#i want to know how to move my body and really get in there same with dancing and moshing i don't know the form and what to do with my limbs

[wendichester]

˙✧˖° 🫧 ⋆｡˚ skincare,

summary. your skincare time is also dean's time.

pairing. dean winchester x reader

wordcount. 569.

The soft hum of water running in the sink was the only sound in the dimly lit bathroom. Dean leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, watching as you went through your nightly skincare routine. His gaze wasn’t casual—it never was when it came to you.

He’d seen you do a million things—reading, working out, cooking—but this? This intrigued him the most. No matter how tired you were, no matter how long or rough the day had been, you never skipped it. Even after hours tangled up in bed together, your skin glowing with the aftermath of love, you’d still pad into the bathroom, tie your hair back, and start working through your little bottles.

Dean couldn’t understand it. But damn, he loved watching you.

You caught his reflection in the mirror and smirked. “Enjoying the show?”

“Just... fascinated,” he replied, his lips quirking into a smirk. “You’re half-asleep, and you’re still doing this. What’s in those things, anyway? Magic potions?”

“It’s not weird,” you shot back, massaging something into your face. “It’s self-care. You should try it.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I’ll pass. Not exactly manly, sweetcheeks.”

You turned to him, arms crossed, one brow arched. “Oh, please. You coat your hands in motor oil daily. This is basically the same, just less greasy and smells better.”

Dean laughed, shaking his head. “No offense, sweetheart, but me and fancy creams don’t mix.”

You stepped closer, your hands already reaching for him. “Sit,” you ordered, pointing to the closed toilet lid.

“Bossy,” he muttered, though he obeyed, sitting with an exaggerated sigh.

“Close your eyes,” you instructed, squeezing cleanser onto your fingers.

“Not sure about this,” Dean hesitated for a moment but then complied, his long lashes fluttering shut. The first touch of your hands against his face made his shoulders tense, but you moved gently, massaging the cleanser into his skin with a tenderness he wasn’t used to.

“Relax,” you murmured, your thumbs gliding over his cheekbones. “It’s just me.”

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, his body melting into your touch. As you moved through the steps, applying toner, serum, and moisturizer, Dean felt something foreign—a strange mix of vulnerability and comfort.

“Hard to relax when someone’s this close to my face,” he murmured, though his tone was soft.

The products smelled nice, sure, and the cool sensation was refreshing, but what really struck Dean was you. Your hands on his face, the way your breath brushed against his cheek as you leaned in closer. The warmth of your fingertips, the soft rhythm of your movements—everything about it was you.

As you worked, he couldn’t help but open one eye to look at you. The concentration on your face, the care in your touch—it was almost too much.

When you finished, your hands lingered on his face for a moment, your thumbs brushing along his jawline. “There,” you said softly, your voice full of warmth. “How’s that?”

Dean opened his eyes, staring up at you, his heart doing something funny in his chest. “You know,” he said, his voice low, “I think I get it now.”

“Get what?”

He reached up, his hand brushing against yours. “It’s not the stuff you’re putting on my face. It’s you.” You flushed, your heart skipping a beat as he added, “I’d let you do this every night, just to feel your hands on me.”

want be part of the taglist.ᐣ ⋆.˚ ★— @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing ⋆ @deans-daydream ⋆ @ariasong11 ⋆ @ambiguous-avery ⋆ @krabog ⋆ @itsdearapril

[dollfacefantasy]

im shaking begging on my hands on knees pls if that’s okay and you’re comfortable with it could you cook some tongue sucking and spit play with Leon like absolutely sloppy messy nasty 🤲🤲🤲🤲🤲🤲

it was a mistake telling leon that you'd never been kissed.

you'd been going out with the d.s.o agent for a few weeks now, and last friday night on another one of your dates you let that little not-so-fun fact about you slip. in your defense, you were a bit tipsy, and the buzz of alcohol dulled the points on your decision making skills.

"wait really?" he'd asked after a small laugh. he leaned forward, forearms pressing down on the white table cloth. "never been kissed? not even once?"

"well... one time sorta in third grade. but i don't count that," you amended.

that only made his smile wider. "wow, i thought you were cute before, sweetheart, but this just takes it to another level," he chuckled.

you felt your cheeks starting to burn, realizing that you may have made a mistake in disclosing this part of your past. it wasn't like you were totally innocent or something. you'd just never found someone you felt deserved to experience your lips against theirs.

he didn't continue to mock though. he just shook his head and eyed you over the brim of his glass.

"i'll have to change that then," he said.

that night as he dropped you at your apartment he acted on his words. before letting you leave the proximity of his car, he guided you close and pecked your lips. something soft and sweet. intimate but simple. your first real kiss.

it would be far from the last if he had anything to say about it though.

tonight he came over to your place to spend some time with you before an upcoming mission. the two of you laid on the couch, bodies intertwined. he had you tucked to his chest as a movie played on the tv in the background. his eyes stayed on you though.

his fingers ran down your cheek along the curve of your jaw. you could feel him staring and finally gave in, turning your head to smile at him.

"what?" you said with a small laugh.

"nothing," he replied, "am i not allowed to admire you?"

he leaned in and pressed his lips to your cheekbone. one soft kiss landed on your skin and then another and another until his mouth reached your neck.

you giggled softly and squirmed beside him. he grinned against your throat, not letting up on his affection. his hand squeezed your waist. you felt his tongue slide out and glide across your pulse point before his lips latched on again.

"you know, baby... i've been thinking about kissing you again ever since last friday," he breathed.

"really?" you whispered in return.

"mhm. couldn't get you out of my head. even more than normal," he said, "those lips are just so soft and sweet. one kiss wasn't enough."

he began moving back up, cresting his lips over your chin to below your bottom lip.

"it wasn't enough for me either," you agreed, getting the words out while you still could.

in seconds, his lips landed on yours. this kiss was deeper than the last, more sensual and full of intention. he suckled on your bottom lip, scraping his teeth against the plush skin. his nose bumped yours. you could feel the soft puffs of his breaths on your face.

"of course it wasn't. that was just your first taste. it's only natural you'd want more," he murmured between smooches, "but i'm gonna give it to you. make up for all that time you went without."

his mouth connected with yours in full again, drawing a quiet moan from you. your fingers ran through his blonde tresses. he shuddered at the feeling of your fingers raking over his scalp.

it was weird. kissing him felt effortless and like something you needed to be conscious of at the same time. you melted into his movements and let him guide you, but you also thought about every detail from how much you were responding to the tender sighs slipping from your lips.

your breath hitched when you felt the tip of his tongue drag across the seam of your mouth. you didn't really know what to do, so you just went with your first instinct and parted your lips slightly.

"that's it, honey, let me in," he cooed before sliding the wet muscle into your mouth.

that got a louder sound out of you. he cupped your cheek and worked it in, swirling it with your own. the kisses got messier now. your head spun with the bliss of being so wrapped up in him.

he sucked at your tongue, and your legs squirmed in response. you didn't expect it to feel so nice. it was almost soothing in a way, to have him so intensely focused on you. the hand that wasn't on your cheek squeezed your hip, teasing at his want for more.

when he finally pulled away, a smile broke out on his face.

"look at you," he crooned, "you liked that, didn't you?"

all you could do was nod while staring up at him. your eyes were blown out with lust, your chest heaving with the same emotion.

his thumb came up to your wet bottom lip. the pad of it stroked back and forth, pressing down and opening your mouth a little. so cute.

"messy girl," he purred.

and then, without warning, he gathered some spit at the front of his mouth and parted his lips to let it fall into yours.

your body lit on fire at the sight and sensation. you felt the liquid hit your tongue and slide towards your throat. a soft moan made its way out of you before you lazily swatted at his arm.

"leon!" you whined, sticking out your lip into a pout, "ew."

he laughed at the simple reaction before ducking down to swap more spit with you. he kissed you deep and hard, twirling his tongue through your mouth languidly.

"that'll be the least 'ew' thing i do to you before tonight's over," he teased before sweeping you up in another passionate exchange.

[hypnotizedstarkey]

study buddy !

nerd!rafe x confidenthorny!reader

warnings: smut!, male receiving, sub rafe, dom reader, rafe completely oblivious, climax control

i have never been so sick of studying. exams are coming up and i do not have the ability to fail or i’ll be screwed, that’s why i asked rafe cameron to help me out but i can’t stop thinking about how much i need to get some relief out.

“basically..” rafe paused fixing the glasses on his face, “did you stop listening to me again?” i looked at him awkwardly, poor guy isn’t even getting paid for this. “sorry i’m a little distracted” i apologize and try to focus once again.

rafe went on to ramble and as much as i wanted to listen i couldn’t stop looking at his lips and the way his fingers moved through the pages of the books. this was really bad and i honestly don’t know why i am feeling horny over this.

“y/n?” i could tell he was getting sick of me now.

“rafe, why don’t we take a break?” my eyes still on his hands. “oh s-sure” he sounds a little flustered and nervous like he usually is but i never pay much mind to it.

the silence filled my room and rafe was looking at everything but me, playing with his pencil and fidgeting with his glasses. “so are you seeing anybody” i blurted out the question with no remorse. rafes face going red more than usual “uh-h no..” suddenly he’s fidgeting more and now i’m starting to realizing he’s super nervous and tightening his grip on the pencil more, making his veins pop even more and i’m seeing how tight his shirt is.

oh my god it’s getting hot in here now. i’m crossing my legs more trying to get some sort of pleasure.

“rafe..” his eyes look at me this time, he hums in response. “do you want to try something out?” silence fills the room for what feels like minutes. “w-what?”he leans closer to me and so do i. he swallows and almost retreats. “have you ever kissed someone?” at this point im trying so hard to not fold in front of this man for breathing. “no.. why have you?” i almost laugh at his question and how oblivious he is to why i’m asking.

“rafe can i kiss you?” i ask him with full confidence, not shying down. “you want kiss m-me? like me willingly? why?” he’s cute when he’s nervous and i almost just want to kiss him before explaining why but i hold back. “well ive been distracted this whole time because of you”

“me? i’m sorry what did i do? do you need another tutor?” this is harder than i thought. “no it’s just- it’s just hard to study when i’m attracted to you i guess” i let out a small laugh. “oh.. well i felt the same when you asked me to help you out. never been so nervous before. honestly i-“ i cut him off with a kiss, and after being surprised he started to kiss me back. i pull back after a few seconds and rafe leans forward a bit wanting more. i let out a soft laugh and watch him come back to reality.

“so how was that as a first-“ now he’s kissing me and this time it’s kind of messy. i’ve never been more turned on for a person in my life. i start to take control and subtly move him closer to my bed. i break the kiss and push him onto the mattress subtly and start kissing from his mouth to kiss jawline and to his neck and further. rafes little gasps and moans leaving his mouth when i find his sweet spot.

“take this off” i tell him in a rush, clothes are in the way and our minds fuzzy with adrenaline. his shirt is off and i see the amazing body he had hiding underneath. “is this okay?” i ask taking my shirt off. “god yes” he sounds out of breath. i smile and lean back down to his lips and kissing down his chest. i occasionally look up at him to see his face flustered and mouth open with awe.

i finally get to his pants and feel his bulge. “can i make you feel good?” i kiss the top of his indent and continue looking up at him. “yes y/n.. pl-please” no hesitation i start trying to unbuckle his belt and finally take it off. he lifts his hips up to take his pants off and his bulge is takes me by surprise. i take him out of his boxers and hear him hiss as i rub my thumb against his red tip. his hands are already in my hair before i start.

i start move my hand up and down his shaft and he lets out more groans. i watch him fascinated at how good he looks like this for me. i continue watching him as a i lick a stripe up to his tip and have spit drool down his shaft. he has puts his head back and his mouth agape with pleasure and his view. i finally take him in my mouth, twirling my tongue around him and gagging and rafe moans, pushing my head down without realizing it. “feel s’ good” he’s in the clouds with pleasure. i push my head down farther and he pushes he hips up basically fucking my mouth until he hears me gagging. “shit i’m sorry” stopping all his movements and trying to make me feel better.

“shh it’s okay let’s me keep going baby” i kiss his shaft and he lays back down almost shivering from the feeling. wrapping my mouth around him around i let him fuck my mouth more and he looks down at me to make sure i’m okay and i give him a thumbs up. his moans fill my apartment and he’s pushing my head down more as i keep going. i could cum from this and i’d be happy.

i’ve never had a man so vocal for me. i used to want them to be but they always held back but rafe was not like that, he was a nervous mess and was clueless and it turned me on knowing i could take power in our pleasure.

“y/n.. i’m gonna- fuck i’m gonna cum” he cursed. “you’re doing so good for me rafe” he little out a held in groan. “don’t hold your sounds in, i want to hear you.” i squeeze him a little more and he lets out a whimper. “don’t cum until i tell you to” placing my mouth on him again and using my hand to gather the rest of him, his hands on my face and hair and his face covered in how fucked he is. my panties completely drenched and he doesn’t even know it.

“oh my god- please” his moans getting louder. “cum in my mouth” i rub his shaft faster and he starts to whimper from pleasure and pain from how badly he wants to cum. “mmm- fuck y/n” he moans loudly now, finally white spurts fill my mouth and i take every taste of him i could get. he still has his eyes on me looking so fucked out of his mind and sweat beads on his forehead.

he brings me up to him and kisses me, tasting himself. “that was.. wow” he lets out trying to catch his breath again. i let out a chuckle and go to put on my shirt. “wait.” i stop and look back at him, “what about you?”

i almost fold right there, no guy really cared to give me anything back. “maybe i can tutor you next time?” smiling at him cheekily, “like you mean this again?” he fixes his glasses and i lay next to him and laugh, kissing him again. “yeah maybe i’ll teach you something new every time.”

HIIII, this is my first smut writing 😓 pls don’t judge me yet okay

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 1 - In My Brain and In My Blood

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Author's Note: This story is non-canon compliant rewrite, but primarily plot wise. Think of it as we're cooking with all the same ingredients (i.e lore, characters, setting, and backstory) but with one change (you) that gets us to a drastically different ending.

What the means is that there will be a lot of similar plot points to the real Supernatural, but the further we go through the story the more it will diverge. I've also take some creative labor with the reader, adding lore that's defiantly not a part of canon, but crucial to this story.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask! If not, I hope you enjoy the story!

Chapter title is from The End by Halsey

Word Count: 16.3k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: See the Masterlist for a Summary. Contains usual tags.

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

Chapter 2

Read on A03!

You know a few things about the dark.

It’s alive inside you. It has been your whole life. It makes your words too harsh and your brain too sharp and your love too big. It’s makes you too fragile, but still too sharp, and raises everything to a dangerous height you don’t know how to come down from. It makes everyone move away because they can see it. You can see it, always.

It covers every corner of your body, and grows roots in something white in your chest. Something no one but you can see. You’d asked your dad once—does he feel it too, feel the strange glow and pull of everything beautiful around you—and he’d looked at you like you were insane.

You might be.

But it’s hard not to be, in this line of work. 

Hunting. Monsters and ghosts and nightmares, all around you and calling to you in your sleep. It’s where most of the darkness lives, in the way that few monsters lay hands on you, no matter how much of their blood you shed. Ghosts will treat you like any other, but the monsters look at you like they recognize you. 

Like you’re one of them.

And that’s something you’ve never told your dad. You never will. He already hates that you do this, and not a month goes by where he doesn’t glare at you from across the table, beer bottle in hand, and ask you to stop.

“Kiddo,” he’d grunted the last time, narrowing his eyes at you over dinner. “That was the last one.”

“You say that every time-“

“And you ain’t listenin’ to me every time!” He’d snapped. “You don’t have to do this shit, not with your-“ He’d made a face, giving you a pointed look. “Ya’ know. Thing.”

“Witch.” You’d sighed. “You’re allowed to say it. I’m a witch.”

“You ain’t a witch-“

“I’m not a normal witch.” You’d corrected with a frown, picking at the wood of the table. “But I’m still not human.”

“You’re human,” he’d muttered your name, and when you’d looked up, he’d been staring at you with an exhausted expression and you’d felt something eat at your tongue. “But you’re right. You ain’t normal, kiddo, and it’s gonna get you fuckin’ killed-“

“It hasn’t yet-“

“It will. It always does.” He’d stood, giving you one last, tired look. “And I’m not tryin’ to lose you too.”

You’d given him a close-lipped smile. “You won’t lose me. I’m being careful.”

He’d rolled his eyes—you were being careful, and he knew it, but it still pissed him off—and nodded. And that had been it.

It’s like that every time. He tells you to quit, because you don’t need to do this, and you tell him you have to. You’re good at it. You’re more resourceful than half the hunters he knows, smarter than all of them, and better by a mile. He’d trained you. He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d realized it was either him teaching you or you learning through trial and error, and he’d decided you being a pain in his freakin’ ass was better than you being dead.

Because—in the end—all he really cares about is that you’re safe. It’s why you know to be careful, why you know what hunts to call for backup on, and why you know that—if you need to—you can crawl back home with your guts in your hand and he won’t yell at you until you’re better. Keeping you safe is his job, more than hunting, more than research, more than cars. He’d chosen to do it when he’d found you—eight years old and starving on the side of a highway—and it had stayed that way ever since. It didn’t matter what you were, what seemed to be inside of you, or how you were certainly more trouble that you were worth. He always made sure you were safe.

Safe from your real family, for what you know and refuse to be. Safe from the worst of the monsters and ghosts, who don’t seem to care for that horrible kinship you don’t know how to stop. Safe from hunters, and how they’ll hate you for what you know how to do.

Safe from John Winchester, and how he’ll put a bullet in your brain without question for what you don’t know how to change.

It’s the top rule. Stay away from the Winchesters. When John comes around for a hunt, hide in your room. When he drops his boys off before vanishing for weeks at a time, sneak out and call your uncle. He’ll pick you up, keep you safe, and drop you back home when the brothers leave. They can’t see you, because they’re loyal to their father and will tell him about the witch-girl who made the wind howl louder than it should’ve. John can’t know about you, because he’s a complicated man with a good heart, but he’ll hurt you worse than any ghost or monster could. 

But you have to say—at least from this distance—he doesn’t look that dangerous.

You know it’s him. You recognize his car in the parking lot from seeing it in your dad’s yard, and recognize his voice from the living room of your house. It’s clearer now—no longer muffled through a door you’d keep an ear pressed to—and you’re certain it’s him. 

And he’s just a man. A broad-shouldered, tired man with a face that doesn’t seem like it’s ever smiledand dark hair that’s streaked with slight silver. He even sounds exhausted, his voice laced with a thin irritation he either doesn’t know how to hide, or doesn’t care to.

“Dean,” he grunts, and you can’t see who he’s talking to, the bookshelves of the library only revealing John’s cold, set face. “Go back to the morgue and look at the bodies again. See if you can get a blood type on the vics.”

“A blood type?” A second voice, this one so clearly younger, a little defiant and bright, asks. “Dad, why do we care about their blood type-“

“Because this bitch is spilling it left and right, and we need to work out what skin she’s got in that game.” John’s words are short, impatient. “And you’re not here to ask me questions, Sam, you’re here to get through these damn books. Dean, go to the morgue.”

“Yes, sir.” That’s a third voice. It’s pretty. Deeper than the second—Sam’s—but not as tired as John’s. Mostly just cautious. “Can I, uh, can I take Sammy-“

“No.” John snaps. “I need him here for the readin’. Take the car and go.”

There’s a soft sound of metal ringing through the air, a scrape of wood on the floor, and you almost don’t move fast enough. You almost don’t duck behind the shelf in time for the third voice—the pretty one, Dean—to pass you, humming something you’d recognize if you weren’t lost in your panic.

Dean doesn’t see you.

But you see him.

And it’s not just his voice that’s pretty. 

You don’t know a lot about the Winchester brothers. Only what your dad has told you. Dean’s three years older than you, Sam’s a year younger. Dean likes music, Sam likes books. They’re both good boys—better than your dad seems to think John deserves, although he’ll never say that out loud—but Sam can be defiant and Dean can be trouble.

You hope Dean’s trouble. He has to be, when he looks like that. 

Because in only a split second of his side profile, you’re sure Dean Winchester is the prettiest man you’ve ever seen. Will ever see. It’s almost ethereal, and a little unfair. All of his features are clean and strong, like someone carved him from marble, but there’s a scar you could see on his jaw and a cut on his lower lip that made him seem human. Made his seem tangible. 

Touchable.

You’d like to touch him. You’ve seen him once, but everything in your body seems to think the world will collapse if you don’t touch him now. If you don’t at least talk to him. Hear his deep, charming voice directed at you. See at his face up close, see it’s clear resemble to John that feels pointless, because Dean looks like he smiles. He looks like he’s meant to smile, and you’d really like to find out if he’d smile at you. 

And that white thing—the one you feel all the time—seems to really like him. Even the darkness is trying to reach out to him, move into him, and you’re not really sure what the fuck is happening. He’d just walked past you, and your body is suddenly trapped by something overwhelming and dizzying in your lungs, your every nerve prickling the longer your brain circles him. The longer it spirals around his beautiful face, and full lips, and the way his voice sounded like something even bigger than the darkness in your body-

“Hey, Dad?” That same voice cuts through your thoughts, a little raised as Dean calls between the shelves. “Are you feeling anything from the beer earlier?”

“No.” John’s voice is clipped as he responds, and you can hear the frown in his voice. “You feelin’ alright, son?”

“Yeah, uh-“ There’s a heavy pause, and you can hear Dean shuffling slightly just out of your sight. “I dunno. Must’ve stood up too fast.”

“Dad, if he feels light headed he might not be safe to drive-“

“I’m alright, Sammy.” Dean’s words are fast. Not frantic, but rapid. “Nothing’s gonna happen to the car, Dad, I promise.”

John grunts. “Better not. Get moving, Dean, we don’t got all night.”

“Yes, sir.” 

You hear Dean shuffle away, sounds of flipping paper and scratching pencils re-filling the air, and you’re trapped in your spot. You shouldn’t follow Dean. Following Dean will almost certainly end in meeting John, and that’s the one thing you’re never supposed to do. Your dad doesn’t fight you when you leave for months at a time, or cross paths with other hunters, or run dangerous scams to keep yourself afloat. He’s okay with more than he probably should be, and he never tells you that you can’t do something. 

But you can’t talk to John Winchester. 

He can’t know who you are. What you are.

So you can’t follow Dean. Your brain is deeply aware that following Dean would be a truly horrible idea, and your body seems to be on board. There’s iron around your lungs when John mutters something to Sam, and a sore shot of electrically whenever one of them stands up to move books around. You’re really good at running. You know exactly when to call it and go. You can sense danger so easily—it’s the same chill of needles ice running up your spine, every single time—and John is dangerous. And you really shouldn’t follow Dean.

But the White thing keeps bucking around inside you. You can almost see it rush and roar in the air, feel it thrash deep down—past your heart chamber and embedded a little to the right—to try and follow Dean Winchester. And it feeds the darkness. It starts to twinge and pulse, seeping and infecting your muscles and blood, locking around your skull and making everything far too big. You can feel it all. The books on the shelves that all read Dean, and the squeak of the floors that say his name, and the lights start to flicker as the air turns humid and cool.

“Dad-“

“I’m seein’ it, Sammy, grab the gun-“

You raise the back of your hand to your mouth and bite. Hard. Grounding yourself before the flood can burst out of your body, before John Winchester could find out who you are in the worst way possible.

And when you run—out the back and to your stolen Lexus—you don’t even realize where you’re going until you’re halfway there.

To the morgue.

After Dean.

It’s a terrible idea. You have ten, long minutes of driving to figure out every way in which this is a terrible idea. You don’t know him. This will distract you from the case. John Winchester will try to kill you. Your dad will kill you. And there’s a high chance it will all be for nothing, because everything in you that’s calling to Dean belongs to that white thing. And that’s a part of you, and no one else. There’s a chance that this—whatever the fuck this is—is something driven by what you are, what’s wrong with you, so Dean won’t feel it at all.

You know all of that. And you still make it the whole drive without turning around. You park and rifle through your glove compartment for a fake ID, pull on your stiff, too-itchy well officer, would a fraud wear this? Jacket, and still don’t turn the engine back on and book it out of town. You even manage to justify it. You’re working this case too. You were here first. You’d noticed the blood thing from the start—it’s why you took the case—but you just hadn’t gotten to the morgue yet. You’d already been planning on it, and Dean just happens to be here at the same time. 

No matter what, you’ll get through it. You always get through it. And this might be a horrible idea, but that knowledge won’t stop you from stepping out of the car and making your way to the morgue. Know something has never really stopped you, and no amount of twisting bile in your gut—telling you to run, because you don’t love life, but you’d really rather not be murdered today—is going to prevent you from doing this. Nothing is stronger than the White in your chest, and it wants to talk to Dean Winchester. 

So that’s exactly what you’re going to do.

It is, as always, worryingly easy to get into the morgue. Half of the work is flashing the badge and saying the right words—Agent Smith, from the insurance company, I need to take a look at the autopsies for the claims—but most of it is the confidence. You carry yourself like a haughty, too-good-for-this-morgue insurance agent. Your chin is raised when you stop at the desk, and your words to the receptionist are impatient and clipped, and God, it makes you feel like the scum of the earth how she’s nervous and apologetic, but you get in the door. You always get in the door, because this is the simple part. The smiles with teeth, and the lies you spit through them are so fucking simple.

The hard part is always different. Sometimes it’s the ghosts that follow you after a failure, the ones that can’t be killed with salt and fire. Sometimes it’s long nights that you don’t have time tp sleep, and the tug and rot of that darkness in your chest tries to push to the surface. Sometimes it’s a puzzle you barely manage to solve, and it costs a little bit more of your flesh and soul each time.

But today, it’s Dean Winchester. Or, as the receptionist calls him, Officer Costello.

“Officer?” You raise your brows. “So the cops are looking into a serial killer.”

“I, um-“ The receptionist flushes, her eyes widening slightly. “I don’t know, he just said he was from a town over, and our Chief asked him to take a look, I’m not-“

“I’ll just ask him while I’m in there.” You shrug, the receptionist’s mouth opens in likely protest, and you call over your shoulder as you walk away. “I need to know for the report!”

You push through the doors—nobody chasing after you a sign of success—turn into the mortuary’s office, and freeze at the sight before you. 

Dean’s hunched over the mortuary’s desk, frowning at the largest stack of papers you’ve ever seen, and shit, he’s even prettier up close. Spiky hair and slightly tanned, freckled skin, rough looking hands sorting through the files and full lips in a frown and what the fuck is happening to you-

His head shoots up, eyes widening—green eyes, deep and vibrant and you need to get a goddamn grip—and you stare at each other for a long, confusing second before he finally speaks.

“Ma’am, if you could wait for the doctor outside please, this is, uh, official police business-“

You scoff, even as your whole body hums from the deep, smooth sound of his voice. “Is that really the excuse you’re going to use?”

Dean tenses, dropping the papers on the desk and rising to his full height, glaring down at you. He’s really tall, and broad, and probably warm-

“Excuse me? If you don’t exit this office right now, I’ll have reason to put you under arrest-“

“What reason?”

He blinks at you. “Interfering in police business-“

“Fake police business?”

“I’m not, this isn’t-“ Dean shakes his head, eyes narrowing on yours. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a fake insurance agent.” You lift your badge up from him to see, giving a sweet, fake smile. “And you’re a hunter.”

“Lady, I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about-“

“I think you do.” You step forward, dropping into a seat across the desk. “To start, you’re definitely not a cop. Cops don’t drive muscle cars and raid morgue documents.”

He frowns, still watching you wearily. “How’d you know that’s my car?”

You’d slipped a little. You shouldn’t know that’s the Winchester’s car. But you’re quick on your feet, and by the time you say the lie it might as well be the truth. “Only three cars in the lot. Mine, the black one, and a minivan. And you don’t really seem like a minivan guy.”

Dean grunts, his body still braced and words tense. “I could be allowed to drive whatever car I want on duty-“

You give him an amused expression, tucking your knees into your chest as you lean back in your seat.  “You’re like, twenty. There’s no way they’d let you drive your own car. Or,” you raise your brows. “Ask you investigate a bunch of weird murders by yourself.”

Dean frowns, but drops in the swivel chair behind the desk. “I’m twenty-one,” he mutters, and you snort. 

“Congratulations-“

“And you,” his eyes shoot to yours, voice dropping into a low drawl that felt like it could be dangerous, but mostly made you feel a little fuzzy. “Haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”

You say your full name—the real one, that you’d been given at birth and he’d never connect to your dad—and drop your feet back to the floor, extending your hand across the desk. “I’m a hunter too.”

Dean chuckles, but meets your hand with a grin. “Yeah, I figured that part out myself, Princess. Dean Winchester.”

You shake his hand, and your smile must make you look like an idiot. It’s far too wide just from him telling you his name and touching your skin—he is warm, and his hands are calloused and big and still so soft—but there’s something like lightning sparking and shooting over your skin, and the White inside you is shining like a star. Pulsing and glowing and molding with the darkness. Making nothing really seem that bad at all. 

Dean’s smiling back. And you’d been right. His face is meant to smile. It’s meant to have this broad, cocky grin that’s full of teasing joy and a bright-eyed delight in something you can’t quite place. You really can’t tell if he can feel it. There’s a glint in his eyes that’s full of promises, but you can’t figure out if he can feel this. This raging tug in your body that keeps your hand in his longer than it needs to be, that makes his skin feel like a furnace and your heart feel right in your body.

He might. He really might feel it. His hand stays in yours as well, his grip a little tighter than it needs to be, and when you manage to pull away, he clears his throat—a small, adorable blush covering his pretty face—and stares at you like you’ve fallen from the sky, and you’re still covered in stardust.

“So, uh,” Dean glances down at the papers, then back to you. “You here for the autopsy reports?”

You nod, crossing your legs under your body. “Yep. You gonna share?”

“That depends.” Dean shrugs, shooting you another, very mind-numbing smirk. “You gonna help us out?”

“Us?” You tilt your head at him, twisting a ring on your finger. “You’ve got a partner?”

“Partners.” Dean corrects you with a grin. “My dad and brother. We always hunt together, it’s safer and Sammy’s still a kid, so-“ He cuts himself off, his face falling into a small frown. “Do you, are you hunting alone?”

“Mostly, yeah.” You shrug. “But I can help you out-“

“You, you shouldn’t be hunting alone.” Dean cuts you off with a shake of his head, his voice almost disbelieving. “It’s not safe. Gonna get you killed.”

“Uh huh.” You narrow your eyes, your voice becoming dry and bored. “Do you want my help, Dean Winchester?”

“Sure, but-“

“Then drop it, give me the papers, and let me help.”

He frowns. “You’re kinda bossy.”

“Yeah, well, you’re kinda-“

“It’s not bad.” He pushes some of the files across the desk, shooting you a wink. “Just making sure you know.”

“Oh.” You stare at him. He’s so pretty, and his smile does weird things to your gut and ribs and the White inside of you. “Uh-“

“I’ll take these.” Dean taps the files still in front of him, watching you with a strange expression. “You got those?”

“Sure.” You mumble, pulling the papers into your lap. “Um, thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He shrugs. “More hands, we’ll be done faster. You, uh, you know what you’re lookin’ for-“

“Blood.” You flip open the first file, playing with the corner of a page as you speak. “Every vic’s been covered in it. It’s uh,” you grimace slightly, an image of a corpse painted red flashing in your head. “It’s been really gross.”

Dean hums in agreement, giving you a curious look. “You’ve seen all the bodies?”

“Most of them,” you look down to the file, flipping through it until you find the blood report “I’ve been here for like, five days.”

“Huh.” He frowns, looking down to his own paper. “We’ve been here four. Only seen two of them.”

“Well, maybe I’m just better at my job.”

He laughs, and when you glance back up, he’s grinning. “Sure, Princess.”

You kick him under the desk, and he makes a fake sound of pain.

“What was that for?!“

“Making fun of me,” you stick your tongue out at him, not looking up from your papers. “Not very nice, Winchester.”

“You made fun of me-“

“And if you wanna kick me, I won’t stop you-“

“I’m not gonna kick a lady-“

“Well then.” You shrug, unable to fight the smile on your face. “That’s not my fault, is it?”

He huffs, his voice dropping to a low mutter you can still defiantly hear. “Bossy.”

“That’s not being bossy, it’s-“ You cut yourself off, leaning down to re-read the file in front of you. “Shit.”

“It is shit,” Dean complains, and you can hear the pout in his voice as you grab the next file in your stack, rushing through the report to find what you’re looking for. “You’re lucky I-“

“No, that’s not-” you look up at him, your brain moving too fast to fully linger on why you might be lucky. “Give me your file.”

Dean frowns, but slides the paper over the desk. “What-“

You raise your hand, scanning over the file and grinning as you find what you’re looking for. “I’ve got it.” 

“Got what-“

“That blood wasn’t only the vics. It was their’s, plus,” you turn the page for Dean to read, pointing to the words. “All the previous vics. Mixed together. That’s why there’s been more and more every time.”

“Oh.” Dean leans forward, scanning over the page. “Kinda like a really gross blood cocktail?”

“Exactly.” You grin at him. “I know what we’re looking for.”

He looks back up at you, raising his brows. “You gonna tell me, or-“

“It’s a moroi.” You drop the files, leaning back and pushing your feet back up on the desk. “It explains the messiness perfectly.”

“No,” Dean shakes his head. “My dad says it’s just a normal ghost with a weird thing for blood-“

“Your dad is wrong. It’s a moroi.”

Dean’s eyes narrow. “My dad’s never wrong. And he’s more experienced than both of us combined, he’d know if it was a moray-“

“Mo-roi-“

“And look,” Dean leans across the desk, pointing to the files. “All of them had the same blood type. That’s what Dad said to look for.”

“They have the same blood type because it’s a moroi.” You hold his gaze, because every single part of you might want this man in a way you can’t possibly begin to understand, but you’re also fucking right. “They’re Romanian vampire babies.’

“Vampire babies-“

“Evil infant spirits that didn’t get baptized. They’re really rare, but this-“ You tap the files with a smug grin. “Is their exact MO. Specific blood type that they’ve probably got a taste for, mixing it with their previous victims, incredibly sloppy.”

“Because they’re babies.” Dean mutters, frowning into the air. “And babies, uh, don’t know how to clean.”

You nod. “Because babies don’t know how to clean.”

“And you’re sure?” Dean looks down to the files, his tone cautious. “I mean, you said they’re kinda rare-“

“They are.” You shrug. “And that’s why I’m sure.”

Rare things are your specialty. Things that even the most experienced hunters don’t understand, that were hard to track and harder to kill. Things that were stranger than strange, darker than dark, worse than evil. Things that wouldn’t hurt you, and you’ve taught yourself every way kill. It’s why you’d taken this case in the first place.  It’s why you’re fucking right.

“You, uh,” Dean’s words are slow, like he’s picking them carefully. “You know how to kill these things?”

“Yep.”

“You wanna come with me? To explain it to Dad and Sammy?”

“I, um-“ You start to pick at the skin around your nails, your skin suddenly itching and a weight forming in your lungs. “I mean, I can just tell you how, and you can deal with it, and I can go-“

“Go?” Dean frowns, his brow drawn. “Where are you going?”

“Out of town.” You keep your voice strong and even, because no matter how much the White inside you seems to be trying to move into Dean—no matter how much you’d really like to stay in this office and talk to him for a million years—you have to go. You cannot meet John Winchester. “If your Dad’s as good as you say-“

“He is-“

“Then you’ll be able to handle this. You don’t need me.”

“Well,” Dean leans over the desk, his voice dropping to a charming drawl. “If I ask you nicely, will you consider staying? Giving us a hand?”

You hold his gaze, unable to find enough willpower to shut him down immediately. “How nicely?” 

“Please,” Dean says your name, giving you a taunting, boyish grin, and the White inside you ignites. You’ve heard your name said a million ways, but never like that. Never in Dean’s voice, never like it’s some sort of curse and prayer all at once, never like it’s bigger than just a name. “Please stay in town and help me out. Please explain this moroi shit to my dad, and help us kill the son of a bitch. I’ll buy you a beer, and be in your debt for a million freakin’ years. Please.”

He’s already got you. If the way he said your name didn’t make you fold, the shit-eating smirk on his face and gleam in his eyes that tells you exactly how he plans to repay that debt made you cave. 

“I don’t drink.” You mumble, your face heated and eyes a little wide. “But I’ll take two million years and a promise that you’ll listen to me.”

Dean chuckles. “Awesome.” He grins, his eyes never leaving yours as he stands. “Let’s get outta here, I’ll drive you to our motel.”

That’s where you manage to draw a line. You’ll bow to Dean’s charming words and handsome face, you’ll follow him out of the office and into the parking lot, and you’ll agree to come meet John and Sam Winchester—no matter how stupid and deadly an idea it will certainly prove to be—but you’ll drive yourself. You didn’t steal that Lexus not to drive it, and when things inevitably go sideways, you’ll need a car to escape in. 

“You sure?” Dean walks you to the Lexus, standing right at your side and watching you in a way the White seems to feel. “I mean, it’s not a problem-“

“I’m sure.” You grab your keys out of your pocket, stopping in front of the car. “All my shit is in here, and I can just follow you. It’ll be fine.”

“Well, how am I gonna know you won’t just drive off?” Dean doesn’t budge, barely sparing your car a glance. “Leave me to deal with the vampire babies alone?”

You give him a flat. “I won’t just drive off, Winchester-“

“You might.” He shrugs. “I don’t know you that well, you could be playing me-“

“I’m not- Fine.” You roll your eyes, shoving your badge into his hands. “You can hold onto that, and I’ll have to follow you to get it back. Happy?”

“Very.” Dean winks at you, flipping your badge open to read. “Agent Smith- Who’s Smith?”

“Nobody. Smith is the most common last name in United States.” You shrug, and Dean looks at you like you’re insane. “What?”

“Nothin’, I just-“ He shakes his head, huffing a low laugh. “It’s practical. Smart.”

You narrow your eyes. “But?”

“No but,” He says your name with a bright, cocky grin, and tucks your badge into his pocket. “Can I not call you smart?”

“Not when you don’t really mean it-“

“I mean it. You’re smart.” His grin grows, and it feels like it’s burning its way right into your heart. Kicking it up to a higher speed, warming it until your whole body feels lost in a misting haze. It’s so fucking weird. “Are all your badges Smith?”

“No.” You mutter, crossing your arms to try and stop your heart beating right out of your chest. “Smith is just insurance. Johnson does wildlife, Brown is a cop, and Miller’s FBI.”

“Huh,” Dean looks at you like he’s never seen anything more amusing in his life. It’s not really helpful. “Sammy’s gonna like you.”

“Sammy?”

“My brother.” Dean shrugs. “He’s smart too. Not half as pretty, but smart.”

You flush, leaning back to ground yourself against the cool metal of the car. “You don’t know me, Winchester. I might be a dumbass.”

Dean chuckles, shaking his head. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. Dumb people don’t know about vampire babies.”

“I’d argue vampire babies are the exact thing a dumb person would know about-“

“And I’d argue dumb people don’t say I’d argue.”

You scowl. “Touché.”

Dean laughs again. He needs to stop doing that. “Dumb people don’t say touché-“

“Shut up.” You kick him again, and this time his grin just becomes teasing and smug and a little fucking dizzying.

“That’s not nice, Princess-“

“I said shut up.” You mutter, turning to open your car door. “Go get in your car so we can actually do our jobs.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Dean’s still grinning at you, his eyes widening as they finally flick to the Lexus. “Holy shit, you drive this?”

“Yeah.” You shrug, dropping into your seat and pointing across the lot to his car. “Go.”

Dean raises his hands in surrender. “Bossy.”

You glare at him. “Winchester-“

He gives you one last wink you feel deep in your core, closes your door, and walks away without another word. But—right after he climbs into the driver seat—he pulls out your badge, holds it up to the window, and mouths Follow me, or this is mine.

You roll your eyes, flip him off, and watch him laugh as he pulls out of the lot. And you could leave. Badges are easy to make, you’re not emotional attached to Agent Smith, and this is your last chance to keep yourself away from John Winchester. To listen to your every instinct, to your dad’s stern voice in your head, and run. It would be so fucking easy to run. To turn around and never look back, never allow yourself to indulge Dean Winchester further than one conversation.

But you don’t want to run. You want to follow this odd pull to him, follow him to the motel, follow him wherever else he seems to be going. Which is fucking insane, because you don’t know him, he doesn’t know you, and he’s almost certainly better off without you. Most people are. Hell, you’d be better off without you, if you could figure out how to do that.

And you know all that. But you still don’t want to run.

So you follow Dean out of the parking lot, through the winding backstreets of the town, and to a backwater motel. You park your car right next to his, close your eyes to take a long, steadying breath, and try to rationalize to yourself how this could possibly end up not blowing up in your face. You’ll keep a hold on yourself. John won’t know who you are, or what you are, or who you know, or what you know, or-

“Shit!” You jump as something raps on your window, and hear a loud laugh from outside your car.

You’ll get through this. You always do.

“You yelped.” Dean tells you as you climb out of the car, a wide, teasing grin on his face. “Real tough of you, Princess-“

“Suck my dick, Winchester.” You glare at him, and his grin only grows wider. “And stop calling me princess.”

“Nah,” Dean places his hand on your back, steering you towards the motel. “Suits you too well.”

“I don’t know what that means-“

“You don’t have to.” He smirks at you, and it does something impossible good to your brain. Makes it calm. A little fuzzy, a little smooth, but so fucking calm. “C’mon, I texted Dad that I found you, he and Sammy’ll be in our room.”

Dean Winchester is dangerous. You should be scratching and clawing and fighting like a feral animal to go, to get back in your car and as far away from here—from John Winchester—as possible. But he says I found you with a proud grin and puff of his chest like he’s bragging, and all that your stupid body knows how to do is lean slightly into his chest and follow him wherever he takes you. Somewhere dark, or somewhere horrible, or somewhere gray or somewhere safe.

Or just a shabby, paint-peeling motel room, where John Winchester and a shaggy haired kid are sitting around a table, looking at you—standing awkwardly in the doorway, watching them wearily, your back straight but arms crossed in defense—like you’re the strangest thing they’ve ever seen.

“This is, um,” Dean glances at you as he says your full name, and you realize he’s more tense than he’d been before. Standing a little taller, his eyes a little more guarded, his expression impossibly neutral. “She’s the hunter I mentioned.” Dean says your name again, pointing to the table as he continues. “That’s my dad, John, and my brother, Sammy.”

“Hi.” The kid—he’s taller than you, and barely younger, but there’s something about him that still says kid—offers you a small smile. “Do you, uh, do you hunt alone?”

“Yeah,” you give Sam a smile back, trying to force your tone to be casual, your body to relax, and your eyes not to wander to where John is tall in his seat, just watching you. “He tell you that?”

You jerk your head at Dean, who frowns. “So what if I did-“

“So, you’re being a real dramatic bitch about that. You’re not my dad, Winchester, let’s calm down.” You give him a small grin, and feel something odd and bright inflate in your chest when his mouth tugs up for the first time since you’ve walked into the room.

Dean looks like he’s going to say something back, but John clears his throat, and something curls and rots in your stomach at how quickly Dean goes rigid, how fast his mouth snaps shut. 

“You got a father, girl?”

You look at John, and he looks even more tired up close, in the dim light of the motel. More threatening as well, watching you like you’re prey, or a parasite, or a disease. Like you’re going to go feral and destroy everything in the room. It would sting less if he wasn’t right. If his attention wasn’t making your skin crawl and the White in you start to twist and pound to escape your body, the darkness rushing out as everything becomes big again. If you weren’t digging your nails into your palm to stop yourself from proving him right, and if you weren’t raising your chin in a weak attempt to be a little taller than you are. 

“I do.” You hold his gaze, and wonder if he can see the darkness. If he already knows what you are, and is trying to work out how to kill you. “We’re really close, actually.”

“He know you hunt?”

“He does.” You shrug. “He’s fine with it.”

That’s a lie. Your dad hates that you hunt. You’re certain the only reason he doesn’t lock you in his panic room to keep you away from the monsters and ghosts is because he knows you’d escape, and he’d never see you again. But John doesn’t know that, and you’re a fantastic liar, so if he doesn’t believe you it’s not because you don’t sell the words, it’s because he just doesn’t trust you. Because whatever you say, he’s going to keep looking at you like he can see right into your horrible center.

John’s face twitches, and as he leans slightly forward, you’re not sure Dean’s breathing at your side. “Your old man a hunter too?”

You nod, realize this is getting a little away from you, and start to run your thumb over your palm as John narrows his eyes.

“What’s his name?”

You use your real father’s name—your biological father, who you’ll never see again if you can help it—and it stings on your tongue. You hate that you have to say it. You hate that you have to repeat it, adding your real last name, but it works. John grunts, and looks away.

“Dean.”

“Yes, sir?”

“How old is she?”

“I, uh-“ Dean looks at you with wide eyes. “How old are you?”

You raise your brows. “How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty…” Dean scratches his head slightly, looking a little afraid. It would be adorable if this wasn’t such an oddly volatile situation. “Twenty-teen?”

“Twenty-teen?”

“I dunno, I mean you gotta be old than Sammy, and you sound like you’re old, but-“

“I sound like I’m old?”

“Just cause of the words you use! You look like you can’t be old than me, but I don’t know-“

“Jesus Christ, dude.” You take pity on Dean—who looks like he’s about to have a panic attack—and pat his shoulder as you speak. “I’m eighteen. And,” you look back to John, cooling your voice and narrowing your eyes. “I can speak for myself.”

John doesn’t waver. You can’t really imagine a world where he would. “I don’t doubt that, girl. But I ain’t lookin’ for help on this case, and you’re barely votin’ age-“

“I’m aware of my age.” You interrupt, crossing your arms over your chest. “But I’ve also been hunting, alone, since I was fifteen, and this,” you gesture through the air, holding John’s cold gaze. “Is my type of case. So you need my help.”

John scoffs. “It’s a ghost, sweetheart, me and my boys will be fine without you-“

“She says it’s not a ghost.” Dean mumbles, paling as John’s gaze shoots to him. “It’s, uh, a moroi?”

You hum in agreement, offering Dean a small grin that John doesn’t seem to miss.  

Sam raises his hand at the table, his expression open and curious. “What’s a moroi?”

“Romanian vampire baby.” Dean says, shooting Sam the first real, full grin you’ve seen on his face since you entered the motel room. “They never got a chance to learn who Mr. Clean is, which is why there’s been so much freakin’ blood everywhere. Right?”

Dean looks at you with a hopeful, bright expression, and it makes the White glow and sing as you nod.

“It’s a ghost.” John grunts, and when you look back to the table, he’s glaring at you. “We got freezin’ temperatures, EMF, and no break ins-“

“Because they’re death monsters. And they can shape-shift, into a guy, or a bug, or a cat.” You shrug. “Wouldn’t be that hard to get into a house.”

John scowls. “And you’d bet all our lives on this-“

“Yes.” You say, the words simple. You’re good at your fucking job, and there’s no doubt in your mind. “It is a moroi. I’ve hunted them before.”

“You have?” Sam’s eyes widen, his tone filled with something that might be admiration. “That’s so-“

John cuts Sam off with a raised hand, his attention never wavering from you. “Well,” he drawls your name, and it’s mocking and cruel and awful. The opposite of how Dean says it, in a way you hope to never hear again. “If you’re such an expert, how the hell do we kill the asshole.”

“Easy.” You shrug, as if there’s not something wired and painful in your muscles that’s trying to force you to run, run, run, far away from John Winchester and his cold voice. “You stab it in the heart with a nail.”

“With a nail.” John repeats, his voice flat, and you scowl. 

“Well, that, or,” you stand a little taller, making your voice cool and bored. “We throw a Romanian funeral for it, and find a living relative to walk around its grave three times with a candle.”

Dean makes a choked sound from off to the side, and when you look, he’s staring at you like you’d fallen from space again. John doesn’t look half as awestruck. He mostly looks pissed.

“This ain’t the time for jokes-“

“That’s not a joke.” You snap. “There are multiple ways to kill something, and that’s one of the ways you can deal with a moroi. It’s that, the nail, or burning resin on a Tuesday, then a Saturday.”

John laughs, no amusement or joy in the sound. “You might think your smart, kid, but how about I see a plan. Stabbin’ something in the heart ain’t gonna be easy, and hell, girl, you said they shape shift. How the fuck are you thinkin’ we find them-“

“There will be blood in its nails and eyes.” You hold your ground, but your palm grows red as you break skin. “And there is a pattern to the tarbets, we’ve just all been looking in the wrong place.”

“A pattern?” Sam’s eyes are still wide, his voice a little eager. “But none of the vics have been the same age, gender, ethnicity, occupation-“

“Have they all been parents? Lived near graveyards?”

All three Winchesters gape at you for a second, and Dean looks at John with wide eyes.

“Shit, Dad, she’s right.” He mutters, running a hand over his face. “The one we looked at yesterday, the house had one of those baby gates-“

“And we’ve driven past a graveyard every time.” Sam adds, looking between you and John with a nervous expression. “So, uh, it could be-“

“I know what it could be, Sam.” John grunts, his glare fully focused on Dean. “You willing to bet on her, son?” 

Dean looks at you, and he shouldn’t be—you’re a stranger, you’re a liar, you’re a monster that’s attracted to him like a magnet—but he nods. He stares at you like he doesn’t really understand what’s going on either, like he’s looking for a reason to not trust you and side with his father, but can’t find one. And—right before he looks back to his father—you see a flash in his eyes that makes you think he feels it. That whatever the fuck is happening to you, it’s happening to Dean too, and he’s just as helpless as you are to fight it.

“I am, sir.” He says, hands flexing at his side. “Sammy and I can do door duty, figure out who’s next on this things hit list-“

Sam frowns. “I don’t wanna do door duty-“

“Blame Dean,” John shrugs, giving Dean a curt nod. “Take my car and be back in two hours-“

You raise your hand, and John cuts himself off with a glower.

“What.”

“They don’t need to do door duty,” you say, your fingers running over your palm. “The moroi will only target parents of infants, so you can look for baby seats in cars. And it’ll all be near same cemetery. Five miles radius.” You catch Dean raising his brows at you, and shrug. “They don’t like to stray far from home.”

“And by home,” Sam jumps in, words slow as he connects the dots. “You’re talking about their grave.”

“Or their coffin.” You offer him a close-lipped smile. “But yeah. It’s already dusk, our best bet would be splitting up and patrolling a few streets until we see the thing. It’ll probably be in its regular form, at least until it spots a house.”

Dean frowns at you. “What’s that gonna look like?”

You wrinkle your nose. “Hairy. Bloody and hairy. It’ll be gross, you’ll see it.”

“And how,” John grunts. “Are you thinkin’ we split up.”

“We’ve got two cars.” You shrug. “Three if you have a second one-“

“We don’t.” John snaps. “And I took a fuckin’ taxi back here, ain’t no way I’m not driving my car, or lettin’ a little girl go off to hunt this on her own-“

“How honorable,” you mutter under your breath—careful to make sure Dean doesn’t hear you—and raise your voice back to a bored, flat tone.  “Then you’ll take your car, and I’ll take one of them,” you nod between Sam and Dean. “So we’re off in pairs.”

“Dad, I could go with her.” Dean takes a small step forward, his tone slightly nervous. “I mean, it would be safer for you to take Sammy. And you know I’d be careful.“

John grunts, jaw ticking, and you can see he’s considering it. That, somehow, you’ve convinced him to go with this, and he hasn’t put a bullet in your brain. There’s a frantic, wired part of you along your skin that’s certain he’s just waiting for an excuse, but for now you’ll take it. You’ll take Dean volunteering to go with you, John not killing you, and everyone winning when you’re right, because you will be. You’re not good for much, but you’re good for this. 

“I want you to drive.” John tells Dean, and you’ll allow it. If it keeps Dean near you—as you so confusingly and desperately crave—you’ll let him drive your stupid, fancy car. Fuck, you’ll let him run it into a ditch if he wants, as long as you’re there with him, and what the fuck is happening to you- 

Dean says your name, and you blink at him as he continues. “I, uh, if you’re good with it-“

“Sure, I don’t give a fuck.” You toss Dean your keys, and he frowns. “I mean, try not to total it, or do donuts-“

Dean gasps, his face full of mock offense that pulls a smile onto your face. “Do I look like a hooligan to you-“

You raise your brows. “Did you just say hooligan?”

“Yeah,” he grins at you, and nothing else seems that real. “It’s a fun word, don’t bash it-“

“I am not bashing it-“

“Kinda sounds like you’re bashin’ it-“

“Well, it kinda sounds like you’re going to try and do donuts in my car-“

“Princess, I would never-“

“Winchester, I don’t believe you-“

John coughs, loudly, and you and Dean fall silent. That keeps happening. You talk to Dean, and everything fades until you’re just smiling like an idiot and watching him like he’s the sun, and you’re just existing in his orbit. And he does the same thing. Dean’s face is red, and he’s staring at the floor as John glowers at him, but you keep catching his eyes darting to you, a small furrow on his brow that you wish you could ask him about. You wish you could ask him a million things. About his life, about his likes and dislikes, why his whole family hunts and what he thinks of your dad—the one he’d know, the one that’s going to murder you when he finds out what you’re doing right now—and if he can feel this too. He must. It’s like a drug, and it’s flashing and loud in the White, and making the darkness blur into something you think would be better. Into something you wouldn’t hate, molding with something that feels foreign but right, strange but just as powerful and certain as gravity. Something secret, that you think you should be fighting but can’t bring yourself to raise a weapon against. 

Something bigger than you. Bigger than him. Bigger than the White inside your chest and the darkness that’s pushed down, down, down as you force yourself to stay in place, and not either grab Dean’s face and scream—shout at him in a begging question of do you feel this, or am I going fucking insane—or run. Flee as John Winchester gives you one last look like he’s imaging your blood on the floor, and you climb into the passenger’s seat of the Lexus.

But you manage to keep it together, and you’ll have to settle for this. For talking to Dean as you patrol up and down a darkened suburban street with white-picket fences, your knees up on the dash and your fingers growing bloody as you pick at them to keep the darkness down. 

“So, uh,” Dean taps his hands on the wheel, staring out at the road. “Hunting.“

You blink at him, raising your brows. “What?”

“I just, mean how’d you end up doing it? You’re young-“

“You’re literally only three years old than me-“

“But I got Dad and Sammy.” He scowls. “You’re alone.”

“Yeah, we’ve establish that.” You cross your arms, curling slightly into your seat. “I’m really good at my job, Winchester, I’m not that worried.”

Dean chuckles, glancing at your half-pout with an amused expression. “Still Winchester? When am I gonna get the honor of her majesty using my first name?”

You glare at him, and it just makes his grin wider. “Shut up.”

He clicks his tongue. “Bossy.”

And he’s so confusingly adorable and handsome—in the soft, shimmering light of the streetlamps and fog—that you speak without even thinking. “You have to earn first names, Deano.”

He freezes for a second, and his grin becomes his whole face. Wide and charming, sweeping you off your feet and knocking the breath from your lungs without even touching you. 

“So,” he drawls, still smirking like an idiot. “Nicknames you’ll pass out like party favors, but I need to work to just be Dean.”

“Seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Well, can I at least shoot down Deano?”

“Maybe,” you hum. “On what grounds?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs, eyes flashing in the low light. “It kinda makes me sound like a birthday clown?”

You giggle. A small, soft giggle that he pulls out of you with barely any effort, that you want to hate but can’t figure out how to. “Maybe you are a clown-“

“Birthday clown.” He corrects, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Don’t drop the birthday part, that means I’ve got a job. And I can’t be a clown, Sammy’ll never speak to me again.” Dean glances at you, his voice dropping slightly. “He freakin’ hates clowns. Might shoot me before I explain that a pretty lady turned me into one against my will.”

You raise your brows, trying to push down the flush on your face from pretty lady. How he’d said the words like they were teasing, but still so serious, and looked at you with a small smirk when they had his intended effect. You can barely remember how to clear your throat and use words, let alone tease and spar with him when the White is blinding in your body.

“Unfortunately,” you manage to speak, nudging his shoulder with your own. “All sales are final. You’re Deano now.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but his grin doesn’t falter for a second. “Until I earn Dean, though, right?”

“If you earn Dean.”

He hums, shooting you another, oddly heated glance. “And what do I need to do for that?”

You only shrug, running your fingers over your palm to sooth the darkness. It’s starting to eat over your nerves and heart, trying reach out and touch Dean in a way you can’t allow, in a way that will end whatever this is before it begins. Dean only gives you a strange look, his smile still wide on his face.

“Well,” Dean says your whole name, over-pronouncing each syllable. “Am I allowed to return the favor?”

“What favor.”

“Callin’ you a nickname.” He winks at you, and it settles—warm and soft and strong—in your core. “It’s only fair.”

You shake your head. “No. I don’t even have a nickname.”

“Bet I could fix that.”

“Would be a losing bet. I wouldn’t take it.”

“Whatever you say, Princess.”

And just like that, you’ve lost. You’d seen it coming, too. It was too easy a solution for him to have, to easy a path to allow him to take, too easy to let the small part of you—that had wanted to hear him call you Princess again, because it soothed something that was always feral inside of you and blurred the darkness into the White until nothing hurt inside you—allow Dean to coax you where he’d clearly wanted you, and follow with a smile on your face. But all of this was too easy. Talking to Dean was too easy, because the conversation seems to flow and ebb without effort, and you’re almost always in danger of saying too much. He seems to know how to—without any obvious intention—get you to tell him anything he asks, leaving you biting your tongue to keep down bits of the truth that could prove deadly. But he doesn’t push you to speak—which is perfect and terrifying all within itself—and when you fall into silence it’s easy too. It’s easy to control the darkness, calmed only by your thumb and long breathes, and easy to keep everything small. Just you and Dean in the soft silence of the car, just you and Dean in the whole world.

“My mom died.” Dean says suddenly, frowning out the window. “It’s why I’m hunting. And,” he adds, his voice growing a little firmer, a little more defensive. “It’s why my dad’s so careful. I know he can be tough, but we’ve only got each other, and he’s just tryin’ to-“

“I get it.” You whisper, something deep in your chest aching for him. For this pretty, impossible man who might be bigger than the whole word, and how his brow is knit in a confusing kind of hollow pain as he defends his father. Goes to arms for him without prompting, like it’s a reflex. And you really do get it, but even if you didn’t, you somehow care too much about him to force him to rage and spit fire in John’s defense. It looks like it might rip him apart, and you never really want to see him go. So you just offer him a gentle, full lipped but toothless smile, and place your hand on his arm. “And that really fucking sucks.”

He lets out a dry chuckle, and doesn’t try to move his arm away. “It does really fucking suck. Thanks.”

“My dad’s wife died.” You offer, as if that would somehow make this better, and Dean gives you an odd look.

“Dad’s wife? Not your mom?”

You swallow. You did it again. You slipped when you’re usually so fucking careful. “It’s complicated.”

“Ah.” Dean has a little furrow between his brow that you’d like to run your thumb over, but he drops it. “Are you, you gonna tell me why you hunt? If it’s not your Dad’s wife?”

You sigh, a feral instinct of survive shoving the truth just a little further down. “That’s complicated too. I mean it’s not,” you glance up at him, his eyes fixed onto the road. “It’s not like yours. I didn’t lose anyone.”

“Is it a family thing? Like, your dad brought you in?” Dean’s every word is careful, like he’s afraid he might spook you. But that’s another thing that’s too easy. Staying next to Dean and not bristling or fleeing is far too fucking easy. 

“No,” you say, watching the light and shadows shift over his face in a strange, perfect dance. “He tries to stop me from doing it all the time. Shit, he called me last night and asked me to come home.”

Dean frowns. “You-“

“Dean!” You cut him off with a hand over his mouth, and he slams the breaks with a screech. You can see his staring at you from the corner of your eye, but you barely spare him a glance, your eyes locked over his shoulder, out the window, at a shifting figure in the dark. “Look.”

He turns his head, prying your hand from his mouth as he glares out the window. “I don’t-“

“There,” you hiss, leaning a little further forward. “See the-“

“That might just be a shadow,” Dean mutters, his voice dropping to a whisper as he scans over the dark. “Or a fox-“

You turn your head, giving him a flat look. “Do foxes look like babies covered in blood?”

“No.” He grins at you. “But I’ve seen weirder shit, Princess.”

You’re suddenly aware of how close you are. How you’d leaned over the console and started to practically hang off of Dean’s body, how your faces are barely a breath apart and you can see every deep color and fleck of gold in his eyes. He really only gets prettier, and he’s so warm, and there’s molten silver in your chest trying to tangle into him. He smells like fresh grass and spice, his eyes are dilating—but maybe just from the dark—and everything seems to be slowing down as the silver looks for other places to leak out. Places that wouldn’t hurt anyone, like the mist of the night that seems to glow and the wind that seems to bend and creak the trees in your direction, and the golden streetlamps-

Dean’s eyes shoot to the road as the lights start to flicker, his body tensing against yours. “Shit. We should, uh-“

You nod, push yourself away, and try to pretend your body doesn’t grieve the loss of his touch.

John and Sam are taking too long to arrive. You’re tense and bouncing on the sidewalk as you wait, turning a sharp nail between your fingers, and Dean keeps a hand around your wrist as he frowns down the street. You think he can sense that, if he looks away for only a second, you’ll dart into the house and deal with this yourself. You could. This nail has killed three moroi before, and you’d been completely alone then. 

“Winchester.” 

Dean looks at you with a frown, and you tug your arm slightly.

“Let me go.”

“No,” he grunts, his grip tightening. “Dad said to wait.”

“He’s not my dad-“

“Doesn’t matter.” Dean mutters, his gaze moving back to the empty, dark fog. “We’re waiting.”

You scowl. “Fine. Can you let go-“

“No.”

“I swear to god, Dean Winchester-“

“If I let you go,” he snaps, his glare shooting back to you. “You’re going to run in there. So no.”

You narrow your eyes. “You don’t know me-“

He chuckles, shaking his head slightly. “Look me in the eyes,” he drawls your name, holding your gaze. “And say you won’t run.”

It should be an easy lie, but it gets caught in your throat and you can only gape at him. Dean raises his brows as you continue to stare, and the White inside you starts to thrash as you clear your throat, forcing the words out.

“I’d handle it.”

He scoffs. “There is no way you’re gonna be able to handle it alone-“

“So, come with me,” You hiss, leaning forward until your face is only an inch from his. “And I won’t be alone.”

You don’t know why it breaks him. But something flashes in his eyes, he groans—running his free hand over his face and giving you a look of disbelief—and he caves. 

And from there it’s mostly a blur. It’s always a blur. The darkness inside of you latches onto something primal, and it’s all only a blur. 

Usually it’s all but a blackout. Like something overtakes you and you become just as monstrous as what you’re hunting, your brain only holding onto what you’ll need in order to survive next time, and a sticky smell of blood to haunt your sleep. But Dean’s here now, and things come into focus. Time is still a rush, and you’re still moving on pure instinct, but you remember Dean’s body being pressed to yours as you crept through the suburban house. You remember to set look on his face as you swept the rooms, figuring out what the moroi could be, where it might be hiding. You remember seeing it first, and the sound of flesh tearing as it launched at Dean—over you—and you swatted it with your arm like a baseball. 

You remember Dean shouting your name as you raced forward with the nail in your hand, and how it sounded like his chest was being ripped open. You remember finding that small patch of soft flesh on the moroi’s chest, driving the nail home, and tasting bile when it vomited blood up into your face. 

You remember Dean passing you his shirt on the curb a few blocks down, because the very ungrateful almost-victims threatened to call the cops, and you were covered in blood. He’d faced away as your changed—zipping up his own jacket and humming while he waited—and you could’ve sworn he was blushing when he turned back around.

Then John Winchester had arrived—looking at Dean like he’d just sprouted a second, hideous head and you like he was imaging how amazing you’d look in a casket—and everything grew sharp as they drove away. 

More of it comes together as you drive yourself back to the motel. Dean had dumped the body in the gutter, and you had given him your motel address. John had snapped at you to meet them tomorrow for a debrief, and told Dean that they’d talk back at the room. Sam had smiled at you, and it was a nice smile. There hadn’t seemed to be anything beneath it—just a kind smile for the woman sitting on the curb next to his shirtless brother, her hair matted in blood and fingers covered in monster hair—and you’d liked that. 

When you enter your room, it suddenly feels too small. Nothing is big enough for how strange this is, how you might need all the world and a little more to figure out what the fuck just happened. You miss Dean. You’d met him today, and you miss him more than you’ve missed anything before. You keep looking to the side to see if he’s there, when you know he won’t be. The White is bucking and keening inside of you, the darkness falling out of your body—you can feel the pain of the water as it becomes steam in the shower, and you’re almost knocked to your knees by the ache of the phone to be closer to the lamp—and you need to find out if he could meld them together again. If it had been a fluke, or an accident, or if you were simply losing your fucking mind.

You have to be. You must be going mad. It’s the only explanation for why you take a long shower and change into your own clothing, but you still smell grass and leather and spice. It’s purgatorial. You go through your whole routine—scrubbing all the blood off your body with rough sugar that bites into your skin, running your hands under white-hot water that leaves your skin raw but the darkness pushed down, tending to your hair until it frame your features easily, and you don’t look like a bruised and battered animal—but you still smell him. You toss his shirt off to the side, but he’s clinging to the sheets. You change into sleepwear, but your body can still feel a strong, warm touch. You turn your empty flask in your hands, watching light catch off the steel, and someone’s knocking on your fucking door-

Dean hisses your name through the wood, and you freeze.

“I know you’re in there!” He’s half-shouting, and the whole world feels more colorful, and what is wrong with you. “C’mon, Princess, open the door. It’s me!” He pauses, the knocking faltering. “Uh, Dean Winchester.”

He sounds a little defeated, and you can’t stop the smile on your face as you toss the flask back into your bag, cross the room, and open the door. 

Dean gives you an adorable, almost nervous grin and scans over you. Slow and deep and appreciative—taking in your sleep clothes, how your whole body is more relaxed than it had been all day—and his smile grows as his eyes find yours once more.

“You look pretty wearing normal stuff.” He leans a little on the door frame, and it’s so effortlessly and perfectly rouge-cowboy-white-knight-and-knave that he has to have practiced. “Better than that old-lady jacket you hand on before.”

You roll your eyes. “That’s my professional jacket, Winchester. What do you want?”

The words are harsher than you mean them to be, and his grin falters slightly. “I was, uh, I was wondering,” he rubs the back of his neck, clearing his throat. “I got my dad’s car. I was gonna ask if you wanted to go for a drive or something, but you’re obviously ready to turn in, so-“

“Do you want to come in?” 

You’re not sure how he’s doing this. Making you speak without thought, making your words reckless when they’re usually so carefully chosen. You have to be careful with your words, because you’ve spent years weaving a web that shows everyone everything, but not from every angle. And he’s fucking unraveling it. Dean just looks at you, and you pull at a thread so he can see whatever he wants, and you can’t understand how the fuck he’s doing it.

It must be on purpose, but he looks just as shocked as you are—gaping at you slightly, his features open and uncertain—and you don’t think it’s an act. Especially not as his voice becomes slightly hoarse, his feet restlessly shifting his weight as he speaks.

“Yeah, if you want, but I’m good to just head out if you-“

“Do you want to head out?”

Dean’s grin becomes bright once more, and the shake of his head sends a spark of lightning through your body.

“So,” you step to the side, offering him a small smile. “Come in.”

He shuffles inside, scanning over your scattered possessions and stopping at the side of the bed. 

“I can,” he looks back to you, his eyes a little wide. “I can sit on the floor, or we can go outside-“

You shake your head, moving to his side. “There are bugs outside. Sit on the bed.”

Dean glances at the mattress like the sheets might leap up and strangle him. “Floor looks good-“

“Winchester.” You point at the bed, giving him a stern glare. “Sit.”

“I am not a freakin’ dog-“

You place a hand on his chest and push him—just enough for him to get the message—and he sit on the bed with a wide happy? gesture. 

You drop at his side, watching him carefully as you try to work out what is happening. Why he’s here. If he’s looking at you like that—like you’re more than a human, but that’s hypnotizing, and he’d love to find what you actually are—because he can feel this too. 

But Dean beats you to it.

“Can I ask you something?”

You tilt your head at him, pulling your knees into your chest. “Can I ask you something?”

“Huh.” Dean hums, the smile creeping back onto his face. “How about we trade? I ask you a question, you gimme an answer, then we switch.”

You give him an amused look. “That’s just a conversation.”

“Nah, because if I ask you something and you answer, now I owe you a question. You can turn down a question, but you’ll still owe an answer.”

You frown. “What happens if you owe an answer?”

He shrugs, flopping onto his back. “Then the other person keeps asking questions.”

Dean looks so real. He’s grinning up at you, light dancing as his eyes as he obviously baits you into whatever he���s trying to do. 

And you fall for it. Despite your best judgement, you fall.

“I’m going first.” 

He chuckles, but raises his hand for you to shake. “Deal, Princess.”

The moment your hand folds into Dean’s he pulls you down, leaving your smushed slightly against him and his face only inches from yours once more. And your yelp was undignified, and he’s such an asshole—laughing and grinning as you shove his chest—and you’re smiling too. 

Because this is easy. And you have a feeling that, if this strange man—who’s too pretty, and that’s making you feel like you’ve never really been alive before this—dragged you right down to hell, you’d still be laughing and smiling at him. And that’s so fucking dangerous. And you know that, but you still can’t stop looking at him, and you can’t roll away. And you decide that, just for tonight, you’re going to indulge this. You’ll dedicate hours when he’s gone to figuring out what the fuck this is. Right now you get to laugh and smile and act like nothing in the world has ever—could ever—hurt you.

“So,” Dean says your name, and it still sounds too good. “You have a question to go first with? Or were you just bein’ bossy-“

“Shut up.” You swing your leg to kick his shin, he laughs, and it’s like music. Making you high and dizzy as you watch him, running your thumb over your palm. “I’ve got it, Winchester. You ready?”

“Born it, sweetheart,” he winks at you, and that’s dizzying too. “Hit me.”

“Why are you here?”

“I told you already, I wanted to talk to you-“

You hum, holding his gaze with a small frown. “Why?”

Dean chuckles, shaking his head. “That’s two questions-“

“It’s a ride off of the first question-“

“Well, I still gotta ask my first question before you get a second one.” He raises his brows at you, bump your knee with his. “We shook on this, Princess, you don’t get to change it now.”

You glare at him, but you think he knows it’s fake, because his grin becomes almost blinding. “Fine. Go.”

Dean rolls onto his side, holding your gaze as he speaks. “How’d you get that car?”

You frown. “The Lexus?”

He nods, and you sigh. 

“I borrowed it.” It’s not a lie, but it’s a half-truth. It’s a half-truth that will keep him here, at your side, for a little longer than you might deserve. “For the hunt.”

“Well, it’s freakin’ awesome.” He grins at you, and your face might burst into flame. “Your move.”

“Why are you really here?”

Dean lets out a dry chuckle. “Will you let it go if I say to talk again?”

“Nope. Answer me.”

“It’s, uh,” he rolls flat on his back once more, running a hand over his face. “Tomorrow’s gonna be Dad telling us about safety and Sammy asking you a bunch of questions.” He shoots you a small, amused grin. “I think he’s been writing them down. He’s into all that geek-shit too-“

“I am not a geek-“

“Yeah, you are.” He shrugs. “Don’t worry, I think it’s adorable. But Sammy thinks you’re the coolest person we’ve ever met. So after Dad finishes, he’ll try to use you like a freakin’ library, and I just figured I’m the one who found you, so I should get a night of you all to myself.”

You gape at him for a second, and you’ve defiantly burst into flames. He wants you all himself, and he thinks you’re adorable, and he doesn’t know you, but he doesn’t seem like the type to say all that just to get in your pants, and if he was, he’d be there already. He’d just have to roll on top of you, but he’s only looking at you like you’re something sacred instead of a disease or trophy. 

He must feel this too. He has too. And you want to ask him, but you don’t know how, because you don’t even know what this is. It’s magnetic and infinite and bigger than anything, forging something you don’t know how to name between where the White and darkness live in your body. And Dean might not even have the White and darkness. Nobody else does—that’s something that’s wrong with only you—so if you phrase it like that he’ll think you’re insane-

“My turn.” Dean says, and you’re dragged back down to earth, grounded in his smooth voice. “What’s up with your hand?”

You blink at him. “What?”

“That one.” he reaches over, tapping the back your hand. “You’ve been touching it all day, and I kinda, uh,” he gives you an apologetic look. “I saw the scar. If you wanna pass on this one, I’ll drop it, but-“

“No, it’s,” you take a long breath, because this would be an easy one to refuse to answer, but his fingers are lingering on your knuckles and setting off little sparks over your skin, and you want to tell him. It takes a moment of just staring at him to you find the words, and his eyes never leave yours, and everything about him seems to drug you into a loose-lipped, trusting ease. “I’ve have it since I was really young. There was, um, an incident.”

Dean still doesn’t look away, his voice slightly lower. “Hunting incident, or-“

“No.” You swallow, turning your hand for him to see the long, clean scar on your palm. Running through it in a neat, raised line. “Just an incident.”

He looks like he’s going to say something. Not push, but say something, and you blurt out your next question before he can get the chance. It’s not what you wanted to ask—you hadn’t offered yourself enough time to find the right words for something really fucking weird is happening to me, and I need to know if it’s happening to you too—but it’s dragged out of you in desperation to learn a little more about him. In a plea for him to only know that you’re marred where he can see, and never discover that you’re twisted where he can’t.

“What’s it like?” You watch him carefully, your fingers starting to trace over the scar. “Hunting with your family?”

“It’s fine.” He shrugs. “I mean, Dad’s a freakin’ genius at it, and it’s awesome to watch him work. Plus I get to keep an eye on Sammy like this. Know he’s safe.” He frowns. “I mean, it’s better than sending him off alone. Letting him be in danger.”

You hum, scanning over the wrinkle in his brow, your thumb starts to itch to press on it, sooth his whole face into a relaxed smile. “You guys are close?”

Dean nods eagerly. “Yeah, I mean, He’s a freakin’ loser, but he’s all I got. He’s a weird little geek-“

You laugh. “He’s taller than you are, De. I wouldn’t call that little.”

“He’s little in spirit-“ Dean cuts himself off, and his grin looks almost manic. “Did you just call me De?”

“No.” You hold his gaze, even as your face warms. “Shut up.”

“I heard you, Princess, you can’t lie to me-“

“Well, is that your question?” You grin at him, your body leaning a little further without you moving it, and Dean eyes flash.

“You gonna tell me the truth if it is?”

You nod, and he smirks.

“Then yeah, it was.”

“Okay. I did call you De.” Before he can gloat, you push on. “Why do you call me Princess?”

“I told you already, it suits you-“

You narrow your eyes. “Try again, Winchester. Real answer this time.”

He sighs, shaking his head at the ceiling. “You just,” Dean waves his hand through the air. “You’ve got a thing going. You don’t look like a hunter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean-“ 

“It means,” He gives you a strange look you can feel flash through your blood, melding the White back into the darkness, turning every simple and bright as he continues. “That if you asked me what I thought you were, I’d have said something fancy.”

You open your mouth, but he’s not done, and he won’t look away from you.

“I dunno, you just seem too pretty to be down here in the mud with us. You should eating caviar and wearing those poofy dresses-“

You snort. “Poofy dresses?”

“Yeah, like in movies, when they dance around like douchebags-“

“So you’re saying I seem like a douchebag-“

“No, I’m saying you should be somewhere that’s not here.” Dean’s attention is washing over you like a rising tide—slow and natural and deep—and you still can’t read that expression on his handsome face. “The mud.”

He’s so close. And if he thinks you’re pretty, he’s a work of art. You’ve never see someone look like him. Like he was created, and not born. Every freckle on his face is more like a star than a flaw, and there a slight crook to his nose that tells you he’s been punched there before, but it only makes you want to run your finger over the bump and see if his pretty eyes flutter or flash. His lips are chapped but they’d still be soft. His hands look rough, but that just means he uses them.

You think it would be nice to let him use you.

“I like it in the mud,” you whisper, daring to inch a little closer, until you’re sharing a breath. “It feels real. And,” you grin at him, everything blurring around you but pretty green eyes and shining silver in your chest. “I’ve got good company down here.”

There it is. The flash in his eyes as they darken slightly, a warm breath fanning over your face, and he looks golden. In the warm light of the lamp, glowing soft on his tan skin, Dean looks like something more than human. You feel like something more than human, and for the first time in your life, that’s not a curse. And he’s still so fucking close, and this is a terrible idea, but you can’t bring yourself to move away.

You should. He’s John Winchester’s son, and you’re not sure how you forgot that. It’s past midnight, and you have a feeling he wasn’t supposed to be here at all, and this is the worst idea you’ve ever had. 

But you still can’t move.

“You should, um,” you swallow, and your lips might have brushed over his. “You should get back. It’s late, and your dad-“ 

“Shit,” Dean mutters, but still doesn’t try to move away. “Yeah.” 

Your eyes dart down to his lips—full and pink, just a small movement away from yours—and you decide you don’t care what’s happening to you. This is—Dean is—too good to care. You don’t need to know why this is happening, or what it means, or if you should be trying to run from it. You just need Dean. You think that—if the world ended and time began to move slowly—you might plant roots in the motel floor and grow into Dean until the world flooded and you were both washed away. 

“I have one last question,” he mutters, breath ghosting over your lips. “If I leave you my number, will you use it?”

You nod without thinking, he grins, and you’re so fucked. You can’t kiss him. You might fall from a million feet if you kiss him. Down, down, down, clinging to him as you both try to find an end to whatever this is and likely fail to. But Dean sits up slowly—like the movement is painful—and when he helps you to your feet you think you might ascend from just his hand in yours. Touching him feels like it’s making you pure and worthy of something, and you have to know what kissing him will do.

Not on the lips. You still have enough of your willpower and caution to not crash all the way down, at least not right now. But you kiss his cheek, and that’s tragedy enough. It snaps something into place inside you, soft stubble and warm skin too much for your entire existence to handle. It’s all too much to handle, and if he hadn’t mumbled a low promise of seeing you tomorrow and left when he did, you would’ve jumped on him to chase whatever this feeling is. How it’s the only thing you’ve ever felt that might belong inside you, and the only easy thing that the darkness has ever bended for.

And when you sleep, that’s easy too. It’s dreamless and deep, no nightmares, no waking up in a cold sweat, no darkness wrapping around you and leaving the sheets only ash when you wake up.

But when you do wake up, something is wrong. You feel it first, gnawing at your nails and blood. And when you roll over to check the time, your phone is gone. 

It had been on the bedside table, a scrap of paper with Dean’s number under it, and it’s gone.

The paper is gone too.

You shoot out of bed, and Dean’s shirt is still in the corner, because he’d told you to give it to him in the morning, to trade it for your Agent Smith badge. But your phone is gone.Your window is open—cool breeze rushing through the room—and your phone is fucking gone.

You’d been smart to pack the night before. You’d been smart to keep your keys in your jacket, and park right outside your room. You can shove everything in the passenger’s seat and screech out of the motel lot in a second. You don’t know why, but you’re heading to Dean first. Something is wrong, and you don’t know what, but the White is trying to strangle your heart and the darkness is already eating up your spine and over your skull.

John Winchester’s sleek, black muscle car—Dean told you it was an Impala, and he’d said it with a pride in his voice that had dragged a smile onto your face—isn’t parked in the lot. And when you knock on the door nobody answers. All the lights in the room are off, there’s no shadows moving through the window, and the door is locked.

You move to the front desk and ask if the men in that room had checked out. And when the clerk gives you a weary look and says that they’d paid for another two nights, but dropped the keys off that morning, your gut twists. 

They were gone. Dean was gone. And something fragile and new shattered inside you, leaving small pieces lodged through your whole body. You stumble back to your car, the darkness moving out of your body and the whole world too fucking big, and you don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’d known him a day. He’d known you a day. Nothing was owed, but you can still feel it. How the White seems to be howling from the loss of him, and the darkness can’t stop growing as it sinks in. 

He left. You don’t know why, but Dean left. He’d probably taken your phone, taken his number, and just fucking left you. Maybe he’d seen you last night, really seen you, and realized what you were. Maybe he’d just been playing you the whole time for some sort of scam. Maybe you hadn’t kissed him, and he’d decided you weren’t worth the chase. And that would mean you had been going crazy, and he hadn’t felt anything at all.

The thought lets the darkness move over you, and you can feel everything everywhere. The electricity in the wires over your head, the wear of painted lines in the parking lot, the hope of the grass peeking through the concrete under your feet. 

The grass that smells like Dean.

It breaks through you before you can stop it. Reaching past your body and down into the pavement, cracking it open with all the force of how much this hurts. How it shouldn’t hurt, it doesn’t make any sense that it hurts, but you’re still breaking and bowing and bending to the way you feel like you’ve been fucking shot. You fall down to the curb, curling into yourself as the ground shakes under your feet, and the wind picks up until—in the forest across the parking lot—a branch falls to the ground.

Then a second one. 

You manage to bring your hand to your mouth, to bite down hard and force all the darkness back into your body, and you still don’t know what to do. 

This hurts so much, and you’re alone in the middle of nowhere, and Dean’s gone.

You still have your burner phone. Your dad makes you keep it in your jacket, just in case something happens, and it only has his number. You dial him with shaking hands, the darkness still trying to climb back out of you, take a deep breath as you raise it to your ear.

He picks up on the second ring.

“Hey,” He says your name, his voice already edged with worry. “I didn’t think I’d be hearin’ from you until after that blood hunt thing-“

“Hunt’s over.” You mumble, staring at the cracked pavement. “Got it last night.”

“Was it a vamp like I told ya’-“

“Moroi.”

“I’d call that vamp enough. Good work, kiddo, Rufus owes us a dinner-“

“Bobby?”

Your voice is soft, and he hears it. Bobby always hears it. 

“What happened,” he says your name, and you can hear the frown in his voice. It makes everything worse, because you can’t tell him. Not now, maybe not ever if you can avoid it. You can’t handle how he’ll help you fix this and let you rest, then spend a week lecturing you and telling you everything you already know. Because you really do know. You fucked up, and you know that.

But Bobby doesn’t have to.

“Nothing, I just-“ you swallow, your nails digging into your calf. “Can I come home?”

There’s a long moment of static through the phone, and when Bobby speaks again his voice is low. “You can always come home,” he says your name, and you choke on the clean air around you. “But you get a week of mopin’ before we’re grabbin’ that dinner from Rufus. Alright?”

You nod, even though he can’t see it. “I’ll be there by tomorrow.”

“Should be two days, if you drive carefully like you’re supposed to.” Bobby grunts. “And ditch that fancy car you’ve been usin’, I don’t need the cops askin’ questions about it.”

You feel a smile tug at your lips. “You never let me have anything nice, Bobby-“

“You never let me have goddamn peace, kid.” Bobby snaps, and your smile grows. “Your bed will be ready for you. And I better not see that bells and whistles hunk of shit in my yard-“

“Aye, aye captain. No fancy cars.” You make a mock salute he can’t see, and Bobby huffs.

“Stolen fancy cars.” He grumbles. “Stop bein’ a smartass and get on the road.”

When the call ends, your smile feels real. The strange, fractured feeling in the White is still there, and the darkness might be trying to fly out of you, but you’re better than before. You’ll go home, Bobby will never know what happened, and none of this will last. You’ll be fine. Dean Winchester might haunt you like a phantom or cancer for the rest of your fucking life—or at least until you figure out what he did to you, and how to fix it—but you’ll get through this. 

You always do.

—————————

Dean’s grip was tight on Her phone. It was just a fucking block of metal—it would be useless when they tossed it off a bridge in a few miles—but he couldn’t let go of it. It felt wrong to let go of it. 

He’d be letting go of Her.

He hadn’t wanted to take it, but Dad said he needed to—Don’t want to let an angry woman have a line to you, son. Especially not a crazy one—and Dad knew what he was talking about, so Dean had done it. He’d snuck back into Her room through the window, grabbed Her phone and the paper with his number, and felt like the lowest piece of trash in the goddamn garbage can. The maggot-ridden chunk of food that nobody had wanted, but was still figuring out a way to fuck everything else up in twisted retribution. 

Because there was guilt eating at Dean’s stomach. He shouldn’t have taken Her phone, not when She wasn’t that much older than Sammy. Not when She’d said her dad would be waiting for her to call, and Dean might have stolen Her only line to safety just because-

Because She’d been using him. And he’d been falling for it. She’d given him that smile like he’d fallen out of the sun and into Her hands, She’d crafted some sort of perfect mask that had felt so real—felt like this strange, mouthy, clever woman had just appeared to him, and he could’ve had something nice for once in his goddamn life—and moved Dean like a fucking pawn. 

Dad had been waiting for him when he got back, and whatever weird spell She’d put Dean under—making him feel a little drunk on nothing, making him act like a fucking idiot—had been ripped away under his glare. 

But Dean hadn’t gotten yelled at. He’d just been sat down—Dad’s gaze filled with disappointment that Dean’s bones didn’t know how to handle—and had papers pushed across the table in his direction. 

“What are these?” He’d asked, and Dad had sighed, because Dean was too much of an idiot to just know, and Dad knew it. 

“Read them.” Dad had grumbled, watching Dean through narrowed eyes. “And tell me if you want to see that girl again.”

He’d frowned but scanned over the papers. Printed out website pages about… Her. Her family. How She was missing, how She’d stolen from them, and how they were rich. Normal, alive, and rich, looking for Her and whatever she’d taken. Warning that She was crazy, a chronic liar, and should be turned over to the police if seen. There was no picture, but there was a description that matched Her perfectly, right down to a scar on her palm.

“Dad.” He’d looked up with wide eyes, something strange bucking around inside of him, insisting that this was a lie. Dean didn’t know Her—they’d had three conversations for fuck’s sake—but this didn’t seem like Her. None of this seemed like the clever, beautiful, almost ethereal woman he’d been lying on the bed with. Dean didn’t know howor why, but this couldn’t be the truth. “I don’t-“

“She’s just usin’ you, Dean.” Dad had muttered, his eyes softening just enough for Dean to know he was sorry. He might not really like Her, but he was trying to protect Dean. He always was. “Chasing a high that her daddy can’t give her, lookin’ for a way to pull somethin’ on us. Probably huntin’ just for some sort of fucked up thrill. This,” Dad tapped the papers, his face twisting in disgust. “Isn’t someone who deserves our time, and I don’t know what her game is, but I ain’t just gonna let my boy fall for it.”

Something in Dean had still been fighting. Insisting that Dad was wrong, he had to be wrong, because Dean might not really know Her but he’d throw his life down at her feet. He’d plummet to the bottom of the ocean to follow Her down, if She called him with that siren-like voice and asked him to.

And that was how he knew Dad was right. Dean had no idea who She really was, and he’d already been ready to become a sword for her to wield. So he’d nodded, asked Dad what to do, and fallen back into the line She’d forced him out of. And it wouldn’t matter that Dean had been an idiot and almost fallen for Her—Her tricks, or just Her—because Dad had saved him. He’d protected him. And it didn’t matter.

Now, as they drove—Dad’s grip tight on the wheel, Sammy sleeping in the backseat—Dean repeated it over and over. That hadn’t mattered. It had been a mistake that Dad caught, so no harm, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that She’d looked at Dean like she could see him, or that Her voice sounded like an angel in a dream. It didn’t matter that Her lips had felt right on his cheek, and that his annoying brain kept trying to move the ghost of Her touch to his own mouth. It didn’t matter that he could still smell the sugar and fruit that had invaded his every sense when She’d been pressed against him. It didn’t matter that She’d fit perfectly at his side, like she was just another part of him he hadn’t known he was missing. It didn’t matter that something felt like it had been ignited in Dean’s chest. Golden and light and washing him over with a sense of calm he’d never known, making him feel like—if he had been stupid enough to fall further—the worst that could happen was She didn’t fall with him. And even that would be worth the way this feeling was like lightning over his bones, making him strong and fucking alive. 

But it didn’t matter. He’d fallen for a pretty, spoiled little bitch—his heart almost withered at that idea, still being a freaking dumbass and trying to justify why She’d done this—and he’d never even see Her again, so it didn’t matter.

And it defiantly didn’t fucking matter that he’d taken Her flask, because he was fucking pathetic. Because he’d been sneaking around her room, and the flash of silver had caught his eyes, and he’d stolen it like some sort of street urchin. He’d burn it, just to rid himself of the way She was becoming plague-like on his mind. It wasn’t like she needed a flask, anyway. She didn’t even drink.

But that might have just been another strange lie. So Dean would burn it. He wouldn’t tell Dad or Sammy that he’d taken it—they didn’t really need to know how weak and useless Dean really was—so he’d burn it and everyone would forget this had ever happened. He’d burn it, and never think of Her again.

Dean felt like he was being ripped in half for reasons he couldn’t even start to understand, but it had been nothing, and it didn’t matter.

Dean dreamt of Her when he finally drifted off. And his heart kept trying to beat him back down—back to Her—but he held strong. He could dream of Her and not go back. He’d never see Her again, and dreams weren’t real. 

None of that had been real, and Dean could dream of Her.

So he would.

End Note: I know we’re off to a rough start, and we’ve got a long road ahead of us, but just remember this. What’s about to come could’ve been entirely avoided if John Winchester wasn’t the actual worst.

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

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[cybrasigilism]

NSFW alphabet with Player 125 (Park Min-su)

warnings: smut and all things of the like ofc | these are my headcanons for this character, please be respectful even if my personal opinions for the character differ from yours :)

character: park min-su (player 125)

A/N: i know this isn’t the best gif but player 125 gifs are slim pickings apparently! if i could figure out how to make my own gifs i so would

MDNI! 18+ content ahead, reader discretion is advised

─────･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────

A= Aftercare what are they like after sex?

↳ he would definitely go for the standard cuddling post-sex, he especially loves being the little spoon so you can stroke his hair (that and he can nuzzle his face in your chest)

B= Body part their favourite body part of theirs + their partner’s

↳ he’s quite self conscious about his own body, but if he had to pick a favourite it would be his hands, because he can touch and hold you with them. as for a favourite body part on his partner? he would tell you he loves your lips, but deep down he’s a tits man through and through.

C= Cum anything to do with cum

↳ he will always warn you when he’s close, whether it be verbally or with a tap on the shoulder if he’s too far gone. he will also never cum inside unless his partner states it’s okay.

D= Dirty Secret self explanatory

↳ you know what they say, it’s always the quiet ones. and that is too true for our guy Min-su. he may seem meek and unassuming on the outside, but when it comes to sex he’s totally a freak, and that’s all apart of the appeal

E= Experience how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?

↳ he doesn’t have a ton of experience, but he isn’t completely in the dark. he understands the basics, and trust when i say he definitely knows what he wants. but, when it comes to his first time with someone new, he gets super nervous and prefers it when his partner shows them what they want and how to do it right

F= Favourite Position

↳ Cowgirl. he loves being able to see your face when you guys are fucking, but in that same breath he feels much more confident under you then on top. don’t think he’ll be letting you do all the work either, when he really gets into it he’ll grab your hips and fuck up into you

G= Goofy are they more serious in the moment or are they humorous?

↳ at first, he would be way too nervous to really say much of anything when you guys have sex, hell, he’ll even try to hold back his moans/whimpers because he’s so shy in the beginning. however, when you guys have been together for sometime and he gets more comfortable, he takes fucking you very seriously. he won’t goof off or be silly but if you crack a joke amidst the fucking™️, he’ll laugh

I= Intimacy how are they in the moment? the romantic aspect

↳ because he’s so nervous at first he always double checks that he’s doing something right and that you’re feeling good. he needs assurance before moving forward in any aspect of the sexual experience, he just wants to know that he’s making you feel as good as you’re making him feel

J= Jack off masturbation headcanon

↳ he’s very into mutual masturbation; the idea of you getting off on the idea of him while he’s jerking off to you is something he finds super hot. for solo time, he has a habit of edging himself, something unintentional at first but he quickly realized it made the climax feel 1000 times better

K= Kink one or more of their kinks

↳ slapping (being slapped). begging. overstimulation. blindfolding. i’ll leave it at that

L= Location favourite places to do the do

↳ while Min-su may be open to a bit in the bedroom, he would also like to keep it in the bedroom. no public sex of any kind for this guy, he gets too anxious with the constant looming risk of someone walking in on you two getting it on

M= Motivation what turns them on? what gets them going?

↳ as much as he’s lowkey embarrassed to admit it, he totally gets aroused whenever you boss him around. also, if you whisper anything suggestive in his ear, he will melt in your hands right then and there

N= No something they won’t do

↳ he doesn’t like to be the dominant one in bed, he finds it too daunting and again, feels more comfortable when his partner is the one in charge

O= Oral preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.

↳ he would rather get head than give it, and that’s purely because he doesn’t feel like he’s good at giving oral. he’s not out of this world by any stretch of the imagination, but he does need to give himself more credit. he also is quite vocal when you give him head, and will grab your hair when he’s close

P= Pace are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.

↳ he definitely starts out slower, not only for you to adjust to him but also for him to build up confidence, but he will pick up the pace either when he gets more into the groove of it or if you ask him to. he tries to be rough if you ask for it but he always feels really bad if you wince or cry out, he would much rather you be rough on him than the other way around

Q= Quickie their opinions on quickies, how often?

↳ he wouldn’t be opposed to a quickie now and then, but he prefers for you guys to take your time when it comes to fucking, generally

R= Risk are they game to experiment? do they take risks?

↳ while he gets anxious at the very idea of public sex, he is more than willing to experiment in other aspects. of course, you guys always have a safe word for when you do end up experimenting

S= Stamina how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?

↳ min-su’s stamina is quite surprising, he can typically last for 3-4 minutes. however, as long as his partner is alright with it, he is always willing to go past the initial release, and at most will go 5 or so rounds

T= Toys do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?

↳ he 100% owns a fleshlight. nothing crazy, but it gets the job done. he is also game for his partner to use any toys they might have during the act

U= Unfair how much do they like to tease?

↳ he might try to tease you a bit, but it’s too adorable how flustered he gets when you turn the tables on him tenfold

V= Volume how loud are they? what sounds do they make, etc.

↳ the more comfortable he gets, the more vocal he becomes. he tends to just moan and whimper, usually getting more high pitched the closer he gets to release. if he does get a word out, he usually says something along the lines of “it feels too good” or “don’t stop. oh god please don’t stop”. he will call you mommy if you’re into that

W= Wild Card a random headcanon

↳ surprisingly good at fingering. he also loves it when you call him “good boy”

X= X-Ray what’s going on under the clothes?

↳ now i’m not saying he’s crazy jacked, he’s definitely a softer guy, but he’s slightly buff. he’s average sized, 5 1/2” when he’s hard

Y= Yearning how high is their sex drive?

↳ he doesn’t have a super high sex drive, like he isn’t chomping at the bit constantly to fuck you, but he certainly wouldn’t turn down the offer if you were DTF

Z= Zzz how fast do they fall asleep afterwards?

↳ this sweetheart would try to stay awake until you dozed off, but he just gets so comfortable in your arms that he falls asleep way before you do.

─────･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────

another reminder that all advice and constructive criticism for my writing is welcome and requested! i’m always looking to improve my skills. i hope you enjoyed :)

[cyprozombiegirl]

this is something of an odd question but- what does penetration feel like? can you describe it? thank you!

I spent like an entire hour trying to write a description of it on my old blog before it got nuked and I was very proud of that description because it is incredibly hard to describe. I’m going to try again, although admittedly this time put a little less effort in.

I’m going to start with how it differs from anal. With anal penetration there is a sort of feeling that whatever is inside you probably shouldn’t be there, this is sorta natural since the whole point of your ass being full is to shit. So with anal you sorta have this fullness that feels alien. You don’t get that same “oh something isn’t supposed to be there” feeling with a vagina. Instead when you’re vagina is full it feels natural, as though that space ways always intended to be full. Likewise, with anal there’s a sphincter that strictly delineates inside and outside, and entering an asshole is about forcing yourself through that barrier. This also isn’t a feeling you have with vaginal penetration. Certainly you can be tight at first, but there’s no “gate” that you push through and which constantly clamps down. This of course means you can pull completely out and go right back in in one swift movement, so it changes the possible moves you can do too.

Now that we have the negative description out of the way, aka what it isn’t. I will try and tell you what it is. First, you’re aware of your muscles around your vagina and you can flex them voluntarily, and they can also spasms involuntarily (If you want to successfully fake an orgasm one important aspect is flexing them as if they were spasming). Second and more ambiently, somehow very vaguely you know the size of your canal, but only when something is it. Sitting here right now, I can’t really sense the inside of my canal, but once something is in it, I can tell how far that object is in, and more interestingly, how much farther it could go in. As for the actual sensation, it is quite overwhelming. Something plunging in and out of you feels significantly more intense than that same skin being stroked when it was a penis. Although something being stationary in you doesn’t feel particularly good. The pleasure that comes is very difficult to physically locate (except for when the prostate is being hit). It sort of radiates out into your body from your hips/vaginal region. It’s a lot less well defined pleasure than when it was located clearly in your penis. In a weird way I think the best way I could describe it is like if you were giving someone a blowjob but each time the dick pushed into your mouth someone held a bottle of poppers to your nose. It’s like that. That is to say, a warm welcomeness in a wet area that you feel but don’t feel like the outside of your body, combined with a full bodied flushed pleasure

[marsmaximoff]

💔; crimson pain -a different kind of blood

content warning: gn!reader who plays as number 028. (dating) angst. mentions of death, financial struggles, vomit, blood and fainting.

word count: 1935. i got a bit too carried away 😬

author’s note: finally, here it is. i’ve had this idea for so long but the universe wasn’t on my side, it seems. i really wanted to post it sooner 🥲. as always, constructive criticism is welcomed, and i apologize for the mistakes (english is my third language). oh, and tysm for the support on the jun-ho headcanons post! what do you mean over 1000 likes? that is insane 🤧🤧. i hope you’ll enjoy this one too. 🩷🩷🩷🩷

the sugary umbrella lays on your shaky hand, under the excruciating yet unmasked gaze of the soldier. once the ‘pass’ is given, you stand up ready to get out of there. “you made it!” the voice of the one that has become the closest thing to a friend you could have in here relaxes you ever so slightly. “i almost didn’t. can’t believe i’m adding umbrellas to my traumas list.” having chosen the hardest doesn't surprise you much, not with unluckiness being a part of your life since you can remember. “well, im just happy you did. i thought the square was simple, but now i feel like we should have just chosen the triangle instead, you know? take a look at the survivors; most of them chose it and….” his words fade as an eerie feeling takes over your body, like something’s wrong. turning around, you’re met with one of them, staring right at you completely stiff, not even holding the weapon, merely some feet away.

“is he looking at us?” he can sense the uneasiness too, it seems. “let’s just go.” you can still feel his unfamiliar gaze on your neck, sending a shiver down your spine.

the doors opening break the silence and the rare calmness of the room. “player 028?” your body freezes completely. a stomach drop follows, and your heart rate skyrockets. no. nonono. you’ve done nothing wrong. is it the dalgona? the figure was perfectly carved out; you made sure of it. are they gonna kill you? two soldiers stand by the entrance, waiting. with a final glance at your friend, who is most definitely thinking the same, you reach the pink guards. you don’t even know what to say, should you beg for mercy? try to stay as cooperative as possible? “be quick.” what? the other one grabs your arm and begins to lead you somewhere. “i-i don’t-” your hands are shaking. “please, i didn’t do anything wrong...” begging it is. “keep. walking.” the words are almost a whisper, tho demanding. a hint of desperation can be heard as well. “okay, okay, ok-” wait. why did those words- no. you’re going crazy. it’s just the anxiety, the fear. 

the stranger takes you to the bathrooms and quickly closes the door. you step back. again. and once more. what now? he wouldn’t shoot you here, right? and why the hell does he look so tense? his hands move to his mask and make it disappear, and with it, the remaining bit of sanity you had.

the nausea from a few seconds ago comes back stronger, maybe you will die today. “jun-ho…” your voice is almost unrecognizable, tho a miracle, given the struggle breathing has become. “what are you doing here?” “i could ask you the same thing.” he’s angry, of course he is, but the hurt in his eyes pains you the most. “no….you need to get out of here.” god. you can feel yourself spiraling. nothing makes sense. “i will. and im taking you with me.” “h-how- when did- i-“ cold sweat has completely taken over your palms. “wait….wait. was it you?…. this morning?” he nods. “i found the damn card they gave you at yours and my brother’s house” what? “in-ho…?” why does everything keep getting worse? “have you seen him?” surely you would remember something like that, “n-no. maybe before the first game…..” you heed your legs’ warning to give up and sit down. “why are you doing this? i dont understand.” it’s not like he could. “they let you out. and you didn’t seek me. you hid yourself. again. i had to learn what was going on from a random man at the station. not you!!” silence between you had never felt this suffocating before, nor the atmosphere so uncanny. “don’t you realize how dangerous this is? they are killing innocent people! haven’t you realized?! 79 have died today. just because of a stupid cookie? what do you think you are doing?! you could have gotten yourself killed! you have no idea how worried i’ve been.” you don’t look at him. this shouldn’t be happening, he wasn’t supposed to find out.

“please, honey. this is insane and you know it. let’s get out of this madness.” the change in his tone of voice is evident, bordering the plea. it’s obvious he’s making an effort to remain calm, to use less confrontational comments. “i can’t.” “yes, you can. we’ll leave the same way i got here, don’t worry. no one will see us.” but you really can’t. you know that well. he sighs, “why didnt you tell me? how could you hide something like this from me? i thought we trusted each other.” 

distress seems to have replaced the blood running through your veins. “i would have helped you, always. i can still do it. if you need money, i’ll give it to you, it’s not a problem.” he keeps going after your negative. “i will. we can find another way-” “there isn't.” “of course there is. i have my savings, we’ll use them. i can ask for a raise. mr kim owes me after all this time. and i could do more hours-”

“its not FUCKING ENOUGH!” the sharpness of your words cuts all over his face. pain flows out, dripping a bloody red. more silence. you could drown in it. well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“my parents’ house is gonna get seized.” a burning throat accompanies the confession. “i messed up like crazy.” the expected embarrassment doesn’t show up, instead, regret does. “it’s not your fault.” how can he say that? “it is. i got them into this, I'll get them out.” “and you think risking your life here is the only way to do it? thats not true. god, why didn’t you tell me?” you rub your temple. “that doesn’t matter now. you-you need to get out, all this is suspicious.” you are not only trying to avoid the question, the guards could notice at any moment. “i told them you were gonna throw up.” “vomit or not you’re still in the bathroom with a player.” for some seconds, the only noise that can be heard is the shatter of your heart. “honey, listen to me. your parents wouldn’t want this. they don’t even blame you, im sure. how could they ever wish for something at the expense of their daughter’s life?” but the guilt is too heavy, too imprinted on your mind. “it’s not about me. if it were my house, i wouldn’t care, but it’s theirs. i would never forgive myself for not doing anything.” “and there are so many things you could do that don’t need you participating in some psychopaths’ games! do you really not see how dangerous and demented this is? please leave with me.” “jun-ho. think about it. if i ended up here, even after they gave us a second chance, it’s because i want to. no one forced me, and i’m old enough to know what i’m doing.” your replies are getting colder, which you hate. but it’s the only way to make him understand. “besides, they’re all kids' games. they’re easy.” you can only hope he won’t sense your attempt at self-persuasion. “they are shooting people. you could be dead. and i would have never seen you again, or known what had happened.” the urge to cry gets stronger with every word, to dive into his arms and finally feel some sort of calmness, warmth, love.

“i’m sorry that i hurt you, that i made you worry and feel like i couldn’t trust you. but i won’t apologize for being here.” “i don’t want you to apologize. i only want you to get out of here and not die.” his desperation has increased so much it’s swallowed your own distress. “i’ve already won two, i can make it to the end.” you refute. but you read him easily, he is planning to get you out without your agreement, somehow.

“please.” now it’s you that pleads. “if you love me, let me stay.”

his eyes widen, you see them watering. his heartbreak drowns out yours. you are aware you’ve never said anything as painful before. it hurts. more than anything they could do to you here. perhaps you are already dead. “how can you ask me something like this?” maybe you’re desperate, or too blinded by the blame that’s rotting on your insides. or perhaps it’s love. “get out of here. stay safe. and don’t tell the police, jun-ho. don’t even think about stopping the games. i need this, don’t ruin it.” god you don’t recognize yourself anymore. how nice it would be to go back when things were easy. when remorse didn’t control yourself, and you were happy with him. “what do you expect me to do if you die?” “i won’t” “you can’t know that! how can i let the love of my life risk it all when i know i could do something?” understanding such perspective is effortless. if it were the other way around, you too would act like he is.

you approach him for the first time, god how you craved it. your hands cup his pained yet beautiful face and a tear drops. “i missed you.” he says quietly, unable to stay angry at you for long. “i missed you too.” you answer back, wiping the tear. “i missed your face, your voice, your touch. i miss your kisses.” things already ache enough like this, so you give in. the kiss is soft, so fragile, like a bit more intensity would make it disappear. “i love you.” he whispers resting his forehead on yours. “i love you too.”

a knock on the door destroys the illusion. shit. “lay on the floor.” “what?” “lay on the floor”, he repeats, walking towards the door while putting his mask back on, “and play along.” the door opens and the same voice from earlier speaks. “what do you think you’re doing in there?” may that unluckiness give you a rest for some minutes. “she passed out. she was taking too long and not answering back so i entered and found her unconscious.” footsteps grow louder. “player 028…. i don’t remember any health issues on the file… fuck.” you stay as still as possible, it sounds plausible, given the stress. “take care of it, i’ll let the boss know. and don’t take longer.” with that, he exits the room, and you thank his unwillingness to deal with sensitive issues.

sitting back up, jun-ho kneels to your level. “you look good for a faint.” a hint of a smile appears on your face. “are you mad at me?” “i was. mostly worried. i don’t like this at all.” you grab his gloved hands. “i’ll be okay, believe me.” he doesn’t. he can’t. “please, be careful. and think about it. if you change your mind, i’ll be waiting.” you won’t. you wouldn’t let yourself. but you nod. “you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. i hope you’ll carry that with you. i love you so damn much.” his voice breaks, and you tell yourself it’s time to go back, this conversation can only get more and more devastating for you both. you offer the bleeding and broken pieces of your heart. not meaning to cut him this time. and he takes them. how could he not treasure them? you kiss again. it tastes different this time. like farewell. 

and when you get out of the room, you both know that was the last time you’ll see each other. 

[pinkskiessss]

LACY - chapter 2

Warnings: language, harsh self talk

Paige Bueckers x oc

A/N: I plan on posting a few chapters tonight! Stay tune <3

Paiges perspective

The gym is quiet, almost too quiet. The only sound is the rhythmic thud of a volleyball hitting the floor, echoing through the otherwise empty space. Layla is here, practicing alone, her movements sharp and controlled as if she’s trying to burn off the frustration from the game last night. I stand at the doorway for a moment, watching her, feeling a strange pull in my chest. She’s a sophomore, but she’s already so damn good. It’s almost intimidating how effortlessly she plays, like she’s been doing this her whole life.

But what catches my attention more than anything is the way her face is flushed, the redness lingering. I saw her after the match, how she tried to hide the tears, how vulnerable she looked. She’s so strong on the court, but right now, I can see that she’s not invincible. And that makes her even more… real. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so rude to the girl, she clearly has alot going on behind the scenes.

I step forward, trying to make a noise so I don’t startle her, but it’s clear she’s too wrapped up in her own world to notice me at first. Layla looks up when I’m closer, startled, and I can see her cheeks flush even deeper. She’s still breathing heavily from practice, but I can tell she’s embarrassed. I don’t want to make her feel worse, so I try to keep my voice casual.

“Layla?” I call out softly.

She blinks, her eyes wide for a second, before she glances away, quickly wiping at her face like she’s trying to hide something. “Paige? What are you doing here?”

I raise an eyebrow, stepping further into the gym. “Same thing you are, I guess. Practicing.”

Her shoulders tense up, and she glances at the clock on the wall, her voice almost defensive. “It’s late.”

“Yeah, I know. But I work better when no one’s around,” I say, offering a small shrug. I know it’s kind of a weird thing to admit, but it’s true. I’ve always been that way. The quiet helps me think.

Layla doesn’t answer right away. She just stares at me for a moment, her face still flushed. I can tell she’s trying to figure out why I’m here. She probably thinks I’m judging her, or maybe she feels embarrassed because I saw her so emotional after the game. I don’t want to make her feel worse, so I try to soften my voice.

“You okay?” I ask, stepping a little closer, but not too close. I don’t want to invade her space.

She shrugs, but it’s a half-hearted gesture, like she’s trying to brush me off. “Yeah. Just… trying to work through it. The game, I mean.”

I nod, understanding more than I let on. I saw the way she reacted after the match, how she tried to hold it together, but you could see the cracks in her armor. It’s not easy, being so young and having so much pressure on you. I get it. I’ve been there.

“You were really good out there last night,” I say, trying to offer some reassurance. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

She looks at me, but I can tell she’s not convinced. Her gaze flicks to the floor, and she shakes her head. “I just… I don’t want anyone to see me like that. I don’t want to seem weak.”

I can’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. I know what it’s like to feel like you have to be perfect all the time. But I also know it’s okay to show some vulnerability. So, I step a little closer, not wanting to crowd her but hoping my presence might be comforting.

“You’re not weak,” I say softly. “It’s okay to have moments where you don’t have it all together. We all have them.”

She looks up at me, her eyes searching mine. For a moment, I think she might say something else, but she just looks away again, her face turning an even deeper shade of red.

“Thanks,” she says, her voice quieter now.

There’s a silence between us, and I can feel the tension building. I can’t stop noticing how close we are now. How her breath is shallow, how her body moves when she serves the ball again. I try to focus on her words, but my mind keeps drifting. I can’t help but notice how she looks right now—her hair slightly messy, her cheeks flushed from exertion, her lips parted just slightly as she catches her breath.

It’s hard not to think about her like this. I’m trying to push the thoughts away, but they keep coming back, one after another. And it’s not just the way she looks, it’s the way she makes me feel. There’s something magnetic about her. I don’t know if she feels it too, but I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to get closer to her, how much I want to know what she’s really thinking.

“You’re… you’re really good at this,” I say, my voice a little shaky, and I hate that it is. I try to cover it up by sounding casual, but I’m not sure I’m fooling anyone. I’m not fooling myself, at least.

She looks at me, her brow furrowing slightly, and I can see the uncertainty in her eyes. “Thanks,” she says again, but this time, it’s not as sincere. It’s like she’s trying to push me away, like she’s trying to keep me at arm’s length.

I don’t know what’s going on with her, but I can feel the tension between us growing thicker. I want to reach out, to tell her it’s okay, but I don’t. I don’t want to make things worse. Instead, I just watch her, trying to figure out what’s going on inside her head.

“You don’t have to be perfect all the time, you know,” I say softly, almost as if I’m talking to myself.

She looks at me, her expression unreadable. “What do you mean?”

I hesitate, unsure of how to explain. “I just mean… it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to have moments where you’re not in control.”

She looks away again, and I can tell she’s uncomfortable with the conversation. “I guess… I guess I just didn’t want you to see me like that. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that.”

I feel a strange protective urge rise in me, but I push it down. I don’t want to make things worse for her. I just want her to know that it’s okay to be human, that it’s okay to have moments of weakness.

“You’re allowed to be human,” I say quietly, my voice barely above a whisper.

She doesn’t answer, but I can see the conflict in her eyes. She’s still struggling with the idea of showing vulnerability, and I get it. I really do. But I can’t help but feel a strange connection to her, something that goes beyond just sports talk.

And then, just as I’m about to say something else, she mutters under her breath, almost too quietly for me to hear. “I don’t know why I was fooling myself.”

I freeze, my heart skipping a beat. “What do you mean?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she looks at me, her eyes searching mine, and I feel a jolt of electricity between us. For a moment, I think she might say something—something real, something raw—but then she just looks away, her shoulders slumping slightly.

“I don’t know why I was fooling myself,” she repeats, her voice softer now. “I don’t know why I thought I could handle it.”

I want to say something to make her feel better, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what’s going on with me, with us. But I do know one thing: I can’t stop thinking about her. And I don’t know if she feels the same way, but I can’t ignore it anymore.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm the storm inside me. “Hey,” I say, my voice quieter than usual. “I’m sorry. The way I acted yesterday and before that… I didn’t mean to be a bitch.”

She looks up at me, surprised, and I can see the tension leave her shoulders, even if just for a moment.

“I was… jealous,” I admit, my eyes flicking away for a second before meeting hers again. “I didn’t handle the media event the right way. I was just mad about my own shit and taking it out on you for things you can’t control.”

Layla doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and I start to feel like I’ve made a huge mistake. But then she nods slowly, her expression softening.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly looking up to meet my eyes, and I can hear the sincerity in her voice. “I get it. I also could have been nicer too I’ve been really on edge lately, I’m sorry Paige.”

God she has the prettiest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. “Trust me, don’t worry about it” I say, stepping closer again, giving her face a once over. “We’re all just… figuring it out.”

She looks at me, and for the first time tonight, there’s a small smile on her face. It’s tentative, but it’s there. And I feel a little lighter, like maybe things between us aren’t so bad after all.

[livingincolorsagain]

tagged by @saryasy for a 2024 fic roundup, thanks for the tag babe <3. a bit late but hey im here now lol

July

pledge allegiance to my burning heart (2.3k, t) (rebloggable link)

Eddie’s always wanted the things he couldn’t have, but Buck already has a designated spot on his couch.

first buddie fic of course had to be couch theory. and eddie’s pov.

August

and you won’t let it (1.4k, t) (rebloggable link)

It’s just… he’s watching Eddie, standing near the fence, away from almost everyone, a drink in hand and a smile on his face, a beautiful, bashful smile that is directed at Marcus.

Marcus, who’s a friend of Karen. Marcus, who’s tall and smart and handsome. Marcus, who’s a goddamn rocket scientist. Marcus, who paused after hugging Karen and wishing her a happy birthday, because he spotted Eddie there by plates, having a very serious discussion about ladybugs with Jee-Yun.

Marcus, who’s been talking to Eddie all day, making him smile and laugh, then dragging him away from the party, so now they’re standing alone, and Buck doesn’t know what they’re saying, what they’re talking about, but Eddie’s cheeks are flushed even more than usual, his eyes are bright and glistening even as he ducks his head, staring at the glass in his hand for a long moment, and Marcus’ eyes stay on him until he’s looking up again, shrugging, as if to say what the hell, why not.

(Or, Eddie dances with a guy. Buck is very normal about it actually, thank you very much.)

jealous insane buck who wants to crack his chest open so eddie can crawl inside. what’s not to love

September

sunlight through a window (443, g) (rebloggable link)

The last rays of sunlight peek through the curtains of Eddie's bedroom window, spreading over the bed.

Buck is sitting against the headboard, a pillow stuffed behind him and a light blanket covering him.

Covering them, because Eddie is flush against his side, warm skin on warm skin, slick with cooling sweat. Buck has an arm around his narrow waist, fingers idly rubbing over the smooth skin, back and forth, up and down, until he reaches a spot that has Eddie giggling, a full body jerk.

Buck smiles, drags his fingers lightly over the same spot one more time, Eddie growls playfully, takes hold of his hand but doesn't move it away as he says, "stop," and only managing to sound breathless about it.

Buck's smile widens, and he turns his head to the side, looks down at Eddie's upturned face, breath stuttering, because one of the sun's stray rays is falling across Eddie's face, making his eyes a molten golden brown that threatens to unravel Buck, bury him, keep him warm and loved.

October

of pretending; (351, g) (rebloggable link)

Eddie thought he would get used to the silence. He thought as the days and weeks and months went by, it would get easier, feel less cutting, less hollowing, less like someone had carved his heart out of his chest and left a jagged hole behind.

It didn’t.

He put the decorations up alone, took them down alone, even though he brought them long ago with Christopher and Buck. Even though he only really brought them because they both loved the tiny pumpkins and little sitting skeletons and the orange and pink lights, obsessing over where they were going to place them right in the middle of the aisle as Eddie watched them, heart so full it almost spilled over.

November

in the passenger seat (1k, t) (rebloggable link)

“I drive,” Eddie repeats, rolling his eyes in Chimney’s general direction.

“Yeah,” Hen says, and now she’s smiling, “when absolutely necessary.”

“Everyone drives when absolutely necessary! What, you want me to drive around for fun?”

“Some people do,” Buck chimes in, utterly unhelpful, he guesses, given the look Eddie throws his way.

“That’s terrible for the environment.”

Well. That is true. Buck swallows down his own smile and shrugs.

“Eddie,” Chimney says, walking back over to the table, “how did you get to work today?”

Eddie frowns. “That’s neither here nor there.”

Buck’s lips twitch. Eddie’s cheeks are flushed pink. Buck knows, from experience, how soft and warm they feel under his lips, under his thumbs when he presses them into the dimples there, swipes them back and forth over the skin, watching Eddie’s eyes flutter close then open slowly, heavy-lidded and brilliantly brown and endlessly loving.

“Because Buck drove you here?”

(Or, Evan Buckley was put on God’s green earth to drive Eddie Diaz around.)

passenger princess eddie diaz. that’s it. that’s the plot. (okay there’s also a lot of feelings. it’s me after all)

the stars are still in the sky (600~, g)

The quietness stretches, blankets them, as the wind picks up, the cold intensifying; like it's putting up a fight it knows it's going to lose once the sun breaks through the horizon.

Eddie says, "I'm going to miss you," then pauses, takes a deep breath, "I think I already do."

And Buck feels the words land in his chest like sharded glass, his heart splintering like an old piece of wood that needs to be sanded down.

He closes his eyes against the burn, his throat closing, and it takes him too long to open his eyes and say, "I'm going to miss you, too."

Eddie sits up a little, locks one arm in place and rests his head on his palm. He has a gentle smile on his face when Buck turns to look at him, and Buck suddenly feels caught, trapped with nowhere to go, and when he opens his mouth, he says,

"We can always, y'know, look at the stars. Together."

might actually be one of my favorite fics ive posted this year

half his heart and soul (320~, g)

Buck gets it, is the thing. He would do the same, he thinks, if he were in Eddie's shoes. He would do it all, and more, for Christopher. So, he gets it.

He's not mad, he's not confused. He understands.

Eddie's heart and soul is in El Paso, Texas, so he's following it.

What he doesn't understand is the way Eddie is still wringing his hands nervously, fidgeting. He doesn't understand why he can only meet Buck's eyes fleetingly, like he knows, if Buck looks for more than a second at a time, he would see something he doesn't want him to see.

And Buck wants to see, but he's being a good friend, so he doesn't ask. Doesn't chase Eddie's eyes, no matter how much he wants to.

December

almost married (340~, g)

Buck is mindlessly browsing through suits when Eddie steps out of the changing room, arms spread out a little, hair swooping, cheeks pink, and a bright smile stretching his lips.

Buck's breath hitches, and he blinks once, twice, before abandoning the rack of suits and walking over to Eddie.

"What do you think?" Eddie asks, still smiling brightly, like he already knows what Buck thinks.

"Do a spin," Buck says, sounding a little breathless, and Eddie laughs, but he does do a spin, raising an eyebrow when Buck fails to look away fast enough from how the pants are snuggly hugging his ass.

"Yeah," Buck says softly, "That's the one."

Eddie beams. "Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah," Buck takes another step closer, and now he's close enough Eddie has to slightly tilt his face up to keep looking at his face. "Yeah, it is."

no pressure tagging @confessionseddie @buick118 @moonsharky @letthesunburnyourskin @capseycartwright @tidesreach <33

[ashen-sky]

The Natlan Archon quest makes me want to shove my head through a wall and scream. This is a positive statement.

I have no idea where to start, it was a wild ride in the best way. There was so much lore and it kept throwing twist and turns until the very end.

Spoilers under the cut for 5.3!

I don't think we've seen the end of Capitano. He's not dead, and his body is still on ochkanatlan (assuming it doesn't get moved), so like... he can? And I don't think bringing him back would undermine his sacrifice. The angels are supposed to function in humanity's interest, if it is in their best interest to bring back Capitano they have to. The Lord of the Night explicitly said she had to do what was best for humanity regardless of what the ruler of death wanted.

Also, I think there's rumors for him being playable and I doubt they're going to start making dead people playable now? But also it was just a rumor, i don't think anything got confirmed and it may have even been disproven.

As for the Harbinger I think will be sent to obtain the Gnosis, I feel like Fontain was teasing Sandrone with that one world quest.

Anyways, back to Capitano. Thrain. They just dropped that like it was nothing, but i digress, we better talk to Dain about him. I want to know Dain's thoughts on all of it. How Thrain found "death" and flipped the gods off as his last act, how he carried those souls, that there are others out there aiming for the same goal.

On a different note, all of those cutscenes were amazing and I hope to god they add in the missing voicelines. Like, I nearly had chills, and i think if we didn't have weird gaps when (especially) Traveler wasn't talking I think i would have actually shivered. All in all I think 5.3 and Fontain's final act are tied for best finales. I can't really put it into words.

Extra notes, loved Traveler leaving the crown. Took me a minute to realize when we activated the pillars it was their messages to us and then Paimon's nearly made me cry. Paimon and Travelers hug, Paimon not letting go and then wanting to be stronger so they didn't have to separate again. I like that Capitano is still on the throne, it's like being able to see Mikhail in Star Rail.

Please talk to me about Genshin lore and 5.3 I want to scream.

[airenyah]

#i feel like a lot of the bad acting accusations are because of the tremor (?) and I'm pretty sure those are just part of his body

@jjsanguine i agree! i think a lot of it comes from how fidgety he was on camera in star in my mind. (sorry, longer rant incoming! when i say "you" in the following text i don't mean you, user @jjsanguine, but i mean the general you. i'm just letting off some steam, i'm not addressing you or yelling at you directly dfjkjsdkjg)

but yeah, the shakiness he had going on in the beginning... that's just a very technical aspect that is pretty fucking difficult when you're new to camera acting, because news flash: you can't move the same way on camera like you can irl. the camera magnifies each and every single one of your movements, especially the more into a close-up you get. you know how many times i've had to listen to my camera acting teacher scold us for moving too much on camera? for being to fidgety? i lost count, because it happened at least once (usually multiple times) in every single class for three years straight. and learning how to move (or rather how to hold still) on camera is something you can only learn by, you know, acting on camera!! and when exactly was dunk supposed to learn that before simm??

idk, maybe i had more mercy with dunk when it came to this since i know from my very own experience how difficult this is when you're not used to it (for me it was even more difficult because my only experience came from stage acting where it's the exact opposite, where everything needs to be bigger and louder instead of smaller and more quiet) but still, i think bashing him for that is very much uncalled for. besides, you can literally see his improvement when it comes to this!! he barely fidgets anymore in thk, despite style being a character with a high energy level. and not just that, you could already see the improvement back in 2023, the year after simm!! just look at how still dunk holds his body in this music video from hidden agenda/our skyy 2 era:

you know, in star in my mind there are a few things through which you can tell the lack of experience, which is why back then i didn't really say anything yet when people where bashing him. but when i saw dunk's (dunk the actor, not dunk the singer lol) performance in this music video back in july 2023 (i think i first saw it two or three days after its release?) my jaw literally dropped. the moment i saw him in this mv that's when i knew he was very much a fantastic actor. and it's not just not in the lack of fidgeting

they don't have a single line in the entire mv and yet all of dunk's emotions are completely on point. he knows exactly what he's doing and what story he wants to tell at any given point. his character's emotional arc is coherent and as a viewer you know exactly what is going on inside of him, you can tell what he's thinking and how he's feeling the entire time and it all makes sense. dunk's character and how he feels about the situation and about joong's character is the most interesting part of the story presented in the mv, tbh. dunk really carries the mv, and he carries it flawlessly

but going back to simm, another issue was that sometimes he'd act a bit too big, in a way where it would be more fitting for a stage performance but it's too big for the camera because, as i mentioned, the camera magnifies everything. this is again something that he had to learn by, you know, actually acting on camera?!!!!!! and besides, it was simm director p'new who wanted this from him:

Dunk: "I discussed Daonuea's character with the director. He recommended that I watch anime and animal cartoon characters. They display visible responses and feelings. Daonuea expresses a lot, with big reactions. He clearly shows it when he’s shocked or happy. People can see what he is feeling at the time. They can tell right away. He doesn’t hide it. It's fun to be able to showcase my childish side in the series." [from: simm behind the scenes special, 7:29 (time stamp linked)]

"act big like a cartoon character" is a suuuper difficult instruction to give to a newbie actor because in order to do this flawlessly you do need to be fully aware of how everything you do will end up looking on camera so that you can actually nail the right balance. and this was an experience/expertise which dunk simply just didn't have at the time. simm was dunk's very first series (not counting his handful of scenes in bad buddy), so of course he's not gonna nail these tricky instructions on the very first try. and i think bashing him just for that is just a very shitty thing to do. it's one thing to say "ok i don't have the patience to sit through this so i'm not gonna watch it" but you really don't have to be mean about it, that's just really uncalled for. everyone starts somewhere, you know?

and now two years later after having gained much more experience and expertise, dunk does an EXCELLENT job with style's loudness and performative behaviour. dunk makes very deliberate choices about when he dials it up and when he goes quiet and serious instead and every single time these choices are extremely on point for the plot and where the character is at in his arc (don't believe me? i have a whole meta series about it where i continue to point out when style is being loud/performative/overacts and why he does it and why it makes complete sense). honestly, i think some people currently bashing his performance either went into thk just set on hating whatever he does on principle or they simply don't vibe with the character. and it's totally fair not to vibe with a character's personality! i grew up around boys who are exactly like style so i know first hand how exhausting they can be and that not everyone will get along with them. but it's not the actor's fault if you don't get along with people of this type of personality, that's very much a you problem

anyway, another aspect in simm where i thought dunk needed a bit more practice was the crying. i didn't always entirely believe him when he was crying in simm. it was going in the right direction, but it still seemed to me that he wasn't quite feeling it and was forcing it a bit. although, admittedly for this one big crying scene (the one in the parking lot after kluen kissed dao in the men's room) the faults as to why this scene doesn't really work already start with the directing. p'new messed up the dramaturgical structure of that scene and at the time the boys and esp dunk just simply didn't have the expertise to get the arcs and the structure of this scene right by themselves without outside help. and so it's no wonder dunk struggled with the mess of that scene (i swear every time i watch that scene i hear my camera acting teacher's voice in my head asking where all the plot points are lol). anyway, the crying was also a bit better a year later in hidden agenda, though i was still not entirely convinced at certain points. but then in early 2024 the boys dropped the joongdunk last twilight mv and dunk really put his whole pussy into the crying, like, that shit's heartbreaking. and they did that in their free time past midnight after a fanmeet in a foreign country. my mouth was agape when i saw it (dunk's sobbing, that it). we have yet to see style cry on thk, but i'm already curious to see if i'm still gonna have issues with it or if dunk has finally reached the point where he's really feeling it and where he can let the tears fall freely and naturally like he was able to in the last twilight mv (or maybe he just needs joong to direct him in crying scenes in order to ace them sndnfjjfjf)

anyway, the whole point of this rant is that you can criticize an actor's performance. nobody is perfect. everyone has to start somewhere. so yes, absolutely you can criticize someone's performance. and nobody forces you to like every single actor's performance. sometimes you're just not vibing, and that's totally okay! but you don't have to be unnecessarily mean about it. and more importantly, you have to be open to an artist's improvement as well and at the very least acknowledge it, even if you're still not vibing. and let me tell you something, as someone who's been following all of dunk's series live since episode 2 of simm (and technically even since ep3 of bad buddy), it's really been such a joy to see him grow and develop his skills as a performer. especially as someone who from the start has already appreciated the things he does excel at. and there are many things he excels at, many things that he's done so excellently even back in simm and hidden agenda that it really outshines the imperfections in his performance even back when he was less experienced than he is now

airenyah out.

@secriden you don't know the feeling of getting these tags into my notifs after feeling like i've been the sole public defender of dunk's acting for the past year and a half (and that's only counting the time i started being more vocal about it online, i've been defending him in my mind since 2022 actually)

truly TRULY love the energy you bring!!!!! join me!!!!!

DUNK IS A GOOD FUCKING ACTOR AND HAS BEEN FROM THE START. EVERYONE WAS JUST UNNECESSARILY MEAN

[ruvviks]

PLEASE DO NOT TAG AS YOUR OWN OC OR PAIRING.

Nathan and Ruben share a bond more powerful than most; mutual understanding through past experiences no one should ever have to go through, and through past actions so horrible they cannot be spoken of. Their grief and the blood on their hands binds them to the STEM technology they created, which has alienated them from the rest of the world— but they give each other the comfort they have both longed for so desperately for years, and that is all they need. They are each other's counterpart; you cannot imagine one without the other, like two sides of the same coin. Through their pain, their grief, their desire, and their regret, they have become one.

anna akhmatova, the guest // bones; equinox // 'i won't become' by kim jakobsson // agustín gómez-arcos, the carnivorous lamb // by oxy // achilles come down; gang of youths // czeslaw milosz, from 'new and collected poems: 1931-2001' // 'extended ambience portrait from a resonant biostructure' and 'migraine tenfold times ten' by daniel vega // a little death; the neighbourhood // marina tsvetaeva, from 'poem of the end' // by drummnist // katie maria, winter // 'nocturne in black and gold the falling rocket' by james abbott mcneill whistler // micah nemerever, these violent delights // body language; we are fury // 'the penitent' by emil melmoth // chelsea dingman, from 'of those who can't afford to be gentle'

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[lycorisicecream]

Era, one of my sonas (and the last one)

[haedia]

Right there with you, especially the end bit. I like to think a similar kind of thing. Headcanon journey under the cut.

Like, it pleases me to consider Rook telling Spite that it's alright if he comes to them when Lucanis needs sleep, especially if he's bored. My Rook's sleep schedule is kind of fucked anyway so it's not like Spite is gonna make it worse.

It takes awhile for Lucanis to really get comfortable with Spite doing things while he's out but knowing that the people around him are keeping an eye on Spite helps. And, Spite gets more comfortable with them in return.

I can see him going to them with questions about the world outside of the Fade and having fun exploring those differences... once he gets over frustrations about how those differences affect Lucanis' body (like, say, gravity or how eating candles would hurt him, etc)

And I loooove the idea of the different members of the team taking Spite out on "walks" to different places when he gets particularly restless. Emmrich has some glasses made for him that hide his glowing eyes when they're out and about, so they don't have to worry (as much) about Spitecanis being noticed as an abomination.

Spite gets to experience food in it's full glory, though he finds it overwhelming at first. It's only later, when they learn to "share" Lucanis' body simultaneously that he begins to develop his own appreciation for flavors, separate (or, as separate as possible for them) from Lucanis. The fact that he can feel how Lucanis feels when experiencing taste allows him access to a framework for interpreting the sensations for himself.

It'd be like going from a fuzzy shot of flowers on a sunny day, a bright riot of color blobs, to an in-focus image of the same — suddenly crisp but you can take a moment to savor and choose how you move your focus around the scene.

But after he starts to figure it out? He wants to learn to make things like that, too. And thus begins his cooking arc. It's a disaster to start, of course, but it amuses Rook and that alone soothes Spite's frustration at his early floundering. Eventually, he starts to develop his skills though his annoyance about what ingredients he can and can't use never really goes away.

"Spite, you can't put that rock in the soup"

"It reminds me. Of our walk."

"The rock or the soup?"

"Yes. Both. They go together"

"They can go together on the table, then. But you can't put that rock in the soup"

Spite opens his mouth to say more and Rook interjects

"Even if you washed it. You can't"

Spite grumbles and puts the rock back on the counter.

"Spite." Rook says and draws his attention back to them "It *is* a pretty rock, though. I remember where you found it."

"It IS pretty. Like glass. Like a rainy day" Spite beams at them before returning to stirring the soup.

Anyway. I just have so many thoughts and feelings about Lucanis and Spite — at all points in their journey. Though, the warm fuzzies I get for their post-Inner Demons relationship are nearly unending.

Knowing what was actually going on between Spite and Lucanis, I felt really bad for Spite during my second play through. He is trying so hard to talk to Rook and explain, but he is new to this world and doesnt know how to explain it. He actually does attempt to explain what is wrong several times and if Rook had really listened to what the demon was saying, might have realized something was wrong. But, by virtue of being an abomination/demon, the group was poisoned against Spite, so everything Spite does is viewed with suspicion and no one gets it.

Like I see why Emmrich is so nonchalant around Spite from the beginning because he can actually hear what Spite was saying and while he doesn’t fully understand what Spite was getting at, he can see Spite isn’t malignant or malicious. Spite really is just a little shade trying his best in a world that he doesn’t get and who doesn’t get him. I really like the idea that once Inner Demons is over, Rook attempts to actually get to know Spite, because Spite deserves the chance.

[snailune]

wiki how do I stop spiraling about my life once every 2 weeks I'm getting sick of it

[pygmi-says-hi]

STOP DOING THIS IN INJURY FICS!!

Bleeding:

Blood is warm. if blood is cold, you’re really fucking feverish or the person is dead. it’s only sticky after it coagulates.

It smells! like iron, obv, but very metallic. heavy blood loss has a really potent smell, someone will notice.

Unless in a state of shock or fight-flight mode, a character will know they’re bleeding. stop with the ‘i didn’t even feel it’ yeah you did. drowsiness, confusion, pale complexion, nausea, clumsiness, and memory loss are symptoms to include.

blood flow ebbs. sometimes it’s really gushin’, other times it’s a trickle. could be the same wound at different points.

it’s slow. use this to your advantage! more sad writer times hehehe.

Stab wounds:

I have been mildly impaled with rebar on an occasion, so let me explain from experience. being stabbed is bizarre af. your body is soft. you can squish it, feel it jiggle when you move. whatever just stabbed you? not jiggly. it feels stiff and numb after the pain fades. often, stab wounds lead to nerve damage. hands, arms, feet, neck, all have more motor nerve clusters than the torso. fingers may go numb or useless if a tendon is nicked.

also, bleeding takes FOREVER to stop, as mentioned above.

if the wound has an exit wound, like a bullet clean through or a spear through the whole limb, DONT REMOVE THE OBJECT. character will die. leave it, bandage around it. could be a good opportunity for some touchy touchy :)

whump writers - good opportunity for caretaker angst and fluff w/ trying to manhandle whumpee into a good position to access both sites

Concussion:

despite the amnesia and confusion, people ain’t that articulate. even if they’re mumbling about how much they love (person) - if that’s ur trope - or a secret, it’s gonna make no sense. garbled nonsense, no full sentences, just a coupla words here and there.

if the concussion is mild, they’re gonna feel fine. until….bam! out like a light. kinda funny to witness, but also a good time for some caretaking fluff.

Fever:

you die at 110F. no 'oh no his fever is 120F!! ahhh!“ no his fever is 0F because he’s fucking dead. you lose consciousness around 103, sometimes less if it’s a child. brain damage occurs at over 104.

ACTUAL SYMPTOMS:

sluggishness

seizures (severe)

inability to speak clearly

feeling chilly/shivering

nausea

pain

delirium

symptoms increase as fever rises. slow build that secret sickness! feverish people can be irritable, maybe a bit of sass followed by some hurt/comfort. never hurt anybody.

ALSO about fevers - they absolutely can cause hallucinations. Sometimes these alter memory and future memory processing. they're scary shit guys.

fevers are a big deal! bad shit can happen! milk that till its dry (chill out) and get some good hurt/comfort whumpee shit.

keep writing u sadistic nerds xox love you

ALSO I FORGOT LEMME ADD ON:

YOU DIE AT 85F

sorry I forgot. at that point for a sustained period of time you're too cold to survive.

pt 2

also please stop traumadumping in the notes/tags, that's not the point of this post. it's really upsetting to see on my feed, so i'm muting the notifs for this post. if you have a question about this post, dm me, but i don't want a constant influx of traumatic stories. xox