Chapter Tags/Warnings: Angst, allusions to suicidal thoughts, near-death experiences, canon-level gore and violence, a little bit of fluff, Dean tries to cheat at poker
Chapter Summary: After getting reports from Bobby of people going missing at a popular bungee jumping spot, the trio treks out to West Virginia
Word Count: 7.2k
Author's Note: Title from Are You Really Okay? by Sleep Token
Tag List: @copperboom82 @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
Series Masterlist
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“Dean! Stop fucking cheating,” Sam exclaimed.
Dean bit back a grin, gathering up the cards splayed out on the table between them. “How am I cheating?”
His brother's face had that ruddish red flushed across his cheeks, hair noticeably askew from running his hands through it in a way that only happened when he was really really annoyed.
“I don’t know,” Sam spluttered. “Just admit it.You cheat.”
“Have you considered that you just suck at poker?”
“Fuck you.”
The cards flipped neatly against the table, his hands and fingers moving on auto pilot to shuffle them together back into a randomized order.
Or, what was supposed to be a randomized order.
What could he say? Sometimes his fingers got a little sticky. Mostly, when it was just the two of them and they played with the deck he kept in his bag for nights like these.
Sam shot Dean a nasty look—or his attempt at a nasty look anyway—standing up from the table when a pounding came from the door behind him. No matter how old they got, Sammy never quite mastered the art of intimidating him, despite every attempt.
This motel thankfully had enough vacancy for him and Sam to have their own room, though Tori’s was adjoining theirs. It was enough for privacy, but they’d all agreed it was convenient for safety reasons instead of the other end of the building.
And now, no one had to sleep in the car.
The motels in West Virginia were somehow cheaper than the one in Tennessee, though Dean supposed they were here on a Tuesday and not trying to cram in a room on a Friday as they had been in that instance.
“Come, join the fun,” Dean greeted her when Sam unlocked the door on their side. Really, they both needed to remember to not lock it in case something did actually happen, but force of habit was a bitch to go back on.
Her body wash wafted past his nose, cherry with a faint hint of cigarette smoke off her hair and something little in his chest wanted to breathe it in while she walked past.
“Yeah, fun,” Sam scoffed, voice full of scorn.
“Aww, Sam,” Tori said in a teasing tone. “Whats’a matter?”
She lifted the lid of the pizza box they’d tossed on the tv stand and plucked one of the last pieces before coming over to the table. Holding the piece in one hand and her weight cocked onto one leg, she surveyed the table, eyeing the uneven piles of candy on either ends.
“Dean’s cheating,” Sam all but pouted
“Am not,” he heckled.
“Are too.”
“At what?” Tori cut in through a mouth-full of Supreme pizza. “You guys got anything to drink in here?”
“Beer’s in the fridge,” Dean supplied.
“Poker,” Sam said at the same time.
She padded over to the mini fridge, bending down to snag one of the longnecks from inside. They’d all showered after the long drive. He and Sam had changed into their pajamas after, and so had she.
The shorts he recognized as the same pair she’d worn that night in Nashville, though she’d traded the band tee tonight for a heavier hoodie to combat the below-freezing temps they were supposed to get overnight.
She straightened, shutting the fridge with her knee, and Dean pulled his attention back to the cards, guilt fluttering in his chest like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Ah,” Tori said, popping the tab off using the bottle opener screwed to the underside of the table. “What are we betting? Do I need to make another run to the vending machine?”
Dean glanced sidelong at her.
Sam he knew by heart, all his tells, how he always went the cautionary route and almost always folded even when Dean forewent loading of the deck and he had the winning hand. Usually he was pretty good at reading tells on the hunters or bar patrons he’d play against, so in theory, it wouldn't be much different.
“Nah,” he smiled at her, setting the cards down. “There's another thing of 'em from the gas station. I’ll deal you in.”
Nodding, Tori set her beer on the table beside his hand and finished the pizza before snatching the last packet of candy from the plastic bag. Taking the seat adjacent to him, the scent of cherries was stronger now, though not unpleasant.
Sam muttered some unintelligible protest under his breath, snagging a beer for himself before sitting down again.
“Hey, at least it’s just candy,” Tori pointed out.
Dean gave the cards one last shuffle—a real shuffle, one that would put the deck more at odds—and dealt two cards to the three of them, setting the deck in plain view of both his brother and Tori. The former tilted the corners of his cards up, peeking at what he’d been dealt.
Now, with an audience, Dean watched his brother grow sloppy.
An uneven hitch at his chest and the blink and you miss it twitch of his mouth and Dean knew whatever he’d dealt him wasn’t good. He glanced down, mirroring Sam’s actions.
A queen of hearts and a ten of diamonds. Let’s hope I pull another queen somewhere.
Tori gave away nothing, her features soft but serious. His eyes followed the broad and high arch of her nose from her eyebrows, curious of the way it looked off set like it’d been broken.
He trailed down to her lips, but there wasn’t even a twitch.
She’d bitten her lip when nervous, he’d seen that much interacting with her before, but that was absent here. Absentmindedly, or at least that’s how it looked to him, her ring clinked against the glass bottle.
Either she has a good hand, or she’s really good at hiding her tells.
Sam looked back at his cards like they might have changed in the 10 seconds he’d stopped paying attention to them, then at his meager pile of M&M’s. The cogs turning in that big brain of his were blowing some serious smoke out the boy’s ears as he considered his options.
Finally he pushed forward 2 of the multicolored chocolates.
Tori pushed one of hers out in front of her
He grabbed for the deck, discarding the top one and flipping up three cards onto the table between them.
Two more queens—a diamond and a club—and a ten of spades stared back at him. Well shit, that’s convenient.
“Alright, Sammy. What’re you thinking?” Dean gestured to Sam.
The cards had grown warm under his hands, the plastic material worn from many, many, games. They’d seen countless tables just like this one and others, and had been held by hands with stories far more tragic than his own.
Sam blew a breath through his nose, his hand slow moving to push 4 more M&M’s forward into his pool. “Bet.”
Tori glanced between her hand and the community cards. Still, her face gave nothing away. She sat easily in the chair, the singular tail of a braid shrugged over her shoulder as if it, too, was also completely unbothered by the game afoot.
Her nimble fingers stretched out, and Dean caught himself holding on the movement while she slid 3 of hers forward, matching Sam’s 4.
“Call,” she said easily.
Dean followed suit, then laid the fourth card down beside the others. The nine of hearts now laid face up.
He glanced at Tori, her dark eyes darting between him and Sam. Instead of glancing away like he expected her to, she simply arched a brow in a silent challenge. Dean started to shift in his seat, but stopped halfway when he realized that was her goal, to make him squirm.
It was too late though; he could see where she had tugged the inside of her lip in between her teeth to suppress a satisfied smirk, her attention back on the game when Sam called out he was checking.
Heart thudding dully in his chest, his eyebrows rose almost involuntarily as Tori pushed forward 6 of hers, not an ounce of hesitation to be found etched into her face or her posture. “Raise you six.”
Fuuuuck, Dean tried not to grimace. Suddenly, his three pair of queens weren't looking too hot.
Or, maybe that’s what she wanted him to think. A little voice in the back of his head said she was too calm to be bluffing, and that whatever she had made her think she was set without even having the river in play yet.
Sammy looked about three seconds away from flipping the table, having realized he was most likely up against better hands than his own. Bless his brother, but how he hadn’t developed a better poker face in all these years baffled Dean. It would do him some good, especially outside the game table.
In true big brother fashion, Dean picked out 6 M&M’s and pushed them forward. “Call”
Sam huffed through his nose with a tight-lipped and humorless smile. Defeat floated in his eyes, meddling with goodnatured ire. He pushed 2 more in, albeit reluctantly.
Setting the top card to the discard pile, Dean felt his breath catch in his chest with anticipation as he pulled the fifth and final card from the deck, laying it with the pair of queens and the two hearts.
Another heart—the eight—sank like a stone, and Dean could practically feel the room go still as the three of them evaluated what was there and what was in their hands.
“Fuck,” Sam muttered annoyedly, flipping his hole cards over.
A seven of spades and a six of clubs. A straight. Not bad, Sammy. But not good.
Dean revealed his own. A full house with the queens and the tens. Better than Sam’s hand, though that was less than surprising to him. With his long-ass arms and hand-eye coordination, Sammy had always been better at darts and pool.
“Well, it’s been fun,” Tori said, tossing her cards forward, their faces up.
Sonnova—
A straight flush with the queen and jack of hearts.
“Candy’s all yours though,” Tori continued while standing, taking her mostly empty beer with her. “I prefer Twix.”
She hadn’t been privy to the conversation Dean had with Bobby that had sent them here to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia
She had conveniently made herself scarce when she realized the person who’d called him while they were in the middle of dinner was the old man. She’d imagined a few different ways of how, ideally, the conversation between the grisled hunter and herself would go if or when they ever spoke again, and getting into it over the phone was not very high up on it. After he’d hung up, he’d filled her and Sam in.
Apparently, a bunch of adrenaline junkies had gone missing at this bungee jumping spot. They were a batshit crazy few who decided bungee jumping at night was a good idea, only when the workers reeled them back up like bait on a hook, they were gone. Officials had done what they considered thorough searches of the area, going so far as to drag the lake, but Tori had her doubts.
Though, she supposed, if it was their kind of gig they wouldn’t find much of anything.
So, after dinner, they’d packed into the Impala and started on their way.
A month without anything so much as a lead, and no word from Sam and Dean’s so called angel friend, and she was all but fiending for a hunt, regardless of if it involved demons or not. Research was fun and all, but she was starting to get cabin fever. She could tell the brothers were too.
Despite what little connection had been sparked between her and Dean that day in the garage, hunched over Christine 2.0, he still refused to let her drive. It was like he was making a point in the way that she’d come to recognize but find no less annoying, driving almost 10 hours of the trip before Sam all but strong-armed him into taking over. At that point, she’d been promoted to the front seat while Dean dozed in the back the rest of the way.
All of them were tired, but having slept in the car at various intervals and hopped up on the promise of a hunt, none of them had been racing to their beds to get to sleep. Which is how she ended up kicking both boys’ asses at the game she played.
The following morning, when they’d all reconvened outside their rooms, Sam had still been griping about his epic loss. She’d caught the end of it as she’d stepped outside, yanking on the poorly installed door to ensure it closed properly.
The chill instantly soaked into her skin, burrowing down deep into her bones and making her shiver. According to the newscast she’d had on the shitty TV while she got ready for the day, it was supposed to reach an abnormal 70 degrees in the afternoon, but she’d underestimated just how cutting the wind would be until then.
She leaned into the warmth of the coffee clutched between her hands. Dean had dropped it off to her while she was getting dressed not even 20 minutes ago.
That had been an awkward exchange.
Before she’d retreated back to her room, leaving the two to squabble over the fairness of the game and who got more of the candy, they’d agreed not to lock the doors between them overnight in case of an emergency.
She had just grabbed her t-shirt, black with holes worn into the hem and her armpit that she kept meaning to mend, when the door swung open.
“Coffee’s here—shit!” Dean had sputtered.
Thankfully, her back was turned and her jeans were already on though still unbuttoned and her leather belt not buckled.
“Jesus fuck!” Tori had ripped the shirt over her head, not caring how it fell, wheeling around to face him. “Knocking! You heard of it!?”
A string of genuine sounding apologies spilled from the elder Winchester's mouth, and then he was gone, the door slamming shut once more. With a deep sigh and a racing heart, she had done her jeans up the rest of the way, buckling her belt before tugging the slightly tight fitting shirt over the waistline.
“This is why I never play poker with you.” Sam poked a finger at his brother.
“We’re still on this?” Tori chimed in, lifting the plastic to-go cup to her lips, steam gathering like small dew drops on her upper lip through the small hole in the lid.
“Yep,” Dean all but groaned, tugging on their door. “He wouldn’t let it go last night either.”
“Well,” Sam zipped his jacket halfway, the younger brother clearly feeling the cold just as she was. “You can play your rigged games with her now.”
Tori smiled over the mouth piece of her coffee. “Oh c’mon Sam, don’t be like that.”
“He gets this way every time,” Dean butt in, pulling the Impala’s keys from the pocket of his leather jacket. “And every time, he still plays again.”
“Thats because you guilt me into it!”
“How do I do that?”
“You just…you just do!”
“Get in the fucking car, Sam,” Dean opened the drivers side door.
Sam, looking very much like an overgrown, pouting toddler, took the passenger seat.
Tori slid into the back, settling behind Dean. “Well, no bodies means no morgue. So we're gonna go check out the site first, or talk to the families and witnesses?”
Sam shrugged at his brother
“I can go talk to the families and witnesses if you two want to go check out the site,” Tori offered. “Might be faster to split up.”
“Where do you want me to drop you off first?” Dean asked, pulling out of the parking lot.
Tori thought for a second. There had been three disappearances before the attraction was shut down for the investigation. Really, at least in her opinion, it should have closed down after the first, but greedy people do what greedy people do with little regard for the people it affects.
Three families, plus any friends that might have been there with the presumed dead.
“Uh, why don’t you drop me off at Mary Driscoll's first, and I’ll work my way around.”
“How are you gonna do that?” Sam asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Always do.”
“That sounds safe,” Dean muttered just loud enough for her to hear.
She stared at the back of his head, imagining lazars burning a fucking hole into his skull. “Thanks for that valuable opinion, dad. I’m a big girl. I’ll figure it out.”
She scooted to the middle, resting her arms on the back of the seat.
“Look, your other option is you leave your car with me and I’ll meet you somewhere when we’re both done. You have my cell.”
Tori could see the cogs turning in his head, turning over her proposal, which was the furthest point in her favor she’d gotten in her side quest to see if she could get him to let her drive the Impala.
“Good try, but no,” he finally stated.
“Worth a try.” Tori sat back, only a tinge of disappointment left over. “I’ll just walk. Or run. The town is tiny. It’s not like it’s Charleston.”
“Call us when you’re finished.” Sam peered over his shoulder at her.
“Scouts honor.”
Dean scoffed. “Yeah. Where have I heard that one before?”
“Okay,” Tori fired back. “First of all. Had met you both once. Secondly, you were in essence threatening to hold me hostage.”
“She has a point, Dean,” Sam said.
“Yeah, yeah,” the older Winchester grumbled. “Actually do it this time, please?”
“Wow,” Tori said with mock surprise as Dean pulled up to Mary Driscoll’s mothers house. “You? Saying please?”
“Get the fuck out of my car,” he snarked, but Tori just shut her door and held her middle finger in the driver’s side window.
The lake beneath the bungee jumping was a man-made feature in the bowels of The East Standard Quarry. Steep cliffs dotted with trees and shrubs rose sharply around them, making it hard for Dean to forget that they were smack dab in the middle of a National Park.
He and Sam had been to many over the course of their hunting careers. A lot of nasty things dwelled in these places, most of them old. Appalachia as a whole, given its age, seemed to breed the otherworldly.
“You think after 30 fucking years I’d be used to feeling like I’m being watched all the time,” Dean quipped, sparing a glance at the EMF reader in his palm.
The arrow hadn’t ticked past the first section since they’d started walking along the bank. They’d started a little before where the bungee rope would fall, but nearly a half mile past it and there had been nothing. No EMF, no smell of sulfur.
“Yeah,” Sam laughed softly, his brother scanning their surroundings. “Can’t remember when it started, but I don’t think it has ever gone away, has it?”
“Nope.”
“Dude,” Sam’s arm swung out, bracing across Dean’s chest.
Dean stumbled, the sudden halt nearly sending the EMF reader jostling from his hand. “What the fuck?”
“Look.”
Dean followed the line of his brother's hand to where he was pointing at the sandy ground not 5 feet in front of them.
Paw prints, the pads dug deep into the silt and sand like whatever made them was heavy.
The closer he got, Dean realized it had to have been huge. Reaching out, he set his palm over the impression, and it filled the entirety of his hand.
“It’s not the right time for Were’s is it?” He asked, looking up at Sam from his kneeling position.
Sam shook his head. “Nah, a new moon and a crescent.”
Fuck, I hate it when questions lead to more fucking questions, Dean thought,brushing off his knees as he rose off the ground.
“Guess this thing’s fucking useless,” he waved the EMF reader in the air before shoving it into his jacket pocket. “Got anything cooking in that brain a’ yours?”
Sam’s mouth twisted in contemplation, considering the tracks. “I just don’t understand how they just…start here.”
Sam took a step forward, slowly following the trail of prints.
His brother made an excellent observation. Where the hell did they come from? They had yet to see any sign of life down here outside of the occasional splash from some fish in the lake, which was odd in and of itself.
“Maybe the water rose recently? Washed them away?” Dean offered.
“No, there hasn’t been enough rain between then and now for that much of a change in water level. Besides, all the tracks would have been washed away in a gradient, not just a stark start and stop like that was.”
Fucking nerd. “Okay, so how does something that big just appear?”
“I don’t know Dean.”
“You know all this stuff, but you’re pulling a blank on me now?” Dean ribbed at his brother.
“I don’t see you having any better ideas,” Sam clapped back, eyes trained on the ground still.
Dean chuckled lowly, mostly to himself. Small waves lapped at the edges of his boot. They’d both taken a side of the set of tracks, surveying the area more closely as they walked.
“You sure we didn’t just miss—” He started to say, but Sam cut him off.
“There!” Sam pointed ahead of them, and Dean saw what his brother was calling out.
A cave had been carved into the side of the cliff face not too far in front of them. And sure as shit, the tracks seemed to lead right to it.
“Yeah?” Tori picked up her cellphone on the third ring, not looking away from the screen of Sam’s laptop.
“Where are you? You done talkin’ to the vic’s families yet?” Dean’s voice crackled through the speaker from the other end of the line.
“Yeah. Back at the motel room.”
“What the fuck!? We told you to call us when you were done,” he scolded.
She shrugged, despite the fact that he couldn’t see the flippant gesture. “Figured I’d let you two have brother bonding time or whatever. You find anything?”
“Don’t move. We’re coming back now,” he growled.
There was some faint talking in the background, which she figured was Sam asking where she was, before the line went dead.
She had finished with both families before lunch, and decided to just walk the 10 minutes from the last house to the motel room.
The first one hadn’t yielded much, Linda Driscoll—the mother of Mary Driscoll a 20-something year old college student—had been too suspicious of Tori to give her a whole lot of information. Tori had introduced herself to the elderly woman as a member of a support group for families who’d lost loved ones in extreme sports accidents.
The only thing she’d gotten from the old woman was that bungee jumping was incredibly out of the ordinary for Mary. She had been a quiet girl who’d recently taken up adrenaline seeking, and ‘extremely dangerous’ as Linda had put it, behavior after her father, Edd, died from a heart attack.
Nothing about the girls disappearance was out of the ordinary, though Tori had thought it curious when the old woman started babbling on about Mary having complained about a dog in the neighborhood barking in the middle of the night.
The second family, the St. Claires, had fared only slightly better. Interestingly enough, Drew—the brother of Evie, the other girl who had gone missing—said that his sister had told him this random dog would bark outside her window at night.
Drew, who claimed he was up at the same time Evie had said she heard the dog, had not heard anything and his room was right next to hers.
Tori had also found out that Evie had recently lost a friend to suicide, but the circumstances around the reason or manner her suicide were unknown compared to Edd Driscoll’s seemingly natural passing.
Ever since, she’d been searching up everything and anything she could find that even faintly resembled whatever it was that they were dealing with here.
She’d just found the jackpot when keys clinked at the door, then Dean burst into the room like he had fire nipping at his heels.
“What the Hell, Tori?” He said loudly, wrenching off his coat to toss it onto his bed.
She absently sipped the sweet tea she’d grabbed on her way back. “I don’t know why you’re so upset about this. We ended up in the same place.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
Sam came trailing in behind his brother, and while less outwardly upset with her, she could see the displeasure written in the tension of his shoulders as he shut the door behind himself, double checking the lock.
“You’re not on your own anymore,” Dean stomped over to her, shoving one of the chairs to the side so he could stand beside the table. “You can’t just go rogue like that. We had a plan, so we stick to the plan.”
Though she doubted it was his intention, the way Dean was looming over her sent Tori’s blood racing through her. With anger, with fear, a mix of both. Her fingers curled into the edge of the seat below her leg.
Shoving it all down, compressing it into a little square for her to swallow, she put on a borderline-condescending smile. “It was a 10 minute walk from the second family’s house to the motel. I didn’t see the point in bothering you in the middle of whatever you and Sam were doing when interviewing the families was going to take way longer.”
Tori crossed her arms over her chest before continuing. “Besides, we were going to end up back here anyway, no?”
“That wasn’t the agreed upon plan—”
“Screw the plan,” she cut in. “When have plans ever gone right?”
Dean scrubbed a hand down his face, a forceful sigh expelling from his chest. “What the fuck ever. Did you find anything at least?”
She uncrossed an arm, tapping the mouse pad to wake the laptop back up. “Not much. Mary had recently gotten into the sport after her dad died of a heart attack. Evie’d always been an adrenaline junkie, according to her brother. Amusement parks, roller coasters, that sort of thing.”
Tori gestured with her hand while she spoke, listing off the types of activities Evie enjoyed on her fingers.
“Evie also had a loved one die recently. Her friend, Tracy. It was suicide, but Evies brother said Tracy had a history of mental health struggles and it wasn’t exactly out of the blue. Neither family loved on cursed ground, neither girl had any enemies. Sweeps of the house gave nothing on EMF.”
“Did either family say anything about dogs?” Sam asked, taking the chair across from her.
Tori crossed ankle over knee, using her thumb to twirl the band of one of her rings around her finger. “Yeah, actually. Mary complained to her mom about a dog in the neighborhood barking at night and keeping her up. According to Evie's brother, she’d also been hearing a dog outside her bedroom window, but he hadn’t heard anything despite being up at the same time.”
Sam stiffened, immediately looking towards Dean. The older brother’s posture straightened as if in recognition. Some unspoken discussion passed between them, information conveyed through the subtle nod of a head and a miniscule change in expression.
“Wanna fill me in on whatever freaky shit just happened?” Tori gestured between the two brothers with a finger.
“We found tracks down at the bottom of the quarry,” Dean explained while Sam gestured for her to pass his computer to him. “Huge ones. Nearly as big as my palm. They lead into this cave, which is as far as we went before we stopped to come get you.”
“How do you know it’s not just a really big wolf?” Tori countered.
Dean grabbed the remaining chair, flipping it around to straddle it. “See that’s what I said.”
“Aside from the fact that wolves haven’t been in West Virginia in almost a hundred years, the tracks were just…there,” Sam answered, eyes still intently scanning the computer screen. “Didn’t start in a logical place. Like something wandered in. Almost like…”
He trailed off, clicking something before turning the computer around for her and Dean to see.
“A,” Dean squinted at the screen, trying to compute what they were both reading. “Snarly Yow?”
The picture next to a block of text on the website was disturbing, which was a gracious description of the monster. It was doglike, but with beady red eyes and fur like sharp spikes and a mouth full of fearsome teeth.
I would not want to meet that in the middle of the night all alone.
“It’s similar to a Black Dog, but I think these are both the death omen and the reason for the death. Usually preceded by electrical storms, like demons.” Sam explained. “There’s a bunch of accounts dating back to German immigrants of shadowy hounds roaming the countryside dragging chains around their necks. Every one recounts hearing terrifying howling louder than any wolf should be.”
“So, like a Hell Hound, but without the deal?” Dean clarified.
“Pretty much,” Sam shrugged, taking his computer back. “Only problem is, these things can phase in and out of corporeality.”
Tori groaned, still fidgeting with her ring. “Great, so how are we gonna waste it then?”
“That,” He offered her a sympathetic smile and a weary sigh. “Is what we have to figure out.”
“And you’re a hundred percent certain this is gonna work?” Dean looked over his shoulder at Tori as she inquired at Sam.
“No, not really.” Sam took the pistol from Dean. “But it’s the only thing we’ve got.”
He watched as Sam checked the magazine, just liked they’d been trained to. Iron rounds were loaded into each of their guns. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was the best they had to go off of. Nothing in the lore they could find said anything about a weakness. Bullets, knives—nothing seemed to be able to kill it.
Dean figured it would simply phase out, which would mean the projectiles would pass right through it. And knives? Well, if you were close enough to the thing to use one, then chances were you weren’t seeing the other side.
After brainstorming over Chinese take-out, Sam had suggested maybe it was like a Shtriga, only reliably taking physical form when it was feeding. Unfortunately, that meant luring the thing out in a controlled enough environment to get it to feed, which was where the issue lay.
They couldn’t force a death omen, and while none of them were particularly keen on hunting a ghost dog at 3AM in the middle of a forest with nothing but stars and a half moon to light their way, here they were.
“Right,” Tori said, tucking her pistol into the shoulder holster tucked beneath her Carhartt jacket.
Dean had asked her where she got it, wondering why he’d never gotten one for himself. It would be a hell of a lot safer than tucking his 1911 in his waistband. To his luck, she’d forgotten where it came from, and the makers mark stamped into the leather was worn to the point of illegibility.
“So coming in half-cocked is the norm then?”
“You were the one talking about best laid plans earlier,” Dean countered, shutting Baby’s trunk.
“That’s different. Having an idea of killing something is usually a good idea. Everything else can be done off the cuff.”
“We work with what we got, alright?” He turned to her, stuffing his keys into his jeans pocket.
Her fingers twisted around the end of her braid, the tail long enough to fall parallel to where her gun was holstered, and Dean wondered if it was as soft as it looked.
“Whatever. Let’s just hope you guys are right,” she said, sounding unconvinced.
“We won’t let anything happen,” Sam chimed in, slipping his gun into his waistband at his back.
Tori scoffed humorlessly. “Yeah, right. We’ll see about that.”
Dean frowned to himself, the smallest dip of his mouth. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Sammy, he thought as he stepped forward, leading the three of them on their trip down into the quarry
It was even darker down here than it had been at the surface. It swallowed them whole to where he could barely make out Sam and Tori around him. Every little sound seemed to echo off the cliffs surrounding them, overcompensating for the diminished sense of sight.
They didn’t dare use flashlights; they didn’t want the beast to know they were there any sooner than necessary. Dean was sure the Snarly Yow knew the second they set foot on the sandy beach.
Stars winked overhead, the moon peaking through the stray, wispy clouds that would pass over it. And if he thought the spine-tingling sensation of being watched was bad that morning? This was easily a hundred times worse. Nothing about hunting in the pitch dark was anything less than unsettling.
The sand beneath his boots masked most of the sound of his steps, the waves gently lapping against the shore helping even more. Even with the sound masking, Dean felt exposed.
It wasn’t until Tori halted, her entire body locking up, that he realized how close they were to the cave he and Sam found before.
“You guys hear that?”
Dean had to strain his ears to hear her, cursing to himself the years spent around guns with little hearing protection.
He stood there for a second, really listening to the sounds around them. The water splashing softly, the rustle of the trees high above as a night breeze blew through their boughs, the faint sound of bugs humming in the background.
And there, the quietest clink of metal on metal.
Clink…clink…clink…clink.
Dean’s heart thudded in his chest as the sound grew louder. As it grew closer.
Then the growling started. Loud and angry. Snarling and howling all around him. And the chain, still rattling closer to them.
And there, not far in front of them, two red dots materialized out of the dark.
Not dots. Eyes.
Beady and dead they stared directly at him.
Fear flooded his veins like ice water when a snout appeared next out of the darkness. A maw, gaping open with teeth bigger than his fingers. Viscous saliva stretched between its jaws.
The fur on its head was matted in places and stained red in others. Just like Sam had read, smoke curled at its edges, soaking into its body the closer it got, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to fully exist on this physical plane.
We are soooo in over our heads on this one. Suddenly, Tori’s skepticism wasn’t so unfounded.
His gun was in his hands before he had time to think, arms outstretched as he lined up the sights. The thunderclap of the gunshot ricocheted off the cliff face, and Dean could feel it in his chest that the bullet would land. Enough target practice and in the field experience made you know in your gut the difference between a shot that would land and one that would go awry.
It would have hit. The iron round would have struck the Snarly Yow between its blood-red eyes and felled it. It would have, if it was solid.
As his finger pressed the trigger, the beast shifted, and it wasn’t until after the bullet expelled from the barrel that Dean registered it. It was like a hologram, transparent and fully invulnerable to their weapons.
The bullet phased right through it, landing Chuck-knew where down the beach along with the last of his confidence in this method doing nothing but getting them killed.
It shook itself, the action purely canine, as it phased back into solidity. Now, it was pissed.
Gnashing its teeth, the beast roared, deafeningly so. Dean’s mouth fell open, his hands clapping over his ears without conscious effort. In his peripheral, he saw Sam and Tori do the same.
Further hearing damage crossed his mind, but it was a fleeting worry quickly overshadowed as the beast lunged.
Its massive body slammed into his. Dean stumbled back, his boots catching on the sand. He hit the ground hard. His gun had been knocked from his hand somewhere in the process, and there was a snowball's chance in Hell his puny pocket knife would do jack-shit to the beast even if he could get close enough.
Sam yelled out somewhere from Dean’s right, followed by a muted thud as his brother got thrown to the side as well.
One second her world had narrowed to the ear-shattered roar of the monster in front of them and Dean was being lunged at. The next, paws the size of plates hit her chest squarely, sending her flying backwards.
The surf did little to soften the blow, the back of her head smacking against the sand with enough force to make her vision spot at the edges. She barely had time to gasp, to draw breath in replacing the air that had been violently expelled from her lungs before the monster leapt for her again, its mouth yawning wide.
She drew her pistol from her holster, but the Snarly Yow’s massive paw smacked into her arm, setting the weapon careening off into the shadows. It pinned her arm to the sand, the rope of her braid caught beneath as well, keeping her head in place.
The other paw stepped solidly onto her chest, truly setting her deep into the sand. It was like the weight of a car bearing down on her, and she wasn’t sure it was all her imagination when she felt something crack in her ribs. Its claws dug in through her jacket, piercing past the fabric and to her skin beneath. They stabbed at her skin, slicing into her.
The hot, damp stench of its breath huffed across her face and Tori reached up with her free hand, trying desperately to get away from the sharp agony.. Her palm met fur and with all her strength she pushed at the beast, her nails digging through the thick layer of fur.
Wet droplets of spittle splashed onto her face, joining the desperate tears that trailed down her cheeks. A whimper slipped past her lips as its sharp claws dug into the meat of her bicep, adding onto the pressure and pain at her chest, the sound quickly evolving into a scream.
Not like this, please not like this! I know what I’ve said, I know, I know but I take it back—I don’t want to die!
The words came pouring out, too strong to be contained to her train of thought.
“I take it back! I take it back! I don’t want to die—please!” She cried out
Tori pushed harder, but her arm started to shake, her muscles no match for the supernatural being. Its jaws were open wide enough that she was sure it could fit her entire head into its mouth with little struggle.
It roared at her in response, and she was sure if she came out of this she’d be deaf. Everything else faded away, leaving nothing but the ringing in her ears and the sure death awaiting her through the teeth inches from her face.
Closing her eyes, Tori let her arm fall to the sand at her side, waiting for the nothingness of death to come.
Then, the pain at her arm was gone, and the chill of the night smacked her in the face. She gasped in a breath of literal fresh air, her eyes snapping open.
The stars twinkled high above her, no longer obscured by a murderous and ghastly canine. Dazed, her head lolled to the side to see Dean standing ankle deep in water with his pistol in hand.
Tori drew in a jagged breath, but it wasn’t enough. No amount of air could satisfy the emptiness in her chest. Breath after breath she sucked in, but the edges of her vision grew darker and darker.
As the last of it blurred into darkness, a figure hovered over her, their voice muffled beyond intelligibility.
“She’ll be alright,” Dean said to Sam, keeping his voice hushed.
They’d carried Tori back to Baby, and now back at the motel, she laid motionless on his bed. Sam had sped off to the store—a Walmart 15 minutes away, the only thing open this early in the morning—while Dean had grabbed the meager trauma kit they kept with their things.
Guilt had flamed at his cheeks when he took the pair of trauma shears to her shirt, but all of that hadn’t mattered when her blood was soaking through the dark material at her arm and at her chest. Her bra had covered her and left enough visibility for the wounds he hadn’t needed to remove it.
Worry had started to set in when she barely stirred as he pressed gauze into the puncture wounds just under where her sternum was. Once Sam returned, he worked on her arm where 3 inch long wounds were slashed into her upper arm while Dean bound the wounds on her torso, trying not to pay attention to the pale lines of scars already littering her stomach and sides.
At the end of it, he’d slipped her into one of his shirts, not wanting to further invade her privacy by digging through her bags, and tucked her into his bed.
“I told her she’d be fine,” Sam whispered back, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And when she wakes up she’ll probably give you hell,” Dean joked back quietly, trying to raise his brother's spirits.
His ribbing fell flat, as usual his humor was ill-timed. He sighed, clapping his brother on the back.
“Get some sleep Sammy. I’ll stay up with her,” he assured him.
Sam had dozed off quickly, exhausted from the last few hours. Dean’s own eyelids grew heavy, but he fought off the urge to join Sam in slumber. Instead, he’d showered, washing off the grit and grime from the sand, the hot water bringing a little life back into his bones.
Now, he sat at the table, his pistol stripped in front of him. As he cleaned the sand and whatever else from the metal, he listened to her breathe, the cadence smooth and steady. He’d been worried the Snarly Yow had punctured or collapsed a lung, and they wouldn’t know if she had any broken ribs until she woke, but he and Sam both agreed her lungs sounded normal.
It was everything he could do to keep his hands busy and his mind from wandering back to what he’d heard her scream. That she took it back, and that she wanted to live. The implications there were far deeper than his exhaustion would allow him to analyze, but he knew that it wasn’t going away any time soon.
So instead, he cleaned his gun, and tried not to think about just how scared the idea of her death made him.
Chapter Tags/Warnings: Vomiting, talk of IV's/needles, flashbacks/mentions of near-death experience, language
Chapter Summary: Following a near-death experience, Tori wakes up in an unfamiliar place.
Word Count: 4.5k
Author's Note: Title from Take Me Back to Eden by Sleep Token.
Tag List: @copperboom82 @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
Series Masterlist
Main Masterlist
She was walking out of the tack room.
That’s the last thing Tori remembered clearly before everything became blurry. The stench of decay wrapped around her like the steel-strong arms banding across her chest, pinning her hands from reaching to grab her machete.
Then the coppery tang of blood, the scent strong enough to make her gag. That was her downfall, cause when she did, the vampire pressed his bleeding wrist between her open lips. Her eyes flared wide, a scream ripping from her lungs, lifting herself up to kick blindly at the monster's legs, his crotch, anything to free herself while she resisted the urge to swallow.
Terror quivered through her muscles, knowing what was going to happen when she inevitably ingested the vampire's blood. It’d kill the Winchesters next.
Even if it didn’t, there was no such thing as a cure. She knew, she looked for years to no avail.
There’d be no salvation for her. Her tongue pulled away from the weeping cut, but it was too late. Her body’s subconscious reflex kicked in, and the penny-taste was sent down her throat.
Tori’s eyes flew open, her body shooting up ramrod straight. She coughed, then gagged at the memory of blood trickling into her throat. Her body convulsed, stomach churning as she keeled over to the side. Bile and a disgusting mixture of she didn’t even know what splattered to the floor beside the bed she sat upon.
Wait. A. Fucking. Minute.
Tori blinked. Then she slowly straightened, taking in her surroundings.
Well, if this is Hell, this is nowhere near what I was expecting. Instead of a fiery pit or some non-stop torture, she was sitting in a hospital bed in what looked to be an infirmary from circa 1957. The occasional modern medical supplies were placed around the room, but otherwise you could have told her she was on a set of a period drama and she would have believed it.
And, more importantly, she was alone. The fold-away dividers were pulled back against the wall, and the few other beds were empty. Some weren’t even made with sheets.
“Whaaaat the fuck?” Tori muttered to herself.
Glancing down, she noted she was in the same clothes she had been wearing prior to being attacked, sans the jacket; her jeans and t-shirt were still intact. Noticing an IV was taped to the crook of her arm, she went to reach up to look at what, was being fed into her veins—which if she had to guess was saline—but her arm didn’t go very far.
Tori narrowed her eyes at the soft cuffs that encircled her wrists, anchoring her to the bed. Great. I didn’t die. I just ended up in some creepy serial killer lair.
“Uh, hey!” She called out, trying the strength of the cuffs with a harsh yank of her arm. “Anybody there? I promise to be good if you don’t kill me!”
Her voice sounded hollow as it was sent into the empty room.
After a second of no response, Tori groaned. “Great. Just great.”
She looked around the room a second time, trying to find anything within arms reach she could use to free herself. The lack of pressure on her calf meant whoever brought her here had removed the knife she had strapped there. Her quiver and machete were also notably missing, though considering her situation, she wasn’t really expecting them to be there anyway.
The blood.
Tori knew she had swallowed it, felt whatever supernatural forces that drove the transformation from human to vampire bully her into unconsciousness.
I-I don’t feel any different. Her movements stilled, the horror of possibilities washing over her and all of a sudden she wasn’t itching to get out of the cuffs anymore. An abyss opened in her stomach, making it do somersaults to the point she leaned back over the edge of the bed, more bile joining the rest of her vomit on the floor.
“Hey, it’s okay,” a voice said softly, and Tori felt a hand on her back.
It was instinct to flinch, her balled fist rocketing up as she leaned away from the foreign individual. She scooted as far back on the bed as the restraints would allow, eyes wild she assessed the person who’d walked in.
“Sam?” Tori’s brows furrowed, her voice hoarse from the vomiting.
The younger Winchester held his hands up, palms out in defense.
“Hey, yeah—sorry I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said softly. “I heard you yell from down the hall, then I saw you puke.”
Tori felt her cheeks burn. “I woulda tried to make it to a bathroom, but, uh.”
She held her wrists up.
“Precautions,” Sam responded.
“Yeah, about that,” Tori trailed off, tucking her hands beneath her thighs. “Why am I not, you know?”
“Thirsting for my blood?” Sam smiled.
“Yeah. That,” Tori nodded. “I swallowed the vamps' blood. I felt it go down my throat. Felt the change start.”
“May I?” Sam jerked his chin towards the end of the bed.
Tori considered it, tucking the inside of her lower lip between her teeth, nodding.
“Long story short, we have a cure,” he explained.
A harsh bark of laughter slipped out of her before Tori could stop it. “I’m sorry. What kind of weed have you been smoking? And more importantly, where can I get some?”
The man’s lips tugged up in a crooked grin. “Yeah. We didn’t believe it at first either.”
“Believe what, Sam? There is no cure for vampirism, just like there isn’t one for lycanthropy. Every hunter knows this. I looked for years.”
“That’s because you didn’t have the family recipe.” Sam set his hands on his jean-clad thighs. “Our mom’s family found a cure. Or made it. We’re not exactly sure but all we know is it works. Counting you, we’ve changed four people back. Only works if you haven’t fed yet, though.”
Tori’s jaw went slack, and she couldn’t even bring herself to care. It didn’t sound possible. But, here she sat, not wanting to suck the blood from Sam who sat not 2 feet from her.
“So, I’m not gonna go full Cullen on anyone when I leave? I’m normal?” Tori mentally chuckled at the second question. Definitely not normal. But not a vampire.
“Nope,” Sam replied. “You are not a vampire.”
Tori nodded slowly, unable to fully wrap her head around the fact that she had come so close to death—or, death adjacent—and had managed to escape it. Taking a deep breath, she brought her arm up to run her palm down her face in relief, but was stopped by the soft restraints.
“Well, since I am no longer a danger to myself or others, can I be unrestrained?” Tori raised her wrist up pointedly.
Sam huffed a laugh. “I suppose that could be arranged.”
He reached over, undoing the buckle of the first one.
“What was the point of these anyway? Couldn’t I have just, I don’t know, ripped them off the bed if I had turned?”
Sam shrugged, moving onto the other. “Probably. But since we’d seen the cure work before, we weren’t too worried about it. I didn’t want to put them on, period, but Dean insisted.”
Annoyance flared and Tori rolled her eyes. “Of course he did.”
Sam pulled back out of her personal space, standing up off the bed. “He means well.”
Tori watched Sam grab what looked to be some cleaning supplies from one of the cabinets. The whole room piqued her interest. Antique beds, trays, and fixtures, but modern tools and supplies. “If by that you mean he’s an asshole, then yeah. Sure.”
“Can’t say you’re much of a delight yourself, sweetheart,” the eldest Winchester snarked from the doorway.
Tori’s head snapped over to where Dean stood. Her lip curled in disdain. “Nobody asked for the Peanut Gallery’s opinion.”
“Well, my ears were burning and lo and behold, you’re talking shit about me with my little brother.”
Sam pointedly remained silent, kneeling down with the cleaning supplies next to the pile of her vomit.
“If you weren’t such an asshole, then I wouldn’t have to talk shit about you,” she countered, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “Sam, I can do that. I made the mess.”
“It’s alright, Tori. I got it.” Sam insisted, throwing a soiled paper towel into a plastic bag.
“Wow, calling me an asshole twice. Really gotta be more creative,” Dean started to move in.
Tori’s fingers curled into the sheets, addressing Dean. “Give me some new material and I’ll see what I can do.”
Dean sneered at her, but broke his attention to bark at Sam. “Let her do it, she made the mess.”
Sam craned his head over his shoulder. “Dean. She has an IV and nearly fucking got turned into a vampire. Give it a rest.”
“I got turned and look how well I turned out. I’m sure Robin Hood over here will be fine.”
Eyebrows raised, Tori tucked that tidbit of information away for future reference. Sam had said they’d turned three people prior to her, but somehow the idea that the great Dean Winchester managed to get caught with his pants far enough down to be turned into a fledgling bloodsucker.
Well, kids, this is why you never meet your heroes.
“Look,” Tori interjected. “I’m fine, the IV can come out and I can get gone.” She sent a dark look towards Dean. “Clearly I’m intruding and that’s the last thing I wanted to come out of this whole thing. I’ll get my things and hitch a ride.”
Sam rose from the floor. “About that—”
“We don’t have your stuff.” Dean interrupted. “Besides. You aren’t going anywhere until we get some answers.”
Tori scoffed. “Huh, yeah. Good luck with that.”
She didn’t hesitate, grabbing the IV lines to give them a good yank. The tape stung like a bitch, tearing away from her skin, but Tori just set her jaw against the pain, sliding off the bed.
No sooner had her feet hit the floor did a hand grab her arm in an attempt to steady her.
With a sharp inhale, Tori tugged her arm from Sam’s aid, going so far as to take a step back. She tried to ignore the faint look of dejection.
He was just trying to help, her subconscious nagged. And I don’t give a fuck, she thought to herself.
“Look, can I at least use the fucking bathroom before the two’a you start playing good cop bad cop? Interrogation on a full bladder is not fun.”
After a second, Dean nodded and Sam took a step to her right, allowing her to pass. Annoyance coursed through her, the urge to scream sitting heavy in her lungs. This was exactly what she was trying to avoid, and it was the last place she wanted to be.
Patience, she tried to tell herself, a balm to serve her frayed nerves. Get them to let their guard down, then get the hell outta dodge.
The hallway outside the infirmary kept the same architecture, all light brickwork and tile. Tori craned her neck while they walked, noting the antique lighting. Amidst it all, curiously enough, there were no windows.
“What is this place?” She asked, keeping a good distance between Dean in front of her.
Silence, then, “A bunker. Just outside Lebanon.”
Tori hummed in response, following him to the end of the hall where a section was inlaid into the t-intersection, a sign hung on the outside with the women’s restroom icon.
“Am I allowed to use the bathroom by myself or are you gonna hold it for me too?” Tori snarked at Dean as he stopped in the intersection.
That comment earned her an eyeroll, a reaction that elicited a sense of well earned joy through her nervous system. “Just come right back to the infirmary. Don’t go snooping around.”
“Scouts honor.” Tori held up three fingers, and just as Dean went to turn around she flipped her hand around, dropping her index and ring finger.
Dean held up his own, “Oh look, I can do that too.”
Tori said sweetly. “Congratulations, you have basic fine motor skills.”
“Go fucking piss.”
“Gladly.”
The wooden door shut heavily behind her with a bang that echoed, and just like she expected, the bathroom matched the rest of the place, looking like something out of a movie like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Clearly, it was not constructed with women in mind, only two stalls with powder blue walls sat upon one wall and, curiously enough, two urinals. A small walkway leading behind the toilet stalls presented a row of showers, none with curtains hanging on the rods.
While the excuse had been just that—she had no intention of being subjected to an interrogation of any capacity—she really did need to pee. The saline did its job a little too well.
The toilets were clean at least, she noticed as she relieved herself, so were the sinks when she washed her hands after.
Wiping her hands on her jeans in the absence of paper towels in the dispenser, Tori’s mind raced with how she was gonna do this. She had no idea what the layout of the bunker would even look like, let alone how to get to the exit.
Pensa, Tori. Think.
Heart thundering in her chest, Tori eased the door open. The wall in the way meant she didn’t have a direct eyeline to the hallway, so, letting the door shut gently behind her she crept out to press her back against it.
She shivered, bare arms brushing against the tile, she peered around the edge. Tori breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the hallway was empty.
Well, for now at least.
She was sure Dean wasn’t gonna wait forever, which meant she needed to act fast.
Fearful of the noise her boots would make, Tori moved as quickly as she dared through the hallways. Instead of taking the hallway back past the infirmary, she took a different path, hoping to god that it would eventually lead her to an exit.
More heavy looking wooden doors, all in similar fashion to the bathroom ones, lined the corridor at varying intervals. Numbers were nailed to the doors, the metal shining in the light by either meticulous care or dumb luck.
Some curious instinct wanted to know what was behind them, what secrets the place the Winchester brothers apparently called home.
Once, a long time ago, she’d been told, by someone she considered a reliable source, that the boys rarely put down roots; the practice was a ghost left behind after years of moving around with John.
Which, for all she knew, they could be squatting here, but Sam’s familiarity with where the supplies in the infirmary were suggested that maybe they had finally chosen a home base.
It’s none of your business, and it’s not like you are gonna be here ever again anyway, Tori reminded herself, continuing on her way.
With the lack of windows and the same architecture no matter what way she turned, the bunker grew dizzying. She didn’t know which way was left or right, up or down; the place was a fucking labrynth of hallways. The boys were gonna come looking for her soon, and she needed to gone when they did
Tori huffed a breath, following the curve once more just to see it end with a door. Jesus christ this place doesn’t end!
Care abandoned, she stomped down the short corridor. Reaching out, she grabbed at the handle, fully expecting it to be locked. The knob gave way as she rotated her wrist, the door swinging open towards her.
It cannot be that easy.
Swinging the door open, she was met with a stairwell leading up into yawning darkness. Hair standing on end, she balked, not exactly jumping at the opportunity to climb a flight of stairs leading into complete darkness. She’d seen enough horror movies in her life, imagining a chainsaw wielding maniac just waiting to jump out at her from the shadows.
Shaking her body, Tori took a deep breath in through her nose. It didn’t help much, but it was enough to get her to take that first step, ascending into the darkness.
Her entire body flinched, automatic lights clicking on above her with an electric hum. What they illuminated though, made her jaw drop.
Two neat rows of beautiful antique cars lined a garage that must have been at least a hundred feet deep. Cement columns ran the length of the space, the lights hung from beams bolted to the ceiling held the same dated design found in the hallways. Other fixtures hung on the walls, drawing her eye to an oddly familiar emblem hung on the end.
Stunned, Tori wandered down the center, eyeing the vehicles. Her eyes narrowed, noticing the same black, 1967 Chevy Impala from the diner.
“Damn,” she muttered to herself, her fingers just hovering over the hood. “Gotta admit, he’s got taste.”
All of the cars were well kept, the chrome and metal reflecting the light. But the Impala, it was practically glowing. Not a speck of dust, nor a scratch, every part polished so finely she could see her reflection better than any mirror.
What I would do to get a look under your hood Tori thought, reluctantly moving on.
Okay, a garage has got to have an exit to the outside, right? Just gotta find it.
“Getting real sick of all the fucking doors.” Tori whispered in an exasperated tone, approaching another person-sized service door positioned next to a standard roller garage door. Whipping it open, Tori sighed. “And all the fucking stairs.”
She hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The door burst open, fresh air all but smacking her in the face. Gravel crunched under her boots, a long driveway spanning out in front of her leading to a road.
“Good luck, boys,” Tori smiled, relieved. “And good fucking riddance.”
“So she's…interesting.”
Dean could hear the amusement in his brother's voice when he walked back into the infirmary. Tori’s smug expression was burnt into his brain, the flippant nature in which she regarded him. He knew she didn’t owe him anything—if anything, he owed her for saving Sam’s life—but boy did she grate on his nerves.
The secrecy most of all, and okay, maybe it annoyed him that she seemed to know more about him and Sam than they knew about her, but that was normal, right?
“Sam. Don’t.”
Sam leaned back against one of the cabinets, crossing his arms over his chest. “Look, all I’m saying is that, clearly, she’s a good hunter. And whether you want to admit it or not, she could be a good back up.”
“When have we ever needed back up?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Garth, the Banes, Jody, Donna. Need I go on?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “That’s different. We’ve known them for years. We know we can count on them.”
“How is that different? At one point we didn’t know any of them either, let alone count on them to have our backs.”
“It just is!” Dean snapped. “I don’t know Sam, there's something…off about her. I don’t like it.”
From the second they showed up at the crime scene, there’d been something not right. At first it was because he thought she was a demon, but after that, the way she couldn’t get away from them fast enough and after dropping some vague background with Bobby, it just seemed too much all at once. Too many blanks, too much left in the dark.
“Nothing has felt right, not since all this bullshit with Crowley—”
“And that’s another thing!” Dean cut Sam off. “How come we’ve never heard of this chick, only for her to show up right when we are out doing that fucking demon’s dirty work. For all we know she’s one of his, sent to spy on us.”
“Dean,” Sam placated. “She’s not a demon. I tested her skin with holy water when she was out. No response. No reaction to silver either, so she's not a skin walker.”
“Okay, so she’s not one of Crowley’s lackeys, but that still doesn’t explain where she came from.”
“Look, Dean, looking for Belial is clearly a tougher job than we anticipated, and it’s not like Crowley is being of any help as usual. We need a capable hunter on our side right now. Besides, we’ll get answers whenever she comes back from the bathroom.”
Shit.
Dean checked his watch. It’d been nearly 15 minutes since he’d walked Tori to the bathroom and she hadn’t come back yet. He pushed off the wall, bee-lining it to the bathrooms. There wasn’t a fuck left to give, he decided, shoving open the women’s bathroom door so hard the wooden panel slammed violently into the wall.
“Dean?” Sam came up behind him.
“Let’s get the car.”
Tori rubbed her hands up and down her arms for the third time in the last five minutes, thoroughly regretting not sparing an extra five minutes to search for her coat in her escape. It wasn’t snowy yet in mid-October, but the wind was wicked, yanking strands of her hair loose despite how tight she’d woven it into the singular braid.
Leaves scraped across the road, her eyes following the rumble strip along the side of the road. She kept to the shoulder, wandering over the line where the blacktop met gravel. Angry grey clouds threatened a late season rain, and it was late enough in the day for the oncoming traffic to be blinding her with their headlights.
So far not one traveller had stopped for her outstretched thumb when she heard them coming up behind her. Too many people in too much of a hurry to get home for Miller Time.
It’d been a hot minute since she had to do this. Usually she could find a car to hotwire, but the bunker was out in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t able to bring herself to break into one of the cars that had been in the garage. It felt too much like vandalism and those babies deserved better.
The part that worried her, the part that made her grow increasingly desperate to find a ride with each car that came up on her, was that she truly had no idea where she was. She could be in another state for all she knew, though it was unlikely considering they would have had to move her from the barn to the bunker and administer the cure prior to her waking up.
The hope she had that some good samaritan would stop and give her a ride or at least some direction to where she needed to go dwindled with every minute that stretched between the last car that had passed her.
The highway loneliness was a different drug when walking along it rather than riding on top of it.
In the driver's seat, she could count the road signs, sing her lungs out, or get lost in the highway hypnosis until she needed to get off on an exit. But walking alongside it she was all too aware of how the road stretched for miles with nothing cornfields and cows as far as the eye could see; she could feel the wind off the car whipping past her with no steel and glass barrier to shield her. It felt way too exposed.
The deep roar of an engine had Tori whirling around, arm already halfway out with her thumb up when she recognized the chrome grill and the sleek black car it was attached to. She could not drop her hand fast enough, nor turn on her heel to continue walking.
“Dannazione!” Tori threw her head back, wrapping one arm over the other. Goddamn it!
The Impala slowed, rolling alongside her. She kept her eyes forward, refusing to acknowledge them more than she already had.
“Hey!” Sam called out from her left.
She ignored him, quickening her pace.
“Tori!”
These boys will not give up! Just as she was about to turn and tell them off, something rough but cushioned smacked into her side.
Tori’s mouth dropped open, scrambling to grab the item. Her enraged expression melted into shock, realizing Sam had thrown her coat at her through the open passenger side window. Tugging it on, Tori nearly melted into the warmth the jacket provided, heated from the interior of the car. She knew she was chilly, but it didn’t really register how cold she actually was until she wasn’t.
“Peace offering, alright?” Sam said. Tori presumed Dean was behind the wheel keeping the car rolling at a snail's pace to keep up with her. “Just, get in the car and we’ll drive you to the motel.”
She laughed incredulously. “Wow, you are one free candy sign away from sounding like a kidnapper, Sam.”
“Tori, please. It’s a three hour drive and it’s gonna rain soon.”
There was no way this was happening. She shook her head. “Nah, you guys lost your fucking chance when you threatened to keep me hostage.”
Sam said something, his voice muffled. Probably talking to Dean. Tori just kept on walking, putting one boot in front of the other, another track that would get lost when the rain came, washing away any evidence she had walked here.
“Look,” Sam addressed her again. “We realized that maybe it could have been handled much, much better. And we wanna make up for it, if you’ll let us.”
The regret was genuine, from Sam at least. Considering it all though, he wasn’t the one she wanted an apology from.
She turned her head, but continued on walking. “I wanna hear him say it.” Tori pointed into the Impala where Dean sat, keeping his head forward, eyes on the road. “He’s the one who threatened to hold me hostage.”
Through the window, she could see him scoff. At the end of the outburst, though, there was something softer akin to remorse. Off in the distance, thunder rumbled and the first scant drops of rain hit the blacktop.
“I’m sorry, alright. I was an asshole and I should have tried to talk things out better.” It was forced, but it was an apology. “Just get in the damn car before we get rear ended or worse.”
Tori loosed a long slow breath, every part of her was apprehensive at the whole thing. It just seemed that no matter what she did, all the roads kept leading back to them.
Mother Nature, if you are fucking with me, so help me. Her feet slowed, coming to a stop, the Impala doing the same.
“I swear to God if you guys try to take me anywhere but the motel I will jump out. I do not care how fast we are going.”
She reached out, gently grabbing the door handle. Climbing inside, she gingerly closed the door behind her, the latches engaging with a soft click.
As she slid to sit behind Dean, she caught his eye in the rearview mirror. Appreciation clouded his gaze, but it was gone with a blink, his attention back on the road as he peeled away from the shoulder.
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Oooh Dean was starting to thaw at the end there, I can feel it lolll
Also, I love the little tidbits of Italian! It reminded me that that was Tori's nationality. Brings some more flavor to the character 👌🏽💜 (please tell me she cooks. Dean would freakin' love a girl who could cook Italian food 😂)
Chapter Tags/Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence and gore, near-death experiences, Dean's self-doubt, language, Dean is kind of an asshole
Chapter Summary: Since going their separate ways with Tori, the brothers decide to take on the nest by themselves. A simple nest clear-out, then they can resume their efforts to get out from under Crowley’s thumb. But as Murphy’s Law states: if anything can go wrong, it will.
Word Count: 4.2k
Author's Note: Title is from The Summoning by Sleep Token
Tag List: @copperboom82 @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
Series Masterlist
Main Masterlist
“So,” Dean started as he and Sam approached the large barn where they’d tracked the four vamps. “What’s the plan here?”
Both of them had machetes on their person.
Paying careful mind to the underbrush, they’d abandoned Baby on a service road in favor of moving in on foot. They had tracked the vampires here last night, finding their way to the motel room to regroup afterwards and prepared for the hunt. After a wrong turn, they managed to find the service road, park the car, and had made it to the treeline where they were now.
“I’ll take left, you take right?” Sam offered, voice low and cautious.
Dean shrugged in response. Emerging from the treeline, the warm sun beat down on them. The sunlight wouldn’t be fatal to the vamps, but any advantage they had was better than nothing, especially since they had no idea how many were in the nest. A nasty sunburn, Dad had equated it to, once what seemed a lifetime ago.
The rust-riddled hinges creaked softly as Dean eased the door open for them to slip through. Light filtered through the gaps of the wooden paneling, illuminating the dust particles suspended in the air. It was clear the animals that would have been housed here at one point were long gone, but despite that, the musty smell of animal, hay, and wood was near smothering.
But among the earthy aromas, that dare he say smelled pretty good, was the sharp and coppery tang of blood which clung to the air alongside it.
Ears straining to their limits, his senses heightened like they always did on a hunt. The adrenaline tensed his muscles, causing him to flinch at the smallest things; eyes shifting and fingers twitching to grab the handle of his machete, he was ready.
No matter how many times he walked into the veritable lion’s den, acting on muscle memory, he still couldn’t shake the feeling of unease, the lingering feeling of self doubt; was he quiet enough, were the weapons they packed the most effective, was Sam prepared? He didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing—if it made him a better hunter, or just a liability.
His boots on the ground were too loud. Or maybe it was just the paranoia. Either way, Dean winced at every creak and groan and whisper of the barn as he and Sam advanced.
The barn was mostly open, stalls lining either side of an alley running the length of the structure, a half wall with support pillars bifurcating it into equal parts. As agreed upon, Dean took the right and Sam continued on the left side of the half wall.
They’d fought enough vamps, infiltrated enough nests to know—generally—what to expect in one. 5 to 15 vamps, bedding and spoils from their victims, and usually one or two unfortunate individuals kept to be used for live blood bags until they were killed or turned into vampires themselves.
Dean ran the checklist through his head. They had vamps, the paramedic imposters from the previous night proved that. He doubted there were only 4 of them, which meant he and Sam didn’t know the true amount they were up against.
That little nugget of not so fun information sat heavy, the danger and fear coiling like a serpent ready to strike.
The not knowing was the worst. Did they underprepare? Were there other things here? Vaguely, he recognized his breathing speeding up, the panic threatening to set in.
Shaking his head, Dean continued on, passing the first stall. His nose crinkled, the smell of blood intensifying here. He was sure he knew what he would find beyond the half door, the top swung inward. He looked anyway.
Lifeless eyes stared back at him, a sight he knew wouldn’t be leaving his dreams for a while. His heart sank as he observed two bodies, unmoving, necks ripped open. They’d been tossed in carelessly, limbs splayed haphazardly amongst other lifeless forms.
Judging by the dark stains climbing up the sides of the stall long since soaked into and staining the wood, they were nowhere near the first that had been deposited here.
Too late. That little voice nagged like a gnat. He was too late to save them. The smell of blood and the state of the wounds said they hadn’t been dead very long, 48 hours at most. If he hadn’t been caught up in Crowley’s bullshit, if he had driven faster, if they found the nest sooner, maybe they’d still be alive. Traumatized, but alive.
Now wasn’t the time, he told himself as he stepped back from the stall. Dragging a hand down his face he continued onward, the need to gank the vamps only more unrelenting.
Soft snoring coming from one of the decrepit stalls further up had Dean carefully unsheathing his machete. The sound was too muffled to determine how many there were on that fact alone.
He spared a look at Sam who was on the other side of the alley, his brother catching his eye to hold up a hand, fingers spread wide. 5 on his side and an unknown number on this side.
Maybe they should have thought this through further. Or tried harder to convince that woman—Tori—to stay and help.
He visibly recoiled at that notion. They’d taken down bigger nests just the two of them. They didn’t need the help of some no-name hunter who would probably just throw a wrench in the well oiled machine he and Sam had created.
Dean got as close as he dared, keeping his bootsteps light to peer over the stall. 4 figures, split into pairs, were laying in the stall, old horse blankets thrown over them. Thankfully, all seemed to be sleeping deeply, none the wiser to him or Sam.
Good.
So long as things kept going to plan, everything would be fine. A little chaotic, given there were 9 vampires in the immediate vicinity and only two of them, but fine nonetheless.
But, of course nothing was that easy.
It started with a rotted-out floorboard.
Whatever rancher or farmer had built the barn had decided to lay wooden planks across the dirt instead of laying concrete. Or maybe it was just that old that concrete and bricks hadn’t been that mainstream yet at the time of construction.
Dean didn’t care to know that.
Despite his careful footwork, as he prepared to enter the stall with his machete in hand, the plank of wood suspending his weight snapped.
In the silence, it was no better than a gunshot.
Chaos erupted around him. One moment the vampires were sleeping peacefully, perfect targets to be dispatched, the next he was staring 4 pissed off vampires in the face. On muscle memory alone, Dean lashed out in a wide arc. Blood splattered across the wall and with a wet thud, the first vampire’s head hit the floor.
The female who had been laying next to the recently re-departed bared her teeth at him, an unholy wail that almost sounded sad ripped from her throat as she lunged at him. Dean barely had enough time to lift his machete up, blocking her grapple. Even with that barrier, he was shoved back a few feet, boots catching on the uneven planks.
“Dean!” He heard Sam call out from the other side, his brother sounding breathless in his own fight.
“I’m fine, Sammy!” Dean called back, advancing on the female once again.
The lithe female dodged his first attempt, ducking under his arm and landing a shove to his chest with full force. He coughed, the air from his lungs violently expelled when his back met one of the wooden supports.
Ice plummeted his heart into his stomach when he spared a glance to the side and saw a piece of rebar sticking out from the beam not three inches from his neck.
He didn’t get a chance to contemplate his luck, the female keeping him on the ropes. The defensive was not his preferred position. It felt too much like running. Using the support beam to push off of, Dean exploded forward, side-stepping her arm as she lashed out.
His retaliating backhanded swing was sloppy, but he felt resistance sing up the blade and into his elbow and shoulder anyway. Her body crumpled to the floor, head no longer attached.
Panic exploded through him when corded arms wrapped around him, wresting him off the ground. Briefly he was airborne, stomach rising into his throat. But his venture into aviation didn’t last long, his body slamming into the ground, splintering the boards underneath him.
A groan clawed its way out, and Dean felt the telltale pin pricks of wood shards slicing into his torso, no doubt some of them lodging into the skin even through his t-shirt and flannel.
Eyes frantically scanning the immediate area, he spotted his machete not ten feet from him. The only problem was the two very large, very pissed off, vampires standing between him and the blade. From the thuds followed closely by disturbing squelching, Sam was still working on his side of things. Which meant it was up to him to fence a distraction. Of course, because what else am I good for?
“Don’t suppose we could all talk this out?” Dean quipped, rolling onto his back.
“Shut the fuck up.” The smaller of the two snapped, smaller being relative to the behemoth he was standing next to, and Dean could see the second set of teeth descended over the blunt, human, ones. “We like it when our lunch is quiet.”
“Well, you should definitely let me go then.” He slowly pushed himself up into a crouch, the adrenaline muting the aches and pains. “Cause I never shut up.”
“You killed Marceline.” The bigger one growled.
Dean tilted his head. “Marceline?”
“You got hearing problems or somethin?”
“No,” Dean shook his head, a ghost of a laugh skirting past his lips despite the imminent death awaiting him in about two seconds. “It’s…it’s a cartoon. There's this…vampire queen. Her name is…you know what nevermind.”
“Got us a fuckin’ joker over here. Once we’re done with you, you won’t have a tongue to joke with.”
He should be dead. Dead as a doornail, six-feet-under-in-a-pine-box dead. The larger man lunged, his form little more than a blur. Dean remembered moving too slow, the edge of his boot catching on the shattered floor beneath him and sending him off kilter to what should have been the vamps clutches.
But it never came, the pain of claws and teeth and the swift darkness of death.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
The vamp was face down, the shaft of an arrow clean through his neck. Blood had started to bubble up and froth around the wound. The shaft of the arrow was dark, and not in a way that made him think it was simply made from a dark grained wood.
Deadman’s blood.
He knew the arrow wouldn’t keep it down for so long, but just enough to maybe buy him some time. Scrambling to his feet once more, Dean made a mad dash for his machete. The smaller vamp stood there, buffering at the site of his nest-mate with an arrow through the jugular. But that period of recalibration didn’t last long.
No sooner had Dean snatched the machete back up, it had its hands on him. Again, his back was slammed against a stall, the machete knocked loose from his grip, clattering to the floor. Dean grunted in pain, the vamps' nails piercing through his shirts into the flesh below, digging into his shoulders.
Mouth open wide, needle-like teeth glistening, the vamp lunged. He wasn't sure how, dumb luck, divine intervention, or just sheer self preservation, he managed to get his arms up and braced against the vamp's chest. It gnashed its teeth, growling like a rabid dog. Once again he was between a rock and a hard place. The side of a stall at his back, the shark-like mouth of the vamp in front of him, Dean had run out of options and places to run.
No, it couldn't end like this. Not with Sam here. He knew his claim that he would die like this, by the hands of something monstrous, had some level of truth.
He didn't think that day would be today, but he also knew what they say about a profession with no old men.
The oldest man he knew still in the life was Bobby, and by all accounts that man should be dead but he thanked whatever cosmic being there was that the old man hadn't bought the farm.
Despite his seemingly nonchalance surrounding his theoretical demise, he was anything but at ease with the situation. Every thud of his heart that echoed through his ears was a shout at him to stay alive. And by God, he was trying, using every bit of muscle and steel-strong stubbornness that had all but been beaten into him to push the vamp back.
But having just fed, the vamp was strong, and regardless of what he might believe and posture, he wasn't without his limits. And an angry vampire hell bent on revenge just might be one of them.
The vamps' lips pulled back into a snarl, showing off the row of needle-like teeth descended over the set of human ones. The stench permeating from his mouth—blood and decay—had bile rising to the back of his throat. Dean had smelled his fair share of less than savory scents in his lifetime, but this had to be one of the worst.
Forearms starting to tremble, Dean roared in defiance, his strength beginning to waver. His heart was a war drum, drowning out every other sense until his vision narrowed to a pinpoint. Everything faded away—Sam’s shouts, the growling of the monsters.
All that was left was him and the yawning maw of death.
Just when Dean was sure his hold would give, the head of another arrow pierced straight through the Adams apple of the vamp. The vampire reared back, clawing at his neck with an inhuman screech, the sound gurgling and faded from what he could only assume was a severed windpipe.
Nothing short of a beheading would kill them, but the distraction was all Dean needed to have his machete back in his grasp. He didn’t stop to track where the arrow had come from. He simply lined up the swing and chopped the fuckers head clean off. It bounced once, then rolled to a stop, the body slumping down beside it.
Dean didn’t stay long enough to see where it landed, dashing to kill the other arrow-struck vampire before immediately heading to the other side of the aisle. More headless bodies littered the floor around Sam who was locked between two just like Dean had been.
A shout strangled him, fear clogging his throat when Sam whirled around to slice at one, just to leave his flank exposed to the second. He was too far away, his legs couldn’t carry him fast enough to stop the slow motion execution happening right in front of him.
The pain and terror clawed through his chest worse than anything he’d ever felt. He was going to watch his little brother be killed in front of him.
Again.
Then, the vamp stumbled, the swing of his knife falling short by near invisible momentum. Sam’s blade came down clean, dispatching the first vamp. Before Sam could even wheel around to see what’d happened, Dean was there, sinking his own blade into the neck of the vamp that nearly sliced into Sam’s side.
Dean grunted with effort, the feel of metal on bone zinging up his forearms. The vampire screamed when blood started to pour in buckets from the severed artery. Warm liquid sprayed across Dean’s face and he pinched his lips closed just in time to avoid vampire blood from getting into his mouth.
Yanking the machete from the bone, Dean swung it up over his head, bringing it down once more. This time, the cut went through with the squelch and ripping of tearing tendons and muscle. The sound sent a shiver down his spine, akin to nails on a chalkboard.
Yet another thing he’d never been able to get used to. Gore coated his machete and his hands, and he was sure it was stuck to his clothes and in his hair.
Glancing down, he noticed the shaft and butt-end of an arrow poking out from this vampire’s chest, just under his arm. The count was right, all 9 they had noted were dead. With that tidbit resolved, Dean whipped around, eyes scanning the darkened barn for the archer.
“That wasn’t you, was it?” Dean asked Sam, gesturing to the arrow. He hadn’t seen his little brother haul any equipment inside beyond their respective machetes.
“No. I don’t know where those came from.” Sam muttered back, also scanning the building. Well, that’s reassuring. “Was gonna figure that out once I wasn’t three seconds from death.”
There. A figure darted in front of one of the skinny beams of light through the cracks in the walls.
“Hey!” Dean called out in a gruff tone.
No answer, just the muffled thuds of boots on wood.
He frantically searched the rafters, some blocked off for storage of hay. Just because they killed the vamps, don’t mean they aren’t gonna kill you too. That thought sent ice through his veins, and on muscle memory Dean took a half step in front of Sam.
The footsteps weren’t coming towards them though. His eyes snapped to the far end of the barn, the loud thud of a person dropping to the floor echoing through the empty space.
His feet were moving before Dean realized he’d started running. No longer needing to be quiet, he made a beeline for the other end. Whoever, whatever, it was, it was fast. Cardio had always been Sam’s thing, but high off adrenaline, Dean made up the ground quick enough to surprise himself.
Bales of hay and boxes that Dean could only imagine contained grain and other resources at one point, were stacked at the end. The wall laid adjacent to a door that, when he came up to it, was swinging shut.
There was no hesitation before he burst through it. The sickly sweet smell of decaying leather and sweat greeted him on the other side. Long forgotten tack still adorned the walls; yokes, halters, and even saddles were strewn about haphazardly.
Dean didn’t spend much time admiring the craftsmanship, though. He was too busy paying attention to the figure swathed in a dark work jacket and jeans standing in front of the wall that marked a dead end to their escape. A wooden recurve bow was held loosely in their hand, a waist quiver holding arrows at their hip.
“Nowhere left to run,” He said, adjusting his grip on his machete. “Guess you didn’t think this one through.”
Their hand lifted from their side, and the clattering of wood on wood followed as they dropped the bow to mirror the action on the other side.
“Look,” the person said and something familiar about it creeped down Dean’s spine. “If I’da known you were gonna go full Friday the 13th on me, I wouldn’t have saved your sorry asses.”
The recognition hit just as the person turned all the way around. The woman from the diner, Tori, stared back at him, an unreadable expression on her face.
Shock rippled through him, along with the small burn of embarrassment at the truth of her statement. That fire quickly shifted to anger and frustration, though.
“You?!” Dean exclaimed, lowering his machete. “What the actual fuck? I-I thought you were leaving?”
His jaw clenched at her casual shrug. “Was gonna. Bet you’re glad I didn’t though.”
This woman. Dean huffed, shoving his machete back into its sheath. “If you’re lookin’ for thanks, you’ve come to the wrong place.”
His brows furrowed ever so slightly when some of the tension in her shoulders faded when he sheathed the blade. She bent down to grab her bow back from off the ground.
“Wasn’t expecting any.” Tori brushed the saw dust off the weapon. “I know your type better than that.”
“And what exactly is my type?”
“The kind of man who thinks way too highly of himself and has too much pride to ask for help to the point it gets him killed,” she said sweetly.
Dean scoffed, shaking his head. “Well you sure got me all figured out there.”
Tori walked towards him, bow held loosely in her left hand. “Am I free to go or are you gonna chase me down again?”
Dean gestured behind him. “By all fucking means. Thought that was the plan to begin with.”
Tori rolled her eyes, continuing on her path past him. Dean’s teeth clenched, her shoulder slamming into his on her way by. Internally, he winced, still sore from hitting the ground, but his pride wouldn’t let him show it outwardly. Not when she could pop back in and see.
Instead, he dragged a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. A drink. I need a drink…and probably some Ibuprofin.
“Dude, was that—” Sam’s voice came from the door behind him.
“Tori? You bet your ass it was,” Dean finished, turning to face his brother.
Sam looked as confused as Dean felt. He was too tired to care, ready to hit the road back to the Bunker. Too much road food, too much violence.
“I thought she was leaving?” Sam questioned, following Dean out of the tack room.
“So did I Sam. And no, I don’t know why she came back.”
His brother was quiet as they rounded the wall of hay and boxes. “Kinda lucky she was, though.”
“Sam,” he grumbled in warning to not press the matter further. “It’s none of our business. And I don’t give a rat's ass about what happened.”
It was a lie.
A bad one.
This hunt, he was sure, was gonna haunt him for many nights to come. The stench of the vamps breath, its mouth so close to his face and throat. What might be worse, was the oppressive weight of helplessness sinking like a fishing weight to sit hollow in his stomach. He couldn’t push the vamp off. He’d come so close to buying the farm he could smell the cows.
And then almost losing Sam because he was too slow? Yeah, that was gonna stick around for a while.
Sam, thankfully, didn’t press the issue. Not that he got the chance to.
A scream greeted them around the corner of the wall, and Dean felt his stomach drop to his shoes when he saw Tori struggling against a vamp who had her pinned against his chest. Dean recognized the face as one he saw in the pit of what he thought were victims.
That one, apparently, wasn’t quite dead.
This time, there was absolutely nothing Dean could do to stop the events that were about to unfold. The glint of a knife flashed, blood spilled from the vamp's forearm. Then, the appendage was pressed to the woman's mouth.
By God, did Tori try to fight. Even from the distance and despite his dislike and distrust, he had to admit she had a fire in her. Kicking and scratching at the monster, she tried to pull away. Twisting and yanking her head and body away from the vamps grip, but he held fast to her arms, keeping her from grabbing the machete on the hip opposite of the quiver.
“No!” Sam yelled from beside him.
Dean was a step behind his brother, charging forward. The next 10 seconds happened in a blur.
One second he was yanking Tori’s unconscious body from the vampire's grasp, the next Sam was pinning the monster down, a rageful expression stretching his features. His brother’s blade hit no resistance, cutting straight through the vampire's throat on rage alone, embedding itself into the wood flooring beneath.
Dean’s chest rose and fell in great heaves. He reached for any rational thought, but his mind had gone blank. Tori’s body was dead weight in his arms, her face slack with blood coating her mouth and chin.
“Dean,” Sam said frantically. “We need to get her back. Get the cure.”
Dean nodded, rolling his shoulders. “Get the syringe. I’ll get her to the car.”
He paused. “Get the rope too. Need to bind her hands in case she wakes up before we get back.”
Sam nodded grimly, sprinting back out of the barn to where they’d stashed their duffle bags.
“Fuck,” Dean sighed, blowing a breath through his nose.
We should have cleared the place before going after her. Shoulda checked the bodies. Dean glanced around, the unease creeping up the back of his neck. Logically, they should all be gone now. He had his machete, plus Tori’s bow and her own blade.
Dean glanced down at her, setting her gently on the floor. Without the blood, it would be easy to convince himself she was just sleeping, not unconscious while she underwent a supernatural transformation.
Just get the blood, we have the other shit at home. It’s just getting her there that’s gonna be the problem.
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So much heart-pounding action in this part! You truly got the grossness and brutality of vampires down.
But I feel so much for Tori. After she saved this ungrateful asshole (Dean 😂), now she has to go through being turned as well? But seeing Dean feeling guilty at the end there, makes me think that this experience could ultimately start bringing them closer 💜
This, I think, still remains one of my most favorite chapters just because of how gory I was able to be with this. I really wish we'd gotten to see more realistic gore and grossness, as you put it, within the show. The early seasons' grit is very missed.
Heheh, yes! Because even though Dean doesn't like her, that man is so soft when it comes to things like this. He doesn't want anyone to be hurt who doesn't deserve it.
Chapter Tags/Warnings: Graphic description of gore, language, violence/threats
Chapter Summary: While hunting a high-ranking demon for Crowley, the brothers stumble upon a vampire hunt not too far outside Lebanon. The only problem? It seems someone has gotten there first.
Word Count: 4.7k
Author's Note: It's HERE!!!! The first chapter of this series that has taken me 3 years to develop.
Thank you so much to @copperboom82 for being my beta and helping me develop Tori and Dean's story. You were and are a big reason as to why I kept writing for them and why this story is finally getting published instead of sitting in my drafts collecting dust.
The title is from Ascensionism by Sleep Token
Tag List: @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
Series Masterlist
Main Masterlist
“Looks like the Fed’s are actually on their game for this one.” Dean peered out the windshield from where he sat in the driver’s seat.
It was a gruesome sight, even with the body covered with a sheet, courtesy of the paramedics on scene. Blood and gore stained the cobblestone alley like a macabre Jackson Pollock painting. Whatever vamp had killed this victim didn’t have any qualms about keeping a low profile. Two police officers stood off to the side, a few more beside them setting up a barrier to block the nosy passerby’s, and Sam clocked a woman in a suit walking up to them.
“We don’t know she’s a Fed,” Sam shrugged, unbuckling his seatbelt, smoothing out the wrinkles in his black and white getup. The sleeves of the suit jacket were a little short, so were Dean’s, but they were banking on nobody looking too closely past the false ID’s. “She could be a well dressed reporter for all we know.”
“Still, I don’t like this Sammy.”
Sam glared at Dean but didn’t deign to reply, knowing no matter how many times he corrected his older brother, the pet name was stuck like hot gum to the bottom of a pair of sneakers.
In tandem, the brothers exited the Impala, Dean taking lead as usual. He palmed the counterfeit FBI badge in his jacket pocket, fidgeting with the lapels making sure they laid correctly over his dress shirt. They got closer to the woman and the boys in blue she was talking to, their words starting to carry on the breeze to the brothers.
“You feds usually aren’t this fast on the trigger.” The taller one spoke first, reaching his hand out to the woman.
“Agent Nicole Diver,” Dean watched the woman flash a badge not unlike the one he carried in his pocket. “I don’t make the rules, I only go where they send me.”
The woman reached out shaking both of the police officers hands before pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.
“Well I’m glad we finally got some back up on this.” The second one spoke up, gesturing at the sheet down the alley.
A truck roaring past covered up the woman's parting words, and she descended down to the crime scene. Dean felt Sam nudge his side.
“Dude, I was right. She’s not a Fed.”
Dean scoffed. “Yeah, how’d you work that one out, Sherlock?”
“Nicole Diver.” At his brother's blank stare Sam rolled his eyes and continued. “Nicole Diver is a character in a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.”
“Could be a coincidence.” Dean shrugged his brother's notions off, approaching the two officers. “Agent’s Strummer and Page, I believe you just spoke to our colleague.” Dean flashed his badge, Sam following suit.
“Oh yeah, Agent Diver.” The first officer nodded to Dean, lifting the line of police tape for them to duck under. “Have at it, we haven’t been able to make but a scratch in this and it seems like this fucker is just getting worse.”
Dean ducked under the tape, dipping his head to the officer. “Will do.”
Once he and Sam were out of earshot Dean pulled his brother aside. “Okay, say this chick isn’t a Fed. What else could she be?”
Sam tilted his head side to side in contemplation. “Simplest explanation? She’s probably a hunter just like us. Best case scenario, it’s a looky-loo reporter that we can scare off.”
Something about this whole thing seemed off to Dean. What were the odds that another hunter was on this case and they hadn’t heard about it. Bobby was usually pretty good about monitoring the radios and not doubling up hunters unless both parties were notified. Dean cut a glance down to the main crime scene. The woman was crouched down, having pulled the sheet away from the body.
Usually gore and blood didn’t bother Dean. It was second nature to him, and most of the time he could pretend it was all props and dyed corn syrup like in his favorite slasher films. But when the tangy, irony smell of blood shoved its way up his nose to coat the back of his throat, it was a little harder to pretend otherwise—harder to forget that they live in a world where there are things to fear in the dark shadows of the closet, under the basement stairs, or in this victims case, down a darkened alley.
Dean rolled his shoulders, taking the lead. Here goes nothing. Dean tried and failed to suppress his cough at the overwhelming stench permeating off of the corpse. The throat of the young male had been torn away completely, nearly detaching his head from his shoulders. But it wasn’t the bloody site in front of him that made his breath catch in his lungs this time.
No it was the black gaze of the woman crouched at the body, latching onto him before swiping over to Sam next to him.
With a quick sideward glance, Dean knew his brother had seen it too. Dean watched with bated breath as she stood, not much shorter than him. With her dark hair in a tight braided chignon and subtle make up, she sure looked the part of an FBI agent.
“Gentlemen,” Her voice was familiar and alien to Dean all at once, sending shivers of deja vu down his spine. “Agent Nicole Diver. How can I help you?”
She held up her ID, and Dean was able to get a better glance at it. If it was a fake, it was a really good fake, maybe better than the ones he and Sam carried. Dean shot Sam a look before returning her gaze.
“I’m Agent Strummer and this is my partner Agent Page,” Dean gestured to Sam. “Where did you say you were out of again?”
“I didn’t,” she replied smoothly, tucking her ID away.
The simple slacks and dress shirt with matching suit jacket fit her like a bespoke suit. It was impressive really, whatever demon that took this woman as a meatsuit chose wisely. A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitched, offering the woman—Nicole if she was to be believed—a polite smile.
“Kansas field office. Apparently you boys are doing a lackluster job out this way.” Nicole carefully stepped over the body, Dean observing her careful steps to avoid contaminating the blood pooling around the body. “4 bodies in a month, all ripped to shreds. Evidently the Bureau has been slacking with their recruits.”
Dean didn’t appreciate the once over she gave him and Sam, dark gaze dragging from his head to his feet and back again. Normally he’d preen at a once-over from a pretty woman, but this was different. It was scrutinizing and judgmental to the point where humiliation crawled crimson up the sides of his neck much to his chagrin.
Beside him Sam cleared his throat before speaking. “We’ve been swamped recently.”
Dean mentally face palmed at his brother's half-baked lie, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. Nicole made a dismissive sound in the back of her throat that had Dean seeing red. She jotted some notes down in the small pad she had in her grasp, but he couldn’t make out the scrawl from where he stood in relation to her, and he wasn’t about to try and crane his neck to read it either. Dean opened his mouth to, well, he didn’t even know at this point, but was saved when Nicole shut her notepad with a snap.
“Well, I’ve got what I need. Crime scene is all yours, boys.”
Dean watched Nicole walk past them back up the alley. Watched her give a serpentine smile to the oblivious officers, tracking her until she disappeared around the corner.
“Okay, can I be the first to say that was weird?” Sam muttered from Dean’s right, a perplexed and inquisitive look plastered on his face.
“Yeah,” Dean trailed off, turning back to the body. “You think it has something to do with this?”
“Maybe. Let’s get what we need here and regroup at the motel.”
As Dean began to examine the body he couldn’t get the image of dark eyes staring back at him. Something about all of this didn’t sit right with him. It was already grating on him working for Crowley by hunting down some demon, but to stumble upon a gruesome hunt already being investigated by this mysterious woman. Yeah, it was safe to say Dean was on edge.
The car ride back to the motel was silent save for the clacking of keys, Sam typing away on his laptop in the passenger seat. The motel was on the only major road in and out of town, and seemed to be the only decent place to stay that didn’t involve the risk of bed bugs. Dean couldn’t wait to get out of the monkey suit, peeling off the layers and replacing them with the familiar wrapping of denim and flannel.
By the time both of them were showered and changed, Dean’s stomach was loudly protesting the fact that neither one of them had had anything to eat save for the gas station food they’d picked up on the way to the scene; a surprise to no one that a sandwich, if you could call it that, with two slices of meat and questionable cheese didn’t last very long.
The last thing Dean expected when he pulled up to the diner was to see a familiar braided bun and dark eyes sitting at a booth through the window. Dean nudged Sam, jutting his chin at his brother’s look of confusion. Recognition flashed across Sam's face and he grabbed the flask of holy water from the glove compartment, making their way to the door.
Tori sighed, slumping down into the booth. The diner was the only thing open that served food aside from the skeevy hole in the wall dive bar on the main drag through town. She'd stopped by her motel room to drop off her gear but didn’t bother to change out of her getup.
She shrugged off her suit jacket, which was stolen from an attorney's car along with the shirt and pants back in Lincoln, onto the booth beside her. Her waitress, a plump older woman with a cheery grin on her full face, dropped off a menu and took her drink order then disappeared back into the kitchen.
The case was pretty cut and dry. The blood loss and the sheer vulgarity and gore left behind meant either a werewolf or vampires. The timing wasn’t right for it to be the wolves, one victim popping up per week, so that left the bloodsuckers.
She tugged the small notepad from her jacket pocket, thumbing through the thin pages until she found the sheet she had jotted down her notes. Folded corners of the newspaper articles and online forum pages she’d printed out peeked around from the sides, tucked into the loose pocket. A bigger legal portfolio that was tucked away in the lifted pickup held more documents across various cases. Salt and burns, shifters, wendigos, and the most important: demons. The near phantasmal trail she had been following led her here, this town that wasn’t big enough to have a dot on a roadmap.
Previously, it had been one of many popular stops for settlers moving west in the 1800’s, the abundance of coal and ores like lead in the mountains of the West an alluring prospect. Over the centuries, it became more of a farming community. Farms and ranches that had been in families for generations surrounded the main town which didn’t span more than a couple blocks either way. It was enough for a few bars, a strip club, 3 churches of varying faiths, an elementary school with an adjacent intermediate and high school combo, and this diner.
Between the abandoned farms and the interspersed elevation no doubt holding caves and coal mines, there were plenty of places for a nest of vamps to sequester themselves into. She would have to scout out the options later, but first, was food.
Tori had just begun scanning the menu for something to satiate the grumbling in her stomach when the bell above the door loudly announced the arrival of new patrons. Glancing up from her menu Tori did a double take, spotting the two “agents” from the crime scene earlier. They’d changed into civvies, but it was definitely them.
Despite her better judgment, Tori slid down into the seat, leather creaking with the movement, and ducked her head behind her menu but not before locking gazes with the green eyed one.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Maybe they'll leave me be.
The sentiment was quickly thrown out the proverbial window when the pair walked up to her table.
“Agent Diver,” the shorter, green eyed one slid into the seat across from her. “Fancy meeting you here.”
He'd introduced himself as Agent Strummer, and the mountain of a man sliding in next to him was Agent Page, though Tori was almost certain they were Federal agents as much as she was.
Tori plastered a smile on her face and lowered the menu enough to be polite. “Gentlemen, if I didn't know better I’d think you were following me.”
“Is there a reason we should be following you?”
Tori narrowed her eyes slightly at the first man. He stared right back, gaze unwavering. She watched a muscle twitch in his cheek. His jaw is clenched so tightly I'm surprised he hasn't cracked a tooth. Clearly he had more to say, and part of her wanted to know why he hadn’t. Not one to show her cards, especially since she knew nothing about the men opposing her, Tori opted to keep those cards close to her chest. They showed up here. They approached you. Let ‘em sweat for a minute.
The tension, thick enough to be cut with a spoon, was broken by the waitress returning with Tori’s coffee.
“Here you go, Sugar.” The waitress, Millie, according to her name tag, set the steaming mug in front of Tori. Straightening, she braced her hands on her wide hips to look between Tori and the two men, picking up on the hostility. “Are these two giving you trouble, Hon?”
As much as Tori would have enjoyed seeing the two dragged out of the restaurant by their ears like naughty boys being kicked out of Sunday school by their mothers, she shook her head. “No trouble here. Just a little spat between friends.”
Millie didn't look entirely convinced by Tori’s half-assed lie, but Tori flashed her a reassuring smile and she relented. “Let me get you boys a couple of menus.”
Once Millie had walked out of earshot, Tori turned back to face the men, every trace of easygoing cheer wiped from her expression.
“Okay, here's how this is gonna go. You two are as much Federal agents as I am the Queen of England. Now, I’ve got a gun leveled at Andre the Giant here and I’d rather not make a mess. So, you two are gonna tell me who the fuck you are and why you two are here.”
Unbeknownst to the two, Tori didn't actually have a gun, just a small knife strapped to her belt at the small of her back, but she was hoping to hell and back they wouldn't call her bluff.
Dean felt Sam stiffen beside him at the woman's threat. There wasn't enough room between him and the table for him to prove or deny what she claimed, nor would he even dare if there was. Something about the look in her eyes told him she was just looking for a reason to. Eyes that now he was not 2 feet from her were actually a very dark brown, so dark they were nearly black. Well, at least that's no longer an issue.
“Okay okay, simmer down Annie Oakley. No need to get violent.” Dean placated, sparing a glance at Sam. “Cards on the table, alright. I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam. I'd tell you what we're doin’ here but I don't think you'd believe me even if I did. And I don't know about Sam but I'm not fixin’ to have a slug to the thigh any time soon.”
He watched with curiosity, a flash of recognition crossed the woman's face, which morphed into a look he couldn't quite put a name to; she ran her tongue over her teeth, nodding her head slowly. A low chuckle emanated from her that set Dean's nerves on edge, and she tipped her head against the back of the seat. Her chest rose and fell with a seemingly exasperated sigh.
“Of fucking course.” She muttered incredulously. She glanced between him and Sam, and Dean had to stop himself from shrinking away from the sheer intensity of it. “You're Bobby's boys.”
That had Dean taken aback. For as long as he could remember, they'd been referred to as ‘John's boys’. Only the people closest to them know the extent of Bobby's influence on their formative years as well as their present. But if she knew Bobby well enough to know their relationship to the old man, then that'd have to mean…
“The last thing just need right now is for the Wonder Twins crashing my fucking hunt.” The woman rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Shit. Dean exchanged surprised looks with Sam. Sam had proposed the idea, but Dean didn't think either one of them actually considered it with any serious regard. Not that a woman couldn’t be a hunter, they’d met and recruited plenty, but she didn’t seem the type.
“I knew you weren't Feds. But hunters? Yeah I didn't see that coming.”
“Wait,” Dean interjected. “What do you mean you knew we weren't Feds?”
She gave him a look over the rim of her mug. “Your cuffs were an inch too short, big guy over here has hair that is against regulation, and anyone with working eyes can see your badges are shit.”
Dean opened his mouth, a retort hot on the tip of his tongue but it died when the woman raised a singular manicured brow. Out of the corner of his eye Dean saw Sam raise a hand to his hair. With every word from her mouth, his irritation only grew. It perturbed him, the casualness, the fact that she knew more about them then they knew about her. It felt wrong. Invasive.
Just then Millie came back, placing menus and coffees in front of the boys and filling up Tori’s coffee. “I'll be back to take your orders.” She gave the boys a sideline glance before she moved on to the patrons down from them.
“Alright Nancy Drew, we gave you our names, I think it's only fair you give us yours.” Dean spoke, bringing the coffee to his lips.
“I told you, it’s Nicole Diver.”
“Bullshit.” Sam cut in this time, much to the annoyance of the woman.
“Excuse me?” If looks could kill, Dean was sure Sam would be dead in his place beside him with the glare she leveled at his younger brother.
“Nicole Diver is a character in Tender is the Night by Scott Fitzgerald.” Sam stated, and Dean swore a look of admiration flashed across her face. “So unless your parents were really into his novels, you’re lying.”
Silence befell the three of them before she spoke.
“Touche, Mr. Winchester” Her mouth opened and shut a couple times, Dean’s eyes tracking the movements, and a slight narrowing of her eyes the only signs of reluctance before she continued. “My name is Tori.”
The waitress came back to take their order, providing a much needed buffer, feeling the men’s eyes digging into her, questions aimed at her like spears primed to fire. A tightness spread in her chest, a dull pounding in her ears. She always hated this part, the questions, the proposal to work together. They always insisted on safety in numbers, but how wrong they were this time.
“Pie, really?” Tori criticized, the waitress departing with their orders, hoping to divert from their line of questioning.
She watched with amusement when Dean’s eyebrows damn near reached his hairline at her inquiry. “Are you being serious right now? Pie is the best dessert to have ever been created.”
“How can you possibly say that when lava cakes exist?”
Dean opened his mouth, but Sam cut him off before he could speak. “Don’t you think we have more important things to discuss?”
Tori could have laughed at the pointed look Sam gave his older brother, the way Dean practically deflated with resignation. She could have, if that suffocating feeling hadn’t returned with an incessant vigor. I suppose it’s inevitable.
“Before you even ask, no, there is no plan. Matter of fact, there is no us”. She gestured with a finger between them, the ease that had been created with her and Dean’s meaningless banter was quickly snuffed out. “I was here first, so you boys can continue moseying your way to wherever it is that you came from.”
Dean scoffed. “You can’t call dibs on a hunt. Those vamps pose a threat to all of us. Not to mention there's no way in Hell, we are letting you take on this hunt alone. You saw the body. That's no sparkle-skinned vamp out there.”
“You think I don't know that?” Tori snapped back, not appreciating the tone in which Dean spoke. She didn't know what high horse he sat upon that he thought gave him the right to make those kinds of accusations, but he needed to be knocked off it. “I'm not some kind of novice hunter on her first case.”
“Doesn't fucking matter if this is your first hunt, or if you had a knife in your hand from the cradle.” Dean challenged. “We don't know how many of them are out there. In case you haven't noticed, things haven't exactly been the same recently.”
He was right, the last few months had been chaotic. The worst of Hell's denizens had been out in full force especially with its leadership currently in an unsteady position. With Lucifer and Michael in The Cage, Hell was currently being run by a demon who’s name she hadn’t come across yet. No doubt some lucky grunt who took advantage of the power vacuum. With the change of power, the leash being kept on the things hiding in the dark had faded into nothing.
Vampires and demons and things far worse now roamed the mortal plane with little to no consequences; the situation was worse than ever now, only rivaled by the aftermath of The Cage being opened years ago, and when The Gates busted open years prior to that. Ironically, the reason for that happening sat across from her, Millie setting their food down on the table in front of them.
“And I wonder who’s fault that is, hmm?”
“Fuck you.” Dean sneered, digging into his burger
Tori grinned, plucking a fry from her plate and taking a bite “You wish you could.”
A silent, temporary truce was placed as the three dug into their food. Not once did the tension fade, nor did the hair on the back of Tori's neck go down.
Something wasn't right.
When she'd entered the diner nearly an hour earlier, it was nearly full with the dinner rush crowd. But now, it was a ghost town which was to be expected the longer the night went on. Aside from the booth she and the Winchesters sat in, two other booths were occupied. One by a pair of teenagers, seemingly on a date. The other sat a foursome; Three men and a woman sat at the table, all dressed in paramedic uniforms.
Tori slowly stopped chewing, the cogs in her brain churning faster and faster until observation and idea connected. She sat her burger down, glancing out the window to the near vacant lot. Her stolen pickup truck, a beautiful Chevy Impala along with a rusted minivan and two older model sedans were the only vehicles in the parking lot. She didn't remember seeing any parking in the back.
“Did you guys see an ambulance when you pulled in?”
Dean’s brows furrowed, glancing at her then at Sam and back to her. “No.” The word left his lips slowly, clinging to the syllable. “Why?”
“Don’t look now, but there are four paramedics sitting at a booth behind you.”
Tori rolled her eyes as Dean craned his neck to look. Can he be any more obvious? She opened her mouth, a scolding remark aimed and ready to fire but Sam beat her to it. The younger Winchester swatted his brother on the arm with the back of his hand, raised eyebrows and a disapproving look plastered on his face.
“Thank you.” Tori said pointedly at Sam, digging into her pocket to pull out her wallet, throwing bills down on the table. “Look. You boys are smart enough to connect the dots, and I have better places to be.”
Tori hooked her finger into the collar of her jacket, slinging it over her shoulder, scooting out from the booth. She could sense the disappointment wash over the younger brother. It was too familiar and some deeply suppressed part of her almost felt bad.
It wouldn’t kill you to stay.
She looked down at the brothers, Sam looking up at her with this accepting disappointment. Dean on the other hand looked on with an air of contempt and something else Tori couldn’t quite place. Even so, despite the way he disregarded her, he was someone’s brother. A person, alive and breathing.
No, but it could kill them.
The thought immediately shut the door of possibilities that had opened the barest amount. Shadows and corpses, grotesque images flickered behind her eyes, the boys’ faces replaced by ghosts for a second too long, only adding a padlock to the theoretical door. A big, Grade A padlock incapable of being picked. Not if she had any say in it.
“Wait a damn minute.” Dean interjected. “We have questions. Like how the fuck you know Bobby. And why the hell he’s never even mentioned you.”
“Those are second date questions babe, and you only paid for one night.” Tori cocked her head at the older brother.
“And we can’t convince you to stay?” Sam looked up at her, setting his fork down
“If she wants to go, then let her.” Dean snapped. “She’s only gonna slow us down.”
Her lip curled up in a mocking gesture, not letting the jab hit its mark. Maybe mark-adjacent at the subtle sting that left her wanting to curl into herself. He’s not worth it. That kinda pride is blinding. Instead she rolled her shoulders back, standing straight. Tori gave Dean a single finger salute before shoving her hand in the pocket of her pants.
“Good luck, boys.” She called out flippantly over her shoulder.
It’s your funeral, she wanted to say but bit her lip, knowing the weight of a hunter's funeral was something she wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
She eyed the foursome of vampires on her way out, not liking the way they were eyeing the Winchesters. They paid her no more mind than the stepped-on fries that littered the floor. Clearly, they were not here for her. She wasn’t sure that gave her any peace of mind.
Something didn’t feel right. A dark, oily unease curled into lead in her belly. It was the kind of sensation that you don’t just ignore. It makes its presence known whether you want it to or not. It’s the feeling of hair standing on the back of your neck, the feeling of being watched, the inherent wrongness that came over you right before all hell broke loose.
Tori swallowed thickly, pulling her gaze away. No longer my problem. At least that’s what she tried to convince herself, exiting the diner with the intent of leaving everything that had happened in the last 8 hours in her rearview mirror.
Sneak peek for Chapter 2:
Please like, reblog, and/or comment if you enjoyed. Feedback is appreciated and encouraged!
Oooh what an interesting - and intensely rocky - start! lol I loooove hunters to lovers, and this such an interesting enemies to lovers start. Maybe soon to be frenemies to lovers as they work on the case? 😂 I love that Tori takes no bullshit for real 👌🏽 though she and Dean seem just as prickly, if in different ways. (That tidbit about her eyes was a clever little twist!)
Out of curiosity, what season is this set in? It seems like S6 since Lucifer and Michael were mentioned in the cage, and the boys seem on the younger end, so that tracks.
That said, I'm really interested to see where this story goes since I've read so many of the future fics in the Dean x Tori storyverse! 💜
Time for another HC! This one comes as a Patreon request from @spnbabe67 ❤️
Request: Which one of the big 5 do you think would spoil you the most? And, what do you think each of their ways of spoiling/indulging in you would be?
᯽ With Dean Winchester, Beau Arlen, Soldier Boy (Ben), Mark Meachum & Russell Shaw ᯽
Tags & Warnings: (18+) | Some smutty musings, mostly with SB of course lol
᯽ Mark Meachum
lol I hate to put Mark last, but he's not usually the guy remembering to get you flowers or gifts just because.
In fact, this guy regularly forgets your birthday is coming up, or even your anniversary.
Shit, he thinks, when your mom or one of your friends asks him what he's going to get you.
He'll make a last-minute stop after work - at any store that he thinks might sell some half-decent flowers, and wherever he can find the perfume you like. Maybe throw in some of your favorite chocolates if he can find them, or anything else that makes it seem like he didn't forget.
The man is a workaholic, and he often gets tunnel vision on his cases, so he tends to lack on the day-to-day opportunities to "spoil" you in the traditional sense.
He does like to eat out a lot though (because before he met you, he rarely had time to cook), so he'll often take you to nice restaurants and new spots you might want to try or places he hears about from Finau or Bell. He also takes cues from Sheppard sometimes for more creative date ideas.
As a Cali detective, he does get paid decently well, so be sure to remind him when the important days in your relationship are coming up.
What he'll do is treat you to expensive spa days on your birthday, and anything else you might have mentioned wanting off-hand.
One thing about Mark, he hangs onto the details when he knows what his target is.
So when he surprises you on Christmas day (the one holiday he definitely won't forget) with plane tickets to a place you've always wanted to go on vacation, you're genuinely shocked, and even a bit emotional before you practically smother him with affection.
Your reaction definitely makes him warm inside, as well as a bit smug and cocky.
He knows this just won him brownie points for the next ten years at least, and he'll be sure to remind you of this day - every fucking year.
᯽ Russell Shaw
Russell is also not the guy to remember important dates and inherently know how to be the boyfriend/husband who spoils you, because before you, his lifestyle didn't leave a whole lot of room for normal relationships.
I mentioned in his boyfriend training hc that poor Russ struggles with basic things, like checking in with you when he's away on a job, or remembering to close cabinets after he finds the thing he was looking for, or resisting the urge to toss your expensive pots and pans in the dishwasher along with all the other dishes.
But he's good at the things that he thinks are important, like making the most of his time with you when he’s home:
Taking you out for dinner, to the movies, to street fairs and grocery store runs and whatever else you might come up with for you and Russ to do together.
He's easy going and rolls with most of your ideas, often indulging you even when it's not something he thinks would be fun - like walking around in the heat at a farmer's market, or that time you wanted to go to a "paint and sip." (He brought a six-pack of his freshly brewed beer and mostly watched you paint.)
Russell may not be the "big gesture" guy, but he shows his consideration for you in the little things that amount to the big things as he continues to learn how to be a man you can rely on.
᯽Beau Arlen
Beau's a sweetheart who will indulge you in most things you ask of him - whether it's picking up food from your favorite restaurant or taking you to a music festival, even if he's not crazy about the genre or band.
He's usually the opportunist spoiler, buying your favorite candle because he noticed it at the store while shopping for groceries, or remembering your favorite ice cream flavor. He might mess it up by buying the wrong brand, but the man's not perfect.
He's game for the farmer's market, the play you want to see, the museum you want to visit, the wine tasting, even the deep tissue couples massage you found on Groupon (and he openly admits that the hot stones and face mask were his favorite parts).
His work often takes up his focus and his time though, so like Mark, you'll have to float these ideas to him and be sure to remind him more than once, but one thing he puts his foot down on is glamping.
Aside from the bad taste in his mouth that Sunny Day Excursions left him with, he just flat out doesn't believe in that bullshit. Either he's taking you real camping, or he's renting a nice lake house to take you on a nice vacation - just you and him and the mountain air.
᯽ Dean Winchester
Dean, Dean, Dean...
Well, he may not be a big gesture guy either in the classic sense of expensive gifts and vacation getaways, but the way he shows he cares is through all the things he does for you -
Cooking for you: as much as he loves food, he really likes taking care of you and Sam this way and gets genuine enjoyment out of seeing both of you like something he worked hard to make for you. He put his all into that cheeseburger and homemade fries - whether he admits it or not.
Your car: he'll tune it up for you with the same care and attention to detail as he does his Baby.
His time: Dean's a quality time guy, much like Mark, Russell, and Beau. For Dean, he shows it best with movie marathons in the Dean Cave, chilling in bed watching TV and talking about everything and nothing in between, and long drives in the Impala, just you and him and the open road with his hand on your thigh and one of his cassettes setting the soundtrack of the day - one of his rare, perfect days with you.
Your protection: It's not "spoiling" or even "indulging," but it must be said how far Dean would go to protect you once you're under his skin and embedded in his heart. We know the man loves with his whole body and soul, even if his gruff exterior doesn't always allow him to express it.
If you're a hunter, he gets into the habit of cleaning and sharpening your weapons along with his because he wants to make sure you're safe. He follows you closely on hunts because he wants to make sure you're safe. He'll make the reckless choice every time if it protects you and Sam more than himself, because he can't afford to lose either of you.
Your body: The way Dean makes love to you is an act of service in itself. When you two have time to take it slow the way he likes, he's thorough, his hands mapping out and worshipping all his favorite places. Because he's learned your body so well, he knows exactly how to make you fall apart every time he touches you.
᯽ Soldier Boy (Ben)
lmfao I struggled to figure out Ben at first, because on one hand, he's the most inherently self-centered of all these guys.
He measures most of his actions by what he intends to gain from it, especially with his rich boi upbringing and his decades of debauchery and fame whoring.
On the other hand, I feel like he'd so be the one to try to hook you with expensive and over-the-top gifts if his version of "flirting" doesn't do the trick.
But once Ben's actually invested in an honest relationship with you, those random gifts don't change. He'll buy you a $5,000 necklace just because he was in the store buying himself a watch, and he saw something that he thought would look nice on you - especially bouncing between your tits while he's fucking you later.
(He jokes - mid stroke - that next he'll give you a "pearl necklace." Make it a matching set.)
If you're not into jewelry though, he knows other ways to spoil you as well as himself.
He'll take you to fancy restaurants, bypassing the waiting lists using his fame and a wink tossed at you as his big, warm hand spans the small of your back (definitely copping a feel of your ass when the hostess eventually leads you to your table).
You take all this with a roll of your eyes, but you smile and allow this cavemanish behavior because by now you know his intentions - it's not just about his pride, and a male ego the size of Empire State. He genuinely wants you to have a good time.
He orders an entire bottle of wine just for you, and scotch for himself. He always encourages you to order whatever you want, and he himself orders appetizers and dessert even if you're probably going to take most of it home - because he can, and he won't ever have it said that he doesn't spoil the fuck out of you.
Mind you, some of his gifts are more than a little self-serving lol
He'll buy you lingerie with the express purpose of ripping it off the first time you wear it - inch by inch.
He'll make you tremble and come with the wealth of experience in his hands and mouth, and he won't stop until the only thing in your mouth is his name.
But of course, this man fully expects some special attention in return for "how well" he treats you.
You may roll your eyes (again) and have a pointed retort ready about everything you already do for him. Aside from the obvious, you've created a home with him, showed him how to navigate the modern world, and you've been the only woman in his long life who's genuinely loved him.
"All right. Come on, sweetheart," he says. "I just ate your pussy like a three-course fucking meal. Had your thighs squeezing my head like a fucking grape, like you wanted me to suffocate down there. Think it's time you showed this cock some appreciation, huh?"
Despite his deeply smug, insufferable smirk that makes you want to slap him, regardless if it'll hurt him or not, it also makes you want to kiss him - half because it'll shut him the fuck up for a while.
But you can't help it. You love this insufferable asshole.
Your lips tug at a smile, and you repay him with a bit of spoiling too.
AN: lol honestly these were less so rankings and more just an exploration of how each guy would give you some special care and attention. Which one was your favorite? Any other takes on how he'd "spoil" you?
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These feel soooo spot on! You really hit the nail on the head on this one Alex! Dean and Ben would definitely be the ones to spoil you the most, and I really appreciate the sentiment that while Ben can be self serving, I do think that in the era he grew up in (and depending on how his father was with his mom) he would have possibly seen his father get his mother something from like, Tiffany & Co. or something of the like while out on a business trip. Dean's being acts of service (of all kinds) fit perfectly as well. While I am not as familiar with the others (still working my way through them), they seem very true to character as well.
Chapter Tags/Warnings: Light angst, Fluff, Slice of Life, mechanical inaccuracies, pop culture references, low self esteem in all parties
Chapter Summary: Tori settles into The Bunker and experiences life with Team Free Will while Dean and Sam adjust to having a girl in their space.
Word Count: 6.3
Author's Note: Title from Take Me Back to Eden by Sleep Token
Tag List: @copperboom82 @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
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“And that brings us back to the kitchen,” Sam said, gesturing to the doorway. “Any questions?”
Tori blinked at him. She had several, but none of them would really help.
He’d shown her through nearly all of the bunker. It helped orient her a little better, at least when it came to getting to and from the main parts of it; the garage, her bedroom, the bathroom, the library and war room, and of course the kitchen.
He’d shown her the shooting and archery range, the gym, the armory, some of the auxiliary storage rooms and the interrogation dungeon, as he called it, and the Dean Cave.
“Uh, yeah. Can I get like, I don’t know, a drawn map or something?” She half joked.
Sam barked a laugh. “Yeah, that would definitely help.”
“I’ll figure it out eventually.”
She, him, and Dean had spent a few hours that had stretched into the early morning cataloguing her books, all the while reviewing what they knew.
She was too tired emotionally and physically after last night to try and delve into what she knew about it all, and just looking at the books, they had maybe 20 to go over in the next day or so, many that were long shots to what they were actually looking for.
What meager sleep she did manage was riddled with nightmares, but it did its job and she woke up mildly refreshed. Sam was heading into the kitchen to make breakfast when she managed to find her way there after dressing and brushing her teeth.
Dean hadn’t joined them until later, stumbling in still in his PJ’s looking like a zombie, but instead of being after brains, he was after coffee. And once he had it, he was gone again, off to who knows where.
The encounter had been awkward, to say the least.
“I need to make a run into town, pick up a few things since I’ll be here for a while,” Tori started. “I know how Dean is with the Impala, is there any possibility I can take one of the others?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Not sure if any of ‘em run, though. You’d have to get Dean to check.”
“I can check,” she insisted.
Sam gave her a look, but when she arched a skeptical eyebrow at him, he relented. “The keys are in a box in the garage.”
“Thank you,” she sing-songed. “Is there like, a grocery list or something. Anything you guys want me to grab while I’m out?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of, but I can start one. When do you need it by?”
Tori checked her watch, another thing she was realizing was going to become a habit while living here. She noted the first night the lack of windows, but now having spent even more time, the absence of the sun was throwing her off a bit.
“I don’t know, like, lunch time I guess? If that works.”
“Yeah I can get it to you by then.” Sam, stuck a hand into the pocket of his jeans.
“Great. I’m gonna go see if Dean needs any help putting the books away.”
Sam shuffled his feet, ducking his head like he wanted to say something more. Tori hooked her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans, turning back around to half face him.
So many questions swam behind his eyes, etching into his face and his shoulders. She was sure she’d like none of them, as per usual. That sour patch of fear pooled in the center of her chest. She pushed against the instinct to run, to avoid his line of questioning but the inevitability of it kept her rooted in place.
“Yes?” She drew the word out, forcing something like faint amusement into her inflection.
Dragging a hand along the back of his neck, Sam’s mouth opened and closed while he honed the words that had no doubt been rolling around on his tongue.
“Are you, you know, okay? Settling in alright and everything?” He said finally, the grating softness drenching his tone.
It was getting real old, being knocked off kilter by either Winchester by their invasive questioning. Maybe it was the pitfall of the amount of time she’d spent on her own, keeping contact with other hunters only as long as necessary.
Everyone she’d deemed important enough to keep contact with more than a handful of times knew better than to ask questions that were even an asshair outside of the professional scope. Any one of them who did, earned themselves a place on the ‘Do Not Contact’ list.
Even if she wanted to answer Sam straight, her throat locked up and all that managed to crawl out was a dry and humorless laugh.
“Yeah, Sam. Doin’ just fine.” Tori slipped a thumb from her belt loop, reaching up to pat Sam on the shoulder as she continued walking away, giving into the urge to run.
As her mind wandered, so did her feet. There was no longer a destination for her journey, just an endless wandering of the identical halls that seemed to lead everywhere and nowhere at once.
With the tour, it didn’t feel as empty. Maybe it was the knowledge that the brothers were there with her that made it so; the mere presence of another human being that wasn’t actively trying to kill her. That, and she now could better anticipate what was where, rather than trying to go off of guesswork.
Sam’s question vibrated through her body, stripping every nerve to leave them exposed. Her lungs ached for a smoke, for the nicotine to chip the edge away. An empty spot burned a hole in her pocket where the pack normally sat, throwing her off like the absence of a counterweight; it was evidence of her half-assed attempt to kick the habit.
Her lighter was still tucked into the other, sandwiched beside her pocket knife. The old zippo, it’s once shiny surface now coated in micro-scratches that dulled the metal into a muted grey, had seen her through all the hunts and burned enough bodies to catch a sheet of arson and desecration of a corpse charges taller than her.
A new pack or two was at the top of her store run list.
Ascending a familiar set of stairs, chrome and the smell of motor oil marked her entrance into the garage. The same two rows of cars gleamed under the harsh lighting. She had more than enough time now to admire the goods, wandering down one row languidly.
From a Thunderbird to an MG A, she made a mental note of the range of years and manufacturers from stateside and abroad parked in the space. A pair of black Indian Scouts pulled her in to the other side, their sleek chassis catching her eyes. But, a glance up the row halted her advances, and she blinked like she was hallucinating.
Maybe she was, because there was no way the 1958 Plymouth Fury was sat parked beside a Bel-Air. Tori wanted to kick herself for missing it before. It wasn’t red and silver, but she would have recognized it anywhere.
Her fingers barely skimmed the hood, her excitement barely contained beneath her skin. For a minute, she could forget about demons and dead friends and the looming sense of dread that always seemed to follow her around like a storm cloud ready to rain down fire upon her and those in her general vicinity.
Popping the hood was second nature, though it took her a second to find the rod within to prop the top open. With hands braced on the frame and a giddy smile, she peered inside.
The exhaustion ran deep into Dean’s bones. Pulling himself out of bed took more effort than he would have liked. Bringing himself to look at his reflection in the bathroom mirror while he brushed his teeth had nearly been impossible.
In his gut he knew the confrontation with Tori needed to happen the way it did. She would have deflected or lied her way out of it like she had before if he hadn’t been as blunt with it. The bottom line was, he needed to know he and Sam were safe.
A demon could wreak some havoc, sure, but he knew better than most that just because they are out of your system doesn’t mean the evil has gone with it. And sure, she could have been one hell of an actress, but not even Nicholson could portray the visceral emotions of going through something so traumatic.
In spite of the necessity for his actions, guilt nibbled away at him like flies on a carcass.
The entire night his brain became a film reel, playing back everything Tori had confessed, using the details to shove him into the scenes she had described. It had been one thing to hear about it from Bobby, the veritable PG-13 version of the events.
It was another to see the haunted and hollow look on Tori’s face as she recounted being helpless to Belial using her body to smash her best friend’s head in, from doing something she’d likely never be able to forget.
For that, an apology grew on his tongue. The only problem was getting it out.
Breakfast and the promise of coffee wafted down the hall from the kitchen, enticing him like a pup to its dinner bowl. Still rubbing sleep from his eyes, he stumbled into the kitchen, taken aback seeing Tori perched at the island while Sam stood at the stovetop with a pan of what looked like scrambled eggs.
“Coffee?” His voice sounded rough, gravelly with the remnants of restless sleep.
Sam jerked his chin to the pot next to the stove. “Morning to you too.”
The morning fog alone clogged up the part of his brain that controlled his voice, but the weight of an apology and the guilt that was pressing down on his throat made it so only a grunt came out in response.
“My brother, the caveman,” Dean heard Sam say to Tori while he reached for a clean mug from the cupboard, the quip earning his brother a short huff of a laugh from her.
He shot Sam a look, filling his mug as full as he felt comfortable carrying it. Snagging a piece of bacon from the plate beside the stove out of spite, he turned his attention to Tori. A soft looking sweater swathed her upper half, the hem pooling in her lap over a pair of jeans that were distressed at the knees.
She looked a lot more comfortable than she had the night she stayed here before Tennessee. Less stiff. Maybe, even after everything that had transpired the night before, she was genuinely planning to stay and help.
Tori offered him a small, polite half smile like it would ease the tension clearly growing in the space. It didn’t quite reach her eyes that were framed with dark circles that spoke of sleepless nights. He’d been too caught up in himself to notice before. Another gnat of guilt to buzz around him.
The ‘I’m sorry’ on his lips crawled into his mouth and burrowed back into his throat, refusing to budge even when he could feel his lips trying desperately to form the words. His voice betrayed him, staying quiet the one time he didn’t want to be—when he needed to not be.
That space between Tori’s brows wrinkled, and Dean realized he’d been staring at her like some creep. Stealing another piece of bacon and slipping it past his lips, he retreated from the kitchen, burning shame nipping at his heels.
By the time he had changed out of his pajamas and finished the first cup of coffee, the kitchen was empty when he went for a refill.
He remembered, then, something about his brother saying he was going to give Tori a tour of the Bunker. In some way, it hadn’t quite hit him that Tori was going to actually live here. Yeah, work with them, but actually be in their space day after day.
It had just been him and Sam living here, of course with the occasional visit from their friends like Charlie who liked to pop by whenever she felt like it.
Or Cas, though the angel wasn’t easily tethered to one place, and understandably so. Their friend should be checking in any day now with the findings of the search they’d sent him on.
With not a clue on really anything regarding Belial, he and Sam had hoped the angel would be able to have better luck.
“You able to form words now?” Sam popped into the kitchen, plucking a pen and pad of paper from the counter.
“How’d the tour go?” Dean replied, ignoring Sam’s teasing.
Sam shrugged a shoulder, scribbling in the corner of the paper to test the ink before he started writing. “Fine, I guess. The place is huge so it’s gonna take her a while to get used to finding her way around just like it did for us.”
“How is she doing? She say anything?”
“I tried to ask but I think it’s just gonna take time, man. She’s like you. She doesn’t seem to like talking about her feelings.”
“Hey, I talk about my feelings.” Dean could feel the lie yellowing his teeth as it passed them.
Sam side eyed him, the pen barely pausing on the page. “Yeah, right. You need anything from the store?”
Dean thought for a second, running through anything he might need, ending up shaking his head. “Not that I can think of. Why, you making a run?”
“No, Tori offered. Said she needed to run into town for a few things and I told her I’d make a list.”
“And you didn’t think to ask how she was going to get there?”
“You’re confidence in me is reassuring, Dean,” Sam said sarcastically, stepping away from the paper to check the fridge. “She asked to take one of the cars. Not the Impala. And I told her the key box was in there and that she’d have to check and see if any of them run otherwise to talk to you.”
“Is that where she is now?” Dean asked, switching his mug for a thermos, draining the last of the coffee into the receptacle. Maybe I can get Tori to get some of that coffee she likes for me to try.
“Hell if I know.” Sam shut the fridge, pressing on it to ensure the door was closed before he returned to the list. “Said she was gonna go find you to see how much progress was being made. But that was 3 hours ago, and since you’re here and she’s not, your best guess is as good as mine.”
So she’s wandering around the Bunker by herself. Right, and you didn’t see a problem with that, Sam?
“Shit. Okay.” Dean put the pot under the spout, rinsing it out and setting it on the drying rack. “Guess that’s next on my list, then.”
“Dean, she doesn’t need a babysitter. If we want her to stay, to feel comfortable here, then you need to cut her some slack.”
He sighed, fingers drumming on the side of his thermos. “You’re right, you’re right. I-I just don’t want her snooping.”
“You really think she’s the type to snoop into your shit?” Sam raised his eyebrows.
“...no, but—”
“Okay then.”
Sharing this place is gonna be a lot harder than I thought. Why it was different from Charlie or Cas or Garth staying here, he didn’t know, and that blank on the answer sheet was enough to ruffle his feathers more than a bit.
Sam ripped the sheet from the pad, holding it outstretched to him. “Give this to her if you see her. I’m not blaming you for balking. It’s gonna be an adjustment, but remember it’s one for her too.”
Dean took the paper, folding it into a neat square to slip into the pocket of his jeans, nodding all the while.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
The garage should have been his first stop after departing from the kitchen, list and coffee in hand. But, for some reason he couldn’t name, it wasn’t.
He checked her room first. No dice. Then the library, which proved futile. It was only on his third stop did he finally wise up and check the garage. Metal clanking on metal and the familiar cadence of ratcheting echoed into the stairwell indications that he’d finally found her.
His chest seized a bit, anxiety convincing him that she was fucking Baby up somehow for some reason. The fears were unfounded, however, when he reached the top of the stairs to see Baby sitting there unharmed.
He had to look further down to actually see Tori, and he was sure his eyebrows had fully meshed into his hairline when he spied her elbow deep in the engine bay of the Plymouth Fury that had been there since the original Men of Letters.
Her hair had been primly braided over one shoulder that morning, but in the hours between then and now, she’d pinned the plait tight against her head and out of the way. A rag had been threaded into one of her belt loops, hanging against her thigh while she tinkered with something in the bay. As Dean walked closer, he spotted his toolbox by her feet.
Perplexity filled him as he watched her. For someone who claimed to only know about cars through her attendance at car shows, she didn’t seem confused or lost, confidently doing, well, whatever it was that she was doing to the car.
“Need some help?” He decided to call out, realizing he might scare her if he just showed up out of nowhere.
It seemed, though, that even that fell short as she flinched, her back going stiff almost immediately. The audible thunk of her head against the hood echoed to him followed by a string of harsh cursing as Tori clutched the top of her head while stepping out from under the bonnet more carefully this time.
“Jesus. I need to put a fucking bell on you,” she snapped, rubbing her head.
“Fuck, you okay?” Dean asked, glancing with concern between her head and her hand, which she had pulled away from it, her palm thankfully void of blood.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just have mild brain damage now, thanks,” she grumbled, wiping her hands on the rag she’d grabbed.
Dean huffed a laugh. “Which one of us doesn’t at this point.”
She tilted her head in agreement. “Truth.”
“So…whatcha doing?” Dean asked, nodding to the Plymouth.
Tori’s lips thinned into a line, looking away from him to the car. “She wouldn’t start, so I thought I’d try and see what the problem was.”
“Not to sound like an asshole, but are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
She leveled a glare at him. “First of all, mission failure because I’m not sure you could have sounded more like an asshole. Secondly, yes, I know what I’m doing.”
“Really?” Dean nodded to the car, “Mind if I take a look?”
Tori side stepped out of his way, noticeably giving him a wide berth. “Be my fucking guest.”
He held up a finger, “One second.”
Tori watched Dean walk back down the row to the shelves and boxes of parts and tools, digging around until he came away with a rod-looking object. Crossing her arms over her chest, she carefully watched him hook it to the edge of the hood, and with a flip of a switch that was on the side of it, a bright light illuminated the engine bay.
Well, that would have been helpful three hours ago.
He took the place at the front of the car she had been occupying for the last however long, and her teeth dug into the inside of her mouth where her cheek met her lower lip. She knew the car would likely need some work and a charged battery, but it was foolish hope that convinced her it would run.
In her surface level snooping for the box of tools she’d found, a spider and jacks had alluded her, so she had no frame of reference for issues she couldn’t see just from under the hood, but there was no doubt hidden issues which would take weeks if not months to restore. Maybe one of the others fared better—one of the motorcycles would be her best option—but she doubted it
Which, much to her displeasure, would mean she would need a chaperone any time she wanted to go into town.
“So, Mikaela Banes, what exactly do you think is wrong here?”
Tori rolled her eyes so hard she could have sworn she saw her own brain and it shrinking at his comment. “Don’t call me that. Frankly, it’s insulting.”
“What—how? Megan Fox is hot.”
“And that’s my point,” Tori stepped closer, still making sure to leave space between them. “Yes, she’s a fucking smokeshow, but she was so dumbed down and sexualized.”
She watched Dean open and close his mouth like a fish out of water in an attempt to conjure a clapback while failing brilliantly.
“Anyway. From what I can tell the battery is corroded. The Electrojector is a problem, which is common with the Fury. But I couldn’t find any jacks or a spider to confirm that.”
Dean nodded approvingly, straightening from his position hunched over the bay. “I’d agree. You ready for that level of restoration?”
Tori dipped her head. “For her? Definitely. She doesn’t deserve to sit here rotting away like this.”
She pulled the rag from her jeans, holding it out to him. He took it wordlessly, wiping the little grease and oil that had smeared onto his tanned knuckles.
“So, really, where’d you learn all this stuff?” He asked, throwing the towel over his shoulder and stepping back so she could undo the prop rod and lower the hood back down.
Tori grunted, using her body weight to shut the hood against the rusted out hinges. Only when she heard the mechanism lock into place, and she was slightly out of breath, did she even think about her answer.
“My degree is in automotive engineering. Spent eighteen years growing up around these things before that,” she answered. “Not something I’m ashamed of, just don’t openly advertise it otherwise I’d have hunters up my ass asking me to fix up whatever bucket of rust they were driving that week and offerin’ to do me empty favors if I did.”
She pivoted, leaning back against the hood, looking up at him to see him listening intently. “I did learn a lot from car shows when I went as a kid, and I did have to deal with a spirit possessing a car.”
The side of her mouth quirked up, a bittersweet memory triggered by the statement. “It’s why I chose this one out of all of the ones here.”
“Christine,” Dean smiled at her, setting his stance wider and crossing his arms. “Not the blood red though. That would have been cool.”
“Yeah,” she laughed quietly. “I remember the first time I watched it. Alice, she and I rented it from Blockbuster with our babysitting money. We watched it in her basement on her couch. She was hiding behind this huge crocheted blanket her mom had made, meanwhile I couldn’t get enough. I checked the novel out from the library the next day. Probably finished it in less than 48 hours.”
She shrugged, ducking her head. “Call me a snob or whatever but the movie is almost never as good as the book.”
Dean was uncharacteristically quiet, so when Tori lifted her gaze back up to his face, she wasn’t surprised to see the smallest of furrows between his brows, jaw set in thought. She stretched her legs out in front of her, a pair of ratty tennis shoes she’d picked up at a second hand store on her feet.
“Well, it’s already gonna take forever to replace the Electrojector. We could add in a new paint job to the list,” he offered, speaking finally after whatever internal debate he had been having with himself.
“Dean. You can’t be serious,” Tori said. “We are not gonna restore a whole ass car on top of everything else we have going on.”
“Why not?”
This man cannot be serious. She stared at him, eyes narrowing as she tried to figure out if he was bluffing or not. Unfortunately, he was doing that thing again where his face gave away no hints, expressionless as a statue.
They were already spending so much time and resources on trying to find Belial, she didn’t see how adding in another time consuming—and expensive—project was smart or doable.
It felt irresponsible to set aside time to do that, not to mention be in debt to him, because God knows she didn’t have enough money to buy whatever he didn’t have in the mess of spare parts.
Not to mention, it didn’t feel right to enjoy something like that. The wrongness of it slithered in her heart, to have a distraction from the path of pain she’d set herself upon.
“Dean. We are hunting a demon. The first demon, no less. When the fuck are we going to have time to completely remove the Electrojector and completely overhaul the fuel injection system into a carbureted one?”
He shrugged, a seemingly hereditary trait of the Winchesters when they wanted to be particularly insufferable. “I don’t see much progress on that happening right now, do you?”
Right. Because we needed that reminder right now. No fucking shit, dumbass.
“And, we could be trying to do something about that right now instead of arguing about this.”
“What are we gonna do that we haven’t already, Tori?” Dean asked, unfolding his arms to hold them out in question. “We’ve read the books, done the research. We’re waiting on Cas right now to see if he can find an archangel blade—”
“Wait, who’s Cas?” She asked, wracking her brain trying to remember if they’d mentioned someone by that name yet.
Dean winced like he had just spilled the password to the nuclear launch codes. “So, about that.”
Tori felt her heart sink, plummeting like rock thrown into a lake. “I’m not gonna like the answer, am I?”
“Cas is an angel.” Before Tori could open her mouth and say something in outrage, Dean continued. “We’ve known him for years. He’s searching for anything we may have missed or can’t get our hands on.”
She scrubbed a hand down her face. How the hell have they gotten me into this position twice?! You know, for hunters, they seem real goddamn friendly with the supernatural.
“You mean to tell me,” she sighed, lacing her fingers behind her neck as she gave Dean a stern look that she was hoping conveyed her displeasure. “That not only are you working for a demon, but that you are friends with an angel?”
Dean groaned. “I thought we went over this, we are not willingly working for that sleazebag. And yes. We are friends with an angel.”
“Any other supernatural friends I should know about going forward?” At this point, anything is fucking possible.
“Our friend, uh, Garth who’s a hunter got turned into a werewolf and then married into a pack,” Dean said, looking more embarrassed with each word. “And I have a friend, Benny, who's a vampire. But he lives in Purgatory. I think you’d like him, actually.”
Disbelief was the only thing Tori could focus on. She was sure her jaw would be on the floor had she not had enough control of her expression still to prevent it from being so.
“I-I don’t even know what to say to any of that right now,” Tori stuttered out. “Why, exactly, do you think I would like a vampire?”
Again, that infuriating shrug. Regret was starting to rise, though this time it was fueled less by blind anger and more so disbelief and annoyance. Not only that, a sense of uncomfortability had started to take root at the thought that, at least in the Winchesters eyes, there were good monsters.
The hunting life not being black and white was not a new concept to her in the slightest. She knew plenty of hunters who were witches, but to have friends who were so outrightly monster was taking the game to a whole other level.
Shaking her head, Tori forged ahead. “Supernatural friends aside, even if this Cas does find something, realistically how often are we going to even be here to work on it?”
Dean gave her an odd look then, cocking his head to one side with the slightest hint of that goofy grin he seemed to do whenever something was particularly amusing to him. “After we gank the son of a bitch, we’ll be here a lot more.”
It hit her like a fastball to her chest, then. They, or Dean at least, really thought they were gonna walk out of this alive. No matter how hard she’d tried, never had she been able to see herself alive past finally getting that final showdown with Belial.
That was a conversation she was not going to have.
“You realize I have basically no money, right?” She switched the subject, guiding him away from a secret he’d accidentally wandered a little too close to.
“Can you play cards? Pool? Darts?”
“Yes, but I don’t—”
“Then you’ll hustle with us. Besides, I should have a decent amount of stuff here to get us started at least.”
Tori shook her head with defeat. “Alright, sure, whatever. Let’s do it.”
“Great,” Dean beamed, and Tori couldn’t help but feel endured by the sight of it. “Next item of business, Sam said you needed to run into town?”
“Yeah. It’s why I was down here in the first place. Your car is off limits so I was going to see if one of the others worked.”
Dean sucked a breath through his teeth, throwing a wide look at the other vehicles. “I honestly don’t think we’ve ever really tried. The bikes work, I think.”
“Good to know.”
Crinkling paper caught her attention, looking down to see Dean reaching into his pocket, producing a folded piece of paper. “The list of stuff we need from Sam.”
She reached out, snagging it from his fingers. “Cool, still don’t have a way to get there.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
Dean rolled his eyes, head falling to the side a bit. “I’m well aware. Still not letting you drive my car.”
“Then I’ll take one of the bikes.”
“The bikes that haven’t been serviced in this century?”
She grumbled, regretting every decision that led her to this moment with a visceral hatred. “You’re a bitch.”
“Ouch.” Dean clutched at his chest, a boyish grin plastered on his stupid face.
“Let’s go, before I decide tempting Lady Death is worth it.”
A week later, and Dean was really starting to understand the reality of living with a girl for the first time in his life.
He was barely old enough to remember having his mother at home. Her makeup was always neatly stored in one of the drawers in their bathroom, her bodywash that smelled of vanilla perched beside his fathers on one of the shelves in the shower.
This, however? This was a completely different situation.
He was finding long black hairs in places she had never even been, and now suddenly there was another towel in the laundry, and he could smell something sweet like cherries and dark wafting from the women's bathroom after her showers. To her credit, Tori did do her own laundry, but despite her efforts, it still threw off the routine that he and Sam had curated. Hair elastics cropped up everywhere; in the kitchen, in the library, even in the range.
It wasn’t all bad, which was what was keeping him from going completely bonkers. Turns out, she could cook. He’d woken one morning to find her over the stove instead of Sam, who was sitting at one of the tables reading the paper. Not that he’d told her as such, but the eggs she’d put before him were better than any he’d ever had.
She also proved to be handy with more than just cars, fixing the leak in the showers that he’d been scratching his head over for months.
The thing that surprised him the most, was how much he found himself enjoying talking with her. Usually it was over the books with Sam, or sharing a drink when they all had had enough of words for the day—her with either a rum and coke or a tumbler of amaretto, him with a glass of whiskey, and Sam with a beer.
She still didn’t talk much, still incredibly closed off and tight lipped when it came to details about herself but she listened, letting him or Sam ramble on and on until one of them realized how late it had become.
It was always friendly, polite, just skirting that line of authenticity where that mask she seemed to slip on around them started to falter. Dean hated the way he wished it would fall completely, hated how much he cared if she was truly enjoying kicking their asses at poker, or if she was just indulging them for their sake.
He could feel the restlessness exuding from her. They’d been adrift at the sea of their search for too long without a direction to lay their energy toward. Until Cas managed to find something, it was up to them to hurry up and wait.
The credits rolled across the TV screen, marking the end of their third movie of the night, but Tori couldn’t bring herself to unfurl from her position on the couch. Sam had gone to bed after the second movie, but when Dean popped in The Lost Boys, she’d simply requested the younger brother to bring her a glass of water before he went off to his room for the night.
With her head propped up on her elbow, leaning heavily into the armrest, she mused aloud. “You know, every time I watch this, I am reminded of why I always had to sneak movies into the house.”
Dean snorted from where he’d taken up residence in one of the comfortable looking chairs, looking like something out of a magazine with his grey sweatpants and black Henley. Both of them had changed into pajamas hours ago, her sweats and long-sleeve t-shirt part of the reason why she was half convinced to just sleep here.
“Yeah, our dad never liked when I put something scary on the TV whenever we’d crash at a motel,” he said. “Said that there were enough scary things in real life, and that we didn’t need to watch somebody act it out. Mind you, this is the same man who gave Sammy a pistol when he was scared there was a monster in the closet.”
A pang was sent through her heart, imagining little Sam, round cheeks and standing no higher than her hip being handed a pistol rather than a fathers hand.
He laughed again like it would soften the blow of his confession. “But hey, what doesn’t kill you, you know?”
“Mhmm,” Tori hummed, dragging her gaze from Dean and instead back to her nails, picking at the cuticles around her fingers.
An awkward silence stretched between them save for the end credits music and the ever present hum of the bunker around them. It hung in the air like smog, thickening by the minute until she felt completely suffocated by the aftermath of the failed attempt at moving on from the childhood trauma.
“Tori,” Dean said through the haze, directing her attention back to him.
His shoulders had rounded in, an uncharacteristically vulnerable element present behind his eyes as they locked with hers.
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “About how I—”
“Dean—”
“No,” he interrupted her. “No, just let me say it. Please.”
She nodded with a sigh, her heart softening to his plea against her wishes.
“I’m sorry about how I asked you about your friend. It was uncalled for.”
It really wasn’t, she knew that. He had every right to do what he did, whether he believed it or not. Her brain begged her mouth to move, to argue and say she deserved it, that she deserved to feel the pain and use it to tithe for the things she’d done. She wanted to tell him it’s what she would have done if the roles had been reversed.
But that look in his eyes, the level of vulnerability it looked like it required for him to even get it out, had her swallowing her words down harshly, stamping them out like the last burning embers of a dying fire.
“No skin off my back.” A bold-faced lie. “Don’t sweat it. I forgive you.”
The words came out easier than they should have. Though, she supposed, when lying’s what you’re good at, there had to be a turning point where attempt became doing.
Pins and needles spread through her ankles and calves as she uncoiled herself from the couch, stretching her arms high above her head with a groan.
“Do we have a plan for tomorrow?” She asked, dropping her arms back to her sides.
He shook his head. “More of the same.”
Tori suppressed a groan. “Of course. Because things can’t just be that easy.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
She shot him a practiced smile. Not too big, not too eager—polite. “See you in the morning.”
“Sleep well Tori.”
“You too, Dean.”
Please like, reblog, and/or comment if you enjoyed. Feedback is appreciated and encouraged!
Alrighty! Here’s my first attempt at starting up a tag game!
How to play: As writers we usually don’t talk a ton about our own stuff because we don’t wanna seem too vain. So I want to give everyone a chance to brag about their stuff! Tell us your thoughts! Be vain! Be sure to include links to all your wonderful works so that people can easily access them! 💜💜💜 (If you wanna make it extra challenging, try not to repeat any of your works!)
✨ What’s one (or more) of your favorite pieces you’ve done?
I think one of my absolute favorite pieces I've written that I go back to and actually enjoy re-reading every now and again (without like... looking at it and only seeing what I could've done better) is my Sam soulmate AU series, Moon Without Stars. It was my first attempt at creating a creature for Supernatural, and I put building the relationship at the forefront of the story which is probably the first time I've ever put romance as the primary focus in any of my writing I've done over all the years.
✨ If you could go back and redo any works, which one would it be and how/why would you change it?
I'd go back to my first series I wrote, Chasing Shadows, and give the whole series an overhaul. It was my first foray into Supernatural fanfic as well as reader-inserts, so I didn't really give me reader character much of a personality. I learned that I don't do well with that. I would probably go back and give the reader more of a personality to go off of as well as expand on scenes that I didn't feel like I dove into as much as I should've. I'd also change up my romantic subplot to be a little more... gradual? I feel like I didn't do it much justice.
✨ What’s a piece that you’re super proud of but don’t feel like it got as much attention as you were hoping for?
I'm a real slut for Omegaverse stuff! I participated in my first Kinktober ever in 2025, and was super excited about my A/B/O piece for it In Heat, By Design with alpha!Sam. I don't know if maybe people were just super burned out by smut since it was towards the end of the month (day 29) and either their TBR lists had just grown so long or if they were tired of reading smut or what it was. But I adored it to pieces. Maybe because I don't see a ton of alpha!Sam. I endeavor to change that!
✨ Which piece did you struggle with the most?
Glitter and Ashes, which I wrote as a challenge fic for @chevroletdean's follower celebration. I was given a mood board to write for, and let me just say, incorporating everything into it as best as I could was tough. Turns out, though, all I needed was some cold medicine and a "send it" attitude 🤣
✨ Which piece did you pour your heart and soul into (more so than everything else)?
Roll for Initiative. Another challenge fic done for @chevroletdean in which we get to see Ranger!Reader hopelessly in love with Paladin!Sam with all sorts of references to D&D! Nothing like taking my two loves (Sam and D&D) and smashing them together. Fun fact about it: I wrote about... 3k words in one direction before scrapping all of it and taking it in a totally different direction. It turned out so much better!
✨ What piece do you hold closest to your heart and why?
The piece that is probably most dear to me is Tangled Sheets. It's a Dean x reader x Sam polyship smut fic that pulled me out of a writing funk I was in. I feel like it's also what sort of put me on the radar on tumblr, and honestly, it was something that I was (and still am) so very proud of writing.
✨ What's something you included in one (or more) of your works that you wished more people noticed?
In my Christmas fic, With Love, Dean, I put a lot of little details in it that I feel got overlooked. Which is fine. Like they're nothing huge. But the fact that Dean and Sam's gifts that they give are put in bags since they likely never had anyone teach them how to properly wrap a Christmas gift or the fact that the reader's gift to Castiel used his own duct tape to cover up the word 'dummies' so she could write 'angels' over top of it. Also, the fact that two gifts that were wrapped were wrapped by the reader (instead of placed in bags). I love putting little touches like that in fics even though they usually will go overlooked.
✨ What's a piece you wrote because you wanted to try something totally new?
Okay, I'm gonna cheat just a little bit here and list two pieces. I typically write for Sam and/or Dean, but I have two pieces where I wrote for other characters. Naughty List, Voluntarily is my first attempt at writing for the Archangel Gabriel, and oh my god did I fall in love with him! The fun sort of shenanigans you can get up to with a character who's as chaotic as him! And my Soldier Boy piece, Stealth Means STFU, was my first stab at writing for The Boys. Funny enough... I've never actually watched The Boys. So all of my knowledge of Soldier Boy comes from what my friends tell me as well as fanfic lol One of these days I'm sure I'll give it a watch... probably... maybe...
✨ What’s something you’re working on right now that you’re super excited to share?
I've got three more chapters of Ashes of Grace plus an epilogue which I am absolutely ecstatic to share with you all! For anyone who hasn't seen me around, Ashes of Grace is a Dean x Angel!Reader series centered around the mystery the reader's reason for being on Earth. It has mystery, romance, and lots of rumination about what it means to be human. We're currently at chapter 15 where I threw gasoline on the slow burn. So if you're interested, please give it a read!
Tagging all my lovely writer friends! I wanna hear you all brag about yourselves!! Toot your own horn! Be proud of your stuff! But zero pressure, of course! @supernotnatural2005 @supernaturalfreakout @spectralgalaxygauntlet @winterstar67 @tinysnacklefan @aylacavebear @twowaywardorphansjournal @plasticflowersinahistorycemetery @reginaphalangelobster @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth @bettystonewell @aseafullofstars @kblognar @voodoochildthings @jollyhunter @my-stories-vault @chevroletdean @mellowyellowdaydream @wvffles @godmadeaterribleerror @zepskies @wendichester @bruisedfig + anyone else who sees this and wants to jump in!
apologies if some of this makes zero sense since i'm posting this at an unreasonable time of night but i love love love tag games like this where i get to yap :] especially when i get to yap about my fics because i think its fun to talk about what i was thinking (or lack thereof because...i am not a thinker sometimes LOL) so !! behold. tag game !! (im just now realizing how many of these are sam fics...i did tell you i had a favourite. i think it's quite obvious *points to my intro post*)
✨ What’s one (or more) of your favorite pieces you’ve done?
trust series. this one is i think the first piece i ever wrote where i really made an effort to get into sam's brain. i even had it beta read if you can believe it (ty kbogs for that one !!). im super proud of it because i think that was the first time i realized "hey wait i think i know what im doing with sam and his character" and i do think a lot of my sam angst fics follow a similar formula to that one. i think honestly i just really like how it turned out and how raw it feels to me when i reread it
✨ If you could go back and redo any works, which one would it be and how/why would you change it?
ghost of you series. this is the one where reader dies and exists as a ghost for a bit and then comes back. it was a good idea but my execution was. not good. i think i would rewrite that one and honestly i would just make it two parts. i think i like the appeal of it being an unresolved ending, where part one is the reader's death and part two is dean's all-consuming grief over it. i think i dragged it out long and i did it in a bad way, so i'd kinda like to revisit that one just to see if i can pace it better and make it more angsty
✨ What’s a piece that you’re super proud of but don’t feel like it got as much attention as you were hoping for?
i'm gonna go with something a little more niche here, but it would maybe be my in every lifetime fics. i wrote one for sam, and one for dean, and they were fun little bits about reader and the boys being reincarnated into various inanimate objects (hence the title of in every lifetime). they definitely got attention and im very happy about that, but i (at the time) thought it was a good idea that i had executed super well. in hindsight, the idea was neat but i dont think i did the best job actually writing it (perhaps something else to revisit...hmmm)
✨ Which piece did you struggle with the most?
ough honestly there's an embarrassing amount...i would say my recent dean fic almost something almost nothing because not only did it take me literal months to write, it also just was so difficult for me to wrap my head around and turn my ideas into words. i had a general vibe i wanted for it, but i just couldn't translate that from my head to the page (and honestly, i dunno if i did all that well...whoops)
✨ Which piece did you pour your heart and soul into (more so than everything else)? +✨ What piece do you hold closest to your heart and why?
i'm combining these two questions together because they both relate to the same piece; chasing cars. this is the work i think i've been the most vulnerable in to date. it's a very heavy fic (warnings include suicidal ideation/implied attempt) but i think it's the first and only time i've actually written about something that is directly 100% based on me and posted it publically (i do have a very heavy piece in my drafts i wrote 5 years ago after nearly losing a friend to suicide, but that's a different story). i've dealt with passive suicidality for probably the last 6 or something years now (but i do promise i am getting better, i am exponentially better now than i was 6 years ago !! but healing is not linear and there will always be bad days and therapy costs way too much lets be honest) and so to write a fic with a character i heavily relate with on that topic was very very special to me.
i think what it comes down to for me is that sam's trauma and emotions are never explored properly/thoroughly in the show, and i think that also hits me in a strange way. i think it's kind of weird to look at sam as a character having these types of thoughts and say "holy shit that was almost me/that was me" and to see him still come out the other side. it's the passive thought of "oh hey i could just do this dangerous/harmful thing right now and it wouldn't matter to anybody/nobody would notice/care" that sticks with you in a strange way, and that honestly kind of scares me to think about, especially when i think about it in regards to me. to write a fic about that emotion through a vessel like sam is weirdly cathartic. i will probably do it again. you have been warned
✨ What's something you included in one (or more) of your works that you wished more people noticed?
i had a few fun easter eggs in scrapbook that were basically just numbers relating to birthdays (the number of steps being dean's birthday, another number being jared's birthday, and then the time on the clock being sam's birthday). i dont think i've put any big details in my fics intentionally, because i know people aren't typically going to notice them (lol). i can vaguely recall there being other specific references, but i think a lot of the references i put into my fics are purposely hidden because i was taught to find these small hidden references in school and whatnot
✨ What's a piece you wrote because you wanted to try something totally new?
to be needed was the fic i wrote for @chevroletdean's 5k follower event a while ago, and it's my first fic with crowley involved. i honestly don't know that i'll write for him again tbh. i would also say cuteness aggression, which was my first (and so far, only) soldier boy fic. honestly this took off and im very shocked considering i have not watched the show and i think he's very ooc in the fic becuse of it LOL. but the people liked my little experiment so that's fun !!
✨ What’s something you’re working on right now that you’re super excited to share?
honestly as of right now i have no wip's that i've started writing. i think if i had to choose, it would be the few m!reader fic requests i have sitting in my inbox, or my sam series spiritwalker that is in the drafting stage !! the m!reader fic thing is always exciting to me because i am a guy and there are so few m!reader fics out there that i'm exciting to be making my own. spiritwalker is an idea i've been sitting on for about 5 months so to finally start putting it into words is very exciting (also it will be my longest series to date, aagh)
Thank you @ambiguous-avery, @aseafullofstars, and @reginaphalangelobster for tagging me!! 🌸 These questions are so fun, thanks for letting me yap about my writing lmao
Avery, I absolutely adored both of the challenge entries. Especially Roll for Initiative has a special place in my heart! The details in there are so beautiful and made me realize we need more nerdy D&D fics, lol. I think about that one often. As a Paladin!Main, this one spoke to meeeee, hehe
And, K! The same applies to to be needed — I had an absolute blast reading that one. I have to second your comment on using fics or characters as a catalyst for spiraling thoughts or rough situations. I'm sorry for your loss, by the way. What a beautiful, albeit tragic thing that writing is therapeutic. Sending all the hugs your way. And I added almost something almost nothing to my TBR so fast when I saw the angsty tags.
Last but not least, Lobster, I can't believe I still haven't gotten aroud to reading If I Die Young. Life has been crazy lately, I'm drowning in unread fics that I'm itching to get my hands on OTL Just know that I do not care whether or not Charlie fics are niche, I love her with all my heart, and I can't wait to dive in.
🦇 What’s one (or more) of your favorite pieces you’ve done?
A Fool's Lesson is my pride and joy. Even though I shipped Destiel from day 1, I've never written anything for them. I've read tons, but I never had the guts to try my hand at writing my own Destiel fics. Not sure why. However, when I realized I have free will and I can make them sapphic? The possibilities are endless, this is true power.
🦇 If you could go back and redo any works, which one would it be and how/why would you change it?
As much as I love my Tainted series, if I could start from scratch, I would do it differently. Writing it was a rollercoaster. It was fun, frustrating, blood, sweat, and tears. If anything, it made me realize that when it comes to longer fanfics, I prefer OCs over RICs. Nothing wrong with reader inserts, I especially enjoy writing for them with drabbles or one-shots. But more often than not I really wished I had a more fleshed out character to get into the nitty gritty even better. That said, Tainted is my baby, I am very proud of the 60k words on my favorite arc of Supernatural!
🦇 What’s a piece that you’re super proud of but don’t feel like it got as much attention as you were hoping for?
Let me be annoying and name two pieces. First, an older piece I did for Kinktober 2024: Lingerie — I'm actually not too surprised it didn't kick off. It's a Rowena x Fem!Reader smut piece. While she is a beloved character, I don't think many people are interested in fanfics about her, especially smut pieces. This one is for the sapphics. Maybe I didn't hit the target audience with that one, lmao.
Secondly, another Kinktober piece, 2025 this time: Give Him Hell — With this one, I'm even less surprised. Reader Inserts do best for Kinktober in terms of notes, but I really wanted to include shipfics too and this was the perfect opportunity for some steamy Drowley. I guess the ship isn't very popular, which is A SHAME! But whatever floats everyone's boat.
🦇 Which piece did you struggle with the most?
Idle Interrupted, which is a Tom Hanniger x Fem!Reader mini series. This one was tricky and I was super nervous about getting it right. It's a darker one, full on (slasher) horror movie vibes, and there was a detective aspect to it. I was worried the plot twists weren't plot twisting, but I'm proud of how it turned out!
🦇 Which piece did you pour your heart and soul into (more so than everything else)?
The most effort went into Tainted. Again, this project is my baby. It took me forever to finish and I really wanted to tackle a multi-chapter fanfic again. I tried my best to do the Mark of Cain arc justice and pour all my love for Demon!Dean into it. While I make playlists for most my fics, I went all out with that one; graphics and all. Even without the fic, it's a juicy playlist, by the way! I rewatched the majority of season 9 and 10 multiple times to get the canon compliant pieces right.
Tainted means so much to me that when the lovely @talltalesandbedtimestories from @idlingintheimpalapodcast asked me which of my pieces she could make a Podfic version of, I sent her Chapter 3. And that recording turned out absolutely perfect! You can listen to the audio on YouTube or Spotify! And show Sandra and Kasey some love for their amazing work.
Special shoutout to two Secret Santa pieces of mine — Sam's Winter Tale (a Sam x GN!Reader Nutcracker!AU) and Santa's Delights (fluffy Destiel) —, because when I pull your name for gift exchanges, I wanna try and spoil you as much as I can haha
🦇 What piece do you hold closest to your heart and why?
This might come as a surprise, but In The Woods Somewhere is one that's near and dear to my heart. Even though it's a shorter piece and even angstier than my usual stuff, it tickled my brain. After losing my father to cancer last summer, I included the topic of mourning in my fics more and more without even realizing it. This one is a prime example. I remember writing it and letting the imagery of grief just flow, I guess. Ironic, since I more or less pooped that one out in such a short time frame, but I genuinely entered a flow-state.
🦇 What's something you included in one (or more) of your works that you wished more people noticed?
I already mentioned it with Tainted, but music references and/or playlists! I don't know if anyone actually listens to my playlists while reading my fics, but I put a lot of effort into curating mixtapes and finding fitting songs. A really good example of this is Every Step Of The Way, in which I heavily incorporated not one, not two, but three amazing songs that scream Dean Winchester to me.
Ambitious, which is another Dean x Reader fic, also has a playlist I'm quite proud of. What I also incorporated into that fic is German folklore. I did a ton of research on this case fic and had so much fun with the details of cultural aspects, mythology, etc.
🦇 What's a piece you wrote because you wanted to try something totally new?
Hold Me Tight was my first attempt at gender neutral smut, and I am pretty proud of that one! Again, kudos to Sandra and Kasey here. While filling out their survey on gender neutral reader inserts, I realized none of my gender neutral reader insert stuff is smutty. That needed to be changed.
🦇 What’s something you’re working on right now that you’re super excited to share?
I signed up as an artist for the @samcasbb and I can't wait for everyone to read the amazing fics I've claimed and to share the artwork I'm working on! As for writing, I have tons of WIPs and zero time to work on them right now. BUT! I hope to work on the epilogue for Tainted soon, and on a cutesy Destiel Coffee Shop!AU
NPT (sorry if you've been tagged before): @zepskies @flanneledfae @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth @bruisedfig @bilingogilmore @xpurdyglambertx @samanddean76 @copperboom82 @wvffles @jollyhunter + whoever else wants to join
Oh awesome! Thanks so much for creating this @ambiguous-avery, and for the tag - you too @chevroletdean, lovely friends 💕
Avery, I really felt you with "It was my first foray into Supernatural fanfic as well as reader-inserts, so I didn't really give me reader character much of a personality. I learned that I don't do well with that." Some people prefer reading reader inserts that way but I'm sorry, I can't do it either. I imagine every reader character I write or read as their own little OC. Also, I plan to dive into Ashes of Grace soon!! I've been wanting to dig in! 💜
Liane, I absolutely LOVED Idle Interrupted and thought you wrote that Part 2 perfectly. I was trying my damnedest to figure out the mystery but loved every trippy moment of it until the big reveal! Also, I'm so glad you got to have Sandra do one of her amazing narrations in a podfic for you, especially for a series you worked so hard on! 🩷
᯽ What’s one (or more) of your favorite pieces you’ve done?
Ooh, starting with a fun but difficult one, but I'll list a few in somewhat favorite order:
Break Me Down | Soldier Boy x Reader
There are a few series that I feel I can come back to over and over again and find more character development to explore, and this one is one of them! I've never had more fun exploring Soldier Boy and his character growth with reader than in the BMD-verse. 💚
Midnight Espresso | Dean Winchester x Plus-size Latina!Reader
This is my Dean comfort series where I can express myself through the reader character. She's not a straight up self-insert, but she does a lot of the Dean comforting that I wish he got in canon through some of the later seasons' arcs, and he supports her just as much. 💜
Smoke Eater | Firefighter!Dean Winchester x Reader
This was my first full SPN au, and sooo much plotting went into this — not just the love story, but the mystery and murder and mayhem (SO many SPN Easter Eggs and arc weaving), as well as aspects of my real life that made it into this series in unexpectedly cathartic ways. ❤️🩹
The Honorable Choice/Outlander | Soldier/Cowboy!Dean x OFC
I'm still really proud of this series because I dove into a daunting challenge (writing about a culture that wasn't my own). But it was an era of history and Lakota culture that I did my best to thoroughly research and was passionate about exploring in this little Dean au cowboy story.
'Til When Do Us Part | Mark Meachum x Reader
This is another series I keep coming back to, in part because I'm still so sad Countdown was cancelled. But also because I fell in love with this tumultuous relationship and how Mark and reader managed to get through the messiest parts of life together. Right now I'm working on some of their prequel story. 😊
Lost On You | Soldier Boy x Supe!Reader
I still plan to come back to this series for a little two-part sequel story, but basically this was such a fun way to expand on a Soldier Boy imagine I wrote the year before: Ben meeting his match with a siren supe. 💖 I also got to explore the Payback era of the 80s, then into the 90s, with some big AU twists. 😉
᯽ If you could go back and redo any works, which one would it be and how/why would you change it?
Ooh you know what, maybe just parts of Unravel Me (Soldier Boy x Afro-Latina!Reader). I go back and forth on this though. I had fun with most of it, but there were parts that I bumped my head on and the series didn't always flow easy from me during the writing process, I'll admit. If I could go back I would dig deeper into some areas in the second half of the series, and it would probably be longer for that reason, even though it's a niche pairing that probably wouldn't gain much visibility (but that's not why we should write anyway, right? 😅)
However, I think I could still dabble into writing post-series drabbles and one-shots of Ben contending with (and learning a lot from) this modern Latina reader who loves him in the most long-suffering way. 😂
᯽ What’s a piece that you’re super proud of but don’t feel like it got as much attention as you were hoping for?
Ooh, I have to give two on this:
The Honorable Choice/Outlander | Soldier/Cowboy!Dean x OFC
I love and cherish everyone who gave feedback on this storyverse! I knew it wouldn't be amazingly popular because it's an OFC, and Tumblr readers prefer reader inserts. The OFC is also from the Lakota tribe, so very much a niche pairing all around lol. But like I said, I did a lot of research for this little two-part series, and I legit had so much fun with it. I still have been thinking of ways to come back to it for a sequel one-shot. 🐎
Subtext | Professor!Dean x (Plus-Size) Grad Student!Reader
This one burned hot at first, but interest seemed to dwindle as the series went on, even though it's only 9 chapters. Maybe it's because reader is plus-size, or maybe because she's a grad student, not in her early 20s. 🤷🏽♀️ I had so much fun with it though! There's a lot of my nerdy literary side infused in the story through both reader being an English major and Dean being a mythology professor. Lots of steamy sexual tension and sexy adventures, forbidden love, meta moments, and SPN characters making cameos throughout!
᯽ Which piece did you struggle with the most?
Again, probably Unravel Me. Part of the challenge of writing a reader who has a specific ethnicity is how much personality and background do you put into a "reader" character that's meant to be relatable to a lot of people, or even to most Hispanics/Latinos, when there's so much nuance in culture. Maybe I was thinking about it too hard lol, but that combined with writing a 3rd Soldier Boy series where I was trying to write yet another version of what character growth could look like for him — in a unique and hopefully plausible way?
...Yeah, I wanted to bang my head against the keyboard a few times 🤣
᯽ Which piece did you pour your heart and soul into (more so than everything else)?
This is really hard to choose, because I always try to put my all into my work, especially longer series.
As far as plot complexity, character analysis and creating arc after arc, trying to explore more and more within the world and the characters, I probably have to give it to Break Me Down. I don't know if it's my best overall story — that's for readers to decide. But it's definitely my longest running storyverse.
᯽ What piece do you hold closest to your heart and why?
Always Midnight Espresso. 💜 Is it melodramatic at times? Probably lol, kind of like a telenovela 😂
But when I daydream new canon Dean scenarios to explore, it's often for the Espresso-verse. Sometimes those become general Dean x Reader one-shots and drabbles, but secretly I'm imagining Dean and his Latina girlfriend. 😉💜
᯽ What's something you included in one (or more) of your works that you wished more people noticed?
Liane said music playlists, and I really relate to that because I also love creating series playlists and including song inspo for my stories. I make them easily accessible on YT and Spotify, and I'll often create a "playlist poster" of most of the songs to go along with the aesthetics for the series. It's kinda like my moodboard. It's also basically a marketing tool for the upcoming fic lol, but I hope it's a fun thing to help people engage. Though I do wonder if people think I'm being hella extra with it 🤣
᯽ What's a piece you wrote because you wanted to try something totally new?
I wrote a lot of Dean Winchester AUs, new genres, and even new characters from 2024-25, mainly because of the awesome prompts I got for @jacklesversebingo. Aside from The Honorable Choice/Outlander, another favorite example of this is:
Between the City & the Stars | Soldier!Dean Winchester x Reader
Set in 1945, just after WWII, it's a short but angsty fun series about second chances, and how you pick up the pieces after leaving an old life behind when societal expectations don't make it easy for you (and especially for women).
᯽ What’s something you’re working on right now that you’re super excited to share?
Well, like I mentioned, I'm working on a couple of prequel one-shots for 'Til When Do Us Part!
30 Days or Less -
The full story. The true story of how you met Mark, with every tantalizing shade of public humiliation. You knew better than to date a cop, let alone a detective in your father’s division. But Mark Meachum was exactly the kind of stubborn and reckless man that threatened to knock every responsible thought out of your head, if he could convince you to take a chance on him.
One Good Try -
You’ve opened the door. Mark has to decide if it’s worth walking through. But your father, his boss and division captain, isn’t making it any easier to date you.
Those will drop on my Patreon first, after I finish up with Fated (Alpha!Beau Arlen x Omega!Reader - another series I've had a lot of fun with 🧡). After that, I did promise them I would work on a prequel/sequel to Pratt Fall (CEO!Dean x Assistant!Reader), but watching S5 of the Boys of course gave me yet another idea for a Soldier Boy series. 🤣
That one won't be fully written for a while though, since we won't get Vought Rising until next year, and getting more of SB's canon background will help me decide on a few directions for what I started to play around with in Hold me tighter than you can (Soldier Boy x Supe!Reader).
NPT for more friends - sorry if you've already been tagged lol: @luci-in-trenchcoats @waynes-multiverse @lamentationsofalonelypotato @rizlowwritessortof @wvffles @spnbabe67 @jollyhunter
Thank you for the tag, Alex! Tag games like these are always fun and I enjoy them so much!
As you know, BMD is probably my favorite series of yours; the storyline and the character arcs are truly the gold standard. Regarding Subtext, it definitely did not get as much love as it should have. I related to that reader-insert the most, and I wish I had been able to keep up with the updates more regularly. And I CANNOT wait to see what you cook up with the new Soldier Boy fic once Vought Rising comes out. Hold Me Tighter Than You Can reinvigorated my obsession with our favorite grey area supe.
What’s one (or more) of your favorite pieces you’ve done?
Ooh, hard question. All of my fics hold a special place in my heart, but in no particular order:
Take Me Back to Eden—Dean Winchester x Tori Marchetti (OFC)
So, this one is fairly new—it only started posting last month—but this one is hands down my favorite. I have spent so much time and put blood, sweat, and tears into it. There are plenty of one-shots of in-world and AU snapshots of their story post TMBTE, and even a mini series AU into the world of Dean and Tori.
Cowgirl Casanova—Dean Winchester x F!Bartender!Reader
This fic is probably my favorite reader insert that I've done thus far. Eventually, I'll write a part two to this one. I think it deserves it.
Adjustment Protocol—Soldier Boy x Odessa Albrecht (OFC)
This one I did for @zepskies 5k Follower Celebration. I had done only smut for Ben prior to this, so I really enjoyed writing something with a little more characterization with him.
Rendezvous' and Reminiscing—Soldier Boy x Odessa Albrecht (OFC)
Another of my non-explicit fics with Ben. This one was heavily inspired by a scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and was a lot of fun to write. Odessa and Ben have a lot of backstory in this one.
If you could go back and redo any works, which one would it be and how/why would you change it?
Hmm, another good question. Overall, I really would like to go back and rewrite most of my entries from Kinktober 2024. I had just started writing smut at the time and definitely think they could use an overhaul and they would be 1000% better.
Individually, I think Just A Note deserves a facelift. I'd go back and add more context and more stakes for the relationship between the reader and Dean.
What’s a piece that you’re super proud of but don’t feel like it got as much attention as you were hoping for?
Sheesh, there's a couple. I write a lot of OC, so a lot of them don't get as much traction as reader insert, which is pretty disheartening, but I suppose that is the nature of the beast.
We're Dying to Live and We're Living to Die—Logan Howlett x Morana Leeds (OFC)
This one didn't get advertised, which is completely on me, but I was really proud of it. I also don't think the X-Men/Wolverine fandom has a huge presence (or at least one for OC's) in general.
I'm Feelin' Good—Soldier Boy x Unnamed OC/F!Reader
This one was a precursor to my fics with Odessa. It doesn't have any indication who it is, so it could be read as a reader insert, which maybe put some people off.
Go Back to Strangers—Stanford Era!Dean Winchester x Librarian!Reader
This is a reader insert, so I'm not sure what happened with this one, but maybe since it was a hurt/no comfort it's not as many people's tea. I really liked this one though.
Which piece did you pour your heart and soul into (more so than everything else)?
Highway to Hell—Dean Winchester x Tori Marchetti (OFC)
I spent a lot of time on this one. I really wanted to capture some domesticity with these two.
We're Dying to Live and We're Living to Die is another. I struggle with my mental health quite a bit, and getting to have a character where I could express some of my struggles through was both freeing and terrifying. Tori from TBMTE also shares a lot of my struggles, but I feel I really poured myself into.
What piece do you hold closest to your heart and why?
Take Me Back to Eden 1000%. I spent 3 years on development for this one, plus so many one-shots fleshing out my OC and her story with Dean. Their relationship is one I will never stop going back to, even once their origins are fully posted. There are so many possibilities for stories to fit in.
What's something you included in one (or more) of your works that you wished more people noticed?
I'm not sure if it's stuff that isn't noticed really, but I put a lot of effort into staying close to the lore of the show, and also any lore I include mythology-wise. The door numbers Dean and Sam are in in the MOL Bunker, the vehicles John and Dean drive in one fic, the method of torture Ben endured, to name a few. This is probably like, the bare minimum, but I do it to try and really ground the readers in the world.
What's a piece you wrote because you wanted to try something totally new?
Keep Dreamin' and Dark Schemin'—Homelander x F!Reader
No Mercy (Show Me How You Love)—Homelander x F!Reader
One Way or Another, I'm Gonna Find You—Demon Dean x F!Reader
These three are probably the most controversial/dark fics I've written to date. I wanted to try and write some more taboo fics for 2025's Kinktober (Free Use, Primal Play, and Gun Play, respectively, all with heavy themes of Dubcon). Surprisingly, Keep Dreamin' is the post with the most notes on my blog thus far (1.4k) notes at the time I am making this.
What’s something you’re working on right now that you’re super excited to share?
Obviously, Take Me Back to Eden is posting; weekly updates on Tuesdays.
Part two to One Way or Another is in the works, albeit on hiatus at the moment.
I am also working on two gen fics with Sam and Dean. One is based on the song Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan featuring Stanford Era!Dean who gets pulled over drunk and calls Sam, only for him not to answer. The other is based on a song, this one is Where the Wild Things Are by Luke Combs in a Non-hunter AU where Dean is the first to leave. That one has a lot of angst (which you can guess if you've ever heard the song)
NPT (sorry if you have already been tagged): @copperboom82
Summary: When Ben needs distraction, you’re willing to give it to him. By now, you think you both know the score.
AN: Oooh, here we are. I haven't seen 5x05 yet (later today for sure), but of course what we've gotten from season 5 so far gave me a new idea for a potential Soldier Boy series. Here’s a taste. 😘💚
Word Count: 1.4K
Posted on Patreon: April 26, 2026
Tags & Warnings: (18+) Set loosely in the past (40s) and present (5x04 spoiler); angst, PTSD, hurt/comfort, smangsty smut
▶️ Now Playing: “So Here We Are” by Gordi (Spotify)
Christ, at this point, just fucking kill me.
It was almost a prayer.
He didn’t allow the words to escape his lips, didn’t want to give these sadistic fucks the satisfaction. But the truth was, Ben would rather be flayed alive than whatever this was.
What you will become, is just a better version of yourself, Clara had said, as her soft, perfect hand ran up his arm, and her eyes made even more promises than her mouth. Where was that sweet smile now?
He felt every molecule of this poison running through his veins, eviscerating his human cells, mutating into new ones like cancer. At speed. The air was dank and cold in the lab, but his entire body was pulsing and molten from the inside out. His skin was hardening to compensate, muscles tearing and solidifying all at once.
He was strapped down to this gurney like an animal, but he wasn’t fucking special. Even now, with that pulsing in his ears and other deafening sounds of his own agony, he could hear Quinn. That bastard was fighting his own battle.
He was strong, though. He had been from the beginning, unlike Ben. No amount of charm or devil-may-care could hide that here.
Only now was he able to choke out that confession—to be fucking pitiful and beg for it to stop.
Too late now.
His ears sharpened again, like the crackle of old vinyl and screeching tired. He winced, screwing his eyes shut. He began to hear you too, like tuning a car radio to the wrong frequency. Somehow, your agonized voice drowned out all the others.
Ben woke with a jolt in the dark.
A line of cold sweat broke down the side of his temple as his chest moved shallowly with his breaths. Looking to his left, he realized he had the corner of the wooden nightstand crumpled into splinters in his hand. The ruins of Fort Harmony had knocked more than a few memories loose, most of them nightmares he’d long ago swallowed with vices and distractions.
“Ben,” you said, quiet and steady.
His head turned to you before he fully registered where he was.
Relief. It made his bones heavy. For a split second, he wasn't sure if you were a phantom of the past as well. But you sat up, and your flesh and blood hand fell on his bare chest. It was hot and sweaty to the touch—too hot, in the mildly radioactive sense.
“You okay?” you asked, with knowing eyes.
“Fine,” he croaked, slowly sitting up with you.
Your head tilted slightly as you watched him, not without sympathy.
“You sure that’s what you wanna go with?” you asked.
His brows knitted in immediate irritation.
“I’m fucking fine,” he growled.
You firmed in response, but you didn’t react. You just stared back at him, a silent challenge. You and Ben might’ve spent too many years of your long lives apart, but you still knew him. And he still knew what bullshit you wouldn’t accept.
Eventually, his breathing began to calm. The longer you sat together in silence, the more the storm quelled inside him. You felt the heat of him cool like embers, but not entirely. You heard the low hum of that nuclear reactor housed his chest cavity. The reminder stabbed at the sorrow, and even the spark of guilt that lived inside you.
Ben reached out and framed your jaw with his hand. Believe it or not, it was gentle, veering toward affectionate as his hand moved down. His middle finger traced a cigar burn you once had along your neck. It was the mark of a life you left behind a long time ago, before you were remade.
You were frankly surprised he remembered it. But you also knew then what he was thinking. Not that you couldn’t guess. Seeing Quinn, a shell of himself, and a tormented creature of hate, had rattled you too.
You took Ben's hand and pressed a kiss into his palm. Then your lips skimmed down the length of his pointer finger and nipped playfully.
His lips tugged upward. You always did know how to get his head in order.
He pulled you in for a demanding kiss. You let him take what he wanted, what he seemed to need, even though he’d never fucking admit it. You would let him, because despite everything he’d done, you’d been complicit in a lot more than you acknowledged back then.
This man didn’t have many honest saves under his belt, but you, strangely, were one of them.
So you let him swallow your tired sigh as your hand smoothed up the familiar path of his arm, over every dip and cord of muscle. You raked your nails through his hair and lured his tongue into your mouth. He held you to him with unshaking strength, turned you onto your back and moved between your thighs, where he fit so well.
His clothes and yours were already discarded memories on the bedside floor, so nothing stopped his fingers from seeking between your legs, finding your clit and working you up to slick arousal. It didn’t take long.
He used your moans and needy whimpers as guiding signs, and took the time to lick your sweet wetness off each of his fingers, like the sticky remnants of a Jolly Rancher.
When he finally slid home inside you, it took you back several decades, when the world was a very different place. And yet, the darkness had always been there. The packaging had just seemed more genuine, at times daintier, more wholesome.
But you were also grateful for the present—not only because this man was the only one strong enough and skilled enough to fuck you like he meant to make you feel it for the next year.
His thrusts punched the air from your lungs and tested the metal bedframe’s limitations, but only because he knew you could take it. You were almost as strong as him. Your thighs wrapped around his sides hard enough to make him feel like he was trapped in a goddamn vice.
There were a couple of other things in your arsenal that he didn’t have, but tonight, your main weapon of choice was the gentler hand you caressed along his cheek. You were admittedly still getting used to the beard. It was growing on you though. It was sharp, handsome, roguish.
He wasn’t the boy you met, all cocky swagger and selfish desires. This was the man, hardened and jaded and angry, maybe even bitter. But there might just be enough of the man you knew too, underneath these sordid layers of stoicism and bravado.
Your thumb drew across his parted lips before you leaned back up to kiss him, deeply, thoroughly. Almost a claim.
He held onto you as well as the headboard. In fact, he pulled you flush against him, allowing your clit to find more friction as his strokes hit deeper, making you shudder and tremble.
His name was what fell from your lips as you gasped and gushed hard on his cock. He grabbed a fistful of your hair as he shouted his own release into the crook of your neck, his teeth biting into your shoulder.
“Jesus, Ben,” you uttered. You clung to his back and broad shoulders, heaving for breath along with him.
"Fucking right, sweetheart. Still fit me like a goddamn glove," he rumbled. Though a smirk spread across his face as he pulled back. "You better not shave this pussy again, you hear me? If I'm not wading through a fucking forest, it's too damn easy."
You had to laugh, albeit breathlessly. He wasn't a fan of the modern trends. You didn't mind; less work for you.
His body was large and heavy and nearly suffocating you on the bed, but you wouldn’t say anything just yet. His fingers were still tangled in your hair. His gaze roamed your face, then caught on your eyes. You wished mind reading was one of your powers, so you could crack that coconut of his and hear what he was thinking when he looked at you like that.
Even as he leaned down, you didn’t expect the slowness of his kiss, or the way you melted underneath him.
Damn it, you thought, as your heart pulsed painfully.
He likely still had it, after all this time. The question was, did this mean you finally had his?
AN: What do you think? Should I explore this little plot bunny further, especially when Vought Rising comes around? 😜❣️
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Ohh you know I love me some smutty angst and as per usual you did not disappoint!
If you do end up pursuing that plot bunny, you know I'll be all for it!! This new season really has given us some good material to work with, and with Vought Rising coming soon, all of us Soldier Boy writers are gonna have a field day!
Thank you so much for the birthday wishes and the lovely moodboard above!!
Again, I love how you based it on It’s Not A Big Deal! That still stands as one of my favorite fics to write. Something about writing Dean when he’s angry and petty and jealous is absolutely wonderful to me! I’m drafting out the follow up with IT!girlie and a possible follow up crossover because Ben driving Dean nuts gives me life (hopefully the muse will stick around long enough for me to get it out lol).
And of course I have to love everything green because it’s my favorite color and just so happens to be a certain someone’s eye color 🤭
Thank you so much again! And I hope your birthday the other day was filled with lots of smiles and loads of cake 🎂
Angry and jealous Dean is just so delicious! The way you convey that in It's Not A Big Deal is just the cherry on top! If the muse sticks around, I am VERY much looking forward to the follow up with IT!Reader. Also, the idea of TWO versions of jealous Jensen characters facing off, ughggggg, will make me combust!
Chapter Tags/Warnings: Heavy angst, graphic descriptions of murder, graphic descriptions of gore/violence, talk of eating disorder (ARFID), talk of emetophobia, vomiting, self-harm (nails cutting into palms), hurt/comfort, Tori has extremely low self-esteem
Chapter Summary: Things come to a head as Dean confronts Tori about her past upon her return to the bunker
Word Count: 5.6k
Author's Note: Title from Chokehold by Sleep Token
Tag List: @copperboom82 @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
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Tori almost missed the turn off for the driveway. In her defense, it was dark and the last time she had to pay attention to it, she had been on foot and not high up in the cab of a semi.
The truck shuddered to a halt, hissing breath from the exhaust. The driver, a man old enough to be her grandfather with grey hair and sun-wrinkled skin, peered past her through the window and to the gravel road leading into pitch darkness.
“You’re sure you want me to drop you off here?” He asked, voice full of skepticism.
Tori had already unlatched her seatbelt, twisting in the seat to grab her bags. “It’s a long driveway. No place for you to turn around.”
While the thought of walking alone, in the dark, down a deserted road wasn’t exactly her idea of a fun Thursday night, it was what laid at the end of it that made her balk.
Best case scenario, Sam and Dean weren’t there and she could collect her stuff in peace; she could be in and out without them even knowing until she was, ideally, states away.
Worst case, which given her run of luck was also the most likely, they’d already be there and what would follow had too many scenarios for her to count them all.
That part made her twitchy, and genuinely considering telling the driver ‘fuck it’ and to just keep trucking until they ran out of road.
It’d always been that way. She’d gone toe to toe with men and monsters alike without a second thought; physical violence wasn’t scary to her anymore.
But the Winchesters, they liked to talk. There wasn’t a scenario she could run that didn’t end in words being exchanged. The intensity of how those words were exchanged varied depending on who she was exchanging them with, but it remained the same regardless.
“Are you in some kinda trouble?”
“Not the kind you’re thinking.” Tori offered him a small smile, though shame stuck in her throat at his concern.
“If you say so,” he sighed. “Careful on the step down.”
Grabbing her bags, Tori slipped out the door, minding her footing while she climbed down. Banging on the door twice, she faced the long driveway ahead of her.
The truck rumbled behind her, pulling back onto the road, and she pulled a flashlight from the side pocket of her backpack. Rolling her shoulders back, she pushed ahead, placing one foot in front of the other.
The bunker in the dead of night was a whole lot creepier than it had been in the daytime. Already she wanted out of there as soon as possible, the watched feeling creeping up her spine to make her hand stand on end only exacerbated that want tenfold.
Navigating the winding hallways was easier this time, the brief time spent here between her motel room and leaving for Tennessee had helped familiarize her to the route from the garage to her room. Despite that, she still found herself turned around, partially preoccupied by the eerie silence.
With the slight curve to some of them, and the abundance of corners to turn, the part of her who’d seen way too many horror movies and hunted way too many horrific things was just waiting for a pickaxe wielding maniac or vengeful spirit to pop up.
Eventually, after a few wrong turns, she found the room she’d stayed in. She sighed a small breath of relief when everything appeared to be the exact same as how she’d left it. She didn’t really know what either brother would have done while she was gone, but the thought of them having their hands on her stuff more than they had already, made annoyance flare within her chest.
Bags dropping heavily to the floor, her shoulders rounding in with a weary sigh. Sleeping hours had been few and far between, not that they would have been restful given that when she was able to sleep, she’d awake by bolting upright in bed soaked in sweat.
Luckily for her depleted levels of energy, she hadn’t really unpacked when she stayed the night. Aside from a few books she’d started to set out and a few stray dirty clothes she hadn’t bothered to pick up, everything remained in her bags.
And her sketchbook.
It sat stark against the otherwise unoccupied desk, the cover was closed and stickers of all kinds adorned the surface. Sketchbook #97: the current vessel for all her drawings, full effort or otherwise. 1-98 were locked up safely in a storage unit she mailed monthly payments to, registered under a false name of course, along with bigger or more valuable items she couldn’t or wouldn’t carry with her on a regular basis.
Scooping it up, she shoved it into her backpack alongside her mythology compendiums, her pencils still squirreled away in another bag somewhere. She would worry about where, exactly, later. For now the focus was on making sure everything was cleared from the room.
In a way, it wasn’t much different than cleaning up a motel room the morning of check out.
Search under the bed for any stray socks or underwear? Check.
Strip the bed, balling the sheets up and placing them in a giant heap on the mattress? Check
Ensure all her bags were zipped shut and nothing she hadn’t arrived with had made its way into her things? Check. The last thing she wanted was to have them hunt her down because god forbid she accidently took a fucking pencil that didn’t belong to her.
Tori ran on autopilot, going through the motions and using every ounce of Tetris skill to fit everything in her bags. Exhaustion was a heavy blanket over her, both mind and body. Every reach and lift dragging on. Even the securing of zippers took effort.
Here she was, wanting to get gone, but not seeming to be able to move fast enough for her own liking.
Grunting, she tossed her second duffle onto the bed beside its twin and her two backpacks. Seeing just how little she had to her name, what little substance filled her life, was always sobering.
She brushed the too familiar thought away like sweeping up dust bunnies and wound the tail of her braid around her finger. It was getting long, her hair brushing the small of her back when it was loose.
Somewhere in her mess of things were a pair of shears. At some point she’d need to trim up the edges, the ends splitting and snarling whenever she attempted to drag her hairbrush through it; the object also lost within the Mary Poppins bag wannabe her backpack had become.
Okay, stuff’s gathered up. Next stop: bathroom. Sitting in the semi for six hours had not been kind on her body nor on her bladder. Now that her stuff was gathered here, she’d be on the road again, and there was no telling when the next time she’d find a place to relieve herself was going to be.
As she made her way back from the bathroom, her steps faltered when she spied her door, that she knew she’d shut behind her on her way out, was now ajar.
Her heart kicked against the inside of her ribcage, pounding throughout her head at her temples, and all of a sudden the idea that something being here with her didn’t seem so fantastical anymore.
Drawing her knife from its sheath at the small of her back, her fingers found the shallow divots worn into the leather that encapsulated the handle. They’d been there long before the blade had ever come into her possession, but it fit in her hand perfectly.
It was perfect in weight and balance, and it had done what no person had ever done for her. It never failed her. Often, she wondered if it had always served its previous owners as well.
Stupidly, her pistol was still inside, tucked in beside her other hunting paraphernalia. Granted, there were only a handful of monsters that the pistol would do better against as compared to her knife.
The knife, at least she assumed, was silver. Her supply of silver bullets was running low, so the magazine loaded into the gun had regular ammo.
It was little comfort, but comfort nonetheless, that one of the rings she wore on her left hand was made of iron. That meant though, it was a last ditch effort, and not a fallback she ever had to—or wanted to—use. Relying on punching a spirit was not on her bucket list.
The shallow thuds of her boots sounded supersonic, her mouth twisting into a grimace with every slow and calculated step towards the door. Every scenario, every possible move she could make ran through her head. It was a whirlwind of what if’s and do I’s.
Ram the door open. No, idiota, ease it. Knife up. No, keep it low so you can angle it up. Between the third and fourth rib, or slash when you can. If it’s a spirit, then you’re fucked, so let’s hope it’s not that.
The wood was cool against her clammy palm when she placed a shallowly trembling hand to it. The little sliver it was left open, a few inches at most, yielded nothing. No indicator of who or what laid beyond. Steeling herself with a deep breath and readjusting her grip on the handle of her knife, even though it sat right the first time, Tori eased the door inward.
Creaking on its old hinges, the door swung open to reveal Dean, perched on the edge of her bed, his elbows braced on his knees.
“Gonna leave without saying goodbye?” He said, a vaguely amused expression painted on his face.
Mouth hardening into a line, relief and ire replaced any traces of fear in her veins. She shoved the door the rest of the way open, and it slammed against the stopper with a bang.
“I should fucking stab you, you fucking creeper.”
She should. She really really wanted to. Blood beyond boiling at his sudden, and unwanted, appearance, especially following everything that had transpired in Tennessee, she assessed him with contempt
When she’d finally made her way back to the motel room, feet aching like a bitch from the walk after all the steps she’d accrued throughout the day, they’d long since cleared out. Her stuff had been unceremoniously deposited onto the floor beside the door, and the Impala missing from the parking lot.
Instead, using this as a lesson in self control, she lifted the hem of her shirt—a ratty hand-me-down Chevrolet t-shirt—and slipped the knife back into its sheath, clipping the strap that went around the handle to secure it.
“Yeah, you’d just love that, wouldn’t you,” he shot back.
Tori stormed towards the bed, scanning her luggage for any open zippers he may have tampered with. “What the fuck is that supposed it mean, Winchester?”
She felt him stand, close enough to be just shy of her arm brushing his chest. Refusing to meet his gaze, which she could feel daggering into her, she double checked everything was closed and ready for transport.
“Aren’t you at all curious about where we went after Nashville? If we found anything?”
“No, not particularly. But I have a feeling you are going to tell me anyway.” She reached out, aiming to grab her backpack.
Her hand never made it to the shoulder strap.
Tori flinched as his hand shot out, grabbing her wrist over the bracelets tied around it. One of them was white, pink and blue, the same color beads taking up most of the circumference. The second was one of purple, green and brown, the threads plaited together in a simple cord.
She tried to yank her hand from his grasp but it was set around her wrist like a vice. Jaw set, she turned her head to look at him now.
His face was unreadable and that was somehow more destabilizing than if his face was full of rage.
Rage she knew. Rage she could handle. All her adult life she relied on her ability to use the expressions of those around her to project their actions, to detect lies. But he gave nothing away, telegraphed none of his intentions through green eyes nor stubbled jaw.
“Tell me about Alice.”
Something akin to a bear trap snapped shut across her chest, and no longer could she draw in a breath. It was tight and it was suffocating and Dean was standing there expressionless with his hand on her wrist and she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.
Nothing in her could stop her face from going slack. She could feel the blood draining from under the skin, no doubt turning her ashen when the memories started to flood in.
Turns out, that Grade A padlock could be smashed right open with the right sledgehammer made of words.
It was not at all secure, not when blood started to coat her hands and arms in sickly warm splotches.
Not when her bones began to vibrate deep in the muscle, reverberating like she’d struck something hard the wrong way.
And definitely not when screams surrounded her, sounding loud enough to be right in her ears.
“Let me go,” Tori said while trying to pull her arm back again, hating the way her voice came out so hoarse
Dean didn’t budge, and bile started to climb up her throat, her stomach roiling. “Not until you tell me. Not until I get the truth. All of it.”
She swallowed hard, but the sour taste intensified, thin saliva flooding her mouth in her body’s way of protecting it from what was coming next. “I’m gonna fucking puke. Let me go.”
There was little resistance this time when she went to yank her wrist from his grasp. Stomach tied up in knots, Tori wheeled around, frantically searching for the trash bin she’d spied in there before.
No sooner had she dropped to her knees and hunched over it, did her body betray her. There was a half second she was able to use to angle her body away from Dean, maintaining at least a bit of her dignity while she retched up her gas station dinner and less than savory memories.
The list of things she hated was not a short one. Vomiting, though, had to be pretty high up on it. As a kid, she’d go out of her way to avoid puking, usually to her detriment. She’d never gotten to the point of hospitalization, but from what she remembered, she probably should have been at least once.
She’d missed birthday parties and family meals because the cake looked off or the chicken, to her, looked a little too pink, or the date on the can of tomatoes her mom would use was just too close to the expiration date
Of course, living off of a hunter’s salary meant the meals she had to eat, the muscle she had to grow to do the job without getting herself killed, required she get over that fear pretty quickly.
It hadn’t been a smooth road. Not at all in the slightest, and she still avoided many foods and situations where it would cause her to puke. At least now she didn’t have anyone in her ear complaining about it.
It was maybe one of the reasons she always kept her hair up and out of her face. There was no way she was going to ask Dean to hold her hair back, not that she had much time between fits of retching to do so even if she wanted to.
He may not have held her hair back, but her body shuddered away from him when he dragged a hand across her back unexpectedly, snapping her out of the disgust of her heaving.
“Would you stop fucking touching me!?” Tori shrugged his hand off her shoulder, abandoning her death grip on the metal bin to shove him away.
Her palm met the muscled wall that was his chest, and in spite of her temporarily shakened state, it hit squarely in the middle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw and felt him shuffle back, standing straight to balance.
She wiped the strings of spit and bile from her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to suppress the gag that came with it.
“Do you want water?” Dean asked, stepping back.
Not trusting her voice, Tori gave a single, shallow nod. Setting the trash bin to the side, she leaned back against the wall, letting the cool brick seep into her flushed skin. Numbness had spread to every part of her now, dulling her like shoving cotton balls in her ears.
The flashbacks had stopped, purged up along with the contents of her stomach, but Dean had violently tore open a wound she thought she’d sutured shut tight.
She wanted to believe he hadn’t wanted it to be a vicious affair, but she knew better. It was the same tactic she used when talking with the victims of a monster to see how much they knew, if maybe they had something to do with it.
He wanted her raw reaction, regardless of how raw it left her, and he’d gotten it. She wanted to resent him for it, but the logic in her brain meant seeing exactly why he had. Somehow, whatever way he’d found out about Alice, he needed her reaction to be real, not rehearsed and avoidable.
A clear glass full of water came into her vision, having stared off into space at the foot of the bed. Tori blinked, looking up at him while she took it from him. She swished a small amount around in her mouth, spitting it into the trash with her puke.
“You saw Bobby.” She took a small sip, putting her mouth on a different part of the rim this time.
It wasn’t really a question, rather a verbalization of her suspicions after piecing the puzzle together.
Dean nodded anyway, taking a seat on the bed across from her. The pride in her balked at the difference in elevation, but her still shaky legs were not in a place to transfer her up to the desk.
“How is he?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“And you’re a dick.”
Dean nodded his head to the side in silent agreement to her statement. He had a point. She was avoiding the question.
Taking a deep breath, her thumbs tracing the lines in the glass, she began.
“I was 24, living with Alice in New York. She was working at the hospital as a nurse in L&D while still in school. She wanted to be a midwife,” Tori started, looking anywhere but Dean’s face. “I’d finished my undergrad already, working three jobs, and she and I decided we needed a night to ourselves. To be stupid twenty-somethings.”
The more she talked, the more the chest creeped open. She could vividly remember that night. The sickly sweet perfume Alice had sprayed on, nearly gassing them out of the bathroom in their shared apartment. Neither one of them had wanted to roll the dice with random roommates, having had enough horror stories from their first two years in school to fill a book.
Alice had gone to a different university, but the weekend debriefs had detailed enough. So, once they both graduated, and Alice moved onto her Master’s, they had found this tiny two bedroom apartment within a decent distance from the school.
Her friend's laughter had filled the apartment as they got dressed. Makeup had been scattered across the bathroom sink, clothes strewn about both their bedrooms. Tori could still remember the tawny gold of Alice’s hair under their shitty bathroom fluorescence, and how different it had looked under the club’s neon lighting later in the night.
And she remembered how it looked, saturated in dark crimson, turning it auburn.
“It was like, one in the morning, neither of us having to work the next day. The streets were basically deserted since it was before bar close.” Tori took another small sip of water, soothing her aching throat that burned from the bile. “She ducked into one of the alleys, saying it was faster. I was drunk enough to not care, so I followed her.”
The alley had smelled of piss, vomit, and bad decisions. It was dark and the heels Alice had convinced her to wear—stillettos instead of a chunkier heel that she was used to—kept throwing her off balance.
At the time, she was most concerned with the blisters she’d no doubt have come the next day, and that waiting tables with them would be the end of her.
“That was the last time things were normal.” Despite her best efforts, Tori heard her voice crack.
She kept her eyes straight in front of her, focusing on the side of the bed, but they darted to the side as Dean leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his wide spread legs.
Her chest shuddered as she took a breath, preparing herself to rip the bandaid off what came next.
“One second I was laughing at some stupid joke she made, the next…I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like…it was like someone poured liquid nitrogen down my throat. I was hot and cold and in agony. Then I couldn’t move, and I was…floating within myself. Like, I could see and everything, but I wasn’t seeing. I was watching through my eyes.”
She felt a tear slip down her cheek, but there wasn’t enough fight left in her to reach up and wipe it away. It was like she was being flayed, forced to peel back the armor that’d kept her safe for so long, revealing the raw and exposed surface beneath. It was awful, and every word came out halting and unsure.
There had been so many sensations that she endured, especially after getting into hunting, but that, the feel of a demon slipping itself into her body, into her mind, hands down was the worst.
It was violating, and nothing had ever come close to it. Not being covered almost head to toe in ectoplasm from a particularly nasty spirit, not coming within an inch of her life after a werewolf nearly eviscerated her, leaving jagged scars on her stomach.
“I wasn’t in control of my body. It moved, but I was trying not to,” she explained, forcing the words out of her mouth, another tear joining the first. “I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t stop me, from grabbing a rusted pipe from beside one of the big trash bins, from walking up behind her and bringing it down so fucking hard on her head.”
Blood had sprayed everywhere, and the impact had zinged up her arms painfully. Sickenly, it was way too similar to the time her brothers and Alice had gone to the ballpark to hit off a few baseballs and the bat hit the ball the wrong way. Her forearm had been screaming in pain for a few minutes after that, though her pride was more wounded at her brothers’ laughter.
“I couldn’t even close my eyes, look away. I had to watch, I had to feel her…” Tori cut off harshly, her teeth digging into her cheek against the ache of tears in her throat. “I had to feel myself bash her skull into nothing. I can still hear the sound of it.”
Blood had coated her arms, her face, her hands. The demon had ripped part of Alice’s dress off, using it to wipe the makeshift murder weapon of her prints.
“Then…then it all went black. The demon, it shut me out, put me to sleep. What it did after, I have no memory of. The next time I woke up, I was back in control of my body and I was tied to a chair with Bobby and his friend in front of me. They told me that it was a demon that possessed me, and before they exorcised it, it called itself Belial.” Tori paused, taking a breath. “I was cut up and bruised, but that thing, it was gone. But that was weeks after what I, what it, did to Alice.”
The next few months after waking up there had been a blur. Everything had been so…empty. Bobby had been kind enough to take care of her, even when she was awful.
That was a kindness she could never fully repay in a thousand lifetimes.
There wasn’t a minute of any day she knew without a doubt she wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for him and what he did for her those few months following everything
“I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your empty ‘I’m sorry’s,” Tori said, her voice going empty as she came back into her body. “That’s all of it. I hope it was everything you were hoping for.”
Silence stretched between them, the water glass long forgotten on the floor beside her.
A dull throb ebbed from her hands, and when Tori looked down at them, her fingernails, which were painted in chipped blue polish, had dug so harshly into her palms they’d created small crescent moon-shaped wounds that were leaking blood. The new cuts were layered over faded lines of the same shape, tiny ridges of scar tissue overlapping one another.
Tori paused, picking at the peeled nail polish. Her legs finally felt steady enough to slip under her, to carry her again. So she tried it. In unsteady motions she climbed to her feet, placing the half empty glass on the desk.
She swiped at her cheeks angrily, ridding them of the few tears that had escaped down them. She didn’t cry often, the grief manifesting itself throughout her body in other way.
An all too familiar darkness started to coil in her chest, hatching from the pain in her palms. The shadowed voice of want called out to her, wanting more—more pain. It started out faint at first, easily pushed to the side, but she knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. It never did, not on a good day. She didn’t even want to think of how intoxicating it would become after that.
Monster, it whispered to her, repeating it over and over. Monster, monster, monster.
Reaching for her bag, a sense of deja vu washed over her when Dean stood again, only this time he didn’t reach for her. Small miracles, she supposed.
“Where are you going?” His voice had softened in that sickly downy soft kind of pity way that sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“Leaving. Like I was doing when you decided to randomly fucking appear in here.”
“Why?”
There was sincere confusion within the singular word, which in turn had her brows furrowing. Why would he care if she left?
She turned to him, bringing herself to look him in the face. “What do you mean, ‘why’? You made it clear last week you don’t need or want my help.”
Dean shoved his hands into his pockets, sighing with an exasperated look. “I think we both said things in Nashville we regret. Sam and I, especially after finding jack-shit at Bobby's, need your help. You’re the only one who’s had contact with this bastard.”
Boy, wasn’t that the truth.
Regret had nipped at the heels of the words she said as soon as they left her mouth. In no way did she wish that the brothers would have died in the barn with the vamps. She was scared, and when that happens, the default is to lash out. That just happened to be the first, and the most painful, thing that came out.
“We meant what we said the first time. Come stay here while we track Belial down,” he added.
Disbelief was the first stop her train of emotions had. They wanted her here? In this veritable beacon of what was closest to safety there probably was out there? And even after what she’d just confessed. Not even the priest in the church back home would say she could be saved.
Sam and Dean, they had blood on their hands, sure, but she was covered in it, blood so dark it was black. They had something stable, something good here. She’d only taint it with tragedy. Dirty, half-rate motels were where she belonged, not this sanctuary.
“This is your home, Winchester. I can’t stay here. I’m not good at…this.” She gestured around them.
“At what?”
“At…normalcy. At domesticity. At,” she stuttered. “I don’t know. At being around other people.”
“Swe—” Dean started, but then stopped, probably remembering their conversation at Friends in Low Places. “Tori. None of us are good at any’a that. But at this point, all’a that doesn’t matter. What matters right now, is finding a way to kill Belial. And that is gonna be a whole lot easier if we are all in one place.”
Fuck…I hate it when he’s right.
“I can get Sam in here,” Dean sighed. “He’s better at this shit than I am.”
He ran a hand through his hair, looking around to the door and into the hallway beyond. As she looked at him, taking the opportunity of his distraction, Tori could for the first time really see the desperation in his eyes. Not for her to stay, but for what was on the line.
She didn’t know specifics of what Crowley had meant by killing the people the brothers had saved, but more death of people who didn’t deserve it was something to avoid at all costs.
“Where is Sam, anyway?” She asked, letting the strap of her backpack go, leaning away from the bed.
Dean’s eyes darted to her hand, then back up to her face. The unspoken agreement to stay, at least for the time being, loosening some of the tightness around his mouth and his eyes in relief.
“I don’t know. His room maybe. Or the library, cross-referencing the books we read at Bobby’s to the ones we have here.”
“You never did answer my question. How is the old man?”
He nodded. “He’s good. A bit lonely, but I think he likes it that way.”
Tori’s mouth quirked up a bit at that, but it wavered and fell just as fast. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”
She turned to the bags on the bed. “Well. I guess I should get my books out. And unpack. Again.”
“You can go at any point,” he assured her, a different kind of softness to it this time. This one didn’t repulse her as much as the first time did. “But it’d be cooler if you didn’t.”
She paused, mid-unzip of her backpack. Narrowing her eyes at him over her shoulder, she replied. “Did you just reference Dazed and Confused?”
His features shot up, surprise the most explicit emotion he’d shown in the last however long. “Yeah, nice catch.”
“It’s a good movie.”
“Yeah. It is.”
Tori turned back to her bag. “I’ll be there in a second. You can go tell Sam I have more books for him.”
Taking the hint, Dean dipped his head, exiting her room.
A tightness lingered in her chest. None of this she liked, all of it far beyond her comfort zone into a spot she didn’t think she would ever get used to. It loomed over her like a foreboding cloud of dread. Pair it with that siren call, that want of pain, and she knew it would be a long night.
She gathered her stash of books, carefully stacking them in her arms. Before, it would be a feat in and of itself to carry all of them, but now the weight was barely noticeable. Flipping the light off, Tori stepped into the hall, glancing both ways before deciding on going to the left.
At some point, she started following the faint sound of conversation, letting the brothers’ conversation guide her through the last few turns into the library.
Sam sat at one of the long tables, Dean taking the chair at the head of it. A lamp on the table cast a buttery soft glow onto the spread of books, some open and others closed. The tall ceilings yawned wide above her, and the stacks of books and wooden furniture welcomed her in.
“If I’m gonna stay, there’s gonna need to be a tour at some point because I can’t find my way around for shit,” she said, stepping up to the table.
Both boys’ heads popped up at her voice, Sam grinning. “I’m sure we can do that tomorrow.”
A few of the books on the table she recognized, either from ones she’d seen among the clutter at Bobby’s, some from the libraries she visited, and one or two contained within the stack she carried.
“We’re happy you decided to stay,” Sam said, reaching out a hand, offering to take a few from her.
Tori scoffed sardonically, handing him the top few. “Yeah, well, you say that now. Give it a few days.”
“Can’t be any worse than living with him,” Sam gestured to Dean.
“Hey!” The older Winchester objected, turning to his brother with an incredulous expression. “What the fuck?”
A small half smile tugged her mouth upwards while she set the remaining books on the table, careful of the ones already laid out.
“Don’t listen to him,” Dean grumbled, taking the book off the top of her stack. “He’s just pissy that he’s up past his bedtime.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Boys,” Tori interjected. “I, personally, would like to get some sleep tonight, so can we focus?”
Tori turned to the books, but not before catching Dean sticking his tongue out at Sam, the younger brother flipping him off in kind.
“Alright,” she braced her hands on the edge of the table. “Where do we start?”
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Oh my word I’m late to the party, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 🎂 I had no idea we were so close together! Mines the 28th! I hope that you had a lovely day filled with smiles, cake, and of course Dean Winchester ❤️
(Also this is @lamentationsofalonelypotato - my writing blog just happens to be my side blog)
Thank you so much!!!! Definitely had smiles and cake, and I was definitely reading some fics with Dean, though since it was my 21st I would have KILLED to go to a bar with Dean lol
Oh thats so cool! My aunts is on the 27th!
Know that I know that, be on the lookout for a little something in your inbox 👀 *rubs hands together mischievously*
Tags/Warnings: DUBCON!, Homelander is his own warning, degradation, biting, pain kink if you squint, dirty talk, fingering, overstimulation, PiV, fondling/groping, pet names, power imbalance, prostitution?, talk of bruises/hickies, allusions to stalking, vaguely morally grey reader, reader is described as slightly shorter than HL and has an IUD for the plot, but no other descriptors are used
Summary: Become a Vought Personal Household Assistant! Do your duty as an American Citizen and serve your heroes by cooking, cleaning and spending some one-on-one time with them! No task is too small, no ask too great. No previous experience required, training will be provided. And of course, discretion is greatly appreciated.
Word Count: 3.5k
Author's Note: In no way do I condone or approve of Homelanders actions within the show. All of the fics I have planned with him for the month definitely toe the line of dubious consent, so please proceed with caution and know that any real life activities should be thoroughly discussed before participating in them.
Title from the song I Feel Like I'm Drowning by Two Feet
Dividers: Line divider by @saradika-graphics; star banner found on Pintrest
Tag List: @copperboom82
Kinktober 2025 Masterlist
Main Masterlist
The ad said they were looking for a maid. Well, a ‘Personal Household Assistant’. Pressed for money, you really didn’t stop to question why Vought and its superheros would need a ‘Household Assistant’. So, you’d rationalized it as a maid and all the things that would come along with a position with that name, things that the Supes and their overinflated egos thought would be below their stations.
You were mildly surprised when you received an email following up on your application. You weren’t surprised at all by the lengthy training process nor the multitude of NDA’s you were required to sign.
What did surprise you a great amount, though, was who’s penthouse you'd be assigned to.
Never in your life had you seen so much red, white, and blue in one place. Homelander’s penthouse was like he’d designed a shrine to himself. Accented with dark leather, marble statues and a wide open balcony, you couldn’t fathom why one man would need so much room.
As outlined in your nonexhaustive list of duties presented to you in your training, a few of the tasks you would be in charge of would include changing the sheets, dusting and vacuuming. A set of instructions were included on how to clean, dry, and store his suits. Cooking was another of the major things that came with the position. You were to have them ready at predetermined times, or prepare them per his request. A document with appropriate foods and meals followed.
Right off the bat, Homelander had taken an interest in you. It was to be expected, you told yourself. You were a stranger in his space, and from the footage you saw on the news, he was a highly paranoid individual. But perhaps it was a little more than a simple interest.
Eyes that lingered just a little too long, giving you the impression that you were nothing more than a juicy steak on a plate being presented to a starved wolf. Smiles that were a little too wide, a little too bright, a little too toothy; every time he leveled one at you, your eyes were drawn to his unnaturally white canines.
Wolf indeed
The unnecessary touches came in later. Gloved hands that grazed over your lower back or hips as he passed behind you even though there was plenty of room, leaning forward too far into your space as you prepared his meals, close enough for his warm breath to fan across your neck.
Speaking of meals, he was a man on a strict regimen, one that rivaled a competitive body builder. A small book outlined what he could and couldn’t have, what to use and when to serve it. Steak and eggs with hashbrowns were for breakfast, some kind of light meal like a sandwich for lunch, and a feast fit for a king—or a god—for dinner.
Plus milk. Lots of it with every meal no matter what it was. An entire shelf of his larger than life fridge, which you were convinced was bigger than your entire kitchen at your apartment, was dedicated to it; jugs upon jugs of whole milk were to be kept stocked at all times. You couldn’t imagine that a Supe of his abilities would have a calcium deficiency, but you supposed everyone had their things.
Like a frog in a gradually heating pot of water, you didn’t know you were in too deep until it was too late for you. All the subliminal things, the touches and glances that could be explained away, all the small, calculated, dents until you realized you enjoyed him—his presence, his touch.
So the first time his glancing touches shifted to something…other, you didn’t even flinch. Not when the hand on your lower back wandered lower and lower, lingering longer until his gloved hand rested solidly on your ass. And you knew it wasn’t your imagination when his fingers curled inward, getting a fistful of your asscheek.
Not when he walked up behind you one morning when you were cooking him breakfast. The warmth of his body pressed against your back as he leaned in, peering over your shoulder. Then you felt it, the brush of his lips ghosting over the exposed skin of your neck, hair ruffling as he breathed you in. And, as if in second nature, you leaned back into it. You tilted your head in a way that bared your neck, your throat, to him.
A small, satisfied hum was his only acknowledgment, his approval. He had pulled away, rambling about something regarding the Crime Analytics Department and a hollow want replaced the space where his warmth had just been. Your brain was still short circuiting at the feel of his lips, warm and dry against your neck.
Managing to pull yourself from the temporary stupor in time, barely, to prevent the eggs from becoming overcooked, you tried not to linger on it. But trying and succeeding were two different things that were worlds apart.
It followed you like a ghost everywhere you went, in everything you did. It didn’t stop at the threshold of Vought Tower. No, it followed you to the store, the coffee shop, it followed you home. It lingered on your skin so that even after you’d showered for the night, the skin still tingled.
You weren’t completely blind to who—or what—he was. You’d seen the blood and gore on his suit and gloves when you cleaned them. You’d seen the news, witnessed that too sharp predator's gaze tinged with a possessive madness.
Gods.
Monsters.
The only difference was who is telling the story
And you were human, weak to the prospect of power. Being the object of his attention, no matter how fleeting it may turn out to be, awarded you power. Or at least some perverted kind of it.
The night that thing, that unnamed tension, finally came to a head, you’d let it happen.
Handwashing the stainless steel pans you’d made dinner in—chicken piccata and angel hair pasta—you’d been standing at the sink. While you weren’t given a uniform, you always wore the same thing: a pair of shorts, or pants when it was colder, and a t-shirt or tank top. Light, breathable, and gave mobility to make cleaning easier.
You’d come to recognize him by the whoosh of him landing on the balcony or the heavy thumps of his boots, the glass french doors usually kept open. Some days you couldn’t get him to shut up, other days he was near mute in quiet, internal contemplation. But the silence that day had nothing to do with inner turmoil. Boots on the floor was the way you tracked his progress to you. While your ears gauged where he was, you continued to scrub the pan with a washcloth, sudsy water coating your forearms nearly to the elbow.
Then, he had been behind you. Unabashed, his front had pressed against your back and you could feel the hardness of him against your lower back. In a silk smooth voice, he had told—instructed—you to keep going. So you had. You scrubbed away as his hands, still encased in his gloves, dipped in between the elastic of your shorts and your skin and pulled them down your legs, your underwear having gone with them.
You had cum twice by the time he pulled out of you, his spend starting to drip down your leg. Your grip on the edge of the sink was the only thing keeping you upright, your jelly legs threatening to give way.
It only continued from there. Some days you could anticipate it. Days when the press conferences went awry, when Stan Edgar pissed him off, or when some man named William Butcher, who you’d learned about through Homelanders ramblings, got just a little too close to bringing about his downfall.
Those were the days when you came home with bruises on your hips and hickies on your neck and shoulders, when you felt a pair of eyes on you from the darkness until long after you had crawled into bed for the night.
Others you couldn’t predict. Changing the laundry, dusting the inordinate amount of shelves in the penthouse, restocking the fridge. Any time, anywhere. Your bottoms were bullied down your legs, his fingers teasing across your pussy before the fat head of him pushed his way inside you until he was fully seated and your hips were flush against each other. The anticipation of it all flooded your panties, meaning when he did pound into you, he was met with little resistance.
It was rough, raw, unforgiving, and you ate it the fuck up.
The dryer cycle had just ended when the thump of Homelanders boots on the balcony reached your ears despite you being on the very interior of the penthouse. The publicity event must not have gone well then, you thought, which meant today was gonna be one of those days. The small, irregularly shaped bruises on your thighs and hips had just faded, but it seemed more would be replacing them before you left for the night.
A heat stirred low in your stomach, your chest tightening in anticipation. Overaware of everything, you tried your best to continue about unloading the dryer. It was mostly towels, the soft fabric pleasantly warm against your skin as you folded them all neat like, one ear on the sounds of him moving around the penthouse.
Then, there was nothing. Placing the towel from your hands into the basket, you paused. Normally, you could hear his footfalls, or hear him muttering to himself under his breath. The silence wasn’t malicious, but teasing.
A game, is what this was, you realized. A fucked up remix of cat and mouse. But you knew that part of the fun, for him at least, was you acting like you didn’t know. Like you weren’t in on it.
So back to folding towels it was. Each fold, each tuck, each sheet of fabric piled neatly into the basket you could feel was scrutinized. There was this feeling, like the hairs on the back of your neck were on end, the feeling of being watched. From where you didn’t know. You hadn’t heard the door slide open, but for a man of his stature, Homelander sure knew how to move quietly when he wanted to.
And he really must have, because your feet must have made it 6 inches off the floor when heavy hands landed harshly on your waist.
“You know,” His voice was heavy with calculation. It always was, each word measured and hanging on his tongue like it was thought out. “You really should just walk around here naked.”
Breath hitching as those hands, encased in soft leather snaked around to rest on your belly, you attempted to pull another article from the laundry basket.
“These truly are such a nuisance.” You flinched as he tugged the waistband away from your waist, only to let it snap back. “Should be able to have access to you whenever I want.”
“Don’t you already?”
You spoke now, voice barely over a whisper. Not in defiance, but in a teasing encouragement; an attempt to diffuse the bomb given skin that was Homelander, even if it took more courage than you cared to think about.
Silence was your only answer. Not an empty silence, all awkward and dangerous, but one of heat and anticipation. That was until the sound of ripping fabric replaced it as he tore both your shorts and underwear in one motion.
“That’s more like it.” His sentiment punctuated by a slap to your now bare rear.
That hand found its way back to your stomach, now resting unimpeded against your flushed skin. But, instead of resting there unmoving like it had been, his index finger traced teasing circles around your belly button. With each rotation, it traveled lower and lower until you were trembling; little tremors wracked your body, ones you were sure he could feel vibrating underneath the softness of your lower belly. Against your backside you could feel him, hard as steel, as he stepped into that empty space.
“I can hear your heart racing.” You shuddered as he leaned in, speaking directly into your ear. “Smell how wet you are.”
A pause as he nuzzled his nose into your hairline.
“Tell me, are you afraid.”
“N-”
“The truth, please.”
You loosed a breath. “Yes.”
“Good.” His lips smacked as his hand shifted even lower, those small circles finally teasing around your clit. “You should be.”
Your hips bucked up into his hand, chasing his fingers. His thick digits swirled across the sensitive bud in alternating directions, gliding easily aided by your arousal. Legs far past trembling, you felt like a baby deer trying to stay standing, bracing your hands on the edge of the dryer.
But Homelander was already there, arm spanning across your chest, big hand fondling one of your breasts as he kept you steadily upright. Between the preternatural heat radiating from his body and the pleasurable burn of arousal pulsating from your core, a haze had started to overtake you. Any rationale was left in the dust as you tuck your bottom lip in between your teeth to keep from whimpering too loudly.
“Fucking pathetic.” He mused, rolling your nipple between his thumb and index finger. “I’ve barely even touched you.”
Your lip drops from where it had been caught between your teeth, mouth dropping open with a reply, but nothing coherent came out. Not when his hand between your legs slid lower, his middle finger dipping into your entrance to the first knuckle. Curious, experimenting, it entered you just barely before sliding back out. Even though it was one digit, with the thick padding of the glove your walls dragged along every time he retreated.
Your head lolled back, resting solidly against his shoulder, as a ragged moan ripped from your throat when it finally pushed all the way to the last knuckle. The sound your pussy made as he retracted his hand, only to bully his ring finger in alongside the other one was obscene.
“Homelander.” You managed to gasp, one hand clinging to the arm he had across your chest.
“She found her voice.” He crooned. “Was beginning to think I’ve fucked you dumb.”
A sad, pathetic whimper was the only retort you could muster as that coil low in your belly began to tighten, your inner walls fluttering around his fingers. It was only spurred on when he adjusted his hand so that you were now grinding your swollen clit against his palm, the material and stitching of them providing much needed friction.
Your heavy breathing matched his, his lips not straying much from the shell of your ear. Hips bucking erratically, you pushed yourself closer and closer to that edge, needing the release. Closer and closer he guided you, curling those deft fingers up towards your belly button to stimulate that spot within you. At first he’d had a hard time finding it, but now months later, he knew all the ways that made you fall apart, using them to his—and you supposed, your own—advantage.
If it weren’t for his arm across your chest, you would have pitched forward as your orgasm ripped through you. The edges of your vision blurred as waves of euphoria cascaded through your lower belly and sent shocks up your spine.
“That’s it.” He mocked in that overly patronizing tone. “Good girl.”
If the remnants of your orgasm hadn’t sent a shiver down your back, his words definitely did.
His fingers retreat from your slick-soaked pussy, dragging a shiny trail up your belly under your shirt before pulling away. Not trusting your unsteady body, you didn’t even try to turn as he took a half step back. Not that you would, anyway. Not once did he permit you to look at him while he was inside you. You didn’t mind, much. This was transactional, mostly at least.
Again, that fire was stoked back to life as you felt him press back up against you, running the length of his cock through your folds, covering himself in your arousal. You knew the blue and red suit covering his body had a generous amount of padding built into the lining, not that he wasn’t muscular, but the suit’s physique you were sure could only be achieved by chronic use of steroids. The one part that didn’t need padding?
The thick head of him caught at your entrance as he rutted himself against you, causing both of you to moan in sync. Ten dull aches dug into your hips as he gripped them hard, finding purchase there. His shallow thrusts worked his cock in and out of your pussy until his hips sat flush against your ass. Curved just right, he sat sheathed inside you, pressed up against every sensitive part.
“Thaaaat’s it.” Voice ragged and gruff in your ear. “Open up for me, slut.”
A harsh kick to the inside of your lower legs had you spreading your stance further, sending him impossibly deeper inside of you. Then, he started to move, setting your already decimated and fucked out body on fire. You were trapped, nowhere to go between the dryer and the unforgiving pace he’d set. Too much, too soon after the first orgasm he’d coaxed out of you.
But you were just a human at the mercy of a god, so you were helpless to the tears brimming in your eyes, the wanton moans and whimpers and broken pleas that fell on his deaf ears. Body molten and pliable, he used his bruising grip on your hips to pull you back to meet every thrust.
It wasn’t long before your legs were trembling again, every time he bottomed out sending you barreling towards the edge. You tried to hold off, tried to control your breathing, Deep inhale through the nose, out through barely parted lips.
It didn’t fucking help. Not when Homelander’s teeth closed around the juncture of your neck and shoulder. You cry out, the sound tailing off to a moan as the pain of his teeth digging into your skin trails down to further stoke the fire of arousal in your belly. Pleasure rolls through your body in great waves as your second orgasm crashes over you.
But he’s not done with you. Not even close.
Your orgasm, your inner walls clamping down around his cock only spurs him on further. His groan sends vibrations through your skin before he pulls away, tongue sweeping over the indentations of his teeth.
Now it truly was too much. With a series of rapid blinks, the tears that had welled up in your eyes rolled down your cheeks in fat droplets. A sob wracked your body as his cock pounded into you, suit stimulating your oversensitive pussy and clit.
“You can fucking take it.” Homelander snarls, somehow managing to fuck into you even rougher than before.
Your hips grow sore between his unyielding grip and being pushed into the corner of the dryer with each thrust. Every sound from your mouth grows weaker, the edges of your vision blurring as the sheer amount of arousal and pleasure clouds your senses, your brain, your nervous system. Muscles and bones are replaced by jelly, pliant and complicit to his will and his needs.
Through the haze, you register his movements becoming erratic, jerky, no longer the even strokes he’d started out with. His faint grunts and groans evolved into moans and something that resembled whimpers as he slipped a hand around your throat, keeping your back flush with his chest as he came with a choked moan.
Hips grinding against your ass, warmth filled you. Not once had you considered why the Vought hiring team assured you were on some kind of long term birth control, but after the first time you were glad you had an IUD.
Only once you could no longer feel him twitching inside you did he pull his now flaccid cock from inside you. It was by some unknown miracle that you could stand mostly on your own as he reached around you to grab one of the folded washcloths to wipe himself clean.
“Thanks for the fun.” He said, that ever present chipper tone back in place as he patted you on the ass before walking away. Not long after a whoosh indicated his departure.
Using a different washcloth you cleaned yourself of his cum, which was now leaking out of you. On unsteady legs, you managed to throw both soiled washcloths in the hamper and made your way to his room, grabbing a pair of boxer briefs from his laundry and putting them on. It’s not like he’d miss them or even knew they were there in the first place. Sighing, you went back to the laundry room, the task seeming moot now.
You just huffed an incredulous laugh to yourself. “Anything I can do for America’s Hero.”
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Chapter Six: When We Were Made, it Was No Accident
Pairing: Dean Winchester x Tori Marchetti (OFC)
Chapter Tags/Warnings: HEAVY Angst, mention of murder, Dean's self loathing, Dean's drinking problem, brotherly banter/interactions, weekend at Bobby vibes, slight domestic fluff, effects of John Winchesters grade A parenting, lore dump, probably some historical/mythological inaccuracies for the plot
Chapter Summary: With Tori checking out a lead on her own, the boys take a trip up to Bobby's with the hopes of finding information on the hunt. While they are there, Dean learns some interesting information about Tori
Word Count: 5.4k
Author's Note: Title from Chokehold by Sleep Token
Tag List: @copperboom82 @zepskies @immastealurkneecaps
Series Masterlist
Main Masterlist
Singer Auto Salvage
It was practically home to him and Sam. Dad had dropped them off here often enough when they were kids before his falling out with Bobby that Dean could map out the entire junkyard on nothing but memory.
He knew where the car Sam had busted the window out of with a snowball was—that little stunt Dean had taken the fall for, making sure Sam could make it to rehearsals for the school play—the loose floorboard in his room he used to hide stolen booze and Playboy mags in, the van out back he’d lost his virginity in to Lizzy Adams his Senior year.
He knew where the squeaky floorboards were, he knew where Bobby hid the guns and the extra cases of holy water and salt, he knew that the heater screamed right before it kicked on.
It was home, but it was Bobby who made it that way.
“You know I love it when you boys come and visit,” the old man said, setting a beer in front of him and Sam. “But something tells me this isn’t you checking up on an old geezer outta the goodness of your hearts.”
Dean took a long pull off his beer, mostly to avoid answering Bobby’s questions for as long as he could. His head was still reeling from the encounter with the demons two days ago.
He and Sam had killed the first one of the duo, clocking the man trailing after Tori on her warpath. Sam managed to redirect him into the, thankfully, empty bathroom; they’d left the demon in there, sticking the body into a stall and locking the door.
They’d called the police after leaving the city, but nothing had hit the news yet about two stabbing victims. Dean figured Belial or whoever was pulling the strings wasn’t keen on having his foot soldiers being found.
A weight remained, sitting heavy in his gut.
He felt vindicated, sure, after the things the demon had alluded to with Tori in the alley and then her reaction after. But the fear on her face, the shock, it hadn’t just been remorse of getting caught. It was there, saturating her striking features.
But underneath, there was a nugget of genuine terror.
He’d been too enraged, too hopped up on the adrenaline of the hunt to care, to decipher what it meant beyond the veil of secrets kept. The rush of being right clouded whatever rational thinking he had.
So they’d left. They’d left her there in that alley standing in the blood of the demon who’d spilled her omissions.
It wasn’t until they had restocked at the Bunker for the drive to Bobby’s in the hopes that he could stop their tailspin and maybe fling them in the right direction that he started to second guess his decision, his words.
And while you’re at it, take a fucking long walk off a short pier. Dean’s neck burned red with shame every time he thought about it, the venom in which he’d spat the words at her. It didn’t matter that he didn’t mean them. He’d said them, and saw the flinch of devastation despite her nearly perfect and instantaneous attempt to mask it.
“What do you know about a demon named Belial?” Sam said, breaking Dean from his rumination. He looked up, seeing Bobby looking at him with narrowed eyes, an offset to his mouth.
Dean said a silent thanks to Chuck when the old man said nothing, turning to Sam instead. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Bobby this unnerved.
“What have you two idjits gotten yourselves into this time?” Bobby admonished, arms dropping to his sides.
Sam sat up straighter, and Dean felt his spine go rigid with the tone in which Bobby spoke. It was like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be angry with them, or scared for them. Bobby rarely raised his voice at them, even when they were kids.
Even when he did, it was worlds apart from the unbridled rage their dad would yell at them with. This, it was always born of fear, not of disappointment after they’d failed to meet unspoken and often unrealistic expectations
“Crowley,” Dean sighed, swirling the beer around. “He wants us to kill Belial, otherwise he’ll start killing the people we saved, again, starting where he left off a few years ago. Something about a power struggle and a coup…you know how he is.”
“We know he’s powerful like Azazel,” Sam added. “But every lead we’ve come across has been either a dead end, or has left us with more questions than answers.”
That’s an understatement, Dean thought, taking another swig.
“Boy,” Bobby said in that same tone. “Belial isn’t just a powerful demon like Azazel. You boys are hunting down the First Demon.”
That gave Dean pause. “Wait, what do you mean ‘first demon’?”
“I mean what I said, idjit. Belial was created at the same time as Lilith.”
Bobby held up a finger—as if they were going anywhere at this point—walking over to a pile of books on his desk. He sorted through them for a few seconds before finding whatever it was he had been looking for. Thumbing through a few pages, Dean caught the title of the book. It read Demonology and Culture: Demons Across the World.
Where had he seen that before? The title sounded familiar, it rested on the tip of his tongue but no matter how hard he tried it remained just outside of his reach.
“Created by Lucifer following his banishment to Hell, Belial was known as the Prince of Wrath, oversaw Belphagor and Alistair in the torture racks, turning human souls into demons and often shared responsibilities with his sister demon, Lilith,” Bobby read aloud, and Dean shivered at the mention of Alistair, remembering the pain whipped and cut and branded into his skin.
Bobby shut the book with a loud snap, putting it back onto the pile. “Let’s get some dinner, idjits. We’ve got us some reading in our futures.”
Dean passed Bobby another beer, coming to sit on the other end of the couch. A fire crackled in the fireplace, emitting warmth throughout the house. He remembered being barely 6, playing by the bricks laid in front of the pit and Bobby telling him to be careful not to trip and crack his skull open.
He, of course, hadn’t listened and ended up splitting his lip open. The old man hadn’t been kind when he stitched the wound closed, but he’d tucked him under his arm on the very same couch once the deal had been done anyway.
Dean remembered thinking his dad would have made him stitch it up himself, then left him to watch Sam while he drank himself into a stupor.
Sam had gone off to his room an hour ago, getting caught up on sleep after the last few days. He envied his brother, a longing hollow in his chest to let Lady Sleep overtake him as kindly as she did his brother. Instead, he remained restless, buzzing out of control.
The First Demon, Dean scoffed to himself. It was like Lilith all over again—which was apt considering Belial was essentially her brother, according to Bobby, not Azazels like Crowley had led them to believe.
It was impossible to not feel small, powerless. They’d faced some pretty nasty shit, but it was becoming hopeless fighting the hydra; no matter how hard they fought, two heads always grew back, usually worse.
“You’re not alone in this fight, kid,” Bobby reassured him, like he sensed the internal shift.
“I know,” Dean murmured back, focusing on the cold glass leaking condensation onto his hand instead of the pressure building behind his eyes and in his throat. “Just doesn't feel like enough.”
He snuck a glance at him. The old man wasn’t what he used to be. There was more salt than pepper in his hair and beard, not that he could see much of the former under the familiar ballcap. Wrinkles lined his face like a weathered map, but his eyes were still bright and clear.
The weight in his gut compounded, knowing they’d dragged him into all of this. He should have dug deeper into the Bunker archives to try and find anything that would have prevented them from having to come here, from involving Bobby. The old man deserved peace, not a place in their war.
Even with him, they had three—five if they counted Jody and Donna, whom Dean insisted would be their last line of defense—hunters against Belial.
They’d do more research in the coming days, but he wasn’t sure they’d be able to get it right, not without concrete info. That was something they needed boots on the ground for, not noses in books.
“The name Tori Marchetti mean anything to you?” Dean asked. Sam had told him her last name, and then made him promise he wouldn’t tell her that he knew. He hadn’t asked, not that it mattered.
Bobby stilled, pausing mid swallow. “Where’d you hear that?”
And so the plot thickens. “We ran into her a few days ago, said she knew you. I guess she’s been hunting Belial too. We got into it before he came here and I told her to kick rocks.”
The older hunter sighed, the sound weary. “If we are gonna get into this, I need something stronger.”
A slow, creeping sensation spread up his spine; a confirmation and dread.
He disappeared into the kitchen, coming back a few minutes later, a tumbler of what Dean could only assume was whiskey in each hand. Bobby passed one to him, reclaiming his spot on the couch. Dean set the long neck on the coffee table, holding loosely onto the whiskey glass.
“It was around the time you idjits were running around trying to prevent the 66 seals from opening,” Bobby started, and he found himself unable to give anything less than his full attention.
“Rufus and I, we saw some demonic omens cropping up in Detroit. Mostly electrical storms.” Bobby’s face grew grim, and Dean could have guessed what he was going to say next. “We got there too late. A demon had possessed this poor girl, forcing her to kill the friend she was with that night.”
His stomach churned, the whiskey in his hand long forgotten.
“We brought her back here and eventually exercised the bastard out of her, but not before it shared its name was Belial, and he was breaking one of the seals: When loyalty turns on devotee. The girl—Tori, as she told us later—had been awake the entire time. Watched through her eyes while it killed her best friend.”
Bobby’s voice wavered at that. He couldn’t remember the last time he heard that level of emotion, of impact, in the old man’s voice.
When Dean had desired the pieces of the puzzle to be fit into the picture, never in a thousand years could he have predicted this. He sure as Hell didn’t want it to be this.
But there they were, falling into place.
The haunted look on her face he couldn’t place when the demon mentioned the score Belial kept for her, her insistence on keeping up with the case, the refusal to work with them.
Each one hit him in the chest like a point blank shotgun blast, and stung worse than rock salt rounds.
But Bobby wasn’t finished.
“I kept her here for a while, taught her what I could and gave her resources for the rest. You idjits were out there sacrificing yourselves over and over, too hellbent on trying to save the world, to come over very often. Eventually, though, her need for revenge outgrew my attempts to keep her here. That was a little over 4 years ago, haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
Dean dragged a hand down his face, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. The part of him that had burned white hot with irritation and mistrust, was suddenly snuffed out.
Shame and disgust at himself swirled in his stomach, curdling his dinner. In a swift motion, he finished almost all of the liquor in his glass, hoping the burn would suppress the uncomfortable sensations.
“Fuck,” was all he could manage, the curse barely audible as he canted forward to brace his elbows on his knees, letting his head hang between his shoulders, his nearly empty glass held loosely between his fingers. “I fucked up Bobby.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
And so Dean did. He recounted how much of a dick he’d been to her, knowingly and intentionally picking fights, how he’d let Sam convince him of getting her on board, finding those demons in Tennessee, and finally him telling her to go walk off a pier.
Verbalizing and acknowledging the shitty things he’d done that he thought were justified, just made him want to puke. The emptiness of hatred, that deep, dark black hole in his chest expanded, threatening to suck him in.
“Sounds like you need to find a way to fix it,” Bobby said finally. “She might be the key to figuring this shit out.”
Dean scoffed, hating how the bit of blunt humor always worked to send him snapping out of a spiral. “Yeah, thanks a lot. Only problem is I have no idea how to do that. I don’t even have her phone number.”
“Is she going back to the Bunker?”
He shrugged. “She left stuff there before we left for Tennessee, but for all we know, she’s already cleared it out and is back in the wind.”
Bobby nodded, “Take a few days. We’ll keep going over what I have here, see if anyone else knows anything. Give her time to settle, and then if she’s not there when you go back, we can regroup from there.”
Dean didn’t need to nod, that was going to be the plan regardless if he agreed to it or not. Bobby may have phrased it like a suggestion, but it was anything but, and he didn’t want to touch his decision making skills with a 10 foot pole right now.
Bobby finished off the rest of his liquor, the ice clinking against the glass like chimes. “I’m gonna turn in.” He nodded to the fire. “Don’t burn yourself when you put it out.”
He smiled softly when Bobby reached over, ruffling his hair when he stood up. Dean watched him disappear back into the kitchen, and when the light shut off, only the firelight remained to keep the living room lit.
Setting aside the empty whiskey glass, Dean returned to his beer. It was lukewarm now, and sat muddled in his stomach but he drank it anyway. It would still help him forget.
Forget what, he didn’t know.
Nothing. Everything. Black eyes and blood, fangs and gore, dark eyes and a smile he’d only seen once, an impossible task laid before him.
When the grandfather clock resting against one wall chimed late, and the beer bottle in his hand was empty and shining in embers, Dean realized that maybe Bobby hadn’t been referring to the dying fire.
“Dude, you look like hell,” Sam looked up from his bowl of cereal as Dean entered the kitchen in search of coffee.
Dean didn’t bother replying to his brother, flipping him off with one hand and pouring himself some coffee with the other.
He felt like hell. Even after he had trudged himself off to his room, sleep had not been kind. A headache pressed behind his eyes, and he was half sure there were the beginnings of bruises on his back from the worn mattress.
It had always been too damn quiet in the house in the mornings. No music blaring from the radio, no metallic tinkering and cursing from out back. Just the low hum of the fridge and the chirp of birds who’d made their homes in the gutters.
“Where’s Bobby?” Dean asked, sitting down across from Sam.
“Store. Said he had to pick up some stuff since we’ll be here tonight.”
Dean hummed a response, trying to come up with a more efficient way to get caffeine into his system. They sat there in that alien silence, Sam munching away on his cereal while Dean flipped through the newspaper that had been left on the table.
He’d just finished the sports section when Sam rose from the table, aiming for the sink. “What are we gonna do about Tori?”
There was something about the way his brother said her name that made him look up from the paper. Sam turned from rinsing out his bowl, and Dean saw his own inner turmoil reflected back at him on his face.
“Bobby filled you in, then?” Dean sighed.
“Yeah.”
He ran a hand over his head in a self soothing gesture. “Once we get what we can here, we’re gonna pray like Hell she’s at the Bunker, or that her stuff still is…and that it’s stuff important enough for her to come back and grab.”
Sam sat back down, his posture slumped and Dean could practically see the words formulating under his shaggy hair. “She tried to get me to stay. I should have listened.”
“Hey,” Dean said, the word coming out harsher than he intended. “Don’t—don’t do that. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ll figure it out, alright?”
It wasn’t directly his fault either, but he felt the responsibility fall squarely on his shoulders anyway. He broke the First Seal and kick-started the Apocalypse.
If he hadn’t, the seals would have remained closed. Tori wouldn’t have had to watch, uncapacitated as a demon used her body to kill her best friend, and who knows, maybe they wouldn’t be in this far up shits creek without a paddle to be seen.
Nothing was that black and white, especially blame. Not in their world. Not in any world. He wished it was, though. Shades of grey are messy
Sam ducked his head. “Alright.”
He ran his thumb along the rim of his mug, tracing the small chips and surface cracks in the ceramic. It was plain white, reminiscent of the ones he drank from at the diners they would stop at. Part of him wondered if it was actually pilfered from some roadside joint or if this was a Singer original.
“Did he say when he was getting back?” Dean asked, standing up with a grunt.
“Nope,” Sam’s lips thinned into a tight line.
“Then I am gonna go see what I can find out back to fuck with until he is.” He refilled his mug, pausing at the door. “You want to come with?”
That ruminating look lingered on Sam’s face, and Dean knew without a doubt that the spiral wasn’t going to break on its own; he was going to go tinker with some engine for the same reason.
“Really?” Sam looked up at him, and for a second Dean could only see 13 year old Sammy begging him with those puppy dog eyes to help on the car or fix up the equipment while Dad was only Chuck knew where.
He dipped his head, pushing the screen door open. “C’mon. Before I change my mind.”
There was a disappointing lack of material for them to work with. At best, they could find vague references and things they’d already deduced. At worst, there was nothing, or statements so wildly conflicting the entire book’s validity came into question.
Occasionally, they’d strike gold and Dean’s hope meter would tick upwards, like the entire chapter in Powers of Darkness: Understanding the Fall of Lucifer where the author wrote in explicit detail Lucifer’s creation of Belial and Lilith.
All of that was well and good except the glaring gap of information about his weaknesses to the point Dean had got it into his head that Belial may be invulnerable even though everything he’d been taught and experience told him otherwise. Everything could be killed, it was just a matter of figuring out how.
The words had become mocking, staring up at him from the page in illogical formations. It was the third time he’d read the paragraph and the words stuck about as well as a worn sticky hand to a window.
He shifted in his seat, his bones itching from being stationary for so long. Sitting still had never been his strong suit. Some part of him was always moving; his hands that would take apart and put things back together, his leg bouncing under the table while he changed the way he sat for the umpteenth time.
“I hope you’re having better luck than me.” Dean pushed the open book away from himself, reaching for his glass of water. “I think I can actually feel my brain leaking from my ears.”
Sam groaned, leaning back in his chair to run his hands through his hair. “Probably don’t have much to worry about. You don’t have a lot to lose in the first place.”
Dean sputtered on the involuntary laugh his lungs tried to bark out. Water rocketed into his nose, draining into his throat that aggravated the coughing.
“Oh shit!” Sam laughed, jumping up to pound him on the back as Dean hacked into his elbow, trying not to drown on dry land.
“Asshole,” Dean rasped, voice somewhere between a laugh and a wheeze, his lungs slowly becoming agreeable again.
“Sam, what have I told you about trying to kill your brother?” Bobby jokingly admonished, popping into the kitchen to no doubt see what the commotion was all about.
Dean clutched at his chest in jest, producing highly exaggerated gagging sounds. “I…I see… the light!”
“Oh fuck off.” Sam shoved him, a chuckle resonating deep in his chest.
“It’s a wonder how you idjits get anything done.” Bobby placed two more books onto the table. “This is the last of them. Not much in either that I can remember, but it’s probably worth a look.”
Chest aching from the assault, Dean surveyed the books. The second one might as well have been copied and pasted from the last 50 they’d skimmed through over the course of the day.
It had the same leather-bound cover, the same kind of title that the author no doubt thought sounded mysterious and scholarly only for it to come out cheesy and cliche; though it certainly looked old enough that maybe this was what those knock-offs were trying to emulate.
Sam’s accidental attempt on his life had been a welcome break from hours and hours of staring at yellowed pages, some with scrawl so illegible and faded it was nearly impossible to decipher. The one-two punch of two more books being added and said books being the last that Bobby had was sobering.
“I’ll take the other one,” Sam said, rounding the table to resume their endeavor and snatching the sketchy looking book.
Dean wasn’t sure if he wanted it to end, because where did that leave them? Barely better than when they’d arrived? There was an incessant feeling buzzing around his head, that feeling like you are forgetting or are missing something obvious, only this time he didn’t have any idea what it could be.
“Supper’s in an hour, idjits,” Bobby threw over his shoulder, ducking back into the kitchen where Dean could just start to smell something cooking.
“You need help?” Sam called after him.
“No. Stay out there and help your brother.”
“What are we having?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Dean huffed a laugh when Sam turned to him with a slightly concerned expression. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Man, it can’t be that bad.” He peeled the cover open, the pages cracking as they separated. Mythological Weapons Across History. They had a copy of it back at the Bunker, though it was currently sitting untouched on one of the shelves since their lore dive had been interrupted by Crowley.
“We used to have mystery meat once a week, Dean. Mystery. Meat. I’m pretty sure it was patties made of squirrels and raccoons he’d find in the junkyard.”
“It expanded our pallets.”
“You’re so fucking gross.”
Dean chuckled. “Wow, Sammy. I’ll need some ice after that burn.”
“It’s Sam.”
Dean waved his brother off, flipping carefully through the pages to skim the names and descriptions of the weapons. Most had pictures next to them or on the adjacent page, illustrating what they looked like.
Swords, bows, spears, knives. All of them allegedly were wielded by or used to kill various gods and monsters, angels and demons, or heroes and villains. Brief blurbs of their glory were scrawled across the page, reading like a Homer epic.
He noticed ones that were out of Greek mythology: The Club of Heracles, the arrow that killed Achilles. Their illustrations were so detailed Dean was half convinced he could pluck them from the page and hold them in his hands.
Flipping further into the book, he recognized other mythologies interspersed within. Hindu, Celtic, Russian, Norse, Roman. With each page he turned over, the idea of there maybe being something out there to help them was sounding less and less insane.
His fingers stumbled, brushing over the stump of a page. The paper was ripped away close to the spine, the name and the blurb of the weapon missing along with the illustration
“That’s weird,” Dean muttered to himself, eyes scanning the other page, trying to find any hint of what the missing information could be.
“Hmm?” Sam hummed, not looking up from the book in front of him.
“There’s a page missing.” Dean flipped through the rest of the pages, but none of the others had been ripped out nor did they look even remotely damaged. “And the book is old enough that there’s not an index to tell me what’s missing.”
“What book is it?”
“Mythological Weapons Across History. We have it at the Bunker, but we didn’t get a chance to look through it before we left for Tennessee.”
“So what’s the issue? We’ll look when we get back.”
“The issue is that it’s just one thing after another,” Dean said, stress creeping back up into an oppressive blanket of dread. “We get close, and then a wrench is thrown in and we're sent right back to square one.”
“I wouldn’t call this square one—”
“No? Then what would you call it?” He cut Sam off, dropping the book back onto the table with a muted thud. “There’s nothing in here. One ripped out page isn’t going to change that. So even on the chance we find the bastard, we have no way of wasting him.”
Sam sighed. “We don’t know that. Cas is trying to get an archangel blade from Gabe, or find another one. If that doesn’t work, we’ll figure it out from there.”
Dean rubbed his chin, dragging his hand upwards into his hair. “I just don’t understand how you’re not freaking out right now.”
“Oh trust me. I am,” Sam huffed a sardonic laugh. “I am fucking freaking out. It just doesn’t come out like yours does, Dean.”
Dean tried to return his brother's cynical smile with one of his own. “Yeah, well maybe you should try it some time. Make me not feel like a headcase all’a the time.”
Where the boy managed to learn how to regulate his emotions better, he didn’t know. Wherever it was, though, he could use a little sabbatical there for a few weeks. Or forever.
It wasn’t a lot, but the deflection helped slow the spiral. The weight of responsibility still bore down on him like a grape in a winepress, but having that reminder that they weren’t just sitting around and twiddling their thumbs despite having found diddly-squat alleviated the squeeze a bit.
Before he knew it, Bobby was summoning them to the kitchen with the promise of dinner. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes were served with what Dean suspected were canned green beans that Bobby had heated up in a pan on the stove.
Thankfully, it was decent, not like how Sam catastrophized it to be. The meatloaf was a tad dry and the mashed potatoes a bit loose, but it was edible and evoked a sense of nostalgia he didn’t even know he had associated with the meal.
By the time they cleared the platter, it wasn’t just his stomach that was full. They’d laughed and talked, all of it shoving away any and all anxieties that were hanging above his head for the hours that they sat at the table. When Dean crashed, falling asleep no sooner had his head hit the pillow, it didn’t feel like he was running on just a ‘give them Hell' attitude.
He didn’t dream most nights beyond the night terrors that cropped up at the most inconvenient times, his body and mind too exhausted to conjure them, not that he got to that deep of a sleep reliably anyway. That night, the nothingness didn’t feel empty, like a void waiting to swallow him home. Dean knew in the morning it all would be back, but for the night at least, he was able to rest easy.
“Sorry I couldn’t have been more help.” Bobby handed him their cooler, which when Dean took a peek inside, he found it filled with sandwiches and drinks.
Dean relayed the box to Sam, letting him find a place to stow it away on the back seat. “You helped more than you know.”
“I’ll keep lookin’ here. See if anyone else has heard anything.”
“Appreciate it.” He leaned in, clapping the old man on the back in a half-hug. “Just try and keep it on the DL if you can. I don’t want to drag too many people into this if we don’t have to. Already feel guilty enough as it is involving you.”
He laughed lightly, but he could tell his words hit like a stone on a still lake surface.
“Hey,” Bobby said, placing a firm hand on the back of Dean’s neck. “You idjits don’t have to do this fight all by yourselves.”
His skin warmed beneath Bobby’s hand, his touch the only thing keeping him from ducking his head. In that moment, he was a kid again, getting scolded for breaking a glass after trying to get some water when he was too afraid to find someone taller to help him grab one from the cupboard.
This time, there was more at risk of breaking than just a glass.
“Well, if we need you we’ll be sure to throw up the Batsignal, alright?” Dean joked, casually pulling away from Bobby’s hand.
He turned away, pulling his keys from his pocket. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Bobby’s eyes, to see the pity and the understanding that he did not deserve. Besides, he could feel it boring into the side of his head anyway. How anyone could look at him that way despite the things he’d done was beyond him.
Throat locking up with something thick and sticky threatening to choke himself of air and spill from his eyes, he slowly walked to Baby, fiddling with the keys so the metal clanked against his rings.
“We’ll call you if we need anything,” he heard Sam say as his brother hugged Bobby. “Promise.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about”
He would have missed it had he not been listening closely in the way that had become the default.
Silence from Sam followed, though Dean was sure his brother nodded.
“Hey Dean,” Bobby called out to him, making him turn, putting a hand up to block the mid-morning rays. “You let me know how things go with her.”
He dipped his head. “Sure. Yeah I’ll let you know soon as something happens.”
With a pat on Sam’s back, Bobby pushed him towards the Impala, and to where Dean had leaned against it.
“You drive safe now,” Bobby said, still standing on the porch.
On muscle memory, the mask of a smirk came down across his face. Shoving everything else back into the little box from where it came from, he turned on the charm, leveling it at the old man, squinting against the sun
“Never,” he quipped back, pulling open the driver's side door to get in.
Bobby shook his head, standing there watching while Dean waited for Sam to climb in before waving while he pulled back down the driveway and back to the main drag.
“You ready for this?” Sam asked, settling in for the drive back, his laptop and a book peaking out from the backpack sitting at his feet in the footwell.
There were so many options as to what his brother was asking that question about given their lives at the moment, but conveniently, his answer was the same for all of them.
“I don’t really have a choice.”
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