#tried to get a dean winchester one but alas

[foggysirens]

i need one of those 90s/y2k/bootleg whatever you want to call it style of shirt with spock on it please and thanks

[inknopewetrust]

𝐍𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐨: 𝐀 𝐁𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐱 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐠𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐝 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨.

[𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫] [𝐰𝐜: 9.1k]

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭, 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝟏 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝟓, 𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐢-𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭, 𝐨𝐡, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝟏 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐧.

𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬: 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

In the entirety of Sam Winchester’s life, he’d always believed Dean to be a certain type of person.

A stereotype, a written-by-a-writer caricature of someone their father wanted him to be but underneath the grit, underneath the bloodied fingernails or the mud covered boots, Dean Winchester was as broken as the next sorry soul lined up on Earth’s surface.

Dean’s eyes were hardened. Ablaze with spite reserved for Sam’s misgivings.

“I hope for your sake I didn’t just hear what I think I did.”

The words rattled between Sam’s ears. Pinging back and forth like a bell awakening a mistake, or not, of the grandest proportions. But alas, they were still stuck. Dead ends meeting every street they drove onto and he was tired. Sam was immensely tired of finding nothing to sport the cause of finding John.

In response to Dean’s ire, Sam scoffed. A nervous half smile grew on his face as he tried to wipe it away with his hand. He shrugged his shoulders, deciding to toss the cell in Dean’s direction instead.

“So what,” Sam settled. “If you’re gonna be too much of a man to ask for help, then I’m gonna do what’s best for us.”

“We don’t need the help, Sam,” Dean stressed, his voice deep. “She isn’t going to help us.”

“Yes she will!” The laugh Sam had expressed returned. “We have known her our entire lives and she is more than cap—“

“You went behind my back, Sam!”

“Because it’s the right thing to do!” Sam shouted. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if I want to know but Christ, Dean, if you don’t start letting me have a say or choice in what happens, then I don’t know why I’m even here.”

Dean uncrossed his arms and threw them up in an almost-defeat.

“Fine,” he spat with spite. “When she gets here and everything goes to shit and you come running to me with an apology, I’ll just say I told you so.”

“Why do you have to be such a bitch about this?” Sam spoke before he could process the words.

Dean inclined his head, arching a brow at his brother. “What did you say, jerk?”

“You heard me.”

“I could clock you a real good one, you know? Have your brain playing ping pong while you try to tell me right from wrong.”

Sam tutted. “Yeah, I see why she left you. You’re an ass. She doesn’t deserve an asshole like you.”

It was so petty, so elementary of them. Flashing back to two boys arguing in a motel room or outside of their eighth high school about who got to go with Dad on his next “trip.” Nothing was normal–it was never normal

“You don’t get to talk about us, you got it?” Dean got defensive. A dark cloud formed over head in ire at Sam.

There were very few things in the world that made Dean’s fuse truly erupt.

“I don’t care if we grew up with her, I don’t care if we know her, I don’t care if everything goes to shit. You don’t get to talk about us.”

“Us? Dean, please.”

“You don’t know shit. You don’t know anything because you weren’t there. Instead you were saddling up to your big Ivy League pals and playing house with a big lie hanging over your head.”

“Stanford isn’t an Ivy League.”

“Oh fuck off, Sam!”

Sam knew he had crossed many lines in the last twelve hours. But he knew this one was one he’d try not to make the mistake of crossing again.

Beneath the destruction that internalized Dean’s shell, there was a man with a fractured soul. Sam wasn’t going to push it as far as he could have.

Sam backed off, walking opposite of Dean with an air that changed.

“Alright,” Sam resolved. “Fine. I’m sorry I went behind your back but she’s coming whether you like it or not so put on your big boy jeans and put on a fake smile because I’m not going to watch you mess this all up because you can’t get past an ex-girlfriend.”

“I am past her!” Dean let out a huff of frustration and turned back to the motel. “I’m done here—we’ve got work to do.”

“Wait!” Sam shouted causing Dean to turn around again. “Here.” He tossed Dean’s cell phone across the lot.

“It’ll be good for us. You’ll see.”

Dean shook his head, clutching the phone in his hand tightly as if it were a lifeline. A lifeline to the world then, and the world now. He may have been angered at Sam’s actions but he could never hate him for trying something he thought would be best even if it crawled underneath his skin and uprooted the foundation beneath his feet.

“Come on,” Dean grumbled. “We’ve got a coroner to see.”

The first flight available out of New York had two seats left unclaimed and by happenstance, the opportunity had given one of those seats to you. In the pressurization of the cabin, you felt the weight of choice begin to settle and the “what if’s” hadn’t reappeared but deepened fears of what would be the steps of the future beyond a case closing.

Flight attendants passed down the aisle for the short flight. One service, no chance for distraction. The old couple next to you kept to themselves as you attempted to edit work and keep busy but the inches in the air drew you closer.

Closer and closer and closer until there was nothing more than a static announcement of fifteen minutes to landing and within the next two hours, you’d be face-to-face with them.

And you’d be lying if the prospect hadn’t terrified you.

What it would be like to say hello again after the world stopped; splintering into a million pieces just to be taped together again somewhere else. To communicate and stand next to one another when you know there’s been others who have filled the gaps of the needs the both of you have.

To be strangers when you’d known anything but.

You weren’t someone to claim you had crippling anxiety when it came to the day to day. But the knowledge that Dean, Sam, and your past was mere minutes from meeting your eyes again caused your palms to sweat and heart to beat faster.

It would be okay, you reassured yourself. You’re being dramatic. It will be okay.

But when the plane landed you had a sudden feeling wash over you. How bad had the world gotten that Sam felt the need to call you? There were hundreds, thousands of other hunters who were better than you that could assist and yet Sam’s mind landed on you of all people.

A lowly, laughing stock of a reporter who was just trying to find her place in this messed up world.

Your skills were no different than their own, your knowledge of the world was no different than their own. Sure, you could work your way through stacks of papers in rapid fashion but you were no superwoman of the supernatural.

The seatbelt buckle light turned off followed by the echoing of clicks throughout the cabin. You kept on with the affirmations to calm nerves that bubbled when there was no reason for them to—at least that’s what you believed.

Then, the door to the cabin opened and there was no turning back now.

Text said ‘massive cerebral bleeding.’ Might have been a stroke, you were right. Going to the house now, address attached. -Sam.

You revisited the text message as the awkwardness of standing inside of the Shoemaker home had begun to set in. You didn’t know anyone, you felt more than icky having written a story that they all surely read about him, and Sam and Dean were yet to arrive.

If God was real, he loved to play cruel waiting games with you. Standing there alone, sitting with your thoughts of impending doom.

Maybe it was a mistake—answering Sam’s call and coming here.

You looked back on the two message text chain that had transpired while you were in the cab. First, Sam’s text of what the coroner tech had said which was their initial visit of the morning. There was no point in heading to the site with their conclusions already far from the truth of the matter. Second, you knew that already.

You had connections. You were a journalist after all… even if that word was exaggerated.

Aware. I’ll meet you at the Shoemaker’s. See you soon.

Beside the mantel in the living room, an old lady sitting on the couch kept glancing at you as you remained with your duffle bag strapped to your shoulder and eyes glued to your phone. There was nothing on it. No internet, no simple games, or music to listen to. She sipped her tea and cleared her throat.

“How did you know Steven?” Her voice was shrill.

You glanced up from the device to do a double take. A sweet smile, eyes probing for answers.

“M-me?” You questioned. As you looked around the room it had become obvious she was making conversation with you.

“Yes,” she continued to smile. “How did you know Steven?”

“Oh!” You gave her a small chuckle. “Work… you know, I am—was—the receptionist at the, um, front.”

“Was?”

“I was let go,” you fibbed. “But Steven was always so kind to me, so generous.”

She wallowed. “That does sound like him.”

“How did you know him?”

“He was my neighbor. Always helped shovel the sidewalks when it snowed.”

You hummed, looking for an escape. “Well—“ you began but trailed off as you eyes caught movement in the entry way when Sam, taller than you recalled him, walked into the room.

It had been three years. Three long years and he had just begun college the last time you had talked to him. As he looked around the room, he passed over you at first. It didn’t surprise you. You hadn’t seen him in years and people change even if it feels like they don’t. Your hair was done differently, your clothes a bit too refined compared to the girl he knew but his eyes snapped back to yours in seconds after they had passed.

Sam loved you like a sister. If it weren’t for Dean, if it weren’t for Bobby, and if it weren’t for you, then he wouldn’t have had the small taste of life he’d once longed for. He cherished it. Although the months had been long and the trials had been testing, seeing you alongside the fireplace felt like the puzzle pieces connecting again. Even if he’d rather not revisit the distant past.

You smiled at him. Eyes gleaming with a joy you had to dig up from within you and then, you gave a small wave. Your hand dropped when Dean followed him in.

In the gloom of circumstance, Dean Winchester still held an aura around him that shone brightly even in his own darkness. Eyes gravitated toward him like magnets. The ones that fluttered, the ones that rolled, they were all the same because it was hard to see anyone else when he was in the room. Sam’s small grin fell as the look on your face deflated to one he couldn’t read. Dean had looked forward into the hallway only to recognize they were severely underdressed.

He turned to blab about it to Sam but he could sense the air around his brother had changed drastically from two seconds before they entered the doorway.

“I think—“ he too was caught in his tracks.

Dean’s eyes didn’t pass you up like Sam’s did, they never could. There, in your professional attire and far more formal than he, Dean felt the air inside of him get sucked out. The quiet exchanges turned into his ears ringing; the clattering of forks against plates became his heart thumping mercilessly against his chest. He couldn’t smile nor could he jest although the situation called for neither.

But Dean could feel. He always felt something even if he attempted to bury it beneath a façade.

He could feel a pain that was itching to emerge. This pulsating, burning flame carrying through his arms and legs and heart and mind and settling somewhere in his stomach where it sat uncomfortably waiting to be heard. Dean knew from the way you looked that he didn’t know you as he once did. That time and space and situation had led you both down two very different paths that have no reattached to one another.

The feeling was mutual.

As you looked at Dean in his brown jacket and muddied shoes, you recognized him as half of the man you knew. You weren’t sure if the one who had led you to the edge of a cliff was still inside of him, time would tell, but he looked like it. The blasé nature of his stance to his face; you could hear the strings of your heart telling you that it was still there and that at twenty-six, he still hadn’t figured it out.

What it was… life? Love? The world? You couldn’t be definitive in codifying the story of Dean Winchester’s life if he didn’t want you there.

Movement to Dean’s left broke your trace of him. Sam shifted his hand out of his pocket and motioned for you to join them to which you hesitated and to Dean, that small, short second that lingered between yes and no hurt even if he had no right to be offended by it.

Everything had been his fault, in the end. He was stupid—he was twenty-three and the mistakes at twenty-three were different from the choices he’d make now.

But your feet did move. They carried you to Sam who held open his arms and hugged you tightly, gently rocking you from side to side in jubilance. Your head rested against the side of Sam’s chest and found itself in an unpleasant position to looked right at Dean who shoved his own hands inside of his jacket pocket and watched you watch him.

He wasn’t sure what to say.

“It’s good to see you,” Sam said. “How was the flight?”

“Fine, Sam,” you replied slightly muffled from his coat. “You got tall.”

“I was tall before.”

“Yeah? Well, you were just a baby then.”

“A lot’s happened since,” Sam pulled away but his hands remained on your shoulders. He felt the bag strap and pointed to it. “I’ll take this to the car, alright?”

“Oh!” Your eyes flickered between the brothers. “No! That’s—“

“No, it’s no problem. Just hold on-“ he grabbed the bag from you and backed away. “I’ll be right back!” His own gaze fluttered between you and Dean before leaving out the door they had just walked through.

In an instant, you were alone with Dean in the presence of strangers. He had buried his hands inside of his pockets but they remerged as Sam left out of sheer nervousness. Dean was fidgety and flighty; he peered at you as you gaped in a disbelief at Sam’s boldness. His tongue stuttered to make out the words his mind was racing to speak of—a butchered tongue severing his ability to voice anything welling up inside of him.

You wet your lips that had quickly gone dry. It was hard to look at him. It had always been hard to look at Dean because you could never think straight when you did. When you bore into his eyes and felt your soul bleed into his, there was no turning back to the world of before because there was no point. Dean was one of a kind. He was he one to take you to hell and ascend you to heaven and send you spiraling in the space between.

“Hi,” your mouth was moving before you had a chance to speak. You turned to the side to face him more directly. “I—yo—it’s good to see you, Dean.” His name sounded like a choir of angles on your tongue.

“Yeah,” his voice had grown more deep over the years. “It’s ah,” he cleared his throat, “it’s good to see you too.”

His fingers twitched to touch you. To wrap themselves around your shoulder and pull you in close. To feel the weight of you leaning into him; the smell of your hair underneath his nose, or the feel of your fingertips digging into his skin when everything became too much.

Dean’s initial anger had long subsided. He wasn’t angry at you or Sam but himself. It was always at himself—the rage manifested itself onto others instantly in ways he couldn’t take back. It was his biggest fault, amidst his biggest faults.

“I’m sorry about your dad. I’m sure he’s out there somewhere.”

Dean wasn’t sure if you were really sorry. You’d made it increasingly known in the last few instances he had seen you that you hated his father immensely. Sure, John wasn’t the most personable and Dean would never let the complaints against his father stand if it was anyone else. He’d understood in his own way Sam’s disagreements but he could never, through the veil of his own prejudice, see why someone like you could hate John so deeply. He’d never considered the influence of Bobby and how different everyone had been treated by the two elder males in your lives.

“Thanks,” he accepted. Eyes flickering around your face to drink in all of the features he had seen in his dreams and in his nightmares. The ones he could vividly trace and the ones that had melded together in time. You’d done the same to Dean.

“We’re doing all we can to find him.”

“And that’s why Sam’s with you now?”

“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “New York better than Sioux Falls?”

You shook your head. “Nothin’s better than Sioux Falls… but I think you knew that answer.”

“So,” Dean’s words lingered. There was a nicety about the formality of the situation. You couldn’t swear at him in front of all these people, he couldn’t raise his voice and argue back. He couldn’t point fingers at the why without causing a scene. “The New York Times?”

“Mhm,” you hummed. “I guess I made it to the big leagues.”

“I guess you did.”

“You know,” your eyes glimmered in a way he disliked. It was that cunning, irritated glare that caught him in all of his bad moments. “You’d be surprised what people can do when they’re not doubted by those close to them.”

Dean let out a heavy sigh, gaze going stern and jaw flexing in frustration. He said your name as gently as it could come out and shifted, moving a step closer to you. The space shrunk. The room became small and the world closed in on the two of you still standing in the foyer for all to see.

“Please,” Dean muttered. “Don’t.” A warning of kind.

You looked him square in the eyes. “Do you just want me to ignore it?”

“Now’s not the time,” his brows lifted as if it were obvious. “I’m sure we can have a great talk in the back of my car after this is all done—“

“God, Dean,” you scoffed as he eluded to something more. “Can you for once just talk to me like a normal person?”

“Am I not?” A creased formed as his brows furrowed deeply. He leaned into you, back slightly hunched as his voice became more intentional in tone. “I wasn’t implying that—“

“Yes you were. You always do.”

“So now what? You don’t like my personality?” He accused and you would have laughed if the conversation weren’t hushed.

“You are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“Ah,” he grinned. “I think I’m a lot of things but that may be the least of my qualities.”

“It would be at the top of the list with: self-centered, asshole, and ch—“

“Don’t even say it,” Dean did end up pointing a finger at your face. “I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Oh really?” You inflated. “I’m sorry, what was her name again… Cassandra… no… Cassie? Or was it Lis—“

“We were on a break!” Dean emphasized with both his hands. “You said we were on a break, sweet—“

“Oh, Dean, don’t say it.”

“Hey!” Sam’s voice cut through the fog that had permeated around you and Dean. He gave a strained, sorrowful chuckle and snapped the both of you out of the haze. “Hey guys… you know we are in public, right? People can hear you.”

You shook your head at Dean, looking away from him and down the long hallway to the door of the backyard. He burned a fire inside of you that could never be extinguished. You’d learned that the long and hard way over the most pivotal years of your life. You were entwined by this invisible string. The world would always draw you back together even if the states and time zones separated you.

It was the cruelty of living, you supposed. Dean Winchester needed to grow up. He needed to look into a mirror and for once not see the man he performed for, but the one that burrowed inside.

“Yeah,” Dean spat in his own way. “Let’s get this over with huh? Think you can act, sweetheart? Or is that not part of the deal with Sammy?”

Sweetheart.

Oh, Goddamit, Dean.

You turned back around to look at Sam and Dean.

“I can act just fine, handsome.” Dean bristled. “Start with the daughter first,” you suggested. “She’s the one who said it.”

Bloody Mary is folklore.

Bloody Mary is legend.

But like all of the elements of your life, the line between fact and fiction is nonexistent. It’s always been blurred where you half-thought you were crazy when Bobby took you on your first hunt and it was a poltergeist terrorizing a college dorm not far outside of Madison, Wisconsin. So rattled from the sight of a ghost, Bobby had you sit out any further hunts for a whole year until Dean had convinced you that remembered the “training” that filled the odd-ended free time of your childhood, nothing bad would ever happen.

You nearly lost a finger on the next trip.

You’d learned that it was natural—the danger. It had thrilled you for a while. The chasing, the friendships, the romanced infused within the quiet moments. You were living one giant movie that never seemed to end until it did. Until you got sick of feeling like every corner you turned would be the last and the tether between Dean and yourself was a mere thread of the rope it once was.

Yet in the back of Baby’s cab, you’d nearly forgotten about the danger of it all.

Sam had thrown your bag in the back haphazardly which bent the pages of your journal. Like all organized hunters, the journal you kept was far cleaner and succinct than the boys’ fathers. Bobby had encouraged you after a few years of consistent encounters that keeping log of the solutions and history would find its purpose eventually. Stored in the back of your closet, you had to dig deep to find it buried underneath old birthday cards and dried up flowers.

“Did your dad have anything on it?” You asked as the rumble of the engine nearly silenced you. Sam was flipping through John’s journal as Dean drove faster than the speed limit of the neighborhood.

“No,” Sam replied loudly. “Nothing more than the original tale. Doesn’t seem like he ran into this much. I would’ve thought kids summoned it more than they really do.”

“Maybe they do,” you closed your journal and leaned forward. Settled your arms between Sam and Dean, you rested your head on your entwined hands. It was a strange feeling. Content and familiar.

“What if it doesn’t attack everything that it’s summoned by?”

Dean looked at you through the rear view. “What do you mean?”

“Any kid growing up having a slumber party is going to play that game. It’s a classic! I’d be like—“

“Not having a pillow fight in your underwear?” Dean smirked.

You narrowed your eyes as Sam shook his head disapprovingly. “They’re kids, Dean. That’s disgusting.”

“That is not what I meant,” he defended fiercely but you knew that. He was talking about you, not them. You talked over his defense instead.

“What if it’s target isn’t just some random kid or person doing it? It has to have a motive. Everything has a motive.”

“So there’s a reason Mr. Shoemaker was killed and not his daughter,” Sam clarified.

“Bingo, Sammy,” you smiled at him.

“Since when is it Sammy?” Dean asked you and Sam groaned as though it was going to lead into a fight. “Only I call you that.”

“If there’s a reason he was the target, then he might not be the only one going to be killed by her… or it, or… do we even know if it’s actually the legend? What if it’s not even her?”

“Are we all too afraid of saying ‘Bloody Mary’?” You asked them but both shook their heads.

“We don’t know anything about why Shoemaker was attacked so maybe don’t go saying it so freely,” Dean reminded everyone, however, in particular you.

Sam hunched over and pulled open the glove compartment to scour maps that nearly vomited on the floor as they flooded out. He easily located the one he was searching for.

“Do either of you have a computer?” You wondered before falling back against the bench.

“Gonna write a story?” Dean was unimpressed through the mirror. “We kinda got a case on our hands.”

“Oh, really?” You feigned oblivion. “I had no idea.”

“How’d you know about this case anyway?” Dean inquired. Sam glanced at his brother who sat with one arm extended over the wheel, driving it with his wrist, and the other slightly perched on the front bench. Even with the overcast sky and the chill of fall settling in, Dean radiated a coolness Sam never could achieve. Casual, striking. He tired greatly of the fawning his brother received in the eyes of any of the women they came across on a hunt and thought maybe that would settle with the emergence with you. It didn’t, nevertheless, as the Shoemaker girls and their friends immediately perked up at the sight of him.

The only difference of their interest remaining is that when Dean opens his mouth, he often forgets circumstance. He’s not as empathetic to strangers as Sam was and when obliged, he makes asinine commentary that is sure to drive any suitable woman miles away. You stayed for a long time, he supposed. But maybe that was a fault of space, time, and job.

“I have my sources,” you replied passively.

“And that source is?”

“None of your business. I don’t see why it would be.”

“Well if you haven’t noticed sweetheart, we’re all kind of on the same team here. It’d be nice to know a voice on the inside.”

“It’s not someone,” you rolled your eyes and looked at him dead-on in the mirror. “When you have a badge and name and credibility through a publication, it’s a lot easier to get information out of people. I don’t need to bribe them or flutter my eyelashes to get what I want.”

“That badge would have been a little helpful with Mr. Intern at the morgue.”

“So you do need my help then.”

“No,” Dean pursed his lips. “I think we’d still manage just fine without you.”

“Guys!” Sam interjected loudly. Your eyes snapped to the back of his head, Dean went silent.

“Sorry Sam,” you sighed. “Maybe this wasn’t a great idea.”

“You think?” Dean scoffed.

“I think,” Sam began, “that there’s something bigger than all of us out there right now and we need to find it before it hurts someone else. I don’t care if you two are mad at each other for eating the last slice of cake but for my sake, please, just try to be civil. There’s no point in arguing when it won’t solve anything.”

“Ok, Nietzsche. Whatever you say.” Dean gave in too quickly.

“There’s a library off Stanley and Cross. They’ve probably got more than one we could use.” They did not have any to use.

Sam had always been leveled headed but being inside of the car, walking beside the two of you was driving him near insane. It wasn’t normal. It was a chance he had taken that he regrets in the slightest as the now major inconvenience of the library having no working computers spiraled into a “why are you even here” and “we don’t need you here” dialogue shouted in the small space once more. His head beat with a pounding headache as Baby’s rumble roared toward the motel and you muttered into the books checked out from the not-so-tech-savvy library.

The youngest Winchester couldn’t fathom how differently you and Dean treated one another. There would be an infrequent comment of civility and then in a turn of a word, a dark cloud would form over your heads. It’d sprinkle a shower of memory rain and drag the both of you back to things that either should have been solved years ago or menial pettiness that had no need for the spotlight in the ring.

When the three of you returned to the motel, Sam used that headache as an excuse to flop down onto the bed and try to rest. Dean didn’t object to it because he knew that Sam wasn’t getting the sleep he needed and wanted him, more than anything, to get a good nap in. He wouldn’t be helpful if he was running on energy drinks or coffee. His body needed the rest whether he liked it or not. With Sam on the bed, you settled at the table and laid out the books before you in a way that made sense to only you.

Methodical, measured. It was a researchers way of doing the digging.

Dean took the seat across from you as Sam fell asleep on one of the beds. You looked at each other, half-illuminated by the curtains that let the sun in and the lack of lights that colored the room, and fell into silence.

Silence for the first time since you’d reacquainted with each other that morning.

You both opened your books and got to work.

Sam had been out of it for two hours.

The silence had overtaken the room besides the infrequent groans Sam let out as he dreamt. It was difficult to ignore. You’d always known Sam to be level headed and sound in his actions. Nothing he did in his life haunted him. It wasn’t the same to Dean—who had been having nightmares like that all of his life and you’d more than once woken him up from those terrors.

Dean’s eyes never strayed far from the books or his brother.

You turned a page. In your own journal, you took note of the different methods people had been found dead beside a mirror in the town. There was no continuity, however. Nothing matched and Dean was finding only dead-ends as well.

Sam made a noise again. Dean’s eyes didn’t lift this time, but yours did.

“What happened?” You looked at Dean with a pencil pushing into your cheek. “This isn’t like Sam.”

Dean glanced up at you but returned them quickly to the book he was losing interest in. “Nothing.”

“When he called me, he had said something happened. He wasn’t in school anymore.”

“He’s not.”

“Why?”

Dean looked up fully from the book and locked eyes with you. They had always pierced right through you. His green eyes were so bold and beautiful. Either it be relishing the way they shone in the light or the way they nearly changed a shade in the night, they encapsulated what it felt to be the item in his line of vision.

“Sam,” he talked low and quiet. “He had a girlfriend at Stanford, Jessica.”

From the morose way he spoke, you knew it ended poorly.

“And from what he’s said she was great. Really liked her and they were living together and made a whole life for themselves…” he looked over at Sam’s sleeping figure. “Something killed her—the same way it killed our mom.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “You mean…?”

“Whatever killed my mom is still out there? Yeah, it is.” Dean tapped his pencil on the book roughly. “It got Jessica a few days after I showed up and Sam and I had gone on a hunt together. My dad left a trail, left the journal for us to find.”

“There’s no way it wasn’t intentional,” you interjected. “Whatever it is.”

“No,” Dean agreed. “I’m sure it was. Everything about it was the same.”

“I take it Sam’s not handling it well?”

“Do any of us?” That may have been the smartest thing Dean had said all day.

“Any leads?”

Dean shook his head. His eyes bounced around your face and sitting figure.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Dean,” you stressed. “I can see the smoke coming out of your ears. You’re not a quiet thinker.”

“The gears are rusty, that’s all.” You smiled at his joke and he wanted to frame it.

“So, what?”

“Nothing. It’s really nothing.”

You sighed heavily and closed the book in front of you.

“I’m just surprised you actually came, that’s all.” His clarification was filled with holes. He wasn’t truly surprised. He had wanted you to come even if he said he didn’t. “It’s been a long time.”

“Sam was frantic on the phone—or at least came off that way. He practically begged me to come.”

“I don’t think anything we’re facing here is normal.”

“Nothing about this is normal.”

“I mean,” he took one of his legs and crossed it over the other, ankle resting on his thigh. “The frequency, the type. Every town or place we’ve gone to feels like it’s been dialed up to one-hundred. It’s manageable but it’s different. It’s different from when we were kids.”

“Maybe we’re just getting too old.”

“Twenty-six? Hardly.”

“Just wait until we’re thirty, Dean,” you imagined. “It will be a challenge to even get out of bed.”

“Now who’s the dirty one?” His eyes gleamed.

“I didn’t—“

“Mean it that way? I know. I was kidding.”

“I know.”

A lull hung over your heads again until Sam gasped for air and woke with a start. If you hadn’t been so accustomed to nightmares and the relief waking up from them brought, it would have startled you. Sam breathed deeply. His heart racing in his chest as his mind tried to erase the images of Jessica on his ceiling ready to burn. This time, it had been blue. Hotter and meaner than all the rest.

“Why’d you let me fall asleep?” Sam’s voice was grovely as he stared up at the popcorn ceiling.

“Because I’m an awesome brother.” Dean sighed. “So, what’d you dream about?”

“Lollipops and candy canes.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean pandered to you as if to say ‘see, he’s struggling.’

“Either of you find anything?”

You shook your head.

“Oh, besides a whole new level of frustration? No. We’ve looked at everything.”

“Suspicious deaths, murders, anything you can name, nothing. It’s like we’re investigating a brick wall.” You glanced at the journal before you. “A few names but no Mary’s. Suicides but nothing with the eyes.”

“Whatever’s happenin’ here… maybe it just ain’t Mary,” Dean suggested as Sam’s phone rang.

Sam glanced at the caller but didn’t recognize the number. He answered with hesitance but his eyes quickly hardened and the stern, serious Sam returned. The caller on the other end must have been as frantic as the way his eyes ping ponged between you and Dean.

“Yeah, alright… we’ll be right there.” Sam hung up the phone and sprung from the bed.

“What? Sam. What is it?” Dean asked.

“That was Charlie—one of Donna’s friends.” Donna, the daughter of Steven. “She said that one of the girls who was at the repast, Jill, was found dead with her eyes gone. She’s pretty stricken about it.”

“Did she find her?” You began to get up from your chair but Dean held a hand out to say ‘stay.’

“No,” Sam shrugged on his jacket. “But she wants to meet us at a park. She doesn’t think it’s normal either.”

“Ok let’s go,” Dean rose from his own chair and when you tried again, he did the same thing.

“I’m not a dog, Dean.”

“You’re staying here.”

“Excuse me?” Your face contorted into anger. “What do you mean I’m staying here? Isn’t this why you called me?”

“I didn’t call you,” he pointed at Sam. “But we can’t multitask. Keep looking. We know it’s not local, right?”

“Right,” you agreed. “But now it’s managed to kill another person here so maybe it is.”

“But it’s never happened before Shoemaker.”

“So… imported? Maybe not ‘you-know-who’ but a witch? Maybe a coven out for revenge?”

“No,” Dean shrugged on his own jacket. The leather was more worn but it still fit him like a glove. “It’s gotta be the mirror.”

“It’s a summoning tool?”

Dean snapped his fingers. “Just keep digging. I’ll call you if we find anything.”

You didn’t have it in you to argue. You simply nodded and watched as the brothers gathered their things and slammed the door too loudly on the way out. Baby came to life and in an instant, you were alone in a motel in Toledo, Ohio.

The days moved fast in Toledo.

Dean had called not three hours later with the knowledge that Bloody Mary had written the name of someone on the back of Jill’s mirror. You dug into the name who turned out to be a boy killed in a hit and run that was never solved to which Charlie inferred was likely Jill’s car. Helping Sam piece together that this spirit may be out for revenge, the three excluding you attempted to uncover Steven Shoemaker’s secret as well—killing his wife.

And as the sun went down and the static of the motel room began to eat away at your exclusion, you sat on one of the beds with your foot tapping anxiously. The phone in your hand twisted and turned and flipped open and closed repetitively until you finally had the courage pick up the phone and select the contact.

He didn’t like using the phone beyond emergencies.

Was this an emergency? An emergency of your sanity, perhaps.

“Hello?”

“Bobby?”

“Hi,” you could hear the raspy chuckle on the other end. “How you been, kid? It’s been a minute.”

“A couple weeks, yeah… I’m in Ohio.”

“Ohio?” You could hear Bobby perk up on the other end. The ugly wallpaper on the wall across from you suddenly became the most interesting feature of the room. “What the hell are you doin’ there?”

“Did you know Sam was hunting with Dean again?” You asked him.

“You’re with the Winchester boys? Oh, honey,” you weren’t too fond of that nickname either. “You with Dean again?”

“No!” You said louder than you should have. “No, God, I was wondering if you could help us. We don’t have the internet here and I need you to look up some transactions.”

Bobby hummed on the other line and began processing through the request as he tried to make small talk even though he hated it. He wasn’t a chatty man. Far from it, in reality. But he was a figure of comfort you all depended greatly on.

“How’d you end up there?”

“Sam called,” you laid back on the bed with a flop. “Somethin’ real bad happened to him, Bobby, and I’m not sure we know the width of this mess. The stories I’d been hearing from Ellen were too much for my editor to sell to my bosses. It doesn’t surprise me but it’s scary.”

“Everything’s scary,” he replied. “It’s why we do this whole thing.”

“It’s a different kind of scary, I guess.”

“Where are the boys?”

“Not around.”

“And they dragged you out there just to leave you behind?”

You turned over. “I think that was Dean’s doing. He’s been… Dean.”

“I could kick his ass for you.” You laughed on the other end and smiled.

“That’s alright,” you settled. “I’m sure some haunt will do it for me.”

You could hear his fingers rapidly typing away on the computer. Bobby was the best in the game. You’d been lucky to grow up in his company with him peering over your shoulder and encouraging you to do what you wanted to. He was the first in line to dry your tears as a twelve-year-old girl with a little heartbroken from a schoolgirl crush and the one to stand back and watch you weave your own battles against a man he’d consider as close as he could to be a son.

“And how’s that been? It’s been what, a day?”

“Barley two.”

“Did you think it was going to be easy? I mean, you’re just kids. I wish you would have told me that you were going. I would have met you and softened the blow.”

“You can’t fight all of my battles for me, Bobby.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged on the other end. “Doesn’t mean I can’t help wade you through them.”

“I specifically remember you tellin’ me that you wanted to hear nothing, and I repeat, nothing, about it and by it I mean me and Dean.” You sat back up at the sound of the rumble of the Chevy. “I think this conversation is going to get cut short here.”

“They back?”

“Affirmative,” you rose from the bed and peaked out the small window beside the table. Dean pulled Baby into park and you could see their defeat. “Got anything for me?”

“A buyers receipt,” Bobby began.

“Digitized?” You interjected.

“Would you let me finish?”

“A purchase was made a few weeks ago from an estate sale of ‘Mary Worthington’s’ brother. Same name of the woman from the police report.”

“So we’ve got our Mary,” you sighed. “Where was it sold?”

“An antique store in… well, I’m sure you can guess where.”

“Toledo.”

“Seems like it hasn’t been sold yet either. Just waiting.”

The door to the motel opened with a start. Its creepy hinges groaning as Dean and Sam entered the small room. Dean clocked you beside the table on the phone holding your finger at your lips. He peered back at Sam who couldn’t provide him any more answers.

“Can I get the address?”

Biting open the pen cap from the table, you took note of the address quickly.

“Alright,” you huffed. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Be safe alright? And keep Dean on a leash.”

“You know that sounds weird coming from you, right? And I don’t have any kind of power like that.”

Bobby scoffed from the other end. “I just don’t need to see you that way again, alright? Either of you, for that matter.”

“Yeah,” you agreed solemnly. Dean leaned against the table with his hip as Sam took a seat on the bed he had claimed as his. “We’d rather not relive that too. I’ll stop by when this is all over, before I go back.”

“Go-“

“Now’s not the time. I’ve gotta go. Bye.”

You hung up before Bobby could protest. Turning the journal in Dean’s direction, his eyes flicked from you down to the pages.

“Sun’s going down. Is this gonna be a friendly visit or one that requires me to disable to alarm?”

“Neither,” Dean pushed the journal back to you after reading the address. “You’re not coming.”

“Dean,” you lamented. “You can’t call me here and expect me to sit out on this. Just let me do all the heavy lifting and you boys can go be the ‘man?’ No.”

“I didn’t call you hear—just in case you didn’t remember who’s voice you heard on the other end. That’s Sam’s fault.”

“Sam, come on…” You pandered. “I might be a little rusty but I’m not a fool. I know how to handle my shit.”

“We don’t think you’re a fool,” he said your name with such a wallowing sigh that not even his bangs could hide the apology.

“No,” you disagreed again. “I don’t care if you’re a little too big in the britches to have me on a hunt. I am going whether you like it or not.” You moved to exit the corner you had found yourself in and Dean blocked your way. “Get out of my way, Dean.”

“If you can say no then I can too.”

“You’re being ridiculous about this.”

“It’s dangerous.”

You laughed and his head tipped back in annoyance. “Dangerous? Oh my, you really have lost it haven’t you? Come on, Dean. We’ve been on plenty of hunts together and plenty have gone right. This is easy. Smash the mirror or perform an exorcism or make her face her own reflection I don’t care. She’s gonna come after all of us because we’ve all done shit we’re not proud of.”

“You could get hurt,” Dean suggested and Sam threw his head in his hands. He loved his brother dearly but knew he’d just dig himself in the hole further.

“I truly have no words to even answer that one.” You’re eyes were steely and hurt. “We could all die tomorrow but you’re so desperate to let me stay here and feel like a fool for coming to help…”

“Fine!” Dean huffed. “Fine! You can come. But I don’t want to hear it from you or Sam or goddamn Bobby that it’s my fault if you end up in stitches.”

“Fine!” You agreed. “I’ll dig my grave, Dean. But it’s time you accept your own too. Things happen for a reason—you can’t stop them. If I was meant to be here, then let me be here.”

“So we’re going with fate,” he nodded his head, putting his hands back into his pockets. “Fate brought you here to help us and now you’re going to save the day.”

“Maybe your life too but you probably wouldn’t accept the fact that I can do that. Doubt is kind of your M.O.”

Dean stepped closer to you and the gap became a sliver. Sam stood from the bed and mumbled “guys, guys, guys” over and over until you cut him off with “I’m a girl, Sam.”

“If we don’t hurry up, an innocent girl is going to die.”

“Not so innocent if she is a target then, huh?” You reminded him.

“It’s not her fault. It isn’t, I promise. But she doesn’t deserve to die and I think we can all agree that whatever the hell you want to say to each other can wait just a few hours more so we can save an innocent, or more, people from dying.”

Sam pleaded with his big brown eyes and a fragment of hope as the sun finally set behind the three of you in the window. You swallowed your words and peaked at Dean to see he had done the same—a small concession of the evening.

“Alright,” you nodded your head at Sam. “Let’s go kill a ghost.”

With all of the hunts you had gone on within the last near 15 years of your life, Sam and Dean Winchester always left you in a burning pain. Whether it be your back or your head or your hands or your heart, no hunt was the same but the outcome was a long list of memorable feelings.

In the mirrors of the antique store, your reflection reminded you of it.

“If we break all of these,” you asked Sam, “do you think we’ll have bad luck.”

“We already have pretty shit luck,” he laughed. Maybe, for the first time in awhile. “I can’t imagine it’d be any worse.”

Reflecting lights from the flashlights beamed off the mirrors like disco balls. It was beautiful, in its own sight. The rain pattering on the windows; each drop mimicking the time ticking away at the clock of a girl’s life or more. Your shoes pattered on the floor as each mirror passed turned out to be the wrong one. Dean went in his direction, you in yours, and Sam in his. Someone would find it and the first one to do so would summon Mary to end this all and if luck, while shit, was on your side, then it would be over for this town and what would have been the next.

It dawned on you too late that you hadn’t disabled the alarm.

“Fuck,” you muttered as you turned back around and gasped at the sight of Dean following you around. “Goddamit! Are you stalking me?”

“You said I have an M.O. but you’re the one with a catchphrase. We’re not on T.V., try to be less predictable.”

“You’re insufferable. Go help find the mirror—we have a job to do, remember?”

“Why were you turning back? Too frightened?”

You wanted to slap him. “What is your problem with me? I didn’t do anything wrong here, Dean!” You made your way around him and went for the alarm. It was giving off a red flashing light.

“You forgot the alarm?” Dean stressed and aligned himself with the wall as the light of a police cruiser came into view. Sam’s smashing of another mirror boomed in the background. “You had one job, sweetheart.”

“It’s kind of hard when you’re breathing down my neck like that,” you put the flashlight between your teeth. “Go solve it.” The police were out of their vehicles now. Dean didn’t budge. “Do you want to the girl to die? Go solve it!”

“Shit,” Dean said quietly as he walked around you. “I forgot that I liked it when you’re bossy.”

You could barely get out the ‘oh my God’ before he was out the door and putting on a display. The smashing in the background had ceased but Sam could handle himself—you thought. Dean’s fake chuckle leaked through the crack in the door before the sound of bodies hitting the pavement passed over the lights of the cruiser. You opened the door with the sound of the bell.

“Now they’ve seen your face.”

“We will be gone in the morning,” he shook out his fist. “Come on. Sam already found it.”

“What!?” You exclaimed. “Did he summon her?”

“Yes!” Dean squeezed past you and the feel of his body against yours was jolting. “Hurry up!”

You locked the front door and ran after Dean who bolted through the store. Sam’s painful grunts were echoing through the corridors; the cluttered corners were nothing but the sounds of a mimic calling back out to Sam with affirmations of evil. Dean’s long strides had taken him further than your legs did you. He slammed his tire iron into the mirror that had Sam in a vice.

The glass shattered everywhere and while Dean cradled his brother’s head, rising him to his feet again, you caught up to find Mary crawling out of the mirror. The hairs on your arms stood tall. Tingles sent a shiver down your spine.

“Oh my,” you put both of your hands on the backs of Sam and Dean. Sam crumbled to the floor, followed by Dean who began to hold his head in his hands. The cool blood of your body began to seep through your eyes and streaks of red tears painted your face.

You weren’t dying today.

The pain struck inside of your head. A piercing, heavy hand squeezing your brain wracked its memories in pictures to find the ones you were least proud of. It was your fault. It was your fault.

“The mirror-“ you fell beside Dean. You weren’t dying today. “Dean, the mirror.”

Make her face her own reflection. You didn’t read about it and Bobby didn’t tell you to find a reflection. It was a last second Hail Mary that this Mary couldn’t survive. Dean lifted the mirror with as much strength as he could garner to hold it out in front of him.

In an instant, the pain ceased and the tears stopped falling.

Mary’s reflection soured. Her own words that haunted her victims played for her like chorus calling her to Hell. She fell apart touching her hair in agony; sorrow of her actions swiftly transformed her from victim to perpetrator. Absolved of herself, Mary Worthington died for good. She was at peace and so were the ones she had taken down in her own pain.

Dean tossed the mirror to the side which caused the glass to smash with the other hundred mirrors unsalvageable in the store. He laughed about it, falling to lay on his back in exhaustion beside you in the middle and Sam to your left. His head turned and peered at you, then Sam.

“This has got to be about six-hundred years of bad luck.”

Sam sighed and closed his eyes. You couldn’t help but grin. You shifted your head to look at Dean who was already staring. Rusty and unable to follow one simple task, you were a liability.

But you had saved the day.

It was your suggestion to hold up the mirror after all.

“Thanks,” Dean offered. You smiled tightly. It didn’t really reach your eyes and Dean could see it. He had planted the seeds of doubt and knew it was half his own fault. “And I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” you played it off.

“No,” he said more firmly. Sam let a sly smile fade onto his face as he listened with his eyes closed. “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah… me too. I mean, what would you have done without me?”

“You ruined it, you know that?”

“Eh,” you wiped the side of your cheek with the back of your hand and smeared the blood across it. “That just means we’ll have to do this again.”

“What happened to flying back right when this is over?”

There was a glimmer of hope inside of the antique store that evening.

“I think they’ll be fine without me for a few days.”

[foolondahill17]

Annual Favorite Supernatural Fic Rec List of 2023:

I bookmarked 66 fics in 2023 (and read…a lot more than that), but only 9 were written/updated in this year of our lord. SMH we gotta pump out more content, friends. Seriously though, I’ve got several more 2023 fic reads in my Marked for Later, but some are still WIPs or I just haven’t gotten around to picking them up yet. I’m sure some (like the much-hyped Lighthouse Keeper AU where there is darkness by the talented quiettewandering [@wanderingcas on tumblr]) will end up on my Bookmarked favs…but, alas, they’ll just have to wait for the 2024 recap.

The list below is in no particular order, barring the first, which has joined the ranks of one-of-my-favorite-fics-ever:

A Cliff That Knew Too Many Tides by luulapants (@luulapants)

E, early series Dean/others, 94,508 words

Partial Summary:

A canon rewrite AU diverging from the events of Some Cruel Tide, in which a shifter disguised as his father used Dean's blind obedience to molest him. By the start of S1, Dean's relationship with his father is more strained, his devotion more intense, and his life consumed by the need to hide the parts of himself he is most ashamed of.

My words:

If you’ve been looking for a gay!Dean manifesto, you’ve found it. Obviously, the subject matter is dark: warnings for past childhood sexual abuse, internal and external homophobia, past suicide attempt, and traumatic outing. It is also beautiful and heart-wrenching and scratches the swollen, itchy, weeping rash on my heart in a way that only the balm of good Dean angst can.  

Favorite part:

“I wasn’t acting out,” he blurted.

“What?”

“When I – I wasn’t trying to act out or anything.” Deacon’s presence hovered behind him like an aura, and Dean reminded himself, Don’t rock the boat. Don’t rock the boat.

Dad sighed. The line crackled, and Dean pictured him standing in a phone booth somewhere, probably huddled up against the cold. “Then what the hell would you call it?”

Dean tried out a few words in his head, imagining how they’d sound to Deacon. He ended up with, “I misunderstood. I thought I was supposed to.”

Asterism of an F-Series Ford Pick Up by disabled_dean (@disabled-dean)

M, Destiel, 17,408 words

Partial Summary:

When you've been to hell, desire is isolating and ugly.

Or: Cas drives his truck for a case and Dean is exceptionally horny about it

My words:

The way Dean’s PTSD is described in this fic, like a slow, oozing poison that awakens the longer he and Cas travel together, is tantalizing and masterful. Ostensibly, this fic is about Dean and Cas road-tripping to a case. It’s actually about how you, a monster-hunter, can come to terms (or not) with your body and soul when you think you’ve become the very thing you’re spent your whole life hunting.

 Favorite part:

"Like everything will be going fine and then all of a sudden I just. Can’t. I can't stand it. And the more fine everything is, the worse it gets and I feel-" he breaks off, eyes on his hands like they aren't his hands, thumb rubbing over and over the ring on his index finger, "It's like everyone else is living this normal fucking life and I'm still back in the pit."

Personal Space: The Final Frontier by botley

M, Destiel, Star Trek AU, WIP, 63,570 words

Partial summary

"Captain's Log, Stardate 10918.8. Captain Ellen Harvelle reporting, First Officer… Castiel… attending. After a month of bargaining with the Gehennian government, efforts to permit a search party within the Rack facilities still proved unsuccessful. Although Starfleet’s orders dictated we tuck tail and leave, I elected to disregard this decision and beam a rescue operations team down for the recovery of Lieutenant Commander Dean Winchester.”

My words:

This fic has been on my rec lists before. It’s still a WIP, but it very unexpectedly posted an update after a 3(?) year hiatus, so I’ll cling to hope until my fingernails leave a bloody, mauled mess.  This is basically a Star Trek AU where our favorite Supernatural gang are fucking around in Starfleet instead of the Midwest. Fantastic stuff – worth the read even if it does remain unfinished.

Favorite line:

"Dean made a face. Castiel decided the man was hideous."

Receding by minkmix

T, early season gen, 38,729 words

Summary:

After a visit to an old, abandoned theme park in the desert, Sam begins to notice strange lapses in Dean's memory. As his brother starts to disappear before his eyes, Sam must rush to find an answer before there isn't anything left to save... My words: A Lucky Charms fic if I’ve ever read one. Delicious, crunchy marshmallow goodness of some fantastic Dean!whump and panicked caretaker!Sam with the solid undercurrent of slightly sweetened amalgamized oat and corn cereal of a solid case fic. Yum.

 Favorite part:

“Sammy?” Dean cut him off.

“W-What is it?”

“What’s Dad’s name?”

Sam’s chest heaved as he fought himself from sounding as stunned as he felt.

“John.”

Swan Upon Leda by kelsstiel (@kelstiel)

E, Destiel real-world AU, 174,096 words

Summary:

Pediatric Surgery Fellow Dean Winchester meets baby Jack Kline and neuropsychologist Castiel Novak his first week on the job. Dean’s been accused a time or two of caring a little too much in the past and it’s hard not to care about the neurotic adoptive father and his medically needy preemie. After a series of run-ins between the pair, Dean and Cas develop a friendship that everyone else around them suspect more from immediately, though it takes them a little longer to get the memo. When Dean struggles with a particularly devastating patient loss, their mutual understanding of loss and love bring them closer in a way that neither of them could have expected.

My words: A solid, old-fashioned romantic AU. It’s unpretentious, fluffy, heart-warming, authentic and the kind of could-have-been-a-novel goodness that makes up the heart and breadth of fanfiction. Warning for infant illness and death (not Jack).

Favorite part:

"I know they say there’s a chance, but I’ve just got this feeling .” She shook her head and looked down for a moment. She looked up again and took a deep breath as if steadying herself. “I wish I could see you grow up.”

five minutes to six by saintedcastiel  (@saintedcastiel)

M, Destiel real-world AU, 23,383 words

Summary:

Castiel Novak has been the co-host of Good Morning, Lawrence! for a little over ten years when he stumbles across the story of a lifetime. But after a producer pulls the segment and tells him to forget it, Castiel begins to wonder who's really pulling the strings. Can he bring the truth to light while somehow managing to keep his co-host, and the man he loves, in the dark?

 My words: Another Goddamn quality AU. This one is a little quippier and fast paced than the Hospital AU above, but it’s full of fantastic characterization and even a last-minute breaking and entering romp. Fun that’s perfect for the whole family!

Favorite part:

“Been asking you out all week.” Dean tells him, and Castiel realizes all at once he’s right.

“Oh my god.” Castiel laughs. “You have.”

This Is Not My Beautiful Wife by luckshiptoshore (@luckshiptoshore)

T, Destiel, one-shot, 4,755 words

Summary:

“Dean,” says the man again. “This isn’t real. You need to come with me, now.”

Dean’s been zoning out again. But he can’t escape the feeling that something’s very, very wrong … and wherever he goes, a strange man in a trench coat follows.

My words: You gotta love the Djinn dream trope. This one has everything you want in a caught-in-a-fake-reality-while-your-lover-pleads-for-you-to-return-to-the-waking-world story, plus an extra dash of on-point characterization and some truly imaginative scenarios for Dean’s alternate realities.  

 Favorite part:

“We could look into adoption,” says Cas. “If you’d like. Of course we could also simply take a child, but I think that’s frowned on."

we really shouldn't be doing this by LoversAntiquities (@tragidean)

E, Destiel, 17,138 words

Summary:

After Castiel goes missing for a week, Dean finds him in an abandoned cemetery in the middle of nowhere Kansas, suffering from a mysterious welt. Only, as the hours go on, the deeper the curse grows—and Dean finds more than he bargained for, namely on every surface he and Castiel can find.

My words: This is more straight-up (not straight) porn than I usual rec, but this is a fantastic take on the from-sex-to-love fic where everyone was already in love to begin with. There’s a hefty sprinkle of idiots-to-lovers and sex-curse. Also angst, which is my bread and butter.

Favorite line:

Castiel stares up at him, his eyes gone soft, hooded. Dean thumbs over his eyelid, just to watch it flutter shut. “I’m not solely interested in you for your hands, or your mouth. They are wonderful attributes, but I don’t long for them so much as I long for you.” He leans into Dean’s palm and kisses the center. “I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but it would take the death of the universe to get me to stop.”

Postpartum Prometheus by babbyspanch, saltslimes (@dragqueenpentheus @nifedick)

E, Destiel, technically mpreg, WIP, 18,959 words

Summary

Welcome to the Supernatural renaissance. Welcome to Castiel and the terrible naissance.

My words: warning for the fact that this is technically an mpreg fic even though Castiel is an angel and not really a man. Warning, also, because this is another WIP that hasn’t been updated since the beginning of the year, so I don’t know if it’ll be finished. Basically, Dean and Cas bump uglies to unexpected results. Cas kinda freaks without telling Dean he’s his baby daddy. He also yanks out his intestines so said baby can be nice and comfortable in there. Funny and angsty.

Favorite part:

“Are those—?”

“Yeah.” He waves his hand at the door again, starting to feel like one of those used car lot inflatable men, limbs akimbo. “A total murderer looking guy just bolted that way. And not like— the regular murderer-looking people who come in.”

“And he left his organs.” Dennis thinks a moment, and then shrugs, as if this isn’t the weirdest thing he’s ever seen. He’s been working here longer than anyone Henry knows, maybe it isn’t. He opens his mouth and Henry can’t help hoping some miracle plan of action is going to fall out of it. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Um. What?”

“I don’t want to offend you.” He pauses, brows furrowed. He rolls Henry’s cup over in his hand. “What is a ‘FABINISTA’?”

Add your favorite written-in-2023 fics in the tags or a reblog!

[angelique-of-the-volturi-guard]

I don’t know how to articulate this better but Rowena MacLeod had the growth as a character that I wanted Mary Winchester to have. Like Rowena continuously dealt with the reality in front of her and tried to better herself in some aspect, but it always felt to me that Mary was so stuck trying to figure out how to accept that the reality she knew was gone that she couldn’t honestly get where she needed to be in order to have healthy relationships with her sons and the rest of their chosen family.

(This is gonna get a little ranty- buckle up kids!)

My witch queen had a ton of growth after Crowley’s death (RIP King, you absolutely deserve so much love), but even before he died she was seeking something more for her life to push herself forward. Mary, by contrast, is consistently pulled toward things of the past- she’s a spirit in her old house, she goes to a funeral for an old hunting friend, and at one point she outright chooses to stay in a memory of her past.

I really thought when S11 finale happened that Mary was going to be this absolute badass Mom who was going to help guide her adult kids as needed while still maintaining herself as a person, and I was honestly disappointed when it seemed as though she never really found her way out. And what’s worse is that because Dean is also sort of stuck because he put her on such a pedestal as a kid, you have to watch as he comes to this realization that the mother he remembers isn’t who she is now. And her trying to keep him from being who he is by not hunting is how he understands she’s not that person. So he has to watch her be stuck while figuring out how to unstick himself.

And then you have Rowena and Crowley, who both absolutely fuck each other up, but they are 100% straight with each other that they’re here for themselves, and in having that level of honesty give each other the agency to level up. Crowley grew to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Rowena ended up growing and learning from his death to ultimately do the same and take his former position. She takes the accountability for her mistakes.

I think the reason for this is actually because of who they were as mothers. Mary was the protector type (had to be because of the hunting) who was so desperate to make sure her kids didn’t grow up the way she did that she had no idea what to do when they didn’t need her (like helicopter parenting on steroids). Rowena was hella neglectful, absolutely. But she also showed Crowley magic and left him by a workhouse before abandoning him and in doing both she unknowingly made certain he could fend for himself without her.

And while Mary always cared about the boys, I find it so interesting that ultimately, Rowena grew because of the son she supposedly hated while Mary, who loved her sons, stayed stuck. I wanted to see Mary grow in that same way with her sons (and God knows I would sell an arm and a leg to see Rowena and Crowley become the badass mother son antihero duo I dreamed they could be.). But alas… It was not to be 😔

[kickingitwithkirk]

Winchester's Folly

Summary: When Dean gets into trouble John decides to hide the truth for his family

Word Count: 759

Warnings: A/B/O, subjugation, pandemic, mentions of nudity, leering, mention of collaring/leashed, sexual/slavery, rut/heat, physical altercation, murder conviction, parental dominance

*Additional warnings will be added

*Dark! Fic-don't continue if you are disturbed by the subject matter.

Square filled: @spnabobingo - Alpha Challenging Alpha

A/N: Each part follows in sequence

*Divider by @firefly-graphics

*No Beta-all mistakes are mine

Part II

“I need one under 18.” 

Sam’s head snapped up in shock..that wasn’t the plan. The Omega was to be older than Dean, preferably one that had been sold before, making them cheaper to purchase.

“Dad, why are you wanting..” 

John cut him off with a low growl provoking Sam’s inner wolf to reciprocate, neither noticing Helms studying their interaction with interest. 

Alpha Winchester can’t completely control this beauty like the other one..the boss will be pleased to learn about these developments. 

“House O would normally do as your eldests property on paper,” Helms interrupts, “but I know this judge, they will not be satisfied with that alone.”  Both Winchesters have matching, confused expressions and before John can ask what that meant he continues, “so I have to take into account your packs unusual dynamics, a Pack Omega, while as scarce as Phoenix ash, would be perfect but alas, there’s your social standing.” 

Sam snorted. It wasn’t the first time someone brought up their social standing, not so sly code for being a dirt poor pack. “The best option will be a Feral. Lucky for you, we have a fair selection of resales, this way gentlemen,” he leads them deeper into the building.

Deans his wolf whines watching his pack move farther into the building while all he could do was stand there as ordered to and observe these unfortunate creatures being bartered over like the livestock society considered them. His sire knew it would eat at his ingrained, perpetual guilt and was part of the penitence he had to endure it because, once vexed, John Winchester never forgave or forgot.

Sam's wolf was getting more restive the longer they were in this den of iniquity. 

He couldn’t see Dean from where they were study’s the O who’s caught his sires' interest instinctively knew she was all wrong started vocalizing his displeasure without realizing it.

 “What’s your problem now?” John barked at him.

“These O’s are your type sir,” Sam replied with his usual bluntness that made John's jaw clench, grudgingly reflecting on his youngests observation.

As Dominant Alpha of his pack it was ultimately his decision regarding how they functioned, including matings, internally cringed remembering an inadvertent confession he’d made awhile back.

It was a typical night.

Sam was sitting at the rental kitchen table finishing up some calculus homework while John lay sprawled on a couch between drunk and passed out drunk. 

He started talking about the House O’s, how Mary wanted to get one when they found out she was pregnant with Sam, saying that Dean was a handful to deal with and, as an Alpha herself, didn’t possess the natural instincts to properly care for multiple pups and he could pretend to be happy with his pack, she knew all the times he’d left was renting out one.

The purchase never happened.

Sam’s skin felt uncomfortable finding out the mother he never knew, the one his brother practically worshiped, tried purchasing one. Then John started drunkenly lauding the pleasurable attributes of O’s have, and as his details became more graphic Sam grabbed Dean's CD player, pumpin up the volume and continued working even though they would be leaving soon. 

When John passes out, Sam shoved the books into his backpack and went to the shared bedroom retrieves his cobbled-together, black market laptop Dean secretly got him and fired it up, researching this century’s history concerning O’s, learning of twisted truths and obscure provisions in the Hibbins Procurement Act the government schools purposefully omitted bolted to the toilet.

Dean came rolling later finds the laptop on the bed immediately starts worrying. His brother never left it out when their dad was around, catches a wif of sick and finds him laying on the bath floor thinks he’s picked up an illness fusses like always, tucking him into bed and stays up rest the night keeping an eye on him.

Sam knew the only reason John wanted him near was an additional jab at Dean, to emphasize his failures. Fuck, he hated their sire using him to guilt Dean whenever he displeased him.

Surveying the area for hidden trouble Sam grabbed his chest feeling his inner wolf hurl itself against its cage of skin and bones then frantically pacing around growling home home home in his mind flicks an eye towards his sire, who hadn’t noticed his reaction, too distracted by another O Helms is talking up. 

Following its instincts, he slowly backs towards the door marked private that someone left ajar and slips through unnoticed.

Part III

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx  @lyarr24  @flamencodiva  @b3autyfuldisast3r  @lassie-bird @nancymcl  @spnbaby-67  @leigh70

Sam/Jared: @idreamofplaid

Dean/Jensen: @thoughts-and-funnies @stoneyggirl2 @akshi8278 @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl @siospins2

Sam/Jared:  @idreamofplaid Dean/Jensen:  @thoughts-and-funnies  @stoneyggirl2  @akshi8278  @beabutterfly987 @smoothdogsgirl  @siospins2

[neon-in-the-night-time]

i am forever thinking about a Julie and the Phantoms X Supernatural crossover that is specifically focused on spnwin where rose and victoria are carlos cervantez's nieces and john had something to do with carlos's death and sam and dean indirectly had something to do with rose's death and so julie haaaaaaates them and also reggie is secretly sam and dean's brother and sam sees a video of the band playing and he's like uhhhhhhh dean you wanna look at this and theyre like oh my god why is our dead brother playing in this "hologram" band and they don't recognize the connection to their family and julie so theyre like "she must be a witch" so they show up at julie's house and they're like "this is the fbi" and she's like "bitch try again i know a winchester when i see one" and they're like "what's going on... why does she know us" and she's like "your dad is the reason my great-uncle died" ala ellen and jo and they're like "we dont even know you" and she's like "well my family is all hunters and i promise you my ghosts aren't vengeful spirits... i don't think theyre even normal ghosts. rock salt and silver didn't even work on them. i tried" and they go into the studio where we learn that rose was actually a witch! and she learned from ada and all the plants in the garage are demons like in that one episode of the winchesters to like. figure out what's up with caleb because julie reveals that the other day julie and nick danforth-evans were assigned to do a school project together and they went to the studio to work on it but nick got stuck on the carpet (they had a devils trap drawn underneath it) and like the purple smoke came out of his mouth revealing caleb and theyre like omg so he's a demon and they join forces with victoria and ray (who obviously monster-hunted with rose back in the day) and they like. hunt down caleb and we learn that rose died the same way mary did and julie watched just like sam did so julie has the magic powers too and together she and sam send caleb to the empty and they do like. the soul for a soul hting to get cas back and dean's like "i always loved you back dont leave me again" and at some point julie digs out the monster club jackets that they said they were gonna make in spnwin but we NEVER ACTUALLY SAW but i know theyre real and hers is a hand-me-down from her mom who got it from her tio carlos and it says cervantez on the back and rose bedazzled it. anyways could you tell ive been thinking about this a lot? id write it but i lowkey hate writing... also there's like very little intersection between the jatp and spn fandoms and even less who actually watched the prequel

[deans-baby-momma]

The Story of Us-Chapter 9

A/N: This is a rewrite of a story my good friend @spnbaby-67 allowed me to take and rewrite. All mistakes are mine. This is canon divergent, meaning some things that happened in the show will still happen here but with my own twist to it.

Summary: She and Dean met when they were kids. Even at such a young age, she knew that he was her soulmate. Being the daughter of a hunter, Michaela (Micki) Singer knew the life he led came with a price, but she was up to the challenge.

Pairings: Dean Winchester/reader, Sam Winchester/friend!reader, John Winchester, Mary Winchester (mentioned only), Bobby Singer, and more from the Supernatural universe.

Warnings: Flashbacks are in italics, fluffy stuff, angst stuff, character death, kidnapping, depression, semi-dark themes

WC:1,056

Spring 1996

She was livid!! John knew! He fucking knew tonight was the night of Micki's junior prom, yet ha'd still dragged Dean off on a goddamn salt and burn. Those were simple, run of the mill, one person jobs so why he took her boyfriend and prom date, she'd never understand.

Bobby had spent a quarter of his earnings from the salvage business to purchase her dream dress. It was an A-line, floor-length periwinkle silk with a periwinkle transparent overlay, covered with floral appliqués. The halter top snapped behind her neck and the neckline was low cut down between her ample breasts, but still modest with a shiny silver spandex holding it together and covering most of her cleavage.

Micki felt like a princess as she stood in the front yard of her childhood home as Bobby snapped pictures on his old Polaroid. But she was not smiling as brightly as she could have been . Her knight wasn't there. 

"Son, go stand beside her," Bobby commands Sam and the gangly teen does as he is told. 

"I'm sorry Dean ain't here," he tells her as Bobby loads more film into the antique camera. "Don't be too mad at him. It was Dad's idea."

"I know Sammy. I'm not mad…..at Dean."

Bobby allows Micki to take one of the better looking cars to town to the school where the prom is being held. He and Sam stand on the porch waving as she takes off down the driveway. 

At the school she parks carefully and then gets out, planning on walking into the school with her head held high.

Unfortunately before she can cross the threshold, Jennifer and her crew of bullies see her and start badgering her. Micki has had issues with this group for girls since freshman year. As soon as they found out her mother was dead, they'd call her 'Little orphan Annie' or 'Mommyless'. 

"Oh guys look who it is, Monster Michaela. She's so hideous, not only did Mommy die to get away from her but she couldn't even get a date," Jennifer says, in her sing-sing nasally voice. 

Micki tried her best to ignore them but she'd hoped by showing up with Dean by her side, she'd been able to put them in their place and have the upper hand but alas, here she is alone and dateless showing up to one of the biggest nights of her high school years. 

She ignored the jeers and taunts and entered the school, heading for the gymnasium. Only to have more eyes on her and more whispers and snickers behind her back as she walked by.

Micki bypassed the photographer who was snapping shots of her classmates as they entered, smiles on their faces and arms wrapped around whomever they arrived with.

Micki found an empty seat at an empty table toward the back and sat, determined to just get through the King and Queen announcement before making a quick getaway.

She is pushing food around on her plate with a fork when a very familiar voice speaks behind her.

"Excuse me, beautiful. May I have this dance?"

Micki turns quickly, her eyes wide and her jaw drops. Standing directly behind her is Dean Motherfucking Winchester donning a tuxedo. His bow tie and cummerbund, an exact match to her dress. 

"Dean," she sighs as she scrambles out of her seat and into his arms. "You came!"

"I wouldn't miss this for anything baby," he tells her before pulling her into a kiss, keeping it chaste and short. 

"So, dance with me?" he repeats as he takes her hand and leads her toward the center of the basketball court, right under the swiveling spotlight.

The dj announces that it's time to slow it down and the beginning notes of 'Faithfully' by Journey fill the air.

Dean holds her close as they begin swaying to the beat. By the chorus, he is singing softly in her ear. 

"It's been you and me

And lovin' a hunter

Ain't always what it's supposed to be

Oh, girl, you stand by me

I'm forever yours

Faithfully."

They finish dancing and as the music ends Micki pulls away from Dean and goes to drag him back to her table and that's when she sees it.

Every pair of eyes in the gym are trained on them, some looking confused, others looking surprised. But what she relishes is that almost all the females, including the crew of bullies, have looks of jealousy showing all over their faces.  Even the teachers all seem to be swooning and envious of her. 

PRESENT DAY (2008)

Dean sees Bobby standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

“You know, I thought she was insane when she told me the reason for the middle name,” the older man chuckles. “It warmed my heart that she wanted to memorialize her mother and yours though. Karen would’ve been honored as I’m sure your mom would have too.”

Dean smiles as he tries to imagine how Mary Winchester would’ve reacted to the thought of having a grandchild, much less a granddaughter named after her.

"Yea, Mary would've loved her," Dean agrees. 

There is a moment of silence then Bobby clears his throat.  "So, uh….Pamela is about a half-hour out.”

Dean nods and then looks back down at his baby girl. Whatever they find out from the psychic doesn’t really matter. Dean doesn’t care what pulled him out of the depths of Hell; he is just glad that it did and he can be here for his girls. 

If only Micki would wake up.

When Pamela arrives, Bobby and Sam meet her at the door before Bobby sends the youngest Winchester to retrieve his brother.

“Dean, the psychic is here,” he says just above a whisper, as to not startle the young girl. 

Her father places her in the bed beside her mother and surrounds her with pillows.

“Ya know she isn’t mobile yet, right?” Sam asks as he watches.

“Shut up,” Dean says. “Not taking any chances.”

The two Winchester brothers walk down the hall to meet the psychic and get the show on the road.

Pamela’s eyes are burnt straight out of her head and Bobby rushes her to the hospital. All they got from the seance that Pamela performed is a name. One word.

Castiel.

@lostinaseaoffictionalbliss​ @spnbaby-67​ @tftumblin​ @sea040561​ @delightfullykrispypeach​ @larajadeschmidt13​ @atc74​ @vicariouslythruspn​ @squirrelnotsam​  @sandlee44​ @blacktithe7​ @hoboal87​ @mogaruke​ @deanwanddamons​ @supraveng​ @deandreamernp​ @akshi8278​ @lyarr24​ @maggiegirl17​ @chriszgirl92​

[duskdragon39]

Speedpaint Link [FLASHING WARNING]

My final pieces for this year's Fandom Trumps Hate event! @juuls asked me to design a header for her ongoing @fanfic-reading-challenge - something that was general, usable over multiple years, and maybe referenced a fandom or two.

Which meant, of course, that I ended up jamming references to at least 9 different fandoms in there, along with a lot of references to various fanfics. At my last count there were 18-19 different references to various things in there - you're welcome to try and guess/find them, or you can check the list under the cut.

Happy reading, y'all, and thanks to Juulna for the really fun project :D

Fandoms:

Critical Role - The massive tree with the city beyond it in the mountains and the two moons were inspired by Critical Role and Exandria's two moons. Vague reference/inspiration, that.

Skyrim - The mountains framed with the aurora/magic with the castle in the foreground was inspired by Skyrim and the view of the Greybeard's mountain looking from south of Whiterun. The dragon isn't one of Skyrim's, alas.

Animorphs - there's a little andalite in the spaceship. It's not a true andalite ship, alas - I didn't feel like redrawing the stupid thing by the time I got around to adding the alien in.

Gravity Falls - Yes, that's a picture of Dipper looking up at the moon on the desk.

D&D - The polyhedral dice box and a D&D 5E book can be seen on the desk. Technically the dragon is a reference to one of my own campaigns.

Undertale - Frisk (minus their distinctive stripped shirt) is listening to something while leaning up against the wording sign. Napstablook can be seen amongst the other ghosts - whether the one in the top hat is Hapstablook is up to the viewer.

Star Wars - A lightsaber can be seen at the front of the desk.

Minecraft/DSMP - The "Cat" music disk is sitting on the edge of the desk.

MCU - Thanos' headstone can be found in the bottom right of the image. It reads "Here lies Thanos, ???? - 2019."

Supernatural - A joint headstone for Sam and Dean Winchester can be found in the lower right corner. It reads "RIP Sam and Dean Winchester - We had to install a revolving door."

Fanfics:

I've not read most of these. About 1/2 were pulled from the most kudoed fics on AO3, the others were from my favorites. I tried to get a really broad spectrum of fandoms in there. So uh. Apologies if something controversial got in there.

Survival is a Talent, by ShanaStoryteller

Yesterday Upon the Stair, by PitViperOfDoom

A Lullaby For Gods, by Aseraphfell

Home Sweet Home, by PitViperOfDoom

The Internet Is Not Just For Porn, by cyerus

Passerine, by blujamas

Salvage, by MuffinLance

call me, beep me, by [orphan_account]

Labyrinthine, by DuskDragon39. Don't @ me, it's on the book below the main text block and in my nearly incomprehensible handwriting.

Misc:

The text on the cat's book is from an unpublished animorphs AU fanfic I'm writing. This does not count towards the overall reference count.

The basset hound under Frisk's feet is based on Juulna's lovely basset.

[trenchcoatimpala]

Castiel was so new to everything concerning the incredible feat that was being human. Aches and pains dwelled in his joints, tiredness seeped through him with an ease that he hadn’t known could exist; it gripped him in an iron hold, dragging him down in an ocean that he had otherwise been afloat in. 

He had been prepared for these things. He’d watched the Winchesters endure pain and suffering, he’d seen firsthand what it would be like if he lost the safety that his grace provided, making him just that little bit more invincible than a mere human. He knew what it felt like to hurt, as he was still vulnerable to the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun, but such things could never kill him. 

The one thing that Castiel had never been able to comprehend, the one thing that troubled him more than anything else, was the one thing he had not been prepared for.

Nightmares.

Dean Winchester is a frequent customer to the agony of nightmares and Castiel has soothed his terrors more times than he can count, whether Dean welcomed his efforts or not. 

But Castiel himself, once angel of the Lord, had never understood the complexity of a human mind while it dreamed. He was never able to figure out how one could be tormented in what was supposed to be a restful experience. He only came to understand, one night, when his mind started to play tricks on him during his slumber. 

Getting to sleep was hard. The bunker hummed around him, the concrete walls seemed to close in on him, a cold wind brushed over his skin and sent shivers down his spine, a feeling Dean had told him felt like you were being watched. The bed under him was comfortable but stiff, the pillow was thin and did little to support his head. His thoughts seemed to be caught up in a race, chasing each other around and around on an invisible track. 

Once he did manage to drift off, a tired body rolling him into sleep, his dreams were the farthest from pleasant. 

He dreamt of everything that had been done to him. He dreamt of the pain from being torn apart by the snap of a finger. He dreamt of the millions and millions of clones, that bore an uncanny resemblance to Dean Winchester, strewn dead around an empty warehouse. He dreamt of his memories being tampered with at the hands of Naomi. 

Castiel woke up with a scream of pain, straining against the straps of a chair, that was no longer there, as his thoughts and memories were altered, his programming rewritten, all to make him the perfect soldier. 

Sweat slicked his skin and dampened his shirt, his heart hammered a desperate drumbeat in his chest, and his hands were clammy where they gripped the sheets around him. 

The whirring of Naomi’s drill echoed in his mind and he swallowed hard, the fear pulsing through him yet another new feeling he would have to get used to. 

Footsteps sounded outside his room and then the door was being pushed open and Dean was shouldering his way inside, gun drawn. 

“Cas!?” he shouted, voice pulled tight with worry. 

“I’m alright, Dean,” Castiel replied where he sat upright on the bed, his breath still trying to find its way back to his lungs. 

Dean’s sharp green eyes suddenly snapped towards him and he instantly lowered his weapon. “You were screaming, I thought-” 

“It was just a nightmare.”

Understanding flickered across Dean’s features, dancing in the hallway light where it shone into Castiel’s room, a sliver of brightness to conquer the dark. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Dean asked tentatively. 

Castiel considered this offer. Dean knew most of what Castiel had dreamed about, but he was in no hurry to relive his memories with the hunter.

So he shook his head. “No.” 

“Okay, uh,” Dean started to back away, “I’ll just go.” 

The thought of being alone was not a good one and the act of it was not something Castiel wanted to endure. “Can you please stay?” he asked. 

Dean faltered in the doorway. Castiel was sure he was about to say no, but then he nodded and stepped fully into the room, shutting the door behind him with a click. “Sure, Cas.” 

In the dark, Dean’s movements were those of a shadow, sliding seamlessly through the room as if he were a part of it. When he pulled back the covers and joined Castiel in the bed, the springs creaking under his weight, Dean suddenly became more visible. 

Castiel could see the few strands of hair that tried to flee the nest of neatly stacked strands on top of his head, he could see the sparkle in his eyes and the upturn of his lips as he offered Castiel the barest of smiles. 

They lay there for a moment, bodies close but not touching, the air charged with electricity, like the moment before lightning strikes. 

Castiel shivered in sudden cold from the drying sweat on his skin, and Dean instantly moved closer, pulling the former angel into his arms. He knew neither of them would speak of this in the morning, Dean was only comforting him from a nightmare, nothing more. 

But the longer he lay in Dean’s arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart and his quiet breaths, the more he began to understand just what it meant to be human, to feel. This feeling blossoming in his chest was only going to grow. He’d always felt something towards Dean, even when he was an angel, but now that he had shed his wings, now that he could bleed and hurt and feel, he learned what love truly felt like. 

Castiel held tightly to Dean, burrowing into the crook of his arm, laying his head under Dean’s chin, the last remnants of his nightmare slipping away as Dean traced careful patterns across his back with his fingers. The motion soothed him, drew his eyelids closed and pushed a happy hum from his lips. 

After a moment, Castiel felt the lightest of pressures on the top of his head. It took him a second to realize that it had been a kiss, the most barely-there of kisses, but a kiss nonetheless.

“‘Night angel,” Dean said softly against his hair. 

Angel? But he wasn’t... 

“Dean, I’m no longer an angel,” Castiel corrected Dean’s mistake. 

Dean chuckled under him, his laugh reverberating through Castiel’s bones. “It’s an expression, Cas. Wings or not, you’ll always be an angel to me.” 

“Oh,” Castiel said in a whisper.

Warmth spread through him, such a stark contrast to the cold he’d been feeling minutes before. The only thing he could equate the feeling to was that of his grace flowing through his vessel, filling him up with power and light. He was without his grace now, and he missed it dearly, but perhaps he would eventually learn to live without it, perhaps Dean could fill the hole his grace had left behind. 

Dean shifted, bringing his arms up to wrap even more securely around Castiel’s human frame, jarring him from his thoughts.

Castiel had never had to worry about feeling safe when he was an angel, he was the one who did the safekeeping, the protecting; but now that he was a fragile human being, he was sure that he would never feel safer in any place but Dean’s arms.

When he finally fell asleep, it was the most restful, most peaceful, sleep he had experienced since becoming human, and he wished that he could spend every night tucked against Dean’s body, but alas, that was probably too far fetched a dream. 

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@jellydeans @tearsofgrace @anotherdowneyfan1 @casgetoutofmyass0907 @angie-clover271218 @nines-in-the-tardis @fivefeetfangirl @destiels-canonahhhhhhhhhh @medusasfavoritestatue @lilac-void @wantstoflyafraidtofall @gayhuckleberryinatrenchcoat @thepixelagora @hermit-cas

[calaofnoldor]

Dean, Don’t

Characters: Sam x F!Reader, Dean

Words: 1,906

Summary: You’re heavily pregnant and highly irritable. Luckily, Sam Winchester is the sweetest moose to ever moose.

Warnings: pregnancy (and all its related symptoms), ill-fated attempt at humor, disgustingly sweet fluff (seriously, you’re gonna need a tooth brush)

A/N: this might be my first ever attempt at this genre, so please don’t judge me too harshly :)

MASTERLIST

“Wow… geez, you look ready to-“

“Dean,” Sam shot his brother a warning glance as he guided you into the kitchen, a giant palm held gently against your aching lower back, “Don’t.”

Dean quickly raised his hands and the gesture, together with his wide eyes, seemed to say ‘I wasn’t gonna say anything!’, although you knew that was far from the truth. In fact, you knew exactly what he was thinking because you’d been thinking it too – every hour of every day. It was safe to say you really didn’t need any reminders of your current condition.

“Y/N’s already having a rough time with the twins keeping her up all night, and she’s been extra sore lately,” your moose came to your rescue as always. Sam had been doing that a lot recently, not only by shielding you from Dean’s crude comments (and consequently protecting Dean from your wrath as well), but also by comforting and distracting you from the woes of your third trimester.

“Well at least it’ll be over soon, right?” Dean tried again.

“Not soon enough,” you grumbled in reply, before attempting to stretch out your spine with an unfiltered groan of discomfort.

“Aaand, that’s my cue to leave!” Dean announced, grabbing his plate of bacon to go and sauntering off, though not before sending his little brother an exaggerated ‘good-luck-with-that’ expression.

Sam rolled his eyes despite feeling somewhat relieved by his brother’s departure, then turned back to you. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you off your feet.” He wore a sweet sympathetic smile; it was one he had been donning often as of late, but it only worsened your mood.

“Sam, I’m fine. I can’t be constantly sitting or lying down!” You barked irritably, but when you noticed the sad puppy dog look on your boyfriend’s face, your attitude instantly withered.

“Look, I’m sorry. I just hate this so much.” Your fingers began to massage your temples as your mouth continued to utter the words that took you beyond the point of no return, “I’m a hunter, you know? I’m supposed to be able to take down monsters with the swing of my machete! I used to be able to roundhouse kick those inhuman bastards when I wanted to, and now I can’t even put my own socks on!” That much was true. Sam had helped you with your socks earlier that morning.

“And sometimes you being so overprotective only makes me feel more useless,” you added with a defeated huff.

Sam waited patiently until he was certain your little tirade was over. “I know exactly what you’re capable of, Y/N; you never have to remind me. And I can guarantee that you will still be able to do all those things… after you’ve given birth to our beautiful babies, and your body recovers from this drastic change it’s endured.”

He moved closer to you and extended one hand to caress the side of your face, while the other splayed across your immensely swollen stomach. “But baby, right now, at 39 weeks pregnant with twins, you’re not supposed to be able to do all that. I wouldn’t want you to be doing all that,” he chuckled lightly with the afterthought as he pictured your heavily expectant form attempting one of your famous round house kicks.

You raised a brow at him, knowing how his mind worked, and he immediately sobered, “Y/N, my point is you don’t realize how incredibly strong you are already, even without all the pregnant kung fu fighting you seem to be so keen on.”

Although you were tempted to roll your eyes at his teasing, the boyish grin he cast you couldn’t be resisted, and the corners of your lips begrudgingly lifted. But a sudden lurch in your belly wiped the smile promptly from your features.

“Oh,” you breathed in a gasp, placing your hands upon the area of assault.

“What? What is it?” Sam questioned worriedly, as he too moved both his hands to your baby bump. His eyes flickered frantically between your face and stomach, trying to read the situation for himself.

“Nothing, just a really strong kick, I think,” was your reply after a pause. You looked up at him with what you hoped was a reassuring smile. He returned it with a certain tinge of apprehension, so you grabbed his hand and placed it where one of your wayward twins was moving erratically within you.

No matter how many times Sam felt it, he couldn’t help but beam with pride and elation at the thought of his children growing stronger each day, and the fact that you were the one fostering their development made him truly believe he was the luckiest man alive in that moment.

“Wow, I guess they’re really ready to come out, huh?”

“Maybe,” you mused, “Or maybe they’ll choose to torture me for another week. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

Still fondling your belly with one hand, Sam used his other to turn your face towards his. “I am really sorry that you’re hurting. I wish I could make it stop.” He said it with such sincerity, you were almost inclined to forgive him. Almost.

“I would say ‘it’s not your fault’, but it kinda is,” came your playful response, which happily earned you a loving kiss.

When his lips left yours, you continued, “Also, as if the fact that two of your swimmers managed to make it to my eggs wasn’t enough, did you really have to make both of them Winchester-sized too?” You motioned vaguely to the wide expanse of your front side.

Sam said nothing, but rewarded you with a hearty laugh and a second kiss.

Later that day, as you sat snuggled between Sam’s lengthy and outstretched limbs on the bed, the two of you absent-mindedly watched an old classic movie play out on the television. His lips grazed your hairline every few minutes and his hands rubbed incessant circles on your extended stomach.

“How do you know our babies will be beautiful?” You questioned Sam abruptly, your eyes never leaving the screen.

His chest rumbled with a deep chortle that resonated through your back and caused you to smile in turn. “Well, they’ve got you for a mother, don’t they?”

“Psh! You forgot to mention that they’ve also got a father who looks like he was sculpted by the Greek gods! But that’s not the point; genetics is based on chance.” You craned your neck to look him in the eyes.

“Fine. I just have a feeling then, OK?” Sam shut you up with a quick kiss to the lips and you of course assented.

“Do you still think they’re going to be girls?”

“I hope so,” he replied with a pensive smile.

You studied his elegant features for a minute before feeling a smirk form on your own face. “Well too bad, they’re both boys.”

“What? How do you know?” Sam’s brow furrowed in that way you always thought made him look unbelievably adorable, especially for a man of his stature.

“I just have a feeling, OK?” You quoted back at him. “They call it mother’s intuition.”

Sam’s grin returned and you couldn’t remember feeling better in the past month. Dean hadn’t disturbed you all day since the incident in the kitchen, and the support of Sam’s solid torso pressed against your back seemed to be alleviating some of the strain from your body.

But alas, nothing is ever what it seems when you’re living with the Winchesters. A sudden splash of fluid upon the sheets interrupted your scarce and apparently fleeting moment of peace.

It took you a moment to register the wetness between your legs, although Sam was already one step ahead of you. “DEAN!” he hollered towards the hall.

“Sam, I think my water just broke,” you told him in a slight trance.

“Yeah, I know, baby. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and changed.” Sam’s voice was soothing and you began to follow his lead, slowly rising to your feet as he supported you from behind.

Just then, Dean came barreling in, brandishing his gun as his eyes searched frantically for any potential sources of peril. His green gaze turned befuddled upon finding no clear cause for distress.

“Dean, go get the Impala ready. Y/N’s in labor.” Sam’s voice held that composed and assertive edge which it often did when he took the lead on hunts. You would have found it awfully attractive under different circumstances.

As it were, a fresh contraction tore through you when you reached the dresser, and you were forced to bend over to weather the impact, your breathing becoming a little uneven. Sam’s arms were instantly around you, while the sight of your hunched and gravid form awoke Dean from his stupor.

He cleared his throat and his voice seemed a little gruffer than usual, “Uh, OK. Right. So… the bags? What do I need?”

“I’ll get the bags. Just get the damn car ready, Dean.”

Still the older Winchester stood transfixed in his spot, his eyes were somewhat unfocused. “Wow. So this is really happening…”

“Dean!”

“Yeah! On it! Got it! Uh… fight the fairies, Y/N! We got this.” And with that, he finally took off for the garage.

You couldn’t help but giggle to yourself, “He’s right, you know? This is really happening.”

Sam turned around and held your gaze with such reverence and fondness, you nearly melted right then. “I know,” he stated simply, before he crashed his lips to yours in a rushed yet zealous smooch.

“Ow! Yeah, OK, I think the twins are sick of our antics already,” you gushed through gritted teeth as another tightening of your middle took over.

Sam cupped your stomach gingerly on either side, as if he could somehow abate the pain with his touch. “Right, let’s hurry it up then. I think all that soreness you felt before and the twins’ heightened movement might’ve been a sign of early labor.”

“You’re such a nerd, you know that?”

He only responded with knowing smirk, then continued to help you get changed so he could usher you out the door.

Dean met you outside, where he stood by the shiny black car, looking a little more prepared for action than earlier. “You guys good?”

“Yeah, are you?” Sam asked, a bit dubiously.

“Hey, I’m ready to get this show on the road!”

“Am I gonna fit?” You eyed the Impala with slight apprehension. You had always been a fan of the classic car before, but now that Sam had fertilized you so thoroughly, the backseat seemed a lot more daunting.

“Of course, my girl can handle anything. She’ll get you to the hospital in no time so that you can have my nieces.”

“Nephews,” you corrected, but nodded anyway and allowed Sam to help you inside the vehicle.

The boys stood outside for a moment longer. “You alright, Sammy?”

Sam was glowing and Dean couldn’t have repressed the surge of love and pride that rose within him if he tried, despite his ‘no chick flick moments’ rule.

“Yeah, I’ve never been better, Dean.”

“Speak for yourself, asshole!” You would later blame the contraction for your foul language, but it was your shouting through the window that ultimately got you on the road.

“Yeah alright, we’re going! Just don’t be having any babies in my Baby!”

“Dean,” Sam’s bitch face revealed itself once more, “Don’t.”

→ CARRY ON

A/N #2: thank you so much for reading! btw, if any of you sam girls wanna show off your love for the giant adorkable moose man, there’s a ‘sammy the moose’ print now available at lexicolor.redbubble.com!

also available in various styles, as well as on mugs, notebooks, phone cases, and a bunch of other stuff! and if you’re more of a dean girl, i got you covered too 😉❤️

[imaginesfordifferentfandoms]

The One I Love, The One I Hate

Click here for my masterlist.

Click here to add yourself to my taglist.

Requested - Yes -  @halesandy​ - Hi! Read all of your works in your masterlist and couldn't stop myself from asking #143 with Jared Padalecki or Sam Winchester. Could you please write it?) Thank you in advance and have a nice day ⭐ Thank you for reading my work, I hope you enjoy this! 

Prompts -  143 - “Didn’t you two used to hate each other?” “Yeah, but now we hold hands and shit!”

You had only been working on the set of Supernatural for a year and whilst you loved it, there were somethings you wished you could change. Like the fact that your character, Violet, was in a relationship with Jared’s character, Sam. During your first season your two characters danced around each other, both finding each other attractive from their first meeting were Sam saved her from a nest of vampires after she was captured by them. Your character was a hunter and quickly joined forces with Sam and Dean.

You sat in your house and read over the scripts that had been sent over, groaning in dismay as you did. The first episode was fairly boring in the way of Violet and Sam’s romance but by episode three you were both to confess your feelings in a life or death situation, only for the awkwardness to start up when you all lived. There were kissing scenes too, quite a lot of them.

Since your first day on set you and Jared did not get along. You clicked straight away with Jensen and became great friends with him, you would have much preferred for your character to be dating Dean but alas things didn’t always work in your favour. It took some time before you and Misha actually became friends, though you two were friendly enough to each other on set but now the two of you hung out together when you weren’t filming. Jared Padalecki, however, was someone you were just about civil with. The same went for him, though he tries to keep up a friendly appearance whenever a camera or fan is around, the two of you hardly speak to each other and if you do it isn’t exactly friendly.

Sometimes you see Jared completely relaxed and at ease, goofing around with the other men on set and can’t help but yearn for that friendship, it would certainly make things a lot easier on set but you never tried to change the dynamic between you.

Shooting this season was going to be great.

-

-

-

“Late on the first day, Y/L/N.” Was the first thing you heard as you practically fell through the hair and makeup trailers door. You let out an annoyed sigh before collapsing into your chair, smiling gratefully at the PA who handed you a drink.

“Bite me, Padalecki.” You shot back before taking a sip of your drink, relaxing ever so slightly.

“Come on now, Y/N. This season is going to be great; I mean what’s better than our romance finally blossoming.” Jared laughed as he watched you roll your eyes.

Besides Jared’s early morning annoyances throughout the duration of your hair and makeup prep, it was actually really great to be back on set and before long you were walking towards the set ready to start shooting.

“Y/N.” You heard someone call and turned around to seeing Jensen jogging towards you.

“Hey!” You greeted him happily, hugging him back as he pulled you into his chest.

“How was your break?” He asked as the two of you continued on your way to set, exchanging stories from your break. Just as you were about to step into the room Jensen placed a hand on your forearm, stopping you in place. You frowned up at him in confusion.

“Listen, I know you and Jared don’t exactly get on,” He started but was cut off by you snorting.

“Understatement.” You laughed.

“I know you don’t get on,” Jensen repeated, rolling his eyes but smiling fondly, “But I just wanted to make sure you were going to be ok this season, you’re going to be working with him more than anyone.”

“I hope you gave him the same talk.” You mumbled. “But I’m a professional, this is my job and I’m not going to let my feelings get in the way of that. Trust me, I’m good.” You reassured him. You knew how many people watched this show, how they could pick up on any real-life tension that managed to sneak into the show. You could push your feelings to the side for them.

“I did give him the same talk, just so you know.” He said as the two of you entered the room.

“Good.” Was all you said before making your way over to the director who called you.

-

-

-

“They don’t know Violet.” Castiel murmured quietly, but in the already silent room he may as well of shouted it. You felt a coldness seep through your bones as you shivered. Sam immediately took notice and rested his hand on top of yours.

The four of you were sat in a diner trying to figure out how to deal with some demons who had information but were not willing to deal with Winchesters any more, no matter what the boys offered in return.

“No way, Cas.” Sam said, squeezing your hand. “It’s not safe.”

“I can deal with demons.” You defended, pulling your hand out from under Sam. “I’ll do it.” You said to Dean instead.

“I know you can deal with demons, Vi, but this is too dangerous. They know you’re important to us and if they have you, well, whatever they want from us they’ll have.” Sam explained, looking at you with those puppy dog eyes.

“The way I see it you have two options. One; send me in, they don’t know me, or two; we sit around with our thumbs up our arse whilst the demons and Lucifer continue on with their plan.” You told them, anger dripping from your tone.

“If Lucifer gets a hold of you, Vi…” Sam began but trailed off with haunted eyes. “It’s a risk we aren’t taking. I’m sorry but there has to be another way.” Sam pleaded as he held your hand again.

“And cut!” The director yelled, “Perfect guys, good job.”

You were quick to pull your hand away from Jared causing him to laugh, he threw his arm behind you to rest on the booth.

“Seriously, if holding my hand is so bad, wait until we kiss.” You rolled your eyes as you left the booth, heading over to the table that held food and bottles of water.

You loved working on Supernatural but sometimes it could be draining.

-

-

-

The first two episodes were wrapped up and it had gone relatively smoothly, a few arguments here and there between Jared and yourself but nothing that wasn’t solved by a small break. However, today was the day were you and Jared were filming your love confession scene and it was already going terribly.

An hour in and twelve takes later you still had no usable footage.

Violet jumped as a hand grabbed hers, whipping round only to relax as she saw Sam in front of her with a blade. She let herself give a quiet sigh of relief as she looked up at the man.

“Vi,” Sam whispered, looking just as bloody and bad as you did, “we can’t get out, we need a plan.”

The two of you surveyed the room, trying to see if there was anything, anything at all, that could get you out of the small, dark room. However, there was little in there, a raggedy blanket, a few empty bottles and some rotten food.

It was hopeless, you were going to die.

“Hey, hey, look at me.” Sam said as he saw your panic, taking your face into his hands. “You’re gonna be ok, we’re gonna get out.”

“Cut!” The director yelled a fifteenth time, causing you to groan and push Jared away. “It’s too stale guys! I know you have your differences but you gotta work together here. Take a break, let’s get Jensen and Misha in here and film them.” The director said to the room before turning to you and Jared again. “Take a break together, see if you can fix this.” He said before walking away.

“He’s right.” Was all you could say, you knew your acting was stoic, no matter how hard you tried there was something about Jared. The same went for Jared, he was a great actor but when it came to you it was terrible.

“I know.” Jared agreed with you, before continuing, “C’mon, we can go to my trailer and work something out.”

-

-

-

You were sitting in Jared’s trailer anxiously tugging on your sleeve as Jared sat next to you silently. The two of you had no idea where to start, not really able to pinpoint exactly when things had gotten so bad that you couldn’t act together.

“I don’t know why you hate me so much,” Jared began but didn’t get very far as you cut him off immediately, eyes wide in shock.

“Seriously?” You asked, voice soft, “You’re the one who was cold towards me, sure we never really clicked but you acted like I wasn’t even onset until the director yelled action. I followed your lead.” You told him truthfully. Sure, you hadn’t gotten along straight away but it was Jared who started the arguments, it was Jared who acted like you didn’t exist.

“That’s not what happened and you know it.” He argued, though there was no heat to his words.

“Yes, it was, I know we didn’t hit it off instantly but you shot down anything chance of us getting along.” You shot back, refusing to look at him and instead stared straight ahead.

“I only started the comments as a way to ease whatever tension was between us. It was meant to be a joke but when it wasn’t taken as one, I just left it but you shot back and then it spiralled.” He sighed, knowing he’d messed up.

“We’re idiots.” You laughed but there was no humour to it.

“We are.” Jared agreed.

The two of you spoke for a little longer, trying to erase a years’ worth of hurtful comments and arguments. It obviously wasn’t going to be solved with one conversation but it was a start. At some point Jared suggested you two rehearsed and so you did, rehearsing until the PA called you back onto set.

-

-

-

You woke up in a dark room, head aching as you tried to look around. You could see nothing of importance in the room and the door was too far away for you whilst your leg was hurt, you were sure you felt blood gushing from it.

You let out a quiet groan, letting your head hit the wall only to let out a hiss of pain as it came into contact. You nearly yelled as you felt something grab your hand, jumping as you tried to pull it back.

“Vi, hey, relax it’s me.” Sam said, his voice soft, barely above a whisper, causing you to relax ever so slightly. “There’s no way out, no windows, locked door.” He informed you causing your panic to flare up but Sam was there straight away, kneeling in front of you and cupping your face into his hand. You couldn’t help but tilt your head into his touch causing him to smile slightly. “We’re going to get out, I promise, you’ll be ok.”

“How?” You croaked; voice hoarse from shouting earlier. “You said it yourself, there’s no way out and they took our weapons. We’re screwed.” You felt Sam’s thumb brushing soothingly against your cheek, causing you to relax despite the panic building up.

The two of you stayed silent as you heard the floorboards creek from outside, holding your breath until the steps passed the door and continued down the hallway.

“What about Cas?” You asked hopefully but frowned as Sam shook his head.

“I’ve tried praying but,” Sam trailed off, glancing around the room to emphasis the lack of angel there.

“So what? We sit here and wait to die?” You snapped as panic coursed through your veins.

“No, we wait for someone to open the door and we fight our way out.” Sam said but he didn’t sound so sure about the plan.

“I don’t know if you noticed but I was stabbed in the leg.” You reminded him causing him to curse and pull his hand away from your face so he could examine your leg. It wasn’t too deep but you had definitely lost a fair bit of blood.

You watched as Sam ripped a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around your wound, frowning as he did so.

You both froze again as you heard the sound of the door being unlocked. A demon in a black suit walking in with a cocky look on his face.

“Let her go!” Sam barked before the demon could open its mouth.

“Temper, temper.” It purred, walking over to the two of you. “But why would we let her go when she’s the one we want?”

“She has nothing to do with this! Lucifer wants me!” Sam positioned himself in front of you protectively and as much as you appreciated it you knew it would do little to hold the demon off if it wanted you.

“Are you going to say yes to him?” It asked, voice full of humour. “Didn’t think so. But because we’re oh so nice, we’ll give you a choice.”

“Oh yeah, bite me.” Sam snapped.

“Ah, ah, now don’t tempt me.” It sang. “Either say yes to Lucifer or we get the girl and she looks delicious.” It said, looking at you and licking its lips as it shivered in pleasure at the thoughts running through its mind.

“You’re not getting her and I’m not saying yes.” The demon just looked pleased as Sam protested.

“Say your goodbyes.” It cackled before leaving the room, smirking at you as it did.

“Sam,” You called, getting his attention, he was immediately facing you. “Let them have me, do not say yes. Promise me Sam!” You begged as tears clouded your vision.

“Vi,” He whispered brokenly, his own tears falling down his face as he looked at you with those puppy dog eyes.

“Promise me, Sam, you have to promise me you won’t say yes.”

“I promise, Vi. I’ll get you back. There’s so many things I wanted to tell you but nothing more than I love you, Violet, so damn much and I’m going to get you back.” He swore, voice hard even as the tears flowed.

“I love you too.” You cried, your own tears falling uncontrollably down your face. “I love you so much, I know you’ll get me but don’t do anything stupid.”

Before Sam could reply there were demons in the room and you were flashed out of the room, getting one last look at the man you loved.

“And cut!” The director yelled and you could hear the grin in his voice. “That was perfect, you two were great, keep up the good work.” He praised before wondering off.

You wiped your eyes from where you sat on the floor before you saw a hand come into view and saw Jared offering it to you. You let the man pull you up and smiled as he brushed away your tears.

“You ok?” He asked, feeling the effects of the scene himself. You nodded at him, smiling softly. “Good. He was right, you know, you were great.”

“Thank you, you weren’t so bad yourself.” You smirked at him, causing him to roll his eyes and smile back at you.

“C’mon, we could both use some water.”

-

-

-

From then on filming the rest of the season was a breeze. Jared and you still argued and picked fights with each other but it was all in good nature now. Being on set was much more enjoyable and your acting had improved greatly now that you actually got along with your scene partner.

However, at some point you realised that maybe you had started getting on too well with Jared as you noticed yourself feeling giddy around him, blushing and just wanting to generally be with him whenever you could. You felt like you were back in high school with a crush. Sometimes you missed the times when you thought you hated the man.

It was getting harder to control too, especially since you had to kiss the man on an almost daily basis, several dozen times a day. God, could that man kiss.

The two of you hung out more together on set, though kept it to yourselves mostly. Sometimes you’d rehearse, sometimes you’d have dinner together and sometimes, like now, you’d find yourself cuddled into his chest as a movie played on the tv in front of you, though you had to admit you weren’t paying much attention to the movie but more so on the hand that absentmindedly played with your hair.

Sometimes it was like Jared knew and he was just playing with you. You knew he wasn’t and that you were just paranoid but between the soft smiles you traded and the peaceful nights spent like this, it was heart-breaking but you knew you wouldn’t put a stop to it. If this was the only way you could have him, then you’d take it.

-

-

-

“Hey, can we talk?” Jared asked as he jogged up to you after a long, draining day of filming. The words filled you with dread but a bigger part of you just wanted to collapse on the nearest bed.

“Sure.” You agreed tiredly, suppressing a yawn, causing Jared to smile softly at you.

“C’mon, my trailer’s closer.” It didn’t take long for the two of you to arrive at Jared’s trailer where he quickly made drinks and the two of you practically fell into the sofa.

“So, what’s up?” You said after a few minutes of sitting silently on the sofa, watching a Jared fidgeted with the mug in his hand.

“Right.” He began, clearing his throat and shifting so he was sitting with one leg crossed underneath him so that he could face you properly. “It’s just that, I mean, we’re getting along with each other now and I guess, well I mean I knew even when we didn’t get along but still…” Jared continued to ramble as you struggled to make sense of his words.

“Jared.” You interrupted softly, “what’s going on?” You asked in confusion, watching as Jared shook his head before taking a deep breath.

“I like you. I have for a while now, even when we didn’t get along. There’s always been something about you and I’m fine if you’d rather just be friends but I thought you should know.” Jared quickly explained, you just about made out the fast-spoken words but once you did you let out a small, shocked laugh that had Jared’s face falling so you quickly explained.

“Wait, no, I like you too!” You exclaimed. “I just thought with all our history that you’d never like me and I’d accepted that. Sorry, I’m just shocked.” You laughed as Jared let out a sigh of relief.

“So, does this mean I can take you out on a date?” He asked with a large smile that was contagious.

“It does.” You grinned and the two of you stayed on the couch talking for most of the night. The two of you agreed just to keep this to yourselves, not wanting to disrupt the cast or the flow of filming if this didn’t work out.

You woke up the next morning with a sore neck, leaning against Jared.

-

-

-

You and Jared had been on several dates and everything was going great. You decided to wait until for a month or two before telling people but that went out of the window when the two of you were in Jared’s trailer one day after shooting.

The two of you only had a few scenes you needed to shoot that day and had gotten everything wrapped in just a few hours, whereas Misha and Jensen had a later start so wouldn’t be done for a few more hours at most. You and Jared had taken that time to go back to his trailer and watch a movie. At some movie watching turned into completely ignoring the screen in favour of making out with each other, losing track of time.

Neither of you heard the knock or the trailer door opening but you did hear Jensen’s voice, as he looked at the two of you with a raised eyebrow.

You and Jared quickly pulled away from each other, putting space between the two of you as you both looked up at Jensen with sheepish smiles.

“Didn’t you two used to hate each other?” He asked but didn’t sound too shocked.  

“Yeah, but now we hold hands and shit!” Jared laughed, causing both you and Jensen to roll your eyes.

“Sure, whatever makes you two happy,” Jensen grinned as he slapped Jared’s shoulder. “There’s a group of us going out, are you two coming?”

The three of you left the trailer and Jared and you decided to just enjoy each other’s company in public too, you were both happy and even if something didn’t end up working out you were professionals.

-

-

-

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Misha laughed into the microphone, “being onset with Jared and Y/N now or when they didn’t get along.”

“Definitely now.” Jensen answered with an eye roll causing you to giggle and lean into Jared, who had an arm wrapped around you. “At least when they hated each other they stormed away from each other, now they’re joined at the hip. I mean look at them.” He continued causing the crowd to erupt into screams and cheers.

You and Jared had been dating for a year, six months in you announced it on social media and now conventions were a lot easier when you didn’t have to pretend you weren’t dating Jared. Still being relatively new to these conventions, it was nice to have Jared with you to sooth any anxiety you got. He was more than happy to find a quiet place and sit with you.

A year into it, your relationship was great, sure you two still argued but it was all done with love. None of those hurtful words that were thrown around when you first met. Sometimes working with your boyfriend was a lot, seeing him all day and then going back to the trailers but you’d both worked through it and now it was great. You had moved in with each other in Texas when you weren’t shooting and you loved living down there.

As you looked at Jared, who was jokingly defending your relationship, you couldn’t help but smile at him. Who would have thought the man you once hated would turn out to be the man you loved?

[estrel]

How do you feel about the storyline between Jack and Dean? Specifically, where it left off.

ass. it was ass. 

they had a perfect opportunity to bring dean’s bigger relationship arc with his father full circle. the constant forgiveness of john and the idolatry of him (like, as a god figure. chuck--you know, the final boss and big bad of the entire series-- was a mirror for john, and it was solidified as such in season 4 with cas and dean both being their father’s little “soldiers” and connecting over that...which is why cas bringing up the “daddy’s blunt instrument” line in his love confession was so huge, because it was an acknowledgement of that...but i digress) even after everything we know he did to dean and sam was wrong and unnecessary.

i just. okay. supernatural’s themes with family are central to the show, and are tackled in a lot of different ways. one of them (i’m thinking season 6, because it’s the one i most recently watched), was acknowledgement that someone might be family/a blood relative, and not be family, despite how much sam and dean might want them to be.

i’m talking about dickwad samuel campbell, here, who sided with crowley that season and was just overall not adamant about sticking on sam and dean’s side. all he wanted was to get mary back--he didn’t care about her sons because he barely knew them. so, in both directions, family wasn’t family. you can even go so far as to bring adam into this, because despite sam and dean being blood family, he chose his mom over them and wasn’t quick to trust them. also they forgot about him after a while which may just be the writers’ faults but alas. 

anyways, i think what i’m trying to say here is that john was treated like family and held in so high a regard because sam and dean grew up with the importance of “family” being hammered into them (by...john himself). dean has this same glorification going on with mary, which amara tried telling him was Wrong when she brought mary back because she’s Just Some Gal. they never gave this same “wrongness” of glorification to john, and in fact brought him back and had sam and dean forgive him despite all the shitty things he put them through/did to them.

they also showed jack beginning to glorify sam and dean (and even cas, in a way) in the show by having him make decisions based on what they would think is “right” and not really by his own volition. dean should have been able to see the pattern, to see the idolatry where it began by seeing himself in jack, here. (feel the need to clarify that this is NOT dean’s fault it’s the writer’s fault for not going into it.) they even mirror dean with jack multiple times quite heavily, so this is not a crazy comparison to make. 

dean has also expressed with ben that he doesn’t want to be john. before bringing john back in Lebanon, he admitted to himself and other’s that he didn’t deserve what john put him through. dean...dean would 100% try to fix his parenting methods to be Better, not only because he learned from john but because he learned from how he acted with ben. and krissy. and claire. and i could name like 10 other kids at this point but i’m not going to because you get the point.

in character dean winchester also wouldn’t have said it was okay for jack to die for them. this was influenced by chuck, surely (haha), but that they would put this in the show and then not give a real apology or redemption arc for this was...Not Good. i like to think that dean would be more understanding of jack and more forgiving, like... i LIKED that he baked jack a cake for his birthday, but i would have expected more than just that. cakes are almost...bribery? like when my parents want me to forgive them for something, they buy me something and never actually fully apologize. this felt almost to that caliber, except . DEAN WOULD HAVE TRIED HARDER. 

he is good with kids. canonically. he thinks his dad was a bad parent, canonically. he wanted to fix this in himself, canonically. ergo, dean and jack’s relationship should have foiled dean’s relationship with john, but it didn’t. so, i reiterate:

ass. it was ass. 

[starshipsofstarlord]

Growing Pains | TFW

Request:  Hey! Can I please request a platonic x reader with team free will 2.0? The reader gets turned back to a toddler by a witch and they try to ask Rowena for help but, the spell lasts for a week and it's just plain chaotic. The reader is extremely clumsy and hungry but knows a few words like "Hungry" and "Thirsty". The rest is up to you 😊. Thanks in advance!

A/N: It is a little different from the request, so I hope you don’t mind, also it’s not great. And I’m terribly sorry for the wait, I hope you can understand why xxx

Walking around the lab, you screwed your face up at the mess. It was like toddler’s had been let loose in the room, there was glass broken upon the floor, paper thrown out of the shredder, and worst of all, no one to condemn for the death of the scientist.

Sighing, you shut your eyes, leaning back into one of the counters. “So, the guy that was killed had like a dozen or so kids and we can’t find a single one of them, or the mother?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose as Cas circled the room once more, seeing if he could find anything that your human eyes had missed. But alas, there was no ultimatum, nothing that could direct the pair of you to answers.

“That sounds about right.” Dean’s gruff voice came from the doorway, stepping on shards of glass as he came closer to the two of you. “Although at this time, I am calling shots on the mom being the killer.”

“We don’t even know if this is up our alley Dean.” You sighed, opening your eyes and looking at the older hunter. “Did you get anything from the co-workers?” 

“Not a peep.” His tone was almost too cheerful, especially considering the circumstances. The group of you were nowhere near completing this case, and all he could think about was the burger joint around the corner. You were close enough to it, that you would give in and accompany him. “Who’s hungry?”

“After the sight of the guts strung in the ceiling fan,” you looked up to emphasise your point, “I think I may have lost what appetite that I had left.”

“Bad luck. You snooze, you lose.” With that he left the room, presumably heading off to stuff his face. It was impossible not to roll your eyes at his childish behaviour, although in all fairness, you should have been used to it by now. However your dear angel friend remained with you. 

“We should meet with Sam and Jack, and see if they have found anything in the house.” Castiel spoke, confused by the lack of evidence in this death. There was nothing that could have helped, even the majority of the man’s body was gone.

“Why would someone have that many children?” It was a rhetorical question, but just the thought of your body going through it’s natural process that many times made you shiver.

“To repopulate.” Cas put simply, although that was a straightforward fact. But that was not what you had meant, admittedly you had a soft spot for kids, even missed being one sometimes.

“I know, but doesn’t that seem sort of strange to you?” Your mind was spinning with all sorts of possibilities, of what could and couldn’t be going on. Unless, well... “It could be like some sort of supernatural litter, or they’re breeding test subjects. Is there even any record of them having that many children?”

Your conclusions made your friend frown, and he pointed his finger up, unintentionally pointing to the tendril of flesh that was hanging from the fan above.

“We should check the records.” And with that he grabbed your bag from just outside of the room, pulling your laptop from out of it. Just then, your phone began ringing. It was Sam, and so you answered.

“Hey, you find anything?” There was silence on the other end, until you heard the shrill sound of what you supposed to be a child.

“Was that Jack or -” 

“Hey!” The nephilim retorted. You could already picture the child like frown on his face, but before either of you could bicker about your comparison, the Winchester on call spoke first.

“She left one of her kids, and we found hex bags.” He breathed, relieved that this did in fact involve what you all were guessing to be a witch, yet also frustrated about how messy this all was. “But the thing is, this son of hers was closed in the basement, and the only thing down there for him to eat down there was a man’s leg...”

“We should get that tested, it could be the father.” You said, trying to think about this case adjoined with all of its new revelations. “So, what is her goal here, she’s trying to turn her own children into cannibals?”

“That’s how the ‘myth’ of the wendigo started in human folklore.” Jack commented, before he frowned. Him and Sam both let out shouts, making you fear for the pair. 

“Sam?”

“She doesn’t have any children, nor did he.” Cas spoke, the content on the screen disarranging this entire predicament further. “What just happened Sam?”

His breathing could still be heard from the other end of the line. It seemed like he was in shock of some sort.

“You’ve got that right, Cas.” He breathed, referring to the fact that she had no spawn. “And I suspect the others are like him. He’s just turned into a grown man, we’re going to attempt to get an answer to who he is. Be careful if you encounter Mrs Fletcher, both of you.”

So, now you had a presumed answer on how Mr Fletcher had died, you had to tell Dean. Quickly, you and Cas left the scene, looking for the elder Winchester, remembering to take any of your items with you.

“Thankyou.” You nodded, doing all of the talking to any police whilst Cas held your phone at an arm’s length. “Got any clues on where our witch works?” You asked him.

Sam replied soon, making the matter of reaching Dean that more prominant. “West Street, not far from where you are. At the burger joint, Paula’s.”

“Shit!”

-

When you and Castiel arrived, Dean Winchester was nowhere to be found. That fact had you deeply concerned, more so than you would usually be on a hunt. This presumed witch was targeting adults, and not only did he and the majority of you fit the agenda, but you didn’t want to know what would happen if you ended up disturbing her crosshairs.

There was no one inside, excluding yourself and the angel. It was eerie, almost too quiet to be owned by a witch. Scratch that, definitely too quiet.

“Behind the counter.” You nodded towards the door, taking the lead first, lightly pushing it. The bell atop of it jingled, making you blink hazily, before all turned to a deep gaze of pixels.

Castiel walked closer to you, tapping your forehead, but to no avail was your state resolved. Instead, you felt the need to collapse and keep your eyes contained behind their lids. And so you gave into that feeling, only hearing the voices of Sam and Jack before it was over.

-

When you awoke, you were in your bed in the bunker, but it felt much larger than it ever had before. There was so much room to move upon the mattress, the duvet even felt bigger.

As you looked down at your hands, you realised they had shrunk significantly. For all you were aware, this could all have been a very lucid dream, but you doubted that. As a hunter, the strange things were never false, they were real.

Attempting to leave your bed, you dropped your legs over the side, although they were now incapable of touching the floor. Instead of landing upright, you fell, causing a thud against the floor.

The sound had obviously rendered, and it removed all thoughts that were rattling around in your mind. Memories flashed before your eyes, sending a haze of dizziness to your shrunken body, until they all left, making you aloof in your own adult room.

Dean rushed out of his own reside as he heard the thud. He had followed the witch around the back and shanked her, but there had been a second plan up her long black sleeves. And he should have known, as he walked into your room, only to find a little girl with a strong resemblance to you.

This was her charade when alive, and the issue still stuck even now even when she was dead. Dean rubbed his face, feeling the muscles that were tensing beneath the skin. And now they were left with the outcome that they and you had tried to resolve.

Looking down at your youthful silhouette reminded Dean as to exactly why he hated witches so much. They were deceitful and cruel, and unfortunately so much more. “Sam!” He called out in a hurry, cradling your small, whining body in his arms.

You tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but your once fellow hunter would not allow you to do so. There was no logic turning in the cogs of your mind, instead, you were much rather shy to someone that you were viewing as a stranger.

In a flash, Sam was at the threshold of your door, looking in as it was ajar. He saw Dean with a kid, and there was only one explanation for it. They had been hustled whilst the witch turned in her grave...

-

Cas examined a book in the war room, whilst Jack followed his actions. Sam was on the phone with Rowena, asking, some would see it as begging, the witch to come and fix you up. And thus, Dean was left with you, whilst he nursed a beer in his opposite hand.

You tried to reach the glass bottle, but Dean jerked it away from your grasp. “No.” He warned you, having continuously done so before when you were too lazy to fetch your own from the fridge. But that didn’t stop you, instead it humoured you, making you laugh at the perceived game.

“Stop it.” He spoke again, making Jack laugh at your stubbornness which clearly hadn’t changed. For once, it was nice for him not to be the youngest in the room, even though technically he still wasn’t. But all got distracted when Sam huffed a sigh of relief over the phone.

“Okay, great. Me and Dean will meet you there.” And then he hung up.

-

Rather than being in Dean’s arms once again, you had been traded to Sam’s as the eldest drove Baby to the destination that Rowena had proposed. “Thirsty.” You mumbled, a gurgle following your very short sentence.

Sam looked at Dean, who only shrugged. He was unsure of what to do, they couldn’t stop at a gas station, otherwise they would miss their meeting with Rowena, and as they knew far too well, she was a tricky one to get a hold of.

“No you’re not.” Dean told you, trying to convince your mind otherwise to its actual thoughts. For the moment of which you were silent, he thought it may have worked, however the peace was not eternal, for you spoke again.

“Hungry.” You managed to speak next, making Dean huff from exhaustion. He thought of your need for a drink, and then it clicked, he tipped his head back at Sam.

“There’s a beer in the back.” It possibly could have rolled under his seat, these roads to the witch were bumpy. Sam gasped at the statement, placing his hand on your back as he bounced you and kept you distracted from your desires.

“Please tell me that you’re not serious.” At this point, Sam would not be surprised with his brother. Quite clearly, as much as the man adored kids, he was getting quite fed up with you in this state. It was day in, day out and yet the effects still hadn’t worn themselves out.

“She’s technically of legal drinking age.” He shrugged, remembering all of the times that you would steal his beer from the fridge, or even sometimes his hands.

“Technically,” the younger of the two pried, glaring at his brother, “currently she isn’t,”

“We’re here anyway.” Dean cut the conversation short, putting the car in park. For the first time in his life, the hunter and legacy was eager to see Rowena. Never did he think that day would ever come, but somehow your obliviousness had landed you all here, and he hated it.

Sam got out of the car, carrying you to a bench that Dean had decided to park his own rear on. There was a nice breeze whipping his hair before his face, and this younger you mirrored the reaction the elder one would have had.

You laughed, watching the swarm of locks cover his face, and move to the other side, with the swiftest and slightest motions as the direction switched itself up. 

Footsteps, clearly heels, could be heard clicking their way over. It was isolated in this park, presumably the redhead’s doing as she came into view with an amused grin stretching her chin.

“Well, if I was not already quite acquainted with the pair of you, I would presume the two of you were fathers to dear little (Y/N).” Rowena bent forward, ignoring the glares she received from the men, ogling at your youthful expressions. “Are you sure that you don’t want to keep her like this? She is quite adorable when she hasn’t got the brains to work with my son when the two of you dimwits think it fits into your narrative. Or hold a gun to the back of my neck and blackmail me with my own security.”

“Definitely.” Was Dean’s instant response. He could not do another day with baby you, he’d start going grey, or his eyes would turn black all of a sudden from pent up rage.

“Yes, Rowena.” Sam answered, bowing his head, as your fingers decided to thread themselves through his hair.

“Shame.” She pouted briefly, before waving her hand, and then you were, dazed, but sat in Sam’s lap, full size. As soon as you came to, your eyes widened at the position you were in, and you were quick to launch yourself out of it. He however sat there stunned. “Told you we should have called her earlier.” Sam said, still feeling awkward from your exchange, and Dean only grunted in a reply.

Dean knew for sure though, you had been a pain in the ass. If it ever happened again, he would just leave you with Jack and Cas.

[s11e17]

thesis 5 is THE sam fic i think about it all the time. 7 and 21 for that one?

WAHHH thank u anon!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 and thank u for the ask!!

7: Were there any ideas you had for [Thesis 5] that you couldn’t make work? What were they?

Thesis 5 was originally going to have a young!Sam pov conversation outside the bunker in addition to the conversation that's in the final fic, but I couldn't really make it work without being repetitive. I scrapped that conversation and took pieces of it to fit into young!Sam's inner monologue in the Castiel section of the fic or into the old!Sam pov conversation outside the bunker. Here are some excerpts that didn't make it into the final draft:

Christ. Sam heads out the garage door for some air. Fuck Kansas. Fuck Kansas and its shitty gray springtime skies. He drinks his coffee and looks out at the field next to the bunker and thinks about taking a bus. He misses public transit. He misses fucking going to a cafe and doing readings on his laptop. He misses his life. After all those years— after all those years of Dad pushing them around, and doing God knows what to Dean when he thought Sam wasn’t looking, and putting a gun in Sam’s hand and telling him where and when to shoot— he’d gotten out.

Sam drinks his coffee. The warmth doesn’t do a damn thing for him. Fuck. He thought he was free.

“Hey.” It’s the guy who’s supposed to be him in fifteen years. Sam turns around.

He’s not much taller than Sam, maybe only an inch or two. But he looks so different. His haircut’s shitty, first off. And he’s kinda— he’s broader than Sam is now. He looks like he put on a ton of muscle and then lost it, and it left him wiry and mean.

Sam… Sam hates him.

“Mornin’,” Sam mutters, turning back to the road.

The guy shifts in his peripheral, and then steps forward, closer to Sam’s line of sight. “How— how— how’re you, how’re you holdin’ up?”

His stupid fucking stutter. Sam doesn’t talk like that. He gets it, this guy’s probably been through some shit, but— fuck, Sam can’t fucking look at the guy. “Fine.” And then, ‘cause he’s not an asshole, “what about you?”

and the original ending (which was just sam and dean, no castiel) was a lot sadder than what came out in the final draft:

Dean finds him in the library when it’s finished. Sam doesn’t feel safe enough to go outside.

“Been lookin’ for the kid,” Dean says, “you see him?”

“He’s gone.” Sam looks at his brother. His brother who raised him, who told him to tie his shoes and who picked him up from the one ill-advised high school party he went to and who ruffled Sam’s hair with bruised knuckles. His brother, who held his hand over Sam’s mouth and put evil inside him because he didn’t know how to live with the hurt of Sam’s absence. Sam sees the long history of a Winchester’s fear in his brother, and he hates him and he loves him for it.

“Well.” Dean clears his throat. He blinks. “Jeez. I— I mean, if I had to pick, I’m—”

“I would’ve picked him.” Sam looks at him, and Dean looks back. They both know each other, now, after Hell. “If we could’ve picked. We both would’ve picked him.”

Dean shakes his head. “No, I’m— Jesus, you think I wanted you gone? You really think I’d rather have—”

“But it’s not about you, is it.”

Dean sighs. “Fuck.” He stands there for a second, deciding, and then he sits down across the table from Sam. “That was a mind fuck.”

Sam nods. He thinks about that kid. Thinks about him alone under the sky. He wouldn’t have lasted a day in this world, but he could’ve— he could’ve tried. That kid could’ve tried to put pieces of a life together, could’ve got a new name. He’d been hankering for one anyway. Could’ve split from his past and— he couldn’t have become a lawyer, but he could’ve done something good. Maybe.

“‘Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence,’” Sam recites, thinking of it.

They both know their Bible, after all these years. Sam looks at him, and Dean frowns. “Ezekiel?”

“It seems fitting, doesn’t it?” Sam looks at his hands. “A prophet, who becomes the Lord’s watchman and sword. Eating of God and laying waste to his people.”

“Jesus.”

“I hadn’t read the Bible back then.” Sam laughs, suddenly. “I prayed every fucking day, and I hadn’t even read the fucking Bible. I didn’t realize that the first time I read it straight through was— was for the apocalypse. I guess I thought I’d already done it.”

Dean looks at him, confused. “When the hell would you have had time to do that?”

“I don’t know, I just— feels like it’s always, I’ve always been. You know.”

“Hm.” Dean tries, “You know, uh. Fuck, Sam. You— you know I’m glad you’re here.” Then he laughs. “But shit, he was a fuckin’ riot, sometimes. I’m sad he’s gone.”

That kid. That kid who looked at him strange and unpracticed, unused to being on display, as if Dean’s eyes scanning over him was the only touch he knew.

“Hope he’s okay, wherever he is,” Dean says.

Sam shrugs. “He wasn’t real,” he figures. In this world, less real than the Cage, even crueler than Sam’s old faithful, his truthteller, his lightbringer, his Lucifer, that kid was a dream. He never had a chance.

anyway yeah, those are some bits from the first draft which didn't end up working!!

21: If you were a character in [Thesis 5] where would you fit in?

Oh wrow what a question!! I think I would be Cas, or I would be the person who sold Dean a salmon sushirrito. Unless this question is asking where ME aka tumblr user s11e17 would fit into the fic, in which case unfortunately the fic would simply have to become a meta fic where sam learns he has spent his life on display being a puppet for others

[mittensmorgul]

Hello! (goodbye stranger anon is the note taking anon!)

I knew the episode opened with the warehouse full of dead deans, but it really strikes a somber note to enter on. Especially after watching dean's prayer from last episode right beforehand. The sheer fact that its just dean. Only dean. They chose that.

This ep felt a lot like how s6 should have gone--showing what cas was wrestling with all season while interacting with the boys. That wasn't how they wanted to portray him then, but it certainly paints him in an empathetic light here. I felt so sad for him. It was nice to see meg and crowley after so long. Meg doesnt get to stay, but she does have some heartfelt and badass moments before she died. I believe this is a real death for her? I wish they had lingered on it longer, because she was a good character, but alas. Such is the run of a spn character.

There were some good brother moments too--sam calling out dean on calling cas, their banter at the beginning of the episode. And meg and sam were entertaining, even if i was far more focussed on the two others currently in the crypt.

The escalation inside made sense. Both of them dancing around the topic, not wanting to be the one to break the delicate relationship they've rebuilt since 6x20. Dean knows cas isnt being honest, and he's been burned by cas before, but he doesnt want to be the one to ruin things between them. Whereas cas doesnt want to do this. Every fiber of his being is fighting back--its heartwrenching. Its brilliantly acted, and far too stunning aesthetically for being a dusty crypt.

It hurts every time sam asks dean what happened after a situation with cas, because he never does it in 15x19 or 20, when its clearly established he would.

Really good episode. Well paced, well shot, well acted. I'm looking forward to the s8 finale because ive heard its great!

Hi there, and thank you for this! I love hearing how others react to episodes, especially Big Emotional Ones like this!

And yeah, Dean has been concerned and suspicious of Cas for a lot of the season, and even Cas had no idea he was being controlled until something "broke the connection" enough for him to realize what was real and what was manipulation.

I also always find it a fascinating parallel between Cas "following orders" in 8.10 and without even hesitating killing Samandriel on command, a being that Cas had known his entire existence, another angel he KNEW did not deserve to die, who even tried to "tell Cas the truth" about Naomi and how she was controlling them before Naomi ordered him silenced (the way she ordered the demon Cas was interrogating silenced later in 8.17 before she could reveal the actual mission for the Angel Tablet Cas was on).

This "mission before the life of anyone and everything else" that was completely drilled into Cas (literally!), to the point that Naomi knew that Cas (still traumatized and guilty over how many angels he killed back in s6) would not hesitate to kill anyone else other than Dean Winchester, who needed a whole separate training exercise to instill the ability to murder this single human being into Cas, and it still failed. Like... there's something WAY more powerful than literal brainwashing out there. And it's how Cas feels about Dean.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

As for 8.23, I think I like about 3/4 of it lol... the last bit just leaves me wanting to chew glass :'D

[castielsbeeslippers]

Crystallo Alas

Written for Destiel Secret Santa 2020

@destielsecretsanta2020

Here is my gift for : @arcticfox007

I hope you enjoy it !!!! I really tried hard to put love into it! 😌💕💕💕💕💕🐝 I apologize for any typos of mistakes !! I’ll probably still be checking through it to make sure it’s okay!!!

Read the rest on A03 ❤️

Summary :After being married for three years finally Dean Winchester and Castiel Winchester are able to take a long awaited vacation for Christmas after Castiel wins a all expenses paid trip to a small mountain town.

Post!Cannon , slight Au, Angel!Cas , Wing!fic , Established relationship , fluff ✨

Chapter one : Alas

The new house is warm in compared to the frigid temperature outside.

It had only been a year since the move to their new home in Lebanon, Kansas it was a quaint little home but it had everything they wanted.

A beautiful wrap around porch a spacious backyard for their dogs Miracle and Ramble as well as a beautiful area for Cas to garden and care for his bee’s in the summer.

It was another quiet evening at home the dim lights illuminate and dance upon Dean and Castiel’s faces. They lay in a perfectly tangled mess, cradled in each other's arms.

Cas gently lulls his head into Dean’s chest melting into the rising and fall of his husbands breathing. He’s hardly watching the old VHS anymore. Cas had watched it a million times over, practically being able to quote the whole thing line for cheesy line.

He was more focused on the comfort of Deans skin against his own, the sensation of his eyes get heavy. He found himself sighing, allowing his wings to softly unfold themselves, draping them against Dean's body like comfort blanket, keeping him safe and warm.

Dean hums and runs his fingers though Castiel’s beautiful feathers.

“You gettin’ sleepy Cas?” He said sounding half asleep himself.

“No I’m just comfortable Dean.” Castiel pecked a small kiss on his husbands jaw.

“Good , good the best part is coming up.” Dean said smiling down at Cas.

Castiel’s phone suddenly lit up from the coffee table - 1 new message!-

Castiel grumbled who was sending him a message at this hour?

“You want me to grab that for you?” Dean asked sounding amused.

“If you could , I doubt it’s important.” Cas said lazily lifting his head and grabbing ahold of his phone from Dean.

“Thank you Dean.” Cas said sweetly before looking at his cell so he could read the new message.

———————————————-

-Congratulations! You won! -

You’ve won our all expenses paid trip to Vermont for two!

-click the link for more info-

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Castiel stopped reading he was in shock.

Only a few months ago at a grocery store a young cashier told him about an raffle they were doing for a couples vacation and he never thought anything would come of it but here it was.

Castiel sat up in all his surprise.

“Uh Cas you alright?” Dean said watching Cas’s blue eyes burning a hole through his phone screen all slack jawed.

“I’ve won a prize , but I don’t think it’s wise to keep it.” Castiel said deflating slightly letting his wings droop down.

“What’s that suppose to mean?” Dean propped himself up against the couch.

Castiel explained how he had been entered and how he now recived the message he had won.

“But.... Its in Vermont , I don’t know if we should go I mean the weather isn’t the best.”

“Bull Cas.” He spat out sounding a little more angry then he intended.

He put his hand in his husbands knee.

“Listen Cas , he haven’t had one real vacation since we moved , since we got married , since like ever.”

“Dean.” Castiel weakly protested.

“It’s a days drive if conditions permit...”

“Too bad....you can’t just use these beauties.” Dean said petting Cas’s wings softly.

Cas’s wing reacted to Dean touch moving outward.

“But seriously Cas , you know I’ve driven worse ” He smirked softly.

“If , you promise to actually let me take over driving when you get tried.” Cas said expecting Dean to resist.

“You think you can’t drive Baby?” He chuckled.

“Remember when that vamp hunt went to hell?” He swallowed hard.

“And I was losing all that blood , fadin’ in and out of consciousness.”

Dean mouth went dry.

“Well I remember bits and pieces at least

... and I remember flashes of you drivin’ me to the hospital mostly keeping those baby blues on the road all while telling me to hang on.” Dean’s voice a whisper now.

“So yeah Cas... I think I can let my husband drive my baby.” He grinned.

Cas drew his lover close enveloping him into his arms and safely in a cocoon of his graceful wings.

“I’ll drive safer this time.” Cas said in a soothing tone pulling him into a slow kiss.

The two eventually found themselves lazily making their way upstairs and into bed where the puppies were already fast asleep.

Dean wanted to make sure they were fully rested for the trip ahead of them.

Castiel’s oil sleek wings twitched in his sleep as Dean’s eyes traced their form.

These moments were so special to him.... quiet , perfect when Cas was completely at peace in a soft dream.

Dean stretched out and yawned.

“Good night Cas.” He whispered as he tucked himself under the blankets and feathers.

-4:30 am -

Morning crept up on them , the soft dawn light coming in from behind the certainty.

Dean had already quietly crept down the stairs his two dogs in tow.

Turning to them he bent down and hugged Ramble and Miracle close.

“Called Sammy, he’s going to check in on you two , be good.” He chucked ruffling their fur in each of this hands. He was going to miss these rascals.

He didn’t want to wake his sleeping angel just yet , he wanted to pack and make coffee and breakfast to go for them as a sweet gesture.

Dean was half way through scrambling the eggs when Cas rolled out of bed still sporting only his boxers and came downstairs.

“Mornin’” Dean called hearing the wood creak under Castiel’s steps from behind him.

“Made coffee , some eggs.” Dean hummed.

“Figured we could eat up before leaving around 6 , whatcha think sunshine?” He said finally turning to meet Cas’ hooded blue eyes still.

“Thank you love.” He mumbled groggily as he shuffled over and pushed his face into the crook Dean’s neck his stubble tickling Dean slightly.

Dean leaned his body into his angel.

“Some’ bacon?” He muttered.

“Please.” Castiel said seemingly not taking about bacon his tone too .

Dean chuckled a warmth creeping unto his cheeks.

“M’ cookin Cas.” Dean said putting down his spatula and turning to his husband his hands finding they’re way up to his face. His thumb strumming against the stubble.

Castiel kissed him softly his eyes fluttering closed.

Mornings like this were the real heaven.

Breakfast was delicious and filling.

The coffee finally jolting Cas more awake than he had been previously.

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Dean bundled up his husband. Wrapping him into a scarf and placing a beanie on his tussled black hair.

“It’ll be cold.” Dean said still adjusting the beanie.

“Thank you love ...” Castiel said eyeing Dean’s pink lips.

Castiel didn’t feel babied in these moments now a days , he appreciated Dean’s careful attention to Cas’ comfort and his protective habits.

They walked out to the Impala that was parked in the garage sheltering it from the elements.

“I’m so ready for this vacation.” Dean said as he hopped in.

“I am too.” Cas hummed back to him.