Hello I’m Just Lurking

"It's to keep your hair from getting tangled," you murmur. "It's windy out today."

He's warm taffy at the sound of your voice. Pliable and stretchy, he feels his center of grace being pulled towards you. It buzzes when your hands pull away and a finger brushes against his temple on the way down. It's hard to refrain from leaning in.

"I like it," he nods. "Thank you."

From the doorway, Sam smiles and shakes his head, exasperated.

⟡⟡⟡

An early autumn breeze kisses all heat from your skin with a chill, and sends your arm looping through the crook of Cas' elbow. You press close against his side, he presses back because he's got plenty warmth to spare, and the only thing out of place is Dean's smirk.

He stands at Baby with his feet crossed in the near distance, and when Cas glances down, Sam is watching from inside the car with an eerily similar expression.

"They are being weird," he tells you, under his breath.

Your throat bobs with a soft swallow, he notices. And as you step up a curb together and closer to the boys, your arm withdraws and he's left feeling empty. A crack in his chest that yawns into a gap when you throw him a small smile and open your own door to the backseat. He always opens it for you, he likes to, but you're too quick today.

"Aren't they always?"

He hums and slides in beside you, thigh bumping to yours.

While an argument about the volume of music ensues in the front, he watches with gentle cerulean eyes as your fingers twitch and your palm flips up in offering above your lap. He takes it with the only thought in his head being how happy he is to hold your hand like this.

⟡⟡⟡

Six hours into the drive, the sun begins to melt down the sky with beaming rivulets of yellow. Your cheek squished to his shoulder and snoring quietly, fingers tangled into a fold of his coat, Cas thinks you're most pretty. The prettiest. More than stars and flowers.

You're drooling. But in a very sweet, tired and human sort of way, he doesn't mind at all. What does irk him is the slapping of Dean's hands against the wheel and the raspy voice belting from the radio.

"Dean," he grunts, very still. "Stop. Turn it down."

Dean peeks into the rearview. "Why?"

"It is obnoxiously loud. They're sleeping."

A long, bleeding sigh, before Axl Rose is silenced. Sam's head turns to watch Dean, and they share one of their silent conversations that Cas isn't very fond of. The Impala hiccups over a dip in the road, and he brings his bicep around your shoulder to keep you steady and undisturbed.

"This is getting a little ridiculous, man," Dean huffs, words underlain with a stabbed attempt at sincerity.

"What is getting ridiculous?"

It's all quiet for a prolonged moment. His heart squeezes at the feel of your weight, the breath that puffs out through your parted lips and fans on his collar. He likes that he's the one you're resting on. There's a falling in his chest, like a plume of feathers hitting the ground, as he thinks about how he'd like to be this for you always.

He blinks slow.

"All this... cuddling. And the smiles. And the touches."

"It is human nature, our dynamic is as such."

"Your dynamic," Dean repeats in a breath of laughter. "They're into you, dude. You've gotta do something about it."

Cas tilts his head and thinks. About your blooming smile and your hands on his shoulders, face, held between his own. The way you say his name with a dulcet lilt. How he's thrown into a golden, blossoming euphoria when you explain things to him that he pretends not to know about, just to hear you talk.

"Into me. In what way?"

Sam is so merciful as to cut in, turning around in his seat.

"They... they've got a crush on you. They're interested. Romantically."

He knows what a crush is. What had been a complicated topic has become something simpler over his time spent here, sweeter and pure, to think that you harbor such a honeyed thing for him makes his forehead balm.

Silence settles again. Pillowing atop him like fresh snow, he's met with the first loss of words in the spanning, expansive thing that is his existence.

"You good?" Sam asks, patient and knowing.

Cas nods. He is perfect.

⟡⟡⟡

When you fall asleep in your hotel room that night, Cas is there and watching over you. As your eyes flutter open and contract under a hissing ray of early light, he's gone. You sit up, blankets pooling, a lonely ache between your ribs.

It's soothed by the message on your nightstand, relieved to know he hasn't left without a trace or goodbye. His name written in elegant calligraphy on a creased sheet of complementary notepad, you take it and unfold the paper quickly.

I possess a crush on you, too.

Love, Castiel.

❤︎⁠

my cas debut! please have mercy on me as it is my first ever time writing for him!!

When he stepped out – Sam hadn’t come back yet – he put on a clean shirt and a pair of sweatpants, dropped on the bed, and flickered on the TV. The options at midnight were always a gamble, but he could always count on a rerun of some horror flick or a Scooby-Doo episode to keep him company.

Jackpot, he thought when he found The Shining. He rested his back against the bedpost, arms crossed over his chest, and settled comfortably to watch how Jack Nicholson’s character chased his wife across the haunted hotel.

Halfway through the film, Dean remembered out of the blue that he had to check in with Bobby. He and Sam had called him earlier to ask something about hunting Rugarus and promised they’d let him know when they were safe at the hotel. Maybe Sammy had already done it, he thought, but then he shrugged, saying it was best to call him anyways rather than to risk it and have Bobby himself hunt them down.

He picked up the phone from the nightstand and when the screen lit up with the notifications panel, he saw he had a voicemail. He was taken aback, his eyebrows arching in sheer confusion. 

How’s this possible?

The phone was brand new. Hell, he still hadn’t gotten the chance to memorize his new number. The weirdest thing was he hadn’t shared the number with anyone but Sam yet. And that wasn’t his baby brother’s phone number either. 

Curiosity killed the cat. He opened the notification to press play. His jaw tightened for a second in anticipation, and then, suddenly, a girl’s voice filled his ears, unfamiliar but warm.

“Hey, Phoebe! It is I, your favorite person in the whole world. I’m at the park, sitting on my usual bench, you know? The one in front of the lake. I’m feeding the little birdies that approach me. I’m beginning to think it’s because of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and not my charming personality.

Dean couldn’t help a chuckle from escaping his lips.

“Anyways, there’s a beautiful sunset; it’s pink and orangey, just the way you like them. I wish you were here to see it. I wish you were here, like, in general. I miss you so much, Pheebs.” 

There was a brief pause. Dean picked up a muffled sob and then a sigh.

“Today was rough, dude. I thought landing a job in one of the most renowned publishing houses in Denver was going to get me places… but so far it’s been months of arranging meetings, answering phone calls, serving coffee – which is not even for me –, and putting up with my boss’ shitty comments. I know I have to be patient; you’ve told me that a thousand times, but… I don’t know if I’m cut out for this, you know? Maybe I should have opened that quiet, cozy coffee shop near the lake we’ve always talked about. And you know what the worst of all is? I still haven’t found a good pancake place. Oh my god! Whose dick do I have to suck to get delicious fluffy pancakes just like those at Claire’s!!!!???”

Dean laughed again at her sudden boldness but then frowned when the girl’s laugh cracked into a raw sob.

“I guess that’s enough wallowing for today. huh? I love you, Pheebs. No matter how many new friends I make along the way, you’re always gonna be the Phoebe to my Rachel. You’re such a bitch for leaving before I could tell you that.”

Another sigh was heard on the other end.

“Talk to you soon. Goodbye.”

The line went dead, and Dean blinked at the silence that followed, his phone still pressed to his ear and the faint echo of her voice lingering in his mind.

The message clearly wasn’t for him, but he still tried to recall if the girl sounded like anyone he knew. He couldn't. He didn’t recognize the girl who left the message or that Phoebe. However, the way she spoke about the two of them made him picture two girls attached at the hip since they were little, but that had unexpectedly parted ways. Perhaps to chase a new chapter in their lives.

He knew he should’ve stopped listening the moment he realized he wasn’t the addressee of such a message – or at least, let the girl know she had got the wrong number –, but he couldn’t deny how charmed he was by the mysterious girl, "the Rachel". There was warmth and longing in her voice, even when it cracked, and a kind of resilience hidden beneath the complaints and the stubbornness. Dean smirked at how he saw that same resilience in himself. He smiled despite the strangeness of it all – and with the job he had, he had seen all kinds of strange.

Before Dean decided what to do about the voicemail – whether he should delete it, replay it, ignore it – Sam barged in the room, his jacket half unzipped and his puppy dog eyes lit with urgency.

“Dean,” he said, breathless, “you’re not gonna believe this. I was at the diner a few blocks from here and heard a guy who said his workmate was found dead at the factory they work at. All the blood had been drained from his body.”

Dean’s head snapped in his brother’s direction, instantly dragged back into the familiar rhythm of their lives. 

The voicemail would have to wait.

⋆ ｡ﾟ ☁︎ ｡ ⋆ ｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

end note: omg, i'm so excited to keep writing this one. i also have lots of other stories in store for you guys. also, have you watched friends? wdym no? go watch it rigtht now! it's a masterpiece!! if you did, what's your favorite episode?

WANNA BE TAGGED IN THE NEXT PART? please comment 💌.

thank you for taking the time to read this piece, and if you liked it, please leave a reblog, like, and/or comment. i’d love to know your thoughts and interact with you ❤️

lots of love,

lina☕

He'd been standing right behind the door with keys in his hand — not yours, his, the Impala ones — like he'd been minutes away from coming to find you. It was past midnight. You'd left at eight.

"Hey yourself." His voice was doing something strange, something low and careful that had been stripped of every sharp edge he usually aimed in your direction. "You good?"

"M'great." You patted his chest twice, then left your hand there because his heartbeat was doing a steady, reliable thing under your palm that felt like the first stable surface you'd touched in hours. "You're so solid. Has anyone ever told you you're like a — a load-bearing wall?"

"Uh huh."

"A sexy load-bearing wall."

"Okay." He caught your wrist, gently, not pulling your hand away so much as holding it where it already was, like he wasn't sure what to do with you in this setting. Fair. You weren't sure what to do with you in this setting either. "How much did you drink?"

"Some."

"How much is some?"

You held up a number of fingers you were mostly confident was accurate. His eyebrows said it wasn't.

Here was the thing — you'd never cop to this sober, not under threat, not under any of the things that were actual occupational hazards. Dean was unbearable up close. You knew this in the daylight the same way you knew silver killed werewolves and rock salt dispersed spirits: filed away, not dwelt on, because dwelling was a luxury that got people in this line of work killed.

Drunk, with your fingers curling into his shirt and his grip still loose around your wrist, academic wasn't really the word.

"You waited up," you said, and it came out softer than intended, almost wondering, like you'd caught him somewhere he shouldn't be.

Something moved through his expression, quick and shuttered before you could name it. "Sam snores."

"Sam's at Bobby's."

"Then I couldn't sleep."

"With your car keys in your hand."

He looked down at them like he'd forgotten they existed, then shoved them in his jacket pocket in one practised motion that would've been convincing if you hadn't already seen everything. "You need water."

"I'm thirsty for something else." You tugged your wrist free, walked your fingers up his chest slow and deliberate, watched his jaw tighten. "Open up, Dean."

"You're drunk."

"And you're hot. We're both just stating facts here."

He made a sound — half laugh, half exhale, punched out of him somewhere he didn't have armour for.

Then he was steering you toward the couch with one hand on the small of your back, the other reaching for the glass on the nightstand that was already poured and already waiting. There was condensation running down the sides, probably because it'd been sitting there long enough to sweat through the chill. Long enough, well like however many hours you'd been gone.

"Drink." Same tone he used on witnesses who weren't cooperating.

"Make me."

"I will literally hold your nose."

You drank. The water was lukewarm and tasted like you'd been dying of thirst without knowing it, which, given the Bacardi math, was probably true. He watched you drain the glass with the quiet satisfaction he usually saved for a clean shot.

"Good." He crouched down and started unlacing your boots.

That stalled your entire brain. His hands were quick and efficient, working the double knot you'd tied that morning with a patience that looked practised, almost rehearsed, like he'd thought through the choreography of taking care of you before you'd walked through the door.

"Dean."

"Yeah."

"You're taking off my shoes."

"Yep."

"We don't — we don't do this." You gestured at the full scope of the situation, at him crouched at your feet with careful hands. "You and me argue about radio stations and whose turn it is to check the hex bags and whether a rugaru counts as a warm-up or a proper hunt. We don't do this."

"Arms up."

"What?"

"Jacket. Arms."

You raised them. He unzipped your jacket and slid it off your shoulders like he was handling something that might bruise, and your drunk brain — your stupid, rum-soaked, two-weeks-of-no-sleep brain — decided this was an excellent moment to flatten both palms against his chest.

He didn't move.

You spread your fingers, felt the cotton shift over muscle and the steady beat underneath, and something about the width of him under your hands short-circuited whatever threadbare filter you'd been operating with. Your palms slid up to his shoulders, thumbs tracing the ridge of his collarbone through his shirt, and you heard yourself go "wow" in a tone of genuine, academic wonder, like you'd just discovered something in a museum you weren't supposed to touch.

"Okay," he said. Didn't move.

You squeezed his shoulder, then moved on to his bicep because it was right there, curling your fingers around it with the shameless appraisal of someone testing fruit at a market. "Damn." Barely a whisper, reverent.

He still didn't move.

Your hands drifted back to his chest, smoothing down in a lazy circuit that a sober version of you would've been horrified by, mapping the topography of him like you were trying to memorise the terrain. You pressed your palm flat over his sternum and felt his breath hitch under it, felt the way he held very still for you — the way you'd hold still for something you didn't want to scare off.

Because that was the thing: he was letting you.

Not redirecting your hands, not cracking a joke to break the tension, not stepping back. Just standing there, breathing carefully, while you touched him like he belonged to you. Like somewhere in the part of his brain that made the reckless decisions — the part that drove too fast and picked fights with things twice his size — he'd already decided that he did.

"You're insane," he said, soft and without any conviction whatsoever, and his hands stayed at his sides like a man who'd made his peace with the verdict.

Here was the thing about Dean in bars — you'd seen it, and everyone had seen it. The lean, the grin, the eye contact held just long enough to make its point. He kissed strangers like punctuation, easy and forgettable, something that happened between the second drink and last call that he never lost a minute of sleep over.

You'd watched him do it in four different states. He never hesitated. The mechanics of want were something he'd figured out young and filed under ‘simple’.

He wasn't doing any of that now.

Your hands were on him — actively, unambiguously on him — smoothing back down his chest in a lazy, appreciative manner, and Dean, who could've closed this distance in a heartbeat, who had closed distances like this with people who mattered a whole lot less, was just looking at you.

Not at your hands, not at your mouth — at you. The glassy focus of your eyes, the way you kept listing slightly left. Cataloguing you for damage the way he'd check a weapon after a bad hunt, making sure everything was still where it was supposed to be.

His hand came up slow and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear that had been stuck to your cheek probably since the third block. His fingers grazed the skin there, and you both felt it land.

The room went very quiet — not quiet like absence, but quiet like a held breath, like the air between you had thickened into something structural and neither of you could move without acknowledging what it was holding up.

You tilted your chin, not far, just enough that your mouth was right there, an offering he hadn't asked for and wasn't reaching for. Your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt because the room had decided to tilt and he was the only fixed point in it.

He was so close you could see the exact moment he thought about it. It moved through him like a flinch — jaw tight, breath catching, his gaze dropping to your mouth for one unguarded second before dragging back up. His hand was still by your ear, hovering now, not quite touching, like he'd realised too late that tenderness was a door he couldn't close once he'd opened it.

He wanted to. You could see that too.

The wanting was right there on his face, raw and unfamiliar, nothing like the easy, practised thing he wore at bar counters — this version was clumsy with itself, unsure where to stand.

He didn't kiss you.

He sighed, long and slow like he was setting something down he'd been holding all night, and the exhale landed warm against your lips.

"This isn't right."

You blinked, tried to get his face into focus, which was difficult when there were arguably two of him, both looking at you like you were something he'd been trusted with and was trying very hard not to break.

"It's better when you're throwing stakes at me," he said, quiet, barely a voice at all, more like a thought he was pressing into the space between your mouths because there was nowhere else safe to put it. "Or cursing my name to some witch in a basement because I blew the sigil order."

His thumb grazed your jaw, traced the line of it like he was committing something to memory he hadn't earned yet.

"You hexed me for that, by the way. Full-on retaliatory hex, couldn't taste salt for a week." A breath that was almost a laugh. "I would've kissed you then. Right there in front of the altar, the dead candles and Sam pretendin’ he wasn't watching."

His eyes dropped to your mouth again, just for a second, just long enough to know exactly what he was turning down. "But I'm not — this isn't the easy route. I don't want the easy route. Not with you."

None of this landed.

You were catching maybe every third syllable, the rest dissolving under the weight of Bacardi, exhaustion and the fact that Dean’s mouth was moving an inch from yours while he apparently delivered some kind of keynote address about his feelings.

You wrinkled your nose. "Huh?"

Something behind his eyes cracked — not hurt, the opposite, the kind of helpless warmth that came from realising the person you were baring your chest to had mentally left the building three drinks ago.

He exhaled through it, shook his head once, slow and fond in a way that would've made sober-you throw something at him.

"Nothing." He pulled back, not far, just the precise distance required to be decent about it while making it completely clear that decent had not been his first instinct. "C'mon. Couch."

"Couch?" You squinted at the stairs to the loft room like they'd personally offended you. "The bed's right —"

"Yeah, I'm not trusting you with stairs right now."

"I can do stairs."

"You couldn't do the door handle."

"That was a complex door handle."

"It was a knob. It was literally a knob. You turn it."

He steered you toward the couch anyway — the sagging two-seater shoved against the wall under the window, too short for either of you on its own and a genuine logistical problem for both of you together. He sat first, back wedged into the corner where the arm met the cushion, and pulled you down before you could mount any further legal defence on behalf of your coordination.

You collapsed into him with the grace of something recently tranquillised. The couch was narrow enough that personal space wasn't structurally possible — your back against his chest, your legs tangled with his over the armrest, one of his arms pinned under you and the other coming around your waist because there was genuinely nowhere else for it to go.

"This is a very small couch," you observed.

"Yep."

"I'm on top of you."

"Noticed."

"You planned this."

"You caught me. This was my master plan. Get you hammered on rum and then share a loveseat designed for a child." His voice was dry but his arm tightened, just fractionally, adjusting you against him like a problem he was solving with geometry. "Diabolical."

You twisted around — an undertaking that involved elbowing him twice and kneeing the armrest — until you were facing him, your cheek on his chest, your arm slung across his stomach, fingers curling into the fabric at his ribs. The couch did not accommodate this configuration gracefully. You did not care a single bit.

"Comfortable?" he asked, slightly strained because you were essentially lying on his lungs.

"Mm." You burrowed closer, nosed into his neck, felt his pulse jump under your lips and smiled against his skin because drunk-you had no mercy, never had. "You smell good."

"I smell like motel soap."

"Good soap."

"It's the same soap you use. It's complimentary, came in that basket."

"Then I smell good too." You tipped your head back to look at him from an angle that was mostly chin and attitude. "You think I smell good?"

He looked down at you with that expression again, the one that didn't know what to do with its own hands, soft in a way that would've terrified you if you'd been equipped to process it.

"You smell like a distillery."

"That's not a no."

"Go to sleep."

"Kiss me first."

"No."

"Coward."

His fingers traced one absent line down your arm, knuckle to elbow, and stopped. "Ask me tomorrow."

The words landed somewhere warm and reckless in your chest. You were too tired to examine them and too drunk to let them go. You pressed your face back into his shirt, fisted the fabric over his ribs, let the steady expansion of his breathing rock you like something tidal.

"Tomorrow," you mumbled. "And you better not pretend this didn't happen."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Because I'll kill you."

"I know."

"With my bare hands."

"They're very scary hands." His thumb was moving over your shoulder now, slow, back and forth, a rhythm he probably didn't know he was setting. "Terrified."

You scowled into him. He felt it — he always felt it, you were starting to suspect he was specifically calibrated to register your displeasure — and his chest moved with a quiet huff.

"Goodnight," he murmured into the top of your head, and if there was a mouth pressed briefly to your hair you were too close to unconsciousness to confirm it under oath.

You fell asleep furious about a kiss you didn't get and a promise you were absolutely going to collect on.

He stayed up a while longer. The couch was too small and his back was going to hate him in the morning — your elbow was doing something medically concerning to his spleen, but he didn't move.

$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger @elarapheonix @hisokamywaifu @sb-bitch @feralzombae

$ join taglist

“yeah, well, next time don’t throw yourself in front of a werewolf and maybe we can skip the stingy part.”

you scoff lightly. “you’re welcome, by the way.”

dean gives you a look that usually comes before a lecture, a bad joke, or both. “you’re welcome? seriously?”

“i saved your ass.”

“i had it handled.”

“you were on the floor.”

“temporarily.”

you roll your eyes, but the motion tugs at the bruise blooming along your cheekbone, and dean sees it. his mouth shuts for half a second, anger snagging on concern before he can hide it.

then he goes right back to being unbearable— “you don’t get to do that,” he says, lower now, pressing clean gauze to your arm. “you don’t get to jump in front of teeth and claws because you think you’re faster than death. you’re good, alright? damn good. but you’re not bulletproof.”

“neither are you.”

“don’t give me that crap.”

you blink up at him. “dean—”

“no, i mean it.” he tapes the gauze down with more force than necessary, then smooths the edge with his thumb, guilty about it immediately. “you scared the crap outta me back there.”

“breaking news—hunts are scary.”

“don’t be cute.”

“can’t help it.”

his eyes flick to your mouth. quick. stupidly quick, but not quick enough. your teasing falls apart a little.

dean turns toward the sink, grabs another cotton pad, and mutters, “i can’t keep doing this.”

the room seems to shrink around the two of you. the dripping faucet. the wet towel shoved under the sink pipe. your boots knocking lightly against the cabinet when you shift.

“doing what?”

“watching you get hurt.” you’re quiet now. he drags a hand over his face, leaving a faint smear of your blood near his wrist. “watching you bleed and pretending i’m not losing my mind every time something gets close to you. telling myself it’s the job. telling sam i’m fine. acting like i don’t—” he stops, jaw working around the rest.

you sit up straighter. “like you don’t what?”

“nothing.”

“dean.”

“drop it.”

“no.”

he looks at you then and all the fight drains out of his shoulders in the ugliest, softest way. “acting like i don’t care about you more than i should.”

your fingers curl around the edge of the sink. “more than you should?”

“yeah.” he laughs once, no humor in it. “stupid, huh?”

“very,” you whisper. his face shutters. you catch his wrist before he can step back. “because i thought i was being obvious.”

dean stares at you. his hand comes to yyour cheek, careful around the bruise, and he kisses you with all that leftover panic still under his skin. it’s not smooth. his nose bumps yours, your fingers grab the front of his flannel too hard, and he makes this rough little sound when you pull him closer.

the cotton pad drops into the sink.

“you’re still hurt,” he murmurs against your mouth.

“then be gentle.”

his thumb moves along your jaw, slower now. “gentle?”

you hook your ankle behind his calf. dean’s smile touches your lips before he kisses you again, and the bathroom light keeps flickering above you, buzzing away while neither of you bothers to move.

sam shuts the trunk with a low metallic thud, glancing between you and dean as if he’s already exhausted by the argument that hasn’t even formed. “he’s saying it because last time you said you were ‘just checking something’, you ended up in a crawlspace with a ghost.”

“that ghost had answers.”

“that ghost threw a wrench at your head,” dean snaps.

“and missed,” you glare, because you’re a winchester, unfortunately, and sometimes survival has less to do with sense and more to do with being unbearable at the right moment.

dean points at you, the gesture sharp in the cold spill of the impala’s trunk light. “not the point.”

but even as he growls it, there’s something different in the way he looks at you tonight. not less protective. dean’s protectiveness sits under his skin, more part of his personality than sarcasm. still, tonight, he’s letting you stand between him and sam with a gun in your hand, a knife under your jacket, and the case file zipped inside your bag because this is your case. the thought warms you in a small, stupid place you try not to show.

you’d been the one who noticed the missing-person reports clustered around old factory roads, the one who caught that everybody found had been drained but not torn apart, the one who connected the witness statements about the pale man in the mechanic’s jacket. dean called it a vampire at first. sam leaned toward rougarou. you found the old lore entry in bobby’s scanned journal pages, the one about a vetala variant that fed slower, cleaner, almost surgical, usually solitary and territorial.

sam double-checked every source. dean grumbled for two hours about ‘off-brand bloodsuckers’. but they listened. they followed your lead. and now you’re here, boots crunching over gravel wet from an afternoon storm, the air cold enough to bite at your knuckles.

you don’t say how much it matters. that would make it too easy for them to take apart.

“all right,” sam says, pulling the flashlight from his jacket pocket. “we clear the main floor first. victim was last seen near the loading bay. if your theory’s right, it’ll have a nest somewhere dry and dark.”

“my theory is right,” you say.

dean gives you a sideways look. “that confidence better come with a return policy.”

“you’re literally confident with no evidence every day of your life.”

“yeah, but i’m charming.”

sam’s mouth twitches.

you hate that it makes you happy. you hate that being trusted by them feels less like being handed a weapon and more like being handed a place at the table. your brothers love you. you know that. they love you so hard it has bruised every corner of your life. but love and trust aren’t the same thing, and winchester love has a way of locking doors from the inside. tonight, for once, they let you pick the lock.

inside, the mill is a long-boned corpse of a building, all rusted railings, broken windows, and old machinery huddled beneath plastic tarps. rainwater drips through holes in the roof, steady and uneven, tapping against metal beams and puddles in the concrete. your flashlight catches strips of old safety tape, faded signs, a smashed vending machine with warped candy wrappers still trapped behind cloudy glass.

“cozy,” dean mutters.

“you say that about every murder building.”

“because murder buildings keep having terrible decor.”

you bite back a smile and move carefully along the wall, watching the dust, the drag marks, the faint wet smear that isn’t water near the base of a staircase. sam sees it at the same time you do. he crouches, touches two fingers close to it without actually dipping into the blood, then looks up at you.

you nod toward the hall on the left. “loading bay.”

dean’s face changes. not much, just that slight tightening in his jaw, that older-brother switch flipping from banter to business. he steps ahead by instinct. you step with him from sheer stubbornness. for a second, his eyes cut to you. you know that look. it means don’t. you stare back. it means try me.

sam exhales behind you. “both of you, focus.”

the thing is in the loading bay, just where you thought it would be. it drops from the upper beams with a wet, ugly hiss, pale limbs bending wrong, mouth peeling open too wide around teeth stained dark at the edges. 

dean fires first. the shot cracks through the hollow space and sends a flock of pigeons bursting from the rafters. sam moves left, clean and fast, silver flashing in his hand. you take right, heart kicking hard enough to make your ribs feel crowded, and for one bright second, everything works exactly the way it should.

you’re scared. obviously, you’re scared. fear’s not the opposite of courage; dean taught you that by accident every time he gripped the steering wheel too tight and still drove toward the thing everyone else ran from. your hands shake once, then steady. you remember the lore. you remember the weak point. you remember the pattern of its attacks.

the monster lunges for sam.

“sam!” you shout, firing into its shoulder.

it shrieks, twists, and dean’s already there. his knife buries under its ribs, one hard upward shove, and the creature spasms against him. its nails scrape down his jacket. he grimaces, drives the blade deeper, and it drops—ugly, knees folding, body hitting the concrete with a sound that turns your stomach.

silence crashes down after it. for a few seconds, nobody moves.

then dean looks at you, breath coming hard, blood speckled across one cheek. “your theory was right.”

you grin before you can stop yourself. “say it again.”

“don’t push it.”

“no, no, i need the full sentence. maybe with eye contact.”

sam straightens, still watching the body. “it was a clean ID. good work.”

that lands softer than you expect. heavier, too. you look at sam and feel your teasing loosen into something awkward and warm. “thanks.”

dean wipes his knife on the creature’s jacket. “yeah, yeah. gold star. everybody happy? let’s torch ugly here and get gone before this place collapses on us.”

you should’ve left then.

that’s the part you’ll think about later, again and again, when the pain has teeth and sleep comes in broken pieces. you should’ve left. the hunt’s done. the monster’s dead. the three of you are alive, damp, tired, and okay.

sam turns toward the exit first. dean bends to grab the duffel with the lighter fluid and salt. you take one step back, looking over the body, already building the story in your head: how dean will pretend he solved the case by ‘superior instinct’, how sam will argue for research credit, how you’ll demand diner pie as tribute for being correct.

then something moves behind dean. not the dead thing. above him. your brain catches pieces, not the whole. the scrape of claws on metal. the shift of shadow along the beam. sam’s flashlight swinging up too late. another pale shape unfolding from the dark with a mouth already open and one arm drawn back.

dean doesn’t see it.

you do.

there’s no time to say his name properly. no time to think through angles or weapons or whether you’re being brave or stupid. your body makes the choice before your mind catches up, and maybe that’s the most winchester thing about you.

you slam into dean’s side with both hands. he stumbles hard, swearing, the duffel dropping from his grip.

the second creature comes down where he was standing.

the pain is immediate, bright, wrong. at first, you don’t understand it. there’s impact, then heat, then a tearing pressure across your side that knocks the breath clean out of you. the floor jumps up. your knees hit concrete. something inside you seems to tilt out of place.

sam yells your name.

dean yells it louder.

you look down because some dumb, childish part of you needs proof, and proof is there under your hand, slick and dark, spreading too fast through torn fabric. the creature’s claw has opened you from the lower ribs down toward your hip, deep enough that your fingers come away red before you can decide whether to press or pull away.

oh. that’s all you can think.

the monster screams again, but it sounds far off now, dragged underwater. sam moves past you in a blur of long limbs and fury, not calm anymore, not careful. dean’s suddenly in front of you, then beside you, then on his knees, his hands catching your shoulders before you can fold all the way down.

“hey, hey, hey. look at me. look at me.”

you try. his face refuses to stay still. the world flickers around the edges, gray chewing at the lights.

“dean—” you say, but your voice is thin and surprised, which scares you more than the pain.

“nope. don’t do that.” he rips his overshirt open so hard one button snaps and skitters across the floor. “don’t use that little voice on me. you’re fine.”

you want to point out that this is a very obvious lie. you want to say something clever because that’s what you do when dean gets scared. you make him mad so he has somewhere to put it. but the words don’t line up. your thoughts have turned slippery. every breath pulls fire through your side, and there’s so much blood.

dean wads the shirt and presses it hard to the wound.

the sound you make is ugly.

“i know,” he says instantly, face twisting. “i know, baby. i’m sorry. i gotta, okay? i gotta stop the bleeding.”

baby. he only calls you that when he forgets you aren’t six anymore.

behind him, there’s a crash, a snarl cut short, sam’s grunt of pain, then the wet punch of a blade sinking. the second monster hits the ground. for one strange second, you feel guilty that you can’t turn your head to check if sam’s okay.

sam appears anyway, breath ragged, hair falling into his face, knife dripping black-red onto the concrete. “how bad?”

dean doesn’t answer fast enough.

sam sees the blood and goes pale in a way you’ve never seen on a hunt. his hand hovers over you, useless for half a heartbeat, then he drops beside dean and starts pulling supplies from the duffel with shaking efficiency. gauze. bandage roll. tape. 

“we need to move,” sam says. his voice cracks insignificantly on the last word, but you hear it. “dean, we can’t fix this here.”

“i know that,” dean snaps.

you blink up at the ceiling. one of the lights is broken. it hums and flickers and makes everything look chopped into pieces. “did we get both?”

sam looks at you as if the question hurts him personally. “yeah. we got both.”

“good.” you swallow, but your mouth is dry. “my case.”

dean lets out something that isn’t a laugh, not even close. “yeah, congratulations. your prize is me kicking your ass when you stop bleeding.”

“mean,” your brain orders your lips to smile, but all you actually manage is a crooked twitch.

“you haven’t seen mean.” his hand presses harder. “stay with me and i’ll show you.”

sam’s jacket goes over you. then his hands are under your knees and behind your shoulders, and dean shifts to keep pressure while they lift. 

the world breaks open.

you do scream then, or maybe you only think you do. the sound tears your throat raw either way. dean curses, sam says sorry over and over, and you hate them a little for moving you, then love them for not stopping, because stopping means dying on a dirty factory floor beside a dead thing with too many teeth, and you’ve always privately hoped your death would be more dramatic than that. more meaningful. less damp.

your boots drag once. dean barks at sam to watch the door. sam barks back that he has it. their voices keep knocking against each other above you, familiar and frantic, and you hold onto the rhythm because the rest of you feels unstitched.

outside, the cold hits your face so sharply that you gasp.

“there she is,” dean says. “keep those eyes open.”

you do. for maybe two seconds.

the path to the car stretches forever. gravel crunches. rain starts again, light and mean, spotting sam’s jacket across your chest. you can see the impala ahead, black and shining under the thin moon, and for some ridiculous reason you think about how dean’s going to be pissed if you bleed all over the backseat.

“sorry,” you mumble.

“for what?” sam asks, breathless.

“car.”

dean makes a sound near your ear. “are you apologizing to the car right now?”

he opens the back door with one hand while sam lowers you in. it’s clumsy. awful. dean slides in after you without hesitation, dragging you half across his lap, one hand jammed against your side. sam takes the driver’s seat. even through the fog, you understand what that means. dean lets sam drive when the world’s ending or when he’s too broken to pretend his hands belong on the wheel.

the engine roars to life. gravel spits under the tires. your head lolls against dean’s shoulder, and he catches your chin with two fingers, forcing your face up. “nuh-uh. you don’t sleep.”

words tumble from your lips that don’t sound like anything at all. bossy, is what you wanted to muster out.

“you think you get to throw yourself in front of me and then take a nap? that’s rude as hell.”

sam’s eyes flash in the rearview mirror. “dean.”

“what? she likes it when i’m mean.”

you’d smile again, now. the muscles don’t move. 

the road sways. streetlights smear gold through the rain-streaked windows. dean keeps talking, each sentence sharper than the last, rough enough that someone else might think he’s angry at you. you know better. dean’s fear has always worn anger as a jacket because anger has pockets. anger can carry a knife. fear just stands there empty-handed.

“you still owe me twenty bucks from that pool game in omaha,” he says. “and don’t think i forgot. you die on me, i’m collecting from your stash.”

sam takes a corner too fast. your stomach rolls. pain flares white, and for a second there’s no car, no rain, no dean. only your body begging to stop.

“sam,” dean barks, suddenly not mean at all.

“i’m going as fast as i can.”

“go faster.”

“i am!”

the motel is only eight minutes away. maybe ten. it feels longer than every year you’ve been alive. 

you listen to dean’s heartbeat because your ear is against his chest now. it pounds too fast. too human. too scared. his hand is warm and wet where it holds you together, and you wonder if he can feel you slipping under his palm.

“dean,” you manage.

“yeah, i’m here.”

“you okay?”

his breath catches.

then his face comes down close to yours, his cheek rough against your temple for one second, and his voice turns wrecked and furious. “you don’t ask me that right now. you hear me? you do not get to ask me that.”

you want to say you pushed him because he’s your brother. because he would’ve done it for you. because sam would’ve done it for either of you. because this family is a series of bodies stepping in front of other bodies, and you learned the choreography before you were old enough to know there was another way to love someone. instead, your eyes close.

dean says your name. sam says it too.

then everything goes quiet.

when you wake, the first thing you notice is the ceiling. not the pain. not at first. just the ceiling with its ugly popcorn texture and the brown water stain shaped vaguely, stupidly. the motel room is dark except for the blue-gray light leaking around the curtains and the dim yellow lamp near the bathroom. rain taps the window in thin little clicks. your mouth tastes awful. copper and stale air. your body feels too heavy. then the pain arrives.

it comes slowly, not the bright slash from before, but a deep, pulsing misery that wraps around your side and digs in with every breath. your fingers twitch against the blanket. the movement is tiny, but it’s enough. dean wakes instantly.

he’s on the floor beside the bed, back against the mattress, one knee bent, gun loose in his hand. his head snaps up so fast you wonder if he ever really slept. his face is rough with exhaustion, eyes red, hair flattened on one side. there’s blood under his fingernails. your blood.

“hey,” he says, and the word falls apart in the middle.

you try to answer. nothing comes out.

he reaches for the glass on the nightstand, then hesitates as if terrified moving too fast will break you. “water. small sip.”

he helps lift your head. the water is warm and tastes faintly of paper cup, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. you swallow twice before he pulls it away.

“don’t chug it,” he mutters. “you’ll puke, and i’m not ready for that.”

your mouth moves before sound shows up. “coward.”

dean freezes. then his face crumples for half a second, so quick you might miss it if you weren’t looking right at him. he laughs once under his breath, no joy in it yet. just relief. “there she is.”

across the room, sam’s asleep in a crooked wooden chair, his long body folded badly, head hanging forward at an angle that guarantees a brutal neck ache. one hand still rests on an open first-aid kit on the table. the other is curled around his phone, screen dark. he looks younger in sleep, but not peaceful. never peaceful. his brows are drawn together, his mouth tight, as if worry followed him under.

dean follows your gaze and softens despite himself. “he’s okay. got clipped, nothing bad. he passed out about forty minutes ago. wouldn’t lie down because he’s an idiot.”

“family trait.”

“yeah, apparently.”

you shift again, trying to understand your body, and pain flashes hot enough to make your vision spot. dean’s on his knees in a second, hand hovering over your shoulder, not touching until he knows where it will hurt less.

“don’t move.”

“what happened?”

his jaw flexes. he looks toward your bandaged side, and you follow the glance despite the dread.

your shirt is gone, replaced with one of dean’s old black tees cut open along the side. thick bandages wrap your middle, bulky and clean now, though rusty red has already started to bloom through one layer. beneath that, you can feel the pull of stitches, tight and ugly.

“we patched you up,” dean says.

“hospital?”

“too far. too many questions. wound missed the worst stuff by a miracle.” his voice goes flat at the edges. “sam cleaned it. i stitched.”

you blink at him. “you?”

his eyes don’t quite meet yours. “yeah.”

your throat tightens in a way that has nothing to do with thirst. “dean…”

“don’t start.”

“is it bad?”

“the stitching? yeah. objectively terrible.” he swallows. “scar’s gonna be nasty.”

sam wakes with a sharp inhale before you can say anything. the chair creaks violently under him, and he looks around with wild eyes until he sees you awake. then he’s up too fast, nearly knocking the first-aid kit off the table.

“hey. hey, don’t—” dean starts.

sam ignores him, coming to the other side of the bed and crouching so he can see your face. “how do you feel?”

“amazing,” you whisper. “thinking of taking up jogging.”

sam’s mouth trembles. he presses it into a line, nods as if accepting this medical information with great seriousness. “okay. terrible, then.”

“neck?”

“what?”

“your neck. the chair looks mean.”

for some reason, that breaks him worse than anything else. his eyes go bright, and he looks down, one hand covering his mouth for a second. when he looks back up, he is holding himself together with visible effort. “you almost died,” he manages.

the room goes still. dean looks away. you know it already. you felt it in the car, in the way the dark came for you, soft and patient. but hearing sam say it makes the truth land in the room with all three of you. not as a possibility. as a fact with wet hair and bloody hands.

“but i didn’t,” you say.

“that’s not the point,” dean snaps, too fast.

your eyes move to him. there’s the lecture. the anger he’s been sharpening because terror is too blunt to use. dean gets to his feet, then seems to realize pacing will make him look frantic, so he stops beside the bed and crosses his arms instead. 

“what the hell were you thinking?”

sam exhales. “dean—”

“no, don’t dean me. she shoved me out of the way.”

“because there was a monster above you,” you say, voice thin.

“yeah, i got that part.”

“then maybe say thank you.”

his eyes flash. “thank you? you want a thank you? fine. thank you for taking a claw to the gut. thank you for bleeding out in the back of my car. thank you for scaring ten years off my life. that work for you?”

you flinch. dean’s loud all the time. but you flinch because underneath it, he sounds young. not your older brother. not cocky, leather-jacket, classic-rock pain in your ass. child young. the kind of young he must’ve been the first time your dad handed him a gun and told him you and sam were his job.

your eyes burn. 

dean sees it and looks immediately miserable, which almost makes it worse. “i’m sorry,” he says, voice dropping. “i’m not—i don’t mean…”

“you mean it,” you say quietly.

he rubs a hand over his mouth. “yeah. i mean it. i mean… what the hell, kid?”

sam sits carefully on the edge of the other bed, facing you, hands clasped between his knees. “you saved dean’s life.”

dean makes a sharp sound.

“you did,” sam says, not looking away from you. “and we know why you did it. nobody’s saying you should’ve stood there and watched him get hurt.”

“i’m saying,” dean cuts in, “that i’m supposed to be the one taking hits for you.”

“that’s not a rule.”

“yes, it is.”

the answer is so immediate, so certain, that it knocks the breath out of you.

sam’s expression folds with pain. he reaches for your hand, fingers closing around yours, warm and careful. “you’re our little sister.”

“i’m a hunter too.”

“i know,” sam says. “we know. tonight proved that.”

“then don’t say it like i’m not allowed to choose.”

“you are,” he says, and that gentleness hurts because he means it. “but we’re allowed to hate that choice. we’re allowed to be scared.”

dean lets out a bitter laugh. “scared doesn’t cover it.”

your eyes fill before you can stop them. you’re too tired to swallow it back, too sore to turn your face away with any dignity. the tears slip hot into your hairline, and dean’s anger vanishes so fast it leaves him looking hollow.

“hey,” he says, softer. “no, don’t. you’ll pull something.”

sam squeezes your hand.

“i didn’t want him to die,” you say, and it’s the stupidest, smallest explanation, barely anything, but it’s all you have. “i just saw it and moved. i didn’t think.”

dean sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle you. his shoulders slump. “i know.”

“i’m not sorry.”

his eyes close.

“i’m sorry you got scared,” you add, voice shaking now. “i’m sorry about the blood and the car and the crappy scar. i’m sorry sam had to drive because that means we’re all traumatized forever.”

sam huffs out a laugh that sounds dangerously close to a sob.

“but i’m not sorry i pushed you.”

dean opens his eyes. for once, he has no fast answer. no insult. no joke with teeth. just that look he usually buries under bad attitude.

the tears keep coming, quiet and embarrassing. you aren’t even crying neatly. your chin wobbles, your breathing stutters, and every shaky inhale pulls at the stitches until pain glows beneath the bandages. sam reaches up to wipe your cheek with his thumb, and that makes it worse for some reason. dean looks at you for one more second before his face breaks open with helpless affection and fear.

“come here,” you whisper.

both of them freeze.

“what?”

“hug,” you say, because you might die of humiliation if they deny it. “teary hug. now.”

they move slowly. sam climbs onto the bed first, careful around the wounded side, one arm sliding behind your shoulders with the lightest pressure possible. dean takes the other side, awkward as hell, one knee on the mattress, one hand braced near your hip so he doesn’t lean on you. 

it’s barely a hug at first.  then sam presses his face into your hair. dean’s hand curls around the back of your head. and suddenly it’s real.

you cry harder, silently, because making noise hurts too much. sam murmurs nonsense into your hair, low and broken, telling you you’re okay, you’re here, they’ve got you. dean says nothing for a while. he just holds on, his thumb moving once against your temple as if checking that you’re still warm.

“you ever do that again,” he says eventually, voice rough, “i’m grounding you.”

you sniff. “i’m an adult.”

“don’t care.”

“can’t ground a hunter.”

“watch me.”

you close your eyes, tucked between them, pain and relief tangled so tightly you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. you’re still scared. you thought waking up would end it, but your body remembers the floor, the blood, dean’s hands pressing hard enough to hurt, sam’s voice cracking when he said your name… you’re safe now, or as safe as a winchester gets.

later, there are fresh bandages. painkillers from a bottle with someone else’s name on it. sam reheats soup in the motel microwave and pretends not to hover while you take four whole bites under threat of dean ‘airplaning the spoon’ like the world’s worst nurse. dean changes his shirt but not before you catch him scrubbing your blood off his hands in the sink for too long. 

for the next few hours, they become unbearable in opposite directions. sam keeps track of your fever, your pulse, your pain level, and the timing of every pill with the grim focus of a medical student. dean pretends he isn’t fussing while absolutely fussing, adjusting the blanket with a scowl, cutting your food into smaller pieces, putting a trash can near the bed in case you get sick, then acting offended when you call him sweet.

“i’m not sweet.”

“you tucked me in.”

“you were shivering.”

“sweet.”

“drugged. you’re drugged and confused.”

“sweetheart, even.”

sam makes a strangled noise into his coffee.

dean points at him. “laugh and you’re the one getting stabbed next.”

but he does not leave the bed for long. neither of them does. sam eventually stretches out on the other mattress, one arm flung over his eyes, but his hand stays near the space between the beds. dean returns to the floor because apparently that’s where he has decided he lives now, back against your mattress, head tilted just enough that you can see the exhaustion pulling at him.

the rain lets up near dawn.

you drift in and out, carried by painkillers and the soft scrape of sam turning pages in a book he isn’t really reading. every time you wake, one of them notices. every time you shift, one of them tells you not to. it makes something tender ache under your ribs, somewhere away from the wound. because being loved by them is heavy. too heavy sometimes. it pins you down, wraps you up, steals the room from your lungs. but it’s also dean sleeping on the floor because he wants to be the first thing danger has to climb over. it’s sam ruining his neck in a motel chair because looking away feels worse than pain. it’s mean jokes in the backseat, shaking stitches, soup from a microwave, and two brothers pretending they aren’t hovering while hovering severely.

you let them fuss. just this once.

outside, morning settles over the motel in thin gold strips, and for a while, nobody asks you to be brave.

you worked hard to get him to trust you. months of hunts, patched-up injuries, late-night diner coffee, standing shoulder to shoulder in graveyards while ugly things crawled out of darker corners than neither of you wanted to talk about. you earned the version of him that doesn’t flinch when you reach across him for the weapons bag, the version that tosses you the impala keys without acting like he’s handing over his firstborn child, the version that grins too openly when you insult him back.

and what do you get for all that patience? intimacy? vulnerability? a tender breakthrough? no.

you get a plastic spider in your boot at six in the morning. you get a fake bloody hand in your duffel. you get your shampoo replaced with dish soap, your favorite jacket hung from the motel ceiling fan, and one deeply traumatic morning where every single pair of your socks had been dampened just enough to make you question the mercy of god.

dean thinks this is love language.

you think he needs consequences.

sam knows something is coming before dean does, because sam has survival instincts and dean has whatever the opposite of that is. he watches you from the motel table while dean’s in the shower, your expression calm as you hide the supplies back inside your bag: green food coloring, red hair dye, a bottle of body wash you found in a sad little drugstore clearance bin labeled classic musk, and one large box you have been guarding for three towns.

sam lowers his laptop screen by an inch. “should i ask?”

“no.”

“is anyone going to the hospital?”

“emotionally, maybe.”

he looks at the box. “is that for the car?”

you smile.

sam closes his eyes for a second. “i don’t want to know.”

“correct.”

the setup takes precision, spite, and the kind of quiet focus usually reserved for summoning rituals or assembling ikea furniture without crying. you’d inject the toothpaste with enough green coloring to make the inside of the tube look cursed, swap dean’s shampoo for a violent red rinse that promises temporary color in letters so cheerful they feel legally suspicious, and replaced his body wash with the elderly musk gel that carries the aggressive aura of mothballs, dusty church pews, and a man named eugene who owns three cardigans.

then comes baby.

you move fast in the parking lot, heart beating with the kind of joy that feels criminal. hello kitty steering wheel cover first. pink seat covers next. matching floor mats. a soft blanket stretched across the backseat. tiny headrest bows. one dangling charm from the rearview mirror that swings innocently in the dark, completely unaware it’s about to become the focal point of dean’s psychological collapse.

when you get back inside, sam is sitting exactly where you left him, hands folded beneath his chin.

“i’m not involved,” he says immediately.

“you’re a witness.”

“witnesses can be killed.”

“then maybe keep the poker face.”

he makes a strangled sound and goes back to pretending to read.

dean emerges from the bathroom twenty minutes later with a towel around his waist, red hair, green teeth, and the full confidence of a man who hasn’t yet processed that he looks like christmas tree coming to life. the red is not subtle. it clings to the short spikes of his hair in damp, furious streaks, especially near his temples, where it has taken on a cherry-cough-syrup intensity that makes your soul leave your body for one beautiful second.

his teeth are worse.

bright green. radioactive. cartoon-villain green.

you stare.

sam makes one tiny noise from the table and immediately turns it into a cough so violent it almost deserves an emmy.

dean narrows his eyes at both of you. “what?”

your mouth trembles. “nothing.”

“why are you looking at me weird?”

“i’m just admiring,” you say, voice thin with restraint, “your commitment to personal grooming.”

dean points at you with the hand holding his shaving kit. “don’t start. i have a date.”

that nearly ends you.

sam’s shoulders start shaking.

dean looks at him. “you got a problem?”

sam presses his lips together so hard they almost disappear. “nope.”

dean accepts this too easily. he tosses the shaving kit onto his duffel and keeps moving around the room, utterly unaware that every step sends that tragic old-man body wash clouding behind him. he gets dressed anyway. jeans, boots, dark shirt, leather jacket. somehow, horribly, he still has the posture of a man who thinks he can pull this off.

you sit on the edge of your bed with both hands folded in your lap, nails digging into your palms.

“so,” you manage. “big night?”

“absolutely,” dean checks himself in the mirror, then stops. properly stops. his face goes still in that dangerous little way that means his brain has finally caught up to his reflection, and for one beautiful second, the whole motel room holds its breath.

sam sinks lower behind his laptop.

dean leans closer to the mirror, lips parting just enough to reveal the green. bright. wet. horrifying. his eyes move up to his hair next. red. aggressively red. not cute copper, not sexy auburn, not even passable under bad motel lighting. just red in the way emergency exits are red. in the way cough syrup stains your tongue red. in the way warnings are red.

you press your lips together so hard they hurt.

dean turns slowly. “you.”

you blink, angelic. “me?”

“don’t me me!” he points at his own mouth. “why do i look like i ate a glow stick?”

sam makes a noise so high and strangled that it barely sounds human.

dean whips his head toward him. “you knew?”

sam’s face is pure suffering. “i didn’t know about the teeth.”

“but you knew something.”

sam looks at you, then at dean, then back at his laptop with the dead-eyed survival instinct of a man who has spent his whole life between two disasters and learned to choose silence when necessary. “i wasn’t part of it.”

you finally lose the fight and smile. big. bright. no shame.

dean stares at you for another second, furious, hair red, teeth green, and somehow still carrying the wounded dignity of a man betrayed by his own kingdom.

“rookie work.”

you blink. “excuse me?”

“rookie,” he says again, rummaging through a duffel with unnecessary aggression. “you think this is my first rodeo? food coloring in toothpaste? hair dye in shampoo? come on. i practically invented bathroom warfare.”

“you invented bathroom warfare?”

“ask sam about the nair incident.”

sam closes his eyes. “please don’t.”

dean disappears back into the bathroom with all the purpose of a man going to war. water starts running. drawers open and slam. something clatters into the sink. you hear him muttering to himself, low and offended, and then—“sammy! i’m using your toothpaste.”

“why mine?”

“because mine’s been violated.”

you snort so hard you nearly choke. you sit on the edge of the bed, swinging one foot lightly, joy humming through your whole body.

the bathroom door opens again ten minutes later, and the worst thing happens.

dean looks good. of course he does. idiot. absolute curse of a man. the green is gone from his teeth, scrubbed clean by sam’s betrayed toothpaste and probably half a bottle of mouthwash. his hair is still red, but damp and pushed back now, the color settling into something annoyingly intentional under the yellow motel light. it should look ridiculous. it sort of does. but dean has the unbearable confidence to make even bad decisions look styled.

he steps out, jacket on, boots tied, jaw tilted in that way that says he knows he has recovered far too well. “see?” he says, spreading his arms. “still hot.”

you hate that you agree. deeply. personally.

dean catches the tiny shift in your face and grins. “oh, don’t look so disappointed. you made me hotter.”

“your hair looks like a traffic cone.”

“a sexy traffic cone.”

“those don’t exist.”

“i’m making history.” he checks himself in the mirror one last time, turns his head left and right, then nods with disgusting self-satisfaction. “yeah. date’s still happening.”

you keep smiling too much.

dean notices.

his eyes narrow. “what?”

“nothing.”

“no.” he points at you. “that’s not nothing. that’s your evil face.”

you fold your hands in your lap, sweet as a hymn. “have fun tonight.”

dean studies you for another second, suspicion flickering over his face, but ego wins. he grabs his keys from the table, twirls them once around his finger, and heads for the door.

“don’t wait up,” he says.

“wouldn’t dream of it.”

he leaves. the door shuts.

for two seconds, there’s silence.

sam slowly looks at you.

you look back at him.

outside, dean’s boots crunch across the gravel parking lot. there’s the faint jingle of keys. a pause. another step. then—“SON OF A BITCH!”

you’re already laughing by the time the door flies open again.

dean storms in with the kind of rage usually reserved for demons, betrayal, and people who put dents in baby’s doors. his face is red now too, almost matching his hair, which feels thematically excellent. he points toward the parking lot with a shaking hand.

“m-my car.”

you gasp, delighted. “is something wrong with baby?”

“do not call her baby right now.”

“why? she’s dressed so cute.”

“she has bows on her headrests.”

“yes.”

“pink floor mats.”

“mhm.”

“a hello kitty steering wheel cover.”

“limited edition.”

dean stares at you as if you’ve personally rewritten the laws of nature just to hurt him. “my car looks like it got stolen by a twelve-year-old.”

sam makes the mistake of laughing. not much. just one sharp little burst he tries to smother immediately with a cough.

dean turns on him. “oh, you think this is funny?”

sam’s eyes are wet. “no.”

“you’re crying.”

you lose it again, falling back against the mattress while dean glares at both of you, his date forgotten, his dignity in ruins, his red hair glowing under the cheap motel light. for a second, he holds onto the anger. really tries. you can see him fighting for it, clinging to the righteous fury of a man whose soulmate-on-wheels has been degraded by pink polyester and cute cats.

then his mouth twitches. “i’m homicidal.”

“you’re smiling homicidally.”

that breaks him.

dean laughs, sudden and rough, one hand bracing against the doorframe like even he can’t believe how badly he’s been played. the green teeth are gone, which is a shame, but the red hair and the old-man body wash still do plenty of work. he laughs until sam finally gives up pretending to cough and just laughs too, shoulders shaking over the table.

“okay,” dean says eventually, pointing at you. “truce.”

“no.”

his smile drops. “no?”

“beg.”

“i will absolutely not beg.”

you lift your eyebrows. dean glances toward the parking lot. you can almost see him picturing baby sitting out there in all her hello kitty glory, exposed to the public, vulnerable to witnesses, one stray pedestrian away from permanent humiliation.

his jaw works. his pride takes a knee. “please,” he says tightly, “remove the tiny cat cult from my car.”

you beam. “and?”

“and…” he exhales through his nose, already planning murder behind his eyes. “i’ll stop pranking you.”

sam snorts again.

dean does not look away from you. “temporarily.”

“there it is.”

“i’m honest.”

“you’re a menace.”

“you started car crimes.”

“you put a rubber finger in my cereal.”

“that was funny.”

“so is baby’s soft era.”

his grin comes back slowly, dangerous and warm at the same time. “enjoy it while you can.”

you should be scared. honestly, you are a little. dean winchester with a wounded ego, and red hair is not a safe man. but he’s laughing, and sam’s still wiping at his eyes, and for once the motel room holds nothing sharp or haunted or waiting to kill you. *just this—*dean looking ridiculous and happy and too fond of you to hide it properly.

“worth it,” you say.

his eyes linger for half a second longer than the joke needs. “yeah,” he says, quieter under the laughter. “we’ll see.”

The warehouse smelled like rust and sulfur. Dean's head rang as he slammed into a concrete wall, his knife sliding somewhere across the floor too far to reach. "Dean" Sam shouted from his spot on the ground– too hurt to move, too worried not to say anything.

A demon's hand closed around the eldest Winchester's throat before he could recover from the crash, black ink swirled inside its eyes as he grinned. "No guardian angel this time" The hunter’s chest tightened because he was right– Cas hadn't answered a single prayer in the last three days. He was probably stuck dealing with another shitload of drama God knows where. The demon squeezed hard enough that dark spots flooded Dean's vision.

Then warmth flooded the room– not heat, not power. Warmth, the kind that wraps around like the sun on your face in a mid-july night. Like a blanket waiting for you after a long winter day… The demon froze in its tracks, the pressure around the blonde’s throat vanished and he collapsed to his knees, coughing. "Dean?" Soft hands settled on his shoulders, he looked up– you. Standing in front of him, your brows furrowed with concern, hair slightly messed up, there was blood on your sleeve. "Are you hurt?" You asked quietly.

Dean stared, the demon behind you looked terrified. "Sweetheart…" He croaked, throat still raspy from the previous choking. "Little busy admiring the miracle right now"

You blinked, suddenly remembering the threat still very much present right behind y’all. "Oh" The demon lunged– without even standing up, you looked back over your shoulder, lifting a hand. White light spread across the warehouse, bright and sharp. The scream lasted less than a second before there was nothing left. Silence settled over the room and your attention immediately shifted back to the man in front of you. "You're bleeding"

Dean looked down– his shirt was soaked with blood from a nasty gash across his side, already mixing up with the dirt and grime that covered his clothes. "Huh"

"Huh?" You repeated, head tilting with confused disbelief. If there was one thing angels had in common, apparently it was that puppy-like head tilt whenever y’all were trying to understand something.

"Yeah, that's usually my reaction"

Sam walked over, limping slightly. "Good to see you too" He said, letting out a tired, soft chuckle at your overbearing worry for his older brother.

You smiled brightly– the kind of smile that always made Dean's stomach do stupid things. "I'm sorry I was late" The Winchesters exchanged a look. ‘Late’. You had arrived in time to vaporize a demon and quite literally save both their lives and somehow you were still apologizing.

Back at the motel, Dean sat shirtless on one of the beds while you patched him up. (Sam had conveniently disappeared to get food) Though the blonde suspected his brother knew exactly what he was doing. The traitor. You sat beside him with a first-aid kit in your lap, sure you could heal him with a snap of your fingers but for some reason the hunter insisted on doing it the old fashioned way. Despite his stubbornness, your fingers still glowed faintly as they hovered over the wound– not quite healing him, but easing his pain.

Dean sighed half in relief and half in amusement. "That's cheating"

You glanced up from what you were doing, soft eyes meeting his sharp green ones. "What is?"

He huffs, gesturing vaguely at your hands. "The whole… being an angel thing"

A small laugh escaped you– Dean loved making you laugh. The sound was rare, not because you weren't happy, but because you always seemed surprised that anything could be funny– like every joke was a wonderful gift you got to experience. "You should still rest" You hum softly.

"Y’sound like Sammy"

"That's not necessarily a bad thing"

Dean gasped dramatically, ever the extra man he was. "Since when are you on his side?"

You rolled your eyes and he nearly melted– he'd known you for almost two years. Two years of hunts, two years of movie nights, two years of watching you quietly help strangers whenever you thought no one else was looking. For God’s sake you carried injured animals off roads, you left money for struggling waitresses, you remembered every birthday, every favorite snack, every tiny detail. And somehow you still didn't understand why Dean stared at you like an awestruck idiot. "Why are you looking at me like that?" You asked.

Speak of the angel. The hunter smirked to himself, softer than his usual teasing, smug smiles he always carries. "Busted"

You frowned, head tilting once more. "I don't know what that means"

"Means you caught me"

"Oh"

You returned your attention to his bandages and Dean couldn't stop smiling. Cute– ridiculously cute, dangerously cute actually. "Y’know– " He said, " –most people at least buy me dinner before they start taking my clothes off"

Your hands froze– Dean regretted nothing. A blush spread across your cheeks, an actual blush. From an angel. Dean Winchester had just made a literal angel of the Lord blush. "I—"

"You walked right into that one, sweetheart" He hummed proudly.

The next hunt should have been simple. Should have– which meant it absolutely wasn't. Dean was halfway through investigating an abandoned church when everything went sideways. (Why do these two idiotic brothers always split up in the worst possible situations?) The sigils on the floor activated, power surged through the room and suddenly he couldn't move.

"Dean" You appeared beside him instantly, having sensed his distress from miles away and quickly running to him.

The witch responsible smiled, stepping into the church. "Perfect" Dean's stomach dropped (God he fucking hated witches) the trap wasn't for him– it was for you. Chains carved with glowing enochian letters shot from the floor and wrapped around your wrists. You cried out at the grip, the metal squeezing your skin–  the sound hit Dean like a knife to the chest. Never in all the time he’s known you had he ever heard you scream like that.

The woman laughed, dismissive and sharp. "You angels are so easy… Always rushing to save somebody, loyal little puppies you are"

Dean fought against the paralysis spell but nothing happened, his feet still firmly glued to the ground.. You struggled against the chains, the usual glow of your skin flickering down. "Hey" The hunter shouted in a desperate attempt to shift the witch’s attention from you onto him– ever the savior complex.

The witch ignored him, your knees hit the floor– fear twisted ugly inside Dean's chest. Not for himself (never for himself) for you. Because despite all the power angels had– you never fought like angels were supposed to. You didn't enjoy violence, didn't enjoy hurting people. You always held back. Always chose mercy. "Please" You said softly, trying to get her to reason and not force yourself into killing.

She just sneered. "No, dear. I don’t think I will stop just yet– I have big plans for your human pet" The witch’s steps echoed inside the abandoned building as she approached y’all. Dean saw the exact moment something changed– you looked at him, really looked at him. At the blood on his clothes, at the tension in his frame, at the panic in his eyes… Your whole demeanor flipped, your usual softness sharpening into protectiveness. Not angry, determined. The room shook, enough to make the witch's smile disappear, confusion flooding her face. Dean had only seen your true grace a handful of times– each occasion had been utterly unforgettable. Golden light burst from beneath your skin, the shadows of your wings stretching across the room behind you, the chains that held you shattered and fell, every window exploded in shards of glass, the building’s foundation groaned… The hunter could feel power vibrating through the air– ancient, terrifying, beautiful. For one breathless second, you looked like every single story humanity had ever told about angels.

Then it was over– the witch was on the ground, the light vanished and you swayed on your feet. Dean lunged forward just in time to catch you, your body felt frighteningly cold in his grasp. "Hey, hey, hey" His hand carefully taps your cheek to try and keep you awake.

You blinked slowly. "Dean?"

"Yeah, sweetheart m’ right here" You looked exhausted, drained of your usual light. "Gave quite the show"

A weak smile tugged at your lips. God, you were half out of it and still you managed to smile at him. "Sorry"

"Stop apologizing for saving my life"

By the time he drove y’all back to the motel– you were barely staying awake, your head resting against the Impala’s window and eyes fluttering open and closed every couple seconds. Using that much grace had drained everything out of you. The moment y’all stepped into the room, Dean sat beside you on the bed while Sam grabbed supplies. (What could they even use to heal a burned out angel?) Your head rested against his shoulder– for once, you weren't arguing or stubbornly insisting you were fine. You just looked tired and he hated it.

"You scared me" The words slipped out before he could stop them, soft in a way that was rare in a man like him, let alone in a Winchester.

You lifted your head, looking up at him. "What?"

"Scared me" He repeats, shifting to get a better look at your face from where it rested against his shoulder.

Your expression softened. "Oh"

"Yeah, oh" His hand gently reaches up to brush the side of your head, gently caressing your messed up hair.

Silence stretched between you. "You scare me too sometimes"

Dean laughed, a breathy, deep rumble from his chest. "What?"

"When you're reckless"

"Excuse me?" He scoffs, feigning offense despite the fond smile tugging at his lips.

"You jump in front of monsters"

"Occupational hazard"

"You pick fights with things much stronger than you" The hunter opened his mouth– closed it, opened it again. Okay, you had a point. Fair enough. "I worry about you"

The confession was so quiet he almost missed it, his chest tightened at the honesty behind your words. "You worry about me?"

"A lot"

Dean smiled. "Y’know, most people would call that caring"

Looking down at your hands, you murmured softly. "I know"

Something shifted– small, fragile, important.

The blonde reached over and wrapped his arm around you, pulling you even closer into his side as if you weren’t quite literally glued into him. "Good"

You looked back up at him and Dean forgot how breathing worked. (Again) Apparently it was becoming a recurring issue whenever he was around you. "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

Your voice was barely above a whisper, genuine and soft. "Why do you always flirt with me?" It wasn’t supposed to be awkward or pressing him– you just didn’t know any better, social cues weren’t exactly an angel of the Lord’s forte per se.

Dean nearly choked– across the room, Sam immediately looked up from what he was doing, quickly extracting himself from the situation. "Nope"

"Sam–"

"Leaving"

"Sam"

"Good luck" The door slammed shut behind him. That traitor.

The blonde rubbed a hand over his face, stubble scratching against his skin. "You really wanna do this now?"

"Did I ask something wrong?"

He lets out a breath, soft chuckle/breath, nervous and fond all at once. "No, sweetheart, ‘course not" You waited patiently for him to continue talking. Dean hated how impossible it was to lie when you looked at him like that– because you actually wanted the answer. Not a joke, not an excuse, but the actual truth. So he gave it to you. "S’cause I like you" He decided to power through before he could chicken out. "Actually, scratch that. I really like you– like hopelessly in love, chick-flick kind of feelings"

You stared, eyes wide with awe and confusion, lips softly parted in a quiet breath. Then: "Oh"

Dean groaned. "That's not exactly the reaction a guy hopes for after opening up like this, sweetheart" There he goes, leaning back into humor and jokes as a defense mechanism– very on brand for him.

"No, I–" You looked flustered, he could (and will) treasure the sight forever. "I just didn't know"

"Sweetheart, I've been flirting with you for two years"

"I thought you were being nice…"

Dean covered his face with his free hand, barely hiding the embarrassed smile on his stupidly handsome face. "Un-fucking-believable"

A laugh escaped you– a real one, bright and warm. "But you were nice"

"I was trying to date you" He huffs softly, glancing down at your face, still gently pressed against his shoulder.

"Oh"

"There it is again"

The laugh grew louder. Dean thought he could listen to it forever, God that sound was better than any Zeppelin song to ever exist. Then your fingers found his hand and the room suddenly felt very quiet, smaller in that comforting, private kind of way. "I like you too"

The hunter froze– sure, he’d just confessed to you. But it was a helluva lot different when you did it to him. "You do?"

"Very much"

A grin spread across his face. "Y’know, that would've been useful information"

"I didn't know humans said those things out loud to eachother…” Dean laughed so hard his side hurt– worth it. Absolutely worth it.

The drive home to the bunker was peaceful. For once? There were no monsters, no emergencies, no world-ending disasters… There was just the Impala rolling down a dark road beneath a sky full of stars, Sam asleep in the backseat, Dean sat behind the wheel and you curled next to him– your head resting on his shoulder, the radio playing softly in the background. Dean had one hand on the wheel, the other intertwined with yours. A comfortable silence filled the car– your voice cuts through it in a quiet murmur. "Humans write songs about this"

The hunter glanced down at you. "What’s that?"

"This feeling"

His smile softened, something warm and amused flicking over his expression. "Yeah"

"I understand why now" The admission was so sincere it nearly broke him. The big bad Dean Winchester, on his knees for a soft spoken angel. You looked back up at him– sleepy, safe, happy.

Dean leaned over at a red light and pressed a kiss to your forehead and your smile appeared instantly. There it was– the thing he'd spent years falling in love with. Not your grace, not your power, not the fact that you could destroy demons with a thought. Just you– gentle-hearted, kind, good. The light turned green and Dean started driving again– for the first time in a long time, everything felt right. The road stretched endlessly ahead, the stars shined above them… And the angel who kept saving his ass was asleep beside him.