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Bucky Barnes x Reader: Through Sea Mist and Shadows (Series) ONGOING

SUPERNATURAL

Dean Winchester x Reader: Anniversary (One-shot)

ARCANE

Silco x Reader: I Trust You (One-shot)

HOGWARTS LEGACY

Sebastian Sallow x Reader: Winter Warmth (Drabble)

You Were The First

Ominis Gaunt x f!Reader

Word Count: 3.9k

Summary: Ominis Gaunt has never known affection. He has never known how it felt to love---to be loved. She came and changed all of it.

Or, Ominis gets love because by god does he deserve it.

Warnings: Mentions/Implications of child abuse

God, I loved writing this. Thank you so much for the request, anon!

When Ominis Gaunt fell in love, he fell slowly. 

It was all the little things she did—the little things that made up who she was. Her kindness. Her patience. Her touch. 

Before meeting her, touch meant nothing but pain. It was kicking and screaming as his mother dragged him along by his arm, harsh shoves from uncaring hands toppling to the ground, a cruel hand curled over his own, taking any control he might have and forcing a curse out of him. 

He’d been avoiding it ever since. Even Sebastian and Anne knew his aversion, careful not to grab him or brush against him. 

But somehow, she made his walls come tumbling down. 

-

Perhaps he started to fall that first time she saved him a seat at breakfast. 

It was one of the first breakfasts of their sixth year—the Great Hall was bustling, students running back and forth to catch up with friends and share adventures from over the summer. That was exactly what Sebastian was doing; he could hear his friend’s loud laugh as he spoke to someone at the Hufflepuff table. He’d expected her to be doing the same, her popularity as the Hero of Hogwarts was unmatched. Surely everyone would want to know what she’d been up to. 

He’d just settled on the idea of grabbing an apple off the table and leaning against the wall well out of harm’s way when a voice called out to him. Her voice. 

“Ominis! Ominis, right here, I’ve saved a seat for you!” 

His mouth fell open—just slightly. “You… you saved a seat…?” 

“Yes, now get over here before Sebastian barrels past and steals it, I wouldn’t put it past him,” she said, smile obvious in her voice. 

And so he obliged. 

He settled down on the bench, all thoughts of retreating to some far corner vanishing as she began to rattle on about her summer. In turn, he answered all her questions about his own time, best he could with the way his head was spinning. Of everyone in the school, she had saved a spot for him. She allowed him to take all her time, steal away every morsel of her attention. There was a lightness that came with that thought. A warm feeling he couldn’t quite name—not yet. 

But now that he’d felt it, he knew he’d starve for it. 

-

The next step into his descent was the first time she placed her hand on his arm. 

Herbology was always a bit chaotic—not nearly as much as Potions, no thanks to a certain Gryffindor—but chaotic nonetheless. Professor Garlick had laid out all the necessary tools and supplies on each table, and after her brief explanation on how to prune and shape the plants in front of them, she set them loose. 

Sebastian stood to Ominis’s right, grabbing some small cutters and starting on his plant quickly. 

“Sebastian, you’re making a mess of it already. She said to start from the top and go down, didn’t you hear a word she just said?” a voice said from his left. 

Ominis chuckled. “Since when has Sebastian ever been one to listen to anything?” He reached forward, grabbing his own cutters. He heard his friend grumble under his breath. “Don’t pout, you know I’m right.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not offended by it,” Sebastian said. 

“You’re offended by everything, Seb,” she said. 

“What is this? Attack Sebastian Sallow Day?” 

“No, but I’d be an avid celebrator if there was such a thing.” 

As Sebastian continued mumbling complaints, he felt it—her hand, just barely resting on his arm. “Sorry,” she said softly, leaning forward and across the table. “I’m just grabbing the fertilizer.” And then her touch was gone. 

It was nothing. Just a simple indication that she was there, making sure a blind man didn’t accidentally stab her with a sharp object. And yet it felt… different, somehow. His skin was tingling as he tried to resume his work with the plant. It was only later he realized that, unlike so many times others had made a similar motion, he hadn’t flinched or pulled away. 

In spite of himself, he sort of wished she would do it again. 

-

He came to a realization the first time she explained a Quidditch match to him. 

The realization was thus—she was even more kind than anyone he’d ever met. It was her very first match, and she had been elated to attend after Professor Black had announced the continuation of the sport at the beginning of the year. Normally, Ominis wouldn’t care too much about it. He rarely went to matches in previous years, only being dragged along by Sebastian when Slytherin was up in the running to take the cup. Crowds weren’t his thing. And trying to understand anything that was going on based solely off the oohing and ahhing of a crowd gave him a headache. But this year, Sebastian was making his debut as Slytherin’s Keeper, and that paired with her excitement to see the match was enough to draw him out to the stands. 

They sat next to each other, nestled into the crowd of Slytherins eagerly anticipating the game. He could only imagine how high up they were—there had been plenty of stairs to indicate it was nothing insignificant. The breeze that high up was cooler, and Ominis was grateful for it, allowing himself to focus on it instead of the people pressing in all around him. 

But when the match started, his focus shifted entirely to the soft voice next to him. 

In the past, he had always found the commentary on the match entirely unhelpful, and even more uninteresting. He could never get a picture of what was going on—the announcer would always press opinions on players and use the names of the different plays, which was ridiculous because Ominis had no clue what any of the plays meant. 

She, on the other hand, explained it all wonderfully. 

She wasn’t perfect—not even close, stumbling over words and gasping at times when an action surprised her. But for the first time, Ominis could follow. He found himself cheering, breath catching as he heard the whoosh of a broom overhead. The tone and expression in her voice was so lively, so dedicated, he wanted to take part in it. 

“Weasley’s flying fast toward the goals,” she commented. “Blimey, he should be Seeker with that speed. Imelda’s flown into his path, he’s going to crash—No, he dodged her, straight over her head—he’s throwing the Quaffle, come on Seb—YES!” 

He let out a cry of celebration as his friend beside him whooped and hollered, cheering loudly for Sebastian. It wasn’t long until they won the match, and the crowd of Slytherins roared like a raging sea. He followed her out of the stands and into the common room, where a party was already commencing. Sebastian managed to break away from his adoring fans. The Hero of Hogwarts leapt up and nearly pushed him over in a wild embrace. Sebastian laughed. 

“You were wonderful out there!” she said, pulling away. 

Ominis could hear the grin in his friend’s voice. “I couldn’t let your first match be a disappointment, now could I?” His feet shifted, turning to Ominis. “And really, Ominis, thank you for coming. I know Quidditch isn’t your favorite.”

“If I’m honest, I rather enjoyed myself,” he said. He nodded his head toward her beside him. “This one has a knack for explaining the game. She told me enough that I can sincerely say, well played.” 

“Then seems like you’ll have to go to all of the matches together,” Sebastian said. 

Ominis frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t want to impose on—”

“No, I like that idea,” she said. His heart beat a bit faster. “I want you to be able to enjoy it just as much as the rest of us, Ominis.” 

He couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the night. When Sebastian asked about it, he blamed it on having too much Butterbeer.

-

When he let her lead him by his arm that very first time, he knew he trusted her. 

He’d known for a while—but now, through his actions, he had admitted it to her. To himself. 

Winter had set in. The two of them left the Three Broomsticks, bundled up and ready for the cold. He reached for his wand, pausing when he heard her speak up beside him. 

“Your hand is going to freeze holding it out like that all the way to the castle. I can lead you, if you’d like.” 

He pondered it for a moment—only a moment—and then he gave in. 

“If you think it’ll keep me from getting frostbite.” 

He sucked in a breath as her arm looped around his. How had she done it so gently? After a second, when he’d begun to breathe properly, he nodded. “Off we go, then.” 

It was strange, how he had surrendered so easily. When he had first gotten his wand, the world finally felt livable. He no longer had to shuffle around, arms outstretched, waiting for his brothers to jump out at him. He could fend for himself. Prove his independence. There was no longer a need to rely on anyone. 

Why did he rely so effortlessly on her? 

The truth came to him with a sudden thought as she took him through the streets, navigating expertly through the throng of students returning to the castle. He trusted her. She had always looked out for him. Cared when he felt no one else did. She made efforts to be around him, to involve him, even when he tried to push away. Ominis Gaunt did not trust easily. But she had proved herself worthy of that sentiment in every turn. 

The slight tug of her arm in his jolted him back to that moment. “We’re at the stairs,” she said quietly. “There’s six of them.” 

He’d trust her with his life. 

They seemed to walk closer and closer together as the castle drew nearer. It was the cold, he told himself. Just the instinctual craving for warmth drawing their sides together. Simple as that. 

But they still walked arm in arm through the halls of Hogwarts, leaving the excuse of the chill and snow far behind them. 

-

The first time she held his hand, he finally felt alive. 

Their sixth years had come to a close and the Hogwarts Express was waiting to take them home. They’d spend the last few months in what he considered bliss. They stopped looking for excuses to take each other's arms at some point—just letting it happen. Strolls on the castle ground. Between classes. Anywhere and everywhere they went together. Sebastian teased them a bit at the action, but Ominis claimed it was just easier than using his wand. He didn’t have to concentrate on a spell while walking about. It was true—but really, it hadn’t been inconvenient the five years before that, had it?

But now his dear friend gave a low sigh beside him. “This crowd is awful,” she said, glowering at the students around them. “I don’t know how we’re going to make it on the train in time.” 

“I’m sure we’ll be—” 

He stopped mid sentence, feeling her fingers interlock with his. 

“I think I see a path, come on now.” 

She nearly tipped him over as she pulled him along. He managed to remember how to walk just in time to catch himself, allowing her to lead him through the hustle and bustle around them. How did this feel so entirely different than being led by her arm? How could he only focus on how soft the skin of her knuckles felt under his thumb? How could he feel like he was dreaming, but never felt more aware in the same moment?

They stopped in front of the train, doors open before them. She didn’t let go. Neither did he. But the train let out a whistle, and the sound brought him back in an instant. Their hands dropped, and the loss of the intimate feeling of her fingers between his knocked the air out him like the perfect Depulso. 

“We made it,” she said softly. 

“Barely.” 

She laughed. He might as well have been a fish for how much he was struggling to breathe. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, voice softening. 

“I wish I could say the same,” he said, smirking. He felt her hit his arm, stifling a laugh.

“You’re awful.”

“You’re the one who laughed.” 

“Goodbye, Ominis,” she said, still chuckling. After a moment, she spoke again, a little quieter. “I’ll write you.”

His stomach flipped. “I’ll hold you to it.”

Then she was gone, taking part of him with her.

-

He knew he was in love the moment he got her first letter. 

What was it some fool had once said? Absence makes the heart grow fonder? What a load of dung. 

Absence made the heart ache so much it nearly killed him. And it had only been a day. 

He knew it was from her the moment the lingering scent of her perfume hit him. He smiled. She kept her word—he had never doubted she would. He was just relieved she had done so so soon. 

Quickly, he pulled out his wand and transfigured the words on the parchment, running his fingers over them. He paused where she had written his name. Every letter filled him with warmth as he poured over the short letter. 

Dear Ominis,

I realize we only saw each other yesterday, but I wanted to assure you it wasn’t an empty promise when I said I would write you. 

I really don’t have too much to share—my mother was more than pleased to see me, of course. Wailed when I came home as if I’d come back from the dead. She’s still not used to me being away for so long. I’ve just begun unpacking, and honestly, it just makes me wish I was back at Hogwarts with you and Sebastian. 

How are you? I do hope you’re alright. I worry about you going home, you know. I can’t help it. I’ll be inviting both you and Sebastian to my home as soon as I’m settled in—please do survive until then. 

Yours,

He closed his eyes as he felt her name beneath his fingertips. She was worried about him. She’d be inviting him. The warmth and elation he felt was so unlike the cold halls that surrounded him. He could survive—he’d do it for her. 

How she could make him feel happiness—hope—in a house so tainted with pain was beyond him. He never would he have thought he could have a moment of something good there, a memory worth keeping after he abandoned the place. 

Finally, he had a name for that warmth, the one that overtook him every time she crossed his thoughts. Love. Deep, profound, and lasting. It was more than he could have imagined, overwhelming and pure. How could he have lived to this point without it? 

He read the letter once more before pulling out his quill and beginning to write. 

-

The first time he thought she might feel the same coincided with the first time she laid her head on his shoulder. 

She had kept yet another of her promises. It was only a couple of weeks before he was off to her house, finally free from the suffocating marble halls of the manor. His escape lasted only for ten days, but it gave him what he needed to keep going. 

Though being with her was definitely what fueled him the most. 

Laughing with her and Sebastian made the stress of being around his parents melt off of him much faster than he would have imagined. Their ten days had been full of exploring the woods around her house, of playing Gobstones, of laying in fields and telling old stories. 

Ten days of her hand brushing his as they sat together. Ten days of catching his breath when she spoke. Ten days of falling harder than he ever thought possible.

Because now that he knew what it was he was feeling, it was there in everything she did. He was drowning in it, and he’d stay under with a smile on his face. 

Sebastian bid them farewell on that final evening. Ominis would be gone back home in the morning—he tried desperately to push that thought away, focusing instead on spending every moment with her he could. They’d wandered to the overgrown park not far from her home, coming to rest on a bench hidden away in the trees. Crickets sang around them, and Ominis basked in the cool summer night by her side. 

“Are you going to be ok when you go back?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. 

He gave a small smile, one he hoped was reassuring. “I’ve lived this long. Two more months will be nothing.”

She sighed. “It won’t be a full two months. I’ll make sure of it. If you can’t come here again, we’ll go to Sebastian’s.”

“You worry about me too much.” 

“I think I worry just enough,” she stated simply. 

Her words made his chest time. How could he ever begin to explain what they meant to him? She cared for him. It was enough to shatter him if he let it. He couldn’t say what he wanted to—not yet. He’d find a way, someday. But he told her what he could by reaching for her hand, locking their fingers together. And when she leaned into his side, head coming to rest on his shoulder, maybe, maybe, that was her way of saying she understood. 

His stiff body slowly relaxed against hers, and he thought about nothing but the slow draws of her breath, the way her hair tickled against his jaw, the love he felt for the angel of the girl sitting pressed against him. 

-

The first time she held him he fell apart. 

Their little trio had stayed up late in celebration of their last school year, playing Exploding Snap well into the night. The Undercroft echoed their joyous sounds as the hours passed by, until Sebastian pulled himself away, saying he wanted to pay a visit to the Restricted Section for old time’s sake. It wasn’t long until she and Ominis were saying their goodnights to each other. 

It had been a perfect last first day, exactly what he’d needed after spending so much time at the manor. He’d left for what he was determined to be the last time. There was no better way to celebrate. 

He could think of no better way of ending it than saying goodnight to the girl he loved. 

“Goodnight,” he said softly, a small smile on his lips. 

“God, I missed you,” she breathed. “Goodnight, Ominis.” 

But before he could open the door, her arms wrapped around his chest. 

The result was immediate. His heart raced, and his throat grew tight. He couldn’t breath—how could he, with her holding him so tightly? Her head was against his chest, and for a split second he was afraid she might pull away when she heard the pound of it. It was that moment of fear that brought his arms around her, holding her to him like he had nothing left. 

It felt like dying when she pulled away from him. She sucked in a breath. “Ominis, are you alright?”

“What… what do you—”

“You’re crying.”

She was right. He felt the tears, now, traitorously running down his face. He quickly brought up the sleeve of his robe to wipe them away. 

“Is it something I did? I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, you’ve done nothing wrong.” He took a shuddering breath. “I just… You’re the first person who’s ever…” 

Ever what? There were a million ways he could finish that sentence, and all would be true. The first who had ever held me. The first who has ever cared so deeply. The first to touch him with nothing but kindness. She was the first person to break down his walls, to give him life, to let him love and be loved. 

Somehow, she seemed to understand his silence. She took him into her arms once more, and he let himself come crashing down. Sobs worked their way through—both sadness and joy mingled together in an utter mess of emotion. How could he have gone his whole life without this? Without feeling safe, without outstretched arms to run to? But he had found it. A person he could call his home, who would hold him when he fell apart. He was grateful. So grateful. 

They never went back up to their dorms that night.

-

He was determined today would be the first time he kissed her. 

Since that night in the Undercroft, every touch between them felt natural. Part of their beings. He came to her effortlessly, letting his arms pull her to him. His hand felt foreign when it wasn’t in hers. But yet, he had yet to confess the depths of his feelings for her. 

He knew exactly why—she was patient. They’d started this whole thing nearly two years ago now. She’d always gone at his pace, waiting for him to be ready for each new step. They didn’t need to say the words. It was obvious to both of them. But Merlin, he wanted to. 

She needed to know just how much she meant to him. The joy she brought into his life without even trying. It had been a long time coming, but now, he was ready.

He’d taken her out to Hogsmeade. It was the perfect spring day—cool breeze carrying the scent of Butterbeer clear out of the Three Broomsticks. The sun was just beginning to set, and they were on course to return to the castle when he stopped her. 

“Could I take you somewhere?” he said softly. 

“Of course,” she said, a little perplexed. He smiled, taking out his wand to guide the both of them, other hand still in hers. He led them down a path, then turned sharply into the woods. The trail he followed was light barely there, mostly grown over by foliage. But he heard the sound of the creek and knew he was close. 

The trees gave way into a small opening, the melody of water trickling just beyond it. He smiled. 

“It’s lovely,” she said. 

“Good. I hoped it would be.” His wand returned to his pocket, and he took both her hands, facing her. 

It was her turn for her breath to catch. It was only fair after all the times he’d done so because of her. Did he look as lovesick as he felt? 

“You are everything to me, do you know that?” he said softly. His hand reached up, following the curve of her neck up to her jaw, where it came to rest. “Everything.”

“Ominis…” 

The way she breathed his name sent shivers through him. And her breath on his lips—Merlin, how had he waited so long?

“I love you.” 

He didn’t give her a chance to respond—he’d let her say it soon enough. But he needed to prove himself to her, show her just what he meant when he said everything. His lips came crashing down against hers, and at that moment he decided every second not spent kissing her was a second wasted. Like everything about her, she was gentle. She was warm. She was soft. Like everything about her, he couldn’t get enough. He thought he’d give her a chaste kiss, but he was only a man, and a starving one at that. 

He only pulled away when his lungs felt like they would burst, and his chest heaved under her resting hand. 

“I love you,” she said, voice hoarse. “God, I love you.” 

He decided that night would be the second time he kissed her, too. 

After that he lost count.

Mallowsweet Muses - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: This wasn’t anything new for you– on the contrary, you’d sucked Sebastian off enough times to know how he liked it, what made him crumble in your hands and sing praises of your name. But Mallowsweet hadn’t been a factor then, and you hesitated for a moment as you considered whether or not you were taking advantage of him like this. You looked up at him once more, the question hanging silently in the air, and with the enthusiasm of a puppy Sebastian nodded hungrily.

Alternatively summarized as you and Sebastian getting high and fooling around.

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit content, recreational drug use

Full fic can be found here on Ao3! PART 2 with Ominis now included! PART 3 can also be found here.

Keep reading

ugh i'm melting

as a kid i was so scared of my parents splitting up, what if roan learns someone in her class’ parents are divorcing and it sends her spiralling thinking she’d never see reader again?

thank you jade 💛

thank you for requesting lovely ♡ eddie and roan (almost) stepmom!reader, 2k

"Yeah, I got the expensive kind," you're saying, phone sandwiched between your ear and your shoulder, a knife held loosely in your hand. "I don't wanna make it wrong." 

Roan can vaguely hear the rumble of her Uncle's voice on the other side giving reassurances. 

You scrape the blade of the knife against the cutting board. "I know. I know, Wayne, I swear, just… I hardly ever make him dinner and this is our last anniversary before we get married, and– I know. Sorry, that's– I know, you don't mind, it's just–" 

Roan attaches herself to your hip like an octopus, looking up at you as you look down. You smile at her, putting your knife flat to stroke her hair. 

"She's right here," you say, "she's helping me… okay. Thanks, Wayne, you're the best. See you tomorrow. Alright, I will. Bye." 

You put your hand behind Roan's shoulder and walk her with you to the phone. As soon as you've hung it back on the hook, you scoop her up to hold against your chest, even if she's getting longer and longer every day. "Hey, babe. Uncle Wayne says he loves you and he missed you today. He wants to make you dinner tomorrow, so we'll find your nice blue dress tonight and put it in the wash." 

Roan flops her face against your neck. "I love him too." 

"He knows." You press your cheek to hers briefly. "Okay, you wanna sit on the top with me and I'll finish making today's dinner?" 

Roan's happy to sit on the counter and swing her legs as you finish making the pot pie. It's one of Eddie's favourites because his mom used to make it a couple of times a month, and so it's one of Roan's favourites, her lips quirked with excitement as you chop onions, carrots and celery into small pieces for the frying pan. 

"I love the carrots," she says. 

"Yeah?" You uncap the cooking oil to pour a generous splash into the pan. "Want me to put extra in? I don't mind." 

Roan nods enthusiastically. "Yes!" 

She's happy watching you cook at first, but she gets quieter as you finish up. By the time the pie is in the oven she's picking at her little nails, shards of polish in her lap like powdered sugar. 

"You okay?" you ask, wiping your hands clean. She shrugs. You shrug back. "What's that mean?" 

"I'm thinking." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah." Roan pokes her toes into your thigh. 

"Well, daddy's home soon, but you know you can tell me." 

"Mm," she hums, holding out her hand. You don't take it, folding her into your arms for a hug instead. 

It would usually make her feel better, but Roan feels ten times worse as you soften your tone to a less cheerful murmur, "Got another tummy ache?" 

"Not that." 

"What is it?" you ask. 

She hides her face in your shoulder, pert nose to your soft shirt. 

"You don't have to tell me," you whisper. "Sorry. I'm not trying to pressure you, I promise, I just love you." You turn saccharine again, patting her back as you dote excitedly into the top of her head. "Love you love you love you!" You punctuate with a kiss, and Roan starts crying. 

—

Eddie's startled but not too worried to get home to the sound of Roan crying. She certainly cries less and less now that she's getting older, but children cry so often that he doesn't think it's worth panicking over. 

He can hear you already on the case as he peels out of his sweaty coat and boots. "That's not going to happen," you comfort, voice bouncing off of kitchen tile, the hum of the oven like a baseboard. "It's hard to believe me, but it won't. Me and daddy are super happy." 

His eyebrows rise of their own accord. "Hello?" he asks, moving down the hallway and into your bright kitchen. 

Roan sits in the shadow of a corner cabinet, hunched over her knees with her face held up by defeated hands, tears wetting her rosy cheeks. You stand in front of her with your hand on shoulder, bent to her eye-level, glancing sideways at him momentarily before you say, "Look, dad's home. He's gonna say the exact same thing as me, I swear. Should we ask him?" 

Eddie takes the mantle by your side, quick to rub the tears from Roan's cheek with his pinky. His hands aren't clean enough for anything more. "What's wrong?" he asks. 

"Nothing," Roan says, her voice strangled by a big sob. 

"Babe!" Eddie laughs, half-hearted. "I can see something's super wrong. I might be a dumb boy, but I know when my girl's upset, don't I?" 

"You're not a dumb boy," Roan says. 

"Oh. Thank you, Ro." 

"You're a dumb man." 

"Very funny." He combs unruly coils of dark hair behind her ear, finger following down the curve to her shoulder. "Quick, tell me what's wrong. Just tell me. Rip it off like a bandaid." 

"It's silly," Roan murmurs. 

"Says who?" 

"Says me." 

"Oh," Eddie says, giving you a look to make sure it's alright before he monopolises her attention. You raise your hands with a small smile, as if to say, Please. "Come here, me. I'm gonna have to squeeze this out of you, huh?"

He leans back, shifting her weight against his hip, arm stretched over the breadth of her back. He's not smug, but it does bring a satisfaction to see how swiftly she calms down once he's holding her. It's a familiar picture, Eddie with his lips to her forehead, a crease between his brow just like Uncle Wayne's as he rubs her back, and Roan, a mirror image of her father, palpable relief in her hands as they tangle in his hair. Less familiar but getting there is you at their side, your cheek on Eddie's shoulder and your hand on his elbow.

"What's it gonna take to let me in on the secret?" he asks. He's making a spoiled child accidentally, always bribing and bartering for good behaviour. 

"Nothing…" Her mumbling tickles his cheek as she shifts around. "I'm worry‐ing," —her voice skips over the word, like a hiccup— "about something because of Stacy." 

"Oh yeah? What did Stacy do?" 

"She said her mom, um, her mom said she's getting a divorce. That Stacy won't see her dad again, and it'll just be her and her mom." 

Eddie doesn't judge people much. He can't imagine caring about other people's divorces when Roan was born from a fling and pretty much left on his doorstep —circumstances don't determine your kid's happiness alone. He does worry for Stacy, and his poor empathetic little girl. 

"That's terrible, bubby," Eddie placates, patting her back. 

"It's– well, it's– I'm…" Roan huffs. 

"Whatever you tell me is fine, promise. No grounding, no telling off."

"I know, daddy, it's just hard to say." 

Eddie feels himself physically melt. 

He leans back against the kitchen counter and shifts her against his stomach. His arms burn with the effort of keeping her secured to him, and he's not loving her sad tone —the quicker he finds out what's wrong, the better. He peeks over her head at you for hints. 

You're uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other like your feet hurt. 

"What?" he asks you. 

You clear your throat. "I think she's worried about me. If something happened between us, she's worried she won't see me again." 

Eddie would like to think after two years of loving his daughter, watching her grow, and all together being a cherished and irreplaceable part of her life and her support system, that you'd find it impossible to leave her. Even if you left Eddie, you wouldn't leave Ro. He knows that. But only two years… he knows you'd love Roan even if he screws things up, but he can't promise her that things would be the same, because they wouldn't be. 

That's not what she's asking, though.

"What, you think you won't see Y/N anymore?' Eddie murmurs, rubbing her back. 

"She's not my full mom," Roan whispers. 

Eddie reaches past Roan to squeeze your elbow. "You know, that doesn't matter, honey. And after the wedding–" 

"You call me mom for a reason, right?" you cut him off. 

Roan lifts her head from Eddie's. "Yeah." 

"Okay, so, say me and dad get married, and then by some impossibility we realise we can't stay married, will you love me less?" 

"No," Roan says with a pout. 

"I wouldn't love you any less, either. I didn't know I could love someone this much 'til I met you," you say, voice scratchy like you're talking past gravel. "So things would change, but not how much I love you. I'd still see you." 

You sound tentative. Eddie's way less hesitant. "Of course you'd still see each other. Babe, if me and mom break up it'll be because I did something stupid, so you'd see her every time I tried to apologise." He grins at you. "How long do you think it would take you to forgive me?" 

"Depends on what you did." You smile fondly. "Probably not long, Munson." 

"I have a weird feeling we're gonna last." 

Roan sniffles. "I just don't want mom to move away," she says. 

You and Eddie have already spoken about this. Serious but not sombre, on your backs in bed. You're not just marrying me, Eddie'd said, terrified of how much he wanted you to say certain things, and how you might not say them at all. This isn't just a promise to me. I know how much I'm asking from you, it's not a small thing. I won't blame you if you can't say yes, but this is… she's my world. 

I already said yes. And I knew what I was saying yes to, you'd replied, holding your hand up above you, the two of you staring in wonder at the ring on your marriage finger. I promise, Eds. I won't let either of you down. 

"Where do you think I'm going, princess? Me and dad are so happy. I'm staying right here stuck to his hip for the rest of time, but only if you're gonna stick to mine." You duck your head to touch your noses together briefly. "I'm not going anywhere." 

"Promise?" 

"Promise you." He swears you're twisting your engagement ring, but he can't quite see. "Can I have her?" you ask. 

"Sure. My noodle arms are about to snap anyway." 

"Noodle arms," you repeat, stealing Ro from him smoothly. "Yeah, right." 

He flexes appreciatively at your comment. 

Roan snuggles up to your neck, little face in the curve of it, her arms curling around you. You hold her tight and bend back under her weight, an arm against her thighs and another behind the small of her back, hand twisted up to brush her curls. 

"Love you," you say softly. You're smiling like you've got everything you ever wanted. "Maybe if me and daddy break up I can just take you with me." 

"Yeah!" Roan says with a gasp. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Whatever, girls. Neither of you can cook, you know that? Maybe tonight you guys can practise your new life together by not eating the dinner I'm gonna cook." Time to lighten the mood, lest Roan spend a special night lethargic. 

You beam at him. "I already made dinner. Happy anniversary, handsome." 

You exchanged gifts and kisses already that morning before work, but Eddie's happy to accept another quick kiss over Ro's shoulder. He dots one on his daughter's cheek to keep things fair. 

"Lucky us, huh?" he says to Ro. 

He's not strictly talking about dinner, and it's cheesy, but you light up like a Christmas tree. "Lucky me." 

one of these nights - Dean Winchester/Reader

read it on ao3. masterlist.

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Reader (vaguely post-s3) with some Sam Winchester & Reader.

Tags/Warnings: friends-to-lovers, Fluff then Angst then Smut, Sex on/in the Impala, implied/technical cheating, drinking, Reader is a Hunter.

Words: 20k.

Notes: a lovely little commission for the lovely lacilou on tumblr. this was my first shot at writing a dean-insert (as a hardcore samgirl), which was an absolute blast!! hope u enjoy!!

Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!

All your life, you’d never been keen on cliques. But there’s a certain magic in rolling up to a small-town Massachusett dive with yours.

It’s a little funny, calling Sam and Dean your clique. You know that, yet it’s true. You breeze inside the bar like the most popular kids in school, slow-mo strutting down the hall in the movies. Even with them behind you, you can picture it in your head on film: Dean’s jacket swinging with his saunter, Sam’s hair falling in his face, your jewelry swishing at your neckline. Tonight is already a movie. The thud of your boots together makes this pleasant rhythm, parting the Friday night crowd around the three of you, and you lead the boys to the counter with a sense that today has been perfect. The hunt you’d just spent three weeks on had been tied up with the prettiest, cleanest bow. No casualties. No scrapes that couldn’t be fixed with some whiskey and a bandage. Dean is snickering at his joke, and you and Sam are pretending it’s not as funny as it actually is. Things are perfect-perfect.

Even with your two gigantoids as buffers, the bar you’d picked to commemorate a hunt well done is packed to the brim. You gather around the only empty stool at the bar to get the bartender’s attention, and as you wait, you manage to worm your wallet free from your pockets with only a little elbowing. After so long the boys have zero mind for personal space. It’s kind of cute.

“I’ll cover the tab tonight, boys. Call it an early Halloween present,” you beam, and over your shoulder Dean whistles.

“Damn,” he says, “you really are in a good mood.”

You turn your grin on Dean, wiggling your wallet at him so the coins inside rattle like a tambourine. “We’re celebrating! And you wanna know how I know?”

Another group of people squeezes through the crowd behind you, bumping Dean even further into your personal bubble. He tries to be subtle about it, gliding in like an air-hockey puck, but you can tell that he lets the momentum carry him a little further than it needs to. If you brought it up he’d just explain it away as a product of how damn loud it is in here, _____, you can’t fault a guy for having shit hearing! But you know it’s on purpose. Tonight is good for so many reasons, but the first is Dean being relaxed enough to do that. To walk that line with you.

“How do you know?” He asks below the roaring bar chatter. Dean does have shit hearing, since he’s spent so many years behind a pistol, so he tips his face toward your cheek to make out your voice. A wave of gasoline and aftershave floods your senses.

You share a conspiratory look with him, side-eyeing Sam and hiding your smirk behind your hand. “‘Kid told me he plans to have two beers instead of one.”

Dean lights up, because while teasing Sam is fun, it’s ten times funnier when you both gang up on him. “Two? Break out the balloons,” he snickers, and drops a hand on your back to lean past you. There, he drawls at his brother, “You sure you can handle partying with the big kids, Sam? Me and _____ are kind of professional post-hunt drinkers…”

You pump your fist in solidarity because, hell yeah, what a healthy coping mechanism. Over a decade of training has made you a master of the Winchester sense of humor, so just this kills Sam a little—he’s in a ridiculously good mood too, and you can tell because he’s being even more of a tight-ass than usual.

“Cut that ‘kid’ shit out and maybe I’ll throw in some jäger,” Sam grumbles. Or, he tries to, but he’s still smiling to himself.

Again, you share a look with Dean that goes over Sam’s head (metaphorically, of course). Two beers and some jäger in him could end in only one way: you and Dean dragging over two hundred pounds of giggly man-boy the three blocks to your motel. Dean makes a face like that’s the last way he wants to end tonight, but you know from experience that being carried home piss-drunk is way more fun than it sounds. For you, at least.

Last time, you’d been laughing too hard for either brother to keep you on your feet. It was great. Whenever you complained about something, one of your best friends in the whole world appeared to magic the problem away. You were laughing too hard to walk? Dean scooped you up and carried you all the way to the Impala. Your heels were murdering your ankles? Sam wiggled them off you, trailing behind you and Dean with them slung over his shoulder. You fell asleep to the soft jostle of Dean’s walk and the low timbre of his voice humming Folsom Prison Blues. Sometimes you still caught yourself singing it when you got ready for bed.

“Hold on—that table’s opening up. I’m gonna steal it for us,” Sam notices. He slaps Dean on the shoulder as he goes, “Order for me.” Realizing the troublemaker he’d just handed that responsibility to, Sam wheels back, and asks you instead. “Actually, _____, can you—?”

You raise a hand before he can finish. “The cheapest pale ale they have, I know. Now, go, before we’re forced to sit on the pavement outside all night.”

Sam gives you this trusting nod that’s just golden, because the second he’s gone you twist to Dean, your partner in crime, and squint in thought. “...So. You think he’ll hate the peach daiquiris or the malibu cocktails more?”

The smile that hasn’t left Dean’s face once since you walked in only grows. You feel the hand on your back loop around to your waist, squeezing you against his warm side in appraisal. “God,” he sighs, wistful, “you’re my brand of evil genius, you know that?”

You sputter out a laugh instead of something clever, because, well. When Sam is in a good mood, he digs his heels in and sasses back to everything you say. When Dean is in a good mood, he squeezes the bare skin where your jeans meet your shirt, carries you home, and gazes at you with big glittery eyes and rumbles, I hear the train a-comin', it's rolling 'round the bend…

Apparently, you do about the same thing on your good days too. Gliding into him with that same air-hockey puck subtlety, you squeeze him around the back, asking in your sweetest voice, “Can you go see how many songs are in the jukebox’s play queue for me? I wanna dance to—”

“I know what song you want to dance to,” Dean smugly finishes your thought, so certain of your preferences that your heart does a little jig. “You know what d—?”

“—yeah, I know what drink you want,” you finish for him, just like he had for you.

Dean’s face glitters with open fondness for just an instant, then disappears into the constant flux of people, leaving you to suck down the gasoline-aftershave-leather fog that follows him. You can still feel the friendly pinch he’d given your waist by the time your drinks arrive, the ache of it fading into your skin. The leftover adrenaline from your accomplished hunt was still pounding through your system, so the haze of Dean's affection layered on top has you skipping back to your table.

You can taste it mingling with the cigar smoke in the air—something’s different with Dean tonight. Him and you. Sam had noticed, too, because after he accepts his peach daiquiri with an unphased huff, he waits to speak until he’s safely hidden behind his laptop’s screen.

“That was a lot of touching up there,” he says, as if he’s talking about the weather.

You take the same tone, shrugging like he’s pointed out it’s gonna rain later. “S’ been a good week, Sammy.”

Any attempt to come across as tame is useless. You’re an open book. A part of you wishes you were less obvious, but Dean’s pinch still tingles in your side and the left side of your body is alive with phantom leather jacket sensations. Shit.

“Your hands are shaking.” His brows bounce once at you over the article he’s reading.

You have nothing smart to say at this, and instead choose to scoop up your own daiquiri and clink it against his. Distraction tactic. Sam cheerses with you, but doesn’t drink from his glass, clunking it down next to him and simmering with you in your crush-pumped silence. He gets this particular look on his face when it comes to you and Dean. It’s squinty, knowing, and not an inch different from when he was a little kid. You remember the cool girlfriend that your own older brother had had in high school, and what your relationship with her had looked like. She was awesome, and every day you prayed she never left. Sam has always had that same quiet hope in his eyes—please stick around forever and take care of my dumbass brother. I’ll pay you.

Many, many times, too many times to count, the swirling threads of your feelings and Dean’s had crossed, but not once had they ever knotted together permanently. He would swing into your life and then swing out. You would live in his for a little while, threads looping and weaving, but nothing ever came of it. Putting it into terms more complicated than that usually made your chest ache like a rail spike had been driven through it. Tonight is one of those nights where the ache feels good, where loving Dean is a special secret you can whisper behind your hand to anyone you want.

Words swim in your head. There is no easy way to explain to Dean’s kid brother that Dean is the best man in this room and this world, that he bleeds goodness like other men bleed mud, that he’s the best thing that ever happened to you. Sam would probably roll his eyes. You are rolling your eyes at yourself. But on the up-and-down rollercoaster of your relationship, these last few months have been the strongest climb to the top yet. Maybe that means you’re going to hit a big drop. You’re a hopeful person, though, so you can’t help but read Dean’s eyes in the rearview mirror differently. This is it. He’s not looking at the lonely girls by the bar or the pretty ones on the dancefloor. His eyes are on you.

Blinking yourself out of your head, you putter out the lamest version of your buzzing thoughts.

“I get the feeling tonight’s different,” you say, talking into your glass and avoiding Sam’s laser-focused gaze. On instinct, you stare at the vague clump in the crowd where Dean should be. “All these months of…” you gesture broadly, “I think… something could happen.”

Sam pulls a face. “Ew.”

You kick him under the table. “Shut up,” you laugh, “I’m being serious, dude. Dean—”

…appears right beside you. In your mind’s eye, he emerges from the crowd bleeding with easy cheer, glistening gold at the edges in the bar light. “You rang?” he says. “Got your song going for you. Should be the next one.”

Dean slinks out of his jacket like a tomcat, all casual slyness, and hip-checks you when he slides into your half of the booth. It’s practical—he would have to squeeze, sitting by Sam. With you, Dean has all the room in the world to manspread his thigh against yours and toss his arm over the back of the seat behind you. The flesh of his arm never actually makes contact with the back of your neck, but it could. He survived off those little almosts.

Just as the three of you get settled into conversation, the last song dies out, swaying into the first bluesy chords of One of These Nights by the Eagles. The second that first brassy note plucks off the lead guitar, a match sparks in your chest. Dean spins to catch your eye, gleaming with excitement. The old urge to get up and conquer the dancefloor becomes irresistible. You can still feel your last case in your weary bones a bit, but there’s a certain grime to hunting that can only be scrubbed off by a good time. Dean knows this, too, so you’re led by the wrist out of the booth before the lyrics even start. He steals a sip of peach daiquiri and then you’re off for the open space between the tables. You’re laughing so hard your cheeks ache.

You’re chased by Sam’s playful shout. “Don’t have too much fun out there!”

The race to the lyrics is literal. You know there’s only a few seconds of interlude before they start, and Dean, after decades of being your one and only dance partner, knows precisely when they kick in. One of you decides that you must be in the middle of the sparse crowd the second Don Henley starts singing, and the other accepts this without question. You end up laughing, scrambling, and shoving a couple of people to get there, but god—the supporting piano lands and the bass struts and the lead guitar just stings. Like always. You break through into a clearing at the heart of the bar’s dancefloor, and for a second all you can see is Dean. He skids to a stop in his boots and laughs his ass off the whole time, stumbling inwards and making a mad dash to get your hands in his. His grin shines and his eyes crinkle with glee. The fire and anguish from your earlier hunt is gone. Now it’s just him, as you’ve always remembered him.

“One of these nights…” you laugh to each other. With your hands scooped in his, Dean starts funnily salsaing you back and forth with him to the beat, which instantly splits your sides. You’re laughing too hard to sing with him, “One of these crazy old nights…”

Through giggles, you dryly comment, “Excellent starting move.”

“Why thank you,” Dean replies.

You shift his salsa dancing around in a circle, then follow the spin all the way out, wing-span wide and only one hand tethered to Dean’s. With the ease of practice, he whirls you back in. Each move is unrehearsed and mostly random, but you and Dean have listened to this song in particular at least a hundred times, and danced to it just as much. Some beats of it you can’t help repeating from other nights spent dancing in bars. For example:

You’re wrapped in one of his arms, hand still held, while Dean’s other seamlessly lands on your waist on time with the next line. “We’re gonna find out, pretty mama,” he drawls with purpose, leaning in close enough to make your neck tickle, “what turns onnn your lights…”

He does this every time. Every time, it makes your chest tight with this shivery warmth you just can’t shake.

Dean used to be pretty shit at dancing, but after a hundred bars with a hundred names you’ve forgotten, it’s the one piece of him that you’ve pried loose from John’s influence. Sam isn’t looking and nobody knows who the two of you are. For once, Dean lets loose. He slides his hands down your arms and hooks your fingers in his, calloused and thick, rocking you back and forth with the rhythm. You think to yourself that Dean would make a great musician. He keeps time with ease, falling into a relaxed four-step (you’re pretty sure that’s what it’s called) and losing himself in the words. The swinging openness of it makes him look just gorgeous. Dean’s cheeks are rosy with exertion, the hollow of his throat shines with sweat, and he never looks away from you even once.

Every other day of hunting season, Dean… compartmentalizes. He takes the fever the two of you feel now and packs it down where nobody can find it. You see those feelings shake loose from their reigns every once in a while, but there’s only one time he ever relinquishes his control over them out in the open: here, cupping your lower back and crooning lyrics.

“...been searchin’ for the daughter of the devil himself,” he murmurs, throwing you a playful eye-roll at the symbolism you’re both tired of living. “I’ve been searchin’ for an angel in white…”

You drop a wrist over Dean’s shoulder and he rocks in close, tilting back and forth on his feet. Together, you mumble along with Don Henley and sway in a cozy circle. You take the rare opportunity to relish how he feels pressed against you. Saying anything will spoil the magic, so you just let it wash over you, purposefully coasting away from the few rational thoughts your brain is producing.

It’s unfair that he feels the way he does—and you know Dean does, he’s told you and you’ve told him and it’s all been laid out before—and still strings you along like this. You know. You should be pissed at him every time you think about it. But it’s Dean, and having a piece of him you don’t see is better than having none of him at all.

“...One of these nightssss…”

The Eagles eventually seep into another band’s song, which you assume is your signal to quit. Your vision loses its luster and the glittering lights of the world dim back to normal. Dean will have his one lucky dance with you, then, since you’re a bunch of old people, you’ll retire to your table and shoot the breeze until someone calls it a night. That’s how this always goes.

You pull your cheek from where you’d laid it against his shirt. It takes you a bit to put your thoughts into words, so you’re slow to assume, “Wanna get back to our drinks?”

When you meet eyes, Dean’s are soft, and he smiles with this quiet pleasure roving all over his face. Dimly, you register that Burnin’ For You by Blue Oyster Cult is chiming through the bar now, but. He runs his hands down your arms—sort of planting you in place, like he wants to keep you here with him. Your whole body zings with millions of little electric pulses that pump into your head like a fog too thick to see through. More than anything, you want to stay too.

Around you, the dancefloor is alive with people. But Dean has a habit of making you feel cinematic, so you can almost see how the extras fizz into the background as the camera settles on you and him alone. The bar lights hang overhead, hazy and warm. Your soundtrack is lively and familiar. The moment hangs… neither of you wants to give it up.

“Yeah. Why don’t we, uh,” he clears his throat, “grab a few sips and then head back here, huh?”

Suspended in place by the pound of your own heart, you slide your palms off his chest and put on your slyest grin. “Dancing is way more fun when you’re tipsy.”

Dean slips on a smile of his own, then turns to lead the way out of the crowd. For just an instant you feel like you can’t get your feet off the floor, and you watch him go, head spinning. Deep down, you worried that you might’ve been pushing your enthusiasm to its limit thinking tonight was the night. For the last decade of your life, you’d been waiting on Dean. But something really is different now, because, true to his word, Dean snags a few sips of his drink with you and then you’re back out on the dance floor.

The next few songs fly by. Everything is Dean. The heavy thump of boots on the worn-smooth floor, the growing buzz of alcohol in your system. You’re at the center of his stage, and he doesn’t even try to hide it. If anybody but you came up and waved a hand in his face, you doubted Dean would even notice. You talk about your favorite albums and he laughs at every joke you make, giving you that big-eyed, pirate-smile Dean Winchester look that melts your insides. His eyes are on you.

You swim your way through Double Vision by Foreigner, you on lead air-guitar and Dean supporting with some seriously impressive air-drums. Neither of you consider yourselves professional singers or anything, but there’s a moment in the chorus underneath all the noise where you swear you and Dean harmonize. All the rowdy guitar and drum-playing smooths into The Police’s Roxanne. Your face is immediately sizzling hot the second you hear the starting chords, since every time, without fail, Dean pulls out all the stops to dramatically croon the song to you. The last time it’d come on the radio, he’d chased you all over Bobby’s house, serenading you with a beer bottle microphone. He does it this time too. When you laugh and squirm away, he finds your wrists and guides you back into him, palms everywhere, making kissy faces and everything.

You suppress the urge to seek revenge and huff, “You don’t even know what this song is about, do you?”

Dean snorts, but his eye contact with you is purposeful. “Course’ I do. S’ about a guy who’s so into his girl that he doesn’t want to share her with anybody else.”

Instead of having an apt response for that, you internally shrivel up into a ball and lose any fire left in you. Dean, satisfied he’s shut you up, noses your ear and sings, “...Wouldn’t talk down to ya… I have t’ tell ya just how I feel, I won’t share you with another boy…”

The mushy impression he’s doing of Sting fails pretty quickly, so Dean softens into his own voice. For the millionth time tonight, you’ve found yourself with your arms around his neck and his face hovering around yours. If you mention it, Dean will drop everything and run. You know that. So you don’t sing that particular song with him. Allowing him to sing it to you is much sweeter, anyway, and the slower the music gets the closer you’re allowed to be.

And boy, every guy in the room must be aiming to get a slow dance with his girl, because soon the steady flow of rock n’ roll on the jukebox drizzles into Elvis and The Temptations. You joke about this to Dean, giving him a small out. Just in case.

“You hate mushy music,” you tell him, even if you both know that’s not exactly true.

Dean’s warm palms coast over your waist and you draw your nails across the flannel on his back, soaking each other up. A memory pierces your train of thought in a hot flash. You’d seen Dean dance with other girls like this, hands all over, seeking. But tonight they rest on your hips or hook through your belt loops without intention. Dean’s just here, and he wants you here too. For now, you’re his first choice for who he’s spending his time with tonight.

He doesn’t take the out you gave him.

“S’ not all bad,” Dean shrugs under your hands. “...I like this song.”

It’s Elvis’s Love Me, which effectively scrubs the dancefloor of any non-couples. Besides you and Dean, that is. This fact hangs in the air, supercharged, but neither of you mentions it. Dean draws you into him and you slide eagerly into his hold, your head under his chin. A few other pairs skip out onto the floor and take up space beside you. Soon, the molecule of space left between you and Dean disappears. You’re pretty sure if a few atoms went missing from the universe something crazy would happen, like a nuclear explosion, and that’s exactly what occurs in your belly. Dean sways with you like he’s in love with you, like it’s a secret everyone can see. If anyone in the bar glanced over at the two of you now, you know exactly what they’d think.

The best part of this was that Dean doesn’t end it after two dances, three dances, or four. You go all night like that, shittily waltzing to love songs and grooving along to faster ones. He had an opportunity to escape every time you took a trip to throw back your drinks. But if it crosses Dean’s mind at all, he never, ever takes it. One of you starts talking then neither of you can stop. Almost three hours later, you’re halfway through Just What I Needed and a street racing story that never fails to blow Dean’s mind, when your hundredth round of drinks runs dry. Since you’re both past tipsy now, it’s unanimously decided that there’s more work to be done.

“S’ a good night,” Dean tells you, beaming, “we can do another round, right?”

“Hell yeah,” you shrug, and raise your empty glass, “Here’s to alcohol poisoning, baby.”

“Yeah,” Dean echoes, almost slurring. “Baby.”

You take his empty glass, too, and Dean tips back toward your table to bother his brother. Both times you glance back Dean is following you with his eyes. It’s like hearing scratching in your attic and walking through cold spots for months, then suddenly seeing a full apparition right in your living room. Bobby claimed Dean had perfected the art of admiring you from afar, but you’d always figured he was exaggerating. Instead of chasing the ghost of one of his big-eyed stares, you actually see it first-hand—the big-eyed stare. Dean blinks prettily at you over his shoulder, then sways back toward Sam, unembarrassed and flushed a happy drinker’s red. In the flesh. Wow.

You’re so distracted you almost skip into two patrons, so you start watching where you’re going and add a few more drinks to your tab. While you’re waiting on them, you rock on your heels, brimming with buzzing energy. Years and years of buildup and something might finally happen. The prospect is so sweet that you giddily dance in place, bobbing to your own content music. The bartender gives you a funny, amused look and so do the people you squeeze past to reach him, but you ignore them all, scooping up your drinks and floating back to the table. Your grin is so bright that it makes your cheeks ache.

“Alright, gentlemen, I crossed two deserts to get these drinks, so you better—”

It’s just Sam at your table, looking sheepish.

You squint at him. Sheepish. Why is he sheepish? You set down your glass and Sam’s, then awkwardly release Dean’s beer from where it’d been trapped between your elbow and your ribs. The corner where Sam has shoved all your empty drinks has since expanded—there are at least five more new drinks there, completely outside the realm of anything you know Sam or Dean would order.

You stand. “Damn. Who ordered these?”

Sam stiffly brushed the hair from his face. “Um… a table in the corner sent em’ over. As a gift.”

“Free drinks? Really? That rocks,” you brighten.

Sam was avoiding the eyes of someone at said table, so you turn to intercept the stares and instantly feel the cloud nine you’re floating on drop out from under you.

“...Dean’s over there thanking them,” he clarified.

It’s a big group of women. Your reasonable-self could follow the logic: Dean and Sam were pretty, the women had noticed they were pretty, and then bought them drinks for being pretty. Your reasonable self would pull up a chair and toast to those women. The Winchester spell made everyone want to give them stuff for just being gorgeous and alive, and though you weren’t a Winchester, you reaped the rewards just as often. Sam’s puppy look paid the rent, and more than once Dean’s dazzling smile had won your way into concerts and r-rated movies. You should’ve been stoked.

If you were completely sober you’d probably put together that it was a bachelorette party, but all you see is your Dean, center stage among them and putting on a show. Even drunk he does a convincing performance of a “modeling agent” passing out his card. Cards. To all of them. The booth of girls giggle and lean closer, all swaying in the direction of Dean’s sly grin like snakes to a snake-charmer. A swath of mothy bitterness starts to eat holes into your stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Sam mourns. He says it with so much genuine remorse that you realize how crushed you must look—and wow, isn’t that an embarrassing cherry to top this sundae off. They’re just girls. It’s just talking. Still, Sam tells you, “I tried to stop him.”

“So have I,” you answer, bitterly.

The hours of dancing suddenly burn in your legs. You steady a hand on the table to slide into your seat, but there are so many glasses that it feels too full to occupy, and Sam noisily scuffling them out of your way doesn’t help your raw ears. Resigned, you shove into your side of the booth and tell yourself that you’re overreacting. Thanking people (a group of women) for sending over free drinks (because Dean’s too pretty for his own good) is perfectly normal (to non-jealous people, at least). Because you’re not at all a resentful person, you slide over the closest glass and choke it down.

Sam raises both brows. “Maybe you should slow down a bit. Unless you want one of us to carry you home—?”

You pull your glare away from the other side of the bar and focus it on the table, answering Sam’s question for him.

“Right,” he realizes, “I can go and—”

You’re already shaking your head. “Don’t. Let’s see how long it takes ‘im.”

As it turns out, drunk Dean is an incredibly social butterfly. For the first ten minutes he’s engrossed in his conversation, you aimlessly stir your drink and dodge Sam’s glances. Fifteen and you’re glued to your seat. Twenty and Dean still isn’t back, a handful of songs you know he’d kill to dance to coming and going. Past that you’re spaced out too far to care, and have failed to not let your mood be killed. The neon electricity that’d been pumping through your system all night is cold and lifeless. On top of that, you’re furious with yourself for staking all your hopes and feelings on a premise so stupid, for trusting Dean. Again. You know you’re drunker than you want to admit, but this nasty swirling bitterness burning in your stomach isn’t alcohol. You sigh into your half-finished drink. This was exactly what happened last time.

Since you’re already feeling sorry for yourself, you punish your naivety by stealing glances at Dean’s table. In the half an hour he’s been gone, he’s taken a seat at their booth, cozied up to the woman closest to him, and captivated each of them with a story. You can tell which one from across the bar. With five sets of happy eyes feasting on him, he puts on his best smolder and gestures suavely with his hands—recounting the time he heroically pulled some civilians from a burning building last year. You know he doesn’t tell them it was for a hunt. You wonder if he mentions you being there at all, or leaves out the part about you hauling him from the fire in the end.

Against your better judgment, you lift your eyes from the hole you’d bored into the table and stare at Dean’s profile until your vision blurs. Please, please just look at me again, you pray with all the faith you have left.

…It looks like you’ve misplaced it. Dean stays at their table for another insufferable ten minutes. After all, pushing you away has always come easier to him than dancing.

Ready for Love by Bad Company plays next. Your mind apparently has a bone to pick with you too, because just hearing the song drops you back into the motel room you and Dean had shared in Tulsa years ago. Jim—your father—had passed that summer, speared by the same thing you’d been hunting. Sam was at school. It’d just been Dean and whatever feeble parts of you that’d survived losing your dad. For weeks, you tortured yourself chasing his killer and tortured Dean as stress relief. You were truly rotten to him then. He should’ve left you in Tulsa, but he’d kept you standing and fed til’ the hunt was long over. He endured every fight you picked and every apathetic apology. Nothing could kill his instinct to nurture, not even your grief, and you came out of the ordeal with Dean’s warm hand brushing your hair from your face. You loved Sam, but you missed the days when he was at school sometimes. Only then could Dean open his stitches and let his inner sweetness bleed out. The night you killed the thing that’d taken your dad from you, Dean had carried you home, washed the blood from your hair, and sang that song until you were safe and half-asleep in his arms.

You’re strong, he’d told you. Stronger than me. Stronger than your dad. You’ll get through this, easy.

Paul Rodgers starts to sing. The woman closest to Dean snuggles in to ask him a question, brushing her nails down the back of his neck. He tilts his head toward hers to listen, and whatever she says makes him turn the blatant flirtiness in his grin to 100%. Her shiny dark hair rolls down her back in perfect spirals, and the swish of it around her neck as she stands from her chair, blushing giddily, brands behind your eyes. Dean stands too.

Your stomach drops. She wiggles her fingers for him to take, and Dean, the lottery winner, follows her onto the dancefloor.

That’s about when you should force yourself to stop watching. But you’ve never had the keenest sense of self-preservation, so you keep stealing glances until your stomach is in knots—until this very lucky girl wraps her arms around Dean’s neck and summons enough liquid courage to kiss him.

Dean kisses back.

You sit there until your throat burns with stifled tears. It doesn’t take long for you to notice Sam looking at you, and when you do your whole body instantly flares with dark embarrassment that writhes up your legs like snakes. You barely have to guess what he’ll do next. He stews on the pitiful sight of you alone on the other side of the bench for another beat, then shoves himself to his feet and slams his laptop shut—and it’s nice, having somebody go through all these motions of defending you, but you don’t need it from Sam. You don’t need it from anybody.

“Don’t,” you warn him. “Don’t. ‘Only make it worse.”

“I know what he’s doing,” Sam starts, lip curled in disbelief. He’s disappointed in his brother. “Dean’s—testing you. Seeing if you’ll stick around. But you’ve more than proved you will, even when he pulls this shit, so I don’t see why you’ve gotta—”

“He’s drunk and stupid,” you cut him off. “We both are. I’m gonna let it go, n’ so are you.”

Sam stills, one unsatisfied hand on the tabletop. “...If I just talk to him—”

“Fucking don’t,” you tell him, and wow, you’re a mean drunk all of a sudden, huh? Pressing your fingertips against your eyelids does nothing to make the world stop tilting. Wilting, you pull your hands from your face and try not to burst into tears. “Sorry. Sorry. M’ not upset with you. M’ not upset with anybody.” Pathetically, you beg, “C’n we just go home?”

Sam gives you an uneasy nod. “Sure thing. I’ll grab Dean and pay our tab.”

Well, shit. Miserable as you are, you did promise to pay for drinks. A night of fun celebratory drinks, to be exact, which had gone completely sideways instead. Great. Sam hastily packs up his bag like he can escape before you remember, but you send him off with a wad of your own bills so he doesn’t go broke feeling bad for you.

Since waiting for him and Dean out on the curb sounds stupid, you choke out, “Bathroom,” and go hide there to dust off your pride.

God, does a thin, shitty motel mattress sound gorgeous right now. On shaking fawn legs, you bruise your way out of the booth and through the crowd, silently hoping that a loose elbow from a rowdy passerby knocks you out cold. Unfortunately, you barrel into the women’s restroom still conscious. It’s mostly empty too, so you’re free to meet your reflection without courage.

When Dean had given his yes for your second dance, you’d imagined this moment. After dancing the night away, you’d complain about your aching heels and Dean would scoop you up, all gentleman-like. He’d joke and hum all the way home—and what a funny word that was, since the only thing in your life permanent enough to call home was him. You’d kiss him goodnight and Dean’s gaze would follow you all the way to the bathroom. And there, once the door was shut and you were alone, the magic of the night would glow in your reflection. You’d sink into your happy, exhausted feet. The heat of his fingertips would be all over your waist and neck and chin. Best of all, when you’d slink into bed and pull the covers up to your face, Dean’s stomach would slot against your back and he’d spill it all to you in a whisper. I couldn’t take my eyes off you tonight, he’d say. I never could, sweetheart. Didn’t want to.

But the truth was that Dean could take his eyes off you so damn easily. These days it felt like you lost his attention the second you got it. Again and again you gave him these chances, and every time he wasted them. Tonight you had sworn something was going to be different, felt it ringing in your soul like a promise, and the second your back is turned he’s found a better dance partner. Was this a sign? Now, you glared at the mirror you’d chosen, feeling the familiar needles of self-loathing start to creep between your ribs. When was it going to happen? When were things going to change? Every time you’d hit this point in the past, Dean had cut those threads before they could tie. I’m not good for you, he’d say. He’d remind you of what had happened to Jess, which had always scared you straight—but that fear came with a finish line. Hunting wasn’t the end of the road for you. With you and Dean, there’d always been a vague idea of something “after,” something over the horizon too far away to see.

You’d held fast to that “after” for so long. Even on the third, fourth, or fiftieth round of Dean’s eyes landing on someone else, you took in a breath and reassured yourself of that “after.” After everything was over and there were no worlds left to save, Dean would look at you and never stop looking.

But this was the hundredth time you’d saved the world. The road to that horizon was endless, and you’d waited so, so fucking long.

Staring at your puffy eyes and spinning reflection in the low flickering light, a dull realization started to connect inside you. You couldn’t care anymore. You were so tired of waiting. One of these days, Dean was going to glance away and never look back. Maybe…

Maybe it would be better for you to pull away first.

The bathroom door banged inwards, startling you into a moment of sobriety. You were whirling around and palming the pistol handle in your waistband before you could think, only to relax. It was just Dean. In the women’s restroom. Fucking hell.

“Dean! What the hell are you—?”

“M’ savin’ our party,” Dean clarifies, and woah, he cannot hold his liquor like he used to. Without a hint of shyness, he saunters into your bubble and dares—fucking dares—to power on his doe-eyes. “Why’d’ya wanna go?” He pouts. Sam must’ve told him. “S’ not even midnight yet.”

“Jesus, you’re lucky s’ just me in here. Could’ve scared the pants off some poor girl,” you curse.

Everything after that is a tightrope act to keep hold of your restraint. Taking his elbow, you pluck the beer out of his hand and toss it into the nearest bin. Dean, of course, squawks in protest, but doesn’t fight when you push him into the narrow hall outside.

“Why on earth did you just stroll in? Just wait for me next time!”

“Maybe you were the girl whose pants I scared off,” Dean chuckles, sounding dizzy. He’s not steady enough to stand in place for too long.

Any other night you’d happily let him lean on you, but just seeing him makes your chest feel split open. The second he’s propped against one wall of the little hall, you’re on the other side, twisting around him and making a beeline for the exit. But Dean is still the guy you were on the dancefloor with an hour ago, so you’re not a step away before two big arms catch you around the middle. Giggling, Dean lassos you back in, and all at once he’s draped across your back with his cheek smushed into yours from behind. The happy little snickers seeping out of him rumble warmly through your back. You’re cozily squeezed around the middle with all the love in the world, and the worst part is that you revel in it. Dean sways a bit with you in his arms, big warm hands folding across your belly, and every stupid cell in your body melts into the contact. He’s only ever like this when he’s drunk.

“If you even get scared,” he hums into your ear, amused. “You’re s’ tough I dunno if you even can. And y’know what? I think…” he turns his lips into your cheek, his stubble rubbing the skin there just right, “I think you’re tough enough to get back out there with me n’ show em’ how it’s done.”

You should resist. You honestly should. But you’re drunk and hollowed out and lonely, so you compromise with yourself and stand dead still. You don’t touch him or lean into it. Yet you don’t squirm away, either.

At your silence, Dean wuffs out a breath down your neck and pouts into your shoulder. “C’monnn,” he urges, “dance with me more. Party! We’re celebratin’. N’ you’re such a great dancer, I wanna take you out there n’ brag ‘bout you. Everybody was lookin’ at us before. You and me. Didja notice that?”

“I did,” you swallow. “But I think m’ all partied out. I just wanna go home, kay? Sam’s out there waiting for us…”

Dean hears this and shifts his face into your neck, pretending to search for a comfortable place to rest his cheek when really he’s just nuzzling. “Boring. What? Pretty princess too tuckered out?” Dean teases. “I’ll tell the kid t’ walk back without us, he’ll be fine. C’mon. I’ll even say please.”

You remain silent. Anxious, Dean fills it. “Just a lil’ while longer, _____. Y’know I can only flirt with you when m’ like this.”

The ache in your chest hits a searing point, and the breath you’re holding breaks. He always, always has to hide.

You squirm out of Dean’s bubble. He makes a gentle attempt at fishing you back in, whining in the back of his throat, but you rip your hand free and peel around the corner before he can react. The mental picture of Dean left hurt and confused in your wake is satisfying, but you know it’s not a faithful image. Instead, he and his words chase you all the way to the curb outside. C’mon! Don’t be lame, ______! The yelling is embarrassing, but what really stings is how he does this in front of everyone. Sam. The bachelorette party, who make your skin crawl with mixed stares of jealousy and sympathy. The woman he kissed. And worst of all, everyone else in the bar, who only recognize you from the hours of slow-dancing you’d done with Dean.

You burst out into the chilly amber night, scrambling for any sense of backbone. A hot flash of unwelcome tears locks your throat shut. Like the unshakable hunter you’re supposed to be, you grit your teeth despite them and ignore Dean’s shouts.

“Sweetheart, c’mon,” he calls. The hurt in his voice surprises you. Dean’s voice is thready with genuine, mounting panic, flooding your brainpan with oily pleasure. Good. “Didn’t want this t’ go this way. We wer’ havin’ fun, weren’t we? M’ sorry. Come back inside. Whatever I did—”

You feel your resolve snap next, splitting apart like a guitar string under scissors.

Then you’re whirling toward him at collision speed, a mangled mess of snarling teeth and tear-caked cheeks. Yelling feels fucking great. You bare your fists, flying at him in a rage.

“Come on come on come on—you know what you did! You know! You have to know!”

Dean skids to a stop. By the street lamp light, he’s still golden as ever, looking soft and beaten. His expression crumples. His visible pain feels good for one glorious breath, then it all shatters as you realize what taboo you’ve brushed up against—and why. Over a few girls. Over a little talking. Some dancing. A silly tipsy kiss. You know everything gets heavier when you’re drunk, but god, this burden weighs more than the fucking sky sometimes. You’re so tired of carrying it. You want an out.

He drags a calloused hand down his face. “...I was just messing around, talking to them… dancing with her. Needlin’ you.”

“Well,” your breath rattles unprettily between words. “I’m needled. Are you fucking happy? Are you? Does it—does it—” you have to talk through harsh, sudden sobs, “—do you like playing with my feelings? Hanging that bone over my head, over and over and over again, just to rip it away?”

You don’t get to see how your desperation lands on Dean, since it’s then that Sam comes between you. “It’s okay,” he soothes, “you’re okay—just—” and lays your jacket over your back.

Then, Sam gets his hands on your arms to steer you the opposite way. You thrash away from him and his brother, furious. But you’re coherent enough to know that this is a bad time to wield the contempt you’ve kept stored. Roiling with fresh horror, you stifle your sobs into your sleeve and dart fast out of the parking lot, toward your motel.

“That didn’t involve you, Sam,” Dean barks over your shoulder, but it comes out more feeble than he intends. Your words were so much so suddenly that it sounds like he’s been shocked sober. Hoarsely, Dean pleads, “_____, wait. Hold on a second. Think about this—!”

…And you’re thrown back in. Supercharged with all the ferocity of a whirlwind, you twist around again. Sam’s already intercepting you, hands up and calm, but after years and years of second chances, you’re sick of waiting for something that’s never going to happen. You love Dean. It aches in your chest and bleeds out your ears, chewing away at your survival instincts.

You’d been right. Something was going to change tonight.

“You have no fucking idea how much I’ve thought about it,” you snarl. “Every day I think about it! Every night! So, no, I’m done thinking and—an’ watching and—”

The tank of crazed energy you’re running on immediately saps. Your voice cuts off with it, so you’re forced to gasp for breath and broil in your bone-deep exhaustion. Though this isn’t the first time the boys have seen you this hurt, they stand frozen on coltish legs, wide-eyed. Your effect on them lands hard: Sam’s mouth is drawn into a firm guilty line, and Dean, who usually fills whole continents with his authority, shrinks miserably into his jacket until his hands are lost in the sleeves. Finally, he takes me seriously.

You give Sam a look. Shell-shocked and unsure, Sam shuffles aside to face his back to you both.

With no one between you, it’s clear in Dean’s eyes that there’s another element to this for him. He’d known this was coming. Having his brother as a barrier was just one more way Dean had softened the blow. Between the awful, sinking guilt seeping out of him at the seams, there was resignation too. On one of those slow nights in your motel in Tulsa, he’d told you himself.

Everyone leaves, Dean had shrugged. Sam. My dad. Some day, you’ll leave too. And I won’t even blame you.

Back then, you’d laid your cheek against Dean’s sweat-tacky arm, the two of you trying to stay cool on a boiling Oklahoma night. You’d wondered to yourself how anyone could do that to the man you loved. Dean’s instinct was to give, to point both fans in that boiling room at you instead of him. How could anyone look at all the things he’d sacrificed and not give the same in return?

Well, you’d smiled at him, I’m not moving an inch, cowboy. You’re stuck with me.

Now, after years and years of sacrificing to no end, you knew that Dean’s prediction had come true. He had been waiting for the other boot to drop for so long that he’d already decided what it would sound like. A part of you wanted to cling to him and the promise you’d made him until your nails bled. But that dead limb was the one that’d been killing you, and tonight was the final proof you needed to amputate it.

You had to leave.

“I love you so much, Dean,” you hiccuped. “But I can’t wait for you anymore.”

You knew you were breaking a promise, no matter how good your intentions were. For that, you weren’t going to allow yourself an easy exit. Instead of whipping around and running for it like you wanted to, you let the slow, ugly acceptance in Dean’s silhouette brand your memory.

Statue-still, all Dean could manage was a tight nod.

He just stared and stared at you, gutted and appalled. You waited for him to say something, to fight this even a little, to make any of this easier on you both. Hating him wouldn’t be so impossible if he screamed you off the street or started throwing your stuff in the gutter. Instead Dean just hung there, frozen in that heart-stopping moment where the blade sinks in to the hilt.

Wielding that knife, you turned on your heel and left.

_

By the time you’ve frozen your ass off getting to your motel room, you’ve lost much of your steam. All the anger has washed out of you in one surging flush of misery. You get to the door almost gagging on your own tears, and pathetically slump down on the curb when you realize Sam has your room key.

Sam, who’s two blocks back helping Dean get home.

The cement stings your legs through your jeans. Betrayal throbs through your whole body, and unable to go anywhere, its barbs turn inward. You try to scrape up any backbone leftover from your tantrum, which is about as easy as splitting atoms. Since that didn’t work, you try to fold in on yourself for some warmth instead, and shiver stupidly on the sidewalk. A pair of late-night road-trippers give you sad stares as they pass. The soft heat of their room as they shuffle inside gushes out onto the stoop, calling your name.

Suddenly, the seething need to be as far from here as possible disappears. You want Sam to get back with Dean. You wish this night could’ve gone any other way, so the three of you could fumble into your room and straight into warm, cozy beds, too lazy to change into pajamas or to kiss goodnight like usual. Sam would check the salt lines and Dean would shuck off his jacket. With the last of your strength, you’d stretch a hand out from under your comforter and Sam would do the same to squeeze yours over the beds’ gap. Goodnight, Sam. G’night. Dean, close enough to kiss in your bed, would tilt you toward him by a gentle hand on your shoulder. He’d smush a kiss into your temple. Night, he’d hum. Together you’d snuggle down into your blankets and crash, content. If this was any other night. Maybe it still could be. Maybe you’d been overthinking this.

You’d had so much to drink. It was you who’d created these imaginary stakes for Dean to follow, and you who wigged out, blew up on him, snarling in his face and breaking a promise in the same breath. No matter how much you wanted it, you had no claim on him. If Dean wanted to dance with more than one person on a night meant to be fun for him… If he… wanted to kiss someone else…

Two tall shadows appear at the end of the parking lot. It’s too late to stand up and look put together, so you pull your knees to your chest and make an attempt at silencing your sobs. You press your lips together, watching Sam help a sniffling Dean across the lot and toward your room. Dean doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t tell you he’s sorry, he doesn’t pick you up off the pavement, and he doesn’t tell you that he loves you even though you both know it. It makes all of your lashing anger bubble up to the surface again, and you sit with it until long after the boys are inside.

These feelings feel petulant at first, then simmer into righteous ones. The hunt had robbed you of so much—your parents, your normalcy, your childhood, and more than once, the love of your life. There was no reason it had to take Dean from you this way, too. Those sticky-sweet nights in boiling Tulsa could be every night for you and him.

You could still taste him, and the syrup of old blues songs on his lip. You’d told him back then, you’re stuck with me, cowboy, and Dean had believed you, really believed you, because he’d rolled sideways in your bed and touched his fingers to your chin. Just the rough tips of them, burning hot. There’d been this irresistible magic in his eyes, like he was learning it was possible to break his own rules as long as he kept them later. His breath was sweet with ice cream when he kissed you. Just one kiss had him shakily sighing through his nose, and with his same trembling hand, he’d cupped your face—in the weird sort of way Dean did affection, the slope of his palm around your jaw and his thumb turning up your chin. It’d felt so special, like a promise to hold out. You’d savored each one with your nails tickling the nape of his neck, your dose of love potion refilled. The two of you had passed out curled nose to nose, Dean’s grin hidden in your pillow.

You could be living every night like you’d lived that one. But there was one barrier in the middle of that road: Dean. I’m not good for you, he’d say, even if you’d never had enough of him to tell.

After years and years of holding out and dosing on your love potion, it occurred to you, pathetically curled up outside a random motel room, that Dean would never be with you. Even if the monsters had been hunted and the world had been saved, he just didn’t have it in him to believe in something so good. Deep down, you’d known this. You were a naive optimist hoping for a different future, but the truth was that Dean hated himself too much to see that future too.

Slowly, you unfurled your hands on your knees, staring at them without taking anything in. All you could feel was the uncomfortable, surging ache in your chest, which choked your throat shut and burned stinging tears around the curves of your nose. The last few hours felt weirdly layered in your memory, like film cells from different strips laid over each other. This had been going on for so long that it’d officially crossed into deja vu. Years and years of moments just like these pressed upon you in the ringing silence of the parking lot. But you could only hold up the sky for so long, and tonight your grip had finally slipped. You were sure of it: if these circular, pathetic dives for an answer were the only thing in your future, it’d kill you. It had been killing you.

What else could you do but leave?

The question itself felt rash, but you were struggling to breathe past your tears and you wanted out—away from the constant want, away from Dean. He could bang whatever girls he stumbled upon, so why couldn’t you do whatever the hell you wanted, too? What the fuck was stopping you? Freedom—from years and years and years of that ugly stirring weight you’d once loved—was only a bus ride and one boosted car away. It’d be easy.

The door creaked open behind you. You held your breath at the sound of footsteps, praying it wasn’t who you wanted to see.

“Come on inside. Don’t like you being out here by yourself,” Sam called.

The breath you let go of didn’t make you any more relieved. It hadn’t felt good to yell at him, either. You opened your mouth to respond, but a thought slammed on top of you with all the malice of a blow to the head. The next words out of your mouth could be some of the last you ever speak to him for a long time. Instead, you scuffed your running tears on your sleeve one last time, then hauled yourself onto your feet.

The plan was to dart past him fast enough to avoid the look you were sure Sam was giving you, but it fell on the whole lot bright as stadium lights. You made the stupid mistake of catching eyes with him, and the intensity there was enough to root you to the spot. You froze. Sam’s face was solemn, but when he finally got a good look at you it shifted into calm, haunted understanding, since you weren’t the only one who’d cried on a curb like this. He knew exactly what leaving looked like.

After a pregnant pause, Sam stole a glance into the safe darkness of your motel room. Whatever he saw inside bolstered his nerve, and before you could argue he’d swiped his coat and stepped out into the cold with you. Here we go, you braced yourself.

“...I need to punch something,” you confessed, just to have something to say.

Sam stopped awkwardly hovering around the sidewalk to spread his arms wide, and how he had the energy to smile, you had no clue. “I’m open,” he offered, only half-joking.

You sputtered out a laugh. It trailed off where you couldn’t follow it, and unfortunately, neither could he, leaving you both shivering side-by-side in silence. You started to stutter out something intelligent, but the open sympathy in his eyes took all the nuance out of you. Renewed tears squeezed down your face. Instantly, he was there, a big warm hand coming down to rub your shivering back.

“I know you already know this, but it’s worth saying,” Sam murmured. “Everybody leaves him. It’s all he’s used to.” (...I know, you breathed between sobs). “Dean doesn’t… hang these other girls in front of you because he’s, y’know. Trying to play with your feelings. He’s scared. It’s wrong, but it’s his messed-up way of testing if you’ll stick around.”

You want to listen. Sam’s tone makes this all sound reasonable and easy, but that bitter crawling thing eating away at your conscience reminds you, Of course it’s his brother out here trying to fix this. Of course he can’t pick up his own mess.

“It sucks. Trust me, I’ve taken a good chunk of it myself,” Sam chuckled, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “I dunno what it is that makes em’ think he deserves it, but… he’s so used to everyone leaving that he rushes to push em’ away first.”

Swallowing around the bitter taste in your mouth, you tell him, “Well. I think it worked.”

That weighs on Sam for longer than you expect, strangling the lot with a heavy silence. Compelled to fill it, you wrap your arms around yourself and spit out your confession.

“I-I think I,” you managed. “I think I gotta go, Sammy.”

As soon as you say it, the reality of your decision hits you. This isn’t a light move to make. Leaving wouldn’t just shred things between you and Dean, but your friendship with Sam, too—it would mean turning all of your memories with them into kindling. In all your time on the Winchester family road trip, you’d seen all sorts of people take up the space in the back of the Impala. Psychics. Some angels and some demons. Good, good friends. Alive or dead, they all got off at their own stop eventually. You’d been riding in the backseat for so long, not once had you thought there’d be a stop for you, too. But here it was; Dean had hit the breaks himself, and Sam was readying himself to open the door for you.

You thought of the girl you’d been when you’d first met them. She’d still had room in her for friendship bracelets and brown sugar, for mystery novels that never ended, always chasing the next adventure. At the end of all this, that’s what Dean was: your next grand adventure.

Being hunter-born had put you in the strange middle-ground between sheltered and grotesquely exposed; you’d seen how purple and putrid a corpse could get before you were fifteen, but were more than acquaintances with a sum total of five people at the same age. Dean was your worldly opposite. He’d find the towns you landed in like you were his homing beacon, fresh out of the thick of it with a fantastical story to match. He’d hang half-out of your bedroom window, fierce-eyed, and singing, and you’d roll right out of the monotony of your life and into the magic of his. You’d mention him to friends in high school like a made-up boyfriend—Dean lives out of town, but he swears he’s gonna visit next month—because even you weren’t sure he was real. He was this untethered cowboy you’d somehow lassoed in, swinging into your life with all the colors and life of the wild west. Not so much a knight in shining armor, but. Dean, your Dean.

You would miss that. You would always miss him.

Sam tamped down his panic. “Are—are you sure?” He turned you by your shoulder to look at him, and Jesus, those kicked-puppy eyes should be considered a weapon of war. “You don’t wanna talk to Dean about this…?”

You were already shaking your head. “For the hundredth time?”

Sam pressed his lips together. You knew he thought this was a cowardly, drunken decision, but in the middle of it all, you felt like you’d earned the right to be cowardly and stupid. The last decade of your life had been wasted being reasonable. When Dean kicked you out of your motel room to share it with a stranger, you found another place to crash without complaint. When he’d told you he loved you, you gave him the space he asked for, neither of you sure how to handle something so big so young. You waited. When you sat him down and spilled your guts about the future you wanted him in, you’d respected his answer. I’m not good for you had translated to I’m not ready yet. You waited. When Dean was ready for other girls, though, Julie, Ava, Cassie—you started to press back. Since then, your feelings had become the ugly “it” that lingered in every room you shared with Dean. Every argument you’d ever had orbited around it somehow, along with every relationship. Spats turned into arguments, and arguments became second chances and third chances. It really had been the hundredth time Dean had played with you like this.

And even if he’d had nothing to do with it, it was killing you anyway. Being around him, good or bad, had sapped your adventurer’s spirit.

Sam goes still, conflicted. “This is your life. You know that I of all people understand that. But… but just… please. Please just give it one more shot. A month. Or a few weeks, if you need it. Please.”

“You think I’m overreacting,” you assumed, swallowing against the drying film of alcohol on your teeth.

“No, no, I think you’re drunk,” Sam answered, instead, and as blunt as it was it still came out soft. “And tired. But you’re not overreacting, ______. Dean’s done this and worse a dozen times before,” he sighed. Realizing that wasn’t exactly convincing, Sam scrambled for a foothold. “...He really does love you. Just needs to see reason.”

Reason, he says, like that had anything to do with this. Sam starts to clam up, desperate to glue the situation back together.

You feel the need to explain, “...Me leavin’ would have nothing to do with you. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Sam said, thickly. “But I’m pretty sure it’d break my heart if you did, so I can’t imagine what it’d do to him.”

At that, you couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of the door to your motel room. It waited over your shoulder with all the gravity of a neutron star, dragging you to face it and wonder at the man on the other side. Knowing Dean, he might’ve managed to kick off his shoes before crashing into bed. Knowing the love of your life, he’d probably roll onto his back and sink like a rock, the hard lines of his face softened by sleep. His was probably puffy from crying. After long nights out, there’d be times when he’d accidentally wake you up by slipping under the covers. Dean would curse and hush apologies, clumsily pawing in next to you, but the intrusion was always welcome. You remembered him always having to pat around for your face in the dark, just so he knew where to place his goodnight kiss. Sometimes he’d miss on purpose and playfully pinch your cheek or lay a gross, sloppy kiss on your eye, which never failed to make you squirm away giggling. Good night, pretty girl. What would it do to him, to watch you go?

Your chest flared with ugly guilt. You weren’t sure. But you knew what would happen if you stayed, and Dean, in the long run, would be proud of you for looking out for yourself for once. He’d always said you put yourself last too often.

You imagined him asleep on the other side of that door, muffling his tears into his pillow, and the last of your hope and optimism just shatters. Swallowing your own cowardice, you steel yourself. “I’m sorry,” you tell Sam.

Sam laid a hand on your back. “Look at me a minute.”

Somehow, you did. Seeing Sam’s devastation hurts even more than you thought it would, but nothing compares to knowing that you’ll be leaving him behind. “C’mon,” he steps off the curb and toward the street, trying and failing to smile. “Let’s walk to the gas station or somethin’.”

You shook your head, heaving for breath, and confessed: “I really gotta go, Sammy. At least for a little while.”

Sam set his jaw. He teetered back toward you, thinking fast, and padded down his pockets for his wallet. “Okay. Okay. I know. But, but make a deal with me—let’s take a walk, get you sober. Then when you have some food in your system, you’ll tell me if—i-if this is still what you want. Kay?”

“Sam,” you grimaced.

“Please,” he begged, full-voiced, then snapped his mouth shut. When Sam was sure he could keep his feelings in check, he held up his wallet. “My treat. C’mon.”

Without hesitating, Sam started walking backward to the nearest corner store. Just the thought of eating made you nauseous, but not only did Sam have the keys to your room, but he’d also taken his stubbornness with him on this walk too. Thawing yourself off the stoop, you took one last look at your door and started after Sam. You knew that he was going to use this time to rally, to convince you, and that it would definitely work—so you steeled yourself. Sam couldn’t win. You had to leave.

It was just one dance. One kiss. You knew that. But you were stupid, drunk, in love, and weighed down by years of Dean’s reminder: I’m not good for you.

You hate that he’d been right.

_

Dean woke up sometime after dawn, but his body was so thoroughly glued to the mattress that he didn’t physically move for at least another hour. Even his routine where am I panic set in later than usual, and Dean was sluggish to answer it:

He was in a motel. That rarely changed. This time it was in… Springfield? Right? Yeah—they’d had fun little town postcards at the front desk, Dean remembered. _____ had studied them while Sam had got them the room, making that funny little hum sound she did when she thought something was quaint. It’d taken Sam only a minute to get their key, and Dean managed to fill that whole minute with nothing but spiraling. She loves kitschy crap like that. Maybe I should swipe one for her. Start a collection or something, make all this back-and-forth driving fun for her. She’s been so patient with us lately, deserves somethin’ to perk her up. Would she like it? Or was that too weird?

Dean groaned at himself—not only was he dealing with a hangover for the record books, but a heavy dose of embarrassment too. God. That woman. Nobody twisted him up like she could.

He kicked at the blankets, wiggling backward onto her side of the bed where the sheets were nice and cold. Usually the two of them cooked under the covers together, but she must’ve been hanging off the other end of the bed to leave so much cool space between them. He reached around with a foot. Nothing.

Huh. He hoped the gut rush of shittiness seeing her side empty was from whatever he’d been drinking last night, not something serious he was forgetting. Since getting up was so, so much uglier than being smushed comfortably in bed, Dean closed his eyes and thought. Counted back. The three of you had just wrapped up for a hunt… gone out for drinks to celebrate… and past that things start to fuzz. There might’a been a screaming match. Dean really wants to lean toward no, but he distinctly remembers being inside while Sam comforted you outside and sort of hating that. It was definitely Dean’s fault. But still, he remembered bitterly stuffing his face in his pillow hearing the soft lilt of your voice through the door—he should’ve been the one to fix things.

He would. Today. Dean laid in bed for a little while longer, but the guilt clawing around in his gut was making it impossible to do anything but overthink. How’d he fuck things over this time, huh? As sucky as it was, his best shot was to get the story from Sam, then figure out where to go from there. With how patient you’d been with him when he’d snapped his collarbone in Illinois, Dean was willing to grovel for forgiveness. This wasn’t the first time he’d hurt your feelings being coarse, but… c’mon. This was you. The only person who knew Dean better was Sam, and his forgiveness was the price of family. Yours was untethered, free, and lovingly given, so Dean tried to cool his mounting panic. You’d talk it out. You’d forgive him, because Dean was stupid lucky to have such a fucking saint in his life.

You loved him, Dean reminded himself, and forced himself to sit up.

The second he’s up and looking at everything, he’s pinched by this sense of wrongness. His duffle’s where he left it at the foot of the bed, the salt lines are clean and uninterrupted, but it’s like everything’s been moved an inch to the left. The pinch turns into a pang. Dean trudges out of bed, suspended in the limbo between his bedside and the open bathroom door. Something is wrong.

Some of your things have been moved, Dean rationalizes. You must be out grabbing breakfast. On stiff legs, Dean moves into the bathroom because, obviously, that’s where your shit would be if he’s not seeing it. Ignoring the bile that rises in him the second he’s moving, Dean purposefully avoids the mirror and hangs in the doorway. All three of you occupied the motels you lived in like you were ready to bolt any second, so there isn’t exactly any toiletries to take note of or clothes to notice… Until Dean circles back to his duffle at the foot of the bed. There’s a set of clothes thrown on top that he hasn’t seen since high school—some ratty sweats, holey winter socks, and two or three tees and shirts lost to time. It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that they used to belong to him, and just as long to connect them back to you.

These, Dean realized, were your most prized war trophies. Over the years you’d borrowed so many clothes from them that you’d probably modeled the entire Winchester closet. At first just the sleep shirts, but that graduated into tees for casual days and layers to add in wintertime.

By junior year, the half you’d pilfered from Sam was all too big to wear practically. That left Dean’s half, which you essentially lived in. A few of his shirts in particular had become main stays, so Dean had neglected to ask for them back and you’d comfortably forgotten to return them. You had a thing about wearing them around his flings, too, which Dean figured was your cute girl-way of reminding them who’d still be there when they were gone. True to form, they’d always left and you’d always stayed. Dean liked things that way, too.

A real pang of panic rang in his chest. Were you so pissed at him that you’d returned everything you’d borrowed? Or was this something worse?

His panic finds its legs. Not only had your pilfered clothes been returned, but Dean couldn’t find your travel bag. If his duffle is thrown at the end of the bed, and Sam’s is zipped up on the table, then yours had to be in the Impala. It had to be. He picks through the backseat and then graduates to tearing apart the trunk, both of which are void of your things. Your phone isn’t plugged into the wall. Your shoes aren’t by the door. Even the pistol you’d duck-taped under the coffee table was gone, along with the knife behind the headboard. Dean still can’t find your bag. Maybe it’s out in the open and I missed it, he tells himself, but the bathroom and the dressers and under the beds and the front lobby carry no sign of your stuff. Of you ever being there.

His last resort is that you have to be with Sam, who usually goes for a run this early—Sam, who walks in alone, twenty minutes into Dean’s full-body meltdown.

He should assume that you left. Logically, that is what missing keys, phones, toothbrushes and wallets mean, but this is Dean Winchester.

Instead, he assumes: “______’s been taken.”

Right away, Sam deflates. Which is impressive, since he walked in looking pretty wilted already. There are dark smears of purple under his eyes, which are puffy from crying. But that’s not exactly the reaction you want from your brother when you share this kind of thing with him, so the lack of response just spurs Dean into tearing their room apart even more, stone-faced.

“...Dean,” Sam manages.

Dean starts ripping the drawers out of the dresser, like finding one of your socks will be proof that you’re still here.

“She was fucking taken, Sam,” his throat feels tight. “I woke up and all of her shit was packed up and gone—somebody good had to do this, s’mbody who knows what the hell they’re doing, cause’ they knew to make it look like she’d left on her own. May—maybe she went out by herself after we went to sleep? N’ that’s how they took er’?”

His hands are shaking, fighting to get the next drawer off its track. Looking at Sam will just make him fucking implode, so he ignores him, shredding through the room inch by inch. The wheel on the dresser’s track snaps so hard that Sam flinches where Dean can’t see. Somehow, the urge to find expands into something an inch more logical, and he rolls seamlessly into escape mode, tossing his duffle on his bed and shoving the returned clothes inside. In a never-slowing storm, Dean flies around the room and hunts down what isn’t already ready to go in their bags. The adrenaline was starting to cut into his nausea, and the two mixed uncomfortably inside him, each knowing in their own way that something was terribly wrong.

After a long silence, Sam collapses onto the end of his bed and confesses in a small voice, “She left a couple’a hours ago, Dean. On her own.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Dean snorted.

Something patted Dean’s shoulder, and it was a miracle that anything in his bubble didn’t immediately dissolve into molten lava; reining himself in, he turned. Sam was holding a letter.

He shrugged, swallowing thickly. “She said she, uh, needed some time. Not forever, just… time. Wrote you this.”

Dean hung in place. Too quickly, he recovered, and managed the gentleness to take the letter from Sam instead of yanking it away. There was no envelope. Just your tri-fold notebook paper and the bubbly curve of your handwriting on both sides. In the clean white space at the top of the page, you’d written Dean’s name. If he flipped it over and opened it, there would be more bubbly letters strung together in words. Words Dean didn’t have the strength for, right now.

It was easier, much easier, to succumb to the sudden slosh of sickness in him and follow his hangover into the bathroom.

After he empties his stomach and Sam gets some water into him, the crazed packing continues. Your letter goes straight into Dean’s duffle, unread, because Sam asks him what he’s doing, and Dean curtly interrupts him, “What else? We’re gonna go find her.”

Sam avoids his eyes. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Reasonably, Dean knew that Sam had helped you. He’d felt it, seeing him walk in late, seeing him pass off the letter. But it only starts to press on him now, with the alcohol sickness becoming a different kind of sickness within him, the full weight of what exactly Sam has done.

“You fucking didn’t,” Dean snarls. “Tell me you didn’t.”

There’s a flicker of rebellion on Sam’s face, but he subdues it for Dean’s sake. He shrugs, “...She wanted to leave.”

The nearest lamp on the bedside table shatters against the wall with a fierce pop. Dean’s close to tears, he’s so upset, sucking down anguished breaths. This is his worst nightmare. It roars off him all at once, and Sam, the nearest target, takes the brunt of it.

“How could you do this to me? How could you do that to her? She—she can’t survive on her own—!” he lies to himself, “—she needs us—and-and I need her! Why would you just let her walk away? What the fuck, Sam?”

“What was I supposed to do? Handcuff her to the radiator?!” Sam snaps, spreading his arms wide, “It’s her life!”

“With us!” Dean roars. His throat grates with acid and tears.

“With whoever the hell she wants! You should’ve—” Sam argues. He realizes how fruitless all the yelling is, especially with tears smeared in the creases of Dean’s face. “...I can’t speak for her. Read the damn letter.”

“No,” Dean grates. He gets his duffle over his shoulder, his whole body coiling with betrayal. “Get your shit and get in the fucking car. We’re finding her. Where’d you drop her off?”

Of course, Sam refuses to answer. He gives Dean this quiet, desperate look neither of them is good at processing. Dean’s not exactly in the mood to process much of anything, nevermind this, nevermind the mountain of shit he’s messed up between last night and today.

He snarls. “Where, Sam?”

Sam still doesn’t answer. His stubbornness forces an old ugliness out of Dean that he’ll regret later, but, what’s one more thing for the pile, right?

“What?” Dean whips on his brother. “You give that little of a shit about her? You pick up brunch and a smoothie after you left her to fuckin’ rot?” Baring his teeth, he spits, “She’s not running off to Stanford, kid. This is different and you know it.”

The blow lands so hard that Sam bristles, but if you left a couple of hours ago, then he’s had plenty of time to brace himself for the grave Dean had planned to dig himself. After a long, treacherous silence, Sam finds an answer:

“Train station,” Sam’s lip curls. “But she made sure I drove off before I could see if she even walked in. She’s just like you n’ me, so she’s probably two states over by now—”

Dean slams the front door before he can finish.

-

It takes Dean four miserable hours to chase the specific bus you’d taken over the border to Connecticut, two days to pinpoint the lousy 83’ Mercury Capri you’d bought, in cash, from a dentist in New Hartford, and another to find it trunk-first in the Connecticut river, stripped entirely of your things. Sam fights him all the way to Brooklyn, which turns out to be a last-ditch distraction tactic. Dean had figured you’d head somewhere busy to shake them, but instead, you’d turned West, to Tulsa.

At the end of the week he finds you waitressing in a little dive just outside town. It’s a long chase, by their standards. As anguished as Dean felt, he couldn’t help nursing a warped sense of pride: his girl was good. Lesser hunters would’ve never caught up with you.

The Impala coasted along the buckling sidewalk framing the lot and stilled, idling on anxious wheels. Dean left sometime after Sam fell asleep. A whole week of non-stop pursuit had almost burned the spirit out of him. Sam’s moral needling never stopped, not until the silence burning up between them was as light as a slab of concrete. Twice now Dean was tempted to cut and leave without him, but the dark swimming part of Dean’s mind knew he deserved the constant backlash. She doesn’t want to see you, Sam had spit once, she needs time.

But the thing was that you’d never needed time before. The only time you’d needed in the past was the minutes it took for you to say, you’ve hurt my feelings, Dean, and the time it took for him to drop into your lap and bemoan his apologies until you were in stitches. He’d clutch your pantleg in his fists and fake-sob, Oh, baby, I’ll never forgive myself fer hurtin’ you! There was a familiar dance to it. At first, you’d stifle your smile and shove at him, all tough n’ girly-like. Dean would hunt down your nearest ticklish spot until your anger was a funny thing you’d both forgotten about, then sink into an apology he really meant. It worked every time and you knew it worked every time, but. Dean would drop his head into your lap and the first thing he’d feel was your hand on his back, keeping him there.

You’d never needed time before. You’d never needed space, because Dean was your space, with no room for anyone else to squirm in between.

It’s been days, man, Sam had said, endlessly. Just read her letter. Just read it.

He’d tried. More than once, he’d steeled himself enough to find it at the bottom of his bag and open it up, but beyond those steps was a whole new hell. He gets three words in and is immediately split open like a deer carcass in the sun. I’m sorry, Dean. Just that is enough to make him carefully re-fold the letter back on its seams.

There, in the parking lot of your bar in Tulsa, Dean finally finds the endurance to shovel past that first line. Originally, his plan isn’t really a plan at all—he’ll swing inside, convince you to come home, get some dinner in you and give “making things right” his best shot. But those are just ideas with no ground to stand on beyond what Sam has told him. And what Sam has told him sounds like, l-like horseshit, something Dean would hunt one of your shitty ex-boyfriends down for. To him, it sounds like something irreparable. That feeling is starting to find its roots.

By the flaxen street light, he spreads the thin notebook paper out on his thigh, careful not to smudge the hurried pen with his fingers. He reads it once and only once, unable to stomach any more.

The Impala pulls out of the lot and slinks back to their motel.

-

The next day, Dean loads his brother into the Impala, picks a direction, and drives.

His instincts settle back onto their monotonous track, and within a week he and Sam are cutting down vamps in Montana. Only once does Sam ask about what happened, and Dean only shuts him down once for the two of them to return to the Winchester default: not talking about it. Sam clearly wants to, squirming with unspoken questions when they find your spare boots kicked under Baby’s front seat or dodge hunters who’d ask around for you. Dean feels like ripping out his own entrails every time Sam itches to bring you up, but draws blood from his lip instead. When Sam’s out of resolve and Dean’s alone, he presses his face into the shirts you’d borrowed, soaked all the way through with your perfume, choking down tears that don’t do nothin’ for nobody. Especially Dean, who hasn’t cried in front of anyone but you since he was nine.

It’s like he’s lost a limb, left only with the phantom grasping feel of it. Dean definitely copes like a man who’s lost a leg. Sam leaves the issue alone, for the most part, trying to trick himself into being content with you being where you want to be. Meanwhile, Dean’s flask graduates from his duffle to his jacket. Hunting stops being a distraction and gradually opens up into a dangerous sinkhole.

The following weeks reek with deja vu. Silences stretched, gaps in their routine yawned wider, every inch of their never-ending road trip scrubbed raw with impressions of you. Dean must’ve checked the rear-view a thousand times, running on that same old instinct to steal looks at you in the backseat. The whole universe had been kicked off its axis by the aftermath, causing a run of bad luck worthy of a horror movie. Dean’s gun started jamming inexplicably; they’re caught by cops in Indiana and have to circle back two weeks later for the car, which is stripped of everything they’ve got; he almost loses Sam getting their arsenal back from an evidence lockup in Fort Wayne. Scrubbing his brother’s caked blood out of the steering wheel one afternoon, Dean knows that it’s more than luck he’s lost.

When you were stressed or feeling stuck, you’d lay out all their weapons on the bedspread—reminding Dean not to plop his ass down without looking first—and clean them each meticulously. The way you did it sort of reminded him of sewing. You’d count under your breath, so versed in the steps you’d created that you didn’t even have to watch your hands. Sometimes this ritual collided with the nights you polished up your poker skills together, and if Dean listened between hands, there was your counting. Four. Take off the slide. Five. Scrub the frame. If Dean’s pistol landed in the pile, you’d forget you were winning altogether and sink into deeper focus, pretty brows furrowed and your lips in a soft line. Dean’s gun never jammed if you’d been the one to clean it.

You were stealthier, more unassuming, with the kind of easy smile that policemen looking for fugitives glossed over. The cops in Indiana would’ve glossed over you, too. You were the third support beam that kept them sturdy—with you at Dean’s six, he and Sam would’ve smuggled back the arsenal with no problem. And even if there’d been trouble… well. This was you. Lose-a-car-in-the-river-on-purpose you, who Dean could always rely on to back his play.

When Sam has to drive him home from the bar one night, Dean slurs, Everythin’. Everythin’ goes to shit without ‘er.

Those thoughts crept up on him again and again, preying on him in low moments. He buried them under everything close enough to grab, keep the salt lines clean, call Jody, fix the car, but everything thrown on top of his memories of you swayed and shuddered, demanding to be dug up. Dean knew that he’d betrayed you. Already that was unforgivable, but by hurting you he’d broken a blood oath as old as your friendship. At fifteen Dean had sworn to protect you, only to turn around now and wound you so viciously that you couldn’t even bring yourself to say goodbye to him. Not in person. Not in the letter.

It was the one detail his heart couldn’t stop fixating on, no matter how deep Dean buried you. He knew you better than anyone, and you never said goodbye unless things were truly over.

He’d heard you sob it into Sam’s shoulder before he left for school. When the hellhounds came for him in New Harmony, you’d resisted, clutching Dean’s jacket in both hands and weeping instead, “I’ll see you.”

You’d never said goodbye to him.

This turns into a notion, then a stupid idea, then a plan that Dean rolls around in the bottom of his glass, considering. He could get that goodbye from you. He could knock on your window like he’d done when you were kids, say his piece, and then let the grass eat his boots as he waits for you to truly finish this.

He could get that goodbye from you. It’d kill him, but Dean wasn’t sure he could go on without it.

-

Five minutes into his drive to DeLancey’s Pub and Bar, the slimy dive you waitressed in around the dicier ends of Tulsa, Dean realizes that he’s not even sure if you’re working tonight.

The drive was long—long enough to swerve Dean’s confidence in every single direction possible, until the revving toughness he’d gathered had swan-dived into gut-clenching fear. Two hours ago he’d been combing through articles for a case. Something had compelled him into the car, something bone-deep and inescapable, and if Dean was being truthful with himself it had everything to do with the strange adrenaline he got just being in the same state as you. Twice, he swore he’d seen your face among the officers at the station and blending into the diner crowd at breakfast. He knew that you were a whole town away and intent on not seeing him, but. Dean could sense the divide between you like the childhood home he’d never known. It was a distance he could close and map in his sleep, and after another night jolting out of a nightmare and into a bed empty of you, Dean was exhausted. He missed you so much he was sick, choking back mouthfuls of guilt just thinking of you. He missed you so much that the drive to you could’ve been measured in inches, and the walk to the Impala was even smaller, calling to him.

Waking up, he’d sensed it. Tonight was gonna be different.

Things had started off strong. The second Dean had turned the key and pointed the Impala toward Tulsa, his hands on the wheel were sure as all hell. I’m gonna tell her all my cruddy fuckin’ feelings and get all this cruddy fuckin’ honesty out of the way, then either we make up or she gives me the boot. Simple as that. Nothin’ to it. That was as far as his planning went, since that’s as far as Dean could handle thinking into your future. By the time Dean was off the highway his plan had started eating itself, circling constantly back to your letter to him. But he was already halfway there, then over halfway, and giving up became an increasingly spineless option.

Along the way, I’m gonna give it to her straight, slowly, bloodily evolved into, I’m bringing her the fuck home.

Dean’s propelled himself forward so hard just to get here, so the Impala’s still rolling into park when he clambers out and onto the gravel. His heart is pounding like thunder in his ears but it’s nothing compares to the screaming silence that stands between where the Impala’s sitting and where you must be. DeLancey’s is the only kind of place Dean could picture you working; somewhere low and unglamorous, like any other bar you and Dean had skulked around in your twenties. You lived for skeevy places like this, the shabbier the better, and privately Dean had always thought you were too pretty to exist in places like those. But he’d seen you under neon beer lights so often that you’d sort of claimed it for yourself, this strange brand of cigar-smoke beauty that made Dean’s ears warm.

He thinks of that image and can’t help but need himself to be there, to be with you like he always has, and that’s what gets him across the gravel and through the door.

Either this is a hunter’s bar or the place is packed full of demons, because the second Dean bangs inside, making a few heads jerk up with the noise of it, those heads immediately swivel to whisper to each other. What’s that Winchester boy doing here? Anyone who knows you knows there’s only one answer. The bartender looks up from the drink he was making. The host awkwardly shrinks behind her podium, freezing like everyone else in the room. For just an instant he has the whole saloon itching toward their pistols, and Dean lives off the warped satisfaction he gets from that until the kitchen door swings open for a huge tray of drinks.

Hefting it over one shoulder, you slip easily out from behind the bar and pass the drinks over to a table of hunters. There’s a resonating shock that sizzles through Dean’s system, seeing you. It’s the strange pleasure of confirmation, of knowing that you’re real, that you’re someone he can lay eyes on instead of a slow-fading memory. In your element, you’re… Dean swallows. You’re still you. One of the hunters says something to you, and you snap back in a way that has them all roaring with laughter. All doubt left Dean’s body, and standing there, he’s winded by the single-minded purpose that got him there in the first place. He’s getting you home.

At full tilt, Dean bee-lines for you.

The harsh sound of boot steps makes you glance up, and with it the chatter of the hunters dies away. Your expression doesn’t shift from your usual calm, arrow-eyed look, empty of anger or loneliness or happiness. Just calm, like you knew he’d find you, you’re just surprised it took him this long. You take a cool step away from the table to stand at your full height, and an old shivery warmth flutters down his spine. Yeah. There was his girl, tough as a fuckin’ tank.

“Dean,” you murmured, a greeting.

He wants to murmur your name with the same sweetness. He wants to scoop his arm around your waist like he used to and shove his face in your neck like he used to, spilling his guts in ways he’d only spilled to you. He wants to do this the easy way, but that’s not exactly his default.

Dean swings in, snapping, “Get outside. I’m telling you something whether you like it or not, n’ don’t think I won’t drag you if I have to.”

Your brows fly up your forehead. “Wow.”

Right along with you, the hunters with the front-row seats to the scene Dean’s making bristle in tandem. Some of the guys at the bar twist around on their stools to throw Dean barbed looks, and really, he shouldn’t have underestimated your ability to assemble so many minions like this, since he and Sam had been your minions from day one. The guy closest to Dean makes a big show of scraping his chair back and growling, which Dean pities him for. Get in line, pal.

“That’s my friend you’re talkin’ to, chisel chest. If you know what’s good for you, I’d get the fuck outta’ here,” says Asshole #1 of 4, and the threat hasn’t even landed before you’re neatly cutting through him, “—mind your damn business, Tommy, he has just as much a right to be here as anyone else.”

At your request the other hunters simmer down, and, ignoring Dean, you scoop up your empty tray and deliver it to the bar. All the energy he’d rationed in the car starts to seep out of him, since. Well. Still, after all this time, you didn’t hesitate to bare your teeth for him. With the wind successfully taken out of Dean’s sails, he tries not to twitch in place as you round’ the bar, brush past him and gesture for him to follow you out a side exit.

Your silence terrifies the hell out of him, so adding the hanging quiet of the parking lot to the equation makes Dean’s nerves crawl. He hadn’t realized how loud it’d been in there until you were isolated outside, the rowdy Friday night chatter softened behind the door. Swaying next to you on legs he’s forgotten how to use, a dart of something mean and cold hits Dean in the chest. On the other side of the door, where the lights are dim but warm and the air sings with the tang of alcohol, Don Henley floats into the first lyrics of One of These Nights.

Even now, your magic sways over him. Across from him on the gravel, you stuff your hands under your arms and huff a strand of hair out of your face, glowing gold by the creamy moonlight. If this was any other night of the year that the two of you had fallen out of a bar together, Dean would ask you to dance with him right here by the dumpsters. You’d say yes. He knew you would’ve said yes, then.

“You worried me sick,” is the first thing Dean manages to say. “Wakin’ up, finding you gone—I thought someone had fuckin’ took you, y’know that?”

This is apparently the wrong thing to say, because the coolness in your expression coasts straight into bitterness. Regardless, Dean rolls right past it and right into nervous, emotional ranting.

“I know what I did. I know I don’t deserve shit for it,” he chokes out, “but you could’ve at least said goodbye t’ me! I deserved to know you’d be safe! If you couldn’t… If I was hurtin’ you too much, and if I wasn’t listenin’, you had every right to get the fuck out of there and make your own life somewhere else. But after—after bein’ with me for so, so damn long, so long I don’t even remember how we met, you couldn’t even say goodbye? Nothing? I just have to live with the fact that I don’t even ‘member the last time we fuckin’ talked to each other? Don’t even get to see my best fuckin’ friend one last time?”

“No,” you scowled. “No, you fuckin’ don’t. Because we’ve never been just friends, Dean, and even if you knew that you still played with my feelings. Why the hell would I even want to look at you again? Why do you deserve that?”

Dean flinched. He sputtered on his answer, of course, because he’d never been able to keep his head straight around you. Not now, not ever. “...I guess I don’t. But, um… I know this doesn’t mean much anymore, but…” He closed his hand into a fist, like it was possible to draw in raw courage from the air. “You’re right. We’ve never really been… just plain friends, and—”

“We’ve said I love you,” you scoffed, “We’ve kissed! We’ve spent four whole years on the road together, with nobody but each other, and even years after that you still can’t even admit it to my face! Can’t even say it!”

Dean’s hands are shaking, and in a rush he says, “Yeah? And you wanna know why? Cause’ the second I do, the second it’s out of my mouth, you’re dead. You hear me? A target drops on your back so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Honest to God, you start laughing, the scary hunter’s laugh that only bled out of you in the thick of a chase. “I’m already dead!” You budge him with your fists, almost pushing him back a foot, “We’re both already dead! None of that bullshit matters! Wouldn’t you rather we use the fucking time we’ve got instead of sitting around with our thumbs up our asses? Dean, come on!”

“Of course I do!” He roars. You’re close enough to grab, so he does, ripping you toward him by the wrists, “That’s all I’ve wanted!” He sucks down the cool night air and the little breaths puffing out of you, panting, “You’re all I’ve fucking wanted. Since the last time we were here. Since way before then. But the minute—the second they know that, Hell or—o-or whoever’s after us now, they’re gonna take advantage of that.”

The look on your face is frozen still with mute shock. Choking down another dose of guilt, Dean drops your wrists and suppresses the urge to pull you back in, to squeeze you against him, to kiss you stupid like he’d done years ago.

“Don’t think for one second that I don’t want you,” Dean rasped. “But I’d rather have you livin’ than be with you dead, you get me?”

You closed your eyes. Tears squeezed down your face, rolling around the curve of your cheeks. You grit, “I’m sick of having this argument, Dean.”

Then, the pull to reach out for you grew too great, and Dean couldn’t help but cup one side of your neck. He swallowed, thickly. “I know, baby girl.”

Starved for contact, you dug your nails into the material of his sleeve and did your best to speak. “If I go back with you,” you rattled out. “If I go back w’ you, sittin’ with this is gonna kill me. Can’t wait anymore. Can’t sit in the damn car while you run off with other people. I have t’ go. I love you, but I gotta go.”

Dean was sick of having this argument too. After years and years of it weighing on the two of you like a black hole, of this same old story returning every so often to throw a fresh gap between you both, Dean had hit his limit. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to keep you living and happy. But this pressure on his heart was heavier than the damn sky, and now more than ever he wanted to let it go. Find another way. Choose you.

He overspills.

“I love you too,” Dean gushed, and from there, poured the rest of his heart out onto the wet asphalt. “Love you so much it makes me damn sick. Makes me all stupid and mushy on the inside, which is probably half the reason I’ve made it this far. Having you gone has just made it worse—the road’s too quiet and the backseat’s always cold, like everything else’s sick too. S’ made me realize that I—I-I can’t do this without you. Everythin’. Livin’ like this. I tried for your sake, I honestly did, but god, baby, I need you home. I need you to come home.”

“Dean—”

“Let me finish!” Dean barked, and the sloping misery on your face paused. “I know why you left. Shit, I’d leave too if the one person I… if that one person kept treating me the way I was treatin’ you. Fuck, _____, if this was some other guy? Doing this to you? I’d kill him. Acid bath, hit him with my car, something. I’d kill him. And I’d—”

Dean stops himself, realizing the spiral he’s throwing himself down. “You’re everything t’ me,” he gasped. “So get in the damn car and just come home.”

In the thousand-foot-drop-silence that follows, the only sound capable of puncturing the space between the two of you is, as always, One of These Nights. Inside DeLancey’s, there are a few couples swinging along to the beat, but all of the real fever is out here, thundering in Dean’s chest. There’s only one time he ever relinquishes his control over his feelings out in the open: here, as the Eagles sing your signature song. Dean’s eyes are only on you.

“C’mon, _____,” he pleads, one last time. Again, he’s compelled by something beyond himself, and with nothing left to lose he starts to sing, smiling without feeling. “Oooh,” Dean croons, “loneliness will blind you, in between th’ wrong and th’ right…”

Here it is. You drag in a breath with all the weight of the world on it, and Dean knows what will follow. The goodbye.

Despite yourself, an amused little smile presses through the seams of your composure. You sober yourself. “... Things are gonna have to change, Dean.”

He’s not sure what that means. But it sounds good, and there’s still an optimist swirling around in him somewhere. “Yeah. Of-of course, anything. We can talk about it more, but… I’m willing to put you before anything. I should’ve put you before anything, before.”

You nod. “...Okay. Lemme go tell the other girls on shift.”

That’s good. That’s good, Dean realizes, and without meaning to he beams, blinking hard. You’re coming back with him. That’s what that means, right? Relief rushes through him so fast that he almost faints. Not so prepared to trust it, Dean’s eyes roam across your face for hesitation or displeasure or anger—and some of it’s there. There are still things to fix, still changes to be made, but. On top of all that is beautiful, sweet-tasting relief that Dean feels like collapsing under. You’re coming home.

“Just like that?” Dean asks, and he really shouldn’t be grinning, not until he’s sure and you’ve said it, but he can’t help it.

The tears still beading in your eyes slip into the pressed line of your lips, where a guarded smile is growing. You start nodding and then you don’t stop nodding, sobbing in earnest, and since it hasn’t screwed him over yet Dean follows his instinct to scoop you into a deep hug. You’re a little chilly and you smell a bit like pub food, making Dean’s heart squeeze with nostalgia. God, he fucking missed his girl. You grope around his back for something to cling to and fist both hands in his jacket til’ your fingers ache, and Dean explodes with gratefulness so pure he sways in place with you, squeezing you tight around the shoulders. You’re here and you’re alive and you don’t fucking hate him. Dean would take that and this stilted happiness over anything.

“This is all I wanted, D,” you hiccup. “You never say it, n’ I-I just need to hear it, okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I did this to us.”

“You ain’t got nothin’ to apologize for,” Dean soothes, but you interrupt him.

“I was too much of an idiot to say goodbye,” you shook your head, smooshing your face into his jacket. “Too scared,” you confessed, and your voice was even scratchy from crying. “I didn’t want it to be over for real. Didn’t wanna close that door forever.”

Dean sloped his palm down your hair, your back, your arm, soaking you in every way he could. “M’ glad you didn’t. I’m sorry I pushed you to any of this, darlin’. I’m sorry too.”

You peel yourself off him just far enough to flash him a wolfish, tear-streaked grin. “Oh, I know you are. Are you ready to be makin’ it up to me for the rest of your life, Winchester?”

Dean makes the mistake of indulging your taunts with a chuckle, which puts this light in your eyes that he never wants to let go of. You swish in real close to his face, threatening with a big, 1000-watt smile, “Pucker up, cowboy, because you’ve got a lot of ass-kissing to do.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, wetting his lips. His belly warmed at the nickname. “So come here, ass.”

It’s not often that Dean has the pleasure of making you so flustered your face steams. He never gets to see it this close, either, so he leans further in to put it all to memory, which just makes your cheeks hotter. Your eyes dart across his face, wild and nervous. Dean’s smile sinks into a nasty smirk because, there you are, tough as nails and melting into your shoes at the thought of kissing him. It’s a lucky thing you’re so distracted. Maybe if you weren’t you’d notice how Dean’s hands are trembling, how his mouth’s watering. His whole nervous system flips when you reign him in by a fist in his collar, and he’s pretty sure his soul levitates out of his body when you kiss him.

One kiss turns into two, then three. Your lips are smooth with vanilla chapstick, and it only takes a minute for it to be all over Dean’s face—his mouth most of all, but the corners of his lips and his chin, too. You’ve always been the sweet one, but something about finally being subject to it melts the iron ball of anxiety in his gut. He kisses back like it’s his damn job, pouring his confession, his apologies into you, cupping your face, dimpling your cheeks with his thumbs. You’re softer than he remembers, and the fact that he could be forgetting anything at all about the last night you spent in Tulsa together makes him starved to remember this.

By some twist of fate, Bad Company’s Ready For Love plays next on the cue inside. With you cozy in his arms, his body works on muscle memory, and soon you’re swaying back and forth as you kiss, dipping in close for sweet pecks of each other.

“I love you,” he thinks he hears you say.

Playfully, Dean budges your nose with his and sing-songs, “Can’t hear you!”

“I said,” you took in a big breath, “I LOVE YOU TOO, asshole.”

Dean dissolves into chuckles, which are happily interrupted by more insistent kisses. You’re almost ten whole feet from where you started, and scooping up your hand, Dean starts the trek backward to where the Impala is parked. It’s your home as much as it’s his, so you barely need him to take the lead to find it among the other cars.

“Hm,” you say, “Maybe the girls will just figure out for themselves why I’m gone, yeah?”

“They’ll survive without you,” Dean shrugs. “You got other people who need you.”

“Need me,” you say, just rolling the unfamiliar words around in your mouth. Dean feels another pang of guilt; he could’ve sworn he’d told you that more, could’ve sworn he showed his love to you every day. Another thing to change.

“Yeah, need you,” Dean mutters, and he doesn’t mean to expose the desire rolling around in his belly, but there it is. He wants to take it back as soon as it leaves his mouth, but the second you get a taste of it, you’re hooked. A beat later he’s being pushed up against the driver’s door of the car and kissed stupid, warm and wet and so much of what he remembers. Fantasizes about.

In the next kiss a gentle hand grabs at the clasp to his belt buckle. Instantly, Dean pulls back to speak.

“Sweet pea,” he manages, trying so hard to be reasonable and good and everything that you deserve. You laugh at the nickname, which eases his mind a bit. “...You sure you don’t wanna wait? I think I got other things to prove t’ you, first.”

You draw him into a deep, lingering siren’s kiss that leaves his knees threatening to lock and his common sense threatening to bend.

“Can’t wait any longer,” your eyes burn like cigarettes, all heat. Quietly, you ask him, “Prove to me I’m your favorite. That m’ the only girl you’re looking at.”

There’s the underlying desperation to your voice that goes beyond just wanting to have sex with him. This is confirmation of something to you, something you need to hear, to feel. So Dean guides you into the backseat and proves it to you.

This is not at all where he expected this night to go, and he’s grateful that he’d lost the opportunity to overthink himself into his grave. There’s no room for Dean to worry if he was really good enough for you, if he deserved this, because these things are proven to him too. You slot so perfectly into his lap that he knows the moment you’re out of it he’ll be battered with homesickness. For long breaths there’s no kissing at all, just Dean nuzzling his face into your neck and committing each second to memory. When you do kiss him it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, this grand, surging happiness that ripples through him head-to-toe. Each kiss has a new kind of gentleness, and before either one of you starts to strip Dean knows that you want more than what he’s about to give you—you want him, and that feeling is an old comfort.

Knowing your famous attitude, Dean would’ve bet money on you taking control, but for whatever reason you step back and let him make the first move. Again, it tells him that this is his chance to tell you something, to make it clear that he wants you and he’s going to show it. So he does. Your fingers in his hair are all the invitation he needs.

Dean scrapes his palms up your back as you kiss, soaking up every naked inch of skin he’s allowed. You’re making all these soft little noises that make the pressure in his jeans unbearable, so with the next drag of his hands he’s intent on seeing what you’ll feel like naked in his lap. When your uniform is nothing but a memory and your throat’s slick with hickeys, you try out a new way of teasing him, murmuring in that caramel voice how long you’ve wanted to feel him inside you. After that he doesn’t even care about being fully naked—but you clearly do. He puts your roaming hands on his belt. I want you to do this part, I want it to be you who opens me up. You kiss him so intensely that Dean doesn’t even remember when or how his belt comes off. Or his shirt, or his jeans, or his boots, gulping down your love potion by the gallon.

All he knows is pretty girl, his pretty girl, and swaths of hot sweat-tacky skin on top of him. You hesitate to close that final gap between you once the condom’s on, so Dean whispers whiskey-warm assurances in your ear as he cups the curve of your ass and slides you onto him. The moan that presses out of you pours right into your next kiss, then the next, and the next. It takes everything in him to start slow; Dean gives you two deep, fulfilling grinds across his lap. The rippling squeeze of you around him is too good to be real. You press your lips into his, then his nosebridge, his forehead, urging him on, and that’s all Dean needs to let go. He cups the dip of your back, shoves his face in your neck and just loses it.

Dean rocks you across his lap at a vicious, pounding tempo, giving you his all. The whole time his head bumps against the height of the seat, craning to watch the perfect little shifts in your expression. You’ve got your eyes squeezed shut and your lips parted. His lap is slick with you, making the grind, the chase, the rush to the finish come faster and faster. He could’ve gotten off on the sounds you were making alone. They turn into full-on squeals when Dean slides his fingers between your legs, and a flush of I love you I love you I love you bursts out of him when the hot silk wrapped around him clamps even tighter. You cum almost sobbing his name, and Dean coos you through it, his thighs cramping with effort. But it’s all worth it—you’ve always been worth it.

He finishes with your hands combing through his sweat-damp hair, echoing back to him the three words he’d been chanting the entire time.

-

It’s a few hours before dawn when you land in Sam and Dean’s motel a town over. Dean had wanted to get back earlier, intent on having you back as soon as possible, but it’d taken a bit to pack your stuff into the Impala and drive home. You’d commented on being hungry on the way back too, which ended with Dean pouring an entire gas station’s worth of snacks into your lap at three in the morning.

By then it’d gotten too cold out to be comfortable, so it was tempting to succumb to sleep in front of the Impala’s heaters. But robbing yourself of any time with Dean wasn’t an option, so you pushed through, feet aching after an eight-hour shift and body glowing with Dean’s affection. You nibbled on twinkies in the passenger’s seat, happy that he was happy. He kept the radio off to hear you, but hummed when the conversation peacefully faded. I can hear the train a’ comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend…

Sam was waiting for you on the stoop outside the room when you pulled up, and did an impressively poor job at containing himself. He’d gotten his arms around you before your door was fully shut, and when you were back on your feet his brother took up your other side. Together, you herded each other into the cozy darkness of the motel. Someone said something about unpacking your things; but all three of you were tired, so that thought was saved for tomorrow.

Dean tossed his jacket on the back of a chair. Sam rearranged the salt lines on the window sills with a careful hand. You fumbled into the first pajamas you could find (aka, the hoodies in Dean’s duffle that rightfully belonged to you), and crash straight into bed, too lazy to kiss goodnight like usual. When the lights were off and the boys were down too, you stretched a hand out from under your comforter and reached across the bed’s gap.

“Goodnight, Sam,” you told him, wiggling your fingers.

His whole hand engulfed yours in a warm, I missed you squeeze, and then he was rolling onto his stomach and sinking like a rock into sleep.

When you twisted onto your other side, Dean was already there, propped up on an elbow. His broad hand on your shoulder smoothed across your belly to pull you into him. Once you were close enough to kiss, he disregarded your cheek and your forehead entirely, dipping in for a real kiss that tingled all the way down to your toes.

“G’night,” Dean whispered.

Welling with too much emotion to put into words, you willed it all into a simple and loving, “Goodnight, cowboy.”

Together, you snuggled down into your blankets and crashed, content.

-

tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1 @cevans-winchester @leigh70 @seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss

i read this a while ago and was literally obsessed like, we're talking could NOT stop thinking about it and then today i was looking for it again and i realized i never fucking reblogged it?????

anyway this is everything i needed and infinitely more thanks for coming to my ted talk

Undisclosed - Masterlist

Pairing: Lumberjack!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Desperate to outrun a secret that could cost you your life, you seek refuge in a small mountain town. Its deep forests and small cabins make it the perfect place to hide, but the travel website hadn’t mentioned anything about the quiet, burly lumberjack that wouldn’t leave your thoughts. No one had warned Bucky about you either. 

Warnings: Beefy!bucky, angst, references to death/crime, injury, toxicity, eventual smut (minors dni, marked **), a bit of slow burn!!  

a/n: This series is now complete 🤍

Series playlist ⍋

❆ Chapter One 

❆ Chapter Two 

❆ Chapter Three 

❆ Chapter Four 

❆ Chapter Five

❆ Chapter Six**

❆ Chapter Seven

❆ Chapter Eight 

❆ Chapter Nine 

❆ Chapter Ten

❆ Epilogue

Series art!!

🤍 Bucky

🤍 Bucky and Alpine 

🤍Scenery 

🤍 Bucky at the diner

Extra content!!

Reader gets sick (drabble)

Spring in Stowe Mills (oneshot)

The bear attack (drabble)

Come Home (oneshot)

Glutton for Punishment | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Hello, hello! I am back back back again. My life has been busy, y'all. School is kicking my ass. But this fic has been like 94% complete for like a month, and I finally got to finish it! yay!

wordcount: 8939

Warnings: angst, self harm, Bucky's trauma

Bucky collapsed onto the bed with a defeated huff. The mattress rippled under his weight and jostled the computer resting on your thighs. His chest rose and fell with another dejected sigh. His meetings with Fury never went well- but they weren’t always bad. Sometimes, things between them were cordial. Neutral. This was not one of those times. Bucky wanted to sink into the bed and never come out. He wanted to dissolve into the earth and disappear. The only thing anchoring him to reality was, as always, you. 

“Hey, how’d it go, babe?” The comforting lilt of your voice floated through the air. Maybe drenching your words in overt positivity was too much, but it seemed necessary. Maybe if you could coat your voice in optimism, it would fix whatever plagued Bucky. But you knew it was useless to hope. 

He didn’t answer. He just stared up at the ceiling, a blank expression on his face. Coming home to you after a bad day or a shitty meeting was always his saving grace; being near you brought him peace. But he hated bringing the shame home with him. 

“That bad, huh?” you ditched your laptop and laid next to him, propped up on one elbow. “What happened?”

Silence. He didn’t tear his eyes from the ceiling. Didn’t even blink. He just gazed upward- hopeless. 

In the quiet, your fingers traced up and down his arm. You pressed kisses to his shoulder. He always had a way of shutting you out before allowing you in. It wasn’t personal; it was just his process. He opted to suffer without your help until the pain ate away at him. And when there was almost nothing left, he tore down the walls and welcomed the onslaught of comfort. 

“He said it was my fault.” Bucky tried not to sound too pathetic. He knew you worried about him- a lot. Knew that his misery always hurt you. Seeing him in pain brought you nothing but heartache. But his efforts did nothing to hide the anguish in his voice. 

You didn’t want to make him repeat the whole ordeal, to relive whatever messed up shit Fury said to him- but you needed context. Your words were soft, your voice gentle. “He said what was your fault, baby?” Bucky didn’t deserve more blame, more guilt. Though none of what he did was his fault, a lifetime of remorse rested heavy on his shoulders after his Winter Soldier days. You wondered how much unjust blame he could carry before it crushed him. 

Bucky sighed, “All of it. Everything that went wrong on that last mission- the explosion, all those agents getting hurt-”

“What? You weren’t even the lead on that job- how is any of it your fault?” Heat rose in your chest. Your heart pounded against your ribs. Defending Bucky was your first instinct, your first priority. And while he accepted the shame with which Fury saddled him, you immediately turned to protection. To rage. 

Bucky shrugged, “he said I’m the most experienced, so I should’ve known better than to let the lead take our team into the lab.”

 “Wait- he said you should’ve argued with the mission lead?”

Bucky nodded. 

“But didn’t he reprimand you last month for that exact reason?”

Again, he nodded. 

“What the fuck?” Wrath sizzled beneath your skin. No one was allowed to treat Bucky this way- not even Fury. He contradicted himself and put his hypocrisy on full display, knowing Bucky hated himself too much to argue. 

“I can-” Bucky’s voice came out hollow. Empty. Guilt had him in a chokehold. “I can see where he’s coming from…”

“No, don’t do that.” It wasn’t a reprimand- but a reminder. You laced your fingers with his, “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

He refused to make eye contact. “I mean, I could’ve spoken up-”

“You weren’t even with them, were you? Didn’t Fury tell you to hit the warehouse on your own?”

He nodded.

“So how is any of it your fault, Buck?” Fury sent Bucky into a tailspin with almost no effort. He knew exactly which buttons to push, which wires to pull. Fury made him his puppet, his scapegoat. He made Bucky work harder than anyone else and never delivered the praise he deserved. Instead, he met Bucky’s efforts with tongue-lashings and bitter insults. With blame. 

“I don’t…” he shrugged. “I don’t know- but it feels like it’s on me. A lot of people got hurt and I am the most experienced. I should’ve said something-”

“But if you did, Fury would’ve called you into his office to tell you that you’re arrogant- like he did last time.” A deep breath filled your lungs and calmed your system; anger wouldn’t help Bucky. You needed to channel that energy into comforting him, easing his mind. 

You softened your tone, “You know you can’t win with him, Buck.”

“Maybe because I tried to kill him… twice.” Finally, he looked at you, “And I can handle being called arrogant- those agents got hurt, doll. That’s different.”

“I know it’s different. I’m just saying… you weren’t involved. You did what you were told- what Fury told you to do.” Your hand cupped his cheek, he leaned into your touch. “And if he wants to get mad at you for that, he’s a piece of shit. He knows he fucked up, and he’s pinning it on you.”

Bucky pulled you close. He curled in on himself with you at his center, his head resting against your chest. The logical part of his brain believed everything you said. It disregarded Fury’s false accusations and willed the blame to dissipate. But the rest of him took Fury’s every word as gospel. It rejected your assurances, categorizing them as obligatory kindness from a significant other. Shame feasted on his soul. He didn’t want to feel this way, but it came easily. By now, it was second nature. 

“Thanks, doll…” He lifted his head and brought his face to yours, “I appreciate you.” He meant it; no one ever supported him like this. But you always listened. You were always there for him, even when he was too ashamed to look you in the eye. You showed him patience and kindness and led him out of the dark more times than he could count. 

He dotted a few soft kisses to your lips, “I’m gonna take a shower.” 

“Wait-” Your hand caught his as he tried to get up, “I love you.”

A shy smile pulled at Bucky’s lips. He once again met your lips with his, needier this time. “And I love you.”

He stripped off his shirt and, immediately, your eyes landed on it. By now, you knew better than to stare. But sometimes, you couldn’t stop yourself.  

The first time it caught your eye, you couldn’t avert your gaze. You noticed it right away- how could you not? It drew your focus the first moment Bucky removed his shirt in front of you. You didn’t think anything could ever distract you from his perfect body- but you were wrong. 

A massive bruise splashed across Bucky’s skin. The cluster of broken blood vessels was dark at the center- nearly black. It exploded into by purples and blues that stained his right shoulder and eclipsed his chest. Sometimes, an angry, red haze leaked from the edges like a wine stain. Greens and yellows- signs of healing- colored the border every now and then. But no matter how many times you bore witness, they never seemed to overtake the tones of violet and navy. 

For whatever reason, this thing refused to heal.

On more occasions than you could count, you asked Bucky about this large indigo mark. And he always had an answer:

“Ran through a wall”

“Jumped out of a plane”

“That John Walker asshole hit me with Steve’s shield”

He did, indeed, have a dangerous job and a penchant for peril. For taking risks. But no one else on the team ever seemed to have a bruise like that. Even you received your fair share of stitches and broken ribs, but never anything as persistent as Bucky’s bruise. 

Wasn’t he a super soldier? Wasn’t he supposed to heal fast- really fast? His other injuries disappeared like they’d never happened; why did this bruise stick around? 

“I think you need to get that looked at,” you told him once, “it can’t be good that it never heals...”

Bucky shrugged it off with a smile. He kissed you on the forehead and thanked you for your concern. But he didn’t get it checked out. He downplayed the massive bruise eclipsing his body and moved on, just like he always did. 

“What are you lookin’ at?” Bucky quirked a brow at you, his shy smile making another appearance.

You shrugged, “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“It’s not- it’s not that bad,” Bucky did his best to hide his bruise with his vibranium hand, but the colors extended far past what he could cover. “I’m used to it.”

Something had to be wrong with him, right? Something inside his body had to be out of order. The first time you saw it- the first time you saw him without his shirt- was six months ago. How long could a bruise last? And how long did he have it before he showed it to you? 

Why hadn’t the serum fixed it by now?

Bucky was well past his expiration date. He lived more years than the universe intended, and his body suffered enough trauma for a hundred lifetimes. He was strong, he was a survivor. But every time you stole a glance at the inky spot on his skin, anxiety blocked your airway. Part of you wondered if this mark signaled his end. There was a chance that his body already started breaking down, that all those years of abuse caught up with him. Maybe his bruise was a harbinger. Maybe his days were numbered. Maybe he was dying. 

Maybe you were about to lose him.

Those kinds of thoughts pushed bile into your throat. You shoved them into the darkest corners of your mind and did your best to lock them away, but they reappeared from time to time just to hurt you. Taunt you. Bring you to tears. And while Bucky made his way into the bathroom and turned on the hot water, you remained fixated on the inky spot. On his demise. 

Bucky did his best to let the shower cleanse his mind. He told himself he’d let it all go- all the guilt and the blame. He knew he didn’t deserve it. But his shame didn’t run down the drain. It didn’t wash away with the warm spray of the shower. No, he remained coated in it, dripping with it, no matter how hard he scrubbed. And though it wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, he never welcomed its reemergence.

A sliver of levity wriggled into his chest as he emerged from the bathroom. He found you reading in bed, your brows knit together in that cute way he loved. But your focus shattered when he stepped into the bedroom. He watched you dogear your page and shut your book as he climbed into bed. 

“You don’t have to stop reading because of me, doll-” 

“I was only reading while I waited for you,” you extended a hand in his direction and tugged him closer. He didn’t need to know that you only opened your book to distract from your crippling anxiety about his condition. He didn’t need to know that you read the same paragraph over and over and over without retaining a word. “Now that you’re here, I don’t need any other form of entertainment.”

“Is that so?” He narrowed his eyes at you and gestured to the book resting on your chest, “I’m better than Dracula?”

“Way better. So, the guy drinks blood and sleeps in a coffin-” You shot him a wink and knocked your book to the floor, “big whoop.” A dramatic eye roll and a quick laugh accompanied your comments about Bram Stoker’s masterpiece. But a sudden seriousness banished your playful tone as you gave Bucky a once over. He didn’t look any better- not that he ever looked bad. But the hot shower did nothing to help him relax. All his muscles remained taught. His brow still furrowed. The tension in his jaw seemed to turn to concrete. He was hurting. 

“How you doin’, Buck?” A gentle hand smoothed over his shoulder and slid down his arm. “You okay?”

A manufactured smile spread across his face. His shoulders rose and fell in an all too casual shrug. “I’m fine- I’m good.” He couldn’t seem to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds.

Another tug of his hand brought him closer. “You don’t seem fine…”

“No, really. I’m okay,” he brought your hand to his lips and pressed kisses to your palm. He was the farthest thing from okay; it was written all over his face. And though he did his best to put on a façade for you, you saw through the cracks. A heaviness lurked behind the grin he wore. A deep sadness darkened his gaze. You knew he probably spent the entirety of his shower replaying Fury’s words and berating himself within an inch of his life. 

An extra helping of guilt dropped upon Bucky’s shoulders as he studied you. One of your nails dug into the cuticle of another. Your smile remained tight and tense. He could practically see the anxiety surging through your nervous system. And it was all his fault. You were worried about him, upset about him. How could he do this to you when you brough him nothing but peace?

He found it in him to take a deep breath, to let his shoulders fall a fraction of an inch. “It’s just gonna take a little time for me to get out of the shitty headspace Fury put me in. I’ll be alright-” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, “I promise.”

Fucking Fury. He seemed to allow everyone else chance after chance; he granted grace to every other member of the team. Everyone but Bucky. “You wanna get some sleep, then?” you cupped Bucky’s cheek, “hopefully, you’ll feel better in the morning.”

Bucky nodded. He reached over and flipped off his bedside lamp before giving his pillow a few adjustments. He got settled under the covers and waited for you to do the same- but you didn’t. You laid there, watching him. 

“You gonna turn your lamp off, doll?”

“Not until you’re all situated.”

Bucky looked down at his perfectly arranged covers and then back at you, “I’m um, I think I’m settled, baby.”

You quirked a brow at him, “Are you though? Come on-” you found his hand under the covers and pulled him closer. “Assume the position, Barnes.”

He let out a labored, tired laugh. “Baby, thank you, but I can’t. My hair’s still wet, you’re gonna be cold-”

“I don’t care- you had a rough day.”  You could practically see the war raging within Bucky’s psyche. He was dying to crawl into your embrace a disappear into your warmth. But he couldn’t- not tonight. 

“It’s okay, doll. You don’t have to, it’s-” 

“Come onnn, Buck. You knowwww you waaaant toooooo.” You gave your chest a few light pats, beckoning him to you. “I know it always makes you feel better.”

Of course, he wanted to. Something about resting his head on your chest, listening to your heartbeat, and feeling your hands in his hair eased his soul. Even on his darkest, most soul-crushing days, he found solace with you. But guilt still gnawed at him; Fury’s rant played on a constant loop inside his head. And after what he’d supposedly done, he didn’t feel as though he deserved your love. 

“Baby, I know you feel bad; And I know you’re trying to deprive yourself. But guilty or not- which you are not-” you gave his hand a squeeze, “you deserve comfort.”

A touch of heartbreak colored your voice. You were desperate to help Bucky, nearly begging him to grant himself some grace. Some care. In his attempts to hurt himself by staying far from your embrace, he’d hurt you instead. He’d made you sad, filled you with worry. He wondered if he’d ever be able to do anything right. 

In an instant, he did as you asked; he’d do anything to make you feel better. His head rested against your chest, his wet hair dampening your shirt. It sent a rush of goosebumps over your skin- but you didn’t care. A deep sigh left Bucky’s chest as he melted against you. He often swore his body was made to fit yours, that he only existed to touch and be touched by you. 

“See? Isn’t that better?”

“Mhmm…” he sighed, “much.”

You ran a hand through his wet hair, “Good. Now, let’s get some sleep. Okay?” You flicked off your lamp and wrapped your arms around Bucky, willing every ounce of your love into his body. He’d feel better in the morning- you knew he would. He just needed time and rest and a little love. And you gave him more than he ever dreamed of. 

But around two in the morning, a strange sound vibrated on the edges of your consciousness. The dense ‘thud’repeated endlessly, like an eternal metronome. It resounded inside your head, mixing itself in with your dream until it finally woke you. 

With your face still smushed into your pillow, you muttered Bucky’s name. The sound stopped- maybe you imagined it. Maybe it really was just part of your dream. Silence settled over your room once again and lulled you back to sleep. 

But only a few minutes later, that sound woke you once again.

Your words came out sloppy, heavy with sleep. “Whass tha noise?” 

No answer. 

“Baby,” you said, more alert this time, “You hear that?”

Bucky didn’t respond. 

With a groan, you forced your eyes open. There was no sign of disturbance or struggle; nothing out of the ordinary caught your eye. Everything was in its place- except Bucky. And when you pressed your palm against his side of the bed, the sheets lacked any remnants of his warmth. 

This wasn’t like him- not anymore, anyway. Back when you first got together, Bucky left the room when he woke from a night terror. He’d slip out of bed and escape to the living room, forcing himself to withstand his panic attack all alone. But one night, you found him on the living room floor- desperate for breath. He clutched the corner of the rug and gritted his teeth, willing the anxiety to receded. 

He flinched when you touched him; he didn’t hear you approach over the pounding in his ears. But the second he saw you, he reached for you. His sickly white knuckles regained their color as he released his fists and collapsed against you. He dropped his head into your lap, falling forward with the weight of his trauma. And he allowed your voice to soothe his racing mind. He let you guide him out of the agony. 

Of course, he apologized for waking you. For inconveniencing you. Of course, you wouldn’t hear it. And when the panic finally subsided, he let you walk him back to bed. He buried his face in your chest and thanked you a million times over. After that night, you made him promise to wake you when these things happened- no matter what time it was. You made him promise not to suffer in silence. And he agreed. 

You didn’t know he had his fingers crossed. 

“Buck?” the anxious pounding of your heart boomed in your chest. “Baby?” You kicked the blankets from your body and abandoned your bed. Slivers of light made their way through the blinds and splashed across the floor, allowing you to search through the darkness. He wasn’t sitting on the floor or in the armchair near the window. Nor did you find him in the en suite bathroom.  

“Bucky?” The hall was empty and the office void of Bucky’s presence. And while you searched for him, the sound refused to cease. It echoed through seemingly every fiber of the apartment. It haunted every space. Unfounded worries threw themselves at you, fighting to topple you to the ground. What if Bucky was hurt? What if he was gone? 

No- he was fine. Of course, he was. Right? He had to be. The home you shared was safe. Nothing here could hurt or harm him in any way. 

Well, maybe not nothing.

The thudding of your heart grew loud in your ears, nearly eclipsing the mystery sound all together. Part of you even doubted the existence of the noise- maybe it was just your anxiety getting to you. Maybe Bucky was in the kitchen grabbing a late-night snack, perfectly safe and happy. 

But when you rounded the corner into the living room, all doubt fell away. Shards of your heart did the same as you stood in shock, watching the source of the sound reveal itself. 

Bucky sat on the floor near the window, his back resting against the couch. 

His metal fist hammered against his right shoulder again and again, beating the flesh a sickly blue. 

The utter shock stole your breath, forcing it violently from your lungs. A burning erupted from your chest and spread through your every cell like wildfire. The floor seemed to tilt and ripple as a wave of dizziness sent you nearly collapsing into the closest wall. And through all of it, the sound persisted. The sickly thud of metal striking skin, striking bone.

But there was no time for your shock or sadness or heartbreak. Bucky needed you.

“Buck? Hey-” In only a few strides, you made your way to his side. But he didn’t look at you. He didn’t meet your eyes when you sat down in front of him, nor did he stop his assault. “Bucky, baby, can you look at me?” 

He didn’t. He simply forced his hand against his chest over and over, no matter the pain. 

“Bucky,” you didn’t recognize your own voice. It came out more strained, more desperate than you’d ever heard it. The sight of Bucky doing this to himself almost made you sick, the sound covered you in goosebumps. A flood of saliva rushed into your mouth, warning you of the impending threat of vomit- but you forced it down.

Every time you asked about it, every time you wondered what caused that bruise- you never imagined it was self-inflicted. 

“I need you to stop, okay?” Your words came out frantic, “Can you- can you just look at me for a second?”

His hollow gaze remained fixed on the floor. Anguish twisted his features, pulling his face into a pained mask. But his eyes held no life. 

“Please-” your palm landed on his bruised shoulder mere seconds before the next strike. The force of his vibranium fist was sure to shatter your hand, but you didn’t care. You’d do anything to stop him from hurting himself. Anything to ease his pain. And if you couldn’t make him stop, maybe you could soften the blow. 

But just as his fist once again neared his shoulder, he stopped. “Move,” his voice was low, almost timid.

“No.”

“Doll,” his eyes remained downcast, “I need you to move your hand.”

You refused. “I’m not gonna move, Buck. I’m not gonna let you hurt yourself.”

Finally, he dragged his shame-filled gaze upward. His despondent look sliced through you, cutting right to the bone. This was worse than the vacant stare he wore moments ago; this was utter misery. “Please…” his voice caught in his throat, barely pushing its way past the tension. “Move.”

But your hand remained; you’d keep it there until the end of time if you had to. 

Warm, salty tears breached your lips as you spoke, and only then did you realize you were crying. “Buck, why are you doing this?”

“Because I know you won’t.” He clenched and unclenched his metal fist in a never-ending cycle, itching to resume his efforts. “None of you will. Not Sam. Not Hill. Not ever Fury. So, I have to.”

“Of course, we won’t. Why- Why would we?” It was an unfathomable thought. 

“I need- I deserve to be punished. I deserve to face consequences for my actions.” The words fell from his lips in what resembled a recitation, like he had a script to follow. Like he’d said this before. “There are always consequences…” Again, he pulled his hand into a fist; the vibranium whined under his strength. “There have to be consequences.”

“There were consequences- your meeting with Fury? That was the consequence.”

He shook his head, “It’s not enough- people got hurt.”

“It’s more than enough…” With your free hand, you reached for Bucky’s cold fist. He resisted at first, almost scared to be without his method of punishment. But he never could resist your touch. One at a time, you uncurled his fingers from his tight fist. You pressed his cold palm against your chest and held it there, allowing the beat of your heart to vibrate through the metal. “Especially because you didn’t do anything wrong. People got hurt- but it’s not your fault.”

Bucky ached to maim himself. He needed to feel pain. Needed to get what he thought he deserved. But he couldn’t bring himself to tear his hand from your chest. And though you blocked his bruise and made punishment impossible, he liked the way your palm felt against his black and blue skin. It was the one part of him you always shied away from for fear of hurting the already tender flesh. But your touch soothed the deep ache.

“Baby, how…” you swallowed the lump forming in your throat, “how often do you do this?” You weren’t sure you wanted the answer; just the thought of Bucky doing this to himself day in and day out filled your chest with storm clouds. But you needed to know.

His words held a deep shame, “Whenever I deserve it.”

“Buck, you’ve had that bruise for at least six months...”

He shrugged, “I deserve it a lot.”

Everything inside you burst into flames. You wanted to tear Hydra apart, to destroy them for what they did to Bucky. They altered his sense of self so violently, so irreparably, that they changed who he saw in the mirror. He viewed himself only as a vehicle for destruction, a receptacle for other peoples’ wrongs. They drilled into him an acceptance of abuse, of pain, of torture. And now, he didn’t know how to operate without it. 

“No, you don’t- you don’t deserve this.” A small quiver forced its way into your voice, “even if this whole thing was your fault- which it wasn’t- you wouldn’t deserve to be hurt.”

He stared at you for a long moment. Sometimes, he didn’t understand. He couldn’t comprehend the sentiment that he didn’t deserve pain and suffering; that he wasn’t always to blame. It was almost like you spoke different languages. Shuri may have eliminated the Winter Soldier programming and rendered his trigger words useless, but she couldn’t remove his shame. His guilt. His instinct to assume blame.  

“I can’t do anything right-” His right hand gripped the edge of the rug. He needed some way to release his tension, his anxiety. The fabric bunched inside his fist and twisted with his every move. 

“It seems like no matter what I do- or don’t do- someone ends up hurt. That says something about me, doesn’t it?” 

“No. It doesn’t.” You slowly removed your hand from his metal wrist and found his right fist. He eased the tension in his grip with your help and released the corner of the rug. It fell crumpled against the hardwood, struggling to regain its shape. “Buck, you always say that you blame yourself because you think you’re a bad person. But I actually think you blame yourself because you’re a good person.”

He gave a small shake of his head. 

“You’re willing to shoulder whatever guilt or blame other people put on you- regardless of whether you deserve it- because you’re not selfish.” He was, in fact, the least selfish person in the world. He’d set himself on fire to keep you warm. Would move heaven and earth to make you smile. He was loyal, devoted. He cared about you, about his friends, without ever putting himself first. 

“And you haven’t buried yourself in ego or pride like some of the other guys we work with.” 

Bucky let out a soft laugh. 

No, he didn’t bury himself in ego; he had no ego. His self-image wasn’t inflated or overexaggerated. He just wanted to do his best. To help. To offset with light some of the darkness he caused. 

“And maybe it’s your way of seeking redemption- not that you need to be redeemed,” you gave his hand a squeeze. “But maybe part of you feels like if you accept enough responsibility, it’ll make up for the things you were forced to do as the Winter Soldier.” 

He let out a sigh from somewhere deep within him, somewhere he didn’t know he had. It seemed to him like he’d been holding on to this truth, this breath, since the day he escaped. And here, in the darkness, he released it. “I just… I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore.”

“That’s the thing Buck,” you gently stroked a few fingertips across his massive bruise, “You never were.”

His forehead fell against yours. The two of you sat there, motionless, for what felt like forever. Cars moved on the streets below. Thunder rolled through the sky. Rain drops tapped against the large windows. But neither of you noticed. 

“If I move this hand-” you tapped your once again fingers against his bruised shoulder, “are you gonna do it again?”

He shook his head. 

With great hesitancy, you removed your palm from the evidence of his self-inflicted punishment. It looked worse in the eerie 2am lighting, like a black hole formed on his skin; you feared it might envelope him completely if you let it. Your lips replaced your hand, leaving the softest of kisses across his skin. Bucky let loose a small sound- something like a whimper- as you traced the bruise with your mouth. He let a few tears slip down his cheeks. 

“Thank you…”

You took a moment to drink him in. He was stronger than humanly possible. Hugely muscular. Nearly indestructible. But in the middle of the night on the floor of your living room, he looked so small. So fragile. His shoulders caved forward, and his read remained bowed. His voice wavered. His right hand shook ever so slightly. He was a man haunted, possessed by his past. Fearing the future. He was hurt. Broken. Lost in others’ perceptions of himself. He lay trapped under his need for validation from those around him. He sought approval from people who never dreamed of granting it. 

You wondered if he’d ever be free from his ghosts, or if they’d follow him until he became one himself. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” you pressed a kiss to his forehead. “All I ever want is to be there for you when you need me.” The tremor in your voice matched Bucky’s. Pure hurt rendered the air around you thick and heavy. You ached for Bucky, and he, in return, ached to be anyone but himself. 

“What do you wanna do? We can go back to bed. Or if you don’t feel like sleeping, we can hang out in here and watch some tv.” You ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, “Up to you.” 

Bucky’s mind still raced. His brain sat stewing in a deep pit of sorrow and anguish. But he was tired- exhausted. And while his mind wanted to stay up for a while, he let his body decide. His chest and shoulder screamed with pain. His skin stung. Each breath forced a sharp agony into his consciousness; he knew he must’ve cracked a rib. “Let’s-” he grimaced as an inhale filled his lungs, “let’s go back to bed.”

As gently as you could, you helped Bucky from the floor. He smiled when your hand found his as you led him in the direction of the bedroom. The two of you shuffled down the dark hall in silence with no clue what to say. Bucky wanted to apologize; you wanted to drown him in promises of your love. 

Bucky stopped short when you paused, almost running into you. You turned to him suddenly, eying his bruise in the dim light. “You go ahead, okay? I’m gonna grab you an ice pack.”

“Doll, thank you, but I’m fine-”

You narrowed your eyes at him, “does it hurt?”

He shrugged; the motion made him wince. “I mean, yeah. But it’s-”

“Exactly.” You pushed up on your tip toes to press a kiss to his cheek, “I’m gonna get you an ice pack. You get your ass to bed- I’ll be there in a second.”

Bucky whispered a ‘thank you’ and headed in the direction of the bedroom, leaving you alone. But just as he turned the corner down the hall, guilt wrapped around his ankles like a ball and chain. He was stuck; his need to apologize rendering him frozen. He watched you turn in the direction of the kitchen and wondered what he did to deserve you. “Hey, doll…” he called after you. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Nothing to apologize for. I promise.”

“But I-”

 “You’re doing your best. You’re coping in the only way you know how. That’s not something to be sorry for.”

Bucky shrugged, winced, and disappeared into the bedroom, eager to escape your line of sight. Everything you did, you did for him. And though that knowledge should’ve eased Bucky’s soul, it only added to his guilt. He marked yet another tally to the long, long list of ways in which he didn’t deserve you. 

The walk to the kitchen wasn’t long- but it provided a sliver of extra time for you to cope in private. If Bucky knew just how much this upset you, how heartbroken you were, he’d never forgive himself. He, instead, would add that knowledge to his ever-growing mountain of shame. He’d adopt a new method of self-punishment, something more subtle, easier to hide. And he’d never express his guilt or shame to you ever again, all to save your feelings. You couldn’t do that to him; he deserved an outlet, a sounding board, a space to vent. You’d never dream of robbing him of that. 

“Alright, here we go,” you pushed open the bedroom door. “I got you one of the big ones, cause that thing is massive, and-” If you didn’t look up at the right moment, you would’ve crashed right into Bucky. 

He stood near the foot of the bed, just inside the door, almost vibrating with anxiety. It rolled through him in waves and placed tremors in his hands. He didn’t stand a fighting chance. 

His massive frame looming in the darkness almost blocked your path completely- and scared the hell out of you. “Shit-” You tripped over your own feet and stumbled backward, but Bucky wouldn’t let you fall.

He caught you in the nick of time, snatching you from the air and righting you on your feet. “Oh, hey- I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Without a word, you pressed the towel-wrapped ice pack to his skin. Though he detested the cold, the sensation awarded him much needed relief. A deep sigh left his chest as his pain receptors deadened and the constant, months-long throbbing subsided. This was the first thing to put his pain on pause in- he couldn’t remember how long.

You searched his face for any indicators of discomfort, “How does that feel?”

All he could do was nod. The two of you stood there a while as Bucky drank in the relief. The muscles in his shoulders released their tension, his breaths came a bit easier. But something dark lurked beneath his quiet surface. 

“Such a gentleman, waiting for me to come back before getting in bed,” you threw him a wink.  

Bucky’s attempted laugh came out broken, disjointed. To his credit, he tried to laugh for real. He wanted to put this whole night behind him and slide into bed with you. Under the covers, surrounded by your body heat, nothing could hurt him. The skeletons of his past couldn’t claw out of the ground and wreak havoc on his psyche. But a nagging dread yanked at his heart. 

He couldn’t pretend things were resolved. He couldn’t forget his troubles and intertwine his body with yours like the knit of a well-loved sweater. The crushing weight of Fury’s blame sat atop his shoulders, growing heavier by the second. But he couldn’t find it in him to tell you, to ask you for help. 

“Come on, let’s go back to sleep. Okay?” You tucked the ice pack into Bucky’s hand and started toward your side of the bed, “I know you’ve gotta be exhausted.”

But Bucky didn’t follow. He didn’t join you, didn’t even nod. He stood there, stuck, his feet anchored to the floor. The cold pack ate through his nerve endings until his hand went numb. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fill his lungs. They felt shallower, somehow- like they lost all capacity. 

His deadened fingers fell open, allowing the ice pack to fall against the floor. The sound pulled your focus, halting your efforts to right the sheets and blankets. 

“Buck?”

He didn’t answer. 

“Hey…” Quick steps brought you face to face with his empty stare. “Is everything-”

His knees met the hardwood as the weight of his anxiety forced him into submission. He fell against the cold floor with a sickening thud, his body shaking with the force. His head bowed; his spine curved forward. Ragged inhales forced their way into his ever-constricting lungs.

“Please-” he begged through choppy breaths, “if you won’t let me do it myself, I need- I need you to.”

“Buck, I’m-”

“I need you to hurt me.”

His words gutted you. 

“Baby, no.”

He begged over and over for punishment. For pain. 

Bucky fell against you the moment you joined him on the floor. His head lay buried in your neck, his sharp breaths fanning your skin. He begged through the tears, through the torment, for pain. And you refused. Instead, you gave him the lightest, softest affections you could manage. 

Under different circumstances, your gentle touch would’ve saved him. It would’ve brought him comfort in his moment of distress, grounded him during a bout of panic. But he didn’t want kind hands. For the first time, your soft touches prolonged the agony. The light circles you rubbed against his back filled him with impending doom. With misery. He wanted torture. Agony. 

And even if he were dying, he’d willingly sacrifice his last breath to ask for punishment. 

As carefully as you could, you helped Bucky lay down on the floor. How his body continued to run remained a mystery to you. He was drained, physically and emotionally. He was hurt. Panic ravaged his nervous system and pumped him full of cortisol. He was running on empty. 

“Let’s try to relax a bit, okay? Let’s try to breathe-”

He shook his head against the rug, “No, I need- I need it. I need you to- can you…” His words came out weak- but desperate.

Your hands raked through his hair and massaged his knotted muscles. Over and over again, you swore your love to him. You showered him in assurances and words of kindness. And though he was grateful when sleep won him over, it didn’t stop his efforts. Even as he finally dozed off, he begged. 

“P- please…” he sighed, his eyelids fluttering. “Need you… need you to.” His hand twitched, his brow furrowed. “Hurt- hurt me.” Hearing it didn’t get any easier. 

For what must’ve been the millionth time, you refused. 

And while Bucky slept in your arms, you remained wired. Every cell in your body swam in a cocktail adrenaline and cortisol. You wondered if you’d ever sleep again.  Just when you thought Bucky’s story couldn’t get any darker, it seemed to do just that. His life was all shadows and wormholes wrapped in an inky abyss. No stars, no moon. Just shapeless, unsettling, endless night. 

He deserved better. 

The sun rose as you fell asleep. Your mind shut off; your body gave out. Thinking yourself in circles while Bucky slept in the safety of your arms depleted your every ounce of energy. Worrying this much didn’t seem healthy; you didn’t think it was even possible to feel such deep concern. You never knew how taxing crying could be. But Bucky was worth it- hands down. 

No part of you wanted to fall asleep; Bucky couldn’t be left unsupervised. But a biological need for rest demanded you get some shut eye. And while you slept off the gut-wrenching night you’d spent with Bucky, anxiety seeped into your dreams. Images of Bucky maiming himself flashed behind your eyes. You saw him bloodying his body, abusing himself. His bruise haunted you. 

Waking in bed threw you for a loop. Only a few hours ago, you’d dozed off on the throw rug covering your bedroom floor. But when you opened your eyes, you found yourself snuggled under the duvet with Bucky’s body under yours. His arms held you tight, your face nuzzled into his neck. This was how things were supposed to be. 

It was then you realized- your head lay against his bruise. Even in your sleep, you did your best to protect him from himself. He wouldn’t dare strike his shoulder and risk hurting you. But the weight of your skull had to hurt him, didn’t it? He was sore, miserably so. Just the pressure of your palm resting against his bruise the night before made him wince- surely, your head was too much. With the utmost caution, you pulled your head from his chest.

“It’s okay- doesn’t hurt,” his voice was weak, full of exhaustion. You didn’t know he was awake. 

“Oh. Okay, good. I, um,” you looked around for a few seconds. “I don’t remember getting in bed.”

“We didn’t- well, you didn’t.” He couldn’t believe that after everything he put you through the previous night- all the pain, the heartache, the worry- he let you fall asleep on the floor. It was selfish of him, inconsiderate. He should’ve insisted that you get in bed. He should’ve done what you asked and crawled under the covers with you. He failed you- again. “I didn’t want you to sleep on the floor…” 

Your lips met his skin in a chain of soft kisses, “You know I don’t mind.”

“But I do,” he returned every kiss you granted him.

He woke nearly half an hour after you finally dozed off and found you curled up against him. Your head rested against the cold hard wood; the itchy rug left marks against your skin. A small shiver rattled up your spine and pushed you closer to Bucky’s warm embrace; it was too cold for you to sleep without a blanket. His body begged him to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t- not yet. He lifted you from the floor, his shoulder aching with the effort, and tucked you into bed with all the care in the world. Only then could he fall asleep once again. 

“I’m sorry about- about all of it,” he said. “Last night was-”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” you pulled your face from his chest, “I just wanna know what that was about.”

Bucky hoped that acting innocent would save him. “What?” Maybe if he pretended like he didn’t know what you were talking about, you’d move on. Maybe you’d tell him to forget it and save him the explanation. You didn’t.

“When you asked me to…” you gave a small shake of your head, “to hurt you.” The pain in your voice sliced through Bucky. He wondered if words could make him bleed. 

“Oh. Yeah. That was… I was out of line,” his jaw tensed. “That wasn’t okay. I know I made you uncomfortable- I’m sorry. I never wanna upset you. I was being stupid. And selfish. It wasn’t fair of me-”

The shame practically dripped from Bucky’s lips. You could almost see in running down his chin, staining his skin. He expressed his remorse for things that weren’t his fault, for things he couldn’t control. He told you how sorry he was for his trauma responses and the anxiety that held him hostage. Maybe one day, he’d believe you when you told him he didn’t have to apologize. Today was not that day. 

“I’m just worried about you, Buck. And I wanna help in any way I can-” you took a deep breath, “I just can’t help in that way.”

“I know.”

“Can you maybe tell me- can you help me understand?”

He remained silent for a long while. If he stayed quiet long enough, he could avoid any further distress on your part. With his silence, he could provide solace. But no. You had a penchant for knowing what made Bucky tick, no matter the pain it caused you. 

Your unflinching stare drilled through him until he couldn’t take it any longer. “I needed you to hurt me because that’s what I’m used to. I’m used to punishment,” he finally said. “Because when I fucked up at Hydra, there were consequences. They’d beat me within an inch of my life to get the message across.”

Of course, this was a sad truth you already knew. But hearing it aloud- from his lips- gutted you. The image of a cowering, broken Bucky sent bile rushing up your throat. You could see him lying in a cell somewhere, his blood staining the concrete as Rumlow tore him apart. And of course, he’d never fight back- he couldn’t. Not unless ordered to. 

“And now, that’s what I’m accustomed to,” he rested a hand against his bruise, almost on instinct. “I don’t know how to operate without it. I thought I’d be happy to never experience it again but… I feel like I need it.”

Showing Bucky kindness and understanding sat atop your priority list- but you couldn’t grasp his perspective. It didn’t make sense. He lived a life so foreign to you, so utterly other, that the things he said often left you confused. While the two of you had many similarities and things in common, some experiences would simply never be relatable. Some stories could never be shared. 

And similar to how Bucky couldn’t understand your flagrant disregard for locking the front door, you couldn’t fathom why he’d beat himself blue.  

“Why, Buck?” It wasn’t that you wanted to know. No, the truth could only serve to hurt you. But you needed to understand. You needed to untangle every knot within Bucky’s psyche and help mend his frayed edges. In order to help him, you had to first grasp his perspective. “Why do you ‘need’ it?”

“Because I know I deserve it.” The words came out course, almost aggressive. Bucky shot you a sheepish look, his method of a wordless apology. The next time he spoke, his voice was softer, his tone more even. “I’ve been conditioned to expect it. And waiting for that pain is- it’s torture. It’s almost worse than the punishment itself.” 

He thought back on all the beatings he received as result of fucking up missions. On one occasion, they broke all twelve of his ribs in one sitting. Another time, they turned almost his entire body blue with bruises. But the times they made him wait it out were far worse than any bloodshed. He jumped at every sound, lost the ability to think. To sleep. To breathe. Every moment fell prey to the anticipation of agony. Bucky shuddered. 

“I keep expecting pain. I feel like I have to look over my shoulder.” The urge to tear himself apart scratched at the inside of Bucky’s skull. If he could just deliver his punishment- if he could just get what he knew was coming- he’d be okay. By destroying his body, he could soothe his mind. But with you so close, staring at him with your blood shot, heartbroken eyes, he was stuck. “It’s like this sense of impending doom that doesn’t end unless I get what I know is coming.”

Things fell quiet as you thought over his words. Anxiety was an old friend you knew well. It accompanied you through everything, never leaving your side for more than a few days. But what Bucky described- that was the stuff of nightmares. That was misery. 

“Hang on,” you tripped over a detail in his story, “then what happened last night?” You didn’t mean to sound skeptical- it wasn’t like that at all. You believed every word Bucky said. One part, however, didn’t quite make sense. “Last night, you got your punishment. You got the pain. Why did you ask me to-”

He sighed, “Last night was different. You caught me. I had to stop- I’ve never done that before. I’ve never stopped right in the middle. I was only out there a little while before you found me.” His vibranium hand pulled into a fist and slowly released. He did this time and time again as the urge hurt himself gnawed at him. “I didn’t do enough. It felt like holding in a sneeze or something. And when we came in here to go to sleep, I still had this sense of looming pain, an impending punishment. And I knew you wouldn’t let me give it to myself. So, I asked you to do it.” 

The far-away look in his eye dissolved as he came screeching back to the present. Guilt dragged his features downward into a near scowl. “But I shouldn’t have done that. I’m so sorry.” The remorse weighed more than he could shoulder. If he thought he knew what guilt felt like before, he was wrong. 

“It’s okay, Buck.” You knew the memory of Bucky begging you for punishment would haunt you forever. It took up prime real estate in your mind and cut you deeper each time you paid it attention. But he couldn’t help it; this was part of his journey. When you started dating Bucky, you knew he wasn’t a ‘regular’ person. Darkness and demons followed him wherever he went, filling his mind with horrors most people could never imagine. Of course, there were going to be speed bumps and rough patches on the road of your relationship. But he never did anything with malice in his heart. He was simply trying to survive. “I know you’re just doing your best-”

“My best is pretty shitty.”

He was always so callous with himself, so unforgiving. It wasn’t fair. “Baby, you’ve made a lot of progress.” He was a completely different person than he was a few months ago. He’d worked hard every day to wade through his trauma and find himself on the other side- all while saving the world. “But it doesn’t all have to happen at once. You can’t heal from everything in one fell swoop. It’s not linear. It’s a slow process-”

“Really slow.” He let out a huff and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Part of him wanted to run; he couldn’t believe he’d subjected you- the kindest, most loving person on earth- to this corner of his awful reality. But he knew being without you was a fate worse than death. Worse than Hydra. 

“I don’t want to do this-” he motioned toward his bruise. “I don’t want to hurt myself. But I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to heal the part of me that’s always looking over my shoulder for a punishment.”

You smoothed his hair back and let your hand drift down his cheek, “You don’t have to do it on your own, Buck. Maybe you should talk to someone-”

He shot you a pointed look.

“Not Dr. Raynor. Someone else. Someone with empathy.” 

Bucky gave a firm nod and a quiet laugh. “Okay, yeah. That works. 

“And in the meantime, whenever you feel that impulse, I want you to tell me, okay? I want to help you through in whatever way I can.”

He tried to protest, but you silenced him. “I’m in this with you- full stop. I’m with you for all the hard stuff and the things you hate about yourself. I’m always in your corner.”

He snaked his arms around you and pulled you as close as possible, relishing in the feeling of your heart beating against his skin. 

“This is a pain-free household, okay? We don’t do punishments here. We don’t hurt ourselves, and we don’t hurt each other.” You wiggled a hand free and offered Bucky your pinky, “promise?”

Not hurting you was a given; Bucky would never dream of causing you pain. But refraining from hurting himself was another story. The need sometimes possessed him, drove him to harm himself when the guilt grew too heavy. The look in your eyes, though, pushed him to promise you. You held such love for him, such adoration. And he knew you meant every word you said. You were going to help him through, to support him, no matter what. 

He linked his pinky with yours, “Promise.”

“Good.” You pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling away, “hey, do you have Fury’s address?”

Bucky cocked his head to the side, “Uh, yeah. I think it’s in my notebook in the office. Why?”

In one swift motion, you slithered from Bucky’s arms and slid out of bed. “Oh, no reason,” you sighed as you headed for the door, “I’m just gonna egg his house.”

———————

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okay but it's so true and it makes me over the moon

The band Ghost is so fucking funny to me. Their frontman currently looks like this:

Or some version of a horny goth clown, but the guy underneath it has got the wettest saddest eyes I've ever seen. Just look at him:

This man admits to being very sensitive and cries at the drop of a hat.

He has a wife and kids.

He wears the costume because he doesn't like the way he looks on stage as a rockstar.

He treats the audience like his children. They're officially called the children of Ghost for that and also because of the play on "children of god."

The band literally fucks around on stage while riffing this badass music. They go through physical comedy skits every concert like the three stooges. For example:

Two demons throw guitar picks at each other when they get angy.

One guy grinds and licks the stage like a cat in heat.

One of them shakes their tits at goth clown man and scares him shitless.

One of them twirls goth clown man like a ballerina as he dances by them.

Several of them slap goth clown's ass when he waddles by.

He created the band to make people happy, to celebrate being a fucking weirdo because he always felt left out, and to make fun of Christianity because it makes people feel bad. He lost his older brother, and it tore him up so bad that the music he made as a result launched him into a worldwide music career.

This man ends every concert "ritual" with three things:

1. Be nice to each other

2. Help each other

3. Go fuck yourself

(Literally and figuratively)

Their music is 70% "fuck me I'm so horny", 10% "I love you so much" and 20% "ethereal badass metal".

Look at how much fun he's having, dude.

It's literally just a rock band filled with the nicest people on earth wearing costumes like a Shakespearean play. And all they do is make up funny little lore stories and serve cunt.

Pairing: Bartender!Neighbor!Bucky x college!artist!reader (intended female reader)

Summary: A horrible date and forgetting your keys lands you in the hands of your handsome neighbor who is more than willing to lend a helping hand.

Series Warnings: 18+ ONLY MINORS DNI, age gap is 10-ish years, smidge of angst, a date gone wrong (not with bucky), bucky being a gentlemen should be it’s own warning, some suggestive thoughts and language, cursing, making out, mentions of anxiety, disappointed parents, mentions of alcohol, fluff, pet names (sugar, baby, sir, daddy), weed consumption, tiny bit of self doubt from Bucky, smut, fingering, oral (f receiving), Bucky talks a lot in bed, unprotected sex (protect yourself irl please)

Each chapter will contain it's own warnings.

❂︎ - Smut

Forgotten Keys and Warm Tea

Make Our Own Traditions

Masterpiece ❂︎

Adoration of the Heart ❂︎

good lORD I —

SEBASTIAN STAN ENDINGS, BEGINNINGS