ana(rquist)

You’ve played it over and over again in your head. You’d looked at yourself in a mirror after, to check if you’d had something smeared on your cheek, or your clothing had been too baggy, or if there was maybe just something sharp in your features Dean didn’t want to cut himself on. But there had been nothing. And you’d been so, so sure.

There had been months, of wanting it and saying nothing. Wanting Dean and sewing your mouth shut. He’d call you sweetheart and you’d pull yourself to the level of a waitress who brought him his pie. He brought you snacks from the corner store without asking, and you go to be something that occupied his mind, a parasite that didn’t ask for more than attention. His hand would grace your lower back as he walked past, and you’d stand taller. Promote yourself to maybe a soft body he could find warmth in.

“What do you call a group of owls?” You’d asked him over breakfast, and he’d grinned up at you.

“I don’t know, a hoot?”

“No, that doesn’t fit.”

“Fit what?” He’d leaned to the side, squinting at your computer. “Oh. I, uh- Thought you were asking me a riddle or something.”

You’d snorted, turning the screen for him to read. The crossword was almost fully done, but there were always three or four you couldn’t get until the very end. Usually you ask Sam, but Dean had been there. And you’d liked how close he had to be, to read the screen. His knee bumping yours under the table, his breath on your neck. Your vison had gotten a little blurred and vivid. Everything in you had narrowed down to Dean.

Somehow, you’d managed to keep your voice steady. “What kind of riddle would that be?”

“I dunno, you asked it.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s why it was so lame, sweetheart.” He’d drawled, and you’d bitten the inside of your cheek to try and stop a flush. “Maybe it’s parchment.”

“Parchment-“

“Fancy paper-“

“I know what parchment is.” You’d snapped, and his grin had widened. “But it doesn’t fit, there’s no l in parchment. And a parchment of owls doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, a parliament of owls doesn’t sound any better.”

You’d blinked at the screen, then Dean’s slightly grumpy, mostly teasing expression.

He’d raised his brows. “You thinking something?”

“I- No, but-“ He’d been so close. If you’d tripped sitting, you wouldn’t fallen right into a kiss. “How’d you get parliament?”

“I can see the other clues.” Dean had shrugged, reaching past you to tap the screen. “This one’s gotta be an accord, ‘s a kinda car that’s pretty shit, but it’s got that exact axel and horsepower. Then this,” he’d looked at you, eyes shining, and you’d blinked at him a little like a baby deer seeing the sun for the first time. “Rocket ball rifle. That’s a Winchester, sweetheart.”

You’d laughed, but it had been weak and breathy. “Good work.”

Dean had sat up, looking back to his pancakes with a grin. “Thanks. Not just a pretty face, y’know.”

He’d said it like a joke, so you’d bumped his shoulder. You’d kept your words light, because he needed them like that.

But you’d been dead fucking serious.

“I know. You’re the whole package in a very handsome bow.”

Dean had laughed, but you’d felt his gaze for a while after. When you’d glanced over, he’d looked away and coughed. There had been a blush creeping up his neck, and you’d smiled to yourself.

You’d made him feel good, just as his friend. And that’s enough. Had been enough.

Then the baby slipped.

It hadn’t been dramatic. You’re sure he’d never even noticed.

I’ve got it, baby.

He’d patted your leg and stood up. You’d gaped after him, your whole world wiping and rewiring and adjusting to new code with each passing heartbeat, pounding in your ears.

Dean didn’t call anyone baby. You’d never heard it in a low drawl for some bar hookup, all the gorgeous women you’d envied until it made you sick. When he used to bring them back to motels and you’d pretend you needed a walk, you’d never hear it moaned or whispered in dirty talk.

Not that you were listening.

But he’s loud. And it used to be the only line to sanity you had.

It’s easy to fall for Dean. It’s magnetic. You think you felt it the first time he offered you a hand, and your whole body had started to warm and blister like you’d been shoved into an oven. It had faded the first few weeks of knowing him, burning up fast, a wildfire of desire that swept through you until you spent every night with hair stuck to your brow and the sheets stained with sweat.

When it had faded, you’d hoped it would be nothing more than a pile of shameful ash. Dean wouldn’t never have to know that the kid he’d taken under his wing was a little pervert who listened to him have sex, then cried in the shower after. Nobody would ever have to know.

But there’s this thing. Where sometimes the fire ripping through the world isn’t to destroy. It’s to help grow. The flames curl into tightly locked seed pods, open them up, and make room for a new forest to grow.

And Dean is kind. And funny. And handsome, and strong, and loyal, and sometimes you want to punch him in his perfect, stupid face because you never stood a chance.

Loving him in silence was harder than wanting him. Wanting him could be satisfied with makeshift men. The right height and build, similar hair and a few scars, their faces Dean’s when you close your eyes.

Dean used to mutter that he didn’t like you sleeping with so many older creeps. That they only wanted one thing from you.

“I only want one thing from them.” You’d told him, and his jaw had ticked.

“You shouldn’t be looking for it there.”

“Why not-“

“They could be your father,” he’d snapped your name, glaring up from his beer bottle. The label had been picked clear off and crumpled in his hand.

You’d leaned back a little, brows raised, and he’d let out a slow breath. Shook his head, mouth pressed in a thin line.

“Dean-“

“There are plenty of-“ His brow had furrowed. He’d glared at the bottle, like your taste in men was it’s fault. “Lotta other options. You don’t have to settle for some creep that’s eyeing you up like fuckin’ meat.”

You’d wanted to laugh. You might’ve, if Dean hadn’t looked like he was one word from breaking his own teeth.

“It’s a two way road, Deano.” You’d hummed, and he’d looked like you punched him in the gut.

You don’t know if he noticed. How you stopped sleeping around after that. Phantoms of attention were nothing, compared to the tiniest hit of Dean’s concern.

There was no dare to fool yourself. Nothing you were clinging to, about having a chance. Dean didn’t see you like that. How could he.

You were a little bit of a devoted heretic. You’d made your alter at the foot of a god, and you just liked that you were allowed to stay. If he kicked you, you’d tumble down and crawl back up until he crushed you completely. A single scrape of his touch was more than most were offered.

Being Dean’s friend was enough. Something he cared about was a rush of it’s own.

And you’d been ready to sleep alone for a long, long time. To keep all your love gathered in your chest, and let it bleed into every little thing you did. It wasn’t angry love. Wasn’t bitter for being left to fester.

Mold grows. Weeds can be beautiful flowers.

You covered every little thing in your love for Dean, until you were sure it stained over your skin like a tattoo. Everyone seemed to see it but him. Sam knew after you screamed for him on a hunt, when he’d gotten driven onto some rebar and you’d felt your own chest split open. Jack gives you strange looks whenever he visits, and when he asked you just waved him off. Even his fucking dog looks at you like you’re some sad, pitiable little fool.

But Dean was happy with you. As his friend.

Then he called you baby.

And the world stopped, and rewound. A cassette tape reaching the end of a track and flipping itself over, letting you listen to the song one more time.

Letting you notice what you’d missed, too absorbed in your own love—it was a loud, consuming thing—to look outside your head.

Dean had stopped sleeping around too.

He touched you, maybe more than you touch him. Bumping your shoulder, thighs pressed under the table, a hand brushing through your hair when he walked past.

You’d counted them as nothing. You’d drowned in the luck of his thoughtless motions, but baby.

He kissed your forehead before he split off from you on a hunt. He knocked on your door when he had a nightmare, like he had nowhere else to go. At the grocery store, he’d linger a step behind you like he was guarding you from the peanut butter on the shelf and the slabs of beef in the butcher’s display. Close enough you could feel the heat from his body. Too close to be an accident.

You’d asked Sam.

Sam had coughed, and told you to talk to Dean.

You’d asked Sam again.

He’d begged you not to.

“Dean will kill me,” he’d whined like a child. “And I kind of like life now? Like, we’ve got really good things going, and I don’t want to die over Dean’s stupid secrets-“

“So Dean has secrets.” You’d crossed your arms over your chest. Sam had flinched.

“Um- Yeah. Which you should talk to him about, because I know nothing about them.”

“Sam-“

“Just- Whatever you’re thinking, that’s it. You’re right.” He’d sighed. “Please don’t make me say it. You’re both grownups. Make him use his words.”

You’d snorted. “Make Dean use his words-“

“You have more power over him than you think.” Sam had shrugged, voice dropping under his breath. “Like, a lot more.”

“What are we talkin’ about?” Dean had walked into the kitchen, looking between you and Sam, and you’d coughed.

“Nothing.”

“Relationships.”

You and Sam had spoken at the same time. Dean had raised his brows.

“Alright, what’s goin’ on-“

“Are you seeing anyone?” Sam had shouted, before you could gut punch him hard enough to shut him up. “Or, you know- Thinking about anyone, or anything with anyone, or- What the fuck-“

A spoon had gone flying, hitting Sam square in the jaw. He’d rubbed the hurt, gaping at his brother, and Dean had just shrugged.

“Oops.” He’d said flatly. “Hand slipped.”

His eyes had been narrowed. Sam had dropped it.

And the loop playing in your head had become obsessive.

He felt something. The more you played back and analyzed, the more certain you’d become. It might not be the concrete, resolved adoration you felt for everything that even stemmed slightly from Dean, but it was something. Something big enough he’d go to you first, in any room. That he’d hug you like he was trying to pull you into his chest, and breathe you in so heavily you felt a little stupid for missing it.

Enough you’d been willing to take the risk.

But not enough for him to say yes.

That day plays in a blur now. Your confession. His expression, like you’d shot him pointblank.

His head, shaking, and every color in the world inverting as he told you no.

You were wrong. He didn’t want that.

Just the night before you’d fallen asleep on his shoulder, but still been lucid enough to feel him pull you closer. He’d kissed your brow. Whispered something you hadn’t been able to make out, but had sounded soft. Affectionate. It was the same tone you used, when you told his sleeping form that you loved him, just to try and offer yourself a little bit of control.

It’s gone now, though.

Not the love. That’s boiling and bubbling over the edges, an ocean put under a flame. There’s so much of it you might be about to choke, because you can’t let it show anymore.

Dean told you no, and you tried to shove it into the cavity of your chest and lock it up.

But it was too big. Too much, to have your heart broken and all your love just… stalled. No where left for it to go.

And you didn’t do anything wrong.

Dean sent the mixed signals. Dean told you no, then expected everything to be fine. He said he wasn’t into you like that, then followed you to the bar the next night and stopped you from numbing the pain in another man’s body.

So he earned this silent treatment.

And you’re not going to be the first to break.

Your fingers fidget in your lap, and it’s the only movement you allow your body to have. It’s more for warmth, than anything else. Dean doesn’t get to see your discomfort. How ever cell in your body is trying to drag you into him, to forgo dignity for his touch. For the heat rolling off his body, that would cure you of this cold fever in a few seconds.

Dean coughs, stretching too causally to be natural, and his arm ends up around the back of the bench.

He’s like a radiator. Your shoulder almost slumps into the slight brush of his fingers, into the comfort they offer.

You lean forward, forcing a distance. You won’t break.

Dean can be stubborn. You’re going to give him a run for his stolen money.

“You think this is the guy?” He asks, withdrawing his arm.

You just shrug. Dean sighs.

“If you don’t, we can just go get a drink. Night’s almost over anyway, isn’t much he’d be able to do-“

“I want to wait.” You say, and you didn’t know your voice could sound that cold.

Dean tenses up at your side, then nods. “Alright. Guess we’re waiting.”

You huff, and neither of you try to speak again. When the guy comes out, you track him to the vamp nest and make quick work. It’s barely a hunt worth breaking a sweat over, not with Dean swinging his machete and your dead man’s blood bullets. When you’re done, there’s some dirt and guts on your jacket. Your nose wrinkles, and you feel Dean’s presence before you hear him.

“You alright?” Dean sounds worried. You just wave him off.

“Yeah.” You mutter, tossing the stained jacket in the trunk. “Just cold.”

“You can take my jacket-“

“I’m good.”

Dean already had his jacket half off, and he pauses. You turn away, not wanting to see whatever look was on his face.

You climb into the car, waiting for him to catch up. When he opens the door, his jacket is fully gone.

He shoves it into your hands without a glance. It’s warm like a blanket. It’s going to smell like him, and your fingers curl into the fabric against your will.

“Dean, I don’t want this-“

“Well, you got it.” He snaps, and you hold it tighter.

“I’m not going to wear it-“

“Don’t care.” He starts the car, shooting you a glare. “Toss it, burn it, see if I give a shit. It’s yours.”

You don’t answer. You don’t have anything to say that isn’t a curse or a plea.

The air feels like it’s getting more and more wired, with every passing second. It waves with heat, and starts to clog up your throat. You can breathe, but everything is sticky. The tension resting in your throat, swelling to keep words from spilling out of your throat.

Dean keeps looking at you. You wish he’d stop. Wish he’d make this easier on you, by not flexing his hands every three seconds and seeming like he’s going to reach out. To touch you, when your skin has gotten so, so cold.

When you get back to the motel, Dean goes right to the bathroom, and you stand uselessly in the center of the room. You still haven’t let go of the goddamn jacket.

You look at the door, and hear the water running. He’s taking a shower, and Dean takes long showers. 

You shrug on the jacket. And you were right.

It smells just like Dean.

Leather and amber, something a little spicy and a deep, comforting, unnamable scent that’s just Dean. It’s even stronger than the lingering musk of his cheap aftershave and cologne. You don’t even know why he bothers with that stuff, when he’s a natural aphrodisiac.

You wrap your arms around your stomach, staring at the bathroom door. It almost feels like he’s there. Like he’s hugging you and telling you everything is going to be okay.

And you sway on your feet, tears pricking at your eyes for the first time since he told you no. You’d shut it all down, refused to let yourself cry over it, and now-

He was your best friend. He’d acted like you lingered in all his dreams, the same way he lingered in yours.

And he told you no, and wouldn’t even give you the space to let your love die.

You don’t think it can die. But you’re not strong enough to leave him. Even with all this pain, you don’t want to. You refuse to be another person who leaves Dean, just because he won’t sleep with you.

But you can’t be here right now. Not while the wound is open and raw.

There’s a bar, just down the street. You text Dean that where you’re headed, and leave with his jacket still wrapped tight around your body.

It’s a fairly crowded bar. Enough people that the noise in your head can be drowned out, enough business that they keep good stuff in stock. You drink, but not enough to lose control. That’s not the goal.

You’re trying to get yourself to the point that you can return the smile of the man down the bar. He’s not bad looking. Dark hair and eyes, warm looking skin, a casualness to his stance that’s welcoming. He’s got broad shoulders. Big hands.

He’d be a good night.

But he’s not Dean. 

You need to be just tipsy enough to pretend that he is.

And it’s pathetic. You should be trying to get over him, but it’s like trying to drag your feet out of quicksand. The more you struggle against it, the more you think about every reason to stay in love with him. The way he sings loudly in the car, grinning at you the whole time. His dumb little bow-legged walk, and how he never breaks pace when he’s carrying you to the car after a bad hunt. His jokes, how safe you feel when he’s next to you, how even when he turned you down he hadn’t been cruel.

He’d just said no. You got it wrong. That’s- I’m not doing that to you.

You take another drink, breathing heavy through your nose. Wearing the jacket was a mistake. You can smell him all around you, and it’s a tantalizing, sadistic way to torture yourself. You swallow, looking up to the yellowed bar lights like they can offer you some strength.

They just stare back, and your eyes burn.

Maybe you should just go home. Call it a night, wallow in the bathtub until you either get it together, or sink under the water. Dean could save you. He’d bring you to bed and comfort you, then just leave you again. You’d be naked, and he’d have no interest, and you rub your eyes because you won’t cry in a public bar, you won’t-

Dean says your name, and you freeze.

“What the hell are you doing?” He’s not shouting, but it’s worse. “I come out and you’re just gone, you got any idea how much that freaked me out-“

“I texted you.” You don’t turn around. He doesn’t get to see the tears, still stinging at your vision.

Dean scoffs. “That’s not enough and you know it. Your phone coulda been stolen, you could’ve gone out then gotten grabbed, you- Son of a bitch, sweetheart, you damn near gave me a heart attack-“

“Sorry.” There’s a stone-like lump, settling in your throat. “But I’m fine, Dean. And you could’ve called.”

He grunts, and you see him move into your periphery. You bow your head lower. You don’t want to see him. It will only make the pain worse. 

Dean mutters, your name. You don’t look up.

“How many drinks have you had?”

You shrug, and he sighs.

“Are you… feelin’ okay?”

“I feel amazing.” You mutter, not bothering to hide the bitterness in your tone.

Dean swallows. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Neither of you move. You take another drink, and Dean’s voice becomes strained.

“Look, I- I didn’t mean to yell, just- Come on-“

His hand lands on your shoulder, and you shove it off.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry-“

“I don’t care.” You spit, finally letting your gaze turn on him.

He leans back, eyes widening slightly, and it immediately hurts. You don’t want to hurt him. But you’re too tired to stop.

“I was just- You worried me-“

“I’m fine.”

“You’re getting drunk-“

“You get drunk all the time.”

“That’s- It’s not the same- I’m not-“ He runs a hand over his face. “We can fight about this back at the room, okay, let’s go-“

“No.” You hiss, and something tight flashes over his face.

He says your name, and you shake your head, looking back to your glass.

“Leave me alone, Dean.”

And you want him to fight. You want him to tell you he’s not going anywhere without you, because you never want to go anywhere without him. You’d sew your hands together, stick your shoulders together with glue, wrap around his back like a growth just to remind him how amazing he is, all the time.

You’d fight for him.

But Dean doesn’t. He nods.

“Sorry.” He mutters, his voice lower than you’ve ever heard. Not the deep drawl that he uses to tease and joke with you.

Just… Heavy.

Defeated.

And he apologizes, and walks away. You look over your shoulder, and find him staring back. His throat bobs, his hands fist at his sides, and he leaves.

Leaves you. Alone.

You down another shot, and it burns your throat with your eyes. You won’t cry over this. He’s allowed to not want you, and you’re going to be mature about it, and go sleep with someone else.

It takes another drink, but you walk over to the man on the other end of the bar. It feels like you’ve been moved into an autopilot, all your smiles too tight on your face and your voice far away. You bat your eyelashes, and lean forward without recoiling at how not Dean he is. He tells you you’re pretty. You laugh, and tell him he’s not so bad himself.

He puts his hand on your lower back as you walk to the parking lot. He’s a local, with a house not too far he’d like to show you. If he notices how you arch away from the touch, he doesn’t say anything.

And under the parking lot lamps, you can just see his silhouette and pretend it’s Dean.

But then he brushes your hair from your face, and leans in for a kiss. It’s an instinct, to turn your cheek. You’ve made it all the way to the car, and his heater is running, but the burning feeling over your skin isn’t from desire.

It’s prickly and sore.

Shame.

You mumble a sorry, the world moving so fast everything turns to a blur, but it might just be the tears pricking in your eyes. You try to take off your jacket, to cool down and collect yourself.

But the smell of Dean is gone, and now you’re sick, and you-

You can’t.

You just can’t.

It’s with scrambled apologies and a flushed face, that you run out of the car. There’s no excuse for it. Nothing that you can say to rationalize fleeing the moment like it’s a crime scene, running from a kiss like it threatened death. But you feel sick.

He’s not Dean.

When you get back to the motel room you’re out of breath. Your fingers are numb and there’s bile in your throat. The shame burns under your face, and your lips are wobbling pathetically. You’d rip the love out of you, if it wouldn’t feel like carving out a piece of your soul. You’d stay away the whole night, if you didn’t know the world would slow back down the moment you saw him.

He told you no, but he’s still your Dean. The world is safe with him. And you like loving him, you do, but right now you just…

You hate yourself. Blame yourself.

Wish you were anything else, that you loved him a little less, so the wound could be cauterized without splitting itself open.

Every movement just splits it open. And Dean isn’t going to come and stich it back up.

You take a ragged breath. Collect yourself by your throat, refusing to let your guts just spill all over the ground for Dean to see. For him to think he has to clean up, when you’re trying so hard not to blame him. He didn’t know what he was doing to you. He told you to stop. And you can’t.

All the mixed signals earned your silence, but not your wrath. You’re grabbing your heart and throttling it, because you don’t want to be mad.

But you open the door, and Dean is still up. He’d sprawled on his bed, watching TV, eyes locking onto yours before you’re even in the room. You try to ignore him, and kick off your shoes. He pauses his show.

“You have fun?”

You shoot him a glare, but his expression is unreadable. There are long shadows on his face that only make him more handsome, and you can feel the anger clawing up your chest.

He raises his brows in slight challenge, and you’re too exhausted to ignore the bait.

“No.” You snap, tossing off the jacket. “I didn’t.”

If Dean has a reaction, he doesn’t show it. “Sorry.”

You snort, and his lips twitch down.

“What’s so funny-“

“You’re not sorry.” The words fall out of you, lined in venom.

And he shrugs.

Dean just shrugs, like that’s all your love is worth, and something inside you snaps.

How dare he. How dare he stomp on your heart and treat you like a child, and how dare he make you keep loving him by putting water on your beside table for your hangover and staying up just to make sure you get home safe. He’s a good man but he’s being so cruel and it’s only just to you. Like you deserve some punishment for loving him. Like he’s daring you to bite him back.

You can bite.

You can rip something in him, and make it almost half as deep as he’s buried himself into you.

“It’s your fault, you know.” You cross your arms, glaring at him across the room.

He chuckles, looking back to the TV. “Yeah, whatever sweetheart-“

“Don’t call me that.”

That makes him go rigid. His eyes fly back to yours, and you mimic his challenging look.

“What,” he stares at you, like he doesn’t understand what you’re saying. “Don’t call you sweetheart-“

“Yes.” You raise your chin, and he sits up.

“I- Why?”

“Why?” You laugh, rolling your eyes. “Why do you think, Dean? Why on Earth wouldn’t I want you to call me sweetheart, when you fucking- You-“

He says your name slowly, and you shake your head, wrapping your arms around your stomach.

“No, you- You keep-“

“Is this about you askin’ me to-“

“Of course it’s about that!” You scream, and Dean’s hand fists on his leg. “You turned me down, Dean, you said no, and that’s- That’s fine, you’re allowed to- To not want me-“

Dean moves slowly to his feet, watching you carefully. “Sweetheart-“

“Don’t call me that!” You scream, taking a large step back. “Don’t talk to me like that when you don’t mean it, Dean, it- It’s awful-“

“I wasn’t tryin’ to make you-“ He swallows, reaching a hand for you before yanking it back. “Look, I just- I didn’t think-“

“You didn’t think? You’re not stupid, Dean, how could you not think that you rejecting me when I- I’d been so sure, when I love you-“

“Don’t.” His voice raises suddenly. You flinch a step back, pressing your back to the wall.

Dean’s face falls in second, and he moves forward, arms flexing like he’s trying to control every movement.

“Baby, I-“

“Don’t yell at me.” You whisper, blinking away your tears.

He swallows, voice strained. “I know, I didn’t mean to-“

“You’re the one who said no, Dean.” You mutter, staring down at his knees. “You told me I was wrong, but- You follow me to bars and you call me sweetheart, and- and Baby-“ You wipe your nose, sniffing through the words, all your anger just evaporating into hurt. “You can’t do both. You can’t. It’s not fair.”

“I know.” He says immediately, taking another step forward. “I know, I’m sorry, just- Don’t cry. Don’t, I’m not worth that-“

“Yes, you are.”

Dean falls completely silent, and you look up to find him barely a foot away. Every muscle in his body flexes, his chest heaving like the air is thin. He’s staring at you like he’s not sure you’re there. You tip your head back against the door, and give him a tired smile.

“You’re worth everything.” You whisper. “I- I still love you, Dean, and you don’t have to feel it back, but- I love you, and you-“

“No.” He almost chokes out the word, face twisting like he’s in pain. “You had a crush. That’s not love, it’s-“ he shakes his head. “You got rose colored glasses, alright? I’m not some kinda hero that’s gonna live up to the fuckin’ fantasy-“

“It’s not a fantasy.” You snap. “I love you, I know I do-“

“I promise you don’t.” He grunts. “I drink too much, I don’t go to the doctor and I got no plans, I’m an old ass who sleeps with a gun, hell, I’m old enough to be your dad, that’s not love-“

“Stop telling me that!”

Dean blinks at the certainty in your shout, and you push up on the wall, eyes narrowing.

“I’m not a fucking idiot, I know what a crush feels like, and I know what love feels like, and I- I feel better around you, Dean!” Your voice cracks. “You make everything better, you make me feel- Feel wanted, you make me smile and you make me happy, and I- I love seeing you because it tells me I’m going to be okay.” The tears are falling again, and Dean looks like he’s seen a ghost. “You’re being such a dick but I still love you, and I- I think- I think I need space because you can’t- You don’t have to want me but you can’t act like I don’t know what I want, because I know, and it’s you, it’s just you-“

Your voice breaks fully, and Dean moves.

He crashes forward, grabbing your face between his hands and kissing you like he thinks you’re going to disappear. You squeak, grabbing the collar of his shirt, and he presses closer.

His body is draped over yours, warm and sturdy. His mouth is certain, moving against yours like a wave. Pulling at your lower lip then sucking, open and passionate. You’re trapped between him and the wall, and your knees get weak from the force but he wraps an arm around you, keeping you afloat as your head starts to spin.

“De- Dean-“

“It’s just you,” he grunts your name, speaking between frenzied, wet kisses. “It’s only you, been you since the first time you smiled at me and it was like the sun was finally fuckin’ shining, there’s nothin’ else, no one else- Son of a bitch, you’re the only thing that gets my ass outta bed in the morning some days, just fuckin’ you.”

He kisses the corner of your mouth, drags his lips in a hot line down your neck. You shiver, pulling him closer and trying, so desperately, to be sure this isn’t a dream.

“You- You said-“

“I know what I said.” He pulls back, taking your face between his hands. “Thought-“ He laughs dryly. “Hell, I still think, you’re better off running around with someone your own age. Someone who’s got a future, who can give you things-“

“You can give me things.” You whisper, staring up at him. He swallows.

“I told you, I’m old with ten bucks to my name, and I don’t think I’m hittin’ the lottery any time soon-“

“But you have you.” You smile at him, reaching carefully up to cup his cheek. “That’s all I want, Dean. That’s all you need to give.”

Dean’s eyes close, screwed shut as he breathes through his nose. He grabs your hand on his cheek, holding it there with a crushing grip.

“Do you want me?” You breathe out, still not fully trusting that this is real.

He nods, and tears slide down your cheeks.

“I- I need you to say it, please-“

“I want you.” He rasps, eyes locking onto yours. “And I don’t just want you, sweetheart, I- I-“ His jaw flexes, like he’s gagging on his own words.

You wait, and he presses further over you, consuming your whole vision. Your hand is guided over your head, and when you reach with it’s opposite to wrap around his neck, he takes that one too. You’re caged between his massive chest and the wall, your fingers scraping at the back of his hand, and he looks at you like the stars have been poured into his bathtub. Like he’s being offered the universe to drown in, and he’s just trying to build the courage to drive.

“I can’t stop calling you.” He mutters, and your breath hitches. “I call for you in my sleep, call for you when I think I’m running outta luck and I gotta start saying my prayers. Call for you on every hunt, even when I know you’re gonna be okay. Think about shouting for you when you leave the room, stare at my phone when you go away and hope you call me, so I’m not being a fuckin’ pervert.”

“You- You’re not a-“

“Yes, I am.” Dean brushes his lips over yours, and you gasp softly. “Things I think about doin’ to you aren’t winning me any sainthoods. Call for you there, too. When I got an hour to myself, just me and my imagination, and you.” He kisses your cheek, then under your ear. “Sometimes I get so loud I think you’re gonna hear. You don’t look at me after and I worry I’ve lost you forever. Can’t lose you, sweetheart. Can’t.” His voice falters slightly, and he draws back.

Drops his brow back against yours, all the teasing confidence waning in a second. His voice is raw. Pleading and hopeless.

“You- You don’t have to forgive me, alright? I thought you’d be better, thought you just got swept up in something, I didn’t- I’m sorry.” His expression is bare, filled with so much pain you feel it echo in your chest. “I’m so sorry, baby, but don’t- Don’t go. Please.” He grabs your hip like it’s his last anchor in a storm. “Don’t leave me. I’ll do anything, give you anything, please-“

You can’t stand it anymore. The pain in his voice.

So you press up, and kiss him.

It’s a little faster than Dean’s kiss. More chaste, too. A tiny press of your lips over his, and an attempt to draw back. But Dean is faster, and strong. He grabs the back of your head, ducking down to meet you and kissing you with such a fervor your legs give out.

He catches you. His grip squeezes on your hands, and he pulls you upright in a second, his mouth managing to never leave yours. You gasp, rising up to trying and meet every bit of heat he can offer. You open your mouth, and he takes full advantage, pushing his tongue over yours as his knee slides between your legs.

You moan, rolling your hips, and Dean squeezes your wrists. He rubs his thumb in small, soothing circles as he tugs on your hair gently. Just enough to tip your head back, and allow him further access.    

Dean kisses you like he’s done it a million times before. Your head is spinning with the passion, but he never breaks pace. When you start to run out of air—whining against his lips and straining at his hold on your wrists—he drops his lips to your neck, sucking and nipping gently as you try to collect yourself.

It’s a pointless endeavor. Every brush of Dean’s teeth, every flick of his tongue, they send a bolt of lightning through your body. You’ve never been taken this high with just kissing, but it’s Dean. He could be taking about diseases and you’d want to climb him like a tree.

You’re not doing much climbing right now, though. There’s a pressure building between your thighs, and you’re mostly just fighting yourself from humping him like an animal.

It’s hard, when he’s making out with a sensitive spot under your jaw. You’re not even sure how you manage to speak.

“Oh- Oh god-“

“Not God.” He teases. “Just me. Call my name, sweetheart, let me hear it-“

You try to, but it turns into a strangled moan when Dean’s hand drops from your head to your hips. The firm squeeze of the skin, his fingers dancing over your inner thigh, it’s too much. You start to rut against his jeans in tiny, uncontrolled movements, and it only makes all that building need worse.

Dean groans, pushing his knee further up. It’s overwhelming, the mix of relief and desperation the motion brings. You squeak, grinding down onto him, chasing more, more, more-

“That’s it.” He mutters, encouraging and low. “That’s a girl, fuck my leg, come on-“

You moan, and Dean molds his lips back over yours. It feels like where he’s supposed to be. How he’s supposed to be.

So completely with you.

Almost yours.

And it gnaws at the back of your head, even as release builds in your core. He apologized, he said he wants you, but- But-“

“Dean,” you bite down another moan, the coil wound too tight. About to snap, when he starts to push his knee up in time with every roll of your hips. “Oh- Dean- We- We still need to talk-“

He stops immediately, and you almost whine.

“Right.” He grunts, wiping his mouth with his free hand. Your thighs clench around his knee, core still throbbing, and he smirks. “Talk about what, baby?”

You scowl. He knows what he’s doing, the asshole. “We- We can’t just sleep together-“

“Who said we were sleeping together?”

You flush, your eyes going wide, and Dean sighs.

“No, sweetheart, I was just teasing, come on-“

You turn your face, flushed with embarrassment. Dean leans forward, kissing up your jaw gently.

“I wanna sleep with you,” he murmurs in your ear, and you press your lips in a thin line. “I do, Christ- You got no idea, but if you’re not ready I’m not rushing anything.”

He presses his brow against the side of your head, lips brushing under your ear.

“I don’t wanna ruin this,” he rasps. “It’s the first good thing I got, you- You’re the only thing I’ve never-“ He shakes his head. “I still got you, alright? I got you. We can talk if you wanna talk, and I’ll keep my mouth shout. But I want you. Want you so much it hurts.” He rolls his hips up, and your eyes dart to his as you feel the proof.

Hard and thick through his jeans. Rubbing on your inner thigh, making your thoughts run away with all kinds of ideas. With the image of him sliding in and out of you, your pussy clenching around nothing. Your nails dig into his wrists, your breath picking up, and Dean notices.

His eyes soften, even as his tongue flicks over his lips.

“Tell me what you want.” He mutters, and you drag the words from the molten pit of your stomach.

“You.”

Dean’s face flashes, his voice getting hoarse. “How.”

And you know. He’s not just asking about this. About your bodies woven together, or his hand gliding under your shirt.

So you smile, and turn your head to fully kiss him. Slow and soft, enough to soothe the tension in both your bodies. Dean lets you lead this kiss, dropping your wrists to weave his fingers through your head.

Your voice is gentle and soft, when you speak into his mouth.

“However you want.” You whisper. “I’m yours.”

Dean doesn’t hesitate. A deep sound rumbles through his chest, and before you know what’s happening you’re being picked up off the ground. Dean carries you to your bed like you weigh nothing, muscled arms wrapped tight around your body and kissing you with less and less control each second.

You’re not tossed onto the bed, but placed down like something precious. Your arms rise, trying to hold on as Dean stands up, and he doesn’t seems all that willing to let go either. When you yank on his hair, scratching at his neck, he groans.

Falls back over you, herding you up the bed with desperate, unrelenting kisses.

“Brat.” He grunts, bullying you back against the headboard. “I was gonna get undressed, gonna take my time, but you’re just that needy, huh? Need me so bad you can’t give a man five seconds?”

You shake your head, his every dirty word shooting right to your already dripping cunt.

You’re sure you’ve ruined this pair of underwear. Dean certainly isn’t helping, with his wandering hands. Squeezing your hips and thighs, teasing your sides with featherlight touches and knuckles grazing your breasts. He presses his tongue flat on your neck as he sits you up against the headboard, and your legs fall open at the sheer display of strength. He’s folding you and moving you like you’re a doll, all while touching you like you’re a diamond.

“Too long.” You gasp, grinding up against his knee. It’s moved back between your thighs, as Dean grabs your face between his hands and rises over your body.

He stares at you in wonder, lips swollen and eyes shining.

You blink at him, core still dragging against him. You’d been so close before, so so close, and you might be about to cry from desperation.

“Dean, please.” You beg without caring, and his fingers dig a little into your neck. Your head spins with desire, and you grab his wrists, fucking up into his leg. “Please, it- It’s been so long, I’ve needed you so bad, fuck- Dean-“

Your whining is cut off with one, long and searing kiss. It’s shockingly sweet, for what a wreck you are below him. Dean grins against your lips, swaying you back and forth, unmoved by your little whimpers and squirming. When he pulls back, it’s with the control of a man who knows what he wants.

You.

Dean’s seen the world, and he wants you.

“Take off your clothes.” He mutters, smiling at you as he pulls away. His voice is deep and dangerous. It sends a thrill of desire through your heat.

Then he leans back, and you try to follow, but he doesn’t let you. Dean press a hand flat over your stomach, and gently pushes you back against the headboard.

“Ah,” he smirks, dragging his fingers slowly down your stomach. “No touchin’ right now, baby girl. Want you to show me.”

You swallow, voice small and breathy. “Show you?”

“How much you want it.” He mutters, those fingers dragging right over your core. “How much you want me.”

Then, right as he’s pressing at your core through your pants, he pulls back.

Dean sits on the bed, thick thighs spread, watching you expectantly.

“Strip.” He reminds you, and you nod.

And you don’t know how you find the confidence, under the intensity of his gaze, but you move. You peel off your shirt, then unclip your bra.

“Good girl.” He grunts, and you shine under the praise, sitting up a little taller. Dean jaw tightens, and he rubs his thigh as he stares at your breasts. His tongue flicks over his lips, and he looks almost feral.

That’s how you find it. Dean wants you, wants to see you, and he looks at you like you’re beautiful. You feel beautiful.

Watching Dean nostrils flare, watching him palm himself and hearing his low groans, you’ve never felt more beautiful in your life.

You peel off your pants, then your underwear. Lean back against the headboard and watch Dean seem to fight himself. He strains, leaning forward like he can’t help himself. He’s still trapped in his jeans, but you can see the hard outline of his cock, and your pussy flutters at the sight. Slowly, watching his thick hand move back and forth on his length, you drag two fingers through your pussy lips.

“Oh.” You gasp, tipping your head back. “Dean-“

He makes a sound close to a growl, and your fingers dip into your heat. They pump slowly, and you look under your lashes at the tent in Dean’s pants. You clench, hips pushing up to offer yourself a better angle. Dean groans, croaking your name, and you move a little faster.

“Fuck, Dean-“ You moan, words pouring wantingly from your mouth. “I- I want your cock so bad. Want you to fuck me, make me stupid, want to feel you-“

He hisses, eyes flashing as he scrambles with his belt. “Jesus, you can’t just fuckin’ say that shit, baby-“

“But I want you.” You pout at him, pulling your fingers out to rub your clit in slow, teasing circles. “Want you to fill me up, Dean, please-“

You push up and start to crawl across the bed. Dean freezes, watching you with wide eyes as you settle between his legs. You press your face into his thigh, right against his half-pulled down pants. He grunts, his hand shooting into your hair, and you let your body sink into the mattress. You kiss over the seam of his pants, along his hips, over his cock.

He hisses, twitching under your touch. You snake your hand down your body, pushing your ass in the air as you start to finger yourself again.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean groans, and you hum, pressing your nose into his balls as you fuck your hand. “You’re killin’ me, you’re- Chist-“

You lick him through his underwear, moaning as you rub your clit back and forth. Dean’s hand fists, but he doesn’t push you further. You can tell he wants to. That he’s still trying to be respectful and loving.

But that’s not what you want. Dean’s a marvel of a man, and you want all his attention. You want to choke on it, to be covered in his marks, to never have to doubt what you mean to him again.

You moan against him, wiggling your ass and pressing your own face down. Your lips graze under his balls, and you roll onto your back. Spread your legs, rubbing your clit and letting your legs spread wide for Dean to see your mess of arousal. He grabs your breast, kneading and rolling your nipple, and you giggle with an almost dizzying pleasure.

Dean’s hips jerk forward, and you use your free hand to pull at his boxers. You need to feel more of him, need to have as much as him as he’ll let you take while you’re in control. Dean’s hips slam forward, when your fingers wrap around the base of his thick cock, squeezing your tits tight enough you squirm.

You need two hands, to get him fully out. One to move the fabric, the other to try and guide him where you want. When he’s fully freed, you grab his knee for support and like as firm stripe up the underside of his dick. He’s beautiful, right down to the thickness in your hands. You didn’t know someone could be beautiful like this. You’ve certainly never seen a cock you wanted to worship.

But it’s Dean. It’s always Dean.

You squirm, tipping your head back so you can lick his head. Dean pushes further up on his knees to accommodate you, moaning your name. His hand slides down your body, the other bracing him somewhere near your ass.

“Fuckin’- Fuck-“ He groans, and it gives you a little extra push. You wraps your lip around him, flicking your tongue over his weeping slit.

His hand grabs your inner thigh, and you feel his whole body tense as he seems to fully realize how turned on your are. You squeak around him, when his thumb drags over your clit, and he jerks into your mouth.

“Sorry.” He grunts, voice thick with hunger. “Fuck, I’m- You’re so wet.” He sounds wrecked, fucking shallowly into your mouth, and you moan happily. Grab his thighs, as his thumb starts to circle your clit in tiny, fast strokes.

You hum, unhinging your jaw, and Dean groans. He bumps against the back of your throat, and you feel your eyes roll back with pleasure.

Then he shifts slightly. Leans down, his warm breath fanning over the heat of your cunt. Your nails dig into him, and you think you’d scream if your voice wasn’t being stolen by his cock. You’re only breathing out of your nose, lightheaded from the way he’s using your mouth.

Dean kisses over your clit. Wet and open mouthed, lips moving like he’s in a trance.

He moans, and repeats the motion. His arms lock around your legs as he spits on your pussy, spreading them wider before his whole face presses into your core.

And you’ve heard about him. Even just rumors, of how he’s learned to play a body over the years.

The stories do him no justice. This might be better than heaven.

Dean eats your pussy like he’s been training for it. Like it’s a sport and he’s trying to win. His tongue drags, his beard scraping your thighs, and his hands splay on your ass to keep you exactly where he wants. His tongue licks, fast and tight on your clit. His nose rubs against your entrance, his hands squeezing as he pulls you up, hits deeper, and you can feel that heat in your, about to explode.

He feels it too.

And he pulls back.

“Hold it.” He kisses your clit lightly, then spanks your pussy. “Gonna make it good, sweetheart, but you gotta hold it.”

You moan around him, but it’s a sound of desperate agreement. You trust him.

Holding it feels almost impossible, but fuck if you aren’t going to try.

“Good girl.” He slaps your pussy again, pulls himself out of your mouth and rolls you both over with a small grunt. Suddenly he’s flat on his back, and you’re being manhandled up and around.

Onto the top of his chest.  

You push at his shoulders, and he just chuckles, catching your hands easily.

“Dean, what are you-“

 “Having you sit on my face.” He kisses the inside of your wrist. “You’re gonna love it, baby, trust me.”

You swallow. “I- I might crush you-“

“Noble death.” He shrugs, grinning when you glare.

“Dean, I’m serious-“

“I’m serious. You’re not gonna hurt me, I know what I’m doing. If you don’t want to, that’s another conversation, but don’t hide from me just cause you’re worried I can’t handle some good fuckin’ pussy on my face.”

Jesus Christ, that almost makes you cum on it’s own. Dean beams when you nod nervously, starting to crawl further up. He guides you further, a playful glint in his eyes, and kisses the very inside of your thigh.

“Remember.” He winks, and your fingers shoot into his hair. “Don’t cum.”

Your mouth falls open, and Dean yanks you down.

Any snapping words you had are driven from your mind in a second. He was right. You do like it.

It’s even better than being under him. He’s still got you in a tight hold, pinning you on his face as you try to wriggle away, but the pleasure is so overwhelming you can’t do anything else. It’s like a warm, sentient vibrator has been trapped against your pussy. Dean groans and kisses you with a wet open mouth, the sound rolling through your body. Even as your writhe over him, gasping his name and making loud, choked sounds you didn’t know your body was capable of, you’re pulling at his hair trying to get closer.

You don’t know how you’re supposed to stop yourself from coming. He’s keeping you on his face, but not restricting your movements. Every time you try to chase more, he moans. You look over your shoulder and find his cock still at attention, fucking the air like he can’t help it.

That almost tips you over. You gasp, eyes rolling, and-

Dean pulls you off. Sits you back on his chest, reaching up to play with your tits while you gape uselessly.

“Dean-“

“Soon.” He promises, pinching your nipple gently. “You’re doin’ great, baby girl. Doin’ so good for me.”

That does exactly what he wants. The burning need in your core wanes, but not enough to kill anything. You’re just pulled a little off the edge, grinding onto his broad, thick chest as he plays with your breasts.

Then, again, Dean picks you up and sits you back on his face. This time one hand doesn’t leave your breast, continuing to tease a nipple while Dean groans against your pussy. You shove at the arm locked around your back, but his fingers just tickle your side, and make you drop right back down with a scream. He laughs as your thighs start to tremble, and you stop fighting it, even for play. You’re wound too tight, you need it too much-

Dean stops again. Smiles at you, and kisses your knee near his head as you try to shake yourself out of the daze. Then, again, when you’re settled, he pulls you forward.

This time you’re limp over him, grinding desperately down on his mouth. He groans, letting his hands wander. Dragging up your spine, one cupping the back of your neck as the other splays possessively on your lower back. You get to the edge faster that time.

And Dean stops again.

You don’t know how long he does that. You lose track somewhere around the fifth, when you’re a sobbing mess of desire.

“Dean, please-“ You whimper, pulling at his hair as he guides you back down. “I- I can’t- Can’t hold it, I need to cum, please-“

“Soon, sweet girl.” He reaches up, wiping a few tears from your cheeks.

You lean into his warm, calloused hand, and he smiles. Something reverent and soft settles on his features, almost jarring in the mix of sweat and sin filling the room.

“You have no idea.” He mutters. “How beautiful you are.”

You swallow, lips parting. Dean drags his finger over your lower lip, rubbing a calming circle on your lower back.

“You need to come?” He asks gently, and you nod.

“Please.”

“Alright.” He picks you up again, moving you further down his chest. To his dick, big and dripping with pre-cum, pressing against your ass as you stare at him. “Take what you want.”

You stare at him, and finally see the tiny smirk on his lips. He’s still playing with you. And when you pout, he laughs, dragging your down into a long, deep kiss.

“I’m not young anymore, baby.” He teases, kissing your nose. “This is what happens when you decide you wanna fuck a dinosaur.”

You glare at him, shoving his chest. “You’re no a dinosaur-“

“And you’re not coming till you ride my cock.”

A new, heavy determination fills you. You stick your tongue out at him, pushing up on his chest, and he just smiles at you like you’re an angel.

“You’re such an ass.” You mutter, letting a little affection drip over your words as you sit up on your knees.

Dean laughs, grinning easily up at you. “Yeah, but I’m your ass now. You said you love me. No take backs- Fuck-“

There’s a jolt of pride, as you line Dean up with your hole and sink onto him in one movement. It’s only because he’s prepped you to the point of near ruin, but it’s working in your favor now. Dean grabs your waist, tipping his head back with a long moan as you just sit on him for a second.

The stretch burns a little, but it’s perfect. You didn’t know you could be this full, feel someone so everywhere. The sensation darts from your pussy to your toes, your lips, your fingers sinking into his chest as you just try to breath. It’s not too much, but it’s more. Enough that you think you could come just by being filled with him, if he let you stay there long enough.

But you’ve been teased too much, tonight. You need release, or you might start crying for real.

You swivel your hips in experiment, and Dean groans.

“Jesus, woman-“

“’S big.” You mumble, repeating the movement. Every thought is slowly draining from your head, leaving only an instinct of Dean. “Oh- Oh my god-“

You find a good angle that drives right into your g-spot, and start to grind down. Dean says your name through his teeth, grabbing at you in a way that’s going to bruise in the morning.

It goads you on. You pick up your pace, trying to drag yourself back up to that edge Dean brought you to like it was nothing.

His cock is dragging and pressing inside of you, and it’s too much for you to let go of him. You moan, staring down at Dean, and that helps a little more. His muscles ripple below you, his head tipped back and lips gently parted as he watches you move on him. You can see his restraint again, as he just rubs your body and mutters low, rumbling encouragement.

“That’s it, baby girl.” He squeezes under your ribs, that awe shining in his eyes. “So fuckin’ tight on my cock, taking me perfectly. Never felt this good, sweetheart, never fuckin’-“

You drag forward, clenching around him, and he moans. Tips his head back with fluttering eyes, but still doesn’t just rut up into you. You whine in frustration, movements becoming short and uncontrolled as you get closer and closer.

But it’s not enough. Your thighs feel like jelly, and you can’t quite get yourself there. You’re trying, you’re trying so hard, but your mouth his hanging open and you can barely breathe through the feeling of Dean buried inside your cunt-

Dean grabs your jaw, forcing your glazed eyes onto his. His mouth twitches as you blink, and his voice is only sweet, as he murmurs your name.

“Sweetheart, you having some trouble?” He coos, and you’re mostly just shaking above him now. “Need some help.”

You can only nod, clawing at his chest hopefully.

Dean grins, and drags you down. Your mouth falls over his, and you moan openly, collapsing totally into his embrace.

His arm slides around your lower back, and you squeal as he rolls you over one more time. You’re pressed into the pillows, your legs nudged open, and Dean thrusts slowly, giving you a pace to adjust to the shift.

He’s deeper like this. Folding you under him to hit spots you couldn’t, kissing you so lovingly the whole time. You’d expected him to drill you through the mattress, but there’s no rush to his movements at all. 

Dean’s fucking you like he’s got all the time in the world, and he knows exactly how he wants to spend it. Buried in your pussy, dragging everything out of you like a professional. His cock slides in and out of you, and it’s an even more lewd picture than you’d managed to imagine before. He presses all the way down to his balls, circles his hips, then pulls almost all the way out. It’s not slow, but it’s not rough. And it makes you only putty in his hands, staring up at him as he starts to pull a burning, powerful feeling from deep in your gut that no one else has ever been able to give you.

Stars dance at your vision, and Dean kisses you lazily. Firm, but slow, tasting your every moan and whimper like it’s his favorite pie. You grab his face and he hums. His thrusts start to get a little uneven, pressing deeper every time you clench around him. He moves one hand between your bodies, rising up to watch you below him with an adoring gaze.

You’re beyond words, when he starts to rub your clit. You don’t think you remember how to speak.

Dean leans down, his head pressed into your cheek as he kisses your neck, watching you start to roll below him. He groans as your pussy flutters again, that heat getting impossible to hold down.

He kisses you, words gentle but firm against your mouth.

“Now, baby, soak my cock like a good girl, cum for me, come on-“

Your orgasm hits you so hard your vision goes white. Your body spasms, Dean’s name falling from your lips like a prayer. He groans as you gush around his cock, fucking you through it with shorter and shorter thrusts until he’s kissing you with teeth and spit, pumping his release into your abused, oversensitive pussy.

You make a tiny sound of protest, as the feeling of him overflowing in your cunt forces a tiny, mind-numbing orgasm through your body. Dean kisses you gently, moving you with light hands onto your side. For a second, you think he’s going to try and leave. You grab his arm, twisting to give him a pleading expression.

He frowns. “Sweetheart, you gotta clean up-“

You shake your head, giving him your best doe eyes. He sighs, and lies back down, huffing in a amusement at your wide smile.

“Can’t even smile and still bossing me around,” he mutters, kissing your neck.

You wrinkle your nose, and he laughs, kissing that too.

Then he pauses. Leans up, something serious shadowing his eyes.

“You, uh-“ He clears his throat. “You know, right? What you mean to me? That I…”

He trials off, swallowing, and you smile. Reach over to cup his cheek, beaming at him with everything you have. Every bit of love in you, finally able to just flood into him.

Dean mouth twitches, and he nods. Bows his head, wrapping an arm tight around your stomach.

“Good.” He mutters, and you know.

He’s never meant anything more in his life.

“Cause I mean it.” He rasps, kissing your cheek. “It’s only you.”

“I know you’re not good at listening, sweetheart, but I didn’t call you one-“

“It was implied.”

Dean rolls his eyes, giving Sam a you see what I gotta deal with expression, like he’s not the one making the whole fucking issue.

“I’m not staying in the car.” You repeat, louder than before, and Dean chuckles dryly.

“Yeah. You are.”

“I’m not-“

“You are-“

“You lock me in here, I’ll start screaming-“

He gives you an unimpressed look. “I’ll gag you.”

You grin at him, crossing your arms over your chest. “Kinky.”

Dean jaw clenches. You beam. Somewhere in the background, Sam sighs.

“Guys…”

“You’re staying here.” Dean snaps. “That’s that.”

“You’re not the boss of me, Winchester-“

“The hell I’m not-“

“You don’t offer me health insurance-“

“None of us get health insurance, sweetheart, that’s why I’m telling you to stay in the car-“

“Guys.” Sam sighs, looking between you with the same, exhausted expression as usual. “We only have until the sunrise, and it’s already 4am. Can you please do this after?”

You don’t look away from Dean. He doesn’t look away from you. You raise your brows mockingly.

“He’s talking to you, Dean. Can you do this after?”

Dean narrows his eyes, and he opens his mouth to bark something at you that you probably would’ve deflected now—using taunting words and matching his harsh tone—then cried about later. In the safety of your bedroom, where Dean can’t see you. The only place that you can go to let everything out. It’s safe in your room. Dean never even knocks on your door, always sending Sam in his stead. But you don’t go to his room either. It’s an unspoken rule that you’ve never had steady enough feet on the ground to bother breaking. You’re pretty sure that if Sam doesn’t kill you both over this, he’s going to strangle you later for making him a messenger pigeon.

But you need that solace. That quiet, where Dean can’t shake your world with sneers and glowers. It hits something raw in you, a wound that you’ve never bothered to stich up or cauterize because you love the bleeding too much. It pours all over your hands when you hug your stomach, out of your mouth like bile when you try to defend yourself—to make him stop just seeing you as some stupid, naive civilian girl he needs to heard around—and out of your eyes when you cry over all of it.

The things that do make you that naïve civilian girl. The things that make you barely any better than a teenager with a crush, wandering around after the boy you like and pulling at his sleeve for just an ounce of attention.

No one can blame you for falling for the hero who saved your life and swept you off your feet. Offered you a new life, taught you how to shoot a gun with his arms around your body—you can still feel him sometimes, when you rub your shoulders—and told you that he’ d always keep you safe.

Dean had been straight out of a romance book. You’d let yourself get starry eyed, you’d daydreamed that he lingered around you out of affection rather than obligation. You’d been an idiot, and you’d gotten comfortable, and when Sam said you had a knack for the lore and were more than welcome to stay, you’d said yes without a thought.

You’d thought Dean would’ve been happy.

But you’d told him, and he’d looked like he was going to put his fist through a wall.

Everything had shifted, like a picture into the negative. Dean stopped seeking you out for anything, stopped training you, almost stopped looking at you all together. In the first months, he’d walked out of a room the moment you entered. At one point, you’d overheard him having a very loud fight with Sam about letting you stick around. 

He hadn’t been speaking to Sam either. They’d gotten over it, because they always seemed to. Your second foolish fantasy was that Dean would get over whatever you’d done to him—you’re still not all that sure—and decide that he actually did like you. That he’d remember how good things had been at the start, and if you proved yourself to him, everything would go back to normal.

But it’s been a year.

And normal is this now.

Dean hates you. He must hate you. There’s no other reason he’d argue with Sam about bringing you on hunts, even when they need the extra hands or your research. And even when Sam wins the fight—which is always, you think he might have a cheat code that makes Dean always agree with him, and you’d very much like access to it please—Dean still acts like you don’t exist. Or worse, like you do, and it’s the bane of his entire life. For the whole fifteen hour drive, and you get handed snacks without eye contact and checked on like you’re a dog he’s making sure didn’t piss all over his precious car.

For the entire hunt, you’ve been able to feel his attention burning through you. Whenever you’d look over, he would’ve already looked away, but you could feel it. And you’re the one who tracked the nest and identified the mutation in these vamps that made them daywalkers, but when you’d looked to Dean with a hopeful smile for approval, he’d looked away again.

You might’ve sat in the bathtub with the water burning yours shoulders and useless tears sliding down your cheeks after. Clawing at your face like you could remove the pain, remove all the love you felt for him with all the brutal precision of a hungry animal. But if you did, it’s none of his fucking business.

And you might not want to join in on the actual hunt—that sounds gross, and bloody, and kind of scary—but Dean doesn’t get to win. You can handle it, and if you can’t he’s there.

It makes you feel safer than it should. Dean always makes you feel safer, and you hate him for it.

The thing about loving him is that it’s not so much a choice as something that slammed into you like a comet. Dean left a massive depression in something so vital you think it might be your soul, and now it blooms all the time. Alone and in the dark, finding sunshine in every piece of him that’s worthy of such a feral, unyielding devotion.

It’s most of him. He’s still that hero who saved you, and your body knows it better than your head sometimes. He opens doors for you even when he keeps his gaze fixed firmly over your head. He makes you coffee in the mornings before stalking out of the room like you make the whole place reek.

He’s going to keep you safe, even if he bitches about it and shouts at you the whole time.

And it’s so easy to love him for all of that. In the end, most of your desperation isn’t really to stop loving him.

It’s to scream loud enough that he stops pretending he can’t hear it. That he saves you again, even if it’s from yourself.

You win the argument about going into the house. For all his postering and deep, commanding grunts and threats, Dean’s not actually that good at telling you know. You’ve told Sam it’s because you have the numbers against him. Sam always gives you a strange look and says uh huh, like you’re supposed to know what that means.

“You stick with me.” Dean snaps, pulling out his dainty little baby gun and passing it into your hands. “You wanna speak, think five times, then don’t say it. These things are noise-sensitive, they hear you breathe, they rip you up.”

“I know.” You grumble. “I discovered them.”

Dean sighs heavily, just loud enough for you to know he heard you. “I don’t want you out of my sight.” He mutters, and you give him a flat look.

“So you’re planning to look at me today?”

He shoots you a glare, saying your name in a low warning, and you roll your eyes.

“Never mind.” You mutter under your breath, like a petulant child. “Guess it’s easier to look at ugly things when they’re in the dark.”

That makes him flinch back, like you punched him in the gut. He’s going to say something again, and you really don’t want to hear it.

You stalk over to Sam, leaving Dean gaping and rigid at Baby’s truck. Sam looks between you, but doesn’t bother to ask what you’re fighting about. He rarely does, and it’s always followed by an annoyed now, like it’s somehow your fault Dean thinks everything you do is a sin. What are you two doing now. Why are you mad at him now. Why is Dean being an idiot now.

He’s always an idiot. A handsome, insufferable idiot you want to sucker punch, then make out with until you can’t breathe. If you tried to hit him, maybe he’d catch your wrist and pin you to something. His massive body crowded over yours, his face inches away, lips brushing as he shouted at you, then gave up when you moaned—he’d be too close, his crotch pressing you down, you’d probably moan—and started touching and kissing you until your legs gave out and you were putty in his hands and he worshipped you with the same soft attention he used to offer-

“Stop flirting and fall in.” Dean snaps at you and Sam, standing in complete silence.

Sam rolls his eyes, and hisses something to Dean when they walk past each other that makes Dean look murderous. You flush—thankfully hidden in the dark—and grip your baby-gun tight as you follow.

“Stay with me-“

“I know.” You snap, not looking him in the eyes. “I’m not an idiot.”

Dean grunts, and you can’t tell if it’s an agreement or dismissal. You’re not sure which would be worse.

The moment you’re in the nest, you remember why you don’t usually do this. Why you actually prefer waiting at the motel for them to come back, or just staying in the car with an anxiously bouncing knee. You always ask to go with them because you hate the dread. Hate watching them—both of them, because you might not be in love with Sam but he’s sort of your only friend anymore—walk out the door for what always might be the last time. They never think it will be.

You do. Every time, Dean pulls out of the parking lot with your heart in his dumb, big hands, and you know it could stop beating any second. That you won’t even know until you get a phone call, and a part of you withers that’s never going to be reborn.

So you ask to go with them. To help. Do first aide, be extra hands, anything so you don’t just have to wonder if they’re okay.

But then you actually get here, and you hate it.

It’s scary. Scary and quiet and loud all at once. You have to physically yank yourself back from grabbing Dean’s forearm and clinging to him. He radiates heat, and this barn is so fucking cold, and you’d like to go back to the car now, thank you very much-

Everything happens so fast. It always does, on a hunt.

You find the vamps. Sam offs one, Dean gets another two, and your fingers tremble but you manage to kick a third back into Dean’s machete. He gives you an approving look, and you feel like you’ve grown wings.

Then another on comes out of nowhere. Slams into Dean and starts driving him backwards.

You scream, and shoot. It won’t kill them, but it’ll distract.

And it does.

The vamp stumbles when you hit his calf, dropping Dean to the floor. It turns on you with glinting eyes, and lunges.

You’re thrown to the ground with teeth gnashing near your throat. There’s a roar in the background, and you feel a rush of pain through your stomach as the vamp hits you. Heat burns over your neck, and your arms are starting to get weak, and-

 All the noise stops. The body over you slumps.

You open your eyes to find Dean standing over you, just like that first time he saved you.

Only now, he looks like he wants to cut off your head next.

He’s staring at you a strangely furious and pallid expression all at once. There’s something glinting in his eyes that you can’t place. His breath is heavy through his nose, and he’s not even blinking as he scans over you.

His eyes widen, when he sees the blood blooming through your shirt. He drops his machete, bends down, and scoops you up into his arms.

The rest of the night is a little hazy.

Dean carries you to the Impala. He smells good, like leather and pine trees and something a little spicy. He looks really good, too. Covered in blood and grease and so angry he’s almost feral. His hands are warm, and make you feel fuzzy when they brush over your stomach, checking the wound.

The whole thing feels like a dream. Especially after he coaxed some painkillers down your throat, and the world all becomes just color and Dean’s undivided attention, pressing over you.

He doesn’t speak to you the whole time. He’s humming something, fingers brushing over your bare skin, and the feel oddly light. Almost shaky.  

You breathe out his name. You don’t know why. Through the drugs, it’s sort of the only word you know.

His hands still for a heartbeat, then grab you a little tighter.

Before you pass out, your vision swimming and thoughts covered in a fog, you could swear you see him bow his head against your chest. He holds your hips tight, lips brushing against your exposed stomach.

Your weak fingers reach up, brushing through his hair. A deep sound rumbles from his chest, and it’s soothing.

The world goes peacefully dark, and Dean stays wrapped around you all the way into your dreams.

He hasn’t spoken to you.

It’s been three weeks, and Dean hasn’t said a single word.

It’s worse than before. Worse than it’s even been. Even those first months after you moved in permanently, he’d at least acknowledge your existence. It had been via avoiding you like the plague and snipping and glaring, but at least you’d known he could still see you. That he still thought of you.

Now, he’s treating you like a ghost.

The first week you’d expected. The drive back from the hunt had been tense, everyone dead silent. Rest stops happened when Dean decided they would. Sam never once asked him to turn down the music. You turned your face into the window and hid behind your jacket, hoping to hide the shame burning through you.

Dean had been right. You couldn’t handle that hunt.

But he hadn’t even rubbed it in your face. Hadn’t done an I told you so.

When you got back to the bunker, he’d shoved the door open and marched inside without looking back. Sam had rubbed a hand over his face, given you an apologetic look in the mirror, and you’d just shaken your head.

“He’ll get over it-“

“It’s fine, Sam.” You’d muttered. “I’m fine.”

You were not fine.

You hadn’t even been able to sit up without Sam’s help. He’d half carried you out of the car, a hiss of pain escaping your with every movement, and when you’d finally gotten on your feet you’d looked up to find Dean standing in the doorway.

His hands had been fisted at his sides. He’d been staring at you like he wanted to say something, jaw clenched so tight you could see a vein.

You hadn’t quipped. Hadn’t pushed. You’d just watched him, praying he’d do anything but just stand there. Part of you had wanted him to yell. To let out all the anger you could see simmering behind his gaze, so you could all move on.

But Dean had turned, and stalked back into the bunker.

The ignoring had begun. And you didn’t think you could last a day of it, let alone almost a month.

When you’re in the same room, he pretends you’re not even there. If you’re talking to Sam, he cuts you off like he didn’t hear. If you pass each other in the hall, he looks firmly ahead and bumps your shoulder. If you’re blocking him from getting something in the kitchen, he just reaches over you like you’re part of the room.

His chest presses against your back, and your breath hitches. You bow your head, fighting the instinct to moan and push back into him. He’s so warm, a secure and unwavering pillar of resolve that you want to worship at the feet of forever. He’s sturdy, he’s safe, his muscles flex around you and his breath is warm on your neck and he’s acting like you don’t even exist.

It’s cold when he pulls away.

You retreat to your room, and lie on the floor until you’re out of tears.

Part of you wonders if Dean even knows what he’s doing to you. He can’t. He thinks you hate him with all the fever and loathing he hates you. There’s no possible way for him to understand that every second he ignores you, something in you cowers and whines. That you’ve been passing the door to his room just to try and run into him, even though that breaks the unspoken rule of never invading such a sacred space. That this is killing you more than the injury did, because at least that was allowed to heal.

Dean fixed you, there.

Here, he’s just clawing you wider and wider, until there’s a gaping pit in the cavity of your chest, and you’re about to fall through.

He’d been going out drinking every night. He comes back reeking of liquor and perfume, but he comes back. Every single night, he’s back around 1am.

You know, because you stay up waiting.

Dean always walks past your room, when he gets home. His shadow lingers under your doorway, and sometimes you swear you hear a thud against your door. As if he’s knocking, or just leaning there.

Breaking the rule himself.

It’s the only way you still know you’re not a ghost. That he still knows you exist.

But that’s it.

Otherwise, you’re nothing to him at all.

You can’t take it anymore. Sam says you haven’t been eating as much, but you barely even noticed. You’re too tired, from losing sleep. And everything tastes like ash, anyway.

Sam also says that Dean’s being a dick, but he’ll get over it. They went on a hunt a few days ago—they’re talking again, although from what you’ve seen it’s clipped, and they’re both still pretty pissed—and Sam told you he’d try to talk some sense into Dean and his silent treatment. You have no faith it will work. Sometimes living in the bunker feels like a pissing contest of who can be the most stubborn, if every contestant had an infinite bladder and thought they’d die if they lost.

You’ve been checking your phone for updates every ten minutes. You’re getting itchy and restless, and you can hardly breathe. What if this is it, and foul voice reminds you. What if he dies, and he dies angry at you, and you can’t even remember the last thing he said to you because it was a month ago.

The seams in you are coming apart. Sam sends you a brief text, saying the hunt is over and they’ll be back tonight. You don’t bother to ask how the talk went. If Sam even went through with it, you already know the answer.

But you can’t. You can’t keep living like this. That voice is only going to get louder, and you’re only going to waste away, and Dean won’t even notice with how determined he is to make you nothing at all.

You’ve been crying too much. Your eyes are red when you look in the mirror, and your lips are swollen.

Maybe you shouldn’t stay here. Maybe Dean’s right, and you never belonged here at all.

He once acted like you did. And you still don’t know what made him change his mind.

And you don’t want to leave. This is home. Dean is home, because despite everything you still think of him, and you feel safe.

You know that’s why it hurts so much. You’re not weak. You can stand to be ignored, and you’ve certainly had louder and more violent and cruel fights with people you’d actually been dating. But Dean being so mad feels like your heart is trying to eat itself. And you can’t take it.

It takes all night, but that’s the perfect amount of time. You go out to the grocery store and get everything you need, then haul up in the kitchen and bake like your life depends on it. A fairly big fraction of it does.

You think about writing I’m sorry or You were right on the pie with whipped cream. That feels like a little too much. Hopefully, that part will speak for itself.

When they get home, it’s with a slam of a door. There’s no shouting, but you have a feeling it’s because the fight already passed. You watch Sam give you a tight smile before slumping off to his room, and you know he tried. You appreciate it. But only you can fix this now.

“Dean.” You force your voice to be steady. It doesn’t work that well. “Dean.”

He looks up at you with a heavy, tired glare. He doesn’t speak, but he looks at you, and it makes you sit a little taller. You can do this.

“I’m sorry.” You push the pie forward, and he blinks.

“You’re sorry.” He echoes, like he doesn’t believe what he’s hearing. “You’re sorry?”

You nod, chewing your lip nervously. “Yeah. For- For the hunt. And anything else I did to you.”

“Anything else you did.”

“Um- mhm.”

Dean stares at you, and you push the pie again. Look down to it, then back to him, swallowing the nerves in your throat.

“I- I made you pie.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

“Oh- Okay.”

The silence is suffocating. Your face is starting to burn, and you’ve never cried in front of him before, but the tears are insistent. The ache of loneliness, of just missing him, it’s insistent. Like a hurricane, devastating and impossible to ignore. You bite the inside of your cheek to hold them back, and that usually works.

It’s useless now. The first tears burn on your cheeks, and you wipe them away with trembling, frantic hands.

Dean rasps your name, taking a lurching step forward. As if someone shoved him, his hand reaching out before he yanks it back.

You swallow, and find a painful, barbed lump in your throat. You shake your head, and look to the side.

Dean repeats your name, his voice thick and strained.

You realize this is the first time he’s said it in a month.

A damn breaks in your chest. Something snaps near your ribs, and a pathetic, choked sob rips from your throat. You can’t stay here.

“I- I’m sorry.” You shoot to your feet, pushing the pie roughly forward. “It’s- It’s cherry.”

“Sweetheart-“

“The pie.” You clarify, staring at Dean’s knees.

“Yeah, I know-“

He takes a step forward. You take a step back, and he freezes. 

When you look up, he’s watching you like you’d just smacked him in the face. You swallow, lip wobbling as you keep losing the battle against your own tears.

“I- I’m sorry.” You choke out, wrapping your arms around your stomach. 

Dean works his jaw, shaking his head. “You said that already-“

“I- I know. I’m sorry-“

“Stop saying sorry!”

He takes a larger, firmer step forward. His voice echoes off the walls, and you bite the inside of your cheek until it stings.

Dean rubs his face, lowering back down to rough, low words as he says your name. “Just- Fuck- I don’t want a sorry.”

“I-“ You cut yourself off, shrinking further into your body.

He doesn’t want an apology. He doesn’t want you.

“I’ll go.” You whisper, looking down to his shoes.

Dean makes a choked sound. “You’ll- What-“

“I’m going to go.” You can’t be here right now. Can’t break down when you’re really not sure if he’ll pick you back up. “I- I’m-“

You swallow another apology, and duck past him. Dean shouts after you, so you walk faster. Almost running to the safety of your room, to the one place he won’t follow. Where you can fall apart alone, and wrap yourself in blankets you pretend are his arms, because you’re the exact, pathetic, stupid girl he thinks you are. You’re crying so hard you can’t breathe, and you hate him, and you hate yourself more for knowing you’ll still love him once the tears dry out.

There’s a knock on the door. The fight must have been that loud.

“Go away, Sam.” Your voice is muffled through the sheets.

Dean’s is muffled through the door. “Not Sam, sweetheart.”

You sit up, still holding your blanket to your face. As if he might somehow see you. There’s a long silence—he’s not supposed to be here, why is he here—and Dean coughs.

“It’s, uh- It’s Dean-“

“I know.”

“Oh. Okay.” He pauses, then, “Are you gonna open the door?”

You shake your head, then remember he can’t see you. “No.”

Dean grunts your name, and you raise your voice a little.

“Leave me alone-“

“No. We gotta- There’s stuff I have to- Fuck.” There’s a thump on the door. You think he’s leaning against it. “You’re crying, alright? Just let me in so I can fix it-“

“I’m fine.” You snip, and he laughs dryly.

“I can hear you. I know you’re still upset, and-“

“Why do you care?”

Dean goes silent, and you glare at where you think he’s standing.

“Why do you care, Dean. You never cared before-“

“That’s not true.” He snaps, and you roll your eyes.

“Don’t lie-“

“I’m not lyin’, I just-“ He cuts himself off. “Just open the door, alright-“

“Not until you tell me why you give a shit-“

“I just do, alright?”

“No, you don’t-“

“Stop- Stop saying that.” He’s not shouting, but you can hear him fighting against the urge. “Stop telling me what I care about, you don’t get to decide that-“

“I’m not deciding.” You push the words out, even as they burn on your tongue. “You just don’t get to act like you care about me when you wish I didn’t exist.”

The silence falls again. It’s thicker than before. So heavy it pulls your heart down to your stomach. You’re so sure he’s going to walk away, just leave you there to finally, fully break. 

Instead, when he speaks, his voice is rough.

“Don’t say that.” He grunts. “I’ve never wished that. Not once.”

Your heart flutters. You want to smack it, remind it that it’s only hurting because of him. “Whatever.”

The door shakes again, as Dean’s shadow shifts.

Despite yourself, you lean closer.

“Open the door.” He says your name again, the tone a command.

You raise your chin. “No.”

“Come on, just open it-“

“Go away, Dean-“

“No.” It’s shockingly firm. You sit up in surprise. “No, I’m not- I’m not just gonna leave and let you go, no. That’s not fuckin’ happening, sweetheart, just- Open the door-“

His voice is getting louder, every word sounding more and more strangled. You shift to your knees, saying his name softly through your tears, but he doesn’t seem to hear.

“You can’t leave me, alright? You win, you fuckin’ win, I’m the idiot. You can stay and run me into shape, whatever the hell you want, just- just open the door, please-“

You’ve never heard him like this before. Rambling like a broken record. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was crying.

“I’m sorry for being a dumbass.” He’s not pushing the door anymore, but his voice is muffled and loud all at once. He’s leaning against it. “Sorry for being a dick, sorry for- For whatever the hell you’re cursing my name with, I know I deserve it, I was a douchebag and if you wanna hate me you got every right, but-“ His voice breaks. “Don’t leave me. Fuck- Please don’t leave me, please-“

You slide off the bed, gliding across the room like you’re in a trance, and open the door.

Dean stumbles forward, catching himself against the doorframe. He’s only inches away, and you can read it all over his face. How much he means every strangled word.

His hair is disheveled, his eyes red as he scans over your open, sad features, his jaw clenched so tight you think he might break his teeth. His arm flexes over your head, hand fisting and unfisting at his side. There’s a stain of a tear on his cheek, gleaming in his stubble like he’d half wiped it away.

He watches you like he’s a dog, bracing to be kicked.

You hold his gaze, letting your voice stay small. You have a feeling he’d cling to every word if you only breathed it out.

“You’re sorry.”

He nods. You swallow.

“Why-“

“All of it.” Dean mutters. His eyes are locked onto yours. It’s almost too much, making you feel molten when you need to be unmovable.

You look down to your fingers. “What you said?”

“And did. And-“

“Being a douchebag.”

He chuckles, but it’s more of a rasp. “Yeah.”

“For how long?” You look at him under your lashes, and maybe it’s a bit of a test, but you need to be sure he understands. The sheer magnitude of how this—all of this—has hurt you.

“The whole year.” He says immediately. “From when Sammy told me you were staying to- Shit, five freakin’ seconds ago. I’m sorry.”

You hear it again, even if he doesn’t say it.

Don’t go.

“You didn’t want me to stay here.” You say lightly.

Dean shakes his head. “That’s not true-“

“You told Sam he never should’ve asked me.” With all the bravery in your body, you meet his gaze. “You said you wanted me far away from here.”

Shame almost pours from Dean’s expression. He bows his head, as if he’s trying to make himself smaller. “I- Uh- I didn’t know you heard that-“

“You’re both very loud.”

“Ah.” He pauses, shifting on his feet. His handsome features twist into a tight frown. “But- That’s not what I said.”

“Yes, it is-“

“I said you should be far away from here.” He mutters. “Not that I wanted you there.”

“That’s the same thing-“

“No, it’s not.” Dean gives you a firm look, his voice dropping impossibly lower. “What I want and what’s right?” He chuckles dryly. “Ain’t ever really the same thing.”

For a long moment, you just watch each other. And he means it. Every inch of you knows that, right into your bones. But you’re still fragile from a year of him acting like you were nothing. And you want that to be enough, you want that so desperately. To just give Dean all of you to freely break, and trust that he won’t. But-

“What about me.”

Dean blinks. “What?”

“Am I right?” You raise your chin, crossing your arms over your chest. Dean’s frown deepens.

“Are you-“

“You’re sorry. You said you don’t me to leave.”

“I don’t.”

“So I was right.” You challenge. “I was right to stay.”

Dean swallows. You don’t waver.

“Do you care, Dean. If you don’t want me to leave then you have to tell me why you’d even fucking care-“

“I care.” He grunts, pressing further over you. “I care more than you can imagine.”

You snort. “I don’t know about that-“

“I can’t imagine it, sweetheart.” Dean reaches down slowly, cupping your jaw. You freeze. “Sometimes I- I can’t even work it out in my head. Can’t measure it, can’t justify it, can barely even understand how it’s possible.” His thumb drags over your cheek. “How much I fuckin’ love you.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Love is different than care.” You whisper, and Dean’s lips twitch.

“Yeah. But not by that much.”

You stare at him. He stares back, and when you don’t move away he drops his brow. Presses it against yours, his voice lowering gently.

“You don’t gotta forgive me. Just-“

“I love you, too.” You blurt, and Dean’s eyes shoot open. “And I’m not leaving.”

Dean swallows. Searches your gaze, like he’s trying to find the a tell that you’re lying. “You don’t have to-“

“Shut up.”

You grab his neck, and drag him down. You’re tired of talking. Of fighting and crying and being so far away. Even an inch feels like too much right now.

Dean must feel the same way.

When you pull him into a kiss, he’s rigid for a second. The brief, electric brush of your lips. Your noses bump, and your nails dig into his neck. He grunts, his hand on your doorway sliding down. You flush and try to pull away, but he’s not having it.

Dean melts over you so fast your brain can’t keep up.

He grabs your hip, blunt nails digging into your shirt, and tugs your head gently back as his lips work over yours. It’s so sudden you don’t immediately kiss him back, just grabbing the collar of his shirt for balance. Dean grunts, the hand on your hip sliding around your lower back. Grounding you against him as he almost bends you backwards, never once breaking the kiss.

His lips are softer than you dreamt of. Plush and a little chapped, but still so soft. He moves them slowly but insistently over yours, tasting and letting his tongue brush slightly. When you shiver and try to rise up a little higher, he meets you immediately. He kisses like he already somehow knows exactly how you like it. Easy but a little messy. Close, so close he’s almost eating your face while you try and claw closer. He tastes like salt from the tears, but under that is a little bit of cherry. 

“You-“ You speak between kisses, dizzy from desire. “You ate the pie-“

“Tasted it.” He grunts, walking you back into your room. “Checkin’ it wasn’t poison.”

You lean back, glaring up at him. “I would not poison you-“

“I know.” He grins, kissing your pouted lips. “But I woulda deserved it if you did.”

You want to argue with that, too, but Dean’s faster. He kicks the door closed behind him, grabs your waist, and picks you up with barely a grunt. Your arms fly around his neck as you yelp in surprise, but the sound quickly falls into a loud, long moan when he pins you against the door.

His kisses are turning more frantic. Hungry and bruising, but still restrained. His hands stay politely on your clothing, his lips pressed over yours with only small grazes of his tongue.

You open your mouth in a long, shaky moan. Dean takes the permission, grabbing your jaw and tipping it a little further back. His tongue brushes over your teeth, and you wrap an arm around his neck. His chest is pressed right against yours, and it’s secure and sweet and hot. You’ve never been this hot just from a few kisses.

Passionate, messy kisses. With Dean. His broad fingers on your soft skin, and his solid body right against yours. You comb your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, and he groans. The noise vibrates through you, and you shudder with that burning, needy heat.

Dean notices. Of course he does. He’s Dean.

“Do you want-“

“Yes.” You moan against his lip, trying to spread your legs. “God, Dean- Fuck-“

He sucks on your lower lip before releasing it with a wet pop. Licks over the hurt before travelling down. Over your cheeks, then your jaw, repeating the same motion. Your arms wrap tight around him, your hips bucking mindlessly up.

“Oh- Dean-“ Your nails scratch his neck, and he hums. “You- You can’t just- Holy shit-“

He shoves his knee right between your thighs, the sudden pressure a curse and a relief. Your hips roll like they have a mind of their own, and head dropping against Dean’s shoulder as you cry his name. He moans, his hand on your waist tugging at your shirt.

You grab it and move it under the fabric, moaning at the feeling of his rough callouses, his warm palms, how possessive just a light touch can be. His fingers splay, the tips pressing into your skin, and you’re fully humping him now. He hisses when your knee bumps into his hard crotch, and you giggle, dragging a hand down his spine.

Dean pulls back, watching you ride his thigh with hooded eyes and a lazy grin. “Something funny, pretty girl?”

You giggle again, pressing purposefully against the bulge in his jeans. He groans, pressing his brow to the top of your chest.

“Shit- You’re tryin’ to fucking kill me-“

“Nuh uh.” You breathe out, not caring how convincing it is. You can feel the pressure building in your core, but it’s not quite enough. You need him to give you more. “De- Dean-“

You grab his wrist again, trying to pull it to your ass, but he resists. He yanks his hand from your grip, sliding it up your ribs slowly. His thumb brushes under your breast, and you bow into the touch with another loud moan.

“Jesus.” He mutters. “You look fuckin’ gorgeous like this, sweetheart. Think putting you on my cock might turn me into a religious man.”

You grab his shirt, yanking desperately, and he clicks his tongue. His voice is deep and taunting, and he leans forward so his lips brush yours with every word.

“Easy, baby girl.” He coos, his thumb grazing over the curve of your breast. “Thought about this for so long. Wanna take my time with you, show you that I mean what I’m saying. Love these pretty tits,” he palms it as he speaks, grinning as you moan like a shameless whore. “And this smart fucking mouth.” He nips your lower lip. “And your whole, sexy fuckin’ body. Love it almost as much as that impossible, pretty head you got. And I’m not wasting my shot on making you mine.”

You shake your head, the wet heat becoming almost unbearable. “Al- Oh-“

Dean’s mouth attacks your neck and shoulders, and you have to take a deep breath to remember how to speak.

“Already yours, Dean, always been yours, always- Fuuuuck-“

He grabs you hips and moves them so your clit is always dragging against him, the friction from his jeans and your panties making your head spin.

“I know.” He mutters, breath warm against your ear. “You think I didn’t know, princess? That I didn’t see every time you’d give me those Bambi eyes and beat my cock in the shower that night, thinkin’ about what  you’d let me do to you?”

You moan as shock and surprise burns on your cheeks, but it also floods south. Right to your core, making you squirm in his arms. Dean chuckles, watching you with a dangerous smirk.

“Thought it was just a crush, at first. Thought you’d get over it, move onto someone better-“

“No- No one better.” You breathe out despite yourself, and Dean’s eyes flash. “No one better, Dean, just you, just you-”

He grabs your jaw, kissing you long and rough. You whimper, pressing your tongue into his mouth. He pushes you further back against the door, kissing you with teeth and spit. You give in immediately, just trying to chase anything, anything he can give you at all.

“De- Dean-“

“Always someone better for you.” He growls against your lips, grabbing under your knee. He squeezes it tight before hiking it up, offering even more friction.

You moan, dropping your head back against the door. He’s almost fucking you through your clothing, his bugle pressed right against your throbbing pussy. Dean’s mostly just letting you grind down onto him, but every few moments he gives a shallow thrust of his hips, grinning when the pleasure shakes through your whole body.

“Look at you.” He coos, reaching up to smear some of his spit on your cheek. “You deserve the fuckin’ world, sweetheart. Deserve a guy with his shit all in order, someone half as sweet as you are-“

“You- You’re sweet-“ You gasp when he shoves his hips up, slamming right against your clit. “Holy shit- Dean-“

“I’m sweet.” He mocks, and it shouldn’t make you feel as needy and light as it does. “I treated you like shit, baby. Thought it would help you get over it, but look at you. You like this. Like bein’ my pretty fuckin’ slut.”

You let out a guttural, strangled noise of desire, and Dean taps his thumb against your lips. When you open them, he slides his thumb inside. You suck obediently, watching him under dazed eyes. His throat bobs, eyes blown out with lust.

“Good girl.” He mutters, lips twitching when you hum happily around him. “Oh, you like that, too. My good girl.”

He leans forward, whispering into your ear, and your eyes flutter hopelessly.

“You’re such a fuckin’ brat, sweetheart. You’d sass me and I’d think about kissing you nice and stupid, then giving you the whole fuckin’ world.”

You whine, and Dean pulls his thumb out to let you speak.

“Don’t- Don’t want the world.” You gasp. “Just want you, Dean, please-“

He hauls you off the bed, and your legs wrap around his middle. This time when he kisses you, he’s holding you over his body like you’re something for him to worship. He’s slow and sweet, just like you know he is. He tosses you down onto your bed before pulling off his shirt and prowling over your body. He pulls your pants down, kissing back up your ankle, your knee, your hipbone. He sucks your clit lightly through the fabric of your ruined panties, pinning your pelvis to the bed when your hips slam up.

You fist a hand in the sheets. “De- Dean-“

He hums, pressing you down harder. His tongue flicking, and you pant, desperately trying to wiggle out of his grip, to chase release.

Dean stops suddenly, chuckling when you whine like a spited child. Two fingers hook around the center of your panties, and he yanks away the ruins fabric like it was made of paper.

“So wet.” He mutters, dragging two fingers between your pussy lips. “You’re like a fuckin’ dream, baby, son of a bitch.”

He slaps your clit once, grinning when the reaction shakes through your whole body. You can almost see him making the metal note, before moving on. Dean grabs the hem of your shirt and tugs it over your head, kissing your tummy, your sides, the valley of your breasts and a tiny mark he’d left on your neck.

His lips meet yours, lazy and gentle. He palms at your exposed breasts, slowly kneeing your legs apart.

When he settles between them, he slows down even more, his breathing ragged and voice low and almost desperate.

“Say it again.” He mutters, and you hum.

“I want you.”

Dean kisses the corner of your mouth. “And- The other thing.”

“I love you.” You say, easy as breathing. “Love you, Dean.”

He grunts, planting a kiss on your nose. “Thank you, my love.”

You smile, letting your hands wander over the broad planes of his back. You’re still so close to the edge, tingly and aching, and maybe he’s just going to fuck you stupid like he promised right now-

Dean pulls away.

He sits up on his knees, one hand pressing you into the mattress. His thumb lingers just above your clit, capable of reaching it if he reaches. But instead he just watches you, shuffling out of his own pants and tossing them off to a corner of the room.

You swallow, salivating at the sight. He’s thick. Long and thick in every way you’d imagined. Broad and angry at the top, leaking with pre-cum that he swipes with his thumb. You’ve only see cocks like that made of silicone with a vibrator built in. You bought one once, feeling pretty brave. You’d given up very fast.

“De- Dean-“

“Yeah, baby?”

He squeezes your thigh, and you look up to him with wide eyes.  “I- I can’t take that.”

“Yeah, you can.”

“No, I-“

“Shh.” He coos, thumb grazing over your clit. You shudder, grabbing his wrist.

“Dean-“

“I’m gonna help, princess.” He says. “You’re gonna take it.”

He says it so certainly, you fucking believe him. He’s got a goddamn monster-porn cock, but his rich, deep tone has you convinced you can somehow fit it easy.

“Guess that’s why you’re so confident all the time, right?” You giggle nervously, and Dean raises his brows.

“Excuse me?”

“Just if- If I had- That-“

“You mean a big dick?” He drawls, and you flush.

“Um. Yeah.” You turn your face into the pillow, trying to hide. “Shut up.”

He laughs, guiding your face back up as he leans down. Dean kisses you slowly, and you hum dazedly into his lips. He starts to drag his thickness up and down your soaked cunt, and your mouth falls open in a loud moan.

“You’re so fuckin’ cute.” He mutters. “My girl.”

“Yours.” You echo, and he grins.

“Can we try something, baby? You trust me?”

“Mmmm,” you mumble, mostly thinking about the friction he’s giving, the pleasurable shock every time his dick bumps your clit. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You breathe, and Dean smirks.

“Good girl.”

Then he’s gone again. Your fluttering eyes shoot open, and you try to reach up but he slams you right back down. Pinning you to the mattress as he sits on his knees, watching you drink him in a slowly stroking his cock.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do.” He drawls, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “You’re gonna tell me exactly what you want me to do to you, then I’m gonna make you cum until you can’t even talk.”

 You gape at him. “Wha- What-“

“You’re so smart, princess.” He taps your clit, and your breath hitches. “Talk.”

“Dean, don’t tease-“

 “Not teasing. I’m dead fuckin’ serious.” He gives you a stern look. “You don’t tell me what you want, you don’t cum.”

You glare at him, and he just shrugs. He’s still pumping himself with thick, long strokes, and you’d kill him if you didn’t feel like a firework only he could set off.

“Touch me.” You grumble, and he gives you a flat, amused look.

 “How.”

“I- I don’t know- With your hands- Oh-“

Dean’s thumb starts to rub around your clit, and your let out a shaky breath. The gleam in his eyes tells you all you need to know. You listen, you get a reward.

“Touch me there.” You breathe, nervous and breathy. “Keep- Keep doing that, Dean- Ooh-“

He snorts as you hug yourself, pressing his thumb directly down and making you squeak.

“Fuck-“

“You’re bad at this.” He observes, and you reach up to whack his forearm.

“I’ve never done it before, dick-“

“So I’m givin’ you a new skill-“

“You’re making me insane.” You whine. “Just- Just fuck me, Dean, it shouldn’t be that hard!”

“Yeah?” He grins down at you, letting go of his dick to rub your thigh. “Big words from the girl who’s not gonna do any of the work.”

You stick out your tongue, and he laughs.

“I knew you liked being a little cockslut, dripping just thinkin’ about taking me, probably gonna call me daddy and beg-“

“Shut up-“ Face burning, you kick his chest, and Dean catches your ankle, kissing it before moving it back to the bed. 

“Well if it’s so easy, I should be guessing right-“

“I just want you to fuck me stupid, Dean!” You shout, the words desperately pouring out of you. “Just- Just take your hands and toss me around, use me and- and kiss me and touch me- Fuck-“

He’s rubbing your clit again, eyes almost black with desire. You push on, grabbing his arm to keep focus.

“Use- Use your fingers and make me cum on your hand.” You breathe out. “Then- Then flip me over and fuck me- Fuck me until I can’t talk, fuck me stupid, Dean, please-“

Your words fall off in a moan as Dean rubs faster, leaning down over your body.

“You want me to talk?” He rumbles, and you nod.

“Talk- Talk the whole time- Oh my god-“

“Tell you how good you’re doing for me?” He mutters, a finger teasing over your entrance. “How good your pussy feels, how crazy you make me, what a perfect fuckin’ girl you’re being when you take my cock-“

 “Yes.” You whine, pussy squeezing as he presses that finger slowly inside of you. “Yes, fuck, yes-“

“You want it rough?” He pumps slowly in and out, his thumb still working your clit. “Wanna feel me? Be fucked like you deserve?”

You nod, babbling agreements. He drags lightly against your g-spot and you let out a shuddering gasp, scratching at his shoulders. Dean groans, adding a second one, pushing them knuckle deep and scissoring the thick digits inside you.

“Fuck- Fuck-“ He’s kneading that gooey spot, and you’d already been wound so tight. “Dean, oh my god- Yes-“

“And where am I gonna cum, princess?” He coos in your ear, setting a shallow, deep pace with his fingers. They open you up and massage your pussy until it’s fluttering, until there’s a fuse burning your tummy that needs to be lit, that needs Dean to light it-

“Inside.” You breathe. You need more of him. All of him. “Want you to cum inside Dean, God, please-“

He moans—fully moans—and rubs your clit in furious, tight circles as he kisses you.

“Knew you could do it.” His thumb flicks as he presses your g-spot, and you whine. “Cum for me, baby girl, show me what you’ve got-“

Your release hits you with a scream of Dean’s name, making your toes curl and your back arch off the bed. Dean groans, twisting his hand so his palm is flat against your clit, rubbing and pressing down until you’re trembling and trying to shove him away.

“Look at you.” He says under his breath, like he’s admiring some sort of art. “Look at you, so goddamn sexy, making such a mess on my hand. Bet you’re gonna look even better, getting wrecked on my dick.”

“De- Dean-“

“I know.” He mutters, pulling his fingers fully out. “Soon. I’ll fill you up nice and pretty, fuck you ‘till you can’t think. It’s gonna feel so good, sweetheart. This tight fuckin’ pussy, strangling me while you beg.”

He lands a sharp hit on your pussy, and you barely get out a broken plea before he’s grabbing your hips and flipping you onto your stomach. You squeal, scrambling for a grip on the sheets as Dean drags your ass into the air.

“Such a mess.” He hits your pussy again, and you press your cheek into the mattress, panting as heat floods your body. “Greedy little pussy, don’t even gotta do much to get you ready for me. No,” he pushes his fingers back inside of you, the angle letting his knuckles massage your g-spot. “Basically fuckin’ begging for it, trying to fuck yourself on my fingers. Dirty girl.”

You hadn’t even realized you were doing that. Fucking back onto Dean’s hand, ass wiggling in the air as his free hand soothes down your spine. You’re shaking, but already ready for more, the sensitivity from the first orgasm building you back up.

“Deeean-“ You whine, spreading your knees wider. “More, need more, please-“

“Ah. Just feel this.” He yanks his fingers out, spanking your clit three sharp times before shoving his fingers back in. “You asked me to touch you, I’m touchin’. Touching you real good.”

He starts to knead your g-spot again, kissing slowly up and down your spine.

“Want you to come for me again, baby girl.” He mutters, lips wandering over the curve of your ass, then your thighs. “You’re gonna cum until you can’t stay up, then I’m gonna fuck you. Alright.”

You nod, but there isn’t something he could ask you that you’d say no to right now. “Oh- Okay.”

“Awesome.” Dean sucks on the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, pushing you higher in the air. “Hold onto something.”

Your hands fist in the sheets, right before his sinful mouth latches onto your clit.

You almost scream. Dean starts to make out with the bundle of nerves like it can kiss him back, shifting below you until you’re almost sitting on his face. His fingers keep grinding down onto your g-spot as his tongue flicks back and forth, your button sucked between his soft lips, and you push your hands into the sheets, almost unable to take the pleasure.

“Dean- Dean- I- I’m gonna- Fuck-“

A sharp spank lands on your ass before grabbing a handful of the fat and shoving you fully down. You cum with a scream of Dean’s name, the pleasure rolling through your body like a wave.

But he doesn’t stop.

Dean keeps you trapped against his face, working you so hard you see starts, then other universe. His stubble burns against you and it’s perfect, his tongue moving so relentlessly—in tight little kitten licks, working you into a blind frenzy—and the feeling to overwhelming you can’t even remember how to close your mouth. Dean drags you on his face when you try to pull away, chuckling against your pussy, and the vibration is too much.

This time when you cum, you’re shaking and boneless. You think you might be about to cry, but maybe that’s just how hot this is.

He still isn’t stopping, and you might be in heaven. Blissful and dumb from pleasure, just a fuck doll in Dean’s big, careful hands.

You’re about to cum again, and you didn’t know you could do twice, let alone four times.

“De- Dean-“ You whimper. “Can’t- Can’t do it again-“

Dean grunts, lifting you over his head. “Yes, you can.”

He yanks his fingers out, rubbing your clit quickly before flipping you back over. You blink up at him, the coil in your stomach burning to snap. You’re so cockdrunk and dazed you almost don’t feel it at first.

Dean’s cock, slowly pushing into you.

When it hits you, he’s already got the thick head inside. You mewl, trying to cover your chest as he presses in deeper, but Dean grabs your wrists and pins them next to your head.

“Let me see you.” He mutters, sounding just as wrecked as you are. “Wanna watch you. So pretty, fucking crying for me.” He leans down, kissing your cheek, and you sob with delight. “Feels good, doesn’t it. So- Shit-“ You clench around him, and he hisses. “So fuckin’ good.”

“Good.” You repeat, just trying to stay conscious as Dean drags through your oversensitive, abused pussy. “So, so good, Dean, so fucking- Ooooh-“

He bottoms out, and you could swear you feel him up your spine and in your mouth. You’ve never been so full before, never had someone hit so many sensitive spots inside of you, and it lights you up like a summer sky.

Your eyes cross, as the almost peaceful orgasm blooms from your womb to your lips. You smile up at Dean, twisting to tangle your fingers together, and he swallows.

 There’s a soft shine in his eyes. Pure, utter affection as he watches you come undone around him. It even moves into his voice, all the teasing and dominant command coated in devotion.

“You’re so beautiful.” He murmurs, bowing over you until there’s no telling where you stop, and he ends. “Feel that, baby?” He gives a long, lazy roll of his hips, and you gasp. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s you, takin’ my cock. Just like I said you could.” He kisses you, repeating the motion. “Good girl.”

You pant, grabbing his bicep as he fucks slowly into you. He mutters low praise in your ear, bullying your pussy open with every thrust. You’d asked for it rush, but this is better. You feel priceless. You feel like Dean’s.

“Breathe.” He reminds you, and you take a stuttered gasp. “Good job, princess. Don’t want you passing out on me. Need to see those pretty eyes when I cum inside of you,”

You moan, body moving in a mindless rhythm with his, and Dean grins.

“Yeah, I’m gonna fill you up, sweetheart. Make this pussy mine, let it drip out, show everyone who fucks you so good.”

“You.” You whimper out. “You, Dean, ‘s you- Fuck-“

“Damn right it is.” He grunts, dropping his hips so he hits your g-spot even better. “You’re my girl, never gonna let you think anything else again.”

You nod, your breathing getting short and desperate. The room is filled with the wet sound of his dick sliding in and out of you. Your body is slick with heat and Dean’s kissing every inch of it he can reach. Grabbing and squeezing soft skin until you’re sure you’ll be covered in handprints and finger-shaped bruises in the morning, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

Not as his cock drives deep into your with every, precise thrust.

Dean kisses you, dragging his tongue over your upper lip, and your pussy flutters.

Oh. God. “Dean, I- I think-“

“I know.” He grunts, like he’s just attuned to that. “You can do it, baby girl.”

“No- No-“

“Yes.” Dean kisses the tears, streaming down your cheeks from overstimulation. “Do it for me, come on. Just feel it, let it happen. Bet it’s good, isn’t it. Nice and sweet, right here.”

He presses down on your pelvis, right over where the fire is building. You sob with pleasure, and Dean grins.

“That’s right, there it is, come on-“

You cum like you were struck by lighting. Every muscle in your body seizes, the pressure where Dean’s pressing breaking like a damn. You gush and squeeze around his cock, arching off the bed like you’re trying to take flight, and Dean drops over you with a shameless moan.  

“Fuck- Fuck yeah-“ He presses his face into your neck as you milk his dick. “Holy- Christ-“

 Thick spurts of Dean’s release fill you up. They’re hot, and you hug Dean’s head, whimpering in his ear as you take them. He’s kissing your shoulder, but it’s unmeasured and desperate, and you’re sure you’re having the same control issue right now.

The feeling is so consuming you can’t think of anything but Dean. You’re saying his name like a prayer, as he ruts into you, sloppy and desperate. Neither of you really come back to earth, as your orgasms fade. Dean just slumps over you, cradling your body in his arms, and you smile at the ceiling, completely fucked out.

“Shit.” Dean rasps, and you giggle.

“Yeah.”

“You know you could squirt?”

You shake your head, and he grins against your neck.

“Awesome.”

 His cock twitches inside of you, and you hit his shoulders.

“Dean, oh my god-“

“Not now.” He groans, rolling onto his back and hauling you with him. “But later, right?” He gives you a hopeful, almost boyish look.

Like you might reject him while he’s still fucking inside of you.

“Cause I meant it.” He adds quickly. “Everything before, uh- This. Meant every word, promise, and- You can hit me or something, if that makes you feel better-“

You lean down, taking his sweet, dumb face between your hands and kissing him. Dean hums in surprise, but kisses you back immediately. One hand slides through your hair, the other up your spine, but he lets you lead. Looks up at you with a drunken smile when you pull away, like you’re some kind of god.

“I don’t want to hit you.” You say, tracing his tattoo.

He nods quickly. “Good. I mean- for me-“

“But you have to ask me out for real.” You give him a firm look. “And take me on a nice date.”

“I can do that.” He grins. “And then… You’re my…”

He trails off. Lets you fill in the space.

You think he got it right, just like that.

“Yeah,” you smile. “But you’re mine, too.”

And there’s nothing on Dean’s face that tells you he’s going to argue with that.

“How long have you been up?” He ignores the protest in his calf and swings his legs off the bed, moving to start packing up all the stuff he threw around the place last night. He eyes up a crinkled white paper bag in front of you, heavy with what looks like a sandwich, and is abruptly aware of how hungry he is.

“Couple hours. Can never really sleep past seven most days.” You give him a casual shrug.

“Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?” he grumbles, snatching his t-shirt from the floor. “Coulda been doing well on the road by now.”

“You never told me to wake you up and I don’t wanna get chewed out.” You stare at him blankly, vaguely irritated. “Christ, are you always this fucking bossy?”

His mind goes to Sam, wasted and hysterical in a motel room, labelling him ‘bossy and short’. He’s suddenly quite sheepish.

“Yeah,” he admits.

“Well here.” You toss him the white paper bag which he catches on instinct. He stretches it open with his thumb and pointer. There’s one breakfast burrito inside. “Maybe that’ll make you slightly less unbearable.”

He frowns. “What about you?”

“I’m already perfectly bearable.”

He rolls his eyes. “What are you gonna eat?”

“Already ate at a café a couple blocks away. I’ve been up a while. Just grabbed something quick for you so we could get on the road fast.”

He feels slightly ashamed. Mutters an embarrassed; “Thanks”, to which you nod.

He makes quick work of his shower and doesn’t feel properly clean by the time you hit the road again but he isn’t too concerned about it. He will just take another shower tonight at the next motel. He should probably stop somewhere along the way to get a razor too.

Today is warmer than yesterday. It’s warm enough for you to put the top down and drive in the still air of the day. There’s a rich sort of novelty to being able to see the clouds overhead while moving at this speed. It’s pleasant to feel the sun stinging his face and the soothing of a light breeze. The air is cool and sweet against his face - a welcome change to the faint smell of mildew and old piss from the motel. He gets a bug to the face every now and again but it’s a small price to pay.

You pull out the CD wallet from the net again and pull one out clumsily. You put it up against the radio and let it be sucked up greedily by the jack. Only then does he find out that it’s Springsteen.

“You don’t have Born To Run in this thing?” he asks, taking the fabric case from your lap. He feels the soft skin of your thigh brush against his fingers when he does. He wishes you would stop wearing shorts.

You give him a weary side-glance. “It’s in there somewhere, I think.”

“Then why the hell are we listening to this?” He presses a button to skip Born in the U.S.A., lets Cover Me ring out in the open air.

You frown. “It’s a good album.”

He begins to flick through the pages of the case. “I’ll show you what a real good album is.”

“Don’t be an ass.” You scoff, loud enough for him to hear over the light wind. “You’re not changing the music. This is my car you’re in, buddy.”

You have your eyes straight ahead, as if you just delivered a straight fact rather than a command. It nettles him a little. He’s almost tempted to remind you that he’s paying for this privilege, but he hazily remembers dealing out a similar rule to Sam at one point in time so he says nothing. He watches you tap the beat out on the steering wheel.

You’ve been a bit weird since he snapped at you this morning. Not cold exactly, or unfriendly, but definitely a bit grouchier than you were yesterday. He supposes that’s his fault. He can admit he’s been a little tightly strung - which isn’t his fault, given everything, but he’s starting to see hints of his own disposition in you.

“So what’s your plan after we hit Minnesota?” he tries. “You gonna head on to New York or somethin’?”

“Not sure. Thinking maybe North Carolina,” you answer absently.

“What’s in North Carolina?”

You frown. “There’s a hell of a lot in North Carolina. Lakes and mountains and beaches and all the like.”

“I know. Just seems like a long way to go for a lake or two.”

You’re silent for a minute or two while you seem to ponder this. He thinks you are about to respond, but you pivot instead, voice a bit warmer. “Have you thought about what you’re gonna do once you finish whatever work thing you’re going to? You’re probably never gonna get your car back. I’m sorry to tell you.”

You don’t look very sorry. Just matter-of-fact.

“Why’s that?”

“The cops in my town suck. Bunch of old men who have worked with the force for a thousand years without having to do shit. I hope you have insurance.”

He wonders whether you heard all this from your dad or something. You probably listen to him talk about riffraff, slobs, junkies and jobless and how the cops aren’t doing enough to control them. He swallows that thought uncomfortably.

“I’ll be okay,” he says, slouching back in his seat.

You huff a half-laugh and he looks over.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you say, smiling. He frowns. “It’s just- you’re so damn vague. It’s hard to get anything outta you. We’re gonna be here all week so you might as well keep me amused.”

Dean smiles back, despite himself. “Truth is, sweetheart, I got absolutely no idea how I’m gonna get out of Minnesota. But I can’t say that. Don’t want you worryin’ about me.”

You laugh lightly and that same pride surges in him again. His ego has taken many hits in the last few days. It’s nice to know he can still make a pretty girl laugh.

“I’ll be sick with worry, I’m sure. The six hundred dollars might help soothe the pain.”

He rolls his eyes but the grin doesn’t leave his face. A brief moment of silence passes but it’s much more companionable now. There’s a pleasant feeling in his stomach. 

Your phone begins to ring from the centre console for the third time this morning. You take a look at the caller ID and decline without hesitation once again, tossing your phone back in carelessly.

“That your folks?” he guesses.

“Yeah,” you laugh. “Someone must’ve seen me drive off with you because I’ve been getting constant texts since last night. They’re going nuts.”

Dean thinks of all the cops on his tail and shifts uncomfortably. “Oh yeah? What did they say?”

“Just that they know I went off with some guy. They’re trying to play good cop now after kicking me out.”

He relaxes a little, reassured that there won’t be a manhunt to worry about. “They tryna talk it out now?”

“Yeah,” you snort. If you’re upset about the whole thing, you’re doing a great job of hiding it. You seem to find it amusing. “Funny it takes this. They never folded so easy before.”

“You ran off before?”

“Couple times.”

Dean doesn’t like that. It seems fickle and weak-willed to him. He would never let himself do something like that - he would never turn back once he had gone. That’s an aspect of himself that he likes, even though he knows it’s not a virtue. His pride is not a good thing but it’s his own. He has been somehow able to hold onto it, even when Sam slipped away to college, even when his dad slipped away to Hell. Even when he has ten dollars to his name and hasn’t spoken to another human being in days, he still has his pride. 

Sam doesn’t have that kind of pride. Sam doesn’t care about being the one to break as long as it’s for the better. He knows how to apologise when he’s wrong and he knows how to stick it out when he’s right.

He wants to ask you why you were kicked out again, but he doesn’t.

“Think you’ll go back again this time?” he asks.

You look at him briefly, before turning your face back to the road. You don’t answer for a long time. Dean is sure he won’t get an answer after about a minute, but you shrug. “Probably. Unless I can find some way to make a living out of giving lifts to desperate strangers.”

“You could always be a bus driver, sweetheart.”

You fight a grin but it breaks. “Shut your ass up.”

“Yes ma’am.” 

Dean can’t help it. He grins back.

“Come on, be serious for a second-”

“I’m being serious. I really do work in tax.”

You purse your lips, eyes returning to the road. Your face is set in a determined, sulky pout that Dean has decided he doesn’t like very much. 

This has been going on for a while. What had started off as a conversation about your major and your Ivy League education had pivoted to this and you have been refusing to let it go. He’s not sure how long you’ve been grilling him but you have passed the turn-off for at least three large towns. 

“Explain to me right now how income tax is calculated.”

Fuck.

“I don’t have all day to sit here and explain how income tax works to you,” he says, bumbling. He has never even paid income tax, let alone calculated it.

“You do. You literally have all day to explain it to me. What else are we gonna do?”

“Fine, but my charge rate is coming out of your six hundred,” he says, crossing his arms. “I’m not cheap.”

You roll your eyes but you’re smiling. A good sign. “I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

“What do you think I do?” he asks. “Out of curiosity.”

“I thought you might be a gigolo or something along those lines up until this morning, but you keep checking me out when you think I can’t see you and I feel like most gigolos are too spent to be that horny. So now I’m thinking it might be drugs. You don’t look like you sell drugs, but I guess you never can tell for sure. Could be anyone.”

Dean chokes on his spit somewhere at the start of your reflections and still hasn’t gotten his breath back by the time you finish. His face burns. He decides not to bring up your observation about him checking you out. “You- what- you think I look like a gigolo?” You giggle. “Not really. It wasn’t my first thought when I saw you but you’re just so dodgy. And you seem way too eager to get to some top investor tax client, whatever that even means.”

“I’m not a gigolo,” he mutters, trying to prevent a pout from forming on his face.

“Oh, relax,” you say, looking sideways at him and laughing. “It’s just because you’re so pretty.”

Dean stops short, pout giving way to a shit-eating grin. Something inside his stomach lurches. “Oh yeah?”

You hum in agreement. “Oh, sure. If I was fifty years older I would give you a call.”

Maybe he’s closer to some action than he had initially thought.

“M’not sure I’ll still be able to get it up in fifty years, sweetheart. How ‘bout I give you an advance?”

You laugh and it’s full-bodied. You throw your head back, something sweet and contagious spilling out of your mouth. It’s the first real, earnest laugh he’s been able to pull out of you. Up until now has been nothing but giggles and wry smiles. 

A laugh wasn’t the response he was going for - he was hoping for something a little more sultry - but he might be happier with this. He finds with some surprise that he’s grinning ear-to-ear. 

“There’s no way someone who works in tax is this smooth,” you say. “You can tell me, y’know. I won’t freak out. I’ve considered gigolo and drug-dealer and I haven’t kicked you out.”

He just shakes his head, but out of pure indulgence he imagines for a second how you would react if he did tell you. You would think he was fucking with you, most likely, just like Cassie did. You could also think he was a lunatic and then he would really be in a tight spot for the rest of the week.

He hasn’t given you much but, almost without realising it, he has given it away that you’re right by shaking his head. He’s no damn accountant. You smile, self-satisfied and smug and somehow still incredibly appealing, and you drop the subject at last.

You don’t seem like a college girl to him. Maybe you did at the start of the journey, when all he knew about you was that you were country-club rich and got kicked out by mommy and daddy. But he has to give it to you - you’re hard to rattle. You’ve been peeling him apart. You’re well and truly onto him - you know he’s ‘dodgy’ - and you still haven’t been spooked. There’s time for that yet, he knows, but he’s still surprised. 

“What do you wanna do about food?” you ask. You narrow your eyes on a town on the horizon.

“You hungry?”

“Not really, but I am tired. And stiff. I need to walk around a bit.”

He nods. “Pull off here.” 

You huff. “There you go again with the commands.” 

He wants to argue, but there’s no real agitation in your voice and he’d like to keep it that way. He just frowns. 

The sky is now a dark tattered grey. You find some street parking outside a small church with the windows boarded up. While he waits for the roof of the car to fold itself back over the two of you, a small hunched figure speeds past, hands clutching at their coat in odd places.

“Your legs need a stretch too?” you ask.

“No,” he says automatically. In truth, his good leg is cramped and tight. But the bad one has all the authority right now.

“Okay,” you say, unbuckling yourself and unlocking your door. “Sit tight. Be back in a few.”

“Wait,” Dean says, watching another person walk by with erratic jerkiness, head twitching aggressively to the right. “I’ll come.”

You cock a brow at him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“I’m pretty sure I just saw some wacko walk by with a gun,” he grunts.

“I saw him too, but he didn’t look strong. I think I could probably disarm him,” you say thoughtfully, as if that’s the issue. 

“D’you even know how to shoot?”

You seem mildly offended. “Yeah I do.”

He can’t picture someone like you with a gun. You and your little shorts and pretty hair loading up a pistol. He can’t put it together in his head. “How?”

“You’re not gonna like the answer,” you say hesitantly.

He stays silent, raises a brow.

You bite the side of your cheek, almost indignant. “My dad used to take us shooting.”

He feels a stab of resentment. He pictures you at fourteen, with braces and a shotgun, aiming at a dummy or some poor fucking bird. At the same time, he was probably picking off some spirit or digging up someone’s bones. He reminds himself that it’s not anyone’s fault how they were raised. He would have a lot to answer for if it were. He opens the car door.

“I’ll be five minutes,” you insist. “I’ll be fine. This place doesn’t look that bad.”

Dean disagrees. A church doesn’t need to be boarded up to avoid break-ins in a safe neighbourhood. He steps out onto the road. One leg breathes a sigh of relief while the other screeches in agony.

He does what he can. His strides are probably half the length they usually are and you have to consciously adjust your pace to walk alongside him. The path seems almost endless. The muscle in his calf twitches and jerks under his weight as he tries not to limp.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

He doesn’t have the breath to reply anything.

His face is hot with the strain and his stomach is in knots. A cool drip of sweat slips from his forehead all the way down his cheek and falls off the cliff of his chin. 

“Okay. Stop.” You create a blockade in front of him, hand on your hip. “What’s wrong with you? Are you hurt?”

He puffs, coming to a stand-still and finally balancing on his left leg. “Yeah. It’s my leg. Fucked it.”

You look at him, puzzled. There is nothing on your face to imply that you are irritated or even distrustful. You just look curious. “Why the hell didn't you say this sooner?”

He checks his cards. Thinks about all the ways he could play them. You’re craning your neck up, staring up at him with complete patience. You’re standing very close to him.

He decides to try the honest route. He hasn’t scared you off yet. He’s curious to see what it would take in a self-sabotaging sort of way.

“I didn’t think it would play very well if I limped up to you and asked for a ride to Minnesota.”

You consider this for a moment. Your eyes look over his face steadily and carefully. “That’s… fair. I probably wouldn't have said yes.”

He huffs with humour. “Exactly.”

You stay like that for a moment - him smiling at you lopsidedly, you just staring back. One strand of your hair has landed across your face.

There is no sound but the rumble of the odd car passing by. The street lights flicker on slowly, one by one, and you look a little different under them. Romantic and intense, like the kind of girls he’s seen in movies. 

“My legs are stretched enough,” you say eventually, and begin to walk back the way you came. You walk slowly enough so that he can walk alongside you, finally allowing himself to limp.

“What happened to your leg?” you ask.

“I told you. I got mugged.”

You’re silent for a second and he wonders if you think he’s lying about that too. He isn’t. Technically.

“What is it? A fracture?”

“No, it’s the muscle in my calf.” A flare of pain shoots up his leg once again as he says it. “Think it’s a tear. I guess I must’ve planted it weird when the bastard kicked me. It’ll be fine in a few days.”

You nod but say nothing else until you reach the car again. He makes a joke about how he’s surprised the car hasn’t been stolen but your reaction is mild. Maybe he did scare you off. He feels remarkably stupid and regrets saying anything at all. He regrets leaving the car with you in the first place.

You don’t turn back onto the highway. Instead, you roll on slowly through the town until you find a small, beaten-down strip mall. It’s fully dark out by now, but he can see everything around him clearly with the light of the street-lamps and the neon glow of the storefronts. You mutter something to him about how you’ll be back and hop out of the car.

He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the headrest. He slips into a dozy, lethargic stupor until you come back. It’s twenty minutes before you do, carrying a brown paper bag that smells of hamburger meat and deep frying oil. You pass him a small paper bundle and a bag of fries out of the bag wordlessly, putting two water bottles in the centre console. He almost asks you to go back inside for a beer but decides against it.

The burger is no good. It’s dry with a stringy consistency and he has to bite down hard to make the meat tear apart. The fries are dry too, but they’re salty enough to be edible anyway.

He notices you’re not eating. You’re unspooling some white bandage from a neat ball and doing a shoddy job of tearing it with your fingers. “Take off your jeans,” you say, with a glance at Dean.

That is probably one of the last things he had been expecting you to say. His eyebrows shoot up, looking around at the people still milling about close-by. He’s not overly comfortable with anything public - at least not this public - but his dick twitches anyway.

You snort. “Don’t worry, I’m not tryna take advantage of you in a parking lot while you’re laid up. You need to compress your calf.”

He is mildly offended at the implication. He would be able to blow your mind with or without a busted leg. And besides, you don’t have to say it like that - like even the remotest suggestion of you jumping into the sack with him is completely crazy.

Instead of pulling his jeans off, he rolls the fabric up to his knee with only moderate difficulty. Trying to avoid brushing anything onto his bruised and mangled calf is like playing that wire loop game they have at fairs and in waiting rooms. He has probably stretched the fabric of his jeans permanently, but he feels uncharacteristically self-conscious at the idea of taking his pants off in front of you.

He takes the bandage from you and hunches over, but the faint, dull ache that sits there consistently sharpens and he finds that he can’t bring himself to do much more than wrap it around the area as loosely as a scarf might sit around a girl’s shoulders.

You laugh. “I’m sure that’s doing loads for you,” you say, and exit the car once again. He watches you as you cross in front of the car and doesn’t stop when you open the passenger door and drop to sit on your ankles.

It’s when you lean in to untie his poor attempt at bandaging that he’s forced to avert his eyes, lest he do or say something really stupid. He can feel the warm heat of your breath and your flushed face on his lap.

He hisses when you roll the bandage tight around his leg. He puts his hand out to grasp your head out of pure instinct, fingers curling around your soft hair. You freeze abruptly, looking up at him with big, astonished eyes, and he lets go.

“Sorry,” he grunts.

You look back to his leg. Your face is so close to his leg that he sometimes feels the brush of your nose against the skin on his leg. The tip of it is strangely cold.

The moment is almost enough to help him overlook the sharp, hot pain in his leg when you continue your task. His mind swims. Your hands work fast and unflinchingly, but you are affording him a softness that he’s not entirely accustomed to. 

He’s been patched up before, sure, but Sam doesn’t care quite as much about being careful - just about making sure he lives through it. He’s experiencing an odd mix of pain and arousal, both of them working together to make his stomach tight and prickly. He is suddenly very glad that he opted not to take off his jeans.

You pull away eventually and examine your handiwork. Nod to yourself in confirmation of a job well-done before pushing up off your thighs and crossing back over to your side of the car.

You go rooting through the brown bag again, burger held up in your right hand. You take a bite and pull out a blue box with a metallic sheen.

“Jesus this burger sucks. You’re done eating right?” you ask. Dean nods and you throw him the box which he catches without a thought. “Take two.”

He looks at the small box in his hands. There’s a long name on it that he doesn’t recognise, but it’s clearly a pharmaceutical. He probably should question you about what it is you just handed him, but he doesn’t. He gratefully claws two out, thinks for a second, and then a third for good measure. He feels the little capsules in his hands for a moment, tilts his head back and pops them all into his mouth in one go. He washes down the bitter taste with one of the water bottles in the centre console. 

You reach over and pull a lever at the side of the seat to send it sliding back, leaving vast open space in front of him. It’s too early for the pills to be doing anything for his pain, but he feels a pinch of relief just having taken them, knowing that they’ll do something for him soon. Enough to stretch his leg out and not flinch too hard at the tightness that pulls in his calf.

“Thanks,” he says, and means it. You smile. 

You’re fun, Dean has decided. 

You can be annoying as shit sometimes, and you’re a bit of a control freak and there is that small thing of him not thinking much of rich people as a general point of principle, but he can’t get past it. He likes you.

He likes that you’re difficult to shake. He imagines that you’d probably have made a damn good hunter in another universe, where you hadn’t been too spoilt to ever consider doing any dirty work.

You’re funny, in a sardonic kind of way. He likes when you poke fun at him - he doesn’t even get mad when you say stuff that would make him sock Sam in the jaw for the same offence - and he likes that you seem to find him funny too. You smile or giggle or laugh at almost everything that comes out of his mouth.

He likes when you use words that he doesn’t understand or when you explain something to him, gesturing wildly with your hands. You’re clearly a little bit of a swot, which is just fine. He’s always had a thing for the egghead types.

One of the things he likes the most - one of the cutest things he’s ever damn seen - is how worked up you get over some of his stories. He embellishes a little here and there, of course. He has to. But the result is no less satisfying.

“You’re lying,” you say, and he can hear your breath stutter.

“Swear I’m not,” he laughs.

“You- you just-” You can hardly get the words out. Your eyebrows are squashed together. “On her wedding day?”

“Damn right,” he says, stretching back on the seat. He notes that the painkillers are wearing off when he feels a sharp twinge in his leg.

In this version of the story, Dean is a line cook for a fancy seafood restaurant, rather than being there to interview one of the waitresses about a murder she had witnessed. But the blushing bride whispering in his ear and leading him out to a back alley - every word of that was the truth.

You look scandalised, which he expected, but you don’t laugh. He had expected you to laugh. Your nose crinkles up.

“That’s… disgusting,” you say. 

He shrugs, suddenly feeling a lot less proud of himself. A sickly feeling - something like dejection, maybe - grows in his stomach.

“Not you,” you clarify quickly. “Well, a little bit you, too. But… I just don’t understand that. Why get married in the first place?”

“Maybe he was okay with it,” Dean says, knowing full-well that the lady had made him wait in the alley for five minutes after she left. He had arrived back in to applause from the kitchen staff. He can’t remember the lady’s face anymore, but he remembers that.

You shoot him a look, which he has learned means that you’re calling him on his bullshit. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say. Shit is gross.”

It is, a little bit. It is mostly just a funny story that he pulls out at bars to impress men and let women know he’s down for a good time. It has always been good for a cheap laugh, but he will probably never tell it again. 

His calf twinges again. He holds his thigh tight, as if it would relieve the pressure, and waits for it to pass. When it does, he opens up the glove compartment for the small blue box, feeling around a panel inside where he had set it down.

A small picture falls out courtesy of his fumbling fingers. He takes out the box and picks up the picture to put it back into its right place, but his eye catches on the scene.

It’s a small Polaroid, the white borders now yellow with age. It’s a picture of you, a couple of years younger than you are now. You’re standing with some guy in a big varsity jacket, looking like he’s auditioning for the role of High School Jock Number 4 in some dumb chick flick. You’re beside him in a sweatshirt and tennis skirt, arm wrapped casually around his middle.

“He your boyfriend?” Dean asks.

You’re puzzled for a second when you turn to face him, until you look down to his lap and see the picture in his hand. “Sometimes.”

“How about right now?”

Your lips purse and he can’t tell if you’re irritated or fighting a smile. “No. Not right now.”

He nods. Good. That’s good. Boyfriends aren’t a deadlock, but they do tend to make things more difficult, generally speaking. Especially given your reaction to his bride story.

Your left leg stretches out for relief and he watches it, how the soft skin moves, how the muscles in your thigh flex below your shorts. And Dean truly respects you. He respects you so much - of course he does. What other non-hunting civilian would put up with his shit with such grace? Unfortunately that respect cannot stop him from picturing how that leg would look wrapped around his waist, how those muscles would flex if you were moving on him-

He snaps his eyes shut hard. It must be past midnight by now, and he had expected you to suggest stopping for the night a few hours ago. But you seem to be content to continue driving and listening to his stupid stories. Or maybe you’re just trying to make up the hours that you missed on the road this morning.

You could be the only two people on the road right now. Maybe the world. He hasn’t seen another car for miles - just long, stretching road and bedrock that melts into sand the further you drive. You are playing another one of your CDs - New Order, he thinks. He was pissed at first, but they really don’t sound all that different from Joy Division if you can get past all the electronic shit.

“Dean,” you breathe. 

He looks over at you abruptly. Your face is pulled strangely, anxious. He follows your eye-line, registering that this might be the first time he had heard you say his name.

It’s like his body had been waiting for him to see the fire before it lets him smell it. Dark, smoky, choking ash. Coming from a dark green jeep, big like a goddamn tank. The fire - great, crackling and red - becomes harder to see as smoke envelopes the windshield. You roll up to it with speed.

Dean has been taught to be cautious about these situations - to pause and look for a trap. In the few seconds it takes him to asses, you have unbuckled and jumped out of your side of the car, pacing around the burning jeep. He follows you out.

His leg screams. He hasn't had the chance to take the painkillers yet.

You have gone still when he hobbles over to you, but your face is full of alarm, lit up with the blood-red glow of the flames. Your white shirt is being washed black by sheets of flying soot. You’re trying to look collected, but there’s a shake in your hands.

“There’s someone in there,” you say to him. You stand there with each other for just a moment, silently assessing the horror of what you had just said. His heart thuds jerkily in his chest.

He looks over to the jeep again - the flames are at least four meters high now - and begins to move almost mechanically towards it. 

“Call 911. Don’t give your name,” he says to you. He doesn’t look to see your reaction, but you don’t stop him. He wouldn’t have let you but he wishes you would have tried, though he’s not sure why.

The flames are guttering down from the back of the vehicle. He can see the man inside, just a vague bump underneath all the smoke. His head is hanging loosely forward and Dean can’t tell whether he is alive or not. He tries to open the door, yanks at the blazing hot metal of the door handle, and finds he can’t.

He sprints to the passenger door, ignoring the searing pain in his leg. He is burnt again by the handle, but he is able to open it. He had been hot before, but the heat spilling out from the inside of the car tinges and sears his skin. Smoke billows out and smacks him square in the face but after a second he’s able to see silhouettes through the fog, lit up by bright glow from the backseat. The flames lick into the front seat every few seconds, as if moved by a nonexistent breeze. It won’t be long until the guy is swallowed.

Dean removes his jacket from his left arm and holds it up as a shield over the right side of his face. He lurches in before he can think too hard about it.

Tears fill his eyes the second he climbs onto his knees in the passenger seat. He fumbles with the man’s safety belt with one hand while the other holds up his jacket against the flickering light from the backseat. He fights the urge to cough and retch. The smoke is reaching so deep into his lungs, he can feel it in his stomach. 

The bastard isn’t small. He can hardly make out any distinguishable features through the smoke, but he feels his weight when he wraps an arm across his chest and attempts to pull his body upwards out of the seat. He stops for a second to take a breath, but gags instead because his airways fill with only smog.

He doesn’t think about anything in situations like these. He doesn’t see life or death flash anywhere. He just works.

Moving as little more than a machine, he takes the jacket away from his face, letting it hang off his right arm while he uses both hands to clasp firmly around the limp body in front of him. It’s slow work and his leg is in almost unbearable pain. A lick of flame hits him square on his neck, hissing and growling at him as he tries to pry the man’s legs out of their awkward position, caught under the steering wheel.

He tugs hard. If the guy breaks a bone or two, it’s a small price to pay for his life. His leg yields somehow - Dean wonders if he broke something but doesn’t have long to ponder it. He is able to struggle his way out, dragging the body with him with immense effort, coughing dryly.

The man’s body spills out of the car and onto the road in a heap. Dean knows he needs to move him further away, but his leg requires his immediate attention. He moves to stand on his left leg and waits for the agonising ache to mellow before he can inflict torture on himself once again. 

Except you clamber up beside him, almost unnoticeable, and put your arms under the motionless body on the floor so that the man’s head is propped up against your chest. Dean wants to tell you to move away - that there’s every chance this car is about to blow - but his throat is nothing but tar. He tries to speak and almost vomits. 

You move backwards, pulling the body with you in what looks like a Herculean show of effort. Dean hobbles along after you. Any further thoughts about the pain in his leg and now his burnt neck feels redundant - he is determined to give up thinking about it altogether. There comes a point where pain is unthinkable.

The man is alive - that much is clear from the way his body spasms and rocks around on the floor. Dean looks at him with a certain detachment from above. He still can’t see his face very clearly even without the smoke - it’s covered in ash. His hair might be black or it could be temporarily dyed with soot. Dean turns him on his side. Vomit immediately begins to pour out of the man’s mouth.

He finds a water bottle is being shoved into his hand. You’re staring at him with huge teary eyes. some leftover terror still lingering and he is momentarily startled by the show of emotion. He stares back at you.

He takes a gulp and the lukewarm water feels like ice in his mouth. He swashes it around, lets it splash against his teeth and gums, and sputters the foul stewy brew out onto the road. He tries to take a drink but ends up repeating the same process. He is able to swallow on the third attempt.

“We need to go,” he says. It comes out as a croak.

You look at him and then at the man on the ground, still floundering like a fish. “He could still die from the smoke inhalation. We should wait until-”

“No.” He’s already limping to the car. “We have to go now.”

He’s not waiting around to see whether the ambulance brings any police cruisers along with them. He’s done what he can. There’s nothing left to do by waiting except signing himself away for a life behind bars and signing Sam’s head up on a silver platter in the process.

You hesitate, wobbling a little bit on your feet before following him. Your eyes don’t move from the man as you stumble back into the car. Your hands are still shaking. Your face is wooden as you drive away to the distant sound of sirens. 

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