The motel room smelled like old coffee and gun oil, the kind of place the Winchesters trusted because nobody looked twice at it. Sam was at the table with a book cracked open, eyes sharp behind the exhaustion. Dean stood by the window, pretending to watch the parking lot while actually tracking every sound you made behind him.

“You’re pacing,” you murmured, setting your bag down.

Dean’s jaw flexed. “Yeah, well. This town’s got a vibe.” His gaze flicked to your throat, to the faint bruise left by the thing you’d hunted. Possession wasn’t just a monster problem to him. It was personal.

Sam closed the book with a quiet thump. “Dean.” One word. A warning. Then he looked at you, voice softer but no less firm. “Sit. Let me see it again.”

“It’s fine,” you said, but you sat anyway, because when the Winchesters asked like that, it wasn’t really a question.

Dean knelt in front of you, careful hands brushing hair away from your skin. His touch was gentle, but his eyes weren’t. They were too awake, too protective, like he’d already decided the world had forfeited its right to be near you.

Sam moved closer, hovering at your side. “If it marked you, it might still be tracking you,” he said, calm and clinical, except his fingers curled around the edge of the chair like it was taking effort not to pull you away from the air itself. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

Dean snorted. “You aren’t going to be alone.”

The words landed heavy. Mine. Ours. Not spoken outright, but written all over them.

You tried to laugh it off. “I can handle myself.”

“I know,” Sam replied immediately. Too quick. “That’s not the point.”

Dean’s gaze snapped to Sam, then back to you. “The point is, something wanted you. And if it comes back, it’s going through us first.”

Dean’s hand lingered at your knee, grounding, claiming without permission and without apology. “You’re staying between us tonight,” he said. “It’s safer.”

Sam nodded once, decisive. “And because we need to know you’re okay.”

Because they needed it. Because fear made them possessive, and love made it worse. And when you finally laid down with one brother on either side, it wasn’t a cage.

It was a vow.