Real Midwest Emo

When you started at Stanford University, you weren’t expecting anything special. 

Sure, you were excited. Ecstatic, actually. Hell, you worked your ass off for four years, and maintained a weighted 4.0 GPA, just for this. So when you received your acceptance, you were over the moon.

But you’re smart. You kept your expectations low. Spent the first few weeks entirely focused on learning the campus. Made sure you knew all the best study spots. Memorized what to and what not to eat in the meal hall.

By week two, you could navigate to your classes so well, you could do it blindfolded. 

So, needless to say, when you’re so zeroed in on being the perfect student, making friends doesn’t come easy. Or, it didn’t, at first. 

But then he came along. 

The first time you ran into him, you were rushing out of your dorm, because you were ten minutes behind schedule. Well. Your own, personal, made up schedule… so technically, you were late for absolutely nothing. But that’s not how it felt. 

You’d been running to the elevator, since you lived on the ninth floor, absolutely determined to get to the library to study by six o’clock sharp (which, unfortunately for you, was in three minutes). 

That’s when you heard a yell. A deep, masculine voice, calling out for you to stop the doors before they could close. You didn’t.

Which, hey, maybe that’s rude. But you weren’t exactly in the mood to be holding doors for people (you could’ve), not when you were late (you weren’t).

It takes all of four seconds for you to realize your mistake, though, because he makes it into the elevator anyway. Oops.

When he slips inside the small space, the first thing you think is holy shit he’s tall. Like, at least six-foot-two, well over. No wonder he made it, with those legs. 

You make a point of not looking him in the eye, after you’ve just very rudely blatantly ignored him. But he doesn’t kick up a fuss. He doesn’t say anything, actually, which is almost worse than being pissed. Just breathes quickly from his little sprint, and nods at you when he leaves. Huh.

You thought that would be the end of it. Stanford is a big school, after all. But, because you have the worst (best?) luck in all of history, it wasn’t. 

You start to run into him. A lot. He’s kind of hard to miss, being massive and all (and gorgeous), so you notice. You meet him a couple times in that same elevator. A handful of times in your meal hall. Once or twice in the library. After a week, you’re almost sure that you’re being stalked—until you realize he just lives in the same dorm building as you. 

One day, a day that you were not late, and you were standing in the elevator, you saw him. He was walking towards you, or, more likely, the elevator. He didn’t call out, or run. But this time, you held the door. He smiled. 

And fucking Christ, he had a beautiful smile.

It’s that day that you learn that his name is Sam. He’s from Kansas, but his family moved around. A lot. He’s in his first year, just like you, but he’s studying pre-law. He likes to read. Doesn’t really party, but he’s not opposed to a fun night every once in a while. He hates Halloween (damn psychopath). Oh, and he’s six-foot-four. You were close. 

Somehow, despite your absolutely terrible first impression (which you have apologized about. A lot), you and Sam become friends. And then best friends. Until by the beginning of your third year, the two of you are practically attached at the hip. 

He knows everything about you, and you know everything about him. You study together. You grab breakfast, lunch, and, occasionally, dinner together. He knows your coffee order. He knows what shampoo you use. He knows that you crack your knuckles when you’re nervous, and grind your teeth when you’re focused. Hell, he knows everything down to your favourite pair of socks: the fuzzy ones with dogs on them, that you wear every time the two of you curl up in his dorm to watch a movie. 

Which, actually, is your plan for the night. 

You show up at Sam’s dorm at exactly ten o’clock, decked out in fluffy candy cane patterned pajama pants, because c’mon, it’s finally December, along with a black tank top. (Oh, and your socks. Always your socks.)

The halls are quiet. The only sound is the radiator buzzing at the end of the hall, the shuffling of your slippers on the carpet floor, and the crinkle of your chip bag as you manoeuvre the handful of items you’re carrying to knock on his door. 

He’s swinging the door open before you get the chance, though. Smiling down at you with those sweet puppy-dog-eyes, messy bangs falling over his forehead. He’s just as ready as you are, plaid pajama pants low on his hips, and some loose t-shirt. Well. It would be loose, if it wasn’t for Sam being fucking ripped.

Not that you’re paying attention to that, or anything. 

“Hey,” you greet, pushing past him before he can even invite you in, like you own the damn place. Because at this point? It’s yours as much as it is his. 

“Hope you’ve picked a movie already, because I really don’t want to watch you scroll through the menu for thirty minutes.”

Sam steps aside, watching you with an amused smirk on his face, an unlit joint slotted between his fingers. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Your Highness,” he teases, nudging the door closed with his sock-covered foot. “Didn’t realize we were on a strict movie-watching schedule tonight.”

You make your way to his bed, dumping your collection of snacks onto his bedside table, Snickers, Jolly Ranchers, and M&M’s, before settling onto the pillows. You pry open the bag of chips you snagged without a word, but you roll your eyes at his teasing. 

Sam watches you with a look on his face that’s a little hard to decipher. Mock annoyance, yes. But there’s more. Something almost fond, that makes your heart skip a beat.

He follows after you a moment later, though, flopping down on the bed next to you, long limbs stretched along the length of the mattress. “But for your information,” he adds, pointing at you with that joint like it’s his finger, “I have picked one. A classic. The Thing.”

Oh, of course. Of course he chooses that one, again, like the two of you haven’t seen it more times than you can count.

Deep down, you know why. He does exactly this, every time it’s his turn to pick a movie. Picks something you’ve both already seen. So that way, when you inevitably start rambling about something stupid, he doesn’t have to pause or rewind. He can just listen. Because he’s sweet like that.

You don’t comment on it, though. You just hum at his words, and pop a chip into your mouth. 

There’s a fleeting moment where he just studies you. The way you made yourself at home. The way you look so at ease, relaxed. He even glances down at your socks for a moment, and you swear his expression changes again. Full of affection. Affection that only comes from seeing something that’s so you. 

But then his eyes flicker back to your face, and he laughs, watching you stuffing a handful of chips into your mouth without any shame. 

“…Sun Chips? Really? After last time? You said those were the reason that rat found my dorm—”

You cut him off by smushing your hand against his mouth, and his brows pinch together, nose scrunching up in such an adorable way that your face warms up just a little. Somehow, though, you manage to keep a straight face.

“Don’t talk about that rat, Winchester, or I’ll kick your ass.”

An empty threat? Probably. But you still grimace at the memory. Stanford may be a nice school, but the dorms are old. And apparently, not rat proof. 

He peels your hand off his face, acting like it takes a lot more effort than it really does (because, c’mon. You’ve seen those biceps), before he’s speaking again.

“Fine, no rat talk,” he agrees, showing you his palms in mock surrender. But because he thinks he’s hilarious, and because he’s an ass, he continues. “Though, for the record, you screamed. I calmly assessed the sit—”

You cut him off by jamming your elbow into his ribs, which makes him yelp, before breaking out in a laughing fit that is way too boyish for a massive twenty year old man. And way too cute.

He does it on purpose, really. Riling you up so you shove him, pinch him, flick his forehead, before giggling like a schoolgirl. It’s masochism, seriously.

Even through your attack, a smile creeps its way onto your lips. Hard not to, when he’s laughing like that, with the worlds prettiest smile on his face, dimples and all. 

Sam mutters to himself, something about not knowing why he puts up with you, as he leans for the remote. Said remote is on his bedside table, or, literally right next to you, so why he doesn’t just ask for it, you’re unsure. But this means that he quite literally stretches on top of you, all massive, two-hundred-something pounds of Winchester, and you can tell he’s doing it on purpose.

“Sam!” you protest, but you can’t hide the laugh that comes along with it, as you shove him playfully. He doesn’t stop, though, you see that dimple popping, grabbing the remote with mock innocence. 

The closeness means that all of his Sam-warmth is pressed against you. ‘I run hot’, he always says, which is the understatement of the century, based on how he feels like a human furnace over you. And God, you can smell him, all masculine and woodsy and so him…

Jesus Christ, what are you doing?

By the time he leans back to his side of the bed, your face has gone a little red. If he notices, he doesn’t bring it up. Just leans back against his pillows with an exaggerated sigh, clicking play, then tossing the remote somewhere on his blankets. That’s something for the two of you to worry about later, when you’re tearing his dorm apart to find it. 

The opening notes of ‘The Thing’s eerie track creep in as he scoots just a little closer, just enough so your shoulders touch, and he fidgets with the joint in his fingers like he’s spinning a pen. 

“Comfy?” he asks, quietly, and his voice isn’t full of playful teasing or mock-annoyance anymore. No, it’s fallen right back into sweet, soft Sam, that makes you feel like your insides have been set aflame. Your heart does a stupid little somersault. 

“Mhm,” you hum, and you have to forcefully ignore the sparks that are currently exploding under your skin where your shoulders touch. Get it together.

To distract yourself, and maybe as an excuse to get a little closer, you lean forward, grabbing hold of his blanket, and you tuck it over the two of you. You let yourself fall into a more reclined position, melting into his sheets. 

You make it all of five minutes into the movie, watching the helicopter chase the ‘dog’ with a grimace on your face, like you haven’t seen it a hundred times over already, before you’re breaking the silence.

“So… do you know what you’re doing for Christmas break this year? It’s in, like, two weeks, which is insane,” you start, crunching a chip between your teeth. “I’m still deciding if I want to book a plane ticket home…”

Sam smiles like he anticipated this (he did), and makes no move to pause the movie. He just stares at the screen, but tilts his head towards you slightly as he speaks.

“Two weeks? Jesus. Don’t remind me. I still have to study for finals…” 

He runs his hand over his face, before letting his head fall back against his headboard with a thud. 

“Honestly? I’m staying here. Again.”

It was an answer you expected, but you hum all the same. Sam was never the type to go home during holidays, or, well, ever. He barely spoke about them beyond the odd comment about his brother, Dean.

He finally turns to you, just slightly, elbow propped up on the mattress. “I mean, we’ve got heat now that they ‘fixed’ the boiler, so no more sleeping in ten layers like last year. And campus is practically empty, anyway. Can study wherever.”

You let out a little laugh at that, memories of receiving Sam’s whiny phone calls ringing through your head, when you’d slipped away after dinner on Christmas Eve just to call him. ‘It’s freezing,’ he’d complained, ‘I can’t even feel my ass!’

“Oh, yeah? So no more waking up not being able to feel your fingers?” you tease, turning to look at him, movie forgotten.

He hums in response, nodding exaggeratedly like this is the most important conversation in the world, before continuing. “Uh-huh. I mean, why fly across the country for a week for a family who doesn’t even do Christmas, when you can stay where it’s warm, and eat half-cooked turkey in meal hall?”

“Wow. Great upselling, Sam,” you tease, but you can’t keep the smile out of your voice. 

“Just saying. It’s kind of nice. Lonely, maybe, but I can always… y’know…” he makes a rolling motion with his fingers, before bringing that damn joint to his lips, still unlit— and you get the idea right away. 

“Get really high?” You prompt, raising a brow at him, and judging by a look he gives you with a shrug, you’re right on the money. 

“Right,” you laugh, looking up at him, and that’s when you see it. Really see it. The glimmer of something in his eyes, something like pleading. Like those puppy eyes are asking you to stay without him saying it himself. “Well, since you make it sound so great… maybe I’ll stay back this year.”

His expressions changes immediately. Disbelief, at first, then softening into something so quietly excited, that your heart rate picks up a little. He smiles again, the kind of smile that brightens his whole face, and you can’t help but return it.

“Really?” he asks, like you’ve just told him he won the damn lottery.

“Why not? I mean. I flew home the last two years, it wasn’t all that great, and then I was all jet-lagged when classes started back up,” you explain, but Sam really didn’t need an explanation. No, he was excited as soon as the word ‘maybe’ left your lips.

He doesn’t respond to you right away. A little lost in his own thoughts, by the looks of it, and you don’t comment on it. His eyes flicker over you, that dopey smile on his face, before he briefly looks at the bedside table, then back at you. 

“Well… since you’ve decided…” he starts, stretching his long arm over you, towards the nightstand (so he can reach without leaning over you. Huh). “We can count today as the first day of holiday break. Let loose.”

He snags the lighter off the tabletop, bringing it back to his lap, but not without making sure he elbows you in the head first. Asshole. 

But even with the lighter in his palm, the joint between his two fingers, he makes no move to light it. Simply fidgets with it like it’s personally offended him. You raise a brow. 

“You gonna smoke that, or just stare at it?” you ask, teasing, and he shoots you a look. 

“Maybe I was trying to be polite,” he smirks, tilting his head at you, those cute little bangs falling over his eyes. “I’d like to not give you a contact high every time I breathe, thanks.”

He says it like he’s joking. Keeps that little grin on his face, all light and sweet, but you know there’s something genuine underneath it. He’s gotten high around you before, God, more times than you can count—but he’s always so cautious first. Like he’s worried he’s doing something wrong. Making you uncomfortable. 

If there’s one thing Sam Winchester will never do? It’s make you actually uncomfortable on purpose. 

The first time he got high around you, at the beginnings of your friendship, he’d been careful. Asked if you were sure it was okay, probably, like, over a thousand times before he even rolled it up. Then a few more times for good measure once it was, before finally taking the first hit, and offering it to you. And oh, when he found out that you don’t smoke, at all? He felt like a prick.

But that was two damn years ago, and even after your constant reassurance… he still tiptoes around the subject, like the little people-pleaser he is. 

“Sam,” you start, voice dropping low, almost like you’re a mother scolding her child. “It’s weed. I’m not going to be poisoned from second hand smoke.” 

He rolls his eyes again, a little dramatically. “Whatever,” he grumbles, like he’s annoyed with you, but you don’t believe it for a second. 

There’s another pause as the joint dangles between his fingers, before he exhales the world’s heaviest sigh. “Since you insist…” he teases, before flicking the lighter. The flame catches, shadows dancing across his face as he takes a slow pull, and leans back into the pillow, eyes fluttering closed. 

He holds it for a moment, letting it fill his lungs, before letting out a deep exhale, tilting his head away from you (ever the gentleman). Smoke billows from his lips in a steady stream.

You try not to get distracted. You really do. But watching the orange flame illuminate his face just right, the way his lips curl around the joint, his eyes closing as he inhales, the sharp curve of his jaw twitching as he exhales… 

Jesus Christ, you’re so fucked.

Something about it is almost domestic. The warm sheets. The movie playing in the background. The smell of weed wafting through the room. Shoulder to shoulder with Sam.

He exhales again, the weed taking effect. Not quite a high, not yet—he’s a seasoned smoker, after all—just enough to take the edge off. He sinks deeper into the mattress, eyes opening back up, and he stares at the TV for a moment like he’s in a daze. 

And oh, he stretches slightly, just getting comfortable, and his bicep flexes as it moves across his chest. 

…Not that you’re looking, or anything.

Before you can be tempted to do something stupid, like, lick Sam’s arm, you speak up.

“Can I try?” you ask, voice coming out so quiet, you’re not sure he heard you. 

He did. 

His eyes widen immediately as he turns to you, brows furrowed. “What?” he questions, and based on the way he sounds, you’d think you’d just told him you were dropping-out and becoming a stripper. 

He looks more than a little shocked, to say the absolute least. He’s watching you like he expects you change your mind, or turn around and say ‘just kidding’, before bursting out into laughter.

But when you don’t, the surprise melts away into confusion. Just a quiet intensity, and a little something that looks like excitement.

“Are you serious?” he asks, sceptical, and you almost laugh at the way he’s staring at you. Like he just can’t believe that you, a college student, may want to hit his joint.

“Yes, I’m serious,” you respond, and this time, you can’t hold back your amused snort. You decide then and there that confusion is a very cute emotion on him, puppy eyes and all. “I mean. I’ve been curious, y’know? And what better person than you to show me the ropes?”

His gaze drops to the joint, looking at it like it’s betrayed him, before flicking back to you, brows pulling together. 

“You’ve been curious?” he laughs once, short, disbelieving. “For two years, you’ve watched me do this, and now tonight? Tonight’s the night?”

You shrug, and despite his words, his fingers are already turning the joint between the two of you, offering it to you with a careful kind of hesitation.

“Alright,” he relents softly. “But slow. One hit. And don’t inhale like I do. It’ll wreck you.”

Those words make you raise a brow, because, one, you don’t understand what the hell that means. And two, there’s that gentle concern behind them. The kind that never fails to make you just a little fidgety. 

After a moment’s pause, you take the joint from him tentatively, like you’re trying to disarm a bomb, not smoke some pot. His hand lingers just slightly, fingers brushing yours in that stupidly electric way they always do. Jesus, what the hell’s going on with you tonight?

When his eyes meet yours again, they’re a little wide. Soft. Nervous. Heart-wrenchingly sweet, to such a degree that you have to advert your gaze before your cheeks flush all over again. 

There’s a few beats where neither of you move. Like the silence between you is heavy, charged. But then you snap out of it, and realize that you really have no idea what you’re doing. Sam seems to have the same realization a moment later, because he mumbles something about ‘corrupting the innocent’, before shifting again.

He sits up, scooting closer to you so his side is practically pressed against yours.

“Okay, hold on. Wait,” he murmurs, eyes flicking down to the joint between your fingers. “C’mere for a minute.”

He motions for you to lean forward with a crook of his finger and a little head nod, and you roll your eyes at his sudden serious tone before complying. 

“Hold it between your fingers. Bring it to your mouth. Then, when you take a hit, pull in air without actually breathing in, like you’re sucking on a straw,” he instructs, voice low. “And don’t fully inhale it into your lungs. It’ll burn less. Shallow.”

You blink at him. Once, twice, then a third time for good measure. Right. Okay, then.

What?

You take in what he’s saying, you really do. The problem? None of it makes any goddamn sense.

And c’mon, you’re not the kind of person to lie to him. This is Sam, after all. So, you look him dead in the eyes, faces only inches apart from where he’d made you lean forward. And in the most deadpan tone you can muster, you respond simply:

“What the fuck does any of that mean?” you ask, and the question hangs in the air for a moment, before you laugh. “That sounded more complicated than those case studies you do in Criminal Justice. What do they teach you law-boys, how to make everything sound impossible?”

“Pre-law,” he corrects, not at all phased by your little dig, before leaning back, and turning his body just enough to look at you properly. 

His eyes are still so warm. Crinkled at the corners in that way they get when he’s trying really hard to not full-on cackle at you.

“Okay,” he drawls, shaking his head like you’re a lost cause. “Forget the lecture. Just… here.”

Before you can protest, or really fully process his words, he takes the joint gently from your fingers again. “You trust me?” he questions, and all he earns from you is a look. A ‘what kind of question is that?’ look, which apparently is enough for him.

Because slowly, deliberately, he brings the joint to his lips, taking a small hit. Holds it in his mouth for a beat.

Then he leans in just slightly, closing that lick of space between the two of you. And before your brain can catch up, or think holy shit, is he about to kiss you? His lips brush yours. Soft. Warm. Over too fast, barely even touched, but long enough for heat to flood your system, and lets the smoke slide between your parted lips before pulling back.

“Just like that,” he murmurs, voice low and rougher than before, eyes searching yours with a mixture of nerves and something dangerously close to hope. “Learned?”

You can’t answer. Not right away. 

Because holy shit, Sam Winchester just half-kissed you.

What the fuck?

There’s a beat where you don’t move. Completely stunned, even just for a moment. But then you process that he’s exhaled smoke into your mouth, and you breathe in. Not at all like a straw, and not at all shallow like he’s told you.

It burns, and it takes less than a second for you to break out into a coughing fit. 

At the sound of your coughing, and the sight of your eyes watering, Sam’s concern comes rushing back like a tidal wave. He’s already moving, one palm finding your shoulder, the other smoothing over your back.

“Woah, woah, slow down. Breathe,” he urges, running his hand gently up and down your back. “Told you not to inhale like me,” he teases, before his voice drops low again. “You okay?”

There’s real worry in his voice now, and a furrow between his brows. But he can’t help it, he still grins. And you could swear his cheeks look a little pink. 

“Yeah, I’m fi—” you’re halfway through a choked cough when it hits. It’s like your senses all relax at once, giving way to something lighter. Deeper. Like your heads filled with air. It’s not intense, but it’s certainly new. “—Woah,” you mumble, lifting your gaze, the burning subsiding.

And when your eyes find Sam’s, puppy eyes so full of worry, his brows pinched together so adorably? You’re not sure if you’re closer to laughing or whining at the sight.

“Slow,” he repeats again with a soft, huffing chuckle, watching your eyes go glassy while the coughing fit finally subsides. 

“You sure you’re good?” He asks quietly, eyes still narrowed with concern. His hand is still on your shoulder, and he’s leaned into your space like he’s afraid you might suddenly pass out. 

That little bit of carefree, heat-of-the-moment confidence seems to have died out, and he looks almost shy. Maybe a little guilty, like he’s done something wrong. “Listen, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Sam.”

You cut him off before he can spiral. Maybe it makes you weird, but seeing him all sweet and concerned, leaning into you, holding you like he’s worried you might fall? Yeah. It’s sort of doing it for you, in some fucked-up way. Not to mention the fact that your lips are still tingling. 

“I’m okay. It just feels… new?” you start, you melt into his touch just a fraction further. You don’t mention the half-kiss. Not right away. Instead, you continue, voice slightly dazed, and you can’t contain the little laugh that slips out. “Good new.”

He looks hesitant for a moment, like he’s not sure if he believes you. But whether it’s the look on your face, or your words, he relaxes. And when he laughs with you, warm and soft and God, you could get lost in it; his shoulders fall loose, letting go of some tension.

He studies your face again like he’s searching for any signs of nausea, or, God forbid, discomfort. But all he finds are flushed cheeks and dilated pupils.

“Yeah?” he prompts, and that boyish smile makes you feel all tingly. Butterflies rising in ways they shouldn’t, in places they shouldn’t. You’ve felt it before, of course you have. Deep down you know you’ve been falling for him for years.

But, apparently, getting a little high makes it a whole lot harder to ignore.  

“Uh-huh,” you nod, inhaling a breath that comes out more shaky than it should. “Really good new. As in, wanting more…”

He swallows hard. 

He almost looks conflicted for a second before he speaks, but there’s no doubting the way his gaze flicks to your lips for a fraction of a second, before he’s clearing his throat. 

“More?” He echos, eyes finding the joint still held between his fingers. “More as in… another hit? ‘Cause I swear, if you end up flat on your back because you take another one right now…”

Yeah. That image is doing absolutely nothing to help your racing thoughts. Flat on your back, in his bed, under him… you certainly have no objections.

And you catch it. The implication behind those words. Because taking another hit doesn’t just mean taking in more smoke: it means his lips brushing against yours again. Teetering into uncharted territory all over again. 

“Just… more,” you whisper, eyes trailing over his face, and the way your gaze lingers on his lips mirrors his own actions just moments ago.

His eyes lock onto yours, and for a second, you swear he sees right through you. But then that soft smirk comes back, the one that makes your stomach flip, and he lifts the joint slowly. He gets it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “One more hit.”

He takes it himself first, not deep, just enough to warm the tip, and holds it in his mouth just like the first hit. Then he leans in again. Closer than before. 

And when his lips meet yours this time, still soft, but less hesitant, it’s not just smoke that passes between the two of you. It’s everything. 

He doesn’t pull away once all the smoke has been passed to you. You could blame it on the fact that it means you have to hold the smoke in your mouth for a moment longer before inhaling it. But the way he lingers?

Yeah. It’s not because of the smoke.

When you break away to inhale, neither of you pull back. Not really. The moment just holds. Smoke exhales from your lips, creating a haze between you, your breaths mixing in the few inches of space between your mouths. 

His free hand is at your cheek, thumb skimming over the edge of your jaw almost reverently, and when he finally does pull back, it looks like it takes physical effort.

He keeps those pretty eyes on yours the whole time, watching those blown-out pupils grow wider, a hint of a smile on his lips. And when he finally speaks, his voice is so low, it’s barely even audible.

“…How do you feel?”

How do you feel?

That’s a loaded question. Your head is all light and airy. The touch of his hand on your cheek feels dialled up to a hundred. It makes you feel warm, intensely so. Flushed. Needy. And those butterflies? Yeah, they’re fluttering pretty low tonight.

But you don’t say that.

“Feeling… a lot,” you murmur after a moment, and you really can’t stop your gaze from dropping to his lips just once. And oh, he definitely caught it.

His breathing changes, just slightly. Deeper. Slower, like he’s trying really hard to steady himself (and failing). His thumb brushes your jaw again, the movement absentminded, and this time, it lingers.

“Me too,” he admits, soft enough that it almost gets lost in the hum of the movie that’s been long forgotten. His eyes drop to your lips just as yours did.

And when he leans in this time? There’s no smoke between you. Just him. Warmth radiating off of him like a furnace. He doesn’t bring the joint back to his lips, doesn’t take another long drag. No, this time, he gets so close, that your noses brush together. 

And when your lips meet, this time it’s real.

He inhales into the kiss, soft and warm, like he’s been waiting forever for this moment. His hand slides from your jaw into your hair, gentle but sure, holding you just close enough that you can feel his heartbeat through the small space between your chests.

It’s not rushed. Not desperate.

It’s Sam. Careful, present, full of something quiet and deep. The kind of kiss that’s been building up for years, hiding behind stolen glances, shared blankets, and late-night talks.

When your lips part, only because neither of you can breathe, it’s only an inch. Your foreheads rest together like neither of you want to risk being apart. 

“…Okay?” he asks, voice low, and a little unsteady. Like he’s half-way to falling apart from a single kiss. Careful and sweet, in that overly worried Sam Winchester way that makes your heart just ache. 

You don’t miss a beat before responding.

“So much better than okay,” you whisper, and then your lips are chasing his all over again. Like you got one taste, and you’re already addicted. 

His lips are just so soft. And he’s so gentle, so reverent, holding onto you with those strong arms like you’re something precious. Like you’re made of porcelain.

The second your mouth is on his again, his eyes flutter right back closed. He reaches past you just far enough to chuck the joint into his ash tray haphazardly (because oh yeah— maybe making out with a burning joint in your hand isn’t the best idea), before his hands are settling on your waist.

The only thing buzzing between the two of you now is pure heat and need that’s been building for years. His fingers trace across the sliver of exposed skin between the hem of your shirt and the waistband of your pants, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake, tingling up your spine in a way that makes you shift. One of your hands is trapped between you, gripping his shirt like it’s the only thing keeping you steady, the other sliding into his hair at his nape.

His fingers flex against your skin like he’s fighting the urge to grip your waist, to really feel. Dig his fingers into your flesh, leave pretty marks that he can look back at and know this is real.

He resists, just for a moment, before the intensity wins, and he’s hauling you into his lap like you weigh nothing. And when your legs settle around his hips, the sound that escapes his chest is almost desperate.

You let out a high pitched mewl of your own, one that is swallowed by him immediately, drinking up every little sound like a man dying of thirst. His breathing is laboured, coming out in little puffs from his nose that warm your cheek. 

He breaks just far enough to look you in the eyes. Breathless, flustered, and disheveled: hair messy from your fingers, lips pink and slightly swollen, and that look on his face that tells you he’s barely holding back from ravaging you.

But still, even with that spark in his eyes, the flame in his chest, he presses his forehead against yours again. Slow and honey-sweet. Like he needs a moment to catch up with his thoughts. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes, and his voice is rough around the edges. His words tumble out like he didn’t have time to catch them, and the warmth that blooms in your chest feels like fire.

The look on his face is… intense. More intense than a random kiss between best friends. More intense than some high mistake that’ll be long forgotten by the time the sun rises. Intense like something you’ve been aching for for years, but have never allowed yourself to admit. If you thought your brain was going wild before, then it’s going bat-shit crazy now. 

After a moment of silence, nothing but the sound of your pants blending together, you speak. 

“Tell me… tell me this is real,” your voice is barely audible, but he hears. He always hears you. “Tell me this means something to you. Because if… if it doesn’t, I don’t know if I can—”

He doesn’t let you finish. 

His expression shifts instantly, eyes locking on yours with a fierceness that steals your breath.

“No,” he says, voice low and steady, like steel wrapped in velvet. “Don’t.”

At first, those words scare you. The doubts flow in like a wave. You fucked up. You’ve ruined this. The best thing you’ve ever had, and you ruined it—

But his hand cups your cheek, thumb brushing the curve of your jaw like you’re something sacred. 

“This is real,” he murmurs, leaning in until his lips are just a whisper from yours. “This has been real for longer than I’ve let myself admit.”

He swallows hard. The hand on your cheek shakes in a way that you only ever see from him before a difficult final.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he admits, voice cracking slightly, and he grimaces at the sound. “Not because I’m high or lonely or drunk on whatever movie-night thing we have going on…”

A beat, and his eyes stay locked on yours. Like if he blinks too long, you’ll vanish.

“You. It’s always been you.”

For a moment, it feels like time has slowed. Like the world has stopped spinning on its axis, and the only thing left is this. Like the only thing left is him.

“…Yeah?” you whisper, half disbelief, half unbridled need.

Your expression must be blank, or maybe he can see that you’re barely even a breath away from breaking down under his palm, because he looks almost panicked. His eyes are wide, almost pleading. His jaw is so tight that you worry he might break a tooth. You snap yourself out of whatever trance you’d fallen into.

“Fuck, Sam… you have no idea. No idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear that,” you say, shaking your head like you can’t believe this is real. Your hand that’s slipped free from his hair has found your forearm, pinching hard enough to bruise.

“It’s always been you. I just… I didn’t know how to say it without ruining this. Without losing you. I can’t… I can’t lose you, Sam. I can’t.”

The truth rushes out before you can stop it. All that fear. Fear of losing the one person who knows you, really knows you.

He starts shaking his head before your words even fully leave your mouth, and his free hand brushes your fingers off your forearm. Because he noticed. Of course he noticed.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” he leans in, pressing a soft, almost desperate kiss to the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, before whispering against your skin.

“I’ve been terrified, too, you know. Of saying the wrong thing. Of pushing too hard. Of ruining us,” his breath hitches like he’s choking on his words. “But I can’t pretend anymore.”

Another kiss. This one’s slow, deep, like he’s trying to pour every unsaid word into it. You swear his tongue darts out to brush against your bottom lip like he’s dying for a taste. 

He moves to pull away again. Probably to search your face for doubt. For any implication that he’s fucked all this up, despite everything you’ve said. Because Sam Winchester is nothing if not thorough.

You don’t let him. 

No, not a second passes before your lips find his almost desperately. Deep, and full of need, every ounce of longing poured into the action. 

His big hand splays along your back, and he’s pulling you closer, bodies flush together like he’s trying to erase every bit of space that’s left between you.

His fingers find the edge of your shirt, slipping just under the hem, like he can’t stand not touching you. The long digits slide under fabric in patterns that are almost rhythmic.

Your head feels like it’s spinning. Waves of pure need pulse through your veins with each gentle circle of his thumb. Your brain is still caught up in everything: that this is real. That this is happening. Because holy shit, you’re making out with your best friend.

You’re making out with Sam.

And you really, really never want to stop. You swipe your tongue along the seam of his lips, pressing into him with just a little more force, your hand finding his hair again. A silent question.

Can I?

And oh, the answer is abso-fucking-lutely, because Sam doesn’t miss a damn beat before his lips part.

It feels like an electrical current runs through your spine when his tongue meets yours, hot, feverish, and holy Jesus.

And when he groans, deep and ragged, it goes straight to your core.

He cups the back of your head with those massive hands, tilting you just slightly, so his tongue can slide against yours. Teasing, tasting, like he wants to memorize the moment. 

He doesn’t even pull back to start trailing his lips across your jaw. He mouths at your skin, slipping down to your neck, tongue darting out to lick your pulse point just to see you squirm. And oh, the second a moan slips past your lips?

Sam is done. 

He shudders like you’ve just ripped through every defence he’s built up over the years of pretending this wasn’t what he wanted to do. His thumb brushes along the strap of your tank top, sliding it down just slightly, his teeth grazing softly over your collarbone. He mouths at your skin with fever, sucking softly before releasing with a pop, and smoothing over with his tongue. Yeah. That’ll be a mark tomorrow.

Between peppered kisses against your neck, he murmurs, voice rough, almost pained. “You gonna drive me crazy, or let me taste you properly?”

He doesn’t let you answer the question, or even think about the implication (holy shit, he doesn’t mean—?) before he’s nipping your pulse point just hard enough to make you gasp, and the sound just about drives him wild. 

He’s barely holding back now. Like he’s lost in the feeling of you, and you have absolutely no complaints in the matter. Your fingers fist his hair like it’s the only lifeline you have left. His hands slide under your shirt completely, palms hot against the small of your back, pressing you close where you’re perched in his lap.

And when you whimper? That’s it.

He flips you gently onto the bed beneath him in one smooth motion, hovering over you with dark eyes and kiss swollen lips. But despite the way his pupils are black with desire, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t press his weight against you.

“You… you’ve gotta talk to me. Tell me if we’re going too fast,” he breathes. “Need to know if I can keep going. Please.”

Your heart aches at his words. They’re just so… him. Sam, the man who’d die before he did anything you didn’t want. Before he took anything that wasn’t his to take. 

“I want this. I want you, Sam,” you say, and your voice sounds way more wrecked than you’d intended. “We’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

His eyes scan your face, taking in your words, your flushed cheeks, the way you look sprawled beneath him.

His hands slide up your sides, your collarbone, down your arms, thumbs tracing a circle at your wrists. Not even sexual, just feeling you like he can’t help it. He watches the way you shiver, and swallows. Hard. 

Then his brows furrow, like he’s thinking, or lost in a thought, and for a moment, he looks almost conflicted.

“…How… how high are you?” he asks after a beat, and his voice is so low, that you barely hear it.

You blink at him for a moment. Because you’ve wanted this for so goddamn long, that you know it’s not the weed. Not just being lost in the heat of the moment. Fuck, you’d barely even taken a full hit. But this is Sam, after all. Terrified of misstepping. 

You almost shake him. Grab his shoulders and knock some sense into that thick Winchester skull, but you don’t. 

“I’m not,” you tell him, voice earnest. “Two, barely there hits. Nothing.”

He starts again, more insistent this time. “But it was your first time, you don’t know your—”

“Sam.”

Your voice cuts him off on the spot before he can spiral. Before his brain can twist things, or panic his way into thinking he’s doing something wrong (he hasn’t). Taking advantage (he’d never). Because you know him.

“I’ve wanted you for so long, Sammy,” the nickname slips out before you can stop it, and you don’t take it back. But instead of chastising you like he usually does, he just… softens. “All of you. Not just this. Everything.”

He hesitates for just a beat longer. His eyes rove over your face again, taking in every little nuance. Your blown pupils. Your swollen lips. The way your cheeks and collarbones are tinged pink. Your hair fanned over the pillows, his pillows, like a halo. His hand moves, smoothing over your fluffy pajama pants like he’s trying to soothe you, or himself.

“You’re sure?” he asks, just one more time. Because he has to know. (No matter how crazy it drives you.)

You nod, before realizing that that might not be enough for him, and you run your hand along his forearm. Soft. Soothing. “More sure than anything,” you say, and you’re not sure your voice as ever sounded so honest. “Are you?”

His hand stills on your thigh, but it doesn’t move. Stays warm on your pants, a comforting weight. 

“God, yes,” he whispers, voice low and raw. He leans down again until his forehead touches yours. “I want it all with you. Not just sex. The movies in pajamas, the stupid socks, the morning coffee runs… just us.”

Warmth pools heavy in your chest, and a wave of emotion crashes over you. Emotions you haven’t let yourself feel out of fear of overstepping, of ruining what you have.

You let out a shaky breath before you’re nodding again, “Yeah. I want it all. With you.”

He doesn’t say another word. Doesn’t have to.

He settles over you again, his lips finding your throat. He kisses down your neck like he’s tracing a map he’s memorized in his dreams, slow, reverent, but with an edge of pure hunger that makes your pulse jump. 

Each touch of his lips sends heat spiraling low in your stomach. And when he nips at that spot just below your ear, you gasp, and he groans, deep in his chest like you’re undoing him. 

His hands slide under your shirt again, this time peeling it up slowly, giving you time to stop him. But you don’t. Fuck, you never would, you arch into his touch instead.

When the fabric clears your head and falls away, he stares down at you like you’re something holy. “Jesus,” he breathes. “You’re perfect.”

His hands slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts just enough for your breath to hitch. But he doesn’t rush. He won’t—not with you.

Instead, he kisses lower. Slow, open mouthed, each one a promise. A vow written in heat and need. 

When his lips finally reach the waistband of those stupid Christmas pants, the little fuzzy candy canes soft under his fingers, he pauses. Looks up at you from under his lashes. Still asking without words: Is this okay?

Uh, hell yes.

You’re half lost in the feeling of his lips leaving wet marks along your bare skin, and half in the way he looks over you. Lips swollen, eyes dark with desire, hair messy from your fingers tugging at the chocolate locks. 

You’re nodding before your brain even fully catches up with the movement. Because somehow, his gaze is a thousand times more intoxicating than the weed. “…Please, Sam.”

That’s all he needs.

Slow and deliberately, he hooks his fingers into the waistband, tugging them down just enough to expose the curve of your hip. His lips follow. A hot, open- mouthed kiss pressed just above your pelvic bone that makes you jolt beneath him. Another follows, then another, each lower than the last as he peels the fabric away.

“God,” he whispers against your skin. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

His hands are warm on your thighs, squeezing your soft flesh with a groan that he can’t quite keep contained. And for a moment, he just… looks.

Pupils blown wide. Barely even breathing.

Your face flushed. How could it not? The way he’s looking down at you like you’re some kind of angel, even in your mismatched, plain cotton bra and panties, silly little dog socks reaching mid-calf. Yet he’s staring like you’re the most gorgeous sight in the world. 

His thumb brushes over your inner thigh. So close, but not where you need it, and you have to resist the urge to just pull him where you want him.

“You’re everything,” he says, pressing a trembling kiss just above your knee. “I’ve thought about this… about you, just like this… for so long.”

Another kiss, higher now. Slower.

His breath fans across sensitive skin as his hands gently part your thighs wider, giving him better access. And when you whimper again, because holy shit, this is really happening— his eyes flutter shut.

Then he looks at you one more time, eyes wide and full:

“Can I taste you?”

Your brain short circuits. Because, um, what?

He says it like it’s not just for you, but also something he wants. Something he needs. And that just about takes you apart right then and there. But you’re still… nervous. So while your core aches for it, your voice comes out low.

“You, um. You don’t have to do that…” you whisper, but even then, you don’t pull away. Don’t close your thighs.

“I want to,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like there’s nothing he’d rather do. 

Oh.

Still—you crack your knuckles where your hand is resting against the sheets, and he notices. He always notices. His gaze drops to the nervous fidgeting, the way your hand clenches and unclenches, and his gaze softens. He catches one of them, bringing it to his lips, a gentle, soothing kiss.

“Hey… we don’t have to,” he promises, thumb brushing your knuckles. “Not if you don’t want to. There’s no rush.”

It’s so tender. So fucking sweet that your heart feels like it might explode in your chest. So despite the nerves… he breaks you down, just a little. So finally, the need wins.

“…Fuck, okay. Yeah, please,” you plea, and his response is immediate. Lips trailing down your inner thigh with wet kisses that have you aching. 

Your fingers fist his shirt subconsciously, tugging the fabric at his shoulders, and he doesn’t hesitate. With one hand still cradling your thigh, the other reaches up to tug his shirt over his head, the movement stretching at his muscle, skin glowing faintly in the golden light.

And holy fuck is he ever beautiful. But you barely have any time to ogle (or do something stupid, like drool), before he lowers himself again. His mouth finally meets your centre, soft at first, just a kiss through soaked cotton, and he groans like he’s the one being worshipped. 

You’re halfway through a whine when he hooks a finger into your panties, pulling them aside.

“Christ,” he breathes, sending a jolt of need through your core. “You’re fucking drenched…”

One slow lick, from bottom to top, and you arch off the bed with a cry. “Holy shit, Sammy—”

He wastes no time practically tearing your panties off, and before you can even whine or complain, he’s hooking your thighs over his broad shoulders, fluffy-sock covered feet meeting his muscled back, and his mouth is back on you. 

His hands lock around your hips, holding you down as his tongue moves with slow, torturous precision. He’s studying you, how you twitch when his tongue flicks just above your clit, how you whimper when he dips his tongue just a little lower.

He loves learning, always has. That was one of the very first things you realized about him, when you first became friends. And now? he’s learning you.

He flattens his tongue, licking a broad stripe through your cunt, thumbs sliding through your lips to spread you open for him. Each pass is slower than the last, deeper somehow, not just physical. Like he’s not just tasting you, but claiming you. Drinking up your juices like a starving man.

One of his fingers slowly circles your entrance, just teasing, and you sob out his name like a prayer. He lifts his head, lips glistening, and smirks. A real one. Dangerous, and yet so tender.

“What do you need?” he asks, voice rough as gravel mixed together. But it’s laced with teasing, like he wants nothing more than to make you squirm. “Use your words, and I’ll give it to you. Promise.”

Your hips try to roll, just once, like if you move just enough, that finger might slide inside. Because that tone is just not fair. But you can’t. Not with his strong arm pinning you to the bed. 

“I—fuck, I want… want your fingers, please,” you all but beg, and your cheeks burn immediately. You almost want to tug on his hair to chastise him for turning you into a mess, but you’re too worried he’ll stop.

He hums, low and approving, like your pleads are the best sound he’s ever heard. And those vibrations? Yeah, they shoot through you like an electrical current. 

One thick finger slides in slowly, just to the first knuckle, testing, watching your face like a man studying salvation. 

“So tight,” he groans, pressing a kiss just below your navel as he sinks deeper. “You take me so well.”

Apparently, Sam Winchester has a filthy mouth. Which is not only insanely hot—but should be illegal.

Then a second finger joins, the stretch making you cry out, and Sam? He thrusts slow, curling them just right. Rubbing circles over that sweet spot inside of you like he knows your body better than his own. 

His mouth never leaves you. Tongue circling your swollen clit as his fingers work in and out, building rhythm, heat, pressure, until you’re trembling beneath him. The room fills with sweet, sopping wet sounds with each glide of his fingers, only drowned out by your blissed out moans and whines. 

He finds the perfect rhythm. One that has you teetering right there, your thighs shaking around his head, your fingers fisting his hair like you never want him to go. Pleasure sizzles in your core like a firework about to explode.

“Oh my God, Sam, Sammy, fuck—”

The sounds that slip from your lips are too incoherent to be words, and far too loud for a dorm room with such thin walls. But you’re way too far gone to notice, eyes rolling as your back bows beneath him. 

And holy shit, they only ebb Sam on. He speeds up those perfect, thick digits, curling and rubbing against that spongy part inside of you with fever, his lips sealing over your clit as he sucks. Hard. Cheeks hollowing as he gives you everything.

The wave of pleasure that crashes over you just then is intense.

Your back arches off the bed, thighs squeezing his head, your head thrown back with a cry that’s muffled by his palm because God, those thin dorm walls are a death sentence.

But you still make noise. Sam’s hand somewhat saved your dignity, but you let out high-pitched desperate whimpers into his hand, your cunt clenching around his fingers like you’re trying to keep him inside forever.

He doesn’t pull those fingers out. Doesn’t stop. Just keeps thrusting slow and deep, riding out every euphoric spasm with soft kisses to your inner thighs, and quiet murmurs of: “That’s it… let go, baby…”

When the last of the tremors finally start to fade, he eases those thick digits free with one last teasing stroke. He eases your legs off his shoulders with so much gentle care, and crawls up your body like a man claiming what’s always been his.

Lips swollen. Chin slick with you. Eyes wild and proud and so in awe that it takes your breath away. And when he kisses you this time, you taste yourself on his tongue. And damn if it doesn’t make your pulse jump all over again.

It’s dizzying. You can’t help the way you moan into his mouth, and he swallows it whole like he’s craving it. Your body is still shaking with aftershocks, tingling and sensitive, but you can’t help but crave more. Like he’s turned you into nothing but a greedy mess. 

He only breaks the kiss to let you breathe, before his lips are brushing every inch of your face in reverent little kisses as he presses you further into the pillows, settling between your trembling thighs like he belongs there.

He takes a moment to look at you, like you’re a masterpiece, and something about it just makes your heart just flutter. His lips quirk up in a smirk that he just barely is able to stifle, like he does when you know he’s about to tease you, but the look in his eyes is dark. Hungry.

“You’re a bit loud,” he says, that familiar playful look on his face. “I don’t even think you were that loud when you saw that ra—”

Immediately, you clamp your shaking hand over his mouth again (and holy shit his lips are still all wet from you), and you can feel him smiling against your palm.

“S-shut up, Sam!” you laugh, head falling back against the pillows, cheeks burning with embarrassment and lingering arousal.

But if there were any remaining nerves— they’re long gone. Because only one person can make you feel like this. Only one person who can make you feel so fucking good, then turn around and make you laugh.

“You’re insufferable. And way too fucking good at that,” you breathe, letting your eyes flutter closed. 

You’re still panting, still shaking from the intensity of your orgasm when he peels your hand off his face. His expression shifts into something softer. Something sweet.

He presses a kiss to your palm before letting go, then drags his lips to your wrist, your forearm, the soft inside of your elbow, each one slower than the last.

“You’re insufferable,” he murmurs against your skin. “Making me wait three goddamn years to do that.”

His hands slide up your sides again, fingertips dancing just under the edge of your bra. Then he stops. Looks at you, eyes tender, filled with silent question. You don’t waste any time nodding, arching just enough for those nimble fingers to unclip your bra with ease, sliding it off. 

He stares shamelessly like you’re the most gorgeous sight in the world, before his head is dipping back down. Pressing his mouth back to your throat, trailing along your collarbone, while his warm hands cup the underside of your breasts, thumbs swiping over your pointed nipples softly.

It’s sweet. It feels fucking good. And he’s still not pushing, even when you can feel how hard he is through the thin fabric of his pants pressed against your thigh.

“…Sam?” you whisper, and he answers with just a hum, sucking a mark into the soft flesh on your breast that will definitely be purple tomorrow. “I need to feel you. Please.”

He groans, low and rough against your skin, and you can feel his body tense above you. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, lips leaving a soft, wet trail of heat across your chest, tongue peaking out every so often to get a taste. His hands find your hips again, fingers curling against the sensitive skin beneath your ribs.

“Anything, honey. Anything you want.”

You can’t help but let out a strangled whine at the feeling of his lips, the deep tremble of his voice. The skin-on-skin of his bare chest pressed against yours electrifying. 

But then he pulls away.

Rude.

Peels those plaid pajama pants off, along with his boxers, in one clean movement, before crawling back over you.

And holy fuck, your eyes widen, mouth going a little dry at the sight. You knew Sam was a big guy. You have eyes. But apparently, he’s very well proportioned. As in—fucking huge.

“Jesus Christ, Sam…” you murmur, unable to peel your gaze away from the long, thick, hard, and aching sight of the gorgeous man in front of you. You weren’t aware cocks could be so… pretty. Your eyes are filled with desire. Need. Longing. And, yeah, maybe some nerves. Because holy shit, is that supposed to fit?

He notices the way your hips twitch, and his thumb comes to stroke your hip in a way that says you’re alright. You’re safe with me.

“Relax,” he coos. “I’ll go slow. Anything you need, honey, I’ll give it to you. Anything at all.”

His hand comes up to cup your jaw, gentle and sweet, so your eyes meet his again. “But I need you to talk to me. Can you do that, baby?”

You nod, melting into his palm like you were just made to be held by him. You can physically feel your body relaxing, easing into that familiar trust just from looking at those sweet puppy eyes of his. Fuck.

“…Yeah,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. Your hands wander as you speak like they have a mind of their own, trailing over his toned chest, down his abdomen. “You’re just… fuck, Sam. You’re perfect.”

A beat. And because you can’t help it:

“And massive.”

That earns a laugh out of him, low and teasing, his cheeks flushing pink in that sweet boyish way. But when your hand dips lower, fingers wrapping around him almost reverently, thumb sliding over the head, pre-come pearling from his tip, he freezes.

A gasp tears from his throat, low, ragged, like you’ve just lit a fuse. 

“Fuck,” he grits out through a clenched jaw, hips jerking into your hand once before he stills himself. “You gotta tell me to stop if it’s too much. I—I don’t want to hurt you.”

His voice is strained, every muscle in his body tight with restraint. But then you stroke him again, slow, curious, and he shudders. His forehead dropping to your shoulder with a groan that vibrates through both of you.

His hand finds yours, not to guide it, but just to press it tighter for one sinful second, before sliding it off of himself with a shaky breath.

“Please, I need you,” he groans. “Let me show you how good I can make you feel.”

You want to keep touching him. Want to stroke his pretty cock until he feels just as good as he made you feel. Until his come paints your chest, and he’s twitching under your touch.

But more than that? You want him inside of you. Need it.

“Fuck, yes,” you all but beg, and he sneaks another soft kiss before he’s moving.

You watch as he leans over you, every hard muscle in his abdomen rippling, bicep flexing where one hand rests by your head, and you have to resist the primal urge to just lick his skin. Like your brain has gone full cave-woman.

You hear a drawer open, the rustling of foil, and then he’s settling back between your legs, little square packet in hand. A condom. Without any prompting, or you having to ask, because that’s just the kind of man he is. And it only makes you want him more.

There’s a beat where you just watch him, until you freeze. Your hand reaches out to catch his wrist. 

“Wait, Sam,” you start, and just as the words come out, his expression shifts. Pure concern, already pulling away, so you speak fast. “I, um. I’m allergic to latex.”

He blinks at you for a moment, but then the panic in his eyes vanishes as quickly as it came. Instead, they soften into something so warm that you have to resist the urge to squirm or hide.

“I know,” he soothes, dropping his free hand to your thigh to run his fingers over your heated skin. “The, uh. The gloves, remember?”

…Oh.

Right. Nearly three years ago now, just a few months into your first semester. You’d been in a biology lab, doing some dissection—and whether you were just too excited, or too nervous to ask the professor for nitrile gloves, you’d ended up with a reaction.

And who fussed over you, practically sprinting to the pharmacy to buy you some antihistamines, not leaving your side for hours following? Sam.

But that was years ago. And it hadn’t come up sense. 

So for a few beats, you don’t respond. Staring at him with what had to be a pretty blank expression, because he immediately starts talking again.

“They’re latex free. Polyiso, uh… something,” he rambles, cheeks turning a cute shade of pink. “I can show you the box, if you want. Or—we don’t have to do this. We can stop. No hard feelings, I promise, baby—”

“No.”

You cut off his rambling immediately. Because fuck, stopping? That’s the last thing you want. 

But you’re just caught up in the implication. Because why would he, a broke college student, just… have latex-free condoms, knowing they’re more expensive? Unless…?

Unless he bought them for you?

The thought makes your heart rate pick up just a fraction. Makes you burn just a little hotter for him. Because holy fuck, he really has wanted you just as much as you’ve been wanting him. 

“I trust you. More than anyone,” you assure, locking eyes with him again. And when you find them—they’re so warm. “I need you.”

His eyes never leave yours.

For a second, you see it. The nervous hitch in his throat, the way his usually-steady hands tremble just slightly. Because this isn’t just sex. It’s you. And for Sam? That changes everything.

He rips the wrapper open, rolling the condom on slow, before he’s settling back over you, bracing himself above you with his elbow bent next to your head. The other reaches out just to brush your hair back from your face. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, just one last time, needing that confirmation. And when you nod, he presses a kiss to your cheek.

Then, one hand guiding himself, he pushes forward. Just the thick tip at first. A slow stretch that makes you gasp and your back bow beneath him.

He freezes almost instantly, concern flashing across his features. “Okay?”  

You nod again, can’t even speak, brain already going a little stupid, but the way you reach up to grab his shoulders tells him everything.

So he moves. Starts to slide deeper. So damn slowly, like he’s trying to savour every sweet inch. And fuck, is it ever a stretch. But he makes it better. 

He touches you like he can’t survive without feeling your skin under his fingertips. Hand traveling along your face, down your side, squeezing your hips. His body trembles like he’s about to snap, pressing messy kisses to your chest, your collarbone, whatever he can reach. 

His thrusts are so gentle. One small push, then he pulls back so just the tip remains inside, then sinks back just a little deeper. Every thrust allowing you to feel just a little more of him, thick and pulsing inside your dripping heat.

Before long, his hips settle against yours. He’s buried so deep that you think you can taste him. You can feel him everywhere. In your lungs, your bones, your soul. It’s so much, and yet—you need more.

Your core pulses to accommodate him, and it feels like you’re near stuffed to the damn brim. Like his tip is resting at your cervix, and you have to take a shaky breath to just relax. “…Oh, God, You’re so… fuck…”

“I know. I know, honey,” he coos, so soft and sweet that it makes you shiver. “You’re doing so good. Taking me like you were made for me, huh? So perfect…”

You moan right then and there, because who the fuck let him sound so hot, all blissed out and pussy drunk?

His damp skin glistens like honey in the low light, and you can hear how he’s holding himself back with each hitch of his breath. Can see it in the tension of his shoulders, the sweat beading at his temples, the taut lines of his muscles flexing with restraint. He’s trying to be so careful. 

He doesn’t move for a beat. Just stays, hips flush to yours, fingertips smoothing over your waist like he’s trying to soothe you. Give you time to adjust, even when he’s practically trembling. 

But despite how gentle he is with you, how much he cares, and as much as you adore how sweet he is, you’re not made of glass. 

“Sam?” you murmur, hands that were gripping his shoulders loosening to lace around his neck, and he hums against your throat. “You can move, baby. I’m not going to break.”

He stiffens. Just for a moment.

“…You sure you’re alright?” he asks, and his voice is ragged. Strained like every second of stillness is agony. But he waits. Because that’s Sam. Always putting you first.

When you nod, rolling your hips, just once to take him impossibly deeper, he shudders, a broken sound tearing from his throat.

Then he pulls back, just an inch, before sinking in again. And holy shit, it feels heavenly. 

Slow at first. Deep, deliberate rolls of his hips that make your breath hitch with every thrust. Each movement sends sparks spiraling through your core, stretching pleasure from every nerve like they were just made for him.

“God, you feel…” he breaks off in a low groan against your neck, your soaked core pulsing around him when he grazes deep, and he presses fevered kisses along your jaw. “So tight. So damn perfect.”

He starts to pick up the pace, still careful, but no longer holding back that hunger that’s begging to be sated. And when his hand slips between the two of you again? Find’s your clit with slow, maddening circles?

That’s it.

Pleasure explodes in your core like firecrackers, pure heat spreading from your lower belly though your limbs, your tight heat spasming around his cock uncontrollably.

“Oh my God, you—s’fucking good—” you cry, neck craning back against the pillows, and he nips at your heated skin like he wants to ruin you. The sounds should be embarrassing, they really should. But with how you’re feeling? You really don’t care. 

He growls, low, possessive, almost proud, and then he’s shifting.

One hand slides under your ass, lifting you just slightly, hiking one thigh over his hip, and suddenly, he’s hitting you deeper. The new angle makes your vision whiten at the edges. You can’t even speak, just a sobbing gasp as he thrusts again and again. Harder this time. Not rough, but relentless, slamming into you with a new kind of fever that moves your entire body with the mattress. 

The sweet combination of him petting your clit while he drives into you at a dizzying pace has you seeing stars, and suddenly, you can’t contain the sounds anymore. 

Moans. Mewls. Whimpers, whines, cries—everything, far too loud for a goddamn dorm room.

And when the heavy tip of his cock glides along that spot deep inside of you, white hot pleasure igniting in your core, you learn that, apparently, you’re some-what of a screamer. 

His hand covers your mouth so fast, almost instantly, the movement so instinctive that it would almost be scary if it wasn’t so fucking hot. It’s not cruel, he’d never hurt you, but in a way that makes your stomach twist with need. 

But he still doesn’t stop. Just slows his pace a little, still hitting right there, and his fingers ease up on your clit. 

“Shh… you’ve gotta be quiet, yeah? Can you do that for me, baby?” he murmurs, hips still driving into you. His palm is warm, fingers splayed wide as another choked cry spills into them. “We have plenty of time for that during the break. When it’s just us. Then I’ll find out just how loud you can get for me, okay, honey?”

You’re not sure you’ve ever been more excited for Christmas in your goddamn life. 

The words seem to hit you just as much as a physical blow, and all the combined pleasure has you shaking beneath him. And despite his words, he snakes his hand back to your slit, pinching your clit just once, so you let out another cry muffled by his palm. And when you do? That dimpled smirk on his face only grows. 

Bastard.

“You gonna be good for me, huh? Gonna quiet down?” he teases, and you nod almost frantically before he even finishes his sentence. He grins again. Cocky, heated. He knows it’s a lie. “…You’re not fooling anyone, baby. Not with how you’re clenching around me… fuck.”

Even then, he pulls his hand back just enough to let a whimper slip free as his cock drags along your sweet spot with perfect precision, then he teases your clit again.

Harder this time. 

You arch off the bed with a strangled moan, and he captures it, mouth crashing down over yours like he’s starving for every sound, every twitch of your body beneath him. And holy shit, he’s relentless. 

You can tell he’s on the edge of losing it himself. His brows are pinched, his breaths are coming out ragged, and he can barely contain the moans of his own that slip right into your mouth.

If it wasn’t for his mouth covering yours, you’re almost sure you’d be reported to the RA. He feels fucking perfect, hot and thick and deep, stars shattering behind your eyelids with each perfectly timed thrust. 

You know you’re getting close. Practically dripping around his cock, sucking him in like a vice, your legs shaking around his hips, pleasure drawn tight enough to snap.

He groans, watching your face like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “You’re so close, aren’t you? Look at you, shaking f’me already…”

His thrusts turn sharper, each one hitting your g-spot like a goddamn homing missile. His thumb finds your clit again, not just pinching this time, but drawing tight, slick circles over the swollen bud.

“Come on. Let go for me. I’ve got you,” he all but growls into your ear.

He kisses the side of your neck, one soft, sweet press that contrasts his hard movements, then bites down just as his fingers move just a little faster.

It’s too much.

You shatter. Back arching off the bed, nails raking down his back as pleasure detonates through every nerve ending. A full-body wave of pure white heat that steals your breath and leaves you gasping his name into the air. Cries of ‘Sammy’ and ‘holy shit don’t stop’ muffled only by his lips. 

Sam doesn’t stop. He rides out every spasm with slower thrusts, still hitting so goddamn deep, as if he’s savouring every pulse around his aching cock. 

“Sam, oh my—fuck, s’much—” you break off in another cry, incapable of holding back the pleads as pleasure explodes through you.

He can tell you’re already oversensitive when he slows a little, always so damn considerate, even when his eyes are darkened nearly black. He presses a kiss to your cheek, your forehead, your hair. “Just breathe for me, baby. That’s it…”

And the way he says it? Like he’s aching, voice rough, ragged, and desperate. Like it’s killing him to ease you down instead of chasing his own high.

He presses his forehead against yours, each puff of his breath fanning over your lips. “Can you keep going f’me, honey? Can you take it?”

And oh, fuck, can you ever.

“Mhm, please, fuck…” you barely manage the sound through your shaky breaths. But even through the overstimulation, the intense sensitivity shocking your nerves with each movement, it still feels so fucking good. 

And you really, really want to see him fall apart. 

His hips stutter forward at your words, a choked groan leaving his throat, hard and desperate. The angle shifts just right, so he’s hitting that spot again, and you can feel him pulsing inside of you. It’s so much. Almost too much.

“You take me so fucking well, I can’t—” he chokes on his own moan as his body jerks, just once, twice, hips slamming into you with uncontrolled need as he spills into the condom with a sound that goes straight to your core.

You’re not sure you’ve seen anything so beautiful. His face screwing up in pleasure, abdomen clenching tight, biceps flexing where they’re caging you in.

He doesn’t pull out right away. Doesn’t move.

Just collapses gently onto his forearms bracketed around your head so he doesn’t crush you, face buried into your neck, as if trying to hide just how wrecked he feels. But still, soft lips press a kiss behind your ear. Tender. Quiet.

You don’t let him hide, though. Your hands slide from around his neck to his jaw, pulling him in for a kiss. Deep, passionate, and so full of emotion. He holds onto you like you’re something fragile.

His mouth moves gently against yours, each kiss soft and slow, like he doesn’t ever want to stop. But he does pull back just barely to rest his forehead against yours, and it’s like he’s seeing you for the first time. Like he’s staring straight into your soul.

One hand slides through your hair, smoothing the sweat-slicked strands from your forehead. “You okay?” he whispers, voice thick, and sweeter than honey.

Are you ever.

Your thumb traces circles over his jaw, his cheek, like a moment spent not touching him is a moment wasted, and it takes a second for you to catch your breath enough to speak. 

“Uh-huh. Fuck. So good.”

Your response, so filled with exhaustion and lingering pleasure, has him huffing out a little laugh. He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, lips curving up against your skin. “Still think I’m insufferable?” he teases, because of course he does, and you roll your eyes. 

“Yeah. And annoying,” you shoot-back, but there’s nothing but fondness in your voice, still trembling with aftershocks.

He can tell you’re overstimulated, your walls fluttering around him like your body is trying to milk him dry. 

“…Sensitive, huh?” He murmurs, not a real question. Just knowing. He slowly eases off of you, leaving you to whine at the loss of his weight. “Sorry, sorry…”

Your eyes flutter closed, but you can hear rustling as he strips off the condom and tosses it. The sound of his footsteps on the creaky dorm room floor. The light over his tiny sink flicking on, then water running.

You reopen your eyes just to watch, and suddenly, you’re right back there. In that sweet, domestic bubble the two of you have been mingling in for years between not-date-dinners and movie nights you have to pretend are platonic. 

When he returns he’s got a warm wash cloth in one hand, but he stops at the edge of the bed, just looking at you like you’re something sacred. Then, that soft, dimpled smile. The one only you ever get.

“Hey,” he says quietly, like the moment is too delicate for anything louder. 

He sits beside you and gently drags the cloth over your skin, slow, careful strokes across your thighs and most intimate parts, just enough to clean without being too much on sensitive nerves. His touch is so tender that it makes your heart ache.

When he’s done, he tosses it aside and climbs back against the pillows, tucking the blanket over the two of you, pulling you close against his chest with a deep sigh. Your legs tangle together beneath warm sheets, your fuzzy socks smoothing against his calf. 

Your head finds its favourite spot, the dip between his shoulder and collarbone, and when his arm wraps around you, he places a kiss to your temple.

Neither of you speak. He just takes the remote in his hand (after finding it buried under his pillow, of course), rewinding the movie since the credits were rolling. Picks up a bag of M&M’s off his bedside table, ripping them open, and hands them to you. Like taking care of you is just second nature for him.

And maybe it is.

And lying there, in his arms, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, is exactly where you want to be. So different than before, and yet? Exactly the same. 

AN: Another one from my AO3! If you couldn’t tell… I wrote this at the start of the month, lol, but at the time, I didn’t quite understand tumblr (and I still don’t quite have it 🤣). But anyway, I’m a sucker for Stanford!Sam, and am a firm believer in stoner!Sam. Sue me.

As always… if you have any (Sam) recs, ideas, questions, God, anything, please don’t hesitate to leave an ask!

But what he can’t understand no matter how hard he tries to is why you’re still with him. He understands it on a base level. He knows that you love him, because you tell him every single day. He knows he loves you, because he can barely go five minutes without thinking about you or reaching for your hand. Dean knows there’s nobody else you’d rather be with because you whisper it between kisses against his neck at night, when the room is dim enough that he has to trace your features with his calloused fingers in order to see you. You’ve promised him time and time again that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be than right by his side. But still, there’s some nagging voice in the back of his head that yells at him and throws words like rocks that break into his bones and corrupt his soul and tell him he’s taking advantage of you. They tell him he’s imprisoning you and trapping you somewhere you don’t want to be.

He notices it the most when you’re with Sam. He’s not jealous of his brother, not anywhere close. But he can’t help but notice the way you gravitate toward him in the bunker library, comparing notes on some obscure topic Dean left for Sam to understand. He notices the way you laugh a little harder at Sam’s jokes sometimes, the way you sit shoulder to shoulder with him when you hunch over a book. He knows you don’t mean anything by it, but hearing you say it isn’t the same thing as believing it. He’s not calling you a liar, though, because the last thing you’d ever want to do to him is lie. He’s just noticing the pattern that maybe, just maybe, his brother would be better for you than he would. All Dean sees is a paper trail that leads to the two of you asleep at the library table with your heads on your folded arms, and all he feels is a guilt broiling low in his gut that burns him from the inside and scorches his muscles. Singing its way up his bones and infecting the prettiest parts of his heart that he leaves open for you to see.

Dean never mentions it, because he’s not supposed to feel like that. He’s not supposed to look at you sitting beside Sam and feel like he doesn’t deserve to sit on your other side. He’s supposed to take pride in the fact that you choose him every day, he’s supposed to look at you and see your future laid out before his eyes. And he does, he really does. At night when he can’t sleep and you’re out cold with your head on his chest and an arm around his waist, he pictures a future for the two of you. A house that isn’t the bunker, a yard with a real fence that he has to repaint every so often when the rain strips the paint off the wood. A lawn he has to trim in the summer and maybe some flowerbeds he can water to remind himself that his hands can keep things alive instead of taking the life away. Maybe a dog if you’d let him, one that runs up to him when he opens the door and nearly bowls him over.

But lately there’s a shadow creeping over these visions, one made of insecurity and fear and dark clouds of something that looks like retreat. The yard that used to be bright and sunny is overrun by a thin film of grey, going sepia at the edges like the old photographs of his parents he keeps in a desk drawer. On the deck, instead of seeing himself at your side with an arm around your waist and your head on his shoulder, he sees Sam pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles and promising you’ll be safe. It’s irrational, and he’s well aware of how stupid it sounds; this is exactly the reason why he’s never told you about these dreams. You’d laugh at him, he thinks, tell him he’s useless and insecure and a waste of space. You’d send him away and he’ promise not to ever see you again, because all he does is let people go. If he can’t keep the promise of keeping them safe, he can keep the promise of letting them leave.

It hurts Dean in the kind of way he never thought he’d be hurt. The kind of way that lodges in his ribs and threatens to crack them open so that he can’t breathe. The kind of way that makes his eyes sore with unshed tears and makes his heart feels heavy enough to slip through his skin and fall to the floor beneath his feet where it will inevitably shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. It stabs his skin with a million tiny barbs and for a moment, he has to close his eyes and reopen them to remind himself he’s not on the rack in hell with hooks sticking out of his shoulders.

Like a wounded cat who isolates himself before he dies, he pulls away from you. Slowly at first, in increments so small he hopes you won’t notice. One less touch of a hand to your lower back, a shorter kiss that sates you but leaves you wanting that tiny bit more. Half a step behind you, voice just a bit quieter, spirit fading out in that quiet kind of way that means you don’t realize what you’re missing until it’s halfway out the door and you’re left holding the ghost of it in your hands. He doesn’t leave, because he can’t bring himself to do that to you or to Sam. Instead, he lurks a little further, leaving you the space you deserve to have. The space that isn’t crowded with his presence.

Dean’s plan is working well for about two months. During those two months, you don’t seem to notice what he’s doing. You give him the space he’s making, you don’t press for physical contact when he’s not giving it, you don’t bug him for all the tiny things you used to bug him for. You still fall asleep in his arms and wake up mostly across his chest, and you still walk step for step with him on the trips to and from the Impala and the bunker. But you don’t reach to lace your fingers with his when you step into a store. You don’t give him chaste kisses to his stubbled cheek when you’re stopped to tie your shoe. You don’t ask his opinion on every tiny thing you want to buy anymore, because he figures he wouldn’t give a good one anyway. Sam’s much better at giving an opinion on those sorts of things, if only because his interests line up with yours anyway.

To Dean, it makes no sense for you to stick around with him when you could have Sam instead. Sam is calmer, quieter, full of the kind of knowledge you respect. He’s sweeter in a lot of ways that Dean is sharp, edges rounded and dulled until he couldn’t cut anyone if he tried. He’s a romantic, and Dean knows from your various birthdays that Sam gives really good gifts to you. Sam has a way with you that Dean’s never had with anyone; maybe that’s just the way Sam is, in his genuine softness. But it doesn’t help that Dean can see it all right there and wonder why you would give up that kind of life you deserve to live yours with him instead. Off the top of his head, he can’t think of anything that he can give you that Sam wouldn’t. And it’s driving him crazy, because what if you’re leading him on? What if you’re trying to let him down slow? What if you’re waiting for him to make the move instead?

It comes to a head one night in the bunker. Sam’s out for the night, something about revisiting an old friend of his from Stanford. Cas, as he usually is, is nowhere to be seen, out on some god-given mission he can’t find it in himself to ignore. You’re curled on the couch in the library, reading something on your phone and mumbling to yourself about how the minimum brightness is still too bright for your eyes at night. There’s a half-drunk mug of something on the table at your elbow that looks dangerously close to being knocked over by your shifting, a knitted blanket covering your legs in a pretty shade of green. He doesn’t even realize you’ve noticed him until he hears your sweet voice say his name all soft.

“What’re you thinking about?” you murmur.

His eyes finally focus on you, taking in the outline of your frame. The slumped shoulders, the posture that says you’re carrying a weight that’s not yours to hold. The way your eyes don’t have that same brightness he fell in love with. They’re dulled by something foreign and strange, shaped like a knife in a shattered mirror, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. A poor bandage for a wound that won’t heal. A wound that he caused, because he can see the lingering scars across your soul and he can feel how heavy your mind is when you look at him like he used to mean something.

“Nothin’,” he lies. “Nothin’.”

Your eyes narrow in that way that says sympathy instead of accusation. “Don’t lie to me, Dean. Somethings going on with you.”

Dean’s eyes darken slightly, and you can feel the conversation doors closing.

“Is it something I did?” you whisper.

Dean’s silent. You can’t figure out why.

“Dean, you have to talk to me,” you say. “If I did something wrong, you have to-.”

“Not wrong.”

His voice is so quiet and thin you can barely hear him over the natural rush of air through the bunker.

“What’d you say?” you ask.

“Not wrong,” he repeats. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The way his voice cracks on the word ‘wrong’ shatters your heart.

“Dean…” you say, trailing off.

“It’s not you, promise.”

“Then what is it?” you beg.

Dean swallows, throat thick with the emotion he’s trying not to let spill over in the form of tears on his sunken cheeks.

“Why are you here?” he says.

Your brow furrows, and something in Dean’s heart still squeezes at the gesture.

“Why am I-. What?”

“Why’re you here? With me?”

“Why-. Dean, where else would I be?”

That makes him pause.

“Oh, I dunno. With Sam, maybe?”

There’s a venom in his voice that sounds like arsenic in barbed wire, rusted metal coated in the kind of poison that seeps into your veins and burns you from the inside out. It eats away at the bottom of your heart until what’s left of it falls out of your body and puddles between your foot and Dean’s work boot, tinging the toe a deep red with your pain.

“What are you even saying right now, Dean?” you ask.

“I’m saying I think you’re lying to me.”

Your mouth opens and closes, a fish out of water searching for the world ‘help’. No words come; instead, they flounder beneath the surface and bubble each time you try to start your sentence. Dean’s watching you with the kind of look that says he’s sorry, but not sorry enough to back away until he gets the answer he wants. Until he gets the answer that validates what he thinks, and not the one that shows the truth. The jury is always tipped in his favour, because he wins them over through insecurity alone.

“Dean, if I wanted to be with Sam, I’d be dating him. I’m not dating him. I don’t want to be with him, not like that.”

“How come?” he challenges.

You blink owlishly. For someone so smart, he asks dumb questions.

“Because I love you, Dean. You. Not Sam, not like that. Not- not whoever you think I love. I love you.”

He gives that jerky nod he does when he’s trying not to cry, swiping a big palm over his eyes and glancing at anything in the room but you. From your position on the couch, you can see his chin tremble with tears he refuses to let fall, the force of the wall keeping his emotions in starting to fade the longer you watch him.

“C’mere,” you murmur, stretching your hands out for him.

A moment’s hesitation, and he obliges, crouching in front of you on his knees and grabbing your hands in his. Your thumb sweeps over his knuckles, petaling back and forth in the kind of soothing rhythm your parents used on you as a kid when you were crying. You don’t miss the way his adam’s apple bobs in his throat, the sort of choked jump it makes when you know he’s swallowing back a sob that tears at his skin.

“What happened?” you whisper, fingers still stroking his knuckles.

“Nothin’ happened.”

“Dean…don’t lie. Not now.”

He takes a deep breath, one that fills all the empty spaces in his lungs and seals them up. For a minute, he’s not sure he has the strength to actually exhale. When he finally does, it’s shaky, drawn out and rough around the edges like a sketch of a breath that someone forgot to erase completely. His thumb twitches in your grip, muscle jumping against your skin, grazing the softness and resisting the urge to pull back to keep it that way. If he doesn’t touch you, he can’t taint you with what he’s working up the courage to say. He’s afraid to say it, because speaking it makes it real, and he’s afraid if you knew what went on in his head, you’d leave him floundering alone on the bunker floor with a metaphorical knife in his heart and conceptual blood on the floor around him.

“I don’t know why you want to me with someone as messed up as me.”

The sentence comes out so fast you can barely piece together the words. Dean’s low drawl slurs letters and drops endings and connects things in the kind of way that normally makes your heart flutter with sweetness. This time, the words feel like a bowling ball to the chest, knocking you over and winding you so hard you don’t think you’ll ever be able to catch your breath again.

“Why do you think that honey?” you ask, tentative.

Dean’s eyes dart to your face, to his shoes, and back to the clock on the wall he’s been eyeing ever since he entered the room.

“Because I’m fucked up.” He laughs, the sound carrying no joy. Then, quieter, he speaks again. “Because Sam’s better for you.”

He’s expecting you to say something. Something that’ll tear his heart into shreds, something that’ll stitch it back together sideways and crooked and leave jagged edges sticking out. He wants you to say something like that, because then at least he’ll know for sure he’s tainted and broken and cursed in a way beyond repair. Then he’ll know he’s unlovable and deserving of nothing from your blessed hands that hold him so gently and softly. Because to him, right now, absolution hurts more than the pain of losing you.

You’re moving before Dean realizes what’s happening. One of your hands comes up to cradle the back of his head, the other one splaying flat between his shoulder blades, resting protectively across the expanses of his back. You’re bringing him closer, tucking him into your body, his head resting in the soft crevice between your neck and shoulder, rocking slowly side to side. Dean’s arms wrap around your shoulders, pushing himself further into your warmth and comfort. He can faintly smell the lingering scent of your soap that clings to your skin in a hug of its own, wrapping him up and melting him down to his barest self. No longer is he the tough Dean Winchester of hunter lore. Now, he’s small, fitting into your arms like he’s no bigger than a dog, pressing every inch of himself against you in a desperate bid for the comfort you’re so keen on providing.

“We’re all screwed up, Dean,” you mumble into his hair. “That doesn’t stop me from loving you.”

“But I’m difficult.”

You grin, the edges of your smile curving against the spiky ends of his hair. “And I’m stubborn.”

His shoulders shake with a quiet laugh that cuts itself off and becomes a sob halfway through. One stray tear rolls down his cheek, soaking into your soft skin and watering you in the way he hopes you never are watered. You deserve to be showered in praise and protection, not dipped into his poison because he can’t hold himself together anymore. He expects you to push him away, to run and hide and leave him stranded on the floor. You hug him closer, dropping his hand to your heart so he can time his breaths to the beats. Over and over he breathes, each one a sign of life he forgot he had. You don’t rush, don’t push him somewhere he’s not ready to go or ask him to talk about things he doesn’t have the words for. You just sit, holding him, listening, murmuring reassurances and promises against his skin and hoping they sink in.

Neither of you really knows how much time goes by before Dean surfaces for air again. His cheeks are red and damp, slightly puffy where they’ve been traced by tears muffled into your shirt. You can tell by the way he’s sniffling and swallowing that his throat is sore, eyes looking raw and red in the kind of way that tells you he needed this. There’s a cowlick in his hair that sticks up strange, and you reach a tentative hand up to smooth it. His eyes finally meet yours, tired and weary, and you cup his face between your hands and press a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Gonna say something, and I need you to listen to me, okay?” you say.

“M’kay.’

Another kiss to his forehead, and he gives a quiet sigh.

“I know you’ve got baggage. We all do; Sam’s no better. But you gotta understand I’m not leaving you for anything.”

“Why-.”

“Ah ah. No.” You hush him with a finger to his lips. “Not done.”

Dean presses a kiss to the pad of your finger, making you smile.

“Listening,” he says.

“I chose you because I love you, okay? If I didn’t think I could handle you, I wouldn’t be here with you. I know you’re worried, and it’s really sweet. But you need to know that you’re it for me. I love you, okay? Not Sam. You.”

“So, you hate Sammy then?” Dean says, cheeky.

If he’s calling his brother Sammy, he must be doing better.

“Dean.”

“What? Honest question.”

You roll your eyes. “I do not hate your brother. I just don’t want him in my bed.”

Dean flashes a toothy grin. “Good, ‘cause that’d be real awkward, sweetheart.”