#rip anyone who actually read the tags | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bitchlessdino · 8 months ago

Text

mind your business (m)

Pairing: Frenemy!fem!reader x minder reader!chan

Genre: supernatural comedy, smut

Word count: 12.4k

tags: mean!reader, mean!chan, mentions needing to puke or die (both overdramtic af), implied consent (mind reading about desire and wants without audible consent), names (good girl or dirty girl), claustrophilia, stocking ripping, fingering, cunniligus, rough sex, brief spanking, unprotected sex.

Summary: If Chan had to read anyone’s mind, it had to be yours—the one person who seemed to loathe him with every ounce of your being. But before Halloween day, when that wish is suddenly granted, he begins to realize he’s opened a can of worms far bigger than he ever imagined—one that can’t be sealed shut again.

author note: hello, this bitch late but at least she's here thank you for @diamonddaze01 and @haologram for betareading for me i love yall and eveyone else enjoy!

Tag: @shiningstar-byulxx @misssugarlips @tommolex @hoeforhao @dkakapizzaboy @junhui-recs @svtup @buffhoshi @meowmeowminnie @caratochan @lovebot4han @camisun93 @emmmui @toruro @jeonride @novalpha @nvmrljk @feat-sun @tinkerbell460 @aaniag @tacosandbitch @kyeomiis @wonwooz1-blog @horanghaezone @stagefrjghts @pantumin @aaniag @mochisdayone @gyuguys

“I don’t know what to be for Halloween.”

“Well, right now what you’re wearing is pretty scary.”

Lee Chan had never met anyone he couldn’t knock down a peg—not that he ever had to try. Everyone adored him, from classmates to coworkers, even Seungkwan, who followed his playful jabs with free lunches instead of a comeback. He was easygoing, always getting along with everyone. That is until you infiltrated his friend group. You weren’t like the others, and for the first time, Chan wasn’t sure if his effortless charm would be enough to dissolve your natural snark.

Chan shot you an unamused smile, his eyes narrowing as you answered his question. The two costumes he held drooped at his sides, a patient frustration written all over his features. “What are you even doing here if you won’t help me?”

You lifted your half-filled glass, the chill of the drink seeping through your fingers. “The free drinks, of course.”

“Of course,” he echoed dryly, his tone laced with sarcasm. “Well, maybe leave the opinions to those who actually care, like Soonyoung here?”

Soonyoung beamed up at Chan, his excitement bubbling over as he playfully tugged at his friend’s hand like an overly enthusiastic toddler. “Aww, always here for you, buddy!”

You couldn’t resist a jab. “Well, if you did something interesting for once in your life, maybe I wouldn’t have to entertain myself.”

Chan groaned, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Never mind. I’m just going to pick something else. Make yourself useful and try to stay quiet, okay?”

You scoffed, getting up from the sofa seat. “Whatever. I’m gonna find something to eat.”

Chan tried his best to stay positive around you, but it was difficult when every social encounter turned into a game of mental chess. But instead of being an actual opponent, you acted like the master, playing with his temperament as if he were merely a pawn. It was exhausting—trying to keep things cordial while knowing you were always pushing his buttons, testing tolerance, and working against him as if your sarcastic replies and eyerolls carried a vindictive purpose.

Chan collapsed onto his bed the moment you left the room, feeling completely defeated. Now, it was just him and Soonyoung left to figure out what he should wear for Halloween, mere days away from now.

“Why is she always like that?” he muttered, focused on the wrong thing,

Soonyoung shrugged, scooting beside you with his legs crossed on the bed. “I’m sure she means well; she just has…her own way of showing it.”

Chan sat up, looking at him in disbelief. “She’s hated me since the moment we met at the New Year’s party, and I still don’t get why.”

“That’s not true.” Soonyoung reassured, gently patting his friend on the head. “Maybe your personalities just clash a bit. She gets along with everyone else in the building.”

“Yeah, but why?” Chan sighed. “What did I even do?”

Soonyoung gave him a reassuring pat. “Chan, it’s not your fault. I’m sure she’ll come around eventually.”

The more people like Soonyoung, or Seokmin, or Jeonghan reassured him that you’d come around, the less Chan believed it. It seemed like there would be nothing that could change your mind about him. Yet he couldn’t just accept that you disliked him for no reason. There had to be something behind the mean exterior, the jabs directed at either his character or even looks. Like he’s some kind of pushover. He would spend entire days wracking his brain, trying to understand why, and nothing would make sense.

What made it worse was how much it bothered him—maybe because you saw each other almost daily, living in the same neighborhood. You’d grown close to everyone else like you were a permanent fixture here, but when it came to him, it felt like you went out of your way to get under his skin. Your cold glances, your sharp remarks, all seemed to gnaw at him, twisting him up inside like a steel knife in an already gashing wound (okay, maybe he was being dramatic). He just couldn’t stand it.

If he could, he’d look right into your mind, figure out what you were thinking, make sense of your actions, and—just maybe—finally understand why you behave the way you do.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on it; there was a Halloween party to plan. Every year, the local gaming café downstairs—where he’d ironically ended up working at—hosted a Halloween bash with exclusive promotions. And every year, it was followed by a more exclusive all-out rager at his apartment, which he shared with a bunch of his friends above the cafe. It was something nearly everyone on the block looked forward to each year, and this time, Chan was in charge of the activities. The activities coordinator, Seungcheol had proclaimed.

That’s why Chan has been asking for all kinds of opinions lately, even yours. Being the natural people-pleaser he is, he felt as if he’d been running around everywhere to get everyone’s stamp of approval. He would go up and down, left and right, and even hold surveys at the cash register for strangers' opinions. He had a habit of making things perfect, and he wasn’t going to let your cynicism ruin it for him.

“Come on, help me figure out what to wear, bro. My night depends on it.”

Soonyoung had been helpful—thank goodness for that—and now that was one less problem to worry about, Chan felt a bit of relief. If he could just get through his shift at the cafe without losing his mind and manage to sneak in some few minutes of party planning, he would have a good day.

“You figure out what costume makes you look less of a loser, yet? Trick question, it really doesn’t matter what you pick. You’ll still look like a loser.”

Chan tilted his head, unfazed by your rude comments as he poured his tenth cup of ramen for the night—three of them for the same customer. “Why do you care? Don’t you have some puppies to kick?”

Your smile remained unfaltering, conniving as ever. “I cleared my schedule to help Seokmin and Soonyoung rank up. Wonwoo is playing with them this round. Just here to grab some Kickstart.”

“Ah, so another puppy is safe for a day from the wicked Witch of the West. Congratulations on your fleeting moment of decency.” He turned, striding over to the customers waiting for their ramen, while you annoyingly trailed closely behind. You grabbed your favorite blackberry Kickstart from the fridge, the bright can a stark contrast to the dim lighting of the café, and tossed a couple of crumpled bills in the direction of the cash register as if you’d done it before.

“You’re helping plan the Halloween party, right? Seungcheol mentioned it when I asked what I should bring,” you said, your tone almost too casual, as if you were friends.

Chan scoffed, carefully setting the steaming bowls of ramen down in front of the waiting customers before heading back to his station. “You, being courteous? That’s new. What do you want?”

With a sly smile, you leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “I just wanted to let you know that if you really want to make the party fun, you can ask me. My ideas will probably be better than whatever you come up with.” The confidence in your voice made it clear you expected him to take you seriously, but how could he when every little word you managed to muster was belittling?

Chan grit his teeth, frustration simmering just beneath the surface. He unscrewed the cap of a water bottle from the fridge and downed it in one swift gulp, the cool liquid barely offering any relief from his irritation. As he crushed the empty bottle in his hands, he aimed for the trash can but missed, the bottle clattering to the floor with a dull thud. Sounding exasperated, he bent down to pick it up, tossing it into the can with a bit more force than necessary.

Straightening up, he shot you a sharp glare. “I can handle it myself, thanks,” he muttered, his voice tight with annoyance.

“Really? Because I’m offering my help here,” you replied, your tone dripping with an offensive amount of condescending sincerity. “I’m being generous with my time and giving you the chance to create something…well, palatable from this party.” You exaggeratedly pretended to choose your words carefully, a teasing smile playing on your lips, poking at his alleged incompetence.

“You want to help?” Chan challenged, his tone cutting. “How about just enjoying the party instead of making it all about yourself? Some of us actually have work to do.”

He fixed you with a glare that held the slightest hint of malice before finally turning away and returning to his tasks.

“Defensive much?” you shot back, a glimpse of interest on your face as you raised an eyebrow.

“No,” he replied, his voice firm. “Just self-respecting.”

“Fine,” you said, turning back to your friends as you walked away. “Just don’t come begging for my help when your party goes to shit.”

Chan found himself screaming into his pillows that night, the fabric muffling his frustrated cries as he banged his head against them in sheer exasperation.

“What the heck is her deal?” he murmured to himself, his voice muffled and thick with irritation. He buried his face deeper into the pillows, desperate to escape the relentless thoughts fogging in his mind. The familiar scent of cotton and fabric softener offered very little comfort as he replayed the interaction over and over, making him as puzzled as ever.

He hadn’t experienced bullying like this since high school, a time when everyone was preoccupied with either being popular or getting into the best colleges. He was neither; instead, he was a secret third option: just trying to survive.

“Always making fun of me. Always belittling me. Always making me feel like crap.” He pulled the covers over his eyes, seeking refuge from his loud thoughts. “Why can’t she just tell me what I did to make her hate me? I’m not a mind reader.”

Unable to sleep, Chan gazed up at the night sky through his bedroom window, seeing it enveloped in the vast pitch-blackness pressing down like a weight. He took a steadying breath, hoping to clear his mind. Not a single star graced him with its presence—only the lone moon, barely there but still noticeable—how relatable—hanging in the sky like a quiet witness to his restless thoughts.

“I’m going insane here, so if there’s a god out there, could he—or she—make my life easier for the next few days? Just a little?” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not asking for superpowers like telepathy or anything. Just…let me pull off a party that everyone actually enjoys. Even her. Maybe then she won’t be so…her all the time.”

It was wishful thinking, but worth a shot, and if Chan was known for anything, it was taking chances—no matter how slim the odds.

Chan was somehow able to sleep that night finally, hair straying all over his face, until he sat up at the realization of a lack of a blaring alarm, “Oh, shit.”

His phone battery had died, and his charger defective and rendered useless. He scrambled to Seungcheol’s room next door, avoiding the obstacles of his shirts strewn across the floor, and plugged the bead phone to his housemate’s charger, impatiently tapping until the phone lit up to greet him.

9:48. Just about 18 minutes before his morning shift starts and almost no time to get ready. “Shit, shit.”

‘What’s that noise?’

Chan glanced over at Seungcheol, who was sprawled out across his bed, a half-conscious casualty of the previous night’s escapades. It seemed he’d had company, judging by the tangled mess of clothes scattered on the floor, and apparently, they'd had more than just a “decent” time.

“Sorry, Cheol. Gotta borrow your charger. I’ll bring it back later.”

Seungcheol’s response was a muffled groan, his arm barely twitching in acknowledgment. Within the incoherent noise, Chan could just make out the unspoken message: ‘Just go away.’

“Got it, see you at work, buddy,” Chan muttered, plugging in his phone with a quick tap to check the time before heading for the door.

Another groan drifted from the bed, thick with irritation. ‘So loud.’

Chan got himself ready in a hurry, forgoing a shower and compensating with an extra-long brush of his teeth and a thick layer of deodorant. Fresh breath and a quick spritz of cologne would have to do for today. The cafe would be filled with people who wouldn’t care anyway.

He rushed downstairs to clock in, throwing on an apron over his lackluster clothes and prepping the makeshift kitchen in the back.

‘Ugh, my back is killing me.’

Chan turned at the faint sound of a familiar voice, spotting Minghao slouched in one of the worn chairs in the employees-only room, head leaned back, eyes half-closed in what looked like exhaustion.

“Hey, Hao. You okay?”

Minghao glanced up, his face breaking into a grin that seemed a bit forced, but reassuring nonetheless. “Morning, Chan. Yeah, I’m good. What’s up?”

“Just checking in—I thought I heard you say something about your back?”

Minghao’s grin faded into a puzzled expression, brow furrowing as if he were rewinding through his own memory. “Hmm? I didn’t say anything. But… Now that you mention it, my back has been sore lately. All the competitions piling up, you know? Guess martial arts are starting to weigh down on this old, elderly body of mine.” He chuckled at his own self-deprecating joke.

Chan gave a sympathetic nod. “Well, if you need a break, just take one, alright? I’m sure Seungcheol or Jeonghan wouldn’t mind.”

Minghao’s smile softened. “Thanks, little buddy. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Chan smiled back. “Anytime.”

As Chan turned to leave, he heard a voice, faint but unmistakable, despite the owner of the voice being in the same room: ‘Chan’s a good kid.’

He paused mid-step, his eyes widening as he processed the thought, lingering in the air like a distant echo. He looked back at Minghao, eyebrows knit in confusion. “Did…did you just say something?”

Minghao chuckled, giving him a casual wave as if everything were normal. “No? I’ll be out in a sec. How about you go warm up the coffee pot for me, hmm?”

“Got it…” Chan said, hesitating as he walked out, still glancing over his shoulder, his mind racing with questions. Had he really heard that voice? Or was exhaustion playing tricks on him?

He flipped the cash register on, the familiar hum filling the quiet of the early morning. Chan meticulously counted the bills, making sure he had the right amount of change and neatly stacked cash, each dollar lined up perfectly. Once satisfied, he moved to the glass door, flicking the open sign to life with a soft click. The neon light flickered, casting a bright and loud, welcoming invitation to anyone passing by. Chan took a deep breath, feeling the calm before the inevitable rush.

‘I hope they have the good ramen and not that crappy store brand shit. You can totally tell the difference.’

The voice drifted into Chan’s mind, oddly clear and distinct as if someone were speaking right beside him—except no one was there. The words had a casual, almost lazy tone, echoing in his head like the distant buzz of a radio left on in another room. His gaze darted around the empty shop, his pulse quickening as he scanned the quiet space, lit only by the harsh glow of the neon open sign.

He shook his head, trying to dismiss it, but the words still lingered, as if they were waiting for him to acknowledge them. This voice, like Minghao’s earlier, felt close yet completely detached, belonging to someone…elsewhere.

The chimes on the door jingled, pulling Chan from his thoughts as he glanced up to see a familiar figure. Finally, he could match the voice he’d been hearing to a face.

“Hey, Chan. The usual, please,” Beomgyu greeted, his tone dry, with the same dark circles under his eyes from late-night gaming marathons.

‘Is it me, or does he look shittier than usual?’ The words echoed in Chan’s mind, clear as if spoken aloud, though Beomgyu’s lips never moved. Chan froze, the unexpected comment hitting him square in the chest—both offending and unnerving him.

“Excuse me?” Chan retorted, defensively narrowing his eyes.

Beomgyu blinked, looking slightly taken aback. “Uh… the usual? Kimchi ramen with cheese and a Cherry slush?”

‘Man, hasn’t he worked here for, like, a year? Doesn’t he have this down by now?’

“What? Of course, I do!” Chan shot back, his voice sharp with irritation.

Beomgyu raised an eyebrow, now clearly baffled. “Dude, what are you talking about? Just give me my stuff.”

Chan swallowed, feeling a strange tension creeping over him. He forced himself to look down, suddenly unsure whether he was hearing Beomgyu–or actually going insane.

“Right. Sorry. It'll be out in a second,” Chan mumbled, suddenly sheepish as he accepted the cash, his usual confidence thrown off-kilter.

Beomgyu gave him a lingering, puzzled look before shrugging it off and drifting over to his usual seat in the corner. As he walked away, Chan felt an odd prickling sensation in the back of his mind—the familiar voice filtering through, more unsettling this time.

‘Has he gone psycho or something?’

Chan’s heart skipped, his eyes widening slightly as he processed the words that had somehow entered his mind, clear as day, despite Beomgyu’s silent, closed lips. His fingers clenched the counter as he steadied himself, wondering if he was finally cracking under the stress or if something far stranger was at play.

‘Another day, another W!’

Another voice then grew louder, closer, and was growing more anxious, sweat beading down his forehead out of bewilderment. What in the fuck was happening?

Seokmin emerged from the doors, seeing Chan with a bright smile as he leaned up against the counter. “Hi Chan, a couple of sprites and two orders of rose spicy rice cakes please.”

‘I’ma burn through iron into silver today. I just know it!’

Chan’s hands hovered over the register, a sense of déjà vu creeping over him as he felt the words echo in his mind. His fingers shook slightly as he pressed the buttons. “Y-you trying to rank up in Overwatch again today?” he asked, his voice a little unsteady.

Seokmin laughed, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah! Wonwoo and Jeonghan are coming by to play on their day off.”

‘Ooh, I should check if they have that series in stock again. I missed it last time.’

“What series were you looking for again?” Chan asked, trying to keep his tone casual as he glanced up from the register.

Seokmin blinked, a little startled, clearly wondering how Chan had guessed. “Oh yeah, I was gonna ask about it. What was it called again?” ‘Kindergarden wars–’

“Kindergarten Wars, right? The Kindergarten Cop of Manga? That one?” Chan asked, his voice coming out a bit too smooth for his own comfort.

Seokmin’s eyes widened in surprise, a laugh escaping him. “Whoa, I just barely remembered the title! You’re on a roll, buddy. But yeah, that’s the one! Do you have it in stock?”

“Yeah, we should have a few copies in. I’ll grab one for you when your order’s ready,” Chan replied, managing a grin, though stark comparison to the panic festering in his body.

"Aw, you’re the best, Chan. Thanks!” Seokmin flashed a wide grin as he swiped his card, practically bouncing toward his usual corner. He arranged a couple of chairs, setting up a cozy little space for his friends, buzzing around like a busy bee as he prepped the area, clearly itching to dive into his day.

Meanwhile, Chan’s nerves were going through it. He kept glancing at the entrance, anxiety creeping up his spine as he wondered if the next person through the door would, once again, broadcast their every thought straight into his head. Just thinking about it made him want to puke, the effects of the bizarre events not dissipating in the slightest.

The rest of Chan’s day became a relentless cascade of intrusive thoughts, each one amplifying the disquiet simmering inside him. Every new customer brought a fresh wave of private musings, some harmless, others startlingly personal, or worse yet, straight creepy. The sheer volume of it all began to blur together into an overwhelming hum.

‘Fuck not again.’

‘Hell yeah, a new skin!’

‘He’s so annoying I wish he would just die already.’

‘I swear, they said ‘one more game’ like an hour ago.’

‘They’re all trash. Worthless. I’m surrounded by idiots who can’t play for shit.’

‘They won’t last. She’ll cheat on him, or he’ll leave her. It’s inevitable.’

The familiar buzz of the cafe felt unusually oppressive, almost suffocating, as Chan struggled to tune out the voices around him. He found himself straining to differentiate between what was actually spoken and what slipped uninvited into his mind, the line between reality and thought as thin as it was maddening.

"Hey, Hao, I’m gonna take five."

Chan didn’t wait for a reply. He bolted out of the business and up the narrow staircase to his residence, his pulse hammering in his ears. The familiar murmur of echoing voices trailed him, each step feeling heavier than the last, the whispers chasing him even as he tried to leave them behind. It wasn't until he closed the door with a soft but resolute click that they faded, now hushed but still there. Haunting him.

“What the hell is happening to me?” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the echo of voices still faintly buzzing in his mind. His hands tightened in his hair, fingers digging in as if grounding himself might silence the flood.

He shut his eyes, breathing in uneven breaths as he clamped his hands over his ears and somehow soothing the thoughts determined to run rampant. But every time he let his guard down, snippets of thought would slip through—fragmented phrases, stray judgments, random anxieties—taking up headspace like ghosts he couldn’t shake.

‘Why does he get everything? It should be me.’

‘The world would be better off without most of them, if not all.’

‘Where the hell is my ramen?’

‘I hope I didn’t get stood up. I sent her Uber money.’

Nothing about this made sense. It was impossible—just yesterday, his life had been normal, and now he was hearing voices that sounded exactly like his friends’ private thoughts, whether he wanted to or not. This wasn’t some supernatural CW drama, no Halloween special with a secret message all along for the protagonist. This was real life, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d swear he was somehow…reading minds.

The thought sparked a fresh jolt of panic, twisting his insides into knots. It was a fear he hadn’t known lurked within him, clawing its way to the surface and leaving his stomach churning. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to force it away, to dismiss it as some ridiculous, passing delusion. But the voices only grew louder, like an insistent, rising tide that wouldn’t let him brush this off as a mere joke or a temporary glitch in the simulation. No, they clung to him, refusing to fade—unyielding, pressing against his mind as if daring him to question his own sanity.

Then there was a knock. Soft at first, followed by the hesitant creak of the door easing open. Chan barely registered it, too consumed by the relentless flood of thoughts racing through his head, repeating to himself, “You’re not real, you’re not real…”

“Chan?”

His eyes flew open, finally taking in the figure silhouetted in the doorway—you. Your expression was a blend of concern and hesitation as you stepped cautiously into his room. A pang of surprise coursed through him, igniting a spark of defensiveness that flared to life within him, seeing you making the weight on his head worse. He forced himself to hold your gaze, feeling exposed under the weight of your possible scrutiny. “W-what do you want?” he stammered, the words escaping him in apprehension.

You raised an eyebrow, though your usual edge seemed softened. “Minghao asked me to come get you. He’s worried. Looks like he was right—finally lost your mind, or something?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he hissed, barely keeping his voice steady.

You raised an eyebrow. “Chan—”

“Save it.” He cut you off, his tone sharp, eyes narrowing as he took a half-step back, almost as if he expected you to throw something back his way. Just as you always have. “I’m not gonna take whatever crap you’re planning, so if that’s your game, just forget it.”

You blinked, caught off guard, a flash of irritation tightening your expression. “Wow,” you muttered, crossing your arms with a look that was half offense, half amusement. “Who the hell pissed in your cereal?”

“I’m not feeling well, alright? And you don’t make it any easier. If you think I’m going to keep letting you walk all over me, forget it. Go pick on someone else.”

“Wow, look at you finally picking up your backbone from the floor,” you taunted, slowly closing the distance between you. Your voice dripped with mockery as you studied him, taking in the tense lines of his posture and the way his jaw clenched in irritation. “If this is about the party, the offer still stands. I know what I said, but—”

“But nothing. I didn’t need your help then, and I don’t need it now. Just piss off.” His voice cut through the air, sharp and defensive, as if he was trying to shield himself from your probing.

“Ooh, look at you using big words,” you snickered tilting your head as you leaned in slightly, your eyes narrowing in challenge. “Is all the stress of pleasing everyone finally catching up to you? Or are you just realizing you’re not capable of doing something that requires responsibility?”

Chan stepped closer, piercing through you with a sharp glare as your smile broadened, infused with a stubborn determination that only irritated him further. No matter what he said, you remained resolute, and he could sense his resolve beginning to crack under the weight of your taunts, struggling to maintain his composure.

“Or,” he began, feeling the voice in his head finally recede as a surge of courage washed over him. “I have so much of my own shit going on. Ever thought about that? Now, why don't you turn around and mind your goddamn business before I should teach you how to shut up while I’m at it.” The dominance in his tone surprised even him, and for the first time, he felt like he was finally in control of himself and his newfound ability.

You hesitated, caught off guard by the intensity in his eyes, the way it deepened the timbre of his voice, radiating uncontainable energy you’d never seen from Chan before. The confidence that once danced in your gaze faltered, giving way to a glint of surprise as you struggled to hold onto your composure. Your lips parted slightly, words caught in your throat as you processed his unexpected boldness—and the effect it was having on you.

‘Holy shit.’

Your voice echoed in his mind, sending a thrill through him as his lips stretched from ear to ear menacingly. Finally—finally—he was the one with the upper hand.

“What? Nothing to say now?” he challenged, relishing the moment.

‘Holy shit, he’s so hot when he’s mad.’

Confusion softened his features for a brief moment, and he couldn’t help but let out a, “What?”

“I…I didn’t say anything.”

‘Oh god, am I sweating? Can he smell me? Holy shit, he’s so close to me right now.’

Chan wasn’t sure what he was hearing right now. Especially whatever this was. His mind was already spinning from the obnoxiously loud and relentless voices echoing in his head from earlier—this was something else. The anxiety of your voice in his head, laced with something vulnerable he’s never seen in you before, threw him off-kilter. He felt heat creep into his cheeks as he processed the stray thoughts that weren’t his own, thoughts that broke through the background noise with an unexpected force.

He drew in a breath, barely steady, as he took in every flicker of your expression—the way your lips quivered as if on the edge of saying something, then closed again, and how your gaze dropped just briefly, as if to gather strength, before lifting to meet his, defiant but with a hint of uncertainty in your gaze. That simmering frustration from earlier dissolved, replaced by a charged curiosity that spread through him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, letting his words roll out slowly, teasingly, testing the waters of this sudden change in power.

You glanced up, eyes widening slightly as if caught off guard, your shoulders tensing as though bracing against an invisible force. He could practically feel the hurried, jumbled thoughts in your head racing, flickering across your face—hesitation, curiosity, that rare glint of resolve that never seemed to completely fade. It was almost…endearing.

The moment felt charged, like standing on the brink of something electrifying and forbidden. Chan found himself leaning into it, savoring the way his voice dropped, roughened, responding instinctively to this unguarded version of you.

“What?” he murmured, his smile laced with challenge. “Cat got your tongue?”

You drew in a slow breath, fingers clutching the doorframe behind you as if anchoring yourself, your gaze flickering from his face to his hands and then back again, as though the very air around you had thinned.

"Just…” Your voice faltered, lingering in the air, yet you held his gaze, a reluctant tension in your eyes, as if resisting an urge falling deep down a pit you’ve already managed to avoid for so long.

“Just what?” he pressed, amusement saturating his tone, relishing in your timid silence.

You hesitated, pressing your lips together before looking away. “Just… get back to work,” you muttered, fingers clenching the door frame for a moment before finally releasing it as you turned to go.

‘That…was crazy.’

Chan watched you leave, barely holding back a grin as a strange, exhilarating sense of control lingered. For the first time, he felt like he had turned the tables. This bizarre predicament suddenly had its perks.

As the thought settled, another realization dawned: maybe these powers—or whatever they were—could be harnessed. And you, of all people, might just be the key. Finally, it seemed you had some use after all.

The rest of the day passed with surprising ease, a sense of control settling over Chan as he slowly came to terms with this new ability. Whatever this was, if it meant you kept your distance and stayed in check, now it was about time you tasted a bit of your own medicine.

Meanwhile, you kept to the far side of the room, throwing him occasional glances that were equal parts wary and curious, as if still processing the shift that had unfolded between you. The quiet in your demeanor was foreign—almost like a subtle retreat—but Chan could still hear every single thought racing through your mind, echoing around him, feeding his ego.

‘Fuck, why is he looking at me like that?’

The echo of your uncertainties only made Chan’s grin widen. Each new thought layered itself over the rest, but somehow, yours always came through with striking clarity, as if your mind was the loudest voice in the room. He wasn’t sure if he was honing in on it by instinct or if his newfound ability had a mind of its own, drawn to you by sheer force of will—or intrigue.

‘It’s like he’s seeing right through me…oh my god, can you see my underwear or something? I’m gonna kill myself.’

You visibly clenched your thighs, turning away from Chan to avoid his gaze but he was the only thing on his mind. You couldn’t even enjoy the game you were playing anymore.

‘God, he looks really good…makes me wanna take him in the back and tie my hair up–shit, how long is gonna stare at me?’

As each thought drifted by, Chan skillfully sifted through the chaos, honing in on the captivating essence of your unguarded musings. A swell of pride blossomed within him as he recognized that this ability to read minds might not be a curse after all; it was a remarkable gift, one potent enough to give him control over someone as difficult as you

"Leaving so soon, dearest customer?” Chan drawled, leaning against the wall by the exit, his eyes tracking every movement as you gathered your things, your grip tightening around the strap of your backpack.

‘Was he…waiting for me?’

He scoffed, removing his name tag as he did at the end of every shift, a knowing glint in his eyes as he held your gaze, refusing to look away. “You just seem…distant. Thought I’d check in.”

‘He was thinking about me?’ The thought sparked something in you, and you cleared your throat, trying to regain your composure. “Maybe you should focus on yourself for once, and I don’t mean…” Your gaze flickered downward before snapping back up, warmth spreading up your neck.

‘Not that I’d be entirely against it,’ you thought with a quiet chuckle.

With a step forward, his confidence seemed to fill the space between you, his eyes sweeping over you with a boldness that made you catch your breath. He regarded you with a half-lidded gaze, as though he could see through you, a look that sent a prickle of goosebumps over your skin. “Only you would make my concern for you about my genitals,” he murmured, his voice dipping lower. “Think about them often, do you?”

You nearly stumbled, his words unraveling your composure as he turned your teasing back on you with a mastery that left you momentarily speechless. “You…”

“Was I on the money? It’s showing on your face.”

You shook your head lightly, brushing past him without a word, pretending the encounter hadn’t rattled you. But as you moved, he followed, a faint smirk lingering as he kept pace just behind you, relishing in the control he held. Chan tuned into the steady stream of thoughts he could almost feel buzzing around your mind—every second of fluster, every trace of hesitation.

With each step, he could sense your resolve slipping, see the barely concealed tension in your hurried stride as you exited the café, almost like you were running but with no clear destination in mind. And he kept watching, unhurried, savoring every moment as he let his presence linger just enough to keep himself quietly literally in the back of your mind, conflicted with the current predicament.

“Where are you going? You never did answer my question,” he called after you, his tone deceptively casual.

You scoffed, refusing to let your stride falter. “You’re being weird today.”

‘Need to stop myself from jumping him with the way he’s looking at me,’ your thoughts betrayed you, louder than you’d like.

He raised an eyebrow, matching your pace with ease. “Speak for yourself. It’s like you can’t help but avoid me. Almost like you’re hiding something.”

With a quick glance over your shoulder, you forced yourself to meet his eyes, though the effort was as shaky as it was bold. “Wow, nosy much? If I didn’t know better, Chan, I’d think you’re obsessed with me or something.” ‘If that’s the case, God smite me right now.’

“Sounds like you’re projecting.” Chan closed the gap between you, stepping so close only a half-arm’s length separated you. His eyes swept over you, catching the subtle quiver you tried to hide. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think your obsession is the reason you can barely look me in the eyes right now. Or maybe you’re undressing me with them. Is that it?”

‘Please, for Christ’s sake, I am two seconds away from tearing the clothes off your back and making you shut up with my mouth,’ the thought flashed hot and unfiltered, betraying you in every glance.

Chan’s grin widened, reveling in the crackling tension radiating from you. "Careful with where your eyes are going," he murmured, voice low and teasing. “You don’t know what I might have to do about it if you don’t.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode off, leaving you rooted in place, your final unguarded thoughts echoing in his head as he went back home.

‘Maybe that's all I want to do now.’

In the days leading up to Halloween, you’d been keeping your distance, and Chan’s telepathic abilities showed no signs of fading. Every day, you kept to the same routine—avoiding his gaze, interacting with your shared friends, and hiding those unspeakably dirty thoughts behind a prissy, composed facade. At first, Chan found it amusing, this secret insight into your mind, but as the days wore on, he became more curious, more intrigued. How much of what you showed the world actually aligned with those hidden, guilty desires?

His gaze drifted to the costume hanging in his closet like an eyesore—a dinosaur suit that, though comical, would probably have him sweating profusely all night. Then there was Soonyoung’s “thirst trap” suggestion, an outfit that showed way more skin, something Chan had immediately rejected and returned but still left in the back of his mind. However, an idea began to take shape, a clever compromise that might just keep your attention exactly where he wanted it. For experimental reasons, of course.

You didn’t come into work that day, likely dodging him on purpose, which only left Chan to navigate the usual mundane thoughts of the café’s patrons—mostly comments about costumes or Halloween plans. Without your thoughts slipping into his mind, the day seemed flat, dull even.

“Hey, Chan.” ‘Hello body-ody-ody.’

Chan caught Jeonghan’s stare as he stood there in a rabbit costume, the moment stretching out just a beat too long. Chan’s confidence wavered just a bit, a warm flush creeping up his neck as he glanced down, lightly fiddling with the arms of his dinosaur onesie, which were tied loosely around his waist. He was half-bare beneath the café lights, with only a simple chain dangling around his neck, and suddenly the whole look felt a little bolder than he’d intended.

He let out a nervous chuckle, his voice softening as he managed, “Uh…am I doing too much?” He could feel his cheeks warm as he looked up again, almost as if he expected Jeonghan to burst out laughing any second. But instead, Jeonghan’s expression softened, a crooked smile forming, clearly more amused than anything.

“...Huh? Oh, sorry, I was looking at your body.”

Chan’s cheeks flushed as he instinctively crossed his arms over his chest. “Bro,” he muttered, clearly flustered.

“Chan, you’re fine. It’s Halloween, dressing like a slut is normal in this time of year.” Jeonghan clapped him on the shoulder.

“Jeonghan…”Chan murmured, half-scolding but feeling even more self-conscious under Jeonghan’s praise.

“In fact, I’m happy you’re finally putting yourself out here. I would think the eye candy I hired would sell himself off a little more,” Jeonghan chuckled to himself, thinking, ‘And man, did I nail that hire.’

Chan blinked, stunned. “You’re joking.”

‘I’m not,’ Jeonghan thought proudly, then said aloud, “I’m not.” Jeonghan’s devilish smile widened as he subtly nodded toward the crowd filling the café. Among the usual patrons were a few fresh faces, particularly a growing group of college-aged girls who seemed unable to keep their eyes off Chan.

Chan’s thoughts drifted back to that morning. He’d been in the stockroom, reorganizing supplies while Minghao ran the front, completely unaware of the number of glances that had slipped through the cracked door, trailing over him as he worked. Now, seeing the lingering stares, he realized his costume had sparked more than just Halloween spirit—it had created quite a stir, evening out it’s usually male dominated atmosphere.

Now he was starting to wonder if he’d been filtering out the roaming thoughts a little too well, considering what he’d missed:

‘What is that costume even…? Actually, I don’t even care. He’s so yummy…’

‘I’m literally drooling. Oh my god, he just looked at me—I’m shaking.’

‘Did guys this hot always work here? Guess I’ll have to come by more often now.’

‘I kind of want to get his number…maybe then he’d let me ride his—’

Chan's eyes widened as the wave of unabashed admiration washed over him. He hadn’t expected this much attention, and a shy grin crept onto his face. “I-I get it now. Um… wow.”

He threw a timid glance toward their corner, and the response was immediate: the girls erupted in muffled squeals, giggling and whispering as if sharing secrets too wild to be spoken aloud. Their eyes gleamed with a mix of awe and infatuation, lingering on him even as they leaned into each other, cheeks flushed, exchanging looks that made Chan feel both flattered and exposed.

“See? You’re a staple here, and you’re doing great,” Jeonghan said with a grin. “Rack up those tips, and when you clock out, fill me in on any last-minute details about the party tonight. Just in case I missed anything.”

“Sure, Jeonghan.”

Now that Chan had come to terms with the fact that his costume was effective for a similar demographic, a swell of confidence bubbled within him that you would react the same. All he needed now was a chance to show it off to the right person. But as he glanced around the café, scanning for you amidst the crowd, a tinge of disappointment set in. Despite the lively atmosphere filled with laughter and chatter of the spooky festivities, you were nowhere to be found, and he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that maybe he was the reason.

As the hour drew nearer, Chan felt a growing sense of frustration. Maybe he had been misreading your thoughts all along, or perhaps his powers were glitching today. The very idea of having such abilities was absurd, yet here he was, confused as to why he couldn’t detect your voice. He needed to make sense of it all. How could you swing from hating him one moment to lusting after him the next, only to ghost him entirely? Each possibility twisted in his mind, leaving him feeling more lost than ever. The anticipation that had once excited him now felt heavy with uncertainty, gnawing at his confidence just as he was getting used to it.

Seungcheol’s voice rang out with a mix of authority and enthusiasm, echoing through the bustling café. His energy was infectious, as he gestured animatedly, urging everyone to transition from the work grind to the festive spirit. With his usual flair, he rallied the team, his eyes sparkling with excitement for whatever chaos awaited them upstairs. The air buzzed with anticipation as he clapped his hands together, urging the staff to shake off the day’s fatigue and dive into the night’s festivities.

Meanwhile, Chan busied himself with the final preparations for the party, glancing at the door every few moments, hoping to see you walk through it finally. He didn’t have much of a plan but he had the spirit of one, bouncing off in the corners of his mind like the vibrant colors of the haunted jungle punch sloshing around in his red Solo cup. The punch was fruity and something strong, but it did little to calm his growing anticipation.

Despite the cheerful atmosphere around him, he fought to maintain a carefree demeanor, all while tuning out the cacophony of voices in his head. Racy thoughts and flirtations from other partygoers echoed through his mind, but none of it held the same thrill as the prospect of hearing your voice. Each thought was a distraction, a reminder of the palpable heat that he felt on his skin when he heard your thoughts for the first time and how it made his heart clench for a reason other than annoyance.

He could almost visualize the energy you brought with you, the way your laughter lit up the room, and how your teasing remarks made his pulse pick up pace. Chan found himself nursing the drink, hoping the sugar and alcohol would somehow bridge the gap between him and you not being here like he hoped you’d be. The raucous fun around him only intensified his longing, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight wouldn’t be complete without you by his side.

‘Oh, fuck.’

It hit him like the chime of a clock striking the hour, electrifying and undeniable. Your voice echoed in his mind, pulling his attention as if drawn by an invisible force. He turned to see you entering through the doors, your presence instantly commanding the room.

Your gaze locked onto his, and for a moment, time seemed to freeze. You were enveloped in a dress of the deepest black, hugging your form from chest to waist before flaring out dramatically and hitting just above your knees. Sheer green tights adorned your legs, glimmering under the soft lights, and a pointed hat crowned your head. You were a vision of the Wicked Witch of the West and Chan could see that never had he thought that vision could be so alluring.

In that moment, everything around him dissolved—the laughter, the music, the chatter of partygoers—as his entire focus narrowed in on you. You were breathtaking, igniting something primal within him that he thought he could shut off. But—

‘I could eat you up, Lee Chan.’

A smile tugged at his lips as he followed after you, sharing the same sentiment as your unspoken hunger. “Took you long enough.”

‘Mmh, so he was waiting for me. Again.’

“Didn’t realize you were waiting for me.” Your chuckle was laced with arrogance. ‘Where the hell is his shirt? And why couldn’t he have given me the pleasure of taking it off?’

“You’ve been avoiding me, which is unusual for you,” Chan remarked sarcastically, watching intently as you poured yourself a drink, bending his arm in a way that not-so-effortlessly flexed his upper arms. “And you didn’t come by the café at all today.” He leaned in slightly, narrowing his gaze. “I thought it might have something to do with me.”

“You?” Your incredulity echoed in your mind. ‘Lee Chan? You were worried about me?’

You stepped closer, invading his space with a confidence that sent a thrill through him. Your gaze traced a deliberate path from his eyes, down the strong line of his jaw, pausing to appreciate the way the light danced across his bare skin. It dipped lower, gliding over the defined contours of his chest, each muscle accentuated by the flickering glow of the party lights. You lingered at his waistband, taking in the way the fabric clung to him seductively.

As your eyes returned to his, there was a spark of mischief in them that didn’t need mind reading to understand, leaving the recipient breathless. The air between you seemed to thrum with unspoken words but clear dialogue, thick with a tension that wrapped around you both. He could feel the heat radiating off your body, drawing him closer to you. The world around you faded into a blur, leaving only the two of you suspended in this charged moment, as if the very atmosphere crackled with anticipation.

“Yeah. Me.” Chan confirmed, his grin widening.

“Well, look who took the time to finally make it.” You both felt a weight on your shoulders as someone drove in between you both, becoming the deli meat in this strange sandwich.

Soonyoung hugged his cheeks between your faces and grinned, oblivious as always to his surroundings. “Hey, guys.”

‘Good, I stopped the fight before they decked it out in front of everyone.’

“Hey, Soonyoung,” you said, wrapping an arm around his waist and forcing a smile. “I see you’re recycling your costume from last year.”

“Uh, it’s not a reuse! This is clearly a brand-new bodysuit, complete with paws!” He lifted his tiger mitts dramatically, waving them in front of your face as if trying to convince you of their novelty. “Very new and totally fierce!”

“Oh, of course, you look good.” You chuckled, genuinely appreciating his energy.

Soonyoung then turned his attention to Chan, eyes wide with excitement. “Whoa, Chan! Look at you, buddy! I told you showing off a little skin would do you good, and wow, look at all this!”

He let out an exaggerated whistle, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Our sexy little dinosaur! You’re making all the other costumes look bad!”

“Okay, okay, thanks, Soon.” Chan let out a hearty laugh, a flush of embarrassment creeping across his cheeks as he playfully patted his friend’s shoulder. He quickly shrugged him off, attempting to create a buffer to ward off Soonyoung’s inevitable groping.

“Oh, so that’s what you’re supposed to be,” You teased, “Couldn’t tell from the lack of clothes.”

Chan snorted, his amusement bubbling to the surface. “I’m clearly showcasing my costume from the waist down—tail included,” he said, gesturing dramatically. “But just remember, even if my costume is down there…” He raised his fingers and motioned to his eyes, an impish glint in his gaze “…my eyes are definitely up here.”

‘What if I want to look at what’s underneath the costume?’

‘What’s going on here...?”

Chan can’t help but grin at the challenge in your eyes while blatantly ignoring the confusion in Soonyoung’s.

“Showing off the merchandise but not letting people browse? You’re not exactly running a lucrative business here, Lee Chan.”

“Who says I’m running a business?” Chan shot back with a playful smirk dancing on his lips. “I’m simply looking for..exclusive clientele.” His eyes sparkled with mischief, an invitation wrapped in flirtation.

‘I might have to sample a bit of that to see if it’s to my taste, which I’m sure it will be,’ you thought, wishing you could say it out loud. Instead, a soft giggle escaped your lips, though Chan caught the thought loud and clear. A playful grin spread across his face, the corner of his mouth twitching upward as he leaned in just a little closer, seeing the playfulness dance in your eyes.

“You guys are speaking weird,” Soonyoung chimed in, his words slightly slurred as the effects of the alcohol began to show. He swayed a little, a goofy grin plastered across his face.

Chan patted his striped friend on the back with a friendly nudge. “Why don’t you check if Jihoon needs help with the music, buddy? You’d be a real asset.”

“Oh, I would be so good at that!” Soonyoung declared, practically bouncing on his heels before darting off with uncontainable enthusiasm.

Chan turned back to you, arching an eyebrow with a playful glint in his eye, eager to stretch out the moment. “So, did you bring anything special to offer?”

“Just some wine that Minghao practically wrestled away from me when I walked through the front door,” you replied, rolling your eyes with a feigned exasperation. “Have you sorted out those party games you were so excited about?”

“Should be starting in a couple of minutes,” he assured, his gaze flicking around the party setup, but the warmth of his attention remained fixed on you. “In the meantime, feel free to indulge in the snacks or candy. They’re just as sweet as you.”

‘Oh?’

“How thoughtful of you,” you compliment, pleasantly surprised.

“Forgot to mention the warheads, but still considerably sweet.”

The night unfolded like a game of push and pull, with Chan pulling you in more than he ever had before. The playful tension crackled between you, and he could tell that the idea of playing hard to get was on your mind tonight. Even with all the distractions around you, your thoughts were surprisingly coherent—you wanted Chan, and he knew it. Yet you refused to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. That was when he realized that the party games he had planned would serve as the perfect tool to tilt the odds in his favor.

“Alright, everyone, gather around! On behalf of our activities coordinator, Chan, I’ll be hosting the game he selected for us tonight. Why don’t you tell us what it is, Chan?” Seungcheol announced, his tone playful as he gestured for Chan to take the spotlight.

Chan stepped forward, his gaze lingering on you for a moment before he cleared his throat. “Tonight, we’ll be playing manhunt—a twist on hide and seek with major stakes. The last person standing will win a grand prize, and the seeker who finds the most players will earn a reward just as significant. There will be three seekers.” He paused for effect, relishing the eager anticipation in the room. “The rules are simple: (1) no running, (2) you must reveal yourself once your name is called, and (3) most importantly, have fun. The prizes will be unveiled after the game ends.”

Vernon raised his hand eagerly. “Is the prize money?”

“Vernon, what did I just say?” Chan replied, suppressing a grin as he earned a solemn nod in response.

“Is there a time limit?” Mingyu chimed in, curiosity sparkling in his eyes.

“Forty minutes.”

Wonwoo started to raise his hand. “What about—”

“Enough questions!” Seungcheol interrupted, chuckling as he saw the anticipation on everyone’s faces. “Chan, pick your seekers.”

Chan rubbed his hands together, a cocky smile spreading across his face as he surveyed the crowd, already knowing who he wanted. “I choose Joshua, Seokmin, and myself. While Seungcheol counts to twenty, the rest of you will scatter and hide.” His grin widened, mischief dancing in his eyes. “And remember, don’t get caught. Losers will face punishment, too,” he added, eliciting a collective groan from the group.

Seungcheol stood in the middle of the room, gesturing for the helpers to shut off all the lights, leaving the entire floor of the building pitch black and ready for the taking. “Starting now. Twenty… nineteen… eighteen…”

The harmonious sound of footsteps retreated from the room, the darkness perfectly concealing any shadows that might betray anyone’s position. Chan needed no light to do what he had to do but turned on his phone camera the moment the counting ended. He met the eyes of his fellow seekers, barely visible in the glow of their phone lights, anticipation clear on their faces. “We’ll cover our own ground until we run out of places to search, then it’s a free-for-all,” Joshua suggested.

“Got it. I’ll head out first,” Chan insisted, earning a collective nod and finding his own path.

He navigated through the stream of thoughts, weaving between them like a radio dial tuning into a specific frequency, determined to hone a singular voice.

‘Ugh, why did I have to choose this one to hide in? This is such a bad idea.’

Chan smiled recognizing the familiar pitch, beelining straight for the sound, passing the other voices that may interrupt his route.

In a singular room, his in particular, you were the only one loud enough to break through.

‘Oh, shit, someone’s here. Please go away, please go away.’

No matter how carefully you tried to muffle your presence, it radiated from the closet, an open invitation to Chan’s mind-reading senses. He crept closer, footsteps soft as whispers, his hand hovering over the knob. With a slow, deliberate movement, he eased it open, revealing your figure barely concealed behind the racks of his half-filled closet. Your eyes darted to his, and a quiet “Fuck…” slipped out as he stepped inside, claiming the cramped space beside you.

The closet was shadowed in near-darkness, the room's lights off, but a sliver of moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating through the slits of the closet in faint, wispy beams. As your eyes adjusted, you could just make out the silhouette of Chan, his figure close, a playfully smug smile catching the dim light as he settled in front of you.

‘What is he–’

Chan lifted a finger to his lips, signaling for silence before you could utter a protest. His eyes held yours with an intensity that had your pulse racing, each beat a rapidly beating under the thin skin of your neck. Footsteps echoed faintly from the hallway outside, the other seekers passing by Chan’s room without a second thought, oblivious to the two of you hidden mere inches apart.

‘He’s so close. He smells so good,’ you thought, the hint of his cologne making your breath hitch. Chan couldn’t help the tiny grin tugging at his lips—props to him for choosing the good cologne today.

‘He’s practically pressed against me. Is this what dying and going to heaven feels like?’

Chan stifled a laugh, stepping even closer, until the heat radiating from his skin was undeniable. In a whisper, he teased, “Try not to get caught.”

“But you—” you started, barely finding your voice to remind him that he was in fact one of the people you’re not supposed to get caught from, only to have it die on your lips as his hand pressed lightly on the wall beside you, leaving little room to breathe, let alone escape.

“Shh,” he murmured, eyes glinting as he held you captive against the panel, a hair’s breadth away.

“Chan…” you murmured, half-breathless, gazing up at him with a mixture of confusion and exhilaration as the closeness left you dizzy, the space between you charged and impossibly small.

His eyes drifted down, seeing your lips pursed slightly in direction, calling to his attention, begging to be claimed.

‘He’s staring again.’ your thighs clenched against each other, hiding the pool of your heat as you could feel it seep through your panties. ‘He looks at me like this any longer I might just fuck him right here.’

Chan shifted closer, his nose grazing yours, so close he could catch the faint sweetness lingering on your breath. "You have to be quiet…real quiet," he whispered, his voice barely more than a murmur.

“W-why?” you stammered, the question coming out in a whisper as his hands found your hips, drawing you against him with a gentle but possessive pull.

He paused, his eyes flicking between yours, a soft smile teasing at the corner of his lips. “Because,” he breathed, his voice sending a delicious warmth down your spine, before he leaned in, closing the miniscule gap and bridging you together in the sweetest of symphonies.

‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god–’

His hand clasped against your cheek, hips digging against yours and pinning you to the wall as his tongue traced in the inside of your mouth, exploring you until he could familiarize himself. He felt bound to you, having taste what’s been distant thought now a full blown movie, a movie that he'd rewatch until the day he dies.

Your hand caressed the back of his neck, tenderly kneading his skin and pushing yourself closer to his body. The hands that ached to touch him found their peace, gliding on his skin and feeling the outline of his body, through every contour and crevice, so hot it’s sweltering, simply melting underneath him.

‘This is so awesome…don’t ever make this stop…’

He held you by your thigh, brought it to his exposed side, and lifted you from the ground, crushing his weight against you to keep you in place. His eagerness poked against your stomach, taunting you with its size, and parting your mind for thoughts of its sensation plunging inside you, wrecking havoc.

‘Oh god, I’m gonna cum thinking about what I’d do when I fuck him.’

Chan softly chuckled, pulling away and looking at the glisten in your eyes, feeling your skin flushed against him, hearing how your mind screamed for him in ache. “Are you—“

“Yes,” you gingerly nodded, not giving him a second to finish his sentence, “Whatever it is. Yes. Or no. Or whatever.”

‘Good god, get a grip. Desperate much?’

Chan’s hand crept under the fabric of your skirt, sliding down beneath the layer of green pantyhose and underwear, your vicious slickness immediately coating his fingers. “I like you a little desperate,” he confessed in staggered whispers before slotting his lips between yours again.

Your throbbing cunt thrummed beneath his digits, pulsing around him as he pushed on inside, already coating his knuckles. You seized around him, clenching your stomach, as a clear moan escaped you.

‘What was that?’ Chan sensed Seokmin’s thoughts a mere meters away, franticness in his eyes and the voice of his fellow seeker followed after. “Hello?”

“Hey Seok, Just me!” Chan covered for you, fingers thrusting as they curled up inside you. “I hit my foot on something, so I’m taking a minute breather in my room. No one's here!”

“Mmh, okay, Buddy. Be more careful!”

As soon as the coast was clear, his attention averted back to you. “I said be quiet, didn’t I?”

His hand clamped over your mouth and blocking sounds from leaving as he entered another finger, feeling your muffles hummed satisfyingly against his palm. His smile stretched to the corner of his face. “I told you I’d make you shut up wouldn’t I?”

You rocked into the merciless paces of Chan’s fingers, feeling them massage you in and out, as his palm ground itself against your clit. You head knocked back against the wall behind you, joined by Chan at your hip, letting his fingerss fuck you the way you wish his cock finally would. ‘Oh Lee Chan, Lee Chan, Lee Chan…’

You steadied your arms around his shoulders, eyes fluttering in and out of focus, while your hips snapped back him. It was second nature at this point, responding to him with nothing but open arms.

‘His fingers…my god, his fucking fingers…’

“Faster? Deeper?” Chan offered, sweat dampening tendrils hitting at his eyes.

You nodded, giving no coherent answer as he took away your ability to breathe. ‘Yes, both, please.’

He’d give it to you, watching as tears swelled up in eyes from ecstasy, ramming his digits until he didn’t care who could hear the delicious squelching, the manhunt game so far back in subconscious, it was practically nonexistent.

‘Needed him so bad, need him to fuck me so stupid I could feel him in my throat…Lee Chan…’

Even without mind reading, the look in your eyes told him everything. Your gaze was intense, charged with an incredible sense of longing, as if it held secrets that could start wars or shatter worlds. There was something almost dangerous in it, introducing him to a hunger he couldn’t ignore. How had he never noticed this before? It practically screamed at him to cross these invisible lines. And for a heartbeat, the world felt as if it teetered on the edge, making him realize his touch unleashed something neither of you could hold back from.

When you contracted around his fingers, there was no better word than heaven, the thick release in his enveloping grasp, collecting at the cup of his hands.

Chan showed a hint of mercy, letting your feet settle back on the ground. You pried your tired eyes open, letting the faint moonlight help you take in the dreamy sight before you as you slowly recovered from the waves of your climax. Chan, clearly intrigued by the quiet of your mind, ran his tongue along the underside of his palm, jolting you back to life as you watched, breath hitching at the sight.

‘Oh my…’

Chan grinned, his tongue dragging against every curve, every wrinkle, following even the drip running down his forearm, his eyes not breaking a beat from you as he ate your cum off his fingers. He pressed against you, sweaty and flushed, ensuring every bit of you laid flat on his tongue, swallowing every sweet drop of that golden nectar, softly moaning about its flavor. “Better than my favorite candy.”

‘Oh, this man needs to get me pregnant.’

“A couple more to go! Watch out!” Joshua shouted from down the hall.

There was a brief moment of trepidation Chan felt, cursing his friend mentally for getting their tasks done so quickly, stunned that you and him were able to keep hidden for so long. Chan knew he had to make a move, and quickly.

Shoving up the skirt of your dress, he tore the delicate seams of your green stockings, and a gasp escaped your lips before you had the chance to hush yourself. As soon as you were exposed, Chan sank to his knees, wasting no time. He gripped the ruched hem of your dress, gathering the fabric in his hands in rushed anticipation, pushing aside your panties with his teeth and burying his face inside your warm pussy.

‘This little whore, oh my..’

His tongue pushed flat against you, taking you in at long stripes as his eyes bordered on impatience and deliberate, savoring at how you squirmed against him when his pink muscle curled and licked circles at your entrance. You pushed your weight on him, cried at the thought of him eating you alive when any moment you could get caught.

‘He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me. Fuck, those pretty eyes looking back at me. He looks so good eating me out. God, fuck.’

He took your free hand, guiding it to the back of his head, gesturing you to hold on, and like magic, the lower half of his face vanished between your wet folds.

“Oh gah–” You’re the one to shut yourself off this time with the sharp bite of your lip, focused on the passionate exploration of Chan’s tongue–fucking you with intent, and you fought off the urge to scream. He held you up by your thighs, the darkness in his eyes zoning in on you, drunk in thought of witnessing another orgasm, and amplified your senses with the presence of his fingers. You gripped his hair for dear life–further encouraging him to go deeper–worshiping how the soft strands felt against the pads of your fingers as Chan worshipped every inch inside of you.

“Don’t stop,” you managed to whisper, combing through his hair. “Hmm, that’s so nice…god, you’re so hot eating me out like that…”

Chan was starting to confuse your words for thoughts, or maybe was it your thought for words, whatever it was, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to hear them, your delightful praises directed towards him, or see that beautiful face contort with pleasure.

Your hips began to do that familiar jerk, your pelvis hitting his nose as you sensed something explosive near. Your sounds of ache muffled under your hands, and you twisted your hips, gasp breaking out of you helplessly, and Chan got that familiar fresh flavor of you on his tongue as it dripped out of you.

He helped himself up to pin you back on the wall, the taste of yourself in his mouth, startling addictive, and you reciprocated, getting everything that he’s worked for.

As he pulled away, staring back at you with an unspoken intensity in his eyes. “Let’s get you going.”

Chan led you out of the closet, cum still dripping down your legs, joining the rest of the group to announce your victory: a month-long coupon for free snacks at the gaming café. The triumphant smile on your face as you timidly crossed your legs, only hinting at the far more thrilling victory you’d just shared in Chan’s closet.

The other seekers playfully elbowed him, teasing him for being a terrible seeker. "I’m shocked you found anyone with how long you took!" they laughed. But the mischievous glint in his eyes was hidden under a veil of innocuous feigned confusion. “Guess, I really suck at this,” he shrugged, “Glad you guys had fun.”

And everyone did have fun—so much so that nearly the whole crowd insisted on another round. A round that you and Chan would find just as—if not even more—entertaining than the first.

As soon as Chan locked the door for the PC Cafe, he reclaimed your lips, feeling for your heat underneath your dress and its familiar throb. “Finally, some privacy.”

As fellow hiders this round, you slipped away to a more secluded spot, somewhere private enough to pick up right where you’d left off. Here, with no one else to interrupt, the two of you could finally delve into that spark that you both have only begun starting to understand, the excitement between you simmering just beneath the surface, waiting to be explored in the quiet privacy you’d carved out.

‘Lee Chan, the man you are.’

He slipped you out of your dress and let it hit the ground, leading you to behind the counter and pressing you against it. You looped your arms around him, tugging his dinosaur onesie off with your foot and kicking it to the ground along with your dress, caressing his cock protected under a layer of his briefs. “Chan, please I want you.”

‘More than you’d ever know.’

“I know,” He chuckled, tearing off the final obstacle of your underwear. And stuffing it in the abandoned skin of his Halloween costume. “And I’ll show just the kind of treatment you get when you ask nicely.”

He flipped you around, tearing your pantyhose higher on your ass, and bent you over in front of him. He slowly, and deliberately, fished out his cock, letting it slap against the curve of your ass, hearing the pleads inside your head.

‘God, he so knows what he’s doing. What a tease.’

His lips connected to the back of your neck, with a free hand squeezed around the flesh of your breast. “Say it.”

“Chan…” you whined. ‘Don’t make me beg.’

“I want to hear how much you want me inside of you. I need some transparency from you.”

“Of course, I want it, Chan.” You back yourself against him, leading the head of his cock towards your puffy slit. “Please.”

“Use your words, dirty girl,” He harshly whispered, invoking a feeling not only rare but foreign inside of you as you clenched around nothing.

“I-I want you inside me, Chan.”

“Doing what?”

You whined, “Fucking me.” ‘Using me.’

He scoffed, brimming with pride, readjusting your position as he saw fit, and slowly pushed himself inside you. When you adjust to his size, you had only begun to realize the impact it’s have on you, how it’s be hard to forget such a sensation, until he’s dragging his cock in and out of you. You clawed on wooden counter, bracing yourself, and echoing a low, long groan as he covered every inch of him in your slick walls.

The first thrust was methodical, calculated, determined to show you the whole range of what he’d give you and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t intimidated, but as he found his pace, you began to find your balance. “Oh, fuck…”

You were glued to him, his hips pounding himself against you as his hands collected your breasts in his hands, lips kissing up your neck and behind your ear. “Gonna make you fucking wish your only regret was not fucking me sooner.”

How he easily found your spot was mystery – one that you didn’t think too long and hard on – until he just kept doing it, pulling you back against him as he released his inhibitions. Your sweat pilled against each other, unsure where yours started and where his ends, your bodies intertwined into one sickening display of what almost a year of unspoken lust looked like.

‘Oh, I could get used to this. If he fucked me like this everyday, I wouldn’t complain for a single second.’

And Chan was almost counting on that.

He turned you around again, missing your face and admiring how your disheveled hair only framed its intoxicating aura as he lifted you against the counter and pushed his cock inside you as he towered over you.

The single chain around his neck brushed against your face repeatedly, and calling to your attention loud enough for only Chan to hear.

‘Omg his chain…this is like one of those Twitter memes where fanatics dream of their faves’ chain hanging above their face during sex…and it’s actually happening to me with Chan.’

Suddenly, he had an idea. “Bite on it.”

You blinked at him, registering his words as he suddenly stopped his thrusts. “…What?”

“Bite on my chain while I fuck the living shit out of you.”

You took your time processing the thought, before slowly leaning in, the chain barely meeting your lips before you took it between your teeth and pulled him down with you.

Chan’s once kind smile warped into something more sinister, more primal, and he granted you what he had promised.

His cock slammed against you, reverberating your walls, and you clung on the counter under you, while your vision flickered to the back of your skull. Gritting against the chain on your enamel, your head could not form words clear in any sense, just the echo of yours skin clashing and Chan reveled in that. “Good fucking girl.”

He hand struck your side, squishing you against the counter, feeding you his raw power course through you until he’s fill you up, over and over again. You feed his ego in a way he never expected from someone and wasn’t sure he’d be willing to let it go with whatever happened next, so he was gonna savor the moment he had.

As his arousal coursed through him, squeezed every ounce of energy out of you, ensuring he’d hear his name on your brain and out your lips. He held your tired body, stroking your sides, panting against your skin, and felt the final release ebb out of him like a stream, coating you in perfect white before settling down a stool nearby, sitting you on his lap as you rested against the security of his strong, broad frame.

Wherever this left the two of you, Chan just knew he needed to have you. And considering the emptiness in his head, he needed you for more than he realized.

#thediamondlifenetwork #svthub #dino smut #seventeen smut #dino #lee Chan #seventeen #lee chan smut #seventeen x reader #seventeen x y/n #seventeen x you #dino x reader #dino x you #dino x y/n #seventeen fanfic #seventeen dino #svt x reader #svt x you #svt x y/n

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godmadeaterribleerror · 7 days ago

Text

Chapter 25 - And It Was Written

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Author's Note: I consider there to be five “big” secrets in Babylon. Here’s the first one.

Chapter Title from The Prophecy by Taylor Swift

Word Count: 19.4k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You get a call. Usual Warnings.

Tags: Dean Winchester/Female Reader, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, angst, fluff, pining, action

Chapter 24 - Chapter 26

Read on A03!

“You ever play golf, Princess?”

“Do I look like someone who’s played golf?”

Dean chuckles, the sound a little static through the speaker of the phone. “You want me to answer that?”

“Dean Winchester-“

“You got that fancy walk,” he says your name, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “Rich person walk.”

“I do not have a rich person walk-“

“Yeah, you do.”

“Well, then-“ You sputter slightly, scowling at the ceiling. “You have a walk, too.”

Dean snorts. “Good one, sweetheart.”

“Shut up.”

“Bossy-“

“Dean.”

He laughs, the sound filling up the whole room, and you smile into the dark.

“And I do not have a-“

“It’s not a bad thing,” Dean cuts you off, his words suddenly almost gentle. “You walk like you’re gonna punch anyone who gets in front of you. Like, you got- Y’know. Purpose.”

“Oh. Okay.” You pause. You can have purpose. You can’t think of any ideas for purpose—and when you try to, it mostly just circles around from Dean, to Bobby, to Sam, back to Dean—but you couldhave more purpose.

Damnation.

Not that kind of purpose. That’s the kind of purpose that got you here in the first place. Lying flat on your back in the dead of night, your phone propped on a pillow near your head, trying to pretend that Dean was next to you instead of across the country.

Another nightmare. Death watching you and telling you no, Lucifer laughing in the background, Ketch appearing in every shadow, trying to corner you and put you in a muzzle.

Sometimes they end with Death grabbing your hands and wiping Jo’s blue from your fingertips, telling you that she belongs with him, and him alone. Other times it’s Lucifer, slowly shifting into Sam and snapping your neck, but you’re Dean and you can see yourself standing off in the shadows, doing nothing at all. Then Lucifer-Sam will lean down in hiss in You-Dean’s ear that you could have saved him, but just didn’t love him enough, and Dean dies thinking you don’t love him like it’s all you’ve ever really known.

Sometimes, after that, the dream will change. You’ll be back in a motel with Dean—just himself, just Gold, very much alive and not at all real—and you’ll rest your head on his shoulder while he tells you about how this town actually had the best diner in America, and you’ll muffle your giggle against his body because he says that all the time.

But you hadn’t gotten that, tonight. When you do, it’s enough for you to not need Dean. No need to wake him up when he needs the rest more than you do, and you’ll see him in a few days anyway.

He says to call him, whenever you wake up and you’re everything and it’s all too much. You’re the pain of the single tear in your blanket, the strain of the trees outside your window as the wind rips through their branches, the fear of the rain as it falls, unsure where it’s going.

But Dean’s in Connecticut, hunting a demon hoard that’s been terrorizing a country club. He can’t be caught off guard just because the Silver decided to rear it’s head and you aren’t strong enough to handle it without—as he would call it—doing something stupid.

You haven’t been doing anything stupid. You might have caught a small cold last week, standing out in the sleet-storm while Sam and Dean were in Alabama—Hurricane season, trying to find a reaper that might snitch on Death’s location, a failed experiment—but you’d gotten over it quick. Mostly, whenever the everything hits you, you’ve been curling up into the sheets, dragging them over your head, and pretending that it was Dean holding you. His Gold is marked all over them, when you roll to his side of the bed you can smell cinnamon and grass, and it usually, mostly, works.

It takes longer to come down, you never fall back asleep, and when you shuffle downstairs in the morning Bobby always looks at you like he somehow knows that you should’ve called Dean or woken him up, but it doesn’t matter. If you’re a little extra tired, no one gets hurt but you.

You’re not hunting.

You’re just looking for Death and Pestilence, trying to work out Lucifer’s next moves, and—in your spare time, when Bobby’s asleep and Sam and Dean are away—talking with Cas about things.

Things you haven’t told Dean about.

You don’t know how. How to look at him, in all his Golden, handsome, strong glory and say Cas and I are trying to figure out what Men of God are. All signs are pointing to you being one, Mr. Michael Vessel. And Men of God and Magdalene’s don’t have good track records, but you also don’t seem like a normal Man of God. John was a Man of God, though. Ketch might be too. And they both tried to hurt me. So do what you want with that.

And that doesn’t even cover half of it. How Cas still hasn’t worked out what The Magdalene does, only that it’s different. And he can’t spend too much time on it anyway, because he has to find God.

You look like God.

Your name is—according to Cas—written in Marina Trench and the caves of Mount Everest and in the Stone Forests of Japan. The Silver still isn’t cooperating, and Death still doesn’t want you, and after you’d killed Famine, he’s been added to your nightmare roster, but none of this is about you.

You’re not even supposed to be helping. It’s why you’re staying hidden. No matter what the whole Magdalene-Men of God mess is, it’s far from important as the apocalypse closes in.

So you keep researching. And you get nightmares when you sleep, but you really try not to bother Dean with them. He doesn’t need another reason to worry about you, and he needs the rest.

You can get through it.

You always do.

But not alone. Not tonight. The nightmare had been Ketch, but instead of the usual ending—the ceiling falls, but you’re trapped with him in the rubble and he starts to touch you, and John and Lucifer and Alistair and Azazel join him, but when you scream for Dean no sound comes out, right up until you’re ripped away and appear in a dive bar with Dean grinning at you from the pool table—Ketch had gotten you. He’d snapped the muzzle on your face, and the Silver had exploded.

You’d sat up with bed, your hand already wrapped around your throat, but it had been too late.

The Silver hadn’t been contained to your dream.

Before calling Dean, you’d spent an hour weeding your bedroom. Strange, glowing flowers had sprouted through the floorboards, branches had grown over the windows—as if they were trying to block you from the view of the Sky, flaring out your window without a word—and they’d been growing those iridescent apples that you’d tried to preserve for study, but the moment you’d put them on the dresser they’d shattered like glass, the shards melting into nothing.

And you’re so fucking tired. And lonely.

You’d needed Dean.

He’d picked up after the second ring. He’s been on the phone with you for almost an hour, talking about nothing.

You miss him. If he was here, you’d be able to see his smile, drown in his Gold, and he’d run his thumb down your nose until you were only your own. Then you’d fall back asleep, his hand in yours, and everything would be fine.

Not about you.

Calling him is already pushing it. Him talking to you is more than you deserve. But knowing that never has—never will—stop the want. The pull. The need for Dean to maybe just lay on top of you forever, until everything is always technicolor and the Spiderweb is the only thing you can feel in the world.

But you’ll take this. Dean on the phone in the dead of night, the stains of his Gold still all around you.

Whatever bits of Dean he offers, you’ll always take.

“I think you’d like golf.” Dean hums, and you twist your head to look your phone, as if he’d actually be there to glare at.

“Golf isn’t a real sport, De. It’s for rich people and businessmen, trying to jack each other off and assert their dominance while wearing polo shirts. And it’s stupid.”

“Sweetheart, you think all sports are stupid.”

“Wrong. I like Soccer and Football.”

Dean pauses. “You do?”

“Yep. I used to watch them with Rufus all the time.”

“Huh.” You can hear the small frown in his voice. “You told me you don’t care about where the balls go-“

“I don’t. I like soccer because I’d always got ice cream when Rufus put it on, then more ice cream if his team won.”

“We could just get ice cream-“

“Tastes better with victory.”

“Right. Course it does.” Dean chuckles. “What about football?”

“I like the music shows. And I think I’d be good at it.”

You can hear the amusement in his voice. “Cause of the violence.”

“Yep. I’d beat all those big men’s asses.”

“See, that’s why I think you’d like golf, sweetheart. The clubs make great weapons.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m flipping you off right now, you know.”

Dean laughs, and you can’t stop your own smile from tugging at your lips. The Spiderweb is bursting. Even with Dean miles away and only a voice in a phone, it still knows to light up for Dean.

His voice. His joy. The fact that it’s almost three in the morning—five for him—but he’s not making any effort to end the call.

Once he does, you’ll have to let him. Not about you.

Until then, you’ll stay on the line for as long as he allows you to.

“So there’s a joint here that does malt milkshakes.” He says, and you hum, rubbing the scar on your palm as you listen. “And they’ve got the best freakin’ burgers I’ve ever had in my life.”

You giggle. “De, every burger you have is the best burger-“

“Nah, this is it. You’d like it, they cover the whole thing in a fancy sauce, and those milkshakes? They’re free, if you get the combo meal.”

“So they’re not free-“

“They’re free-ish.”

“Something can’t be free-ish, it’s either free or not free-“

“It’s free in my heart,” he drawls your name, and it’s low and deep and teasing, and your thighs press slightly together. “And nothing is better than free food.”

He pauses, and you’re about to take over with a comment about how everything is free for us, Dean, all our money is stolen, but he continues before you can.

“When this Lucifer-Michael end of the world shit is over, you should come check this place out.”

You swallow. You know Dean likes hanging out with you—he’s your best friend, and maybe more, but your rules mean you’re not allowed to push on it—but it still makes the Spiderweb ignite with light and color when he says it. “The burger place? Or the country club?”

Dean chuckles. “Both. You can smoke all these rich douchebags at golf, then we can go get burgers. I’m serious, Princess. You’d love the milkshakes.”

You probably will.

You mostly love that Dean’s thinking of you. Like you’re worth that much to him, to look at a milkshake and think of you.

You’d like to be worth everything to him. He’s worth everything to you.

Not allowed to say it.

“I’ve never played golf.” You mumble, and you can hear Dean’s scoff.

“Trust me, sweetheart. You’d love it.”

“But-“

Dean drawls your name. “It’s about hitting things and looking fancy. Freakin’ sport was made for you.”

You flush, wrapping an arm around your stomach. “Oh. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Dean pauses, his voice dropping to something softer. “Would you wanna do that? If you don’t-“

“I would.” You say, too quick. If Dean notices, he doesn’t mention it. “At this point you owe me a tour of diners in America, Deano. The moment we’re done with this, you better put your money where your mouth is.”

“My mouth is on the burger, sweetheart.” You can hear the grin in his voice, and you roll your eyes. “Score?”

“Six out of ten. You can do better.”

“Aw, you got faith in me.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do. And you laughed, sweetheart.”

“Maybe.” You hum, grinning at the light, slowly starting to dance over the ceiling. “You can’t prove that, Winchester.”

“Don’t have to. Know it in my heart. You think I’m hilarious.”

You’re flushing again. Maybe it’s good he’s only a voice in a phone. You might start crawling over his chest if he wasn’t. “Shut up.”

“No, say it. C’mon you can do it, admit you think I’m funny.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re killing me, Princess-“

“I’ll say it,” you hum, grinning at the ceiling. “If you take back that I look like someone who plays golf.”

“Nah, I’ve got integrity. Said it, meant it, and I was fuckin’ right.”

“Okay, integrity, tell me again about that pool hustle you pulled last night.”

He groans, you giggle, and it really is better.

Even when the conversation turns heavier, it’s Dean, so it’s better.

“Have you-“ You clear your throat, and you don’t want to ask it, but you have to. For your own sanity, so you don’t spend the whole day with your fingers itching and a lump in your throat. “Angels? Or Lucifer?”

“Not yet.” Dean says, and your nails dig into your wrist. “If it is, we’ve got the banishment sigils lined up all over the wall, and all we gotta do is keep saying no.”

You nod, but Lucifer—with all his Red and teeth—flashes over your vision, and you can’t stop your shaking breath.

Dean must have heard it, because he mutters your name softly, but you shake your head and keep pushing on.

“Dean, I- I’m worried about it.”

“I- I know, but shit, Princess, you gotta -“

“The archangels.” You whisper, drawing your knees up to your chest. “I know you and Sam don’t want to say yes to them-“

“We’re not saying yes to them-“

“But they’re not just going to take that.” You raise your voice, and Dean goes quiet. “Zachariah- He hurt Jo just to send a message to me. And Gabriel fucked with you and Sam for a week, then visited me in Europe just because he didn’t want me here-“

Dean mutters your name, an odd strain in his voice. “I don’t give a shit about what Heaven wants, I want you here. And you-“

“I’m not running.” The Spiderweb feels like it’s made of starlight. Not the time. “I’m just- My point is that they did all that just to keep me away. Between San Francisco and LA, they certainly know I’m back by now.”

“So?”

“So Gabriel said I was changing things. And maybe- I don’t know. I just don’t trust that, if we’re playing dirty, they won’t do the same.”

“Princess, they’ve been playing dirty.” Dean’s voice is gentle, but firm. “All those feathered assholes do is play dirty. But Sammy’s not giving Lucifer the green light-“

“What about Michael?”

Dean pauses. “What about Michael.”

“I- I trust Sam-“

“But not me?”

You frown. “Of course I trust you, Dean.”

There’s something sour to his voice that you don’t understand. “Yeah, sure sounds like it-“

“Dean.” You make your voice firm, and he sighs, repeating your name back. “I don’t think you’re going to say yes to Michael, I- I’m just- They’re going to try and make you. And I don’t think they have a lot of lines, and this is already so fucked, and I don’t- I’m not making any progress on Death and things are just getting worse and-“ You take a heavy, shuddering breath, and Dean mutters your name.

It would be really nice if he was here. If he was the one wrapping around you, instead of you just hiking the Golden blanket a little higher over your body.

“Do you think I should say yes?” He mutters, his voice low, and you shake your head.

“No.”

“Alright. Then I won’t.”

“But it’s not that simple-“

“It is. I’m not saying yes. Michael’s gonna have to fist my asshole if he wants inside.”

You wrinkle your nose, swallowing a soft laugh. “That’s gross, De.”

“Score?”

“Zero.”

“Bullshit, I can hear you laughing-“

“No, you can’t.”

“C’mon-“

“Nope.”

“This is elder abuse-“

“You’re thirty.”

“Almost thirty-one. Basically genetic.”

You smile into the dark. “Geriatric?”

“Yeah, that. I’m just a skeleton, sweetheart, you gotta be delicate with me-“

“So dramatic.”

He scoffs. “You love it.”

It’s good he can’t see how deep your flush is. Heating over your cheeks and spreading between your thighs as he starts to talk about how—if you are celebrating his birthday this year—he’d really like a proper, chocolate cake. And you think you can make that happen.

For Dean, you might be able to do anything.

You’re on the phone with him until Sam starts to stir on his end, and he has to go back to the case.

“We’ll be home in a few days,” he says, and you nod, moving the phone to press right back to your ear. Trying to have him a little closer. “Just some run of the mill demon asshats, so this is going pretty quick.”

“Good,” you let out a slow breath, your grip tightening on the phone. “Let me know if you need anything. And if they show up-“

“We got wards and Cas on speed dial, it’ll be fine.” Dean pauses, his voice lowering slightly. “I- I’m glad you called. Are you-“

“I feel better.” You whisper. “Thank you. For picking up.”

You could swear you hear him let out a long, slow breath. “Don’t need to thank me. You’re- I’ll call you later tonight. And I’m keeping my phone on me, so if-“

“I will.” You don’t want him to go. Can’t interfere with work. “Bye, De. Don’t die.”

He chuckles. “I’ll try. Stay safe, Princess. Call me if you need anything.”

You need him.

But you let him hang up the phone, and roll over to bury your face in his pillow the moment the line goes dead. You’ll stay there, until the sun is bleeding into your room. Until the Sky becomes unignorable, and you can hear Bobby rolling around downstairs. The world doesn’t care that you’d like to—just for a day—lie here and do nothing. Clinging to the sheets and pretending they’re Dean, taking slow, deep breaths until you’re certain you’ll be able to keep going. All the way to the end, right up to the finish line—wherever it may come—before crashing into Dean and staying in his arms for as long as he lets you.

You’d really just like this to be over. You’re not just going through the motions, but it’s something similar to it. Get through the night and all its terrors, then let the day creep in as you cling to your Dean-Stained blanket like a child. Go downstairs and give a mumbled good morning to Bobby, who gives you a mornin’ kiddo, in return. Make the coffee, wolf down breakfast as fast as you can—Bobby watching you carefully to make sure you finish it all—and get to work. Earthquakes and thunderstorm, new outbreaks of measles in Ecuador, Beijing, and Cairo. Bobby’s got no luck on Death, but neither do you.

You’ve kept your word to Crowley. You’ve been thinking about it. And the more days pass, the closer you’re getting to making that deal.

You’re not quite there yet.

But you’re close.

“He’s stayin’ off the radar.” Bobby mutters, frowning at his computer. “Both of ‘em are. Pestilence either changed his vessel or went blackout off the grid, after you and the boys tracked him last time. And Death- Fuckin’ ball, I ain’t seein’ anything.”

“Lucifer’s probably saving him for when he’s needed.” You mutter, flipping a page in your book. “He- I don’t remember him being all that happy, with what was happening.”

Bobby grunts. “You think you be able to do your soul-vision thing on him? If he pops up on freakin’- CNN or somethin’?”

You nod, pushing down the memory of Death looking at you, and saying no. “I’ve been checking local feeds whenever an omen pops up. Nothing.”

“Alright. Keep lookin’. And Pestilence-“

“Did it last night. I’ll put it on the fridge after I go shopping.”

Bobby grunts in approval, and you glance up. You’re almost done with this anyway.

“Did you look at the list?”

“Yep. Added a few things, but you handled most of it. Go armed.”

You pull out your Blade, flash Bobby a grin, and all you get is a flat look in return.

“Don’t forget the milk.”

You sigh, pushing to your feet. “I’m getting you oat milk. It’s better for old men.”

“Yeah, yeah, like Dean’ll be happy with the plant milk.”

You flush. “He doesn’t like any milk.”

Bobby pauses. “That’s true, ain’t it. Never seen him drink it without cookies.”

“Not even with cookies. Those were mine.”

“You don’t like milk either-“

“I like cookies.”

“Just eat the fuckin’ cookies.” Bobby mutters under his breath, and you give him a mock salute, crossing the room to the fridge.

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Shut up and get drivin’ kiddo. You come back with oat milk, and I’m shootin’ Dean.”

You scowl—it’s not good that he knows how effective that is—and grab the list off the fridge.

It’s pinned right between the expired Costco coupon Bobby’s had there since you were thirteen, and your drawings. Crude sketches you’d done a few days after you got back from LA, outlining the Horsemen’s true appearances. You hadn’t bene able to draw Death—something about it had felt wrong—but you’d gotten all the vile oozing of Pestilence, and the gaping darkness you’d seen in Famine.

He’d been like a black hole. A pit. Bottomless and made of shadows, taking and taking and never satisfied. You’d had a feeling, standing across from him in LA and spinning the Blade in your hands, that you could’ve tossed the world into him and he just would’ve eaten that too.

And he hadn’t had a single effect on you. Hadn’t been confused by it, either. Just whined about how it wasn’t fair, and if he could eat your soul, he’d never be hungry again.

You’re trying not to think about it. Just like you’re trying not to think about how, the day after, you’d looked into Dean’s eyes and the floodlight had returned. Staring at him in the golden-blue light of the dawn, you’d been able to see all that life, buried deep inside of him, colorful and luminescent and beautiful.

You missed him. You wanted to wake up like that—next to him, his hand in yours, trying to keep your love off your face while figuring out how you can live in the world of Dean forever—every single morning.

But the apocalypse. And groceries.

It goes slowly. With Sam your divide and conquer plan had done wonders, and you’d been able to compensate for each other’s gross lack of domestic knowledge. And grocery shopping with Dean was never really grocery shopping, but rather letting him guide you aisle to aisle and listening to him ramble about all the different meats and sauces and spices, and what was useful and what was the good stuff, Princess. Trust me. And you’d always trust him, nodding a little stupidly and giving him a soft smile, pushing the cart wherever he told you it should go.

Alone, you’re trying desperately to remember what the good stuff was, and you’re not sure you’re succeeding. Mostly, you’re just grabbing whatever’s expensive. All your money is counterfeit or stolen from banks anyway.

Jo taught you wiretapping a few years ago. She makes fun of you for using it on fancy hotel rooms and makeup, but then she turns around and spends it on a hair mask and the fanciest box of chocolates you’ve ever seen.

You still haven’t visited her, at the waterfall.

You will soon. Dean promised. It just can’t be done alone. But that doesn’t stop you—every single time you climb into the Firebird—from dropping your brow to the wheel and taking a shaking breath. You could go now. You have a car, and legs, and a weapon. If angels or demons come for you, there’s no better place to lose control than a forest.

Then you think of a small marker in the dirt, and look down at the pastel blue on your fingers, and you can’t. It’s going to make it too real. She’s gone. All that’s left of her is that waterfall, and what’s on your fingertips.

You still keep thinking of her as alive. You know you do. You know Dean’s caught it, when you’ve said Jo likes or Jo hates or Jo is.

She isn’t.

You don’t know how to internalize that. And the moment you see the grave, you’re going to have to.

You should’ve visited the moment you got back. But you’ve been busy, and in pain, and you miss her and you can’t do it alone, you don’t want to do it alone, she can’t really be gone and you promised her you’d be okay but you can’t-

There’s a faint buzzing, and you freeze. The world had gone blurry, as you’d stared at your hands—you have perishables, you should really get moving—but when you dig your phone out from your pocket, it’s not the one that’s ringing. Your head shoots up, turning immediately towards the console, but save for the Gatorade you gotten yourself and your wallet, it’s empty.

The buzzing is still going. And the generic ring tone is screaming burner phone, but you don’t keep a burner phone. You have one phone, with five numbers—Bobby, Dean, Sam, Cas, Rufus—and you never just hand out your number. People don’t want to be able to reach you. You’re not someone anyone should just welcome, willingly, into their home, or seek for help. For every good deed you do, you’re ten times as sick and wrong.

Death. Staring at you. Telling you no, and the Sky glaring down at you, and a million teeth calling you a friend-

The buzzing stops for a second, then starts again. It’s in the car. You know it’s in the car. But it’s not your phone, so you don’t know where the fuck it’s coming from. And it takes pushing your hand between the seat cushions and getting on your knees to check under the backseat for you to think of the glove compartment. And there it is. A little black burner—just enough faded Gold to tell you it was Dean’s—buzzing over and over with a number, and no saved contact.

Dean gives his burner numbers to a lot of people. Surviving vics, in case they ever need help again. Other, more trusted hunters, for mutual aid on cases.

Girls. In bars. With pretty skirts and shirts that show of their cleavage, batting their lashes at him and giving him sweet smiles.

And you’ve played it over a million times in your head, almost on a mechanical loop. He doesn’t look for that anymore. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t look for him. Doesn’t mean he says no, when he’s asked. He ends up back in your bed, just sleeping, but he can’t be satisfied with that. Couldn’t ever be satisfied with you, making him worry and waking him up in the middle of the night to talk about fucking golf and milkshakes. Crying in his arms every other hunt, needing him more than he needs you, asking him to stay at your side and let you infect him, failing him all the time and running and sick-

The phone starts buzzing again.

So you brace yourself—you’ll get through it, no matter who it is, you’ll be fine, and Dean’s his own person, but you’ll be fucking fine—and pick up the phone.

“Hello?” A man’s voice—young, nervous, probably not a sex call—crackles through the speaker. “Is- Is this Dean Winchester?”

You pause. He knows who Dean is. But that’s not exactly a clean endorsement of who he is. “Who’s asking?”

“Oh- Uh-“ The man clears his throat. “Sorry, I, um- I’m just looking for someone, I think I got the wrong number-“

“You didn’t.” Your voice has to stay flat. Neutral. Not too much given away, but if he knows Dean by name, you have to know why.

“You- Don’t exactly sound like Dean.”

“This is his phone.”

“Oh. Um, is he okay-“

He better be. “Again, who’s asking.”

“Adam? Mulligan? I’m Sam and Dean’s brother.”

You still. Sam and Dean don’t have a third brother. Not that they’ve told you. They would’ve told you, that’s definitely something worth fucking telling you if it’s true-

Then a vague bell rings in the back of your head. Dean had told you. While you were in Europe. He’d called you at four in the morning—for him, not you—and said that it seemed like John got around, when he was on solo hunts. That he’d even had a son, barely a kid, and he’d claimed that John hadn’t known about him, but he’d still had Dean’s middle name as a first name. And John had taken him to baseball games, and taught him how to drive, and Dean had been angry but mostly with John—you’d bitten down your pride at that, not the right time to encourage Dean that John was a bag of shit—and most of all, at the end of it, Adam had been-

“You’re dead.” You snap, sitting up in your seat. Dean had said the real Adam was dead, had been dead the whole time. “Adam Mulligan got killed by a ghoul, who the fuck are you-“

“I’m Adam!” The man yelps, and you can hear the genuine fear in his voice. “I promise! And I know I died- I mean, I think I know. I can sort remember things that didn’t happen to me, and it’s- it’s really confusing. I woke up in a lot of dirt, and I found my phone with this number, and I remember Dean even though I never met him, so, um- Where is he?”

You frown, weighing your options in your head. He doesn’t sound like he’s lying, but most monsters are good actors. If you were in danger or confused, you’d also call Dean first, but you’ve known him for almost ten years, and you love him. Adam—if he’s real—has never even really met Dean. But he says he remembers both Sam and Dean, which reeks of angel interference, but if it is, they’re looking for the boys. Not you.

And angels can’t hurt you.

Adam clears his throat. “Hello?”

“Dean’s busy.” You keep your words careful. If this is angel interference, they’re not getting anything extra out of you.

You kind of hope it’s angel interference. You’d really like to kill Zachariah.

“Oh. Is he going to be, um, not busy soon?”

“Nope.” You lean back, resting your knees on the wheel. “But I can pass on a message.”

“Uh-“ Adam pauses. “Who are you?”

You give your first name, but not your last. If it is the angels, that won’t really matter either way.

“Oh- Okay. Are you like, Dean’s girlfriend?”

You’re going to jump off a cliff. “It’s complicated.”

“Alright.” Adam, thankfully, doesn’t push it. “Can you tell him I’m in Minnesota? And I’d like some help, please?”

You frown. “Where in Minnesota?”

“Windom? It’s my hometown, that’s where they met… not me.”

Windom isn’t that far. Barely an hour and a half for you, over a day for Dean. If it is a trap, it’s safer for you to take the bait first. If it isn’t—if Adam passes all the tests and there’s no angel brigade waiting—then it’s safer to keep Adam at Bobby’s.

You do have perishables. But they’ll last three hours.

“Text me the address.” You say, moving the call to speaker so you can watch for the message on the burner, and text Bobby know you’re taking care of something, you’ve got your knife, and you’ll be home for dinner.

“Oh, you can just tell Dean-“

“He’s on another coast. I’m in within two hours.”

“But-“ Adam lets out a long sigh, right as your phone buzzes with Bobby’s response.

Dont die.

You smile, type back never do, and open Dean’s contact.

“Adam, if you want help-“

“I know. I’m sending it now.” There’s another buzz on the burner, and Adam coughs. “Two hours?”

“More or less. Line the doors with salt and don’t answer for anyone but me.”

“How will I know it’s you?”

Fair enough. You give Adam a quick description of yourself, he mumbles and understanding, and you hang up the phone.

Bobby’s going to call this Hunter Fever. That you’re itching to do this because you’ve been cooped up, and now you’re actin’ like an idjit. But you’re not. If Adam is possessed, you’ll see it. If he’s just evil, he won’t be able to get the jump on you. One wrong movement and you’ll blast his soul right back out of his body. The highway will even get a lovely new garden as a result. And, you’re calling Dean. You’d sugar coated so Bobby wouldn’t worry, but you’re going to tell Dean, because you’re not being an idiot.

“Hey, Princess.” He picks up the phone after two rings, and you try not to sob in relief. He’s fine, you’d known that, but it’s still like a wave of thank fucking Christ whenever you hear his voice. “I meant to call you earlier, but this turned into a whole fuckin’ thing. Nothing we can’t deal with, but this whole town is full of crazies and this blonde chick who thinks she’s Jesus. Had to call in Cas, but we’ll still be home on time. What’s- Are you okay? You’re okay. Goddamnit, you better be okay-“

“I’m okay.” You smile into the air. It would be nice to be able to grab his face between your hands and kiss his nose, but even if he was here, that would be against the rules. “Your brother called.”

There’s a long, static pause. “Sweetheart, I’ve been with Sammy all day-“

“Wrong brother, De.” You sigh, and push out the words as fast as you can. “Adam. He’s alive. In Minnesota. He called the burner phone you left in my car, and I’m close, so I’m going to pick him up and bring him to Bobby’s. You should get home soon though. After the case.”

There’s another pause, and then- “The fuck you’re going to Minnesota alone, it could be a goddamn trap-“

“Maybe.” You shrug. “But I’ve got both knives, and I’m already on I-90.”

“Then get the hell off it-“

“Dean. I’m going. You can’t stop me.”

“I can send Cas-

“You think Cas can stop me?”

“Goddamnit-“ Dean snaps your name, a tension in his voice that you haven’t heard in a long time. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t get yourself goddamn killed without me there to help-“

“I can hunt perfectly fucking fine on my own, Winchester.”

“I know that, but-“

“I’m going because you’re not here.” Your voice is raising slightly, and you glare ahead at the road. “They can hurt you, they can’t hurt me. I’ll be fine.”

“What if you’re not.” Dean hisses, and whatever background noise was on when he picked up is gone. He must have moved to fight in private. “You- You can’t get fucking hurt, Princess-“

“I know I can’t.” You say coolly. “That’s the point.”

He huffs out a dry laugh. “That’s not what I meant and you fuckin’ know it-“

“Dean.” Your voice is harsher than you mean it, and he falls silent. “We’ve done this before. I am perfectly fine on my own-“

“But you shouldn’t have to be.”

You swallow, a hot and heavy lump forming in your throat. You don’t want to fight. Not really. Not now, when you miss him and love him and everything hurts just as much as always.

Not ever.

“Sorry.” Dean mutters. “Didn’t mean to shout, you’re just- Son of a bitch, you need to be here Princess. With me. And I can’t- If you-“

“I know.” You mumble, moving one hand off the wheel to rub at your wrists. Sick. Only making things harder. “I’ll be careful, De. I promise.”

Dean sighs. “I know you will, sweetheart. Just- If you need me, pray to Cas and he’ll zap me over-“

“I know.”

He grunts, and it doesn’t sound like he’s convinced. “Call me when you’ve got him, or I’m leaving these dumbasses to govern themselves.”

“Ooo, a revolution. You’re a kind king, Mr. Winchester. The people love your taxing system and patronage of the arts.”

“Nerd.” Dean mutters, but there’s a softness to his voice that makes you feel molten. “Pinky promise you’ll call.”

“Pinky promise. See you soon.”

Love you.

You don’t say it. You’re not allowed to say it.

But you can think it, and hope he feels it. Hope that, all the way across the country, Dean knows that you’re going to be fine, because you have to be. You always get through it. You always go back to him. The address Adam gave you might look suspiciously like a church—god fucking damnit, it’s almost certainly a trap—but you’ll get back to Dean.

You always do.

Adam’s a scrawny kid, sitting awkwardly on the dais. He’s a sort of tangerine orange color, starting in his stomach and burning up like fire in a chimney. He might be a little taller than Dean, but he’s built more like Sam. Hair a little darker than Dean’s, eyes bluer than Sam’s, and it’s not fair to already be comparing him to them, but otherwise you’ll just be seeing John. John’s nose, and mouth, and eyes. The features of the man that tried to kill you. That should have killed you. That kept you away from Dean. And they’re the same nose and mouth and eyes Dean has, but you love Dean. On him, they’re the best features in the world.

So it’s for Adam’s sake that you look at him and think Dean’s mouth. Sam’s jaw. Otherwise the Silver might start to flare.

You’re going to have it enough trouble keeping it down as it is.

Because standing at the dais is an angel. Broader than Cas, a little less electric, his rainbows running with an ugly, muted brown.

Zachariah.

You sigh, stopping at the front of the pews and crossing your arms over your chest. “I fucking knew it.”

Zachariah grins at you, ugly and shark like, and it’s only for Adam’s sake that you don’t let the Silver burst up and rip everything apart.

He says your name, clapping his hands together with a mockingly cheerful tone. “You are infuriating, you know that? Think that you always know best, even when you’re walking into my trap-“

“Pretty shit trap.” You mutter. “I don’t think you were aiming for me, douche-bucket.”

Zachariah scowls. “Douche-bucket. I’m assuming that’s from our lovely Dean, right? His little… turn of phrase.”

You don’t answer—Zachariah can wait—and your attention flicks to Adam. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Adam whispers, his eyes wide on yours. “I just wanted to see my mom, I didn’t mean to- I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s happening.”

Zachariah scoffs. “Well, don’t try to figure it out. This is beyond your understanding, kid-“

“Oh, shut up.” You snap, and Zachariah’s eyes narrow.

“You have a nice voice.” Adam cuts in before Zachariah can speak, and you blink at him. “And- You’re- I like your hair.”

“Uh, thanks.” You frown. “You working with employee of the month?” You jerk your head to Zachariah, and the angel’s eyes narrow.

“Don’t answer that,” he orders, and Adam just keeps gaping at you. “And you,” he hisses your name, and you fix time with a bored stare. “You are- Such a fucking brat-“

“Sorry. Should’ve been nicer to Dean, he might have given you his real number, and you wouldn’t be going back empty-handed.”

Zachariah’s jaw twitches, and he takes a deep, heaving breath. “For your information, I will not being going anywhere empty handed. Had I hoped for Sam and Dean? Yes. But honestly,” the smirk creeps back onto his face, and a chill runs deeper than your bones. “You’re better. Bigger game, harder to catch. Boss will be pleased. I might even get a promotion. And, here’s the best part.” He raises his fingers, ready to snap. “This will be way more effective.”

He snaps, and you almost stumble forward.

Ellen.

Battered and dazed, a wear in her dark green, but Ellen-

You must call out to her and not hear it, because Zachariah tsks, and holds a finger to his lips.

“I wouldn’t talk to her right now. She’s a little… confused.”

Your jaw clenches, the Silver starting to rise, and while Zachariah’s smile doesn’t falter, his brown does do an odd stutter. Like a short-circuit or fritz in a power line.

“Now,” Zachariah hums, taking a slightly step back and moving Ellen in front of him. Fucking pussy. “Here’s the deal I was going to offer Dean. Adam walks, Ellen walks, even little Sammy walks, and all he has to do is say yes. But I think-“ He pauses, frowning slightly. “He’ll want to talk to you. Sam and Dean… They’d be a problem-“

“They’re not coming.” You snap, grabbing the Blade out of your jacket. The Silver has to remain down, for Adam and Ellen. You can still cause a lot of fucking damage. “It’s just you and me-“

“We both know that’s not true.” Zachariah scoffs. “Dean at least is going to be trying to get to you, and Sam will help him. I can’t track them, but I can tip off some very angry hunters where they’re going- Yeah, it’ll be easier like this.”

Your eyes widen as Zachariah raises his hand again, the Silver turning and blistering right under your skin. “Like-“

The word is barely out of your mouth when Zachariah snaps his fingers, and the Silver rips out.

It crashed up with less warning than usual.

It’s still a second too later.

You’re everything. More than everything. Parts of you are things you don’t have names for, and a lot of you is light, but just as much is darkness. And you’re made of lava somewhere very dark and hot and lonely, and the Earth is spinning around you but you’re also every smallest bit of grass that feels so big in comparison to the bugs, and you’re the vastness of the water in the ocean, but also the vastness of every space between the stars, and neither of them feel bigger than the other.

Mostly, you’re a song being played in an old car—old to other cars, young to the pavement it’s driving on and the trees it’s passing, barely an infant to the sky over its head—and the hands gripping a wheel so tight they’re going to strangle it.

You love those hands. It would be nice to hold them. They’re Golden.

But you’re not you anymore. And you’re following them all the way down the roads, time somehow too slow and too fast all at once. You can see the dusty old church, and there are two hunters loading shotguns, and the shells are building themselves up to burst through a skull. The Gold is driving right to the church, and you need to stop it, but you’re too much and you don’t know how to control it all.

Then, as the Gold walks through the doors of the church, the Purple at his side, it all falls back down. You’re you again, and you can feeling the Spiderweb burning, but it’s not offline. More… confused. Straining a little more powerfully through your chest as you crash into yourself.

And you’re in the most beautiful garden you’ve ever seen.

Water that looks a little more like crystal, sunshine weaving through heavy leaves over your head, angled perfectly to spark at rainbow in every bit of mist. The flowers are blooming with heart and star-like patterns, made of colors you’ve never even seen. A familiar iridescent apple is hanging over your head, growing from a single, weeping tree that seems to be bleeding silver sap. You turn slowly—you’re not sure where you are, but it’s not Minnesota—and stop when your eyes land on an angel.

There’s no wrath in him. Not like the other angels you’ve seen. His grace runs with green—a little lighter than Ellen, a lot softer than Bobby—and he’s big. Less electric, and more rooted. Wings twisted like branches, and eyes like knots on a tree trunk.

He says your name slowly. Your Enochian name. And when you stand a little taller, he gives you a kind smile.

“You can relax. I can’t do you any harm.”

You swallow. “Can’t?”

“None of us can. Even the Angels that believe we’ve truly been left to ourselves…” He chuckles, shaking his head. “They are not foolish enough to try and touch you.”

“Because I’m the Magdalene.” You say carefully, and the angel shrugs.

“Yes, but not quite.”

They must train angels to only speak like bridge trolls. “I don’t know what that means.”

“You are the Bride.” He says simply, and the Silver flares, running right to the tips of your fingers. “Being the Magdalene is, according to him, more of a cruel trick that was played, long ago. He’s told me he thinks you didn’t need the boost.”

“The- What?”

“I’m not sure,” he shrugs. “I don’t get to know everything. Only what I’ve been told.”

You open and close your mouth a few times, and the angel lets out another soft laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just heard so much about you. I forgot you wouldn’t know me. Joshua.” He extends his hands—he’s not in a vessel, it’s all hands—and gives you another smile. “I’m the gardener.”

“Oh.” You say a little stupidly, giving his hand a tight shake and looking around once more. Strange flowers. Everything too perfect, with no actual environmental logic to the botany. You should’ve gotten it sooner. “And I’m in the… Gardens. Of Heaven?”

Joshua hums, and gives you an approving nod. “He did say you were smart.”

You don’t really want to know the answer. You’re still going to ask. “He?”

“God. He likes to…” Joshua pauses, watching you carefully. “Talk to me.”

“And he’s- Told you about me?”

Joshua frowns at you, tilting his head. “Of course he has. He’s been lonely for a long while, and- Well. From what I understand, he’s very happy you’re finally here.”

“Did he…” Deep breath. Too much to deal with, and you don’t feel dead, but you’ve also never been dead before. “Send me here?”

“No,” Joshua sighs. “I believe that was Zachariah. He can’t kill you, so you were sent to me.” He pauses. “I would be on your way, before he comes looking. He’s always been a bitter fuck.”

Your lips twitch in surprise, and you’d very much like more of Joshua’s opinions on the angels, but-

“Dean.” Your voice is barely a breath, and your arms wrap tight around your stomach. Like you’re trying to keep the Spiderweb trapped in your body. “I- He’s-“

“Dean Winchester is dead.” Joshua says softly, his words moving a little faster as the Silver starts to riot and tear back up. “But he is fine. From what I understand, two angry hunters went after Sam with a little angelic help, and he was… collateral. But God does not wish for him to remain here.”

“Here?” You whisper, squeezing yourself until you’re not sure you’re breathing. “In- Heaven?”

Joshua nods, and you let out a slow, shaking breath. The map. The stupid fucking map Gabriel took away from you, that you’d had about half memorized. You’re in the garden. That means-

Joshua clears his throat. “You want to find him.”

Of course you want to find him. All there ever is to do is find Dean. “Yeah. Where’s, um-“ You pause. Heaven’s made like a sphere. The Gardens were at the center, on the map. All roads in, with the only way out—according to a note that had been in the margins—growing in the roots of God, because the place was designed like the world’s worst, most magical escape room that you could never actually escape. Problems for later. “Where’s the tree?”

“The tree?” Joshua gives you another amused look, and points behind you. “Be careful. It’s old.”

“All of this is old,” you mutter, turning to frown at the bleeding-silver apple tree. “Do I just climb it?”

“Usually one must make an offering, if you’re not accompanied by myself. But I think it will make an exception for you. Just touch it.”

“Cool.” You mumble, and Joshua clears his throat.

“I would be careful. Once you get to the rest of Heaven, it will be different for you.” You turn back to him with a frown, and he pushes on, his voice still gentle. “For most humans, it is their greatest memories from life. But you are not dead, or human.”

“I’ve heard.” You sigh, raising your hand up carefully. Dean. You need to go to Dean. “Do you, um- Want to come with me?”

It’s an awkward question, and Joshua just shakes his head with a soft smile. “I wish I could. But I like my plants, and they like me. I am… Hopeful for you, though. He seems to think you tend to be different, than he wants you. But you are bright. Good.”

You’re not good. You know, better than anyone, that you are far from good. You still give Joshua a small smile and last thanks before you let the Spiderweb start to light up, and you press your palm to the bark of the tree.

Dean. You want Dean.

And it’s all a blur, and you’re everything once more, but you can see Gold. Leaning on the doorway of a motel room, rubbing his neck and saying low words you can’t quite make out. Moving a little forward to be closer to whoever he’s looking at, then grinning like he’s won the lottery when they step to the side, and he can shuffle into their room. He’s looking at the floor and She—it’s a She, you can see shiny hair and hear a musical voice, and you want to hate Her but he looks so happy, and you can’t hate anyone that makes him happy—places a hand on his chest to shoves him onto the bed, and you- This feels like something you should know, and you’re so close-

Something that’s white and wrathful and bright grabs you before everything can come into focus. Yanking you back with so much force as a hollow scream for Dean breaks from your throat, and the Gold flares, but then it’s gone.

Your eyes shoot open, and you’re not in a motel room.

You’re in a saloon. A big, wide saloon with fancy trim and a creaking floors, low music playing from a scratched-up record player. There’s sunlight that makes the dust seem like it’s swirling in the air. You’re wearing a flowing dress with your knife strapped to your upper thigh, but there’s no monsters here. Nothing but old, dusty bottles on shelves, the music that you somehow know buy heart and you’re humming to yourself in perfect time, and-

“Hey, Princess.” A hand slide to hold your waist, and the moment you turn, he’s there.

Dean’s grinning down at you, light sparkling in his eyes. He’s wearing a cowboy hat, dressed completely like a character in one of his old movies that he loves to make you watch. And he’s so close, and he smells like grass and spice, but not cinnamon.

And he’s not Golden.

Heaven will be different for you.

This isn’t your Dean.

It’s an imitation of him, from a fantasy. From the back of your head and rawest little bit of your heart that truly believes—in another world, where everything was less complicated—you could have Dean.

And you do. In this world. Because before you can say a single word he’s leaning down and kissing you. Slow and soft, like he’s done it a million times before, and he plans to do it a million more. His free hand grabs your chin and tips it back slightly, his low chuckle vibrates in your chest as you moan and twist to fully wrap your arms around his shoulders.

“Was gonna asked if you missed me.” He mutters, grinning against your lips. “Think I can figure it out myself, though.”

You giggle, shaking your head and dropping your brow to his chest, keeping your eyes squeezed shut. Just for a second, if this is heaven, if this is all you ever get, you want to have it. “I did. Always do, De.”

“Always, huh.” His arms wrap fully around you, his lips brushing a kiss on your brow. “That’s a big promise, baby.”

Baby. I love you, baby.

“It is,” you whisper, your fingers curling on his shirt. “Don’t want to make it to anyone else.”

The world rumbles. Whatever stopped you from finding Dean—the real Dean—isn’t happy with you. And you think you know who. He might have been watch you your whole life.

You’re not quite ready to think about it yet.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper to Cowboy-Dean, even though he won’t understand what you’re talking about. “I- I’m really fucking sorry, for all of it. For making you worry and drive and die for me, and making you wait and getting mad and being stupid and reckless and-“ You take a shuttering breath, holding him a little tighter. He might not be Golden, but he’s built like Real-Dean is. All the same muscle and softness. It’s close enough. “I- I’m sorry-“

Cowboy-Dean mutters your name, tipping your head back with an open, adoring look on his face, his thumb running slowly down the bridge of your nose.

“I’m sorry,” you gasp out, grabbing his hands to keep them on your face. “Dean, I- I’m- I’m so sorry-“

“I know you are.” He mutters, swiping the tears away from your cheeks. “But I don’t mind doing that, you know. Taking care of you. You do the same for me, and I love you, Princess. All the way down.”

I love you. You know I love you, baby.

You let out a long, slow breath, and lean fully back into his arms. You’re not quite sure how to do this, but the Silver isn’t suffocating here. In Heaven, it’s almost back to how it had been before you lost Jo. Humming and bright, right under the surface, ready to be called forward at your will, as you need it.

And you need to find Dean.

So you focus, and let the Silver bleed out, and already different from the tree. You’re more in control. You’re everything, and that includes something whatever glowing, misting fabric is weaving this whole world together. You can do this.

You squeeze Cowboy-Dean three times, before he’s gone. If this is every bit of your heaven, you’re not going to be able to take it.

And it isn’t.

Not quite.

You miss your first shot. Your eyes open, and the Silver has just given you another fantasy. You sitting in the back room of that church in Chicago, a younger looking Dean laughing with you as he steals the Body of Christ bread, covers it in Nutella and something fluffy and white, and hands it to you with a wide, proud grin.

“Sammy found this stuff while we were in Virginia.” He explains. “Supposed to taste like marshmallows. Thought you’d like it.”

“Aw, Deano.” You smile, taking a large bite, and it’s not real but it tastes so good. “You think of me?”

“All the time, Princess. You, uh- You think of me?”

You nod, resting your head on his shoulder. “All the time.”

This one has to go, too. But you miss again. And again. And again. A lot of the times are just you and Dean, but more of them have a cast of side characters. Sam groans as you and Dean appear in his doorway—the fantasy seeming to be Dean didn’t leave, that first time, and everything was easy—and grumbles about how a week’s notice would’ve been nice. Bobby glares at a pale Dean across a table, and you roll your eyes because you know he’s not going to shoot Dean. He likes Dean. He just doesn’t like, in this fantasy, that you’ve been running around with John’s boy behind everyone’s back. And you don’t have any powers, and you can’t see the Sky, and you’re just Bobby’s daughter. Both of them are there in your treasure hunting fantasy, and when you pull that one apart and push it back together you’re in-

The Roadhouse.

Sitting at the bar.

Across from Jo.

“You know, I never should have encouraged y’all.” She wrinkles her nose. “If I walk in on y’all suckin’ face one more time, I’m gonna shoot myself.”

You swallow, barely able to speak over the lump in your throat. “Jo?”

“Yeah?”

“I- I’m sorry.”

“For what, being gross? I ain’t mad about it for you, but now that Dean’s not holdin’ back I can see his boner all the fuckin’ time-“

“For not saving you.” You cut her off with a whisper. “I- I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Jo just gives you a strange look and shakes her head. “Did you sleep last night? I’m fine.”

You can’t speak. You need to say something, to try and grab her even though she isn’t real, and bring her back. To hug her and sob a million more apologies. To do anything but stare at her and let a million words die in your throat about how you don’t know what to do. This is all so hard, and you just need a friend, someone to tell about the Men of God and Lucifer and Death and Crowley, and you have Cas for some of it but you want Jo-

The Silver is moving too fast. The pain pressing on your chest—made of Jo, she’s gone but she’s here, and you failed her and she doesn’t even know—is racking through your whole body, and you don’t want to go, you can’t go but you don’t know how to control it. It hurts and you’re sick and you miss her, it’s beating out of your chest and you have to say something, but the words keep turning to sobs in your throat. You should’ve done more. Been better. You fucking failed and what goddamn use are you if you’re so powerful but you can’t save Jo-

She’s gone before you can stop it. You’re everything again, but it feels wild. Furious. It all hurts—it always hurts, but now you can feel it like you’re the wound and the infection and the scar and the venom—and everything reforms differently. Faster.

Brighter.

This isn’t one of your fantasies or dreams. You’re back in what you’d been wearing in the church, and when you press your hand to your jacket, your knife and the Blade are still there. The room itself is a lot. There’s fire dancing in the air and grass under your feet, waterfalls making up the walls and a throne. A large, pure white throne made of light, high up on a dais of flowers and diamonds and marble. And when you climb up to stand before it, it glows brighter.

And there is it. On one arm of the chair, shifting in the light without pain. Like it was designed to be there. Has always been there.

Your name is written places in Heaven.

On God’s throne.

“Wow.” A voice says from off to the side. “I gotta hand it to you, this is smart one. Nobody’s been here in a long time.”

You turn, and standing a few steps down on the dais is the Blue. Still blond and a little short, still grinning at you with open amusement, rocking back and forth on his feet as he waits for you to respond.

“Gabriel,” you whisper, and his grin widens.

“Give the lady a cigar! She put it together! I doubt it was all by yourself, Dean and Sammy probably snitched, but I’m proud of you for telling them about our little rendezvous” He takes another step up, but still doesn’t move to the dais. “But, I do have to say, you didn’t listen to me at all.”

You scowl, your hands moving to your jacket on instinct, and Gabriel’s eyes widen, his hands raising up in surrender.

“Hey, I’m just here to talk, no need to get stabby-“

“You stole my phone, and my notes.” You snap, grabbing the Blade. It looks sort for bioluminescent. Too many problems. “You stole my books.”

“I- I did to that. But, I was trying to help you, this isn’t your fight unless you make it your fight!”

“It is my fight-“

“Right, cause of your family.” Gabriel sighs. “You know, you are a stubborn little one. Sort of a spitfire. I get what they’re seeing in you-“

“Uh huh.” You’re a little sick of being called little, or hearing how people want you. You’re bigger than the fucking universe. And you’ve never cared how people want you, because you just want Dean. “Give me one good reason not to stab you.”

“My charming personality?”

Your eyes narrow, and Gabriel winces.

“Fine, you’re mad at me. I get that. But I looked at your notes! It’s some pretty impressive stuff, and-“ Gabriel’s hands go higher as you take a step forward. “I was wrong! I was super fucking wrong! You’ve been tearing through the apocalypse like it’s a hacked video game, sweetheart, this is great. We’ll be home in time for dessert, if you keep this up.”

He sounds genuine, but you don’t trust it. So you stop moving, but keep the Blade in your hand. “What do you want, Gabriel. Aren’t you supposed to be hiding from Heaven.”

“That’s true, I am, but this,” he gestures around the room. “Doesn’t count. This is heaven back when Daddy was hands on. I didn’t even know the door was still open anymore, but I shoulda figured you’d shove your way in. Warning signs don’t really seem to be effective on you.”

You frown. “There’s no warning sign-“

“This whole place is a warning sign. Barbed wire, moat of crocodiles, whole shebang. But you just walked right in, so I followed. All I want is to talk, and this is the best place to do it.”

“To talk.” You echo back slowly. “Are you going to knock me out again?”

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “You know, you really should let that go-“ You take another step forward, and his words stutter. “Understandable if you don’t, though. Fair. If it helps, what I pulled was a one-time, Earth specific trick. Won’t work on you up here.” He eyes you wearily. “And I really am here to help. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick an angel blade in my eye.”

You pause. Help. You don’t need help, but you also aren’t getting anywhere close to finding Dean. And, somehow, you seem to have the upper hand here. Over an archangel, in fucking heaven. If he lies, or tries to knock you out again, you’ve got the Blade. You’ll just stab him. “Help how.”

“You’re not gonna,” Gabriel makes a jerking movement with his hand, nodding to the Blade, and you shrug.

“Not if you’re really here to help.”

“Alrighty, I can work with that. Down to business.” Gabriel claps his hands together, taking a cautious step up, but still not all the way to the dais. “Like I said, looked at your notes. Men of God, soul studies, Magdalenes, translations. You really are a smart cookie. I think you could put this together by yourself, if you got the little push-“

“Gabriel.” You hiss, and he sighs.

“It’s right under your nose, sweetheart. Chasing Death and Pestilence, chopping off good ol’ Famine’s finger. My brothers aren’t going to be killed by your two bumbling Americana poster boys, and they ain’t dumb enough to not keep precautions against you. But they can be trapped. Put in time out. Shit, Luci got sent to the corner for thousands of years.”

“The-“ You frown, your grip tightening on the Blade. “What.”

“Think about it,” Gabriel says your name in Enochian, grinning up at you. “He got out, Mikey’s gotta kill him, that’s the whole thing. Dad’s not going to step in, he likes watching us beat each other up. Even tapes it to sell. But, he also like his loopholes. Fail safes. Little puzzles to keep us all busy while he fucked around. You think he’d just destroy the cage after it was open?” You open your mouth, and he shakes his head, raising a hand. “You’re smarter than that.”

You pull your lip between your teeth, biting until it stings. “There’s a back door.” You mutter, watching Gabriel carefully. “Another way to open it, and send someone in.”

“Good girl,” Gabriel laughs, giving you a mock applause. “Of course, you’re gonna have to get Lucifer into the cage. I’d wish you good luck with that, but I don’t think you’ll need it. You’ve always liked finding other ways.”

Deep breath. He’s not taunting you—no more than seems usual—and that is helpful. But- “Why are you helping now. You wanted to stay out of it, Sam and Dean-“

“Sam and Dean,” Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Are dramatic, self-righteous, annoyingly convincing little asshats. I probably would’ve flipped for them eventually, they’ve got this kinda street dog charm that coulda won me over. But this? It was mostly from watching our lovely Castiel.” He gives you a wide grin. “You know, he doesn’t understand what you are, not really, but he’s following you all the same, rather than some ancient orders from a deadbeat Dad. And I think he’s onto something. I think you deserve a choice, and that’s not gonna happen if this train keeps rolling. Actually, I’m not sure if it’ll happen at all, but Mikey and Luci ain’t gonna help. Plus, I love love. And you,” He lets out a low wolf whistle. “Are way too sexy for my dad.”

The chill rolls through your bones again, and the Silver is burning. Rolling and turning like a storm, not trying to burst out, but strained. Distressed. You don’t even know how to say anything, how to be anything but everything, and you heard Gabriel’s words, but you didn’t really hear them, and you can’t-

“Easy girl.” Gabriel says, raising his hands again. “I’d like to go back underground without being erased.”

You frown. “Back-“

“There’s no way I’m sticking around for the finale. Not my scene. You give me a call, I’ll answer, but only you. Don’t go writing my number on bathroom stalls. And hot tip, don’t be afraid to ask for some help. Not my help, obviously, but some help.”

“I don’t-“

“Also, you’re doing this all wrong.” Gabriel nods around the room. “You think about who you want, Heaven’s gonna want to please you. Try thinking about where they’d be. Their happy memories. Once you get that, you can go wherever you want, babygirl. World’s your oyster.” Gabriel shoots you a wink. “Good luck. Remember, call me.”

You open your mouth—to scream, to protest, to demand more, he can’t just say all that and fuck off—but nothing comes out, and Gabriel vanishes, leaving you alone once more.

The steps are shocking soft, like sitting on a blanket, grass in the summer. You draw your knees up to your chest, dropping your brow with a low, deep breath. The Silver is still illuminated in your body, buzzing right under your skin and—for maybe the first time in your life—the pain is numbed. Not gone, but numbed. Like it’s being drowned in the Silver, or burned away by the light all around you. This feels like a good time to cry. To let out the guttural howl that’s been building in your throat. You don’t know what to do. You lost Jo, again. And God.

You don’t want to think about that one. Not right now. And it might be why the scream doesn’t come, why the pain remains something a little too far for you to really feel. It’s all too much, just on the right side of overwhelming to sear you together by force.

You’ll get through this. You’ll get back to Dean. You always do, and then you’ll fall apart. After you save Ellen and Adam, after you find Sam and Dean—and maybe shove them both for dying like idiots—you’ll fall apart about it all.

Don’t be afraid to ask for some help.

You tip your head up, and squeeze your eyes shut. “Dear Castiel, who art it,” you pause. This is so fucking stupid. “Wallingford, Connecticut. Get over here, please.”

There’s a rustle, and when you open your eyes Cas is standing over you, frowning around the room. “Where did you bring me?”

“Working theory?” You say, pushing to your feet. “God’s old throne room.”

“How did you-“

“Don’t know. Sam and Dean-“

“Are dead.” Cas sighs, and it’s good to know he has the same feelings about it. Dumbasses. “I’ve been guiding them, but they get sidetracked rather easily. And much of my guidance had to come from Earth, as my powers are-“ Cas glances down at his hands, frowning slightly. “Were, diminished. But I am not feeling any weakness now.”

“That might be me,” you mutter. “I need your help, and this place seems to like me.”

“Ah.” Cas’ frown deepens, but he doesn’t push it. “I’ll be able help you to Sam and Dean, if we remain together-“

“It’s not just Sam and Dean.” You tuck the Blade back in your jacket, looking around the room one last time. Your gaze falls back on your name, written on the throne, and you take a deep breath. Heaven wants to please you. “Zachariah said it would be better like this. That the boss wants to talk to me.”

Cas frowns. “Michael?”

“Probably, yeah. He had Ellen and Adam, I think he just killed them to stash them here. We’re going to have to get to them one at a time-“

“Sam and Dean’s heavens have merged. We will be able to retrieve them together.”

“Oh. Good.” You frown at the air, rubbing at the scar on your palm. “I think if we can work out just one of everyone’s happiest memories, I’ll be able to move to their heavens, and you can just hop around, so it’ll be best if we split up. We can meet up at Sam and Dean, you grab Adam, I’ll get Ellen and Jo-“

“Jo?” Cas cuts you off with a frown, and you nod.

“If we’re bringing people back, I can get Jo, and-“

Cas says your name too gently, and your nails dig into your skin. Whatever he’s about to say, you really don’t want to hear it. “I do not believe Jo Harvelle is here.” His words come a little quicker, and it might be because all the fire in the room had burned a little brighter, right as the Silver started to wail in your body. “She is not in hell, either. But she’s… blocked.”

You shake your head, clenching your teeth. “I’ll get through the block, Cas-“

“We do not have the time.” His voice is firm, and he’s holding your glare. “Michael may be hunting you, and Zachariah is after Sam and Dean. You are powerful here, but you’re unfamiliar with the systems and roads of Heaven-“

“I’ll be fine-“

“It is not you I am worried about.”

Sam and Dean and Ellen and Adam. “But whatever’s blocking Jo-“

“Is strong. You will likely be able to break through it, but it will cost us time. Time we do not have.” Cas sighs. “You called for my help. I am offering that, and advice. I will not be able to stop you, if you choose to aim for Jo instead of the others. But a soul is needed to bring someone back. And we know where everyone else is stored.”

You fucking hate this. This whole day has been shit. Everyone’s giving you pieces of a puzzle you don’t really want to solve anymore—not as the picture comes together, and it’s more and worst then you’d dared to think about—and your groceries are probably fucked, and you miss Dean, and Bobby’s going to kill you when you get home, and you’re failing Jo again, and Adam and Ellen-

Ellen. You can’t fail Jo and Ellen, again. You’ve already razed Jo just by being near her. You can’t allow the same to happen, again, without ever really apologizing to either of them.

“Fine.” You mutter, rolling your neck and glaring at the ceiling. “You can get Adam?”

Cas nods, and there’s unmistakable relief washing all over his face. “Yes. I will meet you with Sam and Dean.”

You hum in acknowledgment. “Cas?”

He frowns at you, and you give him a small, sad smile.

“Don’t die.”

“I will do my best.” Cas gives you an awkward nod in return. “Good luck. I will see you in, hopefully, about fifteen minutes.”

There’s a whoosh, and then he’s gone. And you can do this. Heaven wants to please you—not the time to think about why, or what the fuck that means—and you know what you need to do now. Ellen’s happy memories.

All you can think of is Jo. And it’s splitting open a strong ache in your chest, making your fingers curl to try and protect her blue from the sights of Heaven. But Jo is the same to you that she is to Ellen. Family. And Ellen had told you a few stories, on nights you’d stayed at the roadhouse to hang out with Jo. She’d made you a rootbeer float and talked about how Jo got to ride a horse once, and it was the happiest Ellen had seen her since her dad died.

The Silver starts to build outwards, and you can see it. Covered in an odd, shimmering veil, but there. Ellen with a beer in her hand, watching a blonde girl ride a horse that’s ten times her size. Both of them are smiling, and there’s a soft breeze that’s offsetting the flat heat of the summer.

You turn back once, as the Silver started to leak out around you, and the image become clearer. Just to check that it was real. That your name is really right there, written on what can old be the throne of God.

And it is.

Then it’s gone, and you’re caught in what feels like a soft tide for only a second, before you fall onto soft grass.

The sun is blinding for a second, and you have to squint to look around you. Baby Jo has wandered deeper into the field, and for a second you want to chase her down and bring her with you too. And you know it wouldn’t work—just like in the Roadhouse, that’s not your Jo, just an echo of her—but that doesn’t stop the ache from cleaving your ribs apart. You can hear her laughter on the wind, and it’s a sound you don’t think you’re ever going to hear again.

That almost shatters you. You can’t afford to stop or slow down right now, but you’re never going to laugh with Jo again-

A hand brushes hair away from your face, and you turn to see Ellen frowning at you, your name soft on her tongue. “What are you doing here, honey?”

You swallow, your voice barely a rasp. “I- I’m here for you.”

“For me?” Ellen frowns. “I’m busy, I’m takin’ Jo to get ice cream after this. You can come with us, but you look…” She pauses, tracing her hand back over your face with a frown, and you swallow down a weak sob. “Tired. What happened?”

It would be so nice if you could just not tell her. If you could leave her here, happy, forever. But you don’t trust Zachariah to let her stay in peace. And you can’t shake the sight of her in the church. Pale and bruised, swaying slightly and unsure of what was around her. Broken.

You won’t fail twice. You won’t.

“You’re dead.” You whisper. “Zachariah found you, and hurt you. I- I don’t know why- But I didn’t stop him and I’m sorry-“

A weak, strangled sound breaks through your throat, the world going a little blurry, and Ellen pulls you into her arms. You don’t deserve to hug her back, you’re the one who got her hurt and killed. But you’re tired, and the physical pain is numb, but the ache is bigger than you know how to handle. So you bury your face in her shoulder and let the tears fall.

“It’s okay,” Ellen hums your name, rubbing your back, and you shake your head. Nothing’s okay, it’s all too much, and too complicated, and you don’t know what to do- “I guess I shoulda known I was dead. Jo ain’t been this young in a while.”

Another broken sob shakes your body, and you don’t know if Ellen knows that Jo’s- That you- That-

“And I remember the church.” Ellen sighs. “Remember all of it, now that you’re sayin’ it.”

You swallow and lean back, blinking away the tears from your eyes. “I- I’m sorry.”

Ellen frowns. “Bout what?”

“Jo.” Your voice is barely a breath. You’re not even sure how you’re speaking at all, with the feeling of iron in your lungs and ash in your throat. “I- I tried to save her. I promise, but I couldn’t, and I shouldn’t have done the plan at all but I- I’m sorry-“

Another hollow noise breaks out and Ellen shakes her head, brushing the hair from your face. “I don’t blame you. Don’t think she’d ever blame you either. I was always happy you two found each other, even though I wasn’t a fan of her huntin’… I just wanted her to be happy. And you were the only real friend she had. I know you loved her like a sister, honey, and I don’t doubt you tried to save her.”

“But- You vanished-“

“Cause I was furious at everything that hurt her. Not you.”

“But I-“

“Dean told me you stayed with her to the end.” Ellen whispers, giving you a sad smile. “That you didn’t want to leave her at all. She wasn’t alone. And you killed the angel that killed her. Better than I could’ve done.”

You shake your head, your voice bitter. “Just one of them. Other one got away.”

Ellen sighs. “It was that bald asshole that grabbed me, wasn’t it. Zachariah?” You nod, and she scowls. “He’s seemed like a shitbag. You gonna kill him too?”

“I’d like to.” You mutter, sniffing up the last of the tears. She doesn’t blame you. Even if she should, she doesn’t, and you can do this. Focus. Get her out. You won’t fail again. “But he’s going to be looking for me, he-“

“Wants you to talk to the boss.” Ellen frowns. “God?”

“Michael. I’ll explain more later, but we have to go. Cas is meeting us at Sam and Dean-“

“Sam and Dean?” Ellen’s brows raise in surprise. “How’d they end up here?”

“Angry hunters and another trap. Cas will be able to resurrect you all, I think I jumpstarted him or something. I might be-“ You pause. If you’re this powerful, if Heaven wants to please you, you might be able to pull off the angel’s back from the dead trick too. You’re trying to feel out the Silver. It still doesn’t hurt the same, and it’s not dormant, but-

You don’t want to risk it. You might be able to pull off a resurrection, but you don’t know how. And if you fuck it up, you might infect one of them. Might make everything worse. It will have to be Cas.

Ellen says your name gently. “You okay-“

“I’m fine.” You reach out your hand, holding Ellen’s gaze. “Ready?”

She nods, but glances over your shoulder. “What about Jo? I know that ain’t her, but- If Castiel is bringin’ people back-“

“He needs the souls.” You mumble. And Jo’s is fucking blocked. “I’m sorry.”

Ellen’s throat bobs, and she lets out a long, slow breath. “Alright.” Her hand slides into yours, and you really don’t fucking deserve this. The trust that you’re going to do this right, and not get someone hurt. “This gonna feel weird?”

“Um, no?”

“C’mon.” Ellen says your name with a small smile. “Bobby raised you to lie better than that.”

“No.” You keep your tone dry, and Ellen chuckles.

“That’s better. You bringin’ us to Sam and Dean?”

“Yeah, I just, um- One second.” You squeeze your eyes shut, and let the Silver out slowly. It’s going to have to touch Ellen, but that’s just another thing you’re trying not to think about. You’re saving her, not infecting her. You’re just carrying her with you to Cas. You’ve never tried to do that before, though. You could fuck it up. You could just vanish without her, or land her in the wrong place, or fuck up and raze her soul in the process-

Don’t think about it.

Just think about Sam and Dean. Their happy memories. You just need one, from either of them. And it can’t be your happiest memory of them—you have to remind yourself that, over and over, because all you can think of is playing Trivial pursuit with Sam in Bobby’s library, and sitting with Dean in the Impala, wiping a smear of chocolate milk from his lip as he grinned at you, and they might not care for those memories at all—so your best bet is something they’d told you about. Sam’s fourth grade visit to a planetarium. Dean getting to drive Baby for the first time by himself. Maybe one of those Vegas weeks Dean’s tried to get you to join last year, or an easier night at the roadhouse. A weekend with Bobby, or the only school dance Sam ever got to attend.

Or one of Dean’s many fun nights, at bars or on road trips. That one girl Sam mentioned years ago, who he spent a whole week with when he said he was going on a road trip. Or the sex spree after he made the demon deal, while you were still running around the country avoiding Hell’s Assassin’s. A good memory with Sam from their childhood, like a Christmas or Halloween. Or maybe just something simple. Dean loves simple things, and he loves them with all his heart. Pie and music and sleep. Pretty things. Good, easy things.

Things that you aren’t. That you’ve never been. And you really want to be in his Heaven. You’re best friends, and you know he’s at least a little attracted to you, but Heaven is a high bar, and you’re complicated.

You’ve always been complicated, and sick, and a lot more trouble to tame than you’re worth.

You’re caught in the tide again, and you’re not quite sure where you’re going. You’re only the Silver—and a spot of dark green, tangled up and flowing with you—but, through the haze of colors and light, you can see it. Dean’s Gold, that you’ll love until someone finally muzzles you properly, and you’re only a feral, gnashing beast trying to rip off your collar and go home. To Dean.

You love him. It’s really all you can think. And whatever white thing grabbed you before isn’t going to catch you this time. You won’t let it, because you need to get to Dean.

And you’re yours again, just like that, as you crash down into his gravity.

You’re sitting on something soft, in a dark room. There are blankets over your head and, peaking through a gap, you can see a bunch of little, plastic stars stuck to the walls and ceiling and-

Those are your walls. These are your blankets. This is your fucking room, from right before Dean died. His I’m dying party that you’d hated, but gone to anyway. Because it was for Dean. And you’d loved him, just like always.

“Was this a trap, Princess?

You turn your head, and there he is. Golden. Your Dean, the real Dean, looking a little older than he did when this had happened, but giving you the same boyish smirk he always has. The one you might rip Heaven apart just to see, every single time. You’re in his Heaven.

“This,” you swallow a lump in your throat, your fingers curling on your calf. “This is your heaven?”

Dean blinks at you. “Course it is. But I don’t think you’re supposed to know that, sweetheart, you’re just a memory.”

Your lips twitch, even as the Spiderweb glows so bright you think it might turn into all that you are. You don’t know if you want to kiss him or shove him or just hug him for a million years and never let go.

“But you died like, right after this.” You whisper. “How is that Heaven?”

“You made me a blanket fort and said you didn’t want me to die,” he sounds confused. Like he can’t possibly fathom why this wouldn’t be heaven. “You trusted me about your family, and we hugged, it was awesome-“

“Uh, Dean?” The entrance to the blanket fort opens, revealing a ducked down Sam. Purple. The real Sam. He barely even spares you a glance, as if he’d expected to see you here. In Dean’s Heaven. “I think something’s happening. Cas is out here.”

Dean frowns. “Thought he couldn’t get into past the pearly gates to help us-“

“Says that he got a boost.” Sam tilts his head in your direction, saying your name. “She gave it to him. And she’s supposed to be here too. Cas is worried cause it looks like Ellen’s showed up, but they were supposed to come together or something-“

“Sam.” You keep your voice dry, and Sam freezes. “I’m right here.”

They’re both gaping at you. And you adore them, but for all the shit Dean has always given you about hunting alone, you’re not sure how they survived this long without you there all the time.

“You can see me.” Sam says a little stupidly. “But this is, uh- This is Dean’s heaven-“

“And I’m me.” You have to fight down the flush on your cheeks. You’re not sure it works. “I must have taken Memory-Me’s place.”

Dean clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck with an almost nervous expression. “But you’re, uh- Have you been you the whole time?”

“Uh, only for like five minutes. C’mon,” you reach out a hand before you can think better. “We’ve gotta go, Dean-“

Your words fall into a yelp as Dean grabs your hand and yanks you forward, all the way into his lap. Your arms wrap around him on instinct, your face resting in the crook of his neck, and this really is your Dean. He smells like cinnamon, his Gold is everywhere, and his voice is hoarse in your ear.

“Thought we lost you,” he mutters, one of his hands cradling the back of your head as the other squeezes your hips, as if he’s checking you’re real. “Son of a bitch, Princess, you were supposed to call me, and when we got to the church the Firebird was parked out from, and- I thought-“

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, bunching his jacket in your hands. “I- I’m okay. I’m not even dead, I just got sent to the Garden, and-“ You sigh, shaking your head against him. “I’ll tell you later. We have to go, Dean.”

He grunts, slowly detangling himself from you, but his hand slides back into yours in a second. One squeeze. Checking in.

You give him a soft smile as he helps you to your feet, and squeeze back three times. I’m good.

I love you.

He gives a tight nod, and you step out of the blanket for to find everyone else awkwardly waiting for you. Sam gives you a nervous smile, Ellen’s looking around your room with a frown, and Adam is staring at you.

Cas says your name, and you turn to find him sitting on the edge of your mattress. “Any issues?”

“Not yet. You think you can get all four of them?”

He pauses, then nods. “I will have to go two at a time. Just one resurrection requires effort, but all four them have intact bodies, and I feel… strong. I can handle it.”

You nod, and Sam clears his throat, raising his hand.

“Can you guys explain what’s going on-“

“Once you’re alive, yes.” Cas pushes to his feet, and Dean scowls.

“Do you two rehearse this or something? I mean, Adam was dead this freakin’ morning, we can’t just move past that-“

“Dean.” You give him a firm look, and his mouth snaps shut. “We have to go. It’s not safe to linger-“

“Why?” Adam cuts in, earning a glare from Dean—which you want to laugh at, because he’d been pushing the same thing only seconds ago—and you sigh.

“Because-“

“Of me.” Zachariah’s sneer cuts through the air, and your blood almost curls in your body. You don’t want to turn around and see him. You’re so fucking close to getting everyone out.

But he’s there. And you’re fucked.

“This is very convenient,” he hums, walking around the room with a snake-like grin. “I mean, all of you in one place? And Castiel, too?” Zachariah laughs, and your grip on Dean’s hand tightens. “I mean, it’s like my birthday’s come early.”

“We do not have birthdays, Zachariah.” Cas mutters, taking a side-step to block Sam, Adam, and Ellen.

His eyes meet yours for a second, and you give him a tight nod in return. You’ve got Dean. He’s got the other’s.

“You always were so literal.” Zachariah scoffs, rolling his eyes at Cas. “And you shouldn’t be able to be here, either. I thought we made that very clear. Unless-“ Zachariah cuts himself off, turning his glare to you. “Of course it was you. Looks like the whore is learning some new tricks-“

“Hey.” Dean snaps, taking a step forward to block you from Zachariah’s view, and you love him but God, he can be such a fucking idiot. “Don’t talk to her like that, dickbag-“

“I get it, Dean. You’re a big, scary guard dog, and I should be running. But I’m not, am I? Because you’re just a meat sack that’s the perfect temperature, and she,” Zachariah lets out a long, pained sigh. “Is annoyingly the most important soul ever made. She’s my meal ticket. And I need her back, now.”

You swallow, and Dean tenses in front of you. It’s not brave to strong, to press against his back, and try to hide your face in his side. But it’s all you want to do. He’d be warm. Strong. Like a tree that shields you from the view of the Sky, all while keeping you shaded under its shadow. And you manage not to hide, but the pain is building back up as the Silver rushes just a layer under your skin. You don’t know what made the numbness stop. Maybe it’s the same thing that’s making you grab and rub your wrist, trying to keep the Silver down. You can’t explode now. Not here.

But Zachariah leans around Dean, his gaze locked onto yours and his lips twisted so horribly, and you choke on the bile in your throat.

“Boss wants to talk to you,” he says the words like he hates them. You’re not exactly a big fan either. “And the rest of you,” he stands back up. “As much as I’d like to squish you under my shoe, it’s your lucky day.”

“Zachariah.” Cas says, eyes narrowed. “I am not going to let you touch them-“

“You can’t do anything about this.” Zachariah snaps. “You might be, if she,” his head jerks to you. “Knew what the fuck she was doing, but she doesn’t. And you might be able to break in a window, but I still have the keys, and a shotgun. So get. Out.”

You don’t get a warning this time. Zachariah’s snap is quick, and the Silver doesn’t get to react. The memory of your room vanishes. Sam, Dean, and Cas go with it, it feels like wind is ripping and biting at your skin for a horrible, split second before you land again.

It’s not clear where you are, over the blur of the world. The Silver is more than burning. It’s molten, almost acidic, and it hurts. It all fucking hurts again, and you can’t really fucking breathe, and Dean. You lost him. His hand was in yours, but you were sick, and you’re a worse sort of pestilence that’s taking everything down with it, and what fucking use is being the Bride or the Magdalene or the Angel Killer or Death Raiser if you can’t ever fucking control it, can’t use it to protect instead of faltering and rotting-

Someone’s calling your name, but you can’t really hear anything over the ringing in your ears. One hand is pressed to the right of your heart, the other on your throat, and you’re not sure if you’re trying to strange yourself or feel for it. The Spiderweb. It’s not dark, not offline. When you press your fingers into the base of your throat, and the rioting of the Silver falters for a second—and the pain builds, but you’ve survived worse—you can feel it. Clear. Bright, and casting rainbow light around your rib cage. Even sharper than a moment before, because Dean isn’t in Heaven, but it’s because he’s alive.

He’s alive.

And if Dean’s alive, alive and on Earth, Sam and Cas are likely fine too. Zachariah said it was their lucky day. They’re okay. And you might need to be a little more worried about yourself.

Your name is repeated, with a little more urgency, and your vision clears as the Silver eases. Ellen is kneeling next to you—you seem to have fallen to the ground—and holding your face between her hands, her eyes scanning over your features frantically. Adam is standing off to the side, looking equally worried, but still mostly just gaping at you. All the furniture is embroidered. Gilded. Expensive. Maybe still Heaven. The Silver is still active, but the pain is too. Every color is a little brighter, but your eyes might just be adjusting.

It doesn’t really matter.

Just to test, you try to let a little of the Silver out. To see if you can expand, and turn Heaven to your will like before.

The room shifts. All the fancy furniture turns to a well-worn couch and knotted wood table. The carpet turns into the rug in Bobby’s living room, and the tapestries on the walls turn to the old sunset painting Bobby keeps in his study. But when you try to push further, it’s like you slam into a wall. It doesn’t hurt, but it rushed through you like a small electric shock, and your eyes shoot open.

Iron. It’s fucking iron, and it doesn’t do to you what it used to, but it still seems to have an effect.

You’re trapped.

Ellen snaps your name, and you blink at her. “You gotta tell me you’re with us-“

“I’m with you.” You mumble, dragging your nails over the skin of your throat. “We’re- Fuck.”

“The boys-“

“They’re alive.” You move slowly to your feet, rubbing the scar on your palm. “Most of them are.” You give Adam a small smile. “Hi.”

His eyes widen. “Hi. You, um- I still don’t understand what’s going on-“

“You’re collateral.” You mutter, scanning around the room. Not a lot to work with. You don’t know if you’re still in Heaven, even if you do escape, you can see the Enochian, etched into the wallpaper and wood. Ownership wardings. No praying to Cas. No getting back to Earth. “They want to talk to me, and I’ve been known to, uh-“ You sigh. “Cause damage.”

“Damage?” Adam takes a step forward, sort of looking at you like you’re some sort of fallen star. “To angels?”

“And others.” You tap your finger against one of the wardings, and it zaps. “Fuck.”

Ellen frowns. “What? You don’t think you can get us out?”

You shake your head. “I- I don’t know. I’ve sort of- teleported before, but only twice.“ Because something had been calling to you, the Spiderweb bursting in your chest, and you’d wanted to follow it all the way down. “And I can’t do it on command. Plus I’ve never- I needed Cas. For the resurrections.”

Ellen pauses. “Think you could try yourself?”

“Maybe.” You give her a tight look. “But I don’t know about two at once.”

Ellen lets out a long, heavy sigh, and Adam clears his throat.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on. I don’t know you,” he gestures to Ellen, before turning to you. “And Sam and Dean seemed close with you, and I know I’ve never actually met them, but I would’ve remember you if they’d brought you with them-“

“They didn’t.” You mutter, starting to move through the books on the shelves. When you open on, it’s real. With words, but they’re swimming a little on the page. Enochian. Better than nothing. “I was in Europe.”

“That where you went?” Ellen asks, and you freeze.

“I’m sorry-“

“Honey, I’m just glad you didn’t die, or blow somethin’ up-“

“I blew a few things up.”

Ellen laughs. “Anything important?”

And image flashes over your vision. A child’s soul, stained on the pavement and being delicately placed back into her body.

Wait.

Fuck.

Ellen says your name, and you can hear the frown in her voice. “You-“

“I’m okay.” You stand suddenly, the book tight in your hand. “I- I might have it. A way out. We just need to wait.”

They listen, but this is the kind of plan Dean would glare at you about. It’s a little insane. But you can do it. You can. You’ve done it before, even if it wasn’t exactly on purpose. Resurrection will be dicey, but there’s no reason to think you can’t do it. Until you’re violently and horrible proven otherwise, you can. You’re made to touch souls. Heaven wants to please you. And there’s no fucking use to any of it if you can’t do this, and get back to Dean.

“Hi.”

You look up from your book, and find Adam sitting next to you with a nervous smile. “Hi.”

“You, uh,” he scratches the back of his neck, eyes flicking between you and the carpet. “Nobody ever told me what’s going on.”

“Oh, right.” You sigh, closing your book and tipping your head back. “Um- It’s the apocalypse. Michael and Lucifer are going to have a death match, but they need Sam and Dean’s bodies-“

“I know that, actually. The angel guy explained it.” He frowns. “He was, uh- Kind of a dick about it, though.”

You snort. “You have no idea.”

Adam nods, and gives you a strange look. “I was kind of wondering, uh- About you?”

“Me?” You frown at him. “Why?”

“You seem interesting.” He shrugs. “I mean, you showed up threatening angels with knives, and you were flying around heaven. I’m curious. I mean, how’d you even meet Sam and Dean?”

“They were on a case.” You shrug. “Ran into them, told them they were wrong about what they were chasing, fought with John about it-“

“John? You met my dad?”

Shit. “Uh, yeah.”

“Were you-“

“He didn’t like me.” You keep your words short, and a little apologetic, but Adam only frowns.

“Why? You seem cool, and you’re, uh-“ He blushes, and you’re not sure what the fuck is going on. “I mean, you seem very capable, and Sam and Dean trust you-“

“I’ve been hunting with Dean for years. And Sam’s like my brother.”

Adam pauses. “But Dean isn’t?”

Fuck. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh.” Adam nods slowly, looking back down to his feet. “Sorry, I’m not trying to push-“

“You’re not.” You sigh, tipping your head back to frown at the ceiling. “It’s all a lot.”

“Right?! I mean, I’ve got memories that aren’t mine, and angels are after us, and I- You’re really pretty but everyone seems to hate you- And you smell like vanilla-“

Adam’s words die before you can even fully register them, and when you look up. He’s knocked out. Head lolling to the side, eyes closed, mouth still parted and breathing steady. Ellen is the same, sitting at the table.

Then a deep voice that you don’t recognize says your name in Enochian, and your head whips to see Yellow. Pure fucking Yellow, with eyes and fists and wings, made of gleaming, wrathful light. A little brighter than the Blue and the Red.

Michael.

“I had to knock them out.” He says, although there’s nothing apologetic in his tone. “They can’t look at me like you. It would’ve killed them, and I don’t think that’s any way for us to be introduced.”

You swallow, and there are too many eyes looking at you. It’s like the Sky, concentrated down in a crude attempt of imitation. Because Michael isn’t the Sky. You remember the Sky, from when you were younger.

He was a lot angrier, and a lot lonelier.

“I am Michael.” He adds, extending a hand. “And I know you’ve met.” He frowns. “Zachariah. I apologize for him, he’s a hard worker, but a bit of what human’s would call an asshole.”

Behind him, you can see Zachariah frown, but he doesn’t say a word. It’s a little amazing.

“I think you’re supposed to introduce yourself.” Michael flexes his hands, frowning down at you. “I’m Michael. The archangel.”

You blink at his hand, then back to his eyes, seeming to crawl all over your skin. “You made me lose my groceries.” Your eyes narrow. “And my car-“

“I returned your car.” He corrects. “It is on the outskirts of your wards, Dean will find it soon. I had Zachariah return him and Sam safely, as well as Castiel. I would have put your groceries as well, but those wards are…” He chuckles. “Strong. You are quite the bright little thing. I like you.”

Your nails are digging into your wrists. “Why?”

“You are quite likable.”

“No, I’m not.” You snap. “And I meant why would you do that. For me?”

Michael frowns. “You are likable. Maybe not to humans, but you were not made for them. You are beautiful and kind and firm. Resilient. Perfect."

“That’s not answering my question.”

“You are stubborn as well.” Michael laughs to himself again. “But what is family if not fighting-“

“We are not family-“

“We will be.” Michael shrugs. “That’s why I saved your favorite humans. Which I understand. You haven’t seen. You don’t know that they’re all really the same yet. But you’ll learn. I can help you, until he gets home. And I understand why my little siblings have been so eager to keep you out, but they haven’t seen either. All they know is that you’re the great descendent of the mistake. The error. They don’t know that it’s part of the plan.”

Your eyes flick to Zachariah. “The- What?”

“The plan. My father’s plan. He doesn’t make mistakes-”

“What mistakes.”

“Lilith.” Michael frowns. “The first wife. A Magdalene, made wrong. But she wasn’t wrong, she was exactly what she was meant to be. Lucifer did ruin her,” he’s spitting his words now. “When he knew what the safety of her line meant to our father, but it didn’t matter. You are exactly as you’re supposed to be.”

The Silver is swirling and shifting like a storm in your body. You have an idea of where this is going, and once again, you don’t want to know. You’ve spent your whole fucking like desperate to know, and now it’s here and you want to go back, go home-

“And I would have preferred to keep you out of this,” Michael continues. “But you are moving things along. And the sooner we kill Lucifer, the sooner he comes home. All you need to do is convince Dean, and everything will be as it should.”

“I-“ Shaking breath. You have to keep it together, even if it’s by a thread. Even if it’s just so Zachariah doesn’t see you cry. “I’m not going to tell Dean to say yes to you. Ever.”

Michael sighs. “But you will. It is the only way you’ll be allowed to keep him. If Lucifer wins, he will be tortured for eternity. Alone. In pain. When we win, you will be allowed to keep him until the feelings fade. I will even let you speak to him, if you please.”

Until the feelings fade. They’ll never fucking fade. They hit you like a comet in the middle of June, almost ten years ago, and they’ve hurt, and they’re complicated but you weren’t able to make them fade, even when you tried to make them by force. “Lucifer said the same thing.” You mutter, holding Michael’s gaze. “About letting me have Dean.”

“Lucifer is lying. And he knows that you will grow bored of Dean, one I am gone. He is not who you were made for. Your attraction to him is the human part of you, but that will die when you take your place. When you sit on his throne, and know what true love really feels like.”

He’s wrong.

You know what true love feels like.

It’s going back. Every single fucking time. Even when it hurts, even when it’s complicated, even when you want to run. Even when something is chasing you, so you do run, and you go and go and go and never stop, until you get a little tired and you want to go home. Back to where it’s safe. Back to where you can sleep through a night and lean on them in the morning. Then they lean on you, and you’ve never felt more important. And when they’re gone, you wish they were there. And you see them everywhere when you’re apart, but you still go back. You can never think of doing anything else.

And every time you’ve looked up at the Sky, you’ve only wanted to run to where he couldn’t see you. And he’s never held you. Never leaned on you. Never done anything but shove you and yank you away.

Every single time you’ve looked at God, you’ve only wanted to fucking hide.

“I’m not made for anyone.” You say, your voice far too soft. “I don’t have a place, I’m from fucking Chicago-“

“Your place is here.” Michael cuts you off with a frown. “It is where you were destined to be. And you were made perfectly. To mirror him. You are the Bride of God.”

You can’t speak. And you think, that if time didn’t keep moving, you’d turn to stone here. Maybe melt into only the Silver, and try to stretch to a corner of the universe where you could build something safe. Or just hover over Dean like a halo, too intangible for God to see you, still strong enough to keep him safe. Alive. Happy.

But time doesn’t slow. And Michael sighs, scanning over you slowly, and says words you can somehow still hear.

“I know this is likely overwhelming, but it is what you are meant to do. And it will all feel like nothing, in another millennia. I will give you time to think, if that helps. Zachariah?”

“Um- Yes, sir?”

“Do with the humans what you want. No harm to the Bride, but if we need to kid, we can bring him back, and the other one,” he frowns at Ellen, and ice feels like it’s being shot into your veins. Painful and cold.

Startling you out of your stasis. Ellen.

“I believe her time was up already. Send her back to her Heaven.” Michael dips his head to you. “I will see you soon.”

There’s a flash, and Ellen and Adam groan behind you right as Zachariah’s eyes flash on your, and you step to the side. You said you wouldn’t fail.

So you won’t.

“Move.” Zachariah says your name in Enochian. “I don’t care what God wants you for, I’m not playing game with a little girl right now. They’re going back, you’re staying here.”

“I think I’m good.” You shrug, reaching past your jacket for your knife. You don’t really want to touch the Blade right now. “I recommend you move. Now.”

Zachariah sneers. “I don’t take orders from you-“

“I don’t care.”

The blur kicks in, and you’re moving. You slice at your own hand, then let the Silver fall out of you, into the knife. Then you’re rushing across the room and driving it right into Zachariah’s gut. He roars and reaches for you, but you’re faster. Studying Enochian paid off. You smear your blood Zachariah’s brow, paint it into a crude sigil as you twist the knife, and press it.

He’s gone.

For now.

“We need to go.” You spin on your feet, your attention turning to Ellen and Adam, gaping on the floor. “He won’t gone for long, and if he gets back I’ll have to try something else, and I don’t-“ The image of Anna, ripped up by far too much power, flashes through your head. “I don’t know what it will do to you guys. Just- Adam-“

You grab his shoulders and he stares down at you. “Wha-“

“Stay still,” You mutter, squeezing your eyes shut. Life. Think of life. The summer in Bobby’s yard, and the warmth of home, and Dean, grinning at you and talking and laughing and life.

The Silver moves forward into orange, and you can do this. You have to.

“Sorry.”

“Why are you-“

You grab Adam’s orange, and let out a soft breath. The Silver flows with it, soft and delicate, and Life.

You open your eyes, and Adam’s gone.

You fucking did it.

But when you turn to Ellen, any light dies in your throat.

Zachariah’s holding her to his chest, and angel blade pressed to her throat. Just like Jo had been.

You can’t fucking breathe.

“I wish,” Zachariah spits. “That I could kill you, you bitch. But I’ll settle for this instead. Maybe then Michael will let me at least chain you up properly.”

His blade presses a little further, your wrists sting with a phantom pain, you’re starting to build out. Too big. To do what you need to do, you’re going to have to be too sick. Deadly. And you’re bubbling lava under the earth and the lightning storms on a planet far away, and you can’t come back down. You said you wouldn’t fail. You said you wouldn’t fucking fail.

Ellen says your name, and you shake your head. It’s too much. It hurts too fucking much-

“It’s okay.” She whispers. “I don’t have much to go back to. Never had much except Jo. Always thought I’d end up dyin’ for her, and I didn’t get to, but she still went loved. She’d want you to be happy.”

“No-“

“I don’t think you know what’s happening, lady.” Zachariah scoffs. “I’m killing you, and she’s going to watch, and that’s it.”

Ellen’s gaze doesn’t break from your, and the weight of every single star—hot and pained and burning with fury and life and death all at once—is pressing onto your chest.

“I’m goin’ no matter what,” she says your name softly. “And I didn’t get to die for my girl. Let me die for you.”

A broken sound leaves your throat. “I- I’m sorry-“

“I know. I’m good though, honey. You’re gonna be okay.”

You won’t be.

Because when the Silver bursts out, sinking into Zachariah and pulling him out—prying him from his vessel, pressing him down until he’s contorted and his ugly brown is just a writhing little thing, in pain on the floor—Ellen goes too. You don’t think she’s gone. The Silver seems to grab her green and toss it somewhere, like ash and dust in the wind, but she’s not here. Not where you can bring her back.

You failed.

You fall back into yourself with a shaking breath, and there’s a hole in the walls. Something is roaring for you on the other side of it, and it’s making the Spiderweb sing, tugging on something a little to the right of your heart. And the Silver goes dormant—though not quite as immovable in your body—and it all fucking hurts again.

You’ll get through it. You have to get through it. You’re not going to be okay, but you have to get through it. There’s no other option, because you’re too far in it now, and God-

Later. A problem for later.

You grab Zachariah off the floor and put him a small jar, before you step through the door. It spits you out on the side of a dirt road, Adam knocked out in the dirt a few feet away, and you know you’re back on Earth.

God is watching you. Only watching, as you sit at Adam’s side and send Bobby a text that you’re alive. Dean will probably come to pick you up, and you’ll have to apologize to him. A million times. For all of it. For freaking him out, for failing, for how you have to tell him about being the Bride, and Michael, and everything Gabriel told you. That alone feels like a lifetime ago.

You stare at Zachariah in his jar, and your head starts to turn a little too fast. You sort of have the Silver. And you’re made to mirror God. You keep saying you won’t fail, and then you do, but this- It could work. And if it doesn’t, maybe you’ll just implode on yourself and take Michael and Lucifer with you.

But you don’t have a lot of time. And you need to move.

“Crowley.” You look up into the night sky, and there’s a soft rustle behind you.

“Hello, love.” He’s grinning, when you tip your head back. “You ready to make a deal?”

“I don’t want Death.” You mumble, your voice hoarse. “I want Pestilence. And I’m not kissing you.”

“One Pestilence, coming right up. And don’t worry,” He drawls your name with a grin. "I won’t take your revulsion to me personally. I’ve heard about you and Dean Winchester’s little bond.”

You ignore the Dean comment. “We got a deal?”

“Seems that we do.”

You nod, and your gaze flicks up to the Sky.

To God.

Watching you. Waiting for something you’re never going to give him, as long as just one fucking part of you—even if it’s just a river of Silver, embedded in Dean’s Gold—remains your own. He can call you his bride all he fucking wants. You’re not going down with anyone but Dean.

Ever.

End Note: Times like these She really wishes she was a drinker.

Thank you so so so much for reading!! If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

Buy me a coffee!☕️

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novaursa · 9 months ago

Note

Love love LOVE the cycle!! Thank you, both to the anon for the idea, and to you for bringing it to life!

So, what would happen if the reader picked to save Grey Ghost? Or what would happen if Larys (the bastard he is) made the reader choose one, but killed both? What would be the outcome of those different choices 🙈

✨ You are brilliant as always ✨

The Cycle (one for the price of two)

Requests are closed!

- Summary: Cregan leaves with his duty to the Wall and you are left alone with a choice Larys Strong brings.

- Pairing: velaryon!reader/Cregan Stark

- Note: This is an alternative scenario of The Cycle. For a full introduction to the story and an entire understanding of this scenario, please read the first part.

- Rating: Explicit 18+

- Next part: justice

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround @daeryna @melsunshine @21-princess

- A/N: ☺️❤️

The cold night air claws at your skin as Larys Strong’s men drag you into the courtyard of Winterfell. Your breath comes in ragged gasps, your body numb from fear and exhaustion, but your mind is ablaze with the impossibility of the choice laid before you. Eddard, your son, bundled in one of the assassin’s arms, lets out a small, sleepy whimper. The sight of him—so helpless, so unaware of the danger—nearly breaks you.

And there, just beyond, lies Grey Ghost, your dragon, chained and wounded, blood dripping from the deep cuts along his silver scales. He lets out a pained, guttural growl as he senses your presence, but even that fierce sound is muted by his weakness, the loss of strength that has drained him since Rook’s Rest.

Larys stands a few paces away, his thin, cold smile barely concealing his delight in this cruel game. His voice cuts through the wind, smooth and deliberate. “As I said, Lady Stark, a choice must be made. Your son… or your dragon. One will live. One will die.”

Your heart pounds so hard you think it might burst. Every second feels like a lifetime as you glance from Eddard, small and innocent, to Grey Ghost, who has been your faithful companion since you first took to the skies. How can anyone make such a decision? How can you decide who will die and who will live when you love them both with every fiber of your being?

But you know the answer, even as the agony of it burns through you. You look at Eddard, and the choice is made, your love for him overpowering everything else.

“I choose my son,” you whisper, your voice barely audible, trembling with the weight of the decision. “Please… let him live.”

Larys tilts his head, watching you with those calculating eyes, his lips curling into something resembling a smile. For a brief moment, hope flares in your chest, the faintest flicker of belief that he might actually honor your plea.

“Very well,” he says softly, gesturing to his men.

Relief surges through you, tears spilling down your cheeks as you look at Eddard, your precious boy, the reason for every breath you take. But then—your world shatters in an instant.

Larys turns to the man holding your son and gives him a slight nod. Without hesitation, the man draws his knife, a quick flash of silver in the dim light.

“No!” The scream tears from your throat, raw and desperate as you lunge forward, but it’s too late.

The blade slices through the air, slitting Eddard’s throat with a sickening efficiency. His small body goes limp, his eyes wide with shock and confusion, blood spilling down his neck, soaking into the blankets wrapped around him.

Your knees give out beneath you, collapsing onto the cold stone, a wail of anguish ripping from your chest. You crawl forward, hands shaking as you reach for him, his tiny, lifeless form slipping from the assassin’s grip into your arms. His skin is still warm as you cradle him, your tears mixing with the blood, your sobs breaking the silence of the night.

You can barely think, barely breathe. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to die.

But Larys’s voice cuts through the haze of your grief, sharp and cruel. “You chose poorly, my lady.”

Your head snaps up, disbelief and fury burning in your eyes as you clutch your son’s lifeless body. “You—You said—” Your voice is hoarse, broken.

“I said you had a choice,” Larys says coolly. “I never said I’d honor it.”

A cold wave of realization washes over you, and with it, a burning rage unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. “You lying—” Your voice falters, your throat choking on the words.

Grey Ghost lets out a low, rumbling roar, sensing your pain, his own agony and fury mixing with yours through the bond. You can feel his anger, his desire to fight, to break free of the chains that hold him down.

But Larys is not done. With a swift, uncaring gesture, he signals to the men surrounding your dragon. “Kill it.”

“No!” Your scream rips through the air, but you are powerless to stop them. You hold Eddard’s body tightly to your chest as the blades flash again, this time plunging into Grey Ghost’s flesh.

The dragon roars, thrashing weakly against his bonds, his silver scales slick with blood as the swords tear through muscle and bone. You can feel every cut, every wound, as if it were your own, the bond between you straining under the weight of his suffering.

You try to rise, to stop them, but your legs refuse to work, your body frozen in place by the sheer magnitude of your grief and rage. Grey Ghost’s roars grow weaker, each one more agonized than the last until, finally, there is silence. His massive form slumps to the ground, his once-proud wings limp and lifeless, his brilliant silver eyes dull and glassy.

You are left kneeling in the courtyard, the snow beneath you stained red with the blood of your dragon and your son. Your heart, your soul, feels as though it has been ripped from your chest, leaving only a hollow, broken shell in its place.

Larys watches you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he turns and walks away, his men following behind him. “I’ll leave you with your… losses,” he says over his shoulder, his voice cold and distant. “Remember this night, Y/N. It’s what comes to those who stand against us.”

You sit there in the cold, your body shaking with sobs, clutching Eddard’s lifeless form to your chest, your gaze fixed on the still form of Grey Ghost. The fire of vengeance is all that remains, flickering in the ruins of your heart.

They will pay. By the gods, they will pay for this.

Winterfell stands quiet, eerily so, as Cregan rides into the courtyard. The wind bites at his skin, but it’s not the cold that chills him to the bone. It’s the silence. The absence of life in a place that should be filled with the sounds of his people, his family.

He had received no word for days, no ravens from the castle. His duties at the Wall had kept him away, but something in his gut had twisted, telling him that something was wrong. Urgently, he returned to Winterfell, only to find a scene that makes his blood run cold.

His horse’s hooves crunch against the frozen ground, but no one comes to meet him. His brow furrows as he dismounts, his hand automatically reaching for the Ice. Men who should be standing guard are missing, and as he steps further into the yard, the sight that greets him stops him in his tracks.

Grey Ghost.

The dragon lies still, a massive, broken form in the snow, chains wound tightly around its body, blood frozen into the earth beneath him. The beast’s wings are torn, its scales dulled, and there’s no mistaking the finality of its lifeless eyes.

Cregan’s heart sinks, a terrible dread twisting in his gut. His wife’s dragon is dead.

His eyes scan the yard frantically now, searching for any sign of you, his thoughts tumbling wildly. If Grey Ghost has fallen, then what of you? What of his son?

The weight of his worst fears presses down on him as he sprints through the castle, his boots echoing off the empty stone halls. His heart pounds louder than the silence that envelops the castle, every step filled with a rising panic.

Finally, he bursts into the Great Hall—and the sight before him stops his heart completely.

You are sitting in the middle of the hall, on the cold stone floor. In your arms is a small, motionless form, wrapped in bloodstained blankets. Your face is pale, hollow, streaked with tears that have long since dried on your skin. Your eyes are wide, empty, staring down at the lifeless body of your son—your sweet, innocent Eddard.

Cregan’s breath catches in his throat. “Y/N…” His voice is barely above a whisper as he rushes toward you, but you don’t move, don’t react. It’s as if you don’t even hear him.

He kneels before you, his hands trembling as he reaches out to touch you, to make sure you’re real. The sight of Eddard—his son—cold and still in your arms, is a punch to his gut, a blow so devastating he feels like the air has been ripped from his lungs.

“No…” His voice cracks, thick with grief as his hands hover over Eddard’s tiny, lifeless body. “Gods, no…”

You blink slowly, as if waking from a nightmare, your gaze lifting to meet his. Your eyes, once so full of fire and life, are dull now, clouded by a sorrow so deep it seems to have swallowed you whole.

“They made me choose,” you say softly, your voice barely audible, as if the weight of what you’ve endured has crushed it. “Larys Strong… he made me choose… between Eddard and Grey Ghost.”

Cregan’s chest tightens painfully. His throat burns, and his hands shake as he reaches for you, pulling you into his arms as gently as he can. “Y/N… my love… I’m so sorry…”

You shudder in his embrace, your tears wetting his cloak as you clutch Eddard closer to your chest. “I chose him,” you choke out. “I chose Eddard… but they killed him anyway. They killed him, Cregan. They killed our son.”

His heart shatters into pieces, the grief hitting him like a wave of ice-cold water. He pulls you tighter against him, his own tears threatening to fall as he holds you and the body of his son, helpless to stop the overwhelming flood of sorrow.

“They killed Grey Ghost too,” you whisper, your voice fragile, broken. “I heard him scream… I felt him die…”

Cregan doesn’t know how to respond, his mind struggling to comprehend the cruelty of it all. The Greens had come for your blood, for vengeance, and they had taken everything. His son, your dragon—both gone. And now, you are a hollow shell of the woman you once were, shattered by a grief so terrible it may never fully heal.

“I will kill them for this,” Cregan vows, his voice low and trembling with barely contained fury. “I will hunt down every one of them, and I will make them pay for what they’ve done. I swear it.”

You don’t respond, just collapse against him, too broken to fight, too numb to even cry anymore. All you can do is hold Eddard’s tiny, lifeless form close, as if somehow you can protect him from any more harm.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Cregan whispers into your hair, his own tears falling freely now as he presses a kiss to the top of your head. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The two of you sit there, in the cold emptiness of the Great Hall, cradling the weight of your loss. The world outside is quiet, the snow falling softly, as if the gods themselves mourn what has been taken from you.

But within Cregan’s heart, something hardens. A fire ignites. He will not rest until Larys Strong and the Greens feel the pain they have caused him, feel the agony of every drop of blood they have spilled.

One day, they will pay. One day, Hour of the Wolf will come.

#house of the dragon #hotd x reader #hotd #hotd x y/n #hotd x you #cregan stark #cregan x reader #cregan x you #cregan x y/n #house stark #asoiaf #game of thrones

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dannyricsmirrorball · 2 years ago

Text

fifth wheel • ln4 part 3 ੈ✩‧₊˚

ੈ✩‧₊˚ pairing || lando norris x reader

ੈ✩‧₊˚ genre || social media au

ੈ✩‧₊˚ summary || y/n is always fifth wheeling george, carmen, alex, and lily.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ a/n || final part yay! also perf in time for lando’s p2!!! not proof read.

part 1 part 2

liked by lorenzotl, patriciooward, and 762,871 others

alex_albon monte-carlo padel masters

tagged georgerussell63, yourusername, maxvertsappen1, landonorris, richardpardon

username1 max has friends?!

username2 zandvoort front two rows

charles_leclerc oh!

⤷ pierregasly it’s ok mate, we’ll play together

⤷ yourusername sorry 🥱 maybe if u brought alex and kika w u

username3 ok but how did they play if there was 5 of them, did they take turns?

⤷ username4 nah i bet y/n just sat on her phone and watched them play

alex_albon also P.S. y/n did not actually do anything

⤷ yourusername WDYM?! me and lando subbed 🧐

⤷ georgerussell63 he kept playing for u y/n?

⤷ yourusername HOW IS THAT MY FAULT, HE’S A BALL HOG!

⤷ alex_albon u forced him to play for u y/n.

⤷ yourusername this is defamation. i will not take this slander!

⤷ username4 called it

username5 maxverstappen new hyoerfixation incoming

f1 who won tho?

⤷ yourusername me ofc 😇

⤷ landonorris us*

⤷ yourusername sorry yes ofc team work makes the dream work!

⤷ maxverstappen1 but yourusername u didn’t even play?

⤷ landonorris i played for the both of us. she transferred her energy to me so i could play w our combined powers

⤷ username6 lando and y/n aren’t being hostile. we are so back!

liked by danielricciardo, mclaren, and 632,091 others

landonorris my 🌟 girl

username7 this soft launch will be the death of me.

username8 the day we find out who she is, is the day that i die

danielricciardo watch out she’ll take over lando.jpg

maxfewtrell yuck right in front of me

yourusername whipped

⤷ landonorris sns

⤷ username9 i’m sorry? is that meant to mean sorry not sorry 😭😭 they’re actual children

username10 idc how many ppl call me delusional, it’s y/n FS

⤷ username11 ok grandma let’s get u to bed

liked by romeobeckham, mickschumacher, and 97,032 others

yourusername spicy salmon nigiri u rock my world 🍣

username12 ok yeah rip my lando x y/n fantasies

username13 final confirmation we needed

username14 how long is this soft launch gonna last

landonorris gag

⤷ username15 someone sounds jealous 👀

⤷ landonorris sushi makes me sick

⤷ maxfewtrell such a baby

lilymhe gets a bf and forgets her best friends

⤷ alex_albon it’s ok lily just relax

⤷ lilymhe NO YOUVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS UR WHOLE LIFE ALEX DONT EVEN PRETEND

⤷ username16 i just know alex is so relieved that he doesn’t have share lily anymore

username17 does anyone else find it funny/weird that y/n will let rumours circle abt her and other drivers and lando will do the same w random ppl he’s talks to and they both just follow this kind of philosophy of just ignoring it bc it’s baseless but as soon as someone so much as hints to the idea of them together they go ham at squashing it

⤷ username18 maybe it’s bc they’re actually friends so they don’t want ppl to ruin it w all the rumours

⤷ username17 but that’s what i mean like they don’t mind the rumours abt their other friends but when it’s each other it’s like NO THATS NOT TRUE

⤷ username19 i will stand by that alex and george tried to set them up on that golf trip and they started taking but one of them or both fucked it up and now

⤷ username20 and i will stand by that they are actually together

⤷ username19 it’s ok to be a little delusional

liked by username81, username4, and 18,409 others

f1wags y/n with lando recently… wonder how their partners feel about this…

tagged landonorris, yourusername

username21 nah no way they aren’t dating

⤷ username22 they’ve made it so clear they’re just friends

⤷ username21 bro look at how much they’re together, she’s literally in the paddock w him

⤷ username22 they’re friends??? makes sense that they’d hang out.

⤷ username21 yeah but she’s always been friends w him but is always in either williams or mercedes merch and motorhome but is suddenly a mclaren girly

username23 what a slut. she literally has a boyfriend and he has a girlfriend.

⤷ username24 she’s just mad that she can’t use alex and george anymore bc they probably saw her for who she is and is now leaching off lando

username25 ahhhh they’re so cute 🥹

username26 nah but i do feel lowkey bad for their partners bc if my s/o was acting like this w another person…

username27 imagine being his gf tho… like he’s refusing to show her face but is parading another girl around the paddock

liked by carlossainz55, olliebearman, and 809,762 others

charles_leclerc tbt good times 🌊

tagged arthurleclerc, lorenzotl, alexandrasaintmleux, carla.brocker, charlotte2304, alex_albon, georgerussell63, yourusername, lilymhe, carmenmmundt, heidiberger, landonorris, danielricciardo

georgerussell63 …mate

yourusername party rockin 🤙🐚🌊😮‍💨🌅🏝️🏖️🏄‍♀️

⤷ username30 my girl is overcompensating bc she knows she can’t get out of this one

⤷ username31 what?

⤷ username30 i mean this pretty much confirms that y/n and lando are actually dating, like w all the photos of them and now that we know that they actually did see each other during the break

alexandrasaintmleux CHARLES what did i say abt posting w/o showing me first 😭

landonorris lol

⤷ username31 they are sweating

username32 you’re telling me that the leclerc family, all their gfs, lily, alex, george, carmen, daniel, heidi, y/n, AND lando ALL stayed in corsica together during part of the break AND WE DIDNT KNOW UNTIL KNOW

alex_albon at least i’m not THIS bad lilymhe

lilymhe charles…

danielricciardo LOL MATE

⤷ heidiberger_ don’t even danny

username33 IM SORRY BUT THIS IS SO CONFIRMATION ABT Y/N AND LANDO… I MEAN LOOK AT EVERYONES COMMENTS, THEYRE ALL STRESSING AND THIS WAS SO OBV A COUPLES TRIP

⤷ username34 i mean idk still like their comments to eachother are so passive aggressive and george, alex, and charles are really good mates w the both of them as well y/n is famed for being the biggest grid couple third wheel so maybe they were just being massive third wheels OR they also brought their partners but charles just didn’t tag them to keep it private

⤷ username35 or u guys hate to admit that y/n and lando are together and lando isn’t going to get w u 🤷‍♀️

username36 charles really came in w a bang

username37 the way charles’ silence is SOOOO loud

⤷ username38 yeah he is fs getting it in the gc

liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc, lilymhe, alexandrasaintmleux, carmenmmundt, landonorris, georgerussell63, alex_albon, heidiberger_

liked by georgerussell63, alex_albon, and 320,918 others

yourusername fuck it we ball

tagged landonorris

username42 OH

username43 ITS HAPPENING ITS HAPPENING Y/N LANDO HARD LAUNCH

lilymhe i knew you’d cave. all those soft launch photos i took and FOR WHAT. lasted a month 😐

charles_leclerc 🤍

⤷ yourusername this is ur fault

⤷ charles_leclerc whatttttt idk what ur talking abt

heidiberger_ i just heard danny let out an audible sigh

⤷ danielricciardo no more stress 😮‍💨

⤷ yourusername did better then i thought u would danny

⤷ heidiberger_ don’t be fooled… i think he told the entire rbr faculty

alex_albon see you’d think that this would mean they’d leave us alone…

⤷ yourusername never getting rid of us albono 😊

⤷ landonorris now why would u want that mate?! 😘

username57 the caption. she really said fuck it lets hard launch!

username58 they really squashed the slander

landonorris absolute legends i reckon

⤷ yourusername ballers

landonorris my girl 🧡

⤷ yourusername 🤭🫠

carlossainz55 finally

username34 what?! no way?! i’m shocked 😦 we are so shocked 🥱

mclaren we’ll take it from here williamsracing mercedesamgf1

team_quadrant the real boss 😌

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, and 570,398 others

landonorris cute.

username42 i can’t. they’re too cute.

username43 did he take her to his family home omfg 😭

maxfewtrell whippeddddd

⤷ yourusername 😐

⤷ maxfewtrell sorry y/n mb

danielricciardo cutsie

⤷ landonorris 😘😘

georgerussell63 double trouble

⤷ alex_albon god george u don’t have to say everything that comes to ur mind

lilymhe she’s so pretty

⤷ landonorris she is 😍

⤷ yourusername i love uuuuuu baby

⤷ landonorris i love u too love

⤷ yourusername oh.

⤷ landonorris oh.

⤷ lilymhe I LOVE U TOO LOVERRRR

⤷ alex_albon u get used to it landonorris

liked by yourusername, lilymhe, and 126,090 others

lando.jpg my girl

tagged yourusername

username42 god i am not ur strongest soldier

danielricciardo peep the merch 😌

⤷ yourinstagram enchante danny 😉

yourinstagram shop the look enchante 🩷

⤷ enchante 😍😍

username43 they’re everything

heidiberger_ where’s mine? daniel3.jpg

⤷ daniel3.jpg COMING RIGHT UP

username44 lando is the standard

⤷ username45 never thought i’d see the day someone described lando norris as the standard

yourusername obsessed much 🤭

⤷ lando.jpg with u? always

⤷ yourusername oh 😳

yourusername my own jpg post?! i must be special

⤷ lando.jpg the specialist 🧡

⤷ yourusername oh 🤭

username46 dead at y/n being taken aback my lando’s comments

lilymhe my girl 😍😍😍

⤷ yourusername my girl 😘😘🤭🤭

⤷ lando.jpg pipe down miss alex_albon come collect ur girl

⤷ alex_albon don’t fight it mate

carmenmmundt prettiest girl in the world

⤷ lando.jpg that she is

username47 she’s come so far from her third wheeling days 🥹

⤷ alex_albon has she?

bonus!

liked by williamsracing, carmenmmundt, and 228,460 others

alex_albon proof that it changed nothing 😐

tagged yourusername, landonorris, lilymhe, carmenmmundt, georgerussell63

yourusername boohoo 🙄

landonorris u love us ❤️‍🔥

hope u enjoyed 🤍🤍

#lando norris x reader #lando norris #lando norris imagine #formula one #formula 1 #george russell #alex albon #lily muni he #carmen montero mundt #daniel ricciardo #ln4 #ln4 imagine #ln4 x reader #charles leclerc #f1 fanfic

2K notes · View notes

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 9 months ago

Text

Mission Control 2

Warnings: non/dubcon, violence, stalking, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Captain Hydra

Summary: a man marches into your life on a mission

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

“Height?” The officer taps the nib on his notepad.

“Ugh, tall. Er,” you keep your hand on your head. It still throbs. “Um, six foot something? He had to be bigger.”

“Right,” he squints. “Blond, blue eyes, and a scar. Dressed in all black...” he reads it over. “And he didn’t say anything?”

“No, sir, I told you. Did you check with security? There's cameras--”

“Nothing there. Checked all the footage. Some glitch. Guy’s not sure. Not his problem, I guess. Paid minimum wage to sit in a room,” he scoffs. “We can file the report but we can’t do much else. No footage, no proof--”

“No proof? Look at my head. He ripped my hair out!” You whine.

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen worse. Should count yourself lucky he left you alive,” he says.

You shake your head and drop your arm, “uh... thanks, I guess.”

“Look,” he exhales. “I really don’t have much to go on but this guy sniffs around again, call. File another report.”

“Right,” you agree glumly. “Thank you, officer.”

He shrugs, “have a good night. You want me to stick around while you lock up.”

“It’s fine, I wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time.”

You sniff and turn around. You’re not surprised by his indifference or his answers. You have friends who had men pounding on their doors and the same reaction. You saw police arresting drunk girls instead of the guys who cornered them in the bathroom. There isn’t much anyone can do, it seems. Especially not you.

You go through the closing list. You know it by rote but that night, you’re uncertain. You check the clipboard that hangs behind the counter. You’re fractured. The whole world feels like it’s strewn before you. Nothing fits together. You feel like you’re disconnected from your own body.

God, your head hurts.

You stop and open up the front camera on your phone. You look at the bald patch again. Near the back. You can’t really see it head on but it’s there. Or not. He just... did that? He took a part of you.

You close your phone and put it in your pocket. You pull on your jacket and hike your bag onto your shoulders. As you do, the Pom Pom falls onto the floor. You tossed it on top but didn’t hook it on. You pick it up, quivering. That man... did he find it or take it?

You squeeze it and grab the keys from the hook. You pull the gate across the store front and lock it. You turn to face the empty mall.

The idea of going out into the dark and waiting for the bus is the same as scaling a mountain with your bare hands. You make yourself move. The longer you wait, the more likely you’ll miss it.

Your steps echo around you. You flinch and glance over your shoulders, back and forth, even spinning to make sure you’re alone.

How are you supposed to do this? After what he did to you. Did he just see you on the bus and decide to mess with you? How did he track you to the store? You had your jacket on, he couldn’t see your name tag or uniform. You didn’t have your badge out.

You can’t figure any of it out. Would it matter if you could.

You slow down as you approach the doors. You look out and see the bright signs for the businesses housed in the mall and the other plazas close by, headlights shining along the street. You push through the first door and stand in the vestibule.

You still have the fluffy pom pom in your hand. You unhook your bag from one shoulder and hook it on. You trade the store keys for your house keys and poke one out between your fingers. You’re on your own.

You walk out into the night. You don’t stop. You almost jog across the lot out to the bus stop by the road. You duck into the shelter, the lights keeping you safe in their glow. Or so you hope.

The bus pulls up only a few minutes after. Your relief flows out of your chest as you scan your pass. You find a seat at the back and sit. You want to see everyone else.

The tires grind the gravel and veer back onto the road. They slow again at the next stop around the corner. You watch the passenger turn and you know him in an instant. He stalks down the center of the bus and climbs the steps up to the back level. He does just as he did that morning.

He sits beside you. You can’t move or speak. You can’t believe it.

He must know that no one else cares. He’s counting on it. You’re breathless as you shake, your ribs wracked as adrenaline burns through you.

“Why?” You quaver weakly. He doesn’t answer. You lean away from him and touch your head, grazing your tender scalp. “Please, why me?”

Still nothing.

“Why are you doing this?” You whimper.

He closes his eyes and lifts his chin. His hand moves from his leg onto yours and he squeezes. You tremble as his fingertips dig into your flesh.

“Please, stop!” You cry out and slap his hand.

No reaction. What is wrong with him? You wriggle and look at your other hand; the key poking out from your fist. You bring it down towards his hand but he’s fast. He retracts his touch and the key sinks into your thigh muscle. You screech, and he reaches across to tug the cord.

“What’s going on back there?” The driver hollers back as he stops.

The man stands and marches away. He doesn’t answer the driver or look back. He steps off the bus and you watch him through the window. He almost fades into the dark as he delves into the shadows of the buildings.

“Knock it off,” the driver warns as he puts his foot on the pedal.

You puff between your teeth and look around at the other passengers; deafened by headphones and ear buds, engrossed in their screens and pages. There’s at least ten other riders yet you’re all alone.

You look down. You quaking as you let go of the key and it sticks out of your leg. You cringe and grasp it as tight as you can. You hold your breath as you rip it out. Argh.

That officer was right. You’re lucky he didn’t do worse.

#steve rogers #captain hydra #steve rogers x reader #dark steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #mission control #drabble #series #mcu #marvel #avengers #au

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fairy-writes · 11 months ago

Note

Hello!! I really like u and think ur really cool! Can I request an rivals to lovers with hoshina? Like you've been rivals ever since high school and noticed that you both become a part of the defense force at the same time and the rivalry grew stronger and then like you've heard the other officers talking bad things about him and then instantly defended him since you acknowledge him as someone who is strong and wouldn't let anyone bad mouth about him despite being rivals and then he heard it

once again i really really really love u and have this friend crush on u <33

ONE-SIDED CONFLICT

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!!

__________________________________________________________________________

Fandom(s): Kaiju No. 8

Pairing(s): Hoshina Soshiro x Reader

Word Count: 0.9k

Genre(s)/Tag(s): Female!Reader, Rivals

Notes: Not my best work, but I don’t really know how to write Rivals to Lovers rip

I really hope you enjoy it, at least a little bit! Thanks for reading! <3

__________________________________________________________________________

Your rivalry with Hoshina Soshiro was more of a one-sided conflict. Well… that wasn’t explicitly true. He just got under your skin a lot more than you got under his. He always watched you with that shit-eating grin on his face, like he was watching something amusing.

And that aggravated you.

But… Nothing aggravated you more than people smack-talking him.

“Can you believe it?”

“I can’t!”

“Why would they bother letting someone with blades be a Vice-Captain?”

“I’ll bet you 1000 yen that he bribed his way to that position.”

You clench your hand around your coffee mug until it nearly cracks as you hear your fellow members of the Third Division talking about the newest Vice-Captain.

Hoshina Soshiro.

The very name gets your blood boiling and your heart racing. You were both blade users in the Defense Force. Perhaps some of the only ones. You were the only ones to primarily use blades. Sure, you could use guns and heavy artillery if the situation called for it. But there was something about slicing through kaiju flesh that gave you a certain thrill.

It also didn’t help that you and Hoshina had some sort of ‘rivalry’ going on. It wasn’t outright declared, but seeing as you two came from different clans that specialized in kaiju slaying, the odds were pitted against you from the start.

It was always, “Look at what Hoshina Soshiro accomplished!” and never, “Good job at rising through the ranks!” So perhaps that contributed to your upbringing and the need to take him down. But even so, you could acknowledge his skill and prowess with the katana and even more so with slaying kaiju.

Which is why it made you so angry to see other people try to tear him down.

Your coffee mug actually cracked when you flexed your fingers and started leaking said coffee all over the table. But you paid it no mind.

“Don’t you have better things to do?” You snap at your teammates, and they look at you dumbly. Almost like they can’t believe someone is standing up for Vice-Captain Hoshina.

He was just that, your Vice-Captain.

They should respect him.

“I’m sorry?” One of your teammates asks incredulously, and you roll your eyes.

“He obviously earned that position. So you should respect that. He wouldn’t be our Vice-Captain if he wasn’t qualified!”

“Perfectly said, Platoon Leader.” You flinch, duck your head out of reflex, and turn to see the man you had been talking about.

Hoshina Soshiro is watching you with that same shit-eating grin he always has on his face. He studies you with a calm expression. As if he didn’t care about what others were saying. And maybe he didn’t. But you certainly did.

Everyone turns back to their meals with quiet grumbles, but no one says what they had been saying to his face. He jerks his head to the side for you to follow him. So, you begrudgingly get up and follow after, leaving your cracked coffee mug and spill behind.

You follow your new Vice-Captain down the hall until you reach his new office. He leaves the door cracked open to give you an escape. That was the peculiar thing about him. He always gave you an escape from whatever you were doing. Whether that was sparring with him or studying together, he always gave you an out.

Hoshina claimed it was to preserve your dignity when he whooped your ass in whatever competition you competed in. But, more often than not, you didn’t need an out.

Because most competitions ended in draws between the two of you.

“Vice-Captain?” You ask, mildly confused when he comes to a stop before the large windows behind his desk that overlook the Third Division base. Captain Ashiro’s is a floor above his, but his office is still impressive in its own right.

“Y’know, fightin’ with your fellow teammates isn’t the best idea.” He said, and you huffed,

“It was hardly a fight.” You grumble, and he turns, his eyebrow arched and a look on his face that screams, “Really?”.

“We both know that infamous temper of yours would’ve gotten you into more trouble than was worth.” He borderline teased, and you can feel your ears burn with embarrassment.

He knew you well. That was one of the downsides of being rivals with him since high school. He knew all your tricks and tics just like you knew his.

“If I may, Vice-Captain—”

“Soshiro.” He cuts you off, and you stare stupidly, almost not comprehending the words that just came out of his mouth. But you gather yourself and push on,

“Fine, Soshiro. If I may, they shouldn’t be talking about you like that, regardless of how you feel. You’re pretty incredible with a blade, and they should respect that.”

Hoshina—no, Soshiro—stares at you almost as stupidly as you felt, eyes cracked open slightly in shock.

Then he begins to laugh.

And laugh.

“I think that’s the nicest you’ve ever been to me!” He wheezes, wiping a tear from his eye as he composes himself and leans his hands on his desk. Your ears and face burn, and you very nearly accept defeat and make your escape when he approaches you from around his desk.

He stops just before you, staring you in the eye with that same stupid grin on his face.

“How about we meet outside work, and you can tell me how incredible I am?” He teases, and you just nod idiotically. Captain Ashiro knocks on his office door and enters, saying something about the reports she needed for the latest meeting. You are then dismissed.

You stop outside his office and lean on the wall, cupping your burning cheeks.

Did you just agree to a date?

#hoshina soshiro x reader #soshiro hoshina x reader #hoshina x reader #kn8 x reader #kn8 x you #kn8 x y/n #kaiju no. 8 x reader #kaiju no. 8 #kn8 #kaiju no 8 x reader #kaiju no 8 #fairy writes

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yourlocalbadgerscales · 1 month ago

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speaking my truth…

bychance shippers who ship it as a crack ship, i have nothing against y’all. you do you. you have free will after all. to each their own. ship and let ship.

but uh.

what in the world made y’all think your ship will actually sail. like. i hate to sound like a milkvan but its NOT happening, alright? and if it does that’s just really, really, REALLY poor writing.

first of all, why would you think that will ‘not possible’ byers, will ‘but you make ME feel like I’M not a mistake at all, like I’M better for being different’ byers, will ‘the wise’ byers… the nerdy gay kid who’s been bullied and abused for his queerness all his life… who’s been hopelessly in love with mike for YEARS… would just— rip the band-aid off and go for CHANCE, of all people? The jock, the bully, a guy FOUR YEARS OLDER THAN HIM??

And why would CHANCE fall in love with Will???

And why would the duffers introduce bychance in the last fucking season?????

And to y’all who want bychance to happen for the sake of jealous mike… uhm. let’s not 😀

seriously guys, we don’t need a SECOND love triangle in s5!!! i fucking hope the duffers will focus on byler throughout the whole season. this is the season mike and will are getting together y’all. this isn’t a fanfic on ao3 with all the most common tropes and clichés, this is stranger things 5 and byler is finally fucking happening and y’all want to throw all of their development out the window for BYCHANCE??

and for y’all who want bychance to happen instead of byler… because apparently mike doesn’t deserve will blah blah blah will deserves better blah blah blah… idek what to say to that. like. I could make ten posts consisting of the same amount of words that the Bible has EACH on the topic of byler and why it should happen, HAS to happen… and y’all still wouldn’t get it probably. what are yall even doing reading this post. what are yall doing on the byler tag bro.

but if we ignore the fact that byler must be and IS endgame for a sec, and we go with the narrative of will finding someone else to be with… FIRST OF ALL, why would his new bf be introduced in the last season after he’s spent the whole fucking show pining amd longing for mike?? SECOND OF ALL, anyone but fucking CHANCE, istgggggggg. If yall want Will to get together with someone other than Mike, anyone but Chance. like. HOW DO YALL SEE THE APPEAL?? IN FUCKING TWEAKINV I DONT. UNDERSTAND. YOU GUYS.

But uh. Yeah anyone who ships bychance as a crackship… it’s not my cup of tea, crackships aren’t in general, but I respect you and i respect the ship. Honestly all my reasoning for why bychance doesn’t make any sense doesn’t apply to it if it’s a crackships. Crackships are meant to make no sense, after all. It’s just the ppl who seriously ship it that baffle me

#byler #anti bychance

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renmackree · 2 months ago

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WIP Wednesday

I was tagged by both @dear-massacre and @teencopandthesourwolf both who provided some delicious words. (highly lucky to get to read them)

I'm going to pull more from my Necromancer!Stiles Kyrkogrim!Derek

[...]

He could see the little lip leading onto the roof of the church and thought very briefly about climbing up there himself when he saw the black mass sleeping on it.

Stiles’ sucked in a breath as he saw the dark fur lifting in the wind. Derek’s tail was curled around his front paws, both underneath his muzzle and curled inward. Briefly he thought the wolf might be dead, but the slow, steady rise of his back indicated he was still breathing (though Stiles didn’t actually know if a Kyrkogrim needed to breathe) and the pointed ears flicked occasionally. Stiles slowly stepped onto the roof, inching closer to Derek as he did.

Everything in his mind was telling him not to, but Stiles reached a hand out to press against the black fur. It was coarser and denser than he had imagined, but as he sank his hand into the top coat and into the undercoat, he felt a little more of the softness he had expected. His hand almost completely disappeared into the inky blackness, eyes flicking over Derek as he began scratching the skin. Derek didn’t move from his spot, his body curled so tightly together that he looked like a fuzzy rock. Stiles could see the wolf looked tired and continued moving his hands up into the dark fur. A low whimper rumbled through his chest and Stiles moved one had to brush the cheek ruffs. The fur was softer, Stiles’ fingers running through it like smooth silk: it was possibly most luxurious thing he had ever felt in his life.

“Holy shit, do you only groom one place?”

All at once, the wolf let out a snarl and snapped at Stiles’ hand, teeth grazing over his flesh and drawing pinpricks of blood. Derek’s hackles raised and the massive paws pinned Stiles down to the roof of the church before wrapping his maw around Stiles’ throat. The fangs paused on his neck, Derek so close to snapping down and taking him out in one quick, death-stench bite: Stiles’ cock twitched in his jeans.

You shouldn’t be in the church.

Derek’s voice floated through his mind, the wolf still poised to rip down at any moment. Hot breath played across Stiles’ skin, sending gooseflesh up his arms as he thought about how this was probably the closest he had been to anyone he found attractive in… well, in forever. Even in wolf form, Stiles was finding it hard to concentrate on the words Derek was saying.

“Why?” Hesitantly, Stiles reached up and pressed his fingers through the soft fur on the wolf’s cheeks again. Derek’s tongue grazed against his throat and left a trail of cold spit on his warm skin, as if he wasn’t already turned on by this whole situation. He vowed that Jackson would never find out about this or he’d never hear the end of it.

Finally Stiles pushed Derek's head up from his neck so they could be eye to eye: human brown to supernatural red. “Oh, let me guess. Because I’m a Necromancer and I’ll profane it?”

Derek moved his paw from Stiles’ chest but didn’t pull back from the hands in his fur right away: like he wanted to keep the touch just a bit longer. It didn’t last long and Derek backed up on the roof again, eyes still like molten rocks gazing back at Stiles.

No, the wood is old and you might fall through the floor.

I'm going to tag: @cw0ffeefandomaddict; @hedwig221b; @whimsicalmeerkat;@definitivelydrivel; @rugbertgoeshome

@heavensenthale; @violetfairydust; @thotpuppy; @endwersed; @seaweed-water; and anyone else who wants to do this because everyone should!

#ren writes #sterek #my fanfiction #idk if this needs to be tagged anything else but you know #necromancer stiles for the win!

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bamboozledbird · 11 months ago

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IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU // Chapter 1 / Next

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Reader (You) Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 4.8k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), descriptions of burning, depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. For years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because you feel like something halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter.

You can’t wash the smell of hospital out of clothes, not really. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Scott’s new-found abilities and the murky world they’ve been dragged into is making it pretty damn hard to keep his promise.

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real and old family skeletons rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive?

Maybe, the real question is how long will they want to? Chapter Summary: After your annual interrogation with Sheriff Stilinski, you meet his son who turns out to be very handy with jumper cables and incoherent babbling.

A/N: Does this look familiar? It should lmao. I gave into the peer pressure. All the messages and requests were too powerful. Here is a reader version of my ofc season 1 fic. Obviously some things have been removed to get rid of specific names/descriptions, so you want to read the full thing you can read the og version and check me out on ao3 (dork_knight)! For the sake of not clogging tags, I'll probably just do my reader version on tumblr and the full oc lore version on ao3 from now on. xx

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

Before your mother’s death, you would have picked fire. Every single time.

You never liked the cold; never really had to get used to it growing up in central California—but the crux of your argument, the twisted logic behind it all, was that most burn victims died from suffocation before they felt the flames. A small mercy, really, in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

In the end, however, statistics were just numbers, your mother didn't die from smoke inhalation, and there was no mercy in burying a parent before you were old enough to have children of your own. Nothing ever ended poetically off the page. Death was just death, and it was always ugly. Someone should really tell that to Robert Frost, you mused, biting at a raw hangnail.

The medical examiner said the actual cause of death was pulmonary edema; at least, that was his best guess based on the state of the body. He didn’t say that she felt everything, her skin peeling back into her flesh, her flesh liquefying into fuel, her joints flexing into contorted pleas until the fire incinerated her last nerve ending. He didn’t have to; you connected those dots all on your own. You’d been twelve at the time, not an imbecile.

“I’m sorry to drag you through this all again.”

You flitted your eyes away from the flickering lightbulb above Sheriff Stilinski’s head and met his gaze; it was nauseatingly sympathetic. Your responding shrug was a small, little thing—more like a twitch in practice, “Not your fault.”

Your yearly visits to Sheriff Stilinski’s office were solely your father’s doing, even if no one wanted to admit it to your face. Most mayors would use their political power to get their child out of a police station, not into it, but perhaps he stopped being your dad somewhere between the funeral and now.

“If you could start—”

“From the beginning,” you smoothed your thumb in small circles over the armrest of your chair, attentively tracing patterns into the polished wood, “I know.” This was, after all, the fourth anniversary of your first interrogation. You’d become somewhat of an expert at being a useless witness. You picked at your uneven cuticles before continuing, “Mom put me to bed around 10:00—which was kind of late for a school night, honestly, but she let me stay up to finish another chapter anyway.” The right corner of your mouth twitched for a brief moment, “Nancy Drew: Password to Larkspur Lane. I told her that forcing someone to go to sleep in the middle of a mystery was specifically forbidden in Geneva Protocol II.” Your mom had been far too indulgent of your lip on most occasions, but that night she didn’t smile at your snarky aside. She let you finish the chapter because she was too tired to argue; you could tell. At the time, you saw it as a victory. Now, it kept you up at night, the drooping lines of your mother’s mouth spilling over the pages of whatever book you were trying to read.

You bit down on your tongue when a stray splinter snagged against the soft pad of your thumb, “Dad was out of town, so it was just the two of us. Mom always put me to bed when Dad was gone; said it was the only way she could get to sleep. Had to make sure my window was locked.” You paused for a long moment: everything went dark after this. Your mother kissed the top of your head, murmured, ‘Love you,’ turned out the light, and then that was it. You woke up in the hospital, and your mom was dead.

A bead of sweat dripped onto your top lip. The air in the Beacon Hills police station was, without fail, sticky with heat and body odor—and it wasn’t just the oppressive Californian sun. Even in the winter, a person could choke on the stifling warmth. Idly, you wondered if it was a matter of interrogatory tactics or budgetary constraints.

“And then,” Sheriff Stilinski prompted gently, though you both knew how the story went from here. You had told it to him and a dozen other officials at least a hundred times in the last four years.

You bit down on your thumbnail and winced when your teeth snagged on the tender nail bed, “And then nothing. I opened my eyes, and a nurse said that you found me on the front lawn.”

“You don’t remember how you got outside?”

You shook your head, staring past the Sheriff's shoulder. Large pieces of dust floated through the air, highlighted by the slivers of light trickling through the blinds. Suddenly, you had a newfound appreciation for the lack of fans in the room.

Sheriff Stilinski cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his jaw, “You don’t remember saying it was an angel?”

Blinking slowly, you looked at the grim line of the Sheriff’s mouth and gripped your knees tightly, digging your fingers into fragile skin until your wrist cracked, “I should, right? I was twelve. I should remember something—that’s what everyone thinks. That’s what my dad thinks.” Your eyelids fluttered to a tight close, and your voice went so quiet you could barely be heard over the hum of the copier outside the door, “He thinks it was me. That’s why he makes you question me every year.” Copper flooded your mouth as the soft lining of your cheek split under the brunt of your teeth, “He thinks you’ll finally figure out how I did it.”

You were scared to open your eyes as the silence stretched between the two of you. You’d danced around the subject before, hinted and spun around the heart of it, but you’d never truly discussed how it looked from the outside. Sheriff Stilinski had been kind enough to give you a few different excuses over the years: trauma, head injury, oxygen deprivation, just plain ol’ grief—but whatever caused your temporary amnesia wasn’t so conveniently explained. In fact, currently, you had no explanation at all. When you finally peeked through your lashes, clumped together with frustrated tears, you couldn’t quite figure out what expression the Sheriff was making. He leaned back in his desk chair and frowned, “I’m sure he doesn’t—”

“He does,” you cut him off. Your eyes went flinty, irises darkening to something far more ashen with the resolve of your anger. You never had any trouble reading your father’s face; the disgust was thinly-veiled between the flickers of fear.

Sheriff Stilinksi leaned forward so that you had no choice but to look him in the eyes. They were kind—more tired than usual, but still kind. They always were. That was one thing you remembered from that day, waking up in the hospital to Sheriff Stilinski’s kind, watery blue eyes, just before the entire world fell apart. His voice was gentle, but firm, when he finally spoke, “I don’t.”

You nodded numbly and pulled at a fraying string on the hem of your denim skirt until the thread snapped.

“I mean it, kid. They couldn’t identify the source of the fire. They couldn’t even find an origin point; no twelve-year-old could pull that off.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, “Could anyone?”

Sheriff Stilinski’s brow furrowed, and his mouth screwed up into a crooked line, like he was chewing on his words and deciding if he should swallow them or spit them out. “I wish I had all the answers for you. I really do. Not knowing, it’s worse than any truth.”

You blinked up at him for a moment, once again taken aback by his raw sincerity, and swallowed hard. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to have the answers; he was the one who was supposed to ask the questions. There was one failure in his muggy office, and it wasn’t the Sheriff. “It’s okay,” you said quietly. “Not your fault.”

He looked like he wanted to argue the point, but whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by the sharp ringing of the phone on his desk. “I have to take this, but if you remember something, or if you just need to talk—”

“My dad spends a small fortune on a psychiatrist and a behavioral therapist for that,” you stood up quickly, shouldering your bag. You forced the corners of your mouth into a small smile, tight at the edges like a sheet that had been stretched too thin, “But thank you. For everything.”

The Sheriff’s gaze darted to a framed photo on his desk. You had seen it before, on one of your many visits to his office. It was of a boy—his son, you assumed—he looked like he was around five or six at the time. He was grinning, wide enough to show off his missing incisors, and his fingers and wrist were stained cotton-candy blue from a melting popsicle. You must’ve been that happy once, right? In the beginning, everyone was unencumbered by the weight of imminent mortality. Maybe that’s what Sheriff Stilinski was thinking, too. He looked away from the photo and gave you a small smile, “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

You gave a half-hearted wave before wrapping your fingers around the strap of your backpack and walking to the parking lot.

Outside, the sky was grim, a mocking reflection of the dour expression on your face. The spite in your eyes hardened when big, fat raindrops splattered against the apples of your cheeks. For a moment, you just stood there, glaring at the rain and cursing the cosmos for their utterly unamusing sense of humor.

A jeep pulled into the parking lot, and the squealing engine startled you back into reality. The search for your car keys was, of course, a considerable endeavor. Nothing could be easy. Not here. Not today. Not ever, you thought. A bit melodramatic maybe, but the weather was certainly ripe for a bit of self-pity.

You stacked your textbooks and binders onto the hood of your sedan, haphazardly throwing your jacket on top of the pile to protect your painstakingly penned Kafka essay from the rain. By the time your fingertips brushed against the cool metal of your car keys, your hair was damp and curling at the ends.

The momentary relief was short-lived when you pressed the unlock button five times and the accompanying beep didn’t sound, not even once. For an absurdly long minute, all you could do was rest your forehead against the driver’s side window, breathing heavily until condensation gathered next to your mouth and the drizzle speckled dots onto the sleeves of your thin cotton shirt.

“If you’re trying to charge the battery through osmosis, it’d probably be more effective to smash your head against the hood.”

You jumped, and then flinched again when your keys clattered against the ground. You caught a glimpse of the phantom speaker in the side-view mirror; bizarrely, he looked just as surprised as you felt. You turned around, trepidatiously—objects may be closer than they appear n’all—and tried to swallow your rapidly rising heart.

“Sorry,” the boy pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down and had the decency to look contrite, “big mouth.” He rubbed a hand over his chapped lips. “It’s a real problem. It’s so big, actually, that my foot just slides right in there like…all the time,” he gestured animatedly with a flat hand, a quick sliding motion, like a fish through water.

You blinked at him, slowly, and bent down to reach for your keys, “Might wanna see someone about that. Sounds unsanitary.”

“Eh, it’s hardly the worst thing I’ve put in my mouth,” he said, eyes widening into horrified round circles the second he stopped talking. A faint flush creeped up his neck to his ears, and your heart dropped back into your chest. Slashers and ax murderers didn’t blush. Probably. You hadn’t ever met one, but it seemed like sound logic.

“Choking hazard,” you hummed, leaning back against your car. Your fingers traced a small dent in the door, the cause long forgotten, “It’s definitely still a choking hazard.”

The boy grinned before fixing his expression into something on the cusp of severity, “I’m about 95.7% sure that anything bigger than a fist is completely mouth-safe.” He held up his fist and nodded sharply, “Make that 98.3% sure.”

“98.3?” your brow arched.

“Maybe even 98.9.”

The buzz of a lamp post hummed above your heads as you stared at each other with little smirks until the quiet made you sink your teeth into your bottom lip and big-mouth drum his fingers against his forearm.

“So,” his sneakers squeaked against the slick asphalt as he shifted his weight, “you need a jump?”

You pursed your lips and ran your eyes over the front of your car, “I might give osmosis another shot. 30 seconds is hardly a fair trial.”

“Of course,” he hummed, “you gotta be fair.”

“We are in front of a police station.”

“Well,” he scratched his cheek, “it’s not a courthouse.”

“Technicality.” You were slightly horrified when you finally noticed that you were smiling. The sensation felt like it had escaped straight out of the uncanny valley and latched onto your face like a parasite in need of a host. It only took two weeks for muscles to atrophy; years must have completely decimated the fibers in your cheeks. “I guess I could use a jump. If your offer was an offer and not a hypothetical.”

“Smart choice.” The boy rapped his knuckles against the hood of your car and said, “Steel’s probably pretty low on the permeability scale.”

“As opposed to a skull.”

He snorted and then nodded towards the large lump of books and papers covered by your freshly dampened jean jacket, “You should probably move your stuff. Y’know, ‘cause of the very un-permeable battery.”

“There’s that,” you sighed and started stuffing your things back into your backpack, shaking it violently until your notebook finally slid past your chemistry textbook, “and flunking English isn’t high on my list of things to do this weekend.”

His gaze flickered back and forth, rapidly cataloging every corner and crevice of your face. You tilted your head, brows pinched, and stared back at him with your arms crossed tightly over your chest. His eyes, you noticed, became a peculiar shade of brown in the yellow glow of the setting sun and the fluorescent light of the lamppost. More like honey, you realized, more like honey than irises. Something finally clicked behind them. "You,” he pointed aggressively, “you go to Beacon Hills.”

You pushed his finger away from your face with your own, “Safe bet, considering there’s exactly one option for the next 2,000 square miles.”

“You’re kind of a smartass, you know that,” he muttered. He struggled with the trunk of the jeep parked next to your car, cursing under his breath until he finally wrenched it open with an almost guttural grunt.

Your lips parted briefly, and then you grinned drolly. It was refreshing, not being treated like some fragile little creature who would buckle in the knees—or possibly set something on fire—at the slightest confrontation. “Kind of?”

“Total.” He nodded decisively before sticking his head and torso into the depths of his trunk. “Completely, entirely, and wholly a smartass.” There were various clanging sounds until he re-emerged with a pair of jumper cables, “Never noticed that in class. You don’t really…say anything.”

You bit back the snark poised on the tip of your tongue. When people looked at you, the only thing they saw was the worst thing that had ever happened to you. You were the daughter of the woman who burned to death on Cedar Street; your mom died, and you were there. It seemed like that was all you would ever be in Beacon Hills.

In the grand scheme of things, it was better to be no one.

High school had been your chance to slip into social obscurity—more kids, more drama, less discussion of homicide by arson—so you took it, wholeheartedly. You kept to the corners of classrooms, away from extracurriculars, and your mouth resolutely shut.

“I try to exclusively bring the smart and leave the ass at home,” you finally replied.

The boy’s eyes drifted downwards for a moment, and his voice did a funny, squeaky thing when he said, “I should give that a go sometime.”

“10/10 would recommend. No one bugs you—and teachers never throw erasers at your face.”

“So you do remember me,” he grinned a little and rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt before unlatching the jeep’s hood and propping it open.

Slanting your head, you watched his profile. There were moles scattered across his cheek and neck, and his angular jaw clenched as he struggled with the knotted cords in his willowy fingers. “Vaguely,” you said faintly. It was coming back to you in pieces. That was life after twelve for you: bits and pieces. Everything was made up of the disquieting moments when you surfaced from the haze and into the present. It should’ve felt like a lungful of air, but it didn’t. It always felt like choking.

He wiped his grease-smudged hand on his jeans and then extended it towards you, “Stiles.”

You took his hand, despite the strange formality, and shook it—mainly because of the black streaks staining his pants. “Y/N.”

His fingers twitched a few times when he connected the clamp to the coordinating battery terminal, and your eyes widened. You held your breath in your sternum until you registered that he hadn’t been electrocuted. He was just naturally tweaky, you concluded. It was either that, or he had jumped one-too-many engines in the last 24 hours…unless it was hidden option C, and he was actually tweaking. Unlikely, given he was on his way into a building teeming with cops, but far stranger things had happened in Beacon Hills.

You sighed a little as you listened to the rain patter against the asphalt and the roof of your car, rubbing your palms over your arms until the goosebumps prickling along your biceps receded into your skin. Stiles looked back at you again, and his mouth wormed its way into a little frown. His head disappeared into his trunk, and after a moment a lumpy maroon mass hurtled towards your face. You caught it before it could smack into your nose, and you clutched at the soft material until you realized that the projectile missile was actually just a sweatshirt.

Stiles was staring at you when you looked up from your hands. A small, unsure…something squirmed over his face, and you felt a little stupid, just standing there, hoodie limp in your arms. It happened a lot—more than it should after so many years. The invisible quicksand materialized in the strangest, most insignificant moments. You blinked, completely brainless, at simple questions, stared aimlessly into your closet until your second alarm startled you into snatching the first shirt you came across—clasped at a stranger’s hoodie until the rainwater pooled on your lashes dripped into your eyes.

Robotically, you thrust your arms through the sleeves and tugged it over your head, “Thanks.” The sweet scent of grass clung to the fabric, and there was something earthier underneath it, something like evergreen. You smiled slightly, combing your baby hairs behind your ears, “I guess I forgive you for attempting to blind me in the process.”

Stiles’s shoulders unwound as he scoffed, “That was an excellent throw. First-line material, honestly.”

You looked at him and tilted your head, eyebrows crawling towards your hairline, and Stiles sighed loudly, “Okay, so I’m not an ‘athlete’ or whatever—but I’m working on it. You’ll see—you’ll all see.”

You hummed softly, unconvinced but grateful enough to not comment further. Another bout of silence fell between you, but it wasn’t so restless this time—even after Stiles torpedoed his body through his passenger seat. He fought with his keys for a while until the correct one slid into the ignition.

The jeep’s engine hummed pleasantly in the background as you let out a soft sigh, dropping your head back against your car window. The rain had stopped somewhere between trying to unlock your car and now, but you couldn’t quite recall when. The chill wasn’t so bad, you realized, without your foul mood casting a shadow over your head.

Stiles landed back on his feet and leaned against the jeep. You could feel his gaze on you again. A tickling sensation trailed down your spine as you fiddled with your keychain. You took a step backwards and bit your bottom lip, “I should probably try start my car…y’know, before you throw something else at my face.’”

He nodded, taking a step towards his jeep, “Solid plan. A tire iron was next.”

You slid into your car and stared at the steering wheel, forgetting to laugh at his joke. You wrapped your fingers around 10 and 2 and silently called upon every deity you’d ever heard of to end your suffering. Stiles seemed nice enough, but you seriously doubted your smalltalk capabilities were up-to ‘ride home’ standards. Perhaps, you should revisit your resounding dedication to atheism, you thought, as the engine sputtered in protest a few times and then came back to life.

Stiles flashed two thumbs up through the window. The smile on his face was positively goofy, but his dismount from the jeep was somehow even goofier. He stumbled over his large feet a few times before regaining stability. You bit back a smile when he shot you another thumbs up, this time through the dash as he removed the jumper cables from your car’s battery.

He wiped his hands off on his jeans again; at this point, you were convinced that they were beyond saving, but Stiles didn’t seem concerned. He tapped against your window before stepping around the open door, “You should probably let it run for a while. Take the scenic route home; enjoy all the Beacon Hills hotspots open past 8:00 pm on a weeknight. I personally recommend the Rite Aid or Walmart.”

You snorted, “Maybe I’ll swing by the Preserve. I hear the woods are especially beautiful in the foreboding darkness.”

“Don’t.” Serious was an odd look on Stiles’s face. You decided that you much preferred the goofy grin. “Don’t go anywhere near the Preserve. It’s officially cordoned off—totally locked down, quarantine-zone-central. Something about flesh-eating, parasitic plant life.”

“As completely real and unobtrusive as that sounds,” you drawled, “don’t worry about it. Literally every single person in town knows about the body they found in the woods.” It was bound to happen, small town and all—and ‘woman dies in deadly animal attack’ was the most interesting thing that had happened in Beacon Hills since the intersection got a Target two years ago. “I’ve seen every installment of Friday the 13th and The Blair Witch Project. If I’m going to be murdered, I refuse to also be humiliated by a cliché C.O.D.”

The manic expression on his face softened to a relieved smile and then again to a little smirk, “So what’s a certified fresh murder, then? Not that I doubt the depths of human depravity, but I think society killed off originality a few centuries ago.”

You thought back to a house fire with no origin, accelerant, or discernible cause. Apparently, not. “You know what they say,” you sighed, “life finds a way.”

Stiles tilted his head, “And death.”

“And death,” you agreed, staring at a small chip in your windshield. The cracks had just begun to spiderweb out from the pit.

Stiles looked like he wanted to say something, and he looked so much like the Sheriff with his face twisted around thoughtful contemplation that you couldn’t believe it had taken you this long to make the connection. The boy in the photo had grown up. How unfortunate for him. Stiles swallowed whatever it was that was lingering on his tongue and shut your door. He leaned his elbow against the window frame and cocked his hand in a stiff little wave, “Seeya at school. I’ll bring something fun for target practice—maybe grapes. You like grapes? Don’t answer that—I’ll surprise you.”

You put your car in drive once Stiles was safely a few feet from the wheels and gave him a dry smile, “The anticipation is killing me.”

What a scary place to be, you thought as you watched Stiles disappear in your rearview mirror. Anticipation. Hope. Life. You were chronically good at surviving; cockroached your way out of every horrible thing life squashed you with. Lately, all you could do was cling to your heartbeat and the warmth of your skin, until you were barely more than roadkill. A walking carcass was a far cry from living, but death would not stop for you, so you stopped looking for him. You kept treading water, took your pills, stopped existing—you were a lot like Schrödinger’s cat that way: too stubborn to live, too stubborn to die. You didn’t know what to do if someone unsealed the box and forced you to choose. That was the trouble with possibility; it required far too much uncertainty.

Your dad’s SUV was parked in the garage when you finally pulled into your circle driveway. It was a rare sight; your dead battery had disrupted your usual routine. You were supposed to be safely tucked away in your room after an early dinner—take-out usually, sometimes a quesadilla if you were feeling exceptionally inspired—by the time your dad got home from work. It was dysfunctional in every sense of the word, but it was the only way you could function in the same space.

He used to stare at you from the other end of the dinner table: not eating, not speaking. The only way you knew he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. After a while, he moved dinner to his office. ‘Working dinner,’ he’d say in passing, ‘budgets are due.’ Eventually, he stopped coming home altogether. It was better that way, you thought. You loved each other better from afar, where the power of nostalgia could cloud all the present unpleasantries. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you now. You wondered, and you desperately didn’t want to find out.

You shouldered your backpack and made sure your car lights were off twice before quietly creeping into the mudroom. You could hear the buzz of the microwave as you toed off your sneakers and tried to discern the smell emanating from the kitchen. Something with garlic and tomato. Bona Vita, probably. Your dad loved their al pomodoro.

You tried to make yourself as small as possible as you skulked into the kitchen, shoulders hunched to your ears and grip tight around the strap of your backpack. Your dad’s back was to you; you could see the wrinkles in his collar from where he tugged at it when he was agitated. He stopped stirring his pasta once you reached the island.

“Did…” your dad trailed off for a moment, still facing the kitchen counter, “did everything go alright with the Sheriff?”

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see you, “I guess.”

“It’s just,” he rubbed at his jaw and looked down towards the oven, “it’s almost eight. I was wondering…worrying.”

He still wasn’t looking at you. You stared at the back of his head and sucked your bottom lip between your teeth. Look at me. Your brows pinched, and your back molars ground together. Look at me.

“I called him. Sheriff Stilinski. He said that you didn’t speak for long.”

“Didn’t have anything new to say,” you shoved your hands into hoodie pockets, realizing belatedly that you forgot to give Stiles his sweatshirt back. Another problem for another time.

“That’s not what I—” your dad grasped the lip of the counter and hung his head like it suddenly weighed too much for his spine, “I was wondering what happened to you.”

“Oh,” you shifted your weight onto your other foot, “dead battery. I think it was the door light.”

Your dad nodded a little, “Do you need someone to pick up your car?”

“Got a jump from a friend.” Not a friend, not really, but you supposed it was the closest you’d come to one in the last four years. That was just a little too sad to say out loud.

“Good.” He nodded again, “Good.”

You nodded because it seemed like the only thing to do and slipped towards the hallway. You’d taken no less than five steps out of the kitchen when your dad said, “You could call me. Next time, you could call me.”

Maybe. Maybe you could if he would look at you.

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