#almost tagged it bobby singer

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 7 - Something I Can See

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Author's Note: Big chapter for fans of yapping and Dean overthinking things.

Chapter title from Something to Believe by Weyes Blood

Word Count: 16.8k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: Sam and Dean drive you home. Usual warnings.

Tags: Dean Winchester/Female Reader, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, big angst, fluff, monster of the week.

Chapter 6 - Chapter 8

Read on A03!

She was going to be okay. They’d managed to get the knife out of her gut, and Sammy had stitched Her up, so She’d be fine. 

She was still knocked out, but Her breathing was even. The blade had been so hot Dean had needed to use a towel to hold it, but it was out of Her body. Her wound kept bubbling and blistering, but it wasn’t an infection. 

She’d be fine. Dean was going to kill Her, but she’d be fine.

He looked down at Her, spread out across Baby’s backseat and curled into her body. She’d barely made a sound since She’d passed out. Only soft moans and whimpers as they worked on the injury, and a few grunts as they’d moved Her into the car, adjusted Her body in the seat, and set off on the road. 

They’d done everything. All Her shit was in the trunk, Sam was sitting with her to make sure she didn’t fall over or get worse, and Dean was breaking every traffic law he could think of to get there faster. 

To South Dakota.

To Bobby’s.

It had taken Dean too long, in the parking lot, to actually call Bobby. He’d waited until She was settled, until they’d loaded almost everything into the car, and until Sammy was dealing with the front desk so Dean was alone.

He hadn’t been alone. He’d been sitting in the back of the Impala, Her head on his knee and his hand unable to stop tracing over her face.

It was wrong. Looking at Her like this. Features sunken and hollow, lips drained of blood, breathing shallow in a way Dean could feel. It made his own breath labored, his whole body tensed as She relaxed against him, and he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve the trust of Her vulnerability, the way Her beautiful face was half buried in his thigh, the way She’d let out a weak, sad sound whenever he tried to pull away.

He’d hurt Her. He’d spent the entire night after their fight ripping apart the club grounds and roaring Her name, giving Sam daring looks to say a single thing. He’d beaten himself into the mud in fear that he’d lose Her twice. Once with spat words and a cold look of hatred, then again with a shredded body and dulled eyes. 

He’d wanted to strangle Her. He’d wanted to apologize, and shout that he had nothing to apologize for. She’d lied. 

Not about what Dean thought She’d been lying about, but She’d still lied.

Although, admittedly, the truth was far more confusing. 

Because Dean had stared at the small, robot-print letters on Her phone screen—pixilated and fuzzy and flipping his world upside—and not known how to process them.

Bobby Singer.

There could be other Bobby Singers that weren’t Dean’s Bobby Singer. That weren’t the guy who was practically his uncle, who he’d played catch with, who’d made him food and given Sammy run-down toys to play with.

It didn’t make sense for this to be Dean’s Bobby. Dean had half grown up in that house. He’d stayed there for weeks on end when Dad had been on a really bad hunt—hunts where he’d come back with hooded eyes and fisted hands, snapping short orders because they didn’t have time to waste on sentimentality—and Bobby had never once had a daughter. Especially not a hot, annoying, impossible one. 

Dean would’ve remembered meeting Her before. There’s no shot he would’ve ever forgotten Her. He couldn’t. He’d tried. Dean was pretty sure that, even if he’d only laid eyes on Her once in passing, he would’ve been drawn down into Her and never climbed back out.

That was simply what She did. Who She was. A walking, breathing song that Dean couldn’t figure out how to touch but still wanted to try to learn. She got stuck in his head and played there on loop, and if he’d ever seen Her before that moroi hunt, he was damn sure he would’ve remembered.

And Bobby would’ve told him. If Bobby had a kid that was around Sam and Dean’s age, they would’ve known. Dad would’ve known.

Dad should’ve known. And he obviously hadn’t. Whenever Dean had brought Her up, Dad had called Her that little girl.

Hell, Dad had told Bobby about Her. Dad had said Her name and Bobby hadn’t gone Fuckin’ Jesus, John, that’s my daughter. The hell is She doin’ huntin’ a poltergeist.

Bobby had reacted strangely, though. Dean remember him hanging up right after Dad mentioned Her.

And She had mentioned her dad was a gruff, smart hunter. Which described Bobby, and explained why She knew so much random shit about hunting, and that was Bobby’s number in Her phone, and-

She’d lied. She’d said She didn’t know a Bobby. She’d asked Dean what he thought of Bobby.

Like She was curious what he’d think.

Son of a bitch.

Because when Dean squinted, he could see Bobby on Her face. Not physically, but in small divets and shadows on Her face and body and voice.

They rolled their eyes the same way. Like they were done with everyone’s shit, and knew that they were the most competent and reliable person in the room. 

She had the same laugh Bobby had. Dean had only heard Bobby laugh—really, fully laugh with his whole chest—three or four times, but it was the exact same laugh. Loud and powerful and almost cartoonish.

They didn’t walk the same way, but they fought in similar movements. Brutal and effective, with no more or less than necessary. 

And if Dean really thought about it, there were smaller things he could draw together. How She turned a page, how She held a pencil, how She drank her coffee.

Small mannerisms She would’ve picked up from being raised by someone, the same way Dean would spin his keys and Sammy always flipped his wallet in his hands before opening it. 

Like Dad did.

Part of Dean hadn’t wanted to call the number. His thumb hovered far too long as he’d debated if he even wanted to know. If this was really what it seemed to be, and he’d have to piece together a puzzle he hadn’t known existed a fucking hour ago.

She could never know that he’d looked down at Her, and that had been what finally got him. That Her scrunched face had made his heart feel like it was being wrenched and pounded, that he’d run his thumb over Her nose, she’d relaxed, and let out a song-like sigh that had been it.

He’d pressed call, held the phone to his ear, and still not fully believed it until the line picked up after two rings.

“Hey, kiddo, I wasn’t expectin’ you to call until you had that Kelpie down. You alright?”

Dean had frozen, his voice caught in his throat, staring at Her face as static sounded in his ear. 

That was Bobby. Bobby clearing his throat, Bobby grunting Her name-

“Is everythin’-“

“Bobby?” Dean’s voice had been hushed, and he’d watched Her carefully to make sure she wasn’t disturbed. 

There had been a long moment of silence, this time from Bobby’s end, and then-

“Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s-“

“Where the hell did you find this phone, boy?”

Dean had said Her name, his hand tracing over Her brow, still checking she was real. “She gave it to me.”

“She fuckin’- where is she?”

“She’s right here-“

“Put her on, I need to talk to her.”

“Yeah, uh,” Dean had swallowed, and She’d shifted slightly, pressing further into his lap. “I can’t.”

“Dean Winchester, I ain’t lookin’ to kill you, but if you don’t-“

“No, I- I literally fucking can’t, Bobby.”

“Why in hells balls can’t ya’ pass a phone-“

Dean said Her name again, something like lead coating his throat. “Uh, she’s- She’s knocked out.”

There was a brief second of silence, and Dean had winced when Bobby spoke again. 

“What the hell typa’ shit have you two gotten into that she’s knocked out?!”

“A demon attacked her, and we- Bobby, we tried to fight it off but it got a knife into her gut, and Sammy patched her up but-“

“Sam’s there?”

Dean had frowned. “Yeah, uh, who else-“

“Never mind, I thought-“ Bobby had sighed through the phone, something tense growing in his voice. “She stable?”

“Yeah, but she told us to call you.”

“Alright, bring her up here and I’ll be ready. And Dean?”

Dean had nodded, staring at Her gorgeous, almost peaceful face, and there had been a long stretch of silence before he remembered Bobby couldn’t see him.

“Dean-“

“Shit, sorry, what’s-“

“I don’t want you lettin’ a single fuckin’ thing near her but you and Sam, got it?”

“Yes, sir-“

“Don’t yes, sir me, boy. Promise me you’ll keep her in your sight.”

“I will. Promise.”

It had been an easy thing to say. The thought of leaving Her alone had—even as his head spun, and his chest started to mold with the question of why the hell she’d lied—made Dean feel taut and sick.

And Bobby had hung up the phone, and Dean had kept his promise. He’d never left Her alone, not for a second. Sam had sat with Her because Dean didn’t trust himself to care for her properly—didn’t deserve to have Her half slump over his body and sigh against his skin—and Dean’d had to force his eyes to stay on the road, and not drift to check on Her

It was bad enough that his mind had been wandering. Coming up with more and more reasons this didn’t make any fucking sense, and far too many reasons why it did. 

She’d called going to Bobby’s home, and Dean felt something like bile in his throat at the thought that whenever She’d said home before, she’d been talking about Bobby. And lying. And letting Dean think She was living in a fancy gated palace, when she’d just been at Bobby’s. But now, when Dean pictured Bobby’s table, he could see Her at it. She slotted into the scene perfectly, just as She fit so well in every other part of Dean’s life.

And he still couldn’t hate Her. He had far too many questions—where the hell She’d been whenever they’d stayed with Bobby, why had She never corrected Dean, why had Bobby lied about knowing Her—and he didn’t know what the hell was happening, but he just couldn’t fucking hate Her.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam had asked a few hours ago, watching Dean carefully from the backseat. “What happened, last night? You just, you called me and said she’d stormed off, but-“

“Don’t.” Dean had muttered, his grip tightening on the wheel, and Sam had sighed.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me everything, I just want to know why she’d just fucked off, it doesn’t seem like her-“

“You don’t know her, Sam-“

“But you do-“

“Do I?” Dean had snapped, his eyes flicking back to Her in the rearview mirrors. Always close, and untouchable, and a mystery Dean could never seem to get close to solving. “I’m not sure anyone knows her, and I certainly fucking don’t.”

“Yeah, you do, Dean.” Sam had leaned forward, his tone far too careful and gentle. “Whatever fight you guys had, however pissed she got, I can’t be that bad-“

“Yeah, it can be.” Dean had scowled at the road, his voice lowering to a grunt. “Drop it, Sam. I fucking serious.”

Sam had sighed, and nodded. “Alright, what about the demon? Do you think we need to be keeping an eye out?”

“Eye out-“

“For another one.” Sam had glanced down to Her, she’d made a small noise of distress, and the sound had ached in Dean’s chest. “Dude, it- It knew who you were. And it seemed to know her-“

“There’s- How the hell would a demon know her-“

“I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking.” Sam had swallowed, and Dean could see the nerves written over his face in the mirror. “You think Bobby will have an idea?”

Dean didn’t know. He’d snapped at Sam that when they got to Bobby’s they’d have plenty of time to figure out what the fuck was happening, but the question was still echoing around his head.

Why would a demon have gone after Her. She was just a year older than Sammy, so she couldn’t have made that many enemies. She wasn’t some kind of target. There was nothing about her that could-

There was everything about Her. If Dean thought about it for too long—which is all he had time to do—She wasn’t just an enigma to Dean. Her family was still her family, no matter how she knew Bobby. Dad had said She’d stolen something, all those years ago. Maybe the demons would want it.

Maybe others felt that pull. Maybe there was something deeper Dean didn’t know how to see. 

Maybe there was nothing at all, and the demon had been hunting Her because of her proximity to Dean.

That thought made him feel sore and ill. Dad said that it was a demon who had gotten Mom. A demon who had gotten Jess. 

And She wasn’t Dean’s. She’d made that perfectly fucking clear.

But he couldn’t stop looking at Her. Couldn’t stop how the air didn’t feel clean in his lungs because Her breathing was shallow, how his hands kept itching on the wheel to brush over Her cheek and soothe the small wrinkle in Her brow. He could tell himself he just wanted to check for a fever, but he also wanted to move the hair from Her face. Sam was just letting is lie there, and Dean knew she hated people touching it, but she always let Dean touch her. She never slapped his hand away when he touched Her. She leaned into him, and sometimes She smile, and sometimes Dean could pretend she was his-

She wasn’t. She wouldn’t be. Dad had known Mom. Sam had known Jess.

Dean didn’t know anything. He didn’t know why the demon had been after Her, or what She been thinking just stomping off, or why Bobby was her home. 

All he really knew was that this still looked wrong. That the sight of Her in pain was making his heart shred itself in his chest, and that he wanted to reach around the seats and touch Her. Pull Her into him until nothing else could hurt Her, until he could get her somewhere safer than him.

She’d be safer anywhere but with Dean. Bobby had said to keep an eye on Her, but Dean didn’t trust his eyes. All week they’d kept seeing things that didn’t really make sense. Every moment they just made Her more beautiful, even as Dean silently cursed himself for still looking. 

He couldn’t stop looking. He fucking hated Her for lying, but every single sharp and blunted piece of wrath in Dean’s chest felt more searing when it carved on his own ribs. She was a liar, but Dean was a piece of shit. He’d bitten Her too hard. He didn’t have a damn clue about Her life, but he’d still aimed to kill and then been a whiny son of a bitch when his shot had landed.

She may bring out the most of him, but it was still Dean who was made of all those foul, uncontrolled pieces. 

Dad knew how to control himself. Dad wasn’t perfect, but at least he kept himself in line, and he’d tried to teach Dean how to do the same but Dean was just weaker. Pathetic and useless. 

He didn’t deserve to be around Her. No matter how much it pissed Dean off that She was better than he was, it didn’t change the fact. Dean wasn’t worthy of being around Her. 

And he still couldn’t stop looking. She was dangerous, and awesome, and looked so perfect in Dean’s car—fit so well with everything that was Dean, everything that belonged to him—but she also was impossible. And insufferable. And seemed to be trying to break Dean into pieces, because Her eyes fluttered, her breath hitched, and She arched her back.

All while mumbling Dean. 

Her eyes drifted open, a small frown on Her face, and the first thing she said was Dean.

She was trying to kill him.

“Dean.“ Her voice was soft, and weak, and rooted right into the cavity of Dean’s chest. Washing it in silver light with only Her voice, saying his name as Her fingers flexed and she reached mindlessly out into the air.

There’s a brief second where Dean wondered if She was looking for him. Reaching out to see if he’d take Her hand, if he’d reassure her with just his touch.

He needed to get it together.

He didn’t know how.

“I- Dean, what’s- I don’t-“ Her voice was growing distressed, Her slightly gazed as they dragged open. Her fingers seemed to be digging into Her skin as she shrank into the bench, Her breathing speeding up and becoming short and shit- 

It looked wrong. It felt wrong. Dean had no right to touch Her, no reason to tense and balk at the sight of Her in pain—small and panicked and almost feral in his backseat, ducking Her head and hugging her body as if she could shield herself—but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting hold Her until she was calm, to wrap himself around her like a barrier from everything else that could hurt Her in the world.

It was selfish as hell. Dean could hurt Her. Dean had hurt Her. He was the asshole who got them here in the first place, all by not knowing how to just control himself.

He didn’t want to control himself right now. Not as Her face twisted in pain. 

Not as She kept saying his name.

“Where are we- I- Dean-“

“I’m here,” He muttered Her name, gripping the back of his seat to stop himself from reaching for her. “We’re in the car.”

She went silent, Her body stilling completely, and cold seized over Dean’s body. Why was She just lying there. Why wasn’t She speaking, or shouting, or sneering. Asking questions or spitting venom about their fight, trying to get up or curl further into Herself, why was she so fucking still-

Dean was about to damn it, reach further back, and touch Her—just to feel the warmth of Her body, just to get something of a reaction—when She finally spoke.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, and Dean would’ve never bet on that being what She’d say. On Her seeming to mean it, her face twisted slightly, Her head bowed, and her voice soft. “I- I didn’t mean to.”

He frowned. “Mean to what.”

“Anything.” 

Her eyes drifted open. Bright and seeming to glow on Dean’s, looking at him like She always had. If Dean didn’t know better, he would’ve thought their fight had never happened. There was no possible way it could’ve when She was still looking at him. Right into him, into the deep pit in his body that felt smaller under Her attention. Felt lined or coated in warmth and light, because that was what She did to him. 

And She still looked vulnerable. Just watching him, something more nervous on her face than Dean usually saw, something almost afraid. 

He hated it. She shouldn’t fear Dean, She should trust him. She didn’t, but he needed Her to. At least enough to know that, even if Dean—for some sick, fucked reason—tried to, he couldn’t lay a hand on Her. He could hiss and mock and poison Her with his mouth or presence, but he was pretty damn certain that his body would turn itself to ash before it hurt Her.

Which didn’t make sense. It wasn’t rational, or reasonable, or understandable. But Dean’s hand flexed on the seat, and She practically fucking flinched, and Dean had never felt lower in his life. Any ideas he’d been holding about demanding answers and shouting about everything—their fight, Her lies, his brimming and spilling desire and how She needed to stop doing this to him so he could control himself—began to vanish into thin air. It was impossible to be really, truly angry at Her when she looked like that. Beautiful and fragile and critical to the blood in Dean’s body. 

He’d find that anger later, and they’d fight later. For now he just let out a long breath, and shrugged. 

“’S fine.” It wasn’t. But it was the only good thing to say here, because Dean might rather stab himself than tell Her about how fucking furious he was, and make Her fold further down. He’d wounded Her enough for a while. “You feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I’m-“ She paused, hands padding over Her stomach. “Did you-“

“Sammy gave you some stitches.” Dean said, watching her carefully. “He’s not great that them, though, so don’t move.”

Her mouth twitched slightly. Dean wished he could touch it. “Where is Sam?”

“Getting gas. We got a few hours left until we hit Sioux Falls.”

“Oh.”

Dean didn’t miss the flash of something over Her face. He didn’t know what. He just knew it was wired, and taut, and brittle. That he wanted to ease it, but didn’t know how. Wasn’t really worthy of trying to learn.

But Sam was taking a while. 

And Dean couldn’t fucking stand how fearful She looked.

“If you press on the stitches, does it hurt?”

She raised her brows. “I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to press on them, Winchester.”

“Nah, I know, I’m just trying to figure out how shit a job Sammy did.”

She didn’t look like She believed him, and Dean really wished he’d come up with a better excuse to talk to Her, because now she was lifting up her shirt. 

Her skin looked a little raw and torn around the wound, but everywhere else was soft. Smooth. He’d noticed it while patching Her up, that she barely had any pale, raised patches of skin where other hunters did.

No scars was so fucking rare. 

But so was She.

And Dean needed to pull it together.

“It’ll hold,” She looked back to Dean, and he had to blink at her. Pretend he hadn’t just been gaping at Her bare skin. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” He muttered, scanning over Her features. She was awake, but there still wasn’t enough color in Her face. Too little fury behind Her eyes, nothing dancing and shining like it usually did. She looked exhausted. Weakened. The little furrow of Her brow tighter than usual. 

They had hours to go, and Dean knew how to fix that. He knew how to poke at Her until she snapped and everything bent with Her—all Her force making the world clearer, Dean’s body stronger—and how to walk right up to the invisible line, touch Her just as much as he was allowed, and make Her relax. Sam didn’t. But Dean did. 

“I’m coming back there.” He grunted, starting to shift in his seat, and She frowned.

“What?”

“Sammy’s gonna drive the rest of the way, I’ll sit with you-“

“No, you don’t-“

He shook his head. He didn’t want to hear Her say he didn’t have to, because it just reminded him that she didn’t feel this. That there was nothing that called Her to Dean’s side, because if there was she’d be fucking begging him to sit with Her. 

He knew that, because he was seconds away from dropping to a new low and begging Her. 

“We had Sammy back there all day,” he held Her gaze, trying to make his voice stern. “Only fair you get saddled with me too.”

“I’m not-“ She cut herself off with a shake of Her head. “I don’t need Sam to sit with me either, De. I’m fine.”

De. She said De, and it was maybe the only thing more powerful than Her calling him Dean. Even if She didn’t mean it, the word felt like a command over his body, and that was only another thing Dean didn’t understand. 

“You’re- you look like shit, Princess.“ He couldn’t stop the nickname from slipping out of his mouth. No matter how screwed things were, the way Her body loosened slightly at the sound of it was always a small high, and Dean couldn’t figure out how to stop chasing it.

She scowled. “Hey-“

“You just got stabbed, and you haven’t woken up in six hours-“

“I’m awake now-“

“And I’d like to keep it like that.” Dean snapped. “I- you just gotta-“ He ran a hand over his face, because She didn’t want him there, but every time Her eyes drooped or Her body twitched with pain it made Dean’s gut contract. “At least keep Sammy. So you’re not alone.”

She rolled Her eyes. It really did fucking look like Bobby. “I’m not alone, dummy, you’re like two feet away.”

“What if you pass out again? Am I just supposed to pull over?”

“Yeah? I mean, I’m not gonna pass out-“

“You can’t know that, sweetheart-“

“I can guess.” She glowered at him, raising Her chin slightly, and even lying down She looked like royalty.  “It’s my body, Winchester, and I feel fine.”

“For now.” Dean muttered, and She wrinkled her nose at him.

“Shut up-“ She cut herself off with a yawn, and Dean’s jaw clenched. 

She couldn’t see Her. Every single second that passed no light returned to Her eyes, and everything just grew duller. She’d just yawned. But Dean was pretty certain that—if She hissed at Sam to get in the front seat and not bother worrying about her—the giant baby would listen.

Dean needed to work around this. She needed to be okay.

“You’ll need to keep talking.” He grunted, holding her gaze. “I hear one second of silence, and we’re pulling over so I can move back there. Understood?”

She gave him a flat look. “Are you serious-“

“Deadly, Princess. Understood?”

Dean might be imagining it, but a little color returned to Her face. The flush. And the breath. And the-

“Understood.” She muttered. “You’re such a fucking dick.”

“You’ve told me.” Dean turned back to face ahead, and she let out a long breath behind him. 

This silence was short, but maybe the heaviest Dean had ever experienced. It weighed on the top of his chest, and he didn’t know how to push it off, and he wanted to look at Her again, but he couldn’t bear it if She didn’t look at him-

“Dean,” She whispered, and his whole body went alert at the sound of her voice. Softer than usual, but still calling him down. “I’m-“

Whatever She was, Dean didn’t get to know. Sam knocked on his window, waving to Her in the backseat, and Dean had to turn and roll down the window so they could hear each other.

“Dude, why are you hunching down like that, just get in the freaking car-“

Sam rolled his eyes, not moving to from the window. “I still need to get coffee, Dean. And,” He said Her name with a grin, completely ignoring Dean’s glower. “You’re up!”

“Yep.” She returned Sam’s smile, and Dean scowled. She hadn’t smiled at him. “Thanks for the stitches.”

Sam shrugged, leaning a little further through the window. “No problem. They feel okay? Because I was rushing a little to get you on the road, and-“

“They feel fine, Sam. I feel fine.”

Those last words were shot at Dean, and he rolled his eyes. “You won the argument, Princess, don’t get all bitchy with me.”

“I am not being bitchy-“

“You’re being dramatic-“

“I just got fucking stabbed, Winchester, I can be as dramatic as I want.”

Dean scoffed, twisting in his seat. “I’m the one who had to watch you get stabbed-“

“How fucking harrowing for you-“

“What the hell does harrowing mean-“

“Hey!” Sam slapped Dean’s arm, shooting both of them a stern look. “You guys can fight all you want when we’re on the road, but we actually need to get on the road. Tell me what you want from the gas station, and kill each other after.”

She let out a long breath. “Sorry, Sam.”

“Thank you,” Sam said Her name, gave Dean a pointed glare, and Dean scowled. 

“I didn’t fucking do anything-“

She scoffed, the sound a rough cough that almost made Dean leap over the bench to pick Her up and hold her to his chest. “Oh, fuck off, Winchester-“

“Wouldn’t you love that, Princess-“

“Dean!” Sam snapped. “Don’t- Just tell me what you want, please.”

Dean opened his mouth, and She cut him off with sharp, short words.

“Don’t say pie. You’re driving.”

Dean was either going to smother Her with his hands around her neck, or with his mouth slammed to Her’s. She was so fucking hot, and annoying, and Dean wouldn’t strangle her because he knew his dumb body wouldn’t allow him, but Jesus, She needed to shut the hell up before Dean made her and then lost her forever-

“Dean?” Sam was raising his brows. Waiting for a response.

“Gimme some coffee.” He muttered, gripping the wheel like it could save him from Her glare, and how it made his skin feel sore. “And jerky.”

Sam nodded, glancing over to Her, and when she spoke her voice was too quiet. He watched to jump over the bench again. 

“Coffee and candy?”

“Sure, you want anything specific-“

“Whatever’s cheap.” She said, and Dean was going to break the wheel. 

His head was churning and spiraling again. She said that like Bobby said it. The same dismissive cheaper is easier, boy, and I ain’t an idiot to fall for fancy fuckin’ packagin’ tone.

“Snickers?” Sam offered, and She must have nodded because a second later, he was gone.

It was silent. So silent that Dean had a brief, stabbing moment of worry that She was passed out again. His eyes flicked up to the mirror again, and Her eyes were open—pretty and glaring at Dean like She wanted to stab him—but they looked lidded. And the little furrow was becoming more prominent, and Her breathing was a little too shallow, and-

“You’re supposed to be talking.” Dean snapped, and She rolled Her eyes. And it was still exactly like Bobby did, but, son of a bitch it was so much hotter-

He needed to get a grip. He needed to figure out how—when they eventually did get to Sioux Falls—he was ever going to be able to look at Her and not wonder how he hadn’t seen it before. He was a little fucking worried he’d look at Bobby and start to feel that gravitational pull. That Dean would start to orbit around Bobby, and smell him all the time, and hear his voice in dreams-

If that happened, Dean would need to give himself a concussion and pray it erased his memory. He already didn’t love how he wanted nothing more than to crawl over Her and make her smile, and if he started to crave Bobby’s attention too, he’d lose his mind. Crashing into Her was usually good, when she wasn’t trying to give him a heart attack or being the most impossible person Dean had ever met. Crashing into Bobby would be gross. If Dean had to start fantasizing about Bobby under him when he fucked someone, he might just have to kill himself-

“Dean!” She was shouting, Her voice slightly strained, and he turned to frown at Her.

“What’s-“

“What am I supposed to be talking about?”

He frowned. “I don’t fucking care-“

“Alright, then I won’t-“

“No.” Dean pointed a stern finger at Her, narrowing his eyes. “You gotta talk. That was the deal.”

“I didn’t make a deal, you just ordered me to talk-“

“I did not order you, Princess, I’m trying to goddamn keep you alive after you went and got stabbed-“

“Oh, suck my fucking dick-“

The car door opened, and they both turned to see Sam leaning into the car, coffees in hand and snacks under his arms.

“Oh, good, you didn’t murder each other.” Sam passed out their coffees and snacks, his voice a dry mutter that was gonna get him punched. “Actually,” he frowned between them. “If you’re going to fight for the rest of the ride, can Dean  sit in the back so I can tune it out-“

“Neither of you are sitting in the back.” She pushed Herself upright with a small, weak sound, and Her hands were shaking. Dean was going to tackle Her.

“Maybe, uh,” Sam glanced at Dean as he said Her name, like he could see the rough tension over his heart at Her insistence to be as difficult as possible. “I mean, I really don’t mind if I do have to sit with you-“

“I’ll be alright without a babysitter-“

“Because you’re going to keep talking.” Dean muttered, drumming his hands on the wheel. “Sammy, apparently her majesty can’t come up with a topic, so that’s on you, but I don’t want a single second of silence, sweetheart, or-“

“You’ll pull over and be a massive fucking baby.” She snapped, and Dean wished She wasn’t so hot when she was pissed. “He threatened me, Sam.”

Dean scowled. “I did not threaten you-“

“Fine. It was blackmail.”

“It was- I-“ Dean whipped around to glower at her. “You’re such a fucking-“

“Bitch?” She sneered, holding his gaze. “Am I a bitch? Am I a spoiled little bitch?”

“That’s- You know I wasn’t-“

“Trying to hurt my little bratty girl feelings-“

“I never fucking said-“

She scoffed, and Dean could swear something hot and wired was fueling all his anger. Maybe it was how the air in the car seemed to be waving, or how every word was venomous and cold and making something inside of him wither, or how breathing was so fucking painful when She was furious and sneering-

“That I’m a bitch? That I’m a controlling fucking bitch-“

“Shut up! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Dean slammed his hand on the bench, and She flinched. Visibly flinched. Recoiled. 

“I- I didn’t-“ She swallowed, staring at Her cup in her hands. “Sorry.”

Dean was a piece of fucking shit. He’d done it again. He’d pushed it too far because he was an asshole.

He muttered Her name, his voice low. “I didn’t- I’m-“

“Don’t.” She mumbled, and She wouldn’t look at him. “I’ll keep talking.”

Dean’s jaw clenched, and all he could do was nod. She looked sick. He fucking felt sick. He kept slamming his fist between them, making everything worse, hurting Her in a way he’d never seemed to be able to hurt anyone before-

Sam cleared his throat. Dean had forgotten he was there.

“So, uh, we’re talking.”

Dean opened his mouth to say no, they needed to fucking patch whatever the hell was wrong with him with glue, so he could shove himself into her hands as a pathetic, useless apology, but She was faster. Better. Still a liar, still in pain, but also still beautiful. Still so far away from Dean.

“Yeah. Get in the car.”

Sam nodded, shooting Dean one last look, and leaned out of the car. Dean started the engine—biting his tongue not to vomit a million apologies he knew wouldn’t come out right—and they were back on the road.

Four hours until they hit Bobby’s.

Four hours of beating himself bloody in silence, and listening to Her speak.

Normally Dean would’ve thought there was no better way to spend his time than being drowned in Her voice, and hearing her say anything at all. But normally She wasn’t in this pain, where She’d gesture too broadly and hiss, or Baby would hit a bump and She’d whine. Normally he didn’t have to force himself not to look at Her—and whenever he lost control and his eyes slipped to Her in the mirror, she didn’t look so colorless and drained—and normally Dean allowed himself to speak to Her in more than grunts. 

She was acting like everything was fine. Sometimes he’d look back and She’d be smiling, and it didn’t reach Her eyes, and Dean had done that. That wasn’t the injury. 

That was just Dean. Ruining everything because She’d fallen from the sky into his hands and he’d bashed Her into the mud.

“There’s…” Sam was said Her name, his voice filled with disbelief. “You don’t actually think that, right?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think it-“

“But it’s Star Wars! I mean, it’s not perfect, but you can’t seriously believe it’s bad.”

“It is bad, Sam. It’s objectively poorly written, but it has iconic imagery, music, and actors-“

“Because it’s not bad!”

It had been thirty minutes of this. Sam hadn’t needed to look that hard to find a topic, and the moment he’d said the words Uh, you like movies? Dean had known it was over. He’d had this exact conversation with Her before, and it had involved a lot more yelling and shoving than Sam was getting.

It had also involved Her giggling and smiling and leaning so close that Dean could see even the smallest features on her face—tiny bumps and scars, little divets that somehow made Her more beautiful—and smell that strange fruit until it intoxicated him, and he’d thrown his hands up in surrender. 

Her eyes had sparkled then. She still wouldn’t look at him now. Even when Sam would echo a point Dean had made before, She shot it down with ease—and a careful, detailed argument that made Dean think She’s been freaking practicing—and Sam would let out a sigh that sounded a little like a whine.

“I don’t think it’s useless, you know. I’m saying it’s not-“

“You just called it the most overhyped movie ever made!”

“And it is, but that’s why it’s not useless. It was the primary cause of science fiction being popularized-“

“Because people liked it!” Sam looked to Dean with wide eyes—as if Dean could fucking do something about this—and then back to Her with a shaking head. “I- They’re maybe the most popular movies of all time-“

“Popularity doesn’t equate quality, Sam.” She said, and Dean hoped She couldn’t see him mouthing along with her every word, knowing exactly what she’d say. “It can, but it doesn’t have to. Star Wars being popular is its greatest strength, because that mean it was able to serve as inspiration for many, better things.”

Sam scoffed. “Like what?”

That was a mistake. If Dean was allowing himself to participate in the conversation, he would’ve been able to tell Sammy that saying that—especially in a doubtful tone—was never a good idea. She’d have examples, and if She didn’t, she’d come up with some right here in the car.

Dean had fallen for that trap before. And he was too fucking tired and bitter to save Sam from it.

“I’m so glad you asked, Samuel.” Dean glanced in the mirror, and that was a wide, blinding, almost manic grin that appeared when She was about to hand Dean’s ass to him on a platter.

He almost felt bad for Sam.

“I- Samuel?”

She hummed, completely ignoring Sam’s indigence. “Almost all science-fiction movies are somewhat inspired by Star Wars, or owe Star Wars the popularity of the genre. And, Star Wars significantly popularized the use of Monomyth in film-“

Dean didn’t remember what Monomyth was. Sam didn’t seem to either, because She cut herself off with a sigh.

“The Hero’s Journey. In movies.”

“Oh.” Sam frowned. “Dean said you didn’t go to college.”

Dean cringed slightly, feeling Her glare through the mirror. 

“Did he.”

“Yeah, it’s just surprising, you’re smart-“

“I don’t have to go to college to be smart.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, you just- You don’t sound like you didn’t-“

“I’ve read a lot.” She said, and a vision of Bobby’s library flashed through Dean’s head.

There were a shit ton of books in there. Even Sam hadn’t read them all, and Dean was pretty sure Bobby hadn’t either, but he also remembered Bobby saying that they’d all been read.

By Her.

“And,” She was still talking. Of course She was. “I’ve watched a lot of TV, which is how I know I’m right. Star Wars is terrible-“

In the corner of his eye, Dean watched Sam open his mouth, and then make his first good choice of the day and close it.

“But it’s also the only reason we have Indiana Jones-“

“You like Indiana Jones?”

Dean rolled his eyes. Another mistake from Kid Genius in shotgun-

“Shut up, Winchester.”

Dean blinked, scowling at the road. “I didn’t say anything-“

“You were going to.” She snapped, and when Dean glanced back, she was glaring at him. “So shut up.”

Sam frowned between them. “Why would Dean-“

“Her majesty loves Indiana Jones.” Dean grunted. “Good luck, Sammy.”

“Don’t wish him luck, I’m not going to try to kill him-“

“Sure, Princess.”

She kicked the back of Dean’s seat, and he didn’t even grunt. The hit was weaker than usual, and it wasn’t because She wasn’t trying.

She was just weaker. She was still coughing and taking breaths that were far too long. Her eyes were still a little hollowed, and lips in too tight a line, and brow drawn in pain. Dean couldn’t fucking stand it. He wanted to pull over, grab Her and demand that they forgive each other now—or at least try to pretend nothing had happened in the first place—because she was hurt and needed Dean’s help-

“I’m not going to kill you, Sam.” She said, and Sam didn’t look all that reassured. “And I do love Indiana Jones. I think it’s fun.”

Sam frowned. “Star Wars is fun.”

“Star Wars parodies are fun. There’s an episode of the Muppet Show with the Star Wars cast, and it’s better than all the actual Star Wars movies combined.”

She and Sam kept talking—Sam refused to believe one single episode of television could be greater than a film trilogy, and Dean didn’t think She was capable of just surrendering any sort of argument—and Dean’s head started to wander again. Back to Bobby’s house, and every single sign of Her he’d never noticed. Never had reason to notice, or dwell on, or observe, but now he couldn’t stop remembering all the grenadine in Bobby’s fridge that the man himself never seemed to touch, but always seemed to be in use. All the normal books that weren’t for hunting, and didn’t seem like things Bobby would read.

If Dean squinted in his head, he could see the VHS tapes stacked near the TV. There had been a lot of movies he’d stayed up late to watch—action movies and westerns and some fancy art films he hadn’t action movies and TV shows-really understood—but also some he’d never touched. Comedy films and chick flicks and-

“Bobby had that show.” Dean muttered, and She and Sam fell silent. “The Muppet Show. He had a freakin’ VHS tape.”

They hadn’t mentioned it since She woke up. The looming axe over all their heads, that they were heading to Bobby’s, and She’d fucking lied about knowing him. 

But Dean hadn’t been able to stop himself. He was never able to stop himself with Her. It was fucking amazing, how he kept managing to make this whole thing worse.

“Yeah.” She muttered. She’d tucked Her knees to her chest. “He does.”

Sam cleared his throat, his voice gentle. “I, uh, you don’t have to answer, but can I ask how you know Bobby? Dean said he raised you-“

“He did.”

“Oh.” Sam looked between Her and Dean with a frown. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Her voice becoming taut, and it squeezed around Dean’s throat. “I’ve told you my dad is a hunter-“

“So Bobby’s your dad?”

“No, it’s-“ She sighed. “I- It’s easier to say father than man who raised me. We’re not related.”

Sam nodded slowly, and Dean stayed perfectly fucking still in his seat. If he moved or breathed wrong, She might remember he was here and stop sharing things. 

“If you- How have we never met before?” Sam’s voice was cautious. Dean understood that. “It’s just, Dean and I have known Bobby our whole lives, we’ve spent weeks at his house-“

“I was…” She swallowed, Dean didn’t have to look back to know Her head would be bowed, and she’d be picking Her skin bloody. “Really sick. I had to be kept separated from other people.”

It wasn’t a lie. Dean could fucking hear it, could feel the sinking ache into his bones at Her tired, heavy voice. And it didn’t matter how vague and useless an answer that was—how it just left him with more questions about how sick She’d been, what type of sickness, if She was alright now when she didn’t really seem to be—because it was the truth. 

And She looked sad. She wouldn’t look up, and She was tucked into Herself, and there was hair blocking all Her features from view, and Dean wanted to move it and touch Her, trace his hands over Her face until she smiled and her body went loose-

She wouldn’t let him touch Her. If he tried, he’d probably get punched in the gut, and it would leave a gash in his intestine he didn’t know how to prevent or heal.

He was still pathetic though. Still feeling an itch on his skin the longer She looked like she was trying to hide from something invisible, the longer Her brow pressed to Her knees and the acidic silence stretched on.

He couldn’t just stop.

“Keep talking, Princess.” He grunted, and he could feel Her glare sear through his head. It was better than nothing. 

“Dean,” Sam’s voice was too gentle. He didn’t get it. How She was too quiet and too bendable and it was making Dean feel sunken and empty. “Maybe we can just listen to music or something-“

“No. Talk.” 

Sam’s eyes widened, and if he kept gaping like that, Dean was going to kick and punch him. 

“Well, Deano,” She was still glaring at him from the backseat. “What the fuck should I be talking about?“

“Anything, just-“

“Anything isn’t helpful-“

“Tell Sammy what food he is.” Dean snapped, and Sam blinked. 

“Tell me what?”

“I’m pie,” Dean muttered, his grip on the wheel white knuckled. “Because the smartass back there is a little genius.”

“I am a genius.” Her voice was harsher than before. Stronger. “And I didn’t just say you were a pie, I said you were pecan pie, you asshole-“

“Same thing-“

“It’s not. The specification is important-“

“It’s damn pie, sweetheart. Pie is pie-“

“Why pecan?” Sam asked. “I mean, why not apple, or cherry-“

“Because I don’t pander.” She said, and Dean had to bite down a snort. “And he’s not nearly sweet enough to be cherry-“

Dean frowned. “Hey-“

“And,” She pushed on, ignoring Dean entirely. “The chewiness of pecan is very Dean.”

He didn’t know how to protest that. He didn’t know what to say to that. Not when he glanced back in the mirror and Her face was so unreadable.

She didn’t sound as pissed anymore. Dean didn’t know what to do with that.

“Okay.” Sam was nodding, looking between Her and Dean with another unreadable expression. Everyone needed to start saying what they were thinking soon, or Dean was gonna lose it. “I- Yeah. I can see that. What food am I, then?”

“Bubblegum.” 

Her answer was quick, and if Dean didn't have to drive and brood, he would've laughed at the look on Sammy's face.

"I- Why?"

“You’re sweet. And flexible but still kinda stiff.” 

Dean frowned, lowering his voice to speak under his breath. “I’m sweet.”

She hummed. “Yeah, but you’re an acquired taste, Deano. Like pecan.”

She kept talking, but the word bounced and echoed around Dean’s head. Deano. She only called him Deano when he’d said or done something stupid, but She wasn’t really that pissed about it. Deano had an underlying tone of affection to it. A higher sound on the De and a long moment on the O.

She might not hate him.

“Okay.” Sam was nodding slowly, still twisted in his seat. “I can be bubblegum. Is- Do you do that a lot?”

“Do what?”

“Uh, sort people, I guess? Like, what type of drink would you say I am?”

“She doesn’t drink, Sammy.” Dean muttered, and his seat got kicked again.

“I still know what drinks are-““Could you tell us what each one is like?” =

There was a brief pause—Dean could imagine the small, pouting frown on Her face—and then- “No.”

Dean shot Her a wink in the mirror before he could think better, and it was a mistake. She was glowering at him. She was really hot when She glowered at him—Dean could easily imagine smoke rising off Her body and small, silver spark flying over his skin when he touched Her—but her easy, high beauty wasn’t nearly enough to distract Dean from how shitty she looked. There was more gray in Her face than before, She was curled more into her own body, and, son of a bitch, Her eyes were fluttering slightly-

“What about music genres?” Dean said, just to keep Her talking, and She blinked at him. “What?”

“Music genres, Princess. You know hip-hop, pop, the blues-“

“I know what music genres are, asshole, why are you-“

“Which are we.” Dean gave a vague, one-handed wave between himself and Sammy. “Do your thing.”

“I don’t have a thing-“

“Yeah, you do. Give it a shot, sweetheart. Music genres.”

Sam gave Dean an unwelcome, amused look. “You know, it kind of feels like one of us-“

“Shut up, Sammy.” Dean looked back in the mirror, raising his brows at Her. “And you’re supposed to be talking.”

She wrinkled Her nose him, but she also started talking, so Dean didn’t really care all that much. He was rock—but She was annoying, said Latin pop first, and giggled for five straight minutes after—and Sammy was jazz. Fancy bar Jazz. 

Dean didn’t know what that meant.

But he really liked the sound of Her voice, and the way She said most everything. She could’ve probably called Sam country music and he’d agree, just because of how She’d say. With a smooth, passive authority that told something in Dean’s brain She’s right. All the freaking time, even when She’s obviously wrong, she’s still right.

Sam was starbursts, and Dean was a KitKat. Dean was dusk, and Sam was noon. Sam was a Lily of the Valley, and Dean was a rose.

Dean had no interest in being a flower. He did like Her telling him what he was. He liked the idea that She’d been looking at him. That She’d thought about him enough to think he’d be a car if he was on object—which was a cheap shot, but still made Dean feel fuzzy—or a tree if he was a plant, or a seal if he lived in the ocean.

He frowned, waiting for Her to elaborate—he still wasn’t allowing himself to speak all that much, because this felt delicate and still slightly fractured—and decided he wouldn’t kick Sam’s ass for being a butthead the whole car ride when the kid took the bullet for him. 

“Why am I an octopus?”

She yawned. It made Dean’s stomach clench. “You’re productive and floppy.”

Dean snorted, and Sam shot him a glare.

“Well then, why’s Dean a seal-“

“Cause he’s all big and toothy.”

Dean scowled. He wasn’t nearly as big and toothy as Sammy was, but fighting with Her on reasoning almost always ended up being a dead end. Just as how asking Her what she was only ever resulted in a hum and shrug. Dean’s goal was to keep Her talking, so he had to move on. 

“Whatever, Princess. What about out of the ocean animals?”

She shifted a little in Her seat—letting out a small noise that hurt Dean’s whole body—but kept talking. Sam was this, and Dean was that. Dean was that, and Sam was this.

And every time she spoke, Dean could imagine the tilt of Her head, the way she was probably rubbing Her skin at she examined them and thought of an answer with far too much sincerity. He wanted to rub Her skin. To trace his hands up Her legs, watch Her look at him with nothing but softness in her eyes, feel nothing but molten light fill him up from the inside-

He needed to figure out how the hell She always did that. How all of Dean’s fury was now smothered and coated Her, how all the way in his soft tissue he just really wanted to touch Her. To stop giving Her reasons to sneer at him, to stop pushing Her until she fell away forever, for everything to just be alright. 

For this conversation to be not edged with the knowledge that She probably didn’t want him around now. Even if She didn’t hate him, he must have snapped everything too much to fix it. 

But Dean was pathetic, so he still wanted to care for and protect and follow Her.

He wanted to fix this. To salvage it. 

He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why he couldn’t just drop this, just sit with the fact that everything was ruined and over. Why something to the right of his heart seemed to pound and roar at the idea of never touching Her again. Not ever a hand on Her back or brief high-five. 

Worse was imagining never hearing Her voice again. Only hearing it call him on the wind.

He couldn’t really hear Her voice now. 

She’d slumped forward, Her brow resting near Dean’s shoulder and her eyes turned towards the floor. 

“Dean.” She mumbled, and his whole body tensed. “Can we be done with the talking game?”

“No,” Dean grunted Her name. “It’s not a game, you gotta keep talking-“

“I’m good.” She let out a long breath. It was too ragged. “I- I think I’m just a little tired.”

“Well, I need you to keep fucking talking-“

She shook Her head, her temple pressing right into Dean’s arm. “I don’t- it hurts, Dean.” She made a high, weak noise, and Dean was going to break the wheel with only his hands. “Can I have five minutes, please?”

Fuck. She was saying please. 

“Princess, just- shit- for an hour, keep talking for an hour- Sammy-“

“Got it. Hey,” Sam said Her name, and his voice was too gentle. She needed it to be shouted, She needed to hear that she had to stay awake, that it wasn’t a damn option for Her to sleep. “Can you tell me more about, uh, movies? What’s your favorite movie?”

She didn’t have a favorite movie. She had about fifty, and they were all dumb, and She was always adorable when She told Dean about them, and why wasn’t She talking-

“Sammy.” She mumbled, grabbing Sam’s arm and turning Her head to him. Away from Dean. “Why does Dean call you that?”

“It was, uh, it was my nickname growing up.” Sam swallowed, giving Dean a desperate look as he continued. “Did you have a nickname, when you were a kid?”

“No.” She mumbled. “People don’t give smart little whores nicknames. But,” Her voice got softer, dropping like She was telling a secret. “Dean calls me Princess sometimes.”

“Yeah, uh, I’ve heard it. He said it like five seconds ago-“

“I like it.” She said, and Dean was going to grind his teeth to dust. “I like him. He’s an asshole, Sammy, but I like him.”

Sam had no right to look like he’d been punched. Dean was the one who had to keep driving and acting like he couldn’t hear.

Sam said Her name, his tone slow and careful. “I think-“

“There’s something wrong with me.” She said, and there was nothing angry in Her voice. She really just sounded sad. Sad and tired. “It really hurts.”

“I know, but Dean’s right, you need to stay awake until we get to Bobby’s-“

She groaned, and leaned further into Dean’s arm. “He’s gonna kill me-“

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think he’ll kill you-“

“He will. He’s gonna tell me I’ve been dumb and reckless, that I was supposed to-“ She paused, then sighed. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

Sam frowned, looking back to Dean. He needed to stop doing that. Dean didn’t have a clue what was going on. “Why?”

“You’ll tell Dean. Then Dean will kill me. I like him, I don’t want him to kill me.”

“I’m pretty sure Dean’s not gonna kill you-“

“He is.” She let out another sad, little sigh. “He already hates me, Sam-“

“He doesn’t-“

“I don’t…” She yawned, shifting Her head just enough for Dean to see her eyes were closed. “I don’t hate him. I think he’s…”

She yawned again. And She didn’t finish her sentence, and Dean could swear their bodies were going to be glued together. She didn’t seem to remember he was there, but She was still moving closer into him, and he was going to go fucking insane.

Because She was asleep, and they still had an hour to go.

Dean swerved over from the far-hand lane, stopped Baby on the side of the highway, and got out of the car. Sam was smart and understood what was happening—scooting into the driver’s seat without a word—and She just kept fucking sleeping. 

She barely stirred when Dean pulled Her backwards, letting Her head rest on his chest and her body slump in his arms. He wasn’t supposed to allow himself to touch Her like this. She might stab Dean if she found out he was hugging Her, holding Her like she was fragile and vital to everything around him. She would stab him again when he’d tell Her that’s because she was. 

Everything was easier when he stroked his thumb down Her nose, and She let out a soft, breathy sound before curling fully into his body. The same way She’d tuck into herself, or sink into the mattress or couch after an episode. Like She was trying to shield herself from something. 

But now, Dean was Her shield.

And he was so goddamn confused.

They had an hour until Bobby’s—more like fifty minutes now—and Dean still couldn’t wrap his head around what was becoming more and more obviously the truth. 

If it was, She wouldn’t be spoiled. And that would make sense—She’d never really seemed spoiled, mostly just smart and confident—if that didn’t really mean that She’d been raised by Bobby. That the girl who’d painted Her nails on Dean’s motel table, who always smelled like sugar and fruit and kind of looked like She was forged deep in a star, had been raised by freaking Bobby. Beer and books and cars and no need to give me extra attention Bobby. The Bobby who was practical, and sharp, and didn’t take any shit-

Son of a bitch. 

It still didn’t make sense. There was no reason for Her to lie about knowing Bobby. Dean had even told Her he liked Bobby. That Bobby was the best hunter he knew, after Dad. 

He’d probably yell at Her about it, if he could. Shout and sneer and bite—he didn’t know how to just be moderate with Her, how to hold himself the hell together—until She gave him answers. And that never seemed to work. 

But Dean also never seemed to learn. Not when it came to Her.

Because even as the confusion and anger bubbled in his chest, it wasn’t nearly as powerful as how goddamn sick he felt. Yelling at Her had gotten them here, and Dean never learned. If he hadn’t pushed and snapped Her, she never would’ve gone off alone, and the demon never would’ve seen her. It had probably realized that She was a hunter and stuck to her trail.

She wouldn’t be in all this mumbled, whined pain if it wasn’t for Dean. She wouldn’t be in danger. She’d probably just be sitting with him and Sam at a diner, laughing and talking until they parted, then found their way back to each other’s paths a few weeks later. 

This time, Dean didn’t think She’d come back. One way or another, She’d be gone. There was the way that made the pit in his chest turn into a chasm—the way he outright refused to entertain—but there was also the second, slower way. Where She didn’t hate him, and She wasn’t gone, but Dean still lost Her. She left, and he was alone.

Dean wouldn’t allow the first way to happen. Every time Her breathing was too shallow, he’d snap at Sam to hurry up and try to soothe Her until it was even again. He could give CPR, if he had to. He didn’t know how to do CPR—he should probably learn—but he’d seen Sammy do it, and it didn’t look that hard. Dean could sing Stayin’ Alive. He could press his lips to Her’s and give her his fucking lungs out of his chest to fix this. He could peel off his skin and patch it over Her wound if he needed to. 

Stab wounds aren’t supposed to be this bad. And Dean had never been stabbed by a demon, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be any different. The knife that the son of a bitch had lodged in Her gut hadn’t even been all that special. Just a smooth, iron blade that was knocking Her—Her—down for the count. 

She had to hang on. Dean would want it to be for him, but he knew better, so he’d settle for it being for Bobby. 

Because Sam finally parked the car in Bobby’s yard, and Bobby was already outside. Hunched on the step, shooting to his feet before the engine was even off. 

Dean suddenly felt like he really shouldn’t be touching Her, or holding her tight against his chest, or trying to smell Her like a creep every few minutes. She smelled good. Like wet dirt—but in a sharp, earthy way that mostly made Dean feel comfortable—chlorine, something vanilla that was cheap and strong, and there was the fucking fruit-

Bobby probably wouldn’t care that She smelled like an odd, unplaceable fruit. He also didn’t have to know why She smelled like chlorine. Dean wasn’t looking to get shot and—based on the way Bobby was glowering at him through the window—explaining what they’d been doing last night didn’t feel like it would be welcome information. 

Because Bobby had never looked at him like that. Really fucking angry, with a drawn brow and deep scowl. Dean couldn’t tell if the glare was at him, or for Her, but he knew Bobby was pissed. If his expression wasn’t a give away, the gruff, low tone of his voice was.

Dean was barely out of the car—Her body cradled carefully in his arms, an apologetic grimace already on his face—when Bobby started snapping.

“Fuckin’- balls- Bring ‘er inside Dean, and Sam, grab the stitch kit. My stitch kit, I don’t wanna be usin’ that fuckin’ weak one in the trunk of your car.”

Sam nodded, walking into the house with a tight, nervous expression at Dean over his shoulder. Dean would’ve shrugged in return, but he didn’t want to shake Her in his arms, or make Bobby think he wasn’t taking this seriously. He was. He couldn’t not, because it was Her. And Her breathing was weak, and Her features were so washed over and Her lips were pale and she kept clinging to Dean’s arm-

“Dean.” Bobby grunted, jerking his head to the door. “Inside, now.”

“Yes, si-“ Dean cut himself off, changing himself to only a nod as he moved her into the house.

It was exactly as he remembered it. Nothing ever really changed at Bobby’s house, and every piece of furniture and color was exactly in place with how it had been in Dean’s head, but there more now.

Things Dean had seen but never really given deeper thought, like a mug that was a soft pastel color in the side-table—slightly stained with coffee, and looking long-empty but never moved—and chapstick near the TV, and-

“That’s her jacket.” Dean said, a little stupidly, and Bobby shot him an odd look.

“What’re you talkin’ about-“

Dean said Her name, nodding to the leather jacket that was hooked over a chair. It was a woman’s jacket, not really Bobby’s style, and Her’s. Dean knew it was Her’s. She about ten different jackets—all in different styles and cuts and materials—but Dean also knew all of them. That was the one She’d been wearing on the onryu hunt, that had ended stained in her own blood and the spirit’s ash. She’d shoved it into her trunk before She left the next day, and told Dean she’d clean it later when he’d offered, because he was pathetic and hadn’t known how to not offer. 

He’d asked if She even knew how to clean it. She’d flipped him off, told him She did, and said that she’d do it when She got home.

A small part of Dean had gotten toxic at the idea of Her being home. That maybe She’d just pass the jacket off to a servant she didn’t know the name of—She’d probably have known the name, but it served Dean’s anger better to imagine she was worse than she was—and let them touch a piece of Her instead of Dean.

But She’d been here. Cleaned the jacket here, at Her home. 

And there really wasn’t any evidence to prove that She didn’t belong here. So Dean was fucked.

“That’s… It’s her jacket.”

Bobby sighed, rolling his eyes. “Believe it or not, Dean, I’m aware. Put ‘er down on the table.”

Dean nodded, tearing his gaze away from Her jacket and setting her flat on the dining room table. She tried to hold onto him. Dean pulled back, and She tried to hold onto him, and he was going to go insane.

Bobby didn’t wait for Dean to fully step away before he was moving. Adjusting Her on the table so She wasn’t trying to sink into the wood, scanning over her with a tight, unreadable expression.

“Knife got in her gut?”

“Yeah,” Dean muttered, his hands fisting at his side. “Sammy did stitches, but they were quick, and-“

“I’ll fix ‘em.” Bobby grunted, hiking Her shirt up her stomach and-

Fuck. 

The wound was worse. The stitches looked frayed in Her body, and her skin was definitely blistering, and there was something yellow and sticky that smelled horrible-

“Dean,” Bobby’s voice was tight, his eyes never leaving the wound. “This ain’t lookin’ like a stab wound-“

“It was, Bobby, I saw it-“

“You still got the weapon?”

Dean nodded, and Bobby let out a long breath.

“Alright, go get it while I deal with ‘er.”

Dean didn’t want to go get the weapon. He didn’t want to leave Her side. She was in pain, and She’d tried to hang onto Dean and he didn’t want to leave Her-

“What’re you just standin’ here for-“

“You can-“ Dean swallowed, his attention trapped on Her dulled, beautiful face. “Bobby, you can fix this, right? She’ll- She’s gonna be okay?”

“She’ll be alright. Gonna have some explain’ to do when she gets up, but she’ll live.”

“Explaining-“

“How the hell she ended up with you boys and a knife in her damn gut. Matter of fact, you and your brother better start gettin’ your story straight, cause I ain’t just gonna let you drop my kid off bleedin’ on my doorstep then drive away.”

Dean tensed, and finally managed to really look at Bobby. His expression was still flat, still neutral, but there was something in his eyes Dean hadn’t seen before. Not glazed, but not sharp, just… heavy. Bobby looked heavy. He was staring at Her body with a painfully neutral face that had slightly lines of tension on the edges. He was standing taller than usual, his whole body rigid and wound up, and Dean could really, truly see it. 

It had been the truth. If the way Bobby stood and spoke—in tight, clipped words like he didn’t have room to be anything but short—wasn’t a giveaway, it was those last words.

My kid. 

Bobby’s kid.

She was Bobby’s fucking kid. 

Dean forced himself to move away, his head ducked down and his steps quick as he passed Sam with only a grunt of acknowledgment and returned to the Impala trunk. Sam hadn’t been careful about how he’d grabbed Her things. They were smushed and scattered, pressed against each other and all looking like Her things. Those were things she owned, that they’d grabbed from Her car and motel room. Clothing that wasn’t covered in blood and dirt, a lot of notebooks Dean really had to fight himself not to read, and fewer personal possessions than he would’ve thought. 

There was that small, colorful bag that had all Her girl stuff in it, and Her knife, and a backpack that—when Dean zipped it open—was filled with more notebooks, and… plants and rocks. A lot of plants and rocks.

He didn’t have time to try and work out why the hell She was keeping plants and rocks in her bag. He didn’t have time to overstep and push it like he always did, and let himself comb through those notebooks. One did fall open, but nothing Dean saw in it made sense—he didn’t speak that language, he didn’t even recognize it, and there was a weird drawing that he didn’t even know how to start interpreting—so he had to move on. To grab the demon’s knife from when he’d tucked it in the back and close the trunk, because all of this could wait until She was better.

She’d have to get better. 

Sam and Bobby were working in silence when Dean returned. Sam holding Her arms to the side as Bobby cleaned the wound and re-did the stitches, a bottle of water at his side that he kept pouring over her skin.

Dean set the knife on the kitchen counter, walking over to stand by Her head. That little wrinkle was back, and Her lips were pressed together, and She was in pain-

He had to restrain his hands to stop them from moving to touch Her. To sooth the wrinkle and brush sweat and hair from Her face. Sammy wasn’t holding Her right. His grip was too tight, and Her arm didn’t look like it was at a good angle, and Dean could hold Her better-

She took a slow, ragged breath, eyes fluttering, and Bobby glanced up to where Dean was standing over Her.

“You get the knife?”

“On the counter,” Dean muttered. “She’s…”

He trailed off, and Bobby let out a long breath. “She’s alright. Almost done with these, and I’m gonna have to fight with her about restin’ when she gets up, but you get ‘er here quick enough. Nothin’ that can’t be patched up.”

Dean glanced down to the wound, and that seemed true. Bobby’s stitches were cleaner than Sam’s, and the pus was half-gone. He didn’t really know how that was possible. Infections didn’t usually just… vanish. But Bobby splashed more of the water over Her stomach, made another stitch, and Her breathing grew steadier. 

There were too many questions. What was with the water. Why had one stab wound managed to infect and maul Her skin like that. How the actual fuck was She Bobby’s kid, and why had Bobby never mentioned Her, and why had She lied about something so dumb, and did Bobby know about Her family? About the shit Dad had found, about Her past, about all those weird episodes and how She always hunted alone, except when She was hinting with Dean-

Dean didn’t think Bobby had known they were hunting together. Which offered another question about why. Why hadn’t She told him. Why did She think Bobby would kill her for this, when it wasn’t Her fault, it was Dean’s.

Bobby might kill him. Dean had never seen Bobby so pissed with him. Every time he grunted for Dean to pass him something, his eyes were harsh and focused. It wasn’t hateful, but it was angry.

But Dean had gotten Her hurt. He deserved it. 

If She stopped talking to him after, he’d deserve that too. If Dad snapped at him for being an idiot when Bobby told him they’d been hunting together, Dean would deserve it-

“You say a demon attacked her?” Bobby’s question was quiet, and Dean almost didn’t hear it. 

He nodded, and Bobby’s jaw clenched.

“You see the assholes eyes?”

“His eyes?” Sam frowned. “You mean the demon-blink thing? Where their eyes go all black?”

Bobby looked up, frown deepening. “They were black?”

“I- I think so?” Sam looked for Dean for help, and Dean just shrugged. He hadn’t really been looking into the demon’s eyes, more focused on beating the shit out of it, and helping Her. 

“I dunno, Sammy-“

“Did you see them?” Bobby interrupted, glaring between Sam and Dean as he cut another stitch. “See the bastard go all black?”

Sam shook his head. “I didn’t, but demons have black eyes-“

“Not all demons.” Bobby muttered, glancing up to Her still pained face. “I’ve seen black eyes, orange eyes, and red eyes. If you boys saw anythin’-“

“We didn’t.” Dean looked over Her, then back to the wound. “It attacked, stabbed her, and Sammy exorcized it. Son of a bitch got away-“

“It give you a name?”

Dean frowned. “We didn’t exactly have time to introduce ourselves and shake hands, Bobby-“

“No, ya’ idjit, if we have a name we can know what we’re lookin’ for.”

“Looking for?” Sam leaned forward, looking between Her and Bobby with a frown. “Has- Have you needed to look for a demon before? Like dad?”

“No, Sam, I ain’t-“ Bobby cut himself off, his head shooting up to glare between Sam and Dean. “Did John know you boys have been huntin’ with her?” 

“That’s uh…” Sam cleared his throat. “That’s a question for Dean, I think.”

Bobby raised his brows, and Dean scowled. Sam was back on the getting punched list.

“Never got a chance to mention it.” He muttered. “Haven’t seen Dad in months.”

Sam rolled his eyes—punched and kicked—and Bobby’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Dean wanted to ask what the hell that was about—Dad was a good man, even if Dean never really wanted Her around him—but Bobby was already moving on.

“How long you been huntin’ together?”

“A few years.” Sam said, and Dean shot him a glare.

“How’d- You weren’t even fucking there, Sammy-“

“She told me on the onryu hunt.” Sam shrugged, looking back to Bobby. “They’ve been hunting together for years.”

Bobby’s jaw tightened. “That true, Dean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dean, you call me sir again and I’m makin’ you wait outside-“

“Sorry, I-“ Dean let out a long breath, his gaze trapping back on Her. In so much fucking pain. “It’s true. And she, uh, she never mentioned she knew you, Bobby.”

Bobby huffed something that might have been a laugh. “Wish I could say I was surprised by that.”

“You aren’t?” Sam blinked. “I mean, I- I’m still not understanding-

“Questions later, Sam.” Bobby grunted, cutting the last stitch. “Right now I need your hands brinin’ her shit inside.”

Sam frowned. “Can’t Dean-“

“Dean’s stayin’ here.” Bobby shot him a glare, and Dean swallowed. “No fuckin’ funny business while I’m gone, boy-“

“She’s passed out, Bobby-“

“And if she wakes up, you’re askin’ her how she feels, callin’ me, and droppin’ it there.” Bobby’s eyes narrowed. “No fuckin’ interrogations. You can ask me questions when we get ‘er settled. Understood?”

Dean scowled, but nodded, and Bobby let out a long breath.

“Good. Sam-“

“Coming.” Sam threw Dean a what the fuck is happening look over his shoulder, followed Bobby out of the kitchen, and Dean was left alone with Her.

She didn’t wake up. In the long moments where it was only Her and Dean in the whole world once more, She didn’t stir for even a second. Her breathing grew more and more even with every passing moment, but She didn’t open those brilliant eyes and look at Dean.

Dean didn’t know if She would ever really look at him again. 

She didn’t hate him.

She’d been keeping secrets—so many fucking secrets—but She didn’t hate Dean, and when he allowed his hand to trace over Her cheekbone, she leaned into the touch.

Maybe She would leaned into anyone’s touch, but she wasn’t. Right now, She was leaning into Dean’s. 

He let his hand linger there as long as he could. She was warm, too warm, almost burning, but it was better than Her being cold. Color was returning to Her face, and there was a heavy flush over her pretty cheeks, but it was better than nothing. No color. No slightly uneven breaths or dried sweat on her brow.

Dean finally got to brush the hair away, and he wasn’t sure how She only got prettier. She was pretty in a way Dean never really cared for before her. She looked like a bird. Untouchable and free and delicate. Breakable, but not because She was weak. Because She wasn’t supposed to be on the earth like this, just how Dean wouldn’t be free or light enough to go where she went. 

Because even if this was Her life—even if she wasn’t spoiled and born from comfort Dean would never know—he still couldn’t have Her. If anything this just made that more certain. That She was so good and unnaturally better, that She’d been living down in the mud with Dean this whole time and he’d still been blinded. If She ever managed to crawl out of here, She might become ethereal. Glorious. Brighter than the sun and more heavenly than a paradise Dean didn’t believe in.

And if Bobby really raised Her, everything Dean tried to loathe about Her would probably vanish into the air. Bobby was smart. And good. And didn’t like pointless shit, so there was no way he’d let Her become spoiled or entitled. She wasn’t spoiled or entitled. 

She was just awesome. 

And Dean didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to live with that now. That he’d bitten Her, and the mark was festering in him.

She let out a soft breath when Dean thumb stroked down Her nose, the movement subconscious, almost automatic. 

He had to yank his hand away the floor creaked, and Bobby turned the corner only a second later.

They didn’t speak at Bobby hauled Her up and carried Her away. Dean wanted to go with Her. He needed to go with Her. He needed to have Her look at him one last time, and he needed to work out how to apologize in a way that didn’t make him sound like a little bitch, and-

“Dean.” Sam leaned into the kitchen, tilting his head back to the living room. “C’mon, dude, Bobby said we could get three questions.”

“Three?” Dean frowned, glancing past Sam to where they’d vanished up the stairs. “We only get three-“

“Between us.” Sam sighed. “And he, uh, I think he might be pissed at us.”

A door slammed upstairs, and Dean raised his brows. “You think?”

“You two.” Bobby appeared behind Sam—for a fairly big dude, he could move faster than thought he had any real right to—and pointed between them with a glower. “Sit. Now.”

Sam shot Dean a worried look and shuffled to the table, tugging Dean into a seat as Bobby stood before them, arms cross and eyes narrowed. 

“What the hell did you idjit’s say to her?”

Sam blinked. “We didn’t- I mean, I didn’t say anything-“

“Hey!” Dean shot him a glare. “Dude, what the hell-“

“I can’t speak for you, Dean! I mean, you guys are a lot closer-“

Bobby’s glare turned to Dean—the feeling of it searing through his skin—and Sam was now getting punched, kicked, and body slammed.

“Sammy.” He hissed, bracing a fist on the table. “Shut your fuckin’ face-“

“How close would you say you two are, Dean?” 

Bobby’s question didn’t need to have that silent, underlying threat for Dean to flinch. It was already a question he didn’t know the answer to. She lied and he sucked ass, but She also liked him—enough that he’d been allowed to hunt with Her at all, enough for her to slur it to Sammy in the car—and he couldn’t stop thinking about Her if he tired. 

And he had tried.

And he’d never really seen Her interact with people except for Sam and Dad. And She and Dad clashed, but She and Sam got along, and Bobby obviously cared for her so maybe her liking Dean wasn’t all that special-

“Dean.” Bobby snapped. “Answer my question.”

“I, uh, I don’t-“

“Sam?”

“They’re just friends.” Sam shrugged, saying Her name in a voice that wasn’t nearly reverent enough. “From the hunting.”

Sam was back down to being kicked and punched, because the little shit could’ve easily laughed and said that Dean had a crush on Her—he didn’t, She was just his best friend and the only person he liked to hang out with—but that would’ve probably made everything worse. Especially given Bobby didn’t seem all that happy with the just friends answer either.

“How many years you two been huntin’, exactly

“Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s been like two- But that,” Dean pointed up the stairs. “Hasn’t happened before, Bobby, I swear-“

“I don’t give a shit about that.” Bobby snapped, jerking his head back. “You boys did the smart thing, for once in your damn lives, and listened to her. Brought her here.”

“If you don’t-“ Sam frowned, his face returned to pure confusion. “If you don’t care that she got stabbed-“

“No, Sam, I care that she got stabbed.” Bobby let out a long, breath, shaking his head. “I don’t give a shit that it happened with you two. If she’s gotta get stabbed, I’m happy she ain’t alone to try and stitch herself up, cause that girl ain’t good at takin’ care of herself in way that matters.”

It was Dean turn to frown, sitting a little straighter in his chair. “What do you mean, she can take care of herself-“

Bobby scoffed. “She can do her hair, Dean. She ain’t gonna do stitches.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “Has she never done stitches on herself?”

“Not good ones-“ Bobby cut himself off with a glare between them. “This ain’t the point. What’d you do, Dean.”

Bobby and Sam were both looking at Dean, and he groaned. 

“I didn’t do anything, Bobby, and if you’re not pissed about her getting hurt-“

“Some injuries ain’t on the surface, boy. I could give a flyin’ fuck about what danger she puts herself in, I know she can handle it better than you two dumbasses, but if you hurt that girl, I ain’t gonna stop her hurtin’ you.” Bobby sighed, running a hand over his face, and Sam cleared his throat.

“Bobby, how, um-“ He glanced to Dean, expression nervous. “You said she’s- I still don’t understand-“

“Sam, if you got somethin’ to say-“

“How do you know her?” Sam’s words were quick and frantic. “That’s- you said we get three questions, and that’s our first.”

They hadn’t actually discussed the questions, but Dean could live with that one. Shit, he’d spent the whole day trying to work that one out himself, and Bobby seemed to know it had been coming, because he dropped in a seat across the table with a long sigh. 

“It ain’t my place to tell you everythin’,” he muttered. “All I can tell you two is that I met her when she was a kid-“

Sam opened his mouth, and promptly shut it as Bobby shot him a glare.

“You ask that question, Sam, I’m countin’ it. She was eight, I found her wanderin’, I took her in. Kept her from killing herself, raised her like the daughter I didn’t get before. Which,” Bobby turned to Dean, and it wasn’t fair that he was being singled out. Sammy was here too, hell, he’d asked the question- “She may not be my blood, but she’s the closest thing I got. Understood?”

Sam mumbled an agreement, but those words weren’t for Sam.

So Dean nodded, and hoped Bobby could see all over his face that he really just wanted to go upstairs and check on her. He’d do that after, if he could get away with it. And She was probably fine—Bobby wouldn’t have left her if she wasn’t—but Dean needed to see it. With his own freakin’ eyes, making sure she was comfortable, and relaxed, and peacefully asleep-

“What’s up with those, uh- the-“ Sam swallowed. “Those weird episodes?”

Bobby’s eyes narrowed. “Episodes?”

“When she likes, freaks out and shit. I mean, is it like a really bad panic attack?”

Sam was back to getting punched, kicked, and body slammed. That wasn’t their thing to tell Bobby about. Bobby might know more about Her past, but he obviously hadn’t known that they’d been hunting together, which meant there might be other shit She didn’t want to tell him. Other shit She’d trusted them—trusted Dean—to see, that Sam had just fucking told Bobby-

“Those aren’t panic attacks.”

Sam frowned. “Then what-“

“Not my place.” Bobby said, his tone making it clear that was final. “I know what they are, so does she, and if- It’s up to her what you know. She’ll tell you if she wants, but she’s had a rough time, Sam. So don’t go pushin’ her about it.”

Sam nodded, even as the nervous expression remained on his face, and Dean cleared his throat. He had to ask. Even if all he got from Bobby was a not my place, Dean just needed to spit it out and ask.

“Why’d you… I mean, how did we never know, Bobby?” Dean held Bobby’s gaze, every word slow and careful. “You said she was eight, Sammy would’ve been seven, so we knew you by then. Shit, we were here all the time but never even heard her name. I don’t- Why?”

Bobby let out a long breath, shaking his head slowly. “It’s complicated.”

Dean scowled. He was really starting to fucking hate that word.

“But,” Bobby pushed on, giving Dean a firm, solemn look. “I wasn’t ‘cause of you boys. I said it already, I ain’t gonna tell you what’s not mine to tell, but I never liked keepin’ you apart.”

“But you did.” Dean grunted, and Bobby sighed.

“Yeah, I did. And I’m not gonna tell you I had reasons, cause that’s fuckin’ bullshit help and we know it, but I will say it was all I could do. Not for the best, but the only damn option.” 

Dean was pretty sure he was telling the truth. It wasn’t the same alarm he’d learned to set off with her, but it was close. That seemed to be the truth. 

Dean wished it wasn’t. 

“She said she was sick.” Sam muttered. “When she was a kid. And that’s why we couldn’t know each other.”

Bobby let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “Course she did. Sick is one way of puttin’ it. I-“ Bobby looked between Sam and Dean, something weighted behind his eyes. “There were times when she could’ve used you two. Glad she seems to have you now. And I don’t know where your Daddy is, but-“

“He’s hunting a demon.” Sam said, and Dean was out of ways to kick his ass for saying stuff. “The one that killed our mom.”

Bobby’s eyes widened, and the conversation moved on. Bobby asked if She and Dad had crossed paths, Dean told him not for years, and Bobby and Sam started to talk demon. Bobby had books Sam could read. Sam had questions about what Bobby had run into, with his own wife. 

She’d told Dean Her dad’s wife died.

Fucking hell.

Eventually, Bobby went out. They’d stayed at the table as Sam and Bobby descended into nerd talk—mostly just Sammy being a little dweeb, Bobby was just smart—and Dean had spent the hours stealing glances up the stairs and wondering how he could get up there. How he could see Her, check on her, without Bobby getting on his ass and shouting about Dean being careful with Her, because he always was-

Except when he wasn’t. Expect when he poison and ruined and wrecked Her in a way he’d never wanted to. When he made Her sad or hollow, put Her in danger, showed her exactly why Dad had been right, that they shouldn’t be close to each other. 

Dad had just gotten the wrong reason. Dean shouldn’t be near Her. She was annoying, and stubborn, and reckless, and a know-it-all, and kinda mean, but in a hot way. She was bossy, but it was adorable. She’d snap and taunt Dean, but she never did it in a way that left a mark. Dean always left a mark. And invisible bruise or scar that Bobby must have seen somehow. It must have been why he was so automatically pissed, why he’d accused Dean of hurting Her.

And he had.

So he didn’t deserve to go up those stairs and see Her.

But he was still selfish. And he still didn’t know when to stop.

Bobby muttered that he was going off to get food. The he hadn’t been expecting Her back for a while, let alone Sam and Dean with her, so all he had was canned food that tasted like pig-shit and a half-eaten chocolate cake in the fridge. 

Sam grabbed the tiniest, most bitch-baby piece of chocolate cake with a mutter of long week, and moved to settle in library. 

Dean started to snoop.

It was so plainly obvious She belonged here. Just like with Her mannerisms—seeing Bobby all over them once Dean squinted—all it took was one quick scan of the kitchen to see more places She’d probably been before. Not just grenadine, but a box of cheesy kids snacks in the back of the pantry. Dean had always assumed Bobby had gotten them for him and Sammy, then never thrown them out. But he’d seen Her buy those exact snacks countless times, and a few of the boxes looked practically unopened. 

In the living room there were all those books and movies, and a blanket that was far too fuzzy for Bobby to like. A pair of women’s sneakers and boots near the door. A glittery toothbrush on the bathroom sink, some of that sugar-smelling shit Dean knew she used under the skin, and fancy shampoo in the cabinets.

Dean had seen some of this stuff before, but he’d always assumed Bobby just had a lady-friend. A weird, sparkly lady friend who wrote notes on the margins of some of the lore books in that same language from before. From Her notebook. In Her handwriting. 

Lady friends didn’t use a towel—carefully tucked and folded in a closet—that had a little princess stitched onto the corner. Lady friends didn’t watching animated children’s movies so much that, when Dean open the case, the tape looked well-worn and used.

And lady friends didn’t draw with crayon. 

But in Dean’s defense, he’d never seen the drawings before. That was part of the snooping. Shifting casually through Bobby’s desk for more evidence, and coming out clutching old, well-worn drawings of colors. A lot of colors. Most of the drawings seemed to be odd shapes and patterns, all in bright colors.

There were a few more, where the drawings were red and black and yellow, with sharp lines and jagged symbols that resembled Her strange writing. Those symbols were repetitive. 

Briefly, Dean had an image in his head of a smaller Her, holding a crayon and sitting on the floor of Bobby’s living room, scrawling those symbols over and over until Bobby took the paper from Her. She had braids in that vision. Oddly complex braids that Her small, swollen fingers couldn’t have done. 

But Bobby could’ve. And now Dean could see that same small version of Her on the couch, humming to herself as she read a book that looked far too big in tiny hands, while Bobby braided her hair with a scowl. 

Dean blinked, and returned the papers back to the drawer. He was about to close it when something shifted in the very back, and a last drawing caught his eye. 

It had been separated from the others, and drawn on black construction paper. Tucked into a book and folded carefully. And it was the only one where Dean could tell what the hell it was.

A stick drawing—round body and tiny arms and legs—of a man with a thick blue line on his head and scratches of brown on his face, holding the hand of a girl. Same eyes and hair as Her.

She’d drawn this one too. Of Her and Bobby. 

She’d used a light green for Bobby’s skin, though. And a metallic silver for Her own. And the grass was golden and the clouds were red and the sun was white. It was really fucking weird. 

Dean chalked it up to the creative liberties of an eight-year-old, and carefully returned the drawing to its place before sneaking up the stairs. 

He needed to see Her. 

It took him a minute to find Her room, because up until yesterday, he’d thought he knew all the rooms in Bobby’s house. Kitchen, library, living room, bathrooms, and guest rooms. The only room he’d never been in was on the third floor, because Bobby said that room was off limits, and-

Son of a bitch. 

He’d always assumed that was Bobby’s room. That Bobby just didn’t want to little boys snooping around and finding his private shit. Dean had imagined that the room would have a wooden-poster bed, dresser, chairs, and simple decorations. Not all that lived in, because Bobby was practical, and knew that in this life getting attached to a lot of personal possessions was pointless. 

This room was lived in.

By Her.

Those were books Dean had seen Her grab from public libraries, or exact copies that She’d pulled from her bag. CDs of albums he’d known She liked, plus a few he hadn’t. A few Dean liked, scattered on the dresser next to a book he’d seen Her read, sunglasses he’d seen Her use, and a shirt that he’d never seen Her wear.

It was monotone black, and not Her style or size, and looked like a men’s shirt. 

The was a bitter, hot pang in Dean’s intestine and along his heart chamber, because why would She have a men’s shirt. If the overflowing dresser was any indication, She certainly didn’t need more shirts, and it certainly wasn’t Bobby’s, so it all together meant that was the shirt of someone who had given it to her. And she’d kept it, because it looked clean, and Bobby had said he hadn’t expected her back, so it had been there for a while, and who the fuck was giving Her a shirt-

She shifted on the bed, and Dean’s head turned without his permission to look at Her. He’d been trying not to. Gun pressed to his temple, he’d swear he’d tried so fucking hard not to watch Her sleep like a pervert creep. But Her siren-like voice made a small sound, and this room was drowning in that fruit smell, and Dean couldn’t fucking help himself. 

It took him a second to find Her. She’d burrowed herself under the covers, the only parts of Her that were visible being a single hand falling over the mattress and Her gorgeous face smushed against the pillows.

Her bed was shockingly normal. This whole bedroom was shockingly normal. She had curtains and a nice carpet, a desk and chair, a large amount of blankets and a hamper and a cork board on the wall. Pinned with notes that were in English—Dean could read those, and they mostly seemed to list new monsters and reminders for hunts—and a few more in that odd language. The walls were painted a dark color, and it made the room feel smaller. Safer. Like this was the only place in the world.

It might as well be.

Dean dragged a chair to sit at the side of the bed, because that felt less creepy than standing over Her as she slept. For a long while he only watched Her sleep peacefully. Softly.

Then Her brow wrinkled, and Dean’s hand moved without thought. Petting over Her nose until she relaxed, and made a soft noise that kicked him right in the heart and reverberated over his ribs.

He let out a long breath, and started speaking in his lowest, quietest voice. Before he could think better.

“You… you got a lot of explaining to do, Princess.” He muttered. “Bobby handled some of it, but he also won’t tell Sammy and I jackshit that matters until you give the go ahead. So you gotta wake up and do that. Plus, I want to call you a fucking idiot for hiding something so freakin’ dumb from me, and I can’t do that while you’re knocked out. So… Wake up. Soon. Get better and wake up soon and I’ll be waiting, because I- I’m just gonna stay a while. ‘Least until you give me some god damn answers. And,” he let out a long breath. She couldn’t hear him. He was allowed to say it, when no one at all could hear him. “I don’t want to leave. I like you, Princess, and if you really don’t hate me, I’ll stick around.”

He had more to say.

But She hummed like she could hear him, rolled a little closer to the edge of the bed, and none of it really seemed that important anymore.

Her fingers flexed. She didn’t hate him. 

Dean took Her hand, and he fell asleep at Her side because he never learned, and really didn’t want to.

And when Sammy woke him up, saying Dad needed them for something back in Colorado. That he’d called Dean but he hadn’t picked up—his phone was in his jacket downstairs—so he’d called Sam instead. 

Sam had said they were on their way, and told Bobby they were heading out. That they’d let Bobby know how it went, and hopefully be back with good news about the son of a bitch who killed Mom rotting in whatever was lower than hell. Sam hadn’t mentioned Her.

And Dean had to go, but She was still asleep. He needed to go, because Dad wanted him there, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay here, in Her small room that was he could sink down into if he tried.

But he had to go. 

He wanted to leave Her something. To promise in silent words that could be right to not hate him. That he’d really like Her to keep not hating him. But he didn’t have much. He had his car, and his jacket, and ring-

He set his ring on Her dresser. He’d come back. He didn’t know how not to come back, and hopefully when he did, She’d still like him. At the very least, She wouldn’t have started to hate him. 

Because Dean knew at this point that there was no way in hell She felt the pull. He also knew that he’d still follow Her all the way down, and up, and just here. 

Dean might just like being with Her anywhere.

And She didn’t hate him.

So he’d press a soft, dangerous kiss to Her brow because he couldn’t help himself, and look back because he had to, and come back because he wanted to. 

He’d come back. 

End Note: One of the glorious things about nearing the end of the season 1 arc is all of us knowing what happens at the end of the season 1 arc.

Also, as we hit 100k words, I'm unspeakably grateful for the support of the story!!! I can't say it enough, thank you so so much for reading!! I hope y'all continue to enjoy the story!

Thank you so so so much for reading!! If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

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[harmless-variety-of-garden-snake]

I chose an alternate prompt for Day Nine of Bucktommy Fluffebruary: Drunken Love Confessions. Tommy's is really the prompt filling one, but everyone feels the love in this Chili's tonight. I realized I completely forgot this entire time that Melton is a Captain, so I've been writing him as just one of the other firefighters and made up some guy named Bryant that I mention in at least one other prompt fill. Melton bb I'm so sorry. You'll get that promotion soon. Tagging @bucktommyfluffebruary.

A joint bachelor party had been Tommy’s idea, because they’d fought over who got who as a guest for about five minutes before Tommy realized they had almost all the same friends. So why bother splitting the party up?

Maddie, Eddie, and Sal organize it as Evan’s co-Best Man and Woman and Tommy’s Best Man, and it turns into a bar crawl with a couple stops at places to get real food with a karaoke spot as their final destination. That had been Howie’s touch, because he felt guilty for missing the last karaoke bachelor party even though it was through no fault of his own. Plus, who doesn’t like karaoke?

The thing is, the last bar had been a tiki place, and tiki drinks are strong, so they’re all messes by the time they reach the karaoke place. Tommy claims a corner of the couch and pulls Evan into his lap when his fiancé passes by.

“You’re so-o pretty,” Tommy says, because Evan is so pretty. No one prettier has ever existed, and it’s a thought he’s had while he was sober, so it’s true.

“You’re pretty,” Evan counters, cupping his chin and squeezing so Tommy’s lips pucker. When Evan kisses him, it’s sloppy and probably not appropriate for their friends and family, but it’s a bachelor party. It’s two bachelor parties, actually they’re supposed to have double the debauchery.

“Are you gonna give me a lapdance later?” Tommy asks, squeezing his hip.

“Maybe,” Evan says, licking his lips, and Tommy watches his tongue raptly. He wants to chase it with his own, wants to feel it trace along his—

“Oh, my god, I’m going to dump water on you two in a minute,” Karen says, plopping down next to them. “Which one of you is singing with me?”

“Me,” Tommy says, grinning at her. He loves singing with Karen. She’s one of the best singers he’s ever met in his life, so he likes being around her when she sings. He’s not very good, but she doesn’t judge him.

“My Sonny,” she coos, pinching his cheek.

“My Cher,” he sighs.

Sonny Bono was known for two things: being Italian and not being as good a singer as Cher. Well, he was known for other things, too, but that isn’t relevant to Tommy’s situation. He doesn't plan on becoming a Republican, the mayor of Palm Springs, or a U.S. Representative. He does, however, plan on doing his best to croon along with Karen to “I Got You Babe” or “All I Ever Need Is You,” because she gets to belt more lines in that one and he wants to show her off.

There’s a bit of hubbub near the door to their suite, and then Bobby and Athena appear with a cake between them to a lot of cheers. They hadn’t joined them on the bar crawl, because Athena had said it would feel too much like Mom and Dad crashing their kids’ party. Tommy’s delighted to see them, because he hadn’t been expecting them at all. He and Evan cheer, and Evan wobbles out of his lap to hug them as soon as the cake is set on the table. Tommy gets hauled up by Hen so he can do the same thing, because the couch is deep and he is tall and drunk.

“You good?” Hen asks, and Tommy squeezes the back of her neck with a laugh.

“I'm great,” he says, leaving a wet kiss on her cheek.

Hen laughs and holds his head in place so she can do the same, and they end up simultaneously wiping slobber off their cheeks and giggling together on their way over to Bobby and Athena.

He’s gotten really close with Bobby and Athena ever since he and Evan got back together, but he’s not really a hugger with them. He is, however, drunk enough that it seems like a great time to turn into one. As he’s enveloped in Bobby’s arms and then stoops to have Athena do the same, he thinks it’s a good thing to keep going.

“Don’t be too happy to see us yet,” Athena warns, nodding toward the cake. “Hen ordered it.”

“I'm always happy to see a cake,” Tommy says, grinning. When he finally gets a good look at it, though, he bursts out laughing.

It’s unbelievably stupid, and Tommy whips out his phone to take several photos from many different angles, including one of Evan crouched next to it with his tongue near the one that’s shaped—presumably—like Tommy’s ass. It's one of those molded sexy cakes, and it’s two shapely naked asses seen under the hem of non-regulation turnout jackets—they’d never sit that high—with each of their names “sewn” on the hem. Each of their surnames has been added to the other to make it look like it’s handwritten into the correct spot to make them say “Buckley-Kinard.”

He loves it.

He loves everyone in this room so much.

“We should've had this be the wedding cake,” Evan says as he slips his arm around Tommy's waist. They pose next to the cake for pictures.

“Looks like I get to eat your ass twice tonight,” Tommy murmurs through his teeth as Howie takes their picture.

Howie bursts out laughing and shows them the picture. Evan’s face is caught between a grin and surprise, so his eyebrows are up near his hairline and his face is bright red.

“The hell did you say to him, BK?” Lucy asks, elbowing him.

“Not telling,” Tommy says, hugging his fiancé like a teddy bear. “She started calling me that last week. Know why?”

“It's your new last name initials in a week?” Evan guesses, because he's smart. He's so smart and pretty, and Tommy is the luckiest guy in the world.

“Yeah,” he confirms with a happy sigh, getting caught in his fiancé’s eyes for a moment.

“Alright, now that everyone’s here,” Sal says on the microphone, even though they’re in a small room and everyone could hear him if he just raised his voice enough, “I’d like to say a couple words, because there’s some stuff I can’t say in my Best Man speech. Such as: is anyone else dreading having to knock real loud going into every room these two are in for the next few months?”

“We already do that!” Ravi calls, and Tommy buries his face in his hands to hide his flushed, embarrassed giggles. Evan tightens his arms around him and kisses under his ear with a breathless giggle of his own.

“Seriously, I’ve started bringing earplugs if I’m going to crash in their guest room,” Sal adds, grinning. “I haven’t seen two people so into each other since I met Gina and got charged with public indecency twice—”

“Should’ve been three times,” Athena adds.

He points to her and grins. “And I thank you for that, Sarge. But it’s bad enough that I’ve had to start putting fuckin’ blinders on whenever Tommy opens his phone around me—well done, Buckley, by the way, you got a real eye for photography—but they’re also so in love with each other that it makes the rest of us look bad. I can only hope that they chill out in the next fifty years, but we all know we’re still going to be loudly announcing ourselves before we turn a corner even when they’re retired.

“So congratulations, boys, on finding true love, holding onto it, and never letting go of it,” he continues, his grin widening. “And never letting go of other things, apparently. To Tommy and Buck!”

Everyone cheers and echoes his toast, and Tommy is never going to be able to look any of them in the eye again.

“We’re not that bad, are we?” he asks, and Evan laughs loudly in his ear.

“Baby, we’re worse.” He nuzzles his cheek and murmurs, “They don’t even know what we get up to in our own house.”

Tommy bites his lip and is about to respond when he hears Sal call, “See what I mean?”

“Shut up,” Tommy says, throwing a balled up napkin at him. “Maddie, would you like to make an inappropriate speech?”

“I’m alright,” she says, grinning. “I changed Buck’s diapers, so it would be a little weird. Also, I make a lot of noise when I’m in your house for a reason. I don’t need to see all that.”

“I told you!” Evan says to Tommy, who had believed that Maddie was just comfortable at their house.

“Eddie?” Sal offers, and Eddie comes up to the platform acting as the stage, looping an arm around Sal’s shoulders.

“This guy is right,” he says, nodding toward Sal. “But he doesn’t have to work with Buck. So let me tell you all about how I walked in on these two Facetiming while Buck was in the showers. Thankfully, Buck’s got waterproof earbuds. Unfortunately, I could still hear him speak.”

“Oh no,” Evan groans, hiding his face in his hands. “Eddie, you said you were going to be washing the engine.”

“Yeah, and then Joey from B-shift kindly offered to do it instead, so I wandered my happy ass into the showers and heard my best friend complain, ‘But it won’t fit,’” he says, his voice taking on a high, breathy quality. “And then: ‘You’re going to have to force it.’ So I, being a family man—shut up, Chimney—loudly announced myself to the room, because what if Cap walked in? What if Hen walked in? What if literally anyone walked in?”

“Should I be hearing this?” Maddie asks.

“And I hear Buck call, ‘Hey, Eddie, Tommy might need you to help him drop in this transmission after work if you’re free,’” Eddie says flatly, and the whole room erupts in laughter. “And, yes, I did help, because that Chevelle was beautiful. Do I believe that they were actually talking about a transmission? I do, because otherwise I’d need to pour bleach in my ears. Is it very telling that I genuinely thought they’d get up to that kind of thing at literally any time of day when one or both of them is working? Yeah, a little. You guys are unbelievable. I love you both, I can’t wait to be there for you guys when you get married. I thank you for including my son in your ceremony, because he loves both of you more than you’ll ever know, but keep it PG around the kid, okay?”

“We always do!” Evan protests.

“No, we do,” Tommy agrees quickly as Eddie comes to them for hugs. “I promise.”

“Oh, I know, or I’d be making you answer whatever questions he’d be asking,” Eddie says, patting his cheek.

“Let’s get a groom up here,” Sal says to a round of cheers.

“Alright,” Tommy says, kissing Evan before going to Sal and grabbing the mic. “Alright, I get it, we’ll—well, I’m sorry, I can’t make any promises other than ‘we’ll try.’ But—Sal, sit down, you mook—I swear we don’t mean to be that bad. Anyway, I am not standing here to defend our very healthy and normal attraction to each other—”

“Oh, my god,” Evan says, burying his face in his hands as Eddie cackles next to him.

“—I’m here to thank you all for putting up with us,” Tommy says, looking out at the grinning faces of everyone he loves, even though they’re all a little blurry. “And for being there for us through everything, good and bad, and being people we can go to when things are bad or I’m freaking out about proposing or whatever it is I’m freaking out about at the time. I love you guys so much. You’re all amazing and wonderful, and sometimes I have to remind myself this isn’t a dream, because you’re the family I always wanted but didn’t think I’d get. So, thank you. I love you, thank you for being here and for always being there for us. Someone please take this microphone from me.”

Howie rushes the platform to hug him around the middle, and then Maddie, Karen, Hen, Lucy, Ravi, Melton, Eddie, and Sal follow until Tommy is in the center of a group hug. He can see over almost everyone’s heads, and so he can see the way Evan’s beaming at him with tear-filled eyes and the way that Bobby and Athena go to either side of his fiancé to put an arm around him and smile at Tommy, too.

There’s a chorus of “We love you”s from everyone, and then Tommy wrestles his arm free so he can bring the mic to his lips.

“Alright, who’s first on the list?” he asks.

“Me!” Lucy calls, making grabby hands for the mic.

He hands it off and detangles himself from the group so he can go to the three people standing off to the side.

“Liquid courage?” Athena guesses, patting his cheek with a fond smile.

“Yeah, a little,” Tommy admits, grinning. “That obvious?”

She snorts and fixes him with a knowing look. “Only to anyone with eyes.”

He gets a tight hug from a damp-eyed Bobby, who gruffly tells him he's proud of him and that he loves him, too. Tommy kind of sags against him for a second before getting a full-bodied hug from Athena that shouldn’t make him feel so small, and then there’s Evan in front of him.

“I love you,” Tommy says, his insides gooey and molten like they always are when Evan’s smiling at him like that. “Most of all.”

Evan steps into his space and puts his arms around him, crossing his wrists behind Tommy’s neck. “I love you most of all, too. You’re so drunk, babe.”

“I am.” He hugs Evan around the middle and rubs his cheek on the soft sweater he’s wearing. It feels nice. “Do we really scar them that much?”

Evan’s body shakes against his with laughter. “Yeah, I think we do.”

“Should we stop?”

“Nah, we’ll enjoy it while it lasts. Kids’ll probably slow us down.”

Tommy melts against Evan, letting him take his entire weight. Kids. They’ll have kids one day, and maybe grandkids, and he’s going to be scared out of his mind that he’s going to fuck them up and he has an entire group of people to turn to when that happens. It takes a village, and he has one. He knows he’s crying, but they’re happy tears. His face is also hidden in Evan’s neck, so no one can see.

But he doesn’t really care if they do. They’re family. Family cries around each other and doesn’t judge. Real families, at least, like theirs.

He sways with Evan to the sound of Ravi and Lucy wailing “Don’t You Want Me” by Human League into their microphones, and he feels something deep inside his heart finally heal.

–

[destielsoulmatebang]

Masterpost for Always On My Mind

Dean woke up on the morning of his sixteenth birthday with a song in his head, but not just any song. His soulmate’s song. Most people were thrilled to hear theirs, but Dean was less than ecstatic. Being Deaf in a world where soul’s bonds were based on music meant he didn’t have a lot of faith in his soulmate situation working out.

Castiel was convinced that God had cursed him to be without love in his life. He was almost twenty, and hadn’t heard so much as a note of his soulmate's song. That was, until he walked into the Gas-N-Sip one night, setting off a chain of events that would forever alter the course of his life.

Rating: Explicit

Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Mick Davies (past), Castiel & Kelly Kline, Charlie Bradbury/Jo Harvelle

Tags: Hard of Hearing Dean, Bisexual Dean, Homeless Castiel, Toddler Jack Kline, Bobby Singer is Dean Winchester's Parent, Homophobia (incl. Internalized), Castiel Has Religious Trauma, Mentions of Cancer, Death of a Minor Character (past), Misunderstandings, Happy Ending

fic by: Rex_Writes

link to fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59262358/chapters/151133647

art by: @arlington-chamber-of-gay

[bidisasterevankinard]

Fuck it Friday

Guess, who's back? enemies to lovers singers au!!! snippet which goes right before the very first scene I wrote for this fic Buck and Lucy bestiesm is that we all need for life (yes, I ship platonic Luck)

Buck is barely able to open his eyes, hating with all his soul the person who decided it’s fun to call him too early. Quick time check tells him it’s almost midday, but he went to sleep at 4 in the morning being caught up in the book about Greek culture he found to give more facts to Chris as the boy was getting interested in this topic recently.

“Lucy, I love you, but right now I plan the worst and most painful ways to kill you,” Buck's hoarse and grumpy voice doesn’t cause a loud laugh from the blonde, which always happens when Lucy calls him to irritate him a little.

“Buck,” Lucy’s voice sounds awful. Like she is almost crying.  Lucy never sounds like it. She is the strongest and sassiest person Buck knows, which was the reason he chose her as his manager the moment 118 found him. “Buck, there’s no way to sugar coat it for you,” Lucy takes a little pause and breaks Buck’s heart, knocking all the air out of his lungs. “Your asshole ex just outed you to the world. He made a big YouTube video about how he dated the new big pop star and heartthrob, Buck Buckley, showed a bunch of your photos with him, photos where you two kiss under mistletoe on the evening we met, for example. He also tried to make you look like an ignorant jerk who broke up with him because you got super popular and rich, conveniently forgetting to say how you lived almost for a year in Texas after your breakup and went viral only after this year,” Lucy speaks with such an anger Buck can’t help but feel how tears runs his cheeks, because Lucy is so protective over him, not just his career. 

“He posted it last night and now it is trending everywhere. I’m sorry. I know you weren't ready to be out to the world. Hell, some of the people close to you don't know because you prefer not to come out. There’s nothing we can do now. Except try to control the fallout,” Lucy sounds so genuinely sad and caring and Buck just cries more, not even knowing what he can say to her. “Hen and I are going to have the meeting today later, Bobby will be here too. But you stay at home and go full close up. Do not answer your phone if you don’t know the number. Do not go anywhere. I’ll call you later. Maddie will come soon to check on you,” Buck hums in the sight that he understood, not that he would even try to do it anyway, he feels like he was put under concrete, crushing him to the ground and preventing him from breathing. Lucy ends the call, but Buck can’t move.

He holds the phone near his ear looking, almost without blinking, at the white ceiling of his house and tries to understand what has he done to Ian, except not staying after he found out this jerk was fucking with his best friend, behind Buck’s back.

tagging @wikiangela @wildlife4life @watchyourbuck @rainbow-nerdss @rogerzsteven @ronordmann @exhuastedpigeon @evanbegins @elvensorceress @eddiebabygirldiaz @thewolvesof1998 @theotherbuckley @transboybuckley @underwater-ninja-13 @pirrusstuff @aspecbuddie @anakinfallen @spaceprincessem @spotsandsocks @spagheddiediaz @devirnis @daffi-990 @fortheloveofbuddie @giddyupbuck @heartshapedvows @honestlydarkprincess @honestlyeddie @hoodie-buck @housewifebuck @hippolotamus @jeeyuns @jesuisici33 @jobairdxx @jamespearce9-1-1 @lover-of-mine @ladydorian05 @loserdiaz @callmenewbie @cowboybuckleys @bigfootsmom @bekkachaos @buddierights @nmcggg @mandzuking17 @monsterrae1 @malewifediaz @elvensorceress @andrewblur @911onabc @caroandcats

[imthedr3amer]

📖 Fic share: SPN, Wincest, Explicit ❤️‍🔥

Rating: Explicit

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: M/M

Fandom: Supernatural

Relationship: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Ruby (Supernatural), Bobby Singer, Castiel (Supernatural), Anna Milton, Uriel (Supernatural), Alastair (Supernatural)

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Season/Series 04, Jealous Dean, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Sam Winchester, Angst, Misunderstandings, Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Hell, Dean Has Self-Worth Issues, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood, Relationship Issues, Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending [Extra tags by me: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex]

Language: English

Collections: Wincest Big Bang 2017

Stats: Published: 2017-11-01 Words: 34,162

Reckless In Love

by PaperAnn

Summary: When Dean fought his way through the soil to an Earth he never thought he’d see again, he didn’t care how he escaped Hell. The only thing on his mind was seeing Sammy. It turned out to be harder than he thought, but with the aid of Bobby they found him: post-party, having a fuckin’ blast with some half-naked chick in a motel room.

It was almost a punch to the gut when she asked the million dollar question—“if they were together” and Sam couldn’t say “they’re brothers” fast enough. Of friggin course, they never flaunted ‘it’, but Sam was acting cagey. Like he genuinely meant it.

Dean knew damn well his brains hadn’t scrambled. He knew he hadn’t imagined Sam’s urgent confession the moment his one-year-left Crossroad’s Contract was revealed. And…his own astonishment, upon discovery, because Dean felt the same way.

If there was helluva way to go out? God, it’d be that year—every day (every second) was lived with passion, freedom and without regret. But most important: they lived fearlessly with each other.

Had Sam's mind changed after Dean died? Was he humoring the last wishes of a dying man?

Either way, if Sam didn't feel the same anymore…maybe Dean should have stayed in the pit.

[Don't forget to toss a kudos and a comment to the author, who is also here on Tumblr as @paperannxo. 🫶]

[bigmouthlass]

Title:  Calling A Professional, part b

Series: Professional, part 1b

Author:  BJ

Fandom:  Supernatural

Rating:  Explicit

Pairing:  Dean Winchester/You, Dean Winchester/Reader

Synopsis: 'You' are a career-oriented young Omega too preoccupied with school to have a dating life. Your image-oriented family decide enough is enough and give you a screamingly inappropriate present -- a night with a full-service Alpha escort, emphasis on full. And stuff happens.

Tags:  Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, ABO, Omegaverse, AU, Alpha Dean Winchester, Omega You, Omega Reader, Sam Winchester, Zachariah, Balthazar, Gabriel, Naomi, Castiel, Benny LaFitte, Arthur Ketch, Abbadon, Becky Rosen, Bobby Singer, Charlie Bradbury, Bille the Reaper, First Time, Sex Worker Dean Winchester

AN:  Blame the walking talking PWP device that is Dean Winchester. All recognizable intellectual properties are owned by their respective creators and holders of any copyrights or trademarks. This is a not-for-profit work of fan art and protected by Fair Use.

continued from part a

---

The shower is a dingy plastic cubicle shoved next to a toilet in a bathroom that's about than a yard square.  The two of your barely fit, and that's if you press against the wall.  The water is nice and hot though, soothing sore muscles you don't even remember straining.

Dean runs a soapy washcloth over you, stroking it down your skin slow and gentle.  Briefly you wonder if he usually does this with all his clients, and you can't help a hard sting of jealousy at the thought.  You reach out and touch a black-and-blue smudge on his ribcage.  "What's this?"

"Oh, I uh--" Dean raises your arm and scrubs you from armpit to hip, making you giggle when he hits your tender spot.  He grins.  "Somebody's ticklish."

You shove at him.  "Dick."

"Brat," he retorts.  "It's nothing.  Ketch got a few hits in before I laid him out.  Turn around."

You turn and lean your front against the shower wall.  Dean lifts your hair up and scrubs your shoulders, passes the sudsy washcloth down your back.  The soap smells herbal and musky, and it pairs well with Dean's dark sweetness.  You can feel your heat rebuilding, and you know you're going to want him again soon.

Soon means now, you realize as Dean squats behind you and washes down each of your legs.  You squirm at his touch, almost but not quite flaring up to Present your pussy to him.  You hear Dean chuckle to himself.  His hand, covered with a warm washcloth, comes up to gently stroke between your legs, cleaning up slick and seed as it keeps leaking out of you.  You tremble as his warm hand cups your pussy, only just barely touching where you throb.  "God your pussy's pretty," Dean says, making you blush.  One of his hands touches your ankle.  "Can I touch you?  Make you come again for me?"

"Uh-huh," you whine.  Dean guides your legs apart and shifts your stance to open you up.  Your legs tremble as he drags the warm washcloth across your swollen flesh.  Hypersensitive from heat and sex, it doesn't take long before you're shaking.

Dean stands and pulls you against him, back-to-front.  He pivots, turning you to face the shower spray.  The hot water feels divine, pelting and running down your skin.  One of Dean's hands squeezes your breasts, playing and pinching the nipples.  The other slides down between your legs, his palm rubbing against your clit and making you whine.  Dean kisses you as you come again, thrashing against his grip.

"Oh no," he sighs, bringing his hand out from between your legs and showing where his fingers are soaked with fresh slick and blobs of his own come.  "I made you all messy again."

---

You wake up late, after sleeping deep and dreamless.  Outside is quiet.  The only background noises are the rustling of the trees and the mufflered throb of the generator.  The uncovered windows let in the autumn sunshine, filtered through orange and yellow leaves.  The view through the dirty, undraped windows is of trees-- the cabin must be on the edge of some undeveloped property in the middle of nowhere, maybe part of a defunct farm.  Or someone leaving the land alone to provide cover for deer.  You can see Dean's car, covered with a dingy dropcloth.  You nod-- from a distance it'd look like something covered and forgotten, just another piece of abandoned gear.

Next to you Dean shifts a little in his sleep.  He's on his side, curled up, his mouth hanging open as he breathes deep and a little bit snory.  He's even drooling on the pillow.  You cover a giggle as you snuggle closer, seeking warmth in the cold air of the cabin.  One of his arms curls around you and you take a chance and press a few kisses to his chest.

"Your feet are freezing, babygirl," Dean grunts, and rolls you over.

---

You haven't laughed this much in years, you think to yourself later.  Dean looks up at you, his lips pressed to your ankle bone.  He's spent the last little while doing what he calls intensive researching-- laying you out on the bed, naked to his sight and touch, examining you all over.  And being very silly about it, like tracing the pattern of moles on your left hip with his tongue and trying out names for your tits-- "Tweedledee and Tweedledum?  Strawberry and Shortcake?  Heckle and Jeckle?"  He's naked too, totally unselfconsciously, comfortable with himself in a way you envy.

"This little piggy went to market," he says, kissing your big toe.

"Staaaaaahp," you groan.  "Not into feet."

Dean grins, kissing your instep.  "Flip on over."

You turn onto your belly.  Dean kisses up the back of your leg, lingering in the tender spots behind your knees, at the base of your ass.  "Uht-oh," he says to himself, kneading into the thick muscle, "your pussy's hungry for me again."  He's right, your body's going hot and slick's trickling out of you.  You whine and shift your legs apart, but Dean just keeps kissing up your back.  You can feel him smiling against your skin.  "I could do this all day."

"You bastard," you whine, pressing your ass against him, seeking his cock.

"Hey, I know who my daddy is," Dean says.  He turns your head and kisses you, all tongue.  His weight settles on your back and his thigh presses between your legs.  You push back, trying to get some friction against your clit, but the angle's wrong, you can't reach.

"I got what you need, Alpha's here," Dean says into your ear.  "But you have to ask, babygirl."

"Please, Alpha," you say.  "Need you."

"Good," Dean says, "good girl.  What do you need from me?  Do you need my cock?"

"Yes, please," you say.  "Please Alpha."

Shifting one of your legs to open you wider, Dean enters you with a long slide and a groan.  "Perfect," he sighs.  "Perfect for me, Omega.  So perfect."

---

It's hot in here now, that Dean's got the woodstove loaded up and working.  Outside, rain lashes the cabin, the kind of cold autumn rain that makes you glad for modern conveniences like hot showers and central heating.

"What's this?" you ask, picking out another scar on Dean's torso.

Dean trembles as you kiss over it, an oval of white bisected by a straight line.  "Never saw the shooter.  Just looked down and realized it was my blood all over."  His hands are clamped on the chair's back and sweat's standing out on his skin.  You lick, letting the salt sting your tongue.

Trailing kisses up his flank, you find a jagged white line arching along his rib cage.  "This?"

"Guy caught me cheating at a poker game.  I didn't realize he had a knife.  Dad had to stitch it up."

"Shit.  Why didn't you go to the hospital?"

Dean gives you a look.  "No money, no health insurance, and gambling was illegal in that town.  I'd've gotten arrested."

"Sorry," you say, hanging your head.  It's humbling, realizing on a gut level just how sheltered you really are.  Sure, your parents might've been ambivalent about raising an accidental kid, but they were never unkind and they made sure you were always safe and cared for.

"It's okay babygirl," Dean reassures you, ducking his head to kiss your forehead.  "It healed fine."

Your eyes fall to a tattoo high on his left pectoral, right about where the aorta bends down.  Your lips trail over the stark black ink-- a pentacle in a circle flanked by wavy black lines that look a little like wings.  “Dad,” Dean says.  “He found it in a book somewhere, supposed to protect you from ghosts’n’shit.”

You kiss back down and Dean shudders as you come close to his very hard cock.  You sit back on your heels and just . . . look at it.  All hard and leaking, with a knot and balls and a thicket of tawny brown hair at the base.  Dean's skin is fair, delicate, you can see the thick arteries pulsing, feeding blood in from his belly.  This has been inside you.  Your pussy twitches at the thought.  If you concentrate you can feel deep inside your sex in a way you couldn't before-- touched, wet, fucked a little bit sore.  You know it's kind of your job to touch him there, make him feel good with your hands and your mouth the way he's made you feel good, but now that you're facing the three-dimensional reality you're coming over shy again.

"You don't have to do anything you're not okay with babygirl," Dean reminds you, reading you like a headline again.

"I'm okay," you tell him.  "Just . . . first one of these I've seen in the wild.  I mean-- dumb question, but how do you manage with that flopping around-- shut up!" you whack his leg as Dean busts out laughing.  Some wicked impulse to wipe that silly grin off his face overrides your shyness and Dean coughs out a curse as you take the crown of his cock in your mouth.

A pulse of precome flows across your tongue and you grimace.  Yuck.  You pull back and explore the head with your lips, avoiding the leaking slit.  The texture of the skin is soft, a little like silk and a little like velvet but it’s mostly its own thing.  You press your tongue to a spot where the seam and the head come together and taste-- ick, sour slick and salty blargh.  It’s worth it though, for the way the muscles in Dean’s arms and chest pop out as his fists clench the back of the chair.  Alpha is submitting to you, as you touch his most tender parts.  Dean could bolt up from this chair and knot you in seconds, easily.  But he’s not, and he won’t.

You wrap a hand around his knot.  Here goes nothing-- you take Dean’s cock between your lips and slide him in.  Dean moans, “Oh my God-- you’re doing good babygirl.  So good.  So fucking good.”  Like drinking a thick smoothie, you think to yourself as you apply suction.  “Teeth!” Dean warns and you open your jaw a little wider.  More fluid dribbles from him but at the back of your mouth the flavor isn’t as terrible.  The mass of spongy flesh in your hand pulses and swells in your grip.  You squeeze back against the swelling and Dean’s moan makes your bones tremble.

You look up and meet Dean’s eyes.  The need in them is overwhelming.  Cords stand out in his neck and his jaw’s clenched, lips parted in an effortful snarl.  His fangs have dropped, you can see the sharp points.  You bob your head and his head drops back.  “Fuck,” he heaves, “you’re gonna make me come if you keep doing that.”

You’re not up for swallowing, so you pull back and scrub the flat of your tongue up and down the seam of his cock.  “Yeah, use your hand--” Dean pants, “fuck, squeeze my knot.  Squeeze it.  Fuck, perfect, little tighter.”  Dean seizes the hand you’ve been stroking up and down his steel-hard cock, brings it to his mouth and licks your palm.  “Keep going babygirl, keep going-- fuck, fuck, I’m so close, God, fuck, Jesus--" all the muscles in his belly pull tight and his knot inflates in your hand.  You circle it with both hands and squeeze, as thick seed spurts out of Dean in ropes, landing on your hands, his legs, the floor, your face.

Dean’s whole body, shining with sweat in the lamplight, heaves as he works to get his wind back.  You keep your hands locked around his knot, rhythmically squeezing the way your pussy did.  Blobs of come are still dribbling out of him, Alpha seed meant to sire pups.  You look up at Dean as he sags in the chair.  He’ll make beautiful pups, you think, someday, with the right Omega.

Your Omega instincts growl, and a tiny voice inside says, quiet but very distinct-- Mine.

His cock finally sags and his knot deflates in your hands.  Dean’s staring down at you, his pupils blown wide open.  His scent’s thick in the air, sizzling apples and leather and smoke and you realize your cunt is fucking running with slick, so swollen the friction of your thighs together feels awesome.

Fast as a pouncing cat, Dean stands and pulls you up off the floor.  He sets you on the cabin’s little dining table.  Strong hands shove your legs apart.  “Show me your pussy Omega,” Dean orders.  “Hold it open.  Perfect.”  He pulls the chair close and sits.

“Dean,” you pant as he blows a puff of wind over your exposed, throbbing clit.

“Gonna eat this pretty pussy ‘till you scream,” he says.

By the time he’s satisfied, you are indeed screaming.  A lot.

---

“Hey,” you shake Dean awake.  It’s like it always is with heats-- you’re not hungry until you’re starving.

“Go ‘way,” he grunts.

“Dean.  Food.  Eat.”

Dean’s eyes flutter open, then pop wide as you hold a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon under his nose.  “You didn’t have to-- I was gonna cook breakfast when I got up.”

“Hungry now,” you say.

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Hungry now,” you repeat.  He does have a point; without your phone and with no clocks in the cabin, you have no earthly clue what time it is, only that it’s dark and still raining.

Dean sits up and accepts his plate.  “Bacon,” he sighs, folding a strip into his mouth.

You point to the pile of yellow curds.  “Eggs.”  You hand him a cup of milk.  “Moo juice.”

You both pretty much inhale the food.  “Thanks,” Dean says, handing back his empty plate.  “Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Welcome.  Now according to the law of equal division of labor--”

“Oh no no no no no,” Dean rebuts.  “We’re in Deanland, and in my benevolent dictatorship the one who cooks is the one who cleans.”

“Nuht-uh,” you fire back.  “This is my land, as I am a born Michigander, and therefore he who eats is he who cleans while she who cooks ogles he who cleans.”  You cross your arms over your chest.  “So there.”

Dean thinks for a minute.  A tiny and very evil smile curves his lips.  “How ‘bout a bet?”

“What kind of bet?” you ask, seeing something wicked dancing behind your Alpha’s eyes.

“You know what mutual masturbation is?”

Hot blood crashes into your cheeks.  “The name’s pretty self-explanatory.”

“C’mere,” Dean pats the bed, getting up on his knees.  You kneel opposite him and he pulls you close for a kiss, his lips tasting of pepper and bacon.  Heat has you trembling, skin hot and sensitive all over.  “Hands only,” Dean instructs as he kisses and nibbles down your neck.  “First one to come has to do the dishes.”

“You’re on,” you growl and seize his hardening cock.

---

You wake up later with the sun in your eyes, a smug grin stamped on your face.  The cabin smells like vinegar and lemons.  Yawning, you stretch and see Dean wiping down the kitchen counter.  The dishes are washed and stacked neatly on the shelf over the sink.  The cabin’s practically sparkling clean, dust wiped away and clutter tidied.  There’s even a broom in the corner, and a folded set of fresh sheets for the bed.

Dean spies you and glowers.  “Where did you learn to do that twisty thing?  I demand to know.”

You grin.  “Girl Scouts.”

---

You fuck pretty much constantly for the rest of the day.  Heat and rut render you both eager, needy, hungry.  All through it your Alpha is attentive, focused, careful about reading your reactions and learning the secrets of your body, then applying the lessons and playing you like some sort of precious instrument.

“Stop,” he orders and your hand drops from where it was stroking your stone-hard clit.  Your orgasm’s there, right there, all it’ll take is a little friction to make it happen . . . but Dean isn’t letting you.  Says he just wants to play with you, see how hard you can come.  You press your chest into the mattress and swivel your hips, showing Alpha your wet and very hungry Omega pussy.  Shameless and needy and you don’t care at all.  Dignity be damned, you want.

Dean’s tongue licks at your inner lips, purposely avoiding your clit.  You bite a knuckle and concentrate on keeping your center still.  “Wanna slip right inside you,” Dean murmurs into your cunt, “right when you’re coming.  Your pussy fits me so good and you’re so fucking sweet,” he licks like he wants to eat every bit of slick you make.

Dean’s hand on your back shifts your ass further into the air.  You scream in bliss that’s more like pain as his mouth attacks your clit.  You start to cry when he stops.  “Please,” you beg, “Dean, please.”

The fat, velvety head of Dean’s cock slides across your pussy lips, across your clit.  You moan at the sensation.  “Alpha, please.”

“You’re gonna come?” Dean asks.  “Go ahead and come.  Come for me babygirl.  Let go.”

You throw your head back and howl as your orgasm crashes through you.  Dean’s cock shoves into you, fucking into the squeeze.  His fingers flicker over your clit as you slam yourself back against him.  Dean grabs your hips and fucks with all the power he’s got, until his knot pops and your cunt clamps down, so hard and tight you know you’re going to feel it forever.

“My good girl,” Dean heaves, pulling you up to sit on his lap, his knot lodged inside you.  “My perfect girl.  God, what’re you doing to me?” he asks between kisses.  His lips seize the spot over the mating gland and you whine something that might be yes when he clamps down, his teeth shielded by his lips.  Mine, something inside you says.  His.  Mine.  His.

Mine.

---

The next morning, the fever is gone and you ache all over.  On the one hand you feel like you could sleep for a week.  On the other hand, you feel . . . energized, full of life.  Downright fucking perky.

You take your time in the shower.  It feels good, washing the heat sweat off.  You feel like yourself again.

Almost.

You use a towel to clear the mirror.  In the harsh light of the bulb over the sink, it’s hard to believe the woman staring back is you.  You drop the towel and look yourself over.  Dark suck marks and small arcs of teeth color your skin.  They don’t hurt, exactly.  Except for the dark, almost black mark on your neck.  You touch it, stroke it, press down into it and relish the sting.  Dean did that.  You dig your fingernails in a little, imagining they’re fangs.  Dean marked you, right where Alpha’s claim is supposed to go.

The thought brings you up short.  Claiming?  Mating?  You’d never taken the idea seriously, imagining finding a husband and maybe having a family in some far-off future in which you’re teaching somewhere prestigious and said hypothetical husband being someone safe and solid, a good father for their pups . . .

Mine.  His.  Mine.

Dean’s up when you come out of the bathroom, dressed and drying your hair as best you can with a towel.  He’s barefoot below his jeans and barechested over them, cooking pancakes and singing along to a Bob Seger song playing on a dusty old tape deck set on top of the fridge.  You tingle when you see the marks you’d left on him, dark purple stamped into his fair skin.  Claw furrows stripe his back, red and scabbed over.

Shyness be damned.  Dean jumps when you wind your arms around him from behind.  His shoulders bear the faint ghosts of freckles.  “You’re Irish aren’t you?” you ask.

“My mom’s maiden name was Campbell,” he tells you.  He flips the pancake in the skillet over, nods at the golden brown, and flips it onto a plate already stacked high.  “Take a little bit of batter,” he says, almost to himself as he dips a cup measure into a bowl full of thick cream-colored goo, “and we pour into the hot pan.”  His arm hooks around your shoulders and pulls you around so you can see.  The batter oozes into the skillet and sizzles.  Your mouth waters.  God you’re starving.  “Make sure it doesn’t get too hot.  Look for little bubbles coming up by the outer edge, that’s how you tell it’s done on that side.”  After a few minutes of watching, Dean slips the spatula under the cooking pancake and flips.

“How can you tell it’s done?” you ask.

“You just kinda have to feel it.  Look at the edges and see if they look liquidy.  Leave it another minute or so.”  Dean looks down at where you’re snuggled against his ribs and smiles.  “Can you get the coffee going?”

“Coffee I can do,” you say, spying the dusty drip machine.

A few minutes later you bring plates and silverware and set the table.  After he sets down the pancakes, Dean reaches for a long-sleeved shirt and drags it on.  He chuckles at your pout.  “It’s cold in here sweetheart.”

“What, I can’t ogle?”

“Well, to be fair,” Dean says, “I’ve been staring at your nipples.”

He’s right, they’re poking straight through your bra and T-shirt, standing at attention like little soldiers.  You cover yourself, blushing.  Then it occurs to you how ridiculous that is, modesty in front of a man who’s literally kissed you where the sun don’t shine.

“Eat, babygirl, before they get cold,” Dean says, loading up his plate and dumping half a bottle of maple syrup over it.

Pancakes, orange juice, coffee by the pitcher.  You can feel your body seizing the calories and the vitamins.  By the time you’re full you’ve eaten enough to make a lumberjack pause.  “Oh man,” you wheeze.

Dean chuckles and you blush again.  “Big appetite after a heat’s nothing to be ashamed of.  We got an awful lot of exercise the last few days.”

“Yeah.”  Fair’s fair; you gather the dirty dishes and stack them in the sink.  Dean gets up and grunts something about getting more wood for the stove.

You’re stacking the clean dishes and putting them away when Dean comes back with his arms full.  “We need to talk.”

“Mmm?  What’s up?” you ask, helping him with the wood.  When you’re done you move to wrap him in a hug but Dean turns away.  “What’s the matter?”

“Oh I don’t know-- I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m in an off-the-books shack in the middle of nowhere with an eighteen year old girl and a trunkful of guns.  What is wrong with this picture?”

After the passionate intimacy of the past few days-- after the small-scale joyousness of the past few weeks-- you’re completely taken aback.  “What?”

“I need to get the hell out of your life.  Before I fuck it up worse.”

“Hey wait a minute,” you say.  “My life was fucked up way before you got here.  Maybe ever since my mother passed.  All you did was get here when everything went kerblooey.”

“’Kerblooey’?”

“Kerblooey.”

“The point stands,” Dean says.  “I’m a high school dropout with ten bucks and my car to my name and I make my living on my knees.  I don’t have anything going for me except a knot to stick in people and now I can’t even do that.  What the fuck am I even doing here?”

Jesus Christ, the self-hate is so hot it’s smoking.  “What in the hell brought this on?”

“I’m a grown-ass man.  You’re just a kid.”

“Stop right there,” you say.  “I’m a little naïve, I admit that, but I’m not a kid.  I quit being a kid when I got out of high school and my father decided he was done with parenting.”

“What?”  Not a stupid man, Dean does the math.  “You were sixteen for God’s sake.”

You shrug.  “Didn’t matter.  I’d been pretty much raising myself since Mother got sick.  Point is, you’re not robbing the cradle, Dean.”

“Yes.  I am.”  Dean pulls aside the collar of his shirt and shows a suck mark over the mating gland.  “You think I didn’t notice?  Do you even realize what you almost did?  That’s a lifetime commitment.”

“I know that.  Which is why I didn’t do it.  Neither did you.”  You tap the bruise on the same spot on your neck.

“You begged me to.  First time with an Alpha-- hell, first time period, and I came that close,” he holds his thumb and forefinger an eighth of an inch apart, “to . . .”  He clears his throat.  “You’ve known me less than a month and you’re acting like you want to Bond.  That’s not normal.”

Mine.  “Fine-- let’s talk about this.  I go through life, I meet plenty of Alphas.  Some of whom aren’t knotheads.  A few of whom are attractive.  Maybe a handful who’re interesting.  And none of them were you.”  You pause to let that sink in.  “I felt it the minute I got your scent.  I know you felt it too.  We’re a match.  Aren’t we?”

Sticking to his guns, Dean says, “We’re not.  You’re just imprinting on the first Alpha you got a crush on.  It happens.  Hell it happens to me on a regular basis.”

That hurts, getting reminded that making people feel special with his body is something Dean is paid to do.  You swallow back the pain.  “And do you always call your old Army buddies to run interference between your clients and their asshole relatives?  Especially when they live like five states away?”

“No,” Dean is forced to admit.  “Babygirl--”

“If this is a serious discussion you will use my name Dean Winchester,” you tell him.

“Big talk from somebody who gets off on being told she’s a good girl,” Dean fires back.

Okay, that hurts.  “Why are you doing this?” you ask.

“Because,” he uses your full name like it’s a curse, “I won’t be the asshole who destroys your future.  I refuse.”

“For Christ’s sake I’m not asking for your hand in marriage, Dean!”  Yet.

“I’m confused--” he says, “you’re saying we’re a true match but you don’t want to talk about a lifetime commitment?”

“I’m naïve Dean, not stupid.  Just because we’re a match doesn’t mean we’ll make a good couple.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“You’re acting like you don’t even want to try.  Because what if we are, huh?  What if we’re a match and we wind up being good together?  What if for once life’s dropped something good in our laps?  You wanna turn your back on that?”

“Because that’s not the way it works, okay?  Not ever.”

“So all those things you said-- they were just to get me here and bend me over?” you ask, trying to keep it together.

“Pretty much.  Kid.”

You stalk up to Dean.  You’re angrier than you can ever remember being, maybe angrier than you’ve ever been in your life.  “You’re lying.”

He smirks.  “You’re adorable when you’re mad.”

“You’re not worthless,” you tell him, and the smirk dies.  “A worthless man would’ve left his father and brother out to dry years ago.  A worthless man wouldn’t leave himself open to a kidnapping charge just to get into a cute Omega’s drawers.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Of course not,” you scoff.  “That’s a Zachariah move.  Y’know, the actual worthless man in this scenario.”

“You don’t know me.  You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re still here and trying to do the right thing even after life’s kicked you in the balls for it   A lot.”  You shove Dean and he’s taken aback enough he actually pops back a step.  “Don’t you walk away because of some half-assed idea that you’re ruining me by being here.  That’s not your decision.  And fuck your martyr complex anyway!”  You shove again, Dean stumbles, and down he goes.

Swearing, you drop to your knees.  Blinking dazedly, Dean accepts your help sitting up.  “Ow.”

You sit down on the cold floor.  “Look me in the face, and tell me I didn’t have anything to do with you quitting your job.”

Dean looks you in the face.  He opens his mouth and pulls in a breath to speak.  The hammerblow that would’ve broken your heart doesn’t come; Dean closes his mouth and sighs.  “It wasn’t . . . entirely you.”

“So which parts were me?  The ones about not wanting to do the sex part any more?”  At Dean’s look, you add, “That is what full service means, correct?”

“Correct.  And yeah.  That part.”  Resettling himself to sit with you, Dean says, “Almost seven years, I’m up for just about anything.  Hell I was picking my own clients, pretty much, after the first six months.  And then I meet you and I can’t . . .” he trails off.  “Look, for all you know I’m a deadbeat paying child support to half a dozen baby mamas--”

“You’re not, though.”

“No.”  He cups your cheek.  “I’m not going to convince you how bad an idea this is am I?”

“Nope.  I’m a scientist Dean, and you haven’t offered any hard evidence that you’re a bad man.  Morally flexible, yeah, but that doesn’t make you bad.”

“You deserve better that ‘not bad,’” Dean says.

“That’s my decision.”  Mirroring him, you palm his jaw.  “Start small?  A date?”

And he smiles.  “I know a great Korean place out by East Beltline.”

You kiss him.  “For real now, what brought that on?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says.  “I was out looking at a blowdown I need to cut up and I just-- it hit me all at once.  I’m in the middle of nowhere with no money, on the run, and somebody I love’s counting on me to keep them safe.  Again.  I’m stuck on repeat.”

“Bullshit.  It’s not like we’re fleeing from the goddamned Wehrmacht.  This is one asshole with a shitload of money.”

“If there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s the destructive power of assholes with money.”

“Okay,” you say, “in your experienced opinion, what now?  I should’ve been back to class-- shit!  Today!  Prof Visnyak’s gonna fucking kill me!” you moan.

“We can pack up the car and go right now,” Dean says.  “Be back in town by dinnertime,” he starts to get to his feet.

You let him help you up but when he turns for the door you say, “Wait.  I don’t know--"

Pulling you close, Dean kisses you.  “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.  I mean--” dread, that’s what it is.  The thought of going back isn’t comforting.  Home doesn’t feel safe any more.  It might never feel safe again.  Here is safe.

“Babygirl.”  Dean tips your head up to look you in the eye.  “I’m gonna ask you a question and I want you to answer without thinking about it.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Dean echoes.  “Yes or no-- is it safe to go back?”

“No,” you say without thinking about it.

“Then it isn’t safe.  We stay here for at while,” Dean concludes.

“How do you know it’s not safe?” you ask.

“Gut feelings aren’t random,” Dean lectures.  “They're based on stuff your brain remembers without you being aware of it.  Scents, body language, stuff like that.  If your instincts are telling you something isn't safe, it probably isn't," he concludes.  "I know you got classes and shit, but would it be the end of the world if you stayed gone for another few days?"

You consider, chewing on your lower lip.  "I feel like a jerk for even thinking it."

"Would you feel the same way if your broke your leg or got in a car wreck or something?"

"Point taken.  I'd just feel better if I knew what the situation was.  We're in the dark here."

"That we can fix," Dean says.  "I can make a supply run and pick up a burner phone.  Do you know Balthazar’s number?"  At your nod, Dean says, "Okay, we have a plan.  Get your coat."

---

Outside you head for the car, but when you reach for the passenger door Dean says, "Nope."

"I'm not going with you?"

Dean shakes his head.  "We gotta do something first."

Your jaw drops when he lifts the trunk's false bottom to show more guns than you've ever seen in person.  "Jesus Christ!  What're we prepping for, World War III?"

Dean shrugs, looking a little guilty.  "Sort of, yeah.  They're all legal if that's what you're worried about."  He thinks a minute.  "Except maybe the grenade launcher.  I'm not sure where Dad got that.  Still think I'm that great a guy?"

You stick your chin out.  "I'll take a calculated risk that you're better than the guy trying to knot the niece that's young enough to be his great-granddaughter."

"Touché," Dean mutters.  He reaches into the trunk and pulls out a pistol.  "Here.  Glock 19, nine millimeter, semi-automatic, fourteen in the magazine and one in the chamber.  About thirty ounces loaded."  Dean presses a button and the magazine slips out and he opens the top part.  A bullet flies out and he plucks it out of the air.  "First rule of firearms is--"

"--the gun is always loaded," you say with him.  “I don’t approve of guns.”

Dean looks down at you.  “I don’t approve of you being unarmed in case we get separated.  Your uncle--”

“Quit calling him that.”

“Whatever.  Zachariah is a threat we are going to take seriously, and that includes making sure you know how to defend yourself if you have to.  You hear me?”

“I hear you,” you grumble.  You hold out your hand and Dean slips you the gun.

---

Later you’re waiting back at the cabin, wringing the ache of unaccustomed exercise out of your hands.  There’s a sour feeling in the back of your throat, the remnants of adrenaline as Dean coached you through your very first shooting lesson.

“We are called upon by the Lord to accept that the cruelty of the world will cause us pain, and to offer our enemies the gifts of love and understanding,” Father Jim had preached in his sermon . . . God, just this past Sunday.

Fuck that, says the dull black thing on the table.

“Just let him feel like an Alpha and he’ll let you go,” your mother said.

Fuck that.

“Nothing we have is worth killing for--”

Fuck.  That.

In your hand the textured black plastic is warm.  Welcoming.  You stare down at your hand like it doesn’t even belong to you.  This hand fired a gun.  This hand can kill people.

And you’re confused by how not horrified you are at the thought.  “For a total beginner you’re not bad,” Dean had said, examining the makeshift target he’d set up with a log and some sheets of paper from your lab notebook.  Watching Dean’s easy confidence with his own, gun, every movement natural as a yawn, you’d felt like a faun trying to walk for the first time by comparison.

Sighing, you get out the little box with the cleaning supplies and start running through the steps Dean showed you to strip and clean the Glock.  Again.

He’s been gone for a couple hours and the quiet is getting to you.  It’s ridiculous; you’ve been on your own ever since Dad took off for Florida the fall you entered college.  You’ve been alone longer than that, the last dehydrated pea rattling around in the tin can that was your mother’s house on Reeds Lake.  A house meant for the large family she’d had with her first husband, the half-brothers you’d only met at her funeral.  That’s you, the half-considered, the afterthought, the surprise no one wanted in the first place and didn’t think much of once you’d arrived.

You shake your head.  That’s not fair.  It’s not your parents’ fault they didn’t think your forty-seven year old mother could even get pregnant, much less carry to term, much less deliver a healthy seven pound baby girl.  It’s not like you were the red-headed stepchild cooped up in the attic or the foundling left on a church doorstep.  You have friends, colleagues, people who respect you.  You have your brain, a decent work ethic, a future in a field you enjoy.  By any reasonable standard you’re blessed.

And now you have Dean.  He just needs to hurry his beautiful ass up and get here.

You hear the Chevy’s engine and your heart starts to beat again.  Calling your name, Dean says, “I’m coming in.  Safety on.”

You look down at your hands.  Shuddering, you put the gun down.

---

“Dear God in Heaven it’s good to hear your voice,” Uncle Balthazar says.  “Are you all right?  Where are you?”

“I’m fine and I have no idea,” you answer him.  “We’re in a cabin a friend of Dean owns.  I don’t know where, it was dark when we drove here and I lost track of the roads.  What’s going on?  Have you and Uncle Gabriel nailed Zachariah?”

“We had enough to take to Naomi and Michael.  She wailed for an hour.  It was dismally theatrical.”

“Son of a bitch!” you hear Dean snap from inside the cabin, along with a clang of something heavy.

Uncle Balthazar hesitates.  “Not to be indelicate, but, um . . . is everything all right?  Mr. Winchester wasn’t . . . inappropriate with you?”

You smile.  If you concentrate you can still feel Dean deep inside, warm and wet.  “Define inappropriate.”

“Oh good God, never mind, I don’t want to know.  In any event, Zachariah’s been relieved of his post and his access to the Family money’s been cut off.

“That’s the good news.  The bad news is, Zachariah himself has vanished into the ether.  We were trying to avoid it but we had no choice-- the police are looking for him.  Chuck’s gone too.  Sturley and Kline looks like an anthill after a tank charge.”

You pull in a deep breath.  “Have their passports been invalidated?”

“Of course but it’s entirely possible they’ve already fled the country.  Castiel and Jack,” Jack Kline, the other half of Sturley and Kline since his grandfather retired, “have been doing a thorough audit of Zachariah’s finances.  He’s filched more than enough to live comfortably in some paradise with low inflation and no extradition treaty.  Thank God that doesn’t trouble my associates in Dubai.  One way or another, Zachariah’s life is over.”

You lean against Dean’s car, bracing yourself for a fainting wave of relief.  It doesn’t come.

“Cherie, you need to come home.  Your phone has been positively screaming.”

“What about the escort agency?” you ask.

“Well, in exchange for immunity from a breach-of-contract and attempted rape charge, Ms. Rosen and Ms. Diablo have been fully co-operative.  Your escort’s friend Mr. LaFitte -- charming fellow, I think I’ll ask if he’s ever considered working in security -- did an excellent job communicating the wisdom of, shall we say, a collaborative attitude.  They both apologize for any distress--”

“Fuck them both with barbed wire dicks.”

“Indeed.  It’s enough that arrest warrants have been sworn out against Zachariah and Chuck, on the off-chance my people don’t find them first.”  Uncle Balthazar sighs.  “Which is another reason you need to come home.  The police need to talk to you and so does the district attorney--”

“Until you can guarantee Zachariah isn’t coming after me, I’m staying here.”

“Dear heart a restraining order’s already been handed down.  If you want I can hire bodyguards.  Whatever you need.”

“No,” you say.  Because when it comes right down to it . . .

“Ah hah, the honeymoon period.  I understand.  When your Aunt Anna and I first met, it was nearly a month before we were willing to come up for air.”

“It’s not like that,” you say.

“It’s quite all right darling, you haven’t had a vacation since that dreadful trip to Tokyo your father dragged you on.  If it makes you feel better to stay shacked up with your Alpha, I’d say you’re entitled.  Oh for God’s sake-- tell me you haven’t Bonded.”

“Uncle Balthazar!  Of course not!” you hiss.

“Just asking!  Just asking!  Please stay safe.  And keep in touch.”

You look at the phone in your hand a long time after Uncle Balthazar hangs up.  You should be calling Dr. Visnyak and your other professors to tell them you’ll be gone at least a few more days.  You should call Penelope to get briefed on your lab project.  You should call Ralph and reschedule your study session-- you’d agreed to work on your Cultural Evolution paper together.

So many phone calls.  So much time.  So many chances for someone to call someone else in exchange for a quick cash influx.  Money turns anyone into a potential collaborator with Zachariah.  You trust Uncle Balthazar, your Uncle Gabriel, Castiel . . . it’s humbling to realize that’s where the list ends and the names on it were trustworthy for reasons other than any affection for you.

Dean looks up from where he’s bent over the woodstove, feeding chunks of wood into the flames.  “What’s the sitch?” he asks as you hand him the phone.

You give him the outline.  Dean goes still when you tell him the family lawyer’s been caught acting wrong.  “That’s not good.  Ketch told me he worked for Sturley and Kline.”

“Yeah.   As far as I know he’s the only scary minion Chuck’s got.”

“But you don’t know that for sure.”

“No,” you’re forced to admit.

At your sigh, Dean sits on the cabin's saggy couch.  Gently, he pulls you to sit on one of his legs.  "What's on your mind, babygirl?"

"Oh I don't know," you say.  "I just ran down the list of friends I have, and I don't trust any of them to not rat me out if Zachariah waves a few thousand in cash under their noses.  It's depressing."

Dean shrugs.  "Money talks."

"I know."

"Try not to take it personally."

"I'm not.  I'm just . . . I don't know."  You look at Dean.  "Tell me about your brother?"

"Sure."  Dean pulls out his wallet and shows you a snapshot of a gangly young man beaming in cap and gown.  You lay against Dean's chest as he talks.  "Four years behind me-- Dad told me he and Mom had almost given up on having kids, then poof! I showed up.  Then Mom had a miscarriage and they thought I'd be a solo act.  Then Sammy came along.  God, he was so little.  I remember when Dad carried him into the house, he was like," Dean held his hands apart, "yea big.  Now he's taller'n me-- how is that fair?"

You relax more as Dean talks.  It's clear from the warmth in his tone-- he cares about Sam, loves him in a primal way that's totally alien to you.  Like if Sam needed blood Dean would cut his own throat for him.  "How do you do it?" you ask when Dean pauses in the middle of a story involving superglued socks and Nair in a shampoo bottle.

"Do what?" he asks.

"How did you make a living, doing what you did?  I mean, you care so much-- how did you keep from . . . ?"

"What, going insane over all my clients?"

"I mean-- no offense, I . . . fuck, I don't know what I mean."

"No it's okay.  It's a fair question, I guess."  Dean strokes down your arm, plays with a bit of your hair.  "In the business, there are rules.  There's only so close you can get with someone who's paying you to screw them.  And I was okay with that.  I’m not great with relationships.”  He hesitates.  "You know what's the best part about getting in bed with a woman?  At least for me it is?"

"No, tell me," you say dryly.

Dean gives you a sour look.  "Hey, I'm trying to do this soul-bearing heart-to-heart girly shit here.  Cut me some slack."

"Consider it cut babe."

Dean frowns at you, but after a moment's consideration he continues.  "Most Omegas-- hell, most women-- you've all been trained to expect bad sex.  One of my first regulars, she was an older lady.  Widow.  She and her husband'd been together since middle school.  Four litters of pups, about a dozen kids.  And you know she told me her husband never made her come?  Not once, in thirty-odd years of marriage.

"It's that moment," Dean says.  "When you realize how good it can be.  That look-- it’s just beautiful.  It's the best feeling ever, knowing I did that.  The rest of it-- it's a job like anything else, it's got its upsides and its downsides.  Like getting filmed?  Not as much fun as you'd think it is.  Fucking cameraman damn near burned my nuts on the lights."

"Jesus, I'm dating a porn star?!?" you squeak.

Dean laughs.  "Private collections only.  I thought about it, but the pay's crap for guys.  'Sides, escort work lets me have flexible hours.  I can take time to see Dad anytime I need to."

"What about going to see your brother?"

Dean hesitates.  "Sam doesn't like it when I come out to visit him."

"Why?" you ask.  "You're fascinating company.  You listened to me lecture you on the excavation of Chief Baw Beese’s grave for an hour and didn’t yawn once."

"Sam's got an image to maintain.  I fuck that up for him.  Besides, he doesn't trust me around his fiancée.  I, uh, might've banged his math tutor when he was in sixth grade."

"Dude!"

"Yeah.  Not exactly my finest hour.  Turns out she was only tutoring him because she wanted a piece of me."

"Still."

"I was sixteen.  Everybody's a moron when they're sixteen.”

“I wasn’t.”

Smiling, Dean kisses you.  “That’s cuz you’re weird, babygirl.”

You bite his lower lip and make him yelp.  His wounded pout is so adorable you just have to kiss it better.  Before you know it you’re sitting astride Dean’s lap in a full-bodied makeout session.  The feel of him, warm and strong and touching you like you’re something precious.   After the stress of this insane day, it’s balm and comfort.

Which is interrupted when your stomach gurgles.  Chuckling, Dean lifts the hem of your shirt and kisses your belly.  “Don’t be mad, it’s been a long day and we skipped lunch.”

---

The next morning you’re back wrestling with your old friend, Statistics.  A raid on the Chevy had produced an honest-to-God tape cassette collection, mostly old-school hard rock and heavy metal.  Outside you can hear the irregular rhythm of chopping-- Dean cutting the logs in the woodpile outside down into more manageable pieces.

You catch an arithmetic error that’s just wasted a fucking hour and clonk your head down on the table, cursing in Arabic.  “I have no idea what that means but it didn’t sound nice,” Dean says as he comes in, grabbing a mug and heading for the coffee.

“It’s pointless, dogs don’t bend that way.”  You accept a fresh cup with a smile of thanks.  “I fucking hate Stats.”

“Come on,” Dean says, closing your Stats text, “grab your coat.  I wanna show you something.”

Leading the way, Dean crunches through the leaves that’ve drifted into piles between the trees.  From the shape you guess you’re in a copse of sugar maples.  “Wait-- there’s no trail.  What if we get lost?”

“No problem.  Check it out,” he hunts around a minute, then breaks out in a grin.  “Here.”

You follow with your fingers a set of deep gouges in a tree’s bark, an arrow pointing back the way you’d come.  “Sammy got lost out here once,” Dean explains.  “I spent the next month carving these.  Just in case.”

You move deeper into the woods, the trees getting taller and the leaf litter more sparse.  Dean splashes across a small stream and lifts you over it to keep your feet dry.  He stops, taking your hand.  For a moment you see nothing but the same view of forest floor, then something clicks into place and you see it-- a large wooden cross standing up from a crude altar made of mortared-together stones.  “What’s this?”

“I don’t know.  Me’n’Sammy found it while we were wandering around.”

Letting go of Dean’s hand you carefully creep in for a closer look.  Any undergrowth was cut back at some point, and kept back with a layer of wood chips that’ve since been covered by silt and leaf litter, decomposing into the forest floor.  It’s a church setup, you can see split logs arranged as pews, making a short aisle.  Reflexively you cross yourself as you proceed to the altar.

“Nondenominational,” you say to yourself, reaching for a notebook you’re not carrying.  “No altar rail or place to kneel I can see.  You turn to look at Dean, who’s watching you with a smile.  “I think this was a setup for little kids.  See how low the pews are?  An adult would find them uncomfortable-- they’re just the right size for kids.”

“Yeah.  Sammy’n’me used to make up stories about this place.  Like it was really a place for ritual sacrifice.”  He shrugs.  “We were bored.”

“No no, here, come take a look.”  You come closer to the altar.  “See?  No blood.  Even with weathering, if anyone killed anything here there’d still be blood caught in between the rocks.”

Dean nods.  “Yeah, I gotcha.”

The cross itself is made out of what look like railroad ties notched and nailed together.  There are no candle drippings and the altar’s upper surface is a single flat boulder, worn smooth.  “This part was built,” you say.  “Kids wouldn’t be strong enough to lift this.  And the rocks are mortared together, they’re not piled like a caern.”

It’s easy to imagine, now that you know what you’re looking at-- a group of little boys and girls sitting quietly on the log pews, listening in varying degrees of attention as a grownup preaches about salvation and the Good News and the virtues of proper behavior.  You can also imagine a pair of bored little boys poking at the altar and scaring themselves silly with tales of monster gods and mad killers.  "Is there a Boy or a Girl Scouts' camp around here somewhere?" you ask.

"I don't know," Dean says.  "We asked Bobby about the place and he said he didn't know.  The cabin belonged to a friend of his-- I never got the straight on how he wound up owning the place.  If he ever did.  He might've just been squatting."

"Wish I had my toolkit with me," you say, hunkering down to take a closer look at the alter.  The base is a slab of poured concrete, eroded and pitted with weathering, dirty with silt and moss.  "Yeah, this was built by the grownups," you note to yourself.

“That makes sense,” Dean says, looking around the little clearing as if with fresh eyes.  “Yeah.  Couple guys and a wheelbarrow could get it done in a day.  Bring a bag of ready-mix, there’s water in the stream.”

“Yeah.  Have the kids collect the rocks, bring the cross,” you clap your hands, “badda-bing, outdoor church.”  One side of the altar is piled high with leaves, caked in mud around the base.  “Help me with this.”

Dean helps you clear the dirt down to the altar base.  “Here, check this out,” you say, looking at a larger stone slab set into the alter, out of place amongst the fist-sized stones.  It’s not mortared into place that you can see.  “Could this--” you carefully fit your hands on either side of the big stone.  “Hey-- I think this slides out!”

Dean takes the other side of the stone and together you wiggle it free.  In the hollow space revealed, you can see a dark shape.  “Oh wow,” you say softly, reaching in and gently withdrawing a dark metal box, about six inches square and four deep.

With the reverence it deserves, you undo the latch.  Inside, kept dry with a clear cellophane bag, is a stack of yellowed envelopes.  They’re letters, addressed:

TO:  JESUS

1 GOLDEN STREET

HEAVEN

“Oh my God,” you whisper.  All the handwriting is little kid block capitals, rendered in colored pencils and crayons.  Some kids ornamented their envelopes with drawings of trees, flowers, stick figure families.  At the bottom of the box you find a copy of the Holy Bible, New English translation.  You open it to the title page-- printed in 1949.  There’s a stamp on the page in red ink; an outline of a leafy tree, with a single branch forming the words Camp Long Lake.  “Summer camp!” you realize, turning to Dean.  “There must be an old summer camp compound around here somewhere!  The counselors built this with the kids!”

“Awesome!” Dean says.

You look at the tiny packet of paper, feeling the same thrill you felt the first time you’d gone into the field and found a tiny shard of ceramic in amongst the red mass of claylike dirt.  Who made this?  What was their life?  What was their story?  "God I wish I had a camera," you say.

Reluctantly, you put the letters back in the plastic bag and seal it up.  "I wish we could take these back, figure out who wrote them," you tell Dean as you refasten the box lid.  "But . . . it feel like we'd be desecrating a church."

"We could always come back later," Dean says.

"That's true.  Take some pictures, maybe explore around a little bit more.  You and your brother didn't find anything that might be campgrounds?  Another clearing, place that look like a tent field . . ."

"Not that I remember," Dean says.  "This is about as far out from the cabin as we felt safe going."

You slide the box back into its resting place, and Dean shoves the stone back into the hole.  The move makes all his muscles stand out for a heart-stopping moment.  His body becomes an expression of perfection, a collection of almost mathematically perfect lines, an ideal expression of a divine creation.  And alive, shining from within.

A wave of pure red-tinted lust damn near puts you on your knees.  You want, God how you want.

“You okay?” Dean asks.

“Yeah.  Let’s go,” you say,

“Okay, okay, jeez.”  Dean falls in beside you as you stride back up the aisle and splash across the little stream.  Your socks get soaked and you are way past caring.  “What’s the emergency?”

“Nothing,” you tell him, taking his hand and jogging between a pair of trees.

“Seriously what’re you--” you drag his head down and kiss him, hard and possessive.  He’s off-balance, it’s nothing to slam his back against a tree.  Your hand cups the front of his pants, presses, caresses.  Dean moans, deep and throaty.  His arms go around you, hands going for your buttons.

You slap his hands away.  This isn’t about you, no matter how hungry you are.  You bite down Dean’s neck, avoiding the mating gland.  Under your hand you can feel him getting hard.

Going to your knees, you undo his belt and tug open his jeans.  “Oh Jesus,” Dean groans as you pull down his underwear and his cock pops free.  It’s as beautiful as the rest of him to your eyes and you suck him down hard as you can.  He practically leaps to life in your mouth, going thick and heavy.

You pull off and take him in hand, wetting your palms and wringing him.  Dean’s knees buckle and he grabs at the tree to keep from falling.  “Oh my God, fuck, Jesus--”

“Wanna make you feel good, Alpha,” you tell him, kissing and licking up his shaft.

“So good, babygirl,” he pants, looking down at you like he can’t quite believe you’re real.  “Stick your tongue out, tap it on-- just like that,” he says as you pat the head of his cock on your tongue.  You wind your tongue around the tip, doing your best not to grimace at the taste.  That look in Dean’s beautiful green eyes, you’d do just about anything for that look.

You take him as deep as you can, doing your best to push past your gag reflex.  Drool slips from your mouth and trickles down your chest.  You can actually feel him getting harder, getting hotter.  His scent mixes with the scent of sex, filling your nose.  It’s heady, and it’s got slick soaking into your panties, your body burning for Dean.

Panting and moaning encouragement and instructions, Dean squirms against the tree.  You cup his balls in one hand and his quivering knot in the other, squeezing gently.  You moan and Dean moans along with you.  His hips make tiny involuntary movements, you can see him clawing at the tree.

His balls suddenly draw up into his belly.  You pull off just in time to avoid a blast of come.  Your squeeze Dean’s popping knot, pulling at Dean’s cock as he spends all over you.  His legs give out and he slides down the tree, pants open and a total sticky mess.

Yanking you close, Dean rolls you into the nearest pile of leaves, kissing you like he might die if he stops.  He licks at the strings of his come on your face, cleaning you like a cat.  “God, babygirl,” he whispers in your ear, “what brought that on?”

“Wanted to make you feel good,” you say, kissing him back.  “Wanted to take care of you.”

Dean puts you on your back and pulls your jeans open.  “I’m gonna make you come now,” Dean tells you, a hard, determined look in his eyes that makes you whimper.  “Do you want my fingers or my mouth, babygirl?”

“I-- I--”  your whole body’s tingling, every nerve alight.

“Tell me,” Dean says.  He kisses your neck.  “How do you want to come?  Tell me.  Talk to me.”

“Mouth,” you squeak.  “Please Dean, put your mouth on me, please.”

“Oh good.  Good.”  Dean yanks your jeans off, shoves your legs apart and latches onto your pussy.  Birds take off at your cry.  Sucking at your clit, two fingers curled inside you and rubbing something that makes your body sing, Dean has you falling to pieces in no time at all.

---

It's late the next morning when you finally wake up.  The passion hadn't stopped when you got back to the cabin; you're actually sore, and there's new marks on your body where Dean's strength overrode his sense.  Smiling you reach across the bed for him, and your arm pats empty sheets.

“Dean?  Deee-an?”  You haul up out of bed.  A search of the cabin takes roughly thirty seconds and the results include a mouse and three spiders but no Dean.

The mouse you shoo.  The spiders you catch-and-release.  It’s when you’re done putting the last spider outside that you spy it-- a note on the floor.  It must’ve fluttered down when you or Dean shut the door.

GONE OUT TO CUT UP THAT BLOWDOWN.  BACK BY LUNCH.  -D

That must be the source of the chainsaw noise you can hear in the distance.  You groan at the thrill of desire at the thought of Dean in lumberjack mode, guiding a chainsaw, swinging an axe, maybe shirtless and sweating in the autumn sunshine.  The spirit may be willing but the flesh needs a break.

After a shower and a breakfast, you settle down to your Classical Antiquities paper.  The Glock Dean gave you sits on the table.  You’ve checked and it’s loaded.  You don’t know why you have it out.  You don’t really enjoy looking at the damned thing.  It makes you uneasy.  It feels like borrowing trouble.

But you don’t want to put it away.

You drum your pencil on the table.  You wish you’d brought your laptop, or your phone, or, shit, anything with an Internet connection.  You spread your notecards over the table and wait for the work to pull you in, absorb you the way it always does.

But the uneasy feeling won’t leave.  Every minute goes by, the fine hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little higher.  You’ve gotten this vibe before, walking to and from your car late at night or when you’re lecturing in front of a hostile class.  The sense of being hunted.

You’ve been working for hours and getting nowhere when you give up.  You need to find Dean.  Something is wrong.

The sound of an engine strikes you still.  It pulls up outside the cabin and stops.  Heart in your throat you listen.

“This must be the place,” a man’s voice notes, smooth and polished with an English accent.  “We appear to have gotten lucky, if that’s Winchester making that racket.”

“Find him.  Take care of him.”  Your heart stops.  It’s Zachariah.

Zachariah knocks on the door, calling your name.  “It’s okay!  I’m coming in!”  Dammit, the door to the cabin isn’t locked.  It swings open and Zachariah sticks his head in.

He looks awful, skin sallow and deep shadows under his hooded eyes.  His nose wrinkles at the smells of sex and scent.  “Jesus Christ.”

How did he find you?  Who was the other man?  God damn it, where’s Dean?

Zachariah spies you and he smiles.  “Whew!  There you are!”  You start to shake.  How is it you feel brave when you’re around Dean but not here where you need it?  “We have been looking all over for you!  Why’d you run off?  Did that girl Alpha scare you?”  He’s come in and coming closer, a dog stalking its prey.  “Look, I know, she came on a little strong--”

“A little?” you squeak.

“--but that’s what timid Omegas need, a firm hand.”  He takes another sniff.  “Dear God, you two’ve been going at it for days haven’t you?”

So what?  You feel your back straighten.  Some of the trembling eases.  You’re not ashamed of being with Dean, in any respect.  Not even a little bit.

Zachariah makes that sour, pinched smirk.  “That’s okay.  Just following your instincts.  I bet you feel a whole lot better now you’ve been knotted properly.  It’s okay.  But now it’s time to come home, sweetheart.”  He’s slinking closer.  You sidle to the side, trying to keep the table between you.

Just let him feel like he’s in control and he’ll leave you alone, your mother’s voice lectures from your memory.  Let him feel that, let him have that, let him, let him let him--

You glance at the table, at the gun.  Zachariah sees it too, and his greasy smirk widens.  “Oh honey, that’s not necessary.  I’m your family.  All I want to do is take care of you.”

Dean’s phrase in Zachariah’s mouth, it makes you sick.  It makes you angry.  You snatch the gun off the table and point it at Zachariah.

“Woah woah woah, easy girl, easy!” Zachariah says, holding up his hands.  “I just want--”

“Get away from me,” you say.

“Calm down.  Nobody wants to hurt you.  I could never hurt you, baby.  I love you.  I always have.”  You can scent him now, a thick and nauseating stench of stagnation and decay driving out yours and Dean’s mingled smells.  “I can provide for you baby, keep you good.  You can have anything you want, I’ll treat you like a queen baby, just--”

“I said get away from me!”  You lunge for the bathroom.  The bathroom door locks; you throw the bolt a half-second before Zachariah slams into it.

Zachariah back off a step.  “Come on Omega, this is ridiculous.  Open the door.  I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Right, and you didn’t just send Mr. Ketch after Dean,” you say as the pieces fall together and terror turns your blood to icewater.

“He’s nothing, baby.  Just an overpriced whore with a crazy daddy.”  Zachariah continues in that vein but you don’t listen.  You have to warn Dean.  He has no idea Ketch is coming.

The tiny casement window over the toilet is too small for you to get through.  Or so it looks; Dean showed you a trick just in case there was a fire.  You undo the catches in the window frame and shove out the panes.  The opening’s tight but you get through, landing in a painful heap outside.

Checking the safety and making sure your finger’s off the trigger, you take off.  Dean.

---

The blowdown Dean showed you is about a half-hour’s walk away from the cabin.  Ignoring stealth, you run hell-bent for leather through the dead leaves.

You’re almost there when you hear a gunshot.  You stop dead in your tracks, panting for air, a stitch in your side like a knife.

“You know,” Ketch’s cultured voice carries to you and your heart stops, “when you locked me in that stinking toilet, I had plenty of time to imagine this moment--”

Crying Dean’s name you run towards the voice.  You plunge through a tangle of weeds and your horrified eyes take in Dean down on one knee, a hand pressed to his side and blood in his fingers.  Ketch, his face battered and bruised, looks over at you but his gun stays pointed at Dean’s head.

He smiles.  “Ah, our wayward Omega.”

You raise the Glock, finger on the trigger.  “Get.  Away.  From him.”

Ketch tsks.  “Little Omega’s grown claws.  Fascinating.”  Slowly, showing every motion, he uncocks his pistol and takes his finger off the trigger.  “See?  It’s all right, Miss.  I’m not here to hurt you.”

“No.  You’re just here to kill my Alpha and take me back to Zachariah,” you snap.

“Your Alpha?”  Ketch echoes.  He smiles, a tight, unpleasant thing.  “I told Zachariah hiring a whore--”

“Don’t call him that!” you cry, raising your gun a little bit higher.

“Really now.  You’re a bright girl,” Ketch says.  In your peripheral vision you see Dean moving, his face pale and agonal.  He’s trying to get to his gun, you realize, you can see the twinkle of chrome on the ground.  “You can do so much better.”

“Like Zachariah?” you say.

“An Alpha who will keep you as an Omega should be kept,” Ketch says.  “Winchester is beneath you, and, deep down,” he says, creeping up on you and holstering his gun, “you know it.”

“Stay right there,” you order.  “I mean it.”

Ketch shows his empty hands.  “Just come with me.  We’ll take Dean to a hospital and you can go home.  No one else needs to get hurt.”

“He’s right.”  Your head snaps around and there’s Zachariah, winded and rumpled.  The instant of distraction is all Ketch needs; quick like a snake he grabs your wrist and twists the Glock out of your hand.

“Down!” Dean barks and you drop.  A shot rings out, and Ketch falls.  You hear a few wheezes, and smell a titanic stench of shit and bowels.  Then . . . nothing.

Oh my God.  You are lying next to a dead man.

At the touch of a hand you scramble away, backing yourself against a tree.  You look over and both Ketch and Dean are lying inert on the ground.  Inert.  Unmoving.  Dead.

Shock coats your feelings in glass.  No.

Zachariah pulls himself up off the ground, dusts himself off, pulls his blazer straight.  “Well.  That was unfortunate.”  He walks up to you, a satisfied smirk on his face.  There’s an edge of madness in his eyes.  “Come on now baby,” he coos, bending close.  “It’s time to go home.”

You spit in his face and he slaps you so hard your lips split.  “You’ve picked up some bad habits,” he notes, that mad edge shining brighter.  “That’s okay, you’ll learn better.  I’m good at teaching Omegas how to behave.  And you will behave for me.”

Your eyes land on your pistol, lying on the ground next to Ketch’s curled fingers.  You lunge, grab it, and fire.  Zachariah curses as a hunk of bark is ripped from a tree next to him, covering his head, “Don’t shoot!  Don’t shoot!”

“Get on the ground!” you order and he drops to his knees.  “Hands behind your head!  Don’t fucking move!”

“I’m not!  I’m not.  See?” he smiles uneasily and puts his hands behind his head.  “Not moving.”

A stir of leaves next to you.  You glance over and oh thank God and the Virgin Mary-- it’s Dean.  He’s alive.  White as a ghost and in obvious pain, but alive.  You want to drop your gun and cover him with kisses.  You can’t.  Not with Zachariah right here.

Dean tries to get to his feet.  Oh Jesus, his front is drenched with blood from the waist down.  He says your name.  “Car keys in my pocket.  Take Zachariah.  Leave me here.”

“Fuck that!”

“I can’t walk and you can’t carry me.”

You point your gun at Zachariah.  “You wanna live through this?”

Zachariah chuckles.  “You won’t shoot me.  You’re not--”  He shrieks in a very unAlpha soprano as you put a bullet in the ground between you.

“Carry him.  Or I swear by God, Father Son and Holy Ghost I will blow your fucking brains out,” you snarl.  Your fangs have dropped and you have to shift your grip on the pistol as your claws slide out.  When Zachariah doesn’t move, you snap, “NOW!”

Scrambling to his feet, Zachariah moves to Dean’s side.  Pulling Dean’s arm over his shoulders, he slowly straightens to a stand, pulling Dean to his feel.  Dean howls in pain, a sound you know will haunt you for the rest of your life.

You look around in confusion.  All these fucking trees look the same.  “Arrows,” Dean grunts, reading you like a sign again.  “Look for the arrows.”

You look up and find one, old scratches deep into the meat of the tree.  “This way.”  You motion with your gun.

“Aht-ah,” Dean says, and he almost sounds like his uninjured self.  He jabs his gun into Zachariah’s ribs.  “Do what the lady says pal, or she won’t have to blow your head off.”

---

The slow march back to the cabin is a crazy nightmare of crunching leaves and Dean’s moans of pain.  You can’t comfort him either, you don’t dare let Zachariah out of your sight.  Underneath the glass coat of shock your Omega instincts are screaming, Alpha is in pain, Alpha is in danger.

Finally you come to the cabin.  Zachariah’s car is a big black SUV.  You growl at him, “Keys.”

He bares his teeth in a sharktoothed grin.  “Ketch has them.”

“Pocket,” Dean wheezes.  His knees buckle and he almost drags Zachariah down.

“Dean?  Dean!  Stay with me Dean!  We’re going to get help.”  Dean moans, his head rolling this way and that.  “ALPHA!” you shriek.

“He’s a dead man,” Zachariah scoffs.

“You’d better hope not,” you growl in a voice you don’t recognize as yours.  “Put him in the shotgun seat.”

“H-h-hand-handcuffs,” Dean says.  Weakly he pats at the glove compartment.  You open it and fish out a set of cuffs.  “Cuff him.  To the other car.”

“You heard him,” you tell Zachariah, holding up the cuffs.  “Do it.  Or I’ll shoot out your knees and leave you to bleed to death, do you hear me?”

“This isn’t necessary sweetheart,” Zachariah tries one last time.  “We can get clear of this if we tell the same story.”

“What story’s that?  The one where you brought your psycho to kill my Alpha and carry me away to your tower for the ravishing?”

“Two psychopaths went crazy, kidnapped you, and killed each other,” Zachariah corrects, “and I arrived just in time to save you.  It’s a good story.  We can go away, start a new life together.  A good life, somewhere warm where--”

“Where the law doesn’t think it’s weird for an Alpha to have an Omega a third his age.  Pass.  Now,” you tic your gun at the SUV, “hands.”

Once Zachariah’s wrists are cuffed with the chain threaded through the door handle, you creep back towards Dean’s car.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Zachariah snarls as his face turns red.  “I’ll never spend a night in jail.  I know people.  I have money.  You’re mine, Omega.  Just a matter of time.”

“I will slit my own throat first.”  You mean it.

You slide into Dean’s car.  God, the inside stinks like blood.  It’s everywhere, so much blood.  You have to physically peel your right hand off the Glock; your fingers refuse to let go.  Outside Zachariah is yelling and struggling against the handcuffs.  You sincerely hope he gouges his wrists open and dies.

What the hell happened to you? asks your father’s eternally detached voice.  You slap it away.  “Keep it together,” you growl to yourself.

“Doin’ great, babygirl,” Dean whispers.  “Take track to road.  Turn left.  Gas station.”

“Gas station?  No we need to get you to a hos-- don’t tell me we’re low on gas.”

“Fine.  Won’t tell you.”  Dean tries to get his keys from his jeans pocket but can’t quite manage.  You have to dig them out.  As the Chevy’s engine coughs to life you check the gas gauge.  Yep, the needle’s hovering a tick over E.  Cursing in Greek, you find the gearstick, put the car in gear, and pull away from the cabin.

You drive as fast as you dare down the rutted trail through the shitwood and weeds.  Finally you come on a ribbon of asphalt.  Blessed civilization.

Or so you think; it’s another fifteen nerve-shredding minutes until you see a sign that says JOE’S PARTY STORE, GAS BAIT BEER LOTTO.  Almost sobbing with relief you pull in front of the tin shack housing the store and cut the engine.  “We’re here!  Thank God we’re here!  Dean?”  No response.  “Dean!”

He lifts his head from where it’s slumped on the seat and smiles.  Then his eyes roll back in his head and he slumps back down again.

The glass coat that’s been keeping your emotions back shatters.  Your shrieks bring out a retinue of retired fisherman.  They mill around in confusion until one fat fellow wearing a VIET NAM, NHA TRANG baseball cap takes charge.  He opens the passenger side door and askes, “Jesus God girlie, what happened?”

“He’s been shot, he’s been shot, he’s dying,” you sob.

“Call Jimmy, tell him to shag ass.  This man needs a hospital.”  He lifts Dean’s shirt and you almost pass out.  Blood, blood, how can he be alive with so much blood?  It’s everywhere, the whole world is blood.  The Vietnam vet whips a handkerchief out of his pocket.  “This is gonna hurt mister.  I’m sorry.”

Dean screams as the Vietnam vet presses the handkerchiefs to the bullet hole.

“I know,” the Vietnam vet says roughly, “I know son.  But we gotta get this bleeding stopped.”  He looks over at you.  “You his Omega?”

“Close enough,” you say.  You’re crying, and you can’t stop.

“Talk to him.  Keep him with us.”

You nod and take Dean’s hand.  His fingers are like marble, cold and still.  He’s sort of awake, he’s trying to open his eyes.  You lay your head on his chest, hear his heart beating fast and erratic.  “Please, Alpha” you beg him and God and whoever else might be listening.  “I can’t lose you.  I just found you.  Please don’t leave me.  Please.  Please.”

Mine.

---

“Raise your right hand.  Do you swear that the evidence you shall give shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?”

“I do.”  Moving a bit stiffly in his off-the-rack suit and tie, Dean sits in the witness box.  If he’s at all intimidated by the hate in Zachariah’s gaze it doesn’t show.

“Please state your full name date and place of birth and current occupation for the record,” the bailiff continues in his robotic monotone.”

“Dean Michael Winchester, 24 January 1979, Lawrence, Kansas, auto mechanic.”  Dean answers in a monotone to match.  A bare titter runs through the courtroom.

“Don’t get cute dude,” Dean’s brother Sam mutters.  You seek out his hand; he envelops yours in his huge paw and squeezes, gently.

The past several months have been both the best and worst of your life.  Taking a hurried leave of absence from school had not won you many fans; you’re not sure you would even be welcome back next fall.  The Family, exactly as Uncle Gabriel had predicted, had organized itself into pro- and anti-Zachariah camps.  Although the size of the pro-camp shrinks with the revelation of every new outrage.  Your stomach churns when you think of just what Zachariah had spent that embezzled money on.  And true to form the coward kept thinking he could squeak by.  Despite some outright pleading from his lawyer, Zachariah refused to follow Chuck’s example and cut a deal.  “’Not a jury in the world would take the word of a catamite whore over mine,’ is the exact phrase he used I believe,” Uncle Balthazar had reported.

But then there’s Dean.

Bouncing back from death’s door with only a scar and the loss of some intestine to show for it.  The two of you have been pretty much inseparable since he got out of the hospital, and every day you fall a little more in love with him.  Not that it’s all been sunshine and roses; your Alpha is moody, temperamental, and his need for independence borders on pathological.  You’d had to physically drag him to see his “uncle” Bobby and ask about a job.  Dean and Bobby had walked out of the manager’s office at Singer Salvage And Repair twenty minutes later, Dean with an armful of fresh dungarees and Bobby telling him, “Eight AM Monday morning and you’d better bring your girl ‘round for Sunday dinner.  Idjit.”

You shake yourself out of your reflections.  Dean, answering the DA’s questions politely and respectfully, is telling the jury how Zachariah hired him through the escort agency, how you met, how he quit, and how he took you away to keep you safe.  He describes cutting the blown-down tree into logs for adding to the cabin’s woodpile when Ketch surprised him.  You’ve already had your turn on the stand, and two days of getting broasted by Zachariah’s defense attorney had driven you into a vodka bottle for almost a week.

“I woke up in the U of M Medical Center.  The doctors told me later I had to be Life-Flighted out,” Dean concludes.  He makes a face.  “Thank God I was passed out by then.”

“Thank you Mr. Winchester,” the ADA on the case, a redheaded woman, ‘call me Charlie, everybody does’ says.  Retreating to the prosecution’s table, she says, “Your witness,” to the defense.

Zachariah’s defense attorney, a statuesque black woman named Billie, stands in her navy pinstripe and power heels.  You shrink a little in your seat.  The lady is fucking intimidating.

“Mr. Winchester what was it you said you did for a living before your current employment?”

“I was an independent contractor working for Rosen Entertainment,” Dean answers.

“And what was the nature of your work?”

“Rosen Entertainment provides professional escorts.  For dates, formal occasions, photo sessions, stuff like that.  Sometimes clients came with special requests, such as personal protection.”

“Special requests, yes.  Were those requests ever sexual in nature?”

“Within the confines established by Michigan state law yes,” Dean says without batting an eye.

“You’re awfully frank about it, Mr. Winchester.  Most people would at least blush to admit prostitution.”

Dean looks at the judge.  “I’m sorry, was that a question?”

“Watch the asides Counselor,” the judge warns.

“How long did you do this . . . work?” Billie asks.

“Almost seven years.”

“Make good money?”

“Enough.”

“But not nearly as much as the money some of your clients left you in their wills.���

Dean’s expression hardened.  “I never accepted any of that money.  The rules of my contract with Rosen Entertainment forbade it.”

“That didn’t stop you from accepting gifts from grateful clients.  Cash, clothes, accessories-- I understand once you got to stay on Grand Cayman for two months.”

“Objection!  Where is this line of questioning going?” Charlie snaps.

“Speaks to the credibility of the witness Your Honor,” Billie says.

“Overruled,” the judge tells Charlie.  “Proceed.”

“The trip to Cayman wasn’t a vacation; it was a job.  Personal gifts aren’t a nono under our contracts but bequests are different,” Dean clarifies.  “That money belongs in a family.”

You can see Billie yearning to bring up Dean’s juvenile record but it’s already been ruled inadmissible.  She shifts gears.  “The average escort’s career lasts less than two years yet you stuck it out for almost seven, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you just happen to meet a young, impressionable Omega with no dating experience and no sexual experience either, and you just happen to decide right then and there to quit.”

“She was a factor in my decision, yes.”

“The fact that she potentially had access to a fortune worth approximately six billion dollars didn’t factor into your thinking?”

“No,” Dean says flatly.

“I find that hard to believe,” Billie says.  “I mean, six billion dollars.  You could buy a lot of condos for that.”

Dean turns to the judge.  “Was that a question?  I couldn’t tell.”

“Let me rephrase--” Billie says, “her money did not factor into your decision making at any point?”

“No.”

“Good,” Sam says beside you, “keep it consistent.”

“Now on the afternoon of the date in question, you shot and killed Arthur Ketch, correct?” Billie asks.

“In self-defense.”

“Mr. Adler’s statement to the police says Mr. Ketch was there to arrest you on suspicion of kidnapping, which is within the scope of his duties as a private investigator,” Billie rebuts.

“Well that’s funny-- Ketch’s idea of reading me my rights was a sucker punch to the kidney,” Dean snarks back.

“Tone it down Dean,” Sam says under his breath.

“And I didn’t kidnap anyone,” Dean continues.  He nods at you.  “She didn’t feel safe at home, and she came with me willingly somewhere her folks didn’t know about.”

“An Omega in heat is incapable of making sound decisions, are they not?” Billie asks.

“Objection Your Honor-- it’s been established no kidnapping took place.  The defendant’s grandniece might’ve been in estrus but by the testimony of Castiel Novak and Abbadon Diablo she was not impaired,” Charlie says.  “No warrant was ever sworn out for Mr. Winchester’s arrest, and the death of Arthur Ketch was ruled self-defense under Michigan’s Stand Your Ground law.”

“Sustained.  Move on.”

“We’ve established she was not impaired by her estrus cycle,” Billie says.  “What about you?”

“Me?  I don’t know what you mean,” Dean says.

“Let me clarify-- after one meeting, you quit a job at which you’d been making excellent money for several years.  Could your judgement have been impaired, to come between a child and the family who loves her?”

“I watched a grown Omega cringe when a relative old enough to be her grandfather with room to spare started making dominance moves on her in public,” Dean says, with that narrow look that speaks of a fraying temper.  “Even if I hadn’t been falling in love with her, I would’ve gotten her out of the situation.  Nobody should be treated like that by their own family.”

“Please Mr. Winchester,” Billie scoffs, “you expect the jury to believe a high-class prostitute threw his career away just because of love?”

“What-- whores can’t love?” Dean asks caustically, making some of the reporters in the room gasp.  “The only reason she’s not wearing her ring is it’s at the jeweler’s getting resized-- my grandmother had tiny fingers.”  He smiles at you and you beam back.  “I loved her the minute I looked at her and I’m the luckiest sonofabitch alive she thinks I’m worth loving too.”

Zachariah’s shoulders go tight, but he doesn’t say anything, clearly prepped by his lawyer ahead of time to sit still and shut up.

“The point stands,” Billie says.  “How far should the jury trust the integrity of someone who earned his living on his knees?”

Dean draws himself up.  “Ma’am.  My father is a paranoid schizophrenic who can live out his life in a safe place.  My brother’s graduating from Stanford Law School eighth in a class of a hundred and twenty--”

“Twenty-six,” Sam corrects softly.

“--I was able to help with the little bit he couldn’t earn with that giant brain of his.  He’s graduating debt-free, which means he can afford to be picky about accepting a job, and he and his fiancée can get married now instead of waiting until she finishes med school.

“All of that is possible,” Dean says, with angry dignity, “because I got on my knees and let people pay to fuck me.  I quit because it was time to quit.  When this is over, I can take my mated wife, and get started on the next phase of my dumb little life.”

Billie looks at Dean a long moment.  Dean meets her gaze, square and unashamed.  You want to cheer.  “Nothing further, Mr. Winchester.”

“The witness is excused.  Court is adjourned until tomorrow morning.”  The judge whacks down the gavel and you and Sam meet Dean at the exit door.

“How’d I do?” Dean asks Sam.

“Pretty good,” Sam nods.  “You got a little emotional but I think it’ll play well with the jury.  The important thing is your stories corroborate each others’.  Adler doesn’t have a leg to stand on.  The jury will crucify him.”  There’s a greed in his voice that makes you pull back a little.  You’d found Sam to be every bit the sweetheart Dean had described, but there was still that something that made you nervous.  You definitely wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of Sam’s angry dimples.

“Well! that was fun as dental surgery.  Who’s for pizza?  I know a place off Lake Michigan Drive,” you say brightly.

---

Later that night you leave Sam, Uncle Gabriel, and Uncle Balthazar deep in a discussion over international smuggling laws.  Your uncles seem to have found a kindred spirit in Sam, and you smile at the start of what looks like a beautiful friendship.

“Babygirl?” Dean asks as you emerge from the bathroom in your nightie.  “C’mere.”

You go to where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.  It’s a bigger bed than it was at Uncle Balthazar’s condo, despite your new apartment being the upstairs of a not-very-big house in a not-very-nice neighborhood.  Between you and Dean there’re enough personal touches to make it feel like a home and not just a place you happen to inhabit.  The first real home you’ve ever had.

“Look what came back from the jewelers today,” Dean says, pulling a gray velvet clamshell from his pocket.

You giggle.  “Should we do the bended knee thing again?”

“Absolutely,” Dean says.  He slides off the bed and lands softly on one knee.  “You’re the light of my life, the twinkle in my eye, the boner in my pants--”

“Such a way with words,” you tell him dryly.

Dean smiles up at you, taking your hands.  “You remember what I told you, about how beautiful a woman’s face gets when she’s having really good sex?”

You nod.  Months of life with Dean has mellowed the sting of pure possessive jealousy when you think of his former profession.  Mostly.

“I knew I was done for,” Dean says, “when I realized I never wanted to see that look on any face but yours.  That’s what I meant when I said I wanted to take care of you.  If you’ll let me, I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of you.”  Using your full name, Dean opens the clamshell to reveal an antique gold ring set with a single blazing sapphire.  “Will you marry me, and claim me as yours?”

“Mmm . . . yeah sure, why not?”  The happy tears betray you, and Dean’s smile beams just as bright as it did when he first popped the question.

At Cedar Point of all possible places.

He slips the ring on your finger and you thank him with a passionate kiss.  Dean shifts to sit back on his heels and sticks his head up under your nightie.  “Hey now, I can smell a hungry little pussy.”

You giggle as he sniffles and kisses all around your lower belly, your thighs, your hips.  You shift your legs apart and Dean zeros in between them.  His mouth wanders over your bush, kissing your outer lips, tongue tickling the crease between your pussy and your leg.  “Deeee-ean,” you whine.

“Don’t break my concentration, I’m hunting here.”  He kisses right over your throbbing clit, making your breath catch.  “Mmm.  I think I’ve cornered her.  Let’s see.”  Parting your outer lips with his nose, Dean licks up a tongueful of your trickling slick.  “I have the trail!  You’re mine, pussy.”

“Dean!” you whack at the lump of his head under your nightie.  “Your brother is like, right next door!”

“Then you’ll have to be quiet, won’t you?” Dean says around a mouthful of your softest flesh.  “I caught this pussy fair and square.  And now,” he suckles at your clit and you choke back a scream, “I’m gonna eat it all up!”

---

The jury deliberations take an afternoon.

“Will the defendant please rise,” the judge instructs, and Zachariah, still in his silk power suit and radiating Alpha-like authority, stands.  Even after everything, he still thinks he’s going to get away with it, you realize.  It hasn’t sunk in, that actions have consequences and not everything can be papered over with money.

You shudder, remembering big pictures of tiny bodies.  Dean feels it and puts an arm around you.  Alpha is here, and you know for a fact he’d die to keep you safe.  Having six and a half feet of Sam on your other side, and Uncle Balthazar and Uncle Gabriel sitting close by; those help too.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“Yes we have Your Honor,” the jury forewoman answers.

“On the first count of the indictment, attempted murder in the first degree, how does the jury find?”

“We the jury, find the defendant, guilty.”

A great release of air goes through the courtroom.  Your body goes cool, numb, tingly.  A release of tension you didn’t even realize you were holding.

“On the second count of the indictment, attempted sexual assault in the first degree, how does the jury find?”

“We the jury, find the defendant, guilty.”

“Breathe, babygirl,” Dean says in your ear and you suck in a breath.  Spots clear from your vision.  Dean kisses your head and lets you lean close.

It takes almost five minutes to read out the rest of the charges-- embezzlement, hiring of a hitman, wire fraud.  Guilty on all charges.  Zachariah stands firm through the recitation, a look coming over his face that actively terrifies you.

“Thank you Madam Forewoman.  The jury is excused,” the judge says.

“I know you” Zachariah says, loud and clear.  “ I know each and every one of you.”  The men and women in the jury box pause, but only for a second as the bailiff starts herding them through the exit door.  “You’re dead!  You’re all dead!” his voice rises as the last juror files out.

“Counselor, control your client,” the judge orders Billie, who looks utterly taken aback at Zachariah’s outburst.  Whatever she says gets through; Zachariah pulls his jacket straight, adjusts his tie, and goes back to standing at attention.  “Defendant’s bail is hereby revoked and he will be remanded  to the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections--”

“Jail?” Zachariah laughs, in what sounds like genuine amusement.  “I’m not going to jail!”

“--to await sentencing.  Sentencing hearing to be scheduled at a later date.”  She brings the gavel down with a final bang and motions to the bailiffs.  “Take the defendant into custody.”

“I know you too!” Zachariah yells, lunging away from the bailiffs.  “YOU’RE DEAD BITCH!   YOU’RE ALL DEAD!!!”  His head whips around and he spies you.  A grotesque parody of a smile twists his face.  “You’ll never know what you gave up baby.  You’ll never know.”  The bailiffs finally get ahold of his massive arms and pin him to the defense table.  They twist his wrists behind his back and you hear the ratchet of handcuffs.  “YOU’LL NEVER KNOW!” Zachariah shrieks as they drag him away amongst the pandemonium.  Flashbulbs pop everywhere and you can hear reporters barking and snarling.

“Sam,” Dean says.

“Yeah,” Sam replies, and starts elbowing his way through the crowd.  Guiding you, giving you cover under his arms, Dean follows.

“Awfully handy, having a brother who doubles as a battering ram,” Uncle Balthazar notes, falling in behind with Uncle Gabriel.  He puts a hand on your back.  “Are you all right darling?”

“Let’s just get out of here.  You look up at Dean, drinking in his eyes like a dying man drinks cool water.  “Take me home.”

---

“Gimme those feet,” Dean tells you, and you slip off your shoes and put them in his lap.  You moan as he gently rubs away the aches.

“It was a beautiful ceremony wasn’t it?” you ask.

Dean shrugs.  “I’d rather cut to the chase,” he says.  Your eyes meet and you both break down in chuckles.  Tradition dictates a claiming bite be left unbandaged and open to the air; yours is still throbbing.  Exchanging vows before Father Jim had been quiet joy.  The exquisite pain and transcendent bliss of Dean’s fangs in your neck had been heaven.  Dean’s cry as you’d sunken your fangs into his mating gland . . . you’d almost come on the spot.

At Sam’s wedding, you and Dean had shown up with your brand new rings and your brand new claiming bites.  You’d felt the joy in your own body, when the priest had declared them married, mated, and bonded forever.  Sam Winchester, juris doctorate, and his lovely wife Jessica, med student and future doctor.  Happiness makes them beautiful, your Winchesters.

Dean hits an especially sore spot and you moan. “Death to him -- because it was definitely a man -- who made heels mandatory formal wear.”

“But they do fucking mind-blowing things to your legs,” Dean says, his hands massaging your sore calves.  He picks up one of your legs.  “But oh,” he sings against your toes, “they love to watch her strut.”

You cuff him playfully.  It’s funny, after childhoods with no place for play, you and Dean can’t seem to get enough.  “Enough with your schmaltz.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dean says, and the two of you sit quiet for a while.  You’re frowning at nothing when Dean asks, “Something on your mind, babygirl?”

“I’m just-- I dunno, contemplating what’s next, I guess.”

“What’re your thoughts?”

“I mean-- I want to go back to school--"

“Then do it.  Money isn’t a problem.”

“Yeah I know that.”  The bequest from your mother’s estate isn’t huge, but it’s enough to ensure you can complete any degree you want.  On Dean’s absolute insistence, that money is untouchable under a prenuptial agreement-- you and only you will ever have access and should you split up--

Mine, your Omega instincts say, looking at the scabbed gashes on your husband’s neck.

“So what’s the problem?”  Dean sits up straighter on the hotel room sofa.  “Talk to me, babygirl.”

“I nuked a lot of the professional relationships I need when I took that leave of absence.  Professor Visnyak came this close to telling me I’ll never work in this field again.”

“Fuck her,” is Dean’s judgement.

“No thank you.”

“Is there some law or commandment says you have to go to that school?” Dean asks.

“It’s got one of the best Anthropology programs in the country.”

“One of,” Dean echoes.  “Nothing says you can’t go somewhere else.”  Your brow furrows as the idea sits with you.  “I mean-- MSU’s right there, U of M.  University of Chicago’s a good school.  Shit, you could go anywhere.”

“Not without you.”

Dean shrugs.  “Nice thing about being a mechanic-- the skills travel.  I could get a job pretty much anywhere.”

You know that’s not true though.  Plenty of places won’t hire someone who made a living in sex work.

“Besides,” Dean says, “you’re gonna start doing fieldwork soon, right?  We’ll be apart then.”

“I know.”  That’s one of the reasons you and Dean decided to marry now.  Dean your husband gets access Dean your boyfriend doesn’t.  A practical, sensible decision that’s completely separate from being true mates and needing each other the way you need food and water.

“I don’t want to move,” you say.  “I mean, travel?  Sure.  I want to walk the Silk Road--”

“Ancient truck stops,” Dean says, smiling.  “Awesome.”

“I know you wanted to move back to Kansas--”

“I can manage Dad’s affairs just about anywhere.”  A shadow settles over Dean.  Hus father had not taken the revelation of just how Dean made his living well.  You’re not exactly eager to see the asshole again, but you know Dean loves him and you know the rejection hurts.  To a cold part of you it’s fascinating; until you met Dean you’ve never known the kind of love that leaves a person open to agony like that.  And Dean does it so naturally, you don’t know if he can love any other way.  Nothing about Dean Winchester is half-assed, especially not love.

“Even California-- I mean, it’s nice out here.  Except for watching my husband get hit on by every Omega and Beta in town, including and especially the guys.”

“Is that why you practically tore my clothes off when we got back to the hotel the other day?” Dean asks, smiling.  “I love it when you get all possessive.”

You kick him, not too hard.  “So fine, I’m greedy.”

“You’re so mean,” Dean sighs, “and I am so okay with that.  C’mere.”

You go into Dean’s arms and snuggle into his chest.  “Grand Rapids is my home,” you say.  “I don’t want to leave it.”

“Then we won’t.”  Dean kisses the top of your head.  “I got a job, you got school.  We’ve got a home together.”

“Dean.  Alpha.”  You kiss him, just basking in his taste and his scent and his everything.  “Where you are, that’s home.”

Mine.  His.  Mine.

---

AN2: I don't know why, but the plot bunnies bit me hard on this one. The bulk of it was written in about three days-- yeah I know, it shows. If you recognize who the 'Adlers' are supposed to be expys of, or the landmarks described herein, pat yourself on the back for being a true Michigander.

[yoannspn]

Disobedience by ani_coolgirl on AO3

Art Post by Yoann on AO3

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester Words: 14,315 Tags: First Kiss, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Dreamsharing, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Dean Winchester is Obsessed with Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester is Obsessed with Dean Winchester, Awesome Bobby Singer (Supernatural) Summary: May 2nd, 2007, Dean Winchester dies in Cold Oak, South Dakota. He wakes up days later in a motel room, trapped there by his own brother who swears he'll protect him no matter the cost. Things only get worse from there.

“It doesn’t matter. Not if I can save you.” Sam’s face is illuminated, enlightened. He’s seen that face on a thousand statues in a thousand churches and churchyards, all turned towards the face of God—an expression of rapture. “I’m almost there, Dean. Just a little more.

Hope, you guys can give it a little bit of love to this great fic that I'm currently reading and loving 🥰 I created this piece because one, I'm obsessed with Sam with wings and two, I was thinking, what would happen if Dean died in AHBL.

— For the Wincest Reverse Bang 2023, thanks to the mods. @wincestreversebang

[wigglebox]

On Wayward Tracks

Pinefest 2023 | Written by @follows-the-bees | Illustrated by @wigglebox

Rated: Explicit | Word Count: 86,216 | Major Tags [full list at link]: Western AU, Action & Adventure, Lovers to Friends to Lovers, Selective Mute Dean, PTSD, Bisexual Dean, Bisexual Castiel, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Light Dom/Sub, Explicit Sex, Canon-typical violence, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Pinging, Dean POV, Castiel POV, Happy Ending

Summary

The year is 1882, and Dean and Sam Winchester were taken in by Bobby Singer almost two decades prior, living and working on Singer Ranch in Lawrence, Kansas.

While visiting his brother Gabriel, who opened a brothel in the area, Castiel Novak runs into a handsome stranger. During the four visits, they usually spend one night together, and that's that. But, on Cas' most recent visit, Dean shows him the real life of a ranch hand.

Dean shows him the ins and outs of his day-to-day life while Cas decides on his future away from the family business, Novak Railways Co., and his other brothers, Michael and Lucifer.

As Bobby's ranch faces threats from the railroad company, trying to force him off the land to make way for a new rail line, Cas uncovers discrepancies in his family's intentions and accountant books.

The connection between the families is soon uncovered, and they are thrown together as they work to discover the depths of the mysterious corruption.

At the same time, Dean and Cas have to work through their own mysteries regarding each other and how life moving forward would look for them.

Full story on AO3

Artist's note:

I absolutely fell in love with this story because it held my attention with a plot while also making me root for these two knuckleheads. I love western AUs, but I am also rather picky when it comes to depictions of the American West when it comes to this time.

I'm actually picky when it comes to fics in general!

But I loved this from the moment I read the first page, and I purposefully held off on reading any updates while @follows-the-bees was editing purely so I could have the joy of reading it again "for the first time."

If you're into action-packed westerns with a cute love story with real stakes, I recommend this story 100%! I'm sure you'll enjoy it from start to finish! <3

[ao3wincest]

Sympathy for the Devil

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/AQ16rRh by Danyealle The final battle happened but it didn't go as planned or how it was prophesied for centuries; Lucifer won, defeating Michael and sending him back to Heaven, almost dead. Now humanity's worst nightmare has come true; Earth is ruled by Lucifer and his demons. But, despite what the Son of the Morning thinks, things never go as planned when the Winchester brothers are involved. Not to mention some scheming from a heavenly faction that he's unaware of throwing all kinds of things into the works to gum them up. Authors Warning: Is canon up until the last episode of season 5 then we are taking an alternate route though some of what went on will be there. Words: 58996, Chapters: 14/14, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Lucifer (Supernatural), Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer (Supernatural), Castiel (Supernatural), Asmodeus (Supernatural), Jesse Turner (Supernatural) Relationships: Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Lucifer/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester Additional Tags: Threesome - M/M/M, Anal Sex, Anal, Oral Sex, Rimming, Sexual Coercion, Incest, Double Anal Penetration, Spitroasting read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/AQ16rRh

[deancaspinefest]

On Wayward Tracks  |  Explicit  |  86,216

Author: Followsthebees

Artist: wigglebox

Lawrence, Kansas. 1882. Taken in by Bobby Singer almost two decades ago, Sam and Dean Winchester earn their keep on Singer Ranch, a refuge for a number of wayward souls who work for food and board but have gained a family and community in return. Entrepreneur Gabriel Novak moves to Lawrence to open his own brothel, proposing that his brother Castiel leave the family business in Boston and work for him. It’s a tempting offer that, along with his aching attraction for a certain green-eyed cowboy, makes Castiel wonder if he could find a true home on the range. When outside forces threaten the existence of their way of life, Dean, Castiel, and their families are brought together in ways that they never could have imagined as they race to save their loved ones — and keep their dreams of a life together alive.

Link to fic  |  Link to art

Pairings: Dean/Cas (Background Donna Hanscum/Jody Mills, Claire Novak/Kaia Nieves, Charlie Bradbury/Jo Harvelle, Sam Winchester/Jessica Moore)

Warnings: No Archive Warning Apply

Tags: Alternative Universe-Western, Ranch Hand Dean, Mystery

[ladylilithprime]

The Tales Grow Taller On Down The Line

Rated: M

Word count: 21582

Summary: When Bobby Singer got the call from Dean Winchester - "This case is weird even for us and Sam's been compromised, we need help!" - he had expected the hunt to be unusual but still fairly straightforward. Being introduced to Loki, the Norse god of mischief and patron of tricksters, and being told the pagan was Sam's soulmate? Definitely not so straightforward!

Warnings/tags: Soulmate AU, episode rewrite, S2Ep15: Tall Tales, references to canon off-screen violence and noncon/dubcon, descriptions of off-screen minor character death, canon derailment, discussion of Sam's powers, references to demon blood, angels are dicks, canceling the Apocalypse, Gabriel is Loki, Loki is a trickster, Bobby knows and accepts the risks, brief mention of dog death by old age, Dean is both a porn fiend and a prude, mentions of nonmonogamy and polyamory, Gabriel's nicknames

@spnsabrielbang in co-conspiracy with @alexiescherryslurpy ! (Art post here!)

THE MOTEL ROOM just outside Springfield University was stifling with the tense, angry silence that practically vibrated between its occupants. The first of them was pacing irritably in front of the windows, pausing every so often to glance up and either glare furiously at one of the other occupants or cast furtively worried looks at the third. The object of his ire lounged across the bed furthest from the windows with his legs crossed, a large red lollipop periodically vanishing into his mouth and reappearing a few seconds later, all with a very carefully contrived expression of unconcern even as he avoided looking at either of the other two. The third occupant of the room sat at the tiny motel table with his laptop, shoulders tense and set, face expressionless as he typed or clicked, paging through paragraphs of information almost faster than they could load in a valiant effort to avoid looking at or even acknowledging the man who kept pacing.

A knock on the door drew the attention of two out of three sets of eyes, and then Dean Winchester scrambled to get the door open. "Bobby! Thank fuck you're here, man!"

"Good to see you, too," Bobby Singer replied dubiously as he gave Dean a concerned once-over. "You said it was an emergency, but you don't look hurt. Where's Sam?"

"Over here, Bobby," Sam Winchester called from the computer, not looking up from the screen even as he waved. "And it's not actually an emergency, no matter what Dean thinks. He just doesn't like what I told him and thinks you'll give him a different answer."

"Won't know until you tell me what's going on," Bobby pointed out as he stepped fully into the room, finally spotting the third occupant on the bed. "And who's this?"

"Part of the problem," Dean growled, glaring at the figure who flipped him off without looking.

"Dean," Sam scolded, a wealth of exasperation in his tone. Finally looking up from his computer, the younger Winchester brother gave Bobby an apologetic smile that looked more like a grimace. "It's complicated, but not a problem, or at least it doesn't have to be. Bobby Singer, meet Loki, Norse god of mischief and fire, patron of tricksters and pranksters... and my soulmate."

There was a moment of silence. Bobby surveyed the faces of all three individuals in the room, from Dean's scowling face and disbelieving eyeroll to Sam's strained projection of calm over acute distress mingled with grim certainty, to the third man who apparently wasn't even actually a human man but a god and was looking at Sam now with surprise and a certain amount of his own uncertainty. Like he hadn't expected Sam to say that and didn't quite know what to make of him. Bobby heaved a sigh.

"I'm gonna need a drink for this one," he informed the three of them.

Dean went and got out a bottle of whiskey.

Read the rest on AO3

[destielomegaversebigbang]

To Russia, With Love

Posting 22nd September 2023

Fic by PetraAmia Art by Nienor

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Dean was a lone feline shifter in a pack of wolves, when he meets his very best friend. Castiel is also a feline shifter, though from another country, from a family looking to make feline shifting ties. Their friendship lasts the whole summer and comes to a rapid end when Cas has to leave to go home. Instead of a tear filled good bye, the boys sneak down to the playground where they spent the whole summer and made a promise under a full moon to be best friends forever.

Twenty years later, a gentleman in a suit shows up at Dean's door telling him that the friendship ceremony was more than what he thought at the time. Now Dean was technically mated to a King! He has to choose between the life that he had lived for the last twenty years, and everything he ever wanted on the other side of the world. Things aren't going to be smooth no matter which path he takes, but maybe he can get rid of the John Winchester looming over his past and be who he really is.

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Castiel/Dean Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Omegaverse, Omega!Dean, Alpha!Cas, Feline Shifter, Royal Weddings, Dean's Fear of Flying, Writing Letters is a Love Language, Phone Sexy Times, Mating Cycles, Biting, Claiming, Royal Wedding, Secrets revealed, Dean Deserves to be Spoiled, Protective Castiel, Protective Bobby Singer, Bobby is Best Dad, Karma, mpreg mentions, Anthropomorphic qualities, Actual Good Mom Naomi, Chuck is kinda meh, gift giving, scent bonds, true mates, charlie is the best friend

Excerpt: Below the readmore

“Sorry!” His eyes opened as he said the words and then his mouth opened wide. There was another cat! The boy in front of him had dark hair, and a stripped tail with a white underside. His head tilted to the side, almost like he was examining him. “Hi! I’m Dean.”

The boy blinked and then slowly spoke the words: “Hello, Dean. I am Castiel.”

“Cas-tea-el?” Dean said the name slowly, it was new and he had never heard anything like it before. “Hiya Cas. Did you… did you wanna play with me?” Cas eyes widened at the nickname but he nodded emphatically when Dean asked if he wanted to play. So of course Dean held out his hand. For a second, Dean was worried that Cas wasn’t gonna take his hand, but he did and Dean dragged him over to the swings.

That was the day he met his best friend. Mary had been instantly curious about the other feline, and realized that they had come to speak to her family, as one of the few feline packs around. Foreign diplomats from Russia, the Voronin family, was quite pleased that their son had made a friend. Naomi, Castiel’s mother, introduced the family to Mary when they had to split the boys apart to go home. They were going to be here all summer, and had wanted to let Castiel play with Dean as much as possible. According to Naomi, Castiel was a shy boy who couldn’t connect with others easily, but with Dean it was like second nature.

[destielsoulmatebang]

Always On My Mind

Dean woke up on the morning of his sixteenth birthday with a song in his head, but not just any song. His soulmate’s song. Most people were thrilled to hear theirs, but Dean was less than ecstatic. Being Deaf in a world where soul’s bonds were based on music meant he didn’t have a lot of faith in his soulmate situation working out. Castiel was convinced that God had cursed him to be without love in his life. He was almost twenty, and hadn’t heard so much as a note of his soulmate's song. That was, until he walked into the Gas-N-Sip one night, setting off a chain of events that would forever alter the course of his life. Rating: Explicit Tags: Alternate Universe: Soulmates, HoH/Deaf Dean Winchester, Bisexual Dean Winchester, toddler jack, homeless Castiel, Bobby Singer is Dean’s Father, homophobia, Internal homophobia, religious trauma, Mentions of Cancer, Death of a minor Character, First Kiss, Blow jobs, Misunderstandings, Happy Ending. Coming October 12, brought to you by the @destielsoulmatebang, @krexhatespushups-blog, and @arlington-chamber-of-gay!

[bidisasterevankinard]

Inspiration Saturday

do it now because soon I will hang out with friends (and it's 2 pm so)

Tagged by @panbuckley thank you love 💙💙💙

I will share two songs which inspire some scenes in street dancer Eddie au

gif (by @evanbuckleydaily )for another scene + snippet (sniper in LA in 4s, buddie are established in that moment but trust me it would be looooooong way for this)

Buck feels rather than hears Eddie gently approach him from behind and leaves a gentle kiss on his neck, hugging him around the waist and burying himself between his shoulder blades.  “I should go. That’s my job,” the only thing Buck can say, but the truth is that if Eddie would ask him to quit firefighting, he'd do it in the blink of an eye.  “I know. Just please, please be careful,” without raising his head, Eddie almost whispers it into his back, but Buck still hears in the silence of their bathroom.  He turns to face his boyfriend and lifts Eddie's face by the chin in a gentle motion. Having established contact with the gorgeous eyes of his beloved, in which he sees a thick fog of sadness and fear, and hates that he can do nothing to ease the anxiety of the most important person in his life, even despite his unwillingness to destroy the silence around them, he says in a firm, but expressing all his love voice. “I will always fight to come back home to my family,” Buck emphasizes “fight” because it’s exactly what he does every time he is in danger after he met Eddie. Especially now when they are together. He fights to come back home, he fights for not leaving his boys too early.

Buck 1.0 would be shocked to find out how much Buck values his life now because he doesn’t want to lose his boys, his happiness, his family.   “I will never willingly leave you or Chris,” he gently strokes Eddie's chin with his thumb, wanting to calm his anxiety a little with this touch. “So I, Evan “Buck” Buckley swear to you Eddie Diaz in this bathroom that you once decided to share with me, in this house where you let me feel at home for the first time in my life, in the house that you let me in to share with you and to build our life together, that I will behave like a good boy every second of my shift, that I will obey Bobby’s orders, that I will not rush into danger and most importantly, that every minute I will think about you and strive to get home. To you, to Chris, to our life. I swear I will do anything I can to enter our door safe and sound,” Buck kisses Eddie’s forehead and sees a tear rolling down his cheek, but his a little bit stupid, as they both know, heartfelt speech has done its job, Eddie smiles.  It's not bright how he smiles when he's happy, but that's something. Buck gently kisses his partner, sealing his vow with their lips, promising all these words once again, but now only with the movement of his lips on Eddie's lips. He doesn't want to break away from Eddie, but it's time for him to go out.

Eddie sees him off at the door, gives him his bag, and kisses him again.  “I love you,” Eddie whispers to him on the lips.  “I love you too,” Buck uses all his willpower to break away from Eddie and walk out the door

and song which inspired complete new idea about singer Buck and dancer Eddie(I need to stop, but song is so buckcoded)

Tagging if they want to share 💙 : @mysteriouslyyounggalaxy @honestlydarkprincess @911onabc @ebdaydreamer @alyxmastershipper @transbuck @cowboy-buddie @lover-of-mine @heartshapedvows @bekkachaos @rogerzsteven @devirnis @the-likesofus @elvensorceress @shortsighted-owl @barbiediaz @buddierights @spaceprincessem @housewifebuck @thewolvesof1998 @wildlife4life @wikiangela @hippolotamus @transboybuckley @heartbeatdiaz @spotsandsocks @monsterrae1 @djdangerlove @mandzuking17 anyone who wants to share

[ao3feed-destiel-02]

And The Righteous Man Dean Winchester is Saved

And The Righteous Man, Dean Winchester, is Saved https://ift.tt/A4YEFSX by kilvmaim Castiel is angry, and rightfully so; you go through all the trouble in the world to save a guy, brave literal hellfire for him, and what does he do? He tries to give himself over to Heaven, tries to become the Michael Sword, like he's clawing after some sort of redemption. And of course, Castiel's going to go after him. Words: 7824, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Supernatural (TV 2005) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Castiel (Supernatural), Adam Milligan, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Bobby Singer (Supernatural), Michael (Supernatural) Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester Additional Tags: Porn With Plot, Episode: s05e18 Point of No Return (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, public hand job, Canon Rewrite, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Dean Winchester's First Time With a Man, Self-Sacrificing Dean Winchester, typical, mention of violence, Blood and Injury, castiel almost being a freak about dean's bodily fluids if you squint, Prayer, Suicidal Thoughts, very light tho, Canon-Typical Violence, Internalized Homophobia, rewriting the alleyway scene bc that scene was hot, they should've had sex after that, Frottage, Coming In Pants, Crisis of Faith, Hurt/Comfort via AO3 works tagged 'Castiel/Dean Winchester' https://ift.tt/xElOMVP September 06, 2023 at 03:28PM

[440mxs-wife]

Treasure Quest, Chapter 1: The Stowaway

Pairing: Captain Dean x Rhaya Payton (OFC, eventual) Other Characters: Sam Winchester, Bobby Singer, Balthazar, Gabriel. Governor Darius Payton, Ashton Kane, Damon Sharpe (OMC’s). Carissa, Darcy (OFC’s)

Word Count: 4427

Warnings: Arranged marriage, overbearing stepmother, allusions to/mention of parent death, running away, scheming fiancé, search for buried treasure.

Summary: Rhaya Payton is the daughter of the governor of Ochana. She grew up listening to her father tell her stories of pirates and treasure maps. At a gala one night, her stepmother, Carissa, announces Rhaya’s engagement to Ashton Kane, a wealthy nobleman. Only problem is, no one checked with Rhaya first. After overhearing plans made by her fiancé, Rhaya decides to go on the run and stows away on Captain Dean’s ship. What will happen when he finds her?

A/N: Soooo, this has been rattling around in my head for some time, so I decided to (finally) send it out into the world. Not sure how many parts there will be, as it depends on where the story takes me. Please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the tags for this. Enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Captain Dean Winchester stood on the dock as he watched the cargo being loaded onto his ship, The Black Diamond. His crew was known as "The Devil's Foxes", mostly due to their crafty, yet highly successful, battle techniques. The crew was made up of men from all different ages, levels of expertise and backgrounds. Although Captain Dean was in charge on the ship, he often allowed his crew to offer their perspective, based on their life experience. He trusted his brother and ship's First Mate, Sam, to help him filter through the input and ultimately reach a decision.

From where he was standing, Captain Dean could see Governor Darius Payton's residence, a sprawling estate on top of a hill overlooking the harbor. The captain had stopped in Ochana many times for food and other supplies and had always found the locals to be friendly and helpful. They spoke highly of the governor and generally approved of how he ran things in Ochana.

Of course, Dean had also heard on more than one occasion about the governor's beautiful daughter, Rhaya. People spoke of her kind and generous heart, her willingness to help others at a moment's notice, and also mentioned her fiery spirit. Someone who was not afraid to speak out against an injustice, whether real or perceived, or however small it may appear. Rhaya was said to be a frequent visitor to the daily markets, as well as a silent supporter of the less fortunate.

To Captain Dean, Rhaya sounded too good to be true. In Dean's experience, the daughter of a wealthy elected official was likely to be a spoiled little princess. The ladies he'd met tended to hold minimal regard for anyone but themselves, especially the one from the last port stop. On one visit, Captain Dean had made the mistake of vocalizing such an opinion about Rhaya to a merchant in Ochana's marketplace. It was an error he was not keen on repeating anytime in the future.

The vendor nearly denied Captain Dean the opportunity to purchase an apple pie from his stall. Furthermore, he would've refused service to any Black Diamond crew member who tried to buy a pie on behalf of his captain. Dean apologized for his assumption and was grudgingly allowed to purchase not one but two pies. Though Dean's apology was accepted, when he was sent on his way, it was not without a scathing sideways glare from the merchant.

Captain Dean's attention to the cargo loading was briefly stolen by the sound of fireworks being set off over the governor's mansion. First Mate Sam walked up behind his brother and peered over his shoulder at the cargo manifest. "Everything about wrapped up? The crew was wanting to hit the pubs in town and celebrate," Sam mentioned.

"Yeah, almost done here. Send the crew out but warn them that anyone getting into trouble with the local authorities here will be left behind to sit in jail until we return," Dean replied. His eyes were still focused on the list before him until a thought suddenly struck him. "Wait, what are they celebrating?" he wondered.

"Word around town is, the governor's daughter, Rhaya, is engaged to be married," Sam answered. "Some rich, pretentious jerk named Ashton Kane, whose family owns a considerable chunk of land around here," he shrugged. "You gonna join us for a drink in the pubs?"

"I suppose I could be persuaded to have a drink or two. Sure, let's go," Dean grinned. "Need to get an early start tomorrow, though, at first light. I have a feeling we're really close to figuring out where 'The Shadow Pirate' hid his treasure," he explained as he and Sam walked towards the nearest pub.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhaya Payton stared out of her bedroom window with her arms crossed over her chest. Her soft pink lips were pressed together in a thin line in an attempt to control her growing anger. Of all the things her stepmother could have done, this, by far, was the worst. Rhaya's head whipped around at the sound of a knock at her door. "Go away, Carissa, I have no interest in speaking with you for the time being," Rhaya snapped. "Or ever again, if I had my way," she muttered under her breath.

Despite the warning, the heavy oak door to Rhaya's room creaked open. Instead of her stepmother, it was her father who poked his head into the room. Rhaya's shoulders sagged in relief, then she ran towards her father's outstretched arms. She threw her arms around his midsection as he enveloped her in his warm embrace. "Shh, everything will be all right, darling," he soothed.

At the gala, her stepmother, Carissa, had just announced Rhaya's engagement to Ashton Kane. He was from one of the older and wealthier families residing in Ochana, one with considerable land assets. Ashton stood next to Rhaya with a smug look on his face, like the cat that ate the canary. At the same time, Rhaya's face showed a look of utter shock. The shock turned to anger as Rhaya spun on her heel and stormed out, headed for the safety of her bedroom.

Rhaya vehemently shook her head against her father's chest, unconvinced that anything would be all right ever again. "She announced my engagement, Papa. Without consulting me," Rhaya scowled. She lifted her tear-stained face to look her father in the eye. "How could she do that? I don't want to marry Ashton, not now, and not ever! He's rude, cocky, self-centered, and he has a quick temper. Not to mention he's arrogant," Rhaya ranted. "You have to tell Carissa that I refuse to be shackled for the rest of my life to that--that--imbecile!"

Darius placed his hands on Rhaya's shoulders to try and calm her down. One hand reached up to cup his daughter's cheek. She resembled her mother so much with her long, wavy, strawberry blond hair and deep chocolate-brown eyes. It was sometimes painful for Darius to be holding his daughter and see so much of his wife. Rhaya's mother had disappeared when Rhaya was only eight years old and was presumed dead.

"Rhaya, I understand your feelings about Ashton. But dearest, I'm not going to be around forever, and I want to make sure you're taken care of when I'm gone. And Ashton, despite your.... well.... misgivings about him, has the means to ensure that you will have a comfortable life," Darius implored.

"Papa, please!" Rhaya exclaimed. "There has to be a way out of this. Will you.... will you please talk to Carissa and see if she'll agree to reconsider and end this unthinkable arrangement?" she begged.

Darius gazed lovingly at his daughter. His hand brushed the hair away from her face, his fingers tucking the stray locks behind her delicate ears. "I'll see what I can do, sweet pea. If Carissa won't end it outright, perhaps she'll agree to an extra-long engagement period," he grinned conspiratorially.

Rhaya fell back into her father's warm and safe embrace. "Thank you, Papa. I know that whatever happens, you will have done your best," she murmured.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In the Governor's study

"How dare she embarrass me like that!" Carissa seethed. "Does Rhaya realize what kind of a fool she made out of me by running out after you proposed to her??" she snapped.

"It certainly didn't do wonders for my reputation either to be rejected like that, especially in public," Ashton retorted, hot on Carissa's heels. "I am considered to be one of, if not, the most eligible bachelors in Ochana," he pointed out.

"Yes, well, regardless of that, your agreement was with me first," Carissa reminded him. "And I will do everything in my power to make sure that Rhaya follows through on this arrangement," she vowed.

"Excellent. I must say, Rhaya is quite the spitfire, though I'm sure that in time, I'll find a way to cure her of that," Ashton smirked. "She will make a lovely hostess for our home," he replied smugly. "However, I can see that my first task will be to tame her wild nature," Ashton added.

"Good luck with that," Carissa muttered. "If you'll excuse me, I have guests to attend to and some damage control to do. I assume you know your way around here and won't need an escort?" she questioned.

"Of course, Lady Carissa," Ashton responded. He bowed as Carissa swept past him in a swish of the full skirt of her ball gown. As soon as she left, Damon Sharpe entered the study and walked over to where his employer was standing.

"Quite the situation you're in, Sir," Damon remarked.

Ashton waved his hand dismissively. "Pay no attention to Lady Carissa's squawking. Marriage to Rhaya is a means to an end. Lord Darius is in possession of a very valuable piece of parchment that will yield untold riches and power for us," he began.

"How exactly does this 'piece of parchment' do that?" Damon asked.

"My sources say it's a map to locate the treasure of Ridley 'The Shadow Pirate' Carlton. I have no idea how Lord Darius came to be in possession of such a valuable item, but I will have it," Ashton growled.

"What's your plan? You certainly can't come out and ask him for it," Damon reasoned.

Damon listened as Ashton explained his plan for obtaining the treasure map after the wedding. He mentioned his plans for securing the treasure, and what he was going to do about his "spirited" wife. Ashton concluded by saying that sometime after he returns from his honeymoon, he would force Lord Darius to resign as Governor.

"Once I have the treasure and I am named the new Governor, then I will rule all of Ochana. At that point, no one will be able to stop me," Ashton vowed, while Damon nodded in agreement. "Shall we return to the party?" he asked. Damon clacked together the heels of his boots, bowed, and strode out the door behind Ashton, then closed the door to the study behind him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Little did Ashton and Damon realize, but Rhaya overheard their entire conversation. She was on her way to confront Carissa for announcing her engagement without prior notice. When Rhaya saw Carissa leaving and Damon taking her place in the study, she decided to eavesdrop. Damon Sharpe was Ashton's most trusted advisor, and if the two of them were together, they had to be up to something.

Rhaya listened in horror as Ashton revealed his plot to Damon, which included her death under the guise of an 'accident at sea'. She knew at that moment that she could not spend one more night in this place because it no longer felt safe. Plus, Rhaya didn't trust Carissa not to try and rush the wedding preparations and force her into an expedited ceremony to Ashton.

Once Ashton and Damon had left the study, Rhaya slipped inside and walked over to her father's desk. She knew about the map that Ashton wanted to steal from her father. Darius had shown it to her many times over the years, as he wove his many tales of pirates and adventures at sea. Until a few moments ago, Rhaya had thought that it was some old prop to illustrate her father's stories. After what she'd just heard, she knew the map was real, and there was no way she was going to let Ashton get his hands on it.

Rhaya moved her father's chair out of the way and ran her hand along the underside of the drawer. Her fingers brushed against the cold metal of the key, and she dislodged it from its hiding place. She slipped the key into the middle left desk drawer and turned it slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Once the lock clicked open, Rhaya carefully slid the drawer open and removed the rolled-up parchment that she recognized as the map. She closed the drawer, locked it, and returned the key to its original place, sliding the chair back under the desk. Rhaya slowly opened the door and when she poked her head out into the hallway, she saw no one in the area. She rushed to the safety of her bedroom and bolted the door, intent on planning her escape.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As soon as Rhaya got to her room, she stashed the rolled-up parchment in one of her trunks for the moment. She had just closed the lid and re-engaged the lock when there was a knock at her door. "Who is it?" she asked quickly.

"It's me, Darcy," she answered through the door. "Is everything all right, my lady? You haven't returned to the party, and your stepmother is becoming concerned."

Rhaya snorted under her breath before responding to her lady's maid. "I am a bit tired, you know, with all of the excitement from her announcement," Rhaya mentioned with a roll of her eyes. "Will you please let Carissa know that I have turned in for the evening?"

"Certainly, my lady. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?" Darcy asked.

Rhaya thought for a moment. "If you could come in and help me out of this gown, I would greatly appreciate it," she requested. Wherever Rhaya was planning on going, there would be no need for such elaborate garments that required assistance to put on and take off. Rhaya opened the door and allowed Darcy to enter the room.

Darcy got to work unfastening the buttons on Rhaya's gown, then moved to unlace the corset underneath. She grabbed Rhaya's nightgown from her closet and handed it to her. Rhaya finished her nighttime routine then slipped her nightgown over her head. Darcy picked up Rhaya's evening gown and hung it in the closet. "Will there be anything else, my lady?" she asked.

Rhaya took a quick glance around the room, then turned to face Darcy, her eyes shimmering in unshed tears. Rhaya was going to miss Darcy, who was more than just a lady's maid, she was Rhaya's friend and closest confidante. She only wished she could tell Darcy of her plans to leave Ochana. "No thank you, that will be all for this evening, Darcy," she murmured.

"You're welcome, my lady," Darcy replied, then paused halfway to the door. "Are you sure you're all right, Rhaya?" she wondered softly. At seeing the first tear rolling down Rhaya's cheek, Darcy rushed to her side and gathered Rhaya in her embrace. "Shh, 'twill be all right, sweetheart," she soothed as she rubbed circles on Rhaya's back. "I'll let Lady Carissa know that you have turned in for the evening and you are not to be disturbed," Darcy affirmed.

"Thank you so much, Darcy. For everything," she whispered. The two women stepped back from their embrace, with Rhaya wiping the tears from her eyes. Darcy gave Rhaya's hands a quick squeeze and then pecked her cheek before walking out, closing the door softly behind her.

As soon as Darcy was out of the room, Rhaya changed out of her nightgown and into a pair of trousers. She pulled on a white button-down shirt, then slipped her arms through the straps of a black leather, front-lacing corset. Rhaya grabbed a canvas bag from under her bed and hurriedly stuffed it with more clothes. In a smaller bag, she placed her toiletries, along with her comb, toothbrush, and hairbrush.

Rhaya stood in front of the mirror and gazed at her long hair, wondering if she should cut it now or stuff it under a hat. She decided to leave it as is for the moment, but quickly wove it into a braid. Rhaya thought it best to keep her options open regarding her hair in case she needed to change her appearance to escape detection.

After carefully placing the map in her bag, Rhaya secured the straps to close it, then took a longing look around her room. She hated the idea of leaving her father behind to deal with such vultures as Carissa and Ashton on his own. However, the fate that Ashton planned for Rhaya was far worse than her father having to put up with anyone's scheming ways. Once the treasure was found, Rhaya fully planned on returning to Ochana and banishing Carissa and Ashton from it. Forever. With her bag slung over her shoulder, Rhaya slipped out of her room and into the secret passageway that would lead down to the docks.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

While Sam was at the counter getting their drinks, Dean took the time to scan the pub for his crew members. For the most part, they all looked to be having a good time, generally behaving themselves. A few were sharing stories of past exploits, a couple of them each had a lady in his lap, no doubt bragging about something. They were a good group of men, hard workers that Dean was proud to serve with and have as part of his crew.

Sam returned to the table with two tankards of ale in his hand and a bowl of peanuts. "Here's to Ochana and the governor's daughter's engagement," Sam remarked.

Dean held up his drink in salute to Rhaya's engagement and took a healthy gulp of his ale. Tomorrow, he would resume the search for The Shadow Pirate's treasure, and he couldn't help but feel he was closing in on it. It was a quest he'd inherited from his father and former captain, John Winchester, one he was determined to see through to the end.

Sam didn't exactly agree with Dean's decision to continue the crusade their father had started, but he supported his captain. Sam wanted to get home to the wife he had waiting for him in Alcaria, who was pregnant with their first child. The happiness Sam felt at just thinking about his wife and unborn child was something he wanted for his brother. Unfortunately, there was yet to be a woman found who could understand and appreciate Dean's temperament and thirst for adventure.

"Dean, how long are you going to keep after this treasure? I mean, Dad crisscrossed the oceans for over twenty years, and still never found it. After Mom passed, he had the chance to settle down with that woman, Ellen, and happily live out the rest of his days with her. But no, he left her to go back out after the treasure, and she married someone else. Is that what you want? You still have time to find someone and the chance to have a family," Sam pointed out.

"C'mon, Sammy, you and I both know that I'm not cut out for a life like that. You are, and that's so great, but I'm not. Whoever I choose to settle down with will have to understand that I belong on the water, whether in this boat or any other. I have yet to meet a woman who can put up with me long enough to march my ass down the aisle," Dean remarked. "I'm beginning to think she doesn't exist," he muttered.

Sam rolled his eyes, still of the belief that there was someone for everyone in the universe. It just sometimes it takes a little longer to find them, but they're out there. "You never know, Dean. Your soulmate may appear when you least expect it," Sam replied with a mischievous grin on his face.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhaya crouched behind a tree near the docks, scanning the area for ships with no crew visible. Three ships were currently in port, one appropriately named The Dark Soul, which belonged to Ashton. There was also The Moon Raider, helmed by a visiting merchant, then a third ship. "Hmm, The Black Diamond," she read aloud after leaving her hiding place to stare up at the ship. She'd heard of the ship's captain, Dean Winchester, and that he was a fair and well-respected man. Realizing she might not have much time, Rhaya climbed aboard the ship with her bag and started looking for a place to hide.

She decided her best option was to hide in one of the lifeboats. Rhaya lifted the canvas cover and threw her gear into the small craft, then climbed in herself. She pulled out a blanket from her bag, then positioned the bag to use it as a pillow and curled up on the bottom of the boat. Rhaya drew the blanket around her shoulders and tucked it under her feet, then breathed a sigh of relief.

Rhaya thought about the events that led to her becoming a stowaway on The Black Diamond. Her day started with an unwelcome marriage proposal and ended with an escape from her home. She stared up at the canvas roof over her head, wondering what her father would say when her disappearance was discovered in the morning. She prayed he will understand and that he will remain safe while she's gone. By the time she doesn't show up for breakfast, Rhaya will already be at sea, far and away from her scheming stepmother and jackass fiancé.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As he had planned, Captain Dean was on deck at first light, calling out orders to his crew to begin the process of leaving port. Men scrambled around making sure everything was in place for them to begin their voyage. Heavy ropes that tethered the ship to the dock were unfastened and thrown into the water, then pulled up and stored onboard. Finally, the anchor was brought aboard, and The Black Diamond was launched back out to sea.

Captain Dean stood near the rail, one foot on top of a wooden crate as he gazed out over the open water. He took a deep breath of the salty sea air and exhaled with a smile. Captain Dean was never more at home than when he was on the ocean with his brother and their crew. He'd spent most of his life on a ship, chasing after the treasure of Ridley "The Shadow Pirate" Carlton.

"Smell that fresh air, Sammy," Captain Dean grinned. "Today's going to be a good day, I think. Clear skies, plenty of wind in our sails, calm seas.... can't get much better than that, I reckon," he mused.

"CAPTAIN DEAN!!" someone yelled from across the ship.

Sam gave his brother an amused sideways glance. "You were saying, Dean?" He watched as Dean started walking towards the shouting crewmember.

Dean turned around and pinned his brother to the rail with a glare. "Shut up, Sam," he muttered.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rhaya had been sleeping soundly in the bottom of the lifeboat, completely tuning out the noise that is usually present when a ship leaves port. Her warm blanket around her and the rocking of the ship as it bobbed up and down on the waves kept her from waking up. At least that was true until she heard a couple of crew members talking just outside of her makeshift bunk.

The men were talking about the events that occurred on their last night in port at Ochana. They competed with each other over how many pints of ale they drank, and how many ladies they danced with. There were even a few comments about her upcoming nuptials, and how nice it was, because it gave them all the more reason to drink. Rhaya rolled her eyes at that comment, thinking sarcastically how glad she was to have provided them an opportunity to get drunk.

Rhaya was so caught up in her own thoughts that she missed the sound of a match being struck by one of the men to light his pipe. It took a few seconds for the smoke to appear, but when it did, it seemed to head straight for Rhaya's hiding place. Her father used to have a pipe, but he'd had to give it up, because whenever she caught the smallest whiff of smoke, she sneezed. Rhaya knew that with one sneeze, her cover would be blown, and she would be discovered.

Unfortunately, luck was not on Rhaya's side, and the smoke slipped under the canvas. Rhaya felt her nose twitching, and the more she tried not to sneeze, the more her eyes watered with the effort. Finally, she could hold it in no longer, and she let loose with a set of three successive sneezes. All of a sudden, the canvas was ripped off the lifeboat and two burly-looking men were peering down at her over the edge of the boat.

"CAPTAIN DEAN!!"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dean strode over to where the two men stood by the lifeboat, trying to imagine what could be so important as to yell for him across the ship. "Gabriel, Balthazar, what seems to be the problem over here?" Dean asked, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

"We have a stowaway, Cap'n Dean," Balthazar announced.

"A right pretty one, too," Gabriel added, waggling his eyebrows.

"What are you two idjits talking about?" Dean muttered, marching over to his men. A young woman cowering in the bottom of his lifeboat was the last thing he expected when he peered over the edge. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Get her out of there and bring her to my quarters," he commanded.

"Your quarters, Captain? Are ya sure, because if not, I'd be willing to share my quarters with her. You know, a simple case of ‘finders, keepers’," Gabriel smirked.

Dean did an about-face and was quickly nose-to-nose with Gabriel. "I'm the captain, she's a stowaway on my boat. I'm going to get some answers, and after that, I'll decide what happens to her. Is that clear?" Dean responded in an eerily calm voice.

"Crystal, Captain," Gabriel replied.

Dean turned back to resume his path to his quarters, where he was determined to get to the bottom of this matter. He wanted to know who she was and what the hell she was doing on his ship. Although, he had to admit, he had no idea yet what he was going to do with her. S'pose it depends on what she tells me, he thought. He figured whatever it was, it had to be pretty serious for her to risk her life stowing away on his ship. Beautiful woman like that, no telling what she was running away from, he mused.

By this time, Sam and Bobby had been brought up to speed on the situation. They arrived just in time to see Balthazar assisting Rhaya in climbing out of the boat. Once she was out and standing on the deck, Gabriel took one arm, while Balthazar took the other. Another crew member, Jack, picked up her bag, and they all headed for Captain Dean's quarters.

"Wait a minute, where are you taking her?" Bobby called as they walked past him.

"Captain's orders, he wants to talk with her in his quarters," Gabriel answered over his shoulder.

"Bobby, what's going on? Do you know her?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I think I do, and if she is who I think she is, things just got a whole lot more complicated around here," Bobby grumbled.

Part 2 here!

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