#cas x human emotion

[castielific]

Say what you want about Cas in season nine, but he did smile more as a human.

Especially when he was with Dean. We've never seen him smile more, even though Dean was treating him like crap at the time. Cas didn't have his lovey dovey angel-concealing power anymore and it showed.

[guardarecheluna]

I'd do anything for smiles, i'd move heaven and earth.

Authors note: Hiiii! Uhh, so this turned-out way more angsty and emotional than I planned, which is probably what happened when I just go with the flow and write instead of trying to plan it all out beforehand. But I really enjoyed writing this piece, so let me know your thoughts! Love, Elle x.

Word count: ca 4k words

Warnings: Angst, fluff, talk about babies and pregnancy

Summary: Harry wants a family with Y/N, actually, he wants nothing else. Y/N isn’t so sure about the whole baby thing, until everything changes.

Y/N never wanted to be a mother. She was mother enough to her siblings growing up, and she knew; if there was ever a want to have a child, it would be an already existing child who needed a home.

Harry on the other hand always knew that it was his calling to be a father. He had this constant baby fever, always agreeing to babysit his friend’s children and tending to their little ones. No wonder he had an abundance of godsons and goddaughters at the ripe age of 26.

He also knew he wanted children with Y/N, almost the minute he caught her eyes at that birthdayparty, but 3 months into their relationship, they still hadn’t talked about if there was a possibility of children in the future.

Y/N had grown up being told that having children was the ultimate goal in life. She’d been told stories about how rewarding it was, how much love you got to give and receive, and how all the newborn sleepless nights was going to be worth it. She always smiled at the comments, knowing she’d never feel that way.

Her mother always told her that she had been the same when she was younger, but then when she had met Y/N and her siblings father, she just wanted to give him a baby. Almost like her biology and nature was playing a bigger part than her conscious. Her mother had told her that Y/N was going to know when she’d met the right man, that she would know that she loved him, because she would want to give him a child that was half her and half him, but Y/N doesn’t think she’s ever heard anything more ridiculous in her life.

Don’t get Y/N wrong, she loved children, and they loved her just as much, it was just that she couldn’t picture her life surrounded by another tiny human being. Taking care of them constantly, them always needing her in one way or another, hovering ang clinging on to her. Y/N was out of breath just listening to people talk about children.

3 months into Harry and Y/N’s relationship

Harry had agreed to babysit Scout; Sarah and Mitch’s baby. Just for a few hours while they got some things done that would be at least 10 times more difficult with a needy baby around. Scout isn’t a baby really, at 13 months old, but Harry would never admit that fact to anyone.

Harry was on the carpet of his own apartment, laying on his stomach, looking at Scout who was currently stacking cubes to make a tall tower. Harry had absolute hearts in his eyes for this baby. Looking at the small blonde boy, Harry released a sigh he had been holding when Scouts tower of blocks finally held up and was steady enough not to fall over. “Look at you, Scout! Your tower is so tall!” Harry exclaimed, impressed at his godson’s work, and expecting Scout to push the tower over, and starting his project once again. Instead, Scout looked up with his bright blue eyes and walked over to Harry, who was now sitting up. Scout threw himself right in Harry’s arms, giggling and babbling something to him with his teethy grin.

Harry felt like he could cry. Melt into a little puddle on the living room floor, just a wet spot in the carpet for Y/N to mop up when she got home. “You’re too good to me” Harry said once again when Scout regained his balance and started over with his blocks again.

Harry placed his large hand over the baby’s back, strong him gently to let him know that he was still behind him. Scout had blonde little locks ending just at the nape of his neck, and a stylish little outfit on, he looked almost like a little old man. Harry curiously continued watching Scout playing, reacting to his towers and stacking, now and then running his hand trough Scout’s blond locks. Yeah, he could get used to this.

Y/N’s footsteps were heavy, coming through up the stairs to Harry’s house, and in over the doorstep. Her shoulder was aching with her massive tote bag carrying around everything she could possibly need for a workday – she just wanted to cuddle up at home, with Harry.

She heard giggles from the lounge as she took of her shoes. Simultaneously smiling and being slightly annoyed at the unwelcome guest, she was just so tired.

She walked through the hall until she arrived at the lounge. Two messy looking boys looked up at her in surprise, seeming very invested In building some kind of tower with building blocks.

“Hi my darlings!” Y/N put a smile on. She really couldn’t stay annoyed with Scout in the room, he just had this incredible vibe to him, it was impossible not to get in a good mood around him. “What a lovely surprise to come home to.” Y/N continues, settling down next to Scout and Harry. Although, just by looking at Harry, Y/N knew he was in baby-mode. A constant smile on his pink lips, eyes barely leaving Scout for a second.

Scout was happy to see Y/N, leaving his blocks for a minute to get some cuddles in from one of his favourites. Harry also leaned in for a kiss, smile still on his lips, putting his arms around them both and nuzzling baby Scout’s forehead with his own. Yeah, he was going to get used to this.

Later that evening, full of homemade pasta and wine, Harry and Y/N cuddled up on their sofa, Scout having left with his parents hours ago. Harry had waved him off and was throwing kisses to him as Mitch walked out with Scout in his arms.

“What’s with you, today?” Y/N whispered softly to Harry, lips ghosting over his jaw, leaving wet kisses along the stubble. Harry’s cheeks instantly flushed, feeling a word vomit consisting of love, babies and the future coming up his throat. He thought about babies way too often, and of course, he was still young and had many years to plan his family, however, when he looked at Scout and Y/N cuddling earlier in the afternoon, he knew he had to let it spill out how much he wanted a baby at some point.

“I just…” Harry trailed off, looking at the ceiling to try and calm his beating heart, knowing that with Y/N’s soft kisses on his jaw, it was going to be impossible. He continued, “Seeing you and Scout cuddling and playing today was just…you’re it for me. And I can’t fucking wait until we have one of our own. A little mix of you and me, I can’t imagine a more perfect thing even If I tried.” Y/N felt her blood run cold at his comment. He had taken for granted that they were going to have children one day, and she was going to have to break his heart with what she was going to say next. She felt cruel, also aware of how many women on this earth who would kill to have Harry say that to them.

She had been quiet for far too long now, frozen up in Harry’s tight embrace. She realized that it was no use for her to say anything else but the truth.

“Harry, we haven’t even spoken about having children. I…I’m not sure I want that for our future.” She spoke gently, knowing that this may break his heart into microscopic pieces, his feelings for her turning to absolute dust and flying off to an unknown destination.

It was Harry’s turn to freeze up. He could feel tears burn in his eyes, jaw aching at those simple words. She didn’t want to have a baby. She didn’t want to have a baby with him. Harry truly couldn’t imagine a worse scenario for himself. He had found the love of his life, but she didn’t want children. Harry knew better at this point in his life than to just keep it to himself. Bottle up his needs and feelings and bury then deep, deep underground. But right know, in this situation, he didn’t know what to do besides breathing deep and calming his becoming tears. “Dove, I, what do you mean you don’t want it? Not right now or not ever? C-cause I didn’t mean right now, I just-“. He babbled out, eyes still focused on the ceiling, knowing that if he looked at her, he’d break into pieces.

He awaited her answer with a sweat forming on his brow, hands clammy as they tried to hold on to her as well as he could, but metaphorically, he could feel her slip away from him already. “Not right now. And probably not at all.”

The tears he had held onto fell.

1 year later

Harry really hadn’t expected to become so emotional about their conversation from a year ago, he blamed it on his emotions running high from when he babysat Scout earlier that day.

Harry didn’t let Y/N see his tears that night, everything was still new between them, and after that night, they had both agreed that they would talk about it another day.

But the thing is, the thought of Y/N never wanting a baby with Harry, absolutely killed him. It was like ever since that day, he had a grey little cloud above his head, having her words wash over him like the high tide at any point of the day.

Harry knew he couldn’t hate her if she didn’t want children. He knew that some people just didn’t want children, and he would have to accept it, even though the thought of not having his own family was aching in his bones.

He knew that if this continued on, he would have to choose between staying with her, the love of his life, but probably never having children, and leaving her, knowing that he could have a family of his own, but never with the only person that he wanted that with. At this point, all the thoughts were swirling in his head, causing a migraine. It always turned out this way, and none of the options he considered was making him happy. He loved her so much. So much that he could barely breathe when he looked at her. He hadn’t been in love before he met her, and he was in love the moment she met eyes with him. She was everything, but this couldn’t continue any longer.

Harry felt all his emotions from that day resurface when he entered his bedroom, Y/N laying cuddled up on his bed, freshly showered, with her nose in one of his books he had recommended to her. As he stepped inside, his breathing was shaky, and from that point on, he couldn’t hold it together for even a minute longer.

Y/N looked up at him, confused with the sudden rush of emotions in the room. She opened up the duvet for him, and he crashed into her body like a limp doll, grabbing on to her for his life, knowing that it may very well be the last time that he got to do so.

Y/N had been on her own journey in the past year. A year of self-discovery, of pain, pleasure, and allowing things to come as they are without trying to put to much thought into it.

After their conversation about family and children that night, just three months into their relationship, Y/N was still sour about the way she grew up, caring for her siblings, taking on way to much responsibility at such a young age. But she wasn’t angry anymore. She had realized that it didn’t do her any good to think about her past and let it swallow her whole. She wanted to focus on the future, her work, her relationship with Harry and their future together.

She was so in love with him, like the moon loved the stars, like the river liked the rocks they were flowing with. He was everything.

The memory of their conversation from a year ago hurt her heart. She knew it had broke him. But they were also just three months into their relationship, she was angry at her family and fresh into being alone and self-sufficient as an adult. She couldn’t think about having kids, she wasn’t in the headspace.

But as their relationship evolved and bloomed, she couldn’t help but to think about their future together, maybe as a family. The glimpses of him with his godchildren, the way he was acting around them made her body run hot.

How much she denied she wanted children, she couldn’t anymore. It would be a lie. The thought she almost didn’t dare to think, their own baby was creeping into her head more and more since that conversation. Since she had truly fell in love with him. And there was no longer any reason do hide it or deny it.

Harry’s body was shaking under the duvet, gripping onto Y/N’s body for some type of comfort. Y/N was confused, but gentle, letting him trap her with his tall body, and running soothing circles over this bare back and shoulders. “Shhh, darling, what’s on that beautiful mind of yours, huh?” She said gently against his unruly hair, sticking out everywhere.

And he told her. He told her everything on his mind and placed all of his card on the table. He had given up any hope of being truly happy, weather it was with or without her. It was her time to cry, her breathing harsh and guilty. She didn’t know he was still thinking about that, and so constantly as well. She had been thinking about casually talking about it with him, revisit the conversation and drop some hints about her current state of mind. She had no idea he felt like this, like the only options were to be with her and have no children, or to leave her to be with another that could never make him truly happy, but he would have a family with.

Y/N let him spill out every single one of his thoughts, gently carding through his hair, trying to calm him down, and unconsciously letting him know that is was all going to be alright.

When he finished, he felt like jelly, his body weak and dehydrated. “Alright my love.” She told him as she switched their positions in the bed, their bodies flush against each other, facing each other with only so much as a few centimetres between their wet faces.

“Let me tell you about this past year…” She started, as he listened to her voice telling him everything he had wanted to hear all those months ago. His breathing was slowly evening out, but tears still fell steady as she went on. He placed pecks on her puffy lips now and then, listening, awarding her with more kisses when he realised; it really wasn’t as bad as he had thought, she did want a family. As long as it was with him, and as long as it was never going to be as it was with her own family.

2 years later

She was going to tell him tonight, and she wanted to make It special.

Y/N’s now fiancé was at the studio, and while on facetime with her best friend, Maya, she told her about something she had been keeping a secret for the better part of the 2 hour call. Y/N was pregnant. And she did want to tell Harry first, of course, but her head was spinning with thoughts and she wanted to make the announcement at least a little special, so she needed advice. Maya was screaming bloody murder over the call. She was jumping up and down, tearing up and couldn’t seem to get the information into her head. Her best friend was going to have a baby.

Y/N had barely even been able to work through the information herself, but she also had tears streaming down her face.

Her and Harry had another babytalk when they had gotten engaged, just 4 months ago. It had been hours into the night, the moon shining bright onto their bed and lighting up the room. They wanted it. They wanted it now. Names had been thrown around, ideas for a nursery, and Harry was absolutely dying to get started making a baby.

Y/N had a Nexplanon implant for the entirety of their relationship, and a part of her wanted to call the doctor immediately to have it taken out.

She did have it taken out, just weeks after their conversation. Harry was away on business for three weeks, the perfect opportunity as the little incision would leave a few bruises and scars on her arm. She decided on not telling him that she got it removed, and if she was able to become pregnant quick enough, it would be an ultimate surprise. She knew where he stood anyways, it wasn’t like he didn’t want to put a baby in her as soon as he could, he wanted nothing else.

“I honestly don’t even know how to tell him. “I want to make it at least a little special.” Y/N sighed to Maya over facetime, head empty of any and every idea she had ever had. “I don’t think it has to be that special, it’s still an intimate moment, and Harry will surely love it either way. I think with him it’s just best If you catch him when he’s in that disgustingly loving mood you always have him in.” Maya said and rolled her eyes. Y/N smiled at her comment. She did get him in that mood often. He was almost always loving up on her when he had the opportunity. “Yeah,” Y/N said, lost in thought about how to tell him. “I think you’re right, maybe I’ll get him something cute though, I don’t know. I just feel like I could absolutely burst, I just want to tell him right when he gets home.” Y/N continued, gauging Mayas reaction over the phone. Maya offered her a big smile. “I think you should just tell him tonight.”

Harry had burst through the door a little past 6 that night. Voice strained after a whole day of writing and vocals on his new record. He looked visibly tired, but he lit up as soon as Y/N met him in the hallway of now their house. Without a single word falling from his lips he reached his arms out for her, like a child needy for a good cuddle. And of course, she welcomed his embrace with her heart in her throat, like always when he was around her.

“Hi, Dove.” He murmured into her neck, as he breathed in her scent, making a home for himself in the crook of her neck. “Hi” She shyly got out as he embraced her, placing a few gentle kisses on her lips. “I have a surprise for you.” Y/N said cryptically as she looked him in his eyes, wanting to play It off as serious. “You do, yeah? My lovely fiancé at home, giving me a surprise, huh? You know I’d rather have you on a silver plate than-“ he said in his tired tone, eyes gleaming and playful as he straight up admitted his horniness right as he stepped through the door.

“Jesus Christ, you have the mouth of a sailor, I swear.” Y/N chuckled and pushed herself away from his grip, but not without giving him another kiss. “I’m pretty sure you’ll want this surprise.” She continued as she walked away from him, sitting down on their sofa.

Y/N had cozied up the room before Harry got home, fluffed the pillows, lit some candles and got out something to drink for them as well as placing the wrapped up pregnancy test on the coffee table.

Harry eventually arrived into the lounge, raising his eyebrow at the wrapped up gift laying on the table. “S’that for me?” He said playfully. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She felt guilty not telling him about her implant but was sure that the guilt would be washed away with pure joy and excitement at any given moment. Harry sat down right next to her, looking at her face carefully and studying it for any kind of clue of what could be hiding inside the wrapper. “You know you don’t ever have to get me anything, Dove, but it is a nice surprise.” He said, reaching for the gift on the table.

She could barely get any more words out of her mouth, they got stuck in her throat: Her eyes glazed over, knowing what was coming, which had Harry immediately dropping the gift, tending to her instead. “Hey, hey I’m sorry, was it something I said? Are you okay my love?” He carefully said as he took her in his arms, holding her and kissing her head gently.

At this point it was getting ridiculous, so she just laughed it off. She knew he would understand her behaviour when he got to see what was inside of that gift.

“Just open your gift already.” She lightly chuckled and made eyes at the gift, still sitting on the floor from where he dropped it.

And for a moment, something flashed in his eyes. Like he could sense what was coming, he eyed her for a moment, holding the gift in his hands. Harry said nothing more, but just ripped up the paper and was met with not one, but three very positive pregnancy tests, all yelling the word PREGNANT at him. “You’re going to be a dad, H.” Y/N almost whispered, and the tears had started falling for real this time. It was like the best confirmation in herfself that she could ever feel. THIS was what she wanted, the relief flowing from her, making her finally breathe again. Harry studied the tests quietly, Y/N could see his hand shaking from where he sat next to her. “This is a prank, you can’t- are you serious my love?” He looked at her for answers, and she could just kiss him with how he looked right now, lips puffy from biting on them, eyes wide and watery. “I’m fully serious, I got the implant taken out when you were away.” Y/N laughed and stroked his cheek for a moment. She couldn’t believe this was real, that he was real, and that he was hers.

And then he cried, he couldn’t get the words out, fumbling and falling right into her arms, making her fall back on the sofa. “You’re pregnant, Dove, we’re having a baby, I-“. Y/N could feel his wet tears on the side of her neck as he took in the moment, trying to regulate his tears and his breathing, but to no avail. He placed a large palm on Y/N’s lower belly, not yet showing any signs that she was expecting. He laughed, cried, and consistently stroked over her stomach as he kissed her with all the passion he had in his body. No matter how tired he was, he would never be too tired for a moment like this, it was like his whole body was on fire, never to be put out.

“I can’t even believe-, I love you so much, I love you, I love you and our baby so much, you’re everything, absolutely everything.”

And in that moment, Harry and Y/N realised that even if their ways had parted all those years ago, without having this baby, without having each other, everything would be pointless. This is what they were meant to be doing, this is where they were meant to be - in this exact moment.

[lailawinchesterr]

stars (castiel novak)

pairing; castiel novak x reader tags; fluff, hardly any angst, inexperienced cas summary; you find cas after his argument with dean and one thing leads to another.

masterlist

Screw the Winchesters for ever hurting Cas. Dean just— he yells, and screams, and he doesn’t stop until he or the person in front of him are hurt. It sucks. Because more often than not, Sam or Cas are that person. Thank God Dean respects women as much as he does because a vamp nest i can take— a screaming fest? Sign me out.

But he isn’t easy on the boys, especially Cas. The angel had to prove himself to Dean— to all of us, really, so many times it should’ve worn him out years ago, but he’s still here, despite it all, and this is the thanks he gets for saving our asses all the time? It isn’t right.

Usually after Dean has an episode Cas likes to disappear. Sam went with his brother while I followed Cas to see that he’s thankfully still there. In the astronomy room. We found it a few months ago and I got to name it. The men of letters seemed to have a knack for stars because the projection on the ceiling is a live image of the stars at the moment. It’s beautiful. 

It’s also special. I’ve never sat in this room with anyone other than Cas. It’s our thing, at least for me, I’m not sure what his thoughts on the room are. 

“Cas?” He doesn’t look at me from his spot leaning on the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “Cas,” I whisper thoughtfully this time, and he faces me. “Can I sit?” 

He shrugs and it’s all the invitation I need. Castiel has learned to understand and deal with human emotions so well over the years that sometimes I forget he isn’t one. He’s responds to Dean so expertly. Especially Dean. Profound bond and whatnot. “Dean is being ridiculous, obviously.”

He doesn’t respond. “C’mon, you know how he is, he gets mad at something as. Waits for someone to blow up on—”

“I know that. I’m not sulking.”

“Then what are you doing here?” No response. “Cas, are you okay?”

“The stars, they’re beautiful.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t want to lie to you.” I sigh, moving only a little closer, “I do not care what Dean does, or his opinion on the matter, what I did was what we needed.”

“You almost melted the guy’s brain, but yeah, I get it.”

“He will live, and Dean will learn to be alright. It is you who I fear would not forgive me.” My eyes widened. Me? First of all, what the hell does that mean, since when does an Angel of the Lord care if I forgive him? Second, forgive him for what? I just said I get it. “You are the only soul on earth who I haven’t looked at directly.” 

My breath hitches in my throat and I can’t even process his words. I didn’t know he could even control that. “I can not control who’s souls I can and can not see— but for all the years I have been with the Winchesters they’ve been very open with me, they bared their souls to me. Well, Dean didn’t have a choice, but Sam saw Angels as some kind of saving graces, he eagerly showed me himself. You have too, to some extent, but I haven’t been able to let my grace free when I’m around you.”

That’s two years of holding his breath when I’m around. Two years of not being comfortable when I’m there and two years of no eye contact. Most of the time all I get is a glance. Most of the time I don’t get anything at all. 

“Why?”

“Because your soul will—” he lets out a small laugh (i decide it is my favorite sound in the world) and shakes his head, he whispers my name, “it will blind me.”

“Cas,” I mumble. We’re both moving closer. His lips are so close. “What does that mean?”

“That I’m scared to lose you as I am the Winchesters,” I swallow nothing and try to calm my nerves but he’s doing that thing Dean taught him with his eyes and they’re going from my lips to my eyes and fuck, its chemical. “I am worried to lose any part of you. Your affection for me, however different from mine to you.”

“Cas. Kiss me.” It takes him a while to understand that it’s an order, and that I am consenting, but when he does— God, I don’t want to say it’s fireworks (it is), or that his lips taste like cotton candy (they do, courtesy of Dean’s gum), or that it kind of maybe changes me completely. 

He pulls away first. “I tried when I was human, and once when I was an angel, a long time ago, but was that correct?”

I don’t know if I want to kiss him again or compliment and affirm to him that everything he does is correct till tomorrow. I choose the former but promise the latter that we will meet again. We move against each other, smoother than i ever have considering I don’t do this often, and he’s so good you would never know just how inexperienced he is. 

“My soul?” I smile into it.

“Blindingly beautiful.” I’m sure he can’t actually see it right at this moment with his eyes only half open to stare at my lips, but it’s enough for me.

It takes longer but I pull away this time. His hand is still on my cheek and he’s slowly pulling me in and out, just brushing his lips against mine while I try to talk. Where did he learn to do all of this? “Cas, what does— Cas—”

Talking’s always been overrated. Especially when we don’t have time.

[ninii-winchester]

Unveiled Sorrows (Part 8)

Pairing : Dean Winchester X Reader, Sam Winchester X Reader (platonic)

Word count : 5k

Warnings : angst, spoilers s6, canon level gore, violence, language, Samuel is fucking annoying, also i made up the signal on my own (it’s not very creative lol)

A/n : This series follows canon plot line but some scenes might happen differently or be completely changed. Check the warnings for each part before continuing.

A/n 2: gif (1) from Pinterest. Credits to owner.

I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO COPY MY WORK, TRANSLATE IT OR POST IT TO ANY OTHER PLATFORM. REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED.

It was a given that Y/n knew Dean wouldn't stay. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt like a bitch. She has been holding on for too long, pretending to be strong. It was time she dealt with her feelings. She would let herself wallow in misery. She didn't know for how long had she sat in her room. She checked that clock it read, 10am. She sighed sitting up against the headboard. She needed someone to be by her side. She didn't feel like crying, too exhausted for tears. She looked at the crib and watched Adeline sleeping soundly.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." Y/n sighed before closing her eyes. "I know this is bizarre, but I'm desperate here. I know you and Dean have a connection and you only respond to him but Cas, I need you. If you hear me please, respond." Y/n breathed opening her eyes. She peeked around her room for the angel but he wasn't there. "Dean's bitch." She muttered turning to lay on her side and gasped when she saw Castiel sitting on the other side of the bed.

"Hello Y/n."

"Cas you scared me."

"You called. I came." He replied flatly. He's back to his angel self and he's emotionless as ever. "You look terrible."

"That is comforting, thanks." She replied sarcastically. "Where've you been?"

"Around."

"I know you're busy with angel business so thank you for coming."

"You seem to be in terrible condition. And you sounded...anguished." Y/n nodded. She moved and wrapped her arms around his frame and he hugged her back awkwardly. Y/n felt safe and not-terrible. He may not be accustomed to human emotions and gestures but his presence comforted her.

Surprisingly, he stayed with her for more time than she expected. He brought her food as she didn't want to leave the room. Adeline woke up with a loud cry and y/n tended to her. When Castiel held Adeline he had half the mind to brand the child with the sigil but he knew y/n wouldn't let him, she's too small and it would hurt her. He just wanted to keep her safe but he wouldn't do anything she or Dean wouldn't allow him to.

"I have to go." Cas said all of a sudden. Y/n nodded, she knew he would stay if he could. She was grateful that he even came.

"Sure, thanks for coming Cas." She said taking Adeline from him. She didn't even get an answer when Cas disappeared.

It was around six pm when she heard a knock at her door. Y/n tensed at thought of having to interact with anyone. Bobby knew well enough when to leave her alone so either it must be really important or it was Lisa. She opened the door finding, it was the latter.

"Hey, I didn't mean to bother you but Sam called and said you didn't answer when he called, he's worried." She spoke politely. "you've been in your room the whole day and it worried me too."

"It's not a bother at all. I'm just tired." Y/n replied with tired smile. She actually was tired.

"It's not because of me is it? That you're scooped up in your room?" Lisa asked hoping it wasn't the case.

"Oh no not all Lis." The nickname and y/n's light tone made the woman feel a bit better.

"Okay." She smiled. "Sam and Dean left for my place in the morning to track the Djinn. They might be back tomorrow." Lisa informed.

"Alright." She nodded and Lisa turned to leave when Y/n spoke, "I'll uh call Sam. And thanks for checking in."

"Anytime."

Y/n closed the door when Lisa left. She grabbed her phone as saw five missed calls from Sam, each with a gap of an hour. He must've been worried. She dialled his number and pressed the phone to her ear. He picked up on the first ring.

"I know you hate me but that doesn't mean you get to leave me worried sick." Was the first thing he said as he answered the phone.

"Hello to you too." She replied.

"This isn't funny. Where have you been? You haven't left your room the whole day, you weren't answering my calls."

"You keeping tabs on me Winchester?" She teased.

"It's called caring." Sam replied, harsher than he intended.

"Sorry I was in my head. I needed space." She replied honestly.

"Take as much space as you need. Next time just let me know you're okay.!!"

"Yeah." She nodded even though he can't see her. "How's it going?"

"We've checked the place. There are three of them. We figured they'd only come out when it's me and Dean alone. So we're waiting."

"You're waiting for three Djinns to attack you while its only you two. Not to mention they're extremely powerful ones who almost killed all three of us?" Y/n sighed at their stupidity. But then, what are Winchesters if not stupid.

"That's one way to put it." Sam chuckled. "But Samuel's backing us up."

"For the record," she softly said, "I don't hate you."

"Uh thanks." He said making her chuckle. "I think i gotta go."

"Be safe, Sammy." With that Sam hung up.

It was around midnight, y/n was in the main room reading, Adeline laid in the middle of the room, staring up at the devil's trap, gazing the the symbols with curiosity. The shapes enticing the little baby. She had a good amount of sleep while being trapped inside the room so now she's wide awake keeping her mother company.

Y/n heard the sound of tires against the road and then Sam's car's horn. She didn't want to see Dean but she couldn't just hide anytime he was around. She knew it was going to be a frequent occurrence now that he knows Sam's back so she stayed seated. Sam and Dean appeared at the doorway and she shifted her gaze from the book to the men.

"How'd it go?" She asked the younger brother.

"Terrible. But we killed them."

"Basically the story of every hunt." She retorted and Sam chuckled walking towards her. He kneeled beside Addy and was going to pick her up when Y/n swatted his hands away. "Clean up first."

"You're mean." He pouted.

"No, you're dirty." Y/n shooed him away. Sam didn't argue and made his way out of the room to get cleaned. Dean, glanced at Adeline and left without a word.

Now that the Djinns were gone, Lisa and Ben were free to go back to their place. That meant Dean will leave too. She wanted to be bitter but she knew the way Dean thought. He dragged them into this, put a target on their backs and now it's his responsibility to protect them. After they left, it was just her and Bobby. Sam had been gone with Samuel again.

"Hey Bobby!" She called out to the older man who was playing with Adeline. "I think I'll move."

"You two are idjits you know that?" His reply made her snort. He was against the idea but he knew she had made her mind.

"It's the company." She teased which earned her a glare from the old man.

"You better be safe, ya hear me?" 

"You got it."

Y/n leased a house in a neighbourhood few towns over. It was her fresh start. No hunting, no monsters, no Dean. Just her and Adeline. The house was well furnished and she didn't have much stuff to set up anyway. She had a spare room for a nursery. She set everything up but she put the crib her own room. With everything she knew was out there, she wouldn't leave her baby alone.

"This is a bad idea." Sam said pacing in her new living room.

"It is not." She replied glaring at him. "Would you stop pacing."

"It's not safe. You're too far from us. We can't reach you in time if something happens." Sam said sitting on the couch.

"Sam I've monster proofed the whole house. There's salt on every window, devil traps all over the place. I've got my gun, holy water, machetes, plenty of silver...Even Bobby checked the whole place." She assured him.

Sam sighed leaning back on the couch. He still thinks its a bad idea. He just wants her to be safe.

"I got out Sam. I'm not a hunter anymore."

"Yeah but that didn't stop that Djinn to come after you. Who knows what else could be after you. You and Addy were safe at Bobby's." Sam tried to argue. "I know you left because of Dean but he won't be going over. He stopped hunting for good." She gave him a look but he continued. "He did. He made Lisa and Ben move. And he told me he's done. He won't hunt with me or anyone."

"Look, i know you think I'm unsafe but I promise you I'll be fine. I'll call you even if I doubt anything in the slightest, I swear."

"Okay." Sam accepted defeat. "Get me a beer."

"Hey, don't order me around." She kicked his leg lightly, a smile on her face. "Go get it yourself. And get me one too." This might actually be a good start. She felt happy. She could start fresh. Or could she?

She had been living under one of her aliases, Emma Parker. And her daughter Adeline Parker. The neighbourhood was decent and people were good. It had been smooth sailing for the past two months. Until she heard the news of six months old babies disappearing from locked homes and their parents being brutally murdered. It was happening too close to her location. However she didn't think it was some sort of supernatural gig, even if it was she was prepared to fight whoever it was.

Y/n's phone rang and she sighed knowing who it was and what they're going to say. She answered it begrudgingly.

"Y/n you need to go back to Bobby's." Sam told her while driving his car.

"Sam that's bullshit and you know that."

"I don't care whatever it is. You need to leave. Addy turned six months a week ago. They're killing parents and taking babies. Even if it's not our kinda thing it's not safe." Sam argued.

"Sam how long am I going to keep running? I can't lock myself at Bobby's. Addy's gonna grow up, she's gonna go to school. She's not growing up in this life Sam, I'd die before I let that happen."

"It's not safe considering what's happening in your town."

"Just because I don't hunt anymore doesn't mean I don't know how to fight. Be it a human or a monster. I'll kill anyone who tries to harm my baby." Sam didn't speak for a moment. He sighed before agreed.

"I'm in town investigating this thing. So I'll see you soon yeah?"

"Yeah."

Sam went around investigating the murders and disappearance of the children. He went to Y/n's house and the two of them brainstormed MO's, reasoning and potential suspects.

"You don't have anything to do with Harper security, do you?" Sam asked y/n who brought him a beer, with Adeline on her hip.

"Nope, why do you ask?"

"All of the houses had their services. That's the only thing in common." He said standing up and grabbing his jacket.

"Where are you going?"  She asked as he stood up abruptly.

"Well I'm on this case, as a Fed or a Hunter. Can't stay here long. It'll put a target on you." He said grabbing his things. He kissed Addy's head and then hers. "Lock the windows and doors. Stay safe." With that he walked out of the door.

After Sam left he went to watch another house that had Harper security. He watched as a man entered the house, he followed him inside. The man turned to attack him and Sam fought back, he nicked the man with a silver knife and his hand burned. It was a shifter. He left the place and Sam checked the place and found a baby. He sighed.

"Dean i need your help." He said into the phone as he got into his car.

Dean met up with Sam and sighed as he saw a baby in the backseat.

"You need help with a baby? Haven't you been around Adeline to know all the baby stuff." Dean rolled his eyes at his brother.

"No. Not most of the time. Besides I'm working a job here." Dean sighed knowing Sam's right.

The two of them headed to a store to get necessary supplies for the baby and they ran into the shifter. It took the baby pretending to be a nice old lady. But Dean watched the woman in the cctv cam and noticed her eyes were like those of shifters. Sam and Dean fought with the shifter and grabbed the baby and ran out of the store. The two of them were in a motel room Sam was going through the papers while Dean was watching BobbyJohn. Sam stopped his work to watch Dean.

"You're surprisingly good at this." Sam commented.

"I've done this before." Dean replied vaguely.

"Last I remember Ben was a full grown child." Dean glared at his brother.

"I put Addy to sleep. Once." Sam raised his brow in curiosity.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No." Dean immediately replied.

"Alright, you stay here with Bobby John and I'll go see what i can find out." Sam said getting up. Dean just nodded.

Sam was driving to meet with one of the babies' father, who was not at home during the attack. After talking to him, he reached to a conclusion that the shifter cloned himself into the husbands, knocked up the wives and is now collecting his own babies. He needed to tell Dean the baby is a shifter. He retrieved his phone from his pocket to call Dean but before he could, his phone rang.

"Hey." Sam answered.

"Hey, how's it going? Did you find anything?" Y/n asked.

"Actually, I found everything." He told her everything he found out. He just left the part where he was working with Dean.

"Well that's great. Now you have nothing to worry about since Addy is Dean's daughter and not some psycho shifter's." She said over the phone.

"Yeah I'm relieved over that." Sam responded.

"Yeah, how about you come over for dinner tonight?"

"I can't y/n, I'd love to but I've got one of the babies with me and I've got to take him to Samuel." Sam explained. "Look, I have to go but I'll call you."

Sam went back to the motel and saw a sherrif dead in the motel room and Dean carrying a baby that looked like the baby on the diaper box. He shifted.

"We've gotta take him to Samuel."

Y/n was in the kitchen when she heard the doorbell ring. She opened the door to see Sam in standing there. She knew it wasn't Sam. He was on his way to Samuel. And she knew a shifter was in town so she knew what she was dealing with.

"Sammy hi." She invited him in. She knew she had to attack when he least expects it. "I thought you were too busy to drop by."

"Yeah uh, I did. But family first you know." Family my ass Y/n thought to herself.

"That's amazing, you staying for dinner right?"

"Sure." He replied taking a seat on the couch. She watched as he kept eyeing Adeline who was crawling throughout the living room. Ever since she learned how to, she hasn't stopped.

She has to do something quick or else she'd regret it. She can't risk leaving Addy alone with the monster so she subtly grabbed a silver knife from the cabinet behind her and put it in the back pocket of her jeans. Her gun was taped under the table in the living room and it was stocked with silver bullets. She cringed at the idea that crept in her mind. The shifter doesn't know the relationship between her and Sam.

"You know..." she walked towards the shifter who was pretending to be Sam. "It's been a while since we had some fun." She dropped herself in his lap and he immediately grabbed her hips. Yep not my Sam. She thought to herself.

"I think so too." He breathed as he felt her up. She was internally cringing so bad, first this was a slimy shifter she was straddling , who on top of that was wearing Sam's face. Her best friend. She was hating the feeling of his hands on her body. She lifted her shirt over her head and he immediately distraced by that.

Men, she rolled her eyes.

He was eager to latch his mouth to her skin and she knew she had him. She slipped the knife from her pocket and stabbed him in his chest. The creature groaned and Y/n immediately jumped off him and went up to pick Adeline from the ground. The shifter removed the knife from his chest and threw it away. He grabbed her by the ankles and threw her against the wall, blood trickled down her head. He went for Adeline but y/n pushed him.

She grabbed the knife and lunged at him but he grabbed her arm and twisted it. He made her stab her own side. She screamed in pain as blood gushed out of her side. She knew better than to remove the object so she elbowed him in the neck and crawled towards the table and grabbed her gun.

He had picked up Adeline who was now wailing in his arms. She knew it was risk shooting him while he was holding her daughter but she knew she couldn't let him take her. She took a deep breath and steadied her arm. She's done it a thousand times before, she can hit moving targets. It should be easy. She gripped the gun tightly in her hand and shot twice at his vacant shoulder on the side he was not holding Adeline.

"Tell her father I want what he has. I'll be in touch." With that he ran out of the house.

Y/n watched in horror as he left with Adeline. He should've been dead. She shot him with silver bullets. What does Dean even have that the shifter wants? She clutched her side as she grabbed her phone and dialled Sam.

"Sammy. He took Adeline." Sam slammed the brakes, hard.

"What the hell Sammy?" Dean asked as Sam reversed the car and drove past the speed limit. Sam was breathing hard as he clutched the steering wheel tightly. "Would you tell me what's going on?" Dean demanded.

"Dean shut up." Sam said aggressively. Dean was shocked at his outburst. It was only a matter of minutes before they arrived a house, which Dean had never seen before. Sam ran out of the car and Dean watched as his brother kicked the door open to the house. He grabbed the baby from the back seat and followed Sam.

Sam entered the living room and the whole place was bloody, The whole place looked like a mess, shattered lamps and photo frames. A bloodied Y/n was on the couch holding a kitchen towel to her side. A bloodied knife and gun was placed on the table. He rushed to her side.

Dean walked inside the house hesitantly, unsure of what to expect. The moment he stepped inside his heart stopped. Out of everything in world this is the last thing he expected.

Y/n was barely holding onto consciousness and Sam patted her cheek to keep her awake.

"Hey stay with me." He looked down and removed the towel to see blood gushing out of her wound. "You need stitches. Dean grab the medical kit." Sam looked back at Dean who was frozen in place. "DEAN." Sam yelled.

Dean shook himself as he watched his biggest nightmare come true. The love his life barely hanging to life, bloodied. He jumped into action when Sam yelled his name, he ran inside the kitchen and checked all the cabinets. He found the box in the cabinet above the sink. He grabbed the box and another clean towel from the shelf. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey that he luckily found. He re-entered the room handing the box to Sam. She was already shirtless so it was easier for Sam to patch her up. Dean poured the alcohol on her wound and Sam cleaned the area. Y/n hissed in pain as he did so.

"Bite into it, sweetheart." Dean said place the clean towel inside her mouth. She clenched her teeth as Sam stitched her up. Her scream was muffled by the towel inside her mouth. Dean clutched her hand in his as she withered in pain. "Almost done, baby."

When Sam was done he placed a gauze over the stitches and closed the wound. Now that the blood was not oozing out her body she could keep herself awake. She removed her hand from Dean's grip and threw the towel on the floor.

"Son of a bitch." She gasped sitting up. "Give me that." She grabbed the whiskey from Dean and gulped down the liquid. "He took Addy." She tried to blink back the tears. "He said, tell her father I want what he has and he'll be in touch." She cried. Sam wrapped her arms around her as she sobbed.

At her words the two brothers immediately eyed the baby in the carseat.

"Tell us everything." Dean said. She told them everybody that happened.

"It should've died, i shot him with silver bullets, twice." She cried.

"I think it was the alpha." Sam replied.

"The alpha? As in the very first of their kind?" Y/n asked and Sam nodded.

"It would've hurt him but only shooting him in the heart would kill him." Sam added.

"I thought about it, I would've done it had he not have Addy in his arms." Y/n sobbed.

"You should've called us." Dean stated.

"Excuse me?" She glared at him.

"You shouldn't have taken on him alone, should've called us." Dean replied.

"And you think he wouldn't have noticed me calling Sam, when Sam was clearly sitting in my living room and last I remember you were busy playing house." She snapped back.

"You could've gone to the other room." Dean argued.

"And left my daughter alone? Like you did?" She yelled. This made Dean and even Sam flinch.

"Hey.. calm down. Fighting isn't going to bring Addy back." Sam intervened.

"Sammy please do something, bring her back. I don't have any reason to live besides her." She cried in Sam's chest.

"We'll get her back. I promise." Sam rubbed back in a comforting manner.

Dean watched as his brother was comforting her. He wished it was him in his place telling her that it'll be alright, they'll get their daughter back. Hell he wished it didn't happen in the first place. It was all his fault, He should've been here, he should've.... His train of thoughts was broken by the ringing of a phone. 

Sam answered his phone, it was Samuel calling.

"What?" Sam exclaimed. "Tell him we agree. Yes we'll be there. Is she okay?" Dean and y/n heard the one sided conversation. Sam nodded as he hung up. "The shifter has taken Addy to Samuel, and he's bargaining. Addy for that child." Sam said gesturing to the child. It was the first time she noticed that child's presence.

"Let's go then." She said standing up.

"I don't think you should come with, we'll bring her home." Dean said fuelling y/n's anger.

"What makes you think you're in position to give orders? In a situation regarding 'my' daughter?" She sneered, emphasising on the word 'my'.

She grabbed her shirt from the floor not caring it was stained with blood. She grabbed her gun and stuffed it in her jeans. She put on her jacket and limped towards Sam's car. Sam and Dean followed behind her, Sam put the carseat with the baby in the back. Y/n rounded the car and opened the passenger's seat door.

"I'm not sitting beside that thing or I might break its neck. Baby or not." She said sliding inside and slamming the door shut. The two men nodded and got inside the car. Dean sat in the back while Sam drove.

They reached Samuel's warehouse in a few hours. The three of them walked inside the place, the carseat in Sam's hand. Christian took them to where Samuel was. The old man stood from his seat and glanced at the shifter baby.

"Where is he?" Sam asked.

"He didn't come himself, he sent a message. He said to signal him when were ready to deal." Samuel replied.

"And how do you do that?" Y/n asked shifting her weight on her legs.

"Sacred shots." Samuel said.

"Sacred shots?" Dean asked.

"Yeah there's pattern while shooting. First you shoot left in the air then right and then twice directly in the middle." Samuel explained. The three of them nodded. Y/n watched Mark, Gwen and a few unfamiliar faces walked inside the room.

"Now we need a plan of action, Mark-"

"What plan of action?" Y/n interrupted Samuel.

"To catch him of course."

"Oh hell no. You're not using my daughter as bait for whatever sick plan you have." She said sternly.

"Y/n, I know Adeline is your daughter and I adore that kid but we have to catch him, he's the Alpha." Samuel explained. "We will get her back."

"You will not. You said you made a deal. You lied to us to bring this child here." She yelled.

"I did what had to be done."

"Samuel. This isn't-" Sam started but his grandfather cut him off.

"Sam i know she's your friend," he gestured to y/n "and you care for her child but this is neces-"

"That's enough." Dean yelled. "You will give him this child and get Adeline back." He told his grandfather. Samuel walked towards Dean, staring him down.

"And why would I do that?" Samuel challenged.

"Because she is my daughter." Dean yelled. "and you will not play anymore games, do ya hear me?" He growled staring into his grandfather's eyes.

The room fell silent at his confession and the old man took a step back. Y/n watched Dean's face turn red in anger and his adam's apple bobbed as he stared up at Samuel, daring him to go against his word. The aforementioned man nodded his head in agreement.

They had decided that it would be Dean who would go out and deal with the shifter. He went to the backyard and fired the sacred shots. He kept the baby on the ground who was still strapped in the car seat.

"I'm here." Dean yelled. He heard the leaves crunching underneath someone's steps. He turned to see an unfamiliar man walking towards him with Adeline crying in his arms. Dean's skin crawled as he watched his daughter in a stranger's arms. "I've got what you want. I'm here to deal. No games." He said to the man.

"You know it's you humans who don't stick to your words. I'm just here to get what i want. I haven't touched a single hair on your daughter's head." The man replied.

"That better be the case." Dean replied. He grabbed the car seat and walked towards the man. He set it beside the man and held his arms out for Adeline who was still crying.

"No games?" The man asked.

"No games." Dean nodded. The shifter placed Adeline in Dean's arms and he sighed in relief having his daughter back in his arms. The shifter leaned down to pick up car seat and looked around suspiciously, still not trusting Dean. He picked the seat up and when nothing happened, he walked to where he came from.

"Daddy's here, baby. You're safe, my love." Dean cooed at his daughter. Tears pooled in his eyes as his heart was beating profusely in his chest. He bounced the little baby in his arms, Adeline curled herself in his chest as if she recognised his warmth. "It's okay, angel daddy's got you." He walked back to the warehouse and Adeline had stopped crying. He opened the door to Samuel's study where everyone was waiting, Y/n ran towards him and grabbed Adeline from his arms. Sam sighed in relief at the sight of his niece. Y/n clutched her daughter to her chest, crying and kissing the little baby all over her face.

"Oh Baby you're okay. I'm glad you're okay." She said to her daughter as if she'd understand her.. Holding Adeline in one arm she turned to Dean and wrapped her arm around him. "Thank you Dean." She cried. "Thank you for saving our daughter." She sobbed in his chest. He wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her closer.

"You don't have to thank me, baby." He kissed her head, cherishing the moment. He pecked his daughter's head, grateful that she was okay.

Tags:

@spnfamily-j2 @galway-girlatwork @deangirl96 @queensilber

@s0urw00lf @monkey-d-hoshizora98 @deans-baby-momma @fullbelieverheart

@riah1606 @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @hobby27

@suckitands33

[ghost-proofbaby]

never love an anchor (e.m. x reader)

"On some level, I think I always understood that a ship could never really love an anchor."

warnings: severe hurt/brief comfort, suicidal ideations, severely depressed reader. again: detailed recount of suicidal ideations. dead dove: do not eat.

wc: 5.8k+

an: i cannot emphasize this enough - this fic deals with a severely depressed, and blatantly suicidal reader. it is extremely heavy. it is extremely triggering. it is extremely self-indulgent. the romance aspect is ambiguous and the comfort aspect at the end is brief. this is a genuine, and sincerely personal piece of writing. it is an outline of how suicidal ideations may present themselves to some people. of these 5k words, 4k is deeply littered with reader's ideations without sugar coating. please, please, please do not read this unless you're in the state of mind to read it. you've surely heard it before but i'll say it just to be sure: it is a permanent solution for temporary feelings. and, just in case no one has told you, i'm glad you're alive. if you're reading this, i'm glad that you're alive. you're enough.

if you find yourself feeling like reader, i urge that you find resources such as those linked. hotlines, therapists, friends, your doctor, your family - please. i do not wish these emotions upon anyone, and they should never be taken lightly.

that being said, here are my guts from a very vulnerable moment, spilled out across the page. please handle them with care if you choose to read.

Technically speaking, the pressure that the human body is capable of handling almost seems infinite. When introduced slowly, and time is given to adjust, there is no pinpointed amount of pressure that dooms the human body. Like a crab in slow boiling water, your body should be theoretically able to handle a steady increase, bit by bit, and never truly notice. 

So why does it currently feel like you’re dying?

The pressure was never an overnight thing. It was a conglomeration you’d gathered, piece by piece, collecting little souvenirs of all the responsibilities you can’t currently remember if you’d ever agreed to along the way. It hadn’t been sudden, it hadn’t been with lack of adjusting, it hadn’t been a pressure suddenly unloaded upon you all at once – you’d done this, brick by brick, all with your own two hands. 

Keeping up with friends, keeping up with work, keeping up with expectations. Always trying to run ahead of the curve, always trying to be better. You should be fine. You shouldn’t even notice. You shouldn’t be sobbing on your bathroom floor, clutching the edge of your porcelain tub, every single breath a labor of survival. 

It feels like every bone in your body is splintering. It feels like the world has cracked open your ribs, one by one, just for show. You don’t feel poetic like the movies, you don’t feel like a valuable lesson learned in the books. You feel as though you’ve become nothing more than some crude display in a contemporary art gallery, and you were the one to hang yourself on the wall. 

Needles prickle across your skin with another heaving sob, as if you can feel the push pins you’ve used to spread yourself out for consumption. 

We still on for tonight? 

The text from Eddie glares at you from your phone discarded on the floor mere inches away. You’re lucky the screen hadn’t broken when you’d thrown it down on the ground on your way to the toilet, dry heaving through all your tears. 

He wasn’t a part of the issue. If anything, he was part of the solution. 

A shining clean slate, pristine whites and a scratch-free surface for you to press your cheek to when it all got a bit much. An abyss of freedom and openness for when the world was all a bit smothering. An anchor to cling to, a rope to tie around your wrists to keep from floating too far. The willow tree in a graveyard to rest your back against, the caress of a warm sun even if only momentarily as you stared out across headstones of all the pieces of you that you can never get back. Every version of you that has long since buried, a few even with newly churned dirt resting upon them. Something soft, something sacred, to rest your hands upon. 

Why does he still let you rest your bloodied and dirtied palms on his shoulders? Did he ever agree to that to begin with? 

You can’t remember. Or maybe your brain is simply refusing to recall. 

I hate to cancel, but I’m sick. I don’t think I can come out tonight :-( 

What? Is everything okay? Are you okay? Do I need to bring you anything? 

Please don’t.

The please is what gives you away. You should have forgone it, should have offered him a lighthearted response instead. 

But there is a pit in the bottom of your stomach, and seeing all the question marks across his text only made it more terminal. Only gave it more reason to swallow you whole. Only gave it more reason to grow and to tangle up and to restrict each stuttering breath of yours that you can’t seem to steady. 

Another buzz comes from your phone, but you don’t look to read it. You resort to resting your forehead against the lip of your toilet, all attempts at a deep breath futile as you finally taste the salt across your lips. 

Were you too much? Were you not enough? Was it possible to be an odd juxtaposition of both? 

A harrowing thought crosses your mind, and you know if Eddie could read minds across the intricate webbing that connects cell phones, he’d grab you by your shoulders. Maybe shake you until you see sense, or maybe cling to you until the thought has faded into nothingness. As if he could squeeze you hard enough to press together all the splinters that are left of your bones, forming a new body – a better body. One that can handle the pressure. One that isn’t imploding upon itself. A more durable mind, a more capable suit of skin to occupy. 

Does it even matter anymore? Would it even matter if I simply vanished? 

Would it be so bad to let the pit finally consume you? To just give in, to let it erase you from existence. To finally wave your white flag and let the awfulness inside of you finally win the battle, erasing you from existence and leaving behind an empty space in the world that could be filled with someone better.

Someone who could be a better friend. Someone who could be a harder worker. Someone who wasn’t choked up on their bathroom floor, beginning to contemplate if the painful gasps were even worth it. 

Were you worth it? Were you worth the air in your lungs? Or could it better serve someone who could handle all the pressure? 

And it wasn’t even that much pressure to begin with, if you pick it apart thread by thread. It was the natural weight of the human experience, and you were still crumbling. 

There was a full bottle of ibuprofen in the cabinet. There was a busy street not far from your home. There was a bathtub that could easily be filled with water – you’d never been good at holding your breath, unless someone counted the last few months, in which that seemed to be all you were good at. 

There was even a bridge, 5.27 miles away from your house exactly. You could already envision the patch of grass you could park your car at, feel the drop in temperature as you stood and overlooked the tame waves of a man-made lake.

Maybe your feet didn’t even have to leave the pavement. Maybe it would be enough to just stand in the silence and see the jump with your own two eyes. 

You felt like nothing more than a ghost of yourself, yes, but maybe. Maybe, just maybe, there would still be a broken shard within you that could stir awake at it all. Maybe if you got up off the bathroom floor and set yourself into motion, it would open its eyes just in time to scream no. 

Ghosts don’t just appear. They were a vibrant soul once – they were somebody once. 

But it’s hard to imagine that you ever were. When it gets like this, it’s hard to push through all the tumultuous thoughts and loathly emotions to remember that. A version of you vibrant, a version of you that might have been worthy, if only for a moment. 

A version of you that wasn’t insulting to compare to others. That was capable of progress, of earning your blip of existence. 

You don’t want the bottle of ibuprofen. You don’t want the busy street. You don’t want the overflowing tub. You don’t even want the calm of the bridge. You just want it to stop. 

There’s a knock on your front door that echoes through the entire apartment. You dread that you already know who it is, but you can’t get up to answer. 

You can’t move from this very spot. You’re terrified of what will happen when you do. 

Will your bones collapse into ash upon the floor? Will you make one wrong move, and in a fit of pressure, make a terribly permanent decision for what feels like a terribly permanent feeling? 

Maybe you were born with the pit in your stomach. Maybe you were born with that black hole inside of you. Cursed to always be yearning, always be a juxtaposition, always be a ghost of what could have become. 

You think you hear the click of your front door opening. You think you hear heavy footsteps across the hardwood floors. You think, you think, you think. That’s the issue. 

The tears are still coming and going in erratic tides. The salt is drying out your lips, your cheeks, the corners of your eyes. You’d thought you’d been incapable of any more emotions like this, but your tear ducts have managed to prove you wrong. 

Does it even matter anymore?

You’d left the bathroom door wide open. 

Were you worth it?

You’d been home alone – past tense.

A more durable mind, a more capable suit of skin to occupy.

A soft gasp of your name has you microscopically lifting your head from the toilet seat. You know what the scene looks like; it looks like nothing more than the excuse you’d used. You look as though you’re ill, like you’ve been spilling your guts across the bathroom floor all night. 

If you had been, would it all feel a little less heavy? 

“Hey, Eds.” 

You’re tired. You’re exhausted. Your voice is nothing more than a drag of a whisper as you look up at your anchor standing in the doorway, his face painted with concern. 

Maybe you were an anchor – maybe being an anchor wasn’t a good thing. After all, what use does an anchor have beyond weighing down the ship? 

“Jesus,” he mutters as he rushes to your side, falling to his knees carelessly as his hand flies out to brush back tendrils of your hair, “You look like shit.”

You felt like shit. 

Selfishly, you lean into his touch, desperate for comfort. Desperate for those caring palms to soothe the ache you’d carried since birth. Desperate to hear him tell you that you’re wrong – hands to promise you that you’re worthy, fingers to wrap around your bones rather than these burning ropes. You’re bloodied and raw, fully on display, and you just want to be okay. 

You don’t want the bridge. You want Eddie. You want him to magically make it okay, and that’s unfair. 

You’re not his weight to carry, not his burden to shoulder. 

After far too long of a silence, one in which he sits patiently in with you, all you can really reply is a broken, “Yeah.” 

Immediately, he knows something is wrong. Because of course he does. 

Because he’s a good friend. He’s a good person. He has the right words more often than not, and his hands were always formed to heal rather than injure. Create rather than destroy. Those warm palms are made to hold the space he’s earned in the grand scheme of the Universe, and it almost makes you nauseous as the jealousy spreads. 

He’s good. 

And you’re simply rotten.

You used to lie to yourself and say it was simply one rotted bit amongst plenty of good, but tonight, it all seemingly comes to clarity. You can’t dig out the bad, cleanse yourself of the rot, because it’s all decay. 

You don’t have to let the pit consume you – it already has. You were born with it, and it had swallowed you whole from the first cry that had ever left your lips. 

He makes himself a bit more comfortable, and you almost feel bad for reducing him to nothing more than the bathroom floor, “You wanna talk about what’s really wrong?” 

“I’m sick.” 

“This isn’t just some stomach bug.”

Your throat begins to tighten again, and suddenly, his gentle touch across the crown of your head burns. Your eyes water ferociously, and your chest caves into itself.

You can’t make a better body or a more sound mind out of the mess you’ve become. You can’t pull gold from tarnished rubble. 

Confessing to him will only be handing over something heavy, something terrible, that he shouldn’t have to struggle with as well. But not offering him a sliver of the truth almost feels more dishonoring. 

“Do you ever feel like a waste of space?” you croak, leaning back, finally accepting that the small space of the toilet that had been cooling your face has gone warm. Another thing you’ve ruined, in hindsight, “Like, this world is filled with great people, and I just… I just, I’m taking up the space- I’m wasting the space-” 

You can’t get out the proper words. You don’t know how.

How do you say you want to cease to exist when you’re not really sure if that’s the truth? You’re miserable, and you’re selfish, and you’re not entirely sure your feet would have ever left the pavement if you had driven yourself to the bridge. You’d be too scared to do it.  

Too scared to miss the day that science announces it’s found a cure to all your rot, a miracle drug to erase the pit, a way to reverse all the damage you’ve been comprised of your whole life. 

His brows furrow and his hand stops all the calming movements, “What? Are you- are you saying you feel like a waste of space?”

It feels silly to admit it to other people. To try and describe how it all feels. Like a child trying to convince their parents the Boogeyman is real, you have to make him see that you’re right. You have evidence, you have proof, and it’s not just a feeling. 

“I don’t feel like I’m a waste of space,” you finally correct, both yourself and him, “I know I’m a waste of space.” 

“Bullshit.”

“Eddie, don’t-”

“No,” he cuts you off. And somehow, in only a way that he’s capable of, it’s not offensive, “You’re not. I’m not going to sit here and listen to my favorite person claim they’re wasting space-”

“I am!” It’s your turn in the cycle of interruption. You pull away from him entirely, chest heaving with the weight presenting itself once more, tears starting to fall all over again. You can’t even distinguish where the old tears stop and the new ones begin, “I really am. All I seem to do lately is just exist. And that’s such a- such a- that’s such a waste. I can’t read any of the things I should enjoy these days, I can’t even write. All of the words feel like they just come out wrong. I’m letting everyone down left and right, I’m never living up to whatever pedestal you’ve put me on. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t even know where I’ll be in a year from now – I can’t even see that far in the future.”

Heaves become sobs, and the crumbling has begun once more. A cycle of breaking, a cycle of demolition. Even leaving behind the rubble feels like a crime. A waste of space. 

“I don’t think I’m a good person,” you manage to spit out between all your visceral reactions, “Every year, I tell myself the same thing – I’ll be better, I’ll be kinder, I’ll be worth it. And every year, I fail.” 

Can he see it? All the fractures and splinters and pits and metaphors? 

Can he smell it? All the rot and the destruction and hopelessness?

Can he feel it? All the pressure? 

Through your sniffles, you press your back to the tub, knees to your chin as you wrap your arms around your legs, desperately trying to shrivel up. To take up less space. To waste less space.

“I used to think I could make up for it,” you whisper, “I could offer people things that made them forget I’m… so useless. But I don’t think I’m even capable of that anymore.”

If he’s about to respond, it’s drowned out by your cries. You press your eyes hard into your kneecaps, until you see stars, and you try to swallow down all the embarrassment. Try to stop all the hurt from spilling out, to stop all your guts from painting the bathroom walls. 

He could simply sit there, let you wallow in your misery alone. Sit and stare as the artwork finally serves its purpose to the visitors of the gallery. Maybe jot down some commentary on how with your bones all spread out like this, the point the artist was attempting to make becomes oh so clear. 

And yet, he doesn’t. 

You know it’s his arms that are wrapping around you, pulling you from the chill of the tub and into the warmth of his chest.  And you let yourself smother within the fabric of his shirt the same exact way in which you’ve convinced yourself you smother everyone around you, let yourself breathe in drugstore cologne and his last cigarette rather than think about all the thoughts that had been spiraling you into dismay over the last twenty four hours – over the last twenty four years. 

He’d probably been smoking while waiting on your call tonight. Probably riddled with anxiety, if the shake of his hands pressing into your back are anything to go off of. An anxiety and waiting game that wouldn’t have to exist if you didn’t exist.

The thought makes you cry harder. 

If a ghost dies, can it even still return back as itself? Can it still find it within itself to haunt empty hallways, and watch the ones it once loved find peace?

“You’re not useless,” it sounds as though Eddie might be crying as well, if not just a little choked up, “You’re not- I swear- You’re not useless, okay? Never have been, never will be.”

His murmured words are nice, but they fuel an unimaginable guilt. It was supposed to be a nice night. A night of movie marathons and midnight coffee, of trying to remind yourself why you still stick around. A moment of incomparable joy and sweet reprieve as your stomach ached from laughter, your cheeks swelling with an infallible grin that Eddie always seems to pull out of you.

There’s no smiling, no giggling, right now. Just his favorite band shirt from the show you two had attended a few years before, soaking with a fast-growing stain from all your tears. 

When you don’t answer him, only manage to wrap your selfish arms around his waist, he continues, “How long have you felt this way, sweetheart?”

And if you hadn’t already been shattered previously, that would have finally broken you. 

You can’t pinpoint when it started. You can’t clear the smoke of memories and find an exact moment that you can point to and say, there. That’s where the hurt starts — that’s where the rot starts. 

“I don’t know.”

In your mind, it’s a wail. Loud and ferocious, efforts of all it has taken to withstand the pressure of your undoing screamed out loud. 

But on this quiet bathroom floor, it can’t even be considered a whisper. Nothing more than the spoken words lingering from a ghost who can’t give up the haunt. An echo of a memory, an echo of the piece in you that can’t let go, not yet.

Not of existing, and not of him. Your fists hold him so firmly against you, you’re scared that you’re going to bruise him. Hurt him just from the sheer effort of trying to show that you love him. 

The only way you know how to love – a violent dog who will always bite the kindest hands. Leaving behind bloodied knuckles even if you hadn’t so much as snipped this time. 

You take a sharp breath, aware of the levity of the words you’re about to say, “I don’t want to exist anymore, but I wouldn’t even make it off the bridge if I tried.”

It’s not about the bridge anymore. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t be the bridge you turn to. There’s a grand metaphor somewhere in the admittance, but your mind is just too tired to try and paint a prettier picture of it for him. 

Because exist is just a placeholder. And there’s a bigger, scarier word that should stand in its place. 

He starts to break the hold, and you nearly sob out again just at that. Losing the warmth of his chest and arms strike pain somewhere deep within you, just north of the pit that’s devoured all that’s left of you. 

“Bridge?” Phrased as a clarifying question, but when you see his face, it’s clear he knows. There are no good words left to say about it, “Sweetheart, no.”

There are worse reactions to be had. More scenarios that end in slamming doors or deafening silent treatments. Realizations that you’re right and it’s not worth it – defense mechanisms that involve them leaving first. 

“I couldn’t do it, even if I want-” 

Even if I wanted to. The words you can’t speak, dying on your tongue. 

Do you want to? Where does the pain begin? And where could it end?

“You really don’t see it, do you?” he laughs humorlessly, his hands still gripping your biceps in a death hold, “You… you just…” 

He doesn’t know what to say, and you don’t blame him. You knew this was heavy; you knew this isn’t the type of bomb to drop on someone you love. 

But if you didn’t, where would the bomb have gone? You’re not equipped to detonate it. You’re not equipped to survive the explosion. You wouldn’t want to survive that explosion. 

“I’m sorry,” your words pour out, beginning to shake beneath his palms, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

Dry, cracked lips feel as though they nearly split from the apologies. More violence, more devastation, more of what you always knew you were. You can see it in his eyes – you’re dragging him down with you, right down to the bottom of the ocean. You’re being an anchor. 

He’s all stutters and harsh breaths, panic filling the space with your own as his eyes search yours, “Don’t apologize. You don’t have to apologize. Just-”

He cuts off and is pulling you close again. Slamming your bones into his, wrapping up around you as if he might be able to keep you safe from the world. From your own mind. 

“I don’t need apologies,” another squeeze of your closer to him, another attempt to pull you away from the dangers that lie within, “I don’t- I just… Can I help? How do I make it better? Just say the word. I’ll do it.” 

It’s not your job. That’s not your job. 

You don’t realize you’ve said the words out loud until he’s squeezing you so tightly that you now can’t breathe. Until all you are is him. All his old t-shirts he’s lent to you that hang in your closet, all the nights spent with tangled legs as you sit across from each other on your couch, all the phone calls in which he refused to be the first one to hang up. Cologne that is too cheap to be able to cling so ferociously as it does to all your surroundings, chain-smoked cigarettes you always chastise him for because they’re gonna kill you one day, the smoke of his latest blunt resting in an ashtray as his head finds home in your lap. 

All the inside jokes. All the hugs. All the simple texts, if for nothing more than to just check in on each other. The broken reminders of having someone out there that cares. That loves you. 

How can such rotten hands pull such love from others? How have you yet to infect him? 

“I know it’s not my job,” he finally says, and you know for a fact he’s crying along with you before the first of his tears have wet the crown of your head, “It’s never been a job. You’re not a job. Okay? Get that through your head. There’s- Fuck, there’s plenty of things I wanna drill in that pretty little head of yours right now, but I know I can’t, so just get that.”

He’s trying. A little trill of his tongue that falls a bit flat when he refers to your pretty little head, a brief squeeze of your shoulders as he tries to relax a little. He wants to make you feel better. He wants to make it better. 

But he’s still holding you like he’s terrified. You did that – you instilled that fear. 

“I’m a mess,” you whisper in bitter realization, ash on your tongue as you process what you’ve done. You’ve already apologized, but you’re seconds away from doing so again, “I’m- I’m a mess, and I’m dragging you into it, and I’m sor-”

“Stop being sorry.” Definitive words, no room for argument. The smallest of shifts as things click into place. He isn’t budging – he isn’t letting go, “Do you remember when I first met you?” 

You can’t tell if the question is meant to have a point, or if it’s meant to be a distraction. You let it grow into the latter.

“Yeah,” you breathe out against him, melting into his chest, trying to focus on his voice rather than the ones in your head, “But tell me about it anyway?” 

“Two years ago. Technically, two years and seven months,” he starts in the same voice he used to take on during Hellfire sessions, before the members had scattered from coast to coast and his D&D club only became a rarity when the stars aligned. There’s still a crack to his voice from his tears, but that doesn’t stop him, “We were in some cursed fucking diner we don’t even go to anymore, in the dead of the night, and all the servers knew your name and order,” he paints the picture with a humor that should feel out of place, but it settles some of your breathing. Omitting all the vivid details, opting for triggering the memory with words you’d just get. You can feel the stick of the plastic beneath your thighs, you can smell the grease of the kitchen. You can see the cloudy night out of the oversized windows. He’s a natural born storyteller in the most subtle of ways, always knowing his audience, “You were sitting all alone in that booth, and all of Hellfire had just left. Gareth had just told us how he was going to college in California – did you know that?” 

“I didn’t.” 

“Well, he did,” his chin presses against the top of your head, a huff of a laugh escaping him, “Dropped the bomb it was our last summer as a club probably. We were happy for him, though. Real fucking happy. Got milkshakes to celebrate and made plans to get drunk off our asses the next night to keep the party going. It was dumb, and I’m getting off track, but…” 

Baited breath, you’re waiting for him to continue. No thoughts of the bridge. No thoughts of your failures. Living in a small memory with him on the floor of your bathroom. 

“Anyways, you were sitting there all alone, with a plate of fries and ranch.” 

“Oh, God,” your nose scrunches and you try to pull away, suddenly remembering how embarrassing this memory ends for you. It suddenly didn’t seem like the best way for him to make you feel better by any means, “No, I remember how this story ends, and-”

“I’m not done,” he locks his arms around you, and you can feel the whisper of a smile as it brushes against your temple, “Obviously you know where I’m going with this, but I’m not done, sweetheart. Because all the other guys had just left, and I’m sitting there, realizing the only other customer was some random person over across the diner, scribbling away in some notebook. Thought you looked cute when you were all focused like that, y’know? But then you were so focused that it became distracted, and you spilled that ranch all over yours-” 

“Please, stop.”

You’re laughing through the words, weakly, the air of desperation in the word please being far different from earlier in the night. No bridges, no failures. 

“I was probably being a weirdo, trying to run over and help you or whatever the fuck I was trying to do. I probably made it worse, right?” 

You’re there, remembering a version of Eddie that was a stranger, taking napkins to the knees of your jeans and smearing the ranch rather than really helping you clean it up. “Yeah, just a little bit.” 

“Sorry for that, by the way,” he airily apologizes before continuing, “But I just remember thinking about how focused you were on that notebook. And how you laughed with the waiter. And how you were just… lost in your own little world. And how you were so cute. You were so nice. The type of person I wanted in my life. Took one look at you with that ranch all over your lap and thought, huh. I want to get to know that person.” 

“Nice? I was not nice, I was-” you cut off, heart all but stopping as you recognize the point of it all. It wasn’t meant to just be a distraction. He was making a point. “I was a… a mess that day.” 

“Exactly.”

He pulls away again, and this time, it’s a little easier. The world has put a pause on its ending and you can handle the weight of his arms lightening for a few seconds, just so he can get a good look at your face. 

“You were a mess the day that I met you, and I still wanted you in my life,” he says each word deliberately, not breaking eye contact. Fear has broken through to determination. “And even if you’re still a mess today, I still want you. Nothing changes. You get that?” 

No bridges.

No failures.

The weight of it all had been heavy. The type of sorrow you thought was never meant to be carried by more than your own two hands. But he had taken it in his palms, lifted it from you entirely, even if it would only be temporary. One day you’d have to endure the pain again, get to the root of the problem. Figure out if all your ailments had been something wired into you since birth, or things you’d picked up along your way. But for now, you could breathe again. You could hear the drumming of your heart in your ears, and you could hear every single one of both yours and Eddie’s breaths in the silence, and that was enough. 

“I don’t want to die,” you finally quietly admit. Saying one of the bigger, scarier words. The thing you’d been too afraid to let slip off your tongue originally. “I just- sometimes it all gets a bit loud, you know? And I know you said don’t apologize, but I am sorry that I scared you. And I’m sorry that you have to take the bad to also get that little bit of the good with me.” 

His hand leaves one of your arms for the first time since he’d first wrapped you up, and it finds its way to cradle the side of your head. Holding you as if you’re porcelain still. You know that won’t go away, not tonight. “I’d rather have your bad days than have nothing at all,” he chokes up once more, and you can see tears threatening to welt in his eyes, “You get that, too. Alright? You’re worth it. Bad, good, funny, sad – give it to me. I’m asking for it. Just don’t… don’t leave me with the nothing.”

You’re worth it. 

He’s found a worth in you attached to nothing at all. He’s sitting here with you, on the bathroom floor, and his perception of you has nothing to do with what you can only offer. 

It just has to do with you. He sees you, and he’s decided you’re worth it. Even now.

He smiles softly, as if he can see the realization dawning upon you, “You wanna get up off the floor now? We can go sit on your couch or bed or something.” 

You’re quick to shake your head. Your knees are partially digging into his thighs, your breaths are matching his. 

“Okay,” his face falls slightly, but not entirely. Not entirely, “That’s okay. Do you want me…. Do you want me to go?” 

Another shake of your head. But this time, you need to offer more than just the motion of your head, especially when you can feel tears returning as your throat tightens up, “No. No, just- Stay with me? Please?” 

Your hands reach out without you even processing it, gripping his wrists, desperate and clinging and still verging on the edge of violent. The thought of being alone is terrifying, but the thought of having to watch him walk out of this room is even more petrifying. 

He doesn’t even flinch as you sink your claws in. His smile only returns, and he shuffles to pull you both to hold your backs up against the wall across from the toilet, “Of course. I’ll stay, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere – wouldn’t even dream of it.” 

His words shake just a little less than they had when he’d first entered the room. 

He can’t fix it all magically. That isn’t his job, isn’t his role, isn’t his choice. But he can sit here with you, on the floor of the bathroom, endlessly patient and tragically caring as he urges you to lay down. He stretches his legs out and pats his lap once before hovering his hands over your shoulder, guiding you until your temple is flush with his thigh. 

He can choose to not hesitate as his fingers immediately push through the baby hairs by your temple, a soft hum in the back of his throat that sounds exactly as you feel.

Hesitantly content. Just for now. It’s enough. 

The storm is receding. As hours pass by, and noises of uncertainty become more confident hums of a song you faintly recognize, it all settles. He stays. You stay. The storm passes for the time being, and the hole tempers itself for just the night. 

It’s enough for now. You’ll worry more tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. You’ll talk more about why you feel this way, and he’ll offer better solutions. The weight won’t simply be passed into his waiting hands and forgotten – one day, you’ll find a way to lighten it through dissipation rather than through catastrophe. 

One day, the seas will calm, and you’ll find yourself the ship rather than the anchor. 

And the captain can be the boy who sits on the floor with you through the sadness, content to wait out the storms with you until you find the worth he sees in you.

[zloveon]

>,I Left You With One Singular Rule, Dean,<

Word Count: 1.3k

Genre: Fluff(?) Gn!Angel!Reader

Pairings: Angel!Reader x Castiel if you squint, Angel!Reader x Dean Winchester, Destiel if you sauint, and Angel!Reader x Destiel if you squint

Content Warnings: Mentions of sex, kissing, cursing, ideation of corruption, etc. 

A/N: My first independent idea turned into a fic!! I really hope you guys enjoy!! I really had fun writing this one. 

Taglist: @ohsc @ryvkkr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The fall had been hard. For every angel, but especially for those who hadn’t been on Earth prior. Especially for Castiel’s new protégé— of sorts. They didn’t understand human emotions, nor did they understand human normalities. Like knocking, for example. 

     Which is how they ended up in the situation they were currently in— standing to the side of the room as Dean rushed his most recent affair partner out of the bathroom with assurance that she would see him again. She wouldn’t. He looked disheveled, given he had to quickly put on his boxers and deny himself an orgasm. For a damn angel. Not even his angel— just one that his angel decided to take under his wing. An angel who didn’t even understand that Dean was trying to have sex. “Don’t judge me,” he rasped, running a hand through his already ruffled hair.

     “What would make you believe I am?” The angel asked, tilting their head to the side. “I am not aware of any reason I should be.” They continued, their eyebrows pulling together in confusion. 

      “That’s cute,” Dean said, chuckling to himself for a moment. Though, from the other’s silence— he paused and turned back towards them. “You’re.. serious? You don’t know what the midnight tango is?”

     “You were.. dancing?” They repeated, now just all the more confused. They were sure that Dean had been in the shower with the woman. “You are able to dance in such a small shower?” 

     “We were shagging— or, trying to.” Dean said, trying his best to avoid being too vulgar. Not because it bothered him, but rather because he didn’t want to be on the tail end of a lecture from Castiel when they went and asked him questions. 

     “How were you doing two different dances at once, Dean? You cannot shag in a shower that small.” They said, fully unaware of the vulgarity of the sentence they just said. “Being on earth and.. knowing you has made me aware of why my Father was so worried leaving your kind alone. You are all rather odd, and slow.” 

     “Yeah, alright.” Dean muttered. Cause he’s the slow one, right? “Look, sweetheart, I’m not sure how to explain this to you without Cas all up my ass.” 

     “Castiel? Why would he be inside of your..” the angel started, her brows furrowing as she was veryquickly cut off. 

     “I didn’t mean— it’s a phrase, alright?” He groaned, running his hand down his face annoyedly. “Do you seriously not know what we were doing?” 

     “You certainly weren’t dancing.” They responded, a small grin curling up onto their lips in self-satisfaction. She didn’t quite understand her own grin— she wasn’t supposed to feel, yet here she was. Feeling emotions because of a Winchester.

     “Alright, I get it, sweetheart.” Dean said, a groan spilling his lips from the angel’s persistence. Though, he did find a grin of his own finding its way onto his face— which made theirs fall. They knew that look on his face meant no good for them. “If you hadn’t walked in, I would’ve gotten past third base.” 

     “You cannot play baseball in the shower, Dean.” The angel started, only to be very quickly cut off by the man standing in front of them. 

     “It’s a euphemism.” He finally gave up, running a hand through his wet hair and squeezing it onto the towel at his feet in an attempt to stop the water dripping down his body. 

     “Why would your words have been too offensive to say outright?” They asked, their head falling right back into that same tilted position. The one that Dean both loved and hated. He loved it because it made them look so innocent, but hated it because such innocence meant he could corrupt them. He wanted to. Hell, he craved to— but that would break the singular rule Castiel had left him with. He could nearly hear the words that the man had said to him echo throughout his mind: 

     “Protect them, Dean. They are here— and that weighs on my conscious every day. They was not meant for earth. Not this soon.” 

     “Cause you’ve never even kissed anyone, alright? How the hell do you expect me to tell you that you just cockblocked me when you’ve never even been kissed? And before you ever ask— cockblocking means you stopped me from getting laid. From having sex.” The man snapped, his voice admittedly holding too much hostility. Not at them, but rather at himself for thinking about them in ways he shouldn’t be. 

     “You’re acting as if my lack of experience in human.. preface to sexual intercourse is so horrible.” They scoffed, their face curling downwards into a frown with furrowed brows.

     “Kissing isn’t always—“ Dean sighed, cutting himself off to focus on something the other would understand more. “It is kinda bad, y’know. S’not like you’re actively serving Heaven. You did fall. Even Cas has gotten laid, sweetheart.” 

     “Why would you kiss one another for any reason other than.. sexual relations? You are aware of the.. spread of germs, yes? The risks?” The angel questioned, their cheeks scrunching their eyes in confusion. They truly didn’t understand humans, not yet. 

     “I’ll show ya,” the hunter started, leaning closer to them. So much so that it brought a heat to their cheeks that they couldn’t even begin to process. “You just can’t go running off and telling Cas, alright?” He grinned against the shell of their ear, finding himself unable to fight the urge to corrupt them now. 

     They couldn’t do anything more than nod, finding themselves held in place for once. Despite still having their grace, they had fallen— making them all the more susceptible emotions. To the feelings, even the ones intended for humans. As Dean’s calloused thumb met their cheek, their eyes darted up to meet his. His other hand cupped their jaw, tilting it further up to avoid leaning so far down. “Swear,” they gulped, their eyes searching his. The moment their lips crashed together, their eyes widened before fluttering shut. It felt nice, right, even. Heaven couldn’t punish them, considering they were locked out. 

     The angel’s arms almost naturally reached around Dean’s neck as one of his hands trailed down to her hip— squeezing it gently. Part of them debated that this was a piece of Heaven on earth. It surely felt like it. His lips quickly grew hungrier, considering what he had given up when they had walked in.  By the time he pulled away, the angel’s lips were red from Dean’s nipping kisses. Their lips remained parted momentarily as they allowed their eyes to flutter open. 

     “That’s why,” Dean rasped, his gaze meeting theirs . In response, they merely kissed him again and enjoyed as his hands wandered their body— Castiel remaining unnoticed as he came into the bathroom in search of the man. 

     “I believe I understand now,” they grinned as they pulled away— their face dropping as they saw the other angel’s face. He also hasn’t quite grasped the concept of knocking, and yet again— Dean was cockblocked by an angel. His angel. Well, now his other angel.

     “Dean.” Castiel said, his voice rough and demanding.  

     “She was being—“ The man started, trying to defend himself. Not to save his image, he knew l how damaged it already was. 

     “I left you with one singular rule.”

[simplyholl]

Punished

Summary: You're taught a lesson when you make President Loki jealous.

Pairing: President Loki x F. Reader

Warnings: Smut. 18+ ONLY. Minors DNI. Noncon. Death.

A/N: This is a really dark fic please skip if it’s not your thing.

See my Masterlist here

“Don’t act shy now, my pet.” President Loki smiles wickedly. Using his iron grip on your hair, he jerks your head toward the crowded room of other Loki variants and men who worked for the him. Your lack of clothes made you want to shrivel up and hide from the stares of the other men. “You weren’t ashamed when you were spreading your legs for him, were you?”

His disgust evident in his voice, he gestures to the one Loki that looks just like him, his hands tied behind his back and two men restraining him. You had met him when the other variants stumbled upon him, and brought him to the bunker to hide from Alioth. He was so different from President Loki. He was lonely, just like everyone who ended up in this god forsaken place.

President Loki was your protector. He kept you safe in exchange for sexual favors. But you belonged only to him. He made sure everyone knew it. He was cruel to you, using you mostly as a sex toy. Loki, on the other hand, would sneak food and any trinkets he thought you might like. You grew closer until it bubbled over one night. President Loki was furious with one of the other men. He stole a piece of bread out of the President’s stash. It wasn’t like President Loki needed it. He hoarded all the food and anything he deemed of value. He and his men ate like kings while the rest of you went hungry most of the time.

So he was only making a show of this poor man, who thought he had no other choice. And he didn’t, not really. If you crossed the President, you would most likely end up dead. While the others attended the public slaughter of the man, you and Loki stayed behind. You couldn’t watch another human lose his life, and Loki stayed behind to comfort you.

Emotions boiled over, and Loki made love to you. President Loki noticed that the two of you were missing, so he sent one of his lackeys to look for you. When the man found you, it was obvious what you had been doing. You were both naked, lying together on Loki’s cot. The man yelled for the others who came rushing in to gawk at you. You tried to cover yourself, but they grabbed you.

When President Loki saw you, he sent you to the dungeon area where he held prisoners. You didn’t know if it had been hours or a few days when someone came to get you. You were worried sick about Loki. You knew he was probably long dead by now or tortured almost to death. So, you were surprised when you were brought out in front of the others and there Loki stood, seemingly unharmed. "Why did you sleep with him when you belong to me?" The President asks as soon as you enter the room. "I love him." You lower your head, scared of what he will do to you. "Love? You would die for love?" He asks, gesturing for his men to bring you closer.

President Loki sat on his throne, pants down low enough for his cock to be on display. You were forced to your knees in front of him. "I will decide your fate later, you will receive your first punishment now." His hand collects your hair in a makeshift ponytail, bringing your face down toward him. You try to ease him in, jaw stretching to accommodate him. He doesn’t let you adjust; he thrusts forward hitting the back of your throat. You gag around him, a moan escaping his lips as he fucks your mouth. Tears stream down your cheeks, falling onto his thighs and green pants.

He laughs cruelly above you, loving your punishment. He keeps a steady rhythm, while you try to slacken your jaw and just take it. Finally, he pulls you off him, only to place you in his lap. Your back is against his chest as he lowers you onto him. His henchmen hold Loki's head forcing him to watch. Your breasts bounce as President Loki, slams you on his cock. You wait for the stinging to subside, but it doesn't.

You can't get wet like this; all his men's greedy eyes are on your trembling body, your lover watching as you have sex with your cruel master. The President knows your body by now, he's had you long enough. His thumb rolls over your clit, and your body starts to betray you. Arousal soaks his cock, his thumb moves faster and the moan that escapes you sounds foreign. "That's it, my little slut loves being punished in front of everyone. Doesn't she?"

You don't answer, ashamed that you are starting to enjoy it. A few seconds pass, when he realizes that you aren't going to respond, his hand leaves your hip to grip your chin. He jerks your face toward him, your eyes meeting his cold blue stare. "I will not repeat myself." He releases your face, now tingling where his fingers were. "Yes, I love it!" You answer as he sets a more brutal pace.

"Good girl" His fingers grip your hip harder. "Now look at him and tell him how much better I am, how you could only be satisfied by me alone." A tear slips down your cheek when you see Loki, looking defeated, his eyes on you. "I-" You start, throat constricting from holding back your sobs. "If you want to save his pathetic life, you will tell him." President Loki sneers, rough thumb swirling against you.

"You could never make me feel like this." Tears stream down your face onto your chest. President Loki waits for you to speak again. "I'll only want President Loki for the rest of my life. What we did was a mistake. You could never compare to him." You sob as the lies leave your lips.

President Loki bites your neck, thrusting upward and fingers dragging over your clit. He spills inside you, causing your orgasm to hit you out of nowhere, body shaking against him. When the last waves of pleasure subside, he leans forward, arms wrapping around you. "Tell him you don't love him. I better believe it." He commands. You didn't think you would ever stop crying.

You look at Loki, his eyes shining with tears he hadn't shed. You take a deep breath, using every ounce of courage you have to do what you have to. "I don't love you. I could never love you." You say so clearly, you shock yourself. A single tear flows across Loki's chiseled jaw. You can tell by the look he gives you; he forgives you. You had to do it. President Loki smiles, "Prepare him for public execution immediately. Chain her up, so she has to watch." "NO!" You cry, as he knocks you off his lap to the floor. "Let this be a lesson to all, never touch what belongs to me."

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[safarigirlsp]

The Lovely Things I'll Show You

Flip Zimmerman x Siren

Word Count: 16.6k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Angst, maybe? Lots of Violence. Violence Against Women. Violence Against Men. Rage. Revenge. Drowning. This isn't dark by my personal standards, but it's fairly dark by fic standards, so be warned.

This is from Flip's POV, so there's no X Reader language. However, I left the Siren pretty vague and I think she can be read as a reader insert. At least by readers with enough imagination to assume they have a tail etc xD. Also, I don't consider this as 'Dark' Flip, but some people probably will, so consider that an additional warning.

Inspired by Lighthouse by Halsey Based on a request I butchered from @cas-backwards-tie

AO3 Link

Eastport, Maine, perched on the Northeastern most tip of the state like a mole on the end of a witch’s nose, was about as far away from the rest of the country as a man could get. Alaska might be further, but the strange daylight and dark hours that changed with the seasons wouldn’t do a damn bit of good for the mental state of a man already on the brink. On the brink of what exactly, Flip couldn’t really say and he wouldn’t hazard a guess. Things like that should be left to professionals high above his pay grade. Professionals Flip wouldn’t denigrate himself to consult.

Talkin’ about a man’s problems is for pussies and whiners, Flip would say. To his own reflection in his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink, wiping the sweat from his brow after waking from another recurring nightmare. A shrink is a poor substitute for a cold beer and beatin’ the hell out of a punching bag.

That was back in Colorado Springs, back during the aftermath of the Pigman killings. Sure, Flip had solved the case, shot dead the bastard dubbed Pigman for his penchant for frying strips of his victims up like bacon. Flip resented it in ways deeper than he could ever express to a shrink, how that sorry bastard had ruined the taste of bacon for him. One of his favorite guilty pleasures was his heart attack special – a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and waffles, all slathered in genuine Vermont maple syrup. Flip hoped that pleasure would return to him. After he was able to purge his memory of the smell of human ‘bacon,’ harvested from plump victims, sizzling in a cast iron frying pan, human fat popping up from the pan and burning his hand as he crept past with his gun held at the ready. Firing a bullet into the Pigman’s head was a relief, something he deserved for ruining the taste of bacon for Flip, in addition to his other gruesome atrocities.

Focusing on bacon as the greatest tragedy helped Flip mitigate in his mind what had happened to his partner. Flip had taken that memory, crumpled it into the smallest ball of pain he could, and shoved it down inside his mind, into the darkest, deepest recess. He understood now the meaning of that shrink term ‘unpacking.’ Well, he had no fuckin’ intention of ever unpacking that memory again, or those emotions. There was nothing equal to finding a partner dead and half butchered like a prize hog. Nothing in a shrink’s handbook to undo the damage caused by the smell of bacon frying in a cast iron pan. Thick cut bacon, freshly cut from his partner’s flanks.

These days, that memory was left buried in Flip’s subconscious, coming to him in sweaty, pulse-thundering dreams. Flip was a mentally tough man, highly disciplined. He could keep that terrible beast caged. But everything about the Colorado Springs police station reminded him of his partner, a constant kick in the guts that made it impossible to truly repress. Even his favorite restaurants and bars, his own house for fucks’ sake. All of it was now full to bursting with painful associations. This pain came out as anger, which was really the best and healthiest reaction in Flip’s arsenal. It beat taking up drugs, drinking even more, or putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Before he lost it on some poor bastard who cut him off in traffic or an asshole who pinched a waitress’s ass in front of him, Flip decided a change of scenery was just what the doctor ordered. He wanted to get as far from anything familiar to him as possible. When he came into work one morning and saw a newspaper clipping advertising a small town in Maine was looking for a new sheriff, Flip didn’t think twice about where it may have come from. He didn’t give a damn.

After a long weekend trip to Eastport, Maine that served as reconnaissance, Flip found a nice cabin that suited him, far away from people, and even a friendly little mousy-haired schoolteacher who suited him too. Well enough for some entertainment, anyway. She had great tits and a face that gave Flip the impression she was the kind of girl who’d let a man do damn near whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, because she wasn’t overly burdened with beauty or brains and had the good sense to compensate in more tangible ways. He took her out for coffee and a stroll around the small, quaint town, having her show him what passed for the sights. Afterwards, she was very friendly and rewarded him handsomely and enthusiastically for her mocha latte in the backseat of her car.

Come Monday, Flip accepted the sheriff gig for a surprisingly good salary and made a deal on the cabin for a steal. Both for the same reason – the market was thin pickin’s for successful men with Flip’s level of skill, who were willing to move to a town of fifteen hundred people with a higher population of sasquatch than eligible singles. Eastport was a nice little town, what there was of it. Picturesque in that quaint, rural way that looked great on a postcard but didn’t hold one’s interest for long.

Three months in, and Flip loved it. The work was easy. He hadn’t had to use his brain on a crime since he left Colorado Springs, and the most stress he had was searching for a dumb kid who had gotten lost in the woods and escorting the little shit back to his mom. He’d only had to fire his piece once to scare off a bear that was rummaging through the sheriff department trash. Most of the ‘crime’ he’d been prepped for consisted of vandalism, DWI’s, animal attacks, domestic violence, and bar fights. Flip had already dealt with a few bar fights, about one a weekend. He loved that part of the job. It gave him an excuse to take out some aggression on some wannabe tough guys who could handle it, and who wouldn’t be the wiser when they sobered up as to whether their fat lip or black eye came from the sheriff or the other guy. And the floozy schoolteacher named Cristy gave great head and made few demands, aside from dragging him to church a few times to keep airs that she wasn’t a loose woman. That was a royal pain in the ass, but he could endure it.

He loved the pace and the seclusion. He was damned sick of cities bustling like ants, air that smelled like grime. Colorado Springs had that big city grime along with big city crime, and the punks and gangbangers that came with it. It was nice to have the freedom of driving less than thirty minutes from town and being out in the middle of nowhere. Forest or coast, he could take his pick. He could go whale watching or moose hunting; hiking or fishing; watch the golden sunrise at a local coffee shop and watch it set fiery orange over the ocean while having a juicy ribeye, a fat lobster tail, and a cold beer. Eastport even had a barber shop with the red and white striped pole out front, where a man could get a haircut and a shave with a straight razor and not listen to women chatter about the latest Cosmopolitan article on how to please a man or what celebrity got which body parts inflated.

Six months in, and Flip was beginning to hate it. The easy work had grown dull. There wasn’t a goddamn thing that got his heart rate up anymore – fucking aside, anyway – and he hadn’t had a good adrenaline rush since he’d been woken up in the middle of the night by a bobcat in heat screeching on his back porch, sounding like some banshee straight outta hell. Even that little excitement had been weeks ago. The schoolteacher had grown as dull and uninteresting as a blowup doll, with a comparable IQ and conversational skills. It gave him more reason to keep her mouth occupied with other activities or her face shoved into the mattress, but that brand of enjoyment was only good for so long. Then she wanted to talk, always about the most mundane gossip and dumbest shit imaginable. Flip asked her once if she wanted to read a book with him – some adventure thing he’d picked at random in a used bookstore, packed with plenty of action for him and shirtless strapping men he thought she’d enjoy too. She looked at him with a bovine sort of vacancy in her mossy eyes – an association that had become hard for him to ignore – and asked, “Read? You mean like a magazine or a newspaper?”

The seclusion was turning to cabin fever, the endless wilderness closing in on him like a noose. The bad accents of the locals were as grating as a migraine, and the smell of fish and ocean pervaded every fuckin’ piece of his clothing, strong enough that it vied with cigarette smoke for his signature scent. Going to the five restaurants and three bars in town, having the same thing on the menu over and over had gotten old as hell. There wasn’t even a movie theater within an hour’s drive, only an old drive-in that was only open during the four months a year a man wouldn’t get frostbite on his dick trying to enjoy a movie from the bed of his truck with his girl in the old-fashioned way. The seclusion and boredom had been good for one thing. Flip had lifted weights and run himself into the best shape of his life. His arms bulged, his chest strained his shirt buttons, and both his cardio and timing on a speed bag were better than they had been during his tour in the Marines.

The teacher must have gotten bored with Flip too, because he stopped by her house a little early one Friday night to surprise her with a bottle of cheap wine and a chick flick, only to find her banging some pencil-dick science teacher he recognized as a specimen she had made assurances was just a friend. A married man too, aptly named Less, the piece of dogshit. Flip wanted to knock the bastard into next week, but he was truly concerned he might get a murder charge if the limp-wristed yuppie couldn’t take one of his punches. Actually, fuck the man. Flip wanted to knock that cheating slut around. He’d never hit a woman before, but if anyone deserved it, it was a fucking cheat. Dull and plain as she was, and despite ample opportunity, Flip had never cheated on the little skank.

The icing on the cake was when the murders started. Flip had come to this backwoods hellhole to get away from murders. It seems crime missed him and had followed him across the map. The first body washed up on the shore in a bucolic cove. It was a place Flip had found early on and driven to several times to have a beer and watch the sunset. Tall rocky cliffs populated with pine trees surrounded the ocean, and the waves crashed against the rocks with a thunderous susurrus. Those dense pine softened the light at dawn and dusk, bending into luscious pinks and oranges, and the water gleamed a vibrant sapphire. It was a scene straight off a postcard.

The bloated corpse lying on the beach slightly hampered that postcard beauty. Standing over the corpse in the sand, Flip guessed by the clammy pallor of the gelatinous skin and the damp putrid smell the man had been dead a week or so. Flip’s deputy, an older man with greying hair straight out of Mayberry, gave Flip his opinion that the man had fallen from the cliffs and drowned, or had been boating and drowned, or some other kind of accident that led to drowning. An accident that didn’t necessitate police involvement or investigation. The deputy had been there forever, and had turned down the sheriff’s position twice to avoid the added responsibility. The pattern was easy to see. As were the strange marks on the dead man’s neck and shoulders. The marks were faint, a little difficult to make out for an untrained eye, especially on the bloated, damp, decaying skin. They looked like something between hickies and strangulation bruises.

With a shrug, the deputy mentioned to Flip that accidents like this happened a couple times a year. Flip took the initiative to research exactly what that meant and how many similar accidents like this had occurred.

“Fuck me,” Flip muttered profoundly.

Based on his first cursory examination of the half-assed reports the Eastport Sheriff’s Department generated and the even worse records it maintained, he counted around fifty accidental deaths in that cove going back until World War II. He suspected there were many accidents the police didn’t deem worth documenting in their records.

“Accidents my dyin’ ass.” Flip swiped a hand over his face.

So much for a quiet change of pace.

*******************************************************************************************

The bodies had all been found washed up on the rocky beach of the cloistered cove. There wasn’t much of a beach, just the rocky bottom of cliffs that the waves crashed against. Flip thought it might be public land or even park land because it was pretty enough that some rich recluse should have bought it up years ago if the government hadn’t claimed it. He was surprised to find the entire cove and a couple hundred surrounding acres had been in one family for well over a century. The entire property was dubbed ‘Thundercliffs,” a term he guessed was coined from the sound the waves made crashing against the cliffs. The old house wasn’t abandoned in the technical sense, not in the way the townsfolk believed. A quick search at the County Clerk revealed it was owned by a trust along with the sizable acreage it sat on and a host of other assets. The sole beneficiaries of the trust were a pair of siblings by the names of Hortence Desdemona and Beauregard Mountbatten III.

“This is gonna go well,” Flip grumbled as he wrote the names and address into the small notebook he kept in his pocket.

The address listed in Port Clyde was easy to find, and even offered a nice drive down the coast. It led him to a quaint cottage in town overlooking a harbor abuzz with working fisherman hauling in nets of fish and cages of lobster. He pulled his truck in behind the only car in the driveway, one of those old station wagons with the wood side panels. Several potted plants taller than Flip lounged on the porch and in the windows there were crystals and weird looking wicker crafts shaped like moons and stars. An old German shepherd was curled up by the door, his muzzle more white than black. He lifted his head to appraise Flip, but decided he wasn’t worth getting up over, and settled for watching him warily. The scent of incense or maybe fancy candles seeped onto the porch from inside. As he rapped his knuckles on the door Flip hoped that froufrou smell wouldn’t stick to his clothes and stink up the inside of his truck on his drive home.

A dumpy eccentric woman answered. She inhaled sharply at the sight of the handsome stranger, instantly flustered, and set about smoothing her rumpled outfit and bushy curly hair. She was dressed somewhere between a seventies hippie and a new age wannabe witch. Flip didn’t really understand the difference, but there were lots of colors and flappy material to her getup, stacked jingling bracelets, and multiple rings on every finger.

“Hi, ummm, can I help you?” the woman stammered. It had probably been a while since she’d talked to a man.

“Is Hortence or Beauregard available?” Flip asked in an authoritative tone.

“Why on earth would you want to see them?” She bristled and folded her arms over her chest.

Clearly, he had taken the wrong approach. The woman was of indeterminate age. She could have been a good-looking sixty or a rode-hard forty. He figured either way, she probably wasn’t dried up enough to be immune to masculine attention. Leaning against the doorframe and towering over her, he turned on the charm.

“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to come off rude.” He flashed his handsomest smile and ran his hand through his thick cowlick. “I’ve been put in the position of looking into some abandoned property that may be part of a trust of which they’re the sole beneficiaries. I just want to make sure all the property they’re rightfully entitled to gets to them.”

“Property where?” the woman stiffened even more, a rare response to Flip’s moves.

“I can only discuss that with the beneficiaries, I’m afraid.” He looked over the woman’s head, starting to suspect something was off. The cluttered inside of the house looked more like a fortune teller’s parlor than the residence of wealthy siblings. “Are you a relative?”

“I’m May,” she snorted in what passed for a laugh. “You could say I’m their stepmother.” She flapped her arms in a kind of shrug. “If you want to meet Hortence and Beauregard, follow me.” She turned and snorted again. “You can ask them anything you want.”

Flip passed overstuffed bookcases and curio cabinets filled with a myriad of trinkets into a sunny kitchen. The windowsill was littered with more witchy hippie looking things and a large plant with striped leaves dominated the center of a small dining table.

“Can I get you something to drink?” May asked as she started tapping a can on the counter.

“Coffee, if you have it. Thank you.” Flip watched her odd tapping with the can. “About the folks I’m here to see…”

“They’ll be along shortly.” She smiled and poured a mug of coffee from an existing brew in her coffee pot. “Give them a minute, they don’t move as fast as they used to.”

Flip still didn’t know what kind of eccentric he was dealing with here, but he decided to be careful not to leave any stray hairs around just in case. The last thing he needed was some broad crafting a voodoo doll of him or some shit and summoning him to her bedroom in the witching hour. He wondered if witches only used hair for those things, or if any kind of DNA would work. That unsettling thought made him eye the coffee mug suspiciously. An old police trick was to offer a suspect water, then keep the glass for DNA testing after the suspect leaves. DNA was discarded material then, free game to search without consent. He decided he didn’t need coffee that badly after all and set the mug on the counter in the same motion that he leaned his hip against it.

A fat black cat waddled into the kitchen, greeting him with a trilled meow, looking up at him expectantly with rich green eyes. The cat jumped up onto one of the chairs at the dining table, then up onto the tabletop, where it sat politely. Another deeper meow heralded the arrival of a second cat, bigger and even fatter, with a bright orange striped coat, a white patch on its chest, a white tipped tail, and bright amber eyes that matched Flip’s.

May smiled at them and said to Flip, “Let me introduce you to Hortence,” she pointed at the black cat, then moved her finger toward the orange tabby. “And Beauregard.” She emptied the can of cat food onto a saucer and used a fork to separate the contents. “Ask away.”

Flip rubbed the scruff on his jaw, watching as the woman placed the saucer on the table. Hortence began eating while Beauregard hefted his bulk up onto the chair then the table beside her.

“Cat got your tongue?” May asked with a snort.

“They’re the beneficiaries of the Thundercliffs Trust?” Flip stroked the black cat.

“They sure are! Brother and sister. Twenty-two years young,” May beamed as if she were indeed talking about her children. “Their real mom died ten years ago, but they get their longevity from her. She lived until she was in shooting distance of one-hundred. She was an old maid like me, no human children. So, she left everything in a trust to her cats. I get a monthly wage as their caretaker, not that I wouldn’t do it for free. I used to help their mom with chores and errands. Part maid, part cook, part caretaker. She was more like my crazy aunt than anything though.”

“I see.” Flip smiled to buy time while his mind ran through any questions that might be useful. “The trust also owns an old house up in Eastport. Does that mean the cats own it?”

“I suppose it does,” May shrugged. “I left my law degree in my other pants, but I’m told we could all live in that big old mansion on the cliffs, the cats, and my dog, and I. But I don’t think I could spend a night in there and catch a wink of sleep. I used to clean it once a month, and I hated every second I spent inside it. Something’s just wrong in there. I couldn’t even get Elwood to go inside with me when he was young and reckless – you met him on the porch.”

“Why is that, do you think?” Flip asked. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on that house if you have time.”

“I have plenty of time, but those aren’t thoughts I like to spend my time on.” She smiled but her tone was firm. “I might look like a silly old woman to you, but I’m not that silly. Or naive. I know there’s nothing I could tell you about that house that you’d believe anyway. And I know it’s not smart to go telling a sheriff lots of outlandish things and making him think you’re crazy.”

“Sheriff?” Flip grinned a little bashfully. He didn’t know his jig was up when he knocked on the door.

“I could tell you I’m a psychic and see if I could get fifty bucks out of you for a tarot reading.” May winked. “Or maybe news just travels fast in small towns. Especially between women. And extra especially about the new hunk of meat with a silver star up north.”

He laughed because it beat acknowledging his status as a slab of meat. “I’d like to take a look inside that house on the cliff. Would you be willing to show me around? The sheriff’s department would compensate you at the same hourly rate you get from the trust.”

“No way in hell, sheriff,” she smiled sweetly. “Not for the money or that handsome smile. I haven’t been up there in years and I don’t intend to go back. Not ever. If Hortence and Beauregard could sign legal documents, I’d advise them to demolish that house and every other structure on the property, bulldoze it clean, and turn it into a landfill.”

“Hell of a thing to do to a place with such a great view,” Flip said.

“I see. You’ve already been out there poking around.” It wasn’t a question and she seemed sad about it. “It’s always the handsomest men around who are drawn to that place.”

“Well, it’s also my job.” Flip didn’t tell her that he had gone to those cliffs many times on his own before anything suspicious had happened or any bodies had washed up on shore. That he thought the cliffs with the tall pine trees overlooking the boisterous cove was the best place in town to have a beer and watch the sunset. He damn sure wouldn’t say he felt drawn there. But even if he did, it was just the view. A man had every right to appreciate a nice view.

May opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged around, finally retrieving a keyring with a single key on it. She tossed the key to Flip and smiled as he snatched it out of the air with ease.

“Here’s the key to that house. Take it. The honor system is still pretty big here in our small towns.” She smiled. “Besides, if you use it to do something stupid to that house or anything inside it, you’ll have bigger problems than me.” She snorted again. “Actually, I doubt I’ll have to deal with you anymore at all after that!”

“What worries you so much about that house?” Flip asked, shoving the key into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Nothing about that house doesn’t worry me.” May shook her head. “You might want to ask me about the property too, not just the house itself.”

“Alright.” Flip nodded. “Consider me asking.”

“Lots of deaths on that land over the years.” She shuddered slightly. “I imagine that’s why you’re here. One of the first deaths the paper covered was in the forties. A strapping man who’d just come back from the war drowned in that cove. Everyone thought it was so strange because he was in great shape, fresh out of the military. They suspected it must have been a suicide. He was the second man to drown in the cove that year. But if you ask me, or most locals, the very first death was actually just labeled a disappearance. The military man’s wife.” She waved at the cats. “Their mom’s great aunt. I guess that’d make her their great great aunt.” Another snort. “Rumor has it she ran off with some man or other she met while her husband was off at war, and her husband committed suicide when he got home and found out.” She paused and looked at Flip. “But there are always rumors about beautiful women, aren’t there? If a woman’s pretty enough, men will call her a slut regardless of how many of them she sleeps with. Or doesn’t. Come to think of it, the more men a woman rejects, the more likely they are to label her a slut because it makes them feel superior. I’ve seen it a dozen times and I’m sure you have too. A small man’s way to destroy a woman who’s out of his league.”

“And that woman lived in the house?” Flip clarified. “The pretty woman?”

“She wasn’t just pretty. Rumor has it she was drop dead gorgeous. Bewitchingly, enchantingly, dangerously beautiful. But yes, Hortence and Beauregard’s great great aunt.” She patted each cat in turn, eliciting happy purrs. They had plopped down on the dining table, listening to the conversation. “All this was told to me by their mother. I wasn’t there, of course. I wasn’t around at all for a few more decades.”

“I appreciate it.” Flip gave her a genuine smile. “The key and the information. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to anything you got secondhand.”

“There’s one fact that isn’t secondhand and you should give it some real weight, sheriff,” May said in the most serious tone she’d adopted so far. She was still stroking the orange cat. “Their mother owned that house for decades when she inherited it from her mother. It’s closer to a mansion than a house, and has that great view you mentioned. Still, she never lived one day in that house and she never sold it either. She didn’t want any living thing to live inside it. She rarely spoke of her great aunt, and when she did it was only to praise her beauty. I asked her more about her once and this is what she told me: ‘I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead, especially when the dead might still be listening. But I will say that since she was a young girl, my great aunt was blessed with beauty and cursed with rage.’”

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Flip stopped at a local bakery before leaving Port Clyde, letting all the new information settle in his mind. He had two slices of spectacular homemade blueberry pie, allowing himself to wander through this new world of information. It was a strange world for him, one with witches and ghosts and curses and haunted beaches. He didn’t believe any of that shit any more than he believed in Santa Claus, but it was an entertaining world to visit. Plus, it had a dangerously beautiful woman in it.

The drive back would take him around four hours. He’d be pulling into town just in time to catch the sunset. Picking up a cheeseburger and fries to go and a six pack on the drive sounded good. What sounded even better was eating his burger while watching the summer sun set over that gorgeous cove from high up on the rocky cliffs.

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Flip’s favorite spot was on the highest cliff at the head of the cove. There, a flat rock served as an ideal bench near the edge, offering the best view of the cove from beneath the shade of a tall pine. He sat and just admired the view, the greasy-bottomed bag containing his cheeseburger and fries sitting on the rock beside him. He felt like a gargoyle perched on the top of the tallest building in a city, overlooking his domain below.

The sky was molten gold and fiery orange as the sun dipped below the horizon. The surface of the ocean glittered golden too, like it was a sea of coins instead of water. The light in the pines took on a soft dreamlike haze and a light fog was building along the beach. Lower in elevation and about two-hundred yards away was the lonely old house, its four tall stories keeping watch over the cove. Flip looked at it now from his vantage, conscious of what his senses might tell him. He felt nothing ominous at all. If anything, he felt content, a sense of belonging. A feeling that he could be happy here for a very long time, that he could even stay here forever. With a jolt, he realized he had been leaning nearer to the edge while lost in thought.

Movement on the beach far below caught his eye. Staring intently, he quite literally couldn’t believe his eyes. A woman lay on the beach, stark naked, and writhing in pain. She was also thrashing what appeared to be a shimmering golden tail. He didn’t believe in ghosts or Santa Claus, and he wasn’t about to start believing in fuckin’ mermaids either. But that’s damn sure what she looked like. Flip rubbed his eyes and forced them to focus more clearly. No, that long golden tail was still there, glistening wet and whipping violently on the beach. He could even faintly hear the wet slaps of it on the sand, paired with an ethereal voice calling for help.

Flip launched off the rock and ran back through the trees toward the house. A trail took off from the house, navigating the treacherous cliffs down to the beach. It would be suicide to attempt a descent anywhere else. At the base of the cliff, he charged into a full sprint, pumping his arms and kicking up sand as he ran down the beach toward the woman. Her cries for help were louder now, so loud they seemed to echo inside his head. There was a lewdness to it, too. If Flip hadn’t seen her writhing in pain, he would have taken the sound for loud moans of ecstasy.

He vaulted over a boulder at the head of the cove and found her, only feet ahead of him. The woman was every bit as naked as he had thought, but it wasn’t a tail he had seen thrashing. From the waist down, she was tangled up in a tawny fishing net. Somehow, the sunset must have made it look golden. In his mind’s eye, he could picture a perfect tail, complete with fins and individual scales of gleaming gold, thrashing and slapping the sand. He didn’t know how the hell he had seen that from the tangled mess of rope binding the woman’s legs, but he didn’t need to think about that now.

Falling to his knees beside the woman, he spoke soothingly like he would to a frightened animal. “I’m here to help you. I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help you.” It required a herculean effort to keep his eyes from wandering over her magnificent heaving breasts. He cupped her cheek to stop her from thrashing in the net. The ropes were digging into her, leaving angry red burns across her skin. Her eyes were wild with fear like a fox caught in a snare, but also bright and fierce. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently, keeping his voice soothing, “Look at me. I’m going to help you. Be still.”

The woman’s eyes rolled to meet his, and it felt like they bore straight into his soul. His throat went dry and his hands felt weak. The sun had set now, leaving a lingering purple twilight. Her eyes were luminous in the lavender light, somehow catching the ambient glow and reflecting it back even stronger. A mane of glossy hair was spread across the sand beneath her, and the fading light danced on her skin like diamonds on silk. Her eyes were no longer frightened, but still wild. They drew him in. Without realizing it, Flip’s hand had slipped from her shoulder to skim down her side, coming to rest on her hip on the only free patch of skin between ropes.

Flip flinched at the realization, fumbling a broken, “I’m sorry.”

The woman said nothing, continuing to stare up at him. Her lips curled in a slight smile that may have been satisfaction. Or it may have been relief at finding a savior.

Flip felt a foreign compulsion. Something dark and sick. Something he would have beaten another man up for. He felt the almost irresistible urge to unzip his jeans and cage the woman beneath him. To use the ropes to his advantage, plunge into her and ravage her like an unhinged beast. It was a base impulse, something at home in a feral animal instead of a man. Flip had felt lust, and he had a bad habit of thinking with his cock, but he had never felt the drive to take what wasn’t offered willingly. He had never felt desire so aggressive and consuming.

“How long were you out here on the beach?” he asked to ground himself. He shook his head, berating himself internally, asking himself, What the fuck is wrong with you? He had seen plenty of naked women, beautiful women. Had plenty of them beneath him writhing in much more lascivious ways than this one. He wasn’t a blushin’ virgin and he goddamn sure wasn’t a fuckin’ pervert.

“I’ve always been here,” she said with a laugh on her voice, as harmonious as a sonata.

Looking away from her, he took a breath to purge the perversion from his mind and unbuttoned his shirt. He roughly shrugged out of it and draped it over the woman’s torso, covering the most enticing bits of her. He wanted to rip the ropes off her, but he forced himself to move slowly and untangle her with care.

“Are you hurt?” he asked when she was free of the net, forcing himself to look into her eyes and nowhere else.

“No,” she said in a serene voice with a sound as pleasant as windchimes. “What are you going to do to me?”

That odd, innocuously asked question flooded his mind with another violent rush of terrible, driving, impulses, alarmingly perverse. His jeans felt tight, and he felt disgusted with himself. He decided it was even worse looking into her eyes than it had been looking at her perfect naked figure. He fought the urge to tell her what he wanted to do – ravage her, and even more than that he wanted to take her home and keep her chained to his bed. All to himself. Forever. In a great effort to remain civilized, he gritted hoarsely, “I’m gonna get you off this beach and somewhere safe.”

Flip wrapped her in his shirt, lifted her into his arms, and pushed up to his feet. He cradled her gently in his arms as he carried her back down the beach. It was now nearly dark, but her eyes were still almost unnaturally bright as they watched him serenely. She should have smelled like the ocean, even salty or fishy, but she smelled sweeter than anything he had ever scented. He couldn’t place her scent, but it was like an amalgamation of everything that had ever enticed him, from the hottest woman to the sweetest honey to the most fragrant perfume. All those scents mingled harmoniously where they lived in her skin. She laid her head on his chest and made a sound in her throat like a purr. It shook Flip straight through to his bones.

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Flip carried her up the steep trail back up to the top of the cliffs. He carried her to his truck, parked near the trailhead. He wanted to take her to the hospital, have a doctor sign off that she was alright. But the strange woman protested, insisting it was too far and she was too cold. Flip hadn’t noticed her shivering before, but now she trembled in his arms, her body fluttering against his chest.

Instead, she asked him to take her into the old, abandoned house, assuring they could warm themselves inside. Though she had only asked and in the most melodious of tones, Flip found it was a command he couldn’t refuse. Still carrying her in his arms like a doting husband with an eager bride, he strode to the front door of the abandoned house. The door was a shade of purple-brown, like a fresh bruise, with a standoffish doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head with a heavy ring clenched between its teeth. Glaring at the beast, Flip kicked the door in.

Still holding the woman to his chest, Flip paused at the threshold, looking from one dark corner of the foyer to the other, prepared for anything, like an old west gunfighter entering a saloon. He felt immediately ridiculous. Those ghost stories and tall tales must have gotten to him more than he’d wanted to admit. There was nothing amiss inside, save for some dust and cobwebs. Moonlight filtered through the windows, making the dust he had disturbed look like mist wafting lightly on the air.

“Upstairs,” the woman said. “There’s less dust upstairs.

Flip didn’t care whether she was right and he didn’t ponder her statement. He attacked the stairs, taking them two at a time. The house was Victorian-styled, filled with tall ceilings, ornate details, and airy windows. A pair of double doors stood open at the end of the hallway on the third floor, beckoning him inside. Flip carried his prize through them and into a master suite, noticing at once it was surprisingly clean. Bay windows were ajar, open just enough to allow a crisp breeze tinged with pine and salt blow in from the cove. The light wind must have kept the dust and cobwebs at bay because the room looked and smelled pristine.

Flip tried not to focus on the large bed, almost as plush and inviting as the woman in his arms. He aimed for the bathroom, intending to fight her chill with warm water. She tugged on his collar, pulling her face near his ear and whispered, “You just pulled me out of the water. Don’t put me back in it yet.” Her breath was hot on his neck. “Take me to bed.”

“That’s not what you need,” Flip rasped, trying to deny the way his blood boiled and remain a gentleman while his cock throbbed.

“Isn’t it just like a man to tell me what I need?” she laughed, both husky and harmonious.

“You need warmed up, and a doctor, and probably a hot meal,” Flip told her as he walked to the bed. In one swift motion, he sat her down and peeled his own soaked shirt off her, trying not to look at the perfection that revealed. He pulled the quilt around her in a cocoon, both to warm her and keep her hidden from his view. He turned her brusquely around and laid down beside her, wrapping her cocooned figure inside his arms, hoping the thick quilt barrier between them would keep his arousal his own dirty little secret.

“Can you not think of a more effective approach to warm me up?” the woman lilted.

Inhaling her scent with his nose near the back of her neck, Flip thought he had never been so intoxicated by any substance. He cleared his throat. “I’m not very imaginative. Sorry to disappoint.”

“I have some ideas,” she teased. “Do you care to hear them?”

“Not unless you buy me dinner first, darlin,’” Flip gruffed. “I’m not that easy.”

“You can take whatever you want, you know,” she said in a sultry invitation.

“I don’t want to take anything from you,” his voice rumbled.

“That’s a lie and we both know it. I can feel how much you’re lying.” She wiggled her perfect ass against the ridge in his jeans. He only tightened his hold to still her, making no moves to relieve his own suffering. She stilled, and when she spoke again there was a sprinkling of admiration in her voice, “What a strange man you are.”

“Darlin,’ you have no idea,” Flip laughed, adjusting his large arms around her body. “You should see me cut loose on the weekends. I really live on the edge. I have pizza with pineapple and stay up past midnight to watch Twilight Zone reruns and everything.”

Flip held her tight and forced his eyes shut, trying to ignore the way the moonlight danced on her pristine skin and glossed her hair; the feel of her curves through the quilt, as apparent to him as a pea beneath a princess’s mattress; the way her scent curled into his nose, as decadent as rose petals and as potent as whiskey. He could feel her weaving spells around him, through him, inside him, a kind of intoxication that settled in his blood. Flip knew once he was good and drunk on her, he’d never want to sober.

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Flip dozed during the night, falling into a fitful nightmarish kind of sleep. His mind reeled with images of men screaming as they drowned, a beautiful beach corrupted by waterlogged corpses, and an unnaturally gorgeous woman swimming in the cove, watching the mayhem and smiling at it all.

The feeling of his back being forced down into the mattress made his eyes fly open. The sight of the mystery woman straddling his lap, her mane backlit by moonlight, the same moonlight that gleamed in her eyes, made his pulse thunder. Inhaling sharply, he gripped her naked thighs, his fingertips digging bruises into her skin.

Flip wouldn’t take her, but he was damn fine with being taken by her.

Pleasure rumbled through his throat as she raked her nails down his chest, tracing angry red streaks down his body. She had discarded the quilt, brandishing her exquisite and fully naked body like a weapon, her tits languidly jostling to the circular motion of her hips as she worked him into a frenzy through his jeans. She whipped his belt loose and yanked the button open on his jeans. He tried to sit up, to capture her pouting lips, but she pushed him back with a throaty laugh.

It was the first time in his life Flip had been manhandled by a fuckin’ woman. She was stronger than she looked. He looked up at her in a kind of daze, unable to look anywhere else, or to look away from those oddly luminous eyes. He had an unsettling feeling of being a prey animal, caught in the claws of some carnivorous predator. But with a cock as hard as his was now, he didn’t give a damn about that or any other misgiving.

Purring or maybe snarling, she arched her back and shook out her long glossy hair, crooning his name when she sank down onto him. Flip didn’t remember telling her his name, but that hardly mattered now. All around him, the room blurred like a steaming mirage until everything was a shapeless haze except for the glorious woman riding him. His skin simmered and his throat burned with every breath as if he were sitting inside an oven, but he had never felt more alive. Every sensation was heightened, and his pleasure was more intense than anything he had ever known.

Flip was a big, big man, and he was big where it counted. He was used to women being impressed by his body and his size, intimidated even. He wasn’t used to being stared down with unshakeable confidence as a woman took her pleasure from him. It was strange finding he wanted to give her not only pleasure, but everything else he had. He wanted to give it to her as good as he was getting it, bucking his hips beneath her while her hot pussy strangled his cock. Kissing and licking, grabbing and caressing, thrusting and bucking, he used every part of his body to earn her shudders and hear her moan his name.

Feeling her body tense around him like a silky vice, Flip fisted his hand in her hair and yanked her down to capture her lips. Growling into her mouth, he followed her over the edge, drinking her breath as she trembled in his arms while he filled her. He thrummed with something far deeper and stronger than lust, and he kissed her with a passion he had never given any other woman.

Holding her against him, Flip rolled with her, bringing her beneath him and propping himself up on his palms to admire this view of her under him. She locked her arms around his neck, urging him into her again, assuring him they were far from stopping for the evening. Again and again, they enjoyed each other until his back was stiff and his jaw ached, and until he even wondered if he would have some chaffing in some rather embarrassing areas by morning. When he finally fell asleep with her in his arms in the last hour before dawn, he dreamed of her still.

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Flip woke with the sunrise, a habit ingrained by his days in the military. Turning over in bed, he reached for the intoxicating woman. How he had released his hold on her in his sleep baffled him, but he resolved to keep her in his arms for the rest of the day to compensate. His hand met only cool sheets and a vacant mattress. As if she had been nothing but a drunken reverie or a fever dream, she was gone from the bed. She had left no note or token, only her luxurious scent lingering in the sheets.

With the sunrise, a realization dawned to Flip. His missing mystery woman was unlike anything he had ever touched or tasted. She was his wildest dream and wickedest fantasy. It was unnerving, frightening even, to realize he was so far gone after one impulsive evening. Flip had tried the most addictive substances in the world at one time or another – it came with the territory for an undercover cop, having to blend in with the worst kinds of men – but he had never sampled anything so addictive, so utterly arresting from the very first taste. The marks she clawed into his back and shoulders would last for days, but the mark she carved into his heart was one he knew would never heal. Flip was tempted to call it love at first sight, but this felt more like enslavement. Love, in his experience, had its limits. His feelings for this woman had no such limitations. Neither did the lengths he would go to have her.

Outside the window, it was a beautiful summer morning with bright sunshine and blue skies. Inside the lonely bedroom, Flip had awakened in his own private hell. A gloom so heavy as the one that settled over him upon seeing her gone should not have been possible after the night he had and the hormones that still flooded his body. There shouldn’t have been a single damn thing that could knock him off cloud nine, but all the happiness and pleasure he had felt throughout the night blackened into loss and sadness as despairing as a moonless winter night. Collapsing back into the mattress, he knew that he would give anything, absolutely anything, to hold her in his arms again.

That’s what love will do to you, he thought wryly.

The woman was the cause of his suffering, and only she could be his relief. He didn’t know where she’d come from or how he hadn’t encountered her before in the claustrophobically small town. As he thought it, despairing at his lack of leads to find her again, he heard her voice quite clearly. She sang a hauntingly beautiful melody in a language he didn’t understand. He didn’t know her words or even if her voice came in through the window or echoed out from the depths of his soul. But he knew her message with stark clarity.

When the moon shines on the ocean, you’ll find me. On that beach, inside this house, I’m yours. Surrender to me, and I’ll show you lovely things.

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Flip did as she asked. Or maybe as she commanded. If he could tell the difference, he didn’t care. Night after night, he returned to the mansion on the cliffs. Sometimes, the front door would be ajar, leading him inside and into her waiting embrace. Sometimes, he would find her on the beach, out for a walk in the moonlight, reveling in the way it shimmered on her skin. He would swim with her in the ocean, stroll with her in the sand, hold her in the sheets, and fuck her with an insatiable hunger every way she wanted.

She never came to him when the sun shone or when the moon was black, nor would she leave the acreage. She was always gone from his bed and his arms before dawn, no matter how tightly he held her. The rational part of Flip’s mind told him it was some weird game she was playing. Maybe she was married to some big asshole with a temper. The instinctual part of his mind, the dormant part where dreams and intuition reign, told him something that he couldn’t believe even though it felt true down to his bones. Flip knew he had found the creature who haunted that beautiful cove. Hell, he had probably found the woman responsible for so many deaths over the years that he hadn’t even cataloged them all.

As summer bled into fall and the colors turned vibrant, more accidental deaths occurred in the cove, more torn and bloated corpses washed onto the rocky beach. Flip now agreed with his unconcerned deputy, that these deaths were unfortunate accidents. Just as he knew damned well they were murders, Flip knew he had fallen under the spell of the murderess, that he could never again be free of whatever kind of enslavement this was. But he knew also that as much as she had enchanted him, he had captured her heart just as surely. It was like taming a man-eating tiger to eat from his hand and purr from his touch.

If something had cursed this magnificent woman to wander the cove on moonlit nights, that meant there should also be a way to cure her. That’s what Flip did, he solved problems. He was pretty damn good at operating within rules he thought were arbitrary and chickenshit – that’s how he categorized whatever rules held her prisoner. If he could find loopholes inside the penal code to get what he wanted, he could figure out how to save her.

If Flip couldn’t save the woman he loved, what kind of a man was he?

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The nurses at the Eastport Hospital had all grown tiresome to Dr. Jason Monroe. Plowing through them all had taken most of the year, and it had been a nice ego boost – just what the doctor ordered, as he liked to say – but now the flock of nurses had become just as dull as the withered shrew of a wife he begrudgingly went home to most nights. In addition to the way her once mediocre looks had been eroded by age and the toll taken by their offspring, in recent years she had even neglected to remind Dr. Monroe how impressive he was, how lucky she was to have whatever morsel of attention he gave her. This was an unacceptable slight to a doctor whose ego had outstripped his credentials since his first residency rotation. Eastport was a good fit for him. People there were provincial enough to be highly impressed with Dr. Monroe whereas his arrogance had worn thin to his peers back in Boston.

The drive home from the hospital was long enough for Dr. Monroe to resent what he’d find when he got there – the yellowing smile of his middle-aged wife greeting him along with the smell of whatever trendy meal she had attempted – but not long enough for him to think of any suitable excuses to stay out for the evening. The missus believed him a few nights a month when he told her he had to work late but he couldn’t overuse it, and he was already over what he considered his safe allowance for the month. He decided to take the long way home, take a scenic cruise along the coastline.

The full moon glittered on the ocean like diamonds on satin. Without a large city within miles there was nearly no light pollution, and the moon and diamante stars illuminated the forests and beaches like a dreamscape cast in silver. The moon was so bright, he saw a white spume burst from the ocean and telltale black fins peeking above the waves as a small pod of whales swam near the deserted coast. There was no one else on the lonely two-lane road, so Monroe watched them instead of the road, smiling when a calf breached and turned its belly up toward the moon.

When he returned his eyes to the road, an unfamiliar cove came into view ahead. Frowning, he thought he must have taken a wrong bend in the winding road. The road narrowed and there was no shoulder, making it cumbersome to turn around. He quickly oriented himself when he heard the crash of thunder on the cloudless night. Monroe knew all the stories about the beautiful cove surrounded by thundering cliffs and the haunted house perched high above. He had always wanted to see it, but his doe-eyed and doe-hearted wife had always nagged him out of it.

“What about the rumors, Jason?” she would whine. “It’s supposed to be haunted and it gives me the creeps.”

What a fortunate wrong turn, Monroe smirked to himself. Now, he could take a walk along that beautiful, ‘haunted’ beach and see what all the fuss was about. He could even keep a clear conscience and save his evasion for when he really needed it.

The road had taken him to the beach before it doubled back and wound up the nearest hill toward the old, abandoned house on the cliffs. He thought about driving up there to get the bird’s eye view, but movement in the water caught his eye. Squinting, he thought he saw something glimmering in the water near the shore. It looked like a woman swimming, but that couldn’t be right. The leaves were starting to turn crisp and vibrant as autumn approached, and the nighttime air had a cool bite.

Stepping out of his car, Monroe strolled along the beach toward the head of the cove. The cliffs formed a perfect horseshoe around the ocean and towered above him. The beach was littered with fallen boulders and large monoliths that protruded from the sea like the teeth of a great petrified monster. The beach’s dangerous edges added to its beauty, like a woman in a tight red dress and stilettos.

Monroe saw the movement again, something glistening in the water. Closer now, just beyond the nearest protruding fang of rock. He couldn’t explain why his heart kicked up as he trotted around it to get a better look, but his intuition was rewarded. He’d been right at first. It was a woman. A fucking babe, too, so hot she could have walked right off a porn set. Her tits already had his dick twitching. She was treading water a few yards away, close enough for him to see the way her eyes reflected the moonlight. Below the swell of her tits, her body was hidden beneath the gentle waves, but Monroe had seen enough.

“Hey, baby!” he called to her, trying to sound suave. “Are you out here all by yourself? It’s dangerous for a woman. Especially a woman that looks like you.”

Monroe didn’t like operating from the disadvantage of his prey not knowing his professional status. But it did give him the opportunity to enlighten a new woman, watch the admiration bloom in her eyes when he regaled her with stories of all the lives he’d saved. But for the first time in years, he didn’t even feel the desire to regale her. Monroe just wanted to fuck her. He felt like an alcoholic at a bar, his mouth watering and hands shaking. He walked closer, waves lapping over his six-hundred-dollar brogues.

“It is dangerous,” the woman agreed in a voice as harmonious as a symphony. “You should stay away.”

Her angelic lift didn’t fool Monroe. He caught the sultry devil in her tone, too. It was the tone of a woman who wanted it, wanted him. He kicked off his waterlogged shoes and told her as much, “You look like a woman who wants some company.”

“How does your wife look when she wants company?” The woman asked and kicked away, further out into the ocean. “You should go home to her.”

Monroe saw a flash of gold in the water beneath her, something he swore looked like scales. He wondered if she was blonde down south and the thought caused another jump in his pants. He didn’t bother taking them off when he waded deeper. Fuck, the water was cold. It was a testament to how hot the mystery woman was that his hard-on could endure the frigid water as he swam out toward her.

Just as he closed in, the woman glided away. She looked back at him over her shoulder in what may have been fright or evasion, but Monroe knew better. She was playing coy, giving him a chase. Women did that to him from time to time, played those little games. It never meant they didn’t want him to catch them. He thought about what he’d do to this one when he caught her. He wanted to sink his teeth right into her. One thing he was certain of, he hadn’t ruined his shoes and his clothes to play coy. Play time was over once he caught her.

Which, judging by the way his outstretched hand was nearly clawing through her luxurious mane, was right about now.

Monroe caught her hair as she swam away from him, still playing coy, and used a little too much force when he yanked her back to him. Her beautiful features were twisted and her mouth was open when he yanked her head around. Monroe had expected that – a look of pain or surprise. But the woman was smiling. And she wasn’t a woman anymore. The creature was smiling at him. Its features were still beautiful, but its eyes were vicious with narrow, slitted pupils, and its smile was too wide with too many teeth. Dear god, the teeth! Rows of sharp, brutal, shark-like teeth.

The creature laughed, drinking his fear like wine. It laughed as it tore into him with its brimming smile and those terrible teeth, latching onto his neck with vice-tight strength. The pain and surprise belonged to him alone. And what exquisite pain it was, like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt his flesh being serrated by ragged teeth, and even heard the tearing of his tissue like a seam ripping as the creature tore a chunk out of his neck. He felt his blood oozing down over his collarbone, hot on his chilled skin.

Monroe didn’t think it should take so long to die or that a person could endure so much pain before the release of death. He flailed feebly, or possibly it was his muscles twitching spasmodically as the last currents of life tried to save him. He looked up at the full glowing moon and sputtered a prayer, blood frothing from his mouth as he pleaded to God for help. Or at least to let him die quickly.

“God’s not here tonight, doctor,” the creature told him, her voice still as wickedly harmonious as a devil’s serenade. A golden fin breached the water before the creature dove under with him, fanning a magnificent golden tail to drive them deep into the crushing black depths. Somehow, he could still hear her voice or perhaps the words were driven straight into his soul.

“There’s only me.” Her voice seemed to fill the water like light. Terrible, golden, hellish light. “And the lovely things I’ll show you.”

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It took a week for Dr. Monroe’s corpse to wash back up onto the beach. Clammy skin had begun sloughing off in patches which, combined with the bloat of decay and waterlogged oozing, gave the body a poached egg sort of look. Flip always had thick skin when it came to murders and crime scenes, it had thickened even more in the last few months. The smell was particularly loathsome with bodies dredged up after marinating in water for days. Soggy, rancid meat was just a little more putrid than dry rot. It should probably worry him that the humid stench coating the back of his throat no longer bothered him, but now he was more concerned with not getting his boots wet from the waves lapping at a vacant eye socket, the surrounding tissue hanging loose like a worn-out buttonhole. In addition to the missing eye, there were other places the fish had eaten. They went for the soft tissue first – eyes, lips, genitals.

I hope you did something in life that warranted your dick bein’ chewed off in death, you poor clammy bastard, Flip thought as he studied the corpse. Fuck, I hope he was dead when that happened. He smirked at his own dark humor.

That humor faded quickly when he had to break the news to the doctor’s hysterical widow; console her while she sobbed, listen while she bemoaned the fate of their litter. He really needed to hire some deputy to do this part of the job, some kind of emotional support golden retriever in human form. Especially with the impressive accidental death toll Eastport boasted.

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“I found your latest handiwork on the beach this morning,” Flip said to his golden girl between kisses as his mouth trailed from her throat down toward her navel. Moonlight gilded her skin as she moved beneath him in the bedroom he now considered theirs, hidden away in the seaside mansion. “You gotta quit doin’ that, darlin.’”

She bucked her hips against his face in invitation. “You don’t need to worry. I know what’s really bothering you. None of them touch me. No one has touched me since you. Only you.”

“It ain’t a walk in the park breakin’ the news to all these wailing widows, you know.” Flip nipped her skin, delighting in the way she shuddered in response.

“Tell the wife about the nurses the good doctor was fucking,” she said with no remorse. “That should put a bandaid on her grief.”

“Is that an educated guess?” Flip asked redundantly. He had learned earlier that day the doctor had been making the rounds in the hospital in multiple ways.

“When a man drowns in my cove, there’s a good reason,” she said with a hint of venom.

“A man-hater, huh?” he grinned against her skin, teasing her with the scratch of his beard. “Should I be concerned?”

“You? Never, handsome.” She laughed headily. “A hard man like you is good to find.”

“Is that what’s behind all the killing?” Flip asked more seriously, looking up at her and meeting her eyes. “Some asshole hurt you and have a score to settle?”

“I had a score to settle, alright. I was filled with rage, for years and years. But now, it’s nothing so simple as rage. Not anymore. It’s all part of a bargain I made long ago.” She tangled her fingers into the thick forest of his hair. “You might say, I have quotas to meet.”

“Tell me what happened.” Flip raised himself up, cupping her cheek in his hand and looking steadily into her eyes.

“You talk too much, handsome,” she said and used her surprising strength to roll him onto his back and hoist herself to straddle him. Better than that, she straddled his face. “I can think of a better use for that mouth.”

Some time later, she lay draped across his chest as the sweat cooled on their bodies. Flip marveled at her indefatigability. He felt like he had run a marathon, and she could go all night. They still had a few hours before dawn and Flip didn’t want to waste them sleeping.

“You know if you need a hero, I’m happy to step up,” Flip told her, rubbing his hand along her back.

“A hero can’t save me,” she scoffed with surprising rancor. “A hero would never do what’s necessary to save me. Only a villain would have half a chance. A man who chooses to be my hero alone and a villain to others.”

“Hero or villain, I’ll be whatever the hell you want me to be,” Flip assured her, his voice soft this time as he cradled her head on his chest. “Tell me what happened to you, darlin.’”

“What happened doesn’t matter,” she replied with a hint of melancholy. “Why things are the way they are rarely matters.”

“Anything that affects you matters to me.” His voice rumbled through his chest.

With her head resting on one side of his chest and her sharp fingernails tracing patterns on the other, she began her story. Her sonorous voice played harmony to the spell woven by her words. Flip had never been the best listener, not to the frivolous pillow talk most women tried to engage him in. Yet he found he hung on every word she spoke as if it were the thrilling cliffhanger at the end of a riveting novel chapter.

“It’s been more than eighty years since I’ve let a man have me for more than one night.” She kissed his chest. “But I suppose you figured that out.”

“Not really,” Flip huffed, jostling her on his chest. “I don’t have a damn thing figured out, other than I have you now, but I’m not supposed to be able to keep you. I know I want to keep you.” His brow was set and voice heavy with conviction. “I’ll find a way to keep you.”

“I want you to keep me, too,” she purred. “And you’re the first man I’ve ever said that too.” Her voice grew darker. “But there’s a price you must pay to keep me. You’re also the first man I’ve ever wanted to know exactly what that price is. If the price is too steep for you, I won’t force you to make the purchase.”

“No price is too high, darlin.’” He grinned. “Can I whip out a checkbook?”

She smiled up at him with great sadness and returned her head to his chest to begin her tale.

“I married too young to the first man who had ever made me laugh. I was just coming into my beauty and had never kissed a boy before. My husband promised he would take me far away when he returned from the war. I was young and foolish, and I believed him. While he was at war, men in town hounded me. They were merciless. Truly merciless, like hounds baying after a fox. I wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them even if I was single. I was more vigilant over my reputation than I needed to be, more vigilant than any other woman I knew. I couldn’t have done more to avoid and deter them, unless I started undermining my appearance. I wouldn’t give any man the power of making me lessen myself to make them more comfortable. I wasn’t too much. Those men were inadequate.”

Flip stroked his large hand along her back soothingly and kissed along her hairline, letting her take whatever time she needed.

“It didn’t take long – weeks it seemed – until one of those men, a fat, verminous, troll who could never touch a woman like me, started telling everyone who would listen that he had slept with me. That I had begged for it and moaned like a whore. I don’t know how many people in town believed it at first. I thought surely no one could. But the women who heard the rumor were jealous of me and fostered it – ‘I’ve always known she was a whore. Just look at her!’ And the men who heard it wanted it to be true so they might have a chance with me – ‘Yeah, you know she wants it.’ That foul rumor spread through town like wildfire, until I couldn’t walk down the street without getting poisonous looks and lewd propositions.”

“Let’s take a stroll down mainstreet tomorrow,” Atas suggested with gravel in his voice. “I’ll rearrange some faces and punch the teeth down the throat of any asshole who so much as looks at you sideways.”

“I’d give anything to have you show me off on your arm,” she said in a faraway tone. Her voice hardened when she continued. “All the perverse talk emboldened the perverts, I suppose. It didn’t take long until the looks and comments weren’t enough. Then the pinching started, then the grabbing. I could handle myself. I could even fend them off one at a time. I was never a meek woman and I was raised on a farm. Then they started following me in packs like hyenas.”

Flip’s hand stilled on her hip, his grip tightening.

“I went to the sheriff,” she scoffed. “He asked me what I expected, looking the way I look, dressing the way I dress. He told me I was asking for it, and I shouldn’t be surprised when men wanted it. He also asked what it was worth to me for him to do something about it.”

“Is that sonofabitch still alive?” Flip growled.

“None of them are.” She smiled at the thought. Then her lips thinned and her face hardened. “One night one of those men – I can’t remember his name, but I remember his face and his rancid breath – came to my house, the house on the cliffs. He broke in and knocked me out. I woke up when he was dragging me along the beach by my hair. When I fought back, he beat me more, beat me until he could take what he wanted from me. He was stupid though. He turned his back to me to stuff his little dick back into his pants. I bashed the asshole in the head with the nearest rock I could grab. I bashed him again and again and again until his face was hamburger, then I threw the rock into the ocean and dragged his body out. I waded until I was swimming and then I kept swimming. I was a good swimmer, and it felt good to wash the filth off me. I left his body in the middle of the cove to sink and swam back. When his corpse washed up days later, it looked like an accident.”

“That asshole deserved it,” Flip said genuinely. “He deserved a helluva lot worse.”

“My husband came home from the war a few weeks later,” she continued. “I tried to tell him these things. I needed to tell someone other than my damn pets. But he had heard the rumors in town too, and he had already been poisoned by them. He thought it was all my fault. That I must have been putting something out there to elicit the response I received. He thought I took lovers and flirted. That I acted like a whore in his absence because I couldn’t keep my legs closed until he got home.”

“I see why you wanted to get outta Dodge,” Flip grated, his body rigid beneath hers. He dreaded what he thought was coming, but still had to hear it from her lips.

“He said if he couldn’t have me, no one would. He killed me, beat me mostly to death,” she revealed. “When I was barely conscious, he dragged me to the cliff. I screamed and screamed, but no one heard me. He tied an anchor around me and shoved me off into the deepest part of the cove. You’d think it’s quick to drown, but it takes a long time when it’s happening to you. It felt like I sank for hours in my last few minutes. I screamed, watching my cries for help rise in bubbles toward the surface.”

Flip felt her body grow stiff against him as she continued. “I begged and pleaded. When I thought I would do anything anything to live a little longer, something answered. Something that lurked in the bottom of that cove. Something monstrous. I heard its voice inside my head and it offered me a trade. A trade I was all too happy to accept. Instead of a handshake, I felt thick slimy tentacles wrap around me. I thought they were dragging me deeper, but they dragged me somewhere else. I kicked so violently I broke free and I shot to the surface, kicking and kicking. A part of me realized that I should have drowned, that I couldn’t be alive after so long under water. Then I realized that my feet weren’t there anymore. The creature had stolen them, replaced my legs with a tail. I had become one of whatever that creature was. Something cursed. Something soulless.”

“Jesus,” Flip said dumbly, at a loss. What does a man say to that?

“Jesus wasn’t there that night. He didn’t answer my prayers,” she said vehemently. “I made a deal with the devil that night, or a kind of devil, and I became his pet and his ward. Since that night, I have taken my revenge and sated his hunger at the same time, luring men to their deaths with my beauty and my siren’s song. They find me on the beach, and come to save me, then they try to take me,” she laughed cruelly. “Then they beg God to let them drown. So, I show them all my teeth and then I laugh out loud. I never wanted saving, I just wanted to be found. That will teach them. All of them. They’re never to be seen again, and I’m still wandering my beach, swimming in my cove.”

Flip thought she was finished, so he asked with conviction, “So what’s the price I have to pay?”

“I’m glad I met the devil,” she said and propped herself up on his chest so she was looking down at him. “He showed me I was weak. He removed the weakness from me and replaced it with a part of him. In exchange he took a part of me too. The part of me he barters in.” She smiled grimly. “The price, as you see, is a piece of your soul.”

Flip chewed his cheek, considering this for only a moment. “I can go without a piece of my soul, darlin,’ as long as the rest of it belongs to you. And all of you belongs to me.”

*******************************************************************************************

When Flip awoke the next morning, she was gone. He knew she would be; he had grimly resigned himself to that reality months ago. It could have all been a dream, a fantasy or a nightmare. Maybe he could walk away from her and after a few painful years, convince his mind of that. Inconveniently, she was real. The realest and most alive Flip had ever felt and would ever feel was when he was with his siren.

Thunder roared outside and a gusty wind blew the bay window open with a rusty groan of hinges. Flip groaned himself as he rolled out of bed, grabbed his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out with his teeth, lit the tip and dropped his lighter back on the nightstand. Smoke trailed from his nose as he walked to the windows. He was still naked, boasting scratches from her nails across his chest, his hair wild from her fingers. Leaning against the window frame, he blew a stream of smoke outside.

Clouds as dark as gunsmoke hung low overhead and the thunder booming in the sky was louder than the crash of waves against the cliffs below. Waves ripped across the surface of the usually calm cove, cresting white like lipizzans in capriole. Watching the water boil from the storm, feeling the chilly air on his skin, and taking a drag from his cigarette, Flip wondered how in the hell he could pay the price for his siren’s absolution. If it was as simple as handing over a pound of his flesh, he would go down to the kitchen and cut a chunk out his side before breakfast. Ideas turned over in his mind, he rejected each one as fast as it bloomed. He focused so intently on that question, he didn’t realize he was chewing his lip around his cigarette until he tasted blood mingled with tobacco.

A strange movement in the water in the center of the cove caught his eye. The shape of the cresting waves in the center had changed, becoming sinuous. The water looked like insects crawled over its surface. Flip frowned, stepping outside onto the balcony, clamping the cigarette between his teeth. The wind buffeted him, raising goosebumps on his shoulders. Or maybe it was the sight of a long oily black tentacle reaching up from the water, twisting in the air, then vanishing again.

Flip spit his cigarette over the balcony rail, as he planted his hands on it and leaned forward. He strained his eyes, focusing on the sinuous writhing in the center of the cove. Horror prickled his skin like icepicks when he realized the strange movement of the waves were a multitude of black tentacles, wringing and twisting inside and on top of the stormy waves. The very center was calm, about the size of a dinner table. It gleamed like oil. Something inside the round center made a jerky movement. Flip realized it was an eye. A giant black eye. And that eye had just focused its abyssal pupil on him. The tentacles whipped wildly around it now, breaching the water in agitation or excitement.

Whatever this creature was, it was not his siren nor anything possessing of her beauty. He recalled her story and the tentacles that had caught her legs and dragged her under. This was the hellish beast that had lived in the cove long before the siren ever took her first swim. This was the eldritch monster that collected the souls his siren harvested. Flip stared at it, and the monstrous eye stared right back.

An idea flashed into his mind. Whether it was his own, a spark of brilliance born of the terrified adrenaline that coursed through his veins, or whether the tentacled monster had impregnated his thoughts, he didn’t know or even care.

Flip knew what he had to do to save his siren, to have her all to himself. He was too late to avenge her, but he could try his best to save her.

*******************************************************************************************

After meeting the shining black eye of that monstrosity in the cove, Flip was rattled. He didn’t like the idea that had been put into his head, but he wasn’t forcing it out either. He was allowing it to percolate, considering his options. His phone dinged from an incoming text as he was pulling on his jeans. It was unusual for him to be bothered by calls or texts out on that acreage; it allowed him to feel like there was only him and his siren alone in the world. Service was spotty and unpredictable at best out on the cliffs. His phone varied between one bar and no service depending on the device’s mood. He fished it out of his jeans pocket and glared at the new text, wrinkling his nose more from the text than he did from the smell of moist corpses.

“I miss you,” said the whoring schoolteacher, Cristy.

“I bet you fuckin’ do,” he gritted to himself and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

The thought that had taken root in his mind that morning blossomed into something thorny and brutal. Maybe even a little evil, the kind of thought that was rare for Flip. And it was brilliant.

Instead of the petty barb he had been poised to text, he typed a new message. “Then let’s do something about it. Pick you up at 7?”

“See you then,” her reply came almost instantly, followed by a string of emojis.

Another check in his siren’s box. She didn’t text him stupid shit with stupid fuckin’ emojis.

“Better get movin,’” he grumbled to himself as he shoved the phone back in his pocket and pulled his shirt on. He had a lot to do between now and seven.

*******************************************************************************************

Before picking up Cristy, Flip ran a few other errands. He went into his favorite coffee shop, as he often did in the mornings after leaving his empty bed. This time, he flirted with the barista he knew was married. Loud enough for his voice to carry to the surveillance camera behind the counter, he told the married woman he was thinking of watching the sunset from the local lighthouse and asked if she wanted to join him. She declined as he knew she would. Later in the day, he purchased a ticket for a show at the drive-in theater and made sure a few people spotted the sheriff there, talked to a few others. Once the movie was rolling, he doubted those same people would notice him leaving early, and there was no surveillance in the dated drive-in to be concerned about. He still had time to drive to the lighthouse, at the far end of town from the siren’s cove, and toss out an empty Coke can with his DNA on the rim. With the recent storm and the humidity, it would be impossible to place his tire tracks to a timeframe narrower than twelve hours, which was just what he wanted. His last errand of the day was surprisingly easy, and he even arrived early to pick up the teacher. He ensured there were no witnesses or cameras in the area. And he kept the radio loud in his truck while he drove her out for their date, loud enough to cover any noises coming from the truck bed.

The hardest part of it all was faking a smile at Cristy’s bland wit and keeping his mouth shut on the topic of her liaisons with the science teacher, Less. Even though he had no interest in her and now had the woman of his dreams in bed most nights, being cheated on still irked him. He wondered if that lingering anger would be resolved tonight too.

Flip just hoped her lackluster spirit and dented soul were fungible with those of his magnificent siren. He would never make that trade, but he hoped that was just his mortal sensibility.

Ignoring Cristy’s protests that the cove was haunted, Flip drove them there anyway. He remembered the road with beach access thanks to the late Dr. Monroe. It was convenient that any tracks on the beach were washed away by the tide within minutes. Few people ever came to this place, thanks to the ghost stories and tall tales surrounding the cove and the old house. From the beach, enclosed on three sides by high cliffs and tall, toothy rocks, a man could feel like he was alone in the world. Flip parked between two spires of rock rising out of the surf, near a small dinghy and oars he had dragged there that morning, still patiently awaiting him. They arrived when the sun was setting, the prettiest hour of the day to spend in the haunted cove.

“Get your whorin’ ass in the boat,” Flip ordered the woman in a frightening tone, shedding his pretenses of civility.

“What did you say to me?” Cristy tried to sound offended, but fear shook her voice.

“I’m askin’ nicely.” Flip smiled cruelly. “But I’m not above askin’ another way. I suggest you don’t make me ask twice.”

She was stumbling over her words, backpedaling some kind of excuse or apology. Atla didn’t care and he wasn’t listening. He got out of the truck, made sure to pocket his keys, and walked behind it to open the tailgate. He wasn’t concerned about Cristy getting away. She couldn’t get up the cliffs here, so all she could do was try to run away down the beach and Flip could catch her in seconds. Or she could try swimming away across the cove, which would be just fine by him.

Grabbing the bundle Flip had covered with a tarp in the bed of his truck, he yanked it out, letting it fall to the sand in a heap. He had thought the man, Less, might have given him more trouble, but he lived up to his name. Flip had dealt with stray dogs who put up more of a fight. Less was crying behind his broken glasses, sucking against the duct tape over his mouth as he sobbed. He wasn’t even fighting against the zip ties on his wrists and ankles.

Flip walked to the passenger door and yanked it open, unable to keep himself from grinning at the sight of Cristy’s dull, horrified eyes. Flip leaned on the door and told her, “I doubt you believe me, but I have no intention of hurting either of you. I just want us all to have a little chat.” He jerked his head toward the dinghy. “So, you can either walk your ass over to that boat and sit down in it on your own, or I can drag you to it and throw you in. Your choice.”

Trembling with fear and crying, Cristy complied. As she walked toward the boat, she looked around, calculating her odds of escape and realizing it was hopeless. Flip bent and grabbed hold of the man’s collar, dragging him through the sand and hoisting him into the boat like a duffle bag, landing with a heavy thud.

“I’m sorry,” Cristy sputtered. “I didn’t mean to cheat on you. It was all a mistake.”

“Yeah, it’s a dangerous world out there for a woman,” Flip menaced, letting her know the world she was in now was very dangerous indeed. “A girl never knows when she might trip and fall onto a dick. I don’t know how you navigate it. Me? I’m just thankful I haven’t tripped and fallen on top of any strange women yet.” He bared his teeth in a cold grin. “Get in the boat.”

“You said you weren’t going to hurt me,” she sobbed, climbing into the dinghy.

“I’m not,” he said gruffly. “You have my word.” He jerked his thumb at the quivering man curled in the bottom of the boat. “Believe me, if I was gonna rough you up, it would have been when I caught you with that fuckin’ joke.”

Flip shoved the boat with both teachers inside out into the water and jumped in as a wave caught it. He took the oars and began rowing them out into the cove. The sun had dipped behind the pines on the cliffs above and the light was rapidly fading. By the time they reached the middle of the cove, the shore was hazy and indistinct, shrouded with purples and blues and a light mist.

Flip retrieved a knife from his jeans pocket, smirking at the way Less cowered from it. Catching Less by the ankle, Flip cut the zip ties binding his legs. He jerked his hands back when he realized the pathetic excuse for a male had pissed his pants. He cut through the ties on Less’s wrists and then stood, trying to keep his balance in the small boat. Less staggered up on shaky legs, his puny fists balled at his sides. Flip grinned at the feeble sight, but it gave him an opening he had wanted for some time.

Still grinning, Flip slammed a vicious right punch straight into Less’s nose, feeling the rewarding crunch of cartilage as the skinny dweeb reeled backward. Before Less tipped over backward, Flip grabbed the front of his shirt and the waistband of his pants, and unceremoniously chucked him over the side. Less shrieked like a woman when he hit the water and sputtered in hysterics next to the boat.

Looking at Cristy, Flip gave her his best Dirty Harry glare. “Do you need help gettin’ out of the boat too, or can you manage on your own?”

“What are you going to do? You can’t leave us out here!” she screamed, but she timidly stepped out of the boat into the ocean to tread water beside Less.

“Like I said, I just want to have a conversation,” Flip said dangerously. “And what I want to hear is the two of you begging. I want you to beg for your lives. Beg not to drown. I want to hear what kind of bargain you’re both willing to make not to drown here tonight.”

“I’ll do anything,” the woman cried. “Oh, God help us! What do you want?”

“Keep it up.” Flip grinned at her.

Grabbing a fistful of the man’s thinning hair, Flip shoved his head under again. The man flailed and sputtered, giving Flip about as much trouble as a wet rat. The woman sobbed, treading water in place. It was pathetic how weak the couple was. Not an ounce of fight or flight in them, just sobbing and pleading. They didn’t even try to capsize his dinghy, which wouldn’t have been difficult.

Keeping hold of his hair, Flip let the man splash back to the surface, wheezing for breath.

“Beg, you sorry sonofabitch,” Flip growled in his grittiest tone. “Beg to be saved. Promise you’ll do anything.”

Less instantly amped his sobbing to the level of horror-movie-cheerleader, begging and pleading and promising with everything he had. Cristy followed his lead, stupidly thinking that being pitiable enough would save her. They carried on for minutes, wailing and splashing, pleading and promising.

“Please,” Less pleaded, snot clogging his nose and tears streaming from his eyes. “Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Don’t let me drown!” Cristy shrieked. “I’ll give you anything you want if you save me.”

The ocean began swirling around the couple. They were too preoccupied by Flip to notice. The eddy was gentle at first, quickly gaining speed. Cristy noticed when it started to tug her under, like filth getting sucked down a drain.

“We begged you,” she sobbed. “We promised to do anything you wanted to spare us.”

“You weren’t beggin’ me for a fuckin’ thing.” Flip laughed cruelly. “And it wasn’t me you made those promises to.”

Punctuating his laughter, a forest of tentacles erupted from the whirlpool, oily black and as thick as Flip’s waist. The tentacles whipped around like cats o’nine tails. The woman screamed and the man cried pitifully. Flip grabbed the sides of the little boat to keep from being thrown out as it bucked on the turbulent water, hoping to hell it wouldn’t capsize.

The tentacles latched around the pathetic couple flailing in the water, catching Cristy around her legs and waist and Less around the neck in a slimy noose. His mouth opened in a scream that couldn’t escape his strangled throat and his eyes bulged from their sockets, as the woman splashed feebly. Their screams and sputters and splashing sounded deafening to Flip in the otherwise silent cove. Just as fast as they had appeared, the tentacles were sucked back beneath the water, leaving Cristy’s terrified face and Less’s lobster-red strangling head bobbing for another heartbeat before they too were sucked down into the water.

The whirlpool grew smaller, swallowing the couple down into the cursed depths of the cove. Flip’s dinghy settled with a splash, its violent bucking slowly calming until it was rocking gently. The whirlpool had vanished along with all trace of the teachers, and the waves had returned to normal. The starry night was incongruously peaceful, the ocean beautiful and the sky pristine. With a heavy sigh, Flip dropped his hands from the sides of the boat and let his breath return to normal, waiting for the guilt that never came.

Two worthless souls in exchange for one exquisite soul was a fine trade by him. Maybe he’d thrown in a little piece of his own soul as a tip, but he was fine with that too.

A hoarse cry coming from the shore snapped him back to attention. There was enough light from the moon and stars for Flip to see movement on the beach, but he couldn’t make out what it was. There wasn’t any way either of the two teachers could have gotten there that fast, and slimmer odds still they’d survived.

Grabbing the oars, Flip heaved against them, sending the dinghy lurching back to shore. His heart jumped when he recognized the familiar, superb figure of his siren. When he neared the shore, he jumped out of the boat, splashing water up to his thighs, and dragged the rowboat ashore. She was on her hands and knees in the sand, doubled over coughing up water. Flip ran to her, falling to his knees beside her, his hand going instinctively to rub her back.

“Are you alright?” he asked, still rubbing her back as she coughed. He had never seen her cough like this before, as if she had just narrowly avoided drowning. She was naked, as he had found her many times, but this time her skin was cool to his touch and goosebumps rose in a rash over her shoulders. Flip yanked his shirt open, shrugged out of it and wrapped it around her, pulling her onto her knees and into his arms.

She shuddered against him, her entire body heaving.  Worried, Flip squeezed her tighter. Then he realized she was laughing, silently laughing so heartily her whole body shook. Pulling back enough to look at her, Flip cupped her face, studying her smiling features.

“I think you did it, handsome,” she crooned, her smile widening further, tears brimming in her eyes. The ethereal lilt was gone from her voice, though it still spoke to his heart. The oddly luminous glow was gone from her eyes, though they were still bright and beautiful and looked right into his soul. Her mane of hair was still luxurious but lacked some of the gloss it usually held, and her skin was soft as velvet but was missing the ethereal golden flush that had always seemed to shimmer just below the surface.

“You’re free?” Flip asked, his voice hoarse in his tightening throat, a toothy smile blooming on his lips.

“I think so,” she laughed, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him so roughly she bruised his lower lip. “Take me to bed. If I’m allowed to stay until dawn, I’m yours.”

*******************************************************************************************

For the first time, Flip was able to watch the sunrise holding the woman he loved. He stayed awake all night waiting for it, just to make sure she wouldn’t somehow evaporate in his arms. He wanted to touch her, assure himself she was real, while he watched the morning sun gild her skin and dance in her hair. This morning, he would be able to take the woman he loved with him into the little coffee shop, show her off in town. Thinking of spending his life enjoying such simple pleasures with her made him feverish with love.

A thought played over and over in Flip’s head, making him grin like an idiot. She was still his as the sun rose. She would be his forever.

The sunrise was golden, lighting the reds and oranges in the autumn foliage aflame. The cove was calm, the water a peaceful sapphire. If Flip strained his ears, he thought he might have heard a faint cry, carried up from the water on a light breeze. With some imagination, it might be the screams of the souls trapped beneath the water. The new recruits Flip had engineered as a trade for the release of his siren. But a rational man would chock it up to the wind rustling the pines. The sound was barely audible when the waves thundered against the cliffs. And the waves would always be there. The waves would always come crashing down.

Flip would label the drowning of the two schoolteachers an accident. One might call it following traditional Eastport Sheriff Department protocol. Even if some ambitious cop wanted to investigate, there was no evidence to support anything else. Two lovebirds went skinny dipping in the cove and drowned. Damned shame.

Flip’s siren heard the faint sounds carried across the water, turning in his arms to look out of the windows. She smiled, a wistful sort of look in her bright eyes. Flip kissed her shoulders and neck, feeling her body respond to his touch. When she rolled onto her back and pulled him over her, he saw the familiar wildness in her eyes. Her wildness wasn’t a gift from the being in the lake. It was born into her and it remained a part of her. As Flip kissed her smiling lips, he wondered if her desire to kill, her rage, were gone too. Or if that had been a part of her long before she was taken by whatever dwells in the cove. She still seemed like a wild thing to him, like a fox or a tiger. Then he wondered if he could possibly domesticate a wild tiger. Or if he could only keep her sated. He didn’t know, but he intended to do his part on that front right now.

*******************************************************************************************

 © safarigirlsp 2024

Tagging some sexy sirens!

[rottenrosethorns]

I see your looking for request, so I was more than happy to show up in your inbox

I came up with this randomly - anyway. Leon plans a weekend getaway/vacation for him and the reader. Somewhere where they can go swimming (beach,lake etc etc). Leon needs to relieve some tension. Leon and the reader share romantic night swim together totally on a whim, and just enjoy each other’s company, and tiny bit of smut just to top it all off.

much love x

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x afab!reader 

Genre: Fluff, Smut 

Synopsis: Disaster after disaster, Leon’s weekend plans seem to come to an unfortunate end; however, you convince him to try one last resort at a secluded campsite off the side of the road. 

Word Count: 4.4K 

Warning: 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT; swimming, bugs, unprotected sex, vanilla romantic sex 

A/N: all of my a/n are like “sorry for taking so long” and “it’s longer than expected” lmao. Thank you anon for requesting, i hope you like it! I really hope i got the romance translated through the story (if its subpar, im sorry, im tragically single LMAO) 

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- masterlist - 

__________

“Hey, hey, look at me,” You reached across the center console to cup Leon’s cheek and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, “Everything’s going to be okay, alright?”

Your voice hushes into a comforting whisper as you rubbed Leon’s cheek with a sad pout. Thankfully, your kiss seemed to soften his disarray of emotions as his frustrated wrinkles eased away as he let out a quick huff. Leon’s eyes were set looking through the windshield, avoiding your eyes at all costs as he wanted to avoid you picking up on his embarrassment. But, even without looking at him, you always knew what emotion he was feeling. You could clearly tell that Leon was disappointed in himself despite your attempts at reassurance. Leon sighed loudly, resting his elbow on the driver’s door as he looked down with his forehead resting in his left hand, “Everything was supposed to be perfect.” 

Optimistically, you tried to offer him a smile, but even you knew that you couldn’t argue with him about that one. Nothing was ever perfect, but this weekend trip was far from smooth sailing. Leon – being the vacation desperate man that he is – took the first chance to get out of town and booked a picturesque shoreside cabin for the extended weekend. It’s been way too long since he’s had a break, and all he wanted to do was spend time with you while reconnecting with nature. Well, the latter part was more so a suggestion from Leon’s therapist to which you essentially forced him to start seeing. Although he deemed it unnecessary even with his success of departing from the hardships of his trauma, Leon only agreed to comply with the treatments if you were doing them with him which included you enjoying the calmness that nature offered as well. A win is a win, you suppose. 

However, not everyone could be winners without losing once or twice, and Leon seemed to be on a streak today. With the cabin site a hefty four hours away from home, you were bound to run into some mishaps. But those mishaps quickly turned into mayhem as you faced the tribulations of Leon losing and finding his wallet, changing a flat tire on the highway, getting pulled over and let go with a warning, nearly missing a deer kissing the front bumper, and much, much more. Leon felt like he was fighting for his life more so on this road trip than being on an actual work mission. The only difference being that his enemy was the invisible universe instead of the normal mutated creatures and undead humans. 

Upon struggling to reach the cabinsite, Leon was relieved to pull into the parking lot of the front office and finally settle down after the hectic events of the day. But as if his trip couldn’t get any worse, the receptionist at the cabinsite pitifully informed you both that Leon’s booking confirmation never went through and that there were unfortunately no vacancies for the rest of the weekend. So now, you were both back in Leon’s car as he tried his best not to blow a fuse from the abundance of misfortunes. 

Just as you were about to respond back to him, your eyes shifted from Leon towards your phone screen that just lit up from being drained of its battery. Leon mistook your untimely silence as if you were condemning him at fault for being the reason why this trip was so disastrous. As he went to shift away from you, you quickly reached out and embraced his hands in yours, “We’re still going to have fun, okay? We’ve got a couple hours until sundown and I think I have an idea.” 

“You sure? If you don’t want to, we can go back home,” Leon offered with a downward turn on his lips. As much as he hated the idea of going back home and sitting idly within those same four walls of the house, Leon didn’t want you to feel as if you were being forced along with him to share the unexpected hardships of the road-trip. 

“Didn’t you say you wanted to reconnect with nature?” You laughed to yourself, already finding the imagery of Leon frolicking in the grass like some Disney princess amusing, “Let’s go here, I saw it on the way.”

Leon leaned over to look at the location you’d pull up on your phone, showing a small and secluded campsite hidden on the side of the road. Leon inspected the images with a skeptical look, “Are you sure? Those pictures seem kinda old, what if it’s not what it looks like anymore?”

You shrugged, “Then, we’ll find out and see.” 

“We don’t even have camping supplies.”

“Then, we get them.”

You and Leon stared at each other in silence as the proposition sunk in. After a moment, Leon sighed and started the car’s engine to drive off wherever you directed him to go. A part of him hoped that you wanted to tell him to turn around and go home, but the other part of him still wanted the weekend events to work out. After a bit more convincing, you managed to dissipate all his doubts and initiated yourself to take the responsibility for the rest of the trip. Although he was disappointed that his plans fell through, Leon couldn’t bring himself to put in more effort in the trip. During the ride, you constantly reassured him that nothing bad would happen although you both knew you really couldn’t promise that. It didn’t stop you from believing nonetheless. 

You directed Leon for a while until the car stopped at the nearest department store where you gathered all the necessary camping supplies and whatever food you wanted to last you the weekend. Thankfully, Leon’s mood started to brighten up as he chose your favorite snacks and even offered to buy you a cute stuffed teddy bear to keep you company. Was he slightly jealous that you were beaming at the plush? Maybe. But, he’d buy you anything to keep that smile on your face. 

Once satisfied with the purchase, you both departed the parking lot and drove until you found yourselves going down a tiny dirt path. The further you went down the road you started to second guess whether or not this was a good idea. It was a good half of a mile drive from the main road, and you were skeptical if there was even going to be a nice scene at the end of the road to settle in. The dirt road quickly started to disappear as the path became more and more overgrown as if no one had driven over it for quite some time. You cringed at the sound of the tree branches scratching the sides of Leon’s car as the edge of the forest got narrower. You really didn’t want the campsite to be bad and dampen Leon’s mood even more. You knew how much he needed a break, and you wanted to help make that happen. 

As you progressed deeper into the forest, the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach worsened. Leon seemed to notice your skepticism, “You sure this is the right place?”

You let out a nervous giggle, tightening your hold around your teddy bear, “Yes?”

Leon shook his head, unsure whether or not to believe you, yet he continued to drive forward blindly. You felt yourself holding your breath in anticipation as the thick trees looming over the road started to clear up. You lurched forward in your seat, rubbing your eyes from thinking that you saw something in the distance. As Leon approached, a laser flash of the sun’s reflection flashed your squinting eyes before you started to piece shining ripples on a water’s surface, “Is that a lake?”

Upon completely entering the clearing, your eyes were welcomed with a wide yet humble campground peacefully secluded from the main road. The campsite was equipped with a circle of rocks acting as a firepit with a small path leading down towards the sandbank and access to the lake from a wooden dock at the shore. Utterly breath taken from the sight before you, you awed the sheer capacity of the view. The lake was essentially crystal clear surrounded with rocks, cliff ledges, assortment of lush green trees, and a mountain. It was exactly what you’d see in a painting.  

Leon pulled off to the side, parked the car, and hopped out eagerly to deeply inhale the fresh scent of pine. You quickly followed after Leon and leaping into his arms for an open hug while laughing, “Is this okay?”

Leon snuggled into you, feeling happy for the first time today, “No, this is perfect, maybe even better than the cabin.” 

Leon tightened his arms for a moment as a silent thank you for your suggestion before putting you down and turning to soak himself in the view as well. While he was looking away, you couldn’t help but put yourself at ease from watching the smile on Leon’s face grow as the relief washed over him. 

You kissed his cheek and glanced at the campsite again, “Let’s set up for dinner before the sun goes down.” 

You and Leon tagged team setting up the tent and making dinner before sitting yourselves at the edge of the dock to eat and relax. 

“Can you believe that there’s places like this that actually exist?” You breathed a sigh of awe as you watched the reflection of the setting sun shimmer against the breeze induced ripples on the lake's surface. 

Unfortunately, your moment was partially ruined by some flying insects invading your vision and coming a bit too close for comfort as you swatted them away chaotically. Just as your bravery was set to dissipate, Leon aided in swatting the small swarm away. Shivering from the imaginative feeling of bugs crawling on your skin, you groaned in discomfort while rolling your eyes, “My knight and shining armor.”

“Is this your token of gratitude?” Leon feigned hurt by putting a hand over his heart dramatically, “Even after I aided your distress?”

You pushed him away with a laugh, yet your arms returned to rub them over your skin subconsciously. Even when you knew you were safe, you still felt vulnerable, especially out in the open, “I hate bugs.”

Leon hummed in acknowledgement as he intensely peered out into the scenic lake before perking up suddenly, “I have an idea!”

You eyed him suspiciously, moving your torso away and holding your hands up cautiously, “Uh-oh.”

“It’s not even dangerous,” Leon rolled his eyes, “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

You blinked, “Yeah, I don’t know about that one.”

“When have I ever put you in danger?”

“Let’s see,” You pointed each finger up, counting off the events as you recalled them, “Vegas, New York, LA – oh, don’t forget China too!”

“Alright! Alright!” Leon huffed with an exaggerated pout, “You have a point.”

“I always have a point,” You smiled in triumph, “Now-”

Leon cut you off by suddenly standing up and offering you a hand. You peered at his hand for a moment before shifting your eyes to his as you both silently communicated. Eventually, you decided to take his hand and let him lead you to wherever he planned to; however, instead of helping you stand up like you anticipated him to, Leon had pulled you forward and used the momentum of your imbalance to throw your body against his as he engulfed you in a hug and threw your bodies into the lake. 

Closing your eyes and holding your breath, you were completely submerged in the cool water. As quickly as it happened, you felt Leon’s hands grab your waist and help you break the surface and take a deep gasp for air. 

“Seriously, Leon?" You wiped the water droplets off your face and pushed your hair back,  "What are you like ten?" 

Leon’s hands moved from your waist to the back of your thighs and guided them to wrap around his waist as he floated around in the water. Leon smirked as you securely wrapped your arms around his neck, afraid to drift too far from him although you were safely near the shore’s edge, “Feels nice, doesn’t it?”

You were about to question what he meant by that before you realized that the cool sensation of the water wore off the icky feeling of the bugs crawling on your skin. Upon seeing your face, Leon laughed in satisfaction, knowing that he was right. 

“Shut up,” You mumbled. 

Leon leaned into you closer, teasingly hovering his lips near yours, “What was that?”

“I said-” You took your chance to release his neck, cup a pocket of water in your hands, and splash Leon in the face. 

Leon released you, giving you a chance to swim away before becoming a victim to his revenge. You can’t remember how long you were in the lake for, but you definitely are going to remember the memories of laughing and smiling with Leon for the rest of your life. Before you knew it, the sun was barely over the horizon as the black and blue sky began to overtake the pink and orange hues. While distracted from looking at the sky, Leon swam towards you. 

“Come on, you’re getting cold,” Leon helped you gain your footing as you both trudged towards the firepit soaking wet. 

You squeezed out the hem of your shirt in efforts to reduce the amount of water on you; however, you remained drenched no matter how much you twisted and wrung the fabric. Turning towards Leon, you meant to ask him which bag he packed the towels to retrieve them but was promptly stopped upon seeing him sling off his shirt and wringing it out. You gulped as you watched the veins trailing down his arms to his hands enhanced as he tightly gripped the fabric of his shirt. Now with the moon high in the sky, Leon’s bare skin seemed to glitter as his muscles flexed. 

You felt like you would’ve stayed there forever had your thoughts not been interrupted from Leon’s chuckle, “Can I help you?”

Adverting your eyes and clearing your throat loudly, you awkwardly pointed towards his car, “Um, I'm gonna get the towels. Which – uh, which bag did you put them in?”

“I didn’t pack towels.”

“You,” Your jaw slacked, “You what?”

Leon shrugged, taking a nearby stick and propping it upwards in the ground near the fire and hung his shirt to dry, “I figured the cabin would’ve provided some, so I didn’t pack any.” 

You stood there dumbfounded, knowing that Leon did have a point despite his lack of preparedness, “We can’t stay wet like this, we’ll get sick.”

“There’s a fire right here,” Leon stated like it was obvious before hooking his thumbs around his waistband and stripping himself from his pants and undergarments. 

You gasped loudly, turning your back towards him as your wide eyes did their best to avoid being flashed, “Leon!” 

Your voice echoed out into the forest as Leon’s boisterous laugh filled the air as he slung the rest of his clothes over another stick, “Come on, it’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.” 

Heat flushes your face as you bite the inside of your cheek from the imagery of Leon being completely unclothed, most times from events when you both were getting intimate, “T-That’s different!” 

You knew Leon rolled his eyes from the tone of his voice, “You can turn around now, I’ve got clothes on.”

Slowly, you peeked at Leon, making sure he was telling the truth before committing to fully view him. True to his word, Leon had dressed himself with his previous outfit hanging near the fire. He handed you your clothes he managed to grab and set up another row of sticks to set your wet clothes to dry. 

When he noticed you were still frozen in place, Leon asked, “What’s wrong?”

Quietly, you mumbled, “Can you turn around?”

Leon paused his movements before a wide smirk flashed across his lips, “What was that?”

“I said,” You huffed, annoyed, “Turn around!” 

Leon snickered at your embarrassment but ultimately complied as he turned his back towards you and patiently waited until you handed him your sopping clothes to be hung on his makeshift clothing line. Once you finished dressing and hanging your clothes to dry, you noticed Leon shuffling about inside the tent. You watched as Leon basically disassembled the bedding setup and placed it outside near the campfire, “You know those are supposed to go inside the tent, right?” 

For a while, you tried to decipher what he was doing while urging yourself not to scold him for placing the sheets on the dirt. Leon would set the sheets in one spot, crane his neck upwards before moving the sheets to another spot before doing the same thing again and again until he settled on a spot to his liking. He was a bit of a perfectionist and his wide smile proved that point even more as he sat down and patted the spot next to him eagerly. Playing along, you seat yourself next to Leon and follow suit as you both laid on the sheets to look up at the night sky. There you saw the blanket of darkness with billions of stars that seemed to glow brighter than it did in the city.

“See the big dipper?” Leon took his hand and placed it over yours with your pointer outwards as he stretched your arm out towards the sky and traced the shape of the constellation, “And, there’s the little one.” 

Leon continued to look up at the stars and educate you about the history of each constellation and the mysteries of outer space. You listened intently, soaking every story and fact that he had to tell, “Since when did you know all this stuff? I thought you hated astronomy and horoscopes.”

Leon shrugged, “I do, but then I watched this documentary.”

You laughed incredulously before returning to awe at the glittering specks above you, tracing the constellations’ patterns over and over again. From the forest to the lake to the stars, you felt at peace in the countryside and a part of you wondered whether you could make a life with Leon out here far into the future. While looking at the stars, a quick linear flash of light darted across the tail end of the Little Dipper, “Leon, a shooting star! Make a wish!” 

Instinctively, you brought your hands up to your chest in a mock prayer while dragging Leon’s hand in yours as you closed your eyes and made your wish. After a moment of silence, you turned towards Leon, only to be surprised that he was looking at you the whole time. Leon chuckled at your reaction, “What’d you wish for?”

“I can’t tell you, silly, or it won’t come true.”

“Fair,” Leon said without glancing away at you, “You want to know what my wish was?”

“It won’t come true if you tell me,” You said in a hush just above a whisper, noticing the twinkling in Leon’s eyes became brighter than the stars above you.

“What if it already came true?” 

Leon’s eyes traced the features of your face as the campfire’s flames illuminated your complexion. Slowly, Leon brought up a hand to cup your cheek as his thumb softly traced your bottom lip, “Can I kiss you?”

“You don’t have to ask,” You whispered. 

Immediately, Leon pressed his lips to yours in a loving embrace, only moving his lips slowly as if to slow down time and relish the feelings of this moment. You melted into his kiss much like all of his others, but you yearned for more as you broke the kiss to straddle his lap. Sitting up, Leon rested his hands at your hips as you wrapped your arms around his neck and deepened the kisses you gave him. Grinding yourself onto Leon’s hardness, you helped each other take off your shirts before Leon dove forward to pepper kisses along your neck and collarbone. You arched your back, easing access for Leon to leave a few marks behind. Leon trailed his hands up and down your exposed back before dipping them into the hem of your shorts and gathered the fabric of your underwear in a gentle tug, causing the friction to rub against your clit. 

Leon pulled back for a moment, chest heaving from lust, “Are you sure you want this?”

“This isn’t our first time,” You giggled, running your fingers through his messy hair. 

“I know,” Leon said with his eyes flickering from your eyes to your swollen lips, “I’m just checking.”

“For?”

“If you want this,” Leon hesitated, pressing his lips in a fine line, “If you want me.”

You sat back, arms dropping to your sides as you peered at your lover confused. Leon rarely ever questioned your reasoning for staying with him despite all his history and his flaws. But, it was when the crackle of the fire paired with an extra large flicker of flame flashed the raw emotion of uncertainty in Leon’s eyes when you understood that it was the insecurity of all his history and all his flaws which clouded his mind with doubt. You had to step back and see things from his perspective for a moment. Of course, Leon was used to disasters in his everyday life, but now with all the great memories he’s created today, he was scared to lose it all now that the night was coming to an end. 

Knowing this, you smiled at him, holding his jawline with both hands as you pressed a passionate kiss to his lips. Leon responded with equal passion, but you could still sense a twinge of doubt within him. You pulled away, just enough to hover your lips over his as you rested your foreheads upon another, “Let me show you that I want this, that I want you.”

Leon gulped, eyes flickering between yours before slowly nodding and letting you take the lead. Taking his hands off your hips, you slid off his lap to fully undress yourself and guided him to do the same before reclaiming your place. You sat back, allowing enough space for you to dip your hand between your legs to grab Leon’s dick and slowly pump him at the base. Leon took a sharp inhale, eyes focused on your working hand. It didn’t take him long to get fully erect before you trailed your hand further up his shaft to drag his tip and spread your lubricant from pussy lips to clit. You spread the slickness along his shaft, causing him to hiss from the ease, “Don’t you need to prep? I can-”

You hushed him, “I’ll be fine, I need you in me right now.”

Leon twitched at your words, salivating from your eagerness. He didn’t want to lose his composure so quickly especially since you seemed to be holding on so well, but he was just as desperate to be in you and you were for him. Taking him back in your hand, you raised your weight in your knees and positioned yourself to take him in. Slowly, you sank down, allowing yourself the luxury of the initial painful stretch before using your body weight to bottom out. Leon’s face contorted with pleasure, using every ounce of self control that he could muster not to move your hips up and downwards as you took a moment to adjust to his size. Leon closed his eyes, taking shaky deep breaths in and out. 

You knew it was evil, but you purposefully prolonged your adjustment just to see Leon in this state. You found it endearing to see him so frustrated as you essentially cockwarmed him, but you knew you couldn’t keep this up for too long before Leon would turn the tables on you and make you regret testing his patience. So, with one last look of desperation on his face, you finally pumped your hips against his and took all of him. You hugged his wide shoulders and bit down on his skin as you dragged your walls against his veiny cock. The heat of your core plus the heat of the fire ignited a flush within you as the ember glow filled the air around you. 

Leon chose to show his appreciation by gripping your waist to push you back and leaving open mouth kisses on your breast and nipples. You arched your back, using his shoulders to hold for leverage as you continued to pump yourself on him. You could feel yourself beginning to tightened as you approached your finish and surely Leon could feel it too; however, Leon repositioned his hands to lift you off of him and on the blanket, so that you were lying on your back. 

“I was almost done,” You looked up at him with a pout from your stolen climax before a moan from your lips pierced the air as Leon entered you again. 

“I know, baby,” Leon hovered over you, lips on the shell of your ear as he whispered, “I just wanted to show you how much I wanted you too.”

With newfound passion, Leon rose back up and relentlessly pounded into your cunt. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head with pleasure as you gripped his veiny forearms to keep yourself from shifting away due to his force. You cried out into the night air as your moans and whimpers became lost in the wilderness. Lost in the feeling of Leon’s heavy thrusts, you hadn’t realized he took your hands in his as he continued his pace. 

“Please,” You gasped, “I’m almost there.”

You felt the familiar clench in your gut as Leon aimed at an upwards angle, deliciously pressing against your g-spot. You gripped his hands harder as you begged him not to stop. Leon edged you on by whispering more dirty thoughts in your ear as he groaned between his speech. Once again, Leon’s lips found your their way up and down your neck before leaving hickeys around the soft skin of your breasts 

“Cum, baby, cum for me,” Leon thrusted one last time into you, hips stuttering as he held your hand and pushed himself impossibly deeper into you. You moaned loudly as you wrapped your legs around his sides and clenched around him as he pumped into you. You both laid there, taking a moment to catch your breaths before removing yourselves, cleaning up, and laying covered up to bask in each other’s after sex glow by the fire. 

“Thank you for a memorable weekend,” Leon caressed your cheek, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” You kissed him lovingly and snuggled into his side to share his warmth. Although the fire was more than enough, it could never compare to the warmth and comfort that Leon gave you. 

“What should we do tomorrow?”

“Probably, get that tire properly fixed.” 

[shattersstar]

A possessive kiss in the rain for Alucard (Castlevania) and reader

First time ever requesting! I love your writing and your series on alucard! Feel free to make a whole new thing or to even ignore this,no pressure! Thank you!

possessive kiss in the rain + adrian tepes x vampire!reader

a/n: did i use this as an excuse to include striga? yeah of course <33 but tyyy for the request along with ur kind words im v honoured 😌 and sorry for taking forever with this i did have a lot of fun writing it tho so i hope u enjoy!!

—

It was quiet, the sun setting around an hour ago and it was still quiet. Quiet when you climbed out of the caravan to find Sypha and Trevor building a fire, quiet when you took a seat against a tree—the speaker not too far behind, even quieter when Adrian made his way back to camp, finding the magician laying her head in your lap while you stared into the flames. Both the men in your company grumbled at the sight, though Trevor had long dozed off against a tree of his own, while Adrian beckoned you with his eyes. You rose without warning Sypha, she yelped and scolded your manners as she rose to dust herself off. Her words went over your head, you offered a half glance over your shoulder in response, but tensed at the sound of her calling Adrian’s name—his other name.

Alucard rolled off her tongue as easily as all the other humans who dubbed him so. You did your best not to roll your eyes at the title, brushing past the half vampire who bid goodbye to the humans you traveled with.

You both moved silently, the ambient scape of the forest filled the air—branches snapped and leaves crunched in the distance as birds sang above and insects trilled below. You had stayed hidden amongst the trees, but followed parallel to the path that led to a cattle village nearby. And if the horde moved as you all predicted, they were likely to pass over soon. A buffet of beef would surely bring them calling, but it was still too quiet. Animals should have scattered when the wind chilled, bringing the scent of rot and decay. The sky also had not clouded over with the mass of the night creatures, the moonlight still slit through the trees and danced on your skin.

Adrian’s pointed silence didn’t help, but you were too caught up in where the night creatures were to dwell on it. It was not like them to wait so long to show themselves, the sun had set over an hour ago now—maybe they were not here yet.

You were simply ahead of schedule, you settled on, wondering if Adrian had decided the same. You were going to ask him about the silence, about the calm—yet he seemed anything, but calm. When you glanced over your shoulder you could see the emotions swirling in his golden eyes, contemplating and consuming him. “Are you okay?” You asked suddenly, your voice was the loudest thing within miles it seemed.

“Sypha’s quite taken with you.” Adrian replied, and your brows shot up your face. You stayed quiet for sometime in front of the dhampir, trying to understand the root of his statement. Perhaps the question within it. Sypha’a affection and interest towards you was what he had been stewing on?

Was it…jealousy?

No. “She has never been around our kind before and now she has two wells of knowledge. It's the speaker side of her—the only side of her.” You sounded defensive, and you hated it, over a century alive on this earth and still unable to hide yourself from those feelings. The ones Adrian brought out in you with a simple stare.

“I suppose, she does interrogate me to no end.” You both laughed lightly at that. You felt a little easier, ready to move one when he spoke again, “She’s quite comfortable around you—honest around you.”

“Comfortable?!” Your anger surfaced too fast—you knew it the moment you whipped around and Adrian took half a step back. Jarred by your reaction and the glint of your fangs in the moonlight. You wanted to calm down, but it was too heavy, “You think she should be weary of me, scared Adrian? Its okay because you can go out in the sun and survive without blood, but, but I’m—“

“No my darling.” He never interrupted you, never broke that respect he offered so easily a lifetime ago, but he did this time with a hushed tone. It silenced you, jaw clenching as you looked away. You were never one for dramatics, not in front of him especially, but it burned something deep in your chest to feel even more alienated. Forced to see skulls of vampires in the Belmont’s hold—trophies and artifacts of loved ones neatly cataloged amongst the goodies you know the Belmont boy was dying to use on you.

Adrian was easy to stomach and you were the one to be scared of, the one who stayed hidden in the caravan during the days and unable to spend a minute at night alone without wild accusations about your whereabouts, motives or more being thrown around. It had calmed down in recent days, Sypha’s unbridled affection towards you may have been a part of that, but it could also be the nights spent on hunts. Just you and Adrian, the only person who would never judge you, never see your carnage and violence and think anything of it.

It was to ease the burden the two humans had been facing, nights spent clearing areas far and wide while they worked through the days. And to quell the restless Adrian sensed brewing in you. You had barely been sleeping during the days, staring into the brief glimpses of sunlight from the back of the covered wagon with dead eyes, spending the nights irritated and distant, which never helped whatever they may think of you.

But the distance, that helped. The time spent alone with Adrian, moments to feed and drink in peace on the unfortunate souls who didn’t manage to escape the horde. Adrian often collected canteens of blood for you, keeping them with his things and out of Trevor’s knowledge. You never questioned the secrecy, but did have to stop your eyes from widening in surprise when he first gave you one. You had never asked Adrian to do such a thing, to care and attend to you in his own silent ways.

It made your anger dissolve fully, he called your name after you let out an unneeded sigh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you so. I know it's difficult, I see it. I promise.” His hand met your cheek, cradling you for a soft second. You leaned into his touch before remembering the reason you were out here. You would find the words later, instead you kissed his palm before turning back to the path. He stayed by your side as best he could, sometimes drifting behind with the forest demanded so, but always within reach. It was only when a scream pierced somewhere in the distance Adrian slipped in front of you. You both leaned into your senses, and while you both located the source of the scream, you also caught a scent of something familiar.

Something from lifetimes ago that brought back memories from your human life. You tried to shake the sudden onslaught of emotions, you were always drowning in what you felt. Alive or dead your feelings consumed you wholly. Adrian had already taken off in the direction and while you tried to follow, that warm floral scent only grew stronger. You found yourself stopping and watching him vanish into the dark of the woods. You knew another vampire was nearby, and as you carefully followed the scent, you found yourself in a small clearing.

A woman, tall and broad, sat sharpening her large blade while you lurked in the tree line. You watched her, wondering why she was here when she called out.

“No need to hide.” Her voice carried on the wind and reminded you of home. You moved at lightning speed, appearing in front of her, your long cloak settling as the breeze from your movements fluttered her long hair.

“Who are you?” You asked.

“Striga, one of four rulers of Styria.” She placed her blade against the log she sat upon, pushing herself up to her full towering height. The moonlight caught Striga's hair as she moved to stand next to you, and you couldn't deny the fact she was beautiful. Strong and powerful, but with the eyes of a lover. That kind that drew you in, saw into your soul and kissed the barest parts of your condemned spirit.

“Styria…” You whispered, it had been too many lifetimes ago since you had set foot on the shores of your birth place. And now, one of its vampire rulers stood in front of you, radiating that warm smell of jasmine and something indescribably citrus that reminded you of where you had grown up. You had left your past behind you, never returning to where you had been turned, not since you were free. Though, you had always hoped to catch that scent of Styria again and finally understand the complexities of its smell with your heightened senses. Yet you were still unable to place the adjectives that gave you a true answer to the intoxicating scent.

“You're the vampire traveling with the Belmont boy.” She was close enough that her arm brushed yours.

“I am.” You confirmed, while Striga raised a brow. Her strong arms crossed over her chest, black and purple armor amplifying her size.

“You ally yourself with the enemy.”

“I ally myself to Ad…Alucard, and if that’s the company he keeps, then it is the company I keep.” You explained, trying to ignore the bitterness at the sound of his other name.

She laughed, a low sound that made you smile involuntarily. “You’re quite something to be with a…half…thing like him.”

You laughed weakly, unable to gauge her tone. “Do you forget he’s the son of Dracula?” You inquired, scanning the tree line where just beyond night creatures howled and screeched.

“I suppose you have faith in him, leaving him to fight alone so you could speak to me.”

You didn’t reply, couldn’t muster a lie in response to what was an obvious statement. You both had lived long to know it wasn’t a question and that it was true. Striga intrigued you, standing tall and alone, and reminiscent of a life you had tried to forget. Her gorgeous purple robes were set against the royal blue sky streaked with orange as shards of leftover sunlight tangled in the thick evening clouds.

“I have heard such stories of his fighting.” Striga suddenly stated, the lit of her accent more noticeable with the casual cadence of her tone.

“Its breathtaking.” You found yourself murmuring, Adrian’s strength was always something to behold. His swiftness and keen eye, how he held his sword ever so carefully and cut many in half with more grace than a trained dancer. He was violence and art in motion. He was yours forever. It made you grin, small and fangs peaking out.

“You wear your affection on your face, he should be honoured to be cherished by someone as beautiful as you.”

“You speak like a true soldier, warrior even. Of honour and worth. It is a beautiful way to want.” You turned to face her, taking in her green eyes and the charm wrapped around a single braid in her hair. It was a long tousled mess of black waves that were half swept up. You noticed the glinting clip that held her hair back and wondered how a notorious commander would own such a thing. Perhaps it was a gift from a lover like the crystal bracelet you wore. Adrian had fastened it around your wrist one early morning. You were dozing in the caravan with him, listening to Sypha try to pry stories from Trevor while easily supplying her own. It was nice to fall asleep to the lull of their mindless talk while in Adrian’s arms. It was then he slipped it over your hand, bringing your knuckles to his lips and leaving a few soft kisses there before carefully slipping into the day.

“And how do you love him? If you do?”

You held her gaze, “You imply that I don’t?”

“I’m curious if you don’t.” She corrected with a simple nod. “I find you beautiful and interesting, it would be disheartening to know you are spoken for.”

“I am.”

“By a man who stands on the opposite of side the war?”

“It appears so.”

Striga turned her attention to the sky, appealing to the heavens as she spoke her next words.

“Then I apologize for any hurt I may cause you during this war. I’ll find you and apologize in person, repent for as long as I must.”

“That is, if you truly hurt me.”

“No, I would find you anyways.”

You chuckled, “Why?”

“To see if you are still in love.” Striga shrugged her broad shoulders, the words almost too casual as if she knew something you did not. It made you nervous, another half laugh escaping your lips before you turned back towards the tree line. “You do love him?” She inquired, shifting closer. A moment of silence passed before a howl broke through the woods. Inhuman and sending a flock of birds into the night sky. You followed them with your gaze.

“I try not too.” You answered honestly, watching the winged creatures disappear into another part of the dense forest. Adrian was far too great for this world to be yours. You were a lowly vampire turned by a lonely widow who needed company more than blood. She begged and begged until she stopped taking no for an answer and turned you in your sleep. You woke up screaming and sobbing, a life robbed by someone who didn’t even end up wanting you. Her guilt consumed her whole, she had doomed you to the same life she wanted reprieve from and choose to let the church find and kill her. She left you alone, and you wanted to spend eternity just like that.

But you and Adrian had found each other, lonely in your own torrential ways. You had never met someone like him before, someone caught between two worlds you had given up on entirely. Adrian brought something to quell the loneliness of your cursed existence, and for that companionship, you’d follow him anywhere.

You would accept death at the hands of his father if it meant stopping the bloodshed as Adrian wanted. You had nothing, but your entire self to give to him. Maybe besides the knowledge from the life you lived and the sword on your hip. He could have something more normal, more human than you, if that’s what he so wanted from his life. You had always understood that, accepted that and tried to love him a little less in spite of it all.

Yet, your heart bled for him in ways you had never known in your brief human life, and forever stretching vampiric one. It was almost painful, how much you craved him. And almost, almost, was more powerful than the lust for blood that fueled your existence.

“Speak of the devil, and he shall appear “ Striga’s soft voice broke you from your thoughts, reality crashing down as Adrian stood, panting, at the edge of the clearing. He was across from you, hunched forward slightly, and hand on his blade. “I will be seeing you, soon I pray.” Striga hummed, bringing your attention to her face as she grabbed your bare hand with her gloved one. She brought your knuckles to her lips, placing a chaste kiss all while her sea green eyes bored into yours.

You opened your mouth to respond, but she vanished into the night before your hand reached your side. You pivoted back towards Adrian, walking in his direction at a steady pace, while your gaze fell to your feet. You focused on each step, one foot in front of the other, until his hands jumped to your biceps and stopped you in place.

You were about a foot from him, head tilting from the ground to meet his angry gaze. Adrian dropped his hands from you, letting silence wash over you two as the forest’s din became too loud in your ears.

“I’m sorry.” You blurted out, anything to cut the silence and tension along with it.

Adrian shifted his weight, the sunny yellow of his eyes was a deep amber in the dark of night. “Why were you here?”

“I could smell a vampire, and investigated.”

“Investigated!?” His tone inflected with the anger he normally kept at bay.

“She was from Styria and I-I was curious. Is that wrong?” You were finding your ground, steadying your voice as challenge lingered in your tone.

You two never fought, not like this.

“Was it wrong to leave me—“

“You are more than capable, we both know that Adrian.” You snapped, you would not be guilted into seeing him as helpless. Adrian was anything, but that.

“Why did she kiss your hand?” Your angered confidence faltered, your gaze softening as something…sad bled into his voice. Something cold and lonely you knew well.

“I don’t know.”

His jaw clicked, and in an instant he was in your space, fangs flashing because he couldn’t help it, as his fingers grasped your jaw. He stared into your eyes and asked you again. Perhaps it was the proximity, or your own ego dying down, but you saw through him so clearly. So easily, as you always had, and understood.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, as the looming clouds finally began to cry soft tears of rain.

Pat. Pat. Pat. Against your clothes, it wasn’t torrential, but that misty rain that made everything hazy.

“She was interested in me, she complimented me and asked about you—us. She reminded me of a place I called home ages ago but my love, she is not you.” Maybe it was jealousy earlier when Adrian asked about Sypha, but regardless it definitely was now. You were unsure how he could think such things when you felt so unworthy of him, and he was worried about a woman you met once. Yes she was beautiful, and carried power and confidence like it was given to her by god, but she was not the man you loved.

The one you had swore yourself to, one you killed for and one you would gladly die for if he so much as asked. His grip faltered, eyelids shuddering as your soft explanation washed over him like the rain. With a voice barely above a whisper on the wind you continued, “I never have nor will I give myself to someone like I have you, Adrian. I would do anything at your behest. Anything beloved.” You pressed your hands against his torso, clinging to the fabric of his coat as best you could.

“Anything?” He rasped, like speaking was a chore he had no capacity for.

“I’d burn worlds down or build them up if you asked. I’d kill the Belmont boy or give my life for his if you asked. I’d lock myself away and never speak to anyone but you if that’s what you wanted. Yes, my love, anything.”

“Just let me kiss you.” Adrian’s mouth met yours before you could answer, but you both knew it was a yes. It was more teeth and fang than anything at first, as the momentum of his body slamming into yours, sent you reeling back a step before one of his hands moved to your waist. Your hands slipped up his chest, fingers still clutching the fabric before one of your hands tangled into his hair. Fingers toying with the golden lock that cascaded down his back.

Adrian still had one hand cradling your jaw, keeping you in place as he kissed you with enough desire to make you delirious. Your mouths moved together, his fangs grazing your bottom lip. He wasn’t usually like this, bold and desperate, but you would let Adrian kiss and hold you however he needed. To let the jealousy spiral through his system and find release in your lips against his.

You smiled against his mouth, nails scraping deliciously through his hair before his tongue found yours. You were faintly aware of the rain, starting to beat down heavier with each second you spent lost in each other's embrace. Adrian finally pulled away, letting his thumb smooth over your chin before finding the other side of your waist. You let both your arms wrap around his neck, stealing soft kisses as the thunder grew louder. You knew you would have to go back soon, but Adrian was still preoccupied with leaving open mouth kisses against yours, pulling back slightly before deciding he still needed more. It was more tender, what you were used to from him. Chasing your lips, a few soft pecks turning into something more heated before he would start the cycle again.

You played with his hair and felt his fingers twitch against your side as the darkness clouding his beautiful expression softened. Adrian stopped his assault of kisses, dropping his head to the curve of your neck. You kissed the top of his head, fingers slipping out of his hair.

“I love you.” You murmured, such sentiments felt a little too human and empty for you. And you did love him, but it was just more than that. He still said it to you often, and you were easy to repeat the sentiment, but you rarely offered it on your own. It was no reflection of him, it was just your distance from humanity you could never get back. But you knew Adrian needed to hear it.

“I love you too darling.” He hummed against your skin, leaving a kiss there before standing at his full height. You stared at him for a moment, the want still clear in his eyes as he tucked you against his side. You walked through the forest with clasped hands, the thick trees keeping out some of the rain, not that you cared.

You both had faster means of returning to camp, but pressed against Adrian who occasionally left kisses on the fabric by your shoulder or brought your intertwined hands to his lips, was enough to forget about the storm. Adrian engulfed you and drowned you in ways the rain never could, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[reigningqueenofwords]

You Misspelled Love

Pairing: past Cas x Reader Word count: 2,217

Read on AO3

“Hey, babe.” You walked in your motel room, tossing your keys on the small table. Cas was staring out the small window on the other side of the room. Usually, he greeted you with open arms. Something was wrong. “Cas?” You asked gently, moving towards him.

He let out a small sigh before turning to you. Your stomach dropped at the look on his face. “I need to be honest with you.” He said seriously. “I kissed Meg.”

It took you a moment to respond. “What do you mean you kissed her?” You asked.

“I pushed her against a wall, gripped her hair, and kissed her roughly.” He explained, watching the emotions roll across your face. Cas knew that this would break your heart. “I’m sorry.” He sighed.

You looked at him in disbelief. “You’re…sorry?” You crossed your arms over your chest. “I know it’s just kissing, but still, Cas.” You looked away, tearing up. “It’s Meg! You chose to kiss a demon- like that- while you have a human girlfriend.” His blue eyes went to the carpet in shame. “One who loves you.” You added softly. “And I know I haven’t said it yet, but do I not show you that I care?”

“Y-you love me?” He started at you, shocked. “And, of course you do!”

Wiping your cheek, you shrugged. “I won’t even ask why. There’s no point. Why doesn’t matter, because clearly we don’t.” He opened his mouth to argue, but you cut him off. “I might have been able to handle it if she kissed you, and you were honest about that. But you kissed her, Cas. You pushed her against a wall, and clearly were into it. That speaks volumes. I think you need to go spend time with the boys, because you aren’t staying here tonight.”

“Please…” He begged.

You shook your head. “No.” Your eyes locked on his. “I’m hurt, and I need time to think.”

“I love you.” He said softly before he left.

“Hey, where’s Cas?” You asked the next morning when the boys came and got you to head out.

Dean furrowed his brows. “He isn’t with you?”

You shook your head. “No. I told him he wasn’t staying with me last night, and he could go spend time with you two.”

“He never showed up.” Sam told you honestly.

“Oh…” You breathed, your stomach sinking.

“Cas!” Dean called, angry. “Where were you?” He asked the angel when he appeared.

“With Meg, why?” He answered, turning when their eyes went behind him. “Y/N, wait!” He tried to pull you to him when you shoved past him, out of the motel room. “Y/N!” 

You spun around, slapping him when he got close enough. “NO!” Dean watched, eyebrows shooting up. He had no idea what was going on between the pair of you. “You hurt by kissing her, and when I ask you to go spend time with the boys , you went right to her.” You clenched your jaw. “You went right to the person you hurt me with. Not even a damn person. A demon!” You were pacing, doing your best not to yell about this in a motel parking lot. After all, you didn’t need anyone else knowing about this. 

“Yes, I went to see her.” Cas said calmly. “I went to talk to her.” 

You clenched your jaw as you teared up. “Why?” You breathed. “Why go right to her?” You asked, wrapping your arms around yourself. “Out of everyone.” 

Dean watched as Cas’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I believe I have deep feelings for her.” He admitted. 

Sucking in a breath, it felt like it was getting harder to get air into your lungs. “After what I told you last night? After I told you that I love you, and you couldn’t say it back.” You stated. “You come here, and you say that?!” You felt your knees weaken. 

Sam noticed, too, rushing towards you. He quickly wrapped his arms around you. You leaned into him, shaking your head. “I never meant to hurt you.” Cas tried, stepping forward. 

“We’re over. Done.” You glared at him. “Breaking up. However you want to say it. I never want to see your face again. I’ll help the boys, but I never, ever, ever want to speak to you again, Castiel.” You spat. “Come near me again, and I will instantly banish you.” You threatened. 

“I’m sorry.” He told you before snapping away. Probably to her. 

Sam rubbed your back gently. “I’m sorry, that...that’s never something I thought he would do.” 

“Chose a demon over me? Yeah, me, either.” You agreed, unsure how to even move forward at this point. 

“Let’s get our stuff and get out of here. You’re more than welcome to crash at the bunker for a bit if you’d like.” He offered, leading you back towards the motel. “Let’s get you some rest.” 

You gave him a tight smile. “You know what, I think I’m gonna head out.” You told him. “Catch a bus to the beach and think over what I plan to do next.” You hugged him. “I’ll keep in touch, though, I promise.” You kissed his cheek. “Behave, Dean.” You said as you neared the older hunter. 

“And miss out on you lecturing me?” He teased. “Where’s the fun in that?” He asked, pulling you into a hug and kissing the top of your head. “I’m sorry for what he did.” He said softly. 

Closing your eyes, you shook your head as you hugged him back. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Dean.” You assured him. “I’ll talk to you soon.” 

-- 6 months later --

“I promise you, Dean.” You smiled, phone between your shoulder and ear as you moved around your kitchen. “He knows all about our ‘shit’, and he did not run screaming for the hills.” You laughed. “He can’t wait to see you guys, either.” You told him. “He’s out getting some more food because you’re a bottomless pit.” You teased. “Yes! We have pie!” You lost it. 

“Love, I’m back.” Came your boyfriend’s smooth English voice. “The cashier asked me if I had a pregnant woman at home while she was ringing me out.” He teased. “I told her ‘yeah, my girlfriend’s best friend is totally a pregnant lad.” He laughed. 

You turned as he came into the kitchen and raised your eyebrows. “Do you plan on sending them home with half the store?” You laughed before your focus was back on Dean. “I’ll see you in a couple hours. Love you. Ass.” You hung up, chuckling. “He’s such a dork.” You told him. 

Byron grinned at you. “What’d you call him an ass for this time, pet?” He asked, unbagging everything. He loved the relationship between the pair of you. 

“Nothing this time.” You admitted, pecking his cheek. “Just because I can. I’m the closest thing I have to an annoying little sister.” You grinned up at him. “He said they’ll be here about five. So we have plenty of time to prep to cook out back tonight.” 

“Will they like me?” He asked. “Or will they think I’m too ‘pretentious’ or something?” His dark eyes went to you, full of worry. “After all, I’m just some high school teacher.” He reminded you. “You are the ones who truly make the world a better place.” 

You hugged him. “And you make the world a smarter place.” You pointed out. “Besides. You have that super hot accent. What’s not to like about that?” You winked playfully. 

He chuckled, moving to wrap his arms around you as well. “I’ll take your word for it.” 

Dean flipped a burger before taking a swig of his beer. “You’re telling me that your family estate is haunted? And no one’s died?” He glanced at your boyfriend, eyebrow raised. 

Byron nodded. “I am telling you the complete truth.” He assured him. “It has been haunted since it’s construction in the late 1800s.” He explained as you ran a hand through his hair, sitting sideways on his lap. “My family has been close to another family in the same area for just as long as our house has been standing, mind you. So, when it was completed, it was only proper to celebrate. The Winstons were to stay the week, but the first night there, two of them went missing. Our land is quite large, but was searched. It was the mother, and the eldest daughter who vanished.” He licked his lips. “She was a mere seventeen at the time.” Byron sighed. “Their remains have never been discovered. I looked as a child. My father looked, as well. Every nook and cranny in that place. There are many, many places for a child to hide there.” He chuckled lightly. “Anyways, when I was a lad, I would hear a woman sing me to sleep. Especially on stormy nights, or nights when I felt scared.”

“It wasn’t your mom?” Sam asked, curious. 

“No, as it happened even when she was out.” He smiled. “I had wondered the same thing, honestly. Until I saw her. The daughter.” He was in awe even after all these years. “Sitting in a chair by my window. Apparently, the daughter had been maternal since she was a child. She sang to each of her siblings at night, told them bedtime stories. There’s a family theory, one that we have never been able to prove. That something far more...sinister...killed them. And they keep those beings at bay somehow. That they have looked after the children ever sense.” 

Dean plated the burgers, shaking his head. “That’s not the usual M.O of ghosts.” He noted. “Have you ever tried to get someone to check it out? Aren’t you worried about your kids running around ghosts one day?” 

“I never thought about it until I met Y/N to be honest. To me, ghosts could be good or bad.” He admitted. “Now I worry different.” His eyes went to you, then the boys. 

You rubbed over his shoulders. “I’m sure that if something wanted to hurt your family, they would have. Right? It’s been a very long time.” You noted. “But, how about we just enjoy a cookout as normally as we can?” You asked, moving to make a burger. “Because I finally got to see my two best friends again after months of things coming up for both of us.” You chuckled. 

“Yes, ma’am.” Dean smirked. 

-- 7 years later --

Pulling up to the motel, you sighed. It had been a couple years since you’d been on a hunt like this, so you were a bit worried about being out of practice. You’d helped with research, but that was it. Hell, you didn’t even live in America anymore. You grabbed your bag from the passenger seat and slid out once you’d parked. 

Dean came out to greet. “You know I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t really need you hear.” He said, making the ‘sorry’ face.

“It’s okay. Byron was as surprised as I was when you asked.” You admitted, playing with the ring on your finger. 

“I get it. How’s Claudette?” He asked about your daughter. 

You beamed. “She’s great. Little sassy thing.” You chuckled, following him into the hotel room. You froze when you saw Cas. “Y-you didn’t tell me that he’d be here.” You looked at Dean, your smile falling. 

“He asked me not to.” He admitted. “And I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t come.” 

“Of course I wouldn’t have. I flew all the way from England to help you, Dean. Because you said you needed me here.” You pointed out. “How can you need me when you have an angel , and could probably have his demon bitch , too.” You set your bag down, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’ve moved on, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him.” 

Cas stood. “I needed to speak with you.” He said calmly. “I know it’s been nearly eight years, but I respected your wish to stay away.” He sighed as you looked at him, a bored look on your face. “I was wrong. So wrong.” He said sadly. “It was purely lust I felt for her. It was not the love that I felt- feel for you.” He admitted. 

You nodded slightly. “And how many times did you fuck her to find that out?” You asked sarcastically. “Look, I’m not here to fight with you. I’m not here to reply the past or open old wounds, Castiel.” You said calmly. “I’m here to help the boys. I’m here for my best friends. I will help with this case, and then I will get back on a plane. I will go home to my husband and my daughter.” You saw the pain roll across his face. “And I will go back to my life.” 

“Y-you’re married. And have a child?” He asked, glancing to Dean. “I was unaware.” 

“I’m not mentioning an innocent kid out of nowhere. It’s not my kid to bring up.” Dean raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t know how much she wanted you to know.” He explained. 

You gave his arm a squeeze. “Thank you.” You said softly. “Now, about this case.” You went straight to being professional.

[samodivaa]

smut - ⁂ ︳angst - ☢ ︳fluff - ☀

✭Asset!Reader x Winter Soldier/Bucky

Thrill me, Fulfill me ⁂ . ☀

You agreed to help for one mission—now you are both lustful and carnal, affected by sex pollen—you are flint, he is tinder.

Words don’t trigger him, emotions do ⁂ . ☢ . ☀

Anger, resentment and especially, jealousy—those emotions were all he knew while you both spent decades at Hydra.

Your mission ⁂ . ☢

Written by - mrsbuckybarnes1917 You're a HYDRA asset tasked with tracking down and recovering a lost soldier: Bucky Barnes. Story takes place between CA: WS and CA: CW.

My snowflake ⁂

You just returned from a mission—you provoke him, but the tension flicks from anger to fevered desire.

✭Reader x Winter Soldier

Training Techniques ☢ . ⁂

He is not allowed to move an inch—he can only watch you pleasure yourself—but why is there a ring on your finger?

Soul-debasing Interrogation ⁂

Both his mentality and body can withstand anything—to err is...human—you are the human in this situation.

Winter Soldier x Nurse!Reader ⁂ . ☢

Regular sex health checks are important

✭Series Deny the truth,set my world on fire ☢ . ⁂

He knew that she was having an affair...she denies, but the love marks on her body are still there. She can't tell him the truth, it will break him - the Winter Soldier is indeed inside of him, fucking her at night and Bucky doesn't remember. (Complete)

✭Ex-Asset!Reader x Bucky Barnes (drabble) Mind Corruption ☢

Zemo can't help it - entrapping y/n's mind in the notion that she will never be free of her programming, the urge to kill is still very present in her life.Protective!Bucky

The relationship between Humor and Trauma ☀

Making fun of Bucky for not remembering who he had killed as the Winter Soldier is always entertaining.

[egypt-museum]

Humanoid Heart Scarab Amulet

The so-called “heart scarabs” had to protect the heart of the deceased. According to ancient Egyptians, the heart contained the intellect and emotions. For this reason, it should have been preserved in the Afterlife as well.

Heart scarabs were very popular amulets. Positioned on the chest of the mummy, they usually take the shape of a large scarab beetle (which was a symbol of regeneration). Occasionally, the beetle’s head is replaced with that of a human. For the ancient Egyptians the heart was not only the center of life, but also of thinking, memory, and moral values.

Third Intermediate Period, ca. 943-746 BC. Made of steatite. Dimensions: 4 x 5.5 x 8.5 cm. Egyptian Museum of Turin. Cat. 5983

Read more

[aylacavebear]

The Curse That Changed Your Life - Part 2 Chapter 5

With the witch taken care of, your hopes of being human gone, and dealing with sensations and emotions you hadn't before, life didn't seem like it was going to get much better. How would he look at you in the morning after what you'd said to him? What would you do after this? What would the next month hold, and how much like a cat were you? There were far too many questions you didn't have answers to and didn't want to ask. Would you find any answers in the month to come? Only time would tell.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x OC Reader/You

Word Count: 2472

Warnings: Charlie being a good friend, Dealing with cycle, reader being hard on herself. Not really much for this one.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 5

Somewhere near an hour or two later, you’d finally gotten your clothes put away. You had dragged your feet, making a fifteen-minute task take far longer than necessary. You’d also completely forgotten about the cotton you’d put in your ears earlier, so you didn’t hear the five of them in the war room and kitchen. It wasn’t until Charlie knocked on your door that you jumped.

“Didn’t mean to scare you. Eileen and I got your room set up, and we made a supply run. Wanna come see?” she asked with one of the softest smiles you’d seen on her in a while.

Managing a small smile in return, “Sure,” you answered, getting yourself off your bed.

You followed her through the hallways until she stopped at the farthest room away from all the others. Inside were some of your clothes, and two extra folded blankets were sitting on the foot of the bed. Eileen was soon standing behind the two of you, holding a bag.

“Here, Charlie,” Eileen said, her voice filled with genuine care as she handed her the bag. Then, turning to you, she continued, “We’re here for you. You’re family now, and we’ll stand by you through this.”

She hugged you before leaving, going back to the kitchen with the guys. Charlie took the bag and set it on the bed. You watched as she pulled out candles, little glass bottles resembling essential oils, and a heating pad. She put the candles around the room, the bottles on the nightstand, and the heating pad on the other side of the bed, plugging it in. 

“I did some research,” she explained while setting everything up, “on cats. I think you’re going through a harder depression than normal because of the curse making you part cat. I grabbed aromas that are supposed to help with relaxation. First, we have to get you through your cycle. It’s gonna go one of two ways. Either it’s going to hit you hard, or the depression will take over, and you won’t want to do anything, not even eat.”

You were attempting to understand what she was talking about, but with the fog that had invaded your mind, it wasn’t making a lot of sense at the moment. So, you just nodded, hoping she wouldn’t notice your confusion.

“We’re all going to be here to get you through this. Eileen and I will be the only two who come anywhere near your room. Dean’s already agreed to do the cooking and Sam agreed to take care of clean up. Cas can help if it's a hard one by healing you. Well, sort of. It won’t stop the pain, but it will at least lessen it a little,” she continued, lighting two of the candles before opening one of the small jars, and the scent of lavender filled the room.

With how all the aromas mixed together, it began clearing that fog that had been filling your mind. You even managed a small, appreciative smile. “Thanks, Charlie. I’m sorry I’m so much trouble,” you told her quietly, feeling like you wanted to cry again.

She went over to you and wrapped you in a hug, “You’re not any trouble. This is what family does for each other, and you’re family now. I’m just sorry I didn’t see the signs sooner.” Charlie pulled back and looked at you, concerned, “Want anything else out of your room?”

“Maybe just my laptop and charging cable for my phone,” you mumbled.

With that, she left you alone in the room. You looked around at the mostly empty room, but somehow, the candles made it feel less empty. The aromas were a soft blanket around you, almost like they seeped into your very pores, soothing a deep pain you couldn’t quite comprehend. You moved the few articles of clothes to the desk, set the blankets on the floor near the bed, and then laid down on your side, cuddling up with the pillow.

Charlie wasn’t gone long before she returned with both items you had requested. She set your laptop on the nightstand near you, plugged in your phone charger so all you had to do was plug in your phone, and then grabbed the lavender essential oil. You only partially watched her as she dabbed what looked like a handkerchief and set it on the far side of the room. She did that with two others, letting the scent of lavender swirl around the room.

“I really appreciate this, Charlie,” you told her quietly, finding yourself fairly sleepy now.

She went to the other side of the bed, where the heating pad was so she could see your face. You looked horrible, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. She just gave you a soft, caring smile as she moved a few strands of hair carefully behind your ear.

“That’s what family is for,” she sighed softly, “Get some sleep. I’ll bring you food after you wake up.”

You gave her a soft, sleepy smile in return as your eyes began closing. Charlie turned off your light, headed out of your room, and closed the door behind her, leaving you to get some much-needed rest. It was a peaceful sleep due to the aromas in the room. She wasn’t worried about the candles staying lit, as there was no way they could catch anything on fire with where they were set up. Plus, they were in thick glass.

—------

Something pulled you from the deep sleep you’d fallen into, and you woke somewhat confused. The room was dark, well, the light was off, and the candles weren’t lit anymore. You began wondering if someone had gone in and blown them out. As you attempted to roll over, cramps radiated from your abdomen out and then throughout your entire body, making you curl right back into a ball.

Slowly reaching into your back pocket, you managed to grab your phone and texted Charlie, not even looking at the time. Letting her know that you were awake and in pain before having to drop your phone on the bed and hold onto your abdomen as another wave moved through your body. 

Heating pad.

Tilting your head slightly, you saw it there, grabbed it with the little strength you had, wrapped it across your abdomen, and turned it on. You started on the lowest setting, not sure how hot the thing might get if you’d turned it all the way up. It wasn’t like you wanted to cook yourself. Some of what Charlie had told you earlier replayed in your mind.

Great. Looks like it’s gonna be a hard one.

It wasn’t long before Charlie made her way into your room, turning the lamp on that was sitting on the desk, not wanting it to be overly bright for you. You glanced up at her, and her expression instantly softened.

“Here, this’ll help with the cramps,” she told you, handing you three small, oblong pills. When you attempted to sit up, you winced, grabbing your abdomen, so she helped you. “Thanks,” you managed through the pain, feeling somewhat pathetic for her taking care of you.

She helped you with the water so you could take the pills she’d brought you, then helped you get comfortable again. “I’m gonna make you something to eat. It’s not a lot, just something small. You barely ate yesterday,” she told you before heading out of your room.

That made you wonder what time it was, let alone how long you’d slept for. Picking up your phone, you were fairly surprised seeing that it was past noon on the following day. You’d slept for nearly a whole day. That was, of course, when your bladder made itself known. 

Grumbling, you forced yourself to get up, no matter how bad the pain was, and hobbled to the bathroom, leaning on the walls for support. Every step felt like it sent pain shooting through your nerves and like your feet were weighted down. One hand over your abdomen, the other using the wall, you slowly made your way to the bathroom. Deciding not to look in the mirror, you took care of your business and began what felt like a long walk back, even though it was only about twenty or so feet. Charlie appeared, holding a small bowl of what you assumed was ice cream, but it didn’t smell like it.

“I could have helped you,” she sighed, seeing how badly you were struggling.

She set the bowl on your nightstand before helping you back to bed. You had to admit, it was far easier with her help than it had been on your own. Once the heating pad was back over your abdomen, she grabbed the bowl and handed it to you. When you sniffed it, your nose wrinkled.

“Eat. It’s yogurt, and I even got you vanilla. It’ll help your body feel better even if you don’t like it,” she told you. To you, though, it sounded like she was telling a sick child they needed to eat something healthy that they didn’t like. 

You pouted but didn’t argue. You knew your body needed nourishment, so reluctantly began eating, making disgusted faces with each bite. She even stayed there with you till you were done eating, making sure you ate all of it. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” she told you with a soft smile.

“You didn’t have to eat it,” you grumbled. However appreciative you were, it was gross. Then, your stomach growled loudly, which, of course, made Charlie smile.

“I’ll bring in what Dean’s been working on,” she chuckled, then took the dishes and left your room.

You watched her go, then drank some more of the water she’d left from earlier. At least the heating pad and meds seemed to be helpful, or so you told yourself. The water wasn’t washing away the flavor of the yogurt that still felt as though it was on your tongue. You turned up the heat on the heating pad to medium, shifting slightly where you were leaning against the headboard when an amazing aroma hit your senses.

Steak…

Closing your eyes, you inhaled deeply, letting the aroma wash over and through you. It smelled delectable and made your mouth water while your stomach growled. Charlie soon entered your room, holding a plate in one hand and a soda in the other. 

“I’m glad that worked,” she sighed in relief, sitting down near you on the other side of the bed. “It’s rare. I hope that’s okay. I really only had what I found online to help figure out food for you,” she explained, handing you the plate.

You licked your lips, cutting a bite, needing to taste it. It melted in your mouth. Soft, flavorful, and juicier than you imagined it would be. It was so good that you began purring, which hadn’t happened in quite a while. Before you took another bite, though, you looked over at her, as if her words had finally hit you.

“What do you mean?” you asked, mildly confused.

While you ate, Charlie re-explained what she had the day before, with some added details. Things like food you should be eating during this time frame, for both human and cat reasons, being close to a bathroom in case they had to cool your body off if the meds didn’t work, and that the brothers wouldn’t come near your room until it was over. When you gave her a confused look at the last part, she went into more detail.

“I have a theory and it concerns the two of them. Sam’s with Eileen, and he only sees you like a little sister, so he’s out, as that would be weird,” she blurted out quickly like she had a habit of doing when she was excited about something.

“Dean, on the other hand, well…” she trailed off, gathering her thoughts, “It’s stupidly obvious that the two of you like each other. My theory is that if he were to be around you, you’d basically go into a heat, like a cat. I was part of the test. You’re not into girls, so you aren’t affected by me being around you, even though you know I have a thing for you.”

It mostly made sense, although it was still hard to put it all together. You figured that was due to your cycle and how depressed you’d been.

“Now, after your cycle is over, things are gonna change around here. No more moping around and hiding in your room or some other random room. And for the love of all things Hogwarts, no more cleaning. I know this is a lot, and we’ll talk more when your cycle is over. Until then, we’ve got you. When you’re hungry, text any of us and let us know. And before you say it, you’re not a burden,” she finally finished, giving you that look that meant not to argue with her.

“It’s a lot to comprehend at the moment. My head still feels foggy,” you told her, giving her a half smile.

“If all you remember is to text one of us when you need something, I’ll be happy with that,” she told you, again with that damned look.

“I will. I will,” you replied quickly, feeling almost like a scolded child. You then glanced down at your plate, realizing you’d eaten the entire steak and cleaned the bone. “Could you thank Dean for me? It was really amazing,” you asked quietly, feeling another surge of depression, wanting to drown you.

“I can do that,” she replied.

Charlie stood, but instead of taking your plate and leaving, she lit a couple of candles and put some more of the lavender on the handkerchiefs. You sipped your soda, watching her. Your stomach was full, but the fog in your head kept you from thinking clearly, even with the aromas dancing lightly through the room. She also turned on the light on your nightstand and turned off the one on the desk, knowing you wouldn’t want to deal with moving again.

She gave you a compassionate smile before taking your dishes and leaving you alone, closing your door behind her. Now, with a full stomach, the aroma therapy going on in your room, the meds, and the heating pad, you felt sleepy again. Part of you thought perhaps she drugged you just so you’d sleep, but that was more the depression talking. 

With half-lidded eyes, you turned off your light, carefully slipped under the covers while keeping the heating pad on your abdomen, and then curled up with your pillow. Sleep came for you quickly, which you were thankful for, and now you were glad you hadn’t gone for the motel room alone.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 6

Series Master List Part 1 Master List Part 2 Master List Past 3 Master List Main Master List

A/N: As always, if you'd like to be tagged, let me know in a comment. And if I missed your request to be tagged, please let me know. I know not everyone is interested in everything an author writes, so don't mind doing different tag lists for each piece of writing. I just get a lot of requests sometimes.

Tag List: @roseblue373 @zaratahir @jc-winchester @suckitands33 @n-o-p-e-never

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@stillhere197 @kr804573 @hobby27 @megs-gadom

[synthetickitsune]

Highs & Lows ✧ w.jh

Pairing: Wen Junhui x reader Genre: fluff, comfort Summary: Jun goes through a dom drop after a scene. Word count: 2.8k Warnings: dom/sub dynamics, mentions of sex and insecurities A/N: This is just a brain vomit, sorry to anyone who reads this lol

Jun takes care of you.

He makes you drink a glass of water and eat some crackers. He helps you out of the bed, supporting much of your weight as he helps you into the bathroom and then into the shower. He holds you up and washes your body without wasting a single opportunity to kiss you and remind you how much he loves you. He washes your hair, massaging your scalp and falling deeper and deeper the longer he watches you leaning on him, allowing him to do as he wishes even after the scene is over. His own shower is a quick affair after he declines your pouty insistence that you’ll help him wash just as he’s done for you. He’ll admit that pointing out you’re barely able to stand by yourself is basically cheating, but he couldn’t handle anything happening to you.

And he won’t give into your puppy eyes either. There’s no way he’s letting you into the bed without making sure you’ve drunk another glass of water at least, praising you when you ask for another. This time he shares the water and snacks with you, cooing at your cuteness.

He just needs to make sure you’re alright. 

Only once you’re sated and soothed, curled under the covers with him, he allows himself to register his own emotions, his own body. It’s so heavy all of a sudden. Exhaustion hits Jun like a ton of bricks. He can feel it all the way deep in his bones. It’s like he’s six again, swinging on the swings and for some reason he’s too high and it’s scary and uncomfortable. Like he’s been holding tension in his body for too long - and to be honest this one is probably more than just a feeling - and now, even if the relief is there, his muscles hurt. He feels like he’s at sea, his feelings washing over him in waves, rocking up and down, up and down, and down, down, down…

There are signs you’ve learned to recognize well. Subtle things at first. His head dropping a little and leaning on yours, his arms relaxing their hold. He leans his entire weight on you. It’s inconclusive, however, he might be just tired. Even if today's scene was far from the most intense you’ve done, you're well aware that that means little to a human mind and body. So you keep a closer eye on Jun. You hold him and pull yourself closer to him, kissing along his jaw. You dip your hands under his shirt and run your hands over his naked skin. No change, no pulling you closer like he usually would. And that’s alright, you hope to convey through your touch.

You stay silent. You give him time. His heart beats steady and strong under your ear. He’s always reassuring, and you can only hope that you are too. You trace his spine with your fingers up towards his neck and knead the muscles around his shoulders. They feel tense, uncomfortable, and so you try to make it better. Giving massages is not your strongest suit, especially in this position, but you need to try. You work on the knots in his shoulders before moving lower, easing the aches along his spine. You feel him resisting against giving into your touches, feel each flex of his muscles, and you know with certainty now that he’s not in the right state of mind.

And then you hear him take a shaky breath as he completely melts into you.

“Oh Junnie,” you sigh, hugging his limp body. You know he needs you now, needs to be taken care of, and you’re more than willing to provide. You stay still for a while, tucked under his chin, holding him and stroking his back slowly. You know he’s most sensitive now, and you want him to know and feel that you’re there and he can trust you to support him through this. He’s still leaning completely on you, and somehow you feel more strongly that you’re the only thing that’s keeping him at least somewhat grounded.

In the quiet room, only his uneven breathing can be heard. He feels like those beads-filled plushies - he’s just as warm and comfortable to hug and to have lying on you. Or maybe more like a weighted blanket, no strength in his hold on you. It’s nice in its own way. He’s too careful otherwise to lay on you like this for longer than a couple seconds. And you get to be covered with his body, his heart pounding right under your ear. It makes you feel a little sleepy. Does he realize how safe he makes you feel? Probably not - definitely not now, so you make a mental note to tell him.

For the time being, you just hold him tighter. Once again, he doesn’t react, except for the muscles adjacent to his spine flexing as he stops himself from tilting and rolling on top of you. It’s only when you try to move that he squeezes you back, a tiny noise of protest slipping through his lips. Yet he doesn’t stop you. You could slip away from him if you wanted to, and it breaks your heart a little when you remember how just this morning he clinged to you so much you were almost late for work.

“I’m here, I got you,” you murmur with a kiss to his shoulder. You adjust your position so that your eyes are level with his, even if he doesn’t let you look at him, hiding his face in your neck instead. You let him and shift a little so it’s more comfortable for both of you. 

“It’s alright,” you whisper, “I’m not going anywhere.” He takes deep breaths that you recognize from all the times you’ve held him before when he came home upset. On instinct, you pet his hair. He kisses your neck, so lightly you almost miss it, and you know it’s his silent thanks. 

“I love you,” you say softly and your fingers move to play with his hair. He holds you so carefully. Like he can’t decide whether to let go or hold you like you could break any second. So you hold him that much tighter. “You’re so loved, Jun. Always.”

He doesn’t say anything but he hides his face more, his breathing stuttering a little. You kiss his temple in response and keep combing your fingers through his hair. It’s still wet at the ends and your fingers glide through easily. With your other hand, you slowly stroke his back. You draw patterns all around, hoping to distract him from his thoughts. Even if it’s only slightly, you feel him lean into your touch.

While not new, this isn’t a situation that usually happens. You’ve discussed what each of you needs should drop ever happen, but it’s pretty rare for Jun so the steps come to you slower than you’d like. Fortunately it seems he’s happy enough to let you pamper him with gentle affection - which works for you as well. You’re always happy to cuddle with Jun, and if you’re honest, it’s what you need right now as well.

“Do you want to drink some more water?” you offer, but receive a shake of his head in response. His hair tickles your skin as he stubbornly buries his face into the crook of your neck. Maybe you’d insist if it wasn’t for the fact that he takes hydration after a scene very seriously and has already made both of you drink enough before. Besides you don’t think you could make him separate from you. “What about…”

Before you can offer him some snacks, you feel him snuggle impossibly closer. If he was barely hugging you before, right now he feels like a giant snake strangling his prey. He’s shaking his head vigorously, his hands clawing at your back, and you know that it’s a lost battle.

“You need to breathe, Junnie,” you kiss the top of his head, “I’m right here.” You repeat it a couple more times, patiently waiting for him to calm down and see you won’t force him to let go. Eventually, he reluctantly moves an inch. “Just like that, you’re doing well.” His arms tighten around you but at least his head isn’t hidden in your neck. You can feel his erratic breathing slowing down, which - you hope - is a good sign. He seems just a little calmer, and at the moment every tiny step feels like success. Soon enough, though, he’s nuzzling into your shoulder again. There seems to be a purpose to his movements, however, and you immediately realize what he wants.

“Let me take this off?” you tug at his shirt, and without much hesitation, you receive a tug at your clothes yourself. You smile, and take the hint, undressing yourself first before helping him out of his shirt. You notice his hands remain on your waist, and return to their spot as soon as he’s undressed. He still won’t meet your eyes but you don’t force him. He seems more than grateful to snuggle back close to you. 

For some reason, his love for feeling your bare skin against his grows a hundredfold whenever he drops. You can’t blame him, you love it too. Now when he wraps himself around you, you feel his lips press right above your heart. He gives you the softest of pecks, once, twice, with each of his breaths. His hair is so soft and smells of your shampoo, just like your skin smells of his shower gel. Sharing is caring.

You let him cuddle to you as much as he wants to, responding to each of his movements, providing all the affection you can. You know he needs it. All the while you give him reassurances that he’s loved, that he’s needed and wanted. And each of them is followed by his shaky inhale and attempt to hide more into you as he presses himself closer although there’s no space left separating you. You’d do anything to know what’s going on inside his head, what it is that he’s trying so desperately to fight. You cradle him closer to your chest, shushing him and cooing more sweet nothings into his ear. It helps. He calms down hearing your voice after a while, seemingly focusing solely on you. But even so, he’s too tense.

"Junnie, love, will you look at me?" you plead softly, and at his efforts to snuggle closer you add: "Please?"

It gets him to stop, even if you can feel his reluctance. He whines quietly, a tiny noise that you'd miss if you weren't paying attention. "Please, baby."

Slowly, he emerges from the safety of your embrace. His eyes glisten with moisture and he struggles to meet your eyes, but with your coaxing he at last leans his forehead against yours. You kiss his cheek, trailing your lips down to his…

He doesn't kiss you, pulls away before you can connect your lips. He winces when his gaze meets yours and he opens his mouth, to say sorry you suppose, but you’re quicker.

“It’s alright,” you smile at him, stretching your neck up so you can kiss his forehead, “It’s fine. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“‘m not,” he mumbles, a desperate edge to his voice that isn’t lost on you even though you’re caught off guard suddenly hearing him speak, “Just…” Instead of finishing his sentence, he carefully raises his hand to your lips. He monitors your reaction, and you realize he expects you to be afraid of him. That happens sometimes, that he worries about scaring you even if you know you’ve never once felt unsafe with him. You take his hand and slowly guide him the rest of the way, leaning into his touch once you place his hand on your cheek. "It's alright. I feel safe with you."

When you indeed don’t flinch away, he tenderly brushes his thumb across your lower lip. You feel a sting of pain, the flesh bitten tender and raw, but it’s the good kind of pain. If only Jun’s eyes didn’t hold so much guilt. It gets worse as his gaze travels lower, to your throat, and his fingers follow the same path as his eyes. He caresses your skin and the marks he left and as he does, he chokes on a heartbroken noise.

“Jun, no,” you step in before he can spiral even further, “Love, look at me.” This time you don’t give him an option, gently cupping his face and making him meet your eyes. You need to force yourself to stay calm and speak slowly even though the words itch to rush from your mouth.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” you tell him first of all, remembering how he once told you that he often feels guilty when he drops, “I’m alright. You didn’t hurt me.” 

You let go of his face to cover his hand with yours, guiding him to gently press against one of the bruises. You see him panic a little but you stay just the same, calm, and it seems to shock him into stillness and confusion. 

“See? It doesn’t hurt,” you smile, “It feels nice. It shows everyone I’m yours and I love it, thank you.” He perks up, just a tiny bit, but that’s enough.

“I wanted this, all of it,” you reassure him again, stroking his cheek with your thumb, “And I enjoyed it. You didn’t hurt me at all. I loved it. I love you.”

He nods, quietly, and as soon as you let go of him he hugs you. He noses along your neck, leaving kiss after kiss on your skin, light and loving. It tickles but you keep yourself from laughing, knowing that at the moment it might have a negative effect. 

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he mumbles, squeezing you all the more tighter, “I don’t deserve you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” you repeat, “And you deserve the world, Jun. You deserve everything.”

He stays quiet, and because you know he protests against your words in his mind, you repeat them. You can feel him frown at that. “I mean it, Junnie. We were just playing. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He nods and gives you a gentle squeeze. “Promise?”

“Promise. I’m not hurt, I’m not scared, and I still love you. We’re doing this together because we both love it, right?” you need to wait only a second before you get another nod and he pulls you closer, “Then it’s okay. You’re mine, I’m yours, and we’re fine.”

He doesn’t say more, instead finally kissing you. He holds back, you can tell, but you don’t push him for more. You know he’s being considerate, and the slow, careful kisses make butterflies swarm in your stomach all the same. Jun rubs his nose against yours when you part, giving you a wobbly smile. He’s not okay, but he’s getting there. 

“Hey,” he whispers and it hits you again just how deep in love you are.

“Hey,” you smile back, leaning in for another kiss, which he’s happy to give you. He lingers, not quite pulling away.

“Could you just hold me for a while?” he asks, his voice dropping to a whisper, “Or just… please stay. I’m so tired.”

You once more guide his head to rest against your chest. You see in real time his strength draining from his body. He makes a cute tiny noise, trying to pull you closer and failing, but that’s fine - you got him. You hug him closer, throwing a leg over his hip so your bodies are flush against each other. 

“I love you,” he mumbles, “I need you.” 

“I love you too,” at your words he hums, mustering his strength to give you one quick peck before retreating back to bask in your warmth. “Rest, I’ll be here.”

You know he’ll fall asleep soon, and you’re not sure how long you can stay up yourself. It feels heavenly to finally feel his arms around you, holding you rather than just resting on your body. Both is nice, sure, but after everything that’s transpired, the little extra safety that can only be provided by a hug means more than you could ever put into words.

And you know that it’s true for Jun too. He leans into your touch, rubs his cheek against your chest every so often, even if you can tell it’s more and more effort.

“Sleep,” you hum softly, kissing the top of his head. Soon enough, he does drift off and you follow not long after.

[eisforeidolon]

Hellers are twisting Jensen's words around because they don't like what he said,

"He doesn't think Cas's confession is something that needs to be solved. Cas said what he needed to say. It was a long time coming, it was heartfelt and beautiful. But there's nothing to solve. Dean took it in and then lost one of his closest allie and friend. The acceptance of that happened when Dean sat on the floor. He lost one of his brothers in arms and one of his closest people. When they come back, it just understood."

First, a sampling of posts with screenshots and links of some of the creative reinterpretations they're already self-soothing with, for context: [X][X][X]

It's bad enough now, because we already knew they were obsessed with cherry-picking things completely out of context and twisting themselves in knots to insist D/C, a totally real most epic romance ever was obviously happening off-screen the whole time. Because that's totally how storytelling works!🙄 So why wouldn't they insist Jensen saying Castiel's dying blather doesn't need a resolution means Dean already turned into the YA romance protagonist from their fanfic realized he was totes in lurve with the angel and reciprocated offscreen! See, no resolution needed! The thing is, though, I believe Purcon is one that has a stricter video policy so I expect this to end up even more broken-telephoned in a couple of months when there's no video to dispute whatever they're making up by that point, which I expect to be pretty wild.

What Jensen reportedly said fits exactly into what Castiel actually said in Misha & Beren's tapdancing on the line of legit queerbaiting the audience Castiel's goodbye speech. The whole climactic reason the Empty could come take the angel away was because he realized that just ~*feeling feelings*~, without having anything come of it, was enough. Regardless of whether you interpret those feelings as romantic love or the kind of all-encompassing self-sacrificing love the Winchesters have, feeling that way about somebody is happiness in itself (even if they don't feel that way about you). So yeah, whatever kind of love you read that to mean? There's nothing to inherently resolve there. Castiel put his feelings out in the universe, and Dean listened and moved on with his life. The thing that was "a long time coming" was Castiel's resolving his struggles as an angel living among humans trying to understand emotions and friendship. It's "clear text" that Castiel said I love you (whatever kind of love you interpret that to be).

Hellers are the only ones who desperately need there to have to be a resolution to that scene, because the only interpretation in which a followup would be necessary? Would be if Castiel's speech was romantic AND Dean also had romantic feelings. They can pretend they suddenly don't understand what a resolution is or that one magically (like the entire rest of their supposedly canon ship) happened off-screen so it'll be already happening in the revival as much as they want. It doesn't change what the scene actually was or what Jensen actually said, any more than the rest of their waffle ever has. They're just happily lying to themselves and each other all over again, setting themselves back up for more eternal disappointment. It's like a Peanuts comic strip, except they are both Charlie and Lucy with the show and creators as the football.

They want to crow about Jensen not explicitly saying the scene wasn't about romantic love somehow being him changing his mind (again), but that's absurd. He knows some people interpret Castiel's feelings as romantic and are very invested in the angel being a queer character. Putting aside whether what's in the text deserves that, going out of his way to tell them they're wrong about someone else's character? Would be a really bad look given the sensitivity of the topic. And he doesn't need to do it anyway, because whatever Castiel's ~*feelings*~ are, it says nothing about what Dean does or doesn't feel. Which he directly says is that Dean lost "one of his closest allies" "one of his best friends" "a brother in arms" "one of the closest people to him". It's pretty clear - if you don't tie yourself in knots pretending he's sending you secret signals about what he REALLY means if you only listen to half the words he said.