#sam's memory loss

[godmadeaterribleerror]

I'll Crawl Home

Main Masterlist

Read on A03!

Tags: Dean Winchester/Female Reader, memory loss, angst, pining (unrequited love but not really), smut (blowjob, fingering, p in v sex, creampie), love confessions, no use of y/n

Summary/Warnings: You don't know who these men are, but they seem to know you. Your body seems to like the Handsome one a lot. But the more you manage to remember, the more lost you feel.

Author's Note: This might be one of my favorites. Enjoy!!

Title from Work Song by Hozier

Word Count: 8.6k

You don’t know who these men are. 

There are three of them, all gathered around you with frowning faces and drawn brows, and they seem worried. The tall one in the middle keeps saying your name and asking the one in the tie and trench coat if he can figure out what’s wrong with you. Trench Coat keeps snapping variations of no, he can’t, because the object was guarded against outside interference. 

The third one is silent. He’s a little behind you and wearing flannel like Tall, but his hair is shorter, he’s less lanky, and he’s touching you. His hand is on your arm, his grip so tight it almost hurts, and you’d… barely even noticed. Not because he’s almost inhumanly handsome, or because when he does grumble something in his voice is deep and soothing to your mind, but because your body hadn’t seemed to really register it. And if it had, it hadn’t been worried at all.

But you’re worried. As your brain starts to kick into gear—dragging itself out of an odd, hazy sludge—you are very worried about why Trench Coat, Tall, and Handsome are so close to you. Why Trench Coat keeps saying you’re sick—you’re tired, but overall you feel fine—and why Tall knows your name. Why Handsome is still touching you, why he’s so quiet, why when he looks at you your skin heats and your heart does a little, happy hum.

Why when you yank your arm from Handsome’s grasp, he blinks at you in confusion. Why he says your name so slowly. Why when he reaches back out to you, your body leans forward of its own accord. 

“No!” You shout, and it’s more at yourself, but Handsome’s whole face falls, and he looks like he’s been shot, stabbed, and bled out.

“Shit, she’s talking- Hey,” Tall says your name, reaching to grab your shoulder, and you start to crawl away from him. “Can you- Wait, where are you going-“

“She seems to be experiencing panic.” Trench Coat tilts his head, glancing over your shoulder. “She is likely trying to get to Dean.”

You follow his gaze, and your body is moving to where Handsome—Dean?—had backed away.

“Fuck!” You try to scramble to your feet, ready to run for your life, but you barely make it to your knees before darkness clouds your vision and your head starts to spin.

All three men shout your name, but Dean’s deep voice is the loudest, and when the world grows clear again, he the one who’s holding you upright.

Your body is slumped into him. It’s the same way you’ve slumped into your bed. The same way you used to slump against you mom when you were a kid, because you never thought she could hurt you. Because she’d felt like the safest place to be in the world.

But you don’t know Dean. 

“Don’t- don’t touch me-“ You try to shake him off, but he doesn’t let go. He just lowers you carefully down and moves away, staring at you with an expression that makes your heart ache for reasons you don’t understand. “Who are you people?!”

Tall says your name again. How the fuck does he know your name. “It’s just us, it’s-“ Tall moves to touch you, and frowns when you flinch away.

At least you still know how to flinch away. 

“I don’t knowwho the fuck you are,” you hiss at him. “Or what the fuck is happening, but I want to go home.” You hug yourself, everything suddenly cold, your voice growing small. “Please let me go home.”

Trench Coat nods. “I am able to-“

“Cas.” Dean grunts from behind you, and Trench Coat—Cas—frowns at him. “Don’t.”

“She has requested something I can assist with-“

“She doesn’t fucking know who you are.” Dean snaps, stomping past you, never looking down. It makes the ache in your heart worse. “What the hell do you think is gonna happen when you zap her back to a home she doesn’t remember?”

Tall shakes his head. “We don’t know that she doesn’t remember the bunker-“

“Yeah? Hey,” Dean says your name, his glare and tone firm. Your body has a very confusing reaction to it, your thighs squeezing together as your stomach fills with heat. “You believe in angels?”

You blink. “Like, with wings?”

Dean gives Tall a pointed look, and Tall just shakes his head again.

“That doesn’t prove anything-“

“It proves enough, Sammy.” 

“No, it doesn’t!” Tall—Sammy—crosses his arms, glaring at Dean. “She remembers her own name, it’s not unreasonable to think she might remember her home!”

“That’s cause her name is her name! She doesn’t remember who we are! She’s not going to remember anything else-“

“It may be productive to find out what she does remember before we make assumptions.” Cas cuts Dean off with clipped words, and barely flinches as Dean glowers at him. You’re impressed. Dean seems scary.

Even if your body doesn’t seem to agree. 

“Good idea, Cas, let’s just-“ Sammy drops to the floor in front of you. “Hi, I’m-“

“Sammy?” 

“It’s actually Sam- wait.” Sam blinks at you. “You remember my name?“

“No.” You shake your head, nodding up to Dean. “He said it.”

“Oh.” Sam follows your gaze with a small frown. “Do you know his name?”

“It’s Dean.” You whisper, and another strange expression flashes over Dean’s face. “But I don’t remember it, I just heard it. I’m sorry.”

Dean’s jaw clenches, and Sam sighs.

“Don’t apologize, we’re just- It’s complicated.” Sam runs a hand through his hair, scanning carefully over your face. “Can I ask you a few questions?”

You nod—you don’t seem to have a choice, and you’re not nearly as panicked as you should be—and Sam swallows.

“Okay, you know your name, so how about- What year is it?”

You tell him, and he nods slowly. It goes like that as he asks you the date, the president, how old you are, and when your birthday is. It only flips when he asks you where home is, you answer, and all three men gape at you.

“What’s wrong?” You look between their identical expressions of worry. “That’s where I-“

Sam says your name carefully, his voice tense. “You haven’t lived there in almost six years.”

You blink at him. “No… I- I live there now.”

“No, you-“ Sam lets out a long breath. “How about this, do you know what your job is?”

“Yeah, I’m a librarian.”

That was clearly not the answer they wanted, but Sam pushes on. “Okay, what kind of car do you drive?”

“I don’t drive.” You glance up at Cas and Dean, and they’re exchanging a taut look. This is so fucking weird. “I, um, I take the bus.”

“Fuck!” Dean shouts suddenly, throwing his hands in the air. He sounds agitated. It’s making you agitated. “Goddamnit, she doesn’t remember anything-“

“Actually, she seems to remember selective things.” Cas lowers down as well, his gaze seeming to drive right into your soul. “Are you aware of how you arrived here, in this room?”

You aren’t. You try to remember, and it hurts. Your whole head lights up with pain and you double-over, but that seems to answer the men’s questions all by itself, and they exchange low, tense words as you lay on the floor.

Dean keeps looking at you. He’s not speaking to you, but he keeps staring at you, and your body always seems to respond to it. His jaw clenches as Cas helps you to your feet, and your legs want to walk right into him. Dean scowls as Sam explains that you do know them—that they’re your friends, and you’re cursed, and they’re taking you somewhere safe to help you—and your skin prickles under the feeling of it. As they move you into a sleek black muscle car and take off down the road, Dean keeps glaring at you in the rearview mirror and you want to reach out and touch him. You think it would be really good to touch him.

You really want to touch him. He’s beautiful, in the shadows and low lights of the highway, and right now it’s really just Dean in the whole universe. 

Just Dean. Here. With you.

The wind is cold in your hair and loud in your ears, but the Impala is warm, and the music is louder.

Dean is louder. Singing at the top of his lungs and drumming a little off beat on the wheel, his eyes alight and his smile wide. 

He’s warm, too. You giggle and roll your eyes when he makes a terrible joke, and he grabs your face with a strong, rough, warm hand to pulls you into a kiss, all as the road keeps rushing past you-

Cas says your name, and you blink at him. You’re not sure what the fuck just happened.

“Are you experiencing memory recall?”

“I, um, what?”

“Your eyes.” He says, and you notice Sam twisting around to watch from the passenger’s seat. “They began to move in a manner similar to human REM sleep, however you remained awake the whole time. Were you thinking of something you had previously forgotten?”

“I, uh,” you glance in the rearview mirror. Dean’s suddenly fixated on the road, his grip on the wheel white knuckled. “Have I been in this car before?”

“Yeah, you have.” Sam’s words are cautious, his eyes trained on you. “A lot. Cas, you don’t think-“

“I do. I believe it may be our best shot.”

And that’s how it begins. The moment you return to the bunker—a strange, underground building they claim you’ve lived in for years—you’re rushed through the grand tour in the hopes of triggering just a little more of your memory.

You’d consider it useless if it wasn’t working. If your hands didn’t already know how to sort through their strange classification of books. If you didn’t get flashes of laughter and visions of Sam and Dean around a table in what they call the War Room. If Sam doesn’t show you the kitchen, and suddenly your brain is washed over with a memory of sitting at the table, across from him and Dean.

Dean winks at you as Sam tries to show you something on his laptop. You’re going to kill him. He’s being obvious, and a little mean.

It doesn’t stop you from following him out of the kitchen only minutes later, even though it snaps your dignity in half.

“You’ve got something?” Sam’s almost jumping in front of you, and you give him a small smile. 

“You drink smoothies.”

“They’re healthy.” Sam shrugs, his voice raising to a shout. “Cas! It’s working!”

Dean shuffles into the kitchen, barely glancing at you. “Cas left. Said he’s going to look for a better fix.”

Sam frowns. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He told me. And you should bring her to her room.”

Your eyes widen as Sam nods, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Shit, yeah, good idea. C’mon,“ Sam says your name, walking to the hallway. “This should be good for you.”

When you see your room, it does seem like your room. It’s decorated how you’d decorate it, clothing scattered on the floor that you recognize, the walls painted how you’d paint them, but there’s also a shotgun on the dresser and a knife on your bedside stand.

“Shit, sweetheart, this is an awesome gun, where’d you find it?”

You look up at Dean from your bed, fidgeting with your blanket between your fingers. “It was in one of the storage rooms. I can show you later, I think there were a few more.”

“Hell yeah,” he aims it at the wall, his smile easy and boyish. It’s adorable.

You wish he’d stop.

“Dean?”

He hums, still turning the gun in his hands, and you take in a long breath.

“Are we going to talk about it?”

Dean freezes, his eyes wide and almost panicked on yours as he sets the gun back down.

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about. I mean, it’s us. We can be cool.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, cool. You have a problem, I take care of it. I have a problem,” he gestures between your bodies with raised brows, and you sigh.

“Okay.”

“Awesome.”

“Yeah.” You smile at him, and this might consume and destroy you. But fuck you, you’re going to let it. “Awesome.”

“You got anything?” Sam asks, and you nod. You might have too much. 

And none of it is making any make sense at all.

The week passes like this. More small memories come to you in visions, your head pounds and stabs with pain, Sam hangs over your shoulder and shows you countless places you can navigate but don’t recognize—their dungeon, their gun range, a place called the Dean Cave, a field, and a corner store down the street—all as Dean swirls around your head, but remains just out of sight. Barely crossing your path, looking like a deer in headlights when he does.

But you think you’ve sat with your legs over his lap in the Dean Cave. You’ve trailed after him—holding onto the sleeve of his jacket—in the corner store. You’ve had his body wrapped around yours in the gun range, his voice low and teasing in your ear as he guides your hands.

And the most memories come in your bedroom. Sitting on the mattress with him towering above you, lying on the floor with him under you, giggling as he pins you against the door.

He still won’t look at you. He doesn’t even acknowledge you anymore. He’s locking himself in his room, only coming out to get food, sort through the library, or take his car and leave for hours on end.

Sam is worried.

“This… isn’t like Dean.” He tells you, frowning at the door Dean had just disappeared through. “I don’t know what’s up with him, but you guys were really good friends before. Like, really good.” He gives you an odd look. You’ve been getting a lot of those lately. “There was a while where I was pretty sure that he was finally-“ He shakes his head, cutting himself off. “Never mind. I’ll talk to him later.”

You sleep in your room again. It’s felt strange, because your body doesn’t seem to like your mattress. It doesn’t relax into it like it should, if you’ve really been sleeping here for years. You keep waking up reaching for the other side of the bed. You keep being unable to fall asleep at all because something feels off. 

He’s still here when you wake up. His arm heavy over your stomach as he presses your back against his chest, his breath hot on your neck. 

You should’ve kicked him out last night. You try to never let him fall asleep next to you, let alone wake up in your bed. It’s cruel to you.

Because now you have to have this, and then let it go. You’ll never be able to wipe the feeling of Dean wrapped around you from your skin, and your muscles will never forget how easy it was to relax when he was holding you. 

When you roll over your hands will always know how to linger on his bare, warm chest. Your fingers will always know how to map his every freckle, even if you were blindfolded and submerged underwater. 

Your heart will always know to slow down when you look at him. Especially like this. He’s peaceful here. His eyelashes fluttering and his lips parted, his brow dropped to yours as he sleeps. 

As he has no way to know that he’s doing it.

He’s vulnerable. Dean’s body is letting him rest with you at his side. It’s letting him fall into a strong sleep with steady breaths and slack muscles, even though there’s something foreign pressed against him.

And that’s why this is cruel. It feeds your hope that this could be more. That Dean could ever see you as you see him, that he’d chose to rest with you because deep down, he loves you like you love him.

Deeply and powerfully. Irrevocably and brutally. Made of gnashing teeth and blood caking your nails, but also simple in loud music and wind, soft in golden streetlamps that cast halos around his head. Concrete. Dependable. You will always love Dean, even if you lose everything else you’ve ever had.

And he will not love you.

And this is cruel.

But you still let your face bury itself in his neck. You still let your nose memorize the evergreen and amber smell of him. You still let his skin leave burning marks on yours, as he stays asleep. 

And you just watch him. 

You have to drag yourself out of bed. You have to give Dean a close-lipped smile when he walks right past you in the kitchen, and not scream when his skin brushes yours.

It’s not foreign. 

It feels like you.

And you’re so lost. 

You don’t ask any questions. The few questions you have asked made Sam sad, like you should already know the answer, and he always does this puppy-dog face that breaks your heart. The only questions you’d really want to ask were questions about Dean. About if Sam talked to him, about why—if you’re as close as Sam claims, if these strange snapshots are true—he won’t even look at you. About how he’d looked at you before.

About how you’d looked at him.

But Sam’s too busy for you to even really consider it. He’s calling Cas and someone named Rowena all the time, he’s researching day and night to try and fix you, and he’s coming up with strange new ways to trigger your memory every day.

“Sit there.” He points to the driver’s seat of the Impala, moving around the hood of the car. “You’re driving.”

You shake your head. “I don’t know how to drive stick-“

“Yeah, you do, Dean- fuck.” Sam groans, rubbing his forehead. “Well, let’s try having you sit in it? Just to see if anything happens?”

You nod, and things do happen. When you put your hand on the gear shift, a phantom of a bigger, calloused one covers it, and suddenly you can drive stick. You don’t even have to think about it, you just can. 

It might be worse when you think about it. Sam makes you drive—telling you to go somewhere and refusing to specify any possible destinations—and whenever you try to actually dwell on what you’re doing, you make a mistake. 

So you let your body take over. You drive the Impala where your hands want you to go, and where they want you to go seems to be a dive bar parking lot.

“Huh.” Sam glances around as you both climb out of the car, a small frown on his face. “I’ve never been here before. I know it’s a stupid question, but do you know where you are?”

“No,” you sigh, letting your feet carry you to the edge of the pavement, letting your knees bend down as you sit on the curb. “Not at all.”

“Shit.” He mutters. “Well, you want a drink while we’re here?”

You nod, Sam goes into the bar, returns with two beers, and drops at your side.

“This is…” Sam glances at you, his voice soft. Apologetic. “I’m really sorry this is happening. I mean, Dean went through something similar a while ago, but at least we had an idea of how to handle that, you know? I’m- I don’t even know where to start here.” He says your name, rolling his bottle between his hands. “All we’ve got is Dean saying you touched a cursed object, but he’s being really weird and when Cas and I went back to the building there was nothing. We’re going to fix this, I promise, but...”

He sighs, trailing off, and you clear your throat. You haven’t just sat with Sam since this—whatever this is—started. This might be your only chance to try to get answers in a way that doesn’t make your skull cave in and your heart burn.

“Can I ask you some stuff?”

Sam nods, and you take a long, slow breath.

“How did I end up here? Doing,” you gesture vaguely to the air. “This.”

A small smile ghosts over Sam’s lips. “Dean and I were hunting a vamp nest, and you were one of the witnesses. You helped us out a little, we told you some stuff about how you deal with vamps, and then you got kidnapped. We- Well, we tried to save you, but by the time we got there you’d kind of saved yourself. You’d covered yourself in dead man’s blood from one of their discarded vics, and none of them would go near you. After it was done, you asked to come with us, and you haven’t left since.”

“And we’re… friends?”

“We are.” Sam says, rubbing his forehead with a sigh. “I mean, I know you and I are. You helped me organize the library when you moved to the bunker. I taught you most of the stuff about the lore, and we made up a game about it. Dean calls it dumb, but he just hates that he’s bad at it. Sometimes you go on runs with me, and then you say you’re never running again. You’re the one who convinced me to ask out my girlfriend-“

You blink at him. “You have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah, Eileen. You’re friends with her too. You’re friends with everybody.” Sam offers you another smile, and this one seems less painful. “Even Rowena likes you. We didn’t have to threaten her to help us out here.”

Even as you return Sam’s smile, a last question eats at your tongue, and you’re too tired, too confused to think better of asking it.

“What about Dean?” You whisper. “Am I friends with him?”

Sam sighs. He seems to do that a lot. 

“Yes. Kind of. I… I don’t know.” He mutters, frowning at the pavement. “It’s complicated. I’m not- This isn’t really my place, you know?”

You swallow. “Does he hate me?”

Sam laughs at that. A loud, full laugh that echoes around the parking lot. 

“No.” He shakes his head, clearly amused by something you don’t understand. “I don’t think either of you could hate each other if you-“

“I fucking hate you!” You scream, shoving his chest. He doesn’t flinch. He never flinches. 

Asshole.

“You’re drunk.” Dean grunts your name, catching your hand against his chest. “We need to go home.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you, Winchester-“

“Yeah, you are.”

Dean starts to tug you across the parking lot, back to the car, and you hate that you just let him. You always let him. He takes you somewhere and you just follow him like a fucking lapdog. Waiting for him whenever he leaves. Whining and whimpering at the door when he’s gone and lighting up from the inside when he returns. 

Barely getting a treat or a smile when he pays attention to you. Only really getting his attention in brief flashes that build your body to an explosion before leaving you to pick up the pieces yourself. Leaving you alone, wracked with a love he can’t return, mending your own heart until he asks to break it again, and you let him.

“You’re going to sleep it off.” Dean mutters from ahead of you, and there are little blond hairs at the nape of his neck that seem silver and gold in the low light. Just another piece of him that’s impossibly beautiful. Another piece you get to touch but never keep. 

“I don’t need to sleep it off!” You yank your hand from his grip as he tries to guide you into Baby, and drop on the curb with a dramatic sigh. “Just leave me alone, Dean.”

“I am not fucking abandoning you at some sketchy bar-“

“Why not?” You raise your chin at him, narrowing your eyes. “Afraid I’ll find someone else? That I’ll crawl into another bed, and they’ll actually like me, and you’ll lose your favorite pet?”

He scowls. “We’re not having this conversation right now-“

“Why not?! You know it’s the truth, Dean! I’m just, I’m your fucking toy and you hate sharing-“

He says your name in a low warning, but you can’t stop now. This pain has been building up and up in your chest and lungs for years, and now that it’s out it’s volcanic. You couldn’t keep it in if you tried.

“But you’ll never actually care about me! I’m easy for you! That was the fucking deal, right! We’re easy for each other and that’s it, just using each other until one of us fucking dies! You keep acting like I mean nothing and then you get all fucking possessive when I try to get over you-“

“You’re not trying to get over me.” He mutters, not fully meeting your eyes. “You don’t have anything to get over. You’re just fucking wasted-“

“Yeah, I am, because you won’t just say that I matter to you-“

“Of course you matter to me, you’re my friend-“

“You’re not my friend!” You scream, your voice echoing through the parking lot. Your head is starting to spin. “Friends don’t do this to each other!”

You’re dizzy. You feel a little faint. 

And you’d just spend an hour telling Dean you hate him. But he’s still grabbing you and keeping you steady.

You really wish he wouldn’t. It would make it easier to pretend you really did hate him. That just his touch didn’t make you feel safe and cared for, even when the dickhead didn’t really care. 

“You done?” He asks, and you hum, something hot and wet stinging at your eyes.

“I hate you, Dean.” You mumble, even as you slump into him. “I fucking hate you.”

He brushes some hair from your face, and your eyes flutter. “I know you do, babygirl.” He mutters, and you don’t think he knows you’re still awake. “Let’s go home.”

Sam’s frowning at you when the real world comes back into view. And when you whisper that you’d really like to leave, he doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t even make you drive, or try to talk to you as you stare out the window. 

He doesn’t push for the rest of the day. He shows you a few more things that trigger smaller memories, and you don’t see Dean at all. 

But he’s everywhere. In every memory. You walk through the library as Sam explains a system you allegedly designed, and a memory of you explaining this exact system to Dean flashes through your brain. He’d made jokes, and you’d giggled, and his smile had numbed your brain. You try to make yourself dinner, and suddenly you’re laughing and throwing food at Dean, right before he presses you against the counter with a searing kiss. You wander through the halls and you can hear heavy, controlled steps behind you. You return to your room, and he’s at your side in bed, wearing the same flannel from the memory in the parking lot. Making you drink water and helping you change, muttering low apologies you can’t actually really hear. Tucking you in bed and tracing his hand over your face, grabbing you a trash can to vomit in when you shoot back up, his hand rubbing soothing circles on your back. 

His whole face is set in that memory, but it’s all hazy. You don’t know if you trust it, because all the other memories have been sharp and clear, but this one is dreamlike. Like even before you lost your memory, you weren’t sure if it was real. The you who all this happened to might have just made this up for herself. Made up Dean holding her hair back and pressing a soft kiss to her brow as she lay back down, even though you can still feel the warmth of his chapped lips in that exact spot. She might have made up Dean smiling at her when she mumbled that she didn’t actually hate him. She might have made up him staying when she begged him to in a soft voice. 

You don’t know. You don’t know anything. You’ve never felt more lost, never been in more pain. Your body is where it’s supposed to be, but your brain isn’t. It’s restless and worried and tearing itself apart, and when you fail to sleep your body knows how to walk through the halls, even as your whole mind spins and shreds itself to pieces.

Sam was sorry this was happening to you, but you don’t know why. You don’t know him. Every time you’ve seen Cas since you’ve returned, he’s asked you questions you don’t know the answers to. Every day your body remembers things, but you don’t. You want to, you want to so bad, but you’re adrift and drowning in a vast, cold ocean and you can’t even remember how you got there. You keep feeling like there’s a lifeline, just out of reach, but you can’t grab it. It’s not in your room, or the kitchen, or the library. It’s nowhere Sam takes you, nowhere you remember how to go.

You feel like something had been guiding you, anchoring you in the waves, and now it’s missing. Vanished from your hands. 

And now you’re lost, and in pain, and alone. Wandering aimlessly through the depths of the bunker in the dead of night, searching for a lighthouse you’re not sure exists.

You walk into the War Room, and Dean’s already there. Glass of whiskey in hand, head tipped back and eyes closed, the fancy headphones you’d gotten him for his birthday blasting music so loud you can hear it from across the room. You walk up behind him and run a gentle hand over his cheeks, and he doesn’t flinch. His eyes just open slowly and find yours in a second, his attention soft as he tugs his headphones down, grabs your hand, and kisses your knuckles. 

“Hi.” You whisper, and he grins.

“Hey.”

“It’s late.” You run a hand through his hair, and he lets you. He’s amazing and horrible, so he lets you have this. “It’s bad for your back to sleep in a chair.”

“Bad for my back?” He chuckles. “I’m not that old, sweetheart-“

“It’s bad for everyone’s back-“

“Sam sleeps in his chair all the time.” Dean raises his brows at you, and you swallow. “You’re not on his ass about it.”

You sigh. You don’t want to entertain this. You’re too tired for the fight that it will lead to. “Please just go sleep in your bed, Dean.”

He hums, and you let him guide you around the chair, until you’re standing between his legs.

“Maybe I will, if you’re there with me.”

“Don’t say that.” You whisper, unable to move away. He’s going to break your heart again. You’re going to let him, because your heart is traitorous and loves being broken by Dean. It just likes that Dean has to touch it to break it. “Please.”

He shakes his head with a long, deep exhale, and doesn’t say another word. 

But he doesn’t go to bed either. He stands up until you’re trapped between his body and the table, and places his whiskey down, his eyes never leaving yours. He’s scanning over your face with an expression like he’s lost, like he’s looking for something he’s desperate to find but terrified to see.

You don’t know if he finds it. 

All you know is that he’s touching you, and you’re molding into him, and whatever he does to you, you’ll allow. 

As long as it’s Dean doing it.

He unplugs his headphone until the music is filling the War Room, picks up his iPod, and changes the song. This one is soft, a gentle melody drowning you in honey and a daze of Dean. You didn’t think he’d own a song like this. It’s slow and romantic, and it flows so easily as he takes one hand in yours, places the other on your hip, and moves you away from the table.

He starts to sway, holding you steady in his arms, and soon you’re dancing. Really dancing, in measured, easy steps that Dean guides you through. You didn’t think he’d know how to do this. You didn’t think he’d ever do it with you.

But you’re lost in him, and you’ve never felt like you’ve belonged anywhere else. You’re drowning in the song, but Dean’s drowning with you, so you know exactly where you are. Trapped in this infinite and fleeting moment, trapped in Dean’s eyes, trapped in the warmth of his light, casting over your body and guiding you wherever you’ll need to be.

When he leans in to kiss you, you don’t push him away. You could never push him away. Your hands only know how to curl in his shirt and your lips only know how to crash into his. Your tongue always craves Dean’s taste of whiskey and pecan, and your body always knows how to catch the small sparks of lighting his touch creates, then throw them through your whole body.

And Dean always kisses you with everything he has, but this is different. It’s not desperate and needy, it’s long and deep and feels like home. When he sucks on your lower lip, it’s like he’s trying to leave a mark. When his steps still and he dips you down, you gasp, and he breathes it in like it’s more than oxygen. When your arms wrap around his neck, he pulls you closer, like you could be absorbed into his body forever. 

When he pulls away—the song long over, the only sounds in the world his ragged breath and your heartbeat in your ears—he still doesn’t speak. And you don’t move. You’ll be a statue until Dean’s command brings your back to life. You’ll be cold marble, sinking down, down, down until he takes your hand and reminds your body how to be.

And that’s pathetic.

But when he squeezes your hand in his, presses a soft kiss on the space between your eyes, and starts to guide you out of the War Room, you don’t even try not to follow him.

Because Dean would never let you stray from where you’re safe. Next to him.

Your legs are carrying you out of the war room, down a path that they remember but you don’t. To a door that your hand aches to push open, into a room where the air is warm but fresh, and an overwhelming smell of amber and evergreen tints against your nostrils. They don’t seem bothered by it. They seem to relax into it, like it’s an anesthetic. 

This must be Dean’s room. If your body couldn’t tell you that, your increasingly fragile brain would still piece it together. It’s obviously lived in—clothing on the floor, sheets messy on the bed, small bits of evidence scattered on the shelves and dresser—and there’s only one lived in room you haven’t entered before. Dean’s.

Sam hadn’t even shown you where it was.

Apparently he hadn’t needed to. Your whole body had pulled you here.

And that’s your shirt, on the bedside table-

Dean peels off your shirt without a word, discarding it to an unseen corner of the room. You fumble with his belt, your need growing and growing with every second his hands map over your body—he’s already explored it, found places you didn’t even know existed yourself, but he never seems to get sick of you—and Dean just chuckles, keeping his brow pressed to yours as he takes care of it himself. His jeans have barely fallen around his ankles when he grabs your face between his hands and kisses you until your knees are weak.

Neither of you are speaking. There’s nothing to say that hasn’t already been screamed or sobbed or snapped, hasn’t been moaned or mumbled or whispered. 

All that left to do is touch each other, like you have a million times before. Like you will a million times again, because you can lie to yourself that one day your patience will run out and you’ll leave, but you know you won’t. Dean’s changed your body on a level that feels deeper than skin. Your heart only knows how to beat for him. Your brain only knows how to think of him. Your hands only know how to palm at his dick, tenting through his boxers, and your lips only know how to part as he groans down your throats.

You fall to your knees, free him from his underwear, wrap your hand around his proud cock, and look up at him with a soft smile. His massive, rough hand has tangled in your hair, his eyes hooded and throat bobbing, and when you take him in your mouth you know exactly how to play him like an instrument. How to suck when he bumps the back of your throat, how to flick your tongue over the head of him, how to squeeze and jerk off the base of his cock where you can’t get him between your lips. You know to keep going as he starts to groan your name in a low warning, because if he wants to cum in your mouth, you’d never stop him.

That’s another taste you’ll always crave. Salty and bitter and so purely Dean, marking you in a way he can’t take back.

But he pulls you off with a firm tug of your hair, wiping a little drool from your lips with his thumb before tilting your head up and crashing his lips into yours. When Dean hauls you to your feet you crumple into him, and when he tosses you onto his bed you giggle, crawling backwards and spreading your legs in a silent offering you’ve given him a million times before, and will never stop giving him as long as he takes it.

And he always takes it. Dean’s eyes always darken, and he always prowls over you. But it’s never like you’re prey. Never like you’re just a body to be taken and notched on a bedpost. 

It’s like you’re something he’s trying to bathe himself in. Like an external piece of him he’s trying to protect and tend to by covering himself in it. It’s why he always dives down between your legs first, keeping you pinned to the bed with a hand on your stomach, shoving his tongue deep into your cunt and pressing his nose on your clit until you’re writhing and suffocating him between your thighs. When he moves to pull that bundle of nerves between his lips—pressing his tongue flat against you and sucking—a coil in your gut snaps, and you drown his face in your release.

Your body only ever does that for Dean.

You don’t think he knows that. And every time you think to tell him, he’s always already moved on. Risen above you and shoving two fingers into your still raw and sensitive pussy, finding the deepest part of you like it’s a magnet, and rubbing on it as he watches you come undone once more. 

He cleans his hands with his mouth, licking them and smirking at you as you reach for him, trying to grip his body and pull it down over yours. He usually takes his time—teasing and edging you until you’re a whining mess—but tonight really is different. His smile on your flushed, already wrecked face isn’t taunting or lustful, it’s relaxed. And he still doesn’t speak, but when he kisses his way over your navel, up your chest—stopping to suck on one nipple as his hand plays with your other breast, because he’s Dean and he can’t help himself—it’s louder than anything else in the world. He’s taking him time because he’s trying to keep you in his bed. He knows that once this is over, you’ll gather your things and leave, like you always do to protect yourself.

So he’s giving you a reason to stay.

He nips and sucks up your throat and over your jaw, plants kisses everywhere on your face but where you’re begging for him, and pins your squirming body to the bed with his full weight before his mouth finally makes its way to yours. 

He’s kissing you into the mattress, kissing you until your lips are swollen and your head is spinning from oxygen deprivation. He only pulls back to watch his hand stroke his cock, right before he guides himself into your dripping, fluttering pussy and bottoms out in one thrust. He lets out a low grunt as you adjust, and when he rolls his hips, you moan.

And he falls right back into you.

From there it’s only Dean. Fucking you until you’re scratching at his chest and putty in his arms, your mouth is slack as he groans and grunts above you. He hikes your thigh up to push his cock in at a deeper angle and marks your neck and shoulders with bites and hickeys that you hope never fade, building his speed until you’re just a squirming, whining mess and he’s slamming into you at a brutal pace. 

He doesn’t slow down when you cum, clenching around his cock and screaming a high whine of his name. He only swallows the sound with a bruising kiss, plunging his tongue down your throat and rutting harder and harder into your cunt. All you can do is take it. You’ll always take it. If this is how to you get to have Dean, you’ll never push him away.

He cums with a roar against your lips, trigging one last, small, shuddering orgasm through your body, and collapses on top of you.

Dean rolls you over until he’s beneath you, caging you against his chest with big, strong arms. He doesn’t pull out—letting his cum drip down and dry on your thighs—and when your look up at him he’s staring at you with a drunken, awestruck expression. 

His eyes are already drooping, his breathing slowing to an even, steady pace as he keeps you trapped against his body. You wish your hands could remember how to pry him away before he falls asleep, because now you’re going to be trapped here for a long, painful night where Dean’s sheathed inside you and you can smell and taste him everywhere, but he’s still not yours to have.

Yet, you can’t move.

And right as his eyes close, he mutters your name. You almost don’t hear it. You’re not sure you did hear it.

“Dean?”

He repeats your name, and it’s barely a breath. 

“Wha-“

“I love you.” He mumbles your name one last time, and you gape at him. He doesn’t even know he’s speaking. “‘m sorry. Love you. Don’t leave.” He buries his face in your hair, and he won’t remember this in the morning. “Please don’t leave me.”

“What are you doing in here.” 

You drag your gaze away from the bed and turn to see Dean, wearing flannel pants and a white sleep shirt. He’s not glaring at you, even though you’ve invaded his room without permission. He just looks weary. Tired.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, rooted to the spot. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

Something pained flashes over his face, and you feel small cracks form across your heart.

“Whatever.” He mutters, walking right past you without another glance. “Get out.”

“No.”

You don’t know why you said that. This isn’t your place to be, especially when Dean doesn’t want anything to do with you. When he doesn’t want you here. But you don’t feel adrift here. And you don’t want to go.

Dean stares at you. “What.”

“I’m not going.” You hug yourself, your eyes moving back to the shirt on the dresser. “That’s my shirt.”

He huffs, rolling his eyes as he mutters to himself. “So a fucking shirt you remember. Awesome.”

You swallow. “Why do you have my shirt, Dean.”

He goes rigid, but doesn’t speak, so you keep going.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” You don’t realize you’re walking forward he’s closer. It feels right. “Sam said-“

“Sam doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.” Dean grunts, but he doesn’t move away. Even when you move closer. Even as you push on.

“Then you tell me.” You sound like you’re pleading. You kind of are. “Every time I remember something you’re there, but you won’t even look at me! I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what’s going on, and I keep thinking about you but you’re acting like you want nothing to do with me-“

Dean’s jaw clenches, his words pushed through his teeth. “That’s not true.”

“It is! You can’t even stand to be in the same room as me!” You feel like you’re going to cry. You haven’t even wanted to cry, not since this began, but something has crashed down inside of you, and this room feels like a safe place to fall apart.

Dean feels like a safe place to fall apart.

“I’m, I’m so lost, and I don’t know what’s going on, and everything keeps coming back to you but I don’t know who you are! You won’t tell me who you are, Sam won’t tell me who you are, and I feel like I’m supposed to know but I don’t! I know who I am but I feel like I’m missing something, and everything hurts, and I just- I need to know-“

Dean grunts your name, and you let out a choked sob.

You’re sick of being lost. You’re sick of not knowing. And when you meet Dean’s eyes they’re like a beacon, and you can’t help but float into them. 

“Who am I to you, Dean?”

“You’re the love of my life.” His voice is hoarse, and his eyes widen slightly at his own answer. You don’t think he expected it. 

“I’m-“

His hands grab your face—holding you so carefully, like he’s practiced this a million time—and you melt into his touch. 

“You’re everything to me, and I- I fucking failed you.” Dean’s thumb traces over your cheekbone, wiping away a tear. “I can’t fix it. I’ve been fucking trying, baby. I promised you I’d try, but I can’t. I- I can’t. I need your help but you’re-“ He makes a low, strangled sound, dropping his brow to yours. It fits perfectly there. “I can’t do this without you. I never tell you that, I never say that I need you, but I do, and I failed you, and now you’re-“

Dean’s whole body shudders, and your arms wrap around him on instinct alone. He falls over you, clinging to you like you’re going to vanish, and-

“You don’t have to do this.” Dean mutters in your ear, and his hug is going to suffocate you, but you don’t care. Maybe he’ll leave an indent on your body. “We can just fucking destroy it-“

“Because trying to destroy cursed objects has worked out so well for us, historically.” You give him a sad, dry smile, and he shakes his head. 

“There’s another way. There’s always another way-“

“We don’t have time for another way. And it won’t be permanent. All curses can be cured.”

“But we don’t even know what the hell this one does!” He shouts, and you don’t wince. He’s not mad at you. “‘Taking what you value most’ could mean anything, could fucking do anything-“

“I know. But it will kill you if I don’t-“

“We don’t know that-“

You do know that. So does Dean. This object latched onto Dean, and it will either leech his life slowly, involuntarily, or take something from you, along with a piece of your memory. And you’ll lose whatever you need to if it keeps Dean safe.

“Listen.” You hold Dean’s gaze, making your voice firm. “Don’t tell Sam and Cas. They’ll get caught on what happened, and you’ll all start fighting, and we can’t afford that. You just need to find what I value, bring it back to me, and I’ll be okay. Got it?”

Dean shakes his head. “How am I supposed to know what you value if you won’t tell me-“

“I don’t know.” You sigh. “I- I honestly can’t think of what I value most, but hopefully you’ll notice something is missing, and you can track it down.” You give him a soft smile. “I believe in you, Dean. And if I’m awake, I’ll try to help you.”

“You won’t remember-“

“It should only take my memories relating the thing. I probably won’t even know anything is wrong.”

“But I’ll know.” He mutters. “And what if I don’t get the thing back to you-“

“You will get it back to me.” You say simply. He’s Dean. You trust him with more than your life. “And I’ll be okay.”

You start to move away, but he doesn’t let you go. He’s pallid and bloodless from the object draining him, but he’s still strong. And you don’t really want to leave him at all. 

“Don’t. Please.” He mutters your name, and it sounds like a prayer. “I’m not worth this, baby.”

“Of course you are.” You smile at him, tears stinging your eyes as you manage to force yourself away. “I love you.”

His eyes widen, and he looks like he wants to say something, but anything he can say will only make you hesitate.

So you turn away.

Right before you touch the object you have a thought. An epiphany that—if your hand wasn’t already pressed on the object’s cool surface—would have made you break down and scream for Dean to make you stop, to drag you away.

But it’s too late. And everything goes dark.

“Dean.”

He leans back to look at you, and you know him. You know everything about him, and it’s destroying your brain and body, trying to break out but trapped down. This pain is horrible.

But Dean is good.

“You love me?”

He swallows, but nods. He seems afraid. Tense under your hands, like you’re going to push him away and he’ll have to just take it.

He won’t. Because you do the only thing you’re certain you know how to do.

You kiss him.

It’s like fireworks, but there’s no electrically you haven’t felt before, no colors you’ve never seen. You’re swept up in his waves and wide fire, but it could never drown or burn you. You’ve adapted to move with it, to breathe in his water and smoke and trust him to bring you exactly where you need to be.

Against his chest, dipping and holding you steady, pouring his all and then some into your body. And your memory doesn’t crash back into you, it just washes over you like rain. 

Dean pulls back, and you smile at him like you always have. Like you always will.

“Hi,” you whisper, and he grins. 

“Hey,” Dean says your name, and you’ve done this dance before.  “Are you-“

You kiss him again, and you know exactly who Dean is. What he is to you, how he loves you in strong, unspoken silence that kills you and cures you all at one, and how you might be built to love him. 

You are.

And he’s built the same way for you.

End Note: Obsessed with love as a thing that happens to you physically, if you can't tell. Thank you for reading!

If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

Taglist

@artemys-ackles @ambiguous-avery @nightxcreature @sthefferrete @lyarr24

@deansbbyx @bakugotypecrashout @foolinthera1n @globetrotter28 @lordofthunderthr

@youdontknowe @nyrtopia @iloveeveryoneyoureamazing @panicking-outside-the-disco @elle14-blog1

@impala67rollingthroughtown @dumb--blonde @itsdearapril @apobangpo-0613 @alwaystiredandconfused

@arcticwisteria @generalmoonpolice @foxyjwls007 @jackles010378 @godhelpthisbtch

@ilovedeanwinchester4 @sleepykittycx @immastealurkneecaps @star-yawnznn

[suzran]

A small continuation to the amnesiac Ghost King Danny that I drew.

(You can tell I don’t do backgrounds much lol)

[homehauntsyou]

really fun to me how sam grew up confident in the capabilities of his mind, both as a source of rebellion and a source of pride (it's literally the thing that initially saves him and allows him to get out & go to college), only to eventually have even that taken from him because of possession and torture. really fun

[annmariethrush]

Season 10: dean wants to be alive. He wants to retire. He wants to go hang out on a beach with his loved ones. Sam wants to keep hunting. He doesn’t want to “go back” to his “normal life” with a wife and kid and no hunting.

Finale: you’ll never fucking guess what happens

[bubbleguppyyy]

GUESS WHOS BACK, BACK AGAIN!!

Heyyyyy guyssss :3

I AM SO SORRY I'VE BEEN GONE!!

I had some crazy stuff happen about a month after I started to publish the story Oh, Little Birdy, and I lost all inspiration for a good while. I am now feeling a lot better and have been getting all kinds of inspo! I'm so excited to continue this story!

!!!!!!VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!

I redid the first three chapters, and there's new information that is important to how the story progresses. Please re-read those if possible! I hope chapters 4 and 5 will be out tomorrow!

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

Pairings: None

Word Count: 3,194 Words

Summary: Eclipse 4.0 wakes up and finds out who his creator is.

Warnings: Cursing, Virus, Memory Alteration, Nightmares, Evil Twin (does it count if you share a body with the evil twin?), Past Character Death, Angst, Family Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, let me know if I should add anything else.

Note: I spun a wheel and this was the outcome. Probably crack but here we are. Have fun.

To Make Anew

“Fucking build running me out of materials.” Solar growled as he finished the new animatronic he had made. He had almost run out of materials this time, so it had to be smaller this time, more akin to Blood Moon’s height and its faceplate was one from storage that was an old one of Moon’s he had to recolor. It was aggravating to scrub that paint off his fingers to get rid of evidence.

The bot finally booted up, much to Solar’s relief, running scans and booting up its programming. The memories began to trickle into it after running through five different debugging programs. He was glad he was able to find the fried personality chip. He’d been able to pull everything off it at least and put it on a new chip.

Solar sighed impatiently as he waited to see the animatronic come online. He’d been sure that his presence from it would be wiped this time, he wouldn’t know anything about him, so that was more convenient. It wouldn’t have a chance to almost figure it out again.

Finally. Finally! The animatronic came online, its orange eyes beaming in the dimly lit Parts and Service room as the bot opened its eyes and shut them again, slowly blinking and taking in where it was and what it was. Finally, its eyes flickered blue and then back to orange as it began to move around and squirm to unhook itself from the various wires. Perfect.

“Eclipse.” Solar called attention to himself and the bot’s head whipped to look at him with a glare that immediately faded to shock.

“You…” Eclipse whispered, stunned at having learned who his creator was.

“Yes, me.” Solar sighed and sat back in his desk chair.

“Why!? How!? What!?” Eclipse burst into exclamations of confusion and shock.

“Simple, really. I want to be useful. They’ll throw me away eventually. And making you and sending you in will let me prove to them that I’m more than their personal mechanic.” Solar told him.

“Why are you telling me this?” Eclipse looked up at him from taking out the wire to his arm computer with slight apprehension. Eclipse could see the manic look in Solar’s eyes through that blank smiling expression all the daycare bots besides Earth had.

“Because you won’t remember it.” Solar snapped to shut him up, pulling out all but one of the wires to Eclipse, though he left him locked down to the table by the shackles.

“Why go after Lunar? You were supposed to kidnap him, not get in a verbal fight with him! You weren’t supposed to die!” Solar growled, injecting something into Eclipse’s code via the last wire connected to him. Eclipse didn’t know what it was, but it burned and ached in his head. It hurt, it felt like it was poison coursing through his code.

“What did you do to me!?” Eclipse strangled to growl as he thrashed on the table and tried to fight away and to get up.

“Something to make you a little easier to deal with.” Solar watched the poison run its course and dissipate into a constant hold on Eclipse’s code. It was made to essentially act as a chronic migraine and chronic pains. It would undoubtedly make Eclipse much easier to handle because Eclipse would be more focused on his chronic pains than he would be able to focus on finding Solar.

“Feeling it?” Solar asked, his grin becoming more malicious as he watched Eclipse shy from the light overhead and try to curl up, which was in vain due to the restraints, to sate the pain in his right chest like something was damaged inside, but it wasn’t.

“Make it stop. Please.” Eclipse weakly whined, eyes tightly shut, trying to avoid the light and his ears ringing at the high-pitched whine from the overhead light.

“No. This is going to be your punishment for not doing the right thing last time and just kidnapping Lunar.” Solar snapped, hooking the other wire up again, selecting all of Eclipse’s memories post-wake up and deleting them, which made Eclipse’s head drop back down with blue in his eyes as he bluescreened. Solar left to watch from the security cams in Fazer Blast as Eclipse booted back up.

Solar put his hand on one wall and made a portal to alert the others and cleared the two security cams, the one in Parts and Service and the one in Fazer Blast as he used the vents to get back to the theater in the daycare just in time for Eclipse’s directives teleported him to the daycare’s upstairs hallway just behind the balcony.

Solar watched intently as Moon came into the daycare to check on the spot Eclipse had died in. Solar was looking over the security cams ‘for Moon’. Realistically, he was checking to see if the data deletion from Parts and Service and Fazer Blast had worked right.

“And he was basically in the same spot as last time too.” Moon noted.

“Yeah, cosmic fate or something.” Solar muttered.

“Exactly. What I was thinking. Almost like he’s meant to die when he’s in or near this very spot.” Moon told him, standing in the spot where Eclipse had died the last time before this, the Eclipse they’d killed.

“Weird.” Solar hummed.

“I know.” Moon sighed, looking at the lack of anything where Eclipse had died. Solar saw movement upstairs and smirked that his plan had worked. The directives caused Eclipse to show he was alive immediately.

“Ah fuck.” Moon looked up and noted.

“You’re already back?” Solar asked with a roll of his eyes, coming over to stand by Moon.

“You thought I’d stay dead for long? That’s cute.” Eclipse looked at the both of them blankly, voice monotone. The directives are going a bit too much, but it was fine. Eclipse jumped down into the ball pit, and it seemed to rattle something in his head that made his new poisonous torture begin again.

“AH!” Eclipse disappeared mostly under the plastic spheres with his arms and head against the ‘island’ in the ball pit, seemingly unable to move now due to the migraine he now had. Solar grinned internally at how functional it was for Eclipse to come back to full consciousness in pain, but Solar didn’t show that or mention it.

“Whoa, shit, Jesus. Did you knock something out, idiot?” Moon asked as he waded into the ball pit and wrapped an arm around Eclipse to get the limp bot out of the ball pit, but Eclipse grabbed his arm and looked up at Moon.

“Shh, please.” Eclipse whispered, his hands going to his eyes to hold them closed, the high hum of the fluorescent bulbs in the daycare making his head ache and throb with pain.

“You got leftover pain from last time or something?” Moon asked.

“Please, I need somewhere quiet.” Eclipse kept his voice quiet, almost fragile with the migraine seeming to make him unable to make his voice any louder than that.

“Alright, one dark room without sound then and questions after.” Moon seemed sympathetic. This wasn’t good. Solar should’ve accounted for Moon’s occasional migraine at the light and had forgotten. Fuck.

Eclipse didn’t move his head but moved one hand to sign ‘yes please’, unable to do anything more because it was too painful. He was effectively blind, and everything hurt.

“Alright, weirdo, I’ll get you somewhere good.” Moon sighed, hooking his other arm under Eclipse’s knees to get him from the ball pit and then set Eclipse on his feet once he got them to the security desk. “Move your hands.” Moon instructed and grabbed his own emergency silicone eye pads from the small mini-fridge under the security desk and a stretchy headband that had buttons on the back to tighten and loosen it.

Eclipse slowly lowered his hands from his eyes, hesitantly, and Moon tilted his head back while Eclipse’s eyes were closed, putting the cold pads to Eclipse’s eyes and buttoning the headband snuggly around Eclipse’s faceplate to keep the pads in place.

Eclipse relaxed almost instantly, and Moon held his hands to guide him upstairs to the portal to his and Sun’s house. Eclipse could smell cat fur and fish vaguely. Both smells made him want to throw up, but Moon was guiding him away from them as he heard bits and pieces of a whispering conversation that he couldn’t focus on over the roar of his engines in his ears like a heartbeat.

He felt something soft under him and over him and quiet. Silence. Blessed silence. Eclipse relaxed and felt Moon’s arm on his shoulder, writing on him so Moon wouldn’t upset the migraine. ‘It’s okay. Relax. We’ll talk later.’ Eclipse signed for ‘yes’ and ‘thank you’, slowly drifting off to nightmares that held bits and pieces of memories that were thought to be deleted but were only buried in his subconscious.

Eclipse woke up in a cold ‘sweat’ with a scream. Animatronics couldn’t sweat, but he damn sure felt like he was with the nightmare? Memory? He didn’t know. But it scared him either way, and he slipped off the headband and eye pads into the bed in the dark room. Moon was asleep in the chair. Or he had been until Eclipse had seemingly woken up screaming.

“What happened!?” Moon buzzed up to attention and sighed seeing it was Eclipse sitting up in the bed looking panicked. “Hey, you came back and got a migraine immediately. You’re in my house. Don’t panic.” Moon tried to calm him, assuming Eclipse had screamed after not knowing where he was.

“It was Solar. It was Solar! He made me. He put some kind of poison in my code to make it hurt. Moon, please!” Eclipse told him.

“What?” Moon asked.

“Scan me. Scan my memories. He did it. I know he did it!” Eclipse told him.

“Alright, well, I’d have to hook you up to the computer in the daycare to check that, so come on.” Moon told him, guiding Eclipse up, hand supporting him when Eclipse’s joints felt like they would collapse under him from the aches in them. But he let Moon lead him. Moon was actually being nice to him. Was it pity? Was it sympathy? Eclipse didn’t know, but he was grateful for the help maneuvering anyway.

Moon got him into the daycare and Eclipse stayed hyperaware for any sight of Solar, looking around and checking corners as Moon hooked him up to the computer and began typing away on it to go through Eclipse’s memories. Most looked clear besides a chunk of memory that had been sent into Eclipse’s subconscious.

“This is weird. Is this what you remembered?” Moon asked as he brought the memory up and played through it, seeing Eclipse waking up and Solar talking to him and clearly angry. Moon could hear the entire audio of the memory and it made Eclipse shiver with familiarity, a chill going down his spine as his eye camera caught Solar’s angry face as Solar was chewing him out over going after Lunar the wrong way.

“Yes.” Eclipse told him.

“Well, this isn’t good.” Moon sighed, unplugging Eclipse from the computer. “I can’t get the virus that’s attached to your code out, I’m sorry. So I’ll take you back home again, and you can stay there with a heated blanket for the pain. This isn’t me forgetting that you’ve done shit in the past I don’t condone. This is me helping someone who’s struggling. Do not mistake my kindness for stupidity. I will be talking to you about this once it’s safer to do that.” Moon told him.

“Computer, lock access to Solar. If he comes in here, get him in the interview room.” Moon told the computer.

“Understood.” The computer told Moon as Moon guided Eclipse back to the portal to the house. Moon sat Eclipse on one of the couches and went to get the heated blanket. Sun was glaring accusingly, but he was appearing to ignore Eclipse regardless. Sun’s black cat jumped up on the couch and rubbed its head against Eclipse.

“Hi.” Eclipse lifted his hand a bit and pet the cat lightly, joints a bit too achy to do more than pet the cat’s back and sides,

“That’s Saturn.” Sun told him.

“Hi, Saturn.” Eclipse greeted the cat again as she rubbed on him, purring up a storm, which made him smile a bit as he leaned his head back onto the cushions on the back of the sofa. Saturn happily began to knead Eclipse’s thighs as he felt Moon put the heated blanket on top of him, and the cat shifted onto the back of the couch and rested its arm on his shoulder like it was keeping him there. Eclipse was asleep before he was even aware of the new whispering conversation in the kitchen nearby.

Moon sighed, leaning on the counter. Sun continued to rant and rave about how Eclipse could be lying. He just waited out the anger for Sun to have a pause. He’d rather his brother get the anger out than interrupt him and have Sun just completely lose it. Finally, the lull happened as Eclipse fell asleep on the couch and Sun looked to Saturn cozying up against Eclipse’s head, purring.

“Saturn hates mean people.” Sun tilted his head as he realized.

“Exactly. He’s behaving. He has no choice to, Sunny. Solar put a virus in him that melded to his code. He has chronic pain and chronic migraines because of it. That’s why he was here yesterday. He had a massive migraine after he was made again. I watched the memory that Solar tried to delete, he only pushed it to Eclipse’s subconscious. It was him booting up and Solar talking to him, talking about how we’ll throw Solar away and he made him to prove he’s more than a mechanic. Telling him he wasn’t supposed to get himself killed and was supposed to kidnap Lunar. He gave him that virus and then tried to wipe that chunk of memory from him.” Moon explained to Sun.

Moon then brought up his arm computer and showed Sun the download he’d done of Eclipse’s memory, showing Sun the interaction of Eclipse booting up and Solar. Sun’s expression slowly went from annoyance to shock at the visual and audio of the memory.

“Oh my god. Solar said that? That Eclipse was supposed to kidnap Lunar?” Sun asked.

“Yes. He said that shit.” Moon told him.

“Moon, I have put Solar into the interview room. He is behaving oddly.” Moon’s computer AI echoed through the house, making Tux hiss at it again for the third time this week alone. “Sorry, Tux.” The AI apologized to the cat.

“Alright, I’m coming. Sun, can you stay and watch Eclipse? I’ll message Earth to watch Lunar.” Moon asked Sun.

“Yeah, fine. But I’m calling you if he tries anything.” Sun told him.

“He won’t trust me.” Moon told him and patted his brother’s shoulder before going through the portal to the daycare, walking to the interview room under the theater, and observing first. Solar was angry, holding his head with one hand and angrily seeming to rant and rave with the other hand. As Moon watched him, Solar looked very…stressed? But also angry? It was very odd. The computer was right that he was behaving oddly.

Moon opened the door and entered the interview room, which made Solar turn to him and glare at him first before the expression dropped, and Solar looked at him with mild horror in his eyes.

“Moon, I need help.” Solar told him in a bit of panic. “Don’t fucking listen to that shit.” Solar growled as he glared again. But Moon saw it. The flash of blue in his eyes as if a Moon was taking over, his eyelights turning from orange to red. Moon could see it.

“Listen, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but that body is my best friend’s, and I want him back. So you’re gonna tell me what you are. Now.” Moon growled.

“And why should I?” Solar asked, chuckling a bit at him.

“Because I can and will wipe you. I have a backup of Solar and I’m a hundred percent sure whatever you are isn’t in it.” Moon told him.

“You wouldn’t dare.” Solar growled.

“I would, so talk.” Moon snapped back.

“Moon, it’s Crescent’s kill code!” Solar fought through to him for a few seconds.

“You’re a kill code, huh? Good, I know how to get rid of you, you damn virus.” Moon smiled at them. “Solar, how attached is it?” Moon asked.

“Not attached!” Solar growled, holding his head in pain as he fought off the kill code trying to take control. Solar’s control slipped, and the kill code attempted to go after Moon for a minute to prevent Moon from getting the USB in his finger into Solar’s head.

Solar regained control mid-chase and held the metal table before slamming his face down into the table, making his faceplate dent and crack, and steam poured from his processors. While Solar was basically laying his upper half on the table, Moon put the USB in and deleted the kill code, making Solar look up at him with his busted faceplate and a goofy smile in his delirium.

“I know, buddy, we’ll get you fixed.” Moon told him.

“Thank you. I…I killed Crescent and he transferred his kill code to me beforehand. I didn’t know. I couldn’t control it.” Solar told him.

“Bud, it’s alright. We’ll figure this shit out. Right now, Eclipse is fine, Lunar’s is fine, everyone’s fine. You didn’t hurt anyone.” Moon promised as he helped Solar from the interview room and into the portal to the house.

“Moon? What happened?” Sun asked, sitting on the couch with Netflix on as Eclipse idly watched with him.

“He had his brother’s kill code ported to him when he killed his brother. I got the kill code out after he smashed his face into the table in the interview room to make the kill code stop chasing me.” Moon told him. “I’ll fix him while he’s sleeping.” Moon waved away the worry of Solar being injured.

“Solar?” Eclipse asked.

“Yeah?” Solar asked back.

“Truce.” Eclipse told him simply.

“Damn, yeah. Truce.” Solar agreed.

“Uh, Solar, there’s a dimensional disturbance in Fazer Blast. Why is that there?” Moon asked.

“Um…I think Crescent’s kill code had friends he was letting in.” Solar admitted.

“Shit. Uhhhh, it looks like a Blood Moon.” Moon told him, showing him the footage of a Blood Moon coming out of the portal in Fazer Blast.

“Are you kidding me? I’m somehow a fucking father because of a kill code!?” Solar sighed, hiding his face in his hands.

“I’ll go get your babies and talk to them. Hopefully these ones are more reasonable than ours.” Moon sighed and went off to the portal again, leaving Sun behind to watch Netflix with Solar and Eclipse with Saturn and Tux both choosing Eclipse and Solar to sit on respectively.

[freudyou]

Me defending Dog Dean Afternoon to the jeering masses

[fragmentedblade]

I think I've become an official HI3 player. I check the HSR leaks hoping for iterations of HI3 characters now

[samanddean76]

Title: Guise Will Be Guise

Ship: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester

Word Count: 2,854 | Rating: Explicit

Major Warning: None Apply

Tags: Alternate Universe, Hurt Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Diminutive Dean Winchester, Massive Sam Winchester, Size Difference, Belly Bulge, Spells & Enchantments, Memory Loss, Dean Winchester Likes Being Manhandled, Sam Winchester Has A Large Penis, Um - Let Me Rephrase That..., Sam Winchester's Penis Needs Its Own Damn Zip Code, Bottom Dean Winchester, Top Sam Winchester, SPN Kinktober Prompt Fill: Size Difference

Summary: Dean returns to his recurring client's home. But something is very different today. Dean is left hoping that he survives the encounter.

Written for @spnkinkevents October 2nd Kinktober Prompt of Size Difference.

This is a follow up to the Kinky Dean Winchester Week story of Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been... (link below)

Story on AO3 | Part One of the Memory Verse on AO3

[beentobeetle]

No, I don’t think the Higgs reveal should be dramatic. I think it should be pathetic and he should revert to being Losercore, where he belongs

[townofcrosshollow]

Was talking to my partner about BPD and I mentioned that BPD and DID have almost exactly the same symptoms and they were like "What no that's not true" so I looked it up and the first thing I see is a person with DID complaining about the DSM because BPD and DID have almost exactly the same symptoms

[suzran]

It’s a little rough but here is more on the amnesiac ghost king.

I’ve been watching a medical drama lately, could you tell?

[raine-moore]

Okay, so, The Magnus Protocol theories.

We know from the ARG that Sam attended the Magnus Institute with Gerry, since it's a school in this universe.

We also know it burned down 20 years ago.

We don't know how old any of the characters are, of course, but I'd guess late twenties/early thirties, similar to Jon and Martin.

That means Sam was actually really young when he attended the Magnus Institute and was around 10 when it burned down, which is obviously not an easy to remember time frame anyway, but considering what the Magnus Institute dealt with in the Archives Timeline and assuming its similar in Protocol, I'd guess it's safe to say it was a traumatic experience as well.

Sam started researching the Institute, which makes me believe he either left before it burned down and is curious what happened, or he doesn't remember it, presumably as a trauma response, but might be something paranormal.

All very interesting. Obviously they'll research the Magnus Institute more as the show goes on, but I think they will also "unlock" (for lack of a better term) Sam's repressed memories piece by piece and we'll find out what happened to the children at the Institute.

Of course we will also find out how the Institute burned down at some point, but what if it was a child's involuntary reaction? A young servant/avatar of the Desolation (or a differently categorized fire-associated fear)? What if it was Sam? I, for one, want to learn more about the Desolation and would love to see a main character associated with it.

[bigmouthlass]

Title:  Regarding The Road Ahead

Series: Holler Me Home, part 8

Author:  BJ

Fandom:  Supernatural

Rating:  Mature

Pairing:  Dean Winchester/You, Dean Winchester/Reader

Synopsis: When we last left Our Heroes, they'd just had a bad few days. And then crap happens, because when do these kids ever catch a damn break?

Tags:  Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, ABO, Omegaverse, AU, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Alpha Dean Winchester, Omega You, Omega Reader, Alpha Sam Winchester, Episode References, S12E11 Regarding Dean, Rowena McLeod, Memory Loss,

AN:  Part 6 (actually 8, the series was reordered later, whoops) of the Holler Me Home AU series; rewrite of S12E11, 'Regarding Dean.'  All recognizable intellectual properties are owned by their respective creators and holders of any copyrights or trademarks. This is a not-for-profit work of fan art and protected by Fair Use.

---

“How come you don’t grow your hair out?”

“Hmm?”  You look up from where you're sitting on Dean's bed rubbing a hand through the inch of growth on your head.  Watching him wash his face and lather up-- it's infuriating.  Nobody should look that hot before they've had coffee.

“You’re off the study drugs.  I don’t see any bald spots.  So why not grow it out?”

You shrug.  “Used to having it buzzed I guess.  ‘Sides, gimme a wig, some makeup, and twenty minutes I can look like anybody.  There’s a reason nobody remembers me when I blow through a town.”

“Okay, I see your point.”

You give Dean a look.  “Buuuuuut . . .”

He shrugs, peering into the mirror and holding his chin, drawing the razor down his cheek.  “I was just wondering.  I don’t even know what you look like with hair.”

Your eyes narrow.  “You mean, what I’d look like if I were normal.”

“I did not say that.”

“It’s implied.”

“Not.  Wasn’t even thinking that.”

“Why you lie, Winchester?  I hate it when you lie.”

“I’m not.  Fucking.  Lying,” Dean says, as he finishes with a delicate scrape of the cupid’s bow over his upper lip.  He turns to look at you, resplendent in his plaid jammie pants and no shirt, a towel draped over his shoulders, flecks of shaving cream here and there.  “Hell, gimme the clippers.  I know how to do a buzzcut.  Used to do it for Dad all the time.”

“Jesus, never mind,” you grouch.

“No wait a minute and listen to me,” Dean says, wiping his face and getting out the aftershave.  He points the neck of the bottle at you.  “I’m getting tired of you putting words in my mouth whenever I say something you don’t like.”

“That’s an illogical sentence Dean.”

“You know what I mean.”  He grimaces as he slaps on the aftershave, taps some over the scent glands in his neck.  “You think I give a shit about normal?  I’ve seen you knee-deep in ghoul guts.  I got the scar tour.  I know you still have your stuffed animals--”

“His name is Lambie,” you say, all affronted dignity, “and next to you he’s the great love of my life.”

“Whatever.  How many times do I have to tell you-- you don’t have anything to prove to me, I do not wish you were,” finger quotes, “’normal,’ and what I do wish is that you would trust me. A little.”

“Dean, you’re an Alpha, I’m an Omega.  Some things are just givens, all right?”

“Seriously?  You’re gonna go with that?”

“I’ve seen you checking out other girls Dean.  And I get it, okay?  You’re an Alpha, you can’t help it.”  You just about die of jealousy every time you see Dean’s eyes wander but that’s your problem, not his.

Dean sighs out a deeply unamused ‘ha!’  “You really don’t think I’m a better man than that?” he asks quietly.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Really?”  He looks up into your eyes.  To your shock he looks hurt.  Really hurt.  “Because it sounds a lot like, deep down, you’re still lumping me together with the knotheads that chased you into a broom closet when you were a kid.”

“Dean no.”  You get up off the bed and reach up to palm his cheek, but he turns his head away.  “I don’t think that.  I never could.”

“Then why?  Why are you constantly assuming the worst about me?”  Dean crosses his arms over his chest.  “Help me, baby please, I don’t get it.”

“Expecting you to behave like an Alpha isn’t constantly assuming the worst.”

“It is when you keep--” Dean cuts himself off.  “I mean-- you’re here, and it’s good, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life and you keep acting like you’re one foot out the door.  I’m trying.”

“Oh yeah, big sacrifice,” your mouth runs away from you, “the guy who could replace me by going to the nearest bar and snapping his fingers is trying.”

Dean’s eyes narrow.  “What exactly do you think Bonding means?”

“It means I spend the rest of my life tied to you, you idiot.  It means if I even think about another Alpha I get so sick I want to die.  Fuck in some states it means we’re de facto married and I can’t get a goddamned bank account in my own name.”

Dean doesn’t say anything.  He just studies you like he’s never even seen you before.  His hands go up to his head and interlock, the way they do when he . . .

You reflexively take note of the nearest weapons.  Dean only strikes that specific pose when he really, really wants to hit something.

“That’s all I could ever be to you isn’t it?” he says in that dead, artificially even tone.  “A limitation?  You really think-- did you just assume I wouldn’t want to Bond with you too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Alphas don’t get Bonded.  Alphas have to be able to take another mate if their Omegas die in childbirth.  You know that.”

“Which I am very much aware doesn’t apply to us.”

“I don’t have ins with the King of Hell or the Heavenly Host.  Barring you being stupid you’re going to outlive me--”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?  It’s true.  I’m not quitting Hunting--”

“For fuck’s sake did I ask you to?”  Dean grabs a t-shirt and drags it on over his head.  “Know what I think?  I think maybe for the first time in your life you got somebody that needs you, and that terrifies you.  I think part of you’s trying to bail because you still can’t believe anybody’d want you around just because they want you around.  And I get it.  I do.  I’ve been patient.  I’ve tried not to take it personally.  I’ve been trying to give you the space you need to work out your shit.  I keep-- I keep waiting for you to figure it out, that you’re here because you belong here, and every fucking time I turn around you’re putting fucking words in my mouth assuming you know everything about what I think or how I feel.”  For just a second there, he looks so goddamned broken.  “If you don’t want to be here with me, just go.”

“I do not believe this,” you groan, grabbing your robe.  “We’re breaking up over a stupid fucking haircut?”

“Woah!” Sam yells as you run into him full-tilt coming up the hall.  He takes a good look at you, glances through Dean’s half-open door, sighs, and says, “I don’t want to know.  Get dressed and grab your stuff-- we got a case.” --- The ride is what one might call tense.  Like he does when he’s in a bad mood Dean goes for the Megadeth.  Which gives Sam a headache the big guy will not stop bitching about.  Dean keeps turning the music up until the shredding is hurting even your thrash-hungry ears.  You’re leaping out of the backseat the second Baby stops moving and making a mad dash for the cashier’s office.  The hell with cost-cutting, if you have to spend one more minute in an enclosed space with the Winchester brothers something bad will happen.

An attitude that rises to bite you in the ass with gigantic Irony fangs when Dean goes on a supper run and doesn’t come back.

“Look,” Sam says as you swear at Dean’s voicemail, “it’s not a big deal.  He-- he’s probably in a bar blowing off some steam.”  Which, you can see him realize the instant the words leave his mouth, was the absolute wrong thing to say.

“Of course he is,” you say.  “His little Omega’s not flashing her ass at him and an Alpha’s got needs.”

“Dean wouldn’t do that,” Sam tells you.

"It's hilarious," you say.  "You don't believe a word you're saying right now."

Sam looks at you for a long moment, and those are his Angry dimples.  “Start with the obvious-- he’s in love with you, even though all you’ve done is kick his ass.  For days.”

“I have not!”

Running through his mental grievance ledger -- it doesn’t shock you at all the boy considered a career in law before Hell irrevocably FUBAR’ed his life -- Sam said, “Yeah, you have.  You made a mail run right before that ice storm hit and ever since you got back you’ve been picking fights.  What happened? Bad news?”

Oh that.  “None of your business.  And not the fucking point.”

“Look all I’m saying is, you’re smarter than this."  You love Sam, you do.  But he's not without flaws and being so damn smart he assumes everybody else is a step behind is one of his least charming habits.  "Dean's been bending over backwards for you.  The least you could do is cut him some slack."

You shut your eyes and count to ten in Greek.  "Sam, you're my friend, and I respect you.  So I'm only gonna tell you this once.  Butt.  Out."

"Fine, fine fine," Sam drops as he goes for the door.  You hide a smile.  He makes it as far as halfway over the threshold of his own room before he stops, sighs, and says, "Very funny."

Never underestimate the power of being the oldest, you think as you brush by Sam and head for the liquor store up the block.  It's petty and it's stupid but you do feel a little better. --- You wake up with an assault-class headache and a message from Sam telling you to haul ass to the Waldo’s Waffles.  You arrive just in time to see Dean getting a from-the-shoulder full bodied slap in the face from an attractive brunette.

"Yep," you hear Dean say into the dead silence. " Epic night."

You will not make a scene.  You will not.  Even if it feels like someone cut a piece off your heart and stuffed it down your throat, you will not.

Dean turns and sees you.  His face lights up.  "Hi baby!"  He pulls you into a giant hug and takes a big sniff from your neck.  "God you smell better than waffles," he sighs into your ear.

Utter heartbreak gives way to utter confusion.  You stare over Dean's shoulder at Sam, who just shrugs helplessly.  In private with you Dean has his cuddlebug moments but in public he's careful about his personal space.  Nobody knows better how easy it is to slip a knife in between someone's ribs and make it look like a friendly hug.

You squirm out of his grip.  "Where the hell have you been?!?" you hiss, grabbing his arm and dragging him away from the dining room full of too-inquisitive eyes.

"No idea," he shrugs.  "Woke up in a field with a broken phone and a hangover."  His eyebrows draw together in puzzlement.  "And a rabbit.  Cute little fucker."

"All right," Sam calls the meeting back to order as you all pile into the car.  "What're we thinking-- third wheel, sister agency . . . ?"

"Haven't dusted off my Interpol credentials in a while," you say.  "The vic was an accountant and he had interests overseas-- anybody asks, I'm with the UN investigating money laundering."  You introduce yourself in Russian.

"You speak Russian?" Dean asks.

You call him something unflattering.  Without another word, Sam digs a bottle of Advil out of his pocket and passes it back to you. --- The weirdness continues.  When you emerge from your motel room in your Muscovite Bureaucrat costume -- jacket and trousers, tasteful silver jewelry, platinum blonde wig, eelskin laptop bag on your shoulder, scent neutralizer and perfume in place -- Dean's eyes pass straight over you like he doesn't even recognize you.  At the morgue, the normally easy as sneezing song and dance feels weird and out-of-joint.  When you pull out Evidence bags full of blood-drenched cash, Dean looks like he's about to say goodbye to breakfast.  Yesterday's breakfast.

"The report says all of this came out of the belly?" you ask, putting on a light Eastern European accent.

"Yeah," Sam confirms, eyes flicking over the pages of the file.  "Official COD is suffocation.  Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Not personally," you say, "though there are those whose sense of humor run in this direction."

"Gross," Dean says.

Pawing through the box, you find a tiny cloth sack in its own Baggie.  "Agents?"  You hold it up.

"All right.  Soooo . . . a witch force-feeds old Barry here a hex bag and then casts a spell,” Dean hypothesizes.

"Yeah, a spell that pumps him so full of cash he dies choking on it," Sam completes the thought.

This is one of the genuine pleasures of working with the boys.  When they're on the same wavelength, their individual brilliance and focus combines and jumps straight off the scale.  Except that's not happening.  Dean's brain's slipped a gear and he smiles a bit uneasily under the expectant looks from you and Sam.  "Well I guess it's true what they say," he says.  "Mo' money mo' problems, right?"  Still smiling like the moron you know he's not, Dean strolls out the door.

"God I hope you're still drunk," Sam mutters, holding the door for you on the way out.

"But why would anyone want Mr. Gilman dead?" you wonder out loud as the three of you reach the car.

"Yeah, what'd he do-- screw up somebody's tax return?" Dean asks.

"He's actually more of a money manager," Sam corrects.  "He's also active in local politics.  Maybe-- maybe he ruffled the wrong set of feathers somewhere?"

"Well whatever he was," Dean says, checking his pockets, "looks like he . . ." he frowns as he loses track of his sentence in the middle, "certainly made one hell of an . . ." the frown deepens.

"Enemy?" Sam completes the sentence.

"Enemy!  Yeah, that, those guys," Dean says as he digs out his keyring.

"Perhaps he made an unwise investment and someone decided to make a point of it?" you say.

"All right, well, let's check out his clients."  Eyes cloudy with confusion, Dean stares at his eyes like he doesn't even know what keys are.

Sam chuckles.  "Wow.  Man, you were serious about epic-- it's the square one."

"The one with the big GM on it?" you supply helpfully.

Instead of glaring at you like he should, Dean just shakes his head.  "Yeah I know," he says as he starts Baby up.  He clicks the shifter over and checks behind.

Three clicks.  Three.  "Dean you're in--"

Dean steps on the gas and Baby lurches forward into a bank of newspaper dispensers.  "Son of a bitch!"

Sam waves off the poor lady Dean almost took out with the news boxes.  "R for Reverse, Dean!"  When Dean doesn't answer, Sam snaps, "Dean?  Dean!"

"Oi!" you snap, slapping Dean one on the temple.  "Planet Earth to Dean!  Come in, Dean!"

Fear blooms under your heart as Dean turns blank, frightened eyes on Sam and on you.  "What?  Who's Dean?" --- "It wasn't just that," you say.  "You've been acting weird all morning.  Like above and beyond your normal standards of Weird."

"Well we know we're dealing with a witch, right?" Sam says.  "Maybe you got hexed."

"Dude, if a witch got a clear shot at me, I would be dead,” Dean points out. “Okay?  I wouldn't be freaking . . . uh . . . Dory!"

"Dory?"

Dean draws himself up a bit, squaring his shoulders.  "I'm not gonna apologize for loving that fish," he tells Sam.  "Not to you, not to anyone."

"Can I get that in writing next time you give me shit about Lambie?" you ask.

"What?"

"Never mind," you sigh.  "All right, um . . . Black Sabbath lineup after Ozzy split."

"Come on," Dean scoffs.  "Uh . . . Dio, Tony Iommi . . ." he trails off and there's that vacancy behind his eyes.  "Whatever.  This is stupid; I'm fine.  Okay?  I feel great!  Look . . ." he picks his pistol up from where he dropped it on his bed, "This is a gun."  He puts it back down and points at his jacket.  "This is a coat."  He points at the tube lamp on the nightstand.  "This is a . . . a . . . he gropes for the word and can't find it, "a . . . light stick."

"All right," Sam says, officially running up the flagpole.  "We're gonna get you some help."

"Look we can figure this out okay?" Dean protests as Sam grabs a pad of Post-Its from his ruck.  "Don't go calling Mom or Cas with this--"

"Fine," Sam says, scribbling on the Post-It and slapping it on the light, "but until you get better."

Dean reads the note.  "Lamp!  Right.  So close."

"Motherfucker," you say.

"It's definitely not that," Dean assures you. --- Retracing Dean's steps is, to put it in a single word, excruciating.  The morning's little slips have worsened into a freefalling slide, to the point where you're recalling unpleasant nursing home visits to your great-uncle as he died from wet brain syndrome.  Bad enough Dean cheated on you.  You have to tag along and reconstruct it.  It's like reviewing a tape of your own bowel surgery.

There's something else going on too.  As the gaps in Dean's memory widen, he's getting . . . handsy.  Polite personal space shrinks to nothing.  His arm keeps going around your waist like it belongs there, and he keeps tilting his head to scent you through the perfume you're wearing.  "Knock it off!" you snap at him as the three of you leave the second bar'n'grill on the list of places that offer carryout dinners.

"Sorry!" he says, his expression so full of hurt you might as well have punched him straight in the knot.

"Is anything ringing any bells?" Sam asks desperately at the next restaurant.

"Um . . ."

"Uht-oh," you say, spying a familiar face waiting tables.

"If you're gonna apologize," the attractive brunette from the waffle place says as she waits for the bartender to fill a drinks order, "you better make it quick."

"Me apologize?  Uh, you smacked me," Dean reminds her, as you stand at Sam's elbow grinding your teeth.

"You were being a dick-- we're even," she scoffs.

"Even for what?" Sam takes over.

"That's none of your--" her focus widens to take in you and Sam.  "Who are you?"

"Okay look," Dean tries again, tailing the waitress as she huffs away with a tray full of beers, "whatever happened, um, I'm sorry, okay?  See here's the deal.  We're . . ." it slides away from him again.

"We're FBI."  Sam pulls his fake ID and Dean follows his lead.  "Agents Moon and Entwhistle?"

The waitress, Janet by the nametag, finishes passing out the beers, her customer service smile vanishing the second her attention comes back to the boys.  "FBI?"  Glaring at Dean, she says, "Last night you said your name was Springsteen.  Like, 'The Boss.'"

You jab an elbow into Dean's ribs and ignore his pained yelp.  "Pardon me gentleman-- excuse me miss," you say in your disguise accent, gently taking Janet's elbow and pulling her aside a step or two.  You flash your fake Interpol ID and introduce your fake self.  "I apologize for taking you away from your duties but this is a rather . . . sensitive matter, yes?  Agent Moon claims he has no recollection of last evening and he has not been behaving like himself.  We are concerned he might have been drugged."

"Oh my God," Janet gasps.  Just like that, it's the girls saving the dumbasses from themselves.

"Could you please tell me what happened while he was here last night?" you ask.

"Um . . . he came in to pick up some burgers.  We were slammed so it was going to be a while.  He knocked back a few shots, called up some oldies on the jukebox, and hit the bull."

Confused, you say, "Kakiye?"

"Oh yeah," she points to where a portly dude in Dockers is busy falling off a mechanical bronco.  "He had the hots for Larry the second he walked in the door."

The boys are close enough they overhear that.  Sam's eyebrows climb halfway to his hairline.  "Was I good?" Dean asks with a goofy grin.

"You were . . . amazing," Janet sighs, and it's a genuine trial to keep from breaking her nose.  Her nose and Dean’s neck.  Wandering eyes, fine, you’ll cope.  A wandering dick?  Not in this fucking life or any other.

Something revealing must've shown despite your normally excellent poker face.  Janet's expression goes chagrined.  "Oh!  Um . . . I don't think anybody had a chance to salt his drinks but like I said, we were super busy.  I didn't have eyes on him every minute."

"Is the manager on duty from last night here right now?" Sam asks.

"Yeah, he's in his office," Janet points to a door marked Private.  But as you turn to follow the boys, Janet touches your arm.  "Hey, wait a second."  When Sam and Dean are out of earshot, she bends close to you and says, "Look, nothing happened.  When he got drunk he got flirty but when I got off-shift he turned me down flat.  That's why I lost my temper."  She hangs her head, "I mean, this morning--"

"As I said," you try your damnedest to keep your voice neutral, "he's not been acting like himself."  You hand over your fake business card with numb fingers, with the standard issue instructions to call if she can think of anything else.

Next thing you know you're outside, leaning against the Impala's trunk lid and shaking.  And feeling like the biggest asshole in the Western Hemisphere excepting politicians and Lakers fans.

"Woah hey."  You look up and Dean's cupping your cheek in one hand.  "Sweetheart what's the matter?"  The confusion's deepened but he's still got that tender look, the one that comes out sometimes when it's just the two of you.  You can remember being fish-grease hot pissed at him less than a day ago, but for the life of you you can't remember why.  You should maintain cover, gently re-establish respectful coworkers body language, but you can't make yourself do it right now.  You just can't. --- "So?" you ask as Sam and Dean get back from following Dean's trail into the copse of trees by the highway.

"Bad news.  We found the witch's body," Sam reports.

"Has Rowena called back?" you ask.

"No, but we did find this."  Sam's phone has a snapshot of a carving cut into a tree trunk, fresh done from the bright color of the cuts.

You page through the photos and stop at one of a body lying in some ivy.  "That dude-- he was in one of the pictures in Gilman's office."

A few minutes on the phone as Sam drives back to the motel and you have a name-- “Gary McIntyre,” you report.

“But?” Sam prompts.

“Since when do witches who pack this kind of punch use their actual names for things?”

“So he has a secret identity.  Like a supervillian,” Dean says, getting out of the car and draping his arm over your shoulders like it’s something he just does.

Oh God, you need a minute.  “Be right back, I gotta get out of these clothes.”

“Great idea!” Dean chirps with a huge grin.  Before you know it he’s got your top two buttons open.

“Okay, that’s enough, c’mon Dean, leave the nice Omega alone,” Sam coaxes, taking Dean by the wrist and dragging him away.

“Oh that’s why she smells so good,” you hear Dean say as you flee, and that corkscrew in your gut twists up another turn.

Off comes Muskovite Bureaucrat and you throw on your usual work clothes, scrub off your makeup and perfume.  But when you reach for the neutralizer, you pause.  Smells trigger memories more reliably than visuals; maybe it'll help center Dean if you just let it rip.  "Get it together," you tell your reflection, taking off your wig and wig cap, fluffing the sweat out of your hair.  "You're tougher than this."

The situation has not improved, you see the second Sam opens the door on the boys' room.  The place is wallpapered with Post-Its identifying each object in Sam's block capitals.  BED.  CHAIR.  TV.  TABLE.  It's like walking into the house of a firstgrader learning vocabulary.

In more than one way.  Dean's pacing the room, picking things up, looking at them quizzically, putting them back down again.  He opens Ashtear's Guide To The Infernal Realms, shudders at the illustration of the Sacrifice Of The Twins and drops the book like it bit him.  He looks up at you and his face does that lighting up thing.  "Hi."

"Hey."

Dean turns to Sam.  "Do we know her Sammy?"

"Yeah, Dean, we do," Sam explains patiently, shooting you a pitying look.  "She hunts with us."

"Awesome!  What's hunting?"  This after Sam spent the ride from the bar giving Dean the very abridged version of Full Disclosure.  If this is painful for you it's gotta be agony for Sam.  Dean snorts in a breath, and it’s weird-- part of his brain knows, and it’s crying out.  For you.

Someone knocks on the door.  Ignoring Sam's protests, Dean opens it on a petite redhead carrying a carpetbag and wearing too much makeup.  You recognize her immediately even though you've never met face-to-face-- the witch Rowena MacLeod.

"Who're you?" Dean asks.

Rowena's smile widens.  "Spell's progressed, I see," she notes in a lilting Scots brogue.  She steps daintily through the door, nodding at Dean as she passes.

"Rowena, I asked for intel, not a house call," Sam says, glaring down at her. Way down at her, she really is just a little bit of a thing.

"Oh, I have a feeling yew'll come to thank me," she says.  Fingers tipped with nails polished bright red touch the leylines of Dean's body-- below the hollow of his throat, from sternum to shoulder, down his right arm.

Dean gently touches a curl of Rowena's red mane. "Your hair. It's all so . . . bouncy."

She beams.  "Why, thank you!"  It takes a conscious effort on your part to keep your fangs up and your claws cased.  "Do we have to fix him?" Rowena asks Sam.

"Rowena--"

"Samuel," Rowena sighs.  She takes Dean's hand in both of hers, stroking down his palm, tracing over his wrist.

"Get your fucking hands off of him," you growl before you can stop yourself.

Rowena's eyes pop wide.  She looks from Dean to you and back again.  "Why this is new!  Samuel, ye didn't tell me yuir brother was courting a mate!"

"That's because it's really none of your business," Sam says.

"No, not my business," she agrees, "but a mating Bond dramatically alters one's energies, which can have a profound impact on spellwork."  She focuses her attention on you, in your ratty work clothes, no makeup, and buzzed hair.  "Hmm."

"Hey!" Dean snaps.  For a second he sounds completely like himself.  "Don't talk about her like that."

"All right, all right," Rowena coos.  "I apologize miss."

Never let it be said your mother didn't raise you with manners.  "Accepted.  It's been a long day and we're all a little snappy."

"That's completely understandable, my dear.  The glyphs you found are an archaic form of Celtic.  The Ogham Chraobh.  The Druids used it in their rituals, calling it the Language of the Trees."

That flash of himself buried under the fog, Dean says, "Wait, wait-- now the trees are talking?"

As Sam coaxes Dean to the bed and out of the way, you grab Sam's laptop and pull up the photos of the body in the forest.  "Here.  Do you know this guy?"

"Aye, I do," Rowena confirms.  "Gideon Loughlin."  She waits until Dean gets Sam situated in front of the TV watching cartoons.  "The Loughlins are the last surviving branch of a verra old Druidic lineage.  Their children -- Catrina, Boyd, and Gideon -- fled the Old World during the Great Famine and turned a small town in the Mississippi River Delta into their own personal fiefdom.  They brought their family's greatest treasure with them, a powerful spell book called the Black Grimoire.  Witches came from around the world to live with them and study its secrets, for a price."

"Can you put together a counterspell?" you ask, cutting to the chase.

"Oh of course I could," she says, and call you crazy but the sympathy sounds genuine.  "But witchcraft this complex would take time.  More time than Dean's got."  The three of you look over at Dean, as he snorts happy laughter at the antics of Scooby and the gang.  You can picture him as a little boy sitting crosslegged in front of a series if old TV sets, watching those same antics and laughing that same laugh.  There goes that corkscrew again.  "He's already begun to forget himself, everyone he's ever known, ever loved."  She turns pitying eyes on Sam. "Even you.  Soon he'll forget how to speak, how to swallow and then," she shakes her head, "Dean Winchester's going to die."

"Wow. Sucks for that guy," that guy says. --- "My name is Dean Winchester," you listen as Dean recites at himself in the bathroom mirror.  "Sam is my brother.  Um . . . Mary Winchester is my mom.  And Cast . . . Cas is my best friend.  And . . ." you clench your jaw.  Of course you’re the memory that goes first, and you try not to find a hidden meaning in that.  You really try.  "And I’ve got a girlfriend and her name is . . . dammit, her name is . . ."  You chance a look through the bathroom door, watch Dean steel himself and try again, "My name is Dean Win-- Dean Winchester."  Less confidence now.

Your resolve to be the silent strength in the room goes by the boards as tears trickle down his cheek.  "Hey, hey," you say, taking a hankie out of your pocket and wiping his face.  "Hey, it's okay.  We're gonna fix this."

Dean takes your hand and holds your wrist to his nose, inhaling deeply.  Some of the fear leaves his face.  "D-- do I know you?" he asks.  "I can't remember."

"You don't have to," you tell him.  "What do I smell like?"

"Safe," he says.  "Home.  Good things.  Things that go away."

Oh Jesus.  Every time you think you can't feel any lower, God digs the floor out from under you.

"My girl went away," Dean continues, "cuz she was mad at me.  That's how it goes.  People get mad at me, and they go away."

His own name is slipping away and he still remembers what it is to be left.  There goes another floor.  You're down with the aliens, sans flamethrower and pulse rifle.

"Maybe she wasn't mad," you say carefully.  "Not really."

"No no no no no, she was definitely mad.  Like, rip my knot off and stuff it up my ass mad.  I mean, I wasn't trying to make her mad."  His eyebrows draw together and he does that little half-nod.  "Not right then."

Aware that you're slamdancing in a field of live mines, you say, "Sometimes people get mad when they don't know what to say."

"I just . . ." Dean trails off, groping for the memory.  He shuts his eyes and takes another breath of your scent.  "She trusts me with her life but she doesn't trust me to treat her right?"

“Maybe she’s more scared of that than dying,” you admit.

“No way.  She’s not scared of anything,” Dean tells you like he’s stating the obvious-- Sam’s tall, Baby’s a Chevy, Zeppelin rules.

“Everybody gets scared sometimes.  Maybe it’s easier for her to get mad than be scared.”

Dean thinks that over, a thoughtful frown bringing out his eye crinkles.

“She must love you a lot,” you add.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean tells the stranger in his arms.  “Even the people who say they love me go away.”

It’s official, you’re rooming with Judas, Brutus, and Cassius down in the Hell reserved for traitors.  You throw your arms around Dean’s neck and offer him your throat to scent.  “It’s me, Alpha,” you say into his ear.  “It’s me.  I’m here.  It’s me.”  Dean buries his face in your neck and you can feel warm air on your skin as he breathes you in.  He clings to you, like you're something solid, something that'll keep him from floating away.  All that strength, and he trusts you with it.

Sam touches your shoulder.  “Hey.  The accountant’s office gave us the Loughlins’ address.  Let’s go.”

“Absolutely not!” you snap, sniffling back a throatful of teary snot.

“You have to,” Sam says.  “I need backup and you're all I got."

“I am not leaving Dean alone with that woman!” you hiss.

“Standing right here,” that woman reminds the room.

“We can’t take Dean with us, and if the Loughlins are there they’ll recognize Rowena. And we have to go now.”

“He’s right lass,” Rowena says.  “At the rate the spell is progressing, Dean has perhaps a day before, well-- Do ye know what it is, to die of senility?”

“Yes,” you tell her flatly.  You turn your attention back to Dean.  The confusion is back, and deeper.  “I’ll be right back.  Sam and me are going to go fix this.”

“Fix what?  Did you break something?”

Yeah, and you’re going to get this done because Dean’s last thoughts of you before the curse erases you from his mind are not going to be how mad you got over a stupid fucking haircut.  “Never mind.”  You take his hand and wrap it around your hankie.  “Hang onto this.  It’s got my scent.”  Dean brings it to his face and sniffs.  You go up on toes and kiss him, hard and brief.  “We’ll be right back.  You just wait here.”

Gulping, Dean nods.  Big up-down, like a little kid.

“Okay.” Sam echoes your promise, swapping out a kiss for a hard hug.  “Come on let’s go.”  He looks over your head at Rowena, as she unpacks supplies from her carpetbag and lays them out on the table.  “Just so we’re clear.  If anything happens to Dean--”

“I am intimately familiar with yuir lunatic devotion to your brother’s safety, Samuel,” Rowena says dryly.

“Mágissa.  Tha se kápso,” you tell her, your tone and affect clear and devoid of all emotion.  “Sam can make do with the ashes.”

The amusement in the witch’s expression fades.  She nods, “Aye, I see it now.  Killer’s blood.  Like cries out for like.”

“As long as we understand each other.  Come on Sam.”  Sam falls in behind you on the way out.

“You know something?” Sam says, as he opens Baby’s trunk and loads a pistol with witch-killing bullets.  You get out a sawed-off and load it up with incendiary shells.  “You can be pretty scary sometimes.  Especially for an Omega.”

You slam Baby’s trunk shut so hard Sam almost loses fingers.  “Get this straight, Alpha,” you growl as your fangs drop.  “Omega does not equal weak.  Omega does not equal soft.  Omega does not equal submissive.  Omega does not equal fucking doormat.  Is that clear?”

Totally taken aback, Sam lowers his open hands.  “Yeah, okay, understood.  I apologize.  Look,” he pulls out his phone and opens a map.  “If the Loughlins made Dean, that means they know the car.  If we cut across country,” he looks up and around, waves across the road at some pastureland, “that way on foot, we can be there in . . . half-hour?”

“Say an hour.”  You finish hashing out a plan and take off, running away into the night. --- The Loughlins live in a stately home set back on a long private drive, surrounded by oak and cypress trees.  There's no fence but there are some private security guards walking a patrol.  Sam drops one with a sleeper hold.  The unconscious man goes in the shadow of an empty carriage house, a splash from your whiskey flask going down the front of his uniform blouse.

"Nice," Sam compliments.

You flash him a smile and follow him on catfeet to a tradesman's entrance tucked around back.  Sam pulls out his phone as you go to work on the door.

"You're in?" Rowena's voice comes softly through the speaker.  The lock on the door is strictly Mickey Mouse; it clicks open after about a minute of tumbler-tickling.

"Yeah we're in," Sam says, stowing the phone in his chest pocket and following you into an empty kitchen done in red tile and butcher block.  "All right.  As soon as I get the translation, you cast the spell."

"Shoosh now Dean!  Yuir brother and yuir Omega need us to be quiet like mice!"

"Right!" Dean whisper-yells in the background.

Covering the ground floor's the work of a few minutes.  Formal dining room, couple of guestrooms, a cozy den that smells strongly of cigars and pipesmoke.  There's a fire in every fireplace, driving off the minimal chill of the Arkansas winter.  Lot of house for only three adults, and so deserted it's making you nervous.

You follow Sam upstairs and through a set of open French doors.  Ah, here's the real heart of the household-- a library lined with built-in bookshelves floor to ceiling.  In the middle on a long wooden table lies a body, the witch Dean shot in the woods.  He's laid out for a ritual, smooth river stones over his eyes and down the pressure points of his body.

Over a worktable you and Sam see a slender blonde woman extracting a blue butterfly from a killing jar.  From the casual theatricality of her movements, you can tell you and Sam have been made.  Sam clicks the safety off his pistol.  "This gun is full of witch-killing bullets," he tells the woman, Catrina.

"And this," you work the slide on the shotgun, "is full of dragon's breath slugs.  Flammable rounds."

"Hmm," she hums absently, pinning her new specimen to a display board.

"So, why don't you go to your grimoire and tell me how to break that memory spell," Sam orders.

Catrina stands, dusting off her hands.  "Boyd wanted to go after you," she says, Ireland in her face and her voice, "but I said, 'Why bother?'  You're Hunters.  You'll hunt us down, right to our doorstep.  Hot and fresh, like pizza."

"He wasn't asking," you tell her, slowly sidling to the right.  A flicker of motion in your peripheral vision.  "SAM LOOK OUT--"

Sam whirls but not quite fast enough.  A wisp of energy flicks out from the interloper's fist and you and Sam go flying, smashing into a bookcase in a crunch of loose limbs.  It's a little like getting pitched into a brick wall, with another brick wall.

Catrina starts chanting a spell and your head fills with piercing white static screams.  The air is suddenly full of butterflies, except they're all stinging and cutting and you're yelling in pain as blood bursts from your nose.  Your last thought is you hope like hell Dean's too out of it to realize he's listening to you and Sam die. --- When you come to, you can smell traces of lavender. Some considerate soul took a second to clean the blood off your face.  That same soul also tied you to a chair, stripped you to the waist, and painted magic graffiti all over your chest, so you're not writing out any thank-you notes.  You stay slack against the ropes, keeping your ears open, taking soft sips of air for scent.  You can smell Sam's clean Alpha scent and the tea tree oil he uses on his hair.  He's alive, to produce that scent.

"Gideon's designation will override the host body's," a man's voice says, also touched with an Irish lilt.

"We don't know that for certain.  We've never tried to use an Alpha body," Catrina says.  You slit your eyes open but you're not facing the right way.  You can feel warmth near your bare back; they've got you and Sam tied in chairs back-to-back.

"I don't like it Cat."

"Boyd you promised," Catrina wheedles.  "Without Gideon, we are not a family."

"Well you should've thought of that before you went behind his back and pinata'ed the accountant," Boyd points out.  Your eyes roll, you can't help it.  Siblings are siblings, no matter the ages.  "Gideon told you to let it go."

"And let us be cheated by some sniveling, weak human nothing?" Catrina sneers.

"You got our brother killed," Boyd counters.

"And look at the opportunity the Fates dropped in our laps as a result!"  An icy hand lands on your head, shoving it to the side to bare your unmarked neck.  "A strong Alpha body, an unmated Omega!  They're not an ideal match but they're passable."  She pulls back, and you intuit what's coming a half-second before her hand cracks across your face.

"Woah!" you yell, snapping your eyes open.  "Just one of those DAYS, when you don’t wanna WAKE UP!  Everything is FUCKED!  Everybody SUCKS--" snarling, Catrina lets you have another, splitting your lip.

"Hunters," she sneers.  Her face seems to default to that expression.  "So arrogant.  Did you imagine we would tamely submit to the people who killed our family?"

"The guns with the magic bullets very strongly suggest we did not in fact expect that," you tell her dryly.

"When we're through here," Boyd says, doing something with Sam, "you really must tell us how you obtained poppy nectar from a faerie realm.  That's very clever."

"Wish I could say it was my idea," you admit.  "The incendiary rounds were all me though.  Stakes are so passé." You look down at yourself, up into the bare greed in the Irish witch's face.  "I'm flattered, but I'm straight.  I even got a boyfriend.  'Bout six-one, likes his steak rare, never shuts up?"

"You're an Omega.  Once you're in heat you'll lift your arse for anything with a knot, and heat," you jerk against the restraints as Catrina traces a finger down your sternum and the scribblings on your skin gleam magenta, "can be triggered with the right spell."

"Don't touch her," Sam orders, in an Alpha-voice so powerful you can feel it in your bones.

"Cat," Boyd warns softly.

"Boyd," she rolls her eyes back, "this is a gift . We haven't been able to work Bond-magic since the Hunters took Auntie Siobhan and Theodore.  We'll have our brother back.  We'll have our power back!  The family can rise again!  This is our future!"

"I will chew my own wrists open," you growl, all sense of humor gone, "before I let anyone mate me against my will."

"Och!  An Omega that thinks it's people!" Catrina mocks.  "Remember darlin, all an Omega needs is a cunt.  Arms and legs are optional."

Snarling, Sam jerks against the ropes holding him still.

"Please Boyd," Catrina simpers.  "For me?"

Their heads whip to look out the door at a sound from downstairs.  Muttering something under her breath, Catrina stalks out the door.

You suck in a breath.  "Oh God no," you whisper as you feel your blood smoldering under your skin, your heart rate climbing.  The blood painted on your body burns like acid, the glow intensifying.  Sam's Alpha scent crawls into your brain, with that something that reminds you of apples.  It's the common note he and Dean share, cool and tart instead of warm and sweet.  You wonder if that's how John Winchester smelled, back when he was just a dude back from the wars and falling in love.

"Don't do this," Sam begs as Boyd opens a box and takes out a knife with a black oak blade.

"What, swap your soul for his and watch him take the Omega Presenting right in front of him to mate?"  He slits his palm and uses a fingertip to paint a bloody glyph on Gideon's pale forehead.  "Catrina's right-- with a breeding Omega we can rebuild.  We can rule again, instead of hiding ourselves like cowards."

Out of Boyd's sightline you twist your wrist and unsheathe your claws.  Thank God, you can just reach the rope.  Grinding your teeth against the pain in your arm and the fire roasting under your skin, you scratch.  Just a little play, just a little.

Somewhere else in the house, you hear raised voices, Rowena's angry burr and Catrina's mocking lilt.  Glass shatters.  Sam grunts and you feel him straining the ropes and the chair.  The arrogant little shits forgot-- wooden furniture in a humid climate degrades over time.

"Sounds like a couple alley cats fighting downstairs," you manage.

"Don't you worry my lovely," Boyd assures you, finishing with his brother's body.  "Our Cat has it handled."  He chuckles as you gasp.  Slick's weeping out of your pussy, soaking into your underwear.  Worse, you know Sam's smelling it.  Sam's reacting to it, his Alpha scent getting stronger, more intense.  "Be easy, shh."  A greasy smile creases Boyd's broad face.  "A few minutes more and Gideon will make you feel ever so much better."

The wood under Sam's right arm cracks apart and he drives his fist straight into Boyd's nose.  Yelling through his fingers, the Irish witch staggers out to the hallway.  The rope under your claw snaps and you work your arm free, as the chair holding Sam breaks around him and he yanks the scrap and rope off.  He's shirtless too, red-faced, and his pupils are blown wide open.  From his parted lips you can see the points of fangs.

"GO!" you snap, using your free hand to cut the rest of the ropes around you.  Sam whirls and sprints after Boyd.

As you try to stand your vision tunnels and your knees buckle.  Your brain turns into a ViewMaster and your awareness flicks, unstuck in time.  Floor polish and huge hands smashing against your panties.  Dean's fingers stroking you inside and out.  Things forcing and probing, things made slippery with blood and with slick.  Being with Dean, who's brought you nothing but pleasure, makes you feel treasured and cherished, makes you feel like someone who matters-- easy to forget how much your unfulfilled heats hurt.

A shot rings out and a body drops.  Awareness takes another slip-slide and you curl into the tightest ball you can, wrapped around your traitor Omega womb and yelling in pain.

Warmth wrapping around you and you're surrounded by scent.  The right scent, smoky and sweet.  You bury your face in the offered neck.  A soft purr rumbles against you.  Alpha's here, and he'll make it okay.

"Let me see," a woman's voice orders and the arms around you tighten, the purr turning to a growling snarl.  Something cold touches your forehead and just like that the heat is gone.  The fog blows off your brain and your eyes blink open.  You're in Dean's arms.  He's glaring up at Sam and growling, low and threatening, his fangs bared.

Rowena touches the back of her hand to your forehead.  "Burning up. Find a loo and fill a tub, her fever's got to come down."

"Right."  Sam snags his shirt from a pile of wreckage and takes off.  Rowena coaxes Dean to pick you up in a bridal carry.

The cold water finishes the job of bringing you back to Now.  You're in a bathtub with Sam using a handheld sprayer on your head.  Cold water pours from the faucet and in no time you're up to your ribcage in cool.

"There there," Rowena says, laying a soothing hand on the back of your neck.  Behind her Dean fidgets, pale as cream and his lips working around words that won't come.  "Is everyone all right now?"

"Yeah," you pant, taking the sprayer away from Sam and turning the faucet off.  You stare down at yourself, soaking wet and your tits bare to the breeze.  Blushing miserably, you cover yourself.

With an amused little smirk you yearn to smack off her face, Rowena stands.  "There now, that's sorted.  Come along now."  She takes Dean's hand, but he won't move.  His eyes are locked on you, vacant as an empty room.

Hoping like hell Alpha instinct will take over where awareness is failing, you nod at him.  "I’m all right Alpha.  Go."

"Yeah, it's okay," Sam says, and that gets through.  Docile as a cow, Dean follows Rowena back to the library.

Without turning to look at you, Sam clears his throat.  "Look, I-- I--"

"Get me a towel and wait outside.  Please."

Fast and hard, you scrub yourself raw.  As you dry off what you can, you can hear low conversation.  Please God let it not be too late.  Dean’s mind has to come back.  It has to.  You have to tell him you’re sorry.  A craven part of you says that’s not enough, you’ve sinned and must beg for Alpha’s forgiveness, if you remembered your place none of this would be happening, Alpha was ready to sink fang into his own brother because of your weakness--

You wrap and tuck the towel around your chest and slosh down the hall.  Sam meets you at the stairs and hands you your shirt.

“Well?” you ask, buttoning up as Sam heads downstairs.

"We found the reversal spell. Rowena’s working it now.”  Sam won’t even look at you.  Dean isn’t the only Alpha you should beg for forgiveness, you realize.  The one situation you’d sworn to never allow, because it’s one you know you will never win-- asking Dean Winchester to choose anybody or anything over Sam.

“Sam I--"  You take your courage in hand and swing the knife, “Alpha I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“What?  Why?  You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says.

“Dean was ready to kill you . Because of me.”

“You think this is the first time Dean’s shown fangs at me because of a spell?” Sam asks.  “I lost count after six.”

“He only saw you as a threat because I was enticing you--"

“That's ridiculous,” Sam cuts you off.  “He saw me as a threat because his Omega was in distress and everything was a threat.  And-- and you weren’t enticing anything.”

“So that was a pistol in your pocket?”

Sam's eyes fall away from yours.

“That’s what I thought.”

His eyes come back up.  “I’m not defined by my designation any more than you are,” Sam says, going quiet the way he does when he gets really and truly angry, “and just because I had a hardon doesn’t mean I was ready to commit rape.  Nothing that happened up there was your fault.  In any way.”

“Yes Alpha,” you say meekly, and loathe yourself.

“I mean it.  You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”  Sam pauses, and you can see him noticing how he’s gone from standing to looming.  You can feel your posture weakening, and you’re very aware that you’re unarmed and Sam’s between you and a way out.  Shifting his weight back and letting his shoulders drop a bit, Sam says, “And please don’t call me Alpha.  I’m not your Alpha, and I have a name.”

From upstairs Rowena’s voice rises and there’s a brilliant flash of magenta light.  You and Sam draw together and wait, barely daring to breathe.

Rowena appears, a great book bound in black clutched to her chest.  Dean follows and your heart sticks in your throat.

“Wha-- wait-- is it done?” Sam stutters.

“Who’s this hippie?” Dean asks, and your mouth drops open.  Rowena and Dean reach the ground where you and Sam are standing . . . and Dean’s blank face splits in the most infuriatingly beautiful asshole smile you’ve ever seen in your life.  “You should see your face!  Like that time I ate all your Halloween candy-- remember that?” --- “You didn’t have to punch me,” Dean whines through your hankie, as Sam parks back at the motel.

“’Twas perhaps a bad time to be jesting, all things considered,” Rowena comments.  “Now if ye’ll be so kind as to call me a taxi I’ll be on my way.”

“Sure.”  Sam pauses, twisting around in his seat.  “Um . . . thank you.  For coming to help.”

“Don’t hurt yourself Samuel,” Rowena scoffs.  She looks at you.  “I wonder if I might have a word with ye in private lass?”

“Sure.  I gotta change anyway.”  And have whatever you’re supposed to call a temper tantrum after you’re too old to call them temper tantrums.

Rowena’s seated at the room’s little café table when you come out of the bathroom, dressed in some dry jeans and feeling marginally more human.  “What did you need to talk to me about?” you ask, dumping your damp pants in the dirty clothes bag.

“I’m curious,” Rowena says, watching you pack your duffel.  “Why aren’t ye and Dean properly Bonded?”

“None of your business,” you say without looking up.

“As you will,” Rowena shrugs.  “Ye should know, your pairing is a true one.”

“There’s no such thing as true mates,” you refute.  “Some people are just more compatible than others.”

“Accourse there is.  The modern world rejects the notion, because a true pairing is as much about soul as it is about the body.  To someone with the witch-sight, it’s plain as the nose on yuir face.”

You yank the zipper on your duffel shut and turn to face down the witch, your hands on your hips.  “No.  If I’m with Dean, it’s because I choose it.  Me.  Not God, not the Fates, not Mother-fucking-Nature.  Me.”

“Something else is plain to anyone with eyes,” Rowena says.  You wish she’d knock it off with the wise auntie shit, it clashes with the pitiless amusement in her eyes.  “If ye weren’t Alpha and Omega, Dean would choose ye still.  When he talked about upsetting ye he looked as though his heart had died.

“Accept it or reject it, that is yuir choice m’dear. But you need to make a decision.  Soon.  The Bond between ye yearns for completion.”

“And if I decide I don’t want it?  Or Dean doesn’t?” you ask through numb lips.

“Then ye need to find a witch well-versed in Bond magic.  I’m Beta, that realm is closed to me.  A true Bond is magical in nature and requires an experienced touch to break safely.”

Your eyes narrow.  “Why are you telling me this?  It’s not out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Tsk.”  Rowena thinks a minute.  She looks tired, you think, tired in a way makeup doesn’t cover.  And old.  “D’ye know the secret to living across multiple lifetimes, lassie?”  You shake your head.  “Wise investments.  Being a Winchester ally has its drawbacks.  Being their enemy, well-- ask Lilith about that. Or Lucifer.”

You tip your chin in a thoughtful nod.  Put that way, you see her point.

“Did the boys ever tell ye what happened with God and his sister Amara?” Rowena asks.

“No,” you say.  You remember the day, the day the sun drained and filled back again.  You know Sam and Dean had been front and center to stop it, but not the details.  Dean had been uncharacteristically vague when you’d asked.  Normally his after-action reporting’s efficient and thorough.

“The Darkness, triumphant, secure in her victory over God her brother.  I was there holding the Almighty’s hand as he lay dying.  We’d unleashed all the power of a desperate world-- of Heaven, Hell, magic, and God Himself; it made not a whit of difference.  Her rage made all that power meaningless.

“We hit upon a plan.  Perhaps if both the incarnations of Light and of Darkness perished, existence would continue and life itself might be spared.  I created a bomb.”

“And guess who volunteered to be the trigger man,” you say, horrified.

“Aye,  Dean was the only one who could get close.  Amara had taken a special liking to him, ken.”

You laugh, without joy.  “Of course she did.”

“When the sun began to brighten, we all knew he’d won.  But that bomb never went off.”  A hint of frustration creeps into her tone.  “Somehow, that vulgar, drunken, brutish lout of a man succeeded, where all the power in the world failed.  How?”

The answer’s plain obvious to you.  “Cuz he’s Dean.”

"Aye, he is.”  Rowena leans forward in her chair.  "A man whom it would be wise to have in one's debt.  I’m a survivor, lass, a creature who has known winter and remembers it.  You are too, for ye to have survived this long without kin or mate.  Dean’s a good man in spite of himself and he loves ye.  I should think verra hard before deciding he’s not as important to ye as yuir pride." --- The tiny bump at the end of the drive into the bunker’s garage wakes you up.  Dean wheels Baby into her usual space front’n’center and kills the engine.  The three of you just sit a minute, lingering on empty.

“Well,” Sam breaks the silence, “that happened.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees.  “Epic.”  He twists and looks back at you as you stretch the blood back into your muscles.  “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you grunt, as you haul yourself out of the car.  In between tiny naps stretched over Baby’s backseat, you’ve been racking your brain over what to say.  You know Dean.  You know if you don’t say anything neither will he.  It’ll all be just another nightmare.

She’s not scared of anything, Dean had said to you, so full of respect.

Courage is not the absence of fear, and God, you wish you didn’t hear that in dad’s voice.

You stop at the door to your room.  Dean passes you by, not looking at you.

“Dean?”

“Look, I just want to go to bed and sleep for a week,” Dean says.

“Please.  We need to talk.”

“Sam told me what happened.  It wasn’t your fault.  You were hexed.  Okay?  Good talk.”

He turns to go and you stop him with a hand on his arm.  “Please.  Ten minutes.”

Dean fights with himself, but eventually he nods and follows you into your room.  “Like I said--”

“I’m sorry,” you cut him off.  “About that stupid fight we had before we left.”

“What fight?  Oh right-- the one where you basically called me a knothead asshole to my face.  Apology accepted.  Can I go now?”

“I’m not done,” you tell him.  You will not rise to the bait.  You will not.

“There’s more?  How ‘bout explaining to me why you thought I went out and hooked up that night.”

“You told Rowena you didn’t remember anything!”

“I lied.  I mean-- seriously?  I’m not a saint but you don’t even trust me that much?”

You’re an Alpha.  What was I supposed to think when you went out and never came back? trembles behind your lips.

“Holy shit,” Dean says when you don’t answer, sagging to lean against your desk.  “I don’t believe this.  I spent the night in a field with a dead witch and you thought-- screw this.”  He stands straight, aimed at the door.

“You’re right,” you choke out through your tight throat.  “Christ Dean, I’m so fucking sorry.  You’re right, you didn’t deserve that.  I know better.  That wasn’t fair to you.”  You hang your head.  It’s happening, here comes the crybaby face.  You hide behind your hands and try sucking back your tears.  You’re a fucking adult, you should be able to take what you got coming with a little bit of goddamned dignity, you only cry big fat tears to get out of paying for your mistakes like a manipulative little bitchslut.

Making soft shushing noises, Dean holds you and presses your head to his chest.  Something hot and pulsing inside you, something infected and rotting, bursts open and starts to drain.  All the bottled strain of the last couple days, watching Dean disappear in front of you, watching your complex, angry, tender Alpha fade . . . and more, and further.  “I’m sorry,” you sob over and over, tangled and lost in shame.

Using your hankie, Dean gently cleans your face.  He presses the fabric to your nose.  “Blow.”

You take it from him and finish pulling yourself together.

“That better?” Dean asks.  As you nod, he pulls you close and kisses your forehead.  You could leave it at that.  You want to leave it at that.

You scent Dean, letting him fill your world.  “There’s something else.  I know-- I know I’ve been acting like a hormonal bitch on wheels,” a muscle in his jaw twitches, “and I owe you an apology for that.  I’m sorry, it was totally uncalled for.”

“It wasn’t like you didn’t have a reason to get pissed at me about that.  But I thought we had that handled.”  Oh right, the storage unit in Kansas City after the thing in Colorado.  Handcuffed angry sex.  It wasn’t as much fun as it sounds in your head.

“That’s not why.”  You push him to sit on the bed and get a battered accordion folder out of your locked desk drawer.

"First of all,” you pull up your desk chair, “let me be clear.  This is not an excuse.  It’s an explanation.”

“Ten-four,” Dean says. He undoes the string closure on the folder.  The first pocket is full of envelopes.  Maybe thirty or so in all, plain white, business sized, sealed, made out in your lopsided Palmer Method cursive.  Across the front of each one, RETURN TO SENDER has been printed in screaming red Sharpie.  “What’re these?”

“Letters to my father.  I write one twice a year, just before Christmas and his birthday in June.”

Shock stretches his features as he leafs through the envelopes.  “And he’s never opened them?”

“No.”

Opening another fold in the folder, Dean takes out an 5x7 photo, a couple on a couch with their arms full of children, two more little girls sitting on the floor at their feet.  “Lucky Seven,” you say.  “There’s me sitting in front of dad, that’s Mandy, dad’s holding The Jays -- Janey and Jenny -- and Mom’s holding Rosie.  She was . . . maybe two or three months old?  My godfather Patrick’s manning the camera.”  You pick out another picture, an older you standing in between dad and Pat, the three of you holding up a respectable size walleye.

With the reverence it deserves, Dean slips the photo back in the folder.  As he does, he finds a pack of snapshots amongst the jumble and does a double-take at a picture of himself, sitting astride your bike, Eddie.

“Remember when we were working in the garage and Sam started horsing around with my camera?”

“Yeah yeah.”  Dean shuffles through the snapshots-- each of the boys posed mounted up on Eddie, you holding Sam in a headlock, Dean singing into a socket wrench, the soles of yours and Dean’s boots as you work side-by-side laying on creepers under Baby.  He pauses on one.  You’re on Eddie, Dean’s pressed up behind you with his chin on your shoulder, both of you peering down at Eddie’s instruments with identical looks of absorbed concentration.  “I like this one.”

“Yeah?  I do too.”  The angle emphasizes the clean lines of Dean’s face, his body.  You look like you belong there, in his arms.  “That’s why I enclosed it in the letters I wrote to my sisters.  And dad.”

Dean’s head snaps up as he puts it together.  “You told your family about me?”

“Yeah.  Relax, I didn’t tell them your full name or that we’re headquartered in Kansas.”

“Wasn’t even thinking about that,” Dean says absently.  “I mean . . . you told your family.  About me.  That . . . that kind of makes me think you think we’re serious.”

The Bond between ye yearns for completion.  “We’re talking about mating.  Hell yeah I think we’re serious.”

“You gonna,” Dean’s doing that thing he does when something’s blindsided him, searching for a pushback, a wisecrack, something, anything to get some distance, “take me home, show me off?”

“I wish.  Rosie says if she wasn’t engaged she’d, and I quote, ‘tie you to the nearest bed and ruin you for any other woman.’”  From another fold, you take out the last letter you got from Janey.  “Kaylee, Janey’s oldest, sent you this.  She’s going through a flirty phase.”

Dean takes the little pink Valentine, handling it like it’s glass that might break and cut him bloody.  “I’m getting love letters from six-year-olds,” he mutters, going for gruff and missing.

“Seven.  Kay’s a very sophisticated young lady.”

“Not funny.  I didn’t think you even talked to your folks.”

“Mostly I don’t.  They think I work in skip tracing, so I can’t give them a phone number.  I write them when I can, they write back.  The university keeps a mailbox for me at the clinic in Columbus, I swing by there when I'm in the area.  I get to keep up with my sisters and they get to know I’m not dead.”  You can’t keep the brittle, bitter snap out of your voice.  Half a dozen letters a year, a little pile of photographs, and that’s as close to Lucky Seven as you’ll ever get.

“But you dad never reads the ones you send him,” Dean says.

“Ever since Peg took me on the road with her,” you say, “I’ve only ever heard from dad twice.  Just twice.  The first time is when he sent me a newspaper clipping of Mom’s obituary.”

“What?”

You shut your eyes.  If you’re not careful you’re gonna start bawling again.  “I was in the hospital with a cracked sternum and a fractured skull.  By the time I got to the mailbox she’d been dead almost a month.  Mandy hasn’t spoken to me since.”  You wipe your face.  “There’s a statue of Michael the Archangel over her grave.  Ain’t it funny how life works.”

“Hilarious.”  Dean stands up and you snatch at his arm.  “Easy baby,” he says, bending over to give you a kiss.  “Do you still have that bottle of vodka?  I need a drink.”

“In the closet.”  A gift from a grateful Mongolian artist for unbinding and banishing an oni from his studio.  You mentally wave it goodbye as Dean finds your sipping glasses and pours.  He’s right though, the liquor does help.

“The last time I swung by the box,” you hand him an envelope slit up one side.  Dean tips out a copy of that picture of you two on your bike and a folded piece of paper.  “I found this.”

Dean unfolds the paper and reads what’s there.  The note crumples as he clenches his fist.  “Fuck that shit.  I meet this guy, I’m gonna deconstruct him.”

“Don’t.”  It’s too much effort to be mad right now.  “I thought-- fuck, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Dean throws the note somewhere away, like a guy who’d just realized he’s holding a dead rat.  “Baby why didn’t you just tell me what the matter was?”

“You had other shit going on.”

“We always have other shit going on.”

“I mean above and beyond the usual.  This was just after the Lily Sunder thing and the thing with Dr. Jon.  My father being himself doesn’t even rate.”

“It does to me.  Especially if it means getting my ass kicked around the bunker like I’m a damn football.”

“Was I really that awful?”

“Pretty bad . Next time just talk to me, okay?  I don’t ever want to have to do that again.”

“That goes both ways, you know,” you say.

“Hey,” Dean says.  “We’re not talking about me here.”

“I’m not,” you take a breath, “trying to deflect or pick another fight here.  Just . . . I feel like sometimes you forget I’m not a mindreader.  Or Sam.”

“Okay, can we agree we’re both morons and call it a day?  I mean it sweetheart, I’m fried.”

“Serve us with dippin sauce,” you agree, setting the folder aside, “we’re done.  Could . . .” you hesitate.  It’s hard to tell, when Dean isolates himself out of habit and when he does because he genuinely needs some space.  “Could you sleep in with me tonight?”  At Dean’s ‘huh?’ look, you add, “Look I totally get it if you just wanna watch some TV or call your mom or you just need some Me Time and I’m not talking about sex or whatever--"

The rest gets lost as Dean kisses you.  Soft, deep, thorough, and healing.  “Lemme go change.”

As he stands he knocks Lambie over and the stuffed sheep clunks to the floor.

Making a confused noise, Dean picks Lambie up and squishes.  He looks like a gorilla poking at an enrichment device.  He finds it, a steel-hard lump in Lambie’s soft belly.  “What the hell . . . ?”

Giggling, you take Lambie, tear open the velcro closure in his belly seam, and dig out a Beretta Pico pocket pistol.  “It okay, we can get some sleep.  Lambie’s got our backs.”

Dean takes the little pistol. He could almost palm it like a playing card in those big hands.  He looks down at the stuffed sheep.  “I take back everything bad I ever said about you, Lambie," he says solemnly.  "You’re a badass.” --- Some hours of solid sleep and you feel like yourself again.

"Hey," Dean says, looking over his shoulder.  You're playing jetpack, squashed up against his back and brushing kisses over the back of his neck.  "Um . . ." he stretches against you, "just so we're clear . . ." he sighs as you nibble at his earlobe, "you’re coming on to me, right?"

"Mmm-hmm," you hum, hiking up his shirt and caressing his warm tummy.

"Oh, good," he says.  Before you know it you're on your back, Dean pinning you to the mattress and giving you a smile that makes you throb, slick pooling in between your legs.  His hips roll and you suck in a breath as he rubs you, just right.  "Good." --- Later, you wake up with Dean sitting on the edge of the bed, talking on the phone.

"Yeah . . . yeah, where do you want to meet?  Sure, that's that trucker's joint outside Junction City . . . Totally doable.  Anything specific you want us to bring?"  He chuckles.  "Never leave home without it.  Right.  See you there . . . I love you.  Bye."

"Don't tell me," you groan.

"That was Mom, and she needs help on a case," Dean confirms.

"You told me."  Swinging up out of bed, you ask, "What's the caper?"

"Demon hunt.  Wally Prescott has a line on one outside Junction City.  One that likes to snack on virgins."

"Why is it always fucking virgins?" you grouch.  "Why can it never be child molesters or Spurs fans?"

"What is it with you and the Spurs?" Dean asks.

"They suck, and Gregg Popovich is evil.  Case closed."

"Yeah yeah yeah--" he drags your desk chair out and points.  "Front and center."

"What?"

Digging in your closet, Dean pulls out a plastic case.  Unsnapping the catches, he pulls out your clippers.  "What guard do you usually use?"

"Dean you don't have to--"

"I told you," he says,  "I know how to do a buzz.  Sit."

You expect a basic training shavedown, but that's not what happens at all.  Dean snaps a number-two guard on the clippers and, gently feeling ahead for bumps or moles, sweeps front-to-back, starting with the center line.  "Feel like we should be talking about makeup or something," he mutters.

"Makeup sucks.  Good talk," you say.  "For real now-- you really don't care if I keep it buzzed?"

"Nope."  Dean sets the clippers down.  "I like how I can hold your head, like this," he cups his hand right where the skull flares out into the braincase, just above the nape of your neck.  "Feel that?  It fits, right in my hand."

You close your eyes and relax, letting Dean take the weight of your head.  "Yeah."

"I keep finding that," Dean says.  "Little parts that just fit.  Like that picture.  You know your legs are about as long as mine are?  We could probably trade pants."

"Nuht-uh," you say, "I have this thing called an ass."

"According to you, so do I."

"Just because you are an ass," you smirk at him, "doesn't mean you have an ass."

"Oh very funny," he grumbles.

"It was there, I had to go with it."

He picks the clippers back up and goes to work on the hard-to-reach spots around your ears.  "Hold still, I don't want to nick you."

“Did you mean it?” you ask, remembering what he’d said in the bathroom.  “About what you think when you have my scent?”

“Yeah.  I mean--” Dean tips your head to the side, “you and Sam.  When I could scent you I-- I felt like me, even when I couldn’t remember who I was.”  Using a damp washcloth, Dean tidies the stray hairs off your head.  “What do you think when you’re scenting me?”

“I . . . I don’t know, I never sat down and thought about it I guess . Does painfully fucking horny count?”

“Hell yes,” Dean says, taking the towel off your shoulders and brushing you off.

You pass your hand over the peachfuzz as you examine Dean’s handiwork in the mirror.  “Pretty good.”

“Pretty good?  I could do this for a living.”  Dean takes a place in front of the mirror and opens up his shaving kit.

You take his razor away from him.  "Sit down.  I'll do it."

It's funny.  Over the last few months, you and Dean have been intimate in pretty much every way possible for two distinct human beings to be intimate.  This is something special though.  Using a couple of washcloths for hot towels, feeling him relax as you gently scrub a cloth over the stubbly bits.  It has to be a very vulnerable feeling, somebody coming at your face with a sharp blade.  You work a squirt of gel into a handful of foam and Dean tips his head back as you lather him up . Carefully you draw the razor down his cheek, along his jawline, working around the little scar on his chin.  You can see the faint ghosts of freckles across his nose, a nod to the Irish in his blood.  His heart's beating so hard the skin pulses, forcing you to go slow and careful.  Free of whiskers Dean's skin is silky under your fingers, almost as soft as the skin inside his elbows or behind his knees.

"You got this from the Mary Kay lady didn't you?" you tease, finding a little bottle of beard oil in his shaving kit.

"I like the smell," he says a little defensively, as you warm a tiny dollop between your hands and massage it into his face.

"All done," you chirp.

Like someone waking from a nap, Dean straightens up in the chair.  He strokes an assessing hand over his face, making a pleased noise.  "Pretty good.  Where'd you learn to do that?"

"My godfather Pat.  He was staying over with us while Mom and dad were out of town for a couple weeks.  He burned the hell out of his right hand cooking and asked me to do it.  He said he'd grow a beard but he couldn't stand the way it made his face itch."

"Um . . ." Dean swallows.  "You didn't-- um, you-- did he--?"

You look down at his lap.  "Oh.  Um . . . no, he was a perfect gentleman.  Seriously, shaving turns you on?"

"Everything about you turns me on," Dean tells you, moving in for a kiss.  Your eyes drift closed and you're doing the mental math on the drive time to Junction City and how badly do you really need to have breakfast--

"Morning!" Sam's back from his morning run.  He raps on the door.  "Got your text.  Let me get a shower and we can hit the road."

"Fuck," Dean whispers.  "All right, meet you at the car in thirty!"

"Right."  Sam moves off. --- Exactly thirty-six minutes later, you and Dean jog into the garage and find Sam waiting, leaned up against the car and tapping his foot.  "Seriously you two?"

"Shut up," you tell him.  Just to be a jerk, you pull out your phone and call up Cage the Elephant.  Dean slides behind Baby's wheel and Baby's engine roars as you pick up the chorus.

"You know there ain't no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good."

---

AN2: Russian: "What?" Greek: "Witch. I will burn you." 'Bond Magic' is a headcanon thing-- yeah, a headcanon of a headcanon. It makes sense to me certain magics can only be manipulated by people of certain Dynamics, no matter how massive one's talent or which demons one bribes. Also headcanon is that cultural habit says Omegas must be claimed but not Alphas; part of that privilege/marginalization thing I mentioned earlier. We're maturing here, folks! Maturing!

[ikamigami]

About Sun's grieving after Lunar

I think that beside Sun wanting old Moon back, he seems so stressed out by the whole situation because New Moon reminds him Lunar. It's obvious that Sun feels responsible for Lunar's death. And I think that he tries to repress grief (maybe partially because he's in denial) because he doesn't think he deserves to grief after Lunar. He doesn't have any right to grief if he's the one who caused Lunar's death. I think that New Moon's attitude might remind Sun that he didn't only lose Moon but he also lost Lunar.

Sun tries to avoid grief not only because he has a lot things to do, a lot things to take care of but also because he's the reason for why Lunar is no longer with them. And I think that the fact that Earth doesn't know who Lunar was thus she ain't grieving after him and the fact that New Moon doesn't know who Lunar was either also because of his memory loss thus he ain't grieving after him as well aren't helping Sun at all. If I would be in New Moon or Earth shoes, I would try to talk about it, talk about Lunar, let him grief. Because they know that Lunar is dead. Yeah, they don't know him but they still could support Sun and show him sympathy regarding his loss.

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

Sun, in his current “Eclipse needs to die yesterday” state, being introduced to the various Eclipse’s Lunar and/or Moon adopt for the the first time? Before today’s bs, of course, because I doubt Lunar would let Sun near any Eclipses after that.

Not all at once or in the same timeline, just how you think a first meeting with each one would go if Sun had no previous exposure to any nice Eclipses?

Sun would probably be very upset meeting Good Eclipse but eventually he’d come the realization Lunar did that ‘oh, he’s just a mechanic’.

If he met Kill Lunar Eclipse, he’d be quite startled to meet a blind Eclipse whose just as snarky and sarcastic but no longer evil. But meeting him may just give him light on his Eclipse’s mindset because KL Eclipse more freely talks about his feelings with his brothers and would do the same with Sun if he asked.

Dadclipse, being the closest Eclipse to Sun’s own, would just stare at Sun and explain every single bit of his own, and therefore canon Eclipse’s, reasonings for the things they did.

Meeting either memory loss Eclipse or factory reset Eclipse would show Sun the scenarios where Eclipse lost his memory and the ramifications it left on them, ML Eclipse being essentially a feral stray only knowing how to survive on the streets and FR Eclipse being a blank slate with trauma but no memories to attach to the various traumas. He’d be very protective of these two, regardless of which one he met, it would greatly change his mindset with Eclipse in general.

Human Eclipse would be a horrific meeting for both parties. Human Eclipse is terrified of everyone, because, in his eyes, everyone is a threat and he could be hurt by anyone. Sun would be more scared of all the bruises and cuts and wounds on human Eclipse because he knows humans are fragile and he would have to calm him down and comfort him before being able to talk to him.

With stress response Eclipse, Sun would be very skeptical because he’s very quiet and he doesn’t speak much because he’s scared of being stressed to breaking again. But once they begin talking, Sun feels very differently about Eclipses knowing his own could break under pressure just like SR Eclipse and would likely feel quite protective of his own Eclipse, despite their past.