#I am trying to think of any OC parallels ... I mean Hannah and Gave are fabulous

[breitzbachbea]

I love ships so much where a powerful person is taken out by their knees by someone who is dependent on them in some ways. Like, I'm sorry, but Spamano and TurGre slap so fucking hard for that reason. I love it when someone can have the whole damn world, but all they want is one person. Antonio and Sadık reduced to begging on their knees is just. Top tier. Chefs kiss. I love it when someone is so greedy they can't help it and the person admired holds the strings TIGHTLY. I just. So good.

[stusbunker]

Known: Off Key

A Supernatural Dark Fan-fiction

Featuring: Demon!Reader, MoC!Dean x Female OC, Sam Winchester, Castiel, and Crowley

Series Masterlist

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November 26, 2014

Crowley’s Earth Operations, Throne Room

           There were things he had seen that would make a sane man rip his eyes out. But staring at the bruised and chained form of his mother was not something he wished to unsee. Crowley was the King of Hell, Master of the Crossroads and owner of the First Blade. He was the most powerful demon in existence. This shouldn’t be a problem, however powerful she was, she remained his prisoner. The undying resentment he felt towards her was only paralleled by a little boy’s need for his mother to love him.

           His time with Dean must have kept him soft. He had been off the blood for months; this was just a momentary relapse. Crowley couldn’t be having, sentiments, about his whore witch mother. Could he?

November 30, 2014

The Bunker

The weeks since both CC and Dean had been purged of their demonic sides had fostered an indelicate dance. She remained in the Bunker despite the devastation she felt in the aftermath. Guilt, fear and grief bristled her already brusque demeanor. Once Castiel left with Hannah, the outward animosity dropped to a low simmer. She hadn’t divulged her spirit walk or that the knowledge of her origins had left her vulnerable to both Heaven and Hell outside of their heavily warded safehouse. It wasn’t their burden to bear. All the while, CC hadn’t felt the same, with either Winchester, as her stay lengthened; safety was enough for her to attempt to remain on their good sides.

Dean was unapologetic about the whole thing; CC shouldn’t have been possessed and somehow, their efforts had remedied the situation. He found himself speeding back to Kansas after the old case of Bobby’s, not realizing he was rushing home because he had somebody there waiting. He felt oddly rejuvenated after ending the shifter and he couldn’t wait to give CC all the twisted details of that mess of a family. Just the thought of her grinning had his foot leaning heavier.

That reunion was over and settled, but Dean had yet to earn much enthusiasm beyond a half-hearted greeting from CC. Strategically, Sam left them alone, unless they were heading out for a case. He knew they had to work through things, and nothing suggested they were done with each other; he gave them a respectable distance. They were just too damn stubborn for their own good.

           “You know we really could have used you on this one,” Dean strongly suggested while he pealed his coat off, frustration reigniting on his bruised face.

           “I don’t know why I need to say this again, but I am not hunting with you. It’s too dangerous.”

           “Yeah, well, we lost a damn powerful witch and a lot of people died in the process.”

           CC didn’t rise to the challenge, leaving the brothers quietly. She came back to the Library with the first aid kit, looking over Dean’s face as Sam settled down with his laptop across the table. “You guys made it out, that’s what matters.”

           “Real nice, Chloe,” Sam muttered.

Dean pushed her hand away from his face to glare up at her. “What other people don’t matter? Are you just giving up on ever doing your job? On who you are, on what your family taught you?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” CC warned. “Can I finish?”

Dean didn’t answer, but sat still as she patched him up, leaving him with a bag of peas and a cold beer to judge in her absence.

Later that night, Dean was drawn down the hallway by the soft sound of singing. He knew Sam sometimes left music on, but it was too gentle and haunting to be a recording. The closer he got Dean realized it was more of a chant, the words lifting slightly before falling back to the beginning of the recitation. It was Chloe in a melancholy drone to the night air; words he would never grasp, but a feeling that struck him like a forgotten chord in the harmony.

CC sang out to those that went before her, those that couldn’t be saved. The regret and fear raced through her until tears burned in her eyes. She prayed for bravery and for guidance, to be wholly herself again, and to be the granddaughter and hunter she once was. As the air cleared and her voice ached from her efforts her unseen audience became clear. She wasn’t sure how she could sense him now, but there was no doubt that Dean was resting against her bedroom door.

“You can come in now, Dean. If you want.” She packed away her incense and bowl set, as Dean entered like a kid late to finals.

“Everything alright?” She gave him a look to not ask stupid questions. He watched as she dropped her eyes, darting to nowhere in particular for as long as she could; everywhere but back at him. “Hey, about how I snapped on you about Rowena? It’s just, I know you. You’re happiest when you’re giving it your all. This, hiding gig, it doesn’t suit you.”

Dean dropped onto her bed, casually throwing his hands behind his head as if he were waiting for her psychoanalysis and not a rebuttal. She leaned against the desk, one leg bent as she peered over at him, the Mark of Cain peeking out from his rolled-up sleeve. “Who ever said we’re allowed what makes us happy? That’s not a hunter’s lot. I don’t have to tell you, of all people, that one.”

Dean rolled to his side, patting the bed at her. She huffed and rolled her eyes but dropped onto the blanket and crawled into him all the same, burrowing face first into his broad chest.

“You think we could ever be happy?”

“In general, or you mean, like as an ‘us’?” Dean spoke into her hair, the thick strands soft against his lips.

“At all.”

“I don’t know. But I hate to see you stop fighting.”

“Yeah, sometimes it feels like the fight was taken from me. Like I was robbed. I don’t know how to be me and this other thing all together.”

“For what it’s worth? I’m sorry for what happened when she, when I–.”

“This isn’t about her, Dean. This is about figuring out whatever I am now.”

“You can still be you, Cease, trust me. You’ve always been remarkable, now you know where some of that comes from.”

CC thudded his chest with her head, laughing. “Man, you are laying it on thick tonight. Itching that bad, huh?” She leaned back to see his appraising smirk and eyebrow waggle. The light shifted, and he was that very breakable man again. Chloe knew she could hurt him in an instant and it terrified her. If it wasn’t for the Mark on his arm, he might have already been a casualty of her unhindered wrath. She didn’t want to let go, but holding on felt like chaining him to her, where all the consequences were unknown.

“Hey, if it’s just this tonight and this is all you need. I’ll be good.”

“But?”

“But I wouldn’t say no to less clothing.”

The next morning

Dean woke up with a sour taste in his mouth, CC’s legs thrown over his. Slowly he eased out from behind her with a quick peck on the tip of her shoulder. If she was awake, she didn’t let on; allowing him to leave guilt-free. He dragged his pants and boxers back on, not bothering with his belt. He fisted his shirts in one hand and his boots in the other, closing her door with a gentle click. He showered and found Sam, and his judging face cocked in Dean’s general direction, at the breakfast table.

“Did you at least convince her to ride along on the next case?”

“Pffft, no. Have you met her? I couldn’t convince her to do anything, ever.”

“And yet, here we are.”

“Okay, well maybe, I nudged her a certain direction.” Dean gave a considering pout before turning back to pour himself some coffee.

Sam pursed his lips. “If that’s what you’re calling it; I don’t wanna know.”

“Oh, you wanna, but I aint telling.”

“You done? Cuz I might have a line on something.”

Dean inhaled. “Whatcha got?”

Sam launched into the grizzly details of mutilated bodies while Dean tried to listen. Once his post-coital strut wore off, he felt a little sheepish about the whole thing. It was the first night they had spent together since he’d been cured. Nothing about it left him feeling any better about CC or whatever they had between them.

Hell

You had been coughing for what felt like a year. The chemicals in the air choked your lungs and burned your eyes; everywhere you looked was a sooty amber haze. Once you thought you were going to retch from its potency; it thickened filling your nose and throat until all you could do was swallow the poison down. Time quickly no longer held any meaning for something like you. You who had escaped Hell and lived among hunters, abandoned your post and killed your own kind. Despite having served the King while Earth-side; the rules remained the same. Deserters and mutineers earned their punishments.

You had to pay for what you’d done. The longer you clung to your memories of freedom, the deeper the ache of separation seeped.

December 2, 2014

The Bunker

Chloe had been sidestepping this long enough. Watching Dean going crossed eyed over research was not something that could keep her wandering thoughts at bay. She sauntered around the library table and let her hands roam his tense shoulders. He didn’t respond more than a slight grunt. He felt foreign in her hands, breadth and depth at odds with what her body knew to be true of his abilities. Slowly she saw him fall inch by inch into the sedation of her ministration. With the heat of her mouth on his ear, CC beckoned Dean into his room, hands pulling, while lips teased along his jaw. He hadn’t expected such a reception. When he finally had caught up, she threw him for another loop.

“Listen, there are some things we need to get straight, before we continue what we’re doing here.”

Dean leaned back, holding CC’s thick waist in his strong hands as he squinted at her sudden change of mood. “Okay, if this is gonna be a side of the bed thing, I’m flexible as along as I can get to my gun.” Dean nodded as CC bit both of her lips in mild amusement. “Not that kind of straightening, got it.”

As her warm hands rested on his chest she fiddled with the buttons on his thermal, trying to decide where to start. “Okay, well, how about we decide when it started and what we want from there?”

“Uh, okay, but I am not much for the semantics and anniversaries. We’ve had some fun and kicked some ass. Don’t really need more than that. Do you?”

“What’s important to me is you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.” While still pressing Dean against the door, CC reached up and tied her hair in a black silky ball at the top of her head. “So, when did you first realize I was possessed?”

Dean took her hands in his, dropping them to her side and rocking her upright, so he could stand up. Hunters’ instincts keeping him on guard, even if his knuckles were locked in hers. “I knew for certain when I cleaned your room and it was caked in sulfur, after the dead vessels at Magnus’s. Right after I got the First Blade.”

CC scooted back, breaking contact to pace in a subtle arc and fiddle with her knife handle. “Okay, I don’t remember that, at all. I’m pretty sure that I was already out of control by then.”

Dean’s stomach dropped. “I mean, there was that case that you lost time. North Carolina?”

“Oh, yeah, thought I lost my truck. You were a lifesaver. Okay, that’s longer.” Dean had squared his shoulders, he watched her now with a keyed-up disbelief, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for CC to unleash it all.

“How far back was it really?” Dean closed his eyes, unable to face her answer, knowing that hearing it would be painful enough.

“I’m not sure, she didn’t make a fuss or pack me away at first. I think, Santa Fe? Maybe earlier,” CC admitted, cupping the back of her neck and staring at her feet. Some hunter she was, letting a fucking demon joyride through her life for months. Though they had grown together, in hindsight it was still embarrassing, especially the parts she couldn’t tell him. Of when she watched them together and envied their spark, or the parts she would never tell anyone, when the demon inside Dean scared even the one that was inside of her.

“How much of this–” Dean broke off, with a disgruntled sigh. “How much of it was her?”

CC reached up to touch him now, his voice had cracked, and his jaw struggled against the bitterness. How could someone seem so far away while she could feel his body heat against her skin? He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t lean into the softness of her palm, like before. She watched him try and keep himself together and the space inside her ribs doubled, the walls falling away to more emptiness. “Enough.”

He turned away to clear his tears then, pinching his lips to try and center himself. The Mark’s rage began to build in his temples, failing against all the unwanted emotion and the truth he had to face. CC’s hand fell to her chest, she cradled it over her tender heart, trying, in vain, to stop the damage from spreading. Dean didn’t know how he felt, there was guilt, his old poor-weather friend, but this burden of loss was unexpected, and a new regret too damning to acknowledge. He wanted to pull Chloe to him, to let her dumb the ache.

The two of them together, felt wrong now, incomplete and lopsided. Dean wasn’t sure if she, the demon that had known him, was their missing piece or if they each had simply lost parts of themselves along the way.

A gentle knock on the door broke the moment, CC’s face tightening and Dean’s falling into a familiar lazy grin.

“Guys? It’s Jody.”  Sam held his phone to his chest, tone even, but he missed nothing as they buried their feelings and put their game faces back on.

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Next Chapter: Two Halves, Three Hearts