#tnmw

[percywinchester27]

The new Mrs. Winchester (20)

Word count: 3.1K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Chapter warnings: Implications of sexual abuse, mentions of torture, PTSD, angst, flesh trade, language, mention of violence and murder; reader discretion is strongly advised.

Series Summary: After spending over two years in captivity, and enduring assault, torture, and degradation of every kind, Y/N is finally sold off to the highest bidder. But when the deal is masked as a hushed marriage to a wealthy and powerful man, Y/N knows it means a few more nights of brutal torment ending in certain death. After all, why else would a man like him, want someone like her, except to fulfill desires so depraved that they would require owning a person. However, the Winchester mansion has mysteries of its own, woven in lies, betrayal, and death. Smack in the middle of it, she finds both hope and a home, in the person she least expected to find it with. But when it comes down to it, will she be able to save the thing that matters the most?

A/N: Guys, I so hope you like this chapter! It was a pleasure to write :)

Beta: My darling, @deanssweetheart23

“You are the most frustrating thing in the world,” you said to the burner phone standing silently on the tabletop. Only one person called or messaged on the phone and it had stayed quiet for a whole week. The longer it remained silent, the sadder you became. Sam’s desperation to prove his innocence must have turned into frustration and then anger. After all, he’d done everything right and had still been accused of something heinous by you. Anger would be natural. But you were scared that maybe the anger was turning into apathy now. Sam’s silence was proof.

Abby’s mother had fallen ill, and with a tight hug, she had bid you goodbye for the weekend. You felt lonelier than ever in the house. No Abby, no Jack, and no Han to wait for you at the pier when you lit a lamp. But most of all, no Sam.

The terror that had gripped you since first seeing Nick had dissipated some, but you were still afraid that he might turn up in the mansion and you would have to face him again. So, you spent most of your days in Martha’s kitchen, reading Wordsworth and his sad poetry.

However, after a week of skulking around the house like a phantom, you decided to open the forbidden connecting door to Sam’s room. Maybe seeing his pictures, trophies and books would bring some solace. The room looked as benign as the last time you had seen it, on the day before the gallery opening. The pictures were all there on Sam’s nightstand, now with a thin film of dust over them. Sam had locked the room from outside when he’d left, so no staff could get in, not a soul… except you. 

The sheets on his bed were perfectly made and you wondered if this is how he treated all the hotel rooms in the world, too, leaving them just as he had found them as if he’d never been there. But these sheets had held him close in nights, wrapping their silk around his body in a way you could only dream of. Quietly, you lifted a well-made corner and slipped underneath, hoping to envelop yourself in some trace of him. The sheets did not smell of him anymore. Despite all your efforts, the room did not seem like his at all with him gone. You remembered the line from your story of Eros and Psyche. When Psyche lost her trust in her husband, Eros, left in anger and despair… All love and beauty seemed to evaporate from the world in its entirety. 

You curled up on your side, twisting in the sheets, feeling Psyche’s frustration in every bone. Everything had been going smoothly, but you had let doubt corrupt your head and now Sam was gone. As you twisted on the bed, your hand touched something rough beneath the sheet. You sat up, discarding the sheets completely and reached out to find an envelope. You turned it around to see your name etched on top in Sam’s elegant handwriting.

You nearly tore the envelope in your hurry to get the contents out. Inside was a letter addressed to you.

Y/N,

I wanted to come clean. I wanted to tell you everything, but I’d be damned if I overstepped my boundaries and crossed the line of your consent. Not again. But if you are reading this, it means you’ve chosen to come to my room, and climbed into my bed of your own volition. It means that your consent was involved.

So, let me tell you how you ended up here in my bed, in this moment. Let me tell you everything from the very beginning.

Jo’s pie was still fresh on the table when we set out to find her, and that’s where we found it three days later when we returned. Dean took one look at it and his knees gave out. We’ve been through some tough times, Dean and I, but never had I seen him so scared in my entire life. When they found Jo’s body, Dean drove his car into a cliffside three days later. You probably don’t know this, but he loves that car and it came back wrecked, but still less wrecked than him. You told me about the days when your dad returned home between tours and he had this haunted look in his eyes, the look of witnessing death, causing it… seeing the people you love suddenly die. I might have looked that way, too.  Jo was like a sister to me growing up and she was dead, and Dean wasn’t just my brother, he was my whole world. Slowly, but surely, I was watching him waste away right in front of my eyes.

I didn’t see my mother die– another person who died because of me; died for me– but I was old enough to watch my father slowly kill himself. He’d return from these long trips and I would run to him, but he never spared me a glance. After all, I was the reason his wife wasn’t with him. He’d loved that woman more than anything in the world. I believe Dean reminded him of all the good times he’d shared with his wife, but I was a reminder of the peace he’d lost. If she hadn’t run in to save me from the fire, she’d be alive and breathing with him. No, he wasn’t outright cruel, but slowly as he drowned himself in whiskey, the whiskey truly drowned him. Dean found him like that in his study one night, without a heartbeat, but a drink still in his hand.

Dean became just like that in the months after Jo’s death, always clutching a bottle, eyes red and out of his mind. I can’t count the number of times I’d picked him up from bars with bloody knuckles and a bruised face, and I felt helpless watching my brother go the same way as my father, wishing, just wishing I could go back in time to stop Jo from leaving alone. One day my life had been good, not perfect, but good, and the next day it had been dragged to hell.

The first time I saw a light in Dean’s eyes was when the sheriff, Jody Mills, came back with some definitive proof. Before Jo, two other bodies had been recovered from Lincoln lake. And though they bore signs of more heinous abuse, the MO appeared to be the same, similar disappearances, similar disposal. There had been other disappearances as well, but no trace of the bodies and more than half of those could be traced directly to the estate. It was easy to put together the story… a human trafficking ring was active in the area. 

I saw my brother go from the edge of destruction to grasping at the threads of hope for justice. He threw himself into Jody’s investigation with this feverish energy. But no matter how hard he tried, or anybody tried, eventually, we all hit roadblocks. No one could get on top of the ring, and it got worse when Jody found out that even her superiors in the police were involved. She didn’t have any pull with federal law enforcement. Not then anyway. I was just starting to worry that I would lose my brother all over again when Jody came up with the plan… with this plan.

The plan was easy enough and by now I’m sure you know most of it, though, I didn’t think it would work. No one who has seen us growing up would believe I could throw him out, but Dean had a solution to that as well. ‘Just replace all staff’ he’d said. At first, I went along just in desperation to save Dean from the abyss he was in danger of falling into. Finding out who did this to Jo had become his life’s mission. I couldn’t take it away from him without losing him, too, but I didn’t really believe he and Jody would manage to implement it. But then there came a day when I had to make the decision, to be in or out.

I’d have died before letting Dean down, but that night he made me promise that I would go along. He had already transferred all his property and estate rights save for the shares, but that night he begged me to say yes… to do this abhorrent thing of paying money to own a human being. He justified it with fancy words… said I’d be saving a girl from life in hell, but I knew it for the depraved act it truly was. I don’t remember the things I said to my brother that night or the wreckage I left of the door and furniture, but in the end, I had to give in. How could I not? 

And so, before the day break Dean left, and the very next day, I assumed power of the board and estate. The first to go was Dean’s portrait from the gallery, and then every last item that could be associated with him was purged from this God-forsaken house. I moved in a week later and then within a month, the staff was replaced. Being cold and detached from them was hardly even work once Dean left. I was heartbroken enough to shut myself within me. But still, selfishly, I couldn’t let go of Jack and Martha, I was scared that I would be lost to even myself without them. After all, do you even exist if no one around you knows you?

So far the plan was working, but then suddenly it worked too well. The whispers that we had planted were taking root now. The word that I was looking to buy finally reached the right ears and one day, a man accosted me outside the office, offering the deal. He handed me a card with a location and asked me to be there at eleven the next morning. There, he had a photo book ready for me to pick from. Up until then, I had never hated myself more. To even look at the pictures, as if I was some kind of God to choose which one to save… which of these women was eligible to be rescued from this prison, and put into a different one. My prison wouldn’t have the torture of this one, but a place where she would be dragged to without her own free will would be a prison nonetheless.

I had to choose. One. I closed my eyes, gulped and vowing to come back for the rest after this one, I opened that photo book. And there you were on the 5th page. I stopped there and did not flip further. The man said you were not up for sale, that you were Boss’s favourite. I doubled the price, he wouldn’t agree still, I tripled the price. He made a call, and when I offered to pay five times the amount, the man on the other end of the line must have agreed because we sealed the deal. I got to keep the photo.

And Y/N, this is what I don’t get… I could have decided to keep flipping through those horrifying pictures and picked another, but once I saw you, there was no one else. Something about the look in your eyes… At least that’s what I told myself as I signed the cheque and asked to keep the picture. But the truth was, I didn’t want another man to ever look at your picture again. I’ve never looked at it again, myself. I came back and nearly burnt it, but then decided against it. You’ll find it in a brown diary on the top of the cupboard. Do what you please with it, only you should have that right.

You accused me of not looking you in the eye because I thought less of you, but how could I? After what I had done, I could barely stand to meet my own eyes in the mirror. I keep telling myself it’s the look in your eyes in the picture that made me stop, but what if I confessed that I liked the fall of your hair. In that moment I could nearly imagine the feel of your skin, your lips. How am I any better than all those men? How could I ever face you after that? How could I stand next to you on a podium and not want to die from the guilt of it all? How could I even breathe the same air? So, yes, Y/N, I didn’t meet your eyes. At the wedding, I didn’t look at you, didn’t touch your skin, because you deserved better than a depraved person like me even existing in the same room as you.

There’s one other thing I never told you. The night after the wedding, I opened the connecting door. I had to tell you the truth, fall at your feet and apologise profusely for the dastardly act, so my conscience could know some peace. The guilt of what I had done wouldn’t let me be, and when I did push that handle, I found you curled up on the floor, clutching your body. That’s when I knew that as long as I lived, I would never forgive myself for it, never hate myself more than I did in that moment. I vowed to never open the door again. Every night following that one, I would pace to the door, stand inches away, grazing the handle but never opening it. The routine reminded me of Pandora’s story. How in the end after unleashing all kinds of pain on the world, her box only held hope. Hope remained. Opening the door felt like that, it felt like giving up the little hope that someday you might forgive me.

Meeting your eyes in the dining hall that first time might be the bravest thing I’ve ever done, Y/N. It took all the courage in the world to hand you that portfolio, when I don’t even deserve to touch the sheets on which you drew. But each time you looked at me, smiled, or said yes to my beseeching efforts to take you around the property knowing you’d had several tours already, I let that hope bloom and when you agreed to be my friend, I vowed to never be untruthful to you. Ever.

So, no, I didn’t know you had already met Dean, that he was your friend. I hope you believe me.

From the very first attempt to speak with you, my only wish has been to gain your trust. Not to elicit information, but to become worthy of your faith, to be the confidant you confided in of your own free will and not out of a trick. I can see how wrong I was. I am sorry.

You’ve barged out on me twice now and locked yourself behind the door. But you shouldn’t have to put yourself in prison again and again. This letter might be a prelude to proving that Dean and I never colluded against you, but we’ve both had our interests in play. You’re the only party here that’s entirely faultless. You shall not be bound to a prison again. I will not allow it. And if the only way of setting you free from the bars of your room is for me to be out of sight, then that’s no price to pay at all. 

I won’t be back for a couple of weeks, and even when I am, I’ll make sure to be out of your way. 

I made you a promise, Y/N, that you will be safe in this house. That promise stands, even if it’s me you seek safety from. I may not be what you need. But I am still a man of my word. 

You WILL be safe.

-Sam

A drop fell on Sam’s name at the end and you hurriedly shirked the paper before any more drops ruined the letter. Rapidly, blinking at the wetness on your lashes, you rushed to Sam’s cupboard, throwing the doors open. Blindly, you patted the topmost drawer and found the leather-bound diary. The picture was wedged right in the middle. You stared at your own nearly naked form, kneeling with your knees splayed wide, torso bent forward and eyes staring into the camera. With a shock you realised, you barely recognised the face. 

The girl in the picture did not look anything like you. She had primmed eyebrows and a thin,  perfect face full of make-up. Her wide eyes held not an invitation, but almost a challenge: Come find out for yourself. 

Is that what Sam saw?

You moved to the mirror in Sam’s room to check your face, with fuller, unkempt eyebrows and hair that had long outgrown the coiffed cut. The skin didn’t have the perfect complexion but held faint splashes from where the sun had touched it. There were also the hints of wrinkles at the corner of your eyes– laugh lines.

Thinking back, everything seemed abundantly clear as to why Sam’s footsteps had always sounded so close to the door. You had assumed a cupboard or a desk there, but all those nights it was just him hovering, torn between guilt and self-hate. Why when you’d had the workers move his things to your room before the renovation, Sam had panicked about who touched his things, because he was scared of someone seeing the picture you now held in your hands.

Now that it was in your hands, you didn’t know what to do with it any more than Sam did. You should be feeling pity for that girl, chaffing her bare knees on the floor, but all you felt was a strange hatred. She was your past, but she would be your future, too. The imperfect but happy girl in the mirror would soon become a memory.

One week had passed and with one more week to go until Sam returned, you vowed to the girl in the mirror, that as long as she was your present, you would do everything in your power to keep her happy.

As far as Sam was concerned, he’d had his chance to get his truth out. It was your turn now.

*****************************

A/N 2: I LOVED writing this chapter! The nuances of Sam's admission and the delicate nature of his emotions were just so damn satisfying to put into words! What did you think?

Oh, I can't wait to share what's coming with you!

Please do let me know what you think of this part. Reblogs and comments are what keep me going!

If you want to be tagged, you can send me an ask or you can add yourself to the taglist here.

Or here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to know about updates.

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[odysseywritings]

Wip: The New Milky Way

Character #4: Laris

Finishing up the initial quartet of the solar travelers is a mysterious, quiet alien who appears adolescent despite his old demeanor. He is a musician who fills the silent moments with a guitar-like instrument despite his arm being replaced with an artificial hand.

Quiet and brooding to a fault, he keeps to himself unless tensions are boiling, making him a sort of peacemaker despite his surly, stoic appearance. With half the the crew being either a paranoid gunfighter and a spoiled moron, he tends to support Skye much of the time, though he still keeps his distance.

He has bright, scaly red skin with light brown clothes that wouldn't be out of place on earth. Yellow irises stand out in his otherwise normal looking eyes that stare into space. Lean muscles complement his rather small height (shorter than Skye, taller than Mercuria) yet he still walks slowly and carefully. All of this results in an almost saurian look.

[walkmeback]

the threat of explosion, constantly strapped to your side 

[annietook]

I love my life

@percywinchester27

[percywinchester27]

I... I seriously have no words. When I say my jaw dropped with a pop... I mean it, because this is just beyond incredible.

Firstly the sheer talent of being able to create something this beautiful from your mind??? Lie what kind of sorcery is this? You’ve nailed Sam PERFECTLY... the features, the expression, all of it. I’ve studied design, so I can say for a fact that this is exquisite work... The lighting, the shade and the shadows. I’m in awe.

And then to think you made it all for my story? I CANNOT wrap my mind around that. 

Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t know how you did it, but you basically captured the essence of the story in one single frame of art!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go back to ogling at your work!

ALL MY LOVE,

-Ana xoxo

This is a cover I designed for one of my favorite fanfics on Ao3 by @percywinchester27-writes / @percywinchester27 titled "The New Mrs Winchester" [ https://archiveofourown.org/works/39745398/chapters/99504948 ] which features Y/N, who is a former architect student who goes through a horrible situation, only ending when she is purchased by the extremely wealthy Sam Winchester, who is not the monster he seems...

[random-pics-idk]

Tenemu Egyptian hieroglyph! (Tnmw is an ancient Beer)

[bigboxradio]

via Twitter https://twitter.com/BigBoxRadio

[thenubbet-blog]

The Nubbets Musical Weekender: Part Three

TV On The Radio - Will Do

[percywinchester27]

The new Mrs. Winchester (19)

Word count: 4.5K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Chapter warnings: Implications of sexual abuse, mentions of torture, PTSD, angst, flesh trade, language, mention of violence; reader discretion is strongly advised.

Series Summary: After spending over two years in captivity, and enduring assault, torture, and degradation of every kind, Y/N is finally sold off to the highest bidder. But when the deal is masked as a hushed marriage to a wealthy and powerful man, Y/N knows it means a few more nights of brutal torment ending in certain death. After all, why else would a man like him, want someone like her, except to fulfill desires so depraved that they would require owning a person. However, the Winchester mansion has mysteries of its own, woven in lies, betrayal, and death. Smack in the middle of it, she finds both hope and a home, in the person she least expected to find it with. But when it comes down to it, will she be able to save the thing that matters the most?

A/N: A huge shoutout to all my wonderful readers! Your support and love keeps me going! <3

Beta: My darling, @deanssweetheart23

“You can’t kick 'em in the nuts and make a run for it?” The girl in the next cell asked.

“Not if you want to avoid getting beaten into a pulp,” you told her through a mouthful of bread and tomato. “There’s always a guard outside the door.”

“Kick 'em in the nuts, too.”

You snorted so hard, bits of tomato landed on the floor.

“So, let me get this straight,” she said. “There are fancy rooms upstairs with wardrobes full of fancy clothes that you have to wear and then they take you to other fancy places for men–”

“Sometimes it’s just the fancy rooms overhead. Men come here, too.”

“But they take you out, don’t they?” She argued. “Just go to a reception and tell the hostess, a waitress, anyone. I know you managed to run away once… so why not try again? If they let you out, it can’t be that hard!”

You swallowed the bite in your mouth and sighed. What did it matter if you told her the truth? Neither of you would make it out anyway. 

“They’ve kidnapped my half-brother and half-sister. Little kids, barely six… have them at gunpoint somewhere. I make one wrong move and they are dead.”

“Shit.”

You could picture her dumbstruck expression. After spending a week next to her, seeing her face while going in and out, you were starting to get a hang of her. You still didn’t know why you did it, take her turn every night. Eventually, they would drag her out, but for a week, the boss wasn’t in the building and no one seemed to push the inevitable and drag that girl’s stubborn ass out. 

And boy was she stubborn. She bit and clawed like a wild cat at the guards who tried to drag her. She got plenty beat up in the process, but everyone seemed to wait for the boss to get her in line when he came. 

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “My fiance is going to get us out.”

“Fiance?”

“Yeah. I bet he’s worried out of his mind right now. But there’s police. They’ll find us.”

“The police are in on this,” you said. “They get serviced for their quiet.”

She spat, then screamed in frustration.

Footsteps echoed off the walls, and blood froze in your veins. You recognised the hard tap and unforgiving rhythm of his steps. The boss.

“Go to your bed and pretend to sleep,” you hissed, discarding the sandwich in your hand and doing the same. 

“W-what?”

“Just do it.”

Covering yourself entirely with the blanket, you rolled into a ball, as if that would make you invisible, teleport you out of the horror story you were about witness. Since staring at the glass wall in his cabin for the first time, you had prayed for yourself. The pastor in the church your aunt dragged you to every Sunday preached that one should only pray for the world and not for oneself… because praying for oneself was selfish. If you prayed only for the world, that made you a good person, and God helped good people without having to ask for it.

You had never been particularly religious, but that one thing had stuck around. Subconsciously, all your life, you had never asked for yourself, not from God, the universe or even as a favour from people. If you wanted something, you had worked hard to earn it, and achieve it by sheer will and not divine intervention.

But that first night with the boss had made you pray for yourself over and over.

And you prayed now, in whispers that only remained in your breath, never making a sound. 

God, let him forget that I exist… Not tonight. Please please please.

The footsteps came to a halt, and the door next to yours opened.

You closed your eyes tighter. Oh, that poor girl. He had come for her at last.

“I hear you’ve been difficult.”

A spit.

“Michael,” he said in his cold, raspy voice. “Hand me my cane, now.”

“Yes, Boss,” said Michael, gleefully.

A slash in the air and a piercing scream sliced the air.

You shut your ears tightly as the scuffling began… but then it ended as suddenly as it had started when a loud, sickening crunch which sounded so close to the shared wall that you were certain it had happened against it.

A minute passed.

“Oh, what a terrible waste,” the boss sighed at last, almost delicately. “Remove it.”

The taps receded and then soon they carried her body by your cell, blood trailing behind her.

You sat up bolt in your bed, unable to keep the bile down as you emptied your stomach on the carpet next to the bed. Sam’s side of the carpet.

You plopped back on the bed, breathing heavily. 

“Just a dream,” you told yourself. “Just a dream.” Then, the reality came crashing down on you and you wanted to throw up all over again.

Abby’s quiet knock from the main door wrenched you out of bed and through the seating area. She didn’t have to see the vomit. Her face was pinched when you opened the door for her. She entered trepidly and placed the breakfast tray on the table. 

“Who’s in the house?” You asked

“Just us,” she said. “Mr Dean Winchester left last night itself.”

“And S-Sam? He’s out for his run?”

“Mr Winchester left for work.”

“It’s only 7.”

She gave you an apprehensive look, as if she wanted to say something but was scared of how you would perceive it.

“What is it, Abby?”

“Miss, he’s in a right state, that man. Before you came, he used to be so dry and detached… but this past month, since you first locked yourself in your room, he’s gone from pillar to post for you. Sleep, food, everything be damned. The only thing he has done is worry.” Her hand fluttered nervously to her side. “He stumbled down the steps this morning from exhaustion and still went for his run anyway. I think he needs to see a doctor.”

Abby didn’t know what had conspired last night.

“I don’t know the deal with his brother being back now,” she said, wrangling the corner of her apron. “But everyone knows they don’t get along. It can’t be good for him.”

Sam had looked exhausted last evening. The dark circles under his eyes, the once-fitted shirt that hung loose on his shoulders, and the ever-present frown on his forehead had become more and more etched now. 

“Abby, tell me when Sam is back, will you?”

You sent her away and cleaned up your mess in the bedroom. A hot shower further cleared your head. Taking stock of your time in the Winchester Mansion made you recount the number of times you had run out on Sam, locked yourself in the room, the number of secrets you had kept. So, he’d had his own secrets. You knew that. 

Then there was the fact that Sam had never explicitly said he hated his brother. In fact, he’d never spoken of him without pain mingled with love. His exact words- “We had a fight and I couldn’t see his face after that.” Couldn’t…. Not ‘Didn’t want.’ Nowhere had his words implied that Sam’s consent was considered.

The day appeared stormy, with an overcast sky. Maybe the light of the lantern would carry, perhaps it wouldn’t. You set it on the sill anyway.

Dean found you at the pier an hour later, when you had nearly given up hope. He stood at his usual spot but did not sit beside you and you noticed he was dressed differently; no jacket today, just a black T-shirt and jeans.

Slowly, you tilted your face upwards to meet his sharp green eyes. How often had you wondered what Dean Winchester would be like? Bitter? Angry? But Han wasn’t any of those things.

“Get up!” He ordered, without an ounce of remorse. You got to your feet.

“This way,” he pointed and began to walk towards the jungle without a preamble.

A frisson of annoyance ran through you. Where was his abashedness?

“Sam didn’t know,” he said briskly. “That you knew me. That we knew each other. That poor bastard had no damn clue.”

“You want me to believe you’ve been hiding out in these woods without Sam knowing?”

“Yes.” He came to an abrupt stop and you realised Dean was dead serious. “That kid’s as straight-jacketed as they come. Keeping up the charade nearly did a number on his head, and then you came into the picture. Sam’s nearly lost his goddamned mind over you.”

“He told you that?”

Dean sighed in exasperation. “Haven’t you been listening to a single word? I haven’t seen Sam in months, not since the fight. But he’s my only family left. I had to keep an eye on the kid.”

The trees were too damn thick for any sunlight to trickle down. Dean started walking again and you followed.

“What was the fight about, then?” You pressed, refusing to believe.

“You,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Two years before I came into the picture? Yeah, right.”

Dean tilted his head, weighing his words. “About the idea of you, I guess.”

“Wow, that clears it all up, doesn’t it?” You laughed sarcastically.

He stayed quiet for so long that you actually paid attention to your surroundings, finding the trail vaguely familiar in the thick trees.

“We were to be married in eight weeks,” he said, voice deep and achingly sad. “She’d come to drop off pie for me. Sam says he insisted on dropping her back, but I knew my Jo. She was stubborn that one. If she wanted to drive herself, nothing Sam said would’ve changed her mind. Nothing. Ellen called three hours later asking for her. We searched all night long, all through the woods, all the way two towns over. Nothing. Sniffer dogs couldn’t catch a trail. The police found her car two days later in New Mexico… and her body two weeks later face down in the lake.”

You wanted to reach out, say something… anything, but words failed.

“She hadn’t drowned, Y/N. She’d already been dead when they threw her in there. Post-mortem said haemorrhage… blunt force trauma to the back of her head, ligature marks, bruises…” He closed his eyes unable to continue. 

You knew bits and parts of what followed– Dean’s self-destructive tendency and Sam’s unwavering support. The latter won.

“Sam still thinks he’s to blame. That he should have somehow foreseen it. I know Ellen doesn’t disagree with him or shy away from throwing it in his face.” A mirthless scoff.

“I think the bigger part of her anger is because of what Sam did to you… and me.” You said. “Or rather, what she thinks he did to you and me.”

Dean sighed. “I owe Sam a lot more than my life, a sorry and a thank you. This whole plan hinges on his resilience.”

“What plan?”

He ran a hand through his hair, but his pace slowed down. “The detective working this case, Jody Mills… she’s suspected a human trafficking ring here for years. Every few years someone goes missing or a body mysteriously appears. But this thing has its claws in so deep that we can’t trust the entire PD.”

A shiver ran down your spine.

He glanced at you briefly, and you saw the ever-present kindness there. “You’re smart. I’m sure you’ve figured out a bunch of this yourself.”

Nodding to yourself, you thought out loud. “Sam wasn’t keeping me around for sex, didn’t want to hang me as bait for kidnapping, so obviously he wants information about where I was but…” You vividly remembered the night when he’d held your bloody hand and then all but shushed your barrage when you had tried to spill it all in a haze. “He stopped me from telling him… He didn’t want to hear any of it.”

Dean chuckled. A sudden light sound in the pressing quiet. “And I just called you smart.”

“What?”

“For all your God-forsaken angst over loving Sam… Have you not considered him liking you back?” Dean narrowed his eyes as if he was judging your intelligence. “Obviously it’s hard for him to listen to what you’ve been through. Hell, I’ve choked back on what little you’ve told me. Why are you being so thick?”

Tears sprang in your eyes. 

He placed a gentle hand against your cheek. 

“Give yourself some credit, Y/N. As stupid as you’re being right now, how can you question your own judgement of Sam so easily? You took your time forming your opinion, didn’t you? So consider all proof objectively. He was on board with the plan from day one knowing it would wreck his reputation if I disappeared after transferring my inheritance to him, knowing he’d have to make himself a villain… all for Jo. The kid didn’t bat an eye before agreeing. What led to the fight was the very last step of the plan. After infiltrating the system, he’d have to be one of them and well…”

“Buy a girl,” you finished.

“Yes,” said Dean. The word hung heavy in the air. “Sam refused to do it at first, but it was the only way. It’s killed him since day one, Y/N. And yesterday when you said he’s no better than any of those men who hurt you…”

The tears now freely flowed down your cheek and right into Dean’s palm. He slowly directed your face into his chest, tightly wrapping his arms around you.

“Oh, what have I done?” You whispered into his jacket. 

Sam had banged hard on your door last night and you never gave him a chance to explain. Not a single word. If you truly loved him, how come the trust was broken this easily? And when you refused to speak, he’d respected your consent then, too.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” you said. “I should’ve trusted him, trusted you. After all, you never coaxed anything from me. I–”

A thousand memories ran through your mind: Sam’s fingers holding up your corset, touching his hand for the first time in the entrance hall before, his laugh after the false escape from dinner. Sam handing you a portfolio, Sam showing you around the old guesthouse, his fingers slipping on your wet shirt in the barn, laughing with him on the floor of your bedroom, his voice as he read out poetry… and his lips when they met yours.

“Sam took to playing chess in high school,” said Dean as you moved back. “I don’t think he ever got too good at it, but he used to come back rambling about all these moves, the King's Gambit, the Scandanavian, the Sicilian. He didn’t have anyone to play against, so I learned the basics to humour him and we played every night before bed.”

He’d started walking again and you kept pace this time.

“So there we are one night, recreating some classic game from half a century ago and I played a different piece and well, what do you know, my king ended up in a position from where he couldn’t move. Thought I’d lost because that was the only square my King was safe in. But then Sam said that’s not what it was. I couldn’t be forced to move my King to a checked square, but it wasn’t currently checked. A stalemate is what it was. That’s where we are at, Y/N.”

“A stalemate?”

“Yes. We know pieces of information, but not the ones that actually matter. It’s our move next, but every square is checked, Y/N. We need to know.”

The dim lights of the dungeon came back to you and oddly the crack of the skull. “The operation is not local, definitely crosses state lines. The building where they kept me is somewhere along New Mexico's border. It’s a huge glass building, seven stories high. I don’t know exactly where but from the se…” you gulped. “From the seventh floor, I could see a tall red tower with blinking lights. They blinked all the time… like passing seconds… but slower than s- seconds. The boss sits on the seventh floor.”

“The boss?”

“I-I don’t know his name. No one does. They only call him ‘the boss.”

“This is good, Y/N,” Dean said eagerly. “What does he look like? How does he find these girls? How does he keep them?”

“He… He looks like any other white man, in his 50’s, maybe early 60’s but his eyes, he has the coldest gray eyes and his laugh...” You stopped, collecting your thoughts. “You already know how he gets the girls. Men as scouts, pretending to be friends or lovers, finding vulnerable girls with little in the way of family. Me… Rosalie. About keeping them, there are two ways. One is standard, get them hooked to heroin. Once you have that, they’ll do anything to get the next fix. But those girls don’t make much money, yeah? They aren’t polished. I was the second kind, for the richer clientele that don’t like the smell of drugs and want the girls alive and kicking. For them, guess, it’s easier to blackmail by holding a loved one hostage. Rosalie only had a mother and I only had Jamie and Danny.”

You told him about how your siblings were held hostage somewhere, and how you stayed in line just to protect them.

“There’s very little we wouldn’t do to protect them, wouldn’t we?”

Dean nodded, then came to a halt and you noticed with some surprise that you were standing in front of the wishing well. 

His fingers grazed the parapet's tally marks, and you voiced a long-lost curiosity. “Why do you have one extra?”

“That dumbass brought you here, didn’t he?” Dean snorted. “So much for our secret place.” But he didn’t seem to hold any grudge over it. “Dad brought me here right before Sam was born. Told me this was a magic well, so I needed to make a wish about what I wanted… a sister or a brother.”

“What did you ask for?”

“You see the extra mark there, don’t you?” He winked. “After the fire, I used to run out a lot, trying to find the well again. Wish my dead parents back, you know? Finally found it when I was twelve and Sam was eight. ”

“Seems like you’ve kept pace since with the tallys.”

Dean winked as if there was a secret to it, but didn’t share it with you.

“Come on, make a wish then,” he said.

“One is already due. I don’t want to burden the well.” You sighed. “Look, Dean. I’ll help you with whatever you want. I can draw plans of the building, and the street layout I could see from the seventh floor. Tell you the number of guards, the shifts, even the names of some of the clients, but I need you to promise me that nothing will happen to my brother and sister.”

“I promise.” 

The walk back should have seemed like an interrogation, except Dean held your hand as you described more of the place, the people, the process… the boss.

“I told you already, I don’t know his name,” you burst out when he questioned a third time. 

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Did he… Did he hurt you? This boss?”

You laughed. One short, shaky laugh. “He had a wall full of these instruments… silver, gleaming and so cold.” Then there was the glass wall.

“Oh, that son of a bitch.”

“I wonder why you think Jo was involved in this,” you said, more to change the subject that anything else. “I mean she didn’t exactly fit the pattern.” Full family, doting boyfriend, well-to-do. Blitz kidnapping didn’t seem likely. The boss had to have had something on her.

“No, she didn’t fit the pattern and for a long time, we didn’t suspect her to have been in this.”

“How come?”

Dean’s voice reduced to barely above a whisper. “No obvious signs of… sexual assault in the postmortem report.” And despite the tragedy of it, Dean almost sounded relieved. He pulled out an old wallet from his back pocket and gazed at a picture inside lovingly. “I don’t know, Y/N, it makes me feel like an asshole but knowing that maybe she might have escaped the worst of it… God, I think it kept me from throwing myself off a damn cliff.”

“Oh, Dean!” You closed the distance in-between to hug him. “I bet she–” you gasped. The wallet hung loosely in his grasp and you glimpsed the picture behind the plastic. 

You grabbed the wallet and held it up. “That… That’s Jo? Your Jo?”

He took you by your shoulders. “You knew her?”

“Oh my God!” All the hurt and anger and fear came crashing down on you as you collapsed to the green earth of the side lawn. Over the years she had gone from being the girl in the next cell, to the girl with brown eyes, to the girl in your nightmares and eventually… the only thing you were proud of.

“She’s… she used to be the girl in the next cell. I knew her.”

“Who did this to her?” Dean asked, voice so sharp, it didn’t even sound his.

“The Boss did,” you whispered. “I think it might have been an accident. I only heard the scuffle and then the crack of her skull. It was quick. She didn’t suffer much.”

There was a sharp intake of breath over you and you didn’t dare look up.

“Dean, you should know, the girls there… eventually choose to stay there. I know I did. Once you stop with the kicking and screaming, it gets a little easier. The bad days are lesser and most clients don’t treat you like complete trash. There’s food on your plate at night and poor orphan girls have a bed to sleep in when they comply… they…. we stop fighting. Because there is no relief to fight for, no home to go to and no one who could protect us. But your Jo, she never stopped. I bet she took a few teeth out of that one guard, too.”

“Did they… did anyone ever…?” He could not spit the entire sentence out and you saw the courage it took to finally confront that question.

You looked straight in his tear-stained tortured eyes. “No one hurt her that way. I… I took her turns for the week she was there. I still don’t know why I did it. I’m not a charitable person, and it was hell that week, but something about her faith in her fiance reminded me of, well, me… before I found out how I got there. I wanted to protect her faith just a little longer. So, no Dean, no one touched her that way. And you should also know, she died like she lived, fighting and believing in your love for her.”

Dean hugged you and broke down. “Thank you… Thank you for doing that for my Jo,” he blubbered. “You’re… You’re like an angel. Sam said that you know… yesterday he said that he thought you were some kind of an angel when he first saw you dressed in white. Wasn’t wrong.”

And you broke down with Dean. The night had descended upon you, as you both held each other in the darkness and just cried. 

Much later, locked in the dining room, you drew the floor plans of the building from your memory, a map of the road and the way to the bus stop that you could remember, the names of the guards, physical descriptions, names of the girls, anything and everything you could think of. The maids all gave you curious looks. Getting along with a brother-in-law would be normal for most families, but an estranged brother-in-law who you had never supposedly met? Knowing the history they knew, that had to look shady.

As it turned out, Dean had been alternating between living in the Guest house in Sam’s room and a cabin further north that not many people knew of in the estate. He knew ways to sneak in and out better than almost anyone. Hired security was never too big a problem for him. He was to set out first thing tomorrow morning to see how he could use your intel.

“You know my roommate Carmen,” you said at the door when he was about to leave. “She might have been the only one to care for me back then. I fought with her the night before. If you can do one thing for me, find her and tell her she was right and I am so very sorry.”

“Of course.” Dean stepped up and kissed your forehead. “And Y/N, I’m going to get that bastard. Not just for what he did to Jo, but also for what he did to you. You said you didn’t fight after a while because you didn’t have a home, a family. Now you do. Remember that.”

You watched Dean head out. He would be gone before you woke up tomorrow, but you felt lighter than you had in years, like the weight of the world had been lifted off your shoulders. Upstairs, you found Abby in her room.

She stood up the moment she saw you. “Miss, is everything alright?”

“Yes, Abby. I was wondering if you knew when Sam would be back?”

“He was home earlier this evening but didn’t stay long. I believe he left for Colorado.”

Hurt. “Did he say anything about when he would return?”

“No, Miss.”

“Did he ask about me?”

“No, Miss.”

“Did he say anything at all?”

The pitying shake of her head was enough for you to turn around and return to your room. What if you had hurt Sam beyond fixing this time? Abby had been correct, he looked fragile, not just physically, but something about the fragmented look in his eyes, as if one blow could shatter him. What if your hurtful words and vitriolic accusation finally pushed him to the edge? How much bullshit could one man take after all?

You had stepped into this house thinking you would be used, and it was the most horrid feeling in the world. What if Sam thought the same now? That you had used him… used his home, his wealth, and his empathy. Hell, you had used his body, too! 

No, you didn’t pray for yourself much. But in that moment you did- God, please give me one chance to apologise. Please.

*****************************

A/N 2: So turns out I was tagging all wrong :/ Ana is feeling sad about that. Hopefully, it will work this time.

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[percywinchester27]

The new Mrs. Winchester (18)

Word count: 3.1K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Chapter warnings: Implications of sexual abuse, mentions of torture, PTSD, angst, flesh trade, language, mention of violence; reader discretion is strongly advised.

Series Summary: After spending over two years in captivity, and enduring assault, torture, and degradation of every kind, Y/N is finally sold off to the highest bidder. But when the deal is masked as a hushed marriage to a wealthy and powerful man, Y/N knows it means a few more nights of brutal torment ending in certain death. After all, why else would a man like him, want someone like her, except to fulfill desires so depraved that they would require owning a person. However, the Winchester mansion has mysteries of its own, woven in lies, betrayal, and death. Smack in the middle of it, she finds both hope and a home, in the person she least expected to find it with. But when it comes down to it, will she be able to save the thing that matters the most?

A/N: Really slowly, but we are getting there ;)

Beta: My darling @deanssweetheart23

With your back to the damp wall, you stared at the mouldy ceiling. Sick green patches had bloomed all over it, giving the appearance of an ugly, mossy carpet. A guard had thrown two blankets over your body. Amazing the difference that warmth could make to the mind’s functioning. 

Thirteen men so far. 

The pins had been removed from your heels, and now littered on the cell’s floor.  Using the sharp point of one you made thirteen lines on the wall, then a fourteenth one. The guard from the first night should also count. But so should Nick, then.

Rage, the sort that could scorch the earth whole erupted inside you. A few days was all it took for the shock to turn into horror, then grief and finally rage. That monster was the reason Danny and Jamie were being held hostage. But they were safe. You had gathered your marbles and spent every minute since your recapture vigorously trying to understand the extent of your situation to the last detail. First: You were a commodity, with investment already put in place. If you behaved as instructed, you could avoid the worst of bodily harm, at least, from the captors’ side. The boss– a shudder ran through your body, in cold fear– wouldn’t let his men touch you… only the clients and him. The first assault from a guard was a one-time thing and would never be repeated, now that you knew all the rules. So, as an investment, you would be taken care of. Physical injuries would obviously reduce the value of the goods. 

Second: The kids were safe for now. The business didn’t deal with murdering children for fun, they were only a security and not a purposeful target. No one would ever go out of their way to hurt them. As long as you followed instructions, they would be untouched and well-educated. 

Third: You could manage and escape, but you wouldn’t even try now and everyone knew that. They managed high-end clientele and you were specifically chosen for being well-educated, where you could entertain body and mind. 

A possibility emerged from all the analysis. If you managed to stay alive for a few decades here, they wouldn’t want anything to do with a wrinkled woman. Then, instead of killing you, they might turn you onto the streets. 

A rattling cough sounded from the adjoining cell. In the afternoon, when they’d taken you upstairs for the man in the hideous purple suit, the cell had been empty. Noises could only mean one thing– you weren’t the newest piece for sale anymore. 

Gripping the bars, you hoisted yourself up, still in pain, and banged on the wall. No one was on duty in the passageways at that time. The girl must have mirrored you, for you could see the tips of her fingers if you craned your neck.

“Don’t resist,” you whispered. “They’ll get you one way or another. It’s no use.”

She spat. “You can give up. But I won’t. I’ll find a way of getting out of here.”

You didn’t mind her derision. Rather, a sadness gripped your heart at her confidence, at the fight she harboured. You were just the same once.

Sliding back, you bit back a shriek of pain. Everything hurt and you didn’t know if you would be ready to deal with more by tomorrow.

“Where… where are we?” She asked, voice shaky. “Which way is the exit?”

“We’re in Texas, near the border to New Mexico. This is the second basement and the exit is on the third right by the parallel passageway. Two guards are always stationed there. If you get past it, you’ll exit on a mile-long driveway and about two miles to the east of its end, you’ll find a bus stop.”

A sharp intake of breath.

“I managed to escape once,” you told her. “Almost made it into the bus, too.”

“So, there is a way out?”

You didn’t want to repeat words of hopelessness to her. In her own time, she would know how impossible it was.

Michael came rattling the bars and you pressed up against the wall, scared of the smirk on his face. But he stopped before your cell, in front of hers. 

“C’mon, Darling, it’s showtime,” he sneered. She must have spat in his face because the next minute you heard the clanging of the door being opened and then a slap, followed by a crash. 

“You better watch it, bitch!” 

“My boyfriend will rip you to pieces!” She screamed.

“Oh, really?” Another slap.

A sob broke free of your lips. That poor girl had also trusted a man and ended up here. You knew the drill, the water hoses, followed by nights of torment where she would worry sick about the guy before they would drop the truth on her of who really sold her.

“T-Take me!” The words left your lips, and then you couldn’t take them back. “Leave her. I’ll go again tonight.”

“My… my… how touching,,.” Michael came around to your cell. “Such a princess move! You know I’m not picky. If you want to get some more tonight, be my guest.” He opened your door and yanked you out. Slowly, you moved past her and registered nothing but her big brown eyes, before Michael poked you in the back. “After you, your royal highness.”

*****

“Would you like honey in your coffee, Miss?”

You craned your neck up to squint at her. “Honey? In coffee?”

“Yes,” said Abby. “Mr. Winchester has been taking it in his and it seems to have made all the difference.”

“Abby, the only thing that could make any difference to his coffee is throwing that whole jar away.”

She giggled quietly and added a single sugar cube to yours. You registered her mild tone. There seemed to have been a colossal shift in her attitude towards Sam. You wouldn’t be the one to complain, but regretted having missed the phenomenon.

“Mrs Winchester!” Sarah, the other maid on Wednesday’s wait staff barged into the room. “Ma’am, you need to come down, people have come asking for Mr Winchester.”

Sharing a confused look with Abby, you followed Sarah downstairs and then steeled yourself to find most of the board in the dining room, seated at the table.

“Mr Singer, it's wonderful to see you here,” you greeted Bobby and then the other members, most of whom were Sam’s cousins. “Sam isn’t home at the moment. What can I help you with?”

Sam hadn’t been home for a while now, away on business as he was.

“You can’t help here,” said Christian, but he didn’t appear surprised in the least to not find Sam at home. “It’s a board matter.”

None of the Campbells had ever spoken to you directly. Not Christian or even Gwen, but she was glaring at you now.

“Why, I think I deserve to know.”

“If you insist then,” he said, tilting his head. “The board has decided by a majority to remove Sam Winchester as the CEO. Considering the share of all present parties, the majority percentage agrees to instant dismissal.”

Your heart started pumping faster in your chest, but you managed to murmur, “How does that work?”

Christian seemed to be the spokesperson here. “Removing Sam’s forty per cent leaves sixty per cent. Bobby here refuses to agree–” a sneer in his direction– “ That leaves a majority of the shares with us! Is it simple enough for you, Y/N?”

You jerked at being called by your name by anyone other than Sam. However, you held your ground. “Doesn’t leave sixty per cent.”

“Excuse me?” Gwen stepped up.

“I said, removing Sam’s share, doesn’t leave sixty per cent. It leaves eighty. A week ago he transferred half of his shares to mine.”

A rumble ran through the assembled men. Apparently, the share transfer hadn’t been put up on a bulletin board. 

“That’s still what? Twenty to–”

“Twenty-five,” grumbled Bobby. “Don’t go forgetting this old man, Campbell.”

Christian was losing it now. “Fine, big deal. It’s still twenty-five to thirty-five. About time that Sam and his new bride packed up and left.” 

At your startled look, Gwen grinned. “Didn’t you know, Darlin’? The mansion’s run by a trust, no majority, no house.”

You looked about yourself, missing Sam in your bones. Insanely, while sitting at the dining table, of all people you thought of Han. The snapping, the hostile looks in everyone’s eyes reminded you of his words: “Lady, if you run into the wolves, I’ll be afraid for them.” You wanted to be that brave girl now, the one unafraid of wolves. And just like that you were homesick for him. He’d promised to come when you needed help, needed him– lamp or no lamp.

And here you were about to be thrown out when Sam wasn’t even home.

The doors of the dining hall were thrown open and you jerked up in your seat. As if in a fever dream you saw Han saunter into the living room, boots, leather jacket, muddy jeans and all, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

As he passed by your chair, he lightly ruffled the top of your hair briefly, then pulled the chair beside yours and fell on it. “Hey, Chewie!” He grinned, completely disregarding that every chair apart from his and yours had scraped and now everyone else was on their feet, emotions ranging from shock to being thunderstruck. He put his muddy boots up on the table over crossed ankles. The soles directly faced Christian.

You made a move to get up as well, but he placed a hand on yours to hold you there. You couldn’t help but gauge everyone’s reaction. Out by the brook, on your pier, holding Han’s hand would be the most natural thing in the world, but not only did he seem completely out of place here amidst these men in suits, but he also didn’t seem to care… at all. And you didn’t know if you did, as Mark Campbell’s eyes moved from Han’s face to his hand on yours. Be that as it may, you were still magnanimously glad that he was here for you.

“So, Christian, I heard you were harassing this young lady?” Said Han, eyes sharp. “Old habits die hard, huh?”

A slight panic started to rise in your throat. You didn’t want any of these people to be disrespectful to your friend, be horrible to him, because they were perfectly capable of it. 

“Ha–” you started, but he tightened the grip on your hand, and you understood his signal to be quiet.

No one had found their voices yet and were still gawking at Han as if he were some extra-terrestrial being.

In the end, Bobby cleared his throat and put a hand on your friend’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, son.” 

Han turned his face to meet Bobby’s gaze and you couldn’t see the expression on it anymore, but Bobby’s eyes became tender and he let go. When Han faced Christian again, the steel was back in his voice. “ Explain the math to me again, will you?”

“Y-you can’t just come back again and… and…”

“And what? Explain it like a five-year-old to you?” Han smirked. “Did you leave all of my twenty per cent out? Guess it doesn’t take the MBA that you don’t have to figure out forty-five is a bigger number than thirty-five, huh?”

“You, son of a bitch,” hissed Christian, putting his palms on the table. “You think you can disappear to God knows where and then turn up now to–”

For the second time, the door to the dining room opened and Sam stumbled in. At first, his gaze fell on the assembly as a whole, then he did a double take at Han, eyes going wide and wider by the second, until they dropped to your entwined hands and back up again, at your face first and back to the man next to you. You saw him rock a little on his feet and then go very still.

You yanked your hand back, but you needn’t have because Han let go, too, and got to his feet. You fully appreciated how tall he was, also. It seemed like an eternity passed between them as they stood staring at one another and slowly, very slowly the situation truly sank in your comprehension. 

Castiel followed after Sam and froze, too, then exclaimed, “Dean!”

With shaky feet, you stood up, realising how wrongly you had interpreted the entire situation. The board members weren’t shocked at the appearance of an alien person in their midst. Rather they were incensed at the entry of the strongest contender in the game save for Sam himself.

This man was Dean. Your Han was Dean Winchester.

“Cas,” Bobby warned, and Castiel schooled his expression. “Move along then, people,” Bobby raised his voice. “I believe the matter is settled. Let the family have some privacy.” But the men didn’t seem to want to move, as if they were also caught in the power of the unbroken gaze, expecting a shouting match… eager for it. And maybe they weren’t far off, because you knew Sam’s clenched jaw and Dean’s steely eyes. 

“Move now!” Bobby snapped and slowly the board filed out of the room. Cas, the last to leave, closed the door behind him with a look of apprehension.

Your breath caught.

Time unfroze then.

Suddenly, Sam crossed the room and closed the distance in between to engulf his brother in a tight hug. Dean hugged him back fiercely, eyes an ocean of emotions– pain, longing, love. And Sam? You had seen him stressed, worried, even vulnerable… but never like this, never seen him close his eyes so tight and simply let go. The weight he seemed to carry on his shoulders all the time, seemed to evaporate in a second and you could see in him the man who was only twenty-nine, without the responsibility of the world to pull him down.

They broke apart, eyes still roving each other's faces for a minute, before Sam turned to you, grinning. “Dean,” he said, voice lighter than a breeze, “This is Y/N. And Y/N, this… this is my brother, Dean.”

He took a step in your direction, but you moved back, flattening yourself against the wall. “Don’t… don’t come close to me.”

“Y/N?”

Sam’s brow furrowed. 

You inched further away, pointing a finger at him. “You got me good, Sam. You got me real good. You and your brother. Did you plan every second of it? And for how long? For two years, is it? For two years you’ve made a fool of the whole world… no bigger fool than me, though. Brilliantly executed good cop- bad cop routine.”

You felt disgusted at yourself for falling for the manipulation. Had anything been real at all? 

“You wouldn’t even look at me in the beginning. In… In the chapel, you wouldn’t even turn your head in my direction, as if I was something disgusting stuck to your shoe, and you treated me like an invisible ghost in your house. And then you graced me with your attention, your care, your… your…” You broke down crying. “All to get me talking. I know that now. I’m not stupid.”

Knees bucking, you fell to the ground, unable to stop the pitiful crying. 

Both brothers moved, but Dean was quicker to get on his knees.

“Chewie–”

“Don’t you fucking call me that,” you screamed. “I trusted you. I thought you were my friend.”

Over you, Sam started, worried eyes shifting between you and his brother in confusion.

“You’re an asshole,” you pointed at the man before you and then above. “You, too, Sam. You violated my trust. What you did is no better than any of those hundred men.”

Sam flinched. You might have slapped him.

Shakily, you got to your feet. “I’ll never forgive you.” 

The run up the stairs and straight into your room ended when you threw yourself onto the bed. The silk hangings mocked you. You had been blinded by the false promises and reassurances, but you were still nothing more than a piece for sale, to be used… had never been anything more.

Slowly the past few months started to feel like a dream… one that had always felt too good to be true because it was.

The girl in the next cell jumped up from the floor as you were nearly dragged back to the basement that night, having completely lost the will and ability to walk. You heard the clatter of steel bowl as she rushed, but couldn’t find the energy to meet her gaze. Then it was too late as the door to your cell opened and you were unceremoniously flung inside. The birds outside were just starting to twitter, signaling the early hours of morning, little rodents scurrying to get back into their holes now that the night had ended. How you wanted to crawl in a hole, too, and just… die.

“Why did you do that?” She asked, voice strangled.

You didn’t have an answer for her. Getting slapped six times was nearly the same as getting slapped five times, right? Tonight, you were beaten anyway and she wasn’t. You understood the difference.

“Thank you.” Her voice held all the gratitude.

With the last vestiges of strength, you dragged yourself up onto the cot and pulled the two blankets over your body. “It’s alright.” Maybe she heard the whisper. Maybe she didn’t.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m gonna get us out of here. Get you out, if it’s the last thing I do.”

She was brave that one. You wanted to tell her to hold on to that spirit because men knew nothing but to hammer against it. Men knew nothing but to take advantage of women, but you were too tired to open your mouth.

Maybe having her in the next cell, you might not feel so lonely anymore, you thought as your eyes closed.

The banging woke you up. Sam was hammering on the connecting door of your room. Pulling your hands up, you shut your ears tightly until the banging stopped. Sam didn’t rest, as the desperate banging gave way to structured knocks.

L-E-T  M-E  A-T-L-E-A-S-T  E-X-P-L-A-I-N

P-L-E-A-S-E

Y-N

One last loud bang against the door, as if he had banged his fists against it in frustration.

You must have fallen asleep or were nearly under when softer knocks sounded right over your headboard on the wall:

I-M  S-O-R-R-Y

But you didn’t have it in you now. All along you had been right: Men knew nothing but to take advantage of women.

*****************************

A/N 2: I am struggling to write. Encouragement is the only thing keeping me going at this point. Please chat me up/ message me/ share your thoughts on this chapter!

Please do let me know if you liked this part. Reblogs and comments are what keep me going!

If you want to be tagged, you can send me an ask or you can add yourself to the taglist here.

Or here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to know about updates.

Tag list:

@cosicas-cuquis @daughterleftbehind @maliburenee @spn730015@aeo10fan @stoneyggirl @houseforwhores @like-a-bag-of-potatoes @linki-locks11 @cookiechipdough @impalaimagining @gabavaldman @multifandom-slxt @chalicia @mrswhozeewhatsis @mackiemcb @qveenmikaelson @lightchesters @deanwanddamons @mlovesstories @sams-bubblegum-bitch @chinosherlock @hoboal87 @sandlee44 @mariaenchanted @little-x-wolf @theanniewisegirl @supraveng @i-is-for-inspiring @fandom-princess-forevermore @sammedeansandwhich @trexrambling @strawberryycoww @joseyrw @lacilou @giggles1029 @perpetuallyoverwhelmed @borhapparker @wafflezo @sammysgirl@goodbyemilkyway @winnifredburkleismyhero @impalaspixie @edwardsfangirl1712 @fandomoniumflurry @pbandjellly @sammysgirl1997 @aloneatpeace @spnexploration @sojuxxi @vickyfarley @esoltis280 @mayafatimakhan

[percywinchester27]

Hi! This isn’t so much a question as an enormous thank you. Sometime in November I found the New Mrs Winchester on Ao3 and fell in love with the story (can’t wait for the next part!). So then I went to find your other works. On Xmas Day this year I was completely alone and so worried about how I’d feel all day. But then I found A Lot Like “Us” and spent all day reading the entire work. I cried, I smiled, I became completely enthralled with that world and that story. You saved my Christmas and I haven’t stopped thinking about the story since. I don’t really use Tumblr very much but I came over here just to find you. I don’t really even know how tags work or anything like that here but I just wanted to tell you that you have a forever fan and my absolute gratitude for giving me a safe place to spend my Christmas in the world of your beautiful fiction. Thank you.

Hi love,

I wish I knew your name, but for now, 'love' should do perfectly well. I won't lie, I kind of cried a bit after reading your ask. It's been a couple years since I was regular on tumblr and since you've been following TNMW, you would know how erratic the posting is. But you have to know, things were vastly different in 2020, when I first started posting 'A lot like 'Us'. The series was posted on a strict bi-weekly schedule, and I was working on peanuts for an NGO, still dreamy-eyed about being a writer one day. Nearly five years down the line, things are quite different.

I am a different person now. Perhaps more jaded? Writing doesn't come naturally to me anymore and the world doesn't seem full of infinite possibilities. I don't know if there is a difference in the quality of my work now, but it isn't effortless. I struggle to string words now. I am a regular corporate slave who barely has time to breathe and worries about money and taxes way more than I should.

But your message reminded me of a simpler time and a simpler me.

You say I saved your Christmas, but please know, your sweet message might have just saved my holidays, too! Thank you for such kind words! Feel free to drop a message in my chat, let me know if you have any critiques for my stories! I would love to understand any nuances you might have thought of, any nitty-gritty, or perspectives!

Much love, and heartfelt gratitude!

-Ana <3

[percywinchester27]

💚💚(what can I say about it, I just love it so, so much... And guess what? Yep, I cried🤣)💚💚

You cried???? OMG! There wasn't even anything sad in it XD

Have you turned into a bigger softie?

The new Mrs Winchester

[odysseywritings]

Wip: The New Milky Way

Character #1 - Skye

The first human born in space, daughter of an astronaut family in a shuttle caravan, she is at home to the stars, navigating them with ease.

On her own after a freak accident, she is hurled into the cosmic void, bored of the endless floating and finding sapient life.

Raised with a bold, mechanical aptitude with no sense of patience, she becomes the first in a growing group in this new quest for a new home outside the reaches of Earth.

She has large white curly hair, brown skin, hazel eyes, with a blue shirt and a green skirt underneath a white spacesuit keeping her breathing and hydrated.

[percywinchester27]

Can I be added

Hi love,

I assumed you want to be added to the tags of my ongoing series?

You were already on the list, I just didn't know how the new tagging system on tumblr worked. Hope the last tag appeared in your notification.

It would be more easy to follow my side-blog @percywinchester27-writes where I reblog all my new writing and turn the notification on for it :)

The New Mrs. Winchester

[percywinchester27]

💚💚(that new part of tnmw was an emotional roller coaster, I'm glad she talked to Dean and I just hope se can talk with Sam soon, they both need it)💚💚

I want her to talk to Sam, too!

ALLU gets accused of being the slowest burn in history, but honestly, TNMW is a lot worse :P and the premise is more compelling so there's that!

Thanks for your love and patience, cutiee <3

The New Mrs. Winchester

[odysseywritings]

Wip: The New Milky Way

Character #3: Prince Shaushko II

The second person Skye encounters thanks to Mercuria rescuing him from pirates. A self-important, animated man, he stands proud as the de jure leader of this new kingdom.

Talkative to a fault, he provides an expansive history of himself and his people, showing a larger universe to the curious and naive Skye.

Despite his immature outbursts and vainglory, he's harmlessly dimwitted, and is easily convinced to help the others through persuasion and flattery. He also is a man of passion and admires both companions' sense of adventure and appreciates subtler forms of beauty.

He is a tall man with orange skin, violet eyed and haired with a mustache, clad in flowing gold fabric with intricate patterns that fling dust behind him.