cuddle pile ❪ n. ❫ — 〔 /ˈkəd(ə)l pīl/ 〕 𝟏. refers to the grouping of three (3) or more persons close together in a ‘pile-like’ formation in a caring manner, usually for sleep.
“the cuddle pile gives sam and dean the physical touch they’ve been missing.”
IN YOUR ENTIRE TIME KNOWING THE WINCHESTER BROTHERS, you’ve found yourself in a cuddle pile with them two times.
they’ve been drastically different situations, and yet, not very different in terms of the ‘pile’ itself: you sandwiched between both sam and dean, their heads resting on you, their arms slung over some part of you. they’re both breathing deep, both relaxed as much as they could be. they’re still wound so tight somewhere you can’t reach, somewhere no one can seem to penetrate—but yet, they let their guard down around you. and you hold that fact close in your heart.
⁰¹ AFTER A NIGHTMARE.
the first time, it’s from a place of sheer desperate need. dean comes into your room first, his chest heaving from another nightmare of the pit. he’s shaking when he approaches your bedside, like a leaf in the wind. you look up at him not with pity, but with every intention to just help him. to hold him. and that’s what makes him cave like a house of cards.
you don’t ask questions. you just hold him under your blankets, like you want to shield him from everything in the world. he’s grateful you don’t say anything. you’ve always been able to figure out exactly what dean needs, without him telling you a thing. it’s made him seek you out—because half the time, he doesn’t know what he needs.
dean ends up buried in your chest, holding onto you for dear life as he fights to keep from drowning. his breathing is just starting to even out against you when you hear a creak of the floorboard and see sam standing in your door. he, like dean, is also shaking. or a brief second, you wonder if they had the same nightmare. is that even a thing? but you sit up a little more, dean still in your arms. he’s tensed up completely again—and after seeing who’s there, every cell in his body is telling him to run. sam can’t see him like this: his big brother, curled up into you like a scared little kid. but he is.
sam ends up on the other side of you, not saying anything, either. it’s quiet, the only sounds the fan and dean and sam’s uneven breathing. dean’s arm is wrapped high on your torso, close to your diaphragm, his head on your shoulder. sam’s arm is wrapped more by your hips, his head resting on the side of your chest. your own arms are wrapped each of the brothers’ shoulders.
technically, sam and dean are facing each other as they lay on either side of you, but they’re not looking at each other—probably as to not psych themselves out. they’re aware of the other’s presence, but don’t necessarily acknowledge it. after all, they’re both seeking comfort from you, not each other. you can’t see much of them through their tufts of hair, but you don’t need to. you can feel them both relaxing into your body, their once unbelievably tense shoulders now just a tad tense. you’re sure something inside both of them will never let them fully relax, but you take this moment. you take this win.
⁰² AFTER A DAY OF SWIMMING.
it’s a sunny day at bobby’s—and for once, you and the boys have a day to yourselves. no case, no leads to chase down, no research to do. sam suggests going to the lake nearby bobby’s house, and you all agree. soon enough, you’re on the road in baby, cooler sitting next to you in the backseat.
dean, of course, cannonballs into the lake. you and sam are walking side by side on the dock, chairs that bobby digged out for you in hand—and a whoosh of air flows past you both as dean jumps in, the splash starting a ripple spreading through the entire lake. his head pops up after a few beats, grinning wide. you shake your head as dean goads you to come join him, but you hold off for now.
sam’s next to go in the water—well, dean may have triple dog dared him to—and you pretend to be annoyed that he splashed you upon jumping in. you think at this moment, they kind of remind you of dogs. their hair’s wet, and you can almost imagine a pair of floppy ears on sam.
you find the frisbee one of you packed, wiggle it at the boys wading in the water. you promise whoever gets the frisbee the most times gets first pick on the lunch you all brought. it’s not much of a prize at all—but sam and dean take it seriously. you’re not sure who wins, anyway. sam and dean push at each other every time you threw it, splashing at the other to deter them. they’re laughing—and you haven’t heard that sound in a while. a long while.
after the lunch is eaten and the sun is dipping into the horizon, you decide to head back. droplets make their way down, soaking into the soft fabric of your shirt as you sit in the backseat once more, looking at the sunburned necks of the winchester brothers. it’s silent, but not uncomfortable. it’s probably the most comfortable you’ve been in a while, you think.
after you showered, you realize your day the sun has taken most of your energy away. you lay down on the bed bobby brought into the living room for you, sighing once your head hits the pillow.
sam’s not sure why he lays down next to you after his own shower. his entire face hurts from the sunburn, and his back isn’t doing so hot, either. it’s cold in the room, but he doesn’t reach for the bigger blanket, just the sheet that’s covering you. he doesn’t reach for you or anything—he doesn’t know if he’s allowed—but you seem to find him in your sleep, regardless.
dean, still wincing from the shower’s stream hitting his own sunburned skin, also finds himself laying on the opposite side of you, the cold pillow a contrast to the red on his face, giving his freckles a chance in the spotlight again. you and sam are both asleep already—and dean falls under quickly too, his head resting close to the crook of your shoulder. sam’s slumped on your other side haphazardly—but still touching you. you’re all dead to the world as you lay there.
it’s strange, how these boys are just that: boys. even though they are well above 6 feet and could hunt and kill anyone and anything, they’re still boys. they’re still full of energy, like when they were young—although, it may be a little depleted now. but they had a good day today.
a good day in the sun.
📨 many a time have i discussed this concept with @aseafullofstars… now it has come to life. also still wishing we got a beach episode. guys let them play frisbee.
𐃘 part one ! ┆ caution ⸝⸝ heavy hurt / comfort ahead
📨 y’all really blew up the last one so here’s another (absolutely gutwrenching edition). everyone go thank @aseafullofstars for encouraging me to write cuddling two 6 foot grown men <3 thanks k i would be lost without you sir
SO, IT HAPPENED AGAIN. once more, you found yourself sandwiched between sam and dean winchester.
it all started going downhill the moment you took on this hunt. sam and dean had been on the outs with each other again, and you’re not sure why. they weren’t saying much to each other—or saying much at all, period. they seemed to be avoiding talking as much as possible. it didn’t help that the hunt seemed to last forever, and it certainly wasn’t getting any closer to being solved. it seemed like the universe was laughing at you.
dean, as he always seems to do, breaks first.
it was mostly because he’s been realizing that he can’t do anything right. he can’t take care of his brother, and he can’t take care of the people he’s trying to save. he’s not mad at his brother. that’s not why dean’s avoiding him. it’s because he feels like he failed his little brother. no matter how hard he tries to make things right, in any sense, he always fails. always. whether it’s with sam or anything else, he fails. it’s discouraging, and it eats away at what little is left of his psyche. so when one of the potential victims almost dies, the one he swore to protect—it’s over. he’s done, at least for tonight. he’ll get up tomorrow, pretend to be fine, but he knows the truth. he’s a failure of a man.
that’s why he has to get out of bed in the middle of the night, fighting the tears that have been buried deep inside him this whole damn hunt. this whole damn year. he loses the fight almost immediately, and he can’t drown alone. he’ll never live to see tomorrow if he does. so that’s what leads him to your room, connected to his and sam’s own.
you wake, not even having been really asleep, but you blink when you hear the door on the wall open. you weren’t sure who you were expecting through the adjourning door between your room and theirs, but the moment you see dean’s glassy eyes, you fight the urge to get out of bed and meet him halfway. he gets to you eventually after carefully shutting the door, then almost falling into your bed you’ve called home for the past week or so. he doesn’t make a sound, but you feel your shirt getting wet where his face is buried into you. a few sniffles leave him as he wraps his arms tight around your torso, holding on for dear life.
you’re not too sure how long you lay with dean curled up beside you. he’s wearing his jeans to bed again, you notice, and you make a note to scold him nicely for it when he’s not sobbing in your arms. but for now, you hold him tight, like you’re trying to squeeze the sadness out of him. it doesn’t seem to work as well as you want it to, but dean knows. he always does.
sam’s not boding too well, either. he’s been having nightmares again, always ending with him waking up in a cold sweat and no air in his lungs. it’s exhausting. he’s trying to prove to everyone that he’s fine, that he can handle everything, but he’s not. and he can’t. not now. not tonight. he’s long overdue for a breakdown, and it seems like tonight’s going to be the night it all blows up. dean’s gone when sam glances at the bed parallel to his own—and he doesn’t care anymore now. the tears start coming too fast to stop, and there’s only one person he can think of within a 5 square mile radius that can help him not suffocate on his own thoughts.
you.
it’s you.
he gets your door open, not knowing his older brother had opened it once already tonight. sam freezes in place when he realizes who is next to you, hand still on the door handle. you know dean heard sam walk in, judging by the way dean tenses up in your arms. you think he might run—and if the roles were reversed, you realize if sam came to you first, dean would’ve never gotten this far. he would have suffered alone.
but he’s not.
and neither is sam.
while dean lay next to you, sam rounds the other corner of the bed, climbing in carefully, like he’s scared you’ll turn him away. you wouldn’t—never in a million lifetimes would you turn away either of these men. you hold them both now: sam’s arms fill the gaps where dean’s aren’t, their heads resting close to your own, faces buried into you to hide their wet eyes. you kiss each of the tops of their heads, the smell of dean’s hair reminding you of fresh-cut grass, sam’s resembling something like old paper. the only sound in the room is their muffled sobs when they feel the need to let the sound out and the occasional sniff from them.
your shirt is soaked now from the brother’s tears, the fabric sticking to your skin, but you don’t care. you’d jump into a pool fully clothed if you had to for them. and you know that they know that tidbit—it’s why they both came to you.
you hold them close to you until their sobs quiet into just soft sniffs and intakes of breath—and then until their breathing slows down to when you know they’re asleep. it is only then that you allow yourself to succumb to sleep, making sure to keep an arm around each of the brothers as you do. you don’t want them waking up without feeling you there.
maybe you didn’t fix all their problems, and you most certainly didn’t do much talking to them at all—but you know you can’t fix all their problems, all their issues that are cemented into their souls. you also know, however, that dean and sam didn’t go through this alone tonight. they never have to, not with you around. after so many years of suffering, they have you to hold them together now. you can’t heal them. you know that, too.
— “i’m sensing.. you're in love with me.” part one
..shawn spencer x reader headcanons because the psych fandom can and will be fed if i have anything to say about it.
gn! reader, childhood friends to lovers, age varies for reader, no size, race, or gender mentioned for reader, no use of y/n.
: ̗̀➛ you first met shawn and gus when you were still in diapers. your moms were friends and got pregnant around the same time.
: ̗̀➛ you went to the same elementary school, middle school, and high school.
: ̗̀➛ yeah, your parents really pushed you into being friends. something about how ‘every good cop has connections’, but your friendship wasn't based on that. it was based on all the other stuff that made friends worth having.
: ̗̀➛ it was based on walking home together after school, staying up too late on the phone, inside jokes, and a weird dash of the 'person next door’ trope.
: ̗̀➛ when shawn was about ten, he had a conversation with gus where he said he had quote unquote ‘dibs’ on you should it come to that.
: ̗̀➛ but when you were getting ready to go to college, he told you he wasn't going.
: ̗̀➛ you and gus tried to change his mind, telling him how smart he was and that he shouldn't waste his talents on dead end gigs.
•••
“shawn, come on.” you pleaded. gus had long since gone to bed, needing his 'beauty sleep’ to go visit Pomona with his family. you were leaving tomorrow, bags packed and at the door. but even then, you still refused to drop it after everything. “you got a 100 on the DET like three years ago, you know how hard that is? go to detective school and do something with it.” you were practically pleading by now. you couldn't let him throw his life away like that. and for what? lack of commitment? shawn was better than that, you knew it and he knew it too.
“i dunno, bug.” he twirls around to face you, infuriatingly calm. you barely resist the urge to roll your eyes. ‘bug’ is a nickname he's called you for many, many years. you were annoyed by it at first, but eventually got used to it when he never relented. he continued. “i’m just not the geeky college type, i’ll leave that to you and gustopher.”
you realize he's no closer to giving in than he was two hours ago and start to feel your resolve weakening. “please. if not for yourself, do it for me.”
“never thought i’d hear you begging for me, yeesh. or i guess, not like this.” he snorted. he crossed his arms and shook his head. “look, it's not like i’m not going anywhere. i've got a gig lined up, i'll be fine—”
“and where's that gonna go?” you demanded, closing the distance between the two of you. “and the one after that? and the one after that? shawn, you know they're going nowhere!” you had begun to shout, eyes locked onto him. you took a deep breath and lowered your voice. “you know this is the last you'll see of me? i’ll be at the airport tomorrow before you wake up.”
“i know.” he agreed, voice more serious than you'd heard it in awhile. “im gonna miss you, buggy.” you stared at him for a few seconds before sighing softly. you were tired, it was nearly three in the morning and you had to be at the airport in just a few hours. you went for the door, but lingered in the entrance.
“see you around, shawn.”
•••
: ̗̀➛ and then you were off, and out of his life.
: ̗̀➛ and then gus left.
: ̗̀➛ and then it was just him.
: ̗̀➛ he tried to fill the void with women he didn't care for, but none of them were ever you. even so, he convinced himself that he was over you.
: ̗̀➛ then, when he found out gus was working as a pharmaceutical rep in santa barbara, he started his ‘lying to police about being a psychic and opening a psychic detective agency’ gig. —he's working on the name.
: ̗̀➛ he was sure that he would be found out eventually, but he had made it this far, and it would be fun while it lasted at least. plus, he had quite a few cases under his belt by then and had made a fairly impressive name for himself.
: ̗̀➛ he was walking through the precinct, mind half occupied with a case and half occupied with whatever he and gus were talking about. he was just reaching the main area when—
: ̗̀➛ oh.
: ̗̀➛ suddenly, you of all people were standing right in front of him in the SBPD bullpen.
: ̗̀➛ okay, maybe not right in front of him, you were getting water a few feet away.
: ̗̀➛ but just like that, all the feelings he thought he buried years ago were back with a vengeance.
: ̗̀➛ the first thing he thought of was how good you still looked, standing there after so many years.
: ̗̀➛ you were so familiar and yet so different, years of college and apparently police school would do that to a person. but you wore it incredibly well. you were still drop dead gorgeous.
: ̗̀➛ the second thing he thought of was that you knew. you knew he wasn't a psychic, and more importantly, you knew him. you wouldn't buy it if he tried to lie to you.
: ̗̀➛ but then again, he had no idea how long you'd been here, and he would've gotten fired before he even got inside if you'd told anyone. plus, even if you'd somehow managed to avoid hearing about him when you'd gotten back to santa barbara, there was no way someone hadn't told you about him by now.
: ̗̀➛ so, you knew and you hadn't said anything. why?
•••
“hey, bug.” he says casually, as though it hasn't been nearly a decade since you've seen each other. he gets himself a mug of coffee, pretending like he didn't burn his tongue when he immediately took a sip.
you turned around, surprised. “well, hello, psychic.” you replied, trying to seem annoyed, but you can't quite hide how happy you are to see him again.
he winces at the obvious disbelief in your voice, but doesn't miss a beat in his reply. “you didn't tell me you were back in santa barbara.”
“didn't think i needed to. i thought you were still doing that ‘traveling the world’ thing.”
he shrugs, grinning through the taste of the battery acid coffee in the station. “oh, i was. did all the usual, fought zombies, bought the mona lisa, found the cure to cancer, you know. i guess you could say im settling in.” he checks his nails like he just got them done.
“exciting.” you deadpan, entirely uninterested in his so called escapades. “i didn't know there was such a thing as a psychic detective.”
“head psychic detective.” he corrects you. you want to punch him in the face. well, you always kind of want to punch shawn in the face. but that's besides the point. he's clearly dodging the question. at the same time, you understand why he's doing it. you're in the middle of a police department, a police department he works for. saying anything about his non-clairvoyance puts him at risk of losing his job. you shake your head, never quite sure how he's managed to pull another one of his antics off. “say, bug, it's been a while. how about we catch up?” and just like that, shawn spencer had wormed his way back into your life.
•••
: ̗̀➛ okay, maybe he didn't get the answers he wants just yet, but he has a plan.
: ̗̀➛ he'll rope you into whatever case he's on, get you laughing just like old times, see your pretty smile, loosen you up so you'll be willing to talk more.
: ̗̀➛ and maybe, just maybe, you'll keep his secret.
────୨ৎ────
a/n: first psych post!!!! i know im a little heavy handed on the supernatural side of my writings, but psych does and always will have a special place in my heart. anyway, i lovelovelove shawn spencer, and i can't wait to write part two of this!! i hope you like the change in format, it lets me expand on the stuff i want to with having to write a whole one shot. love you! gummi out
Finally it’s finished, I'm sorry for the long wait. While I wrote this I also had many other ideas that developed, so I'm probably gonna make a poll again so you guys can vote. English is not my first language, THANK YOU❤️
Sam Winchester x hunter reader
Tw: angst, no happy ending,
Summary: you confessed to Sam on his 18th birthday but he never address anything back to you
Word count: 2480
You were visibly excited, you had decorated the room with party streamers and balloons for Sam's 18th birthday. You spent a reasonable amount of money for the younger Winchester because John didn't even remember his own son's birthday.
Back then you learned how to hunt because of the Winchesters, so now you're practically attached to the hip with this family.
You ended up becoming friends with the two, but you were much closer to Dean back then. Over time as you grow older, you hang out with the younger Winchester more often.
Sam was more laid back than Dean, he always seemed so calm and collected even though he disliked hunting or training. It was easier to talk to Sam because you can talk about anything else other than hunting, while conversation with Dean mostly circle around strategies for upcoming hunts.
Your daily interactions with him makes you notice some details that aren't really important
Like the mole on the left side of his face near his nose, a dimple that appears when he smiles, his dark olive eyes and did you mention his gorgeous brown hair.
But it was, it was important for you. That's why you decided to confess to him using a letter, it took a lot of convincing. But through the support and reassurance from his older brother, you manage to gather up the courage to do it.
Sam, John and Dean enter the dark motel room, as soon as Dean hits the lights "Surprise!" You jump out from behind one of the motel beds “Happy birthday Sammy!”
Sam looks surprised none the less, he smiles “You remembered?” you hug his side “Of course, who wouldn't?” You eyed John as he looks down in shame ‘he definitely forgot’
“Dean was actually the one who planned it, he left me with the decorating. I did well, right?” you release from the hug, averting your gaze towards Dean “You did good kid, next time you should decorate the room for my birthday” you smiled
“Let's celebrate, there's a bar nearby right?” You hold Sam's hand and pulled him towards the exit, Sam lightly blushed “Come on Dean, John”
You had left the bar relatively quickly because of the large crowd that was forming. “Hey” Sam's voice interrupted your thoughts “Hey, why are you outside?” You questioned him “Shouldn't I be asking you that?” He chuckles.
You shook your head and smiled. “It's way too crowded for me, I need a breather” you pull out a small bag and hand it to him “Here” Sam looks at the bag “For me?” He points to himself “No it's for that guy over there, of course it's for you”
Sam tsked “No sarcasm on my birthday” you rolled your eyes
“Go on open it” he took out the box from the paper bag and opened it
“No” he pauses “You didn't, where did you even get this?” he pulls out a silver watch “that's a secret” you winked “Oh and by the way it also matches mine” you roll up your sleeve and show him a feminine version of the watch, he laughed and raved “You really are something, thank you”
He notices the letter “There's a letter” your expression shifts “I think you should read that later on” Sam narrows his eyes “Why, is it something embarrassing?” You smiled nervously “No, it's just something that should be read in private” he teased “Is it a love letter?” Your eyes widened but thankfully he didn't see it “Worse it's the divorce papers” Sam laughed and you joined in, the laughter died and you both enjoy the subtle silence that envelop your surroundings
“So you're 18 now, what's your next step?” You ask him “I don't know, university maybe” you faked a smile “Really?” He smiled “Yeah, i think im gonna go into law”
You pat his back “That's great, everytime me and Dean get into trouble we don't have to hire a lawyer” he nudges you “im still gonna charge you both” your jaw dropped “So rude” Sam smirked “bite me”
After a week, Sam never brought up the letter again. Was I too straight forward, you pace the room biting your nails
You hear a knock on your motel room and you rush towards the door to open it
It was Dean “Hey can I come in?” You move out his way motioning him to come in “You seem out of it, what's wrong?”
You sat down on the edge of the bed and scratched your neck “Im fine” you try to reassure him
“Bullshit kid, I can practically hear you pacing like a horse from the other room” he argues “Look I've just been on edge, okay?” you pause “Sam hasn't said anything about the letter I gave him”
“Did he even read it?” You look at Dean, your eyebrows furrowed
“I didn't see him read it but judging from the way he acts around you, I think he definitely did” he comforts you, he sat beside you and pats your back “Don't worry kid just give it some time”
You gave it plenty of time, so much time that Sam had a massive argument with John and went to university without saying goodbye. You didn't even know where he was attending university
You were upset with John nonetheless, you thought that he would understand Sam's intentions of starting a new life, you pushed all the blame on to John and you avoided John the best you could.
You tried messaging him and calling him, lord and behold no results. Dean mentioned that Sam was attending university in Stanford and had wanted nothing to do with hunting anymore, that is probably why he is ignoring you.
You hoped that Sam would call you or message you one day, while you waited for that. You continue to hunt with Dean and every time you finish hunting. You would come back to your motel room and start writing letters that give a brief description of the hunt.
You mention how Dean is doing and recall some of the unserious moments you had in the impala with him. Every letter always ends up with a glimpse of your affection towards Sam and all of that letter you wrote never had an address that you can send it to.
Years gone by, you started losing hope and stopped writing letters that lead nowhere but inside the bottom of your duffle bag. John had gone off on his own way leaving Dean in charge
You wake up groggily still half asleep, rubbing your eyes to adjust the bright light “Wake up sleeping beauty” Dean shook you trying to sober you up from your sleep.
You stretched and groaned “Where the hell are we, and is it already morning?” You look around to see the source of light was actually from a lamp post, Dean smiled “We're in California, and no it's the middle of the night”
Once you sobered up your eyes widened because of the banner on the lamp post “Dean, why are we in Stanford?!”
You try to keep a calm facade “I can’t believe were doing this” Dean scoffed
“I mean come on Dean breaking into a dorm, Sam made it clear that he doesn't want anything to do with us” Dean scolded you “This is a family emergency, John has been gone for 3 weeks and hasn't come back yet. Are you not concerned for the old man?”
you try to knock some sense into him “Yeah well, not really but I feel like this is disturbing Sam's focus, you can't blame a girl for trying to respect someone's wishes” you huff in frustration.
Dean rummaged through his bag and pulled out a lock pick “We need him for this, trust me” he walked away and you mocked him “TrUsT mE, what an idiot” she mumbled “I can still hear you!” Dean exclaimed
You lock pick the window while Dean acts as a look out, The window clicks open and you sign to him that the window is opened, you push up the window silently and enter the room.
You observe the room around you while Dean enters not far from you. You moved swiftly and silently exploring the space
You saw a shadow from the corners of your eyes and you stopped in your tracks signaling to Dean that there was someone, you stalked forward to investigate.
Suddenly you were wrestled on to the ground, you hissed and kicked the attacker's face. While the attacker was stunned, you pushed the guy onto the floor using your body weight and put his arms behind his back.
You raised your fist, getting ready to knock the guy out “Woah calm down there tiger” Dean grabs a hold of your arm
“Wait, Dean!?” you recognized that voice immediately “Hey sammy, long time no see”
You looked down to see Sam, you got up quickly and offered him a hand “Shit i’m so sorry sam” he took your hand and stood up “No no it's okay, what are you guys doing here!?”
You open your mouth to explain but then a woman's voice can be heard from the room “Babe is everything okay?” Sam answered “Yeah i’m okay Jess”
Your heart aches, no messages, no phone calls or letters, it all makes sense now. Dean noticed your expression shifting.
You see Jess peek out from the corner, she looks beautiful no wonder Sam liked her.
“Jess this is Dean my brother and a family friend of mine” Sam introduced you and Dean to Jess, your heart stings a little looking at Jess's friendly smile “Nice to meet you both”
Dean smiled mischievously and eyed Jess “The pleasure is mine” while you nodded and smiled at her. Sam interjected the introduction “Jess I'll be right back, I need to talk with them privately”
Jess nods “Okay don't forget to lock the door” Sam gives a peck on Jessica's lips, you bite the inside of your cheek.
“Why are you guys here?” Sam questioned you both, mainly Dean
“Dad’s on a hunting trip and he's been gone for 3 weeks, the last thing we have of him is this” Dean explains and plays a voice message that was left by John
Sam furrow his eyebrows“So wait, you just want me to join you guys on this”
Dean shrugs “Yeah I guess so” with out any hesitation Sam turned down the offer
“Well I can't”
You don't try to convince Sam to join you and Dean, because why would you do that? He looks happier with his new girlfriend and you can assume that he is top of his class.
Both brothers argue, but you just stare at them “Don't you have anything to add?” Dean nudged you, trying to defend himself. You shrugged “No” Sam noticed your eyes were paying attention to the boring pavement
“Hey are you okay?” You hummed and snapped out of it “Hm oh yeah, i barely got any sleep so im kind of tired right now” Sam tried to reach out but he held back.
Dean cut the thick atmosphere between you two “iIm gonna go for a walk, you guys go ahead and talk about this” Dean walks away leaving you both near the impala.
“So how is university treating you so far?” You leaned on the impala and kick the rock that was on the bottom of your heels
“It's been treating me well, how about your hunt with Dean?” Sam leans beside you
“It's been fun, we gambled a lot that's for sure” Sam chuckled, you look out to the distance not finding it very humorous
“How long have you been dating Jess?” you started to tug on the hem of your shirt
“We've been dating for 2 years now, why do you ask?” you shook your head and shrugged it off “No it's just that you guys look really close”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck “It's very unusual for you to look at the floor while we're talking, is it because I'm dating Jess?”
You smiled at him sarcastically “No Sam, it's not because of you and Jess” Sam affirmed “So it is about Jess” you stopped leaning on to the car and look into his dark olive eyes, the same eyes you used to adore
“I read the letter you gave me on my 18th birthday” Sam maintains eye contact “Oh really, must be a really funny joke that flew by your head huh?” You fumed
“Hear me out-” Sam tries to reason, you interrupt him “No, what’s there to hear. Look, I'm happy that you have a relationship, I really don’t want to ruin things between you guys”
“I liked you too, okay. It's just that I was angry at John and I couldn't stand being near him” Sam argues, you scoffed “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” you clutch your chest
“God Sam you could’ve told me”
“I feel so stupid, I put so much hope to receive nothing in return. Do you know how long I've waited for you to say something, anything!” you raise your voice, you didn't care if anyone could hear you in the middle of the night.
Your voice started quiver “You didn’t even said goodbye”
“Just imagine, all the stage of grief i had to endure for you” Sam reached out to hold your hand
You avoid his touch, like his hands are razor blades. “4 years, Sam” You wipe away the tears that started flowing with your sleeves “No messages, no calls and no address to send the letters I write everyday”
His expression shifts from shame to shock, he didn't expect that you wrote letters for him. You let out a shaky breath, your voice wavers from the sadness and the anger you are feeling “And all you had to do was pick up the phone, call me, message me, but no you've kept me waiting for 4 years”
you sniffled and smile “I gotta thank you Sam, you kept me on my toes for years”
Sam apologized “I didn't mean to hurt you” you hissed “Well you did”
You stormed off to the front of the impala and grab the duffle bag from the passenger seat
You rummage through your clothing reaching the bottom of the bag to retrieve dozens of letters “Here" you push the letters towards his chest “Burn it or maybe bury it. Just like all of the messages and phone calls from me, that got buried by other people in your contact list”
You close the door of the impala and walk away to look for Dean, leaving Sam behind with a deafening silence and a heavy heart full of regret. While all he had to do back then was pick up the call and message back.
Req...Sam and reader arguing about her going on a hunt with him and dean. She wants to go, he doesn't want her to. Ends up with sam cuffing her to a furniture in a motel room while he and dean drive away.
𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐲
Pairing: Sam Winchester x fem!reader
An: anon, whoever you are I hope you liked this. Just so everyone knows another writer and I got the same request. I got mine after she posted hers and gave me permission to write this.
Drabble - Sam Masterlist
You should've known when Sam was hesitant to tell you the plan. Sam had been all but avoiding your eyes the whole time he and Dean explained.
You crossed your arms over your chest "it doesn't make sense, where does that leave me?" You asked, confused as ever.
Sam shared a guilt ridden look with Dean, "we- I don't think you should come" he said carefully.
Your jaw ticked "what?"
Sam eased a hand defensively "don't make this a thing I just want to-"
"To sit back while you two play hero and risk your lives?" You snapped, pushing away from the table with a scoff, "unbelievable"
Sam runs a hand through his hair, "look just- just hear me out okay?"
You glare at him. Your tongue clicks "okay-" you grab your jacket and shoes.
"Where are you going?" Sam asks helplessly.
You turn to him harshly "to the car. I'll listen on the way there."
Sam moves towards you fast but careful. His hands cradle your face, melting away some of the anger from your body.
His eyes connect with yours, "look honey, this hunt… it's dangerous. I can't live with myself if you get hurt-"
"How's that fair"
"It's not. But it's the only way I can guarantee your safety"
You see the look in his eye when he glances at Dean, it suddenly changes, confirmation.
Before you could turn to look you feel it, the cold metal wrapped around your wrist and something pulling you off balance.
"What the-" you look at your wrist to see it's cuffed to the table, bolted into the ground. Your heart sinks "no" you mutter, pulling at the cuffs, you look at the brothers who both look sad and apologetic
"Sam don't do this. Please- Dean"
"I'm sorry" Dean says, before taking his leave.
"no!" You shout "Sam let me go." Tears fill your eyes, you jaw trembles"
His eyebrows are pulled together, he's suppressing tears of his own. "I'm sorry, just… stay here. I love you"
He says it like a reminder, like a just in case.
You yank at the chain "Sam. I won't forgive you if you walk out that door"
Sam pauses, yet again being faced with this. "I know" he says before following Dean out of the motel.
You sit there for hours. At first your angry, at the pure nerve of him. How dare he risk his life, and leave you locked away.
Soon the anger dissolves into worry. You know Sam and dean are capable, but they have a track record for dying and this time you weren't there to even try to stop it.
Then worry becomes fear that settles deep in your bones. The sun had fallen hours ago and you're still there stuck to a table with no word from either brother.
Tears fall freely, you cry and sob until your head starts pounding and then some. Your wrist grew bruised, and sore from your attempts to escape, but to no avail.
You cried until your tears ran dry. The sudden sound of the lock clicking and the door pushing opened filled you with hope and dread.
You didn't have any energy left to do anything but look and hope that the both of them walked through that door.
Sam stepped into the room, his attention immediately set on you, his tense stance completely disappeared when he saw your state.
He rushed over to you, as fast as his sore and battered body let him. He bent down his huge, calloused hand gently grabbed your wrist, he frowned when he saw the deep colored bruise.
"Oh honey" he unlocked the cuffs and pulled you into him "I'm so sorry."
You crumbled into him, letting out a dry, tired sob. "I thought… I thought-"
"It's okay. We're okay." He promised. He pressed gentle kisses your wrist, following the bruise. Sam held you to him, a part of him feeling guilty for the hours of worry and frustration that you went through. The other part felt thankful that you were safe and okay.
"Don't ever do that to me again." Your tone hit him harder than your words.
ㆍ ♱ ⚊ 𝓨ou knew the Winchester boys as they frequented your diner, you also knew better than to get caught up in them and the problems they bring and yet, you've fallen hard for the puppy eyed boy.
Wc : 2k
ㆍ ⚊ I love me some angsty Sam x reader.... Especially early season sammy.... Thought of this while going through my Pinterest board and listening to Fleetwood Mac specifically Storm. Again I didn't proofread so.
The diner buzzed, the smell of old leather, grease, and Carmel filled the air as you made a fresh pot of coffee, welcoming the hunters and normal people alike as the bell above the door rung ever so often.
Your father had spent twenty years making this diner a sanctuary for the people who hunted things in the dark. A neutral ground where the coffee was strong enough to wake the dead and the questions were few and far between.
It was home, your home and many others too.
You didn't need to be a psychic to know when the Winchesters walked in, the smell of gun powder and old flannels were a dead give away.
The old vinyl squeaked as you slid a plate of blueberry pancakes and two mugs of black coffee toward them, your fingers lingering just a fraction of a second too long near Sam’s hand. He didn't look at you though, he kept his gaze fixed on the steam rising from the mug, his jaw tight and his eyes shadowed by a fatigue that went deeper than a lack of sleep. Dean flashed you a quick thank you smile before digging into the breakfast.
You watched the way Sam’s thumb traced the rim of the ceramic cup, something he does when he's fighting the urge to say something he knows would only complicate his life further. He was a man built out of exits and apologies, always halfway out the door before he’d even arrived.
The silence between you felt heavy, suffocating, and you turned away, retreating behind the counter as the soft clicks of your footsteps echoed. You knew something was wrong, you just didn't know what the root cause of I was.
Maybe it had to do with his brother, maybe even his father, or maybe he realized just how infatuated you were with him.
So many people came into the diner, young, old. It didn't matter, your dad taught you never to get attached as most people that filled those seats were hunters and they were never promised tomorrow, especially the Winchester's, yet you couldn't not fall for those stupid puppy eyes.
They reeled you in tight, refusing to loosen the grip even if you went weeks without seeing them. Still, it didn't hurt any less when he wasn't his usual soft self.
By now he would be smiling and chatting you up but he refused to even look at you, it hurt. Felt like a shot to your chest, it was stupid. How could he get you feeling like this even though no words were exchanged.
Dean could also see the shift, eyes blinking back towards the both of you before leaning over to Sam, exchanging a set of words that you couldn't hear. It made your heart pound but you had to focus, you were still at work. Maybe they'll just leave and you wont have to think about it any longer.
The sound of pounding thunder shook you slightly as it rumbled before rain fell hard against the glass windows.
Great.
Now the chances of them leaving quickly have dwindled.
You had decided to take a few more moments to yourself before walking up to the table again. "Refill?" You asked, breaking the silence. Your voice was gentle, trying to offer some comfort without prying; giving him a chance to soften up.
Sam looked up for a split second before glancing away, "yeah that'd be great, thanks" the response was cold and distant and it just made you angrier. What could you have possibly done because this attitude felt directed towards you specifically.
You were truly fed up at this point, all those soft, quick touches you shared when he came in times before. The subtle flirting you both did on the cold, dead nights where nobody was around, just, gone.
You pour the coffee and left again, deciding that for the rest of the time that they're here, you won't serve them, just push them onto another server.
It was a while before you could tell they're ready to leave, storm hadn't let up but you knew neither of them cared and had more important things to be worried about, more important matters then you.
"I don't care their in your section, Go give them the check I'm busy" your friend said, rolling her eyes as she rang up two more orders. You just groaned, still not having the mental capacity to deal with the situation that is, Sam.
"Come onn please I'll do all your side work!" every bargain you made she wasn't taking it, you know she's right and you'll have to face him at some point but still.
After a good 2 minutes, you finally gathered your strength to walk over there.
"Checks on the table" you said your voice sounding thinner than you wanted it, Sam didnt even look up, he just nodded once, strangely sharp motion.
"Be right back" Dean said as he slid out of the vinyl booth with a grunt, walking towards the restroom.
The moment the door clicked shut behind Dean, Sam stood up, he didn't look at you, didn't even offer you a goodbye. He simply turned and pushed through the heavy glass doors like it was the easiest decision he's ever made.
You didn't think; you just followed. The cold air hit you like a punch to the face as it soaked your uniform within seconds. You saw standing near the edge of the asphalt, staring out towards the highway, his hair plastered to his forehead. It was like he knew you were gonna follow.
"What is this Sam?" you shouted over the roaring thunder, your voice cracking, "What did I do, you walk in here, you treat me like a stranger, you act like- like you can't even look at me, just tell me what did I do!?"
Sam didn't turn around at first, he stayed still, almost frozen, rain dripping off the tip of his nose and soaking the collar of his jacket.
When he finally shifted, his eyes were raw, heart breaking even, he looked at you, really looked at you and for a second, you could see you something real. Something he's tried to hide the second he walked through those diner doors.
"You didn't do anything," he yelled back, his voice straining against the wind. God it sounded like a break up more than anything
"Then what the hell Sam?? You've been ignoring me for almost two hours!" you stepped closer, the rainwater soaking your heels.
"I'm not some fragile piece of glass Sam stop siding what I can handle, just talk to me" you reached out, grabbing his dampened brown jacket to pull him towards you, demanding the eye contact he denied you all morning.
The movement snaps something at him. In one swift motion, Sam's hands found your waist. Hauling you flush against him, the impact knocked the breath out of your lungs and before you could utter another word, his mouth was on yours.
The kiss was desperate, tasting of rain and salt and for a small moment, the world didn't matter. It was just you two.
You're kissing the man you fell in love with, the one that was soft and delicate with you when he spoke, not the man in the diner with the cold, distant eyes.
But just as the moment began, it quickly ended. He pulled back just enough to lean his forehead against yours, his breathing ragged. His eyes searching for your face with a devastating kind of a yearning.
"I have to go, I can't keep coming back" he whispered, his voice barely audible over the harsh rain falling onto the asphalt. "The more I let myself want this, the more damage I'm doing." He paused and you closed your eyes, realizing what's happening.
"My life is a disaster to disaster, and I can't-I-I won't let myself bring you into it" The tenderness of his words felt like a slap, you stepped back, breaking the contact and letting your hands dropped from his jacket, cold air rushing to fill the space between you.
Just signifying the true distance between the both of you.
"You think you're protecting me?" you asked voice trembling, "No. what you're doing is being a coward and shutting me out for even actually trying"
Sam didn't move, he just stood did there, his expression twisting into something that looked like grief, he wanted to reach out, you could see his fingers twitching as if to brush the wet strand of hair on your forehead, but he clamped his hands into fits at his side, forcing himself to stand like a statue.
His lack of words infuriated you even more, he was treating his absence like a gift, thinking that if he just left you alone, you would be happier.
The diners class doors groaned behind you and Dean stepped out, squinting as he shared look between you and Sam.
Deemed an ask what happened, he just saw the distance between you guys and pieced together the rest. He stepped forward his boot, splashing on the ground and placed a heavy hand on Sam's shoulder.
Deans gaze shifted to you, his expression softening and turning into something akin to pity, the one look you can stand. It was a confirmation that seemed like Sam had already discussed this matter with him.
'We gotta" Dean said as he looked back over at Sam, his voice low and devoid of its usual teasing. "Bobby called he's got something for us"
Sam gave you one last look. You stepped back, your heels slipping slightly and crossing your arms tightly over your chest, the cold was suddenly into your bones, but the anger was enough to keep you up right.
"Go" you snapped, the words sharp in your throat. "Go save the world but don't you dare come back here. I can't believe you seriously think you're doing me a favor" you scoffed, the anger finally bubbled up to the outside but on the inside, it was different.
The familiar burn in your throat that made you want to sob washed over.
You watched as both men steps into the car, slamming the door shut. That was the final goodbye, the ending that you never saw coming, even if your dad warned you multiple times.
You were rooted in your spot, you waited for Sam to stop, waited for him to run out of the car and save himself, hell maybe even one last kiss.
But it never came.
The engine roared a low, gutteral vibration that echoed in your chest, the car pulled away from the curb with a spray of the grey rain water. The tail lights fading into the mist until they were nothing more than two blurred dots.
The walk back to the diner felt like an eternity. By the time you pushed to the heavy doors, you were shivering so violently that your teeth click together. The warmth that always filled the diner with a comforting feeling now felt stifling.
It was like you couldn't breathe, like you were drowning in a pool of your own emotions.
"What the hell happened" your friend asked glancing up and down at your shivering body. She could piece together the details as she had grown accustomed to the look of a heart that had just been stepped on and she also knew the Winchesters well enough to guess who had done the stepping.
You could see that she slid over a towel from across the counter, but you didn't take it instead you took a seat on the bar stool.
sam winchester x fem!reader • friends to lovers • 5k words
requested <3 | masterlist ♡ | read on ao3
the bunker is quiet in the way it only ever is after midnight—not peaceful, never peaceful, just heavy with stillness.
the ventilation system breathes through the concrete, filling the library with a low mechanical hum. somewhere deeper in the bunker, an old pipe groans, the sound vibrating through the floor before fading into the soft turn of a page and the rhythmic clicking of sam’s keyboard.
you sit across from him with an open book resting beneath your hands. ancient burial rites, according to the cracked leather cover.
you’ve been staring at the same paragraph for so long that the words have lost their meaning. black ink blurs against yellowing paper, every line sliding through your mind without leaving a trace.
another click.
the light from sam’s laptop washes his face in alternating flashes of white and pale blue. his shoulders curve slightly toward the screen, hair falling across his forehead while he reads. an untouched cup of coffee sits beside his elbow, the surface gone still and cloudy with cold.
he looks tired. he always looks tired lately.
you try not to watch him, but you fail.
sam’s mouth barely moves. just the smallest pull at one corner, softening his face into a private smile. something inside your chest twists before you can stop it.
"good news?"
sam glances up. the smile disappears so fast that you could almost convince yourself it had never been there.
"what?"
you gesture toward the laptop with the end of your pen.
"you smiled."
"oh." his gaze drops back to the screen. "yeah. i guess."
you wait for him to explain. he doesn’t.
the cursor blinks inside a white message box. sam’s fingers hover over the keys before beginning to move again.
"case lead?" you ask.
"no." the answer comes too quickly.
sam clears his throat. one hand closes around the edge of the laptop, angling the screen away from you with a movement that is probably supposed to look absentminded.
it doesn’t.
sam guards his computer like it contains the launch codes to every nuclear weapon in the country, but he has never hidden research from you before. he complains when dean touches it. threatens him when he eats over it. he once spent half an hour checking the hard drive because dean used it to search for a burger place without asking.
you have never been included in that distrust until now.
"right," you say quietly.
you return to the book, though the paragraph has become even more impossible to read. a few seconds pass before the typing stops.
"it’s just someone i’ve been talking to," sam says.
your fingers still against the page.
"someone?"
"online."
the word settles like lead beneath your ribs. you keep your expression neutral—at least, you hope you do.
"oh."
sam nods, even though you aren’t looking at him anymore.
"we met a few weeks ago."
"that’s nice." the words sound thin and strange in the enormous room.
you turn the page without reading it. the paper scrapes against your thumb, a sharp physical sting that’s easier to focus on than the sudden warmth crawling up your neck.
sam watches you. you can feel it even without looking—the weight of his gaze lingering across the table, waiting for something you don’t know how to give him.
then his laptop chimes, and his attention returns to the screen.
the clicking resumes.
you last another three minutes before closing the book. the sound echoes more loudly than it should.
"i’m going to bed."
sam looks up again.
"already?"
"it’s almost one."
"you usually stay up later."
you push your chair away from the table. its wooden legs drag against the floor with a low scrape.
"i’m tired." another lie.
sam’s eyebrows pull together, concern appearing with such frustrating ease it almost makes you angry.
he notices when you skip lunch. when you favor one side after a hunt. when the bunker feels too quiet and you need someone to sit beside you without asking questions.
but not this.
apparently, he can notice everything except the way you look at him.
"okay," he says after a moment. "goodnight."
"night."
you leave without looking back.
the hallway feels colder than the library, the concrete leaching warmth through your socks as you make your way toward your room.
behind you, muffled by distance, sam’s laptop chimes again.
—
the next morning smells like coffee, butter, and something beginning to burn.
you find dean standing in front of the stove wearing an apron emblazoned with kiss the cook in large red letters beside a lipstick mark.
you stop in the doorway.
"where did that come from?"
dean glances down at himself as though he has forgotten he’s wearing it.
"a gift."
"from who?"
"myself."
"you bought yourself an apron?"
"self-care." dean shrugs as though this is the most ordinary thing in the world.
you move toward the coffee pot.
"that isn’t what self-care means."
"maybe not to you."
"when did you even buy it?"
"none of your business."
you pour coffee into your mug. steam curls against your face, warm and bitter, and you close your eyes for half a second as you breathe it in.
dean slides a plate of scrambled eggs across the counter before you ask.
"eat."
you look down at them.
"good morning to you too."
"you look like crap."
"thank you."
"you’re welcome."
you carry the plate to the table. dean turns back to the stove, prodding a strip of bacon that has curled almost completely in on itself.
footsteps approach from the hallway. you know they belong to sam before he enters.
you hate that you know.
he appears a moment later, already dressed in jeans and a dark flannel, his laptop tucked securely beneath one arm.
your gaze catches on it.
then on his hands.
then anywhere else.
"morning," sam says.
"morning," dean answers.
you lift your coffee in silent acknowledgment.
sam’s eyes settle on you.
"sleep okay?"
"fine."
"you were up early."
you nearly choke on your coffee and look at him over the rim of your mug.
"how do you know?"
"i heard you walking around."
"you were awake?"
his fingers adjust against the laptop.
"couldn’t sleep."
dean looks between the two of you while slowly chewing a piece of bacon.
"riveting."
sam gives him a tired look.
"what?"
"nothing." dean takes another bite. "please continue discussing each other’s sleep schedules. it’s not weird at all."
you roll your eyes, and a faint flush creeps across the tops of sam’s ears.
he sets his laptop on the table.
the screen wakes before he can close it. a notification appears in the upper corner.
new message from elena.
the name burns itself into your mind before you can look away.
sam notices. his hand moves across the trackpad, closing the notification.
dean notices too. of course he does. teasing sam is an opportunity he never misses.
"elena," he says, dragging out the syllables.
sam’s jaw tightens.
"dean."
"who’s elena?"
"a friend."
"doesn’t look like just a friend."
"you saw one notification."
"one very friendly notification."
"you didn’t even read it."
dean points his fork at him. "it had a heart."
your stomach drops. sam shoots him a look.
"it was just an emoji."
"a heart-shaped emoji."
"most hearts are heart-shaped."
dean looks at you as though sam has just proven his point. you focus very hard on your eggs.
"online friend?" he asks.
sam’s expression darkens.
"why do you care?"
"i don’t." dean grins. "i’m happy for you, sammy."
"don’t."
"your new internet girlfriend."
"she isn’t my girlfriend."
"yet."
sam closes the laptop harder than necessary and stands.
"i’m going to the library."
"tell elena i said hi."
sam mutters something under his breath as he leaves, carrying the laptop against his chest. dean watches him disappear through the doorway, then he looks at you.
"don’t." you take a drink of coffee and ignore his gaze.
"i didn’t say anything."
"but you’re about to."
dean just shrugs.
you push the eggs around your plate. the smell that had seemed comforting a few minutes ago now turns your stomach.
dean leans one hip against the counter and says your name, pulling your attention from the now-unappetizing eggs.
"you okay?"
you scoff. "why wouldn’t i be?"
"your face did that thing." dean waves his fork in your general direction.
you frown. "what thing?"
"the thing it does when you’re pretending you’re not upset."
"i’m not upset."
"there it is again."
you stab a piece of egg harder than necessary.
"sam can talk to whoever he wants."
"never said he couldn’t."
"good."
after a beat, dean says, "you’re jealous."
your gaze snaps up in response, and dean’s mouth curls into a knowing smile.
"i am not jealous."
"sure," he says, dragging out the word.
"i’m not."
"you’re currently trying to murder breakfast."
you release the fork. it clatters against the plate.
"i lost my appetite."
"because of the eggs or elena?"
you glare at him. dean raises both hands, still holding his fork in one.
"just asking."
you take your coffee and stand.
"for the record," he calls as you leave, "the eggs didn’t deserve that."
—
after that, elena seems to exist everywhere. not physically. that might have been easier. instead, she lives inside every soft chime that carries through the bunker and every private smile you catch from across the room.
she is there every time sam looks down at his phone during breakfast or closes a window when you enter the library. every night he stays awake after you leave, the light beneath his bedroom door cutting a thin blue line across the hallway floor.
you know almost nothing about her, but that does not stop your mind from creating her.
she is probably beautiful. the effortless kind, with shiny hair that never tangles and a smile that looks natural in photographs. she probably has a real job she can talk about without inventing a new lie every few seconds. she probably owns clothing that has never been soaked in monster blood.
maybe she likes books. sam would like that.
maybe she listens when he talks about the things no one else understands. maybe she asks about his day and receives the kind of truth he usually keeps locked away.
you hate her a little.
then you feel guilty, because she has done nothing except speak to someone you have no right to claim.
that is the worst part.
sam isn’t yours. he has never been yours.
you have only collected fragments of him over the years, mistaking familiarity for belonging.
the way he takes his coffee dark but forgets to drink it while researching. the scars he never talks about. the crease between his eyebrows when he is worried.
the way his hand finds the small of your back whenever danger gets too close, guiding you behind him as though his body could stop every terrible thing in the world from reaching yours.
none of it belongs to you.
elena only makes that impossible to ignore.
so you begin spending more time with dean.
not intentionally. at least, that’s what you tell yourself.
dean is easy. he’s safe. there is no careful distance to measure with him, no fear that touching his hand will expose everything you have spent years hiding.
he lets you choose the movie even while complaining about it. he passes you a beer without asking. he fills the silence before it has a chance to become painful.
tonight, you are sitting beside him on the couch while an action movie plays across the television. rain drums steadily against the bunker’s exterior door, too distant to hear clearly but loud enough to soften the silence between explosions.
on-screen, a car sails over the edge of a bridge.
"that should’ve exploded," dean says.
the car hits the ravine and erupts into flames.
"it did explode."
"not fast enough."
"you’re criticizing the realism?"
"there are standards."
you laugh, the sound escaping before you can stop it.
the bunker door opens behind you.
cool air follows sam down the stairs, carrying the smell of rain and wet pavement. grocery bags hang from both hands, their sides speckled with water.
"hey," you say, looking over your shoulder.
sam stops near the bottom step. his eyes move from you to dean. more specifically, to dean’s arm stretched across the back of the couch behind you.
something flickers across his face, though it is gone before you can name it.
"hey."
dean pauses the movie. "you get pie?"
sam carries the bags toward the kitchen table.
"no."
dean looks personally offended.
"but you went to the store."
"we needed actual food."
"pie is actual food."
sam starts unpacking the bags. a box of pasta lands on the table harder than necessary.
you glance at dean. dean glances at you.
"i’ll help." you leave the couch and approach the table.
sam keeps his attention on the groceries.
"you don’t have to," he says, not looking at you.
"i know."
you reach into the nearest bag at the same time he does. your fingers brush, a brief shock of warmth against chilled skin. sam pulls his hand away almost immediately. the movement is small, but it still hurts.
you take out a jar of pasta sauce and study the label as though it contains something worth reading.
"how’s elena?"
sam’s shoulders tense. "fine."
"you two still talking?"
"yeah."
"that’s good."
"is it?"
you glance up.
sam is watching you now. rain has darkened the ends of his hair, and one drop trails slowly from his temple toward his jaw.
there is something sharp beneath his expression. something almost accusing.
"why wouldn’t it be?" you ask.
"no reason." he turns back to the groceries.
"okay."
dean clears his throat from the couch. neither of you looks at him.
sam takes a carton of eggs from the bag.
"you and dean having fun?"
"we were watching a movie."
"looked fun."
you blink. "it was."
"good."
you pause before asking, "why are you acting weird?"
sam laughs once, but there is no humor in the sound.
"i’m not."
"you are."
“i’m putting groceries away."
"yeah, angrily."
"i didn’t know there was an angry way to put away eggs."
"you’re about to crack them."
sam looks down. his fingers are pressing dents into the cardboard.
his grip loosens.
"i’m just tired."
"right." you step away from the table.
sam exhales through his nose. "i didn’t mean—"
the laptop chimes from inside the bag hanging across his shoulder.
both of you freeze.
another message.
your eyes move toward the sound before you can stop them. sam notices. again.
"you should get that," you say.
"it can wait."
"she might need something."
"she doesn’t."
"how do you know?"
"because i know her."
the answer cuts more deeply than it should.
you fold your arms across your chest. "then why are you always hiding her?"
sam’s eyebrows knit together. "what?"
"the screen. the messages. every time i walk into a room, you close something or turn the computer away."
"that isn’t—"
"then why are you always talking to her?"
the question leaves your mouth before you can stop it.
the room goes silent. even dean doesn’t say anything.
sam stares at you. heat spreads across your face as the meaning of your own words settles between you.
"forget it." you turn.
sam catches your wrist. not tightly, just enough to stop you. his palm is warm against your skin. his thumb rests over your pulse, and you wonder whether he can feel how violently it jumps beneath his touch.
"why do you care?" he asks.
you look down at his hand. "i don’t."
sam’s expression hardens. "you’re a terrible liar."
the lie catches in your throat.
"so are you."
his fingers loosen, and you pull away before he can feel your hand begin to tremble.
"enjoy your conversation."
you leave the room without waiting for an answer.
—
dean finds you in the laundry room an hour later, folding one of sam’s shirts.
you do not realize it belongs to him until you recognize the faded grey fabric and the tiny tear near the hem. you have seen him wear it beneath flannel shirts a hundred times. once, after a hunt outside cheyenne, you fell asleep against his shoulder while he was wearing it.
you remember waking with your cheek pressed to soft cotton and sam’s jacket tucked across your lap. the memory makes your hands tighten.
"he thinks you’re dating me," dean says from the doorway.
you nearly drop the shirt.
"what?"
"sam."
"sam thinks—" you turn toward him. "why would he think that?"
dean gestures vaguely at you and himself.
"because we hang out."
"we all hang out."
"you wear my jackets."
"because you leave them everywhere."
"you steal my food."
"you steal mine."
"you sit beside me during movies."
"because sam’s always on his laptop talking to elena."
dean points at you. "and there it is."
you fold the shirt again even though it is already folded.
"there what is?"
"jealousy."
you scoff. "i’m not jealous."
"you’re folding that shirt like it owes you money."
you look down. deep creases run through the fabric beneath your fingers.
you smooth them out.
"he likes her."
"he’s never met her."
"that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like her."
"he likes you."
a quiet laugh escapes you. dean doesn’t join in, and your smile fades.
"no, he doesn’t."
"yes, he does."
"he barely talks to me anymore."
"because he thinks you want me."
"that’s ridiculous."
"yeah, well." dean crosses his arms. "welcome to my life."
you look down at sam’s shirt again.
"he made a dating profile."
"because he thought you weren’t interested."
your fingers stop moving.
"he told you that?"
"not exactly."
"then you don’t know."
dean sighs. "you two are exhausting."
he pushes away from the doorway.
"where are you going?"
"out."
"it’s almost midnight."
"pie waits for no man."
you stare at him.
"you bought pie yesterday."
"then i’m buying more. sam didn’t buy me any."
"dean—"
he turns back, the humor slipping from his face. "talk to him."
"there’s nothing to talk about."
"then go tell him that."
you clutch sam’s shirt against your stomach.
"what if you’re wrong?"
dean studies you for a moment. when he answers, his voice is quieter.
"then i’m wrong." the honesty hurts more than any reassurance would have. he glances toward the shirt in your hands. "but i know my brother."
"so do i."
"apparently not as well as you think."
he leaves before you can answer. a minute later, the bunker door closes.
you remain in the laundry room with sam’s shirt pressed against you and the unsteady hope dean left behind pressing painfully against your ribs.
—
sam is in the library when you find him. of course he is.
his laptop sits open in front of him, but the screen has gone dark. his hands are folded beneath his chin, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the table. he looks up when your footsteps reach the edge of the room.
"hey."
"hey." you stop on the opposite side of the table.
the distance between you is only a few feet, but it feels enormous.
"you can sit." sam gestures toward the chair across from him.
"i know."
his hand falls back to the table.
you hate this—the careful voices, the space neither of you knows how to cross, the feeling that every conversation has become something you have to survive. it is becoming too much.
"dean left," you say.
"i heard."
"he said he was getting pie."
sam huffs a quiet laugh. "sounds right."
the sound aches somewhere inside you. you sit. sam watches your hands as you fold them in your lap.
"can i ask you something?"
his expression becomes guarded. "sure."
you glance at the laptop. "is she your girlfriend?"
sam follows your gaze. "elena?"
you nod.
"no."
a breath leaves you before you can hide it. sam notices.
"do you want her to be?" you ask.
his eyes return to yours.
"why are you asking?"
"because i want to know."
"you didn’t seem interested before."
"i was trying not to be."
the words settle between you. sam’s expression softens, but only slightly.
"why?"
you laugh under your breath. "you really need me to explain that?"
"yeah," he says quietly. "i think i do."
you look down at your hands.
"because you smile when she messages you."
sam doesn’t speak.
"because you hide the screen whenever i walk past. because you stay up talking to her, and i don’t even know who she is, but she knows you."
"she doesn’t."
you look up, and sam’s gaze remains anchored on yours.
"not really," he continues. "she doesn’t know anything real."
"you’ve been talking for weeks."
"that doesn’t mean she knows me."
"then why talk to her?"
sam leans back. the chair creaks beneath his weight. his eyes close for a moment.
"because it was easier."
"easier than what?"
he opens them. "this."
your breath catches. "this?"
"wanting someone who doesn’t want me."
the bunker seems to go perfectly still. the ventilation system fades. the distant pipes. the faint electrical hum of the lamp. all you hear is your own heartbeat.
"sam—"
"i thought you and dean…" he shakes his head. "it doesn’t matter."
"yes, it does."
"you’re always together."
"because you’re always avoiding me."
"i wasn’t avoiding you."
"you pull your laptop away every time i get near you."
"because i didn’t want you to see it."
"exactly."
"because i was embarrassed."
you stare at him. sam looks down at the table.
"dean sent me the site as a joke," he says. "months ago. i ignored it at first."
"but you changed your mind."
his mouth twists. "i kept watching you with him."
"dean?"
"yeah."
"sam, dean is like my brother."
his gaze lifts. "he told me."
"then why didn’t you say anything?"
"what was i supposed to say?"
"anything."
"you could’ve said something too."
"you had a girlfriend."
"she isn’t my girlfriend."
"i didn’t know that."
"you could’ve asked."
"i did."
sam falls silent, and you look away before your expression can break.
"you never gave me a real answer," you say, tracing a scratch in the tabletop to avoid his gaze.
"because i thought you didn’t care."
"i care too much."
the confession comes out softer than you intend.
sam’s expression changes. the frustration drains from his face, leaving something open and vulnerable behind.
"what?"
your throat tightens again.
you have imagined telling him before.
after hunts, when adrenaline strips away good judgment and makes honesty feel possible. late at night, when you lie awake and hear him moving in the room beside yours. in the impala, watching his reflection in the window while dean drives and music fills every place words might go.
it always sounds easier in your head.
"i care," you repeat. "about you. about who you talk to. about why you smile at your laptop more than you smile at me lately."
"i don’t."
"you do."
"not because of her."
"then why?"
sam’s gaze drops briefly to your mouth. "because i’m usually talking about you."
you blink. "what?"
he reaches for the laptop. the screen wakes, bathing the table in pale light. a conversation fills the page. sam hesitates before turning it toward you.
you know you should not read it. you do anyway.
most of the messages are ordinary. books, work, complaints about insomnia, and sam’s careful, incomplete answers about his life.
then you see yourself. not your name, but pieces of you.
‘my roommate steals my sweaters and pretends she doesn’t.’
‘she makes coffee strong enough to remove paint.’
‘she falls asleep during research, but she always wakes up when i try to put a blanket over her.’
‘she’s probably watching a movie with my brother tonight.’
beneath the last message, elena’s response waits.
‘you talk about her a lot.’
then another.
‘have you ever considered that you joined this site because asking out the woman you actually like scares you?’
your eyes move toward sam.
"you told her about me?"
"not who you are," he says quickly.
"but you talked about me."
"apparently a lot."
despite everything, a small laugh catches in your throat.
sam smiles. it is the same smile you saw that first night, soft and private.
never meant for elena at all.
your chest tightens again, but the pain has changed. it is warmer now. almost hopeful.
"what happens now?" you ask.
sam looks at the screen, then at you.
"i already told her."
"told her what?"
he scrolls to the final messages.
‘i think you’re right.’
‘i’m sorry. there’s someone i should’ve been honest with.’
elena’s answer sits beneath it.
‘then go be honest.’
you read it twice.
"she seems nice," you admit.
"she is."
a small, ugly thread of jealousy pulls tight inside you.
sam notices that too.
"but she isn’t you."
the thread snaps.
"i wasn’t looking for her."
your breathing turns uneven.
"who were you looking for?"
you know the answer, but you still need to hear him say it.
sam stands. the table remains between you. his expression softens into something that looks almost afraid.
"you."
you stare at him.
"you already had me."
"did i?"
you push your chair back. the sound scrapes through the library as you stand and walk around the table.
sam turns toward you. the distance disappears slowly. one step, then another.
"you could’ve," you whisper.
sam’s hand lifts, but he stops before touching you. his fingers hover beside your face, close enough that you feel their warmth against your skin.
"can i?"
you nod.
his palm settles against your cheek, warm and calloused. his thumb rests beneath your eye as though you are something vital and fragile, and you realize then that sam is trembling too.
you lean into his touch. a breath leaves him. his forehead lowers against yours.
for a moment, neither of you moves.
you breathe him in—coffee, rain, laundry detergent, the faintest trace of the cheap soap he keeps in his bathroom.
familiar things.
sam.
"i’ve been jealous of dean for weeks," he admits.
you smile despite yourself.
"i’ve been jealous of a laptop."
a quiet laugh leaves him, warm against your lips. "you win."
"i hated her a little."
"you don’t even know her."
"exactly."
his thumb brushes slowly across your cheek.
"for what it’s worth, she figured it out before either of us did."
"figured what out?"
sam’s gaze meets yours, and all the humor fades.
"that i’m in love with you."
your heart stops.
sam seems to realize what he said at the same moment you do. something uncertain flickers across his face, and his hand begins to slip from your cheek.
"i didn’t mean to say it like—"
you catch the front of his shirt and kiss him.
the rest of the sentence disappears between you.
sam freezes only for a heartbeat. then his hand slides into your hair, cradling the back of your head as he pulls you closer.
the kiss is softer than you imagined. you’ve spent too many nights imagining it.
sometimes desperate, after a hunt that nearly kills one of you. sometimes hesitant, shared in the dark when neither of you has enough courage to turn on a light.
you never imagined this. sam kissing you like there is nowhere else he needs to be. like he has spent years holding something back and is still afraid that wanting it too much might break it.
his mouth moves slowly against yours. his other hand settles at your waist, fingers curling gently into your shirt.
when you pull away, you stay close enough that your noses brush. sam’s eyes remain closed.
"say it again," you whisper.
his eyes open. "what?"
"the part about loving me."
his expression softens.
"i love you."
the words are quiet, steady. your fingers tighten in his shirt.
"good."
the corner of his mouth lifts. "good?"
"because i love you too."
sam smiles—a real one this time. wide and unguarded, bright enough to transform his entire face. you barely get a chance to see it before he kisses you again.
the bunker door opens.
"all right, i got—"
dean stops halfway down the stairs. you and sam pull apart just enough to look toward him.
dean stands near the bottom step with a pie box balanced in one hand. his eyes move from sam’s hand around your waist to your fingers still tangled in the front of sam’s shirt.
his expression settles into deep, exhausted vindication.
"finally," dean groans.
sam lets out a slow breath. "dean."
"no. don’t dean me. do you know what i’ve been through?"
you raise an eyebrow.
"you went to buy pie. how awful," you say dryly.
"exactly." he continues toward the kitchen. "this better mean i never have to hear about elena again."
sam looks at you. you glance toward the closed laptop.
"you won’t," he says.
"good." dean stops in the doorway. "also, for the record, i expect credit."
"for what?" you ask.
"all of this." dean gestures between you and sam.
sam shakes his head.
"you caused most of it."
"details, schmetails," dean says, waving you both off before he disappears into the kitchen, muttering something about emotional incompetence and wasted gas.
you turn back to sam. his laptop remains on the table behind him, closed.
for once, he doesn’t glance toward it. his attention stays on you.
"so," you whisper. "what now?"
sam’s hand finds yours. his fingers slip between them naturally, filling the empty spaces as though they have done this a thousand times before.
"now," he says, drawing you closer, "i stop being an idiot."
dean’s voice carries from the kitchen.
"let’s not make promises we can’t keep."
sam closes his eyes. you laugh, pressing your forehead against his chest. beneath your cheek, his heart beats quickly.
"ignore him," sam murmurs.
you lift your head.
"gladly."
this time, when sam kisses you, neither of you notices the laptop chime.
summary: two mysterious men are talking very loud in your usual diner, you were just going to ignore them until you happen to over hear some Latin miss pronounced and can't help but correct them, which totally has nothing to do with how attractive one of the two are...
warnings: like none? use of bad Latin that comes exclusively from the secret history and European holiday tour guide (and a few ecosia searchs obs) , mention of curses, stereotypical supernatural stuff?
★・・・・・・★
The diner booth Sam and Dean had commandeered for the last two hours was buried under enough photocopied lore that the waitress had stopped even pretending to ask if they wanted refills. She just topped off the coffee on her way past now, like she'd accepted this was simply a permanent installation in her section.
"Okay, so get this," Sam said, sliding a printout across the table, one finger tapping a paragraph he'd underlined twice. "The tone shifting thing, where the vic's whole personality flips, calm one minute, violent the next, it's not possession. Possession's usually consistent once it takes hold. This is cyclical. Which means we're probably looking at a curse, something tied to a lunar or ritual cycle instead of a straight demonic hold."
"Great. Love that for us." Dean didn't look up from his own burger. "Curses are always so much fun to fix."
"There's a binding phrase here, from the source ritual." Sam squinted at the smudged photocopy, sounding it out slow and careful, the particular halting rhythm of a guy who'd taught himself church Latin out of paperbacks rather than a classroom. "Ligata sit anima, donec..."
"Doe nek," you said, without meaning to, walking past the booth toward the counter with your own coffee in hand, the correction out of your mouth before you'd fully registered you were about to say it out loud to two total strangers. "It's doe nek, not don eck. Long O, soft C."
Both of them looked up at you like you'd materialized out of the tabletop.
And you had, admittedly, chosen an inconvenient moment to notice how the guy holding the photocopy looked up at you. Tall even sitting down, hazel eyes, a kind of rumpled, exhausted handsomeness that you had absolutely no business cataloguing this thoroughly in the two seconds it took him to blink at you in confusion. You filed the observation away under things to be embarrassed about later and pressed on anyway, because apparently grammar outranked self preservation in your priority list.
"Sorry?" Sam said.
"Donec." You gestured vaguely at the paper, immediately regretting having said anything at all, feeling your face heat. "It means until. You said it kind of flat. Sorry, you guys are just sort of loud, and I have unfortunately spent enough time around bad classroom Latin to have opinions about it whether anyone asks for them or not."
Dean, delighted, immediately turned on his brother like a shark that had just scented blood in the water. "Oh, this is incredible. She's not even a witness and she's already correcting your Latin. Sammy, your dead languages game is getting roasted by a total stranger in a diner."
"It's not that bad."
"It is a little bad," you said, apologetic but honest, because something about the earnestness on his face made you feel obligated to be truthful rather than polite. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be blunt, it's just, that phrase specifically trips people up a lot, because it looks almost identical to donant, which means something completely different, and if you get the vowel wrong it can genuinely flip the meaning of the whole binding clause. I've seen actual published translations get it wrong. It's not just you."
Sam's whole face had shifted from mild embarrassment into something far more interested. "Wait. Flip it how?"
"Donec is until, temporary, conditional. Donant is more like they give or they grant, present tense, ongoing. So depending which one's actually in your source text, you're either looking at a binding that's meant to break under specific conditions, or one that's meant to just keep giving indefinitely, which is a pretty significant difference if you're trying to figure out how something like this ends." You paused, aware you'd just launched fully into a lecture uninvited. "Sorry. I get carried away. Grammar's kind of my whole thing."
"No, no, that's..." Sam had already turned the photocopy toward you, genuinely eager now, tapping the line in question. "Can you look at this? Actually look at it. Because if I've had the tense wrong this whole time that changes basically everything."
You should have made an excuse. You had a stack of your own paperwork waiting back at the shop, a genuine reason to keep walking toward the door, but the sheer, unguarded enthusiasm on his face, the fact that a grown man in a plaid shirt was looking at you like you'd just handed him the answer to something that actually mattered to him, was more charming than you were prepared for at eleven in the morning on a Tuesday. You also noticed, somewhat unhelpfully, the size of his hands where they rested on the table, and decided that particular observation was not one you needed to be having right now either.
"I'm Sam, by the way," he added, seeming to catch himself. "And this is my brother."
"Dean," the other introduced himself, giving a small two finger wave with the hand not holding his burger. "Enjoy watching my brother get schooled on his dead language pronunciation. It's a rare treat."
"I'm sure it happens more than he lets on." You gave your own name in return, and Sam repeated it back like he was making sure he had it filed correctly, which did nothing at all to help the small, warm flutter you were currently pretending not to notice in your own chest.
You slid into the booth across from him, uninvited, and looked.
"Okay, yeah, that's donec, not donant, you can tell from the ending. So it is conditional. There should be a clause somewhere nearby specifying what breaks it." You scanned further down the page, murmuring half to yourself, and Sam leaned in close enough to follow your finger across the text, clearly having entirely forgotten Dean existed, close enough now that you could smell coffee and something faintly like cedar, which was, again, an observation you filed away with mild horror at your own inability to focus on the actual Latin in front of you.
"Nobody's ever caught that before," Sam said, sounding almost giddy about it, which was, objectively, you thought, a deeply strange thing for a grown man to sound giddy about, and also somehow extremely endearing. "I've been reading ritual Latin out of secondhand paperbacks for years and nobody has ever once called me out on the pronunciation."
"I promise you people have noticed. They were probably just too polite to say anything."
"Well, I appreciate that you're not too polite."
"I've been told it's a character flaw."
"I think it's the opposite of a flaw," Sam said, entirely sincere, and something about the plain, easy honesty of it made your stomach do a small, unhelpful flip. You looked at him a beat too long, taking in the sincerity in his expression, the slight furrow of concentration still lingering between his brows, and thought, with a clarity that startled you, that you would very much like an excuse to keep sitting in this booth for a good while longer.
Dean, watching this entire exchange over the top of his burger with the expression of a man watching a nature documentary, finally set it down. "Okay, this is officially the nerdiest thing I've ever witnessed, and I watched Sam read the extended footnotes on a demonology text for fun last week. You two want a room, or should I just take my food to the counter."
Your face went instantly, thoroughly warm. "I, no, we're just, it's just Latin, it's not, we don't need a room, I was simply, ah." You stopped talking before you could dig the hole any deeper, mortified at how quickly your usual fluency had abandoned you the second Dean said the word room out loud.
Sam, at least, looked equally flustered, ducking his head and clearing his throat. "Dean."
"I'm just saying. It's very sweet. Very National Geographic. Two dead language nerds finding each other in their natural habitat."
You laughed despite yourself, still a little pink in the face, and Sam ducked his head lower, not quite hiding a smile, and Dean looked entirely too pleased with himself for having caused the both of you this much trouble in under five minutes of acquaintance.
"So," you said, mostly to redirect the conversation away from your own suddenly warm face, "what exactly are you two doing with cursed Latin bindings in a diner at eleven a.m.? You aren't, like, actual scholars, are you? Because you don't really give off scholar."
There was a beat of silence just a fraction too long. Sam and Dean exchanged the kind of look that two people share when they've had a lot of practice quickly inventing a cover story.
"Historians," Dean said. "Freelance."
"Freelance historians."
"It's a real field."
"Sure it is." You raised an eyebrow, unconvinced but not particularly invested in pushing it, and went back to scanning the photocopy. "Well, whatever you're actually doing, if this is about the thing over on Miller Street, the guy who supposedly attacked his neighbor and then apparently didn't remember any of it..."
Both brothers went very still.
"How do you know about that," Sam said, carefully.
"Small town. Everybody knows about that." You shrugged, still not entirely clocking the shift in the air. "I mean, hypothetically, if this stuff were real, if curses and bindings and all that were actually a thing that happened to actual people and not just something I translate out of dusty books for a living, I'd say the person who did this would probably be somebody kind of odd. Somebody who keeps to themselves. There's this guy, Walt Kessler, runs the antique shop two doors down from mine, and he's always been off. Buys weird stuff. Asked me once if I had anything on binding rituals for my personal collection, which, red flag, obviously, but I figured he was just a Renaissance Faire enthusiast with poor social skills." You paused. "Not that I actually believe any of that's real. Obviously. That would be insane. Right?"
"Right," Sam said, a little too quickly.
"Totally insane," Dean agreed, in the exact tone of a man who did not think it was insane at all.
"What can you tell us about Kessler," Sam said, leaning forward, all business now, though his eyes kept flicking back to you like he hadn't quite managed to fully switch gears. "Specifically. Anything you remember."
You gave them what you knew, which was, it turned out, more than you'd realized once you actually sat and thought about it. The odd hours, the specialty orders, the one time he'd asked you to translate a phrase you'd quietly declined because something about the context had made you uneasy even without believing in any of it. Sam took notes. Dean asked sharp, practical questions you hadn't expected from a self proclaimed freelance historian. And slowly, watching the two of them work, the quick easy shorthand between them, the way Sam cross referenced everything you said against the photocopies in front of him, the shape of what you were actually looking at started to properly land.
"Wait." You set your coffee down. "Wait, wait, wait. Historians don't take notes like that. Historians don't look at each other like that. What was that look."
"What look," Sam said, entirely too quickly.
"That one. That one right there, the one you're doing right now." You narrowed your eyes at both of them. "Okay, hang on. Is this actually about the Miller Street thing? Like, actually about it? Because if you're about to tell me this is some kind of, I don't know, cult investigation or a documentary or something, I need you to just say so, because you're both being extremely weird."
"We're not being weird," Dean said, in the exact tone of a man being extremely weird.
"You are being so weird. You're being weirder by the second." You looked between them, suspicion climbing. "Is this real? Is the curse thing actually, factually real, or are you messing with me right now, because I will be genuinely upset if this is some kind of elaborate prank."
"It's not a prank," Sam said, carefully, glancing at Dean like he was trying to gauge exactly how much to say.
"That's not an answer, Sam."
"Define real," Dean said.
"Dean, oh my god, that is not helping."
"Look," Sam said, after a pause just a beat too long to be reassuring, "it's complicated."
"It is not complicated, it is a yes or no question."
Dean and Sam exchanged another one of those looks, longer this time, some silent argument passing between them about how much of this a total stranger in a diner booth needed to know.
"Yeah," Sam said finally, quiet, like the word cost him something. "It's real."
You sat back hard against the booth, several long held assumptions about the fundamental nature of reality rearranging themselves in real time. "I have translated dozens of these phrases for my own academic curiosity thinking it was just dead language stuff. Historical curiosity. I did a whole undergrad thesis on ritual Latin as a linguistic exercise."
"Turns out it's also a load bearing skill," Dean said. "Congratulations. Welcome to the actual worst thing that could've happened to your Tuesday."
Sam, at least, had the decency to look apologetic about the size of the revelation he'd just dropped on you, though underneath the apology, you noticed, he was still watching you with that same helpless, delighted interest from the moment you'd corrected his vowel sound, like the fact that the world had just gotten considerably weirder hadn't dimmed his enthusiasm for the person who'd walked him through it.
"For what it's worth," he said, gentler now, "you're being remarkably calm about this."
"I am absolutely not calm. I am screaming internally at a truly impressive volume."
"You're hiding it well."
"Years of grad school. You learn to internally scream through almost anything." You dragged a hand down your face, looking at the photocopies scattered across the table with entirely new eyes. "Okay. Okay, so, if this is real, and Kessler's actually doing this, that binding clause we were just correcting, that actually matters. Like, genuinely, practically matters, doesn't it."
"Genuinely and practically," Sam confirmed.
"Well then you're lucky I walked by," you said, some of your composure returning now that there was an actual problem to focus on instead of a full ontological crisis, "because you had the tense wrong, and if you'd gone in there trying to break a binding based on the wrong verb, you might've made it a lot worse instead of better."
"Yeah," Sam said, and the smile that spread slowly across his face had nothing to do with curses or bindings or Latin verb tenses at all. "Lucky."
You held his gaze a moment longer than the conversation strictly required, warmth climbing back into your face for reasons that had very little to do with grammar this time, and Sam didn't look away either, something easy and a little dazed settling over both of you despite the frankly enormous reality check you'd just been handed.
Dean, watching the two of you look at each other a beat too long over a table full of cursed photocopies, let out a long, put upon sigh and reached for his coffee.
"Oh, for the love of," he muttered. "Can we solve the murder curse before you two start making eyes at each other, or is that not gonna happen."
Your face went hot all over again, and beside you Sam made a small, strangled sound that was probably meant to be a protest and came out sounding a lot more like agreement.
"Shut up, Dean," you and Sam said, at almost exactly the same time, and for one unguarded second, over a stack of ritual Latin and a genuinely alarming reappraisal of the nature of reality, you both looked entirely too pleased about that.
"So," you said, clearing your throat, attempting and largely failing to sound composed, "should I write down my number in case you need any more Latin consulting, or is that also something historians don't typically do."
"Freelance historians do it all the time," Sam said, already sliding a pen across the table toward you, entirely too fast for a man supposedly unbothered by the question. "Professional courtesy."
"Right. Professional."
"Extremely professional," Sam agreed, and neither one of you managed to say it with a straight face, while across the table Dean groaned into his coffee like a man who already knew exactly how much of his life was about to be spent third wheeling this particular case.
You wrote your number down on the corner of one of the photocopies, since it was the nearest available scrap of paper, and after a beat of consideration, added a line underneath it in careful, deliberate Latin, printed just as neatly as the correction you'd given him earlier.
Sam read it upside down as you slid it back across the table, his eyebrows going up slightly before a slow grin spread across his face. "Cubitum eamus."
Let's go to bed, was the literal translation, direct as anything, no metaphor required. Colloquially it landed somewhere a good deal closer to will you sleep with me, and you were fully, mortifyingly aware of exactly how forward that was the second the pen left the paper. You stood there for one internal, panicked half second, arguing with yourself about it, this is insane, you don't even know this man's last name, you correct people's Latin for a living and this is how you choose to use that skill, before deciding, with a kind of reckless clarity you didn't often get to indulge, that you had never in your life felt this bold, and that you weren't about to waste the opportunity now. It wasn't every day a six foot four, objectively gorgeous man walked into your regular diner and started reading ritual Latin out loud, badly, over pancakes. He probably didn't even know what the phrase meant. That, if anything, only made it better.
"Correct pronunciation and everything," you said, standing, gathering your coffee, feeling considerably braver now that you were already halfway out of the booth and had an easy exit available if this landed badly. "Figured a girl's got to keep the theme consistent."
"I know what that means," Sam said, a little strangled.
Oh god, he actually knew. You'd built your entire graceful exit around the assumption that a six foot four stranger who mangled a simple conditional clause probably didn't have the vocabulary for anything past basic exorcism Latin, and instead he was sitting there looking at you like you'd just set something on fire in the middle of the diner. Your stomach dropped somewhere around your shoes. Abort, some panicked internal voice suggested, abort immediately, pretend it said something about the weather, you can absolutely convince him cubitum is a weather term if you commit hard enough.
"You do?" was what actually came out of your mouth, which was, in retrospect, not the save you'd been hoping for.
"I've had a lot of late nights with a Latin dictionary," Sam said, and had the audacity to look almost as flustered as you felt, which helped exactly nothing. "It's not exactly obscure vocabulary."
"Right. No. Of course not. Basic stuff." You could feel your face doing something you had very little control over at this point. "I would hope so, honestly. You did read ritual Latin for a living, allegedly."
"Historians," Dean muttered into his mug, not even trying to hide his grin anymore. "Sure. Historians."
"Text me," you said, aiming it at Sam, already backing toward the door with far more confidence than you actually felt, "and I'll help you not get eaten by whatever Kessler's actually cooking up. Or, you know. Whatever else you two are into. Freelance historian stuff." You paused at the door, hand on the frame, and decided, since you'd already fully committed to this level of recklessness, that there was no sense stopping halfway. "Or, vin mecum concumbere. Whichever comes up first."
Do you want to sleep with me, more or less, lifted more or less directly from a piece of actual Roman graffiti you'd once translated for a class and never quite forgotten, mostly because it was, in your professional opinion, an excellent line, and it seemed only right to finally get some personal use out of two thousand years of recorded human thirst.
Sam's jaw actually dropped, all pretense of composure gone entirely. "Yeah," he said, a little strangled, a little too fast. "I definitely will."
"What?" Dean looked between the two of you, thoroughly lost. "What does that mean? Sam. What did she just say."
"Nothing," Sam said, not taking his eyes off you.
"It was not nothing, your whole face just did something."
"Count on it," Sam said, still staring at the photocopy like it had personally rearranged his entire week, and you left the diner with your heart going considerably faster than a simple grammar correction should have justified, already fairly certain this was not going to be the last strange, Latin filled conversation the two of you had.
You told yourself, walking to your car, that you hoped he'd call about the case. That was the sensible thing to hope for, the professional thing, the thing you could say out loud without your face doing anything embarrassing.
You hoped, considerably more, that he'd call about the other... conjugation.
★・・・・・・★
a/n: what if i ate Sam Winchester? what would you do then? hmmmm? sorry, I'm going insane, i'm on so many pain meds I'm basically legally high aha
