Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:
1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!
2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.
3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)
I swear to fucking god. I would claw out OneDrive from my computer if I could. I would burn down their servers if I could. I would run down their stocks to the ground if I could. I hope every single one of their workers gets a better offer from a competitor in the next 24 hours. I hope every single one of their light bulbs explodes at the same time. I hope every single carton of milk in their fridge will always be expired.
Stop backing up my fucking files.
Stop asking me to back up my fucking files.
Stop taking my fucking files off my fucking computer.
I don't want a fucking reminder in three fucking days. Let me fucking say no.
Tumblr added a bunch of tracking shit to share urls, so now ill teach you how to get rid of them
if you copy a url by sharing on the website, the link will look like this
getting rid of tracking in these is easy, just delete everything after the question mark and you are golden
in the case for the app, its slightly more complicated
first you have to delete at. that appears before tumblr(.)com the other tracking shit on this one has a lot more info, so please, clean app urls. after the first set of numbers, there's a / you have to delete everything after it
Gentrification creates a stifling homogeneity in urban areas that makes it less suited for the everyday lives of the lower class and more suited towards the leisure and tourism of those with expendable income.
An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.
Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.
What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.
Imagine if someone totally renovated your house and turned it into a mini theme park - they took away your sleeping space, where you prepare food, where you clean yourself and get ready for your day, and replaced it with things that will please people who are visiting, who have their own homes they can go back to, who are here not for their entire life but just as a distraction from their otherwise mundane existence. It’s not that you hate theme parks, it’s not like you’ve never been to a theme park and vow to never visit one again. It’s just that you need to live! To survive! And the leisure of those who have more than you should not invalidate your existence.
I am glad this has made the rounds. Some people feel a dense misunderstanding or misinterpretation concerning gentrification, and I think it helps to hear a description/explanation of what gentrification is from those who are both affected by it and educated by the culture from which it hails. I and many others enjoy some of the delights of gentrification while simultaneously having their livelihoods threatened by it.
AN: I'll write more chapters if this does well! :D
Space is a vast, infinite vacuum of silence.
The worst silence you could ever hear. Much like how the stones in purgatory are maddeningly smooth.
Grace Ryland wasn't sure if he could take the hum of the Hail Mary's air filtration system much longer.
But that was before he met Rocky. The language barrier was an inconvenience at first but after successfully translating 156 words, it's been nothing but smooth sailing from there.
Now the air is light and full of laughter thanks to the aliens accidental humor. They spend their days monitoring astrophage, learning from each other and sharing stories from their homes.
Though Grace loves his new alien pal like a brother, there's something missing from his life.
Love,
Romance,
Passion.
All things he swore he hadn't needed on Earth. So why did he crave it now?
The day started like all the others before it. The sound of Rocky's geometric dome rumbling against the floor is the first thing Grace hears. It's faint, somewhere a few halls down, not enough to wake him up and definitely not as loud as-
"Unidentified spacecraft approaching."
Ryland jolts up from his bed, landing on his feet, fists clenched defensively.
"I'm up! What's happening?" Grace shouts, voice shaky with nerves.
"Unidentified spacecraft approaching." Mary repeats.
Grace grabs his glasses from the nightstand just as a frantic, clattering sound starts to get closer.
"Shit! They got in!"
The science teacher is unprepared, looking around for a weapon and coming up short.
He turns to the space under his bed. Not the most heroic thing to do but if it'd help him survive an alien invasion on his ship then he'd stick it out.
But it's too late.
Ryland lets out a shriek when Rocky turns the corner, skidding into the room.
"Oh! Rocky- Hey!" Grace tries to play of the girlish noise and if Rocky noticed, (he definitely did) he didn't say anything. Especially when there's a greater matter at hand.
Rocky spills out an onslaught of panicked chirps, the translator barely keeping up with how fast his notes are.
"Grace! Grace! Follow now, statement!" Rocky then takes off down the hall toward the lab capsule. Grace follows behind with alarmed questions of his own.
"What's going on? There's another ship?"
Rocky doesn't answer and instead speedily makes his way to the cupola window, pointing aggressively out into space.
And there it is. Giant. Unmistakable. Taking up the whole damn window.
"It's a planet." Grace folds his arms, shaking his head in disbelief. Perhaps Mary needs to be re-calibrated and Rocky needed a nap.
Just outside the window is a massive blue sphere. Grace almost mistakes it for Neptune had it not been for the bright, purple streak smeared across it's surface.
"Grace wearing glasses. How not see?" Rocky's plates shift in irritation as he turns to face Ryland.
"I can see just fine. Looks like a planet to me." Grace shifts on his feet, certain and ready to go back to bed.
He's usually not too keen on sleep but he's had a few all nighters monitoring astrophage and this was his crash time that Rocky was seriously cutting into.
"Closer, look! There!" Rocky points insistently on his dome.
Graces eyes squint as he steps closer to the window.
For a moment nothing happens. Just a blue ball floating in place. Nothing special.
And then he sees it. Small, but there- a ripple in the planets surface.
Then all at once it glazes over, becoming clear like a bubble as an iridescent, rainbow sheen settles over the exterior.
Grace flinches away in disbelief, looking over at Rocky incredulously. "What the hell is that?"
"Mary said twice. Is ship." Rocky's tone is monotone as if the answer was blatantly obvious.
"An alien ship?" Grace asks, shock still evident in his voice.
"Yes, alien. Though Rocky not know where it from. May be friendly."
"Friendly..?" His voice trails off, eyes squinting at the ship again. It did look sort of innocent, maybe Grace'll have another alien friend by the end of the day.
"It's doing something.. Wait- why is it getting closer?!" Grace watches, stance now defensive as he watches the orb advance.
"Could also be dangerous. We move ship." Rocky turns his body, bolting down the hall and swerving around the corner.
Grace is close behind, quickly overtaking Rocky with a sprint and running through the don't go crazy room before opening the cockpit door.
They immediately flood the room, rushing to move Mary out of the way.
Rocky shouts commands at Grace as he tries to keep up, buckling himself into the pilot seat.
The panels come to life, switching on and thrumming under Graces hesitant hands.
Mary's voice speaks clearly over Rocky's demands as the mission control center lights up. "Pilot detected."
"Right! Go right! Why Grace not listen!?" Rocky stomps a leg on the ground frustratedly.
If Ryland was being completely honest, he wasn't very confident in his abilities just yet. There'd been several practice runs with Rocky in the last few months but Grace still gets a bit shaky when he has to steer.
"Performance issues..?" He trails off uneasily.
Rocky turns to the ship window, the impending collision getting more dire with each second.
"Bad bad bad! Move now! Die! We die! Rocky, Grace die!" He slumps over in his ball, laying lifeless on the floor.
Grace rubs his hands together in an attempt to get rid of the nerves under his skin.
"Now or never." He lets out a quick exhale, grabbing the control stick and pushing it to the side a nudge.
"Good, good! More!" Rocky exclaims.
Ryland's hands are firm, gripped tight around the flight stick as he sends the Hail Mary hurling through space.
His eyes nervously flicker to the screen above him.
There was no way he hadn't lost them by now.
Grace watches the alien ship get smaller and smaller, until it completely disappears from the camera.
He drives a little further just to be sure before letting out a sigh of relief and turning to Rocky.
"Am I the best pilot or what?"
Rocky outstretches two legs to give Grace his famous thumbs up before turning to the window. He puts his hands on his head, suddenly panicked and stumbling around in his ball.
"What? What is it, Rock?" Ryland tenses, watching his alien friend suddenly lose his bearings.
"Grace, Rocky die! Ship back!" Rocky shouts, alarmed as Grace checks the window.
Low and behold, the sphere is back, now pulsing violently, rippling with a force powerful enough to rattle the ship.
"Rocky was right! Aggressive! Aggressive! Bad bad bad!"
Graces hands quickly come up to steer out of the way but it's too late, their ship is already completely engulfed.
Ryland doesn't even realize what's happened until after a blink, when there is no longer dark space outside, but pure blue.
His first instinct is to change into his suit, swiftly unbuckling his seat belt until he stands and realizes the temperature, gravity and atmosphere are still exactly the same.
He let's out another sigh of relief before looking over at Rocky who is staring at a wall.
Though Grace knew very well that he was looking through it.
Grace's stance squares, muscles spring loaded with nerves as he steps closer to Rocky. "What do you see?"
"Not sure. Odd shape. Grace and Rocky find out, question?" Rocky turns back toward Grace, legs wound up for a fight.
"Grace and Rocky find out, statement." Ryland grabs a coffee mug, ready to use it as a makeshift weapon if need be.
Grace opens the cockpit door, slowly peeking his head around the door frame.
"Which way do we go?" Grace whispers, careful not to alert anything unfriendly that might be on the ship.
"Crazy room." Rocky whispers back.
"It's called the don't go crazy room but sure." They very cautiously walk down the hall, stopping in front of the closed door.
Grace puts an ear to the surface, listening for anything besides the faint audio of the screens.
"Rocky can hear. Wobble shape very still." Rocky is still whispering, now rolling up beside Graces feet.
"What do you mean by 'wobble shape'?" Ryland's face twists in confusion and Rocky taps on a xenonite pane in response.
"Hard explain. Open door, be ready."
Grace nods, raising the mug high above his head. Taking a step forward, he sucks in a deep breath before pushing open the door.
The first thing Grace notices is a giant spill of viscous, translucent, pale blue liquid in the middle of the floor. The blob's surface suddenly jiggles up in surprise, gliding backwards quickly at the sight of the weapon.
Oh. So that's what 'wobble shape' meant.
"Is it..scared?" Grace asks, eyes squinting at the jello like substance.
"It look cautious..New friend!" Rocky's hands come up, rotating in the air happily as he rolls up to the blob.
"Woah woah! That thing could be dangerous!" But it's too late, as the blob has already grown two new appendages to poke at Rocky's ball.
"Danger! Danger!" Rocky mocks with a laugh before turning to Grace again. "Is humor."
The blobs head looks up at Grace, then the mug still clenched in his hand. Grace tenses and laughs nervously before setting it down on the ground.
"Hah..Safety precaution."
The blob suddenly loses interest and begins to circle Rocky, leaving not a single trail behind it.
Grace started to wonder what the thing even felt like.
No residue.. Was it a solid?
It behaved like water, but how much of it actually was? Maybe it felt like gelatin on the outside and water on the inside?
Would it be cold?
Stick to his hands?
What the hell is it even made of?
His thoughts are interrupted by a bright light in front of him. Grace completely misses the transformation though, now a little hurt by his carelessness.
"Wow! Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!" Rocky exclaims as Grace looks down to see a blue, perfect mirror image of Rocky- minus the ammonia filled cage.
The Rocky shaped blob extends it's legs, standing proudly as the real Rocky gives jazz hands of approval.
"That's- wow.. I guess you really are friendly." Grace smiles, the tension in his shoulders finally releasing.
The blob mimics Rocky's jazz hands, spinning in a circle happily.
"Name is Rocky. Human name is Grace." The Rock points, expecting full comprehension from the other alien.
Grace deadpans at the monotonous croak of his name in Eridian. He'd have to ask Rocky for a more melodic sounding nickname later.
While lost in thought, the alien lets out a high pitched chirp, tilting it's blue carapace to one side, a clear smile aimed at Grace.
Grace just can't wrap his head around how it just spoke a completely different alien language.
He had never heard another alien speak Eridian before, so this was new to him. The tones sounded clearer, a few octaves higher than Rocky's usual hello.
Is that because of the.. liquid it's made of?
Was it fluent in Eridian?
What's it's mother tongue?
How does it have the language down already?!
Ryland is is very obviously losing his mind, every scientific alarm in his head blaring louder than they did when he met Rocky.
It speaks Eridian! How!?
The blob looks up at Grace, clearly cluing in on his astounded facial expressions. It begins to circle him, using a back leg to poke at him.
Ryland tries not to flinch as he stares down at it's prodding hands.
The hard texture of it's rocky appendages shocks Ryland even further.
How?
It looked like water, behaved like a solid and it's viscosity changed when it became Rocky..
How the hell did that work?
After a moment, the jello takes a pace back as a pure white light flickers to life inside the sea of blue gel.
Graces eyes stay planted on the blob, being sure not to miss the process this time.
The liquid begins to aerate, filling with bubbles that calmly swirl around the intense glow.
The light spreads outward until Ryland has to shield his eyes with a squint.
From just behind the blinding light, Grace can see the jello squish and stretch tall.
No way! Was it going to get taller?
Ryland didn't think he could handle an alien so close in height to him. What if it was just as bossy as Rocky? That'd be a handful for sure.
A head begins to form, fluid hair growing out of their scalp and settling over their shoulders.
The shapes that were Rocky's legs now melt back into the mass before reforming into human arms and legs.
Grace's mouth widens in disbelief as the liquid splits into fingers that wiggle experimentally.
The light inside starts to flicker, sparkles akin to diamonds spreading across every inch inside of..her?
Grace can very faintly make out the soft curves of a woman as the light source has dimmed just a bit now.
The first streak of rainbow light glides across Graces eyes, stunning him for a moment before the room explodes into color.
Dazzling fragments of light spin around the room quickly, though for Grace it seems time has slowed down.
He stares in awe, watching two light sources suddenly split off from the glow in her chest.
Graces eyes follow, taking mental notes as they travel upward, becoming solid light and dimming as she closes her eyes.
She blinks furiously, hands coming up to rub at her eyes as the rainbow sheen on the walls slowly die out.
After recovering she looks up at Grace and makes an 'oh' with her mouth as if having an epiphany.
She looks through Ryland rather than at him, eyes scanning through something neither Grace or Rocky can see.
The light in her chest burns brighter as her eyes squint, scanning from left to right.
Grace goes to speak but is interrupted by a flare of light flashing in his eyes. He turns away in slight pain, using his index finger and thumb to soothe it.
Her and Rocky flinch back at the same time, worried for Grace as they both immediately move to stand before him.
"Grace okay!? Question! Answer! Answer!" Rocky exclaims, bouncing around in his ball anxiously.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." He assures, standing up from his pained slouch.
"I'm so sorry! I was trying to find the human word for my name and I wasn't paying attention-"
i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.
so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.
hey this is apparently helping a lot of people! adding that on top of this you can also go to settings > personalization > colors and turn off transparency to also boost performance. this wasn't the Big Fix for me but might as well do that too if you're trying to optimize.
Ok I know we joke about this but I just went to the settings and first clicked "adjust for best performance" and then re-checked only 1 box:
"Smooth edges of screen fonts"
My computer was running hot before I turned everything off; the office I'm in is very warm, I could feel the heat of my CPU through the keyboard. The fans were going, not as loud as they usually get, but they were still blasting.
Y'all.
I can barely feel the warmth through the keyboard now. It's been like 2 minutes. The fan is nearly silent.
Click the Windows key and start typing "System settings", and "View Advanced system settings" will pop up. Then click "Settings" under Performance:
Then you'll see this:
TURN IT ALL OFF.
I turned "Show window contents while dragging" and then turned that off again. It's up to you.
The second best thing you can do for a Win10 computer is turn off whatever unnecessary services it's decided it needs to run in the background always. Some services it does need, but others are useless. Here's an article that goes into step by steps.
10AppsManager lets you uninstall bloatware. Winaero Tweaker lets you disable crap like Cortana/Copilot, ads, telemetry, internet search results when you search from the taskbar, and all kinds of other stuff, plus it gives you lots of other little options that are just nice to have (like, it can restore the old MS Paint program in place of Paint 3D). Both are totally free.
Oh, and check your startup programs in the Task Manager tab to make sure your computer isn't automatically starting eight million programs every time it boots. But I think people mostly know about that. (Unless this is me going "they only know one or two feldspars... and quartz of course.")
The first best thing you can do for a Windows computer is install Linux Mint. But some of us do need a few pesky Windows-specific programs. Bleh. Still, if you're up for a project, you can have both (and it's awesome). Here's an article about setting up a dual boot Windows/Mint system.
Summary: Welcoming your first child had softened the harder edges of what was once a hunter life. Though Dean hadn't expected it to soften everything.
Warnings: Smut 18+, new parents, body image insecurities, lot's of fluff, Dad!Dean, soft!Dean.
Word Count: 7.8k
A/N: So i finally dusted off the old writers brain. This one's Based on this Request, and can be read as a standalone or sequel to Burning for you. I hope I've done it justice for you Anon, as I may have got a little carried away. But see it as an apology for the horrendous wait 😅🫶🏻
Masterlist
The bunker had never exactly been quiet.
Not really.
Even before your daughter, silence had always been a temporary thing. There had always been the hum of ancient pipes in the walls, the low buzz of the lights, the distant rumble of music from the garage, the clink of beer bottles, the scrape of chairs, the soft click of weapons being cleaned before a hunt.
The bunker had always been alive in its own strange, underground way.
But now?
Now it had become a warzone of rattles, burp cloths, half-empty bottles, tiny socks that vanished into other dimensions, pastel blankets thrown over the backs of chairs, and one very small human being with lungs powerful enough to wake the dead.
Your daughter was nine months old now, and somehow that felt both impossible and painfully obvious.
Impossible because it felt like you had only blinked since the day Dean had held her for the first time, his whole body trembling, eyes glassy and his face crumpled into something raw and awed as he stared at a part of him and you compacted into one tiny, perfect, human.
Painfully obvious because you could not remember the last time you had slept more than four consecutive hours since before you left hunting.
'Mom life' was well and truly underway.
It wasn’t soft-focus montages and glowing skin and peaceful mornings the way people liked to pretend in the movies. It was spit-up on the shoulder of your favourite shirt. It was crying at three in the morning because she was crying and you were exhausted and Dean was exhausted, and neither of you knew what else to try.
It was changing a diaper, only for her to immediately poop again with a look on her tiny face that felt almost smug. She was becoming her father’s double.
It was trying to shower while she shrieked from her bouncer outside the bathroom door because she had to be near you, Dean crouched in front of her, shaking her favourite stuffed bee like his life depended on it.
It was cold coffee. Burnt toast. Laundry you forgot in the washer for two days. Eating cereal out of a mug because all the bowls were dirty and neither of you had the energy to unload the dishwasher.
It was Dean standing in the kitchen at midnight, shirt rumpled, hair sticking up in all directions, bouncing your daughter against his chest while he warmed a bottle and mumbled, “I know, sweetheart. I know. Life’s hard when you’re tiny and unemployed.”
It was you crying because you felt like you were doing everything wrong, and Dean folding you into his arms before you could spiral too far, pressing his mouth to your temple and murmuring, “Hey. No. Don’t do that to yourself. She’s loved. She’s fed. She’s safe. That’s us doing it right.”
It was Dean, too tired to be charming and somehow more beautiful for it, lying beside you in bed with the baby asleep on his chest, one big hand cupped protectively over her back.
He had been amazing.
Not perfect. Neither of you had been perfect. There were snappy moments, stupid arguments over sterilised bottles and whose turn it was to sleep and whether Dean had actually restocked the wipes like he said he had.
But he was there.
Every day.
Every night.
There was no running off, no hunt to disappear into, no case to bury the fear beneath. Just Dean Winchester in the trenches of fatherhood, learning bottle temperatures and lullabies and which ridiculous face made your daughter giggle so hard she got hiccups.
He loved her with a devotion that almost hurt to witness.
And he loved you through every messy, fragile, overwhelmed version of yourself.
Which was why it took you a while to notice that somewhere along the way, Dean had stopped letting you love him back quite as freely.
At first, you blamed exhaustion.
It was easy to miss things when you barely knew what day it was.
You didn’t think much of it when he started changing quickly with his back to you, tugging his shirt off and replacing it with another before you’d even looked up from folding baby clothes.
You didn’t think much of it when he stopped walking around the room in just his boxers the way he always used to, shameless and sleep-warm and scratching lazily at his stomach.
You didn’t think much of it when he stopped pulling you into the shower with him on the rare mornings your daughter slept longer than expected.
Everything had changed. Of course some things felt different.
Your body had changed too. Your life had changed. Your routines were nonexistent. The two of you had gone from hunters with weapons hidden under motel mattresses to parents who could have a full-blown debate about which brand of nappy leaked less overnight.
Neither of you hunted anymore.
Not properly.
Not like before.
There were still phone calls. Research favours. The occasional weapon consult. Dean still helped younger hunters from the safety of the bunker, his voice gruff and confident over speakerphone while he paced with the baby strapped to his chest in a carrier.
But the running? The fighting? The adrenaline and motel coffee and gas station dinners eaten in the front seat of the Impala?
That life was gone.
And with it went the constant movement that had kept both of you lean and wired and running on fumes.
Now, meals were whatever was easiest. Frozen pizzas. Takeout. Leftover pasta eaten standing at the counter. Pie because, well, it's Dean and it's pie. Burgers because neither of you had the brain capacity to cook. Coffee because water felt too responsible.
Self-care had gone out the window somewhere around the first month, right alongside regular sleep, matching socks, and your ability to watch a movie without pausing it six times because you thought you heard your daughter cry.
So no, you didn’t notice at first.
Not until one evening when Dean thought you were asleep.
Your daughter had finally gone down after an hour of fighting it like sleep was an enemy combatant. You had collapsed into bed with your arm flung over your eyes, body heavy with that bone-deep tiredness that had become familiar.
Dean had gone to brush his teeth at the little sink nestled in the corner of the room. The layout of this place still baffled you.
You opened your eyes only because you heard him sigh.
Not the usual tired sigh. Not the dramatic huff he gave when your daughter threw her spoon on the floor for the fourth time.
This was quieter. Heavier.
You turned your head slightly and peered beneath your arm, you could see him standing in front of the mirror with his shirt lifted.
At first, your sleepy brain simply registered him.
Broad shoulders. Freckled skin. Bowed head. One hand braced on the sink, the other resting over his stomach.
Then your chest tightened.
Because his face wasn’t soft. It wasn’t tired in the usual way.
It was critical.
Sharp with something that looked far too much like shame.
He turned slightly to the side, looking at himself from another angle, his mouth pressing into a thin line. His hand moved over his middle, fingers sinking slightly into the softness there, and he exhaled through his nose like he was disappointed.
Your heart gave a painful little twist.
Dean had gained weight. Not drastically. Not in a way that made him any less Dean.
But his body had softened.
The hard lines carved from years of hunting had blurred at the edges. His stomach had a gentle curve now, a little belly that sat above the waistband of his sweatpants. His hips were softer. His waist had thickened. The muscle was still there in his arms, his shoulders, his thighs, but there was more give to him now. More warmth.
A 'dad bod'. Some would say.
But it was a body that had stayed home. A body that had rocked a crying baby at three in the morning. A body that had eaten whatever was fast because you needed him more than the gym did. A body that had finally stopped running long enough to be lived in.
You loved it.
God, you loved it.
But Dean clearly didn’t.
You watched him drop his shirt quickly, like even he couldn’t stand looking anymore. Then he leaned both hands on the sink and lowered his head.
And you knew.
You knew that look. You knew what it meant when Dean turned something inward and let it cut him quietly where no one else could see.
So you said nothing that night.
You waited.
Not because you wanted him to suffer, but because Dean Winchester could be skittish with vulnerability. Push too hard, too fast, and he’d deflect, make some crude joke, or kiss you until you forgot the question.
You noticed the way he avoided your hands when they drifted under his shirt. The way he shifted away with a joke when you tried to curl against his side in bed. The way he reached for hoodies more often. The way his smile went tight when one of his old shirts clung a little more than it used to.
And slowly, an idea formed.
It started with Sam and Eileen.
More specifically, it started with Eileen watching you nearly pour orange juice into your coffee mug while your daughter babbled happily from her high chair, tiny fists smearing mashed banana across the tray.
Eileen arched a brow. Sam, sitting beside her, looked between you and Dean with the cautious expression of a man assessing a live grenade.
“You two need a break,” he said.
Dean snorted from where he stood at the stove, flipping pancakes with one hand while your daughter’s spoon sat tucked behind his ear for reasons none of you had questioned anymore.
“We’re fine.”
You stared blankly at the orange juice carton in your hand, then down at your coffee.
Eileen signed something sharply and Dean glanced over.
“Hey, I caught that.”
“She said you look like the before picture in a mattress commercial.” Sam translated, far too amused.
You laughed before you could stop yourself, and Dean’s offended look lasted all of two seconds before your daughter squealed from her chair.
His face melted instantly.
“Yeah, I know,” he cooed, turning back to her. “Everyone’s mean to Daddy.”
Daddy.
The word still did something to you.
And not just because it was sweet.
Though it was. God, it was. There was something almost unbearable about hearing Dean call himself that, about watching the word settle into him more naturally every day, like fatherhood had found some hidden room inside him and filled it with light.
But it wasn’t only tenderness that pulled low in your stomach when you looked at him now.
It was the way he had eased into the role without ever really noticing he was doing it.
The way those hands — scarred, broad, steady from years of handling guns, knives, lock picks, and every weapon under the sun — had somehow become impossibly gentle around your daughter. Those same dexterous fingers that could take apart a shotgun blindfolded now tested bottle temperatures against the inside of his wrist, adjusted tiny sock cuffs, fastened poppers on sleep suits, and swept wisps of hair from her forehead with a care that made your chest ache.
It was the way his body had learned her. Her weight. Her moods. Her little tired sounds. The exact bounce that soothed her when she was fussy. The low rumble of his voice when he hummed Zeppelin under his breath because apparently your baby girl had inherited his taste in music before she could even talk.
It was the fierce protectiveness too.
That thing in him that had always been sharp, always been dangerous, but had changed shape the moment she came into the world. Dean had always protected the people he loved, but this was different. This was quieter until it wasn’t. This was him checking the locks twice without making a show of it. Standing between her stroller and a stranger who got a little too close in town. Sleeping lighter than he ever had on hunts, waking at the smallest sound from the crib.
It was the look in his eyes when he held her.
Like the world could burn itself down outside the bunker doors and he would still be there, one arm around his baby girl, daring anything in creation to try and take her from him.
That should have made you soft.
And it did. It made you ache with love for him.
But it also made him hotter than he had any right to be.
Dean, exhausted and rumpled, with banana on his shirt and your daughter’s spoon tucked behind his ear, calling himself Daddy in that rough, casual voice like he had no idea what it did to you.
Like he didn’t know the sight of him settling into fatherhood, strong hands gone gentle, battle instincts turned domestic, all that fierce Winchester devotion focused on one tiny girl, made heat bloom low in your belly even when you were sleep-deprived, unwashed, and currently holding orange juice over your coffee like your brain had left the building.
Maybe especially then.
Because this was Dean in a way you’d never had him before.
Not the hunter.
Not the soldier.
Not the man who had spent his whole life ready to die for everyone else.
This was Dean as a father.
And God help you, it made you want him all over again.
Sam cleared his throat, snapping you violently back to the kitchen, where you were still standing there with the orange juice carton hovering over your mug and, apparently, a very inappropriate expression on your face.
You quickly set the carton down.
“Seriously. Eileen and I can take for the night.” Sam continued.
You looked up too quickly. “A whole night?”
Eileen smiled at you and nodded. “You need it,” she said aloud, then signed, “Both of you.”
Dean opened his mouth, probably to argue, but you saw the hesitation.
Not because either of you thought Sam and Eileen were incapable. They always helped when they could.
And God, did they help.
When they were home, they would take your daughter so you could shower without hallucinating from exhaustion and Dean could do the much needed nappy run.
Eileen could calm your daughter with a patience that made you want to cry. She even cooked for you sometimes. Ran laundry, whilst Sam watched over the baby to let you and Dean nap for an hour like two corpses in a bed.
But they weren’t always here.
They had their own lives now too.
That had been the whole point of getting out, hadn’t it? Not just for you and Dean, but for all of you. Sam and Eileen had spent enough years chained to apocalypses and demon deals and whatever fresh horror crawled out of the dark. They deserved road trips that didn’t end in grave desecration. They deserved lazy weekends, hotel rooms without fake FBI badges, little towns they passed through because they wanted to and not because something was eating people.
So sometimes they travelled.
Sometimes they were gone for a week. Sometimes two. Sometimes they checked in with photos from some scenic overlook or roadside diner, and you were happy for them, genuinely, painfully happy, while standing in the bunker kitchen at two in the morning with dried spit-up on your shirt and a baby who had decided sleep was a personal insult.
But beneath the hesitation, there was something else.
A flicker of longing.
Not for freedom from your daughter. Never that.
Just for one night where the two of you could remember you were still people. Still lovers. Still Dean and you beneath the titles Mom and Dad.
One uninterrupted night.
Your hand found Dean’s lower back as you stepped beside him at the stove, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt. “Maybe we do,” you said softly.
Dean looked down at you. And for a moment, his expression was unreadable.
Then he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, voice quieter. “Okay.”
So you planned it.
Not a huge thing. Not some extravagant, impossible evening. You knew better than to aim for perfection now.
A little Italian restaurant in town. The one with warm yellow lights in the windows, red-checkered tablecloths, and bread baskets that smelled like garlic and heaven.
Then a hotel.
A nice one.
Not a motel with questionable stains and a vending machine that only sold off-brand chips. A proper hotel with clean sheets, thick curtains, a bathtub big enough for two, and a bed neither of you had to share with a baby monitor, laundry pile, or half-assembled crib toy.
You didn’t tell Dean about the hotel.
That part was a surprise.
By the time the evening rolled round, leaving your daughter felt both thrilling and devastating.
She was perfectly fine, you told yourself. Better than fine, actually.
She was sitting on Sam’s hip, one tiny hand fisted in his hair while Dean ran through the 'must haves' check list. Miracle hovered nearby like a furry bodyguard, tail wagging with great seriousness.
“You remember where the extra diapers are?”
Sam gave him a flat look. “Yes.”
“The teething gel?”
“Yes.”
“The little purple blanket, not the pink one, because she knows the difference.”
“Dean.”
“And if she does the cough thing after her bottle, don’t panic, just sit her up and pat her back—”
“Dean.”
He stopped.
Sam’s expression softened. “We’ve got her.”
You kissed your daughter’s warm cheek, breathing in the clean, powdery sweetness of her skin until your chest ached. “Be good, okay?”
Dean looked down, swallowing around something.
Your daughter chose that moment to slap both hands against Sam’s cheeks and babble loudly.
Dean laughed, but it came out thick.
He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “No parties. No boys. No summoning demons. And if Uncle Sammy tries to give you kale as a snack, you scream until he gives you something better.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Get out.”
Eileen gave you a knowing smirk and signed, “Go have some fun.”
And then Dean’s hand slipped into yours. Warm. Familiar. Steady. And for the first time in months, the two of you walked out of the bunker without a diaper bag, without spit-up on your shoulder, without listening for a cry that wasn’t coming.
The outside air felt strange.
Too open.
Too quiet.
Dean drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on your thigh, thumb moving absently over your bare thigh.
You had worn a dress.
An actual dress.
Not leggings. Not one of Dean’s old shirts. Not something chosen based on how easily it could survive bodily fluids.
A dress.
Soft, dark, flattering in a way that made you feel like yourself and not just a half-feral creature living on coffee and lullabies.
Dean had stared when you came out of the bedroom. His eyes had dragged over you slowly, his mouth parting just slightly before he caught himself and cleared his throat.
“You look…” His voice had gone rough. “Damn, sweetheart.”
That alone had made the whole night worth it.
But at the restaurant, under the warm glow of hanging lights, with Dean sitting across from you in a dark button-down that stretched beautifully over his shoulders and arms, you realised how badly you had missed him.
Not Dad Dean.
Not the man passing you wipes at two in the morning while your daughter screamed the roof down.
Just the man who still looked at you like you were trouble and home all at once.
He also ate like he hadn’t had a real meal in months, which was probably accurate. He groaned around the first bite of lasagne, eyes rolling back dramatically enough that you kicked him under the table.
“Careful,” you teased, trying not to laugh as Dean closed his eyes around another bite like he was having a religious experience. “People are watching.”
“Let ’em,” he mumbled, absolutely shameless as he dragged another piece of garlic bread through the sauce. “I’d marry this lasagna.”
You arched a brow. “Wow. Good to know where I stand.”
Dean glanced up, caught the challenge in your expression, and smirked around his fork. “Baby, you’re in a whole different category.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah.” He leaned back, looking far too pleased with himself. “Lasagna gets one evening of my undivided attention. You got the rest of my life. Also my car keys,” he added. “And the good side of the bed. Which, honestly, is huge for me.”
You laughed incredulously. “I had your child.”
“And I gave you the good side of the bed for most of the third trimester,” he shot back, pointing his fork at you like that settled everything. “Some would say we’re even.”
You sat back in your seat, folded your arms and mockingly scowled.
He held your gaze for all of two seconds before his grin cracked wide.
"C'mon, i'm kidding. We both know you've got me wrapped around your little finger." He huffed and shook his head like that bothered him.
You hummed and conceded with a cheeky smile on your lips. “Smart answer.”
"Still might give the lasagne a second date, though.” He mumbled around another bite.
“Dean!” You smacked his arm in jest.
“What? It’s got layers. I respect that in a partner.”
You laughed then, unable to help it, and his grin widened like that had been the whole point.
For a while, it was easy.
You talked about nothing and everything. Your daughter’s new habit of growling at mashed peas. Sam’s tragic attempt at assembling a baby walker last week. Eileen teaching her signs already, even though most of them currently looked like enthusiastic flailing.
Dean told you about a young hunter who had called him for advice on a ghoul case, and how weird it felt to be the guy on the phone instead of the one digging up graves.
“You miss it?” you asked quietly.
He leaned back in his chair, fingers around his glass of soda, thumb tracing the condensation.
“Hunting?” He thought about it. “Sometimes. In little pieces. The road. The music. The…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Feeling useful, maybe.”
Your heart pinched. “You are useful.”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah, I know. Diaper genie ain’t gonna empty itself.”
“Dean.”
He looked at you then.
Really looked.
You reached across the table, palm up. After a second, he placed his hand in yours.
“You are the reason I survived those first few months,” you said softly. “You know that, right?”
His jaw shifted.
You squeezed his hand. “You took care of me. You took care of her. You still do.”
He looked down at your joined hands, his thumb moving back and forth over your knuckles.
“Just feels like…” He stopped, huffed a humourless little laugh, and shook his head. “Never mind.”
“No. Tell me.”
“Nah.”
“Dean.”
His eyes flicked up. There was a warning in them, but not an angry one. A frightened one.
You softened. “Baby.”
His shoulders dropped slightly and he looked away, toward the window where the streetlights reflected against the glass.
“Just feels like I don’t recognise myself sometimes,” he admitted, so quietly you almost missed it. “Used to be able to take a beating from a vamp and still run three miles if I had to. Now I get winded carrying the car seat up the stairs.”
You said nothing, letting him find the rest.
His mouth tightened.
“And I know it’s stupid. I know I’m not twenty-five anymore. I know things are different.” He gave a rough little shrug. “But I saw myself in the mirror the other night and just thought… hell. When did that happen?”
Your throat tightened.
He still wouldn’t look at you.
“I let myself go,” he muttered.
“No,” you said immediately.
He let out a breath. “Sweetheart—”
“No.” Your voice was firmer this time. “You didn’t let yourself go. You stayed.”
That made him look at you.
You swallowed, emotion pressing hard against your ribs. “You stayed with me. With her. You stopped running yourself into the ground chasing monsters and started building a life. That body you’re so busy judging? That’s the body that carried our daughter around the kitchen for hours because she wouldn’t sleep unless she heard your heartbeat.”
Dean’s face shifted.
You kept going because now that you had started, you couldn’t stop.
“That’s the body that slept on the floor beside the crib every night when she had colic. That’s the body that wrapped around me every time I thought I was failing.”
His eyes had gone glassy, though he blinked quickly, trying to hide it.
You squeezed his hand again.
“I love your body,” you said. “Every version of it. But this one?” Your gaze dropped briefly, deliberately, over his chest, his stomach, the breadth of him. “This one is my favourite.”
Dean stared at you like he didn’t know what to do with that.
So, naturally, he deflected.
“Yeah?” he asked, voice rough, one brow lifting. “You into the dad bod now?”
You smiled slowly.
“Oh, Baby,” you said, letting your thumb drag over his knuckles. “You have no idea.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
Heat, yes. But uncertainty too.
You wanted to kiss it away. Wanted to take him apart slowly enough that he had no room left to doubt you.
Luckily, you had a hotel room waiting.
When dinner ended, Dean reached for the keys out of habit, and you plucked them from his hand.
“Uh, you planning on stealing my car?”
“Maybe.” You shrugged coyly, walking around to the drivers side.
His eyes narrowed. “Wait. Where are we going?”
You only smiled and gave him a wink before you slid into the divers seat.
The room was beautiful.
Not extravagant, but warm and clean, with soft lamps, thick curtains, a king-sized bed, and a bathroom with white tile and a deep tub that made you immediately think of Dean’s sore shoulders and your own aching feet.
He set the overnight bag, you'd secretly packed, down near the dresser, glancing around with a low whistle.
“Damn. We’ve come a long way from mouldy carpets and vibrating beds.”
You hummed, stepping behind him. “Kind of nostalgic, though.”
Dean snorted. “For the vibrating beds?”
“For motel rooms. Road trips. You trying to seduce me while Sam was ten feet away pretending not to hear.”
His grin flashed, but faded slightly when your hands slid around his waist.
You felt it. The way his stomach tensed beneath your palms. The way he inhaled and held it.
Your heart squeezed. You pressed your cheek between his shoulder blades and held him gently.
“Don’t do that,” you whispered.
“Do what?”
“Brace like I’m about to be disappointed.”
His breath left him in a slow, uneven stream.
You kissed the back of his shirt.
“I’m not.”
Dean’s hands covered yours where they rested over his middle, but he didn’t pull them away. You kissed his spine through the fabric, then his shoulder blade, then stepped around to face him.
His eyes were darker now. Guarded, but wanting.
You reached for the buttons of his shirt. “Can I?”
For a second, he looked almost startled by the question.
Then his face softened.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah, baby.”
You undid them slowly. One by one.
The room seemed to quiet around you, the distant sound of traffic muffled by the windows, the warm lamplight turning his skin golden as each inch of him was revealed.
Freckles. Scars. Softness. Strength.
Dean watched your face like he was searching for the moment your expression would change.
It didn’t.
If anything, you felt yourself ache more. By the time his shirt hung open, your mouth had gone dry.
His chest was still broad, dusted with freckles, solid beneath your palms when you pushed the fabric from his shoulders. His arms were still strong, still capable of making you feel weightless when he wrapped them around you. But beneath the familiar planes was that new softness you loved so much — the gentle curve of his stomach, the slight give at his waist, the warmth of a body no longer sharpened by survival alone.
You touched him there first.
Dean’s eyes fluttered. Just enough to betray him.
You flattened your palms over his chest and slid them down his abdomen slowly.
“You’re beautiful,” you whispered.
He huffed, but it came out broken. “That’s my line.”
“Not tonight.”
His hands flexed at his sides as you leaned in and kissed his chest. Once. Twice. Then lower.
Dean sucked in a breath when your lips brushed the soft swell of his stomach.
“Sweetheart…”
You looked up at him. His face was flushed. Vulnerable, but hungry.
You kissed him again, right there, and felt him shudder.
“I love this,” you murmured against his skin. “I love touching you.”
His hand came up, fingers threading into your hair as he gently urged you to stand.
For a second, he looked like he might crack wide open.
Then he kissed you.
And it was not gentle.
It was desperate, bruising, full of months of exhaustion and restraint and all the things he had been too afraid to ask for. His hands gripped your face, your waist, your hips, like he couldn’t decide where he needed you most. You moaned into his mouth, and the sound seemed to snap something in him.
He backed you toward the bed, but you stopped him with a hand on his chest.
His brows pulled together. “You okay?”
You smiled coyly and then you pushed him.
Dean landed on the mattress with a soft grunt, eyes widening as you climbed over him.
“Oh,” he said, voice dropping. “Okay.”
You straddled his thighs, smoothing your hands up his stomach and chest, watching the way his breath hitched under your touch.
“You spent months making me feel like I was the sexiest woman alive when I was pregnant,” you said, leaning down to kiss his jaw. “When I was swollen and tired and crying because my ankles looked weird.”
His lips twitched. “They did look kinda weird.”
You bit his earlobe and he groaned.
“You worshipped every inch of me,” you continued, dragging your mouth down his throat. “You made me feel wanted every single day.”
“You were wanted every single day.”
“So are you.”
Dean went still beneath you and you lifted your head and looked at him.
“So are you,” you repeated. “Every inch of you.”
His hands settled on your thighs, thumbs stroking over the fabric of your dress as you kissed down his neck. Then his chest. His stomach. The soft skin above his waistband.
Dean’s head tipped back, his throat working as you took your time with him, letting your hands roam everywhere he had tried to hide. You kissed every scar, every freckle, every place his body had changed. You worshipped him with the same reverence he had given you.
By the time you reached his belt, his breathing was ragged.
“Baby,” he rasped, hand tightening in your hair. “You keep doing that and this night’s gonna get real short.”
You smiled against his skin. “Good thing we’ve got all night then.”
He let out a wrecked little laugh that turned into a groan when you opened his belt.
There was nothing hurried about it. That was the best part.
No baby crying from the next room. No monitor crackling. No whispered, frantic, half-dressed moment stolen between naps and laundry.
Just time.
You took your time undressing him, and you made him watch you love it.
His jeans came off first, pushed down his thighs with deliberate care, your palms dragging over warm skin, over muscle still there beneath the softness, over the body that had carried so much for so long. His hands trembled slightly when he reached for the hem of your dress, and you lifted your arms, letting him pull it over your head.
The look on his face when he saw you nearly made your knees weak.
Not because you felt flawless. You didn’t.
Your body had changed too. Your stomach was softer. Your hips were wider. There were stretch marks on your skin now, faint silver lines that caught in the lamplight. Your breasts were different. You were different.
But Dean looked at you like you were holy.
“God,” he breathed.
You smiled, heart aching. “Still?”
His eyes snapped to yours, fierce and immediate. “Always.”
Then his hands were on you, warm and reverent, pulling you down against him. The feeling of him beneath you punched the air from your lungs.
Warm. Solid. Soft where you wanted him soft, strong where you needed him strong. His skin pressed against yours, his thighs thick beneath you, his arms firm around your back as his fingers found the clasp of your bra.
It came undone with a practiced flick and you let it fall away, tossing it blindly to the side.
The way he looked at you made heat bloom low in your belly — not just hunger, though there was plenty of that, but wonder. Pure, open wonder, like he still couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to have you like this.
And then you leaned back down and kissed him slowly this time. Deeply. Letting the hunger simmer instead of burn too fast.
Dean groaned into your mouth when you rolled your hips, the warmth of your core running against his length, his hands gripping your waist hard enough to make you gasp.
“Missed you,” he murmured, lips dragging along your jaw. “Missed this.”
Your eyes fluttered. “Me too.”
“Not the quick stuff,” he said, mouth finding the sensitive place beneath your ear. “Not the ‘baby’s asleep, hurry up’ stuff.”
A breathless laugh slipped out of you. “That stuff has its place.”
“Hell yeah, it does.” His teeth grazed your throat, and you felt his smile against your skin. “But this…”
His hands slid down your back, over your ass, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you. When he looked up at you, his pupils were blown wide, lips parted, face flushed and open in a way that made your pulse stumble.
“This is better.”
You kissed him again, then shifted lower.
His breath caught as your hand slipped between your bodies, fingers brushing over the waistband of his boxers before you tugged them down. Dean lifted his hips to help you, impatient even now, kicking them off one foot with a clumsy little movement that would’ve made you laugh if your hand hadn’t closed around him a second later.
“Fuck,” he hissed, head falling back against the pillows.
You stroked him slowly, watching pleasure soften his face, watching the insecurity loosen its claws inch by inch. His mouth fell open. His brow furrowed. That harsh, critical tension you’d seen in him earlier began to melt beneath your touch.
“You like me touching you?” you whispered.
His laugh was breathless and ruined. “That a real question?”
You tightened your hand slightly and his mouth fell open.
“Words, Winchester.”
His eyes flashed up to yours, dark and heated.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah, sweetheart. I love you touching me.”
You leaned down, brushing your lips over his. “Good.”
When you finally sank down onto him, both of you went silent.
It had been so long since you’d done this without rushing. So long since you’d had the space to feel every inch, every stretch, every breath. So long since your bodies had been allowed to take their time remembering each other.
Dean’s hands flew to your hips, not forcing, just anchoring. His face twisted with pleasure as you took him slowly, inch by inch, letting yourself adjust, letting him feel how much you wanted every bit of him.
“Oh my God,” you whispered, forehead dropping to his.
His voice was rough against your mouth. “You okay?”
You nodded, breath shaking. “More than okay.”
He kissed you then, swallowing your soft moan as you settled fully against him.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
You just stayed there, joined and breathing, your body wrapped around his while his hands stroked up and down your back like he was trying to memorise this version of you too.
Then you moved. Slowly at first. A gentle roll of your hips that made his grip tighten.
Dean groaned, low and deep, the sound vibrating through his chest and into yours. His stomach pressed soft and warm against you every time you moved, and the intimacy of it made you dizzy. There was no distance. No hiding. No sharp edges.
Just him.
All of him.
You braced your hands on his chest and rode him with slow, deliberate movements, watching him unravel beneath you. The pleasure built in layers — the stretch of him inside you, the drag of your body against his, the heat of his hands, the broken way he looked at you like you were taking him apart and putting him back together all at once.
His eyes moved over your face. Your body. Then lower, to where you were joined, and his jaw clenched hard.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “Look at you.”
You smiled, breathless. “Look at you.”
That made his cheeks flush darker and you leaned down, pressing kisses along his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.
“You’re so fucking hot,” you whispered, breath ragged.
He made a strained sound, half protest, half pleasure.
“You are,” you insisted, moving a little harder now, enough to make both of you gasp. “You’re gorgeous. Sexy. Mine.”
His eyes darkened at that. “Yours?” he growled.
You clenched around him deliberately and Dean cursed, both hands grabbing your hips, holding on rather than guiding.
The pace changed then. Not rushed, exactly, but deeper. Needier.
Dean sat up suddenly, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you flush against him. The change in angle made you cry out, your fingers digging into his shoulders as he held you close and thrust up into you.
There was something overwhelming about it.
His softness. His strength. His mouth at your neck, your collarbone, your breast. His hands everywhere, greedy now, confident again because you had given that back to him.
“Feel so good,” he groaned against your skin. “God, I love you. Love you so damn much.”
You held his face and kissed him hard.
“I love you too.”
His forehead pressed to yours, both of you breathing raggedly into the little space between your mouths.
The pleasure built slowly, then all at once. A deep, rolling heat low in your belly. The kind you hadn’t had time for in months. The kind that came from being touched everywhere, wanted everywhere, known everywhere.
Dean knew it too. He always did.
“That’s it,” he murmured, voice rough and coaxing as one hand slid between your bodies. His fingers found your clit, circling with steady, practiced pressure that made your thighs tremble around him. “I’ve got you. Come on, sweetheart. Let me feel you.”
You whimpered his name, and his mouth found yours just as you broke, swallowing the sound as pleasure spilled through you in hot, shaking waves. You clung to him through it, body fluttering around his, every nerve lit up and trembling.
Dean followed seconds later, his whole body going tense beneath you, arms locking around your waist as he groaned into your shoulder and spilled his seed deep inside you.
For a long moment, there was nothing but breath. The soft tick of the hotel clock. The distant hush of traffic beyond the window. The warm press of his body under yours.
Your body melted against his, boneless and trembling, and Dean held you like he had no intention of ever letting go.
Eventually, he fell back against the pillows, taking you with him and you landed on his chest with a breathless laugh.
He chuckled too, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head while the other rested heavily on your lower back.
For a while, neither of you spoke. Then Dean, because he was Dean, said, “So… just to clarify…”
You hummed sleepily into his chest, too warm and satisfied to lift your head properly. His fingers traced lazy circles over your spine.
“You’re officially pro dad bod?”
You lifted your head then, and looked at him incredulously.
His smile was teasing, but his eyes were softer. Still a little uncertain. Still needing the answer and your heart twisted.
So you shifted down his body, pressing a kiss to his chest, then his stomach and Dean’s breath caught.
You rested your cheek there, over the soft warmth of him, and wrapped your arms around his waist.
“I’m pro you,” you said. “Always.”
His hand stilled in your hair and when you looked up, his eyes were glazed.
He tried to hide it with a smile, but you crawled back up and kissed him gently, softer now, all tenderness and afterglow.
Dean cupped your face, thumb brushing your cheek.
“Guess I needed that,” he admitted quietly.
“I know.”
He kissed you again, slow and grateful. Relishing in the reconnection of something he thought might never be the same again.
Later, you would take a bath together in the deep hotel tub, Dean wedged behind you with his knees bent awkwardly because he was still too broad for luxury plumbing.
You would laugh, sinking back against him while the warm water lapped at your skin and steam fogged the mirror. His arms would wrap around you from behind, hands gliding over your body beneath the water, soaping up your skin with a lazy kind of devotion that made your eyes flutter closed.
For a while, it would stay soft. His mouth at your temple. Your fingers trailing along his forearm. His chest warm against your back.
Then his hand would drift lower.
Because he could.
Because there was time.
Because after months of rushed touches and interrupted moments, Dean seemed determined to make up for every second you’d both lost.
He’d stroke you slowly beneath the water, lips brushing your ear while you melted back against him, your breath catching, your body turning loose and pliant in his arms as his fingers dipped inside your warm heat. You’d come once on his fingers, shaking against his chest while he murmured praise into your damp skin.
Then the softness would sharpen.
The water would slosh over the edge of the tub as he bent you forward, one arm locked around your waist, his body covering yours from behind. He’d press into you in one deep, thrust, fucking you hard and fast until you'd come again with his name breaking in your throat.
He’d follow right after, holding you tight as he spilled into you with a rough, helpless sound.
Afterwards, you’d both stare at the bathroom floor. At the towels. At the water everywhere. And Dean would clear his throat.
“You think they charge extra for flooding?”
And you’d laugh so hard your forehead would drop against the side of the tub.
Once you'd cleaned up, the two of you would order dessert from room service and eat tiramisu, wearing nothing but robes and smug smiles with one spoon between you as you watched whatever shitty movie cable had to offer.
Eventually, you would call Sam to check on the baby, only for him to send a photo of your daughter asleep on Eileen’s chest, Miracle curled protectively at their feet.
Dean would stare at the photo for a full minute, soft-eyed and quiet. Then he would set the phone aside, pull you back into his arms, and kiss you long and deep before he’d shift between your thighs, watching your face the whole time as he slid back into you.
This time would be different again.
Sleepier. Softer. No performance. No urgency.
Just Dean moving inside you with his forehead pressed to yours, his body warm and heavy, his breath mingling with yours as the pleasure built in lazy, golden waves.
And then you would sleep soundly through the night for the first time in almost a year. Your leg hooked over his, your hand resting over his heart.
And Dean would smile and cover it with his own, feeling like the luckiest man in the world.
AN: I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Like i said, i may have gotten a little carried away 😅but, eh, it's been a while since i've completed a fic at all, so i'll take it. But i want to also thank y'all for sticking around and being supportive regardless. Let me know your thoughts. 💭
If you would like to be tagged in my future works please respond to this >form< so I can add you to the character's you'd like 😊
I also think that the strength gap is at least partially manufactured women would in fact be stronger overall if little girls were encouraged to do physically taxing games and activities and eat their fill while they’re growing vs having to constantly diet and be sedentary indoors (or god forbid do intense cardio while under-eating). The amount of adult women honestly afraid to lift weights bc they think they’ll get bulky as though bulking isn’t a full time job that athletes have to spend all their time on and anyone on earth gets shredded from just using their adult muscles for their intended purpose, girl your bone density 🥀
Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”
Rosie: "This is my husband Sam, and that's his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I'm not into him, he's he's a bit too 'elfy' for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that's fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can't give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don't mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I'm referrin' to you Lobelia, over there pretendin' you ain't eavesdroppin'. Still bitter you ain't got either of my boys or their house, eh?"
Tbh it's canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.
And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.
what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’
Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.
The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.
What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.
Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured - not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)
Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal - yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..
In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.
When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.
Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids - he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.
No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.
Since “pledge” kinships are multidimensional and can occur in different directions, hobbits can form - and formalise - family bonds simply because they choose to. Gandalf doesn’t tell anyone that the formation of Thorin’s Company, the Fellowship of the Ring, and Belladonna Took’s Accidental Troop of Mercenaries* are legal formations of pledge-siblings, a hobbit family structure usually claimed to increase social class and prestige (as high numbers of pledge-kin confer distinction on a hobbit, being a sort of popularity vote/endorsement that adds greatly to their social power. Incidentally, this is partly why Bilbo was both controversial and successful in his pledge-claim of Frodo; outsiders mistook his “bachelor” status as someone living outside of heteronormativity, while the Shire was bewildered and increasingly annoyed by his rejection of pledge and hearth commitments. By rights Bilbo had too few pledge-kin, and too little parenting experience, to claim rights to an orphan, especially one from Brandybuck hearth; but conversely, his social status was high enough that his belated bid for his very first pledge-son couldn’t reasonably be denied by anybody.)
In short, all of the hobbits enjoyed achieving even larger families on their adventures, legally and without argument or debate. It’s free real estate. If nobody else is going to sibling these losers, we will. (The condensation of so many entanglements at once also legally made Pippin his own father-in-law.)
Gandalf never explained.
* see the post about the Old Took’s “enchanted diamond cufflinks” that obeyed the wearer’s commands; which were probably, given the general state of things, two lost silmarils recovered by his Remarkable Daughters and gifted to him because things stay small and safe in the shire
Only through Boromir while Boromir was alive! Pippin’s familial claim through Boromir technically dissolved on Boromir’s death, as Denethor hadn’t been privy to it, and those bonds rarely stretch to a stranger when the person in the middle has died before introducing them; although Pippin, who was well-brought-up, perfectly and politely rectified the problem at once by simply swearing himself as Denethor’s pledge-son. but through his blood-cousinship to Frodo, who was older than Boromir, his status as the Took double-primarc (don’t ask) and the proximity-enhanced status-doubling effects of having a five-way cousin in Merry, Pippin was demonstrably higher status as a pledge-sibling and was also his own father-in-law and approved of himself. As such, he would have significantly raised Boromir’s social status and marital prospects in the Shire.
Inheritance follows parent-child pledge as the primary consideration, with matrilineal descent as the secondary. Pippin would have been bewildered to gradually understand that Denethor held his two sons in such odd and different standing :-/ hobbits don’t recognise kingship so it would’ve been very upsetting and disappointing to Pippin to understand how Denethor stood in position of sworn-father to a whole city of people without even being slightly fair to his younger hearth-son. Aragorn is demonstrably much better dad-material and therefore had Pippin’s vote. Pippin, by virtue of being an excellent father-in-law to a spectacularly promising young son-in-law, also considered himself a better candidate for king of Gondor than Denethor, by outranking him in Dad Competence - but was too busy by the time he realized this to point this out .
Ironically, the events in which Pippin realized this made Faramir his own hearth-son - so Pippin won in the end and took a great interest in ceremonially approving of Eowyn. Gandalf never explained
Rocky is supposed to be that one Toby Maguire meme btw
Again sorry for any (past/now) grammar errors. ALSO huge thanks for the people giving me ideas and correcting me!! I do truly love learning about biology facts so if you have any always fell free to share!!
OP, this is genuinely a masterpiece, three poems in one, moving and well craft. Please tell me you have submitted it to at least some poetry contests, and if not, please do so.
to the person who reposted my poem a couple days ago, i read the tags and i'm so sorry for your loss. there are not words adequate to comfort you right now, but here is a piece on grief i wrote a few months ago that i hope you may relate to someday
[ID: 1. A contrapuntal poem titled "on watching a parent age". It can be read three ways:
The Unprepared Daughter:
and if you would-
stay here forever,
tether yourself
to this earth
for you are the sun
in all its glory
and i cannot bear
night,
these cuts
on my hands
cannot be bandaged,
by anyone but you-
what if you go,
though i haven't;
become anything yet
The Proud Father:
let yourself fly, don't
be confined to the ground,
with a tight rope held
by my restraining hand
shining bright,
i see your greatness-
i cannot stand for it to be
time for the flame to go out
and these bruises
are all worth it, though they
cannot be mended
(i'd take them all over again)
i know you'll soar
far and high.
and you (will) do great things
how silly to think you've not
become anything yet?
you already are my everything
The Unprepared Daughter/The Proud Father:
and if you would- let yourself fly, don't
stay here forever, be confined to the ground,
tether yourself with a tight rope held
to this earth by my restraining hand
for you are the sun shining bright,
in all its glory, I see your greatness-
and i cannot bear i cannot stand for it to be
night, time for the flame to go out
these cuts and these bruises
on my hands are all worth it, though they
cannot be bandaged, cannot be mended
by anyone but you- (i'd take them all over again)
i know you'll soar
far and high.
what if you go, and you (will) do great things
though i haven't; how silly to think you've not
become anything yet?
you already are my everything
2. A contrapuntal poem titled "all the days after: a poem on loss". It can be read three ways.
The Early Days:
the sun rises without you, and
the house is quiet.
this slow death,
the loss of my senses-
God took the world' color
and i sit in the grey.
i've lost track of time
i thought the world ended, but
the bird on my porch,
keeps singing.
why has
the ground not caved in?
The Later Days:
the sun rises without you, and
i watch the sky shift-
blue fading to red.
i am building myself back,
and i know i'll be incomplete.
i will adapt to the dullness-
but i won't forget what came before.
i wake up each morning.
proving life perseveres,
i stitch my lungs back together.
the earth kept spinning,
because i willed myself to live
despite it all
The Early Days/The Later Days:
the sun rises without you, and
the house is quiet. i watch the sky shift-
this slow death, blue fading to red.
the loss of my senses- i am building myself back,
God took the world's color and i know i'll be incomplete.
and i sit in the grey. i will adapt to the dullness-
i've lost track of time but i won't forget what came before.
i thought the world ended, but i wake up each morning.
the bird on my porch, proving life perseveres,
keeps singing. i stitch my lungs back together.
why has the earth kept spinning,
the ground not caved in? because i willed myself to live
despite it all
HEY DON'T CRY. 8,008 SPECIES OF FROG IN THE WORLD PER AMPHIBIAWEB AND THE 8,000TH FROG WAS DESCRIBED BY TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR. Scherz, ET AL., PEACE AND LOVE ON PLANET EARTH ‼️‼️‼️
i know folks are gonna call me a pedo for this one, but i grew up seeing my mom and grandma naked. they had health issues and at times needed care and help showering. and i truly think more kids need to be shown the nonsexual reality of naked women at a young age. there is nothing sexual about my grandmothers breasts, they were simply body parts. more women die of heart attacks because people are too afraid of breasts to do real chest compressions, because they are scared to touch their breasts. the sexualization of our bodies literally kills us. i need people to be more normal about naked bodies and i'm 100% serious.
aint it crazy how many people realize they're queer when they have the language to express how they feel and a support system to encourage self exploration????
right at the beginning when she's like how do I help my son feel loved and accepted I'm here shouting
"QUEEN YOU ALREADY DID THAT BY TAKING HIS SIDE AND LEAVING THAT NO GOOD HUSBAND FOR HAVING THE AUDACITY TO KICK YOUR BABY OUT!"
And Good for her! this is the only response to a man who kicks out a child.
Ok so at this point I've had two people roll up to me in manual wheelchairs, well, one of them was somebody pushing somebody who was nonverbal at the time, but it still counts. They asked me why I had zip ties around my tires.
It's winter where I'm living and we have really bad snow. And the snow plow people are really bad at their jobs probably because there aren't snow plow people who clean sidewalks. As a solution I got to thinking about how I could increase the traction on my wheels. And the most redneck thing I could think of was taking a bunch of zip ties and tying them around my wheels. They last surprisingly long, and work surprisingly well. It's basically the same premise as chains for your tires during the winter.
I chose to space them out pretty evenly so there's about one for every spoke. You could probably do more or less depending on how many you want and how much traction you get but I wouldn't go more than three per spoke. I realize that it's a bit later in the winter, and I probably should have made a post about this sooner, but I came up with it about a week ago. So please share this, even if you're not disabled, because there are tons of people I know who are stuck in their houses because they can't get around in the snow. A pack of zip ties costs about $5, which compared to $200 knobby snow tires is a big save, and if you want to invest you could get colored zip ties.
(for anyone using their chair both indoors and outside, highly recommend wheelchair 'slippers'/wheel socks like these so you don't tear up wood/vinyl/linoleum flooring with the zip ties!)
