Purple Rain [Castiel X Gender-Neutral Reader] [One-Shot]
Word Count: 3,765
Warnings: Angst and no, it’s not a happy ending.
Yes this was inspired by Purple Rain By Prince. I highly suggest you listen to it while reading this.
You know, this was gonna be a full story but I think it’s better that we got straight to the point cus I live for pain and suffering. 🪻
Stay tuned for Sam and Dean versions!! (Maybe on this tho lol cus I’m indecisive)
Rain poured heavily onto my body as thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, sharp enough that it felt like the sky itself was splitting open. I was lying half-submerged in a widening puddle of rainwater and blood, the cold seeping into my skin in a way that made everything feel distant and unreal.
The world around me blurred at the edges, broken bodies of demons scattered nearby like discarded shadows, remnants of a fight I had pushed myself through just long enough to make sure Dean and Sam were still breathing somewhere behind me.
Their voices reached me in fragments, distorted by the storm and the ringing in my ears. I could hear Dean shouting my name, his tone breaking in a way I had never heard before, demanding I stay awake as if sheer force of will could anchor me to the ground. Somewhere behind that, Sam’s voice followed, lower, strained, urgent—but it all felt far away, like it belonged to another life entirely.
I tried to turn my head toward them, but my body barely responded. Every breath came slower than the last, each one feeling like it had to be pulled from somewhere deeper than my lungs, something heavier than pain settling into my chest. The rain kept coming, relentless and indifferent, washing away the blood at the edges of my vision only for more to take its place.
Dean’s voice broke again, sharper this time, as he yelled for Castiel. The name cut through the storm like a plea thrown into the void, desperate enough to make something impossible happen. I could almost imagine it—the way Dean always said Castiel’s name like it was both accusation and hope at the same time.
My fingers twitched weakly against the ground, but there was nothing left in me to push myself up, nothing left to fight with. The weight of everything I had done, every demon I had held back, pressed down on me like the rain itself had become solid. And still, all I could think about was whether I had given them enough time. Whether it had been enough.
Rain hammered down so violently it turned the world into a shifting wall of gray, like the sky itself had broken open and forgotten how to stop.
Everything beyond a few feet had disappeared, trees, bodies, even the shapes of Dean and Sam blurred into something half-real, half-drowning in the storm. The only thing I could still clearly feel was the ground beneath me, cold and uneven, soaked through until it felt like I was sinking into it instead of lying on top of it.
My body barely registered the cold anymore. It had stopped feeling like temperature and started feeling like distance, like I was slowly being pulled away from myself and left somewhere just out of reach.
Even the pain had begun to dull—not because it was gone, but because there was so much of it that my mind couldn’t hold onto any single piece long enough to process it.
“Castiel!” Dean shouted again, his voice breaking under the strain of panic and rain. He was pressed beside me, hands shaking as he tried to keep pressure on the wound in my stomach. Sam was on my other side, his movements controlled but urgent, like if he stopped for even a second everything would fall apart completely.
“Stay with us,” Sam said, but it didn’t sound like a command anymore. It sounded like a plea he wasn’t sure would be answered.
I tried to inhale, but the breath caught halfway, turning into a harsh cough that tore through me. Blood spilled from my mouth as I turned my head slightly, the taste of metal and rain mixing together in a way that made the world feel even further away.
Dean cursed under his breath, tightening his grip. “No—no, hey, hey, don’t you do that, alright? Don’t you—just stay awake!”
I wanted to respond. I really did. But even forming words felt like trying to grab something underwater that kept slipping through my fingers.
The thunder cracked across the sky in a deep, splitting roar, so close it felt like the air itself had been torn open. Lightning followed in a jagged flash, briefly turning the storm into stark, frozen light. Rain suspended for a heartbeat like the world had forgotten how to move. And in that impossible pause, everything shifted.
The pressure in the air changed first. Subtle, almost gentle, like something vast had stepped too close to the edge of reality. The rain didn’t stop, but it hesitated, as if even the storm recognized something it could not touch. I could feel a different pair of hands hold onto me. Warm. Certain. Immediate.
“Hey, hey, I’ve got you.” a voice said, low and sharp with urgency. Castiel.
My breath caught before I even fully saw him.
“Cas…” The word slipped out broken, barely there, carried more by relief than strength. A faint, blood-stained smile tried to form on my lips anyway, as if my body remembered him before my mind could fully catch up.
His eyes locked onto mine instantly. Something in his expression cracked—not loudly, not dramatically, but enough to see it was there. Enough to see he was already too late to pretend this wasn’t happening.
“Shh,” he said quickly, like the sound of my voice itself was dangerous. His hands tightened carefully where he held me, as if afraid I might slip away just from being looked at too hard. “Do not speak. Save your strength. I’ve got you.”
There was no hesitation in him now. No distance. Just urgency so sharp it bordered on panic, though he tried poorly to bury it under control.
Dean and Sam were still there in the edges of everything, but they were already shifting back, making space without being told, like they understood instinctively that this moment wasn’t theirs anymore. Not because they didn’t care, but because something else had arrived that refused to share it.
Castiel lowered himself fully into the rain, pulling me carefully into his arms. And it felt like the world narrowed.
Like the storm, the blood, the noise, all of it got pushed to the line of existence, leaving only the weight of him holding me there as if I still belonged in the world he was trying so hard to keep intact.
The rain came down harder around us, soaking through his coat instantly, running in streams over his shoulders, his hands, his face.
But he didn’t look away.
Not once.
His grip adjusted slightly, it became protective, precise, almost instinctive in a way that didn’t feel entirely learned. Like holding me was something he understood on a level deeper than language. His voice dropped lower, softer now, breaking just slightly.
“I am here,” he said. “I will not let you go.”
Castiel didn’t hesitate.
The moment he had me in his arms, he shifted carefully, urgently, like every movement mattered too much to waste. His hands stayed steady against the wound, even as the rain poured harder around us, soaking through his coat and running in cold streams down his wrists.
“Hold on,” he said quietly, like it was something he could still command the world to do. Then his grace ignited. It flared beneath his palms in a sudden burst of light, pale, intense, almost painful to look at.
The rain around his hands hissed as if reacting to something it couldn’t understand, droplets briefly catching in midair before breaking apart again.
My body reacted immediately. A sharp inhale that barely counted as breath. A flicker of warmth pushing back against the cold that had been swallowing everything.
Castiel’s eyes snapped to mine instantly, searching, focusing like he was trying to anchor me to existence through sheer will.
“Stay with me,” he said, lower now. Strained. “Do not drift.” The light strengthened. For a moment, just a moment—it worked.
The pain didn’t disappear, but it shifted. The sharpness of it dulled. My breathing was less broken than before. Enough to make it feel like maybe the world hadn’t fully decided yet. Castiel exhaled sharply, like relief had physically hit him.
“I can fix this,” he said, quieter—almost to himself. And then he pushed harder. The glow intensified under his hands, spilling brighter into the rain, lighting the storm in fractured flashes of purple. His expression tightened as he focused everything into it, like he was forcing reality itself to bend.
“Do not leave,” he said again, closer now. “You are still here. You are still—” The light flickered. Just once, it was barely noticeable. But Castiel felt it instantly. His entire body went rigid.
“No,” he said immediately. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t controlled. It was wrong—like the word had escaped him before he could stop it.
He tried again.
The grace surged back, stronger this time, almost violent in its urgency. The rain around us reacted again, hissing and breaking apart in the glow as he poured more power into it, refusing the failure that had just happened. His jaw clenched.
“You will not—” he started, voice breaking slightly as he focused harder, “—you will not do this.”
The light surged.
Then faltered again.
Castiel froze for half a second, as if the world had stopped obeying him and he was trying to calculate where the error was.
And then something in him cracked.
“No,” he said again, sharper now. “No. I am not—this is not—”
He pressed harder.
The glow flared violently beneath his hands, brighter than before, almost overwhelming, like he was trying to drag me back by force alone now. The rain hissed louder, the air trembling around us under the pressure of it. But my body didn’t follow. The connection slipped again. Castiel’s breath hitched. He didn’t stop.
He tried again immediately, faster this time, like repetition itself could fix what was breaking.
“Come back,” he said, voice lower now, unsteady in a way he didn’t try to hide anymore. “Come back. I have you. I have you.” The grace surged. Then collapsed. His hands trembled slightly against me.
For the first time, he looked up—just briefly—like he couldn’t understand how something he could touch was still slipping away. And then he looked back down at me like it hurt too much to look anywhere else.
“No,” he whispered again, softer now. Almost lost in the rain. “No… I can fix this.”
“Cas, it’s—it’s okay, to let me go.”
The words barely made it out through the rain and the shaking in my lungs. They felt too small for something so heavy, like they didn’t belong in a moment that already felt bigger than the world itself.
My hand lifted with what little strength I had left, fingers unsteady as they found his face. His skin was cold from the rain, but still somehow warmer than everything else around us. I could feel him flinch at the touch—not away from me, but like he couldn’t decide whether to lean into it or break completely.
Castiel shook his head immediately.
“No,” he said, and it came out too fast. Too sharp. Like the word itself could undo what was happening if he said it strongly enough. “No, that is not—this is not how it is supposed to happen.”
His hand pressed harder against the wound, as if pressure alone could bargain with fate. Light flickered weakly beneath his palm, his grace still there, still trying—but it was unstable now, uneven, like even it was beginning to understand something he refused to accept.
My thumb brushed gently along his cheek anyway. And then I saw it. A tear. It didn’t belong on him. Not like this. Not in the middle of a storm that had already taken everything else.
“No,” he said again, quieter this time, like the word was losing its power. “I’m supposed to be able to save you.” His voice cracked on the last word.
“I am supposed to be able to save you. So why can’t I?” The question wasn’t meant for me. It wasn’t even meant for the world. It was something breaking loose inside him, something he had never been allowed to feel before because there had always been another chance, another outcome, another way to fix it.
There wasn’t this time.
I let out a weak breath that turned into another cough, blood spilling into the rain that didn’t care enough to distinguish one loss from another. My vision blurred at the edges, but I didn’t look away from him.
“It doesn’t matter…” I whispered. His grip tightened instantly, like the idea of distance alone terrified him more than anything he was fighting.
“It does matter,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “It matters to me.”
That was the first time his voice stopped sounding like something trying to hold itself together. It sounded like someone losing all control of emotion.
The glow under his hand flared again—it was desperate now. He pushed more of himself into it, shoulders tense, jaw clenched so hard it looked painful. The rain around us hissed faintly where his grace touched it, like even the storm was being forced to acknowledge him.
“Stay with me,” he said again, but it wasn’t a command anymore. It was a plea he couldn’t shape into anything else. “Do not leave. Not now.”
My hand stayed on his face. I could feel him trembling beneath my fingers. Not fear of the fight. Fear of the ending.
“I’ve stayed longer than I was supposed to already,” I murmured softly, almost like a memory instead of a sentence. “You know that.”
Something flickered across his expression at that—pain, recognition. Like he did know. Like he had been trying to ignore it every time I came back from something that should have taken me the first time.Every time I almost died and didn’t. And now? I actually was.
Castiel’s breath hitched.
“No,” he whispered again, but it was different now. Smaller. Fraying. “No… I did not bring you back for this.”
The light surged under his hand again—brighter, unstable, almost violent in how hard he was forcing it. But my body didn’t answer it anymore. I could feel it. The pull easing. Not pain. Not fear.
Just… release. Like something in me had already decided it was time. And Castiel felt it too. His hand tightened against me like he could physically hold me in place through will alone.
“Don’t,” he said, voice breaking completely now. “Please don’t. I can still fix this. I can—”
His grace flared one more time. It failed. The glow died in his palm. Silence hit harder than the rain. Castiel froze. And for the first time, he didn’t immediately try again.
His forehead lowered slightly, almost against mine, like he couldn’t understand how something in his hands could still be slipping away even when he refused to let go.
“No,” he whispered, barely audible now. “No… I am here.” His voice cracked on the last word.
“I am here,” he said again, softer. Like repeating it might bring me back. Like presence alone could undo everything else. My fingers curled weakly against his cheek.
“I know,” I whispered.
A faint, exhausted smile tugged at me—not from happiness, but from something gentler. Something like gratitude and grief tangled together so tightly they couldn’t be separated anymore.
“That’s why it’s okay.” His eyes shut for half a second, and when they opened again, something in them had changed. Not acceptance. Not yet. Just utter pain and grief falling onto his features as he couldn’t save me.
“Castiel, I love you…” I cried, the words breaking apart as they left me, swallowed by the storm and everything I was losing at once.
The rain blurred everything beyond him. The world had already started to fade into something distant and unimportant, like it was peeling away in layers I could no longer hold onto. My lungs felt too heavy to work properly, each breath thinner than the last.
But he was still there. Castiel’s face tightened at my words, something flickering across it so fast it almost didn’t look real before it settled into something far worse.
Sadness. Deep, overwhelming, disbelieving sadness. Like he had known loss before—but not like this. Never like this.
“I love you too..” he said instantly, his voice breaking in a way that didn’t belong to him. It came out too fast, too desperate, like he was trying to catch the moment before it disappeared completely.
He pulled me closer without thinking, his arms firmly around me as if the world itself might try to take me away if he loosened his grip for even a second. The rain soaked through both of us, cold and relentless, but he didn’t move.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, lower this time, like the words were cracking inside him. “I’m so sorry.”
His forehead dipped forward until it rested gently against mine, his breath uneven now, no longer controlled. A tear slipped down his cheek and vanished into the rain before it could fall anywhere else, but I felt it anyway in the way his voice shook when he spoke again.
Every memory of us came flashing through my mind in fragments that didn’t feel like mine anymore, like I was watching them happen to someone else who still had time.
The first time I saw him—standing too still, like he didn’t belong in the world but was trying anyway. The way he looked at everything like it was unfamiliar but important. The way his voice softened when it was just us.
The small moments I didn’t realize mattered until now—until I was running out of time to hold onto them.
“I tried,” he said suddenly, his voice cracking harder now. “I tried everything. I tried to fix it. I tried to fix you...” His grip stayed firm, like he was holding onto me and the memory of every time I had almost been lost before.
Because there had been too many. Too many near-deaths. Too many moments where he had arrived just seconds too late or just barely in time.
And this time—his silence said what he couldn’t. This time was different. This time, I was slipping beyond even him.
“I’m here…” he whispered again, as if saying it more times could anchor me back into the world. “I’m right here, sweetheart…”
His hand moved carefully to the back of my neck, trembling slightly as he guided me closer—not forceful, never forceful, just desperate. Like he needed me to feel him fully before I was gone.
His lips met mine softly, carefully, almost afraid. Like even this moment could break if he wasn’t gentle enough with it. But the emotion behind it was anything but gentle. It carried everything he couldn’t say. Everything he had never been built to understand but was feeling anyway.
Love. Fear. Loss. Devotion. The kind of love that didn’t know how to let go. The kiss lingered longer than it should have, like he was trying to stretch time itself into something that could hold me here a little longer.
When he finally pulled back, it was only by the smallest breath, his forehead immediately resting against mine again as if even a fraction of distance was unbearable.
His arms stayed locked around me, shaking now in a way he wasn’t trying to hide anymore. And the world kept fading.
—
The rain doesn’t stop when you die. It keeps coming down in relentless sheets, turning the field into a drowned, colorless world where everything is blurred between blood, mud, broken ground, and the bodies that no longer matter. The storm doesn’t soften for you. It doesn’t pause. It just continues like nothing important has happened at all.
But something has. And Castiel feels it before anyone says it out loud.
His arms stayed around you, like his body refuses to accept the shift in weight against him. Like if he holds you hard enough, firmly enough, carefully enough, the universe might reconsider. His forehead presses to yours, soaked hair falling forward, his breath uneven in a way that doesn’t belong to him.
For a moment, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even blink.
“No…” he whispered against your lifeless body. It’s sharp at first, like denial could still be weaponized into something that fixes this.
Sam and Dean just stand there in the rain, staring at you like if they looked long enough, you might start breathing again out of sheer necessity.
But you don’t.
Castiel doesn’t look at them. He can’t. His entire focus is locked on you—on the stillness he doesn’t understand, on the absence of response where there used to be warmth, where a heartbeat and breath used to be.
His hands stay on you anyway, like muscle memory is the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.
“I had you,” he says suddenly. His voice is quiet. Too quiet. Like he’s speaking inside himself instead of out loud. “I had you.”
His grip tightens slightly, then stills again, as if even that movement feels dangerous now. His thumb lingers near your cheek, trembling faintly, like he’s afraid to accept what he’s already touching.
“I was supposed to save you,” he says, and there it is—something cracking through the controlled edges of his voice. Not anger. Not disbelief. Something worse. Loss that he doesn’t know how to contain.
Dean drops to his knees in the mud behind him, hands hovering uselessly before falling back to his sides. “Cas…” he says, but it doesn’t have any force anymore. Just grief. Just exhaustion. “Man… I’m sorry…”
Sam finally lowers his gaze, jaw tight, rain running down his face like he can’t tell the difference between that and anything else anymore.
But Castiel still doesn’t look away from you. Not even when the world around him starts to shift. The sky above the storm begins to change.
It doesn’t happen suddenly, it seeps in, like ink spreading through water. The clouds don’t part, but they darken into something deeper, stranger. A bruised, impossible purple bleeding through the storm overhead, lightning threading through it in jagged veins of violet light.
The whole sky turns unnatural. Like the universe itself is reacting to something it doesn’t know how to explain. Castiel finally looks up at the sky, watching purple and gray mix together as the rain never let up. He knew you were gone and he knew you weren’t coming back but maybe he could see you again up in heaven.
summary: tonight, you're taking a big step with sam; for the first time since the possession, you want sam to show you how gentle he is when it's really him that touches you, not meg
pairing: sam x reader (gn) | genre: smut (mdni), h/c | word count: 10.0k (holy shit)
warnings: implied past non-con, sam's afraid but tries his best, sam's guilt is the size of antarctica, so many big feelings and crying, smut (protected sex, just plain n simple, no reader anatomy described)
notes: i'm back on my sam and his perceived impurity bullshit !! this time, featuring soft gentle smut with way too many feelings for a man that tall. here's your reminder once again that consent is A MUST HAVE. please be gentle with each other :]
taglist | k's AMA - Feb 21st to 28th | part one
There’s three words Sam thinks he’ll never hear from you ever again.
It’s not ‘I love you’; Sam hears that one nearly every single day. It’s not ‘I miss you’, although he’s very quickly discovering how easy it is to miss someone, even when they’re right there. It’s not ‘I’m so sorry’ or ‘I was wrong’, because you have nothing to apologise for. If anything, he should be the one apologising for what happened to you. It may not have been him in control, but it was still his hands that shoved your thighs apart, still his lips that left bruises on your neck and jaw, still him that slid into you and violated the most intimate parts of you. Possession doesn’t change that fact; his body’s tainted now, dirtied by something impossible to clean.
You’ve lost pieces of yourself. Sam can see it when he looks at you; the way you hesitate just a second longer when he’s near you, the way your breath hitches just lightly when he touches you, the way you have to whisper to yourself that you’re safe when he’s alone with you. It breaks his heart to know that somewhere, deep inside your brain, you’re scared of him. That you’re afraid he’ll become a monster again, become something he can’t control.
Where there used to be a thin film over your soul like the curves of a bubble, there’s now pockets of vacuum space, void of light. Before, Sam could see light in you. There were shades of orange and yellow when you were happy, a strange culmination of deep blues and greys when you were scared, and one that mimicked the colour of his eyes when you felt loved. That one hurts the most to see it dimmed. Not gone, never gone, because Sam can’t not love you and you can’t not feel loved by him. But it doesn’t shine as bright as before, covered in a layer of sulphur and demon smoke that chokes out the light.
The spaces between are the worst to see. They’re chipped, cracked, shattered edges left behind after a hand dove through and ripped them from you. Sam’s hand, commandeered by a greater power, is to blame. Those hands that used to hold you tenderly stole the light from your eyes and the smile from your lips and left a fear in your heart that Sam thinks even time can’t heal. In those voids, Sam sees himself reflected back, in all the broken pieces that twist the light and make his eyes look black and soulless.
Sam’s thankful these patches in your soul are few and far between, but they’re in your most important parts. There’s one eating away at the muscle and bone on your shooting arm, knocking all your shots off-centre and sending them flying past their targets. There’s two side by side in your brain, a cruel Castor and Pollux that take over your fear and make it lash out even when you know you’re safe. A few others are scattered over your skin, webbed lines like broken glass held together by duct tape, shaped like bruises that would kill you to prod them. But the deepest of all, the one that throws Sam’s tainted reflection back at him in crisp detail, is the one eating up your heart.
You always used to tell Sam there was a room in your heart specifically for him. It was wide, open, filled with all his favourite things, with a mug of his favourite tea kept warm for him. Sam’s always thought he might like to live in that room if he could, to crawl into your chest and live in the spaces between your ribs, to protect you from within and make sure nothing can hurt you where he can’t see it. Sam sees now what you meant by that room; there, in the center of your heart, is an opening to what should be a place of light and love and Sam. Instead, it’s dark, empty, no light or sound, just Sam’s twisted demonic reflection gazing back at him with the quiet confidence of a man who knows he’s broken what can’t be repaired.
He’s determined to help you patch these injuries, even though he knows they’ll leave nasty scars for the rest of your life. He wants to be able to look at you again and see you smile, see how free and full of happiness you look when you’re not being consumed by pain. He misses the crinkles at the corners of your eyes, the way you fall into him when you laugh, the airiness of your voice when you repeat back a joke. Sam knows he can’t fix everything, knows that this is a problem only you can really solve, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.
You stumble across the first missing piece by accident while on a walk, which Sam had suggested after being cooped up inside all day in the rain. The downpour’s over now, leaving behind the kind of sunlight that seeps through his bones and feels like a hug from the inside out. He can only hope it makes you feel better too, because it would be unfair of him to take what you can never have. As soon as his feet lead you along the familiar worn path, he feels your hand slide cautiously into his. He doesn’t squeeze it like he normally would, just holds it, cradling it, rubbing a soft thumb back and forth over your knuckles.
Your steps are in tandem, Sam’s boots kicking up small rocks, the laces on one of your shoes dragging on the ground, pure white becoming tainted with mud and dust. The path is puddled, small pools of rainwater left to a fate halfway between heaven and hell halfway between salvation and damnation. You stop at the edge of one of them, tugging Sam by the hand to come closer and look at the way it ripples out when your fingers brush the surface. Nature's fractals, Sam briefly muses. Mathematical patterns in the ripples, predictable and infinite. If only the state of your healing was as predictable to him; Sam lives in facts and numbers and the cold, hard proof of reality.
“Look” you muse, dropping a stone into the puddle. “What do you see?”
Sam pauses, hovering behind your crouched form. He blinks once, squinting lightly against the sunrays reflecting from the water, focusing on what you can see that he can’t. He sees you, sitting on your heels, knees up to your chest, drowning in a sweater that’s too big and a sorrow that’s the wrong size. He sees your hair looking wild but catching the sunlight and bending it into shape, taking what’s pretty and making it beautiful.
“I see you,” he says, simply.
Your lips twitch into a faint smile. “I know you do. You know what I see?”
Sam shakes his head, lips pursed. “What do you see?”
“I see someone who’s lost, Sam. I see somebody who’s been violated and hurt and twisted in ways they wouldn’t wish upon anyone else. I see somebody who doesn’t know if they’re even alive anymore, because what they used to live for isn’t the same.”
Sam swallows. “You’re not-.”
“I wasn’t talking about me, Sammy,” you hush. “I was talking about you.”
He blinks, mouth opening and closing a few times as he searches for the words buried in his teeth. “Me? But-.”
“But what?”
“But I did all those things to you. You’re the violated one, the hurt one. I’m not- I can’t-.”
Sam’s gently pulled downward by your hand on his arm until he’s crouching beside you, fingers brushing against the edge of the cool water, pads of them dipping in and out again like he’s afraid to touch and contaminate.
“Sammy, you are. You’ve been hurt just as much as I have. What she did to you, possessing you like that? Don’t pretend that it’s not real pain you’re feeling.”
“I never said it wasn’t real.”
“Then why do you hide from me? Why do you keep yourself away like you’re afraid to make me worse? Why do you keep pretending you’re not what I need to feel better?”
Sam doesn’t really know what to say to that. The words make sense, what you’re saying. He has been hiding, because he doesn’t want the smoke that lived in his heart to still be there in trace amounts and cross over into yours. He’s worried that if he touches you too much you’ll shatter right there in his arms, and he can’t live on if you do.
“Sam?” you say, quiet voice bringing him back.
“Yeah?” he whispers, cracked and raw.
“Just promise me you’ll heal too. With me.”
He nods, trying to keep back the tears that prick at his eyes with how easily you can read him. “Okay. Okay. I’ll try.”
“Promise?”
You stick out a hand toward him, pinky finger extended and hooked. Sam stops for a moment, mentally calculating how easily you might crack if he lets you do this. When he sees the way you’ve steeled yourself, expression set like you’ve made the choice to touch him no matter how it hurts, he extends his own hand, pinky looping with yours. You push up to touch your thumb to his, muscles tensed to keep yourself from flinching, but you do it. Sam watches you exhale a heavy sigh when your thumbs meet, sees the way some kind of light flows back into your skin.
“We good now?” you ask, already getting to your feet and tugging him after you.
“Y- Yeah. I think so.”
“Good.”
You stretch to press a light kiss to his cheek, and Sam’s frozen to the spot after your lips meet his cheekbone. There it is again, the way you can touch him without hurting. You’re not dissolving or fading away or being torn to shreds just from the burn of his skin. You’re not falling victim to the hands of darkness that claw up from the ground. You’re standing, smiling, hand still holding his, the sunlight catching your flyaway hairs and forming a halo around you. You look real, alive. Not whole, not yet, but solid nonetheless.
You walk on, Sam letting you lead him down the path to where he’s certain salvation lies. You look unburdened beside him, like for the first time in a long time you’re made of light and wind, not stones and shadow. He watches you all the way to where you’re taking him, only snapping back to reality when you stop suddenly and he slams into your back. His arms go around you instinctively and Sam freezes, because what if he’s hurt you? What if he’s crossed a line he didn’t know he could cross? It’s only after you melt against him that he dares lock his arms tighter around your shoulders, pressing your back to his chest and feeling the sunlit warmth of your body on him.
Looking around, Sam finally realizes where you are. The river, the one from a million summers ago, the one where he swears he fell in love with you all over again. Sam watches you lower yourself to the edge of the bank, spreading your jacket on the ground under you so as not to get dirt and mud on your pants. He sits after you pat the ground beside you, crossing his legs and letting his knee rest lightly against yours. The touch burns in the way all touches do when they’ve gone too long without any, but neither of you pulls away. Your fingers drum a rhythm against his jean-covered thigh, and he lets himself get lost in the touch. At some point, he takes your shoe in his lap, retying the laces that are caked in mud, brushing the dirt from them as best he can until all that’s left is a faint stain that’ll fade with time. Maybe he can clean your soul too, if you'd let him. He certainly wants to.
There’s no conversation, and none needs to be had. All that happens is a polite watching of the sunset, like exhaling a breath that’s been held in for too long. When the sun’s slipping below the horizon, your head falls to Sam’s shoulder. A simple touch, one that’s been shared a hundred times before, but the weight of it is heavier than anything else, because it means you’re finally learning to trust him again.
The sun disappears below the horizon for good, and the last vestiges of light dance across the sky as Sam looks at you. Really looks at you this time, taking in all your edges and curves, the rough spots and the chipped spots and the spots he’d love to kiss better. Whatever golden light had been lighting up the sky moments earlier is gone from the heavens, but Sam can still see it. He sucks in a quiet breath when he realizes why; you’re healing.
On your shooting arm, he used to be able to see an ugly black patch of rotten, demon-tainted void that Sam’s hand caused when his body pinned you to the motel bed months ago. It crept across your skin in a steady hum, something evil under the surface itching to break free. Only now, when his eyes skim over the exposed skin from under the sleeve of your t-shirt, there’s nothing. An echo remains, left behind in the way all harmful things are, but the darkness itself has disappeared, replaced instead by the sunlight that illuminates the corners of your soul.
“Sam?” you ask, nudging him gently. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”
“Nothing,” he says, only to feel a tear slip down his cheek.
Your expression crumples. “You’re crying. That’s not nothing.”
Sam brushes it away fiercely, his knuckle biting into his skin in a way that almost hurts. He wants it to, deserves it to, and when it doesn't, rage flashes low in his stomach. Another one falls in its place, and Sam figures he’s losing the battle one way or another. He doesn’t really understand why he’s the one crying. You have a right to more than he ever will, with what happened and all. He doesn’t deserve the catharsis of tears, doesn’t deserve the freedom of it all. He’s weak, weaker than you, weaker than Dean. Fragile, broken, tainted. A poor excuse for the man he’s supposed to be, the man his mother wanted him to be. If she could see him now, she’d be ashamed of him, for letting himself be weak, for letting tears fall when they’re undeserved.
“Look at me,” you whisper.
Sam tries to look away, wiping furiously at his eyes, but it doesn’t work. He can’t stop crying and he doesn’t even really know why. He shouldn’t be crying. His job is to help you through whatever you’re feeling, not the other way around. In some backwards way, he’s diminishing your pain, making himself the center of attention, turning the limelight that should be on you onto him. He feels guilty, unclean, unworthy of your care, because what kind of awful person watches you suffer and then makes it about themself?
“Oh, Sammy. Come here.”
You cup his face, leading it toward your shoulder, scooting closer on the bank until you can reach around him entirely. Sam wants to fight, tries to fight, but he can’t. It’s too much, the kindness you’re showing him, and he collapses heavy into your arms as tears roll down his cheeks.
“You’re okay. I’m okay. You’re allowed to cry, Sammy,” you soothe.
“But-.” He’s cut off by a hiccupping inhale. “It’s stupid, I’m sorry.”
“You’re hurting. You’re hurting and I’m sitting here useless. That’s not okay, and you know it.”
You don’t say anything. You just hold him closer, and Sam can’t fight you off, even though he wants to. He lets himself go weak in your grip, lets himself hold you just as tightly as you’re holding him, because there’s something in the way you’re letting yourself touch him that gives him hope. It’s like you said before; as long as you initiate it, it’s okay. As long as you’re not forced under him on some motel bed, it’s okay.
You’re okay. He’s okay. It’s going to be okay.
More pieces of yourself start coming back over the next couple of months. It starts small, with tiny shards that fly back in to place when Sam’s hand grazes over your lower back in the kitchen, when he hands you your jacket and your fingers brush, when he sits beside you in the back seat of the Impala because he likes the smell of your soap. It’s like putting a ceramic dish back together. The small particles, the ones ordinarily forgotten by brooms and anyone attempting repair, are the ones that fall into place first. They’re unsteady without the larger pieces to hold them there, but they stay, because Sam’s hands are keeping them in place.
Slowly, bigger and bigger pieces start to slot back in. When you rest your head on Sam’s shoulder while he reads lore to you, when you hug him or peck his cheek before separating on a hunt, when he can stitch you up without his hands shaking and without your breath quickening because you’re vulnerable and alone with him. Sam can see the patterns of you come back into place; the mountainous ridges in your irises, the constellations of marks and bumps and spots on your skin, the valleys of your curves and creases. Sam can finally read the mosaic of you.
The largest pieces are few, but it’s monumental when they return themselves to your body. One comes back the first time you share a shower with Sam since the incident, finding its home on your back when Sam runs his large hands over the skin, massaging in the soap. He watches another one come back that very same night when you fall asleep on his chest on the couch, letting his fingers tangle lightly in your hair without worrying about it pulling. Another one returns when you and Sam are alone in a motel room, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he makes out with you, without you shying away and panicking. He doesn’t cross the line into sex; not yet and maybe not ever, but the simple return of his lips on yours, your jawline, your neck, trailing your collarbones is enough to sate him for a lifetime.
Friday night comes slow, trailing after the sunset, a child unsure if it can walk without help. It crawls into Bobby’s house, wrapping around the wood like a blanket, covering the rooms in that sticky sort of tiredness that makes your eyes heavy even if you’re full of energy. The heat isn’t helping either, clinging to Sam’s skin like tape, making his fingers stick to the cover of the book he’s reading, and his jean-covered legs to the chair. Sam can see you almost falling asleep across the room from him, tucked up into an old armchair, heavy tome on your lap, head slumping lightly against the chair backing.
He wishes he could fall asleep right now; it’s certainly better than his current situation. Sam’s biggest flaw is wanting what he can never have. Wanting a life outside of hunting, wanting to be happy in a world that only knows sorrow, wanting you. He needs you now like he needs the air to breathe. He’s been needing you for a while if he’s being honest, but he’s been holding himself back because he’s not sure if having you that way will make or break you. There’s still one last piece of your soul left to find, the gaping hole in your heart that makes Sam want to crawl in and patch it up from the inside, and he’s not going to take what you can’t give until that piece is back.
He thinks it’s wildly unfair how good you look when you’re comfortable, when you feel like yourself. Striding confidently through Bobby’s hallways, standing in rooms like you’ve finally relearned how to take up space without stretching yourself thin. Sam’s been restraining himself for most of the day, keeping his eyes averted because he knows if he watches you, he’ll be wanting more than he could ever dare take. Sam figured he was in trouble from the moment you woke up in his arms that morning, sleep shirt falling off one shoulder and arms wrapped tight around him. He’s been catching little glimpses of you throughout the day; your shirt riding up when you reach for a book exposing the soft skin of your waist, the way your jeans fit snug on your hips, the absolutely sinful way your hands ghost over him in passing touches. Sam may be good at keeping himself in check, stopping himself from coming on too strongly so as not to scare you, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking about how badly he wants to feel you.
Bobby and Dean are out on a trip, picking up a car for the salvage yard from a few states away. They’re not due back until tomorrow night, maybe even the day after; two vagabonds coming home with the rising sun. Sam and you have the place to yourselves, something both brothers had initially worried over until Bobby had dragged Dean out and you’d reassured them countless times you’d be okay. Sam’s proven time and time again over these months that he won’t hurt you, that his hands were built for tender care and soft touches. He doesn’t want you to ever know how badly he needs you right now, because he doesn’t trust himself, not anymore. He doesn't think he as Sam will hurt you, but he worries that there's still some residue of a monster in him, something that's not quite him still hiding beneath the surface.
Sam used to be confident. He used to know exactly what spots made you see stars, which places to kiss and suck at and tease to get you ready. He used to know your body inside and out like it was a second home, and he used to be able to touch you without worrying about pain. He still knows these spots, yes, but he's nervous to use them on you lest the force of your pleasure drown you in pain. Now, he’s afraid trailing hands up your thighs might pull at your skin, or that hot kisses to your chest might bruise you permanently. Hands surrendered to a demon, he doesn’t know that he can relearn to be gentle. Maybe when Meg left his body, she took the gentleness with him; that’s certainly fitting for the monster of a man he swears he’s become.
A thud makes him jump, and he’s halfway to his feet before he realizes where it’s come from. You’re in the armchair still, head tipped back and mouth slightly parted, one hand dangling toward the floor. The book you’ve been reading is in a heap on the ground, pages splayed open and letters melding to the floorboards. Sam can faintly hear your soft breathing getting heavier, and something in his chest cracks at how peaceful you look. He stands, taking your book from the floor and setting it on the table, a newspaper scrap marking your page. He shakes your shoulder gently, slowly waking you up so as not to spook you.
“Bedtime?” he asks when you blink your eyes open.
“Guess so,” you reply around a yawn.
“You want a shower first?”
You nod, head tipped back to look at him with an expression that melts his heart. Sam already knows what you’re about to ask before you can ask it, and something deep in his stomach twinges with the shame of how he’d been thinking about you moments ago.
“Carry me?” you ask, at the same time Sam says, “C’mere.”
Sam gathers you in his arms, holding you close to his chest without crowding. He’s slow going up the stairs, because the last thing he wants is to hit your legs on something and bruise you unnecessarily, or have your sleeves catch on a handle and tear. He deposits you in the bathroom on the closed toilet lid, leaving you to change while he searches for a towel and spare clothes for you.
“Stay?” you ask when he comes back.
“You sure?”
You nod, slow. “Yeah, I think I do. I just- tonight’s kind of rough, I guess. Can’t stop thinking. Maybe if you’re here, I’ll…”
“Think less?” he finishes for you.
“Something like that.”
He nods slow, settling down with his back against the wall and his knees tucked up to his chest. Dual purpose, he supposes; it makes him comfortable and hides the semi hard-on he’s been sporting since dinner. The coldness of the tiled wall on his back in a blessing, shocking him and keeping the heat in his heart to a minimum. Sam averts his eyes while you change and step into the shower, only opening them again when your voice muffled by the running water starts talking to him and he's sure that an accidental glimpse of your bare body won't start the heat in his stomach again.
“You feeling alright today?” your voice asks around the waterdrops.
“Yeah. Why?”
You pause, and Sam can hear you rubbing soap into your hair. “I just-. I dunno, you seemed off today. Are you sick?”
He shakes his head, then remembers you can’t see him. “Nah. I’m alright.”
There’s another silence before he can hear you washing the soap out of your hair. Something in the way your voice gets a little airier, a little breathier with the exertion makes his heart speed up. Sam can’t help but imagine you, arms up as you rinse the soap out, stretching your body on full display. Your voice comes through again, snapping Sam out of his head.
“Is there something you wanna tell me?”
The water stops, and you peek your head around the curtain, water dripping from your hair and down your chest. Sam’s eyes flicker across your bare skin then back to your face, and he hopes he was quick enough you didn’t notice.
He clears his throat harshly, stuttering out a “No, no, it’s all fine.”
You raise a brow but don’t say anything, disappearing back around the curtain again, much to Sam’s disappointment. He wants you here, needs you right now so much it hurts his heart, the heat low in his stomach doing nothing to quench his thirst. He wants nothing more than to take you in his lap right now and feel the way your thighs tense around him, but he won’t. He can’t, not when he doesn’t know what’ll hurt you or heal you. He won’t take what’s not been offered, especially not after Meg.
The shower stops, and your hand darts out to take the towel he’s offering. You squeeze the water from your hair, running the towel back and forth over the strands for a while before wrapping it around your body, pulling back the curtain and stepping out. Sam sees the goosebumps forming on your legs before he tears his eyes away, standing and following you back to the bedroom where your sleep clothes are laid out on the bed.
Sam stops behind you, resting a hand on your shoulder while you sort out your clothing situation. He doesn’t realize how close he is to you until you freeze up, hands stopping their movements and head turning slightly to look at him. Sam freezes then too, because he realizes how close his hips are to your waist, the simple fact that you can definitely feel his arousal through his jeans makes his face burn with shame.
“Sam?” you say softly.
He turns his face away, backing up a step. If he could see himself in a mirror, he has no doubt he’s blushing furiously red, red like the flowers on your bedside table from last weekend. His fingers drift to the hem of his shirt, because anything is better to think about than what you know. Now, you know his deepest secret, the thing he’s purposely kept hidden from you for months out of fear you’ll be destroyed by the simple fact of want.
“Sam it’s okay-.”
“It’s not,” he chokes out, voice cracking. “It’s-. I-. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll leave, give you space. You want water?”
“Sam, I-.”
“I’ll be back, just get changed.”
He’s halfway out the door when he feels your arm on sleeve, tugging him backward violently. He almost stumbles over his own shoes, hand shooting out to grab at air before he can right himself, turning to face you. He knows there’s shame written all over his features, knows he’s probably less than human now that his animalistic desires have been made clear. You probably think he’s a monster now, no better than the thing that possessed him.
“Sam. Look at me,” you murmur, brushing his bangs back from his eyes.
He does, slowly, shyly, afraid to look you dead on in case your expression looks like rejection. Looking up, he finds nothing but love in your eyes, and it throws him off. Why are you looking at him like he’s human, like he’s something to be loved? Why are you looking at him like you want him too? You shouldn’t, not after what happened. You shouldn’t force yourself to do this with him just because he can’t keep it down.
“I want you, Sam,” you say, treading your fingers in his hair.
He throws a look over his shoulder, finding the door to the bedroom closed again. It must have been kicked shut with his heel as you tugged him back in. His eyes dart back to you, the faint dampness to your skin from the shower, the delicate way you touch his face like you’re worried he’s the one that might break.
“I-. You shouldn’t.”
You tip your head. “Why not?”
“Because of what happened. Because I let you get hurt.”
You sigh softly. “Sam, it wasn’t your fault.”
“If it wasn’t my fault, it wouldn’t have happened. Meg wouldn’t have possessed me. I should have been stronger, you know. I should’ve found a way to stop her, to keep her out of my head, away from you. That’s my job. I failed it. Don’t do this ‘cause you feel pity for me.”
“This isn’t pity, Sam. You want me, I want you, what’s so wrong about that? It’s not like we’ve never done this before.”
Sam swallows, suddenly feeling silly for his earlier concerns. You want him. You want him just like he wants you. Somehow, that both excites and terrifies him. You have faith that he’s not going to destroy you, that he won’t contaminate you with sulphur and demon smoke, the kind that even Latin can’t put out.
“Are you sure?”
Sam’s almost ashamed of how timid his voice sounds when he asks. He catches the way you swallow around your fear, the way you school your body to relax and breathe in, breathing in the space he’s made sure is safe for you.
“We don’t-. If it’s too much-,” he stutters.
“If it’s too much, we stop. I think- I think I want this, Sammy. I think I want you. And I think I need you to remind me what it’s like to be touched without being hurt.”
Sam needs a minute to recover from that one. Your words hit him square in the chest, your confidence shooting straight to his core. He’s undeniably hard now, and he knows you can feel the way it’s pressing against your thigh with how close you’re holding him. Your fingers drift up his neck to cup the back of his head, and he’s gone the moment your lips press to his.
As soon as your lips meet, nothing else matters. The world narrows down to the warmth of your mouth on his, the faint taste of your soap on your skin, the cautious heat of your tongue swiping at the seam of his lips. He lets you in immediately, savouring the way you taste. His arms come up, locking around your shoulders and tugging you closer to his chest. Your hips buck lightly against his in the process, and he groans softly into your mouth, the feeling of your bare legs on his jeans like a drug to his brain. If he tries hard enough, he can commit it to memory, keeping it tucked away in his brain for rainy days when you’re apart, when he can’t wrap his arms around you and hold you close.
He walks you slowly backward until your knees hit the edge of the bed and you sink down, sitting on the grey sheets. Sam watches how they pool under your knees, like ripples in a pond. If they were, you’d likely be throwing a stone into it right now, mesmerized by the patterns they make. Fractals, he vaguely recalls. Why he knows that he’s not too sure. He can’t think straight when his mouth is on yours and you’re sighing into his, and his hands are itching to move.
“Hands on me, Sam, please,” you whisper breathlessly.
He doesn’t need to be told twice, especially not when you speak to him like that. There’s a reverence to your voice that he’s sorely missed, like you’re murmuring prayers to him through your ecstasy. Sam runs his hands up your arms, cupping your chin and head as he pulls you ever deeper, stealing the air straight from your lungs with his kisses.
“You sure? I don’t wanna crowd you,” he says, low and ragged.
“You won’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sam, you’re going to be fine. You’re…you’re you. I don’t think you know how to hurt me if you even wanted to.”
He barely has time to recover from that before your hands are on his chest, pawing at the buttons on his shirt, fingers fumbling to undo them. Sam helps, large hands taking over where you’re struggling, lips still kissing across your jawline, starting to trace a faint trail down your neck. Your breath hitches once, and Sam slows his descent until your breathing is back under control.
Finally, his shirt comes off, and your eager hands slide it down his shoulders and off his arms. He pulls it over his watch, settling on taking that off too and setting it on the bedside table near your flowers that have started to lose their petals. Perhaps if he rewound the time on the watch, the flowers might grow back again pretty as they were. The ticking is lost to the sounds of the room, your breathing mixing with his in a symphony almost more intimate than the act of sex itself; the air you breathe, he breathes too. Sharing a space without crowding, without hurting, without ruining.
He’s vaguely aware of your fingers drifting back up his neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. The room’s air is still a little hot and sticky on his bare skin, but he barely notices. Sam’s not concerned about the room, because your fingers have just tangled in his hair at the back of his head, pulling his head toward you as you tip back, starting to lay yourself out. He feels a tug at the top of his head that goes straight to the pit of his stomach and trickling lower as you do it again. If he wasn’t hard before, he certainly is now.
You do it a third time, and Sam groans low and heavy in his throat, fingers dipping under the hem of your towel and slowly peeling it off your body. He works carefully, only progressing when your breathing is as even as it can be for all the kissing you’re doing, making sure nothing gets revealed that you don’t want him to see. When the towel’s finally off and dropped to the floor at the foot of the bed, Sam maneuvers you until you’re lying flat, head on the pillow, his thighs bracketing yours.
His head dips to capture your lips in a kiss that tastes like forgiveness, tender and sweet. It makes his lips tingle, and when he pulls back to study your face, there’s a light in your eyes he only ever sees in the intimate moments between; the one that’s bright like the sun and full of so much love he’s not sure how it all fits in one person. He watches the light, follows it with his eyes as it consumes your body, trailing down through your veins and culminating on your chest, right over where that void remains in your heart. Where he used to only see sharp edges and cracked memories, he sees repair, promise, new pieces growing out of the old. Different, yes, but steady.
Your fingers drift to the waistband of his jeans, running your thumbs along the denim hem, pads of them tracing over the stitching. Sam’s still kissing you, trailing slow, open-mouthed presses down your neck, finding that spot that makes you moan softly, sucking lightly once, then soothing it with his tongue when he pulls away. Down your neck, into the curve of your shoulder, across your collarbones and into the dip between. He doesn’t leave marks, because this isn’t about possessiveness and belonging; it’s about trust and care and faith in each other.
Sam hisses through his teeth when your hand palms him through his jeans, the sound turning into a moan when you tease along his bulge. Nipping lightly at your neck, his mouth curves into a faint smile when you start to work the buckle of his belt. The sound of leather sliding through denim is familiar, the weight of it dropping to the floor feels like punctuation to something bigger than himself. He pops the button on his jeans, letting your hands drag them down over his hips, exposing his stomach.
Sam’s breath catches on the inhale when your fingers drop to the happy trail across his lower stomach, a cracked moan slipping free as you trace the trail down to the waistband of his boxers. He kicks off his jeans, your thumbs hooking into his boxers in the process. He gasps when you stick one hand in, taking him in your fist and giving him one slow stroke, as if checking he’s ready for you. Shedding his boxers too leaves him just as bare before you as you are under him, and he dips his head to kiss a trail down your chest, following your sternum, hands spread over your ribs like he’s holding you together in his arms.
He slips a leg between yours, gently nudging them apart. You freeze, scrambling back with a startled gasp. Sam lifts his hands off you immediately, sitting back on his legs and watching you, palms facing toward you, showing you the emptiness of them.
“What happened?” Sam asks.
“Just-.” You swallow. “When y- when she did…that. In the motel. Just don’t-. Don’t do that. Please.”
“Okay. Okay. Hands are off, alright?”
He sees you nod, but you don’t look convinced. Something cracks in his chest, and he cautiously leans toward you.
“Can I come closer?” You’re watching him warily. “Can I hold you? Or do you want hands off?”
You nod. “You can touch.”
Sam scoots up the bed, and when he gets close enough, he can hear your panicked heartbeat racing in your chest. One hand lays flat over your heart, pressing softly against your chest like he can control your breathing with just a touch; maybe he can, because he notes it’s working. Your chest rises and falls slower, the thudding of your heart dulls down to a regular pace, and some of the panic in your expression starts to fade. Sam’s mentally cursing himself for moving too fast, already thinking about next moves and how he’ll earn your forgiveness.
“You’re okay,” Sam murmurs. “You’re okay.”
“I know,” you mumble weakly against his chest.
“Do you really?”
You pick your head up and Sam’s eyes meet yours. He can see something hiding deep in there, buried under layers of pain and trauma and fear; hope. There’s hope living in your expression, begging to break free from its cage. All Sam wants to do is dive in and peel the bars back, let it fly free and remind you how safe you really are, but he can’t. He’ll have to show you come other way, because he’s nothing if not determined to make sure you can feel like you’re safe with him again.
“You wanna switch?” Sam asks.
You take a shaky inhale. “I-. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Maybe if I have…control, I’ll feel better.”
You wince at the word choice, but Sam understands. He knows how badly you need this, how desperate you are to feel like you have some sort of autonomy over yourself. Sam wants it too, wants badly to prove he can be above you without ruining it all, but there’s plenty of time for that later.
Taking you by the hips, he shifts you, so that he takes your place lying flat on the bed, back against the sheets. They’re warm from your body heat, a few of your stray hairs on the pillow that tickle his cheeks, but it’s comfortable and it feels like you, and that’s all he cares about. Sam’s hands guide you as you crawl back over him, this time bracketing his thighs with yours, and suddenly Sam’s back on the bathroom floor thinking about this very moment all over again.
Your hand wanders down, wrapping around his length as you begin to move, slowly working him back up. With your lips trailing lazy kisses down his chest and your hand on him, he’s hard again in no time, flushed under your touch. When your hand parts from him, he gives a pathetic sounding whine high in his throat that you drink up with a kiss. Your hand splays over his side as you continue your trail of kisses down his stomach, open-mouthed ones that spark heat in his core as your lips tease over his happy trail, fingers dancing over the ridges of his muscles that tense harder the longer you tease him.
He knows you’re not doing it purposely, especially not now. It’s the stability, the knowing that you can control the situation, that he’ll respond to you however you decide you want him. Sam’s not picky, not aching for anything other than to feel you and heal you and to make you remember how gentle his hands are when they lay on your body and trace your curves.
Sam’s hand wanders for the drawer in the bedside table, eyes parting from your face for just long enough to fish out a condom from its depths. The electric touch from your fingers brushing his sends a jolt through him, watching you with mild surprise as you take the condom from his hands, unwrapping the foil with tender precision. His eyes squeeze shut and his head throws back in a muffled moan as you slide the condom over his length, the material a cold shock to his nervous system.
“Doing alright?” he asks when he can speak again, thumb caressing your face.
“Yeah,” you say with a soft smile. “You?”
“Yeah.”
Your eyes light up, looking like someone’s dipped them in watercolour and let the colours mix into something uniquely yours. Sam’s never seen anything like it, and he doesn’t think he ever will again, not as long as he lives. This is who you are at the very essence of your being, something so unique and precious to him that even if he dedicates the rest of his life to the search, he’ll only find it in you.
Cautiously, you take Sam in your hand again, running your fingers once more over him before shifting yourself forward, lining him up with your entrance. His lips are on yours as you slide down onto him, your moan mixing with his lower one as he feels every inch of himelf move through your core. He’s missed this, he realizes. Missed the heat of your body, missed the familiar way your hands roam over him, eyes fluttering closed as you get comfortable, the thud of your heart he can feel throughout you. Sam’s missed the intimacy of knowing you inside and out, and now after all the ways you’ve changed, he can rediscover you like it’s the first time all over again.
When you’re fully seated in his lap, hips flush against his, you let out a heavy sigh. Sam swears he can see the weight lift from your shoulders just from the simple fact of knowing you’re still intact, that the world hasn’t come crashing down around you for a second time. He’s here, he’s real, you’re okay. He repeats it to himself, but his thoughts get stolen by an overwhelming surge of anxiety when you start to rock your hips against him. Sam’s hands fly up to your waist to stop you, and your eyes blink wide at him in concern.
“Are-. Is everything okay?” you ask. “Too fast?”
“No, no. Just-. How are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
Sam blinks. “I just-. How do you know I won’t hurt you? How can you be so sure that I’m not gonna, you know, turn into something again?”
Your expression softens. “Sam, you’re not, I promise.”
“How can you be so sure? What if-.” Something sharp catches in his throat, like a thorn from the roses at the bedside. “What if I hurt you?”
You reach a hand up to caress his cheek, tracing your thumb from the mole near his eye, down across his cheekbone, sweeping along his lightly stubbled jaw before cradling his head in your palm.
“Sam, love, don’t worry.”
“But-.”
“I trust you.”
There it is. Those three words Sam didn’t think he’d ever hear again.
I. Trust. You.
It’s simple, really. A trivial statement that seems foolish now that the words are out into the air. But there’s a weight to them that settles deep in Sam’s chest and pricks hot tears in his eyes, like you’ve aired your biggest secret to a dusty room that has no right hearing something so personal. He blinks in surprise when he realizes he can’t make out your face through the haze of tears in his eyes, sniffling lightly when one slips free and trails sideways into his hairline.
“I trust you, Sammy. I trust you so, so much.”
You say it like a mantra, so real and heavy and true that Sam can’t help but believe it. Something about the gravity in your voice when you say those three words makes Sam feel foolish for ever having thought otherwise. Of course you trust him, because why wouldn’t you? Another tear trickles into his hairline, then a second, and a third, and for a brief moment, Sam’s not sure if he can ever stop crying.
“Thank you,” he whispers, voice shaky and raw with something fragile.
Your lips graze his cheeks, kissing away the tear stains, rocking yourself forward in the process. Sam’s tip catches on a spot deep inside you that makes you moan and him inhale sharply. It doesn’t chase the tears from his eyes, but it stops them from falling, gives him the chance to blink them away before you move again. When do you, Sam can’t help the way his hips jerk up into you, meeting you halfway with a thrust that doesn’t push.
His movements seem to spur you on, your pace quickening just a touch. Each roll of your hips against his drags him partway out of you and back in again, and each buck of his hips up against you gives much-needed friction. Each time Sam hits that spot inside you, your eyes press shut and you grind down hard against him, a soft, breathy moan slipping free that Sam drinks up with a kiss. His own layer of groans rumble deep in his chest where your hands rest against him, fingers pressing against the moles on his skin like you can ground yourself in them.
He can tell you’re close by the way your thighs tighten on his, toes curling where they rest against his calves. Your hand squeezes once on the plush of his side like you’re settling yourself, learning to ride the waves as they come. Sam can feel how you’ve stopped fighting your initial discomfort, how you’ve started embracing it instead of being constantly wary. You’ve slowly melted further into Sam’s warmth, let the heat of him slowly bleed into you like he can make you clean instead of dirty. For the first time in his life, Sam thinks he might be able to help rather than hurt, to clean rather than taint.
One final roll of your hips and one strong buck of Sam’s sends you over the edge, falling straight into Sam’s arms with a heady moan of his name that softens at the edges and cracks in the middle and almost makes him lightheaded. He pumps his hips once, twice more, stomach muscles contracting tight before spilling into the condom. He groans deep and heavy in his chest as he comes, the sound echoing out into the world like it needs the birds and trees and far-away mountains to hear the news that Sam Winchester has healed a soul.
And healed you are. The gaping pit in your heart is gone, sealed over with something that looks and feels an awful lot like Sam’s love for you, fitting perfectly into the shape rotted out by the demonic touch of Meg. You’re whole again, in Sam’s eyes. Different, yes, changed, for sure, but whole, despite it all. You’ve come out the other side with all your pieces intact, albeit carrying the distinct touch of Sam.
His head drops to your shoulder as his arms wrap tight around your back, intent on holding every inch of you as close to his chest as he can. Slowly, his breathing calms with yours, chests rising and falling in tandem, heartbeats dancing a waltz to music only you can hear. Sam’s fingers trace patterns on your back as he lies there, boneless, letting the afterglow wash over him like the first sunrise after days of cloud. He loses track of time, watching you, feeling you, reveling in your warmth and love and trust.
Eventually, when you’ve regained some strength, you lift your hips up off him, both you and Sam wincing slightly at the sensitivity of it. He can tell you’re a little tender in your hips with the way your legs close slow when you lay down beside him. He’s a little sore himself, more from the emotional taxation of it all, but there’s a spot in his lower back that’s gone sensitive from the way he was arched moments ago.
“D’you want another shower?” Sam asks after a pause, voice low and warm.
“Tired,” is your only reply, which makes him huff a laugh.
“Bath?”
You squint your eyes, picking up your head to look at him. “Do I have to?”
“No. You don’t gotta do anything if you don’t want to.”
His fingers brush hair back from your face, grazing light over your skin as he purses his lips, stretching to give you a deep kiss that makes him see stars.
“Just wanna lay here,” you whisper.
“We can do that,” Sam whispers back. “Gonna clean you up, m’kay?”
You nod, sighing gently as Sam rolls himself off the bed, the shock from his bare feet on the cold floor a welcome wake-up call as he stands. Clean boxers get retrieved from the dresser and slid on his hips, and a worn t-shirt that feels like home gets tossed in your direction in case you want to cover up. Sam knows you likely won’t, because nobody else is home; something he’s thankful for as he pads toward the bathroom.
Sam closes the door behind himself when he steps in, taking a moment just to soak in the aftermath of it all. Something’s changed in him too, he thinks. He knows you’re different, that’s not surprising. What is, however, is the man he sees looking back at him in the mirror when he raises his head. This man is still Sam, the same brown hair, the same wide eyes, the same fading cut on his forehead from a week ago that stubbornly refuses to heal. But this man looks stronger, like he’s learned something about himself since the last time he checked.
You must not have been the only one with missing pieces then. Maybe what you saw in that puddle was true, maybe Sam was just as broken as you were. Something in Sam tells him he’ll never have sex more meaningful than that, because it healed you and it healed him, and it fixed something broken deep inside both your souls that he was convinced could never be healed. He’s done something good for once, he realizes with a foreign pride. He’s let himself love someone and they haven’t been stolen from him. They haven’t been tormented or destroyed or turned into something unrecognizable.
Sam winces as he slides the condom off, tying it up and tossing in in the trash, wrapped in tissue in a fruitless attempt to conceal it. He’s not ashamed, but something in him says this is a moment to be kept between you and him, never to be heard of by anyone else. Tomorrow he’ll have to take out that trash bin just to rid the evidence. He settles for wiping himself down with tissue and tucking himself away again in his boxers. Retrieving a cloth, he runs it under water, letting it warm on his hand first and testing the temperature inside his wrist to make sure it’s not too hot or cold for you.
Wringing out the excess water, he brings the cloth back to the bedroom, tapping you softly on the shoulder when he notices you’ve started to drift off. You prop your legs open for him, letting him wipe you down in soft strokes. Sam handles you with reverence, like you’re a museum piece he’s been tasked to care for. Any time you flinch from tenderness, he pulls back, lets you adjust, resumes his work. When he’s done, there’s no trace that anything ever happened, besides a tension in his muscles and a heavy film of exhaustion that’s worming into his brain.
Cloth rinsed out and hung up to dry, the t-shirt returned unused to the dresser drawer it came from, Sam finally pulls the blankets up, sliding into bed at your side and pulling you close until your head lands on his pillow. One hand of yours drifts to his chest, resting palm-down over his heart, fingers tapping in time with the beat. When you speak, your voice is barely over a whisper, like the moment might shatter if you speak too loudly.
“Sammy?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
Sam blinks, taken aback. “For what?”
“For this. Tonight. For reminding me what it feels like to be loved.”
Emotion pricks at his throat, and he clears it, shuffling you closer so your head rests on his bare chest now, tugging the blankets up higher over both your bodies.
“I didn’t do anything,” he says.
“Sam, you did everything.”
“I-.”
“You cared. You loved. You made sure I was okay, and you stopped when I got scared. You showed me what it really looks like to be loved by Sam. You just-. I don’t know if you’ll ever really know how much this means to me, but it means a lot.”
Sam presses a kiss to your temple, lips brushing a faded scar from years past. “You helped me too, you know.”
You grin against his chest, lips curving. “I know.”
It’s Sam’s turn to smile. “I guess that’s what we do, huh? Help each other?”
You nod, hair tickling his chin where it gets caught in his stubble.
“We heal each other, Sammy. That’s what we do.”
He nods, pensive. Already, his mind is racing, cataloguing every touch between the motel and now, marvelling at how far you’ve come. The months between felt like an agonizing eternity where Sam wasn’t sure if he could ever be loved by you again, but now that it’s over, it feels like the blink of an eye.
“You know, I was thinking about something earlier,” Sam starts.
“Uh oh,” you say, chuckling against his chest, the vibrations going through him.
“Hush,” he says around a laugh. “I was thinking about what you said at that puddle a while ago.”
Your brows pinch together, and Sam can tell you have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Where you told me what you saw when you looked at us, and you told me I looked broken.”
“Oh. That.”
Sam’s hand rubs your shoulder now, palm curving over it protectively, tugging you tighter against his bare chest.
“You were right, you know. About me being hurt and violated. I was hurting so bad I didn’t even feel it anymore. All I could think about was how much I hurt and how much more you must have been hurting.”
You make a soft sound in sympathy.
“I think-. I think I’m gonna be alright now,” Sam finishes, the words carrying a finality to them that makes him convinced they’re true. “I really think we’re gonna be okay.”
You snuggle closer, fitting into the curve of his arm. “Yeah. Yeah, we will. We’re gonna be just fine, Sammy, love.”
Sam presses one more kiss to your lips, resting his chin on your head as he lets his eyes flutter shut, the weight of exhaustion pulling him down immediately. He’s always been this way, after sex, for reasons still unknown to him. Usually, he tries to fight it, tries to stay awake as long as he can because he needs to make sure you won’t take off on him in the middle of the night, needs to be certain nothing’s going to come after you while you sleep in his arms. It’s a battle he usually loses, often succumbing to your sleepy warmth way sooner than he’d like. Tonight, though, he doesn’t bother putting up a fight, just lets himself curl tighter around you like a cat protecting their kittens.
"I love you," he whispers into your hairline, repeating it over and over again like a prayer.
"Love you too," you mumble in reply, kissing the hinge of his jaw.
You drop into sleep before him, body relaxing against him with a pleasant sigh. Your hip twitches once, reminding Sam you’re still a little stiff. Slowly so as not to wake you, he starts working at your muscles, long fingers kneading at the skin with just enough pressure to keep you asleep yet still soothe your aches. You melt even further into his side, pressing your body as close as you can possibly manage, throwing one leg over his as you sleepily readjust. A muscle gives in your lower back, and he feels the breath of relief you exhale against his skin, smiling softly to himself at a mission accomplished.
Sam turns in your hold, hiking your leg back up over his and throwing an arm over you, resting on your shoulder blades. He tucks your head into the crook between his neck and shoulder, resting his chin on the top of your head, pressing a lingering kiss to your hair before smoothing it back again. He doesn’t ever want to let you go now that he has you this close, now that he knows he can cross the line into sex with you again. He doesn’t ever want to leave this bed, not even when the sun comes up tomorrow morning bright and insistent the way it always does when it matters. He’ll settle for taking tonight, basking in the gravity well of the mattress shaped by your bodies tangled together, resting in the space the air left for you to exist while it works to keep the outside world away for a night.
His arm holds you close, fingers brushing the dimples in your back just above your hips, thumb rubbing circles on your hipbone until he falls asleep completely. His other hand drifts to your hair, tangling in the strands at the back of your head, cupping your head and bringing it as close as he can. Sam’s long body curls around you, and you curl into him, tucking together, two souls bound from the very beginning, always fated to end up intertwined. Sam falls asleep not knowing where he ends and you begin. All he’s certain of is that you’re both going to be alright, and that you trust him.
Those fated three words. Not ‘I love you’. Not ‘I was wrong’. I. Trust. You. Heavy, absolute, weighted with the kind of dedication that comes from honesty. The knowledge that you trust him is enough to make his heart burst in his chest, filling him with a devastatingly sweet realization that you’re it for him, and he’s it for you, and there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than in your arms at the end of the toughest days of his life.
summary: when you get hurt on a hunt with crowley, sam comes to rescue you. crowley's jealous because all he wants is to be loved by you the same way your brothers love you
pairing: sam + dean x middle-sibling!reader (gn) ft. crowley
genre: angst | word count: 3.2k
warnings: hellhounds, crowley being snarky, overprotective sam, hellhounds, arguing, crowley just wants to be loved
notes: this was written for @chevroletdean lovely 5k follower challenge !! i got crowley and rowena for my chracters, angst for my genre and jealousy for the prompt. so, i present to you; whatever the hell this is
There you are again. The single bright spot to his darkness. The good to his bad, to antidote to his poison. Everything about you opposes everything about him, and it only makes him hate you more. No, not quite hate. Envy, perhaps. Because what you are is what he will never be; not to his family, and certainly not to yours.
You’re loved. You know it, he knows it, your brothers know it. It’s obvious to anyone who’s ever heard about you. Sam and Dean talk about you all the time, pride evident in their tones. They don’t even have to say I love you for you to know they do, because the love of your brothers is one that doesn’t need words to be described. It’s obvious from their tones, the simple things they do for you; making sure they always have your favourite drink in the cooler, giving you the extra blanket in motels if you’re too cold, making sure your weapons get reloaded first. You have family.
Crowley does not. At least, not in the same way you do. Sure, he’s got Rowena, but she’s a poor excuse for a mother and she might as well not be with the way she treats him. Hell, even you treat him better than she does, and he’s pretty sure you hate him just as much as your brothers do. At least you’re appreciated, taken care of in a way that’s tender without being overbearing, understood without having to speak.
It's jealously, Crowley realizes, how he feels about you. A burning jealousy that simmers under his skin every time he lays eyes on you, every time he hears your name. He hates it, hates you, because you have everything he wants; someone, anyone to see him for himself. To look at him without grimacing, to touch him without flinching, to be in the same room as him without backing away. He needs someone to love him like he’s family. Forget romance, because he’s long accepted it’s not in the cards for him. He just needs someone to let him think he’s worth it, even if it’s just for a second.
You’re kinder to him than your brothers are, he starts to notice. Sam in particular harbours a strange hatred for him. He’s not done anything particularly bad, he thinks, because if he had, Sam wouldn’t be alive to hate him. Dean’s a little more lenient, likely due to your persistence that Crowley can still be useful. He’s thankful for that at least, because it means as long as you’re in the room, he can breathe just a little easier until the jealousy overtakes him.
He gets a break one day, when you do something that completely shocks him. You bring him tea. Not just tea, the boring kind you buy in bulk and steep in lukewarm water in motel kitchens because it’s the cheapest. No, this is real, proper tea. The kind that comes in loose leaves, flower buds and herbs mixing together with an earthy scent that’s reminiscent of home. The tea you’d gotten from Sam as a birthday gift last year, the kind that comes from a brother and says love ya without the words.
“Made you tea,” you say casually, placing the cup down at his elbow.
“Why?” Crowley says, staring at you from his seat with an unreadable expression.
“Because I wanted to?” you retort.
That makes him stop. Not just because the tone is the same one you use when you’re fed up with someone playing you, although it does make his blood run a little colder. No, it’s because you’ve done something for him without him needed to ask. He didn’t even have to threaten. This is new. And what’s new is terrifying.
“If you wanted to seduce me, you could’ve just asked,” he says, his familiar sarcasm flooding his tone.
You’re not impressed, merely raising your eyebrows as you take a sip of your own tea.
“Don’t think too highly of yourself, Crowley. Might have to ask Sam to put you back in the dungeon.”
He freezes, holding your stone-cold gaze with his own until you break, a toothy smile cracking your face before you burst into laughter.
“Shoulda seen your face,” you choke out when you can breathe again. “Absolutely priceless.”
He shakes his head as the corner of his mouth twitches up against his will, fighting the smile that threatens to break through. Taking a sip of his tea, he’s pleasantly surprised to taste the right amount of sugar you put in; just enough to take the bitterness off, but not enough to overwhelm the sharp bite of the peppermint.
“Good, right?” you ask.
“You sneaking around behind my back and memorizing how I take my tea?”
“You ever say thank you?”
He just has to laugh at that, because you’re the only person who matches his sarcasm and doesn’t make it bite. “Not really.”
“That was me telling you to say it, by the way.”
Crowley’s silent, taking another sip of his tea. You know he won’t really say it, and you’re not expecting him to. You’re just trying to have a little fun with the guy before your brother inevitably show up and ruin your fun. You like him, in a strange way.
Morally, he’s a nightmare. And Sam’s right to be suspicious of him, although he takes it a bit of an extreme. Dean’s approach is better, but he’s still a little trigger-happy, and a little too excited to put Crowley back in the dungeon again if he ever steps a toe out of line. You, on the other hand, like to push him, see how far he’ll go before he admits to what he really wants. He’s a little bit like family, in a strange, strange way. Not a brother, no, but someone you could keep around for a long, long time and never really tire of. Barring the fact he’s a demon, he’s a pretty nice guy when you get to know him.
Suddenly, the tea’s too sour in his mouth. He sets the cup down, picking up a scrap page from where they’re scattered on the table. Anything to distract him from the fact the tea suddenly tastes like hatred and spite and jealousy. You’re giving him something to drink that was a gift from your brother. And that thought makes his stomach curdle, because he wants it. He wants to be given things of yours that matter to you. He wants to have something that’s his, because someone cared about him enough to give it to him.
“Oh, look at you two, gettin’ all cozy.” Deans’ voice from the doorway is mocking, and you jump.
“Shut up,” you mutter, eyes averting his gaze.
“Oh relax,” he says, chuckling. “I’m not gonna ruin your fun.”
“I will,” Sam says, peeking out from behind.
You roll your eyes. “No you won’t, Sammy, you love me too much for that.”
He huffs. “Not when you’re getting all buddy-buddy with a demon.”
Crowley’s eyebrow raises. “And you didn’t? Don’t think I forgot about your little escapade with Ruby, Moose.”
Sam’s jaw tightens, a muscle in his cheek jumping. “Lay off it.”
“Oh, I don’t think I will.” Crowley’s getting riled up now, you know, because suddenly his voice cuts like a blade and his words carry spikes. “I’m not hurting anybody by being here, am I?” he says, looking at you.
“Sam, leave him alone,” you comment. Sam huffs again, but doesn’t say anything.
“You done arguing?” Dean says.
“Yeah. What’s up?” you reply.
“Got something you might want to hear about.”
You invite him in, and he drops heavily into a chair beside you, across the table from Crowley. Sam stands behind you, arms crossed over his chest and eyes sharp, staring Crowley down as though he could protect you with just a glare. And maybe he could, if it were anyone else but him Sam was staring down.
Dean starts talking, telling you about some sort of demonic rising he’s been tracking a couple states away. There’s all the classic signs, and he says it should be textbook, but you catch the way Crowley’s shoulders curve inward like he knows something you don’t.
“Dean?” you say, and he stops. “Crowley, what’s wrong?”
Crowley’s speechless for a minute, because you just asked his opinion. You’ve never done that with anyone that’s not your brothers. It’s strange, he thinks, that you should be so nice in the same way you are to Sam and Dean.
“You’re missing something,” he spits out, making Sam’s eyebrows raise. “This sigil. I recognize it. It’s ancient, older than anything I’ve ever seen before. They wouldn’t use this in a rising like that if it wasn’t something big.”
Sam’s posture changes behind you, defensive as ever. “How do you know about it, Crowley? You suddenly an expert in demon rituals now?”
“More than you, I’d say,” he retorts. “Some of us pay attention to more than dusty lore books, Moose.”
“Crowley-,” you warn, but he doesn’t stop.
“I’ll have you know, I was there when it was last used! I painted that damn thing into the soil myself. ‘Course I bloody know what I’m talking about!”
Sam starts forward, and you stick out an arm to hold him back. “Don’t you dare, Samuel.”
He looks at you wide-eyed, because just for a moment, you sound exactly like a parent chastising their child rather than his older sibling. He doesn’t like it, but he nods anyways, backing down without pushing. He knows well enough by now not to push you when you talk like that, because it never ends good for him.
“So, lets say you’re not lying to us,” you start, and Crowley has to remind himself that you’re still wary of him, even if you make him tea from your gifted leaves. “Where do we start?”
“There’s a few things I need from your stash, but I know how we can break the sigil. Doing it at the right time should eliminate whatever its summoning.”
You smile a little, content with that answer. “Great. I’ll come with you.”
“Woah, woah, woah. With him? You’re taking him?” Dean says apprehensively.
You stare at him blankly. “Why the hell wouldn’t I? Dean, he knows what he’s talking about. I trust him to fix this.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Sam juts in.
“Well, then we put in him in the dungeon.” You glare at Crowley as you say it, and he swallows sharply, nodding in agreement.
“Fine, fine, fair deal,” Crowley says lowly.
“Glad that’s decided.” You start to stand, but Sam stops you.
“We didn’t decide anything.”
“I did. We’re going. You’re going to wait here, and you’re not going to come unless I call you, alright?”
He looks like he wants to argue, but your face softens as you put a hand on his shoulder. “Trust me on this one, Sammy. I want to give him a chance to prove himself. That’s all.”
Sam takes a deep breath in, shoulders heaving. “Fine. But if anything, and I mean anything, goes wrong, call us.”
“I know, I know.” You’re halfway out the door before realizing Crowley isn’t following. “You coming, demon king? We got work to do.”
Not even a day later, you’re on the road with you behind the wheel and Crowley sitting shotgun beside you. He looks awkward in the cramped space, but you don’t push him. Some people just don’t talk about things, especially not with anyone who’s brothers wouldn’t be opposed to stabbing him on the spot. He’s lucky you care enough to keep him alive.
“So, remind me what we gotta do?” you say, voice rough after hours of disuse.
“You’re not doing anything. I’m breaking the seal, you’re making sure the ghosts of hell don’t come flying through the rift.”
You snort, like he’s just made the funniest joke on the planet. “Yeah, right. I’m helping whether you like it or not.”
“Look, I’m not telling you this for fun. It might kill you, and I don’t need your giant lumberjack of a brother on my ass for your death.”
“So? It’s bound to happen sooner or later. You’ll probably just raise me from the dead anyways.”
“Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because you like my annoying ass, that’s why. I’m the only reason my brothers haven’t killed you yet, that’s gotta count for something.”
He makes a disgruntled noise, turning his attention back to the window. Your fingers tap a beat on the steering wheel, and you sit in silence until Crowley directs you to the field.
He steps out of the car, jaw set in that way that tells you he’s going through with his plan no matter what anybody says. Gathering his ingredients, he steps to the center of the half-finished sigil and starts work. You salt the area around him, drawing a devil’s trap in the dirt too. You’re careful not to trap him in it; leaving one line broken until he’s safely out of range.
“Here they come,” he warns, scrambling back as you finish the trap.
You cock your gun, loaded with salt rounds, ready for whatever comes out of the rift that’s opened up in the ground. Crowley stands just to the left and slightly in front of you, partly blocking your body with his but still making sure you have enough room to fire around him. He’s chanting now, harsh Latin that sounds rough in his voice, like gravel under car tires.
Then, it goes sideways. You’re not sure what happens, not really, and Crowley’s not able to move fast enough. There’s a ripple of air, and Crowley’s just barely able to shout at you to get behind him before the hellhound rips at where you’ve just been. But he wasn’t quick enough, and the hound’s claws slash at your shoulder, blood pouring down your side as you drop.
He finishes the chant as fast as he can, the hounds disappearing back into the void as the rift closes and the sigil vanishes. He’s standing over you, panic hardly concealed; partly for you, partly for himself if your brothers find out.
It’s strange, seeing Crowley this afraid. Somewhere along the way, he’s started to think of you like family, as much as he’s afraid you’ll hate him if he says it. It feels wrong, but he craves your attention so desperately it drives him crazy.
“I’ll handle him later,” you whisper. “Just call him.”
Crowley’s hand fumble with his phone as he dials Sam’s number, and you can just make out his voice shouting something angrily at Crowley through the phone as he explains.
When the car rolls up, you’re half-conscious and partly repaired, thanks to Crowley’s mediocre stitching. Sam’s lumbering steps toward you are more felt than heard, but you sink into the ground, knowing he’s got you.
“Hey, Sammy,” you say weakly when he gets close.
“What did he do to you?”
“Nothing, trust me.”
“Nothing?” he explodes. “You’re bleeding in the grass, half stitched up, with a demon standing over you, and you’re telling me he didn’t do anything?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Who do you think stitched me up?”
Sam stops, brows furrowing. “We’re going. He’s staying.”
“Wh- Sam, no. No, he’s coming with us.”
“He let you get hurt!”
“I don’t care!”
Sam helps you to your feet, steadying you with an arm around your waist as he helps you walk back to the car. Crowley’s still standing dumbfounded in the grass, half his heart hoping you’ll let him come, the other half knowing Sam won’t let you make that choice.
You turn back to him, mouthing I’m so sorry to him, and he just nods slightly in acceptance. It’s okay, he thinks, if you don’t see him like family. This jealousy isn’t hot like before; it runs ice cold and bone deep, flooding him with a sadness incomparable to anything he’s ever felt before. He’d hoped that just maybe, all the things you did for him were a sign that maybe you felt like that too, that you could give him that familial love his mother never did. Maybe he was wrong. He’s been wrong before, he can handle being wrong again. How he’ll face you back at the bunker, though, he’s not sure.
In the car, you’re arguing with Sam. His words are sharp, but they don’t hurt because he doesn’t intend them to. You’re more yelling than hurting him, and he lets you, because it’s just how you two fight. Venting your frustrations without hurting each other.
“Sam, you can’t just leave him there.”
“Yes, I can, and I will.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Why the hell not?” he says, turning to you and pulling the car over. “Give me one good reason why I should go back there and get him.”
“Because he’s family,” you whisper so low he almost misses it.
He stops dead in his tracks. “He’s what?”
“Family.”
“How on earth is he family?”
You inhale deeply. “Because he cares. He protects me. He protected me just now, shoving me out of the way before that dog could really nail me. I’m alive because of him, Sam.”
Sam listens quietly, judgement dissolving.
“Never once has he tried to hurt me. Never once has he lied, manipulated me, made me think of anything other than the truth. I trust him, Sam, and in his own weird way, he’s family.”
Sam starts the car again but doesn’t turn back.
“Why aren’t you going back?” you say.
“I’ll get Dean to come for him later.”
“Sam-.”
“No. I’m not doing this right now. I gotta get you back and fix those stitches. We can argue about your demon buddy later, okay?”
You nod solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m sorry for calling him family, if that’s what got you all mad. I can- I can take it back.”
Sam’s quiet. “You don’t need to take it back. I just hope he doesn’t feel like family too. Because maybe he’s your family, but he’s not mine. And I’d like to keep being your brother.”
What that means, you’re not quite sure. It’s not complete rejection, but it’s not acceptance either. Maybe someday you’ll get through to him, that Crowley can be trusted. Maybe you can even tell Crowley himself you think of him like that, want to give him that familial love he’s missed out on. All he wants is to be needed, and you need him. Maybe someday…someday, someday, someday.
summary: christmas with the winchesters is never normal. except for this year, when you decide sam needs a taste of the childhood he never had
pairing: sam + dean x middle-sibling!reader (gn) | genre: fuff with a bit of angst | word count: 4.1k (yikes)
warnings: mentions of john's terrible parenting, mentions of reader and dean raising sam, bobby being the father the boys never had, sibling banter, a snowball fight, reader is shorter than bobby and the brothers (who isn't honestly), big feels :[
notes: heavily inspired by my family's christmas tradition soup (that i have tried so many times and still don't like. i want to like it so bad 😭). also the potatoes from motel magic make an appearance !!
It’s uncharacteristically cold for December in Sioux Falls when Dean pulls the Impala to a stop outside the scrapyard. The morning air makes your breath fog even in the car, and Sam’s got a slight shiver even under his jacket that he’d insisted was warm enough.
“Regretting that jacket Sammy?” you ask, reaching over the seat back to bump his shoulder with your hand.
“No,” he says stubbornly, making Dean shake his head and laugh.
“Yeah right. You’re freezing your ass off Sam,” Dean replies, grinning at you.
“No, I’m not.” The protest is cut short by another shiver, and Dean’s head tips back from laughter. It hits the seat back, and he stops immediately, muttering something to himself while you hide your own grin. “That’s karma, Dean.”
Once you’ve made it out of the car with a healthy amount of teasing and shoving, the three of you start off up the path to Bobby’s. Dean and Sam walk side by side ahead of you, and you take the opportunity to kick Dean’s foot with your boot when he takes a step forward. He trips, hand grabbing Sam’s arm at the last second and dragging them both down into the powdery snow on the grass.
“Gotcha,” you manage to say around your laughter.
You gasp as Dean’s arm grabs yours, tugging you down into the snow with him. You land on top of them, drawing a muffled grunt from Sam’s chest. He’s trying with little success to push you off, and when Dean rolls out from under you, you tip sideways into the snow.
“Gotcha.” Dean’s got that trademark smirk on his face, and you take a fistful of snow and toss it at him. It hits him right in the stomach, and he looks back at you with shock on his face and a gleam in his eye. “Oh, you’re on kiddo.”
“Sam, help!” you plead, trying to scramble to your feet before Dean can get you with a snowball of his own.
“Nuh uh. Not my fight.”
“Sam!”
He concedes, taking your hands and tugging you up out of the snow. There’s snow stuck in the hood of your jacket and clinging to your boots, and the cuffs of your pants are soaked.
“Aw that’s no fair,” Dean whines, bending down to make a second snowball.
“Isn’t it?” Sam takes one look at you, then looks back at Dean, seemingly analysing who’s side he wants to be on. He shrugs, taking your snow-filled hood in one big hand and tugging it up over your head.
You shriek a laugh as the snow runs down your back, cold water melting where it touches your bare skin under your shirt.
“Oh, hell yeah Sammy!” Dean cheers.
“I hate you two,” you say, but there’s no heat in it.
“Love you too,” Sam replies.
He scuffs a bunch of snow into a pile with his boot, crouching down to mush it into a ball with his hands. They’re going a little red from the cold, and your nose is numb, but you don’t care. Sam takes his carefully crafted snowball, making an action as though he’ll throw it at you. You raise your arms and turn your back in protection, but the snow never lands; instead, Dean makes a rather undignified noise and curses when Sam throws the ball at him instead.
“You traitor.” Dean glares him down, already making a retaliatory snowball.
Before he can move, something explodes against his shoulder, and he rubs it with a hand, slowly turning to find his attacker. Bobby’s standing on the porch, hands in his pocket, the right one slightly damp. There’s a handprint in the snow, and with that mischievous grin on his face, there’s no way he didn’t throw that snowball at Dean.
“You three done fightin’?” Bobby says from his spot on the porch. “You look half drowned.”
“Wow, thanks. You sure know how to make someone feel at home,” you chirp, already climbing the stairs to give him a hug. Sam follows you up, and Bobby claps him on the shoulder as he disappears inside the house. Dean’s the last one up the steps, face flushed and eyes bright.
“How you doin’ kid?” Bobby asks Dean.
“Same old. Could be better, could always be worse.”
“C’mon in and warm up then. Might do you some good.”
Inside, you’re struggling with the laces of your boot, and Sam’s shaking snow from his hair like a dog. The water drops spray over you, and you smack his leg with your hand.
“Quit dripping water on me, I’m already soaked.”
“Don’t sit there then.”
Your shoe finally comes off, and you whack him with the side of it.
“Ow.”
“Karma.”
Sam takes your jacket as reconciliation, hanging it on the hooks on the wall, and placing his own over top of it. You dig through the pockets, taking two slightly lumpy packages out of them.
“What’re those?” Dean asks, peeking over your shoulder.
“Your gift. Quit snooping.” You take off up the stairs, searching for a hiding spot that they won’t get into before they’re supposed to find them.
Sam turns to Dean, shrugging his shoulders and muttering something about hot coffee before disappearing into the kitchen.
By the time you come back down the stairs, still chilly and hair finally starting to dry off, Sam’s got a pot of coffee started, and Dean’s sitting at the table with his boots kicked up talking to Bobby. You listen in, catching snippets of conversation that are, for once, about anything except hunting.
Sam gives you a warm smile, handing you a cup of coffee that you take gratefully, holding it to your face to feel the steam radiating from it.
“That cold?” Sams says.
“I’m sorry, remind me who dumped all the snow from my hood down my back again?” you ask.
Sam looks sheepish, rubbing your back with one warm hand. “Sorry.”
“I got all the stuff you asked me for,” Bobby pipes up from the table. He’s looking at you, pointing you towards the fridge.
“You are a saviour, Bobby. My favourite Winchester.”
“I’m not part of your Winchester business,” he says with a grumble, but you don’t miss the way he’s smiling like it means the world to him; because in some way, it does.
You throw the fridge door open, muttering to yourself as you search through it. One by one you pull things out; a carton of beef broth, frozen meatballs, a half-empty bag of shredded cheese, some slightly wilted carrots and celery. Noodles come out of a cabinet by the fridge, and a bag of small potatoes sits lonely on the counter.
Dean watches you warily, like he already knows what you’re doing and doesn’t know how to feel about it. He does know, because how could he not? He’s the one who told you about this in the first place; how Mary would make it at Christmas and how he’d spent way too long trying to get you to try a bit as a kid. Sam hadn’t been old enough to try it for himself and to this day, you’d never been able to make it again until right now.
“Is that Mom’s soup?” Dean asks from his chair. His voice is quiet, a little uncertain, and you freeze.
“Yeah. I thought maybe we could…make it again.” You stop, not quite sure if you should continue. Dean’s watching you with that look on his face, and something in him gives.
“Let’s do it. Sam’s never had this.”
“Sam’s never had this?” Bobby says, incredulous.
“Nope. He never had a Christmas with Mom,” you say softly, as if the memory hurts. And it does, it stings in places only her death can reach.
“And John never made it since?” Bobby doesn’t sound surprised, just extremely disappointed.
“Nah. I asked him once but he, uh, he shut it down pretty quick,” Dean says.
“Well damn. Glad you brought this up then if Sam’s never had it.”
Sam’s head finally pops up from whatever book he’s been reading while he drinks his coffee. His cheeks are less pink from cold now, just rosy from the warmth of the house that wraps around you like a hug. “Am I missing something?”
Dean laughs. “You are missing the greatest soup invention since, like, ever.”
“Mom’s?”
“Mhm.”
Sam’s quiet for a moment. The room gets a tinge to it like someone dipped it in cold water, a strange sort of sadness seeping into the cracks for just a moment.
You clear your throat before the moment can slide too far into uncomfortable territory. “Dean, come help me.”
“What’s my orders?”
“Mugs. And bowls. Because someone,” you say, glaring at Bobby, “keeps putting them on shelves I can’t reach.”
Dean stands from the chair, rounding behind you to pull out the mugs you requested. He can’t hide the happiness on his face when you let him have the green one, just like you always do. Sam claims the red one before you can, and Bobby flips a coin with you for the blue one; you win, leaving him with the 'bad mug'; a muted yellow one that looks like filtered sunlight on snow.
“Sam, come help Dean with the potatoes.” Your voice drags Sam out of the depths of whatever book he’s absorbed in, and he sets the coffee on the table before standing and elbowing past Dean.
“Watch it,” Dean says, elbowing Sam back.
“Sam, I swear to God if you elbow him back, I will smack you with this carrot,” you say, holding a disappointingly small carrot over your head like a weapon. Sam just laughs, sidling into place beside Dean and starting to work through cutting the bag of potatoes.
You start work on the soup, cutting the vegetables up with your pocketknife and settling them into the bottom of the pot with a healthy amount of cooking oil you rescued from a kitchen shelf above the sink. When you deem them ready, you dump the broth over them, tipping the noodles and meatballs in after it.
Sam gets the honours of stirring the pot, a tradition from before he was born. Dean was the first to do it; then when you were born, it became habit for the youngest to stir it. Naturally, that makes it Sam’s turn. You catch Dean’s eye over Sam’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring smile when you notice him trying not to tear up. These were the kinds of moments you were supposed to have with your parents.
Dean sets the potatoes in the fridge, and you cover the pot and let it simmer away.
“How long is this supposed to cook for?” Sam asks at your side.
“It’s an all day soup Sammy, it’s gonna take a while.”
“Why?” he says, practically pouting. “It smells good now.”
He’s right, it does. But the best kinds of soups take a lot longer than twenty minutes to soak up all the warmth of a household. Especially one who’s job it is to remind Sam of all the family traditions he never got to experience.
“We’ll come up with something to do while it sits, okay?”
Sam gives in, padding off to the front room, crouching by the fireplace to help Bobby light it. Dean walks up beside you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and tucking you to his side.
“How’re you doin’?” he asks.
“Alright. I should be asking you, you had the most time with this.”
He pauses for a minute, drawing in a shaky breath. “I’ll be alright.”
“Dean.”
You look him in the eyes, watching him carefully. “Okay, fine. It’s hard, knowing Sam never got to have this with her. With us. He should’ve, he should’ve had so many years of this. It just makes me sad that this is his first experience with all of it.”
You drag Dean into a hug, wrapping your arms around his back and holding him tight against you.
“Yeah, me too. But he’s getting it now, with his family. With the people who love him. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” you say into his chest.
Dean rubs your back as he thinks. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. If it was gonna happen with anybody, I’m glad it’s with Bobby.”
As if on cue, Bobby steps back into the kitchen. You sneak a glance back at Sam, who’s curled up again with his book, long legs folding awkwardly into the chair he’s shoved himself in.
“You two good in here?” he says gruffly, trying to hide the emotion that’s making its way into his voice.
“Yeah, just talking,” you reply softly.
Bobby puffs out a breath, taking you and Dean into a quick hug. “You should be proud of yourselves, you know. You’ve done a damn fine job with Sam.”
You can read between the lines; you and Dean shouldered the weight that John dropped on you, and you gave Sam as close to normal as he could get. Two kids stepping up where a parent failed. And Bobby’s right, you should be proud of yourselves, because Sam turned out soft and kind and gentle and all the things that you both thought this life would never let you have.
The three of you join Sam in the front room, distracting yourself from the weight of the day with anything you can come up with. Dean breaks out a deck of cards, and you finally beat him at poker, earning yourself an enthusiastic tackle-hug from him and Sam, while Bobby smiles fondly from his chair. Gifts are exchanged, received with gestures that say more than words could ever hope to recreate. You get up a few times throughout the afternoon to check on your soup, dragging Sam with you to stir the pot every so often. You add spices with a steady hand. There’s no measurements to follow, so you trust that Mary’s watching you from somewhere, guiding your hand with the nutmeg and parsley.
At some point the afternoon gives way into an evening lull, where silence peacefully blankets the room. Bobby’s reading newspapers, scanning for any signs of trouble to take care of in the next few days. Dean and Sam are engaged in a quiet but intense discussion about whatever book Sam’s reading; Sam seems to be losing whatever argument they’re having. You’re half-asleep on the couch, blanket around your shoulders and legs stretched out, basking in the warmth that comes from family.
You’re not too sure when you fall asleep, but eventually, a hand shaking your shoulder rouses you again.
“Soup time,” Sam says, sounding exactly like he did when he was five years old and way too excited about the next place you were heading.
Something about the way he says it drags a laugh out of you, and you can’t help but grin at the absurdity of it all.
“Alright Sammy, soup time. Dean, set the table please.”
“Why do I have to set the table?”
“Because Mom said oldest sets it. It’s like, the biggest responsibility.”
Sam’s watching you with a funny expression, but he doesn’t say anything until you’re in the kitchen and Dean’s left with a stack of plates balanced in his arms. You retrieve Dean’s potatoes from the fridge, mashing them with a fork and sticking them in the microwave one at a time.
“Setting the table was Dean’s job?” he asks as he lifts the lid on the pot, plunking a wooden spoon in and watching the noodles go round.
“It was the only thing that kept him out of Mom’s way in the kitchen. He treated it like it was the most important thing in the world.”
Sam chuckles, an image of a very rowdy three-year old Dean flashing in his mind. “What was he like?”
“What?” you say, turning off the heat and setting the pot on a second burner to cool off a little.
“Dean. When he was a kid. Before- before everything fell apart. What was he like?”
You sigh, pulling the mashed potatoes out of the microwave and stirring them with milk and shredded cheese. “Honestly? I don’t remember a whole lot, other than he was loud. Running all over the place, driving Mom and Dad crazy with questions. He was a lot like you when you were a kid, you know.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup. You asked tons of questions too. You were quieter though, always were. Still are, honestly.”
A knock on the doorframe startles you, and you turn around to find Dean leaning against it.
“Hurry up, ‘m starving.”
“Just wait a minute for it to cool off, would you? You’ll burn your mouth again,” you chastise, waving the spoon in his direction.
“I always do anyways, you know that. And, by the way, the world’s greatest soup waits for nobody.”
You and Sam exchange a look, bursting into laughter as Dean sits heavily at the table. Sam carries the pot over, setting it carefully in the middle of the table. You set the mashed potato mugs down, smacking Dean’s hand out of the way when he tries to take it from you.
“Patience, you ass,” you say.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters back, but he’s smiling.
Soup is poured into bowls, Dean trying (and failing) not to spill any on the table. You shake your head as you pull a wad of napkins from your pocket, like you’d been expecting it. Bobby goes to take a spoonful to his mouth, but Dean stills his hand, nodding in Sam’s direction.
“Let him go first,” Dean says. You nod, and Bobby puts the spoon back with unspoken understanding.
This was the way it always used to work, when you were growing up. Whenever there was a new food, the youngest went first. That mattered a little when you were kids, because the routine gave you something to cling to. But it’s even more important now, with this recipe, because this is everything Sam missed out on in one moment.
Sam takes a spoonful, raising it to his mouth. You open your mouth to tell him it’s way too hot, and Dean shushes you.
“Let him learn the hard way,” he whispers with a wink. Sam glares. You laugh.
When Sam does taste the soup, it’s exactly as predicted; he burns his tongue. Because it was still too hot. Typical. But he doesn’t seem to mind the heat, instead adopting the pensive look on his face he gets when he’s trying not to cry.
“Doin’ all right there Sammy?” Dean says around a lump in his throat.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m great.” He rests the spoon in the bowl again, fidgeting with his hands. “Is this what is was supposed to be like?”
You nod, and Dean’s hand tightens imperceptibly on the back of Sam’s chair.
“Then yeah. I’m happy,” he says, a genuine smile splitting his face.
“It doesn’t make you wish it was different?” you venture. You think you know the answer, but you need to hear him say it.
“A little. But it’s hard to miss something you didn’t have, right? And hey, I’ve got it now, with you guys. You’re family. There’s nobody else I’d rather do this with.”
From the head of the table, Bobby speaks up. “I’m happy you picked us to do this with Sam, but can we save the commiserating for later? Food’ll get cold.”
Dean snorts a laugh into his elbow, and Bobby grins. You know exactly what he means; this is his family, and he loves the three of you more than he can explain.
The soup and potatoes go by fast, and what little leftovers you salvage from the bottom of the pot get tossed into a bowl and set in the fridge. Sam helps you clean up, and you tell him everything you can remember about your mom. Dean offers information where your memory fails as he washes the dishes, and together you do your best to describe a woman that loved Sam before he knew what the word meant.
The fire crackles brightly as the evening wears on, and you’re warm, squished between your brothers on the couch with a blanket over your legs. There’s a movie playing in the background, something Dean chose, and it’s interrupted by Bobby’s sarcastic commentary and Dean’s rebuttals. It’s comfortable, wrapped in this haze of love and comfort and family.
Somewhere between the finishing of the first movie and Dean’s second beer, Bobby disappears upstairs for the night after resting his hand on each of your shoulders and wordlessly telling you the closest thing to “I love you”.
The TV drones on and the fire’s still crackling away in the hearth, but none of you notice. At some point during a lull in the action, Sam’s head tips against your chest, his breathing slow and deep. Dean twists a little in his seat, seeing Sam curled up against you, and his eyes get soft.
“He used to do that when he was really little you know,” he whispers to you, careful not to wake Sam.
“What, this?” you whisper back.
“Yeah. He’d get tired and he’d crawl right over to you, lay on your chest like that. You’d run your fingers in his hair, and he wouldn’t wake up the whole night.”
You smile a little, surprised it doesn’t seem familiar. “I don’t remember him doing that.”
“He kinda grew out of it quick. Dad’s fault, I think.” You roll your eyes, and Dean continues. “Guess he never forgot, ‘cause he still does this if you two have to share a bed in motels.”
That, you do remember. The way Sam tucks himself into you when it’s cold or when nightmares come knocking. The way he lays his head over your heart, counting the beats to ground himself. You run your fingers in his hair, and with every pass he relaxes a little more, racing pulse steadying under your touch. How sometimes you'll fall asleep facing away from each other and wake up the next morning with his head against you like it belonged there. Some things never change.
“Hey Dean?” you say sleepily.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting me do this. For helping me give Sam something he should have had a long time ago.”
Dean’s smile softens, and he shifts himself to grab your hand with his, squeezing it once.
“’Course. We shouldn’t’ve let Sammy go this long without it, honestly.”
You hum in agreement, and Dean settles against you.
“If Christmas is like this every year, I want all of it,” Dean murmurs.
“Merry Christmas Dean,” you reply, voice gentle.
Dean hums something back you can’t quite make out.
“Merry Christmas Sammy,” you whisper against Sam's hair, and he tucks himself impossibly closer to you in his sleep.
You close your eyes, letting sleep wash over you. The last thing you feel is Dean’s head resting on your shoulder, and yours falling to rest on his hair. It’s soft under your cheek, and some part of Dean’s stubble tickles your shoulder where your shirt is too big.
When Bobby comes downstairs the next morning, its suspiciously quiet. The TV is playing some news segment he knows nobody cares about, and the fire’s gone out. Snow drifts lazily down outside the window, and a pale light is filtering into the room. Muttering to himself about how the TV got left on all night, he stops in the doorway when he sees you and your brothers tangled together in the blanket.
His eyes drift to a picture on his cabinet, and he’ll spent the next ten years denying that his eyes got a little teary at the scene. Because that picture is taken in his front room, what seems like ages ago. In it, Dean’s thirteen, you’re a precocious eleven, and Sam’s maybe a couple weeks out from turning nine. You’re all on the same couch, the same ratty blanket over your bodies. Dean’s head is tipped back against the couch, mouth slightly open and face relaxed. Your arm is around Sam’s shoulders, holding him to your chest, and his head rests over your heart. It’s a moment of peace in a world of chaos.
In front of him, it’s almost the same scene; your arm on Sam’s back, his head on your chest. Dean’s head tipped back, mouth open, face slack, his hand still holding yours. Bobby ducks out of the room quietly, but not before capturing the moment on his phone. Maybe the picture could use a friend. A reminder of what’s important, and who’s family. For when you’re away, he tells himself, although he’ll be looking at that picture a lot more often than that.
summary: when dean is hurt on a hunt, he doesn't know where else to go but to you
pairing: dean x reader (gn) | genre: hurt/comfort, fluffy ending | word count: 978
warnings: stitches, alcohol, the usual, no use of y/n, a lil bit of fluff
sam's version
The cool autumn air does nothing to you as you sit on your couch, blanket draped across your legs and mug of hot chocolate on the table beside you. The lamplight casts soft shadows across the pages of your book, the soft rustle of pages turning the only soundtrack to the night. You can feel yourself starting to drift off as you read, eyes becoming heavier with each word. The world is soft and warm, and nothing can get through the haze of comfort; except for the sharp knock at the door that has you jumping out of your skin.
You wait for another knock, hand drifting to your knife sitting on the table. Instead, a fist pounds three times on your door, and you hear a pained shout from the other side.
“Open up sweetheart, it’s me,” a pained voice says from the other side of the door. You jump to your feet, blanket forgotten on the floor and rush to open the latch. The door swings open, revealing a disheveled Dean, hair sticking up and jacket covered in blood. His face is pale and he’s holding an arm across his ribs, a look of pain fluttering across his features as he tries to stand straight.
“What the hell happened to you?” you say, stretching an arm towards him. He grabs your hand, and you wrap your arm around his shoulders, tugging him inside. He can barely keep standing, so you half-drag him to your couch.
“Jus’ a little bit of trouble, creature got away. Sam’s alright, don’t worry.” Your eyes trail over his body, taking in the wounds seeping blood. “He’s gone after the beast,” Dean adds when he sees you look around for his brother.
“Sit down. I’ll be right back,” you reassure him, patting his shoulder as you go off in search of bandages and rags.
When you come back with a bottle of alcohol, and some clean rags, Dean’s half passed out on your couch, body tilting dangerously to the side.
“Look at me, Dean. You gotta stay awake for me, okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m good. I’m awake,” he says weakly, eyes fluttering open through the haze of pain. You make a noise in sympathy as you start to work at the cuts, apologizing gently when the hem of his shirt snags over the gash on his ribs. “Think I need stitches?”
“When don’t you need stitches Dean,” you reply dryly, though worry creeps its way into your tone. “Do you want the alcohol or just scream it out?”
He makes a motion with his hand, and you hand him the bottle. His hands tremble slightly as he opens the lid and takes a swig, grimacing as the liquid burns down his throat. You take the bottle back, dipping a rag in it before starting to clean the cuts that litter his body.
“You know, you’ve really gotta stop throwing yourself out there so much. You say it’s only a short hunt and then you turn up like this, bleeding out on my front porch. Since when do you care so little about yourself Dean?”
He watches you with something like tenderness in his gaze. “It’s not like I’m plannin' on gettin' thrown into a wall or getting stabbed. Give me a break,” he says sarcastically.
“Still. I don’t like seeing you like this. It scares me Dean, and I know it scares you too, even if you don’t tell me.”
His eyes close briefly as you thread the needle through him, counting the stitches as they pass through his skin. Anything to distract him from the growing ache in his chest, he’ll take. He knows it’s reckless, but he can’t help himself; someone’s got to do it, and it’s not going to be you if he can help it.
“I know you care about me Dean, and it’s sweet. It really is. But you have to stop throwing yourself on the line every single time. It hurts me to see you like this.” You stop your sewing to look up at him, seeing him blink away tears.
“I know sweetheart, I’m sorry. I really am. I keep sayin’ I’ll try and be better and I never do it.” He inhales sharply as you get back to stitching him up. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“What?” you ask.
“You can get out of the life. You don’t have to keep savin' my ass and keepin' me from dyin’.”
You’re silent for a moment as you work, tying off the final knot and setting the needle down with deceptively steady hands. You’re silent as you help him out of the bloody flannel, replacing it with his jacket, moving him carefully so he’s laying down on the couch. He sighs gently when his head hits the armrest, the pressure finally taken off of his ribs.
“Do you want me to leave?” you ask tentatively.
His eyes widen a little.
“No- well, if you want to I’m not gonna stop you. I want you with me, but if it’s dangerous and if, ya know, you decide you’re done, that’s okay. It’s all about you, you know. I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
You shift on your knees, staring down at him with an expression so soft it hurts.
“Then let me help you. But you gotta help yourself too, Dean. No more charging in with no plan. I can’t keep seeing you come back to me like this.”
“I promise. I’ll be better.”
He pulls you to him, kissing you gently. When you pull back, his eyes have drifted closed, and his breaths have started to even out. You sit beside him, legs tucked under you, running a hand gently through his hair. He might not remember most of this tomorrow, but you will, and that’s enough. Dean never breaks a promise.
summary: it's amazing how quickly things can change in just a couple of minutes. a hunt gone wrong shows you that
pairing: dean x reader (gn) ft. sam | genre: hurt/comfort, happy ending | word count: 2.3k (oops !)
warnings: nightmares, mentions of guns and death, crying dean
notes: the series finale ! ty to everyone who enjoyed :]
part 1 | part 2 | part 3
It’s soft and quiet in the bunker. There’s a faint hum from the heating somewhere in the walls, and Sam’s footsteps slowly fade as he retreats to his room for the night. You’re still awake, listening to the sounds of the bunker. Even in the week you’ve been back, the noises still unsettle you. Something about going from the silent emptiness of death to the noise of the living sets your nerves on fire. The clock ticking on the wall is like a metronome, and you count the seconds with it. The sheets are cool around your waist as you lay on your back, counting the grooves in the ceiling’s paint job. You trace the cracks with your eyes, following the worn lines back and forth.
Dean’s beside you, dead to the world. His mouth hangs slightly open, and you watch as his chest rises and falls with each breath. His shirt rides up from where it’s trapped under his side, and you count the freckles on his skin as he sleeps. With his hair messy, he looks domestic. Warm. Safe. You resist the urge to kiss his forehead; even in the deepest sleep, he still wakes up when something touches him.
Your gaze returns to the ceiling, and you can feel frustration start to bubble up in your chest. It’s never been this hard to fall asleep before, especially not with Dean tucked beside you. But something about tonight just feels wrong. There’s anxiety humming under your skin, and you find your own breaths starting to pick up.
You’re afraid to disappear again. You make this realization moments later, because Dean turns towards you in his sleep, nudging you with his arm. You’re afraid that what Castiel and Rowena did might only be temporary, and you’ll be stolen from the world again too soon. While being dead wasn’t exactly terrible, you’re still afraid to die because of everything you’ll have to leave behind. There’s a fear buried deep in your chest that if you close your eyes tonight, you won’t be able to open them the next morning.
Beside you, Dean’s breath quickens, and he mutters something in his sleep. You turn, finding his brows pinched together and a growing frown on his lips. He twitches, arm shifting under the pillow and towards your head. You sit up in bed, listening as his voice gets louder. He’s pleading with someone, frantic words of reassurance spilling from his lips, and you realize with a start he’s talking to you. He must be dreaming about that night, because you vaguely recognize half of what he’s saying.
“Dean?” you whisper, running a hand through his wild hair. He doesn’t wake up, but he moves closer to your side. “Wake up.”
Nothing gets through to him; he’s still trapped in the dream world, likely watching you bleed out in his arms all over again. His whispers get louder and his movements get sharper. He’s shifting almost constantly, limbs jerking out at odd angles as he tries to escape from whatever nightmare he’s trapped in.
He finally wakes with a shout and a sharp inhale, eyes flying open and chest heaving. There’s sweat pooling on his brow, and you wipe his forehead with your shirt sleeve. His wild eyes dart around the room, and he throws himself out of the bed and to his feet.
“What are you doing Dean?” you ask.
“Checkin’. It’s not safe, we gotta move.” He’s still partly in his dream, you realize. The last dregs of the nightmare must be sticking around in his mind. “I can’t let anything hurt you sweetheart, not again.”
Your expression softens, and you pat the bed beside you. “Oh, Dean. It’s okay, I promise. It’s over.” He turns to look at you, doubt still in his features. “Do you know where we are?”
He pauses for a moment. “We aren’t in Utah anymore, are we?” His voice is worried.
“No. We haven’t been in Utah for months. We’re in the bunker now, remember?”
His shoulders fall just a touch, and you see the façade slowly start to crumble. He’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s a step further into the clearing than he was just a minute ago. He takes deep breaths, trying to calm himself down, but nothing’s working. His heart is going a million miles a second, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Dean. Come back to me,” you say softly, waving your hand in front of his face. His eyes refocus on you, tracing the features of your face with intense concentration. “Hi.”
“Hey,” he replies quietly, voice barely above a whisper. He sits beside you reluctantly, hands toying with the hem of his shirt in his lap. His fingers have a tremor in them, and you reach over to cover them with your own hands. “I’m sorry.”
“What? Why are you apologizing?” you ask, tilting your head to look at him. He’s not looking at you, and you reach out, grabbing his chin and turning his head in your direction. “Look at me Dean. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Yeah, I do, and you know it.”
“Then tell me. What’s eating at you?”
His eyes lock on yours, then quickly dart away again. There’s an odd expression on his face; guilt, shame, regret, you can’t tell.
“I’m sorry for everything that happened,” he says, voice low. You start to reply, and he cuts you off, words spilling from him before he can take them back. “For back at the house, for the grave, for the night we danced. All of it. I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t fix it. I’m sorry you had to die on that hunt, and I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker. I’m sorry it had to be so far away from a hospital, and I’m sorry we didn’t find the bones faster and-.”
“Dean don’t apologize for those things. They’re out of your control.”
“Just- just let me finish. Please,” he begs, eyes tired and rimmed with tears.
“Okay. Talk to me.”
“I’m sorry you had to die alone. That I couldn’t go with you. That’s supposed to be my job, you know, goin’ everywhere with you.” He laughs a little at that, but it’s watery. “I didn’t understand how much I meant that until you were gone and I just- I couldn’t do it.”
“Sam wanted to burn your bones, just in case you turned into somethin’ we’d have to kill, but I couldn’t let him. I just couldn’t do it, and I’m sorry about that too. I should’ve listened; I shouldn’t’ve let that stop me. And then, when you came back, I tried to shoot you too. I could have killed you if I hadn’t dropped the damn bullets. I can’t forgive myself for that.”
You fully grab his hands in yours, holding them tight and tracing shapes on the backs of them as he talks. There’s a million things he’s sorry for, and you know he shouldn’t be apologizing for any of them. He knows it too, knows there’s nothing he could have done differently, but he needs to say it. Needs to make himself feel like he’s to blame, because it’s the only way he knows how to cope with it.
“Dean…please. Look at me,” you murmur. It takes a long moment for him to lift his head, and when he does, you see tears on his cheeks. He tries to tug his hand from yours to wipe them away, but you hold on tighter. “Don’t hide from me love, okay?”
“Okay,” he replies, uncertain.
“Listen to me. None of that is your fault, okay? And I know that you know it. You just…you need something to blame, but it can’t keep being you. Blame the damn spirit that got me. You could have done everything differently that day and I still might have died.”
“If I’d just picked a different hunt-.”
“Stop it. So what if you had? You can’t change any of that now. What happened, happened, and that’s that. You can’t just keep beating yourself up for something that happened, what, eight months ago?”
He’s quiet as he takes in your words. Finally, with a tremendous effort, he nods his head faintly. He’s heard you, you know it, and you’ll sit here with him for as long as it takes just to make him believe in what you say. You don’t know how long you sit like that; shoulder to shoulder, hands intertwined. His breathing eventually slows to match yours, and you can see a weight start to lift from his shoulders the longer he spends beside you.
“Sweetheart?” Dean asks quietly.
“Yeah?” you hum in reply.
“I gotta ask you somethin’.”
“Shoot. What d’you wanna know?”
“That night. When you died. Before you- before you…left, you tried to say somethin’. What was it?”
You’re quiet for a moment. Not because you don’t know what you wanted to say; you remember your thoughts painfully clearly. You’re quiet because you don’t know if you can bring yourself to repeat it. Because what if thinking about it makes it real? What if something happens if you speak it out loud, and the world steals you away again?
“Don’t lie to me. Please. I need to know what you were gonna say,” he begs.
You take a deep breath in, exhaling slowly as you gather your words.
“When I was dying, I was so damn scared Dean. I was so afraid to die it hurt. And when everything started to go dark, I just panicked. It was awful, it felt-.”
“Like you were dying?”
You huff a laugh. “Yeah. Only this time I really was.”
Your voice breaks, and Dean doesn’t push. He reaches his arm around your shoulders, tucking you closer to his side. Your head comes to rest on his chest, and his heartbeat under your cheek calms you. He puts his chin on your head, enveloping you completely in his warmth.
“The only thing I could think was how I didn’t want to go, not yet. I didn’t want to leave you and Sam alone again. I mean, I knew you’d be fine, but-. I was so afraid to leave you that it just…it was the only thing in my mind. And that’s what I was trying to tell you – that I was scared.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. If I’d known, maybe I could’ve said somethin’ else,” Dean starts to say, but you cut him off.
“That’s just the thing Dean. You didn’t have to say anything. You could have been completely silent, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Because you were still there, and you had me, and I guess I just knew I was gonna be safe, even if I was terrified. You were so warm and suddenly it wasn’t so bad anymore. At least, not right then. I didn’t die afraid Dean, I died loved. I only got scared afterwards, when I woke up and didn’t know where I was.”
He buries a kiss to your temple, a tear breaking free and tracking down his face as he takes in your words. Knowing that he made it better just by being there means more to him than anything else in the whole world.
“When I was, uh, dead or whatever, you were the only thing I could think about. I watched you, you know. Listened to everything you told me. I followed you to hunts, because I needed to know you were still alive. And in that void, do you know what the one thing I felt was?”
“What?”
“Love. Your love. It was everywhere. Because you still loved me, even if I was gone. And I think that’s what brought me back as a ghost before. Because I couldn’t let you go, and you couldn’t let me go, and that turned me into a spirit, just for a night. You never stopped loving me Dean, and I need you to know that I never, ever, stopped loving you.”
He kisses you then, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other resting gently under your chin. You wrap your arms around his back, fingers threading into the hair at the base of his neck. When he pulls away, you tuck his head under your chin, just as he had done to you before. You rock him slowly side to side, rubbing up and down his back, whispering to him under your breath.
When Sam walks past the room in the morning, you’re still sitting there, together, in your own little bubble of safety. He doesn’t enter, because he knows you both need this moment. Instead, he smiles softly from the doorframe, and you return it with a smile of your own. From under you, Dean grumbles something about Sam ‘always ruinin’ a good moment’, and Sam snorts a laugh from the doorway before disappearing again.
It'll take time for this all to fade, and you know it just as well as Dean does. There’ll be bad nights again, and there’ll be days where everything feels too heavy. When your death anniversary comes around, you’ll spend the day with Dean, doing anything and everything to lift his spirits, to prove to him that you’re here for good. And you’ll heal, slowly but surely, from everything that had happened. You’re still here, and Dean’s still with you, and you’re both still changing, and growing, and loving. Nothing can take that away from you, not even death.
summary: when he's bleeding and injured, sam doesn't know where else to go, except right to you
pairing: sam x reader (gn) | genre: hurt/comfort, fluffy ending | word count: 832
warnings: blood, minor injury, cozy fluffy ending and good vibes, no use of y/n
dean's version
The rain was coming down hard against your window as you sat at the table, lore book open on your lap. You’d been holed up in the house for a few days, keeping out of sight of whatever the brothers were hunting this time. At Sam’s request, you had dug out the book you were currently reading, searching through the old pages for information on their target. So far, you’d found a whole lot of nothing.
Leaning back with a sigh, you stretch, arms over your head. The harsh sound of the doorbell shocks you, and the book tumbles from your lap to the floor. You carefully make your way to the door, opening it when you see Sam’s outline standing there.
“Hey Sam, what’s-” you trail off at the sight of him, and he gives a weak smile in return.
“Didn’t know where else to go, sorry.” He’s leaning on the doorframe, one arm holding up his weight. “Can I come in?”
“Course you can. Here, I’ll get you a blanket,” you say, scurrying down the hall. Sam stumbles into your house, slowly toeing off his boots to not track water through your kitchen. He makes his way to your couch, collapsing into it with a groan. When you come back, his eyes are shut and his face is deathly pale.
“Sam? Sam! Wake up!” You shake his arm, and he blinks slowly up at you.
“Wh- I’m awake. Might wanna…” he gestures helplessly to himself, and you notice the blood that’s trailing down his head onto his jacket. There’s a dark spot on his shirt over his stomach, and you can see his hand trying and failing to hide it.
“You’re hurt Sam. Why didn’t you tell me?” you say, panic seeping through your voice.
“Was gonna, but you kinda took off on me.”
You have the grace to look a little embarrassed. “Sorry. Let me get some stuff for you.”
When you return, he’s shrugged off his jacket and flannel, sitting on the couch in just his dusty jeans. He’s trying, unsuccessfully, to use the end of his sleeve to clean up the blood, wincing slightly when the fabric scraped over the wound.
“Stop touching it Sam, you’ll make it worse,” you say, kneeling before him with a bowl of warm water and a towel. “Just- move your hands for goodness’ sake, I have to clean it," you say, swatting his hands away again.
A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and he raises his hands in surrender. “Take it away. You know what you’re doing.” The confidence he has in you makes your heart flutter slightly, and you lean forwards, dabbing the towel against his stomach. He sighs into the warmth, then immediately his breath hitches when you touch a bruise.
“Sorry, sorry,” you mutter as you work. Sam watches you with interest, hand hovering uselessly over your shoulder. “Talk to me. You’re falling asleep on me Sam. Just start talking.”
And so, he does. He doesn’t register what he’s even telling you, the steady movement of your hands back and forth across his cuts creating a lull in the room. He talks easily, the words flowing from him like a river. Because with you, it’s always easy.
When you’re done, the towel is stained red with his blood, and there’s gauze bandages taped into place across him. He’s in an old hoodie of his that you stole ages ago, and he can finally let himself rest. You stand to empty the water bowl, and he grabs your wrist, looking at you with pleading eyes.
“Just- don’t go anywhere yet. Please.”
“Okay Sammy. Scoot over,” you say, sitting down on the couch beside him.
You pull his head gently into your lap, and he stretches out as comfortably as he can on the rest of the couch. His legs are tucked up under him and the sleeves of the hoodie brush gently against his knuckles. You rescue the blanket from the floor, tugging it over his body and he shifts deeper into the warmth it gives.
“Thanks for that. I didn’t know where to go and you were close so I thought I might as well give it a shot.” His voice is low and soft as he speaks, looking up at you with tired eyes.
“You can always come to me Sam. That’s what I’m here for.” You give him a smile, and he reaches up, fingers wrapping around your jaw as he tugs you down. You laugh gently against his lips, and he tastes like home when he kisses you.
He falls asleep with his head on your lap, wrapped in a blanket with your fingers carding through his hair. His breathing is slow and steady, his heartbeat a quiet reminder that he’s safe. You check his bandages periodically, and each time he stirs slightly, giving you a sleepy smile before falling back asleep. As odd as it is, this is home; with Sam alive and safe in your arms.
