#azazel!john and demon!dean...many a thought...

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

1.22, "Devil's Trap" | 10.3, "Soul Survivor" | W.B. Yeats, "Purgatory"

[musclesandhammering]

Spn Opinions That’ll Have Me Burned at the Stake Pt. 2: Electric Boogaloo

I’m back and bitchier than ever. For reference, here’s part 1.

• Season 5 wasn’t that great.

• D*stiel isn’t real, it’s a sucky ship, and that confession scene was just the writers pandering to the rabid deancas fans cause they knew they were the only ones still watching the show lol. And they left it ambiguous enough that they could still say it was meant platonically if they needed to.

• I hate how they watered down both angels and demons post-season 5ish.

• I liked Ruby 1.0 better than Ruby 2.0.

• I hate Honey!Cas. They just did that cause they didn’t know where to take his story from there, needed him out of the way, and thought it would be funny. It was insulting.

• Jack should’ve been played by an actual child so everyone’s abuse of him would resonate with the audience for what it was (casual fans are brain dead and need to be spoon fed).

• Victor Henrikson deserved more time on the show.

• I said it in the last post, but Alex is way more interesting than Claire and should’ve been given the lead role in the wayward sisters storyline instead.

• Dean is canonically straight and for Christ sake if you guys wanted bi rep, there’s about a thousand other characters that are strongly coded or implied to be bisexual (including Sam!) but y’all didn’t focus on them because it wasn’t actually about representation, it was about making it more plausible for your dumb fetishised gay ship to actually happen (spoiler: it didn’t).

• Season 3 and Season 6 were some of the best ones, you guys just don’t have any taste.

• Claire is not Castiel’s daughter and saying she is erases Jimmy and insults her, and even Cas himself acknowledged that on the show.

• Castiel is canonically NOT gay and Misha constantly saying he is is annoying and airheaded. He’s been attracted to women IN THE SHOW and he’s not even really male, so calling him a Gay Man is reductive and just plain wrong. Also, it’s veeery sus that- given how bi/pan folks are even more underrepresented than gay people- that one of the rare times where the bi/pan label actually fits a character BETTER in CANON……. the allies and monosexuals adamantly reject it. Hm.

• “Curing” vampires or werewolves or demons shouldn’t have been a thing.

• The Winchesters cause most of the bad shit that happens and then they just force supernatural beings to fix it for them- tell me again how they’re Super Special Heroes.

• It shouldn’t be possible to make angels human by removing their grace, because (unlike demons, werewolves, etc) they were never human to start with. If you drained me of all my blood, I wouldn’t magically transform into another species, I’d fucking die.

• Making Billie go crazy was dumb.

• Rowena was one of the most interesting and charismatic characters on the whole show- they just didn’t know what to do with her character.

• The archangels, Lilith, and Azazel should’ve been the biggest threats on the show. No other knights of hell, no god and his sister, no Cain, nothing like that. Having every villain just get progressively more overpowered made the show unbelievable and repetitive and annoying.

• The kernel sanders king of hell guy was hot.

• Dean is misogynistic as HELL, homophobic, likes racist porn, is a narcissist, pervs on teen girls, & thinks all non-human people should be exterminated… and that is all CANON.

• Most of John Winchester’s abuse is fanon.

• Fans portraying Cas as a smol bby who colours in colouring books and has a bee plushie is so fucking annoying.

• Instead of having so many gigantic cosmic storylines with god and his sister and alternate dimensions and even the angel and demon tablets, they should’ve just scrapped those and made the stein family and the bmol and the alpha vampire storylines way bigger than they were. Less cosmic stuff, more earth-based stuff.

• They ruined Lucifer’s character post-season 5. Before that, he was more sympathetic and reasonable than Michael. After, he was a spoiled child hurting people for fun.

• Everything from season 7 on is garbage. All of it. There’s bits of goodness here and there but overall seasons 7-15 are trash.

• How the fuck are there actual people who are deangirls and hate Sam?? The space where your brain should be is empty, I swear to god.

• If there was gonna be any lgbt rep in the Wayward Sisters group, it should’ve been Jody and Donna instead of Claire and Kaia. Those two were boring as hell and had zero chemistry or build-up, but Jody/Donna had plenty of chemistry and was very believable.

• Meg has the best and most realistic redemption arc of anyone on the show.

• Chuck was not likeable or charismatic enough to carry off as big of a villain arc as they gave him. Also that whole thing was stupid and WAY too Out There.

• All the angels should’ve been aroace. All the demons should’ve been pan.

• I stanned Cole so hard up until he changed his mind about hating Dean. That was disappointing.

• Sam went through the same shitty childhood Dean did (plus Bonus Abuse on top of it) and he didn’t turn out Like That.

• I cannot think of a single person that was asking for a spin-off about the Winchester family, like that has to be the most boring thing.

[millionsghosts]

thinking about the comparisons of Sam to John and the revenge shit is what really gets me because like. John raised his kids as hunters because he lost himself in his grief over Mary dying and obsession with revenge. Sam almost lost himself to it too at the end of season 1 (he would have if he shot John), but he stops himself because his alive family is more important to him than revenge for Jessica (the big difference between him and john!).

In contrast, when Dean dies in season 3 Sam doesn't have anything left but the revenge. His brother is dead and there's nothing he can do. That's when he loses himself and lets the want to kill Lilith take over. The powerlessness he felt when Dean was going to hell and confirmation that he could do nothing was what Ruby needed to get him hooked on that demon blood, too. This is similar to how John became hooked on hunting Azazel, but is also a more literal addiction (demon blood addiction as a metaphor for Sam's revenge quest, anyone?). Just like in season 1, Sam is paralleling his father here.

However! I believe it's at least a little bit of an unfair comparison to make. Sam's circumstances were a lot worse than John's with Ruby spurring him on (and the actual addiction to the blood). Plus, he didn't have a responsibility to his family like John did until after Dean got back. When that happened he did continue what he was doing, but at that point he was already hooked on demon blood/in too deep with Ruby anyways. He was also convinced he was already unclean! At most he thought he could use it to kill Lilith, right?

Also, Sam's obsession was much further along than John's when the opportunity came to put revenge over family (since Dean had once again. Been dead.). I'm not saying he didn't fuck it up, he 100% did! He betrayed Dean's trust and made a HUGE error in judgement, no matter how sympathetic I am towards him

(Not denying this is a Sam defense post! But I also have enough media literacy to understand that even when I love and am defending a character, that doesn't mean they did nothing wrong. I'm saying Sam is a better person than John was, not that)

Anyways, this betrayal still isn't comparable to John, who started out with two very young children to take care of from the beginning! He doesn't have the excuse of his obsession developing or getting in too deep while his family wasn't around like Sam does. Also, for all the shit Sam's addiction causes, he at least doesn't force Dean into it. This is as opposed to John, who raised his kids to be hunters too!

Anyways Sam, when in his right mind (not an addict being manipulated!), knows to choose his family over the revenge. When he doesn't, it's because he's a victim of severe, completely different circumstances. John Winchester left his normal life for the sake of revenge while he had two kids in the backseat. For all the similarities between John and Sam, despite the many many parallels and connections of their stories, that's the big, important difference between them. That's what matters

[scoobydoodean]

Oh boy oh boy… so many thoughts on this. Some of which I’ve already talked about… a few things though:

Sam is happy to call Dean a hypocrite, and that’s a very normal, “signs point here” every 1/2 mile reading of season 2 if you’re on a rewatch and hear Dean say “What’s dead should stay dead” in 2.04 and 2.08 knowing he’s going to make a demon deal to bring Sam back in 2.22, and then if that isn’t enough for you to catch on, Azazel and Bobby make this reading very plain in 2.22. The person whose own hypocrisy is allowed to fly under the radar (as usual) is Sam. Sam who was happy to tell Dean more than once this season that Dean was morally/duty-bound to execute his little brother “because dad said so” and “you promised me when I guilted you into trying to console me with lies while I was drunk”. Sam who never spent a single millisecond the whole season thinking about the darkness he was asking Dean to immerse himself in by regurgitating John’s order for Dean to be responsible for the entire course of Sam’s life and off his own brother if needed. It’s even reasonable to conclude the reason Dean came back “twisted and broken”, was only partly because of how he was brought back. It was also (arguably more-so—based on context from Croatoan) the weight of the words “save Sam or kill him”, that ripped Dean apart from the inside out, made him tired and terrified and ready to die in a jarring turn right after the high of 2.01 where he was desperate to live and was an active participant in coordinating with Sam to save himself—we’re a far far cry from that now in 3.01 but Sam doesn’t actually consider why despite “I'm tired, Sam. I'm tired of this job, this life . . . this weight on my shoulders, man. I'm tired of it” blinking like a neon sign in 2.09 just hours before Dean finally told Sam what John asked of him as a dying wish.

As an aside, this squabble started with Sam wanting to take Dean to a hoodoo priest—another faith healing, just like the one that took someone’s life from them in 1.12 in exchange for Dean’s health—the first moment where Dean feels “I’m not supposed to be here and because I am someone else isn’t” and is left to carry that around—a major catalyst for Dean’s actions in 2.22.

[incesthemes]

houses of the holy makes me totally crazy so here have more thoughts on this episode. when dean suggests a seance to confirm whether the angel is real or not, he says this:

it feels startlingly similar to gordon's words way back in 2x03:

this strikes me as thematically odd because by the time houses of the holy comes around, dean has seemingly denied his father (represented by gordon) and refused his fate (also represented by gordon) in favor of his complete devotion to sam. since croatoan, dean has been working on sam's behalf and only sam's behalf; everything else is unimportant to him now. he made his decision, and his decision was sam.

but for him to be echoing gordon's words would indicate quite the opposite. to me it sounds like he's internalized gordon's mindset and even if he's not conscious of it, he is walking in the footsteps of his fate through gordon's influence. gorden is an allegory of dean's fate: if dean is mirroring him in any way, that should set off alarms. it means he's not as directly opposed to destiny as he claims to be.

(a side note: this actually fits very well with sam's character arc throughout the season, because he's doing the same thing. he claims he's chosen dean and refused his fate (or is trying to at least), but he is also the one who keeps pursuing it by chasing after john (a symbol for their fate) and continuing to hunt (which is what azazel wants him to do). he thinks he is opposing fate while dancing right in the palm of azazel's hand. so, cool parallel here.)

this line also pops up in the midst of a pretty wide ideological gap between them—they're opposed on the grounds of faith and the very existence of a god, and this conflict drives the story forward. interesting then that a line that is so similar to what gordon told dean is nestled so neatly within this conflict—it seems to prove the point that whenever sam and dean are in conflict, whenever they're not choosing each other, they are inevitably choosing their destinies. they can't fight because it will drive them apart and the only other direction they can go other than toward their brother is toward their fate.

but what dean is doing with this line, functionally, is making an attempt to comfort sam.

don't you want to know for sure? dean isn't saying that sam is wrong anymore; he's giving a concession by way of offering a solution to their conflict. he's offering sam something real, whatever that reality may turn out to be, and he's letting sam be the one who decides whether he wants to cling to faith or know what's really going on. this gets through to sam, and they go through with the seance.

and sam does see that dean was right. at the end of the episode, he adopts dean's pessimistic view of god and admits he was wrong. there's a slight theme here, too: when sam's worldview is shaken and he is given evidence that he can go dark side, he assimilates to dean's worldview.

this happens in season 1, also. dean is the one who originally asserts the idea of "saving people" as part of their job. dean is the one who looks for hunts and advocates for saving as many people as they can, even while sam is rather content to leave people to die to the monsters they know are out there (the most illustrative examples of this being 1x01, 1x02, and 1x11). this only changes after 1x14, when sam is shown a mirror version of himself in max and has to confront the reality that he might be going down the path to evil. the demon wants something from him, and from max, and now he can't ignore it anymore. and for the next several episodes, it's suddenly sam who is seeking out hunts, sam who is trying to save people, even when dean is reluctant to take a case.

what happened here? it's a sudden and stark change, and it's reminiscent of what dean told sam back in wendigo; it's reminiscent of how dean carries himself. sam is, perhaps, modeling himself after dean—he sees dean as someone to look up to, as someone who is worthy where he is not, as someone good where he is not. to sam, if he can become more like dean, he can be saved. he can avoid the fate that fell upon max.

and so we see this again in 2x13: sam has been presented with evidence that there is no god, that no one is going to save him, that he's damned and forsaken. and he copes with this by admitting he was wrong and immediately adopting dean's ideology as his own.

dean is good, dean is right, and if sam can just be a little bit more like his brother, he can avoid the horrific fate lying in wait for him.

and he all but confirms this pattern in 3x07, too:

but herein lies a danger, which brings me back to my original point. if dean's line here parallels gordon, if dean is voicing the echo of a man who embodies his fate, then what does this mean for sam? if sam is so quick to change his beliefs and behaviors based on his admiration for dean, that puts dean in a difficult and tenuous situation. because now, at a time when dean is supposed to be solidly dragging sam away from his doom, he's backsliding toward his own—and he's taking sam with him.

y'know, like:

[aylacavebear]

She Thought She was Normal

Story Summary: Maria really thought she was normal, for most of her life. It was normal for people to have natural talent, she would tell herself the older she got. Many things came easy for her, and that was probably how their rivalry began when she was five and he was seven and she met the Winchesters. Little did either of them know that it wouldn't stay like that forever, both having a far larger destiny than they could imagine

Word Count: 3902

Please don't take my work. I'll post warnings for each chapter. Will eventually be 18+!

Warnings: Mention of Sex, some angst, And the slow burn begins.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 14

Bobby had packed up quicker than what the original plan was and showed up at the bunker two days later. Maria and Jess helped him bring everything in. God her uncle had a lot of books and none of the boxes were light.

He picked a room not too far down the hall from Maria’s and that was where a third of his boxes were taken. That would at least allow him to go through them and figure out what he wanted to do with them all. The other two-thirds of his boxes were stacked neatly in the library.

“Boys not back yet?” Bobby asked once all his stuff was inside.

“They should be here tomorrow,” Jess told him when Maria joined them in the library.

“Have you heard from John yet?” he asked Maria.

She sighed and shook her head, “No, and neither have the boys, at least not as of their call yesterday.”

He sighed and looked around the library, “I left him a message too. That man is stubborn as hell.”

“Well, no one gave him any real details so he couldn’t just run off on his own,” Maria told him.

“He’ll show up, eventually,” Bobby replied with a chuckle.

“Oh, we’re all getting tattoos and no one is arguing with me on this one,” Maria told the two of them.

“Excuse me?” Bobby retorted, not liking being told he was getting a tattoo, even from his niece.

“I came across it in one of the books on demons,” she began as she moved the books around on the table, looking for one in specific, “It’s an anti-possession sigil, and we all need one.”

It took her a moment to not only find the book but also the page the information was on, then showed it to her uncle as Jess looked over his shoulder, “So yeah, tattoos,” Maria said proudly, not giving them a chance to argue.

Bobby groaned as he read the information. The girl was good at finding things, although he wasn’t keen on the idea of a tattoo. Jess thought that the tattoo idea could be fun, and it was a nice image. It could have looked a lot worse and she knew it, as she’d read a lot in the last couple of days.

“You told the boys yet?” Bobby asked after handing the book back to her.

“Nope,” she replied, popping the ‘p’, “Figured I’d surprise ‘em.” she finished with a smirk.

That had at least made Bobby smile as he imagined their faces, “Have you found a way to deal with Azazel?” he finally asked them.

Maria frowned, as did Jess, “No, not yet, but now that you’re here, another set of eyes to help is always a good thing,” she ended with a small smile, not wanting to sound hopeful.

The three of them read through books and files before Maria got up around four to go make dinner, needing to give her eyes a rest but too ansty to sit down anywhere. Her mind was also too full to focus on anything else. She was still trying to figure out how to approach Dean when he got back, as she never forgot the bet between her and Jess. 

She made a simple dinner, burgers, and fries, and even cleaned up afterward. She felt burnt out on research and needed a change of scenery but hadn’t felt the desire to go anywhere either. So, after dinner, she just bid them good night and went to her room. Maria plopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. It wasn’t long before a light blue and white glow from her top dresser drawer caught her attention.

“I don’t want more dreams,” she groaned as she covered her eyes with her arm.

The light from the book pulsed and she groaned again, like a child putting off a chore before she finally got up and opened the drawer, “Fine. I guess I can’t put it off much longer,” she sighed as she pulled the book out of its box.

The glow went away when she touched it. With everything that had been going on, she hadn’t wanted to add more to her plate but apparently, the book had other ideas. So now she was leaning against her headboard, rereading the chapter on Zamariel, for the fourth time. She had read it three times when she’d first discovered the book back at her Uncle’s, fourteen years ago. That thought made her pause and look up. Had it really been that long already, she thought to herself and shook her head a bit.

She still wasn’t aware the book was written in Enochian. It just looked like normal words to her. Maria read long into the night, far more information than she could absorb in one sitting or one read-through. Around midnight she finally put the book down on her night table before rubbing her eyes.

“Damn,” she sighed as she looked at her clock, twelve thirteen, “Guess time flies when you’re into something.”

When she clicked off her lamp and curled up in bed, she prayed that the dreams wouldn’t come, even though she knew they would. She already felt so overwhelmed with everything else that was going on, she thought that perhaps this would push her back toward whiskey if it was too much, feeling as though she was at a breaking point with her waking world. She even fought sleep for almost another hour before it overtook her.

She was at that lakeshore again with the forest around it and the snow-tipped mountains in the distance. There was a slight amount of cloud cover but it only added to the beauty.  “Are you ready?” a female voice from behind her asked. Maria turned around, more curious than anything. No one had spoken directly to her in her dreams before, “Ready for what?” she asked, taking in the woman’s appearance. Long, dark brown hair, brown eyes, and an average physique, and she was a few inches shorter than Maria, dressed in similar clothes. “Ready to take the next step in unlocking your potential,” the woman told her, in a fairly level tone. She wasn’t quite sure what to think of this and had more questions now, “What if I said I wasn’t?” Maria asked, carefully. “Then things will continue as they have been and you won’t remember this dream,” the woman explained plainly. Maria turned away from the woman and sat down on one of the large rocks near the lakeshore, thinking, “What if I said I was ready but wanted to go slowly?” she asked. The woman moved over, closer to her, “Then it would go slowly, at your own pace. The learning would take place at night, in your dreams instead of in your waking world. So it really is up to you,” the woman said calmly. “Why do I feel like somehow the weight of the world rests on my shoulders?” Maria practically mumbled. “I’m surprised you don’t have more questions,” the woman said. “I have a ton of questions. I just don’t know if I want the answers,” she replied, sighing. Maria felt like she sat on that rock and thought about everything for hours but the time of day never changed, “Can you give me a week, to really think about this?” she finally asked. “Yes. Just read the book again when you are ready and I’ll be here,” the woman told her.

She woke up sighing, lying on her back, “I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” she whispered into the darkness of her room before she glanced at the clock, “Six thirty,” she chuckled without humor.

Maria climbed out of bed and got dressed. She wasn’t feeling in the mood to deal with anyone but she wanted coffee, so headed out to the war room, glancing in the library before making her way into the kitchen. Bobby and Jess were sitting at the kitchen table.

“Mornin’ kiddo,” Bobby told her, sipping his coffee.

“Morning guys,” she replied, sounding distant.

“You sleep okay?” he asked, a little concerned.

“I guess it could have been worse,” she chuckled without humor.

“Wanna talk about it?” Jess asked her.

“Not really. Not right now at least,” she replied, giving them both a soft smile before she sat down with them, “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“Journalling might help,” Jess suggested.

Maria thought about that while she sipped her coffee. When it came to certain cases it did help to sometimes write out the patterns to make it easier to figure out, “Thanks Jess. I might just give that a shot,” she finally told her, smiling a little.

Jess felt good that she was able to suggest something that might be able to help her. The three had idle chit-chat for another hour before Maria headed to her room, wondering if she had anything that might resemble a pad of paper she could use as a journal. She wasn’t ready to talk to her Uncle about it either, even if her father had said he knew. Bobby and Jess had gone back to research, mostly waiting for the boys to show up with Sam and Jess’s stuff.

She found a pad of paper in the desk drawer, thinking she must have put it there the night when she had unpacked her things. Once she grabbed it and a pen, she sat down on her bed, leaning against the headboard. Her knees were up and the pad was leaning against her legs, but every time she went to write something, it was like her mind went completely blank and it was annoying the hell out of her. 

Hours passed and she still hadn’t written anything. It was like all her thoughts kept jumbling around in her mind, or at least that was what she was telling herself. She hadn’t even heard the guys come in, nor the sounds of them moving things down the hall to the room Jess and Sam had picked. It wasn’t until Dean opened her door and stuck his head in that she found out.

“You gonna help or just sit in here and let us do all the work,” he asked her, in a teasing way, with that damned smirk again.

“What happened to knocking?” she told him through her annoyance as she glared at him.

“Uh, forgot,” he said quickly, just smiling.

“Sure ya did,” she mumbled before she got up to help, pushing him out of the way.

“Rude,” he told her, rubbing his chest a little where she had pushed against him with her hand, using most of her body weight.

“At least I didn’t hit you,” she told him without looking over her shoulder as she walked toward the garage.

Apparently, they’d gotten a small U-Haul for the things they had wanted to keep since the space in the Impala was limited. Sam and Jess had talked a lot about what they wanted to keep and what wasn’t important to either of them. Now, everything they owned lay inside that U-Haul. Maria hugged Sam when she saw him, which instantly annoyed Dean, as she had shoved him. Then she helped them unload everything, taking most of it to their room. The two of them even had a mostly private bathroom with as far back a room as they had picked. This way Jess would have somewhere to keep her makeup and all that girly stuff Maria wasn’t interested in, nor would she have to even look at it.

They all ate after the U-Haul was unpacked. As they were sitting around the table, Maria spoke up, “So, everyone is getting a tattoo as soon as John gets here,” she said nonchalantly, but seriously.

Dean almost choked on his beer, which made Maria chuckle a little, even if she didn’t look over at him, “Excuse me?” he asked in utter disbelief.

“It’s an anti-possession tattoo, and everyone, including Uncle Bobby and John, are getting one,” she said confidently.

“Don’t try to argue with her boy, she showed me what it does. She knows her shit and this will keep all of us safe,” Bobby pipped in, backing her up.

“I already decided where I’m getting mine,” Jess said, giving Sam a very flirtatious look.

“Oh yeah?” Sam asked her, raising an eyebrow and smirking, “Where’s that?”

Jess leaned over and whispered something in Sam’s ear, which made him blush, deeply. Maria chuckled as she looked back down at her plate and Dean smirked, but he was looking at Maria, again putting on that cool guy front. There was a little more laughter before Bobby headed out and back to the library. They were still trying to figure out how to kill Azazel after all. 

“Come on, I’ll show you the sigil,” Jess told Sam as she got up and took his hand, attempting to get him to follow her. She also gave Maria a knowing look, which only made her roll her eyes.

Sam got up, smiling from ear to ear as he let her lead him into the library. Maria sighed and started cleaning up. She still hadn’t figured out how to ask Dean if he was interested in her without being blunt about it. Dean leaned back in his chair and just watched her move around the kitchen for a while.

“So, are you interested in me or something?” she finally just asked him as she washed the dishes.

Dean’s face went from smiling to shock before back to that cool guy facade again, “You’re hot, why wouldn’t I be,” he said cockily, with a smirk.

She wasn’t sure why but his words didn’t make her feel better, and in fact, only saddened her, “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not interested,” she told him, almost coldly.

He was glad she wasn’t looking at him as his jaw clenched before he left the kitchen, both hurt and feeling rejected. He had been trying to compliment her, not realizing that was probably the worst way to tell her he liked her. Dean didn’t say anything to the three in the library, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and finding a room much further away than hers to go drink alone.

Maria leaned on the counter in the kitchen once he left, feeling hurt that all he seemed to want or be interested in was her looks. She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around quickly, only to find Jess standing there.

Jess saw the hurt in her eyes, “What happened?” she asked.

“Looks like you’ve got chores for the next week,” Maria said quietly, not even able to manage a smile.

“Wait? What happened?” she asked again, not fully understanding.

“I asked him and he’s interested all right, in my looks, not me. So, guess we were both right. I’ll split the chores with you or we can just call off the bet,” Maria told her, feeling a pull toward drinking again.

Jess felt bad for even having brought it up now. She had been sure she’d caught Dean daydreaming about her, at least that had been the look on his face. It didn’t seem to be that of a guy only interested in sex. She’d been around enough college guys to tell the difference. Jess grabbed a beer for her out of the fridge and popped the top before she handed it to her.

“We can call it off, the bet. I’m really sorry I was wrong,” Jess told her softly before heading back into the library, not giving her a chance to reply.

For a moment Maria just stared at the beer Jess had handed to her before she set it on the counter, knowing there was no real relief at the bottom of that bottle. She sighed before she went back to the dishes, deciding to deal with her emotions later, when she was alone. Maria wasn’t in a hurry as she took care of the dishes and then cleaned up the rest of the kitchen. No one came to bother her though. She even dumped the beer down the drain before she threw away the empty bottle. She headed straight to her room though, not wanting to be around anyone.

Since she’d gone through her detox and her grief at Sam and Jess’s at the beginning of the year, she felt things again. These were things that had started when she was fourteen and Dean had told her that she was acting like Sam, things she’d buried back with her grief. Now though, those emotions were coursing through her again and she wasn’t entirely sure what they were or how to fully deal with them.

“Somebody want to tell me what the hell just happened?” Bobby asked Sam and Jess, keeping his voice quiet, but needing information.

Jess sighed as she looked over at him, “I was so sure that Dean actually liked her that we made a bet. Well, I was wrong. He just likes her for her looks,” she replied, still feeling bad.

“What was said, exactly?” Sam asked, curious more than anything, as he had thought the same thing.

“She said that Dean said he was interested in her looks,” Jess answered, looking up at him.

Sam furrowed his brow, as that hadn’t helped at all, “Maybe I should go talk to him.”

Bobby was wondering what exactly had been said as well. He remembered the looks that not only he saw, but that John and William had seen when Dean was sixteen. He also knew that sometimes those kinds of crushes died over time so decided that he’d keep his eye on Dean, feeling protective of his niece.

Dean had been sitting in that room for at least a half hour at this point, drinking and thinking, two bad combinations for him when he felt the way he did. He still couldn’t figure out what he’d done or said wrong. In the past, he always had lots of luck with the ladies. He was smooth, charming, and could make women melt with that smirk of his. But Maria was a completely different sort of girl. He had known this but all women liked compliments, didn’t they? Something Dean wasn’t so good at was words outside of compliments on physical beauty. He had no idea how to tell Maria that he thought she was funny, confident, an amazing hunter, sweet, could cook like a chef, and had had his heart since he was sixteen when he’d seen her that Thanksgiving morning when she pulled the pies out of the oven.

“Dude, you awake?” he heard from the other side of the door.

How Sam had figured out which room he was in puzzled him, “Yeah, go away,” Dean told him.

“Dean…” Sam said, a concern in his tone.

“I said go away,” Dean repeated, a bit more sternly, not wanting to deal with his brother, again. He’d had enough of it on the drive to Cali and back and didn’t want to hear another word.

Sam stood out there for a moment, debating pushing the topic before he finally opened the door and went inside, “What happened?” he asked, closing the door behind him.

“Well, I was right and you were wrong, let’s leave it at that,” Dean said, not looking up at his brother before he took another drink of the whiskey.

“What’d you say to her?” Sam asked, concerned, but still gentle.

“I told her that I was interested 'cause she was hot,” Dean found himself just blurting out.

Sam closed his eyes and turned his head toward the ceiling, letting out a small breath, it all made sense, “You really are clueless, aren’t you,” he chuckled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked, almost glaring at his brother.

Sam was doing his best not to laugh at his brother when he looked back over at him, “She’s not some waitress at a bar or some chick you’re picking up for a one-night stand. When was the last time you ever saw her give two shits about her looks? She’s a hunter Dean.”

Dean just rolled his eyes and Sam shook his head before he left his brother to his thoughts and whiskey. When Sam sat down in the chair next to Jess, she and Bobby looked over at him, curious, “What happened?” she asked.

“Let’s just say, Dean’s an idiot.” Sam chuckled.

“Well, I could have told you that,” Bobby almost scoffed.

“He likes her, he just has no clue how to tell her. Those two are gonna have to figure it out on their own,” Sam explained, “They’re both stubborn.”

Bobby knew that firsthand, Maria was his niece after all, and Dean was like a son to him. Jess also understood how that worked. They couldn’t push the two of them toward each other or get either of them to listen to reason.

Maria sat on her bed, leaning against the headboard, her arms resting on her knees as she stared at the ceiling. Jerk, she thought to herself. Being alone in her room wasn’t helping so she got up and headed down to the gym, needing to hit something and get out the anger that had surfaced. She passed Sam in the hallway. He looked as though he was headed to either his room or Dean’s, whichever one that was for the night, but she didn’t ask. Bobby and Jess watched her walk by, through the war room, before she disappeared down the other hallway.

She found the punching bag first, not even taping up her hands, wanting to feel every blow, picturing Dean’s smug, smirking face. At first, there was no pain as she got used to the feel of the bag. Then, she put more force into it, as if she was aiming for the wall on the other side of the room. Before she knew it, she was breathing heavily, her muscles tense and burning, and her knuckles were bruised before she sank to the floor. That was when the tears came. There weren’t many but she let them fall, still refusing to admit that she even liked Dean, or wanted to. When the tears stopped, she stood up and decided she wouldn’t hate him, but she wasn’t about to like him either. She’d go back to him being her rival, like when they were younger. 

Her body was sore as she made her way back through the bunker to her room, gathering a change of clothes before heading to the shower. The hot water would feel good on her muscles and help wash away the rest of what she was feeling, relaxing her. She locked the bathroom door and just stood under the hot flow of water for a while, letting it all go. Afterward, she did feel better and was even smiling a bit as she made her way back to the library. She sat down in the seat she’d sat in earlier that day. Bobby raised an eyebrow, watching her.

“You good?” Sam asked her.

“Yup. I’m good,” she replied, lightheartedly as she opened the book she’d been reading.

The three were a little confused but dropped the subject. Dean still hadn’t come out of the room he was in, even after he finished his bottle of whiskey.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 15

Tag List: @deans-spinster-witch @kazsrm67

Link to the master list for this story.

[wilsonthemoose]

I made this for an edit but now it's giving me so many dark!dean thoughts 🥲

I'm picturing dean saying this to john, and by 'every one of you' he means whichever other hunters think sam needs to be hunted because of his demon blood/powers/boyking destiny. dean going on a murderous rampage for sam while keeping him in the dark yes I love it

Aww heck yeah! And I like the idea of John saying something that isn't all that provacative, he's just saying something like 'I'm worried about Sam, these visions he keeps having-' and Dean just pounces.

Or! Dean hobbles out of the hospital bunk after John tells him he'll have to save Sam or kill him. He follows John down the corridor to his room and tells him 'I'll kill you and every one else first'. And then he makes good on that promise.

Like! Why! Wasn't there blood and gore when John died? Was Azazel just being nice? Did he not have any hounds to spare? Was hospital security too tight for the hounds to get in?

[swordofsun]

Okay, so Sam's whole thing is that the ends justify the means. It's a huge motivating factor for him in s4-12. He can justify draining a nurse because killing Lilith is a worthy cause. He can send a guy to sell his soul to a demon because capturing a crossroad demon to find Dean is more important. He can imprison Rowena and order a human sacrifice because removing the Mark from Dean is just that important. He can work with the British Men of Letters (and lie to Dean about it) because their goals are more important then his or Dean's feelings about them or what the BMoL had done previously.

It's a fascinating aspect of his character and it develops in s1-3.

It's starts with Devil's Trap and In My Time of Dying. In Devil's Trap he doesn't kill John. He goes with what Dean wants and let's Azazel escape to save John. Only to have John die within a week anyway. Over the course of s2 they learn that John sold his soul to save Dean. They also discover all of the horrible shit Azazel does over that year. Ava and Andy die. Ava's fiance die. Who knows how many other people when Azazel was collecting the kids for the death match. Sam dies and Dean sells his soul to save him.

All of which could have been avoided if Sam had just killed Azazel back in that cabin. Sam is the type of person to think about how much everything would have changed, how many people would have lived, if he'd just pulled that trigger. Debatable on whether or not Dean would have ever forgiven him.

If season 2 is a horror show of people who died brutally because Azazel was alive to kill them, then season 3 is other people laying the blame for various deaths at their feet. It starts with Isaac and Tamara in The Magnificent Seven blaming them for the people the demons killed after escaping through the hell gate and continues from there. Most significantly in Jus in Bello.

The episode has a important moral hinge point on whether or not to sacrifice one of the civilians to kill a bunch of demons and let them all escape. A plan that Sam is down for, especially after the potential sacrifice says she'll do it. It's clear that Sam is doing the mental math of one person dying vs lots of people dying. Dean talks him out of it, but the episode ends with Lilith killing everyone anyway. With a helpful rant from Ruby about how it's all Sam's fault for not killing the one person.

We can see how this effects Sam over time. He's more and more willing to take the ruthless option, even if it means hurting innocent people. With a harsh cumulation in Time Is On My Side when Sam tries to convince Dean to become an alchemy zombie living off the organs of others. Because Sam has decided that the goal of saving Dean from hell is worth killing people over. Maybe a lot of people.

It's worth noting that this is one of, if not the, last time Sam tries to argue Dean into an "ends justify the means" mindset. From thereon in he usually takes the "better to apologize than ask permission" and just does things. Even if he knows Dean wouldn't approve and that he can't justify them to Dean in a way that Dean would accept so he ends up spending all of s4 lying to Dean.

Crucially he clearly considers this a strength of his that Dean lacks. I think he only really starts to reconsider this approach in s13 when the way he was using Jack blows up in everyone's face and he can't just puppy dog eyes his way out of the consequences. He seems to take a much more measured approach with his group of AW hunters.

And those are my thoughts.

[coricomile]

I just read lots of your fic over on AO3, and in response to a comment you said that they could pry tiny psychic Sam from your cold dead hands. I agree with 100% !!! I love that theme, but I also have lots of thoughts/feelings about Sam not still being psychic in later seasons. To me it’s a missed opportunity. And I recall (I think in canon) an early convo that Azazel’s special kids already had powers and the demon blood just enhanced them (I have thoughts about this too). What are your thoughts

Thank you for reading my fic! I hope you enjoyed <3

Part of it is head canon and part of it is heart canon, but I imagine Sam's always had the powers in him but never knew what they were.

I have a LOT of thoughts about Sam's powers always being there when he was young to him still having them in late seasons, so I'm going to put them under a read more:

If you use John's Journal as canon, demons have been after Sam his whole life. His teacher tried to kidnap him when he was 7, a "park ranger" tried to take him and Dean a little while after, etc.

There's also an entry about John leaving with Dean to hunt, while 7yo Sam stays with a hunter named Silas- who WAKES UP FROM A COMA to tell John that Sam's special and John and Dean need to prepare- and had asked John for some time to speak to Sam. When John returns, Sam's sitting out on the porch by himself. The inside of Silas' house is covered in the gore of Silas' body, with the words "kill him" written in blood on the wall. (This also begins the first time other hunters start coming after Sam and John splitting them off from the hunting community as well. He also, apparently, never talks to Sam about what he thinks happened. Oh, John.)

This is one of my favorite bits of pre-canon that I want to see explored all over the place. It's not really explained if a demon killed Silas- if they did, why didn't they just take Sam then?- or if Sam did it.

Was Silas- who had previously been IN A COMA before meeting John and then MAGICALLY TOTALLY OKAY- possessed? Did his attempt at Sam go wrong? Did Sam- through sheer fear- tap into his powers and explode Silas? (Or, my beloved wee serial killers take: Sam realized what was happening as he was killing Silas, knew he could stop it, and didn't. I ADORE dark weechesters.) Then who wrote the message? So many questions! And I like the one where Sam adrenaline accessed his powers the best.

There also isn't mention of the demons trying to actively kidnap Sam after 7. Did they miss a window to start training him in Hell? Or did him easily exploding one of their own lead to them changing their method to the grooming one they ended up with?

There's also mention of Sam's "nightmares" in John's journal when he's 13 or so. On one hand, Sam has seen SO MUCH shit in his life it would make sense that he'd have just regular nightmares. On the other, until the Jessica nightmare came true, he didn't realize he was having visions.

(Eta like 1.5 years after starting and forgetting this question because I had lots of thoughts, I'm presenting the draft imma leave off mid-thought because I forgot where I was going but still want Powers Sam forever)

[lovetransaction]

I know I’m talking into the ether with this lol but okay Devil’s Trap and The Scene

The dialogue is generally taken very literally but to me that doesn’t cast much light on the John-Dean relationship, because it’s a demon and it waggles the truth however it needs to in order to get the desired effect. ESPECIALLY because it’s Azazel and it gets off on incest/taboo family shit. It counts on Dean having an encyclopaedic knowledge of John like this:

Dean: You’re not mad? John: For what? Dean: Using a bullet.

Dean already knows that John would be mad as shit about it! But it’s a bizarre reading to me to take this as “John would be pissed about Dean saving Sam” because like ... what the fuck else have these two yahoos done for the past twenty years except save Sam. John would be pissed, sure, but at the situation that required Dean using a bullet. At himself even for getting captured and necessitating it. Just WHY would he ever be mad at his son for saving Sam?? He got mad at Dean for the very opposite thing in the striga episode. 

John: Mad? I’m proud of you. You know, Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you – you watch out for this family. You always have. Dean: Thanks.

That’s just a weird line (contextually for the characters) because why would John be drawing similarities between himself and Sam at this point and particularly about being obsessive when Sam was technically the reason Dean had to use a bullet. Paired with telling Dean he’s the thing keeping the family together which is exactly what he wants to hear. Seeds of suspicion being slowly sown for Dean. But anyhow--

Dean: Dad, Sam tried to shoot the demon in Salvation. It disappeared. John: This is me. I won’t miss. Now, the gun, hurry.

--that’s the part that sounds like Azazel actually injecting some true-blue John in there bc John is arrogant as fuck lol and Dean respects that for the most part

Dean: He’d be furious. John: What? Dean: That I wasted a bullet. He wouldn’t be proud of me, he’d tear me a new one.

By this point Dean’s super agitated because he’s figured out it’s not actually John so he switches from ‘used’ a bullet to ‘wasted’ a bullet because he can say what he wants and not worry about getting his dad more riled up. And he’s letting Azazel know in no uncertain terms that he’s onto the demon now. But also if John was never ever ever proud of Dean how would Dean even know to compare it? 

It’s so much messier and more interesting imo to read it as a series of behavioural cues that tip Dean off, because as he says -- ain’t nobody knows that man better. It’s not that John’s never been proud of Dean, it’s not that John all of a sudden doesn’t gaf about keeping Sam alive. It’s that John would be furious at the mechanics of how Dean saved Sam, for not finding a way that didn’t involve using/wasting a bullet. The bullets that are their only chance for killing the YED that killed Mary and wants to kill Sam, that took John squandering their entire lives in order to find and that they’ll never get any more of. 

It wouldn’t be fair to Dean ofc and I think after some browbeating, Dean would probably agree that he fucked up (partly in earnest bc he blames himself for all kinds of shit and partly to pacify his dad) but I don’t see it as cut-and-dried as most of the fannish takes I’ve read. Certainly not to the extent that John was SO fixated on the bullets and intent on being angry with Dean that he begrudged one being used to save Sam’s life??!?

The ugliness of it to me is that John held himself to impossible standards but that was kind of okay bc he’d given up on having a normal or good life ever again, without Mary. What was awful is that he held Dean to those standards too -- not Sam, not the baby, which was evident to Dean at least if not to Sam -- so Dean didn’t have many options outside of becoming a perfect Hunter, constantly trying to achieve what Dad thought was a commendable level of skill. He SHOULD’VE found another way to save Sam, isn’t that what his entire life is for? idk I just think “John’s mean and never said he was proud of Dean and also thinks Sam should’ve died, and Dean is a victim with zero agency” is a really boring interpretation

[liamgallaghermpreg]

happy wincest wednesday! i would love to hear your thoughts on monster sam and/or dean and how their dynamic would be the different (or, the same!)

i have been turning this over in my mind for the last 12 hours anon, thank you for the interesting ask and happy ww! there are so many ways this could go – depending on the monster, WHO'S the monster, and how did they BECOME the monster. here's a few scenarios, in which the answer largely comes around to...they stay just as codependent, it just manifests in different ways.

sam AND dean monsters: same dynamic, just with more guro (Y) there was this star wars fic i read a bajillion years ago where obi-wan and anakin get captured and brainwashed by palpatine into being these killing machines who are only able to function with each other, everybody calls them 'the twins' and is scared of them... it's that vibe, yk.

sam monster (from childhood): let's say the azazel blood manifests in a different way. the child starts showing demonic traits and powers as they grow up. john, despite everything, really does love the boys, and i DON'T think he'd be willing to give sam up despite this, especially as a child. i do think he might work sam even harder to become a weapon against azazel. maybe isolating him further and forbidding him to go to school? at which point dean declares he isn't going, etc. etc. so i think it draws the family into more social isolation and codependence. dean would be even more protective, yet used to his brother's demonic tendencies. and willing to indulge him. ALTHOUGH, i think sam would try his best to suppress them. all in all, same same but different.

dean monster (turned): let's say he gets turned on a hunt. i think dean turns tail and runs. self-hating. stays alive to kill his own kind. i love thinking about him as a vampire because of live free or twi-hard. dean would lurk in the shadows and spy on sam but stay away "for sam's safety" despite knowing something is deeply wrong with his brother. work with crowley to fix him from the shadows. when sam gets his soul back, dean hides. if sam catches up to him, he begs to be turned, because if dean is a monster then they both are.

[hahahahahangst]

10 Things I hate about you (Be The Young 29)

GIANT TW which will be valid for each episode for suicidal thoughts, SELF H*RM, violence, cursing, relatives dying, mentions of s*x, s*xual assault

All chapter titles are song titles, some of them translated from Italian songs. We start from the first season and make out way through the series. I will break canon (mostly from the S2 finale) but will try to get back into it for the sake of ✨ lore ✨ .

Summary: Emily Reed, born and raised in Portland, is preparing her admission papers for Stanford, medical school. Little does she know, her life is about to change forever.

"After reading this whole letter, call John Winchester. [...] He’s your real father."

A/N:   idk guys, call it the musical episode, it kind of is

MASTERLIST

10 things I hate about you

Sometimes I miss when we were in it

So I made a list so I never forget

All the things I hate about you

10, your selfish

“So, did the angels bring you back in time? Was it Castiel?” Asked Emily, hanging out in the back of the Impala, skimming through a book. They were traveling towards Missouri to help another hunter with a case.

“Yeah, I saw my parents and my grandparents.” Dean had just finished talking about how Castiel brought him back in time to explain to him what Azazel wanted from them. Of course Ramiel had not lost the chance of bringing Emily back as well. 

“What did you see?” Asked Dean, not taking his eyes away from the road.

“You really want to know?” Emily scratched her nose. 

“I’m actually kind of curious. Is dad involved?” 

“Oh- trust me. He is.” 

“So?” 

Emily started telling her brothers how her whole story began. “Basically, my mom got pregnant with me out of revenge and spite.” She said. “She had a wonderful husband, caring, and they were perfectly normal. Her hunting life was behind her, for good. But there was just one problem.” Emily pretended to be the narrator of a movie and gestured in front of her mysteriously, leaning in between the front seats. “A problem that would change her life…“ She paused. “FOREVER!” She screamed and Dean and Sam smiled, clearly enjoying her scene. “That problem was… me, or better, the lack of me. She really wanted a child, but could not get pregnant.” 

“Wait, how did she go from no kids to two kids?” Asked Sam, interrupting her imitation. 

“Samuel, too much rush, you feel.” She suddenly switched to Yoda from Star Wars. “Shutting the fuck up, you must.” She cleared her voice and went back to talking suggestively. Sam seemed very amused. “I was saying… She could not get pregnant and so, desperate, she summoned a crossroad demon, expecting a normal deal. Ten years were more than enough for her to disappear and never be found again by him. Or at least, that’s what she thought.” She paused and looked at Sam and Dean, waiting for a sign of approval of her performance. Dean gestured to her to keep going. “HOWEVER!” She said, a little too loud for the size of the car. “The demon did not offer her ten years. He asked for her permission to come back to her house. He promised that nothing wrong was going to happen if she let him be. He did not specify how many times, and my mother didn’t ask.” She made another pause. “So, her wish was granted, but it was too late. When she came back home, she saw something nobody would ever want to see! Can you guess what it was?” She pointed to Dean, who shrugged. Sam, instead played her game and tried to guess: “Her husband was dead?” 

“No.” 

“Her husband was a shapeshifter?” 

“No!”

“He was… a demon?”

“What?!” Laughed Emily.

“Ghost?”

“Absolutely not-” She tried to continue explaining but could not contain her laugh anymore. ”...no, no, she found him with another woman!” Emily finally explained. 

“Ouch!” Finally Dean intervened. “That's not good.”

“Oh, and that's nothing.” Continued Emily. “My mother followed them for the rest of the night and found out he had a whole other family with this woman, who was, coincidentally, pregnant again. So all her work was in vain, as her marriage was destroyed.” 

“So…“ Sam encouraged her to keep telling. 

“So!” She snapped her fingers in front of him. “This is where John Winchester comes in. My mother was enraged, vengeful. So she went out for a drink. Or many. She met dad and my mother found out he was a hunter. They exchanged opinions and theories about a local case and kept seeing each other for a while. Apparently my mother had more experience than dad, who had just been hunting for a couple years. They liked each other, they slept together and-” Emily pointed at herself. “Nine months later I popped out of her.” She stopped suggestively gesturing in front of her face and went back to her normal voice. “When I was six months old Azazel came to turn me, and my mother let him be, as they had agreed, but when he came for Alex she had probably forgotten or thought she could fight him aaaand, that’s how I ended up here.” 

“Did you really have to make it so dramatic?” Asked Dean.

9, you’re jaded

“Shut up, you loved it.” She smiled. Sam seemed pretty amused. 

“What about the demon blood?” Asked Dean, curious. “I'm guessing you got your healthy dose?” 

“Oh, I wish I could tell you it was just one dose. Son of bitch gave me a whole bottle. I don't think my mother ever knew something like that had happened.”

“Well, that explains a lot of things.” He sighed. “Including what he meant when he said you were in a control group.” 

“I'm a demon guinea pig. Very fun experience.” She said, sarcastic.

Sam looked at her through the rearview mirror, but didn't say anything. Emily raised her eyebrows and he immediately looked away. 

You alright? She asked Sam, telepathically.

Yeah- just figured out what Ruby meant when she said you could have helped

Yeah, about that, sorry I snitched

It's alright, it was probably for the best

They quickly smiled at each other and then Emily leaned back in the seat. 

Can I say something else? Sam's voice reached Emily.

Of course.

In the last two years… didn't you and Dean figure out yet how to get along? Really? 

We tried- did he not tell you about what happened while you were away?

He's been very secretive about it.

Emily quickly gazed at Dean. Figures.

What do you mean?

“You guys talking about me or something?” Dean's voice distracted Emily from her mental conversation with Sam. 

“What makes you think that?” Asked Sam.

“Emily keeps moving her hands as if she was talking and you keep staring at me.” 

Emily and Sam exchanged a quick gaze before the younger just gave out a deep sigh and confessed. “Did you not tell Sam about what happened after he died?” To those words, Dean peeled his eyes away from the street and looked back at Emily for a second. Then, his gaze went harder and he went back at staring an indefinite point in front of him. 

8, the dumbest guy I dated

“Can we not talk about it?” He asked. 

“Dean, we have to talk about it. It doesn't have to be now, but at one point we-”

“Who says that?” He interrupted. “Who says we have to talk about it?”

“I do!” Snapped Emily. “I don't even understand why you would hide it!” 

7 talk a big name, ‘til you’re naked

“I don't exactly come out of that story looking good, you know.” He pointed at himself.

“Ah, sorry- didn't mean to destroy your reputation with your own brother!” She said, sarcastic.

“Sure, whatever you say.” He tried to dismiss her, but Emily had other plans

“Whatev-” She was about to go at him with bad words, but Sam started talking.

“Wait, Emily, wait.” He raised his hand to stop her. She rolled her eyes. “What could ever be so bad you don't want to tell me?” 

Dean glared at Emily again. She sighed and leaned back in her seat. She quickly gestured at Sam that they would talk later and went back to looking out the window. 

only 6 seconds and I had to fake it

But Sam deserved the truth. Emily knew she had to tell him.

Halfway to Missouri they stopped to rest and to eat. Sam and Emily went inside a supermarket to get some food while Dean drove away to get gas. 

“You should try a salad for once. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover you like it.” Commented Sam, pointing to a pre-packaged salad similar to the one he was about to buy. Emily took it and read the label. “It actually doesn’t sound that bad.” She looked back at the sandwich she was still holding. She shrugged and put the sandwich back on the shelf and exchanged it for the salad. “You have a terrible influence on me.” She commented. Sam laughed.

“What should we get Dean?” He continued, skimming through the shelf. 

“A whole bottle of ranch dressing? I’m sure he’d like it.” 

“Let’s get him this.” He pulled out a turkey sandwich. 

Dean was waiting for them outside the shop, impatient. They started eating while sitting on a bench. “What is that?” Dean pointed to Emily’s salad. “Since when do you eat rabbit food?” 

“It’s good! Want some?” She offered him a fork full of vegetables with a smile. He refused with a disgusted grimace. “Your loss, dude.” She shrugged and turned to Sam: he was staring in front of him, lost in his thoughts. 

“Hey, earth calling Sam!” Emily waved a hand in front of him. “Are you okay?” Sam seemed raised from his trance-like state. 

“Yeah, sorry, just-” He paused a second to look at him and Emily, who gestured to him to keep talkin. “Nothing, it's all good.” 

“Are you sure?” 

Sam hesitated for a second before answering. “It’s just I noticed something and-” 

“What is it, Sam?” Intervened Dean. From Sam’s gaze Emily knew that whatever he was about to say, they would not have liked it. “So, Emily, how come everytime you interact with Dean you feel a- like rush of adrenaline?” 

“A what?” She scratched her nose, confused.

“I don’t know, at the beginning I just thought it was a coincidence, but it’s every single time you talk to each other.” 

Emily glared over at Dean and exhaled. She didn't answer and kept eating.

“Guys, what-” 

“Alright, Sam, I know where you’re trying to go and we are not going there.” Intervened Dean. “This is not the time to talk about what happened while you were dead, okay? Drop it.”

Emily kept staring in front of them, thinking that if she ignored them, eventually they had to stop fighting. 

“Why?” Asked Sam. “What the hell must have happened to make it so hard to talk about?”

“Nothing, I- I just don't want to talk about it, okay?” Emily closed her eyes, quickly running our of patience. 

“I'm your brother, there's nothing you can't talk to me about, you-”

“I know that, but I still don't want to-”

“SHUT UP!” Screamed Emily, covering her face with her hands. She combed her hair back. Both her brothers quickly closed their mouths. “This is not a decision you get to make alone!” She pointed to Dean. “There were two of us living in that mess and I say he has to know!” 

“So what, so he can worry about me? About you? Come on, it's just gonna bring more problems!” He answered. Emily could feel words she was going to regret slowly taking place in the back of her brain, but she was not fast enough to stop herself. 

“Is that what this is about?! You don't want Sam to know how messed up you are?” She stood up and placed her lunch on the bench.

“What did you just say?”

“I said you’re messed up!” She yelled. Dean stood up in front of her. “What are you gonna do, uh?! Are you going to punch me?” Emily looked at Dean and raised her eyebrows, challenging him. “It can't hurt more than it used to hurt when you were blacked out drunk, can it?” After looking at Emily for a second, clearly angry, Dean sighed, rolled his eyes and turned the opposite way. Emily glared at Sam, who seemed shocked. “Right, turn around. Keep running from your problems, see how they solve themselves.” 

Dean sharply turned back facing Emily. “You're talking about running?” Seeing the situation was not defusing itself, Sam stood up as well. 

5, you're toxic

“Don't you get started again with-” Emily tried to say, but Dean cut her short.

“You left when I needed you the most! So don't come here judging me about running from my problems!” 

“I left? Really?!”

“Well, it wasn’t me who walked out of Bobby’s house on a random Tuesday morning!” 

“On a random morning? What are you even talking about? I was forced to leave!”

“You didn’t even try to stay!” 

“I tried for MONTHS! I was there for you even when you tried to push me away, I listened to you cry and I let you punch the shit out of me and-” He words were interrupted by a sob Emily had not seen coming. “I- I tried to understand you, okay? I tried to get behind the violence and the being drunk, but I could not be there anymore, it was- Dean it was fucking dangerous!” Emily tried to send away the tears who were about to erupt from her eyes. She sniffed.

4, can’t trust you

 “And has it ever occurred to you that I needed someone too? That, for your fault, I had to deal with everything by myself?” Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You don’t get to tell me that I didn’t try!”

“You were not a saint either, you know? Or did you forget what happened after he died?” Dean pointed at Sam. 

“Do you mean when I was about to kill myself because of you or when you were about to kill yourself by selling your soul?” She asked, bitter. 

“You know what I'm talking about!” 

“Yeah, sure, I'm sure just talking about it would have worked just fine, right? You were going to kill yourself, for god's sake!” 

“You can't point all the faults on me!” Continued Dean. “Do you ever accept any responsibility?” 

“I don't accept responsibility?” Scoffed Emily. “I spent months of my life thinking of you, you and only you, if you had eaten, if you were too drunk, how to stop you from drinking- What did you want me to do, spoon-feed you?” 

3, you still got mommy issues

“I didn’t need you to play mom with me, I can take care of myself!”

“And it shows!” Emily said, sarcastic. “Of course! You always have it under control, don't you? Tell, me did you have it under control while you used me like a punch bag or-”

“Stop bringing it up!” 

2 years of bullshit I can't undo

Emily took a deep breath, trying to recollect herself. She knew far too well that Dean and her trying to get out of a fight was almost impossible if none of them backed out. 

“Alright, you know what…“ She exhaled, calmer. “You're right. As I said, there were two of us, it's not your fault, it's…“ She glared at Sam, who was standing in the middle of the siblings. “We screwed up. We both did. But you can't pretend it didn't happen.” 

1, I hate the fact you made me love you.

[wickedanddeadly]

Sam Winchester's Bio

" You want to know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? It was how many times I let you down. I can’t do that again. "

Sam is usually kind, empathetic, intelligent, and independent. He is often the exasperated voice of reason in his relationship with Dean, who in turn sees him as a geek or prude, and teasingly calls him "Bitch," to which Sam usually responds with "Jerk." He doesn’t drink alcohol as much as Dean does and has a much healthier diet than his brother. Sam also has a phobia of clowns, due to his brother often leaving him at Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie when they were children. This is not helped by the fact that every time they have encountered a clown, it has tried to kill them.

Because of his intelligence, Sam is usually assigned the role of researching information for hunts - he is the "brain," whilst Dean is the "muscle." He normally remembers details that Dean overlooks and is prone to make connections quicker than his brother. He also knows a great deal of information that causes Dean to label him a "walking encyclopedia of weirdness." In college, Sam scored a 174 out of 180 on his LSAT. Sam has looked up to Dean since they were children and knows him better than anyone else. He tries to get Dean to open up about his emotions and problems, encouraging him to take care of himself - on several occasions, he has even been frustrated by his brother's fixation on placing Sam's well-being above his own. However, Sam shows similar protective tendencies towards Dean, particularly after Dean makes his deal and returns from Hell as a shadow of who he used to be, to the point that Sam's memories of Dean allowed him to regain control of his body while possessed by Lucifer. Sam tends to be driven by feelings of anger and vengeance.

As a teenager and even as a young man, he argued with his father constantly whenever they were together. Sam wanted to live a normal "apple pie" life instead of continuing to hunt, which led to most of his arguments with John and his estrangement from his family. However, Dean once stated that despite his own best efforts to be like John - liking the same music, clothes, and cars - being the good son, the soldier, and the Hunter - Sam always has been and always will be more like John than he is. Sam and John clash and argue so much because they are so similar. Sam does not take this as a compliment, and it is clear that while Dean truly idolized his father, both boys are not always overly fond of their father due to his secrets, mysterious actions, and his strict treatment and upbringing of his sons.

After Jessica's death, Sam became fixated on vengeance but still held out hope for eventually returning to Stanford. Sam was more focused on finding Jessica's killer than he was on following John's instructions on which hunts to take, something that often put him at odds with Dean. He was obsessed with revenge and was even willing to sacrifice his life to kill Azazel, although he ultimately proved that he valued Dean's life over the demon's death.

After John's death, Sam focused all his attention on hunting instead of returning to a normal life. He felt guilt for angrily confronting his father in his final moments and for not realizing that he had been planning on sacrificing himself. Sam put all his energy into doing what he thought John would want him to and kept trying to get Dean to deal with their father's death in a healthy way. After the reveal of John's ultimatum to Dean and the discovery of the other "special children," Sam became terrified that he would somehow turn evil. He made Dean promise to kill him if anything were to happen. Sam was killed (metaphorically and literally stabbed in the back) because he refused to murder another human being, but when Dean brought him back to life by selling his soul, Sam killed his murderer without hesitation. Azazel implied to Dean that since he was resurrected by a demon deal, he may not truly be "100 percent pure Sam," which Dean would also come to question himself when Sam killed Casey when Dean told him to stop, as he wanted her alive. After finding out Dean had made the demon deal, Sam declared that he would save his brother no matter what.

Following Dean's death and condemnation to Hell, Sam became so fixated on avenging his brother and killing Lilith that he almost turned himself into a monster. Due to his grief at Dean's death, the demon Ruby was able to manipulate Sam into a sexual relationship and convinced him to start drinking demon blood, claiming it was the only way he would be able to avenge his brother. Sam drank so much that he became an addict. Even after Dean returned, Sam was unwilling to let the desire for vengeance go and he continued the affair in secret. Sam was repeatedly warned by Dean that he was making mistakes, but he disregarded their advice, believing that he was the only one who could stop Lilith from releasing Lucifer.

Sam felt extremely guilty over his role in freeing and spent a large portion of his time trying to make amends. He also took responsibility in his part of starting the apocalypse. Sam confessed that he always felt angry and he didn't know why - as well as the fact that he tended to blame other people for his anger , instead of accepting it as a personal flaw. Sam's desire to set things right finally culminated in him sacrificing himself to save the rest of the world, throwing himself into the Cage with Lucifer and Michael in order to protect his brother. It was thought that Sam would be trapped in the Cage forever, but Sam didn’t remain in the Cage for long before he was pulled out by and Angel and placed back on earth, alive… but without his soul.

Sam reveals himself to Dean, and they begin hunting again. However, Sam's behavior markedly deviated from what was typical for him - he leaves Dean to live with the Braeden’s while he hunts with Samuel Campbell for a year, letting Dean think he's still in Hell, spends the night with a prostitute, and most peculiarly, lets Dean get turned into a vampire to find a nest. Even his overall demeanor is different, being much calmer and more collected than before, even when greeting Dean after being separated for a year, he did so as if he just saw his brother the previous day. This leads Dean to momentarily believe Sam was still possessed by Lucifer. It’s then found out that whilst Sam’s body and mind are not in the Cage, his soul is. During the time that Sam was soulless he lacked empathy and behaved like a sociopath. Without any emotions or sense of morality, he was often willing to overlook the deaths of civilians as collateral damage, such as urging Dean to snipe the Skinwalker pack leader despite there being innocent people in the way and killing all the Arachne victims with the rationale that it would take too long to get them to hospital, which was an extreme departure from Sam's normal desire to help people and protect the innocent. He was also much ruder and snarkier than. He was reckless and impulsive, and in turn being more seductive than before, sleeping with a lot more women than he typically would, as well as being more aggressive, killing a demon aiding them solely on suspicion of his possible betrayal and beating Sheriff Atkins upon being caught out for impersonating FBI. Sam also felt nothing for any of his loved ones, telling Dean point blank that he didn't care about him, he even tried to murder Bobby in an attempt to prevent his soul from being returned to his body. After his soul was reunited with him, Sam again felt great remorse for his actions and spent the rest of the time struggling to make up for what his soulless self-had done.

Sam decides to pray to God for guidance. When struck by visions of the Cage and of his dead father Sam becomes heavily determined to seek Lucifer out, against Dean's better judgment. He even goes to Hell without waiting for Dean to join him. Sam briefly expresses horror when Lucifer reveals that he was the origin of the visions, not God. Lucifer goes so far to point out that from the time they fought at Stull Cemetery, Sam has grown increasingly weak, citing his decision not to seek Dean out when the latter was trapped in Purgatory. Lucifer reveals that Sam's guilt over abandoning Dean in Purgatory for a regular life with Amelia Richardson has filled Sam with such guilt that he can't bring himself to lose Dean again which is why he allowed Dean to talk him out of "boarding up Hell." Sam later admits to Dean that he agrees how he should have searched for him and is surprised to learn that Dean has long ago forgiven him for his actions.

Sam is unable to brush aside Lucifer's various lies and not say "yes." Sam’s guilt over him constantly disappointing his brother was eating him alive him the inside out. He couldn’t live with the thought that his stupid actions and mistakes were going to end up getting Dean killed that he could no longer live with himself. No matter how much shit he got himself into Dean was always there to pull him out of it and that was the very thing that was going to get Dean killed – cleaning up after Sam’s messes. Behind Dean’s back Sam went back to the Cage and struck a deal with Lucifer. Sam agreed to say yes and let Lucifer jump back a board as long as he promised Dean’s safety – that Dean would be able to go on and live a normal life without the worry of his little brother getting him killed and Lucifer happily agreed because once again freed from his cage.

As of December 2021: Sam has fallen back to his demon blood drinking ways, but tries to keep it underwraps from everyone, while trying to balance a "normal" life for himself and his loved ones. He's also cut loose and indulged in more dangerous types of activites due to hanging out with the Lost Boys.

Powers and Abilities

Master Hunting Skills Master Hand-to-Hand Combatant Master Marksman Master Swordsman High Level Intelligence Intimidation Leadership Qualities Multilingualism High Pain Tolerance Exorcism Archangel Containment Top Physical Conditioning Weaknesses

Teleportation Mortality Magic Basic stats

Height: 6'5" Hair: Dark Brown Eyes: Hazel Relations

Marie Morningstar-Winchester ( Wife ) Luke Mendoza ( Stepson ) Zoe Bryce ( Sister In Law ) Tatum Bryce ( Niece ) Leon Hawthorne ( Future Nephew In Law / Hunting Partner) Zoey Dolan ( Sister In Law ) Colin Mason Bryce ( Brother In Law ) Sonya Alexander Logan ( Mother In Law ) Gunner Logan ( Father In Law ) Judas Logan ( Brother In Law) Drake Alexander ( Grandfather ) Dean Winchester ( Brother ) Face Claim: Jared Padalecki

[arobats]

list (for my own reference) of spn fanfics im pretending ill write some day in the future (and has also somehow become a list of some of my favorite fics??)

disclaimer that this is going to be long and will probably never actually get done but i need a place to put this all so they stop bouncing around my head ; you will almost definitely see a trend, yes i know its there, shut up let me have this ; if you have thoughts / suggestions / etc feel free to let me know

canon divergence:

s5, sam drinks cas or gabriel's blood to kill lucifer like he did lilith

idk i like a nice!lucifer au where sam doesnt end up in the cage bc fuck u :)

s5, lucifer comes out of the cage not wanting the apocalypse or to fight his brothers (rehabilitated, somehow removed mark of cain, some other evil god!chuck theory?) and teams up with sam to try to stop michael and raphael

s4 au where both John and Dean get resurrected bc that'd be so fucked up

going off the one above, What If? and Watching Over You as inspiration / spinning off of them

s2, sam keeps contact with all the special kids he talks to and they have a group chat going, work together to stop azazel (a bundle of sticks my beloved)

idk what exactly but i just really love Sam Winchester School of Hunting and Sam's Network of Baby Hunters so some kind of take on that, sam collecting all the kids esp the not-exactly-human ones under his wings

s5e6, sam goes with jesse / takes jesse and runs from cas and dean, now he has a reason to live and not self-sacrifice

s2e14 buabs au where sam is possessed longer than the few weeks that meg has him, he ends up pregnant with a cambion (trans man sam probably, but cis man sam if i want even more of a body horror angle)

wtlb au where sam does die in the panic room, gets resurrected by probably zachariah because ew, does dean even realize what happened, sam refuses to rejoin dean and bobby after lucifer rises

Last Minute twist, of sam realizing at the last minute that lilith isn't fighting back, refuses to kill her

a la Babel and A Father's Protection and Learning to Live Again, sam gets help from others during s5 and probably gabriel as well to put an end to the apocalypse

sam keeps in contact with missouri and is better prepared for cold oak, doesn't die

even more divergent from canon or pre-canon:

pilot, jess is a witch / in the know, sam has developed his psychic abilities more, so jess doesnt die - would sam stay or would jess go hunting? unsure. just want witchy jess

re above, You Can Always Go Home my beloved as inspiration

some sort of not-human sam, either cambion or nephil sam - developing powers early, hiding them from d&j, etc etc etc

a combination of this post and Been Away Too Long because im so weak for samjess and i refuse to apologize for that

some sort of boyking sam because its a classic (inspiration from Demonic Politics Verse)

post s3 au where instead of going off with ruby, sam realizes hes spiraling hard and actually tries to stop doing that by bunkering down with the harvelles (he and jo become besties, he discovers his psychic powers can work without the blood, jo calls dean out in metamorphosis, etc etc etc)

this post of mine :)

Ties That Bind by monpetittresor as inspiration for sam&adam post-cage (just gonna rec basically anything by this author bc love love love love love)

one of them "sam is actually lucifer and just doesnt know it like anna didnt know she was an angel" aus

crossovers:

criminal minds of course - they cross paths with the bau on a hunt, you know how it goes, and obviously samspencer

lucifer (tv show) - so many ideas for this one

s2e18 hollywood babylon lucifer is on a case with chloe and crosses paths with sam, instant connection

s3 au where sam hears about this guy calling himself lucifer and sneaks away from dean to try to see if this guy is the real thing and if he could break deans deal

s4 au where lucifer realizes the seals are breaking (my favorite explanation of the cage lucifer vs lucifer tv is in The Real Devil, basically the caged version is the part of his grace that he cut out because it has the mark of cain on it, but lucifer himself isnt in the cage) and goes to find his "true" vessel to see if he's reasonable enough to try to help stop this

s5 au where the caged grace is released and lucifer in LA is like "oh shit oh shit oh shit put that thing back where it came from or so help me" and helps sam out with that whole thing

[idledreams4]

this is actually one of my favorite things to talk about in regards to Sam. Not specifically the fact that we rarely see him eat, but the reasons behind that.

Sam, as we all know, is deeply traumatized and that is just like... never addressed within the show. I'm not exaggerating when I say any specific thing you notice Sam doing that kind of stands out to you is probably because of that trauma.

He feels unclean on every single level. His body has been violated and taken advantage of more times than I care to count. He was given Azazel's blood at just six months old, Ruby manipulated him into taking demon blood to enhance its powers, he has been possessed by both demons and angels, the Woman in White more or less forced herself on him, Lucifer was making constant jokes about having sexually assaulted Sam in the cage (we don't know for sure if he did, but I wouldn't be surprised), and that's just a few of the supernatural examples. That's without even talking about everything John put him and Dean through, and everything that Dean would have put Sam through because John said so.

But what does that have to do with his eating habits? You ask

Well, all of Sam's "healthy" habits are, for the most part, either direct attempts to purify his body or are otherwise related.

The rare occasions where we do see Sam eat, he only has a small portion, and it's usually a salad. Although salads are healthy, there isn't a whole lot of actual nutritional value there. Sam is consistently monitoring what goes into his body because SO often he has had no control over that.

But there's also a certain level of guilt that is responsible for the portion control, and overall unwillingness to eat.

He feels undeserving. It's that simple.

After being broken so many times, he feels so filthy on the inside that he barely sees himself as a person.

Same reason he always chooses to go back to the Motel early when Dean wants to go out and celebrate: he doesn't feel he deserves to be happy.

But why does he never talk about this to Dean? Or anyone for that matter?

He hides all of these negative thoughts out of insecurity. His entire life he's been told that he isn't good enough. He was never going to be the hunter John wanted him to be.

I mean the real reason is that the writers just refused to address any of the traumatic events that shaped Sam and Dean into who they are, but as far as the show goes it's just that mindset of "boys don't cry"

I hope that all makes some kind of sense. I feel like I missed a few of the thoughts I had, but I got the majority of the info down. Idk. Feel free to ask follow up questions, cause I really like talking about how traumatized Sam is XD

Anyone else notice how Sam just doesn't fucking eat? I'm on season 5 of my rewtach and I've noticed Dean eats like everysingle episode and I can't recall off the top of my head seeing Sam eat a single time in the entire show yet???

(im sure this is already a known thing but I haven't been in the supernatural Fandom in 10 years cut me some slack pLZ!!! If you know why please tell me)

[aylacavebear]

She Thought She was Normal

Story Summary: Maria really thought she was normal, for most of her life. It was normal for people to have natural talent, she would tell herself the older she got. Many things came easy for her, and that was probably how their rivalry began when she was five and he was seven and she met the Winchesters. Little did either of them know that it wouldn't stay like that forever, both having a far larger destiny than they could imagine

Word Count: 3878

Please don't take my work. I'll post warnings for each chapter. Will eventually be 18+!

Warnings: Mention & Insinuations of Sex, some angst, Cussing, Tattoo, Highly Sensitive Person (HPS) discovery for OC

----------------------------------------- Chapter 15

Over the next couple of days, things seemed to fall into some sort of routine for the five of them. Dean and Maria didn’t avoid each other, but they’d gotten verbally snarky with each other.

There was more than one occasion where someone would have to remind them to be civil to each other, which they did. When Dean’s phone rang on that third day near noon, he begrudgingly answered it.

“Hello?” he groaned, annoyed at the last comment Maria had made.

“So, where I am supposed to meet someone? I’m in Lebanon,” the man on the other end said.

“Dad?” Dean asked, sitting up in his chair.

“Yeah son,” John told him, and Dean could tell that the man was smiling.

“Meet me at the diner in town,” Dean told him, smiling a little himself.

The other four looked at him, but he didn’t say anything, just grabbed his jacket and keys before he left, leaving them wondering what had been said. They had a vague idea as to the gist of the call, John had made it, finally. They’d still been looking for a way to kill Azazel, wanting to do more than just send the demon back to hell. If they just sent him back to hell, he could just come back to earth to possess a different person, starting his antics all over again. 

An hour later, Dean and John pulled into the garage. John was impressed and Dean was smiling, happily as the two made their way into the war room, then the library, “So, I hear you have some intel on yellow-eyes. Dean wouldn’t tell me anything till we were here,” John said as he stood at the end of the tables in the library.

“Nice to see you too Uncle John,” Maria chuckled.

John chuckled a little in return, a bit uneasy seeing Sam, and the girl next to him, remembering how the two had parted ways a few years back, “I’m just glad you’re okay. You went off radar for a while.”

She smirked, “I wasn’t the only one,” she replied a bit sassy.

“I had my reasons,” John replied.

“Yeah, so did I,” she retorted back.

Damn the girl had gotten mouthy, but he couldn’t help but smirk and chuckle a little, “Alright. So, what’s the news?” he asked.

“His name is Azazel, and he’s a night of hell, or a prince of hell, depending on the lore,” Sam explained.

“Oh, and we’re all getting tattoos,” Jess added.

John ignored the part about the tattoos, “Any luck on finding a way to kill him?” John asked, more serious than before.

“Not that we found yet,” Bobby told him.

“I might be able to help on that front then,” John said, smiling a little.

That got all their attention, “We’re all ears,” Bobby said, and they were all hopeful at this point.

“There’s a legend, or at least that was what I thought it was. A Colt. Back in eighteen thirty-five, when Haley’s comet was overhead, same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a hunter. A man like us, only on horseback. The story goes, he made thirteen bullets. This hunter, used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. They say this gun, can kill anything,” John explained.

“Kill anything like supernatural anything?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. I think I might have tracked it down, to a hunter who might have it,” John replied.

All of them were hopeful at this point, “Tattoos first, then we’ll work on getting it,” Maria said, feeling hopeful for the first time since she’d learned the demon’s name.

“I’m not getting a tattoo,” John chuckled.

“If I have to get one, so do you John,” Bobby grumbled.

Maria grabbed the book with the anti-possession sigil in it, showed it to John, and explained the importance of it. John was not happy but also knew that it was a good way to protect all of them. When Maria saw the comprehension cross John’s face, she smiled, triumphantly. 

“Alright kid, you win. When we doin' this?” John asked, still not keen on getting a tattoo.

“I’ll set it up for tomorrow, give you some time to settle in,” Maria replied, proudly as she moved into the war room to make the phone call.

Dean gave John the tour while Maria made the call, setting it up for when they opened, at nine the following day. Jess had already talked her into getting the tattoo in the same place that she was. Dean and Sam had opted for their chest, near their heart. Bobby on the other hand had decided on his back, over his shoulder, which John would also choose. Maria pulled out chicken for dinner, letting it defrost in the sink until it was time to cook, in a few hours. She felt more than hopeful now. They knew the demon’s name, and now, there might be a way to kill it. They’d also found a summoning spell in one of the books, plus, they had a dungeon to hold the demon in.

Maria was humming to herself as she moved around the kitchen, gathering what she would need for dinner when Dean stopped in his tracks in the doorway, Before she could look over at him though, John moved past him into the kitchen, looking around. That pulled Dean to his senses, putting on that cool guy facade again. John was thoroughly impressed with the bunker.

“To think, Will kept this a secret,” John said quietly, still in awe.

“He was a Men of Letters, or was until before I was born,” Maria said without turning from her task of putting spices on the counter for the chicken.

“Looks like I’ve got a lot to catch up on,” John chuckled.

“Well, I’m gonna get dinner started and can fill you in, if you want,” Maria suggested, “Unless of course, Dean already filled you in,” she said that last part with a smirk as she glanced over at him, letting him know she knew he was there.

He rolled his eyes before he went back into the library, annoyed. John sat down at the kitchen table, “So, what’s up between you two? Still rivals?” he asked, bemused. John knew how Dean felt about her, but it wasn’t his place to bring it up.

“He’s a jerk and yes, we’re still rivals,” she replied plainly, which made John chuckle.

Maria explained what her father had told her in the letter she’d found on her pillow that first day, leaving out the weird stuff about her, that she still hadn’t gotten around to facing. John was fairly impressed and decided it might be nice to have a place to call home again. The thought of being able to be rid of the demon who had killed his wife more than two decades ago had been his only goal since then, even if he had wanted more for his boys than this kind of life.

“I heard about what happened between you and Sam. There’s still time to patch things up,” she suggested as she put the chicken in the oven and turned to look at him.

“That kind of thing works both ways,” he told her.

“So, be the bigger person and understand he’s an adult,” she replied bluntly.

John chuckled a little at her bluntness, “After we take out yellow-eyes. How’s that sound?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She crossed her arms over her chest, “If it were me, I’d do it before. You never know how long you have, being a hunter. It’s not like those that have gone up against Azazel have survived,” she told him, making a point he couldn’t find an argument to.

He took a deep breath and sighed, looking at the table in front of him, “That was a low blow, but I’ll let you have that one, and… I’ll think about it. That’s the best you’re gonna get,” he said quietly.

Maria shook her head and got busy peeling potatoes, annoyed at how stubborn John was, which Dean had clearly gotten from him, although, in a way, so had Sam. John went to the garage and grabbed his bag before looking for a room to at least sleep in for the night. He was still debating staying there, especially with the unspoken conflict between him and Sam. Maria waited till she was working on the gravy before she hollered for Sam, who looked confused when he entered the kitchen.

“What’s up SIs?” he asked her.

She didn’t look over at him, not right away, “You and your dad, you two can patch things up,” she told him.

“Sis…” he said, not wanting to have this conversation.

“I’m serious Sam,” she stated as she turned around, “It might take being the bigger person for once, letting shit go. I know you don’t hate him and you’d be devastated if he died, so don’t lie to me,” she stated, narrowing her eyes a bit, then sighed, “We’re going up against Azazel. He killed both my parents, your mom, and who knows who else he is gonna try to kill to get to us. All I’m saying is that… you have an opportunity, to have a better relationship with your dad, just in case.”

He said nothing, just absorbed her words. She had a point and part of him hated that. Sam grabbed a beer out of the fridge before he went back into the library, lost in his thoughts. Her words had hit him fairly hard. Neither Jess nor Bobby pushed him. They could tell he needed time to think, even if they had no idea what was going through his head.

Dinner came and went and the six of them sat in the library, drinking and sharing stories again. Jess and Maria were looking forward to getting their tattoos in the morning. The guys though, not so much. The girls showered after dinner, shaving their nether regions so that the tattoo could only be barely visible above their jean line, leaving plenty to the imagination of how far down it would go. Maria was having second thoughts about where she had agreed to get the tattoo but knew there was no backing out of it now. 

In the morning, the girls dressed in loose-fitting sweats and went commando for the tattoo, none of the guys knew. Well, Sam knew about Jess’s, but not Maria’s. She was keeping that to herself. Maria found Jess in the kitchen, up just as early as she was, the coffee pot had just finished.

“This is gonna be so much fun,” Jess told her excitedly.

“I’m not sure I can go through with this,” she replied nervously as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“Oh come on, don’t wimp out on me now.” Jess pouted.

Maria groaned a little as she sat down across from her, “It’s just… that’s a really sensitive area, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but if you ever end up with a guy, he’ll find it hot as hell. Trust me,” she winked with an insinuating tone.

She rolled her eyes, “I don’t have time for a guy.” Jess chuckled, “Maybe after this whole demon business is done, you might,” she said optimistically.

Again she groaned at the thought. She had spent her entire life being a hunter and wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stop doing it after Azazel was taken care of. She really didn’t know anything else. The guys joined the two of them almost an hour later, looking a little nervous, which made the girls chuckle.

-----------------------------------------

Dean almost burst through the door when he heard Maria let out a pained, quiet scream that sounded also like a groan. He’d already gotten his tattoo and it was tender, but he wasn’t letting on. The girls had been behind that closed door for almost a half hour now and the brothers were trying not to worry. Sam was smiling though, knowing where Jess was getting her tattoo and he couldn’t wait to go exploring to see it all. 

“Remind me to never let that girl talk me into something like this again,” John groaned, joining his sons in the lobby area of the tattoo parlor.

“What’s the matter Dad, don’t plan on getting any more tattoos?” Dean teased him with a smirk.

He ignored that as he joined their gaze on the closed door, “Those two still in there?” he asked.

“Yeah. Sounds like wherever they’re getting theirs, it’s tender,” Dean answered, trying not to sound concerned.

“They’ll be fine,” John chuckled.

Just as Bobby joined them, the door opened. Jess was laughing while Maria was glaring at her a bit, “I’m never letting you talk me into something like that again,” Maria told Jess, feeling the skin where her tattoo was burning a bit, which was normal.

“Just put that burn cream on it like the lady said and you’ll be fine, baby,” Jess teased her before she went over and had an intimate moment with Sam, not even caring that the others were there, “Can’t wait to show you later,” she whispered in his ear.

“Looking forward to it,” Sam smirked.

Dean just rolled his eyes but the adults chuckled. John realized how much his youngest son loved that woman and that was enough for him to decide to be the bigger person and put the past aside. 

“I’m so glad I didn’t drive here,” Maria groaned.

“Rethinking the whole tattoo thing?” Dean teased her as he smirked.

“Shut up,” she growled before she went outside.

The others just chuckled to themselves as Dean found her response amusing. There were only a couple options for driving back, Dean’s Impala or Bobby’s little beat-up car, neither of which were appealing to Maria at the moment. They joined her outside moments later, all of them but Dean went to Bobby’s beat-up car, leaving her to sit with Dean. She glared at Sam who just shrugged with a smirk before he got in Bobby’s car.

“Looks like you’re riding with me sweetheart,” Dean smirked.

Maria looked more than annoyed but got into the passenger seat and crossed her arms, doing her best not to slam the door of the Impala. The car hadn’t done anything wrong and she didn’t want to take her annoyance out on it.

“Don’t call me that,” she said somewhat coldly when he got in the driver’s seat.

Dean made a mental note of her reaction. He figured if he couldn’t talk to her normally, he’d at least find ways of annoying her. It wasn’t the attention he wanted but it was amusing nonetheless, “Alright Sweetheart,” he told her, that damned smirk plastered on his lips again.

Maria didn’t even look at him as she attempted to sit so that the sweats she was wearing didn’t rub against her tattoo. However, the moment he started driving, she felt every bump in the road and made plans not to leave her room when they got back until her tattoo healed. She couldn’t even understand how Jess wasn’t bothered or in pain, let alone had made plans to be intimate with Sam that same night. Give her demons, werewolves, vampires, even ghouls any day of the week, but a tattoo in a very sensitive area and she turned into a baby. She put on a hard outer shell though, not wanting to let Dean see that she was weak.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Dean told her with a smirk as he drove down the one-lane paved road.

She looked out the passenger window, arms still crossed over her chest, “No,” she replied, flatly, but annoyed.

That made Dean raise an eyebrow, more curious than ever about where she’d gotten hers, “What’s the matter, not up for a little show and tell?” 

“Drop it, Dean,” she told him in a low growl, which only made him chuckle.

The moment he parked, she was out of the car before he could even turn off the engine, grabbing two beers before she locked herself in her room. Maria carefully slipped out of her sweats and grabbed one of her oversized shirts out of her dresser, changing into it. However, the bottom portion of it brushed against the tattoo, causing her to push her ass backward before grabbing the shirt to hold it off of her.

“Never again,” she grumbled as she sat down on her bed, carefully. 

Maria put some of the burn cream on it that the tattoo artist had given her, which gave some much-needed relief. The tattoo artist also explained that Maria was more sensitive than most, so it would probably cause her more discomfort than her friend. She popped the beer and took a decent drink out of it when she heard a knock on her door.

“You okay in there?” Jess asked her, trying not to chuckle as Sam was behind her, kissing along her neck.

“I’ll be fine, but I’m never doing that again,” Maria grumbled.

“You gonna come out of there?” Sam asked her.

“No,” Maria replied flatly.

“Dean’s cooking tonight. He’s making burgers. So, at least come out long enough to eat,” Sam chuckled as Jess teased her fingers along his back.

“Would you two just go get a room already and let me be,” Maria groaned, leaning back on the headboard.

“Stop being a baby about this. The tattoo was your idea,” Sam told her, doing his best not to chuckle at her behavior.

“It may have been my idea but your girlfriend out there is nuts and I’ll never let her talk me into anything again,” she grumbled.

All that did was make the two laugh as they walked to their room, leaving Maria to lick her wounds. She could take a beating from a monster but that tattoo had hurt more than any wound she’d ever experienced before. At least the burn cream was helping a little. 

Dean couldn’t resist retrieving her himself. He really wanted to know where she’d gotten her tattoo. Once he was done cooking, he knocked on her door, “Dinner’s ready Sweetheart,” he told her with a smirk as he leaned against the wall next to her door.

“Go away Dean,” she groaned.

“Come on, it’s just a little tattoo,” he pushed.

She could hear the cockiness in his tone and it was annoying her, “Just leave me a plate outside my door,” she grumbled.

“If Jess can come out to eat, so can you,” he teased her, which pissed her off.

The moment she stood up, her shirt brushed against her tattoo, and she inhaled deeply as a pained groaned escaped her lips, “You’re an ass, you know that,” she snapped at him as she carefully slid her sweats back on.

“And you’re being a baby,” he quipped.

“Fuck you,” she muttered under her breath before she unlocked and opened her door. Seeing him there with that smug look and a smirk to match made her want to hit him.

“Awe, what’s the matter Sweetheart?” he asked, more to annoy her than anything.

She pushed him so that his back was against the wall as she forced herself to walk normally, not wanting to give him more ammunition to annoy her. He just laughed a little before he followed her, wondering why she had to look that good in sweats. The others were already sitting at the kitchen table. Maria barely kept the grimace off her face as she sat down, adjusting quickly so her sweats and thighs weren’t touching her tattoo, at all. Most of them caught it and chuckled silently, mostly because getting the tattoo was her idea.

“You alright there kid?” Bobby asked her, raising an eyebrow, sounding amused.

“I’m fine,” she answered, shortness in her tone, which made Dean smirk again.

“Leave her alone Dean,” John told him, noticing the smirk.

“What?” Dean asked innocently as he sat down on the other side of the table.

She glared at him, almost daring him to say something or look at her the wrong way. Due to the burn, she was ready to go off on him. John just gave Dean a look before they all served themselves. Jess found her discomfort hilarious, knowing it would only last a few days while it healed. Whether Maria wanted to admit it or not, Dean was a really good cook. She kept the annoyed look throughout dinner, not giving him the satisfaction of a compliment on the meal. There was some conversation but she stayed out of it, tuning it out due to the burning that had returned to her tattoo. It was quite the turn of events since when they were younger, he had been the one refusing the compliments on her cooking.

“You gonna help clean up?” Sam asked Maria, his face contorting a bit as he did his best to attempt to keep from smiling, let alone laughing. Jess had told him where Maria had gotten her tattoo.

Maria glared at him so badly that if looks could kill, he would have been dead ten times over. That was when Dean lost it laughing. Luckily Maria was done eating. With every ounce of stubbornness she had left, she got up and stomped off to her room, not even flinching at how badly her tattoo burned. It wasn’t until her door was locked behind her that she almost crumbled, carefully removing her sweats before sitting back on her bed as she had before, applying more of the burn cream. A sigh of relief left her lips as she leaned her head back on the headboard.

The way they had messed with her was just how their family was. It was all in fun. She was more annoyed at herself for being so sensitive down there than anything, something she wouldn’t have known without the tattoo experience. She also vowed to never again let Jess talk her into anything else like this, ever again. Maria glanced at the book on her night table. She hadn’t moved it since the night she had set it there and debated reading it. She had no plans of leaving her room anyway, not until her tattoo healed more first. 

“Not tonight,” she sighed quietly before climbing under covers.

That was when she realized that sleeping was going to be an even bigger issue for her. How was she supposed to even get comfortable and not let anything touch that spot? Then she remembered the little bit of gauze the tattoo artist had given her for the first night. She carefully climbed out of bed and pulled it out of her sweatpants pocket. Maria applied a little more of the ointment before applying the gauze bandage, sighing at the feeling of relief. Maria had been too distracted by the pain to remember everything that the tattoo artist had told her and hadn’t been in the mood to ask Jess. She wasn’t in the mood now either, but planned on asking her in the morning, or whenever she rolled out of bed.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 16

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