SentientBlender

Not when he was stranded in a world that wasn’t meant for him. 

He could only chase the idea of it at the bottom of a bottle and in dreams of a life he’d never have. He could only wake up strangling a scream, as nightmares brought him back to the only home he’d ever had… Back when he was four-years-old and his picket fences had burned to ash.

Leaving him standing on the lawn in his PJs with Sammy in his arms as his father broke apart and rebuilt himself as a general. Seeing soldiers where he once saw sons. 

Dean had motels, pitstops, barracks, trenches and prison cells, but never homes. And the bunker was just one more in a line of failed attempts at building something out of nothing. Taking something borrowed, pretending it was his, and fooling no one. 

But… Then there was her. 

Hell, she didn’t even have to try. 

Nearly from the first moment she’d stepped into the bunker, the air in the normally cold underground prison had warmed up. The fluorescent lights had felt like sunshine on Dean’s skin, and the normally dusty, heavy air had felt fresher, softer. Letting him breathe easy for the first time in forever. 

All it took was one full week of (Y/N) living with them and she’d already made the bunker feel more like a home than he’d ever managed. And after a year of her living with them, the bunker was now a place he longed to return to whenever hunts brought him far away from home… 

From her. 

It was no longer a tomb filled with guilt, nightmares and bad memories. With (Y/N)’s soft touch, everything shifted, as the air filled with her laughter and every small secretive glance Dean threw her way left him feeling warm and grounded. Like he belonged. 

After years on the road… Years spent pretending that he had everything under control for Sammy. Dean finally felt home. And all it took was one woman. One beautiful woman, with her soft smile and kind eyes, to make him understand what everyone had been telling him all along… Home was where the heart is. And Dean had finally found his heart.

Now he just needed to find the courage to tell her how he felt. 

---

Stealing another glance at her over the lip of his coffee cup, Dean quickly pulled his eyes away as she looked in his direction. Chasing his cowardice with a sip of already cooling coffee as he refocused his attention back on the dusty old tomes in front of him. 

He couldn’t do it.

He’d been telling himself to work up the courage. To just… At least attempt to flirt with her. To throw her that slightly crooked smirk and a small wink, like he had done with so many other women as he chased the need for warmth and a temporary feeling of belonging, of home, in their arms. But no matter how much he reminded himself that he wasn’t new to this. That he’d dated, he’d… Fuck. None of it had been like it was with her. None of those women were her. 

He couldn’t just turn on the same empty charm he used to use. Not when she deserved everything. And Dean was nothing. Hell, even if he could. He really shouldn’t do it. No matter how many nights he’d let himself fall into guilty fantasies of his lips on her skin and her body naked below his. He would never be good enough… He’d just leave his bloody fingerprints on her, and hurt her. He knew he would. 

Now that he finally had a home, he couldn’t demolish it with his own damn destructive hands. Even if he was dying to build a home for himself in her heart. Even if he saw apple-pie-forevers in her slightly upturned eyes and could easily paint multiple happily ever afters in even just the smallest curve of her smile. 

If he told her, and the small curve of her smile fell? Dean wouldn’t just be heartbroken… He’d be homeless. Doomed to wander again. With no more warmth, no more rooms that didn’t feel like prison cells and no more air that tasted slightly sweeter from her laughter permeating it. 

“What’s up Dean?” Her beautiful voice broke through his darkening thoughts as he quickly pulled himself out of them. As if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Letting his eyes lock with hers, he gave her a small shaky smile as he shrugged his shoulders, trying to find some excuse to explain whatever she’d seen on his features to prompt the sudden question. 

“What’s what?” He finally asked, giving up on finding any excuses, as he knew her perceptive (Y/E/C) eyes would see right through him. 

“I don’t know… You just look kinda… Out of it?” She hesitated over the words, her head tilting slightly to the side as her brow furrowed in that damned adorable way that always left him cotton-mouthed and fighting the butterflies in his stomach that threatened to give away how he felt. 

“I’m fine… I just… I have a lot on my mind,” He shrugged lamely. 

A lot on his mind… 

That was the understatement of a fucking lifetime. But hell… Dean wasn't very good with words. Even his mind stumbled to try and find a way to describe what the feelings he was drowning in were. Why he felt so full and so empty at the same time... Yet, the only thing that came through the haze of his confusion was her. Just her. 

Her name echoed inside the hollow space he didn't know existed until she had started filling it with just her presence alone. Before he’d known it, she’d made herself at home in his heart. And it scared him. She was supposed to just bey (Y/N). She should have been just another hunter. Just another girl. Yet she was slowly becoming everything. 

Everything except his.

---

There was something magical about her. 

Even the one place that had been the closest thing Dean had ever managed to make feel like home, felt more real when she was around. The rumble of Baby’s engine felt more grounded and the roads just felt smoother whenever she managed to trick Sammy out of the shotgun seat and sang along to her songs. 

Because, hell… Even his own rules went out the window when she was around. No matter how much Sammy grumbled that ‘driver picks the music’. She was the exception. She was always the exception. To every rule. After all… She had him wrapped around her little finger. 

Plus, Dean would willingly give up his whole damn tape collection and replace it with the sound of her voice, her laughter, filling the Impala as they drove down endless stretches of country road. Casting small glances at her as he clutched the steering wheel. Both to keep himself from reaching out to her and tucking the stray (Y/H/C) strands back behind her ear and because he had too precious a cargo to drive recklessly with her in the car. 

With her, every stretch of highway, every shitty motel room with paint peeling off of its walls, and every new pitstop, was home. And the Impala, the one place he’d somewhat managed to fool himself into believing he saw as his childhood home, paled in comparison to that. 

---

Clutching his bottle of beer, Dean only pretended to listen to whatever Sammy was saying. Only catching snippets of the latest clues the vampires they were chasing had left behind as his eyes followed her across the hole in the wall bar towards the bartender. 

He didn't know when he had started to think about her as his. He had no right to. Yet, whenever his mind wandered, he did. Often. Like a rose-coloured dream that would never come true, but still lingered in his mind and refused to let go long after waking. 

He shouldn't be jealous, yet as he watched her smile at the young man behind the bar, only one word came to mind. A lie of a word, yet the only one he had. 

Mine.

Swallowing the bitter jealousy down with another generous mouthful of beer, he refocused on Sam. Forcefully pulling his eyes off of her as she leaned over the bar to tell the bartender who was ogling her their order. Yet, as his eyes met his brother’s he was left following Sam’s eyes straight back to her. 

Sammy also saw her as home. Though not the way Dean did… 

No. To Sam she was a friend, a part of his family. She was the one who had pulled him further out of his shell and made him finally see what a home was supposed to feel like. Instead of the scraps Dean had been able to scrape together for his baby brother over the many years he’d been left raising him. 

As Sam looked from her to Dean, he groaned internally. Knowing what was coming. Knowing that his brother would once more try to make him put down sturdier foundations. Though he should know better. He should know nothing could be built out of the gunpowder and lead debris that was Dean Winchester. Yet, he still tried. Whenever she was out of earshot. Having caught on, much faster than Dean, to what his older brother felt for their fellow bunker resident. 

“You still haven’t…” Sam kept his voice low as he broached the subject Dean had been dreading. Though he didn’t let his younger brother finish his sentence as he shook his head roughly and brought his now empty bottle to his lips with an annoyed frown. 

“No… Not gonna do it either,” Dean shot back before his brother could put his feelings into words. Tainting them with the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke. 

“And why the hell not?” As always, whenever the conversation got around to her… To the heart Dean had slipped into her hand when she wasn’t looking. Sam just kept fucking pushing. Though he should know by now. He had seen what happened to the people Dean tried to protect. He was destructive. He was a goddamn avalanche. Destroying everything in his path. It didn’t matter if it was homes, hearts or families. One brush with Dean was like a damn kiss of death. 

“Can’t make her deal with that… With me,” Dean shot back. His tone was clipped and short as he threw a glance back over at the bar to make sure she was still out of earshot. Hoping the finality in his words would function as the full stop he needed to make his little brother give up on any notion of Dean ever finding anything but prison bars where others dreamt of picket fences. 

“Hell, it’s a miracle she hasn’t noticed it yet with the way you look at her. She’ll find out sooner or later that you…” Sam just kept pushing. The little glance Dean threw in her direction did not go unnoticed by his quick witted little brother. 

“I’ll just learn to control it,” Dean huffed as he finally placed the empty beer bottle down on the table. A little harder than necessary. Forcing his eyes off of her as if to prove he could. Though he could already feel the pull at his heart, longing to see her again. To catch even just the briefest glance of her (Y/H/C) hair over by the dim bartop. 

“Love isn’t something you can control Dean! Love is chaotic and unexpected. Why do you think people say you fall in love? You don’t gently and carefully float into it, able to change the direction or pull yourself up and out. No. You fall. Head first. Fast and hard. Without a lifeline. Sure, sometimes you crash and burn… But other times, that someone will catch you. Hold you, love you, and fall weightless, with you. You just need to take a chance, grow a pair, and fucking tell her,” Sam whisper yelled in his direction. Still careful to not raise his voice enough to be heard by anyone else over the steady sound of music and revelry surrounding the two brothers. Yet, every word still sounded explosively loud to Dean as he gritted his teeth at the sound of the word love. The one thing he had to forcefully deny himself. To keep her safe. 

“No Sammy, I can’t do that to her. You know I can’t. You know how loving someone turns out in this life… How many people have we lost? How many times have we been the last ones standing left to deal with the aftermath and the pain? How many times has our love, us caring about someone, put them in danger, in harm's way?” Dean gritted his teeth, keeping his own voice at barely even a whisper though saturated in frustration and anger.  Quietly arguing with his stubborn younger brother between small glances in her direction to make sure she was still occupied by the bartender trying to flirt with her. 

The sight of her, smiling that breathtaking smile as she let her head fall backwards with an open and warm laugh tore at his sanity. That one dangerous, jealous word once more slipping, unchecked back into his mind from the thought of her laughing so openly with someone that wasn’t him.

Mine…

“Even if she did care, which honestly I doubt she does…. I can’t make her fall with me, never. ‘Cause I’ll keep falling till I end up in hell, and she deserves so much more than that. She deserves nothing less than a lifetime filled with bliss and an eternity in heaven,” Dean continued bitterly. Some of the anger drained from him at the sight of her smiling at another man, replaced with that familiar and comforting blanket of self-hatred that he kept himself wrapped in to stop anyone from getting too close. 

“I know this life is hell Dean, but that doesn’t mean you should close yourself completely off from ever feeling anything. She’s already in this life. We all are. At least we have each other. Why the hell are you so scared of just trying?” Sam’s eyes were still on Dean. He hadn’t caught the way she laughed with the bartender, hadn’t seen the proof of how happy she could be… If only she wasn’t saddled with them. 

With Dean.

Yet, it was all Dean could see. Though he doubted he was selfless enough to give up on the one home he’d finally found after years spent out in the cold, homeless. Even if he could never really make it his home. He would settle for a guest room. A wandering thought that sometimes slipped into her mind. A friendly smile, a shared laugh, a moment of absolute peace in the middle of the shitstorm that was his life. Yeah… He couldn’t give her up. He couldn’t cut her out cold turkey. But he could learn to be content with his lot in life. To be a friend; a roommate. 

At least it was better than freezing to the bone again.

“You’re right… I want her… I shouldn’t, but I do. And that scares me more than anything else in this messed up world of ours, and we’ve survived hell and apocalypses,” Tearing his eyes off of her, Dean’s voice wavered as he confessed feelings that filled him with dread to his brother and the chipped and stained table in front of him.  

“I’m beyond scared Sammy. I’m terrified,”

---

The trouble with homes in the shape of a heart and the woman who carried it was that it could be placed in harm’s way. Especially when the shape of his home was a hunter, a woman who risked her life for a thankless world and strangers that refused to see the extent of her sacrifices. 

The vampires they’d been chasing across several state lines had somehow gotten the drop on them. And as one monster from the endless waves of vampires slashed at her, Dean was, for the second time in his life, only able to watch as his home was torn to shreds by the vicious claws of evil. First when he was four, in the shape of a house fire, and now in the shape of angry red spilling against gravel as Dean’s world ended to the sound of her pierced scream filling the already bloodsoaked air. 

No. 

With a pained growl, Dean let his arm swing wildly in front of him. Using his machete to carve a path through the bloodsuckers in an effort to get to her as quickly as possible. 

He didn’t even feel the slight jolt in his arm whenever his blade sliced through another vampire. Didn’t even hear their angry, pained screams as they died. All he heard was the sound of her agonised, surprised yell. 

All he saw was the heartbreaking colour of red seeping out of her chest as she kept unsteadily on her feet, trying to fight her attackers off. Even though the bright fire in her eyes was slowly ebbing away with every new glimpse he caught of her between the horde of vampires. The same bright fire that always left him breathless, and turned every heartbeat into flames burning through his veins, threatening to reduce him to ash.

All that mattered to him was her. And she was about to leave him behind. 

Pushing through the crowd of vampires. Dean didn’t stop until every single one of those damn bloodsuckers were dead before turning to face her. Her name on his lips in a breathless scream as he watched, as if in slow motion, as she crumbled to the ground, the machete in her hand clattering to the dirt along with her. Abandoned now that she had nothing left to fight, and nothing more to give. 

“(Y/N)!” Rushing to her side, Dean fell to his knees and cradled his home in his arms. Hoping that this time, he’d be able to fix his. That this time around, he’d be able to save his home, and the heart he’d already willingly given up to her along with it. 

Even though her lips were dangerously pale, and her eyelids already hid those beautiful (Y/E/C) eyes from him. Even though she was already freezing to the bone, barely hanging onto the small shallow gasps for air leaving her, as he tried to keep the world from tearing her away from him. 

He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t.

---

Though every room she was in felt like home to Dean, there were exceptions. Just like she was his exception for every rule. And the sterile cold of her hospital room didn’t feel any warmer just because she was there. 

Instead, it was the opposite. 

The longer she remained there, nestled among machines and wires that were trying to keep her alive, the colder the room felt. The more Dean felt his whole damn world freeze over. 

Yet, he fought through the shivers, he gritted chattering teeth and braved the cold. Just to stay with her. Because he had nowhere else to go. 

It had been a week. The same amount of time it took her to turn the bunker into a home. Yet the hospital still only felt like an early grave, a prison and a torture chamber as Dean shifted in the chair next to her bed. He hadn’t moved since they rolled her into the room after surgery. Fighting any nurse or doctor that tried to tell him he had to leave; that visiting hours were over. 

Because, damn it, he wasn’t just visiting. His whole damn world was lying in that bed. His home was there, nestled in the slow beat of her heart. The sound of each beat transferred directly into him through the steady rhythm of the electronic beeps of the ECG was the only thing lulling him to sleep at night. 

“Time to wake up (Y/N)...” Dean echoed words he’d whispered into the empty, cold hospital air more than once over the last week as he blocked out the doctor’s disapproving looks and Sam’s worried pleas for him. His head dropped until his forehead rested against her bed as he swallowed around the constant lump in his throat. 

“We need to go home now,” He pleaded as he blindly searched for her hand and gently squeezed it, though it remained unmoving in his shaky grip.

“I need you to come home with me. Because the bunker’s not home without you,” He whispered the words into her sheets. Not willing to let them bleed out into the rest of the cold room. Unwilling to let the highly sanitised air of the hospital scrub any of the red raw pain and tears out of his words as he let them stain white sheets.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he listened to the steady beeps, signalling that she was still alive as he pushed away the freezing chill that always threatened to settle over him whenever he pictured the bunker without her. His hand gently squeezed her unmoving one, as if ensuring himself she was still there. That she hadn’t slipped away between one heartbeat and the next as he made a confessional out of the hospital sheets. Letting the truths that were slipping out from the cracks in his heart soak her bed. At least until she finally woke up again and he could hastily suture the wounds shut and slip back into the role as her friend.

“I need you. You’re the only thing that… Damn it. I love you (Y/N), but I never wanted to tell you. Because I didn’t want you to hurt. I didn’t want to paint a bright red target on you. Yet… Here you are. Somehow you still got into the paint and drew a target on yourself anyway,” The words left him as a broken, huffed laugh. Sounding hollow and wrong when paired with the constant noise of machines and the dimmed background noises coming from the hospital hallway. 

Humourless, empty and drained. Just like the rest of his life when she wasn’t around.

“But I can’t… I know it’s selfish. I know I’m a selfish bastard, but I can’t lose you. Even if I’m just a friend. You’re… You’re home to me (Y/N). Without you there’s no meaning, there’s no light. So, you have to wake up now, ok?” Though he knew it was pointless, Dean still held his breath. Waiting for her sweet voice to reply to his words. The same way he had waited time and time again over the last week. 

“Come home with me, please? Let me go home. Don’t leave me homeless,” he pushed when the silence dragged on. 

But no reply came. Other than the still steady beeps of the heart rate monitor, promising that she wasn’t lost to him. Not yet. Even though she stubbornly kept Dean’s world from him, and the only bright light in his life, behind closed, still eyelids. 

“I promise I’ll love you quietly, I won’t make you uncomfortable. I’ll just silently love you, and I’ll protect you… So you won’t get hurt again. Because seeing you hurt? It’s killing me,” He finally continued. Squeezing her small hand as he bit back a hollow sob. Gritting his teeth together as he fought the pain that had been simmering like an angry storm in his chest since he first saw the vampire hurt her. It was a fight he was slowly losing. As every new hour without her smile was unravelling the last of his patience. 

He was just so damn close to trashing the whole hospital. Just to have something to hurt. The way he hurt. 

Yet, where he had been wrestling with his anger and helplessness in a losing battle that left him winded, broken and bruised. She easily made it all die down with just a soft squeeze of his hand back, and a dry, scratchy voice whispering two words. For the first time in a week.

“Me too…” The sound of her voice was the sweetest sound Dean had ever heard as he lifted his head from her sheets. Fighting the sudden vertigo that followed the breakneck speed of the move as he blinked unshed tears out of his eyes to focus on her. 

“(Y/N)! Oh thank god,” Dean’s breath left him in a shaky gasp shaped like relief and her name when he was met with (Y/E/C) eyes instead of closed eyelids. 

Though all he really wanted to do was pinch himself, to make sure it wasn’t all just a dream his mind was tormenting him with, Dean kept holding onto her hand instead. In part because he could never let her go, and in part because he worried his mind would fracture if he woke up and found her still and unmoving again. 

“Me too Dean…” She repeated, her lips curving up into a weak, tired smile as she once more tried to get Dean to understand the meaning behind her two cryptic words. But, hell, Dean was too far gone. Too elated to finally feel the air around him heat up from the sunshine in her eyes and taste the sweetness of her voice on every new shaky breath he took. 

“What are you…? Wait, it doesn’t matter. You’re awake. Do you want some water? Or no, let me go get the doc…” Dean’s words came out rushed and messy as he kept holding onto her, though his eyes were lifting to search for some way to get the doctor to come check on her now that she was finally awake. But, just as he tried to slip his hand from her to go find the doctor that hadn’t magically appeared, she cut him off with a weak squeeze of his fingers. Keeping him from moving and drawing his full attention back to her. 

“No, listen. Please,” She whispered, coughing slightly as she grimaced at the gravel in her own voice after a week of not speaking at all. 

“Ok… Yeah. Ok, I’m listening. What is it? Does something hurt?” He said, but the truth was, Dean wasn’t listening, not really. He was much too busy marvelling at the miracle that was her open eyes, and worrying about the scratch in her voice as he busied himself with digging through the grocery bag Sammy had brought him the day before with one hand. Somehow managing to locate a bottle of water to hand to her as he slipped his hand from hers to unscrew the top. 

Yet, as he handed her the bottle, she only held it, and the hand he used to hand it to her, forcing him to look at her, really look at her as she spoke again. Even though every word was rough and whispered as her throat screamed at her to accept the water. 

“Listen,” She demanded. And all Dean could do was nod numbly as he waited for her to speak again. After all, he was tightly wrapped around her little finger. Smiling weakly at him, she finally lifted the bottle of water to her lips, soothing her dry throat before she tried to speak again as Dean watched, mesmerised, as a single droplet escaped her mouth, resting temptingly on her bottom lip. “Me too… I love you too, you stupid, stubborn, brilliant fool,” (Y/N) said as soon as the ache in her throat had been soothed, a flash of pink rolling against her bottom lip to catch the single drop of water that held Dean’s rapt attention. 

Yet, as she spoke, his eyes shot from her lips up to lock with hers. Green eyes wide as he looked at her. Speechless, as his mind tried to make sense of the words he was sure he heard, yet couldn’t really be anything other than an auditory hallucination. Or maybe a dream… Once more Dean was left wanting to pinch himself, yet fearing he’d wake up. So instead he just squeezed her hand a little harder as he struggled to find the breath to shape words... 

“What… You? I mean, wow,” …And clearly thoroughly failed. 

He was breathless, his heart stuck in his throat as he tried to find the word trapped in his chest. He was elated as long forgotten butterflies did a number on his stomach, as if he was on a damn roller coaster.  

Yet, just like a roller coaster, the slow and steady high was followed by a death defying plummet as soon as he parted his lips to speak. His voice broke before he could even get one word out as the memories flooded back over him. 

Blood soaked gravel and pale lips invaded his vision, clouding the sunshine he’d once again found in her eyes as Dean shook his head. The feeling of her quickly fading heartbeat as he held her close in the backseat of the Impala while Sammy drove recklessly towards the hospital was still just too vivid.

He couldn’t risk losing her. He couldn’t selfishly celebrate when being with him was just a shortcut to death. No way. He refused to sign her death warrant by giving into desire.

“But… I’m bad for you (Y/N). I could get you…” 

Before Dean could finish his sentence, she shook her head, cutting his words off with a pained grimace as the quick shake sent shockwaves through her injured body. The pained groan that followed, a physical manifestation of how dangerous he was for her. 

Taking a few shaky breaths she lifted herself up into a more seated position on the hospital bed. Ignoring his worried, mumbled protests as he hesitantly reached out to her. The sight of blood spilling onto gravel was still too clear in his mind as he held himself back. Worried he’d mark her for death.

“You’re not bad for me Dean. You’re the best man I’ve ever met. You’re the reason I wake up smiling. You’re the reason I feel like I finally have a home to settle down in. You’re my home. As much as you say I’m yours,” She argued back, that same stubborn furrow that Dean found unbearably cute, back on her forehead as she emphasised every word. Making sure he heard her.

Yet, though he heard the words, Dean just couldn’t tie them to himself. He wasn’t anyone’s reason. Unless it was as an excuse, someone to blame. And he’d never had a home. So there was no way he could be the shape of one for someone else. There was no way such beautiful words could belong to him. Not when she was so goddamn perfect, and he was just… Dean. 

“But you could get anything you ever want (Y/N), and I’m…” Dean started again. Not seeing himself in the rose coloured words that had spilled from honeyed lips. 

“You’re everything I want Dean. It’s us. That’s all I want,” She pushed, stubbornly. Unwilling to back down as she set fiery (Y/E/C) eyes in him, daring him to try and say another bad word about himself. 

Not wanting to disappoint, Dean parted his lips to speak again. To argue against her idealised version. To make her see how much safer she would be without him. Even if it would kill him to let her go. Yet, the beautiful woman who had somehow miraculously transformed prison bars into safety nets, was not willing to listen. As she quickly lifted a still shaky hand and grabbed the front of his t-shirt, using it as leverage to pull herself all the way up and closer to him.

Before finally silencing him with her lips on his. 

It took a few erratic beats of his heart for Dean to realise what was happening. Green eyes wide and breath caught in his chest. 

She was kissing him, carefully and hesitantly, soaking his vinegar words of self-hatred in honey and sunshine as he stayed frozen for just a split second. Until the warmth of her thawed him back up. Just enough for him to gently push her back onto her pillow without breaking the kiss. His hands travelled the length of her arms as he made sure she was comfortable, still worried about her injuries. 

But he couldn’t break the kiss. He was caught. Completely, and undeniably caught. Unable to deny himself the heart that she willingly slipped into his hand, that matched the one he’d snuck her. Fitting together so goddamn perfectly Dean felt like crying.

So instead he focused on her lips, the taste of her. Through soft, barely there kisses, he selfishly moved into her heart. Only to find she had already made a home for him there.

Finally, Dean was home.

Dean Winchester Tags: @ria132love @woodworthti666 @defenderrosetyler  @akshi8278 @justanotherwinchester @lyarr24 @torn-and-frayed @all-will-be-well-love @wearesuchstuff1 @thefridgeismybestie @adoptdontshoppets @starsandmidnightblue @screechingartisancashbailiff @septixtrash @punof-agun  @deandreamernp @justagirlinafandomworld @sexyvixen7 @justrealizedimmascifygurl @globetrotter28