writer by choice, roleplayer by obsession, shitposter by divine calling.
if my fics make you cry, that’s between you and god..
𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔟𝔩𝔬𝔤 𝔦𝔰 30% 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫, 30% 𝔯𝔬𝔩𝔢𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶, 40% 𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔩 𝔡𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔢.
𝔢𝔵𝔭𝔢𝔠𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔬𝔠𝔠𝔞𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔩 𝔪𝔢𝔪𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔦’𝔪 𝔰𝔱𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔢.
It’s cominggggg… I’ll be back with a RE9 ‘Requiem’ Leon S. Kennedy x reader (She/Her) fic for y’all in two days! I’ve been working on this one for a while now. I hope you guys love it (and hopefully angsty love you, hate you troupes.)
𝓐𝓛𝓛 𝓗𝓐𝓛𝓛𝓞𝓦𝓢’ 𝓖𝓡𝓐𝓒𝓔
── salt • grace • temptation ──
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✦ About This Fic ✦
Pairing: Castiel × Reader (She/Her)
Fandom: Supernatural
Setting: Men of Letters Bunker
Tone: Soft tension • Playful temptation • Established trust
Theme: Halloween flirtation, restrained desire, intimacy without crossing lines
✦ Synopsis ✦
The Men of Letters bunker was never meant for celebration.
It was built for secrets, silence, and survival.
So when Halloween decorations creep into its stone corridors and Castiel finds himself wearing wings that aren’t his own, something quietly dangerous unfolds. A devil appears. Grace stirs. Boundaries are tested, not broken.
A moment of temptation, handled with care.
❖ Season/Era❖
Season: • Supernatural Season 110 - 11 era (Men of Letters Bunker)
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⛧ ⛧ ⛧ ⛧ ⛧
The Men of Letters bunker had never been festive by design. It was a place meant to hold secrets, not celebrations. Stone corridors swallowed sound. Fluorescent lights hummed with institutional indifference. Even joy, when it dared to show up, tended to echo like it wasn’t sure it was allowed to stay.
And yet.
Paper lanterns hung along the war room entrance, their jack-o’-lantern faces cut crooked and a little unhinged. Fake cobwebs stretched between shelves of ancient lore, clinging stubbornly to spines that had witnessed far worse than seasonal décor. A plastic bowl of candy sat dead center on the table, right where a demon trap usually lived.
Castiel paused at the threshold.
He took it in with the same careful attention he reserved for crime scenes and Enochian wards.
“This is… decorative,” he said.
You glanced over your shoulder, already grinning like you’d been waiting for that exact word. “It’s Halloween. You’re legally obligated to accept the vibes.”
“I don’t believe that’s codified anywhere,” he replied.
Dean, sprawled in one of the war room chairs with a beer balanced on his stomach, snorted. “Oh, it is. Pretty sure it’s right after ‘pie is sacred’ in the hunter handbook.”
Sam, seated across from him with his laptop, didn’t look up. “There is no hunter handbook.”
“Yeah, well, there should be,” Dean said. “And Cas would be on the cover. Look at him. Dude already dresses like a trench-coated cryptid.”
Castiel ignored the commentary and looked down at himself.
The trench coat was still there, of course. That wasn’t negotiable. But the tie was gone, his collar loosened. Perched slightly askew on his head was a plastic halo, its elastic band doing a poor job of staying hidden in his hair. White feathered wings were clipped to the back of his coat, shifting awkwardly every time he moved.
He frowned faintly. “I am an angel.”
“Yes,” you said brightly, stepping over to adjust the halo before it slid completely sideways. Your fingers brushed his hair. He went very still. “But now you’re a *Halloween* angel.”
Dean tipped his beer toward Cas. “Buddy, you look great. Real ‘ethereal warrior of the Lord attends Spirit Halloween’ energy.”
Castiel blinked at him. “That does not sound complimentary.”
“It is,” Dean said. “Trust me. You’re pullin’ it off.”
Sam finally looked up, gave Cas a quick once-over, and smiled. “Actually, yeah. It works.”
Castiel hesitated, then nodded once. “Very well.”
You smiled like you’d won something.
⛧ ⛧ ⛧ ⛧ ⛧
He told himself he was prepared.
Castiel had endured far worse than costumes. He had faced gods and monsters and the slow erosion of faith itself. He had learned discipline, restraint, the careful management of desire. Wanting was a constant, low-burning thing. A force to be acknowledged and contained.
You had rules. Boundaries. An understanding built on trust and survival and the quiet agreement that neither of you would use intimacy as an escape hatch from reality.
He could endure wanting.
So when you disappeared down the hall with a conspiratorial “don’t peek,” he stationed himself near the table and focused on breathing.
Dean immediately clocked his posture.
“Oh,” Dean said, sitting up. “You’re nervous.”
“I am not,” Castiel replied.
“You absolutely are,” Dean said, delighted. “Man, when was the last time you looked like this? You look like you’re about to walk into a job interview with God.”
Sam shot Dean a look. “Ease up.”
Dean waved him off. “What? I’m being supportive. Cas, buddy, whatever she’s got planned, you got this. You’re literally an angel.”
Castiel’s jaw tightened. “That does not inherently make this situation less… challenging.”
Dean leaned closer, voice dropping conspiratorially. “Listen. She’s into you. Like, *really* into you. You could walk outta here wearing a burlap sack and she’d still look at you like you hung the moon.”
Castiel processed that in silence.
“That is… reassuring,” he admitted.
“Damn right it is,” Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Confidence. Channel it.”
Before Castiel could respond, the door behind him opened.
He turned.
The world narrowed.
⛧ ⛧ ⛧ ⛧ ⛧
You stood framed in the doorway, lit from behind by the warm spill of bunker lights. The red bodysuit clung to you without apology, high-cut and intentional. Fishnets traced the lines of your legs in dark geometry. Your boots grounded the look, scuffed and familiar. Small black horns curved from your head, subtle but unmistakable.
Devil.
Not playful. Not ironic.
Deliberate.
Castiel’s breath caught.
His grace stirred instinctively, a low, electric hum beneath his skin. He had to brace himself, fingers digging into the edge of the table to keep it from bleeding through.
Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Well,” he said. “Okay. Didn’t see *that* coming.”
Sam coughed, very deliberately looking back at his laptop. “I’m gonna… give you guys a minute.”
Dean stood, grabbed another beer, and leaned back against a pillar, watching with open amusement. “Nah. I’m stayin’. This is important character development.”
Castiel couldn’t look away.
You tilted your head, eyes locked on his. “Too much?”
“No,” he said, voice lower than intended. “It is… thematically consistent.”
Dean barked a laugh. “Cas, buddy, that is the worst line you could’ve picked.”
“I am attempting to remain respectful,” Castiel said, not breaking eye contact with you.
You stepped closer, closing the distance with quiet confidence. “It’s Halloween.”
That wasn’t a defense. It was permission.
His hands curled into fists.
“You find this amusing,” he said.
“Yes,” you admitted. “But I also find *you* amusing. And handsome. And incredibly attractive when you’re trying not to be.”
Dean made a vague choking noise. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Castiel reached out, fingers hovering at your waist, reverent even in hesitation. “If I touch you,” he said quietly, “I may not stop.”
Your smile softened. “Then don’t stop. Just… remember where we are.”
His hands settled on you, firm and careful all at once. He leaned down, resting his forehead briefly against yours, eyes closing as if grounding himself.
“You are very distracting,” he murmured.
“You love it.”
“Yes,” he said. “That is the problem.”
He kissed you slowly, deliberately, like restraint was something he was choosing rather than clinging to. Your fingers curled into his coat, tugging him closer. The wings brushed your arms as he shifted.
Dean cleared his throat loudly. “Okay, HR violation confirmed. I’m out.”
He grabbed Sam by the arm and dragged him toward the hallway. “Don’t touch anything weird. Or holy. Or both.”
Castiel didn’t let go.
When he finally pulled back, his eyes were dark, his breath uneven, halo fully crooked now.
“I am exercising considerable self-control,” he said.
You smiled, wicked and fond. “Good. Because later?”
His eyebrow lifted.
“Later,” you whispered, “I’m losing the horns.”
His grip tightened despite himself.
“I will,” he said evenly, “begin preparing now.”
You laughed, kissed him once more, and stepped away, leaving him standing in the bunker with crooked wings, humming grace, and the unmistakable realization that Halloween was, in fact, dangerous.
✧ Synopsis:
On an oppressively humid night in Jackson, Joel finds himself restless and unbearably needy. You, however, are in no rush to give him what he wants—at least not until he begs for it.
༺☆༻“Guess it’s just you an’ me against the world, darlin’.” ༺☆༻
The air in Jackson that evening was unusually heavy, clinging to the skin with a sticky, oppressive weight. Nights in May were not supposed to feel this suffocating, but the broken fan and barely cracked windows did nothing to alleviate the heat. Sweat pooled in the hollows of your collarbone, and the mattress beneath you seemed to soak it all in. Joel’s body pressed against yours, radiating warmth that both comforted and inflamed you.
You shifted on your side, attempting to settle despite the heat, when Joel’s arm looped firmly around your waist, dragging you flush against his chest. His lips hovered over the back of your neck, each exhale warm and trembling. The scratch of his beard along your skin and the firm press of his palm against your stomach made your pulse spike.
“Joel,” you murmured, voice husky from sleep, “what’re you doin’?”
A low, needy sound rose from deep in his chest. His hips pressed deliberately against you, evidence of his arousal impossible to ignore. “Tryin’ to sleep,” he muttered, though his mouth told the truth—kissing, nipping, and sighing along your neck like a man starved.
You twisted in his grasp, catching the storm in his eyes. Joel Miller, usually unshakable and guarded, looked undone: flushed, pupils wide, lips parted as if simply seeing you left him breathless.
“Look at you,” you teased, fingers brushing his jaw before tangling in his curls. “Can’t even last one hot night without me tendin’ to you?”
He buried his face against your throat, lips pressing wet, warm kisses to the sensitive skin beneath your ear. When you tugged his hair, a guttural groan escaped him.
“What’s wrong, Miller?” you whispered, rolling your hips just enough to make him twitch. “Gonna beg for it?”
His breath shuddered. “Darlin’…”
You lifted his chin, eyes locked. “Say it.”
“I need you,” he admitted, voice cracking. “Please. Don’t make me wait.”
You smiled slowly, deliberately, leaving a soft mark on his throat. He moaned loudly, enough that you pressed a palm to his lips.
“Careful,” you whispered, savoring the muffled sound. “Don’t want the neighbors hearing how desperate you are.”
His hips rolled helplessly against your thigh, eyes glassy and wet. Only then did you straddle him. Joel already looked wrecked: damp hair curling over his forehead, lips parted, hands trembling as they gripped your hips.
“Please,” he rasped, devotion breaking through, “ride me, sweetheart. I can’t—can’t stand it anymore.”
You teased him first, grinding slowly over his cock. His groans were rough, uncontrolled, curses spilling freely. When he teetered on the edge, you brushed your lips against his. “Beg harder.”
“Please, baby girl,” he gasped, voice ragged. “Need you so bad. Been dreamin’ about you ridin’ me. Can’t go another second without feelin’ you.”
Finally, you guided him inside with a slow, deliberate descent. Inch by inch, he filled you, chest jerking as though the air had been knocked out of him. His low, guttural moan shivered through you.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, forehead pressed to your shoulder. “So tight—God, baby girl, feels so damn good.”
You set a steady rhythm, savoring the friction. Joel’s moans spilled freely, hands gripping your hips as if to anchor himself. His thighs trembled, the intensity of his reactions fueling your own pleasure.
“Look at you,” you taunted, sweat slicking your spine as you quickened. “Already ruined, Joel. You sound so beautiful moaning for me.”
He gasped, voice raw. “Can’t—fuck—can’t stop. You’re squeezin’ me, drivin’ me mad.”
Each motion drew broken cries, his beard scraping damply against your collarbone. The desperation in his moans heightened the intimacy, every sound a surrender to you. His cock moved perfectly inside you, every thrust sending sparks through your thighs.
“Baby girl, I’m close,” he gasped. “Please—don’t stop.”
You rode him faster, deeper, grinding in time with his cries. Pleasure rippled violently through you, your walls clenching around him. Joel followed with a strangled, high-pitched cry, hips jerking as he spilled inside you. Finally, he slumped against the pillows, completely spent.
The heat hung thick around you, punctuated by ragged breaths. You brushed your fingers through his damp curls, planting tender kisses along his temple, jawline, and neck. Joel held you close, a soft, shaky laugh escaping. “Damn,” he murmured, voice low and warm. “I—can’t believe you do that every time. Leaves me…spent.”
You chuckled, pressing your forehead to his. “You love it, Joel. Don’t deny it.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, voice quivering from the aftershocks. “Love you. Always will.”
You brushed a strand of damp hair from his face, smiling as he nuzzled your chest. “Love you too, Miller,” you whispered, kissing his temple. “Always.”
He tightened his embrace, face pressed to your neck. “Think I could stay like this forever,” he murmured. “With you.”
“Me too,” you replied, tracing lazy patterns on his back. “No matter what comes next.”
He let out a contented sigh, nuzzling closer. “You always know how to wreck me… and then make it feel perfect.”
You pressed a soft kiss to his temple and laughed gently. “You make it easy to love you, Joel.”
You both sank into each other, hearts still racing but bodies easing into quiet. The night and heat faded from importance, replaced by intimacy, whispered affirmations, and the comforting promise of shared sleep.
✦ Pairing: Daryl Dixon × She/Her!Y/N (Reader)
✦ Established Relationship
✦ Genre: Hurt/Comfort • Angst to Soft Reconciliation • Canon-Compliant
𓆩✧𓆪 “I don’t know how to do this without you.” 𓆩✧𓆪
✦ Synopsis ✦
You don’t cross an ocean in the apocalypse unless the alternative is worse than dying. Rumors are thin, unreliable things, but maybe is enough when the person you love disappears without a body to mourn.
Daryl Dixon learned how to survive believing you were gone. He learned how to keep moving, how to protect others, how to live with a grief that never had proof. Survival didn’t heal him. It hollowed him out just enough to keep breathing.
So when you finally stand in front of him again, the reunion isn’t relief. It’s shock. It’s salt in an old wound that never closed. Love collides with the reality of who he had to become to endure your absence, and one human mistake cuts deeper than months of distance ever did.
This is not a story about instant forgiveness.
It’s about the aftermath of grief in a world that never slows down.
About love that survives separation, choices made in loneliness, and two people trying to stand on the same ground again without reopening the wound that nearly killed them both.
✦ Warnings & Rating ✦
Rating: Mature (M)
Content Warnings:
Emotional distress and grief
Relationship conflict and betrayal trauma
References to death, violence, and survival hardship
Slow-burn reconciliation, not instant comfort
No explicit sexual content. Emotional weight ahead.
Sand gave way to damp grass and low scrub, stubborn greenery surviving on salt and spite. The path narrowed as it climbed, broken stone peeking through like old bones. Behind you, the sea kept hissing at the shore, relentless and impartial, like it hadn’t just watched your heart get split open and handed back to you.
Daryl stayed half a step behind on purpose. He never hovered if he thought it might make you bolt. He’d learned you the way he learned tracks, with patience and bruised respect.
Day bled out into night. Sunset gold turned iron-gray, then bruised violet. Cold dampness crawled under your sleeves, making your knuckles ache the way they did before a storm. Your pack cut into your shoulders; every shift only moved the pain around.
You didn’t look at him. If you looked too long, you’d see the tears still clinging to his lashes, and your anger would soften into something dangerous. Something that might forgive before you were ready.
“You hungry?” he asked, voice low, roughened by wind.
It was such a Daryl question. Not Are you okay? because that was too big and too close to the wound. Hunger was practical. Hunger was solvable.
“I’m fine.”
He made a skeptical little exhale. “You look like hell.”
It didn’t sound like an insult. More like concern that didn’t know how to dress itself nicely.
You swallowed. “I crossed the Atlantic on a dying boat. I’m allowed to look like a haunted Victorian orphan.”
A tiny twitch at his mouth, the ghost of a smile, then gone. Like he didn’t trust himself to feel anything but sorry.
“Boat?” he repeated, like his brain snagged. “You… really did that.”
“Yes,” you said, sharper than you meant. “I really did that.”
His shoulders tightened. “I didn’t… I didn’t know.”
“That’s kind of the theme, isn’t it?”
Silence dropped back in, thick and heavy, and you kept walking.
Ahead, the church rose against the darkening sky, stone walls and a steeple like an accusing finger. Candles glowed in a few windows, warm pinpricks in all that cold. The building looked older than the apocalypse, the kind of place that had already survived wars and plagues and still insisted on being here.
It tightened your throat, because you’d always been a little jealous of structures. They had foundations. Permanence.
People like you and Daryl had always been temporary.
A figure stood near the entrance, silhouetted by lamplight. A woman. Even from a distance, you recognized the posture from the beach: dark hair, careful stillness.
Isabelle.
She was waiting.
Daryl slowed, tension shifting like his body had decided this was a trap in a different language.
You didn’t. If you slowed for her, it would mean she mattered more than she did.
You passed Daryl and kept toward the doors, boots scuffing stone. Isabelle’s gaze flicked to you, then to him. Something crossed her face that looked like apology, maybe, or resignation. She said something quiet in French.
Daryl answered in English, clipped. “Not now.”
Isabelle’s mouth tightened. Then she spoke again, slower, as if trying to make you understand without translation. “Tu es… Y/N.”
You didn’t answer. You didn’t owe her anything.
She glanced at Daryl. He looked like he was holding his breath.
“He thought you were gone,” she said in careful English, accent heavy but clear. “He cried for you.”
The words hit like salt in a cut.
You stared at her, jaw tight. “And then he kissed you.”
Isabelle flinched. She wasn’t stupid; she knew how that sounded. She hesitated, then nodded once, accepting the blame without dramatics.
“Yes,” she said simply. “It was… a mistake.”
Daryl jerked like he wanted to interrupt, to defend, to explain. You spoke first.
“I’m too tired for this,” you said, voice flat. “I need somewhere to sleep. Somewhere that isn’t… in your space.”
Isabelle’s gaze flicked to Daryl. His eyes stayed fixed on you, wide with that hurt, helpless expression that made your ribs ache.
“There is a room,” she said. “Small. Upstairs. Clean.”
“Good.”
Daryl took a half-step forward. “Y/N…”
You lifted a hand, palm out. Not aggressive. Just firm.
“Don’t,” you said quietly. “Not tonight.”
He stopped like your hand was a wall.
The church door creaked when you pushed it open. The smell hit instantly: cold stone, melted candle wax, damp wood, and that faint, comforting dust of old paper. Home was a word you hadn’t believed in for a long time, but the quiet inside felt like something adjacent to it. Shelter. A pause.
Your footsteps echoed.
Soft voices in French, then quick steps. A boy appeared in the hallway, eleven or twelve, dark curls, wide eyes, staring like you’d dropped out of the ceiling.
Laurent. The “special boy.”
He looked past you and lit up. “Daryl!”
Daryl stepped in behind you, slower now, careful, like he was afraid of spooking you. Laurent ran to him, then slowed when he felt the weather in the room. His eyes darted between you and Daryl like he was watching a storm form.
“You are…” His English was hesitant. “You are… the ghost?”
Your throat tightened.
Isabelle spoke softly in French, guiding him back. Laurent kept staring anyway, curiosity threaded with something like hope, as if he liked the idea of ghosts that came back.
A nun appeared behind him, older, lined face, calm eyes. She nodded at you, then at Daryl, and said something to Isabelle that sounded like a question. Isabelle answered with a gesture toward the stairs.
“Up,” she told you gently. “I show you.”
You nodded once and started up without looking back.
But you felt it. Daryl’s eyes on your spine, like he was trying to hold you in place with sheer will.
The room Isabelle gave you was narrow: bed, wash basin, a window over the darkening coast. The sheets were rough but clean, the kind of clean that mattered more than softness.
Isabelle lingered in the doorway. “I am sorry,” she said quietly.
You didn’t respond.
She didn’t push. She only nodded and closed the door.
The silence that followed was loud.
You dropped your pack with a thud and sat on the bed. Your hands shook. You stared at them like they belonged to someone else.
You thought you’d cry when you found him alive.
Instead you felt hollow.
You pressed fingertips to your forehead and tried to breathe. The room smelled like soap and candle smoke and damp wool. Outside, wind worried at the trees. Somewhere downstairs, voices murmured.
You unwrapped your palm and winced at the raw scrape. Blood had dried in a dark smear. You cleaned it anyway. The sting was grounding, simple, uncomplicated. You wished your heart could be scrubbed clean the same way.
You lay down without undressing. Clothes stiff with travel and salt. Hair smelling like ocean and old sweat. You didn’t care.
You stared at the ceiling until, hours after you’d found the man you loved alive, the tears finally came.
Not a dramatic sob. A quiet leak. The kind of crying that happened when your body realized you were safe enough to collapse. You covered your mouth with your sleeve and let it happen.
Daryl’s face flashed behind your eyes: the way he’d said your name like a prayer, the way he’d looked wrecked.
Then the kiss again. Soft. Careful. Like grief deserved tenderness.
Your anger returned, sharp and righteous.
He didn’t wait.
But then another thought came, unwanted and cruelly reasonable:
Neither did you.
You had found passage and chased rumor and crossed an ocean because you couldn’t accept maybe. Daryl had accepted maybe. And maybe, for him, that had been a kind of death.
You rolled onto your side, staring at the dark window.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” you whispered to the night.
Downstairs, Daryl stood near the church’s back doorway like he’d been assigned to guard it. He wasn’t sitting. He wasn’t eating. He wasn’t talking.
He was waiting.
Isabelle approached quietly, like she’d learned how to come close without setting off his defenses.
“She is upstairs,” Isabelle said.
“I know,” Daryl muttered.
“You should… eat.”
He made a low sound that meant no.
“You will faint,” she said, half-joking.
“Ain’t hungry.”
“That is a lie,” Isabelle replied, calm.
Daryl’s jaw clenched; his fingers flexed, restless. “She hates me.”
“She is hurt,” Isabelle corrected gently. “There is difference.”
Daryl laughed once, bitter. “Feels the same.”
Isabelle’s gaze softened. “You love her.”
His throat worked. He didn’t deny it.
“You kissed me because you were lonely,” Isabelle said, careful.
Daryl’s head snapped toward her, eyes sharp with guilt. “Don’t.”
“I do not say this to shame you,” she said, holding up a hand. “I say it because you punish yourself already.”
“You thought she was dead,” Isabelle said. “You mourned her.”
“That don’t make it right.”
“No,” Isabelle admitted. “But it makes it human.”
The word hung between them.
Human.
Daryl had spent his whole life being treated like he wasn’t allowed to be that.
He scrubbed a hand over his face like he could erase the evening. “I can’t lose her again,” he said, voice breaking.
“Then do not,” Isabelle said softly. “Fight for her.”
His eyes flashed. “How? I can’t make her forgive me.”
“No,” Isabelle agreed. “But you can be honest. Patient. Steady.”
Daryl’s gaze flicked to the stairs. “She told me not to touch her.”
“Then do not,” Isabelle said. “But you can still stay. Show her you are here.”
Daryl nodded once, like he’d been given a mission.
You woke to footsteps outside your door.
Then a knock. Soft.
Not Isabelle’s. Isabelle knocked with gentle certainty, like a caretaker. This knock was hesitant, like the knuckles didn’t want to touch the wood.
You sat up, heart pounding.
Another knock. “Y/N?” Daryl’s voice, low, rough with sleep he hadn’t gotten.
You stared at the door like it might bite you. “Go away.”
Silence. Then, quietly: “Okay.”
Footsteps retreated.
You pressed a hand to your face, frustrated, trembling. You hated that your body wanted to open the door. Hated that your heart leapt at his voice even while your anger screamed.
You lay back down.
You didn’t sleep.
You lay there listening to the building settle, to distant French murmurs and the occasional scrape of a chair. Your body kept replaying the beach like a cruel loop: the way the wind tugged at his hair, the way his hands shook when he realized you were real, the way your own voice had gone razor-thin to keep you from shattering. Every time you blinked, you saw Isabelle’s mouth against his, saw the tenderness he’d offered her like a borrowed blanket. You tried to tell yourself you didn’t care, tried to harden into the person you’d been on the boat, on the docks, on the road. But grief didn’t ask permission. It flooded in anyway, filling the hollows you’d made to survive. Outside, sea kept breathing, and you couldn’t match it.
Morning came thin and gray. You washed your face and tried to tidy yourself into something resembling a person. Your reflection in the basin water looked like someone who’d been living on spite and momentum.
Downstairs, the smell of food hit you first: soup, garlic, herbs, warm broth. Your stomach betrayed you with a tight ache.
Laurent sat at a table, swinging his legs. A nun sat nearby with a book. Isabelle stirred a pot near the fireplace.
And Daryl leaned against the far wall like a man trying not to take up space.
His eyes found you instantly. Then, like you’d trained him, he looked away.
Your throat tightened. He was listening. Actually respecting what you’d said.
It didn’t erase the hurt.
But it mattered.
“Bonjour,” Isabelle greeted softly.
“Morning,” you said.
Laurent brightened. “You are real! Not a ghost.”
You blinked, caught off guard.
“I mean,” he added quickly, frowning, “you were a ghost and now you are… not.”
A reluctant laugh tugged at your mouth, small and startled. The nun murmured a gentle scold in French. Laurent grinned anyway.
Isabelle set out a bowl. “Eat. You need strength.”
You hesitated, then sat.
The soup was simple and perfect. Hot broth sliding down your throat like mercy. Your hands trembled around the bowl.
Daryl didn’t move. He stayed where he was, eyes lowered, giving you space like it was the only gift he knew how to offer.
After you ate, Isabelle spoke as if discussing the weather. “There is danger. The men who want Laurent… they still search.”
Your spine stiffened. “Who?”
“Pouvoir. Genet,” Isabelle said, mouth tightening. “They have many eyes.”
You glanced toward Laurent. The boy drew with a stub of pencil, humming.
Daryl finally spoke, voice low. “They ain’t gonna get him.”
The certainty in his tone was familiar: protective Daryl, the one who planted himself between monsters and children.
You pushed your bowl away, appetite fading under the weight of reality.
So this was the life he’d been forced into here. Not romance on a beach. Survival. Protecting a kid. Being tangled in a war you didn’t understand.
And you had chased him into it.
A bitter thought rose: Did I just become another problem he has to carry?
“I need air,” you said, standing.
You moved toward the door.
You didn’t look back, but you heard Daryl push off the wall. Footsteps followed you outside. Not close. Just… there.
The air was cold and wet. Mist hung over the grass. The sea beyond the cliff looked steel-colored, angry, endless.
You walked to the edge of the churchyard and stopped, staring at the horizon. Daryl stayed behind you at a respectful distance.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The silence between you was older than words, made of everything you’d survived together.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “I didn’t know… that you were lookin’ for me.”
You didn’t turn. “I was.”
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
A pause. “You get hurt?”
You looked down at your wrapped palm. “Not really.”
A lie. But you weren’t ready to give him the right to worry yet.
He shifted, boots scuffing damp earth. “You… you gonna tell me how you got here?”
You closed your eyes, then exhaled. “I followed rumors. Docks. Smugglers. People who move supplies. People who move people. I traded, I begged, I threatened, I paid.”
A low, pained sound from him.
“I found a boat,” you continued, voice flat. “It sucked. It leaked. It smelled like death. But it went.”
Silence.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
“Yeah.”
His voice broke. “I’m sorry.”
You finally turned.
He looked wrecked in daylight: weathered, sunburned in places, stubble thick, bruises faint under the skin. His eyes were ringed like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks. When he looked at you, it was like he couldn’t believe you were still standing.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and his voice shook. “For all of it. For leavin’. For thinkin’… for that kiss. For hurtin’ you.”
Your throat burned. “Why did you let yourself do it?”
His eyes flinched. He looked out to the sea like he couldn’t bear your face while he confessed.
“’Cause I thought I was already dead,” he said.
You blinked, thrown.
He turned back, slow. His eyes were wet again, stubborn with emotion. “I ain’t good at keepin’ goin’ when I don’t got somethin’ to come back to. I tried. But every night I’d lay there and think… you’re gone. I can’t fix it. I can’t get home. I can’t even bury you.”
His throat worked.
“And she was there,” he said, nodding toward the church. “Helpin’. Keepin’ me from doin’ stupid shit. I didn’t want her the way I want you.”
You swallowed hard.
“It was just…” He rubbed his mouth, frustrated. “For a second, I wanted to feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.”
The honesty was brutal. It didn’t excuse it. It didn’t erase the image. But it made it human.
“And you stood there,” he said, voice cracking, “like I stabbed you.”
“It felt like it.”
He nodded, immediate. “I know.”
“I don’t know how to come back from that,” you said, voice tight.
“I don’t know either,” he admitted. “But I wanna try.”
He didn’t step closer. Didn’t reach out. He just stood there in the damp air, hands at his sides, offering you his truth like it was all he had left.
You looked back at the sea, blinking hard. “I loved you,” you said quietly. “I never stopped.”
His breath hitched.
“But I spent months teaching my heart how to survive without you,” you continued, voice trembling. “And then I finally find you, and I’m supposed to just… snap back into place?”
“I ain’t askin’ that,” he said quickly.
“Then what are you asking?”
His voice went raw. “A chance.”
A gull cried somewhere far off, lonely and harsh.
You breathed out. “I can give you a chance. But I can’t promise I’ll forgive fast.”
His nod was immediate. “Okay.”
“I can’t promise I won’t get angry again.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t promise I won’t wake up tomorrow and decide this hurts too much.”
Fear flashed across his face, then he swallowed it down. “Okay.”
You stared at him, searching for the catch, for selfishness.
There wasn’t any. Just Daryl Dixon, stripped down to bare truth, willing to take whatever scraps you could offer because he didn’t want to lose you again.
“Okay,” you whispered, and the word felt like stepping onto fragile ice.
Relief hit him so hard it looked like it hurt. He didn’t move closer. But his eyes never left your face.
The next days unfolded with the strange rhythm of borrowed time. You stayed at the church because leaving wasn’t safe and you didn’t even know where you’d go. Isabelle and the nuns turned scarcity into meals, fear into routine. Daryl moved like a guard dog, always aware, always listening. He watched Laurent like he’d been assigned by the universe itself.
And he watched you… carefully. Not possessively. Not hovering. Just with a quiet reverence that made your chest ache.
You hated him for the kiss. You loved him for surviving. Sometimes those feelings swapped places so fast you felt dizzy.
At night you heard him downstairs, pacing, never coming to your door again. He listened when you said no.
During the day, you helped where you could: fixed straps, cleaned weapons, patched clothing. Isabelle taught you a few more French phrases, amused by your stubborn pronunciation. Laurent trailed you sometimes, asking questions with the blunt honesty of a kid who’d grown up in the apocalypse and didn’t believe in polite distance.
“Did you fight many walkers?” he asked once, wide-eyed.
“Yes.”
“Did you kill men?”
You paused, then answered honestly. “Yes.”
He studied you, then nodded solemnly. “So you understand Daryl.”
Your throat tightened. “Yeah,” you murmured. “I do.”
One afternoon you found Daryl outside, repairing his bike with a scrap of wire. The sky hung low and gray, threatening rain. You stood a few feet away, watching him work.
His hands were steady, even when the rest of him was chaos.
He glanced up, startled to find you there. You didn’t speak at first. He looked back down, continuing, giving you space.
Finally, you asked quietly, “Does she love you?”
His hands stilled. Slowly he looked up, expression tight. “Isabelle?”
You nodded.
Daryl’s jaw worked. He looked away. “She cares.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
He exhaled, rough. “Maybe.”
“And you?” you asked, voice low. “Do you love her?”
His head snapped up, eyes sharp. “No.”
You flinched anyway. Immediate answers didn’t always mean clean truths.
He saw it, pain flashing. “I love you,” he said, rough and urgent. “Ain’t ever stopped. Ain’t ever gonna.”
Your throat closed. You looked away fast, because if you met his eyes too long, you’d fold.
“What happened… it weren’t love,” he added, softer. “It was survivin’. That’s all.”
“Survival can still hurt people.”
“I know,” he whispered.
Silence stretched, filled with rain-metal air and motor oil. Daryl went back to his wire, hands not as steady now.
You lingered, then turned away.
But walking back into the church, you realized something quietly terrifying:
You hadn’t asked to punish him.
You’d asked to understand if there was room for you to come back.
That night, the rain came in full, hammering the roof until it drowned out quieter sounds. The church felt smaller with the storm pressing against it, like the world wanted in.
You lay in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to thunder roll like distant artillery. The thought of dying here rose in your throat like bile.
A soft noise in the hallway. Footsteps. Slow.
Then a pause outside your door.
A knock. One. Gentle.
Your heartbeat kicked hard.
“Y/N,” Daryl murmured through the wood, voice low enough the rain almost swallowed it. “You awake?”
You should say no. You should stay protected behind anger.
But something in his voice sounded different. Not just guilt. Something rawer.
“Yeah,” you said.
Silence. Then: “Can I… talk?”
You hesitated.
“I won’t come in,” he added quickly. “Just… talk.”
Your throat tightened. “Okay.”
The sound of him exhaling in relief was painfully intimate.
He didn’t open the door. He stayed on the other side, just a voice in the dark, like old times on the road when you’d talk through motel walls or across the Impala’s hood.
“I been thinkin’,” he said.
“That sounds dangerous,” you murmured. The humor came out thin, but it was something.
A soft huff. “Yeah.”
Silence, then his voice roughened. “I shoulda stayed. Back home. With you.”
“You didn’t,” you said quietly.
“I know,” he whispered. “And I ain’t gonna try and make you feel better about it by talkin’ ’bout Rick or guilt or any of that.”
Your breath caught. That was new. That was him taking responsibility without hiding behind missions.
“I left,” he continued, steady but thick. “Because I was scared. Scared to sit still. Scared to be happy. Scared the second I let myself believe I deserve you… the world’d take you.”
Your fingers curled into the blanket.
“So you left to prevent the world from taking me,” you said, bitter. “And it almost worked.”
A long pause.
“Yeah,” he said, and the admission cracked something in you.
Tears slid down your cheeks, silent. On the other side, Daryl swallowed hard.
“I ain’t good at sayin’ shit right,” he murmured. “But I need you to know… I don’t want nobody else. I don’t want comfort that ain’t you. I don’t want any of it if you ain’t in it.”
Your heart twisted.
“And I know I don’t get to ask you to trust me right now,” he added, voice breaking. “But I’m askin’ anyway. Not ’cause I deserve it. Just ’cause… I can’t lose you again.”
You pressed a hand to your mouth, trying to keep the sound in. “Daryl,” you whispered.
He went quiet instantly, like your voice was a command. “I’m here,” he said softly.
“I’m scared,” you admitted, barely audible.
“Me too.”
You laughed through tears. “That’s not comforting.”
“I know,” he said, rue in his voice. “But it’s true.”
Silence, then, slow like words were heavy stones: “I love you.”
The words landed like a physical thing.
He didn’t say them often. He didn’t waste them. So through a door, in the dark, with a storm trying to pry the world apart, it sounded like a promise.
“I love you too,” you whispered, shaking. “But I don’t know how to stop seeing it.”
He was quiet a long time.
Then softly: “You don’t gotta stop seein’ it. Not right now. Just… keep seein’ me too.”
You pressed your forehead to the door. On impulse, you lifted your hand and set your palm flat against the wood.
A heartbeat later, pressure met you on the other side.
His hand.
Separated by a thin barrier, still refusing to let you be alone.
You closed your eyes, letting your breath sync with the faint warmth through the door.
“Go sleep,” you whispered.
“You too,” he said, rough with emotion.
He stayed a moment longer like he was memorizing the shape of you again.
Then the pressure lifted. Footsteps retreated.
The rain kept falling.
But for the first time since the beach, your chest loosened enough to breathe.
─────────────── 𓆩✧𓆪 ───────────────
Daryl Dixon x She/Her!Y/N (Reader)
Established relationship • hurt/comfort • angst to fluff
Canon-timeline anchored: post–TWD finale, into Daryl Dixon France era (and the beach-kiss moment)
𓆩🗡𓆪 SUMMARY 𓆩🗡𓆪
Daryl leaves home carrying an old promise and a newer guilt, and the sea steals him before he can make it back.
Back in the States, everyone says you’re dead. No body. Just blood, scraps, and silence.
But you don’t do “maybe.”
So you follow the only trail that still makes sense: rumor to shoreline, shoreline to ship, ship to France.
And when you finally find him, it isn’t rescue. It’s the sunset. It’s a stranger’s hand on his arm.
It’s Daryl kissing someone else like grief can be used as a bandage.
You freeze.
Daryl breaks.
And love, the stubborn kind that survived the end of the world, has to learn how to survive this.
• Reader is established in Daryl’s life with deep pre-France history.
• The “other woman” is not vilified. The real antagonist is grief, distance, and the apocalypse being the apocalypse.
─────────────── 𓆩✧𓆪 ───────────────
The first time Daryl Dixon looked at you like you were real, it was in the quiet aftermath of violence.
Not in the middle of it. Not when adrenaline made everyone brave and loud and stupid. After. When the world had that bruised hush it got when the dead were down and the living were counting fingers, counting breaths, counting who didn’t answer their name.
You’d been rinsing blood from your hands in a metal basin, the water turning pink, then rust-dark, then clear again. You hadn’t noticed him at first. Daryl was good at being a shadow when he wanted to be. But you felt it anyway, that weight of attention, that faint heat at the edge of your peripheral vision.
When you glanced up, he was leaning in the doorway, crossbow strapped to his back like it was part of his spine. Hair in his eyes. Sleeves pushed up. A bruise blooming across his knuckles.
He watched you like he’d seen a thousand people break, and he was trying to figure out if you were the kind that did.
You dried your hands on your jeans and lifted your chin. “You need something?”
He didn’t answer right away. Daryl had always been sparing with words, like he treated them as ammunition. Finally, he jerked his head toward the hallway, toward the others, toward the noise and the chatter and the clanking of weapons being cleaned.
“Just… makin’ sure you’re… alright.”
It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t practiced. It was a rough-edged offering, held out with a kind of stubborn caution. Like he expected you to laugh. Like he expected the world to snatch it away the second he let go.
You could’ve brushed him off. You could’ve said you were fine, you could’ve made a joke, you could’ve stepped around him and joined the rest of the survivors and let him fade back into the wallpaper of your life.
Instead, you nodded once, slow.
“I’m alright,” you said. Then, because you’d learned to read the soft places people hid behind their hard ones, you added: “You?”
His eyes flicked away like you’d caught him doing something indecent.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
But he didn’t leave.
That was how it began, really. Not with fireworks. With the quiet choice to stay in the doorway.
Over the years, you learned all his doorways.
The one he hovered in when he couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to admit it. The one he paused in when the kids were laughing too loud and it made something in his chest ache in a way he didn’t have a name for. The one he leaned against when he’d come back from a run with blood on his shirt and silence in his mouth.
You learned to meet him there.
Sometimes with a hand on his forearm, grounding him. Sometimes with a cup of coffee he’d pretend he didn’t want. Sometimes with nothing but your presence, shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing a quiet that didn’t demand he become someone else.
People made stories about Daryl. They always had. The feral tracker, the lone wolf, the man who didn’t need anyone.
You learned the truth in the small hours: he needed. He just didn’t trust need. Not in a world that took and took until you were hollow.
You didn’t fix him. You didn’t soften him into a different shape.
You simply stayed.
And Daryl, in his own slow, stubborn way, began to stay back.
By the time the Commonwealth rose around you, clean streets and uniforms and rules like a thin blanket thrown over the rot of the world, you and Daryl had history carved into you.
Not the kind that fit neatly into a story. The kind that lived in scars and inside jokes and the way he’d reach for you in his sleep without waking up.
You’d been there through the prison and Terminus, through Alexandria’s early days when it still felt like a fragile lie, through the long war that turned everyone into something sharper. Through losses that never quite became bearable, only survivable.
Through Rick’s disappearance, the bridge, the years of grief that settled like silt and changed the whole riverbed of your lives.
Daryl blamed himself for that. He carried it like a stone under his tongue. You could see it in the way his jaw locked whenever Rick’s name came up, in the way he went quiet when anyone talked about hope like it was simple.
He’d gone searching for Rick more times than you could count. At first with desperation. Then with ritual. Like if he stopped, it meant admitting the world had won.
You’d gone with him sometimes. Other times you’d stayed behind, guarding a home that never stopped feeling temporary, caring for people who needed you, keeping the lights on in a place that still flickered.
And every time he came back, he came back to you.
To your hands on his face, checking him for injuries he’d pretend weren’t there. To your arms around his waist, pulling him into the kind of warmth he wouldn’t ask for out loud. To the soft, low “Hey” he’d breathe into your hair like it was a prayer he didn’t believe in but kept saying anyway.
He never said “I love you” easily. He showed it instead.
In the way he kept the edges of your world safe.
In the way he learned your tells.
In the way he watched the road when you slept.
In the way he brought you little things he’d find, like a wrapper with a faded cartoon you liked, or a clean scarf, or a book that wasn’t moldy. Like offerings.
So when the Commonwealth finally settled, when the fighting quieted, when you stood on a street that almost looked like before, and he told you he was leaving again…
It felt like someone had reached into your chest and twisted.
He tried to say it like it was nothing. Like it was just another run. Like he’d be back before you had time to miss him.
But you’d learned his voice. You heard the lie in the spaces between his words.
“I gotta,” he said, eyes fixed somewhere past you. “I can’t just… sit here.”
You crossed your arms tight, trying to hold yourself together. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
His throat worked. “Ain’t ‘bout alone.”
“It’s about guilt,” you snapped, because sometimes honesty came out sharp when you were scared. “It’s about you punishing yourself for every bad thing that’s ever happened.”
That got his attention. His eyes flashed, hurt and stubborn, the old Daryl rising like a guard dog.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Don’t what?” you shot back. “Care? Ask you to stay alive? Ask you to stop acting like you’re the only one who lost him?”
The air between you went taut.
His voice dropped, rough. “I can’t—” He stopped, swallowed something too big. “I can’t stop seein’ it. The bridge. The river. Him—” He rubbed his mouth hard with his knuckles. “If there’s even a chance… I gotta know.”
You softened, just a little, because you understood that kind of obsession. The way grief could become a job you clocked into every day so you didn’t have to sit still and feel it.
But you also knew what the world did to people who went out alone. It swallowed them whole and left their loved ones chewing on unanswered questions until their teeth broke.
“Then let me come,” you said, quieter. “We’ll go together. Like we always do.”
His eyes flicked to yours. For a heartbeat, you saw the temptation. The relief. The wanting.
Then, like always, he buried it.
“Can’t,” he said.
Your stomach dropped. “Why?”
He looked away. “Judith. RJ. Carol ain’t here. Someone’s gotta—”
“You’re not their only person,” you whispered, even as something in you knew he felt like he was. “And I’m not… I’m not expendable, Daryl.”
That made him flinch, like you’d slapped the truth into him.
“I ain’t sayin’ you are.”
“Then why does it always feel like you’re choosing the road over me?”
He went still. The silence stretched long enough that you could hear the faint far-off hum of the Commonwealth’s generators, the artificial heartbeat of this new world.
When he finally spoke, it was barely a sound. “’Cause the road’s what I know.”
There it was.
Not a rejection of you. A confession of fear.
You took a step closer, voice trembling despite your effort to keep it steady. “And what about what you have now? What about… us?”
His eyes lifted. They looked wrecked, like he’d been holding back a flood for years and the dam was cracking.
“Don’t,” he whispered again, softer this time. Not a warning. A plea.
Because if he let himself want you out loud, he might not be able to leave.
And he was terrified of what would happen if he didn’t leave. Terrified of stillness. Terrified of being happy. Terrified that the universe would notice and take it away.
You reached up and touched his cheek, thumb brushing the stubble there. “Come back,” you said. “I don’t care if it’s two weeks or two months. Just… come back.”
His hand covered yours, warm and rough, grip tight like an anchor. “I will.”
You searched his face. “Say it like you mean it.”
His jaw clenched. Then, like it physically hurt, he nodded once. “I’ll come back.”
You kissed him first, because if you didn’t, you might fall apart. A hard, desperate kiss that tasted like salt and fear and the shape of everything you couldn’t control.
When you pulled back, his forehead rested against yours for a second, and he breathed like he was memorizing you.
Then he left.
People think the worst part of losing someone is the moment it happens.
They’re wrong.
The worst part is the stretch afterward. The slow dawning that the world kept turning even though your person didn’t come back with it.
Days became weeks.
The first week, you told yourself he was fine. Daryl always came back. He was built for the road. He was a creature of survival.
The second week, you started sleeping lighter.
By the third, you had that constant tightness in your chest, like your body was bracing for impact. Every time someone came through the gates, your heart leapt like a dog at the door.
It was never him.
Then came the whispers.
A rider came in from the edge, shaken, talking about men on the water. Boats. Strangers. A scuffle at the docks outside the Commonwealth’s reach.
Someone said Daryl’s bike had been found.
Someone else said there’d been blood.
And then, the thing that truly split you open: a messenger, pale and apologetic, telling you they’d found a piece of his vest snagged on a rusted cleat near the shoreline. The patch torn. The threads dark.
Blood.
No body.
No proof.
Just absence.
Grief is a strange beast. It doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it goes quiet and makes you practical.
You didn’t collapse. You didn’t scream.
You went cold.
You asked questions. You mapped last known sightings. You walked the waterfront until your feet blistered. You demanded details from people who didn’t have them.
And in the end, when there was nothing left but theories and a shoreline that swallowed answers, you made a decision.
If the world was going to take him, it would have to do it with certainty.
Because you could not live on maybe.
So you left the Commonwealth too.
Not impulsively. Not recklessly. You planned. You packed. You traded. You learned routes and rumors. You followed every scrap of information like it was a lifeline.
At first the trail was shallow, mostly the kind of stories people told when they wanted something from you.
A quiet man with a crossbow.
A guy on a bike.
A drifter who looked like he’d fought the apocalypse with his bare hands.
Then the rumors began to shift.
Not “I saw him,” but “I heard.”
He’d been taken.
Not killed. Taken.
By people who knew the water. By people who moved like they had a system.
You chased that word across states, across coastlines, across the broken skeleton of the old world. You found dock towns where the air still tasted like salt and rust. You found men who spoke in half-truths and traded secrets like contraband.
And finally, after months that blurred into each other, you found something solid.
A name: a boat.
A route: across the Atlantic.
A destination whispered like a joke no one believed: France.
At first you laughed, because it sounded insane. A fairy tale. A place that belonged to postcards and wine and a life that no longer existed.
But the world had taught you one thing: insane was just another word for “real” now.
So you did the impossible.
You found passage.
Not on a shining ship with cabins and comfort, but on a half-dead cargo vessel patched together with hope and duct tape, crewed by survivors who’d made a living moving people and goods between continents like the apocalypse hadn’t rewritten physics.
It cost you almost everything.
You gave up supplies. Ammo. A ring you’d kept tucked away from before. You lied when you had to. You fought when you had to.
You crossed an ocean full of ghosts.
And every night, with the sea groaning beneath you and the wind screaming like a warning, you held onto one thing: Daryl was alive. He had to be.
Because you were not dragging your soul across the world for a corpse.
When you finally saw land again, it didn’t look like salvation.
France rose from the fog like a bruise. Gray skies. Broken coastlines. Old buildings hunched under the weight of time. The air smelled different, not just rot and smoke like back home, but damp stone and salt and something faintly sweet, like decaying fruit.
Europe had been old before the world ended.
Now it looked ancient.
You stepped off the boat with your pack biting into your shoulders and your heart beating too fast, and you thought: Okay. Now what?
Now you became a hunter again.
Not for the dead.
For your living.
It took longer than you wanted to find him.
France was full of factions, whispers, language barriers, and people who had learned to survive in ways you didn’t recognize. There were groups that spoke of hope like it was religion. There were groups that spoke of power like it was the only god left.
You learned names quickly.
Pouvoir.
Genet.
The Nest.
Union of Hope.
You learned what people feared. You learned what they wanted. You learned the kinds of questions that got you stabbed and the kinds that got you a seat near the fire.
You kept your head down. You listened. You traded.
And always, you asked, in whatever broken French you could manage, in whatever gestures you had to use:
“A man. American. Crossbow.”
Most people shrugged. Some laughed. Some looked away too fast.
Then, in a crumbling town that smelled of wet ash, you heard it.
A kid, maybe sixteen, dirt on his face and hunger in his eyes, said it like it was gossip.
“L’Américain,” he told you. “They say he is with the nuns.”
Your breath caught.
“Nuns?”
He nodded. “At the church. They travel. They fight. They protect the boy.”
“A boy,” you repeated, because your brain was trying to catch up to your heart.
The kid shrugged. “A special boy. People talk.”
You didn’t care about special boys. Not right then.
All you heard was: he’s here.
You left at dawn.
You walked until your legs burned and your lungs tasted like metal.
You followed signs that weren’t signs, just the subtle shifts in danger and rumor. You followed the shape of Daryl Dixon through other people’s stories: a quiet killer, a reluctant protector, a man who didn’t belong but still stood between monsters and the vulnerable.
That was him.
That had always been him.
By the time you reached the coast, the sun was already sinking, spilling gold across the water like someone had tipped a chalice of light into the sea.
The beach was quiet.
Too quiet.
The air was soft with salt and that strange European damp that clung to your skin. Wind tugged at your hair. Your boots sank slightly into the sand, leaving prints that looked too temporary.
And then you saw them.
Two figures near the waterline.
One of them was Daryl.
You knew him even from a distance, like your body recognized the shape of him before your mind could catch up. The way he stood slightly hunched, like the world was always ready to swing at him. The way his shoulders held tension even in stillness. The way he looked at the horizon like it might answer questions.
Your chest went tight. Your vision blurred, not from tears yet, but from shock. From the sudden, violent proof that your hope wasn’t a lie.
You took one step forward.
Then you saw her.
A woman close to him, dark hair, face turned up toward his. She touched his arm like she belonged there. Like she knew him. Like she had a right.
You froze.
Because then he leaned in.
And he kissed her.
It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t hungry. It was… quiet.
A sunset kiss. Soft. Almost careful.
Like two people trying to borrow warmth from each other before night fell.
Your body went cold so fast it felt like falling through ice.
For a moment, you couldn’t breathe.
Your brain tried to shove logic into the wound. He thought you were dead. You thought he was dead. People do strange things in grief. It’s not betrayal if the world told him you were gone.
But your heart didn’t care about fairness.
All it knew was: you crossed an ocean for him, and you found his mouth on someone else.
The woman pulled back first, smiling faintly, like she’d just been given something precious.
Daryl’s hand lingered at her waist a second too long.
Then his head turned.
Like instinct.
Like the part of him that survived by noticing the shift in air behind him.
His eyes found you.
And the world stopped.
Daryl Dixon went utterly still, like a deer caught in headlights, like a man shot through the chest and not yet feeling the pain.
His face drained of color.
His mouth parted, but no sound came out.
His eyes… God, his eyes.
They weren’t just shocked.
They were wrecked.
Recognition hit him like a wave, and you watched it ripple through his whole body. His shoulders jerked. His breath stuttered. His hand dropped from the woman like he’d been burned.
“Y/N…?” he rasped, voice breaking on your name like it was something holy and impossible.
The woman beside him turned, confused, looking between you and him. She said something in French, soft and questioning.
Daryl didn’t even look at her.
He took a step toward you. Then another. Faster. Like his body was moving before his mind could think.
His eyes shone wet in the low light, and you realized with a sick jolt that he was on the verge of tears. Daryl, who’d survived everything with grit and silence, looked like he might crumble right there in the sand.
“Holy—” he breathed, like he couldn’t find words big enough. “You… I thought you—”
He broke off, swallowing hard. His hands lifted, shaking slightly, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. Then he surged forward, closing the distance with desperate urgency.
He reached for you like he’d been starving.
And for half a second, your body wanted to let him. Wanted to collapse into him, to breathe him in, to let the world finally right itself.
But then the image of his mouth on hers flashed behind your eyes like a cruel little film reel.
So when his arms wrapped around you, when his forehead pressed against your temple, when he made this broken sound in his throat like relief turning into grief…
You shoved him.
Hard.
His arms fell away instantly, like you’d struck him, like your rejection was a blade he knew too well. He stumbled back a step, blinking at you, stunned.
You were shaking. Not from cold. From rage. From pain. From the sheer, unbearable clash of love and betrayal and months of fear compacted into one moment.
“You…” Your voice came out raw, thin. You swallowed, tried again. “You’re… you’re serious?”
Daryl stared at you like he couldn’t understand the words, like all he knew was that you were here and he’d been praying to every dead god for that.
“Y/N, I—”
You laughed once, sharp and humorless, the sound of something cracking. “Don’t.”
His face twisted. “I didn’t— I thought you were—” He shook his head hard, like he could shake the memory loose. “They told me… they said… your—”
“My what?” you snapped. “My blood? My vest? The ocean?”
His eyes widened. He looked stricken. “You… knew?”
“Yeah,” you hissed, stepping closer because anger made you brave. “I knew you were gone. I knew there was blood. I knew nobody found a body. So I did what you do, Daryl. I didn’t sit down and accept it.”
His breath hitched.
“I tracked you,” you said, voice shaking now, not from fury but from the heartbreak underneath it. “For months. Across states. Across the damn ocean. I came here because I couldn’t live with maybe.”
Daryl’s eyes glassed over fully. His jaw clenched like he was trying not to fall apart.
The woman beside him spoke again, worried now. “Daryl…”
He flinched at her voice like it reminded him of the crime scene you’d walked into.
He turned to her, finally, and said something low and firm in English. “Go.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Please,” he added, rough, and the word tasted like he hated needing it. “Just… go.”
She hesitated, eyes flicking to you, then back to him. Her face tightened with understanding and hurt. She murmured something in French that sounded like resignation, then stepped away, leaving the two of you standing in the sunset’s dying light like the last people on earth.
The wind shifted. The sea hissed. Somewhere far off, gulls cried like ghosts.
Daryl turned back to you, eyes wet, face open in a way you almost never saw.
“I ain’t… I ain’t got no excuse,” he said hoarsely. “I thought I lost you.”
You folded your arms like armor. “So you kissed her.”
His throat bobbed. “I didn’t mean for it to—” He stopped, dragged a hand down his face. “It wasn’t… like that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Your voice broke on the sarcasm, because part of you wanted him to say it was. Part of you wanted it to be a clean betrayal so you could hate him and stop hurting.
But Daryl had never been clean. His love had always been messy and human and earned in blood and silence.
He took a half-step toward you, then stopped, like he was afraid you’d shove him again.
“Listen,” he said, voice trembling with strain. “Every day I been here, I been thinkin’ you’re dead. Every day. I been seein’ you… everywhere. In my sleep. In the way the light hits the trees. In the stupid shit people say that sounds like you.”
His eyes squeezed shut a second, and when he opened them, a tear had slipped down his cheek, catching the last gold of the sun.
“I been mournin’ you,” he whispered. “I never stopped.”
Your anger faltered for a heartbeat, replaced by something raw and aching.
Then you remembered the kiss.
And the hurt surged back like a tide.
“You don’t get to mourn me and replace me in the same breath,” you said, low and deadly.
He flinched like the words punched him.
“I didn’t replace you,” he insisted, voice cracking. “I can’t. I don’t—” He swallowed hard, hands fisting at his sides. “She… she helped. That’s all. We been runnin’ together. Surviving. I ain’t… I ain’t built for this shit, Y/N. Not alone. Not here.”
You stared at him, heart hammering.
He looked so tired. The kind of tired you couldn’t sleep off. The kind that lived in your bones.
And still, you couldn’t unsee it.
“So what,” you said bitterly, “I show up and you just… switch back? Like I’m a jacket you thought you lost?”
His eyes widened, horrified. “No.”
“Then what do you want from me, Daryl?”
His breath hitched. His voice came out small.
“I want you.”
The simplicity of it gutted you.
He took another step closer, slow this time, like approaching a wounded animal.
“I want you alive,” he said. “In front of me. I want… I want to hear you talk. I want to know you’re real.”
Your throat burned.
“And I know I fucked up,” he added, voice rough. “I know. I ain’t gonna pretend I didn’t. But don’t… don’t leave. Please.”
There it was.
Daryl Dixon, begging.
He didn’t do that. He didn’t ask for mercy. He didn’t kneel.
But he stood there in the sand with tears on his face and his pride stripped down to bone, and he asked anyway.
You hated how much it shook you.
You took a shaky breath, forcing air into your lungs like you were learning how again.
“I can’t just—” you started, voice breaking. “I can’t just pretend that didn’t happen.”
“I ain’t askin’ you to,” he said quickly. “Yell at me. Hit me. Whatever you gotta do. Just… don’t disappear again.”
You looked at him, really looked.
This wasn’t the Commonwealth. This wasn’t home. This was France, a place where everything felt wrong and unfamiliar, where the rules of survival were written in a language you didn’t fully understand.
And Daryl… Daryl looked like a man who’d been drowning and just spotted land, only to realize the land could walk away.
Your anger was real.
But so was the fact that you’d crossed the world for him.
So was the fact that your body still ached with the memory of his arms around you, even though you’d shoved him away.
You let out a breath that shook.
“Tell me,” you said, voice low. “Tell me what happened. From the beginning. How you got here. Why you thought I was dead. Why you… why you let yourself—”
His eyes closed. He nodded once, like he’d take any punishment if it meant you stayed.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”
He looked down at the sand like it might hold the story for him.
“I left,” he began, voice rough. “Same as I told you. Road. Searchin’. I was a couple days out when I hit the coast. Heard… heard stuff. People movin’ goods. People movin’ people.”
His jaw clenched. “I got jumped. Woke up… on a ship. Couldn’t get out. They had guns. They had numbers.”
He swallowed hard, throat working like the memory still tasted like fear.
“Storm hit,” he said. “Ship went to hell. I got thrown. Water… everywhere. I thought I was gonna drown.”
You felt your stomach twist, imagining it. The sea, black and endless, eating him alive.
“I made it to shore,” he continued, voice quieter. “France. Didn’t know where the hell I was. Didn’t know how to get back.”
He lifted his eyes to you then, and they were haunted.
“And then,” he said, voice breaking, “I heard what happened back home. From people who came through. They said… there was blood. They said you were gone.”
Your chest tightened. “Who said that?”
He shook his head slightly. “Don’t know. Couldn’t even tell you if it was true or just… rumors. But I believed it.”
His eyes glistened again. “’Cause it made sense. ’Cause this world don’t let me have things.”
You flinched at the bleak honesty.
“And Isabelle,” he said, voice careful now, like stepping onto thin ice, “she… she was there. Helpin’ me. Keepin’ me from gettin’ myself killed. She ain’t you. She ain’t ever gonna be you.”
He swallowed. “That kiss… it was a mistake. It was… grief. And loneliness. And thinkin’ I was never gettin’ back to you anyway.”
Silence stretched between you, filled with the sound of the ocean breathing.
You didn’t know what to do with the truth.
It didn’t erase the pain.
But it gave it context. It turned it from a knife into something duller, heavier. Something you could maybe carry instead of bleeding out from.
You stared at him, arms still crossed tight.
“I’m not dead,” you said, voice shaking.
His face crumpled. “I know.”
“And I’m here,” you added, like you needed him to understand the weight of it. “I’m here. I did this. I found you.”
“I know,” he whispered again, tears spilling now, unable to hold them back. “I know. God… Y/N—”
He took another step, then stopped himself, hands lifting slightly like he wanted permission.
You hated that you’d become the one he was afraid of.
But you also understood. Because you were afraid too.
You let your arms drop slowly, like lowering a weapon.
“I don’t know what happens now,” you admitted, voice ragged. “I don’t know if I can… go back to how it was. Not yet.”
His nod was immediate, fierce. “Okay. We don’t. We don’t gotta go back. We just… we just go forward.”
The words sounded strange coming from him, like hope that hadn’t been sanded down into something practical.
You swallowed hard. “I need… space.”
His face tightened, panic flashing like a flare.
“Not forever,” you said quickly, because you couldn’t stand the way he looked like he might break again. “Just… I need time to breathe.”
He nodded, jaw clenched like it hurt. “Okay.”
You glanced toward the dunes, toward the darkening line of trees. “Where are you staying?”
He hesitated. “Near the church. With them.”
“With her,” you corrected quietly.
Pain flickered across his face. “Yeah.”
You exhaled, shaky. “I need to put my pack down somewhere. I need food. Water. Sleep that isn’t… on a boat.”
His expression softened at that, protective instinct kicking in like muscle memory. “You’re hurt?”
“No,” you lied automatically, because you didn’t want the conversation to turn into him fussing over you like he could make this better by fixing something visible.
But Daryl knew you. He always had.
He stepped closer, slow and careful, eyes scanning you. “You’re bleedin’.”
You blinked, startled, and realized your palm was scraped raw from where your nails had dug into it while you watched him kiss her.
You looked down. Blood welled bright against your skin.
“It’s nothing,” you muttered.
He reached out, paused, then very gently took your wrist. Not pulling. Just holding, like asking.
You didn’t yank away this time.
His thumb brushed the side of your hand, tender. “Ain’t nothin’,” he murmured, voice thick, “but you shouldn’t be bleedin’ alone.”
Something in your throat tightened so hard it hurt.
You let out a breath that sounded too much like a sob.
Daryl’s grip tightened a fraction, grounding, steady. He didn’t move closer. He didn’t try to hug you again.
He just stayed.
A doorway, again.
You closed your eyes for a second, letting the sea air fill your lungs.
Then you opened them and met his gaze.
“Walk me there,” you said, voice quiet. “But don’t touch me yet.”
His nod was immediate. “Okay.”
He released your wrist like you were glass.
You started walking up the beach, sand shifting under your feet, the last of the sunlight dying behind you.
Daryl matched your pace, half a step back like he was afraid to crowd you.
It should’ve felt like victory, finding him.
Instead, it felt like standing in the ruins of something you loved, trying to figure out if it could be rebuilt.
As you walked, you heard him swallow, then speak, voice barely above the wind.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
You didn’t answer.
A few steps later: “I’m real sorry.”
Still nothing.
Then, softer, almost broken: “Don’t… don’t give up on me.”
Your chest clenched.
You kept walking, eyes on the path ahead, because if you looked at him too long you might fold.
I love your slow burn soulmate au with Lucifer, but I didn't understand if it was an intentional plan of God for him to stop being evil or something else, anyway I love it. Could you please make a second part where he's touched starved and unsure of accept or not reader since that could ruin his evil plans and everything else. Even with their soulmate bond, reader can't stop thinking if it's a good idea for them to be together you know 'cause his reputation and everything.
I really sorrry if this request was confusing; it's just that although I really loved the first part, I can't see that relationship working pretty quickly because of who he is, sorry. Thank you💕
✦ SYNOPSIS: What begins as proximity disguised as practicality becomes something far more dangerous. In the quiet corners of the bunker, Lucifer finds himself confronted with a kind of closeness he understands too well to trust. No grand gestures. No apocalyptic stakes. Just the slow accumulation of habit, choice, and warmth offered without fear. As the Winchesters grow wary for their friend and fellow hunter getting so close to the devil himself and lines blur between friendly curiosity and inability to stay away , you are forced to decide whether comfort is a risk worth taking—and whether Lucifer is capable of choosing restraint when something finally feels real.
This is the moment before doubt calcifies.
The pause before consequences learn your name.
✦ TONE & THEMES: Quiet tension • dry humor • deflection as armor • touch-starved divinity • choice and destiny • intimacy without spectacle • angsty fluff • Reluctant romance • Soft intimacy
─────── 𓆩✧𓆪 ────────
✦ BASED ON: Supernatural (TV Series)
Canon-divergent slow burn • bunker-era intimacy • restrained tension • morally complicated choices
✦ WRITTEN BY: ✧ Little Devil ✧
─────── 𓆩✧𓆪 ────────
Lucifer didn’t do comfort.
Not because he didn’t understand it. Because he understood it too well.
Comfort was leverage. Comfort was how you got people to lower their guard, how you convinced them the knife wasn’t coming. It was a tool, like fear or faith or love. Useful. Dangerous. Best handled with care.
And yet, lately, it kept happening to him anyway.
Not in any dramatic, end-of-the-world sort of way. No declarations. No lines crossed loudly enough to set off Dean Winchester’s hair-trigger instincts. It crept in quietly, disguised as normalcy. As routine. As the kind of human behavior that slipped under the radar until it was already embedded.
You sitting beside him instead of across the table during research, chair angled just a little toward his.
You handing him a mug of coffee without commentary, already knowing he wouldn’t drink it but doing it anyway because humans were weird like that.
You lingering after conversations ended, not rushing off, not filling the silence either, just… staying.
Lucifer noticed all of it.
He noticed the way your knee brushed his when you leaned in to read over a passage. The way you didn’t flinch when he reached across you for a book. The way you treated him less like a volatile supernatural threat and more like a deeply unpleasant coworker you’d decided to tolerate.
It was irritating.
Worse, his grace reacted.
Not with fire or fury or anything suitably apocalyptic. Just a low, constant awareness, like static under the skin. When you leaned closer, something in him settled. When you pulled away, it left behind a faint irritation, like someone had moved his chair an inch to the left without telling him.
He told himself it was nothing.
Humans were tactile creatures. Social. Invasive. You bumped into people. You shared space. You got comfortable too easily.
That didn’t mean anything.
Except habits formed patterns.
And patterns had consequences.
Angels weren’t supposed to crave touch. They were supposed to inspire it. Awe. Fear. Worship. Lucifer had been very good at all three once. But warmth? Ease? Casual familiarity offered without expectation?
That was new.
He handled it the only way he knew how. With humor. With deflection. With the same relaxed superiority he used when dismantling someone’s worldview without raising his voice.
Lucifer stayed conversational, dryly amused, just this side of indulgent. He teased. He provoked. He poked at your logic and smirked when you pushed back. He spoke like someone who already knew the ending and was enjoying watching everyone else struggle through the middle.
It worked. Mostly.
Until Dean Winchester started paying attention.
Lucifer caught Dean in the hallway one night, slowing mid-step as his eyes flicked between the two of you seated at the table. Too close. Too comfortable. Dean’s jaw tightened, shoulders squaring like he was mentally lining up contingencies.
Dean didn’t say anything.
Which, honestly, was rude.
Sam noticed too, eventually. Sam always took longer, but when he spoke, it was never without intent.
“You and Y/N seem… close,” Sam said one evening, voice carefully neutral.
Lucifer didn’t bother looking up from the book in his hands. “Yes. It’s called social interaction. Very popular among humans.”
Sam didn’t smile. “That’s not what I meant.”
Lucifer sighed, dramatic and put-upon. “It never is.”
The tension settled into the bunker slowly, like a bad smell no one wanted to acknowledge. Dean’s looks got sharper. Sam’s questions got subtler, wrapped in concern and laced with warning. You felt it too. Lucifer saw it in the way you hesitated before sitting beside him when the boys were watching, the way you put space between you like distance might make things easier.
It annoyed him more than it should have.
If they wanted to hate him, fine. He could work with that. Hatred was honest. Predictable.
This cautious, protective hovering?
That was messier.
The night you came to him, the bunker was quiet in that low, humming way that made even him slightly restless. Lucifer was in one of the unused rooms, perched on the edge of a table, flipping a coin over his knuckles. A habit he’d picked up somewhere along the line. Humans liked fidgeting. It helped them think.
“You’re stalling,” he said without looking up when you paused in the doorway. “Whatever it is, just say it. I promise not to smite you. Probably.”
You stepped inside and closed the door behind you.
“They don’t trust you,” you said.
Lucifer snorted softly. “That’s their best instinct.”
“They’re worried about me.”
That got his attention.
The coin stilled. He looked up, expression sharpening just a fraction. “Ah. And that bothers you.”
You hesitated.
He noticed. Of course he did.
“I don’t know,” you said finally. “Being close to you… it complicates things. With them. With everything.”
Lucifer slid off the table and crossed the room at an easy pace, stopping just shy of you. Close enough to feel your warmth. Not close enough to touch.
“Yeah,” he said lightly. “That tends to be my brand.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it is accurate.”
You exhaled. “They think you’ll hurt me.”
Lucifer tilted his head. “And do you?”
Another pause.
“Not intentionally.”
He smiled at that. Not cruel. Not mocking. Almost… appreciative.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m usually very intentional.”
You frowned. “That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s honest,” he countered. “Big difference.”
You took a breath, steadying yourself. “And if I still choose this? Choose you?”
Lucifer’s jaw tightened. His hand lifted on instinct, hovering near your wrist before he stopped himself. He covered it with a shrug.
“Then,” he said, casual as if discussing weather, “I’ll try something wildly out of character.”
“What’s that?”
“Not ruining it.”
The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable. Just charged.
You stepped closer.
Lucifer felt it immediately. The decision in your movement. Your fingers brushing his sleeve, then his wrist. Warm. Sure. Not afraid.
That surprised him.
Then you leaned in and kissed him.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t hesitant. It was careful, deliberate, and unmistakably your choice.
For a split second, Lucifer froze.
Then instinct kicked in. His hand snapped up, closing around your wrist, grip firm enough to stop you if you wanted to pull away. You startled—
—and then you relaxed. Leaned into it instead. Your other arm slid around his shoulders like this was where you meant to be.
Something cold and sharp ran through him.
“Well,” he thought dryly, this is new.
He kissed you back.
Slow. Controlled. Just a little smug, because of course he was. His thumb rested against your pulse, grounding himself more than you. He hated how easy it felt. Hated how human it was to enjoy the warmth, the closeness, the fact that you weren’t pulling away.
When he pulled back, it was with visible effort.
He rested his forehead against yours, breath steady.
“You know,” he murmured, “this is the part where I’m supposed to pretend I planned this.”
You smiled. “Did you?”
Lucifer scoffed softly. “Please. If I’d planned it, it would’ve been much more dramatic.”
He brushed a second, softer kiss against your lips. Brief. Almost gentle.
Then he stepped back, composure sliding neatly into place like a well-worn suit.
As you left the room, Lucifer stared at the empty space you’d occupied, tongue pressing briefly to his teeth.
Touch-starved. Distracted. And profoundly annoyed that he liked it.
God was absolutely laughing somewhere.
And that, more than anything, made him want to do it again.
Lucifer slow-burn soulmate AU
─────────────── 𓆩✧𓆪 ───────────────
Pairing: Lucifer × Hunter!Y/N
Tone: Canon-grounded, restrained intimacy, hurt/comfort, angsty fluff
Setting: Bunker-era, canon-adjacent
Based on: 'Supernatural' (TV Series)
Synopsis: A soulmate was the last joke Lucifer expected God to play on him.
Lucifer does not fall in love. He observes. He calculates. He survives.
So when a Winchester-allied hunter proves immune to his fear evoking tactics and stubborn enough to insert herself into his line of sight, the Devil finds himself facing a far crueler fate than damnation: connection.
AU Note: Based in an AU on which if a human has an angel soulmate, they can see that angel's wings.
Written by: Little Devil <3
─────────────── 𓆩✧𓆪 ───────────────
Lucifer had always thought humans mistook familiarity for bravery.
You didn’t.
You treated proximity like a negotiation. You read the room. You clocked his mood before opening your mouth. When he went quiet, you didn’t fill the space with chatter. When he spoke, you didn’t interrupt to make yourself feel safer.
That was how you earned time around him. Not trust. Not affection.
Time.
It irritated him how much that mattered.
You had become part of the bunker’s background noise over the months. A constant. Coffee mugs left where he liked them. A presence at his side during arguments with Sam that always ended with Sam leaving the room and you staying. Lucifer never asked why. He already knew.
You didn’t fear him, but you respected him. There was a difference. One he rarely saw in mortals.
The soulmate resonance had been… unfortunate.
Not dramatic. Not cosmic fireworks. Just a quiet, grinding certainty that made his grace itch whenever you were near. He hated certainty that wasn’t his own conclusion.
You noticed it before he acknowledged it. You always noticed first.
The wings came out the first time without intention, without warning. One moment you were debating theology like it was a bar argument neither of you intended to win, the next the air behind him thickened with weight and heat.
Lucifer didn’t turn around right away.
“You can stop staring,” he said mildly.
“I’m not staring,” you replied. “I’m recalibrating.”
That earned a glance over his shoulder. A slow one. Measuring.
“Careful,” he said. “That tone usually precedes disappointment.”
“They’re just…” You paused. Thought better of finishing the sentence.
Lucifer faced you then, expression unreadable. “Just what?”
You shook your head. “Doesn’t matter.”
Correct answer.
The wings withdrew with precision. The conversation ended. Not angrily. Deliberately. He didn’t punish you for noticing. He filed the moment away like a loose thread he intended to deal with later.
The problem was that later kept happening.
You didn’t ask about them. You didn’t circle back. You just adjusted, the way humans do when they realize they’ve brushed against something tender. Lucifer found that restraint deeply inconvenient.
The argument came days later, over nothing and everything. He’d caught you watching his reflection again, eyes flicking to the shadows where wings sometimes lingered.
“You’re curious,” he said lightly. “That’s usually the first symptom.”
“I’m concerned,” you said. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” he asked. “In my experience, concern is curiosity with better manners.”
“You don’t like being seen,” you said.
Lucifer smiled thinly. “I dislike being misunderstood.”
“That’s not what scares you.”
His gaze sharpened. “You’re treading on thin ice.”
You didn’t retreat. “You’re afraid I’ll see something you can’t control.”
Silence stretched.
“That,” he said calmly, “is exactly the sort of sentence that gets people killed.”
You swallowed. Then, quietly, “You won’t kill me.”
He studied you for a long moment. “Don’t mistake patience for mercy.”
The argument ended there. No raised voices. No slammed doors.
He withdrew after that. Not physically. Emotionally. Conversations stayed surface-level. He was polite. Cordial. Distant in that infuriating way that meant he was watching.
You didn’t chase him.
That annoyed him more than if you had.
The night everything shifted was… mundane. Dean had forced a movie night in the bunker like it was a hostage situation, or more so you were being forced to keep an eye on him while the boys were out on some case, One because he didn't trust Lucifer being left alone in the bunker, and two because he didn't feel like being the one to babysit again. Some loud, ridiculous action flick. Lucifer pretended disdain while correcting the physics under his breath.
You sat beside him on the couch, closer than necessary, legs tucked under you. Comfortable. Unassuming.
He hated how much he liked that.
The wings manifested without warning, unfurling behind him as he leaned back. He didn’t notice at first. Not until the room warmed and your breathing changed.
Your hand brushed them by accident.
Lucifer went rigid.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
Your hand froze. “Okay.”
No argument. No defensiveness.
He waited for you to pull away.
You didn’t.
“Lucifer,” you said softly, “do you want me to stop… or are you just scared I won’t?”
That question cut deeper than it had any right to.
His fingers closed around your wrist suddenly, fast and unyielding. You startled, breath hitching, eyes wide. His hand burned around your wrist like a fire that you didn't even want to be put out.
He leaned in, voice low, controlled. “You should be afraid of the answer to that.”
For a heartbeat, you were.
Then your shoulders relaxed. Your free hand came up, resting at the base of his neck, fingers tangled in his roots. Anchoring yourself to him instead of away.
Lucifer’s breath stuttered.
Idiot, he thought distantly. This is the part where you lose.
He kissed you like a conclusion he’d reached unwillingly. Not gentle. Not rough. Intentional. His grip tightened just enough to remind you who he was, then loosened when you melted into it, arms sliding up around his shoulders like you’d been waiting for permission you never needed.
Heat flared through his grace, sharp and unwelcome.
He cursed God silently. Loudly. Creatively.
Of course you did this, he thought bitterly. Of course you made her the variable I can’t eliminate.
The kiss deepened, slow and deliberate, his mouth fitting to yours with an ease that made his stomach twist. He hated how right it felt. Hated how much he liked the warmth of your lips, the way you leaned into him like you trusted he wouldn’t let you fall.
When he pulled back, it was with effort.
He rested his forehead against yours, breath steadying.
“This,” he said quietly, “is a terrible idea.”
You smiled faintly. “You say that about everything you care about.”
He scoffed. “I don’t care.”
Your hand brushed his wing again, careful this time. Intentional.
Lucifer closed his eyes.
Cruel joke, he thought. You really outdid yourself, Father.
Out loud, he said, “You realize I don’t do things... halfway.”
➺ 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐞: Hunter-core aesthetics, lore-heavy supernatural case, slow-burn tension, witty banter, soft flirtation, unspoken affection, life-or-death stakes, emotional intimacy, found family energy, and the ache of what’s unspoken finally surfacing.
➺ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 & 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: Rated T for violence, blood, mild injury detail, emotional themes, flirtation, language, and intense moments of peril.
✦ Minors: Safe for teens 13+
✦ CW: Mild language, supernatural violence, emotional vulnerability, a ghost with heavy grief-based rage, and canon-level injuries.
➺ 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: A haunted library. A restless spirit. And one too-capable-for-her-own-good hunter who's been shadowing the Winchesters long enough to drive Dean crazy—and make Sam quietly lose his mind. When a case turns deadly, teamwork becomes necessity. But sometimes, surviving a ghost hunt is easier than surviving your feelings.
➺ 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧: Supernatural — Set during Season 2–3 era
➺ 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐲: 𝙇𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝘿𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙡 ♡
Northern Ohio | Public Library | Late Afternoon
The soft hum of fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, mingling with the faint rustle of pages turning. The public library was quiet, almost reverent—except for Dean Winchester, who was tapping his fingers impatiently against the corner of a heavy book.
Sam sat nearby, nose buried deep in a battered tome on folklore, his long fingers tracing lines of text as if trying to will the words into memory. “Dean, if you’re just gonna stand there and complain, maybe you could help me look for something instead of giving me the soundtrack of your boredom.”
Dean didn’t miss a beat, shooting a lazy grin. “Hey, I’m conserving energy for when this spirit decides to show up. You want me cracking jokes, or actually helping?”
Sam glanced up briefly, giving Dean the side-eye but smiling. “Maybe a little of both.”
Dean rolled his eyes, then his gaze drifted across the room. And there she was.
Y/N.
Leaning casually against the end of a table, tucked behind a thick lore book like she was guarding a secret, she gave a barely-there smirk when her eyes caught Sam’s. Something in that look was equal parts teasing and challenge—and maybe a hint of “I’ve been here before, boys.”
Sam’s heart did a quick, inconvenient flip.
Dean noticed it too. “Seriously? You’re zoning out again? She’s been shadowing us on these cases like a ghost, always one step ahead. Don’t you think it’s a little weird?”
Sam shook his head, closing his book. “No. She’s just... good. Smart. Like, she knows what she’s doing. And not just with research—she fights, she plans.”
Dean scoffed. “Yeah, well, doesn’t mean she’s got the monopoly on smart. Besides, she’s kind of... annoying. Like a mosquito you can’t slap away.”
Sam laughed softly. “You? Annoyed? Nah, that doesn’t sound right.”
Dean shot him a look. “Whatever, man. It’s competition. And you know me—can’t let her outshine us. Especially not you.”
Sam’s smile faltered for a moment, but then Y/N closed her book and sauntered over, confident but relaxed. She carried that same smirk, one eyebrow arched like she knew exactly what she was walking into.
“Well, well. The Winchesters, grumbling in the library like it’s their personal clubhouse. Need some help, or just trying to distract each other?”
Dean crossed his arms, grin stretching wide. “Help? Nah. I was about to school you on some Ohio folklore. But if you want to try—”
Y/N held up a hand, cutting him off. “Save it. I’ve been here longer than you’ve had your first beer. Besides, the spirit’s getting restless. We’re wasting time.”
Sam stepped forward, his voice calm but hopeful. “Maybe we could work together on this? You’ve got the experience, and we’ve got the manpower.”
Y/N glanced at Dean, who was watching her like a cat sizing up a laser pointer. “Teamwork, huh? I’ve never been great at playing nice. But maybe you boys aren’t so bad.”
Dean smirked, pushing off the table. “See? Told you she’s not that annoying.”
Sam caught Y/N’s eyes and gave a small nod. “So. Partners?”
Her smirk softened just a fraction, and in that moment, something unspoken passed between them.
“Partners,” she agreed.
Outside Hollow Creek Cemetery | Just After Sundown
The shovel hit dirt with a dull, repetitive thunk, each impact echoing in the cool, still air. The cemetery was quiet—too quiet for Sam’s liking. Not even wind rustled the trees.
Dean leaned on his shovel, sweat beading at his temple. “You know, for a ghost hunt, this one’s giving me way too much cardio.”
Y/N wiped her forehead with the back of her arm, her braid slipping off one shoulder. “You sure you’re not just out of shape?”
Dean huffed. “I’m in excellent shape, thank you. I just prefer my graves pre-dug.”
Sam let out a quiet laugh as he tossed another pile of dirt behind him. “Let’s just hope we’re right about this being Eliza Harrow’s plot. If the lore’s accurate, this should be where she was buried after the murder-suicide.”
Dean nodded, pulling himself up from the edge of the grave. “Yeah. Rich family, sudden madness, husband found stabbed, wife hanging in the parlor. Classy.”
Y/N hopped into the grave as they hit the depth where a coffin should be.
She paused.
“Uh… guys?” Her voice was low, sharp. “There’s nothing here.”
Dean leaned over the edge and frowned. “What do you mean, nothing?”
Sam slid in next to her and crouched, sweeping dirt aside with gloved hands. His brow furrowed.
“No wood. No casket. No bones.” He looked up at them both. “It’s been moved.”
Y/N’s jaw tightened. “But why hide the body? That’s not something you just do unless…”
“…you want the ghost to keep killing,” Sam finished.
Dean muttered, “Son of a bitch.”
There was a long, quiet pause.
“Guess we’re working together a little longer than expected,” Y/N said, her smirk trying to lighten the weight of it.
Dean kicked at the dirt. “Great. Ghost with a grudge and someone playing corpse shuffle behind the scenes. Can’t wait.”
Motel Room | Later That Night
The lights buzzed faintly, casting soft amber over the cheap wood-paneled walls of the motel room. Dean was sprawled across one of the beds, boots kicked off, beer in hand, flipping between channels on mute.
Sam and Y/N had taken over the table near the window, books, notes, and old newspaper clippings scattered between them like puzzle pieces. A county map was pinned under Sam’s elbow, dotted with tiny X’s and hand-written years.
Y/N tapped the center of the map. “1954. That’s the first confirmed murder-suicide in this pattern. Every year after that, give or take, same M.O.—couple dies, always the man stabbed, always the woman hanging nearby. Police chalk it up to domestic violence.”
Sam leaned in closer, his voice low and focused. “But the suicide notes—they’re all different. Handwriting, phrasing. None of them match.”
Y/N smirked. “You noticed that too, huh?”
He smiled back. “You know me. Pattern recognition is kind of my thing.”
Dean looked over from the bed. “God, you two are insufferable. Is this, like, foreplay for lore nerds?”
Y/N raised her eyebrows but didn’t look away from Sam. “Depends. You jealous, Dean?”
Dean scoffed. “Please. I’ll be at the diner. I need a burger and five minutes without Latin.”
He grabbed his jacket and muttered something about needing aspirin as the door slammed behind him.
Y/N chuckled, sliding a few pages toward Sam. “You know, for someone who acts like he hates me, he’s awfully predictable.”
Sam laughed. “He doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t like anyone who might be better than him at something.”
She raised a brow. “Are you saying I’m better?”
Sam looked up at her, straight-faced. “I’m saying… you’re good. Really good. You think like a hunter who’s been doing this for a lot longer.”
Y/N leaned in, eyes flicking down to his mouth, then back up. “That a compliment, Winchester?”
He felt heat creep up the back of his neck, but he held her gaze. “Yeah. It is.”
For a second, the cluttered motel room faded. Her leg brushed his under the table, just enough to notice, and her voice softened.
“You always get like this when you’re researching?” she teased.
“Like what?”
She smiled. “Focused. Serious. Kinda hot, actually.”
Sam blinked, visibly flustered. “Oh. Uh—thanks.”
Y/N grinned, leaning closer, her voice dropping an octave. “Don’t go shy on me now. I thought you liked smart girls.”
Sam bit back a grin, eyes flicking to her lips for half a second too long. “I do.”
Their knees touched again. Neither moved away.
She nudged his arm with her elbow and whispered, playful but curious, “So what’s our next move, professor?”
Sam cleared his throat, but his smile was warm. “We find out where the body went. And whoever moved it? They’re either trying to protect her—or use her.”
Y/N tapped her pencil against the map, leaning back. “Then let’s give them a reason to regret it.”
Abandoned Harrow Estate, Northern Ohio | 11:52 PM
The old Harrow property sat on the edge of nowhere, swallowed by overgrown brush and forgotten farmland. A looming Victorian with gabled windows and a decaying wraparound porch, it had the kind of presence that made you instinctively whisper. The kind of place that hadn’t felt warm in decades.
Sam stepped out of the Impala, flashlight in hand, his flannel fluttering in the breeze. “This place matches the records Y/N found. Eliza Harrow’s family summer estate. Closed down and abandoned since ’54.”
Y/N joined him at his side, her breath visible in the cold night air. “Wouldn’t be surprised if this is where the body was moved. You hide something here, no one’s gonna find it.”
Dean stood a few feet away, eyeing the building like it had insulted his car. “Place looks like it came straight outta The Haunting of Hill House. You two sure about this?”
Sam smirked. “You’re not scared, are you?”
Dean shot him a look. “No. I’m annoyed. And tired. And pretty sure there’s black mold in there. But mostly annoyed.”
Y/N chuckled, tugging her jacket tighter. “Go get some coffee, then. We’ll check it out.”
Dean raised a brow. “We?”
She winked. “Yeah, Sam and I. Don’t worry—I’ll protect him.”
Dean opened his mouth, shut it again, then muttered something about needing pie before heading back toward the car.
The second his taillights disappeared down the road, Sam and Y/N turned back toward the looming house.
Y/N tilted her head. “So, you and me. Haunted house. Moonlight. Creepy setting. It’s practically a date.”
Sam chuckled softly. “One of the more unconventional ones, but yeah… kinda is.”
They stepped onto the porch, floorboards groaning beneath their boots. The front door swung open with a reluctant creeeaaaak, as if even the house wasn’t sure it wanted them inside.
Y/N clicked her flashlight on, sweeping it across dust-caked furniture and peeling wallpaper. “Jesus. This place smells like old grief.”
Sam nodded. “Grief tends to linger. Especially when it ends in blood.”
They moved carefully, every step creaking like a warning. The air was colder inside—heavier. Like someone was watching. Waiting.
In the parlor, the air thickened even more. A broken chandelier hung low above the cracked floorboards. Sam scanned the fireplace mantle, where an old, blackened photograph still clung to a frame—Eliza and her husband, young and smiling.
Y/N moved closer to him, their shoulders nearly brushing. “You think she really loved him?”
Sam’s brow furrowed. “Hard to say. But spirits like Eliza—what they become isn’t always about love. It’s about pain. Regret. Repetition.”
Y/N was quiet for a moment. “That’s heavy.”
Sam turned to look at her. “You okay?”
She gave a half-smile. “Yeah. Just thinking about what it means—to be remembered for your worst moment. Your final mistake. No do-overs. Just... haunting.”
Her vulnerability softened something in him. His voice dropped, gentle. “You ever think about what you’d leave behind?”
Y/N looked up at him, eyes steady. “Honestly? Just hoping it wouldn’t be unfinished business. Or bitterness.”
There was a pause—long enough to feel significant. Then she added, voice lighter, “Maybe a sexy obituary or two. You know, something that makes people jealous of my hot ghost.”
Sam laughed, that deep, low rumble she secretly loved hearing. “Pretty sure you’d have the most charming vengeful spirit write-up on record.”
Her gaze lingered. “And what about you, Winchester? What would you leave behind?”
Sam hesitated, then shrugged. “Hopefully not a mess. Hopefully... something good. A legacy. Maybe even someone who cared.”
His voice cracked slightly on that last word.
Y/N reached out without thinking, her fingers brushing his forearm. “I think someone already does.”
They locked eyes. Neither of them looked away this time.
The moment was quiet. Electric. Haunted—but in the best kind of way.
Then—
Thump.
From upstairs.
They both froze.
Another thump. Then dragging. Something heavy.
Sam snapped the flashlight beam upward toward the ceiling. “That came from the second floor.”
Y/N’s hand instinctively found the knife strapped to her thigh. “Guess the ghost doesn’t like us flirting on her turf.”
Sam smiled tightly. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
The hallway creaked beneath their boots, narrow and claustrophobic. Wallpaper curled like old skin, water-stained and ghost-bitten. Sam led the way, flashlight steady in one hand, rock salt-loaded shotgun in the other.
Y/N followed, blade drawn, eyes sharp and alert. The silence was loud—too loud.
Thump.
A door down the hall slammed open with unnatural force.
“I don’t like that,” Y/N muttered, tightening her grip on the knife.
Sam’s voice was low, calm. “She knows we’re here.”
They stepped into what looked like a bedroom—old, untouched, yet heavy with presence. The windows were boarded, the air stiff with mildew and dust.
And then she was there.
Eliza Harrow.
Pale and sunken, hair floating like she was underwater, her mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream. Her eyes were black pits—bottomless grief, weaponized rage.
“Sam, move!” Y/N shouted.
Too late.
The spirit lashed out. Sam was slammed against the wall with bone-crushing force, pinned like a bug in a jar. He grunted in pain, blood already trickling from his scalp down his temple. The shotgun clattered to the floor.
“Sam!” Y/N bolted forward—but Eliza turned her fury toward her.
The spirit flicked her wrist—
Y/N was hurled through the air like a ragdoll. Her back cracked against the far wall, splintering the rotted wood and crashing straight through into darkness.
Everything went quiet.
Dust choked the air. Sam groaned, struggling against the force holding him, his vision blurring from the blow to his head. “Y/N…”
Inside the wall cavity, Y/N lay stunned. Pain flared in her shoulder, but..
There. Right in front of her, hidden behind years of drywall and insulation, wrapped in tattered linens:
Bones. Human bones.
A wedding ring still clung to one brittle finger. A small silver locket rested nearby, cracked but intact. The air around them felt colder than death.
“Eliza,” Y/N whispered. “You’ve been here this whole time.”
She pushed herself up, biting back the pain. Her fingers trembled as she reached for the flask of lighter fluid in her jacket.
Upstairs, Sam’s vision darkened around the edges. The pressure on his chest grew tighter.
“Eliza,” he gasped, his voice raw, “You don’t have to do this.”
The spirit leaned close, her mouth opening in a hollow shriek—
FWUMP.
Y/N dumped the fluid over the bones.
CLINK.
A match struck. She didn’t hesitate.
WHOOSH.
Flames burst to life, devouring the remains. A scream tore through the house—not from Sam, not from Y/N—but from Eliza herself. A soul unraveling. Light flared like lightning through every board, every beam, every breath of air—
Then, silence.
Sam collapsed to his knees, the hold on him gone. He clutched his side, blood from the head wound seeping into his shirt.
“Sam!” Y/N scrambled over broken wood, debris clinging to her, smoke curling around them.
She dropped beside him, hands already on his shoulders, tilting his face toward hers. “Hey, hey. Stay with me.”
“I’m okay,” he murmured, blinking hard. “I think. Just… dizzy.”
She guided him down slowly, her hand cradling the back of his head as gently as possible. “You’re bleeding pretty bad. I need to clean that.”
Their faces were inches apart. Close enough for her breath to ghost over his cheek. Close enough for her worry to be written in every line of her brow.
“You saved me,” Sam said softly.
Her lips quirked. “You’d do the same.”
“I’d try. But you were faster.”
Y/N pressed a torn piece of cloth to his wound, fingers careful and precise. “That’s not a competition, Sam.”
His eyes flicked to her mouth. “Feels like everything’s been a competition with you lately.”
She smiled, slow and shy. “Maybe. But I think we make a pretty damn good team when we stop trying to one-up each other.”
He didn’t respond—not with words. Just looked at her like she was the only thing anchoring him to this plane.
Y/N shifted her hand, letting her fingers graze through his hair as she pressed the cloth down again. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Sam’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “I already am.”
She stilled.
And then, gently, she leaned down and pressed her forehead to his, not quite a kiss, not quite a touch. Just close. Warm. There.
The burned air around them was heavy with smoke and spirit residue, but somehow, it felt like the safest place Sam Winchester had been in weeks.
Motel | 1:24 AM
The motel room was quiet save for the soft hum of the lamp on the nightstand and the occasional scrape of medical tape against skin. Dean had gone out for food—and probably to give them space, though he’d never admit it. That left Sam sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless, blood crusted along the side of his temple and a bruising welt along his ribs.
Y/N stood between his knees, focused on dabbing at the gash above his eyebrow with a warm, damp cloth. Her other hand braced gently against his shoulder.
“You’ve got a hard head,” she murmured, trying to keep her tone light as she cleaned the blood from his hairline.
Sam winced slightly but smiled. “Yeah, well... it gets me in trouble.”
She huffed a soft laugh. “You scared the hell out of me, you know.”
His eyes flicked up to hers. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t have to,” she said quietly. “You could’ve died.”
The silence between them thickened, heavy with something unsaid. Her fingers hesitated as they passed along his jawline, the cloth now trailing slowly across skin rather than injury. She didn’t move away.
Neither did he.
Sam’s voice came low, earnest. “You saved my life.”
Y/N looked at him, eyes searching his. “I think we’ve got a pattern going now.”
He gave a soft chuckle, but it faded fast. “Seriously... thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.” His hand reached up—slow, uncertain—and brushed her wrist. “You didn’t hesitate.”
Y/N swallowed. “Neither did you.”
Their eyes locked, and for a moment, it was like the room stopped breathing.
Her fingers drifted down from his temple, pausing at the sharp line of his cheek, then over the curve of his shoulder. The pads of her fingers brushed over the muscle there, tracing without meaning to, or maybe completely meaning to.
Sam’s breath caught. His hand came to rest lightly at her waist, just a touch.
“Y/N…”
She shook her head slowly, her voice a whisper. “This tension’s gonna kill me before any spirit does.”
And then she kissed him.
Soft at first—just a test of something that had been simmering too long. But the moment their mouths met, it turned molten. Sam exhaled sharply against her lips, the hand at her waist tightening, pulling her in.
Y/N moved closer, pressing between his knees, both hands cradling his jaw now, fingers threading through his hair as if anchoring herself to the moment.
Sam kissed her back like he’d been waiting for this exact thing since the day they met—gentle but hungry, sweet but aching. A groan rumbled in his throat as her tongue brushed his, and he broke the kiss only long enough to rest his forehead against hers.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he murmured.
She smiled breathlessly. “Yeah. Me too.”
His thumb brushed over the curve of her hip, and he looked at her like she was something he hadn’t quite believed in until now. Something solid. Something warm.
Her fingers trailed down the side of his neck, then ghosted over the bruised ribs. “Does this mean we’re officially past the flirty knife-point rivalry phase?”
He smirked. “I hope not. I kinda liked that phase.”
She laughed, and he kissed her again, slower this time, like they had all night.
═══════ ✦ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐝 ✦ ═══════
Until the next grave we dig—
𝙇𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝘿𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙡 ♡
𝙒𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣: July, 2025™
✧ Pairing: Dean Winchester × Y/N (female)
✧ Rating: Mature
✧ Warnings: Violence, gore, injuries, verbal argument, angst, Dean crying, raw emotional vulnerability, reconciliation with fluff and intimacy
✧ Based On: Supernatural TV series (17+ for violence, language, and mature themes)
✧ Synopsis: A forgotten town in Missouri. A nest of vampires. One reckless choice could mean the end. Y/N thinks she can handle the hunt—but Dean knows better. Protective, furious, and terrified, he’s willing to do anything to keep her alive. Between blood-soaked chaos and the razor’s edge of danger, the tension ignites into something neither of them expected. Fear, anger, and desperation collide—until only raw, unguarded truth remains.
Every heartbeat counts. Every second could be their last.
✧ Written By: Little Devil ♡ ™
"You don’t get to throw yourself in front of everything and expect me not to care."
The case had brought them to a forgotten town in Missouri, a place where time seemed to have stopped and the interstate had long passed it by. A string of disappearances—young, healthy, vibrant people—had immediately caught Y/N’s attention. Dean, meanwhile, had been pacing the motel room since their arrival, jaw tight, fingers drumming nervously on the machete he had laid across the bed. Every so often, he muttered under his breath, tapping his boots against the floor as if repetition could stave off the chaos looming outside.
“You’re wound tighter than a damn spring,” Y/N muttered, zipping her jacket and loading rounds into her shotgun, muscles coiling with anticipation.
Dean didn’t glance at her. “And you’re not wound enough. We’re not dealing with a half-drunk werewolf tonight. This is a vampire nest. One slip, one second off, and it’s over.”
“Dean,” she said sharply, voice edged with frustration, “I know the drill.”
He finally looked at her, green eyes cutting like blades in the dim motel light. “That’s exactly the problem. You think you know it. You charge in like it’s your personal vendetta. Reckless. Stubborn. That’s what I’m seeing.”
She bristled, lips pressed tight. “Reckless? Or maybe I don’t need a babysitter. I can see why Sam stopped hunting with you.”
Dean froze, jaw ticking, storm brewing behind his eyes. Silence pressed down, heavy and suffocating.
“Don’t,” he said finally, low and rough, his voice threatening to snap. “Don’t drag Sam into this. You think you know me? You have no idea what’s at stake! You think it’s easy? You think anyone gets a break?!” His tone rose, sharp and cutting. “Sam didn’t have it easy either—he nearly died more times than I can count because someone thought splitting up was smart!”
He ran a hand through his hair, chest heaving. The motel room seemed to shrink around him, dense with fear, loyalty, and the unhealed fractures of their past. This wasn’t just about hunting—it was about family, survival, and the terror of losing someone he could never replace.
≋≋≋
The farmhouse reeked of mildew, iron, and dried blood. Broken furniture lay scattered across the floor; shadows clung to every corner like predators waiting for the slightest misstep. Y/N’s pulse hammered, every sound amplified into a potential threat.
Dean led the way, machete angled, shoulders tense, every step deliberate.
“We should split up,” Y/N suggested, voice low, eyes scanning the dim corners. “Cover more ground. Hit them from different angles.”
Dean’s jaw clenched, a hard line of warning. “Nope.”
“Dean—”
“Not happening,” he snapped, green eyes locking onto hers. “You do not wander off alone in a nest like this. Not now. Not ever. Got it?”
Frustration flared in her chest. “I can handle it.”
Dean’s tone softened fractionally, but the steel never left his voice. “Maybe you can, but I don’t care. I’m not letting you risk it alone. End of discussion.”
When Dean’s gaze flicked away for the briefest moment, she let the shadows swallow her, moving silently out of sight.
A floorboard betrayed her. A vampire slammed into her with brutal force, hurling her against the wall. Pain flared through her ribs. Stars exploded behind her eyes. Darkness closed in.
Dean’s roar tore through the air seconds later. “Y/N!” Raw, jagged panic ignited in him.
He surged forward, machete swinging in wide, deadly arcs. Vampires fell only when their heads were severed; anything less left them alive, enraged. Blood spattered across walls, the floor, and his hands.
But his eyes never left her. Each strike was precise, yet fueled by desperation—the knowledge that a single misstep could cost him everything.
One vampire lunged. Dean met it with his shoulder, then decapitated it in a vicious, echoing arc. Still, his gaze hunted for her, every second twisting his gut tighter.
Then he saw her.
Crushed against the wall, unconscious, pale in the flickering light. He dropped to his knees, fingers trembling as they pressed against her to check for life signs. His green eyes, wide and unguarded, shone with raw fear.
“Stay with me,” he rasped, voice breaking. “Breathe. You’re not going anywhere. Not on my watch.”
Blood smeared his jaw, hands slick, but he didn’t care. The hunter was gone, replaced by a man completely vulnerable, trembling, pleading.
When her eyes fluttered open, he exhaled shakily, pressing his forehead to hers. “I can’t—” His voice broke. “I can’t lose you. Stay.”
≋≋≋
Back at the motel, Dean refused to let her move on her own. His arm anchored her firmly, hovering protectively, almost suffocating in its weight. Once inside, he set her gently on the bed, then paced like a caged animal, muttering, fists clenching, hands shaking as he wrestled with his terror and anger.
Finally, words burst out, sharp, jagged, and cutting. “Do you have any idea what you just did?! You could’ve died! Went off half-cocked—and I almost—I almost lost you!” Each word crackled with fear wrapped in pure, burning rage.
Tears pricked Y/N’s eyes although she tried not to let him see, willing them not to spill over. “You don’t have to yell at me like I’m a kid. I was trying to help.”
Dean let out a harsh, bitter laugh, cutting and venomous. “Help? That was suicide! Do you even understand what’s at stake here?!” His green eyes blazed with fury, panic, and desperate need. He ran a hand through his hair, voice shaking as each word tumbled out, laced with blame, fear, and raw need to protect. “I cannot—I cannot lose you. Not you. Never. Do you get it? Never.”
She reached for him, trembling. For a long, tense moment, he recoiled slightly, anger simmering, chest heaving. Slowly, almost painfully, his walls cracked. Head bowed, shoulders trembling, breath ragged, he allowed himself to give in to her touch. Fury softened into molten desperation, a man laid bare.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice ragged, fraying at the edges. “Sorry for yelling… I’m just… so damn scared.”
She drew him in, trembling, and finally his arms wrapped around her, tight and anchoring, raw and unshielded, trembling in rhythm with hers. Their lips met, fierce and desperate, tears mingling, a release of months of fear, rage, and unspoken devotion—a storm breaking in their embrace.
They stayed like that for long moments, holding onto each other, Dean murmuring soft, broken apologies and reassurances into her hair, Y/N clutching him, grounding him, anchoring him back from the edge of his own panic.
≋≋≋
Dawn crept in, pale light spilling through thin curtains. Dean still had his arm around her waist, protective, brow furrowed even in sleep. Y/N traced faint scars on his knuckles, evidence of the battles he carried silently, the weight of the world even when broken.
He stirred, eyes blinking open, scanning her face with quiet intensity—no jokes, no mask, just raw truth.
“You scared the hell outta me,” he murmured.
“I know,” she whispered, fingers entwining with his. “But I’m still here.”
Foreheads pressed together, his exhale grounding them both. “Yeah. You are.”
For the first time, Dean held her without fear, without anger, only relief, raw and unguarded. The night’s weight dissolved into quiet, intimate stillness. The silence stretched comfortably, punctuated only by the slow, steady rhythm of their breathing—the first calm of a day that promised to be brighter than the night that had tried to tear them apart.
A hunt goes wrong. Blood hits the backseat of the Impala. Heaven stays silent.
You’re hurt—bad enough that Dean’s grip tightens on the wheel and Sam stops pretending this is just another close call. Lilith is still ahead of you, the road won’t end, and Castiel is gone when you need him most.
Until he isn’t.
While he hasn't answered a single one of Dean's desperate prayers to him on their search, he comes to hers the very first time he hears it.
written by little devil
ᚠ canon-first · slow-burn · adorable lil angel
───────────────────────────
The Impala moved through the night with the stubborn insistence of something that had survived too much to stop now. Its engine hummed low and steady, a mechanical pulse threading through the dark, headlights carving narrow corridors of visibility through rain-damp asphalt. The road stretched ahead in an unbroken line, reflective and slick, swallowing the light as quickly as it produced it. Inside the car, the air carried the familiar accumulation of years spent running: oil and old leather, gunpowder ground into the seams of the upholstery, and beneath it all, the faint metallic residue of blood that never truly left no matter how often it was scrubbed away. It clung now to you especially, coppery and warm, soaking through fabric at your ribs where the demon’s blade had found purchase.
You sat curled slightly inward in the backseat, posture carefully controlled, every movement measured to avoid aggravating the injury. Pain radiated outward in slow, relentless waves, blooming sharper with each bump in the road. You kept your breathing shallow, steady, disciplined. Experience had taught you that pain, if ignored long enough, often learned to behave. Complaining would not make the wound close any faster. It would only give Dean another reason to feel responsible.
Dean gripped the steering wheel like it was the only solid thing left in the world. His shoulders were drawn tight, jaw set hard enough that the muscle twitched beneath the skin. The radio remained off. Silence, in Dean Winchester’s car, was rarely accidental. When it finally broke, his voice cut through the hum of the engine, edged with frustration sharpened into something near fury.
“One more demon dead,” he said, not looking back, “and we’re still exactly where we started. Lilith’s playing fetch with us, and we keep bringing the stick back.”
Sam sat in the passenger seat, a folded map resting across his knees, fingers absently tracing over the creases where towns and highways intersected. His expression was drawn, eyes shadowed with exhaustion and something heavier beneath it. “Springfield’s come up more than once,” he replied evenly. “That’s not random.”
Dean huffed, a sound devoid of humor. “Nothing she does is random. She’s leading us where she wants us, when she wants us there.”
You shifted despite yourself, a small adjustment that sent a bright flare of pain through your side. Your fingers tightened reflexively against your jacket. “We’ll find her,” you said, voice rough but steady. “She always overplays her hand eventually.”
Dean’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror, catching your reflection. Concern crossed his face before he masked it with irritation. “How’s your side?”
“Fine,” you answered too quickly.
Dean’s jaw tightened further. “Sam, next stop we’re patching her up. End of discussion.”
You leaned your head back against the window, cool glass pressing against your temple, watching the darkness slide past. Somewhere beyond it all—beyond the road, beyond the blood, beyond the narrowing margin of error—Castiel was absent. The space he left behind felt larger than it should have.
Springfield greeted you with the lie of normalcy.
Morning light filtered through cloud cover in thin, gray bands, illuminating quiet streets and manicured lawns that gave no hint of the violence threaded beneath them. The diner where you regrouped was a relic of better decades: cracked vinyl booths, laminated menus curling at the edges, the air thick with burnt coffee and old grease. Sam spread case files across the table with ritual precision, photographs and reports arranged into something resembling order.
“Entire families,” he said, tapping the top file. “No signs of forced entry. No struggle. They die in their sleep. Eyes burned black.”
Lilith’s signature. Clean. Intimate. Cruel.
Dean stared into his coffee like it had personally wronged him. “Walnut Street,” he muttered. “That’s where Bobby’s contact said demons were circling.”
You wrapped your hands around your mug, heat seeping into your palms without reaching your chest. “Should we contact Castiel?” you asked, the question quieter than the rest of the room.
Dean stiffened. “Already tried. He’s not answering.”
Sam glanced up. “He said Heaven called him back.”
“Heaven’s got a hell of a sense of timing,” Dean snapped.
You didn’t argue. You knew what it meant when Castiel was summoned. Heaven did not request his presence lightly, and it did not release him without purpose. Still, the absence felt wrong—unbalanced. Castiel was not a comforting presence, not truly. He was too sharp, too exacting for that. But he was consistent. Reliable in his own terrifying way.
Dean stood abruptly, gathering weapons. “We move careful. No angel.”
Sam’s eyes lingered on you a moment longer than necessary, thoughtful, concerned.
The house on Walnut Street waited at the end of the block like something already dead, yet stubbornly refusing to collapse. It did not loom so much as sag, its structure bowed inward under the accumulated years of neglect, paint peeling away in long, papery strips that fluttered faintly in the breeze. The porch slanted toward the earth at an uneasy angle, steps warped and darkened with rot. Even from the sidewalk, the place felt wrong—an unnatural stillness clinging to it, the air faintly charged, humming just beneath the threshold of hearing. It raised the hair along your arms, set your teeth on edge, made instinct whisper warnings your rational mind had long since learned to respect.
You crossed the threshold first, shotgun braced firmly despite the persistent ache threading through your ribs. Each step inside carried its own quiet protest from your body, but you kept your posture steady, your breathing measured. The interior smelled of mold and iron, damp wood and something older, something sour and metallic that lingered at the back of your throat. Shadows pooled in corners the light refused to touch, clinging unnaturally to the ceiling beams and stairwell, as though the darkness itself had weight. The house felt occupied, not crowded, but *aware*—listening.
The ambush came with no warning.
One moment there was only silence and the slow creak of the floorboards beneath your boots, and the next the space erupted into violence. You fired on instinct, muscle memory taking over as salt tore through flesh in a violent spray. Sam’s voice rose immediately, Latin spilling from his mouth in a controlled rush as the exorcism began, words cutting through the chaos like a blade. Furniture splintered as Dean slammed bodily into a demon, the sound of cracking plaster echoing through the narrow hall. The air filled with smoke, shouting, the sharp tang of gunpowder and sulfur.
Then movement to your left—too close, too fast for you to turn fully.
The blade found you with brutal efficiency.
Pain detonated across your side, white-hot and blinding, ripping the breath from your lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. The impact drove you back into the wall hard enough to rattle your teeth, the world tilting violently as your vision tunneled. For a moment, sound warped into a dull, distant roar, as though you had been plunged underwater. Blood soaked warm and fast through your shirt, slick beneath your fingers as your body struggled to make sense of the sudden damage.
“Cas!” Dean shouted somewhere to your right, his voice cracking with raw, unfiltered desperation. “Now!”
The name tore through the room like a flare.
Nothing answered.
You slid down the wall slightly, boots scraping against the floor as you pressed shaking hands to the wound, trying to staunch the flow. Your breath came in shallow, uneven gasps, each inhale scraping against the pain. Panic surged hard and fast, a visceral, animal thing that threatened to overtake you—but you forced it down with the same discipline you’d learned to use against fear, grief, exhaustion. There was no room for it now.
Instead, you reached inward.
Not outward. Not up.
*Castiel.*
The thought wasn’t a prayer. It wasn’t shaped into words or intention. It carried no demand, no plea. It was instinct in its rawest form, stripped of language and logic entirely—an unguarded signal flung into the dark without expectation of response.
The air shifted violently.
Ozone flooded the room, sharp and electric, prickling across your skin as dust lifted from the floor in a sudden, unnatural gust. The demons froze mid-motion, disoriented, snarls cutting off as if someone had abruptly silenced the world. The sound of wings was not heard so much as *felt*—a pressure against the bones, deep and resonant, vibrating through the space like a low-frequency hum.
Castiel stood in the doorway.
His trench coat snapped with residual energy, fabric settling slowly as reality reasserted itself around him. His expression was severe, carved from the same unyielding calm he always wore in battle, blue eyes sweeping the room once in swift assessment. Then his gaze found you—and something in him tightened.
Not softened.
Not warmed.
Narrowed.
It was subtle, almost imperceptible, the way his shoulders squared and his attention collapsed inward, like a weapon drawn too quickly from its sheath. Dean stared at him, disbelief and fury colliding on his face.
“Unbelievable,” Dean muttered.
Castiel did not respond. He crossed the room with precise, economical steps and knelt beside you, movements clipped and efficient. His gaze tracked the blood, the angle of your body, the tremor in your hands.
“You are gravely injured,” he said, voice level, clinical.
“I’ve had worse,” you rasped, the words dragged out of you more by habit than truth.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “You have not.”
Light spilled from his palm as he healed you—controlled, deliberate, restrained. There was no excess to it, no dramatic flare, only the steady unraveling of damage as pain receded in layers. Heat followed, then numbness, then a profound weakness that settled into your limbs as the injury closed. You felt him falter just barely, a fractional hitch in his breathing, a tremor he corrected immediately.
Dean watched from across the room, arms crossed tight. “Funny how you hear her but not me.”
Castiel straightened slowly, withdrawing his hand with visible care. “I was not monitoring your location.”
Dean scoffed. “But hers?”
The pause that followed was brief—but dangerous. A hesitation angels were not meant to have.
“I heard her,” Castiel said at last.
---
The motel room later felt too small to contain what followed.
Dean paced like a caged animal, anger burning hot and unchecked. “You weakened yourself,” he snapped.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I did.”
The exchange was sharp, clipped, each word landing like a strike. Sam stepped in before it could escalate further, voice calm but firm. “Dean. He saved her.”
Dean’s mouth twisted. “And next time?”
Castiel said nothing. His silence was heavier than any argument, settling over the room with quiet finality.
The argument did not end so much as it exhausted itself.
Dean’s anger burned hot and fast, flaring until there was nothing left to feed it. Castiel stood near the door as it petered out, posture straight, coat already drawn close around him as if preparing to reassert distance. His expression had settled back into something controlled and impassive, the mask of authority restored with practiced ease.
“I have done what was required of me,” he said, voice even, eyes flicking briefly toward Dean. “I should return.”
Dean let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Yeah. Figures.”
Castiel did not respond. He turned toward the door instead, one hand lifting—already in motion, already disengaging. Retreat was familiar. Retreat was correct.
Your hand closed around his arm.
The contact was brief but decisive, fingers wrapping around the sleeve of his trench coat just above the elbow. Castiel halted instantly. The reaction was involuntary—muscles tightening beneath your grip, breath catching just enough to register before he mastered it.
“Wait,” you said.
Castiel looked down at your hand, then up at you. His gaze lingered a moment longer than strictly necessary, searching, assessing. He did not pull away.
“You’re injured,” you said quietly.
“My condition is stable,” he replied, tone precise.
“That’s not what I meant,” you said.
Behind you, Dean shifted, clearly on the verge of another sharp remark, but you didn’t give him the space for it. Instead, you released Castiel’s arm only to step closer, lowering your voice.
“Can we talk?” you asked. “Outside.”
Castiel hesitated.
Only for a moment. Then he inclined his head. “Briefly.”
The night air outside the motel was cool and damp, carrying the faint scent of rain and asphalt. The parking lot was mostly empty, washed in the flickering yellow light of a buzzing streetlamp. Somewhere in the distance, traffic hummed low and constant, grounding in its mundanity.
You stopped a few steps from the door and turned to face him.
“Thank you,” you said simply.
“For the healing,” Castiel replied, as though clarifying a point of record.
“For coming,” you corrected. “For hearing me.”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “I did not respond to a summoning.”
“I know,” you said softly. “That’s why it matters.”
Castiel studied you in silence. His expression remained carefully neutral, but something beneath it shifted—subtle, unsettled. “My actions were… inefficient,” he said. “Dean believes they were reckless.”
“Dean believes a lot of things,” you replied. “Some of them are fear wearing anger.”
That earned a pause.
You stepped closer, slow enough that he could have moved away if he wished. He did not. The space between you narrowed until you could see the faint crease between his brows, the way his eyes tracked you with quiet intensity.
“You saved me,” you said. “And you paid for it.”
“It was acceptable,” he said automatically.
“It wasn’t nothing,” you replied.
Silence stretched between you, taut and charged. The streetlamp flickered overhead.
Before either of you could reconsider, you leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.
It was brief. Careful. Almost reverent.
Castiel went very still.
His breath stopped for a fraction of a second, eyes widening just enough to betray surprise before discipline snapped back into place. He did not step away, but neither did he move toward you. When you drew back, his gaze followed you, focused and searching, as though recalibrating his understanding of the moment.
“Oh,” he said quietly.
The word sounded… unprepared.
“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, uncertainty threading your voice. “I just—”
“No,” he interrupted, sharper than intended. Then, after a pause, more controlled: “You have done nothing improper.”
He hesitated, then added, carefully, “I was… unprepared.”
You smiled, small and warm. “That happens.”
Castiel lifted a hand, stopping just short of touching the place where your lips had been, fingers curling slightly before dropping back to his side.
“I do not fully understand human expressions of gratitude,” he admitted. “However… I do not find this one objectionable.”
The phrasing was stiff. The meaning was not.
“I’m glad,” you said.
He inclined his head, the gesture formal but sincere. “So am I.”
Then he stepped back—not fleeing, not lingering—simply restoring distance where distance belonged. When he vanished, the air felt altered, subtly, like something had been displaced and not yet settled again.
And for the first time since he had fallen, Castiel did not immediately return to Heaven
✧ Synopsis:
On a sweltering Jackson night thick enough to taste, Joel’s need for you burns hotter than the heat pressing through the walls. Restless, frustrated, and aching for your touch, he gives in to the kind of desire he can’t hide—leaving you in control of just how far you’ll let him fall… and how sweetly he begs for more.
༺☆༻ “Guess it’s just you an’ me against the world, darlin’.” ༺☆༻
= ♡ = ♡ = ♡ =
The heat had been creeping up all day — the kind that made the air shimmer on the main street in Jackson and turned shirts into second skins. By sundown, the sky was still a bruised purple, and the inside of the house felt like a sealed jar left out in the sun.
Joel had been restless for hours.
Not in the dramatic, pacing-the-floor way he used to get back in the early days. This was quieter — itchy, coiled, the kind of agitation that settled behind his ribs and made every breath feel too tight.
The heat didn’t help.
Your shorts didn’t help.
The tiny sighs you made when adjusting the blankets didn’t help either.
He’d lain behind you watching the rise and fall of your back, trying to force his mind toward sleep, toward stillness, toward anything that didn’t make his body react the way it was reacting.
But your skin glinted faintly in the moonlight.
And the curve of your waist peeked from under the hem of your tank top.
And your scent — warm, familiar, a little sweet — settled over him like a blanket.
Joel had fought wars in his mind that were quieter than this.
He tried rolling away. That lasted maybe a minute before the space felt wrong — too empty, too cold even in the heat. His hand hovered in the dark, fingers twitching like they had a mind of their own.
Then you sighed softly and shifted, the small movement dragging your hips back against his.
He lost the fight with himself instantly.
His arm slid around your waist without thought, pulling you back into him, pressing his chest to your spine. When his lips brushed your neck, he nearly groaned from relief.
Finally.
Contact.
Closeness.
You.
He didn’t intend to kiss your skin — not really — but the second he felt you under his mouth, hot and soft, he couldn’t stop. Something in him cracked open, something that’d been building all damn day.
Your voice drifted back to him, thick with sleep.
“Joel… what’re you doin’?”
He almost lied.
He almost said he was fine.
But his hips, traitorous things, pressed into you, giving him away.
“Tryin’ to sleep,” he muttered softly against your skin, even as his mouth kept proving him a liar — trailing up the line of your neck, pausing where your pulse fluttered.
Truth was, he wasn’t sure if he was more turned on or starved for you.
Heat like this made everything feel desperate — like every emotion was too close to the surface, raw and unfiltered.
You rolled to face him, and his breath caught.
You always looked beautiful to him. He’d accepted that long ago. But the way the moonlight hit you now, sweat-damp curls clinging to your forehead, lips soft and flushed — it made something in his chest squeeze hard.
“You’re not even tryin’,” you whispered, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth.
He swallowed, embarrassed by the intensity of his need. “I know. Just… it’s hot. And you look…” He cut himself off with a quiet huff. “You look like somethin’ I can’t touch without losin’ my head.”
Your smirk didn’t help.
Neither did the hand sliding up his chest, lingering just over his heartbeat.
“And what exactly do you want, Joel?”
His eyes fluttered closed for a moment — a surrender.
“You,” he breathed. “Just you.”
He didn’t realize how badly he’d said it, how raw it sounded, until your expression softened — not teasing now, but warm. Understanding.
You pulled him close, guiding him over you, and Joel’s body responded before his mind did. The second you pressed against him, he felt dizzy with want.
God help him, he’d never not want you like this.
= ♡ = ♡ = ♡ =
When you slid onto him, slow and sure, Joel’s brain went white around the edges. His hands flew to your hips, trying to steady himself, trying not to buck up into you too soon and make a fool of himself.
“Jesus…” he muttered, voice cracking.
He never got used to the way you took him in. Every time was new. Every time felt like the ground shifting underneath him.
You moved slow at first, hips rolling in a rhythm that made his head fall back against the pillow. The heat of the room mixed with the heat of your body, and for the first time all night, Joel felt the tension bleed out of him — replaced with something warmer, deeper, less frantic.
You kissed him, slow and lingering, and he melted under it.
He cupped your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek. “You’re incredible,” he whispered helplessly. “I swear, darlin’, you’re gonna ruin me.”
You just smiled against his mouth and rocked your hips faster, pulling a groan out of him so deep it surprised the both of you.
Joel’s thoughts tangled.
She’s mine.
She’s so beautiful.
How the hell did I get this lucky?
Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. God, don’t—
His hands slid up your back, gripping soft skin, grounding himself. Every noise he made was unfiltered, messy, too honest.
When he came, it wasn’t loud — it was broken, almost breathless, his whole body arching into yours as if pulled by a wire. You followed right after, clinging to him, burying your face in his neck as your pleasure crested over both of you.
Joel held you through the aftershocks, arms locking tight around your waist, heart thudding hard beneath your palms.
= ♡ = ♡ = ♡ =
The room was still unbearably warm, but Joel didn’t let you move far. He kept you half on top of him, chest to chest, one hand tracing small, slow circles on your back like he couldn’t stop touching you.
“You okay?” he whispered, voice worn-out and warm.
You smiled against his throat. “More than okay.”
Joel chuckled — that soft, shy rumble he only ever made with you. “Good. ‘Cause you just melted about ten years off my life.”
“Ten?”
“Might be closer to fifteen,” he muttered, kissing the top of your head. “You damn near killed me, sweetheart.”
You snorted, and he felt the sound through his chest. Joel grinned — wide, relaxed, boyish in a way he’d never admit.
Heat still clung to the room, but with you curled against him, it felt different. Softer. Like the air itself had slowed down.
He brushed a strand of hair behind your ear, letting his fingertips linger.
“Love you,” he said quietly — the kind of quiet that meant everything.
You tilted your head up. “I love you too, Joel.”
He blinked, surprised — like he wasn’t expecting it even now.
Then he softened, completely, utterly, the tension melting right out of his shoulders.
“You mean it?” he murmured.
You smiled. “Yeah. I do.”
Joel cupped your jaw and kissed you again — slow, deep, reverent.
“Good,” he whispered against your lips. “Then you better get used to this.”
“Used to what?”
He rolled gently, settling his weight above you, eyes warm but still dark with hunger.
Even exhausted, even spent, he wanted you again — not needy this time, but tender, lingering, the kind that stretched late into a heavy summer night.
“Me,” he said simply. “Lovin’ you like you’re the best damn thing that ever happened to me.”
Your breath hitched.
Joel smiled — the soft, devastating kind — and kissed the corner of your mouth.
“Now c’mere,” he murmured, thumb brushing your lower lip, “’cause I ain’t done holdin’ you yet.”
He pulled you close, your legs tangling, your bodies fitting naturally despite the heat. His hand slid under your shirt, resting warm against your spine, and he sighed like he hadn’t breathed right all day.
“Stay,” he whispered.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
Joel pressed one last kiss to your temple — soft, slow, utterly yours.
“Good,” he breathed. “’Cause I wanna fall asleep knowin’ you’re right here.”
And you did — the two of you wrapped in heat, affection, and the sweet, slow burn of a love that didn’t need to hurry.
➺ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 & 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: Rated T+ (language, alcohol, trauma, guilt, restrained intimacy); minors do not interact
➺ 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧: Supernatural Seasons 9–10
➺ 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: After a brutal case, Dean retreats into the bunker garage with Baby and a bottle of whiskey. Y/N finds him drinking in silence, expecting resistance, but instead joins him—silent, warm, soothing. As Dean opens up about guilt and fear of letting people die, Y/N listens, cracks a joke, and slowly coaxes a genuine smile out of him, softening the shadows for just a little while.
➺ 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐲: 𝙇𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝘿𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙡 ♡ ™
✧༺♱༻✧
✧༺♱༻✧
The bunker garage smelled of oil, rubber, and metal polish, a tangible comfort compared to the sterile quiet of the main rooms. It should have been a place for mechanics and monsters, not grief—but Dean had claimed it for both tonight.
He sat on the edge of the car's hood, legs splayed, elbows resting on his knees. In one hand, a half-empty bottle of whiskey glinted under the fluorescent light. Shadows carved lines into his face, deeper than the ones carved by age alone.
You paused at the door, hand on the frame, noting the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw clenched, the faint tremor of his fingers around the bottle. He didn’t hear you at first, lost in the weight of a case gone wrong.
“Dean,” you said softly.
He flinched, head snapping up, emerald eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Don’t, Y/N. Seriously.”
“Don’t what?” you asked, stepping into the garage, letting the door click softly behind you. “Don’t lecture me? Don’t stare at me like I’m about to start a therapy session?”
He let out a humorless chuckle, lips twitching. “Don’t judge me, yeah. That’s what I meant.”
You smiled faintly, tilting your head. “Judgment’s not really my style. But I can sit. Silent. Drink. Watch Baby. You know… moral support.”
He blinked, incredulous, and then something cracked in his posture. He let out a sigh that sounded like it had been building for days. “You’re… serious?”
You nodded, perching on the edge of the hood next to him, bottle now between both your hands. “Serious. Don’t have to say anything. I can handle silent Dean.”
✧༺♱༻✧
The first sip burned down your throat, warmth spilling through your chest. Dean’s eyes flicked to you once, dark with suspicion, then away again. He didn’t comment, didn’t ask if you wanted a full pour, just let the whiskey be a shared ritual, a temporary truce against all the ghosts the night carried with it.
You leaned against him, shoulder brushing his, letting the familiar scent of leather, whiskey, and him seep in. One hand drifted lazily to the back of his neck, fingertips brushing along the tense muscles. He shivered, though whether from cold or the contact, you couldn’t tell.
Dean’s jaw flexed, then his voice, roughened by whiskey and fatigue, broke the silence. “I hate it… I hate seeing people die… knowing I couldn’t save them. Knowing I was too slow. Too…” He swallowed hard, chest rising and falling rapidly. “Too human.”
You didn’t interrupt, didn’t offer platitudes. Instead, your hand stayed warm on his neck, thumb brushing his skin in tiny, circular motions. You tilted your head so your hair brushed his shoulder. “Yeah. It sucks. Hunter's life, Right? Unfair.” you mumbled softly, a small smile playing on your lips.
Dean let out a humorless laugh, voice tight. “Yeah. Totally unfair.”
You lifted the bottle, gesturing toward him. “Well… you know, you don’t have to face it alone. I brought backup.”
He glanced at you, frowning. “Backup?”
“More Whiskey.” You tipped the bottle, taking another swallow before offering it to him and leaning down to pick up a second bottle from the garage floor beside you. “Problem-solving, one shot at a time.”
Dean’s lips twitched, almost a smirk. “Seriously. That’s… that’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous works,” you said, nudging his shoulder lightly. “And it’s effective. Sometimes.”
He chuckled, a real sound that caught in his chest, mixing with the hum of Baby’s engine and the echo of the garage. Slowly, a small, genuine smile crept onto his face.
✧༺♱༻✧
Minutes passed like this. Silence punctuated by the occasional sip, occasional laugh that sounded fragile but true. The warmth of proximity, the soft pressure of your hand, the shared ritual of whiskey—it chipped away at his guilt in the smallest, most human ways.
Finally, Dean’s voice broke through again, softer this time, unguarded. “Y/N… you ever wonder if people like me… if we deserve…?” He trailed off, swallowed, then muttered, “…happiness?”
You tilted your head, meeting his gaze, fingers still tangled in the nape of his neck. “Dean, if anyone deserves happiness, it’s you. You fight, you bleed, you care more than you admit. And you love—don’t even try telling me otherwise.”
He swallowed hard, jaw flexing, eyes glistening with a vulnerability he rarely showed. “I… I don’t know if I deserve it.”
You nudged him gently with your shoulder. “Well, lucky for you, I’m not running the universe’s HR department. You got me—and I think we can negotiate the happiness part ourselves.”
Dean let out a breathy laugh, voice catching on the emotion. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you love it,” you teased.
He shook his head, but the small smile remained, softening the lines around his eyes. Slowly, he leaned into you, letting his forehead rest against yours, inhaling, exhaling. The tension in his body softened, muscles loosening under your touch.
You leaned closer, brushing your lips gently against his temple. “It’s okay, Dean. It’s really okay to let it go, just for tonight.”
He closed his eyes, finally exhaling the weight of the night, and muttered, voice husky with relief, “Thanks… for sitting with me.”
You tilted your head, playful and tender. “Always. Whiskey, ghosts, and all.”
Dean let out a laugh that was half choked, half heartfelt, burying his face briefly against your shoulder, and you held him, hand moving from the back of his neck to cradle his head, the warmth of your touch a quiet, steadfast promise.
For once, the monsters weren’t outside. They weren’t in the case files or in the shadows. They were here, fading in the glow of shared whiskey, laughter, and the kind of intimacy that didn’t need words to be real.
The clink of the bottle, and the soft rhythm of two hearts beating in sync—the bunker felt alive again. And Dean Winchester, hardened hunter, haunted by loss and guilt, allowed himself a sliver of peace, leaning into your warmth, letting the whiskey and your presence soothe the ghosts he carried alone far too long.
✧ Warnings: [Violence, angst, language, severe injury, being buried alive, near loss, hurt/comfort to fluff, kissing/making out, guilt flashbacks, survival panic]
✧ Written By: Little Devil ♡ ™
✧ Based On: [Supernatural / Season 1 - 2 / Episode nonspecific] (Canon rated 17+)
✧ Tone: [angsty, romantic, established relationship, tragic, supernatural, cinematic]
✧ Synopsis: Dean swears he can handle it—another suicide run into a demon’s nest, another lie about being fine. You call him out. But when he slips out into the night anyway and the hunt goes wrong, you’re left to dig him out of his own grave before it’s too late. Relief comes sharp and messy: in sobs, apologies, desperate kisses, and the quiet, simmering tension of guilt, fear, and love.
✧༺♱༻✧
The motel room smelled faintly of bleach and cigarette smoke, a sticky residue from last week’s transient guests. The fluorescent light above the sink buzzed and flickered, casting Dean’s shadow jagged across the peeling wallpaper. He leaned against the table, shoulders braced, jaw tight, leather jacket hanging open as though it were armor. He looked ready to fight anyone—or anything—but tonight it wasn’t demons that threatened him. It was you, and that terrified him more than any hellspawn.
“You’ve lost your damn mind,” you snapped, voice slicing through the stale air, echoing against the thin walls. Arms folded, stance wide, glare sharp enough to leave bruises.
Dean flinched ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, and it fractured something inside you.
“One nest,” he said, voice calm but edged like steel. “Half a dozen demons, tops. I go in, get the job done. Nobody else gets hurt.”
“You mean nobody but you,” you fired back, voice quivering beneath the rage.
“Y/N—”
“No!” you cut him off, every word a pulse of raw fear. “You don’t get to turn this into some noble sacrifice. You’re not invincible, Dean. You’re not—” Your voice broke, ragged. “…you’re just one guy.”
Dean pressed a hand to his face, scrubbing at his jaw, his eyes catching the flicker of the light, and suddenly the room was filled with ghosts. Flashes of every time he’d left you behind: the crossroads, you bleeding and barely conscious, calling his name in desperation; the Kansas motel, your trembling hands stitching up wounds he refused to let you touch; the echo of your voice pulling him back from every shadowed hell he’d waded through. He wanted to speak, to explain, to confess the crushing weight of his guilt—but no words came.
“I’ve been doing this long enough—” he started.
“And what? You think that makes you immortal?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed, sharp and defensive. “It means I know what I’m doing.”
“Bullshit,” you shot back. “It means you’ve got a death wish you can’t release, and I refuse to just… watch you throw yourself into it alone.”
He flinched, each syllable a dagger, each word a reminder of trust betrayed.
“You think I want this?” he snapped, voice cracking under the strain. “You think I like walking into fights I might not walk out of? It’s not about me—it’s about people who don’t even know what’s hunting them. Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“And I’m supposed to just watch you?” you whispered, voice tight, almost strangled. “Watch you throw yourself into flames and risk everything—and just stand by? No. I can’t.”
He swallowed hard. Every promise he’d broken, every lie he’d told to protect you flashed before his eyes. Tonight, he couldn’t lie—not to you, not to himself.
“I can’t lose you, Dean,” you admitted, trembling, your voice breaking like glass.
Dean closed his eyes, exhaling a long, harsh breath that spoke of defeat and desperation. Words failed, and silence answered.
You turned away first, sliding beneath the stiff sheets, the bed too cold, too wide, warmth absent without him. You waited, breath shallow, for the dip of his weight beside you. It never came. The argument lingered, thick and sour, until exhaustion claimed you.
✧༺♱༻✧
Before dawn, Dean was gone.
The forest was a black maw, wind rustling through skeletal trees, whispering through the leaves like the voices of unseen predators. Dean crept into a clearing, shotgun cradled, Latin murmured under his breath. Every sense screamed caution; instinct raised every hair. He knew they were waiting.
The first demon lunged, a blur in the dark. Dean’s knife met flesh with a wet snap. Pain exploded when a fist slammed into his ribs, driving the breath from his lungs. He grunted, pivoted, elbowed, struck—movements precise, honed from years of hunting.
A punch to the jaw, another to the shoulder. Fire lanced through his muscles, each impact a reminder of his mortality. Yet he pressed on, each strike another defiance against inevitability. More demons surged from the shadows, overwhelming him despite his experience. Each grab, each push toward the pit dug like a trap of inevitability.
“Stupid little hunter,” one hissed, pressing a boot to his chest. “Should’ve stayed in bed with your girl. We've been keeping an eye on you.”
Dean twisted, rolled, ducked, swung. Kicks and fists flew, but there were too many. Another hand seized him, dragging him toward the freshly dug pit. Shovels leaned like silent, accusing witnesses.
The first shovelful hit him, cold and suffocating. Dirt in his mouth, clogging his nose and eyes. Gagging, coughing, he spat, claws tearing at the soil. Not like this. Not tonight.
Darkness pressed in. Amid the dirt, Dean’s mind flickered with memories: your trembling in a motel room, shouting at him to stop; your hands soft but firm on his chest; your voice grounding, pleading. The memory of your touch sparked a primal, feral will to survive.
Another shovelful slammed down, pinning him further. Lungs screamed, eyes burned. He tasted wet earth, smelled roots and blood. Hands raw, nails split, every inch fought against inevitability.
In the chaos, Dean saw your face superimposed on the darkness, your eyes wide with fear, lips moving in his name as consciousness waned. Flashbacks collided with present pain: motel rooms, hospital beds, every hunt, every promise he failed to keep. Guilt coiled like a serpent, whispering in his ears, threatening to suffocate him before the dirt could.
✧༺♱༻✧
You awoke to a chill that clawed through bone and muscle. Empty bed, still air, Impala keys abandoned. Panic hit, a freight train through your chest.
You already knew.
Boots on dirt, muscles taut, lungs burning, you ran. Shadows became predators, wind and leaves became whispered threats. Then: churned earth, a mound too fresh, too deliberate. Your stomach dropped.
“No.” Knees hit dirt, fingers clawing, nails splitting. “Dean! Dean, please—”
The shovel was useless. You tore at the soil with bare hands. Earth packed under your nails, cold and gritty. Loam and roots burned your nose. Every sense screamed urgency.
Leather. His jacket. His hands. Dirt streaked his face, mouth and eyes clogged. You pulled, brushing soil away, your heartbeat loud in your ears.
“Come on, baby, breathe,” you whispered, tears blinding you. “Fight for me. Come back.”
Then—a ragged gasp. Weak fingers clawed at you, gripping hair, pulling you closer.
Dean clung, lips pressing against your neck, eyes wild, tears mixing with dirt and rain.
“I thought—I thought I’d never see you again,” he choked.
“Don’t you ever—ever—do that again.” Your voice, raw, iron beneath fear.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m so sorry.”
Desperate, messy, kisses soaked with relief, fear, dirt, and salt. You couldn’t stop. He needed it; you needed him.
When you parted, forehead pressed together, trembling, you were tethered, proof that he was alive.
✧༺♱༻✧
The drive back stretched painfully long, the rain pattering on the Impala’s roof in a steady, hypnotic rhythm. Tires whispered over wet asphalt, a quiet contrast to the storm in your chest. Dean sagged in the passenger seat, bruised, trembling, muscles slack and brittle. Every glance you shot his way carried a weight of fear, anger, grief, and relief all tangled together. He remained silent; even the simplest words felt insufficient against the terror he’d dragged you through, the images of the grave burned into your mind. Each time your hand brushed against his arm, a shiver ran through him, a tether to the life he was too close to losing.
At the motel, you guided him inside with firm, constant contact. Your fingers pressed along his spine, your hands steadying his back as you led him to the bed, each movement deliberate. He stumbled slightly over his own exhaustion, and you were there to catch him without hesitation. “Easy,” you murmured, brushing a damp lock of hair from his forehead. He leaned into you briefly, the barest sigh escaping his lips, before straightening with a groan, trying to regain his usual armor of stubborn pride.
“Sit,” you commanded, voice low but sharp. “We’re getting this mess off you.”
Dean opened his mouth, probably to protest, but you didn’t give him the chance. You knelt at his feet first, hands sliding over the soaked leather of his boots. “Dean,” you warned, your tone precise, “stop thinking you get to say no right now.”
“I’m fine,” he mumbled, trying to jerk his foot free.
“Don’t. You don’t get to say that,” you snapped, voice raw, eyes bright with unspoken fury and worry. “I have every right to worry. Right now, you let me take care of you. That’s final.”
He froze, eyebrows furrowed, a flicker of mischief in his pain, a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, well… I’ve had people worry about me before—”
“Not this time,” you cut in firmly, your hands gripping his ankles gently but unyielding. “Not you, Dean. You’ve done enough worrying for everyone else. Now it’s my turn. Let me.”
With slow, deliberate care, you tugged off his boots, feeling the tension in his calves ease as they hit the floor. Then you moved up, peeling the damp, blood-streaked jacket from his shoulders, brushing fingers lightly over the scrapes, the stubborn aches beneath. His chest rose and fell rapidly, a sharp inhale, a slight flinch where you traced a bruise along his ribs, his jaw tightening as if to keep the words in.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” you murmured, voice almost breaking, but steady.
Dean tried to shrug it off, muttering, “I’m not a—uh, you know, damsel-in-distress type.”
“Dean. Not a word. You’re not handling this on your own. Not now. Not ever,” you said, eyes burning into his.
He swallowed hard. “Yeah… I know. I just… I hate that I—” He paused, running a hand over his face. “I screwed up. I made you mad. I… I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.”
“You deserve to be looked after,” you said softly. “And right now, you’re going to let me do that. No arguments.”
You guided him to the shower, the small space steaming already. “Go on,” you said softly but firmly, “let the water do its work.”
✧༺♱༻✧
Dean stepped in, letting the scalding water run over him, head bowed. The heat washed over him, carrying away grime, blood, and mud—but not the guilt. He hated himself for making you angry, for the way he’d hurt you, for every lie, every slip of trust broken.
Water streamed down his shoulders, soaking him to the bone. Every droplet felt like a penance, washing the night’s horror from his skin but not his mind. He was too tired, too worn down, to do anything but let it fall, letting himself hate the man in the mirror for a moment.
Then, the door creaked. He jerked his head up, water streaming down his face, expecting judgment or reproach. Instead, he found you standing in the doorway, silent, calm, unwavering. Wet hair clinging to your cheeks, clothes sticking to your skin—but you didn’t hesitate. You stepped in, letting the water soak you too.
For a heartbeat, nothing moved but the rain and the hiss of the shower. And then you kissed him. Deep, insistent, urgent. Your lips pressed against his, grounding him, melting the tension, washing away the last of his fear. He melted back into you, hands threading through your hair, needing to hold, to feel, to be reminded that he wasn’t alone.
When you pulled back just enough to breathe, you whispered, “I love you,” letting it sink into him, letting him feel it in every inch of his soaked, shivering body. His chest heaved; for the first time in hours, maybe days, he allowed himself to believe it.
✧༺♱༻✧
Later, wrapped in the motel’s thin but comforting blankets, Dean lay with his head against your chest, your arms curled around him like a shield.
Dean exhaled, letting a shaky laugh escape. “Man, I’m a mess.”
“You’re human,” you corrected softly, pressing a kiss to his temple. “And right now, you’re exactly where you need to be.”
“I… I don’t know how you do it,” he admitted, voice quiet. “I’ve probably messed everything up tonight… and you… you still…” His fingers found yours, curling around them like a lifeline. “You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” you said, a teasing lilt in your tone. “But you love me anyway.”
Dean pressed closer, nuzzling his temple into your collarbone, inhaling your scent. “Yeah… yeah, I do,” he whispered.
He tightened his hold, arms wrapping around you in return, and for the first time that night, allowed himself to let go entirely. Sleep came slow and heavy, and when it did, it carried him into it fully—trapped, willingly, safely, in your embrace.
