#bennie writing

[zepskies]

IF I STAY - Part 1

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Plus-Sized!Reader

Summary: Your dream is to work with kids as an elementary school teacher. Dean is well on his way to becoming a firefighter, keeping things light and “strings unattached” as he goes. After a one-night stand you never saw coming, you and Dean are forced to deal with the consequences…and figure out if the connection between you is worth fighting for.

AN: Yes, here’s another firefighter AU! Based on a request from one of my lovely Patreon members: @redhoodieone. She requested pretty much all the major beats of this story, so hopefully I did her request justice! This is also partially inspired by Fools Rush In, a beautiful movie with Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry (Rest in Peace, King).

Song Inspo: “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis

Word Count: 8.7K

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only! Smut, thick thirty, hints of body insecurity, but also body appreciation, angst, and hurt/comfort.

❤️‍🔥 If I Stay Masterlist

Part 1: Fools Rush In

Slowly, your eyes slide open into the waking world. Your head is resting on something warm, firm…and a little sweaty. You pick your head up, despite the disorienting, muddy feeling of a slight hangover.

A groan bubbles in your throat. Your gaze travels downward, and you realize that what you’re looking at is more of a who.

Your eyes widen. Oh…my…God…

Not only are you very naked, but your firm pillow is too. It happens to be your best friend’s brother.

Yes, holy fucking shit! You slept with your best friend’s brother.

Biting the inside of your lip, you can’t help but take him in, here in the raw light of day as he lays peacefully on his back. His head lolls to the side on your usual pillow. Your eyes roam over the bow of his lips, the dark eyebrows, lightish brown hair that's softer than it should be between your fingers.

He’s painfully handsome. There’s a slight hesitation in your touch, but you softly trace the cut of his jaw and the stubble spread across it. That roughness feels familiar, and not just under the pads of your fingers, though the thought makes you blush. You begin to remember the night before, almost like a movie reel through your mind… 

Ooooh, right. That’s what happened.

It starts at Sam Winchester’s joint bachelor-bachelorette party at a nice hotel downtown. He and Eileen aren't the "strippers and coke" kind of party couple. They're more the "wine and brie en croute with pickled olives" on the expensive crackers you can't afford—kind of couple.

They look perfectly in love, if a bit long-suffering while Dean gives a hilarious, somewhat inappropriate, but still ultimately heartwarming toast to their happiness. After lowering the glass of champagne from his lips, his gaze catches on yours in the crowd. You suck in a subtle breath. 

Technically you’ve met him already, being one of Eileen’s bridesmaids, but there’s something about his green eyes that pin you to the floor. When he hands over the mic to Lisa Braeden, Eileen’s Maid of Honor, his head turning away from you to offer her a smile breaks the spell. It allows you to breathe.

Dean later finds you by the bar. You’re drinking a rum and coke with your slice of cake, trying not to get a single crumb on your dress. You've put a lot of work into affording it, let alone fitting in it. He leans his elbows casually on the counter and looks over at you.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he nods at you with a smile, subtly taking you in first. Then, his eyes go to your plate. “Ooh, red velvet. Gotta get me some of that.”

You smile back at him. “It’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, looks good in your hand,” he says, adding a teasing wink for good measure.

You don't know why that does it for you, but a half-flattered, half-nervous laugh tumbles out of your mouth. Sam has warned you before about Dean. Apparently his older brother is a bit of a flirt; a ladies’ man.

A man whore, are the words Eileen used.

You’re honestly surprised he’s talking to you when Eileen’s other bridesmaids, Lisa and Jo, are sipping martinis together down at the other end of the bar. Guess they didn’t want cake.

They look beautiful in their lithe, strapless little cocktail dresses. You’ve had to give up chocolate, bread, and cheese for three months straight to fit into this dress, something slinky and red that drapes over your thicker, curvy figure. But you’re proud of the fact that you’re letting yourself eat cake tonight, even though you’ve often felt like Mrs. Doubtfire while standing for pictures next to Lisa and Jo.

They’re Eileen’s friends, not so much your crowd. No matter how much you’ve tried to get to know them while helping the wedding planning in whatever way you can, you still get a high school clique vibe from the women, if with more “polite smiles.” Then they’ll typically go back to talking about crystal centerpieces—or whatever in-depth conversation they were having before you were there. 

But right now, Dean’s focus is on you. When he asks you more about yourself, you tell him about recently earning an elementary education degree.

“Ah, but you already knew that, because Sam told you we graduated college together,” you realize, with warmth tingeing your cheeks. That subject came up pretty quickly when he introduced you to his brother.

Dean’s smile confirms your suspicions, so you just keep filling the silence on reflex.

“Well, I actually just started teaching my first ever semester of second graders. They’re a bit of a handful, but overall, they’re really sweet.” Your smile falters. “Except for this one kid who likes to put little tacks on my chair. He’s kind of a menace, but I think if I bribe him with enough lollipops, he’ll give it a rest. I mean, it’s a behavioral issue and I should probably call his parents. But it's kind of hard to tell them their son is trying to make my ass into a pincushion."

Dean's laugh comes out in a sharp burst, like he wasn't expecting what just came out of your mouth. You didn't either, honestly. You giggle more out of embarrassment, ducking your head.

"He’s in second grade, you know?" you say, in between laughter. "I don't think that little footnote needs to end up on his permanent record. But then there's Micah. He's so friggin' smart. He can read at the fifth grade level already. Can you believe that? And I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but his grades on his spelling tests get him a spot in the comfy bean bag chair pretty much every Friday. Honestly, I think that's what I like about working with kids. I get to see that spark on their face when something just finally clicks for them. Their little faces get all bright and happy and…ugh. God, I'm sorry. I'm rambling, right?”

You stop yourself with a hand sliding over your mouth, not quite covering your smile of embarrassment.

Dean’s grin just widens, making the corners of his eyes crinkle. 

"It's okay. I kinda like it," he teases.

You duck your head, biting your lip against a groan. He chuckles and reaches out for your hand, earning your nervous glance. He quirks his head.

“Hey, you're passionate about what you do, helping kids. That's nothin' to be ashamed of,” he says, brushing his thumb over your hand. “But sweetheart, I gotta ask. Am I making you nervous or something?”

God, yes, you think, especially at that sweetheart thing. It’s making your heartbeat tick up a syncopated rhythm, but you shake your head, biting the straw of your rum and coke.

“No, not at all,” you say, in a hopefully “breezy” kind of way. You touch your fingers to his wrist. “Tell me about you though. Sam mentioned that you’re a firefighter?”

“Ah, yeah. Firefighter in training,” he says, with a more genuine smile.

He just started at the Fire Academy, and he tells you about all the drills he’s had to learn and all the training he’s had to do to be able to keep up with his classes. You subtly eye him while you sip at your drink, and you notice the crisp cut of his buttoned-down shirt and leather jacket, the definition of muscle across his thighs under the slacks, even while he casually sits.

Your gaze subtly travels down his long bowed legs, smart dress shoes. His cologne is woody and masculine, but not overpowering; maybe bergemot and sandalwood. It pleasantly wafts under your nose every time he gestures with his hands while he talks.

“Aw man, I can’t hold out anymore. I think I need to get me some of that cake before it’s gone,” he says, getting up from his chair.

You’re a bit disappointed that he’s leaving, until he stops short.

“You want another piece?” he offers, gesturing at your empty plate that’s been resting on the counter.

You blink in surprise, but you shake your head. “Oh, no. I probably shouldn’t.”

“Why not? It’s a party,” Dean reasons. His grin is too damn infectious. It has you smiling, and begrudgingly agreeing.

Not only does he bring you more cake, but you watch him eat three whole slices before he asks you to dance.

The rest of it flashes through your mind like strobe lights—the way he’d started small and respectful with his larger hand closed over yours and the other along the curve of your waist. He guided you closer and closer, until you were turned around into his arms, and you could feel his warm breath on your neck.

You felt his lips teasing your skin. Then those hands tantalizingly drifted down your every soft curve, as if showing you a preview of everything he could do to you, and every way he’d make you come apart. You believed him.

And when he whispered in your ear, asking if he could take you home, you let him.

You let him drive you in that big black piece of history he drives. Used to be my dad’s car, he said. A Chevy something. You couldn’t really remember much when his hand was drifting up and down your thigh like that.

His presence burned hot at your back when you two eventually got to the front door of your apartment, your hands just barely shaking as you got the key in. Twist and click—

He waited until you flipped the lights on. Then he turned you around slowly in his arms and pulled you in close, all the while asking you with his eyes and raised brows. This okay? You want this?

“Do I still make you nervous?” he asked, his lips twitching at a smile when yours do.

You nodded, uttering a small giggle. “In a good way.”

That was when he finally kissed you, hot and slow, like he meant to devour you whole. He moaned at the taste of you, at the feel of your ass squeezed in his hands. You clung onto him strong, breathing into his kiss and trying to meet every single demand of his lips.

It soon became a fiery tear to your bedroom, one lamp flicked on, hot breaths and nice clothes crumpled to the floor. You didn’t feel self-conscious even once when he guided you under him on the bed, because he wasted no time in taking you apart, inch by inch.

His lips kissed and licked and sucked a burning trail down your neck, over your collarbone and between your breasts. You felt his hardened length trapped between your bodies while his hands explored you, teasing your breasts and sensitive nipples, and he mapped his way down with his lips.

You explored every part of him you could—every dip of muscle, firm shoulders and the slopes of his back, and then back up to tangle in his hair. Your heated gasps and whimpers filled the room when his sinful mouth found what it was looking for between your legs.

It wasn’t often that you had a strong pair of shoulders to rest your thighs on, but Dean’s grip was hard enough to leave deep fingerprints of pressure on each thigh while he slipped his tongue through your folds and feasted on you.

“D-Dean, oh God,” you gasped. Every sound you made was a sensuous symphony in his ears, washing over his skin and making the well of his desire churn hot in his lower belly. He had to roll his hips into the mattress for some relief for his aching cock, even while he moved his mouth up to your clit, circling the swollen bud with his tongue. He had enough room to slip two fingers deep inside your sopping wet channel, exploring you deeply, stroking and twisting to find what you needed.

Your thighs trembled and squeezed tight on either side of his head. When he sucked your clit tight between his lips, you uttered as gasping moan as that coil snapped its release. Your inner walls fluttered around his fingers. Yours clenched tightly in his hair, threatening to rip out a few strands.

Dean stroked you all through your first orgasm, giving slower licks to your clit. He seemed to sense when you couldn’t handle anymore though. You tugged more sharply on his hair, and he finally pulled away, moving back up your body to gauge your reaction.

You’d collapsed boneless against the bed, but you still managed to smile up at him as you caught your breath.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked. But his self-satisfied grin almost made you laugh. You took his glistening face between your hands and pulled him down for a grateful kiss.

After a moment to savor your lips, he broke away for a second to catch his breath himself. You stroked his back all the while.

“You know, for a minute down there, I thought you might not let me come back up,” he teased.

You choked on a laugh, covering your face in embarrassment.

“Honestly wouldn’t have minded if you did suffocate me,” he chuckled, accompanied by a slap to your left ass cheek. You squealed, and blushed hotly at the way he was grinning down at you.

“Ready for more, baby? Or you want to call it a night?” he asked. His tone was playful, but it was actually a serious question. You blinked in surprise. You’d never had a guy be this, well…generous, and not expect anything in return, especially not for just a hookup.

But you shook your head and sat up, slipping a hand behind Dean’s neck. After a beat of hesitation, you guided him down to you for a slow, sensuous kiss.

“No, I don’t want to call it a night,” you whispered. Your hand drifted down his bare chest, and lower still. You showed him just how well you could return the favor.

And now, come the morning, you’re blushing down to your neck as each scene flashes through your mind. You feel the ghost of his hands all over your body, and how you’d never quite felt quite as bold and sexy and beautiful with a near stranger as you had with Dean effing Winchester. Your best friend’s brother.

You begin to worry your bottom lip with your teeth. How the hell are you going to tell Sam? Especially after he warned you about exactly this. Plus, there’s a reason you don’t typically do the one-night stand thing, and this has the potential to become something very complicated.

You know what, it’s fine! you think. We’re two consenting adults. We’re both single. And maybe…maybe it could be more than a hookup. Maybe we can see each other again, see where it goes.

“What’re you thinking so hard about?” Dean says, his voice croaking with sleep.

You look down at him in surprise. His eyes have cracked open and he has your hand captive, stopping you from continuing to idly trace patterns on his bare chest. You smile in embarrassment.

“Sorry,” you say. Again, you bite your lower lip. “Um, good morning.”

“Morning, sweetheart,” he grins lazily. “You sure wore me out last night.”

Your smile becomes more genuine, even if you turn your face away somewhat shyly.

“Aw, don’t do that,” Dean says. He slides his hand up your arm and behind your neck, tangling into your already tangled hair when he guides you down to his lips for a kiss. “You were awesome.”

You giggle against his lips. “Really?”

“Hell, yeah,” he says, kissing you again.

You shake your head a little. “You were…”

Amazing. Unbelievable. Probably the best night I’ve ever had.

“Perfect,” you decide. Because it’s the truth. The word comes out of your mouth before you can filter yourself though, making you pause. Dean does too, but after a beat, he slowly smiles.

“Oh yeah?” he asks.

You lick your lips, and you nod. “Definitely.”

“Well, then,” he says. His hand moves down to squeeze your hip. “You down for a repeat performance?”

You smile. “Only if I get a turn.”

Bracing your hands on his chest, you slide your thigh across his lap so you can straddle his hips. Dean grins and goes along with your idea. He gets a nice healthy handful of your thighs and helps settle you on top of him. But first, he reaches over into your nightstand drawer and finds another condom, ripping it open with his teeth.

Just like you did for him last night, you take the packet, as well as his generous length in your hands. You gently stroke him to full mast, smiling pleased at his groan of pleasure. Then you carefully fit the condom over him.

“You’re so gentle with me,” he teases. 

“Just returning the favor,” you quip, just before you position him at your wet entrance. Slowly, you sink down over his cock.

You both moan at the feeling of him stretching you again, warm and thick and fitting perfectly nestled deep inside. There had been moments last night where he wasn’t all that gentle, actually, but his passion had only spurred yours on more. You know you’ll probably find fingerprint marks on your thighs and ass, but it’s fucking worth it, you think, as you begin to bob a rocking rhythm that serves you both.

Dean arches his back underneath you, his knees coming up to press against your ass.

“Goddamn, baby. Givin’ me quite a show,” he says, in a panting voice that’s deep as sin.

You utter a breathy laugh.

Dean means it though. He’s enjoying the way you brush your hair out of your face, your beautiful tits in his face while you truly let loose for him. He guides you by the stronghold he has on your hips, his fingers pressing into your soft flesh as he ruts up into you, meeting your thrusts.

Your breath quickens, your nails digging into his chest on reflex, and your heart races as that delicious pleasure builds. But when Dean snakes a hand between you and further parts your folds to massage tight circles over your clit, your vision flashes white. You utter a scream of pleasure on his name, your inner walls choking him tight as you throb around his cock. His release hits him like a goddamn freight train.

“Aw, fuck,” he grunts.

He slams your hips down hard, making your thighs slap against his. A ragged groan escapes him in a rush. His hands move to your thighs just under your ass, where his fingers press into flesh hard enough to leave forensic ID, giving him leverage to bury himself deep into your pussy as he spills a hot release into the condom.

Goddamn…

He can almost imagine that he’s coming free inside you, that you’re milking his cock for every drop, until there’s nothing left for him to give.

The thought surprises him. It almost takes him out of the moment, honestly. That’s not a thought he’s ever had before—not with a woman he barely knows (which is most of his hookups, if he’s honest).

In that delicious, fractious moment just after it hits, it’s like those few seconds are suspended in zero gravity. Your arms are shaking, and your forced to collapse against his chest. Dean welcomes you there for a little while, letting you come down while he smooths a hand over your hair.

Though he can't help the urge to let his big hand drift down over your dewy skin, down the gentle slope of your back and over the curve of your generous ass. He gives one cheek a teasing slap. The sound echoes in the room.

"Goddamn perfect ass," he says roughly, smirking at your squeal. You end up grinning hard against his neck.

"'S that my new nickname?" you quip.

He chuckles deeply, moving you along with his chest. "Hell, sweetheart, if you want it to be."

Eventually, you lean back to give him a smile and one last kiss before you pull away from him. You slip off his lap to find your robe, at least. You definitely need a shower.

“So I’m thinking, after we get cleaned up, I could make us some breakfast,” you offer. “Or if you want, maybe we could go somewhere. I know a little diner down the block.”

“I like the sound of food,” Dean agrees with a smile. Ge reaches over for his phone on the nightstand, to check the time. His eyes widen. “Oh, shit.”

He has to get his ass over to the Fire Academy. He has class in barely twenty minutes.

He tears out of bed and nearly trips on the coiled sheets.

“Sorry. Gonna need to take a raincheck,” he says. He hurries to find his clothes strewn all over your bedside floor.

“What’s the matter?” you ask with wide eyes. You cross your arms under your breasts, but it’s more like you’re hugging yourself over your robe. You watch him tear through your bedroom in a tempest of movement.

Dean spares you a glance, but not much else as he yanks up his slacks and belt and dress shirt.

“Gotta get to class,” he confesses. Thank God he has his uniform in the trunk of his car for exactly these kinds of emergencies. He grabs his phone, wallet, and keys, and quickly kisses you on the cheek. He gazes down at you apologetically. “Sorry I gotta cut and run, sweetheart, but it’s been fun.”

Your smile barely reaches your eyes. He’s pressed for time, but he still notices.

He slows himself down and cups your cheek. “Hey.”

He gets your pretty eyes looking up at him, and he gives you a real kiss, nice and slow. He cradles your cheek and brushes his thumb across your skin.

“Thanks,” he says. His now familiar grin manages to make you smile. “And I mean that.”

You shake your head at him. “Okay go, Mr. Future Fireman. Be safe out there, okay?”

He gives you a playful salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

You can’t help but laugh. This guy’s too much. But you don't think you've had this much fun having sex in...

All right, let's not put a timeframe on it.

You watch him leave your apartment, even though you have a sinking feeling in your chest. You knew this was just a hookup for him, for both of you. Part of you just couldn’t help hoping that it could’ve led to something more. 

Dean means to call you.

He really does.

After that truly awesome, you shook me all night long, kind of a night, he thinks about you more than he’d like to admit over the next few weeks. However, he finds himself locked into his training. He’s so close to finishing strong and earning his badge, he just can’t afford any more distractions.

Still, he should’ve known that Sam would find out—either through Eileen, or through you directly. He also should’ve expected the way his brother let him have it.

“And you didn’t even fucking call her. See? This is why I don’t set you up with any of my friends anymore,” Sam bitches at him from his side of the small two-seater dinner table. They still share an apartment, though in just a month and a half, Sam’s going to be moving out. He and Eileen already found a house that they’re moving into after the wedding.

“Look, I was going to call her, man. They’ve just been bustin’ my ass at the Academy!” Dean argues.

“Bullshit.” Sam levels him with the same finger that holds his beer.

Dean’s brows raise, high and annoyed. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit. Because if you really liked her, respected her, and respected me, you would’ve made the time,” Sam says.

That falls heavy between the brothers for a moment while they eat their pizza.

“Look, I know her. She doesn’t do hookups that often, which means…she probably liked you,” Sam adds. “And honestly, when are you going to give it a real try with someone? You can only visit that free clinic so many times.”

Dean shoots him a glare. He’s had a clean bill of health from said clinic for six months straight.

“Jesus Christ. Enough, all right?” he grouses. “What’re you, Mom?”

“I’m just saying,” Sam says, lowering his crust to the plate. He levels his brother with a more earnest look, lightening up from his anger. “Look, if it’s about what happened to Dad—”

“What, you mean the way he drank himself to death after Mom died?” Dean says. His voice cuts through whatever softball glove Sam is trying to handle him with. “You think that’s the kind of thing I should be looking for in my life?”

“Oh, and what, do you think I’m making a mistake marrying Eileen?” Sam counters.

Dean sighs, shaking his head. “Damn it, don’t put words in my mouth. That’s not what I’m saying, it’s just…I don’t know. Maybe that kind of life—the house, the wife, the 2.5 kids and the dog. Maybe that’s just not my life, okay?”

Sam gives him a long look. He lets go of a deep breath, and he shrugs.

“Okay,” he says. “If you think hooking up night after night for the rest of your life is going to make you happy, then fine.”

Dean nods, glad that they can put an end to this little After School Special.

“Okay.”

Still, he can’t finish his third slice of pizza. He keeps picturing your face when he left you that morning. No matter how you tried to hide it, he still saw the tinge of disappointment in your eyes. It brews something uncomfortable in his stomach, and a sting in his chest.

You’re eating lunch alone in your classroom, finally on your break, when an unfamiliar number flashes across your phone screen. You look down at it in confusion, but with all the caterers and florists and things you’ve helped Eileen with on the wedding, you figure it could be important. You pick up the call and greet whoever’s on the line.

“Hey, sweetheart. How are you?”

You drop your ham and cheese on your keyboard, gaping in surprise.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he chuckles slightly. “Sorry, I know it’s been a minute.”

You frown, because you’re confused more than anything.

“Yeah, like almost a month,” you reply. You put the call on speaker so you can grab up your sandwich and quickly brush off the crumbs from your keyboard. You struggle to say something cool, clever, sexy even. “I’m okay. Just, um…what’s up?”

Smooth, real smooth. You cover your eyes with your hand.

“Nothin’, I was just thinking of that night,” he says. “I had a good time.”

Your frown deepens, despite the beginning of a blush warming your cheeks. If he’s calling you just for another hookup…

“So I just thought maybe you and I could do something again. Maybe you wanna come over my place this time.”

And there it is. You deflate at his words, shoulders sagging. The "convenient booty call" proposition.

“I could make us some burgers, toss in a couple of beers and a movie night,” he adds.

That part throws you though, you’re not going to lie. What, is this a Netflix and chill situation—with a side of fries?

You consider it. You weigh pros and cons at a frightening speed in your mind, almost like Sherlock Holmes contemplating the layout of a dead body and deducing within moments that his wife committed the murder, despite the man no longer wearing a ring.

You want to let yourself be bold and spontaneous and carefree...but it's just not who you are at your core. You're a planner, a cautious person who looks three ways before crossing the street. Letting Dean take you home that night was certainly one of the most spontaneous, wild things you've done since your friends took you out to a strip club after you aced your final round of exams back in college.

(Sam hadn't been there that night, but he did get an embarrassing drunken text from you at 3:00 a.m., along with a few shame-ridden pictures fueled by questionable substances. Yes, he still had the evidence.)

You just don't know if it's smart to let yourself hookup with Dean again. Mostly because you know your heart has the tendency to get attached, no matter how much you warn it not to.

“You know, Dean, I’m pretty busy with my job right now. I just started here a couple of months ago, and I think I just need to focus on that right now,” you say. Part of it isn’t a lie, even though your soft heart is stinging.

“Ah, okay. Yeah. I get that,” he says. You hear his disappointment too. “But I just need to say, I really am sorry for not calling you sooner.”

Your lips tug at a smile. “It’s okay, Dean. Look, you’re Sam’s brother. I just feel like, maybe it’s better if you and I stay friends.”

“Friends, huh?” Dean says wryly. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t have three rounds of steamy hot sex with any of my friends.”

Your blush comes swiftly again, burning in your cheeks.

“Be that as it may,” you say, “I just don’t want to do anything that will distract from Sam and Eileen’s wedding.”

“Oh, I’m a distraction, huh?” Dean says flirtatiously. 

You begin to smile in earnest. “I think you know damn well what you are, Dean Winchester.”

His deep chuckle practically resonates through the phone and into your chest, going straight down to your pussy. You clench on nothing just at the sound of his voice, making you cross your legs under your skirt. Dear God…

How are you supposed to be even remotely normal around this man now? 

But for Sam’s sake (and your own), you’ll have to try. 

Two months later, Dean has taken Sam’s dating advice to heart. A week or so after you turned him down, he ran into Lisa Braeden, Eileen’s Maid of Honor, while he was at the grocery store buying beer and Twizzlers. She was a smart, sharp, sexy brunette. A yoga instructor, he soon found out. So he took a chance on asking her out. They’ve been going slow and steady ever since. 

Dean hasn’t heard from you since the rehearsal dinner, but he sees you again at his brother’s wedding. All the bridesmaids are wearing long, royal blue dresses that drape off the shoulders and hug the bust and waist, flaring gently at the skirt. Lisa and Jo wear it beautifully, their hair perfectly smooth and coiled. 

But when you step out into the hall outside the church ballroom to join them, Dean actually pauses in what he’s saying to his brother. He nearly double takes when you enter his line of vision—mostly because he hasn’t seen you in a dress since that night. You were sexy as hell then, a lady in red. 

Today, you’re absolutely stunning. 

After greeting Sam with a warm hug, you turn to him with a nervous kind of smile. “H-Hey, Dean.”

With that, he snaps out of it. Dean smiles, eyes crinkling, and goes over to give you a hug as well.

“Good to see you,” he says, trying not to inhale too much of your nice perfume. It’s even in your hair.

“You too,” you reply. Your smile is a little brighter, more genuine. Though there’s something behind your eyes that he can’t quite place.

What he doesn’t notice is the way Lisa is watching you and her boyfriend, a hint of suspicion on her face.

You do though. You pull away from Dean and assemble into a line with Lisa at the helm. As the Best Man, Dean stands with her, followed by Jo and Brady, another one of Sam’s buddies. You and Benny bring up the rear. Benny’s dad used to work with John, Sam and Dean’s father, on the police force.

According to Sam, John Winchester worked a beat for twenty-six years before his liver finally gave out on him. Dean almost went to the Police Academy to follow in his dad’s footsteps, but Benny, already working his way up to Lieutenant, suggested Dean become a smoke eater instead. The suggestion stuck.

Benny Lafitte is slightly shorter than Dean, but just as broad-shouldered, his auburn beard neatly trimmed. Even though you might’ve thought he was rough around the edges at first, his kind blue eyes spoke the contrary. He offers you his arm like a gentleman.

“Well aren't I lucky, getting the prettiest girl on my arm,” he says, with a charming smile.

You smile, and even begin to blush at the way he subtly takes note of you from head to toe.

“Well, thank you. You’re very handsome yourself. Although, hold on.” You slip your arm out of his for a moment so that you can fix his tie. It’s slightly crooked. You make sure that it lays flat under his collar, smoothing down all the edges and picking off any small dust particles that landed on his collar. Benny watches you with an indulgent smile.

“Am I good?” he asks.

“Very,” you reply.

“I appreciate it, thank you,” he says. You don’t know if he means to sound flirtatious, but his voice is a deep drawl that washes over you pleasantly. You find yourself blushing down to your neck as you slip your arm back around his.

You also don’t notice how Dean glances at you and Benny over his shoulder.

As much as you love Sam and Eileen, it’s difficult for you to keep your mind from spinning into fractals as the ceremony goes on. You can’t help but glance at Dean. He stands there behind Sam dutifully, but you see brotherly pride in Dean’s eyes, in his smile. It makes you smile too. You too love Sam like a brother, and it brings a well of happy tears to your eyes to watch him have his moment with his new wife.

It just also reminds you of what you need to do.

After the ceremony ends and the bridal party files out behind the bride and groom, you excuse yourself from Benny apologetically. You wait until Lisa and Jo go off to take pictures with Sam and Eileen, and you grab Dean’s wrist, pulling him aside.

“I need to talk to you,” you whisper.

Dean gives you a confused look. “They’re gonna need us for the pictures.”

“I know, but this is important,” you say. Your voice trembles with nerves, and so do your hands. Dean notices, frowning in concern. He grasps your arm to try and steady you.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Just come with me,” you implore him. You take his hand and lead him into the women’s dressing room attached to the church sanctuary you all just came out of.

Dean raises his brows at the mess you and the rest of the bridesmaids have made of the room—pantyhose and makeup and clothing litter the floor and most available surfaces, while leftover breakfast sandwiches, grapes, salami, and cheddar cheese cubes are splayed out across one of the vanity counters. Dean is tempted to steal a morsel, but he focuses on you first.

You close and lock the door, which makes his brows raise high again. You know he has a girlfriend now, right?

“Uhh, look, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but—”

You heave a sigh. Again, you take his hand and guide him to sit with you at the vanity. The old stools squeak, the overhead lights a bit too bright. This is not where you want to do this, but you can’t hold it in anymore.

“Dean, I’m pregnant,” you confess.

He freezes. His breath stills in his lungs. His eyes slowly widen as the words click in his brain.

“What?” His head tilts, as if he didn’t hear you right.

You squeeze his hand; to ground him or yourself, you’re not sure.

“I’m about two months pregnant. I found out last week.”

Dean swipes his free hand over his mouth while he tries to compute. He squeezes your hand, tighter and tighter. He points to himself.

“It’s…it’s me? It’s mine?”

You give him a weary smile. “You’re the only one I’ve been with in the last few months. It could only be you.”

Oh fuck. The man’s face begins to pale as he descends into shock.

“But we…I used a condom,” he reasons. “All the—all the times!”

You bite your lip. If you weren’t freaking the fuck out yourself, you’d probably be laughing right now. Granted, you’ve had a bit more time to process this than Dean.

“I know, I was there,” you reply, releasing yet another sigh. “One of them probably broke. That’s all I can think of… Honestly, Dean, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I just didn’t want to disrupt the ceremony or cause a scene before the wedding. But now you know.”

Dean falls silent then. He hasn’t let go of your hand, which you think is a decent sign. He’s likely forgotten that you’re still holding it as he stares off into the middle distance for several seconds.

Eventually, he shakes his head and returns his gaze to yours. He looks uncertain, his handsome face the true epitome of holy fucking shit.

You know the feeling.

But he asks the most important question.

“What do you want to do?”

Briefly you close your eyes as you take a breath. You squeeze his hand before you let go of him.

“I’ve thought about this a lot, and…I’m keeping the baby,” you tell him, though you raise placating hands. “I don’t want money, or anything like that. I just wanted you to know that it’s yours. How much you want to be in his or—or her life, that’s up to you.”

Dean takes a beat before he answers, but you don’t have to wait so long holding your breath.

“Okay. Okay, yeah. I’ll help you. Don’t worry,” he says.

And just like that, all the time you spent giving yourself pep talks for this, telling yourself that you’ll need to be strong no matter what he says, all of it crumbles into relief. Your lower lip trembles, and your body shudders as you break into tears. You try covering your face to hide your shame, but Dean grasps your shoulders.

“Hey, hey. It’s all right,” he says. He tentatively pulls you into a hug. “It’s gonna be okay.”

You nod into his dress shirt, probably staining him with your running makeup.

“Thank you,” you whisper. “Thank you so much.”

He holds you a bit tighter in response.

You and Dean agree to keep this to yourselves for now, at least until Sam and Eileen get back from their honeymoon. It’s difficult to explain why your eyes are all red and your makeup is smudged, but you promise Sam that you’ll tell him later. You know it’s pointless to lie to him though. As a future lawyer, his bullshit meter is far too high.

However, you also know that he’s half guessed it by the time you all make it to the reception. When you and Dean came out of that dressing room to join the bridal party for pictures, you're sure that you looked emotionally wrecked. Dean had looked pale as a sheet, his body coiled and tense, as willing himself to seem normal. Sam had clocked both of you with a raise of his brow, but he didn't say anything then, especially after you gave him a pleading look.

While Eileen greets her family without him for a moment, Sam pulls you aside. He notes your glass of diet coke, in a moderate sea of guests drinking champagne and cocktails.

“Are you okay?” he asks knowingly.

Tears well up in your eyes again. You don’t know if it’s your damn hormones going haywire, or just the way Sam asks you, with the love of a friend in his eyes. He squeezes your shoulder gently, prompting you with your name.

“Yeah, I think I will be,” you say.

"Is it the same reason you're not drinking?" he asks. "You and Dean earlier..."

You hesitantly confirm with a nod. Sam blows out a harsh sigh, raising folded hands to his mouth as he processes. You begin to look around on reflex, trying to see if anyone's watching you and Sam have this conversation in the middle of the reception. To your relief, everyone around you seems occupied with drinks, hours d'oeuvres and conversation.

“What did he say when you told him?” Sam asks. His gaze is firmer. You get the idea that if he doesn’t like what you tell him, then he’s about to go grab his brother by the ear himself.

You grab his wrist and give a placating squeeze. “He said he's going to help me, be there for me.”

“Damn right. So will I,” Sam nods, and glances back at Eileen, his new bride, with a smile. “We both will.”

“I know,” you nod as well. “I’ll be okay, Sam. You don’t have to worry so much. Just enjoy your wedding day. It’s the only one you’re gonna get. Well, you know…hopefully.”

You tease him with a wink.

Sam laughs, cupping your cheek. He kisses your other cheek.

“I love you, you know that right?” he says.

You give him a trembling smile through your tears.

Meanwhile, Dean has a beautiful woman in his arms. He turns Lisa on the dancefloor, trying not to trip on his own dress shoes, all the while knowing that his brain isn’t here in his body. It’s across the ballroom, watching you talk to Sam. Dean can tell that he knows, just in his Big Bird body language. He’d also recognize that accompanying Bitch Face anywhere.

“Dean, what’s wrong,” Lisa asks him, and not for the first time. She’s getting annoyed, he can tell. She finally looks over to where he keeps glancing, and she notices you with a frown. It’s also not the first time she’s caught him staring at you tonight.

“What was that earlier in the dressing room? She didn’t really get food poisoning, did she?” she asks pointedly. “What, did you two used to date or something?”

He gives a wan smile. “Yeah, kinda. We…had a thing once.”

“What kind of thing?”

Dean closes his eyes and tries to keep himself calm. He’s pretty sure if he tells her the truth right now, she’s going to find the nearest cocktail and dump it over his head.

But shit, here it goes.

“Well…”

After a long day at school, you drive over to Dean’s apartment. You’d agreed to meet there and wait for him to get off his shift at Firehouse 83, where he just started as a full-fledged firefighter on probation. When he gets home, he’s supposed to go with you to an important appointment with your OB-GYN. 

You were hoping he’d already be done with work by the time you got to his place, but Lisa's there to open the door for you. Apparently, he’d already given her a key.

Moving kind of fast, but okay, you think. A second later, you could’ve rolled your eyes at yourself. Pot, kettle, me. Got it.

Lisa greets you with a “polite” smile at best, but she does offer you water at least. You really can’t blame her for not liking you though. She found out her boyfriend got another woman pregnant right before he started dating her. Really, she has more balls than you for staying with him. You wouldn't put it past Dean to somehow have smooth-talked her into giving him a chance.

Or she really loves him. The thought sobers you as you lower yourself down to the couch beside her. Both of you sit there in silence for a moment, trying to figure out something to talk about.

“So, you’re what, six months pregnant?” she asks.

You correct her in thinly veiled annoyance. “Three months, actually.”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t know why I thought it was six.”

You have a feeling her awkward chuckle is fake, however. She knew good and damn well that you’re not six months pregnant. In her eyes, you must be the size of a parade float. 

“If you want, I can recommend a holistic diet to help you get your body back after the baby’s born,” Lisa offers. “No pills, no chemicals. Just good clean weight loss.”

You feign interest. Honestly, you’d like her to cram that offer right up her hooch.

“I can even give you a discount if you want to try out yoga,” she says. “It’s low impact, but you burn plenty of calories. I have a beginner’s class, not too strenuous. Even my least flexible clients manage to do the poses.”

Is that why Dean likes you? Because you’re bendy? Bet if I sat on you, you’d pop like a fucking balloon.

You hide all of these thoughts behind a “polite” smile of your own.

“That’s really nice of you, thanks,” you reply. It’s non-committal enough, but hopefully it’ll get her off your back.

No such luck.

“You know, maintaining a healthy diet is really important for the baby’s health too,” Lisa adds. “It’s not just about avoided raw fish and dairy products. Oh, and processed food is obviously a no-go. Like, I’m sure you haven’t been hitting Taco Bell and all that stuff, right?”

As a matter of fact, you’ve been eating clean since long before you got pregnant. Not that it’s any business of hers whether you enjoy the occasional quesadilla or not.

Your temper snaps at its leash. You open your mouth to reply, when the front door unlocks and opens to Dean, stepping in through the threshold.

Thank God, you and Lisa both think. She gets up quicker from the couch than you, greeting her boyfriend with a kiss. You avert your gaze while you begin to get up yourself.

Dean reaches out to help you, grasping your arm in support. You shoot him a smile.

“I can still get up by myself,” you snip.

“Yeah, all right. Just in case,” he says with a smile. “Ready to go?”

“Oh, yeah. Let’s rock and roll,” you say, trying to hide your worsening mood. You’re exhausted, and irritated, and probably more than a little hangry. Except now, the idea of food just has you feeling guilty for even being hungry.

“Bye, hun. Hope you have a good appointment,” Lisa says, giving your shoulder a pat. You give her the most genuine smile you can muster as you thank her. It's possibly that she's one of those women who don't realize when they're being cunty, but you find it highly unlikely. She's too smart for that.

You follow Dean out the door and over to his car, big and black and sleek as you remember. You settle into the passenger seat with your arms crossed in silence. Dean switches the cassette to one of his favorite Led Zeppelin albums, though he notices your grumpy face.

“Something wrong?” he asks.

You give him some side-eye, but you’re reluctant to say anything. You just shake your head. As irritated as you are, you don’t want to be the friend who badmouths his girlfriend.

God, are we even friends? You wonder. Or am I just his knocked-up baby momma?

And again, you realize that this whole situation is probably hard for Lisa. You just don’t know if she’s jealous, or if she just…doesn’t like you.

“I’m okay,” you tell Dean.

He raises a skeptical brow. Looks like Sam isn’t the only one with a finely tuned bullshit meter.

“All right, how about this,” Dean says. “Let’s grab some burgers after this, huh? From your favorite spot. Shake Shack, right? Side of fries, frozen yogurt. I think I’ll get chocolate this time… Hmm, I doubt Lisa will want anything. She’s gone on an all-vegan kick or something.”

For one shining moment, you were happy and touched at his consideration. But now your body stills in your seat when you remember Lisa’s words. Tears well up in your eyes with a hot sting, and a sob escapes your throat.

Dean is cut off from thinking about getting extra bacon on his burger. He looks over at you in alarm. “H-Hey, what’s the matter?”

You scoff at him through your tears. “Are you kidding me? I can’t eat burgers anymore, Dean. I was already fucking fat. Now it’s just gonna get ridiculous.”

“What?” Dean’s brows knit together in confusion, along with his deepening frown. It gets worse as he tries to watch the road ahead, while at the same time, watching you continue to crumble.

“And after the birth, I’m just going to be an even fatter slob who can’t take care of her baby,” you sniffle and weep, trying in vain to wipe your eyes and get ahold of yourself.

Dean grits his teeth, his jaw twitching. Fuck it.

He turns the steering wheel sharp enough to startle a gasp out of you.

“Dean!”

He pulls the car over onto the side of the road, ignoring the honking SUV behind him. He shifts into Park and shuts off the radio—a big red flag, in your opinion. He’s upset too, and fucking serious, more so than you’ve ever seen him. You stare back at him with wide eyes.

“I’ve never once heard you say that you’re fat,” he says.

You blink at that, but eventually, you’re able to get your tongue to unstick from the roof of your mouth. You wipe the remnants of tears from your cheeks. Your face is already hot from your upset, now tinged with embarrassment.

“You haven’t known me very long,” you say quietly.

It doesn’t help. Dean’s jaw ticks again.

“Well, I’ve never thought it. Not even once,” he says. His jade green eyes are firmly set on yours, and he gestures between you and him with a pointed finger. “The reason you and I are here right now, is because the minute I saw you, I wanted you.”

One corner of his lips kicks upwards. “And that night, you didn’t disappoint.”

Your mouth falls open slightly. You don’t know how to respond, but you do know that a full blush is warming your face and neck. His words have power, and unbidden, they bloom a similar warmth between your legs. You swallow a bit nervously as you bite your bottom lip.

Dean glances down at your mouth when you do. He can remember what your pretty mouth did for him that night. Oh, he remembers all too well. He even had the shade of your lipstick streaked across his skin until he showered up at the firehouse.

He locks that all away when shifts the car back into Drive. If you’re going to make it to this appointment on time, he needs to get going.

And you both have to leave whatever that was right here by the side of the road.

AN: Woo! 😮‍💨 Yep, this is only Part 1, friends. Lisa is a bit different in this. My take was that without Ben in her life, she might be less mature and a bit more catty. As we get into Part 2 I'll leave it up to you to decide why she decides to stay with Dean, and perhaps more importantly, where the reader and Dean can go from here as co-parents. 🤔

If you enjoyed Part 1, please let me know!~

Next Time in Part 2:

“Hey, you okay?” you say, resting a gentle hand on his arm.

Dean shakes his head. “Look, I…I’m sorry for tossing a giant friggin’ monkey wrench into your life. I know this hasn’t been easy for you.”

If possible, your heart softens even more. You slide your hand down to grasp his.

“Dean, this baby wasn’t planned, but he’s not a mistake,” you say. “I don’t regret anything.”

Dean stares back at you incredulously. He can’t believe you could really say that to him. He doesn’t know what to say. He only knows what’s in his mind, and what he feels compelled to do in that moment.

He leans over and kisses you. It’s a firm meeting of his lips to yours, and achingly familiar.

⋆˙⟡ Keep Reading: Part 2

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@deanbrainrotwritings @alwaystiredandconfused @supernotnatural2005

[queenie-the-court-jester]

pucker up buttercup

Yandere florist x reader

Tw: mentions of physical abuse in sexual settings, implied drugging and somnophilia, stalking, implied possessive behavior and controlling nature, mildly nsfw. Not proofread 🌺

🌷Benny was the quiet kid of your school. You didn't know much about him, except he was a good student and apart of the gardening club. That was all, but Benny? Oh he knew you very well..

🌷you were stunning. You had such amazing hair that he wanted to play with every night before going to sleep, those stunning beautiful eyes that always ghosted over his form in the cafeteria, and your voice that always managed to make him rock hard down there

🌷 recently your family had gotten a wide assortment of flowers for an event. Thinking they were pretty, you asked for the florists name or any social they might have. They handed you a card with the info, and with that you looked up the account on Instagram.

🌷 scrolling through their posts you found a familiar face you'd see every day in the school halls. What was his name again? Benjamin? Beanie? No.. oh yeah! Benny! You didnt know he had such a good eye for aesthetics, especially flower arrangements. But that has to be expected since he spends all his time gardening

🌷the next time you saw him, you walked right up to his table on campus grounds. A bit far from the other outside lunch areas. He froze when he saw a familiar pair of shoes, looking up at you slowly with those big blue eyes

"you're a florist right?"

"y-yes..?"

"how much for a dozen roses and half a dozen tulips?"

🌷you became a regular after that. He'd wait anxiously every day for you in the plant nursery after school. He always gave you such cheap prices, claiming you were his friend and he only did favors for them. You thought he was sweet, so when you heard rumors about him being caught sneaking around the girls locker rooms and stalking a classmate? You shrugged it off,most likely empty gossip

🌷if only you paid attention to the red flags sooner.. you would have realized Benny's real nature. When he asked you out prom night, you agreed, he was sweet and you weren't seeing anyone at the moment. Who knew, maybe this would be the start of a beautiful relationship?

Pros with Benny:

🌹atleast he's a very generous lover. Spoiling you with what he could afford, since he came from humble beginnings he's always wise with the money you both have

🌹 he's completely devoted to you! Never looking at anyone else with love or lust, always worshipping you both in bed and outside it

🌹you learn new things. Like natural remedies, plants and their names, their usefulness to make nearly everything. Even drugs (He's vegan.)

🌹he wants to settle down and raise a family with you as soon as you graduate college! He gets tipsy and love drunk thinking about it too much. He'd make an excellent father. Kind of.

The cons:

🥀 randomly, he'll get very aggressive in bed. Biting you till your skin bleeds, slapping your chest and ass, degrading you with the most vilest words. Not to mention he seems to really like choking you till you almost pass out

🥀he doesn't know how to take no for an answer, he'll go scarily quiet and his eyes will turn dull. A complete contrast to how he usually is. Surely a little intimidation will make you change your mind no?

🥀 he's possessive with your time and love. If he ever notices you staring at anyone a little too long, who isn't friends or family he knows of, you bet there'll be missing person posters by the end of the week

🥀he forbids you from going into the basement. Saying it's his private nursery and you should respect his privacy, even if he doesn't respect yours

🥀 randomly you'll feel sleepy after Eating anything he makes you, growing drowsy and the last thing you can remember is feeling clammy hands hastily unbutton your pants and shirt

[wtftaylr]

I love Companion Benny. I love the idea that he gets huffy-puffy and “just a little” jealous if you switch him out for another companion. He simply cannot cope with the fact that you’d toss him aside like yesterday’s trash for… what, some scribe in rags? A boring-ass first recon guy? A vaquero ghoul? (ok he thinks Raul is kinda cool actually but he won’t openly admit that)?? Benny has STORIES, baby. Interest. Intrigue. You wanna know all the juicy strip gossip? Guess what, you CANT now because you DISMISSED him. How DARE you.

Benny is VERSATILE, baby. His tagged skills are guns, melee, and unarmed. Good luck finding another companion that can do what he can. Yeah Craig “Frowns” Boone can headshot a cazador from a million yards away or whatever, *mumbling* show-off, he would’ve seen that cazador eventually *end mumbling* but Benny can shoot, stab, AND punch. Hey courier, watch this. I’m gonna punch the fuck out of this deathclaw. He does it (you gotta administer a few stimpaks) BUT HE DID IT. And he was only at half health. 400+ health honeybaby, Benny can take a few whacks from those deathclaw freaks. What was that? Showing off? Benny doesn’t have to show off, sugar plum. He’s just that good.

He also won’t complain that his feet are getting tired. Yeah he’ll complain about minor inconveniences and wants you to do something about them regardless if you realistically can or not, but at least he’ll walk miles upon miles in a day and not complain. He also won’t complain about going back to the Lucky 38. (he’ll just complain about not being able to get in there before the Courier showed up.) What, no one else complains about their feet hurting? Uhhhh BOOT-RIDERS. Silly name. But that’s how they rode the Mojave, dig? On their feet. He’s done this before. Experienced.

AND ANOTHER THING. how many companions shout words of encouragement during a fight. Go on. He’s waiting.

You’re doing great, baby! Show these punk losers what you got!!

I bet all the caps in Vegas you’ll miss that while getting shot to shit by the Fiends or whatever. Grumble. Benny hopes you come back in one piece, of course. He’d just rather see to it himself that you remain in one piece. Uhh BECAUSE HE’S JUST THAT GR-

(The courier left with their choice of companion hours ago. Swank is trying to work but Benny won’t stop gabbing his ear off. Dear god Benny just go be the Head of The Chairmen somewhere else. Swank is trying to do actual work here.)

[supernotnatural2005]

The Arrangement - Part One

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Summary: Dean has a conflicting dream about you, his best friend, that has him questioning feelings he'd never allowed to see the light of day before. However, he might not be the only one…

Word Count: 7.7k

Warnings/Tags: Swearing, feelings, some spicy times, nothing too heavy...

AN: Happy Release day!!🎉 Honestly, i can’t thank you all enough for the excitement around this series since announcing it! I've fell in love writing this story 🥹 and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it ❤️

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Dean smiled lazily as he felt a warm palm slide up his chest, the body behind him pressing closer. Soft lips trailed kisses along his neck and shoulders, sending a shiver down his spine. He hummed in contentment and shifted onto his back, his tired eyes opening to the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

Her eyes sparkled with warmth and mischief, her lips curving into a playful smirk before she leaned down, peppering gentle kisses along his jaw. His eyes fluttered shut again as she sucked lightly at his pulse point, his breath coming quicker. A low groan rumbled from his throat as he gripped her waist, pulling her up into a heated kiss.

Her tongue caressed his, her touch sending fire through his veins. Her hand slid down his abdomen, fingertips grazing lower and lower beneath the sheets, his pulse pounding—

"WAKE UP, LOSER!"

Dean's eyes shot open, his body jolting as the blaring shriek of an airhorn filled his room. He yanked the covers tighter around himself, his heart racing from both the rude awakening and the remnants of his dream.

"What the hell, Y/N?" he growled, glaring at the culprit as he covered his ears. You grinned triumphantly and finally put the airhorn to rest.

Dean huffed, flopping back down on the bed and throwing an arm over his face, trying to will away the heat rising to his cheeks.

What the fuck? Was all he could think, his sleep-addled brain scrambling to make sense of why he’d just had a sex dream about you.

You, meanwhile, were way too chipper for his liking. 

"C’mon, Dean-o, up and at ’em." You patted his leg, and he flinched like you’d just burned him. You shot him an odd look, but he ignored it, shifting slightly to make sure the blanket hid the… Predicament he was currently dealing with.

"What’s with the drill sergeant wake-up? Can a guy not sleep in on a Saturday?" He grumbled, voice still rough from sleep, and other things.

You pouted. Actually pouted. And Dean had to force himself to look away from your lips—lips that had just been doing unspeakable things to him in his dream.

"You promised you'd go Christmas shopping with me.” You reminded him, completely unfazed by his mood.

Dean frowned. "That doesn’t sound like something I’d promise."

You hit him with your classic 'don’t bullshit me' look. And, yeah, okay, he remembered now. He'd offered last week, wanting to help you survive the chaos of last-minute shoppers—and use the trip to grab gifts for his own family.

"Fine, yeah. Just give me ten minutes to wake up, alright?" He relented, desperate for you to leave so he could deal with his little… Issue.

“Thanks, Buddy." Your voice was smug, like you knew he’d never actually say no to you. Because, let’s be honest, he never did.

Dean sighed as you closed the door behind you. He let his head fall back against the pillow, running a hand down his face.

What the hell?

Why was he dreaming about you like that? You were his best friend. You’d been inseparable since fourth grade. Sure, you were beautiful, but that had never been an issue before.

…Had it?

Dean groaned, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. Nope. Too early for a deep dive into that mess. He rationalised it away—one, you were attractive. Two, you were close. And, statistically speaking, didn’t most guy-girl friendships eventually veer into weird territory at some point?

Yeah. Totally normal. No big deal.

Except… Two hours later, standing in the middle of a lingerie store, Dean realised he was totally screwed.

Before that, he’d spent the last two hours hauling around a bunch of your shopping bags like a damn pack mule. Only one of them happened to be his, with his completed gift purchases for everyone he needed to buy for. Though to be fair to you, your arms were just as full. He was bewildered at your ability to buy so much for so little.

Your immediate family only consisted of three people—Bobby, Ellen, and Jo—but you had argued that you had your friends, his family, and him to buy for. The latter of which, he’d told you not to do.

However, it fell on deaf ears as always. Every Christmas and birthday, it was the same. But Dean couldn’t fault you for it—you always got people gifts that were meaningful to them, and you got so much joy from giving that he could never say anything other than thank you.

What he wasn’t thankful for was your complete inability to stay focused. Every shop you entered, you’d get distracted by little knickknacks, convincing yourself someone needed them, rather than the original item you came for. It made the day so much longer, but despite the fatigue in his arms and the chaos of holiday shoppers, he was enjoying himself.

Though, that was a given with you.

You were naturally a people pleaser, but knowing how much Dean hated shopping, you’d made it your mission to keep him entertained. You’d made him laugh—laugh to the point his belly ached and tears were shed. The day had surprisingly become enjoyable. But then you'd dragged him into this store, and his brain short-circuited.

The window displays alone had him spiralling, lace and silk-covered mannequins taunting him with thoughts he really didn’t need to have. About you. And then you, completely oblivious, pulled a matching red lace bra and thong off a rack, holding them up for inspection.

Dean swallowed hard.

He’d done your laundry before. You two split chores in the apartment, and he’d handled your underwear plenty of times; never thinking twice about it. So why the hell was he suddenly imagining you in them now?

Was this really because of the dream? It had to be.

And then, like you hadn’t already sent him into cardiac arrest, you giggled, holding up another pair. "Hey, check this out—crotchless panties."

Dean barely choked back a groan as you stuck your fingers through the open section like it was the funniest thing in the world. His brain, on the other hand, provided a detailed mental slideshow of all the things he could do to you in them.

Jesus Christ.

He needed air.

"I—uh—I gotta step outside. Promised Sammy I’d call about a gift for Mom," he lied, voice tight.

You barely glanced up. "Okay."

Dean bolted like his life depended on it, shoving through the doors and inhaling the crisp winter air. "What the fuck is wrong with you, man?" He muttered under his breath, dragging a hand down his face.

A passing woman gave him a scandalised look as she walked by with her kid. He shot her an apologetic smile before leaning back against the brick wall, blowing out a heavy breath.

He tried to clear his mind, but every time he pushed the R-rated thoughts away, softer images replaced them. The way you smiled. The way you laughed, head thrown back, eyes crinkling. That stupid fluttery feeling hit his stomach again.

Dean frowned.

Was he sick? Hallucinating?

The worst part? You were always the person he talked to when he was confused about something.

But now you were the one person he couldn’t talk to about this.

Another half hour crawled by before you finally emerged from the store, a small bag swinging from your wrist. Dean’s eyes locked onto it like it held the answers to the universe, his mind immediately spiralling.

What the hell did you buy?

He told himself he didn’t care. He really didn’t. But his brain clearly had other plans because now he was picturing you in every single thing you could’ve possibly picked out.

Lingerie? Pyjama's? Something sheer, lace- nope!

He swallowed hard and forced himself to focus on literally anything else, but it was a lost cause. By the time you both made it back to the apartment, he felt like his brain had been put through a damn blender.

You, however, were completely unbothered, tossing your bags onto the floor with a content sigh before flopping onto the couch. "Pizza should be here soon. You wanna pick the movie?"

Dean blinked, barely processing the words. Right. Normal best friend things. Hanging out. Eating pizza. Watching a movie. That’s what you two did. That’s what you’d always done.

Maybe that’s all today was—a momentary lapse. A weird, fleeting thing brought on by lack of sleep, the stress of shopping, and, most probably, the objectifying dream he’d had of you. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that.

Yeah. He could shake this off. No big deal.

Letting out a slow breath, he dropped onto the couch beside you, snagging the remote. "Fine. But if I pick, you’re not allowed to bitch about it."

You hummed, already scrolling through your phone. "I make no promises."

A small smirk tugged at Dean’s lips. This was normal. Easy. Just like always.

And for the first time since this morning, he let himself believe it.

The following Friday, Dean found himself at the Roadhouse with Benny, Cas, and Gabe. It was the kind of place that felt like a second home.

The Roadhouse wasn’t fancy—hell, half the decor was older than they were—but it had its own charm. The regulars, the outdated rodeo-style décor, the worn wooden bar top that had seen more spilled whiskey and thrown punches than anyone cared to count.

The walls were lined with old beer signs, neon lights buzzing softly under the hum of conversation. The jukebox in the corner cycled through rock classics, always a little too loud, but that was part of the place’s charm.

Dean and the guys had been coming here for years—long before they were even old enough to drink. You had, too. Being Ellen’s stepdaughter meant you practically grew up in this place, and while Ellen had a strict no-bullshit policy, she wasn’t blind to the fact that teenagers would be teenagers.

As long as you and the guys stayed under her watchful eye, she let you each have a beer or two when you were younger, making damn sure no one got carried away. And if anyone so much as thought about sneaking more? Well, Ellen had a way of shutting that down real quick. She was tough, sharp as a whip, and had a stare that could make a grown man fold—but she cared, more than she’d ever admit.

Jo helped out too, working the bar some nights in between her law enforcement studies. She’d been slinging beers and rolling her eyes at the group’s antics since she was old enough to work behind the counter, always quick with a sarcastic remark when any of them got out of line. 

You and Dean had spent countless nights here, watching as the Roadhouse shaped who you all became.

Benny leaned against the pool table, lining up his shot with an easy, practiced confidence. Dean had seen him do it a hundred times—his friend had a natural ease about him, a steadiness that made him damn good at their job. 

They spent most of their days working maintenance for RHP Properties, fixing busted pipes and dealing with tenants who thought every flickering light meant the world was ending. Benny made the long hours bearable.

Cas sat nearby, nursing a whiskey, his sharp blue eyes scanning the table like he was analysing some historical battle strategy. He always had that serious, thoughtful air about him. It made sense—he was a history teacher, working his way toward becoming a professor. His brain just worked differently.

And then there was Gabriel, though he liked to go by Gabe, Cas’ cousin. Though you’d never guess it just by looking at them. 

Where Cas was serious, methodical, and downright broody at times, Gabe was his exact opposite—carefree, unpredictable, and always ready with a joke. The contrast between them was almost comical, like night and day, order and chaos.

Currently half-draped over the bar like he owned the place, Gabe was laughing at something Rachel, the new bartender, had said. She was easy on the eyes—exactly the kind of woman Gabe set his sights on. And judging by the way she giggled and blushed under his usual blend of wit and charm, he’d hit his mark.

Gabe had always been that guy—the one who could talk his way into or out of anything, a natural-born trickster with a grin that could disarm just about anyone. No one was entirely sure what he did for a living, some mix of marketing gigs and side hustles that somehow kept him afloat. According to him, it was all about “the art of persuasion.”

Dean just called it bullshit.

The night had settled into an easy rhythm—drinks flowing, pool games stretching long enough to become more about talking shit than actual competition. Gabe, as always, had the floor, spinning some ridiculous story about a one-night stand gone wrong.

“I’m telling you; she had three snakes. Just slithering around the damn apartment like it was normal,” Gabe insisted, gesturing wildly with his beer. “One of ‘em was watching me, man. I swear it knew.”

Benny chuckled, lining up his next shot. “I think the real question is, why the hell did you stay?”

Gabe shrugged. “What can I say? I have a hard time walking away from an adventure.”

Cas, who had been nursing his whiskey with a bemused expression, finally spoke up. “It’s a wonder you haven’t been killed yet.”

“Give it time,” Benny muttered, sinking his shot.

The conversation shifted, everyone throwing in their own weird hookup stories—bad timing, embarrassing moments, things they wished they could forget. Dean had been mostly listening, chuckling at their dumb-assery, when the thought that had been nagging him for days finally slipped out.

“Is it, uh… normal to have a sex dream about a friend?”

Benny didn’t react at first, too focused on sinking his shot, but Gabe, ever the opportunist, caught onto it immediately. “If it’s about Y/N? Yeah, totally.”

Dean nearly choked on his beer. “What? No—it’s not—”

Gabe grinned, tilting his head like he was enjoying watching Dean squirm. “Not what? Not about her? Or not just a dream?”

Dean scowled, scrambling to recover. “Jesus, Gabe, I didn’t say it was about her. It was hypothetical.”

“Uh-huh.” Gabe leaned against the pool table, twirling the chalk in his fingers. “Sure, man. Hypothetical.”

Dean exhaled sharply, trying to shake off the weird, twisting feeling in his gut. “Just saying, dreams don’t mean anything, right? Just… brain static.”

Benny chuckled, finally looking up from the table. “Depends on the dream, brother.”

Dean glanced between them, suddenly feeling like he was the only one missing something. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gabe smirked, eyes twinkling with mischief. “It means you’ve been making googly eyes at her since we were, what—fifteen?”

Dean’s stomach dropped. “The hell I have.”

Gabe ignored him, tapping his chin. “Honestly, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.”

Benny sighed, shaking his head as he sank another shot. “Sorry, brother. Gotta agree with the gremlin on this one.”

Cas, who had been silent up until now, finally spoke, his voice calm and matter of fact. “It’s always been very obvious.”

Dean stared at them, mouth opening and closing. “You guys are insane.”

Gabe shrugged, completely unfazed. “Denial’s a hell of a drug. You’ll catch up eventually.”

Dean gripped his pool cue a little tighter, his next shot suddenly feeling a lot more difficult than it should have.

Benny, ever the voice of reason, leaned on his cue. “Ain’t anything bad, Dean. You two have known each other since you were what? Nine. Been joint at the hip since. You know all her family, she knows yours. Hell, she’s practically—”

“If that were true, something would’ve happened by now,” Dean cut in, shaking his head.

Gabe snorted, swiping Dean’s beer before he could stop him. “Not if you’re in denial, my friend.”

Dean’s jaw clenched, frustration curling in his chest. Their words were ringing too damn true, and it was freaking him out. “You’re all outta your damn minds.”

Gabe just smirked. “Keep telling yourself that, Winchester.”

The conversation haunted him. All the way back to the apartment.

He’d walked the couple of blocks from the bar to your shared place, his friends’ words swirling around his mind, needling into places he didn’t want to acknowledge.

Dean knew he cared about you—he always had. But wasn’t that normal after knowing someone for so long? You were practically family.

His thoughts drifted back to the first time he met you. Fourth grade. The old, rusted swing set at the park near his house.

He’d been shoving loose gravel around with the toe of his sneaker when he heard a loud laugh—sharp and unbothered. Looking up, he saw a girl launch herself off the swing at its peak, landing in a heap on the ground with a thud.

He winced. That had to hurt.

But instead of crying, you rolled onto your back, a grin splitting your dirt-smudged face as you stared up at the sky. "Holy crap, that was awesome."

Dean frowned, more confused than anything. "You just busted your knee."

You sat up, inspecting the scrape with a shrug. "Eh, I’ve had worse."

Then you looked at him—really looked at him—and grinned. "Think you can jump higher?"

Dean, never one to back down from a challenge, snorted. "Duh."

And that was that. A competition was born.

For the next hour, you and Dean had taken turns swinging as high as possible before flinging yourselves off, measuring who could get the most distance. By the time the sun dipped low, both of you were covered in dirt and scrapes, laughing like idiots.

When his mom finally called him home for dinner, he’d hesitated before brushing off his hands and looking at you. "Same time tomorrow?"

You grinned, teeth flashing. "You’re on, Winchester."

And just like that, Dean had found his best friend.

Now, years later, that same friend was tangled up in his head in a way he couldn’t ignore.

And it scared the hell out of him.

“Honey, I’m home!” Dean called out as soon as he stepped into the apartment. The words left him out of habit, that same old teasing lilt in his voice. It was an inside joke that had stuck over time—born the day you’d both moved in together after college, a decision fuelled by practicality more than anything else. 

Splitting rent was cheaper, and as best friends, it had made perfect sense. Somehow, though, the whole thing had felt oddly domestic from the start, and Dean had cracked the joke that first night—throwing open the door with a smirk, announcing himself like some sitcom husband. You’d groaned, thrown a pillow at him, and it had just stuck. Something easy, something comfortable.

From somewhere deeper in the apartment, your voice called back, warm and casual. “Hey!” You greeted him as he shrugged off his worn leather jacket and toed off his boots with a sigh, rolling his neck to ease the tension there. 

“How were the guys?” You called out again.

"Yeah, they're all good," he answered absentmindedly, trying not to think about that last conversation he’d had with them as he headed straight for the fridge, already contemplating his options.

His hand gripped the cool metal of the handle as he swung it open, his face falling at the sad excuse for groceries staring back at him—half a six-pack, expired milk, some takeout containers he didn’t even remember ordering.

Right. Grocery shopping. Definitely overdue.

"Hey, you feel like ordering in tonight?" He called out over his shoulder. "Pizza? Chinese? Maybe both, live a little?"

But before he could get an answer, movement in the corner of his eye pulled his focus, and his breath caught in his throat.

You stepped out of your room, and just like that, Dean forgot how to breathe.

His hand slipped from the fridge handle as his entire focus tunnelled in on you. You weren’t just dressed up—you were knockout gorgeous. 

A sleek, black dress hugged your figure in a way that should’ve been illegal, the fabric clinging in all the right places before tapering off mid-thigh. Your legs—long, smooth, and so much more on display than he was prepared for—were accentuated by the sharp cut of your stilettos, heels so high they had no damn business being on your feet, yet somehow, you walked like you owned the world in them.

Dean swallowed hard.

His gaze flickered to the subtle details—the delicate chain resting just below the hollow of your throat, the way the dim lighting in the apartment caught the shimmer of your earrings, how your makeup was just enough to highlight what was already perfect. 

You smelled different too—a new perfume perhaps? Something subtle but undeniably you.

The air in the apartment felt thick, like it was pushing down on his chest.

You didn’t even notice his staring. Instead, you were focused on the couch, leaning over slightly as you grabbed your purse, your fingers quickly checking through its contents. "I can't," you said lightly, barely looking up. "Got a hot date, remember?"

Dean blinked, your words cutting through his haze like a blade.

“Date?"

His stomach twisted.

You straightened up, finally glancing at him with a smirk. "Yeah, with Gary from marketing?" You prompted, slinging your purse over your shoulder. "He asked me out last week—I told you about it?”

Gary from marketing.

Dean’s brows furrowed as the memory came rushing back—how you’d offhandedly mentioned it while he was distracted with something else, how he’d muttered some half-assed response at the time, maybe even made a joke—

"The guy with the tragic haircut?" he muttered, the words coming out before he could stop them.

You laughed. "That’s the one."

And just like that, it hit him.

He’d been so caught up in his own damn thoughts about you lately—trying to reason with himself, trying to make sense of the way things had shifted between you lately—that he hadn’t even thought the world would still be turning for you.

He’d been sitting in the passenger seat, clueless, while you’d been steering your own damn life without him.

And now?

Now, you were standing there, looking like that, all dressed up for some other guy—some idiot named Gary, who got to pick you up and take you out, who got to be the reason you put on that dress, who got to see that smile meant for him tonight.

Dean’s chest felt tight, a slow, bitter realisation creeping in.

This wasn’t like all the other times.

You’d gone on dates before. He knew that. He’d teased you about them, had even tossed out protective big-brother-ish warnings to guys who had no clue the words felt foreign in his mouth. But he’d never felt anything about it before.

Not like this.

Not like his chest was caving in.

Not like a bitter, ugly heat was curling around his ribs, settling deep into his bones.

Not like he wanted to throw his jacket back on and hunt down ‘Gary from marketing’ and make damn sure he knew he wasn’t good enough for you.

His hands curled into fists at his sides.

"Right." His voice was quieter than he meant it to be, rough around the edges as he forced the word past the lump in his throat.

He watched as you did one last check in the mirror by the door, smoothing your hands down your dress, adjusting your lipstick in a way that made his stomach tighten even more. You looked excited.

Dean clenched his jaw.

And just like that, the jealousy settled deep in his bones, hot and unyielding.

He didn’t want to picture it—you laughing at some stupid joke Gary made over dinner, Gary sliding his hand over yours, maybe leaning in close at the end of the night, lips hovering over yours.

But the thoughts came anyway.

And it wrecked him.

You shot him one last glance, oblivious to the storm raging inside of him. "Don’t wait up, Winchester."

And with that, you were gone.

Dean stood there for a long moment, staring at the closed door.

His chest felt tight. And then the bitter realisation hit him. 

His friends had been right.

Dean couldn’t sleep.

For the past two hours, he had been tossing and turning, alternating between staring at the ceiling and squeezing his eyes shut, willing sleep to come. It never did.

How the hell could he sleep when his mind was torturing him with images of you—with Gary?

His stomach churned uncomfortably at the thought of it, bile rising in his throat. His mind painted vivid, unwanted pictures: Gary’s hands on you, his lips on your skin, your soft laughter, the way you might be looking at him right now—the way you should be looking at Dean.

He clenched his jaw, shaking his head as if it would shake the thoughts loose. It didn’t.

With a frustrated exhale, Dean sat up, rubbing a hand down his face. This was pointless.

There was no way in hell he was going to get any rest like this, not with his heart pounding and his mind running laps. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, stretching his sore muscles before making his way into the living room.

His feet carried him straight to the kitchen, to the cabinet under the sink where he kept a bottle of whiskey for special occasions.

This qualified.

He poured himself a shot and downed it in one go, barely wincing at the burn as it slid down his throat. The second one went down just as easily, a bitter warmth settling in his chest, but it didn’t quiet the storm in his head the way he hoped it would.

His eyes flicked toward the clock on the microwave.

1:37 AM.

You were still out.

Another shot. Another slow burn in his chest.

Dean knew he had no right to be this worked up about it. He wasn’t your boyfriend. He wasn’t anything to you except your best friend—your roommate. That was the problem.

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling hard.

When the hell did everything get so complicated?

It wasn’t just the dream. Sure, it cracked something open in him, but if he was honest with himself, there had always been something simmering underneath. He could see it now—in the way his past relationships never worked out, how no one else ever seemed enough because in the back of his mind, he was always comparing them to you. The way he told you things he didn’t tell anyone, not even his own mother.

Seventeen years.

You had been in his life for seventeen years. That was longer than most marriages. 

Damn, he really was an idiot. How could he have been so blind to it, so ignorant to what was staring him right in the face the whole time? 

Then, he heard it.

The distinct jingle of keys outside the door, followed by a clumsy, muffled “shit" breaking him out of his reverie.

Dean sighed, setting his glass down before pushing off from the counter. He made his way to the door just as he heard another "fuck", then a quiet thud—like something hitting the floor.

Through the peephole, he spotted you crouched down, fumbling for your keys, struggling to fit them into the lock.

You were clearly drunk.

Dean shook his head with a smirk, unlocking the door from his side just as you managed to steady yourself, one hand braced against the door handle. The moment he pulled it open, you stumbled forward, nearly toppling over—until his arms caught you.

You crashed into his chest with a soft “Hmph.”

Dean's arms instinctively wrapped around you, holding you up as you melted against him, giggling into his shirt. The scent of alcohol clung to you, a mix of whiskey and whatever fruity drink you had been sipping on all night.

“Jesus." You huffed, pushing off him, though you wobbled as you tried to find your footing. Dean kept his hands out, ready to catch you again if needed.

"You good, sweetheart?" He asked, raising a brow as he took in your dazed smile and glassy eyes.

You grinned up at him, your expression pure blissed-out drunkenness. "I'm just perfect, Dean’o."

Dean smirked at the nickname, but before he could say anything, you reached up and grasped his jaw between your thumb and fingers, squishing his cheeks slightly.

“Okay, alright—enough of that.” He groaned, peeling your hand away. You didn’t seem to realise your own strength at the moment, and if you squeezed any harder, you were gonna leave a dent in his damn face.

You blinked up at him, wide-eyed, before your attention drifted over his shoulder. Then your expression dropped into something heartbreakingly close to a pout.

“Awww,” you whined. “You’re drinking without me?”

You sounded genuinely upset, your lower lip pushing out in an exaggerated fashion. Before Dean could respond, you made a clumsy grab for the bottle on the counter.

But Dean was quicker.

Before your fingers could wrap around the neck of the whiskey bottle, his hand closed over yours, pulling it away with ease. “Yeah, no. You’ve had enough,” he said firmly, setting the bottle behind him and out of reach.

You frowned up at him, your brows knitting together like a scolded child. “You’re no fun.”

Dean smirked, amused at how downright grumpy you looked, like a kid being denied dessert. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “You need some water, sweetheart. Not more booze.”

You huffed dramatically, crossing your arms over your chest. “I don’t want water, I want whiskey.”

“Tough,” Dean said, already turning to grab a glass from the cabinet. “You’re getting water.”

Your pout deepened as he filled the glass from the tap, sliding it toward you. You eyed it like it personally offended you before reluctantly picking it up and taking a sip—your way of conceding to his demand, albeit with an exaggerated sigh.

Dean chuckled, shaking his head. You were something else.

Once you were distracted with your water, he leaned against the counter again, crossing his arms over his chest. He could still feel the tension coiling in his gut, the jealousy he’d been drowning in all night, and he couldn’t hold it back any longer.

“So,” he started, keeping his tone casual, but his fingers clenched against his biceps. “How was it?”

You blinked up at him, confused. “How was what?”

Dean gave you a look. “Your date.”

At that, you scoffed, setting your glass down with a little more force than necessary. “Oh, that.” You waved a hand dismissively. “It was awful.”

Dean raised an eyebrow, surprised by how quickly you admitted it. He’d expected you to defend the guy, maybe try to convince yourself it had been a good time. But no—just flat-out awful.

“Yeah?” He prompted, keeping his voice even, but he could already feel his chest loosening just a little.

You leaned against the counter, your drunken state making you extra expressive as you talked with your hands. “First of all, the guy is so uptight. Like, I swear, he’s never laughed in his life. I tried joking around, and he just blinked at me like I was speaking another language.”

Dean snorted, already picturing it.

“And then,” you continued, eyes wide with disbelief, “all he did was talk about himself. Nonstop. Like, dude, I asked him one question—one—about his job, and suddenly I was stuck in a TED Talk about marketing strategies. Like I don’t work for the same company.” You threw your arms out in a ‘are you kidding me’ gesture.

Dean chuckled, shaking his head. “Sounds like a real winner.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” you said, holding up a finger. “So, we order food, right? And I get a cheeseburger, because, you know, I wanted a damn cheeseburger.”

Dean nodded approvingly. “Good choice.”

“Right?” You gestured wildly, as if proving your point. “But Gary—freaking Gary—looks at me and goes, ‘Are you sure you wanna eat that? You should really watch your figure.’”

Dean froze. His smirk disappeared.

For a moment, he just stared at you, like he couldn’t believe the words had actually come out of your mouth.

Then his expression darkened, jaw tightening. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

You rolled your eyes. “I wish.”

Dean’s grip on his bicep tightened, his teeth grinding together. That prick. He had known from the start that Gary was a tool, but this? This was another level.

“So,” you continued, a mischievous glint in your eye, “I did what any rational, level-headed woman would do in that situation.”

Dean arched a brow. “And that was?”

You grinned, leaning in like you were about to tell him a secret. “I threw my drink in his face and left.”

Dean stared at you for a beat, then—He laughed.

A deep, genuine laugh that rumbled in his chest as pride swelled in him. “No shit?”

“No shit.” You grinned, clearly pleased with yourself. “Right in his smug, stupid, judgy face.”

Dean shook his head, chuckling. That’s my girl, he thought, though he would never say it out loud.

“But instead of coming straight home,” you continued, twirling your glass of water between your fingers, “I didn’t wanna deal with your I told you so—”

Dean smirked. “I would’ve said it.”

You shot him a look. “—so, I went to the Roadhouse instead. Had a few drinks, bitched about my failed date to Jo and Ellen. Ellen cut me off and called me a cab.” Dean huffed. That sounded about right.

For a moment, he just watched you, taking in the way you had perked up again, the lingering frustration in your eyes slowly melting into something softer.

You were here.

Not out with Gary. Not waking up next to some guy who didn’t deserve you. Not letting some self-important idiot tell you who you should be.

You were home. With him.

And as much as he wanted to tell you that he had been losing his damn mind all night, picturing you with someone else—he didn’t.

Instead, he leaned against the counter, arms still crossed, and smirked.

"Well," Dean said, tilting his head with a smirk. "At least you got a good story out of it."

"Yeah, I guess." You hummed, swirling the water in your glass. The initial amusement faded as your shoulders dropped slightly. Dean caught the shift immediately, his brows pulling together.

"C’mon, you can’t really be cut up about a guy with an Edward Scissor-hands haircut and zero game." He teased, hoping to pull you out of whatever downward spiral you were heading into.

It worked—your laughter bubbled out, a full, belly-deep laugh that made the tension in his chest ease. But then you sighed, the sound quieter this time, more pensive. "It’s not him I’m cut up about."

Dean watched you carefully as you traced the rim of your glass with your finger. "I just feel like I can never meet a good guy."

Something inside him twisted.

What about me?

The thought came unbidden, sharp and intrusive, and he shoved it down before it could take root. Instead, he nudged you with his elbow.

"That’s not true." His voice was lighter now, teasing again. "What about Mikey? The guy with the lisp?"

His grin widened as he mimicked a lisp, knowing damn well you’d dated the guy for barely two months in your sophomore year before his clinginess drove you up the wall. The look of horror that crossed your face had him biting back a laugh.

"Oh my God, Dean!" You gawked at him before landing a solid punch to his arm. "That is so mean!"

"Ow," he complained through his laughter, rubbing the spot you hit. "I’m serious, though! He was a real sweetheart.” He exaggerated the lisp again, barely dodging your next swing.

"I swear to God—" You huffed, turning to stomp off, but before you could escape, he caught your arm gently.

"Okay, okay, I’m done. Scouts honour." He held up three fingers in a mock solemn gesture.

You gave him a look—like you absolutely did not believe him—but still, with a huff, you reclaimed your spot opposite him and took another sip of water.

Then, almost absentmindedly, you sighed. "I mean, it has been a long time."

Dean’s brow furrowed. "A long time since what?"

You hesitated for a brief second before shrugging your shoulders, brushing it off like it wasn’t a big deal. "Since I’ve had sex."

Dean choked on his own damn saliva.

You frowned in concern, but he quickly waved you off, reaching for his whiskey to cover up the way his throat had suddenly gone dry.

You leaned back against the counter, lost in thought, completely oblivious to the war you’d just started in his head.

"I just—I don’t even need romance, you know?" You shrugged. "At this point, I’d settle for a little fun. I even bought new lingerie for tonight, just in case, and now"— you gestured vaguely to yourself, "totally wasted."

Dean swallowed—hard.

His mind was already in dangerous territory, but now it plummeted straight into the gutter.

You’d bought lingerie? For tonight?

His gaze instinctively flicked down for half a second before he caught himself, before he could let himself really think about what you were implying. Because if you had planned for tonight—if you were wearing it right now—

God help him.

The image hit him like a freight train. You, laid out in something lacey and delicate, something sheer enough to tease but not reveal, maybe even those crotchless panties you’d pointed out the other day in that damn store—his stomach twisted, his fingers curling around his glass with a little too much force.

And the worst part? Some other guy was supposed to see you like that tonight.

That thought sent something hot and possessive burning through his veins.

Dean exhaled sharply, gripping the back of his neck as he forced his gaze anywhere but at you.

"Gary didn’t deserve to see you like that." The words left his mouth before he could stop them, his voice lower than before.

You scoffed. "Yeah, well, no one else is seeing it either, so it really doesn’t matter."

It matters to me.

Dean forced himself to take another sip of whiskey, as if that would drown out the thoughts swimming in his head.

With a stretch and a yawn, you set your empty glass down and pushed off the counter. "Alright, I’m gonna head to bed. Thanks for making me drink water, Mom." You teased, because Dean was always more like a mother hen than a strict father.

Dean smirked, watching as you stepped closer. He expected you to give him a casual pat on the arm or maybe ruffle his hair like you sometimes did when you were feeling particularly annoying.

Instead, you leaned up on your toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Or, at least, that’s where it was meant to land.

At the last second, whether it was the whiskey in your system or just bad aim, your lips caught the corner of his mouth.

You gasped softly, your breath fanning over his lips, and then you giggled. "Shit—sorry."

Dean didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Because you were still right there, inches away, your body just barely brushing his, your eyes flicking down to his lips.

Something in the air shifted.

The easy playfulness between you dissolved into something else—something warm and electric, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Your smile faded, lips parting slightly as you lingered, hesitating just a second longer than necessary.

Then, before he could say a damn thing, before he could even think—

You leaned in again.

And this time, you kissed him.

It was soft at first, hesitant, your lips pressing against his in a way that felt like a question. Like you were giving him the chance to pull away, to stop this before it could turn into something neither of you could take back.

Dean’s entire body locked up. His mind screamed at him to push you away, to remind you that you’d been drinking, that this was just a moment of drunken impulse, that tomorrow you might regret this.

But then you pressed in closer, deepening the kiss, your fingers skimming up his arm, and his resolve shattered.

A low, quiet sound rumbled in his throat as he gave in. Completely.

His hands found your waist, gripping tight, pulling you against him as he kissed you back. And not just kissed you—devoured you. All the tension from the past few days, all the frustration, the longing, the confusion—it poured out of him like a damn breaking.

Your lips were warm, soft, intoxicating in a way no drink could ever compare to. He let himself get lost in it, let himself feel it—how perfect you felt against him, how natural this was, like it had been inevitable all along.

You sighed against his mouth, your fingers sliding up into his hair, and Dean groaned, tilting his head to deepen the kiss even further.

He didn’t know when his hands had moved, but now one was tangled in your hair, the other splayed against the small of your back, pressing you flush against him. And fuck, you felt good. Too good.

This was dangerous.

And when you finally pulled away, lips kiss-swollen and breaths unsteady, Dean couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. His heart pounded like a war drum; each beat a sharp, insistent reminder of the storm raging inside him.

He should say something. Do something. But every word he might’ve spoken tangled in his throat, choked by the weight of what had just happened.

“Woah,” you whispered, your voice barely more than breath. Your eyes flickered between his and his mouth, never quite settling, like you were just as caught in the moment as he was. Your cheeks were flushed, heat radiating from your skin, and the ghost of your breath still lingered against his lips, dizzying and sweet.

Dean didn’t move. Didn’t dare move. The air between you crackled, fragile and electric, holding him captive in a moment he wasn’t ready to break.

He was waiting for you. Like always.

Your breath ghosted against his lips, and that was all it took.

You kissed him again, this time with more heat, more purpose, fingers tangling into the front of his shirt as you pulled him in. Dean let out a rough sound—somewhere between a groan and a sigh—before his hands found your waist, gripping tight as he backed you up against the counter. The edge dug into your lower back, but you barely noticed, too caught up in the way he was pressing into you, solid and warm and overwhelming in the best way.

His hands slid down, grasping the backs of your thighs, and before you could fully process it, he lifted you effortlessly onto the countertop.

A surprised gasp left your lips, but Dean was already there, swallowing the sound as he kissed you again, deeper, slower, his fingers digging into your hips. You pulled him in, locking your legs around his waist, desperate to feel more of him, and his hands wandered—exploring the soft, bare skin of your thighs, gliding higher, pushing the hem of your dress up as he went.

He trailed kisses down your jaw, moving to your neck, and when his lips found that one spot—the spot—you let out a soft moan, your head tipping back instinctively.

Only to smack it straight into the cabinet behind you.

The entire moment shattered.

You winced, immediately bringing a hand to the back of your head. Dean jerked back, eyes wide with concern.

“Shit—are you okay?” He cupped your jaw, scanning your face for any sign of real pain.

For a second, you just blinked at him—then, out of nowhere, you started giggling.

Dean frowned, still searching your eyes, but when you kept laughing, it broke him. He snorted, shaking his head, then let out a deep, full-bodied chuckle, forehead dropping against your shoulder.

“Jesus, sweetheart.” He pulled back, still grinning, rubbing a hand down his face. “That’s gotta be a sign, right?”

You sighed dramatically. “That the universe hates me?”

Dean smirked, his hands settling on your hips. “That you’re not sober enough for this.” His answer was loaded, a heavy realisation for himself that you were in no state of mind to be making any rational decisions right now, and that he should've known better than to take advantage of that. 

You pouted slightly, but you both knew he was right. Still, there was something soft in his expression as he helped you down, steadying you with warm hands on your waist. The moment your feet hit the ground, you swayed a little, still a bit disoriented.

Dean caught you instantly. “Okay, yeah. You need to lie down, sweetheart.”

You groaned but didn’t fight him as he led you to your room, making sure you didn’t trip over your own feet. Once you were settled, he disappeared briefly before returning with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol, setting them on your nightstand.

“You’re a saint,” you mumbled, already sinking into the mattress.

Dean huffed a laugh. “Not quite. Just don’t want you becoming a pain in my ass in the morning when your head’s pounding.” He said as he helped pull off your shoes and settled you under the covers.

You cracked one eye open, looking at him with something unreadable, something soft. “Could never hate you, Dean.” You mumbled half asleep. 

He looked at you, lingering for a second too long. Then stood, with a small exhale.

“Call me if you need anything.” He told you as he walked to the door. You hummed your acknowledgment, and with that, he left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Dean barely made it to his own room before he collapsed onto the bed, dragging both hands down his face.

What the fuck just happened?

The feel of you, the taste of your lips—it was burned into him now, like some kind of cruel brand.

It was just a kiss. Just a few incredible, amazing kisses. But now he knew for sure, no one would ever compare now.

And that thought terrified him.

Because tomorrow, you might not even remember. And if you did, would you be embarrassed? Regret it? Or worse, hate him?

Dean stared up at the ceiling, jaw tight, mind racing.

Yeah. He was so fucked.

AN: There we have it folks, the first chapter! It was a long one 😅 I know, but I'd love to hear your thoughts/feedback etc ❤️

If you would like to be tagged in my future works please respond to this >form< so I can add you to the character's you'd like 😊

Dean Winchester/series Tag List:

@bettystonewell , @nancymcl , @happyfxckinghorrors , @ambiguous-avery @jollyhunter @tbgfvfdcb @crooked-haven @chevroletdean @paganvamp @stoneyggirl2 @deans-baby-momma @spnaquakindgdom @ladykitana90 @lyarr24 , @impala67rollingthroughtown @jackles010378 @riteofpassage77 @spnaquakindgdom

Next Time...

Your breath hitched, but you forced yourself to stay still. No sudden movements, no giving anything away. But then your gaze betrayed you—just for a second, barely a flicker—dipping down to his mouth. Shit. Because now you could feel it again. The way he kissed you, rough but deliberate, like he had wanted it. The taste of whiskey, the heat of his hands, the way his fingers had curled into your hips like he was holding on for dear life. Dean cleared his throat. Stepped back. "I’m gonna head to the store," he said, too casual. It took a second for the words to register. "Oh. Yeah, okay." He hesitated—like he might ask you to come with him—but then he smirked instead, lips twitching. "Would’ve invited you, but, uh… You kinda look like the walking dead. Don’t want you cramping my style.” Your head shot up, glare locked and loaded. "Ass." Dean just grinned. "Try not to die while I’m gone." Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him. The silence that followed was deafening. Your fingers tightened around the coffee mug as you exhaled, long and slow, staring at the door like it might offer some kind of answer. Yeah. You were so screwed.

[aziawow]

now that we're here... (benny weir x f!reader) nsfw, 6.6k words

summary: in the heat of the moment, you and benny sleep together. you don't even kiss. a devilish plot (and teenage awkwardness) keeps you from talking to him about that night. the solution, however, might just be part of the very thing you're avoiding.

warnings: nsfw, loss of virginity, unprotected sex (DO NOT EVER HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX!!! USE A CONDOM EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!), implied reader isn't a virgin, blood, language, devil mention, implied animal abuse, death (of ocs), panic attack. if there are any other warnings please let me know so i can add

notes: no use of y/n, she/her reader, can also double as a rory x platonic!reader bc they're such besties. this fic is so fun pls give it a read!

You’re not entirely sure how it happens. Seriously. Yes, you’re super ultra mega attracted to Benny, but you never expected this to happen, especially as suddenly as it did. 

You’re a planner, extremely detail oriented, and you’re almost never taken by surprise. Impulsivity isn’t you, it’s Benny. So what made you throw caution into the wind and do this? 

You’re not even together; you didn’t even kiss. 

Suffice to say, you’re freaking the fuck out. 

***

You and Benny are chilling together, watching a movie on his bed. It’s rare for you two to be alone, but Ethan had to help his parents with whatever, Rory was doing whatever Rory does, and Sarah and Erica were having fun in town. They invited you, but with the supernatural craziness of the last few days, you just wanted a quiet night in for once. 

Years of familiarity resulted in you and Benny being pretty comfortable with each other, so you were cuddled together, you mostly on top of Benny while you both made fun of the movie and stuffed your faces with popcorn. 

You think it happens because you got thirsty. 

One second you’re reaching across Benny to grab your drink, then another has Benny hissing through his teeth and grabbing you. He held you still, and you glanced up. 

His eyes were squeezed shut, and a peculiar red flush adorned his face. His breathing was quickened, and he was practically shaking. 

Startled by his behavior, you sat up, still half on his lap and completely oblivious. 

“Benny, what’s wrong?” You place the back of your hand on his cheek, thinking he might have a temperature. Hot, but not feverish. You scoot forward a little to reach his forehead, and Benny gasps. 

“Please,” he strains, “stop moving.” 

Your eyebrows knit together. He was making no sense. “What…”

Then, you feel it. 

Your leg was brushing against his very prominent, very hard, erection. 

“Oh,” you gulp.

Benny’s eyes spring open, his mouth starts to move, but he can’t seem to say anything. You know he’d try to shrug this off, tell you it’ll go away, and apologize to lessen the sheer awkwardness of the moment. 

You don’t want him to. 

His lips are parted, panting quietly, face blushing the prettiest red you’ve ever seen, skin sheening with sweat, and his eyes? One part horrified and the other completely and utterly aroused. 

You really don’t want to waste this moment. 

Without thinking, you place a hand on his upper thigh. Firm enough to not get lost in translation but gentle so he could brush you away if he didn’t want this after all.

Your eyes meet, confusion and hope and desperation swimming in his. Slowly, you slide your hand upward, waiting for him to swat you away. 

He doesn’t. 

When you reach his front, you apply pressure and palm him through his pants. 

Benny groans delectably, and his eyes roll to the back of his head. 

You can feel yourself get wet at his reaction, the burn between your legs throbbing as the seconds pass. The fact that one little touch from you elicits a response like this makes your veins rush with power. 

Then, he moans your name. 

You’re done playing. You unzip his jeans and push them down. Benny, who has all but collapsed on his pillows, eagerly helps you slip the rest of it off. 

You climb on him again, fully this time, and take him into your hands. You pump him a few times, having to wet your hands with your spit. He’s shaking under you, making these small pathetic noises that have you grinding on his thigh. 

He’s lasting for a lot longer than you expect a teenage boy to, especially a virgin. 

Benny surprises you yet again by sitting up abruptly, and you let him go. He takes his shirt off, and when it’s discarded somewhere on his messy floor, he presses your foreheads together, mouths breathing into each other but not quite touching. 

His hands play with the hem of your shirt.

“Benny,” you moan, when his fingers disappear under the fabric and press against your hot skin. 

“Can I take this off?” He asks, throat raspy and deep. You nod at him, and your top joins his on the floor before you can blink.

Your hands roam each other’s bodies, just feeling and squeezing. Benny nuzzles your neck and collarbones, pressing kisses and leaving nips here and there. You grip his hair and pull, feeling the whine of pleasure Benny lets out against your skin.

After a few moments of this, you realize Benny is nearly naked, and you still have your pants on. You pull away from him and sit up higher on your knees. When Benny realizes your next course of action, he wastes no time in helping you rid yourself from your pants, and when they’re gone, he grabs a handful of your ass and blinks up at you, wide and ready. 

You reach behind your back and unhook your bra, peeling it off slowly, almost painfully so, for Benny. You toss it aside, and all he can do is stare. 

You reach for his hands and place them on your breasts. When he starts to feel you up and squeeze, you throw your head back and keen at the sensation. 

“Fuck,” you gasp. You look down at Benny, and he’s peering up at you through his dark lashes with nothing but want behind his eyes. Instinctively, you pull his head to your chest, and your pleasure multiplies when Benny immediately starts licking and sucking and kissing you all over. 

Your legs are delightfully weak at this point, so you push Benny back down on the sheets and fall on top of him. You’re still touching each other and it feels like he’s become a second skin. You hardly register his hand going further down until it rests on your lower abdomen, toying with your panty line.

“Can I touch you?” he all but pleads, and who were you to deny him? 

You’re nearly sobbing when he slips his fingers into your folds, feeling the wetness he caused. You can tell he’s trying to finger your clit, so you decide to be a good partner and guide him to its location. You shudder when he finally finds it on his own and begins to rub, the friction nearly too much for you. 

You’re kissing and biting his skin, one hand gripping his sheets and the other skimming along his chest, your nails scratching and digging into him. You grind back on his hand, so he picks up the pace and you know right then you’re about to cum. 

“Benny,” you warn. “Benny, don’t stop.” 

He doesn’t, and you cry into his neck when you orgasm on his fingers. 

You both lay there panting, but you have no time to bask in the afterglow when you remember he hasn’t came yet. 

You get on your hands and knees above Benny, and you lower your face to his, still not touching except your hair brushing his. 

“Do you want me?” you ask. You want him. You want him so bad you don’t know what you’d do if he said no. 

He nods, and your heart flutters. 

“No,” you whisper. “I need to hear you say it.”

He nods again. “Yes. Yes I do. Please,” he begs. He starts to babble his affirmation and continues to do so when you get your underwear and his boxers off. You grip him and slick his head up with your juices, and when you finally sink down, Benny shuts up and you both sigh as you seat him fully inside you. 

You start to rock, fucking yourself with his cock and feeling so, so good. Benny’s hands find your hips and together, you find a pace as you ride him. Your hands are on his chest as you slide up and down on him. He begins to feel you again, your torso, your breasts, shoulders, and hair. You don’t want him to stop exactly, because it makes the pleasure increase tenfold, but you’re in control, and it's so hot when Benny does what you want. 

You grab his wrist and pin them on either side of his head, and the flash of lust in his eyes as you do so makes you smirk. 

You keep holding him down as you pump in and out of him, as you rock against him, but after a while your legs begin to ache. Benny, feeling you slow down, takes the reins. 

You let him go, and he wraps an arm around your body, pulling you down flush against him. The other hand weaves through your hair, angling your head once more into the crook of his neck. Holding you tight, he fucks up into you, and you feel something you never have before. 

For a virgin, he’s a natural at this. Your bodies know what they want and how to get it, the carnal desire guiding you the whole way. You can feel him pulse inside you, and you know you’re both about to cum when his thrusts grow quicker. 

“Benny,” you moan into his ear, and that’s all it takes. His motions get sloppier as he climaxes, but you don’t care because you’re in the middle of coming yourself. 

You’re laying there, trying to catch your breath and clinging together tightly. He’s practically hugging you, and you're running your fingers through his hair. 

You know you can’t stay like this forever, so you pull off of him, both of you wincing as you do so. You want to find your clothes and dash, but your legs wobble and you fall back down on him. 

You expected Benny to crack a joke like he always does, but when you turn around, he has an arm thrown over his eyes. His chest rises and falls quickly, and you wonder if you should risk it and leave after all. 

But then, Benny wraps an arm around you, much gentler this time. “Good night,” he says softly, and he’s out. 

You’re actually grateful Benny doesn’t seem to be aware of aftercare, because you have no idea what to do, and would have even less of an idea if he stayed awake and wanted to talk about what just happened. 

You’re contemplating whether to stay or go, and when you finally decide, your eyes slip shut, and you cuddle into Benny’s warmth. 

The next morning, you have a proper freak out. 

You need to talk to him, you need to not talk to him. You need caffeine and a pregnancy test and a change of clothes. You need an ice pack and a salt bath because holy fuck you’re sore, Jesus Christ Benny. 

You need Sarah and Erica. 

Luck is on your side today, because as you make your way into school, there’s no sign of Benny. You find who you need chatting at Sarah’s locker, and when Erica sees you, she immediately asks what’s wrong. 

“Oh my god, I don’t even know where to start,” you choke. They blink at you and you start to ramble. “I did something so stupid last night, But it also wasn’t stupid except for the parts that were but ohmygod I need to tell you something. It cannot wait and I am freaking out.” You pause to take a breath. “I think my heart is about to give out.” 

“Okay, okay relax,” Sarah calms you down. “We have 20 minutes before first period. What’s up?” 

“Hold that thought, Sarah, I think she needs to sit down.” You nod, so the girls take you to a more private area, which turns out to be an empty classroom, and as soon as you get there you crumple onto the nearest chair.

“So… what's up?” 

You sit up, your whole body jittering with nerves. You wanna tell them so bad but you don't know how. This is a kind of confession that needs a strong lead to get there, but you’re totally blanking. 

“Well?” 

It burst out of you, “Benny and I slept together!” 

Neither girl moved. They stood there, gaping like fish. You knew they believed you, this isn't something you'd lie or joke about. Oh how you wish you were. 

“How?” Erica finally spoke.

You grimace. “Well, it was kind of an accident at first. We were just watching a movie, then we got really horny at the same time, and it just went from there.”

Sarah’s face twisted at your words. “Were you at least safe?” 

You pinched your lips together and avoided their gaze. 

Sarah groaned and Erica exclaimed, “Are you serious? That was so stupid!”

“I told you I did something stupid! I wasn’t really thinking about protection in the heat of the moment and I seriously doubt Benny had a condom laying around.” You stop then. “Oh my god. I took Benny’s virginity.”

At your words, Sarah and Erica looked at each other. “Ewww!”

“You did what?” a voice shouted from the previously closed door. 

Rory. 

Son of a bitch. 

Erica pulled him into the room and slammed the door shut. You’ve never been more thankful for her as she began to threaten Rory within an inch of his undead life. You expected him to wet himself, but Rory’s face was calm, and not the kind of blankness you’re accustomed to seeing on his expression.

He huffed. “No wonder Benny was being so weird this morning. I thought losing your virginity was supposed to change a guy in a good way. His face looked exactly like the time I accidentally dropped him in a dumpster.”

That… did not do anything good for your ego. 

“He hates me,” you pout. 

“I don't know about that,” Rory shrugs. “He asked if I saw you and told me to tell him if I did. Oh, well now that I’ve seen you, I should probably go tell him.” Rory started to walk away, but the three of you shouted after him and dragged him back. 

“Okay, jeez. I don’t get what the big deal is.”

Erica facepalmed and Sarah scoffed. “The big deal is that two close friends slept with each other. That’s not a thing friends do! It’s probably awkward for them!”

You sigh. “Guys, it’s more than awkward. We didn’t even talk about it. I left before he woke up.”

Erica gasps, “You did not.” Sarah and Rory both wince, and again, this did not make you feel better. 

“What was I supposed to say! It happened so suddenly—we didn’t even kiss!” 

The three of them pause and gawk at you. You threw your hands up in surrender. 

“It just didn’t happen. We were kinda focused on other things.” You were pulled back to the memory, his lips and hands everywhere, his whiny little mewls and pants hot and breathy in your ear… 

“Oh my god. She’s thinking about him right now, ewww!” Erica squealed.

“Wait, was Benny actually good?” Sarah asked in disbelief. 

You sigh dreamily, “Let's just say, if he wasn't already a spellcaster, he'd still have magic in his fingers.”

“EWWW!” Three voices cried in unison. Rory gagged and Erica covered her ears. Sarah closed her eyes, her worn expression letting you know she very much regretted asking at all. All three looked rather like a steak to the heart would be a perfect end to this conversation. 

The end, however, came in the form of the warning bell. Before leaving you swore all of them to secrecy, with an emphasis on Rory’s discretion. He gave you a thumbs up and said “You can count on me!” You were not confident in his ability to keep his mouth shut. 

Classes went on, but you were on edge in fourth period, the first class of three you and Benny shared, not including lunch. You got there early, as usual, and Benny came in second before the bell, also as usual. You didn’t dare look up at him when he walked by you, knowing it was him by his clumsy footsteps and the scent of his cologne. He sat behind you, and you felt the weight of his stare on you the entire class period. When the bell finally rang you were first out the door. 

Your whole group usually sits together at lunch, unless the dorks had a mathlete meeting or Erica decided to sit with her boytoy of the week, which happens more often than not. She promised to sit with you and Sarah today just in case a buffer (or a badass vampire) was needed. 

Rory is the first of the boys to sit down and starts yammering about his day. Apparently the stray cat he feeds in the junkyard went missing and it’s been days since he saw it and he’s getting worried. He was in the middle of the “epic” tale of their friendship and why they don’t try to eat each other anymore when Benny sits down. Right in front of you. Where he always does. Very normal, but you can’t ignore the shaking feeling that no, everything is decidedly not normal. 

Unfortunately for all of you, Rory trails off. 

The table is silent for a long, long while.

You want to say something so bad, you hate this awkward tension between the two of you, but you can’t speak. It’s like your voice was stolen by teenage embarrassment. 

You have enough strength of mind to meet Benny’s eyes, only you’re unable to read him. Is he disgusted? Regretful? If so, of what specifically? Is your friendship completely over? He just looks and looks. 

Just as a headache began to form between your eyes, Ethan barrelled into his seat in an anxious flurry. You’ve never been happier to hear the words: “Guys, I think we have a problem.” 

Your focus is 100% on Ethan now, you don’t even notice the pinch of Benny’s brows at his best friend's words, or the way his fingers twitch for his spellbook, or the way he licks his lips like he always does when he concentrates. 

It’s Benny, of course you can’t help but notice. 

Except, something Ethan just said actually pulled your focus. “Wait, you said you saw strange markings in your vision. Was there anything concrete? It sounds like whoever drew them and left the animal hearts and talismans were attempting a ritual.”

Ethan nods. “There were pentagrams all over my vision, and there was a flash of goat hooves and a clock.”

“A clock?” Benny asks. 

“Yes,” he confirms. “The hands were set to midnight.” 

“The witching hour,” you and Benny speak in unison. You snuck a peek at him, almost startling when you see he did the same. You dart your eyes away, and a sinking feeling hits you as you realize what Ethan’s vision most likely meant.

“Rory,“ you start slowly, “what color is your junkyard cat?”

Your friends tense as you say this, also connecting the dots. Rory, bless him, remains oblivious. 

“He has black fur! That's why I named him Shadow Ninja! I hope the little guy is okay…” Rory digs into his sandwich, and you don’t know if he’s being willfully ignorant to spare his own feelings, or if he genuinely knows nothing about superstitions. The group glances at each other, all silently agreeing to keep Rory in the dark. 

“We need to find out who’s behind these rituals. It’s one thing if they’re idiotic humans, but another if they’re witches,” Sarah comments. 

“What do they even want?” Erica asks. “What are the rituals for?”

“Well, if Ethan’s visions and the ritual’s remnants are anything to go by,” you muse darkly, “I’d guess they’re trying to summon the Devil.”

Benny hums. “Making a deal with the Devil is not good, Grandma says that all time. We need to find out for sure where the rituals took place.”

He begins to flip through his spellbook when Ethan asks why the location matters. 

Then, it hits you. “Ley lines.”

“Exactly,” Benny confirms, but he doesn’t look at you. “If they’re doing the rituals on the ley line, it’ll be easier to find out where they’ll go next.”

Sarah puts a hand on your arm. “Hold on, what are ley lines?”

“They’re invisible, mystical energy lines that run underneath the earth. They connect various historical sites, prominent landmarks, and sacred spaces to conduct the energy. They’re said to amplify the supernatural, so it makes sense if there’s one running through Whitechapel.”

“There is,” Benny says. He flips the book around and shows everyone the page he found. It details the line running through your province of Canada, but there isn’t anything you recognize. The map isn’t updated for the 21st Century, apparently. 

You make plans after school to go ley line hunting, deciding to split into three pairs to cover more ground, one vampire and one human in each. Out of everyone, you have the most success at keeping Rory on task, so you’re partnered with him. His protective side comes out most often with you, being the only fully fledged human of the group, no vamp, seer, or spellcaster powers in sight. 

You can fend for yourself of course, though you find fighting magic with magic more often than not solves the problem. It’s no bother to you when you have brains. You help Ethan make the plans and connect the dots, you don’t need to execute them. 

Admittedly, the idea of summoning the Devil scares the shit out of you, it also helps take your mind off of the Benny issue you’re facing. 

You and Rory have been searching for an hour and a half (with you only needing to pull Rory back on task three times) when you realize the section of the map took you to a familiar house in the rich part of town. 

“Rory,” you get his attention. “Isn’t this Jesse’s mansion?” He, briefly serving time in Jesse’s cult, frequented this house more often than that one time you paid an unwanted visit, would know for sure. 

“Oh hey. Yeah, it is.”

The mansion looks different than the last time you saw it. After Jesse’s imprisonment in the cubile animus, the place remained abandoned; and no one, not even the HOA, dared to mess with what he left behind. 

The lawn was overgrown, leaves and vines creeping up and curling around the corners and windows. The siding was darkened with dirt and grime, and some of the shillings had fallen off, leaving a gaping spot where it once lay. 

“Does the magic line go through the house?” Rory questions.

According to the map, it did, but you had a feeling it wasn’t this easy. 

“We need to get in and check it out. Something doesn’t feel right.” 

Rory walks up to the gate and pushes it open, the hinges squeaking and built up rust grinding as it opens. The two of you approach the former vampire den cautiously, the brick driveway filled with green in its cracks and all kinds of foliage strewn over the walkway left by wind and storms. 

Once inside the house, you shudder. It might've been abandoned, but the air felt dark and tainted still. 

“Hey,” Rory called from where he ventured further in, “I’m not sure this place is as abandoned as we think.” 

He’s right. In the corner of the living room, messy sleeping bags and junk food wrappers littered the entire space. There were school bags tossed haphazardly on a table, and books on every available space possible. 

You made your way to the kitchen area, where there was more discarded food, spilled liquid, and even more books. On the dining table, dried blood, a variety of talismans, melted candles, and ashes lay within a pentagram.

You made your way to the island, which was clear of everything except one book in the center.

Rory came up next to you and pointed. “I know this book. It has Jesse’s prophecy in it.”

You skimmed the book, and Rory stopped you on the page about the prophecy. You scanned the page, and when you saw a familiar line, you read it aloud: “The dead take root, the barren orchard bears the devil's fruit.’” You pause. “Rory, check the map. I think the ley line runs under Ethan’s house, specifically the tree in his backyard. They tried the ritual here, and it didn’t work. The other failed rituals happened at the church, the cemetery, and the stump of Whitechapel’s oldest tree. If they found this book, it won’t take them long to figure out their next spot, and I think it might actually work this time around. I mean, symbolically, it seems like the place to catch the Devil's attention.”

Rory’s eyes widened. “Woah. This is getting kinda scary.”

“I agree, we should get out of here before they get back.”

You start toward the door, but Rory stops you. His face twists regretfully as he responds, “Too late. I can hear them outside.”

His words make your blood run cold, and you hear the creak of the front door opening. 

As quickly and quietly as you can, you and Rory squeeze inside the empty walk-in pantry. You’re easing the door shut as the kitchen door slams open. 

“I’m telling you, that geek is onto us. He’s a seer, right? I bumped into him before lunch and I swear he saw something,” a husky, feminine voice said. Through the panes on the door, you can make out a silhouette of her, but nothing too clear. 

A hand slaps the counter. “Why does it matter?” Deep, male, and insanely grating. You can see his hulking frame lean on the island. “He might be shacking up with vampires, but they’re not invincible. They can’t stop us no matter what they know.”

Behind you, Rory murmurs, “I know them from somewhere.”

The first one sighs, apparently not hearing a peep even from a few feet away. “I guess, but his friends are vampires. The small one, Sarah, babysits him on Friday’s right?”

“Yup. But, with some garlic and a sharp wooden steak, it shouldn’t be too hard to negotiate for that virgin’s blood. And he doesn’t even need to die!”

“That we know of. The instructions say the blood of a virgin, who’s to say that doesn’t mean the life of one? The 17th century assholes who wrote it down weren’t very specific with the recipe.”

“And the awful fucking poetry. I could’ve done without that,” the guy scoffs. 

“Whatever,” the girl snaps. “We will do it tomorrow night after his parents leave. We get what we want and hey, maybe once the Devil himself turns us into vampires, we’ll kill the virgin anyway. I hear they taste the best.”

The two cackle, and their voices dim as they clomp away. 

You and Rory tip toe out of the pantry, keeping an eye on the door as you walk. The thing is, you’re not completely aware of your surroundings. In a stroke of bad luck, you trip on a stack of books, and they clutter noisily to the ground. 

You meet Rory’s eyes, horrified. 

“Who’s there?” the guy shouts. You hear the stomp of their boots getting closer, and Rory tugs you away to the other door and up the stairs. You follow him like you’re on autopilot, everything you heard and what’s happened catching up to you at the wrong time. 

You’re being pulled up another set of stairs and Rory kicks the bedroom door open. 

“This one has a balcony. Gord pushed me off it when I was learning how to fly.”

“What a dick,” you mutter and suddenly you’re gasping in the cool outside air. 

Rory grabs onto you right as the door flies open, the two satanists rushing forward. Not a second too soon, Rory takes off. 

A few minutes and half a heart attack later, you land on the designated meeting point, which was, of course, Ethan’s front porch. Everyone was there already, and you felt comfortable enough to have a panic attack. 

You’re still gasping and your legs give out on you. You’re caught by familiar arms, and Benny lowers you down to the porch chair.

“We—we found—the book. The lines—the tree, it just. They’re going to attack you! Take your, your blood. They wanna turn. They need him to turn.”

You’re not making a lick of sense to anyone, and Sarah starts to rub your back. 

“Breathe,” she says softly. She doesn't have the compulsion ability mastered, but you want to listen to her, so you do. 

“You found something? What happened?” Ethan asks. 

“Dude,” Benny chastises. “Maybe wait til she stops freaking out? Rory, what’s going on?”

Rory explains your findings as best he can, and you use the lilt of his voice to calm down. “The guy and the girl look so familiar. I can’t place it, though.”

With a huff, Erica reminds him, “They go to our school, genius, obviously they’ll be familiar.”

Rory starts to protest, “Yeah but, that’s not where I recognize them from.”

“Vampires,” you finally say. Everyone stops and stares at you. “The deal they want to make with the Devil is to become vampires. Why would they go to all this trouble when this town is crawling with them? I think it’s because they literally can’t. Vampires won’t turn them.” You twist your body to face Sarah and Erica. “Does the Council have some kind of banned humans list? Like, “Do not turn these people under the penalty of death” list?”

Sarah hums and furrows her brows together in thought. “I’m sure they do, I’ll go check,” and she vamp speeds away. 

“It’s the only reason I can think of. Anyone else have a theory?”

You look up from your place on the chair, and everyone (again) is staring. 

“That,” Benny declares, “was incredible.”

You meet his gaze, and for the first time since last night, it doesn’t feel weird. It feels… normal. Right. 

You smile at him shyly, and think yeah, you’ll be alright. 

A nudge to your side has your attention on Erica. Apparently she caught that little exchange. She quirks a playful eyebrow at you and you shrug your shoulders innocently. 

After that, it doesn't take too long for Sarah to return in a whoosh of air. “They do have a list! And it comes with pictures. Here,” she hands everyone a stack. Thankfully, it’s not too big. It only takes a few seconds before Rory spots them. 

Ethan nods. “Yup. I ran into her this morning and that’s when I got the vision. She didn’t seem too pleased with me.”

Now that you have all the pieces, you plan. 

A pizza is ordered and you all gather around Ethan’s dining table.

“These people know way too much about us, so what if we give them more?” Ethan suggests. 

You hum in agreement. You reach for a slice, and your hand brushes Benny’s. You lock eyes over the table, and he’s flushing that sweet red again. He retracts his hand, and you grin to yourself as you take the slice. 

“Like what?” Erica asks. 

“They think the ball is in their corner, right?” you explain. “So what if we change it up? Make them comfortable, make it even more easy for their plan to unfold, but what they don’t know is that we’re doing the same thing, only better.”

“Okay,” Rory remarks, voice laced with confusion. “What do we do?”

You and Ethan share a near manic smirk. 

“We’re gonna set a trap. Tomorrow, I will very loudly say in front of them that I’m Jane’s babysitter tonight instead of Sarah. That gets rid of one vampire, they think ambushing us will be a walk in the park if it’s me.” 

“Tomorrow night, you three,” Ethan informs Sarah, Erica, and Rory, “will be waiting in the shadows, ready to attack when necessary.” 

You take a deep breath. “Benny, you need to be with us.” 

Ethan startles. “What, why?”

You ignore him. 

“Benny, do you trust me?”

Instantly, he says yes. 

“Good,” you breathe. “You need to be the sacrifice.” 

Ethan protests immediately, and the others look at you like you’ve grown a second head. 

“Um, they need a virgin for the ritual, right?” Erica speaks up, deliberately slow as if you somehow forgot you were the one to change Benny’s virginal status. 

“Yes,” you confirm, and as subtly as you can, you explain. “They need a virgin to complete the ritual.”

You can see the moment it clicks for Sarah and Erica; unfortunately, Rory is more vocal with his understanding. 

“Ohhh, is it because Benny—YEOUCH!” He yells as Erica elbows him particularly hard in the side. 

Ethan’s eyes dart between all of you. “Uh, okay. Whatever. As long as it isn’t Jane, I don’t care who gives up their blood.”

The next day at school, you get the wannabe vampires hook, line, and sinker when you bring up your status as tonight's babysitter right in front of them. Unbeknownst to them, Jane is going to be safe next door with Benny’s grandma the second their parents leave for date night.

It takes a few hours for the “ambush” to happen, just minutes before midnight. You have fun pretending to act scared and whine when they tie you up, though you could’ve gone without the grass stains as the burly guy tossed you next to the tree. 

They make quick work of setting up the ritual, and hey, there's Shadow Ninja! Anger flares in you at the sight of Rory's friend tied up and muzzled like that.

When it’s all set up, they mix together what looks like the world’s most disgusting cocktail in a gold chalice. 

“Now,” the girl announces as the two stalk up to you, Benny, and Ethan. “Who will it be?” 

“We were gonna do mega geek over there,” the guy said, nodding toward Ethan, but then he points to you. “But what about her?” he asks his friend. 

The girl, the absolute bitch, throws her head back and laughs. “Her? Are you kidding? She’s a slut, no way am I drinking her blood. We need a virgin, not some high school whore, remember?” 

Your mouth drops open, “Well fuck you too! At least I got hot while I was still in high school. You wanna be eternally 17? I feel sorry you need a do-over when some of us got it the first time around.” That might not have been the best response, you think as she backhands you across the face, but it felt damn good to say. 

“Leave her alone,” Benny growls, eyes flaring, and wow, that’s hot. “Do not talk about her like that, I swear to god.”

The guy taunts Benny. “Oooh I think lover boy here just offered himself up! Gimme your arm, nerd.”

They aren’t gentle as they take Benny’s blood. You send them death glares every time he winces and hope this ridiculous ordeal is over soon.

You watch as they mix the blood into the chalice. They chant in terrible latin, and finally, they drink, draining the cup dry.

The air is still as you wait for a long moment.

Suddenly, they’re both doubled over in pain, clutching all over their bodies and heads, screaming so forcefully the veins in their forehead pop out. 

“We’re sorry!” the girl shrieks. “We don’t know what happened!”

The guy falls to his knees. “We didn’t mean to insult you—we did everything right, we promise!” 

“What do you mean,” the girl wails, and she spits up black. You realized then that someone must be talking to them in their heads. Him, possibly? 

The guy is shaking on the ground; he has the same black liquid spilling out of his mouth, and you know then that it’s blood. His eyes lock on Benny, and he began to crawl toward him.

“You!” is all he can gurgle out before he disappears in an ashy poof. The girl gives an ear shattering shrill, and a second later, she’s gone too. 

Sarah, Erica, and Rory emerge from their hiding place, instantly moving to free the rest of you from your bonds. 

“What just happened?” Ethan sputters. He didn’t expect that. What the fuck. 

“They messed up the ritual,” you smile. 

Ethan frowns. “Really? I don't see how.” 

Rory laughs and puts an arm around Ethan’s shoulder. 

“It’s because Benny took a trip to Bonetown,” he snickers, and you punch him in the shoulder as hard as you can. 

Rory makes an offended face at you. “Ouch! What was that for? I was just answering Ethan’s question.”

“Rory,”  You speak calmly, eyes closed. “Shut. Up.”

“What! We should all be thanking you! I mean, if it wasn’t for you, they totally would’ve summoned the Devil. Unless they chose Ethan instead but—”

“Rory, look! There's Shadow Ninja!”

The blond vampire squeals and tears off toward the tree, freeing his very much alive, but incredibly pissed off, feline friend. 

Only, the damage is done. 

You seek out Sarah and Erica, but they just shrug and chuckle awkwardly at you before vamping away. Rory, once he comes back with the squirming cat in his arms, senses the sudden tension he unwittingly created, and after a few seconds of deliberation decides the smartest move is to do the same. Jerks, all of them. 

You really, really wish Ethan wasn’t as clever as he is. You know the instant the explanation dawns on him. His mouth drops wide open and he points to Benny, who gives him an awkward smile. Then Ethan points the accusatory finger at you, and all you can do is pinch your lips together and watch him freak out.

“You—but how—why didn't you say—but that means—you exploded them with sex?”

He shakes his head and spins around, walking away to fetch Jane and muttering to himself like mad. Poor guy.

You and Benny are the only ones left of your ragtag group still lingering, so you walk to his house, and when you reach the steps, you can’t take it anymore. You blurt:

“We didn’t even kiss.” Benny stares at his shoes and bites the inside of his cheek. “We didn’t, so I didn’t know if you actually liked me or not. It was good, it was so fucking good. I should've stayed. I wasn’t thinking when I left the other day. I hate the morning after talk but you deserved so much better than what I gave you. I’m sorry. I like you Benny, I really do and I want to make this work.” You keep rambling, just saying what comes to mind and you’re still rambling when Benny cups your face in both his hands and pulls you into a blessedly mind numbing kiss. 

It’s everything you ever wanted. It's soft and sweet, yet firm and demanding, just like Benny. Your mouths move together skillfully, slotting together like they were made for it, and you’d like nothing more than to kiss him until you can’t breathe any longer. 

He pulls back slightly, lingering in your space, breathing in your air. 

“If I invite you in, will you stay this time?” 

You don't have to think. 

“Yes.” 

[semperamans]

benny is back home n'he's missed you so much he may just have to fuck you over it!!!

warnings!!!!

benny is toxic! unprotected sex! benny is toxic! i didn't proof read it!!!! so there are probably so many mistakes!!!! n' this is LONG, so read at your own risk <3

despite its stillness, there is something deafening about the july air. there's nothing more to hear than night bird song as it falls over the slumbering city. gone are the rumbling engines on i-90 n'the chatter of women parading down the sidewalks. there are no babies gigglin', no ice cream trucks wailing, no sirens squwakin'. there's nothin' stirrin' in this humid night besides the rapid beat of your heart because, well, you shouldn't be here. you know that jus' as well as i do. you should be at home, sprawled beneath the ceiling fan, eyes closed, blissfully disconnected from the world, n'you're a good girl, so i'm sure that's what you would be doing had the shrill urgency of benny's call not woken you.

"hi baby," is what he breathed over the line, and despite the distance you could smell the jack daniels on his breath. "m'home." he had been home for a few days now. johnny had called you n'made you aware the second benny's wheels crossed the county line. and then you waited. and waited. and waited. and were your feelings hurt when benny didn't call? absolutely. by day three you were going insane. like mosquito-bitten legs, it was painfully hard to ignore the absence of his voice through the receiver. every purring engine had your head whipping 'round. every blonde head had your heart hammering, but it was never the right engine. never the right head. never benny. johnny'd tried to get you to come down to the clubhouse, but you didn't wanna look desperate (even though you were). it was just so hard to think about. all you could see in your mind's eye was benny splayed across a bar stool, lap empty, hand wrapped around a whiskey glass when it should've been around your throat.

"m'missin' you so much." you wouldn't have assumed he missed you much at all with how radio silent he'd been since leavin' over a month ago. your girls told you that if benny really cared he would make more of an effort - wouldn't run off whenever things other than his dick got hard - an' yeah, you knew this was likely true, but he was enigmatic and enticing and everything.

"wan' you to come see me."

you should've hung up the phone right then, but you didn't. and you definitely shouldn't've pulled a sleep shirt over your nightgown n'sneakers on your bare feet, but you did. now here you stand - peerin' up at benny's front door - tryin' to tell yourself it's all right. nothin' to be nervous over. but you were nervous, so you counted the steppin' stones - 14 - and then there he was.

he looked good, there was simply no denying it. when it was particularly hot, benny wore nothing beneath his colors n'tonight you could see his bare chest glistening with sweat from the glow of the porch light. moths and june bugs spun themselves dizzy 'round him, but he didn't flinch. his sights were set, smile wan and excited and focused on you.

"c'mere." benny's voice had a medicinal quality about it - you figured that out some time ago. his voice was a salve on sunburned skin. it was a cool mid-day rainstorm. it was enough to have your eyes flicking upward, your body moving forward, your mouth forming the shape of his name. "look at you," he practically purred. he seemed more coherent, which was great. you didn't like fuckin' benny when he was drunk - always fearin' it never meant the same as when he pressed himself into you sober. he held you at arms length, eyes traipsing the familiar paths his fingers and tongue had mapped repeatedly. "y'know, i could travel from here to fuckin' the ends of the universe n'never find a girl s'pretty as you."

"s'that what you're lookin' for when you leave?" the words escape your mouth before your brain can register the impact they will have, but benny doesn't seem all that deterred. he just shakes his head; half-hearted guilt tugging at the corner of his mouth as he lets ya go n'invites you inside. benny would never apologize for leavin'. that just wasn't his forte, but he'd make up for it. he always did.

the interior of benny's place is nicer than you'd expect n'it's all because johnny outright fuckin' refused to step foot in the place when benny'd first moved in. it was terrible, but now the trailer actually looks decent. s'not much: a small livin' space with a couch, a tiny kitchen, an even smaller bathroom, and a bedroom big enough for a few pieces of furniture, but it smells like benny: like motor oil and sandalwood and smoke and body wash and you wish they sold the scent in department stores because you'd buy up every bottle. it's the aroma you miss terribly when he runs. it's the scent you wish lasted just a bit longer on your bedsheets. it's now overwhelming as benny plods over, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray. hands unoccupied, he has nothing better to do with them than wrap 'em 'round your waist, tuggin' you into his slick embrace. his chin fits so nicely atop your head n'he's always told you that you were meant to be. "fuck soulmates. i think god s'got a big ass puzzle n'he just, tears it up. throws the pieces here n'there. but me'n'you, baby? we're always gonna fit together. m'always gonna find you." he wouldn't need to find you if he didn't run but when you're pressed so snugly together like you are now - well - he could say anything and you'd agree.

"look at me, darlin'. wanna see those eyes again. missed 'em so much." n'when you do look at him, you wish you hadn't. he looks better (somehow) than the last time you saw him: skin so clear, eyes so bright, smile taken from a fuckin' toothpaste commercial. it's unfair how good god made such a bad boy look. "there's my girl." and damn if his voice doesn't sound even better.

a half-hearted hum rolls from the back of your throat. you want nothing more than to be his girl, but he'd never really allow that. never really allow you to get close enough and the hurt must register on your face because benny's takin' your cheeks between his palms, eyebrows furrowing.

"what's goin' on, baby?"

baby. the word sounds so good rolling off his tongue. you wanna be his baby more than anything, but you say "nothin'" cuz that's all this will ever be.

"doesn't seem like nothin'. tell me." you think about it. could you, rather, should you tell him? the words are there, right there. right on the tip of your tongue; i miss you. i've missed you. i so badly wanted to see you. i want to be more than the girl you call when you want to fuck. the words are so hot you want to spit them out, but you can't say those things n'likely will never be able to. the words are toxic. poison. those words would assassinate this arrangement n'as much as it hurts, you know deep down you'd rather have pieces of benny than none at all so instead of speaking you rise on your tip toes and press your lips against his.

kissing benny is something you could never tire of. it's the delicate bite of his perfect teeth on your pillowy lip that has you opening your mouth - inviting him in - begging him to take. it's the taste of mint and cigarettes and liquor that lingers on your tongue that makes you long for more. but benny pulls away first - always does - n'that's when you notice the wrinkle in his brow is gone because he is no longer concerned about what's racketing around your brain. no. he's had a sample, and now he wants the whole thing.

"c'mere." it's an impossible command. you're already so close - any closer and you would - benny dips slightly, circling your thighs with his arms, pushin' you atop the high-backed couch where you wobble and clutch onto him which makes him smile but then everything changes because "want another kiss. missed that mouth so much." and you collide in a spit-soaked show of affection sure to bruise the flesh now scraping so deliciously against his beard.

this is familiar to benny. he knows where to touch you. knows how to caress your skin as he peels the shirt from your flushed torso and pushes the thin straps of your nightgown down. you're soft. he's always loved that about you. your voice. your hair. your skin. so supple. and there are times benny's gotta stop himself. he's gotta repress that primal urge to take, to claim, to mark but it's hard so hard because you are so soft. his agile fingers float down your neck, relishing in the plume of perfume that billows out as your body contorts closer and closer and closer. you're so responsive: gasping in the right places, arching into his hands so perfectly. your dainty inhales fuel him. he wants to do more. wants to hear more.

"you're gonna let me fuck you right here, aren't ya?" benny asks, pulling back to gauge your reaction. "missed me so much you're gonna let me fuck you on this couch, eh?"

"you're the one who called me." you say, smile wide and knowing as you feel benny's cock twitch. his eyes turn molten lapis. he had called you. he had missed you. but he wouldn't say it. couldn't.

"awfully mouthy," he clucks, pressing his mouth into yours for another taste. "why don't y'use it for somethin' else?"

before you, benny'd never been a fan of oral sex. i mean, he'd come around to enjoyin' it thanks to johnny but, it wasn't high on his list 'til you started suckin' him off any and every chance you got. for a mouth belonging to such a precious gal, he never would have expected the sinful things you could make him feel. n'now, knelt before him, he can barely fight the urge to shove his dick in your mouth.

"s'pretty. always so pretty." you hum. you got him out of his jeans in record time and thank god because it's probably a million degrees in the goddamn trailer. now he's free; cock out, dripping precum and he can see the pride puffin' up your chest. no other girl could get 'em like this - could rile him up 'til his cock was thick and heavy and veiny and hot to the touch - no one but you n'at the first whisper of your fingers, his head rolls back. his precum is good lubrication, but you need more. could always use more, so up you come, crossing your cute little feet under your bum, and then - fuck - you lean forward and spit on his heated skin. yeah, benny thinks he may cum from that alone.

"touch me, doll. c'mon."

"shh," your fingers form a loose circle 'round the base of his cock. "i've got you."

"jesus christ," its the feel of your lips on his thighs and your fingers on his dick that makes him squeeze his eyes shut. he's got one fist balled at his side, the other tucks its way into your hair because he's gotta do something. anything.

"y've still got your christmas tree up, so, y'know, could be insensitive what with the holidays n'all. chirstimas in july." and despite the fact that you've got his pulsing length so wet and hard in your hand - benny fucking laughs.

"you're so -" but whatever adjective he had planned to use flies from his mind the moment your mouth covers him. all he can think about now is not cumming. you don't need to know that he hasn't fucked another woman since the last time he was balls deep in you. you don't need to know that he hasn't jerked off in god knows how long in preparation for this night. the only thing that you need to know is that he fuckin' loves this. he just lets you work. just relishes in the feeling of having you there. of having your mouth on him. it's so heavenly. cavernous yet tight. wet and warm and "fuck - oh fuck - stop."

and you do with no hesitation. you pull away so quickly that strands of saliva trickle down onto your tits. okay. maybe not jerking off wasn't the best idea, benny determines.

"did i do something wrong?" your voice is husky, eyes wide and slightly frightened and benny thinks he may love you.

"no." he shakes his head, grabs your arms, pulls you up. "no. fuck - i wanna fuck you." he brushes his palm across your cheek, wiping the spit and precum away. "want to fuck you right here. on the couch. c'mon," he maneuvers you around, makin' it to where his bare ass is on the couch and you're hoverin' above him, smiling so cutely at him he's sure he's gonna explode. you're so fucking cute that it nearly suffocates him.

"gimmie another kiss." he breathes, cupping your cheek once more. your lips meet in a cacophony of sighs. relief slackens your shoulders and now anticipation builds because you know what's coming.

"benny,"

"mm?"

"unless you have rubbers tucked in the cushions," you have to fight through his kisses. "you can't fuck me here."

the words marinate. the ceiling fan bats them around like a cat does to yarn and then benny finally responds.

"let me fuck you raw."

there are a hundred good reasons why it's a horrible idea, but you can't conjure a single fucking one as your head bobs in agreement.

"yeah?" perhaps christmas miracles are still valid in july because holy shit. "yeah?"

"please."

"come 'ere then."

you're obedient. benny loves that about you. seconds later you're spreading your legs, shimmering with sweat as you fight to maintain your balance n'you look so hungry - so eager to please - so pretty n'he can feel your wetness seeping onto his bare thigh as you pepper tender kisses along his chest. you want this. you want it just as badly as he does. he can tell. those preening noises comin' from the back of your throat and the bite of your nails into his shoulder are the only things grounding him to this moment. he feels so light - like he could fuckin' float if you weren't sat atop him - but there is work to do. a certain set of things that need to be done before he can spear you on his cock.

"gonna stretch you open first," he tells you, pushing your hip back but you don't budge. your head shakes, lower lip juts out. no.

"i wanna feel it." you say, voice almost a whine. you're tired of waiting. tired of playing this game so you propel yourself onto your feet, nearly toppling as the cushion gives under your weight, but you've got this. you sweet capable being. "wanna feel you now." your right hand circles his cock. "just want you to be in me benny. jus' you." it's a confession spoken like gospel. n'with your help, his gushing head probes your wetness and benny's thoughts spiral recklessly. "ready?"

it's cute. the way you ask him. the way your pretty little head cocks to the side. it's even cuter the way your pussy so greedily takes his cock once benny gives you an answer. yes. a singular nod. then everything is hot. he's too close to the sun, but the burn is delicious.

every bump. every vein. every groove on his cock awakens something within you. your eyes are closed so tightly - you may rupture a vessel - but you don't care. you're full. so full n'he's only halfway in. it's never felt like this before. you're in uncharted territory so the first roll of your hips is exploratory. the second is more confident. the third is a plunge and benny is drowning.

"god. fuck." words to form coherent sentences have long since vanished from benny's vocabulary. and you? usually so deft with language, you're somewhat embarrassed at the foolishness of your grunts, but benny loves it. he watches you move from squinted eyes. you're fascinating; body shifting with ease up and down up and down up and down. the muscles in your stomach tighten and wan as his cock disappears deep in your cunt only to reappear seconds later dripping and glistening with remnants of your wet. it's hypnotic n'benny thinks you're magic and sweet and good but dirty - oh so dirty. his balls and heart squeeze simultaneously n'it only gets worse when you toss your arms around his neck. benny can feel your cool breath on his throat - it adheres to the damp indications you lips left behind - and your tits, god your tits press against the material of his colors and rub and rub and rub. it's intimate. it's too much. too long like this and benny knows he'll be spillin' his secrets and his seed and that's not how he wants this to go, not yet anyway.

the change in position catches you by surprise, he can see it on your face. those puffy lips part in confusion, but he silences your questions with a shattering kiss. your teeth gnash and spit slips down your chin as he bites your inhibitions away. he's got you beneath him now. missionary. his favorite because he just likes lookin' at you. likes being close, so close. he's in his element; forehead pressed against yours, mouth open, grunting obscenities as he pushes harder and harder and harder into your sobbing pussy. you're slowly disintegrating. the way your ankles lock around his spine perfectly aligns your clit with his pelvic bone and my god nothing has ever felt quite so good.

"benny," your voice is a dark whisper that grows brighter brighter brighter as he thrusts into oblivion. you want more. want it harder. and benny is happy to oblige. the sound of his nuts slapping against your soaked center reminds him of a fuckin' metronome. your pitiful little moans could put pornstars to shame.

"you're so fuckin' tight." and it's true. he's said it to other girls before out of courtesy, but he means it with you. "when i cum you're gonna take every drop, mm?" benny's ability to say such delivish things so close to your face drives you insane. it's as though he's tellin' you what the weather is gonna be tomorrow, or sayin' his favorite color. "s'my favorite pussy to fuck. no one feels like you." he should stop, but he can't. it's too good. you're so good. "only girl i wanna fill. only girl i wanna give my cum to."

if pride were a flower you'd be a fuckin' garden. confidence flourishes like ivy as he keeps. going. it's in this moment you know it's worth it. the hours waiting for him. the lonely nights. it's all worth it. benny is worth it.

"are y'gonna cum in me?" at the sound of your voice, benny's forehead crashes down on yours. his eyelashes are so long they kiss the tops of his round cheeks.

"fuck - yeah."

"yeah?" you angle your pelvis, gasping at the new sensation. n'benny knows what to do. knows how to send you over. snaking a hand down, his index finger rubs circles around your clit, dipping down, pullin' your shared juices up. you're not gonna last much longer n'as much as he wishes he could keep you here forever his fucking nuts are so tight. he's so close.

"fuck - baby. shit."

"do it deep. wanna have you leakin' out of me for days. want somethin' to remember you by." you've never spoken like this before - his sweet darling - where did this mouth come from? one hand squeezes your jaw. something to remember him by? he'll give you something. he pushes your head to the side, latching his teeth into the side of your neck. the rough yet delicate suck and soothing stroke of his tongue add another element to the amalgamation of pleasure, and now you feel like you're drowning.

"m'gonna cum." benny’s choked voice rasps in your ear.

"cum in me."

"fuck im gonna cum in you."

he couldn't pull out even if he wanted to. there's no willpower strong enough to allow him to extract his cock from your pussy. he's sure of it.

"need you to cum with me." his index finger circles around and around and around. "gotta cum when i tell you. yeah? gonna be a good girl n'listen to daddy?" your toes fuckin' curl, digging into the cushion. "use your words." he doesn't know - doesn't care - that your words have magically turned into alphabet soup; there are letters and sounds but no coherence, but it's no excuse. benny, devilishly, begins to slow. "use. your. words." each syllable is punctuated with a sharp thrust n'the head of his cock is wedging so deliciously against your spongy center that you nearly cum, but you don't. you're good. so good.

"m'gonna listen." you wail. "gonna be good." your reward is a kiss and the continuation of benny's deliriously fast pace.

"knew you would." it becomes hard to speak with you squeezing round him like that. his pleasure is melting into an unidentifiable mass. he knows nothing of isolation. his body no longer belongs to him. he can't tell where you start and he ends but he knows where you will finish. "gonna need you to cum, pretty baby." he's unable to do much more than whisper. "ready?" you nod. "ready?"

"please."

"now."

you couldn't hold back even if you tried. the first spurt of benny's cum is so warm you make a surprised little gasp. he's so deep, pumping his load so deep that the lower part of your abdomen has stretched in accommodation. your bodies flounder together; fingers pressing, lips melting, legs tangling. benny thrusts once, twice, three times more before he's spent. his body begins to still - his weight slowly pressing upon you before collapsing. your thundering heart could lull him to sleep if he'd allow it, but he can't allow it because unlike with other women; the lustful haze refuses to dissipate. post-nut clarity doesn't exist when the woman you fucked looks and feels the way you do and it scares benny so much that he collects you in his arms n'moves you off of him.

"i'll bring you somethin' to wipe off with." he doesn't look at you as he rises. instead he chooses to focus on how his legs don't feel like his legs. how the hot water won't warm up n'he can't give you a cold rag. his disappointment grows when he returns to find you already shrugging back into your nightgown. the pair of you tend to yourselves. you wipe benny's cum off your thighs and toss the rag into the dirty clothes pile on the floor. you try not to linger. you know it only makes things harder, but benny's gazin' at you with those eyes. he's fixin' your necklace and opening the door for you.

"gimmie a hug?" his bravado is gone. his voice is quiet, his arms are welcoming. you fool yourself into thinking he's gonna miss you too. you've got his cum dripping down your leg and he's got your heart in his hands but nothing has changed. things would never change. n'you wanna stay here - wanna stay with him for eternity - but if history repeats itself you will only have another minute in his embrace. he who holds your pieces together is the one responsible for their fractured state n'maybe you're a masochist. maybe you're in love with the wrong person. maybe none of it is supposed to make sense anyway.

when you part, you want to cry. benny kisses you. it's soft, a delicate kiss you wanna bottle and keep forever next to his scent. you worry that one day you will unknowingly have a last kiss with benny, but for now you allow yourself this moment. he won't promise to call n'you won't say goodbye. you'll just slip out into the night - probably call johnny usin' the payphone down the street and spend the rest of the night sobbin' into his neck.

but it's worth it. somehow even after it all, benny cross is still worth it.

[earwig5]

it’s kind of crazy that both fallout new Vegas and fallout 4 have the same driving force for the first half of the narrative (find the guy who wronged you and make him pay) but Benny is so much more memorable and narratively interesting than Kellogg.

It’s a matter of a strong character foil versus a weak one, in my opinion.

Benny and the courier are very much alike. They are both ambitious people who are willing to do anything possible to stack the odds in their favour. Honestly, Benny and the courier are the same card, reversed.

The Sole Survivor and Kellogg are also intended to be character foils. The game tries to convince us of this with the scenes in Kellogg’s mind, where we see that he ‘isn’t so different’ from our protagonist after all. But we don’t know anything about Kellogg other than his backstory. How can he parallel the protagonist if we don’t know which traits he has? Which traits the two of them share?

(As a side note, I wish Fallout 4 had touched way more on the ‘Man/Woman Out of Time’ thing. The protagonist being frozen in the past + Kellogg being functionally immortal would’ve been really cool to explore! Especially in the context of grief!)

In the end, I think the reason Benny is a more powerful character foil is that he doesn’t disappear from the world when you kill him. The chairmen can mourn him, House will comment on it, and even NPCs across the Mojave will talk about Benny’s death!

In Kellogg’s case, the protagonist is basically the only person who knows he even existed! Once he’s dead HE’s DEAD! He disappears completely from the narrative! As soon as you leave fort Hagen, the game doesn’t bother looking back.

that’s why Benny is a more haunting force for new Vegas; particularly an independent courier. You are Benny’s legacy because you are what he leaves behind whether he likes it or not. People remember him as the couriers victim. Meanwhile, nobody remembers Kellogg at all. The memory of who Kellogg was dies with you, and you can choose to forget him.

[briarberrythornedhart]

Heart’s Desire

Eddie Munson X gal!Reader, Fluff, Kissing, reference to sex acts, Eddie being a fluffy romantic, 1633 words

🦇 🚐 🦇

It had been almost two months since you started seeing each other. Today you both had off work and you were hanging out in his van to have a little more privacy.

Eddie had a way of starting out dates on a playful note. Teasing, tickling, even rough-housing with you.

As if he thought he needed to trick you into paying attention to him or getting close to him.

As if you weren’t totally enthralled with him and didn’t always want to be all over him. Which you did.

Anyway, after some amount of silliness he’d get more intense. Giving you hot and deep kisses, bringing his hands to the sides of your face, or cupping the back of your neck to keep you close, or grabbing a handful of the side of your shirt - and kissing you like the world depended on it before getting naked with you.

He suddenly stopped in the middle of a kiss that had been getting quite serious and asked you, “What do you want for your birthday?”

“Wha...Um… I’m not s-sure?” You were breathless. And your birthday was months away and you were very much feeling grounded in the here and now with Eddie and his kisses and his wandering hands and the heat of his body pressed to yours.

“I just want to give you the best day, on that day, you know.” He huffed and smiled wryly, leaning his head down to the side - kissing you just under your left eye. “Also... I don’t know when your birthday is yet, so I thought this would be a good time to ask.” He shrugged, grinned.

That made you chuckle. “That info wasn’t in ‘the dossier’ from Dustin?”

Dustin had given Eddie a great deal of intel on you. Dustin loved playing cupid - and this time it actually worked.

Eddie shook his head ‘no’ and his curls flew around dramatically, “Uh-uh, he was shockingly not forthcoming on your birth date! Now, your birth Year, I already know. And your star sign. But that’s a wide window of dates.” Eddie gestured broadly with his arms to show how wide - but then his hands came to rest on your hips again as if a magnet pulled them there.

You told him your birthday. He smiled. “Good. Then, I’ve got time to plan.” He leaned in to kiss you again, but you stopped him.

“When is yours?” You asked him.

He looked down. Pulled a lock of of his curly hair between his lips. “Today.”

“What!!!?” You stiffened in his arms from the surprise. “Why didn’t you say??”

“I just did?” Eddie looked innocent with those big pretty eyes, but there was a glint of something decidedly non-innocent in them.

“No, I mean, when you called me, instead of saying ‘do you wanna hang out or something?’ you could have said, ‘hey come over and bring birthday-boy treats’ or something??!”

Eddie’s smile was irrepressible. “What are ‘birthday boy treats’?”

You may have made an exasperated noise, you weren’t really upset, though. “C’mon. We need to really celebrate!” You dismounted his lap and grabbed for his hand.

“I thought you said you liked it back here!” Eddie gestured at all the effort he’d put into making the space cozy. Blankets, pillows, the cushion from a papasan chair laid out like a (too-small) mattress, battery powered christmas/fairy lights strung up on the ceiling. It was nice. “Anyway, I donwanna stop fooling around, just....” He pouted playfully. He curled one arm around your waist and pulled you close, burying his face against you. Whatever he said next was too muffled by your sweater to understand.

“Eddie...” you sang his name softly into the top of his head. “Let me spoil you.”

He looked up with that mischievous look in his eyes again, he licked his upper lip. “Spoil me how???”

“I will grant you three wishes.”

“Hmmm... that never ends well in stories. It always goes all.... monkey’s paw....” Eddie brought your hand to his lips and flipped it palm up, kissing the center under your palm’s heart line. Then he bit lightly between your thumb and forefinger making you gasp.

“Not if the wishes are your heart's desire. Heart's Desire is sacrosanct.” You said this with unearned confidence and tugged down the neck of your sweater to tap your heart’s general area and exposing more skin. His eyes widened and his fingers flexed. He made a noise not unlike a growl.

The key to arguing with Eddie (and winning) is projecting confidence, and flashing him your tits.

“So... let’s have it? What do you desire?” you said.

“I, Edward Munson, get my heart’s desire TODAY, and it’s only date 13??!” Eddie laughed. “Knowing that, I woulda taken you on twice as many dates...to level up faster.”

“Today is Date 14.” You stated.

“You don’t ... count the Laundry incident as a date do you?” Eddie’s nose wrinkled.

“Of course I do. You don’t??” You kissed his neck - tentatively licked over his adam's apple making him hum a happy noise. Then you sat up. “Wait, why do you call it the Laundry Incident?”

“If you have to put everyone’s clothes in the wash, it is officially an Incident, but, we’re getting off topic, Sweetheart.” Eddie pushed some of your hair behind your ear.

“Quite right. You were distracting me. What is your first heart’s desire, Eddie, on this very special day.”

Eddie looked down, turned a little pink along his cheeks and jaw, he whispered. “S’not that special. Just another day...”

“The day you came into the world is the most special to me.” You lifted his chin so his eyes would meet yours. “Tell me your first wish.”

“Promise you won’t laugh.” Eddie’s forehead was creased in a line that led down to his nose.

“I swear, I will not, not even a little.”

“Come to the mall with me, just ta’ walk around... holding my hand.” He frowned and watched your face intently.

“That’s all?” Honestly you were expecting something sexual in nature.

“Most of my exes... didn’t want to be seen in public with me. I know you aren’t like... ashamed of me or anything, you’ve introduced me to your parents, and you hang out with me in groups... but, at the mall it’s...”

You interrupted...“Extra Public? May I hang all over you? And maybe....do everything just shy of getting us kicked out for excessive PDA.”

Eddie grinned again, “That’s the general idea.”

One shared USS Butterscotch, one thorough combing through the sale bin at Sam Goody, quite a ton of necking and groping, and one piggy-back ride to Eddie’s van later, you asked Eddie for his second wish.

He winced as he started up the van. “Will you play a game with me? A board game.”

“Of course. But I’d play a game with you like any day, I kinda feel like you are squandering your wishes...” You teased.

Eddie sighed and his shoulders dropped. “Gareth says I’m... unreasonable when I play tabletop games. That it is no fun to play with me. He says I’m good as a Dungeon Master because I have a measure of control but he says no one would put up with my BS in a non role-playing game.”

“Sounds like Gareth has lots of opinions.” You said dryly. Gareth was an okay kid but grumpy, and you’d bet money he was a sore loser.

“I have Talisman, Battleship, Risk and Twixt.” Eddie said this new-york fast and then was biting his lips together.

“Can we play Talisman?” You asked.

Eddie smiled and it was like the sun rising over lover’s lake. “I’ll set it up.”

Eddie got really REALLY into the game, but he didn’t smack-talk you or make fun of your choices and he was a gracious winner. He didn’t do any number of things that make a person unpleasant to game with. You pronounced Gareth: full of shit.

“What is your third wish?” you asked.

“Are you prepared to take our relationship to the next level?” Eddie asked. He pulled out his old metal lunchbox from beside his bed.

“What kinda level would that be?” you purred back. Finally, this had to be a sex thing.

Eddie took out a pair of Handcuffs (!) Standard police issue handcuffs.

Oh. Your heart beat wildly in your chest. Not scared... he did have that handcuff belt buckle after all, just, bondage hadn’t come up at all yet. If anything Eddie was REALLY into missionary with hand holding and 69ing for as long as possible.

He swung them around on his finger. “So...I wanna go to Benny’s Diner, you know Benny’s?”

“Isn’t Benny’s closed? Like condemned??”

“Behind Benny’s.” Eddie said.

Okay - you thought... he wants to have bondage-y sex outside the closed diner... strange but not OFF the table for you. After some discussion of hard limits and things you might be into that. Eddie could, after all, be very persuasive when he put his mind to it. And he was very generous.

“Which of us is gonna be wearing the cuffs?” You asked.

Eddie sputtered. “Oh - I - I - didn’t mean like... uh, maybe when it’s not so cold out we could... but this is because... there is a love-lock fence behind Benny's. People put their initials on a lock or - like - I put ours into these cuffs and we could lock it to the fence...” He showed you that he’d gotten ‘forever E M’ on one cuff and your initials and a heart on the other. “It’s like... a vow. Unless that’s too much or... too fast.”

You may have jumped into his arms. You may have kissed him like he had made you the happiest person in the world.

Because he had.

[reveluving]

You inspired some Benny thoughts……..I imagine the Bubba is as possessive over momma as Benny. Everytime Benny touches you or kisses or gets close he gets angry babble or cry from the baby. How do you think Ben would handle it?? 🤪

a/n: ARIA. How DARE you continue the hubby Benny saga with this masterpiece of an idea! I imagine Bubba.... being what Benny was like as a kid HAHA Enjoyed the hell outta this one ('cause who doesn't love pouty Benny!!). Thank you, thank you for sticking 'round, Aria baby !😭

warnings: hubby benny both loves and is jealous of his son (but really they act the same), family-focused fluff!

» wanna read more on garrett's characters? check out my new g.hedlund m.list!

Now, Bubba? His little boy? His little Benjamin Miller Jr.?

That was his kid right there, his blood without a doubt. 

But damn, if he wasn’t the biggest mama’s boy he’s ever seen–

He knew it wasn’t a coincidence anymore, the man even wrote down the times where it was too good to be one.

The most significant one was two months ago, when he was playing with Bubba in the playpen with you. Benny had the day off, the television was playing at a low volume and the house, overall, had good vibes, as it always did. Upon noticing the time on the clock, you stood up.

“I gotta get the laundry upstairs real quick,” You told Benny, playfully adding, “I better not see your boxing shorts from three days ago in the basket.”

He pouted, “You’re breaking my heart, pretty girl, you know I’d get it washed as soon as I got home.”

You knew that, and he knew that you knew, and it was obvious when the two of you shared a soft laugh before kissing the crown of his head.

“Okay, dummy,” You smiled before waving at Bubba who stared up at you since you stood up, “I’ll be right back, okay?”

You only took a few steps away from the playpen and towards the stairs when Bubba began crying. Halting, you immediately came back, and even as Benny was already holding him, Bubba wasn’t calming down.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, mama’s just going upstairs,” Your husband cooed and rocked the toddler, “She’ll come back and play again. Your old man’s here, too.”

Nothing, Bubba still wailed pitifully. Unable to fight your maternal instincts, you offered to hold him. Benny didn’t want to, he wanted you to have the time for yourself, even if you were just doing a bit of laundry, but he didn’t want to stress you about worrying for both the kid and the dirty clothes either, so, he gently passed Bubba to you.

As soon as you cooed at your son, he stopped crying. Tears staining his smooth cheeks as he looked up at you, “Hi, you! I’m here, don’t worry. Don’t you worry.”

He wasn’t in the happy-go-lucky mood like he was before, but he most definitely wasn’t in the worst one either, so, you were thankful for that.

Benny whistled, standing side to side so he could look at his son with you, “Little rascal, ain’t ya’?”

Bubba just smacked his lips, all snug in your arms.

You snorted, “I know where he got that from,”

Looking up at Benny, you added guiltily, “But I gotta go get the laundry…”

Say no more.

“I’ll do it,” Benny reassured, wrapping one of his arms around you and murmuring into your temple, “I’ll do it.”

But the sweet, fleeting moment was interrupted when Bubba bopped his father in the head with the soft, fabric teether—did he have that in his hand before?

Even so, Benny pretended to feel hurt, letting out an ‘ow!’ as he held his head, and just like he expected, it made his boy laugh.

So, his son found amusement in his pain. Who knew?

“Alright, I’ll be right back,” Benny sighed, but it was all lighthearted, just like his eyeroll. He gently pinched his son’s cheek before turning to you to steal a kiss. The boxer was able to swiftly dodge his son’s teether toy attack for stealing his mother’s attention, playfully adding as he went up the stairs, “Don’t be hogging your mom’s attention while I’m gone!”

And that was one of the many instances.

Bubba saying ‘mama’ over ‘papa’ first.

The constant bonks with soft toys whenever he’d see you and Benny kiss or hug.

When Bubba preferred to be with you physically while you stirred the pot with your free hand, even if Benny was standing hip to hip with you.

Hell, even a night or three, when Benny had you on your back in bed, just about to tug your nightwear down, Bubba cried, and the two of you immediately rushed out to his crib.

Make no mistake, he was grateful to have a kid at all, the best, proudest dad there is, but goodness, if it didn’t make him pout just a little bit, much to your amusement.

One day, when Benny hung out with his brother, telling him how he may or may not have learnt that his boy was a mama’s boy, and for some reason, expected a teeny bit of sympathy, the older Miller laughed in his face.

Laughed.

“He’s you,” Will shrugged, “You were literally like that as a kid.”

Benny blinked. Come to think of it–

He did kind of remember bopping his brother on the head with a toy after picking him up from his mother’s arms, and unlike the soft teether toy Bubba used him at the time, Benny used a plastic toy.

Like a truck toy-plastic or a transformer toy-plastic.

As in, he may or may not have remembered the sound of it when it collided with his older brother’s head.

The longer he recalled more memories when he was almost like Bubba in his time as a child, Benny pursed his lips and nodded slowly, Will knew he was starting to remember more than a handful.

Okay, yeah, the blood does run deep, more than he realized it.

But, despite it all, he knew his son loved him, too. Immensely, just as he did. To be cheered on by the little kid whenever he was in the ring, to be offered a toy or ‘num nums’ whenever he somehow knew his father was feeling under the weather, or to be ‘defended’ in the midst of a banter with Frankie by pulling his godfather’s moustache, and many more. 

His son’s antics were enough to make him laugh, his eyes rolled in amusement because, at the end of the day, Bubba knew who his father was, always giving him the same gummy smile as he does with you.

Turning back to the framed photo in the living room, the one taken during Bubba’s first winter and Christmas with the three of you, he smiled to himself as he rocked the same toddler in his arms, one of the little days where he rested well with his father even when he knew his mother was in the house.

At the end of the day, it was still the three of you against the world.

˚ · . f i n . · ˚

a/n: Hey, you. Yeah, you you Garrett lover. Have I told you how much I love you for showing him and my content so much love? Don’t forget to leave some sugar! ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

[asthedeathoflight]

Im here as a certified Blade Runner expert to inform all of you that Armand would prefer the theatrical release with the happy ending because deep down hes a scared little kid and he wants to believe that everything is going to be alright for Deckard and Rachael forever and Daniel prefers the director's cut which is obviously objectively the better version and so he would be very caught off guard by Armand preferring the theatrical release, even tho he really shouldnt because he and Armand saw the theatrical version together in theaters and the directors cut didn't come out until after they broke up so of course thats the version Armand has been rewatching all these years.

However because they're both so damn stubborn this would result in their first ever couple fight post-turning which inevitably becomes extremely personal extremely quickly (should Rachael get to live forever with Deckard? Is her life beautiful BECAUSE its short? Does Deckard's love for her mean more if he's turning his back on his long-lived brethren to embrace the ephemerality of her existence?) and results in several pieces of furniture being destroyed. After this Armand has a blu ray of the final cut overnighted bc neither of them have ever seen it (even tho its available digitally) and they have a seven hour long conversation about whether Deckard is a replicant and what it would mean if he was which at some point turns into makeup sex but never stops also being a philosophical discussion of the themes of timeless Ridley Scott classic Blade Runner.

And in late 2018 Armand kept mentioning that there's this science fiction movie set next year to Louis like he expected him to be excited but Louis was too busy manipulating the stock market or whatever and he just didn't really get why it mattered- all scifi movies are set in the future Armand, and we're immortal so we're going to live to see all of those futures, you weren't like this in 1984 Armand - and Armand doesn't quite regret what he did but the loneliness cuts sharper than usual on New Year's 2019.

[angel-atelier]

Kitty Killpop Moodboard

I had fun doing this so I might do more in the future, who knows

Some little facts abt her under the cut!

𖤓 She’s inspired by ocs of the days of yore. Shes is supposed to be kind of like those __ the killer ocs but a bit more serious.

𖤓 Kitty has only killed 1 person on her own, and She has a guilty conscience about it. Without Jeff being there, she really has to think and purposely go through with it. She helps Jeff kill people most of the time and because it's "bonding." In a mansion au she'd probably be more open to it tho lol

𖤓 Her full name is Katherine Anne Rosewood

𖤓 She participated in beauty pageants, a kid into her late teens. She only did one more when she came out of the hospital. She ended up winning, but that really set her off, she won because of pity. Her face and neck were torn open, how could she possibly win a beauty pageant? She never wanted to do them in the first place.

𖤓 She has a lot of issues with autonomy. Dating Jeff, besides the fact that they love each other, makes her feel more in control. The fact that her family would be horrified if they knew she was dating the man who disfigured her makes her love him even more to spite them.

𖤓 Incredibly school smart, she was top of virtually every class except for a brief stint in her youth. Kitty's parents had high expectations of her, but she was pretty dedicated without their pressure.

𖤓 She only ended up graduating HS, the stares she received, plus her deteriorating mental health led her to isolate for a few months after HS until she decided to track Jeff down

𖤓 She impersonated a PI to find Jeff, interviewing the few other survivors, tracking him. She left home, claiming she had found a job halfway across the country. In the main au I have for Kitty, Jeff is a wanted serial killer, but his name is not publicly available info.

𖤓 Jeff and hers relationship is really complicated and isn't necessarily healthy because of their history, but they really do love each other. Their life is fairly domestic minus the killing and hiding.

𖤓 Kitty loves astrology and loves to yap to Jeff about the moon. She's a Sagittarius, and Jeff is a Virgo.

Here are the two drawings ive done of her: 1 & 2

[zepskies]

IF I STAY - Part 2

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Plus-Sized!Reader

Summary: Your dream is to work with kids as an elementary school teacher. Dean is well on his way to becoming a firefighter, keeping things light and “strings unattached” as he goes. After a one-night stand you never saw coming, you and Dean are forced to deal with the consequences…and figure out if the connection between you is worth fighting for.

AN: Deep breaths Are you ready for a rollercoaster of emotions? 😘❤️

Song Inspo: “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “It’s Now or Never” by Elvis

Word Count: 13.1K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, pregnancy feels, hurt/comfort, fluff, time jumps and flashbacks, sexual tension, mutual pining, spice~, and an ending…

❤️‍🔥 If I Stay Masterlist

Part 2: It’s Now or Never

At the doctor’s office, Dean goes in with you for the first trimester ultrasound. There you learn that you’re going to have a boy. Tears well up in your eyes and slip down your cheeks.

Dean wears a look of amazement as he sits on the edge of your bed. He takes up your hand and squeezes gently. He tries to be a strong support, even though he also tries to hide the fear that begins to churn in his gut.

For one of the first times in his life since Sam was born, he feels the weight of responsibility pressing down on him. In a good way. In a fucking scary way.

He looks at you and sees the wonder written across your face while you watch the tiny shape of your baby on the screen. His heartbeat thwaps fast and loud in the speakers.

Dean realizes something else then; the decision you're making is changing the course of your whole damn life…and it’s his fault.

With his weekly hookup rate, in the very back shelves of his mind he knew something like this could happen, even though he thought he'd been careful. (Apparently, condoms are fragile little shits.) But here, in this white wall-to-wall room that smells like hospital antiseptic, that thwap thwap thwap of a heartbeat reverberating in his ears, the reality of this is crashing hard on his shoulders and rattling down to the base of his spine.

Despite his earlier happiness, those thoughts stay with him when you two eventually get back into his car. You have the pictures of the sonogram in your hands. You smile down at them before you put them back in your purse for safekeeping.

However, you notice Dean’s sudden melancholy as he stares out at the road. He’s started the car, but he hasn’t moved to pull out of the parking lot yet.

“Hey, you okay?” you say, resting a gentle hand on his arm.

Dean shakes his head. “Look…I’m sorry for tossing a giant friggin’ monkey wrench into your life. I know this hasn’t been easy for you.”

If possible, your heart softens even more. You slide your hand down to grasp his.

“Dean, this baby wasn’t planned, but he’s not a mistake,” you say. “I don’t regret anything.”

Dean stares back at you, incredulously. He can’t believe you could really say that to him. He doesn’t know what to say. He only knows what’s in his mind, and what he feels compelled to do in that moment.

He leans over and kisses you. It’s a firm meeting of his lips to yours and achingly familiar. But ultimately, it’s chaste. He pulls away and settles back in his seat.

When you blink your eyes back open, your expression is slack in shock.

“I’m sorry,” he says, seeming sheepish, and guilty. “I meant to say thank you. Just didn’t know any other way to say it.”

After a moment, you smile at him. It’s warm and almost shy.

Dean clears his throat, trying to ignore the way his face is heating up. He doesn’t say anything more. He just takes the wheel and shifts gears, pulling the car out of the parking lot. 

You don’t know what possesses you to bake cookies. Dozens and dozens of them, all the chocolate chip cookie recipes you can find. You’re in search of the perfect one. This will be the recipe your son will grow up on, and every time he eats them, he’ll remember how much you loved him.

And then, he’ll be ruined for any other chocolate chip cookies that try to grab his taste buds. He’ll say, Blech. Chips Ahoy? These aren’t as good as Mom makes!

…Or something like that.

Yes, these cookies have to be perfect. You’ll even write the ingredients down on a notecard and hide it away, and it’ll become your family secret recipe.

Once you feel like your cookie game is strong enough, you decide to test these babies out. You bring two dozen painstakingly baked confections to Firehouse 83, where Dean works. The man is a bottomless pit, to be sure, but you also want other people’s unbiased opinions. For science.

You park your car on the side of the road, making sure you’re not blocking the driveway where two huge fire trucks are parked. You head inside the firehouse with your big container under your arm and your purse on the other. Now at seven months into your pregnancy, you’ve gotten to the embarrassing “waddle” stage.

You’re still determined to be active though! You plan to keep working until you have the baby. Your parents live a few hours away, but you’re grateful that they want to help out as much as possible.

Even though they weren’t happy to hear about how you got pregnant, by now they've met Dean and begrudgingly admitted to liking him. He's really stepped up to the responsibility of a future father, insisting on baby-proofing your apartment, helping you shop for the essentials, and going with you to as many doctor’s appointments as he can. He’s even agreed to giving you child support payments, even though you hadn’t wanted to ask for it.

You look for him now as you enter the firehouse, trying to push the heavy glass door open with one hand.

“Here, I got you,” says a familiar baritone voice.

You’re pleasantly surprised at the man who helps you inside.

“Benny! It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, been…a while,” he chuckles, glancing down at the swell of your belly, but he squeezes your shoulder and leans in to hug you gently.

“Dean filled you in?” you ask. You hope so. Having to explain the story to one of his own friends would be embarrassing, especially since this is the man you walked in Sam’s wedding with. It reminds you of that day, and the way you told Dean that news in a glorified closet, with shaking hands and the wrong kind of butterflies.

Thankfully, Benny nods. “That he did…but come on, I’ll show you around. And I see you’ve brought somethin’ special for us?”

He gestures at the container you're holding and offers to take it off your hands. You give it to him, grateful for the help.

“Yeah, and I want you guys to give me your honest opinion.”

Benny tosses you a wink and a smile. “That I can do.”

Your cheeks begin to warm in a blush, but the way he helps you to a comfy couch in the common room earns your smile. There are still good men left in this world, and you’re glad to know that Dean works so well with one.

“You want some coffee, or water? Think we might have some lemonade,” Benny says.

“Water would be great, thank you,” you reply, as you rub your belly. The little man has decided to kick at your liver today. “I stopped drinking coffee for the baby. ”

It's your biggest challenge, to be honest. Try wrangling a group of fifteen to twenty six-year-olds while running on green tea, the fumes of sleep deprivation, reduced bladder control, and as much vim as you can muster.

“Ah, right,” Benny nods. “My sister has two kids. She cut out coffee, pain meds, some dairy stuff. But she claimed cheesecake was all right, ‘cause it’s got cake in the name.”

You giggle. “I see no flaw in her logic.”

Down the hall of the firehouse, Dean is just coming back in from going through a set of drills. He’s still the Candidate—the freshest blood in the house—so they’ve been putting him through his paces for the past several months. He’s eager to learn and to prove himself.

His ears perk up in confusion though. Did he just hear your voice?

Why does it smell like a bakery in here?

When he rounds the corner, he sees you in the common room, smiling and giggling like a teenager at something Benny said to you while he eats a soft baked cookie right out of a Tupperware container. You must’ve brought it for the firehouse.

This cozy little scene kind of annoys Dean somehow, though he doesn’t know why. He does know that it shouldn’t.

“Hey, look who’s here,” Dean says, forcing himself to smile. It becomes easier when you look his way, your eyes brightening at his arrival.

“There you are! Come ‘ere and try these,” you say, pointing at the box Benny holds. “Tell me if our son’s going to have the best PTA mom ever.”

Dean can’t help but grin after trying a big bite of one of your cookies.

“Oh, mah Gah,” he says, holding a hand under his mouth so nothing comes crumbling out.

“Good?” you ask.

“Good friggin’ cookie,” he confirms, after he swallows. “You’re gonna have the other parents frothing at the mouth. Who’s gonna be able to compete with this?”

Benny nods in agreement. When Dean squeezes your shoulder, your sweet, happy smile makes him smile too.

She’s going to be a good mom, he thinks. He can only hope against hope that he can be the man his son needs.

Two months later, the time has finally come. Your water breaks when you’re in the middle of teaching your second graders how to spell exaggerate—and no, Joey, it’s not e-g-g-zagerate.

However, the embarrassment of him pointing out the fluid beginning to stain your slacks is swiftly cut off by your shock. Your first call is to the principal, to have her send someone to cover your class. Your next call is to Dean, telling him to meet you at the hospital.

“Why the hell did he have to bring her,” you mutter to yourself, wiping sweat from your brow. Here you are, gritting your teeth through contraction after contraction in this damn hospital bed, and Dean is outside the room talking to Lisa.

You know you have no real reason to be upset. She’s been trying her best to be your friend in recent months. Hell, she helped Eileen and your mom plan your baby shower. She even brought you flowers when she got to the hospital, but you notice how less than five minutes after she got here, she and Dean became embroiled in yet another argument. It seems to you that all they do is argue, break up for a week or two, and then get back together again.

The sex must be explosive, like the fireworks at goddamn Disney World.

But Dean eventually does come back into the room alone. His support grounds you over the next few hours. He lets you basically break his hand, all while he gives you encouragement (and stands by your shoulder, so he doesn’t see anything you’d rather him not see).

And then, your son is born. Every muscle, every cell in your body is exhausted, but the pain meds have kicked in, and you’re in that blissed out state between abject reality and being entirely entranced by the bundle in your arms. His perfect face is just there, sleeping for the moment after the nurses taught you how to breastfeed.

Dean returns to sit in the chair beside you. He gives you some water and a piece of a protein bar. You’re not that hungry, but he pointed out that you haven’t eaten since before your water broke.

“Sam and Eileen are on their way up,” he says.

You nod in reply. You’re too into your son right now to think of anything else.

Dean shakes his head in wonder as he reaches out with a tentative hand, brushing his fingers over the baby’s downy head. He was born with a little tuft of brown hair.

“Okay, down to business,” Dean says, shooting you a playful look. “I vote for Zeppelin.”

You groan. “Dean, no. Veto. I’m not naming my son after a rock band.”

“Aw, come on. It’s a badass name!”

“What about Aiden?” you suggest.

“Veto,” he snorts. You two agreed to getting five “vetos” each, but this discussion has been more like a battle of wills over the last several months.

“Okay, what about Daniel? That’s strong, classic,” you pose.

Dean considers it with a tilt of his head. “All right, that one’s a maybe.”

Again, he strokes the baby’s soft cheek. You look over at Dean with a small smile.

“You’re going to be a good dad, you know,” you tell him. It earns his gaze. Although he’s trying to stay strong, you read the hidden insecurity there, the worry and fear. You rest a hand on his arm. “You are, Dean. You’re a good man, and you’ve really stepped up these past few months. This obviously isn’t how either of us thought our lives would go, but if this had to happen with someone, I’m glad it’s you.”

Dean’s expression softens. He hesitates, but he lays a hand over yours and squeezes gently.

“Thanks,” he says.

Your eyes meet, and it’s a moment charged with something you can’t even name. It’s not the first time you’ve felt this feeling with him. It both fills your heart with warmth, and makes you ache.

Then the door opens. It’s Lisa, Sam, and Eileen. Dean’s hand slips away from yours as they all pour in to congratulate you and Dean, and of course, meet the baby. There’s a lot of soft cooing and playful shushing.

In that small chaos, your parents call to tell you that they’re finally almost here. It really sucked not having your mom with you, but your parents live far enough away that they were going to take a train and stay with you for at least a week. Their train unfortunately got delayed due to mechanical failure.

It's okay though. Getting through the past several hours has made you realize that you’re stronger and more capable than you think, and even though part of you is still scared to death, you don’t need a husband to be a good mom. You’re going to give this your all, no matter who’s beside you…

And that's no more apparent than when Dean soon has to step out again, leading Lisa out of the room. He saw how her “helpful” suggestion to have a get-together at their apartment to celebrate the baby’s birth was setting you on edge. Really, you just want to sleep for the next 24-hours and not have any more pictures of you taken.

It gets loud enough outside your hospital room that Sam and Eileen feel they have to intervene. Lisa is Eileen’s best friend, and she’s the best equipped to try and deescalate the argument from that end, while Sam deals with Dean. It’s messy, it’s irritating, and it means that even today, you can’t just have a little bit of peace.

You sigh and cradle your still nameless baby close to your chest. He’s all that matters. Already, your heart is so damn full just taking him in.

“What’s your name, my little love?” you whisper. “What am I going to write on your certificate, besides Winchester?”

“How about Benjamin,” comes a Louisiana drawl.

You perk up and smile in surprise. “Benny, hey.”

He greets you with a slightly hesitant kiss on the cheek. He’s brought the baby an adorable teddy bear, and you a beautiful bouquet of white and blue roses, along with a box of chocolates.

“It’s the assorted kind, but they’ve got plenty of the caramel ones you like,” he says, then gazes down at the baby. “Aw, he’s a little charmer. Already got more of you than Dean, that’s for sure.”

You laugh lightly at his teasing. “I don’t know about that.” You hope your son inherits Dean’s strong jaw, and his green eyes.

Benny scratches the back of his head. “Also…sorry if I’m crossing some kind of boundary here. Looks like it’s a bit of a circus outside.”

You shake your head and smile through burgeoning tears. You set the chocolates on the end table where he’s placed the flowers and the teddy bear.

“No, it’s very sweet. Thank you,” you say. You glance out the window of your room to the hallway, where the arguing between Dean, Lisa, Sam, and Eileen seems to finally be calming down. You’re so damn tired, you don’t give a crap about whatever they’re hashing out now.

You look down at your son, and despite your strong thoughts earlier, insecurity begins to creep back into your mind like inky claws.  

“How are you holding up?” Benny asks. His face is kind and concerned when he notes the change in you.

You meet him with a wobbly smile. “Honestly? I’m afraid. I know I have a lot of people who want to support me, and I’m grateful, but…I just have this terrible feeling that we’re going to end up alone, him and me.”

You look down at your son, and you have to wipe away a tear from your eye before it falls on his face.

A large, warm hand rests over yours. Your gaze raises slowly, and Benny smiles at you. He’s serious though.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he says. “You’re not gonna be alone.”

FIVE YEARS LATER... 

For all that changes, there are some things that stay the same.

Dean and Lisa are still the world’s most “off again, on again” couple you’ve ever met. Sam and Eileen are still going strong as the hardworking, driven career couple. Your son is growing more and more every day and just started kindergarten this year.

(You ultimately caved on Dean’s idea to name him Robert, as in Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin.)

Oh, yeah, and the “you and Benny” thing? That’s been going well for two years now.

What can you say? The man is persistent, but respectfully so. He’s considerate, reliable, and always calls you when work at the firehouse has him running late.

You haven’t yet invited him to move in with you. That part you’re still hesitant on, mostly because of your son, but Benny helps you drop off Robbie at school and makes breakfast for you all whenever he stays over your apartment. Benny takes an interest in your son’s life and keeps up with all his energy, taking him to the park to run himself ragged before dinner, and helping you tuck him in at night.

Benny is a bit closed off though, the strong stoic type. He’s hard for you to get a read on, and sometimes you wonder if he’s just indulging you when you ramble on about your day or make silly jokes. Even now, sometimes you withhold the first thought that comes to your mind, hoping he doesn’t think you immature or…too much.

But Benny shows his caring in all those little things he does for you. They add up into the big things, and he makes you feel supported. He makes you feel safe.

He even helps you plan your son’s fifth birthday. Robbie wanted to go all out on a dinosaur theme; he’s been hooked on Jurassic Park ever since Benny “accidentally” let him watch it with him on one of your rare nights out with your friends.

So you set up a little party at the park by your apartment. You managed to reserve the biggest gazebo, where there are three picnic tables covered with dinosaur plates, and tablecloths, streamers in different shades of green. You even bought a big dinosaur cake—also in a radioactive green color that you hadn’t been sure about, but your son talked you into. Robbie thinks it’s awesome.

He’s running around on the playground with a few of his friends from school. Their parents (along with Sam, Eileen, and Lisa) are talking amongst themselves at one of the picnic tables while you try to figure out how to get the Bluetooth speaker to connect with your phone.

“Haha! Got it. If you're so smart, Alexa, why don't you connect on the first try?” You fist-pump the air triumphantly, just as Benny comes to your side. He wraps an arm around your waist and kisses your cheek, making you smile.

“How’s it going out there?” you ask, nodding at the kids. Plus Dean, who’s gamely been the one to keep them entertained with different games. Right now, it’s a thrilling game of Cowboys and Outlaws, where Robbie and his friends are the cowboys, and Dean is the outlaw. He’s been hiding under the slide, behind trees and other playground fixtures, while the kids have little squirt guns to pelt him with water every time they find him.

It's pretty damn cute, and you’ve been taking pictures. You smile at the sight of Dean leaping out at Robbie and the kids, catching them off guard.

“You’ll never take me alive, Sheriff!” Dean declares.

“Oh, it’s goin’,” Benny remarks with an amused shake of his head. “Still hard to believe that guy’s about to make it to Lieutenant.”

“Hahaaa, gotcha!!” Dean cackles. He’s grabbed up Robbie and yanked him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Robbie screeches with laughter while his dad runs around the playground, being chased by a bunch of five-year-olds with squirt guns.

Your smile threatens to make your cheeks hurt. You know your life is…unconventional, to say the least, but Dean is a good father to your son. He’s also been working hard at his job. He just took the Lieutenant’s test, and even though Benny already occupies that position at Firehouse 83, a spot at another firehouse might open up for Dean to transfer.

“Part of me doesn’t want to,” Dean admitted to you last week, while he was working on fixing your stubborn, leaky sink. “All the guys there, they’re like family, you know?” “I understand,” you nodded. “You have to do what feels best for you, whether that’s staying where you feel comfortable, or moving up in your career somewhere else. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.” He took in your advice with a slow nod. “Yeah, thanks. Guess I have to time to think about it. Lisa had other ideas.” “Of course,” you said with a smile, but it soon dropped. “Why, what did she say?” “Do what I can to move up,” he sighed. “She’s got a point. That title comes with a pay bump, one I could really use right now.” “I get that. Totally valid,” you said. “But I just think it’s important for you to be happy with it too. Especially with what you do, helping people, saving people…I’d imagine being in the right mindset for all that is important, right? Who you work with can be just as important as the money stuff.” Dean considered you with a smile. “Yeah, exactly.”

As you think about it now, you have to admit that he’s grown up a lot.

Dean has to lean against a tree to catch his breath. Am I already getting too old for this crap?

Feels kind of young to have a stitch in his side after a few rounds with these kids, but even he has his limits. Lisa comes to bring him a bottle of ice-cold water, which he appreciates. He’s tempted to dump it over his head like he does after successfully neutralizing a fire. It gets literally hot as hell under that helmet and mask and all his gear underneath.

“Need an iron lung?” Lisa teases.

“Toss in a new pair of knees, thanks,” he wheezes. He downs half the water bottle in one go, but he smiles at seeing his son keep running around with his friends. He’s just got that manic kid energy that goes on for days. But Robbie’s also smart; like Dean, he likes taking things apart and putting them back together in new and ingenious ways.

Dean hopes his son likes the new model car set that’s waiting for him on the picnic table full of presents. In fact, he’s still surprised that you didn’t go with the race car theme he suggested for the party, but apparently, Robbie’s more into dinosaurs now. Dean wishes he knew that before he bought the model car set.

He looks over and catches sight of you and Benny wrapped up in each other. He has his arm around your waist while you fiddle with something, but the way you lean over and whisper near his ear elicits a smile on Benny’s face.

Dean’s good mood diminishes.

“Well, don’t they seem cozy,” he mutters.

Lisa arches a manicured brow. “Yeah, pretty sure he’s getting ready to propose.”

That earns Dean’s attention, his head swiveling back to her in surprise.

“Really?” he asks. “Who told you that?”

“His sister,” she replies. “Meg’s in my intermediate class, remember?”

Dean nods, sipping at his water, even though he’s a bit absent in the eyes. Lisa watches him shrewdly.

“Why do you seem upset about it?” she asks. “Benny’s your friend.”

“I know,” Dean says. He doesn’t need that reminder, or the guilty twinge. It’s not like he’s done anything wrong.

“And she seems happy,” Lisa points out. “Don’t you want the mother of your kid to be with a good man who treats her right?”

He nods, trying to hide his growing annoyance. “‘Course I do. I just…I don’t know. I still don’t see them together, I guess.”

“Well, they’ve been together for like, two years.”

Again, Dean nods his acknowledgement. It’s hard for him to believe that so much time has passed already. He honestly didn’t think you and Benny would be together this long. He’d always felt a little uncomfortable with one of his best friends dating you, but you’d seemed happy about it, so he didn’t discourage it. But he’d never been very supportive, either. At least, not about your relationship.

Lisa sighs and grabs his arm, pulling him aside before he can rejoin the party.

“Listen, we need to talk about something,” she says.

Dean restrains a tired groan. “Can this wait ‘til later?”

“I think we should do this now,” she says. A hallmark Lisa-ism. She’s opinionated and strong-willed, something Dean’s always respected about her. Sometimes though, the timing is damn irritating. He doesn’t want to get into another argument with his girlfriend in public, especially not at his son’s birthday party.

“Speaking of commitment,” she says with a sigh. “I think it’s fair to say that we’ve been on a five-year rollercoaster, you and I. You know why that is?”

“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me,” Dean says, crossing his arms.

“It’s because you’re spread too thin,” she says. “Between the firehouse, construction jobs on the side…not to mention other things.”

“What? What’re you talking about?”

Lisa’s lips purse, before she pointedly gestures over at you with her eyes. “Well, for example. You’re still going to her place after your next shift to fix her fridge, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, should be pretty simple. I’ve just gotta swing by the hardware store and grab this specialty tool I ordered—”

“Dean,” Lisa deadpans. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

She heaves a deep breath, running her fingers through her long brown hair.

“I get that navigating this situation hasn’t been easy for you,” she says. “It hasn’t exactly been easy for me either, but look.”

Lisa takes his hands in hers, uncrossing his arms. “I want to get married someday. I want kids too. And I want that kind of life with you…I’m just not sure you want it with me.”

Dean expels a heavy sigh. “Lis—”

“Don’t answer me right now,” she says, but she levels him with a serious look. “You need to decide though, Dean. Five years is long enough. You should know by now if you want to be with me.”

After letting go of his hands, she softens the edges of her words with a gentle kiss on his cheek. Then she turns to join the group now gathered around the picnic table where the food is, all the kids cheering for pizza and cake.

After the party, Sam, Eileen, Lisa, and Benny pack up their cars and yours with the leftover food, party supplies, and presents. Dean helps you clean up the trash, all while keeping an eye on Robbie getting out the last of his sugar-high on the playground swing.

You shake your head tiredly, if with a fond smile. “That kid’s gonna be up all night hype on that radioactive cake.”

Dean chuckles. “You want me to take him tonight?”

“It’s okay. I think he’s going to want to play with his toys,” you reply.

“Well, he could just as easily do that at my place,” he reasons.

You consider it, but you shake your head. “Yeah, but we got him the bike. He’s probably gonna want to try it out for a few minutes before we get him cleaned up.”

“By ‘we,’ you mean you and Benny,” Dean says, his tone becoming surly. “And about that. Don’t you think a bike is something you should run by me? That’s typically a ‘dad’ kind of gift.”

You pause what you’re doing at the sound of his tone. Your brows knit together.

“Sorry, but I feel like a bike isn’t exclusively a dad thing,” you say.

“My dad got me my first bike,” Dean replies. “Spent a whole three days teaching me how to ride.”

You take a minute to think about it. You understand where Dean’s coming from, so you nod.

“Okay, I get it. You want to be there to help teach Robbie? I’m sure he’d love that.” 

Dean tosses a wadded-up ball of frosting-covered napkins and stops, letting his hands fall to his sides in frustration. He draws closer and helps you untie the balloons from the picnic table.

“Yeah, I do, but that’s not the point,” he says. “Why can’t I take him home tonight?”

You blink up at him in confusion. “Well, like I said. The bike—”

“That I should’ve gotten for him,” he snaps. “Which, let me guess, Benny picked out. Right?”

You frown at him in earnest now. “Dean, why are you getting so upset about it? It’s just a bike.”

“Well you know what, it’s not! And it’s not just the damn bike either.” He swipes a hand over his face in annoyance, a telltale sign you’ve come to read well on the man. “Look, I’m missing too much shit, all right? Like, like the dinosaur thing! And the fact that I only get him on the weekends.”

You turn toward him, trying to put a cap on your own annoyance. This isn’t the first time you two have had a conversation like this. 

“We’ve gone over this before, Dean. Your schedule at the firehouse is just too unpredictable,” you say. “Robbie needs as much stability as possible between us. But…okay, if you want to take him tonight, that’s fine. We can bring the bike over to your place and show it to him there.”

You’re trying to be as reasonable as possible, and Dean knows that. Still, anger prickles just under his skin, and he can’t help but push his luck.

“You still should’ve asked be before you got the bike in the first place,” he argues.

Your brows raise high. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Look, it’s not like we bought him a Honda Civic. Honestly, Dean, why are you picking a fight with me right now?” you ask. “Did you and Lisa get into it again or something?”

Dean looks away and crosses his arms, giving you all the confirmation you need.

“Yeah, that’s right,” you nod. “I saw you two over there on the playground, looked pretty heated. But do me a favor. Don’t come at me with that energy, because I’m too damn tired of it!”

When you walk away from him, Dean can’t help but stare after you. He knows he fucked that up, just as he knows that you don’t deserve him snapping at you. He’s just too irritated to admit it.

For the entire week that follows, Dean finds himself distracted. He sticks to his word and helps Benny teach his son how to ride a bike in between their shifts at the firehouse, but Dean comes home each night feeling even more frustrated and drained than before. It’s too much, knowing Benny’s slowly but surely carving out a father-figure role in Robbie’s life.

These thoughts follow Dean to work, even while he climbs up the firetruck ladder in the rain. It’s parallel to a busted utility pole that still sparks with electricity, even in this torrential downpour. His task is to get up to the top and grab a large branch that’s tangled in the lines.

Rung after rung, he climbs. His safety mask protects his eyes from the rain, but he wishes they had some mini windshield wipers to keep his vision clear of the droplets pelting him in the face.

He also can’t help thinking of you. If Lisa’s right, then Benny’s about to become a more permanent fixture in Robbie’s life, and yours. 

Okay fine. It’s not like Dean expected you to be single forever, but did you really have to get with one of his best friends? Does it really have to be Benny, who seems so natural with Robbie, and more patient than Dean, and more of a support to you and Robbie than Dean can ever be?

And then there’s Lisa’s little ultimatum. He understands why she’s frustrated with him. Honestly, he’s surprised she’s stuck around this long. He knows she’s not going to wait too much longer for him to get his act together. For him to decide, as she put it.

It’s not that he’s not sure about her, it’s just that…

Just that what? he wonders.

He manages to grab the wily tree branch and maneuver it out of the power lines. 

He just doesn’t realize that his glove doesn’t have quite enough friction on the metal side panel of the ladder. Not only does his hand slip, but he’s forced to let go of the branch while he loses his balance. The branch falls to the sidewalk, far, far down below.

“Dean!” Benny shouts in alarm.

Luckily, the truck itself breaks Dean's fall.

Holding Robbie’s hand tightly in yours is the only thing keeping you steady as you lead him through the hospital. After the receptionist had checked you both in and gave you the room number, you hastened down the hall and up to the right floor. 2005.

Robbie breaks into tears when he finally gets to see his dad, laid up though he is in his hospital bed. Your throat tightens at the sight of Dean hooked up to all those monitors. He has his arm wrapped up and fitted into a sling. He has a thick piece of gauze taped to the side of his face, covering a wide, angry abrasion, but he seems to be resting easy on his back. The bed is at an incline, with most of the overhead lights turned off.

Robbie rushes to the bed before you can stop him. He hesitantly touches Dean’s non-injured right hand. “Daddy?”

“Robbie, wait,” you say, keeping your voice quiet. You quickly go over to the bedside and grab ahold of Robbie’s shoulders, but Dean takes a deep breath. His eyelids crack open.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, attempting a smile. His voice is rough and weak, but at least he’s awake.

Robbie’s lower lip wobbles as tears fill his eyes again.

“Come ‘ere,” Dean says, a little stronger. When he reaches out to his son, the kid hops up onto the bed and buries his face into his father’s chest. Dean holds him as securely as he can, soothing his hand over the boy’s hair and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“It’s okay, little man. ‘M okay,” he promises. Robbie nods, but he still continues to cry.

You can’t help but do the same. Tears slip down your cheeks without your consent. Dean beckons you over too, gesturing with his chin and a slight smile. You’re more tentative in the way you sit down at the edge of his bed. You run your fingers through Robbie’s light brown hair to help reassure him. Then, you meet Dean’s gaze and lay a hand on his good shoulder. You don’t know whether you’re steadying him, or yourself.

“How do you feel?” you ask. “The hospital called me. Benny told me what happened.”

The thought reminds you to text your boyfriend. You hadn’t had a chance to tell him you made it here yet. He must be downstairs grabbing a bite to eat, because he’s the one who rode with Dean in the ambulance and has been with him for a while.

“The hospital called you?” Dean notes in slight confusion.

“Eileen told me that Sam is in court right now, so I must’ve been next on the list,” you say. He also must have taken Lisa off his emergency list the last time they broke up for almost a month. He probably forgot to update it again.

You reach out a hand to almost touch the bandage by his temple. Instead, you hesitantly hold the side of his face to see the area better. Dean closes his eyes for a moment. You can see he’s in pain. Your hand lingers on his cheek, but you know, deep down, that it shouldn’t.

Dean doesn’t stop you though. He lets out a deep breath, savoring how nice the gentle touch feels when the rest of his body feels battered to hell.

“Fell off the ladder. Was a stupid rookie move,” he explains, but when he sees that look on your face, he tries to inject a little more joking into a smile. “S’ not so bad.”

“You could’ve broken your head as well as your arm,” you say, more sharply than you mean to.

Robbie whimpers and clings tighter to Dean. You cover your mouth, as if you can trap the words back inside. You don’t want to upset your son more than he already is, so you fall silent. Another tear works its way down your cheek, but you brush it away. Dean shakes his head.

“Hey, I’m okay,” he reassures you too. He manages to smile as he pats Robbie’s back. “Right, buddy?”

The boy’s head perks up. His eyes are still shiny, but he smiles too. He’s not one to speak when he’s upset though, so he just curls up against Dean’s chest and hangs onto him. Dean rests his good arm snugly around him.

You smile and stroke Robbie’s back. Though your hand lowers, resting on Dean’s hand. You take in a deep breath to calm yourself down. Dean’s fingers curl around yours, prompting you to glance up into his eyes. The way he’s watching you is soft, grateful.

Until the door creaks open. Benny steps in with a subtle clearing of his throat. You jolt internally, and you slip your hand away from Dean’s. You offer your boyfriend a wan smile.

“Hey,” you say.

“Hey, baby.” He comes over and greets you with a kiss to the side of your head. He smiles at your son gently. “The gang’s all here.”

“Oh! Let me call Sam, and Lisa too. They still don’t know what’s going on,” you say. You get up from the bed to grab your phone out of your purse. Dean nods in agreement and thanks you, while Robbie plays with his dad's long fingers.

“How you holdin’ up, brother?” Benny asks, after you step out of the room. He settles into the chair near the foot of the bed.

“Ah, you know me. I’m like a cat. Always stick the landing,” Dean says, smiling lazily. The morphine is starting to kick in again.

Benny smirks. “Maybe you do got nine lives, the amount of close calls you like gettin’ yourself into.”

Dean’s good humor fades. He considers his son in his arms, and he shakes his head.

“Yeah, well, no more,” he says. He got a taste of what it would be like to leave his boy behind, and he’s not fucking doing it. He’s not leaving you to raise Robbie by yourself. The mere idea tears a new hole in his heart.

His eyes sting just enough that he has to blink a bit harder, swallowing past a thick well of emotion in his throat. He presses another kiss to the top of Robbie’s head. Then, Dean meets Benny’s gaze.

“Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

Benny nods.

“You got it, brother.”

When Lisa steps off the hospital elevator on the second floor, you happen to be coming out of the bathroom to fix your racoon eyes. You’ve been crying way too much. You attempt to greet Lisa with something reassuring, but she cuts you off. 

“What happened, and why didn’t the hospital call me directly?” she asks.

Her tone is cutting, and it takes you aback.

“Well, Sam and I were listed as his emergency contacts—”

“Why?” she snaps. “You’re not his wife or his girlfriend. I should’ve been listed.”

Jesus Christ. At this point, you can’t help it. You’re too tired and emotionally drained to lasso in your temper with this woman.

“Maybe if you and Dean stayed together longer than five minutes at a time, he’d put you back on the short list,” you sling back. “But the truth is, you’ve never just…been there for Dean. Not without demanding something from him.”

Lisa scoffs incredulously. “Oh, that’s fucking rich coming from you. You’re the reason he can’t commit to anything. You think your little world is the only one that matters, and you call Dean for any little thing! What, don’t you have a boyfriend to help fix your goddamn sink?” 

You open your mouth to retort, but you pause as her words seep into your mind. She might actually have a small point about that one. You realize then just how often you’ve been asking Dean for his help, not just with your apartment, but with your car, and other logistical things that usually have to with Robbie. Dean’s just such a good handyman, and you thought he genuinely liked being able to help…even though Benny did mention once or twice that he’d be just as happy to help you.

“Lisa, this is a lot more than a leaky sink. I just wanted to get here with Robbie and make sure Dean was okay,” you try to explain.

“Good. I’m glad his son was the first person Dean got to see when he woke up,” Lisa says. “But I should’ve been the second.”

She brushes past you before you can even think of what to say. You’re in a state of shock, feeling guilty, incensed, and on the verge of tears all at once.

A familiar voice calls your name, and you turn to Benny just as those tears begin to fall. He gathers you up into his arms and holds you there in the middle of the hallway.

“She shouldn’t talk to you like that, no matter how high tensions are today. I’ll talk to Dean,” Benny says. You shake your head and bury your face in his chest, clenching your fingers in his red flannel shirt. 

“No, it’s okay,” you reply, despite the sob that shudders through you. You’ve lost the will to fight.

Benny shakes his head and presses a kiss to your forehead. “It ain’t okay, baby.”

“Please, don’t bother Dean with this. Especially not right now,” you say. You take a moment to wipe your eyes and get ahold of yourself. “I’m gonna go get Robbie so Dean can rest.”

You can’t shake the feeling that Lisa is right. You do rely on Dean too much. You just don’t want to think about why that is.

Dean makes a full recovery after a few months. He never does hear about what happened in that hallway, but he knows that things need to change. 

He decides to dig out his mom’s engagement ring from a locked box of his parents’ keepsakes, though he’s still waiting on the right time for it. He and Lisa start looking at houses though, for real this time. She hires a realtor and everything. 

He’s making a firm decision, and he thinks it’s the right one. He wants to be there for his son, but he doesn’t want to keep “spreading himself too thin.” He has to figure out how to set some roots, and some boundaries with you while he’s at it. He’ll just have to come to terms with the idea that he won’t get to be there for everything. 

He has to be okay with the fact that you’ll probably marry Benny. You’ll keep making him cookies and cakes, giving him your smile and your time and your body. And Robbie will probably think of Benny as more of a father than his own Weekend Dad. 

Meanwhile, you’ve spent the past few months keeping yourself in check as well. You’ve stopped calling Dean for help whenever something breaks down in your old-ass apartment. You try to keep your conversations less about life and troubles and whatever funny thing your students did that day in class, and more focused on Robbie–strictly about his schedule and his needs.

It’s kind of painful, if you’re honest with yourself. Sam will always be one of your closest friends from college, but in the past five years, Dean has truly become your best friend. Because you’ve told him things. The things that come from sharing a child with someone, like Sunday dinners with your parents, flipping through old yearbooks and childhood pictures—and the details of day-to-day schedules and little stupid things that happen in moments between moments.

Dean also knows the deep cuts. Like being pregnant and scared and breaking down crying on the side of the road. Like sharing the deepest well of your insecurities with someone who knows your body intimately, even if just for one amazing night...a night you’ve never quite been able to put out of your mind.

However, you know that things can’t stay the same. From now on, he just needs to be your son’s father. Nothing more, nothing less. 

So today, on a crisp April 24th, you’re getting ready for a highly anticipated evening with your boyfriend. Robbie is sleeping over your parents’ house, and Benny has been planning something special for your third-year anniversary. 

You slip into your new dress, a deep emerald green, with a pair of black heels you’ve rarely worn since before you got pregnant. Come to think of it, you were wearing these the night of Sam and Eileen’s bachelor-bachelorette party. The night you…well, the night Robbie was conceived. 

You shake your head to rid yourself of those thoughts. You even consider changing. 

You’re being silly, you shake your head. They’re just shoes. 

And yet. Thinking of that time so long ago, it reminds you of a recent Sunday dinner at your parents’ house.

Two Months Ago...

Your parents live modestly, but comfortably in rural Kansas. Their ranch-style home boasts a creek in the backyard, where your dad is teaching your son how to catch minnows. Your mom is inside working on an apple pie, knowing it’s both Dean’s and Robbie’s favorite.

You and Dean have kept close to the house under the shade, sitting on a bench made more comfortable by a pair of old polyester cushions with red, faded flowers.

“How much longer do you have to wear that?” you ask Dean. He glances down at his cast-covered left arm.

“Doc says it’s about ready to come off,” he says.

You nod, allowing yourself a certain smile. “How bad are you itching to grab my mom’s garden shears and cut it off right here?”

“Woman, don’t tempt me,” he says, his lips twitching at a grin. “I’ve been eying those overgrown scissors for the past half hour.”

You laugh and take another sip of your glass. Yours holds sweet tea, while Dean’s has some of your dad’s favorite whiskey. You both raise your heads when Robbie yells across the backyard.

“I caught a minnow!”

“Good job, buddy,” Dean grins. “See if you can catch a marlin!”

“A marlin?” Robbie questions.

“Yeah, like that orange guy in Finding Nemo,” Dean calls back.

Your dad gives Dean the same wry look you do, though yours is tinged with more amusement.

“Dean, that’s a clown fish,” you say. “He’s not gonna find that in the creek.”

“Aw, shit,” he tries to quiet his laugh. “Ah well, should keep him occupied for another twenty minutes.”

You bite your lip to stifle your laughter as well. Though something else occurs to you the longer you watch your son play and explore in the creek. Your dad has the patience of a saint as he puts yet another bait worm on the hook for the kid.

“He’s starting to ask questions, you know,” you tell Dean, in a quieter voice. “‘Why aren’t you and Daddy married? Why can’t we all live together?’”

Dean's brows raise. His good humor dims when he looks over at you.

“What do you tell him?” he asks.

You take in a deep breath, considering your words now as carefully as you did with your son.

“That we care about each other a lot, as friends,” you say, meeting Dean’s eyes. “And we love Robbie very much. Nothing’s going to change that, even if you and I aren’t together like a normal mom and dad.”

Saying it like that makes your heart twinge, for more than one reason. The way Dean’s mouth twitches into a rueful smile just makes it worse, but you try your best to ignore it.

“I never thought about having to explain it to him,” he says, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

It’s that anxious tell of his again. You notice every time he does it.

“I have,” you admit. “I just didn’t know for sure what I was going to say until it was coming out of my mouth.”

Dean smirks a little. “Yeah, that sounds like you.”

You roll your eyes and sip your drink, crossing your arms as well. Dean considers you then, looking at you in a way that makes you raise a brow in question.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing, it’s just…” He sits back against the bench and rubs his hands down his jean-clad thighs. “For the record, I did try to ask you out once.”

“What?” you scoff incredulously. “No, you’ve been with Lisa since the beginning.”

“Before Lisa,” Dean says.

He isn’t joking. He isn’t teasing. He’s serious as he stares back at you with those green eyes of his. Your brows furrow as you wrack your brain. Did he drunkenly leave you a voicemail on one of those “off again” episodes between him and Lisa? No. You know you’d remember something like that.

“It was a few weeks after the bachelor party,” Dean says. “I called you up, remember?”

Your eyes widen. Finally, that jogs your memory.

“So I just thought maybe you and I could do something again. Maybe you wanna come over my place this time.” And there it is. You deflate at his words, shoulders sagging. The "convenient booty call" proposition.

You have to laugh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“Dean, you did not ask me out,” you say. “You wanted to hook up. There’s a distinct difference.”

Dean frowns at you. “No, I was. I invited you over—”

“For essentially some Netflix and chill,” you retort.

“Hey, I offered to make you dinner,” he argues. “I didn’t say anything about hooking up.”

You pause at that. His earnest denial makes you actually think back to what you remember about that conversation on the phone.

“So I just thought maybe you and I could do something again. Maybe you wanna come over my place this time.” And there it is. You deflate at his words, shoulders sagging. The "convenient booty call" proposition. “I could make us some burgers, toss in a couple of beers and a movie night,” he adds.

You cover your lips with your fingers as you begin to realize…

“That was you asking me out?” you ask incredulously.

Dean’s brows furrow and he throws his hands up. “What? Who doesn’t like a little movie night?”

“Dean,” you huff another laugh. “You could’ve made it sound more like a date.”

“Well, ‘scuse me. Sorry I couldn’t afford the Ritz at the time,” he grumbles.

You sigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

The more you think about it, the more you just shake your head at yourself. Why did you have to overthink it, like you do everything?

“Wow,” you say, softer and more contrite. “I honestly never thought…”

“Yeah,” he says. He shifts his gaze out ahead.

You glance over at him, now more unsure of yourself. He wouldn’t have any regrets, you think. He has Lisa. As much as they go at it, they always inevitably get back together. And now you know they hired a realtor. They’re about to start making solid steps forward.

But Dean surprises you with another question.

“Do you think if…”

He doesn’t finish it, but you think you know what he’s asking. You hesitate, your fingers flexing around your glass that beads with condensation. You set the glass down beside you. 

Just as you open your mouth to reply—

“All right, pie is cooling and dinner is served!” your mom calls out. Her head pokes out of the sliding glass door to the backyard. You offer a smile, trying to hide how you jolted in your seat.

“Okay, thanks, Mom,” you nod.

You turn back to Dean, who also hesitates. His eyes meet yours, but all too soon, he locks the moment away.

Bracing his hands on his knees, he rocks to his feet and goes out to get Robbie and help your dad bring in the fishing gear.

You grab Dean’s whiskey along with your tea on your way back inside the house. You consider the amber liquid disturbed in his glass, and you down the rest yourself. The burn down your throat is a good distraction. If he asks about it, you’ll say you got the glasses confused.

You know you’ll have to leave that conversation unfinished at the foot of the bench.

Now...

Benny comes by your apartment and helps you into the passenger side of his pickup truck, like the gentleman he is. He takes you to a nice restaurant in downtown, much nicer than the usual sports bar or kid-friendly restaurant. You're very much looking forward to eating at a restaurant that doesn't feature chicken fingers or "kiddie" corn dogs.

“This is gonna be really expensive,” you whisper to him, after he hands his keys over to the valet. 

Benny squeezes your hand in his, leaning over to kiss your temple. 

“Don’t you worry about that. We both deserve a night out.” His blue eyes gleam with amusement. However, his gaze gentles, becoming more sincere. “You work hard, carin’ for everybody around you. How about you let me take care of you for once.”

Your eyes begin to water, your throat constricting with emotion. You rub his arm gratefully.

“Thank you,” you say. “You don’t know how much I appreciate that.” 

It’s always easy with Benny. Nice and simple and easy. Nice, supportive, and considerate.

Nice and safe.

That thought follows you while you and Benny walk into to the restaurant. He’s reserved great seats in the back corner, overlooking a beautiful courtyard. It’s decorated with hydrangeas and light wood dining tables, all framed with a rod iron archway as the sun begins to set just so. After holding your chair out for you before he sits himself, Benny orders a bottle of champagne to kick things off.

He turns to you with a somewhat nervous look in his eyes, like he's steeling himself. It’s uncharacteristic of Benny, who’s always so calm and charming and sure of himself. It makes a zing of anticipation run down your spine, and…a dash of fear. You don’t know why, and you don’t know how to beat the feeling down as you fidget in your seat.

He subtly clears his throat, then takes your hand. “Sweetheart, I know I’m not all that good at the words you’re supposed to say. But I can say that the past three years with you and Robbie, it’s come to mean the world to me.”

Your smile softens. He brushes his thumb over the back of your hand, encouraged by your reaction.

“So I think it’s time I made it clear where I stand, and how much I want to be the man in your life,” he says.

Your eyes begin to widen in shock, but not for the reason he thinks.

“Dean,” you gasp.

Benny’s expression slackens. “What?”

You point over his shoulder, and Benny turns to follow your line of vision. Dean and Lisa have just walked into the restaurant. They notice you pointing their way, and they both pause in surprise as well. Lisa is beautiful as usual in a slinky black dress, completely backless (something you feel you could never pull off, unless you had an invisible bra to keep the girls perked up).

Dean is…well, you’ve very rarely seen him in a suit, but charcoal gray works for him. The open collar and white buttoned-down works for him, as do the three top buttons he’s left undone, showing a tantalizing strip of tanned skin. He stares back at you like he forgot you live in the same time zone, let alone the same zip code.

“Uh, hey!” he casts out an awkward wave, before he makes his way over to you and Benny. Lisa is less than enthused.

“We shouldn’t interrupt their night,” you catch her whisper to him, but Dean doesn’t seem to hear her.

“What’s up, party people! Of all the gin joints in all the world, huh?” Dean says, a little too loudly when he thumps Benny on the back. Benny grunts, giving a bit of a forced chuckle.

“Dean,” he greets. “I think I told you about this particular gin joint. Good to see you can actually clean up once in a while.”

“Ah, you know what, this monkey suit ain’t too bad,” Dean says, pulling at his collar.

You smirk in amusement. “Yeah, I remember how much you complained about wearing a simple tie for Robbie’s Christmas pageant.”

He smirks down at you. “Hey, ties still might not be my thing, but nothing wrong with a sharp collar.”

He pops his for emphasis. You don’t know why it makes you laugh, but it does. Maybe it’s just his face and the silly, endearing expression he makes when he pouts his lips in a “blue steel.”

“So, is this just a night out, or you guys celebrating something special?” Dean asks, gesturing at the champagne bottle and your full glasses of bubbly.

Benny gives his friend a certain look. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Today’s three years.”

He takes your hand and kisses your knuckles. You smile back at him, though you’re a bit self-conscious at the way both he and Dean, and even Lisa have their attention on you.

“We should let you guys get back to it then,” Lisa says.

Honestly, it’s a relief. You and Benny nod, wishing them a goodnight.

For some reason, you notice how Dean’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. But he goes with Lisa, laying a hand on the small of her back. You force yourself to tear your eyes away from them and refocus on Benny. You take up your champagne glass and raise it in offering.

“All right, where were we?” you ask, if with a nervous trill in your belly.

Benny smiles. He takes up his glass and clinks it with yours.

Lisa nearly sighs. She and Dean are back in line at the front of the restaurant, waiting to be seated. The second time she catches Dean glancing over at the table where you and Benny sit, she shakes her head and digs into her purse for the valet card. She’s done with this.

“I think maybe we should go to a different restaurant,” she says.

That finally earns Dean’s attention, mostly confused. “What, why?”

She just gives him a long look.

He realizes that whatever her reasons are, it’s easier to just give in than to fight her on it. He’s learning when to pick his battles. Or is he just giving up?

Also, if tonight’s “the night” he thinks it is for you and Benny, maybe he doesn’t want to stick around after all. Three years, huh?

“All right, fine. Let’s go,” he agrees.

Dean and Lisa wait for the valet to bring the Impala around. The minute he gets behind the wheel and turns the key into the ignition, she changes her mind.

“Look, let’s just go home,” she says. “I don’t really feel like eating out anymore.”

Dean’s brows raise. “What? Aw, come on. We’re already dressed and everything. You look great, Lis. Just tell me where you wanna eat.”

Lisa remains firm, with a small shake of her head. “Please, Dean, just take me home.”

After a moment of indecision, Dean sighs. He revs the ignition and does as she says.

It’s only a fifteen-minute drive back to their apartment, but in that stifling silence, it seems to drag on for a small eternity. He glances at her a couple of times. Lisa has her arms crossed as she stares out the window, watching the other restaurants and mom-and-pops shops and forest trees and old houses of Lebanon, Kansas go by.

Dean counts it a blessing when they’re finally home. He walks up the few short steps up to their ground-floor apartment and unlocks the door. He flicks on the lights inside, and she breezes past him to toss her purse onto the couch.

Dean takes off his blazer and begins to undo the buttons on his cuffs. He watches her all the while, knowing that a storm is brewing. She shucks off her heels and slowly paces the living room on bare feet, like her whirling thoughts are fueling every step.

“All right, I give. What’s going on?” Dean asks. “What’d I do this time?”

She pauses, with her back turned to him.

Shit, he thinks. He shouldn’t have said it like that.

He prepares for the inevitable blow up, but it never comes. Lisa just heaves a sigh. Slowly she turns, and Dean’s shocked and dismayed to see the tears welling up in her deep brown eyes. He makes quick strides toward her, but she raises a hand to keep him at bay.

“Dean, when you picture yourself happy, truly happy,” she says. “Is it with me? Can you imagine yourself marrying me? Buying the house, having kids, growing old together?”

If Dean was thrown for a loop before, he’s even more stunned by her question. “Lis…”

“Just be honest, for once,” she pleads. Her tears begin to brim over, but she blinks, somehow keeping them at bay.

It’s a bit too long before Dean realizes that he can’t give her an answer. At least, not the one he knows she wants to hear.

When he thinks of that picture in his mind, of course he sees his son. But the only other person Dean can imagine there beside him is…

“I…” He wills his mouth to work, but nothing else comes out.

The only face he can conjure is yours. Your eyes are warm and welcoming, your smile as bright and contagious as your laugh.

The only voice he can hear is yours, gentle and strong at the same time.

The only one he can see is you.

He knows the shampoo you use and the perfume you like to wear, how the sweet and floral scents mix together and linger in your hair and on your skin.

Even now he remembers the contours of your body, and how it could fit so well against his. He knows that you used to try and hide your shape under loose, baggy shirts and cargo pants that did nothing for you. He knows how much courage it took you to wear that red dress to his brother’s party, because you told him once, at one of those Sunday dinners at your parents’ house.

Come to think of it, there’s not a whole lot that Dean doesn’t know about you, except maybe what you see when you look at him.

“You love her,” Lisa finishes for him. “I think you always have.”

Dean’s throat tightens. Somehow he swallows anyway, and he shakes his head. 

“Lisa, I loved you.”

“Maybe you did, in your own way,” she says, laughing a little through her tears as she wipes them away. “But you already have a family, Dean. Go fight for it.” 

Dean doesn’t know what to say, but he knows what he can do.

He goes to her and kisses her cheek. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says. 

Lisa merely nods, wiping her face dry. She watches Dean Winchester walk out of her apartment, and out of her life for good this time. 

Dean calls your cell, but it goes to voicemail. He drives all the way back to the restaurant and doesn’t find you or Benny there. 

Dean realizes that what he’s doing, what he plans to do, is not fucking cool. He wouldn’t blame you or even Benny for being severely pissed when Dean shows up. He also knows that he can’t let another day pass where he keeps lying to you, and himself. 

He eventually finds you at home. What’s weird is that Benny’s truck isn’t in the driveway—just your car. He knocks on your door, and he waits.

He unconsciously holds his breath while he waits in that terrible existence of limbo. However, his heart thrums back to life when he hears your footsteps drawing closer to the door. Anticipation, excitement, dread, it all roils together inside him like a bad cocktail as the door swings open.

And he’s once again rendered a bit breathless at the sight of you in that dress. The color alone appeals to him, let alone the way it accentuates your every curve, from full breasts to the swell of your hips, the softer slope of your thighs, and bare toes painted. You’re fucking delectable, every curve, and a temptation without you even meaning to be. 

You’re just…you’re still so goddamn beautiful, like the night he first saw you. Even now, he can almost feel the give of your thighs under his hands, his fingers pressed to supple flesh. 

But then he’s drawn to your face, and your wide eyes full of surprise. Your mascara is a bit smudged though. Your eyes are red too, like you’ve been crying. His brows furrow in concern.

“Dean, what’re you doing here?” you ask.

“I need to talk to you, but uh…did something happen?” he asks. “You okay?”

You’re reluctant to tell him. Did Benny say something to upset you? Or was it something he did?

“Yeah, I’m okay,” you say.

Instinctively, Dean knows it’s a lie.

“This isn’t a good time though,” you say, after clearing your throat. “Can we do this tomorrow, maybe?”

Dean leans a hand on the doorframe.

“Please, it’s important,” he says. His eyes implore you harder than his words. Please.

That does it. A sigh passes through your lips, but you let him in. He knows Robbie is with your parents for the night, which actually makes this easier.

Once he steps inside the apartment, Dean does notice that your bedroom door is open. Half the drawers to your dresser are open too, and empty. Certain frames that used to be on your coffee table are no longer there, like the one of you, Benny, and Robbie on a camping trip. 

“You want some coffee, or soda?” you ask. 

Dean declines and grasps your arm before you can busy yourself into “hostess” mode. He leads you to the couch, where you both sit down together.

“What happened tonight?” he asks. “Where’s Benny?”

Your lower lip wobbles, the beginning of your telltale cry face. Dean knows his son gets it from you, and it always breaks his heart. He squeezes your arm gently, trying to ground you.

“Benny proposed to me tonight,” you confess, taking in a sharp breath. “He proposed, and I couldn’t give him an answer.” 

You shake your head as the tears sting hot in your eyes. 

“He got so upset, he just—he left!” You throw your hands up. “But honestly, I don’t blame him.”

Dean tries to comfort you as you try and fail to wipe at your face. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, cupping your cheek to brush the tears away himself. 

“Why couldn’t you answer him?” he asks. 

You look up at Dean, and you finally notice the shine of hope in his eyes. Dean touches your cheek more tenderly. 

“Does it mean I have a chance here?” he asks.

Despite what your eyes tell you, you still gape at him in shock. “What? But…what about Lisa?”

“It’s over. For good this time,” Dean shakes his head. “I realized what I wanted for my life, and where my heart is…”

And he chuckles weakly. “Truth is, you’ve had it the whole time, sweetheart.”

You begin to crumble all over again. You pull away from him and his touch, because you can’t believe it. You cover your face with your hands, sniffling as you try to make sense of his words, his touch, and the warm flutter threatening to brim happiness in your heart.

“God, Dean. You can't just..."

"I mean it," he insists.

You're still reluctant to take him seriously...no matter how much you want to. It's a conflicting realization that hurts, and makes you feel stupid for taking so long to figure it out, and makes you hate yourself for hoping his words are true.

"Come the morning, you’re going to change your mind,” you reason, without looking at him. “Like you’ve done with Lisa a thousand times.”

“No,” Dean says firmly. He shifts closer and prompts you to look at him, really look at him.

“Not about this, and you know it,” he says, catching and holding your gaze. “That’s why you couldn’t say yes to Benny. Because you know what we’ve got. It’s the real deal.”

You still look uncertain, even though you can’t bring yourself to pull away this time. Dean has always had this way of looking into the very depths of you, like he can actually see every thought as it passes through your mind.  

“I should’ve said yes,” you say. “I can rely on Benny. I know he would stay by my side, and…and I know he won’t hurt me.”

Not like I’ve just hurt him, you think. Guilt still pricks at your heart. The last thing you ever wanted to do was lead him on, and yet, that’s what you’d done, wasn’t it? You thought you had loved him. You’re sure that you did, but maybe it just wasn’t the kind of love that could reach down deep and grab you, set your blood on fire, and make you ache when the burn was gone.

That spark licks across your skin when Dean takes your hands.  

“What if I want to be that guy for you,” he says.

You allow yourself to look at him. Really look at him.

You know Dean. When he gets an idea in his head, it inhabits every bone and shred of muscle in his body. There’s no mistaking his resolve, or the steady grip of his hands over yours.

“If you let me, I’ll stay. I won’t leave you,” he says. In his eyes, there’s a firm promise. “I can be the guy you rely on. The man you can trust. The man who’s gonna love you, come whatever. Because now I know what it means. I know how it feels.”

You bite your lower lip against the smile that wants to surface.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

Dean smiles for you. “If you wanna know the truth, I’m pretty sure I’ve been loving you since the day I heard Robbie’s heartbeat for the first time.” 

Your tears flow harder at that. A shaky breath escapes you, though it does nothing to steady you. Dean strokes your cheek gently with his thumb. 

“Please, just give me this one chance,” he asks. Begs, really. 

He doesn’t have to though. You nod, just a little. 

“Okay,” you agree. “Let’s try.”

Dean's smile spreads slow, but warm across his face. It’s your favorite kind, the kind that crinkles his eyes. 

He leans in and claims your lips with his own. The passion of it is familiar, but you don't think it’s the same as five years ago. Now, there’s an underlying note of tenderness in his touch and each new way he tastes you deeper. He holds nothing back this time, and neither do you. 

Your fingers tangle in his shirt, and then in his hair as you moan into his mouth. “Dean.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he answers against your lips, though he doesn’t give you much room to keep talking.

You haven’t heard him call you sweetheart in a long time. You feel your heart knitting back together, stitch by stitch. Tears sting in your eyes anew, but you squeeze your eyes shut against them.

“I…”

You can’t even continue the breathless thought. You hold his face desperately between your hands, pressing your forehead to his for a moment as you both catch your breath. But this man is like the sweetest, most seductive vice. Now that you’ve gotten another hit, you can’t resist. You no longer want to.

His arms wrap around you more securely, and he leans in to lure you back into his kiss. His tongue breaches past your lips to curl along yours with tantalizing strokes. His hands slowly move down your back and along your waist.

“Mmm, missed the hell outta this,” he groans into your mouth. Your heart flutters again at the way he holds you, the way his big hands squeeze you and feel you.

You let him guide you down onto the sofa cushions. He slots himself between your bare thighs and runs his hand up familiar smooth skin, bunching the skirt of your dress higher as he goes. He aims to get himself reacquainted with every soft part of you that welcomes him back.

For once, the gates around your hearts swing free. 

Dean never imagined that his own son would hand him the ring he gives to his wife, but today, it just feels like symmetry. He grins and winks at Robbie.

“Thanks, buddy,” Dean says.

His son’s beaming grin is wide and toothy, but the boy takes his job very seriously and delivers the other ring to you. You smile brightly and caress his cheek after you take the shining, white gold band from him. It matches the thinner band that Dean has for you; it'll soon join the engagement ring that once belonged to his mother.

Robbie had liked Benny a lot, but he loves his dad. He’s probably the happiest person in the room to see his parents take each other’s hands in front of the minister. 

Benny is understandably absent in the chapel today. You had met with him after that night of your botched anniversary to apologize to him, and so had Dean. Benny understood. He’d admitted that in the back of his mind, he feared this might happen.

“I wouldn’t blame you for being angry with me,” you said to him. “You can even hate me if you want.” Benny gave you a wry, melancholy sort of smile. “Part of me’s still mad at you, I won’t lie…but there’s no use in it. Not even hating you.”

Even though Benny bowed out, carrying his hurt and his grief on those broad shoulders, letting you go meant letting go of a friend too. He put in his paperwork to transfer out of Firehouse 83.

As he’d told Dean himself that day, and in fact, the last words Benny said to him…

“There you go, Lieutenant. A spot’s just opened up.”

Dean didn’t want to get promoted this way. He felt guilty enough as it was, and not just for Benny leaving the firehouse. Benny recommended Dean to the Chief himself though, saying that if they were going to give someone a Lieutenant’s badge, it may as well be the guy who got a perfect score on his test, and had the natural leadership skills to boot.

To the end, Benny was a gentleman.

Now, Sam beckons his nephew over. Robbie quickly goes to his uncle’s side and puffs his little chest out as he stands proud behind his dad. 

Dean is able to take you in, your beautiful white dress, and everything about you that makes him smile…including the way you smile back at him.

Man and wife is all he hears. It’s all he needs to hear, before he’s pulling you closer by your newly anointed hand. He dips you for a thorough kiss in front of all your family and friends. 

You squeal in surprise, making Dean smile hard enough for his cheeks to hurt. Giggling hard enough to make you tremble, you raise a hand to caress his cheek. But you give him another real kiss after he guides you back up to your feet.

“I love you,” you whisper against his lips. The words are just for him to hear. Dean pulls back enough to see the truth shining in your eyes. Beautiful.

“Can’t help it, right?” he teases. 

You smile in amusement, but you grab his chin and shake it. 

“You got me,” you reply. “I really, really can’t.”

Your beaming smile softens. Even though the entire room is clapping and hooting and hollering in celebration, in that moment, all you really see is Dean. 

Here in his arms, you know that this is where you were meant to end up. From now on, it’s where you’re meant to be.

AN: From Lisa and Benny to Robbie and everything in between. Dean and the reader certainly aren't perfect in this, but what do you think about how their story unfolded? I truly hope you guys enjoy this one, because I've had so much fun with it. 🥰❤️❤️‍🔥

So please let me know what you thought! 😘

There will also be an epilogue coming on 4/27...

"Shall I stay? Would it be a sin, if I can't help falling in love with you?"

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@deanbrainrotwritings @alwaystiredandconfused @supernotnatural2005 @redhoodieone

[silentstyx]

Hii, I hope you're okay, I wanted to make a request for Rory x reader, where they are both vampires and feel so in love with each other, that every time one thinks of the other they start to float automatically, it would be more like their friends deal with that pair of lovers and their occurrences, sorry if it's a very long request, and sorry also for my english, it's not my native language

"Touch My Neck and I'll touch Yours"

tw! vampires, blood, idiots in love

pls pls PLS check the fanfic playlist it looks so cute i think you guys will love herrr! also i literally can only think of this as hc's of this sweet boy !!

-love letters from each other; floating

-smelling each other; floating

-seeing each other; floating

-kiss on the cheek?

-guess what

-FLOATING!!!!!

-they're all sick of you both, the whole gang.

-they're plotting. they keep you as far apart as possible during school.

-cutest couple in school, very very affectionate.

-the thing about you he says the most is, "i would let her suck the last drop out my food."

-it creeps everyone out. besides you! you just are in love with him and everything he does <3

"Hey Rory, Y/N told us to give you this. We didn't see what was in it." Ethan says, giving Rory a decorated box.

Rory opens it and sees a blood bag and a love note. Guess what he did! f.l.o.a.t.i.ng.

-anyways.... if you're a vampire, date Rory. He's awesome and loyal and funny and awesome.

[superstarcherrycolagirl]

just picturing benny's girl rocking a red lip one night and benny is just so in awe of how beautiful she looks that later in the night the guys started to tease the shit out of benny and he had no fucking clue what they were on about. so he was starting to get a little broody about it cause they weren't fessing up or telling him nothing until cal spat it out "it's written all over yo’ face benny boy! red in the face!" followed by another roar of drunken laugher.

as he takes the cigarette out of his month to say some shit back, he spots bright marks circling around the bud. it takes a second for it to click in his head, and when his does click, his face slowly softens. whatever words he was gonna say back, were just nothing but mush at this point. he was kissing you so much that night that you're red lips stamped right onto his lips (and a little on his stache) so that's why he had a subtle taste of cherry lingering in his mouth!

he pears over to you chattering with kathy, gail, and betty, and you're just close enough for him to notice that your lipstick looks a little more faded and smeared since you guys showed up to the bar. most guys would try to limit and hide that kind of affection the best they could.. but in that moment benny couldn't have given anymore of a fuck or care in the world, and neither could you. he didn't even make an effort to wipe any of it off, he was too busy biting down hard on his lower lip and the inside of his cheeks to stop the shit eating grin from plastering his face for the rest of the night, knowing that his sweet girl left her own little mark on him.

*sooooooooo this is my first time writing about anyone!! so sorry if it’s shit but i hope you guys like it :)*

[emmcfrxst]

this is high school benny miller as the captain of the football team 🫡

[intheorangebedroom]

Tonight you belong to me, epilogue

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town. Lee discovers life on her own.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, Orange bedroom besties 🧡 Here we are, this is the end! I'll see you on the other side 🧡 @frannyzooey marry me? 🧡

Word count: 8.6k (I'll never learn)

[prev] * [series masterlist] *

Epilogue: In The Beginning

He comes to you every Friday, in the loneliness of your room, in the hollow space of your life, through the cold hard rectangle of your phone. 

Hey, baby.

Hey, Frankie.

How’s my girl doing?

The caress of his voice convokes the memory of his touch, of the bedspread’s synthetic fabric, stained and slippery, and the rough material of the brown rug abrading your knees. 

You close your eyes, so you can see it better. His freckles, his dimple. The dip between his collarbones. His skin of gold, the smoothness of his curls, gliding between your fingertips. 

His cold hard stare. His soft sad eyes. 

I’m good. 

You close your eyes and smile, because he’s there, still, another week, true to his word, and the modulated sound in your earpiece lets you hear his own relief, breathed out in a smiling exhale. 

Through space and distance, through memories, his hands ghost your skin. 

Sometimes, the round accents of his low husk guide your hand downward, down between your legs, wringing wistful waves of pleasure out of you. 

Let me hear you come, baby. 

It’s a distant echo. A forlorn imitation of what his body did to yours in the motel room. Outstretched shadows on a cave’s wall. 

And afterward, his voice sounds pained, hurting the same way your heart feels bruised. 

Sometimes, most times, he just wants you to talk. 

Tell me. What’d you do this week? Learn anything new?

Is it worth it? What you've learned in this seven day gap, this open wound of a time-stretch, waiting for his voice to fill your ears like his body once filled your life, is it all really worth it? 

Your bones are worn out, your skin feels too big. Your heart is shrunk, aching, heavy like lead, blackened like coal, near the wild creature crying ruby tears. 

And yet, you learn. Every week, you have something new to tell him. Every week, intently, he listens. 

In the loneliness of your room, in the hollow space of your life, through the cold hard rectangle of your phone, your love continues to grow, nurtured by words and silences. 

—

In a surprising turn of events, you don’t entirely dislike New York. 

The city still mildly scares you. Its buoyant history feels like a sparkling secret you’ll never be let in on. Its mythical aura makes you feel small and provincial. It’s definitely too big, too noisy, too stressful. And, you’ve learned at your expense, ridiculously pricey. 

But it is also completely, blissfully anonymous. People don’t only ignore who you are, they also do not care. Since you got here, your name hasn’t once elicited the silent gasp or double take it never fails to provoke down in Tampa. 

And instead of drowning, forever disappearing, you wake up every morning and breathe in a big gulp of saturated New York air, making the conscious choice to tame the current. 

Spring is undecided, imprecise. It oscillates between chilly mornings and warm afternoons, cumbersome jackets and disorientation. 

Your shabby blue suitcase stands out like a sore thumb in a corner of Polly and Ava’s living-room, styled with slick 1950s furniture, straight lines, confidential art pieces, and quality material. 

Thrown from a life sentence in a glass tower into this transient condition, you vacillate, but hang on tight, and you wait, in between Fridays, to be tethered by the thread of Frankie’s praise and encouragement. 

On weekdays, from 9 to 5, you sit behind a black square desk on the third floor of a modest Manhattan publishing company, proofreading copies of psychiatric essays for typos. 

The work is dull, tedious, an entry-level position hardly above an internship, but the task is concrete, its results tangible. It provides you with a decent salary you might owe entirely to your connection with Polly, and the priceless satisfaction of a job accomplished when the working day is done. 

You miss him. 

Summer is unforgiving. The entire city smells like hot trash, melted asphalt, car exhaust and overwrought engines. The combined heat from millions of strangers' bodies pressed together in urban proximity is otherworldly. 

The nearby presence of the Atlantic Ocean, centuries of waves, dark and unfathomable, is impossible to conceive. Your frazzled eyes search the city sky in vain for the line of the horizon. 

The commute from your furnished studio apartment in Jackson Heights is uncomfortable and never-ending. You read voraciously, to prevent your mind from wandering to the square window with the yellow curtains, the black-edged mirror and the one dollar store painting of the Appalachian. Your lost paradise. Your unexpected home.

At night, you’re too tired. Too tired to eat, too tired to read any more, or even watch television. You stumble onto your empty bed and pray for an empty sleep.

On weekends, you seek refuge in air-conditioned museums. There, in the bustling silence, among crowds of eclectic tourists snapping performative pictures in square format, your life is suddenly, quietly upturned: art understands. Art heals. Art is the key to translating your raw feelings. A catharsis for your searing emotions. 

You miss him. 

With fall come crisp winds, clear lights and yellowing leaves, and the city turns another kind of spectacular. You finally seem to find your bearings. 

At work, you’re given more responsibilities, along with your very own intern. A tall, polite young man in an awful suit that hangs off his lanky frame, he stops blinking every time you address him, hungry eyes snapping to your lips every now and then. It makes you smile, what you do to him. 

In your kitchenette, which is really more of a narrow corridor than anything else, you’ve taped a world map on which you pin a round, colourful thumbtack for every new cuisine you taste. Cold burritos shared with Frankie on the motel’s dirty carpet are hard to beat. But Columbian chicharrón ranges at a close second. 

Forsaking rest, you spend your Sunday afternoons in a 1st Ave cinema, which specializes in pre-war films. In the solitary darkness of the red velvet-lined theater, you fall in love with Louise Brooks, with Pabst’s German realism, and Murnau’s Sunrise. New names and faces crowd your thoughts during your daily commutes: Bette Davies, Theda Bara, Marion Davis... Slapstick comedies have you kicking your feet, and you devour every book and article you can dig out on the Hays Code. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you clock off early and hurry uptown, where you attend evening classes in art history in a small overheated classroom decorated with faded museum postcards from all over the world. 

The attendees form a small mismatched crowd of second-chancers, seeking meaningful connections more than a proper education.

Thierry is the first to approach you. A stupidly handsome, late twenty-something man, sporting a dark Mohawk and second-hand bespoke shoes matched with a leather perfecto, Thierry claims to be French Canadian, and you know better than to call him out on the obvious fib. If anything, you’re more than willing to play along. Thierry takes you out as often as you’ll let him, sometimes to cafés and thrift stores, but more often to gay bars. He says you’re the best wingman he’s ever had, with your distant demeanor and the melancholy in your gaze. 

“My peers love your brand, bébé,” he says.

On one of these drunken late-evenings turned early-mornings, in a Brooklyn dinner with greasy pleather benches, over eggs Benedict and burnt filter coffee, Thierry tells you he was born Travis, in Nowhere, North Dakota. His voice remains surprisingly steady when he explains how, tired of living in fear, he ran off to New York with less than 18 dollars to his name. But his eyes won’t meet yours. Too shiny. Too liquid. 

He tells you about the straight man, married with children, who once broke his heart, and asks you about the one who broke yours. 

“I didn’t need a man to do that,” you answer in earnest. You watch the tears brimming in his dark blue eyes. You hear him say, “I love you, Lee. You’re the best friend I have,” and you believe him.

Around mid-October, Vera joins the Thursday evening class. She’s prompt to initiate conversation, and soon, you spend every other Saturday afternoon in her quaint Brighton Beach apartment, eating blini with homemade jam, mesmerized by her deep gravely voice as she recounts tales of her life in the USSR. Of how she fled the country, back in 1986, with nothing but grit, a suitcase full of photographs, and a heart bleeding memories. She speaks, you find, simply because you are willing to listen. Before you leave, she hugs you strong enough to crack your spine. 

Vera was a mother, once. To a blond boy named Igor, who died of undiagnosed leukemia not long after he’d learned to walk.   

When you leave her place, your clothes are impregnated with her scent, bergamot tea and vanilla tobacco. You take a long stroll to Coney Island in the brisk dusk, clutching your scarf high on your face. The sharp Atlantic wind makes your eyes water. Shivering, you sit on a boardwalk bench, and marvel at the Wonder Wheel’s lights, brightening the crepuscular fall.

You miss him.  

Ava seldom has time for you in her ever busy schedule. Sometimes, the two of you meet for a quick lunch, and every once in a while, she takes you to an art performance where young adults with edgy haircuts douse their naked bodies in paint in front of a live audience to protest climate change or human trafficking. You don’t always understand, in truth, you rarely do, but you always welcome the opportunity to broaden your horizon. 

Polly makes sure to have you over for dinner at least once every two weeks. The regularity is touching. Some nights, you feel like indulging, and take a cab back to your place.

You learn. Every day, you learn. Through sweltering heat and ice-sharp cold, through lively chatter and the crackling of dead leaves. Through loneliness, yours and other’s. You learn. 

Home isn’t always a place. Sometimes, home is people. 

And you miss him, you miss him, you miss him… 

—

Twenty-nine Fridays. 

Frankie once more sat down behind Lupe’s desk at the dispatch center, to count down the weeks since your departure on the large cardboard calendar. 

There’s 29 of them now. Soon, those empty Fridays will outnumber the ones you filled with your skin and your scent. 

Your absence has torn a gaping hole inside his chest, and loneliness came pouring in to fill it. The feeling is alienating. It’s worse than shame, worse than fear, fear of hurting and fear of dying. The grief is all encompassing. It’s worse than everything he’s ever been stricken with. 

“Time will help, hermanito,” his sister had said shortly after you’d left. “Time is gonna make it better, don’t worry. Paso a paso.” 

Will hadn’t said anything. Will would never lie to his face. 

Frankie knows, just like Will does, that time ain’t gonna do shit. If anything, time will only make it worse.

Time has forsaken him. Everywhere around him, people go on with their lives, moving forward, making plans. 

Lua’s curls grow longer, her babbling evolving into fully formed words, and her balance becoming surer as she explores the world around her with her big bright eyes wide open. His beacon. His pride. His little miracle. 

Marcus moved in with Lupe. There was a proposal, quickly followed by talks of a spring wedding.  

Tess’ll be starting college soon, sponsored by the Redfly Family trust, her little sister already attending middle school.

Will went back to Colorado, where he found a counseling position at the VA office in downtown Aurora. 

Benny quit the MMA circuit and followed his brother, like he always does. Met a girl back home, a brunette with water-clear eyes, a kind heart and a sharp sense of humor. Now, they work together on her father’s tree farm, and he says things like, “she gave me a purpose.”

And Frankie’s stuck here. Stuck inside his pain, locked up within his loss with a hole the shape of you inside his chest, surviving on the promise of your voice every Friday at 7pm. Of your cheery tone when you talk about what you’ve discovered and learned, your new friends, your new tastes, your unassertive victories. Your steady healing. 

Only he knows your life up there can’t always be milk and honey. But you won’t tell him about the hardship. Bottling it up for his sake, he assumes, but then, where’s his fucking purpose? 

His longing just follows him everywhere, dimming the sun, turning his food all wrong, turning his friends to enemies, places that once brought him solace no longer meaning relief. The cab of his truck devoid of your scent, a song on the radio that you’re not here to hum, and his blood turns to lead. The whole world around him, a reflective surface to reverberate his grief. 

So Frankie waits. Minutes, hours, and days. He aches and simmers and he waits. He’s cut for grit and patience and restraint, anyway. He waits for time to remember about him, to let him hop back onto that fast-paced train, he waits to be alive again. Hold your body close to him, feel the coolness of your touch, breathe in the scent of your perfume. Be your man. Keep you safe. Forever and always. 

He waits, until one afternoon in early December, when Lupe approaches him in the break room after his shift. 

“We need to talk,” she says. 

The following morning, a Thursday, an incoming call wakes him up. The sound of your sobbing comes in shaky and muffled through the receiver, and his spine grows rigid.

“I need to see you,” you say.

And Frankie knows he’s done waiting. 

—

The front door rattles with three successive knocks. Like a bloodhound, you still, head perking up, a near white-knuckle grip on the vacuum handle. You press the tiny button on your headphones to pause the music, and Kate Bush’s voice fades to silence, allowing the vacuum’s roar to resurface. You kill it, too. 

It’s impossible you could have heard anything over all this din. 

You balance the vacuum handle against the dresser to grab your phone that’s lying there, and check the time on it. 

Noon. Frankie’s plane just took off. He isn’t due here for another three hours. Leaving you just enough time to finish tidying up the apartment, take an everything shower and hop on a cab to go pick him up. You purposefully postponed the cleaning until the very last minute, so you wouldn’t go insane waiting for him in these last hours.

A little pang of guilt flares hot across your neck and cheeks, quick and sharp, at how shamelessly you begged over the phone, a couple of days prior. Letting him hear your sniffling, the sound of your tears rolling down your face, if you could have, just because you couldn’t bear the misery of crying on your own anymore. Unabashed and so very selfish in your need of him. Of his hold and his warmth. His eyes and freckles. The weight of his body, the low thrum of his heartbeat. Petulant like a child. Please, please come here.

You snatch the headphones off your head. The room is silent. Three floors down, the neighbor’s yelling at her husband again, their baby crying. No one in the hallway knocking on your door, then.  

“Damn it,” you mutter, tossing the headphones on the dresser and padding over to the minuscule entryway. Wearing nothing but your sleep shorts and ragged college t-shirt, all of which should have been in last week's laundry load. If someone’s here, they’re in for a smelly treat. 

You wrench the door wide open, like a dare, like a vain wish, and you’re met with the solid wall of Frankie’s broad chest. 

A gasp, yours, short and high-pitched, and he collides into you, his arms circling your waist, pulling you flush against him. His face burrowing in the curve of your neck, his hat knocked off his head with the force of the collision. A hard press, a sharp inhale, he’s hoisting you up and carrying you inside, kicking the door shut behind him. 

Your heart, black and shrivelled, is suddenly too big for your rib cage. The wild creature’s purrs are deafening. Dopamine floods your brain, you’re madly happy, a relief so intense you’re trembling. 

“I’m not leaving this stupid city until you’ve given me this t-shirt,” he says, his mustache grazing the tender skin behind your ear. 

He smells like cold air, and underneath it, him. Old leather, a hint of sawdust, blond and taffy-sweet, and you smile through the tears lumping the back of your throat, wrapping your arms over his shoulders, fingers threading through his curls, digging into his thick jacket, socked feet dangling an inch above the floor. 

“It’s gross. I’ve been sleeping in it for a week, at least.”

“Yea, well, that’s the point, baby.”

You laugh, a choked up sound, half elation half sob, the curve of his own grin felt against your throat. 

“I’ve missed you. Fuck, Lee, I’ve missed you so much,” he groans, and his words, rasped and warped, bear the weight of his loneliness. Months worth of sleepless nights. 

His large hands span your back in all directions, a needy grasp at the soft curves of your hips, back up to your shoulder blades, and down to your waist, making sure —Are you real?— making up for everything that’s been lost. Your back arches into his chest, into his pulsating life force, your leg hitching up along his cold denim. 

There’s all of his strength, all of his need in this embrace. Forever imprinting the shape of you into his flesh. 

“I’ve missed you, too,” you whisper. 

His right hand leaves your back, barely, just long enough to slide the strap of his black rucksack off his shoulder, before it returns to you. Fingers curling around your nape, his forearm aligning with your spine. The metal of his belt digs into your belly as you push into him with a near matching strength, no space left between your bodies for anything but this bright beaming bliss. 

Entwined like honeysuckle and ivy, you stand there, in the entryway, under the dangling naked bulb. Basking into each other’s scent. Bodies thrumming high and strong like a power line of the highest voltage.

“Let me look at you,” he says after a while, hands cupping your face, dark eyes raking over your features under his creased brow, “how are you feeling, baby?”

His gaze flicks over to the thin scar in your hairline before it locks with yours, and it’s a binding spell, again, always, intact and unaltered. Black magic and fate, things that aren’t even real except he makes them. 

“I’m good!” you laugh, your fingers curling around his forearms, a stubborn little tear hanging from your lashes. “I’m good, now.”

“Yea? Good,” he nods. “You look good. You look fantastic.”

Your lips pinch down a bashful, incredulous smile. He leans back into you and presses a pointed kiss to your lips, greedy, wet, open-mouthed, and you respond in kind, eager, starved. He tastes of coffee and him, and you might lose your sanity with how content you are feeling, how happy, how frighteningly complete.

His hands snake under the hem of your t-shirt, and there’s the cold tip of his fingers, the warm cup of his palms, spanning the expanse of your back, roaming over your shuddering skin and your body ignites in their wake, coming back to life, inch after inch after touch.  

You’re the first to break the kiss with a sudden concern, irrelevant, futile, and he’s holding your face again, his eyes hooded with want, drinking you in. 

“I thought your plane landed at 3pm. I wanted to come pick you up. I’m not even done cleaning, I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, I’m sorry. I got to the airport too early,” he chuckles. “Figured I could change my flight. I should’ve texted you.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” you start, but his face slots back into the curve of your neck, and you flinch with a new sensation, as he nuzzles his way up, his plush lips a soft caress over the shell of your ear, his scruff a soft tickle. A dark shade of amber pooling down inside you. The thinner hair on your nape standing up. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, Frankie,” you breathe out, voice weighed by that thick and sticky thing coiling in your center. “It must have cost you a fortune.”

“Got a veteran discount. And even if I didn’t, I couldn’t fucking care less about the price,” he murmurs into your skin.

A veteran. A pilot. Once more, always, the notion turns your blood to mush, thick like molasses, saccharine like a schoolgirl crush. And then, a thought, overwhelming, terrible: this man, a veteran, a pilot, dropped everything to fly across the country and make sure you were okay. Because to him, you are worth it. Because he cares. Because you’re his.

Pride, fierce and territorial, tightens your belly. Pride and that something else. 

“Do you want something to drink?” you manage to ask, a reminder that you’re still very much your mother’s daughter. “Coffee? Something to eat? Do you need to rest?” 

“Thanks, baby,” he says, straightening up to let you see the wicked grin dimpling his gorgeous face, “I got everything I need right here.”

—

Through the density of his body, tense and giving, through a need stronger than the both of you, in the stifling intimacy of a closed motel room, month after month, week after week, you’ve learned him. 

Out of necessity, you’ve allowed time and physical distance to come between you and him, only to find the knowledge is still there, constituent to your very being. Ingrained, ineradicable. Like an instinct, like the sun’s fiery circle burnt into your retinas through closed eyelids. 

Mellow inside and out, lightheaded and boneless, you follow him to the kitchen. Standing close to him by the steel sink as he washes his hands, enraptured, enamored, chest pressed to the back of his arm, cheek rubbing the brawny swell of his shoulder. Humming, like a cat purrs. 

You lead him into the room where you eat, sleep, and dream of him, bare walls, sparse furniture you never chose, a single narrow window. It’s supposed to be home but doesn’t feel like it, until he steps in, and everything changes.  

He looks massive in here, just like he did in the kitchen, too large for your everyday life, all proportions distorted, your perspective reframed by the scale of his shape. 

You watch him undress, and the details of him resurface. The plane of his solid chest, the breadth of his shoulders, when he removes his jacket. The graceful arabesque of his wrist tattoo, his lean forearms, when his flannel slides off his frame. The dip of his collarbones with its firework of sparkling freckles. His tanned skin, his softer belly, his scars and old wounds, when he tugs off his t-shirt. The trail of darker hair underneath his navel. His thighs, as he slides down his denim, thick and strong, his knees, his calves, the harmonious shape of him, the sum that surpasses the parts, everything so perfect, and you realize just how much you remember, how delusional you had been, thinking you could go on without it.

Everything pushed to the back of your consciousness, so the separation could be bearable. 

As he stands before you in the gray midday light, your desire is tinged by mute apprehension. You fled Tampa moved by the urgent necessity of your own survival. Now that you've shed most of your scarred skin, now that the danger no longer feels imminent, how will you survive his absence, once he’s gone?

Frankie calls your name, his round husk roping you out of your head, and you ask, “Should I keep my t-shirt?”

“Not today. Today, you take off everything.”

Sat on the edge of your bed, he beckons you, guiding you to stand between his spread thighs with firm, tender hands. The reverence that softens his mahogany eyes, the love and want you find there, it’s all yours. Yours to keep and treasure. 

The tip of his fingers thread along your curves in a delicate touch, brushing down the back of your legs, up to the small of your back, along your spine. Then down your arms, his lips nestling into the inside of your wrist, smooth and fragrant. A soft trail of love, light kisses and caress, shedding weeks of longing in their wake. 

You cup his face, thumbs slotting in the bare patches of his scruff jaw, and relish in the way he leans into your hold. 

He bends into you, his mouth a wet press to your soft belly. The scrape of his teeth, gently teasing. 

Twining your fingers into his thick curls, your fingernails scrape over his scalp. The echo of his groan reverberates deep into your center, slick leaking warm down your folds. You tug his face back to look at him, and ever so quiet, he hums, the sweetest sound, the greatest gift, eyes flickering shut under the pleading arch of his brow, a smile curling the corner of his lips. So much abandon. So much trust. You’re falling.

A fleeting memory tugs at your heart, wistful, indelible. Yours for the night only, and your breathing falters, you’re sinking deeper. 

Yours forever, if you’d only say the word. 

“Do you remember when you wouldn’t let me touch your hair?” you tease, but there’s hardly any air left in your lungs. 

His smile broadens. 

“Remember when you told me your name was Marion?”

Your laughter rushes out of you and his eyes flash open, his smile fully bloomed, transforming his face, all dimples and crinkly eyes. 

“Come here, Marion,” he chuckles, sitting you over his sturdy lap. 

All at once, you’re crushed against his chest to the music of his rumbling mmhs, before his embrace loosens, head dipping, nipping at your collarbone, calloused palm skimming up the underside of your breast.

“Fucking perfect,” you hear him growl before his mouth latches around your nipple.

You keen, quiet, grateful, eyes fluttering close as his tongue twirls around the hardening bud, hanging on for dear life to the breadth of his shoulders. So many sensations, after feeling so little for so long. There’s a live-wire buzzing down from your sternum to your core, and your pulse’s a desperate staccato, you struggle to remain afloat.

With an appreciative sound, he sucks on your nipple, a rough hand squeezing your breast, and when he bites into the soft flesh of it, it shoots straight to your clit. Your hips bucking forward of their own volition, seeking more.

Under your folds, his cock twitches, exquisitely stiff for you, already. 

“I could come like that, you know?” you pant, rolling your hips into the bulk of his want.

A shake of his curls, and he lets go, his mouth releasing your breast with a wet sound.

“No,” he husks, teeth ghosting the column of your neck, “you’re coming on my cock. Put it in.”

Your heart stutters, skips a beat, or two, or several. 

His fingers dig into the meat of your thighs but he’s not moving you away, and there’s no space between your sealed bodies, no leeway for any movement. You’re trapped in his hold, pinned to his skin, glued to the amber golden light of him. And your hips keep rolling, and your heart keeps tripping, and your want keeps swelling. 

His lips wrap over the beating vein in your neck, sucking on the tender skin, sharp and stinging, teeth sinking into the surfacing blood. You lean into him, lean into the bite, lean into the pain.

You give yourself to it, all the love and the want and the affection, lose yourself in it, limp and pliant as it pours inside you, and everything has a name, now, everything is right, as his touch dissolves all the hurt calcified around your heart, all the fear you wouldn’t let out, all the failures and the doubt. 

You breathe out his name, and he breathes out yours, and you’re whole, bright, in bloom. Brimming with life.

He fits in your hand, warm and hefty, smooth skin and bulging veins, throbbing under the caress of your thumb, leaking thick and tangy over your knuckles, and you’re desperate for a taste, but you can’t let him go.

“Put it in, come on” he grits, but there’s no bark to his words, only need, bleeding into the bruising furrow of his fingers into the plush of your ass. 

A lift, you’re weightless in his hold, and he’s pushing thick and stiff at your entrance. Your face hanging above his, lips parted, trembling, and it’s already too much, the way everything within you pulsates and tingles. 

His gaze levels with yours, and his eyes spear into your eyes before he lowers you onto him with an unyielding grip and a shaky exhalation. And with each splitting inch, the searing girth of him stretching you blind. 

Fingers curled around his biceps, forehead pressed to his, you sink down to the hilt. The coarse hair at his base grazes your clit and sweat beads over your temple. 

With measured breaths, he pauses, giving you time to adjust. Eyes skittering over the small line splitting your brow, the quiver of your lip that you're too full to bite down on. 

For the first time ever, there has been no Stop me. This is something else. 

This is what comes next. What you’ve earned, what you’ve prayed for. 

There’s a tremor in his frame, the only evidence of his waning control, and he grabs at your ass, rocking you onto him, languid, scorching, a deep grind, perked up nipples grazing his solid chest, and you're already ascending. 

“Frankie,” you whine, plead, beg, walls a frantic flutter as his cock slots right into the center of you in rolling waves.

“Let go, Lee” he rasps, “let go, I got you.”

With the hushed assurance of his words, round and sincere, your release crackles and tenses. You slump in his arms, undone, rebuilt.

“I’ve missed you, Lee,” he presses into the slope of your shoulder, “God, I’ve missed you.”

—

He’s insatiable. Some of it is reminiscent of your first encounters at the motel, when his hunger was indiscernible from his rage. 

Tied up, with your arms behind your back and your face buried in the mattress as he holds your ass up with a bruising grip on your hips and pounds into you hard, rough, relentless. 

His fingers tangled in your sweat-damp hair, your knees on the hard tiles of the shower as he fucks your throat until you forget how to breathe. 

And suddenly reverential, his gentleness nearly too much when he wakes you up to cover your body in kisses and strokes. Overwhelming, the desperation with which he seeks the contact of your skin, his gaze spearing into your eyes as he grinds deep into your heat. 

The urgent, low husk of his voice when he murmurs, “Tell me what you want, Lee, let me give you what you need.” 

When he sits you on his face and relents control, when you pull on his curls to press him closer to where you want him, shameless and wanton, riding your release.

—

“And what about the Russians?” you ask, propping your chin on his chest. “Have you ever fought against the Russians?”

“Jesus, woman,” he laughs, “how old do you think I am?”

“I’m not talking Cold War Russians, I’m talking CIA stuff. I know you lot, Delta operatives.”

“Oh yea?” he grins, cocking an eyebrow. “What have you heard?”

A mischievous expression dances on your face and he chuckles again, a wider grin pulling his lips. Lightheaded, is one way to put it. Melting inside is another. Giddy like a teenager with your levity. 

Your eyes flicker down to his dimple and you lift your hand off his chest to brush your finger into the dip in his cheek. You keep it there for a beat, seemingly absorbed, enthralled by the touch, and then it’s over. You lower your head back onto him, cheek resting right over his scar, he knows there’s no coincidence to it.

Frankie lets out a silent sigh. His head lolls back on the fat pillow. Twenty-nine Fridays, carved out and hollow. Twenty-nine weeks, 1123 miles, carrying his love and hunger like a penance, and then this. Your naked body tucked against his, under the thick downy comforter, in this tiny room saturated with your scent. Your taste on his tongue. Your easy laughter. Your gaze sinking into his eyes. It's a blessed sensory overload. That old slicing ache in his chest singing another song. 

Somehow, you look younger than when he last saw you. Maybe not younger, just more carefree. Understandably so. Those last weeks in Tampa, you had become so frail. But you’ve put on some weight since. It sits harmoniously on your figure, suits your features and brightens up your face. Means there’s more of you, too, and he can’t keep his hands from roaming your curves. 

He knows he’s gotta talk to you at some point. It’ll kill the mood, probably. Inform you of that decision Lupe took that will affect his life for the foreseeable future. Affect yours as well, maybe. To some extent at least. That insane rippling effect. His past choices always breathing down his neck, when he’d give everything for a clean slate.

But you look so fucking delicious. He went so fucking long, too fucking long without you, now he cannot get enough. It’s too soon to risk it. 

There were plans. An itinerary you had drafted in the short lapse of time it had taken him to organize his trip here, and that you’d texted him on the night before his flight. Things you wanted to show him, places that matter to you. The Coney Island boardwalk, the Guggenheim, and some marine paintings in the Frick Collection you were excited to share with him. He’d texted back with some requests of his own: your office building, the place in Brooklyn where you attend the evening classes, your favorite places to eat. 

But since he arrived, he’s kept you in, or you have him, he cannot tell. Either way, the two of you haven’t left the dim apartment, and any notion of time has been reduced to the alternation of semi-dark urban nights and stonewashed winter days. 

He tries not to dwell on the fact that your apartment barely looks lived in. Bare walls, save for that map in your kitchen, if he can even call that a kitchen. Your suitcase standing beside the dresser, like you’re ready to take off. No curtains, no rug, no lampshade. It’s almost like you don’t really want to settle. Like you’re still trying to decide if you truly belong here. 

The only evidence of you is taped to the mirror above the dresser. A Polaroid of a kid in pigtails blowing raspberries, washed out yellow and blurry by the years. Your sister, if he had to guess. 

And that receipt tucked between the pages of a leather-bound book on your nightstand. From the cantina. That very first Friday he brought food to the motel. He checked the date stamp. 

It breaks his heart, the way you’re torn and scattered. Neither here nor there. His guilt might be irrelevant, misplaced, but it churns his insides nonetheless.

Still, New York is where you live now. You’ve made some good friends, work a job you seem to like enough to give it your best. It’s probably just a matter of time before you store away the suitcase. 

Part of him wants to go out and explore this city that has robbed you from him. Learn everything he can about your life here, so that when he flies out on Saturday morning, he can picture you in your environment, going about your daily life. Anything to try to survive your absence. 

He wants to meet your family. A dinner is scheduled sometime this week with your sister and her girlfriend. He’d like to meet your friends. Further explore the mixed emotions and feelings he experiences whenever you mention these people, whenever he thinks of them. Gratitude, for the affection and comfort they give you. Envy, for the parts of you that are familiar to them and that himself will never get to know. 

The person you are when you’re with them. 

“Frankie?” you call quietly, your leg a smooth brush against his as you hitch it higher.

“Yes, baby?”

“Have you ever thought about how people are like… made of layers?”

“That’s funny, I was just thinking about it.”

“Really?” you exclaim. 

Your head pops up comically, and his jaw tenses. Why can’t he bring himself to let you see the dopey smile that melts his face whenever you look at him like this? Until now, he’s never felt vulnerable demonstrating his affection. 

But things with you are different. That living pull between you is too big, bigger than him. He senses it thrumming behind your lungs while it whirs inside his chest like an answer, constantly, it might bleed him dry with its intensity. Like first love. Pristine. Brand new. All encompassing. 

“Mmh,” he grunts, gathering his brain. “Yea. Or maybe like puzzles?”

“Yes,” you agree, your tone serious, and you scoot up a notch, propping your head in your hand, so you don’t have to crane your neck to look at him, “puzzles, exactly. And everyone you know holds a different piece of you.”

“Yea, pretty much, I guess.”

“And so the puzzle of you is never truly complete because the pieces are never all together at once.”

You pause, pondering over your reflection. 

“Do you think all the pieces could fit together, if they were assembled?” Frankie asks after a moment, a strange sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, like his center of gravity has suddenly shifted. 

“Probably not,” you muse, head shaking imperceptibly, your gaze lost somewhere in the distance.

The memory of the motel room resurfaces, stifling heat, amber lighting. The distance that sometimes clouded your eyes, your silent retreat within yourself, that inner world of yours, your island. Week after week, getting closer, within his reach, yet never fully accessible. He swallows thickly. 

“I think you got all my pieces,” you say in a casual tone, in contradiction with his thoughts.  

He tightens his grip around your waist.

“I don’t think I do, baby. But it’s okay,” he lies, as if he’s not free-falling from the sky, plummeting straight into your ocean. 

Slipping out of his hold, you sit up on the rumpled bed, your naked back turned to him. 

“Do you think I’ve got all your pieces?” you ask.

“God, I hope not,” he sighs, running a palm over his face. 

Hugging your knees, you lean forward, away from him. The room is thick with a compact silence, as if all the sounds were absorbed by fresh snow.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?” he asks, brushing his knuckles along your spine. A shiver fizzles under his touch.

“I was wondering… Is it important? Do you have to know someone to love them? What’s the right balance between knowing your partner, and knowing yourself? What’s the tipping point?”

His hand splays over your lower back.

“The tipping point to what?”

You shake your head in frustration, straightening your back, your knee bumped against his thigh. Offering him your profile, but not your direct gaze.

“I don’t know how to explain. When do you start losing yourself to be what others… what people expect you to be? At what moment do you start feeling isolated? Misunderstood? In a relationship, I mean? Because that’s the beginning of the end.”

“Fuck, Lee, I don’t– I don’t have those answers,” he frowns, sitting up with a cinch. “I know I love you, all of you, even the pieces I don’t know. I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to be someone else.” 

Reaching behind you, you take his hand and weave your fingers with his. Your fingertips are cold, and he squeezes his into the back of your hand, to imprint some of his heat into you. Some of his words, too. 

At last, you fully turn. Under your scowl, something darkens your gaze. Something Frankie cannot decipher. His face close to yours, his eyes boring into your eyes, the moment tightens his throat, decisive, important. The pregnant silence. The gray winter light painting shades of blue on your pale skin. The old pain spears through his heart, sweet and beaming. It’s gonna split him in half. He knows he’ll never forget it. Never let go of this sensation. 

“I trust you, Frankie.”

“I trust you, too.”

Your brow shifts, the tiniest inflection, and your eyes widen, luminous like a rising sun, like a summer morning.

“I promise I’ll always be honest with you.”

“I promise I’ll always be honest with you, baby,” he rasps, the weight of his secret sitting on the back of his tongue. 

—

On the fourth day, at last, you venture outside, ushered by your sister’s and Polly’s dinner invitation. 

The itinerary had to be stripped to the bare minimum. Frankie will be flying out in two nights. Your heart stutters and sinks every time you think of him leaving. 

The cold is unforgiving, the sky a gray shade of white, heavy and full like a quilted blanket. Against reason, you offer to take him to Coney Island, where the Atlantic wind will freeze the ears off your head. You’re not sure why it’s important for you to take him there, but he says he’s game. 

Bundled up in your thrift store coat, your face half concealed between a scarf the size of a tablecloth and a wool hat, you watch him brave the cruel temperatures with nothing more than a Sherpa lined trucker jacket over a fleece shirt, and his ragged Standard Heating Oil cap. 

As you stand and shiver, waiting for the bus —the first act of an interminable route— the tip of his ears poke out from underneath his curls, reddened by the frosty air. Sliding your numbed-out hand in his, you’re surprised by the warmth of his palm. Your mind wanders to the harsh conditions his former life has trained him to endure. You squeeze his hand with all of your strength. 

Later, sitting side by side on the subway’s hard plastic seats, you rant to him about your love-hate relationship with the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The never-ending rides, ideal for reading, listening to music, or idle contemplation. The welcome aloneness of anonymity, in a sea of indifferent strangers. 

He listens, his sharp profile tilted down in concentration over your words, and you’re mindful to downplay the downsides, the maddening time-consuming sprawl of the city, the promiscuity, the last-minute route changes and the undecipherable PA announcements. 

It’s not a lie as much as an omission. You can’t send him back over there with the knowledge that despite all its perks, you’ve failed to make this place your home. 

Thinking of your earlier promise, you fall silent, the deafening thunder of the train’s wheels over the tracks ringing out in your ears like a metallic injunction.

Your head lolls onto the round slope of his padded shoulder. His large hand curls over your thigh with a strong squeeze as he presses his lips to your temple. 

“What are you thinking, baby?”

“I was thinking that I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to living here,” you confess.

His shoulder slumps under your cheek. 

It’s another hour on the F train before you make it to the ocean. 

On the boardwalk, by the deserted amusement park, the wind slices through you, biting the exposed skin of your cheeks and chilling your bones. The defunct Parachute Jump stands erect like a skeletal sentinel, guarding over the memories of summers past. The graceful Wonder Wheel’s silhouette stands out in bright colors against the bleak December sky, like a benevolent promise, the assurance of continuity and the return of better days. 

“I think it’s my favorite season to be here,” you murmur.

“I can see the appeal,” Frankie rasps against the wind, eyes trained on the line of the horizon over your head. His arms circling your waist, the wall of his solid heat at your back.

“What have you told your sister about me?” he asks after a moment.

“Not much. Are you nervous?”

“No, not really. Wait, should I be? Her girlfriend’s a shrink, right?”

You laugh heartily, and immediately regret it when air made of pure frost rushes inside your lungs, freezing its way to the very end of your bronchioles. 

“Polly’s nice, don’t worry about her. Don’t worry about either of them. I love them, but I’m not waiting for their blessing.”

You’re done abiding that collective “we.” Another resolve rising up to the surface without your conscious knowledge of the process. 

“Oh shit, look at that,” Frankie exclaims. 

Above you, snowflakes descend from the white sky in a fast-paced twirl. Your very first New York snow. It’s neither fluffy nor cute, though, more like fierce little icy shards barreling toward you like small crystalline weapons. 

Your first thought is of his child.

“Has Lua ever seen the snow?”

“No.”

You squint against the wind and the stabbing snow, against the white daylight and all of your past hesitations.

“I can't wait to meet her, you know.”

He pulls you in closer, reaching out for your body through layers and layers of winter clothes. 

For a while now, the feeling has grown steady and strong inside of you, taking up more space each day. Nurtured by the pictures and many stories you’ve asked Frankie to share with you. This time, you’re better equipped to name it, from the very beginning. And it’s strange, in a tranquil kind of way, the unconditionality of this love. The irrationality of it. You love her, without any reason for it. You love her, just because. 

“How is it, being a parent? Did you know from the start what to do?”

“Oh fuck no,” he scoffs wryly. “Most of the time, I feel like she’s the one teaching me how to be her dad.”

The honesty of the statement makes you smile.

“Do you think you could bring her, next time?”

“She’s gonna have to get used to it.”

Frankie’s words reach your ear as you’ve already spoken yours. You whip around in his arms to face him, struck by the look on his face. Like he’s trying to chew his molars.

“Wait, what? Used to what?”

“She’s gonna have to get used to the snow.”

—

Your eyes are fucking blazing, so big they eat up half your face. A single teardrop clings to your lashes, from the near polar gale, probably, and you’re shivering cold. 

He can’t stall any longer. Not again. Not this time. Not when he just gave you his word to always be honest with you. 

“Lua’s mother's getting married. They’ll be moving to Rochester in the spring. Her fiancé’s from there. His father passed away a couple weeks ago, and his mother has ALS. He wants to move back to take care of her.”

“Rochester… New York, Rochester?”

Frankie nods. Against his chest, your lean figure grows stiff. 

“She’s taking Lua with her?” you ask in a thin voice. 

Frankie nods again. The wind picks up in gusts, those sharp snowflakes falling down obliquely, murderous, whipping your faces relentlessly. He wants to get you somewhere inside, somewhere warm. What if you get sick when he’s about to leave? 

Why you seem to fall for the things that are the most arduous to love is a complete mystery to him. This place in the winter. Him.

Your fingers curl around his lapel. 

“She’s taking Lua, yea. We talked about it. I’m gonna have to relocate. There’s no way I’m seeing my kid less than I already do. I started scouting for jobs in the area.”

“Is that why you came here? To tell me?”

“I came here because you said you needed to see me, Lee,” he answers, the hint of a scowl sharpening his tone.

You tilt down your face and furrow into his neck, your woolly hat a fuzzy tickle against the scruff of his chin. Your unrelenting tenderness, that brought him back from the darkness.

“I’ve checked the flights here from up there. It’s a short trip, a little under two hours. I could come down to visit every other weekend. If you want me to, of course” he adds, his voice warped with sheer fucking terror, his heart thumping in his throat. 

“I don’t like it,” you shoot right back, rising your face to look him dead in the eye. 

It’s that same look again, the one from that very first night at the bar, feverish, lost, hopeful against all odds, against your better judgment. Instinctively, his hands fly to cup your face. It’s cold as marble, and his palms ignite at the contact of your skin, again, still, always. Your eyes pool with something dark and dense, your fingers leaving his jacket to cuff his wrists. 

“Every other weekend isn’t enough, Frankie. It’s not enough.”

“What are you saying, Lee?”

“I'm saying I want to go there with you.”

His pain huffs out of him. Disbelief in a puff of white breath. 

“You want to follow my ex and her new husband to fucking nowhere up north, when you just settled here?”

Brow pinched in a stern expression, you nod frantically between his palms.

“Yes. I want to be with you.”

“What about your sister? Your job? Your friends? What about–”

“I can find another job,” you cut it, words punching out of you and landing straight into his gut. “You said it’s only two hours to fly here, I can visit them, I want to be with you, Frankie, please, please, plea–”

His mouth crashes over yours, silencing your plea. Your lips are icy-cold as you press back into his kiss. He feels your arms rounding his back, your little fists bunching his jacket, clinging to his shoulders. He could swear he feels your heart, too, pounding loud against his, leaping out into his rib cage, exactly where he wants it, where he needs it, next to his, to keep it warm and safe. 

How did he get here, on this freezing boardwalk, facing the dark immensity of the Atlantic Ocean on the cusp of a second chance? On the verge of everything he never dared to long for? Everything he has ever truly wanted? 

“You’re gonna come with me, baby?” he chokes, the words rolling thick over his tongue. 

“Yes,” you sniffle, a tear running down your cheek.

“You’re gonna let me love you? Gonna let me build you a home?”

“Yes, Frankie,” you nod again, a smile tugging your lips, more tears slipping down your face, and he’s surprised the wind doesn’t turn them into pear-shaped diamonds. 

“Okay. Okay, alright,” he smiles. “Can we get somewhere warm now?”

You laugh, leaning into his hold. Blue lips, red cheeks, pink scar. Eyes of gold. 

“Yes,” you agree with another sniff. “Remember when we wished for seasons?”

The End

****

End notes: alright, Orange bedroom besties, raise your hand who thought they wouldn't end up together? I tried, this time I really tried, but there's nothing I can deny this man... or you, I guess? This series took a big chunk out of my life. It consumed a lot of my heart, time, energy, brain, emotions... Wow, look at that, not unlike therapy, huh? Anyway, enough about me, my point is, THANK YOU. Thank you for your patience, I know I'm the slowest and I feel terrible, thank you for reading, or for just passing by, thank you for bookmarking for later, engaging, lurking, liking, commenting, reblogging, sending an ask, reccing, thank you for supporting me in any way and manner, thank you thank you thank you, Ily and I appreciate you, genuinely, so very much 🧡 Thank you Kelli my love, for beta reading that whole damn thing with so much kindness, for teaching me so patiently, for holding my hand every step of the way, for listening to my endless rambling, for being you, smart and talented, selfless and gracious, for being my friend. This is a story about hope, and your stories brought back hope into my life. I love you, I like you, I admire you, until the end of times 🧡 Thank you Lua @pedrit0-pascalit0 for letting me love you on main, oops I mean use your name! Thank you for sharing your thots on the Pilot™ with me, thank you for being a menace in DMs and keeping me alive and alert with your smart and talent and humor. Ily. Big loads 🧡 @dreamymyrrh you know what you did, and everything you gave this story. I'm so grateful for you 🧡 I love you more, I don't want to hear anything, shhhhh 🧡 Now I'm gonna go lie in the dark utterly terrified that I won't ever have another idea or write another word rest a little bit and get back to work as soon as inspiration strikes again!

THANK YOU ALL 🧡