#but it has been a LONG YEAR one might say

[darkmatilda]

𝐬𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐛 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: some souls are simply destined to collide. even at a funeral. even at a wedding. even at both…at the same time? one chapter of your life is closing. his is just beginning. what binds you together is uncertainty—and the sheer terror of what tomorrow might bring. but if life is just a chaotic stream of people and events flowing toward the inevitable, why not, for once, swim against the current? run. grab the groom (not yours). get stuck on a blocked road. hunt a mammoth. and spend a fleeting moment of escape under a sky full of stars.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐭𝐰: spencer reid x female reader, strangers to lovers, soulmates trope, something like AU, since there are no references to the canon? spencer smokes and is getting married just for the plot. reader's father just died, funeral, intense manic pixie dream girl vibes just a heads-up because i know it gives a lot of people the ick

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 8k

𝐚/𝐧: this is something very experimental. tbh, it’s an idea for a book that’s been with me for like 3 years now but i never quite got around to writing it so i was like ugh, what if o make it spencer reid??? anyway, i hope you���ll like it even if it’s not strictly about him. (and please read it with a bit of a lighthearted mindset??)

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eleutheromania /ɛˌljuːθərəʊˈmeɪnɪə/

(n.) an intense and irresistible desire for freedom

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"God, this must be some kind of joke!"

Your aunt fanned herself with a gloved hand—black against the ghostly pallor of her face, as if all the color had drained from it long ago. She looked on the verge of fainting, and the enormous black hat perched on her head did nothing to help, seeming to drag her small frame backward.

Her husband, your uncle, cast a nervous glance at the priest standing before you before shifting his uneasy gaze to his wife.

"Do not take the Lord's name in vain in the house of God—"

"Oh, shut up!" she hissed.

He fell silent. He had always been a little afraid of her. Okay, very afraid of her.

The priest, too, seemed tense, constantly wiping a layer of sweat from his forehead—sweat that wasn’t solely caused by the sweltering July afternoon.

"As I was saying to you…and to you as well…" He nodded toward the unfamiliar family standing behind him. He was the only thing separating you, a fragile barrier between two warring nations on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, ready to obliterate each other at the first wrong move. And, well—honestly, that wasn’t far from the truth. Except for the lack of access to nuclear weapons. (Though, who knew what your aunt kept in that little handbag of hers?) "There’s been a…mistake."

"A mistake?!" howled the woman from the opposing nation, dressed in a white gown with a long veil adorned with tiny diamonds. The bride. "You call this a mistake? I was supposed to have a fucking wedding today, and you brought me…a corpse!"

Your aunt inhaled sharply.

"I could say the same! I was supposed to be burying my brother today, and instead, they bring me some…floozy in an ugly dress!"

"Please, everyone, calm down…" the priest intervened.

The bride’s mother pressed close to her daughter, seemingly holding her back from lunging at your aunt.

"Don’t cry, my darling, you’ll ruin your makeup, sweetheart," she whispered. Then, suddenly, her face hardened, twisting with distaste. "Where is that fiancé of yours, anyway?"

The word seemed to scrape its way out of her throat with difficulty.

"He has a name, Mom…"

You tilted your head back, taking a deep breath. You felt like you might be the next one to faint.

Despite your legs barely holding you upright, you also wanted to laugh. And not just a small, disbelieving chuckle—no, you were genuinely afraid you’d collapse onto the perfectly trimmed, drought-resistant grass (meticulously maintained by the parishioners) and be consumed by hysterical, almost painful laughter. The sheer absurdity of it all was more than you could handle.

To stop that vision from becoming reality, you took advantage of the fact that almost no one was paying attention to you and quietly walked away. No eyes followed you. For a moment, you were invisible. And you needed that.

You circled around the small white church in your town, only stopping when you reached the back, pressing your face into your hands.

That day was supposed to be your father’s funeral.

And, as it turned out, another woman’s wedding.

How could someone make such a mistake—combining these two events, two completely unrelated families, and entirely different circumstances?

It was the final straw in everything that had been building up inside you since the morning. Being forced to spend time with the rest of the family—those aunts and uncles you barely knew but already hated. They had never cared about you, never cared about your sick father. Yet now that he was gone, they had appeared, playing the role of the most devastated mourners.

They took over the funeral arrangements, and you hadn’t been able to protest. At first, you even thought maybe it was for the best—someone else handling the burden for you.

But then it turned out they were far more interested in organizing a grand, lively wake afterward, the mere thought of which made you want to throw up. You didn’t want to be there.

You lowered your hands from your face—and nearly jumped.

Leaning against the church wall stood none other than the missing groom, the one his future mother-in-law had been looking for.

His brown hair was styled like something straight out of a wedding catalog, and his black suit was impeccably tailored.

"Oh, sorry," the words escaped you almost automatically, even though you both had every right to be there.

Still, you felt as if you had interrupted something.

And, well—you had.

It was just that that something happened to be him inhaling his cigarette so desperately that his cheeks hollowed in from the force.

For a moment, he didn’t respond, slowly exhaling a stream of smoke from his lips.

You couldn’t help but study him.

"Jesus, you look awful. And it’s my father who just died."

He fixed his gaze on you, his eyes filled with a fear so immense it was as if he were perched in a tree, surrounded by a pack of wolves—wolves who, armed with hammers and nails, were diligently constructing a wooden ladder to reach him.

"Wedding nerves," he muttered.

His voice was quiet, weak. His throat must have been bone-dry.

"I can see that," you scoffed.

You knew today was especially stressful, but you had always thought of it as the good kind of stress. Then again, you had never been married.

The groom pressed the nearly burned-out cigarette to his lips and said nothing.

You didn’t leave, though—he wasn’t the only person in the world who needed a moment alone, away from this whole mess.

You crouched down, wrapping your arms around yourself. The heat was making you dizzy, and your black dress was soaking up every bit of sunlight.

"My, um, condolences," he said after a moment, watching you with hesitation.

You weren’t an intruder in his personal space the way a member of the bride’s family would have been. You were a soldier of a neutral nation.

"Thanks. I hear that a lot."

"I can imagine."

"But I’m not exactly devastated," you admitted. "I mean, my dad had been sick for a long time. I’d made peace with the fact that it would happen one day."

He opened his mouth, clearly thrown off by your sudden honesty. You were a little surprised yourself—though maybe you shouldn’t have been. You always had a habit of unloading your grievances onto strangers.

Spencer lifted his cigarette to his lips again, only to realize it had already burned down to the filter. And then, as if he hadn’t just finished one, he immediately started rummaging through the inner pocket of his jacket for another.

"I don’t want to get married," he said suddenly. Straightforward, almost casual, like he had already made peace with it. Accepted it.

You studied his pale face, his hands trembling from stress and nicotine, the deep shadows under his eyes betraying nights of lost sleep.

"Yeah, I can imagine."

He finally found the pack, only to let out a quiet groan of horror when he realized it was empty. His eyes flicked to you, filled with desperate hope.

You shook your head.

"Sorry. Maybe it’s time to find a healthier way to deal with stress."

"The only alternative, in my case, is killing people."

"Maybe you shouldn’t fight that urge," you mused. "I mean, the hearse is already here."

“Good point, stranger. A bright stranger.”

“At your service, tortured groom. Shall we go check out what our families have come up with? I mean, who does the priest order to do adios, or maybe we're merging the ceremonies. I'm joking, but it's not such a stupid idea. The only real problem would be the soundtrack…”

“I need a moment,” answered Spencer, as the corners of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.

She was good company in this disaster, but he preferred for her to leave. Since he had come here, he felt like he was about to throw up, and he didn't want her to see it.

You stood up from your crouch and gave a mock salute as a farewell. The conversation had relaxed you a little, but the closer you got to the front of the church, the more tension crept back in. At least your aunt and the bride were no longer facing off like cage fighters.

“Oh, there you are,” your aunt said as you appeared behind her.

You opened your mouth to explain why you had disappeared, but she cut you off.

“The priest is on the phone with someone, trying to sort this out. One of the ceremonies will have to be moved. I just hope we won’t have to pay for it. What a rip-off that would be…It’s not our fault, after all!” She pressed her gloved hand to her chest, clearly trying to calm the anger rising in her again.

You barely listened, instead wondering if her hands were sweating in those gloves.

“You know, we paid quite a bit to organize the wake. Venue rental and all that…I really hope this whole mess doesn’t delay the funeral and screw up our reservation…”

The word wake snapped you back to reality. It was probably time—long overdue, actually—to tell her you weren’t planning to go. You could barely handle the thought of sitting through the funeral with them, let alone dragging it out any longer.

"So, your uncle and I were talking," your aunt went on, "and we figured there’s no point driving all the way back home. It’s so far, and I hate driving at night. I have to wear those awful glasses, and they keep slipping down my nose. So we thought—why not stay at your place? We’ll take your bedroom, and you can sleep in the living room. That makes the most sense, don’t you think?"

She said it like it was already decided.

Your eyebrows shot up, and panic clenched around your ribs. Them showing up at your father’s funeral? Fine, he was their family too—you could deal with that.

But in your home?

"Do you have anything for a headache?" you asked suddenly.

You felt like your head was about to explode.

Your aunt wasn’t really paying attention to you—her eyes kept scanning the area, searching for the priest who was supposed to return with news. Still, without looking, she reached into her bag and shoved her car keys into your hand.

"There should be some in the glove compartment. I parked behind the church."

Without a word, you grabbed the keys and headed in the direction she had pointed. Just as she’d said, the car was parked behind the church—far beyond their line of sight. Which also meant that, once again, he was in yours.

The groom hadn’t moved much since you’d last seen him. He was still leaning against the same spot, the only difference being that now he held his jacket in his hands instead of wearing it. One corner of the fabric brushed the grass. He wasn’t looking your way. He had no idea you were watching him from a distance.

You shook your head to yourself. You felt a little sorry for him.

Rummaging through the glove compartment of your aunt’s red Chevrolet Caprice, you found what you needed. With no water to wash down the pill, you paused, hand resting on the open car door, gathering enough saliva in your mouth to swallow it dry.

You weighed the car keys in your palm.

Your gaze flickered back to the groom.

And again.

You were a reckless idiot.

Some flaws can be fought. Others must be accepted. And some? Some are worth celebrating like virtues.

"Hey, tortured groom!" you called out.

He flinched at the nickname. Even from a distance, you could see the crease forming between his brows. You gestured toward the car.

"You coming?"

For a second, he didn’t get it. But—amusing, considering he was about to get married—his first instinct wasn’t to refuse.

"Where to?"

You shrugged.

"No idea yet. But I’ll buy you smokes."

You watched as he stood frozen for a moment, then slowly, hesitantly, turned his head toward the church. God, you wanted to crack open that curly-haired head of his, pull up a tiny stool inside, and sip something cold while watching the war raging in there.

After an agonizingly long moment—during which you managed to change your mind about this plan exactly six times, only to commit to it again just as many—he finally moved.

Actually, he ran.

There was no real need for it; no one could see you from where you were. But you understood. He was doing it to outrun his own second thoughts before they could catch up to him. Your aunt’s Chevrolet had three beige seats up front. He yanked open the passenger door and dropped onto one of them, breath coming hard and fast. You doubted it was from the sprint. You let your gaze linger on him for a second—flushed cheeks, a mix of heat and sunburn; a stray curl that had escaped its styled place and now rested against his forehead; closed eyes.

And, just for a moment, the fleeting shadow of relief on his face as the car rolled forward.

You had only driven a block away, wrapped in some kind of magical daze and an absolute silence that filled the space between you. The church had completely vanished from sight, yet the street remained familiar—simply because you had grown up in this town. You had no real destination, but you knew you wanted to find yourself somewhere under a sky that had never looked at you quite like this before.

The groom suddenly jolted, his eyes widening so much that, for a split second, you half-expected them to pop out like two ping-pong balls. He stared at you first, then at the window beside him, pure shock etched across his face.

“What are we doing?!”

You snorted. He sounded as if he hadn't just jumped into your car of his own free will.

“I’m committing grand theft auto,” you replied. The calmness in your voice actually startled you. “And you…?” You cast him a sideways glance. “I guess you’re running away from responsibility.”

"Responsibility," he repeated after you, eyes fixed on the road ahead. You knew he wasn’t from around here—most of this area was probably unfamiliar to him. His jacket lay on the middle seat, a barrier between you.

"Do you want to turn back?"

He glanced at you from the corner of his eye, holding the look for a moment before shaking his head. You let out a quiet breath. If he had said yes—if he had decided to be rational, to just go back to the church, back to your unsuspecting families, pretending like nothing had happened—you would’ve felt pathetic. 

"Can we pull over for a second?" you asked. "So we can switch? You drive?"

"I don’t think I can."

"Okay."

Your fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel. You’d been driving for about five minutes now, and the longer you waited, the more absurd it felt to say it. You took a breath.

"I don’t have a driver’s license."

His reaction was exactly what you expected—he tensed, his mouth falling open.

"Wait…what— you couldn’t have mentioned that befo—?"

"Well..."

A moment later, you'd switched seats.

The thought of getting pulled over by the police—or worse, ending up wrapped around a tree on his own wedding day—was enough to force Spencer into the driver's seat, no matter how awful he felt. As soon as he sat down, he started messing with the car’s air controls. It was so stifling inside that he was already undoing the third button of his shirt, yet he still couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

"So, where are we going?" he asked.

A strange emptiness filled his head. It should have been a welcome change from the chaos that had consumed every free space in his mind for days—weeks, even—but for some reason, it wasn’t. He needed something to focus on. Something to aim for.

You shrugged.

 "To buy you cigarettes."

"And after that?" he asked. "You're not...planning to go back to your dad’s funeral?"

"It’s not even my dad’s funeral anymore. It’s theirs." You scoffed.

He didn’t respond, just gave a small nod.

Earlier, caught up in the heat, the absurdity of the moment, and maybe even the looming threat of heatstroke you’d somehow forgotten that you didn’t actually know each other. Now it was starting to sink in—the weight of it all—as awkwardness crept steadily into the space between you.

"And after that..." you echoed, genuinely pondering.

It felt like if you were going to pull something like this—if you were going to walk out on your father’s funeral—you needed to go somewhere meaningful. Symbolic, even. A quiet apology whispered into the afterlife.

For a moment, nothing specific came to mind. You bit your lower lip in thought.

"I think...I want to go to the cliffs."

"The cliffs?" he repeated, suddenly sitting up straighter, alarm flashing in his eyes. "You’re not...You’re not planning some dramatic suicide, are you?"

“What? No! Just because I want to go to a damn cliff doesn’t mean I want to jump off it,” you snapped at him, causing him to defensively raise a hand towards you. You sighed, exasperated. “We just used to like that place. My dad and I.”

Spencer allowed himself a closer look at your face. Lost in his own thoughts, you didn’t even notice him doing so. It wasn’t until now that he realized he had missed the signs of pain on your face earlier. He noticed small traces of it in every expression, so evenly spread that they weren’t immediately visible at first glance.

“To the cliffs, then,” he muttered. It meant several hours of driving, but oddly, that didn’t concern him. Maybe the small smile that appeared on your lips made it feel worth it. Maybe he was desperate to know where this was all headed, even if it meant a long and tiring journey.

And just like that, all the tension and awkwardness hanging between you seemed to dissolve.

You stopped at a gas station to refill the tank and so he could buy the cigarettes he had been craving. As he lowered his head slightly to light one, you suddenly ran your fingers through his hair, ruffling it roughly.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” he exclaimed, the cigarette between his lips muffling half his words.

“Sorry. You looked too wedding-y,” you said, slipping back into the car.

Waiting for him to finish smoking, you left the door open, letting as much fresh air as possible seep inside.

“And since when is that a bad thing?”

“Since the moment you ran away from that wedding.”

A grimace flickered across his face when you used the phrase ran away.

“Oh? Got a better term?” you scoffed mockingly.

Exhaling smoke through his lips, he actually seemed to consider the question. He no longer looked like a groom. His already exzausted appearance—dark circles under his eyes, a weary expression, undone buttons, and now, thanks to you, messy hair—made him resemble a guy recovering from a wild bachelor party. The morning after.

"Execute a strategic retreat," he stated after a moment, waving his cigarette as if he were laying out some incredibly complex, borderline brilliant concept.

"I think your almost-wife and her family would prefer my version."

"Oh, you're mistaken. They’d go with something closer to an absolute disgrace upon the family's honor, what will people say?! Leaving a pregnant woman on her wedding day…"

If you had a drink in hand, you would’ve taken a huge sip just to dramatically spit it right in his face.

"Pregnant?"

"Yes, but—"

"You’re telling me I just wrecked a family by kidnapping a father straight from the altar? Jesus Christ, you weren’t kidding about running away from responsibility…" You shook your head in disbelief.

 You didn’t hide it—a sudden wave of guilt washed over you.

"You didn’t wreck anything," he denied.

Spencer pressed the cigarette to his lips but realized that, after all his gesturing, it had gone out. There was still about half of it left. He reached into the pocket of his suit pants for a lighter but then, after a moment’s hesitation, decided against it. He simply tucked the cigarette back into the pack. That desperate urge to drown his stress in nicotine—the one that had gripped him so tightly outside the church—was gone.

He got back into the car, placing his hands on the steering wheel. You hadn’t closed the door on your side, making it clear that you weren’t going anywhere until he explained whatever it was he was holding back. But it wasn’t an ultimatum—you weren’t pressuring him. If he wasn’t ready, you could simply stay there. There was no rush. The sun had already passed its peak, and with the doors open wide, the air was pleasantly cool.

“That family was already wrecked,” he finally said. He averted his gaze, taking a deep breath before continuing. “And the baby isn’t mine.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you blurted out.

“Wow, that was a really empathy-filled response” 

"This isn’t a conversation for empathy-filled responses. This is a conversation for fuck," you scoffed loudly, your gaze repeatedly drifting to his profile as you analyzed him, searching for as many answers as you could. You swallowed carefully. "How…how did you even find out?"

Spencer didn’t answer right away. He stared straight ahead for a moment before letting out a short, bitter laugh.

There he was, sitting in a gas station parking lot on his wedding day, spilling his most painful confessions to a complete stranger. And he, for the record, wasn’t usually in the habit of doing things like this.

“Well, at first, it was just pure calculation,” he began. “You know, people always say men have no clue about the female body, but all I had to do was count back to the last time we had sex…” He trailed off, shifting uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. “Oh, and then there were the messages.”

“Messages?” You didn’t catch on at first.

“You know. He can’t find out…”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.”

You fell silent for a long moment, simply at a loss for words. The image of the woman in the white dress flashed through your mind again—the hundreds of tiny diamonds shimmering on her veil—followed by the sight of him, hidden behind the church, burning through one cigarette after another.

“But…” You frowned. Something didn’t add up. “Why did you still want to marry her?”

Spencer opened his mouth, then closed it again. A sound, the beginning of an answer, formed in his throat but never quite made it out. Instead, he shook his head, exhaustion radiating from every small motion before he finally let his forehead drop onto the steering wheel.

“I don’t know,” he admitted weakly, his voice muffled. “I-I don’t know. Everything was already planned. The wedding. Our whole life. And I guess…I think… if I hadn’t looked at her phone…”

"You would have been living a lie," you finished firmly, taking a deep breath. You couldn’t understand how this man could feel guilty about any of it. "All of you, actually."

You reached for the open passenger door and shut it. You wanted to trap the echo of your words inside the car. In the silence that followed, neither of you moved. You just watched his hunched shoulders and bowed head, linking this image to the expression that had already been etched on his face. That lost look. Only now was it starting to sink in why he might have chosen to stay.

The future doesn’t exist, yet people desperately try to build it from the wrong or even broken pieces, convincing themselves it won’t collapse at the most unexpected moment. Not swept away by the wind, not shattered by an earthquake. Just caving in on itself.

Slowly you reached for him, gently running your fingers from the top of his hair—stiff from the styling products—tracing a path past his ear, down his neck, until your hand rested on his shoulder. He shifted slightly under your touch, and you sensed a barely noticeable tremor in his body, caused by his unsteady breath. You waited in that position until it passed. And yes, it took a long time. But after running away from your father’s funeral, stealing a car, and taking someone else’s fiancé, the last thing you cared about was the passage of time. It would flow either way.

He finally lifted his head to look at you.

“So…” he began, his voice slightly hoarse. “Are we still planning to go to the cliff?”

It sounded almost like a request. You smiled softly, pulling your hand away. As you straightened in your seat, you could feel the atmosphere slowly returning to normal. Well, at least it was no longer drenched in sorrow down to the bone.

“Well, that depends on who’s driving,” you replied.

“In that case…I think we should be there in about three—”

Three hours later, you recalled his words with the loudest scoff possible.

"Would that be too dramatic..." you wondered aloud, resting your bare foot on the dashboard. Rummaging through the glove compartment, you found, along with some painkillers, a nail polish bottle with a partially dried-up brush. The color was awful, but you were bored enough to use it anyway. "If I started keeping a journal?"

Kneeling on the back seat—well, technically under it—Spencer straightened up, frowning at something.

"How is it possible that your aunt has a sushi-making kit and a cat encyclopedia in her car but not a single bottle of water? For god’s sake, not even half a bottle..."

"I’d be like Robinson Crusoe," you continued at the same time as him, applying the first coat of polish. "Day one on the deserted island. What a place, uninhabitable. No water..."

"Are you hallucinating from dehydration?"

"You’d be my Friday, the one I saved from the bad people..."

At this point, it seems like a good time to pause for a brief introduction to the situation.

You had left the gas station in relatively good spirits. It wasn't something you had discussed, but at some point, both of you had silently agreed to sever ties—at least mentally—with everything you were running from. To stop thinking about it. To stop worrying. To accept the absurdity of what you were doing and fully embrace it.

You had rediscovered the existence of the car radio, which, as one of the universe’s unwritten rules dictated, became your first reason to argue. You didn’t even get through a single full song before…

You got stuck on a blocked road.

The accident that had occurred was serious, though thankfully, it didn’t involve you. A truck had overturned across the lanes, and a fuel spill required emergency responders to work on the scene. Cars in front of you, cars behind you. Everyone was waiting.

The weather conditions—specifically, the unbearable heat—didn’t make things any easier. But the real nightmare began when you both realized just how embarrassingly unprepared you were for a trip like this. Typically, people embarking on spontaneous adventures bring snacks, drinks, maybe even crossword puzzles. You didn’t even have a stupid bottle of water.

Your new friend had groaned about ten minutes ago, declaring that in the chaos of your aunt’s car, there had to be at least a single drop of something drinkable. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt like an explorer searching for treasure in the jungle, sweat beginning to mark the fabric. The same heat made the back of his neck glisten noticeably. And he wasn’t the only one suffering. Your black clothing was starting to cling uncomfortably to your skin, and you actively avoided looking into the rearview mirror, knowing full well you probably resembled a walking disaster with a face flushed red from the heat.

Suddenly, he threw his forearms over the back of the front three-seater, staring at you as you calmly painted your nails.

“Seriously?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Am I the only one worried here? This is actually dangerous. Do you even know how much water a person needs in these conditions to avoid dehydration and heat exhaustion?”

You dipped the brush into the nail polish, casting him a fleeting glance. You were only just beginning to learn little things about each other, and one of the things you had rcently noticed was that he possessed an incredibly vast knowledge of all sorts of topics—some of them unexpectedly niche. Not that knowing how much water a person should drink was particularly obscure. But the fact that chainsaws were originally made to assist in childbirth? Now that was.

“How much?”

“The recommended minimum is…oh, never mind, because we don’t have that much anyway!” he snapped in frustration.

With each passing minute, his carefully styled wedding-day hair was collapsing into a state of utter disarray. At this point, his head was a wild mess of curls sticking out in every direction, which he kept running his fingers through absentmindedly.

“You could at least try to help me. Painted nails aren’t going to save you from heatstroke.”

You were just about to say something, finally explain to him why this issue didn’t actually worry you, when a strangled yelp escaped his lips. His voice disappeared behind the seats as if something had dragged him to the ground.

A second later, he reappeared, eyes wide open, clutching a silver can of Diet Coke in his hands.

With reverence, he placed a slow kiss on it, as if he had just discovered the Holy Grail after dedicating his entire life to its pursuit.

“We have been saved.”

You scoffed at the sheer devotion in his voice.

A moment later, he was back in the driver’s seat, cracking the can open with a loud tssss. He took a sip.

“Pretty sure this has been here since the car was made.”

You made a face too, imagining the taste of warm, flat soda. Still, the sight of that familiar silver can had the same effect on you as a treat on a dog. You reached out your hand.

He pulled the drink out of your reach, looking scandalized.

“Hey, I fought for this while you were painting your nails. Go hunt down your own.”

"Hunt one down?" you repeated. "Oh, I see. You're gonna bask in your victory like you just took down a damn mammoth."

"Considering the amount of effort it took, I'd say that's a pretty accurate comparison."

"If you ever accidentally time-travel half a million years back, at least you'll be prepared. Actually, I'd bet you'd have a better chance of hunting down a mammoth than a caveman would of finding a can of Coke. But that's just my opinion."

"Well, actually, there were no mammoths half a million years ago. They lived during the Ice Age, which spanned from around 250,000 to 15,000 years ago."

You shot him a look. He did it again.

Not understanding what your problem was, he shrugged and tilted his head questioningly.

"Let me guess," you sighed. The polish on both your feet had dried by now, so you finally took them off the dashboard, wincing at how numb your legs had gotten. "You were one of those kids obsessed with dinosaurs?"

"Dinosaurs, astronomy, geology…"

"Okay, I get it—"

"Psychology, neurobiology, physical anthropology…"

"Now you're just making stuff up."

"Where did the dinosaurs even come from when I was talking about mammoths?”

"Logical train of thought."

"So, do you mix up lizards with elephants on a daily basis too?"

"All the time."

Spencer took a sip of the Coke, watching you with a hint of a smile on his lips. Then, he extended the can toward you.

"You should drink," he said solemnly. "I was just joking earlier."

"I know," you replied. "And I didn't help because I wanted to see how long it would take you to realize we could just ask the people in the car in front of us or behind us if they had something to drink."

His lips parted slightly in surprise as he processed your words.

"And I'm pretty sure they do," you added. "Because no one is dumb enough to go on a long drive without water in this heat."

You gave him a patient, almost pitying smile.

"Don’t take it too hard," you said, your voice dripping with mock sympathy. "The heat must’ve scrambled your brain for a second. I’m sure you were a little genius. And you probably still are. Just like, you know, a bigger one now."

Then you shot him a challenging look. "But let’s put that to the test. What’s 131 times 475?"

He took a slow breath, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and amusement.

"62,225," he announced after a ridiculously short pause, not even blinking. Your eyes widened slightly. But then he added, "You do realize I could’ve just said a random number, and you wouldn’t be able to check?"

Your lips pursed. That thought hit you at the exact same moment he said it.

As Spencer let out a short laugh, you slid out of the car through the door that had been left open on your side—otherwise, you both probably would’ve suffocated in there.

"I'll go ask about the water," you explained.

You were just about to step fully outside when, out of nowhere, a stranger’s face suddenly appeared in the window of your aunt’s Chevrolet, grinning and waving enthusiastically.

A startled yelp escaped your lips, making all three of you jump in fright.

"What?" The stranger—a middle-aged man, maybe even a bit older—turned around, scanning for whatever danger had made you scream.

He hadn’t yet realized he was the reason. When his gaze landed back on you, his mouth suddenly fell open, as if it had just clicked.

"Oh! Me! Right, yes—terribly sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to scare you."

Your heart was still beating fast. That got to you more than any jumpscare in a horror movie you’d ever seen. Wow.

Spencer, realizing that forming a coherent sentence might be a challenge for you for the next, hm, fifteen minutes, leaned slightly toward you, as if making himself visible to the newcomer.

"Do you need anything, sir?"

The man, dressed in a green polo shirt and beige bermuda shorts, was still glancing at you apologetically. It seemed like Spencer’s question didn’t register with him right away.

"What? Oh—ah, do I need something? Actually, I do." He reached…behind his ear, revealing a cigarette he had tucked away there. "Got a light?"

You had already calmed down—after all, it wasn’t a real heart attack, just a slight preview of one. And it was you who first spotted the pack of cigarettes, accidentally covered by a wedding jacket, bought at a gas station with a lighter tucked inside.

The man let out something close to a moan of joy at the sight, immediately sticking the cigarette between his lips. Within seconds, the first bit of ash fell onto the pavement.

"Crazy situation with this road, huh?" he remarked, still standing right next to your car, shifting one hip out like he was on a smoke break with coworkers, casually gossiping about their boss. "And the worst thing? No one knows how long we’ll be stuck here."

Spencer parted his lips, ready to explain what the wait time depended on and how long, according to his calculations, it would last, when the man tossed the borrowed lighter back to him. Not expecting it, he tried to catch it, but his grip closed too late, and it fell onto the car floor.

"Oh, that's rough, kid. Never played baseball, huh?"

You shamelessly let out a snort of laughter, earning yourself an almost outraged look.

“Well, actually—”

“Sir, turns out we have a request for you too,” you interrupted, reaching out blindly to cover the mouth of your new friend, who was about to defend his honor. You nearly poked him in the eye. “Do you happen to have any water in your car? We didn’t bring a single bottle…”

The man looked genuinely shaken by this revelation.

“No water? In this heat? Are you trying to die?” His gaze landed on the open can of diet coke in Spencer’s hand. Taking a drag from his cigarette, he shook his head in disapproval. “Cancerous crap. Come on, kids. You hungry too?”

And that’s how you met Grzegorz.

 That day, your horoscopes aligned, the universe decided to give you an early Christmas present, and fate was performing a belly dance around you. As it happened, Grzegorz was a food delivery driver. And he was stuck on the road with you—right in the middle of his shift.

"Are you sure this won’t get you into trouble later?" you asked, sitting on the step of his delivery van, swinging your legs like a child on a swing. It was a ridiculously late question, considering you were already halfway through a paper box of Chinese takeout. After a longer pause for chewing and swallowing, you added, "I mean, someone out there is waiting for this food."

Grzegorz (or rather, Greg, since that’s what he insisted you call him after five failed attempts at pronouncing his actual name) shrugged dismissively.

"Listen, we’ve been stuck here for hours. Whoever ordered this probably made themselves mac and cheese a long time ago. Hey, kid, you don’t want a fork?"

Your gaze fell on Spencer, sitting next to you, his lips pressing together with some embarrassment. His chopstick skills…well, they didn’t exist.

Still, at the sound of the offer, he shook his head.

“It’s fine,” he assured, as if convincing himself. Then he stared at his food for a prolonged moment and sighed.“..Do you have one?”

Once again, you felt like castaways, this time just rescued from a deserted island by some lone, kindhearted sailor.

Since it was already late afternoon, Greg’s van cast a shadow on the road, creating a clear boundary with the orange light spilling onto the pavement. You had drunk so much water that your stomach started to ache—only now realizing how thirsty you had been.

“It’s like delicate, tender beef compared to your raw, mammoth meat,” you remarked to your newfound friend, twisting the cap back onto the nearly empty liter bottle.

Spencer was busy adjusting one of the sloppily rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, which kept slipping back to its original position. He didn’t look up at you, but you heard him scoff.

“You’re just plain ungrateful, you know?”

You didn’t reply. Instead, you had been watching his clumsy attempts for a while. Finally, you sighed and reached for his wrist, pulling his entire forearm toward you. His hands were warm, making the veins on the back of them and running along his forearm more visible. His surprised gaze focused on your face and stayed there as you slowly and carefully rolled up the fabric to his elbows—first one, then the other.

"Voilà," you murmured softly.

When you lifted your gaze, you almost immediately collided with his. Sitting across from each other, you had leaned slightly toward him while helping with his sleeves—something you hadn't even noticed until now. Straightening up, returning to your original position, would have been the natural thing to do. But something held you back.

Maybe it was the sudden awareness that you hadn’t yet seen each other from such a close distance. That, in turn, pushed you toward another thought—a realization, really—that you had only known each other for a few hours.

And that led to an even stranger realization: you hadn’t even exchanged names.

As soon as it hit you, you parted your lips, ready to voice this revelation in a tone of disbelief. But something distracted you—his face. Right in front of yours, his head tilted slightly to the side. His irises, which from afar had seemed like two dark spots, now appeared to take on more depth with every second you spent staring into them.

You unconsciously parted your lips—you had meant to say something, but the thought slipped away. He noticed, his gaze dropping to your mouth.

"Actually, I've been wondering," Greg suddenly interjected, approaching you both. He had previously announced that he was going to chat with the people in the car next to his. Apparently, they'd been solving French crossword puzzles together for the first hour of being stuck on this road. None of them knew French.

Lighting another cigarette, Greg crouched down.

You released Spencer’s wrist and, as if nothing had happened, tilted your head slightly in Greg’s direction, silently prompting him to continue. You heard a heavy sigh from the man sitting across from you.

"Where are you guys coming from, anyway?" he asked. "Or where are you headed? I mean, you didn’t dress up like that for nothing."

"From a funeral," you said.

"From a wedding," Spencer announced at the same time.

You exchanged confused glances.

"So, which one is it?" Greg pressed, clearly intrigued. "’Cause I’m pretty sure a wedding and a funeral don’t usually go together. Unless..." He paused, taking a slow drag of his cigarette. "I mean, I guess different cultures do things differently. So?"

You stared at Spencer in silence before giving him a slight nod, wordlessly dumping the responsibility of explaining onto him. His eyes widened, and he immediately mimicked the gesture, making it clear he was leaving it to you instead.

You kept tossing the burden back and forth like a hot potato until, eventually, it landed in your hands for too long. With no way out, you had to say something. A few half-formed explanations tangled together in your head, and what came out was—

"We got married in a cemetery."

They both stared at you in confusion.

Before you could open your mouth to fix it, to your surprise, your supposed husband gave a confirming nod.

"That's right," he said, glancing at you briefly before turning to Greg with a look of feigned solemnity. "We understand it's...unconventional. But for us, it was beautiful” 

Your eyes screamed one word. Idiot. His, on the other hand, took it as a compliment, lingering on you with a mischievous gleam.

You didn’t really want to joke like this at the expense of the guy who had just rescued you from your metaphorical deserted island. But before you could say anything, Greg suddenly sprang up and wedged himself between you, throwing an arm around each of you so forcefully that your heads nearly collided.

“That accident just had to happen today, huh?” Greg sighed with a hint of bitterness, still holding you both in place. You suddenly felt like a kid on Santa’s lap. Judging by Spencer’s expression, he probably did too. “To you of all people.” He shook his head. “Congrats, kids. Just a little advice, sometimes, it’s better to just let the other person be right. In marriage, I mean. Even if they’re talking total crap.”

You nodded, listening to his words, tinged with a certain melancholy, with quiet focus. Greg must have taken it as an attempt to break free because he let go of both of you at that moment, making you snap back into a straight position like a yo-yo. Spencer rubbed his neck, gazing at the pensive man.

"Got any more advice, Greg?"

And so, you let him talk—his words carrying the weight of someone who had learned the hard way. Unfortunately. Every time he addressed you as a couple, you exchanged fleeting glances behind his back, only to quickly look away.

Time passed like that, the van’s shadow inching forward. At some point, the couple from the French crossword puzzles appeared—an actual married couple, but with a much longer history. When Greg told them that you had gotten married that day, they immediately started asking about the details of the ceremony. By then, the joke had gone so far that backing out was no longer an option—you had to keep it up until the end.

They seemed genuinely scandalized when you accidentally let it slip that you hadn’t had a first dance—because neither of you could dance. Almost by force, they pulled you out of the van and began demonstrating their own routine. They barely remembered it themselves, yet they still did better than you—tripping over each other’s feet, stepping on toes, losing the rhythm you didn’t even know in the first place. And yet, you couldn’t stop smiling.

Eventually, you gave up and simply watched them move. They swore they hadn’t danced in years, but it didn’t show. It was only then, standing still, that you realized your back was resting comfortably against his chest.

By the time you got back to the car, the golden hour had arrived. It wrapped around you like a soft blanket as you sat together on the front bench seat, shoulder to shoulder, in quiet companionship.

"You can take a nap," you suggested at some point, noticing how heavy his eyelids had become.

At your words, he blinked rapidly, trying to shake off the drowsiness.

"No, seriously, it's okay. We're still at a standstill, but hopefully, we'll start moving soon. You can’t drive if you’re this exhausted."

He kept glancing at you doubtfully.

"You won’t get bored?"

You simply held up the French crossword puzzles you had taken from the couple.

Spencer let out a small laugh. A bit hesitantly, he shifted in his seat, searching for a comfortable spot to rest his head. In the end, he just let it drop onto his chest in such an agonizing position for his neck that you felt relieved when it finally landed on your shoulder instead.

Its weight was comforting—so much so that you started feeling drowsy too. You clung to the last threads of wakefulness, staying alert as the two of you half-sat, half-lay curled up against each other.

You never even touched the crossword puzzles. Instead, you just listened to his breathing, replaying the entire day minute by minute. And finding more than one tired smile on your lips.

By the time you finally started moving, the sun was setting.

By the time you reached the cliff—the destination you had almost forgotten about—the sky had unfurled into a canopy of shimmering stars.

You parked the car a bit further away so you could simply walk under that view, feeling as if it was drawing closer with every step.

You didn’t say much, but it was nothing like the silence from the beginning, when every exchanged glance screamed that you were strangers to each other. It was hard to grasp that the only thing separating you from those people was just a few passing hours.

You could barely see the same tortured groom in him as you kissed him there, on the cliff.

His lips still carried the lingering taste of cigarettes, and his body yielded without resistance when you pushed—no, gently laid him down—so that his back met the ground. At some point, however, you had to pull your face away, catching sight of something from the corner of your eye.

"Oh, come on," he pleaded, looking at you with a desperate sort of longing.

It took effort to ignore those puppy-dog eyes and the fingers reaching back toward your cheek. Instead, you focused on fixing your shirt sleeve, which had once again slipped down awkwardly to your wrist. This time, he simply watched you do it, visibly more at ease, his other hand tucking behind his head like a makeshift pillow.

"Will you marry me?" he asked suddenly.

So simply, as if he were inviting you to dinner.

You let out a barely audible chuckle.

"I'm serious."

"No, you're not. You just ran away from a wedding. Give yourself some time."

He let out a slow sigh, his entire chest rising and falling with it. Gently, you reached for the edge of his face, brushing away the stray strands of hair. His eyelids fluttered shut, but only for a brief moment. Then, just as suddenly, he opened them wide, so abruptly that you tilted your head at him in silent question.

"By the way," he began, removing one hand from your waist to place it between you—in a gesture of introduction. "I'm Spencer Reid."

You stayed still for a moment before finally shaking it.

"Nice to meet you, Spencer Reid."

*i feel like there will be questions about the last scene and the fact that his name was mentioned earlier but that was purely for the sake of narration bc it would’ve been strange to keep calling him friend or groom the entire time (though maybe i should have…) anyway, just note that his name was never actually spoken in dialogue before this moment, because the characters hadn’t introduced themselves to each other. 

[thelocalconstellation]

The kidnappers laughed in disbelief.

"Your husband really thinks you're all that, huh?" One said, turning around. The chair was empty now, they noticed. The one of the others paused for a moment.

"Hey- where'd he go?" I giggled, the sound echoing around the warehouse. They didn't realize I slipped out of the rope the moment they turned around.

"Do any of you want to play a little game?" I asked. I peeked my head out from the darkness in one of the corners. "Peekaboo!"

The third one jumped and screamed. Just because I hadn't been active in years- it doesn't mean I lost all grip on my magic. A little bit of shadow travel makes the commute to the store a lot shorter! Sure, quitting crime got boring sometimes, but my starlight back at home really makes it worth it.

I wandered around the walls of the room, how long until they notice how tangible the darkness has become? Ah, well. Amateurs.

"Hey- uh. Hannah? Why is your shadow doing... that?" It was doing the macarena. The third one, who had yet to actually say anything screamed again.

"Do you mind keeping the noise down? That is an incredibly shrill scream and it's upsetting." My voice echoed around the room. I glanced at the time on my watch. Ah, rats. I gotta hurry this up.

"What do you want from us?!" The second one shouted. At least one of them was still coherent.

"Mmm, not much. Just remember! The Shades are listening, and oh boy do they love to gossip. Now, I'm about to be late for dinner with my darling love, but you all can hang out and think about your actions! Just don't let the ghosts get to you, they might not want to let go if they get a hold on a living vessel again. Bye bye!" I slipped out of the warehouse, and the shadows closed in. Whatever dark pocket dimension they ended up in would let them know well enough to stop trying. I stepped into the shadows again, grabbing some flowers on my way back. I open the door.

"Oh, hey love!"

"Hey starlight. Brought you these. What's for dinner?"

Your spouse was an important and powerful person, so it was no surprise you got kidnapped by their enemies. Unfortunately, that was the kidnappers' final mistake. Your spouse laughs when they get the ransom call. "Good luck. You will need it. Dear, be home soon. Dinner is ready. Love you."

[saetiate]

MICHAEL KAISER x f!reader (can be read as gender neutral) omegaverse, alpha!kaiser omega!reader, childhood friends to lovers, shy reader, sfw wc: 0.8k words ❥ Valentine's Event card: the fool, childhood friends to lovers. co-written with @venustrvck a/n: hallo starry!!! thank you so much for participating!! no pressure to interact w this just bc u requested so genuinely <3 okay love you!

The first time you meet Kaiser, he is a blue-eyed boy holding stolen grocery scraps in his hands. You thought him much older at a distance, from his gait. But up close, the chubbiness of his cheeks match yours, even if they are coupled with tired, sunken eyes.

Your mother's local grocery store was an open-air room, filled with boxes of various vegetables and fruits, cans of drinks in boxes piled next to the makeshift cashier.

She had told you, then. To pretend not to notice him, even when he steals.

"Save him the embarrassment," she had said. "Food doesn't come easy for everyone."

Instead, you take a loaf of bread in brown paper from the shelf, still warm, and hand it to him.

~

This has never happened to Kaiser before.

He knows what he's used to — running into stores and running out under five minutes, hoping to anything in this world that he goes unnoticed. If he's noticed, he has to run. Fast, until his legs shake and his breath comes short.

When you catch him, you don't yell. You don't cry. You don't run. Instead, you take a loaf of bread and place it in his hands.

He knows you, knows your family owns this little thing you call a shop. His eyes grow wide as you stand in front of him, something hopeful and kind on your face.

He doesn't know what to do with this. This has never happened to him before. Kindness is not a thing Kaiser knows. Don't you know in doing this, it would encourage him to steal from you again?

He grabs at the food haphazardly, and runs.

~

You think you begin to understand what your mother meant, when she said to save him from the embarrassment.

Instead of handing the food to him, you leave it on a shelf right at the back of the store, where he sneaks in. At the end of the day, the food disappears, a magic trick followed by the sound of scattering.

~

You stop in your tracks on the way home from school one day, unable to tear your gaze away from the field.

He's here.

Him. The boy that takes scraps from your mother's shop. You had never seen him outside before, never seen him playing with the other boys, drawing x's and o's on the ground with a wooden stick in the sand. Instead, he is in a field, a battered football between his feet.

"What's your name?"

His voice is hoarse, like he hasn't talked in days. Language feels foreign to him, mouthing over the words like a child does over a toy — something that doesn't belong, should be put down.

You tell him your name. A soft word, as gentle as a windchime, the first he's ever heard out of you.

He tells you his. There's a shout behind him, his father, one he immediately cowers from.

When he looks up, you're gone.

~

It's years later that he sees you again as a young teenager, after he's assimilated into Bastard Muchen, the same ocean-blue eyes finding yours.

You're working at a bakery in town when he sees you, a curious tilt to your head not unlike a cat. But for him…

That haunted look still lives on his face, his hair grown long.

"What are you staring at?"

He leans down over you, looming like a panther might to its prey. And then it hits you —

He's started presenting.

He makes no move to try and restrain his scent. They never do, do they? You take one step back.

His eyes widen. "I'm not trying to scare you." You've never been scared of me before, he wants to say.

"You're an alpha."

Secondary gender was exactly that to him — secondary, to football, to getting out of that damn house, to having a better life. How should he make you understand?

Kaiser's eyes flit around the bakery and you wait him out, breath frozen in your chest. His hand extends forward and you squeeze your eyes shut. You wait, but, he does not touch you. Slowly, you peel your eyes open…

He's holding a loaf of bread, proffering it to you with both hands, it's from the ones stocked behind you, the same kind of bread you'd given him when he was a starving child. He hopes this makes your remember him, how you'd held it out to him, warm and trusting — a gesture of peace to the thief in your store.

He hopes it conveys the same sentiment back to you, that he means no harm.

You take it from him gingerly, thumb running over the warmth of it, the freshly-baked bread and Kaiser's gesture both. Your eyes meet his, and you step forward. He lets you. He doesn't make to grab for you, only watches you… gently…

Heart softening, and lips ticking up into a smile, you raise your hands, offering him your wrists in reunion. He bears his neck, and you scent him.

It's the first time. It feels natural.

"I'll come by again tomorrow," he says, voice raspy.

You look forward to it.

[coldilikeit]

Isekai reader x Batfam (Neglected au)

Female reader

Chapter 9- What's wrong with you Bruce?

_____________________________

"Get up from there, that's not your seat" Damian glares at Viviana, the girl didn't move but only widened her eyes, seemingly making her look confused and wronged

"I'm sorry... Was it yours? I haven't been in the house long, so I don't know" she sheepishly smiled, Damian raised a brow "That's (Name)'s seat, get up"

You tilt your head "it's just a chair, I'll sit somewhere else", the boy gripped his fists tight "but that- you sit there and I sit beside you, then the one beside me is Dick, that's how I like it"

Viviana feigned sadness "Don't you want to sit next to me?" She said, "No" he said back

(Name), I'm sensing hostility

"yeah but when is Damian not hostile" you whisper quietly to the system

No I mean, hostile to you, Viviana is hostile to you, she doesn't seem to want to team up, according to her system, she thinks of you as a threat and she- oh my glitches, didn't you die by car accident?

"yeah..?"

Guess who was driving the car.

"What the fuck" you say outloud, too shocked to even whisper, Damian glares even further at Viviana, thinking she's the cause of your profanity

You look at the girl In front of you, why are you so stupid, of course not all reincarnators are good people, you were naive to think you'd found a companion, someone who'd understand the way you felt all these years feeling like you're living in someone else's body, slowly losing the memories of your past self

Viviana smiles, one that is too sinister to ignore, there you realize she wanted it, you wonder if she knows that she's the one who killed you, you stand up "I lost my appetite... I'm going for a walk" you say

"(Name)! What?... This is your fault!" Damian exclaims as he runs after you

_____________________________

Bruce wakes up feeling okay... He's okay.

He remembers Viviana, the child who grew up without a father, and a child who'd recently lost her mother, he wanted to be able to dry his daughter's tears, and tell her it's okay, that she now has a family to cry with

Maybe he'll arrange his girls and Viviana an outing or maybe not Cassandra doesn't like going out much, Viviana should be his top priority, he does love his other children and he should probably check first if they're comfortable with hanging out with a person who's been a complete stranger not until last night, but Viviana is hurting...

He walks to the dining area seeing (Name) and Damian run off, what has Damian done now? Is (Name) alright, I should probably follow them to make sure they're okay

Viviana is right in front of him, Damian and (Name) can wait, his daughter is in front of him, and she looks... Upset?

Why is she upset?

Did something happen?

Did Damian fight her?

Is she not okay in the manor?

(Name) looked upset too

Enough about the others, Viviana is upset

"Is everything alright?" Bruce asked, he places his hand on the almost in tears girl's shoulder "I feel like-" *sniff* *sniff* "(Name) doesn't like me here, she cursed at me earlier"

(Name) was the reason? Well she probably had a good reason, she doesn't get upset at someone easily that wretched brat? Bruce thought she was finally behaving? Why on earth is (Name) making a sweet girl so upset? When she gets back I should punish her. No I shouldn't hurt (Name), she looked upset as well... Maybe it was a misunderstanding

"That doesn't sound like (Name)" Tim enters holding a bag of coffee beans munching on them like they're chips, Viviana sniffles "You weren't there... You don't know anything"

"yeah... And we can't just believe your word right? Let's ask (Name) what happened first-"

"Tim that's enough, don't interrogate Viviana, she's not a criminal, why would she even lie?" Bruce sneered, Tim looked taken aback "I wasn't saying she was lying I was just saying she might be twisting what actually happened to be innocent, (Name) isn't the type of person who curses at someone unprompted"

"so you're trying to shift the blame onto Viviana?" No he's not, he's just trying to find out what actually happened, why am I yelling at Tim? Bruce feels anger, why is everyone ganging up on Viviana?

Bruce sighs "I'll have Alfred summon (Name), she will be disciplined accordingly"

"Whoa hold one you don't even know what happened! Why are you set on punishing (Name) already, you should at least hear her side-"

"And? (Name) Is still the reason Viviana is upset, so she will be disciplined"

Tim scoffed "What's wrong with you? So if I said Viviana is upsetting me by sitting the wrong way will you discipline her? Also? Why is she sitting in (Name)'s seat, Alfred assigned Viviana her own seat earlier?"

"that's different."

"Well you-"

"Wait please stop! Don't fight because of me! Dad! Please don't punish (Name), it was nothing really... I forgive her" Viviana said meekly

Tim rolls his eyes "Okay court adjourned, no need to punish (Name)"

____________________________

Bruce: I love all my children equally.

*Viviana enters*

Bruce: Viviana is an angel amongst my children of demons

____________________________

Author: IM BACKKKKKKK

@jellyedkazoo @vanilliona @shyenemyperson @popboomcha @plsfckmedxddy @devotedlyshamelessdetective @dorkatron-2000 @yuyuzi-ling @sweetsugerskull @butratherbutrather @yu-reiii @clementinesyummy @lfiee @iamapotatoe @type-ink @unknownloner1345 @randomlyappearingartist @justatimidcreator

[megumismyhusband]

▶︎•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|။• secret door- arctic monkeys

rin is your person.

he always has been.

the one who waits for you after class, standing by the door with his hands tucked into his pockets like he’s not been lingering for you the whole time. the one who knows exactly how you like your coffee. the one who remembers the stories you told him years ago, little things you’d long since forgotten until he brings them up like they’re important.

because to rin, they are.

and it’s moments like those that make you wonder.

wonder if the way his eyes soften when he looks at you means something. if the warmth in his voice when he murmurs, “you’re okay,” after a long day is more than just friendly concern. if the way his fingers linger at your wrist—gentle, grounding—is his way of saying, i’m here. i’ve always been here.

it’s enough to keep you hopeful. enough to make your heart flutter when you imagine what it might be like if you just told him.

but rin is your friend first. and you’re scared of what happens if that changes.

so you stay quiet.

and then she shows up.

it’s innocent at first—he mentions her name in passing, some girl in his class who’s “pretty cool.” you brush it off because, well, you’re you, and he’s rin. surely, you don’t have anything to worry about.

but then she’s there again. and again. and again.

and soon enough, he’s talking about her the way you once thought he might talk about you.

it’s not long before they’re together.

you smile when he tells you. you smile because what else can you do? you smile because rin is your friend, and friends are happy for each other. you smile because if you don’t, you might just break down right then and there.

he smiles back, like he’s found something good—something solid and real. you feel your chest tighten.

and god, it hurts.

because rin used to look at you like that. like you were his world. like you were enough.

and maybe you were. once.

but that was before he convinced himself you didn’t feel the same. before he moved on. before you let him slip through your fingers, all because you were too scared to reach out.

and now you’re stuck—stuck watching him love someone else while your heart still clings to him. still hopes for something that isn’t yours to hope for anymore.

so you learn to smile when he brings her up. you learn to push your feelings down until they feel distant, dull. you teach yourself to stop imagining what could’ve been because it doesn’t matter now.

he’s happy. that should be enough.

it has to be.

[sqgeism]

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝 | mark grayson x gender neutral reader

love mail — mentions of S3 plot but no real spoilers. ι(｀ロ´)ノ mark grayson you will be famous !!!!!! hiii guuuuyyss... i know i said hsr but please watch invincible i swear it's peak.. also i might go thru a layout change again, forgive meeee o(T□T)o

there's not a life out there more suited for mark than this very moment.

in his bed lies his lover — oh, his lover. how he loves you, the way your hair almost perfectly sprawls itself all over his pillows, how peaceful you look at this very moment, and the fact that you even chose to date him at all. you're perfect in his eyes; no one could compare.

though, there was another person he loved. just as much as he loved you, which seemed impossible — yet it was true.

and there he was, cradling your little sister in his arms, soothing her nightmares as he cooed soft words of comfort. his voice was a sweet — saccharine — presence in the looming night as she cried in his arms.

"you're okay," mark says in hushed whispers. he's afraid his heart is about to burst hearing the saddened cries of his (yes, he's practically adopted your sister as his daughter) cranky baby. "papa's right here. don't worry."

this life was too perfect. he once believed he'd never find an escape from the hurt he faced, and here he was, unbelievably happy — with the love of his life and a 'baby girl.' (he wants to be a girl dad; is that such a crime?)

mark wants to tear up, but he stays strong. after all, he doesn't want to wake you to comfort two people.

but a life so perfect only exists in one universe — and mark has always been a little selfish.

when his variants invaded his earth, it didn't take long for them to wipe out half the population. it didn't take them long, to mark's dismay, to find you. he swore you'd be safe if you hid, and for a while, you and your baby survived the chaos. but the moment the steel door you locked yourself behind, that the isolation was too peaceful, you knew it was over.

you tremble at the all-too-familiar sight. it was mark — your boyfriend, the man you planned a future with and were in the process of living it. but his suit was different. the look in his eyes... was not one of love. perhaps he thought it was. after all, when you find out that your shithead alternate universe counterpart is happy, when you've torn your own world to pieces trying to search for such euphoria, who wouldn't be a little curious to find out what it's like?

"stop—" you gasp, clutching your barely three-year-old little sister in your arms, her head against your shoulder as you softly press her head further into you. she shouldn't have to watch her demise — or who exactly it is in the hands of.

this was terrifying. your mark, for all his strength, would never dream of hurting another person unless absolutely necessary. but here he technically was, covered in so... so much blood. you fight the urge to throw up as small bits and pieces of human remains are stuck against the dried crimson that stains his suit and body.

"when that big-headed idiot told me that the mark here had a loving family, a lover... a child... i couldn't believe it."

mark walks slowly, intentionally, almost methodically towards you. your breaths are shaky, and you can feel your little sister start to fuss after being held in the same position for so long. "please—" you plead, shutting your eyes as you hope for the death to simply be quick. you don't want to feel the life seeping from your very body or watch what he does to your little world. just let it be quick enough that your mark won't know it's your bodies that he'll eventually find.

but even as you know he's right in front of you, there's nothing — just the sound of your sister's fussy cries and the shaking of the ground as the mark variant you were so afraid of falls to his knees, as if defeated.

now you were confused. what kind of maniac crumbles to his feet after he's destroyed cities, probably his own planet, his own family? you didn't know, and to be quite frank, you weren't going to question him. you were still alive, and you just hoped mark wasn't going to snap your neck. "mark..?" the call of his name seemingly falls on deaf ears, as hands that killed thousands reach for your sister, and all you can do is watch. it's futile to run—you've accepted it. so you let him... even if every inch of your body screams at you for doing so.

his crimson red fingertips are delicate, holding her head to support it, and he presses her close to his chest. the world is quiet for once — no screaming, no explosions — just the sound of fire crackling outside and the cries of a baby turning into happy coos. she doesn't know it isn't him, her 'papa,' but it looks like him. for all the damage that he did, that changed him physically and emotionally, she still thinks it's her mark. "she's so..." the gentleness in his tone surprises you, and you hate how your heart aches at that. you want your mark, not any other, but this one is here, and you can't help it. "..perfect. i... i can't believe it."

that ache for a normal life, even in universes where mark is evil, never really goes away. it follows him, like a shadow — something he can't escape. so to think... after meeting so many variants who have lost everything — there's one who made it...

mark allows himself to be greedy. again, and again, he will take.

you can barely get a word in before you're taken into the air, unable to process what's going on until your feet are no longer on the ground and arms are wrapped protectively around you and your little sister.

when the invincibles came to your earth, you always assumed that they had killed their versions of you... or at least, lovers they had in their lives. perhaps the cause of their sanity was the cruelty of their universes. with no one to lean on, they had simply lost it all.

but it had never occurred to you that the possibility was that you simply never existed in such universes. that the invincibles — particularly the one kidnapping you right now — simply did what he had to, to have you. after all, a man's selfish greed will one day precede him.

[bellatrixscurls]

cinnamon girl | a jegulus x reader series. pt 1

masterlist

summary : your father insisted that you be dating Rabastan Lestrange, for protection and security. But what happens when said boy wants to run away from his Death Eater duties, and a certain bespectacled boy lands him a hand, leading to something more than he could’ve ever imagined.

pairing: regulus black x malfoy!reader x james potter, initially rabastan lestrange x malfoy!reader.

specifications : 1. this will be an entire series, but please be patient with me. 2. reader is one year younger than Lucius. & 3. this series is full of surprises.

warnings : angst, fluff, swearing, eventual smut, arranged marriage, mentions of bruises and broken bones, Sirius being dramatic, eventual polyamorous relationship, death eaters, death

“Do you know what time they’ll be here tomorrow?” you ask Lucius exhaustedly, leaning your head against his shoulder as you walk together to the Slytherin dorms.

It has been a pretty long day. Your legs hurt and you want nothing more than to finally get to your dorm and pack your things for Christmas break.

He sighs and throws an arm around your neck, his own eyes closing from the endless studying he’s done these past weeks. “Eight thirty, maybe nine. I’ll have to tell Evan about that, he doesn’t really do mornings.”

You laugh weakly, finally reaching the common room as Lucius opens the door for you. You’re about to open your mouth, but are interrupted by the loud chatter of your friends.

“He did what?”

“How could he be so stupid?!”

“For Merlin’s sake, Rabastan!”

“Hey, guys. What are we cussing out Rabastan for today?” your brother falls on the sofa and you’re right behind him.

But they don’t seem to take Lucius’ amusement lightly, and you can see that when Severus stops tugging at his hair to turn to you, and so do your other friends. Their shocked expressions make you sink further into the sofa.

“He’s all bloodied up in the hospital wing right now. Apparently the idiot got into a fight with Potter and, well… Let’s just say that now he can’t move his right hand at all” Narcissa explains and your eyes widen. How could’ve James done that to him?

“From the shoulder down. Can you imagine?” Barty shakes his head and your brother, still beside you, gasps.

You throw him a dirty look before turning back to Narcissa. “Can we go see him? I think he’d want us to be there.”

“I mean, he is in a lot of pain and Madam Pomfrey said he might be there for a few days” Bellatrix chimes in, carelessly rolling her eyes as she stands up abruptly. “We could always just hex Potter, that’s something Rabastan would want.”

The raven haired boy’s eyes shoot up and lock with yours, carefully placing his book on the table. “I don’t know about that. What I do know is that I’m staying behind for Lestrange.”

“Yeah, cause that is so entertaining” Bellatrix mocks her cousin, going back to discussing hexing James.

Your frown slowly fades as you and Regulus maintain eye contact. You’ve always wondered how he could be attentive and protective of his friends, but still seem cold and uninterested all the time.

“Will you?” he asks suddenly, his demeanour still as calm as ever. You have to blink rapidly, and when you do, you swear that you can see the corner of his mouth tilt up.

“I’m- Sorry?”

“Will you stay here for the holidays? To keep Evan company” he muses, and you can tell by his tone that he is utterly amused.

“I wish. He’s my boyfriend after all” you sigh softly, chewing on your bottom lip. You hesitate at first, but still lean in closer to Regulus, so only he can hear. “But father wants me and Luce home on the 31st. He said that we have to meet someone.”

Regulus’ shoulders tense up and you notice his eyes widen a bit, but he still manages to brush it off like it’s nothing. “The 31st is still two weeks away” he inquires and you nod slowly.

“You’re right” you give him a small smile, resting your chin on your brother’s arm that was now sitting around your shoulders again. “You’re right, I’m staying here.”

The green eyed boy hums contently, picking up his book once again as he traces his pale, slender fingers over the pages. “Good.”

You’re left gawking at him, and now that his attention wasn’t solely focused on you, or so you think, you can finally relax. Even speaking a few simple words with him made you nervous, your heart throbbing against your ribcage.

🦢

Later that evening, you find yourself not able to sleep. You’re tossing and turning, and your throat suddenly feels dry.

You curse yourself for not bringing a glass of water, before you get out of bed, the cold air hitting your bare legs and shoulders. You put your slippers on and do your best to open the door without making much noise, as to not wake up your roommates.

The stairs are old and with the creaking sound they make, you’re more than certain that you managed to wake up someone. The common room was dimly lit, and that mostly thanks to the fireplace.

“Can’t sleep?”

Your eyes widen as you clutch your chest, breathing heavy and alert, but the fear quickly dissolves when you catch sight of Regulus.

“Why would you do that?” you scoff, but still feel your cheeks burn, now very aware of his eyes on you. You’re almost bare, your pajamas doing very little to cover you.

He laughs quietly and your chest fills with ease. “And I didn’t even try” he sets his glass of water on the table, resting his chin on the palm of his hand as he turns to get a better look at you. “You seem troubled.”

Regulus, always most observant. Damn him.

You sigh, walking toward the couch and plopping down next to him. “I’m just confused. I mean, Rabastan has a big mouth and sometimes that gets him weeks worth of detention. But he never gets… beaten up” you scrunch your nose, the words leaving a bitter taste on your tongue.

He nods, as if understanding why you’re worried. “I didn’t take Potter as one to break someone’s face either.”

“Exactly!” you beam for a moment, having been dismissed and laughed at by your brother earlier when you told him just that. “He’s been my partner in Potions since third year. The guy teared up when he saw some mosquito wings and I had to listen to his whole theory about how the mosquito must’ve had a family and they’re probably waiting for him.”

This makes Regulus laugh out loud, his hands covering his face as you sip your water, barely able to control your laughter yourself. “Tell me about it. He sits in front of me in Transfiguration. He turned Tammy Smith’s hair elastic into a ginger cat. It chewed on her hair and even scratched her scalp. Her hair hasn’t grown in that spot, and she has to wear a ponytail everyday. It’s been four months.”

“Right?! When I asked her why she refuses to wear her hair down anymore, she just glared at me” you giggle quietly, now feeling a little bad for her.

A comfortable silence settles between you two, and Regulus speaks softly after a while. “Someone should talk to James about it. I heard he’s in the hospital wing too.”

“Is he?” your bottom lip juts out slightly, and you look up at Regulus. “You’re right, someone should talk to him.”

He chuckles lowly, “I meant you.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Oh, come on” he draws out, his lips pursing, as if he’s trying to bit back a smile, or worse, a smirk. “He’s fond of you. You can’t tell me you didn’t know that.”

You hope that he’s joking, but when you look at him, searching his face for any sign of a joke, he’s serious. And it makes you wonder : Is James Potter actually fond of you?

“I think he’s just intrigued about us. I mean, Sirius barely lets us come near him. I can’t tell you how it’s like to brew potions whilst his eyes burn holes in the back of my head” you say, and in all fairness, that’s how it is.

James is a sweet, gentle guy, one that you would like to get to know better, but you just can’t. And it seems as though Regulus finds great pleasure in teasing you about it.

“You might be right” he shrugs, still not very convinced. He picks up his glass and stands up, walking toward the boys’ dormitories. He reaches the end of the stairs and comes to a halt, looking carefully over his shoulder, his words merely a whisper into the night. “Sirius leaves for about twenty minutes at lunch every day, in case you reconsider it.”

🦢

Your clock reads 11:01 o’clock when you finally gather the courage to leave your dormitory, heading straight toward the hospital wing. You’ve told no one, but deep down you know that Regulus is right. He needs to know that not all of you want to hex him for whatever it is he did to your boyfriend.

You finally reach the door and take a deep breath before slowly pushing it open. You figure Sirius should be gone by now.

The beds were empty, except for James’ and a sleeping Rabastan. You thank Merlin that he’s asleep.

“Y/n?” James calls your name, his voice hoarse and brows furrowed. Of course he didn’t expect to see you here.

“In the flesh” you force a tight lipped smile as you sit on the chair by his bed. His leg is bandaged, but other than that he seems just fine. “I didn’t know James Potter could fight.”

Your comment makes him smirk, “There’s a lot you don’t know about him. Heard he’s a pretty cool guy, doesn’t really pick fights either.”

Him talking about himself in third person makes you roll your eyes fondly, shaking your head. “I might not know this James very well, but I sure know who will pick up a fight if he feels like it” you sigh and look to Rabastan still sleeping peacefully, his bed just across from James’. “What did he say?”

His face flashes with something you can’t quite put your finger on, but he makes sure to ground himself, his signature smirk returning to his face. “He’s just got a beatable face.”

Your shoulders drop and James sighs defeatedly. Of course you wouldn’t give in just like that. “Fine, he got into an argument with Pa- Sirius. Mean things were said, he tried to hurt Sirius, so I had no choice.”

Liar. You don’t know much about James Potter, but what you do know is that he would never slap someone, let alone put them in the hospital.

You huff a laugh, eyes meeting his for the second time. “What did he say?”

“Oh- Well, now- Let’s just keep it at that” he says with a small smile, a very uncomfortable one at that. “You should go, though. My friends will be back any minute.”

You can’t help the scoff that escapes your mouth. He thinks that he can just lie through his teeth and then dismiss you like you’re stupid? You don’t want to give him that satisfaction.

You don’t say more though, and that leaves James with a heavy heart. You move nonchalantly, sitting in a similar chair, but now by Rabastan’s bed.

You did have a chance to say something, to snap at him or persuade him. But you didn’t.

It could get way more interesting than that.

[buckadoodledoo]

Your most recent ask,,, I'm gnawing at the ceiling fixtures,,, and WHAT IF, once Eddie twigs that everyone at his new firehouse thinks he's married to buck, he just,,,, doesn't correct him. He rationalises it to himself that it's just too embarrassing of a miscommunication to clear up NOW and anyways it's gone on long enough without him explicitly confirming it or denying it and it's not like he's OBLIGATED to tell these people the truth about his personal life and really what's the harm? So he doesn't correct them. And then BOOM, tree crushing happens, and suddenly he gets to have a very interesting conversation with 'Buck Diaz'

no exactly!!! this is the perfect scenario to me. like he realises that they've been taking partner to mean husband for weeks now and he just didn't notice. "how long you and your partner been together then, diaz?" eddie, wistfully, "seven years" "man, must be tough being so far away from him." "yeah we facetime every day but it's just not the same, you know" "yeah i bet. must be... frustrating." eddie oblivious "man, you have no idea" and when he does realise it's way too late to correct them so he just. doesn't. buck is his husband now. he starts saying "my husband" more and more. might as well commit. he really likes how it sounds. for some reason. probably means nothing. meanwhile buck's in la telling everyone he meets that he just lost his partner :( it's really tough :( the mailman, the bartender who served him last night, the one new friend he's made, the grocery store lady? they all think he's a widow. the grocery store lady gives him a sympathy card next time he does his weekly shop and he's like, "oh......? thank you. you didn’t have to—" and she's like, "i lost my bernie two years ago. i know how tough it can be. if you ever need to chat—" and buck's like. "yeah, it's been uh. tough. thanks, joyce. gotta go! just remembered i forgot. something." and he practically flees the store. leaves his groceries behind in his haste to get out of there, clutching the sympathy card. gets in his truck and is like "well, shit. siri, call maddie." also makes it extra crazy when he gets the call that his husband has been in a serious accident. he's gonna think he cursed eddie to die because he accidentally pretended to be his widow.

[halorvic]

This #LongCovidAwarenessDay I’m reflecting on how many people have been let down by governments, public health & medical establishments How Covid has been downplayed, airborne spread ignored & vaxx and relax strategies pushed for the sake of capitalism How many have Long Covid because of this? 🧵 Those of us who were disabled before the pandemic could see this wave of chronic illness coming - and many of us have been screaming from the top of our lungs the last 5 years. Begging people not to take their health for granted & to wear a mask and protect themselves. /2 Warning them that there are no do-overs once you become chronically ill. Unfortunately very few people are listening - and many won’t understand the true devastation of #LongCovid until it directly impacts them. At which point it’ll be too late. /3 Despite seeing these waves of disability as an inevitable consequence of “let er rip” Covid strategy - one thing I did not see coming was how many people would willingly embrace not only ableism - but full on eugenics. /4 People in my own life who were previously kind & supportive have become cruel and angry. The masks have been ripped off. They don’t hesitate to tell me that they blame me for the restrictions placed on them in the early days of Covid. /5 That they will never again allow their freedoms to be infringed on in the name of protecting the vulnerable. One even went as far as to say “you’ve been sick for years - just die already.” /6 People who say these things don’t understand what disabled ppl understand all too well - your health is not a permanent state. Everyone will become disabled eventually - some earlier than others. Many who think they’re invulnerable are already vulnerable and don’t even know it /7 Yet rather than adapting behaviour and pushing for a new normal that makes the world safe for everyone - most temporarily abled people have instead doubled down on hateful eugenics talking points and want us to stay home forever (or worse - die). It needs to stop. /8 Covid is airborne and we all share the air. “You do you” individualism is quite literally killing people. We need to start caring about the air we share as this will lead to a healthier society for everyone. /9 Until then we need to mask up. It’s easy, incredibly effective & it might save someone’s life. At the very least you will know you didn’t contribute to another person’s suffering - and you will be drastically reducing your own odds of getting Long Covid. It’s worth it. /end

@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social

[wbbfannnnnn13]

Almost, Always - Chapter 8

paige x azzi

Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

A/N: Phew, this chapter was A LOT, but I had so much fun writing it... this is definitely the longest chapter so far! Hope you like it, heads up, angst has re-entered the chat... and thank you anons for the responses, the live reactions, and love <3

WC: 4.6k+

Chapter 8 – Rumor Has It

The last month had felt different—in the best possible way. Ever since Paige had shown up to see Azzi, something between them had shifted. Not in big, sweeping, dramatic ways, but in the quiet, intentional moments that stuck. Paige had made a decision, not just to love Azzi, but to do it fully, out loud. Her conversation with Coach Geno had peeled something open in her, and that post—the one that had felt like leaping off a cliff—hadn’t just been a gesture. It had been a promise. She didn’t want to be stuck in “almost” anymore. Not with Azzi. Not when it had started to feel like everything she’d ever wanted was finally right in front of her.

She wanted to stay in the bubble that existed when it was just them—safe, soft, and theirs. But that wasn’t how life worked, not when they were both professional basketball players in different cities. So she went back to Dallas, even though her chest ached the moment she left Azzi’s arms at the airport.

Still, even from a distance, Paige had made the choice to keep showing up. To be better. To be braver. She started leaving flirtatious comments on Azzi’s Instagram posts, reposting TikToks that subtly hinted she was taken, letting her affection spill into the parts of her public life she used to keep guarded. She wasn’t making any grand announcements, but she wasn’t hiding anymore either. And that alone felt like a breakthrough. For the first time, Paige wasn’t living in fear of what people might say.

Sure, there were trolls, as always, but most fans embraced it. Some had been rooting for them for years. Back in college, their teammates used to laugh at the fan-made edits and shipping videos—compilations of lingering looks, casual touches, shared smiles that fans swore meant more. And they were right. Paige never denied it, not to herself, not to Azzi, not even to the speculating fans. They’d been together for a long time. They just had to keep it private—same team, same spotlight, too much at stake. But she couldn’t hide the way Azzi affected her, how her posture softened, how her guard dropped, how everything in her leaned toward Azzi without thinking. It had always been that way.

At a recent press conference, when a reporter brought up the photo of her in Azzi’s jersey leaving the arena, she hadn’t dodged the question. “I’ve got someone really special in my life,” she said, smiling into the mic. “And I think people are smart enough to figure that out.”

She’d watched the clip later and, for once, didn’t cringe the way she usually did. Instead, she felt something lighter. Like she was finally showing Azzi the kind of love she deserved in every space, not just the private ones. There was something about hearing her own voice echo through a press room—no dodging, no deflecting—that made her feel braver than she’d expected. She hadn’t stumbled over her words. She hadn’t laughed nervously or looked away. She’d stood there and said it softly, simply, but clearly.

Later that night, the clip played again, this time over FaceTime. Azzi’s face lit up as she watched it, her mouth tugging into a slow smile.

“Damn,” Azzi said, eyes still on the screen, a slow smile creeping across her face. “You really said that? On camera?”

“I did,” Paige said, grinning, propped up on one elbow in bed, her phone resting against her knee. “Impressed?”

Azzi tilted her head, playful, the corners of her mouth tugging upward. “A little turned on, honestly.”

Paige laughed, the sound low and easy. “Yeah? You like when I get all brave and emotionally well-adjusted in public?”

“Kind of a kink I didn’t know I had,” Azzi teased, eyes flicking back to the screen for a second. “Who knew press conference Paige would do it for me.”

“Just wait till you see what I say next time,” Paige said, stretching out with a smug little smirk. “Might start reciting poetry about your ass if a reporter gives me an opening.”

Azzi laughed, shaking her head as she tucked her blanket up under her arms. Then her expression softened, just slightly, voice quieter. “Seriously, though. That meant a lot. I know you didn’t have to say anything.”

“I wanted to,” Paige said, her tone solid and sure, no hesitation anywhere in her voice.

There was a pause, a quiet stretch between them filled with soft static and unspoken feeling. Azzi exhaled, almost like she’d been holding her breath. Her gaze stayed steady on the screen. “I love you, you know.”

Paige smiled, a warm, slow curve of her lips. “I know.”

Another beat passed, heavier this time, and then Paige shifted slightly, voice dipping just a little lower. “So… what are you wearing?”

Azzi burst out laughing, dropping her head back against the pillow. “Oh my god. Seriously?”

“What?” Paige said, eyes wide with fake innocence. “I was being vulnerable. And now I’m horny. These things can coexist. And you did say you just discovered a new kink.”

Azzi shook her head, still laughing, her hand dragging down her face. “Maybe, but we are not having phone sex.”

“You say that like it hasn’t happened before.”

Azzi groaned dramatically, covering her face with both hands. “That was one time.”

“It was three times.”

“Two and a half. That last one barely counted. My neighbor started vacuuming halfway through.”

“Still counts. I was committed.”

“You were aggressively horny,” Azzi said, peeking at her through her fingers. “There’s a difference.”

“I’m just trying to create intimacy across distance,” Paige said, voice mock-serious.

“You’re trying to get me to take my shirt off.”

“That too.”

Azzi narrowed her eyes at the screen, half amused, half exasperated. “You’re like a teenage boy.”

“Not true. I have emotional depth and a skincare routine.”

Azzi laughed again, deeper this time, settling back against her pillow like she’d surrendered to the chaos. “You’re ridiculous.”

“But you love me.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You wanna see what I’m not wearing?”

“No. Go to sleep.”

“You’re no fun.”

______________________________________________________________

Neither of them said it out loud much, but the season had been brutal.

Both the Wings and the Mystics were teetering on the edge of playoff contention—just enough hope to keep pushing, just enough pressure to make everything feel like it might snap. Every win mattered. Every mistake felt heavier. Their schedules were chaos: back-to-backs, cross-country flights, film sessions bleeding into treatment, treatment bleeding into practice. Sleep was fragmented. Time zones blurred. They were always packing, always moving, always squeezing in calls between meetings or on the bus or while icing knees.

Still, they were making it work. Somehow, between the madness, they kept finding each other. Late-night FaceTimes, middle-of-the-day check-ins, a photo sent from the training room, a voicemail waiting after a rough game. Small things, steady things. They knew what this life demanded, but they weren’t getting lost in it. They’d built something strong enough to hold under pressure. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. They were showing up for each other, over and over. That counted for a lot.

They’d been talking about the off-season too. Where they might spend it, how they could actually exist in the same city for more than stolen weekends. Paige had even surprised herself with how often the thought crept in—marriage. Paige hadn’t expected that, not at this point in her life. She used to roll her eyes when people her age talked about forever like it was some milestone you could pencil in. She figured she’d be older, more settled before she even considered it. But here she was, catching herself wondering what kind of ring Azzi would like, where they’d live, what their future might actually look like when the noise faded and it was just the two of them.

Lately, though, it wasn’t just the idea of marriage circling in her head, it was the logistics. When would be the right time? How could she even pull off a proposal without Azzi catching on? Azzi noticed everything. A whole proposal? That would take planning, real planning. And then there was the matter of asking Azzi’s parents. She’d never been big on tradition, but that part felt important. It mattered. She wanted to do it right.

The problem was time. Their schedules were chaos; practice, games, recovery, repeat. There was no room to breathe, let alone coordinate a proposal or fly across the country to talk to Tim and Katie face-to-face, the way she wanted to. She couldn’t exactly wedge that in between shootaround and film review. But the thought kept pressing in. And ever since she’d gone public with their relationship, it was like something inside her had burst open, a dam broken, love rushing out in ways she hadn’t expected. She’d spent so long keeping it quiet, protecting it, holding it in her hands like something fragile. But now, it moved through everything. It showed up in her daydreams, in the space between texts, in the way she stared at Azzi through a screen and already pictured a whole life ahead of them.

It wasn’t a question of if anymore. Just when, how, and whether she could manage to keep it a secret long enough to make it special.

She wouldn’t say anything. Not yet. Not directly.

Well—almost not. One night during a sleepy FaceTime call, Paige had nearly let it slip.

Azzi had been curled up in bed, bonnet and glasses on, rambling about a new recipe she’d ruined and laughing at herself. Paige had just been staring at her. Utterly gone.

"You’re such a dork," Paige teased, grinning.

Azzi squinted playfully at the camera. "Oh, please. You love it."

"I do," Paige said, almost too softly. Then, without thinking, "God, I can’t wait to mar—"

She stopped herself, eyes going wide.

Azzi raised a brow. "Marry…?"

Paige cleared her throat and quickly backpedaled. "Marinate! I meant… marinate. Like, I can’t wait to marinate in this moment." She winced the moment the words left her mouth.

Azzi burst out laughing, full and unfiltered. "You’re a terrible liar, P."

Paige’s face turned pink. "Okay, okay. Maybe that wasn’t what I meant."

Azzi just smiled, a softness settling into her expression. "You’re cute when you panic."

"You’re cute all the time," Paige said, more serious now. "And maybe I’ll tell you what I really meant… someday."

Azzi’s heart skipped, but she didn’t push. "I’ll be waiting.”

______________________________________________________________

As fate would have it, Tim and Katie were in Dallas for a youth basketball camp they were helping to run. Paige hadn’t planned to see them—not yet, not until she had a ring or a plan or at least a speech that didn’t make her palms sweat, but when she found out they were in town, something in her just said go. No more overthinking. No perfect moment. Just the right people, close by, and a chance she didn’t want to miss.

She texted Katie that morning, asking if they had time to grab coffee before their afternoon session. A few hours later, they met at a quiet café just a few blocks from the arena, one of those tucked-away places with mismatched chairs, soft lighting, and the smell of fresh espresso in the air. When Paige spotted them walking in, hand in hand, both smiling like they hadn’t aged a day since Azzi’s high school games, her stomach flipped. Nerves surged up fast, sharp and sudden, like she’d just been subbed into a fourth-quarter tie game.

She stood to hug them, trying to play it cool, trying to keep her hands from shaking as she picked up her coffee again. They talked easily for a while about basketball, the camp, how exhausted the kids were after day one, how brutal the league schedule had been lately. Paige nodded along, smiled in all the right places, even made them laugh a few times. But the whole time, the real reason she’d asked them here was pressing hard against her ribs, loud and persistent.

The words were there, sitting on her tongue, pulsing behind every breath. Ask them. Just ask. Her heart thudded harder every time the conversation dipped, every time there was a lull where she could have said it. And finally, after one of those soft pauses—the kind where time stretches just long enough to make you brave—she set her coffee cup down gently on the table, took a breath, and looked up at them.

Katie’s eyes met hers first, warm and expectant. Tim leaned in slightly, sensing the shift in energy.

And Paige spoke.

"I want to marry your daughter," she said, voice soft but sincere. "I love her—you already know that. I want to be the one standing beside her for the rest of our lives. I want to build a future with her, and before I take that step, I wanted to come to you both first. It matters to me, to have your blessing, your support."

The table fell quiet for a beat. Then Katie’s eyes welled instantly, her hand reaching across the table for Paige’s.

"Paige, of course. We’ve always considered you part of the family, but to have you officially? Nothing would make us happier."

Tim nodded, his voice firm and full of warmth. "You’ve been there for her in ways no one else has. You’re good for her. You’ve always been good for her. We’d be proud to call you our daughter, too."

Paige blinked fast, her chest swelling with emotion. It was one thing to dream about a life with Azzi—something she’d done a thousand times before, in quiet moments, in lonely hotel rooms, in the back of team buses. But it was another thing entirely to feel it beginning to take shape, to see it mirrored back in the warmth of Azzi’s parents’ eyes, in their unwavering support, in the unspoken understanding that this love wasn’t a phase or a secret. It was real. It was solid. It was hers. The moment wrapped around her like a promise, filling spaces in her heart she hadn’t even known were empty. For the first time, it didn’t feel like reaching for something fragile and far away. It felt close. It felt possible. It felt like home.

When she walked out of the café that afternoon, the sun was warm on her skin and her heart felt fuller than it had in a long time. A ring wasn’t in her pocket yet, but the promise had settled in her bones.

It had felt so solid. So safe. Paige let herself believe that finally she could have this. Have her. No almost, but actually. Not fleeting, not temporary. Just the kind of love that was whole and steady and real. The kind of love that didn’t need to hide in the shadows or settle for halfway. 

____________________________________________________________

For Azzi, the last month had been just as transformative, but not by accident. She’d given Paige an ultimatum. Not out of cruelty, and not because she didn’t love her, but because she couldn’t keep shrinking herself to fit into the quiet corners of someone else’s life. She’d hit her limit. She’d told Paige, plainly, I can’t keep doing this in the dark. Either they moved forward—fully, publicly, honestly—or they didn’t move forward at all.

And afterward, Azzi had carried the weight of it. She didn’t regret what she’d said, but there was guilt tucked into the edges of it. She knew how much pressure Paige was already under, how exhausting the season was, how tightly she held everything together. But part of her also knew Paige needed the push. Someone had to draw the line. Someone had to say: This love deserves to live in the light.

And to her surprise—maybe even her relief—Paige didn’t pull away. She stepped in. Stepped up. Fully. Something in her had clicked, and suddenly it wasn’t just words anymore. It was action. It was the way she posted the photo of them without hesitation. The way she said I’ve got someone special in my life in a press conference and didn’t flinch. The way she looked into cameras and didn’t hide anymore.

Azzi felt the shift in everything. In how Paige texted. In how she talked. In how she made space, even from across the country. Every post, every comment, every glance in an interview felt like a thread being pulled tighter between them. Paige wasn’t just loving her in private anymore. She was choosing her out loud. Claiming her. And it hit Azzi deeper than she’d expected—not because she hadn’t hoped for it, but because part of her had stopped letting herself believe it would ever happen.

It made her heart race in the best way, but it also made her ache with the weight of hope. Because for the first time, she wasn’t holding this relationship together alone. Paige was building it with her—sturdy, intentional, brick by brick. This wasn’t just survival anymore. It was a future.

They talked more. They laughed more. And even in the middle of Azzi’s chaotic rookie season, long flights, brutal back-to-backs, the steep learning curve of the league, they were doing better than ever. Stronger. Closer. There was clarity now, and steadiness. Paige had made a choice, and Azzi felt it in everything they did.

So when Paige started hinting about spending the off-season together—half-jokes about shared closets, casual comments about finding a place—Azzi let herself fall into it. She didn’t hold herself back. She let herself imagine the mornings, the grocery runs, the softness of a home they didn’t have to leave every weekend. A life that wasn’t just borrowed time.

And then one night, Paige said it. Not directly. Not even deliberately. But it slipped out, low and casual, like the thought had already lived in her for weeks. She let the words “I can’t wait to marry” replay again and again in her head, each time hitting a little deeper. And even though Paige tried to backpedal the second she realized what she’d said, Azzi had already felt it, the truth behind it, the certainty. That throwaway line had cracked something open in her. Quietly, completely, undeniably.

And maybe that was the part that mattered most.

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

And then came the rumor.

It started quietly, just a blurry photo posted by an anonymous account. A shot of Paige walking out of a Dallas restaurant, laughing with a woman Azzi didn’t recognize. The lighting was soft, the woman's hand lightly on Paige's arm. Azzi stared at it for a long time, longer than she wanted to admit, heart sinking slowly in her chest. She told herself it was nothing. It had to be nothing. But still, she looked again.

And it didn’t stop there.

The rumors picked up speed, spreading fast and sharp. Speculation turned into commentary, commentary turned into assumptions. Then came the twist—another anonymous account posted an old video, grainy and clearly shot in a dimly lit college bar. Paige, visibly drunk, was pressed against another woman—someone Azzi had never seen before, but who clearly wasn’t just a stranger passing by. They were laughing, dancing, touching—close and familiar. At one point, the girl kissed Paige’s neck, and Paige didn’t flinch. She smiled. She pulled her closer.

The clip was dated—sophomore year for Paige, freshman year for Azzi. Before they were official. Before things were solid. But none of that softened the sting. Because Azzi remembered exactly what led to that night. The fight they’d had. The silence that followed. The feeling that maybe Paige hadn’t taken any of it as seriously as she had. And now, years later, watching it unfold again through a stranger’s camera lens, it cut deeper than she expected. 

They’d just finished a brutal afternoon practice—legs heavy, shirts soaked, everything aching in the way that felt earned. Paige and Azzi walked side by side, still catching their breath, laughing at something stupid one of the assistant coaches had said. It was one of those in-between moments where everything felt easy between them. Paige bumped Azzi’s shoulder, teasing her about the free throws she’d bricked, and Azzi rolled her eyes, quick to fire back about Paige’s turnovers. It was all light and familiar, their rhythm, their shorthand, their closeness.

They were headed toward the dining hall when it happened.

Brandon, one of the guys from the football team, stepped right into their path. Confident, loud, like he always was. “Yo, Azzi,” he said, grinning. “You wanna grab dinner sometime? Just you and me?”

The words hit hard. Too fast, too casual, like Paige wasn’t even standing there.

Paige stopped walking. Her smile faded. Her jaw tightened, subtle but sharp. Azzi glanced between them, caught completely off guard. “Uh… I—I don’t know,” she said, stumbling over the words. “Maybe… I’m not sure.”

Brandon didn’t seem to notice the tension at all. He just nodded, smug. “Cool. Let me know.”

Then he walked off, not even sparing a glance in Paige’s direction.

The silence that followed wasn’t just awkward, it was heavy. Thick with everything unsaid.

Paige didn’t say a word. She just started walking again, quicker now, eyes fixed ahead. Her shoulders had lost their usual looseness, her whole posture tight and closed off. Azzi hurried to catch up, unsure of what to say, wishing she could rewind the last two minutes and handle it differently. But the words caught in her throat. What could she even say? It had all happened so fast, and now it felt like she’d stepped on something delicate without meaning to.

She tried to brush it off later, told herself it wasn’t that deep. That it didn’t mean anything. But deep down, she knew better. Because what hurt wasn’t just Brandon’s timing—it was what her hesitation had signaled. Paige and Azzi had crossed the line of ‘just friends’ a long time ago. Every glance they shared, every touch that lingered too long—it had never just been friendly. Friends didn’t look at each other like that. Friends didn’t feel like this. Friends don’t have sex.

And the truth was, Azzi wanted Paige. Fully. Openly. She wanted to be seen beside her, not just orbiting in private. But she’d never said any of it. Not out loud. Not to Paige. She’d been too scared to risk what they already had. Too scared to ask for more and hear that Paige didn’t want the same.

So when Brandon asked her out and she didn’t shut it down right away, it cracked something between them. Not loudly, not completely, but just enough.

Later that night, Azzi stayed in her dorm, restless, replaying the moment again and again. Wondering why she hadn’t just said no. Wondering if it had looked worse than it was. She thought about calling Paige, explaining, trying to fix it before it spiraled into something bigger. But by the time she worked up the nerve, it was already too late.

Her phone lit up with a message. Paige was out. At a bar. With the team. Probably trying to blow off steam. Looking for a distraction. 

And apparently, she found one, based on that video.Azzi hated that the thought bothered her, but it did. The idea of someone else getting Paige’s full attention, even briefly, stung in a way she hadn’t expected. She hadn’t known everything that had happened that night. Not until she saw the video. It had taken months to fully mend what cracked between them after that. To work through all the things they hadn’t said out loud. Eventually, they’d laughed about it—how messy and dumb they’d both been, how long it took them to admit what they actually felt for each other.

Now, years later, the video didn’t carry much weight on its own. It was old history. But the fact that the internet had dug it up and was using it to spin stories about their relationship pissed Azzi off. And, if she was honest, it scared her too. 

Comments flooded in:

"Is this the mystery girl from Dallas?”

"Looks like Paige’s type hasn’t changed."

"That girl apparently lives in Dallas now—just saying."

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Both Paige and Azzi were heading into the first round of the playoffs, and this was the kind of distraction neither of them could afford. But it was more than just bad timing, it was the fear that started to creep in underneath. For the first time, Azzi fully understood what Paige had been afraid of all along. The noise. The scrutiny. The way people hovered around their relationship, looking for cracks to expose, moments to twist, anything they could turn into a headline.

Azzi had always believed that love should be simple if it was real. But this made it feel anything but. Suddenly, she couldn’t stop thinking about how easily something private could be taken out of their hands. How quickly the world could take something honest and turn it into speculation, clickbait, drama. She feared what it could do to Paige, how it might shut her down again, make her retreat into the guarded version of herself Azzi thought they’d left behind. And underneath all of it was the deeper fear, what if the pressure of being seen, of being picked apart by strangers, slowly wore them down? What if even love wasn’t enough to hold up under that kind of weight?

She trusted Paige. That wasn’t the issue. But she didn’t trust the world around them, and now she was starting to understand why Paige never had either.

Paige tried to reach her that night.

First came the FaceTime call—Azzi’s screen lit up with Paige’s name and a photo of them from last summer, smiling in a grainy, sunlit selfie. Azzi stared at it until it stopped ringing. She couldn’t bring herself to answer. Her heart was still pounding too fast, her thoughts too tangled.

A few minutes later, Paige tried again. Another FaceTime. Then a call. Then a text: Can you talk? Another: Please.

Azzi read the messages over and over, thumbs hovering over the screen, her chest tight with guilt. She knew it was cruel not to answer. She knew Paige had nothing to do with the rumors, knew this wasn’t her fault. But still, Azzi felt like she was suffocating—trapped under the weight of new fears she hadn’t figured out how to name yet.

It wasn’t just the video. It was everything it stirred up. All the old insecurities she thought she’d buried. All the ways this love, so steady and solid most days, suddenly felt fragile under public scrutiny. She hated that she was letting it get to her. Hated that she was pulling away when she knew Paige needed reassurance just as much as she did. But she couldn’t fake calm. Not yet. Not when everything inside her felt like it was unraveling.

The phone buzzed again. Another message: I just want to hear your voice. That’s all.

Azzi closed her eyes. She wanted that too, more than anything. But her body stayed locked up, heart racing, jaw clenched, tears burning behind her eyes. What if Paige was reaching out just to retreat again? What if she needed Azzi to be the strong one, to pull her past the fear? Azzi wasn’t sure she could.

She set her phone to do-not-disturb and dropped it face down on the bed. Then she lay back against the pillows, arms crossed over her chest like she was bracing for impact.

She wasn’t angry at Paige. Not really. But she needed space. Space to think, to breathe, to stop feeling like everything they had built could be undone by a blurry video and a few careless comments online.

She would call Paige back. Just not until she knew what she was really afraid of.

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 12 - Watch You Work the Room

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Author's Note: Dean in a suit chapter for the whores (me. I'm the whores). Enjoy!

Chapter title from The (After) Life of the Party by Fall Out Boy

Word Count: 17.2k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You and Dean go on a mission, Sam breaks into some cars. Usual warnings.

Tags: Dean Winchester/Female Reader, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, angst, fluff, pining, action

Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

Read on A03!

“Are you-“ San cleared his throat from across the room, and Dean didn’t bother to look up. “Dude, are you reading?”

“You got eyes, Sammy?”

“You know I-“

“Use ‘em.”

Sam sighed. “I- Why are you reading?”

“Because I’m not fucking talking to you.” Dean grunted, glaring at Sam over the top of the book. “And it’s not like-“ He glanced at the bathroom door, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “How to get out of demon deals is going to be on the Cable TV.”

It wouldn’t be. Dean would know.

He’d already checked.

He’d been looking everywhere. He’d gone to libraries and bookstores, stolen Sammy’s laptop, and really started to fucking look. Anywhere that could be somewhere, with anything he could get his hands on. He’d called Bobby six times just this week, with possible leads that didn’t pan out, but could have.

Dean could get out of this. If he really fucking tried, he might make it out of this year alive.

Bobby and Sam had noticed the change. Bobby had been the one to bring it up—over the phone at midnight, when Dean was crouched in the parking lot—and Dean hadn’t been able to give a reason anyone wanted to hear.

“What’s the sudden change of heart, boy? You suddenly not borderline suicidal and stupid?” Bobby’s question had been firm, and Dean had run a hand over his face with a long breath.

“I was never suicidal-“

“You were all but rollin’ over and waitin’ to die, Dean. Now Sam’s tellin’ me you’ve been workin’ harder than he has. And I got a suspicion to what changed your tune, but I wanna hear ya’ say it.”

Dean had swallowed. “Bobby, there’s nothing going on-“

“Then why’re you defendin’ yourself-“

“Cause if I don’t, you’re gonna drive down here and put me on the barrel of a shotgun!”

“I’m only gonna do that if it’ss what I think.” Bobby had grunted. “And if you’re breakin’ her heart-“

“I’m not-“

“If you are.” Bobby had snapped, and Dean had flinched, pulling the phone a little further away from his ear. “You’re gonna end up a lot worse than shot. Demons are gonna have to find your body scattered ‘cross Montana.”

“Gee, thanks, Bobby-“

“I’ve been warnin’ you, Dean.” Bobby had let out a long breath. “Ain’t a single thing on this earth I wouldn’t do for that girl. And if what Sam’s sayin’ is true-“

Dean’s jaw had clenched, and he’d glowered at the pavement. “Don’t listen to what Sam’s saying. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

There had been a brief, static pause through the speaker, and Bobby had let out a long sigh. “You boys still fightin’, huh.”

Dean had just shrugged where Bobby couldn’t see it, and kept the conversation moving back to the empty lead they’d found yesterday.

And they were. Still fighting. But telling Bobby why would’ve led to another fight Dean knew he wouldn’t win, and he’d be stuck with two people helping him that he wanted to strangle.

Because Bobby would always choose Her. And Dean understood that. She was awesome, and cool, and he was still a little haunted by Bobby’s expression when he’d seen Her bleeding out and infected in Dean’s arms. 

But Sam was supposed to choose Dean. He wasn’t supposed to keep tight-lipped and shut down about whatever the hell had happened in that motel room. About why Dean had come back to find Her trying to strangle Herself, why she’d collapsed onto Dean’s chest with ragged breathes and a small, strange sound that had been echoing around Dean’s head ever since. 

Dean knew better than to push Her about what had happened. She’d said she didn’t want to talk about it, and that meant she wouldn’t talk about it. He could’ve tried to drag it out of Her with a fight, but that had never really worked before, and She’d looked so small. Fragile and panicked, almost feral as he’d pulled Her back into bed, and she’d fallen asleep in his arms.

He didn’t want to fucking lose that. He never wanted to lose Her. It had been the final straw on the whole if he died, he died thing. She might be able to live a life where Dean was only a pained memory, but he’d fucking carve out his heart from his chest and ship it to Lilith in a box before he became another thing that caused Her pain. He was finally something that mattered to Her, even if it wasn’t everything She was to him.

And Dean could admit She was a little more than everything to him. Just in his head, he could acknowledge that when he looked at Her and crashed down into the depth of all Her silver light and furious beauty, it was because She was just more. The most. 

And he wasn’t going to lose Her. Not now. If have the short end of three months left to live was offering Dean anything, if was fucking clarity. He wasn’t going to lose Her. 

But Sam was going to get himself fucking punched. Because Dean had cornered him that night while She’d been showering, and demanded to know what the hell had happened, and Sam had given him fucking nothing.

“It’s-“ Sam had swallowed, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing around the motel room for an escape route. There wouldn’t be one. Dean had been really fucking careful about that. “Nothing happened, dude-“

“Bullshit.” Dean had hissed. “We both know those things don’t just happen-“

“I mean, they kinda do-“

“But there’s always fucking something. And that,” Dean had pointed to the bathroom door, his eyes narrowed. “Was the worst one I’ve seen in damn years, Sam. What the hell did you say to her-“

“We- uh, we were just talking about the arrowhead. She lost it, and we needed to figure out what to tell Ruby-“

Dean had scoffed. “She would not fucking cry about Ruby-“

“I don’t know what you want to hear, Dean, that’s what happened-“

“No, it fucking didn’t.” Dean had taken a firm step forward, and Sam had a least had the decency to look worried. “You fucking said something, Sam, and I’m willing to bet my Baby that it was something bad if you won’t even damn tell me-“

“So ask her.” Sam had his raised his chin, crossing his arms. “If you think it was that bad, she’ll tell you, won’t she?”

Dean had gone rigid, started to weigh how valuable Sam’s nose was, and the door to the bathroom had opened.

The fight had been put on hold as She returned. But it hadn’t stopped. 

Sam kept refusing to tell Dean what the hell had happened. Dean couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask Her.. 

But yhey were both keeping something from Dean. Something about that fucking arrowhead, something about Ruby, something about Her episodes that Dean wasn’t allowed to know about. And he wanted to loathe Her for not trusting him, but She did. She slept at his side and let him walk one step behind Her, let Dean order Her food at diners when she was too invested in a book and always smiled at him when he walked into a room.

He couldn’t hate Her. That was another piece of the near-death clarity. Dean really needed to stop trying to hate Her, because he was bad at it. She was too beautiful to hate. It was like trying to hate the stars for shining so bright and not just moving into Dean’s hands to be held. 

And She did let Dean hold Her. She let Dean touch Her, causally and without cringing or running away. So Dean couldn’t hate Her. He wouldn’t trust himself with something delicate and important either. And maybe, if he made himself a useful enough tool for Her disposal, She would tell him. 

It wasn’t like he wasn’t keeping a worse secret from Her, anyway. 

And fucking Sam kept reminding him of that. Kept telling Dean that they’d far past the point where She needed to know, and every day that stuttered by was another one that She could’ve been helping, but wasn’t.

Dean didn’t want Her to help. He didn’t want this to be Her problem. And he knew She’d disagree, and likely try to stab Dean for keeping it secret at all, but he didn’t care. Dean had cursed himself to go even deeper than the mud. He’d doomed himself to end up surrounded by fire and pain for the rest of time. 

So no matter what Sam said, Dean wasn’t going to fucking tell Her. 

And if they did their damn jobs, the deal wouldn’t even matter, and Dean would be able to bring it up as a joke in a few years. He’d poke Her in the side and tell Her funny story about 2008, Princess, and She’d shove him but be glad he was alive, and then he’d wrap his arm around Her shoulders and haul her over his body, into a long and deep kiss because he’d be alive and she would’ve stayed-

Dean couldn’t think about that now. He’d figure it out after he fixed this, but he couldn't cross the line until then. When he did—because he would, it was becoming more and more obvious as Dean's will weakened and She only grew more beautiful that Dean would end up damning it all and crashing into Her in a way that stuck—it needed to be when he could keep Her. When he could prove to Her over and over that he was barely more than a weapon, but he was Her weapon and not one single shining, stardust-forged son of a bitch would ever serve Her the way Dean could. He'd send the rest of his damn life proving that She'd been right to—for reasons Dean would never understand—stay, when it would've been so easy for Her to leave him. Dean would've left himself, if he could. And he would've hated Her for abandoning to be as he should be, alone, but She fucking hadn't. 

And when She'd run, she'd always come back. To Dean. 

So he'd prove, when this was done, that She hadn't been wrong. He'd dedicate himself to it, and he wouldn't have to mold or break at all because She'd only ever stayed for him as he was.

He didn't understand it. He'd never understood it.

He was kind of done fucking trying to.

So all that was left to do was find his way out of the deal, and figure out how to keep Her near him all the damn time. 

It was why he was reading. She'd gone into the bathroom to get changed for their next case, and he didn't have anything better to do, so he'd grabbed one of Sam's huge, dusty books and started to comb through it. Going page by page like a nerd, looking for some sort of highlighted sentence that told him this would be fine. That was a neon red exit sign out of a crossroads deal, and promised that He wouldn’t have come so close to having Her, only to have everything crumble and fall through his fingers.

At this point, part of him wanted to tell Her. Not because it was a good idea, but because Sam was, annoying, right. She’d probably have this worked out in an afternoon, pointing to a single sentence Dean, Sam, and Bobby had already read but citing it’s completely different meaning, making them all feel like idiots and fixing it in a heartbeat.

But that only managed to solidify that Dean could not tell Her. He had to work this out himself, if he was going to try and pretend to be worthy of Her. If She did this for him, there’d be no reason for Her to stay. She didn’t need Dean. Nobody needed Dean. So he had to bank of Her wanting him, and why the hell would She want Dean if he needed Her, if he craved Her and followed Her everywhere like a dog that only took Her scraps and never offered anything but gnashing teeth and pointless labor- 

It wouldn’t be pointless. Dean would make sure the labor he did for Her meant something. That every bullet shot was a promise that, when She started to breathe to fast and clawed at Her skin, he’d take care of her, keep her safe, and serve her however she asked.

Even if that meant reading old books that gave him a headache, and wearing this stupid tie, and fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt like they were shackles. 

“She’s taking a while,” Sam muttered from his chair, frowning at the bathroom door. “You think she-“

“She’s fine.” Dean grunted, flipping another page. “It’s not like you’re in there to freak her out.”

Sam sighed. “Dean-“

“What.”

“We’ve talked about this-“

“I didn’t say shit,” he shrugged, shooting Sam a glare. “And she always takes this long. She’s doing girl shit, and unless you wanna get stabbed, I wouldn’t interrupt her.”

“What’s girl shit-“

“I dunno, I’m not a freakin’ girl-“

“Then how to do you know she’s doing girl shit-“

“Cause she walked in there with her fancy bag, and she’s gonna come out looking…” He shook his head, giving Sam a pointed look. “It’s fucking witchcraft, Sammy.”

Sam frowned. “You mean makeup?”

Dean didn’t know what he meant. Maybe that every time She’d go through Her whole girl routine, she’d come out looking pretty much the exact same, but with little features highlighted to make Her look damn near godlike. The witchcraft was mostly how the hell she knew how to use all the tubes and sprays and brushes that Dean had seen in Her hands. 

So Dean just glowered at Sam—trying to find a way to answer the question that didn’t sound stupid—when the door opened, and his heart stopped.

It made sense why She’d taken so long.

That was more than just some of Her features highlighted. Every already perfect part of Her had somehow been carefully enhanced, and Her hair seemed to be absorbing all the light in the room before throwing it out twice as bright, and Dean didn’t know where the hell She’d gotten that dress, but his brain was already memorizing every dip of the fabric and curve of Her body and-

“You look, uh-“ Sam cleared his throat, glancing at Dean with an almost worried expression. “Ready.”

“I am.” She shrugged like it was nothing, like She wasn’t half glowing, didn’t look exactly like that fallen star She always lit in the pit of his body, and Dean wasn’t going to lose his mind. “And look.” She raised the dress with a wide grin, revealing Her knife, strapped to her thigh. “You can’t even see it. I fucking love this dress.”

Dean loved it too. For very different, inappropriate reason that were going to keep him in his chair for at least a few more minutes.

“You’re, uh-“ He coughed, trying to force his voice back from a rasp into at least a casual drawl. “You gonna be able to run in those?”

He nodded to Her heels, and She rolled her eyes. 

“Of course I can, I’m not a child. Plus,” She kicked one heel off, catching it in Her hand with practice grace and pointing the stabby end at Dean with a grin. “That’s three weapons.”

Sam frowned. “Three-“

“Knife,” She pointed back to Her thigh, and Dean’s grip on his book became white-knuckled. “Two shoes. Are you reading?”

Dean blinked at Her, then scowled, slamming his book back onto the table. “Am I not allowed to broaden my horizons, Princess-“

“You are.” She hummed, crossing to room to stand only one tug of Her waist away, and She was so pretty, and She smelled so good- “But this is like, half in Latin. And about demons.” She raised Her brows at him. “Lilith?”

“I, uh- Yeah. Lilith.” Dean gave Her his best smirk, and pretended he couldn’t see Sam’s pointed glare. “I got bored, sweetheart. Figured I might as well try to get something before we headed out-“

“Which we should’ve done,” Sam jumped in, frowning at his watch. “Like, a half hour ago. We won’t be late, but I wanted to be early, while the crowd was small-“

She shook Her head, rubbing Her thumb over her palm. “No, that would be suspicious. Our backstory is already rocky, being early would draw attention we can’t afford. If we’re on time we’ll be just another pair of faces in the crowd. Easier to slip past everyone for Dean and I, easier for you to navigate around security. But we should go soon, are you guys-“

“Born ready,” Dean grinned at Her, pushing out of his chair and keeping his gaze firmly on Her face. He couldn’t look down at Her body—or else they’d be here another hour while he calmed himself down—and Her face was a better alternative, but She was still so fucking gorgeous, and looking at Dean, right at Dean, like She could really see him, but she wasn’t moving away-

Sam snorted. “You’ve been bitching about your tie for like, an hour-“

“It’s choking me.” He snapped, fidgeting with the knot around his neck. It was too much like a noose, too great a reminder of how stolen his every breath had become. “And it looks fucking stupid-“

“No, it doesn’t.” She said, waving Dean off with a hand as She scanned around their motel room, not noticing the way Dean’s heart started to burst out of his chest, how his gaze locked on Her like she was a magnet. “And you can take if off as soon as we’re out, but everyone’s going to be wearing a tie-“

“Why?” He half-whined, pulling at his shirt. It was white. Inappropriate for hunts, prone to being stained, almost see-through white. He felt like a piece of meat. 

She only shrugged, shooting him a small, world-ending smile. “Because, Deano. That’s what happens when we take cases with rich people.”

“I didn’t take this case,” he grumbled, letting Her start to herd him towards the door. “Sammy took it. I just got dragged along-“

“We can leave you at home,” She suggested, nodding to Sam as he grabbed his bag, and they all moved outside, “I can put on some TV, leave you some snacks until we get back-“

“Shut up.”

She giggled, pulling away from Dean as they reached the car and he wanted Her to come back. He didn’t want to do this case at all—it was a waste of time that any hunter could take care of, and a reminder that he would never have the gross luxury he was likely about to witness—but if he had to, he didn’t want to be away from Her side.

Not when She looked like that.

Dean had really never seen anything more beautiful. It was distracting. He looked in the rearview mirror far more than he needed to, but he couldn’t stop himself. Light would catch off of Her in all the best ways, and he’d fall a little further whenever She’d shift in her seat and her soft skin would almost shimmer in the dark. Like She was really just a spirit or vision or figment of Dean’s imagination, an incarnation of every single part of him that had ever dared to want something he shouldn’t be allowed to have. He’d think She was an early torture sent to fuck with him, but She was very real. 

He could smell Her perfume, and it was the sweet and sugary vanilla one She’d been using for years, but it still wasn’t strong enough to overpower the fruit. The fucking fruit. The only part of Her that haunted Dean more than her voice.

Her beautiful, musical, taunting voice that followed him on the wind, that called him down, down, down into wherever She’d stray or wander, and kept his attention on Her words, no matter how they confused him.

And sometimes, they’d really fucking confuse him.

“The Lord isn’t actually supposed to be in attendance, so as long as we remember our cover stories and keep out of larger conversations, this should be really simple.”

Dean frowned at the road. “What’d you mean, Lord. America doesn’t have lords, sweetheart, we got senators and the Kardashians-“

“It’s a British lord,” Sam explained, shrugging in his seat. “I told you already, dude, that’s the whole case-“

“What, killing him?”

“No, Dean-“

“Only if he gets in the way.” She cut Sam off with a grin, and Sam rolled his eyes.

“Don’t encourage him,” Sam said Her name in an almost scolding tone, and Dean had to bite down a chuckle as She wrinkled her nose in the backseat. “And no, Dean. We’re not killing anyone. This artifact is said to drive people to insanity, and it’s supposed to go on display at this party, so we need to get it out before the night ends in a half orgy, half bloodbath.”

Dean grimaced slightly. “Damn, Sammy, ease a guy into it-“

“I did, five hours ago, but you weren’t fucking listening to me-“

“Sam,” She said from the back, leaning over the bench with a wrinkled brow, and Her arm was half on Dean’s shoulder. He was going to fucking explode. “Did you ever work out what the artifact was-“

Sam shook his head. “I’ll keep trying while you guys get inside, but I think as long as neither of you touch it, we should be fine.”

She nodded slowly, and Dean could feel Her attention shift to him. “You don’t remember our cover, do you.”

He shot Her a glare, and Sam smirked like a little bitch in his seat. “You know, Princess, we need to have a conversation about how little freakin’ faith you have in me-“

“So you do?” She gave him a teasing smile—beautiful lips curling up and lashes fluttering slightly—and Dean felt his will fold in a heartbeat.

“No.” He muttered, scowling out at the street. She couldn’t be that pretty and be Herself. It short-circuited his whole fucking brain. “I was reading.”

She hummed, propping Her chin on the back of the bench. “That can be dangerous.”

“Shut up-“

“Are you paying attention now?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m kind of a captive audience, sweetheart-“

“You could turn up the radio-“

“You see me reaching for the dial?”

He dared a glance at Her, raising his brows in a silent challenge, and he didn’t know how to deal with the bright, satisfied smile on Her face. It was mesmerizing, in the shifting and flashing lights of the highway, with Her hair perfectly framing her face and her makeup making Her look like a fucking goddess and this wasn’t fair. Dean wanted to grab Her and tangle his whole body into Her’s, forever, until he was always glowing, always full, always alive-

If Sam hadn’t coughed, he might have lost his mind entirely and crashed the damn car.

Dean turned back to the road and cleared his throat, his grip on the wheel almost painful and the shadows of the night only barely hiding his need for Her in his pants.

“Hit me, Princess.”

“You’re Dean Bishop, and I’m your wife,” She said Her own name, and Dean was going to crash the car. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t offer him that thought, because now it would plague him forever. “These people won’t have any idea who we are, so we can use our real names. You,” she poked his arm, shooting him a blinding smile that pulled at his own lips. “Work in stocks. And nobody knows what that means, so if people ask, just start saying words that sound like they’re related to money. You met Lord Appleton-“

Dean snorted. “Appleton?”

“Yep. British.” She shrugged. “You met him at Oxford. Oh, and I’m just a trophy wife.”

Sam sighed, shaking his head. “I still don’t think trophy wife is a good cover-“

“This is an old money, occult-obsessed family of fucking weirdos. Trust me, Sam.” She let out a long breath that stuck to Dean, crawling over his skin as Her voice dropped from a confident drawl to something heavy. “They won’t see women as people. Trophy wife will work.”

Sam shot Dean look he didn’t miss—he knew it was mirrored on his own face—but didn’t acknowledge, either. 

It was another thing Dean would work out when this was over. He knew Her family was old money. And he’d be consumed by the way She’d said that with an almost tragic, haunted certainty, but he’d have to live to fix that for Her. 

He would fix it. 

But after. 

For now, he needed to get this dumbass case over with, so he could go back to looking for his out.

The plan would be simple. Sammy would work out where the artifact was being kept—and, ideally, what it was—and She and Dean would slip out of the party and grab it the moment they had the chance.

Until then, they’d just be wandering through a crowd of rich douchebags, waiting for Sammy to do his job.

They stopped a few blocks away from the Lord’s mansion so Sam could switch into the driver’s seat and Dean could move to the back. She said rich people didn’t drive themselves, and this way Dean could keep Baby out of the hand of some random fucking asshole trying to park his car, and in the hands of Sam. 

“Listen,” he hissed as Sam pulled up to the entrance, leaning over the bench with a scowl. “I see one scratch, one stain, one fucking spot of dirt-“

“You’ll kill me, Dean, I know.” Sam said Her name, and his voice was not nearly afraid enough for how Dean was promising to dismember him. “I’ll text you when I have the location, and I’m going have to park close to the building to get a connection to their security system, so if you need me-“

“I’ll call.” She nodded, smoothing out Her dress as she frowned out the window. “De, are you- wait-“

Dean frowned as She leaned down, shifting through Her bag. He could see the shape of Her waist and small of Her back, and he wanted to touch Her-

They were on a case. They were working. He needed to keep himself the fuck together.

“What’s up-“

“Here.” She sat back up, dropping something in his hand and starting to move Her rings around on Her fingers. “For our cover.”

It was a wedding band. She was giving Dean a wedding band, and it was for their cover, but it felt pretty damn real—catching gold in the light and cool on his palm—and he was going to fucking die, from this alone and nothing else-

“You, uh, you just have these?”

She shrugged, sliding a matching one onto Her own finger. “I’m prepared, Winchester. Ready?”

He was not ready. No part of Dean was ready for how right that ring felt when She was wearing a matching one, for how She felt when she hooked her elbow into his and gave him a perfectly sweet and adoring smile—maybe for the show of the other partygoers, but still seeming so real—and for how She looked in full, shimmering light of candles and chandeliers. 

Heavenly.

There wasn’t another word for it. Dean didn’t believe in heaven, but he sure as fuck believed in Her, and that was the only word that came close to describing it. How the world more than moved for Her. How it was designed for Her, as if everything had only ever been made to make her more beautiful, more happy, more bright. 

She was so fucking bright. 

He was just a shadow in Her wake. Dean was leading her through the crowd, and he was really just a fucking stain or shell of a body, clinging to Her glory and there to spill blood in Her name. And he didn’t hate that. For what he’d been born, what he’d done, how he should’ve been stuck in the mud for the rest of his life and never spared Her glance, let alone Her trust and loyalty—because Her hand had move to hold his arm and Her body was leaning into his side, as if she was trying to shield Herself from the world with Dean and Dean alone—he knew he was long gone from hating Her for how simply awesome she was.

But that didn’t mean he could hate everything else about this. Hate how this crowd was filled with people who could be worthy of Her, who could steal Her attention and whisk Her away from Dean side with promises of the riches and luxury She deserved. She should have. She should be treated like a Queen, and all these assholes where literal fucking royalty—wearing dresses and suits that probably cost more money than Dean had ever seen, but still didn’t compare to the way Her dress looked like it was a second, colorful and shining skin—so why the hell would She ever stay with Dean. 

Maybe this would be the straw. It wouldn’t be a fight about a lie, or the consequences of the deal, or a fatal injury that tore Her away from Dean. It would be one of these suit and tie sons of bitches—eyeing Her on Dean’s arm like She was nothing more than food when She was a fucking predator, a force of nature that could probably kill them with a spoon—offering Her comfort hunting could never provide, riches Dean would never have, and most of the world to Her on a silver platter, and Dean would never be able to blame Her for choosing them.

If it was up to him, She’d have all the world. It was made for Her. It was only right that it belonged to Her too.

“How expensive do you think that champagne is?” She whispered, nodding to the sleek, polished bar, and Dean shot Her an amused look. 

“You drinking now, Princess?”

She rolled Her eyes, elbowing him in the ribs. “I’m bored. And we could probably buy like, a fucking house or something with just one bottle of it.”

Dean knew that face. Narrowed eyes as She bounced slightly on Her feet, watching the barkeeper with an intensity that could brand someone—Dean would know—and a spark in Her eyes that was almost like a flaring warning sign.

He ducked his head to mutter in Her ear, and forced himself to ignore how She shivered slightly against him. “You distract him, I’ll take three bottles. We’ll head to Vegas and triple our money.”

She turned to him with an adorably wrinkled nose, and fuck, She was so close. Dean could see Her pretty flush, and every undertone of Her skin, and all the hidden colors in Her eyes-

“We aren’t going to Vegas, De.”

“Not until after we steal the champagne-“

“We’re not stealing the champagne-“

“You were thinking about it.” He smirked at Her, and there it was. Hitched breath. “I know you, Princess, you were ready to kick that guys ass and run off with his fancy bottle-“

She scoffed. “I was not going to run off.”

“Yeah, you were-“

“I would’ve taken you with me,” She snapped, kicking Dean’s shin lightly. “It’s not running off if I stay with you.”

She’d won. Whatever fake argument they’d been having, She’d just won by a damn mile, because all Dean could do was stare at Her. She couldn’t keep just saying things like that. Over and over and over, like Her staying with Dean was a given, like he was as easy for Her as she was for him.

“You, uh,” he cleared his throat, trying to force his head back into focus. They had a job to do, and it needed to be done so Dean could get back to his real work. To finding a way to keep Her. “You want a drink?”

She glances at the bar, and shook Her head. “I-“

“I saw a Pina Colada on the drink list.” He raised his brows, offering Her a small grin. “I can make them mix it without the fun stuff.”

“The- Oh.” She swallowed, but nodded. “Yes, please. Do you want me to- I can go find some food?”

Son of a bitch, She was perfect.

Dean nodded, forced his body to detach from Her’s and moved to the bar. He managed to get through the order without tugging at his tie or losing Her in his periphery, right up until they served his drink, he turned his back for one damn second, and She was gone. 

He couldn’t see Her. It was a crowded room, and everyone was trying to take up more space than was owed, but Dean couldn’t see Her.

He grabbed the drinks with barely a nod in the bartender’s direction and started to shove through the crowd as his heart began to pound in his throat. She wasn’t in danger. Every bit of Dean’s logical brain knew She wouldn’t be in danger, because this was not a place where danger would pass unnoticed and She was more dangerous than vulnerable, but he still kept envisioning Her on fire on the ceiling, or bloodless and pale and choking on a green-eyed demons blade or Her own hand. Every damn time he’d ever lost Her had been after he’d left, during a fight or to buy something to just to grab fucking ice or coffee or- 

She was fine. Dean was just a pathetic, clingy idiot, and She was fine.

She was more than fine. She was cornered at the long table—full of food that looked more fancy that actually edible—by a man with a slick haircut, a straight nose, and suit that likely hadn’t been stolen from a rental store by his little brother. Haircut was flirting with Her. Leering over and smirking down at Her, angling his body to half cover her’s and matching her every pace down the table as she filled her plate-

One plate. Why did she only have one plate. 

Dean couldn’t move. He was truly fucking weak, truly fucking selfish. He wasn’t moving to take Her back to his side like Dad would’ve told him to—you see a pretty girl, you make sure she knows it, son—but his stomach was twisting because this was it, he’d have to go back to Sammy and tell him She’d gone to be mixed with diamonds and sand and beauty like She deserved-

Haircut said something, and reached for Her arm, and Dean felt fucking sick but he was frozen-

She shrugged Haircut’s touch away, turning to where Dean could see Her profile and saying something he could hear, but he still understood. Her smile was too sweet, too careful, too measured. It wasn’t the wide, happy one She’d always offer Dean that made him crash further into Her.

It was the one She used on every case. Sincere until you knew Her. 

And Haircut didn’t know Her, so he moved closer once more, and She took a step back. Held up Her hand for Haircut to see, scanned over the crowd, and met Dean’s eyes with a wide smile. 

A real smile.

And he couldn’t stop himself from grinning back.

It was like he’d just gone through a factory reset. His legs moved on their own, pulling him back to Her. He leaned down and kissed the side of Her head, passed Her the Pina colada, and grinned at Haircut like he’d won the fucking lottery.

He had. He’d kissed Her. Not fully, but more than She’d allow anyone else to. 

“Hey, dude.” Dean extended his now free hand to Haircut, and he didn’t think most rich people said dude, but he also had Her and she looked like She’d been made to be here, so he wasn’t too worried about blowing their cover. “Dean Bishop. I see you met my lovely wife?”

Haircut mumbled something Dean didn’t really care about and excused himself, and this case was awesome. The champagne was kind of shit, and Sammy was taking way to damn long on the detail they needed, but She was staring at Dean with wide, pretty eyes, drinking Her Pina colada with Her lips wrapped nearly around the straw, and swaying slightly on Her feet, so Dean got to wrap his arm around Her waist to keep her steady, and he never wanted to go back to normal hunts again.

“What a douchebag,” he grinned down at Her, jerking his head to where Haircut had disappear. “You think his hair was real?”

She swallowed, Her voice softer than usual and sparking right through Dean’s whole body. “I- What?”

“His hair, Princess-“

“I heard you,” She frowned, passing Her already empty glass to a passing waiter. “Why wouldn’t it be real-“

“I dunno,” He shrugged, shooting Her a wink. “I’m thinking we could start a real bet, though.“

She smiled, Her body relaxing slightly in Dean’s arms, and he’d never seen anything better. “Stop thinking, De.” She traded Dean’s glass for Her plate, but held the arm around Her on her hip. “You’re bad at it.”

Dean’s grin was almost painful on his face, and if anyone else had said that the words would’ve stung, but it was Her. She said them with a teasing smile, and She was so close, and he knew that nothing hateful or mocking behind them. If She was striking to kill, he’d know it. He’d feel it, cracking up his spine. And She never bit unprovoked. Every time they’d struck each other like that it had been because Dean was a fucking idiot, and couldn’t hold something beautiful as She was and not ruin it. Couldn’t have something so good and destroy it. 

But he had Her—in the moist vague and loose sense of the word, Dean had Her—now. For at least this night, where She was right against him and had chosen to be there, Dean had Her. 

He’d be damned, further down than he already was, if he broke that. 

“You, uh,” he cleared his throat, glancing down to the plate in his hands. “This all for me?”

She hummed, nodding thoughtlessly as She started to sweep over the room. “Do you think Sam will be mad if we start to just search the mansion-“

“No.” He squeezed his hold on Her, and She looked up at him with wide eyes. “But I’m not letting you just fuck around, Princess, I’m taking this job seriously-“

She gave him a flat, amused look. “You just want to party, Winchester.”

“Gotta pass the time somehow-“

“I can search alone, you know-“

“And there’s no damn way I’m letting you.” Dean shoved the plate under Her nose, hold her gaze. “Eat a fancy grape, sweetheart. We’ll move when Sammy calls you.”

She narrowed Her eyes at him, but grabbed a grape with a pouting frown that made Dean feel things. “You think you let me do anything?”

“No,” he shrugged. “But I could tackle you and stop you from wandering. Gimme some of my champagne.”

“Get your own fucking champagne-“

Dean drawled Her name, giving Her an amused grin. “You’re holding my glass.”

She flushed, glanced between the champagne in Her hand and Dean’s hand on Her hip, and Dean was ready for her to shove him away. He was braced for it, for how he’d have to grab his glass as She shoved it into his hands, but he’d need to keep full balance because She’d—hopefully—loop their arms back together and drag him after Her, wherever She wanted to go-

Dean almost fell to his knees as She rolled Her eyes, muttered something under Her breath he couldn’t make out, and pressed Dean’s glass up to his lips. All while holding his fucking gaze, glaring at him like he’d broken something or done something incredibly wrong, and keeping his arm around Her body.

She stayed pressed right against Dean, and he didn’t need to damn champagne. He could get drunk on just Her, shining in the light and there and real and fucking intoxicating.

He didn’t know how he’d gotten here.

He never wanted to leave.

“You wanna stand in a corner and make fun of people?” She raised Her brows, taking the glass back from Dean’s mouth, and if the hellhounds came for him here, he’d die a happy man. 

She was so fucking awesome.

“Aw,” he smirked at Her as he said Her name, let the high feeling of Her overtake his body, and pressed anther kiss to the side of Her head. “I thought you’d never ask.”

She rolled Her eyes, but there it was. Flush. Hitched breath. Parted lips. 

“I’m not asking you to the prom, Winchester.” She muttered, starting to move them through the crowd but still holding on to Dean. “Calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm, sweetheart. And I’ll have you know we would’ve killed it at the prom-“

She snorted. “Who’s we?”

“C’mon, Princess.” He wiggled his brows at Her. “You’ve got the bossy, hot, popular girl thing down-“

“I-“ She stared at him, and Dean couldn’t fully read the expression on Her face. “That’s- Never say that sentence again. To anyone.”

 “Yes, ma’am.” Dean frowned at Her as they stopped in a corner, scanning over Her hardened, beautiful features and tightened brow. “Did you go to prom?”

“I didn’t go to high school, De.”

“I- what?”

She shot him an incredulous look. “You knew that. I was a runaway, my family had a bounty on my head, I couldn’t exactly enroll in Sioux Falls public school system.”

“But you’re…” Dean trailed off, his words bubbling and dying in his throat as he searched for words he didn’t have. She was brilliant, and clever, and a genius who he’d bet on in every situation, She spoke so fast and with such power, She was the only person he knew who was close to as smart as Sammy, and that kid was a fucking genius. “You’re you.”

“I’m aware.” She drawled. “But I learned most of what I know by watching PBS and reading. I got bored. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house, it was like-“

“Bobby didn’t let you leave the house?”

“I didn’t let me leave the house.”

“Cause of, uh,” he cleared his throat, watching Her carefully. “The sickness?”

“Yeah.” She mumbled, frowning at Her own hands. “The sickness.”

“Did you go to like, elementary school?”

“I went up to the first half of third grade. Then I ran away.”

Dean nodded slowly, and he wasn’t sure where the line was. She’d never told him much about Her family. She’d never had the chance, after that fight in Colorado. He’d never grown the balls to push Bobby on it, and he knew that wouldn’t have worked anyway. 

All Dean knew was that Bobby had found her wandering. That She’d been sick. That whoever Her family was, they were hard to speak of. 

And he wouldn’t ruin the chance to hear about them. For Her to trust him like that, with skeletons She seemed to try and ignore and bury, but kept clawing out of the dirt to make Her scratch at Her skin and pick at Her nails.

Dean bumped Her hand with his plate, stilling Her picking without a word, and just watched Her. She’d say what She wanted, and Dean would—for Her—shut the fuck up.

“I, uh,” She cleared her throat, Her gaze fixed on a button of Dean’s shirt. “They were a lot like this. These people. Kind of worse, actually. A lot worse. And I- I still don’t understand most of it. Most of what they did, or why they did it, or-“ She took a shaking breath, running Her thumb over the scar on Her palm. “I just- I knew- I know it was wrong. That was why I got out, and- I don’t know. They were-“

She took another, almost too shallow breath, and there was a darkened expression on Her face. That wrinkle in Her brow as her fingers flexed against her and her hands shifted slightly, moving up before flinching down.

Dean needed to mend this. Whatever was making Her look like a hollow shadow, because She was supposed to be lit up from within and he couldn’t fucking stand to see Her in pain. 

He set down his plate without a thought, squeezed his arm around Her waist, and ran his thumb down the bridge of Her nose until the wrinkle was well and truly gone. Until She was blinking softly at Dean, still not smiling but nowhere near tearing at whatever seams held Her together. 

Dean gave Her a small grin. “You wanna play a game?”

She blinked at him for a second, but Dean knew She understood. That he’d heard enough, and She never needed to say more if She didn’t want to. Even if Dean was going to spend a long time—when he finally had some of it to spare—trying to track down Her family and introduce them to the barrel of his gun, She’d never have to say another damn word about them. Dean would stay here, with Her, no matter what.

She relaxed against his side, returning his grin with teasing words. “No, De. You never have real games-“

“This is a real game,” he shrugged. “Winner takes all-“

“What’s all?”

“Whatever they want.” He winked at Her, and she shook her head.

“I’m not betting my favor, Winchester. And you haven’t even said the fucking game-“

“I’m getting there. See all those assholes?” Dean jerked his head out to the crowd, and She nodded with a frown. “We’re gonna watch them, place our bets on their lives, and then go work out whatever we can. Closest bet wins.”

“Their lives?“ She stared at him, shaking Her head. “What-“

“Names, occupations, personal lives?” Dean suggested, and She nodded slowly. 

“Personal lives like marital status and kids?”

“Sure. Same first letter counts for the name guess-“

“And most correct guesses wins.” She finished. “We pose as the married couple getting to know people until we work out the information.”

Dean nodded, and a smile crept over Her gorgeous face.

“What are we betting?”

Dean knew what he wanted. It was an old desire. One that would be stuck on his brain until it was fulfilled. “I win, I get to hear you sing, Princess.”

“You- why?”

He shrugged, just shooting her a wink. Flush. Breath. Lips. “How about you?”

“I-“ She paused, a small smile crossing Her face, and raised Her chin. “I want to dance. Together.”

Dean scoffed. “No. I don’t-“

“That my bet, Winchester.” She raised Her pinky, giving him a pointed look. “Take it or leave it.”

He’d take it. He was fucking pissed about it, but it was Her, so Dean would take it in a heartbeat. 

He rolled his eyes, but hooked his pinky through Her’s.

“Bossy-“

“That’s rude, Dean.” She fluttered Her eyes at him, and if She wanted Dean mobile and functional, she needed to stop fucking doing that. “No way to talk to your fake wife.”

He shrugged, even as his traitorous fucking heart started to pound in his ears. “You’re the one who fake married me.”

“No,” She let out a dramatic sigh, pouting up at him “The man I fake married would’ve never called me bossy, you’ve changed, and I’m leaving you for the pool boy-“

Dean pinched Her side, grinned at the high squeak that escaped Her lips. ”You’re having too much fun with this, Princess.“

She shrugged. “Well, my husband’s neglecting me, I need to find fun wherever I can-“

“I think,” he drawled, leaning down slightly, unable and unwilling to stop himself. He was drowning in Her. Crashing into Her. So fucking close and for the first time he didn’t feel like She was going to vanish into air, and he could fucking smell Her it was a drug. “You will find that I’m the funnest son of a bitch here. I think you’re gonna forget about your pool boy by the time the night is over, sweetheart.”

“You-“ She swallowed, staring at Dean with slightly glossy eyes, and right fucking there. “Funnest isn’t a word.”

“Uh huh.” He smirked at Her, tilting his head with a grin. “You ready for target one?”

A small, pouting frown crossed Her face, and whatever spell Dean had managed to pull off there vanished in a second. “Why do you get to choose the first target-“

“Because it’s my game.”

“But-“

“Nope. Target one.” Dean pointed over the crowd to a man wearing what seemed to be a bowler hat, grinning down at Her. “Richard. Single. Failed supervillain.”

She giggled, “That’s not a real job, Winchester-“

“It is to me. Your move, your highness.”

Her eyes narrowing in focus, and Dean had a sudden feeling he’d made a mistake with this game. “Jonathan. Married but she’s not here, she’s home with the kids. Banker.”

They moved up to the man, acting drunk and dumb and asking carefully questions as if they were interrogating a vic, and She’d been on the money. 

James. Married with two kids. Not a banker, but not a failed super villain either. 

And Dean knew he’d made a mistake, because She was amazing at this. She was wiping the fucking floor with him, and Dean was starting to suspect everyone here was in on it. That She was somehow saying things that hadn’t been true an hour ago, but then She’d demand they were and they just… would be. She said everything with that mind-numbing, easy confidence like it was fact, and Dean was pretty sure if she looked him in the eyes and said the sun is actually blue, Deano, he’d believe it. Then he’d wake up in the morning tomorrow, and the sun would be blue.

And She won. By a fucking mile. They stopped in a small corner of the room, and didn’t even bother to compare scores because She’d won. And Dean could’ve said he was just off his game, but She was smiling at him and bouncing on Her feet, looking so fucking happy, and he didn’t know how to do anything but stare at Her.

She’d called him Her husband almost a hundred times tonight. 

It was going to haunt him, well past the grave.

“You owe me a dance,” She said, watching Dean like She always had, like he was worth looking at, and Dean would give Her anything.

“Guess so,” he took a long step forward, smirking at Her, and if he played this right he’d be able cast that spell on Her again. Make Her feel half of what he did, when he was trapped in Her orbit with no desire to escape. “You think you’ll be able to keep up?”

“Keep up-“

“I don’t like to dance,” Dean drawled Her name, leaning down. Just a little further down. Flush. Breath. Lips. “But I can. I’m gonna blow your mind, Princess-“

The ring of Her phone cut through the air, and they blinked at each other. Stuck time for a brief, infinite moment before She cleared Her throat, and outstretched Her hand.

Her phone was in Dean’s pocket. 

He didn’t remember putting it there. But he also hadn’t really been thinking about anything but Her.

“It’s Sam,” She muttered, frowning at the screen when he passed it to Her. “I’m gonna, uh-“

Dean nodded, fidgeting with his cuffs as he watched her, and something had grown. Dean wasn’t losing his mind, something had become suddenly heavy and potent in the air, and he knew She could at least feel that too. She was leaning forwards into him, Her fingers moving in an awkward motion on the screen where She was always so deliberate and careful, and She may have never felt the pull but Dean was damn sure She could feel this-

“Hey, what’s-“ She frowned into the air, and Dean could hear Sam’s slightly muffled voice over the speaker. 

He frowned, lowering his voice to breathe and holding Her gaze as he mouthed at Her. “What-“

She held up a finger, giving Dean a stern glare as she spoke to Sam. “Yeah, I guessed that, where-“

Sam started talking again, and Her brow drew into that adorable, concerning wrinkle.

“Are you-“ Sam said something, and She sighed. “Okay. Get the car started, we’ll probably have to make a run for it-“

“A run for it-“

She kicked Dean in the shin as Sam snapped something through the speaker, and She nodded, dropping the phone from Her mouth.

“Sam says to shut up.”

Dean scowled. “Tell him to shut up.”

She grinned, and raised the phone back to Her mouth. “Dean says you should shut up.”

Sam grumbled something, and Her gaze never broke from Dean’s as Her grin grew.

“Sam says you’re a child.”

“He’s the child-“

“Dean says you’re a child-“ 

Sam snapped, and She rolled her eyes.

“I am not encouraging him- Yeah, fine, tell me.”

Dean moved a step closer, trying to overhear what Sammy was saying to Her, but she went tense, and he froze.

“Sam.” Her voice had dropped to a firm, almost harsh tone, and that was never a good sign. “There’s no way- There’s not-“

Whatever Sam said sounded like an apology, and She shook her head, frowning at the air.

“Then I’m not-“

Another pause for Sam to speak. Dean was going to lose his mind.

She let out a long breath, the wrinkle fully on Her brow. “You’ve got to be fucking me.”

———

There were more of them. You’d destroyed the arrowhead and almost lost your mind over it, but there were more of them. 

Those stupid fucking solemn oath weapons. Jo had said there was an arsenal of them, but they were supposed to be rare. That had been a big part of your fight with Sam, after Dean had eased you back together and you’d fully adapted to Sam knowing.

“What about the arrowhead?” Sam had snapped, his voice hushed even though Dean was out getting food. “You just destroyed something that’s like, thousands of years old, and irreplaceable, do you not even care-“

“No.” You’d hissed. “I don’t, Sam, you know why? It was fucking dangerous, and we don’t need any more of that.”

“They’re rare!” He’d snapped, narrowing his eyes. “That might have been the only one discovered in our lifetime-“

“Good. I hope that’s true.” You’d raised your chin, not breaking your ground, and the fight had, eventually, waned off. 

Sam wouldn’t tell Dean. He was still a little pissed you’d broken the arrowhead, but as the weeks had passed and he still hadn’t told Dean, you’d decided he could know more. What the arrowhead did. What the episodes were, and everything you knew about the green demons, and why you couldn’t risk anything. Nothing could be a game, or a gamble, or a chance. You had to place bets you knew you’d win. 

Otherwise everything that was already hanging on such a thin fucking line would fall apart, and you lose Dean.

You couldn’t lose Dean. He’s annoyed that you and Sam won’t talk about the episode in the motel, but he’s still here. Still sharing your bed, in a way that’s not everything but still more than you’d ever dreamed. Handsome in the light of the party and making your knees weak, grinning at you when he says a joke, laughing at your side and making every Silver.

And you’d never said it, but Sam still knows. You can see it in his eyes—when he looks between you and Dean shoving and teasing each other with an odd expression—that Sam’s painfully aware that when you’d described everything to him, you’d glossed over Dean for a reason. Because he’s more. He’s golden and peaceful to exist in the gravity of, and you couldn’t lobotomize him out of you if you tried.

You can’t lose Dean. 

And there shouldn’t have been another solemn oath weapon.

But here you are, moving silently through the halls with Dean one pace behind you, and you keep checking over your shoulder that he’s still there, because you can never fucking get what you want. 

Dean hisses your name, grabbing your wrist and stopping you in your steps. “Sam said left.”

“I-“ You glance around the abandoned area, and shake your head. “He said left after the big cat painting-“

“Yep.” Dean points back down the hall, right to an oil painting of a massive, winged lion. “You’re off your game, Princess-“

“Shut up.”

You stomp past him, your nails digging into your skin, and he’s right. Your head is spinning around Dean’s warm, almost caring eyes on yours at the party and the fact that these weapons were supposed to be fucking rare, and you’re distracted.

Sam had been right. These things were supposed to be once in a lifetime. Not pop up every other month at the worst possible times, ruining your perfectly good chance to crash further into Dean, to make everything about him a little more permanent that just a mark of him on everything you see and a spiderweb of pure, iridescent light in your body. 

That was something you haven’t told Sam. Or Jo. Definitely not Bobby. Since the motel room, since the fractured pieces sealed back together and Dean stayed, the White hasn’t been aching and pulling for him. The pain is still strong and blinding and horrible, but the Darkness seems to have soothed by the light of Dean that moves through your whole body like blood.

You don’t know what it is. The spiderweb. You don’t really have time to figure it out, and it’s terrifying and amazing. It hums and refracts around all the time, and sings when Dean is near, and when he’s gone there’s no anguish or whining plea to be near him again. It like he’s stuck into it, and every bit of you is assured that he will come back. Dean, physically, may come and go, but he always comes back. He may glower and grumble about pointless things, and leave the motel with Sam to research Lilith without you, but he always comes back.

It’s like he’s faithful. He’s not even yours, but he’s still a geyser that you always know with burst up with cooling water and shifting colors in the sunlight, and he’ll come back. 

At least you have that. If you can’t have reasonable lack of dangerous weapons and one moment without some kind of pain in your life, at least you have Dean.

Still a pace behind you, walking in perfectly matching time with your steps and keeping his voice hushed as he says your name.

“You sure you-“

“I know where I’m going, Winchester.” You shoot him a glower, and he just shrugs. 

“Okay.”

“What does that mean-“

“It doesn’t mean anything. I’m just saying okay-“

“No, you said okay-“

Dean grunts your name, taking a large step forward until he’s right at your side, looking down at you with an annoyingly amused expression. “Deep breath, Princess. I said okay. And if you’re wrong, I’ll just pick you up and take you wherever Sammy said the, uh- Thing is.”

It’s impossible not to lean a little into his side when he’s grinning at you like that. Like it’s easy, and nothing is really all that wrong in the world, and he does trust you. You still haven’t told him what you are, and why this is making you lose your mind, but Dean trusts you and that’s going to kill you more than any weapon could.

And he’s baiting you. Giving you a reason to spar back and forth with him, and not dwell on how fucking annoying this is.

It’s never hard to fall for him. It’s impossible not to, when he’s all but asking. 

You raise your brows at him, your mouth pulling up slightly. “The thing?”

Dean shrugs, his attention returning to the hallway as he walks at your side. “You didn’t freakin’ tell me what it is, sweetheart, and I’m not a mind reader-“

“It’s a-“ You sigh, sorting out every word carefully before you speak. “Sam thinks it’s like the arrowhead.”

“Like the arrowhead?”

You hum, nodding slowly. “Same kind of weapon. He said it looks similar, on the camera feed, and the event invitation had a picture-“

“Invitation?” Dean frowns. “I didn’t see an invitation-“

“That’s cause we’re party crashers, De, we didn’t get an invitation-“

“Then how-“

You shrug, shooting Dean an amused look. “Sam can be sneaky. I think he might have broken into some cars.”

Dean snorts. “Don’t know how he ever manages stealth cases, he’s a freakin’ mammoth-“

“It’s easy to commit crimes when no one’s watching,” you shrug, bumping your shoulder into Dean’s with a grin. “That’s why we’re doing so well.”

He rolls his eyes. “And I thought we were just a good team-“

“Two things can be true, Deano. And Sam-” You scan around the hall with a frown. “Do you remember if he said left or right?”

“Right.” Dean’s hand rests on your back, turning you in the right direction as he shoots you a wink. “I thought you were leading us, Princess-“

“Shut up.”

“Bos- Shit-“

Dean groans as you elbow him in the gut, and you can’t stop the giggle from escaping your lips. 

“Do you want to hear about the artifact or not?”

“I thought we were done talking about it,” he grumbles, his hand finding your back once more, almost like a fucking magnet. “C’mon, we can’t stall.”

You shrug, but let Dean keep moving you down the hall. You’d let him move you anywhere. “I wasn’t the one stalling-“

“Artifact, sweetheart. What else is so damn important for me to know about-“

“If you don’t want to know, just say-“

Dean grunts your name, shooting you a glare, and you fucking giggle again.

This is fucking serious. This is, in several ways, your worst nightmare. But Dean’s here, and he’s adorable and touching you and here, and you can’t stop giggling. Not as the spiderweb seems to cling to every drop of his attention and grow stronger, and your head starts to feel light and easy as the pain eases, and the world blurs to Silver.

And Dean’s just watching you. Not snapping for you to focus or get it tougher. Just moving you down the hallway and scanning from door to door, his hand still on your back, and small grin pulling at his face. 

His gaze flicks between two doors, his brow furrowing slightly, and you tug on his arm.

“Three more doors.” You say, angling your head down the hall. “It might be locked, but I can pick it-“

Dean shakes his head. “I’ll just break it down-“

“Do not break it down, Dean.”

“Ooh, Dean.” He shoots you a wink, and you meld a little further into his touch. “You’re serious-“

“Shut up or you get elbowed again.” You mutter, he opens his stupidly pretty mouth with shining eyes, and you wrinkle your nose at him. “You say bossy, and you get stabbed.”

He chuckles—the sound rolling through your whole body—and looks back around the hall. “You actually gonna tell me about the artifact, Princess, or am I just that charming and distracting?”

He is. 

He doesn’t get to know that.

“Sam says we’re not supposed to touch it.” You hum, hitching up your dress as you move over the awfully dusty hallway carpet. “It’s- He said it’s like the arrowhead because it has all the same writing, and looks about the same age, and that means it’s dangerous. I brought a napkin.”

Dean shoots you an odd look. “Where-“

You reach over, patting his suit jacket, and he scowls.

“You know, sweetheart, in another life you’re a fantastic criminal-“

You grin at him. “I’m a fantastic criminal now.”

“So you are a criminal?” He smirks, stopping you in front a large, polished, wooden door. “Years of saying you’re not stealing shit, and-“

“Stabbed, Winchester. Gonna get stabbed.” 

He laughs, loud and echoing through the empty hall, and you’re too drunk on the sound to remind him you’re supposed to be sneaking around. You just roll your eyes, pull out the bobby pin you’d kept in your dress, and drop to your knees in front of the door.

“No touching anything.” You remind him as you work the door, looking up with your best stern expression. “I’m serious.”

“Yeah- uh. No touching. Got it.” Dean shifts on his feet, rubbing his neck and suddenly looking very uncomfortable, and you frown at him. 

“What’s wrong with you.”

He shrugs. It’s not convincing. “Nothing, Princess-“

“Dean.”

“I said nothing-“

“Liar.” You hum, the lock clicks, and you grin up at him. “Ready?”

He blinks at you, nodding, and you tilt your head at him.

“De, you’re being weird-“

“Just open the damn door.” He grumbles, fidgeting with the cuff of his jacket. “C’mon, Sammy’s waiting.”

You wrinkle your nose at him, but push to your feet, and Dean steadies you with a hand on your back. Your lower back. Right where the depression for his touch had never fully mended or faded, sending a rush of lightning up the spiderweb and making you stand a little taller. 

“Ready?” He grunts, his expression suddenly steeled and firm, and you nod a little stupidly.

“Yeah.”

You’re not. Dean gives a firm nod—his spare hand wandering to where you know he’s keeping his gun—and you didn’t think you could’ve been ready. Not as you open the door and see it.

It’s not an arrowhead this time. It’s a knife. Made in a blatantly similar style to the arrowhead, with all the same writing carved over the blade and handle, but clean. It’s not dusted and faded like the arrowhead was, it’s polished and shining in the low light of the room, and it’s like a flame. The words that you can read shift as they always do—the glint of the metal entrancing and bright—your breath catches in your throat as if the blade had been driven through your neck.

It looks like it was made to be held. The hilt looks almost identical to that of the knife on your thigh—the knife Dean had bought you, the knife that was yours more than anything else ever has been—and you think, if you held this knife, it would fit perfectly in your hand. No callouses or oddly places fingers. An extra limb, easing everything further to Silver. 

The Silver wants to feel it. The knife is calling you forward, and you can vaguely hear someone important and golden and critical calling your name, but you can’t look anywhere but the knife. The closer you move, almost gliding across the room, the more you know that you have to hold it. You can’t read the Latin that well, or the Hebrew and Arabic at all, but the shifting words are all familiar too.

For the Woman of the high, promised of Him. 

Your brain feels as if it’s being muffled. Thoughts of woman, not women, and Him flash over your brain with brief scrutiny, but they shrivel up within a second. Every part of you feels like it’s being suffocated by the almost glowing knife, and the spiderweb is bursting like fireworks through your body, trying to vault you back where you belong, but you have to keep moving forward. It’s like there’s a phantom behind you, pushing you forward, whispering in your ear that it’s yours, made for you, take it because it’s been waiting thousands of years for you, and He’s been waiting longer, and all of this is made for you so take it-

Something louder shatters the spell. For half a second there’s a roar of your name from something that feels weaker than the phantom—but louder than your heart and more vital that the blood in your body—rushing your vision into focus and that’s Dean, colorful and running through your blood and over your bones and a little to the right of your heart and Dean-

You almost turn to see him, almost stop moving to the weapon, but the phantom shoves you forward, and you’re gone.

Your hand wraps around the knife, the Silver flares and flashes and consumes your body. You feel some part of your body give out—you’re not sure, everything feels like you and you don’t know what’s your body and what’s just the rest of the universe—and right before it all gets too big you see a flash of white, radiant light dissipate into the air.

And then you’re gone. 

The whole world booming out and out and out, and you’re the gravity of the earth and the heat of its core and the flood and turning water in every ocean and the infinite loneliness of every star, and everything is-

It’s too much. Too big. You can’t bear it. You can’t really see anything, but you can see everything and you feel thin, stretched apart, not your own. 

There’s no pain in your body for half a second, and you grit your teeth and squeeze your eyes shut to drag yourself back down as something curses and shouts around you and you crash back down into your own body like a comet. 

And the pain returns. It hits you, blows right into your guts and rips at your skull as you choke on the Darkness, and it’s still too much. The knife is still in your hands and you can’t drop it, and someone is grabbing you and they feel right but something is wrong-

You choke out a word, and you don’t know what it means but it’s a prayer. A name. 

Dean. Where’s Dean-

“I’m here,” the same low voice says your name, and a rough finger in pressed to your brow, running down your nose and easing the world back together. “I- Shit, we gotta go, there’s an alarm-“

You shake your head, repeating the word because it’s making things better. Dean. Dean. Dean-

“I know, I’ve gotcha, just- c’mon-“ Something steady grabs your face, and everything keeps mending as the spiderweb catches the touch and spins it into illuminating color in your body. “Son of a- Sammy said not to touch it, Princess, why’d you-“

You grab the hands over your face, keeping them where they’re supposed to be, and you can see him. 

He’s beautiful. Golden. Better than the Sun, or that strange white light from before.

“Dean.” You whisper, and it pulls you a little further down. “You’re- Dean-“

“Yeah, I got that. Sweetheart, we need to go and if I gotta carry you, I will.”

You think he’s scanning over you for injury, but you can’t really tell because he’s just Gold.

Almost just Gold.

There’s something else. Something you’ve never seen on him before, even when he’s only been this same, striking Gold. It’s like a stain, or a scratch, or a wound. A mark on the Gold that’s wrong, because it’s seeping and pulsing like an infection, and it’s not yours. All of the Gold feels like it’s a little bit you. This dark red, bloodied mark doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to something steel gray and wrong and demonic-

Something clicks in your brain. Snaps into place and rushes through your whole body, and the sound that leaves you isn’t fully human. 

“Dean.” You choke out, and you think your nails are digging into his skin but you don’t care, he’s going to turn to ash and blood but you need him, you can’t fucking lose him, not now, fucking God, no-

He mutters your name, and you shake your head frantically. 

“What-“ You swallow, your gaze fixed on the brand. It’s a brand. 

A claim. 

“What did you do.” You whisper, and you can’t really hear yourself over the blood in your ears, but you know he can hear you. You know because he freezes. Because the spiderweb is aching and howling, and- 

“I-“

“What did you do?!” You’re half screaming. You don’t care. “Dean- you- why?! Why the fuck-“

He grunts your name, but there’s no fire and fight behind his voice. He sounds pained and worried, and it’s too much-

“I don’t- You’re freakin’ me out, I need you to tell me what wrong-“

You shake your head, almost clawing at his skin. “Why. Dean, why-“

“I don’t-“

Something bursts through the ringing and pounding in your head. Something loud and blaring, and Dean freezes again, turning away from you, and he’s going to leave, you’re going to lose him, he’s going to go away and you’re trying to grab at the brand and remove it but everything hurts and you can’t fucking breathe-

“No.” Something drags your hand from your throat—you don’t even remember putting it there—with a firm grip, and suddenly you’re rising. Not on your own legs, shaking and weak and not fully yours, nothing in you is yours but the Silver and the spiderweb, and they’re whining with pain because why, why the fuck would Dean do something so stupid- “We’re not doing that, we need to move. Hold on.”

The words feel like a commandment, and you listen to them without thought. You wrap your arms around Dean’s neck, and everything slowly begins to come back into focus as he holds you. 

He’s warm. Solid and warm, panting slightly in your ear as he hauls you down the flashing hallway, and there are red lights flashing around you but they’re not as bright as Dean. 

Still Golden. 

Still about to be lost.

His touch and the smell of grass and spice are grounding you in your body, but the Silver won’t stop roaring. The Gold isn’t all yours. It’s supposed to be twined and fit with you, but Dean’s marked to be taken away, and it’s all you can do not to burst into tears. Every breath is forced and mechanical. You know you might strangle Dean with your grip, might mark him with your nails sunken into his skin, but then maybe you’d get to keep him. Maybe your stain would be greater than the one on the Gold, and you’d get to keep Dean. 

You don’t notice when the blur begins. Not until it’s too late, and the only thing louder than your blood in your ears and the pounding of the Silver against your heart and ribs is the Darkness. Tearing from the Silver and reaching out, an instinct engraved deep onto your nerves that something is wrong, there’s a danger and it’s coming and Dean-

The first one arrives before you can screech and choke a warning in Dean’s ear. All you’re doing is blinking in a frantic, rapid double-pattern, but he’s looking ahead at the hall and can’t see you anymore that he can see the demon. Almost materializing out of the blood-red shadows, raising a knife from Dean’s back and grinning at you like it knows, like it can see what’s making you fall apart and it’s reveling in it. 

The blur slams into you full force, and before you can think you’re scraping out of Dean’s hold, shoving him away just as the venomous, raging and violent shape of green crashes into him. 

It’s close, but the demon misses. Just barely. It stumbles forwards but recovers fast, and you’re still too much and not enough, feeling all the demons fury and the frantic pulse of the alarms and the ache of the creaking floor under your feet. 

Dean shouts your name, and you hear it over the blur, but you can’t move. You’ve pressed yourself up to the wall as the Darkness starts to rip out of your control, you weren’t ever supposed to stop moving but you’re frozen. Everything hurts. Dean is roaring for you but you’ve already lost him and you’re horrible anyway, you never could’ve kept him, but it just fucking hurts-

He’s fighting. You can hear gunshots echoing in what sounds like the distance, but is barely a few feet away, see through the blur that Dean is swinging punches and slamming the rioting green into walls. They’re attacking him. Not you. None of them are even sparing you a glance, they’re all focused on Dean, and you can’t lose him. You need to get to him but you can’t move. You’re going to lose him and you’re not you and he’s not yours but you can’t fucking lose him, and you’re caught in a loop but you don’t know how to pull yourself out without letting the Darkness over take you, and if you do you’ll hurt Dean, and you can’t hurt Dean, not like this, not with the cancerous pain that always infected him but never made him leave for good, but you’re going to lose him for good and you can’t lose him and he’s gone but he’s right there and you can’t fucking breathe, can’t lose Dean, can’t hurt him, can’t move-

The blur freezes. For one quick second everything is captured stasis, and you can see everything so clearly it feels fake. 

Three wrathful shapes of green, backing Dean into a corner as he swings a vase he must have grabbed from one of the pedestals in the hall, his face set in determination but something flashing in his eyes that you recognize. 

A crack in the armor.

Fear. 

But it’s not aimed inward. It’s not caving into and crushing the Gold, not a knowledge that he’s surrounded, the vase isn’t useful against the demons, and his gun is lost down the darkened hall. It’s fear that’s screaming and reaching to get to you, sunken back down to the floor and choking yourself with a firm hand.

He’s not looking at the demon that has its knife raised, aimed right for his chest. 

He’s looking at you.

And when everything rushes back, it moves to fast. You’re not breathing enough, so you can’t scream. You’re frozen, so you can’t move.

The demon’s blade sinks into Dean, just a little to the right of his heart, and you don’t care that you’re not you anymore. You don’t need to be you for this. 

The Darkness is let out with your will. You urge it on, letting it turn you into more than just a panicking girl in a corner.

You don’t really know what you are. You don’t really care.

All that matters in the weak noise of pain that left Dean when he fell to the ground, and the fact that you want something to suffer for it. 

You’re more than the Darkness this time, though. The White is just as savage, and violent, and righteous. You’re something that makes the Green balk. Cower. Fucking retreat.

They don’t get three steps away before they’re nothing. Not killed. Not exorcized. Eliminated. Crushed and folded and turned into just another part of the sheer power you can feeling, rushing through the world and bigger than anything. It’s a part of you. It’s too much and you don’t care, because it more than you should be able to handle, but you’re not overwhelmed. It feels right. Whatever you’re meant to be, it’s this. Silver and vast and furious and- 

The spiderweb in your body pulses weakly, and something smaller and concentrated makes a noise that sounds like your name. It sounds important. It’s golden and barely a spot on everything you can see, but it’s the only thing stronger than you are and you’re looking through everything for it—even as something pure and White tugs your further into whatever you’re turning into—because you need it, more than anything you need whatever is calling you-

The noise repeats, and the spiderweb is white-hot with pain, and you see him.

Dean. 

Everything falls back into you. And it’s loud—alarms blaring and people shooting from somewhere in the distance—but it’s just you and Dean in the whole world. You fall to your knees at his side because there’s never anywhere else to be, and you don’t know if you’re choking on the darkness, or the air, or your own heartbeat when you see the blood over his chest.

He’s supposed to have time. You’d seen it, on the mark, that he had time. Not enough time, but time. You still need to scream at him for being an idiot, and you need to pretend you hate him for doing this to you when it really just hurts, and you need more time- 

He’s making strained sounds that still sound too much like your name, but he’s so pale, and his eyes are barely open, and when your hand finds his brow he’s already cold.

And the Darkness is still bubbling at the surface. And you might hurt him but he’s always half-gone, and you won’t lose him. Not like this. 

“Dean,” you whisper, and you think you can feel your heart cleaving in half at the moan that escapes his lips. “I- I’m sorry. I didn’t- You’re- If this hurts, I’m so sorry. Just don’t leave. Please don’t go- I- Here-“ You grab his hand, and his fingers through your like it’s an instinct, but his grip isn’t as tight as it’s been before. “Don’t go. You’re not allowed to go, so fucking don’t. And I-“ You take a shaking breath, and you’re choking on the pain. The Darkness rotting and molding around your lungs, trying to claw out and fix this. 

You’ll let it. Just this once, to keep him, you’ll let it. 

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, and you know he doesn’t hear you. He doesn’t even move. “I’m sorry, Dean. But I won’t- I won’t.” Another stronger breath. No other way. 

You just need more time.

Your head bows to his chest, you press your brow to his shoulder, take a ragged breath that’s just to keep yourself together, and you let go. The Darkness falls out of you, right into Dean. Not just a drop. All of it.

It’s not painful. It takes you a second to realizes, but there’s no pain at all. 

And it’s not the Darkness, it’s the Silver. Flowing out of you like a breath and rushing through the Gold—driven on by the spiderweb and moving a little deeper into Dean’s body than you’ve ever known existed—as the stench of metal fades. 

When you lift your head back up, Dean’s eyes are fully closed, but his wound is gone, his breath is even, and his heartbeat is steady under your hands. 

But there’s something new. You blink at him, looking so peaceful—his face relaxed and full of color like nothing ever happened at all—and right next to that brand, there’s something that hadn’t been there before. 

It grooved and running over him like little cracks of iridescent color. Glowing and pulsing and rushing through his whole body, and they don’t look wrong but there something deep, deep under them. Shifting and humming and-

Silver.

You marked him. More than just one small spot, more than just condemnation. There’s Silver in the Gold because you’d lost control and marked him, and it doesn’t seem to be painful but you never should’ve fucking lost yourself, you should’ve found another way, should’ve tried harder to only let less of the Silver out, should’ve just called-

Sam shouts your name, and you hear him barreling down the hallway behind you. Dean shifts a little against you, leaning closer to your body, and you don’t know what to do. 

The knife is discarded on the floor, the hilt pressed right against your shin. 

All you can work out is that Sam can’t touch it. You remove your own knife from against your thigh—keeping one hand tangled in Dean’s—and replace it with the new, dangerous one, right as Sam stops at your side.

This is going to be hard. And complicated. And painful.

But you don’t know what to do. 

So you’re glad Sam is here.

“What the hell happened?” He breathes, and you take a deep breath, brushing your hand over Dean’s brow. 

He’s warm again, and something loosens in your chest. 

“We got jumped,” your voice is soft, but you’re afraid that you’ll wake Dean, and he needs rest. “The Assassins. But they went for Dean, and he got hurt.”

Sam drops to your side in a fraction of a second, and you don’t need to look at him to know he’s panicking. “Fuck- Where’d they-“

“He’s fine.” You mumble. “I fixed him.”

“You-“ You can feel Sam’s gaze on you as he says your name. You don’t really care. You don’t want to look away from Dean. “What did you do.”

“I fixed him.” You repeat, and Sam sighs.

“You didn’t use the-“

“I did.”

“And the demons-“

“I destroyed them.” You don’t like how passive you sound about it, but they hurt Dean. He’s the world, and they hurt him, and no guilt festers in your gut.

You hope it hurt. You hope that they didn’t end up wherever dead demons go. You hope that they spend the rest of eternity sufferings as a million disbanded particles, feeling the pain of everything the same was you always have.

Sam repeats your name, and there’s a caution in his voice that he’s not very good at hiding. “I thought you said you weren’t going to use it-“

“I know.” You shrug, finally tearing your attention for Dean’s pretty, consuming face and meeting Sam’s eyes. “And I don’t care.”

“Look, I-“ Sam glances down at Dean, running a hand over his face with a shake of his head. “I know you care about him, a lot. Like, so much I don’t really understand it, but-“

“Sam.” You say, keeping your voice so neutral it rots on your tongue, because this is going to kill you, but you can’t let it. Not when you still have time. “When is it going to happen?”

He blinks at you, his expression faltering slightly. “When-“

“When is his time up.” You whisper. “When are they coming for him.” and Sam flinches, but doesn’t deny it. You’d prayed you were wrong. 

You’re not that lucky. 

“I- did he tell you-“

You shake your head, and every movement is too much. “I saw it. When.”

Sam just stares at you, and you swallow. 

“Please, Sam.” You’re begging. There’s nothing else to do. “I- I need to know. Please.”

“Three months.” He mutters, and he won’t meet your gaze. “We- We should go. We can’t stay here, and this is-“ He sighs, shooting Dean’s sleeping body a glower. “This isn’t the place to do this.”

You nod, everything in you feeling a little numb, and help Sam haul Dean up between your body, shuffling him out a back door to the Impala.

Sam could’ve carried him. Dean’s not small, but Sam’s bigger and stronger, and it might have been faster to just toss Dean into Sam’s arms. 

But you think Sam knows now isn’t the time to pull Dean from your side. Not as your head continues to spin around three months. Dean has three months.

You can’t lose him.

But he only has three months.

You’ve never been so purely numb like this. There’s still the pain—increased tenfold and almost knocking you to your knees as the Darkness shreds itself apart—but everything else is numb. Not numb like nothing. Numb like too much. Numb like the spaces between the stars, filled with something but too big for it to be identifiable. The world suddenly too much in a way you’ve never experienced before, where it’s vast and cold and lonely like a pit left in your chest by something you’d never know was removable in the first place.

It’s numb like grief.

But Dean isn’t gone yet. He has time. You’d marked him in a way you know you’ll never forgive yourself for, and you’re almost strangling the Darkness to keep yourself upright—with nails and bitten lips and held breaths, by fucking force because there’s no other way—but you’d bought Dean more time.

And he’s here. He’s still here. Just for now Dean is slumped into your side on the Impala’s back bench, his head pressed into your stomach as he holds you like you’re a buoy in an invisible storm, breathing heavily but still breathing. 

You can hear him breathing. You can feel him holding you. You can run your fingers through his hair and feel him almost relax from the movement, and you can see every shadow of the road dance over his handsome face. You don’t need to grieve him now because he’s here, and he has time. 

You have time.

“I got the blade.” You mumble, tracing over the line of Dean’s cheekbones. “It’s in my- fuck-“ Your breath catches in your throat, and you look up to Sam as panic start to seize over your chest. “Sam, my knife-“

“I grabbed it.” He mutters. “It’s in my jacket. I know it’s important to you. It’s- Dean got it for you.”

You nod, hoping Sam can feel your gratitude, because you don’t know what to do. To say or figure out, and you’re stuck in loud noise and too much color like a broken TV, and you’d talk to Sam but you really can’t look at him, because he’s still one shade wrong, and you don’t know what to do-

“How’d you work it out?” Sam asks, his voice barely audible over the engine, and you swallow.

“I told you, I saw it. It was like a- sort of- I-“ You take a shaking breath, shaking your head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please.”

Sam grunts, and time stretches so slow. You don’t speak again until you’re parked back at the motel, until Dean’s hauled back into bed—your bed, the bed you share, if you lose him you’ll have to learn to sleep again without Dean, and you don’t think you ever really knew how—and Sam drops in a chair, running a hand over his face with a long breath.

“I wanted to tell you.” He mutters, and you look up from the dresser with a frown. 

“What?”

“I swear,” he says your name, and there’s something in his voice that so desperate you can’t look away. “I told him, over and over again that he needed to tell you, but he- It’s Dean and he, I think he was worried you- Shit, he thought you’d leave-“

“I know.” You pull out the new blade from your thigh, turning it over in your hands. The words are still shifting, they still read the exact same, and the Darkness wants it almost as much as the White and the spiderweb are screaming for you to return to Dean’s side. “I have a theory about something. I’ll need to run it past Jo and Bobby, but I think I’m right.”

Dean would laugh and say you always think you’re right.

Sam just blinks at you. “A-“

“Theory.” You shrug, grabbing a spare, dirty shirt from the top of the dresser. “I’ve told you about all the colors, like with the arrowhead-“

“Yeah, but-“

“I think I worked out what they are. It- It really makes a lot of sense, and I don’t know how we’d confirm it, but-“

Sam says your name, his voice firm as you wrap the Blade in the shirt. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because.” You whisper. “I- I need to.”

“But now that you know, you can help us-“

“I don’t know how, Sam.” You flinch at your own tone, and you have to brace a hand on the dress to keep yourself from the ground. “I- I can’t fix this, I’ll make it worse, I’ll make Dean worse-“

Sam mutters something, and you can’t hear him over your own short breaths or the ringing into your ears.

“I hurt him, Sam. I’m going to hurt him and I don’t know what to do- I don’t know what to do-“

You can’t breathe. Sam moves like he’s going to try to help you, but he’s too slow and too hesitant and you stumble back with a strangled, weak sound.

“I can’t- Please- I don’t- I can’t-“

You’re pressed back into the wall when Sam reaches you, and you’re too tired to fight. Too frozen to claw and scream, only able to take uneven breaths and sob into Sam’s shirt as it sinks further into you.

You’d hurt him, and you needed him like he could never need you, but you were going to lose him. Forever. No coming back, no spell or ritual or scream of his name to the sky bringing him back to your side. You marred Dean with the Silver, you’re going to lose him, and he didn’t trust you-

That one’s new. Dean didn’t trust you, and the broken sound you make is almost inhuman. Sam knew. Bobby probably knew. And Dean didn’t want you to know. 

He thought you’d leave. He didn’t trust you enough to know you couldn’t drag yourself away from him—not permanently, not in a way that razed every piece of your body more that it hurt him—if you tried. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” You whisper, leaning a little further into Sam’s hold. “I- If we talk about it, it’s real. Please.”

Sam sighs your name, and when he pulls back his expression on yours unreadable, but he nods all the same. “You need to promise you’ll talk about it with him. For my sanity. Please.”

“I will.”

You’re not lying.

You will. You need to.

Because you kick your dress of like it’s poison on your skin, and take a burning shower until your skin is raw, and scrub your body with sugar until everything stings, and the Darkness is totally under your control, but there’s a thin layer of grime over your organs that’s made of Dean. 

Dean didn’t trust you. He wants you enough to keep you around, but he didn’t trust you. He thought you’d leave. He obviously can’t feel he pull—if he did, he know truly leaving is impossible—and that should remind you that you can never really have him, but it just hurts. 

It worms and whines over your heart, and it hurts. More than just pain in your body, pain in something deeper, a little to the right of your heart and bursting will dulled colors because this hurts. 

Dean’s right not to trust you. You wouldn’t trust you. You still haven’t told him about how wrong you are, but that knowledge doesn’t help. Knowing never helps. 

It just makes this hurt more. 

And you should get through this. You’ve always gotten through it. 

But you can’t say that with certainty. This is too much, and you don’t know what to do. 

You’ve always known what to do. And sometimes it was pain and isolation and suffering but it was something. And you’d known Dean was fine. Safer, even, without you there.

But you hadn’t been there, and you’d lost him without knowing it. If you’d been there you might have stopped it. You don’t know what it is, but you could’ve found another way because there’s always another way. You’ve always gotten through it, and you’ve always found another way, and you’re caught in the loop again, but you don’t know what to do-

You don’t know how you end up there—the world blurring in and out as you shuffle around, trying to find something that can keep you busy—but you’re lying flat on the bed, right at Dean’s side. Staring up at the ceiling and caught in the loop with no sign of breaking out. 

Sam said he was going out for a drink, and to call him if you need anything.

He just doesn’t want to be here when Dean wakes up. 

When you hear a throat clear, and a low groan escape his lips, and turn your head to find him already watching you. Looking right through your neutral expression with a small frown, shattering whatever composure you’d had in a just a second, just by existing.

Dean opens his mouth to say something. 

He doesn’t get the chance. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

He blinks at you, frown deepening as he scans over your face. “I- uh-“

“The demon deal.” You whisper. “I know, Dean. I- Why?”

You don’t know what you’d expected him to do. Fight. Deny. Lie and spin his way around it. 

But he just… caves.

“Sammy tell you?” He mutters, and you’ve never heard him sound more hollow. No charm lining his tone, no fury laced through his every word. Just heavy exhaustion. “I told him not to tell you.”

“Why.” You repeat, pushing up on your palms to stare down at him. “Why, Dean, why didn’t you want him to tell me- I-“

“You didn’t need to know-“

“You don’t get to make that choice for me!” You half scream, and he doesn’t even flinch. “I- I don’t know why, Dean, I just need to know why-“

“You didn’t need to know. It’s not like you’re the one that’s dying, Princess.” He snaps, but there’s still no fight in it. You wish he would fight. 

Because you want to scream at him. You need to tell him that you’re furious because you are the one that’s dying. Some part of you that you’ve never understood is going to fucking die because Dean’s- 

You can’t say it. You can only be caught on repeat, curling into yourself as you shake your head over and over, repeating the only thing you can think of.

“Why-“

“Why what?” He grunts, and it’s still not angry enough. “Why’d I do something so stupid? Why’d I sacrifice everything for the one person I got left? Mom’s been gone, Dad was gone, you left-“ He pauses, blinking at you with a small shake of his head. “I- It was just Sam, he can live a life-“

“You can live a life!” You protest, digging your nail into your skin to keep yourself from reaching for him, and he scoffs.

“Yeah, okay-“

“I mean it-“

“I know you do.” He mutters. “But that’s not how this shit works-“

“I don’t care! I don’t care how anything works, I don’t care why you did it, I care that you didn’t fucking tell me-“

“Why, you gonna save me, Princess? Gonna work one of your best hunter tricks and pull one over on Lilith for my soul?” He raises his brows at you, and blink.

The Darkness is riot in your body, but caged all the same, and the Blade is over on the dresser, but you can see Dean. Right into him. Past the skin and bone and tissue, right into him. 

He’s vulnerable. There’s something that’s deep, deep in his eyes that you’ve never seen in full light before, but something is shifting and it’s like a floodlight has pushed right through it. As if all the stars concentrated into one thing and aimed to the ocean, looking right down into its trenches and pits and seeing every bit of life hidden under. 

There’s so much color. It’s luminescent and strange and lonely, but there’s so much. It’s beautiful. Dean’s beautiful. Even when you want to fucking murder him, he’s beautiful.

He’s waiting for you to leave. You can see it. How he’s tensed to build up some barricade to prevent a flood of burning gold. How those cracks you’d left on him are already festering, preparing for your departure. 

And that’s something you can do.

You can prove him fucking wrong, and keep him, and save him. 

He’d said it like it was a joke.

You mean every single word that spits out of your mouth.

“You’re not going to die.” 

He grunts, still just staring at the ceiling, and you lean over to eclipsed the ceiling light. He needs to see you.

“I’m not fucking leaving.” You hiss, and he stares at you with a slightly parted mouth. He’s Golden. He’d have to toss you away with his bare fucking hands and bullets, and even then, you’d still crawl back. 

Dean says your name slowly, and you shake your head.

“Partners, Winchester.” You snap. “Safer together, remember? You’re not dying on my watch, so suck it the fuck up.”

Something strange flashes in his eyes, and his voice slightly hoarse. “You should go. Now. Before Sammy gets back.”

“No.”

“It’s your best shot-“

“I don’t fucking care. You’re fucking stuck with me, asshole, and we’re getting you out of this if it kills all fucking three of us. Got it?”

He scans over your face, then down your body, and you don’t understand the expression on his face at all. 

“No.” He mutters, his gaze stealing slightly as it meets yours, and there it is. The fucking fight. “You’re not dying, Princess.”

“You’re not the boss of me-“

“Yeah, I got that, but if you die, and I’m dragging you to hell with me. Swear you won’t die.”

He raises his pinky, and you blink. He looks like he wants to kill you. 

He’s making you pinky promise.

You raise your own slowly, but narrow your eyes and yank it back at the last second.

“Anything else you need to tell me, Winchester?”

“Nah.” He shrugs. “Deal’s kind of a limit one per customer thing.”

He’s smirking. You don’t laugh.

“We’re doing this my way.” You snap. “Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You keep something like that from me again, I’m killing you myself.”

“Got it. You gonna just keep making demands about my death-“

You hook your pinky through his, and shake it firmly.

“Stop calling it your death.” You snap, leaning back to lie at his side. Keeping your pinky hooked. “You’re going to be fine, you fucking idiot.”

He chuckles. “Bossy.”

You roll your eyes, and decide to strangle him later. After this is done, you’ll shout at him all you want. 

But you have three months, and it’s not enough time, but you’ll make it enough time. The only thing you won’t do is use the Darkness—you won’t hurt him further, and he still doesn’t know, and that’s too fucking dangerous and complicated to touch—but you won’t need it.

You only need Dean. And he’s not allowed to die. 

So you’re not going to fucking let him.

End Note: That might have been the most Babylon chapter I've Babyloned yet.

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

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[bunnithechubs]

an extra long one as compensation for me not posting anything slate in months <3

transcript below:

S: So, what do we think about this venue for the ceremony?

D: It’s a bit small but I like it, what about you babe?

[Seph and Darius look at Penny who is silent]

S: You don’t like it…

P: Well, I don’t hate it. It’s just not giving what I wanted for the wedding. W

S: hat exactly is throwing it off for you? You wanted great views and expensive. This is literally where the Feng’s got married. You don’t even want to know how much I fought for us to even get a tour!

P: I know you worked hard for this Seph, and I appreciate. Darius and I both do, but… it’s just not sitting well with me. We can keep it in mind in case the other locations don’t work out.

S: Darius… any support here?

D: Seph, I like the place but if Penny isn’t sold then we can look elsewhere. If anyone gives you a hard time then call me. I don’t want you stressing more than you have to.

P: I can already tell you don’t like this for the ceremony but how about the reception?

D: You already know I love this place, boys love it too, so I’m sold on a reception being here.

S: Penny… thoughts?

P: Can I be honest or do you want me to be nice?

S: I would love to hear you say you love this and let me put a deposit down.

P: I can be… convinced to host the reception here. I’m just not sold on the idea of making us all travel.

S: They do receptions here all the time, they have it down to a science. If you’re worried about travel they said they can get everyone here in under an hour.

D: I might need to hire them for my next trip, under an hour in this city? That’s impressive.

P: It takes a lot to impress Darius.

S: Does that mean we like this for the reception?

P: You can put the deposit down.

S: Thank god, that’s one thing off my list.

S: Thanks for meeting with me before Penny gets here.

D: Of course, everything okay? If she says no to this location I might lose my shit, Darius.

D: [Sighs] I know. I’ve been trying to talk to her about her picky-ness. I think it’s the baby. You know she’s not like this normally and she loves you.

S: Oh I know. However, I need you to stop being such a push over Darius.

D: I am not a complete pushover. I just know this wedding means a lot to her and I want it to be perfect.

S: It’s your wedding too and honestly she listens more when you speak your mind.

D: I know, but I think this might be the one. F

S: or all out sakes I hope so, she’s here so put on your big boy pants.

P: Hey baby!

D: Hey there beautiful, how are you feeling still sick?

P: Nope! I think it was just morning sickness. Hey sis, you look pretty- had a date with lover boy?

S: Thanks and he wishes. He’s in the valley but said he’s coming back this weekend.

D: Are you ever going to be nice to Jasper?

S: A man like that? You can never be nice to. Honestly, I think he might have a kink for being ignored.

P: Oh my god, this is place is beautiful! They do weddings here?

S: They don’t actually but Darius promised to donate enough money to keep them in business for a decade so they compromised.

P: So no one has gotten married here before?

S: I think like over a 100 years ago was the last event they hosted. How about you guys explore inside while I find my contact?

D: Sounds good, see you soon.

D: What do you think, love?

[Penny stays silent just staring at Darius]

D: What? You don’t like it?

P: My sister made you meet her early didn’t she?

D: [sighs] Yes.

P: What did she say?

D: She’s just a bit frustrated with finding the ceremony venue. Asked me to put my big boy pants on.

P: I figured as much. I can’t blame her I’ve been a bridezilla.

D: You have, so maybe you should be a bit more… aware of your sister’s feelings too.

P: I’ll take her out for lunch this week and talk with her.

D: I’m sure she will enjoy spending time with you that doesn’t involve wedding planning. By the way, she said she will lose it if you hate this place.

P: Well, it’s a good thing I love it.

D: Me too and I think it was worth all the no’s. Zeph nearly screamed when I told him we were looking at the botanical.

P: If Zeph loves this place then I would have said yes earlier.

D: Please do not tell you sister that.

[dokyumms]

only you know the way that i break

pairing: dk x fem!reader

genre: angst, fluff?

word count: 1.4k

cw: insults are made towards reader, self hate, dispatch are lowkey stalkers

a/n: a request done for 💌 anon! it legit took me 2 hours to find photos omg... this probably wasn’t enough fluff but oh well 😔

you know you shouldn't be on social media right now, but you can't help it.

somehow, dispatch caught you and seokmin on a date. you were sure you took all the precautions- wearing a mask and cap, seokmin posted on weverse that he was staying at home, and just about everything to make sure no one was suspicious of him going on a date.

but alas, the second you and him take off your masks to take a bite of pizza at a park, you hear a loud shutter noise followed by a lot more of them.

it wasn't really the fact seokmin was on a date itself- he'd mentioned months before he had a girlfriend- it was more so the fact no one had seen your face before, till now.

only hours later, “DK GIRLFRIEND REVEALED” is trending on twitter. you’ve been fearing the public’s opinion for a long time, and even after all the years of preparing for it, you’re still not ready for the immense amount of comments that are made about you.

it's not that you're severely insecure, your boyfriend definitely made sure of it, it's just that fans are crazy and will say anything just to get their idol to break up with anyone that's not them.

you know what they say are probably projections of all sorts and reading the comments will only hurt you for no reason, but something's pulling you, a sudden need to know if they approve of you anyway. are you objectively good enough for seokmin?

so now you're in the bathroom, sitting against the cold tile wall, and scrolling through an endless sea of posts about you. some people love you. they say you're pretty, beautiful, totally dk's type, but it's quickly overshadowed by waves of hate.

people are quick to analyze and dissect everything about you. from the way you dress to how you walk, they have something negative to point out. you didn’t even know someone could see this much just from a couple photos.

you already sense the familiar tightening of your throat, but you keep reading. one post catches your eye in particular.

“doesn’t everyone notice how ugly dk’s gf is compared to him?? LMAO… must’ve bribed him or smth 💀 but seriously, this girl is a nobody. no wonder it took so long to get a look at her, i wouldn’t show my face in public if i looked like that.”

the post has 10.5k likes, and you don’t have to look at the replies to know if others agree or not. there’s another post right after.

“OMG DOKYEOM WHY ARE YOU DATING THIS THING…???? PLS WHAT HAPPENED TO STANDARDS 💔”

for some reason, you can’t look away. you forget everything seokmin’s ever told you about haters and start to really consider what they say. who were you anyway? why did it take so long to let yourself be revealed? why was seokmin dating you?

you put a hand over your mouth in an attempt to muffle the sobs that come out. your boyfriend’s probably on the couch, looking through these same posts. maybe he’s realizing the same things you are.

more cries come out. they’re heavier, filled with disgust and agony. you’re disgusted by yourself, not even willing to get up, afraid of what you might see in the mirror.

you start to spiral, and suddenly, you’re making up comments about yourself as well.

it’s not long before someone knocks on the bathroom door.

“babe? are you okay in there?” seokmin calls out in concern. you can imagine his face, brows slightly furrowed and lips pulled into a tight line as he impatiently waits for your answer.

you try to answer, but it only comes out as another sob. seokmin doesn’t wait again, opening the door hastily.

“what’s wrong, baby?” he asks, embracing you, still on the floor. it’s warm, full of love, and it almost makes you sob more. why you? what did you do to deserve him?

“don’t call me that,” you mumble quietly as if it hurts to say. he almost pulls away, “what? why?”

you can’t get out a single word, but your mind fills up with every reason possible, making you sob more. the only thing you can do is hand him your phone, twitter still opened.

he doesn’t let go of you, keeping an arm wrapped around you as he takes your phone. based on his reaction, it seems like he somehow hadn’t seen these posts. he gasps, gripping you tighter.

“what… why would people say things like this?” he asks in frustration, putting the phone down. “please don’t tell me that you believe them.”

“seok,” you manage to get out. “they’re right, i don’t understand why you’re dating-”

“don’t finish that,” he cuts you off, sounding the most serious he has in a while. “y/n, i love you. i’ve loved you before this whole idol thing, okay? you’re not a nobody, you’re so much more than that. i promise,” he starts.

“you’re perfect for me, these people don’t know anything about you. they don’t see everything you do for me, your beauty, all the memories we share, but i do, okay? i see you and all the things i love about you.” he holds your face, forcing you to look at him.

“i don’t want you to listen to these people because they’re blind, y/n.”

you look at him, searching for the lie behind his eyes, but you don’t find it.

“you promise?” you sniffle.

“with my whole heart.” he promises, leaning his forehead against yours and giving you a chaste kiss.

and maybe just for a bit, your mind is quiet, absent of the comments from before, only full of love for the man who’s in front of you.

[facets-and-rainbows]

Blue Exorcist Character Guidebook 2: Mephisto

Info on Mephisto from the new guidebook! Each character has a profile followed by relevant questions from fans, and then there's an interview section later where Kazue Katoh gives commentary on each major character and each manga arc. I have more guidebook than time, so I'm skipping the parts that are just like...summarizing who he is and stuff. So this will mostly be fan questions and Katoh's commentary

Biographical info

Gender: Male Age: (°w°) Rank/Titles: Director of True Cross Academy and head of the exorcism cram school, Honorary Knight for the Knights of the True Cross, King of Time Anniversary [T/N Katoh gives demons these in lieu of a birthday]: August 28 Blood type: ( ʹ - ʼ ) Height: 195 cm (184 cm without the "horn") Weight: 74 kg Skills and interests: movies, manga, anime, games, music, toys, miscellaneous subcultures

Fan Q&A

How do members of the Knights of the True Cross usually find out that Mephisto is a demon king?

I think some people might find out from books, the internet, etc even before they become exorcists. They do publish demon field guides that you can find at regular libraries, and Mephisto seems like the type to mention it in online interviews. Rin was the only one who didn't know.

How long has he had his current body?

About 200 years.

Which media from Assiah has had the greatest impact on him?

I imagine he would have been shocked the first time he saw a cinematograph.

Mephisto really likes all sorts of entertainment; has he ever tried making something himself?

Demons in general (not just Mephisto) tend to be bad at creative pursuits, though there are exceptions. Mephisto has a certain respect for human creativity.

Why is he so fond of Beelzebub?

Beelzebub just kind of struck a chord with him. Meanwhile, Beelzebub also likes being spoiled by Mephisto.

Which other demon kings get along with Mephisto the best?

In order: 1. Beelzebub 2. Amaimon 3. Egyn 4. Astaroth 5. Iblis 6. Lucifer [T/N it took me like an entire minute to work out that Azazel is the one missing from this list. Presumably because he's a rock]

Has Mephisto ever altered the past?

He sure does say a lot of things that imply that! [T/N: Katoh. Katoh. Katoh.]

How rich is Mephisto exactly?

He's actually one of the world's top businessmen and investors. His total assets are probably over one trillion yen [T/N: Jesus f*ck][T/N: that's about US$6.7 billion]

Author interview

Mephisto is a character who can solve just about anything; does that make him hard to write? Honestly, he's super easy to deploy. Mephisto has the plot in the palm of his hand and can fix stuff behind the scenes; he's the one pulling the strings. For adaptations and spinoffs, I just say "if you need to fill in a plot hole, make it Mephisto's fault" (laughs). But I do think it's dangerous to overdo it.

He even took on a sort of narrator role in chapter 44, didn't he? Around Volume 10, I was trying to treat each chapter like its own self-contained oneshot. Mephisto didn't even feel out of place as an omniscient narrator for one chapter, and for me that really drove home what a convenient character he is. Though I'm always wondering when and how to show Mephisto's own serious motives and inner thoughts, since he does fall into that eternal comic narrator role.

He can suddenly turn terrifying just when you were thinking he was comical. Hidden depths. Fundamentally he's on the humans' side, and he's often in charge of comic relief, but I do want to show his demonic side too. Same with the familiars; I want to portray the demons as something humans are afraid of.

[chrrific]

UNDERCOVER. ✶ BABY, YOU GOT LUCKY CAUSE YOU’RE ROCKIN’ WITH THE BEST.

précis your long time rival at decelis spy corporations, agent niki — or agent twilight — has been paired up with you for a mission, with one small requirement; you have to be each other’s date to a gala, where allegedly, a member of the mafia will be that night. all you have to do, is be his partner for the night, and suck your hate for him up. what could go wrong?

&& 엔하이픈西村力 mission partner!niki / rival!niki x 𝑓. spy!rea wc k ─── rivals to lovers (?) one sided hate relationship for the sake of the mission typa thing fluff l’avis skinship fake relationship slight tension

MiCK ✉️ this one is for @glittercrashhh / yin >< thanks for the request, it’s been a long time since ive gotten one and i needed the inspo ! lots of love, and happy reading ^o^ you can find the request here !!

enhypen shelf ✿ bonedo shelf 𔓘 daily click

you abhorred the fact that when niki told you that wearing four inch heels was not the best choice for tonight’s gala, he was right.

your feet were killing you, and it was only an hour into the night. picking up on your shifting feet and eyes scanning your face to find a slight frown, he smirked, taking a sip of his mocktail before speaking. “feet hurt already? i thought you were going to be alright,”

you cringed inwardly at his quoting of your earlier words, regretting saying them in the first place. “so what if they hurt? it’s not like you care, anyway.” you retorted, avoiding his piercing gaze and instead scanning the room for anyone who matched the description of the target assigned to you and him.

niki paused slightly, letting out a soft scoff. “i— well, not my fault that if we have to chase someone down tonight, you either have to run barefoot or stay behind.” you rolled your eyes at his words, bottom lip catching between your teeth as you felt a dull sting in your feet from the heels.

niki noticed, of course he did.

he felt a pang in his chest for some reason, as he thought of the fact that you were probably in pain. why was he even feeling that way — you were just a mission partner and his rival. nothing more, nothing less.

but why was it so, that his heart wanted, no, needed more?

he wasn’t stupid, he knew the telltale signs of a crush; nervousness around them, flutters in your heart, and the want to be around them and help them.

and unexplainably, he felt all of that for you. you, the number one on his most hated list for years on end: you, the one who stepped on his foot with your heels once, and sprained his toe: you, the one who made him feel like he was about to genuinely combust from how mind-bogglingly pretty you looked tonight.

he shook it off: you were his forever enemy, not a probable love interest. it would be foolish to even dream that you feel the same way for him, wouldnt it?

well, unbeknownst to niki, you did. your breath caught the second he pulled up in his car at your apartment, the dark suit and his neatly styled black hair with just the right amount of strands wisping out making you second guess your feelings. it was stupid that you felt that way, but you couldn’t control the way your heart stuttered with every glance you threw his way.

you tried your best to pretend to be annoyed — it was normal for you to be mad at him — but it was getting harder by the second. what made it ever harder was when he spoke up next.

“do you want to take off your shoes? i kept an extra pair of them in my car because i knew you might need them,” he said, voice nonchalant, although he was avoiding your gaze a little.

oh.

oh.

you turned to look at him with an expression of incredulity, eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. “what? don’t give me that look, it looks like i’ve told you the earth was flat and not that i have sneakers in my car.” he rolled his eyes slightly, but the smirk the tugged at his lips betrayed his attempts to stay nonchalant.

“oh, please, nishimura. when have you ever done anything nice for me before this?” you scoffed, though your stomach was flipping inside. “i wouldn’t be surprised if you were trying to poison me or something,” you muttered, crossing your arms over your chest.

“well, y/n, if you’re that scared, i’ll go and get them for you.” he suggested, watching you contemplate his offer. after a moment, you shrugged, then nodded once. he took that as a yes, and took off to the car park, saying he’ll be back soon.

watching his frame disappear from the room, you were unconsciously smiling, before you felt an appearance next to you.

it was a man, who seemed to be around fifty, holding out a glass of champagne for you to take. feeling slightly weirded out, you shook your head. “sorry, i don’t drink.”

“oh, you don’t? well then, how old are you, gorgeous?” gorgeous? okay, now you were really weirded out. “i-i’d prefer not to say, thanks.” you tried your best to sound unshaken, but your voice wavered a little as you spoke.

the man took a step closer, and you stepped back, only for your back to hit the cool wall; a stark contrast to the uncomfortable heat prickling your skin.

just as he was about to say something else, a gentle hand wrapped around your wrist. you looked up, confused at the sight; it was niki. and he did not look happy.

“listen up. she’s not comfortable with you being all up in her space like that, and you need to be able to figure that out. get away from her, and if i see you around her again, you don’t want to know what i’m going to do to you. am i understood?” his voice was surprisingly dark, low, and filled with a hint of annoyance, protectiveness, even.

the man, startled by niki’s sudden presence, nodded, and walked off with a half-hearted ‘sorry’.

you heaved a sigh of relief as you got your personal space back, leaning your head back on the wall. niki’s tone and expression both softened as he turned to look at you, concern etched into it as well.

“are you alright, y/n? i… he didn’t do anything except trouble you, did he?” you shook your head, suddenly hyper-aware of the lack of space between your lips and his.

“good. and by the way, i got the shoes.” those words made your eyes light up in happiness, the previous encounter long forgotten.

“oh my god, thank you so, so much. my feet feel like they’re dying,” you smiled a bit, before crouching to take the torture devices that we call heels, off and replace them with the shoes that were a little too big on you, but they were much more comfortable than the heels.

niki watched as you put them on, a smile tugging at his lips. how could you be so adorable about shoes, for gods sake?

you straightened back up, only for your phone to buzz in your purse. pulling it out, you read the text bubble popping up on your screen, only for your eyes to widen and your elbow to nudge niki’s arm to get his attention.

“the target’s here.”

“where?”

“rooftop of the left wing. let’s go,” you gestured for him to follow. “and discreetly, okay?”

he nodded at your addition, following you up to the left wing where the entire purpose of this mission was.

throwing a glance at your direction as you both stilled in front of the door to the roof, his eyes locked with yours, many emotions swirling through: determination, awareness and a little bit of love hidden deep down in the mix…

💌 @strvvy-anniee @liwinly @eunandonly @hannamoon143 @irasvr @ateez-atiny380 @amoressb @ikeulove @gudkc @mrsjohnnysuh @sol3chu @sol3chu @puma-riki @xeee334 @suhiiiies-blog @haerinheartss @layzfy @manaah02 @ijustwannareadstuff20 @deluluscenarios @hazelira @llovelili @fleuressnie @fleuryns

thank you for reading ! likes + reblogs & feedbacks are appreciated ><

© CHRRIFIC 2025 ୨ৎ

[hardly-an-escape]

sweet | Buck/Tommy | 1750 words | rated T

let's go back to a simpler time, when we were all thinking about what might happen after their coffee date. this was originally intended to be a prequel to my fic dance with me (I want my arms around you) and at least twice as long, but the second half has been fighting me for months so I figured I'd just share what I have.

“Okay.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.” “Okay, great.”

~~~

Evan insists on throwing away the coffee he’d gotten for Tommy and buying him a new one, one he’ll actually enjoy, which is both wholly unnecessary – Tommy has drunk a lot of subpar coffee over the years – and very endearing.

“Let me treat you to something. Please,” Evan says, and he’s so sweet, so sincere, that Tommy relents. Tells him his coffee order – not that it was some big secret – and accepts the replacement cup with a smile. And if their hands brush, when Evan hands it over, and if Tommy lets their fingers linger against each other, well. That’s fine. That’s more than fine.

They talk for the better part of an hour, about everything and nothing: people they both know in the department; the crazy calls they’ve responded to, and the handful they realize they may have been working from opposite sides over the years; shows they’ve been watching and books they’ve been reading. Tommy is strangely delighted to learn that Evan is more of a reader than a watcher – that when they get on the subject of murder mysteries, he knows all about Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance in 1926, but takes a minute to remember what Law & Order is. It makes Tommy feel like maybe the ten years’ age difference isn’t such a big gap after all.

Evan doesn’t stop smiling the entire time.

When their coffee cups are empty he glances down at his hands. He’s still smiling, but he looks a little nervous all of a sudden.

“So, uh, what are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?” he asks. “Because th-there’s this farmer’s market a couple of blocks over, I was thinking about swinging through? If you wanted to check it out?”

Tommy’s sure his grin back is almost embarrassing in its enthusiasm. He gently lays a hand on top of one of Evan’s, a mirror of their earlier touch.

“I’ve got some time,” he says. “Let’s go.”

The farmer’s market is almost painfully charming. The coffee shop Evan had chosen, despite the bougie LA vibes of the patio, was a real hometown neighborhood kind of place, and the market is no different. There are local bakeries and sandwich shops with booths; abuelas selling pickles on card tables and a church selling honey from the beehives that apparently surround their community garden. There’s a kid with an honest-to-god lemonade stand.

It’s absolutely delightful. Evan flits from booth to table, utterly in his element, making friends with kids and abuelas alike. He buys a jar of local honey and one of pickled kohlrabi – a vegetable Tommy is fairly sure he had a vague idea was a real thing that exists – and lingers in front of a display of romanesco broccoli for a while with a speculative look that’s starting to make Tommy almost apprehensive, before something else grabs his attention and he’s moving down the row, asking questions about someone’s backyard flock of chickens.

Tommy learns a lot about Evan in the hour they spend wandering the market. He hears a lot about his cooking adventures, of course; Evan is cheerfully unembarrassed about how disastrous some of his kitchen experiments have been, but seems to genuinely treat everything as a learning experience. He hears a lot about the other members of the 118, especially Captain Nash, and starts to form a picture of just how fundamentally things have changed there since he transferred out.

He’s so glad, in wistful kind of way, that the satisfaction and support Evan clearly gets from his work and his firehouse family was never quashed by questionable leadership. He wonders what things would have been like for him, if he’d had someone like Bobby Nash in his corner from the beginning, like Evan has. If he’d be as joyful, as unselfconscious.

If he’d have been able, like Evan, to grab a man he was interested by the elbow to excitedly point out someone selling fresh donuts from a cart on the corner, and slide his hand down his forearm, and tangle their fingers together in order to tug him down the street.

Tommy looks down at where their hands are interlaced. Big hands, firefighters’ hands; calloused and scarred and hairy. At first he thinks Evan hasn’t even noticed what he’s done, and then he looks back up and catches those blue eyes, the hint of a smile in them. Then Evan squeezes his hand and raises it deliberately, just a little, just enough that the message is clear: Yes, I’m doing this on purpose. Yes, I like you. I want to hold your hand and buy you donuts and make you smile in this perfect sunshine.

Tommy is beginning to realize that he might be in the best kind of trouble.

They do get the donuts, which are made by an ingenious and frankly hypnotizing little contraption that squirts out perfect circles of dough, floats them down a river of hot oil, and automatically flips them, at which point the vendor scoops them out, sprinkles them with cinnamon sugar, and hands them over in a paper bag, piping hot.

Eventually, Tommy glances regretfully at his watch.

“I hate to say this, but I’ve got an appointment at 4:00, so I should probably get going.”

“Oh, no worries!” If Evan’s disappointed, he doesn’t let it show in the tone of his voice, or in his smile as they turn to head back to where their cars are parked.

“Hey, uh, before you go.” Evan ducks his head and looks up through his eyelashes with that shy smile he has that absolutely slices through every one of Tommy’s defenses like a hot knife through butter.

Tommy’s pretty sure Evan genuinely had no idea how sweetly flirtatious he’d looked the first couple of times he’d aimed that smile in Tommy’s direction – but he might be catching up, if the way he slouches back invitingly against the door of his Jeep is any indication. They’re standing so close together that Tommy can get just a whiff of some kind of herbal-smelling aftershave or cologne that Evan is wearing.

“Before I go?” Tommy prompts.

“Just, real quick,” Evan says, and hooks one finger between the buttons of Tommy’s henley, and tugs him gently into a kiss.

Sweet, is all Tommy has time to think before his eyes flutter closed and he’s leaning in, one hand still in his hoodie pocket and the other coming to rest on Evan’s hip. God, he’s sweet.

The kiss is gentle. Soft. Just lips, and their noses barely brushing together, and the sounds of birdsong and traffic in the background. Tommy pulls back to take a breath and Evan is beaming at him, eyes so bright and blue that Tommy can’t help but lean in and kiss him again.

And okay, maybe this kiss is pushing the boundaries of what’s appropriate for a coffee shop parking lot, because it only takes about half a second before Evan’s tongue is teasing at Tommy’s bottom lip, and then Tommy learns that Evan’s mouth tastes like coffee, and like the donuts they’d shared.

It’s their third kiss, technically, and Tommy realizes he already can’t wait to find out what Evan’s mouth tastes like on their fourth kiss, and on their fifth. He can’t wait to lose track of the number of kisses he’s shared with this man, who is earnest and kind and who flexes one hand against Tommy’s chest like he wants to dig his fingers in and stay there. Who chases after Tommy’s mouth when he pulls back to breathe again, who makes the tiniest little noise of disgruntlement, of longing, when they separate.

For a heartbeat they just look at each other. Then:

“Wow,” Evan says, mostly under his breath, and clears his throat, and smiles like the sun. “I, uh. I really like kissing you.”

“Well, that’s good,” Tommy says. “Because I really like kissing you, too.”

“Good. That is good.” Evan grins at him. “You know, it’s – it’s kind of stupid, but after I fumbled our first date I just kept thinking, ‘Damn, I didn’t even get the chance to kiss him again.’ So, uh, thanks for giving me another chance.”

“Thanks for asking for one, Evan,” Tommy says.

For another several heartbeats they just look at each other, and look some more. Tommy can feel the smile blooming across his face, and he knows he must look like a fool, and he cannot bring himself to care.

“I really do need to get going,” he says after a minute.

“Yeah! Yeah, don’t let me keep you,” Evan says. Keep me, Tommy thinks. “What are you up to for the rest of the week? I mean, do you want to get together again before the wedding? I’m throwing Chim a bachelor party, you definitely should come to that at least.”

“Got a long run of shifts coming up,” Tommy says. “One of our guys is out on parental leave, so I’m pulling overtime. But text me. We’ll figure something out.”

“Okay, sounds good. I’ll text you.” Evan’s smile is so wide that his dimples look deep enough to swim in.

Tommy can’t help himself. He darts back in for one more swift peck, but ends up mostly missing Evan’s lips and clumsily kissing the corner of his mouth instead. It doesn’t even matter. They’re both smiling so hard it wouldn’t have been much of a kiss anyway.

He manages to restrain himself and only glances over his shoulder at Evan once as he walks across the parking lot to his truck.

Okay. Maybe twice.

Twenty minutes later, he’s halfway to his appointment – only running a little late – when his phone chimes where he tossed it on the passenger seat.

He picks it up after he’s parked. Three texts from Evan Buckley.

so is it too soon to text u or…?

I had a really great time today

I’ll be thinking about you all day, hope that’s ok

Tommy smiles to himself, alone in his car. It takes him a minute to figure out what he wants to write back, but eventually he taps out:

Me too. And that’s more than okay. In fact the feeling is mutual ;)

He should feel embarrassed; he’s really not a smiley face kind of guy. But when Evan texts back a simple :D about two seconds later, he’s pretty sure he’s floating on air as he jumps out of his truck and shoves his keys in his pocket.