The darker the fruit, the sweeter.𖤐
DEAN WINCHESTER X GOTH!READER (meet her)
SUMMARY: The brothers and reader are investigating a new case when they makes a new furry friend. Dean is not a big fan of him at first, but they both soon find out that they are more alike than they expected. 5.3k
WARNINGS: fem!reader. this is all pretty fluffy and cute. finally getting together.
NOTES: goth!reader is back! I genuinely love writing for her so much. I had a more complex plot for this idea but it was way too long as it is. Maybe one day I will expand it and post it in ao3 instead. Let me know if you'd be interested in that! As always, English is not my first language. Enjoy<3
You hated hunts when you didn’t know what you were dealing with, but they were usually also the most “fun”, as fun as hunting monsters that can kill you can get.
Because yes, vengeful spirits and vamp nests and werewolves were always easy to recognize, and more or less an easy gig. But when the creature was unknown, it was dangerous. Not knowing what you were dealing with could make the difference between life and death, but the research was just so much fun.
Reading books and articles of lore about creatures all around the world, Sam and you hunched over his laptop for hours talking about Telkhines, or maybe an unicorn? And What the hell is a selkie?
It was like a big game of Clue where you had to put together who, where, and with what. Just that in this game, you could be the next victim, or Sam, or Dean.
Anyway, the important thing was, you didn’t know how to feel right now.
People had been disappearing without any explanation, not a trace of them anywhere. There was no connection or similarities between the victims, all different ages and different genders. It had to be your kind of thing, because the people would disappear from their home, usually at night, but there was never any sign of break-in, and it was very improbable that so many people from the same town had just decided to ditch for no reason.
That is why, after a long day of talking to victims’ families and going over every police report and lore book available, Sam, Dean, and you return to the motel room with exhausted expressions and slumped shoulders.
The night was cold, and you couldn’t wait to take a hot shower and finally get some sleep, your feet aching from the platform boots you refused to stop wearing and your eyeliner smudged after you accidentally rubbed your eyes three hours into researching.
When you had checked into the motel room that morning, you were told that there was only one room available. This was something that happened every once in a while, and if you had to be honest, it didn’t really bother you. Yes, three grown adults in one shitty motel room was a little cramped, but you had spent so much time alone, it felt nice to be around people, especially people you trusted as much as you trusted the Winchester brothers. This was also why you never minded sharing a bed. It was… warmer, less lonely.
So every time this happened, you would swap who you share with.
Sharing a bed with Sam was fine. He was huge and would eventually push you to the edge of the mattress, but it was fine.
Sharing with Dean, on the other hand, was an ordeal.
He would usually try to take the couch, except when the motel was shitty enough to not have a couch or for it to be more akin to a huge rock than a comfortable place to lay down. Those times, you forced Dean to sleep in the same bed with you.
“It’s not big deal, Dean. Come on, stop throwing a tantrum. It is cold, get into bed.”
That would usually do the trick. You would lay awkwardly next to each other, both of you on your back and facing the ceiling. But then, when the only thing around you was the darkness and silence of the night, you would get more comfortable. Turning around in the bed, facing each other, knees brushing or arms touching. You would listen to the other breath, and your eyes would sometimes meet under the barely-there moonlight filtering through the window, both of you frozen, but feeling more at peace than you ever had. One night, when Dean had an especially bad case of insomnia, you ended up running your hand up and down his back until he fell asleep.
But you were friends, of course.
This time it was Dean’s turn to share, and you were equally excited and terrified.
It all leaves your mind when you find a huge, majestic doberman sitting down in front of your motel room. The sight of the dog immediately makes all exhaustion fly away from your body, but before you can say or do anything, Dean is taking a step towards it.
“Excuse me, dude.” He murmurs, trying to get around the dog.
The doberman immediately snarls, snapping his sharp teeth towards Dean. You watch as Dean jumps back, and in a reaction that you know is pure instinct from fighting monsters for years, he gets ready to fight. He doesn’t hurt the dog, doesn’t even try to. But his shoulders tighten in that way they do when he is expecting something to jump him, and he is thinking what the best way to knock it down is.
Before anything else can happen, you grab Dean’s arm and pull him back.
“Don’t.” You command firmly, quickly dropping to your knees in front of the animal, who was still baring his teeth. You ignore Dean’s warning and you simply make yourself small while quickly taking all of the rings in your right hand off, sliding them into your jacket pocket before slowly, very carefully offering your hand to the dog.
Dean says your name urgently again. “I don’t think you should-”
“Shhh.”
The doberman, who was almost taller than you as you kneeled on the floor, was still baring his teeth and tense, but he wasn’t snarling anymore. You slowly move your hand closer, palm down, and he growls when you get a little too close. Both Sam and Dean call your name this time.
“It’s okay.” You murmur gently, for both the brothers and the dog. “It’s okay, pretty boy. I won’t hurt you, okay?”
Your sweet, soft voice seems to calm down the animal, and he moves his snout closer, smelling your hand from a distance. He is careful at first, hesitant, but a second later he is knocking the palm of your hand with the top of his head.
“There you go, see? It’s okay.” You pet the top of his head, movements soft and slow. When the doberman stops baring his teeth, you scoot closer. “You’re not dangerous.You’re just scared, right?”
By now both your hands are petting the dog, cradling his little (or not so little) face, rubbing up and down his neck, scratching behind his ears.
“See?” You ask again, but this time you do turn to look at Sam and Dean, who are looking down at you in disbelief. “There was no need to fight, he’s a sweetheart.”
“He looked ready to bite my head off.” Dean grumbles, and you are about to retort when the cold nose of the doberman hits your neck and he starts to sniffle you, from the collar of your jacket to the apple of your cheek. He ends up licking your face and it makes you giggle, leaning your face away and turning back to the giant animal.
“He was just scared, weren’t you, boy?” You ask in your best puppy voice. “The world has been cruel to you, and you learned to bite first.” You whisper as you notice how cold the dog was, how there was no collar around his neck, and the long scar across his right eye. Not to mention the fact that his ears and tail were cropped. “But all you need is a little love, isn’t that right? A little kindness and it all melts away.”
The dog’s nose nuzzles against your chest again and you almost melt from the inside out. You keep gently petting him as you turn back to Dean, who was now looking down at you with dark, unreadable eyes. It leaves you breathless for a moment, and you don’t know what even prompted that reaction.
You open your mouth to say… honestly, you don't even know what you were going to say, but thankfully Sam, who looks like all the exhaustion has also banished from his body and is now smirking, walks past you and opens the door to the motel room.
You quickly get up from the floor, the doberman following your lead. You walk up to the door, both Dean and the dog behind you.
“Come on in, boy.” You point towards the inside of the room when the dog– you would give him a name, but then you’d get too attached– stopped right before walking into the room.
“No way.” Dean interjects, arms crossed, and frowning.
“Dean, it is freezing out here. We can’t let him sleep outside.”
“I refuse to sleep with dog smell all over the room.” He insisted, and was that a pout?
“I’m team ‘he stays’” Sam announces, still grinning, before making his way into the bathroom.
You cross your arms too, turning to look at Dean with a challenging look on your face.
“That’s two against one. And if I have to choose between you and the doggy, then good luck sleeping in the Impala.”
You hold Dean’s eyes for a long moment, not faltering for a second. He looks at you in disbelief before he seems to notice that there’s no arguing with you in this one. You were incredibly stubborn sometimes, like when you refused to leave the cemetery that first night you met.
But that was the reason why you were here right now, so maybe you were right about the dog. He would never admit it, though.
He simply sighs in defeat, shoulders dropping, and a pleased grin quickly takes over your face. You do a little jump, and Dean once again feels impressed by how well you move in those high boots.
“Yes!” You giggle with that sweet smile on your face, your lipstick faded from the long day out but still somehow that smooth wine color that made Dean weak in the knees. “Now come in, pretty boy.”
The dog, who had just been looking up at you during the conversation, seems to finally be convinced to walk inside the motel room. He still turns around to check that you’re walking inside too, sitting right by your side as you take off your jacket and boots.
It was adorable.
It had been a few hours since you had gotten to the motel. Right now, Sam was doing some more research while Dean called up Bobby to see if he could find anything. You had walked to the nearby grocery store to buy some dog food and some plastic containers. You served the food and some water on them when you and the dog returned from the store, since he refused to leave your side.
You had to be honest, walking alone at night never felt safer with a huge black doberman walking alongside you. For just one second, you could live out your goth princess dreams.
Now, the pup was eating his food. The poor thing was probably starving out there in the street. You wonder who could have abandoned such a beautiful animal, and leave him to freeze on the street. The dog was friendly enough, sometimes sniffing at Sam’s shoes but hiding behind your legs when he tried to pet him. He was clearly still scared, and you feel a sense of pride fill your chest at the knowledge that the dog decided to trust you.
You change into your pajamas and lay on the bed, groaning as your tense muscles finally relax against the almost comfortable surface of the shitty mattress. You hear the sound of paws hitting the floor and you turn your head to look down the edge of the bed, where the doberman was staring up at you with– there was no other way to describe it than puppy eyes.
You chuckle, and get more comfortable on the bed before patting the spot next to you once, and that was enough for the dog to jump.
“Oh, come on! I gotta sleep on that bed.” Dean complains, but you ignore it in order to laugh when instead of the big space next to you, the dog decides to climb on top of you, laying his head on your chest and making you groan at the weight on your stomach.
“Seriously, dude?” You ask the dog, who only licks your cheek once and seems to get even heavier.
You lay there on the bed, a giant puppy on top of you with no way of moving and no heart to push him away.
You hear Sam laugh and you try to look at the brothers past the big fur ball resting right in front of your face. You catch sight of the younger one’s smirk and Dean’s unimpressed face. He looked almost offended, and it was hilarious. You laugh, and it causes the doberman to tilt his head and look at you curiously. Your heart aches, and you remind yourself not to get attached.
You sigh, starting to pet the dog gently. You distantly hear Sam and Dean chat and bicker about something, but you focus on the puppy on your chest. You scratch behind his ears and boop his nose with yours, murmuring sweet nothings under your breath.
Humans were complicated. You had realized from a young age that not many people felt as much as you did, not everyone had so many emotions that they threatened to spill out every time they opened their mouth. Your heart was too big for your body, your mother used to say when you were a kid. But she didn’t say it as a good thing, because it made you too vulnerable, too weak, too much like her. So when you were confronted with the cruelty of this world, when you discovered how awful people could be, you learned to keep that part of yourself hidden, locked away in a little box on your chest that only opened up when you were writing poetry or when it was time for your monthly crying session.
Or when you were in the presence of animals. Animals were pure creatures, sweet and loving and unjudging. When you found a stray cat in a cemetery, or when you encountered some critter while foraging, or when little moths landed next to you in the abandoned house you used to spend your time in, that little box opened up and you let all the words stuck in the back of your throat come out. Because animals were the only creatures that deserved them. Or that’s what you thought, until some green-eyed hunter, who at first looked at you with the same seemingly angry but actually scared eyes as the doberman had, had made his way into your heart and was now threatening to break the lock that kept the box closed.
You brush your thumb over the long scar across the dog’s eye. It is healed, but it also looks recent.
“You’re so beautiful.” You murmur to the pup, giggling when he pushes his head up into your hand for more ear scratches.
“Aw, thank you.” Dean places a hand on his chest, as if he was actually touched by the compliment. He was now standing on the side of the bed, looking down at you with a teasing grin. But there was something in his eyes, an edge that you couldn’t recognize. “I knew you wouldn’t resist my charms.”
You laugh at that, shaking your head. Noticing that your attention wasn’t on him anymore, the doberman turns his head towards Dean, and he snarls again.
“Hey, nuh-uh.” You scold the pup firmly, tapping his snout softly twice. It stops the snarling, but the dog is still baring his teeth. “Dean is a friend, okay? He is amiable, even if he doesn’t look like it.” You can’t help but tease Dean, making him roll his eyes.
The doberman’s eyes stay wearily on Dean, but he doesn’t make a move to attack. You try to sit up on the bed, but the dog seems to somehow push you down into the mattress. You laugh, accepting your fate and extending your hand towards Dean instead.
“Give me your hand.” Dean looks at you with wide eyes for a second, but then he places his hand on yours. You ignore the feeling of his rough skin on yours, how warm he is in comparison with how cold you always are, how his silver ring feels against your palm, how much you wanted to intertwine your fingers with his.
Instead, you move both your hands closer to the dog’s nose, slowly.
“If the mutt bites me, I’m gonna kill you.” Dean warns, but he sounds a little out of breath.
The pup lets out a low growl, and you move your other hand to scratch behind his ear.
“It’s okay, I promise. He’s a friend.” Your reassuring tone seems to calm him down a bit, and he slowly leans in to sniff at your joined hands. You slowly move your hand until it is holding Dean’s wrist instead of his palm, letting the dog smell only Dean. He apparently deems the human acceptable, because he stops baring his teeth and leans the tiniest bit forward. You guide Dean’s hand to the top of the doberman’s head, letting it rest there softly for the hunter to pet him. “See, puppy?” you whisper towards the dog, but your eyes move up to meet Dean’s. “He may be a little rough around the edges, but he’s actually harmless.”
That makes Dean snort, eyes darting down to the dog still laying on your chest while he scratches his head, and you think his cheeks flush a little.
“There are several creatures, both human and non-human, that might disagree with that.” He jokes, but his voice is softer and low. It is your time to snort.
“Well, I was never known for agreeing with the general public.” Dean meets your eyes again, and something passes in between you two. Your breath hitches at the rawness in his gaze, and then your fingers bump where you were both petting the dog. “I always had a soft spot for what others consider scary.”
A long moment of silence, your fingers brush against his again, Dean opens his mouth.
And then the doberman is licking your cheek and almost all the way up to your forehead. You let out a surprised shriek and you turn your face further to the side, laughing and trying to get away from the dog’s wet kisses.
“Hey! Stop, boy. Sto– ah!” You are trying to push the pup off of you, but there is no way of pushing him away. You try to turn his face away with your hand but instead he gives you a little bite.
It is playful, a barely-there nip with his front teeth. You look at him with an offended look in your eyes, and you can almost swear the pup is grinning. Dean starts laughing at the scene, and you pout, turning to Sam for help. The younger Winchester is useless, simply giving you a shrug and going back to his research. You stare at the ceiling and start to question your life choices.
“How did I end up trapped in a motel room with three insufferable boys?”
Dean ends up not letting the dog sleep in the bed. You somehow manage to move him from on top of you and lay down a couple of blankets and some of your clothes on the floor next to the bed for the pup to sleep in.
It was late into the night already, and you were half asleep already, lulled by Dean’s warmth. Because you gave one of the blankets to the doberman, now Dean and you had to share the other one. He complains about it for like an hour, and you had to admit the night was cold enough for one blanket to not be enough. But once you threaten him with letting the dog on the bed and sending him to the floor, Dean accepts sharing the blanket.
It turned out to be as much of a bad idea as it was a good one. Not only did it force you to be even closer to each other to fit in, but it also gave place for a lot more physical contact. Now when your knee brushes his thigh, it is skin on skin instead of over the covers, when his fingers brush your lower back, it is right where your Type O Negative shirt has lifted up. It was a magical kind of torture.
At some point when you are more asleep than awake, you feel a new weight on the mattress. You are too tired to even register what it is or what it could mean. You just scoot to the side, giving the creature more space and pressing closer to the figure next to you. You would think that by this point, your hunter’s instincts would be more developed, but you weren’t very smart when you were sleepy.
You quickly fall back into unconsciousness completely when the heat radiating from both your sides now envelopes you. You were cold almost all the time. Even in the summer, somehow your hands managed to find a way to stay icy. On low temperature nights like this, it was worse. You didn’t mind it, you enjoyed the cold, but the boys constantly complained when you touched them with your freezing hands. But right now, with two extra-hot bodies pressed against either side of you, you sleep through the night like you haven't in years.
The next time you wake up, it takes you a few seconds to understand where you are. The bed feels smaller than it did when you went to sleep, and there is a new weight on your waist. It isn’t until you hear two different snores that you finally open your eyes, confused. In front of you, curled up in the little nook created by your torso and bended knees, is the doberman sleeping peacefully. He somehow got into the bed at some point in the night, you register, and now he is taking up half of the bed. One of the snores is coming from him, but the other one comes from behind you, as well as the pressure on your middle.
A little panicked, you turn your head around slowly. As you feared, Dean has an arm around you, his chest pressed against your back. He too was fast asleep, mouth slightly open and his grip on you firm. You turn to look at the other bed, but you find it empty. Sam had probably gone out for his morning run, and you let yourself panic for a second.
The little grunt that Dean lets out when you try to move and the way his arm tightens on your waist make you feel a little dizzy. You slowly, very slowly, slide down the bed. It is a miracle that Dean doesn't wake up, he must be really exhausted for his instincts not to alert him of the movement. The puppy also stays asleep, and you quietly scurry to the bathroom. You wash your face with cold water when you notice how flushed your cheeks are. You aren’t a high schooler, you can handle a little cuddling with a close friend.
But Dean was more than that, wasn’t him?
You brush your teeth, cursing yourself for forgetting to bring a clean set of clothes so you could shower. You mentally prepare to walk outside for them, repeating to yourself that Dean was asleep the whole time, he probably didn’t even notice what happened. It was fine, you were fine.
(It had been years since someone had held you like that, it wasn’t fine.)
You step out of the bathroom in the hope that Dean would still be asleep, but you’re not that lucky. Instead, you are met with two sleepy boys staring at you from the bed. Both the doberman and Dean were now sitting on the mattress, Dean with messy hair and half-lidded eyes, the dog with a strikingly similar drowsy demeanor. They turn to you when they hear the sound of the bathroom door opening, and at the exact same time, they tilt their heads to the side in confusion.
You stand there, staring at the big bad dog and big bad hunter in front of you, who are now soft and sleepy and pouty (at least Dean was) while they stare back with questioning looks. Almost as if wondering why’d you leave the bed, but that was probably wishful thinking. Like this, the resemblance between them was uncanny.
“Good morning?” You ask tentatively when Dean doesn’t say anything.
The pup seems to finally snap out of it at the sound of your voice, and he jumps off the bed to say hi to you. He wags his tail and presses his head to your hand until you give him a good deal of head scratches before he is moving to where the food and water bowls are on the floor.
You turn to Dean after that, and he looks a little more awake at least. His eyes are squinting and his eyebrows are furrowed, as if he is trying to remember something.
“Did the dog sleep with us in the bed?” You ignore the way his voice was even deeper after waking up.
You giggle, nodding. “Yeah, he got up at some point in the night. I don’t know how we managed to all fit.”
Dean chuckles at that while he rubs a hand over his face, and you beg that he doesn’t remember anything else.
“Did he sleep next to me? I swear I could feel something pressing against me through the night, but then I woke up and he was laying down pretty far away from me.”
That makes you freeze for a second, but you just shake your head nonchalantly.
“Nah, he slept right when you found him all night. Maybe it was a Succubus” You joke casually while you move to grab a clean set of clothes. You had never been happier to see Sam than when he walks into the motel room right at that moment. Your eyes meet for a second, and you take in his post-running state at the same time he notices the clothes and the toiletry bag in your arms before the two of you both rush towards the bathroom.
“Not fair! I am all gross and sweaty.” Sam complains when you get there first.
You giggle, closing and locking the door behind you without saying anything.
“I could swear I was hugging something.”
You had finally solved the case two days later. As it turned out, the creature that was kidnapping people in town was a skinwalker. The reason why you hadn’t figured it out yet is because this one, instead of feeding on people’s hearts and leaving the bodies there for you to find, was actually dragging people from their homes and “storing” them in some abandoned house outside of town. You are able to discover all of this because your new friend, as you discovered that same day, was actually the pet of one of the people kidnapped. The scar over his eye had been made by the skinwalker the night it attacked his owner, and the puppy was able to track the scent of it once Sam, Dean, and you had found some fur in the house of one of the victims.
Once you entered the abandoned house, you had found most of the victims still alive, all tied up in chains and waiting to have their hearts eaten out. Apparently, as the skinwalker told you and the brothers in his best attempt at a villain monologue, he had been exiled from his pack and forced to become an outcast. Having lived all his life in a pack, he could barely fend for himself alone. He had gone hungry, almost starving to death. That was why now, in an almost feral state, he was making sure to have enough food stashed.
As weird as this was, it was good news. You were able to kill the skinwalker and free all of the survivors. It was always nice when you were able to save more people than you had expected. In between the freed people there was the doberman’s owner– some guy in his forties with long, wavy black hair and a whole tattoo sleeve. Yeah, it fits. You watch as the guy and the dog meet again, how it was so clear that they loved each other, and even if you’re happy for them, you can’t help the way your heart aches at the knowledge that you would have to say goodbye to the pup.
The doberman runs towards you after he finishes saying hello to his owner, and Sam quickly explains to the guy the dog’s stay with you while you kneel in front of the doberman and whisper your farewell. The puppy licks your cheek again and it almost makes your eyes water. The owner thanks you for taking care of Billie Joe –of course the dude named the dog after Green Day– and they both leave.
You stare at their figures as they walk away in silence for a moment, not being able to help the pout that forms in your face. Sam goes to talk with some more of the surviving victims, while Dean stays by your side.
“You know, maybe dogs aren’t that bad. Even if that one could barely stand me.”
You chuckle softly, It’s subtle –Dean wouldn’t make it obvious– but you know he’s trying to lift your spirits. You shake your head, turning to look into his eyes.
It always shocked you how beautiful Dean could look even after a hunt, when he was covered in dirt and all bloody.
Then again, you always had a thing for hot guys covered in blood.
“I think you two were just too much alike.” You tease, bumping his shoulder with yours.
He laughs, but it’s softer than usual– quieter, less guarded. His usual edge is missing, replaced by something warmer, more open.
“Maybe.” He shrugs, looking at the ground before his gaze returns to you, taking in the way your smudged eyeliner made your eyes pop out, the way your black hair looked almost blue under the street lights, how gentle your smile was even with your sharp teeth and spiky jewelry. “You seemed to like him, though. A lot.”
A long silence follows the comment as you two stare at each other. The tension, simmering under the surface for weeks now, threatens to boil over. The memory of Dean’s arm around you while sleeping comes back to your mind, and you decide that if there was anyone you could trust with the key to the box in your chest, it was him.
“Yeah, I did.” You admit, barely louder than a whisper. “I never could resist a good train wreck.”
The next thing you register is the feeling of Dean’s lips over yours, and for a moment you wonder if this is why poets write. Because the sensations that travel all through your body as you wrap your arms around Dean’s neck and his hands wrap around your waist, the taste of his tongue, and the smell that clings to him are all so otherworldly and hauntingly magical that you feel compelled to delve into the entire English language to find the perfect words to describe it, but you just know that nothing will ever be able to convey what it was like to be held in Dean Winchester’s arms.
“Does this mean I can convince you of adopting a dog now?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What about a cat?”
“No. And there is no amount of kissing that can change my mind.”
“What about a raven? Or a spider!”
“God, what did I get myself into.”
NOTES: I am not completely satisfied with this so I might revisit it some day. Still, I hope you enjoyed it.
TAGS: @littlesoulshine @mostlymarvelgirl @pink-ghost666 @h8aaz @otteropera<3
If you wanna be tagged in future works, let me know!!