#dean leaves sam alone while he is researching and he comes home to sam having A FULL ON CONVERSATION WITH HIMSELF WHILE HE IS WORKING

[hbo--spn]

ok but "lucifer," "hallucifer," helping sam solve cases is something that needed to be explored and used SO MUCH MORE

[marvelfanfn2187a113]

Guardian Angel

Castiel x Winchester child!reader

Requested by Anonymous

Synopsis: Castiel gets to know the Winchester’s little sister

Sam and Dean had a tendency to be cautious around new people. A tendency, they were noticing, that was not passed on to their little sister.

At least not where a certain angel was concerned.

“Why is the sky blue?”

“Because blue light travels in shorter waves than other light, so it’s scattered more than other colors, and therefore blue is the color you see most often in the sky,” Dean looked up to see you, the edge of Cas’s trench coat gripped in your small fist as you followed him around.

“Ok. Why is grass green?”

“Because of the pigment chlorophyll in the leaves and stems.”

“Ok. Why is-“

“Baby, how about we leave Castiel alone,” Sam scooped you into his arms, carrying you to his bed in the dingy motel room.

“I wanted to ask him more questions!” You protested.

“Yeah well, you’ve asked him enough for now, it’s bed time.”

After Sam put you to bed, he stepped over to his angel friend.

“Thanks Cas,” he sighed. “You kept her occupied for quite a while.”

“It was my pleasure,” Sam was surprised at the sincerity in Cas’s voice. “She has some very good questions.”

“Cas?” Sam sighed at the sound of your voice, but Castiel stopped him as he stepped towards you.

“I’ve got her, you had some research to do, right?”

Sam glanced at you, before looking back at the angel. There weren’t many people he trusted with you, and just because you liked Cas didn’t mean that Cas was safe; the angel thing was all relatively new to Sam.

“Cas?” Your voice came again.

“Yeah, alright,” he finally decided. “But I’m right over here if you need anything.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Cas made his way over to your bedside. “Hello, little one. Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

“Can you sing?”

Cas glanced self consciously over at the Winchester brothers, but they were engrossed in research.

“I…have the ability, yes.”

“No, I meant like now. Can you sing me a song?”

“I…I suppose. If it would help you sleep.”

You grinned and settled back against your pillow as Cas began to sing softly.

You were asleep in minutes.

…

“Castiel? Cas, I have a question.”

“He’s probably busy, why don’t you-“

“What was your question?”

Dean jumped in surprise when Castiel appeared suddenly next to him.

“Why can’t we see your wings?”

“I don’t often show them, as it would be counterproductive to my attempts to appear human.”

“Oh.”

“Was that all?” Dean could tell Castiel was eager to return to wherever he’d come from, but he hid it well from you.

“Yeah,” Castiel stiffened in surprise when you ran up to him and hugged his leg. “Thanks, Cas.”

“I…you’re very welcome.”

And just like that, he was gone.

…

“Castiel?” You curled your legs into your chest. “Cas, I-“ your voice broke, struggling to escape past the lump in your throat. “Cas please come. Please.”

“I really don’t have time for questions now, I’m sorry, I-“ Castiel stopped when he got a good look at you. “Little one, what is it?”

“S-Sam and Dean were supposed to be back by now,” you couldn’t hold back your tears, but you were managing to hold back your sobs. “And-and they won’t answer their phones, and-“

“Hey, hey,” Castiel placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, worried when your tears increased and your breathing labored. “I’m sure they’re just in the middle of a hunt. They’ll call when they’re on their way home, I’m sure.”

“I’m scared,” the fragility in your voice broke Castiel’s heart.

“You don’t have to be scared,” Castiel knelt by your bed and looked you in the eye. “Your brothers are very strong, and they’ll do anything to make it back home to you.”

“W-will you stay until they come back?”

“Of course I will,” Castiel promised. He was surprised when you launched yourself forwards and into his arms, but it only took him a moment before he reciprocated, holding you as though you might break.

“Thank you, Cas.”

“Any time, little one.”

Sam and Dean returned home a few hours later to find you fast asleep in the arms of your favorite angel.

[smoky-lucine]

Back from the Dead

Dean Winchester & Little sister!reader After Dean dies, Y/N is stuck mourning for months. When he is freed from hell, he tries to call her. Angst, Sam's mentioned but not actually there, more Bobby than anything 💀 This is my first fic i'm posting omg! hopefully it turned out alright

After Dean died things quickly fell apart. Sam clearly wasn’t okay, and neither were you. You got new cases here and there, but it wasn’t the same without Dean. You and Sam decided to slow down on hunting for the time being to grieve. Days turned into weeks, crying turned into drinking, praying turned into attempting crossroad deals, and eventually you woke up one morning alone in the motel with no trace of Sam.

You tried calling his phone for days, tracing any of his aliases, looking into any cases nearby hoping he found one on his own. He was completely gone.

After a couple weeks of searching, you called Bobby. He hasn’t heard from Sam in weeks and offered for you to stay with him instead of living from a motel. You took a bus to his home, and he greeted you with a big hug. You both don’t like to admit it, but he’s been more of a father to you than your actual dad ever was.

He let you move into his spare bedroom, and that's where you spent the first few weeks. Bobby would leave food at your door. He would sometimes try to come in and talk to you, but you weren’t very talkative anymore. Occasionally he’d practically drag you down to the library. He either needed help researching for other hunters or would tell you, “Spending all your life in that damn room won’t help you at all. I know it’s hard. We’re both hurting Y/N, but please just talk to me instead of suffering up there all day.”

Most nights he could hear your nightmares. He wasn’t there when Dean died, but he was there when you all buried his body. He couldn’t even imagine what it looked like actually seeing him die. Bobby could hear you crying in your sleep, begging Dean to keep breathing. He would come in and wake you up when you would start to scream. He couldn’t stand hearing you relive your brother's death every night.

Eventually the two of you were able to talk and mourn Dean together, slowly grieving and beginning to move on. You started to spend more time downstairs, researching, watching TV with Bobby. He even got you to go out to dinner one night.

The two of you would talk about Sam sometimes. Bobby would hear you late at night sobbing on a voicemail to him hoping he would finally pick up. You both knew he was alive, making your confusion on why Sam wouldn’t talk to you even more saddening. Bobby didn’t have much to say to comfort you anymore.

“I’m sorry kid. I know he’s out there somewhere; he’s just trying to mourn and move on too.”

One day you were cleaning up the library while Bobby made lunch, when you got a call. Nobody calls you anymore. Looking at the unknown number you cleared your throat and answered, putting the call on speaker.

“Hello?” You say, still putting away books.

The person on the line gasped. “Y/N?”

“Who is this?” Bobby hears you on the phone and stands right outside of the library to listen in.

“Y/N! It-It’s Dean! I can’t get a hold of Sam where are you guys?”

Your eyes pop out of your head, and you drop the book you were holding. “Dean? You can’t be Dean.” Your eyes cloud up with tears and Bobby runs into the library.

“Y/N it really is me please listen to me kid. Listen I don’t know-” Bobby grabs your phone and takes it off speaker.

“You listen to me idjit I don’t know how you got this number or why you think this is funny, but I better never hear you playing these kinds of damn tricks on us ever again.” You hear the person on the line start to talk but Bobby ends the call. You sat down at the desk and broke down. You hadn’t heard Dean’s voice in months, but it really did sound like him.

Bobby pulled a chair up and put his arm around you. “Kid I know you weren’t expecting for that to happen but we both know that wasn’t him.”

“How was it not?” You sobbed. “That was his voice. I know that was his voice.”

You lean into Bobby, and he holds you as you sob. He tried his best to comfort you, but he wasn’t very good at it, and he wasn’t exactly sure what was happening either. It took a while, but eventually you calmed down and you guys decided to just relax and call it an early day.

Later that night you were in your room getting your things ready to shower. You grabbed your clothes and started to make your way to the bathroom when there was a knock on the door. You weren’t sure who could be here at this hour. You put your stuff in the bathroom and start going down the stairs when you hear Bobby grab his knife and you hear a fight break out. You take your own knife out of your pocket and run to the front room.

There you see Bobby and Dean fighting. “Bobby! It’s me!” “My ass!”

You couldn’t believe Dean was right in front of you. He looks completely fine, like he wasn’t torn apart by hell hounds just a few months ago. Like you didn’t bury him just a few months ago.

“Wait! Your name is Robert Steven Singer. You became a hunter after your wife got possessed. You’re about the closest thing I have to a father.” Dean looks terrified and Bobby stands still. You drop your knife in shock and they both turn to look at you.

“Dean.” Your face is white as a ghost, your heart pounding.

Dean’s eyes soften and he stands up. “Y/N.”

He starts to walk towards you and Bobby blocks him. He stares at Dean for a second and touches his shoulder. He still doesn’t believe it. You run up and push Bobby’s arm away, hugging Dean as hard as you can. Dean hugs you back and you both sigh a breath of relief.

You pull back and take it in. Deans alive. Right in front of you.

You can’t help but to start crying for the second time that day. Dean tears up a little too. “Baby I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that happen to me.”

“I knew it had to be you calling. I was right.” You both pull back into the hug.

The three of you sit down to talk about what happened. Dean asks where Sam is, and you have to explain how he left you with no warning and you had to come here. He can’t even believe it. Bobby explains the last few months and that in the morning we can start looking for Sam again.

In the meantime, Dean takes a shower and eats an actual meal. Bobby tells him that he can either take the couch or share a bed with you. He chooses the latter.

You and Dean get in the bed and it’s still a shock that your oldest brother is right here in front of you. You lay on his chest and take a deep breath. Months ago, he wouldn’t let you come close to him if he was tired, but he thinks that tonight and possibly the next few weeks could be an exception.

“Y/N, we’re going to fix all this. I’ll make sure of it. We’re gonna find Sam, we’re gonna figure out who brought me back, and I’m going to make sure you never have to go through this again. I promise.”

“I can’t believe you're actually back. I’ve been praying for this for months.” You yawned. It’s been a long day and you both were quickly falling asleep. “I missed you.”

“I know you did kid. I missed you so much.”

[embarrassingmf]

S/O HEADCANNONS

CHARACTERS INCLUDED: dean, sam, and cas.

A/N: I got lazy writing these🤫 also I would’ve added more characters but I’m not that far into the show☹️ (I’m only on late s6 but I have a lot of spoilers LMAOOOO)

—————————————————————————

DEAN:

CIVILIAN VERSION:

- if you were a civilian, I feel like dean would try to keep his hunting life a secret from you for as long as possible.

- he doesn’t want another cassie situation to come up because he loves you so much.

- personally, I don’t feel like dean would’ve told you on his own terms, I feel like you somehow found out on your own.

- whether that be you found out he lied about whatever job he said he worked as — a job that obviously made people move around a lot, so you didn’t get suspicious — or you just found some fake IDS or some weapons you found while snooping in the Impala.

- you decided to stay, to take the risk of possibly being hunted down by the supernatural to be with dean. and to you, it was the best decision you had made in your life.

- he treats you so well for a guy who slept around a lot before he met you.

- he always tries to call you every night while he’s out of state hunting.

- I feel like he’d get you a promise ring, something to make up for the no-go decision of marriage.

- whenever he comes home from a hunt, he’s forever by your side, cuddling on the bed or the couch of your apartment. he never leaves your side, and will even stay interlocked with you if you decide to go to the kitchen, he’ll only let you go if you need to go the bathroom. (you need your privacy ofc)

HUNTER VERSION:

- dean was definitely a little hesitant to start a relationship with you, you were both hunters. that never ended well, he saw first hand from tamara and isaac.

- but, he eventually decided to just take the risk. you were one of the only people — beside sam and cas — who understood the life that you guys lived. the risks that came with it.

- dean never would’ve thought about having a domestic life, he knew that wouldn’t have worked out. he had enough experience trying to make it work with lisa and ben.

- but you, you give him a small spark of hope that there is a chance he can eventually run away from hunting and life in peace with you.

- he’d also get you a promise ring, an identical ring to the silver one he used to wear on the ring finger of his right hand.

- he’d secretly buy you cassette tapes of the type of music you like and start playing it for you when you two are alone in Baby. the smile on your face is worth every penny he spent. (if you have similar or the same music taste to dean, much like I do, he’d make a mix-tape of songs he has that remind him of you.)

- dean being with a hunter s/o would mean he isn’t that heavy on PDA, he believes that it could put a bigger target in your back than there already is.

SAM:

CIVILIAN VERSION:

- much like dean, he wouldn’t have told you at first. he didn’t want you to end up like jessica, and be strived of a full life you deserved to live.

- although, unlike dean, I feel like he’d tell you himself instead of you finding out on your own terms and possibly being pissed at him.

- sam has a habit of going to stores full of little trinkets, reason being he’d bring them to you. you have a whole collection at this point, and you don’t plan on getting rid of it.

- whenever he comes to visit, he likes to spoil you with whatever money he has from hustling pool with dean.

- around the time sam and dean get the bunker, he’d invite you to live full-time, that way he can be closer to you and not drive extra miles after a hunt just to see you. (forgot to add it, but I feel like dean would do the same thing.)

- he claimed that you could help them do research on cases since sam doesn’t want you getting into the hunter lifestyle.

HUNTER VERSION:

- I believe that sam would be more open to a relationship than dean would be, sam knows you can protect yourself. you’re a hunter.

- while on hunts, sam always makes sure to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re safe.

- sam would 100% let you chat his ear off, even if it’s about a topic he isn’t interested in.

- if you had long enough hair, sam would definitely love to play with your hair. whether that was braiding it or just running his hands through it. (totally not based off one of blondie’s headcannons haha..)

- in his free time, he likes to lay your head in his lap and read to you, it’s a moment of domesticity that he loves.

CASTIEL:

CIVILIAN VERSION:

- you two first met after he lost his grace and Dean kicked him out of the bunker.

- he wasn’t all used to being a human, and you didn’t think he was weird for it. in fact, you helped him adjust to life without grace.

- when cas got his grace back, he was worried for you. you didn’t know he was an angel and he’d eventually have to return to the Winchester brothers.

- eventually, he decided to tell you before he left. you looked a him like he was crazy, it wasn’t until he showed you his wings in the form of a shadow behind him.

- he didn’t want you to stay at the bunker, he thought there was still a chance that a supernatural being could break in and possibly hurt you.

- and that belief grew after dean became a demon and tried to kill sam in the bunker.

- much like sam, castiel would also get you little trinkets he obtained from going on hunts with sam and dean.

- I also feel like he’d bring jack over to your apartment every now and then since he’s like a son to him!

HUNTER VERSION:

- at first, you were a little wary of castiel. but when you saw how much dean and sam trusted him, you decided to let yourself like him a little more.

- cas always gave you space, he never tried to force you to like him. he always let you get used to his presence at your own pace.

- it wasn’t until cas lost his grace and was forced out of the bunker did you realize how much you actually liked having him around.

- so when he eventually returned, you started treating him more like a friend and less than a stranger you were forced to interact with.

- eventually, that friendship bloomed into a relationship between an angel and a supernatural hunter.

- if you were ever injured on a hunt, you’d be the first one he’d heal. sometimes, you’d have to force him to heal someone else because they had worse wounds than you did.

- I feel like cas would love to hold your hand, just interlocking your fingers gives him a sense of peace.

—————————————————————————

tags! : @ryvkkr @marunene

[ladyofthe-lake]

"Wild Edible Plants of Kansas" — a suptober24 ficlet

Summary:

Dean and Cas are living out the rest of their days, happily retired from the hunting life, in the bunker. Cas gets his hands on some books about foraging. Domestic husbands ficlet.

When Cas learns about foraging, he becomes insufferable. No sooner does he see a foraging account on Instagram than several books about it show up at the door of the bunker, and Dean has to have another talk with him about ordering things to be shipped to their home. No matter how calm things have been for years, he doesn’t like the idea of some mega-corporation having his damn address.

“But Dean, you can just eat food that you find in the wild if you know what to look for,” Cas explains as he spreads the books on the tables that used to be used solely to research monsters, Heaven, Hell, and other manners of the supernatural. Now, they pull out the books occasionally, but more often than not, when Dean and Cas catch a whiff of something weird, they call in another hunter, someone a bit more spry.

They’re getting old, they’re getting soft — something Dean never thought he’d have the chance to do.

“Okay,” he says, leaning against the table with a beer in his hand. “So…” He taps the cover of Wild Edible Plants of Kansas. “This is better than just going to the grocery store how?”

Cas looks at him seriously. “This is all free.”

“Well, everything’s free for us,” Dean points out, a half-smile on his lips, as running credit card scams will never get old and at this point he’d be more surprised if he got caught for it than if the apocalypse were to get restarted.

“No, but this is free for everyone,” Cas replies. “All of the creation of the Earth, just… there for anyone to enjoy and to use.” He avoids saying ‘God;’ he’s careful like that, having moved into a more general spiritual realm since everything that happened. Cas likes to think of them now as creatures of the Earth, everything belonging to a cycle. Dean doesn’t even roll his eyes at the tree of life tapestry that Cas has hung up in the dungeon, where he goes to meditate these days — when they’re not pulling out the restraints and chains for their own use, of course.

“Right, but the grocery store is also—” Dean starts, but Cas cuts him off.

“You don’t understand,” he says. “It’s not the spirit of things. We were meant to all be able to enjoy equally. Capitalism, it’s gotten—”

“Okay, okay.” Dean raises his hands up in surrender. As soon as the word ‘capitalism’ gets thrown into the conversation he knows Cas is headed into lecture territory and Dean doesn’t really need to hear that. “You do you, man. I’m gonna be in the garage, gotta get to work on that GTO.” As he turns to leave, the title on the Foraging Mushrooms book catches his eye and he says, “Just be careful you pick out the right mushrooms. Don’t want to get too crazy tonight with dinner, yeah?”

Cas’s eyebrows furrow but Dean leaves him with that, heading down to the garage to spend a couple hours on his latest restoration project.

It’s more than a few hours, though, and he’s lost in the music his speakers blast throughout the echoing space and the work of getting this car back into its original condition. He doesn’t hear Cas when he enters the garage, so Cas’s arms snaking around him from behind comes as a surprise.

Used to be, he’d have jumped at that, reached for his gun; and while he still knows where the nearest gun is, he doesn’t have it on him, hasn’t been carrying it around at home for a long time.

Now, he knows Cas’s touch well, knows that Cas is the only other one here, that they’re safe. Nothing’s hunting them, nothing’s out to get them; they’ve been left alone now for years, except for Sam’s regular visits.

Dean leans back against him, his hands too greasy to return the touch. “Sorry, got lost in my own world again,” he says, contented, arching his neck to plant a kiss on Cas’s cheek.

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t interrupt but I’ve made dinner and want you to come try it before it gets cold,” Cas replies.

“Alright, let me just clean up here and I’ll be done for the evening.” Dean’s been looking forward to the evenings in particular; he and Cas will curl up on the couch that they’ve put in one of the old storage rooms that now serves as their living room and they’ll put on a movie or TV show. They have to pause frequently so that Cas can ask questions or Dean can explain something he thinks is important for Cas to know, references to other things or information about the world that Cas may not have gotten yet. Their list of what to watch grows ever longer with things Dean wants to catch Cas up on and what he himself has missed over the years, too busy with hunting and demons and angels and all that shit.

If they have energy afterward, they’ll fall into bed together, naked and exploring the familiarity that is one another’s bodies. But if they’re both tired, they’ll fall into their normal positions, Cas’s leg slung over Dean’s, his arm wrapped around Dean’s shoulder, holding him tight. On the nights when the nightmares come, Cas whispers in Dean’s ear that he’ll save him from Hell, he’ll save him from Purgatory, he’ll save him from whatever comes to him, forever — for as long as it takes. And when it’s Cas’s turn for the nightmares, a side effect of being human that he loathes, Dean reverses their positions, wraps himself around Cas, kisses his hair, and murmurs the same reassurances: he’s saved him before, he’ll do it again, and again, and again.

The kitchen, when Dean arrives upstairs, smells delicious. Cas turns away from the stove with a broad smile. “I’ve made risotto,” he says, pronouncing the word like it’s brand new to him, which it probably is. Risotto certainly isn’t on Dean’s regular meal rotation and it’s not served at the restaurants and bars they’ve frequented in the past.

“Risotto?” Dean raises his eyebrows.

“Yes. I found some wild herbs and mushrooms,” Cas explains, dipping a wooden spoon into the pot and filling up a bowl with food.

“Just this afternoon?” Dean asks in surprise.

“Yes, the woods and prairie around here are teeming with wildlife. I told you.” Cas looks at him meaningfully. “The Earth offers up so much for us.”

Dean wanders over to peer into the pot. It does smell very good, and he takes the bowl that Cas offers him. “You checked and you’re sure these ain’t poison mushrooms, or the fun kind?”

“Ah, yes,” Cas says, “there’s a chapter on that in the book. These are edible and are not going to send us on a trip. Though, if you’d like to try some of those type, the Internet has told me that they are easy to acquire.”

Dean’s expression is all amusement as he heads over to the table and sits down. “You’d wanna try shrooms, Cas? Really?”

“It seems like a unique human experience,” Cas says, filling his own bowl and following Dean to the table.

Dean lifts a spoonful of food to his lips and pauses only a second to look up at him. “That it does, Cas. You know, some people take mushrooms to see God. That’d be my biggest worry — I don’t wanna see reruns."

Cas smiles softly at him and beneath the table, Dean feels Cas’s foot press against his own. “Then we can stick with this kind for now,” he replies. “There were many in the woods. We’ll eat like kings for years."

Dean would say his first bite is Heaven, only it’s better — he’s been to Heaven and it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. This, though. This is real; it’s earthy, and he can somehow taste Cas’s hands on it, can picture him in the woods, kneeling to pluck the mushrooms from their soil. He can taste the careful preparation of the meal, the care Cas puts into everything he does.

“Cas, man,” he says, looking up at him. “This is fuckin’ delicious.”

“I’m glad you like it, Dean,” Cas says, watching him in that way that’ll never stop making Dean’s heart skip into a quicker staccato.

Around them, their home is quiet, calm. The bunker is warm and safe, their evening spread before them in its simplicity and domesticity. Dean’s lucky, luckier than he could’ve ever imagined being. Outside, the Kansas night rolls in.

[fangirlingfromdownunder]

Comfort in a Home-Cooked Meal

Summary - Part 50 in the Comfort series

Pairing - Dean Winchester x Reader, Reader x Sam (platonic), Reader x Bobby (father-figure), Andre (OG Character) x Reader (best friends), Garth x Bess

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

A/N: Happy New Year! I hope you all had some great celebrations with family and friends. 

Over the few days without Sam and Dean, you and Destiny do face masks, makeup, manicures, pedicures, and watch many movies. You both enjoy the freedom and relaxation of it all. You and Dean text as much as possible, assuring the other that you’re safe. You Google the property from the newspaper and peruse the photos for hours, imagining what it could look like with your few belongings inside and with your and Dean’s touch. You almost send him the link to the advertisement, but stop yourself. He always takes things better in person, and so many changes have already occurred recently. You don’t know how he’ll take another massive life change so soon. 

He texted you this morning saying they were hitting the road and coming home today. The hunt had been more difficult than they had hoped. But that’s not unusual. There’s always some turn that drags them out. You know the territory well, so you didn’t complain or make him feel worse. You just offered help from the Bunker; completing research late into the night while Destiny slept. 

Now knowing he’ll be home for dinner you set off working hard in the kitchen, Destiny at your side. Despite not liking the smell or taste of any of the ingredients, she helps eagerly. With her help, you manage to cook a decent-looking three-course meal. You have cheesy garlic bread and tomato soup to start, a mixed roast with chicken and veggies for the main and a large apple pie for dessert. You feel bad that Destiny won’t enjoy eating anything she helped create, but her happiness shows you that she just enjoyed the process and being able to do something nice for Dean especially. Once you’re done cooking, Destiny even helps you with the mountain of dirty dishes, not wanting to create or leave any extra work for the boys when they get home after the rough hunt and long trip. You want to just snuggle up with your husband after dinner and not worry about anything. 

While they’ve been away, you even had Destiny sleeping alone in her room. You would stay with her and chat until she fell asleep and then wait a while after but then you’d sneak out to the library to do research for the boys. And for the first time, last night she finally stayed the whole night in her own bed. She didn’t wake up crying or crawl into your bed. You’re not sure if it’s all the relaxation techniques you’ve been trying or if she’s just finally adapting, or a mix of both, but you’re glad all the same; for her sake and yours. You just hope she’ll do it again tonight so you can finally have a quiet night – or even an eventful one – with your husband alone. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The boys finally arrive home around 6 pm. You and Destiny are snuggling on your bed watching another anime when Dean walks in. He instantly dumps his bag on the floor and dives onto the bed with you both, wrapping you both up in his arms. 

“I’ve missed you guys,” he says as he kisses Destiny’s head and then pulls you in for a soft kiss.

“We’ve missed you too. But we had a fun girl’s week too.” You pause the movie causing Destiny to pout. “But you must be hungry. Dinner’s ready and waiting.” Dean looks at you mischievously and you instantly know what he’s thinking. You give him a stern look and shake your head. “It’s in the kitchen.”

“Can I tell Sam?” Destiny asks, surprising you both.

“Sure, go ahead,” you say encouragingly. You smile as she crawls off the bed excitedly and scurries down the hall. 

Dean takes the opportunity to pull you closer to his chest and kiss you passionately. He starts to get carried away, pushing you down into the soft memory foam mattress as he crawls over you. “I’m sure you cooked a delicious meal, but the only dinner I want is right here.” he kisses down your neck as you fight to contain yourself.

“As amazing as that sounds…the door’s open and that little girl will have a lot of questions if we don’t go out there or if she sees this. And I’m not ready to answer those questions. Are you?” you ask as you push him to sit up.

He sighs. “No. Why did I agree to this again?”

“Because you love me. And she’s growing on you. You’re great with kids, I know you wanted one. Anyway, you’ve lasted longer celibate.”

“Yeah, but I only just got to give that up and get you back again. I miss you. I miss feeling you and making love to you.”

“She slept all night in her own bed last night.”

“Really?”

“Yep. No nightmares. No waking up.”

Dean kisses you deeply with a big smirk. “Let’s go eat. The sooner we eat, the sooner it can be bedtime,” he says excitedly when he pulls away.

“You’re such a dork,” you say laughing as he climbs off the bed and pulls you with him.

“But I’m your dork.”

“That you are. For ever and ever.”

With a spring in his step, he leads you to the kitchen where he finds the feast laid out on the small table, complete with the best cutlery and crockery you could find in the dusty old cupboards. Sam and Destiny are already sitting down. Sam has a plate full of food in front of him while Destiny has the cow heart you put aside earlier; it’s a stark contrast to the vision the rest of the meal creates but you accept it. While researching their case, you also looked through the library for a cure for lycanthropy but the only thing you could find was for newly turned werewolves and only if they hadn’t fed on human hearts. Destiny being born a werewolf and also the fact that her father was feeding her human hearts exclude her from that option. But you and Dean agreed to take her on as she is in that park, so you accept her, cow hearts and all. You smile as you sit down beside her and start to fill your own plate. Dean sits beside Sam, across from you, and starts to fill his plate too. 

“This is delicious. Thanks Y/N. Much better than diner food,” Sam says. “I could get used to you staying here and us coming home to this.”

You smile at him and nod, but you feel guilty. The photos of the house on the hill filter through your mind. Could you really be happy here, like this? Raising a little girl in a Bunker? Will Dean ever really get out if you stay? He promised. He said he wanted to get out. He’s finally ready. But if we stay here… 

Dean notices the small frown as your mind wanders and nudges your leg under the table, bringing you back to the present. He catches your eyes, silently asking if you’re okay. You nod and focus on eating the meal you put so much time, effort and passion into cooking. Of course, he’s not convinced but he lets it go for now. He knows you’ll talk when you’re ready. 

After dinner and dessert, everyone helps to tidy up from the meal and do the dishes. Sam then retreats to his room while you start on the nightly routine you established over the last week. You make sure Destiny showers and brushes her teeth before you tuck her into her bed. You then sit on the end of the bed and go through some of the meditation exercises you found online that are meant to help with nightmares and insomnia. You have a feeling these exercises would be beneficial for your husband too, but you know it will be a push to get him to try them. Maybe in time, you can make them a family thing, but for now, you’re content with doing them with Destiny. When she starts to yawn and curl up in the blankets you place a kiss on her head and turn out the main light, leaving just the little dog-shaped nightlight on. You thought it was a little on the nose at first, but she chose it and wouldn’t put it down in the store so you happily bought it for her. You sit in a comfy chair by the door and wait for her breathing to even out. As you wait you start to drift off, but Dean peaks his head in and kisses your head.

“She asleep?” he asks quietly.

You watch the steady rise and fall of her body as she breathes for a moment and then nod. He offers you his hand which you take and he leads you to your room. He’s dressed in a pair of loose sweats and an old T-shirt, indicating he already showered while waiting for you. You frown as he climbs into bed, beckoning you to join him.

“I haven’t showered yet.”

“Sorry, did you want me to wait for you? I can always shower again if you want me to join…” You shake your head. “Come on, you look like you’re about to fall asleep standing up. Shower later. Come cuddle your husband. He’s so very cold and lonely. And misses having his sexy wife in his arms.”

“Only if he stops talking about himself in the third person.”

“Just come here, Sweetheart.” He opens his arms wide, inviting you to lay on his chest. You don’t make him wait, you crawl onto the bed and into his waiting arms. He tightens his grip around you as you get comfortable.

Despite, falling asleep not minutes earlier and the comfort of Dean's embrace and steady breathing you couldn’t be more awake. The thoughts of what Sam said earlier along with your own concerns and the images of the house swirl around your mind. 

“You still awake?” you ask quietly, not wanting to wake him if he is.

“You wanna talk about what was on your mind at dinner?” he asks as he rubs your back.

You nod, and then say, “Are we still planning to get out?”

You feel him tense a little as his hand stops moving on your back. After a moment he nods. “We’re not gonna raise Destiny in the Bunker forever are we?”

“Are we gonna stop answering each other's questions with more questions?”

“Yes.”

“Yes? To what? We’re not answering with questions or?”

He chuckles lowly. “Both. I meant it when I said I was ready. We’re married now, we have a daughter (essentially), you cook delicious three-course-meals…I think we can manage.”

“Hey!” you say mocking offence. “I kinda enjoy the housewife, stay-at-home-mom thing. I think I’d want to do something eventually, especially when or if Destiny goes to school full-time. But for now, I’m happy for the break. I know you’d need to stay busy though…”

“Maybe I could follow in Bobby’s footsteps. I am pretty good with cars. We just need the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence.”

“Or maybe we don’t…” you reach over onto your bedside table for your phone and bring up the ad as he looks at you confused. “It’s not in the suburbs and it doesn’t have a fence, let alone a white picket one, but I think it’s perfect.” You bite your lip as you hand him your phone and he scrolls through the photos.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Tag list: (Leave a like or comment on this post or let me know below if you want to be added to the tag list for this series)

@bitchwitch1981, @muhahaha303, @justrealizedimmascifygurl, @mcdowell-123, @leigh70, @marvelsmarauder, @losa12308, @tapedeck-hearts, @luvjaida, @peachtxa, @ambearsstuff, @shadow-of-a-cloud, @slut-for-buck, @iprobablyshipit91, @sassy-pelican, @fallenlilangel99, @heavenlyhopeful0, @nelachu2423, @ladysparkles78, @canyouimaginethatstory, @mrlonelycat, @roseblue373, @staley83

[klove0511]

It's Rest I Want Epilogue

John Winchester lay on the rack, trying to catch his breath. He'd lost track of how long it had been. Too long. His vocal chords had been shredded from screaming ages ago; but it didn't stop him from shrieking with every new cut. 

“What do you say, John?” Alistair purred. “This can all stop. All I need is one little word.”

It had been so long. All he wanted was for the pain to stop. To rest, just for a little while.

“Last chance, John. Will you? Hmm?” It wasn’t. The demon would ask again tomorrow. Always tomorrow. 

All he had to do was hold out one more day. One more hour, one more cut. Except he didn’t think he could. Not anymore. “You'll stop?” he rasped. “You— you promise?”

“Of course. All you have to do is pick up the knife.” The satisfaction in the demon’s voice made him sick.

He stared at the knife sitting on the table next to him. The ebony handle gleamed, slick with his blood. He was already intimately familiar with that knife and what it could do. Just one little word, and he could rest. He swallowed. He was a broken man, and Alistair knew it. Then he said, “Yes,” and closed his hand on the blade.

Dean stretched his back, enjoying the warmth from the sun. Early May in Sioux Falls was pleasant, and today the sky was a clear blue. Nature was happier than he was, but it wasn't so bad. He had one more car to finish, then he'd head over to Bobby's for a drink. The old hunter had made him promise that he wouldn't spend Sam's birthday alone, and Dean didn’t particularly want to spend the evening with anyone who hadn’t known Sam. 

“Winchester! You coming to happy hour tonight?” Mike called from across the shop.

Dean looked over at his boss, grimy as the rest of them, and waved him off. He'd told them no already, but they hadn't known why. All they knew was that he was quieter than usual. They'd been trying to get him to go drinking with them all day, speculating that he was nursing a broken heart. They were closer than they knew, but he wasn't going to tell them that, either.

Mike shrugged, exchanging a concerned look with one of the other guys. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“You know it. Hey, you coming to Dave's place Saturday for the barbeque?” Dean said, intending to offer a ride. Mike's house was on the way, and it wouldn't be the first time they'd carpooled. 

“Nah, the kids have a soccer game. I'll be at the next one.” 

Dean finished up his last job and cleaned up. It wasn't hunting, but it was satisfying work, repairing broken machines. Mike was a good boss. He went straight to Bobby's, knowing he wouldn't care if Dean showed up a little grungy. Better than going back to his place first. He was doing better these days, but he also knew that if he went home first he wouldn't want to leave again. Not today.

“Good to see you, kid. It's been too long,” Bobby said, moving aside so Dean could enter. 

It hadn't been that long. He'd stopped by, what, last month? Maybe March. “Work's keeping me busy. You know how it goes.”

Bobby leveled a stare at him. “Work, or work?”

“Just the shop, I swear. We've been slammed; Mike's talking about hiring an extra guy or two. Not that I know how that's going to help when we don't have any spare bays.”

“No kidding. You were his first new hire in ten years. Now he wants more?” Bobby led them to the kitchen where Dean could smell something good cooking. He grabbed two glasses and plates while Bobby pulled out a bottle of whiskey. 

Dean set the table and said, “What can I say? Word must have gotten out about his awesome new mechanic.”

“Well, he's lucky to have you, and I'm sure he knows it.” Bobby served up the pot roast, and they sat down.

Mostly they made small talk over dinner. Dean filled Bobby in on the shop gossip, and Bobby picked Dean's brain on some hunts he was researching. Later in the study, Dean flipped through one of Bobby's books, trying to find a match for the monster one of Bobby's contacts was hunting. He had to laugh. “I never figured I'd turn into you.”

“How's that now?” Bobby grumbled, paging through a book of his own.

“I don't know. Figured this sort of thing was more Sam's gig. I always expected to go out on the job.” 

Bobby's hands stilled. He watched Dean carefully, which annoyed the hell out of Dean.

“I'm not going to break. Seriously, Bobby, I'm ok. I mean. I'm not, right? I'm never going to be ok with the fact that— But it's not like it was.” He didn't know how to say it in a way that Bobby would understand. 

Bobby sighed. “I know you are. I guess I just didn't expect to hear you talk like that.”

“Like what?”

Bobby cocked his head and smiled a little. “Like you're retired from the job. Semi-retired, anyway. I know about that shifter you got back in April.”

Dean shrugged. “It was causing problems in my neighborhood, so I took care of it. It's not like I'm going looking for trouble.”

“I know you ain't.” Bobby paused, debating whether or not to say this next part. “I'm real proud of you, Dean. And I know Sam would be, too.”

There wasn't anything to say to that. He was pretty sure Bobby was right: Sam would be proud. He'd always been the one who insisted there was a life outside of hunting. 

“How’s that girl you been seeing?” Bobby asked after a bit.

Dean grunted in surprise. “Ruby? I don’t know. Think I might break it off.” He squirmed under Bobby’s parental gaze. “It’s weird, ok? She reminds me of Sam.”

Bobby guffawed. “Shit. I would’ve thought that would be a point in her favor.” Horror gripped him, and it must have shown because Bobby said, gentler, “It ain’t no secret how you felt. I got eyes, don’t I?”

“Bobby, no. You gotta know I would never–”

Bobby cut him off. “Course I know. I ain’t saying you molested the kid. Just that every time I caught you with a girl it was some know-it-all, lanky brunette who didn’t like being told no. I ain’t an idjit.”

Dean slumped in his chair, relieved but still uncomfortable. “Still think I might call it off.“

Bobby grunted. “It’s ok to move on, too. He’d want you to be happy.”

Wincing, Dean said, “Not sure happy is in the cards. But you’re right. I don’t think he’d want me to be alone.”

“Ruby ain’t the one, though?”

Dean shrugged and gestured helplessly. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something isn’t working.” Dean finished the book he was working through and yawned. “This guy need his information tonight?”

“You got work in the morning?” Bobby said.

Dean nodded but added, “I can stay if it's urgent.”

“Get out of here, boy. I got this. Whatever it is hunts in 6 day cycles, and we got 4 more days before it kills again. You go on home; take care of yourself.”

It felt bad, leaving Bobby hanging, but he hadn't actually asked Dean for help. Dean had been looking for an excuse to stay away from his empty apartment a little longer and offered to help a while. If it was really urgent, or Bobby was really lost, he would have pulled Dean in earlier. It didn't happen much, and he remembered how scared Bobby had been of asking at all. Like Dean was going to load up and hit the road at the reminder that monsters existed. But no; he'd done his time, and he was starting to accept that. The parts of it he missed weren't the parts he could get back, anyway.

He yawned again. Being a respectable member of society sucked. “If you're sure. You'll call if you need me?”

“Course I will. See you around, Dean.”

His apartment was dark and quiet when he got back. The secondhand couch was worn and soft, and just a little bit saggy in the middle. On the whole, the place was spartan, like he was waiting for something before he could move in. He wondered if it would ever feel like home. Tossing his keys on the counter, he bypassed the kitchen and went straight to getting ready for bed. Going through the motions by rote, he brushed his teeth, changed his clothes. In the bedroom he kept a—well, he wasn't sure what to call it. Almost like a shrine to Sammy. Sam's favorite knife, an old book Dean had found in the Impala, a soccer trophy he'd uncovered in one of their dad's storage lockers, all arranged neatly on his desk next to the photos he had of Sam. There weren't very many. He thumbed the worn photo of him and Sam that was on top, the one Bobby had snapped, catching Sam with his head tipped back in a belly laugh. “Happy birthday, Sammy,” he murmured, turning off the lamp and climbing into bed.

A minute or two later, there was a knock on his door. Confused and annoyed, he flicked the light back on and went to the door, fully intending to chew out anyone who thought a social call at midnight was a good idea. He threw open the door, freezing when he saw who was on the other side.

“Hi, Dean,” Sam said. He looked exactly like he had the last time Dean had seen him, only this time he was solid, real. Alive. “We've got work to do.”

[heaven-s-black-box]

I need a Hero pt.4- destiel

Return to File

Recovery date: December 2st, 2021

Description: Cas is banished from Heaven and place into a coma in a ring of fire. He can only be awaken if a hero crosses and cuts open his armor including his mask. Cas believes he will remain there until the apocalypse. However such a hero in the form of Dean does come and free him. Upon seeing Dean Cas professes his love onto him and Dean happily requites. But when Dean comes home to announce his new love his father, John, is outraged. He tricks Dean into drinking potion that not only erases his memories of Cas but also has him fall in love with a according to John a more suitable princess.

Notes: Recovered in conjunction with CoralQueen from research lab Ao3, we thank them for their contribution. The other entries can be found here, here, here, and here.

Word count: 1 325

Back to directory

“So, how did you manage to become a princess without marrying?” Castiel asked, as he and Anna sat alone at their table. 

Their drinking had turned competitive after a while, and Dean and Sam had both long since passed out. Jo had gone to bed a few hours earlier, and Ellen had gone to get someone to bring the princes back to the castle. 

“How are you still alive?” She asked, playing with the engagement ring on her finger.

“Why did you use a love potion on Dean?”

Anna stopped her fidgeting and frowned.

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb, Sam says that’s the only possibility and I see no reason why he would lie. Is it for power? You were once an angel, why leave that for such little power as a queen?”

Anna scowled and leaned closer to Cas. She lowered her voice so there would be little chance of anyone over hearing them.

“I left heaven because it was broken. Not that I had any power there in the first place, I have more power as a princess. Which is quite sad. And I would never stoop so low as using magic to make a human fall for me. Secondly, it was an arranged marriage to strengthen our armies to fight the demons. I had nothing to do with it. When I arrived this morning he was already making heart eyes at me.”

“Why would Dean do that?” Cas frowned.

“Humans are strange creatures Castiel. But if it truly is a love potion, shouldn’t you be able to reverse it?” She leaned back, and looked over at the booth Sam and Dean had been thrown in.

“I am not as powerful as I once was. My grace has slowly been draining during my time on earth, I can’t even fly anymore.”

“That’s not what I meant. While I may not know much about Dean, I’ve known you long enough to see what love looks like in your eyes.”

“It’s meaningless if-”

“Is Castiel, the angel who risked everything on the possibility of Lucifer’s son being good, backing down from a confession that may or may not be remembered?” She laughed. “Come now brother, you’re braver than that.”

---

“Ow-” Sam groaned, as he took a sip of the water Jo gave him. “So, Dean’s completely lost it.”

“And it wasn’t Anna,” Cas said. 

“How do you know that?”

“I asked her.” 

Both Jo and Sam choked on their drinks.

“Cas! You don’t just ask people if they used a love potion on someone. What if she tells the king? Or anyone else for that matter,” Jo hissed.

“She won’t. Although, it doesn’t seem like she'll help us either.” He frowned at the bite of sausage he’d taken. “This is disgusting, I will never understand how humans like food.”

“Okay, so did she tell you anything else?”

“It seems Dean was already under whatever spell it is, before she arrived. She also said it was an arranged marriage, I believe someone here must have given him the potion,” Castiel hummed.

“But who-” Sam stopped mid sentence and sighed. “My dad.”

“Why would the king do that?” Jo asked.

“So Dean wouldn’t fight him on it? So he didn’t have to worry about Dean’s feelings? So Anna would feel loved and wouldn’t want to run away? Who knows.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, the safest, and quickest way to break the spell would be true love's kiss.”

“Cas your up!” Jo cheered.

“Excuse me?” Cas’s cheeks turned pink.

“We humans are a lot smarter than you think,” Sam laughed.

“I never claimed you were stupid… What makes you think it would work?”

“He forgot about you,” Sam took a sip of water before continuing, “I went to see Rowena earlier, and she said that a side effect of strong love potions is the person forgets about the person they truly love. It’s a fatal flaw because it makes reversing it so much easier. She said if you kiss him, he should go back to normal.”

“What about your dad?” Jo asked. If they reversed the potion, there was no telling what he would do.

“At this point, the doctor doesn’t even think he’ll make it through the next few days. Confess, reverse the spell, and we’ll just wait for my dad to die before canceling the wedding.”

“That seems a little cruel.”

“Really? I thought it would be nice to let him believe he’d gotten his way one last time.” Sam shrugged. “But it could also count as petty pay back for, well, everything.”

“Wow Sam, you okay?” The two laughed.

Cas looked down at the table as he tried to think of a way to confess. If Dean was going to remember this, he wanted to do it right.

---

“Hello Dean,” Cas said, pushing off the wall he was leaning against.

Dean had just come out of the barracks, and Cas had been waiting by the door. 

“Cas, right? You’re Sam’s friend?”

“Yes… Sam’s friend.”

“Sorry, but I have wedding plans to sign off on. But if you want, we can talk on the way to the garden.”

“Please.”

Cas’ stomach was in knots. What if this didn’t work? What if they were wrong? Not only would Dean freak out both now and later, but he’d have to leave the kingdom. The running wasn’t what scared him though, it was the thought of losing Dean.

Dean was right. He was much more human now.

“So, is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, yes. Um…” he took a deep breath, “Have you ever heard of angels?”

Dean laughed. “Yes, my mother used to tell me and Sammy stories about them before bed. Why?”

“Did you know that they’re wrong? At least partly. When an angel falls or is banished, they become human. If they fall, it’s an immediate change, but if they’re banished, it’s slow.”

“Is that so?” Dean asked, looking over at him. They were getting closer to the garden. 

“Yes. I used to think humans were weak, with so many repetitive needs like eating and evacuating their bowels. Most of all, their emotions. I never understood how humans could be so broken over a few words.” Dean raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand. Are you feeling okay?”

They stepped out into the garden, and Cas noticed it was empty. Sam had probably done something.

“But now,” Cas continued, ignoring Dean, “I understand. Because the thought of you not loving me hurts, the thought of you marrying Anna is killing me.” He expected Dean to run, but he seemed rooted in place. Cas stepped forward, and cupped Dean’s face. “I love you Dean Winchester,” Cas said before kissing him.

Dean stood frozen for a second, and Cas panicked before he felt Dean pull him closer. They stood there, kissing by the entrance to the garden, for a few moments before they heard a cough. Pulling away quickly, they turned to find Anna, and Dean panicked.

“I- I can-”

“I just came to let you know that your father is dead, he passed not long ago. Your brother is already with him. As for the arrangement, I’m sure we can find a compromise.” She smiled sweetly as Dean ran back through the door to his father’s room.

Anna and Cas went to sit in the mezzanine. 

“What did you do?” Cas asked, as they watched a few bees fly around.

“I never really liked him anyway, he’s too...reckless. I feel like being married to him would put me in unnecessary danger. It makes you two perfect for one another.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I still don’t think you had to kill him.”

“He was going to die anyway, I just gave him a little push.”

The two laughed, as they heard the news spreading throughout the castle. John Winchester was dead, Dean Winchester would be king.

[alexsoenomel]

A Perfect Puzzle Piece (Sam Winchester x Reader fluff)

Request:  

 More Sam Winchester Fluff pwease? I need more soft boy Sam lol. I’ll leave the story up to you

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Warnings: I mean period pains I guess? Other then that just fluff :)

Word count: 837

Note: Wrote this few years ago. Like/ reblog or both if you like it :)

Your head hit the soft pillow as your tired body went under the freshly washed covers of the bed you shared with your other puzzle piece. Sadly he wasn’t there to spread his arms so you could fit into his body perfectly. Out and about, he was working with his big brother, trying to find a way to stop The Darkness from completely destroying the world you once saw as beautiful. The truth was the world was now nothing but ugly and dark, you were just lucky to have found a little bit of light in Sam and Dean. You would always go with them but being a woman came with one little thing-periods and period craps. Every month you’d have those sharp waves of pain that were at times unbearable. Today was one of those days…you woke up and immediately wanted to die. It was a perfect morning….

The pain, the ugly feeling knowing a pad is between your legs and the feeling like you were heavier  twice your actually weight plus the unexpected acne…It was like that time you almost got killed by a demon. The motherfucker got you good until Sam jammed a knife in his heart. Ah good times…

You were in so much pain you couldn’t get up, and you tried. At one point you were crying wishing desperately you were a man but it was useless. You took the pain meds and even took a shower hoping hot water would calm the situation but it didn’t. Sam and Dean got worried as always, even though you told them a million times first days were always the most painful for you. Finally you convinced them to go and do their research wherever that might be and just to leave you to sleep off this whole situation. And that’s what you did…Spending a whole day in bed with Sam’s scent all over the sheets wasn’t so bad after all. You hugged his pillow inhaled the sweet smell of his shampoo not thinking of the blood war between your legs, and for just few minutes the pain stopped and you got to close your eyes, drifting to dream land faster than Dean running towards pie. After you woke up, you were pain free but still alone. Even though he was out for only a couple of hours you missed him and the loneliness kicked in.

“When will you come home? I miss you.” You texted him.

Few seconds later your phone buzzed. “Tonight. We can’t find Crowley, this whole trip was useless. I miss you too. How’re you feeling?”

“The pain is gone for now but I’m sad and I don’t know why.” You press send.

Few seconds later… “It’s okay to be sad. We will be home soon, I promise.”

“I love you Sammy.”

“I love you too. See you soon.”

That was at 6pm that day.

The rest of the day you, of course, spent in bed watching old movies on Sam’s laptop until you got a headache and decided to go and sleep at 2am. It felt like you had spent that whole day working; you were drained, still sad and just done with life and motherfucking nature.  You just needed Sam and his hugs.

At the end he kept his promise. He came back with Dean at around 3am while you were already fast asleep. He took a quick shower got into his pajamas and without a sound joined you. He wrapped his arm around your waist as you slowly drifted back to reality. He placed small kissed on your neck sending shivers all over your body. When you realized your perfect puzzle piece was back you slowly opened your eyes and turned around to face him, snuggling against his warm body.

“You’re back.” You mumbled, feeling a genuine wave of happiness consuming you.

“Hey.” He smiled. “Sorry I woke you up. How’re you feeling?”

“I’m glad you did. Still feel like crap, but better. How was the trip?”

“Useless and tiring. “ He said as his long fingers were playing with your messy and now tangled bed hair. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” Feeling safest as you can possibly be, right there in his arms, with your heart beating fast and your cheeks blushing uncontrollably, your legs went between his as your body climbed on top of him while your lips kissed him hungrily. “Cuddle me.”

Sam gasped by surprise and laughed, feeling your body against his. That’s how pure bliss and comfort looks. That’s how love looks like. It was dark as it can possibly be, but you could still see the beautiful lines on his face and his breath taking hazel eyes glowed in the same darkness. The same could be said about him, your features and silhouette were still visible. His hand brushed away your hair so he could study you more.

“I love you.” He said. “I can’t believe I found you.”

“To the moon and back Sammy.” You said and kissed him again.

[luna-writes-stuff]

Day 4: The Last Time, Gabriel

Song link

Fanfic, fem! muse!reader

Little fluff, little angst

Word count: 3034

Tw: Written before I watched the Calliope episode. Muses aren’t evil because I said so. Also, you are now Erato, yay! One (1) pjo reference, I couldn’t resist but it’s hidden very well! References to other Greek Tales.

Summary: When a case in Missouri begins to look an awful lot like a Greek god wreaking havoc, the Winchesters and their two angels have to find someone to help them research old scrolls. Turns out Gabriel knows a Muse. And unresolved feelings fall back into the play.

[This might be one of my new favorite tropes idc I’ll say it]

"Find myself at your door Just like all those times before I'm not sure how I got there All roads, they lead me here."

The four of them had no idea how they ended up here in the first place. Or at least three of them. When a hunt reveals more than it had appeared to let on at first sight, it urged Gabriel - though much to the persistence of Cas - to show up on a doorstep he hadn’t stood in front of in a long time. He hadn’t even expected your home to still stand here, let alone still be inhabited by you.

But here they stood, Gabriel’s hand hovering just in front of the door, before turning around on his heels, holding uncharacteristic hesitance in his face.

“We could always ask another one,”

“Well, she knows you, so tough luck.” Dean mumbled, earning an urging look from Sam.

Gabriel sighed deeply, his eyes trailing from the group to the door once more. He hadn’t even heard his brother approach until it was his fist that made contact with the door.

"I imagine you are home In your room, all alone And you open your eyes into mine And everything feels better."

A moment of silence hung in the air, and Castiel had almost taken the liberty of simply entering your home without further announcement, but it had appeared you were quicker. Before he could turn to Dean to tell him he would be leaving, the door opened, revealing a disheveled looking woman in the doorway; her pajamas hanging loosely from her body as her hair was kept untamed. Perhaps not a rare occurrence, seeing as it was just past midnight. And you were having a great power nap on the couch.

Your eyes first fell on Castiel, his face blank as ever, though a tiny part of relief seemed to flood his features.

“Castiel,” you greeted through a yawn, a hand coming into your vision. You turned your head to meet his eyes, a sliver of a smile growing on your face.

“Gabe.”

“Hey there, sweet cheeks.” He acknowledged, a smirk forming on his face, early anxiety slowly exiting his system.

The two men behind them did not escape your notice. You decided however, to let the two angels decide. They wouldn’t have showed up without reason to begin with.

Yet, before any of them could talk, one of the unknown men spoke up.

“You do not appear very,” he halted momentarily, trying to find the correct words, while simultaneously ignoring the warning looks both Castiel and Gabriel shot him. “Muse-ish.”

You squinted your eyes at him. Exhaustion be damned; mortals would never learn. “Greek divinities do not take kind on taunting words and insults, need I remind you.”

Another silence filled the cold midnight air, and you subconsciously shivered at the feeling, the cold wind hitting your bare feet.

Taking a step back, you opened the door wider, silently urging the four to step in. An offer they graciously accepted.

"And right before your eyes I'm breaking No past, no reasons why Just you and me."

After they had removed their coats and shoes, you had moved to the kitchen, already preparing tea for the visitors. The two men, which you learned to be Sam and Dean, sat on the chair connected to the kitchen island, watching your every move. Gabriel had familiarised himself with the black cat you had affectionately called ‘Halloween’, and whom he had happened to gift you a while back. Castiel was…well, Castiel. Sitting in a corner, observing everything quietly, but closely.

“Erato, we need-“ Sam started, but you interrupted him halfway, nearing with the burning kettle.

“I go by Y/N these days,” Questioning looks were received from both Winchesters, causing you to smile a little, pouring a cup for Sam and Gabriel, knowing Cas would not be interested, and Dean did not appear the tea-drinking type. “Erato becomes a bit old fashioned after thousands of years, do you not think?”

Sam only snickered briefly, grabbing his cup. “I suppose.”

“And I suppose you are here because of the ritualistic sacrifices occurring in Missouri?”

Gabriel hopped off the couch, already running to the top cupboards, grabbing the sugar pot from the pantry. You ignored his movements, only inching towards the left to give him access to his own cup. You almost missed the frown on Sam’s face, or the distrust on his brother’s.

“You know of that?”

“I am a muse,” you pointed out. “I know everything written about my family at any given time in history. It is in the job description.”

"This is the last time I'm asking you this Put my name at the top of your list."

“A plague, miracles, and lack of sunlight. It does sound like Phoebus Apollo.” You listed off from the top of your head, mindlessly handing Gabriel a teaspoon, as if it had been natural for the both of you. Perhaps, once, it had been.

“That is what we figured as well.” Sam answered.

“Yes, but that brings me to this next question; why visit a muse, if it is not the problem nor causation of one? Low education or mere ignorance?”

“Ignorance is bliss.” Dean finally spoke up.

“Ignorance is pointless.” Shutting his words down quickly, you brought the cup to your lips, giving the younger Winchester time to speak.

“We were hoping you would be able to tell us what was happening.”

“The muses haven’t intervened with the gods for a long time now. Not since Mount Olympus fell.” You informed, rolling your eyes at Gabriel, who was mocking Sam behind his back.

“Mount Olympus fell?” Dean wondered.

“Yes,” Castiel spoke up ultimately, making himself known in the room. “It moved to New York.”

“New York?”

“Empire State?” Gabriel filled in. “Keep up.”

"This is the last time I'm asking you why You break my heart in the blink of an eye."

Pulling a scroll of paper from his jacket, Sam handed it to you. Gently, you took it from him, your eyes scanning over the older symbols, a form of Greek you hadn’t read in centuries.

“Can you read it?”

Turning your head towards Gabriel, you raised your eyebrows, almost provoking him. “Can you not?”

“My Greek is not what it used to be.” He defended, walking up behind you, reading the scroll from over your shoulder.

“Getting old?” You mumbled, focusing on the words written in front of you.

“You wish.”

His voice was nearby, nearly sending shivers down your spine. It was no secret to any angel nor god about your past relations with Gabriel, but even after years apart, his mere presence could make you weak at the knees.

You’d never tell him, of course. He was smug enough already. There was no need to boost his self esteem.

"You find yourself at my door Just like all those times before You wear your best apology But I was there to watch you leave."

The two of you had met at the start of the Greek age, not even a hundred years after your creation. He had mistaken you for a mortal as first, and you decided to have your fun with it. But it wasn’t until you outlived your village, save for your eight sisters, that he ultimately realised you were indeed not of mankind.

Through the years, you’ve had a loving relationship. You took time off, just to crawl back to each other within a matter of decades. And though it seemed sickening to all around you, you had grown familiar with it. And you figured Gabriel had as well.

But after hotel Elysian you were unaware of what had happened to your beloved angel, and no one had come to contact you. The angels were not completely happy with the other deities, therefore you had figured they simply did not want to inform you of his loss.

And then, after a short decade, he simply showed up on your doorsteps with three others. No warnings or letters beforehand. You should have been mad, angry, perhaps even enraged. But you were none of the above.

You were relieved.

"And all the times I let you in Just for you to go again Disappear when you come back Everything is better."

“I am sorry,” you muttered, fatigue still laced in your eyes, your senses suddenly overwhelmed at his presence. “I need some sleep.”

“You need some sleep?” Dean repeated.

“Yes,” you empathised. “You mortals are aware of that term, correct?”

“Muses are called muses for a reason,” Cas stated bluntly, drawing the Winchesters’ attention. “They need to be in a good mood in order to function. Physically and mentally. Muses in other mythologies often die out by lack of inspiration.”

He then turned to you, nodding in agreement. “Sleep seems to be an adequate solution.”

You smiled in appreciation, downing the rest of your tea. “Even deities need sleep. How do you think Medusa was killed?”

Gabriel smirked, stepping even closer to you. So close, you could feel his breath fanning your neck. And just like that, you were grateful to have told the guys to wait. Would you have kept reading now, you would have short-circuited.

“Not to worry, sugar,” he began. “I will look over you. No Perseus will come barging in.”

“Oh, this will be great.” Dean mumbled.

"And right before your eyes I'm aching Run fast, nowhere to hide Just you and me."

“Guest room is at the end of the hall, last door on the left. It has two beds; fresh beddings should be in the closet there.” You muttered out, handing the scroll back to Sam, who stuffed it back in his coat pockets.

“Cas, tv volume does not go higher than five,” Ultimately, you turned to Gabriel, who had already started to follow you around as you instructed the group. “Gabe, no funny business.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.“ He smirked.

Raising your eyebrows at him, you gave him a pointed look. “You cannot lie to me.”

“No one can, sugar.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

Bidding your good nights to the group, you walked upstairs, letting another yawn escape your mouth. Gabriel, still behind you, snickered lightly open the sound, his eyes drifting to the cat that had followed you, and was mimicking your actions.

"This is the last time I'm asking you this Put my name at the top of your list."

When you finally reached your room, you quite literally threw your body onto the bed, exhaling deeply. You had no more energy to move, let alone bid Gabriel a good night’s rest, even though he was most likely going to sit beside the bed with a cat in his lap.

But it seemed none of that was necessary. The bed dipped beside you, a weight you had grown all too accustomed to, and you could not help but smile upon the notion.

A hand gently rested on your back, rubbing short circles, before it reached towards the sheets at the foot-end, dragging it over your body.

Unable to make a clear offer of gratitude, you uttered a “warm” followed by your body subconsciously getting adjusted underneath the blankets.

"This is the last time I'm asking you why You break my heart in the blink of an eye."

Though it was the first time you had seen him in nearly ten years, his scent seemed to work its way to your nose almost instantaneously. It was something too well known for you, yet something so nostalgic. And after him leaving without any words, it brought you some source of comfort. Simply to know he was still there.

And so, without thinking, your hand reached out from underneath the blankets, lazily - and rather clumsily - finding his, lacing your pinky with his.

No objection was heard nor recognised from him. If anything, it only seemed to calm the air around the both of you.

His pinky lightly squeezed yours before loosening its hold, though not enough to let go of you. No; his hand seemed to linger exactly where it was.

"This is the last time you tell me I've got it wrong This is the last time I say it's been you all along This is the last time I let you in my door This is the last time, I won't hurt you anymore."

A whisper suddenly filled the air; so silent, you were not sure if you had heard it correctly after all. But it was clearly him.

“You are my muse.”

Heat rose to your cheeks as your hand now covered his entirely, melting under the comfort of his touch and words. You had missed this, you had missed him. You always did, but now more than ever, that feeling seemed predominant. Sure, he had always been flirty towards you, and you loved to return it, but this was something different. It was in the way his voice carried his words, how his touch seemed less eager than usual.

He was almost weak under your hold. Not in a negative sense; in a vulnerable sense.

"This is the last time I'm asking you this Put my name at the top of your list This is the last time I'm asking you why You break my heart in the blink of an eye."

“Gabe,” you spoke up, rolling into your side in a lazy manner.

He hummed in acknowledgment, turning his hand under yours, he laced his fingers with yours, squeezing them in assurance.

“Will you leave again tomorrow?”

A heavy silence filled the air after that question. From what you had gathered, Cas seemed keen on staying with the Winchesters, or the hunters, so it would come as no surprise to you would Gabriel want the same.

But there was hesitation in his silence. Not the one where he was afraid to speak the truth, but the one where he truly could not tell what he was going to do.

“If I do,” he eventually decided. “What will become of us?”

"This is the last time I'm asking you this Put my name at the top of your list This is the last time I'm asking you why You break my heart in the blink of an eye."

“Today was the last day I’d ever want to see you on my doorstep.” You confided, now turning on your back so you could face him. “You could either stay with me for as long as we can manage, or you need to move on.”

His eyes drooped, staring into yours with an awful kind of remorse. No remorse for his unspoken words, but remorse for his already passed actions. For what he had done for you to tell him today was the last day.

Slowly, he let himself lay down on the bed beside you, his head connecting with your chest as he simply laid there, listening to your heartbeat. Something you were sure was beating as irretical as it always did when he was around you.

His arms wound around your waist, pulling you into his hold, as his legs folded over yours, leaving you covered with blankets still.

"This is the last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you this."

“I belong with you.” He finally whispered. “Always have, always will. Regardless of what has come to pass, or what will come to pass, I will always run back to you.”

Unable to hide the joyous giggle, your free hand covered your intertwined ones. “You do not need to run back to me. Not if you stay here.”

Though you did no longer look at him - for your eyes were on the ceiling -, you could feel him staring at you. “You never asked me this before. Why now?”

"This is the last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you this."

“I shall not lose you again.” You admitted, gently stroking his arm. “Not if I would have any say over it. Us muses are not only here for the arts, we can be fighters as well. I am a fighter.”

The angel huffed in amusement, leaning forward to press a kiss against the top of your head. “I am highly aware.”

And then, you turned your head, looking up at him, your face only removed inches from his. His breath was mingling with yours, his eyes nearly piercing through you. The grip he had on you had been tight, as if he was scared; terrified. The was something so vulnerable hidden behind his stance, and you could only wonder what had happened to him.

“I have no idea how this took me eons to say, but I am deeply, and immeasurably in love with you.” He uttered through a low breath.

And that was all it took for you to break.

"This is the last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you this."

Untangling your hand from his, they connected to the back of his neck and the side of his cheek, pulling him closer as your lips finally met.

His hands hopelessly grabbed your waist, now pulling you flush against him, as if he would lose you otherwise. His kisses were needy, and demanding; more passionate than they had been before, but they had been so welcome.

Parting briefly, you murmured against his lips the very same words he had spoken to you seconds prior. He did not give you any time to come up with something after that, for his lips were on yours immediately after, asking for more. Desiring more.

But he was damaged, you could tell. And so, with one final kiss, you snuggled up against him, tucking your head under his, kissing the top of his chest, which was still covered in his shirt.

“Stay with me now, and forever.” You proposed once more, for the last time.

And finally, he yielded, refusing to let go of you. Refusing to leave your side.

"This is the last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you Last time I'm asking you this."

[bigfan-fanfic]

My Pining Is Meant to Be from Afar (Male!Reader x Dean Winchester)

Requested by anonymous for  Dean, with all his issues, gets real freaked out about fake dating his future bf to catch a monster. It's only afterward that he realizes he was flustered because he actually liked the guy. Cue a make-up, actual date where he tries to be real cheesy and romantic despite his instincts to just ignore all that mess

It had taken a LOT of convincing to get Dean to participate.

Apparently, saving people and hunting things (the family business) became a lot less palatable to the Winchesters when it involved going into a gay bar to lure out an incubus that had carved out its niche among gay men.

You, having mentioned quite early on that you were gay to the Winchesters when they first came to use your expertise as a researcher, are having none of their bs, and you've practically ordered Dean to serve as your date.

Sam wasn't sure whether or not to be offended or to tease Dean and so got the chance to do neither. You weren't necessarily the clubbing type, but you knew enough of the scene to dress Dean appropriately, keeping him in his tight jeans and making him wear a leather jacket over a tight black tank top.

"So, uh... this the kind of first date, uh... your kind goes on?" Dean asks, clearly somewhat uncomfortable watching a bunch of men dancing together, some women speaking to each other and paying them no attention.

"Dean, my kind?" you raise an eyebrow. "We're not different species. And we're not all the same. I prefer something a little less loud, you know?"

Dean nods. "I, uh... don't really know what I like. I don't actually go on a lot of dates. Mostly it's just, you... you look at a girl who seems like she's alone and you flirt, and then you head back to the motel, right? Sock on the door."

"Hooking up." you say. He nods. "There's a lot of that among 'my kind' too." You smile at him. "But hey, we date too."

Dean gulps, jumping a little when a shirtless man squeezes past him, brushing a hand across his broad back. "So, uh... if this was a date, what would we do?"

You chuckle. "If this was a date, I'd probably have taken you to a cafe or diner and then on a walk. I tend to take things slow."

"That... sounds nice." Dean smiles for a moment before glancing around. "But say we were on the kind of date that'd get this incubus on us."

"Then we'd dance, Dean." you smirk. "We'd dance and I'd grind against you and you'd at some point take your shirt off, and then that incubus would ask to do a body shot off you, and then would try to charm you, and you'd take him to the Impala and Sam will handle the rest."

It happens pretty much as you say. Dean is still a little awkward but lets it all happen, marches onto the dance floor and though at first he does his little straight white boy dance he starts to loosen up and get more into gyrating and grinding.

At some point, Dean loses his shirt, throwing his jacket into the crowd.

And then the incubus comes up. It's a little odd for you, because he looks a lot like Dean and you wonder what he looks to Dean, but then Dean pretends to ditch you and leaves with the incubus. You call Sam, and lickety-split you're all headed home.

Dean seems a bit out of sorts as you all relax for a while before the brothers head out on other jobs. At one point, you and Dean go to a diner to get some burgers and shakes, and he suddenly looks at you.

"Uh... Y/N?"

"Yeah?"

"This is... well... a nice little place. Quiet. Cozy."

You nod.

"And it's... well, you said, at the club..."

Dean sighs and clears his throat. "Y/N, I like you, okay? I like you a lot, in the way that means I wanna go out on dates and be close to you all the time and all that stupid sappy crap, okay?"

You smile. "So... did you ask me out here, or am I taking you on a date?"

Dean chuckles back and boldly reaches out, putting his hand in yours. "As long as I'm on a date with you."

[wormstacheangel]

When Dean finally rescued Cas from the empty, he expected a happy reunion. He envisioned a strong hug like the first time he had escaped. He expected a long-awaited kiss and repeated confessions that weren’t said with sorrow or heartache. He expected to find the same Cas that was taken, but that would have been too easy.

Cas was left awake, alone, and in complete darkness for months on end.

So when Dean went into the empty, ready to wake up the love of his life, he found Cas curled in on himself—staring blankly out into the void of nothingness. He whispered something so softly and quickly that Dean couldn’t pick up on the actual words, but it sounded familiar. Almost like he was humming a song.

Dean tried to get him to stand up on his own, but he quickly realized that Cas wasn’t even looking at him. His gaze was distant, seeing something Dean can’t even imagine. He then noticed the white film over his eyes dimmed the once bright blue.

His fingertips gently traced over the skin he had only dreamt of touching for months before he took a deep, shaky breath to steady himself. With that slight pause, Dean used whatever desperate strength he had and dragged Cas back to the portal.

Back home.

As they got closer, the light of the portal seemed to startle Cas, and he started to shove Dean away. Dean had to put Cas down so he could take his green jacket off and place it over Cas’s head to calm him before he slowly continued to walk through the portal and into the bunker’s library where Jack, Rowena, Eileen, and Sam were waiting for them.

When they walked through, Dean quickly shushed them as he fell to his knees with Cas still in his arms, hidden under the jacket, and covering his ears at the sudden loud voices surrounding them.

Dean looked around at his family, all sharing the same worried glances knowing they were on the same page. Cas’s welcome home party would be pushed back until further notice.

Cas didn’t cry. His expression didn’t change much at all. All Cas did was sit or lay on Dean’s bed with the lights off. All but the desk light. It was an old lightbulb, so the light wasn’t a bright white like the rest of the place. Instead, it illuminated a soft golden glow against the wall.

Cas squinted at it at first, blinking so inhumanly at it, until all Cas did was stare at it. Whenever Dean made any move to turn it off or even just get near the lamp, Cas made a little whine at the back of his throat.

Little noises were the most Dean can get out of Cas. At least it brought him a little relief. It meant Cas could see him at that moment.

Cas still did that rapid talking or singing whenever it was a little bit too quiet. It made Dean wonder if Cas knew he was out of the Empty. Especially during those times when he would stare right past him, unblinking with cold eyes.

It was only the end of the second week when Dean broke down.

[continue under the cut or on AO3]

He didn’t mean to. He was trying so damn hard to keep it together, especially in front of Cas, but one night he just lost it. He can blame the lack of booze in his system, or as he wants, he can blame Sam, who came up to him about a stupid case. It pissed him off more than it should have. The fact that Sam even believed for a second that he would leave the bunker while Cas was like-well the way he was, just gave him enough of an excuse to raise his voice at someone.

Eileen had to step in and tell him to cool off.

Dean stormed off without a glance back and went to his room. He changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed beside Cas. He laid on his stomach as he wrapped one arm over the top of Cas’s waist, scooting close enough so that he could rest his head on Cas’s shoulder. He then opened his mouth to wish him goodnight just like every night, but something in Dean just broke.

He felt the pressure rise up his throat as he tried to hide his face into the familiar body beside him, but the sob still came.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry it took me so long to go get you. Fuck, Cas, please.” Dean took a shaky breath, sniffling as he reached to hold Cas’s hand closer to him. “We missed- I...I missed you. I missed you so much, Cas.” Dean brought Cas’s hand up to his lips and kissed the knuckles before letting the hand rest by his head. His eyes closed as he sighs, “I love you. So come back to me, okay?"

The only response Dean got was a squeeze of the hand, which was enough hope for the future, and more than Dean could have ever asked for at that moment.

As the days went on, Cas didn’t change. Literally and figuratively. He was still an angel, so there was no need for him to shower or brush his teeth, but Dean swore that Cas’s facial hair was growing, so he liked shaving him at least once a week. Cas seemed to like it by the humming noise he made.

They did learn a couple of things as the days went on.

One, peace and quiet are not what they strive for.

It only brought Cas anxiety, and his humming or singing became much louder and more desperate. They fixed that problem with a Bluetooth speaker constantly playing music in the background, a playlist Jack made mixed in with a playlist Jack helped Dean make. It made the humming stop, and Cas started to roll over in bed. He even sat back against the headboard with his eyes closed a few times.

A month after Cas got back, Dean's phone died in the middle of the night, and the silence must have gotten to him. He covered his ears while he started muttering to himself again. Dean woke up and pulled Cas to his chest while softly sing to him in his still half-asleep phase. He didn’t know why that was his first instinct, but he went along with it cause it started to calm Cas down. Then, Cas held him back for the first time—tucking his head right under Dean's jaw and relaxing.

Dean tried not to stiffen at the touch; if he were honest with himself, he would admit he was trying not to cry because he was busy singing. Busy, not wanting to disrupt this moment.

That night Dean sang all night long until Jack checked on them in the early hours and connected his phone.

Two, always have a light source on.

The lamp was the first one they had. Cas constantly wanted it on, but it bothered Dean all the time when he wanted to sleep. So they bought a cool starlight projector, Sam’s idea, that kept the light on the cement ceiling and not on Dean’s face. Cas seemed to enjoy it as he laid on his back, watching it all night, letting Dean curl up on his side as he slept through the night.

Three, never leave Cas alone.

Nobody wanted to leave Cas alone for more than a minute if they could help it. So they made plans to keep him company at all hours of the day. Of course, they weren’t crowding him. They all came in one by one, except for Dean, who would say, “This is my room. I get to come and go as I damn well please.”

Sam liked to sit by Cas's side and talk nerd like they usually would while cleaning his guns or doing research to help another hunter. He would even pause during the one-way conversation to give Cas some time to answer or try to imagine what Cas would say in that situation. Sam was always calm, wanting to keep it as normal as possible while Cas just stared at him, sometimes his eyebrows knitted together, and Dean had to excuse himself as he felt his chest tighten up.

Eileen sat by his side and watched shows she liked while she talked to Cas out loud and signed so he could hear her voice. Even then, she didn’t talk much. Instead, she let the laptop do the talking as she pets Cas’s hair while sitting on the chair by the bed.

Jack came in the most next to Dean. He liked reading to him or talking about how his skills as the new God have improved thanks to Amara.

"Dad, I hope you'll be proud of me." Jack once whispered to Cas, who was having a bad day, checking out more than usual as he stared off into the distance. Eyes wide and almost screaming.

It was almost the end of the second month when another big mile-stone happened.

Jack was lying in bed with Cas while Dean was at his desk, cleaning his guns obsessively again. Jack was reading him a book he bought during his recent trip to the bookstore with Eileen, it was a Star Wars story.

Jack was getting into the book as he read slower but louder during a big fight scene. He got so excited that he even jumped up and looked back at Cas, "Did you hear that, Dad? He won!"

Cas smiled back at him- a genuine smile- and Dean almost dropped the piece of metal in his hand while Jack froze, his shoulders tightening up while he scrunched up his lips as if trying to hold back his cry.

Instead, he quietly composed himself as he asked in a shaky voice, "You want me to read the rest?"

Cas only blinked at him, keeping the slight smile, and Jack took it as a yes. Jack sat beside him again with a big smile plastered on his face, wiping his eyes every other word, as he rested his head on Cas's shoulder to continue reading. Dean didn’t miss when Cas tilted his head down to rest his cheek on Jack’s hair.

He had to excuse himself again.

After that day, Cas slowly started to open up a little more.

Once Dean woke up with Cas out of bed. Dean was already in full panic mode, his shoes on the wrong feet and jacket inside out as he called out for Sam.

Then just as quick as the panic came, relief flooded him when he found Cas in the kitchen trying to make coffee. He turned towards Dean and gave him the smallest of smiles, but it filled Dean with such solace that he just dragged himself to Cas’s space. Dean held his arms open to press Cas into him, and without a second thought, Cas fell right into him as if it was an everyday normal occurrence.

That was the start of Cas now being up and around the bunker. It was like when a baby starts crawling, everyone keeping tabs on the baby’s first steps, except this baby was an eon old celestial being.

The library, Dean’s room, the Dean-cave, and the kitchen were Cas’s favorite places just to sit. He always had Dean’s headphones on, softly playing music, just in case it went quiet, and it took a while for him to be able to walk around without those.

It was the sixth month when Cas wished Dean a goodnight first and then added, “I love you, Dean.”

Dean fought the lump in his throat, but Cas instantly pulled him in, his arms wrapped securely around him. He had so much he wanted to say to Cas just to hear his voice again, anything to listen to his voice again, but instead, he kisses Cas’s chest before saying, “I love you, too.”

Days came and went. Sometimes it seemed like Cas was getting better as he talked a little more, but then those days would come when he would just stare off into the stars on their ceiling. Not moving an inch or bothering to fake breath like he liked. Those days the music was a little louder, and Cas held on to Dean a little tighter.

“I don’t want to go back. Please,” Cas pleaded as he stared wide-eyed at the darkness in the corner of their room. As if he was having a nightmare with his eyes wide open. “Please don’t make me…I-I don’t want to be in the dark again!”

Dean took Cas’s face in between his hands to hold his gaze. Only talking when he knew Cas was seeing him. “It’s okay, Cas. I got you. Nobody’s taking you away from me ever again.”

“Promise?” Dean felt Cas’s grip at his shoulder, holding him with desperation.

“Promise.”

That’s how Cas became human.

The nightmares have him waking up screaming some days, but at least Cas knew he was safe from the Empty’s clutches.

He was going to live his human life being loved and taken care of, and Dean was happy to say he felt Cas was doing the same for him.

[lovewriting-5]

Part 2

My roommate was out on a date with her boyfriend while I was home alone. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I heard the kitchen door to the backyard open slowly. Leaving the television volume, I slowly stand up to go take a look.

The door was slightly ajar. Near the stairs, I heard footsteps. I follow at a safe distance. Footsteps head up the stairs. I wait below behind the living room entrance wall. The footsteps come back down and head towards the living room. I grab the nearest object and get ready. The footsteps get closer. I hold up the object as if I’m up to bat. I see a shadow getting bigger on the floor. As the figure was just a centimeter from the doorway, I swung. The figure blocked and grabbed it.

They threw a punch but I blocked it. I kick behind their knee and they go down. A few more rounds until I get the figure pinned. Finally, I see the face and my reaction is “Dean?” I move off of him and sit back against the couch.

Breathlessly, I ask “What are you doing here?” Dean asks “What? I can’t come see you?” I ask him “Is this how you greet someone you haven’t seen for a few weeks? By breaking into their place?” He says with a smirk “I let you win. Plus, I wanted to see if you still got it.” I shake my head with a roll of my eyes. Looking around, I ask “Where’s Sam?” He says with a smile “I left him in the car.” I ask, jokingly “You left Sam in the car alone?” He says “Yeah, he’s fine. He’s got research to keep him busy.”

I look at the floor with disappointment, “Oh...so that’s why you really came back?” Dean scoots closer. He places his arms on his knees and says “It’s one of the reasons but I did really want to come see you.” I look back at him. He leans closer and I lean closer. We kiss. After what felt like fifteen minutes, we pull away.

I stand up and walk to the front door. Dean asks “Where are you going?” I say “Can’t just leave your brother out there all night.” He says, jokingly “Yes, we can. He doesn’t mind.”

I walk outside and right in front of the house was Baby and Sam in the passenger seat. His head was bent either reading something or sleeping. I walk up to the passenger door and knock on the window. He jumps. I smile at him. Sam rolls down the window and says, awkwardly “Uhhhh...” I ask “Sam...would you like to come in?” He asks “Ummm...you sure?” I nod and tell him “Yes, I’m sure.”

We enter the house and Dean is now sitting on the couch looking at a picture from the side table. He asks “Who’s the douchebag?” I tell him “Roommate’s boyfriend.” He just “Hmmm.” I ask “Would you guys like a beer?” Dean immediately says “YES!” Sam says “Sure.” As I walk into the kitchen, I hear muffled sibling bickering. I grab the beers from the fridge and head back to the living room.

As soon as I enter, Sam and Dean act like they weren’t doing anything. I hand them theirs and open mine as I sit on the couch next to Dean. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him mouth to Sam “Leave.” I ask Sam “So, Sam...Dean says that there was something that brought you guys here.” Dean throws his head back in frustration.

Sam gives a small smile. He begins “Yeah...there have been some strange reports that appeared in this area.” I ask “Like what?” He says “People changing personalities on a dime. Eyes, all of a sudden appearing black.” I tell him “I have heard of the reports a little bit but not much.” Dean places an arm on the back of the couch and starts drumming his fingers. I slightly shake my head.

Sam explains “There also have been reports of sulfur and black smoke.” I tell them “In the paper, there have been some reports of strange behavior.” Dean groans. I roll my eyes. Sam says “Thanks for the beer, I guess I should be going. Dean, I’ll take the car to the nearest motel.” Dean tells him “Like hell you are. Take a cab, you’re not taking my Baby.” Sam gets up and walks toward the front door. Dean places an arm on the back of the couch and scoots closer.

As Sam gets closer to the door, there was jingling of keys. The door slightly opens when there was a female gasp and a male “Oh.” Dean and I turn to look. I turn back to him and quietly say “My roommate just got home.”

My roommate says “Oh...hi!” Sam says “Hi.” Dean and I get up and walk towards the door. My roommate, Jen sees me and then Dean. She clears her throat and gives me a look like Introduce me to these two. I introduce her to them. I say “Jen, this is Sam and Dean. Guys, this is my roommate, Jen.”

Jen asks Sam, “Were you just leaving?” Sam looks to us then back to her, says “Uhhh...yeah.” She says “Don’t rush off. We just met.” I roll my eyes. I ask “Jen, can I see you in the kitchen now?” She says “Sure.” I tell Dean “We’ll be right back.” The guys head back to the living room.

Jen and I enter the kitchen. I cross my arms and look at her. As she is peaking at the living room, she notices me. She asks “What?” I ask “Didn’t Ben just drop you off?” She says as she walks toward the fridge, “Who? Oh yeah...he did.” I ask “So...what do you think of the guys?” She says “Honestly...the tall one with the hair is cute.” I raise an eyebrow at her, “But you’re with Ben.” With her head in the fridge, she tells me “Yeah...but, I’ve been thinking about breaking up with him for awhile now.” I ask her “Why? You two seem so happy.” She pulls out a couple beers, says “Yeah...he’s just been acting really weird lately and I just don’t want any part of it.” I ask “Like how? If you don’t mind me asking.” She says as she walks back toward the living room, “I’ll explain later.” I grab two more beers and walk back to the living room.

When I got in there, Dean moved to the love seat. While Sam and Jen sat on the couch a little apart from each other. Sam had another beer in his hand. I go over to Dean, hand him another beer and sit down next to him. There was a few minutes of awkward silence when I asked Dean “Dean, do you want to go get something to eat?” He looks at Sam and Jen then says “Let’s go.”

We stand up and begin walking toward the door. Sam notices and says “Uhh...Dean, wait.” We stop and turn back to him. He says to Jen “How about we join them?” Jen looks at me and I give her a look of No, please. Jen says “How about you and I stay here and get to know each other better?” Dean puts his hand on the middle of my back and gently pushes me toward the door.

As I grab my purse, he shouts “Have fun, Sammy!” We get out the door and walk towards Baby. I see her and let out a whistle. As we got closer to her, I ask “Have I told you how much I missed you?” Dean says “No but...” I tell him as I place a hand on the passenger door, “I was talking to her.” He smiled.

We got in the car and headed towards the closest diner. We head in and are seated in a booth. We order a couple drinks and food. We catch up and of course, order some pie.

[hahahahahangst]

All that jazz (Be The Young 4)

GIANT TW which will be valid for each episode for suicidal thoughts, self-h*rm, violence, cursing, relatives dying, mentions of s*x, s*xual assault

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

MASTERLIST

All that jazz

Hold on hon, we're gonna bunny-hug I bought some aspirin down at United Drug In case you shake apart and want a brand new start

Later that week, she was in the motel’s bathroom, trying on a suite which was definitely too big to her. “Sam, where on earth did you get this? It’s twice my size.” She moaned, pulling the fabric around to see if there was a way to not make her look too much like a clown. 

“I’m sorry, man.” he said through the door “I got the first ones I could find.” 

“Did you rent this?” She asked, defeated. Limping out of the bathroom.

“No, I stole it, it needs to be realistic.” 

“So we are ditching this right after this case is over, right?” 

Sam nodded. Emily immediately opened her bag and took out a stapler. “What do you have that for?” Asked Dean, surprised as Emily started stripping out of the suite and sat in her underwear on the motel floor.

”...research?” She said, starting to staple the fabric to make it smaller. “I don’t like scattered paper.” 

“Well, there's no doubt you and Sam are siblings.” smiled Dean. 

“Shut up!“ Said Emily, putting the suit back on after stapling it in several places. “Let’s get a move on boys.” 

“You know…“ started Dean twenty minutes later, walking towards the crime scene, while adjusting his suit. “Me, dad and Emily did just fine without these stupid costumes. We look like high school drama nerds.” 

“At least the suit fits you…” Answered Emily, slightly bitter and trying her best to not show her limp. 

“Look, do you guys wanna pull this off?” Asked Sam, approaching the door. 

After speaking with the housekeeper, they were left alone in the house, which still smelled a little bit like blood and corpse.

 “This place smells like Dean does after a hunt…" joked Emily. He gave her a weird look, but smiled. The vibes were less tense than they had ever been in the last year. Emily and Dean managed to get a couple of days of normal interactions, following her drunken scene, but she suspected that Dean was just holding back for the sake of having a little peace.

It took her less than a minute to notice that the blood on the carpet looked weird. And even less to mentally put the shape together. She recognized it, but could not pinpoint what it was.

“Dean, come check this out.” she said, hitting his brother's chest with the back of her hand. He turned. “Can you see the shape?” 

“What shape?” He asked, visibly intrigued and confused. 

“That… and it goes like that…“ She gestured, leaving Dean more puzzled than before. “Whatever…“ She whispered, seeing Dean struggling to follow her. “Sam?” Her brother's head popped out from behind a wall. “Got some tape?” He nodded, disappeared behind the wall and threw her the tape a couple of seconds later.

She tracked the shape with the tape. 

“Man… I cannot figure out what this is… I saw it somewhere already.” She knew that info was somewhere in her brain. 

“Okay, we need to go now. Come on kid.” Said Dean, not paying too much attention to the symbol. She reluctantly walked away, but kept thinking about it. She drew it on her hand with a marker on their way home. 

Later that night, she was staring at the symbol, ignoring everything else going on in the room. 

“I am telling you, Dean, I know this symbol. I've seen it at Bobby's.”

“Then what is it?” 

“I don't know, I remember how the book looked like, not what it said. Give me a minute.” She took her phone and dialed Bobby's number. 

“Hello?” Said Bobby, his voice hard and raspy.

“Hey Bobby, it's Emily,“ She said, ready to take notes on Sam's laptop.

“Hey sweetheart, everything okay?” His voicetone changed immediately, softening a little. 

“All good, listen… I remember a book I read there, it was on the bookshelf on the left… Yes, the one next to the door, it was kind of a small format, lots of pages, umh… the cover was green!” She waited for the man to find the book. “Right, could you open it about halfway? I am looking for a round symbol, it kind of looks like the astrology symbol for cancer, but- you got it? Good. Yeah- yeah, wait, I'll put you on speaker.” 

“Hey Bobby.” said Dean once Emily put the phone on the table. 

“Hey boys. So, it looks like you got yourself a Daeva. It's a shadow demon. Nasty stuff.” 

“Any idea how to kill it?” 

“It is not mentioned in the lore. If you give me a few hours, I can see if it's mentioned anywhere else.” 

Later, they were getting ready. Nothing unusual for them. Sam had gone out to grab dinner and Emily and Dean sat there and were cleaning out guns and rifles, waiting for Bobby to call them back with news. 

“So…“ started out Dean. “How are you doing?” 

“Uh?” Emily glared up at him for a second, confused, and then just kept cleaning. “Good, I guess?” 

“I mean, your ankle, how's it?”

“Ah," She sighed. “Well it's alright, it's not healed yet but I can power through.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Dean, you've seen me walk today, I am fine.” 

“I was thinking-”

“Yeah, I am not coming with you tonight, I know the gist. Self harming and all that jazz.”

“Actually-”

“You know what?” She interrupted him again. “It's fine. I understand it: if I die because you were not careful enough, dad is going to kill you as well.” She said, bitter. “And then we would be stuck in hell together for eternity.”

She closed the weapon she had in her hands and put it aside, getting ready to go for another one. 

“I was actually planning on asking you to join us, but maybe it's better not to.” 

“I guess not, uh...” she said, still not looking at Dean and being focused on her weapon. He didn't answer her for a while. Only the clicking and spraying to be heard for a while. 

“So, you are doing fine? Everything else I mean.” He then asked.

“Why are you asking?” She scoffed.

“Because I want to talk- you know what? Forget about it.” 

 Emily finished working and then absentmindedly started clicking the rubber band she had on her wrist. 

“Stop.” Said Dean. She ignored him and kept going. “Emily, I said stop!”

She stopped, but stood up and left the desk they were sitting at. She looked at Dean. Even if she didn't answer him when he asked how she was doing, Emily still gave him the answer he wanted with that clicking gesture alone, giving him the chance of benching her again. Or at least, that's what she thought, until Dean talked again: “Would hunting help you feel any better?” She nodded. “Then you can come, but you stick with me, okay? I want to keep an eye on you.” 

“Whatever, boss.” said Emily, rolling her eyes.. 

The following night, Dean was flirting with the bartender while Emily, two stools to the left, ignored his presence for the sake of getting the info they needed. She had been twirling her whiskey in the glass for a while now, contemplating whether to drink it like a shot, like a kid trying to seem tough would do, or act like the adult she was supposed to be. On the other side of the bar, she noticed a man looking at her in a rather luxurious way. She reciprocated the gaze and suggestively sipped her whiskey. She then left the stool to go talk to the stranger, but was intercepted by Sam, who had just entered the bar and gently grabbed her by the arm, dragging her towards a table. Seeing her with another man, the guy she was walking towards lost all interest and went back to his drink. “Sam, I swear to god you and your brother are going to make my balls go blue one of these days.” Sam looked at her questioningly. “What?” She asked, sitting next to him. 

“You don’t have balls.” 

“Oh, come on! It’s an expression.” Said Emily, already distracted by the papers her brother was handing her. She took a pen out of her purse and started tapping it on the table, reading the files. She would occasionally underline something, but for the most part, it was just a continuous tapping.

“Dude.” Said Sam not longer than 3 minutes later, stopping her hand from tapping the table. 

“So I do have balls.” Whispered Emily, moving the tapping from the table to her forehead. Sam glared at her and tried to hide a smile.

A while later, Dean joined them. He sat down and gazed, in turn, to both of them. 

Emily still looked a little bitter from Sam preventing her from hooking up, nervously tapping the pen on her forehead. Sam, instead, was wrapped up in his file. 

“What’s going on?” Said Dean, grabbing one of the files. 

“Sam cockblocked me.” Commented the younger of the three, still tapping the pen.

“Welcome to the club…” sighed Dean, turning the pages of the file. 

“We didn’t come here to hook up, you realize that?” Answered Sam, looking up from his file, vaguely upset. “Did you get anything from the bartender? Apart from her phone number?” 

Dean gave him a slightly annoyed look. “I am a professional, dude. Of course I got something out of her.” He said, looking offended for just one second before taking out the napkin again and smirking. Emily smiled, amused.

“Do you think you can think with your upstairs brain for a while, Dean?” Said Sam shaking his head. 

“Well, understandably not if you always prevent us from having fun.” Whispered Emily. 

“I heard that.” 

“Bite me.” She looked up at Sam, who started pretending to bite her arm. She laughed. Sam had become much more likable after he had come back from his “break”. They were forced to be alone for a couple of hunts and found out to be much more similar that they could ever imagine. Being weird was one of those things that made them so similar.

“So, the vic worked here,” explained Dean after giving them a you weirdos look, “...she waited tables. Everyone here was her friend. Everyone said she was normal. She didn’t do anything weird before she died. What about the other victim, did you find anything?” 

“That’s what we were checking out, but as far as I can tell, there is no connection.” 

“The guy was found mutilated in his apartment. Same shit: locked door, alarm didn't sound. I also can’t find a connection. They didn’t even have a mutual friend or something.” Emily looked at Sam, waiting for him to finish the explanation. But he was distracted by something on the other side of the bar. 

“Sounds like the only successful intel we scored was the bartender’s number.” Joked Dean as Sam left the table mid-conversation and walked to a blonde girl. 

Emily and Dean exchanged a look: “So we have to strike out but he can leave us in the middle of a conversation to flirt with a blonde girl?” She stood up to walk over to Sam, put on a fake smile and approached him. Dean followed her.

“Hey Sammy, “ she said, patting him on the shoulder a little too aggressively. “Are you not going to introduce us to your friend?” The woman looked at her for a second, then shook her hand. 

“Hi, my name is Meg. How do you know Sam?” She chuckled. 

“I- Uh, I am his sister, Emily.” she said, keeping the fake smile on. “And this is Dean, our brother.” She pointed at the man at her left. 

“This is Dean?” Answered Meg, surprised, switching her attention away from Emily. 

Dean smiled. “So, you’ve heard of me?” He seemed fluttered.

“Oh, yeah. I did. Nice… the way you treat your brother like luggage.” To this answer, Dean’s expression changed. “Do you behave the same with Emily?” She continued. 

Emily had to stop herself from laughing, the situation starting to make sense: Sam was not trying to hook up with this girl, she was some sort of friend she complained about Dean with. 

“Meg, it’s alright.” 

Emily cleared her throat and grabbed Dean, the vibes getting tenser by the second.

“We should probably go.” Whispered Emily into Dean’s ear, giving an angry look at Meg, followed by a puzzled look at Sam. She then pushed her older brother lightly towards the bar counter. 

“What a nice encounter.” She said, sarcastic, gesturing to the bartender for a drink.

“What, are you jealous?” Smirked Dean. Emily hit him on the back of his head. 

“I mean, this is suspicious, Dean. We are not exactly the kind of people who casually run into the same people over and over.” 

Dean didn’t really answer her. In fact, he did not speak until they were outside with Sam again. They discussed the whereabouts of Meg, who she was and why she knew Dean in such a bad light.

“I think there’s something strange going on here, Dean.” Sam was visibly worried.

“Yeah, Emily thought the same. Why do you guys think that anyway?” 

“I don’t know, there’s something about her that just doesn’t seem right to me.” 

“Maybe you are both thinking too much with your upstairs brain…“ smirked Dean, walking towards the car.

“Emily, do me a favor…" started out the younger. “go and check if there really is a Meg Masters from Andover. Dean, go with her and give her a hand.” 

“What are you gonna do?” Questioned the girl, entering the car. 

“I am gonna watch Meg.” 

Dean and Emily exchanged a complicit look as they left. “Pervert.” Said Dean.

Hours later, they had confirmed Meg existed in the Massachusetts phone book, and Sam called them back. 

“I know who is summoning the Daeva,“ said Sam’s voice, alarmed, as Dean put him on speaker. “It’s Meg.” The younger sister and the older brother exchanged a worried look. 

“She was using some sort of altar to control it. She was talking into a bowl of blood, guys.”

“Do you think she was talking with the thing?” 

“No, it was different. Someone was giving her orders. Someone who is coming to this warehouse.” 

“Wait, wait- oh shit-" Emily’s eyes lit in realization. All that time looking at the files and she didn’t even realize until that moment.

“Quick, where were you born?” She asked Dean.

“Lawrence…“ 

“Kansas!” She concluded, almost yelling in excitement and she circled with a pen the city on both files. “They were both born there. Do you think it might have something to do with the demon?” She looked at Dean, a glisten of hope appearing in both their eyes. They might have been closer than ever. 

All three of them left a message to their dad. It was the same message, we think we found the demon, it’s here in Chicago, call me back. The usual thing for the Winchester family.

Sam had gathered all kinds of supplies. They didn't really know what they were getting themselves into and Bobby had not called back yet. 

“Big Night.” commented Emily in the middle of the silence. 

“Yeah. Are you nervous?” Asked Sam. 

“No.” Said Emily and Dean in unison. It was rare that they agreed on something, so it made her smile, even though it was a lie for Emily. 

“Why, are you?” Dean asked Sam.

“No, no way but…“ he briefly smiled before he continued: “could you imagine if we actually found the damn thing? the demon?” 

“Sam, don't get ahead of yourself.” Tried to say Emily. 

“I'd sleep for a week. Go back to school…“ But Sam kept going. He was already thinking it was over. When he mentioned school Emily rolled her eyes. She already knew a fight was about to break out. While they fought over what Sam had just said, Emily started thinking of what she would have done if the whole thing was to end the following day. It wasn’t like she didn't know what normal life meant. 

Did she like the life she was living before her mother's death? Kind of. 

But she also knew, nothing was ever going to be the same. 

She was not gonna be able to sleep again without keeping weapons in her reach. 

Never able to look at a dark room and think that there was no reason to be afraid. 

Emily looked around. She was cleaning a rifle in the most natural way, in a motel room she was going to call “home.” for 3 days tops. She cut ties with all her friends, leaving behind her boyfriend. Left school and all her dreams of being a doctor. Hunting was her new normal. 

Although it wasn’t like her old life was healthy: she was sleep deprived most of the time, running on way too much caffeine for days at the time, trying to keep up with the pace of finishing high school one year early and preparing for college.

It’s not like there was much left for her, where she came from. 

What would she go back to? 

“I mean, what are you gonna do when it's all over?” Said Sam to Dean. 

“It’s never gonna be over. There’s gonna be others. There’s always gonna be somethin’ to hunt.” Said Dean.

Sam scoffed. “Look, Dean, I’m sure Emily is with me here. There’s more to life than doing this.” He said, looking for support in his sister. 

Emily looked at him and sighed. She didn’t answer, but put her weapon away and laid back in her bed, looking to avoid the discussion.

A couple of hours later, John still had not contacted them or shown up, so they walked towards the abandoned warehouse Meg was hiding in. They were about to enter, when Dean hesitated. “Sam, wait.” Sam, who had been picking the door, raised his eyes from the lock.

“What?” Dean looked at Sam, then he looked at Emily. He seemed worried. “Oh god please don't tell me you are about to bench me again.” 

“I was just thinking your ankle is still not 100%“ 

“Dean we don't have time for this, what, you waited three years to start worrying about my wellbeing, you cannot wait three more hours?”

Dean tried to answer back, but it was too late: Sam had opened the door and Emily had already entered the building. 

They arrived on the second floor and hid behind some crates, seemingly unnoticed. 

They had their guns out and they were ready to fight, despite not knowing how to kill a Daeva. All they knew was that the altar Meg had was being used to control the creatures as so they hoped that destroying it would help. 

They hoped. 

“Guys.” said Meg’s voice from behind them. The siblings exchanged worried looks, but they all stayed put. “Hiding is a little childish, don’t you think?” The younger sister let out a sign of disappointment while the three of them stood up and came out of their hiding. 

“Sam” started out Meg with a smug smile “I have to say, this puts a real crimp in our relationship.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it.” 

Dean intervened: “Where’s your little Daeva friend?” 

“Around.” she said, chuckling “Those shotguns are not gonna do much, you know?”

“Oh don’t worry, sweetheart. The shotgun is not for the demon.” Answered Dean. 

“Enough chatting, who’s coming here tonight?” Said Emily, cutting to the chase. Meg looked at her suggestively for a couple of seconds, before raising her hand. 

Emily's body flew violently towards the wall and she passed out before she could feel anything.

[argylesweedstash]

did you just call me baby

(ao3 link)

The first time it happens, it’s an accident. At least, Dean’s banking on Castiel thinking it’s an accident. And it is, really. Dean fell onto the war room floor covered in black goo with his arms around Cas. Sam and Jack leapt up from the table, moving away from the intricate spellwork that no longer needed their attention.

Cas stirred a little. He’d been out of it when Dean had found him - half-lucid and mostly disbelieving. He’d let Dean pull him up and sling his arm around his shoulders, but hadn’t said much. Only mumbled apologies and words that sounded a lot like, “I hope this is real.”

Jack was first on the floor next to them. “Cas?” he asked, a tentative smile playing on his lips. Cas nodded and within seconds, his arms were full of his son.

Dean watched them, a smile playing on his lips. When they broke apart, Sam offered Castiel his arm. Cas had looked at it before taking it and being pulled into a hug by the taller man.

Dean removed himself from the floor and helped Jack up. When Sam released Cas, Dean stepped in front of him.

“It’s real,” Dean said, looking into Cas’s eyes.

Cas nodded. “Thank you for saving me, Dean.”

Dean finally closed the distance between them and pulled Cas into a bone crushing hug.

“I missed you, baby,” Dean muttered against Cas. When he realized that he’d said baby instead of buddy, he could feel heat rising to his cheeks. He removed himself from Cas and grinned sheepishly at the floor. There was a weird fluttering feeling in his chest. He wrote it off as the adrenaline that was still pumping through his veins.

Cas, for what it was worth, didn’t seem to notice the word. “I missed you, too, Dean.”

-

That was two weeks ago. Since then, Dean has been avoiding talking about it. Not just his slip, though, the things Cas had said to him before The Empty came and took him. It wasn’t that Dean didn’t feel the same way - he just didn’t know if he did or not. He likes Cas and he’s his best friend. He knows he likes spending time with him. Sometimes he’s overwhelmed by how fond of his friend he is, but he doesn’t read too far into that.

Plus, things hadn’t changed between them. They still watched movies together in the Dean Cave a couple nights a week. Castiel would always come and join Dean in the garage when he was working on any of the cars they kept. Dean would greet him with a, “Good morning, Sunshine,” every morning from his place at the table. The only thing that had changed was that they didn’t have the end of the world looming over their heads. Honestly, this is the happiest he’s been in a long time. Getting Cas back meant that they’d tied up their loose ends and now they could relax. Of course Dean had never felt this happy, they’d never so resolutely saved the world like they did this time around.

Dean is sitting at the table, now, staring at the laptop screen in front of him. There were still monsters, there might still be a case somewhere. In the back of his head Dean knows he doesn’t really want to find a case. He’s been enjoying his time with Cas and Sam. He likes that the most pressing thing he has to worry about is whether or not the fridge is stocked. He knows Sam has been getting stir crazy, though. Maybe he’ll find a case and send Sam off, encourage him to get Eileen in on it.

The sound of footsteps draws Dean’s attention away from the laptop. Castiel pads into the room. He’s wearing one of Dean’s hand-me-down shirts, even though he hasvclothing of his own. Part of pulling Cas out of The Empty meant leaving his grace behind. Jack had been pretty clear - Cas’s grace was the reason Jack was unable to just pull him out. So, here Cas is, as human as Dean, wearing Dean’s shirt. A smile threatens to break on Dean’s face.

“What’re you up to?” Dean asks.

Cas turns to face him. Dean notices toothpaste stuck to the corner of Cas’s mouth, he must have just finished brushing his teeth.

“It’s almost lunch time,” Cas says. “I was going to make myself something. Are you hungry? I can make enough for two.”

Dean shakes his head. “Just ate,” he says. “You, uh -” He gestures vaguely at Cas’s mouth.

“I what?” Cas asks, tilting his head a little.

“Baby,” Dean starts as he gets up from his chair to walk over to Castiel. “You have some toothpaste. Right there.”

Cas stares at Dean, wide eyed. Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes and grabs a napkin from the table. He wipes at Castiel’s mouth before he crumples the napkin and walks it over to the trash. Cas watches his movements.

“What?” Dean asks when he notices Cas staring at him. It’s not that he minds, Cas just looks a little lost.

Cas just shakes his head and puts a smile on his face. “Nothing. Thank you, Dean. I didn’t realize.”

“It’s part of being human, man. No worries,” Dean says, depositing himself back in his chair. “You gonna eat in here?”

“Yes, of course,” Cas says, finally moving from where he was stopped.

Dean nods in his direction before he pats the chair next to him, smiling up at his friend. He returns to his research as Cas busies himself in the kitchen.

-

Two days later, Sam is gone to go after a nest of vamps and Eileen’s place just happens to be on the way there. Dean isn’t quite sure why Sam hasn’t just asked her to move in. He’s pretty sure Sam had refrained before because Dean had been a wreck with Cas gone. It was probably better for Dean and Eileen’s relationship that she hadn’t seen him like that. But now, there was no reason for her not to be here. She was family, after all.

Dean knocks on Cas’s door, ending his stream of thoughts. Dean was kind of bored and he hadn’t taken Cas anywhere but the supermarket since they’d brought him back. And, come to think of it, Dean couldn’t remember the last time just he and Cas had gone out for drinks.

Cas answers the door already dressed. “Dean. I was actually coming to look for you.”

“Well, I found ya first,” Dean says, putting an easy smile on his face. “Was gonna see if you wanted to come grab a drink with me. Looks like you’re going somewhere, though.” He didn’t want to press, but where on earth could Cas be going? It wasn’t like he really knew anyone around here outside of Sam and Dean. And if someone they knew was in town, why hadn’t Dean heard of it?

The ends of Cas’s lips turn up slightly. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Dean lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and beams at Castiel. “It’s a date, then. Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you at Baby.”

Cas nods at Dean’s retreating figure and mumbles, “It’s a date,” before shutting his door to walk to the car.

Dean meets him there a few minutes later. “Had to grab my keys,” he says, holding them up for Cas to see.

The drive to the bar passes in comfortable silence, Cas staring out the window at the passing buildings. Dean drums his fingers on his steering wheel. He glances to Cas a few times; he almost can’t believe Cas is really back. He’d been gone for two months. Dean had spent most of that time frantically reading through every lore book and the rest drinking until he couldn’t remember the pain. It had been Jack that finally suggested opening the rift and leaving Cas’s grace behind. Dean had been ready to go almost immediately.

Now that Castiel was back, Dean felt better than he had in years. A warm feeling had settled over him after they fell through the rift and it stayed around. Whenever he was with Cas he could only describe the we he felt as “content.” Like now, for example, he could drive all night like this and be pleased with the way he spent his evening.

They pull in and Dean holds the door to the bar open so Cas can walk through. “Grab us a table and I’ll get drinks,” he says, clapping his hand over his shoulder and walking past him to the bar.

He gets the bartender’s attention pretty quickly. “Hey, Lynn. Slow night?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes at him and pushes a stray strand of blonde hair out of her face. “It’s a Wednesday, what do you expect?” She gives a little chuckle and leans against the bar. “Where’s your brother?”

“Sammy’s with his girlfriend. Won’t be back for a few days,” Dean says easily. “Left me alone with Cas over there.”

Lynn looks past him at Castiel, who is seated at a booth in the corner. He’s looking around the mostly empty bar, seemingly taking in the neon signs advertising different kinds of alcohol. He’s wearing one of Dean’s flannels, Dean realizes belatedly.

“He’s cute,” Lynn says. She turns her attention back to the man in front of her. “What can I get for you two?”

“Two beers,” he says. And then, as an afterthought, “And two shots of your top shelf whiskey.”

She grins. “Celebrating something?”

“Come to think of it, yeah,” Dean says. “He, uh.” He looks for the words. “Just got back from a work trip. Gone for a couple of months.” That sounds like a good cover.

“I bet he’s happy to be home,” Lynn says, setting the beers in front of Dean before turning to grab a bottle from the shelf behind her. “You seem happy that he’s back.”

It’s Dean’s turn to grin. “I’m freaking thrilled. Dude’s my best friend.”

Lynn slides the now filled shot glasses toward Dean. “Want a tray to carry all that?”

Dean doesn’t get to answer before she’s sliding a tray toward him. “You need a tray,” she says, putting the drinks onto it. “I know you were going to try to carry all this over there without one.”

Dean thanks her and slides the tray onto his left arm, steadying it with his right hand. He turns toward the booth Cas is in and flashes him a smile while he lifts the tray slightly, indicating the beverages.

“That my shirt?” he says when he gets to the table. He sets a beer and a shot down in front of Cas.

Cas looks down at the flannel and then back at Dean in a way Dean can only describe as bashful. “Yes. It must have gotten mixed in with my laundry. I can return it, if you want.”

“Keep it. Looks better on you anyway.” Dean picks his shot up and motions for Cas to do the same. “We’re celebrating, Cas.”

Cas picks up his shot and looks at Dean curiously. “What are we celebrating?”

“You’re back!”

Cas smiles warmly. “I am,” he nods. “Thanks to you.”

“Well, Sam and Jack helped,” Dean says, grinning.

“To humanity,” Cas says, raising the shot.

“To humanity,” Dean echos before taking the shot.

Cas makes a face after he downs his and raises his beer to his lips to chase the taste away.

“You’ve not had a drink since you got back,” Dean remarks, watching Cas take a few long drinks from the bottle.

“You haven’t either,” he replies.

Dean contemplates the statement. “Really?” He takes a sip of his beer. “I guess I’ve just been busy.”

They both know that isn’t really true. Dean’s only been engaging in leisurely activities, he’s just not been drinking during them. He wonders for a moment why that might be. It’s probably because he doesn’t have any pain he needs to ignore, he thinks.

“Your tolerance is going to be shit.”

Cas shrugs. “I’m a cheap date.”

Dean looks at him for a moment before laughing. Cas gives him a genuine smile before returning to his beer.

Several beers later, Dean cuts himself off. Someone has to drive home and Cas is more than a little giggly on the bench across from him. He takes a sip of his third beer and gives Dean a measured look.

“What?” Dean asks, putting a soft smile on his face. “See something you like?”

“Yes,” Cas says.

Dean grins back at him. There’s a tug somewhere in his chest, but he ignores it. “Anything on your mind?”

Cas just looks at Dean, clearly deep in thought. “Not really, no.”

Dean laughs and shakes his head. “Want another?”

Cas’s beer is still half full. “Another what?”

“Another drink. Or another shot.”

“Another shot might be nice, actually.”

Dean smiles at him. “That’s my boy. I’ll be right back.”

He returns to the bar and waits for Lynn to walk over to him.

“Two more?” she asks.

“Just another shot,” Dean says. “I’m driving but huggy bear over there can have whatever he wants.”

Lynn shakes her head and pours another. “You two been together long? I haven’t seen him in here.”

Dean blinks back at her and then looks down at the shot. “Actually we, uh, we haven’t talked about… that. Being together.”

She frowns at Dean and he takes a breath. He hadn’t been avoiding it, really. He and Cas had just fallen back into their comfortable rhythm.

“He doesn’t know how you feel, does he?” Lynn asks. She looks a little sad now.

“I guess he doesn’t,” Dean says thoughtfully.

“You should tell him.”

Dean looks up at her.

“Not tonight, though. He should probably be sober.”

Dean nods and grabs the shot. “Thanks, Lynn.”

He sets the shot down across from Cas when he gets back to the table. “For you.”

Cas downs the shot as Dean settles back down across from him. “What were you two talking about?”

Dean stares at Cas. He knows he shouldn’t lie but if he says anything Cas may actually want to talk about his feelings and Dean isn’t ready for that. He doesn’t really have words and he’s not even sure he’s fully processed Cas’s confession yet. And, Lynn was probably right. Cas should be sober for that particular conversation.

“Sam,” Dean lies easily. “This is where we come for drinks. Neither of us have been by in a while.”

Cas accepts the lie and sips from his beer before starting a conversation about Jack and the prospect of weekly family dinners.

By the time Cas had finished his beer the shot he’d taken seems to hit him. “Dean.”

“Cas.”

“I’d like another shot.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “You can get it.”

Cas frowns at Dean before swinging his legs to the end of the booth to pull himself out. He pushes himself up on the table and wobbles a little before Dean is up and at his side, steadying him.

“When you don’t stand it hits you all at once,” Dean explains. He’s gripping Cas’s bicep and shoulder.

“I know how drinking works, Dean. I spend all my time with you.”

Dean chuckled low in his throat. “How about we get you home?”

“Can I drink there?”

Dean turns Cas to face him fully. “Hell yeah, you can.”

“You’ll be drinking, too?”

“Well, yeah. I won’t have to drive us anywhere. Can’t let you have all the fun.”

Dean walks Cas to the Impala and deposits him in the passenger’s seat. “I’ll be right back, baby. I have to pay the tab.”

Cas stares at Dean for a moment before opening and promptly closing his mouth.

“I’ll leave the door open in case you hurl. And I’ll get a bag from Lynn.”

Dean returns to see Cas has closed the door and is currently slumped against it, sleeping. He rolls his eyes and drives him home, careful to avoid the bumps on the road. When they get home, he shakes Cas awake.

“‘Morning, Sunshine.”

“It’s not morning, Dean,” Cas replies groggily.

“Nope,” Dean says, leaning over to pull Cas out of the car. “Let’s get you to your room.”

They make their way through the bunker slowly. Dean sits Cas down and gets him out of his shoes and, after a brief moment of hesitation, his jeans. Once he’s gotten Cas under the blankets, he gets a glass of water from the kitchen and a few tylenol from the bottle he has stashed in his room.

“Alright,” he says, setting everything down on Cas’s night stand. “Take the tylenol when you wake up. You’re probably going to be hungover. And drink some water, okay?”

“Yes, Dean,” says the Cas sized lump under the covers.

“Let me know if you need anything else, okay? I’m right down the hall.”

Dean turns to leave but Cas makes a noise. Dean turns back around.

“Thank you for taking me out tonight, Dean. I had fun.”

Dean smiles. “I had fun, too. Get some sleep, baby.”

He flicks out Cas’s lights and reminds himself to stop calling Cas buddy. The dude loves him and Dean’s probably making it hurt or something. Plus, he’d accidentally called him baby when he’d first gotten back from The Empty. Dean’s probably sending him mixed signals. He shuts the door behind him and walks to his room; he knows he should probably figure out what to say to Cas. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that meant poking at that warm, fluttery feeling that seemed to be permanently in his chest.

-

Sam returns from the hunt a week later. He assures Dean it was an easy hunt and that he and Eileen hadn’t needed any help. He also admits to spending a few days with Eileen after they’d taken out the nest.

“How is she, anyway?” Dean asks, handing a beer to Sam and setting one on the end table next to Cas. They’d been watching old western’s in the Dean Cave when Sam got home. Cas had wanted to spend the day watching movies and Dean had agreed on the condition that he got to pick the movie.

“She’s good. She misses you two,” Sam answers.

“Tell her to get her ass out here,” Dean says. “She’s family at this point, man. She should be here, anyway. It would make hunts easier.”

Sam shook his head, smiling. “That’s the first hunt I’ve been on since we beat Chuck. You still haven’t been out.”

“Hey, I’m keeping Cas company. He’s still newly human,” Dean argues.

“You could go hunt if you want, Dean. I’m capable of taking care of myself. I don’t mind,” Cas says from the couch. Dean looks over at him and shakes his head.

“Nah, you’ve been back less than a month. We gotta make sure you have your sea legs before I go anywhere, baby.”

The words left his mouth effortlessly. Sam and Cas just stared at him for a second before Sam coughed.

“It’s great seeing you guys but I’m going to go shower and pass out for a few hours,” he says before making a quick exit toward his room.

“Fine, Sammy. We didn’t want to hang out with you, anyway,” Dean shoots back before collapsing onto his side of the couch.

He hits play on the movie and settles in. He has his own bottle of beer pressed to his lips when Cas speaks.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas?” he replies, lowering the bottle from his lips.

Cas is quiet for a moment. “Why do you keep calling me ‘baby’?” he asks carefully.

Dean stares back at him. “I only called you that once,” he says, on guard now. Had it slipped out again? He didn’t think it had but now he’s not so confident. He sets his beer bottle down.

“No, you’ve done it five times.” So, it had slipped out again. More than once. “You did just now before Sam left.”

Dean is silent, unsure of what to say. He hadn’t even realized it had come out. “I’m sorry,” he finally decides, lowering his gaze from Cas’s stare for a brief moment.

“I don’t mind it,” Cas says quietly. He’s looking somewhere to the left of Dean, his eyes occasionally flickering to Dean’s face. “I thought you were doing it on purpose, is all.”

Dean can’t seem to form a fully coherent thought. He knows he needs to say something - mention Cas’s confession, maybe. But he doesn’t have the words for that yet. Instead he says, “Do you want me to stop?”

“I want you to do it on purpose,” Cas says, looking down. Dean can see the beginnings of pink on the top of his ears. He’s overwhelmed with an ache somewhere in his chest.

Dean doesn’t know why, but he slides in close to Cas. He reaches his hand out and lifts his chin so their eyes meet. “Anything you want, baby,” he says, softly. The fluttering in his chest is more insistent now.

He hears Cas’s breath hitch. Cas closes and opens his eyes before saying. “Can I ask something?”

“Of course,” Dean says, his hand still resting on Cas’s chin.

“Will you kiss me?”

Before Dean registers what he’s doing, he nods and ducks his head in. The kiss is chaste and quick but Cas leans in and responds gently. When they break, there’s a soft smile on Cas’s face.

“Cas,” Dean says, moving his hand to Cas’s cheek. “I, uh. I need to talk to you about. About what you said. Before you… Ya know.”

“When I told you I loved you?” Cas supplies, his eyes half-lidded.

“Yeah,” Dean says, chuckling lightly. “I. I think I do, too. I just haven’t -”

“You don’t have to say anything, Dean. You know that.”

Dean brings his mouth gently back to Cas’s and kisses him again. This time just a little longer, his other hand finding Cas’s waist.

“It was just so easy when you got back,” Dean says when he pulls away. He tries to find any string of words that expresses how he feels. “I didn’t think I needed to say anything but…”

Cas stares at Dean, encouraging him to keep going. Dean can feel his face heating up.

“Lynn asked how long we’d been together,” he says, lamely. “The bartender,” he adds.

“I didn’t get to meet her but I remember her name.”

Dean smiles at him and takes a breath before speaking. “And I told her we hadn’t talked about it. And she looked really sad. I realized I do need to say something.”

They’re silent for a moment and then Dean says. “Holy shit. That was a date.”

Cas looks confused. “You told me it was a date.”

“I did?”

“Yes. When I said yes to going with you, you said ‘it’s a date.’” Cas says.

Dean shakes his head. “It’s… It’s an expression, Cas,” he says. Then, “But, uh, that was a date. I think.”

“Dean. Did you want it to be a date?” Cas asks. His voice is lined with both patience and amusement.

Dean pauses for a minute before saying, “Yeah. That was our first date.” He leans in and presses another kiss to Cas’s mouth.

Cas kisses back and then pulls away a little. “Would you like to go on a second date?”

Dean makes a show of thinking. He hums lightly.

“Dean.”

“Yeah, Cas. I do,” he places a kiss on the side of Cas’s mouth before he drops his hand. “I, uh, I don’t really know what to say but… You can have me, if you want. You’re just going to have to work with me. I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Cas says.

Dean places a kiss on Cas’s cheek before he turns back to the TV and starts the movie. Cas reaches across to grab his hand, intertwining their fingers in the space between them.

“Hey, baby?”

Cas’s head pops up in response to the pet name, there’s a faint smile on his lips. “Yes, Dean?”

“I love you.”

Cas beams at him before replying, “I love you, too.”

Dean turns his head back toward the TV but spends a better part of the rest of the movie sneaking glances at Cas. He indulges the warm feeling in his chest, even if he doesn’t quite have the words for everything yet.

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief, @padaleckimeon donated $100 and requested Dean Jr. meeting Sam and Dean in heaven. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts) 

(read on AO3)

When Dad dies, Dean takes a week off. It wasn’t sudden, or a surprise. Dad had been sick for a while, his body starting to fail him. At first Dean had been scared, and then he’d been angry. He was only twenty-four when Dad got the diagnosis and it wasn’t—fair, in some stupid but essential way. He’d barely graduated from college and, yeah, Dad was kind of old, older than a lot of his friends’ parents, but—he thought, somehow, that him dying just wasn't… applicable. Dad was just—there, always. Solid, supportive, kind of boring maybe but also stronger than anyone Dean had ever known, or would ever know, and it wasn’t right that he could just be sitting in his apartment midway through a novel and get a call and kind of sigh, because he was in a good part in the book, and then to sit up straight with his hair standing on end to hear Dad say, quiet, I'm sorry, buddy. We need to talk about something. That’s what he said, first. That he was sorry.

There were treatments, but not many. Dean had flown out and gone to a few of the appointments with the oncologist and Dad had been quiet, listening to the options. He’d researched a lot of this on his own, because Dean had done the same thing, and they’d both been nodding along during the options. Injections, radiation. Chemo. Dad had asked, polite, what the life expectancy was for each option, and Dean had watched the side of his face and not the doctor, and when the answer was given Dad had closed his eyes briefly, and then looked away from both Dean and the doctor, out the window at the snowy day, and Dean had known, then.

Dad made it past Dean’s twenty-fifth birthday. He had a party with his friends, at his girlfriend’s apartment, and they tried to keep his spirits up but it was a pretty shitty party, all told. The next day, his actual birthday, he flew back out to Dad’s house and he was in good spirits—had a mini-cake, even, with a single candle that he made Dean blow out—but he was thin, and his hair was growing back in snow-white and tender-soft, and when Dad fell asleep in front of the crappy old cowboy movie that Dean had picked just because he knew Dad for some reason liked it, Dean went out onto the porch into the nearly-springtime air and he cried, pissed at himself. Pissed at everything. Then just—unbearably sad, because he liked his current girlfriend but he didn’t think he was going to marry her, and that meant that whatever girl he did marry would be one his dad would never meet—if he had kids, they’d never know how his dad concentrated like a motherfucker on crossword puzzles and obsessed over documentaries and knew every single piece of the inside of that behemoth car in the garage and was just the smartest kindest most stubborn person. Just—the best person. They’d listen to Dean’s stories maybe but they wouldn’t know, because Dad would never meet them, and that was just—unbearable, that night. In the morning, Dad made oatmeal and Dean added a bunch of sugar because Dad’s oatmeal was inedible otherwise, and Dad smiled kind of rueful like he always did when Dean did that, and then Dad said, I’m sorry, again, kind of quiet, and Dean reached out and held his hand—thin, and the bones feeling frail—and he said don’t be sorry, Dad, and four months later, Dad was dead.

Dad was always pretty up-front with him about most everything, especially after he and Mom split up. When he was twelve, Dad explained the supernatural very carefully, telling him that he was safe but that other people might not be, and why. When he was thirteen, Dad told Dean that Hell and Heaven were both real and that there was, definitely, confirmed, a God, and maybe it wasn’t the same God that other people knew but that Dad said he was kind, in his own way. The person in charge of Hell, Dad said, was maybe less so, but she wouldn’t hurt Dean, ever. Dad said he knew that for fact, and he said it so certainly, looking Dean in the eye, that Dean believed him. When Dean turned eighteen, a few months from graduating high school, Dad took him to a tattoo parlor and said for maybe the first time in Dean’s life that something was non-negotiable, and Dean hadn’t cared because what other kid in the senior year was going to walk at graduation with a kickass demonic tattoo?

There were other things, though, that they didn’t talk about. Dad said one day a lot when Dean was little but then, when he was older and it was clear that one day would be never, he just said—I can’t, buddy. I wish I could.

After the week off, rattling around the old house, and the cremation with no service that Dad had insisted on, Dean drives out to the lawyer in Sioux Falls. She’s nice. Respectful but not cloying. The Samuel Winchester Estate that Dean is the sole beneficiary of is—a lot of money. A lot more money than he knew Dad had, or that he could have ever earned. Dad has assigned some of the money to go to charities, and to some people Dean doesn’t know—the lawyer doesn’t say who in the specific, but says they’re kids of some of Dad’s old friends. Dean didn’t know Dad had many friends, much less ones who’d get trust funds in inheritance. Aside from the stock options and the accounts and all the money left over, Dean inherits a list of assets. The house, of course. The Chevy in the garage, with the stipulation that he can never sell it. A safety deposit box, from which the lawyer has already retrieved the contents.

She leaves him alone, to go through the box. Neatly organized, like everything else in Dad’s life. File-folders of pictures, printed out all old-fashioned. Some of Dean when he was a baby. Some of when Dad and Mom were still together, leaning against each other, Dean hugged between them. Some—much older, creased and faded, stored in little plastic sleeves so they can't degrade. He recognizes a few from the framed copies Dad always had in the house. Some he hasn't seen. Most of them—almost all of them—are of his Uncle Dean, who died before he was born, and he looks especially at one that just—hits him in the gut, in this awful way where he has to sit there looking at the soothing taupe paint of the conference room wall before he can look at it again. Uncle Dean's facing the camera, sort of, although he's laughing about something and not really looking into the lens, and there's Dad, laughing too. He looks… young. Younger than Dean is now. He flips the picture over. Dad's handwriting, careful: 2006, Bobby's house. Almost fifty years ago. An entire life he didn't know. He thinks again of his imaginary future kids. These lives they have, grandfather to father to son, that overlap like a venn diagram but—not enough. Not close to enough.

*

What's a life? How to summarize, from beginning to faded end, in a way that would make sense to anyone but who it happened to?

Dad left letters, explaining, but he's gone and the context is missing. There are so many questions Dean wants to ask but he can't, of course, anymore. The first letter is attached to the key to the bunker, where he would never take Dean when he was alive, and on winter break from med school Dean flies from Boston to Kansas and rents a car and drives alone through the snowfields.

Dark, inside. He throws the big switch and the lights crackle, hum on, almost reluctant. He has no idea how it's getting power. Dust, but not as much as there could be. A library, a kitchen. Archives upon archives. Dad had explained, but what little he'd said both in life and in the letters didn't come close. It was home, he wrote, for over a decade. The only one we had with four walls, for our whole lives, although we didn't think of it that way. I didn't, at least. Dean doesn't know what that means but he looks into the bedrooms and sees… emptiness, plain bunks and old desks and funny lamps. I just picked a random room, Dad said, and as Dean's looking he really can't tell which was Dad's. Figures. Their house when Dean was growing up didn't change a bit, no matter how terrible that wallpaper was. It's only when Dean pushes open the door to room 11 that there's any personality, and he flicks the light and stands there blinking, surprised. Guns and knives on the wall. Books, piled up. Empty beer bottles crowded on the little table. Dust, but—not as much as there could be. He walks in, cautious, this feeling in his gut like he's in someone's home and they've just walked out, and could return any moment. A food bowl on the floor. A shirt flung over the chair. On the desk: more books and magazines and a folded actually-on-paper newspaper from 2024, and a job application, half filled out. Dean Winchester, it says at the top, in mostly-neat capitals, and Dean rests a hand on the back of the chair and feels… strange. He tries to picture it—the man from the pictures, Dad's brother, filling up this space. Drinking beer and reading pulp westerns and checking out—oh, weird, magazine porn. Dean shakes his head. Impossible.

In the letters, Dad said: Hunting was all we knew how to do. With everything we knew, it was our duty to use the knowledge the best way we could. I went back and forth on it. Your uncle never did, even if I know there were times he wished he—that we both—could be something else. I don't want that for you. I want you to live exactly the life you want for yourself. No expectations, okay? Not from me or anyone else.

There are printed files that go back a hundred years. More than. Paper files, but old SSDs too, with connectors Dean has to find adapters for. Dad: If you want to know what we did, it's digitized. I know I always said I'd tell you one day, but I never knew how to say it. I'm sorry for that. I always thought I'd be one hundred percent honest, if I ever got a kid, because of how we were raised. I didn't know how hard that could be. Stuff that you'd want to say, but when it came time to just open your mouth and say it there weren't any words.

Dad wrote up all the old hunts, it turned out. Simple notes about where/when/how, the kind of monster it was, the number of people who died and the people who were saved. The people they had to explain things to, who knew now about the supernatural underbelly to the universe. He noted, too, if there were injuries, and Dean reads with his hand over his mouth a long, long litany of Dean W. shot, right arm; Sam W. broken bone in hand; Dean W. concussion; Sam W. strangled. On and on. No wonder Dad didn't make a big fuss when Dean broke his leg in the fourth grade.

He sleeps in the bunker overnight, in one of the spare bedrooms that's not room 11. There's a fan on the ceiling, dusty office supplies on the desk. By lamplight he reads the letters, on his back on the stiff terrible mattress, his eyes stinging and past-midnight tired. Our lives weren't the kind of thing anyone would want, Dad wrote. I spent so long trying to get away from it because I thought 'it shouldn't be this way' – and I was right, you know? It shouldn't have been how it was. But it was that way, anyway, and in the end that was something I was okay with. We were making what difference we could. We were happy. A lot of people have it worse.

'We'. Dad hardly writes Uncle Dean's name but he's in every letter. We, we, we. Dad told Dean stories, of course, the dumb stuff they got up to when they were teenagers, or the (sanitized, Dean's sure) adventures they had as adults, but despite the pictures on the wall at home and the pictures in the deposit box and the whole life that's here, Dean can't—see it. Beer bottles on the table in the bedroom, one on either side of the tiny table. The shirt slung over the chair. We were happy, he says, but—how? Dean can't imagine it.

In the last letter Dad wrote, I think I'm writing this when I've got a month or two left. Dr. Hendricks isn't sure. I wish I had more time, to explain how it was. Who we were. I never told you the most embarrassing thing in the world, but I'm old and I'm not going to be around and not much will be able to embarrass me anymore, so screw it. (Fifty years ago I would have gotten really mad at myself for that kind of comment; more things age can fix.) There are books about us. There's a hard drive, in the bunker. It's labelled BURN THIS. (That's your uncle's handwriting.) They're true, more or less. Written by a really crappy, amateur writer, but he was a kind of prophet, and he knew everything there was to know about us, and he wrote books for about five years, based on our life and the real things we did. Some of it is exaggerated and melodramatic. A lot of it is just how it happened. You'll have to decide which is which. I don't come off too well in some of them but I hope you'll understand that the world… I don't know how to describe it. Somehow the world felt different, then. It was just us, trying our best. I hope it gives you some idea of the life we had. No matter what happened, I'm glad that life led me to you.

*

What's a life?

Dean marries. Not the girl from college but a woman, later. Red hair, blue eyes. Absolutely no sense of humor beyond puns. Hates cooking and has strong opinions on movies from the 1980s. They have three kids, a girl and then a boy and then a girl again. All dark-haired, smart. Dean gives the boy the middle name Samuel and his wife holds his hand, says it sounds great.

He's a doctor. He meets hunters. He sets bones for free and prescribes medication when needed and when it will be needed. A woman, last name Novak, calls him and says you know, your dad was one of the greats?, and he meets people—older than him by twenty, thirty years, with scars and dangerous lives and guns hidden in every corner, and he hears stories. Sam Winchester, who saved the world. Dean knows—he's read the books—but there are more years that the books didn't cover, more people who didn't die because of his dad's intervention. "They were the best," one man says, shrugging, and gets no argument, nods and shrugs from every hunter in the room, and Dean goes home that night and kisses his littlest girl where she's already tucked up in bed, and he thinks: what will she know, about who her grandfather was? Who their family is? What could she possibly know?

Dean's wife dies in her eighties. An accident. A broken hip, an infection following. Still happens, even in this new century. The kids are grown, have kids of their own, and the funeral is big, and there are people at his elbow who say to him we're so sorry and who share anecdotes of her life and who support him to his chair, even though at ninety he's perfectly capable of getting to his chair himself. He's a cranky old man, he realizes. She would've laughed at him. He thinks, inevitably, of his own father's death. Silent and unmourned, except by one. What's a life.

He writes letters, for his children. The estate is handled. He calls the oldest girl and explains to her that she's going to be the executor, and that there are things she has to keep. A key. A car. Pictures, so that her boys will know where they came from. "Of course, Dad," she says, placating a little because he's old and clearly starting to lose his grip, but she'll do it. She's a good kid. Dean learned how to raise a kid from the best.

When he dies, he's expecting it. The trip to the hospital. The monitors. He knows the pain meds even if he's retired and his doctor looks like an infant but she gives him the good stuff. It's—easy. A slipping away. He closes his eyes to sleep and there is a moment where he thinks with surprisingly clarity, this is okay, isn't it, and has the feeling of someone's hand laid on his, and then he sleeps, and doesn't wake up again.

*

He opens his eyes in an armchair, in a house that he doesn't recognize but that feels instantly familiar. Music playing, somewhere, and a gold-tinged afternoon spilling through the window, and tone-deaf singing from the kitchen. His mind feels clearer than it has in… Tears come to his eyes but it doesn't hurt. He puts his fingers to his mouth and smiles, breathing in slow, and thinks—well, this is it. Heaven.

Time is no longer time. Space is—immaterial. There's a house, not their house, but it's roomy and it has what he needs and the bed he crawls into with his wife at the end of a day is comfortable, and that's what matters, as he lays his hand on her hip where he used to lay it always, and she sighs against the pillow and squirms and tucks herself into a fetal pretzel, like she always used to. The spill of her hair red against the pillow. Her warmth, plush against his bones. She smells not of honeysuckle or vanilla but just like warm, human skin, the faint bite of salt-sweat at the nape of her neck, the must in the morning in thin bluish light when she turns over and finds him awake, and smiles. Incredible. The weight of her is real, and the spot between her breasts when he kisses her there is real, and he'd always believed in some distant way that what his dad had told him was true—that there was a heaven, that there would be some kind of justice after death—but it was distant, and academic, because of course there was a life to live and patients to care for and children to raise and a wife to bury and a death to get through. What a thing, to come to. This place, with her hair on the pillow, and her smell. He hadn't forgotten it, in the end, after all.

The house sits in some place that feels like South Dakota. Home, or close to it. A lake among trees. A distance between things. He reads, and plays games he barely remembers from being a kid, and he watches the Ghostbusters movies again because his wife insists and they are, he has to admit, still funny, but he makes fun of the weird museum guy anyway, and she kicks him where her feet are tucked in his lap, and he tickles her in retaliation, and then—well, the movie will be there, later, when they're done.

She rides her bike every day. One day she comes back and says she was just visiting her mother, and Dean sits up and says, "What?" But—of course. What's time? What's a space, between this shared slow heaven and another? She shrugs—his mother-in-law says hi—and he sits there on the couch with his game paused, watching her go into the kitchen and shake her sweaty hair back from her face, redoing it into the practical twist at her neck like she always does, and he thinks—okay. Okay, maybe now.

The bookshelf has every book he could want, and seems to know what he needs to read before he does. Raining outside, spattering gentle on the eaves, and his wife made a huge pot of tea and took it to bed upstairs and left him just a cup, and so he sits at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and opens the book—Home, by Carver Edlund—and reads it, lingering, even if he's read it three times before online, his thumb brushing over the cheap too-thin pages of this physical copy. There's a poltergeist, preposterous. The psychic, odd and familiar. The brothers, united, and he reads the next-to-last chapter very slowly, lingering, as they find the box of pictures, as they get into the car together. Drive off, to meet some new dawning day.

He finishes his cup of tea. Puts on a clean shirt, combs his hair. "I'll be back," he says, to his wife, and she blinks at him from her nest of blankets with her own book and then only nods, and Dean goes downstairs and gets into his car and finds the road, beyond the garden gate, and drives.

He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't matter. He turns on the car radio and it's playing—oldies, but really oldies, the stuff that was old when he was little. What childhood sounded like. Farms appear, melt away. Trees rising, through hills. He sings along, under his breath, remembering: a roadtrip to his grandma's house, Mom sleeping in the passenger seat and Dad driving through the night, and Dad singing very, very badly, as quiet as he could, and Dean thinking even as a kid that this was some private thing, to see, and he had to be silent and not show that he was awake or it would disappear. That feeling, it crept up on him at the oddest times, when he was an adult, and later. That sensation of the armored tank of the car moving through the dark, and the silence around them, and the quiet music inside, and Dad, in a world of his own, entirely separate from the world he shared with Dean.

Another hill. Climbing a mostly-paved road. Not raining anymore but the sun coming in slanted gold through the trees. Distance, and a curve, and then: a house. Old-looking. Older maybe than the one Dean and his wife share. In front of it, a car. The car.

Dean parks. He gets out, and the air smells washed-fresh, a little fecund. Like summer. He puts his hand on the hood of the Impala and it's sun-warm and he tears up, completely unexpected, and has to sit on the hood and hold his hands over his face, his heart—full, in a way he's felt since dying, but not in this particular way, this way of feeling that he thought had mellowed, a lifetime ago.

So much for putting on a good face. He wipes over his mouth and dashes his eyes clear. A porch, with new-carved railings. A door, painted blue. He knocks, his body feeling empty and clean and young, terribly young, and before he's quite ready the door opens, and it's—his uncle, in a purple plaid shirt and paint-spattered jeans and grey socks, frowning at him, saying, "Uh, hi?"

He looks—almost exactly like he looked in the pictures. Maybe forty, lines beside his eyes and heavy stubble on his jaw. The age he was when he died. Dean opens his mouth, can hardly dredge up what to say, and then he hears a voice say, "Dean?" and Dean and his uncle both turn their heads to see—Dad, young too, completely shocked, standing on the far side of the porch in running gear with sweat slicking his hair back from his head, and Dean drags in air and says, "Dad," and Dad grins at him, that big creased dorky-looking dad-smile that Dean only got once in a blue moon, and he steps forward and they're hugging, then, and it's—heaven. That's all he can think. Heaven, Dad's arms tight around him, his shoulders slotting in under Dad's because—Dad was so tall, and this is where Dean fit and never would fit again once Dad was gone. Here, under Dad's arm. Like being a kid again.

Dad's hand on the back of his head. A startled, shaky, deep breath in, and then hands gripping his shoulders, and being shoved reluctantly back to have Dad look down at his face, serious and worried. "How long has it been?" he says. "Are you—you didn't—?"

"I was ninety-seven," he says, and Dad's eyebrows go high and he smiles, big and glad and real, relieved. He touches Dean's face and Dean smiles back, tears rising again for no reason and for so many reasons. "I look good, don't I?"

Dad huffs a laugh. "You look great," he says, and then his eyes lift over Dean's head, and Dean has to turn around because—

What to call him? Uncle Dean. Standing there with his shoulder against the doorframe, his mouth tucked in on one side. Like from right out of one of the pictures, returning Dad's look. His eyes drop after a second to meet Dean's and Dean feels this odd jolt, in his chest. Bizarre, to see. He's real. All Dad's stories, the wall of memories, the books, and here he is, in grey socks, looking all over Dean's face like he's seeing it for the first time. "Guess you got your looks from your mom's side of the family," Uncle Dean says, finally, and Dad says, behind him, "Nice, dude," and Uncle Dean shrugs, unrepentant, but with an unexpected dimple quirking into his cheek, and holds out his hand to shake, and Dean takes it and has another shock at it, warm, callused, firm, real—while Uncle Dean says, wry, "Well, I guess some introductions are in order, huh?"

Uncle Dean and Dad share the house. It's nice, inside. Old fashioned in a way that feels comfortable, as Dean's come to expect. (He wonders, in a few hundred years—will new arrivals to heaven expect old-fashioned arcologies?) Uncle Dean brings beers from the kitchen and Dad takes his without even looking, drinking in Dean's face when Dean's doing the exact same to him. He looks so young. Younger, maybe, than he was even in the few pictures Dean has of him being a baby, held tiny in the crook of Dad's massive arm—some past time, some time Dean doesn't belong to, but Uncle Dean clearly does. Dad shakes his head after a few seconds, huffs again, rueful. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

Uncle Dean rolls his eyes, behind him, and says, "How about you ask the kid how he's doing, genius." Mean, but he squeezes Dad's shoulder too, and Dad bites his lip, looks at Dean, his head tipping. Asking.

It's awkward, but only in the way Dean would expect. To see his dad after so long—and both of them dead—and to explain… what? A life. Being a doctor, meeting a wife. Children. Grandchildren. "Great-grandpa Sammy," Uncle Dean fake-whispers, "told you you were old." Nudging Dad, half-sitting on the arm of his chair. Looking proud enough he could burst, although Dean doesn't know exactly why.

"Are you going to make dinner or are you just here to heckle?" Dad says, looking up, exasperated, and Uncle Dean raises his hands, says, "Oh, I'm here to heckle," but he gets up, too, says, "You get tired of the inquisition, kid, we've got more drinks in the kitchen," and cuffs Dad around the back of the head before he disappears down the blue-painted hall—and music comes on, after a moment. The kind of music that was on Dean's radio as he drove. Comfort sounds that go deep into some space beyond his bones.

"He's a lot, sorry," Dad says, after a second.

"I know, I read about it," Dean says, and Dad blinks at him, mouth half-open, before he remembers.

They have dinner. Uncle Dean makes burgers, fries, a spinach salad that Dean and Dad both groan at, and he looks at them across the table with his burger in his hands and shakes his head. No salad on his plate, Dean notices. They talk but about—nothing. Uncle Dean asks if the Broncos ever won the Superbowl again and Dean tries to dredge up an answer. Dad asks what his wife did for a living. Dean wants to ask things and doesn't know how. There's time, he knows, but for now all he can do is—watch. Dad leaning back in his chair with a beer, smiling at him while Uncle Dean tells some probably well-worn story about trying to fix the Impala in a rainstorm, and Dad was pissed for some reason and so kept handing him the wrong tools. "It was too dark to actually read the grip numbers," Dad says, patient like it's the hundredth time, and Uncle Dean says back, immediately, "Who needs the numbers? You can feel the weight in your hand!" Old arguments, well-worn, in the well-worn house. The way they move around each other, washing dishes, putting plates away. The way Dad's eyes will jump across the table, half a second before Uncle Dean's even opening his mouth, a smile already waiting to be pushed back down.

When it's night he says he should get back to his wife. "I'd like to meet her," Dad says, "some day."

"Gotta see who's willing to put up with a Winchester," Uncle Dean says, eyebrows waggling.

Dad sighs but nods, too. Dean gets folded into a hug, there under the tuck of his arm, and then he hugs Uncle Dean, too, impulsive and just—wanting to, feeling like a kid. Uncle Dean startles but hugs him back right away. "You're good, kid," he says, quiet against the side of Dean's head, and Dean nods and says, "Thanks," for more than he can say other than that, right then on this particular day, and then he gets into his car and pulls away from the house and looks back to see Uncle Dean gripping Dad's shoulder again while they watch him move away—and when he's home, after a blurring drive that's long enough for him to settle himself, he comes up the stairs to where his wife's warm in bed and slides in beside her and she says, sleepy, "How was it," and he says against her hair, "Perfect," because—it was. It was perfect.

*

Dean comes alone to their house twice more, on days when he needs it and doesn't see a reason not to. He brings his wife, the third time, and Dad's extremely polite and Uncle Dean asks her about engineering and Dean enjoys it, from the couch, while she gets the same interrogation he did, and they're driving home with her at the wheel, his eyes on the passing trees, before she says, "They're an interesting couple," and it doesn't strike him, for what may be a mile of blurring distance, why that sentence wasn't quite right.

It should be a shock. It isn't. That it isn't should, itself, be a shock, but he sits with it for a few days, the easy rhythm of heaven sliding around them.

He goes to see his mother, finally. She's in a place on a lakeshore. Her first husband, kind but remote, giving them space. She presses his hands between her own and he goes through the list of answers to all her questions, smiling, feeling déjà vu, and then says, cautious, that he's been to see Dad. "Oh!" she says, and doesn't seem upset. "How is he?"

"Good," he says. They never married, his parents—Dad had told him, much later, that it just didn't occur to him to ask—and he knew they didn't resent each other, but there wasn't much closeness there. He didn't realize how little until he was married himself. Still, he's cautious as he says: "He and my uncle have a place. Uncle Dean, you know?"

Mom sits back in her chair. "Well, then," she says, soft. She's youngish, too. Fifty maybe, her hair shot with grey. "That sounds about right."

He doesn't know how to ask but there's no way to do it other than just—to ask. "What do you know about him?"

Mom smiles, slow, and looks out at the lake. "Honey, your dad's a good man, but I think you know as well as I do that he doesn't give a lot away." Dean follows her look. A boat, far out on the water. Not close enough to hail. "He didn't talk about his brother, much. That said more than I think he knew it did. All those pictures. Well, you remember." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "I resented him for a while. A dead man. Silly of me. But then I suppose your dad could have resented Luke, if he'd—cared more. Sorry. That sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. There just wasn't much left in Sam, that's all. He loved you and he loved someone that wasn't here anymore and there just wasn't room for me, or at least not room for what I needed. I wished I could've known him. Dean, I mean. I would've understood your dad a lot more, I think, but then—I don't think I would've ever met him, if Dean were around."

When he gets home he pulls a book off the shelf. Frail, the spine cracked badly. Supernatural, the first book in the whole series. When Dad was at college and the whole thing started. He sits on the floor by the bookshelf and lets the cup of tea his wife brings go cold on the rug, and reads again and again the scene—coming down the stairwell, finding the car in the garage, going through the details of the voice on the tape, on where their dad (Dean's grandfather) could possibly be, and Dad says there's this interview he can't skip. His whole future, on a plate. In the story, it's Dad's point of view, and he looks at Uncle Dean and Uncle Dean smirks, and Dad thinks, This is exactly what I was getting away from. Dean drags his thumb over the page, looks at the shelf. All those books. All the years in them, and the horrors in those. Hell, and apocalypse, and none of it euphemisms or easy metaphor. All the things Dad wanted to get away from—and then all the years, after, where he stayed exactly where he was. And then—a lifetime later—to come back home to a house, with a blue door, and his eyes not bothering to follow his brother as he leaves a room, because he knows without doubt that he'll be back.

In bed, he asks his wife, "When do you think the kids will get here?" and she turns over and stares at him, and says, "Hopefully not for years?"

He shakes his head, folds his arm under his head. "Duh," he says, and gets her to punch his chest lightly. "Ow. I meant… I don't know. What do you think their lives will be? Like… who will they be? I can't even imagine."

She stops trying to lightly beat him and goes thoughtful. Her thumb finds the little scar on her chin and rubs it, as is her habit, and her eyes slip over his shoulder to the distance. "They'll be—them." He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs, rolling closer. "I mean, what do you want from me? I knew Abbie for fifty-one years and I still think that girl's a mystery. When she's… probably a grandmother herself, now, I guess. Is she still at Notre Dame? Are she and Andre happy? Are the boys healthy and do they like each other, and did she ever get Jacob to stop drawing cartoon dicks on the walls?" Dean laughs—god, he'd forgotten that—and she smiles at him, props her head on one fist. Says, softer, "Did she live the life she wanted to have? I don't know. I guess when she gets here we can ask her, but we'll never…"

No, they'll never. Dean touches the scar on her chin and she focuses on him, instead of some other world they're no longer privy to. "It's a venn diagram," he says, after a moment. "All of us. Abbie, overlapping with you and me, and then us overlapping with our parents, and on and on, all the way back. I guess we don't get to know what's outside the center parts."

"Even if there's a hundred and four crappily-written books about the other parts," she says, raising her eyebrows, and Dean shrugs, caught. She grins, shaking her head at him, and then squirms in close, tucking in under his chin. Kisses his throat, sighs. "Why not stop at a hundred? Seems random."

"I don't know, maybe the publisher wanted him to stretch it out," Dean says, and she hums, and puts her nose on his collarbone to settle in. He smooths her hair back, away from her shoulder. His favorite book is Swan Song, probably. The final one, as far as most people knew. His dad, the hero, saving humanity and the world, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the army man, stuck in the door. His dad, looking at that, and meeting his brother's eye, and that being—enough. Just that, and all the life it represented. Enough.

"Venn diagrams," he says, aloud, quietly.

"Yes, you're very brilliant, Dr. Winchester," his wife says, mumbling. "Now go to sleep."

He kisses her hair, and does.