I Don’t Even Know Anymore @emme-looou - Tumblr Blog

Happy Lowman (Sons of Anarchy) x fem!reader

Happy learns that the best way to help you calm down when you're spiralling in a pit of anxiety is to lie on you like a weighted blanket. Which would be fine, if he wasn't so damn in love with you. And have the emotional regulation of a feral raccoon.

Happy Lowman did not know what to do with crying women.

Violence?

Sure.

Bodies?

Easy.

Threats, guns, intimidation, murder?

Practically muscle memory at this point.

But anxiety attacks?

Absolutely fucking not.

musubi05

Can you write something about Winchester's sister being 15 or 16 years old and being afraid of Dean, who bears the Mark of Cain? Maybe something like Dean caught a creature on a hunt and repeatedly hit it in the face, leaving Dean's hands and face covered in blood. Sam Dean shouts for him to stop. The reader freezes, staring in horror at the eldest brother.

╰┈➤ Red in the Water

Dean Winchester x little sister!reader Feat. Sam Winchester Summary: It was supposed to be a calm hunt, but there hasn't been one since Dean got that mark. When you see it control him, it terrifies you. Warnings: descriptions of blood and torture/lots of violence and aggressiveness

The djinn doesn't fight back at the end.

That's the part you can't shake loose. That's the thing that will sit behind your chest for days afterward, quiet and dense, like a stone you swallowed and forgot about until you move wrong and suddenly it's all you can feel.

It doesn't fight back. It's already beaten. It's already done.

And Dean doesn't stop.

You find the djinn's lair the way you find most things on a hunt: by following the smell of something wrong.

An abandoned water treatment plant on the edge of the county, all crumbling concrete and standing water, and the particular thick dark of places that have been left alone long enough to become something else entirely. The smell hits you when you're still twenty feet from the door: old and sweet and faintly chemical, like fruit left too long in a warm room. Djinn lairs always smell like that. Something about what they do to the air, Sam had told you on the drive over. Something about the dreaming.

Sam had mapped it out in the car — entry points, sight lines, where the victims were most likely being held, choke points if the djinn tried to run. You'd listened from the back seat with your notebook open on your knee, writing it down the way he'd taught you, because writing things down is how you make sure you remember things correctly and on a hunt you cannot afford to remember things wrong. Dean had driven and interjected twice and mostly been quiet in the way he'd been quiet a lot lately, that particular quality of silence that had a pressure behind it, like weather systems that hadn't broken yet.

The plan was clean. Simple, even, by Winchester standards. Dean would push into the main chamber and draw the djinn out — loud, aggressive, give it something to focus on. Sam would go left toward the old filtration tanks where the missing persons most likely were. You'd go with Sam, because your job on this hunt was the victims: administer the antidote, get them mobile or get them carried, move them out. Leave the djinn to your brothers.

You'd gone over it three times in the parking lot, standing in the cold with the plant looming behind you, your breath fogging in the October air. Dean had looked at you when you finished reciting your part back to him, checking your retention, and he'd said good and put his hand briefly on your shoulder and moved toward the door.

That was the last normal moment of the night.

The djinn had two victims strung up in what used to be the filtration room: an older man, fifties, grey at his temples, and a teenage girl who couldn't have been more than a year or two older than you. Both alive. Both under — deep in whatever the djinn had made for them, their faces carrying that terrible, peaceful expression, the look of people living somewhere better. The girl especially: her face was so still, so quietly happy, that looking at her felt like an intrusion.

You didn't let yourself look too long. You had a job.

Getting them down was careful work — they were strung up with some kind of webbing that wasn't quite rope and wasn't quite anything else, and cutting through it required patience you had to manufacture on the spot because from the other part of the plant you could hear sounds that made the hair on your arms stand up. The sounds of a fight. The sounds of Dean.

You got the man down first. Administered the antidote, checked his pulse, positioned him on his side the way Sam had made you practice on him in a motel room two months ago until you could do it without thinking. Then the girl. The girl was harder — the webbing was thicker, or maybe your hands were less steady, and you had to breathe through your nose and focus and not listen to what was happening on the other side of the wall.

Sam was working beside you the whole time, quiet and methodical, watching both the victims and the door in that way he had of tracking multiple things at once. It was when you'd gotten the girl's second arm free that the sounds from the main chamber change.

It's hard to explain the way a sound can change without changing volume. It's something you've developed an ear for, growing up the way you grew up — the difference between the sounds of a fight that's ongoing and the sounds of a fight that's over, the difference between chaos and something else. Something more deliberate.

Sam heard it at the same moment you did.

His head came up. His eyes met yours.

He was already moving toward the door.

The djinn is on the floor when you come through the doorway.

You know djinn. You've done the reading — everything in Dad's journal, two other hunters' accounts Sam had sourced through Bobby's old contacts, a chapter in a demonology text so old the binding had crumbled when Sam opened it. Djinn are old things, clever things, capable of sliding into your mind and remaking it from the inside out. But they're not built for physical confrontation, not really. They're built for subtlety, for the long game, for the carefully constructed dream. Catch one without its advantages — hit it with silver and lamb's blood before it can get its hands on you — and it goes down.

This one is down.

This one, you think, looking at the floor of the main chamber, has been down for some time.

The chamber is large — high ceilings, a catwalk along one wall, the ghosts of industrial equipment in the corners, pools of standing water that reflect the beam of the one functioning utility light Sam had rigged on the way in. It smells worse in here. Stronger. That overripe sweetness that coats the back of your throat.

Dean is in the middle of the room. Crouched over the djinn, which is on its back, and he has — he's using his fists. Not the knife, which is on the floor a foot away where it must have fallen or been dropped. His fists. And the djinn's markings — those blue-white traces of light that run along a djinn's skin like rivers seen from above — are barely flickering. Going out in patches. Its chest is moving, barely, and its eyes are open and aimed at the ceiling and tracking nothing.

It is not, in any meaningful sense of the word, a threat.

Dean's knuckles are dark.

There's a spray across the concrete that the utility light catches at the wrong angle, and your brain tries to re-file it as shadow before you understand what it is, and then you understand what it is, and something cold moves through you from your scalp to the soles of your feet.

"Dean." Sam's voice is what it always becomes in these moments — careful, stripped of anything that could be read wrong. The tone he's been using more and more this year, the one that has no sharp edges. "Dean. Hey. It's done. We got the victims, okay? It's over."

Dean's shoulders don't change.

The sounds don't stop.

"Dean."

Sam crosses the floor fast, three long strides, and gets both hands on Dean's shoulders and pulls —

Dean wrenches free like something's been cut, spinning up off the ground and turning in one motion, and his eyes in the half-dark of the chamber are —

Your feet stop.

You are ten, twelve feet inside the doorway. You'd followed Sam through without thinking about it, moving on autopilot, the antidote kit still clutched against your chest because you'd never put it down. You are standing in the middle of the main chamber of an abandoned water treatment plant in Ohio at 11:30 at night, and your feet have simply ceased to receive instructions from the rest of you.

Dean's face.

It's his face. It's Dean's face, every line of it familiar in the way that only comes from fifteen years of daily proximity, the specific geography of your oldest brother. You have been reading that face your entire life. You know the exact way his jaw sets when he's angry, you know the crinkle at the corner of his eyes when something has genuinely made him laugh, you know the careful blankness he puts on when he's scared and doesn't want anyone to know it. You know his face.

There is something behind it right now that you don't recognize.

It's not absence. Absence would almost be easier — absence you could categorize, file away, give a name to. This is a presence. Something occupying the space behind his eyes and looking out through them, something that turns his expression into a wrong-angle version of itself, familiar components assembled into an unfamiliar thing. His chest is heaving. His hands — you make yourself look at his hands and then wish you hadn't, and the cold thing in your chest gets heavier.

Sam steps directly into his line of sight. Both palms up, open, the universal language of I am not a threat.

"Hey." His voice drops even further, velvet-soft, the register he saves for the worst moments. "Hey. It's me. Look at me. It's Sam." He waits. "The victims are out. Y/n's got them stable. It's done, Dean. Come back."

A long moment.

Then — you can see it happen, you can actually watch it, which is almost worse than not seeing — something moves behind Dean's eyes. Like a tide shifting. Like pressure releasing through a valve.

He blinks.

It's a long blink, heavy, the kind that costs something. When his eyes open again they're green, just green, your brother's eyes, and they're doing that terrible thing they do sometimes lately where they look directly at something they don't want to have to know.

He looks at Sam. He looks at his own hands. His jaw tightens in the specific way of someone arriving at an answer they were hoping the math wouldn't give them.

He looks up.

He finds you the way he always finds you, without searching — that particular Dean frequency, the one that has always known exactly where you are in any room, any field, any stretch of dark. His eyes come to your face and they stay there, and he is fully present now, just Dean, just exhausted and present and full of a knowledge he doesn't want.

He sees that you haven't moved toward him.

He sees the twelve feet of concrete floor between you, which is not a lot of space in any objective sense, and which is somehow the most space that has ever existed between you and your oldest brother.

He sees where your feet are.

The thing that moves across his face then — you don't have a word for it. You have a decent vocabulary for Dean's expressions, built up over fifteen years of attentive observation, but this one is new, or maybe it's an old one you've never had to see before.

He looks away from you.

"The victims," he says. His voice sounds like something dragged over rough ground.

"Stable." Sam's hands are still up. He lowers them slowly, the way you'd lower them around something you didn't want to startle. "Both of them. Let's get out of here."

Dean bends and picks up his knife from the floor. He doesn't look at you again.

You follow your brothers out of the plant and into the cold night, and the door swings shut behind the three of you, and you stand in the parking lot under a sky full of cloud cover with the smell of the place still in your clothes, and nobody says anything for a long moment.

Then Sam says he'll drive the victims to the hospital in the borrowed truck, and Dean says he'll take the Impala, and the three of you separate to do the things that need doing, and that's that.

You ride to the hospital in the truck with Sam.

You tell yourself it's because someone needs to monitor the victims.

You don't examine it much further than that.

⛧

The next two days are not your finest hours. You know that, even while you're in them.

You don't avoid Dean the way you'd avoid someone you were angry at. It's not like that, and you know it's not like that, and you think Dean probably knows it too, which might actually be worse. Anger is clean. Anger has a logic. What you're doing is something more foggy — a flinching, instinctive thing, like the way you'll favor an ankle for days after a bad landing even after you know it's not actually hurt anymore. Your body is remembering something your brain is still processing.

You sleep on the side of the bed farther from the window, which puts you farther from Dean's bed, and you tell yourself it's because the radiator is on that side and the room runs warm. You take your meals at the small table with your laptop open, notebook beside it, working through the next possible case, and you tell yourself it's because someone needs to do the research and Sam is working his contacts. At the gas station, Dean holds the door open for you the way he always does, and you duck through it without touching him, and you tell yourself the flinch you feel at almost-contact is just the cold.

You're not a good liar, even to yourself. But you try.

Dean doesn't push. That's the thing that makes it worse, actually — you'd almost prefer it if he pushed, if he sat down across from you and said talk to me or what do you need or even got frustrated and said would you just—, because at least that would give you something to respond to, something to work with. Instead he gives you space with the careful precision of someone who has measured out exactly how much space you seem to need and is providing it without comment, and every time you see him do that, see him make that deliberate accommodation, the stone in your chest gets a little heavier.

⛧

He makes you coffee on the second morning. Just sets it on the table next to your laptop — the right amount of sugar, no milk, exactly how you take it — without saying anything about it. And then he goes and sits on the other side of the room and cleans his guns, and you stare at the coffee for a long moment before you drink it.

Sam watches all of this with the expression of a man who is exercising enormous restraint about not saying anything.

He lasts until the afternoon of the second day.

He finds you outside, sitting on the curb of the motel parking lot with your jacket zipped to your chin, watching a pigeon investigate something near the dumpster with the focused intensity of someone who is not actually thinking about the pigeon.

He sits down beside you. Sam sitting on a curb looks slightly ridiculous — he's too tall for it, all long legs folded at impractical angles — and the fact that he does it anyway without comment or complaint is so fundamentally Sam that it makes something in your throat ache.

"You know you don't have to be fine," he says, after a moment.

"I know."

"And you know that it's okay if it takes a minute."

"Sam."

"I'm just—"

"I know." You look at the pigeon. It has found whatever it was looking for and is now leaving, entirely satisfied. Lucky pigeon. "I know all of that. I know it's okay and I know I don't have to be fine and I know what the Mark is and I know it's not — I know it's not him, not really, not the part that counts." You pause. "I know all of it up here." You tap your temple. "It's just taking a while to get down here." You put your hand flat on your chest.

Sam is quiet for a moment.

"He thinks you're scared of him," he says.

"I'm not."

"I know you're not." He says it gently but without softening it. "He doesn't."

You look at the empty space where the pigeon was.

"He's giving me room," you say.

"Yeah."

"He measured out exactly how much room I seemed to need and he's just — giving it to me. Without making me ask for it." You press your lips together. "That's so Dean, Sam."

"Yeah," Sam says again. Quietly.

"It makes it worse."

"I know."

You sit with that for a moment. A truck pulls through the parking lot, slows for the speed bump, keeps going. The afternoon is flat and grey, that specific Ohio grey that feels like the sky has simply opted out.

"What would have happened," you ask, carefully, "if you hadn't pulled him back?"

Sam takes a breath. "I don't know."

"Yes you do."

He's quiet for long enough that you have your answer.

"He stopped," Sam says finally. "That's what I need you to hold onto. It was hard and it cost him something and it — it wasn't fast. But he stopped."

You think about the quality of that pause.

"Something has to be done about the Mark," you say.

"I know."

"Sam. Something actually has to be done about it."

"I know." His voice is low and even and carries the weight of someone who has been carrying this particular knowledge for a long time, who is very tired of carrying it, who will keep carrying it indefinitely. "I'm working on it. Every single day, I am working on it." He looks at you. "I need you to know that."

You believe him. That's not the question.

"He's going to know I've been outside," you say. "He tracks where we all are."

"Probably."

"He's going to know we were talking about him."

"Probably."

You stand up. Brush off the back of your jeans. The cold has worked its way up through the concrete and settled in your bones, and you're grateful for it in a strange way — something concrete, something physical, something that has nothing to do with the unmappable country you've been navigating for two days.

"Okay," you say.

Sam tilts his head up at you. "Okay?"

"Okay." You extend a hand and haul him to his feet — or try to; he mostly hauls himself and allows you the gesture, which is very Sam. "Let's go in."

Dean is where you left him. Same chair, different gun, the same quality of stillness he's had for two days — the stillness of someone who is staying very quiet in case quiet is what's needed.

He looks up when you come in.

You cross the room and you sit down on the edge of his bed, which puts you approximately four feet from his chair, which is the closest you've been to him voluntarily since the water treatment plant. You watch something move through his eyes when you do it — a careful, almost-suppressed thing, like he doesn't want to read too much into it.

You let the silence sit for a moment.

"The coffee this morning was good," you say.

He looks at you.

"You always make it right," you say. "Most people get it wrong."

His jaw works. He looks back down at the gun in his hands.

"Y/n—"

"I'm not scared of you," you say. You say it before he can finish, before he can build whatever careful structure he was going to build around this conversation. "I need to say that first and I need you to actually hear it. Not—" You hold up a hand. "Not I understand but, not it's okay, just — hear it. I am not scared of you."

He's very still.

"What I am," you continue, more slowly, "is scared for you. And those are different things and I know they're different things but the past two days I've been—" You stop. Try again. "I think my body got confused. About which kind of scared it was. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry it took me two days to sort it out."

"Don't apologize to me," he says immediately. Low. Rough.

"I'm not apologizing for being scared. I'm apologizing for making you think it was the wrong kind."

Something moves across his face that he doesn't quite get under control in time. He bends his head over the gun in his hands and he's quiet for a long moment, doing something with his breathing that looks like it requires attention.

When he looks up, his eyes are very green and very tired and very, completely Dean.

"You don't owe me anything," he says. "After what you — what I—" His jaw works again. "You don't owe me easy, Y/n. You don't owe me comfortable. If you need to take two days and ten days and whatever — you take them."

"I know I don't owe it to you," you say. "I'm giving it to you because I want to." You hold his gaze. "There's a difference."

He looks at you for a long moment.

Then, slowly, he sets the gun down on the table beside him. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and he reaches out, and he puts his hand over yours where it's resting on your knee, and he holds it there. Just holds it. His hand is warm and certain and calloused in all the places you've always known it to be calloused, your brother's hand, unchanged.

"I'm working on it," he says, quietly. It takes you a second to realize he's not just saying it to say it — he means the Mark, he means the thing that lives in him now, he means the fact that he knows it's there and he knows what it does and he is telling you, explicitly, I am not done fighting it.

"I know," you say.

"Sammy's—"

"I know, Dean."

He goes quiet. He doesn't let go of your hand.

Across the room, Sam makes a small sound that might be relief and then very studiously finds something to look at on his laptop that has nothing to do with either of you.

You look at your brother's hand over yours. You think about the water treatment plant and the filtration room and the girl with the peaceful face, dreaming somewhere better. You think about the quality of the silence in the Impala for twenty minutes while Dean drove and said nothing and gave you room you hadn't asked for and wouldn't have known how to ask for.

You think about what Sam said: he stopped.

It was hard and it wasn't fast and it cost him something. But he stopped.

"The next case," you say, after a while. Normal voice. Regular flow, the tone of someone moving forward.

Dean looks at you.

"Sam found something in Illinois," you say. "I've been looking at it. Possible vengeful spirit, maybe something else, I'm not sure yet. Could be interesting." You pause. "I thought we could go over it after dinner."

He reads you. He's always been able to read you. He reads the offer you're making — normal, forward, together, let's go — and something in his face eases, just slightly, just around the edges, like a knot worked carefully loose.

"Yeah," he says. "Okay."

He lets go of your hand. He picks up the gun. He goes back to what he was doing, and you go back to the table and open your laptop, and Sam puts on something low on the television that none of you will actually watch, and the room fills up with the small sounds of the three of you existing in the same space.

It's not fixed. You know it's not fixed. The Mark is still there, Sam is still searching, and there will be more hunts and more bad nights and probably more mornings when Dean sets a cup of coffee next to you without a word because that's the only language available to him in that moment.

But Dean's chair is four feet from your laptop. Sam is on the other bed with his books. Outside, Illinois is waiting.

You open the case file.

You get to work.

Me, 28, in pain from my Rheumatoid Arthritis: *just existing with tiger balm and braces*

My boomer coworkers: "You're too young to have arthritis. Have you tried yoga?"

Me: 🙄

#chronic illness #rheumatoid arthritis #spoonie

icaruspendragon

musubi05

Could you please make this Jack x Winchester x Reader storyline?Sam and Dean protect the reader from Jack (especially Dean). They don't leave the reader alone with Jack or want them to talk to him. Sam later warms up to Jack, but Dean still acts protectively towards the reader (after all, Jack is Lucifer's son). The reader warms up to Jack, and of course, Jack starts to like them too. They are friends at first, but then they develop romantic feelings for each other. Sam isn't bothered by this, but although Dean doesn't accept it at first, he eventually accepts their relationship once he realizes Jack is a good person. At the beginning of season 15, when Jack becomes the devil, and his demonic form tries to talk to the reader, the reader runs away and can't bear to see him.I apologize if my request is a bit complicated, but I trust your writing. You can change it however you like.

╰┈➤ Blood and Shield

Jack x Winchester!reader Sam and Dean Winchester x sister!reader Summary: The boys brought Jack back home, and you could tell he wasn't a threat. Dean, on the other hand, pulled you back from being friends with him. It happened anyway and led to more. Warnings: season 15 spoilers, mentions of deaths, emotional angst, slow-burn Notes: So I totally forgot how Jack became the devil, and the things I searched up were still confusing, so I tried my best lol! I guess this means I'll have to rewatch the last few seasons of Supernatural again.

The bunker had never felt so small.

You'd learned that lesson the hard way — that concrete walls and iron doors and a hundred thousand books about every monster imaginable couldn't keep the world out. Not when the world had a habit of walking right through your front door.

This time, the world walked in wearing a dead man's face.

⛧

You were in the kitchen when Sam brought him in.

You heard them first — Sam's voice low and measured, the way it always got when he was working very hard to sound calm, and another voice beneath it, lighter, younger, uncertain in a way that made something in your chest tilt sideways. You came around the corner with your coffee mug still raised halfway to your lips, and you stopped.

He was tall. Taller than you'd expected, with sandy hair that fell slightly across his forehead and eyes that were a normal brown shade. He was wearing a plaid shirt that didn't quite fit him — too long in the sleeves, too wide across the shoulders — and he was looking around the bunker's war room with the focused attention of someone who had never seen a library before and couldn't quite decide if it was wonderful or terrifying.

He looked, you thought, shockingly human.

Then Dean came through the door behind them, and the temperature in the room dropped approximately fifteen degrees.

"Y/n." Dean's voice. You knew that voice — that particular register that lived somewhere between a command and a warning. "Come here."

You lowered your mug. "Dean—"

"Now."

You went.

He pulled you into the hallway just off the war room, and you caught one last glimpse of the boy standing in the middle of the bunker with his hands clasped in front of him, looking like a kid on his first day of school, before Dean pulled the door most of the way shut behind him.

"That's him?" you said.

"That's him."

You'd heard the story, of course. Kelly Kline. Lucifer. A nephilim born with enough power to tear reality in half. Castiel dying, then coming back. Kelly dying, not coming back. The baby — not a baby anymore, apparently, because time in the apocalypse world ran differently — standing in your bunker in a shirt that was too big for him.

"Sam thinks we can work with him," Dean said. He said it the way he said a lot of things he hadn't decided yet — like the words tasted bad and he was testing whether he could swallow them.

"Can't we?"

Dean looked at you for a long moment. His jaw was tight. There was something moving behind his eyes that you'd learned to recognize over years of growing up in the backseat of the Impala, of watching him make decisions that cost him pieces of himself — it was the look he got when he was afraid and refused to use the word.

"He's Lucifer's son," Dean said.

"I know."

"I mean it, Y/n. I know he looks — I know he seems—" He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. Started again. "You don't go anywhere alone with him. You don't have long conversations with him. You check in with me or Sam if he talks to you, and you never, ever let him—"

"Dean." You put a hand on his arm. "I heard you."

He looked at your hand on his arm. Looked at you. Something shifted in his expression — some tectonic rearrangement beneath the surface — and he nodded, once, stiffly.

"Good," he said. "Good."

⛧

The first week, Dean kept you in his line of sight like a compass needle following north.

It wasn't subtle. It wasn't meant to be. Dean Winchester had never been subtle about the things he was trying to protect. When Jack sat down at the library table to read one of the lore books — hunched over it with that intense, slightly baffled concentration, moving his lips a little on the harder words — Dean found somewhere to be nearby. When Jack wandered into the kitchen at odd hours because he was still learning what hunger meant and often got the timing wrong, Dean happened to need coffee. When Jack paused in a hallway and turned to say something to you, Dean materialized at your shoulder like a very large, very armed ghost.

It was Sam who tried to bridge things first, because Sam was built for bridge-building the way Dean was built for walls. He started small — answering Jack's questions without impatience, sitting across from him at dinner without making it a statement, leaving books he thought Jack might like near the chair Jack had quietly claimed as his own in the reading room. Sam had a gift for making people feel like they were allowed to exist in a space, and he deployed it carefully, without fanfare, because he understood that fanfare would only make Dean dig in harder.

"He's not going to do anything," Sam said quietly to Dean one morning, the third or fourth day in. He was watching Dean watch Jack through the doorway of the war room, where Jack was slowly turning the pages of a water-damaged field guide to American folklore with the reverence of someone handling scripture.

"You don't know that."

"I'm pretty sure I do."

Dean poured himself more coffee. "Pretty sure isn't sure."

Sam sighed the sigh of a man conserving energy for a very long road. "He's reading Narnia, Dean."

"What?"

"Before the folklore guide. He found The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on the shelf in the reading room and he worked through it in two days. He cried at the Aslan chapter. I walked in and he was just—" Sam paused, and something softened in his expression despite himself. "He was crying, Dean. Over a children's book. He didn't even try to hide it. He just looked up at me and said, 'this is very sad,' and went back to reading."

Dean stared into his coffee for a long moment. "That doesn't mean anything."

"It kind of does."

"He's Lucifer's son."

"And we're John Winchester's kids," Sam said, carefully, the way he'd learned to say certain things over the years — gently, without accusation, but without backing down either. "That doesn't make us John Winchester."

Dean didn't have an answer for that. He carried it around with him, though. You could tell by the way his eyes tracked Jack across a room in the days that followed — less like a threat assessment and more like a problem he was actively, grudgingly, almost against his will turning over in his hands, looking for the flaw he was certain had to be in there somewhere.

You started talking to Jack on the eighth day. Not because you'd decided to defy Dean — not exactly — but because you were in the library at two in the morning because you couldn't sleep, and he was in the library at two in the morning for the same reason, and pretending he wasn't there seemed like the lonelier choice.

He was sitting in the big chair by the right bookshelf, the one with the cracked leather arm that nobody ever fixed, and he had a book open on his knees. He looked up when you came in, and for a moment you both just looked at each other, and then you decided that Dean wasn't here and you were tired and it was two in the morning and life was short, and you set your water glass on the table and sat down across from him and pulled your knees up.

"Can't sleep?" you asked.

He considered the question with that particular Jack quality you'd already begun to notice — the way he turned words over before answering, as if language was still slightly new machinery he was learning to operate carefully. "I don't require as much sleep as humans do," he said. "But I find I prefer not to be alone when I don't have to be."

That landed somewhere tender in your chest. You recognized it — that specific flavor of loneliness, the not-wanting-to-be-alone-in-the-dark variety. You'd grown up with it in motel rooms across thirty-seven states.

"What are you reading?" you asked.

He held up the book. A Wrinkle in Time.

"Sam recommended it," he said. "After the Narnia books."

"Sam cried at those too, when he was a kid," you said. "Don't tell him I told you that."

Something shifted in Jack's expression — slow and uncertain, like a light that wasn't sure yet if it was allowed to be on. It took you a moment to recognize it as the beginning of a smile.

"I won't," he said. "I cried too."

"I know," you said. "It's okay to cry at books. That's what they're for."

The smile completed itself then, quiet and real and a little overwhelmed, the way all of Jack's emotions seemed to arrive — slightly too large for his face, like he was still learning how much space feelings were allowed to take up in it.

You talked until four in the morning, and it felt like twenty minutes.

You talked about books, because that was easy and neutral and gave you both something to stand on. You talked about the bunker, about hunting, about what it meant to grow up in a world where the things under the bed were real and had specific weaknesses and could be stopped if you were careful and brave and well-researched. He listened with the total, earnest attention of someone who'd had access to all human knowledge since birth but was only now learning what it meant — the texture of it, the weight, the way the same information felt completely different when it came from a person sitting across from you in a cracked leather chair at two in the morning rather than from the abstract sum of all human thought.

He told you, carefully, that he didn't know what he was. That he had power but not a rulebook for it. That every day was a little bit like learning to walk across a floor he wasn't entirely sure would hold him.

You told him, carefully, that you understood that more than he probably expected.

When you finally went to bed, you lay in the dark and thought about the way his face had looked across the library table — open and bewildered and trying so hard to be good, the trying so visible and undefended it almost hurt to look at — and you thought: Dean is wrong. Or at least, he is not entirely right. You didn't say any of this out loud. Dean would get there himself, eventually. He always did. He just needed time, and evidence, and probably something that annoyed him into lowering his guard long enough for the truth to get through.

⛧

Sam got there properly around the fourth week, which surprised no one who knew Sam.

He was actively involving Jack in research by then, patiently fielding his seventeen-questions-at-once conversational style, occasionally watching television with him in the evenings. Jack had discovered a passionate and seemingly inexhaustible interest in nature documentaries that Sam found genuinely endearing. They watched the whole of Planet Earth together across two weeks and Jack asked questions throughout — not disruptively, just constantly, in a low, wondering murmur — and Sam answered all of them, and by the end Jack had formed strong opinions about various ecosystems that he expressed with the conviction of someone who'd been thinking about them for years.

"He asked me today if we're doing enough to stop climate change," Sam told you over dinner one night, a surprised kind of warmth in his voice.

"What did you say?"

"I said probably not, but we could try harder."

"What did he say?"

"He said he would help if we told him how." Sam paused. "I think he meant it. I think he was already calculating what his specific capabilities could contribute to the problem."

Dean ate his burger and didn't comment. But he was listening. You could always tell when Dean was listening — something went very still in him, some deliberate, practiced stillness, like he was trying to absorb information without appearing to absorb information, which was its own kind of tell if you knew where to look.

The shift with Dean was slower, less linear, more like erosion than demolition — you watched it happen without quite catching the moment it happened. It was a Monday when Dean let Jack ride in the front seat of the Impala without being asked to move to the back, just glanced at him standing there, and jerked his chin at the passenger door like it was nothing. It was a Thursday when Dean laughed, reluctantly, at something Jack said about a gas station hot dog — a quiet, genuine, involuntary laugh that Dean immediately seemed annoyed at himself for producing. It was a normal day somewhere in the seventh week when you came downstairs and found them at the kitchen table, Dean teaching Jack to play poker, and Dean was losing, and was bothered by this in a way that had almost nothing to do with Jack being dangerous and almost everything to do with Dean's relationship with losing at cards.

He still watched, though. That didn't stop. It just changed character — less surveillance, more habit. Less like a guard, more like a brother. The distinction was subtle enough that Dean himself probably hadn't noticed it yet, and you were wise enough not to point it out.

The change in your own feelings came on like the season change — not a single moment but a gradual accumulation of details that one day reached a tipping point and became undeniable.

It was the way he remembered things. Small things — that you preferred your coffee with too much sugar, that you hated the particular creak of the third step on the east staircase and always stepped over it, that you got quiet when you were worried and loud when you were scared, and that the two things were not as contradictory as they sounded. He noticed and filed everything away with that limitless nephilim attention, and occasionally deployed this information in small, considered ways that landed every single time like a hand on your shoulder: you are being seen.

It was the way he asked questions about you specifically — not about hunting, not about the Winchesters as a legacy or a mythology, but about you as a person with preferences and a history and an inner life he seemed to find genuinely interesting in the way that very few people ever found genuinely interesting.

"What do you think about when you can't sleep?" he asked you once, in the library at two AM again, which had become by then a regular and unspoken thing — neither of you had named it, both of you arranged yourselves around it.

You thought about it honestly, because he always asked honestly and it felt wrong to answer any other way. "Unfinished stuff," you said. "Things I should have said. Hunts that went wrong. People we couldn't save."

He nodded slowly, taking that in the way he took everything in — completely, without judgment. "Do you ever think about things that are good?"

"Not as automatically," you admitted.

"I think about things that are good," he said. "I'm trying to practice it. Castiel said that joy is also worth remembering." He paused, and his eyes moved to you in the lamplight. "I think about this, sometimes. These nights. Talking with you." A beat. "I thought you should know that."

Your heart did something irregular and inconvenient.

"Jack—"

"Is that strange?" he asked, and he looked at you with that directness that was uniquely his — no dissembling, no guard, just honest inquiry, because he hadn't yet learned the defensive habits that most people spent their childhood developing. "It's my understanding that humans sometimes feel complicated things about friendship."

"Yeah," you said, and your voice came out slightly unsteady. "They do."

He watched you. "Are you feeling something complicated?"

The library was quiet around you. The kind of quiet that felt like a held breath, like the building itself was paying attention.

"Maybe," you said.

⛧

He held your hand for the first time three days later, and it wasn't dramatic at all, which somehow made it more so.

You were both reading, sitting close together on the library floor with your backs against the shelf because the chairs were buried under a landslide of lore books Sam had been working through and neither of you had bothered to move them. Somewhere in the second hour Jack had shifted slightly, the way he sometimes shifted when he was settling in, and his hand had come to rest beside yours on the floor — close enough that the outside of his little finger was just touching the outside of yours.

Neither of you acknowledged it. You kept reading. He kept reading. The lamp made a warm circle around you both and outside it the bunker was dark and quiet.

Then, very slowly, he turned his hand and covered yours with it. Warm. Certain, but careful in the way of someone who had spent a great deal of time learning to manage his own strength carefully, to hold things without breaking them.

You looked at your hands. You looked at him. He was looking at you already, and his expression was the most open thing you'd ever seen — no performance, no angle, just something real and slightly overwhelmed and very, very steady.

"Is this okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," you said. "This is okay."

⛧

Sam found out before Dean, because Sam was observant and loved you both, and also because he walked into the library one afternoon and found you and Jack on the floor together with your back against his shoulder and his hand resting absently in your hair while he read, and he stood in the doorway long enough to take in the whole picture before you noticed him.

You made a face at him that communicated approximately seven things at once, the most important of which was please don't tell Dean yet.

He gave you the tiniest, most controlled Sam Winchester smile — the one that meant I have feelings about this but I'm going to be extremely restrained about expressing them — and took his books to the other side of the library without a word.

He came to you later, alone, with coffee, the offering of someone who understood that certain conversations went better with something warm in your hands. He sat across from you and said, simply: "So."

"Sam—"

"I'm not going to lecture you," he said. "I just want to say two things."

"Okay."

"First: I'm glad. For both of you." He said it without qualification, because Sam had decided to be simple about it and Sam was formidable when he decided something. "He's a good person, Y/n. I think you know that better than anyone."

"And second?" you said, though you already knew.

"Dean," Sam said.

You both sat with that for a moment.

"He's going to find out," Sam said.

"I know."

"Probably better coming from you."

"I know."

"He's going to—"

"Sam."

"I'm just saying." He wrapped both hands around his mug. "Prepare yourself."

⛧

Dean found out on his own, which was both better and worse than anything you'd planned.

He came around a corner near the reading room — where the light was warm in the late afternoon and the acoustics were strange, the kind of corner the bunker had several of, corners that caught you off guard — and he found you and Jack standing close together by the bookshelf, not quite touching, in the charged and specific proximity of two people who had recently made a quiet decision about each other. You were looking up at Jack and saying something, and Jack was looking down at you with that expression he wore when he was feeling something large — the one that was almost wonder, almost gratitude, entirely unguarded.

You heard Dean stop walking. The quality of the silence changed like pressure dropping before a storm.

You turned around.

Dean's face moved through several things at once — surprise, recognition, and then something protective and reflexive that reached immediately for anger because anger was always easier to navigate than the thing underneath it. His eyes went from you to Jack and back again, and you watched him understand.

"Dean," you said.

"No," he said.

"Dean—"

"No." His voice was low and tight and clipped at the edges. He looked at Jack with eyes gone hard and flat, and Jack held the look without flinching — not defiantly, just steadily, in the way of someone who'd decided that staying present was the only honest response. "Outside. Now."

"Dean, this isn't—"

"Y/n, so help me—"

"Stop." You stepped into the space between them — not in front of Jack like a shield, just into the conversation, making yourself part of it rather than the object of it. "You don't get to do this. I'm not a kid. I haven't been a kid in a long time, and you know that, and you don't get to look at me like I'm twelve and don't know what I'm doing."

"He's Lucifer's son," Dean said, and his voice was low and barely held together, and underneath it — underneath all of it — was the thing he never said out loud because he didn't have language for it that didn't embarrass him: I am so afraid of losing you. I have always been so afraid of losing you.

"I know who he is," you said.

"He could—"

"He won't."

"You don't know—"

"Dean." You held his gaze and didn't let it go. "I know him. Not who his father is. Not what he's capable of. Him. I know him the way you know Sam, the way you know Cas — not because I decided to trust him, but because I paid attention for months and he showed me who he was every single day without trying to. And so do you." You held steady. "If you'd let yourself admit it."

Dean's jaw worked. He looked past you at Jack, who was standing still with his hands at his sides and his expression serious and open and not defensive — not combative, not frightened, just present, absorbing this the way he absorbed everything difficult, by staying inside it instead of away from it.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. His voice was quiet and direct. "I understand why you don't trust me. I understand that Lucifer hurt people you love. That he hurt people in ways that can't be undone, and that my existence is a reminder of that." He paused, and there was no self-pity in it, just accuracy. "I'm not asking you to forget that. I'm only asking you to believe that I would never hurt Y/n. Not for any reason. Not ever." Another pause, smaller. "She's the most important person I know. I would sooner stop existing than hurt her."

The silence after that was the kind that has weight.

Dean stared at him for a long, measuring time. His eyes moved, taking inventory of something — not threat assessment, something else, something harder to name. Then he looked at you, and you looked back at him, and you didn't say anything, because sometimes with Dean, the most important argument was the silence after all the words were gone.

He turned and walked away without another word.

⛧

For two weeks, Dean was quieter than usual. He didn't forbid anything, didn't make scenes, didn't manufacture reasons to stand between you and Jack in hallways. He watched, in his way, with that specific watchfulness that was less about looking for danger and more about understanding something he hadn't figured out yet, turning it over until it made sense on his terms.

You gave him the space for it. You went on holding Jack's hand in the library late at night, watching him cry quietly at David Attenborough describing migration patterns, learning the specific geography of a joy that was — as Castiel had promised, once — worth remembering. You ate dinners together, all four of you, and sometimes they were easy and sometimes they were careful and either way you were all at the same table, which was its own kind of language.

The moment you knew Dean had changed — or the moment you saw it, which wasn't necessarily the same thing — was small enough that you almost missed it entirely.

You were in the kitchen with Jack on a Wednesday afternoon. Jack was attempting, for the third time, to learn to make pie from scratch, because he had quietly absorbed that pie was important to Dean and had decided to master it as a kind of offering, without being asked and without announcing his reasons. He was elbow-deep in flour with the focused intensity of someone for whom the fate of the world had on occasion rested on similar decisions, frowning at the dough with the same expression he brought to ancient lore texts and nature documentaries about apex predators. You were sitting on the counter laughing at him, and he kept glancing over with that not-quite-smile that meant he found your laughing at him acceptable, even enjoyable, and you were showing him how to crimp the edge properly with your hand over his, and neither of you heard Dean come in.

He stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment. You didn't know how long.

When you noticed him, he was looking at your hands — yours over Jack's, guiding the motion — and then at Jack's face as he watched what you were doing, that expression Jack wore when he was feeling something he didn't have the right word for yet. Dean's own face was unreadable in the particular way that meant he was reading himself and not letting it show.

He crossed to the coffee maker. Poured himself a cup. Was quiet for a moment that lasted long enough to mean something.

Then, almost under his breath, aimed at the pie tin like the pie tin had asked: "You're not putting enough butter in the crust."

Jack looked up. "I'm not?"

Dean set his mug down with a sigh that was the most put-upon, least convincing sigh in the long and storied history of Winchester sighs. "Move over," he said, rolling up his sleeve. "I'll show you."

You sat on that counter and watched your brother show the son of Lucifer how to make a pie, and you pressed your lips together and looked at the ceiling and thought very hard about nothing in particular until the feeling in your chest settled into something you could breathe around.

Dean didn't look at you the whole time. Jack kept sneaking glances at you, though, with that quiet, wondering light in his eyes, and you had to look away from that too or you were going to do something embarrassing.

⛧

Later, Dean found you in the hallway and said, without preamble and without quite meeting your eyes: "If he ever — if anything ever—"

"I know," you said.

"I mean it."

"Dean. I know."

He nodded once. Looked at the wall. Looked back. "He's—" A pause. A very long pause. "He's alright," he said. "I guess."

You had the strong self-discipline not to make a face, or cry, or hug him. "Yeah," you said. "He is."

Dean walked away. You stood in the hallway and let yourself feel the full weight of it — how long it had taken, how much it meant, how quietly Dean loved things once he decided he loved them. Then you went to find Jack and you sat next to him on the reading room couch and put your head on his shoulder and felt him turn slightly toward you the way he always did, instinctive and immediate, the way a plant turns toward a window.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Good things," you said. "I'm practicing."

He pressed his lips to the top of your head, warm and careful and completely certain. "Good," he said.

⛧

The year that followed was not easy. It was never easy — that was the first and most consistent fact of the life you'd been born into, and nothing about loving Jack changed it. There were hunts and near misses and weeks away from the bunker and long, exhausted nights when you came home with bruises in complicated places and sat on the bathroom floor until the adrenaline finished leaving your body. There were fights — with Dean over tactics, with Sam over strategy, with each other over the thousand small things that accumulate between people living in close quarters under constant pressure.

But there was also the bunker in the late afternoon, golden-lit and full of books, Sam's enormous coffee mug sweating rings onto lore texts he'd never move from the table, Dean's music a faint current of sound from the direction of the garage. There was Jack beside you on the library floor, shoulder warm against yours, hand loose over yours, reading something aloud in that careful, deliberate voice because he'd never lost the habit of sharing sentences he loved. There were movie nights where he watched things with the focused intensity of a cultural anthropologist and asked questions at the deep moments, and Dean answered them with a straight face and nonchalant tone. There were dinners where Jack attempted recipes from a cookbook Sam had bought him — some successful, some disasters — and the four of you ate them anyway, every time, because that was its own kind of ritual, the eating together, the trying together.

There were still the two AM library nights, because that was where you'd both learned to be honest with each other and you didn't give up the things that made you. He read to you and you talked about everything and nothing, and sometimes the talking trailed off and you just sat together in the lamplight, your head on his shoulder, his hand in your hair, and the quiet between you was the comfortable kind, the kind that didn't need to be filled.

"I didn't know it would be like this," he told you one of those nights, his voice low in the way of someone handling something carefully. "Having people. A family." He paused on the word the way he still sometimes paused on words he'd decided were important, giving them their full weight. "I didn't know it was something that could happen to me."

"It happened," you said.

"It happened," he agreed. He turned to look at you, and in the lamplight his eyes were very gold, very warm, very certain. "You happened."

You kissed him in the library at two in the morning, and it was quiet and gentle and completely, exactly right, and outside the lamplight the bunker was dark and full of books and held you both like a cupped hand.

⛧

And then Chuck decided he was bored, which was the most devastating thing a god had ever done, and the world bent under the weight of his boredom, and everything unraveled at once.

The details were confusing and apocalyptic, and exactly the kind of thing you'd spent your whole life being trained for without ever quite believing would actually arrive: the seals, the cage, the dead walking, every nightmare your family had survived deciding to take one final curtain call. The scale of it was almost incomprehensible, and you dealt with it the way Winchesters dealt with incomprehensible things — one problem at a time, one day at a time, moving forward because stopping was the one thing you couldn't do.

And Jack.

Chuck took Jack's soul. That was the simplest way to say it. None of the ways to say it were adequate. Sam explained it to you carefully, gently, with his hands around his coffee cup and his eyes on your face the whole time, watching you process it the way you'd watched each other process terrible things their whole lives — present, attentive, ready to catch whatever needed catching.

"What does that mean?" you asked, when he'd finished. "Practically. What does it mean, no soul?"

Sam's face was its own answer. You'd grown up reading Sam's face.

You sat with it for a long time. You didn't cry, not then. You turned it over in your hands the way you'd learned to handle unbearable things — carefully, analytically, looking at it from all angles, looking for the part you could work with. There had to be a part you could work with. That was the rule. That had always been the rule.

You told yourself you'd find it. You told yourself there was a way back. You held onto everything you knew about Jack — all of it, the reading aloud and the two AM conversations and the hand over yours on the library floor and the pie and the way he'd looked at you and said you happened — and you held it close and private and didn't let yourself look at what was standing in the bunker wearing his face.

Not yet. You weren't ready yet.

You saw him at a distance first, in one of the long hallways near the war room.

He was standing with his back to you, and for one terrible, involuntary second your body moved toward him — pure muscle memory, two years of gravitating toward that specific silhouette in any room — before your mind caught up and stopped you cold.

He turned.

He looked the same. That was what no one told you, or maybe what you hadn't let yourself understand: he looked exactly the same. Same face, same height, same sandy hair slightly across his forehead. Everything technically the same. Everything technically correct.

But the quality of him was wrong in a way that hit you before you had language for it, the way wrong notes in a familiar song register before you can name what's off. You'd spent two years calibrating yourself to the specific signal of Jack — learning it the way you learned to navigate the bunker in the dark, by feel, by long familiarity — and what was standing in front of you now was not that signal. It was the shape of it without the substance. It was a house with all the furniture in the right places and no one home.

The light was gone. Not the nephilim light — not the power, which was still there, was perhaps more there than before in some ways that made the air feel wrong. The other light. The one that had nothing to do with what he was and everything to do with who, the one that cried at Aslan and at migrating whales and at good sentences in old books, the one that asked careful honest questions and remembered how you took your coffee and said I think about this, these nights, talking with you, I thought you should know.

He moved toward you, and the movement was wrong the way everything was wrong — too smooth, unencumbered by the small self-consciousness Jack had always carried, that slight awareness of his own extraordinary nature that had made him careful in his movements, gentle with his hands.

"Y/n," he said. His voice was the same pitch, same timbre, and it hit you like a physical thing — the sound of him without him in it. "I wanted to talk to you."

Your chest cracked open quietly, the way things break when they've been holding for a long time.

You took a step back.

"Y/n—"

You turned.

You walked. Fast and deliberate, down the hallway with your eyes forward and your arms at your sides, because if you ran you would fall apart before you reached the end of the corridor, and you needed to make it to the end of the corridor, you needed to put doors between yourself and that voice and that face and the terrible precise absence inside them. You needed to get somewhere small and contained and familiar before the thing in your chest found its way out.

You made it to Sam's room because it was close. You knocked. Sam opened the door, took one look at your face, and stepped back without a word.

You sat on the edge of his bed. You put your hands in your lap and looked at them — steady hands, Winchester hands, trained and calloused and at the moment slightly shaking. You breathed through it.

"He tried to talk to me," you said.

"I know." Sam sat next to you, close enough to be present without crowding. "I'm sorry."

"It's not him."

"No."

"It looks like him." Your voice did something you didn't quite have control of. You stopped. Breathed. Started again. "It sounds like him. But there's nothing there. Sam, there's nothing there. It's just—" You stopped again, and pressed the heels of your hands briefly against your eyes, and when you lowered them your voice was steadier, if barely. "It's just the outside of him. With no one inside."

"I know," Sam said again, soft and certain.

"Where did he go?" you asked, and it came out quieter than you meant it, more like something you were saying to yourself than to Sam, an honest question to a universe that didn't reliably answer honest questions.

Sam put his arm around your shoulders, and you leaned into it the way you had at eight years old when you'd woken from a nightmare and gone down the motel hallway in the dark and knocked on his door because Dean slept too lightly to be useful in that particular way. He held on with the arm that had been steady for you your whole life.

"We'll get him back," he said. His voice was rough with the work of believing it.

"Promise me," you said. You hadn't asked for a promise in years — not since you'd grown old enough to understand that promises were made of intention, not certainty, that they were the most you could offer rather than a guarantee. But you asked now, because you needed something to hold onto and promises were what the Winchesters had always given each other when they had nothing else.

Sam held on. "I promise," he said. "We'll get him back."

Later, when the door was closed and the room was quiet, you let yourself cry. Not the spectacular, narrative kind — just the ordinary, private kind, the kind that was simply water moving through you, making its way out the only way it could. You cried for Jack — not the thing in the hallway, not the shape wearing his face, but the real one, the one who existed in all the details you'd spent two years accumulating. The one who had learned the world through books and questions and two AM conversations and discovered somewhere along the way that he was capable of joy as a deliberate and sustaining practice. The one who had put his hand over yours on a library floor and asked is this okay with complete and uncalculating sincerity. The one who had said you happened like it was the most important thing he knew.

You cried, and then you stopped, because you were a Winchester, and Winchesters were not built for despair so much as for the long, stubborn, costly business of refusing it. You got up. You washed your face. You looked at yourself in the mirror for a moment — steady, tired, certain — and you made yourself the same promise Sam had made you, privately, where only you could hear it.

You went back out into the bunker.

Dean was in the hallway. He looked at your face and was quiet for a moment, in the way he was quiet when he was feeling more than he had words for and was translating it into something he could give you. Then he reached out and put a hand on the back of your neck — brief, solid, present — and said: "We're going to fix it."

"Sam said the same thing."

"Sam's right." He dropped his hand. His eyes held yours for a second, communicating the thing he never said out loud, the thing you'd known your whole life: I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. We do this together. "Come on," he said. "We've got work to do."

You followed your brother down the hallway toward the war room, toward the maps and the books and the impossible problem you were going to solve because the alternative was not something any of you were willing to consider.

You thought about Jack — the real one, somewhere behind whatever that was, somewhere inside it still, waiting — and you thought about the library at two in the morning and good sentences read aloud and hands in lamplight and you happened and you held all of it very carefully, like something kept in trust, like something you were carrying home for him.

He was going to come back.

You were going to bring him back.

You were a Winchester. And Jack Kline — nephilim, half-angel, Lucifer's son, two AM companion, the person who had taught you to practice joy like a discipline and meant it — was family.

You didn't leave family behind.

You brought them home.

crybabycabin

I love your soulmate au so much! I know you may already be tired of writing for it, so you don't have to answer this if you don't want to. I just want to know how you think Bucky would react to the reader getting hurt? I love all your stories so much!!

ask and you shall receive!

bonus drabble: overkill | b.b.

**read touch and go here**

✮ synopsis: a minor car accident, a sprained wrist, and a seventeen-year-old who learns exactly why you don't rear-end the winter soldier's girlfriend.

✮ pairing: soulmate!bucky x soulmate!reader

✮ warnings: mild injury (sprained wrist), protective bucky barnes, mentions of blood (not reader's), mild language, bucky terrorizing a teenager, bucky still having the emotional regulation of a feral cat

✮ word count: 1.5k

✮ a/n: slowly expanding the touch and go extended universe

"—and I'm just saying, maybe don't mention the blood."

zombiezinmydreams

Still genuinely baffles me every time I remember that the average person isn’t in some form of pain all the time.

Like..not even a tiny bit???

It’s actually crazy to me every time I remember that most people actually don’t experience pain outside of injuries.

emme-looou

Genuinely was gagged when I got diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. You mean, everyone's joints dont just ache? Like never ending growing pains?

Alone

Its okay

Im used to being alone

Ive stood on my own so long

I dont know what support feels like

Someone at my side is foreign to me

Someone at my back is a threat

My heart and soul ache in symphony

I fear my life will only know regret

Mimicry gives me false hope

An idea of what my future could hold

But ive never had someone in my corner

Ive always been the one fallen back on

To give in is to surrender

To tear myself open and show my grief

Ive never bared myself so completely

Even I dont know what's underneath

-E.L. Hays 2/13/2026

#poetry

butchmary

jaw fucking drop everybody look at this tiktok

chxrrywines

heyyy! how you doing? it's my first time asking a request here. feel free to skip this if it's too much but I've been having a hard time feeling good about myself cus facing body shaming in your own home really gets at you. so I was really craving for some comfort or some validation eventhough I know my worth but it's really getting to my head nowadays. could you maybe write a Sam winchester comfort fic where the reader is feeling insecure in her body.

again just wanted to say that I love your work<3

hi sweetheart tysm for requesting <3 i just want to say that i totally understand how you feel and i’m so sorry nobody should be made to feel like that especially in their own home im sending you so much love honey, you’re beautiful and loved and though i can’t do much i hope this is at least a nice read !! feel free to come into my asks anytime my love | 1.1k words, sam winchester x fem!reader, body insecurity, very minor blood mention, kinda unedited, requests are open !!

Sam was simply unreal. For as humble as he could be, he really was.

Even on his worst days, covered in blood and bruises — or on weirder, less fortunate cases, ectoplasm — he looked like he’d just walked out of the monthly edition of a men’s fitness magazine. She knew realistically it was between the constant physical toll of their job, his strict morning run routine, and the meticulous focus on the things he ate, but it still felt unfair how perfect he was. Pretty hair, pretty face, pretty body. She didn’t mean to reduce him to such simple qualities, his heart was more than anything the most important part of him, but he really was perfect.

And then there was her.

She caught people, sometimes, when they were out together, looking between the pair of them and trying to figure out how she did that. Was she lucky? Was it pity? Did she have a magic lamp and a genie?

Years ago she’d worried what Sam thought, but they’d been together long enough and been through enough that she knew just how deep their bond went. She knew how much Sam loved her, knew he wasn’t lying when he said she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

Just because he thought that didn’t mean it was true, but she believed that he thought it.

dontlistentodaisy

𝒄𝒓𝒚, 𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒚,

summary — you should definitely be sleeping, but you're caught up in a good book instead, and when you're inevitably brought to tears by the content of its pages, sam is there to comfort you.

pairing — sam winchester x reader (emotional!reader) genre — fluff / comfort word count — one thousand, one hundred & fifty

warnings — spoilers: the book that i mention is real & that what reader reveals in this fic really happens in it unfortunately 😭 emotional reader. crying. sam being very fond of reader while also trying his hardest not to laugh. gentle comfort & lots of sweet kisses.

notes — raise your hand if you're also a crier. 🙋🏽‍♀️ it's okay to assume that this was inspired by me, because it absolutely was. big thanks to @aseafullofstars for leading me to write this out & for proofing it for me! xx

it was quiet in the bunker, way past the witching hour, and much too late for you to still be up. sam was laid next to you, haven fallen asleep hours ago, his steady breathing keeping you company as you read. you knew that you would be tired, and predictably moody in the morning, but it would have been worth it you think. then again, that was the part of you that longed for a good read every now and again talking. the you that appreciated your sleep would probably feel the need to express a few choice words in the morning.

vfwwm

Don't make me lose sight of you now.

samwinchesterxreader

summary: The condition you're in after a hunt frightens Sam so much that he's unable to let you go. He has to take care of you. He can't tolerate any other option.

genre: angst and then so much fluff!!

warnings/tags: very intimate!! something more intense than friends to lovers. graphic description of injuries and mention of blood. very gentle and affectionate care because they are in loooove. kinda. sam is the biggest yearner in the world. also no use of y/n!!

ara note: hi!! another sweet sammy fic! he invented eye contact can u believe it? its my first time writing something like this so… lets see. happy reading! xoxo

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ--ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ--ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

You were only able to open your eyes when Bobby turned off the engine of his truck. You were finally in front of his house. The left side of your head was throbbing, and despite the general disorientation, you could still make out the blood trickling down your lips. It was starting to dry.

“You okay, kid?” the old man didn't sound frightened at all. As he hasn't saw you almost die in front of him.

“M’ fine” Your voice came out in a whisper, but thank God your breathing was steady. You'd spent the whole trip gasping for air while Bobby kept repeating You're going to be okay, you're going to be okay.

And it was true. You were going to be alright. Even though that hunt had gone very, very badly. You weren't a scaredy-cat; you'd learned that that kind of life came with its risks. And getting beaten up was a risk. So was the possibility of dying.

Through half-closed eyes, you saw the porch light come on. It was very late.

"Did you call the boys?" You almost sounded frightened. You knew they'd be upset. That they'd warned you. And at that moment, you didn't have the energy, or the strength, to argue or defend your honor.

“Of course I called them! You were unconscious for ten minutes, for God’s sake!”

“Oh my God, they’re going to kill me.” You whined before you shot him a plea look.

“I won’t be so sure, honey.”

The thing is, you weren't so sure.

Your relationship with the brothers was complicated. Dean was overly protective, and Sam… You and Sam had crossed a strange line.

It had started with study sessions. Then the sessions had turned into entire nights of conversation. Making each other laugh. Cooking together. Morning walks whenever you had a free moment. Sitting at the bar, laughing side by side while Dean got up to his usual antics.

Now you slept together, in the same bed, but you didn’t touch each other. You simply couldn't fall asleep without his body next to yours. Big and strong. Deep breathing against your hair at night. Dean had threatened to kill him when he found about it, which didn't make much sense to you.

Because Sam didn't see you that way.

One day he's going to fall in love with a girl. Or you're going to find someone. And all of that is going to fall apart. The thought of Sam with a girlfriend hurts your chest more than the bruises that have started to form on your side.

That's when the car door opens and the scent of pine fills the air. It's him. It's him. You're okay, you're home. You're home because Sam is here.

Your heart races. It always does when Sam is around. It starts racing momentarily and slows in his presence. As if surprised by his familiarity.

His gaze burns you. Exactly on the cheek, although you can feel it sliding past it. Down.

You know he's looking at the blood. You want to tell him it's not yours. Or at least, not all of it. That you and Bobby took down an entire nest of vampires, hand to hand. That you plunged the dagger he gave you into more than one chest. That you had to use your own blood to kill those bastards.

But the words won't leave your lips.

"Hi." Finally, you look at him. He's already there, leaning with his arms on the roof of the van. His eyes are still scanning your condition. You see his muscles tense.

You can't tell if he's angry or just worried. That's always the problem with Sam, that you struggle to read the emotions on his face. Except when he uses his well known puppy-dog eyes, and then you're incapable of denying him anything.

"Sam," you say very slowly. "I'm fine."

He doesn't answer. Doesn't seem to notice that you are talking to him. You hear Bobby get out of the car with a groan, slamming the door. You prepare yourself to do the same, pushing your body forward. A sharp pain shoots through your side, and you can't help but purse your lips.

You hear Sam exhale. His hands are on you in a second.

He barely fits in the small space your body leaves on the van seat, but he manages to get one arm behind your back and the other under your knees, forcing them to bend.

He pulls you against his chest, and you feel his heart drumming against the spot where your cheek rests. He's scared. The physical pain you feel stops for a moment.

"Sam," you repeat his name softly.

He doesn't stop. You're not sure he heard you. His footsteps land heavily on the floor, and when you enter the house you realize how fast he's breathing. He heads for your room, the only one in the house with its own bathroom. Bobby has always taken good care of you.

Sam's hands begin to tremble; you feel it beneath your knees.

"Sammy!"

He stops abruptly.

As if it were the first time he'd heard his own name. He slowly bends down until his knees touch the floor. He doesn't let you stand, holding you close by bending one of his legs. Resting your body against it.

You look at his face in surprise, and he's already looking at you.

"You're bleeding."

He sounds defeated, as if he's just witnessed something horrible. As if you bleeding were unthinkable. But you're a hunter, and he's seen you bleed before. Never this much. That 's true.

But you know that's not the point. The issue is clearly reflected in his face. He feels guilty. This happened to you when he wasn't around.

"Actually..." You don't know why you're whispering. His face is very close to your nose, almost touching it. It feels like you are about to share a secret. "It's not my blood. Not all of it."

You notice his arms around you relax a little.

"But my side... that's where it hurts." You had to add that. He is worried, you know it. “I think I need to shower and bandage it. It will need pressure on the wound or its going to let a nasty bruise”

You're going to get up then, and although Sam allows it, the simple sway of your body as you steady yourself on your feet makes the boy move toward you. He presses his chest against your back.

"Let me help you." He takes your hand carefully. He says your name very softly against your hair, as if it might break. As if the letters that hold it up were also holding you up. "Please."

Sam is always careful with you. Together you've built a strange intimacy that has made him your best friend, your confidant. The guy you run to.

But this time, the way he's acting, you know he's crossed a line he can't go back to.

And what would you do if you saw him covered in blood? Muddy, doubled over in pain…

you will lose your mind. So you understand it.

But you're okay. It's true that you hurt, that you feel sticky and frankly quite dirty. That the idea of a bath is the most comforting thing right now, but the option of getting into the tub seems complicated.

You squeeze his hand. "Okay. But I'm not that bad..."

He nods, shaking his head. "Please."

"I just need a shower. You can help me bandage the wound afterward, okay?"

But as you move toward the bathroom, his body follows.

You have to turn your head to give him a confused look.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable." He hasn't let go of your hand. He squeezes it again. "But... can I… Can I go with you?"

For a second, the thought hits you. Is he asking if he can shower with you? You feel the heat rise up your neck. Your lip trembles slightly. And he clearly notices that expression, because he quickly repeats your name almost breathlessly, with what looks like a nervous smile.

"I'm not going to look! I mean..." He seems to consider it. You feel his eyes again on the blood on your cheek and down to the trail he's left on your neck. "Fuck it. Yes. I am going to look. I need to look. I need to see that you're okay."

Your mouth opens. You're going to say something, for sure. You're about to tell him again that you're okay. Again.

"Please” He repeats your name. Two times. Like a plea. “Don't make me lose sight of you now."

He's begging. And he's using his eyes. In that way.

"Okay." It slips from your lips before you can think much more about it.

And when you both enter the bathroom, the space seems to shrink to nothing.

Sam is a huge guy. His shoulders practically take up all the room. You let out a giggle, and he looks at you, frowning.

"What's so funny?"

You laugh again, shaking your head, and turn your back to him to take off your shirt. The blood has stuck to your skin, and you can barely pull it off. Besides, he won't let go of your hand.

"Sam, I need my hands to take my clothes off."

"No, you don't." Then he lets go. But as quickly as he does, you feel his palms on the hem of your shirt, at your sides. "Let me help you."

You nod at that, all the air trapped in your chest.

He pulls the shirt up, and the mere touch of it against your skin, dragging the traces of blood, hurts. You clench your fists to keep from letting out a growl.

You hear him exhale through his mouth.

"Oh, shit."

Your eyes dart to the side, toward the mirror beside you. You can't see the wound completely, but your skin looks bruised from the blow. The worst part, of course, is Sam's expression. His lips are pressed tightly together, and he's frowning. You feel his warm hand slide down the corner of your back, and his eyes scan the area.

Color rises to your cheeks.

"That bad, uh?"

You hear him make a strange sound, as if the situation is as painful for him as it is for you. He bends down, easily reaching the bathtub faucet in front of you. Turns on the temperature and the water. The sound of it running fills the bathroom. As he steps back, you feel his breath against your ear, warm against your ear.

"Its going to be okay." His hands move to your hair, gently pushing it back over your back. It's tangled. "Now the jeans."

You unbutton your jeans as he moves back. You hear him. When you turn to see what he's doing, you see him kneeling behind you. He smiles at you from the floor. His hands at your sides help pull your jeans down. But he doesn't take his eyes off your face.

Surprisingly, he's not blushing. You've always thought Sam was a shy guy, someone easily flustered. Even you've made him nervous a few times just for fun. Making him blush. Now you are the one who is embarrassed, with your lips trembling subtly.

Because in those moments, his hands don't tremble, and he looks at you with an intensity you can barely bear. You feel like you're melting. As you pull your pants out, you think your legs are going to give way. You're sure you're going to hit the floor.

But no.

He's there for you again, lifting you high enough to place you in the bathtub.

As it fills, the warmth of the water against your bruised muscles creates a painful sensation at first. Then they relax.

You sit back, reaching your hands toward the corner of the tub so you can look at him.

Sam has sat down mirroring you, leaning in the same way toward your face.

"Thank you," you say very softly, practically without making a sound.

He gives you a genuine smile. His hand reaches into the water, which is now deep enough to cover your waist, and, wetting his fingers, he takes them to your cheek. Rubbing them there.

"N't worry about it. Do you want me to help you lather up?"

"I look disgusting, right?"

You finally manage to get a laugh out of him. Although it's curt. He uses the water again to clean your forehead.

"Babygirl” His voice is deep then “I don't think there's any way you could possibly look disgusting."

With that, he places a kiss against your dirty hair, letting his lips linger close for a second.

Babygirl. He called you babygirl. The affectionate nickname echoes in your ears so loudly that you have to make a conscious effort to grab the soap. You want to prolong this moment.

Your side aches like hell, but you're willing to walk headfirst into another vampire's nest if it means Sam kisses your hair and calls you that again.

He grabs the soap and spreads it over his hands. Your eyes are fixed on them. They are big. You know that but now it seems that the fact means something different to your body.

Sam’s eyes are fixed in you. "Allow me"

He takes his time. And the water washes away all the dirt clinging to your body. Sam asks every now and then how you're doing, and all you can do is nod and respond with soft Ums as his hands rub against the skin of your back. It just feels so nice. So right. He stops there, at your bra band.

"Take it off," you say calmly.

No one, ever, has taken such care of you. No one has protected your body the way he is protecting it right now. Sam obeys, and the bra is set aside on the bathroom floor.

He has you lift one leg and then the other to wash them. And then he moves his hands to your hair. He uses the shampoo there. He untangles it. He pauses briefly at your shoulders to apply gentle pressure.

He pulls the plug out of the bathtub to let the dirty water drain away, carrying red and brown streaks. He puts it back in to replace it with clean water. Clean and warm water that softly embrace your body.

The vanilla scent of your shampoo is already filling the air. And you feel so much better. Cleaner.

As if he's somehow purified you.

"I don't want to get out yet." you whine.

And you see him smile from outside. "Okay."

Unable to resist, you lean toward him. Now you're both very close. You rest your shoulder against the wall of the bathtub, while your other hand comes out of the water to brush the hair that falls across his face.

Sam closes his eyes with at the touch.

When you go to pull your hand away, he takes hold of your wrist, bringing your palm toward him. He leans in to place his lips on the corner of your exposed shoulder. Leave a kiss there.

"We can stay like this as long as you want."

"Really?" you murmur.

He nods, his eyes on you. The soft smile you give him is contagious.

"And then, I'm going to dry you off." He brings your hand to his mouth, placing his knuckles on his own lips. "I'm going to bandage that cut on your side and brush your hair until you fall asleep..."

Your eyelashes flutter at that image. You're nodding unconsciously at his words, your heart pounding against your ribcage.

"That sounds good to you?"

Yes. Yes. Yes.

"Thank you, Sammy."

That thank you comes out of your mouth tortured, distorted. Because those aren't the right words.

Because they're incomplete.

Behind that thank you is an I love you. Thank you Sammy, I love you.

But this time it gets stuck in your throat.

stargazedwinchester

♡⸝⸝ 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒚 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖,

summary,, dean has lost his memory. it's already difficult for you, but you try your hardest to reassure him that he's going to be okay. word count,, 700 pairing,, dean winchester x reader tags/genre,, est. rlship, s12 dean, memory loss, fluff

The first sticky note goes on the bathroom mirror.

You’re safe. You’re in the bunker. Take a breath.

You press it down with shaking fingers.

Dean stands in the doorway behind you, barefoot, hair a mess, eyes too alert for someone who woke up ten minutes ago with no past. He’s pretending he isn’t scared. You can tell he’s doing that tight-jawed thing he does when he’s bracing for impact.

“Yellow?” he asks.

You swallow. “It’s… a system.”

He nods like that makes sense. It doesn’t. Not to him. Not anymore.

The second goes on the coffee machine.

You like it black. You hate decaf. Sam drinks it like a science experiment.

He reads it aloud, snorts. “Sounds like a nerd.”

You laugh. It comes out broken.

The bunker feels too big without his memory in it. Every hallway echoes with what he’s forgotten—late-night talks, half-drunk confessions, your name on his lips in the dark.

You start mapping him back to himself.

On the weapons rack:

Don’t touch the angel blade from the top. You learned that the hard way.

On the fridge:

Eat something. You get grumpy when you don’t.

On the Impala’s steering wheel:

Baby is sacred. No fast food in the back seat.

That one earns you a look.

“She’s… a car.”

You lean against the door frame. “She’s your car. That's her name.”

He frowns, like the word your is a locked door.

You give him space. You don’t say we. You don’t say ours. You don’t say remember when.

You say, “You like classic rock. You pretend you don’t care about movies but cry at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life. You sleep better when there’s noise.”

He watches you like you’re a witness to his own life. “You talk like you knew me.”

“I did—I do,” you say softly.

Days pass in careful fragments.

He starts reading the notes on his own. Tracing the handwriting. Smiling at the ones that make him feel familiar.

One appears on the sink:

Use the blue toothbrush. The green one is Sam’s.

Another on his jacket:

It’s cold outside. Take it with you. You always pretend you’re immune to the cold. You’re not.

He doesn’t ask who wrote them. He doesn’t ask who you are.

But he starts hovering near you. Sitting at the table while you research. Handing you weapons without being asked. Letting you stand close in hallways.

Instinct without memory.

One night, he stops in front of the bedroom door, but there’s no note there yet.

“You don’t have one for this,” he says. You hesitate. Your hand hovers over your pocket. This room used to be yours together. You shake your head. “I didn’t want to push.”

He studies you. “You’re not… a stranger.”

“No,” you whisper. “I’m not.”

Something in his face softens. He steps back, giving you space, like he’s afraid of doing harm. You wait until he’s asleep on the couch that night.

Then you write the last one.

You place it inside the drawer of his nightstand. Somewhere private. Somewhere only he will find.

You are loved. Even when you can’t remember why. Even when you don’t remember me. I love you.

The next morning, you’re in the kitchen when you hear it.

A sharp inhale, then a pause followed by footsteps. Dean stands in the doorway, note clenched in his hand.

He doesn’t look confused, he looks wrecked.

“You wrote these,” he says. You nod.

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Because you’re my home. Because I refuse to let you disappear. Because loving you doesn’t turn off just because your brain did.

You say, “Because you deserved to feel like yourself.”

His voice drops. “And you?”

You don’t answer.

He crosses the room slowly, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish.

“I don’t remember you,” he says. “But I wake up and you’re the first person I look for. I read those notes and I feel… anchored.”

He holds up the last one.

“This one feels like the truth.”

Tears burn. You don’t wipe them away.

“It is.”

He doesn’t kiss you.

He just pulls you into his arms and holds you like his body knows what his mind doesn’t.

✧ 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆.ᐟ // ✧𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 // ✧𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒂 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒃𝒐𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆.ᐟ

halsteadslefttoe

"I believe her"

Description: Will's best friend is in trouble and Jay steps in to be the hero.

Warnings: Domestic violence, abuse, mentions of blood, mentions of gun violence. DO NOT READ IF TRIGGERED BY DV

Pairings: Platonic Will Halstead x Reader, Jay Halstead x Reader

I AM IN NO WAY trying to romanticize domestic violence or abuse. If you are experiencing it PLEASE seek help. DV Hotline 1800-799-7233

vfwwm

sleepy time , don’t you think?

samwinchesterxsleepyreader

summary: Sam was just going to have a glass of water. What a surprise when he finds you there, late at night, unable to sleep.

pairing: sam winchester x reader

warning/tags: no one!! it’s fluff. they are tired and want to sleep (together. holding each other. cause they looooove each other. kinda) friends?? to lovers

ara note: hi!! im back today with a sweet sammy fic! let my man fall in love please please please

✦˚₊꒷︶꒷꒦︶꒷꒦⊹๑˚₊꒷︶꒷꒦︶꒷꒦₊˚✦˚₊꒷︶꒷꒦︶꒷꒦⊹๑˚₊꒷︶꒷꒦︶꒷꒦₊˚✦✦˚₊꒷︶꒷

Bobby's house is completely silent, though you're unable to perceive it. If you were able to appreciate the silence, perhaps you'd be asleep. Perhaps its calm would have lulled you into the wasteland of dreams.

Perhaps you wouldn't have ended up like this. On the living room rug, legs crossed, the hollow of your neck resting on the sofa.

After turning over and over, and over again on the mattress, you've decided that it was enough.

Blame the voices and images and the dialogue in your head. A turn to the left and the question of whether you'll ever stop staring into people's eyes to see if they hide completely black pupils. Another turn in bed. The thought of a family. The possibility of losing a child to a ghost.

Another turn.

Dean's bloody chin. Sam's hands on the first aid kit. The lights of a hospital.

You couldn't take it anymore. At least in the living room you could keep your eyes fixed on the ceiling, and watch as the shadows of the night drew figures. With the living room light on, they were very timid. Soft silhouettes that danced.

You had intended to read one of the books Bobby piled up there, but it had been quickly forgotten to one side.

You were too tired for that.

In fact, your eyelids were closing, in that strange position, despite being unable to stop the wheel in your mind from spinning. That's the thing about insomnia, you are tired, despite being unable to fall asleep.

That's why you don't hear him.

You don't hear Sam's footsteps coming down the stairs, nor the sound the refrigerator makes when he grabs the water pitcher.

He's the first to notice your presence.

The light catches his attention. Damn Dean, Bobby's going to end up charging us for the electricity. It's when he's about to turn off the switch that he senses your body. Your head thrown back, eyes closed.

He says your name, very quietly. A whisper.

Of course you don't hear him.

You don't hear him until he's two steps away. Bent over, his knees encased in flannel pants, a worn Stanford T-shirt as his pajama top. It's starting to get too tight for him.

He says your name again. Very softly.

That's when you open your eyes.

If you weren't so tired, you might feel embarrassed. That's usually the effect Sam has on you. Unlike Dean, whose jokes have helped you distinguish him as a stupid hunter and also a friend, with Sam it's different. You are friends, of course. You've been in that house with them long enough for both brothers to have become part of your world.

But Sam is… just different. He's formal. He's always calm around you, but in a tense way, as someone who is holding something back. He spends hours researching in front of his computer. He always knows what he's talking about. He talks to you in a certain way. Not paternalistic, but profound. With respect.

Ultimately, he's intimidating.

"I think you fell asleep..." His voice is deep when he speaks. Did you wake him up when you shuffled past his bedroom door, exhausted?

"No. I'm not asleep." You try to sit up a little, using your elbows for support. It's an awkward gesture. Because you're so, so tired; moving has become an effort. "I can't sleep."

Sam notices, of course he does, how your eyes open weakly; and the frown that forms between your eyebrows as you look around. Disoriented.

"Well, but its sleepy time, don't you think?" His tone sifts. Something in him warms up just seeing you barely able to open your eyes.

Mm is all you are capable to say. His hand rises, finally pressing his index finger against the spot between your eyes. You hadn't even noticed the pressure building there. A sigh escapes you.

Sam smiles. Unlike his brother, he always notices your presence. The effort you make, how tired you look at the end of the day. What you carry, like all of them, on your shoulders. It seems that tonight it weighs a little more heavily on you.

More composed, you rub your eyelid and pick up the book lying beside you. You hold it up so he can see it.

"Actually, I did go to sleep. But I couldn't fall asleep."

"And you decided to read?" You nod, but a pout escapes you. Sam's eyes land on that spot, above your slightly raised lower lip. His gaze changes. It softens. It transforms into an expression bordering on the desperation of a hungry puppy.

"I haven't read anything." The words escape you with frustration.

You almost feel like crying. You're so tired, and you haven't slept. And who knows what time it is. And tomorrow you'll have another case, and to make matters worse, not only will you be tired, but Sam will be too, because you've already kept him awake. And you don't want to bother him.

And it's not fair, because all you want is to be able to sleep.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I just wanted to sleep. And I can't..." You bend your knees, resting your forehead on them. Your voice comes out muffled. "I can't sleep. And it's not the first day. And I'm so tired. So, so tired. And I'm sorry I bothered you, tomorrow we'll both be tired..."

"Stop."

Your mouth closes suddenly. You've never heard him speak to you like that. With authority. Something inside you jumps. You're about to raise your head to look at him again, to apologize again, when you feel the palms of his hands beneath you.

In a second you're in the air, leaning against his chest.

Too shocked to say a single word.

The sensation lasts barely a second, the time it takes Sam to lower your body onto his own on the sofa. You're lying across his lap, your upper body pressed against his chest.

You're too tense to notice him bend down to pick up the book you had on the floor.

"Slavic folklore, really?" Then his eyes are on you, with an almost amused smile. You feel the heat rise up your neck. You're going to open your mouth, this time for real, and say something. He pulls the blanket over the head of the sofa with his left hand and covers your legs. “I’ll make sure you sleep, but if you have nightmares about this…”

“It’s interesting.” You try to defend yourself, but it comes out as an excuse.

He has kept one hand on your bent knees. He gives it a squeeze. His other arm encircles you just enough so you can see him open the book with one hand.

“Get this… Samodivas lure men in the middle of the night, in the woods, to beguile and eat them.”

You already knew that, because like him, you also read a lot. But you’re barely aware of what he’s saying. A sweet, comforting warmth has enveloped you, as Sam’s voice remains steady and low.

He reassures you, reassures you enough so that you forget your heart had been racing two seconds ago. Calm you enough so that your head naturally ends up tilting against his chest. Enough so that his pine scent, his clean smell, makes you close your eyes. You're listening to him, and Sam knows it. He keeps reading as he feels your body giving up against his. His hand gently traces your leg, caressing you in circles.

As he turns the pages, with difficulty and thanks to his thumb, he notices how your breathing starts to deep in.

His does too, to such an extent that the book ends up slipping from his hand, and he has to make an effort to let it fall onto the table before it clatters. All of it without waking you up.

You've fallen asleep against his chest. The sensation it awakens in him is so profound that his body knows it's time to give in too. He's about to fall asleep too.

That's how Bobby will find you in the morning, and it won't be the only day. They will keep finding each other, at night. Too tired to talk about what is happening to them, but knowing that they both have been aware about how something is changed.

Bobby notices. And in the old hunter's gaze there will be something akin to nostalgia. To the vision of his wife, in what already seems like another life, lying in his arms on that same sofa.

Rocked, like you by Sam, into a sleep much sweeter than what reality allows you both.