#on the romance and more on sam just trying to survive with himself and then eventually achieving the Goal with romance. if that makes sense

[homehauntsyou]

if you could create another Goal Of The Nuclear/Normalcy storyline/arc for sam, would it have a romantic relationship? if yes, who would the person be (existing character or a new one)? if not, what would the circumstances be and would it surround a narratively Third person at all? and which point in the series do you think it would work the best? (as an aside, are there any existing characters like cas or gadreel or crowley or rowena that you would want to involve in this arc?)

oh my god. oh my goddd okay okay.

even though i never really find myself focusing on romantic relationships in spn, i think it would have to include a romantic relationship eventually. they tend to be critical to the winchesters' idea of Normalcy and the goal of the Complete Nuclear, and sam would only feel as though he's completely achieved that if he had a romantic relationship of some kind. however, i do think it would start without a romantic relationship though, with that as the eventual goal. i think sam would have to leave before he would be able to find someone, so he wouldn't necessarily start with that as his explicit, main goal, but he would find himself gradually ending up with a romantic partner.

i think the hard part about creating a storyline where sam strives for normalcy again is that they really only do work when dean and sam are separated (because of death or of their own volition) because of the nature of their dependency on each other and how all-consuming it is. there are a couple that work if you mess more with canon (s9/10 post-dean's death comes to mind, i've read a couple great fics where he ends up staying dead and sam & cas have to deal with that) but i think the timeframe that works the most with canon would be post-09x10. i would really enjoy a situation where sam’s anger and his struggle with his loss of autonomy is expressed by returning back into his initial, pre-series/s1 goal of achieving normalcy and safety. i would probably write it as a situation where sam increasingly begins to struggle with reality again, isn't really able to hunt effectively, and decides to take a step back. that could be a weird time frame in some ways because his choice to continue hunting in s9B could be interpreted as sam trying to prove that he still deserves to be alive / has a purpose that can be used for good, but I think if it was framed in a way through an injury or through a storyline where it’s unsafe for him to be hunting, then it could work. he would probably be eventually pulled back in by demon!/moc!dean but that’s to be expected of course <3 there is just so much s9 sam potential that the broader fandom tends to brush over, mostly because of avoiding dean’s actions / disliking that sam’s anger is towards dean, but i LOVE this time-period & i wish we’d gotten more about sam’s personal struggles after gadreel, including ones that don’t involve dean.

in terms of characters i would include — cas would probably have to be one, especially given his relationship with sam in s9/s10. i’ve always been really interested in his opinion before 09x10 (“you were stupid for the right reasons”) and whether it changed during/after 09x11 when he saw the effect it had on sam, which could be interesting to explore. and maybe also jody? only because i’m thinking about the deleted scene where sam tells her that he thinks smth is off before gadreel takes over again and i think she’s a less dean-biased character, which would be needed if sam wanted to step away. oh and gadreel ofc. their relationship that also isn’t a relationship at all is SO fascinating to me and i think he should just Lurk <3 figuratively and literally <3

[catnipaddictt]

Clay surviving and finding the love of his life?

clay beresford x reader

wc: 1k

cw: fluff, kissing, spoliers for Awake (2007)

comment: I love love love Clay, so thank you anon <3

Clay was absolutely smitten. After his ordeal during his heart surgery a lot had changed for him. One of those being you. He never thought that he would be capable of love again. Sam’s betrayal made him doubt himself everyday and showed him the lengths people would go to in order to have access to his fortune.

He met you sometime after his surgery, but was still apprehensive about letting you into his life. Slowly but surely, over time he began to open up to you. He told you about his childhood, his mother, and eventually what happened during his heart transplant. 

You were patient with him, something he valued in you. You let him speak and always listened so intently to what he had to say. 

When he realized he was developing feelings towards you he was conflicted and confused. He truly thought he wouldn't be able to produce these kinds of emotions again. Clay wanted to trust you, he knew he could, but he couldn't shake the memory of Sam and the plot against him.

It took time for him to figure out what he was going to do about his attraction towards you. He wanted you but at the same time his brain told him it was a bad idea. That getting caught up in romance would lead to heartbreak and more devastation.

You however fell head over heels for Clay. He was passionate and spoke in a way that made you feel as if he was taking in every breath you took. You didn't want to scare him off so you pushed those feelings down to the deepest pit of your very being. You couldn't bear to ruin your friendship with the blonde.

After weeks of debate with himself, Clay came to his decision. During one of your weekly sit downs at a cozy corner cafe, he took your hand in his. 

Looking across at him, you felt the warmth of his skin against your palm. You prayed he didn't notice the heat rising on your cheeks or the shaking of your hands. His soft blue eyes looked into yours as his thumb gently ran across the back of your hand.

As he spoke, he looked softly at you, eyes never leaving yours. He told you about how he had come to see you more than just a friend, but that he was confused with himself. Although you would never be able to understand the extent to which he was affected by Sam, you knew that this was hard for him.

After he had admitted his feelings towards you, you were left slightly stunned. Clay Beresford really liked you? You felt like a schoolgirl who just found out that their crush liked them. Breaking the pause in conversation, you let out a grin so big Clay thought he could have another heart attack from the slight. 

He was surprised as you told him you felt the same about him. He couldn't believe that sweet little you thought of him the same way he did you. 

You both took things slow in the beginning. You knew that Clay still suffered with internal doubt about your relationship, so you made it your mission to show him how much you truly cared about him.

As time went on, he realized that this was real, and that you weren't faking your feelings to get his credit card number. Once he came to this conclusion he felt more like himself than he had in a long time.

Holding hands while on a walk turned into peaks on the lips and eventually, you staying the night at his luxurious home. It felt so right for the both of you. 

You fell into a steady rhythm with each other. The pair of you were obsessed with each other, seeing the other was the highlight of your day. Clay was thankful for your understanding when it came to his past. And you were delighted to try and help him through this. 

Many months went by, and it was safe to say that you both were well and truly in love with each other. The first time you said those three words to each other was a calm Saturday afternoon. The sun shine illuminated Clay as you strolled through the public gardens. The autumn leaves fell around the two of you as you walked hand in hand across the grass. 

The leaves that littered the ground were still damp with that morning's dew causing you to tread carefully. Unluckily for you, you stepped down without looking into a particular slippery leaf. Before you know it you were sliding onto the ground, directly into a pile of leaves probably left by some children. Clay's hand was lost from yours as you landed in the pile, causing a laugh from him.

Before you knew it you were both laughing at your clumsiness and he was reaching out his hand to help you back up. Seeing your chance you took his hand only to pull him down into the leaves with you. As he toppled towards you he let out a noise of surprise before landing beside you. 

You laughed as he turned over, lying in the leaves on his back. You followed suit, lying down next to him as the sun hit you through the barren branches of the trees above. 

You sense his head turn to face you, his eyes looking into you. Turning your body to face him you smile at his now messy hair, leaves stuck in it. You pluck out a few golden ones, moving his hair around softly 

“I love you” he says abruptly, your eyes locking on each other. You break out into a smile which fills Clay with butterflies. “I love you too Clay.”

His eyes shine at your words as he pulls you closer to him, leaves sticking to the both of you. He places a sweet kiss on your lips, which you return swiftly. Pulling away you laugh at all the leaves still stuck in his locks. 

“You look nice like this” you say to which he lets out a laugh that is so very him. “You always look nice sweetheart, even if you are covered in leaves” he replies smoothly before sitting up and getting to his feet. This time you let him pull you to your feet before your hand is in his again.

You felt like the luckiest person alive and you could bet that Clay felt the same.

Let me know if there are any errors or if you want to be added to the taglist!

Taglist: @heartsforanakin @qvnthesia @ysrjune

[samsblades]

my boy only breaks his favorite toys — sam winchester

cw : gn!reader, angst, canon typical violence, injuries, knives, non-sexual partial nudity, guilty sam, rejection, talk of death/dying, sort of a case fic at first, mentions of stitches, lots of feelings, poorly edited & my first(?) attempt at a full angst fic lol (no happy ending!), set in season 5, so some spoilers, 10.6K words. listen to my boy only breaks his favorite toys by taylor swift. requested !

summary : you get injured and sam realizes he’s more scared of getting you hurt than he is of anything else, even losing you and your love.

to be in love is the strangest experience. to be in love for a long time, for years on end with little to no reciprocation is even stranger.

somehow, you can watch him fall in love with someone else, kiss somebody new, romance another girl, and be blindsided by a fourth. jess you could never be mad at. she seemed too sweet and good for sam, for you to dislike. madison never did anything wrong either, but you did hate how much she unintentionally hurt him. sarah, too, was sweet and brave and helpful and she made him smile. that, of course, didn’t stop you from wanting to be that person instead, but you didn’t feel like you could complain.

ruby, you still feel rightfully angry with sometimes. for sam’s sake, you wanted her help to be real and true, but it felt clear to you from the beginning that not everything was right. now you’re dealing with the apocalypse and sam’s guilt that you alternate between wanting him to let go of and wanting him to feel it just a little bit longer.

besides, jess and madison are dead, so it’s unkind to be too jealous of them, and you’re sure that sam hasn’t spoken to sarah in years. and ruby’s dead too, so she doesn’t pose a threat any longer.

it’s all been so strange, because you’ve seen sam go through it all, kiss them all, love them all in some way or another, and you’re pretty sure all it’s done is make you love him more. at this point, you’re sure that you’ll never love anyone the way that you love sam. unceasingly, ardently, passionately, and for now, quietly.

but after the knowledge of the looming apocalypse has come the strangest part of it all. having loved sam since he was seventeen and secretly doing everything in his power to get away from this all, you know him and each of his mircroexpressions and tones of voice all too well. and these days, sam looks at you in ways that you’ve never noticed before. these days, sam looks at you like he’s trying to figure out if he’s in love with you.

it’s not as if you’d given up hope completely, because no one who’s as in love as you are ever will, but you’ve learned how to live with unrequited love. the pain can be stabbing and all-consuming sometimes, but it’s survivable so long as he doesn’t stop smiling at you or letting you rest in his lap or being the only one to call you a special nickname. even if you’re not the love of his life like he is yours, you’ll always mean something to him as his closest friend.

so now, it catches you off guard when sam looks at you as if he’s considering the possibility that you’re the one who hung the stars up in the sky or talks to you with this gentle joy that’s just somehow different from before. those moments are rare, but incredible to have when you consider the looming apocalypse that sam is blaming himself for. he’s battling the fact that he’s supposed to be the vessel to the devil himself, but he still finds the time to hold your pinky finger for a fleeting moment and not say a word about it. and now, sam does that thing where you say something and it makes him smile, and instead of casually holding your gaze like he used you, his gaze will falter and he’ll tilt his chin down and lick his lips as if he’s suddenly shy around you.

last night, dean was out and you and sam were researching for the case you’re working on. you ended up sitting side by side on your shared bed, trying to get comfy as the hours dragged on and the moon moved higher through the sky. completely unprompted, sam had lifted his arm up and around your shoulders, using his gentle hand to cup the side of your head and bring it to rest on his wide shoulder.

your heart soared and you did your best to keep researching, but the lull of his breathing and the clacking of the keyboard as he typed one handed sang you to sleep right then and there, tucked all cozy into his side.

you waking up in his arms certainly set the tone for today. this case is ugly and there was another victim last night, but sam has this sweet, touchy air about him. as you walk to the crime scene his hand lingers unprofessionally close to the small of your back, and from the tightness to his lips, you’re guessing that he’s holding back from saying something he knows will make you laugh.

you resist the urge to give him a secret smile, soft and loving because you’re selfish enough to try and get him to see that you want him like this. you want him to see that you already love him back, and all he has to do is let himself fall. but you don’t want to overwhelm him, so you go about assessing the crime scene and interviewing the witness like he’s your fbi partner and not the person you love most in this world.

the witness’s statement along with the security camera footage that dean saw at the police station confirms that you’re up against a shapeshifter. much like the first one the three of you hunted together in ‘05 it seems to be disguising itself as a loved one before killing its victims.

“this thing can shapeshift to look like literally anybody, but it can’t come up with something original?” dean jokes.

sam shrugs in his usual sam way. “well, it is an effective method,” sam reasons, despite knowing that dean’s just making fun. sam’s not even looking at dean; his eyes alternate from checking his computer screen where he scouts out city plumbing maps to find the best places in the sewer to look for the shifter, to letting his eyes roam over your features. you wonder if you’ll have to get used to sam staring at you as much as you do him. though, you can’t say that that’s a bad thing by any stretch. maybe he’ll finally notice the way that you look at him and maybe he’ll finally realize that it might be you who he’s been loving this whole time.

sam stands from his spot across from you, grabbing a map of the city from the bedside table. instead of returning to his original spot, he slots himself right next to you to lay the map out on the table. he runs a hand along the length of it, crossing your chest and brushing your nose with the fabric of his flannel before moving his hand back to rest right beside yours on the table top. he leans over the map and you tilt youu head to look up at him as he points out the most likely spots that the shifter could be hiding out at. you only pay half attention as he speaks, more able to take in the sight of his lips moving than the actual words that they’re forming. you’re not uncareful, you just know that sam will make sure you and dean remember the most important things when you get in the car.

—

“are you sure splitting up is a good idea?” sam stresses from the passenger seat of the impala.

“we know how to test for the shifter and we all can take care of ourselves,” dean says, repeating just about the same thing that he said before.

you lean forward in your seat. “we’ll be fine, sam. i agree, it’s not ideal, but there’s a lot of ground to cover and we can’t let the shifter get to anyone else,” you reason.

“i know,” he huffs, still unconvinced due to the possible dangers. but, there’s always danger, and if you’re siding with dean, he knows he doesn’t stand much of a chance of winning the argument anyway.

—

the sewers are dark, damp, and smell like shit. they grow even darker as the sun begins to set above ground and you’re grateful for the bright flashlight that you have on hand. you’ve been tramping through the dark and sewer waste for over an hour and heard nothing helpful from the boys.

you keep your silver knife at the ready, in case you run into anything or anyone. you all agreed that if you see each other, the very first order of business is to test yourself with your own knife to be sure. when you hear footsteps, you immediately press yourself against the wall, doing your best to stay hidden until you can see what’s heading your way. the second you see a person’s frame, you immediately recognize it as sam. he told you that you’d probably run into each other at some point, so you relax a touch. even so, you keep your knife in front of you as you step into the pathway.

“sam?” you call out, stopping a good length away from him.

“hey. yeah, it’s me,” he says, holding out his hand and knife to show you as he slices a thin line across his forearm. you sigh in relief, then quickly repeat the action to confirm to him that you’re you as well.

“you heard from dean?” you ask, closing the space between the two of you. sam meets you halfway, shaking his head.

“nothing,” he sighs, turning back where he came from.

“damn. an hour in the sewers and we’ve got jack,” you frown. “exactly how i like to spend my friday nights.”

“course it is, it’s the perfect date spot,” he jokes back, leading you left, down a new path you assume he skipped on his way over to you.

“mmm, does that mean we’re on a date, winchester?” you flirt. he takes the quip with composure as you step back into a main hallway, wide enough to walk side by side. he waits for you to be next to him before he continues. he didn’t even laugh a little awkwardly at your comment like he normally might. he must be in a flirty mood.

“if that’s what you want,” he flirts back, flashing you his gorgeous grin. the passage is still sort of tight, so his knuckles continually brush against the back of your hand, and the fabric of his jacket rustles against yours.

“being a flirt today, are we?” you tease, maybe pushing the limits a little.

“just for you,” he fires back, and that just about stuns you into silence. he’s in an awfully good mood for someone stuck hunting a killer in the sewers under an unfamiliar city. you nudge him playfully with your elbow, not even sure how to respond with words. so with that, you fall into a comfortable, familiar silence, the only sounds being the echo of your sloshing footsteps through the sewer.

out of boredom, sam teases you with his pinky finger, sticking it out and poking your hand with it. you push back gently, playing along. he escalates the game by poking your side. you giggle a little, swatting at his big hand. 

“stop that!” you whisper-shout. “what if the shapeshifter comes along and we’re too distracted because you’re tickling me?” his proximity, his flirting, and his goddamn smile are already distracting enough. 

“i wasn’t tickling you, just poking,” he teases, but doesn’t do it again since you’re right enough.

“yeah, you said that last week after you did that. it tickles, which means you’re tickling me,” you retort before letting the silence fall over you again.

you head down a narrow path, forcing sam to walk behind you. even then, you can feel his closeness. a minute later, you step out into a wider area where a grate lets in a stream of moonlight. sam comes out after you, stopping by your side. the moonlight casts a glow on his face and, like you always do, you can’t help but think about how pretty he looks, even after a long hour and counting of traipsing around in a sewer. continually, even in the more open space, he stays right by your side, close enough for your elbows to brush.

“think we should call dean?” he suggests, “regroup, maybe call it a night?”

you tilt your head to the side in acknowledgment. “tempting,” you respond, “i’m getting hungry. let’s at least call him, then go from there.” you step further into the space in fron of you, trying to escape the chilly draft coming from the narrow pathway you came in from. but the floor in here is slicker than you realize, and you slip embarrassingly hard, completely losing your footing and letting out a short gasp as you fall.

sam’s instincts are impeccable as always, and a strong arm wraps around your waist before you can fall too far. once you’re steady, sam doesn’t move to pull you all the way up and onto your own feet. he just keeps you dependant on his hold to stay off the slippery floor and brings his other hand to meet the one wrapped around your side. he looks down at you, half of his face illuminated by moonlight, the other half fallen into shadow. you stare right back up at him, flustered but too happy for any sort of such purposeful physical contact with him to care about that.

it feels like a movie with you in his arms like this, willingly stuck there by the both of you. then he leans down closer to you and your eyes widen. in the partial darkness, he looks at you like he’s no longer just wondering if he loves you, more like he knows it for sure. he looks at you with such unabashed love, so overwhelming in a way that you hadn’t expected from him for a long while, if ever. you think that for sure he’s going to kiss you, and you know even better that you’d let him without a second thought.

this certainly isn’t how you imagined it’d be at all. not this soon and not in the middle of a sewer system, surrounded by awful smells and an unpleasant humidity. you suppose that the moonlight filtering down is nice enough, and that you’d never expected anything grandiose or overly romantic with him anyway.

then you hear footsteps, and a split second later, your name being called in sam’s voice. only it wasn’t the sam holding you who said it, it was someone behind you. it only takes a millisecond for everything to click. this sam, the one holding you close, cut himself with a knife you recognized. that’s why you didn’t bat an eye, but you failed to remember that that particular knife of sam’s isn’t made of silver, just a weaker and ineffective metal alloy.

before you can process it, that exact knife is being plunged into your gut. you let out a strangled cry of pain.

sam, the real sam, shouts your name again and you think you hear his running footsteps until he stops dead in his tracks when the shifter yanks the knife from your stomach and puts it to your throat. you cry out again, choking a little on your own breath as you stretch your neck, trying to see your sam. 

but the shifter presses the knife down, drawing a line of blood on your neck and growls, “look at me. you’re going to watch your precious little sammy as he slices your throat.”

you can imagine sam putting his hands in the air, mouth open and ready to talk the shifter out of it when you hear two loud gunshots, and you’re dropped to the floor, too shaken up to break your own fall. your head hits the ground hard, and the next thing you can register is sam again. you get his voice and his hands, one sliding under your neck to cup the back of your head and the other pressing hard against your wound. he winces when you grunt in pain at that, but keeps his hand in place.

“hey, hey. stay with me. look at me, c’mon.” his words are followed by your name, said in a sweet and desperate sort of way. you’re still dazed, but your head begins to clear up a bit. above you, sam’s face is pinched in worry, so much more worry than you’d expect him to express because of something as easily fixed as a measly stab wound.

it’s not completely inconsequential and it’s bleeding a whole lot more than you’d like, but you’ve dealt with this sort of thing and worse before. sam will stitch you up and you’ll be as good as new in a few days. even better, cas might come around soon and he’ll fix it right up for you.

“‘m fine, sam,” you grumble as dean drops down by your other side.

“shifter’s dead. we should go,” he says, more to sam than you since he’s clearly the most worried out of you all. dean places his hands on your arm, ready to help you up, but sam just pulls you into his arms and up against his chest. he stands and you wince from the pain of the movement, but relax a little seconds later. you expected to limp out of this nasty place, one arm slung around each of the boys as they do the heavy lifting but keep you on your feet. it seems sam won’t risk even that; he needs you closer, more protected, and in less pain.

dean leads the way to an exit, climbing up the ladder first and opening the heavy grate. only when you urge him to does sam let you down. he knows that he can’t carry you up, but he sure would have liked to. instead, he has to settle for lifting you as best as he can, his strong hands never straying from you until they’re on your ankles and dean’s got you, pulling you up the rest of the way and letting you lean on him until sam reappears.

the fresh air is amazing to breathe in and to feel on your skin, but what you’d most like is to be laying in bed after a long, hot shower. and to not be in quite as much pain. you sigh into dean’s jacket, and just a second later he’s shifting you back into sam’s waiting arms. he doesn’t sweep you up this time, but he keeps you steady while dean jogs off to get the impala and bring it to you. with strong hands, sam eases you to the curb on the side of the road and wraps his arms around you, keeping a wide palm pressed against your wound to staunch the bleeding.

as you wait, sam is silent, and not in the soft and comfortable way he often is around you. you’re sure that he’s got a million things to say, not all of them 100% fair to you and all of them completely worried.

and there’s just so much to say that he can’t choose, and he thinks that, for your sake, he should hold back. sam knows he can get a little too angry sometimes, and you’re bleeding badly with your face smushed unattractively against his shoulder and he knows that this isn’t the time. he shouldn’t yet interrogate you about what happened or tell you aloud that he’s overly worried about you because suddenly he’s feeling things for you that he didn’t realize he was feeling before.

you let him brood in silence, and though this is just about the closest physically that you’ve been with him today, he feels sort of distant and unreachable. it pains you.

when dean arrives, sam loads you into the car, piling into the back seat after you to give you a shoulder to lean on. you can feel dean’s eyes on you as he glances back through the rearview mirror, and you’re sure that he too wants to ask what happened, how the shifter managed to trick you despite the rules you’d set.

“dean, we should head to the hospital,” sam says, his voice cutting into the tense silence of the car. you shake your head weakly.

“no, sam. i’m fine, seriously.”

“no,” he counters, “you’re bleeding a lot. we’re going to the hospital to get you some real stitches.

“your stitches work just fine,” you argue, your words half lost in the fabric of his coat.

“and what if you need more than just stitches? we can’t risk that,” he presses, and you know he’s not going to give up.

“sammy’s right,” dean piles on, and you sigh, then wince in pain. you don’t even grumble out an annoyed, “fine,” and instead just like the silence take over again as a begrudging relentment.

When all the doctors do is give you a few stitches and an iv and let you out just an hour later, you resist the urge to say “i told you so.” but really, you’re glad for the professional help, knowing that, though you still feel like shit, you’re far better off than you would’ve been if you’d gone straight back to the motel. the car ride is quiet, but you know that you’re due for a bit of an interrogation when you get back.

tonight, dean starts it, because sam is practically brooding in the corner.

“so, you gonna let us in on what the hell you were thinking back there?” he asks, sounding ready to just about throw his hands up in the air. “did you really not follow the single rule we set? it almost got you killed.”

“i know, and i did,” you sigh, “but it tricked me. it had one of sam’s knives and it cut itself and i wasn’t paying enough attention to realize it wasn’t one of sam’s silver knives. it was a damn good actor too,” you explain. dean clenches his jaw, probably looking for some other point to make. these winchesters never know when to stop arguing. “we’ve all been tricked by shifters before. it happens, i messed up, you saved my ass. that’s all.”

you guess dean’s not in as much of a fighting mood as you thought, because he just shrugs. “you’re damn right about the ass saving part.”

you crack a wry smile, “guess it’s my turn to save your ass then.”

“only thing i need saving from now is that sewer stench. so i will call first dibs on the shower.” he leaves no room for argument on that front as he disappears into the bathroom. only then do you glance at sam, wondering if he’ll say something. his expression has got so many emotions swirling around that it’s almost unreadable. but you’re you, and you know him and love him in a way that nobody else does, so you can decipher it all pretty well. there’s anger, like always, probably targeted at the shifter and a bit misplaced in you for getting yourself hurt. then there’s guilt, because, in classic sam fashion, he likely thinks that it’s his fault.

you’d put the pieces together a bit ago in the hospital. the red marks above sam’s eyebrow and around his wrists and the shifter having sam’s knife and appearance tells you that the shifter got the jump on sam. it probably hit him over the head, tied him up, and stole his knife after stealing his appearance and accessing his memories. and though you can know that it’s clearly not sam’s fault the shifter got to you, he’ll still think so.

he’s thinking that because the shifter got the drop on him, you got hurt. he’s thinking about how trusting you were because it looked like him, about the position he found you in, and though he couldn’t see it, he knows the look you were giving his lookalike. he’s sure that it was that syrup-sweet, honey-dripping-from-your-eyes look that he’s been all too aware of and all too fond of these days. and because of that, it must be his fault.

on top of that, he feels like he was the one to do it. you got hurt by something with his face. you were almost killed and the last thing you would have seen would have been a cold, dark smirk on his face as he killed you. that thought pained him more than anything he could express.

you, of course, don’t yet understand the full depth of his guilt, but it bothers you anyways. you wish that sam could stop blaming himself for everything bad that’s ever happened when all he’s ever done is try to be good. while in the midst of wondering if you should speak first, interrupt his self-destructive thoughts and tell him it’s not his fault, he beats you to it.

“you should’ve been more careful.” his voice is unexpectedly hard and cold, devoid of his usual guilt and gentleness. tonight, he’s more focused on his anger. and of course, you know it’s because of that guilt that he lashes out, but it hurts nonetheless. even so, you want to soften him and get him to open up, so you apply the opposite tactic as him.

when you speak, you let your voice be full of emotion, of sincerity and gentleness and understanding. “i know, sam. i’ll pay more attention next time, i promise. but i’m okay.”

this catches him off guard a bit. normally, when he targets misplaced anger at you, you fire back and tell him how stupid it is that he’s trying to blame you. he already knows it’s stupid, and your soft eyes make him even more guilty. it’s not as if he’s being just as silly this time, but your approach works, a little.

sam does soften a bit; you can see the slight change in the way that he holds his shoulders, but it’s not enough to get him to admit that he’s just worried and blaming himself. all you get is pursed lips and a tight brow. he just can’t get over the image of himself plunging a knife into you, can’t get over your cry of pain or the feel of your hot and sticky blood seeping through the cracks of his fingers.

sam’s realizing that, for all the countless times you’ve come close to death, this is the first time since he’s started to think that he’s most likely in love with you. and that, more than anything else in the world, not the literal devil or the apocalypse or whatever, is the scariest thing that sam’s had to realize and endure in a long time.

now, sam can’t run from being lucifer’s vessel. even if he never gives in, he has to confront it and fix it somehow. he certainly can’t run from the apocalypse, or the world will end. he can’t have that, not when the world is you. it’s his responsibility. sam can’t run from those things, but he sure as hell can run from the way he feels about you. and he’d do that because he can’t afford to be in love with you. you can’t afford for him to be in love with you or for you to be in love with him because it seems like that’s already gotten you stabbed by a hand that looks just like his own. and all that’s happened between the two of you is playful flirting, sidelong glances, and shared smiles, so he can’t imagine what might happen if things go an inch further than they already have.

he got jess killed, he hurt you bad with ruby, and though sarah’s still alive as far as he knows, he attributes that to the fact that she’s far, far away from him. not to mention the people he loved like family who are dead because of him too. that’s another horrifying thought because even if sam didn’t love you the way that he does, he’d surely still love you some other way.

so, sam’s going to run, sam’s not going to let you any closer, sam is going to keep you at an arm’s length. he’ll stop looking at you like he wants you, he’ll stop hovering so near, he’ll quit his goal of making you smile or laugh at least three times a day, and he’ll do everything he can to make sure you don’t love him too much. he can’t let you tell him you love him, he can’t let you confess because he’ll be too far gone if he hears that come out of your mouth. he’s gonna run because he’s decided with horror and glory all at once that yes, he does love you, and that’s the worst thing he could do to you other than slit your throat with his own two shaking hands.

from where you sit, just feet apart, you can see sam grow more and more distant by the second. you can’t figure out what’s going through his head, but you’re sure you wouldn’t like it if you heard him say it aloud. you open your mouth to say something to him, get him to say something back, but you can’t find the words. anything you come up with gets stuck in the back of your throat before you can even make a sound.

sam looks at you, just for a fleeting moment that’s too fast and slippery for you to grab hold of it. his eyes hold regret, like he’s done something that he can’t take back, and he doesn’t like what he’ll have to do next in order to keep the consequences at bay.

then his eyes are gone from yours, along with that strange look, and you’re suddenly at a loss of how to reach out to him. it hurts because you know that what it will really take is time and patience, maybe more than he deserves.

you barely notice the time passing, but you watch sam take dean’s place in the bathroom and you can feel dean’s eyes on your back. you’re sure he can feel the shift in the air. when sam returns from the shower, you realize just how badly you want to get clean. you walk to the bathroom and feel a little lucky when you find a small plastic tub to fill with soapy water. you can’t take a real shower for the sake of keeping your stitches dry, but you’ll be damned if you can’t get that sewer stench off of yourself. when you bend to place the tub at the bottom of the bathtub, you grunt audibly in pain due to the movement. you sort of expect sam to come running to help like he always does, already surprised that he didn’t offer from the start when you told the boys you were going to wash up.

apparently, dean had expected the same; while he’s more than happy to be the one to help you, sam almost always beats him to that sort of thing before he can even try. you glance through the open door and see dean looking from you to sam, back to you before he stands from his bed in a rush.

“hey, hey, whatcha doin’ all that by yourself for? can’t have you busting any stitches, we paid for those,” he jokes, already in the bathroom with you by the time he’s finishes talking.

“pfft, yeah with stolen credit cards,” you retort, without actually resisting his aid. he takes your place by the faucet, nudging the bucket under it and turning on the hot water. you’re lucky that the shower doubles as a small bath, meaning you can easily sit in it alongside the bucket and just wipe yourself down without getting the floor wet.

you sit on the closed toilet seat as dean fills up the bucket, adds some soap, and mixes it around a little.

“want me to help you in?” he offers.

“mm, are you trying to see me naked?” you poke fun.

“and if i said yes?” he jokes back.

“then you’d never see the light of day again,” you threaten, already moving to slide off your jeans, with a bit of a struggle. dean’s strong hand immediately finds your elbow, holding you steady. you’re not worried about either brother seeing you in just your underwear. with the life you live, stuck in motels, or getting hurt in less than ideal spots, they’ve seen you that way plenty. and while dean can’t hold back from a lewd comment or two, he completely respects you and views you like another sibling. he helps you with your shirt too, as lifting your arms up proves even more painful than you’d thought.

dean kindly sets a folded towel down on the bottom of the shower bed for you to sit more comfortably, then helps you ease in. then he’s grabbing two clean wash rags, dunking one in the water and handing the other to you.

“try and keep those stitches as dry as you can,” he instructs, and you oblige by placing the dry rag over your covered wound. “we’ll change the bandages when you’re done.”

“mhmm,” you nod, “thank you, dean.”

“‘course, kid. you want me to get your back? or i can send sammy in to help instead,” he offers, saying that last part loud enough for sam to hear. you glance out the open bathroom door only to catch sight of sam’s back as he heads for the outside door. he moves out of your line of sight, but you can hear the door being open and shut behind him. you sigh in disappointment and a bit of hurt. dean curses lightly under his breath and you suddenly feel awkward and ashamed for no practical reason. but dean knows that sam isn’t being as good to you as he should, so he’s being extra nice instead.

“if you– if you could do it that would be nice. thanks,” you frown, then try to fix it with a strained smile. when dean is done, he hands the damp cloth to you, and you thank him again quietly.

“just holler if you need anything else,” he reminds you before walking out, leaving the door open by just a sliver.

you carefully wipe down the rest of your body, relishing in the heat of the water and the feeling of being just a little cleaner. you’re slow about it, letting yourself savor the alone time and telling yourself that you won’t worry about the events of the day until tomorrow. during the time that you clean yourself, you hear the outside door open and close twice more, and you assume sam’s come back and left again. by the time you’re done with the soapy water, it’s gone lukewarm, but you’re successfully feeling much more relaxed.

“dean!” you call out, hoping he’ll come and change the water for you so that you can get rid of any extra soap suds still lingering on your skin. there’s no reply for a long moment. “dean?” you call again. “can you help me again?”

without a word in response, you hear footsteps, then the creak of the bathroom door. instead of dean, you find sam poking his head into the room.

he clears his throat awkwardly. “dean left to get some more food. i can, uh– i can help.”

“oh, okay,” you smile at him a little, then feel sort of pathetic because of the hope that rises in your chest. you force your voice into nuetrality. “thanks, sam. i, uh, i just need to dump this out and get some new water. it’s just sort of heavy.”

“right, yeah. of course.” sam enters the room fully, filling up the small space with his tall, broad frame. when he gets close, you extend a hand, silently asking him to help you stand first, despite the fact that you could do it yourself with the help of the wall. but sam can’t very well deny you, so he obliges by grabbing your hand and placing the other around your bicep to hoist you up. his strong hands and arms pull you up easily, and help you back onto the tile floor. you feel the tickle of a rivulet of water run down your right leg, then a few more on your left. sam dutifully pulls the towel you were sitting on out and hands it to you before he dumps out the soapy water and turns on the faucet, checking the temperature before letting it splash into the bucket

you stand there in silence, watching him work, watching him keep his eyes averted from your almost naked form, watching him struggle with being so close to you.

“there,” he says simply when he’s done, grabbing the towel from you and placing it back on the bottom of the tub. once he’s eased you back down to sitting in the shower, he straightens and takes a step backwards towards the door. but he can’t just leave, not like that. “is there anything else you need?”

you think you’re allowed to be a little selfish sometimes, so you say yes. “uh, yeah. could you, uhm, could you just wipe down my back? i can’t tell if there’s still soap on it.” sam almost tells you that there isn’t and just walks away, but he caves to you and the look in your eyes.

he looks like he’s not sure if he wants to stiffen and close himself off and do it in silence, or soften and open himself up to being gentle with you. it seems he’s unable to treat you too coldly, no matter what sort of fear or silent commitments to staying clear of you he’s made.

“‘f course,” he agrees after a moment, getting down on his knees, pressed right up against the wall of the bathtub as he takes the wet rag from you and dips into the newly hot water. he keeps his eyes trained on the skin of your back, and you keep yours to the plain white surface of the tile wall in front of you. his hand is as gentle, warm, and encompassing as you know it to be. of course, he’s trying not to touch you directly, keeping most of his hand covered by up the cloth. but the motel rag isn’t a generous size, and his hands are, so the base of his palm or the pads of his fingertips keep brushing against your cool skin. he’s hot in comparison to you, as per usual.

the task doesn’t have to take long at all, but sam must be having trouble parting from you now that he’s back and so, so close. so, he takes the rag across the whole expanse of your back more than once, applying a gentle pressure that soothes and relaxes your still tense muscles. only once he’s heard a sigh of satisfaction leave your lips does he bring his hand away from you.

there’s a few more moments of quiet, only punctuated by the sounds of lightly sloshing water as he dips the rag back into the water, then squeezes it out so that it’s not too soaked for your next use. he hands it to you and asks, “anything else?” without getting up or even glancing at the door like he wants to escape. he lets himself look at your face for a moment, before tearing his gaze away once more.

you shake your head lightly. “that’s all. thanks.”

“mhmm,” he nods, “tell me if you need me.” that’s not how he meant to say things, but it’s how it came out anyways. and oh how you wish to tell him, i need you. he wants to hear you say it too, until he remembers himself and the fact that he’d cave if he did. and he can’t cave, not ever, not even if you told him that you need him. these days he feels like he needs you.

“okay.” you wait for him to leave before you put your attention back on yourself. when he closes the door behind himself, you heave out a deep sigh, then yawn, suddenly hit with a wave of bone-deep exhaustion. you make quick work of wiping off the rest of your body and brace yourself on the wall to stand. you’re not sure you can bear being stuck with sam in such close proximity again tonight, so you dress yourself with just a bit of trouble and leave the tub of water alone for one of the boys to take care of tomorrow.

when you leave the bathroom, dean’s still gone and sam’s laying on his bed. you almost tear up at the sight of him, tucked tightly into one half of the space and his back so purposefully facing your side of the bed. upset with this small cruelty, you climb into dean’s bed instead and fall asleep on your back before you can even change your bandages.

—

last night you caught sam reaching for your hand. he was motioning with the hand further from you, distracted as he complained about something dean said earlier. you glanced down for no particular reason and a movement caught your eye. his unoccupied hand had drifted closer to you, reaching out seemingly on instinct, as if walking next to you should mean holding hands with you. quickly, you looked away, and you never felt his hand even brush past yours. but you heard the rustle of his jacket as he moved, the pause in his words, and the shift in tone when he finally continued to speak. you don’t think he knows that you noticed.

and the day before that, he gave you this dazzling smile and didn’t even think twice about it. sometimes he’ll smile at you wide, and the pretty look on his face will be ripped away as if he’s had some horrible realization that smiling at you is somehow a sin. but this last time, the smile faded naturally, untouched by the overbearing hesitancy he seems to have kept clutched in his hands for the past few weeks since that night with the shapeshifter.

there’s this constant push and pull coming from him that you can’t quite wrap your head or heart around. many days, he’s distant and that’s it. all you get is talk of cases or how to stop the goddamn apolcalypse. other days he’s able to be decently normal; he’ll joke and chat a little and you’ll get a glimpse of your sam. and some days he just can’t stay away, like there’s this tug pulling him to you that’s too strong to resist. it calls his hand towards yours, his eyes all over your face, and his body to stand right by you. those days he can’t cover up any sort of longing gaze and he’s stuck staring right at you and missing you more than he ever imagined he’d have to.

you suppose you prefer the in between days, because they’re the closest to the sam that you’ve had by your side for so long. they’re closest to the sam that’s your best friend, the sam who didn’t know he loved you yet. those are the days you can most easily pretend that something isn’t wildly off about you and him, because dealing with unrequited love has sort of become your norm. and while the days he can’t hide that he feels more for you are a desirable confirmation that there’s some part of him that can’t resist you, they’re also a painful reminder that it’s not quite enough to keep him from distancing himself.

and lord, it just hurts so much when one of those sweet days turns sour. you’ll feel at ease, hopeful and glad for the day’s luck, when suddenly the good day has turned too good or one of you has laughed too sweet and loud because of the other. at that, sam will instantly pull away as if it’s dangerous to be happy together. you can see his eyes change from content because of you to tortured because of you and all you want to do is take him by the shoulders and shake him hard. then mostly likely kiss him hard too, if you can get him to come to his senses.

of course, there’s that never ending love. you really don’t think you could stop loving him if you tried with all of your might. but there’s certainly anger. each day that passes by, you become angrier and angrier with him, so frustrated with him and his stupid decisions. with too much time to think about him and his odd behavior, you feel nearly sure that he’s just plain old afraid. of losing you or hurting you or some other classic, stupid reason and frankly, it’s completely unromantic. it’s making you feel like you’re losing your mind.

so when sam takes today, a half-normal day where you don’t feel the weight of his hesitance bearing down on you, and he snatches that away with a simple, closed-off expression, you feel far too fed up to just let it go.

dean’s off at some bar and though his support in your argument might help—because you’re almost positive that dean is on your side and is getting nearly as frustrated as you—you need to confront sam alone first.

you let silence reign in the motel room until sam’s done showering and about to settle into doing a bit of extra research before heading to bed.

“sam,” you start, already cursing to yourself when he looks at you without any of his usual eagerness to hear you talk. you’re sure he can already tell that you’re displeased from the way you said his name. “we have to talk.” 

his jaw clenches and he glances down at the closed laptop in front of him. he contemplates how to answer for a moment. “i should really check for any signs of lucifer. we haven’t gotten anything new in weeks, we’re bound to catch wind of something soon.”

your anger flares, but you tamp it down in favor of keeping this conversation as civil as possible. an angry you plus an angry sam never ends well, and you’re determined to make yourself heard before either of you walk away in frustration.

“no, sam. don’t ignore me. i know that you checked during lunch today, so it can wait until tomorrow,” you counter.

“this is important, you know that.” his voice is so flat and emotionless and stubborn and so unlike him that it hurts.

“it is,” you agree, “but you already checked today, so i’m asking you not to make excuses and listen to me, sam. it’s not that hard.” you bite your tongue, almost wishing you hadn’t made that last biting comment because you know it’ll just antagonize him. but you also know that your anger is warranted.

you can see sam realizing he can’t get out of this conversation in the way that he purses his lips in frustration.

“i– y’know, i’ve really tried to give you time.” you don’t wait for him to really look at you to start. “we all need time sometimes, but it’s not fixing anything. you’re not… you’re not trying to fix anything, it feels like.”

he won’t even look at you when he talks. “what do you want me to fix?”

“the way you’re treating me!” you say, indignant and raising your voice a little, unable to hold back. “you– i don’t know, you’re acting so strange! like– like one second you’re normal. normal sam, my best friend sam. and then you act like you don’t want me around. like you’d rather be stuck in the car and motel rooms with anyone else in the world but me.” only once you start talking do you realize just how much you have to say. it’s not just stop acting this way, or let’s talk about it, it’s so much more. so much that you need him to hear and to understand.

your voice quiets again. “you know, once, you told me that i was a god-send. that, that you can put up with all this shit because we get to do it together. it’s always been you and me! of course, it’s always been you and dean, but sam! we’re best friends,” you say it more like a plea than a statement. “you used to say that. then it got to the point where it felt like we didn’t even have to say anything at all. we just were. it used to feel like you’d do anything for me, just like i’d do for you. i never even questioned that, not once until ruby came along. even then, i knew it wasn’t you. not an excuse, but i knew, once she was gone, you’d figure it out again. just like always. we always figure it out. so why, why for the love of god are you not even trying?” your own words hit you like a wall of bricks. when things happen, when things go wrong, or you don’t understand something, you’ve always figured it out together. what you’re supposed to do is voice your concerns to the other and usually without saying the words, ask for help. this time, sam won’t share the burden with you, won’t attempt to figure it out with you even when it so clearly involves you.

sam opens his mouth to speak, and at least he’s looking at you now, but you won’t let him say a word yet. he’ll shut you down, and you can’t have that.

“why do i suddenly feel so stuck? i feel like there’s nothing i can do, like you’re slipping away, right through my fingertips! and that’s just the strangest feeling when, for the longest time, i was convinced that you’d be the one constant in my life. i really, really thought that way, sam. and i get that i’m biased and blinded by my own feelings, i just never imagined that you’d do anything like this, pull away so suddenly and quickly and adamantly like it’s your life’s mission to put a bulletproof wall in between us. so, i guess at the very least, i’d like a bit of an explanation as to why you don’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

your question hangs in the air, heavier and more smothering than a water-soaked wool blanket. you suppose you could keep talking; you’re not anywhere near out of things to say, but you need him to respond. he’s the one letting the silence take over, not you. he takes a deep breath, like he’s known he’d have to explain eventually, but would never be the one to willingly bring it up.

he answers plainly, almost honest. “it’s safer this way. it’s dangerous for you to be close to me.” you want to scream because you were right. you would’ve loved to have been wrong, for him to have magically had some good reason for all this. but in the end, it has come down to the evils of the world pressing down on a good man and that good man caving to believe what the evils tell him he is. you want to scream because sam is wrong. being close to him feels like saving grace. 

he’s not cursed, he’s not the cause of all the pain and death that rains down on the people he loves. and what about him? what about all the pain and death that rains upon him? where does he get reprieve, an apology for being singled out and tossed through all of these horrors by unexplainable forces? why can’t he blame god? why can’t he see that it’s not his fault?

“that’s not true,” you beg, “and it’s not an excuse to treat me like shit.” he looks away, a physical manifestation of the fact that he doesn’t want to admit that you’re right about at least that.

“i’m not trying to… to hurt you.” sam face just falls. he looks devastated. he wasn’t trying to hurt you, in fact, he was trying to do just the opposite, but it happened anyway. “see?” he pleads, desperate for you to understand, “no matter what i do, being around me is hurting you. i can’t keep putting people through that.”

“so what? you’re gonna pretend to hate dean too?” you counter.

sam looks hurt. “i wasn’t pretending to hate you. i’d never even pretend to feel that way about you, i–” he stops himself before he can say the words and clears his throat, not trying to be subtle when he changes the subject. “dean’s different. he’s involved in all this shit too. he doesn’t have a choice but to be around me, but you? you could be safe somewhere else.”

“and you think i want that? you think i’d make the choice to leave you, just to be a little safer?” you want to keep going, but he interrupts you.

“no, that’s exactly it. you’d never leave us, and i know that. but if– if we stay at a distance, you might be safer.” he’s doing everything he can not to make it sound like he wants you to go. he just can’t explain that the issue is that he loves you, that he thinks the solution is to stop loving each other.

“that’s bullshit,” you shake your head. “sam, i know that you think you’re cursed or some shit like that, but it’s not true. none of this is your fault.”

“how? how is it not my fault? the people i love die because of me, and no other reason. how is that not my fault?” he argues, desperately believing himself.

“because you’re not the one who killed them! you didn’t make that choice. those things happened to you too, sam. how much grief and loss have you had to go through because of things you couldn’t control? it was never your fault, sam.”

“and yet, if they weren’t around me, they never would have died. it doesn’t matter what choices i made, it was the simple act of being close to me that’s gotten so many people killed. and i can’t lose you, too. i just can’t and it’s just too possible that it’ll be because of me. i can’t live with that. i can’t let you get hurt.” this is the most raw his voice has been in weeks, months maybe even. you can see just how completely, irrationally terrified he is that he’ll get you killed and you’re starting to think that he’s too far gone for you to reel back to reality, to hope and perseverance and closeness. but you can’t seem to give up, still full of things to say.

“that’s not how this works!” you refute. “this is my life, it’s your life, our life. and whether or not i’m around you or close to you, i’ll still get hurt! it’s not like i’m just going to quit hunting so you don’t have to worry. so sam, you could hurt me on purpose; pull away, refuse me when you have to know damn well how i feel about you. it’s not like i’ve ever really been that subtle, you were just never looking for it until now. or– or you could do your best and if i get hurt, it’s an accident, right?” you practically beg for him to agree, for him to see that treating you this way is so much worse than anything else that could happen to you because of him.

he curses under his breath. you’re getting so close to saying the sort of words that will make his resolve snap, one way or another. he says nothing and you’re still waiting for him to understand you. so, you hit him with something even more solid and irrevocable than your logic: your love.

“you can’t seriously think that i’m going to just let things go on like this, can you? is this really your plan? to pretend we don’t care about each other? to throw over a decade of friendship out the window because you think somehow it’ll keep me safe?” you make sure that he’s looking you straight in the eyes as you continue, voice thick with emotion, “sam, there’s nothing, nothing that could keep me from loving you. i’ve loved you since you were seventeen, at least. i was watching you study, realizing that you really were gonna go to college. damn, i was so happy for you and i was ready to do anything to help you get there. then i started thinking about how much i was gonna miss you. wondering if maybe i could get away too. if we could get away together. the next week my dad dragged me away on another hunt and i didn’t see you for a year. we saw each other nearly right before you left and i considered asking if i could run away with you. but i didn’t want you to have to drag any remnants of the life with you, and i was exactly that. i wouldn’t have been able to make it anyway.

“and you know, the saying that absence makes the heart go fonder, it’s not psychologically true. the more time you spend with someone, the more you get to love them. but i really felt like it was sort of true because i missed you so bad that it made me love you all the more. i tried to talk dean out of asking you to come back to look for your dad, but when i saw you again i gave up on that. i didn’t care that you had had jess or that you liked madison or sarah, and sure, ruby hurt a little more than them, but no matter what, i just liked being close to you. when i saw you again, i swore i couldn’t look away. and i was content loving you through looks and longing and letting you be. 

“but sam,” your voice cracks as you say his name and you try to swallow your tears, “this is just cruel. there’s not even anyone else, but you feel so much farther than you’ve ever been. you’d really refuse me after you dare to give me hope that you might actually love me back? i spend far too much time looking at you to miss the way you look at me. and i love listening to your voice so much that i could never miss the way your voice has changed when you talk to me as of late. you gave me hope for just a few weeks, and now you’re asking me to– to what?” you shake your head, not even sure what he’s trying to change or fix and how.

“you want me to let you go? and what, that’s it? do you want me to stick around but pretend i don’t love you? or– or do you want me to just stop loving you and you think that’ll somehow fix things? because that sure as hell isn’t possible,” you look at him so carefully, so deeply as you search for an answer in his eyes. “or do you just want me to go?”

you didn’t mean that question, but sam truly considers it. at first you desperately wish that you could take it back. you don’t want to go, you don’t think you can be apart from him like that.

but he goes and does the worst thing that he could and he tells you, “yes. you should go.” he can’t even look you in the eye when he says it and you know that you with certainty that you can’t stay. you can’t do that to yourself, to your pride, to your peace of mind. because with those four words he’s told you that he loves you, but not enough to try.

or too much, perhaps. he loves you too much to try, because it’s him who will really be worse off if something he does gets you killed. sure, you’d be dead, but sam… sam would be alive and stuck with far too much guilt and loneliness and loss and greif to deal with. but if you go, then sam can’t be responsible for you. he can’t curse you with his love that way, so sam may want you closer to him than he’s ever wanted anybody, but he wants even more for you to go.

you want to say something awful back. i hate you crosses your mind, but it’s so far from the truth that you couldn’t even say it out loud. if you did, it would still mean i love you.

you’re horrible, sam, is the next thing that falls into your mouth, but you clamp your jaw shut before those words can fall out. you don’t swallow though, you let the words sit on your tongue and you taste them and consider them. because in a way, they’re true. sam’s being horrible to you. but you’re naive, and, oh right, hopelessly in love with him, which means you want to spare him. it means that you don’t want to convince him further that he can never be good enough for you, because he is. he is when he isn’t being like this, and if he can figure it out, maybe he’ll beg on bended knee for you to come back, say he’ll do anything to make it up to you, tell you he still loves you so much and he can’t be apart from you if you’ll let him come close again.

but you’re so fucking angry at him. you’re almost blinded with love, but not quite because you already know that those hopes of yours are ridiculous moments after you think of them. he’s burned any possibility of you and him to the ground. you know this and you know that he knows it too. you hope it haunts him forever and you don’t care if that’s cruel.

“go ahead, sam,” you laugh humorlessly, bitterly. the sound makes him look up from the guilty hole he’s burning into the table top with his eyes. “add me to your list of ghosts before i’m even dead, and know, without a doubt, that this time it really was you who did it. you lit the match, sam. you pulled the trigger.” he looks at you, dumbfounded as if he finally understands what you’ve been trying to say this whole time but knows that he’s gone too far. once a trigger’s been pulled, it can’t be undone and he knows that. that knowledge is a sort of pain that rings in his ears and swirls violently in his stomach.

you grab your coat from the hanger on the wall beside you.

“wait,” he chokes out, tears shining in his eyes. you shoot him a harsh look and he shuts his mouth. he doesn’t get to say that word.

“i’ll call if i figure out how to stop the fucking apocalypse. otherwise, tell dean not to call, ‘cause i’m not coming back.” you grab your bag from the floor by the bed and walk past him to take all the cash from his wallet. you feel his eyes follow you until you reach the door.

hand on the door knob, you turn back to him and you stare him square in the eye to be sure he can see your tears, to show him he made you cry. you won’t tell him he’s horrible, so you’ll settle for a simple, “you’re wrong, sam. you’re wrong about this.”

then you walk out the door, cursing yourself for hating the sound of him crying more than anything in the world.

[prentissluvr]

my boy only breaks his favorite toys — sam winchester

pairing : sam winchester x gn!reader ➖⟢ genre : angst ➖⟢ cw : canon typical violence, injuries, knives, non-sexual partial nudity, guilty sam, rejection, talk of death/dying, sort of a case fic at first, mentions of stitches, lots of feelings, poorly edited & my first(?) attempt at a full angst fic lol (no happy ending!), set in season 5, so some spoilers! ➖⟢ wc : 10.6K ➖⟢ listen to : my boy only breaks his favorite toys by taylor swift. requested ! summary : you get injured and sam realizes he's more scared of getting you hurt than he is of anything else, even losing you and your love.

MOVED BLOGS TO @sammyluvr !! no longer active on this blog! all fics can be found there!

to be in love is the strangest experience. to be in love for a long time, for years on end with little to no reciprocation is even stranger.

somehow, you can watch him fall in love with someone else, kiss somebody new, romance another girl, and be blindsided by a fourth. jess you could never be mad at. she seemed too sweet and good for sam, for you to dislike. madison never did anything wrong either, but you did hate how much she unintentionally hurt him. sarah, too, was sweet and brave and helpful and she made him smile. that, of course, didn’t stop you from wanting to be that person instead, but you didn’t feel like you could complain.

ruby, you still feel rightfully angry with sometimes. for sam’s sake, you wanted her help to be real and true, but it felt clear to you from the beginning that not everything was right. now you’re dealing with the apocalypse and sam’s guilt that you alternate between wanting him to let go of and wanting him to feel it just a little bit longer.

besides, jess and madison are dead, so it’s unkind to be too jealous of them, and you’re sure that sam hasn’t spoken to sarah in years. and ruby’s dead too, so she doesn’t pose a threat any longer.

it’s all been so strange, because you’ve seen sam go through it all, kiss them all, love them all in some way or another, and you’re pretty sure all it’s done is make you love him more. at this point, you’re sure that you’ll never love anyone the way that you love sam. unceasingly, ardently, passionately, and for now, quietly.

but after the knowledge of the looming apocalypse has come the strangest part of it all. having loved sam since he was seventeen and secretly doing everything in his power to get away from this all, you know him and each of his mircroexpressions and tones of voice all too well. and these days, sam looks at you in ways that you’ve never noticed before. these days, sam looks at you like he’s trying to figure out if he’s in love with you.

it’s not as if you’d given up hope completely, because no one who’s as in love as you are ever will, but you’ve learned how to live with unrequited love. the pain can be stabbing and all-consuming sometimes, but it’s survivable so long as he doesn’t stop smiling at you or letting you rest in his lap or being the only one to call you a special nickname. even if you’re not the love of his life like he is yours, you’ll always mean something to him as his closest friend.

so now, it catches you off guard when sam looks at you as if he’s considering the possibility that you’re the one who hung the stars up in the sky or talks to you with this gentle joy that’s just somehow different from before. those moments are rare, but incredible to have when you consider the looming apocalypse that sam is blaming himself for. he’s battling the fact that he’s supposed to be the vessel to the devil himself, but he still finds the time to hold your pinky finger for a fleeting moment and not say a word about it. and now, sam does that thing where you say something and it makes him smile, and instead of casually holding your gaze like he used you, his gaze will falter and he’ll tilt his chin down and lick his lips as if he’s suddenly shy around you.

last night, dean was out and you and sam were researching for the case you’re working on. you ended up sitting side by side on your shared bed, trying to get comfy as the hours dragged on and the moon moved higher through the sky. completely unprompted, sam had lifted his arm up and around your shoulders, using his gentle hand to cup the side of your head and bring it to rest on his wide shoulder.

your heart soared and you did your best to keep researching, but the lull of his breathing and the clacking of the keyboard as he typed one handed sang you to sleep right then and there, tucked all cozy into his side.

you waking up in his arms certainly set the tone for today. this case is ugly and there was another victim last night, but sam has this sweet, touchy air about him. as you walk to the crime scene his hand lingers unprofessionally close to the small of your back, and from the tightness to his lips, you’re guessing that he’s holding back from saying something he knows will make you laugh.

you resist the urge to give him a secret smile, soft and loving because you’re selfish enough to try and get him to see that you want him like this. you want him to see that you already love him back, and all he has to do is let himself fall. but you don’t want to overwhelm him, so you go about assessing the crime scene and interviewing the witness like he’s your fbi partner and not the person you love most in this world.

the witness’s statement along with the security camera footage that dean saw at the police station confirms that you’re up against a shapeshifter. much like the first one the three of you hunted together in ‘05 it seems to be disguising itself as a loved one before killing its victims.

“this thing can shapeshift to look like literally anybody, but it can’t come up with something original?” dean jokes.

sam shrugs in his usual sam way. “well, it is an effective method,” sam reasons, despite knowing that dean’s just making fun. sam’s not even looking at dean; his eyes alternate from checking his computer screen where he scouts out city plumbing maps to find the best places in the sewer to look for the shifter, to letting his eyes roam over your features. you wonder if you’ll have to get used to sam staring at you as much as you do him. though, you can’t say that that’s a bad thing by any stretch. maybe he’ll finally notice the way that you look at him and maybe he’ll finally realize that it might be you who he’s been loving this whole time.

sam stands from his spot across from you, grabbing a map of the city from the bedside table. instead of returning to his original spot, he slots himself right next to you to lay the map out on the table. he runs a hand along the length of it, crossing your chest and brushing your nose with the fabric of his flannel before moving his hand back to rest right beside yours on the table top. he leans over the map and you tilt youu head to look up at him as he points out the most likely spots that the shifter could be hiding out at. you only pay half attention as he speaks, more able to take in the sight of his lips moving than the actual words that they’re forming. you’re not uncareful, you just know that sam will make sure you and dean remember the most important things when you get in the car.

—

“are you sure splitting up is a good idea?” sam stresses from the passenger seat of the impala.

“we know how to test for the shifter and we all can take care of ourselves,” dean says, repeating just about the same thing that he said before.

you lean forward in your seat. “we’ll be fine, sam. i agree, it’s not ideal, but there’s a lot of ground to cover and we can’t let the shifter get to anyone else,” you reason.

“i know,” he huffs, still unconvinced due to the possible dangers. but, there’s always danger, and if you’re siding with dean, he knows he doesn’t stand much of a chance of winning the argument anyway.

—

the sewers are dark, damp, and smell like shit. they grow even darker as the sun begins to set above ground and you’re grateful for the bright flashlight that you have on hand. you’ve been tramping through the dark and sewer waste for over an hour and heard nothing helpful from the boys.

you keep your silver knife at the ready, in case you run into anything or anyone. you all agreed that if you see each other, the very first order of business is to test yourself with your own knife to be sure. when you hear footsteps, you immediately press yourself against the wall, doing your best to stay hidden until you can see what’s heading your way. the second you see a person’s frame, you immediately recognize it as sam. he told you that you’d probably run into each other at some point, so you relax a touch. even so, you keep your knife in front of you as you step into the pathway.

“sam?” you call out, stopping a good length away from him.

“hey. yeah, it’s me,” he says, holding out his hand and knife to show you as he slices a thin line across his forearm. you sigh in relief, then quickly repeat the action to confirm to him that you’re you as well.

“you heard from dean?” you ask, closing the space between the two of you. sam meets you halfway, shaking his head.

“nothing,” he sighs, turning back where he came from.

“damn. an hour in the sewers and we’ve got jack,” you frown. “exactly how i like to spend my friday nights.”

“course it is, it’s the perfect date spot,” he jokes back, leading you left, down a new path you assume he skipped on his way over to you.

“mmm, does that mean we’re on a date, winchester?” you flirt. he takes the quip with composure as you step back into a main hallway, wide enough to walk side by side. he waits for you to be next to him before he continues. he didn’t even laugh a little awkwardly at your comment like he normally might. he must be in a flirty mood.

“if that’s what you want,” he flirts back, flashing you his gorgeous grin. the passage is still sort of tight, so his knuckles continually brush against the back of your hand, and the fabric of his jacket rustles against yours.

“being a flirt today, are we?” you tease, maybe pushing the limits a little.

“just for you,” he fires back, and that just about stuns you into silence. he’s in an awfully good mood for someone stuck hunting a killer in the sewers under an unfamiliar city. you nudge him playfully with your elbow, not even sure how to respond with words. so with that, you fall into a comfortable, familiar silence, the only sounds being the echo of your sloshing footsteps through the sewer.

out of boredom, sam teases you with his pinky finger, sticking it out and poking your hand with it. you push back gently, playing along. he escalates the game by poking your side. you giggle a little, swatting at his big hand. 

“stop that!” you whisper-shout. “what if the shapeshifter comes along and we’re too distracted because you’re tickling me?” his proximity, his flirting, and his goddamn smile are already distracting enough. 

“i wasn’t tickling you, just poking,” he teases, but doesn’t do it again since you’re right enough.

“yeah, you said that last week after you did that. it tickles, which means you’re tickling me,” you retort before letting the silence fall over you again.

you head down a narrow path, forcing sam to walk behind you. even then, you can feel his closeness. a minute later, you step out into a wider area where a grate lets in a stream of moonlight. sam comes out after you, stopping by your side. the moonlight casts a glow on his face and, like you always do, you can’t help but think about how pretty he looks, even after a long hour and counting of traipsing around in a sewer. continually, even in the more open space, he stays right by your side, close enough for your elbows to brush.

“think we should call dean?” he suggests, “regroup, maybe call it a night?”

you tilt your head to the side in acknowledgment. “tempting,” you respond, “i’m getting hungry. let’s at least call him, then go from there.” you step further into the space in fron of you, trying to escape the chilly draft coming from the narrow pathway you came in from. but the floor in here is slicker than you realize, and you slip embarrassingly hard, completely losing your footing and letting out a short gasp as you fall.

sam’s instincts are impeccable as always, and a strong arm wraps around your waist before you can fall too far. once you’re steady, sam doesn’t move to pull you all the way up and onto your own feet. he just keeps you dependant on his hold to stay off the slippery floor and brings his other hand to meet the one wrapped around your side. he looks down at you, half of his face illuminated by moonlight, the other half fallen into shadow. you stare right back up at him, flustered but too happy for any sort of such purposeful physical contact with him to care about that.

it feels like a movie with you in his arms like this, willingly stuck there by the both of you. then he leans down closer to you and your eyes widen. in the partial darkness, he looks at you like he’s no longer just wondering if he loves you, more like he knows it for sure. he looks at you with such unabashed love, so overwhelming in a way that you hadn’t expected from him for a long while, if ever. you think that for sure he’s going to kiss you, and you know even better that you’d let him without a second thought.

this certainly isn’t how you imagined it’d be at all. not this soon and not in the middle of a sewer system, surrounded by awful smells and an unpleasant humidity. you suppose that the moonlight filtering down is nice enough, and that you’d never expected anything grandiose or overly romantic with him anyway.

then you hear footsteps, and a split second later, your name being called in sam’s voice. only it wasn’t the sam holding you who said it, it was someone behind you. it only takes a millisecond for everything to click. this sam, the one holding you close, cut himself with a knife you recognized. that’s why you didn’t bat an eye, but you failed to remember that that particular knife of sam’s isn’t made of silver, just a weaker and ineffective metal alloy.

before you can process it, that exact knife is being plunged into your gut. you let out a strangled cry of pain.

sam, the real sam, shouts your name again and you think you hear his running footsteps until he stops dead in his tracks when the shifter yanks the knife from your stomach and puts it to your throat. you cry out again, choking a little on your own breath as you stretch your neck, trying to see your sam. 

but the shifter presses the knife down, drawing a line of blood on your neck and growls, “look at me. you’re going to watch your precious little sammy as he slices your throat.”

you can imagine sam putting his hands in the air, mouth open and ready to talk the shifter out of it when you hear two loud gunshots, and you’re dropped to the floor, too shaken up to break your own fall. your head hits the ground hard, and the next thing you can register is sam again. you get his voice and his hands, one sliding under your neck to cup the back of your head and the other pressing hard against your wound. he winces when you grunt in pain at that, but keeps his hand in place.

“hey, hey. stay with me. look at me, c’mon.” his words are followed by your name, said in a sweet and desperate sort of way. you’re still dazed, but your head begins to clear up a bit. above you, sam’s face is pinched in worry, so much more worry than you’d expect him to express because of something as easily fixed as a measly stab wound.

it’s not completely inconsequential and it’s bleeding a whole lot more than you’d like, but you’ve dealt with this sort of thing and worse before. sam will stitch you up and you’ll be as good as new in a few days. even better, cas might come around soon and he’ll fix it right up for you.

“‘m fine, sam,” you grumble as dean drops down by your other side.

“shifter’s dead. we should go,” he says, more to sam than you since he’s clearly the most worried out of you all. dean places his hands on your arm, ready to help you up, but sam just pulls you into his arms and up against his chest. he stands and you wince from the pain of the movement, but relax a little seconds later. you expected to limp out of this nasty place, one arm slung around each of the boys as they do the heavy lifting but keep you on your feet. it seems sam won’t risk even that; he needs you closer, more protected, and in less pain.

dean leads the way to an exit, climbing up the ladder first and opening the heavy grate. only when you urge him to does sam let you down. he knows that he can’t carry you up, but he sure would have liked to. instead, he has to settle for lifting you as best as he can, his strong hands never straying from you until they’re on your ankles and dean’s got you, pulling you up the rest of the way and letting you lean on him until sam reappears.

the fresh air is amazing to breathe in and to feel on your skin, but what you’d most like is to be laying in bed after a long, hot shower. and to not be in quite as much pain. you sigh into dean’s jacket, and just a second later he’s shifting you back into sam’s waiting arms. he doesn’t sweep you up this time, but he keeps you steady while dean jogs off to get the impala and bring it to you. with strong hands, sam eases you to the curb on the side of the road and wraps his arms around you, keeping a wide palm pressed against your wound to staunch the bleeding.

as you wait, sam is silent, and not in the soft and comfortable way he often is around you. you’re sure that he’s got a million things to say, not all of them 100% fair to you and all of them completely worried.

and there’s just so much to say that he can’t choose, and he thinks that, for your sake, he should hold back. sam knows he can get a little too angry sometimes, and you’re bleeding badly with your face smushed unattractively against his shoulder and he knows that this isn’t the time. he shouldn’t yet interrogate you about what happened or tell you aloud that he’s overly worried about you because suddenly he’s feeling things for you that he didn’t realize he was feeling before.

you let him brood in silence, and though this is just about the closest physically that you’ve been with him today, he feels sort of distant and unreachable. it pains you.

when dean arrives, sam loads you into the car, piling into the back seat after you to give you a shoulder to lean on. you can feel dean’s eyes on you as he glances back through the rearview mirror, and you’re sure that he too wants to ask what happened, how the shifter managed to trick you despite the rules you’d set.

“dean, we should head to the hospital,” sam says, his voice cutting into the tense silence of the car. you shake your head weakly.

“no, sam. i’m fine, seriously.”

“no,” he counters, “you’re bleeding a lot. we’re going to the hospital to get you some real stitches.

“your stitches work just fine,” you argue, your words half lost in the fabric of his coat.

“and what if you need more than just stitches? we can’t risk that,” he presses, and you know he’s not going to give up.

“sammy’s right,” dean piles on, and you sigh, then wince in pain. you don’t even grumble out an annoyed, “fine,” and instead just like the silence take over again as a begrudging relentment.

When all the doctors do is give you a few stitches and an iv and let you out just an hour later, you resist the urge to say “i told you so.” but really, you’re glad for the professional help, knowing that, though you still feel like shit, you’re far better off than you would’ve been if you’d gone straight back to the motel. the car ride is quiet, but you know that you’re due for a bit of an interrogation when you get back.

tonight, dean starts it, because sam is practically brooding in the corner.

“so, you gonna let us in on what the hell you were thinking back there?” he asks, sounding ready to just about throw his hands up in the air. “did you really not follow the single rule we set? it almost got you killed.”

“i know, and i did,” you sigh, “but it tricked me. it had one of sam’s knives and it cut itself and i wasn’t paying enough attention to realize it wasn’t one of sam’s silver knives. it was a damn good actor too,” you explain. dean clenches his jaw, probably looking for some other point to make. these winchesters never know when to stop arguing. “we’ve all been tricked by shifters before. it happens, i messed up, you saved my ass. that’s all.”

you guess dean’s not in as much of a fighting mood as you thought, because he just shrugs. “you’re damn right about the ass saving part.”

you crack a wry smile, “guess it’s my turn to save your ass then.”

“only thing i need saving from now is that sewer stench. so i will call first dibs on the shower.” he leaves no room for argument on that front as he disappears into the bathroom. only then do you glance at sam, wondering if he’ll say something. his expression has got so many emotions swirling around that it’s almost unreadable. but you’re you, and you know him and love him in a way that nobody else does, so you can decipher it all pretty well. there’s anger, like always, probably targeted at the shifter and a bit misplaced in you for getting yourself hurt. then there’s guilt, because, in classic sam fashion, he likely thinks that it’s his fault.

you’d put the pieces together a bit ago in the hospital. the red marks above sam’s eyebrow and around his wrists and the shifter having sam’s knife and appearance tells you that the shifter got the jump on sam. it probably hit him over the head, tied him up, and stole his knife after stealing his appearance and accessing his memories. and though you can know that it’s clearly not sam’s fault the shifter got to you, he’ll still think so.

he’s thinking that because the shifter got the drop on him, you got hurt. he’s thinking about how trusting you were because it looked like him, about the position he found you in, and though he couldn’t see it, he knows the look you were giving his lookalike. he’s sure that it was that syrup-sweet, honey-dripping-from-your-eyes look that he’s been all too aware of and all too fond of these days. and because of that, it must be his fault.

on top of that, he feels like he was the one to do it. you got hurt by something with his face. you were almost killed and the last thing you would have seen would have been a cold, dark smirk on his face as he killed you. that thought pained him more than anything he could express.

you, of course, don’t yet understand the full depth of his guilt, but it bothers you anyways. you wish that sam could stop blaming himself for everything bad that’s ever happened when all he’s ever done is try to be good. while in the midst of wondering if you should speak first, interrupt his self-destructive thoughts and tell him it’s not his fault, he beats you to it.

“you should’ve been more careful.” his voice is unexpectedly hard and cold, devoid of his usual guilt and gentleness. tonight, he’s more focused on his anger. and of course, you know it’s because of that guilt that he lashes out, but it hurts nonetheless. even so, you want to soften him and get him to open up, so you apply the opposite tactic as him.

when you speak, you let your voice be full of emotion, of sincerity and gentleness and understanding. “i know, sam. i’ll pay more attention next time, i promise. but i’m okay.”

this catches him off guard a bit. normally, when he targets misplaced anger at you, you fire back and tell him how stupid it is that he’s trying to blame you. he already knows it’s stupid, and your soft eyes make him even more guilty. it’s not as if he’s being just as silly this time, but your approach works, a little.

sam does soften a bit; you can see the slight change in the way that he holds his shoulders, but it’s not enough to get him to admit that he’s just worried and blaming himself. all you get is pursed lips and a tight brow. he just can’t get over the image of himself plunging a knife into you, can’t get over your cry of pain or the feel of your hot and sticky blood seeping through the cracks of his fingers.

sam’s realizing that, for all the countless times you’ve come close to death, this is the first time since he’s started to think that he’s most likely in love with you. and that, more than anything else in the world, not the literal devil or the apocalypse or whatever, is the scariest thing that sam’s had to realize and endure in a long time.

now, sam can’t run from being lucifer’s vessel. even if he never gives in, he has to confront it and fix it somehow. he certainly can’t run from the apocalypse, or the world will end. he can’t have that, not when the world is you. it’s his responsibility. sam can’t run from those things, but he sure as hell can run from the way he feels about you. and he’d do that because he can’t afford to be in love with you. you can’t afford for him to be in love with you or for you to be in love with him because it seems like that’s already gotten you stabbed by a hand that looks just like his own. and all that’s happened between the two of you is playful flirting, sidelong glances, and shared smiles, so he can’t imagine what might happen if things go an inch further than they already have.

he got jess killed, he hurt you bad with ruby, and though sarah’s still alive as far as he knows, he attributes that to the fact that she’s far, far away from him. not to mention the people he loved like family who are dead because of him too. that’s another horrifying thought because even if sam didn’t love you the way that he does, he’d surely still love you some other way.

so, sam’s going to run, sam’s not going to let you any closer, sam is going to keep you at an arm’s length. he’ll stop looking at you like he wants you, he’ll stop hovering so near, he’ll quit his goal of making you smile or laugh at least three times a day, and he’ll do everything he can to make sure you don’t love him too much. he can’t let you tell him you love him, he can’t let you confess because he’ll be too far gone if he hears that come out of your mouth. he’s gonna run because he’s decided with horror and glory all at once that yes, he does love you, and that’s the worst thing he could do to you other than slit your throat with his own two shaking hands.

from where you sit, just feet apart, you can see sam grow more and more distant by the second. you can’t figure out what’s going through his head, but you’re sure you wouldn’t like it if you heard him say it aloud. you open your mouth to say something to him, get him to say something back, but you can’t find the words. anything you come up with gets stuck in the back of your throat before you can even make a sound.

sam looks at you, just for a fleeting moment that’s too fast and slippery for you to grab hold of it. his eyes hold regret, like he’s done something that he can’t take back, and he doesn’t like what he’ll have to do next in order to keep the consequences at bay.

then his eyes are gone from yours, along with that strange look, and you’re suddenly at a loss of how to reach out to him. it hurts because you know that what it will really take is time and patience, maybe more than he deserves.

you barely notice the time passing, but you watch sam take dean’s place in the bathroom and you can feel dean’s eyes on your back. you’re sure he can feel the shift in the air. when sam returns from the shower, you realize just how badly you want to get clean. you walk to the bathroom and feel a little lucky when you find a small plastic tub to fill with soapy water. you can’t take a real shower for the sake of keeping your stitches dry, but you’ll be damned if you can’t get that sewer stench off of yourself. when you bend to place the tub at the bottom of the bathtub, you grunt audibly in pain due to the movement. you sort of expect sam to come running to help like he always does, already surprised that he didn’t offer from the start when you told the boys you were going to wash up.

apparently, dean had expected the same; while he’s more than happy to be the one to help you, sam almost always beats him to that sort of thing before he can even try. you glance through the open door and see dean looking from you to sam, back to you before he stands from his bed in a rush.

“hey, hey, whatcha doin’ all that by yourself for? can’t have you busting any stitches, we paid for those,” he jokes, already in the bathroom with you by the time he’s finishes talking.

“pfft, yeah with stolen credit cards,” you retort, without actually resisting his aid. he takes your place by the faucet, nudging the bucket under it and turning on the hot water. you’re lucky that the shower doubles as a small bath, meaning you can easily sit in it alongside the bucket and just wipe yourself down without getting the floor wet.

you sit on the closed toilet seat as dean fills up the bucket, adds some soap, and mixes it around a little.

“want me to help you in?” he offers.

“mm, are you trying to see me naked?” you poke fun.

“and if i said yes?” he jokes back.

“then you’d never see the light of day again,” you threaten, already moving to slide off your jeans, with a bit of a struggle. dean’s strong hand immediately finds your elbow, holding you steady. you’re not worried about either brother seeing you in just your underwear. with the life you live, stuck in motels, or getting hurt in less than ideal spots, they’ve seen you that way plenty. and while dean can’t hold back from a lewd comment or two, he completely respects you and views you like another sibling. he helps you with your shirt too, as lifting your arms up proves even more painful than you’d thought.

dean kindly sets a folded towel down on the bottom of the shower bed for you to sit more comfortably, then helps you ease in. then he’s grabbing two clean wash rags, dunking one in the water and handing the other to you.

“try and keep those stitches as dry as you can,” he instructs, and you oblige by placing the dry rag over your covered wound. “we’ll change the bandages when you’re done.”

“mhmm,” you nod, “thank you, dean.”

“‘course, kid. you want me to get your back? or i can send sammy in to help instead,” he offers, saying that last part loud enough for sam to hear. you glance out the open bathroom door only to catch sight of sam’s back as he heads for the outside door. he moves out of your line of sight, but you can hear the door being open and shut behind him. you sigh in disappointment and a bit of hurt. dean curses lightly under his breath and you suddenly feel awkward and ashamed for no practical reason. but dean knows that sam isn’t being as good to you as he should, so he’s being extra nice instead.

“if you– if you could do it that would be nice. thanks,” you frown, then try to fix it with a strained smile. when dean is done, he hands the damp cloth to you, and you thank him again quietly.

“just holler if you need anything else,” he reminds you before walking out, leaving the door open by just a sliver.

you carefully wipe down the rest of your body, relishing in the heat of the water and the feeling of being just a little cleaner. you’re slow about it, letting yourself savor the alone time and telling yourself that you won’t worry about the events of the day until tomorrow. during the time that you clean yourself, you hear the outside door open and close twice more, and you assume sam’s come back and left again. by the time you’re done with the soapy water, it’s gone lukewarm, but you’re successfully feeling much more relaxed.

“dean!” you call out, hoping he’ll come and change the water for you so that you can get rid of any extra soap suds still lingering on your skin. there’s no reply for a long moment. “dean?” you call again. “can you help me again?”

without a word in response, you hear footsteps, then the creak of the bathroom door. instead of dean, you find sam poking his head into the room.

he clears his throat awkwardly. “dean left to get some more food. i can, uh– i can help.”

“oh, okay,” you smile at him a little, then feel sort of pathetic because of the hope that rises in your chest. you force your voice into nuetrality. “thanks, sam. i, uh, i just need to dump this out and get some new water. it’s just sort of heavy.”

“right, yeah. of course.” sam enters the room fully, filling up the small space with his tall, broad frame. when he gets close, you extend a hand, silently asking him to help you stand first, despite the fact that you could do it yourself with the help of the wall. but sam can’t very well deny you, so he obliges by grabbing your hand and placing the other around your bicep to hoist you up. his strong hands and arms pull you up easily, and help you back onto the tile floor. you feel the tickle of a rivulet of water run down your right leg, then a few more on your left. sam dutifully pulls the towel you were sitting on out and hands it to you before he dumps out the soapy water and turns on the faucet, checking the temperature before letting it splash into the bucket

you stand there in silence, watching him work, watching him keep his eyes averted from your almost naked form, watching him struggle with being so close to you.

“there,” he says simply when he’s done, grabbing the towel from you and placing it back on the bottom of the tub. once he’s eased you back down to sitting in the shower, he straightens and takes a step backwards towards the door. but he can’t just leave, not like that. “is there anything else you need?”

you think you’re allowed to be a little selfish sometimes, so you say yes. “uh, yeah. could you, uhm, could you just wipe down my back? i can’t tell if there’s still soap on it.” sam almost tells you that there isn’t and just walks away, but he caves to you and the look in your eyes.

he looks like he’s not sure if he wants to stiffen and close himself off and do it in silence, or soften and open himself up to being gentle with you. it seems he’s unable to treat you too coldly, no matter what sort of fear or silent commitments to staying clear of you he’s made.

“‘f course,” he agrees after a moment, getting down on his knees, pressed right up against the wall of the bathtub as he takes the wet rag from you and dips into the newly hot water. he keeps his eyes trained on the skin of your back, and you keep yours to the plain white surface of the tile wall in front of you. his hand is as gentle, warm, and encompassing as you know it to be. of course, he’s trying not to touch you directly, keeping most of his hand covered by up the cloth. but the motel rag isn’t a generous size, and his hands are, so the base of his palm or the pads of his fingertips keep brushing against your cool skin. he’s hot in comparison to you, as per usual.

the task doesn’t have to take long at all, but sam must be having trouble parting from you now that he’s back and so, so close. so, he takes the rag across the whole expanse of your back more than once, applying a gentle pressure that soothes and relaxes your still tense muscles. only once he’s heard a sigh of satisfaction leave your lips does he bring his hand away from you.

there’s a few more moments of quiet, only punctuated by the sounds of lightly sloshing water as he dips the rag back into the water, then squeezes it out so that it’s not too soaked for your next use. he hands it to you and asks, “anything else?” without getting up or even glancing at the door like he wants to escape. he lets himself look at your face for a moment, before tearing his gaze away once more.

you shake your head lightly. “that’s all. thanks.”

“mhmm,” he nods, “tell me if you need me.” that’s not how he meant to say things, but it’s how it came out anyways. and oh how you wish to tell him, i need you. he wants to hear you say it too, until he remembers himself and the fact that he’d cave if he did. and he can’t cave, not ever, not even if you told him that you need him. these days he feels like he needs you.

“okay.” you wait for him to leave before you put your attention back on yourself. when he closes the door behind himself, you heave out a deep sigh, then yawn, suddenly hit with a wave of bone-deep exhaustion. you make quick work of wiping off the rest of your body and brace yourself on the wall to stand. you’re not sure you can bear being stuck with sam in such close proximity again tonight, so you dress yourself with just a bit of trouble and leave the tub of water alone for one of the boys to take care of tomorrow.

when you leave the bathroom, dean’s still gone and sam’s laying on his bed. you almost tear up at the sight of him, tucked tightly into one half of the space and his back so purposefully facing your side of the bed. upset with this small cruelty, you climb into dean’s bed instead and fall asleep on your back before you can even change your bandages.

—

last night you caught sam reaching for your hand. he was motioning with the hand further from you, distracted as he complained about something dean said earlier. you glanced down for no particular reason and a movement caught your eye. his unoccupied hand had drifted closer to you, reaching out seemingly on instinct, as if walking next to you should mean holding hands with you. quickly, you looked away, and you never felt his hand even brush past yours. but you heard the rustle of his jacket as he moved, the pause in his words, and the shift in tone when he finally continued to speak. you don’t think he knows that you noticed.

and the day before that, he gave you this dazzling smile and didn’t even think twice about it. sometimes he’ll smile at you wide, and the pretty look on his face will be ripped away as if he’s had some horrible realization that smiling at you is somehow a sin. but this last time, the smile faded naturally, untouched by the overbearing hesitancy he seems to have kept clutched in his hands for the past few weeks since that night with the shapeshifter.

there’s this constant push and pull coming from him that you can’t quite wrap your head or heart around. many days, he’s distant and that’s it. all you get is talk of cases or how to stop the goddamn apolcalypse. other days he’s able to be decently normal; he’ll joke and chat a little and you’ll get a glimpse of your sam. and some days he just can’t stay away, like there’s this tug pulling him to you that’s too strong to resist. it calls his hand towards yours, his eyes all over your face, and his body to stand right by you. those days he can’t cover up any sort of longing gaze and he’s stuck staring right at you and missing you more than he ever imagined he’d have to.

you suppose you prefer the in between days, because they’re the closest to the sam that you’ve had by your side for so long. they’re closest to the sam that’s your best friend, the sam who didn’t know he loved you yet. those are the days you can most easily pretend that something isn’t wildly off about you and him, because dealing with unrequited love has sort of become your norm. and while the days he can’t hide that he feels more for you are a desirable confirmation that there’s some part of him that can’t resist you, they’re also a painful reminder that it’s not quite enough to keep him from distancing himself.

and lord, it just hurts so much when one of those sweet days turns sour. you’ll feel at ease, hopeful and glad for the day's luck, when suddenly the good day has turned too good or one of you has laughed too sweet and loud because of the other. at that, sam will instantly pull away as if it’s dangerous to be happy together. you can see his eyes change from content because of you to tortured because of you and all you want to do is take him by the shoulders and shake him hard. then mostly likely kiss him hard too, if you can get him to come to his senses.

of course, there’s that never ending love. you really don’t think you could stop loving him if you tried with all of your might. but there’s certainly anger. each day that passes by, you become angrier and angrier with him, so frustrated with him and his stupid decisions. with too much time to think about him and his odd behavior, you feel nearly sure that he’s just plain old afraid. of losing you or hurting you or some other classic, stupid reason and frankly, it’s completely unromantic. it’s making you feel like you’re losing your mind.

so when sam takes today, a half-normal day where you don’t feel the weight of his hesitance bearing down on you, and he snatches that away with a simple, closed-off expression, you feel far too fed up to just let it go.

dean’s off at some bar and though his support in your argument might help—because you’re almost positive that dean is on your side and is getting nearly as frustrated as you—you need to confront sam alone first.

you let silence reign in the motel room until sam’s done showering and about to settle into doing a bit of extra research before heading to bed.

“sam,” you start, already cursing to yourself when he looks at you without any of his usual eagerness to hear you talk. you’re sure he can already tell that you’re displeased from the way you said his name. “we have to talk.” 

his jaw clenches and he glances down at the closed laptop in front of him. he contemplates how to answer for a moment. “i should really check for any signs of lucifer. we haven’t gotten anything new in weeks, we’re bound to catch wind of something soon.”

your anger flares, but you tamp it down in favor of keeping this conversation as civil as possible. an angry you plus an angry sam never ends well, and you’re determined to make yourself heard before either of you walk away in frustration.

“no, sam. don’t ignore me. i know that you checked during lunch today, so it can wait until tomorrow,” you counter.

“this is important, you know that.” his voice is so flat and emotionless and stubborn and so unlike him that it hurts.

“it is,” you agree, “but you already checked today, so i’m asking you not to make excuses and listen to me, sam. it’s not that hard.” you bite your tongue, almost wishing you hadn’t made that last biting comment because you know it’ll just antagonize him. but you also know that your anger is warranted.

you can see sam realizing he can’t get out of this conversation in the way that he purses his lips in frustration.

“i– y’know, i’ve really tried to give you time.” you don’t wait for him to really look at you to start. “we all need time sometimes, but it’s not fixing anything. you’re not… you’re not trying to fix anything, it feels like.”

he won’t even look at you when he talks. “what do you want me to fix?”

“the way you’re treating me!” you say, indignant and raising your voice a little, unable to hold back. “you– i don’t know, you’re acting so strange! like– like one second you’re normal. normal sam, my best friend sam. and then you act like you don’t want me around. like you’d rather be stuck in the car and motel rooms with anyone else in the world but me.” only once you start talking do you realize just how much you have to say. it’s not just stop acting this way, or let’s talk about it, it’s so much more. so much that you need him to hear and to understand.

your voice quiets again. “you know, once, you told me that i was a god-send. that, that you can put up with all this shit because we get to do it together. it’s always been you and me! of course, it’s always been you and dean, but sam! we’re best friends,” you say it more like a plea than a statement. “you used to say that. then it got to the point where it felt like we didn’t even have to say anything at all. we just were. it used to feel like you’d do anything for me, just like i’d do for you. i never even questioned that, not once until ruby came along. even then, i knew it wasn’t you. not an excuse, but i knew, once she was gone, you’d figure it out again. just like always. we always figure it out. so why, why for the love of god are you not even trying?” your own words hit you like a wall of bricks. when things happen, when things go wrong, or you don’t understand something, you’ve always figured it out together. what you’re supposed to do is voice your concerns to the other and usually without saying the words, ask for help. this time, sam won’t share the burden with you, won’t attempt to figure it out with you even when it so clearly involves you.

sam opens his mouth to speak, and at least he’s looking at you now, but you won’t let him say a word yet. he’ll shut you down, and you can’t have that.

“why do i suddenly feel so stuck? i feel like there’s nothing i can do, like you’re slipping away, right through my fingertips! and that’s just the strangest feeling when, for the longest time, i was convinced that you’d be the one constant in my life. i really, really thought that way, sam. and i get that i’m biased and blinded by my own feelings, i just never imagined that you’d do anything like this, pull away so suddenly and quickly and adamantly like it’s your life’s mission to put a bulletproof wall in between us. so, i guess at the very least, i’d like a bit of an explanation as to why you don’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

your question hangs in the air, heavier and more smothering than a water-soaked wool blanket. you suppose you could keep talking; you’re not anywhere near out of things to say, but you need him to respond. he’s the one letting the silence take over, not you. he takes a deep breath, like he’s known he’d have to explain eventually, but would never be the one to willingly bring it up.

he answers plainly, almost honest. “it’s safer this way. it’s dangerous for you to be close to me.” you want to scream because you were right. you would’ve loved to have been wrong, for him to have magically had some good reason for all this. but in the end, it has come down to the evils of the world pressing down on a good man and that good man caving to believe what the evils tell him he is. you want to scream because sam is wrong. being close to him feels like saving grace. 

he’s not cursed, he’s not the cause of all the pain and death that rains down on the people he loves. and what about him? what about all the pain and death that rains upon him? where does he get reprieve, an apology for being singled out and tossed through all of these horrors by unexplainable forces? why can’t he blame god? why can’t he see that it’s not his fault?

“that’s not true,” you beg, “and it’s not an excuse to treat me like shit.” he looks away, a physical manifestation of the fact that he doesn’t want to admit that you’re right about at least that.

“i’m not trying to… to hurt you.” sam face just falls. he looks devastated. he wasn’t trying to hurt you, in fact, he was trying to do just the opposite, but it happened anyway. “see?” he pleads, desperate for you to understand, “no matter what i do, being around me is hurting you. i can’t keep putting people through that.”

“so what? you’re gonna pretend to hate dean too?” you counter.

sam looks hurt. “i wasn’t pretending to hate you. i’d never even pretend to feel that way about you, i–” he stops himself before he can say the words and clears his throat, not trying to be subtle when he changes the subject. “dean’s different. he’s involved in all this shit too. he doesn’t have a choice but to be around me, but you? you could be safe somewhere else.”

“and you think i want that? you think i’d make the choice to leave you, just to be a little safer?” you want to keep going, but he interrupts you.

“no, that’s exactly it. you’d never leave us, and i know that. but if– if we stay at a distance, you might be safer.” he’s doing everything he can not to make it sound like he wants you to go. he just can’t explain that the issue is that he loves you, that he thinks the solution is to stop loving each other.

“that’s bullshit,” you shake your head. “sam, i know that you think you’re cursed or some shit like that, but it’s not true. none of this is your fault.”

“how? how is it not my fault? the people i love die because of me, and no other reason. how is that not my fault?” he argues, desperately believing himself.

“because you’re not the one who killed them! you didn’t make that choice. those things happened to you too, sam. how much grief and loss have you had to go through because of things you couldn’t control? it was never your fault, sam.”

“and yet, if they weren’t around me, they never would have died. it doesn’t matter what choices i made, it was the simple act of being close to me that’s gotten so many people killed. and i can’t lose you, too. i just can’t and it’s just too possible that it’ll be because of me. i can’t live with that. i can’t let you get hurt.” this is the most raw his voice has been in weeks, months maybe even. you can see just how completely, irrationally terrified he is that he’ll get you killed and you’re starting to think that he’s too far gone for you to reel back to reality, to hope and perseverance and closeness. but you can’t seem to give up, still full of things to say.

“that’s not how this works!” you refute. “this is my life, it’s your life, our life. and whether or not i’m around you or close to you, i’ll still get hurt! it’s not like i’m just going to quit hunting so you don’t have to worry. so sam, you could hurt me on purpose; pull away, refuse me when you have to know damn well how i feel about you. it’s not like i’ve ever really been that subtle, you were just never looking for it until now. or– or you could do your best and if i get hurt, it's an accident, right?” you practically beg for him to agree, for him to see that treating you this way is so much worse than anything else that could happen to you because of him.

he curses under his breath. you’re getting so close to saying the sort of words that will make his resolve snap, one way or another. he says nothing and you’re still waiting for him to understand you. so, you hit him with something even more solid and irrevocable than your logic: your love.

“you can’t seriously think that i’m going to just let things go on like this, can you? is this really your plan? to pretend we don’t care about each other? to throw over a decade of friendship out the window because you think somehow it’ll keep me safe?” you make sure that he’s looking you straight in the eyes as you continue, voice thick with emotion, “sam, there’s nothing, nothing that could keep me from loving you. i’ve loved you since you were seventeen, at least. i was watching you study, realizing that you really were gonna go to college. damn, i was so happy for you and i was ready to do anything to help you get there. then i started thinking about how much i was gonna miss you. wondering if maybe i could get away too. if we could get away together. the next week my dad dragged me away on another hunt and i didn’t see you for a year. we saw each other nearly right before you left and i considered asking if i could run away with you. but i didn’t want you to have to drag any remnants of the life with you, and i was exactly that. i wouldn’t have been able to make it anyway.

“and you know, the saying that absence makes the heart go fonder, it’s not psychologically true. the more time you spend with someone, the more you get to love them. but i really felt like it was sort of true because i missed you so bad that it made me love you all the more. i tried to talk dean out of asking you to come back to look for your dad, but when i saw you again i gave up on that. i didn’t care that you had had jess or that you liked madison or sarah, and sure, ruby hurt a little more than them, but no matter what, i just liked being close to you. when i saw you again, i swore i couldn’t look away. and i was content loving you through looks and longing and letting you be. 

“but sam,” your voice cracks as you say his name and you try to swallow your tears, “this is just cruel. there’s not even anyone else, but you feel so much farther than you’ve ever been. you’d really refuse me after you dare to give me hope that you might actually love me back? i spend far too much time looking at you to miss the way you look at me. and i love listening to your voice so much that i could never miss the way your voice has changed when you talk to me as of late. you gave me hope for just a few weeks, and now you’re asking me to– to what?” you shake your head, not even sure what he’s trying to change or fix and how.

“you want me to let you go? and what, that’s it? do you want me to stick around but pretend i don’t love you? or– or do you want me to just stop loving you and you think that’ll somehow fix things? because that sure as hell isn’t possible,” you look at him so carefully, so deeply as you search for an answer in his eyes. “or do you just want me to go?”

you didn’t mean that question, but sam truly considers it. at first you desperately wish that you could take it back. you don’t want to go, you don’t think you can be apart from him like that.

but he goes and does the worst thing that he could and he tells you, “yes. you should go.” he can’t even look you in the eye when he says it and you know that you with certainty that you can’t stay. you can’t do that to yourself, to your pride, to your peace of mind. because with those four words he’s told you that he loves you, but not enough to try.

or too much, perhaps. he loves you too much to try, because it’s him who will really be worse off if something he does gets you killed. sure, you’d be dead, but sam… sam would be alive and stuck with far too much guilt and loneliness and loss and greif to deal with. but if you go, then sam can’t be responsible for you. he can’t curse you with his love that way, so sam may want you closer to him than he’s ever wanted anybody, but he wants even more for you to go.

you want to say something awful back. i hate you crosses your mind, but it’s so far from the truth that you couldn’t even say it out loud. if you did, it would still mean i love you.

you’re horrible, sam, is the next thing that falls into your mouth, but you clamp your jaw shut before those words can fall out. you don’t swallow though, you let the words sit on your tongue and you taste them and consider them. because in a way, they’re true. sam’s being horrible to you. but you’re naive, and, oh right, hopelessly in love with him, which means you want to spare him. it means that you don’t want to convince him further that he can never be good enough for you, because he is. he is when he isn’t being like this, and if he can figure it out, maybe he’ll beg on bended knee for you to come back, say he’ll do anything to make it up to you, tell you he still loves you so much and he can’t be apart from you if you’ll let him come close again.

but you’re so fucking angry at him. you’re almost blinded with love, but not quite because you already know that those hopes of yours are ridiculous moments after you think of them. he’s burned any possibility of you and him to the ground. you know this and you know that he knows it too. you hope it haunts him forever and you don’t care if that’s cruel.

“go ahead, sam,” you laugh humorlessly, bitterly. the sound makes him look up from the guilty hole he’s burning into the table top with his eyes. “add me to your list of ghosts before i’m even dead, and know, without a doubt, that this time it really was you who did it. you lit the match, sam. you pulled the trigger.” he looks at you, dumbfounded as if he finally understands what you’ve been trying to say this whole time but knows that he’s gone too far. once a trigger’s been pulled, it can’t be undone and he knows that. that knowledge is a sort of pain that rings in his ears and swirls violently in his stomach.

you grab your coat from the hanger on the wall beside you.

“wait,” he chokes out, tears shining in his eyes. you shoot him a harsh look and he shuts his mouth. he doesn’t get to say that word.

“i’ll call if i figure out how to stop the fucking apocalypse. otherwise, tell dean not to call, ‘cause i’m not coming back.” you grab your bag from the floor by the bed and walk past him to take all the cash from his wallet. you feel his eyes follow you until you reach the door.

hand on the door knob, you turn back to him and you stare him square in the eye to be sure he can see your tears, to show him he made you cry. you won’t tell him he’s horrible, so you’ll settle for a simple, “you’re wrong, sam. you’re wrong about this.”

then you walk out the door, cursing yourself for hating the sound of him crying more than anything in the world.

[dotthings]

Despite Dean trying to distance from Benny once they’re on earth, when Benny’s in trouble, Dean’s there. The strength of a bond formed in combat. Brothers in arms. And something else comes across in their dynamic too, and while it’s not acknowledged canon, by Carver era of spn, oh you can bet that was deliberate subtext and queer coding. But there’s also this brothers-in-arms friendship they have and Benny and Dean connecting and Benny clearly knows Dean and what makes him tick.

“You and that whole friend thing, man...good to know you’re still dumb as ever.”

Cas and Benny glaring and bickering at each other with Dean in the middle going FML. Benny witnessing whatever this…thing…is between Dean and Cas—Benny noticed how close they are, and he seemingly believes Cas isn’t worth it and Dean could do better, but he starts developing a grudging respect for Cas, too. And saves Cas—which is what cements Dean being able to trust Benny. And everyone has excellent chemistry. Sorry we didn’t get a lot more of Dean-Cas-Benny in Purgatory.

Benny, thinking of survival, expresses his doubts about getting Cas through the portal because he’s an angel, not a human soul or a corrupted human soul, and Dean is resolute and absolute in his determination to save Cas and isn’t having it.

“Cas, we’re going to shove your ass through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

Benny’s drawn to Dean’s heart, to his loyalty to his friends, even though he wryly scoffs at Dean about it in the present, Benny really likes that about Dean.

VAMPIRATES.

“Our father, he was a jealous god. Kept our family together, but kept us apart from the rest of the world, always at sea. I always did what was best for the nest.” Dean and Benny are so similar, and there’s Dean, a human taught from childhood to kill monsters, seeing himself reflected in a vampire’s experiences, with a controlling father, and dedication to family. But Dean isn’t the only one Benny parallels to. It’s Cas too. Always thinking of the Heavenly host and duty to his father, also a jealous god, Cas isolated from the humans he was stationed on earth to observe, Cas loyal and obedient and dedicated.

And Benny met someone, fell in love, and it changed him, just as Cas met someone, fell in love, and it changed him. There’s even a human/nonhuman romance for Benny to sweeten the pot of parallels. And while Dean never abandons family, nevertheless, he dedicates himself to his quest to save Cas in Purgatory, delaying getting home.

Saving Cas is something Dean wants to do, that he needs to do for himself, as well as him believing Cas deserves to be saved, and his relationship with Cas in itself is a defiance of his father, just as Benny defied his father and broke with his vampire nest, and Cas defied god and the heavenly host.

Cas and Benny’s supernatural families were punitive and violent against acts of defiance. Both Benny and Cas wind up hunted by their own father/their father’s agents. While John isn’t that, there were still punishments while Dean was growing up for him deviating from his father’s orders.

“We’re real. Benny, this is real.”

Where did Cas learn the emotional realness he speaks to Dean in early S15, where did Cas learn that connections between people is the one realest thing out there? From Dean, starting from S4.

“This is my story, you gnat. It ends the way I choose. Not you.” Benny’s vampire sire sure does have controlling Chuck vibes.

And like Sam and Dean and Cas, Benny will rip up the rulebook and make his own choices, make his own story, even if he’s in a trap still.

Benny in another Cas parallel: he can’t figure out why Dean resurrected him, doesn’t think he deserves to be saved. Benny wanted to get out of Purgatory so badly but once he does, he feels he deserves to be there, while Cas refuses to leave Purgatory, believing he deserves to be there, to pay penance for the things he’s done.

[sapphirerogers]

I don't know what you expected but I am still not done talking about the infamous fifth episode of the What If...? show.

Spoiler warnings ahead.

Throughout the episode, while trying to pull Steve out of the mind control, Peggy keeps repeating "Steve, this isn't you, wake up" an abnormal amount of times. It's actually sickening how lacking the scriptwriting is, at least for her character.

Bucky interacts with Steve for barely a minute and even then, his efforts to get Steve back display a wider vocabulary than Peggy's throughout the whole episode.

Furthermore, I'd like to break down and compare Steve's words to Bucky and CATWS, and Peggy's words to Steve in What If...?

Steve: "I'm not gonna fight you," and here he drops the shield into the river below, "you're my friend."

Moments later, as Bucky nearly punches him to death, saying "YOU'RE! MY! MISSION!", Steve's calm, collected response is "then finish it, cause I'm with you till the end of the line."

Yes, tear-jerking, we know. Let's move on.

Peggy, having gone up against Steve in a huge (around the same size as the armour Tony built in the cave) metal suit, made of plutonium or something, and still standing straight up, says:

"I don't want to fight you, I can't fight you anymore. I'm done fighting, I've been fighting for so long, to end the war, to forget what I lost...I'm tired. Steve, I want to be with you. I want you, even if this is the end."

Keeping aside the frustrating repetition of the word "fight" in just a few lines of Peggy's speech, let's look at the motivation behind both the dialogues.

Peggy talks about herself. About how she is tired of the war and of losing people, how she tries to forget how Steve isn't in her life anymore, about how she wants to be with him. Her entire purpose is not to save him, but to save him for herself. Her actions come from a selfish point of view, and by the time she says this, she is far from being as battered and bruised as MCU Steve. In fact, she gets away with just a couple of bruises at the most.

On the other hand, Steve's intention was to free Bucky from Hydra's torture, to protect his childhood best friend and lover. He had been shot multiple times, stabbed at least once, had his skin split open in several areas when he dropped the final bombshell. Steve was nearly dying while he was saying all that; yes he would've loved a second chance at life with Bucky by his side, but it was never his primary focus.

His primary focus was making sure Bucky had a second chance at life, even if he himself died trying. It was as if to say "I may die right here right now, but I love you too much to hurt you any further than I already have. You've always been more dear to me than life itself, so if your mission is truly to kill me, you know I'll support you in it even as you're taking my last breath out of me. All I ask for is your safety and well-being."

And it shows in the consequences too - in CATWS, Bucky not only regains just enough of his memories to stop, but also pulls Steve out of the Potomac before he can drown to death and places him somewhere he knows Sam and Nat and the others will easily spot him.

On the contrary, Hydra Stomper Steve barely shows any affection, shock or remorse towards the woman in front of him, but instead, he flies up to the Red Room and destroys it. It is unclear whether he survives the crash himself.

Like I said before, despite Marvel trying their absolute hardest to push StevePeggy as the superior pairing, they still end up portraying Steve and Bucky's (I say romantic, because Steggy mirroring Stucky proves the latter to be a romance) bond to be far stronger than that of Steve with a woman he only knew for a couple of years at most during a world war.

They dug their own grave and cannot crawl their way out of it. Stucky prevails.

@buckymilf @mainly-marvel @oneofstarkskids @jjmaybanksgun @averageambivert

[sugolara]

➠ 356 Days

I just want to thank everyone who stuck around until the end and I greatly appreciate you all who took the time out of your day to read this mediocre fic. Honestly, this could have been down moooonths ago if I had stuck with the schedule and if hadn’t re-written it. But, I hate the storyline and my creativity as well as writing—to which I have no experience—decided to give up on me, not to mention I left this untouched for a couple months before deciding to rush the ending. I could feel the interest in this fic dying and I figured instead of leaving it on hiatus I might as well finish. I’ve always wanted to read a zombie apocalypse fic set in the BNHA world and most of the ones I read were left discarded so I thought, why not make one myself? Didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted especially after I rushed the ending which I had originally planned on three more chapters before ending this, however, I’ll leave it at that. 

Although I’m still a little upset about how I feel like I mischaracterized, didn’t go more in depth to their story and introduce more characters, I’m still kind of glad I at least tried. I’m just more disappointed at how the romance felt bland. And since I’m not a fan of that genre I could tell I needed more practice, but seeing comments about how they liked the fic was enough to make me feel happier. So, thank you very much for keeping up with me. 

Anyways, since that’s that, here’s some information: 

๑  Self promotion!

❍ Turbulent! || Ft. Shota Aizawa, Katsuki Bakugo, Hitoshi Shinso, Izuku Midoriya, Shoto Todoroki, Eri x GN! Reader ↳ Supporting Cast: Denki Kaminari, Kyoka Jiro, Eijiro Kirishima, Ochaco Uraraka, Tenya Iida, Mina Ashido, Momo Yaoyorozu, Hanta Sero Synopsis: Born by dysfunctional parents, Shota Aizawa takes it upon himself to adopt a litter of kids and give them the best chance life could offer.    [ Or: A group of kids with different parents try to beat any obstacle that comes their way, though they couldn’t have done this without the help of their adoptive father, Shota. ]

❍  BNHA || One-shots     Synopsis: Basically one-shots of your main three

๑  Also, guys, I might be planning on making a continuation fic for this fic, but it’ll focus more on Shota Aizawa since his character was supposed to be pretty important for this story and I had already started on writing some chapters just to see where I could take this. Haven’t created a title, but here’s a little description: 

    Synopsis: After a deadly virus leaks over the world, Shota Aizawa—a father of two—and his eldest daughter, F/n Aizawa, must survive from the mutations in the search for the youngest family, Eri. 

Obviously they’re different F/n’s. Anyways, keep on the lookout if I ever do release it. 

๑ Visit my page for upcoming fics and updates!  

๑ Their songs: — It’s All Right - Sam Cooke Izuku →  F/n — I Shall Cross This River -  The Black Atlantic F/n →  Izuku — It’s All Over - Johnny Cash Shoto →  F/n — Easy Way Out - Low Roar F/n →  Shoto — No Longer Making Time - Slowdive Katsuki →  F/n — Lazy Room - Take Me Home F/n →  Katsuki

- Sweet Pea: Means Goodbye (the cover on tumblr) - There’s a lot of typos, but I’m not going back through searching for them. It’s too much and I ain’t got the time for that. - Yes, Katsuki's still alive.

F/n’s kill count: - Katsuki’s kill count: - Shoto’s kill count: -  Izuku’s kill count: - 

Total chapters: 90

๑  And thus we reach the end, until then, I’ll see you on my next  fic! 

──────── ❝ Welcome To The New World: Complete ✓ ❞ ─────────

Fun fact: Shoto’s still alive

[circlesinthesky]

I can’t look at the stars (they make me wonder where you are)

samandy - pre-canon rewrite & post season two - otherwise mostly canon compliant

—

When Sam Winchester ran off to Flagstaff, Arizona at fourteen, he didn’t tell Dean, didn’t tell his dad. He just disappeared, leaving behind the rigid life of hunting, the constant pressure of being John Winchester’s son, and the suffocating feeling of never really having control over his own future. For the first time, Sam felt free.

And he wasn’t alone, despite what he would later tell Dean.

In Flagstaff, he met Andy Gallagher for the first time. A fellow runaway, Andy had been drifting from place to place to avoid any more foster homes, and trying to figure out where he fit in a world that he felt had already rejected him.

Even then, he had this easy, carefree nature about him, a kind of lightness that Sam had never known. Andy wasn’t like Sam—he wasn’t burdened by responsibility, and he wasn’t running from monsters or a predestined life. He was just… living. Maybe that’s what drew Sam in.

They met by accident, both sneaking into the same abandoned house on the outskirts of town. It was supposed to be temporary for both of them, but neither one left. Sam didn’t ask too many questions about Andy’s past, and Andy never pressed Sam about his.

They lived day to day, surviving on convenience store food and the money Andy would somehow always manage to come up with, though Sam never pushed him to explain how— Andy always looked a little tense when Sam brought up anything to do with how he got all the food, supplies or money that he did, and it wasn’t worth scaring him off to sate his curiosity.

And then there was Bones, Andy’s dog, who seemed to take to Sam immediately, as if recognizing a kindred soul. He curled up next to Sam to sleep more often than not.

For a little while, Sam could almost pretend the rest of his life didn’t exist. He was just Sam, a kid in Flagstaff, living in an abandoned house with a scruffy dog and a boy who made him feel like the world didn’t have to be so heavy.

It wasn’t long before Sam realized his feelings for Andy were more than just what you were supposed to feel for a friend.

There was something deeper, something he couldn’t quite put into words at the time. He found himself watching Andy when he wasn’t looking, laughing at his jokes just a little too hard, and feeling that unfamiliar flutter in his chest when Andy smiled at him. It scared him—how easy it was to care about someone, how vulnerable that made him feel.

Andy seemed to sense it, though, without Sam ever having to say a word. One night, when they were sitting on the roof of the house, watching the stars, Andy nudged Sam’s shoulder and quietly asked, “What are you so afraid of, Sam?”

Sam didn’t know how to answer. He was afraid of everything—of losing this moment, losing Andy, of what his dad and Dean would think of him loving a boy, of the life he feared he couldn’t really escape forever. But Andy didn’t push. He just sat there, quiet and understanding, and somehow that was enough. They stayed like that for a long time, until Sam finally whispered, “I’m not afraid when I’m here with you.”

They had shared a kiss so tentative and sweet under the stars that night, it had left Sam feeling like he was floating for an entire week.

And for a while, Sam really wasn’t scared. After that night, he let himself fall for Andy in the way he’d always been too scared to before—softly, quietly, in stolen glances and lingering touches. It wasn’t some grand romance, they were just kids. But it was real, and for Sam, it was enough. He clung to it for as long as he could.

Eventually, the guilt of running away ate a hole through him, and Sam had to leave. He knew Dean was out there, probably looking for him with their dad, and the longer he stayed here, the harder it would be to go back when they inevitably found him. When he left Flagstaff, he didn’t say goodbye to Andy. He couldn’t. It hurt too much. Instead, he slipped away in the early morning, leaving behind the only place he’d ever felt like he belonged and a kiss to a sleep warmed cheek.

He couldn’t escape every goodbye, though. Bones had whimpered as he watched him go with big, sad eyes that had only served to twist the knife, like he knew Sam wasn’t coming back.

—

Years later, when Sam crossed paths with Andy again during his search for the special children, it was like being hit by a wave of everything he’d tried to forget.

Andy didn’t remember him, or if he did, he didn’t show it. But Sam remembered. He remembered those nights under the stars, the laughter, the feeling of being free. And when Andy died, another victim of the cruel game the world had thrust upon them, Sam felt a part of himself break all over again.

He’d never told Dean about Andy.

How he wasn’t alone in Flagstaff, about the boy who made him feel like he could be more than a hunter, who had challenged his fear. And he never would.

That part of Sam’s life belonged to Andy alone, and the sweet memories they shared in that house would be buried with him.

He hoped that wherever Andy ended up, it was in a place with a canopy of stars overhead, and no more fear.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

captive prince book 1 highlights & annotations

chapter 5

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

Laurent moved off a few steps. Damen saw him lift a hand to the back of his own neck, as if to release tension. Saw him do nothing for a moment but stand and be quiet and breathe the cool air scented with night flowers. It occurred to Damen for the first time that Laurent might have his own reasons for wanting to escape the attention of the court.

i appreciate this hint of their future dynamic :)

A silence opened up around Laurent’s words. In it, their meaning changed. Herode began, ‘I—’ Then he looked at Damen, and his expression grew alarmed. ‘Is this safe? He’s broken his leash. Guard!’

context: laurent needs herode to think that damen deserved the flogging, so he took him somewhere private and broke his bindings, framing damen as disobedient. nice moment ruined >:(

‘If you’re concerned that my memory for wrongs against me is longer than ten months,’ said Laurent, ‘there’s no need for anxiety. I am sure you can persuade me you were genuinely mistaken.’

translation: “make it up to me, disloyal coward.” the way laurent deals with this person, who lacks loyalty and integrity, foreshadows how much he will struggle to hate damen, who has more loyalty and integrity than any sane person probably should

‘How thoughtful of you, Councillor,’ said Laurent. ‘He turned to Damen and said in a melting voice, ‘Your back must hurt terribly.’ ‘It’s fine,’ said Damen. ‘Kneel on the ground, then,’ Laurent said.

absolutely no strategy here, laurent just sucks. "oh you're comfortable for once? let's see what i can do about that." also the fact that laurent is trying to appear likable to herode but still cannot resist being a bitch to damen is sooo funny

His best feature was a pair of amazing blue eyes, unmatched by any Damen had ever seen, except for the ones he had recently been staring into.

damen has a talent for thirsting over laurent in the most backhanded manner possible

His skin was fair and his curling light brown hair was burnished with gold. He was exactly the type that Damen could have drawn down onto the sheets and spent a very pleasant couple of hours enjoying.

damen likes blondes mention #4. erasmus barely scrapes by, but the word “gold” tells us everything we need to know

‘Well?’ Laurent said. ‘Can you couple adequately, or do you just kill things?’

god he sucks. also, “adequate.”

Damen thought that given the choice between the lash and a conversation with Laurent, he might actually choose the lash.

‘He’s not very talkative,’ remarked Vannes. ‘It comes and goes,’ said Laurent.

laurent continues to shoulder the burden of being the funniest bitch in this entire court

Damen was sickened by the idea of some nobleman’s boy offering himself up to be hurt on the assumption that it would play to Laurent’s tastes. Then he thought of all he knew of Laurent, and only felt sicker, because of course the boy’s assumptions were probably correct.

context: i don’t think laurent is an equal-opportunity sadist, or even a sadist at all. he just really hates damen specifically, and mirrors the viciousness of his culture to survive

If there was anything explicit on view, it must be the absence of all desire to be where he was.

the garden scene. okay. 

first, context: a possible explanation for laurent volunteering damen could be a desire to see him experience a similar situation to his own abuse from his uncle, since damen is the reason laurent lost his protector. however, that doesn’t quite sound right to me, because wouldn’t seeing this whole tableau just re-traumatize laurent? then again, laurent’s life in the veretian court is pretty much endless re-traumatization, all day every day. so i suppose in his mind, he might as well get something out of his own shitty circumstances, and that something in this case is revenge. misery loves company, after all. 

also, sex to laurent is a matter of control and power, rather than love or pleasure. so to him, both this and the fighting ring might feel the same as any other kind of violence. he doesn’t care about the additional violation that sexual assault carries towards his enemies—and at the end of the day, laurent knows that he himself has probably been through worse. 

the exception to this is nicaise, or anyone else who laurent deems innocent and disempowered. those people, he will try to protect to the very best of his ability. but at this point in the series, laurent sees damen not only as a shitty person, but also a shitty person with power. he knows that damen is not a slave, but a prince. a prince who keeps slaves of his own. so in laurent-brain, i can see how this could be twisted into something justifiable. or just not worth justifying at all.

it still isn’t right, though. they could have done this and been just as horny about it with, like, dubious consent rather than none. i think i would feel more comfortable finding elements of this scene hot if that were the case, but i respect and appreciate that the point of this book is not simply to Be Hot. and to be fair—instant gratification, moral simplicity, and straightforward execution are not very compelling qualities for an erotic scene to possess. i’m just glad that the rest of the sex-adjacent scenes in this series between damen and laurent are explicitly consensual, because this scene would be harder to accept within the series’s ethical framework and the development of their love story if it happened multiple times.

i want to analyze the craft here, but i feel uncomfortable dissecting what i know to be a non-consensual scene in order to determine what makes it hot. but i also know, undeniably, that the events of this scene are hot, and that hotness was almost certainly written on purpose. 

for me, the hotness does not come from the lack of consent itself, but rather the action and dialogue happening on the page. i don’t think the lack of consent is necessarily meant to be hot here—it’s the absolute insanity of laurent’s approach to oral sex, and the power dynamic it creates, that makes the scene memorable. and those elements could easily be reproduced in a consensual scene and have the same effect. so i want to study those elements specifically, to see how they work as erotic writing, removed from the parts that don’t. 

tl;dr: the garden scene is unequivocally non-consensual. however, it is written in a way that eroticizes the circumstances. i can still study the writing where it is effective without finding the circumstances of the scene morally justifiable or hot, in fiction or real life. 

anyway. i'm trying to study the craft of scenes like this, so i'm going full analysis on this one. garden scene, summarized:  

setup: laurent is rumored to be frigid and does not partake in the sexual activities of veretian nobility. yet he goes along with this tableau, allowing damen to be used as a participant. i do not think that this is for laurent’s own sexual gratification, because i don’t think laurent is in touch with his own sexuality in general. sex means something different to laurent than it does to damen, and the other characters in the scene, and (i’d hope) to the reader as well.

beginning: ancel isn’t damen’s type. damen has no strong feelings about ancel as a person. he is not attracted to ancel’s frivolity or weak will. being serviced by ancel is not doing anything for damen. he feels smug about this. it gives him power over laurent, who has permitted this tableau in order to emphasize the power he has over damen.

then: laurent—who is damen’s type, his worst enemy, and the reason he’s in this situation in the first place—starts coaching ancel on how to give head. laurent is completely methodical and detached with his instructions, and is clearly focusing on psychologically tormenting damen, rather than getting off on the display. in other words, he is neither frivolous nor weak-willed. he’s exactly the opposite. 

meanwhile: damen, our pov character, is no longer immune to whatever the fuck is going on in this scene. he is into this and can’t hide it. he has lost the power he briefly had over laurent, and now possesses even less power than he started with. not only is he owned by laurent in the technical sense, but he is being owned by laurent in the horny sense too. 

and i believe that the intention is for the reader to understand how he's feeling—not to blame him for his interest, because this situation is clearly compelling, to damen and possibly the person reading. laurent’s ability to essentially mindfuck damen across the room, fully clothed, is honestly insane. cs pacat herself says that about laurent in a commentary video—he’s a mindfucker. it’s intentional and it’s the focal point of the scene. much later on in the series, i think damen even admits that he was paying attention to laurent the whole time. it’s hot. it just is. 

i’ll point out more specific things in the following passages, but that’s the gist of it. i'm cringing so hard posting this publicly, but if heterosexual women on booktok can post their whole-ass face and gps location while fangirling over colleen hoover sex scenes, i think i can share my messy gay mindfucking analysis on a website that hasn't been a part of the public consciousness since like 2017

Laurent was watching Damen’s face with the same cerebral attention that he might apply to a strategic problem. ‘He likes that. Do it harder,’ said Laurent.

craft note: laurent openly observes damen’s responses, notices exactly what works, tells ancel to do that specifically because “he likes it,” and that turns damen on even more

personal note: oh my god

Damen could feel his thighs tighten, then, minutely, spread, his breath quickening in his chest... He turned towards Laurent. It was a mistake to look at him. Even in the shadows of evening, Damen could see the relaxed arrangement of Laurent’s body, the marmoreal perfection of his features, and the detached unconcern with which he gazed at Damen, not bothering to so much as glance down at Ancel’s moving head.

craft note: damen loses his resolve, looks to laurent for mercy, and is just even more mindfucked by the fact that laurent is completely unaffected, not even interested at all

If you believed the Prince’s Guard, Laurent was the impregnable citadel, and took no lovers at all. Right now Laurent gave the impression of a mind somewhat engaged, and a body wholly aloof, untouched by ardour. The ribald fancy of the Prince’s Guard held a kernel of plausibility. On the other hand, the aloof, untouched Laurent was at this moment delivering a precise treatise on cocksucking.

god, this is SO fucking good. damen is basically admitting that he can’t believe laurent is entirely sexless, because he is managing to fuck him without even having sex at all.

craft note: that is the perfect moment to insert a crass word, after paragraphs of more clinical descriptions. i love that the only time we hear “cocksucking” in this scene is in reference to laurent not actually sucking cock, while it is (intentionally, i assume) not used in reference to the actual cocksucking that’s happening on the page. 

also, "precise treatise" cracks me up, as someone currently writing what could be considered a precise treatise on this scene.

The image of Ancel... was joined in his fragmenting thoughts by the sudden harsh desire to get his hands on Laurent’s body and exact revenge—both for his actions and for his airy absence.

damen’s desire to get laurent’s attention because he wants to fight him, but also because he wants laurent to see him come… diabolical writing. craft. whatever. this is an objective and academic analysis.

Damen was... pushed back down onto his knees. Laurent was seated opposite, legs crossed. Damen’s eyes fixed on him, and looked nowhere else; his breathing was still noticeable, and his pulse rapid, but anger produced all the same effects.

who’s ancel?

additional thoughts on erotic elements in the garden scene: i think what i like here, is that… yeah, it’s horny. it’s indulgent, easily the most blatant instance of kink we’ve seen so far. but it’s not really what i think frequent readers of this kink genre would expect, or even want to read—it is a subversion, with laurent completely disrupting the basic scenario that everyone else (but damen) in the scene wants to mindlessly enjoy. 

but that subversion, to me, just makes it hotter. there’s physical stuff happening, sure, but the real eroticism comes from the words, emotions, and power exchange between laurent and damen. the scene doesn’t give the reader the simplicity of “someone topped, someone bottomed, here are several pages of mechanical description.” the actual sex act is described almost clinically, just how laurent dictates. and it’s definitely not as simple as who’s topping and who’s bottoming—whatever the fuck happens here is way weirder and messier than that, and so much more compelling. 

basically, i think that this scene fails to be hot in all the ways a reader of this kink genre would expect it to be hot. the real hotness comes from the bizarre subversion we get instead, that we just have to kind of accept without any closure or explanation. it’s either an unsexy sex scene, or a sexy not-sex scene. maybe it’s both. either way, it’s insane.

how can i replicate this? 

set up a thing that follows expectations. don’t actually do the thing. do something significantly more insane than the expected thing. do not elaborate on the insane thing, leaving more questions than answers, and move on as if it wasn’t insane at all. this is a good method for not-sex scenes, too.

Laurent, for his part, was relaxed, one arm spread out over the back of the bench.

laurent lean #4

‘I’ll offer for you, if you like. When the time comes. I wouldn’t want you in my bed, but you’d have all the same privileges. You might prefer that. I’d offer.’

context: this is the best possible way laurent can protect nicaise within the confines of their culture. and “you might prefer that”—laurent wants nicaise to be able to foster his intelligence and talents (his "privileges") as a growing person, without having to be a sexual object.

‘He gives them all up,’ said Laurent, ‘even if you’re more enterprising than the others have been.’ ‘He likes me better than the others.’ A scornful laugh. ‘You’re jealous.’ And then it was Nicaise’s turn to react to something he saw in Laurent’s face, and he said, with a horror Damen didn’t understand, ‘You’re going to tell him you want me.’ ‘Oh,’ said Laurent. ‘No. Nicaise . . . no. That would wreck you. I wouldn’t do that.’ Then his voice became almost tired. ‘Maybe it’s better if you think that I would. You have quite a good mind for strategy, to have thought of that. Maybe you will hold him longer than the others.’ For a moment it seemed as if Laurent would say something else, but in the end he just stood up from the bench, and held his hand out to the boy. ‘Come on. Let’s go. You can watch me get told off by my uncle.’

context: nicaise knows that anything laurent wants, his uncle will not let him have. believing that laurent hates him and would offer for him out of spite, nicaise takes the offer is a threat. laurent, who isn’t threatening him at all, realizes that nicaise is right. laurent’s attempts at protection would only get nicaise hurt. the best he can do is banter with the kid and look after him from a distance. this house is a fucking nightmare.

[themculibrary]

Steve Rogers Pairings Masterlist 2

part one

A Fine and Wholesome Direction of Energy (ao3) - adi_rotynd steve/sam G, 18k

Summary: Or: Bucky Barnes Is Definitely Probably Not Stealing Steve Rogers’s Boyfriend

A Higher Form of War (ao3) - sabrecmc steve/tony M, 292k

Summary: Tony is a King with a surprising number of people out to kill him. Steve and the rest of the Avengers are fighting for Pierce’s rebellion and end up with Tony as their prisoner. Oops.

Basically one of those bodice-ripping romance novels I don’t read (ahem) but with far more gay.

a little fun (not the number one) (ao3) - shatteredhourglass bucky/clint/steve E, 17k

Summary: “They have friends with benefits in the old days?”

“Probably,” Steve says, takes a drag. “I just had Bucky.”

American values (ao3) - orphan_account steve/sam T, 6k

Summary: Sam likes Steve. Steve likes Sam. But Captain America’s never dated a guy before.

an unexpected engagement (ao3) - thedrih steve/natasha M, 208k

Summary: Natasha Romanoff has a huge crush on CEO Steve and decides that the company’s Christmas party is the perfect opportunity to win him over but she ends up exaggerating and after several disastrous events she wakes up in Steve’s bed without remembering how she got there. And the most surprising thing is that he makes her an unusual proposal: that she pretend to be her fiancée!

Steve Rogers is a workaholic CEO who, in order to escape the family’s insistence that he have a serious relationship, invents a fake bride. And when the family shows up by surprise and catches him with the employee he brought home drunk and passed out last night, he decides to make her a proposal: that Natasha pretend to be his fake bride.

What Steve doesn’t realize is that Natasha has much more elaborate plans for him, making him a very malicious counterproposal!

as safe as houses (ao3) - DizzyDrea maria/steve T, 25k

Summary: Senator Steve Rogers (R, NY) is a decorated war hero who has a deep and abiding desire to serve his country, which may or may not include someday running for President. Maria Hill is a veteran Air Force pilot working in the private sector and bored out of her mind. When Steve finds himself needing a private security detail for a trip to France, he hires Shield Security and Maria becomes his constant companion. They grow closer as the trip progresses, but can they survive what’s coming to find out if their Paris sojourn could turn into something real?

Bless The Broken Road (ao3) - PinkEasterEggs peggy/steve, steve/tony G, 114k

Summary: In 1950, Peter Carter goes missing.

In 2005, a boy who looks exactly like Peggy Carter and Steve Roger’s kidnapped son is found.

Tony doesn’t even hesitate (okay, he may have hesitated a little) to take the boy under his wing.

Born For This (ao3) - Capsicle2013 steve/tony M, 71k

Summary: Being an Avenger was something he always wanted, but for some reason his parents didn’t want that for him. He just wishes they could see what he sees.

Counting the Minutes (ao3) - ABrighterDarkness steve/natasha T, 3k

Summary: “I told you I’d see you in a minute, didn’t I?” She answered softly.

“It’s been a lot of minutes,” he pointed out a little hysterically.

Delightful Delicious De-Lovely (ao3) - Wandering_Swain gamora/steve G, 2k

Summary: Gamora is on a mission to Terra with a personal objective of great importance.

easy work for easy pay (ao3) - AustinB steve/bucky M, 45k

Summary: Bucky’s working his way back up through the ranks at S.H.I.E.L.D. after a mission took his left arm and Stark gave him a new metal one.

So when Fury tasks him with integrating the newly defrosted Captain Rogers into the 21st century, he jumps at the promotion.

fill out the form first (ao3) - flowermasters peggy/steve G, 3k

Summary: Peggy and Steve meet in the most mundane of ways. That is, of course, before the bank heist.

I’ll Be Seeing You (ao3) - OhCaptainMyCaptain steve/bucky E, 10k

Summary: “C’mon Steve,” Bucky coos jokingly. “Try n’ get me to come home with you.”

las vegas (ao3) - elcapitan_rogers steve/natasha E, 219k

Summary: Steve was freaking out over his own wedding and the gang decided to take him to Las Vegas to unwind him.

Love Is A Battlefield (ao3) - crumbcrash2000 steve/tony, tony/tiberius E, 53k

Summary: In Siberia, Steve looks on in horror as Tony watches the video of his parents’ murder. Expecting the worst, he is prepared to fight to defend Bucky, even through the shock of his own betrayal.

But Tony doesn’t lash out.

Instead, Tony cries, and Steve’s whole life falls apart.

Not How It Works (ao3) - starrdust411 steve/sam T, 51k

Summary: In that moment Steve felt like a drowning man pulling everyone down with him and of all the things Sam could do, hugging him was probably the most absurd.

Our Omega (ao3) - haveufoundwhaturlookingfor bucky/steve/sam N/R, 3k

Summary: Steve And Thor have a one night stand at one of Tony’s parties, and Steve ends up pregnant. Thor leaves the next day for Asgard without saying a word to Steve, leaving Steve to deal with the mess alone. Except, he’s not really alone. He has Bucky and Sam, who step up to take care of Steve and the baby.

Storm (ao3) - MoreThanSlightly (cadignan) bucky/peggy/steve E, 10k

Summary: “Perhaps you’re worth the trouble after all,” Peggy tells Bucky, and he grins. They’ve developed a cautious, teasing relationship. Steve is absurdly grateful that they tolerate each other at all. He fantasizes, sometimes, that they might even like each other in the same way that he likes—

“God, Sergeant Barnes, if this place has hot water, I’ll kiss you.”

The Sixth of July (ao3) - Sinope clint/phil/steve/tony E, 14k

Summary: Clint loves Phil; Phil has a Captain America kink; Tony likes sex. Omelets, Duck Hunt, power outages, and a very happy birthday ensue.

tonight, we are young (ao3) - thebrightestbird peggy/steve G, 4k

Summary: “I might have made a wish on the Tesseract that could have had something to do with Peggy getting younger.”

Steve and Peggy get a second chance to live a lifetime together. There are a few details to work out first.

[shallowseeker]

Do you think if Crowley had survived, they could have made him and Mary into a relationship? I noticed there aren't any fanfics with the two of them, and I thought it would be interesting. What would his storyline be if he continued in the series, since it's always been about distrust?

You've challenged me with this one because I’ll be honest, this is not exactly my jam....

Trying to mash together Mary’s lone-wolf tendencies w/Crowley’s manipulative desperation + self-centered way of moving through the world is… hard for me to imagine.

I don't think Mary would get along very well with Crowley, or even be willing to verbally spar with him, which shuts down a lot of potential for interaction.

///

MARY'S CONFIDENCE

Unlike characters like Bobby or Dean, Mary strikes me as a bit more confident and stoic in how she moves through the world.

She has a quiet self-assurance that doesn’t seem to need to prove itself. (This aspect of her actually reminds me more of Sam and Cas than the brittle wisecracking we get from our more insecure, innuendo-laced characters.)

And it's not like Mary’s without insecurities, but she doesn’t IMHO seem to feel the need to posture as much.

(Note: SPNwin, I think, captures this aspect of her well, too. Often Alt!Mary is the wry "straight man" to Alt!John's more lighthearted joking and earnestness.)

///

MARY AND SAM

Mary's brief interaction with Crowley in 12x23 reminded me a lot of how Sam handles Crowley: "Touch me and I’ll kill you."

In fact, Mary’s whole vibe in the romance domain has always felt closer to Sam's in many ways: guarded, tricky with the truth, firm on boundaries etc etc.

And despite the show’s best efforts, I think Sam and Crowley paired like oil and water.

I suspect the same would be true for Mary and Crowley.

///

But that said, I’d hate to disappoint a rarepair, so here’s my best guess...

///

A COMMON CAUSE

If I were imagining a Crowley and Mary storyline, I think the most natural route would be through a mutual cause and/or manipulation, a la Castiel and Purgatory.

And like with Cas, I imagine Crowley constantly mouthing off and trying to one-up her and not realizing he’s the one who's losing as she quietly bides her time. She's not threatened by his style of prancing/posturing, basically.

She responds well to earnestness, so I don't think she and Crowley would grow close in this scenario at all.

Crowley would, however, IMPLY this as every turn, both to try to break her stoicism and ruin her reputation.

///

WHAT ABOUT KETCH?

You could also borrow elements from the Ketch-Mary arc, but to be honest, despite being oily and a bit prancy, Ketch isn't all that much like Crowley.

(I think Ketch is the Muscle in a way Crowley is not... Crowley prefers to be the Tenacious Macleod Rat (TM) who laughs last.)

Ketch was trying to recruit Mary, not clinging to her with that self-serving, "I deserve to be loved, me me me me me my pov what I want I am the king" tryhard energy that Crowley so often carries.

Ketch actually fawned over her competence and was actually a bit wide-eyed and earnest in some ways, but I think Crowley miiiight be threatened by her confidence...?

Like, while Ketch DOES regale Jack with mission tales and bragging, it's not quite the same, right? Because Ketch presents himself as an adventurer (I'm COMPETENT):

"Valko's compound was a breeze, as it turned out. Jammed the security system from the outside, sedated the guard dogs—Rottweilers, naturally...  And as I was just telling Jack, I did, in fact, manage to expropriate the egg from a certain Hungarian rare-weapons collector."

...while Crowley snidely says things like this (I'm IMPORTANT):

"You little people wouldn't understand, but I've been a king. Having people look at you like you're everything, knowing that once they buy in, you can make them do anything, it's intoxicating."

Ketch is a traumatized, brainwashed soldier with a gooey middle. Crowley is desperate for friends, but he's primarily mired in vanity, covering for deep insecurity.

Ketch is a soldier who recruits through a slow-boil force... and Crowley is a predatory salesman.

///

MARK OF MARY?

I could easily see Crowley trying to corner Mary into sacrificing herself for her loved ones a la Dean and Cain.

Like, I could see him convincing her to take on the Mark of Cain, then trying to swoop in once she’s vulnerable and worn down. He'd probably use all the same tactics he tried with Dean: calling her "stupid" and saying that she should be "grateful" for his manipulation because what it REALLY is... is an opportunity!

—but even that feels like a stretch.

Because I think, like with Demon Dean, it’d last six weeks tops before she found an Anne-Marie fixation, made a run for it, and put Crowley flat on his back.

But unlike Dean, I don’t think Demon Mary would be so forgiving.

She might just kill him and fuck off on her own.

///

DADS: MAYBE A COMMON TRAUMA INSTEAD?

Honestly, the more compelling plotline might involve Samuel Campbell somehow...

Crowley already has a history of dragging Samuel into doing his dirty work in s6 (and by using the lure of reviving Mary as the "carrot on the stick," too!)

I think Mary’s reaction to finding that out would probably be much more explosive and interesting to watch...

If you did a storyline about fathers, you could always bring in Crowley's father as a wildcard, too, because we don't know much about him. Maybe HE'S a demon now too, and he's the one leashing Samuel this time?

I’m not sure exactly how it would turn out or where it would go, but Crowley’s insecurity and his rotten relationship with Rowena might make him especially vulnerable to a father figure who makes him feel important and seen.

Pair that with the power struggle against Samuel's old-school authoritarianism and it could be a psychological nightmare minefield...

...but Mary wants to save her dad, too.

She'd appeal to Crowley for that, I think. ("Please...")

ANYWAY.

In this scenario, I think there's potential for Crowley and Mary to come closer together, not through romance at first per se, but through shared trauma, maybe?

They could each be trying to escape or make peace with the legacies of their dads... and how their dads ruined their lives by not protecting them OR their mothers...

"You RUINED my life. Just by being YOU." etc etc

Crowley would also get to screech about how Mary doesn't understand.

After all, despite everything, her parents died FOR her, trying to PROTECT HER. (You ran away from THEM, Mary.)

BUT MINE RAN AWAY FROM ME. How could you EVER begin to understand?

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

okay final amc interview with the vampire rewatch thoughts:

- I liked the pacing much better. the middle episodes felt like a slog to watch week by week but I think it’s much better suited to bingeing. there were still choices I didn’t love, but the plot was going at a consistent clip the entire time.

- sam reid and jacob anderson were both fantastic! galaxy brained takes on both characters. bailey bass.. her acting is good but I am too southern to be able to take that accent seriously 😭😭 it was painful

- lestat is still given more narrative dignity and power than I would like. he’s introduced having his own wealth and he is the one giving louis money as opposed to being the broke unwanted houseguest who invited himself. he doesn’t use claudia to babytrap louis, louis has to beg him to change her (hated this!). he is given a personal pawn in antoinette, and is allowed to see the murder attempt coming. I feel like sam reid brings the necessary vain, overeager desperation to the role to offset it, but the plot is still like that

- I’m still deeply unsatisfied with all of the choices they made with claudia. I think it’s a huge cop out to have louis save her from a fire that she 100% would not have survived otherwise. I missed the very key book element of it being louis who killed her and lestat who “saved” her by making her into a vampire. I also disliked how cleanly her relationship with lestat becomes one of hate after episode five. there’s zero mixed feelings and they’re both so on the same page about how much they hate each other. I get what they’re trying to do with “they’re too alike therefore they can’t stand each other” but that doesn’t preclude a more complicated dynamic

- I hated that all of claudia’s issues surrounding never growing up seemed to revolve around sex and romance. she’s given the sweet romance/almost romance that ends poorly and marks her slide into being more recklessly murderous and her dissatisfaction with vampirism. meanwhile there’s the OC vampire they invented to assault her… as a monkey’s paw curls situation I guess?? and to cement her vulnerability to other vampires. a lot of her arc feels so defined by men in a way that’s not really about her. it also doesn’t help that in casting an older teenage actress, it’s harder to buy that she would run into issues day to day with living on her own or passing as a young looking adult. idk she just felt particularly Written By A Man to me

- I’m also still unsure how I feel about the more literal domestic violence allegory. with daniel’s cynical quips about stockholm syndrome and abuse. or the way the big fight is framed when it looks like louis might leave lestat for claudia. I don’t mind them becoming violent with each other, it seems like that would be second nature to vampires who are killing every night. their relationship with violence would simply be different than a typical person’s. but then I think the fight’s framing was perhaps too typical to make sense for vampires? idk idk I like abuse narratives and I think interview as a story has always been in part about usurping an abuser so… seeing physical abuse… makes sense but this also felt too on the nose. so I am on the fence

- the pilot and the finale were the strongest episodes by far. I really appreciate this series’ dedication to style and atmosphere. it’s the first piece of contemporary vampire media in a while that feels like it actually wants to be about vampires

- I was shrieking at every single little hint at the larger vc lore, even when I knew full well it was coming. I’m honestly too attached to the first book so any loose show adaptation was destined to be prickly for me but I have zero reservations about the rest of the series. I’m so fucking excited to see it continue and cover more of the books!!! I will PASS OUT when we actually get to the theatre des vampires

- having the armand reveal confirmed makes the entire show so fucking insane???? I was watching this with maka and dolce who had NOT seen this before and it was such a struggle not to dissolve into hysterics every time he was in frame. like what deranged psychosexual nonsense???

- like louis describing being so desperately in love with lestat in excruciating detail while his current bf is literally always in the room?? the extent armand goes to to keep up the charade that he’s just an unassuming human ☺️ no reason to be suspicious at all ☺️☺️ it’s even funnier having the second season trailer out, knowing that he’s devised like an entire costume and sense of style for this rashid character purely to fuck with daniel 😭

[dancergurl3000]

Book review time! “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” A love story between two people who were right for each other but were I guess just meant to make video games together and not have sex? An essay.

This book I will say took me over three months to read. It took me literally all summer to read this book, and while it is sad as much it is true, I found it dizzyingly frustrating that the two main characters never end up together. It tells of the story of two childhood sweethearts: Miss Sadie Green and Sam Mazer, two programming students at MIT who find each other after a long time of just not wanting to talk and or see each other. Sam’s college room mate Marx also offers his apartment in the beginning of the book because Sam and Marx start off playing video games that Sadie has made as a joke; and then they start to realize not unlike the founders of Facebook that they should all go into business together to make video games, for real. They all move to Los Angeles to pursue this dream for real, and to Sam’s dismay, Marx and Sadie start seriously seeing each other and sleeping with each other. Their video game company is called “Unfair”, and the two co executives find two more cochairs Simon and Ant, a gay male couple in love who write their own high school experiences into an actual video game, brilliant! Called “Counterpart High.” Sam and Sadie made “Ichigo” and “Ichigo two” together, a Japanese children video game in which the player has to survive a massive tsunami and find his parents. I liked the quality of the friendship that Sadie and Sam have, but one of the reasons I guess the book depicts the two of them never becoming lovers are their ultimate grievances with each other getting in the way of let’s say a workplace romance. Sam was angry with Sadie in childhood, he finds out that he was merely nothing more than community service to Sadie, not really a friend, she was only pretending to be Sam’s friend because he was seen as “charity” to Sadie. They don’t speak for twelve years after that. Then Sadie at MIT falls for an abusive professor, he handcuffs her to his bed whenever she refuses to tell him anything he doesn’t want to hear, and Sadie stops speaking to Sam and proceeds to make video games of her own when she finds out that Sam all along has been playing the video games of her abusive ex boyfriend’s, and that it meant to Sadie that Sam knew that she was in an abusive relationship and did nothing. Then Marx, their cofounder is shot during a mass shooting with two gun men looking for Sam when Sam and Sadie are traveling for a work conference. Sadie is pregnant at this time with Marx’s baby and doesn’t even know it. It was brave, and courageous but ultimately dumb in my opinion for Marx to put himself in front of his openly gay employees but was deeply personal to me: if someone had come in with a shot gun looking for my gay ex boyfriend from my high school? I would have put myself in front of that shooter and probably done exactly what Marx did: put myself in front of someone trying to kill someone they hate. Marx is shot three times in the stomach and lasts almost a month on life support. Hangs on in a coma. Then Sadie takes him off of life support, and retreats into her home; has the baby and has postpartum depression. What I didn’t like was the distance the book I guess had to write about with Sam and Sadie, but it made the book drag on and on. I would never want my work life partner to feel like they should go back to work, but I also wouldn’t want to continue working at my company, even if I had started it after a mass shooting. The book should have written more about how the survivors should have gotten professional counseling and support, instead they all disappear more and more into their work. I would change the ending of this book if I had to direct it into a film. It ends with Sam and Sadie promising each other to be more openly communicating even though the book has them hating each other privately and personally I was getting a little tired of that. Instead of promising something to your best friend that obviously is a lie, I would have asked Sam to be braver. “Maybe I want to start over again back at MIT.” I couldn’t see Sam staying in LA. Especially if Sadie was teaching at MIT.

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 198

Sharp Teeth/Hide

“Sharp Teeth”

Plot Description: Garth is in the hospital after mutilating a cow and being hit by a car, but Garth runs away — with a dark secret in tow

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: look, if Garth is barely surviving running through the woods, getting shot at, and hit by a car…I don’t know if I have it in me

I forgot that they split up…

Sam…don’t. slap. Garth.

He was HANDCUFFED TO THE BED. HOW DID HE GET UP??

What is this episode??? Garth ran away, stripped down naked, and stole a car. What were you doinggggg???

Dean…why are you lying to Sam again???? You have photos of Garth (not naked…but just boxers. Wouldn’t have taken him for a boxers guy) oof. That’s probably the quickest one of their lies has been found out

Omgggg, Deeeeean stop with this whole “we can’t hunt together because I’m poison” thing. I hope to for that this doesn’t last too much longer

Excuse me?? Does….Garth’s a werewolf now?? And he has a werewolf girlfriend??

MARRIED?!?! He met this girl just after becoming a werewolf and within two months MARRIED HER? They’re…kind of grossly cute together

This is the least cool werewolf pack I’ve ever seen. No one’s even asking anyone where they’ve been, loca

Aww, they cooked the food for Dean. That’s nice

Noooooo, Garrrrrrth. I know you couldn’t know but…don’t bring up Kevinnnn, not to Dean

Wait…the cop is a werewolf TOO?? Uh oh…he’s part of the pack (or was….before Dean threw a silver knife into his chest)

I’m guessing there’s something fishy with Garth’s wife’s stepmother…I think she’s behind the whole dark underbelly of keeping the image of the pack squeaky clean (because this is supernatural and it’s pretty misogynistic)

Oh this is interesting…it’s not a pack, it’s a CULT trying to bring about Ragnarok and also eradicating human beings (whether feeding on or turning them)

Yeah. I knew it wasn’t the reverend who took over this weird group, he was bitten…it has to be his fourth generation werewolf wife whose father was the old reverend

Yeah, this was very predictable. Didn’t know she had a brother who was killed by hunters, but that would make the more recent interest in werewolf dominance more understandable

She really had to get her villain monologue out, ruining any chance she had at pulling off her scheme

Yes, Garth, don’t let Dean think he’s the only one who let Kevin down!! Take some of that weight off his shoulders

I do wish we had gotten just A Kevin and Garth episode (or a Kevin, Mrs Tran, and Garth episode, really)…Garth called Kevin his friend

Please stop pretending that you don’t miss each other.

Dean…I know that’s basically your catch phrase “we’re family” but like…you’ve now betrayed Sam’s trust…probably as badly as he did yours back in season 4

YES, Sam, set that boundary!

“Hide”

Plot Description: something haunts Caliburn House and the Doctor finds himself part of the ghost hunt

It took me just the tiniest bit too long to get the “I’m the doctor” “Doctor what” “if you like” joke

It’s kind of fun that he came here INTENTIONALLY to ghost hunt

Is this just an episode to parallel this ghost hunter dude and his assistant with the Doctor and Clara? Both pairs are flirting so awkwardly, it’s nauseating

I would like to carry a candelabra through an old mansion just ONCE…but no ghosts (my phone tried to autocorrect that to ‘no gojo’ or ‘no ghostfacers’. Brilliant)

You know, just as I was about to say that I was bored, things got interesting, and we’re REALLY digging into these other characters AND the ghost

Omgggg. I hate this. The girls are strictly talking romance while the guys are talking about war and death and guilt….

Oh, Clara. But like….I get where you’re coming from. It IS overwhelming to be able to see the whole life of Earth from the same spot in snippets. Yes, the TARDIS is amazing but…it has the potential to be such an easy way out, such a shortcut for the Doctor instead of taking time. He LITERALLY just takes and takes and takes time, and it feels like he doesn’t care

Well, that certainly isn’t terrifying. You don’t KNOW? You know the ghost you’ve been hunting is actually a time traveler stuck in a pocket dimension but you don’t know the thing she’s running from??

Sure. We’re just going to pop into pocket universes like it’s nothing, now…

I miss when this show was low budget :/

Oh no… he’s stuck there…

My bet’s on the thing being sympathetic. It’s HIDING from the Doctor

Another Clara?? Oh the TARDIS interface thingy. Man, the TARDIS REALLY hates Clara

Please don’t tell me he leaves and Clara gets stuck instead. You can’t do this twice

K. NOT sympathetic, just playing with him

This mansion and its grounds are gorgeous in the daylight

Oh, the monster IS sympathetic I guess?? It was looking for it’s lost love

This episode was really…….weird, and not in the normal cool way

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

no one asked but I've been incredibly obsessed with this movie for like 2 weeks straight so have my rambles under the cut if anyones interested

So in the movie vampires (ignoring max for this because i cannot for the life of me figure out how he fits into all of this) represent the dangers of various alternative subcultures as seen in the 80s. They do drugs, they steal, they're heavily queer coded. Sleep all night party all day etc etc. David acts as a seductive force pulling Micheal away from living a normal life with his family and Star. In killing the vampires, the Emersons + Star and Laddie are able to return to normal human life. Micheal gets his happy, heterosexual ending with Star and Laddie, essentially saving his wife and kid figures from a life of degeneracy.

So what do the comics do with this? Well the only obvious way to take this story

introduce a girl gang of vampires who are trying to find an underground city of the original vampire mothers to revive them and bring about the end of humanity. Obviously. Also the saxophone guy from the scene Micheal meets Star is there and he's a religious weirdo vampire hunter who slathers himself in holy oil to ward off vampires. Oh and David survived and now he's helping the girl vampires and gets one last homoerotic scene with Micheal for good measure.

The original mother vampires seem to be based off of. like the aztec in a weird way? like there's a few words thrown in and they dress like my middleschool textbook said the aztec dressed. Anyways they've been sleeping in an ancient cave under the lost boys hotel cave hideout. Sam kills like one of them and then there's a cave in and they just die. probably. The main villain of the series is an old lady who's mad that she got turned into a vampire at 80 and wants to use the blood of the mother vampires to make herself young again. She's the sire of the girl vampire gang who Star also belonged to before being sent out to join the lost boys because the girl vampires needed access to their cave to find the underground city of vampires. There's also a hinted at gay romance between Star and the head of the vampire girl gang but it's only hinted at after the vampire is dead. I guess they just couldn't resist the chance to one up whatever Mickie and David had going on.

Are you confused yet? that's ok because its over

I think there's some good ideas in here! I could see a version of this comic that focuses more heavily on the old lady vampire and how she wants to be young again instead of focusing 5 comics to the mother vampires and springing this twist ending in the 6th. They also gave Star a terminal illness as her inspiration for joining the girl vampires in the first place, which I actually really liked! Give the poor girl some more agency in the situation. I'm indifferent to her being with the vampire girl gang, but it does feel forced how it's presented in the comics. I have no idea why they focused so heavily on the mother vampires just to have them be wiped out by a cave in. The pacing is all over the place

Oh also David survives once again. Getting the blood of the mother vampires which will make him a. Super vampire? I think? good for him tbh he could use the win

truly there is no way to guess what the fuck happens in the comic sequel to The Lost Boys 1987 movie if you haven't read them. What a way to miss the entire point of a movie and just do whatever the fuck you think sounds cool in the moment

[thiefoflight68]

Just A Silly Writer!

My Masterlist

Hello and welcome to my Tumblr account. I post my fanfic writings in Fanfiction, A03, Inkett, Quotev & Wattpad. Everything is under my user id Thiefoflight68.

I consider myself a girl but use She/They as I am pansexual. I generally write Fanfiction, play Dungeons & Dragons and walk on the beach all the time with my dog listening to music for my fics. I love music and try to put some good songs into my stories to help get the vibe of the scene. I do try to keep characters as canon as possible but I like to change up personalities so that it's not always the same for my readers (and myself). I mainly write MHA at the moment. I've also started doing Fem Reader Inserts and am enjoying those.

It's finally happened - I wrote a fanfics that are not MHA!!

And now I am working on my first ORIGINAL work!! Doing a werewolf romance, since I love the monster genre. 😉

Current Fanfic WIPs:

The Golden Dragon - Born half-human / half-dragon and cursed for eternity doesn't do much for your self-esteem. Katsuki Bakugou discovers that not only is he cursed to be brutally murdered by humans his entire existence, he manages to make other half-dragons along the way. Now they have to find a way to fulfill the prophecy of love… if you believe in that shit. Which Katsuki doesn't. But he does want to find the one dragon that has managed to get away. In their search they end up working at a new restaurant started by Shouta Aizawa, a Greek literature professor? Is he a chef? Or is this a front to take down one of the most powerful mafia bosses in the city, Kai Chisaki? Are you confused yet? So am I… but damn this is fun.

The Kingdom of the Six Pillars - Being pulled into another world through a magic portal only happens in stories, right? Not for Izuku Midoriya. Finding himself in a strange realm, he has been brought to the Kingdom of the Six Pillars as a Magical Transfer. This world only is able to survive by the magic created between a bonded pair of a Transfer and a Pillar. Except Transfers must have magic to be bonded and as Izuku steps into the dark water, it shows... nothing. Now stuck in this world for as long as it takes for a bonded pair to form, Izuku decides to explore and discover the world around him.

Current Original WIPs:

Starting on my first original work y'all!! So excited to introduce Kash and Meghan.

Denying Fate - Kash Lomas is the oldest of six siblings that are part of his father's werewolf pack. Being the marked or future Alpha of his pack, Kash has wanted to deny his destiny and to separate from his wolf heritage ever since he was a child. Meghan McCauley is trying to pull her life back together after a nasty breakup. Exhausted from a long and unfruitful business trip, Meg wants nothing more than to go home. Stopping at one last bank in a dusty town in New Mexico, she meets Trevor Lomas and discovers she is the fated pair for his oldest son. Neither one are interested in anything fate wants to serve them, but events unfold that make them aware that this bond might be necessary to save the pack.

My Works:

One Shots -

My Egg Assignment - Fluffy eggshot about class 1A being assigned actual eggs to simulate having a baby to educate them on parenthood... Maybe? Izuku takes the assignment very seriously and notices Kacchan's egg is mysteriously missing.

Waiting for The Ghost King - Fluffy one shot of Xie Lian on Mount Tiacang alone.

Broken Heat - MCU Bucky Barnes x Sam Wilson. Omegaverse plot bunny challenge.

A Cowboy in Chaps - A fun Sero x Reader off of my new Western AU Second Chance Ranch (not yet posted).

Taming Of The Crew - Sequel to @succibisblog story 4M/1F Bakusquad GB with fluff (gotta have my fluff) Bakugsqaud x Fem!Reader insert

The New Employee - Reader request for an edgy but soft 6M/1F Bakusquad gangbang with fluff Bakusquad x Fem!Reader

The Drop - Baku/Eijiro x Fem!Reader - A BDSM series Part One

The Scene - Part Two

WIP Third Part - Someday, I promise. It's written but I don't love it and I won't publish what I don't love! SIGH

Kirishima Drives Like A Maniac - Highjacked from I Will Always Love You. Funny one shot - Kirishima x Fem!Reader

What If You Couldn't Sweat Kacchan? - This is a K+ (language) silly one shot for a competition - Baku/Deku

Reaching For Gold - Shoji's Wish - This is a request from a reader for a one shot from Reaching For Gold - Baku/Deku/Shoji Smut

My long Fics -

Second Chance Ranch - When life hasn’t gone the way you wanted, shouldn’t you get a second chance? Bakugou found himself trying to get a job to restart after being released from prison but fate had other ideas. A chance meeting brought him to the Midoriya Family Ranch, also known as Second Chance Ranch by the ex-convicts that had made a new life there. But is he the only one needing a second chance? Destiny seems to have brought him here to be the rescuer as much to be rescued.

Bullet Point - Baku/Todo After the loss of their friend and the government revoking their Pro Hero licenses. Several members of the 1A class have become detectives. During their investigation they began unraveling a mystery that may lead them to understanding what happened to their friend or to their own deaths.

I Will Always Love You - Baku/Deku Bakusquad on tour as a professional music band. Super hot Shinso/Ojiro side ship, they about steal the show.

Let's Give Them Something To Talk About - A Small Town Romance- Baku/Deku with side ship of Sero/Kiri

Reaching for Gold - Baku/Deku with side ship of Miro/Sero - Sports Romance

A Succulent Prize (Written in a COVID Fever - so just...) Baku/Deku strange little story - Romance + ? (I adore all my fics but this weird ass story is my low key favorite.)

Open For Business - Baku/Deku - My first and super sweet Romance - Hurt Comfort but a little rambling LOL