#sam parents are loosing there minds

[uncouth-the-fifth]

click - Sam Winchester/Reader

read it on ao3.

Pairing: Sam Winchester/Reader (circa season 1) Tags/Warnings: cabin-in-the-woods moment, fluffy bestie banter, virgin reader, first time sex, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, and of course, Sam is a pussy god, as per usual. Word Count: ~20k (shhhh don't talk about it i have a problem) Notes: that's right, i make moodboards now bitches. these photos were collaged by my wonderful commissionee @daffodil-mania, who asked for: ""a reverse (you are a) natural, baby? where sam is the reader’s first time + a smutty cabin in the woods-type situation." Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!

“Okay, okay,” you thought out loud, thinking hard, “my turn—if you could have anyone as a dinner guest, alive or dead, who’d you pick?”

A few paces ahead of you, Sam hummed in thought. His puffy winter coat made the outline of him against the swirling snow thicker, and if it was possible, taller, a menacing wall of deep blue between you and the woods. Something hiding out here and spying could even mistake Sam for something scary. Luckily, you weren’t that stupid.

Sam, for the millionth time in the last minute, checked that you were where you were supposed to be. (Two immediate steps behind him. Or he’d die). Looking back at you made the wind mess up his hair every time, and every time Sam tucked the same two strands behind his ears again. Like the shy girls in rom-coms did. Truly, monsters trembled at the sight of him.

He geeked at your question, but managed to play it cool: “Gandhi. Feel like he could teach me something. We’d probably like the same food, too, so it’d make for a good dinner.”

“Oh yeah, he was a vegetarian, right? You two could have a nerdy little salad together.”

Under the soft swell of the wind, you thought you heard Sam laugh, but it picked up in loud gusts at times that swirled skirts of untethered snow around your ankles. Well, your knees. The snow was tall enough here to seep into your boots. You’d given up totally on finding your own footing and started walking in Sam’s tracks, which were wider than yours almost all the way around. You told yourself that this was to confuse anyone tracking your prints in the snow, but really it was just fun to compare your shoe size to Sam’s. This set the walk back to the cabin at a snail’s pace. But with the way this conversation was going, you didn’t exactly mind freezing your ass off.

John had left his boys yet another unfinished hunt to distract them. Sam and Dean, tired of being distracted, changed tactics and split up. Dean was following a lead in Montana that could actually take him to John, and you and Sam were tying up John’s loose ends in upper Washington. The two of you had spent the last three days researching bloody disappearances in the area. An area in the thick of its snowiest, blurriest season, mind you, miles from anything but one of the Winchesters’ off-the-grid apocalypse shelters. This wasn’t how you and your mother had operated when you’d hunted together, but. Things changed. Parents disappeared.

Sam seemed to be shoving himself through John’s absence as best he could. You got smiles out of him here and there, but especially today, playing question games to pass the time mapping the woods and putting down traps.

“Gandhi was a fruitarian,” Sam clarified. He shielded his face from the snow by hiding in his collar, so you may have misheard when he added, “So, yeah. Him or my mom.”

Months ago, a mention of Sam’s mom would’ve shocked you into a full-on coma. He kept her memory even closer to his chest than Dean did, in some ways, and either brother even sneezing in the direction of their storied past had been a once-in-a-lifetime event. Before this hunt, that is. Now you couldn’t get Sam to shut up. Either the isolation had made him lonely or something else had pushed him to trust you, because the last two days had been spent this way—trudging through snow and spilling your guts about everything under the sun together. Sam loved to read and watch documentaries, he was fascinated by astronomy and meteorology and organized crime history and Native American folklore, and, hey, big surprise, reading. You’d never heard him talk about anything with so much passion. You hadn’t heard that passion in your own voice since before you’d lost your mom.

Still. As comfortable as you suddenly felt with Sam, you were sure to tread lightly. You risked a glimpse at his broad, snow-dusted back. “Mary would be nice too. Maybe you’d get to try some family recipe she’d make or something.”

“I think I remember my dad tellin’ me once that she hated cooking, actually, but m’ not sure,” Sam said, a bit of humor in his voice.

You thought of the soup Sam had turned to lava over the wood stove that morning, and grinned, “Yeah, I think you got that from her.”

Keeping casual eyes on your feet, you tried to see how fast you could get your boot through each foothold in the snow. Sam would make deep gouges in the powder with his longer strides. Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch. You’d clear them three in a row, sometimes four, then stop short a step behind Sam and wait for him to make more tracks. Like hopscotch, almost. Every once in a while a huge gust of wind would force Sam to stop, and without a word he’d form a wall between you and the blast. You’d learned pretty much everything there was to know about Sam these last few days, but out of all his best dorky qualities his chivalry was your favorite.

“S’ not that I hate cookin’, I just suck attit.”

And the accent. The accent was gold, when the pretty drawl of it crept through with Sam’s boredom.

A little further and the spindly, snow-heavy trees parted for the lake you and Sam had been using to navigate. On your first day scouting you’d noticed how the icy surface had frozen like a misshapen heart, and since then Sam followed the point of it back to your cabin every night. Southeast of it was the abandoned mining facility that’d swallowed three people whole, and to its far right was where three more had disappeared. Your guess was a couple of territorial tree nymphs or werewolves, and Sam was betting on a Winter Hunger. The loser would take the first shift driving down to Montana.

Seeing the lake, Sam starts to arc your march around the edge, his sharp eyes on the treeline across the ice. The wind was stronger with room to run over the lake, but you reminded yourself that being a little cold was the gentlest way to die out here and forged ahead. Besides, most of your body had gone stark numb miles back. When you remembered how bad your cheeks were stinging, you’d bring your scarf tighter around your face and watch Sam, his long legs cutting easily through the snow.

The wind cooled down to a whisper. You reminded him, “Your turn.”

You’d reached a point where coming up with good questions had become harder than answering them, so Sam took a bit to stew on something good. There’d been a silent agreement on who was responsible for which kinds of asks. You would probe Sam with the deepest, most personal shit you could come up with, and after he explained what his life’s accomplishment was and what friendship means to him, Sam would go, uhhhh, what’s your favorite color? He was definitely the smartest shovel in the Winchester shed.

“How about this,” Sam cleared his throat. “Would you ever wanna be famous?”

You must’ve made a noise that gave away your surprise at the quality of his question, because he made a snooty sound back that had you seriously considering shoving him in the snow. You put your hands on his shoulders and everything, but where there should’ve been normal guy shoulders there were buff guy shoulders, which wouldn’t budge an inch. Sigh. What a lousy, muscly jackass.

Sam planted his feet, whining your name. “C’mon. Answer.”

“I’m thinking!” You laughed, and pushed with your legs until Sam tilted forward into his next step. It took a moment for you to keep your hands to yourself. “Okay. In this hypothetical world, what am I famous for?”

“Supermodel,” Sam answered right away.

You splashed a little snow at his jeans, deciding to save your funny feelings about his answer for later self-reflection. “Dude. Be realistic.”

At this, Sam snickered, and even with him facing forward you could imagine the dry sloping smile pressing into his dimples. “Okay—across the whole entire world, you’re famous for cooking the perfect soup in a can. Like, in ways no one can even imagine, that’s how good. You make millions of dollars off it and become a household name. Would you want that?”

“God, no,” you wuffed out, immediately sending Sam into a fit of giggles. “Are you kidding me? All those strangers knowing me, not giving me any privacy? And don’t even get me started on all those soup-hounds throwing themselves at me for my soup-money.”

“I guess that’s true. You could never marry for love, 'cause everybody would just want your soup,” Sam mourned. Another great Sam quality: he was excellent at going along with a bit. “You’d just have to live with brief soup-flings for the rest of your life.”

You thought about what a soup-fling could entail for all of one second, then burst out laughing, warm clouds of it spiraling into the air through your breath. The shoulders of Sam’s coat shook with glee. It was funny for a few more beats until it warmed into something that was light and airy, something you hadn’t heard from Sam since you’d met him. He had the sweetest laugh. It made your damn teeth rot.

“Y’know, speaking of flings,” you hollered over the hissing wind, “I have no idea how your brother does that shit.”

Dean was safe and familiar territory; he was the centerpiece of everything you had in common with Sam, so your conversation circled back to him plenty. Every conversation you’d had with Dean orbited around Sam some way, too, so you’d come to expect it. You’d never seen two brothers care about each other as much as they did. Which was hilarious, since the moment one of them got you alone all they did was bitch. Dean’s been driving me up the damn wall. Sam keeps stickin’ his nose in my business. Neither of them had ever had a trusted third set of eyes before, or at least one who understood that their complaints were overshadowed with love. John had been someone to look up to, to emulate and impress, but you were a fresh outlet available for family baggage. The boys were your outlet for bitching too, since it was understood that your bitching also came from the heart.

“A girl in every port sounds fun in theory, but I feel like I’d get sick of it fast,” you confessed.

The snow underfoot began to crunch harder with each step, packed down into a firm sheet. Soon Sam’s prints were so shallow that you could see the tips of your boots again. Taking the chance while you had it, you fought against the snow to walk side-by-side with him, then fought again to match him stride-for-stride. Sam’s poor face had been pounded with so much snow that his bangs were soaking wet, but he still managed a half-frozen smile seeing you next to him.

“And, I dunno. I think I care about hurting people’s feelings too much to just…” you gestured stiffly, “head to the next town after sharing a night with someone.”

“Same here,” Sam sighed, then gave a very subtle cough as a sign to shift gears: “But, uh, I think it’s kinda a stress relief thing for him.”

You probably should’ve guessed that Sam wasn’t the fling type, since you’d been there every time he’d shied away from Dean’s plans to pick up girls, but the idea… sat there. Staring at you. It’d be stupid-easy for Sam to live that lifestyle. Dean had his own notions about what girls were most into (bad boys, leather jackets, you know), but you happened to be certified in what girls were into, and you had it on good authority that Sam was a total dreamboat.

You nudged Sam with your shoulder, coaxing him open with a well-placed smile. This was unearthed territory. “Not your thing, huh?”

The snow had pinkened Sam’s face enough as it was, so what he was capable of on his own was downright impressive. Even his ears went red. “Uhh,” he chuckled, too skittish to look you in the eye. “No, not really. I’m. I, uh, I’d rather get to know her first, y’know. Before we’re intimate. And hopping towns doesn’t exactly give you the time to do that.”

Yup. Total dreamboat.

“Oh, so that’s your plan, asking me all these personal questions.”

Sam controlled his sputtering by pressing his lips into a firm, flat line, which refused to indulge your silly flirting. “You’re a jackass,” he said, and the growing smile in his voice betrayed just how little he thought that was true.

When you were done laughing at your own joke, Sam guessed, “So that’s not your thing, either? One night stands?”

You were having fun—pulling Sam’s leg, for one, but also talking to him in general, so the truth glides right out of your mouth.

“Wouldn’t know. I’ve never had sex.”

Sam had left his filter two states behind on the drive up, so he doesn’t even think to cap his disbelief. He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

His mortification with himself makes contact two beats later, and while you’re smirking and floating unbothered across the snow, Sam nearly goes belly-up falling over himself to apologize.

You soak up his groveling until Sam’s embarrassment hits a breaking point, then, in your humblest and kindest princess voice, you say, “It’s cool, Sam. No worries. I’m not at all offended you think it’s weird I’m a virgin.”

“I don—I-I don’t think it’s weird,” Sam stressed, going a little wild in the eyes. “It’s great! …I mean, not like, great, I just mean. It’s not a bad thing or anything.”

You meet his awkward silence with a smug, pleased one of your own. Sam’s smart enough to realize he’s stumbled into your trap, but not quick enough to find an escape, so he sputters for a long time and falls back on his third option.

“I’m just wondering,” he winces, knowing his question is stupid, “why are you still a virgin?” You’re about to laugh in his face, but the earnestness in Sam’s voice makes you hesitate. His question is a genuine one. “...That sounds awful, m’ sorry. But, c’mon. You’re smart enough to know how pretty you are. Charmin’ enough to use it, too. I mean, I’d…”

He caught himself. “—Anyone, would, uh…”

Sam didn’t finish his thought. He changed his grip on the shotgun swinging from his hand, self-conscious, and cleared his throat.

Well. That wasn’t obvious at all. No way in hell you were leaving that alone.

“You’d what?”

Sam didn’t say anything. He just tucked his hair behind his ears again, too shy to say what he was thinking but bold enough to let it be spoken in his silence instead. And it was a very, very telling silence.

Your brain scrambled to cram as much as possible into the blank Sam had left. There was so much potential in that one little word. I’d…

I’d understand if someone wanted to have sex with you.

I’d have found someone by now, if I were you.

I’d have sex with you.

I’d take that opportunity, ______, if I could.

Hm. Okay. Okay, huh. There weren’t a lot of people in the world capable of making you question your life decisions so quickly, but of course, this was Sam. His silence persevered. Your train of thought became an internal trainwreck.

A few opportunities had cropped up over the course of your life—third dates with guys that hadn’t totally sucked, a few handsome barflies—but nothing had… clicked. Because there was supposed to be a click, right? Before sex? Some compass in your body, moving you in a certain direction? You hoped to drift toward something that fit better than a stranger, but like Sam had said, that level of commitment wouldn’t be waiting for you out on the road. You could hook up with civilians or hunters as you pleased, but just the thought made your chest ache. Real connection wouldn’t be waiting for you in the back of a truck or a sleazy motel. Hunters lived short lives, sure, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t be a hopeless romantic.

You’d held onto that notion for a long time. Someday, something would click, and it’d be worth the damn wait.

Now, Sam was here, blinking coyly at you through his bangs, keeping you close to him, listening when you spoke. Click, goes your brain. Like a gear notching into place. He has those mossy, sensitive eyes that pry right open just for you and the prettiest rasp to his voice. Click click.

“C’mon,” Sam coughs. “Cabin’s just ahead.”

I’d… Sam had said, and left you to fill in the blanks.

_

The next day, both of you were proven wrong. You found out the hard way that the disappearances weren’t caused by cannibalistic spirits or werewolves. After getting mauled by living hills of snow and almost swallowed by an avalanche, you and Sam got the very subtle and not-at-all-lethal impression that you were dealing with an insane case of cursed ground. (Cur-sed, Sam had said, because he was fancy.) It took some on-the-spot ritual work and a day’s worth of walking to bury hex bags in the right spots, but by dusk you were alive and comfortable back in the cabin.

“I say we stick around for one more night—make sure this place is clean,” Sam suggested, shaking himself out on the welcome mat. When he shucked his coat off, the silky interior and the back of his shirt were dark with melted snow.

You glanced between Sam, who was blue at the edges, and the shifting tides of flakes on the wind outside. If you stared long enough the whole mountainside seemed to come alive in the dark.

“Uh,” you told him, “are you sure? If we got even one of those spells wrong, what’s stopping this thing from burying the whole cabin?”

But Sam had already thought of that, like he’d already thought of everything else. He rose from where he’d been kicking off his boots to give your icy hands a quick, warming squeeze. “I got it covered. Go—get a fire started, and fast.”

Since you were still riding the wave of adrenaline that’d kept you alive against moving, living forces of nature, you were already following Sam’s orders before he’d finished saying them. He didn’t act hardly as hurried. Being soaked and half-frozen was apparently second nature to him, since he navigated uninhibited through the duffle of ingredients you’d unloaded on the cabin’s floor. Your fingers were so numb that it took three tries to scrape some fire out of your matches, and by then Sam was already tying off his millionth hexbag of the day.

You didn’t regain your senses until a few minutes later, which passed as slow as hours did. Somehow in that sliver of time you’d hauled more firewood inside, hurried it into the fireplace, lit it, helped Sam bury the protection spells around the yard, raced back inside, and laid all your wet clothes out in front of the hearth. The second the doors were locked, your high started to tank. Sam was talking.

“—will last us through til’ tomorrow. Then, in the morning, we can use the spell to see if the land is purified. It might even be a good idea to check with the dowsing rods, too. If this ground is as cursed as we think, the hexbags will be just fine, though, so you don’t have to worry. You listenin’?”

Sam was a big, fuzzy-edged shape sitting criss-cross on the ratty rug a few paces from the fire. His silhouette was outlined by it in handsome shades of gold and honey-white, ‘cause of course he was the kind of movie beautiful that suited romantic fire lighting. Like, really romantic. Your brain had been baking in the panicked sludge of fleeing and hunting all day, but even it was capable of looking at that image of Sam and going, Uh, yeah. There’s something going on here.

For the last few days, the two of you had purified the ground of the cabin, too. It was the most telling relic of Sam and Dean’s life with John Winchester: rationed, unglamorous, and harsh. John was usually an out-of-bounds subject for the boys, but Sam had spent the last few days describing him at length. He was paranoid and obsessive—hence the cabin’s military rations, hidden weapons, traps, metric fucktons of salt, and next to nothing else. John hated any music and technology post-1980—hence the cabin’s record player. It was the only source of entertainment on hand, and the same three records only lasted so long. Even as hunter’s hovels went, this one was impressively oppressive.

Sam, plagued by abysmal hunter-kid memories of being stuck out here, had warned you about it ahead of time. You’ll get bored and miserable. He’d said that and you’d thought to yourself how hard it would be to get bored and miserable around Sam, who mystified you just sitting there. Still, you splurged on some big fluffy blankets, the shittiest and cheapest chess set you could find, pillows, and s’mores. Not exactly the John Winchester essentials, but. Just in case.

Stuffing the footwell of Sam’s stolen truck with cozy bullshit had been worth it in the end, purely because you wouldn’t wish the sleeping situation in the cabin on your worst enemy. There was a single, boxspring-less bed crammed in the bedroom’s corner, with a blanket too pitiful to put into words. It only had one pillow. This pillow also happened to be of unknown origin and age, and you were only brave enough to touch it because you’d worn your big girl pants that day. Sam had banked on the two sleeping bags he and Dean had left there as kids, but they were unfortunately still kid-sized. The two of you would’ve been forced to share body heat under one petal-thin blanket. Now, loaded up with massive, fuzzy comforters and heavy quilts, the two of you were happily sharing body heat under enough blankets to drown in.

Sam had insisted on making a bed for himself on the floor the first night. You’d let him, purely because he was pouring on the chivalry by the truckload and you were too grateful to know what to say. Any plans to argue were pinned down by that stern, unguarded stare. S’okay, I’ve been sleepin’ like this since I was little. Just a few minutes sinking into your snug nest made you rot with guilt. Being on the road with the boys put you in a bed with Sam plenty of times, and though the quarters were a bit tighter in the cabin, the cold was sharper too. You confessed your guilt to Sam the next day, and after the usual research marathon that night you felt his weight fill the untouched side of the bed.

Okay, Sam had caved. But—you’re sleeping on the inside, by the wall. I’m a lighter sleeper. That way if somethin’ comes in, I can protect you.

Hearing that, you’d grabbed his wrist and pulled it over your side. You’d kept one hand fisted around the knife under your pillow and the other folded over Sam’s hand, as if to say, I can protect you, too. Sam must’ve understood, because he’d pressed his cheek against your shoulder blade and succumbed to sleep. The rest of the week was spent like that, Sam herding you against one side of the slim bed with his legs and his arms and his sleepy-soft breaths. Though the bed was toasty and the contact was a one-stop sleeping pill, you stayed up with your knife for company. Sam deserved to feel safe while he slept.

You didn’t get that often as a hunter. Especially the touching part. Touching of any kind only really happened when you trusted someone, and trust was earned on the road with all the ease and painlessness of pulling teeth. In Sam’s case, he was an untapped well for little doses of affection. The moment that line was crossed, the second you’d taken a hit in his place for the first time, the second you’d torn your own clothes to wrap his wounds, Sam was open to you. He would never reach for your hand first (not if he was still Sam, who thought he didn’t deserve it), but you could reach for his and he would take it without question. You could pull his arm around you and Sam would wrap it tight, pressing his nose into your back. There was an exchange that occurred. He trusted you to give him something he was too proud to ask for and you trusted him to let you in, the two of you careful not to break the magic.

While he poked at the fire and lit candles, you flitted to the other room to scoop up a blanket to wrap yourself up in. The constant back-and-forth insanity of the day had made you too nauseous to eat, but you knew your stomach needed something. Preferably something sweet to trick you into feeling rewarded. Military rations really weren’t your thing, so you opted for the pomegranate Sam had avoided to keep his research papers clean.

He’d been going through your plan for tomorrow, right. “I’m listening, Sammy.”

When you circled back to join him on the rug, you opened up an arm of your blanket-cape for him. Sam, without comment, ducked under it, and you shuffled around for a minute to give his broader shoulders some fabric to work with. “All we can do for now is wait,” he told you, “so… whaddya wanna do?”

You put a bowl down in front of you and started splitting the pomegranate with your knife. “Chess again?”

Sam’s lip slanted in a frown. All his energy for smart stuff had been spent on the hunt today, so you weren’t all that surprised at his reluctance.

“Cards, then?” You guessed. Beads of rich red fruit started to fill your bowl, which Sam didn’t hesitate to sneak a hand into.

“There’s only so many rounds of Go Fish a guy can handle losing, _____,” Sam teased.

It was true. You’d obliterated him every round so far, the poor bastard.

Sam leaned into your side, filling your peripherals with his know-it-all smirk. “Unless you—”

“We’re done playing poker,” you said, having suffered your fair share playing against him. The emptiness of your wallet must’ve reflected in your voice, since Sam started snickering into his lap—and yeah, maybe the whole cute-shy-guy routine had worked on you, but knowing Sam he’d find a way to sneak the money he’d won out of you back into your bag. He was sweet that way. Evil, but sweet.

“Okay,” Sam wet his lips and wracked his brain. “...I could read my book to you. It’s the one I was telling you about—”

“—with the corrupt cops in L.A,” you filled in. Separating the pomegranate seeds from their core was bloody work with your knife, so when the natural halves of it were happily in the bowl you picked the rest apart with purple-stained fingers.

“Uh-huh. And we’re at a part I think you’d find pretty interesting, all the crazy trial stuff.” Sam shrunk into his shoulders a little bit, then added in a quiet voice, “If you, y’know. If you want.”

Hmm. You swiped the book from Sam’s other hand, the planes of his fingers making brief, electric contact with yours. A sharp flash of heat whipped through your belly, sizzling through your nerves. It took a bit for you to refocus, but the pause made you look like you were some deep scholarly person really inspecting the back cover, which Sam seemed to appreciate. You took care not to get any fruit stains on the pages. When you turned to pass it back to him, Sam was rubbing his bruised knuckles into his sleepier eyes. How he could keep reading after staring at nothing but old newspapers all week, you had no clue.

You reeled the book back toward you. “...How about I read it to you?”

Sam froze, considering this. He considered it so long that you could watch his cheeks color in real-time, the same red they’d been in the snow, until he broke out of his trance and managed a warm, surprised sort of smile.

“Okay,” Sam melted.

“C’mere, lawboy,” you decided on a whim, and pat the top of your thigh. True to form, Sam took his permission and ran with it, twisting shyly to lay on his side and prop his cheek on your leg. “Lemme impress you with all the big words I know how to say.”

Sam chuckled, and it was the kind of laugh that told you just how many weird law words were about to trip you up. It was also the kind of laugh you could feel, rumbly and real through your leg, which was. It was. It was something. He got comfortable, curling a lazy arm around your knee and using you as a proper pillow.

You really should’ve put more thought into having Sam this close. Like, really should’ve, since he’s so big and warm that it has you running on nothing but instinct, and your first impulse having Sam in your lap is to go straight for that gorgeous hair.

You take the lock Sam’s been messing with all day and tuck it behind his ear, just because his head is there and you need a damn place for your hand to rest. Right. A deep and draining sigh airs out of Sam’s nose being touched like that, and you start to wonder if this was something he’d masterminded. He seeps into your lap like he’d been chasing this all day, all week, and something about it makes you feel special in ways no one else could manage.

You open to the page Sam left off on and start to read. Sam doesn’t move an inch, laying statue-still in your lap. He only moves to sneak pinches of pomegranate seeds. Stiff as he is, he’s there, the furnace you’ve relied on for the last few days to keep warm. You get through a few chapters this way, Sam pausing you every ten seconds to explain something or hum or snootily translate some lawyer-speak for you. The whole time you do an excellent job of keeping your hands to yourself. Ever since Sam’s comment from yesterday, the little pieces you’ve gotten of him have made you greedy. Click.

The fire and the candlelight create a perfect bubble of heat on the otherwise icy floor, so it doesn’t take long for Sam to go from resting in your lap to downright oozing across it. From your point of view he’s nothing but a mop of shining hair and a big hand curled around your knee. His presence seeps into you as much as his warmth does, and after so long it’s almost overwhelming to taste someone else’s vulnerability this way. Click click. You’re reminded of how much you care about Sam, and how long it’s been since you’ve been allowed that. There was something about him that would always be worth protecting. Maybe it was how fucking good he smelled.

“Doctor Janen’s contributions to the investigation, especially her knowledge of luminol, were,” you trailed off, “were…”

Sam’s breathing had evened out in your lap. Or, you thought it had, until his posture shifted under the sweater he was wearing. He rolled out of your lap and onto his hands with a reluctant groan. Tired as he was, Sam was always capable of being a smartass. “D’you know what luminol is?”

“Yes, detective,” you scoffed, maybe a teensy bit disappointed that he’d left your lap. The outline of his touch on your thigh burned like a heat beacon. “Should I go back and read the last few paragraphs, or was that you just pretending to sleep?”

Sam rubbed at his face, like it was possible to physically scrub the sleep from it. He sat up next to you, blinking slowly to get his bearings, and for no logical reason your heartbeat built to an ear-ringing throb in your chest. You were completely alone with him. For once, you had Sam all to yourself. Soft shadows kissed his arms and hands and neck. He was made up of nothing but full endless sloping lines, a charcoal sketch come to life.

“I was restin’ my eyes,” he sassed. “We should stay sharp through tonight, though. Stay up. I can take the first shift, since you’ve taken the last three.”

You didn’t miss the little nod to your sleeping habits. Which meant Sam had also laid awake long enough to know you hadn’t fallen asleep until late, which meant he’d laid awake next to you. In bed. Thinking with that big brain of his. It made your own big brain run around in crazy circles, chasing whatever conclusions he might come to.

You stole a glance at the nearest window. The salt lines were laid neatly on its sil, on the off chance boarding up the glass turned out to be useless. “That’s okay. I’m not exactly tired yet.”

Sam popped a few pomegranate seeds into his mouth, humming in thought. “Then it’d probably be smartest to keep each other up.”

“Samuel!” You gasped. He froze mid-chew, confused, and remained confused until you started poking him and laughing. “I’d expect a line like that from your brother, but never from you.”

You were a tease-first-ask-questions-later kind of person, so you understood Sam’s particular brand of banter and how he liked to respond to yours. Typically, you’d annoy him with a playful little taunt and Sam would let you know you were funny by calling you a jackass. You waited for Sam to hear your line and brush you off as an idiot. Instead, he did something much more interesting: he got defensive.

“I meant stay up like, like talking,” he sputtered. “I would never—y’know. I wouldn’t. Do, uh. Do that. Why don’t we keep up our question game from before? It’s, it’s your turn, right?”

“Okay. What was your first time like?”

Well. Shit.

This was the fastest question that either one of you had managed to whip out all week, and that fact hung so obviously in the air that you could feel it between you and Sam on the floor. It dropped so hard in the middle of the conversation that it shut you both up, silencing Sam’s sputtering and veering your train of thought to a shrieking, sparking halt. Sam was smart. His big brain would put together—had probably already put together—that you’d thought about asking him this. He might even be smart enough to intuit why you’d been itching to bring this subject back up, and for the first time in your life you prayed that Sam was the dumbest, most thick-headed man to ever hunt with you.

He did a great impression of someone less clever than himself. “Like. The first time I…?”

You chewed a few pomegranate seeds. “Uh-huh.”

“...Right.” Sam registered. He conveniently decided to fixate on the fire instead of you, which should’ve helped your sanity, if that was even possible anymore. The bulb of his nose and the swell of his lip curved just perfectly in profile, made even prettier by the firelight. God.

You panicked. “If that makes you uncomfortable—”

Sam swallowed. “No, no. You’re okay. Just thinking.”

You bit down on your tongue. Oh, awesome. Thinking! Exactly what I want you to be doing right now!

Sam swiped two sweaty, corded hands down each of his thighs. Tucked his hair behind his ears. Made your belly flutter and twist like a huge gust of wind going through a spring-fresh tree.

“I was seventeen,” Sam cleared his throat. “We were in Utah—well, I was in Utah, Dad and Dean were… Whatever. But I was sort of, um, on this rebellious streak at the time.”

You lazed back on your hands. “So, in hunter-kid terms, counting the days til’ you’re eighteen and packing your rucksack?”

An abrupt laugh barked out of Sam. His gaze loitered on your face with renewed comfort, remembering, again, that you’d both hidden your acceptance letters where no parent could see them. This was another Sam-move you knew the steps to.

“Yeah,” his eyes glittered. “Exactly.”

(The day you met Sam, the one reference you’d made to your associate’s degree had him crossing his legs under the table. He’d asked in a husky, tight voice what you’d gone to school for. Just hearing the words folklore and mythology had the guy close to pitching a tent.)

Sam managed to take his eyes off you. “But, uhm. There was this girl at school my Dad had ordered me not to hang around, so… I hung around. After a school dance. In her car.”

You were a very mature adult who was not at all jealous of a teenage Utahn, and thus sculpted your face into something playful. “Dirty,” you snickered. Sam’s light smile was encouraging, so you said as an afterthought, “Sounds like a squeeze, though. Don’t know if I’d want my first time to be in a car.”

“Especially in a tiny, cramped Nissan,” he agreed, chuckling. The smidgen of regret in his voice shouldn’t have made you feel like you’d earned a point against Random Utah Girl, but it did. You scolded yourself for it (your imaginary point gripped in one fist).

It was now Sam’s turn to ask a question, and he asked it fast. Impressively fast. “Okay, so. No car. Where would you want your first time to happen, then?”

Though you were an absolute animal when it came to Go Fish, your empty wallet was proof enough that you were a lousy poker player—due to an even lousier poker face. Hearing Sam’s question, it did you no favors. Even before you’d formed any thoughts about… everything, your body knew its answer, pointing every delicate nerve in your body toward the open doorway to the cabin’s bedroom.

You flicked a glance at the warm, intimate darkness waiting for you there.

It was only a second. But that one look was enough. Your hand was exposed, and Sam, by comparison, was an excellent poker player.

In a rush, you scrambled to put some distance between yourself and your obviousness. You winced. No way out. “Uhh, anywhere cozy. For the first time, I dunno if I’d wanna be cramped in a closet or something, no matter how sexy it may be. Is it lame to say… a bed?”

Sam hummed. As you’d talked, he’d become more and more relaxed in front of the fire, lounging on a propped-up arm and picking out of the fruit bowl. There was a long silence from him that could’ve been the weighted silence before a judge’s verdict.

…You’d never seen a judge draw his hand up to his mouth, suck pomegranate juice from the pads of his fingers, then pull off them with a noisy pop, but. But maybe they took a different approach at Stanford.

“It’s the standard for a reason, right?” Sam shrugged, amused.

He pushed the bowl across the floor with his wrist instead of his spit-slick fingers. It made a hollow scraping sound that brought your head back to the conversation, thank god, since the last seconds of your life post-fingers-to-mouth action had been spent elsewhere. The specific “elsewhere” that entailed Sam’s thick-knuckled fingers and Sam’s pretty pink mouth. You’d had the occasional intrusive thought about men creep up on you before, but the tricky part was that those thoughts pushed their way in. They jolted into your life then jolted back out.

Single-handed, Sam had hooked you, reeled you in, and pulled you “elsewhere.” Keyword: pulled. Not pushed.

…Then… maybe… pulled you again. And pushed you back. And again. Pulled out, then pushed in. Pulllled out slow, only to ssssink back in, deeper than before. Pulling and pushing with rhythm. Pulling, pushing, faster, deeper. Making you gasp and yelp his name, his fingers—Sam’s fingers—digging into your waist, your belly—

Click. Click click click click click click.

“_____?”

You’re so self-conscious you think you could feel the individual atoms of your body clanging against each other. “...Uh-huh?”

It’s your turn to ask a question next. But Sam breaks the rules and speaks first, since he knows exactly what he wants to ask you. He glides up onto one hand, his whole body a twenty-page study of lanky coyness, and tilts in close to you.

“If you could lay it all out—the timing, the place, the person…” Sam’s face glittered with a poker player’s curiosity. “What would your perfect first time be like?”

Or: Give me the manual, and I’ll follow it.

Your mouth was watering. It was one of a million things making it impossible for you to speak right now, including the sudden, nigh-unbearable heat of the room under your collar, and, oh right, the metric fuckton of slick soaking your underwear. The speed at which your arousal hits you is enough to make you dizzy, and in the haze you swear you start to hear something. Click. Click. Click click click click click click click—

Fuck. Sam is waiting for an answer. Fuck.

“I guess I’ve never thought about it before.”

Which was a blatant lie, since you’d spent the last ten minutes thinking of nothing else. Sam either sensed you weren’t telling the truth or was looking for something more, because he let you linger in your own answer, prying the rest out of you with his hanging silence.

Really, you should’ve been tougher, but the first long breath without anything from him shredded your strength. You caved and filled the quiet.

“I mean,” you toyed with your hands in your lap. “No matter what, I’d want it to be special. Bein’ out on the road, marching around, that’s not really a luxury we’re allowed to have. It’s like you said yesterday. I wanna be with someone I’m connected to, and I don’t think that’s gonna be in the back of a bar or—”

“—in a stranger’s bed,” Sam softened with understanding. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” You echoed. The fire crackled and popped, loud enough that you could use the sound as an excuse to look elsewhere. “And if I happened to find that person, they’d have to be in the life. We can only trust other hunters, nowadays.”

Sam snorted. “If we’re lucky, maybe.”

It disappointed you how much you had to agree with him. There used to be a sense of mutual understanding among the hunters you’d met, but something had shifted since you were little. The world was a much scarier place, and the hunters that’d survived to see it had darkened to meet it. You’d dodged all shades of skeevy, selfish people before you’d landed in the Impala’s backseat. Even Dean and Sam had colored the list of hunters you’d been warned to avoid. Of course, every inch of it had turned out to be triple-hand gossip. Maybe you were quick to judge or the boys were just good seeds in a shitty crop, either way, ending up with them was the kind of good luck that beat the devil.

You’d never had the chance to tell Sam that before.

“I dunno. Not to go all mushy on you, but I do feel pretty lucky.”

Sam indulged you with an inviting tilt of his head, impressed that either one of you had a sliver of luck between you. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. This last year, before I joined up with you n’ Dean, there wasn’t a single living soul out there I thought was worth putting my faith in,” you said, easing your mushy confession onto him under the guise of fact. Sam couldn’t digest it any other way. “I’m really grateful you changed that for me. It feels—it feels good to trust people. To feel like somebody knows you.”

Sigh. The side of your personal bubble filled with nothing but Sam started to seep with quiet, disbelieving fondness, and you could tell because Sam was giving you the eyes. The eyes. The ones that people brought out their wallets for and sent girls like you into romantic psychosis.

You dared to face them head-on, which was a reckless idea (probably brought on by romantic psychosis). Sure enough, his gaze was big and soulful and heart-rending. Sam was sitting so close now that you could almost soak up his body heat. The biting wind wormed its way through the thin walls and the fire was fading with it, but Sam oozed magnetic warmth by comparison. Stuff-your-face-in-his-neck kind of warmth.

“Do you feel like…” Sam rasped. He brushed the flats of his knuckles down your arm, breaking that final touch barrier. “...like I really know you?”

Your entire nervous system implodes with fluttery feelings. It’s just two fingers, brushing soft down your arm through your sweater, but. It’s confirmation. It’s Sam’s yes, I want this, and it puts into perspective how the two of you have spent the last week: alone together. Curled as one shape in bed. Talking just loud enough for only the other to hear, and never an octave higher. Never more than a few feet apart. If you reached for Sam first you knew he’d accept your hand, your boots in his bootprints, but when he coasts his palm down the swell of your shoulder it’s him reaching out for you.

You reach right back. You curl a hand up to cover his hand with yours, those big doe eyes asking that same question on repeat. Do you think I know you? Do you trust me? Do you want this?

“All I’ve got is me, you, and Dean. And it wasn’t him that I told all my deepest hopes and shittiest moments to,” you laughed. “So…”

Every other time you’ve hit this point, you’d been distracted by the logistics and the math of sex—protection, chemistry, the when and how, and the consequences of both. It’s not gonna hit you until two days after this moment, after Sam has you as many times as you want in the plush cabin bed, that there was no math with him. Just want. Just things sliding into place. Click click click.

“So…” Sam’s face tips even closer. Your head fogs with the heat and smell and presence of him, mesmerized.

He puts it all together for the two of you: “Your perfect first time would be with a hunter, somebody in the life that you trust. Somebody who could make you feel special. Somebody who really knows you.”

You smirk before you can stop yourself. “Do I need to drop any more hints, Sam?”

Damn, could that boy put a fireworks show to shame. He lit up. Sam’s shoulders did this really cute boyish swell and his lips parted, telegraphing with every piece of himself, Oh, you really want this, you really want me!

You’d never seen him wear that kind of happiness before, and it made sense why. Thank god the two of you were off the grid out here, because you didn’t doubt that Sam’s smile could pop every lightbulb in the entire country.

Sam aimed a bubbly laugh at his lap, embarrassed. “I don’t think I’m getting the full picture,” he tried to flirt, “a few more, maybe?”

So, getting less and less subtle as you went on, you explained to Sam the hypothetical author of the night of your life. He’d be sweet. Polite. Smart, too, but not the type to rub it in your face. (This made Sam laugh). He’d be gentle and considerate and frankly fucking awesome, but not so shy that he couldn’t give you a wild time.

When he was blushing so hard you stopped needing the fire for warmth, you sprinkled one last handful of flattery on him. “And, jesus,” you whistled, “this guy I’m picturing? Total dreamboat. So pretty it makes me wanna write dumb songs about him.”

Predictably, Sam got so flustered that he went back to futzing with that same strand of hair by his ear. With the touch barrier between you broken, your mind buzzed with a million different ways to reach out and feel him, to draw him in, and all those ideas coalesced seeing Sam’s hand come up to his cheek. Before you lost your resolve, you stroked the messiest portion of his bangs behind his ear for him. Sam melted. He liked to do that around you.

“Now I’d just sound arrogant if I assumed that it’s me,” Sam snorted.

You pressed the flats of your knuckles down Sam’s warm, smooth cheek. “It’s you. It’s been you for a while, actually.”

The easy, loving contact dazed him. Sam’s eyes fluttered closed, and a short, shaky breath puffed out of him in one bracing go. It was clear that he hadn’t been touched this way in a while. He sat there absorbing your touch for a long time, a cat resting his head in the full scope of your palm. You turned your body to face his and Sam’s gaze, which was layer after layer of hazels no artist could mimic, opened for you.

You thought about saying something cheesy like, wow, ain’t I lucky, having the whole world in the palm of my hand, but Sam was much faster (and much, much cheesier).

A leather-tough hand scooped around the back of your neck. The touch was fucking-christ-big and god, so was he, the line of his thumb to his wristbone as long as the length of your neck. You knew this because that’s exactly where Sam placed it, stroking your chin with his thumb. Prickling chills tickled up your legs. He scrutinized you—and you say scrutinize loosely, since the Sam-equivalent was gazing into your face like a fatal decision was held there. Your mental yes, yes, I want you was so loud that Sam could’ve psychically heard it. If he did, it was enough to make his pupils become huge pools of want.

“C’mere,” Sam grinned.

You laughed. “M’ practically nose to nose with you, Sam, I don’t have any further to—”

The rest of your teasing was lost to a louder yelp. Sam scooped his arms around your middle and. And hauled you. Into his lap.

His—lap.

There was no way to survive this landing. You were plopped right on top of his barrel-wide thighs, your every sense instantly stuffed full to bursting with every wonderful thing that made Sam himself. A steam of woody body wash and aftershave put you under his spell. Two massive hands soothing down your back glued you happily in place. Sam’s warm chuckles seeped through his chest and into your hands, because, oh yeah, you were allowed to touch him. And there was so much of him to touch now, too. The entire front of your body was cozily smushed up against his firm, longer frame, filling your hazy vision with the soft shadows on his throat and collarbones and those fucking dimples. What the fuck.

“Is this okay?” Sam asked you.

The only time you’d been permitted in another person’s space like this was to hug them. Overwhelmed with choice—you could kiss him, touch him, run your fingers through his hair this close—you defaulted to what you knew. Sam hesitated, but with a breath, the coil of his body unwound and the two of you slid together with a satisfying smush. (Or maybe a click).

Oh my god that’s good, your senses wailed, but all you could manage with your face muffled in his neck was, “Warm. Sooo warm, Sammy.”

“Is that a yes?” He hoped.

You pulled your face out of his shirt to sigh. “The biggest yes of your life.”

Sam gleamed. Being so close to the source of all happiness on earth (the toothy grin he was biting back for your benefit) should’ve instantly pulverized you and every other hot-blooded being on this side of the planet. It should’ve. But your soul was still ringing around in your feeble body, and sure enough, your calves were still snug around Sam’s thighs like they’d been before. You’d survived being inches away from Sam’s face while he smiled all shy for you, and succeeded in feeling only a teeny bit like a pile of smoking ash because of it. For a second you tricked yourself into thinking you could survive him.

That is not the case.

With impeccable timing, Sam kisses you. Just a brief, firm peck on the mouth. Testing the waters. The waters that are now a fucking ocean in your underwear, thank you very much. It’s only a two-second kiss, but the instant Sam’s lips pop off of yours an embarrassing happy squeal follows him out. Definitely not the suave reaction you were expecting from yourself. Sam just laughs, which translates as a sexy hum under your free hand.

“That was cute,” he whispers, eyes crinkling.

“Shut up, Sam.”

He hums, still brimming with that big spoiled grin. He takes you by your prickling arms and starts to pull his hands down them, again and again, squeezing the anxiety out of you in huge handsy swaths. You feel a bit better about being such a nervous wreck. His hands are trembling too.

The first kiss was good. Really good. Wetter, warmer than you were expecting, but so fucking—good. His mouth was soft and stained by the pomegranate, but, oh no, you’re already forgetting what it was like to taste him. It’s so tempting… to just… lean in…

He’s just as tempted. Sam meets you in the middle for a second kiss that he finds so satisfying, so right that this deep rumbling moan purrs right out of him. The pink swell of his lips are, of course, pressed hot to yours, filling you head to fucking toe with that single bassy note. You gasp through your nose—because nothing is worth breaking his kiss. Not a desperate breath of air, not an uttered word.

Sam kisses you with his hands as much as he dazzles you with his mouth, laying heavy touches down your back, then your waist, then your legs, inspecting and absorbing. You’re hardly as methodical. He is a wonderful beach and it’s your first time seeing the ocean. You take the biggest fistfuls of him that you can, feeling the silky sand of him slip between your greedy fingers.

Sam is apparently into being your metaphorical beach, since after he’s done melting your brain and your underwear in the most intense make-out session of your life, he pulls away to speak.

Sam rasps. “Can I take care of you?”

It takes you a moment to respond, because. Well. A, that’s the sexiest way someone has asked to have sex with you, no contest, and B, you’ve been waiting this whole time for the moment where you don’t want this anymore. With other men, your body had just never found the spark that should’ve been there. Was this time different? Had things click click clicked into place?

You take a step back to put this in perspective for your future self. As vividly as you’re able, you think about having sex with Sam. You visualize Sam’s sharp eyes, his naked back, the cut of his hips, all of it, as he fucks you straight through the shitty mattress in the cabin’s bedroom. All the sweat-twisted blankets shoved to the floor. Sam’s hips canting your thighs apart. The worn-smooth slope of his—of his fucking paws, essentially, squeezing your tits and your tummy and your waist in achy handfuls. You think about it some more. How Sam would moan, how his lashes would screw shut in ecstasy as he filled you. You keep thinking about it. When your mind starts to deviate toward the filthy, thick sound of him… o-of Sam plunging into you over and over again, smushing you under his weight… uhm. Uh.

Yeah. Yeah, this is everything you fuckin’ want.

It takes conscious effort for you to close your gaping mouth, then pry it open again to blurt: “Please, yes.”

A tiny piece of his posture relaxed in relief. Sam smushed a cute, giddy peck into your cheek, reminding your entire tingling nervous system that there was a really sweet guy underneath the deadly-efficient hunter you knew.

“Okay,” he beamed, and shyly tipped his head toward the bedroom. “Shall we?”

You feel like you should be doing more than being demure and nodding a lot, but Sam doesn’t seem to mind. After you climb out of his lap and find your footing on your jellified legs, he unfolds off the floor like bucks do, knowing on instinct how to conduct the body he has so much of. The fire’s sleepy and weak in the hearth, and with it dead, Sam is the new center of heat in the room. He takes your hand and just touching the middle of his palm spurs shivery warmth down your legs. Now, you’re all too aware of Sam’s proportions—how encompassing his hand feels, how easily his shoulders fill the doorway to the little bedroom. Feeling mature, you fill the next room with bright giggles. You see in real-time how Sam melts at the noise.

Like you have the last few nights, you each scoop up a candle and find a place for it amidst the hunter clutter. It takes a beat to find your way through the dark. The space is just big enough for the slim bed pushed snug into the corner, and already you know from experience how you and Sam fit into the nest of blankets and pillows. (Hint: extremely well).

Sam uses his candle to light a few others on the bedside table, keeping a free hand stretched toward you to reserve his spot as your only hand-holder. You drop your candle on the dresser and consider the only thing next to it while you wait for him. The Winchesters had three vinyls total for their ancient record player, and seeing it unused and wasted in front of you, you have a stroke of romantic genius.

The second you drop the needle on the first jazz record and turn back toward the cozy, honey-lit room, Sam’s there, sliding into your open arms to plant a kiss on you. And another. And another. And another, coaxing little happy sighs from you. They’re such deep kisses that you dip back with each one, until the curve of Sam’s towering body is diagonal over you and you have to clutch his shoulders to stay standing. Both of his rough-sawn hands cup the scoop of your back to support you. All your daydreaming about him had convinced you that he’d be a head-to-toe brick wall, but Sam’s teddy-bear soft instead, the gleaming skin you have access to yielding and plush. His lips most of all, puffy pink and shining.

Sam persists, pressing closer, kissing you deeper, panting under his breath. Whatever it is about the happy sounds you make wake up something dark in him. There’s a tight, delicate rhythm he likes to follow, and the more of Sam you get the less of it you see. That straight-arrow persona is there, and then—poof! Sam’s tongue is laving wet and hot and perfect across your parted lips, ruining your underwear in one fell swoop.

He tilts in to start sucking on your tongue—

“Fuck, Sam,” you choke out.

The situation in your panties graduates to unbearable levels. If you have to makeout with Sam fully clothed for even a second longer, you think your core will enter a full reactor meltdown. You try to get the words across, grabbing helplessly at his sweater and whining, but Sam interprets it as something else.

“Everything okay?” He worries.

Dazed, you nod more than you need to. With your eyes open and his face in full view, you’re hit with a spark of self-consciousness. Sam fills the bedroom with easy conviction, owning his desire in a way you’ve never really been capable of. You don’t exactly have the experience to blow his mind or anything. Why would he want this if there was so little in it for him? Sam wasn’t a selfish guy, but… To you, your eagerness starts to feel more like greediness.

You shift from foot to anxious foot, shrinking in place. “...Could you, um? Walk me through it? How we’re gonna…?” You swallowed the frog in your throat. “Sorry, that must seem stupid.”

Leave it to him to make something stupid into something ridiculously, fatally sexy.

“S’okay, don’t be embarrassed. It’d…” Sam wets his lips, looking for the words. A quiet, dirty-minded smile plays across his face. He decides, “It’d be my pleasure.”

His touch moves away from your back, and you’re about to mourn the loss of it until Sam’s hands start to play with yours, twisting them around in his own like a schoolboy. He closes the space you’ve timidly left open between you by pressing your chests together. It’s a small gesture. But this is Sam, so your face is in smolders on that alone. (…And you’d just been french kissed, to be fair).

“Okay. Uhh,” Sam fumbles. He stops to consider his approach. As in, the approach he’ll take to seducing you, as if you aren’t seduced on a level incomprehensible to humankind.

You can’t help but laugh at how much Sam-math must be happening in his head, and Sam laughs too. Sam keeps laughing, until it warms into a handsome, knowing hum, and suddenly he’s laying your hands on his belt and tickling your ear with the hot fan of his breath. You squeak, sensitive, which tempts him into breaking character.

Sam reigns it back in, then whispers.

“When you’re ready… m’ gonna get you out of these clothes.”

The deliciously big set of hands on your waist sidle up under the open strip of skin below your shirt. Just one of his fingers is brave enough to sneak up to draw circles against your tummy. It’s the slightest taste of what it’ll be like to have those hands all over you, sweat-slick skin-to-naked skin, which is just enough to make your appetite for him boil in your gut.

“And I know you’re gonna be freezin’, we both are, but I promise you’ll get real hot real soon. Cause’...”

The bulb of his nose (and the ghost of his smile) brushed your cheek, then down, and the explosive fluttery feeling already lighting up your belly pitches into a whole fireworks show.

“...The minute I see you lying all pretty on your back for me…”

Sam tips in to lay a kiss on your throat. A slow, open-mouthed kiss, suckling soft on your skin.

“...In our bed…”

Our bed, he says. That choice of words alone implies so much. If the two of you sharing it before didn’t count, then Sam was about to make it your bed.

“I’m not stopping til’ you get every single thing you want,” Sam purrs. His kisses become blatant licks, the whole of his capable tongue drawing wet lines on your throat. “Til’ you’re damn spoiled.”

What. The fuck. The universe could dissolve into mist and you would be too turned on to care, tethered to the last atoms of the earth by your hands on Sam’s belt. You gape up at him. Sam, the evil genius, smirks right back. When you’d said you wished your first time could feel special, you hadn’t exactly been planning for Sam to follow that direction to the damn letter. He makes it sound like he’s going to bend to your every whim, and knowing Sam...

You swipe at your face to check that you’re not drooling. “I’m—I-I—you’re—” while you’re sputtering, he swipes a dab of spit off the other corner of your lip. “—Suh-Sam.”

Screw it. You drop both hands on Sam’s chest and twist your fingers in his shirt, forcing the words out in choppy pieces. “I’m not as experienced as you. But I really, really… want this. To be—to be good for us. Wanna give you everything you want, too.”

Sam makes a flattered, yet sympathetic face. “Oh, baby, don’t think about me—”

“—I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Now, it’s Sam’s turn to forget how to speak. Finally.

You wind your fingers into the tuft at the back of his neck, enunciating, “How… do I make this good for you?”

“You’re already here. That’s all I need,” Sam gushes, falling back on his tender chivalrous boyfriend routine. It’s really sexy. Almost sexy enough to work. He tucks back his signature lock of unruly hair, blushing from his ears to his neck.

Well, stream-of-consciousness hasn’t failed you yet.

“Uh-uh. We’ve been alone together in this teeny cabin for a whole week. There’s no way I’m the virgin, but you’re the one without the dirty fantasies.” You take a long squinting look at him to divulge any loose secrets. Thumbing Sam’s hip through his shirt, you press, “Tell me. C’mon. You want me to blow you? Pull your hair? Or do you, I dunno—wanna bite me? Pin me down?”

You can track the second Sam starts breathing harder, but somewhere between then and now his eyes have glazed over with dangerous desire.

Sam clutched fast at his shrinking sliver of self-control. “Okay,” he squeezed his eyes shut. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. So… if it feels right, and it’s not embarrassing, it would be… I’d, I’d love it if you…”

“Got super noisy?”

After an intensely bashful pause filled with quiet music, Sam nods, hiding behind his bangs. Knew it. He always got so squirrely when you did your oh-I’m-so-cozy moan snuggling into bed at night.

Teasing him any more would definitely be poking the bull. But is it fun to poke that bull? Absolutely. Especially when Sam starts to unbuckle his belt, his whole body crawling with the urge to throw himself at you.

“Alright, I can do that. But how noisy are we talking? Like, normal enjoying myself kind of noisy, or best-sex-of-my-life noisy?”

He gets this nasty, disbelieving smile on his face, and it’s your last warning before—

Snap. Sam’s restraint splits in two. In an instant you’re captured by the underarms and Sam, who’s honest-to-god grinning/snarling about how you need ta’ be taught a lesson on leavin’ well enough alone, flings you onto the end of the bed. You land with a shriek. Then a second, louder squeal, as Sam takes your pantlegs in his fists and whips them clean off.

The next precious moments are filled with all sorts of lessons. For one thing, it takes a lot of force to tear pants off a person. By happenstance, you’re dragged a whole foot further down the bed and right against Sam’s lap. You also learn that pants are connected to underwear, so following that math, it makes sense why your panties are now royally rearranged on your hips. These two factors are too convenient to not be planned on Sam’s part. You’re reminded, again, that Sam is a genius.

You also remember that you’ve never been pantsed before. With and without the sexy context. Keeping that in mind, you, like any other person in your delicate situation, snap your legs closed on instinct. Not because you don’t want Sam there—holy shit, do you want him there—but because he happened to tickle you in the transfer from floor to bed, and you’re not about to let him pounce on you and tickle you to death.

This really works out for you in the long run, since having your legs closed means that it’s inevitable Sam will have to open them.

You’re laughing so hard that your sides have locked up with stitches. Sam pretends he’s not just as amused by kneeling up on the bed as grouchily as possible, ripping his shirt off, and… and, uhm… scooping his huge palms under your knees, and… yeah. He doesn’t have to do any pushing past that. Your legs just fall right open for him, and Sam wiggles in between them where he belongs.

Nothing in this entire world could prepare you to have Sam this close, so the idea that you could even cope with being absolutely towered over by the indecent amount of ab he possesses is fuckin’ laughable. Who the fuck let him have abs? For the health of all people attracted to men on this planet, who taught Sam to work out?

Your giggling trails off into mesmerized, panting silence.

“How noisy?” Sam scoffs, chuckling mean and deep in his chest. “How noisy? I’ll give you a hint how noisy you’re gonna be—”

He falls forward onto his hands, effectively blanketing you in a swath of flushed-smooth, freckly skin. There’s not a thought in your mind about how cold this room is in comparison to the last. Your hands smooth over the planes of his cheeks on instinct, and Sam follows the touch into a soul-shattering, full-body, toe-curling kiss that melts both your bodies into the homey center of the quilts and comforters. His nose squishes into your cheek and a long, satisfied groan bubbles out of him. He barely pulls his lips from yours when he hisses—

“...I’m gonna fuck you til’ you’re hoarse.”

What in the ever-loving fuck.

I cannot put into words how much I want you to do that, you want to say, and it’s true, since you end up making the world’s neediest gasp of glee instead. You’re not pleading up into his face for a full second before Sam gets your message. One can only guess what he’ll do next. (Hint: Sam cannot take in a full breath without kissing you first).

All week you’ve been toiling away to earn tiny pieces of the Sam puzzle. The picture you’ve built so far is, frankly, a touch-starved animal, who will wait at the heels of the first trusted person willing to provide. You kiss Sam once and he’s so damn grateful that he’ll multiply it by five. You get adventurous with your hands, squeezing and appreciating Sam’s flushed-smooth back. Because he’s Sam, returning the favor takes precedence over his beloved activity, and your kiss is forced to break so he can sit up and touch you proper.

Well. If any of this can be considered proper, that is. And if there’s one word to describe what Sam does to you with his hands, it’s improper.

“Still ready, _____?” He asks.

You bite back your inner worries and taunt him, “Been ready.”

He splays his fingers on your belly and is so transfixed by its softness that he stoops to smudge a kiss above your belly button. You do your best to pretend it doesn’t tickle, which is the opposite of what Sam wants. He gives your sides two quick pinches that have you squirming and squeaking under him, too shy to keep your eyes open. You’re embarrassed about the girly sounds he gets out of you until you risk a look at his face—plum red, dizzy, and glazed with fond desire.

Sam wasn’t kidding. He does want you at your noisiest.

This brings your horniness to a whole new level, turning the airy fluttery feeling expanding in your belly into the opposite: an emptiness, a vacuum, and one that desperately needs to be filled. Sam seems to do nothing but fill things. The doorways he stands in, the beds he kneels on, the snuggly center of your embrace. Naturally, this makes you insane. His hands fill up the most—big swaths of your belly, your shirt—your bra.

They push the band of the hunting sportsbra you’re wearing clear over your tits and out of his way. Sam rumbles in approval.

You stop your hands from twitching up around your naked chest, now hyper-aware of how much your breasts rise with your breath. Sam breathes you in. His gaze is soft beyond imagination, which makes the whittled-down shards of fear inside you seem even sillier than before. Either he reads your mind or he’d predicted you’d be mousy (and christ do you hope it’s the latter, since that means he thought about this already), because Sam plucks up your closest hand and presses it flat to his happy trail.

“Don’t be nervous,” he soothes. “Touch me too.”

The thought alone explodes you into steam. But you’re no quitter, so you roll with the invitation, stroking the soft pads of your fingers along the line from Sam’s naval to his ill-fitting jeans. He’s not flexing for you, so you get to feel him as Sam really is: butter-smooth and blanket-soft. Without his belt there’s a precious gap hanging between his hips and his waistband. It’s just big enough for your hand to fit inside.

You’re not brave enough to take that final plunge until Sam twists down to kiss your chest. His mouth burns scorching hot on your breastbone, and as he curls over your body, his hands on your belly slide up to take two needy handfuls of your tits. In the same motion you fit your hand into Sam’s jeans and squeeze and—ohhh fuck, you wind in as one, sharing a perfect bow-taut moment of hissing pleasure.

Sam pressed his face where he was kissing, deflating on top of you with a long, seeping, “Shittt.”

Okay. On top of feeling good, sex could be a fun little puzzle to put together. Sam urging his hips into your hand was one piece, and if you put it in the right place (i.e: touched him like that again), he’d be all yours. You do. You cup him through his boxers and follow what you feel, and what you feel is. Fucking. It’s. I-is it supposed to be that big? And, and holy shit, is he hard.

Sam. Sam’s big, thick dick in your hand. You’re gonna be wet for damn weeks.

Stupified, you blurt out, “Do you always get this hard?”

Sam cracks a wry grin, his eyes lidded. “Mm. It’s definitely you. Bein’ stuck out here with you.”

He drops a kiss on the seam of your ribcage. Then lower. And lower, leaving shiny wet circles along your tummy. “Makin’ me crazy… sticking by me every second, pressing yourself into me in your sleep. Lookin’ at me like—like that.” Just thinking about it made Sam shiver. “You turn me on like nothing else. Just last night, even, right here in this bed—I must’a stopped myself from rolling you over and tasting you a hundred times.”

The urge was so vivid for him that Sam’s mouth must’ve been watering, since he sucks the spit back through his teeth before he starts to kiss your belly in earnest. Just that sound burns with lust. Sam wants it, wants you so bad he’s shaking, his hands trembling under your thighs as he slithers down to lay between them. His kisses grow fiercer, open-mouthed and sucking the closer he gets to your panties. Kitten-soft moans start to sneak into the cycle of your panting.

“Don’t think I’m gonna be able to stop myself this time,” Sam husks.

You let him know just how comfortable you are with that by curling your legs around his back. Then his shoulders. Then Sam’s ears, and at that point he’s singeing spit-damp kisses inside your thighs like the world’s most faithful servant.

Nobody but him had ever touched you there. You choke out his name on short, needy breaths. It’s like you’re filling a meter. With enough please, Sams, you hit his limit, and he stops rubbing his face into your soft under-thighs long enough to hook his fingers around your waistband.

You’re treated to the Sam Winchester specialty. He bats long lashes at you over dark, sensitive eyes, and rasps, “Am I okay to…?”

You’re so horny that you start spurring Sam closer with your heels. “Fucking yes.”

This is the A+ answer. Sam doesn’t even wait to get your underwear all the way down your legs, yanking them out from under you and ducking straight below the bridge they make. Just seeing your pussy makes him swear. You’re so swollen and slick and his mouth is so close, so close, but Sam decides to taunt you, blowing across the spit cooling on your belly instead. Heat oozes in hazy lines from his body. From his hands. By comparison, the night has leeched the warmth from the room and you’re cold enough to get goosebumps.

“Please please please, Sam,” you hiccup, “need it. Need you. Need you t’ warm me up.”

“My poor girl,” Sam coos, brows drawn with playful sympathy. He starts to rub some heat back into your freezing legs, tilting closer, closer. “I know just how to help.”

You let your head flop back as you take his cheesiness in, laughing. That’s not exactly a line you’d expect from him. Before, though, you would’ve never pinned Sam as the kind of guy to clamp your knees against your chest, drop his head between your legs and fit his mouth on you, slurping noisily on your slick like he’s eating the juiciest fruit of his life—

“—f-uuuuckkk Sammy yes yes yes—”

Indescribable pleasure pops and sizzles along your weeping core. It’s so fucking—fucking yes all at once that you clap down both hands to white-knuckle the top quilt and howl. Sam sets to work. He covers your entire pussy with his mouth, swallowing you fucking whole, apparently, since you’re the most delectable thing he’s ever tasted. You have to be, with Sam groaning and cursing all fierce and hot between licks.

“Fuck. That’s it, pretty girl,” Sam coaches. He slurps loud and obscenely on your clit, swallowing down the results with a shiver of ecstasy. “Shit, just like that. You’re so good at this already. So good at taking it, ______. Never should’a made you wait.”

But all that must not count as getting a full taste of you, since Sam deviates, splaying his tongue flat and wide to rake it against you top to bottom. His tongue almost drools with liquid heat. At first you’d been disappointed you couldn’t see him over your legs, and now, you’re grateful for the mercy. Seeing Sam like that…

Sam licks you open until there’s no breath left in him. He goes until his jaw is sore and your slick is rolling off his chin in sticky rivulets, wetting the bedspread. He goes and he keeps going, worshipping your slippery-wet cunt between huffy moans.

You make a pathetic attempt at giving as good as you’re getting, but what should be a sexy zinger actually comes out as, “Sam, I-I—oh, god—Sam—!”

After that, your ability to form words joins your other higher brain functions in the endless sparkling expanse of white in your mind. Sam stirs a single long finger through your sopping folds. The stimulation alone has your hips twisting helplessly up to his face, on top of the rapid flicks of his talented tongue, but it’s the easy pressure of Sam’s thick finger filling you to the knuckle that actually earns a scream.

Not your average horror movie scream—an honest, enthusiastic, belly-deep cry that jerks in your chest like a sob.

You can pinpoint the precise moment that Sam realizes you’re a screamer; he hum-laughs to himself where he thinks you can’t hear.

“Next time,” (oh my fucking god there’s a next time), “‘won’t make you wait a minute, baby. Gonna give you everythin’ you want. I’m real sorry, darlin’, do you forgive me? Forgive me for not fucking you the second we were alone?”

You’re too busy having actual, real tears of desire cake your cheeks to string together a better answer than a moan. Holy shit.

Sam gives your pussy two deep, loving licks, each hot enough to send you into a coma. “Say it,” he utters, teasing, “say you forgive me.”

“I forg’ve you,” you croak.

“Forgive who?” He presses.

“I forgive you, Sammy.”

“That’s my girl,” Sam husks the promise between kisses to your clit, “So good to me. So sweet.”

Somehow, this is just as life-altering for him as it is for you. Long, flowing crests of pleasure seep hot through your system, winding tighter, tighter, tighter, twitching in the muscles of your stomach and almost cramping in your curled toes. The taste of you is so rich that Sam’s back quakes with euphoric shudders, trembling deep under the skin where he’s too far gone to rein back in. Sweaty locks of his bangs flutter as he breathes. It’s the only sign he’s breathing at all, really, what with him eating you out like he’s fuckin’ starved.

Sam gives a few good twists of his finger deep in your pussy (which doesn’t even graze how deep he might be with his cock). When you’re a puddle on the mattress and used to him, Sam withdraws to studiously coach you, “Deep breaths, ______.”

It takes a moment for the words to register. Once they have, you wind down long enough to measure your crazed breathing into even strokes. The ceiling overhead swims with dancing candlelight shadows and floating cartoon stars. Sam lifts his head to see for himself that you’re following his instructions, and after he’s done falling in love with the sight of you, Sam fills you up with two digits instead of one.

“A-ah!”

Just like before, they’re thrust in to the hilt at once. The throbbing, aching, leeching core of your arousal positively explodes, the urge to be filled finally touched. Sam’s responding bassy groan vibrates all the way up your body. The length and thickness of his fingers is put to immediate use, stretching you out with long knuckling gestures. You’re so unimaginably wet that your pussy just pulls him right in.

There’s a pause where you wiggle down onto his hand and brace yourself for the next brain-melting touch, and true to form, Sam sails straight over your grandest expectations. He’s quick to find the silky heart of arousal in your core again. You only know it by reputation, not experience, so when Sam presses into it with two soft fingerpads the pitch of your wailing jumps up ten octaves. Suddenly the pleasure is hot hot hot inside-going-out.

Sam tilts his head to one side and finds the gall to ask you: “How does that feel?”

(He just wants to hear you say it.)

“So good,” you weep. “Please please please gimme more, Sam, please—”

“It’s gonna be okay, _____. I’ll make it all better…”

Only then does Sam’s tongue get back to work, and—and holy fucking shit, he swoops in to steal the gold, demolishing every other name in the pussy-eating game. Sam wins. Sam fucking wins.

If this is just how his fingers feel…

Sam’s grin takes on a confident gleam. By coincidence, it’s around then that you remember that he’s psychic.

Somewhere between licking you into the next dimension and, oh yeah, Sam licking you into the next dimension, he’s pinned your thighs to your chest with a firm hand under your knees. You squeeze that hand for all you’ve got, every feeble atom in your body scrubbed raw with perfect pulsing desire.

To think, you’d spent this whole time getting off with your hand. A fucking hand. A few fingers! Sam crooks his in a way you’d never even hoped for on your own, finding that fluttery, twitchy spot inside you and working it for all it has. You’d asked for more and he gives you more, thrusting two fingers in at a brutal, even pace—again and again and again, til’ you’re thrashing up and off the mattress, wailing, your whole body a fist cramping shut around him. You snap in so tight toward him that you shove your face into your knees and cross your ankles tight behind Sam’s neck, keening, the fire knotted in your body devouring whatever fuel he’ll give.

Sam’s skill with his hands made you feel like an amateur in your own department. But his slick velvet tongue on your slick velvet pussy, taking slow sucks on your clit that turn into big broad licks, licking you up, licking you into his mouth whole, made just the thought of masturbation fucking laughable. I mean, c’mon! What the fuck are you supposed to do after this? Pop into the bathroom to use the showerhead, when Sam and his insatiable appetite for pussy are sitting right in the next room? Why even bother fantasizing about him and dicking around with a vibrator when nothing would ever compare to the real thing, shoving his parched panting mouth between your legs in an addict’s haze?

Still lapping up your dripping core, Sam pries his free hand from your grip. You’re pretty sure you have the right to whine in protest. Without his leverage for support your weak thighs collapse straight open, and for all you know the gates of heaven had parted to reveal god’s most beautiful angel. Sam is the picture of filth. His pretty pink lips are sealed around your cunt, his nose is all cute and smushed into your pubic bone, and you watch in time with every dirty lap as his jaw rolls handsomely under his skin.

The look on his face is unfor-fucking-gettable. In fifty years, sixty years, seventy, you know this memory will still live inside you, since no man has ever looked at you that way before. You weren’t sure it was even possible. Hazy euphoria radiates in unending rays from Sam’s face. He wants you. He trusts you. He is written all over with warm, intent desire, satisfying himself on you.

“Stay still,” Sam asks, politely.

Politely, you slap back against the bed and moan out, “Mhhmm.”

A new kind of mischief flashes across his face. You would’ve never pinned Sam as the type of guy to thrive with an audience, but now that he knows you’re watching, he falls seamlessly into a performance. His act is a three-parter.

While keeping his pace with his fingers, Sam starts by sliding slow off your pussy and spitting on it even slower. Whatever hazel leftover in his eyes has been swallowed totally by glittering, black delight. The muscles is his arm bulge and cramp fucking into you so hard. Pleased with himself, Sam dips down, dark eyes disappearing under his bangs, and makes a show of pointing his tongue to flicker across the raw nerves of your clit.

There’s more after that in the finale of Sam’s act, but the constant, brutal winding toward your release has taken its final toll. You have no fucking clue how you’ve survived this long. The overpowering squeezes of arousal inside you become full-body, wracking pangs. The sweaty trembling scraps of your soul leftover from Sam’s work throb and throb until they’re a blinding star. At the center of it, your core, tight and hot and so loved by Sam’s mouth. The searing pleasure becomes explosive. Apparently, the noisy, pitchy moans waking up the mountainside are coming from you, as you claw to get Sam even a molecule closer—closer, closer, closer—s-so close—!

So…

Close…

And you’re there. In the shimmering, divine realm Sam has made just for you; the realm your meager hands could never bring you to, and the realm you’ll be chasing still for the rest of your life. It becomes blatantly obvious in the next blissful minute that you’ve never cum before. Not for real, at least. This was a real orgasm, flashing through your spirit and flowing hot and beautiful through the numb ends of your body. You wail through it like it’s real, that’s for sure.

Your pussy clamps down around Sam’s fingers in waves of slippery pressure, and he revels in every second of it. You’re fucked through it. Kissed through it. He keeps up his pace and smushes his face in close, and that’s when you realize, oh fuck, Sam is going to drink your glass empty. The soft scooping of his tongue ramps up and up and over, til’ the edges of your vision start to spot and your muscles are too tight to unknot and it’s all too much.

“Sa—Sam—”

Just that word has him off you. You think Sam draws back and away, but that’s just a guess, since the wires between you and the outside world have been fucked stupid. Even the language has been licked and lapped out of you.

“Sam…”

You feel… like soup. Wet all over and hot hot hot. Filling the shape of the bed. You make an honest attempt at communicating this to Sam as your soupy mind’s way of telling him how satisfied you are, but. Your pussy gives a delighted, distracting throb that melts you into the top quilt all over again. Wow.

Just. Wow. You marinate in the aftershocks for what feels like ages, speechless.

Down by your legs (so that’s where he went!), Sam peels his heaving chest off the bedspread. Right. If you couldn’t breathe, he definitely couldn’t either. He gets up on all fours and crawls towards you like a guy in an RnB music video, all sexy moving arms and hips. It really shouldn’t be as appealing as it absolutely is. Starry-eyed, you open lazy arms to him and haul him down the second he’s close enough. He falls on top of you with a happy oomf. He’s long and smooth and wonderful, making you sigh when he snuggles in.

A few sparkling millennia go by laying in bed with him, toying with his hair and giggling dazedly to yourself. Sam hides his blazing face in your neck and murmurs something.

You’re buzzed by the skin-to-skin contact and cum drunk, which puts everything he says into fuzzy empty speech bubbles. The low, shy rasp of his voice tickles your neck. You try again.

“...Uh-huh…?”

“Was, uh, that too intense? Or…?”

The question floats around in your head for a while, bumping into things and spinning in zero gravity. Finally, the lights in your ship start to come on, and you pull what Sam said out from space.

“Look at me a minute.”

Sam does, curious.

“How’d,” you struggled to find your breath, “how the hell’d you learn t’ do that.”

And suddenly, Sam’s high school shyness is on a man’s face, and that man licks your slick off his lip and suppresses an evil grin. “I have, y’know. A thing about it.”

“A thing?” You echo, laughing with him. Maybe if you said it again it wouldn’t blow your mind as much. “A thing. Try an addiction, Sam, holy shit.”

In a few days, you’re gonna have to act normal around him in a room with his brother, while Sam uses the lips he defiled you with to talk, drink, and smile. Fuck. For the rest of your life, you’re gonna have to sit beside him at the dinner table and remember how he told you had a thing for eating pussy. A thing.

Glowing with innocent humility, Sam pawed up onto his hands, rolled onto his side, and positioned himself like a pin-up girl inviting you to bed. When he was done broadcasting with his entire body how much he wanted you, Sam shrugged. “I dunno… I just love to do it.”

(Being stunned silent by Sam tally: one million and three.)

He’s not real. There’s no way he’s real. You grab around for some part of him to pinch, and though Sam’s indignant yelp sounds authentic, you’re unconvinced. They had to have cooked him up in a lab somewhere.

This earns you a deep, fond Sam laugh. He gives your closest hip a playful pinch too, and after a brief tickle-fight that you miserably lose, Sam tilts his lips toward yours and husks, “Roll over that way and c’mere.”

With nothing else to do but submit happily to Sam’s will, you follow his hand and tilt in toward the wall. “You are something else.”

You’re joking, but you can also kind of feel it. Sam slings his arm over your ribs to pull your back flush to his chest, and already you melt into each other, settling back into the hollows you made in the blankets the night before. This close you can feel the magic in him. Sam oozes with cozy bonfire heat, his body laying sure and protective against your body, the last dregs of hunt anxiety in him gone. You feel the worn-soft denim of his open jeans as Sam’s lap wiggles down to scoop under you. A map of what’s ahead.

He teases a hand down your ribcage, thumbing sweetly at your belly. Sam tilts his head forward for a kiss, and unable to resist him, you meet him in the middle for one that turns into two, then three, then a swath of obsessed pecks. He must have a thing about kissing, too.

Sam pulls back to study you. With less confidence than you’d expect, he asks, “You wanna keep going?”

Just the teeniest motion of your head has Sam swooping for the chance to kiss you again, but you stop him short and twist to get a better look at him. In a high, maidenly voice, you play at being confused. Your poker face is still awful, so you have to hide your massive grin behind the invisible handkerchief you’re clutching.

“Keep going? My, a gentleman like you… an unmarried woman like me… what else is there to do, Samuel?”

His week being teased by you at all angles has forced him to evolve. Sam forgets altogether about indulging your bit and upgrades straight to more wonderful, ticklish manhandling, wiggling an arm between your vulnerable side and the bed to practically throw you back where you belong. You squeak and sputter between laughs, pretending your skin doesn’t explode with goosebumps at his touch.

When his massive palm is spread over your breastbone, Sam hoists you back against him, rolls in to threaten squishing you with more plush muscle and manly weight, and snarls in a way that ruins your metaphorical panties all over again.

“Uh-uh. Don’t play. You know exactly what m’ gonna do to you. Do y—?”

Sam stirs up his hips as he talks. All the snooty teasing left in your tank evaporates in one fell swoop, feeling the delicious outline of his dick swelling against you. Okay. You’re woman enough to admit that does it for you, and you really, really don’t want to wait anymore. Sam is an unbearable tease who will drag this out forever. You take matters into your own hands. Or, really, you put them into his.

…You prop open your closest leg for him, bent at the knee.

“Aw,” Sam rumbles, “didn’t even have’ta ask.”

You don’t hide your mean little grin. Sam, of course, kisses you into oblivion just seeing it, sliding a coarse hand under the silky, sensitive flesh behind your knee to keep you open for him. The ashes of your last climax are still simmering with heat, but it’s Sam’s kiss and his touch that reignites you totally.

It’s a bit of a twist to lean back and kiss him, but Sam’s height is made for this: his bulge swells right under your pussy, and he has the room to lean in close to your ear and purr—

“Take it out.”

Sam is asking you to take out his dick. You know that, yet you imagine yourself a month from now, unsure of which weapon the boys are comfortable letting you borrow from the Impala’s trunk. Dean’ll tell you, oh, the machete’s fine. Then Sam, with glittering eyes and full knowledge of how he’s torturing you, will nudge his chin toward the trunk and utter that phrase. Go on. Take it out. Knowing exactly what you’re thinking, and when, and how. And how deep and how hard.

It takes some shuffling and some curling, but you manage to work Sam’s jeans and boxers down his thighs. Just the sound of his zipper makes your mouth water. He hisses soft by your ear at the chill of the room, but in your hand Sam’s dick is body-hot by comparison. And. And so… s-so…

You scoop your palm around the shaft, squeezing him, feeling him. Through your back you feel Sam curl in and shiver, rumbling in approval. Your cheeks feel like they’re cooking by the candlelight just going for it, but your curiosity wins out—or, more accurately, your fucking awe. Because. What the fuck. You’ve never exactly seen a dick in person before, but you’re not naive. Sam is big enough to split you in half, and—and it just kind of pisses you off, because not only is he big, his dick is pretty, too. He has a pretty dick. Just cause’ being smart and empathetic and all that other bullshit didn’t make him sexy enough. God.

You nuzzle your cheek into Sam’s and he drops his lazy temple against yours. The two of you lounge there, heaving like peeping toms, as you both take in how sexy his cock looks leaking against your belly. Laying between your legs. It’s goddamn photo-worthy. Then, the angle your hand is taking slow, experimental pumps of him… accidentally… grinds Sam’s shaft between your abuse-swollen folds. He’s already twisting to moan into your mouth when you start to rock along him in earnest. You take a fistful of Sam’s hair and ride him for all he’s worth, dragging your sopping wet cunt across his dick until he glistens.

For three blissful seconds Sam locks you against his chest and grinds with you, making it instantly clear why people always use the word friction with sex. The push and pull of it has you whimpering loud and high against Sam’s mouth. And, thank god for him, because when your head starts to fog with visions of being filled raw, Sam pulls away from your kiss and recollects his control.

“Condom,” he gasps for breath, “we should. Probably. Yeah.”

“...Right,” you cursed. Your high school sex-ed teachers would not be proud of your lack of forethought, but it’s impossible to have any kind of thought in this situation, period.

For example: Sam tilts away to fish around in his duffle bag beside the bed, and, unfiltered, your mind taps its fingertips together and cheerily hopes, maybe Sam will be so rough the condom breaks.

Woah there, girlfriend, your reason butts in. But it doesn’t have anything else to say, since you start picturing how Sam’s cum would look oozing out of you, and. Um.

“You almost sound disappointed,” Sam jokes, digging for his wallet.

You snuggle down into the blankets and pretend you’re not hiding your face. “A little bit,” you confess, chanting the word responsible over and over in your head for good measure. “How much am I gonna feel you?”

Sam finds the condom and rolls back into your bubble. He turns in to kiss your shoulder, and you can feel his smile when he tells you, “You’re gonna feel every bit of me. Every inch… every stroke… I promise.”

He is so determined to assuage your worries that he holds the condom where you can see it, turning it over (between those long, long fingers) to make sure it’s punctureless and new. The little foil packet has XL printed on one side, which both adds to your sexy thoughts and pulls you out of them. Sam really is that big. He knows it, too, which is probably how he reads your nervousness.

“We’ll take it slow,” Sam promises, voice honey-sweet and quick to reassure you. “S’ big, yeah, but I’m gonna do everything to make you comfortable, kay? And if you wanna stop—”

He cares so much, you realize.

“Sam?”

He looks into your eyes like he loves you, and utters, “Yeah?”

“Thank you for making this good for me,” you say.

Sam melts. He doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, and you let him know it’s okay with a softer, warmer kiss than the others you’ve shared. You take in the shape of his face, the subtle freckles on his cheeks and nose, how the candlelight shadows sweeten Sam’s gaze. It slams on top of you how there’s nobody in the whole world you’d rather be doing this with, and in one puff your anxiety is in the wind.

You wrap your fingers around Sam’s wrist and flirt, “...Can I put it on you?”

Sam nods, eyes lidded. You’ve never exactly had to open a condom before, so you’re careful to pry the foil open with your fingers. For whatever reason you hadn’t figured it’d be lubed, but it makes fitting the ring of it around Sam’s tip and sliding it down his shaft a bit easier. A soft happy groan escapes him. They keep escaping him as you pump his cock in languid twists of your hand.

Sam nuzzles his face between your shoulder blades, whisper-rasping, “Would you like to…? It’ll be less scary that way.”

You really, really would. Before you make your move, Sam adds, “But, uh, before you put it in—want you to look at me.” He wets his lips with his tongue. “Wanna see the look on your face when I fill you up.”

Well, fuck. You tilt your face against Sam’s, nose to nose with him and warmed by his breath, and feel the slow ripples of heat in your belly roll into long, growing waves. Sam slides a hand back to the silky underside of your thigh and props you open for him. When you line Sam up, you start with the tip, not pressing, just stroking, feeling him against you. A satisfied purr drizzles out of your mouth to Sam’s. So far, your chosen pace has been “just go for it,” and since it hasn’t failed you yet—

—you go for it.

Sam’s bulbous cockhead dips between your folds to find your hole. A desperate, keening yes squeals out of you. You’re spit-wet and absolutely caked in slick, so there’s no hitch when you pull Sam in, just a hot, sudden fullness that seems to go endlessly deeper and deeper. The fit is so fucking snug. Snug like he’s made for you. Snug and perfect and stinging, made easier by Sam’s soft huffing coos. Look at you go. Makin’ this look easy. You looked so pretty when I ate you out, baby, but I knew you’d look even prettier taking my dick. So eager, Sam says, and he’s right. Your wetness is just begging to swallow him whole. Just being stuffed with half of Sam’s cock has you sucking down air, so the final surge to bring him to the hilt pries a genuine, hoarse cry from your belly. Sam shoves his face in your hair and groans, the sound catching on the snarl between his teeth.

Together, you orbit around the throbbing core of pleasure between you, suspended in the moment.

Sam is a wind-up toy, springs tightening with every vicious squeeze of your pussy. His mouth has made you soft, slippery, and swollen, so the firmness of his cock is different but stellar. This close, in such an intimate position, you can feel his heartbeat in more ways than one, and it surrounds you and fills you so effortlessly that you can only assume it’s your own. He touches your body like it’s one he just stepped into, feeling you from a new perspective for the first time. Sam fixates on your tummy, too, and you find out why when he presses down under your belly button—feeling the thick swell of him under your skin, deeper than anyone else could ever go. He gives you a turn too, pressing your hand down in the same place. It sends electric blackouts of lust through your system that demand to be fucked brainless.

You start to wiggle in his grasp for more, stirring your hips down onto him and choking out his name. Sam is already responding: your open leg is scooped into the crook of his arm and drawn tight to his chest, spreading you open as wide as you’ll go. His hold cants up your hips in a way that lets his cock hit just that much deeper, and that’s all you need to dash your head against the pillows and mewl for your life. Two rough fingerpads slip back into the sopping wet home of your clit and stir against it at a pace brutal enough to cramp. Between Sam’s fingers and the thick drag of his cock against your soft walls, you’re desperate for something to hold onto. You latch onto Sam’s wrist for dear life. Then starts Sam’s pulling and pushing in brief, filling strokes, rocking, driving you fucking crazy, making you need him to fuck you like you need air. He was deep to a point that you swear you could feel him in the back of your throat.

“You want more?” Sam asks, and if it weren’t for the breathy rattle in his voice he could’ve sounded innocent.

You nod until your head is close to rolling off. “Yes, yes Sammy please.”

Sam grins. You feel it for an instant, then his cheek pulls away from your back and all you have left to read him by is the needy, carnal noises he’s making. All at once he’s drawing out further than he had before. You’re almost empty for a whole sob-worthy breath, which Sam makes up for with every ounce of his being.

For what has to be three glorious hours, Sam leans back to fuck you in powerful, even strokes, filling you to the brim every time, and filling the room with the thick, wet sound of his cock pounding into you. You repay him the only way you can, and—get—noisy.

You moan. You wail. You mewl, pretty much every time Sam’s hips snap up into your ass. You pant hard through it all, begging him in soft whines to f-fuck me, fuck me, p-please, Sam and to go deeper, baby—uhnn, more more more…! From there you’re on autopilot, letting loose even the most primal noises that Sam gets out of you. He is very, very good at his task, so you color the room with every erotic syllable under the sun. A porn studio would hire the two of you without even entering the room. Sam especially, but you might be biased since every time you sigh his name he drives in a little harder.

Indescribable pleasure follows even his tiniest movements. You absorb every pump with nothing but desperate enthusiasm, spreading your legs further, curling your back, and digging your fingers into the cushions for any sort of leverage at all. Just a few minutes pass until your limit is a trembling boulder of knots in your gut, but still Sam’s nowhere near finished yet. Slick coats your thighs and Sam's cock, you cry at every thrust, your body twitches and shudders all over, but he's still not there.

He slows. The brush of his lips against your ear and the wisp of his breath set your nerves on fire. “You’re gonna finish first, but tha’—that’s okay, baby,” Sam reassures, and works your poor swollen clit even harder, choking a string of thready moans from you. “Wanna feel your pretty pussy cum all over my dick.”

“Oh fuck,” you whine.

(Tomorrow, you’re going to wake up and wonder where the hell he got that dirty mouth from. Somebody needs to clean it out with soap.)

It’s as Sam’s laying sloppy kisses on your throat that his prediction comes true. The tissue in your body pulls taut, winding tight, tighter, curling around the epicenter of pleasure, toward him. You expect Sam’s thrusts to take a fierce turn. Instead, you’re treated to the same thorough, determined pace that got you here in the first place—the same pace that is currently jellifying your insides and reducing you to tears on this teeny bed. If the percussive slapping of skin on skin wasn’t enough to wake up the entire planet, then the vicious slam of the bedframe putting a new dent in the wall would certainly do the job. Somehow you hear it all past your pulse thundering in your ears. The arm hooked behind you to rake a hand through Sam’s hair bobs with each thrust, and your leg trapped in Sam’s hold bounces on beat. All you can do is scrape out broken gasps, until the tossing waves of heat and lust and power twisted in your belly have built too high—and all things that go up must inevitably come crashing down.

“That’s my girl,” Sam slurs, squeezing your tits in both hands. He rolls his hips into you and coos, “Just like that… take what you need, baby, it’s okay…”

Like last time, Sam fucks you through it. You’re scooped up in his arms and squeezed tight, tight enough to be drawn into Sam’s body and absorbed. The hot, gorgeous drags of friction against the sensitive walls of your cunt slow, but Sam never draws out, burying himself deep and soaking up every wild clamp of your pussy. There’s something fucking spectacular about having something to clench down on. Sam is that perfect something, vieny and thick and still fucking hard.

You cum on him in long rippling rushes of wet heat that feel downright unrealistic, otherworldly—exaggerated, maybe, by the fact that you fucking—black—out!

It must only be a few beats later that you come out of it, but the fact remains that Sam Winchester made you cum so hard you passed out, and you’re going to have to live with that for the rest of your life. You’re already starting to realize that Sam is the best lay you’re ever going to have, period, and the dull happy throb of your orgasm hasn’t even left your body yet. Sam hasn’t even left your body yet.

Wait, fuck. He’s still hard.

…This could be. This could be very good.

Fueled by hormones, sweat, and adrenaline, you pull off him and roll the rest of the way onto your belly. During all the crazed fucking, you and Sam had migrated halfway down the bed. You crawl to the top as sexily as you’re able, stuff your cheek against the closest pillow, and wiggle your cum-soaked ass in the air just for him, open for his taking. Your face could start the whole bed on fire, but you feel more alluring than embarrassed.

“C’mon, Sammy,” you taunt, and throw him a mean grin, “gimme the big finish.”

Sam sucked in a deep breath from his nose, probably preying for strength. A dirty smile touched his face. “You’re… you’re amazing, _____.”

Feeling like it, you turned your face over onto the other side of the pillow and tempted him with another mesmerizing ass wiggle. Sam was up on his knees in an instant. You should’ve known that Sam, the addict, would instantly take the chance to shove his face between your legs. The only warning you get is his massive hands clamping down on your calves to hold you still, then a hot, silky tongue swipes once through your folds for a taste. You haven’t finished squealing when Sam’s weight saddles up behind you, and the heavy shape of his cock starts to rut between your legs.

“Sorry,” Sam hums, not sorry at all, “Needed a taste of you.”

Stars above, he doesn’t hesitate to get handsy with you, too, taking two broad handfuls of your ass-cheeks. Your ass sits so nicely against his hips that you start to wonder if soulmates are real. Because Sam must be yours, fitting into you like a key and teasing you open like a master lockpicker. Once you’re where Sam wants you, he bobs your ass back until his tip has room to part your folds, and after that you’re both brought home into sparkling, slippery, blinding pleasure. He digs his fingers into your ass and pulls you right on him, filling your pussy to the hilt, like always. Key. Lock. Click click click.

“Yes,” you and Sam hiss together.

“Fuck,” Sam adds. “You should see yourself like this. You look so stuffed, baby, squeezing down on me.”

“Feel so stuffed,” you flirt back, wiggling into him.

This angle is different than the last, exaggerating, as Sam immediately starts in on his pace from before, how thick his cock is. He curls his fingers around your waist and beats in hard, pulling on your still-sparking overstimulated wires from last time. Every joint in your body locks ramrod straight, overwhelmed with brief flashes of too much too much. Your pussy clenches helplessly around him, but Sam brings you over it with a few well-placed stirs of his hips. In no time you’re mewling for him like you were before, emboldened by your first round.

You get your nails into Sam’s sculpted ass and drag him deeper, faster, urging him on the end of a moan, “Fuckin’ take it, Sammy—mhhnn, take what—what you need, Sam, yes, so good—”

This is exactly what Sam needs to hear. You’re scooped up around the middle, just like before, and Sam crushes his face into your back, spooning you close as he brings himself closer and closer to where he needs to be. Your hands can’t get enough of him, smoothing down his vieny arms and squeezing his hand against your belly. The picture the two of you must make is obscene on unimaginable levels. Sam, latched onto you like a parasite and reaming you for his release. You, smushed under him and loving it, digging your ass up into him for more. All the sweat-twisted blankets shoved to the floor. Sam’s hips canting your thighs apart. The worn-smooth slope of his palms, squeezing your tits and your tummy and your waist in achy handfuls.

Finally, Sam’s hoarse choked panting cuts off with a sharp breath. His hips putter into you for the last time, then still. Sam spills into the condom, shuddering against you from head to toe, and slowly… the two of you collapse into each other… panting and panting until your breathing syncs up. Sam’s chest goes up. You suck in a breath. His chest goes out, and you deflate right with him.

He doesn’t get up and you don’t ask him to. As the haze of sex starts to clear from the room (as much as it can, anyway), the chill of the mountainside creeps in behind it, and the hottest thing around for miles is easily the giant, naked Sam Winchester in your bed. Wrapped up in him and as warm as can be, you wonder if he’s as close to passing out (again) as you are.

But no. Suddenly, Sam’s up on his hands, and there’s only two possible reasons why.

“Didn’t get to kiss you as I finished,” he complained.

Smushed into your pillow, you tell him, “I think you have two addictions.”

Regardless, you roll onto your back so Sam can lay one on you. Since your soul is officially back in your body, you’re more aware than ever of the aches and bruises you’ve earned, not to mention a few sets of pomegranate-purple fingerprints. After a few stunning kisses from Sam, you’re still not sure that all of that actually happened. You touch his face and pinch his cheeks plenty of times, but all he does is look at you extra dreamily. Still doesn’t seem real.

Of course, being a gentleman, he decides to prove it to you.

“Speaking of my other addiction…” Sam lays a playful hand on your belly, “I know I wound you up a bit back there. Can I take care of you one more time? Please?”

“Hmm…” You pretend to think, grinning to yourself. “Man. I just can’t say no to you, Sammy…”

_

Two weeks later, you’re crammed in a teeny car instead of a teeny cabin, riding down a back road in rural Texas the Dean way—blowing by road signs at sixty miles an hour, windows down and music up. Sam’s shotgun. You’re content to sit behind him, catching his eye in the side-mirror as he pretends to hunt around newspapers for a new case. His hair flutters in the wind, outlining his face in the most enchanting way.

“I don’t know how the hell the two of you stayed up there the whole week!” Dean hollers over his Lynyrd Skynyrd tape, which he could turn down whenever he wants to. He throws you an unenvious look from the driver’s seat, “You must’a been bored out of your fuckin’ gourds!”

You’re honestly surprised that Dean didn’t automatically assume sexy shenanigans occurred at the cabin. Sam doesn’t move to answer, deeply engrossed in his reading. Where Dean can’t see, you curl your fingers into the hair at the back of Sam’s neck and caress his scalp, which earns you a look that promises that sexy shenanigans can happen anywhere. They can happen in motel rooms. Click. Even Impalas, when Dean’s gone. Click click click.

You shrug at Sam’s brother, shouting over the music with an unsubtle grin. “We entertained ourselves!”

_

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

READ PART TWO.

[sunnysideprincess]

Ao3 is down so here's something spicey

It takes Tony three tries to finally admit to Steve that he has slept with both Barnes and Wilson. Individually. Back in days of yore when he was known to be a loose canon.

In his defense, he was high and in mourning for the first. That and he didn't even know it was the fucking Winter Soldier he was riding relentlessly through his clouded mind. At least not until years decades later when Romanoff told him ", hey your parents didn't die in a car accident and here's the guy who was brainwashed into killing them". It was morbid how fast Tony recognised him as the man who he got high and sly with and not as Hydra's darling puppet.

With Wilson it was a little more complicated. It had been him doing last minute check on the wings for the Falcon project. It had been him, young and aching to prove himself to the big leagues, versus this cock-sure newbie with a sharp tongue. He'd been down on his knees before nightfall.

Now, he loves Steve. He loves him soft and tender, and also like a raging fire storm.

But god damn it, he also yearns for Sam's heated, knowing gaze travelling down his back. He aches for Barnes and his cold, sharp eyes digging into his skin.

He thinks it's selfish.

He thinks it could be because he's still a spoiled rich brat under all the glitz and glamour.

"So you and Sam? And Bucky?"

Tony nods. It took him three tries but he finally spilled the tea. Or rather a generous amount of spiced curry all over the carpet.

"Do they know?"

"Yeah. Wilson, he ah... We didn't exchange names, but... Yeah, a goatee and age don't make much of a disguise."

"And Buck?"

"He does. Now. But he didn't remember until you know-" B.A.R.F. he doesn't add. Seems like an off-putting word to utter in this situation.

"Right."

They sit on the opposite ends of the bed. And Tony lets him mull over his thoughts.

Whatever he wants, Tony will try his best to give it to him. Space. Apology. Time. Comeuppance.

Whatever.

Tony loves Steve that much.

Only, Steve doesn't ask for any of those things.

What he asks for instead is:

"Can I watch?"

Well...

He does love Steve that much.

[bluemoonwolf17]

Lucifer damn! I have gone down a rabbit hole of DP x DC Au's, and no. I'm not mad about this! (OK, that's a tiny lie. I have three docs of TFP fandom that I need to finish) But anyway, I've had this idea, and yes, imma type it out since I have nothin' better to do anyway.

Also, this was loosely inspired by this amazin' writer Space-Dreams-World

And this is the thin' that inspired my dumbass to write Here!

Oh, and before I forget, I don't precisely remember how the comics go, so I'll probably just pull stuff outta my ass and call it a day (But hey, that's what Au's are for), but if it bothers you sorry, there's waaaay too much Batman lore and don't get me started on the Re-boots!

(I hope I didn't butcher your original idea too much, but I did say your writings loosely inspired this!)

___________

Danny, after comin' out to his parents that he's Phantom, didn't go too hot, but hey! he has multiple plans! He just didn't want to use this one...After all, who wants to live in a new dimension? He's also glad that he waited until he turned twenty-one so that he could actually leave.

Thanks to Sam siphonin' money outta her parent's money for him for years and Tucker makin' a new identity for him, a bonus is that if he went to a different dimension, it still worked!

In the end, it's better than bein' on a table in the GIW labs after his Mom turned him to said government, But it's actually not that bad. He met a cool guy named Thomas Wayne, who is really chill (Also not bad-lookin). He's been In this world for probably three years now.

He met Thomas a couple of months after he dropped into this world and set up his new name, Daniel (Danny) Nightingale. He even met his wife, Martha Wayne, And he moved into their place two years ago after he had a break-in. And it's been goin' great at this point. He's probably bein' healed hostage by both Waynes and Alfred. He's cool with it, tho!

They were even cool with him bein' a half-ghost and the King of the infinite realms, and why they found out? It was Skulker's fault. I mean, come on, who comes in at dinner and claims that he wants your pelt on his wall...Oh, wait! Skullker did. Yeah, it wasn't fun explainin' that it's just how he greets Danny after all these years and that he just wanted to have a friendly spar.

Then, one day, the Waynes learned somethin' that broke Danny's heart. Martha and Thomas were havin' a hard time gettin' pregnant they later learned that it was because Thomas was infertile.

One day, Both Martha and Thomas asked him a favor. They asked if he would be okay with helpin' them get pregnant. He's not gonna lie. It was a shocker, but he understands that he does look like Thomas a bit, and people have even called them brothers.

It also helped him out when he told them that he didn't mind helpin' them out, and since they were on the topic, he said to them that he had a little crush on both of them. They both blushed red as a tomato and told him they felt the same. They didn't really understand how it worked.

Yes, he did explain that more than one person could be in a relationship that it was called Polyamory and that he has experience with it. He dated a girl and a guy simultaneously before leaving his universe, and it worked out in the end. He started to date both of the Waynes, and Martha got pregnant with a baby boy!

All three of them were over the moon with that news, and after baby Bruce was born, both Thomas and Martha decided that he was a Wayne now, so officially, he's now Danny Nightingale-Wayne, but to outsiders, he's still just Nightingale.

Even then, the only person who knows is Alfred. When Bruce was learnin' to talk and ended up callin' him Da, he told them he was fine just bein' Bruce's Godfather or uncle. That didn't go well, so Danny is Pa, and Thomas is Dad.

Bruce didn't understand why he couldn't call Danny Pa out in public or around friends until Danny sat him down and explained that it was a secret that he was his Pa and to the world, he was just his Godfather and if anyone knew that he's was his Pa it could be bad for the family.

After the talk, Danny somewhat made a game out of it that Bruce was a super secret spy and that it was his job to protect the family (I haven't really thought of this, but I thought it would be cute) And Bruce did keep it a secret until his Mom and Dad where killed.

Danny was supposed to go with them to the movies until the Observants demanded that he return to the infinite realms for a council meetin'. While Danny was tryin' not to freeze every observant in the room for bein' straight up annoyin', he heard Bruce scream for his Mom and Dad. He then listened to his pained hiccups for his Pa to come and help them.

Danny froze. The room he was in got much colder as his core demanded him to protect his son, and he was also cryin' for his lover's death. Ice shards spread out in the room, makin' the occupants yell out in shock at what their King had done. Danny then stood up, and with a protective/pained growl, he tore open a portal and went to his son, leavin' the room in chaos.

He couldn't stop the pained whimpers from his mouth when he got there. His son, his little Galaxy, was cryin' over his parent's bodies. Danny's brightest Nebulas, his lifeline after he left his old home, was dead. Without a second thought, Danny de-transformed and quickly grabbed Bruce and held him close.

Bruce quickly grabbed onto his Pa and bawled his eyes out, sayin' how he was sorry that he couldn't save them, how he tried to protect them, how his shield failed, and that he couldn't heal them as Danny taught him.

(I think Bruce, while not bein' as ghostly as Danny, still could do more than the average liminal could. He would have a small ghost core. So he could technically make shields, and I like to think that Danny learned how to push his rapid healin' onto others and started to teach Bruce when he started to show signs of bein' a bit ghostly)

Danny shushed him and told him that he tried his best and that was all that mattered while havin' tears drip down his face. That was how the police found the two Danny sittin' on his knees while huggin' the cryin' Bruce into his chest, tryin' to hide the poor boy from the world.

Most people did accuse Danny of killin' the two until Bruce screamed at them, sayin' that his Godfather loved his parents and that he would rather hurt himself than harm his parents. Alfred also spoke up, sayin' that Danny has never tried to harm the Waynes and even pushed them out of the way if anythin' harmful ever came close to the family.

They dropped the accusation a week later after the police did indeed find out that Danny was nowhere near the scene of the crime, that he was at the airport gettin' back from somewhere, and that the only reason why Danny found them was because Thomas sent him an SOS and their location. (He's grateful that Tucker taught him how to hack)

After everythin' calmed down and Danny had full custody of Bruce, he spent most of his time in the manor with Bruce and Alfred, only goin' to the realms if he absolutely had to, and he started to teach Bruce more about his ghostly side per Bruce's request.

Bruce took more to the sneaky part of the ghost side. Danny also suspected that Bruce might have a shadow core or somethin' related to darkness. Bruce did have fun. He Bruce would try and sneak up on his Pa and Alfred. Danny suspected Alfred knew when Bruce was around and tryin' to get a drop on him. It wouldn't surprise Danny if it were true.

Everythin' was as normal as could be...Until Bruce went missin', Danny almost destroyed the manor with ice. Alfred did manage to calm him down after a while. Danny was heartbroken that he couldn't find anythin' for him or Alfred, but he could tell that Bruce was fine.

About a week after Bruce disappeared, he had no choice but to go back to the infinite realms for short to long periods of time as the Obervents demanded since his son disappeared and since Danny knew that he was safe somewhere in the dimension.

Yeah, he wasn't really pleased with that demand, but then again, messin' with those floatin' eyeballs bastards is good, but messin' with them durin' a meetin'? Even better, and hey, at least he got his frustration out.

At this point, it was probably a good couple of years since Bruce disappeared, and he did have a lot of fun pissin' off the Observents durin' one of the Obervent's "informative" meetings when he felt a pull on his core. Oh? A summon? It's been ages since the last.

When he let himself get pulled toward his "summoner" (and probably pissin' off the eyeball bastards even more), he found himself in a room with a summonin' circle under him, one that he noted didn't bind him just summoned him. He looked around the room and noticed that it had windows that showed space.

Before he would let himself delve into one of his obsessions, he looked down and almost groaned out when he saw a blond man with a trench coat. Great...John Constantine, the man who sold his soul to every damn thin' in the infinite realms, has summoned him? Mann, he already has 75% of his soul.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to say somethin' whitty towards the man, he felt somethin'. He felt his core try and pull him towards somethin'. Danny moved his eyes from the blondie and saw somethin' black move more into the shadows.

Danny narrowed his eyes. That action was so familiar to Danny. He then raised his hand and snapped his finger, lightin' up the room he was in with green flames. He heard some alarmed shouts and a curse from the blondie, but he paid no attention to them. His eyes were on the man in the black cowl.

The man noticeably stiffened, and a sheepish smile spread on his face. What? It couldn't be. Danny floated down to the ground and walked over to the man. He could tell that the man was fidgetin' more the closer he got to him until Danny stood before him. The man was a bit shorter than him, but then again, he was 8 feet tall in this form and 7 feet in his human one.

He could feel the emotions comin' off of him: anxiety, family, and happiness. Danny felt his eyes whidden and a lump in his throat form it was! He felt water buildin' up in the corners of his eyes. He then spoke out two words he thought he might never hear again.

"Little Galaxy?" he crocked out. The man stiffened for a second, then relaxed. "Yeah, it's me, Pa," Bruse said with a smile, his voice crackin' a little. Oh, ancients! His son! he found his son, his little Galaxy.

Danny fell to his knees, grabbed Bruce, and hugged him just like he would when Bruce was younger. Bruce quickly wrapped his arms around Danny and curled into his chest.

"Oh, my little Galaxy! Where have you been!? And why in the realms would you just disappear like that! You gave me and Mister A a heart attack!" Danny scolded.

He could feel the guilt off of Bruce in waves. "I'm sorry, Pa, I just-" Danny sighed when Bruce couldn't finish his sentence. Danny understood he wanted to get revenge for his Mom and Dad. He truly understood. After all, he tried to find the person but never could finish findin' them before the council called on him.

Danny was about to speak before a throat clearin' got his attention. He looked over to the sound and saw a woman. By the looks of it, she was an Amazonian, and right next to her was a man with an S on his chest, a Kryptonian? They looked calm, but he could see the subtle way they held themselves. They were goin' to attack if they saw him as a threat.

Danny smiled. It seemed that Bruce got himself some good friends...? that's not the correct term, so he looked a bit closer at the two. He then promptly lost his shit. His laugh startled everyone. When he finally calmed down, he turned to his son, wiggled his eyebrows, and tilted his head towards the two somewhat behind him.

Bruce coughed into his fist, and Danny would bet that he was blushing from the tip of his ears down to his neck. Subtley nodded his head. Danny snorted, then stood up and brought Bruce to his side. Yeah, he's not lettin' his son go any time soon, thank you very much! "Ahem, please forgive my rudeness." Danny tilted his head down a bit towards the two.

Blondie decided to speak up. "What in the blood hell?" Danny snorted at the man. "Ah, again, forgive. I haven't seen this kid in a while," he said to the room.

Bruce coughed into his hand. Everyone turned their heads towards him, "Justice League, If I may, this is Phantom or, as I like to call him, Pa." Danny tried not to laugh. Bruce seemed a little troublemaker even though he was all grown up.

Everyone in the room froze until the Kryptonian spoke up. "Batman, what the hell? I thought that...." he questioned, then trailed off at the end. Danny snorted Batman? Oh, he's totally bringin' that up soon, but first...

Danny put a hand to his core and fanned hurt. "Oh, the pain! My son never told his friends about me? I'm betrayed!" he floated onto his back, playin' hurt.

The woman snorted into her hand, and Bruce groaned quietly. "Oh, this makes so much sense now," Constantine muttered. While still on his back, Danny raised an eyebrow and then looked toward Bruce. The Man subtly tilted his head to show that he also had no clue what the man in the trench coat meant.

"What is the supposed to mean, Constantine?" the Amazonian woman spoke to the man.

Blondie just sighed and took a flask out of his pocket and took a large gulp, then spoke, "I thought that you could tell Bats has more... Supernatural tendencies, so it makes sense if Bats grew up around the King of ghosts." he told the League "I'm just more curious how he met him" Constantine sighed.

"How he/I met him/me? We met when I/he was born!" Danny and Bruse spoke at once.

Constantine spat his drink out. "Wait, what!?... Y'know what, never mind, So KIng Phantom knew Bat's parents then when he was born became a liminal, " Constantine muttered. Danny then righted himself and wrapped his arm around Bruce once more.

"Actually, you're wrong, Galxay here is part ghost!" Danny informed the League with a Smile, Showin' too much inhuman teeth. After some silence, the woman spoke up. "If I may, what does that mean, your Highness?" she spoke calmly.

"Ah, please just call me Phantom! It also means that Galaxy is 3/4 Part ghost? Maybe a bit more? He does feel a bit different than the last time I saw him, but then again, his core was still growin'," he said, trailin’ off at the end.

Constantine threw his hands up in the air and then froze. He slowly looked at the two. "Wait...Bats, does that mean that Phantom is your Birth father?" Constantine asked with his hands twitchin' like they wanted to grab somethin'.

Every head turned towards Batman and Danny, and the two looked at each other and then at the Leauge, "Yes," they spoke as one. "HOW!?" most of the League shouted. Danny shrugged. "Eh, this was before I dated' both his parents. We learned his other Dad was infertile, and that was sort of the openin' that we needed to explain that we three liked each other. Ultimately, it worked out fine, so a win is a win!".

The League turned their heads to Batman and said the man nodded yes, that what came out of the ghost King's mouth was true.

That day, the Justice League was out of order and needed a proper reboot, and yes, Danny did indeed have the time of his un-dead life. Afterward, he even got to meet his son's lovers.

While the four were together, Danny brought up that poly and vigilantism must run in the family or somethin' so off-handedly that it had Clark and Diana laughin'. Bruce just grumbled at his Pa.

After that shit show of a reunion, Bruce took Danny back to the manor. He caught up with Alfred, and they made a plan that would remind Bruce that if he ever disappeared again and scared the shit out of them again, he was goin' to regret it. Bruce havin' no clue as to what they were talkin' about and frankly didn't want to know promised himself never to piss off his two parents again.

(Bruce still sees Alfred as a father figure. Danny did an excellent job bein' home every day, but sometimes the Observents won in their crusade.

They demanded that Danny be present in their meetings at least once a week, and of course, they could and would go on for days about their topic, even if it was a stupid one, just to keep him there.

And if some of them got put on ice just by suggestin' that he left his son to the mortals to be raised, it was no one's business but Danny's.)

__________

Okay, so this was supposed to be a bit longer, and it would have Danny meetin' Dick and then later Jason, but I decided to split it in half-ish, and if the people want to see the rest of my crappy writin', then I might share it.

I also mainly wanted to get this out and see how it went cause I am very happy with how most of this turned out. I am also runnin' out of motivation so~ but hey, I hoped you liked it!

Part 2 to this shit show!

[jakeyt]

Covet: Chapter 8 (Part 1 of 2)

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x f!Reader

Covet Summary:

Life was good. No, life was great. 

Was. 

Until.

Jake Kiszka crashed into the picture.

You welcomed him into your life—your home. 

Yes, he was your best friend’s twin. But, he was also the one who would end up disrupting your whole world with his attitude, his troubles, and the annoyingly natural way he lured you in. 

Jake Kiszka came with so much you really didn’t want.

At least that’s what you tried to convince yourself.

Warnings: MINORS DNI (18+); smut (!!); unprotected sex (p in v); vivid recollection of forgotten childhood trauma; feelings of betrayal; jealousy; anxiety; panic attacks; mentions of therapy; mentions of an absent parent; sam is an idiot; abandonment issues; light mention of being under the influence of weed (lmk if i missed anything that is triggering to you!)

Chapter Word Count: 16.6k+

-🌼🌼🌼-

a/n: much to my disdain, this chapter has to be chopped in half. :((( ugh. the last part of this chapter has been a mf monster to write, and since i already finished up this entire first half today (a little more than half, actually), i figured i might as well post it. so, without further ado, here is the first part of chapter 8. . .

thank u to my girls @joshym & @alwaysonthemend for putting up w my ass. you two are the realest aaaand ilysm 😭

Please enjoy the playlist as you read 🖤

-🌼🌼🌼-

Two Weeks Later

Friday, August 26, 2022

The wound-up ball of tension in your tummy was about to let loose. 

His thrusts were getting desperate, his heavy breaths were mixing with yours. And you couldn’t help but look between you, where your bodies met. . . it made your heart beat even more rapidly in your chest, seeing you connected in such a way. It looked so right. You felt full. You felt whole. In your drug-induced haze, your thoughts couldn’t help but wander as you thought of the final step to feeling close to him. 

Fuck.

As soon as the thought entered your brain, you had to throw your head back in ecstasy. It was almost too much to imagine. 

Your mind was so fucking cloudy– nothing sounded better in that moment than to feel him fully.

You wanted it. Needed it. And you knew this time might very well be the last. And you had to feel him in that way. Just once. You’d get a Plan-fucking-B in the morning. It was worth it to feel him in that way. 

Just this once. This one last time. It would be the perfect ending to this beautiful chapter of your life. 

-🌼🌼🌼-

Present Day

Saturday, August 13, 2022 

“Yeah. Not too bad,” you shook your head, as if it were nothing. But you knew your expression was still sunken and weird.

He studied your face for a bit after you’d spoken, his expression said he wanted you to say more. 

But you weren’t going to, and he knew it.

“What if I make you dinner, then we watch a movie or something?” He requested, his brow raising at the prospect. 

He’d do what now? Your tummy did somersaults at the idea of him taking care of you. . .and especially like that. Cooking for you?

Surely he had an ulterior motive. 

“What do you want in return?” You asked suspiciously, your tears evaporating as you squinted at him. 

“What do you mean?”

“You want sex after you cook me dinner or something? An even trade?”

He blanched at that, drawing his head back a bit to observe you. “Even trade?” He scoffed, scratching his chin. “What the fuck even happens inside that brain of yours, y/n?”

Going into defense mode, you placed your hands on your hips to square up. “I’m still learning you, Jake. I don’t know what to expect from you.”

“The worst, per usual,” he said, rolling his eyes and flicking at the tip of his nose with his index. “Your favorite thing to assume about me is the worst. Always.”

“Not true,” you scoffed, flushing. He wasn’t wrong. . .you were regularly unfair towards him. But. . . “You haven’t exactly been trustworthy the entire time I’ve known you. Think back.”

“I don’t have to. I know I was an asshole and I wish like hell that I could take it back,” he revealed, sending earnest eyes your way, swiping a sweet thumb across your cheek, taking time to appreciate your left cheekbone. Then, he moved to bashfully tuck his hair behind his ears, taking a moment to untie the hair tie from his finger to pull his hair into a bun. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

You got momentarily sidetracked by watching the action of him pulling his hair up, suddenly wanting nothing more than to run your fingers through it, just as you liked to do.

Then you noticed him, waiting for a response as you drew your eyes from him. 

Clearing your throat, you refocused your thoughts. “Don’t worry about it,” you brushed off, not wanting to harp on it for too long, for fear of putting your foot in your mouth. “It’s whatever. Really.”

“No, it’s not. I wasn’t kind to you at the beginning, and I’m sorry,” he continued, looking you directly in the eye, showing sincerity in his deep brown irises. “I was going through a lot and took it out on you and that wasn’t fair.”

Nodding, you took the bait. “You’re right. It wasn’t fair. But,” you walked a couple steps forward, closer to him. Then, reaching a hand out, you held the side of his face. Suddenly, it didn’t matter what an ass he’d been before. He’d proven that he wasn’t truly like that. And you understood hurt feelings making a person act irrationally. “I get it. I’ve been through some shit, too, and I reacted in ways I shouldn’t have.” Smirking, you looked past him and thought back to your therapy sessions from years ago, reciting a few of your counselor’s words that’d stuck with you. “‘All that matters is that you see it, own it, and then grow from it.’ That’s what my therapist always told me when I was a kid, anyway.”

Swiveling your eyes back up to see his expression, your heart skipped a beat. His eyes had softened significantly at your vulnerability, seeming to take your words in. His eyebrows dipped and lips tilted in concentration. 

It always took you by surprise just how much his eyes showed his emotions. And how interested he always seemed in the things you would say.

“Very wise words,” was his response before he reached out to grip your bicep, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Then he was moving towards the kitchen, calling back to you. “I’m gonna go make some stir fry. Chicken?”

You watched him leave, wanting to follow him wherever he went. 

But you didn’t. 

After responding in agreement to his suggestion, you made your way to the bathroom to take a quick shower and wind down before dinner.

-🌼🌼🌼-

The next morning, you woke up, curled in a fluffy pallet of blankets on the floor. 

Both of you, still in sweats. You, in a t-shirt, him, wearing no shirt (fuck yeah). 

No sex had happened the night before. Jake’d thought it would be a good idea to do dinner and a movie, but you’d had the bright idea to make a pile of blankets to lay on to watch the movies. And, of course, you’d let yourself fall asleep next to him. 

And. . . As much as you knew you shouldn’t admit it, it was fucking wonderful just falling asleep next to him. The act was so domestic that it should scare you. . . But all it did was make you want more. 

More you couldn’t have. 

But for now, you’d pretend you could.

Your head was resting on the same pillow as Jake’s, abandoning yours in your sleep for the sake of being closer to him. 

Though, rather than pulling yourself away, you did the complete opposite. You rolled onto your belly and wrapped yourself around him, one arm over his abdomen, a hand splayed on his chest and one of your legs tangled between his.

You knew it wasn’t a good idea to let yourself feel so tied to him in the midst of your sadness. It completely abandoned the idea of not being emotionally dependent on him. . .

But you also weren’t so oblivious to not see that you’d broken a few rules already. 

And, after your anxiety attack (because that’s exactly what it had been) last night, you decided it was better to just let yourself have this time with him now and not worry too much about the rules.

Rather than stressing about making sure you were following every fucking rule, you figured it would be worth it to appreciate the time you still did have with him. Because this wasn’t going to last forever, you felt it was a good idea to make the most of it while you could. 

It was going to be gone soon (too soon), and you weren’t going to take for granted the time you had left.

So, when you woke up, instead of immediately initiating sex, you took time to admire him. 

You propped your chin on the hand you’d put on his chest. Trying to memorize every freckle on his handsome face, tilted to the side, perfect for your line of sight. You studied him . . .his features, sharp, yet delicate. His tanned skin was perfectly sunkissed from spending the day in the sun at Sam’s AirBnb. His pretty lips, partially open like always. . . 

You’d learned that he didn’t snore a bunch. But, every now and then, like this morning, he’d let out the occasional, slight snore in his sleep. 

Usually, snoring of any kind annoyed you. Elsie was the worst snorer in the history of all mankind, and it always aggravated you. And any man you’d ever slept with who did it was always immediately woken up and kicked out of your bed.

But when Jake did it, it was nothing but endearing to you. It was something that he did that just made him him. 

You pressed your body closer to his- he was so warm. It felt so overwhelmingly natural to be so close to him.

You watched the way his eyes fluttered behind his eyelids as he slept, wondering what he dreamt about. Did he dream? And were they vivid like yours? 

Then, you absentmindedly ran a thumb lightly against his cheek, mesmerized by how soft his skin felt beneath your fingertips. 

Just as your pointer finger went to trace the cupid’s bow on his upper lip, he started stirring, showing telling signs of waking up. You stopped yourself before he could possibly wake up with your damn finger on his lip. 

Don’t want him to think I’m a fucking weirdo, you thought, resting your hand, again, on his chest. And I definitely don’t want him to know I was watching him sleep either. That would be embarrassing as hell.

This time, you laid your cheek on top of it, deciding to feign sleep for the duration of time it would take for him to wake up.

Not too long after, you felt a big breath lift your hand, then you heard his voice. 

“I know when you’re watching me,” he commented, his voice deep from just having woken up. 

You didn’t say anything, just lifted your head, an apologetic look on your face as you opened one eye at him in defeat. 

He had a soft smile resting on his lips.

“It’s cute,” he said, reassuring you, sitting up a bit underneath you to lean his head against the couch, balancing on an elbow. He reached a hand up to come gently through your hair with his fingers. 

“You don’t think it’s weird?”

He shook his head, his face thoughtful as he continued to look at you. “Not at all,” he replied. Then, a smirk grew on his lips. “The morning after we fell asleep in your bed—.”

“What?”

He raised a brow, as if to say ‘really?’ “When you fell asleep on the couch, I got you to lay down and try to sleep. Then, you yelled at me from your room—effectively freaking me out, by the way—and then asked me to sleep with you?”

You blushed, feeling stupid that you momentarily forgot. “Oh. Yeah.”

He raised his brows with a hum, the same grin appearing on his lips again. “I watched you the morning after. You slept later than me that morning, and I was so glad you did,” he watched his movements as he tucked a lock of bed-head hair behind your ear. 

“Why?” 

“Because you look so fucking ethereal when you sleep,” he said. “Not that you don’t all the time. . .but when you sleep? Dammit, you just look so peaceful. And I love that you feel that peace in those moments. Not all of the stress.”

It was your turn to hum in response, completely caught off guard by his kind words. You didn’t know why it still did surprise you to hear him say such things. It wasn’t out of character to hear sweet things leave his mouth, but it still felt like a gentle surprise anytime he did say something like that.

Then, something in your heart told you to open up. Let him in. 

And so, without considering anything else, you did. 

“You know, I don’t always sleep peacefully,” you commented, your hand now tracing circles on his chest. “That’s a sort of new thing. Good dreams. Peaceful sleep.”

His brow raised, questioning your words. 

“I haven’t always been able to sleep so well,” you started, apprehensively. But when his hand kept combing through your hair, and his eyes opened up to learn more, you decided it was safe. He was safe. You could share this. “There are things that happened in my past that caused a hell of a lot of pain, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve carried those painful things into my sleep with me. They’ve haunted me. Another thing my childhood therapist confirmed. The trauma caused me to have restless, terrible sleep.” You paused, remembering some of the nights you were too scared to be alone, sobbing and screaming in your bed, crying for help. Your eyes naturally watered at the memories, your voice wet with your next words. “Some fucking terrifying nightmares.”

You sniffled, trying to alleviate the oncoming tears. You didn’t want to cry in front of him two days in a row. But, here you were. Jake brushed more hair behind your ear, then put that arm behind his head to lean up. The other strong arm wrapped protectively around your waist. He massaged shapes with his thumb, into the hip he held. 

Your eyes closed on their own, relishing the feeling of him reacting so gently to you. 

They reopened when you heard him clear his throat. His deep chocolate irises were shadowed with concern. “You don’t have to talk about it,” he pointed out, continuing to rub your waist. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to tell me anything that may hurt you.”

You considered his words for a few seconds, but ultimately decided what you wanted to do.

“I want to tell you.”

“Okay. I want to listen.”

You’d only ever opened up about all of this to Elsie (because she was there), and then Josh when you became his friend. But the urge to tell Jake about all of it was far too overwhelming to ignore. It felt as though you had to tell him. 

“Where do I even begin?” You pondered aloud. “What do you want to know?”

He hummed, smooshing his lips together in thought for a few seconds, squinting his eyes in thought as he peered up to the ceiling. You tapped your fingers against his chest, waiting for his input. 

“When did the bad dreams start? Can you pinpoint an age or anything?”

“After my mom left,” you replied, curling further into his body. 

He accepted your motion, encompassing you, keeping you close. 

“How old were you?” 

“I was ten. Left me sitting on the front porch as she left in a string of curse words. . . Blaming Els and me for all of it,” you stared into the space just past his head, thinking back on it. You felt brave revisiting it at this moment, for whatever reason. “I can’t recall everything she said that day or before, but what I do remember both from that day and before that day. . .,” you stopped, your face flinching a bit at the dark thoughts. “. . . It’s not good.”

Your skin crawled, and you weren’t liking the feeling. Needing to center yourself, you decided to look at him again to gauge his reaction. 

His face was rather relaxed, keeping a consistent air of calm to support you through your responses. “You doing okay?” He questioned, checking in. His brows dipped in concern for a moment, waiting for you.

Your lips lifted, back in the moment with him. 

This is the present time. He is what’s happening. The past is the past and I’m bigger than it, you recited. 

Some of the words were those advised by your childhood therapist. Truthfully, the lady had had some wise words. Jake’d been right when he’d come to that conclusion the night before.

A quiet, content smile was on your face when you responded. “Yeah. I promise. I want to tell you this.”

“Okay,” he replied, his voice quiet like your smile. “Who did you live with after?”

“My grandparents,” you said. “And Elsie.”

“Stayed with them until. . .?”

“Until I moved out to go to school at Pratt. When I moved here.”

“And you’re going to school for. . .?”

You grinned, appreciating his variation of questions. “Majoring in writing,” you groaned as the last word fell from your mouth. “And minoring in music.”

“Don’t like writing anymore?”

You sat on that for a second, then answered. “It’s not that I don’t like it. . . It’s that it’s not my passion,” you paused your motion on his chest and reached down to grab his hand that held your body. You lifted it up from under the fluffy blanket that covered you both. Holding his hand, you traced his calloused fingertips. “I admire how you went after your passion when you had the chance. I wish I’d gone after my own.”

He watched you, seeming to measure your words. “And yours is music, too.”

“Mhm. . . But not playing it,” you added. “Just listening to it– studying it. Learning more about it. I love writing, but I breathe those melodies.”

He smiled in response to that. “Me too. And I like that you feel that way, too,” he commented, letting your fingers play with his. “But who’s to say you couldn’t combine the two? Become a music journalist? A lyricist?”

For some reason, you’d never considered the latter. But it felt as though a fresh breath of air had been breathed into you. “I’ve never thought of being a lyricist, but that sounds. . .”

“Incredible?” He smiled. 

“Yeah,” you sighed. “I wonder how you get a job like that, though.”

You let go of his hand to fold both of yours on his chest, your chin on top of them. He moved his hand to encircle your waist again. “I’ll help you find something,” he assured. Your belly buzzed. The idea of him helping you with something so personal to you . . . it made you feel everything all at once. “Somewhere. You live in New York City. . .I’m sure the possibilities are endless.”

“I’m sure you’re correct,” you agreed, admiring the way his breaths would lift your chin, the way his bicep flexed as he moved the bent arm behind his head. 

A comfortable silence crept over the two of you, him so obviously watching you– admiring you. It couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. 

His next words confirmed it. 

“Even in the grayness of this morning, you shine so bright,” he said, almost absentmindedly. “You fucking glow, y/n. You’re just brilliant.”

Not sure what to even begin to say to that, all you could utter was, “Thank you.” The sound of tears in your throat, behind your response, was a surprise, though. 

“Has no one ever told you?”

“Well, Josh says sweet things like that. And Elsie is great at encouraging me, too. . . But hearing you say something like that. . . those words. It just feels good. I don’t know,” you shook your head, a tear falling to meet his tanned chest. “And no one has ever said those exact words to me, no.”

“You are all of that and more, my lo—,” he cleared his throat. “You are so many things wrapped in one, y/n. So many fantastic things.”

“Stop,” you sniffed, for the second time that morning. More tears fell onto his chest. “You don’t have to say things like that. I promise I’ll still want to have sex with you if you don’t,” you laughed, wiping your leftover tears. The words sounded funny (true, but still funny) as they left your mouth. 

“I want to tell you those things,” he said, firm in his response. “You deserve to hear those good things. Sex or not.”

“Thank you,” again, was all you could say. 

“But the sex is pretty good,” he smirked as he said the words, his eyes glinting mischievously as he skirted a hand up the back of your shirt, skating fingers along your bare back. His eyes found yours when he got closer to your shoulders. “No bra?”

“You know I don’t wear one when I sleep.”

“So I’m assuming you knew we were gonna fall asleep out here?” 

“Mhm.”

“And you still let it happen?”

I did. . . And even though I shouldn’t, I keep breaking all of my own stupid rules, you thought in defeat.

“Wanted it to,” you remarked.

He hummed, watching you with a curious look in his beautiful eyes. You knew he was most probably thinking the same thing as you. 

But, all he said next was, “Can I ask you more questions?”

“Yeah,” you whispered in the quietness of the morning. The rumbling of thunder outside, followed by the pitter-patter of rain droplets against the living room window made goosebumps grow on your skin. “Nothing better than a quiet, rainy morning.”

“You are correct,” he replied in an approving tone. “So. . .your mother. . . Is it okay if I ask about her?”

“Yes,” your lips quirked. “I’ve already told you as much, silly.”

“I know, I know. . . It’s just a lot, I’m sure.”

You nodded to confirm. “It is. But I want to share this with you.”

“Thank you.”

“For trauma dumping?” You giggled. 

“For trusting me,” he said, serious in his reply. His eyes flicked to every inch of your face, taking you in. His hand, now massaging the tension from your neck. 

Miraculous that he just seemed to know the place where your tension settled. 

Not that it wasn’t a common place for tension to reside. But you wondered if he’d noticed you favoring the bottom of your neck during tense situations, over time.

Your heart hammered at the intimacy of the moment. You were so close to just leaning up and kissing him, but you didn’t want to cut conversation short. It was too enjoyable for you. 

It felt so freeing.

Trying to bring you both back to the topic at hand, you inquired. “What was your question about my mom?”

“Oh, yes,” he refocused, his hand now moving up to massage the roots at the base of your head. More goosebumps grew at the sensation. “Do you still talk to her?”

“Uh, no. Haven’t even seen the woman since she left. She hurt me so bad back then. . .I’ve kind of closed off the fact that she even exists,” you said. “She wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s true. I’m just glad for the family I do still have,” you paused, deciding if you wanted to tack on the other words you were thinking. There was no reason not to, you’d already bared so much to him in a span of minutes. “Glad I have those people who want me.”

“I want you,” he wrapped a hand at the back of your neck, cupping the back of your head as one thumb rubbed over your pulse point. His eyes bore into yours, begging you to understand the words.

The next few moments were quiet and filled with everything left unsaid. What it was that remained unsaid, you didn’t know. Or maybe you did know.

He eventually let go, clearing his throat to show he was moving on. “Does Elsie feel the same? Closed off and all that?”

You blinked a couple times before responding. 

“Y-yeah. Pretty much. She and I are on the same wavelength about 98 percent of the time.”

“Imagine 100 percent of the time,” he blew out a breath, his eyes getting big as he stared off. 

“Twin life?”

He looked back at you, a grin on his pretty lips. “Twin life,” he confirmed. Pensiveness painted his features, then he spoke again. “Speaking of . . . Did you meet Josh at the record store?”

“Yes,” you responded. “Almost 4 years ago.”

“I’m jealous.”

“That I had that time with Josh while you missed him so bad?”

“Psh,” he said, rolling his eyes. “No. I’ve spent enough time with that fucker through the years,” he snickered, winking at you. “I’m jealous that he got all that time with you. Getting to know you while I was in Illinois, wasting away.”

Your tummy lit up with butterflies again. But you treaded carefully with this topic. You didn’t need him making any assumptions about Josh again.

There was no reason for him to be jealous. And honestly, you wanted to show him as much.  

“Well, you shouldn’t get too jealous,” you said, moving from laying down. You positioned your legs on either side of his hips, then sat your ass on the tops of his thighs, opening yourself up to him. 

He took in a sharp breath, and smoothed his hands over the tops of your thighs, then slipped his hands past the waistband of your sweats, giving your ass a generous squeeze.

“Why’s that?” He asked, his brow lifting in question. He brought himself up a little more, leaning against the couch. As he moved to sit up, he used his hands on your ass to push your crotch against his hardening cock. 

The wet arousal in your panties pressed against you. You gasped at the feeling. 

His lip curled to show his top row of perfectly straight, white teeth. 

So fucking handsome.

“Well,” you ground your hips against him, his head lolling back momentarily. He got back by bucking up into you, just the slightest bit. It caused a breathy moan to leave your lips. “He will never have me like this, for one,” you wrapped your arms around his neck, bringing his face closer to your chest. “I only want you like this, Jake.”

Fuck. That felt so genuine slipping from your lips. And you wouldn’t tell him this (you could barely admit it to yourself), but you really did only want him. Like, in general. Out of all other men, he was the only one you craved. 

When did that even happen?! Your incredulous thoughts could have taken over had he not effectively distracted you.

He moved his hands up under your shirt, abandoning your ass. His eyes were glued to your hardening nipples as his thumbs pressed into your tummy, massaging your hot skin. 

It was getting harder and harder to believe there’d been a time that you would have stopped this—out of fear and a bunch of shit. Leaving him on his own, and you sulking, feeling conflicted as hell.

Though, these days, you couldn’t leave him. 

There was nothing that could pull you away from him in moments like these.

(And that was a scary thought you could consider later.)

Your body was drawn to him, putty under his touch. Bending down the slightest bit, you curled your hands comfortably in his ever-growing locks. Your nose nestled into the part of his hair right behind his ear. One of your favorite parts of his body was that little crook behind his ear. You didn’t know why. . . 

But dammit— he always smelled so delicious. His cologne held hints of sandalwood and amber. . . And something so delectably Jake.

And God, you loved his hair. The citrusy smell of his shampoo. The softness of the locks. The length.

Fuck, the length.

Silly as it may’ve been, you were so glad he was growing it out. The longer it got, the more his heat scale increased. And at this point, he was getting dangerously hot.

His cock nudged against you, leaving nothing to the imagination underneath the layers of clothing. Anytime you’d move your hips to entice him, his cock throbbed beneath you, making your panties more and more uncomfortable with how wet they were. 

You felt his hands flatten, traveling up your tummy slowly. But just as he was about to touch your breasts, he switched directions, running his calloused fingertips down your back instead. 

“Asshole,” you whispered in his ear. You didn’t even have to look at him to know he was smirking. 

The little raspy laugh beneath you gave him away.

Your skin grew goosebumps at the sensation of his rough fingertips making soft shapes on your back. 

But you wanted his hands headed back in the direction they were before. 

Your nipples were blatantly expanding the fabric of your t-shirt, begging for him. 

And, when you pulled away to observe his face, he was already waiting for you, his eyes burning into yours, all the way down to your heart. 

Though. . .he didn’t stay there for long. He let his gaze travel back down to your breasts, his pupils dilated, filling his iris almost completely black. 

He looked hungry and your hips were moving of their own accord at that point. Every bit of him you got was making you need more, more, more. 

“I love your fucking tits,” he growled, wrapping one strong arm behind your back and effectively placing you beneath him. 

Your breath momentarily left your lungs, making you release a huge sigh as he arranged you so your back laid nicely against the soft blankets and pillows. 

“What do you like about them?”

He groaned, smoothing his hand up your stomach again. His hand cupped the underside of one breast. You sighed at finally feeling his hands where you wanted them.

“I love that they’re yours,” he started, reaching his thumb to rub and pinch at your left nipple. “I love that the color of your nipples is the same color as your pretty lips,” he lifted your shirt the slightest bit, sucking one bud into his mouth, kissing it like he would your mouth. Then, he replaced his mouth with his hand, squeezing your breast as you arched into his touch. 

Finally, he connected his mouth with yours, his bottom lip slipping between your lips to deepen it just a bit. You moaned into his mouth as he did yours. Then, he pulled away, leaning on his forearm. Switching between tits with one hand, he cupped the bottom of each, moving his hand under them enough to watch them jiggle. “And I love watching them bounce as I’m fucking you.”

“Shit, Jake,” you moaned, pushing yourself further into his hand. You were aching for him to be inside of you. “Fuck me so you can see what you like, baby.”

He sat up, slipped his sweats (there having been no underwear underneath, apparently) down his thighs, thick cock springing free. The sight made your belly swirl and your center wet with need. 

Once he was completely naked, he repositioned above you. 

But your skin was itching with the feeling of still being clothed. You needed to feel his warm skin against your own.

“Move,” you motioned for him to back up. You sat up as he took the hint, sitting back on his knees beside you.

His eyebrows wrinkled and his eyes grew worried. “Where are you go—?”

But he went silent as the t-shirt left your body and your bare chest flashed at him. And as you stripped yourself of the shirt, your boobs bounced a little, just as he liked. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, reaching for himself. You watched, your throat tightening, as he looked down at his shaft, his mouth falling open, just slightly, as he gave himself a couple of short, quick pumps. 

Dear God.

But he seemed dissatisfied.

And when you’d normally stop him and tell him to let you do it instead, you didn’t this time. 

But it seemed he still wanted your help.

You just sat in awe as he stretched his hand out to you. You were still as a statue as he gripped your chin, pulling it down the slightest bit. You followed his lead and opened your mouth more with his gesture. Then, you watched as he moved the hand, palm open, in front of your mouth. 

“Spit for me, baby,” he nodded at the hand in front of you. 

You didn’t argue, doing as you were told, heart racing as you spit in his hand. 

After you’d done what he wanted, he wrapped the hand around the base of his thick cock, giving himself a few long strokes from his skilled hand.

Though, as soon as he threw his head back with one particularly generous, tight-fisted move, you decided that it was officially past time to get naked.

You made quick work of your sweats, his eyes flicking up to watch you pull them off in a flurry. Then you hooked your fingers into your soaked underwear, getting them off as fast as possible.

You wanted to be the one to please, rather than his hand. 

You were growing jealous of the fist, as it held his pretty dick the way your pussy was aching to. 

When you were finally just as bare as he was, you laid on your back again. You spread one leg wide to open up for him, keeping the other flat, against your heap of blankets. In this position, he’d be able to see the bottom curve of your ass, your full breasts, and your slick pussy.

He didn’t see you, though, as he’d gone to focus on pleasuring himself, eyebrows drawn and whimpering a bit as he continued to watch his hand work at a steady pace. 

“Jake,” you called quietly, urging him to look at you and come to you. 

As soon as his name left your mouth, he looked up from where he was watching himself work his cock. After one hungry once-over from his dark eyes, he bit his lip.

“You ready?” You asked, slowly spreading both legs a little more for him, reaching two fingers to slide through your wet folds, shivering at the feeling of finally being touched. 

“Want me to eat your sweet pussy, baby?” He questioned, his voice a velvety rasp. 

Ready to please, his hand left his thick cock in order to move the short distance it took to be closer to you. 

“I want that pretty dick inside of me,” you responded, your voice exuding all of the need you felt running through your veins. “Now.”

And in a flash, he was on top of you again. His tip, damp from your saliva, nudged its way to the place it knew so well. 

Before any more words could be spoken, he pushed inside of you in one swift take. The two of you sighed in unison, relief flashing over his face, as you were sure it did yours, too.

He leaned both forearms on either side of your head, keeping his handsome face close to yours as he fucked you, thick cock stretching you well with each deliberate, hard thrust. 

His eyes were trained on your heaving tits, doing just what he wanted them to.

“I was starting to get jealous—,” you paused, whining with one particular snap of his hips, his dick hitting your secret spot. “Of-of that hand,” you said, your voice shaking on the words. 

His forehead was beaded with sweat already, ever-energetic in his pursuits—whether it be playing music or in the bedroom. 

“Don’t be,” he responded, pinning you with a stern look from his eyes, tone firm. “Your pussy feels better than anything else.”

The telling sounds of your bodies connecting only added to the ecstasy of the moment.

“Took-took y-you too long to get the hint,” you panted. 

“It was a few seconds,” he said, rocking his hips extra hard with the last word. 

Your toes curled with a moan. 

“Still too long.”

“Impatient.”

“No, I just know what I want,” you grabbed the back of his neck, bringing his mouth to yours in a sloppy kiss, tongues fighting to lick further into the other’s open mouth. 

With one final swipe of his tongue against your teeth, he pulled away. “You’re high maintenance.”

You were suddenly self-conscious, overcome with a feeling that you weren’t good enough for him. That you annoyed him.

You covered it up with a defensive, haughty tone. “So?”

“I fucking love it.”

Oh.

Your body opened up at that, seemingly on its own. You bent your knees, spreading your thighs even more, letting him sink deeper. 

You grabbed at his biceps, gripping them to give yourself some sort of grounding as he started giving all he had, each thrust of his harder than the one before it. 

It was painful and delicious all at once. 

Fuck he felt so good.

The way he filled you was unlike any man before him. He fit so fucking well, and your center never failed to grip him just right.

“I also love the way your pussy feels,” he said, breathing heavily. “You like how I feel?”

You grinned, feeling drunk on him. Your belly clenched, simultaneous to your center with each rock of his hips. Sighing, you let your hands move to hold onto his strong shoulders. 

“You feel so fucking perfect,” you sighed, looking down to where your bodies met. It was almost too much. When you went to look up, something caught your attention from the corner of your eye. You squeezed his shoulder. “Jake.”

A concerned look painting his features, he stopped, checking you. “What? What’s wrong?”

You smiled softly, cupping his cheek, rolling your hips once, needing the pressure of him moving inside of you. “Nothing at all,” you went to tuck his hair behind one of his ears, reassuring. “Just got an idea.”

He picked up his movements: languid strokes, this time, making you forget about everything besides him momentarily. “And what is that?”

You kept on when you could find the words. “I—uhhh,” you moaned, your eyes rolling back in your head as he moved to lay his belly against yours, knowing the friction would be perfect for your swollen, throbbing clit. “I want to pl—oh!,” you sucked in a breath, seeing stars for a moment. Once you were able, you continued. “Wanna play a record.”

“Right now?” He grunted, making one hard rock of his hips into yours. 

Your toes curled, still feeling the softness of his tummy on your tender bundle of nerves as his tip repeatedly hit your secret spot. “Yeah.”

He came to a slow stop, eyes trained on yours. He stayed there, watching you with an unspoken question in his eyes, eyebrows furrowing like they did when he thought deeply. 

“Is that okay?” You asked, trying to break him from his reverie, nervous you’d freaked him out with the odd request. 

“Y-yeah,” he shook his head, hair effectively falling from where you’d tucked it. “That sounds incredible, actually.”

Butterflies let loose in the pit of your stomach. Of course he’d like the idea. He loved music just the same as you did. 

He pulled out, and you instantly missed him. But you watched him lazily, dreamily as he stood up smoothly, and walked to the shelf of records (now a mixture of his and yours, of course). “Which one?” He wondered aloud.

You sat up on your elbows and watched him as he thumbed through the records, appreciating the view. “You pick and I’ll let you know if I like.”

As he searched through the albums, you let your mind wander with your eyes.

His body was a work of art. 

His thighs, muscular, from the way they flexed when he’d move his body with his guitar on stage. 

The perfectly round ass that was undoubtedly gifted to him by the body gods. 

And those broad shoulders that were strong to match his equally strong personality.

When he turned a bit towards you, his eyes quickly scanning the back of a vinyl, your eyes instantly found his straining dick. His tip, still swollen from being pulled mid-sex. Your clit thrummed and twitched, seeing how it now glistened from your dripping pussy. Dammit you needed him to hurry. 

But most of all, damn this idea for taking him away from you.

Once he turned to you fully, an Aretha Franklin vinyl in hand, you found his eyes. They were questioning, but you looked away from them to admire your most favorite parts of his body. 

His toned pecs and his solid stomach— fuck.

There were truly no words for the way he was built— pecs naturally firm and rounded with lean muscle. 

And his stomach— just a little soft and the perfect finish to it all, complimenting him just right— finishing out his sturdy, powerful stature. 

His aura was compelling. He was utterly beautiful, with his sparkling brown eyes, flowing chestnut locks, and sharp features. And the way he was built matched so well with how he carried himself. Without even trying, he could control any room he was in. 

He was honestly what all of your dreams were made of. . . And in moments like these, you wished more than anything that he was yours. 

But he wasn’t. 

And that bitter thought helped to snap you out of your trance, finally looking at him to answer. 

He was smirking, knowingly. “I love your body, too, Beautiful.”

You flushed, rolling your eyes to play off the way his words made your heart flutter. Glancing briefly at the record, squinting to truly recognize it, you nodded at the choice. “Aretha is always a yes.”

“Agreed.”

He turned to put it on the Crosley, and as soon as the needle hummed against the record, making its wonderful crackling sound, you knew you’d made the right choice. 

The sound added to the bliss you were already feeling on this quiet, rainy morning.

The combination of watching him walk back to you, with some of the most incredible music backing him. . . Shit.

“I hope you don’t mind. I skipped past the first few,” he said as he came back to you, falling to his knees beside you. 

You smiled up at him. “Perfectly fine. This is the best song on the entire record anyway.” 

“I think so, too,” he said, eyes lifting with a grin.

When he went to lean over you to pick up where you left off, you scooted over, motioning for him to lay down instead. 

Without question, he did as you wanted, and as Aretha sang of a man making her feel like a natural woman, you sank onto him, letting him stretch you so well. 

The look on his face when you fucked him was one of your favorite sights. He always watched you so closely. . .whether it be your face, your breasts, your ass, or your pussy that wrapped around him, so tight. He’d scrunch his brows and let his mouth open a bit with certain movements of your hips, and bite his lip at other times. . . 

But, in moments like this one, when one hand would be holding your face while the other gripped your hip, a small, close-mouthed smile on his soft, plush lips. . . His emotion-filled eyes, boring into yours . . .

Your world tipped slightly on its axis when he’d do shit like that. Moments like this made a whole lot of gray in what should have been a strictly black and white situation. 

And, as you listened to the soulful voice flowing quietly from the record player, your thoughts drifted further. . .

When my soul was in the lost and found,

You came along to claim it.

I didn't know just what was wrong with me,

Till your kiss helped me name it.

This song perfectly summed up how you felt about this man. The same man who had been the bane of your existence so recently was now a light on your darkest days.

And, as you watched him, his hips beginning to move on their own, making you feel complete and right. . . You truly couldn’t imagine your life without him. 

And not just because of the sex. It was him. Having him around made you feel . . . whole.

Without evening knowing or trying, he’d been helping you find missing pieces to your puzzle. 

Hidden pieces of your soul that you hadn’t seen in a long time. Some good. Some bad. But all you. 

Pieces you’d forgotten even existed. 

And by just being near you, he made you feel authentic in a way you’d never felt with another man. 

As you rode him, leaning down on your forearms to get close to his face, you gave him a long kiss. A kiss that you hoped said thank you. . . Because, truly, you were so grateful for him. 

But as you separated your lips from his and pressed your perspired forehead to his own, you looked into the deep pools of his eyes that held so much. And you knew you had to say the words out loud.

“Thank you,” you whispered, hoping he’d understand as you felt new tears cloud your vision. Your hips were moving on their own, matching the slow rocking of his hips. You were holding onto him, keeping rhythm with the song as you had this moment.

He held your gaze, a secret smile forming in his eyes as he spoke. “Thank you.”

You studied him seriously, the feeling in his eyes seeming to match your own. Both of you stayed there for a minute, taking the other in. 

You kissed him once more. And, rather than continuing the conversation, you focused on finding a release for you both. 

Just as another favorite of yours came on. 

The opening chorus resonated with you just like every time you’d heard it before, but this time it was different—better—as he laid underneath you, holding you. . . Staring at you with eyes that held the motherfucking world.

Like the sweet morning dew, 

I took one look at you,

And it was plain to see you were my destiny.

With my arms open wide, I threw away my pride.

Feeling everything all at once, you spread your legs wide, thighs stretching out on top of his to get as close as you could to him. Then you bent your legs at the knees, and leaned toward him, laying on top of him and nuzzling into that sweet spot behind his ear. You made yourself comfortable as you knew this would be your undoing. 

It always was from this position. 

And this song was just feeding into the emotions coursing through your heart, intensifying all of it at once.

Your favorite way to finish was in this exact position, and you knew at that moment, that it would take you no time. 

Fucking him at that moment felt extremely dissimilar to all of your times before. The damned music was untying every string you’d used to close up your fragile heart. 

While lost in your sudden wave of thought, he took over, knowing all the moves. He’d grown familiar with this position, just as you had. He knew your body. What you liked. 

He grabbed a hip and a handful of your ass, and moved your body down forcefully to meet him while also thrusting his hips up. 

The contrast of motion and the tugging at your heart helped every piece of you to get the much needed stimulation. And fuck if it didn’t make your thighs shake.

You whined, your toes curling as, simultaneously, his tip hit your g-spot and your clit nudged against the lower part of his tummy. 

“Jakey,” you moaned. 

“I know,” he breathed hotly, not letting up on his motions in the slightest. “I can fucking feel you pulse around me, baby.”

“You like it?” You sighed, still next to his ear, needing to hear the affirmation from him.

“Best fucking feeling in the whole world.”

Your tummy lurched at that, butterflies fluttered their wings. 

That’s how you feel for me, too, you thought.

And with one more strategic move of his hips, you saw stars. You felt every nerve ending light up. Your skin felt like static.

“Oooohhh,” you moaned, your body shaking. 

He groaned, whining a bit. “Y/n—I’m—.”

You felt far away as he tapped your hip, sinking into all things Jake, Jake, Jake.

You jostled back to reality right as he lifted you off of him, depositing you as carefully and quickly as he could on the covers next to you both in no time.

Just as you laid down, he was instantly on his knees, warm seed spilling onto your tummy, right where he’d placed you. 

You blinked and shook your head, registering what’d almost happened. Your thoughts were flying— going crazy. 

“Fuck,” he said, flopping down next to you as he slid a hand down his face. “That was a close one.”

“Yeah,” was all you could mutter, your heart beating hard against your chest.

Before much more could be said, he sealed the interaction with a slow, sure kiss and got up to fix you both breakfast.

Now that you’d had his cooking the night prior, you were really looking forward to the breakfast. You’d learned the man was extremely gifted in culinary— just as he was in music. 

But, even as the bacon crackled and the vanilla-laced smell of fresh waffles wafted in through the open layout of the apartment, you weren’t really thinking about his cooking. 

No; inside your mind, you were swirling back and forth with how close you’d felt to him. How sex was starting to feel so effortless and all-encompassing with him. . . And that coupled with how much you’d been feeling in the moment?

It was obvious he’d carved a place in your heart.

A big one.

But you’d worry about that later. 

Because. . .what was clawing at you more was one particular thought. 

You now had a nagging curiosity of what it might feel like to have him actually finish inside of you. 

How in the hell had you let it come to this?

-🌼🌼🌼-

Every year, it was tradition to have a family dinner at your grandparents’ house to celebrate a new year of school. 

But this year, on a whim, you decided to make it a little different. . . You acted on impulse and invited Jake to it. 

To your surprise (and excitement), he’d agreed with no hesitation.

And before the annoying voice in your head could say anything, you reassured it that him coming with you wasn’t a couple-y thing. 

Not at all.

You’d had time to think back on the way you’d started cracking during sex the other morning. 

And you had already started the process of tying your heart back up, protecting yourself from a whirlwind of unnecessary, surely unreciprocated emotion.

He liked having sex with you, that was it. And it could be that way for you, too. It had to be.

The flash of feelings you’d felt during sex a few mornings back honestly meant nothing— you chalked it up to just being caught up in the moment. You had simply gotten far too ahead of yourself.

As you got ready that night, you thought back on the few times your grandma and grandpa had asked about your roommate. You were sure you’d only thought to invite him, because you’d been subconsciously thinking it would appease your wondering grandparents. 

You also just really enjoyed spending time with him. That much you could come to terms with. And, admittedly, you really wanted him to meet your grandparents.

Of course, you were a little nervous at the prospect of him meeting your them (more your judgmental grandfather than your grandma). But, nonetheless, you were really looking forward to having him there with you. 

And, the cherry on top: Elsie would be there to alleviate any weird tension your grandparents may add. . . So, truly, it was the ideal time to have him come meet them. 

At 5:00, thirty minutes before it was time to leave, he still wasn’t home. You knew he had a few lessons today, but he’d assured you that he would be home on time. 

Though, you couldn’t help feeling nervous that maybe he’d regretted saying yes, and he was going to run late on purpose just to get out of going to dinner. 

Before your thoughts could get too crazy, you got a text from him. 

Jake, 5:10 p.m.: so I’m still working with this fuckin client :( 

But at the sight of the text, your stomach sank. 

I knew it, you thought, downhearted. He’s gonna try to get out of it.

Then, another text came through.

Jake, 5:11 p.m.: and I think it’s the time of day

Jake, 5:11 p.m.: but I’ve had like 3 Ubers in a row cancel on me for my scheduled time

He’s really pulling out all the stops, you thought, feeling your chest tighten, anger coming into play. Just say you don’t want to go.

While you were sulking, you noticed one more text pop up in its gray bubble. 

Jake, 5:12 p.m.: I hate to ask you to do this 

Here it comes.

Jake, 5:12 p.m.: but can you pick me up on your way to your grandparents house? I really don’t wanna miss it

You could’ve sighed with relief. In fact, you did. Watching the screen for a few more seconds, you contemplated waiting a bit to respond. Play the classic ‘hard-to-get’ and ‘make-sure-he-knows-I-don’t-take-this-too-seriously-game’ and keep him on the line. . .

But you couldn’t wait. And probably too quickly, you texted back. 

You, 5:13 p.m.: I’d be happy to. I’ll be there soon. Just send me the address.

And within five minutes, the address was sent as you were scooping Stevie some fresh food in her dish. And as soon as you saw it, you were making your way out the door, hurriedly making your way to the car. 

Why am I so anxious to see him when I literally just saw him this morning? You thought, as you started the car, hearing your soul music playlist take over the car’s stereo. Calm the fuck down, y/n.

But you couldn’t help it as you pulled quickly out of the parking lot, buzzing with excitement at the thought of seeing him again.

-🌼🌼🌼- 

When you pulled up to his client’s house, you suddenly saw the appeal of the private lessons. You were sure he got paid good fucking bucks to give lessons to whoever it was that lived in this mansion of a place. 

You were busy admiring the giant home, when you felt your stomach flutter at the sight of him, carrying his acoustic guitar case. 

Though, your gaze didn’t stay on him for long as you caught sight of the beautiful woman with flowing, jet-black locks, walking out of the door behind him, her pristine black dress. Her full ass, big tits, and small waist accentuated perfectly in the outfit. You saw her blatantly checking him out and saying something as she followed behind him. 

Whatever it was she was saying, it made him laugh. Truly laugh. His dimples were showing and his mouth was open wide, then he said something back. 

But he was seemingly oblivious to her glances at his ass as he continued walking ahead of her. The perfectly straight, gleaming white smile on her glowing caramel skin was wide with whatever he said and whatever it was that she was saying in return. 

Your blood was boiling. And it just got worse as you watched her come up behind him and lightly grab his bicep, turning him gently to face her. 

For a few brief seconds, you watched in terror, afraid that you were about to witness a kiss between him and this woman. 

Thankfully, you didn’t. 

But what you did see still made tears climb up your throat. 

You watched him sit his case down, and then saw an extremely genuine, heartfelt hug take place between the two. It wasn’t a quick, friendly side hug, it was a full-on hug. She was grasping him tightly, holding the back of his head as she clung to him. Her eyes closed as she continued speaking over his shoulder.

At one moment, her mouth closed and you saw just how beautifully shaped and plush her soft lips were. She was strikingly gorgeous. Everything about her. 

Was this her house? Was he giving her lessons? Or did she have a kid that he was giving lessons to? 

Whatever the case may have been, you had to swallow back every tear that was threatening to escape as he started walking toward you, case in hand again. 

She stayed on the sidewalk, watching him walk down the steps to the curb where you’d pulled up. 

Right as he got to your car, he turned around to wave at her once more. 

And then, what you heard him say through the closed door made your heart fall to the very pit of your stomach.

“It’s my favorite part of the day!” He laughed heartily, before finally opening the door to the backseat. 

His favorite part of the day? Was it being with her? Fuck.

You turned to face the front of the car, gathering yourself as you stared out the windshield. You were so embarrassed. For a variety of reasons. 

Your hands shook as you held tightly to the steering wheel. 

The back door shut, and you prepared yourself for him being close to you by clearing your throat and reminding yourself of a few important things.

We are not together. I don’t love him. God no I don’t, you shook your head at the idea of that. And he can be with whomever he pleases. It’s none of my business. 

But when he opened the door to the car, all thoughts from before vanished. The musings from your self-mantra and your worries of the girl had dissipated as soon as he spoke in his ever-raspy, sweet tone. 

“Hi, beautiful.”

You glanced over at him, a tight smile on your lips working to mask any worry that there may have been. Working to convince him and yourself that things were okay. 

You couldn’t help but ask. “Is she a client or does she have a child taking lessons?”

He ran a hand through his hair, scratching his nose. “Oh, she’s the client,” he said, his smile matching his tone as he spoke of her. “She’s doing really well. I’m proud of her progress.”

The next question slipped from your lips out of pure curiosity, nothing more. “Does she live in that giant house all by herself?”

“Yep. Single. No kids,” he affirmed. “Crazy, huh? Oh! I almost forgot,” he reached over the armrest and into the backseat to click open his case and get something from it. 

His proximity to you was overwhelming, the intoxicating smell of sandalwood and amber infiltrating your senses.

Please want me more than you might want her, you pleaded silently. 

When he was sitting in his seat again, he lifted to reach into his back pocket, getting his wallet out.

“What did you almost forget?” You inquired, trying to mask your ridiculous thoughts with a plain tone.

“This,” he held up a guitar pick, before opening his wallet to put it inside. “My lucky pick. I always use it at my lessons. Forgot to put it back in my wallet today. Got carried away talking to her.”

Fuck. 

Then, without meaning to, you caught his gaze. The a/c blowing against your hair and face, cooling you off from your distressing thoughts.

But your bearings were almost lost again with the sincerity you found in his eyes, and with the hand that fell to squeeze your thigh as he leaned over the console to kiss your cheek. 

Closing your eyes momentarily, you turned your attention back to the road right before you put the car in drive.

We are not together. Everything is fine. Whatever we are— it’s fine. Stop worrying, you chanted all of this internally as you increased the volume on Victoria Monet, gearing up for your playlist to serenade you for the duration of the drive. Drown out your ridiculous train of thought.

“I actually like this,” Jake commented, his hand still on your thigh. His thumb sweeped wide circles on your inner thigh, burning through your jeans. “What’s it called?”

Coming to the stop sign at the end of the street, you waited for the car on your right to go as you responded. 

“We Might Even Be Falling In Love,” was your simple response, right before you took your turn at the four way stop.

-🌼🌼🌼-

The car ride to your grandparents’ was slightly tense at first, but eventually you got over it as Jake started making his regular small talk. He was the same as always. Anytime you talked with him, he reminded you of his brother with how intent and caring he was about every word that left your mouth. 

But, for you, it meant more coming from him than it did Josh.

Jake was just. . .special to you. And you wanted to be special to him.

It was a relief. And by the time you pulled up to the quaint, familiar house, everything felt the same as it always did. You were feeling better. . he was him and things felt normal. Felt okay. 

As you walked up to the front door, him following you closely behind, you felt comfortable. And when you entered the house, it felt so good to have Jake in tow, the never-changing atmosphere of the home combining perfectly with having him near. 

You were giddy with the fact that he was there.

And it just continued to get better as the night wore on. 

Both of your grandparents greeted Jake with open arms, real welcoming smiles adorned their wrinkling faces. Your chest, warm with contentment as you watched the three of them interact. Jake, continuing the theme of coming out of his shell, as he made smooth conversation with your people. 

As you’d been standing in the entryway chatting, Elsie’d rounded the corner from the kitchen. And to your delighted surprise, Josh had been in tow behind her. 

You knew they’d decided to take it to the next level after the night at the bowling alley. They were becoming the power couple. So it made sense that he’d be here tonight, too.

Everything was absolutely perfect. Elsie and Josh being there made the ideal mix of people for Jake’s first time meeting your family. 

Then dinner came.

“Joshua, I will never get over how sweet it was for you to make the drive to us with Elsie a few weeks ago,” your grandmother commented as she poked some salad with her fork. “Didn’t leave her alone on that late night drive.”

“She is in good hands with you,” your grandfather agreed, making sure to catch Josh’s eyes to emphasize his words. 

“I’m lucky to have her,” Josh smiled in response, kissing Elsie’s cheek. 

Everything was going great, conversation flowing until your grandmother spoke next.

“Y/n, honey, how long have you been seeing Jake?” 

Your eyes stayed trained on your plate, suddenly feeling all eyes on you. You heard Jake clear his throat from where he sat next to you. Fuck. Of course she’d ask this. Assume that you two were dating.

To your relief, Elsie started speaking for you. 

“Grandma, they aren’t together,” she said, covering smoothly with a giggle to top it off, trying to alleviate any tension.

You took that as your cue to look up, monitoring the situation. 

“Oh,” your Grandma responded, a little smile on her face as she put an aged, perfectly manicured hand to her forehead. “Silly old me. I guess I just assumed because you were here together tonight, sis,” she looked at you, her eyes apologetic. 

“You sure act like it,” your Grandpa chimed in, motioning with his fork at you two sitting next to each other. 

“Howard, quit,” your Grandmother defended. 

At your Grandpa’s comment, you finally found your voice. 

“Elsie’s right. We are not together,” you stated, leaving no room for argument. “He’s just my roommate.”

“Harsh, kid,” your Grandfather interjected. “Not even a friend?”

“I guess,” you shrugged, looking over at Jake who seemed to be trying his best to stay focused on his plate, dodging any involvement in the conversation. “But mostly just my roommate.”

For some reason, the awkward air persisted, hanging in the air around you. 

Your words felt wrong. You knew you were friends (and more than that), but you didn’t want to get too mushy, for fear of being questioned further. You were trying your best to diffuse the tension, fixing it so he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.

You were so fearful of somehow exposing your current predicament—especially to those in the room. You hadn’t even told Elsie of your whole ‘fuck buddy’ situation. Shockingly. 

She’d known about you two having sex that first time. . . But you had never told her anything further than that.

Honestly, you’d been too focused on Jake the past few weeks to even think to inform her. It was something that only you and Jake shared and you mostly liked it that way. 

You also didn’t want to tell her because you were positive she’d question the situation. Make you admit things you didn’t want to. Things you couldn’t admit. Push you to say too much. You didn’t need her to make it anything more than what it was. 

It was your little secret. And you intended on keeping it that way. 

Josh swooped in seamlessly, taking over the conversation with talks of all things music and film. 

Eventually, Jake tuned in to the music talk. He’d stayed quiet for longer than you’d anticipated . . . surely feeling the awkwardness of the initial question with you. But he’d played it off well. 

And as you watched him interact with your grandparents, the version of him that you witnessed made your heart flutter. Your senses were filled with all kinds of happiness. 

Eventually, you, the twins, and your Grandpa had migrated to the living room as Elsie and your Grandma went to prepare dessert.

You sat there, across the room from him. You, on the couch, him on the ottoman next to your Grandpa’s chair. Why he’d sat so far away from you, you didn’t know – but you didn’t care. You just enjoyed watching him talk. 

The way he got along with your Grandpa made you light up with joy considerably. 

Your Grandfather was a hard nut to crack. Not to compare the two, but you wouldn’t ever put it past Josh to get through to your Grandpa (because Josh was, quite possibly, the easiest person in the world to talk to). So seeing his easy talk with your Grandpa was expected. 

But Jake? Jake was just a quieter person by nature. Not in a bad way, by any means. . . He just was. You liked him that way. He was thoughtful and kept parts of himself hidden. . . revealed more of himself the more he trusted someone. You really liked him for all of his ways. 

But the way he was bonding with your Grandpa? It was just astonishing. 

By just being himself, Jake was making your Grandpa open up more than ever.

You’d never seen your Grandpa this way.

As you watched the three of them, Jake’s efforts to connect with your Grandfather honestly seemed to flow more smoothly than the other twin’s. 

Josh had even ended up leaving the conversation, going to join your Grandma and Elsie in the kitchen, as the other two seemed to be venturing into their own conversation. Neither Jake nor your Grandpa needed a buffer. But you’d stayed anyhow, too intrigued by them to want to leave. 

And, you just really liked being where Jake was. He made you feel so calm and happy.

You also just couldn’t miss out on the moment in front of you. . .you’d never seen your Grandpa talk so animatedly.

The way he talked about music with Jake was shocking to you, as you didn’t know he loved music to the depths that you did. 

But apparently, Jake knew how to bring out that side of him. The smiles exchanged with the topic of conversation were exhilarating— so joy-filled.

Then, to your complete shock, your Grandpa brought up how he’d played guitar for years before your mother had been born. 

“You played guitar, Grandpa?!” You couldn’t help but ask, as you quite literally sat on the edge of the crisp, floral sofa. “How come you never told us?!”

“Well, I never really felt the need to revisit that part of my life,” he said, sighing. “You two girls didn’t need to be privy to that. It’s all in the past.”

You shook your head. “I love that about you, Grandpa. . . I wish you would’ve told me.”

He just looked at you with his eyes, so much behind them, left unsaid and filled to the brim with an unnamed emotion. A sad smile came to sit on his face.

“Did you have a favorite to play?” Jake asked, looking at him. 

“I did. I feel like all of us do.”

“Yeah. That’s the truth,” Jake grinned, nodding. “Do you still have your favorite one?”

“I sure do,” he looked at your roommate, a big grin spanning his usually-sunken cheeks. “I’ll show ya.”

Jake offered to go get it for him as he watched the old man try to stand. But when he was finally on his feet, he waved him off. 

“Nah, son. It’ll be good for me to get up and around to get her.”  

As he left to grab it, you waited for Jake to turn to you. But, he didn’t. 

Instead, he just looked at all of the photos on the walls rather than anywhere in your direction. The living room was so quiet, you literally heard every breath he took as he looked at the pictures of you and Elsie as children. 

You cleared your throat, trying to get a reaction from him.

He kept looking around the living room, not paying you any mind.

It was awkward.

Why was he avoiding looking at you? You weren’t used to him acting in such a way anymore. 

Unable to take it any longer, you cleared your throat again, harsher this time. 

But he still ignored it.

“Jake,” you sharply stated his name, irritation seeping through your tone at his behavior.

When he finally looked at you and you met his eyes, he looked distant. But after watching you for a long minute, his eyes started lightening a bit, seeming to come back to himself just a little. 

You tentatively grinned at him and shook your head. 

“What’s wrong?” You asked quietly, your eyes searching his face. 

“Nothing,” he stated, his voice sounding far away, jaw clenching.

“Jake.”

He just ran a quick, stiff hand through his hair, looking ahead of him for a few seconds and then back at you. 

You didn’t tear your focus from him, trailing your eyes past his face and watching his Adam's apple bob in his throat. 

When you looked back into his eyes, your heart beat rapidly as his eyes seemed to sink into your own. He was observing you so intently, your nerves sparking to life under his attention. You shivered a little under his stare. His gaze was dark, something hiding behind his amber-brown irises. 

You felt vulnerable and stark naked.

Instead of shying away, you kept your eyes on him. And the more you studied him—challenged him—an urge started creeping from below the surface. You watched him swivel further to face you.

You let your eyes drift again. Down his body, where his legs were spread. 

And just as you were about to take him somewhere private to talk, maybe even offer him a tour of your childhood bedroom. . .

Your Grandpa reappeared. Jake’s eyes quickly averted from yours, growing huge at the gorgeous white guitar your Grandfather had in tow. 

“A White Falcon?!” Jake asked in astonishment, his eyes growing bigger the closer it came. “Holy sh— wow.”

Your grandpa gave a belly laugh, handing this hidden, prized possession over to the long haired man. “You can say it, son. Holy shit is right. She’s a beauty.”

“A 1960. . .?”

“She’s a ‘67,” your Grandpa replied, admiring the nearly spotless guitar. The gold accents practically sparkled under the yellow glow of your Grandmother’s lamps. “A rare one.”

“You’ve got that right,” Jake said, inspecting the relic. “These are worth thousands these days. Especially in a condition like this,” he commented. “But I’m glad you kept it. I would have, too.”

Your Grandpa made his go-to clicking sound with his cheek. He seemed to be agreeing and disagreeing. (Normal behavior for the aging man.) “I debated getting rid of her a few times here and there. . .but ultimately, I decided she was far too precious to me for me to ever give her up.”

You couldn’t help but feel every single emotion you’d been (uselessly) working to bury, rise to the surface. He had you completely enraptured. . . he was driving you crazy.

Back to observing him and your Grandfather, you lost yourself in thought at the man in front of you. He’d done the impossible. Not only had he started cracking your hard shell, he’d brought out something you’d never seen in your Grandpa. He had helped you to discover this bright side of your Grandpa that you’d doubted for years even existed.

An easygoing, free-minded person that had apparently been lurking below the surface your entire life. 

But it made sense that Jake had been able to do it.

He really had done it for you, too. You’d trusted him with countless things. Your emotions. Your body. Your home. Your TV shows. Your cat.

Jake held the guitar so delicately. But his hands were simultaneously strong and purposeful, making sure to protect the guitar. It was so similar to how he handled you. 

The thought made your blood feel hot in your veins and your legs weak. You crossed your legs, watching his hands hold the keepsake just right. 

The rest of the words exchanged were technical terms about the original price, what it’s currently worth, how it played. . . 

But you weren’t really focused on all of the technicalities as you observed Jake’s fingers on the body of the guitar. How intensely he stared at the instrument as he kept steady conversation, his voice, deep and raspy. . .

You didn’t want to expose yourself with how entranced you were by him at that moment. 

So, you decided you needed to escape as soon as possible. 

“I’m going to search my room for something,” you said, glancing at Jake— who, yet again, wasn’t acknowledging you speaking. What the fuck? “I’ll be back shortly.”

Your Grandpa acknowledged you, giving a little wink before going back to his discussion with Jake.  

-🌼🌼🌼-

Once you’d walked the couple of short hallways to get to your childhood bedroom, you sort of regretted using your bedroom as the excuse to get away.

You hesitated to open the door for a few long moments. 

You hadn’t been back to this room since that day in the car where Elsie had brought up the parts of your childhood that you’d forgotten. 

If you were being honest with yourself, it was intimidating to stand before the door as memories flooded back. 

There was the unnecessary screaming at your sister, coming back to you first. And as you thought back on that, you outwardly cringed at the words you now remembered saying to her. Terrible, hateful, completely untrue things. 

Then, you saw yourself throwing objects. Only ever at Elsie. With her being the person you felt safest with, naturally she was also the person punished most. In particular, a dent in the wall, adjacent to the door, reminded you of this. It was something that your grandparents and Elsie had always dismissed, saying it had ‘always been there.’ 

How in the hell had you blocked these things so intensely? Looking back on it now, it seemed as if those things had happened almost as soon as you’d moved in with your grandparents. 

To be fair, you had been very young and very recently grieved by the things which had occurred at your mother’s house.

Had it been a bad case of disassociation which had made you lose these fragments of time? 

Trauma-induced memory loss? 

Your childhood counselor had used the terms. You remembered that. 

Based on what you could vaguely rehash from those sessions, you probably had disassociated to protect yourself from the dark things. 

Disregarding what happened after moving to your grandparents’, there were several other things you literally couldn’t remember from your time with your mom. Distant flickers of barely-there echoes from a much darker, secret life. 

You were apparently an extreme pro at blocking out anything that may hurt you, and times with your mom and the things you’d done as a child were just that. 

Your eyes tracked the old wooden door, contemplating opening it when you saw the hole at the bottom of it. 

Another thing that had ‘always been there.’ But, right then and there, you could recollect the moment it happened. Clear as day. 

You’d been home alone with Elsie. Something had happened that had you screaming at her. Throwing things at her. Chasing her. If you were seeing the memory correctly, you had even managed to hit her with something. She’d gotten scared and the place she’d thought to run and hide had been your room. She’d been so stricken by the incident, sobbing for you to ‘stop, please!’ But you hadn’t listened. When she’d escaped behind the door, she shut it and locked you out. It had angered you more, making you release every last bit of bottled emotion with several hard kicks to the bottom of the door, resulting in the obscurity that now faced you, taunting you.

Then your grandparents had returned home, observed the incident, and decided that you both needed to immediately start counseling.

Without even realizing it, you were beginning to choke on dry sobs. Your breaths were becoming short and hard to catch. You couldn’t breathe. 

Your vision was fuzzy as you held to the door frame to balance yourself. But seeing it as pointless, your body going limp, your arms shaking, you slid down the wall to the floor. Putting a hand to your chest, you focused on taking deeper breaths, working to count each one you released. 

You pinched your eyes shut and tried to think of something to calm you down. 

Long hair that smelled like citrus. Smooth, tanned skin, glowing in the sun. A kiss underwater. A hand smoothing over your cheek, catching your tears. Soul-filled eyes, like dark whiskey, watching you closely and carefully. A body around yours, protecting you in the most quiet and intimate moments. The smell of sandalwood and amber.

But, right now, that smell was more present than it just being a figment of your imaginings. 

You slowly opened your eyes, still focusing on breathing, to find him right there, next to you. 

He was crouched down, a hand on the wall next to you, using his body as a shield around you. 

Your eyes welled with tears at the sight of him. It was like he knew you needed him.

“You were gone for a bit longer than what seemed normal,” he said, worry evident in his words. “What’s going on?”

Tears were escaping down your cheeks steadily. He took his flannel off, clad in a black t-shirt underneath, collar torn (on purpose?). Then, started dabbing at your cheeks for a few moments with his flannel. Once finished, he handed it to you, for you to wipe at your face with it. 

“Nothing's going on,” you gasped on a breath, almost bringing the flannel to your face when you stopped. “I don’t want to get it dirty with my makeup, Jake,” you gasped, still trying to calm yourself. But the relentless crying was making it near impossible. 

“I don’t care,” he went from crouching, to sitting against the wall, right beside you. His shoulder was a couple inches from touching your own. You caught yourself naturally leaning into it. “I want to help you. Let me.”

You didn’t say anything in response to that, letting the heartfelt words hang in the air around you two, laying your head on his shoulder. Bringing his flannel up to your face, you closed your eyes at the wonderful smell of him that lingered on the shirt and wiped your face with the plaid material.

Keeping your eyes closed, you used his steady breathing as an aid, trying to breathe in time with him. Anytime his shoulder would lift your cheek with a breath, you took one, too. It worked well, your chest feeling less tight, the tears subsiding. 

After a bit, you heard him speak again. His voice, causing a comforting rumble against your cheek. “What happened, honey?”

Honey. Your heart lurched in your chest at the name.

You slowly pried your eyes open again, focusing on the light beige of the walls and the way the textured paint on the wall made a sort of pattern.

“Nothing,” you mumbled. You feared bringing up the details of the way you used to behave. The idea of saying anything was embarrassing. It was daunting to think of exposing yourself like that. “Stuff from the past that’s embarrassing and awful.”

“Nothing you do is embarrassing.”

“Wrong.”

He snickered, placing a hand on your thigh. His trusty black hair-tie, wrapped around his middle finger. You traced the long digit, his knuckle, and then picked at the hair tie, pulling at it to see the skin beneath the band. 

Before you could do any more to his hand, he removed it from your leg. You watched, your head still leaning on his shoulder as he took the black rubber band off. Suddenly, you were moving from his shoulder as his body shifted. Peering up curiously, he motioned for you to turn your head. You did so, and within seconds, your hair was pulled up and away from your hot face. 

You looked over your shoulder at him, growing goosebumps as his fingers lingered on the skin of your neck. “Thank you.”

Situating yourself in your position from before, you decided on a whim to wrap your hand underneath his arm. You continued until you were lacing your fingers through his, his calloused fingertips wrapping around to rest on the top of your hand. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” he started, voice low, as if keeping a secret. “But I’m here. I need you to know that. Whatever the case may be, I am here for you.”

“Thanks,” you hummed, squeezing his hand. “Jake?”

“Hm?”

“How did things change between us?”

He chuckled. “Well, it started when you walked into my bedroom the night of—.”

You shushed him, not able to hide your light giggle as you used your other palm to hit his hard chest. How was he able to turn things around so quickly for you? Your body felt so light and airy now, calm and at peace. The foggy memories weren’t so scary when he was with you.

“I mean. . .how are we like this now? Cordial?”

“We started trusting each other, I guess,” he said, all joking gone from his tone. 

“Yeah. . .,” you agreed. “And as silly as it is, I think you were onto something with mentioning the first night we. . .”

“I don’t think it’s silly, honestly. . . If we are being honest with ourselves, sex changes everything,” he stated, his thumb tapping a light beat against your hand. He was right. It truly did change things. For good or for bad, you didn’t know. 

“And those Aretha Franklin songs the other morning. . .,” he pushed a breath from his lips to follow his words.

You gasped. “You felt it too?” Finally looking up from his shoulder, you ignored the voice that was telling you to not give into the moment as you turned to him. Because when you looked up at him, his dark brown eyes were familiar, honest, and real. You couldn’t help but let them be your safe place. That was what they’d become. 

It can’t be this way forever. Stop while you’re ahead, the voice warned. Stop giving in.

But you kindly told it to fuck off as you swam in his irises.

“It was impossible not to. The music and the moment. . . ,” he grinned, a dimple presenting itself in his cheek. Then he raised a brow, turning his head a bit, keeping his eye on you. “But, don't forget. We’re just roommates.”

You flushed. “I had to say that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” you sighed, hearing them from his mouth, you realized that your Grandpa had been right about your words being harsh. “Didn’t want anyone catching onto anything? I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” he said, his smile not reaching his eyes, but still there. His eyes traveled the walls around you. You could tell his mind was still looming on how he’d found you in the hallway, only minutes ago. 

The column of his neck hypnotized you, the muscles that flexed beneath the flesh so strong and sure. You were aching to put your lips on the skin, then his eyes found yours, caught you watching him, yet again. He lifted a brow, eyes flickering to your lips, staring at your mouth as you licked to wet them. 

When he bit his lip, it was over.

You couldn’t help it. Your breath caught in your throat, your heart was racing. . .

Without even worrying about getting caught, you angled yourself towards him until your lips met his in a kiss. You had to be near him. Needed to be closer, closer, closer. 

He gave it back, matching the force behind your kisses.

It continued like that for a few short moments, but right before you could slip your tongue between his lips, he placed a hand to your cheek, gentle as he held your face steady, pulling back to study your features.

He waited for you to speak. You both knew why he’d put a stop to it. 

And as if to drive the point home, Josh’s laugh echoed through the entire house— a blatant reminder of why you couldn’t do this here.

You looked down to see where he was situating himself in his black skinny jeans, your skin heating all the more. 

As much as you wanted to leave at that instant, you didn’t want to seem abrupt or strange by doing that. You knew it would be best to eat dessert and then leave. 

You tucked a couple of loose strands, having fallen from your makeshift ponytail, behind your ears. Then, you asked. “Wanna eat some pie and then get out of here?” 

“Sounds perfect.”

-🌼🌼🌼-

Laying in his bed later that night, sweaty limbs pressed together and chests heaving, your head resting on his chest as he twirled fingers in your hair, now loose around your shoulders. . . You decided to tell him.

“Earlier tonight, when you found me,” you took a deep breath, preparing yourself for your next words. “I was trying to recover from a panic attack.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” you said, pausing. As much as you wanted to look at him when you told him the next part, you decided it would be easier to keep your eyes on his SG, sitting on its stand across his bedroom. “I get them sometimes.”

“Why?” He asked, voice light and calm. 

“Different things. . . tonight, it was because I started having these extremely vivid flashbacks from my childhood.”

“About your mom?”

“Not necessarily— not this time,” you cleared your throat as tears pricked at your eyes. It hurt to think about the nasty, younger version of yourself. “This time, it was more about what I used to do when I was younger.” Tears were falling on his chest, your chest was tight as they kept coming, his skin prickling in their wake. “I–I’m sor–sorry.”

“Why, baby?” His voice settled your nerves. Warm. Soft. Him. 

“I hate that you have to see me cry,” you sniffled, wiping at the tears on his chest. But instead of letting you continue, he held your hand there, so you could feel the stable beating of his heart. 

“If crying is what it takes to heal, I’m here to listen to you as you wade through it.”

This time, you were crying from his words and the way his skin felt against your own. He was your safety. He was here. He was real.

He was here to help. Let him.

“Okay,” you breathed, trying to settle your breaths, focusing on the way his heart beat rhythmically under your hand. 

So, you opened up. You told him about everything that Elsie had reminded you of that day in the car; told him what seeing the door had done to you – and everything that had reared its ugly head all at once tonight.

“Wow,” he let out a deep breath in response. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. I was such a fucking demon,” you muttered sadly, your heart breaking as the images and sounds were once again coming back. “And I can’t escape it.”

“Why can’t you?”

You wrinkled your brows, resituating to lean on your arm beside him. His eyes followed you, open and honest and Jake. “I caused severe trauma for others– just like my mom did. I made mistakes that I can never take back.”

“You said you were ten?” He asked. You nodded. “You were a child.”

“It’s not an excuse.”

“It’s not,” he agreed. “But you need to give yourself some grace.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re human.”

“But so were the people I hurt.”

“Who would you say you hurt most?”

“Els.”

“And has she forgiven you?”

“I think so,” you muttered, remembering Elsie that day in the car.

“I’ve moved on. Anytime you did any of that stuff, I moved on as soon as you’d done it.”

“You were in pain and somehow, I just knew it. . . I knew then it wouldn’t be fair for me to hold something against you that you probably didn’t mean. I knew the only reason you were acting that way was because someone else had hurt you. It wasn’t all your fault. It was mostly mom’s. You just didn’t know how to react to it.” 

“Then you need to forgive yourself,” he said, moving some tresses of hair behind your shoulders to be able to put an open palm to your chest, right where your heart laid beneath the flesh. “Your heart is beautiful. That’s what matters. Always has been, always will be,” he gave you one kiss, deep enough to emphasize the words. It left you dizzy as he went back to his spot, never letting his hand leave your chest. “I just want you to understand that people make mistakes,” he smiled, reassuring. “I’ve made a shit ton.”

You chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, both of you sharing a knowing laugh. 

“But," you started, feeling the need to encourage him as well. "That wasn’t you. You were hurting.”

“So were you, back then,” he reasoned, his voice soft. 

“I guess,” you relented slightly. “Elsie told me a lot of this, too, but I just couldn’t believe her. It’s hard to see the good in myself from back then, though, knowing all of the horrific things I did,” you stated simply. You held his hand to your chest as you laid on your back, not wanting him to move it. “I just can’t shake how I let myself forget it so easily. I’ve gone all these years not truly knowing who I was– who I am.”

“Have you ever considered going to therapy again?”

“No,” your heart beat faster at the prospect.

He could feel it, and reacted as such. He came closer to you, his chest and stomach pressing into you, more skin-to-skin to help calm you. “Would you consider it?”

“I don’t know,” you looked down at your hand and his, still over your heart. “Depends, I guess.”

He hummed. “Okay,” he answered, relenting from the hard questions. “How about you work on forgiving yourself and I’ll look into different types of therapy? Let you know what I come across?”

Your heart slowed down, the tiniest smile lifting your lips. Your hand gripped his. Your anchor. Your safety. “Alright.”

-🌼🌼🌼-

A couple days later, you sat on your couch, mesmerized by Jake, who was sitting next to you. 

Well, kind of. He was on the cushion at the opposite end of the sofa as you. 

All you wanted was to be closer to him, but you knew you couldn’t do that. Honestly, you weren’t sure you could trust yourself.

These days, if he was close enough for you to touch him, you were going to be touching him. Whether it be rubbing his shoulders, playing with his continuously growing hair, or laying on top of him (sometimes naked, sometimes not).

But you were appreciating your vantage point tonight. Watching closely as he played through some new songs with Josh. Josh would sing, and Jake would play the same thing. Jake would play, then Josh would sing it verbatim. 

It was interesting to watch them, bouncing off of each other creatively like that. 

Twin telepathy at its finest.

You were stuck in a trance, trying your damnedest to give equal attention to Josh, so as not to raise any suspicion. But it was getting harder and harder to resist watching Jake– being near him, day by day. 

Trying to find other things to focus on, your eyes floated across the room, observing all of the men around you. They’d all been growing their hair out as well. And, normally, a guy growing his hair out was not a huge deal. 

But with these guys? It seemed to you, it was a visual for their changing life. The longer their hair got, the more it was obvious that they were moving onto a new stage of life.

They were becoming rockstars. Truly.

Not only were they making music day in and day out, playing it live every week, preparing for a humongous music festival that would feature many huge bands. . . they were looking more and more like it, too. 

But they were still your boys. 

Never changing.

Sam’s ever-nasally voice interrupted your rambling thoughts, as if on cue. You smiled in his direction, pointing your attention to him. 

“Jake,” he started, excited as he looked intently at his phone screen.

“What, Sam?” He responded with a slight growl to say his younger brother’s name. “Can’t you tell I’m creatively processing?”

Danny let out one loud laugh, his eyes sparkling with a laugh. Josh joined in momentarily, then went back to humming

“Oh, fuck off, Jake,” he rolled his eyes, a smile still adorning his baby face. He trotted his lanky legs over to the couch, sitting between you and your roommate. “Look at this picture of Maya,” he angled the phone so it was right in front of Jake, but turned just right so you couldn’t see it. 

You giggled at Jake having to pull away from the bright screen to get a better look. “God, Sam,” he said, annoyed, grabbing the phone out of Sam’s hand. “Turn your fucking brightness down.”

“Don’t tell me how to live my life, Jacob,” he responded, flipping his hair and rolling his eyes. He turned in your direction for support, throwing a thumb behind him at Jake. “He’s annoying.”

You were still laughing as you asked your question. “Who’s Maya?”

“Jake hasn’t told you about Maya?!” He wondered aloud, his voice raising a decibel or two. 

“No, I haven’t, Sam,” Jake said, his tone clipped, holding the phone tighter in his firm grip, long fingers flexing around the device. “Shut the fuck up.”

Your brows drew in at his behavior. Now you were dying to know who Maya was and why he was suddenly acting so weird about her.

“I ask again, who is Maya?”

“She’s asking Jake,” Sam stated, as if he’d won. “I’m telling her.”

“Sam–.”

“Maya is Jake’s super hot client that he used to fuck. When he first moved here,” Sam clarified. “Still does, I think. I mean, who wouldn’t?!” Then he laughed, hitting Jake’s stiff arm with the back of his hand.

He was doing what, now? 

Chancing a look at the man in question, you noticed he was angry.

Seething was a better term. 

You could tell as he gripped the neck of his guitar, his chest rising with constricted breaths, nose flaring, staring at Josh, who was simply shaking his head in return. 

Sam took his phone from Jake’s hand, gaining it with some effort. But getting it in his grasp anyway. Right as he’d done so, the hand Jake’d been holding it in clenched to a fist, his jaw tightening. The hand on the neck became dangerously tight.

“Sammy. . .,” Josh tried intervening. His eyes jumped back and forth between each brother, desperate for there to be peace. 

Social cues apparently off, Sam was still smiling wide. 

“This is Maya,” he said, flashing the phone in front of your face, holding it there for you to get a good, long look. 

No. Couldn’t be.

The air left your chest, your vision zeroing in on the bright screen of the phone, everything else blurry around you as your head suddenly felt extremely light, body heavy. 

Surely not. . .

You squinted, taking a closer look at the phone before you jumped to any sort of conclusion. 

But the house behind her, as well as her long, dark black hair. . . 

You knew you were correct in your assumption of who it was. 

The joy that the youngest brother exuded was the exact opposite of how you were feeling. The giant stone that had fallen to sit at the bottom of your stomach was suddenly weighing you to the couch. 

You nodded at the screen, pushing the device away from you, hands shaking slightly. “You really do need to turn your brightness down, Sam,” you said, clearing your throat as it got painfully tight.

Play it cool, play it cool.

You were working so hard to hide your emotions. A small smile twitched at your lips. The tears in your throat made them wobble a tiny bit. 

Stop it, y/n.

Jake’s voice cut through, directly to your ears.  “It meant nothing—.” 

You didn’t look at him, only focusing back on Sam as he spoke. You tried hard to keep your eyes wide and clear of anything concerning.

“He still sees her for lessons,” he said, wiggling his brows. “What happens at guitar lessons, stays at guitar lessons,” he elbowed Jake’s arm, tense as the muscle in his bicep flexed, fist still bunched. “Am I right, brother?!”

Sam was the only one smiling in the room. 

The room was tense, Sam tucking his phone back into the pocket of his silky, vibrant button down. He pushed his sunglasses further into his hair.

You were frozen, not even daring to look up at Jake’s face. You studied your hands, then grabbed your phone off of the coffee table to pretend you were checking it. The frenzied emotions in your gut were not trustworthy. If you looked at him, you were sure you’d fall apart.

It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like they’re still fucking, you tried to reassure yourself. Right?!

But then, you thought about him taking a while at her house. All of his excuses were adding up. 

Had three Ubers really canceled? Or had he just been too busy fucking her and lost track of time?

It made sense, considering the way she’d watched him leave. The hug. 

And what he’d said to her right before he got in the car. Talking about his ‘favorite part of his day’ . . . Fuck. Your chest hurt, the words making so much more sense now. . .

His favorite part of the day. . . 

Your vision got cloudy. What were you? Sad? Angry? Both? You couldn’t fucking tell.

You just needed to get out of the room. 

As you stood up from your spot, your legs wobbled a bit, your mind scrambling for the first excuse that could come to it. “I’ve gotta pee.”

Still not looking at Jake, you walked as fast as you could to the bathroom. 

The last thing you heard before shutting the door to the bathroom was Danny’s voice, trying to break the air-right atmosphere.

“How about dinner?”

-🌼🌼🌼-

a/n: uh oh. . .

alsoooo, you'll notice that we haven't even gotten to the scene from the sneak peek yet. . . all of that will come to you in part 2. . . see you again soon, loves ;)

send in your thoughts!! i love hearing from you <3

thank you for being the best readers in the world!!! love you all so much!

& as usual, it wouldn’t let me tag some of y’all. :( so please check to see that you’re down there because if you’ve asked to be on the taglist, i tried to tag you. buuuut tumblr wouldn’t let me do it for everyone 🙃 ugh. and if i somehow forgot to tag someone, please also let me know that! (i'm a NOOB and i have terrible memory)

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[youthoughtiwasfeelinyou]

Redacted Headcannons

(Shaw pack & Solaire Clan)

Angel is 4 years older than David

William and Lovely are the gossip girls, whenever they have tea they have to tell each other

Babe has slashed scars all over their body and neck from their abusive adoptive father (that’s why babe was a little self conscious in the first few audios)

Lovely is divorced

Amanda is a booktok girl

Babe was born with red hair but they dyed it brown as a way of changing their identity and moving on from their past

Angel is also a booktok girlie and they always ask David to repeat some of the lines in books with his rough, growly, and low voice, he says Angel is weird for that but he secretly doesn’t mind knowing his voice is good for Angel

Sweetheart had a younger brother that their parents loved more

There were many times in Milo’s life where he had to hide money from his dad so that he wouldn’t take it and spend it on booze or gamble it

Alexis was born blonde but right before she turned she dyed it black

Sam was born with 11 other siblings in a poor southern home, he also had to hide money from his mother and father cause they’d use it to buy alcohol or drugs

Sam’s oldest sister took care of the whole family, he’s the second oldest so he helped her too

He’s dead but, Adam had multiple personality disorder

Angel is blonde (upper back length)

Sweetheart has long white hair (hip length)

Babe has mid back brunette hair

Lovely has black hair (end of butt length)

Alexis has her hair mid shoulders

Vincent has long hair (dark blue, like I’m talking dark blue), mid back area, he usually has it tied up in a low, very loose ponytail on the side

William has black hair reaching his neck, but also has two grey streaks on either side of his head

Darlin has curly hair reaching mid shoulder, brown with blonde streaks all over it

That’s it for today!

[screamdream3828]

Hi! Would you mind doing Sam Carpenter x older Amber Freeman sister?

Like R went throught hell like the others in Scream 5, but after all of it, she didn't want to talk with any of them and decided to go on her own to New York? R doesnt really know that Core Four is there, and she basically can meet Tara and Sam and obviously GhostFace in the shop scene, where they together are fighting for their life!

Sam and R could start they bonding, aswell R with other friends cause they were really closer together in Woodsboro.

Reader confess her feelings to Sam, saying that she really understand if she didnt want even have contact with Amber's sister who wanted to kill Sam and Tara. A pure angst hahaha

And then maybe the scene with GF 'killing' Quinn and they all try to fight for their life with ladder scene, R is cut pretty bad in her stomach and thight. Except R goes last, after Anika(she survives!) and Sam just loosing her mind watching as GF is shaking the ladder.

Finally they all made it and some of them pass out bc of blood lost and exhaustion.

Finally Reader wakes up in hospital bed, scared and aware that GhostFace will kill her and Sam, but Sam is next to her, reassuring her and they finally confess to each other!

If you want, at the end could be a party in their dorm, which Sam ask R to live with them! And maybe light smut?

So basically much much angst but with big, happy ending!

Thank you 🥰

I hope you enjoy! Very fun dynamics and character here

Warnings - violence

You knew things were going too well. You and Amber had moved with your parents to a new house, a new start they promised and at the time - you were foolish enough to believe them.

When the ghostface killings begun, all you were worried about was Amber. Most of her friends were targeted, with some even being killed.

You tried to keep her in sight, but she was always out. With most her friends in danger, you understood why she was worried and wanted to stay close.

Or at least you thought you did until she pulls out a gun and blasts a bullet into Liv’s skull. 

You see something in her eyes that scares you. It isn’t your sister, this demon. But maybe the scariest thing is that it is your sister. Maybe you never really knew Amber at all. 

The whole night feels a blur, and you don’t watch as Tara blasts a bullet into the charred remains of what was Amber’s face.

After everything happens, you need a clean break and completely cut off all family and friends from woodsborough. 

You move around a bit. Ohio. Texas. Never really settling anywhere for more than a few weeks.

Every time you close your eyes, all you see is Amber grinning at you - brandishing a gun. Or laying on the floor, burnt and disfigured.

The nightmares are the worst part. Sleep offers no reprieve and all your mind seems to play is a recollection of the events. 

Not enough booze or drugs can stop the memories and that’s why you stay on the road, constantly busy - distracted. 

Eventually you settle in New York. The lifestyle is exactly what you need, busy and chaotic. You spend countless hours trailing the subway, thinking about anything but your little sister.

You even rent a shitty apartment. One bedroom, barely the size of a cupboard. Life isn’t great. Far from it.

But you don’t see Amber every time you shut your eyes, so it’s progress - you figure.

It’s a regular day, and you stroll lazily down the street contemplating what junk food will be your dinner for tonight.

A small bodega catches your eye and you begin to scan through the contents on the shelves.

Then a blur rushes through the store, screaming for help. Your instincts kick in, and you head to the front counter. 

Y/N?”

Even in spite of the situation, Sam Carpenter never fails to make you breathless.

“Sam” you whisper back, staring at her. 

Back in Woodsborough, she was the closest thing to a best friend you had. You both bonded through being the protective older sister, and admittedly you always harboured a crush. 

But you can’t lose yourself in nostalgia because a familiar figure waltzes through the door. You’ve seen the ghost face masks on tv, in the news. There isn’t anything like seeing it in person, and you swallow hard. 

“Quick” Tara drags both of your arms, reaching for the keys for the back door.

You aren’t quick enough, and are crawling through the aisles as the masked killer stalks you - shotgun in hand. 

This feels different, more ruthless in a way you haven’t experienced before. Sam creates a diversion, throwing a can - and the three of you bolt for the door in a panic. 

You’re safe. For now. 

The talk afterwards is uncomfortable. You trail after the sisters, back to their apartment at Sam’s insistence. 

Whilst Tara regroups with her friends, Sam pulls you aside - tugging you by the arm into her bedroom. 

“It’s been so long” she pulls you into a tight hug and you resist the urge to comment on how it’s only been a year. It feels longer though. A life time.

You sit down on the bed, and talk. Spill your guts to each other in an openly vulnerable way you never allow yourself to be with anyone. 

She holds your hand and looks at you with such a tender expression that you’re reminded how close you came to death again. Both of you.

Midway through her rant about how terrible the situation is, you throw caution to the wind and cup her jaw - roughly connecting your lips.

She kisses you back. Admits she’s always wanted to do that, and the pair of you move forward with a tentative promise to explore whatever you have - after the Ghostface mess is cleared up. 

It isn’t all perfect. You sob until your eyes burn red. Lamenting on why someone would want the sister of a serial killer. 

Sam doesn’t have all the words to make it feel better. She holds you close, head to her chest as you’re reminded that she is alive by the steady thrum of her heart.

You’re not naive enough to assume things are over. Whoever wants you all, is relentless. Sam is adamant everyone stays at her apartment, and you’re quick enough to agree.

You don’t expect the attack though, and watch in horror as the lifeless body of her roommate Quinn is thrown at you. 

The killer lashes out, knife swinging at you and Mindy. It wasn’t the first time you had been stabbed, Richie had got a few slashes in last year.

But a particularly nasty clash leaves you gasping for breath, gripping your stomach that hangs painfully open: blood spilling onto the carpet as you groan. 

Sam drags you away with wide eyes, applying pressure as she and Mindy barricade you all inside the bedroom alongside Anika. 

Her neighbour Danny calls out to you all, and next minute you look - he dangles a ladder across the buildings.

”Really?” You moan, but no one else has any better ideas. Sam is at your side in an instant, ready to lift you into the ladder but you shake her head and reason that it makes more sense for her to go first.

She’s hesitant but obeys, and Mindy follows after. The banging gets louder as the killer slams at the door, and you hurry Anika over to the window.

You ignore Sam’s screams for you, begging to come across. Your name cracks as she calls for you, and it’s near impossible to ignore as you help Anika up onto the ladder.

She crawls across just as the door gives way - and you scramble up quickly.

Sam is sobbing, incoherent in a way you rarely see her. She  begs you to cross, to get to her. And you feel tears of your own start to appear as you try to make it across.

Mindy screams loud, urging you across - and you don’t understand what is happening until you feel the ladder start to shake

You somehow manage to drag yourself to the end, into Sam’s arms as she bundles you against her chest with loud racking gasps. 

Your stomach aches, blood dripping all across the ladder as she rocks you tight. 

“I got you” she promises, and you smile at her face. The world around you feels hazy, and you begin to shut your eyes.

You lost too much blood, and everything hurts. Sam is safe. Everyone else is safe. For now. 

You let yourself rest, ignoring Sam’s frantic calls of your name as your eyes flicker shut - muscles settling into a deep sleep. 

When you finally manage to pry your eyes open later, the fear is still there.

You’re at the hospital, you can see that. But even that’s not enough to reassure you of your safety, as you remember Tara being attacked similar only a year ago.

You panic, thrashing around in the bed until a hand cups your cheek and directs your eyes. You blink up at Sam, eyes full of worry and blood smeared across her cheeks.

”Hey” she murmurs, pressing the back of her knuckles to your cheek carefully. Her hand shakes, and you reach for it with your own.

”What happened?” You ask, wincing as you fail to sit up. 

She moves instantly, tucking you back into the bed with a frown. 

“Don’t move baby” she instructs, tucking the sheets around you as if you were a child. “Do you remember what happened?” She asks patiently, waiting as you think.

You nod, feeling your heart race at the sensation of crawling on the ladder - it shaking roughly. She squeezes your hand to ground you, remind you everything is okay. 

“You’re okay” she repeats, sitting on the edge of the bed and kissing your temple. “I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again”

It’s a promise that you both know she has no way for certain of keeping but you trust the sincerity in her voice as she brushes a stray lock of hair from your eyes, tucking it behind your ear.

“I almost lost you” she whispers, voice low. “But you didn’t” you reply back, intertwining your fingers as you reassure her that you’re okay.

She nods and swallows hard. Never was she so open and unguarded.

”I love you Y/N. And I won’t lose you from my life again”

Its a vow. A promise. And you smile back weakly. “I love you too Sam” 

[daisyjoyflower]

My thoughts/theory on the socioeconomic status of the main characters in Danny Phantom;

Tucker Foley - Middle class

It would seem he has been to the Amusement Park that Sam refers to in “Attack of the Killer Garage Sale” (as he knows the price to get it and the food expenses) meaning it is within his reach to go there, but not on a moment’s notice and not frequently, as he declines her offer to go, due to the expenses.

He can afford things like his PDAs, however he mentions in one episode that his current PDA isn’t paid off yet. This shows, his family, like many, can afford to make payments on electronic devices, however do have to pay in monthly installments and it’s a big enough deal that Tucker, at 14, is conscientious of the fact that his device is not paid off yet.

While we only see a few shots of Tucker’s house, it seems to be a fairly normal house and his bedroom appears to be a standard size bedroom (unlike Danny’s and Sam’s which are larger).

Even though he can’t afford unplanned trips to the amusement park and needs to make payments on certain items, he is never shown to be struggling for necessities, such as food and clothes.

This therefore, leads me to the conclusion that the Foleys are a part of the middle class.

————————————————————————

Danny Fenton - Upper Class

In “Attack of the Killer Garage Sale,” Danny’s parents make the statement that, as Fenton’s, they have plenty of money (but tell Danny he needs to earn his)

In “The Ultimate Enemy”, Jazz is seen to be telling her classmates that she has to choose between Hartford, Stanford, and Yale (all of which are expensive schools). Never is the money needed to go to these schools, mentioned as a problem though. And that can’t be blamed on “the show not tackling such issues,” as after Valerie’s family looses their money, Valerie is shown to have to work a job in order to save up for college. Therefore, it seems to be implied that the Fentons can afford to send Jazz to such a school, and still pay for Danny to go to college, two years later. The only loophole to this would be Jazz having a full ride scholarship to the school of her choosing, which is possible, but not probable.

When we see Danny’s house, it on the outside appears to be a normal size two story house, however Danny’s bedroom looks to be bigger than the average bedroom, some shots even making it look like it could be the size of a master bedroom. As well, both him and Jazz (the two kids of the house) are shown to have their own tvs in their bedrooms, something that isn’t standard, especially not at the time the show aired.

His parents have to pay for their ghost hunting equipment somehow.

This all makes it seem likely that Danny is actually from the upper class. It’s just not glaringly obvious, probably because his parents, rather than spend money on typical rich people things, such as fancy homes, ect., choose to spend their money on ghost hunting and lab equipment.

———————————————————————

Sam Manson - The 1%

The Mansons appear to be rich far beyond the Fentons. Sam states that her family is filthy rich. She was also self conscious enough about the amount of money they have, that she kept it hidden from Tucker and Danny for a long time.

Their house is huge. They have a screening room, bowling alley, middle of the night access to delivery services, and are said to be able to afford a plane and/or a yacht, most of which are out of reach to average upper class citizens.

There is an episode where she rhetorically asks why her parents can’t have day jobs, like normal parents, implying that her parents don’t work, at least not in the traditional sense.

She mentions that their money comes from her great grandfather, which tells us that her family’s fortune is “old money,” and there is enough of it that it’s been around for generations (though that fortune has probably grown over the years from being invested in the stock market and such)

With all this in mind, it seems the Manson’s are a part of the 1% or close to it.

[melanieathene]

Suptober 2023 Day 11 - Epic

The temperature dropped; their breath puffed little miniature clouds into the frigid air. An eerie silence embraced the room. One moment she wasn't there; in the next, she materialized with all the elemental force of a hurricane. A window imploded in a shower of deadly glass fragments. Loose items joined it in swirling around the centrifuge of her sudden presence. A lamp, a chair, an end table swept past as if they weighed nothing. Picture frames tore off the walls; books flew from shelves, their pages flapping like frightened birds. She floated in the centre of the maelstrom. Silent. Deadly.

“Poltergeist!” Sam shouted, ducking in the nick of time as a paperweight flew past his head.

Eyes that burned red, in a face whiter than the tattered dress she wore, turned towards him. Her features twisted into a hideous mask of fury, and a boney finger pointed Sam's way, sending a chill racing down his spine. Still, he stood firm, backed into a corner, but determined to protect the little girl who cowered behind him.

The apparition's mouth opened, an ugly gash of crimson in her pallid flesh, and she emitted a bloodcurdling shriek.

“Banshee,” Dean corrected, ushering a second child into the hallway where his frantic parents waited. The door slammed shut behind the boy, barring that route of escape.

The banshee's head turned towards Dean.

“And an ugly one at that,” he taunted, drawing her attention away from Sam, away from the remaining child.

The ruse worked. The banshee was upon him almost before the words had left his lips. He felt invisible, icy fingers grip his heart, and squeeze. As she shrieked again and again, her rancid breath filled his lungs, replacing oxygen with poisonous air. He couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. His eyesight began to fail; colours dimmed to shades of grey, rapidly darkened to black...

He heard Sam shout, “No!”

Thought he head Castiel scream, “Dean!”

And then he knew no more.

Dean slowly regained consciousness: blinked up at the blue eyes peering intently down at him; discovered, as feeling crept back into his numbed body, that he was being held. Castiel knelt on the floor in a stance like the hero of a romance novel's cover, with Dean as the swooning maiden reclining in his strong embrace.

“Wha' happened?” he mumbled, too dazed and confused to protest the compromising position.

“Cas happened.” Sam's worried face peered over Castiel's shoulder. “You should have seen it, Dean. It was... it was...”

“Epic?” Dean suggested weakly.

“Yeah! Exactly! Epic! That banshee didn't stand a chance. Cas tore her to pieces like he was shredding paper. And then he healed you... though it was touch and go there for a moment.”

“I thought I'd lost you,” Castiel murmured.

Was it Dean's imagination, or was the angel's face closer than it had been before? Closer than it had ever been? Their noses were almost bumping...

Click. The unmistakable sound of Sam's cell phone snapping a picture sounded.

“Bitch,” Dean sputtered.

“Jerk.” Sam grinned.

“Beloved,” Castiel whispered. He closed the distance between them, his lips meeting Dean's with a tenderness that rapidly escalated into passion as Dean began to respond.

If any other pictures were taken, neither Castiel nor Dean paid the clicking noise any mind. They were far too lost in the wonder of each other. And, besides, Dean could deal with Sam and his phone later – but not, of course, until after he'd downloaded those pictures for himself.

[sweetpapercroissant]

It’s just after Sam finds out about the wall. They’re on a hunt and the djinn sneaks up on Sam. He has just enough time to feel guilty, to think, ‘Dean didn’t want to come here’, before he goes down.

He comes to in an unfamiliar room, doesn’t remember how he got here. It’s just big enough, cream walls, a generic painting on the wall, a sofa and he walks past into the kitchen and there’s a dining table-big, wooden rectangle nothing special. Nothing remarkable at all about the house actually, classic American home.

It’s when he goes back into the living room, that he sees the fireplace. The pictures on top of it, to be specific. And it’s Mom and Dad, on their wedding day. Dad in a tux and Mom in white, and a veil, and it’s so-incongruous, with the Mary he got to know last year-no, the year before last.

There’s another- a soccer team, the players all standing and smiling in a row, arms over shoulders-and Sam sucks in a sharp breath because-that’s Dean. Smiling into the camera with each arm around a player, all loose and lax, like he has nothing to care about except this moment right here. And another, with him in a tux-still young, seventeen maybe-hair longer than Sam can ever remember him having, arms wrapped around a pretty girl-cheerleader probably. High school prom. He’s scanning the pictures for a familiar face, heart beating a hundred miles an hour, but then-a door opens and closes, jiggling of keys-and Sam darts behind a wall. Peeks around it and sees John, coming in, putting his keys away on a hook, and he’s-so young. Lines on his face and streaks of grey in his hair but none that Sam can recall him ever having. If he had to guess-if he didn’t know better, didn’t know John-he would’ve put him around 50 and not a day older. But John hadn’t looked 50 since he was 35. And then-footsteps, and Sam jerks back behind the wall, keeps his breathing silent, and there’s no weapons on him, he checked-shit, shit. Could be a shifter, could be something much worse.

Peeks around again, and-it’s Mary, beautiful still, so beautiful Sam aches with it. Black dress small, diamond earrings. And she comes to John, touches his arm and they smile at each other and kiss and Sam can feel his cheeks heat up, looks away, even though it’s dangerous-like he’s a little kid, accidentally walking in on his parents kissing, knowing he’s intruding, that this isn’t for him to see.

They move about, come into the kitchen, talking to each other, start setting up the table. Going about their day like-like husband and wife. And then the bell rings and Mary opens the door and it’s Dean, smiling as wide as Sam’s ever seen him-older than the pictures, an adult, but- different than Sam knows, there’s something missing. As he steps into the home, hugs John and Mary, Sam realises- he moves lightly, freely. Different from his Dean because there’s a weight missing, not dragging him down and Sam has a sinking feeling in his gut, like his body already knows something his mind won’t acknowledge-and he can’t stand it anymore-comes out and steps toward them, danger be damned, only one way to find out anyway.

Calls out-to his dad, his mom, god that’s his mom, right there, but neither of them respond, keep bustling about the kitchen, preparing for lunch. And there’s that feeling again, a little stronger, but Sam pushes past it. Looks at Dean, laughing at something Mom just said and-for a moment Sam can’t breathe. He looks so happy, so carefree, laughing with his whole body, the way he used to, with his mouth pulled back and his gums showing, the crinkles around his eyes out in full force-and he’s so beautiful, in this moment, Sam’s brother, and it makes his chest ache-as sweet as it is painful. He hasn’t laughed this way since-Hell. Sam had given up all hope he would ever see it again.

And he says “Dean”, choked up but happy, so happy, god, but Dean doesn’t answer, doesn’t even seem to have heard him. For the first time in-ever, that Sam has stood in front of Dean and called out to him and Dean hasn’t answered. And the whole world tilts on it’s axis, shifts away and he’s left feeling cold, and it’s hard to breathe. None of them notice of course, go about their lunch, talking and laughing-a picture perfect family. And it doesn’t feel incomplete at all.

He moves forward, touches John’s shoulder, but it’s feels more like touching solid air, not a person, and again, John doesn’t seem to have felt him at all.

After the dishes have been cleared away, John says, “Ready?”, and Dean’s smile slips, a determined look takes over and he says, “Yeah”, and squeezes Mary’s hand, and they head out. Sam follows, of course he does, breathes a little easier at the sight of the car, although it is jarring to see Dean sit in the front while John sits in the back. That didn’t happen outside of emergencies, back before John gave Dean the car. And Sam gets in the back too, Mary’s sitting shotgun, and even if he was corporeal, he’s pretty sure it would be rude to ask his long-time-dead-not-quite-alive-now mother to vacate his seat, no matter what feeling twinges inside him.

Dean drives them to a cemetery, and they get out, and Sam hadn’t even checked for the date yet, like an idiot. They walk past rows of graves till they’re nearly at the back-it seems like a relatively new cemetery, if Sam were to say, and honestly he thinks, he can probably be considered an expert on them. None of them brought any flowers, which strikes him as odd, till he takes a good look at the grave they’ve stopped at and-yeah that’s it. What he knew all along. Sam Winchester 1983-1983. You were loved. Of course. It all makes sense now.

There’s silence, as the three-well, four- of them, stand there somberly. Mary sniffles, only slightly, and John wraps an arm around her. There aren’t many words spoken. John and Mary leave first, Dean hangs back long enough to pat his headstone-and the sunlight glints off his ring, not the one he used to wear before Lisa, no, this one’s different, and again he has a feeling he knows what it means-and say, “So long, brother”, but-there’s no real grief there, not anymore. And when Dean turns to leave, his steps are still light, there’s nothing changed in him by the proximity to his brother’s grave. There’s still no weight on his shoulders, he still walks like a man free.

And it’s all so wrong-or maybe, it’s right, he thinks, maybe this is what should’ve been. What would’ve been if-if.

When he wakes up he’s in a warehouse-of course, it’s a warehouse, he has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. And after the djinn-his stomach swoops again as he realises, djinn, it was a djinn, it makes sense now-is dead and burned and his blood’s been replenished, Dean asks, careful, what he saw, does he want to talk about it?

“Same as yours”, he smiled, aware how strained it was, but fuck it, he was trying his best here, after major blood loss no less. “Mom alive and happy, no demons, no monsters, no hunting.” Dean doesn’t press, even though he knows there’s more that Sam isn’t saying, and he’s grateful. For Dean, for this, here and now, for them. Selfishly, relieved. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, feels ashamed at even admitting it to himself but-he hadn’t wanted to stay there.

[ladylooch]

We need Luca proposing to Liv.

A/N: Oh my favorite proposal I have ever written??? yeah it's this one!!!! 😭😭

The soft clicking of Liv’s keys fill her office in her and Luca’s lux California condo. The sun is beginning to set on the ocean in front of her. She didn’t mean to work this late, but got inspiration from their walk to brunch this morning. What once was fuzzy became clear in her mind for where she wanted the next part of her second book to go. Her and Luca are supposed to be leaving soon for dinner. She will have to skip a shower. She hopes her dry shampoo can help save her wilted, unwashed hair. 

The timer on her phone goes as a reminder of her to get ready for dinner. She snoozes it, continuing to rapidly outline the remaining thoughts in her brain to come back to. Then she pushes back from her desk, reaching high to the sky to stretch out her shoulders. She rolls her head gently from side to side, working her tense neck muscles loose. She uncrosses her legs, realizing her left leg had long ago fallen asleep. She shakes out the tingles, standing and stomping her foot around a bit.

Wow, she was really in a trance there. 

Liv taps the screen of her phone, moving it off do not disturb. She sees a few texts from her brothers. Nothing from her parents. But a cookie recipe from Luca’s mom, Sam, that she had asked for. She ignores her brothers, but sends Sam an animated thanks. She softly opens the door, hearing soft music coming from the main area. She peers down, seeing red littering the floor. Confused, her timid footsteps push her forward. As she reaches the main area, her fingers begin to pull her blue light glasses off. Her breathing hitches when she sees Luca standing in the middle of the living room. Behind him, hung across their fireplace is a banner with one question:

Will you marry me?

She slowly pulls her blue light glasses the rest of the way off. Her teeth dig into her bottom lip at Luca in a suit, ring box obvious in his pant pocket, looking both nervous and excited.

“Are you….” Liv trails off, looking in awe around the apartment.

Candles and rose petals line a clear path for Liv to walk to him. White and silver balloons fill up the ceiling above them. To Make You Feel My Love sung by Adele coos from the sound bar under the TV. Liv purses her lips. Luca steps forward, around the couch, bringing her into his arms. Liv covers her face with her hands trying not to get tears on his expensive jacket. She’s in baggy sweatpants and a crewneck sweatshirt that is falling off her shoulders, showing her ratty, old sports bra. But Luca Fiala looks at her like she’s walking the red carpet. 

“I had a completely different idea for tonight. It included dinner on the water and a private sailboat tour and a photographer… then the sun started setting out here and I scraped that all. I only want this to be me and you.” He strokes her neck. “We will make plenty more memories together. But tonight, I want to walk down memory lane with you.” Liv shakes against him as she sobs. “Should we go back to the beginning?” He murmurs, pulling her back from him with a grip on her biceps. She sniffles and nods, letting him lace their fingers together. 

“It all started with a banana bread recipe.” He shows her the loaf of bread he made by himself yesterday evening before they went to bed. She smiles. “I couldn’t even crack an egg before you.” He jokes. He pulls off a bite of the bread for her, then tucks the piece between her lips. She chews, letting her eyes close to savor the full flavor.

“You made my recipe better.” Luca beams at her words of affirmation. 

“It needed chocolate chunks, not chips.” She nods in agreement. He squeezes her fingers, then guides her a foot to the left. “As hopeless as I was in the kitchen, I was somehow worse in the art department.” Liv laughs loudly, looking at the awful attempt at a mug Luca made from their first pottery class. “Remember what you said to me?”

“Stick to hockey.” Liv answers. Luca tucks a chunk of falling hair from her bun behind her ear. 

“Yeah. I thought… I don’t even care that I suck at this. I’m having so much fun with this beautiful girl. I didn’t want this night to end.”

“I know… you lingered on the steps.” 

“Down bad for a kiss from you.” He leans forward. He kisses her like he did that first night. Questioning, hesitantly, wanting her to take it to that next place so he could feel her desire for him too. Liv wraps her hand around his neck like she did then, guiding her tongue through the seam of his lips.

“Ooo. That brings me to our next thing." He reaches into the mug, pulling out the silver wrapped condom she brought the night she lost her virginity to him.

“No!” She screams, laughing hard as her face turns red. “Now I want to run away.” Luca throws an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, so she can’t. He kisses her again, both of them laughing to each other.

“I kept it, so you know how lucky you are to have a big boy.”

“Lucas James.” She slaps his butt. 

“You like big boys, baby. And you didn’t even know it then!” 

“We haven’t used those in years.”

“I know. Thank you for trusting me.” He brings the mood serious again. “That night and every time we have made love since then. I never take having you for granted.” She hugs him tightly, then he walks them backwards together towards the next memory. 

“I was so proud of you this night.” He says as he delicately trails his fingers over the cover of her first book. It’s his special one. The one she signed right under the surprise dedication of her book to him. For Luca.It was risky for her to do at the time. They had not been together for long, but she leaped into what she felt in her gut then. He was her forever. “I’ll never forget what it was like to see those two words… a whole masterpiece dedicated to me. What did I do to deserve you?” She puts her cheek on his chest. He sways them gingerly from side to side. 

The song coming through the speakers changes to Yours by Russel Dickerson. Luca moves them further down again. It’s her guest pass from the first time she watched him play against Lio. She had been so nervous and conflicted. Luca had told her it was okay if she cheered for Lio. Instead, Liv asked Luca for tickets and a pass for downstairs rather than her brother. Luca lost that night, but had been so excited to see her, he didn’t really care. 

They work through the next four years of memories until they get to the picture of them moving into their apartment here in L.A. Liv is on Luca’s shoulders, arms in the air as they cheer excitedly about getting the final box in. Lena had taken the picture of them. It is usually in a frame by the front door. 

“The best day… Finally living together in the same state, in the same place. After a really hard year for us.” He strokes across her lips. Liv stares into his brown eyes earnestly. “Thought I would lose you a few times.” Liv nods, remembering. “But we found our way back. You brought us back.” Luca steps back from her, only one of their hands tangled together keep them connected.

“I came to life when we met. Whatever I was before then was just passing time until I got to you. Wanna spend the rest of my life making beautiful things with you, babe.” He is breathing nervously as he gets down on one knee. He opens the box and Liv gasps at the beautiful ring nestled in the red, velvet pillow. “Will you marry me? Please? Let me spend the rest of my life loving you.” Liv grins down at him, then falls to her knees in front of him. She kisses Luca hard, almost knocking him backwards with her force. He smiles, breaking their kiss. “Yes?” He mumbles against her lips on his teeth.

“Yes!”

Luca wipes Liv’s tears away from her cheeks with soft brushes of his thumbs. Then, together, they work her ring onto her finger. It’s a perfect fit.

“That jewelry making class this Winter was useful.” Luca quips. Liv drops her mouth open.

“I thought it was so weird you wanted to go so bad. And so insistent on me making a ring.”

“Now you know.” He kisses her temple. “How did I do?” He asks for immediate performance feedback.

“10 out of 10. Could have been a 15 but you didn’t let look nice or have my nails painted.”

“You were supposed to go with Lena yesterday. Not my fault you bailed.”

“Yeah, shit. I got so focused on writing.” She trails off. “Are you sure? You wanna marry this?” She gestures to her dilapidated bun and overall unkept appearance. 

“Beyond any shred of doubt.” Liv squeals, kissing him hard again. This time, Luca lets her take them to the floor. His hands come to rest on her hips. He moans as she nibbles on his ear lobe. 

“Quick, baby. We still have plans to get to.” 

- - -

The private room at their favorite cocktail bar is filled with family and friends. The staff members cheer when they walk in, happy to see their favorite patrons are getting married.

“You knew!?” Liv laughs at the cheering reception. They yell louder. “Liars! All of you!” She teases, then allows Luca to guide her through to the back room. 

Emma, Timo, Sam and Kevin stand in the front, their siblings behind, all with glasses of champagne.

“Mama!” Liv yells, immediately flying into Emma. Emma gathers Liv into her arms, crying immediately at how tight her baby hugs her. She’s so happy. Timo steps forward, holding them both. “Hi daddy.” She murmurs. “I’m going to marry Luca Fiala.”

“Yeah you are, baby.” He kisses her cheek. “Congratulations. We are so happy for you.” He rubs her back as she embraces him fully. 

“Thank you. I’m… over the moon.” Timo smiles at his only daughter, ignoring the searing pain at what he knows is coming: giving her away.

Liv steps away, moving to Sam and Kevin. They both embrace her lovingly. They are thrilled for Luca to be making everything official. While she does that, Luca receives a hug from Timo and a big smooch from Emma. A slight, annoyed twitch trembles Timo’s left eye lid. Just a bit. His hatred for Luca is well in the past. 

“Dad?” Luca opens his hands, palms up in question.

“No.” Timo scoffs.

“Yeah, my dad was better than you so it makes sense.”

“In what way?” Timo asks. Luca just laughs, walking away. 

“Every way.” Kevin fills in with a smug smirk. Then he embraces one of his oldest friends from school. They hug tight, neither of them believing this is where there are in life. Or that their kids fell in love. 

“You gonna make it, bud?” Sam jokes next, slapping his back heartily at the thick tears lining his eye lids.

“Funny.” Timo grumbles. 

“He’s a good boy. I mostly raised him. Kevin barely helped.” Kevin rolls his eyes at Sam’s mocking.

“I know. I’m happy for them.” Timo tells Sam. He tosses an arm around her shoulder as they look at their kids. Liv excitedly shows her older brother her ring. Her smile beams, filling the room with more light  than a thousand candles could.

In a room filled with love, the Meiers and Fialas cheers a tradition Swiss toast to the joining of their two families. 

[anjanahalo]

Danny Tells

Short blurb of Danny revealing the truth to the Drs. Fenton.

When Danny decided to come out to his parents, he came prepared. He, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all prepared for Situation Omega. Tucker crafted fake IDs and social media histories to help Danny go incognito. Sam with her Nana Ida set up a credit card to keep Danny solvent until he could establish a new life. Jazz prepared the bugout bag with clothes, necessities, and a scrapbook and Neil Pomstrong the doggie astronaut plush. All three sat with Danny in the Fentonwork’s living room, bracing Danny from all sides, warming Danny to the core from their support as he shared the truth. He was Half Ghost, and was the Ghost Menace, Phantom. “....You mean Invisobill?” Jack asked, his mouth working faster than his brain in the moment. All four of the Phantom Team sat awkwardly at that declaration. “Um, I honestly really hate that name? Like, from the first time I heard it.” “Wait, that can’t be…when did…how?” Maddie asked. Carefully, trying to spare his parents feelings, Danny laid out the events of his fourteenth year. The failed portal, the dare, the photoshoot, the trip on a loose cable. The on switch. The portal activating, giving him far more than a “minor shock” as he brushed off to his parents with his friends’ help. With Danny insisting he was fine and the portal working, the doctors Fenton moved on with their research.

Now they stared in horror. “And you’re…you’re not just some ghost possessing….” “We actually used the Fenton Dreamcatcher on Danny before,” Tucker interjected, pulling up one of the many videos he’d taken of their exploits on his laptop. The screen showed two entities. One was obviously Danny, though far more relaxed and unfocused than normal. The other was Phantom, this one far too rigid and vigilant. Seen side by side, Jack and Maddie couldn’t deny the resemblance. “It was a nightmare. There are two halves of Danny, but they’re just halves, they need each other to be whole.” “Mom, Dad,I know it sounds super strange, but this is still Danny. He’s just…enhanced. The portal infused him in such a way the electricity bonded his body with the ectoplasm. And he’s been using his powers to help Amity Park. I know you know that. I’ve heard you questioning why he’d save civilians if he was an evil ghost.” “Wait, what about the property damage? Capturing the mayor? The thievery?” “In reverse order,” Sam sighed, counting on her fingers, “Mind control, Mayor was overshadowed by an evil ghost and maneuvered to make it look like Phantom was taking him hostage, and you two are featured on the news instead of the weather due to the damage the GAV causes.” “It’s not that bad, is it?” Maddie asked. “I thought we were just famous,” Jack muttered. “Listen, the thing is, not all ghosts are evil. If you’d actually get to know the ghosts that don’t come through to cause trouble, you’d realize that immediately. As proof, I’m here. I’m still Danny. I’m part ghost, yeah, but I’m also a combination of you two. Your smarts and dedication and drive. I’m just hoping you remember I’m also someone made up of your understanding and compassion. I’m still Danny. I’m still your son.” He took a deep breath in the silence. “If you…if you can’t accept that, it’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. “I’ll survive.” He knew his core would ache for ages, just like when Valerie found out about his identity and hated him for weeks before talking to him again, just like when he thought he found a kindred spirit in Vlad only to discover how much of a fruitloop he actually was. It’d hurt so bad he wasn’t sure he’d survive it, but the platitudes continued. “I’ll go, if you can’t accept it. I mean, I didn’t tell you for ages because you kept going on and on about what you’d do to Phantom if you caught him. “So, if you hate me, if you want Phantom gone, I’ll go, and you won’t have to think about me again.” He faltered during the last few words but his friends and sister, his fraid, stood strong, their devotion letting him only slump instead of collapsing. “This…I just…” Jack sputtered. “This is why the security system kept attacking you, isn’t it?” Maddie asked. “Egads! Hang on!” Jack pulled a remote from his hazmat suit and pressed a quick code into the buttons. A soft whirring sound that they never noticed before due to its persistence faded away. “There we go, off!” “You…you turned them off?” Tucker asked. “Of course! I mean, wow, this is…” “It’s going to be a big adjustment, honestly,” Maddie admitted. “Everything told us ghosts were evil, unfeeling, basically monsters out to destroy and nothing else…but…I just… The two exchanged long glances, a silent conversation born from years of sharing a marriage and a fixation. “Do you mind if we…review everything? With a new perspective?” Jack asked. “I understand if you want to…if you feel safer going to Sam or Tucker’s house while we do so. This is just…a lot. And we…Jack, we just...Just…give us some time, please?” “Mom, Dad, you’re being weirdly level headed…” Jazz accused. “Well, Danny…” Maddie began before faltering.

“We want to make sure he feels safe! And he’s obviously had no reason to feel that way for a while. We….Danny, I think I can speak for both of us to say…You’re our son. We don’t get what happened, but we’re Fentons! Give us a few days and we’ll figure out a way to reverse-” “NO! You’re not listening!” Danny screamed, pushing both his parents back into the opposing loveseat, and pushing the loveseat and any surrounding furniture back several feet. Danny’s hands smacked over his mouth, muttering soft apologies as his parents tried to sort out what just happened. “I…It’s like…this isn’t something you can fix. I’m only alive because, somehow, I only half died, and that half became a ghost. When I used the dreamcatcher, that almost destroyed me because neither half can really work without the other. If you try to reverse it, I either become a full ghost or a full corpse. “My ghost half keeps me sapient. My human half keeps me physical. And I’ve really gotten to know the ghosts; a lot of them have no interest in the human realm. I mean, you created a portal to a new dimension and all you’ve wanted to do is tear the denizens apart ‘molecule by molecule.’ You aren’t scientists with that attitude, you’re homicidal maniacs." Danny stood up. “I’m going to Tucker’s. If you want to talk, call first, but don’t call for at least three days. I want to know you aren’t calling in the heat of the moment.”

[hazyange1s]

MC: Diana Blackwine

Basics

Full name: Diana Seren Blackwine

Nicknames: Di, D

Gender: female

Species: witch (and technically a starseed but that’s on the DL)

Date of birth: February 2, 1875

Nationality: Scottish and Welsh

Blood status: pureblood

Wand: vine, phoenix feather, 10 1/2 in, supple

Appearance

Hair color: jet black

Hair style: worn down in loose curls or in half-up styles

Eye color: teal

Skin tone: pale/peachy

Height: 5’2”

Body type: petite

Clothing style: rich jewel tones and cool shades (blue, purple, silver), smooth and light fabrics (satin, silk, cotton)

Accessories:

Blackwine family ring

moonstone necklace (gifted to her by Ominis)

scarf lover…like, a whole collection

Other distinguishing features:

scar over the bridge of her nose (from an inferi in the catacombs the night of Solomon’s death)

light freckles over her nose and cheeks

star shaped birthmark on her wrist

Personality

Traits: artistic, compassionate, spiritual, wise, diplomatic, indecisive, absentminded, self-righteous, people pleaser

Likes: sweets, winter, classical composers, art, theory, random acts of kindness

Dislikes: yellow, frogs, closed-mindedness, being forced to act on a whim

Fears: loss (of loved ones, of herself), change, small spaces, FROGS

Hobbies: painting, violin, stargazing, cartography

MBTI: INFJ-T

Enneagram: 5w6 (592) so/sx

Zodiac: aquarius sun, pisces moon, libra rising

Temperament: phlegmatic

Archetype: The Sage

Similar characters: Feyre Archeron, Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Katara, Luna Lovegood, Sam Winchester

Family/Friends

Father: Bennett Blackwine

Retired Unspeakable —> astronomer

Pureblood wizard

Killed during a home break in when Diana was 14

Ravenclaw alumnus

Mother: Guinevere Blackwine (Faughn)

Pureblood witch

Portrait painter and poet

Killed alongside Diana’s father

Slytherin alumnus

Aunt/Guardian: Celeste Blackwine

Pureblood witch

Owns a clothing shop

Ravenclaw alumnus

Pet: Saoirse

Scottish fold

Gifted on her thirteenth birthday

Loves Ominis’s cat Phoebe, lounging in the common room, and annoying Raegan’s Phoenix

Friends:

Ominis Gaunt

Sebastian Sallow

Raegan DesRosiers

Poppy Sweeting

Amit Thakkar

Samantha Dale

Magic

Boggart: two cloaked figures

Patronus: black mare

Polyjuice: turns shimmering indigo and tastes like blueberry syrup

Amortentia: Jasmine, chamomile, dark chocolate, and paint

Special abilities:

Ancient magic - especially gifted in weather spells (don’t mind the sudden thunderstorm over the castle… she’s just having a bad day.)

Seer (receives most of her prophecies through dreams, but is also skilled at tarotmancy and osteomancy as well as astrology)

Backstory

Born on the Isle of Skye in Glen Sligachan, Scotland, Diana was raised as the only daughter and heiress to the Blackwine fortune; a family of the sacred 28. She often traveled with her parents, as their lines of work took them all over Great Britain and Northern Europe.

When Diana was around age seven, her governess began to report frequent distractions, being late to lessons, and speaking out of turn - which caused her parents concern. She was believed to have a behavioral disorder and was promptly given a slew of experimental drugs to remedy it… with no luck.

Her father was patient and understanding, while her mother was a different story; especially when Diana grew older and still showed no signs of possessing magic.

When Diana was fifteen, her manor was broken into in the middle of the night. By the time she awoke to the sound of screams and made it to the study, her parents were both dead - and the murderers gone. This is the trigger for her magic to be awakened, which shatters every piece of glass in the room the moment she finds them. The case remains unsolved for many years.

But she gets her Hogwarts letter (as Raegan did) just after the funeral, and finds hope in what’s to come despite the horrors that follow her.

Academics

Best subject: Divination

Favorite subject(s): Astronomy. Divination, and Charms

Favorite teacher: Onai

Worst subject: Potions

Favorite subject(s): Astronomy and Divination

Least favorite teacher: Shah “asTroNoMy is nOT dIVInaTIOn”

Quidditch: Seeker in seventh year (voluntold to play by Raegan)

As a student:

Teacher’s pet without even trying to be

Late to almost every class and has too much missed Potions homework to count

Miraculously avoids most trouble (it’s not miraculous, her friends just take the detentions for her)

Future

Career: Astronomy Professor and Seer

Diana goes back and forth for a long time on her career choice - wanting to stay true to herself and help others at the same time. So, she winds up following in her father’s footsteps, and becomes the new Astronomy professor once Shah retires. She also takes over for Professor Hecat as the Head of Ravenclaw house (quite fitting). On the side (and when she eventually leaves Hogwarts for good), Diana is known to help local residents by offering Divination services such as tarot readings and osteomancy - and her predictions, when they come.

Spouse: Ominis Gaunt (m. 1896)

[the-witchhunter]

Plant(??) Danny

Just was going through my old likes and found THIS POST

And it gave me some ideas

So kind of a twist on corpse au and full ghost Danny, Full Corpse Danny if you will:

Danny died in the portal accident and did not come back as a ghost, leaving his fully dead body there. To cover up the death someone buries him in the woods. As time goes on, Danny starts to grow from where his body was planted like some kind of twisted shrub made of meat, wood, and ectoplasm that loosely resembles a person, that becomes more Danny-like as he grows. And he’s just kind of stuck there until someone finds him since he’s not very mobile at that point.

Depending on who buried him and covered up his death it can go a couple of ways. 

The Fentons: Seeing their invention killed their son, accidentally, they panic and hide his body in the woods, because as much as they loved their son, they can’t let him have died in vain and destroy their life’s work. The official story in Danny ran away, and Jazz is still hopeful he’ll return or reach out to her. I’d set it maybe a year or two after the accident with Sam and Tucker finding him in the woods, Them being younger and having not known Danny before, and taking care of and bonding with their new weird plant friend.

Sam and Tucker: They were just dumb kids. It was a stupid dare, their friend died, and they panicked. They buried him in the woods and swore never to talk about it again. They watched as the Fenton parents and Jazz desperately tried to find their son, wishing he would come home, and they said nothing. A year passed, Jazz went off to college and everyone had to move on. Then Valerie found him in the woods. Her dad had been let go of his job. Axion had been looking to cut its costs, and after mostly automating the security system, they let go of the more senior(more expensive) members of the security team. They put down their old security dogs rather than rehome them, this is exactly something a company like that would do. So Valerie, having lost her status with the A listers, spent her free time walking in the woods where she finds Danny. Danny’s mind is a little scrambled from the accident and isolation of being alone in the woods for a year. His memories aren’t exactly clear, coming to him in bits and pieces. She names him Danny, ironically after himself, and they bond. over time, with a little extra care from Valerie, he grows more and more until it’s apparent that he is in fact the same Danny. Perhaps even romance happens

maybe after enough time, he can pass as human again. So Danny Fenton returns, much to the confusion and fear of whoever put him in that hole in the ground.

Maybe he still has to deal with ghosts. Hard to do when you’re a plant stuck in a pot, but he’s used to dispose of them like a weird Venus flytrap. Whether he’s eating them or his mouth is connected to the ghost zone is up to debate

[half-deadmagicperson]

Angstfest Day 2:

Title: I'll be in Denial

AO3

Rating: Teen

Words: 748

Summary: Danny is loosing his grip on humanity

Warnings: mild blood and tooth loss

Also not all of this fits as 'Nobody Knows AU', but most of it is.

    SMASH.

    Another case of beakers shattered. Danny sighed as he walked over to get the lab broom. It's been a few days since he died, and he's already having issues. He randomly goes intangibile. Sometimes he'll find himself sinking through the floor or having stuff drop through his hands, like a case of lab beakers for example. 

    Two weeks later, and it only got worse. He almost got exposed when his eyes started glowing after Dash had shoved him into a locker. Thankfully he noticed and calmed down before Sam or Tucker saw. He wanted to tell them, but he thought against it. They didn't need the weight of their friend's death on their conscience.

    One month later, it was getting harder to hide. His ghostliness leaked out at any given chance. It was harder to walk without floating. His eyes glow in the dark like a dog's. He woke up one day to blood on his pillow and a pile of teeth. His regular human teeth were replaced with unnaturally sharp fangs. 

    So he did what any person would do and tried to ignore his problems. He put on make-up and filed his teeth. Looking in the mirror, he tried everything to look human, to be in control.

    It wasn't enough.

    He threw on sweatshirts to cover how cold he was. Hair dye was used by the boxes to cover the strands of white that were leaking through. Sam and Tucker had asked him if he was okay when the changes first started happening, but now they don't pay him much mind.

     His aura causes people to pass him by. Their minds are too horrified to look. His parents, even his sister, don't notice his coming and going. Hell, they might not even remember he exists. 

    Danny packed his bags. He looked over at the pictures of before. Sam and Tucker are smiling with him at Nasty Burger. Jazz is teaching him how to bake a pie. His dad is teaching him how to fish. He sighs. His old life is dead.

    Soundless steps walk down the stairs. Make-up and dye have been long since forgotten. They don't notice him anyways. Danny places five pieces of paper on the coffee table, each adorned with the names of loved ones.

     Tired legs lead him to the kitchen. Jazz is sitting with Mom talking about her AP class. Danny smiles solemnly. He watches as Jack bursts through the door and shows them his newest invention. They looked happy. Danny sighed and turned towards the lab door. He could only hope to have happiness like that again.

     Green light greeted him from the other end of the lab. The portal's imposing structure dared him to go in. He grabbed his backpack and breathed a heavy sigh. He can't remain on Earth any longer. He needs to gain control. He needs to move on. The young boy took a weightless step into the abyss.

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

   Maddie Fenton was cleaning the house when she noticed something on the coffee table. There were five notes each adorned with five different names. Maddie picked up the folded paper that read 'Mom'. Gently, she peeled the edges of the page and opened it to read.

   "Dear Mom,

   If you're reading this, I am dead. I've actually been dead for a while now, but I didn't want to accept it. It's been hard, not gonna lie. At first it was just little things like dropping beakers, but now -some scribbles- now I can't. I haven't been able to control it. It's been so hard, Mom. I've tried to pretend that I was still human, same old Danny, but I'm not. I've been so lonely, Mom. Seeing you, Dad and Jazz enjoying life while I was stuck watching. It's been hard. All this to say I've decided to move on with my life, or I guess afterlife. And maybe one day I'll be able to see you again, and maybe you'll be able to see me. Don't be sad for me, Mom, I'm trying my best. I'll come back when I'm in control!

-Danny"

    Maddie sobbed. Danny, her little boy, was dead! She didn't even notice. She ran up to his room. He's just messing with her, Right? She opened the door to find the bed was made and unoccupied. The woman flung herself onto the sheets.

  "Oh Danny, my precious boy," her voice croaked into his blankets.

   Maddie spent her night grieving the loss of her child.

[wastemanjohn]

helloooo bottom!john truther and enjoyer and apologist and whatnot here. can we please please please get john fucked on his hands and knees by another hunter in exchange for information/weapons/help on a hunt? (extra extra love if dean or sam is aware of it & has to keep their mouth shut but feels TERRIBLE)

Thanks for the prompt Angel, I loved this idea. I wrote this very quickly so I hope it's alright!

cw: extremely dubious consent, pretend sam's already 18, nsft

Most kids Sam's age are at parties tonight. Celebrating the start of spring break, trashing the houses of unsuspecting parents and throwing up on each other's shoes. You know, normal stuff.

Sam? Sam barely set foot out of the school gate before Dad was upon him, ushering him into his truck, spewing precious few, undetailed words about some urgent job down south, Dean already on the way, everything so urgent - and yeah, it's not like Sam has ever been invited to one of those parties. Honestly, nothing about them even sounds appealing. But just for once, for once, he'd give anything to be at one of them. To be somewhere normal, doing something normal. Anything that's not sitting in Dad's truck with hair metal thrumming low on the radio, waiting in some low-lit motel parking lot for Dad to do some shady sounding business with some shady sounding sounding hunter. Something about silver bullets. Something about best quality, last minute, no one else holding. And something - something off.

Dad's been gone a while. He said he'd be a few minutes, but that could be hours in Dadspeak, because he never says what he means - and it's just one of the many big and small resentments snowballing in Sam's head with all the others that made a home there during the six hour drive down here. Dad's inability to keep one radio station on for more than two minutes. Dad's little pop quizzes on various monsters, with no sign of him actually telling Sam what they're hunting right now, because that would make too much sense. Dad's too-fast driving, his chain smoking, and the car stinks, Sam's hair stinks, even with the windows right down - and Sam sits in the passengers' seat, he waits for Dad, he's always waiting around for Dad, and he's trying to read a book, trying to pass the time, but his eyes are strained in the low light and his mind just won't focus and he keeps getting distracted. He absently watches the neon signs for air conditioning and cable TV flicker, hears their low buzz. There's a sad, wilted palm tree outside the reception. The door is open, leaving a cutting rectangle of grainy light on the ground, and somewhere, someone is shouting, because in motels, someone is always somewhere, shouting.

And this feeling growing like mould in the bottom of Sam's gut, this weird feeling that's starting to supersede that constant feeling of unfair-unjust that lives in Sam like blood; this feeling that his common sense tells him is stupid. But his intuition disagrees, it's kicking up a fuss, and he hasn't been able to settle since Dad got out of the car.

Because maybe there was something off about Dad's energy that fizzled with those weary neon lights; and Dad still didn't say much, and Sam still can't read the man's mind, but you don't live for eighteen years close enough to rub up against each others last nerve without learning how to spot when something might be wrong. And theres always something wrong with Dad - he's sour faced and miserable, the cause of that changes day by day - but he'd been so insistent. You don't leave this car, Sammy, okay? This guy's a loose cannon. I don't want him to see you.

Sam had snorted, and Dad had looked at him with resigned contempt; but it had faded quickly, and there'd been that something Sam couldn't put his finger on as Dad had got out of the car. Something about the way he didn't look to check Sam was obeying, something stilted in his footsteps. Something that made Sam log the path he took across the parking lot, register the room number he knocked on. The door had opened, and Dad had gone inside, but it had closed so quickly that Sam hadn't been able to see the guy. The loose cannon.

Sam didn't bother asking to go with anyway, because Dad would have said no. He didn't feel much like arguing and insisting at the time, because he was pissed about the quizzing-smoking-Dadness of the entire miserable journey up here. But the longer Dad doesn't come out, that something-weird-not-right feeling gets bigger.  Loose cannon could mean anything, absolutely anything. I don't want him to see you - that phrase is really gaining traction in Sam's head. Why not? And what the hell is taking so long?

The thing is, Sam knows some hunters aren't - well - right. He knows it from the things Dean tells him with dark glee, from the way Bobby has warned him to trust anyone in this life very, very cautiously. Dad has always told him not to trust anyone at all, but Dad is paranoid and thinks in extremes, and Sam never listens to him all that much.

As time rolls on, right now increasingly becomes no different.

There's a pistol in the glove compartment. He conceals it at the small of his back, and glances around like he's being watched as he gets out of the car.

He's worried. He's only a little worried, because Dad's only been gone a little longer than reasonable, and this is stupid anyway; and Sam's only a little worried because Sam's not letting himself be scared, Dad's fine, he's always fine, and Sam is not letting images of Dad stabbed or shot by one of these not-right, untrustworthy loose-cannon hunters flood his mind until he's sick with panic - and he moves quietly but quickly across the parking lot, takes the path Dad had followed, expecting him to emerge from that quick-open-shut door any moment and chew Sam out for disobeying a direct order. Sam would welcome it. He'd let Dad smoke and fidget as much as he wanted for the rest of the journey, he wouldn't bitch about it once, he'd sit shotgun and he'd be the best, most obedient kid in the world, whether Dad deserved that or not. So long as Dad was okay, so long as Sam knew he was safe.

He stops outside the door, dead of night quiet; he can't hear anything from inside. His heart beats out strange rhythms. He's sure this is the right room. The curtains are drawn over windows bordered by flecks of mould. They're ill fitting, don't quite come down all the way.

Sam swallows. There's a tremor in his hands. Maybe Dad and this guy went elsewhere. Maybe Dad's slumped over the bed with a knife in his back, on the floor with his brains all over the wall. Or maybe Sam has just got the wrong room. Only one way to be sure.

He draws a breath, cool-spring night air. Touches the concealed pistol for comfort as he crouches down to peer beneath the crack in the curtains. Braces himself for what he might see, all the awful things he's gone from avoiding truly considering to entirely convinced of.

His heart rate kicks up faster. Then stops. He can't see everything through the crack beneath the curtains. He can see more than enough.

He can see an unmade bed with holes in the frame. He can see Dad on that bed, on his hands and knees. He can see two hands on Dad's bare hips, his jeans hanging loose halfway down his thighs, open belt swinging in rhythm with - oh, god.

The curtain cuts the guy off at the waist. He's much the same - clothes only off as much as convenience requires - but Sam can see enough thigh, enough hip, to know that he's younger, possibly much closer to Sam's age than Dad's. Sam doesn't know why that makes it worse, but it does.

His hand quivers around the gun. He's frozen with shock, with this innate gut-deep disgust at seeing his father being, doing... and with anger too, at Dad, for giving Sam some sinister, hard to decipher warning to keep him away so he could apparently get his fucking rocks off. With a guy. A younger guy. And on the job as well - but then again, that doesn't really sound like Dad.

And maybe getting angry is easier than considering what's in front of him, because the longer Sam stands there, frozen, disgust, what-the-fuck - the more weird this gets.

Dad is - Dad's very still. Rigid, unnerving still. His back is slightly arched, and his hands are flat on the mattress, bunching the sheets between fingers that are bloodless at the knuckles. His face - god, Sam doesn't want to look at his face, not right now, not for this - but Dad is - well, clearly not enjoying himself. His eyes are open, focused on the wall ahead like he's zoned out. His nostrils are flaring faintly. His mouth is in a tight line, somewhere between a grimace and a fixed wince. He looks - irritated, is the closest Sam can come to describing it. Impatient.

His body moves like it's weightless with the force of the hunter's thrusts. His - and Sam doesn't mean to look, but it's kinda hard not to see - Dad's dick is soft. Hanging limp and sad between his legs.

Sam's guts twist, shooting bile to the back of his throat. Fuck, no kid wants to see that. Sam could've gone his whole life without ever knowing what that looked like, what any of this looked like. Without having to consider, with his bones locked together, what he might be seeing.

The guy looks not only younger, but smaller. There's no gun to Dad's head, no knife to his throat. If Dad didn't want to be there - exactly there - well. This guy would be the one bleeding out with a knife on his back. Then why does Dad look - well - like that?

Unless he's being threatened in some other way. Unless Sam is standing here gawping while Dad's in genuine danger, not knowing what the fuck to do. He feels paralyzed, and utterly confused.

Sam's eyes stray to the guy's nightstand. There's a bag there, a brown, straw-like bag with a pattern Sam recognizes. The bags silver bullets sometimes come in, which is all Sam knows, they sometimes come like that, because he doesn't think much about where they do come from. He'd forgotten all about the bullets.

Next to it, Dad's gun.

A disembodied hand comes down on the back of his father's neck, a fierce grip. Dad's brow knits. And for all Sam couldn't hear anything through the door, he's certain he can hear everything now. Grunts, pants. Loud, like they're exaggerated; and as that hand pushes Dad's face into the mattress, Sam definitely hears the slap to Dad's ass, even more clearly than he sees it. Dad flinches, and Sam feels very glad that he can't see his expression anymore.

His thighs are starting to shake from crouching, but he's shaking anyway. There's a cold layer of sweat breaking out on his skin. He watches those faceless hips stutter, then slam to a stop. Sam can see the disgust shudder through Dad's body. He feels it in his own.

For a moment, nothing happens. No one moves. Sam becomes aware that he's stopped breathing, maybe a while ago.

The guy, the loose cannon, the hunter Dad was nervous about, pulls - he pulls out of Dad. Dad doesn't move. Sam watches half a strange arm reach out, grab the bag on the nightstand. He watches as the guy throws it onto the mattress, watches it land an inch from Dad's face.

Dad flinches again. And then, with slow, creeping horror, Sam thinks he might understand.

That bile-rush returns, burns the back of his throat. There's a part of Sam that would like to believe Dad would never be that desperate, that he'd never - do this, let someone do this - just for fucking supplies. But then again, Dad is Dad. The job comes before everything, and it gets done. No matter the cost.

He thinks about how many times he's seen that specific bag among their possessions. Wonders if - if every time - if Dad has done this every single time...

Sam's knees feel rubbery. He watches the guy get off the bed, leaving Dad on the mattress alone.

Dad doesn't move for a while. Sam stays frozen with him, until finally, he uprights himself onto his knees, slow, heavy, baring his teeth like it hurts. And it must.

It's that thought that spurs Sam to get out of there. His quiet-fast walk back to the truck is unsteady, and his head pulsates in rhythm with his stomach, and it's all he can do not to throw up. His thoughts feel jumbled, his head all over the place. But Sam can at least feel pretty strongly that if he ever finds out who this guy is, he'll kill him. Slowly. Excruciating.

It's rage he can't do much about. He can't exactly express it to Dad, humiliate him like that, because if getting fucked for goddamn bullets isn't bad enough, the thought that his son saw the entire thing, stayed to watch what the hell is wrong with Sam he feels dirty and sick, will no doubt kill him. So Sam cans that rage inside of him, saves it for another day. It'll come out the next time a jock thinks he's an easy target, or during a fight about something unrelated. Although, right now, Sam kind of feels like he can never bring himself to fight with Dad ever again.

He waits for Dad in the passengers seat like he hadn't moved at all. His fingers tremble around the corners of his book. Those lights keep on hissing, hissing.

I don't want him to see you. What had that meant?

Sam thinks he might know.

He wishes he could wipe his memory. He wishes he wouldn't keep thinking about it. He wishes Dean was here.

Dad comes back a short while later. He goes to the trunk first - storing that bag, Sam assumes, the bag that guy had fucking thrown at him - before getting back into the car.

Sam closes his book. Dad reaches for his cigarette on the dashboard. His fingers are unsteady when he lights up. He doesn't say a word, which isn't unusual, because Dad never says much; he smells like Dean does sometimes when he stumbles in at 4am. A hint of something else, something like shame; but Sam's imagining that. Shame doesn't have a smell.

Sam watches him, doesn't quite meet his eyes. He feels out of his depth and very, very young. "Are you okay, Dad?"

He asks it casually, in too small a voice. Dad grunts, non-committal, equally casual. "Let's go find your brother."

Sam nods. It's the best idea he's ever heard. And maybe Dad throws him a glance, a confused glance, at the complete absence of Sam's attitude; but maybe he doesn't acknowledge it, because it's easier for them both if Dad acts like he doesn't suspect a thing.

But the job comes first, so Dad starts the car. That smell lingers.

[yourneighborhoodneighbor]

and you're always free to begin again ch2

(masterpost to my fics while ao3 is down) AO3

fic under the cut

previous chapter

Dany hadn't always lived with the Fentons.

He wasn't really sure where he had lived before, as a matter of fact, he didn't know at all.

One day he had just… existed, knowing nothing but his name (he was Dany, of that he was certain, but then why did the name Daniel feel so wrong?). Then, there had only been fear, and there had been sadness, and a deep, deep buried anger, a little voice inside his head slamming against his skull saying “It isn't fair! It isn't fair! It isn't fair!”. Dany didn't even know what exactly wasn't fair, but it was a feeling that hadn't left him since then.

His first memory was of the orphanage, an unkempt place with too many children and too few adults to mind them all, and even less money to take care of things. The Fentons had come in, too loud and too weird and too wrong, and tiny Daniel Doe (the name was wrong, he knew, but he had no memories to provide any better, so he accepted it) had made himself scarce, blending in with the shadows, quiet and unseen in a way that was more instinct than thought, as had worked so many times before in the year he had been in that place.

He had not factored in Jazz. Jazz, who looked so pretty and harmless at first glance, but was all untameable flames and unmovable rock and a storm all at once, carefully tucked away inside a crystal ball of her own design, not to hold herself back but to lure unsuspecting idiots in, make them think they were safe and things were calm, until she broke the glass with a sledgehammer and made them learn why it was that there were beasts that simply would not be tamed.

Jazz, who had walked in with a pleasant smile on her face (a fake) and fury concealed behind her eyes (directed at her parents, why?), who had ignored the lady offering to show the family around (like showing cattle from a farm-), who had taken a few seconds to look around and had made direct, unequivocal eye contact with Dany himself. Jazz, who had let loose a carefully calculated storm until suddenly, Dany found himself sitting on the couch of his new house. Jazz, whom Dany had looked at and understood, if no one else, she could (she would) fight the world to give him a home.

Despite all his misgivings and the constant yelling in his head that had pushed him to fight-hurt-break anyone who came close at all, ever, he had taken her hand when it was extended. It may have been the first good choice he had made in the life he could remember.

That had been a year ago, and now, at twelve, he felt pretty confident in saying that, while he could do without Jackson and Madeline in his life, he would not hesitate to kill for Jazz. Except that Jazz wasn't too on board with murder, so maybe not that. He still needed to work on what he could do as a nice gesture for his sister (and she was his sister, even if not by blood, she was the only family he accepted, even if sometimes he felt a hollow feeling and a want for more).

That would have to come later, though, as right now he was showing the only other two people he even marginally cared about around the Fenton Lab.

Sam and Tucker were his only friends, a fact that had come to pass because, according to Sam, he had “mad cool vibes”, a status he had somehow achieved because of his quiet and reserved disposition, as well as having broken Dash's arm in two places within his first week at the school. He had gotten in trouble for that, but he didn't care, doing what needed to be done (according to his own rules) would never make him feel bad. Tucker had just been grateful to have been “saved”, as he had put it.

Somehow, the same violence that had gotten him nothing but trouble at the orphanage had gotten him two friends here. Who would have thought.

Regardless, the trio of friends had gone down to the lab to see the Fenton Portal after much insistence of the two who didn't share in the unfortunate surname.

He really should have seen something going wrong coming. He knew, he knew Jackson and Madeline, while actually very smart people, were terrible scientists, and that was reflected in their safety measures (which were non-existent, which was his point). But he had gotten careless (in relation to what? he didn't know-), and so he had not been paying attention to everything around him as he usually did, as he should have.

Just one picture, that's all Sam and Tucker had asked for. And Dany had given in. For his friends, Dany would do anything, subject himself to everything, even things he didn't want or like, without much care of consequence for himself, because he cared for them.

This time, though, the consequence was not so easily solved.

This time, the consequence was almost too much for Dany to bear.

Dying, Dany found he could deal with, even through the indescribable pain it came with. Half-death, he could grow accustomed to, could learn to live (half-live?) with. But the memories…

The moment Dany had tripped on the misplaced wire and his hand had turned the machine on, the moment the portal had opened through him and with him and from him, Dany had experienced first hand the phrase “there are fates far worse than death”.

It had started with a flash of green, all consuming and familiar in a way his amnesiac mind couldn't comprehend…until it could.

Until the green became not just ectoplasm, but Lazarus Water, and Lazarus Water became blades in his hands, and blood on his blades, and bodies and faces and training, and grandfather and mother and… and Damian.

And Damian became moments stolen away to look at the stars, hands gripping and pressing against his skull tight when things were too much, and a soft song sang in hushed voices like a lullaby, and whispered words of running away, of running not towards death but towards life, for once. And then… and then falling into death regardless, his brother's (he had a brother! a twin!) body, bloody and still and dead-

Dany had woken up with a scream.

Sam and Tucker had assumed it had been because of his recent passing away, and he did not have the mind to correct them, nor did he feel inclined to, at the time.

Dany had woken up with a scream on his lips and hands clawing at his hair, fists hitting at his legs, body rocking and muscles clenching, and it was not because he was dead, but because someone he had until now forgotten (how?! how had he forgotten his own brother?!) was instead.

Sam and Tuck had not known what to do in the face of their friend's death and subsequent meltdown. They had all stayed in the lab until Dany had shut down, hollowed out with exhaustion and grief, finally having a reason for the ever present feeling of unfair, unfair, unfair that plagued his every moment.

The young ex-assassin child, because he knew now, that that's what he was, after surprisingly changing back into a human form, had managed to convince his friends to leave with the argument that they all needed some rest.

That night, he did not sleep.

Dany had already had a relationship with death, both causing it and feeling it, but even with all of his personal experiences with it, he had never once given any merit to the idea of your life flashing before your eyes when you die.

But now, all he could see were eyes, so much like his but in a different colour, so full of life until they weren't. Could see blood in between flashes of hidden smiles and hands so deadly yet so gentle when they came close, mixed with uncaring looks and desperate protective worry and “Kill the spare”.

Dany would hold on to all of his memories, previously gone and now regotten, and would not let them go again. He would love his brother in the only way he could not, in memory, and he would live out all they had ever talked about under the stars in the few moments of peace amidst a world that had shown them nothing but violence and expected the same in return.

He had failed to protect someone once. He would not fail again.

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