warnings: traumatized/socially-awkward bucky, canon level injury/violence, snowed-in, hurt/comfort, eventual smut, pre-deprogramming bucky, manipulative steve & nat, mention of psychological trauma and hydra-level torture, etc., eventual appearance of the winter soldier.

🎵drifting playlist🎵

One (2/7/22)

Two (2/17/22)

Three (2/20/22)

Four (2/24/22)

Five (2/26/22)

Six (2/27/22)

Seven (3/2/22)

Eight (3/10/22)

Nine (3/20/22)

Ten (3/28/22)

Eleven (4/3/22)

Twelve (4/12/22)

Thirteen (5/4/22)

Epilogue (12/12/22)

a/n: shoutout to @peterhollandkait for inspiring this story idea. Hope you enjoy!

kate’s masterlist - my bucky barnes masterlist

All your life, you’d never been keen on cliques. But there’s a certain magic in rolling up to a small-town Massachusett dive with yours.

It’s a little funny, calling Sam and Dean your clique. You know that, yet it’s true. You breeze inside the bar like the most popular kids in school, slow-mo strutting down the hall in the movies. Even with them behind you, you can picture it in your head on film: Dean’s jacket swinging with his saunter, Sam’s hair falling in his face, your jewelry swishing at your neckline. Tonight is already a movie. The thud of your boots together makes this pleasant rhythm, parting the Friday night crowd around the three of you, and you lead the boys to the counter with a sense that today has been perfect. The hunt you’d just spent three weeks on had been tied up with the prettiest, cleanest bow. No casualties. No scrapes that couldn’t be fixed with some whiskey and a bandage. Dean is snickering at his joke, and you and Sam are pretending it’s not as funny as it actually is. Things are perfect-perfect.

Even with your two gigantoids as buffers, the bar you’d picked to commemorate a hunt well done is packed to the brim. You gather around the only empty stool at the bar to get the bartender’s attention, and as you wait, you manage to worm your wallet free from your pockets with only a little elbowing. After so long the boys have zero mind for personal space. It’s kind of cute.

“I’ll cover the tab tonight, boys. Call it an early Halloween present,” you beam, and over your shoulder Dean whistles.

“Damn,” he says, “you really are in a good mood.”

You turn your grin on Dean, wiggling your wallet at him so the coins inside rattle like a tambourine. “We’re celebrating! And you wanna know how I know?”

Another group of people squeezes through the crowd behind you, bumping Dean even further into your personal bubble. He tries to be subtle about it, gliding in like an air-hockey puck, but you can tell that he lets the momentum carry him a little further than it needs to. If you brought it up he’d just explain it away as a product of how damn loud it is in here, _____, you can’t fault a guy for having shit hearing! But you know it’s on purpose. Tonight is good for so many reasons, but the first is Dean being relaxed enough to do that. To walk that line with you.

“How do you know?” He asks below the roaring bar chatter. Dean does have shit hearing, since he’s spent so many years behind a pistol, so he tips his face toward your cheek to make out your voice. A wave of gasoline and aftershave floods your senses.

You share a conspiratory look with him, side-eyeing Sam and hiding your smirk behind your hand. “‘Kid told me he plans to have two beers instead of one.”

Dean lights up, because while teasing Sam is fun, it’s ten times funnier when you both gang up on him. “Two? Break out the balloons,” he snickers, and drops a hand on your back to lean past you. There, he drawls at his brother, “You sure you can handle partying with the big kids, Sam? Me and _____ are kind of professional post-hunt drinkers…”

You pump your fist in solidarity because, hell yeah, what a healthy coping mechanism. Over a decade of training has made you a master of the Winchester sense of humor, so just this kills Sam a little—he’s in a ridiculously good mood too, and you can tell because he’s being even more of a tight-ass than usual.

“Cut that ‘kid’ shit out and maybe I’ll throw in some jäger,” Sam grumbles. Or, he tries to, but he’s still smiling to himself.

Again, you share a look with Dean that goes over Sam’s head (metaphorically, of course). Two beers and some jäger in him could end in only one way: you and Dean dragging over two hundred pounds of giggly man-boy the three blocks to your motel. Dean makes a face like that’s the last way he wants to end tonight, but you know from experience that being carried home piss-drunk is way more fun than it sounds. For you, at least.

Last time, you’d been laughing too hard for either brother to keep you on your feet. It was great. Whenever you complained about something, one of your best friends in the whole world appeared to magic the problem away. You were laughing too hard to walk? Dean scooped you up and carried you all the way to the Impala. Your heels were murdering your ankles? Sam wiggled them off you, trailing behind you and Dean with them slung over his shoulder. You fell asleep to the soft jostle of Dean’s walk and the low timbre of his voice humming Folsom Prison Blues. Sometimes you still caught yourself singing it when you got ready for bed.

“Hold on—that table’s opening up. I’m gonna steal it for us,” Sam notices. He slaps Dean on the shoulder as he goes, “Order for me.” Realizing the troublemaker he’d just handed that responsibility to, Sam wheels back, and asks you instead. “Actually, _____, can you—?”

You raise a hand before he can finish. “The cheapest pale ale they have, I know. Now, go, before we’re forced to sit on the pavement outside all night.”

Sam gives you this trusting nod that’s just golden, because the second he’s gone you twist to Dean, your partner in crime, and squint in thought. “...So. You think he’ll hate the peach daiquiris or the malibu cocktails more?”

The smile that hasn’t left Dean’s face once since you walked in only grows. You feel the hand on your back loop around to your waist, squeezing you against his warm side in appraisal. “God,” he sighs, wistful, “you’re my brand of evil genius, you know that?”

You sputter out a laugh instead of something clever, because, well. When Sam is in a good mood, he digs his heels in and sasses back to everything you say. When Dean is in a good mood, he squeezes the bare skin where your jeans meet your shirt, carries you home, and gazes at you with big glittery eyes and rumbles, I hear the train a-comin', it's rolling 'round the bend…

Apparently, you do about the same thing on your good days too. Gliding into him with that same air-hockey puck subtlety, you squeeze him around the back, asking in your sweetest voice, “Can you go see how many songs are in the jukebox’s play queue for me? I wanna dance to—”

“I know what song you want to dance to,” Dean smugly finishes your thought, so certain of your preferences that your heart does a little jig. “You know what d—?”

“—yeah, I know what drink you want,” you finish for him, just like he had for you.

Dean’s face glitters with open fondness for just an instant, then disappears into the constant flux of people, leaving you to suck down the gasoline-aftershave-leather fog that follows him. You can still feel the friendly pinch he’d given your waist by the time your drinks arrive, the ache of it fading into your skin. The leftover adrenaline from your accomplished hunt was still pounding through your system, so the haze of Dean's affection layered on top has you skipping back to your table.

You can taste it mingling with the cigar smoke in the air—something’s different with Dean tonight. Him and you. Sam had noticed, too, because after he accepts his peach daiquiri with an unphased huff, he waits to speak until he’s safely hidden behind his laptop’s screen.

“That was a lot of touching up there,” he says, as if he’s talking about the weather.

You take the same tone, shrugging like he’s pointed out it’s gonna rain later. “S’ been a good week, Sammy.”

Any attempt to come across as tame is useless. You’re an open book. A part of you wishes you were less obvious, but Dean’s pinch still tingles in your side and the left side of your body is alive with phantom leather jacket sensations. Shit.

“Your hands are shaking.” His brows bounce once at you over the article he’s reading.

You have nothing smart to say at this, and instead choose to scoop up your own daiquiri and clink it against his. Distraction tactic. Sam cheerses with you, but doesn’t drink from his glass, clunking it down next to him and simmering with you in your crush-pumped silence. He gets this particular look on his face when it comes to you and Dean. It’s squinty, knowing, and not an inch different from when he was a little kid. You remember the cool girlfriend that your own older brother had had in high school, and what your relationship with her had looked like. She was awesome, and every day you prayed she never left. Sam has always had that same quiet hope in his eyes—please stick around forever and take care of my dumbass brother. I’ll pay you.

Many, many times, too many times to count, the swirling threads of your feelings and Dean’s had crossed, but not once had they ever knotted together permanently. He would swing into your life and then swing out. You would live in his for a little while, threads looping and weaving, but nothing ever came of it. Putting it into terms more complicated than that usually made your chest ache like a rail spike had been driven through it. Tonight is one of those nights where the ache feels good, where loving Dean is a special secret you can whisper behind your hand to anyone you want.

Words swim in your head. There is no easy way to explain to Dean’s kid brother that Dean is the best man in this room and this world, that he bleeds goodness like other men bleed mud, that he’s the best thing that ever happened to you. Sam would probably roll his eyes. You are rolling your eyes at yourself. But on the up-and-down rollercoaster of your relationship, these last few months have been the strongest climb to the top yet. Maybe that means you’re going to hit a big drop. You’re a hopeful person, though, so you can’t help but read Dean’s eyes in the rearview mirror differently. This is it. He’s not looking at the lonely girls by the bar or the pretty ones on the dancefloor. His eyes are on you.

Blinking yourself out of your head, you putter out the lamest version of your buzzing thoughts.

“I get the feeling tonight’s different,” you say, talking into your glass and avoiding Sam’s laser-focused gaze. On instinct, you stare at the vague clump in the crowd where Dean should be. “All these months of…” you gesture broadly, “I think… something could happen.”

Sam pulls a face. “Ew.”

You kick him under the table. “Shut up,” you laugh, “I’m being serious, dude. Dean—”

…appears right beside you. In your mind’s eye, he emerges from the crowd bleeding with easy cheer, glistening gold at the edges in the bar light. “You rang?” he says. “Got your song going for you. Should be the next one.”

Dean slinks out of his jacket like a tomcat, all casual slyness, and hip-checks you when he slides into your half of the booth. It’s practical—he would have to squeeze, sitting by Sam. With you, Dean has all the room in the world to manspread his thigh against yours and toss his arm over the back of the seat behind you. The flesh of his arm never actually makes contact with the back of your neck, but it could. He survived off those little almosts.

Just as the three of you get settled into conversation, the last song dies out, swaying into the first bluesy chords of One of These Nights by the Eagles. The second that first brassy note plucks off the lead guitar, a match sparks in your chest. Dean spins to catch your eye, gleaming with excitement. The old urge to get up and conquer the dancefloor becomes irresistible. You can still feel your last case in your weary bones a bit, but there’s a certain grime to hunting that can only be scrubbed off by a good time. Dean knows this, too, so you’re led by the wrist out of the booth before the lyrics even start. He steals a sip of peach daiquiri and then you’re off for the open space between the tables. You’re laughing so hard your cheeks ache.

You’re chased by Sam’s playful shout. “Don’t have too much fun out there!”

The race to the lyrics is literal. You know there’s only a few seconds of interlude before they start, and Dean, after decades of being your one and only dance partner, knows precisely when they kick in. One of you decides that you must be in the middle of the sparse crowd the second Don Henley starts singing, and the other accepts this without question. You end up laughing, scrambling, and shoving a couple of people to get there, but god—the supporting piano lands and the bass struts and the lead guitar just stings. Like always. You break through into a clearing at the heart of the bar’s dancefloor, and for a second all you can see is Dean. He skids to a stop in his boots and laughs his ass off the whole time, stumbling inwards and making a mad dash to get your hands in his. His grin shines and his eyes crinkle with glee. The fire and anguish from your earlier hunt is gone. Now it’s just him, as you’ve always remembered him.

“One of these nights…” you laugh to each other. With your hands scooped in his, Dean starts funnily salsaing you back and forth with him to the beat, which instantly splits your sides. You’re laughing too hard to sing with him, “One of these crazy old nights…”

Through giggles, you dryly comment, “Excellent starting move.”

“Why thank you,” Dean replies.

You shift his salsa dancing around in a circle, then follow the spin all the way out, wing-span wide and only one hand tethered to Dean’s. With the ease of practice, he whirls you back in. Each move is unrehearsed and mostly random, but you and Dean have listened to this song in particular at least a hundred times, and danced to it just as much. Some beats of it you can’t help repeating from other nights spent dancing in bars. For example:

You’re wrapped in one of his arms, hand still held, while Dean’s other seamlessly lands on your waist on time with the next line. “We’re gonna find out, pretty mama,” he drawls with purpose, leaning in close enough to make your neck tickle, “what turns onnn your lights…”

He does this every time. Every time, it makes your chest tight with this shivery warmth you just can’t shake.

Dean used to be pretty shit at dancing, but after a hundred bars with a hundred names you’ve forgotten, it’s the one piece of him that you’ve pried loose from John’s influence. Sam isn’t looking and nobody knows who the two of you are. For once, Dean lets loose. He slides his hands down your arms and hooks your fingers in his, calloused and thick, rocking you back and forth with the rhythm. You think to yourself that Dean would make a great musician. He keeps time with ease, falling into a relaxed four-step (you’re pretty sure that’s what it’s called) and losing himself in the words. The swinging openness of it makes him look just gorgeous. Dean’s cheeks are rosy with exertion, the hollow of his throat shines with sweat, and he never looks away from you even once.

Every other day of hunting season, Dean… compartmentalizes. He takes the fever the two of you feel now and packs it down where nobody can find it. You see those feelings shake loose from their reigns every once in a while, but there’s only one time he ever relinquishes his control over them out in the open: here, cupping your lower back and crooning lyrics.

“...been searchin’ for the daughter of the devil himself,” he murmurs, throwing you a playful eye-roll at the symbolism you’re both tired of living. “I’ve been searchin’ for an angel in white…”

You drop a wrist over Dean’s shoulder and he rocks in close, tilting back and forth on his feet. Together, you mumble along with Don Henley and sway in a cozy circle. You take the rare opportunity to relish how he feels pressed against you. Saying anything will spoil the magic, so you just let it wash over you, purposefully coasting away from the few rational thoughts your brain is producing.

It’s unfair that he feels the way he does—and you know Dean does, he’s told you and you’ve told him and it’s all been laid out before—and still strings you along like this. You know. You should be pissed at him every time you think about it. But it’s Dean, and having a piece of him you don’t see is better than having none of him at all.

“...One of these nightssss…”

The Eagles eventually seep into another band’s song, which you assume is your signal to quit. Your vision loses its luster and the glittering lights of the world dim back to normal. Dean will have his one lucky dance with you, then, since you’re a bunch of old people, you’ll retire to your table and shoot the breeze until someone calls it a night. That’s how this always goes.

You pull your cheek from where you’d laid it against his shirt. It takes you a bit to put your thoughts into words, so you’re slow to assume, “Wanna get back to our drinks?”

When you meet eyes, Dean’s are soft, and he smiles with this quiet pleasure roving all over his face. Dimly, you register that Burnin’ For You by Blue Oyster Cult is chiming through the bar now, but. He runs his hands down your arms—sort of planting you in place, like he wants to keep you here with him. Your whole body zings with millions of little electric pulses that pump into your head like a fog too thick to see through. More than anything, you want to stay too.

Around you, the dancefloor is alive with people. But Dean has a habit of making you feel cinematic, so you can almost see how the extras fizz into the background as the camera settles on you and him alone. The bar lights hang overhead, hazy and warm. Your soundtrack is lively and familiar. The moment hangs… neither of you wants to give it up.

“Yeah. Why don’t we, uh,” he clears his throat, “grab a few sips and then head back here, huh?”

Suspended in place by the pound of your own heart, you slide your palms off his chest and put on your slyest grin. “Dancing is way more fun when you’re tipsy.”

Dean slips on a smile of his own, then turns to lead the way out of the crowd. For just an instant you feel like you can’t get your feet off the floor, and you watch him go, head spinning. Deep down, you worried that you might’ve been pushing your enthusiasm to its limit thinking tonight was the night. For the last decade of your life, you’d been waiting on Dean. But something really is different now, because, true to his word, Dean snags a few sips of his drink with you and then you’re back out on the dance floor.

The next few songs fly by. Everything is Dean. The heavy thump of boots on the worn-smooth floor, the growing buzz of alcohol in your system. You’re at the center of his stage, and he doesn’t even try to hide it. If anybody but you came up and waved a hand in his face, you doubted Dean would even notice. You talk about your favorite albums and he laughs at every joke you make, giving you that big-eyed, pirate-smile Dean Winchester look that melts your insides. His eyes are on you.

You swim your way through Double Vision by Foreigner, you on lead air-guitar and Dean supporting with some seriously impressive air-drums. Neither of you consider yourselves professional singers or anything, but there’s a moment in the chorus underneath all the noise where you swear you and Dean harmonize. All the rowdy guitar and drum-playing smooths into The Police’s Roxanne. Your face is immediately sizzling hot the second you hear the starting chords, since every time, without fail, Dean pulls out all the stops to dramatically croon the song to you. The last time it’d come on the radio, he’d chased you all over Bobby’s house, serenading you with a beer bottle microphone. He does it this time too. When you laugh and squirm away, he finds your wrists and guides you back into him, palms everywhere, making kissy faces and everything.

You suppress the urge to seek revenge and huff, “You don’t even know what this song is about, do you?”

Dean snorts, but his eye contact with you is purposeful. “Course’ I do. S’ about a guy who’s so into his girl that he doesn’t want to share her with anybody else.”

Instead of having an apt response for that, you internally shrivel up into a ball and lose any fire left in you. Dean, satisfied he’s shut you up, noses your ear and sings, “...Wouldn’t talk down to ya… I have t’ tell ya just how I feel, I won’t share you with another boy…”

The mushy impression he’s doing of Sting fails pretty quickly, so Dean softens into his own voice. For the millionth time tonight, you’ve found yourself with your arms around his neck and his face hovering around yours. If you mention it, Dean will drop everything and run. You know that. So you don’t sing that particular song with him. Allowing him to sing it to you is much sweeter, anyway, and the slower the music gets the closer you’re allowed to be.

And boy, every guy in the room must be aiming to get a slow dance with his girl, because soon the steady flow of rock n’ roll on the jukebox drizzles into Elvis and The Temptations. You joke about this to Dean, giving him a small out. Just in case.

“You hate mushy music,” you tell him, even if you both know that’s not exactly true.

Dean’s warm palms coast over your waist and you draw your nails across the flannel on his back, soaking each other up. A memory pierces your train of thought in a hot flash. You’d seen Dean dance with other girls like this, hands all over, seeking. But tonight they rest on your hips or hook through your belt loops without intention. Dean’s just here, and he wants you here too. For now, you’re his first choice for who he’s spending his time with tonight.

He doesn’t take the out you gave him.

“S’ not all bad,” Dean shrugs under your hands. “...I like this song.”

It’s Elvis’s Love Me, which effectively scrubs the dancefloor of any non-couples. Besides you and Dean, that is. This fact hangs in the air, supercharged, but neither of you mentions it. Dean draws you into him and you slide eagerly into his hold, your head under his chin. A few other pairs skip out onto the floor and take up space beside you. Soon, the molecule of space left between you and Dean disappears. You’re pretty sure if a few atoms went missing from the universe something crazy would happen, like a nuclear explosion, and that’s exactly what occurs in your belly. Dean sways with you like he’s in love with you, like it’s a secret everyone can see. If anyone in the bar glanced over at the two of you now, you know exactly what they’d think.

The best part of this was that Dean doesn’t end it after two dances, three dances, or four. You go all night like that, shittily waltzing to love songs and grooving along to faster ones. He had an opportunity to escape every time you took a trip to throw back your drinks. But if it crosses Dean’s mind at all, he never, ever takes it. One of you starts talking then neither of you can stop. Almost three hours later, you’re halfway through Just What I Needed and a street racing story that never fails to blow Dean’s mind, when your hundredth round of drinks runs dry. Since you’re both past tipsy now, it’s unanimously decided that there’s more work to be done.

“S’ a good night,” Dean tells you, beaming, “we can do another round, right?”

“Hell yeah,” you shrug, and raise your empty glass, “Here’s to alcohol poisoning, baby.”

“Yeah,” Dean echoes, almost slurring. “Baby.”

You take his empty glass, too, and Dean tips back toward your table to bother his brother. Both times you glance back Dean is following you with his eyes. It’s like hearing scratching in your attic and walking through cold spots for months, then suddenly seeing a full apparition right in your living room. Bobby claimed Dean had perfected the art of admiring you from afar, but you’d always figured he was exaggerating. Instead of chasing the ghost of one of his big-eyed stares, you actually see it first-hand—the big-eyed stare. Dean blinks prettily at you over his shoulder, then sways back toward Sam, unembarrassed and flushed a happy drinker’s red. In the flesh. Wow.

You’re so distracted you almost skip into two patrons, so you start watching where you’re going and add a few more drinks to your tab. While you’re waiting on them, you rock on your heels, brimming with buzzing energy. Years and years of buildup and something might finally happen. The prospect is so sweet that you giddily dance in place, bobbing to your own content music. The bartender gives you a funny, amused look and so do the people you squeeze past to reach him, but you ignore them all, scooping up your drinks and floating back to the table. Your grin is so bright that it makes your cheeks ache.

“Alright, gentlemen, I crossed two deserts to get these drinks, so you better—”

It’s just Sam at your table, looking sheepish.

You squint at him. Sheepish. Why is he sheepish? You set down your glass and Sam’s, then awkwardly release Dean’s beer from where it’d been trapped between your elbow and your ribs. The corner where Sam has shoved all your empty drinks has since expanded—there are at least five more new drinks there, completely outside the realm of anything you know Sam or Dean would order.

You stand. “Damn. Who ordered these?”

Sam stiffly brushed the hair from his face. “Um… a table in the corner sent em’ over. As a gift.”

“Free drinks? Really? That rocks,” you brighten.

Sam was avoiding the eyes of someone at said table, so you turn to intercept the stares and instantly feel the cloud nine you’re floating on drop out from under you.

“...Dean’s over there thanking them,” he clarified.

It’s a big group of women. Your reasonable-self could follow the logic: Dean and Sam were pretty, the women had noticed they were pretty, and then bought them drinks for being pretty. Your reasonable self would pull up a chair and toast to those women. The Winchester spell made everyone want to give them stuff for just being gorgeous and alive, and though you weren’t a Winchester, you reaped the rewards just as often. Sam’s puppy look paid the rent, and more than once Dean’s dazzling smile had won your way into concerts and r-rated movies. You should’ve been stoked.

If you were completely sober you’d probably put together that it was a bachelorette party, but all you see is your Dean, center stage among them and putting on a show. Even drunk he does a convincing performance of a “modeling agent” passing out his card. Cards. To all of them. The booth of girls giggle and lean closer, all swaying in the direction of Dean’s sly grin like snakes to a snake-charmer. A swath of mothy bitterness starts to eat holes into your stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Sam mourns. He says it with so much genuine remorse that you realize how crushed you must look—and wow, isn’t that an embarrassing cherry to top this sundae off. They’re just girls. It’s just talking. Still, Sam tells you, “I tried to stop him.”

“So have I,” you answer, bitterly.

The hours of dancing suddenly burn in your legs. You steady a hand on the table to slide into your seat, but there are so many glasses that it feels too full to occupy, and Sam noisily scuffling them out of your way doesn’t help your raw ears. Resigned, you shove into your side of the booth and tell yourself that you’re overreacting. Thanking people (a group of women) for sending over free drinks (because Dean’s too pretty for his own good) is perfectly normal (to non-jealous people, at least). Because you’re not at all a resentful person, you slide over the closest glass and choke it down.

Sam raises both brows. “Maybe you should slow down a bit. Unless you want one of us to carry you home—?”

You pull your glare away from the other side of the bar and focus it on the table, answering Sam’s question for him.

“Right,” he realizes, “I can go and—”

You’re already shaking your head. “Don’t. Let’s see how long it takes ‘im.”

As it turns out, drunk Dean is an incredibly social butterfly. For the first ten minutes he’s engrossed in his conversation, you aimlessly stir your drink and dodge Sam’s glances. Fifteen and you’re glued to your seat. Twenty and Dean still isn’t back, a handful of songs you know he’d kill to dance to coming and going. Past that you’re spaced out too far to care, and have failed to not let your mood be killed. The neon electricity that’d been pumping through your system all night is cold and lifeless. On top of that, you’re furious with yourself for staking all your hopes and feelings on a premise so stupid, for trusting Dean. Again. You know you’re drunker than you want to admit, but this nasty swirling bitterness burning in your stomach isn’t alcohol. You sigh into your half-finished drink. This was exactly what happened last time.

Since you’re already feeling sorry for yourself, you punish your naivety by stealing glances at Dean’s table. In the half an hour he’s been gone, he’s taken a seat at their booth, cozied up to the woman closest to him, and captivated each of them with a story. You can tell which one from across the bar. With five sets of happy eyes feasting on him, he puts on his best smolder and gestures suavely with his hands—recounting the time he heroically pulled some civilians from a burning building last year. You know he doesn’t tell them it was for a hunt. You wonder if he mentions you being there at all, or leaves out the part about you hauling him from the fire in the end.

Against your better judgment, you lift your eyes from the hole you’d bored into the table and stare at Dean’s profile until your vision blurs. Please, please just look at me again, you pray with all the faith you have left.

…It looks like you’ve misplaced it. Dean stays at their table for another insufferable ten minutes. After all, pushing you away has always come easier to him than dancing.

Ready for Love by Bad Company plays next. Your mind apparently has a bone to pick with you too, because just hearing the song drops you back into the motel room you and Dean had shared in Tulsa years ago. Jim—your father—had passed that summer, speared by the same thing you’d been hunting. Sam was at school. It’d just been Dean and whatever feeble parts of you that’d survived losing your dad. For weeks, you tortured yourself chasing his killer and tortured Dean as stress relief. You were truly rotten to him then. He should’ve left you in Tulsa, but he’d kept you standing and fed til’ the hunt was long over. He endured every fight you picked and every apathetic apology. Nothing could kill his instinct to nurture, not even your grief, and you came out of the ordeal with Dean’s warm hand brushing your hair from your face. You loved Sam, but you missed the days when he was at school sometimes. Only then could Dean open his stitches and let his inner sweetness bleed out. The night you killed the thing that’d taken your dad from you, Dean had carried you home, washed the blood from your hair, and sang that song until you were safe and half-asleep in his arms.

You’re strong, he’d told you. Stronger than me. Stronger than your dad. You’ll get through this, easy.

Paul Rodgers starts to sing. The woman closest to Dean snuggles in to ask him a question, brushing her nails down the back of his neck. He tilts his head toward hers to listen, and whatever she says makes him turn the blatant flirtiness in his grin to 100%. Her shiny dark hair rolls down her back in perfect spirals, and the swish of it around her neck as she stands from her chair, blushing giddily, brands behind your eyes. Dean stands too.

Your stomach drops. She wiggles her fingers for him to take, and Dean, the lottery winner, follows her onto the dancefloor.

That’s about when you should force yourself to stop watching. But you’ve never had the keenest sense of self-preservation, so you keep stealing glances until your stomach is in knots—until this very lucky girl wraps her arms around Dean’s neck and summons enough liquid courage to kiss him.

Dean kisses back.

You sit there until your throat burns with stifled tears. It doesn’t take long for you to notice Sam looking at you, and when you do your whole body instantly flares with dark embarrassment that writhes up your legs like snakes. You barely have to guess what he’ll do next. He stews on the pitiful sight of you alone on the other side of the bench for another beat, then shoves himself to his feet and slams his laptop shut—and it’s nice, having somebody go through all these motions of defending you, but you don’t need it from Sam. You don’t need it from anybody.

“Don’t,” you warn him. “Don’t. ‘Only make it worse.”

“I know what he’s doing,” Sam starts, lip curled in disbelief. He’s disappointed in his brother. “Dean’s—testing you. Seeing if you’ll stick around. But you’ve more than proved you will, even when he pulls this shit, so I don’t see why you’ve gotta—”

“He’s drunk and stupid,” you cut him off. “We both are. I’m gonna let it go, n’ so are you.”

Sam stills, one unsatisfied hand on the tabletop. “...If I just talk to him—”

“Fucking don’t,” you tell him, and wow, you’re a mean drunk all of a sudden, huh? Pressing your fingertips against your eyelids does nothing to make the world stop tilting. Wilting, you pull your hands from your face and try not to burst into tears. “Sorry. Sorry. M’ not upset with you. M’ not upset with anybody.” Pathetically, you beg, “C’n we just go home?”

Sam gives you an uneasy nod. “Sure thing. I’ll grab Dean and pay our tab.”

Well, shit. Miserable as you are, you did promise to pay for drinks. A night of fun celebratory drinks, to be exact, which had gone completely sideways instead. Great. Sam hastily packs up his bag like he can escape before you remember, but you send him off with a wad of your own bills so he doesn’t go broke feeling bad for you.

Since waiting for him and Dean out on the curb sounds stupid, you choke out, “Bathroom,” and go hide there to dust off your pride.

God, does a thin, shitty motel mattress sound gorgeous right now. On shaking fawn legs, you bruise your way out of the booth and through the crowd, silently hoping that a loose elbow from a rowdy passerby knocks you out cold. Unfortunately, you barrel into the women’s restroom still conscious. It’s mostly empty too, so you’re free to meet your reflection without courage.

When Dean had given his yes for your second dance, you’d imagined this moment. After dancing the night away, you’d complain about your aching heels and Dean would scoop you up, all gentleman-like. He’d joke and hum all the way home—and what a funny word that was, since the only thing in your life permanent enough to call home was him. You’d kiss him goodnight and Dean’s gaze would follow you all the way to the bathroom. And there, once the door was shut and you were alone, the magic of the night would glow in your reflection. You’d sink into your happy, exhausted feet. The heat of his fingertips would be all over your waist and neck and chin. Best of all, when you’d slink into bed and pull the covers up to your face, Dean’s stomach would slot against your back and he’d spill it all to you in a whisper. I couldn’t take my eyes off you tonight, he’d say. I never could, sweetheart. Didn’t want to.

But the truth was that Dean could take his eyes off you so damn easily. These days it felt like you lost his attention the second you got it. Again and again you gave him these chances, and every time he wasted them. Tonight you had sworn something was going to be different, felt it ringing in your soul like a promise, and the second your back is turned he’s found a better dance partner. Was this a sign? Now, you glared at the mirror you’d chosen, feeling the familiar needles of self-loathing start to creep between your ribs. When was it going to happen? When were things going to change? Every time you’d hit this point in the past, Dean had cut those threads before they could tie. I’m not good for you, he’d say. He’d remind you of what had happened to Jess, which had always scared you straight—but that fear came with a finish line. Hunting wasn’t the end of the road for you. With you and Dean, there’d always been a vague idea of something “after,” something over the horizon too far away to see.

You’d held fast to that “after” for so long. Even on the third, fourth, or fiftieth round of Dean’s eyes landing on someone else, you took in a breath and reassured yourself of that “after.” After everything was over and there were no worlds left to save, Dean would look at you and never stop looking.

But this was the hundredth time you’d saved the world. The road to that horizon was endless, and you’d waited so, so fucking long.

Staring at your puffy eyes and spinning reflection in the low flickering light, a dull realization started to connect inside you. You couldn’t care anymore. You were so tired of waiting. One of these days, Dean was going to glance away and never look back. Maybe…

Maybe it would be better for you to pull away first.

The bathroom door banged inwards, startling you into a moment of sobriety. You were whirling around and palming the pistol handle in your waistband before you could think, only to relax. It was just Dean. In the women’s restroom. Fucking hell.

“Dean! What the hell are you—?”

“M’ savin’ our party,” Dean clarifies, and woah, he cannot hold his liquor like he used to. Without a hint of shyness, he saunters into your bubble and dares—fucking dares—to power on his doe-eyes. “Why’d’ya wanna go?” He pouts. Sam must’ve told him. “S’ not even midnight yet.”

“Jesus, you’re lucky s’ just me in here. Could’ve scared the pants off some poor girl,” you curse.

Everything after that is a tightrope act to keep hold of your restraint. Taking his elbow, you pluck the beer out of his hand and toss it into the nearest bin. Dean, of course, squawks in protest, but doesn’t fight when you push him into the narrow hall outside.

“Why on earth did you just stroll in? Just wait for me next time!”

“Maybe you were the girl whose pants I scared off,” Dean chuckles, sounding dizzy. He’s not steady enough to stand in place for too long.

Any other night you’d happily let him lean on you, but just seeing him makes your chest feel split open. The second he’s propped against one wall of the little hall, you’re on the other side, twisting around him and making a beeline for the exit. But Dean is still the guy you were on the dancefloor with an hour ago, so you’re not a step away before two big arms catch you around the middle. Giggling, Dean lassos you back in, and all at once he’s draped across your back with his cheek smushed into yours from behind. The happy little snickers seeping out of him rumble warmly through your back. You’re cozily squeezed around the middle with all the love in the world, and the worst part is that you revel in it. Dean sways a bit with you in his arms, big warm hands folding across your belly, and every stupid cell in your body melts into the contact. He’s only ever like this when he’s drunk.

“If you even get scared,” he hums into your ear, amused. “You’re s’ tough I dunno if you even can. And y’know what? I think…” he turns his lips into your cheek, his stubble rubbing the skin there just right, “I think you’re tough enough to get back out there with me n’ show em’ how it’s done.”

You should resist. You honestly should. But you’re drunk and hollowed out and lonely, so you compromise with yourself and stand dead still. You don’t touch him or lean into it. Yet you don’t squirm away, either.

At your silence, Dean wuffs out a breath down your neck and pouts into your shoulder. “C’monnn,” he urges, “dance with me more. Party! We’re celebratin’. N’ you’re such a great dancer, I wanna take you out there n’ brag ‘bout you. Everybody was lookin’ at us before. You and me. Didja notice that?”

“I did,” you swallow. “But I think m’ all partied out. I just wanna go home, kay? Sam’s out there waiting for us…”

Dean hears this and shifts his face into your neck, pretending to search for a comfortable place to rest his cheek when really he’s just nuzzling. “Boring. What? Pretty princess too tuckered out?” Dean teases. “I’ll tell the kid t’ walk back without us, he’ll be fine. C’mon. I’ll even say please.”

You remain silent. Anxious, Dean fills it. “Just a lil’ while longer, _____. Y’know I can only flirt with you when m’ like this.”

The ache in your chest hits a searing point, and the breath you’re holding breaks. He always, always has to hide.

You squirm out of Dean’s bubble. He makes a gentle attempt at fishing you back in, whining in the back of his throat, but you rip your hand free and peel around the corner before he can react. The mental picture of Dean left hurt and confused in your wake is satisfying, but you know it’s not a faithful image. Instead, he and his words chase you all the way to the curb outside. C’mon! Don’t be lame, ______! The yelling is embarrassing, but what really stings is how he does this in front of everyone. Sam. The bachelorette party, who make your skin crawl with mixed stares of jealousy and sympathy. The woman he kissed. And worst of all, everyone else in the bar, who only recognize you from the hours of slow-dancing you’d done with Dean.

You burst out into the chilly amber night, scrambling for any sense of backbone. A hot flash of unwelcome tears locks your throat shut. Like the unshakable hunter you’re supposed to be, you grit your teeth despite them and ignore Dean’s shouts.

“Sweetheart, c’mon,” he calls. The hurt in his voice surprises you. Dean’s voice is thready with genuine, mounting panic, flooding your brainpan with oily pleasure. Good. “Didn’t want this t’ go this way. We wer’ havin’ fun, weren’t we? M’ sorry. Come back inside. Whatever I did—”

You feel your resolve snap next, splitting apart like a guitar string under scissors.

Then you’re whirling toward him at collision speed, a mangled mess of snarling teeth and tear-caked cheeks. Yelling feels fucking great. You bare your fists, flying at him in a rage.

“Come on come on come on—you know what you did! You know! You have to know!”

Dean skids to a stop. By the street lamp light, he’s still golden as ever, looking soft and beaten. His expression crumples. His visible pain feels good for one glorious breath, then it all shatters as you realize what taboo you’ve brushed up against—and why. Over a few girls. Over a little talking. Some dancing. A silly tipsy kiss. You know everything gets heavier when you’re drunk, but god, this burden weighs more than the fucking sky sometimes. You’re so tired of carrying it. You want an out.

He drags a calloused hand down his face. “...I was just messing around, talking to them… dancing with her. Needlin’ you.”

“Well,” your breath rattles unprettily between words. “I’m needled. Are you fucking happy? Are you? Does it—does it—” you have to talk through harsh, sudden sobs, “—do you like playing with my feelings? Hanging that bone over my head, over and over and over again, just to rip it away?”

You don’t get to see how your desperation lands on Dean, since it’s then that Sam comes between you. “It’s okay,” he soothes, “you’re okay—just—” and lays your jacket over your back.

Then, Sam gets his hands on your arms to steer you the opposite way. You thrash away from him and his brother, furious. But you’re coherent enough to know that this is a bad time to wield the contempt you’ve kept stored. Roiling with fresh horror, you stifle your sobs into your sleeve and dart fast out of the parking lot, toward your motel.

“That didn’t involve you, Sam,” Dean barks over your shoulder, but it comes out more feeble than he intends. Your words were so much so suddenly that it sounds like he’s been shocked sober. Hoarsely, Dean pleads, “_____, wait. Hold on a second. Think about this—!”

…And you’re thrown back in. Supercharged with all the ferocity of a whirlwind, you twist around again. Sam’s already intercepting you, hands up and calm, but after years and years of second chances, you’re sick of waiting for something that’s never going to happen. You love Dean. It aches in your chest and bleeds out your ears, chewing away at your survival instincts.

You’d been right. Something was going to change tonight.

“You have no fucking idea how much I’ve thought about it,” you snarl. “Every day I think about it! Every night! So, no, I’m done thinking and—an’ watching and—”

The tank of crazed energy you’re running on immediately saps. Your voice cuts off with it, so you’re forced to gasp for breath and broil in your bone-deep exhaustion. Though this isn’t the first time the boys have seen you this hurt, they stand frozen on coltish legs, wide-eyed. Your effect on them lands hard: Sam’s mouth is drawn into a firm guilty line, and Dean, who usually fills whole continents with his authority, shrinks miserably into his jacket until his hands are lost in the sleeves. Finally, he takes me seriously.

You give Sam a look. Shell-shocked and unsure, Sam shuffles aside to face his back to you both.

With no one between you, it’s clear in Dean’s eyes that there’s another element to this for him. He’d known this was coming. Having his brother as a barrier was just one more way Dean had softened the blow. Between the awful, sinking guilt seeping out of him at the seams, there was resignation too. On one of those slow nights in your motel in Tulsa, he’d told you himself.

Everyone leaves, Dean had shrugged. Sam. My dad. Some day, you’ll leave too. And I won’t even blame you.

Back then, you’d laid your cheek against Dean’s sweat-tacky arm, the two of you trying to stay cool on a boiling Oklahoma night. You’d wondered to yourself how anyone could do that to the man you loved. Dean’s instinct was to give, to point both fans in that boiling room at you instead of him. How could anyone look at all the things he’d sacrificed and not give the same in return?

Well, you’d smiled at him, I’m not moving an inch, cowboy. You’re stuck with me.

Now, after years and years of sacrificing to no end, you knew that Dean’s prediction had come true. He had been waiting for the other boot to drop for so long that he’d already decided what it would sound like. A part of you wanted to cling to him and the promise you’d made him until your nails bled. But that dead limb was the one that’d been killing you, and tonight was the final proof you needed to amputate it.

You had to leave.

“I love you so much, Dean,” you hiccuped. “But I can’t wait for you anymore.”

You knew you were breaking a promise, no matter how good your intentions were. For that, you weren’t going to allow yourself an easy exit. Instead of whipping around and running for it like you wanted to, you let the slow, ugly acceptance in Dean’s silhouette brand your memory.

Statue-still, all Dean could manage was a tight nod.

He just stared and stared at you, gutted and appalled. You waited for him to say something, to fight this even a little, to make any of this easier on you both. Hating him wouldn’t be so impossible if he screamed you off the street or started throwing your stuff in the gutter. Instead Dean just hung there, frozen in that heart-stopping moment where the blade sinks in to the hilt.

Wielding that knife, you turned on your heel and left.

_

By the time you’ve frozen your ass off getting to your motel room, you’ve lost much of your steam. All the anger has washed out of you in one surging flush of misery. You get to the door almost gagging on your own tears, and pathetically slump down on the curb when you realize Sam has your room key.

Sam, who’s two blocks back helping Dean get home.

The cement stings your legs through your jeans. Betrayal throbs through your whole body, and unable to go anywhere, its barbs turn inward. You try to scrape up any backbone leftover from your tantrum, which is about as easy as splitting atoms. Since that didn’t work, you try to fold in on yourself for some warmth instead, and shiver stupidly on the sidewalk. A pair of late-night road-trippers give you sad stares as they pass. The soft heat of their room as they shuffle inside gushes out onto the stoop, calling your name.

Suddenly, the seething need to be as far from here as possible disappears. You want Sam to get back with Dean. You wish this night could’ve gone any other way, so the three of you could fumble into your room and straight into warm, cozy beds, too lazy to change into pajamas or to kiss goodnight like usual. Sam would check the salt lines and Dean would shuck off his jacket. With the last of your strength, you’d stretch a hand out from under your comforter and Sam would do the same to squeeze yours over the beds’ gap. Goodnight, Sam. G’night. Dean, close enough to kiss in your bed, would tilt you toward him by a gentle hand on your shoulder. He’d smush a kiss into your temple. Night, he’d hum. Together you’d snuggle down into your blankets and crash, content. If this was any other night. Maybe it still could be. Maybe you’d been overthinking this.

You’d had so much to drink. It was you who’d created these imaginary stakes for Dean to follow, and you who wigged out, blew up on him, snarling in his face and breaking a promise in the same breath. No matter how much you wanted it, you had no claim on him. If Dean wanted to dance with more than one person on a night meant to be fun for him… If he… wanted to kiss someone else…

Two tall shadows appear at the end of the parking lot. It’s too late to stand up and look put together, so you pull your knees to your chest and make an attempt at silencing your sobs. You press your lips together, watching Sam help a sniffling Dean across the lot and toward your room. Dean doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t tell you he’s sorry, he doesn’t pick you up off the pavement, and he doesn’t tell you that he loves you even though you both know it. It makes all of your lashing anger bubble up to the surface again, and you sit with it until long after the boys are inside.

These feelings feel petulant at first, then simmer into righteous ones. The hunt had robbed you of so much—your parents, your normalcy, your childhood, and more than once, the love of your life. There was no reason it had to take Dean from you this way, too. Those sticky-sweet nights in boiling Tulsa could be every night for you and him.

You could still taste him, and the syrup of old blues songs on his lip. You’d told him back then, you’re stuck with me, cowboy, and Dean had believed you, really believed you, because he’d rolled sideways in your bed and touched his fingers to your chin. Just the rough tips of them, burning hot. There’d been this irresistible magic in his eyes, like he was learning it was possible to break his own rules as long as he kept them later. His breath was sweet with ice cream when he kissed you. Just one kiss had him shakily sighing through his nose, and with his same trembling hand, he’d cupped your face—in the weird sort of way Dean did affection, the slope of his palm around your jaw and his thumb turning up your chin. It’d felt so special, like a promise to hold out. You’d savored each one with your nails tickling the nape of his neck, your dose of love potion refilled. The two of you had passed out curled nose to nose, Dean’s grin hidden in your pillow.

You could be living every night like you’d lived that one. But there was one barrier in the middle of that road: Dean. I’m not good for you, he’d say, even if you’d never had enough of him to tell.

After years and years of holding out and dosing on your love potion, it occurred to you, pathetically curled up outside a random motel room, that Dean would never be with you. Even if the monsters had been hunted and the world had been saved, he just didn’t have it in him to believe in something so good. Deep down, you’d known this. You were a naive optimist hoping for a different future, but the truth was that Dean hated himself too much to see that future too.

Slowly, you unfurled your hands on your knees, staring at them without taking anything in. All you could feel was the uncomfortable, surging ache in your chest, which choked your throat shut and burned stinging tears around the curves of your nose. The last few hours felt weirdly layered in your memory, like film cells from different strips laid over each other. This had been going on for so long that it’d officially crossed into deja vu. Years and years of moments just like these pressed upon you in the ringing silence of the parking lot. But you could only hold up the sky for so long, and tonight your grip had finally slipped. You were sure of it: if these circular, pathetic dives for an answer were the only thing in your future, it’d kill you. It had been killing you.

What else could you do but leave?

The question itself felt rash, but you were struggling to breathe past your tears and you wanted out—away from the constant want, away from Dean. He could bang whatever girls he stumbled upon, so why couldn’t you do whatever the hell you wanted, too? What the fuck was stopping you? Freedom—from years and years and years of that ugly stirring weight you’d once loved—was only a bus ride and one boosted car away. It’d be easy.

The door creaked open behind you. You held your breath at the sound of footsteps, praying it wasn’t who you wanted to see.

“Come on inside. Don’t like you being out here by yourself,” Sam called.

The breath you let go of didn’t make you any more relieved. It hadn’t felt good to yell at him, either. You opened your mouth to respond, but a thought slammed on top of you with all the malice of a blow to the head. The next words out of your mouth could be some of the last you ever speak to him for a long time. Instead, you scuffed your running tears on your sleeve one last time, then hauled yourself onto your feet.

The plan was to dart past him fast enough to avoid the look you were sure Sam was giving you, but it fell on the whole lot bright as stadium lights. You made the stupid mistake of catching eyes with him, and the intensity there was enough to root you to the spot. You froze. Sam’s face was solemn, but when he finally got a good look at you it shifted into calm, haunted understanding, since you weren’t the only one who’d cried on a curb like this. He knew exactly what leaving looked like.

After a pregnant pause, Sam stole a glance into the safe darkness of your motel room. Whatever he saw inside bolstered his nerve, and before you could argue he’d swiped his coat and stepped out into the cold with you. Here we go, you braced yourself.

“...I need to punch something,” you confessed, just to have something to say.

Sam stopped awkwardly hovering around the sidewalk to spread his arms wide, and how he had the energy to smile, you had no clue. “I’m open,” he offered, only half-joking.

You sputtered out a laugh. It trailed off where you couldn’t follow it, and unfortunately, neither could he, leaving you both shivering side-by-side in silence. You started to stutter out something intelligent, but the open sympathy in his eyes took all the nuance out of you. Renewed tears squeezed down your face. Instantly, he was there, a big warm hand coming down to rub your shivering back.

“I know you already know this, but it’s worth saying,” Sam murmured. “Everybody leaves him. It’s all he’s used to.” (...I know, you breathed between sobs). “Dean doesn’t… hang these other girls in front of you because he’s, y’know. Trying to play with your feelings. He’s scared. It’s wrong, but it’s his messed-up way of testing if you’ll stick around.”

You want to listen. Sam’s tone makes this all sound reasonable and easy, but that bitter crawling thing eating away at your conscience reminds you, Of course it’s his brother out here trying to fix this. Of course he can’t pick up his own mess.

“It sucks. Trust me, I’ve taken a good chunk of it myself,” Sam chuckled, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “I dunno what it is that makes em’ think he deserves it, but… he’s so used to everyone leaving that he rushes to push em’ away first.”

Swallowing around the bitter taste in your mouth, you tell him, “Well. I think it worked.”

That weighs on Sam for longer than you expect, strangling the lot with a heavy silence. Compelled to fill it, you wrap your arms around yourself and spit out your confession.

“I-I think I,” you managed. “I think I gotta go, Sammy.”

As soon as you say it, the reality of your decision hits you. This isn’t a light move to make. Leaving wouldn’t just shred things between you and Dean, but your friendship with Sam, too—it would mean turning all of your memories with them into kindling. In all your time on the Winchester family road trip, you’d seen all sorts of people take up the space in the back of the Impala. Psychics. Some angels and some demons. Good, good friends. Alive or dead, they all got off at their own stop eventually. You’d been riding in the backseat for so long, not once had you thought there’d be a stop for you, too. But here it was; Dean had hit the breaks himself, and Sam was readying himself to open the door for you.

You thought of the girl you’d been when you’d first met them. She’d still had room in her for friendship bracelets and brown sugar, for mystery novels that never ended, always chasing the next adventure. At the end of all this, that’s what Dean was: your next grand adventure.

Being hunter-born had put you in the strange middle-ground between sheltered and grotesquely exposed; you’d seen how purple and putrid a corpse could get before you were fifteen, but were more than acquaintances with a sum total of five people at the same age. Dean was your worldly opposite. He’d find the towns you landed in like you were his homing beacon, fresh out of the thick of it with a fantastical story to match. He’d hang half-out of your bedroom window, fierce-eyed, and singing, and you’d roll right out of the monotony of your life and into the magic of his. You’d mention him to friends in high school like a made-up boyfriend—Dean lives out of town, but he swears he’s gonna visit next month—because even you weren’t sure he was real. He was this untethered cowboy you’d somehow lassoed in, swinging into your life with all the colors and life of the wild west. Not so much a knight in shining armor, but. Dean, your Dean.

You would miss that. You would always miss him.

Sam tamped down his panic. “Are—are you sure?” He turned you by your shoulder to look at him, and Jesus, those kicked-puppy eyes should be considered a weapon of war. “You don’t wanna talk to Dean about this…?”

You were already shaking your head. “For the hundredth time?”

Sam pressed his lips together. You knew he thought this was a cowardly, drunken decision, but in the middle of it all, you felt like you’d earned the right to be cowardly and stupid. The last decade of your life had been wasted being reasonable. When Dean kicked you out of your motel room to share it with a stranger, you found another place to crash without complaint. When he’d told you he loved you, you gave him the space he asked for, neither of you sure how to handle something so big so young. You waited. When you sat him down and spilled your guts about the future you wanted him in, you’d respected his answer. I’m not good for you had translated to I’m not ready yet. You waited. When Dean was ready for other girls, though, Julie, Ava, Cassie—you started to press back. Since then, your feelings had become the ugly “it” that lingered in every room you shared with Dean. Every argument you’d ever had orbited around it somehow, along with every relationship. Spats turned into arguments, and arguments became second chances and third chances. It really had been the hundredth time Dean had played with you like this.

And even if he’d had nothing to do with it, it was killing you anyway. Being around him, good or bad, had sapped your adventurer’s spirit.

Sam goes still, conflicted. “This is your life. You know that I of all people understand that. But… but just… please. Please just give it one more shot. A month. Or a few weeks, if you need it. Please.”

“You think I’m overreacting,” you assumed, swallowing against the drying film of alcohol on your teeth.

“No, no, I think you’re drunk,” Sam answered, instead, and as blunt as it was it still came out soft. “And tired. But you’re not overreacting, ______. Dean’s done this and worse a dozen times before,” he sighed. Realizing that wasn’t exactly convincing, Sam scrambled for a foothold. “...He really does love you. Just needs to see reason.”

Reason, he says, like that had anything to do with this. Sam starts to clam up, desperate to glue the situation back together.

You feel the need to explain, “...Me leavin’ would have nothing to do with you. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Sam said, thickly. “But I’m pretty sure it’d break my heart if you did, so I can’t imagine what it’d do to him.”

At that, you couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of the door to your motel room. It waited over your shoulder with all the gravity of a neutron star, dragging you to face it and wonder at the man on the other side. Knowing Dean, he might’ve managed to kick off his shoes before crashing into bed. Knowing the love of your life, he’d probably roll onto his back and sink like a rock, the hard lines of his face softened by sleep. His was probably puffy from crying. After long nights out, there’d be times when he’d accidentally wake you up by slipping under the covers. Dean would curse and hush apologies, clumsily pawing in next to you, but the intrusion was always welcome. You remembered him always having to pat around for your face in the dark, just so he knew where to place his goodnight kiss. Sometimes he’d miss on purpose and playfully pinch your cheek or lay a gross, sloppy kiss on your eye, which never failed to make you squirm away giggling. Good night, pretty girl. What would it do to him, to watch you go?

Your chest flared with ugly guilt. You weren’t sure. But you knew what would happen if you stayed, and Dean, in the long run, would be proud of you for looking out for yourself for once. He’d always said you put yourself last too often.

You imagined him asleep on the other side of that door, muffling his tears into his pillow, and the last of your hope and optimism just shatters. Swallowing your own cowardice, you steel yourself. “I’m sorry,” you tell Sam.

Sam laid a hand on your back. “Look at me a minute.”

Somehow, you did. Seeing Sam’s devastation hurts even more than you thought it would, but nothing compares to knowing that you’ll be leaving him behind. “C’mon,” he steps off the curb and toward the street, trying and failing to smile. “Let’s walk to the gas station or somethin’.”

You shook your head, heaving for breath, and confessed: “I really gotta go, Sammy. At least for a little while.”

Sam set his jaw. He teetered back toward you, thinking fast, and padded down his pockets for his wallet. “Okay. Okay. I know. But, but make a deal with me—let’s take a walk, get you sober. Then when you have some food in your system, you’ll tell me if—i-if this is still what you want. Kay?”

“Sam,” you grimaced.

“Please,” he begged, full-voiced, then snapped his mouth shut. When Sam was sure he could keep his feelings in check, he held up his wallet. “My treat. C’mon.”

Without hesitating, Sam started walking backward to the nearest corner store. Just the thought of eating made you nauseous, but not only did Sam have the keys to your room, but he’d also taken his stubbornness with him on this walk too. Thawing yourself off the stoop, you took one last look at your door and started after Sam. You knew that he was going to use this time to rally, to convince you, and that it would definitely work—so you steeled yourself. Sam couldn’t win. You had to leave.

It was just one dance. One kiss. You knew that. But you were stupid, drunk, in love, and weighed down by years of Dean’s reminder: I’m not good for you.

You hate that he’d been right.

_

Dean woke up sometime after dawn, but his body was so thoroughly glued to the mattress that he didn’t physically move for at least another hour. Even his routine where am I panic set in later than usual, and Dean was sluggish to answer it:

He was in a motel. That rarely changed. This time it was in… Springfield? Right? Yeah—they’d had fun little town postcards at the front desk, Dean remembered. _____ had studied them while Sam had got them the room, making that funny little hum sound she did when she thought something was quaint. It’d taken Sam only a minute to get their key, and Dean managed to fill that whole minute with nothing but spiraling. She loves kitschy crap like that. Maybe I should swipe one for her. Start a collection or something, make all this back-and-forth driving fun for her. She’s been so patient with us lately, deserves somethin’ to perk her up. Would she like it? Or was that too weird?

Dean groaned at himself—not only was he dealing with a hangover for the record books, but a heavy dose of embarrassment too. God. That woman. Nobody twisted him up like she could.

He kicked at the blankets, wiggling backward onto her side of the bed where the sheets were nice and cold. Usually the two of them cooked under the covers together, but she must’ve been hanging off the other end of the bed to leave so much cool space between them. He reached around with a foot. Nothing.

Huh. He hoped the gut rush of shittiness seeing her side empty was from whatever he’d been drinking last night, not something serious he was forgetting. Since getting up was so, so much uglier than being smushed comfortably in bed, Dean closed his eyes and thought. Counted back. The three of you had just wrapped up for a hunt… gone out for drinks to celebrate… and past that things start to fuzz. There might’a been a screaming match. Dean really wants to lean toward no, but he distinctly remembers being inside while Sam comforted you outside and sort of hating that. It was definitely Dean’s fault. But still, he remembered bitterly stuffing his face in his pillow hearing the soft lilt of your voice through the door—he should’ve been the one to fix things.

He would. Today. Dean laid in bed for a little while longer, but the guilt clawing around in his gut was making it impossible to do anything but overthink. How’d he fuck things over this time, huh? As sucky as it was, his best shot was to get the story from Sam, then figure out where to go from there. With how patient you’d been with him when he’d snapped his collarbone in Illinois, Dean was willing to grovel for forgiveness. This wasn’t the first time he’d hurt your feelings being coarse, but… c’mon. This was you. The only person who knew Dean better was Sam, and his forgiveness was the price of family. Yours was untethered, free, and lovingly given, so Dean tried to cool his mounting panic. You’d talk it out. You’d forgive him, because Dean was stupid lucky to have such a fucking saint in his life.

You loved him, Dean reminded himself, and forced himself to sit up.

The second he’s up and looking at everything, he’s pinched by this sense of wrongness. His duffle’s where he left it at the foot of the bed, the salt lines are clean and uninterrupted, but it’s like everything’s been moved an inch to the left. The pinch turns into a pang. Dean trudges out of bed, suspended in the limbo between his bedside and the open bathroom door. Something is wrong.

Some of your things have been moved, Dean rationalizes. You must be out grabbing breakfast. On stiff legs, Dean moves into the bathroom because, obviously, that’s where your shit would be if he’s not seeing it. Ignoring the bile that rises in him the second he’s moving, Dean purposefully avoids the mirror and hangs in the doorway. All three of you occupied the motels you lived in like you were ready to bolt any second, so there isn’t exactly any toiletries to take note of or clothes to notice… Until Dean circles back to his duffle at the foot of the bed. There’s a set of clothes thrown on top that he hasn’t seen since high school—some ratty sweats, holey winter socks, and two or three tees and shirts lost to time. It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that they used to belong to him, and just as long to connect them back to you.

These, Dean realized, were your most prized war trophies. Over the years you’d borrowed so many clothes from them that you’d probably modeled the entire Winchester closet. At first just the sleep shirts, but that graduated into tees for casual days and layers to add in wintertime.

By junior year, the half you’d pilfered from Sam was all too big to wear practically. That left Dean’s half, which you essentially lived in. A few of his shirts in particular had become main stays, so Dean had neglected to ask for them back and you’d comfortably forgotten to return them. You had a thing about wearing them around his flings, too, which Dean figured was your cute girl-way of reminding them who’d still be there when they were gone. True to form, they’d always left and you’d always stayed. Dean liked things that way, too.

A real pang of panic rang in his chest. Were you so pissed at him that you’d returned everything you’d borrowed? Or was this something worse?

His panic finds its legs. Not only had your pilfered clothes been returned, but Dean couldn’t find your travel bag. If his duffle is thrown at the end of the bed, and Sam’s is zipped up on the table, then yours had to be in the Impala. It had to be. He picks through the backseat and then graduates to tearing apart the trunk, both of which are void of your things. Your phone isn’t plugged into the wall. Your shoes aren’t by the door. Even the pistol you’d duck-taped under the coffee table was gone, along with the knife behind the headboard. Dean still can’t find your bag. Maybe it’s out in the open and I missed it, he tells himself, but the bathroom and the dressers and under the beds and the front lobby carry no sign of your stuff. Of you ever being there.

His last resort is that you have to be with Sam, who usually goes for a run this early—Sam, who walks in alone, twenty minutes into Dean’s full-body meltdown.

He should assume that you left. Logically, that is what missing keys, phones, toothbrushes and wallets mean, but this is Dean Winchester.

Instead, he assumes: “______’s been taken.”

Right away, Sam deflates. Which is impressive, since he walked in looking pretty wilted already. There are dark smears of purple under his eyes, which are puffy from crying. But that’s not exactly the reaction you want from your brother when you share this kind of thing with him, so the lack of response just spurs Dean into tearing their room apart even more, stone-faced.

“...Dean,” Sam manages.

Dean starts ripping the drawers out of the dresser, like finding one of your socks will be proof that you’re still here.

“She was fucking taken, Sam,” his throat feels tight. “I woke up and all of her shit was packed up and gone—somebody good had to do this, s’mbody who knows what the hell they’re doing, cause’ they knew to make it look like she’d left on her own. May—maybe she went out by herself after we went to sleep? N’ that’s how they took er’?”

His hands are shaking, fighting to get the next drawer off its track. Looking at Sam will just make him fucking implode, so he ignores him, shredding through the room inch by inch. The wheel on the dresser’s track snaps so hard that Sam flinches where Dean can’t see. Somehow, the urge to find expands into something an inch more logical, and he rolls seamlessly into escape mode, tossing his duffle on his bed and shoving the returned clothes inside. In a never-slowing storm, Dean flies around the room and hunts down what isn’t already ready to go in their bags. The adrenaline was starting to cut into his nausea, and the two mixed uncomfortably inside him, each knowing in their own way that something was terribly wrong.

After a long silence, Sam collapses onto the end of his bed and confesses in a small voice, “She left a couple’a hours ago, Dean. On her own.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Dean snorted.

Something patted Dean’s shoulder, and it was a miracle that anything in his bubble didn’t immediately dissolve into molten lava; reining himself in, he turned. Sam was holding a letter.

He shrugged, swallowing thickly. “She said she, uh, needed some time. Not forever, just… time. Wrote you this.”

Dean hung in place. Too quickly, he recovered, and managed the gentleness to take the letter from Sam instead of yanking it away. There was no envelope. Just your tri-fold notebook paper and the bubbly curve of your handwriting on both sides. In the clean white space at the top of the page, you’d written Dean’s name. If he flipped it over and opened it, there would be more bubbly letters strung together in words. Words Dean didn’t have the strength for, right now.

It was easier, much easier, to succumb to the sudden slosh of sickness in him and follow his hangover into the bathroom.

After he empties his stomach and Sam gets some water into him, the crazed packing continues. Your letter goes straight into Dean’s duffle, unread, because Sam asks him what he’s doing, and Dean curtly interrupts him, “What else? We’re gonna go find her.”

Sam avoids his eyes. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Reasonably, Dean knew that Sam had helped you. He’d felt it, seeing him walk in late, seeing him pass off the letter. But it only starts to press on him now, with the alcohol sickness becoming a different kind of sickness within him, the full weight of what exactly Sam has done.

“You fucking didn’t,” Dean snarls. “Tell me you didn’t.”

There’s a flicker of rebellion on Sam’s face, but he subdues it for Dean’s sake. He shrugs, “...She wanted to leave.”

The nearest lamp on the bedside table shatters against the wall with a fierce pop. Dean’s close to tears, he’s so upset, sucking down anguished breaths. This is his worst nightmare. It roars off him all at once, and Sam, the nearest target, takes the brunt of it.

“How could you do this to me? How could you do that to her? She—she can’t survive on her own—!” he lies to himself, “—she needs us—and-and I need her! Why would you just let her walk away? What the fuck, Sam?”

“What was I supposed to do? Handcuff her to the radiator?!” Sam snaps, spreading his arms wide, “It’s her life!”

“With us!” Dean roars. His throat grates with acid and tears.

“With whoever the hell she wants! You should’ve—” Sam argues. He realizes how fruitless all the yelling is, especially with tears smeared in the creases of Dean’s face. “...I can’t speak for her. Read the damn letter.”

“No,” Dean grates. He gets his duffle over his shoulder, his whole body coiling with betrayal. “Get your shit and get in the fucking car. We’re finding her. Where’d you drop her off?”

Of course, Sam refuses to answer. He gives Dean this quiet, desperate look neither of them is good at processing. Dean’s not exactly in the mood to process much of anything, nevermind this, nevermind the mountain of shit he’s messed up between last night and today.

He snarls. “Where, Sam?”

Sam still doesn’t answer. His stubbornness forces an old ugliness out of Dean that he’ll regret later, but, what’s one more thing for the pile, right?

“What?” Dean whips on his brother. “You give that little of a shit about her? You pick up brunch and a smoothie after you left her to fuckin’ rot?” Baring his teeth, he spits, “She’s not running off to Stanford, kid. This is different and you know it.”

The blow lands so hard that Sam bristles, but if you left a couple of hours ago, then he’s had plenty of time to brace himself for the grave Dean had planned to dig himself. After a long, treacherous silence, Sam finds an answer:

“Train station,” Sam’s lip curls. “But she made sure I drove off before I could see if she even walked in. She’s just like you n’ me, so she’s probably two states over by now—”

Dean slams the front door before he can finish.

-

It takes Dean four miserable hours to chase the specific bus you’d taken over the border to Connecticut, two days to pinpoint the lousy 83’ Mercury Capri you’d bought, in cash, from a dentist in New Hartford, and another to find it trunk-first in the Connecticut river, stripped entirely of your things. Sam fights him all the way to Brooklyn, which turns out to be a last-ditch distraction tactic. Dean had figured you’d head somewhere busy to shake them, but instead, you’d turned West, to Tulsa.

At the end of the week he finds you waitressing in a little dive just outside town. It’s a long chase, by their standards. As anguished as Dean felt, he couldn’t help nursing a warped sense of pride: his girl was good. Lesser hunters would’ve never caught up with you.

The Impala coasted along the buckling sidewalk framing the lot and stilled, idling on anxious wheels. Dean left sometime after Sam fell asleep. A whole week of non-stop pursuit had almost burned the spirit out of him. Sam’s moral needling never stopped, not until the silence burning up between them was as light as a slab of concrete. Twice now Dean was tempted to cut and leave without him, but the dark swimming part of Dean’s mind knew he deserved the constant backlash. She doesn’t want to see you, Sam had spit once, she needs time.

But the thing was that you’d never needed time before. The only time you’d needed in the past was the minutes it took for you to say, you’ve hurt my feelings, Dean, and the time it took for him to drop into your lap and bemoan his apologies until you were in stitches. He’d clutch your pantleg in his fists and fake-sob, Oh, baby, I’ll never forgive myself fer hurtin’ you! There was a familiar dance to it. At first, you’d stifle your smile and shove at him, all tough n’ girly-like. Dean would hunt down your nearest ticklish spot until your anger was a funny thing you’d both forgotten about, then sink into an apology he really meant. It worked every time and you knew it worked every time, but. Dean would drop his head into your lap and the first thing he’d feel was your hand on his back, keeping him there.

You’d never needed time before. You’d never needed space, because Dean was your space, with no room for anyone else to squirm in between.

It’s been days, man, Sam had said, endlessly. Just read her letter. Just read it.

He’d tried. More than once, he’d steeled himself enough to find it at the bottom of his bag and open it up, but beyond those steps was a whole new hell. He gets three words in and is immediately split open like a deer carcass in the sun. I’m sorry, Dean. Just that is enough to make him carefully re-fold the letter back on its seams.

There, in the parking lot of your bar in Tulsa, Dean finally finds the endurance to shovel past that first line. Originally, his plan isn’t really a plan at all—he’ll swing inside, convince you to come home, get some dinner in you and give “making things right” his best shot. But those are just ideas with no ground to stand on beyond what Sam has told him. And what Sam has told him sounds like, l-like horseshit, something Dean would hunt one of your shitty ex-boyfriends down for. To him, it sounds like something irreparable. That feeling is starting to find its roots.

By the flaxen street light, he spreads the thin notebook paper out on his thigh, careful not to smudge the hurried pen with his fingers. He reads it once and only once, unable to stomach any more.

The Impala pulls out of the lot and slinks back to their motel.

-

The next day, Dean loads his brother into the Impala, picks a direction, and drives.

His instincts settle back onto their monotonous track, and within a week he and Sam are cutting down vamps in Montana. Only once does Sam ask about what happened, and Dean only shuts him down once for the two of them to return to the Winchester default: not talking about it. Sam clearly wants to, squirming with unspoken questions when they find your spare boots kicked under Baby’s front seat or dodge hunters who’d ask around for you. Dean feels like ripping out his own entrails every time Sam itches to bring you up, but draws blood from his lip instead. When Sam’s out of resolve and Dean’s alone, he presses his face into the shirts you’d borrowed, soaked all the way through with your perfume, choking down tears that don’t do nothin’ for nobody. Especially Dean, who hasn’t cried in front of anyone but you since he was nine.

It’s like he’s lost a limb, left only with the phantom grasping feel of it. Dean definitely copes like a man who’s lost a leg. Sam leaves the issue alone, for the most part, trying to trick himself into being content with you being where you want to be. Meanwhile, Dean’s flask graduates from his duffle to his jacket. Hunting stops being a distraction and gradually opens up into a dangerous sinkhole.

The following weeks reek with deja vu. Silences stretched, gaps in their routine yawned wider, every inch of their never-ending road trip scrubbed raw with impressions of you. Dean must’ve checked the rear-view a thousand times, running on that same old instinct to steal looks at you in the backseat. The whole universe had been kicked off its axis by the aftermath, causing a run of bad luck worthy of a horror movie. Dean’s gun started jamming inexplicably; they’re caught by cops in Indiana and have to circle back two weeks later for the car, which is stripped of everything they’ve got; he almost loses Sam getting their arsenal back from an evidence lockup in Fort Wayne. Scrubbing his brother’s caked blood out of the steering wheel one afternoon, Dean knows that it’s more than luck he’s lost.

When you were stressed or feeling stuck, you’d lay out all their weapons on the bedspread—reminding Dean not to plop his ass down without looking first—and clean them each meticulously. The way you did it sort of reminded him of sewing. You’d count under your breath, so versed in the steps you’d created that you didn’t even have to watch your hands. Sometimes this ritual collided with the nights you polished up your poker skills together, and if Dean listened between hands, there was your counting. Four. Take off the slide. Five. Scrub the frame. If Dean’s pistol landed in the pile, you’d forget you were winning altogether and sink into deeper focus, pretty brows furrowed and your lips in a soft line. Dean’s gun never jammed if you’d been the one to clean it.

You were stealthier, more unassuming, with the kind of easy smile that policemen looking for fugitives glossed over. The cops in Indiana would’ve glossed over you, too. You were the third support beam that kept them sturdy—with you at Dean’s six, he and Sam would’ve smuggled back the arsenal with no problem. And even if there’d been trouble… well. This was you. Lose-a-car-in-the-river-on-purpose you, who Dean could always rely on to back his play.

When Sam has to drive him home from the bar one night, Dean slurs, Everythin’. Everythin’ goes to shit without ‘er.

Those thoughts crept up on him again and again, preying on him in low moments. He buried them under everything close enough to grab, keep the salt lines clean, call Jody, fix the car, but everything thrown on top of his memories of you swayed and shuddered, demanding to be dug up. Dean knew that he’d betrayed you. Already that was unforgivable, but by hurting you he’d broken a blood oath as old as your friendship. At fifteen Dean had sworn to protect you, only to turn around now and wound you so viciously that you couldn’t even bring yourself to say goodbye to him. Not in person. Not in the letter.

It was the one detail his heart couldn’t stop fixating on, no matter how deep Dean buried you. He knew you better than anyone, and you never said goodbye unless things were truly over.

He’d heard you sob it into Sam’s shoulder before he left for school. When the hellhounds came for him in New Harmony, you’d resisted, clutching Dean’s jacket in both hands and weeping instead, “I’ll see you.”

You’d never said goodbye to him.

This turns into a notion, then a stupid idea, then a plan that Dean rolls around in the bottom of his glass, considering. He could get that goodbye from you. He could knock on your window like he’d done when you were kids, say his piece, and then let the grass eat his boots as he waits for you to truly finish this.

He could get that goodbye from you. It’d kill him, but Dean wasn’t sure he could go on without it.

-

Five minutes into his drive to DeLancey’s Pub and Bar, the slimy dive you waitressed in around the dicier ends of Tulsa, Dean realizes that he’s not even sure if you’re working tonight.

The drive was long—long enough to swerve Dean’s confidence in every single direction possible, until the revving toughness he’d gathered had swan-dived into gut-clenching fear. Two hours ago he’d been combing through articles for a case. Something had compelled him into the car, something bone-deep and inescapable, and if Dean was being truthful with himself it had everything to do with the strange adrenaline he got just being in the same state as you. Twice, he swore he’d seen your face among the officers at the station and blending into the diner crowd at breakfast. He knew that you were a whole town away and intent on not seeing him, but. Dean could sense the divide between you like the childhood home he’d never known. It was a distance he could close and map in his sleep, and after another night jolting out of a nightmare and into a bed empty of you, Dean was exhausted. He missed you so much he was sick, choking back mouthfuls of guilt just thinking of you. He missed you so much that the drive to you could’ve been measured in inches, and the walk to the Impala was even smaller, calling to him.

Waking up, he’d sensed it. Tonight was gonna be different.

Things had started off strong. The second Dean had turned the key and pointed the Impala toward Tulsa, his hands on the wheel were sure as all hell. I’m gonna tell her all my cruddy fuckin’ feelings and get all this cruddy fuckin’ honesty out of the way, then either we make up or she gives me the boot. Simple as that. Nothin’ to it. That was as far as his planning went, since that’s as far as Dean could handle thinking into your future. By the time Dean was off the highway his plan had started eating itself, circling constantly back to your letter to him. But he was already halfway there, then over halfway, and giving up became an increasingly spineless option.

Along the way, I’m gonna give it to her straight, slowly, bloodily evolved into, I’m bringing her the fuck home.

Dean’s propelled himself forward so hard just to get here, so the Impala’s still rolling into park when he clambers out and onto the gravel. His heart is pounding like thunder in his ears but it’s nothing compares to the screaming silence that stands between where the Impala’s sitting and where you must be. DeLancey’s is the only kind of place Dean could picture you working; somewhere low and unglamorous, like any other bar you and Dean had skulked around in your twenties. You lived for skeevy places like this, the shabbier the better, and privately Dean had always thought you were too pretty to exist in places like those. But he’d seen you under neon beer lights so often that you’d sort of claimed it for yourself, this strange brand of cigar-smoke beauty that made Dean’s ears warm.

He thinks of that image and can’t help but need himself to be there, to be with you like he always has, and that’s what gets him across the gravel and through the door.

Either this is a hunter’s bar or the place is packed full of demons, because the second Dean bangs inside, making a few heads jerk up with the noise of it, those heads immediately swivel to whisper to each other. What’s that Winchester boy doing here? Anyone who knows you knows there’s only one answer. The bartender looks up from the drink he was making. The host awkwardly shrinks behind her podium, freezing like everyone else in the room. For just an instant he has the whole saloon itching toward their pistols, and Dean lives off the warped satisfaction he gets from that until the kitchen door swings open for a huge tray of drinks.

Hefting it over one shoulder, you slip easily out from behind the bar and pass the drinks over to a table of hunters. There’s a resonating shock that sizzles through Dean’s system, seeing you. It’s the strange pleasure of confirmation, of knowing that you’re real, that you’re someone he can lay eyes on instead of a slow-fading memory. In your element, you’re… Dean swallows. You’re still you. One of the hunters says something to you, and you snap back in a way that has them all roaring with laughter. All doubt left Dean’s body, and standing there, he’s winded by the single-minded purpose that got him there in the first place. He’s getting you home.

At full tilt, Dean bee-lines for you.

The harsh sound of boot steps makes you glance up, and with it the chatter of the hunters dies away. Your expression doesn’t shift from your usual calm, arrow-eyed look, empty of anger or loneliness or happiness. Just calm, like you knew he’d find you, you’re just surprised it took him this long. You take a cool step away from the table to stand at your full height, and an old shivery warmth flutters down his spine. Yeah. There was his girl, tough as a fuckin’ tank.

“Dean,” you murmured, a greeting.

He wants to murmur your name with the same sweetness. He wants to scoop his arm around your waist like he used to and shove his face in your neck like he used to, spilling his guts in ways he’d only spilled to you. He wants to do this the easy way, but that’s not exactly his default.

Dean swings in, snapping, “Get outside. I’m telling you something whether you like it or not, n’ don’t think I won’t drag you if I have to.”

Your brows fly up your forehead. “Wow.”

Right along with you, the hunters with the front-row seats to the scene Dean’s making bristle in tandem. Some of the guys at the bar twist around on their stools to throw Dean barbed looks, and really, he shouldn’t have underestimated your ability to assemble so many minions like this, since he and Sam had been your minions from day one. The guy closest to Dean makes a big show of scraping his chair back and growling, which Dean pities him for. Get in line, pal.

“That’s my friend you’re talkin’ to, chisel chest. If you know what’s good for you, I’d get the fuck outta’ here,” says Asshole #1 of 4, and the threat hasn’t even landed before you’re neatly cutting through him, “—mind your damn business, Tommy, he has just as much a right to be here as anyone else.”

At your request the other hunters simmer down, and, ignoring Dean, you scoop up your empty tray and deliver it to the bar. All the energy he’d rationed in the car starts to seep out of him, since. Well. Still, after all this time, you didn’t hesitate to bare your teeth for him. With the wind successfully taken out of Dean’s sails, he tries not to twitch in place as you round’ the bar, brush past him and gesture for him to follow you out a side exit.

Your silence terrifies the hell out of him, so adding the hanging quiet of the parking lot to the equation makes Dean’s nerves crawl. He hadn’t realized how loud it’d been in there until you were isolated outside, the rowdy Friday night chatter softened behind the door. Swaying next to you on legs he’s forgotten how to use, a dart of something mean and cold hits Dean in the chest. On the other side of the door, where the lights are dim but warm and the air sings with the tang of alcohol, Don Henley floats into the first lyrics of One of These Nights.

Even now, your magic sways over him. Across from him on the gravel, you stuff your hands under your arms and huff a strand of hair out of your face, glowing gold by the creamy moonlight. If this was any other night of the year that the two of you had fallen out of a bar together, Dean would ask you to dance with him right here by the dumpsters. You’d say yes. He knew you would’ve said yes, then.

“You worried me sick,” is the first thing Dean manages to say. “Wakin’ up, finding you gone—I thought someone had fuckin’ took you, y’know that?”

This is apparently the wrong thing to say, because the coolness in your expression coasts straight into bitterness. Regardless, Dean rolls right past it and right into nervous, emotional ranting.

“I know what I did. I know I don’t deserve shit for it,” he chokes out, “but you could’ve at least said goodbye t’ me! I deserved to know you’d be safe! If you couldn’t… If I was hurtin’ you too much, and if I wasn’t listenin’, you had every right to get the fuck out of there and make your own life somewhere else. But after—after bein’ with me for so, so damn long, so long I don’t even remember how we met, you couldn’t even say goodbye? Nothing? I just have to live with the fact that I don’t even ‘member the last time we fuckin’ talked to each other? Don’t even get to see my best fuckin’ friend one last time?”

“No,” you scowled. “No, you fuckin’ don’t. Because we’ve never been just friends, Dean, and even if you knew that you still played with my feelings. Why the hell would I even want to look at you again? Why do you deserve that?”

Dean flinched. He sputtered on his answer, of course, because he’d never been able to keep his head straight around you. Not now, not ever. “...I guess I don’t. But, um… I know this doesn’t mean much anymore, but…” He closed his hand into a fist, like it was possible to draw in raw courage from the air. “You’re right. We’ve never really been… just plain friends, and—”

“We’ve said I love you,” you scoffed, “We’ve kissed! We’ve spent four whole years on the road together, with nobody but each other, and even years after that you still can’t even admit it to my face! Can’t even say it!”

Dean’s hands are shaking, and in a rush he says, “Yeah? And you wanna know why? Cause’ the second I do, the second it’s out of my mouth, you’re dead. You hear me? A target drops on your back so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Honest to God, you start laughing, the scary hunter’s laugh that only bled out of you in the thick of a chase. “I’m already dead!” You budge him with your fists, almost pushing him back a foot, “We’re both already dead! None of that bullshit matters! Wouldn’t you rather we use the fucking time we’ve got instead of sitting around with our thumbs up our asses? Dean, come on!”

“Of course I do!” He roars. You’re close enough to grab, so he does, ripping you toward him by the wrists, “That’s all I’ve wanted!” He sucks down the cool night air and the little breaths puffing out of you, panting, “You’re all I’ve fucking wanted. Since the last time we were here. Since way before then. But the minute—the second they know that, Hell or—o-or whoever’s after us now, they’re gonna take advantage of that.”

The look on your face is frozen still with mute shock. Choking down another dose of guilt, Dean drops your wrists and suppresses the urge to pull you back in, to squeeze you against him, to kiss you stupid like he’d done years ago.

“Don’t think for one second that I don’t want you,” Dean rasped. “But I’d rather have you livin’ than be with you dead, you get me?”

You closed your eyes. Tears squeezed down your face, rolling around the curve of your cheeks. You grit, “I’m sick of having this argument, Dean.”

Then, the pull to reach out for you grew too great, and Dean couldn’t help but cup one side of your neck. He swallowed, thickly. “I know, baby girl.”

Starved for contact, you dug your nails into the material of his sleeve and did your best to speak. “If I go back with you,” you rattled out. “If I go back w’ you, sittin’ with this is gonna kill me. Can’t wait anymore. Can’t sit in the damn car while you run off with other people. I have t’ go. I love you, but I gotta go.”

Dean was sick of having this argument too. After years and years of it weighing on the two of you like a black hole, of this same old story returning every so often to throw a fresh gap between you both, Dean had hit his limit. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to keep you living and happy. But this pressure on his heart was heavier than the damn sky, and now more than ever he wanted to let it go. Find another way. Choose you.

He overspills.

“I love you too,” Dean gushed, and from there, poured the rest of his heart out onto the wet asphalt. “Love you so much it makes me damn sick. Makes me all stupid and mushy on the inside, which is probably half the reason I’ve made it this far. Having you gone has just made it worse—the road’s too quiet and the backseat’s always cold, like everything else’s sick too. S’ made me realize that I—I-I can’t do this without you. Everythin’. Livin’ like this. I tried for your sake, I honestly did, but god, baby, I need you home. I need you to come home.”

“Dean—”

“Let me finish!” Dean barked, and the sloping misery on your face paused. “I know why you left. Shit, I’d leave too if the one person I… if that one person kept treating me the way I was treatin’ you. Fuck, _____, if this was some other guy? Doing this to you? I’d kill him. Acid bath, hit him with my car, something. I’d kill him. And I’d—”

Dean stops himself, realizing the spiral he’s throwing himself down. “You’re everything t’ me,” he gasped. “So get in the damn car and just come home.”

In the thousand-foot-drop-silence that follows, the only sound capable of puncturing the space between the two of you is, as always, One of These Nights. Inside DeLancey’s, there are a few couples swinging along to the beat, but all of the real fever is out here, thundering in Dean’s chest. There’s only one time he ever relinquishes his control over his feelings out in the open: here, as the Eagles sing your signature song. Dean’s eyes are only on you.

“C’mon, _____,” he pleads, one last time. Again, he’s compelled by something beyond himself, and with nothing left to lose he starts to sing, smiling without feeling. “Oooh,” Dean croons, “loneliness will blind you, in between th’ wrong and th’ right…”

Here it is. You drag in a breath with all the weight of the world on it, and Dean knows what will follow. The goodbye.

Despite yourself, an amused little smile presses through the seams of your composure. You sober yourself. “... Things are gonna have to change, Dean.”

He’s not sure what that means. But it sounds good, and there’s still an optimist swirling around in him somewhere. “Yeah. Of-of course, anything. We can talk about it more, but… I’m willing to put you before anything. I should’ve put you before anything, before.”

You nod. “...Okay. Lemme go tell the other girls on shift.”

That’s good. That’s good, Dean realizes, and without meaning to he beams, blinking hard. You’re coming back with him. That’s what that means, right? Relief rushes through him so fast that he almost faints. Not so prepared to trust it, Dean’s eyes roam across your face for hesitation or displeasure or anger—and some of it’s there. There are still things to fix, still changes to be made, but. On top of all that is beautiful, sweet-tasting relief that Dean feels like collapsing under. You’re coming home.

“Just like that?” Dean asks, and he really shouldn’t be grinning, not until he’s sure and you’ve said it, but he can’t help it.

The tears still beading in your eyes slip into the pressed line of your lips, where a guarded smile is growing. You start nodding and then you don’t stop nodding, sobbing in earnest, and since it hasn’t screwed him over yet Dean follows his instinct to scoop you into a deep hug. You’re a little chilly and you smell a bit like pub food, making Dean’s heart squeeze with nostalgia. God, he fucking missed his girl. You grope around his back for something to cling to and fist both hands in his jacket til’ your fingers ache, and Dean explodes with gratefulness so pure he sways in place with you, squeezing you tight around the shoulders. You’re here and you’re alive and you don’t fucking hate him. Dean would take that and this stilted happiness over anything.

“This is all I wanted, D,” you hiccup. “You never say it, n’ I-I just need to hear it, okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I did this to us.”

“You ain’t got nothin’ to apologize for,” Dean soothes, but you interrupt him.

“I was too much of an idiot to say goodbye,” you shook your head, smooshing your face into his jacket. “Too scared,” you confessed, and your voice was even scratchy from crying. “I didn’t want it to be over for real. Didn’t wanna close that door forever.”

Dean sloped his palm down your hair, your back, your arm, soaking you in every way he could. “M’ glad you didn’t. I’m sorry I pushed you to any of this, darlin’. I’m sorry too.”

You peel yourself off him just far enough to flash him a wolfish, tear-streaked grin. “Oh, I know you are. Are you ready to be makin’ it up to me for the rest of your life, Winchester?”

Dean makes the mistake of indulging your taunts with a chuckle, which puts this light in your eyes that he never wants to let go of. You swish in real close to his face, threatening with a big, 1000-watt smile, “Pucker up, cowboy, because you’ve got a lot of ass-kissing to do.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, wetting his lips. His belly warmed at the nickname. “So come here, ass.”

It’s not often that Dean has the pleasure of making you so flustered your face steams. He never gets to see it this close, either, so he leans further in to put it all to memory, which just makes your cheeks hotter. Your eyes dart across his face, wild and nervous. Dean’s smile sinks into a nasty smirk because, there you are, tough as nails and melting into your shoes at the thought of kissing him. It’s a lucky thing you’re so distracted. Maybe if you weren’t you’d notice how Dean’s hands are trembling, how his mouth’s watering. His whole nervous system flips when you reign him in by a fist in his collar, and he’s pretty sure his soul levitates out of his body when you kiss him.

One kiss turns into two, then three. Your lips are smooth with vanilla chapstick, and it only takes a minute for it to be all over Dean’s face—his mouth most of all, but the corners of his lips and his chin, too. You’ve always been the sweet one, but something about finally being subject to it melts the iron ball of anxiety in his gut. He kisses back like it’s his damn job, pouring his confession, his apologies into you, cupping your face, dimpling your cheeks with his thumbs. You’re softer than he remembers, and the fact that he could be forgetting anything at all about the last night you spent in Tulsa together makes him starved to remember this.

By some twist of fate, Bad Company’s Ready For Love plays next on the cue inside. With you cozy in his arms, his body works on muscle memory, and soon you’re swaying back and forth as you kiss, dipping in close for sweet pecks of each other.

“I love you,” he thinks he hears you say.

Playfully, Dean budges your nose with his and sing-songs, “Can’t hear you!”

“I said,” you took in a big breath, “I LOVE YOU TOO, asshole.”

Dean dissolves into chuckles, which are happily interrupted by more insistent kisses. You’re almost ten whole feet from where you started, and scooping up your hand, Dean starts the trek backward to where the Impala is parked. It’s your home as much as it’s his, so you barely need him to take the lead to find it among the other cars.

“Hm,” you say, “Maybe the girls will just figure out for themselves why I’m gone, yeah?”

“They’ll survive without you,” Dean shrugs. “You got other people who need you.”

“Need me,” you say, just rolling the unfamiliar words around in your mouth. Dean feels another pang of guilt; he could’ve sworn he’d told you that more, could’ve sworn he showed his love to you every day. Another thing to change.

“Yeah, need you,” Dean mutters, and he doesn’t mean to expose the desire rolling around in his belly, but there it is. He wants to take it back as soon as it leaves his mouth, but the second you get a taste of it, you’re hooked. A beat later he’s being pushed up against the driver’s door of the car and kissed stupid, warm and wet and so much of what he remembers. Fantasizes about.

In the next kiss a gentle hand grabs at the clasp to his belt buckle. Instantly, Dean pulls back to speak.

“Sweet pea,” he manages, trying so hard to be reasonable and good and everything that you deserve. You laugh at the nickname, which eases his mind a bit. “...You sure you don’t wanna wait? I think I got other things to prove t’ you, first.”

You draw him into a deep, lingering siren’s kiss that leaves his knees threatening to lock and his common sense threatening to bend.

“Can’t wait any longer,” your eyes burn like cigarettes, all heat. Quietly, you ask him, “Prove to me I’m your favorite. That m’ the only girl you’re looking at.”

There’s the underlying desperation to your voice that goes beyond just wanting to have sex with him. This is confirmation of something to you, something you need to hear, to feel. So Dean guides you into the backseat and proves it to you.

This is not at all where he expected this night to go, and he’s grateful that he’d lost the opportunity to overthink himself into his grave. There’s no room for Dean to worry if he was really good enough for you, if he deserved this, because these things are proven to him too. You slot so perfectly into his lap that he knows the moment you’re out of it he’ll be battered with homesickness. For long breaths there’s no kissing at all, just Dean nuzzling his face into your neck and committing each second to memory. When you do kiss him it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, this grand, surging happiness that ripples through him head-to-toe. Each kiss has a new kind of gentleness, and before either one of you starts to strip Dean knows that you want more than what he’s about to give you—you want him, and that feeling is an old comfort.

Knowing your famous attitude, Dean would’ve bet money on you taking control, but for whatever reason you step back and let him make the first move. Again, it tells him that this is his chance to tell you something, to make it clear that he wants you and he’s going to show it. So he does. Your fingers in his hair are all the invitation he needs.

Dean scrapes his palms up your back as you kiss, soaking up every naked inch of skin he’s allowed. You’re making all these soft little noises that make the pressure in his jeans unbearable, so with the next drag of his hands he’s intent on seeing what you’ll feel like naked in his lap. When your uniform is nothing but a memory and your throat’s slick with hickeys, you try out a new way of teasing him, murmuring in that caramel voice how long you’ve wanted to feel him inside you. After that he doesn’t even care about being fully naked—but you clearly do. He puts your roaming hands on his belt. I want you to do this part, I want it to be you who opens me up. You kiss him so intensely that Dean doesn’t even remember when or how his belt comes off. Or his shirt, or his jeans, or his boots, gulping down your love potion by the gallon.

All he knows is pretty girl, his pretty girl, and swaths of hot sweat-tacky skin on top of him. You hesitate to close that final gap between you once the condom’s on, so Dean whispers whiskey-warm assurances in your ear as he cups the curve of your ass and slides you onto him. The moan that presses out of you pours right into your next kiss, then the next, and the next. It takes everything in him to start slow; Dean gives you two deep, fulfilling grinds across his lap. The rippling squeeze of you around him is too good to be real. You press your lips into his, then his nosebridge, his forehead, urging him on, and that’s all Dean needs to let go. He cups the dip of your back, shoves his face in your neck and just loses it.

Dean rocks you across his lap at a vicious, pounding tempo, giving you his all. The whole time his head bumps against the height of the seat, craning to watch the perfect little shifts in your expression. You’ve got your eyes squeezed shut and your lips parted. His lap is slick with you, making the grind, the chase, the rush to the finish come faster and faster. He could’ve gotten off on the sounds you were making alone. They turn into full-on squeals when Dean slides his fingers between your legs, and a flush of I love you I love you I love you bursts out of him when the hot silk wrapped around him clamps even tighter. You cum almost sobbing his name, and Dean coos you through it, his thighs cramping with effort. But it’s all worth it—you’ve always been worth it.

He finishes with your hands combing through his sweat-damp hair, echoing back to him the three words he’d been chanting the entire time.

-

It’s a few hours before dawn when you land in Sam and Dean’s motel a town over. Dean had wanted to get back earlier, intent on having you back as soon as possible, but it’d taken a bit to pack your stuff into the Impala and drive home. You’d commented on being hungry on the way back too, which ended with Dean pouring an entire gas station’s worth of snacks into your lap at three in the morning.

By then it’d gotten too cold out to be comfortable, so it was tempting to succumb to sleep in front of the Impala’s heaters. But robbing yourself of any time with Dean wasn’t an option, so you pushed through, feet aching after an eight-hour shift and body glowing with Dean’s affection. You nibbled on twinkies in the passenger’s seat, happy that he was happy. He kept the radio off to hear you, but hummed when the conversation peacefully faded. I can hear the train a’ comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend…

Sam was waiting for you on the stoop outside the room when you pulled up, and did an impressively poor job at containing himself. He’d gotten his arms around you before your door was fully shut, and when you were back on your feet his brother took up your other side. Together, you herded each other into the cozy darkness of the motel. Someone said something about unpacking your things; but all three of you were tired, so that thought was saved for tomorrow.

Dean tossed his jacket on the back of a chair. Sam rearranged the salt lines on the window sills with a careful hand. You fumbled into the first pajamas you could find (aka, the hoodies in Dean’s duffle that rightfully belonged to you), and crash straight into bed, too lazy to kiss goodnight like usual. When the lights were off and the boys were down too, you stretched a hand out from under your comforter and reached across the bed’s gap.

“Goodnight, Sam,” you told him, wiggling your fingers.

His whole hand engulfed yours in a warm, I missed you squeeze, and then he was rolling onto his stomach and sinking like a rock into sleep.

When you twisted onto your other side, Dean was already there, propped up on an elbow. His broad hand on your shoulder smoothed across your belly to pull you into him. Once you were close enough to kiss, he disregarded your cheek and your forehead entirely, dipping in for a real kiss that tingled all the way down to your toes.

“G’night,” Dean whispered.

Welling with too much emotion to put into words, you willed it all into a simple and loving, “Goodnight, cowboy.”

Together, you snuggled down into your blankets and crashed, content.

-

“Good god!” Yelena Belova hissed from the other side of Natasha Romanoff, the three of you walking side by side on the path of the corn maze. Yelena looked around her sister to shoot you a glare, making a show of rubbing her ears. “Warn a girl before you scream your head off!” 

“Sorry,” you mumbled, heat filling your face as you tried to hide from Yelena’s glare behind Natasha’s shoulder. “I told you I wasn’t good in haunted houses.” 

“It’s a haunted corn maze,” Yelena corrected you, as if that clarification mattered. You rolled your eyes, but the expression was thankfully hidden by Nat as you clung to her arm while you walked along. “And we’ve barely started,” Yelena pointed out, clearly oblivious to your annoyance. “If you keep on screaming like that, you’re not going to have a voice left by the time we’re done.”

Truth be told, your throat already kind of hurt from the one scream you’d let out and you had a sinking feeling in your stomach as you realized Yelena was right, there was still a lot of corn maze left ahead of you—and a lot more scare actors ready to jump out at you. For a brief second, you considered trying to go back to the entrance so you could wait for your friends where there were a lot fewer people trying to scare you. 

“How long is this supposed to take to get through, anyway,” Nat asked her sister. You were grateful to Nat for asking the question you wanted to, especially since you were pretty sure Yelena would huff in annoyance if you’d asked. Your friends had practically needed to drag you into the corn maze to begin with, but you really didn’t like haunted houses—or haunted corn mazes.

Yelena had been the one to insist the three of you make the drive out to Clint’s Country Farm for the haunted corn maze attraction, though you’d only agreed because of the rest of the autumnal fun the farm offered—pumpkin picking, apple picking, hayrides and the like. Your friend had promised the corn maze wasn’t that scary, but clearly she didn’t understand your low tolerance for fear-based attractions, even after knowing you for many years.  

“It’s supposed to take at least an hour,” Yelena answered matter of factly, her chin held high. But then she slid her gaze to you and her sister, grinning impishly. “And that’s if we don’t get lost and need a scare actor to help us find our way out.” She waggled her eyebrows like the prospect of getting lost and needing help to find an exit was a good thing.

Nat sighed in annoyance. “Please tell me you didn’t drag us all the way out into the boonies so you can fulfill your weird kink of hooking up with a scare actor,” she said, looking the picture of the beleaguered older sister. 

“What!?” you demanded, turning your surprised—and a little bit interested—expression on Yelena. The blonde was too busy glaring at her sister, though, to pay any mind to your question.

“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone about that,” Yelena hissed, pinching Nat in the arm over your friend’s leather jacket. Nat only glared back. Finally, Yelena looked away and shot you a sheepish look. “I may have wound up on a certain side of TikTok,” she explained, shrugging as if it wasn’t a big deal, but the way she rushed to explain herself told you she did care what you thought. “But you’d understand if you saw these guys,” she said, her green eyes wide and imploring. “Some of them paint their faces, some of them were masks, and they’re all super hot.” 

“I’m not judging—I get it,” you said, holding your hands up in a placating gesture. You’d seen a couple videos of guys like the ones she was describing and you did understand. There was something about a man in spooky face paint or a mask that somehow made him hotter, but that didn’t mean you wanted to go looking for one in the wild. “But did you really have to drag us along to play wingwoman so you could pick up a scare actor?” you asked, wrinkling your nose in an annoyed look. “I’d much rather be baking cookies and carving pumpkins than getting scared so you can get some.”

You were so caught up in your conversation with your friends, you didn’t hear the rustling in the maze as you passed, and you definitely didn’t notice the little divot in the wall of corn. At least, not until a man lept onto the path just ahead of you, dressed as a decaying scarecrow and holding up a pitchfork while yelling at you and your friends.

A tattered plaid shirt hung off his broad shoulders, the buttons undone and revealing a muscular bare chest beneath. A straw hat sat on top of his head, casting his face, which was already framed by chin-length brown hair, in shadow. The darkness made the makeup on his face even scarier, morphing his mouth into a sharp gash and his shining eyes into dark sockets. Even beneath it all, though, you could see he was handsome, though that was overshadowed by him scaring the hell out of you.

Another scream wrenched free from your lips and you let go of Natasha’s arm, stumbling back a few steps. Your back collided with a very solid, very broad chest, and it was then that you realized the first man wasn’t alone. Eyes widening in horror, you craned your neck to look up at the man towering above you, also dressed as some kind of horror-themed scarecrow.

Inexplicably, the first thing you noticed about him was the pretty blue of his eyes, and the way they sparkled with humor in the dim light cast over the corn maze. Then you saw the rest of his face, the upper half of which was decorated with face paint to make him resemble a skull. But the bottom half was even more terrifying, since it was covered with a mask that looked like the skeletal jaws of a beast, with bright white pointed teeth and sharpened fangs. Despite his horrifying experience, you could plainly see that he was attractive and you felt the first twinge of desire twist in you. 

Behind the mask was a layer of black fabric hiding the man’s mouth, but you saw the shape of his lips moving and spreading into a grin. “You look sweet enough to eat, baby cakes,” he rumbled in a deep voice, dripping with an innuendo that made your heart beat a little faster in response. 

For a dazed moment, you just stared at him, then you remembered yourself and stumbled away, a confusing warmth pulsing in your center. Getting a better look at him, you saw he was also wearing a tattered flannel shirt with the buttons undone, showing off his impressive chest. He didn’t wear a hat, his straw-colored hair adding to the effect of his farm boy/scarecrow appearance, but he did have some hay sticking out of the pockets of his worn-looking jeans, which were slung low on his hips.

Your gaze flicked up from the man’s thick thighs, realizing you were ogling the scare actor despite giving Yelena shit for her interest in them only moments ago. But you couldn’t help the way you were looking at the man—he was so damn handsome, even with the face paint and mask. You thought you might finally, really understand what Yelena had been talking about as you looked at the hot scare actor, and suddenly remembered screaming your head off at him. Wincing, you covered your mouth in embarrassment. 

His blue eyes sparkled in amusement, and maybe a little bit of interest. “Don’t worry, baby, you can scream all you want—I don’t mind,” he said, a grin in his tone as he advanced on you, backing you toward your friends. You’d half forgotten about them, too busy getting all hot and bothered over the handsome scare actor, but as you got closer, you could hear Yelena trying to flirt with the other man. 

“When do you get off work, hot stuff?” Yelena was asking, and you recognized the exaggerated sultry tone she used when she was half-serious, half-joking. You could practically hear Nat’s eyes roll at her sister’s antics. 

The man advancing on you paused, his brow furrowing in confusion. The expression looked almost comical on him, makeup caking in the little lines between his blond brows. “Is your friend flirting with Bucky?” he asked incredulously, dropping the extra low rumble he’d been using. 

Laughing a little, you relaxed as the man dropped his act, your body seeming to remember you weren’t in any actual danger. Glancing over your shoulder, you caught Yelena reaching out to stroke the bicep of the other man—who you presumed to be Bucky. He looked just as perplexed as the man in front of you, like he couldn’t believe your friend was actually flirting with him in the middle of the haunted corn maze. 

“Yeah,” you said, turning around to look at the blond again. “She has a thing for scare actors apparently,” you explained, shrugging. 

The man’s expression cleared with understanding. “Huh,” he said, tilting his head to the side as he watched Yelena try to get Bucky to give up his number. “I’ve never seen someone flirt so aggressively after being scared.” His blue eyes flicked back to yours and you got the impression he was grinning again. “Normally we’ll make a girl scream and then send her on her way.” He winked at you and it suddenly struck you that he was flirting with you.

Your mouth rounded into a little ‘o’ in surprise, your gaze lingering on his sparkling blue eyes as you tried to think of something in response. But at that moment, a strong gust of wind blew through the corn maze and you shivered, wrapping your arms around yourself. You’d worn a thick sweater tucked into a short corduroy skirt and your warmest socks paired with comfortable boots. It had seemed like the perfect outfit for tromping through corn mazes and pumpkin patches, but without tights or leggings, it wasn’t as warm as you’d hoped, and you noticed the man caught you shivering.

He lifted his hands like he was going to rub your arms to keep you warm, but let them drop back to his sides when he seemed to remember it wouldn’t be an appropriate thing to do to a stranger he’d just scared in a corn maze. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets, wincing a little as the straw that had been stuck there was displaced.

“You folks should get moving,” he said, his relaxed stance making him look more like an easy-going farmer than a scary scarecrow, even with the makeup and mask. You felt a pang of disappointment at him ushering you along, even though his next words made a warmth bloom in your chest. “You’ve got a ways to go in the maze, and you look like you’re in need of some hot apple cider.” 

“Thank you, kind scary man,” Yelena interjected before you could say anything. She threaded her arm through yours and began tugging you in the direction the three of you had been headed. Even more disappointment welled up inside you as she pulled you gently away from the man. “Let’s go,” she said to you, giving you a secretive smirk. “Say goodbye to the scary-hot man.”

“Goodbye, scary-hot man,” you repeated, eyes still fixed on the blond scare actor. The corners of your mouth flickered in a smile you couldn’t fully suppress and the man grinned behind his mask.

“Steve,” he said, looking reluctant to let you get away even though he’d been the one to suggest you keep moving. “The name’s Steve, but you can call me anything you want, baby cakes,” he said, winking at you. You had just enough time to call your own name out to him before he stepped back into the divot in the corn where he’d been hiding so he could wait for the next group of unsuspecting guests to scare. 

Once you turned the next corner in the maze, Yelena raised her eyebrows at you, giving you a knowing look before turning to Nat on her other side and saying, “See? She gets it.” You bit your lip against a smile, your thoughts still on Steve back around the bend, barely hearing Yelena as she went on. “Men in masks and scary makeup are hot.” 

When her words finally permeated your thoughts, you rolled your eyes at your friend. Still, you were so infatuated with the handsome scare actor after such a short time talking to him that you had to wonder if Yelena was right, and Steve had simply unlocked something in you. As you kept walking through the maze, you tried to see the attractiveness Yelena saw in the scare actors.

However, as the three of you moved further through the maze and Yelena kept trying to flirt with all the scare actors, you realized none of them sparked anything in you. At least, not in the same way Steve had. Seeing his handsome face half-covered in a mask of skeletal animal jaws had made an ache of desire bloom in your core, whereas seeing all the other men in their gruesome makeup or fearsome masks did little more than unsettle or downright scare you.

You were starting to suspect you’d made a terrible mistake by not offering Steve your number when two men lept from the corn behind you and your friends. They yelled and raised farm-themed weapons, starting to chase you down the long narrow path. 

You, Nat and Yelena all screamed and started running, but you quickly fell behind. Your boots were made for walking, not running, and it felt like the men were gaining on you. Your friends were starting to pull ahead, leaving you a little behind, and you panicked, ducking down a side path and hiding in the shadows while the scare actors passed. 

You breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back onto the main path, realizing too late you’d let yourself be separated from your friends. Quickly, you began walking down the narrow corridor of corn, but you soon came to an intersection with paths leading in three different directions. You couldn’t tell which way Yelena and Nat had gone because the paths all turned and twisted. 

Cursing yourself under your breath, you picked a path at random and began walking, hoping for the best. You tried to text your friends, but cell reception in the cornfield was terrible and you weren’t sure if it went through, let alone whether you’d get a response.

It didn’t take long before you knew you were lost, and the more you tried to find your way out of the maze, the more it seemed like you were walking in circles. To make your situation worse, you began to feel like you were being followed.

Sometimes when you turned a corner, you thought you saw someone behind you, though you weren’t sure if it was really a person or if your panic and terror were playing tricks on you. Still, you started walking faster, even though you knew it was probably just a scare actor trying to see if you were alright, or another guest in the corn maze—or no one at all! Because you were alone, your mind was racing with all the terrible possibilities and you didn’t want to be caught along by anyone in the haunted attraction.

You were so busy hurrying along the path and looking over your shoulder to try and see if you really were being followed that you weren’t paying attention to what was in front of you. When you turned a sudden corner, you ran head-first into a broad, hard chest, bouncing off it like you weighed nothing. He caught your arms to stop you from falling backwards onto your ass, his hands warm through your sweater.

“We gotta stop meeting like this, baby cakes,” the man rumbled and you looked up, recognizing the flirty voice and finding the sparkling blue eyes and skeletal mask belonging to Steve. You breathed your first real sigh of relief since getting separated from your friends and relaxed into Steve’s grip, swaying toward the heat he radiated in the cold October night. He glanced around, asking, “Where are your friends?”

Face contorting in an embarrassed grimace, you admitted, “I got separated, and then I got lost.” Looking around at the rows of corn lining the path, you didn’t even know if you were any closer to the exit of the maze or if you’d somehow looped around to where you’d first met Steve. “Can you help me get out?” you asked, turning back to Steve and giving him your best pleading look. It wasn’t difficult, you knew you desperately needed help and he was the first friendly face you’d seen.

“Of course, baby,” he murmured in a soft, sweet voice, his gaze going gentle as he looked down at your wide eyes. His hands squeezed your arms reassuringly and then he slid one to your lower back, turning to guide you through the maze. His palm was warm, his touch steady, and you let it comfort you.

“Thank you,” you said, glancing up at his handsome face, feeling desire unfurl in your center. You stuck close to Steve’s side, leaning into him and twisting your fingers together in front of you so you didn’t reach for him. You wanted desperately to cling to him, but knew that’d be a little ridiculous after only just meeting him, even if your time alone in the corn maze had left you feeling unsettled.

Steve made conversation as he led you through the maze, his steps confident and never faltering no matter how many twists and turns the path took. You could tell he knew his way around the maze and you felt so grateful you’d run into him, especially since it meant you got to talk to him some more.

While you walked, Steve asked you about what you did for work and what you liked to do for fun. You answered him, finding that talking was taking your mind off the fear you’d felt when you’d been lost. You kept up the conversation, asking Steve how long he’d worked at the farm as a scare actor, and he told you he only stepped in when someone called out. Normally, he just worked on the farm. You were a little surprised to learn he was a farmer, but it suited him—and explained why his physique looked like he’d earned it through working outside instead of at the gym.

It was pleasant, getting to know Steve. It helped that none of the scare actors tried to scare you since you were with him, which made it feel more like a normal corn maze. It occurred to you that you could almost pretend you and Steve were on a date, despite his makeup and mask, but you pushed that thought aside quickly, knowing you were getting a little ahead of yourself. He hadn’t even asked for your number, though you were fairly certain he was just as attracted to you as you were to him.

After a little while of walking, Steve led you through a small gap in the corn and you exited the maze. Looking around, you realized it must’ve been a secret entrance separate from the main one, because there was nothing but a dirt road between the edge of the maze and the forest beyond. You looked to Steve with a confused expression. 

“You can follow the outside around to the front if you walk that way,” he said, nodding his head to indicate the direction he meant, keeping his eyes on you. You weren’t ashamed to admit to yourself that you liked the way his gaze lingered on you, adding to the heat in your center that pulsed for him. “Or I can walk you back if you want?” he asked, a note of hope in his tone that you caught right away.

You smiled and nodded. “I’d like that,” you said, looking up at him from under your lashes. Steve’s mouth widened into a grin behind his mask and his hand shifted from your lower back, sliding down your arm until his fingers tangled with yours. 

Hiding a smile by ducking your head, you squeezed Steve’s hand, clinging to him as you began walking again. He picked up the conversation you’d been having, asking about your favorite movies and books, sharing some of his own. You discovered you liked plenty of the same things, and you enjoyed talking to him about them. You were having such a good time with Steve, you were reluctant to return to the farm’s main attractions.

The sounds of the festivities and the crowds swarming the farm got louder the closer you got to the front of the maze, and you tried to slow your steps to prolong the time you got to spend with Steve. He didn’t comment on your reluctance, just slowed his own pace to match yours as he swung your linked hands. He still hadn’t taken off his mask and you were growing increasingly more curious about what he looked like beneath it—especially what his mouth looked like, and how it might feel on yours.

Eventually, Steve stopped, tugging you to a halt beside him a little ways away from the bright lights of the farm where you were still hidden in shadows from the other guests. You turned to face Steve, looking up expectantly with a sad smile on your face, sensing it was time for the two of you to part. “Clint doesn’t like the scare actors to be seen in the crowd,” Steve said by way of explanation. “He says it ruins the surprise in the maze.” Though you couldn’t see Steve’s mouth, you got the sense he was frowning unhappily.

“Ok,” you said, trying to hide your disappointment. You couldn’t bear to look at the farm or the crowds milling around, not when you couldn’t get enough of looking at Steve, admiring how hot he was even with his face paint and mask. “Thank you again, Steve,” you murmured. 

Impulsively, you threw your arms around Steve’s shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug. Pressing against him, you couldn’t get over how good it felt to have him wrap his arms around you, crushing you to his chest. You lingered much longer than was necessarily appropriate for a thank you hug given to a man you’d just met, but his hold felt too good to pull away. Besides, Steve didn’t seem eager to let go either.

The cold plastic of Steve’s mask brushed the side of your head, and you could feel his warm breath against your ear as he held you close. “Is your friend the only one with a thing for scare actors?” he asked softly, a little bit of insecurity in his tone. It took you a second to understand his question, but you realized he was asking if you were only interested in him because he was a scare actor.

The question tugged at your heart. You still didn’t know Steve very well, but you’d gotten to learn a little about him on your walk out of the maze and around it, and your little infatuation with him had burgeoned into a full-blown crush. Although you were a little shy to admit to it, you couldn’t bear to think Steve believed you were interested only in his appearance. 

“Yeah, she is,” you said in a shy whisper before burying your face in Steve’s shoulder. You squeezed him tighter, hoping your honest answer was the one he’d been looking for. Since you were pressed so firmly against him, you felt the relieved little sigh he let out.

“So you just have a thing for me, then, baby?” he rumbled, his voice shifting to something warmer. You could hear the smile in his tone. 

A shiver raced down your spine at the pet name rolling of his tongue in the deep voice you enjoyed so much. You still felt a little shy about admitting to your crush on him, but the feeling of Steve’s hands beginning to wander over your back, and the feel of your body pressed against his gave you courage. “Yeah,” you said on a soft exhale.

A pleased sound rumbled in Steve’s chest and then he was leaning back, one hand reaching up to unhook his mask from behind his ear. He let it fall, revealing the bottom half of his face. And what a face it was. He had a strong jaw that you had the odd urge to bite, and soft-looking lips. You wanted to feel his mouth on you so badly, and you were so consumed by the sudden desire, it took you a moment to realize his gaze was fixed on your mouth too. 

“Steve,” you whimpered, hands fisting in his tattered flannel shirt. You didn’t know what you were begging for—for him to kiss you or say something—but you knew you needed something from him to satiate the heat thrumming through your veins. 

“Gonna kiss you,” he rasped, his voice somewhat distant, like he was too distracted by the shape of your lips and the thought of kissing you to remember he was warning you about his intent. Not that you needed the warning. It only served to make you more desperate for him to do something.

“Please,” you begged, pushing yourself up onto your tiptoes and tilting your face up to his until your mouths were even closer together.

That must’ve been all Steve needed to snap him out of his stupor because in the next moment his mouth descended on yours, capturing your lips in a fierce, demanding kiss. Sensation exploded in your mind as you felt Steve’s soft mouth take yours frantically, his lips sliding against yours and memorizing the curves of your mouth so intimately. He seemed to be committing you to memory, determined to learn everything that made you gasp softly into his mouth.  

It wasn’t long before Steve’s tongue slid along your lower lip and you allowed him inside. He plunged into your mouth with just as much fervor, exploring and twining his tongue with yours. Steve’s hand cupped the back of your head gently while his other arm wrapped around your lower back, holding you anchored against his body as he plundered your mouth. You moaned into him, your fingers pulling at his shirt, his hair, any part of him you could get your hands on to drag him closer, deeper into you.

Eventually, you had to pull away to breathe, though if you’d had it your way, you would’ve kissed Steve much longer—until your lungs had given up the fight for air. You’d never felt so wildly attracted to anyone before, and the way Steve gave you another lingering kiss only affirmed that there was something special about the chemistry between the two of you. It made you light-headed with giddiness and heavy with desire at the same time. It was the perfect combination to do something a little reckless, but something you knew you wouldn’t regret.

“Do you have to get back to work?” you asked breathlessly in between kisses, neither of you able to get enough of the other. You clung to the lapels of Steve’s shirt, holding yourself up so you could keep kissing him. It had probably only been a few moments, but you were already hooked on feel of his lips against yours.

“Nah,” he said on an exhale, a little smile curling the edges of his mouth. “I’m done for the night.” He pressed one more kiss to your mouth before pulling away enough to rake his glittering blue eyes over your face, taking in your mischievous expression. “What do you have in mind, baby cakes?” 

Biting your lip to quell your playful smile, you glanced over your shoulder to where the farm’s patrons were milling about, eating candy apples and cider donuts, picking out pumpkins and other produce. You knew they couldn’t see you and Steve, since you were hidden in shadows, but they were still too close for your comfort.

Turning back to Steve, you gave him a shyly impish grin. “Do you know anywhere we can go that’s a little more private?” you asked, leaning in and whispering the last word in his ear. You pressed a suckling kiss to his neck so he’d understand your meaning, and that you wanted to do more than kiss him.

Steve groaned, both his arms wrapping around your lower back and hauling you up against his chest so your toes were barely touching the ground. “Fuck, baby,” he bit out, burying his face in the crook of your neck while he seemed to try to get ahold of himself. He took deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

Then, with obvious effort, he set you back on your feet and looked down at you with a serious expression. “You sure?” he asked, his eyes roaming your face like he was looking for any little bit of uncertainty. But you knew he’d find none, and you were nodding before he’d even finished asking the question. Once Steve was sure you were certain, he nodded, chuckling a little. “Let’s go, baby cakes,” he said, eagerly grabbing your hand. 

Steve led you away from the crowds at the farm, stopping only long enough for you to text your friends—finding they’d made it out of the maze and had been blowing up your phone asking where you were. You let them know you were ok and you’d catch up with them. They agreed easily and told you to meet them in the pumpkin patch.

The someplace private Steve knew was a deserted barn, piles of hay stacked everywhere in neat columns. Steve led you to one side, ducking between a couple stacks of hay. There was a large window illuminating the space, allowing the light of the nearly full moon to spill inside.

Once you were sufficiently hidden from the open barn door, Steve spun you around until the backs of your thighs brushed against a waist-high stack of hay bales. You hopped up and spread your legs, welcoming Steve between them, tilting your face up for another kiss. 

Steve indulged you, kissing you slowly and decadently, like he was savoring you now that he knew he could take his time. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and kissed him back eagerly while his hands skimmed down your body, toying with the edge of your sweater before pushing beneath it. 

You sucked in a sharp breath when his cold hands pressed against your heated skin, a shiver skating down your spine and settling heavily in your core. Your slit was throbbing, wetness dripping into your panties, and you wanted more—more of Steve, more of his touch, just more. Squirming to the edge of the hay bale, your center found the bulge in the front of Steve’s jeans and you writhed against him, leaning into his touch and moaning softly.

Steve pulled away with a raspy chuckle. “Is this private enough for you, baby?” he asked in a low gravelly voice. His lips pressed kisses to the underside of your jaw in between words, dragging a little whine from you. His mouth skated down your neck, sucking on your skin and making you gasp.

“Yes, daddy,” you answered on a soft, sweet sigh, the honorific slipping out too easily. You hadn’t meant to say it, but you were too far gone with hazy pleasure from Steve’s potent kisses and your need for more.

Steve paused, his hands spread over your ribs, the tips of his thumbs just brushing the underside of your bra. His sudden stillness pulled you out of your aroused daze enough to realize what you’d said. Jerking back, you looked up at Steve in horror. Though he didn’t seem disgusted by what you’d said, his expression was blank with surprise.

“Sorry!” you cried, burying your face in your hands, not wanting to see the moment his real reaction showed on his face. “I don’t know why I said that.” 

In reality, you had a pretty good idea it had something to do with the way you’d always fantasized about calling someone you were fooling around with daddy, but it had never felt right with anyone else. For some reason, you felt safe enough with Steve to call him that, but it was still embarrassing to accidentally call him daddy in the middle of making out, especially when you had no idea how he felt about it.

Dropping his head to your shoulder, Steve groaned like he was being tortured, his fingers flexing on your ribs and gripping you tighter like he was worried you were going to pull away further. “Christ, baby, you’re gonna make me come in my pants,” he rumbled, a desperate tenor in his voice. He took a few deep breaths, like he was trying to control yourself, and it gave you a moment to absorb what he’d said.

“What?” you asked, shocked and a little confused. 

“I’m already so fucking hard for you,” he murmured, his hips bucking between your thighs, the thick ridge of his cock brushing against you through his jeans. “And then you go and call me daddy?” he asked, taking another deep breath and not waiting for you to answer his rhetorical question. “It’s more than a man can take.” 

Your mouth fell open in surprise, and when you didn’t say anything, Steve stood up so he could look at you, pulling you back to the edge of the hay bale so you could feel his hardness twitch against your clothed pussy. Your eyes widened as a shiver raced down your spine and your breaths came faster, your chest heaving a little. Steve watched your reaction, his eyes going molten as they raked over you. 

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, baby,” he promised, looking positively deviant with his feral grin and the skeleton makeup still caked onto the upper part of his face. He looked like your own personal Halloween wet dream come to life, and you could feel yourself getting wetter as he vowed to defile your body. “I’m gonna fuck you until you’re dumb and mindless on my cock and the only word you can say is daddy.” Steve wrapped his hand around the front of your throat and pulled you in for a blisteringly hot kiss. 

You were too dumbfounded by his filthy words to react for a second, but when his tongue slipped between your lips, it set your body alight with untamed heat. While you kissed him back, you pushed impatiently at Steve’s flannel shirt until you got it past his shoulders and he quickly divested himself of it. Your hands were eager to explore every dip and hard plane of his chest, reveling in the muscles beneath his smooth skin.

When your fingers traced along the edges of his abs and trailed down to the waist of his jeans, you felt his stomach contract before he backed away a little. Still kissing you ferociously, Steve caught your wrists and pinned your hands to the hay bale behind you, forcing you to lean back so he could loom over you.

“You’re moving a little fast, baby girl,” Steve rumbled, a hint of chastisement in his tone that had your face heating with delicious humiliation. “You haven’t even told me what you want daddy to do to you,” he went on, pressing kisses to your neck beneath your ear. “Or did you like everything I said so much that you’re at a loss for words?” You could feel him grin against your throat. “It’s a little soon to be so brainless, baby.” 

A garbled sound halfway between a moan and a cry of “yes!” fled your lips when he sucked a hickey into your neck. Your legs wrapped around his thighs, the heels of your boots digging into the backs of his knees. “Want you to fuck me dumb, daddy,” you confessed breathlessly when you’d remembered how to work your tongue. “Want you to bend me over and fuck me so hard that all I can do is take it—please, daddy!”

“Filthy, filthy girl,” Steve growled, barely leashed desire in his deep voice. “Don’t move your hands, baby,” he muttered, his going to your thighs and pushing up your skirt until your panties were revealed. They were one of your cutest pairs and you were gratified to hear the way Steve sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of them. “Pretty,” he praised, his thumbs stroking along the edges where they rested on your hips. “So pretty, baby, but ‘m gonna take ‘em off.” 

Steve waited for your nod before he hooked his fingers in your panties and tugged them down. You used your hands braced behind you to lift up so he could pull them off completely, trying not to think about how damp they were. But Steve wasn’t pausing to look, he just shoved them into the front pocket of his jeans, then refocused on you. His hands gripped your knees, urging you to spread your thighs again, his blue eyes darkened as he watched you.

A soft groan escaped Steve when he got his first glimpse of your pussy. “Fucking hell, baby, such a pretty pussy,” he murmured, his voice warm with praise. Steve used his thumbs to spread your folds, dipping his fingers into your dripping slit and toying with your wetness. “You’re so wet for me,” he groaned under his breath, almost like he was in awe. 

You let out a hitching moan as he circled your entrance with a thick finger. His touch was teasing and you let a desperate little whine, fingers digging into the hay bale you sat on. Steve glanced up, catching your eye and giving you an unrepentant grin.

“You gonna let me fuck this pretty cunt, baby?” he asked, teasing your empty, clenching pussy. “You gonna let me stretch out your tight little hole?” He slid one of his fingers into you and you let out a low moan, delighting in the feeling of him inside you.

“Yes, daddy,” you purred, your eyes heavy-lidded as you watched Steve staring down at your pussy while he pumped his finger in and out of you. “Want you to fuck me with your big cock,” you went on, enjoying the way his dark blue eyes flicked up to catch yours. You smiled wickedly before going on. “Want you to split me open, daddy.” 

Steve groaned loudly as he fucked you with his finger, quickly adding a second and then a third, your thoroughly drenched pussy making it easy for him to stretch you open. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing you say such filthy things, baby girl,” Steve admitted through a clenched jaw. 

All you could do was moan for him, your lips gasping for air as he fucked you hard with his fingers. Steve held your gaze as he planted a hand on the hay bale beside your hip, looming over you and forcing you to lean back on your hands. He was ruthlessly driving your pleasure higher and you were helpless against it as it coiled tighter and tighter in your center.

“Gonna get me hooked on your sweet cunt and your dirty words and the way you call me daddy,” Steve warned, his blue eyes sparkling with a ferocious intensity that made your heart beat even faster. There was an underlying meaning to Steve’s words, a promise he seemed intent to keep. “You’re never gonna get rid of me, baby” 

Emotion swelled inside your chest and you abandoned Steve’s command to keep your hands planted behind you, the need to touch him too overwhelming to ignore. You grabbed his face and pulled him in for a kiss. It was messy, your lips sliding together as you both panted for breath and tried to devour each other. Sucking his lower lip into your mouth, your feet hooked around Steve’s hips, your heels digging into his ass and dragging him closer.

“I don’t want to get rid of you,” you murmured against his lips, breaking off on a loud moan when his fingers brushed against a spot inside you. Your hands slid into Steve’s hair and you tugged on the strands insistently, holding him close enough that you were stealing the air from each other’s lungs. “I want you to keep me, Steve,” you rasped in a desperate whine.

“I’ll keep you, I’ll keep you,” he promised in between hungry kisses. He widened his fingers and dragged them against your inner walls, making you choke out a strangled moan, before pulling them from your dripping hole. “But I told you to keep your hands were they were, baby girl,” he said, giving you a stern look as he leaned away. His fingers only just teasing around your folds, bringing you down from the edge of your release. “And you disobeyed me.”

A whine worked its way up your throat but you swallowed it down, settling for a pout as you looked at Steve from under your lashes. “I’m sorry, daddy,” you said in your best contrite tone. “I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted to touch you.”

Steve hummed in acknowledgement, pulling his fingers away from your pussy and you moaned at the loss of his touch. A moment later, they pressed to your lips. “Be a good girl and suck,” he ordered softly, his eyes bright and intense on you. Obediently, you wrapped your lips around his fingers and licked your arousal from his skin, staring up into his eyes the whole time. Steve’s blue gaze darkened as he watched you, a pleased smirk on his face. “Good girl,” he crooned as he pulled his fingers from your mouth, dropping a kiss to your lips.

Then he stepped back, his hands going to his belt. You could see the bulge of his cock straining against the front of his jeans and your pussy clenched desperately. “Play with your pussy, baby,” Steve rumbled as his hands made quick work of undoing his belt. “Wanna see you rub your little clit for me—but don’t come.” His gaze was hard on yours and you nodded quickly.

“Yes, daddy, I won’t come,” you agreed softly, leaning back on one hand and spreading your thighs wide to give him a show. You slipped your hand between your legs and rubbed your clit in tight, slow circles while watching Steve undo his jeans. He pushed them down his thighs, dragging his boxer briefs with them, and revealed his cock. You sucked in a breath at the sight of him, so thick and perfect. Instinctively, you started rubbing a little faster, turned on by the sight of Steve’s cock, though you knew it would’ve felt better if he was inside you.

“Don’t come, baby girl,” Steve growled, taking his cock in his fist and pumping the hard length, stroking his thumb over the tip and spreading his precum down the shaft. 

You could feel yourself heating at the sight, the desire to taste him flaring through your body. You wanted to lick up his precum and swallow his cock, sucking on him until he came down your throat. Your thoughts must’ve showed on your face because Steve groaned. 

“Don’t look at me light that,” he bit out, gritting his teeth while he stroked his cock a little faster. Your eyes were transfixed on the sight of him pumping his hard length, so you didn’t see the tortured look on his face until you glanced up at him.

Biting your lip against a smile, you asked innocently, “Like what?” You rubbed your clit slowly, playing with the puffy little bundle of nerves and letting your eyes go heavy-lidded, giving Steve a sultry look and betraying the innocence of your question.

Steve’s eyes narrowed on you, knowing you knew what you were doing to him, but he answered anyway. “Like you wanna suck my soul out through my cock,” he gritted out. His eyes were dark, shining silvery in the moonlight filling the barn and, with the help of his skull makeup, making him look a little more intimidating. You weren’t intimidated, though, you were riding high on the power you felt knowing how attracted Steve was to you.

A smirk spread slowly over your face and you gave an innocent little shrug, though you both knew you were anything but innocent. “I’m just admiring your cock, daddy,” you said sweetly, dropping your eyes to where Steve was still stroking himself. You made a show of sliding your tongue over your lower lip, and almost got lost in the thought of feeling his heavy length on your tongue. Then you flicked your gaze back up to Steve’s. “I can’t help what my face looks like when you have such a perfect cock.”

Steve made a rumbling sound in his chest, which only made you snicker. “Filthy fucking girl,” he muttered, shaking his head at you, but he was wearing a grin that said he loved exactly how filthy you were. Before either of you could push the other too far, Steve reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his wallet, procuring a condom from inside it. “Rub your clit, baby girl,” he commanded, flicking his gaze down your body and settling between your thighs. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

You hadn’t realized you had, but at his order, your fingers resumed their tight, slow circles on your clit. “Yes, sir, daddy,” you said, your tone a little mocking, but a little breathless too. You enjoyed Steve’s commanding tone far too much, and though it felt good to push him a little, it felt even better to do as he said. You didn’t want to think about that too closely, because then you’d have to think about the level of trust you felt with the man you’d just met. 

Instead, your eyes drifted down to where Steve was rolling the condom onto his cock, having to bite your lip against the urge to beg him to fuck you without it. You didn’t know where that came from, you’d always used condoms with your past partners, and you’d only just met Steve. But you felt safe with him, you felt like you could trust him, and, if you were honest with yourself, your feelings for him were deepening by the second. Even still, you may have been feeling reckless enough to fuck the scare actor you’d just met in the barn at the farm where he worked, but you knew better than to fuck a guy without a condom without having certain conversations.

And you were far too eager to feel Steve press inside you to stop him and have that talk. Besides, you were fairly certain you’d have plenty of time to have those conversations with Steve later, and then he could fuck you without a condom as much as you both wanted. Still, you couldn’t stop thinking about how you couldn’t wait to take Steve bare.

“Christ, baby, now what’s going through that filthy mind of yours?” Steve asked. He’d finished rolling the condom onto his cock and he was gripping the base tightly, like he was forcing himself not to keep stroking his length. The sight of him, his barely leashed restraint showing in the strain of his shoulders and arms, the veins of his forearms pronounced with it, only made you hotter. You never even considered playing coy with where your thoughts had strayed.

“Just thinking about what it’d feel like to fuck you without a condom,” you murmured, rubbing your clit while Steve groaned, making you smile. He looked so tortured, you had to keep going. “Thinking about your bare cock sinking inside my tight, wet pussy,” you said slowly, reveling in the way his dick twitched in his hand. “And spilling your come deep inside me.”

Steve clenched his teeth so tight, you thought you could hear his jaw muscle pop and you nearly snickered, but then he was grabbing your wrist and wrenching your hand away from your pussy. He pulled your fingers to his lips and sucked your arousal from them while he glared at you. There was no real anger in his expression, though, just furious desire and frustration.

“Not tonight,” he rumbled when he’d pulled your fingers from his mouth. “But if you keep talking like that, it’s going to happen sooner than you think, baby girl,” he promised, hauling you off the hay bale and spinning you around so your back was to him. His mouth was right next to your ear as he spoke. “I’m gonna fuck your pretty pussy with my bare cock and I’m gonna ruin you for any other man—you’ll be nothing more than my own personal, brainless doll.” 

You barely had time to take in what Steve had said before he was planting a hand between your shoulder blades and pushing you down on top of the hay bale. In seconds, you were bent in half, your ass brushing against his hard, twitching cock, with his filthy promise rattling around in your head.

“Is that what you want, baby girl, wanna belong to daddy?” he asked, his voice almost sweet, but there was too much dark desire in it. You shivered, writhing beneath him and moaning for him. “Want daddy to own all of your holes?”

His taunting questions had you moaning and wiggling your hips while he shoved your skirt up over your ass. You dug your fingers into the hay, resting your cheek on the scratchy softness and letting his hands shift you roughly until he had you exactly where he wanted you. 

Steve slid the head of his cock up and down your soaking wet slit, chuckling when you whined and tried to push back onto his length. He smacked your ass hard enough to sting and you cried out, stilling with your back arched and your pussy presented for him. His big hand kneaded the soft flesh of your ass and arousal burned through your body, your pussy dripping and your nipples stiffened into peaks in your bra.

“You do, don’t you,” Steve murmured, almost to himself. “You wanna be all mine, don’t you, baby girl?” Whimpering, you nodded your head, unable to find the words, but that wasn’t good enough for Steve. He spanked your ass again, making you jump and jerk, only to moan when you could feel his cock sliding through your folds, coating himself in your wetness. His rough treatment made your hole clench down pathetically around nothing and you whined. “Say it, say the words, baby, and I’ll give you my cock.” 

“Daddy,” you mewled, looking over your shoulder and up at Steve. He was glorious, big and broad-shouldered, looming over you with his face twisted in his own feral need. He still wore the skeleton makeup across his eyes and brows, which only made the intensity in his blue gaze that much more extraordinary. Staring up at him, you managed to find the words he wanted. “Want to be yours, want to belong to you,” you babbled, unable to stop the flow of words once you’d started. “Want you to own my holes, my body, all of me, daddy—Steve—please.” 

Steve’s eyes flashed in the moonlight, a deep emotion flitting across his eyes that had no right to be there on the same night you’d met, but before you could name it, he wrapped his hand around the front of your throat and dragged you up. Your lips met in a messy kiss that was all nipping teeth and sliding tongues, both of you trying to devour the other, though Steve was more ruthless and you moaned as you sucked on the tongue he’d thrust into your mouth. 

“Mine,” he growled against your mouth, pushing the tip of his cock inside you. You gasped at the stretch of him, your hands clinging to the thick forearm pressed between your tits and holding you up against him.

“Yours,” you said on a gasp as he sank another inch inside you. He was bigger than anyone you’d ever taken before, and there was a delicious sting of pain as he pulled out and shoved himself back inside, pushing even deeper with the movement. “So big, daddy,” you mumbled, enjoying the feeling of Steve’s cock working you open.

Chuckling, Steve’s hand around your throat moved to your chin, turning your face back to him so he could kiss you. “I’m barely inside you, baby girl,” he rumbled, a smile in his voice as he pushed in another inch, grunting at the feel of your cunt clenching down on him. His other hand went to your hip and he held you firmly with both hands to keep you still while he slowly, torturously slowly, sank his cock into your tight heat. “Oh fuck,” he rasped, in your ear, his lips brushing your cheek. “You feel so good, baby, so fucking good—holy shit.” 

In the position he held you, you could do nothing but take his cock and moan at the feeling of his thick length splitting you open. “So good, daddy, s’good, feels so good,” you mumbled, as he pressed into you until he was buried to the hilt in your cunt. You let out a loud moan at the feeling of being entirely filled by Steve’s cock, one hand dropping to your lower belly and pressing down, making you light-headed with the feeling of him inside you.

“You’re so fucking tight, baby,” Steve growled, his hand squeezing your face, fingers digging into your cheeks. His other hand shoved your sweater and bra up, giving him access to your stiff nipples and heavy tits. He kneaded your soft flesh and when he pinched and pulled one of your nipples, your cunt clenched down hard on his cock, making him groan. “Holy fuck, it feels like you’re squeezing my dick in a vise.” 

The feeling of him inside you and his dirty words filling your mind had you squirming as much as you could in his hold, which wasn’t much. “Daddy,” you whined, grinding back on his cock by rolling your hips desperately. You were trying to get him to move, but he seemed happy to stay buried inside you, playing with your tits. “Daddy, please, fuck me,” you begged, nearly crying with frustration. 

Steve chuckled, loosening his hold on you and letting you bend back down over the hay bale. Your hands immediately found purchase in the soft straw and you rocked forward before throwing your ass back on Steve’s cock, your ass slapping against his thighs. 

“Why would I do that when you look so cute fucking yourself on my cock, baby girl?” Steve teased, spanking your ass again. That only made you whine louder, but you couldn’t stop yourself from rocking your body forward and back, taking his cock all on your own—it felt too damn good. “Fuck, you’re so fucking eager for daddy’s cock, aren’t you, baby?” he cooed, curling down over you and pressing kisses to your neck while his hands groped your tits and plucked at your nipples. “Can’t even wait for me to fuck you, you’re gonna do it all by yourself, aren’tcha?” 

Fucking yourself on Steve’s cock felt good, but it wasn’t enough, you needed more. You needed him. “Want you—need you, daddy, please, I need…” you trailed off, unable to finish your sentence because your words dissolved in a moan. Steve gave your nipples one last sharp pinch before he was standing up straight and grabbing your hips in his harsh grip.

“Daddy knows exactly what you need, baby girl,” Steve assured you, starting to rock into you, his hips meeting your thrusts. “You need to be fucked hard and rough,” he went on, his voice a raspy rumble as he picked up his pace, his hands on your hips pulling you back into his thrusts. “You need to be taken, your sweet, perfect body used for nothing but pleasure until you’re dumb and mindless, completely drunk on my cock.” 

He was pounding into you faster than you could manage on your own and you finally relaxed into his hold, letting him use your body how he wanted as you submitted to his cock. “Yes, yes, yes,” you chanted in time with his thrusts, getting louder as his cock battered against a spot inside you that made you shake with pleasure. He fucked you so good, you never wanted it to end. 

“Good girl,” Steve crooned, his fingers digging into your hips as he fucked you brutally. “Daddy’s filthy little baby girl.” Then he was pushing your shoulders down into the hay and lifting your hips even higher, until you were on your tiptoes and his cock was hitting a new spot inside you that made you shriek with pleasure. “That’s it, baby, scream for me—scream for daddy,” he urged, his voice low and sinful as he encouraged you.

Steve’s words set something loose inside you and you let yourself get lost in the pleasure he was wringing from your body, your mouth open as you moaned and screamed through his merciless fucking. Your fingers clung to the hay bale for dear life as Steve’s cock speared deep inside you again and again, finding a spot that made you see stars. He was pushing you to the edge of your release with every savage thrust, and you babbled shrilly, “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,” your lips unable to form any other word than that.

“There’s my brainless little baby girl,” Steve huffed in a warm tone, his breath sawing in and out of him as he kept up his ruthless pace. He held you on the edge of bliss for a long moment, and then he bent over you, one hand finding your clit between your thighs. “Come, baby girl,” he murmured in your ear. “Be a good girl and come on daddy’s cock.” His fingers rubbed your clit hard and you were helpless to the perfect way he worked your body.

Your release crashed over you with the force of the entire ocean, dragging you under a riotous wave of pleasure. You screamed your throat hoarse as your whole body went tight, your vision blacking out for a moment as your mind was too overwhelmed. When you jolted back into your body a second later, it was with the feeling of warm, pleasurable heat pulsing through the entirety of your being.

Steve bit out a strangled, “Oh fuck, baby, you feel so good,” and then he was rutting into your clenching pussy, chasing his own release. He thrust into you wildly, drawing out your pleasure before finally finding his own. He came with a loud groan that he tried to muffle against your shoulder, his hips jerking as his cock twitched inside you, his come spilling into the condom. You moaned softly at the feeling of Steve finding his pleasure in your body, adding to the aftershocks of your orgasm. 

You both collapsed onto the hay bale, Steve planting a hand beside your head to stop himself from crushing you; you wriggled over to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. He grinned against the side of your face and then turned you enough to kiss you properly. It was a soft, lazy kiss that ended far too soon. But Steve needed to pull out and take care of the condom, tying it off and disposing of it. 

Then he helped you to stand and righted your clothes, both of you stealing kisses like you couldn’t get enough of one another. Steve wrapped his arms around you and you snuggled into his chest, content for the moment. Your knees were weak beneath you, but Steve held you tight enough that you knew you weren’t in danger of falling. 

“So I was thinking,” Steve began, running one hand up and down your spine slowly, making you melt even more into his arms. He trailed off and you let out a little hum of encouragement. “I’d like to see you again,” he said, a little hint of uncertainty in his tone.

Leaning back, you smiled up at him. “I’d like that,” you said, before dropping your eyes to his chin and whispering, “a lot.” You didn’t know why you suddenly felt so shy, especially after all the filthy things you’d said to Steve that night, but admitting you liked him so much was a whole different thing. 

“Good,” Steve said decisively, tilting your chin up and dropping a kiss to your lips. His expression was soft with affection when he pulled away, his gaze raking over your face like he couldn’t get enough of looking at you. “Next weekend, why don’t we carve some pumpkins and bake some cookies?” 

You grinned wide. “I’d love that,” you said, pushing yourself up on your tiptoes to give him a kiss. 

Steve was smiling too much for you to deepen the kiss, but he held you tighter in his strong arms. “I figured,” he said, chuckling a little. “I overheard you telling your friends that’s how you would’ve preferred to spend tonight,” he admitted a little guiltily.

Laughing giddily, you peppered kisses all over Steve’s face. When you finally settled, you looked up into his eyes and said, “I’m glad that wasn’t how I spent my night,” you said, giving him as serious a look as you could manage with how happy you felt. “Then I wouldn’t have met you, and I’m really happy I met you, Steve.” 

He looked at you with so much affection, and something deeper swirling in the depths of his blue eyes, that you knew there was something special blooming between the two of you. It might have been a little early to think that—after all, you’d only met Steve that night—but you felt certain of it in your heart and soul, straight down to your bones. What you had with Steve may have been new, but you just knew that you would be in each other’s lives for a very long time.

Steve seemed to be thinking something similar because he slanted his lips to yours in a kiss that felt like coming home. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead to yours and exhaled a soft, happy sigh. “I’m so glad I met you, too, baby girl,” he murmured softly, his lips brushing against yours. The corners of his mouth curled in a smile, and yours flickered too, knowing that whatever teasing thing he was going to say was going to make you laugh. “So glad you stumbled into my arms—twice—after getting scared in the haunted corn maze.”

You did indeed laugh at his light teasing, the sound muffled when he silenced you with a kiss. You and Steve stayed in the barn for a little while longer, kissing and talking, but eventually you knew you had to get back to your friends. 

Steve walked you back to the farm and gave you one last kiss, promising to call you and set up your pumpkin carving date for the following weekend. You practically floated on air back to your friends, who were a little cranky you’d left them for so long. But after you told them about Steve, Yelena shrieked in delight, then punched you in the arm for living out her kink. Natasha just looked happy for you. 

Once you’d bought all three of you some hot apple citer and divulged as many details as you were willing to share, your friends quickly forgave you. They were excited for you to see Steve again, though in Yelena’s case that might’ve been because you promised to ask Steve if he knew if any of his fellow scare actors were single. Still, you had a pleasant rest of the night with your friends, even if your thoughts kept straying back to Steve and the date you’d planned.

When the following weekend came around, Steve came over to your apartment and you carved pumpkins together while you baked those sugar cookies with the Halloween shapes on them. Although you did manage to get your pumpkins carved and almost the entire tray of cookies eaten, you and Steve could barely keep your hands off each other and the night ended with you screaming on his cock. It was the best ending to the night you could’ve hoped for.

Your relationship with Steve unfolded over the following weeks and months, the crush you had on the scare actor/farmer turning into so much more. Eventually, you moved in together, exchanged rings and you took his last name. No matter how many years you were together, though, you always kept up certain traditions: apple picking, carving pumpkins, and baking cookies in the fall. Though you’d put your foot down about going to haunted houses, Steve refused to stop teasing you about the time you got lost in a haunted corn maze and needed his help to find your way out.

Y/N cried out in ecstasy. Her fingers curled around the headboard, holding on for dear life. Dean was ramming into her at a rapid pace, kneeling behind her. His skin was slapping against hers. Every push was forceful enough to take her breath away.

“How’s that feel?”, he checked in with her, bending forward, folding his body across hers, his lips grazing her cheek. His thrusts slowed down, but their force increased.

“So good,” she panted through the powerful sensations.

“You want me to keep goin’ like that?”

“Oh God, yes…”

She clenched around him, causing him to hiss loudly in pleasure. He could feel his body vibrate as a familiar intense sensation settled in his lower regions.   

Until…

“What are you doing?”

Dean and Y/N tensed violently at the sudden intrusion. Their souls took a leap out of their bodies, prompting them to abruptly still their movements. No one else was supposed to be in the bunker. Their heads snapped towards the open door of Dean’s bedroom.

None other than Lucifer’s son himself, Jack, was standing in the doorway, his hands clasped in front of him, his head tilted to the side. 

“Dammit, Jack!”, Dean roared, swiftly pulling out of Y/N and throwing his cream-colored sheets over her naked body.

Y/N’s eyes were wide, her breathing heavy. She gladly accepted the sheets to cover her body. A scorching heat lit up her cheeks. She felt like she’d just run a marathon, but with a mighty dose of embarrassment tossed into the mix.

“What are you doing?”, the Nephilim repeated, staring at the two hunters with a crease between his innocent eyes.

“Having sex!”, Dean snapped, snatching his pillow from the bed to hide his softening member.

Jack’s lips pursed as he mentally went through his vocabulary to find that particular word. When it didn’t ring a bell, he shook his head. “What does that mean?”

Y/N groaned internally and hid her burning face in her hands. This couldn’t be happening. What the hell was he doing back early? Jack and Sam were supposed to be out.

“It’s what adults do for fun,” Dean snarled, hoping that, by some miracle, Jack was going to take the hint and leave them alone.

Instead, the purest smile spread across Jack’s face. He looked even more interested in the subject now. “I like fun.”

Dean pushed his jaw forward. He was irritated, but he was also embarrassed. Y/N could tell by looking at his flushed freckled cheeks and the reddening tips of his ears. “You remember the talk we had about privacy?”, he demanded.

Lucifer’s son drew his eyebrows together. “Of course.”

“You wanna give us some of that?”, Dean barked, sarcasm dripping from his rough voice.

“Hey, Jack, I was wondering where you headed off to…”, Sam’s voice trailed off as he appeared in the doorframe. He took in the scene before him, quick to avert his gaze and clear his throat. “Jack, uh… Come on, we’ll give them some privacy.” Sam placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him away from the door.

Dean groaned and let his sweaty forehead drop to Y/N’s shoulder. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered.

“But the door was open,” they could hear Jack protest down the hall.

Y/N sighed deeply, hoping that it would somehow rid her of the uneasiness that tickled her limbs. When Dean lifted his head back up and met her gaze, she was almost amused by the obvious disappointment on his face. Almost. The smile didn’t break through, but her eyes reflected her bashful internal laughter.

“It’s not funny,” Dean grumbled, frowning as he spotted the beginning of the awkward smile on her face.

The mood had definitely been killed.

“Come on…” Y/N gently patted Dean’s bare thigh. “Let’s get dressed. It’s time for lunch, anyway.”

“Dean?”, Jack asked.

The Nephilim, Dean and Sam were sat at the library table, their noses buried in books and newspapers. The earthy scent of paper wafted through the air.

“Hm?”, the older Winchester brother half-heartedly replied, raising his mug to his lips.

“Does… sex… hurt women?”

Sam gave the Nephilim a confused side-glance while Dean audibly gulped down the hot sip of coffee. “What?”

“I think you hurt Y/N,” Jack stated with an accusing tone in his voice.

Sam’s lips transformed into a tight, thin line to prevent him from laughing.

Dean sent a glare his brother’s way. He was not in the mood to give the son of Lucifer ‘the talk.’ “It’s none of your business what I do with Y/N. Capiche?”, he grumped. The hunter’s muscles tightened in his jaw as he took another sip of his coffee.

“But I don’t want you to hurt her.”

“I wasn’t hurting her,” Dean huffed, putting down his mug. He didn’t want to defend himself for what Jack had witnessed, but if someone claimed that he hurt Y/N, and that he hurt her on purpose, the hunter was bound to get offended. “Relax.”

Sam chimed in, showing mercy for his brother. “Jack, Dean would never hurt Y/N. You know that.”

“But it looked like he was.”

Dean sighed grumpily and clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “I was doin’ somethin’ she likes. Okay? That’s rule number one with sex,” he explained, lifting a single finger in the air for emphasis, “You both need to enjoy it.”

“So, it’s possible not to enjoy it?” Jack’s forehead furrowed, causing his brows to move closer together. “I thought adults do it for fun.”

“Yes, it’s possible, but that should never, ever happen,” Dean clarified, “You need to communicate, make sure you’re on the same page.”

Jack’s eyes squinted at the unfamiliar expression. “On… the same page?”

“Yeah. For example…” Dean briefly shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, unable to believe he was actually talking about this to Jack, of all people. “Uh… Y/N told me she doesn’t want me to leave hickeys on her body, so I can’t do that. Even though I’d like to.” At the thought of marking Y/N up as his, he ran his tongue across his lower lip. “I’d really, really like to…,” he muttered to himself dreamily.

Sam scoffed, chuckling slightly and shaking his head. Never in a million years could he have guessed that his older brother was going to give Satan’s son the talk one day.

Meanwhile, Jack nodded, clinging to Dean’s every word. “So, it’s about… permission,” he concluded.

“Exactly,” Dean responded, snapping his fingers and pointing one at Jack. He felt something dangerously close to pride swell in his chest as the boy drew the correct conclusion. “Bottom line is, you can only do what your partner allows you to.”

Jack nodded and let the information sink in for a second. Then, one of his eyebrows rose up and he inquired, “So, Y/N is your… partner?”

The question was a curveball to Dean, whose mouth puckered in reply. He was stunned into stammering, “Uhm, well…”

Curiously, Sam sat up straighter and watched his sibling’s reaction like a hawk.

“Yeah,” Dean said finally, shrugging his wide shoulders, which, to his surprise, suddenly felt a lot lighter.

Jack clasped his own hands on the table, copying Dean’s posture. “Are there any other rules?”

“Yeah. Like protection.” When Jack opened his mouth to ask further questions, Dean silenced him by lifting his pointer finger back in the air. “But I ain’t teachin’ you about that, kid. One lesson at a time.”

Dean got up, empty mug in hand, and headed toward the kitchen. As he entered the hallway, he almost bumped into Y/N, who was standing right there, resting against the wall. She smiled up at him, irises gleaming with joy and a little bit of mischief.  

“What’s gotten you all cheerful?”, he demanded playfully, eyebrows arching.

“Oh, nothing,” she said, grinning at him.

Dean narrowed his eyes at her. But he didn’t get to say another word when Jack’s bewildered voice suddenly rang through the library.

“Sam… What are hickeys?”

When Sam’s groan reached their ears, Dean and Y/N burst into quiet laughter, leaning forward, their heads almost bumping into each other.

That night, Y/N listened to Dean’s calming heartbeat, cuddled up against his torso. He sighed with content when she pressed her lips to his anti-possession tattoo.

“You know… I really liked how you gave Jack the talk today,” she said.

Dean’s chest rumbled with a low chuckle. “So, you were eavesdroppin’.”

“Guilty.” Y/N laughed softly for a second, smiling at the green-eyed hunter who was holding her like she was the most delicate thing in the world. “But seriously... I liked how you taught him about consent.”

His fingers traced an affectionate pattern on her hip. “Well, that's sex 101, isn’t it?”

She nodded against his skin. “It should be.”

Dean slowly brushed his fingertips across her ribs and felt her muscles contract. When he realized she was ticklish, he dragged his fingers along the same spot again. He enjoyed the sweet sounds of laughter that spilled from her mouth. He loved having her in his arms, whether they were having sex or not. She made him feel good. About his life. About himself.

“So… I’m your partner, huh?”, Y/N asked, catching his hand in hers so he would stop tickling her. She proceeded to bite her bottom lip and sneak a peek at Dean’s face while she waited for his response. So far, neither of them had brought up the question of what exactly they were to each other.

At first, she was met with complete and utter silence. That was okay. Truth be told, she had no idea what to expect. She knew they each had their own difficulties when it came to relationships. But she needed to know if Dean had told Jack the truth, or if he’d just called her his partner to appease the young Nephilim.

Then, after a few seconds, Dean gave his silent reply. The way he clenched his arm around her, squeezed her against him, and firmly kissed the crown of her head told her more than words ever could. He then transformed his response into one single word, quietly whispering it into her hair. “Yeah.”

“Hmm,” she hummed and hid her smiling face in the crook of his neck. His embrace was the most comfortable place in the entire world. She felt his chest rise and fall steadily, heard the deep breaths coming from his nose, and shut her eyes. For the first time in a long time, Y/N felt at peace. “Dean?”, she asked after a few minutes, wondering if he was dozing off.

“Hm?”

“I think you still owe me an orgasm or two.”

His sleepy, spiky-haired head rose up the second she finished her sentence. He rolled on top of her body, grinning like a Cheshire cat while she giggled her heart out.

“Just two?”

“Ohh, are we feeling ambitious tonight?”, she chuckled, circling her arms around his neck.

“It’s on, sweetheart,” he rasped, molding his lips against hers in a breathtaking kiss.