cold no longer hurt, until the ache dulled to a hush inside your bones.

That night, you slept together on a bed of snow-laced moss beneath the watching eyes of the weeping tree. His arms cocooned you from the cold, and your fingers were still red with magic and mourning. The weirwood stood sentinel over you both, branches creaking softly as the wind whispered through them like lullabies from another life.

And for the first time in weeks—maybe months—you did not dream.

Because this?

This was the dream.

✦

They called you the Witch Queen.

Not to your face, not always. But the name hung in the air like incense—heady, powerful, a mix of reverence and fear. Whispers followed your footsteps through the camps, murmured like prayer or curse. Witch queen. Witch queen. A woman not of this world. A storm-wrapped sorceress who had fallen through the veil and into the arms of the Young Wolf.

You never wore a crown, but you didn’t need one.

Your power was in your eyes, in your voice, in the strange runes you carried in a pouch at your hip—etched bone and bark that clattered like teeth when shaken, always pulling the truth from the air with aching precision. You read the omens like scripture, each cast a sermon, each pull of the cards another reckoning.

When Robb rode to war, you rode with him—never behind. At his side. Cloaked in fur and ash and the scent of pine, with ink-stained fingers and a glint of something older than steel in your gaze. You didn’t carry a blade. You didn’t need to. You turned the tide of battles with a breath, with a warning, with a whispered word passed into the ears of trembling commanders.

You knew where the enemy would strike before their horses even crested the hills. You walked the field before the fighting began, fingers brushing the frozen ground, reading blood that hadn’t yet been spilled. They said you spoke to the crows. That the wind bent itself to carry your voice. That your gaze could root a man in place the same way a sword might pierce his gut.

And so they feared you.

Some saw you as his blessing—a sacred mystery. A gift sent by the gods old and strange.

But others? They muttered of dark pacts and curses. Said your arrival marked the unraveling. That nothing so powerful could be given without a cost.

But Robb never flinched.

He called you his shield.

His voice rang like truth through tents and thrones and councils. “She is not my curse. She is my guard. My sword of fate, my keeper of the line.”

You stood at his left hand when others doubted him. You bled beside him on the field when arrows blackened the sky. You burned effigies in the snow and lit wards with your own blood when danger drew near. His bannermen never quite understood you—but they learned not to question your presence when your visions saved their lives more than once.

And every night he lived, you wondered if this was the moment.

If you had finally done it.

If the loop was broken.

If fate, so cruel and cyclical, had finally loosened its grip. You traced the curve of his jaw with your fingertips as he slept beside you in canvas tents or beneath the stars, and you whispered thanks to gods you did not trust.

Each breath he took was a rebellion against the future you had once seen laid out so clearly in your cards and runes—the Tower, the Ten of Swords, the Hanged Man, again and again and again. But now, maybe…maybe you had clawed your way out of prophecy’s jaws. Maybe love, that fragile, reckless thing, was enough.

Maybe you could rewrite destiny with the same hands that once read its horrors.

You dared to believe that death could be cheated. That history wasn’t set in stone. That magic and metal and ice and bone—all of it—could bend to the shape of your voice when you whispered his name like a spell, like a secret, like salvation.

And sometimes, when he kissed you with snow tangled in his hair and blood still drying on his armor, you almost believed you’d won.

Almost.

✦

But fate is not so easily rewritten.

It does not yield for love, or mercy, or the aching hope of second chances. It waits in silence, in shadow, in the corners of dreams, coiled like a serpent in the brush—patient, ancient, inevitable. You had fought it tooth and nail, clawing at the threads of time like a madwoman unraveling her own tapestry, whispering counter-charms against prophecy, casting bones until your fingers bled.

But destiny has a way of finding you.

The dream came on a night colder than most, though you slept with his arms around you, tangled in furs and the scent of pine and blood and longing. You had been exhausted—bone-deep and soul-sick from riding, from casting, from pretending you could keep the tide at bay forever.

You closed your eyes, just for a breath, and the dream swallowed you whole.

You stood in a great stone hall. Candles burned low, their flames twitching in dread. The walls wept moisture, dark and ancient. Music played—but it was off, just slightly, like a dirge pretending to be a lullaby. You smelled wine. Roasted meat. Rose petals crushed beneath bootheels.

And then— Blood.

It didn’t fall like water. It exploded—vivid, arterial, horrifying in its suddenness. A scream caught in your throat before it ever left your mouth. The banners bled with it. The stones drank it. It soaked the rushes and slicked your boots, red turning black as it mixed with shadow.

You turned and saw him.

Robb. Your wolf king. Your shield.

An arrow blooming in his side like a cruel flower. Then another. Then—

You fell to your knees in the dream, just as he did.

And you heard it— The howl.

Not from a creature in the distance. Not from some poor dying beast.

It came from within you.

A direwolf’s cry torn from your ribs, ancient and grieving and feral, echoing through the vaulted hall and up, up, into the sky like it could rip through the fabric of the world itself. Like it could shake the very bones of the earth.

You woke with the scream still tearing through your throat.

Your hands scrabbled at your chest, trying to dig out the sound, the vision, the truth of what you’d seen. Snow had blown in through the tent flaps. The fire had gone out. Your breath came in clouds. And Robb—Robb startled awake beside you, grabbing your arms, saying your name again and again.

But you couldn’t hear him. All you could hear was that howl.

That soul-breaking cry of love lost, of fate unshaken.

You had screamed loud enough to wake the old gods.

But even they did not answer.

✦

You didn’t let him die.

Not that night.

Not when the air reeked of betrayal. Not when the songs turned to screams. Not when the feast curdled in your stomach and the blood in your veins began to boil. You felt it first in your chest—a pressure, a twist, like a hand around your heart. The runes had warned you. The cards had begged you. The gods had whispered their riddles in dreams and frost and flame.

But it hadn’t been enough.

Until it was.

Because when the first knife flashed through candlelight and found a man's throat beside you, you didn’t freeze.

You moved.

Fast. Fierce. Unholy.

You slit a man’s throat with the very blade that had once opened the rift between your world and this one—a blade etched with ancient Futhark, still stained from your first offering. His blood hit the floor hot and steaming, and still your hand didn’t shake.

You hurled a candle into the oil-soaked drapes, and fire bloomed like a second sun, licking up the stone walls, hissing with hunger. It turned shadows into monsters, made screams echo like the cries of the damned.

You ran like a storm, a fury in furs and ash and prophecy, your breath a chant, your eyes wild with the second sight. Smoke smeared your vision, but you moved through it like you were born of it, a wraith sent to haunt the blood-stained halls of the Freys.

Cards fell from your coat as you ran—obsidian-backed, fate-marked, shuffling themselves into ruin on the ground behind you. Like black petals, like dead stars, they scattered, each one a warning, each one a record of a thousand futures you refused to accept.

And then—you found him.

Cornered. On his knees. A sword to his chest.

And in the man who held it—hate. Pure and ancient, bred in bone, fed by vengeance. The kind that would not listen to reason, to mercy, to fate. The kind that came to murder kings.

You didn’t remember how you stopped it.

Maybe it was steel. Maybe it was fire. Maybe it was some dark word that spilled from your lips like venom, a spell older than gods, older than love.

Maybe it was all of it at once.

All you know is that you reached him.

Your hands were bloodied, your body shaking, your voice raw from shouting his name like a prayer through the smoke.

And when the chaos quieted—when the swords were still and the fire had begun to die and the screams had faded into silence—he opened his eyes.

Slowly. Like returning from death.

And there you were. Hovering above him like a ghost that had refused to pass on. Your tears fell to his chest—hot, salt, and smoke-stained. Your hands cradled his face like it was the axis of the world.

And the Tower card—the card that had followed you from your world into this one, the card that had haunted every reading, every omen, every whisper of doom—was gone.

Vanished.

Not in the ashes. Not at your feet.

Just—gone.

Like perhaps—for one sliver of time—you had broken something unbreakable.

Like maybe the gods had listened after all.

✦

Years passed like the slow turning of seasons in the North, bitter and relentless, yet beneath the frozen soil something wild and enduring took root.

Even now, long after the wars have quieted and the echoes of steel have faded into memory, they still speak of you in hushed tones and awe-struck whispers.

They call you the Witch from Another World.

A stranger who walked through the veil of time and snow, bringing with you mysteries that no maester could unravel and no raven dared carry. They say your voice carries the weight of storms, that your songs summon rain from cloudless skies, coaxing life from the earth even when all hope seems lost. They say your cards don’t merely tell fortunes—they strip away lies and illusions until a man is left naked, raw, blinded by the unvarnished truth. And they say you wear death on your tongue like a bitter wine, yet power courses through your veins like wildfire—an ancient magic born from blood, fate, and the iron will to defy both.

But those stories—the legends woven in the shadows and told by firelight—mean nothing to the one whose heart you hold.

Robb.

He calls you by a name no one else dares speak.

Love.

He calls you his.

Not with possession or claim, but with a quiet reverence that speaks of lifetimes folded into moments. With hands that have held kingdoms and whispered promises beneath the stars. With eyes that have seen too much and still find their solace in yours.

And beneath the watchful gaze of the old gods, beneath the crimson leaves of the sacred weirwood where your fates first intertwined like tangled roots, a new life comes into the world.

Your daughter.

Small and fierce, with eyes like storm-washed skies and a spirit forged in the crucible of both prophecy and hope.

You name her Rune.

Because she is a living symbol—a sigil of all the paths you refused to take, of all the destinies you unraveled and rewove. She is the embodiment of a future you fought for, a future where fate was not an unyielding master but a song you learned to change.

Because fate—though it tried with all its ancient cruelty—did not win.

It clawed, it hissed, it shattered worlds.

But it did not break you.

And it did not claim what you loved most.

You carry that truth like a torch, lighting the path for Rune as she grows beneath the shadow of those great red leaves.

And you vow—softly, fiercely—that she will never forget the price it took to bend destiny’s iron will.

That she will know the weight of sacrifice, the fire of love, and the power in a name whispered like a spell.

Because some stories are written not in stone or blood, but in the beating hearts of those brave enough to change them.

[actuallybean]

Me Espresso*

Daryl Dixon doesn’t do flings, and he sure as hell doesn’t fall for anyone—but you’re not just anyone. Confident, magnetic, and unapologetically teasing, you unravel him one smirk at a time until he finally snaps, dragging you into a night of rough hands, filthy mouths, and breathless obsession. *Contains Sexual material: Minors DNI. Rough sex, fingering, oral sex (female receiving), dominant reader, biting, teasing, public tension, jealousy, mild dirty talk, obsession, possessive behavior, age gap dynamics, slow-burn power shift, confident reader. Pairing: Daryl Dixon x reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl The Walking Dead Masterlist | Main Masterlist

You caught him staring again.

Third time this week. Same damn look.

It clung to his face like sweat—lips parted just barely, the kind of slack expression that teetered between restraint and ruin. His nostrils flared like he could smell the way you heated beneath the sun. Like his body recognized something primal before his brain had time to protest. And those eyes—God, those eyes—oceanic and mud-thick, stormy with some mix of hunger and hesitation, locked on you like a threat. Or maybe a promise. A man doesn’t look at a woman like that unless he’s either planning to devour her… or destroy her.

And the worst part? You didn’t mind either option.

You weren’t oblivious. You weren’t shy. And if Daryl Dixon thought for a single heartbeat that you hadn’t noticed the way he watched you—dead still, chest barely rising like he didn’t trust himself to breathe—then he was a fool.

You knew exactly what you were doing when you walked toward the garden that day, boots scuffing through the dry-packed dirt of Alexandria’s makeshift walkways. The air was hot enough to hum, the kind of late-summer heat that clung to skin and made everything feel just a little slower, a little lazier, like the whole world had settled into a haze of golden sweat and secret longing.

You leaned your elbows against the weather-faded wood of the community garden fence, letting the weight of the day settle into your bones. Your hands were caked in soil, palms stained and fingernails lined with the grit of a morning spent coaxing life from dead earth. You could feel the heat of the sun pressing between your shoulder blades, slipping beneath your tank top, licking a shimmer of sweat into the hollow of your throat and the line between your breasts. You shifted, slow and casual, stretching your arms above your head until your shirt rode up—just enough to flash a strip of your stomach, the soft curve of your waist. Just enough to make sure that if he was still watching, he had something worth the trouble.

You didn’t look at him. Not directly. Didn’t need to.

You felt him.

One foot hooked up on the porch rail of the town house across the road, a cigarette forgotten and wilting between two fingers, his jaw tensed so tight you could practically hear his molars grinding. The sun painted him in gold and shadow, his arms crossed like he was trying to hold himself together, like if he moved, even an inch, something inside him might snap.

You smiled to yourself, all teeth and slow mischief, letting the corners of your mouth curl with the knowledge that you were the only one who could do this to him. The only one who could leave him smoking but not lit, strung so tight he looked like he might bolt—or pounce.

They said he didn’t talk much. That he didn’t like people. Didn’t trust anyone, not really. They said he was quiet and angry and loyal in the way that made him dangerous. They said he didn’t mess around with anyone here. That Daryl Dixon kept to himself. That he didn’t sleep with anyone.

You’d heard it all.

And still—here he was.

Watching you like a man on the edge of something feral. Like he could taste you in the air.

You let your hands slide from your back pockets, dirt crumbling in your palms as you turned slightly, letting your gaze drift—not quite toward him, but close enough that he might feel it. Might know you knew. The breeze lifted your hair just enough to brush your shoulders. You licked your lips, slow and thoughtless, like you weren’t thinking about the way he tracked the movement with a twitch of his fingers.

You liked games. But this? This was something else. Something older. Hotter.

You didn’t like rules. And you loved a challenge.

✦

It started small.

Tiny ripples in still water—subtle, deliberate, easy to deny if either of you needed to pretend. Just gestures. Just looks. Just heat you pretended not to notice when it coiled like smoke between you.

It was the brush of your hand against his arm as you passed by in the narrow hall, fingers grazing his skin like an afterthought, like maybe you were just trying to squeeze by—but he knew better. The way his breath hitched, sharp and instinctual, gave him away every time. You never lingered. You didn’t have to. That one touch, soft as a whisper and twice as dangerous, would haunt him for hours.

Then there was dinner.

He always sat too far down the table, in the shadowed end where no one could read him, shoulders hunched and guarded like he didn’t belong. You never forced your way in, never called him out in front of the group, but you made sure he felt you. A wink tossed down the line when he caught you watching him over your spoon. The press of your bare foot up against his under the table, light enough to be accidental—but not light enough to be ignored.

You didn’t speak much during those nights. Not to him. Words weren’t necessary.

Because you knew what you were doing.

You always knew.

The cherry was the final nail in the coffin.

A stupid, innocent thing—offered by someone at dinner, passed around with joking remarks about rare treats and sugar cravings. You took one, slow and casual, rolling the stem between your fingers before slipping it past your lips. You let it rest there for a beat, let the juice stain your tongue as you met his eyes from across the room. Then—still watching him, never breaking the spell—you dragged the stem back out, wet and red and slick with your spit.

His water glass hit the table a little too hard after that.

You could see it—how his chest rose too quickly, how he looked away like the air had gotten too thick to swallow. He shifted in his chair, jaw flexing, fingers curling tight around the glass like it might anchor him to something solid.

You didn’t smile. Not fully. You didn’t need to.

Because the thing was… it was never just about the teasing. Not really. It was about the way he reacted. The way this hardened, quiet, storm-cloud of a man unraveled just a little every time you got too close. It was a thrill, yes—but deeper than that, it was proof. That underneath all that denim and grit and silence, he felt it too.

And now?

Now he wouldn’t stop watching.

He tracked you like a hunter, eyes always following, even when he pretended not to. Even when he kept his head down and his mouth shut, his gaze would find you—lingering too long when you bent to lift a crate, when you stretched out in the sun, when you licked salt from your fingers after lunch.

You could feel the weight of it. Heavy and sharp, like a knife dragged slow across skin—not enough to cut, just enough to make you hyper-aware of every inch of yourself. Every movement. Every sway of your hips, every breath you took in the same space as him.

Sometimes you caught him. Not often. But sometimes. And when you did?

He didn’t look away.

He held your gaze like a challenge, like a man daring you to push him further—see how far you could bend him before he snapped. His mouth would twitch, barely there, like he hated how much he wanted you. Like it burned him alive and he couldn’t make himself move.

Other times, he’d vanish. Slip off into the woods with a hunting bag slung over one shoulder, or take post at the gates long after his shift ended, as if putting distance between you might cool the fire building behind his ribs.

But it never worked. Because the second you were in the same space again, it started up all over.

This magnetic standoff.

This slow unraveling.

This game that neither of you said out loud, but both of you were playing like your lives depended on it.

And the best part?

You hadn’t even touched him. Not really.

Not yet.

✦

You found him again after dusk.

The world had gone quiet in the way only small towns and rebuilt sanctuaries could. Alexandria slept like something content and dreaming, soft and still under the press of a dark velvet sky. The hum of cicadas buzzed beneath the low flicker of the streetlamps, golden halos trembling in the thick summer air. Somewhere in the distance, a screen door creaked open, then shut. A dog barked once, then fell silent.

But Daryl?

Daryl didn’t sleep.

You spotted him near the bike shed, tucked just behind the row of community garages, where the light didn’t quite reach and shadows pooled like ink. He was half-illuminated, half-carved from the dark—shoulders hunched, head bowed, working a rag against a wrench with slow, pointless determination. His fingers were oil-stained and rough, stained from hours of labor that had long since ended. The tool was clean. Too clean. But he kept polishing it like something in him needed the distraction. Like he couldn’t trust his hands to be still.

He didn’t look up when your footsteps sounded on the gravel. But his spine went ramrod straight.

He felt you.

Of course he did.

“Still pretending you’re not obsessed with me?” you asked, your voice syrupy-sweet and low, warm like honey melting in the night.

A puff of breath escaped through his nose. No smile. No scoff. Just tension coiling tighter in the line of his neck. “Ain’t obsessed,” he muttered.

“Mmm,” you murmured, drawing closer, slow and deliberate. “You sure about that?”

Your steps brought you into his space—closer than anyone else dared to get. Close enough to smell him. That familiar mix of sweat and sunbaked leather, of ash and old soap and the faint bite of gasoline that clung to his skin like memory. Close enough to see the flicker of restraint in his eyes, the way his jaw tightened as he kept his gaze anywhere but your face. You could see the vein twitching in his neck when you smiled up at him.

“’Cause you look at me,” you said, soft and cutting, “like I fucked you and never said goodbye.”

That got him.

His grip tightened around the wrench, knuckles whitening. His shoulders tensed, breath deepening, eyes narrowing just slightly before they darted to yours—sharpened now, raw and unreadable.

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he said, voice gruff but unsteady, like gravel under pressure.

You reached out before he could move, wrapping your fingers around his wrist—warm, solid, tense beneath your touch—and peeled the wrench from his grasp. You dropped it behind him onto the worktable with a metallic clang that echoed in the dark.

Your fingers lingered, brushing his knuckles on the way back. His breath hitched.

You stepped between his legs, chest nearly brushing his, heat sparking like static where your hips aligned. “Then why,” you whispered, eyes locked on his, “do you always look like you want to bite me?”

His hands hovered—fingers curled, unsure, shaking slightly in the air between you. Torn between restraint and hunger. Between who he thought he had to be and what you made him feel. His gaze burned through you, thunderstorm-dark and desperate.

But he didn’t move.

So you did.

You slid your hand up the center of his chest, slow as a slow song, feeling the thick tension of muscle beneath the thin, worn cotton of his shirt. His heart beat like a drum against your palm—fast and hard and out of rhythm. Your body leaned in until your mouth ghosted the edge of his jaw, lips brushing his stubble like a secret you didn’t mind sharing.

“Tell me to stop,” you breathed.

Nothing.

The cicadas hummed louder. The shed creaked under the weight of silence.

“Tell me, Daryl.”

Still nothing.

And then—he snapped.

One hand grabbed your waist, the other tangled in your hair, and he yanked you into him like a man at his breaking point. His mouth crashed against yours in a kiss that had nothing gentle left in it—just teeth, tongue, the sharp edge of desperation and months of pent-up tension. You gasped into him, knees buckling, body seizing like you’d just been hit by lightning.

He swallowed the sound. All of it. Like he needed it to survive.

Your back slammed against the shed wall, the impact rattling tools on their hooks, shaking rust and dust from the wood. Daryl pressed into you like a man starved—rough denim grinding against you, one thigh pushing between your legs like it belonged there, like it had always belonged there. His hands were everywhere—your hips, your hair, your jaw—tugging, squeezing, claiming.

You tore your mouth away, panting, lips swollen, eyes glazed. “Took you long enough.”

He growled against your cheek, lips dragging to your throat, biting at the sensitive skin just below your jaw. Not hard enough to draw blood, but close.

“You talk too much,” he rasped.

“Then shut me up,” you whispered, and god, he did.

His mouth moved to your throat, hot and hungry, kissing and sucking hard enough to leave bruises he didn’t bother hiding. You arched into him, head tipped back against the wall as your fingers fumbled for his belt, laughing breathlessly into his shoulder.

“This what you think about?” you whispered, fingers undoing his buckle one-handed. “When you’re working alone? Or when you pretend not to notice me picking tomatoes in those little shorts?”

His teeth grazed your collarbone, just above the neckline of your shirt. His grip on your hips tightened like a vice. “Fuckin’ knew you did that shit on purpose.”

“Of course I did,” you purred into his ear. “And now you can’t forget me.”

He groaned—something low and helpless, the sound of a man losing a battle he never had a chance of winning. “Goddamn right I can’t.”

His hands were under your shirt before you could finish your next breath. Calloused palms against your bare stomach, dragging upward with reverence and heat. His thumbs found the curve beneath your breasts, teasing, circling, testing the boundaries.

You gasped, pressing into him. “Don’t be shy now.”

He chuckled, a deep, wrecked sound, low in his throat.

Then he dropped to his knees.

Right there, in the dirt and gravel, like worship.

Like hunger.

And he looked up at you like he meant to ruin you for everyone else.

✦

The night air kissed your bare thighs the moment he shoved them apart, cool against skin still flushed from his mouth, from his voice, from the fire he'd already started building between your legs. The wooden wall of the shed groaned behind you, the hinges creaking loud in the quiet of Alexandria—but you didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Not when Daryl was already sinking to his knees in the gravel-strewn dirt, palms dragging roughly along your inner thighs, spreading you wider like he had every right.

He didn’t wait.

Didn’t give you time to catch your breath or steady your nerves. His mouth was on you before you could tell him to be gentle—and he wasn’t. Not even close.

His tongue dragged a long, filthy stripe up your slick center, slow at first but heavy, deliberate, like he was savoring you. Worshipping. And then the pace changed—faster, deeper, tongue swirling and pressing, mouth hot and hungry as he sucked your clit between his lips.

Your entire body jolted, knees threatening to give out. “Jesus—Daryl—”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t look up. Just groaned low against you like he meant to drown in it, gripping your thighs hard enough to bruise, his fingers biting into soft flesh as he locked you in place and devoured you like he’d been dreaming about it for weeks. Maybe he had.

Every flick of his tongue was a declaration, every moan a confession. He ate like a man obsessed, like every fantasy he’d ever had about you was now playing out on his tongue—and he meant to make the most of it. He was rough. Thorough. Shameless. Like he owned the taste of you. Like no one else ever had, and no one else ever would.

Your hands scrambled for purchase. One gripped the edge of the worktable above your head, knuckles white as you held yourself upright; the other found its way into his hair, tugging, anchoring, grounding yourself in the feel of him—his messy, tangled strands, his groans vibrating through your core.

Your hips bucked without meaning to, jerking against his mouth, desperate for more. He didn’t mind. He groaned again—louder this time—and buried his face deeper, nose bumping your clit as his tongue thrust inside you.

“I—fuck, I knew you’d be like this,” you gasped, voice cracking, head falling back against the wall with a dull thud. “Knew you’d be—fucking filthy—”

And he was.

Two fingers slid into you without warning—thick, rough, curling instantly as if he knew exactly where to press. The stretch made your eyes roll back, mouth falling open in a choked moan. He fucked you with them, firm and relentless, the wet sound obscene in the quiet night.

He glanced up just once—his face glistening, mouth soaked, lips swollen, pupils blown wide with lust. His smirk was dangerous.

“You get off on makin’ me lose my fuckin’ mind,” he rasped, voice wrecked and low.

You clenched around his fingers, breath hitching. “Yeah,” you panted. “And you love it.”

His lips found your clit again, tongue flicking fast, messy, unrestrained. The pressure built fast and hard—no teasing, no edge-dancing. Just raw, overwhelming need. Fire coiled in your belly, rising like a wave, and when he sucked just right—just there—you shattered.

Your body broke open.

The orgasm hit like a lightning strike, ripping through your spine, your thighs trembling so violently he had to grip tighter to keep you upright. You cried out—loud and high, the kind of sound you couldn’t bite back if you tried. You didn’t even try.

He didn’t stop until your hand shoved at his shoulder, too sensitive, your hips twitching as your body tried to escape the aftershocks.

When he stood, his mouth was drenched with you—chin wet, lips glossy—and you pulled him into a kiss anyway. You tasted yourself on his tongue and moaned into it, deep and desperate, your hands fisting the front of his shirt like you needed it to hold you together. He kissed you like he was starving, like you were the only thing that had ever tasted right.

Then he spun you around.

You barely had time to gasp before he bent you over the table, pushing your upper body down with a firm hand between your shoulder blades. The wood was warm from the day’s heat, rough against your stomach. You felt the tug of your shorts being yanked down the rest of the way—one sharp, impatient motion—and the next thing you knew, he was pressing against your entrance, thick and hard and impossibly ready.

“Daryl—” you whispered, half-warning, half-moan. “Someone could—”

“Let ‘em,” he growled in your ear, grinding the head of his cock against your dripping folds. “Let ‘em see who you fuckin’ belong to now.”

You didn’t get a chance to argue.

He pushed in with one brutal thrust—deep and hard, with no hesitation—and the stretch made your knees buckle all over again. He filled you completely, your body gripping him tight and greedy, your pussy fluttering around him like it had been waiting for this.

“God,” he hissed. “You’re so fuckin’ wet—”

You whimpered. Your hands slammed against the table, legs wide and shaking, hips already rolling back against him without thought. He set a punishing rhythm, every thrust deep and heavy, slamming into you with single-minded purpose. There was nothing careful about the way he fucked you—only possession, pure and raw. He dragged you back onto his cock with both hands on your waist, then slid up to your chest, groping roughly through your shirt. His thumbs found your nipples, rolling them through the cotton, sending sparks shooting straight to your core.

The table rocked beneath you. The shed echoed with the slap of skin and the sound of your cries.

“You like that?” he hissed, voice wrecked with arousal. “That rough enough for your smart fuckin’ mouth?”

You choked on a moan, head thrown back, hair wild around your shoulders. “So close, baby—don’t stop—don’t—”

That did it.

He groaned something into your neck—something half-words, half-animal—and shoved in deep, his hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, hot and thick. You felt every twitch of his cock, every breathless curse, as he buried himself to the hilt. And the feeling of him losing it—right there, inside you—was enough to push you over the edge again.

You came hard, again, clenched so tightly around him that he grunted in surprise, body jerking, arms wrapped around you as if anchoring himself. The orgasm stole your breath, blurred your vision. You shook against the table, barely able to stand.

When it was over, he stayed there—pressed against your back, forehead resting between your shoulder blades, breath ragged.

You turned your head just enough to whisper, “Told you.”

And all he did was growl—low and hoarse—and kiss the sweat at the base of your neck like he wasn’t finished with you yet.

✦

For a long moment, neither of you moved.

The shed creaked behind you, one of its rusted hinges groaning as the wind picked up and brushed through the broken slats like a breath trying to cool the heat you’d both just poured into the air. Outside, the night carried on—cicadas humming, leaves rustling, Alexandria sleeping peacefully a few yards away, blissfully unaware of the storm that had just torn through its shadows.

But inside that little shed, everything had stilled.

Your chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged bursts. Sweat clung to the back of your neck, caught in the curve of your spine. Your arms trembled where they braced against the edge of the worktable, muscles spent, skin flushed and tingling, nerve endings still singing from the aftershocks.

Your legs barely held you. They were jelly—boneless, shaky, and still spread, one boot sliding slightly on the gravel-strewn floor as you tried to find stability in a body wrecked by pleasure.

Your throat was dry. Lips swollen. Voice lost somewhere between moan and scream.

And Daryl’s hand?

It was still gripping your hip.

His fingers splayed wide, calloused and possessive, thumb twitching like he didn’t want to let go. Like he couldn’t. The heat of him lingered along your spine, pressed close behind you, his chest still brushing your back with every unsteady breath. He hadn’t moved—not even a twitch—still buried deep inside you, cock softening slowly, pulse beating through the point of connection like the last sparks of a wildfire refusing to die.

It felt like the world had gone quiet for you both.

No words. Just heat. Just the heavy silence of something that wasn’t just lust. Something bigger. Something dangerous.

Finally, you swallowed past the dryness, breath shaky as you turned your head to glance over your shoulder. Your hair stuck to your cheek, damp with sweat, and your knees protested the shift in weight—but you needed to see him.

Needed to see his face.

His eyes met yours instantly.

They were dark, still clouded with desire, but something else lingered there now—something raw. Vulnerable. Like he’d just let you see a part of him he didn’t show anyone, and he didn’t quite know what to do with that.

“So,” you rasped, your voice hoarse and low, throat scorched from panting. A smirk tugged at the corner of your mouth. “Still not obsessed with me?”

You expected him to grunt. To look away. Maybe mutter something about shutting your mouth before he gave you another reason to bite your lip bloody.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Daryl narrowed his eyes, slow and sharp, a flicker of resistance sparking in the depths of that unreadable gaze.

And then—finally—he smirked.

Barely there.

Just a quirk of his mouth, subtle and crooked and painfully rare. But real.

“Shut up,” he muttered, voice rough as gravel, low and wrecked, but laced with something dangerously close to affection.

You laughed, breathless and wrecked, the sound a rasp that caught in your throat and made your shoulders shake.

And even as your legs threatened to give out, even as your body begged for rest, you still had enough energy to grin like you’d won.

Because you had.

You shifted just enough to nudge back against his hips, feeling the twitch of overstimulated nerves in both of you, and whispered, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He didn’t argue.

Didn’t push you away.

Didn’t pull out.

His hand on your hip tightened just a little.

And in the quiet aftermath, in the haze of sweat and sin and stolen breaths, Daryl leaned forward, mouth brushing your ear.

“You don’t know what you just started,” he whispered.

And somehow, that was a promise.

[actuallybean]

Next To You*

After years of running from their pasts, fate brings you and Bucky Barnes back together on a quiet coastal town. Amidst the gentle crash of waves and starlit nights, you rediscover a love tempered by pain, forgiveness, and the courage to choose healing — and each other. Inspired by Malibu by Miley Cyrus *Contains sexual material: Minors DNI, lots of fluff, lovers reignited Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl Marvel Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The sun hadn’t felt this soft in years.

It didn’t blaze or sear like it used to in war zones or compound courtyards. It didn’t sting your eyes or press down on your shoulders with a weight you couldn’t afford to carry. No, this was different. It poured itself across the horizon like honey warmed over a low flame—slow, golden, almost lazy. It kissed the whitewashed deck of your little cliffside cottage with fingertips of molten light, turning the weathered floorboards into a mosaic of shadow and shine.

You stood barefoot at the edge of the porch, coffee cupped between both hands, the ceramic warm against your skin. The robe you wore was too big, sleeves slipping down your wrists, the belt tied in a lazy knot like you hadn’t quite figured out how to stop rushing yet. But here, no one was rushing. Here, the air didn’t demand urgency.

Below, the Pacific stretched wide and endless, shimmering like someone had spilled a bucket of crushed glass and powdered sapphire across the earth. Waves folded in on themselves, soft and rhythmic, their foam fingers painting white lines against the darker, deeper blues. The breeze rolled in gentle and salt-sweet, lifting strands of your hair and tugging at the hem of your robe with a kind of playfulness. Not a warning. Not a storm. Just an invitation to stay.

For the first time in so long, your body wasn’t coiled like a spring. There were no alarms, no coded messages blinking red across a mission brief, no half-zipped duffels under the bed packed with weapons and passports. No ticking countdowns. No contingency plans.

You could almost pretend you were someone else.

Someone who belonged in a place like this.

A humming sound floated up from the beach, low and tuneless and distant—someone walking the shoreline, maybe, or just singing to the sea because no one was around to hear. It was a sound without tension. You hadn’t realized until that moment how rare that was.

And maybe that’s why your smile crept in slow, unnoticed.

It didn’t claw its way up your throat like it used to. Didn’t feel like armor. It just happened. A ghost of contentment curling across your lips like the sun had finally reached your skin after years of cloud cover. You exhaled, deep and even, letting the warmth soak into you until you weren’t sure where it ended and you began.

Then—movement.

Footsteps. Slow. Steady. Crunching faintly on the gravel path that wound around the house like a secret. A flash of white linen at the edge of your vision. Sandaled feet. A familiar silhouette.

You blinked.

And everything stilled.

He stood just beyond the gate—one hand resting on the wooden latch, the other shading his eyes from the morning sun. Hair longer than you remembered, pulled into a low knot at the nape of his neck. He wore a light shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled to his elbows. There were laugh lines on his face now—barely there, but real. And something softer around his eyes. Something that hadn’t lived there back then.

Bucky Barnes.

Or—James, as the locals knew him. The man who had disappeared into the pages of your past like a chapter you had read too many times but never truly understood. The man you thought you’d already buried inside the ache of your chest and learned to live around.

But there he was. Solid and sunlit. Like the universe had plucked him from some long-forgotten daydream and laid him gently back at your doorstep.

Your breath caught, a fragile thing in your throat.

“Hey,” he said softly, like no time had passed at all.

And just like that, the humming stopped.

Not down on the sand.

Inside you.

Because the song you’d been singing to yourself all these quiet, careful mornings—I’m okay, I’ve moved on, I’m healed—had always been missing a verse.

And now it stood on your front path, barefoot and golden, wearing linen and a half-smile that still remembered exactly how to undo you.

✦

You saw him for the first time again two weeks ago, in the sun-drenched coastal market where the sea air still clung to the crates of fresh produce and the gulls cried overhead like they were mocking how fragile people were.

It was a Saturday.

The market was alive in that slow, sleepy way only small towns could manage—bodies weaving through the stalls with woven baskets on their arms, barefoot children sticky with melted popsicles darting between their parents’ legs, dogs trotting on fraying leashes, trailing saltwater paw prints across the cobblestones. Somewhere, someone played an acoustic guitar with all the right wrong notes, and the breeze carried the faint scent of rosemary, citrus, and warm bread.

You weren’t expecting to see him.

You had your hands wrapped around a nectarine, thumb brushing gently over the dusky skin as you tested its ripeness. The fruit was still warm from the sun. For a moment, the world was simple: nectarines, baskets, the soft murmur of voices rising and falling like waves behind you.

Then—you felt it.

The strange shift of gravity. The stillness inside your chest that only ever meant one thing.

You looked up.

And there he was.

Across the narrow aisle, beside a stack of burlap sacks filled with dried herbs and an aging yellow Labrador who stared up at him with lazy devotion—stood Bucky Barnes. His hair was longer now, swept back in the gentle disarray that came from wind and sea salt and no one to impress. His arm—that arm—was covered in a lightweight, long-sleeved button-down, wrinkled at the elbows. He held a bag of dog food loosely in one hand, slung against his hip like it weighed nothing. For him, it didn’t.

His eyes met yours.

And everything stopped.

The sound of the market dimmed, turned hollow and far away, like you were suddenly submerged underwater. All you could hear was your own heartbeat and the dry scrape of your breath as it hitched in your throat.

Your hands froze mid-reach, the nectarine cradled in your fingers like it was suddenly a grenade.

“…James?”

You hadn’t meant to say it out loud. The name cracked in the air like a snapped branch, fragile and uncertain, but he heard it. He felt it.

He blinked, stunned and slow, like waking from a long, vivid dream he’d been clinging to. You saw it in his face—the recognition, the disbelief, the ache that bloomed across his expression in slow motion.

“Y/N,” he breathed. Just your name. Nothing else. But it dropped between you with the weight of a thousand unspoken things.

He took a step forward, the bag of kibble forgotten in his hand.

“I—God, I thought you were still in New York.”

You swallowed, blinking against the way the sunlight glared too bright off the awning behind him, turning the edges of the moment into something blurry and unreal.

“And I thought you were still in Wakanda.”

“I left.”

There was a pause.

The words were simple. Stark. But the silence that followed them echoed. A silence made of everything you didn’t say—why did you leave, why didn’t you call, why does it still hurt—and everything you didn’t dare ask.

You could’ve laughed. Or cried. Or screamed. Instead, you stood there, staring at him with a half-dead nectarine in your palm and a hurricane building quietly in your chest.

So you nodded.

You paid for the nectarine. Left the rest of your basket—half-full with rosemary sprigs, sourdough, and local honey—sitting abandoned in the middle of the aisle like it belonged to a ghost. Like you’d just shed your old self right there between the fruit stands and the flower carts.

You didn’t ask him to walk with you.

But he did.

Down the old wooden pier that stretched out from the marina, creaking beneath your feet, sun-bleached and crooked at the edges. The gulls circled overhead in wide, lazy arcs. Below, the sea lapped softly against the hulls of anchored sailboats, their ropes clinking in the breeze like wind chimes made of memory.

You didn’t talk much. Not at first.

Words came slow and cautious, offered like fragile things. You spoke in quiet, reverent tones, like you were in a church built from everything you’d survived. Like the ghosts of the people you used to be were listening, hanging from the railing, sitting on the posts, hiding in the salt-damp air.

You asked about the dog. He said her name was Sage.

He asked if you still had trouble sleeping. You lied.

You didn’t ask what he'd been running from. He didn’t ask if you’d forgiven him.

But somehow, just walking together—shoulders brushing, the silence between you softening—felt like the beginning of a conversation that had been waiting years to be had.

And neither of you mentioned that it had taken the quietest town on the coast and a fruit stand and a dog food aisle for the universe to finally fold its hands and bring you back to the same place, at the same time.

Not fate, exactly.

Just… timing.

And this time, you didn’t look away.

✦

And now, here he was.

Two weeks later, standing barefoot in your kitchen—the kind of kitchen you’d never thought you’d have, with its pale wooden cabinets and windows that framed the endless ocean like a living painting. The scent of freshly ground coffee hung heavy in the air, mingling with a faint hint of sea salt that always seemed to sneak inside, no matter how tightly you shut the door.

He was there, pouring coffee into the chipped ceramic mug you hadn’t meant to tell him was your favorite—the one with the tiny crack down the side, the one you carried everywhere like a talisman. Somehow, you’d blurted it out the first morning he stayed over, and he’d remembered.

His hair was shorter now, dark curls slicked back but still rebellious at the edges, stiff with salt and a softness that caught the morning light. The sun, filtering through the linen curtains, played across his features, highlighting the faint lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He wore a plain white shirt, the fabric loose and rumpled at the sleeves, paired with drawstring pants that made him look like he belonged on a resort billboard instead of the chapters of your past you’d long ago folded shut.

But it was him.

Still Bucky.

And somehow, despite the years that had frayed the edges of your history, it felt easy. Like breathing. Like coming home.

He leaned casually against the kitchen counter beside you, one hand resting on the smooth surface while the other caught the sunlight. His prosthetic arm, the metal and flesh fused in a way that was almost beautiful, gleamed softly in a bronze hue—alive in the morning glow, part of him but also something more. Something that told its own story of survival, loss, and resilience.

“You always did like the ocean,” he said quietly, voice low and calm, like a secret shared between old friends who knew the weight of every word.

You nodded, your fingers wrapped around your own mug, warming against the cool ceramic. “I never got to enjoy it, though. Always thought the sound of the waves might cover up someone sneaking behind me.”

He smiled then—a soft, almost shy curve of his lips that made something inside you ache with the memory of all the years spent running, hiding, fighting. “And now?”

“Now,” you said, lifting your eyes to meet his, “I listen. That’s all.”

The kitchen was still for a moment, filled only with the faint hum of the ocean just beyond the window, the distant cry of gulls circling overhead, and the quiet rhythm of two people who had survived different storms but somehow found themselves in the same calm.

You both turned your gaze out toward the sea, where the waves rolled in steady and slow, like lazy applause from an audience that had waited a long time to show its appreciation.

“I never thought I’d find you here,” he said at last, voice rough around the edges but sincere.

You smiled, a small, wistful tilt of your lips that carried everything you couldn’t say. “I never thought I’d be here.” You took a breath, the salty air filling your lungs. “But I’m glad it’s you.”

He reached out, brushing a stray curl from your face, fingers lingering at your temple like a promise. The warmth of his touch was a balm to the places you thought were forever frozen—places only he had the key to unlock.

And for once, the ocean didn’t feel like a shield or a warning.

It was just home.

✦

One night, the sky above you was an endless tapestry, stars spilled wild and reckless like scattered diamonds across the velvety black. The moon hung low, a pale guardian casting a soft silver glow that shimmered on the crests of waves murmuring quietly against the shore. The cool air was thick with salt and the faint, intoxicating scent of night-blooming jasmine from the cliffs behind you, weaving through your senses and wrapping you in a gentle, heady embrace.

He took your hand with quiet certainty, his fingers curling around yours like they were shaped to fit perfectly, like this moment had been waiting for you both all along. Without a word, he guided you down the narrow path to where the ocean kissed the land, where the waves whispered their ancient secrets only the night could hold. The wet sand clung to your bare feet—cool, soft, and alive beneath each step—while the water crept forward tentatively, reaching for you in delicate caresses before pulling back, shy and reverent, unwilling to disturb what it could not claim.

When you reached the edge, he stopped and turned toward you, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight with something raw, reverent, and achingly tender. His hand rose slowly to your face, the pad of his thumb tracing a trembling line along your cheekbone, a touch so delicate it made your pulse quicken. The space between you shrank until your breaths tangled and mingled like they belonged to the same rhythm.

Then, he kissed you.

Slowly.

Sacredly.

As if you were the only light left in a world too long swallowed by shadows. His lips were warm and steady, holding back every fear and regret, every battle he’d fought inside himself, as if this kiss was a prayer—a desperate plea for forgiveness, for peace, for something softer. With every press of his mouth, he was forgiving himself for daring to want happiness, for daring to want you.

Your hands found their way to his chest, fingertips tracing the steady beat of his heart beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. The rise and fall of his breath matched your own, shallow and trembling, as the ocean’s lullaby echoed behind you—an endless symphony of waves folding into one another like whispered promises.

You broke the kiss only just long enough to murmur against his lips, voice thick with awe and longing, “I never would've believed you if three years ago you told me I’d be here right now.”

His smile was slow, genuine, and soft as his forehead rested against yours, breath warm and heavy in the night air. “Yeah,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “But I think I always knew.”

Your fingers tangled in his hair, threading through the salty strands, inhaling the faint scent of earth and ocean that clung to him. His hands slid down your back, fingertips tracing the curve of your spine, sending an electric shiver of heat trailing through your skin despite the coolness of the night.

With the patience of someone who had learned the art of gentleness through years of hardship, he eased you both down onto the sand. The grains pressed cool and soft where your skin was bare, warm in places the afternoon sun had kissed earlier, grounding you in this moment of vulnerability and surrender. The surf’s steady hum wrapped around you like a protective cloak, holding you safe beneath the vast, starlit sky.

His mouth trailed along your collarbone, lips feather-light and teasing, making your breath hitch and your skin burn with delicious anticipation. His hands roamed reverent and deliberate, memorizing the planes of your body as if committing you to memory—proof that this softness, this moment, was not a fleeting dream but a sacred promise.

You arched into him as his touch deepened, the heat between your bodies rising slow and inevitable like the tide. The fabric of your clothes became a barrier begging to be shed, and his hands worked tenderly to peel each layer away—each piece falling like petals in the moonlight, revealing the truth beneath.

Naked now, your bodies pressed close, skin slick with the mingling of salt and warmth. The cool night air was no match for the fire blooming between you, a wildfire of desire tempered by the exquisite reverence in his touch. His fingers traced every curve with worshipful care, eliciting soft gasps and shivers from you. You responded with equal devotion, your hands exploring the breadth of his chest, the powerful strength of his arms, committing every inch to memory.

When he finally entered you, it was slow—an exquisite stretching, a deep settling that stole your breath and made the world contract to just the two of you. The steady rhythm of his body moving in perfect harmony with yours was a language without words—every movement a vow, every sigh a confession, every touch a balm for wounds both old and new.

The stars overhead bore witness to your whispered names, to the tangled limbs and mingled breaths, the shared gasps and murmurs that carried you higher and higher. The waves below applauded your union with their endless rhythm, the ocean’s timeless song matching the crescendo of your closeness.

You rode the tide together, ebbing and flowing in a rhythm carved out of healing and trust, of love forged in fire and softened in the quiet moments between. When the peak finally broke, releasing you into a gentle stillness, you lay entwined—bodies slick with sweat and salt, hearts beating in a steady duet beneath the endless sky.

He held you close, fingers tracing lazy, soothing patterns on your back, anchoring you both to this fragile moment of peace and belonging. And you knew, deeper than ever before, that this was the man who had come back to you—the man who had chosen softness, who had chosen healing, and above all, who had chosen you.

“I never would've believed you if three years ago you told me I’d be here right now,” you whisper against his lips.

Bucky smiles, forehead pressed to yours.

“Yeah,” he says. “But I think I always knew.”

[actuallybean]

Cupid's Shuffle* | Part Eight

Cupid’s arrow was supposed to patch things up with Sam, not point you straight at Castiel—and resisting it might just be harder than falling. *Contains sexual material, slow-burn, brief mentioning of a past relationship with Sam Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader(former), Castiel x Reader (Eventually), Dean Winchester x Reader (Platonic) A/N: Final part ahhhh! Taglist: @mostlymarvelgirl @this-is-me--1998 @scary-noodlesblog @ratkidcalledallie @fox-saturn @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @otteropera @st0rmzi3 @caswinchass @rxi-pop @delusional-paradise Supernatural Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The bunker’s corridors were too quiet.

Not peaceful. Not calm.

Too quiet.

The kind of silence that carried weight — not the absence of sound, but the presence of something waiting. A hush thick with memory and magic and things left unsaid. It pressed against the walls and floors and doors like a held breath, like the bunker itself was listening. Waiting.

Midnight hovered just out of reach, dragging time behind it like a heavy wedding veil. Every second felt longer than the one before it — stretched thin like sugar candy pulled between trembling hands. Each tick of the clock was sticky with meaning. Thick with choice. A countdown not to a deadline, but to a decision.

Your bare feet padded across the cold floor in rhythm with your heart — too fast, too light, too loud in the quiet. Every step echoed down the hall like it didn’t belong to you. You weren’t sure if you were walking through space or memory. The bunker always felt larger at night — cavernous, ancient, a monument to secrets. But tonight…

Tonight it felt endless.

Not in size, but in weight.

Like you were walking through every version of yourself you’d ever been. The one who loved Sam like a prayer. The one who kissed Castiel like a secret. The one who’d been kissed back like a truth. The one who stood alone in the silence, wondering if any of it had ever been real. All of them were here. With you. Watching.

And the air? The air buzzed.

Not with energy, but with clarity. A sharp, ringing clarity that burned behind your ribs and crawled up your throat like a scream you hadn’t earned yet. You hadn’t spoken since you’d left the photo behind. You didn’t need to.

You had seen it.

That photo — stupid, silly, perfect — with Sam, with Dean, with Castiel. The others were smiling, caught mid-laughter, grinning into the camera with the kind of ease only found in old memories.

But Castiel hadn’t been looking at the camera.

He’d been looking at you.

Not in passing. Not in curiosity.

He had been watching you. Quietly. Reverently. Like you were the center of his universe and the only thing holding it together.

And the worst part? The part that stole your breath even now, walking alone toward your own unraveling?

You hadn’t noticed. Not then. Not really.

It had taken all of this — the potion, the kiss, the clock, the heartbreak — for you to see what was there all along.

Not something conjured.

Not something forced.

Just him.

Just you.

Something inside you cracked open then. Not like an explosion, not like something loud. More like a forgotten attic window nudged wide by the wind — letting in the dust, the light, the truth. Letting in him.

And now you were walking toward it.

Not the photo. Not the past. Not even Sam, really.

But toward the truth.

You passed the library. The kitchen. The hallway to your room. You paused — briefly — at that junction. Left led to sleep. To quiet. To curling up under blankets and pretending this night had never happened.

But you weren’t that girl anymore.

You turned right.

Because the War Room was ahead.

And so was your choice.

And you didn’t want to be late.

✦

Somewhere deep in the bunker — far from the halls thick with tension and heartache — Dean Winchester stood alone in the armory, the quiet hum of ancient fluorescents above him casting a flickering, honey-colored glow over everything like the ghost of candlelight.

The room smelled like gun oil, aged wood, and old leather. Comforting, in its own grim way. Tools of war hung like trophies. Knives gleamed from the walls. Crossbows were mounted like art.

But Dean wasn’t looking at any of them.

He stood hunched over one of the oak tables, fingers loosely curled around the neck of a half-empty whiskey bottle, the amber liquid sloshing every time he shifted his weight. In front of him lay maps of old hunts and relics from dead monsters — silver bullets, bone daggers, a flask of cursed holy water, and one deeply pissed-off mirror wrapped in protective sigils and duct tape.

Across its scratched surface, a bright pink sticky note was slapped right over the center:

“DO NOT TOUCH, DEAN.” (Signed with a lipstick print. Rowena, obviously.)

He stared at the mirror for a long second.

Then exhaled through his nose and muttered, “Should’ve listened to the damn note.”

His reflection was warped in the mirror’s glass. Too many lines in the face. Eyes that didn’t know how to stop carrying blame. A mouth that couldn’t keep itself shut even when it should.

Tonight had been a complete disaster.

The counterspell had failed. Rowena was gone — swept off in a swirl of red silk and sarcasm, muttering something about “romantic entropy.” Castiel was in love — and walking around like a freshly-struck teenager with divinity issues. You had stormed off — somewhere between rage and heartbreak, your bare feet echoing down the hallway like thunder. And Sam… Sam was on a ticking clock. A magical deadline. A “true love’s kiss before midnight” kind of curse that only Cupid himself would think was cute.

Dean took another swig from the bottle, grimaced, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Christ, what a night.”

The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It buzzed. Like something was shifting just beneath it — something brewing.

He didn’t need a spell to know the situation was heading toward combustion.

And yet, the worst part — the part chewing through his ribs — wasn’t even the magic or the drama or the fact that he had started this whole damn mess. No, it was the look on your face when he’d accidentally blurted out what he saw in your room. The way your entire body had gone still. The way Castiel had looked at you like you were fragile starlight he’d cracked with his hands.

He hadn’t meant to say it.

He never did, did he?

Just like he never meant to be the screw-up, or the one who thought his good intentions would actually lead somewhere better. It was supposed to be a little nudge. A push in the right direction. A potion-assisted reunion. Not a celestial love triangle with a deadline.

Dean closed his eyes for a moment and leaned back against the table. “I’m officially retired from matchmaking,” he said aloud, as if the bunker might grant him absolution.

But even as he said it, something shifted behind his brow. A thought. A very bad thought.

His eyes opened slowly.

His shoulders tensed.

And he whispered, “Shit.”

He was moving before the bottle hit the table.

Because he knew that look on Sam’s face — that quiet, determined sort of desperation that could lead to either miracles or disasters. And if Sam was clutching that photo of you two like it held the key to rewriting time, then Dean had a pretty good guess where this was heading.

“Oh, you better not be pulling a Prince Charming on me right now, Sammy…”

He stormed out of the armory, boots pounding through the stone hallway, his jacket flaring behind him like a stormcloud.

✦

Dean didn’t go alone.

He hadn’t meant to take anyone with him, hadn’t planned for witnesses or backup. But the bunker had a funny way of listening when it mattered. Its walls — thick with lore and memory, heavy with the weight of all they’d lost and failed to save — echoed footsteps louder when something was wrong.

And Dean knew.

He knew.

As he stormed past the corridor leading to the library, something in the corner of his eye made him stop short — a blur of tan fabric, the soft whoosh of a coat brushing the stone floor like it was stitched from mist. A presence more felt than seen.

Dean turned sharply, heart hammering. “Cas.”

The name left his mouth like a shot fired in the dark — sharp, certain, desperate.

Castiel halted mid-step and slowly turned. He looked older in the low light — not in years, but in weight. His shoulders were square but tired, his jaw clenched like someone expecting bad news. The trench coat hung off him like it always did, but tonight, it looked heavier. Like it carried every failure, every unanswered prayer.

His eyes met Dean’s. Blue, storm-dark, unreadable.

“Dean,” he said, quiet but steady — like the calm before a goddamn hurricane.

Dean crossed the space between them in two strides, breath ragged with urgency. “It’s Sam,” he said, voice low and raw. “He’s about to do something epically stupid.”

For once, there was no bark behind his words. No eye roll, no muttered complaint. Just something brittle underneath — urgency scraping against fear, panic trying not to unravel.

Castiel’s brows pulled together. “What is he planning?”

Dean was already moving, already pivoting on his heel. “That kiss,” he threw over his shoulder. “The one Rowena said could rewrite everything. Reverse the spell. Undo the binding.”

Castiel followed, silent for a beat.

“It’s real, then?”

Dean’s boots pounded the stone as they turned down a narrow hallway. “Yeah. It’s real. And Sam’s going to try it.”

Castiel didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask how or why or what the hell Dean was talking about. He just ran.

The angel’s coat flared behind him like wings, catching the air as he picked up speed.

Dean matched his pace, their strides syncing — two soldiers charging into battle, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, like they’d always done when it mattered most.

The bunker around them blurred — rows of old books, flickering sconces, iron railings passing like ghosts. Every heartbeat a countdown. Every breath a prayer.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Castiel asked, voice winded but steady, his eyes never leaving the hallway ahead.

Dean didn’t answer right away. His jaw worked. He could hear his own pulse in his ears.

“I think if she kisses him back,” he said finally, voice cracking at the edges, “it won’t matter if the damn potion’s in her or not.”

Castiel glanced over at him. “Because then it’s not magic anymore.”

Dean met his gaze for a split second. “Because then it’s real.”

That truth sat between them like a third heart, aching and loud.

They didn’t say anything more. They didn’t need to. The weight of it — of what Sam was risking, of what they all stood to lose — was thick in the air.

They reached the War Room doors just as the last minute before midnight slipped by.

The silence was palpable — no footsteps, no echo, just the heavy stillness of a moment holding its breath.

Dean threw the doors open.

And whatever waited inside, he wasn’t going to let Sam face it alone. Not this time. Not ever again.

✦

You stood beneath the high-arched ceiling of the War Room, the silence pressing down like a cathedral without a choir. The bunker’s heart hummed quietly around you — pipes groaning faintly in the walls, distant echoes of forgotten footsteps, the rustle of aged pages somewhere deeper within the archive halls. Overhead, the ancient iron chandelier hung suspended in still air, its dim bulbs casting long shadows that pooled in the corners like secrets.

The war map glowed beneath you — soft amber bleeding across your skin, outlining your silhouette in warmth that did little to soothe the chill in your chest. The table’s light flickered against your boots, crawling up the stone pillars like a sun trying to rise. Your arms crossed loosely over your chest, fingers curled into the sleeves of your jacket, as if trying to hold yourself together.

You wore your uncertainty like a second skin, or a scent — thick, cloying, impossible to wash off. It wrapped around your shoulders, gathered in the hollow of your throat, clung to the curve of your spine. You stared at the far wall without really seeing it, mind turning in circles too wide to trace. You had been waiting, but you weren’t sure for what — or for who.

Then, you heard it.

Footsteps — fast, purposeful, echoing louder with every second.

You turned slowly, breath caught halfway in your lungs.

And there he was.

Sam.

He stood at the top of the stairs like a man chased by ghosts. His broad chest heaved with every breath, his hair damp at the temples, sticking to his forehead. His flannel was rumpled, half-untucked, a smear of something dark streaked along the cuff of his sleeve — but his eyes…

God, his eyes.

Those familiar, open eyes — impossibly soft and wide, but wild with something uncontainable. Fear. Hope. Desperation. Love.

“Y/N,” he said, and your name cracked on his tongue like lightning splitting a quiet sky.

You blinked, stunned still. “Sam?”

He came down the steps quickly, something clutched tight in his hand. When he stopped a few feet away, he held it out like an offering — no, like a relic. Reverent. Sacred.

It was a photo.

Old, bent at the corners, creased down the center like it had been carried close to his heart for years.

“You remember this?” he asked, voice uneven. “Bigfoot case. That gas station with the chili that almost killed me. That guy who swore he’d been abducted three times and tried to read your aura with a fork.”

Your lips twitched — not quite a smile, not yet — but the memory stirred something warm and aching in your chest. “Yeah,” you murmured. “You made me pose next to that awful taxidermy raccoon… The one with the cigarette glued in its mouth.”

Sam let out a breathless laugh, shoulders loosening for the first time since he’d entered the room. “We were so good then. Weren’t we?”

Your gaze dropped, eyes fixed on the photo between his fingers, then lower still — to the space between your feet. A chasm of time. Of pain.

“We were,” you whispered, and the words felt like ash.

He took a step closer, eyes never leaving yours. “I think we can be again.”

You didn’t move. Didn’t speak. You just looked up at him, caught somewhere between longing and disbelief. His words hung in the air like smoke — beautiful, suffocating, impossible to ignore. Your heart slammed against your ribs, every beat a question.

Was he right?

Was it too late?

Could you trust this — him — again?

And then— Behind him. Footsteps.

Fast. Urgent. Loud enough to shake the stillness.

“Sam, wait!”

Dean’s voice ripped through the air like a whipcrack, raw and sharp with warning.

You turned toward the sound, instincts flaring—

But Sam didn’t hesitate.

The photo slipped from his hand, fluttering to the floor like the last page of a story written too long ago. His hands were already reaching for you, fingers warm and trembling as they cupped your face — one palm at your cheek, the other brushing your jaw like he needed to memorize it, in case this was the last time.

“Just let me try,” he whispered.

And then he kissed you.

It was not gentle.

It was the kind of kiss that stole the air from your lungs and bent time around it — that desperate, fierce kind of kiss people bleed for in wars and write about in books with cracked spines and highlighted passages. His mouth was hot against yours, lips parted in prayer, in plea, in punishment.

It tasted like memory. Like gasoline and ghosts. Like regret and hope clashing on your tongue.

Your hands shot up to his chest — not to push him away, but to anchor yourself. His heart thundered beneath your palms, matching the rhythm in your own chest like two battle drums beating for the same cause.

The world narrowed.

The War Room, the map, the stone walls — all of it faded to the edges, blurred and silent, until there was only him. Only this.

The spell — if there ever was one — cracked like glass beneath your skin.

And somewhere, in the doorway, Dean stopped running.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t interrupt. He just stood there, catching the moment like a blade to the gut, letting the silence speak for him.

It was sudden and soft and too much, like pages of a fairytale being ripped from the binding and forced into reality. His lips moved against yours like he could undo the pain, like he could rewrite destiny with the curve of your mouth. His hands held you like he’d break without you.

And for a moment — a fatal, beautiful moment — you kissed him back.

You let yourself fall into it.

You tasted memory, and grief, and fire. You remembered motel rooms and laughter and his hand in yours when the world felt like it was ending. You remembered who you used to be with him.

And in that moment — that fragile, shattering second — you gave in.

But he wasn’t the only one watching.

Behind him, Castiel stood in the threshold of the War Room, frozen.

His eyes widened, pain blooming like bruises across his face. It struck him silent, and then still — and then the weight of it knocked him to his knees.

No sound left his mouth. No protest. No cry. Just silence.

Like something divine had broken in him.

And then—

BONG.

The first chime rang out.

The bunker trembled beneath it. The old grandfather clock struck midnight with the weight of fate.

BONG.

The second chime followed, low and haunting, rolling through the bunker like thunder rolling down a canyon wall.

Something shimmered in the air.

A pulse of rose-gold light, soft and warm, like a sigh from heaven — brushing across your skin, curling around your hair, wrapping you both in a cocoon of tentative magic.

BONG.

Sam’s hands still cupped your cheeks.

BONG.

Your eyes opened.

You pulled back.

Slowly. Carefully. Almost afraid.

Sam was smiling — his eyes glimmered with victory, with hope so palpable it felt like a heartbeat between you. He exhaled, like the worst was finally over. Like this was it. The moment.

But then his smile faltered.

His brows drew together.

The glow — the magic — didn’t change.

Your eyes still held the same sadness.

Your skin still hummed with the aftershock, not the release.

The spell hadn’t broken.

His smile died on his lips.

“No,” he whispered.

Behind him, Castiel raised his head.

His face was pale, etched with disbelief and something far more human than he ever let himself feel. His hands curled against the floor, knuckles white, as if grounding himself in stone was the only thing keeping him from unraveling.

You took a half-step back.

Sam’s hands fell to his sides, limp.

The silence after the chime was unbearable.

The photo lay on the ground between you all — forgotten. Meaningless. A memory that no longer fit the present.

And then the magic in the air dimmed to nothing.

Like a candle blown out by truth.

Sam stepped back, his eyes darting between yours, searching for something that wasn’t there.

“It didn’t work,” he said, quietly. “Why didn’t it work?”

Your chest rose slowly with a trembling inhale. “Because…” Your voice cracked, your throat burning. “Because I wanted to remember what we had. Not rewrite it.”

Sam blinked, pain flashing across his face like a storm. “But you kissed me back.”

You nodded, tears welling behind your eyes. “I did. I—I wanted it to mean something. I wanted to see if it could. But…”

Behind Sam, Castiel rose slowly to his feet. The trench coat brushed against the stone floor with a soft drag, but the movement was slow, hesitant — like he didn’t dare make a sound that might shatter what remained of the moment.

Your eyes lifted to him, drawn like a compass needle to true north.

And Sam saw it.

He turned, just slightly, and followed your gaze — and there it was, written plain as scripture in your expression.

It wasn’t the kiss that had changed you. It was the aftermath. It was who you looked for when it didn’t work.

You took a small step toward Castiel.

“Sam…” you said softly, placing a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t pull away. “You don’t have to be.”

“Yes, I do,” you said. “Because I wanted to love you the way you deserved. And some part of me will always love who we were. But I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t keep looking backward and calling it forward.”

Sam let out a slow breath through his nose and nodded, eyes fixed on the floor. “I knew,” he said. “I think... I think I knew before I kissed you. Just needed to be sure.”

You reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’ll always be grateful for what we had. I just… I think the spell didn’t fail. I think it worked in a different way. It helped me see.”

Sam looked at you then — really looked — and smiled, broken and gentle. “Yeah. It opened your heart. Just not to me.”

Your eyes welled with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead gently against yours, just for a moment. “Don’t be. You gave me closure.”

A long silence passed before you finally stepped away, turning toward the man who hadn’t spoken — who had stood in silence and pain, waiting for a sign that he wasn’t wrong to hope.

Castiel.

His eyes were oceans — ancient, unreadable, but shimmering with something soft and terrified.

You approached him slowly, like a wild thing inching toward something sacred. “Cas…”

He swallowed hard. “You kissed him.”

You nodded, blinking back tears. “I did.”

He looked down, jaw tightening.

“But I looked for you when I opened my eyes.”

That made him look up. His breath caught, shoulders pulling inward like he wasn’t sure how to hold the weight of what you were saying.

You stepped closer.

“I don’t know when it started. I don’t know the exact moment,” you whispered. “But I think the potion… it helped me realize that what I thought was lingering love for Sam was just fear. Fear of letting go. And underneath it, there was you. There was always you.”

His mouth parted, but no words came.

“I tried to ignore it. You were always beside me — quiet, steady, loyal. But I never let myself feel it. I told myself it wasn’t real.”

You reached out, your hand brushing against his.

“But it is real. And I think I was just too scared to see it until now.”

Castiel’s hand turned, fingers lacing with yours like it was instinct. His voice was a rasp. “Do you mean it?”

“I do,” you whispered.

And then you kissed him.

There was no magic in the air this time. No golden light. No ticking clock.

Just warmth. Just the slow melt of something long-denied finally unfolding.

His arms slid around your waist, pulling you closer. Your fingers curled in the collar of his coat, anchoring yourself to the moment — to him. It was a kiss that didn’t demand anything. It simply existed. Steady. True.

When you pulled back, Castiel touched your face with a reverence that made your breath catch. “I never believed I’d be loved like this.”

You smiled through your tears. “Then let me prove you wrong every day.”

Behind you, Sam turned away, giving you your moment. His shoulders were slumped, his hands in his pockets, but there was no bitterness in his eyes — just a quiet kind of acceptance.

“ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?”

Dean’s voice burst through the hallway like a gunshot.

You, Castiel, and Sam all turned toward the War Room doors as Dean stormed back in, his phone held out in front of him like a weapon.

“Cupid,” he said, glaring at the screen. “You wanna explain why you decided to let Sammy smooch his way through a damn emotional landmine?!”

A tiny voice filtered through the speaker — lilting, cheeky.

“I’m a sucker for drama and love triangles, Dean. Don’t act like you’re not.”

Dean gaped at the phone. “You—! You little naked lunatic! This isn’t The Notebook! You could’ve killed someone with that spell!”

Cupid’s voice was unapologetic. “It worked, didn’t it? Look at Castiel and Y/N — I ship it.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “We almost broke the laws of magic for your entertainment.”

“Almost,” Cupid said brightly. “But look! Happy ending for the angel. Bittersweet closure for the ex. Sexy rage from Dean. Ten out of ten. Would meddle again.”

Dean growled and hung up with a string of muttered curses about arrows, sparkles, and “goddamn Hallmark angels.”

A laugh broke free from your lips — light, breathless, a little stunned — like it had been waiting years to escape.

Sam’s low chuckle followed, quiet and warm despite everything, the sound of a man laying old ghosts to rest.

Even Castiel let out a small, bewildered huff of air — not quite a laugh, but close enough. The corners of his mouth twitched like he didn’t quite understand how it had happened, only that it felt… good.

You looked up at him, and he was already looking down at you.

The smile you shared wasn’t loud or triumphant — it was soft. Quiet. The kind of smile that says we made it.

That says finally.

Castiel’s arm slipped around your waist, slow and sure, like he was still learning how to touch without hesitation. He pulled you gently against him, and you let yourself go — let your head rest against his chest, where his heart beat steady beneath layers of grace and flannel and quiet wonder.

He exhaled like the tension had left him all at once, and you felt the weight of it leave you too.

And for the first time in a long while, the bunker didn’t feel like a tomb or a battlefield.

It felt like a beginning.