🧿

his chin is approximately at your ear. you have become, functionally, a weighted blanket with a hunting rifle for a man who yelped when the ventilation kicked on two hallways back. actually yelped out loud.

"it's really dark," dean breathes.

"i know."

"like, really dark."

"dean."

"i'm just saying —"

sam, ahead: "if we follow the ventilation shaft trajectory, the feeding ground should be —"

"i can't," dean whispers. he doesn't finish the sentence. he doesn't have to.

you're also aware that your rifle angle has been wrong for the last four minutes. all due to his hand wrapped around your arm where your elbow needs to be free. you adjust, then he adjusts — the angle gets worse.

okay. think of your options here.

you could tell him to let go entirely. (he won't. also: the yelp from two hallways ago had an echo, and sam's focused goodwill has a shelf life.)

he could hold your hand. (can't manage recoil one-handed. not workable. scratch that.)

your waist. he could hold your waist — hands flat, not gripping. both arms free. you keep the angle. his face stays at approximately ear-level, which is the same as right now, so no real change there.

good. solved.

"put your hands on my waist," you whisper.

a pause. "what?"

"i can't hold the angle with you on my arm. hands on my waist, both my hands stay free. move."

a shorter pause. then: "...okay."

his hands move.

you had anticipated this solving the problem. what you had not fully anticipated — had not run the full calculation on — was the difference between dean's fear being something you heard and dean's fear being something you felt.

his palms are wide and warm through your shirt. when sam's torch swings and a shadow shifts on the wall, dean makes a sound — tiny, involuntary, swallowed almost before it starts. you don't hear it so much as feel it with a small vibration. or a held breath and the slight increase of pressure from his hands.

sam: "—secondary nest is almost always adjacent to a water source, so if there's plumbing in this section—"

"mhm," you say, because you need him to keep going.

dean exhales against the back of your ear.

you're progressing down the hallway. rifle up and angle correct. sam's doing his thing. dean's doing whatever this is, which is fine, your rifle problem's solved.

except.

his chest is pressed to your back and it's — warm, distractingly warm. his hands aren't gripping, just resting, wide and flat and steady. every time something spooks him he pulls you fractionally closer and then his hands go still again like he's catching himself. you're frowning into the dark for reasons that have nothing to do with the wraith.

sam crouches near the baseboard.

"don't stop walking," dean hisses, voice cracking on the last syllable.

"shh," you say, automatically.

his hands tighten, then ease. his breath is at your ear.

okay so the warmth thing. that's — that's just temperature. he runs warm, it's cold down here, that's basic thermodynamics, that has nothing to do with how good dean feels against yo—

a pipe knocks somewhere in the walls. dean literally whimpers, all small and involuntary, right against your ear.

you stare down the hallway, akin to the thousand yard stare.

sam straightens up, satisfied. "plumbing's right here. we're close."

"great," you say.

you are not, by any reasonable measure, thinking about the wraith.

$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger