#dean x reader

“Have sex with me-“

“Yeah, I- I heard you the first time, that’s not-“ Dean shakes his head, running a hand over his face. “It’s eight in the fuckin’ morning-“

“It’s eight fifteen.”

That earns you a flat look, and you smile innocently.

“That’s fifteen extra minutes, it matters-“

“Not for this. And- I ain’t even showered yet-“

Your nose wrinkles. “Why haven’t you showered?”

“I shower after coffee,” Dean mutters, turning his mug in his hands. “If I don’t, Sammy’s stinkin’ up the kitchen from his run.”

“Oh- Okay.” You clasp your hands behind your back, peering at his tight jaw, his mussed, soft-looking hair. “Is that… A yes?”

Dean’s eyes widen on yours. You’re worried he’s going to choke on the air this time. “Yes?”

“Are you going to have sex with me,” you clarify, and his mouth falls open.

“I- I’m- You’re-“ His throat bobs, and he starts to look around the room with a worried squint. “Are you fuckin’ with me?”

You frown. “Why would I be fucking with you?”

“’Cause, sweetheart, you can’t just-“ He lets out a sharp breath. “Is it Sam? Did he put you up to this? ‘Cause I told him- That kinda prank, it’s off the table-“

“What kind of prank?” You’re a little lost, and there’s shame starting to burn up your neck.

A prank. He thinks it’s a prank.

It’s not. You’re so serious it’s almost embarrassing. You wouldn’t have asked him if you weren’t. You’d almost talked yourself out of it, after spending too much time convincing yourself into it. Nights of tossing and turning in bed, an insatiable and aching heat between your legs and the sheets bunched around you in a mockery of a body. Weeks of watching the boys slip out of bars with women that seemed to fall into them like magnets while you spun around, alone on a barstool without any prospects.

Months, of watching Dean with a flush he never saw. An adoration written all over your face he didn’t seem capable of noticing. You’d tried to stomp it out. Your stupid, useless little crush. Dean was older. Seasoned and desirable in the way that made you wonder if he was even real sometimes. Out of your reach, tantalizing, and impossible to just forget about. 

You’d neglect your feelings in the hope they’d die, but he’d water them until they were in full bloom and overtaking your heart and mouth and head. He’d buy the snacks you like and let you chose the movie. He’d open doors and let his hand linger on your lower back, he’d smile at you in the dim light of the Impala and make you feel like the only person in the world, he’d call you when he was away on a separate hunt every single night, just to update you. He’d play wrestle you for the remote, and somehow never manage to wonder why he always won when he’d see you take down men closer to Sam’s size with barely a grunt of effort.

“Nice try, sweetheart,” he’d whisper in your ear, when he had you pinned on the floor beneath him, and you’d have to swallow down your moan.

He’d get up, turn on the TV, and leave you on the couch while he went to the bathroom. You’d sit with your knees to your chest and your breathing uneven, unable to focus on anything but the ghost of his body over yours. The heat of him, the way his arms had caged you in, his knee pressed far too close to your neglected core.

If Dean knew how you dreamed about him—how those moments followed you into bed, every single night—you’re so sure he’d never look at you again. He doesn’t see you like that, you’re sure. You’re the kid they took in, the annoying girl who’s got too much mouth on her and not enough experience, in every possible way.

You’ve never done sex. You sort of just missed the window, where it’s supposed to happen, and then it became too big a deal, then you met Dean and you were lost. What was the point of being with anyone else, when you had his shoulder bumping yours in the hallway. When you were so hopelessly in love with him, you think your heart might beat out of your chest like a cartoon every time you see him.

So you made a choice, a few weeks ago. A choice it took a lot of courage to work yourself up to following through on

You just need to have sex. With someone. Anyone. Preferably Dean. It just needs to be done and over with—one time, where he doesn’t know he’s taking your virginity, where he’s peacefully oblivious of your worship of his very existence—and then you can try to move on. Once you’ve had sex, it won’t be this big monster you shy away from anymore. It’ll just be another thing.

So you’re asking Dean. Outside of your alternate motivations, it’s a sound strategic call. You know about his prowess. He’s bragged to you about all his five-star reviews. And maybe that always made you gag over a toilet bowl after, but if it did, that’s none of his fucking business.

Maybe you’re not up to par with his usual partners, but you can do your makeup, or he can turn off the lights, or whatever else makes it easier for him. Anything that makes him touch you. You won’t even cry about it in front of him.

But he thinks it’s a prank. Why would he think it’s a prank.

“You know,” he says, watching you wearily. “Sammy gives you a tenner, you come and ask me for sex, everyone gets a good laugh at Dean. Good joke. Classy.”

You wrap your arms around your stomach, shrinking slightly into yourself. “It’s not a joke,” you mumble. “I- I was serious.”

“You were serious?”

He says it like it’s insane. You shrug, fixing your gaze on the floor. A joke. He thinks fucking you would be a joke.

“Sweetheart-“

“You don’t have to,” you take a step back, trying to sound casual. Like your heart isn’t being torn to ribbons.

You really hadn’t expected him to leap at the opportunity, but this is so close to cruel it hurts. Tears are threatening your eyes, and a lump is forming in your throat. Pathetic, a voice spits in your head. Why the fuck would he ever want to fuck you.

“Wait, just- Hold on-“

You look up, faster than you want to admit. Dean staring at you with pale face and slack jaw, throat working like he’s swallowing his own words every second. You wait, because you’re a fucking useless idiot. Bouncing nervously on your feet—they’re smarter than the rest of you, they want to run—and trying not to melt under his gaze.

“You’re actually askin’ me to fuck you?” He rasps, and you nod.

It’s the tiniest motion of your head. Dean shifts in his seat, staring at you with wide, dark eyes.

“Why?”

“Why?” You frown, saying the first, easiest, least embarrassing reason that pops into your head. “Because- You- You’re good at it?”

“I’m good at it,” Dean repeats. “You wanna fuck me ‘cause you think I’d be good at it?”

You wish he’d stop saying fuck like that. With a harsh ending and low drawl. “I don’t think,” you offer. “You’re the one who said you would be.”

Dean’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t look amused. “I could be lying, sweetheart.”

“I don’t think you are.”

He stares at you. His eyes flick up to the ceiling—maybe he still thinks he’s on a prank show—and he lets out a sharp, slow breath from his nose.

Then he shakes his head, and you feel the echo of your heart as it howls in pain.

“No,” he mutters. “I ain’t- Doin’ that. Not just ‘cause you- No.”

You blink at him, the world blurring a little. You stumble back, and Dean says your name, moving to his feet. You shake your head, moving back another step. Your eyes are stinging with tears, but that’s not his problem. He’s allowed to reject you. You’re also allowed to cry about it.

“Sweetheart-“

“It’s fine.” Your voice is too high. Too wobbly. “It’s- That’s okay.”

“No, just- Fuck-“ He rubs his jaw. “Listen to me, alright-“

“You don’t have to explain,” you shrug weakly. “It’s okay.”

Dean gives you a disbelieving look, but you move further back before he can try to make you feel better about the rejection. It’s not going to help.

“I’ll just-“ You look over your shoulder. To the door, just one more step back.

Dean says your name again. When you look back, he’s reaching to you, trying to beckon you back into the kitchen. You smile, tight and watery.

“Thank you for your consideration.” You say, because you’re a fucking idiot. Dean certainly looks at you like you’re one.

You flee the kitchen. He calls your name again, but this time you don’t look back.

Rejection is fine. You’re fine. You’re so fine, you lock yourself in your room for the rest of the day and eat so much ice cream your stomach hurts. Because it’s fun. It’s fun to cry over something you never even had.

At least you anticipated this. You have a very solid plan B.

If Dean won’t sleep with you, you’re going to find someone who will. You’re going to get it over with. This week.

You’re learning something about yourself.

You are not good at flirting.

The first thing you try is the bars. Sam and Dean slide into a booth, and you go to get the drinks. A guy makes eyes at you, and you smile sweetly in return. When you bring the drinks back, you set the beers down in front of the boys and turn back on your heels to give the bar-guy a shot.

Dean says your name, and you freeze. You always do that for him. It’s a habit you don’t think you’re able to break.

“Where’re you going?” He frowns at you, one arm slung around the back of the seat. Around where you’d usually sit.

“Bar,” you say lamely, and the lines on his face deepen.

“Why, you forget something?”

“No.”

“Then what-“

Dean cuts himself off, his gaze flicking over your shoulder. To the bar. To the man, waiting for you with a smirk, because you promised you’d be back.

Dean grunts your name, low and rough, and if he asked you to stay, you don’t think you’d be able to tell him no.

Things have been strange, since the kitchen. Neither of you have brought it up, and Dean hasn’t stopped treating you the way he always has, but there’s something charged beneath it. A live wire that frays and crackles, every time your fingers brush or your eyes meet. You’ve caught him staring at you with an open mouth a few times. Last week he tried to talk to you, alone in the Impala while Sam got snacks from a gas station. You announced that you had to shit, and scrambled out of the car.

You don’t want to talk about it, and Dean has no right to make you. He’s not the one who got his heart broken. He’s not the one who sort of wants to cry, whenever your eyes meet.

He certainly has no right to glare at you, when he puts together what you’re doing. He said he wasn’t going to sleep with you, and you’re a grown woman. You can, if you so please, have casual sex with a stranger. It is your right.

“You can’t be for real, sweetheart-“

“Dean.” Sam stares at his own beer, looking like he wants to vanish into the floor, and Dean scowls.

“C’mon, Sammy- Tell her she’s being crazy-“

“Crazy?” You snap, and Dean leans back in surprise. “You fuck around all the time, how is it crazy that I’d do the same thing?”

“It’s not- You just- You don’t-“ He swallows. “You don’t do this-“

“I do now.”

“Sweetheart, just- Sit down-“

You flip him off, and march back to the bar before he can ask with a little more conviction. You just need to break out of his orbit. To force yourself to realize that there are plenty of other men, and not having Dean isn’t the end of the universe.

Unfortunately, you sort of just keep proving the opposite.

“What’s a pretty little thing doin’ in a place like this?” The first guy at the bar asks, and you fumble.

You have no idea. You giggle nervously and spin in your chair, speaking words you can’t really hear. He seems into it—no matter how pathetic you must be coming off—until his fingers brush your arm, and you flinch back because his skin is cold. It sends a shiver up your spine that’s not the hot rush of Dean’s touch, but the sliver of a snake.

You go home alone that night, and you don’t look Dean in the eyes. He tries to talk to you, before you retreat to your room. You ignore him, because that’s the only way this is going to work. 

But you try again and again and again, and you never get anywhere. They always touch you, and it all falls apart. You look at them too long, and you can’t manage to squeeze them into a Dean shaped hole in your heart, and there’s no way forward. You try dating apps. That goes worse. Every dick pic you get sent just makes you wonder if sex is even something you want. They’re all worm-shaped and ugly. At least dildos come in nice colors. Maybe you should just buy a dildo.

No. You’ll just pretend it’s Dean all the time, and that’s the opposite of what you’re supposed to be doing here.

So you keep trying. And you keep failing. And Dean’s been looking at you weird—brow pinched and jaw set, every single night—and you’re getting desperate and fuck it.

“Sam.”

Sam hums, not looking up from his book. You clear your throat, leaning further over the table.

“Sam.”

“I’m listening, what’s-“

“Have sex with me.”

Sam, to his credit, doesn’t choke. He just goes very, very still, and looks up at you with an expression close to horror. He says your name slowly, and you shake your head, holding up a single hand.

“Just- Listen-“

“No?” Sam gapes at you. “I’m not- I’m not going to listen to that- Jesus Christ-“

“Come on, we could turn off the lights, and- I wouldn’t make it weird-“

“It’s already weird-“

“You’d be doing me a favor-“

“I’d be making a death wish!” Sam’s voice drops to a hiss. “Dean would fucking kill me.”

 You roll your eyes. “Then don’t tell him, dumbass.”

“No, I- I’m not doing that.” Sam shakes his head, like he’s trying to jolt the image free. “To you. Or him.”

“To him?” You narrow your eyes. “I- What the fuck would this do to Dean?”

Sam gives you a puppy-eyed, hopeless look. “I… Can’t say.”

“Sam Winchester-“

“Why are you asking me?” Sam whines. “I’m not- You’re not even into me-“

“Exactly, there would be no strings attached-“

“That’s not healthy-“

“Fuck off, like you don’t have casual sex-“

“I mean, I do, but I’m not-“ Sam cuts himself off, sighing dramatically. “Just- Why would you even want to have sex with me?”

You flush, but shrug. It’s just Sam. It’s easier to tell him than Dean. “I want to get it over with.”

“Get it over with?” Sam echoes. “It- You mean sex?”

You nod, and Sam blinks.

“Are you a virgin?”

“Maybe.”

“You- You’re-“

“Don’t be an asshole-“

“No, I’m not- I mean- It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It actually-“ Sam frowns at the air. “It makes sense, I guess.”

That makes you scowl. “It makes sense?”

Sam shrugs, giving you an apologetic smile, and you can’t even think of an argument. You sigh, your shoulders slumping, and Sam clears his throat.

“You know I’m not going to sleep with you, right?”

“Yeah.” You sigh, and he nods slowly.

“Does Dean-“

“No.” You point a stern finger at him, and Sam raises his hands in surrender.

“I think you should-“

“Sam. I’ll cut your balls off.”

“I- Okay.”

You give him one last glare, and go to leave. But before you can go, the question scratches up your throat. You turn around, hands tucked behind your back, and speak softly. “Would you?”

Sam blinks. “What?”

“If you didn’t- Know me,” you mumble. “If we weren’t like- Friends. And you just met me, and I asked you- Would you?”

Sam snorts, and you scowl.

“I’m serious-“

“Yeah, I know you are.” Sam’s lips twitch. “It’s just- Yeah. I would. Of course I would.”

You stand a little taller. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean- You know you’re attractive, right? If you just didn’t, like, annoy me. I’d be in.”

“I do not annoy you-“

“You’re annoying me right now.”

You laugh despite yourself. Sam smiles, his voice dropping to something gentler.

“Anyone would be lucky to have you,” he says your name slowly. “I just- Don’t want to be lucky.”

You huff in amusement—if Sam isn’t lying, aversion to luck is a family trait—but dip your head. “Thanks. I think.”

“You’re welcome. And-“ Sam pauses, looking you up and down with a strange expression. “I’m sure the whole- Thing will work out for you. There are… People. I think you’re going to figure it out.”

“You need to sleep with her.”

Dean needed to stop drinking coffee when people walked into the kitchen. This was the second shirt he’d ruined in as many months, and it was because everyone kept saying crazy fucking shit.

“Sammy, what the fuck-“

Sam said your name, and Dean’s hands fisted on the table.

Again. Son of a bitch, he was about to go through this again. The first time had been bad enough. You’d looked at him with glossy, hopeful eyes, practically begged for him to fuck you, and Dean had wondered if he’d died in his sleep last night and been dragged back to hell. Forced to experience some new kind of torture Crowley was developing, where everything he’d ever wanted was just a stretch away from his fingertips, and he wasn’t allowed to take it.

He had to be the noble one here. The wise, old asshole who didn’t take advantage of you. Taking you up on that offer would be one of the worst things he’d ever done. It would be selfish, and cruel, and a worse fate than anything else. To get what he wanted, for one night, then never fucking have it again. To get hooked—because he would, he fucking knew he’d never be able to kiss and touch you once then go back to just living—and turn into an addict willing to do anything to get another hit.

Dean would’ve turned into a bigger creep than he already was. Instead of stares and long, shameful showers with his cock in his hand and your name on his lips, he’d stuff your panties in his pocket and press them to his nose while he fucked himself raw. He’d get possessive, he’d snarl at anyone else who got to close, he’d fall to his knees and beg you to stay if you ever decided you had enough of him.

And he knew that last thing was going to happen eventually. You had a whole life ahead of you, and he was stuck here. In this dim bunker with blood on his hands and under his feet and staining his past and future all at once. He swam in a river of it. In front of him, behind him, washing over him all the time, there was just fucking blood. You deserved better than that. Better than Dean. You deserved the fucking world.

So he’d told you no, and you’d looked at him like a wet fucking kitten he’d kicked into the rain, but it had been for your own good. You’d get over it. Dean was the one who had to watch you flirt with douchebags at the bar. Who couldn’t get in another bed anymore, because he kept getting kicked out for moaning your name.

He was the one who was rooted here forever. You’d find something softer. Something good.  He’d accepted that, with a lot of beer pushing it down. You’d find something better, and that was what he wanted.

Sammy knew all that. Dean had gotten drunk once and confessed his stupid, undying feelings, then sworn Sam to secrecy in the morning. He’d kept his word, only shooting Dean sad looks whenever you went off to flirt and smirking whenever Dean called you on a hunt.

But now he was asking Dean to sleep with you. Like he’d lost his damn mind.

“No,” he grunted, and Sam rolled his eyes.

“Look, Dean, I get that you’re being cool and righteous and whatever-“

“I’m not fuckin’ her, Sammy- I shouldn’t.” He shot Sam a glare. “You know why I shouldn’t.“

“Yeah, well, I think your why is pretty stupid.” Sam said flatly. “You’ve never even asked her if she’d be- You know. Open to it-“

“I know she’d be open to it,” Dean scowled at his coffee. “But that’s- I ain’t doing it, Sammy. Never.” Not like that.

Sam was silent for a moment. When Dean looked up, he was staring at him with wide eyes. “She asked you first, didn’t she.”

Dean frowned. “What’d you mean, asked me first-“

“To take her virginity.”

He hadn’t taken a sip of coffee again. This time, he managed to choke on nothing at all. “To- What?”

Sam leaned back slightly. “Did she not ask you to sleep with her?”

“No, she did, I just didn’t fuckin’- She’s a virgin?”

“I guess,” Sam shrugged. “You know that’s not a big deal, right?”

Dean grunted. His head was spinning. Of course it wasn’t a big deal, he didn’t care. He’d wanted you before, he wanted you now, that wasn’t the fucking issue.

But you’d asked him.

You’d asked him to fuck you. You’d wanted him to- Do it. Take it. Pop it, whatever. You’d chosen Dean, to be the guy, and he’d told you no, and then you’d started flirting around with other people, and you could’ve ended up with someone dangerous, someone who took advantage of you, who thought your inexperience was hot for all the wrong reasons and hurt you and-

Dean paused. He looked at Sam. Sam blinked, and Dean’s eyes narrowed.

“How the fuck do you know that.”

Sam swallowed, taking a small step back. “Uh…”

“Sam-“

“She might’ve… Asked me.”

“She what-“

“I said no!” Sam said quickly. “I told her I wouldn’t. But- You know.” Sam cleared his throat. “If you’d said yes to her the first time…”

Sam gave him a pointed look. He was asking to get punched in the fucking face.

“No.”

“Dean, just-“

“No. I’m not takin’ advantage of her, Sammy, I’m not-“

 “It’s not taking advantage of her if she wants it!”

“She doesn’t want it-“

Sam snorted. “Oh, fuck off.”

Dean blinked, leaning back in his chair. Sam turned a little red, wincing at himself, but didn’t back down.

“Wow, Sammy. Big claws, huh.”

Sam sighed, running a hand over his face. “Dean… Just- Think about her, okay?”

Dean almost laughed. “All I fuckin’ do is think about her-“

“Then think a little harder.” Sam said flatly. “Before both of you get actually hurt.”

Dean didn’t have an answer to that. Sam didn’t seem to be asking for one. He turned and walked out of the room, leaving Dean alone. With only his coffee mug and thoughts for company. A dangerous thing to do. Dean could talk himself into and out of almost anything, if the logic police weren’t there to stop him.

He was going to do something really fucking stupid and selfish, and it was all Sam’s fault.

“Come in!” You call to the knock on your door, glancing up from your laptop as the door creaks open.

Dean shuffles into your room with his head bowed. Your face heats, and you slam the laptop closed. He doesn’t need to see you scrolling through hookup websites and think any lower of you. You’re already losing sleep over the worry you’ve fractured something between you beyond repair.

“Hi,” you whisper, and he swallows.

“Uh- Hey.”

“Hi.” What the fuck is wrong with you.

Dean’s lips twitch. “Hey.”

You start to pull the sheets between your fingers, trying not to ogle him too obviously. He’s wearing sweats and a t-shirt, and it’s sexier than all the profile pics you’ve spent hours staring at. His hair is a mess, and there are bags under his eyes, and you don’t think you’ve ever wanted to climb over him more.

“You, uh-“ He glances at your computer. “You busy?”

“No- No.” Never for him. You shove your computer onto your bedstand, moving to sit on your knees. “What’s up?”

Dean’s throat bobs. He runs a hand through his hair, huffing something close to a laugh, and shakes his head. “Jesus.”

“What-“

“Nothin’.” He clears his throat, giving you a strange look. “Did you ask Sam to sleep with you?”

Your mouth falls open. You almost trip sitting down. “I- I didn’t-“

“You didn’t?”

“No, I mean- I- He wasn’t supposed to tell you,” you whine, avoiding Dean’s stare. “I didn’t- Fuck-“

“Hey- It’s- Woah-“

Dean crosses the room in a few strides, grabbing your wrists with firm, warm hands. You’d started to pick at your nails with the anxiety. You hadn’t even realized it.

“Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart,” he mutters, his thumb dragging a circle on your wrist.

You nod, your voice only a breath. “Okay.”

He’s so close. You can count all his crow’s feet, map his stubble, trace his lips with just your eyes. He’s still frowning at your wrist, so you allow yourself to stare.

Then he looks up. And you freeze in panic, but don’t manage to look away.

Dean’s tongue flicks over his lips. Your breath catches. Neither of you move, and you let yourself have it. For a single second, you imagine that Dean is here, in your room, on your bed, and that means something. You get lost in the warmth of his proximity, the calloused but soft feeling of his touch.

“Sammy told me something else,” Dean mutters, scanning over your slack, flushed features.

“Yeah?” You whisper, and he nods tightly.

“Yeah. Said you’re, uh-“ He clears his throat. “Said you’ve never- You know.” He cringes. “Been fucked.”

Your mouth falls open. You think you’d like to die now. “Dean-“

“Is that why you asked me?” His grip tightens on your wrist. Not allowing you to pull away. “’Cause you just wanted someone to take it?”

You drop your gaze to his crotch. There’s a soft bulge there. You’d drool over it, if you didn’t think you were going to explode any second now. 

Dean says your name, and you shake your head.

“Don’t,” you mumble. “Don’t just- Feel bad for me- You said no, that’s- It’s fine-“

“What if it’s not.”

Your eyes shoot up. You’d think he was joking, if he didn’t look so fucking serious. His jaw is set. His eyes are blown out and fixed on yours. Your mouth hangs stupidly open, and Dean smiles softly.

“Huh?” You manage to choke out, and he almost chuckles.

“What if I wanted to. Help you.”

“But-“ You blink. “You don’t.”

Dean shakes his head. “Wrong, sweetheart. I do-“

“You said you didn’t-“

“I lied.”

You stare at him. He doesn’t back down.

“Would it mean something?” He muttered, reaching up to trace the curve of your cheek. “If I did it?”

You nod weakly, leaning into his touch. It sends violent, hot shivers through your whole body. Almost like a fever. You don’t want the cure. “Would it matter to you?” You ask, and Dean’s eyes flash. His fingers curl on your cheek. He leans an inch forward, then another inch. Your lips brush, the lightest possible touch, and you let out a soft, uncertain whine.

Dean pushes forward, his lips fully crashing into yours, his kiss demanding but certain. He presses over you, pulling you a little further up on your knees. You grab the collar of his shirt for balance, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to kiss him back with as much fervor as he’s offering you.

“De- Dean-“ You gasp against his lips. “Dean-“

He groans, his arm sliding around your back so he can pull you tight to his chest. You melt into his arms, and his kisses turn messy. Open mouthed and rough, his tongue dragging over your teeth as his fingers dig into your hips. You run out of air fast, but don’t try and pull away. You don’t want this to ever end, and you’re afraid that if you dare to break the moment, it will never be repaired.

High gasps start to escape your throat, though, and Dean pulls away. He cups your face between his hands, frowning slightly, and presses his brow against yours. You struggle for air, almost pressing forward to try and kiss him again, but he holds you in place.

“Breathe, sweetheart,” he mutters, rough and thick. It’s the same voice he uses on you during hunts. When he’s giving an order you didn’t ask for.

Usually, you protest or ignore him. Right now you’re putty in his hands. He could tell you to follow him to hell, and you would. You’d do anything, just for him to never let go.

You inhale unevenly, and Dean rubs your upper back. His hand slipped under your shirt, and his palm is broad and warm. It—annoyingly—helps a lot.

“There you go,” he murmurs, watching you under hooded eyes. “That’s a good girl.”

You whine again. “Dean-“

“Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”

He doesn’t fucking look sorry. His lips are twitching, and there’s a smug glint in his eyes that’s almost dangerously intoxicating.

“Better?” He asks, and you nod, slumping closer to his chest. He doesn’t push you away.

This might be real.

“Are you sure, ‘bout this?” Dean rasps, and you almost giggle.

“Yes.”

“I’m old, sweetheart-“

“I like it.”

Dean blinks, and you stutter, so sure you should shut up but not really sure how.

“I- I mean- I like you, so- I don’t care if you’re old- I like you old- I like you-“

Dean smirks, holding your face so firmly against his  you can’t shy away.

“You- Can you- I mean- If it’s just- Just sex- You can forget I said- I think you being old is hot-“

He finally takes mercy, and shuts you up with a long, rough kiss. You hum, pushing further up on your knees, and climb slowly into Dean’s lap. He sucks on your lower lip, angling your head back as your core settles against his bulge, then pulls back with a low sigh.

“Not just sex,” he mutters, dragging his thumb over your swollen lower lip. “Not with you, baby.”

You nod, smiling wider than you probably should. “Cool.”

Dean grins back. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“Cool ‘cause you like me,” he teases, shoving your hips down, right over his crotch. “Of ‘cause I’m old.”

You face burns. All you can do is stare and him and whimper, “You’re spritely.”

Dean huffs, in disbelieving amusement. “Spritely? You think I’m-“

“Youthful,” you babble quickly. “You’ve got a lot of…” You flush as he stares at you, sort of wishing he’d just kiss you and shut you up. “Youth.”

Dean’s mouth curves up. “Youth, huh.”

You nod, and he chuckles, pressing the lightest kiss over your lips.

“Hurts when I bend over now, honey, don’t think that’s very youthful of me.”

“So don’t bend over,” you mumble, and Dean snorts.

“Demanding, aren’t we?”

You shrug, trying not to turn into a puddle and miserably failing. Dean kisses your cheek, then under your eye, tracing his mouth down so he breath tickles your ear.

“Mouthy and demanding,” he rubs your hips, dragging your hips back and forth across his crotch. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna fix that.”

You whimper, and Dean’s grin grows.

“You like that, huh.”

“Dean-“

“Ah,” he kisses the corner of your mouth, moving away before you can chase his lips. “You wanted my help. This is how I’m gonna help, baby. Takin’ real good care of you,” he thrusts his hips up, and you whine as the hard outline of his cock hits your clothed pussy. “Just like this.”

 You nod, pressing your face into the crook of Dean’s neck. You don’t think you’ve ever been this turned on. It’s different, with Dean’s hands wandering your sides and his voice right in your ear. Your heart pounds and everywhere gets slick with sweat and arousal, just his dirty talk reducing you to a heap of confused nerves. Dean’s lips drag over your jaw, and you curl further around him, your nails digging into his shoulders as he nips at your throat.

“Just gotta do what I tell you, alright?” He mutters, squeezing a handful of your ass. “Can you do that, baby? Do it for me?"

You nod quickly, and Dean chuckles against your skin.

“Eager,” he drawls, pushing his fingers slowly under the hem of your shorts. “Eager and soft.”

He squeezes your ass again, his fingers brushing against the edge of your pussy. You grind backwards, trying to push him to where you need him so very desperately. He lets you, teasing his fingers over the lips of your pussy, and you whine in his ear.

“Sit still,” he grunts, and you have to bite your lower lip, but you force your hips to come to a stop.

It earns you a sharp slap of your ass, and a kiss on the side of your head. Worth it.

“That’s right,” he mutters, letting those thick fingers dance back over your cunt.  “Good work, baby girl. You fuckin’ love the attention, don’t you. Eager to please me, eager to make me proud.”

You swallow, hugging him so tight you’re a little worried you’ll choke him. Dean doesn’t even flinch. He dips two fingers into the wetness of your heat and groans right in your ear, spreading the arousal everywhere between your thighs.

“If you’re gonna hide that pretty face,” he grunts in your ear. “At least fuckin’ kiss me.”

Nervously, you wander your lips over the strong curve of his shoulders, the arch of his neck. Dean moans in your ear, his cock jumping in his jeans. His fingers keep wandering near and around your pussy, and you get a little bolder. Kissing up his jaw, over his cheek, the top of his lip. You’re panting, trying to focus on your job as Dean keeps pulling and teasing you with his touch.

“Shit,” he moans your name, tracing around your flutter entrance. “That’s it, baby, just like that-“

 Dean grabs your jaw with his free hand, like he can’t fucking help himself, and slams his lips against yours. You squeak in surprise, but kiss him back, grinding down onto his hand. His fingers dip inside of you for a moment, and you moan. Dean grunts and shoves those fingers inside of you.

Your mouth falls open, your eyes widening at the thick, pleasurable stretch. He feels so good, so fucking right, you’re worried his cock might kill you.

“Look at you,” Dean coos, smirking at your slack face. “Just my fuckin’ fingers, baby. Keep breathin’, or this is all we’re doing tonight.”

You take a deep breath, sharp and sudden, and Dean smirks in approval.

“Good girl,” he pushes his fingers a little deeper, scissoring them and bumping against a spot that makes your whole body jerk.

“Dean-“

“Shh,” he kisses you, crooking his fingers to rub against that hidden button, and you mewl against his lips. “You feel that, baby?”

“Mmm- Mhm.” You press your cheek against his, eyes fluttering as Dean keeps pushing and tickling deep inside you. “Feels good.”

“I know it does, sweet girl,” he wraps his hand back around your neck, guiding your brow to press back against his. “It’s that special little spot, gonna make everything feel good.”

His words are sweet and mocking all at once, and it sends a new gush of arousal between your legs. You watch him with wide, clouded eyes, and Dean’s smile softens for a single second. He kisses you, more gentle than before, and pulls his fingers slowly out of your cunt.

“Lie down,” he whispers before you can protest, and you swallow, but obey.

Dean hums in approval, rubbing a massive hand on your thigh.

“Everything off,” he says, and you go still.

“Everything?”

“Mhm,” he raises his brows at your flushed expression. “That gonna be a problem?”

You shake your head, wrapping your arms around your stomach. You don’t want to disappoint him, but he’s going to see you. Really, fully see you. God, you really don’t want him to see you and change his mind, and-

“Hey,”  Dean takes your hand, squeezing it gently. “You want my help?”

“Yes, please,” you breathe, and that’s all it takes. 

Dean rips off his shirt first—makin’ it even, he says—then makes quick work of his jeans. You don’t get more than a second to marvel him—flushed, tanned chest and thick everything, and heavy cock that does not look like a worm—before he’s touching you. He shimmies your shorts down, then peels your shirt over your head, leaving you in only your underwear. For a moment he just admires you, palming his cock with a tiny grin, and you roll onto your stomach.

Dean laughs, tapping your ass with a single finger. “Gettin’ shy, baby?”

“Shut up-“

“Ah.” He drags that finger down your clothed pussy. “Who tells who what to do?”

Your face burns, and you press your face further into the pillows. Dean chuckles, and you feel the bed shift as he crawls over your body. You can feel the heat coming off of him, feel the drag of his cock somewhere near your ass as he whispers in your ear.

“You were doin’ so well,” he drawls, unhooking your bra with a single hand. “Don’t get shy on me now.”

It doesn’t help. You keep grinding, trying to get some friction with the sheets. Dean’s hand comes down on your pussy with one, sharp smack, and you squeal, pushing back against his hand.

“Needy fuckin’ baby,” he mocks. “Can’t even help it, can you. Still tryin’ to be good for me.”

He hooks two fingers around your panties, pulling them tight so they push against your clit. You push back against his hand, and he smirks against your ear.

“You want a little more?”

You nod, and he snaps the fabric down, sending a tiny shock through your body.

“Say please-“

“Please,” you gasp, moving your arms up to hide your face. “Please, Dean- More- Oooh-“

Dean’s thumb finds your clit, rubbing in slow, tight circles. Your words fall off, and he fists a hand in your hair, tugging your head back to allow him to kiss you again.

He’s not cruel, with how he touches you. He’s generous, but controlled. Every stroke of your clit is deliberate, making your head spin and your mouth fall further open. That seems to be exactly how he wants you, though, because he pushes his tongue further down your throat and flicks his thumb back and forth, working you up into a writhing frenzy.

When his fingers finally push back inside of you, Dean almost seems unwilling to pull back and stop kissing you. You’re bent back and pliant under him, whimpering happily as he feeds his fore and middle finger into your hole.

“Greedy little pussy,” he rasps against your lips. “Know you’re gonna strangle my cock, baby, son of a bitch-"

He groans, like he’s the one being fingered into oblivion. He’s set a harsh pace with his wrist, snapping his fingers in and out of your cunt without relent. His thumb moved away from your clit, replaced by the heel of his palm, rubbing in tight, unrelenting circles on your swollen clit.

Every single time, he hits that spot inside of you, and your head is starting to get light. All the electricity and heat in your body is pushing down into your core, building like a bomb and threatening to explode. You almost sob, with how overwhelming the sensation is. Dean notices, kissing you a little softer.

“Poor girl,” he mutters. “Already like this and I’m not even properly fuckin’ you.”

“Your- Your hands,” you push out the word between sharp breaths. “They’re big.”

Dean grunts, his cock jumping near your ass. “Yeah, sweetheart? You like how fuckin’ big my hands are?”

“Mh- Mhm.”

You try to kiss him again. He pulls back, moving his hand impossibly faster against your cunt.

“Words,” he grunts. “You’re not stupid enough to not speak, not yet.”

“Like it,” you breathe out. “Love- Love it, Dean, oh- Oh my god-“

You moan again, and Dean grunts. His hips are starting to jerk near your ass, making him rut against you as his fingers work.

“Your close,” he mutters, pressing his fingers fully inside and crooking them against that gooey spot. “Cum for me, pretty girl. Now.”

His voice must have some kind of supernatural power over you, because that pressure in your lower tummy bursts, and your orgasm rips through you link a hurricane. Your thighs clench, trapping Dean’s hand between your legs, and he groans, rubbing his fingers harsher and harsher against your g-spot. You’re shaking and rolling beneath him, and he has to grab the back of your neck and pin it down to keep you still.

Dean works you through your orgasm, whispering low praise in your ear as you float back down to earth. Your pussy feels empty, when his fingers finally pull away. Your eyes are slightly crossed, and your smile is dazed and a little stupid.

You don’t even squeak, when Dean grabs your thigh and flips you over. You keen, back arching and body twitching, but you’re mostly just staring stupidly and happily up at him. Dean swallows, his chest rising and falling fast, and leans down to press a soft kiss to your lips. You hum, eyes fluttering shut, and cup the back of his neck to hold him against you.

He drags his fingers lazily through the mess between your thighs, sending pleasurable little shivers up your spine. He drags your panties fully off your body, holding them up to his nose and taking a deep, long whiff before tossing them off to the side. He gathers your arousal on his fingers and slowly pulls away, rising over you with parted lips and gleaming, almost wholly black eyes.

Dean sucks your juices off his fingers, lapping them up with his tongue and a lazy, knowing smirk. Your breath catches. You almost push up to try and grab him, but you’re still foggy and boneless from the orgasm, and he shoves you back down with a broad hand splayed over your tummy.

“Dean-“

You cut yourself off under his stern gaze, swallowing nervously.

“Please?” You try again, and he chuckles.

“You’re cute.”

“I- I am not-“

“Yeah, you are. Cute when you cum for me,” he dips his fingers back into you, smirking lazily. “Cute when I touch you. Cute when you beg.”

“Deeeean-“

“Deeean,” he mocks, squeezing your upper thigh. “Listen to you. Fuckin’ adorable.”

You flush, a new wave of arousal hitting you like a rising tide, and you don’t even understand how you could possibly be ready that fast. Dean watches you pussy tremble and flutter, letting out a slow, rough breath.

“Son of a bitch,” he shakes his head, his hand moving to rub against his cock. “You got no idea what you do to me, baby, no fuckin’ idea.”

You swallow, watching him move against himself, almost enchanted. He really is prettier than is fair, in every possible way. His cock is thick and long, flushed at the head and leaking pre-cum against his thumb. Your tongue flicks over your lips, as you try to mentally measure the girth and length of him. You’ve taken toys before, when you got really curious. He’s bigger.

“You wanna touch, sweetheart?” He prompts, and you nod, your tongue flicking over your lips.

Dean pushes his hips forward, slowly taking your hand and guiding it against his shaft. He’s warm. Warm and hard. You dance your fingers down the length of him and he grunts, a vein ticking in his neck.

“Easy…” He rasps, and you nod nervously.

You find his balls, give them a light squeeze, and Dean catches your wrist.

“That’s enough.” He mutters, twining your fingers together. “Jesus, woman, gonna blow it before I even get inside of you.”

Your eyes widen. You’d almost forgotten about that part.

“That’s not going to fit inside of me.”

Dean chuckles. “Yeah, it will.”

“No, I mean like- It can’t-“

“It can.”

“Dean, I’m serious-“

He shuts you up with a quick rough kiss, and you go embarrassingly limp. His cock rubs between the folds of your pussy, bumping and pressing against your clit, and your breath hitches. Oh, God.

“Just do what I tell ya,” he mutters. “We’re gonna make it fit.”

You do. It is very easy to do what Dean tells you, when he follows through on all his promises. When he gives you such low and certain orders, and you find yourself molding perfectly around his cock.

Because it does fit. Somehow, Dean spreads your legs and kisses your pussy once—as if he can’t help himself—before crawling over you and slowly pushing the head of his cock inside of you. It’s tight at first. He grunts, pressing his brow to you shoulder, and rubs tight circle around your clit with his thumb.

“Open up for me, baby,” he rasps. “C’mon.”

You go limp with every inch he feeds you. The stretch is glorious, pulling you apart with every drag over your fluttering walls, every low grunt of your name from Dean’s lips. His determination to tease you seems to dissolve, by the time he’s fully seated inside of you, his balls pressed against your ass. He pants in your ear, hot and heavy, and cradles your body in his arms like it’s fragile.

“Slow,” he mutters, and it sounds like he’s talking to himself more than you. “Gonna go slow.”

You keen, at the first, lazy thrust of his hips. A lewd, wet sound fills the air, and the head of Dean’s cock pushes right up against that already abused spot inside of you, making stars dance behind your eyes. Every roll of Dean’s hips makes your whole body spark. He kisses all over your face, his own voice thick and wrecked as you clench around him.  

“Takin’ me so well, baby,” he rasps. “Feels good, doesn’t it. Feels so fuckin’ good, bein’ filled up with cock like you deserve-“

His words fall into a moan, his hips snapping forward, and the air gets knocked from your lungs. A sound you’ve never heard escapes you, and Dean chuckles, kissing your open mouth as he repeats the motion.

“Yeah, you like that.” He pulls almost fully out, then slams back forward. “Say it, baby girl, say you like it-“

“I like it,” you gasp out, sounding drunk to your own ears. “Love it, Dean- Fuck- Fuuuck-“

Dean captures your mouth in another kiss, and sets a brutal, drilling pace. You’re split open with every thrust, your every nerve on fire as he fucks you like a machine. He never gets too fast, just hard. Over and over and over again, until you’re gasping for air and clawing at his shoulders. That pressure turns molten and demanding, threatening to burst. Dean’s fingers dig into your hips. He moans in your ear, his own words staring to slur.

“Tight,” he moans. “So fuckin’ tight- I- I can’t- Shit-“

Dean’s hands fumble, dragging over your thighs and as he gropes for your pussy. Two fumbling fingers find it, rubbing tight circles, and you cry out, clenching down on his cock.

“Let go, sweetheart, need you to let for ‘f me- Fuck-“

Your orgasm hits you even harder than before, and your vision goes white. Your pussy flutters and clenches, something hot gushing out as your body trembles with overwhelming pleasure. It’s a strange sensation, but not bad. Not even close. You think you scream with pleasure, but Dean slams his mouth over yours and muffles the sound.

His hips stutter and jerk. You whine his name and he grunts, slamming forward and burying himself at the hilt as his cum spurts deep inside you, mixing with your own release.

You’re almost gone to the world. Dean lies over you, kissing you as you float back down, murmuring praise you can barely hear.

“Gonna clean you up,” he grunts, and you whine when his weight disappears.

“Deeean.” You grab at the air and catch his bicep. “Stay.”

You pout at him, eyes watery and hopeful. He just chuckles, kissing your knuckles before drawing back up, and promising to return.

He better. You really don’t want to let go of him now.

Dean brings a wet, warm towel, and cleans between your thighs. You didn’t realize how sore you were until he touches you with such light hands, but it’s a good kind of sore. When you moan, it’s not even really in pain.

He brings you water. A snack and a fresh shirt, that he bundles you in like a penguin. You somehow end up curled against his chest, half asleep and smiling against his bare, warm chest.

“I like you,” Dean says suddenly, and you beam. You don’t think you’ve ever felt so bubbly in your life.

“I like you too-“

“No,” his jaw works, the words low and tight. “I like like you- Like- Fuck-“

He runs a hand over his face, shaking his head. It’s almost adorable.

“You- You’re just- That really wasn’t nothin’ for me, sweetheart, not even close-“

You take his trick. You push up on his chest, press your lips together, and kiss him until he shuts the fuck up. He kisses you back immediately, cupping your face between shaking hands. You smile against his lips, pulling back just enough to whisper, “I like you too.”

Dean’s eyes snap open, his voice hoarse. “Really?”

“Yeah,” you flush. “A- A lot.”

Dean grins. He smiles wider than you knew he could, and slams a shorter rougher kiss against your lips before pulling back again. Like he can’t stand not to look at you for too long.

“Can I take you out?” He says, and you nod.

“Can we have more sex,” you whisper, and he laughs, pressing another kiss against your lips.

“Any time you want, baby.” He says. “You’re mine now.”

✦End note: drooling for him ✦

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“Um yeah,” you mutter, because you may have to fake your body language, leaning away from him in a way that’s supposed to express discomfort, but you don’t have to fake your shyness. 

“Lemme buy you a drink. Pretty thing like you shouldn’t be left alone.”

“I’m good, thanks,” you say, twisting your beer bottle around. 

“C’mon, just one drink. I don’t bite unless you want me to,” he says smirking, and the way he says it is so unlike Dean, it sets your teeth on edge. If you were really a girl he was trying to pick up, he would have taken no for an answer, but left the door open for you to change your mind, which you inevitably would. He would have said something like; ‘If you’re sure. You know where to find me, baby’ and taken his seat back with a flirty wink. He wouldn’t have insisted or thrown that corny, overused innuendo at you.

“No, really, I’m okay. Thank you.” And you’re squashing your eyebrows together, squirming in your seat, trying to look intimidated but this is Dean and nothing about him is intimidating. Not to you.

“It’s just one fuckin’ drink, bitch. Don’t be such a stuck-up priss.” 

Dean’s a good actor but you know he feels remotely uncomfortable having to say any of this to you. It doesn’t matter. The man beside you, taller than Dean but not quite as broad, stands up off his stool. 

“Didn’t you hear the lady? She said she doesn’t want a drink, punk.”

Dean makes a big show of backing off, raising his hands in submission and muttering something about how he was ‘only trying to be nice’, before backing away to his table once again. You turn to your saviour with a smile that you hope is radiant.

“Thank you so much,” you simper. “That got a bit scary for a second.”

He looks nice. He is lightly tanned with wavy brown hair, soft green eyes and a handsome smile that verges on shy. You think that this must be what Sam would look like, if life had been a little kinder to him.

“Don’t mention it,” he says with a modest shrug. “God, I can’t stand guys like that. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“Happens more often than you think. Not many people would step in like you just did.”

His chest puffs out like a pigeon at the praise. “Maybe it’s because I’m a cop, but I can’t stand when people sit around and do nothing when something like that is happening in front of them. Makes me sick.”

“You’re a cop?” you ask, smiling and trying to do that ‘doe-eyed shit’ that Dean always accuses you of. It’s harder to do on demand. “That’s so cool, I really admire you guys. Your job must be really hard.”

He shrugs again, cheeks going a dusty pink. “It’s worth it if I can get to help people. But yeah, it can get a bit hairy sometimes.”

“I bet,”  you sigh. “I heard about this weird killing spree in the next town over. Those guys sure aren’t living the dream right now. I can’t imagine all the things they have to see.”

He straightens up immediately, animation dropping from his face. “Actually, I- uh, I’m working on those cases right now. You’re right, it’s not pretty.”

You’re losing him. His eyes are drifting away from you, away from the conversation. He’s searching for an out. You’re dimly aware of Dean’s eyes on you from afar, boring holes into your head. In a blind panic, your eyebrows shoot to your hairline, one hand reaching out to his arm in a consoling manner. His eyes drop just once to where your hand meets his wax, green jacket and you feel him coming back to you. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry for bringing that up,” you say, teeth worrying your lip with anxiety that you don’t really have to falsify. “I had no idea. I’m a bit of a true crime junkie, but the last thing you want to do is talk about that right now on your time off. I’m just gonna go. It was nice meeting you and thanks for, uh-” You make a vague gesture towards Dean, who is still watching you with dark eyes.

“No,” he says, hand moving over your own one on his arm to stop you from moving. He smiles in such a genuine way, it almost makes you feel guilty. “I can let you in on a couple secrets if you promise to keep it between us.”

You brush your hair behind your ear and laugh, soft and shy.

“I’m Jeremy, by the way.”

You have to stop yourself from saying I know.

“Sold it a bit too hard back there,” Dean grumbles, leaning against Baby with his arms folded and watching you dart out of the bar. He’s wearing an irritated scowl.

“Don’t be an ass,” you say, rolling your eyes as you open the car door and slide into the passenger seat. It’s not often that you get to ride shotgun and it feels weird - like you’ve suddenly become more important. Dean follows. “You’re the one that told me to ‘charm the pants off him’ if I remember correctly, so-”

“Yeah, charm him,” he says. “I didn’t say to fuckin’ feel him up.”

“Feel him up?” you splutter with a half-laugh as Dean pulls out of the drive. “You’re ridiculous. I put a hand on his arm. I’ve seen you do worse.”

“Yeah, whatever. You get anything outta him?”

You launch into the story and try to share all the same bits that Sam usually does. You tell him how the victims were all men in their early 20s, recently discharged from a hospital not far away. How the cops are currently questioning the hospital staff but haven’t found anything suspicious just yet. You describe all the gnarly injuries, all the pieces of evidence left behind.

“Um- I think that’s it,” you say, eyebrows furrowing together as you try to figure out whether there is anything you left out.

“That’s it?” Dean says with surprise, eyes shifting from the road to you briefly. “You were in there for damn near an hour. Thought this was about to be some fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes shit.”

“Well I couldn’t just leave straight away once he gave me the information, Dean,” you say, frowning at him. “That’s suspicious. And rude.”

He squeezes his eyes shut for a second and shakes his head. “Never mind. What hospital is it?”

You bite your lip, face flushing. “Um- I don’t know. Should I have asked?”

“Goddamnit, sweetheart-”

“I can ask!”

“Ask who?” Dean frowns.

“Jeremy. The cop from the bar. I mean, I probably can’t just call him up and ask him outright but if I tell him I want to meet up then maybe I could-”

“You exchanged numbers?”

“Well yes,” you say, watching Dean carefully. He is looking more wound up by the second. “He asked and I couldn’t really say no after talking for so long. Besides, it’s useful now because I can ask him what hospital it was.”

“Jesus Christ. I asked you to charm information out of him, not to start a fuckin’ fling-”

“Well maybe you should have waited for Sam or done it yourself!” you say, voice raising in frustration. Your lip is wobbling a little bit and it feels like barbed wire is tightening around your throat. “I’m no good at this stuff, the flirting for information. I get nervous. You know that.”

Dean takes one look glance at you out of the corner of his eye and all his exasperation slips away. He lets out a puff of breath and his body deflates with it, eyes going soft and gooey like they always do when you get upset. It makes you feel like a kid in a horrid, humiliating way, but it’s better than being on the receiving end of his frustration. Dean being annoyed at you is your own personal hell. Of course, he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know anything about that and you’d like to keep it that way for as long as you possibly can.

“Hey now, none of that. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll find out what hospital is it, don’t you worry about it.”

You nod once and turn to face out the window, still fighting the unsteady feeling in your throat and behind your eyes. Damn him - you’re so soft when it comes to Dean. No matter how much you rebel against it, no matter how many phases of denial or resistance you go through, you just can’t fight how you react to him.

He is still giving you cautious looks whenever he can pry his eyes away from the road. “C’mon, sweetheart. Y’mad at me?”

You shake your head because you don’t trust your voice to carry anything, but you still don’t look at him. He sighs and pulls in to a gas station at the side of the road. It’s one of those small, Americana-style ones you’d find on route 66. You can’t imagine he can get very much in there. He gets out without saying anything and you flinch as the car door slams shut.

You tap your fingers against the window as you wait for him and think resentfully about the fact that he, and he alone, seems to determine whether you’re going to have a good day or a bad one. One smile is enough to make you feel the sun on your skin even when the clouds are out, but his disapproval or disappointment shatters you in a way that not much else can.

It’s hard to remember a time when that wasn’t the case. You look back on your life before the Winchesters as boring - insignificant, even. It’s probably pathetic and un-feminist to admit, but it’s true. 

The before of your life seems grey. Before Sam convinced Dean to let you tag along with them because you had nowhere else to go. Before you managed to convince him that you were more than just a burden - that you could help with their jobs. Before you wormed your way into his heart, even if it’s not in the capacity that you might have wished for.

When Dean slides back into the car, he has a cherry cola and a pack of those sour green gummy worms that make your face scrunch up and your tonsils hurt. They’re your favourite.

He watches you as you take them from his hands and when you smile, so does he.

Dean finds out which hospital it is two days later. You’re not sure whether he called up Sam, who is out of commission in a motel a few towns back with the flu, or if he did some digging of his own while you were asleep. But he’s tugging on his jacket by the time you wake up in the motel bed, bleary eyed and sore from the awkward position you slept in.

“Dean?” Your voice is thick with sleep. “Where are you going?”

“I’m headin’ out to the hospital to poke around. It’s early. You go back to sleep, I’ll be quick.”

You would usually fight him on this, but your body is tired, having only recently shaken off the flu that you had so kindly passed on to Sam. You nod drowsily, a bit dizzy with sleep, and he gives you a fond, amused smile, as if you did something very funny. You watch him leave.

Your mind is too awake to drift immediately back into your stupor, and your body gradually wakes up with it. Within a few minutes, you’re too alert to even try. The red digits on the alarm clock read 7:09, and you suppose most coffee places would be open about now.

Dean has all your expensive hair products and shower gels out on the counter of the bathroom and you file that away to complain about later, even though you secretly kind of like when he uses your stuff. You like to think that he might have struck out a couple times because the woman could smell the sweet, girly scents on his skin and hair, and assumed he had a girlfriend.

The shower you take is short, only because there is a film of dirt on the shower floor that makes you feel like you might slip. Most of your clothes are in dire need of laundering so you pluck one of Dean’s plaid shirts up. You tell yourself that it’s ok because he has used something of yours too, even though you know you’re lying to yourself. This is very different. You’re wearing Dean’s shirt because some ugly, desperate part of you wants to feel close to him - wants to smell his scent on your skin. He’s explained to you why he uses your toiletries; “All that girly shit is fuckin’ luxe. Makes my skin feel like a baby’s goddamn ass”.

You check your phone for any updates from Dean before you leave the room, but you see only the same text that had been sitting there since yesterday.

JEREMY (COP FROM BAR - HOSPITAL MURDERS): I really loved meeting you last night. Let me know if you’re free any time soon. I would love to take you on a date.

You smile despite yourself as you descend the stairs of the motel, which leads directly onto the streets of the town. The guy really was sweet, but Dean’s reaction is enough to stave off any intentions to respond, even just for a ‘fling’, as he termed it. It’s hypocritical, really, that Dean has the freedom to chat up whoever he wants on a job but considers you to be ‘derailing the operation’ whenever there is the slightest hint of a connection on your end.

Ultimately, though, it’s fine. Your feeble old heart has a one-track mind and any attempts to satisfy it with some shoddy, off-brand replacement, whether for one night or more, leave you feeling sick and heartbroken. You’ve learned well enough by now that any time you try to move on, it just leaves you bereft.

It’s not even that you think that nobody can compare to Dean - not exactly. Dean is good and he’s kind and is smooth enough to make a nun blush. He’s smart, funny, loyal - the best kind of person there is. But you’ve met a lot of guys with those same qualities. It’s just Dean’s unique blend of those characteristics that you feel must have been concocted within him specifically for you.

And it’s fine that Dean flirts with other women. That he can pick up a girl as easy as others can tie their shoelaces and throw them away even easier. Because he has suffered enough and done enough good in this world to be allowed these kinds of indulgences, and you know that if he was aware of how you felt, he wouldn’t do it anymore. He would lock himself away to avoid hurting your feelings and eventually go insane with frustration and you know he would bear it for you if he thought the alternative was hurting you.

But you won’t let him. Because you love him and there aren’t many things you can do with your love. You can’t get rid of it, you can’t put it down anywhere, or give it to someone else. So you choose to love him in this strange, silent way instead. You suffer so that he doesn’t have to.

The diner you choose is straight out of one of those ‘small town America’ travel brochures. You’ve seen ones just like it in those autumnal TV comedies that you put on in the background. Sam watches them with you with mild interest, even if he pretends he dislikes them, but Dean complains about anything that isn’t chock-full with cars and guns and hot girls. It’s bright when you walk in and fairly clean, even if the red vinyl of the booths is cracking and there is a small stain on your table. A tall, pretty girl takes your order of coffee and scrambled eggs on toast and manages to bring them over to you almost immediately. The food is not great, but it’s not bad either.

“Hi there. Mind if I join you?”

Jeremy is standing in front of you, dressed in his blue uniform and hair askew. He’s smiling hesitantly, as if he’s not sure whether you’re about to tell him to get lost.

“Jeremy, hi,” you splutter, even as you do your level best to seem collected. “Of course. Please.”

He seems a lot more assured of himself as he slides into the booth in front of you, hesitant smile giving way to a charming grin. “You remember my name. That’s a good sign at least.”

You breathe an awkward laugh. “Sure I do. Wouldn’t forget. Are you on duty?”

“Nope, coming off. Just ordered some breakfast at the counter. Then I gotta head over to my niece’s seventh birthday party.”

“Ouch,” you say, wincing in an exaggerated way. “A seventh birthday party is a lot for the morning after a night shift.”

“Tell me about it. You kinda forget how loud kids are at that age.”

He uses the waitress’ name when he thanks her for bringing his order. It makes you smile.

“So you remembered my name and you’re good with me joining you, but you didn’t reply to my text,” he says with a small, teasing grin when the waitress - Justine, apparently - goes back behind the counter. “Trying to figure out what that means. Can you help me out here?”

Your face flushes with shame and mortification, your brain racing to come up with an excuse. He’s handsome and nice and not even trying to make you feel bad about the fact that you ignored him and he should be perfect for you. You should be jumping at the chance for someone like him to take you on a date.

“I’m so sorry,” you gush, real guilt pouring through. “Your text was so sweet, it was really shitty of me to not reply to you. It’s just- well, I’m only here for a couple of days and I didn’t want to waste your time.”

“Relax,” he laughs. “I wasn’t mad. Just don’t wanna be sitting here bothering you if you’re not…”

“You’re not bothering me,” you say, and it’s the truth. Jeremy smiles.

“Where do you live, if you’re not from near here?”

“I travel around a lot for work,” you say, and because you know that’s not really an answer that doesn’t raise suspicion - you add; “But technically Kansas.”

“Kansas isn’t that far from here. Just a matter of a few hours when the traffic’s light.” He’s not looking at you, cracking pepper onto his plate casually.

You’re not worth this kind of attention. Guilt, along with something much more complex and difficult to describe, gnaws low in your stomach. You know that you should be thankful that someone like him would even look twice at you, let alone suggest hours of travel to see you again after meeting you once. But your ungrateful heart can only scream that he is not Dean. Not even close.

“I’m in Kansas maybe thirty percent of the time,” you say with a regretful smile. “I really do move around a lot.”

Jeremy responds, but you don’t hear it. Because another sound has taken up your attention; something low and gravelly and something that sounds an awful lot like Dean.

Your eyes snap over to the counter where Dean has just ordered two coffees to-go. You watch in slow-motion while he looks around the diner - probably looking for a hot girl to chat up, your traitorous mind taunts you - before his gaze finds you. 

Sitting in the booth. 

With Jeremy. 

It looks so bad - it looks planned - and you can only gawp open-mouthed as Dean stomps over, looking completely murderous. Jeremy is giving you a strange look now, wondering why you have suddenly stopped responding, but there’s nothing you can say. You feel like a mouse in a trap.

“We’re going,” Dean snaps out when he makes it all the way over, placing his hand on your arm in a firm grasp. “C’mon.”

Jeremy’s eyes darken as he stands up. “Get away from her right now,” he spits. “Or we’re gonna have a real problem.”

Dean seems to remember the part he played in that little private investigation at the same time as you. The pushy creep who wouldn't take ‘no’ for an answer. His eyes flick between yourself and Jeremy for a second, before he decides it’s not worth it to blow your cover, or to get arrested on charges of sexual harassment. He scoffs for just a second and shoots you a very unimpressed glare before walking out of the diner without his coffees.

“I told you to stay here!” Dean snaps as soon as you walk in the door to your motel room again. It has been over an hour since that moment in the diner and you had been dreading this every moment since. The rest of your breakfast was pleasant, if a little awkward after that interaction. Jeremy had insisted, insisted and insisted again on dropping you back to the motel in his cruiser in a show of gentlemanliness that did more to annoy than impress you. And sure, maybe a part of you understood that you would consider the same gesture charming if it had come from Dean, but Jeremy isn’t Dean so that doesn’t matter.

“No you didn’t,” you sigh, throwing the key onto the table.

“Well, it was fuckin’ implied.”

You give him a bewildered look before collapsing down to sit on your bed and peel off your shoes. “In exactly what way was it implied?”

“When there’s a ghost going around whacking people, your natural instinct should probably be to stay the hell outta the way.”

You roll your eyes and make sure he sees you do it. “Well I’m not a male in my early twenties, so I’m not really the target here, am I?” Your mind catches up a second later. “Wait, you found out it’s a ghost?”

“Yeah, it’s a ghost,” he replies, but he really doesn't seem to want to linger on that subject right now. “That little piggy you were with might be a male in his early twenties. You don’t know, which is why you should have stayed the hell inside.”

“He’s late twenties at the very youngest and you know it,” you say. “And since when am I not allowed to go get breakfast while on a job? Come off it, Dean.”

Dean is still furious, but he seems to be scrambling to figure out how to respond. You take advantage of his momentary speechlessness. “Tell me what you got.”

He is hesitant to drop it there, but he eventually does. He still looks displeased while he walks you through what he figured out - the fact that it’s a ghost; a female from the early 1900s who was left to rot in hospital in favour of a male patient in his early 20s and subsequently died from medical neglect. She has been enacting her revenge with a host of killings every ten years around the anniversary of her death. You will be going back to the hospital after hours, when it’s a bit quieter. 

“Pretty standard job. In and out,” he shrugs, and you thought he might distract himself with the details and have gotten over the whole diner incident by the time he finished telling you about it, but he’s still not looking at you. It sends a bolt of hurt through you but you shake it off.

“Right, in and out,” you agree.

The job is simple. In and out, just like he said. You distract the receptionist by asking after a grandmother that doesn’t exist while Dean chases the leads he had found earlier. He finds the bones within thirty minutes and burns them. He’s a bit banged up by the time he makes it back to where you’re waiting in reception, clothes askew and hair mussed up with a cut or two spilling blood through his shirt, but he won’t tell you what happened except that he ‘Sorted it.’ The receptionist gives you a skeptical look when you walk out with him, but she doesn’t say anything else. 

You feel exceptionally useless when you climb back into Baby. The power rush you had from riding shotgun has evaporated.

“I can’t believe you made me be the distraction again,” you mutter, scuffing your shoes against the car floor just to piss him off.

“Someone’s gotta to do it,” is all he says back. He still won’t look at you, not even to give you evils for the way you’re treating Baby. Hasn’t looked at you properly since this morning in the motel. It hurt before and it still does, but now you’re just fed up more than anything. There’s only so much awkward silence you can take. 

“Dean, will you- Goddamnit, can you look at me?” 

He takes a second, fingers flexing around the wheel as he pulls out of the carpark. His lips flatten into a thin line, before he looks at you for a brief second, raising his eyebrows as if to say; ‘There. Happy?’

But you’re not.

“What the hell is wrong with you? I don’t know what the big deal is. You can pretend all you want that this is about me going to get a breakfast, but it’s not is it? You just didn’t like that I was with Jeremy.”

Dean wasn’t expecting that. All exasperated sarcasm melts from his face as he steals an astonished glance at you, eyes alarmed and mouth somewhat ajar. “I don’t know what you’re-”

“You don’t want me getting distracted on a job.”

At that, he seems to relax, slipping back into the same easy grouchiness as before and you wonder what it was he thought you were getting at. “Yeah, that’s it,” he mutters lowly.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” you sigh. “How come you can do whatever you want but I can’t?”

You surprise yourself as much as you surprise him by bringing this up. That’s a subject you always stay well away from - Dean and girls. You look away and pretend not to hear when Sam teases him after he stumbles into the motel room the day after a job ends. You’ve smelt all kinds of perfume on him - sweet, spicy, cheap expensive and say nothing. You excuse yourself to go to the bathroom so you can stop yourself from retching when he approaches some random table in a bar and shoots a suave smile to someone who isn’t you. But it’s spilling out of you now; not because you can’t hold it in anymore (because you can and you will until the end of time), but because it’s simply not fair. You couldn't move on if you tried, you know this, but who is he to tell you whether or not you can try?

“Because, sweetheart, it’s different,” he says, and the word ‘sweetheart’ is uttered almost sarcastically, in a way you had never heard before. You had always been his only sweetheart - one of the only things he could give you and you alone, but it was always said with a sort of gentle veneration - never like this. It feels tainted now. No longer yours.

“How is it different, Dean?” You’re trying to keep that damned barbed wire from closing in on your throat again. Trying, for once, to not be the baby that cries too easily and loves too easily and gives herself away to him for nothing in return.

“Because those girls don’t mean anything. They’re not distractions,” he explains, voice thick and low. “But you can’t have someone who doesn’t mean anything. You carry on with that asshole and you’ll end up in some fuckin’ picket fence house with a wraparound porch.”

He’s halfway there. He’s right, of course. You couldn’t just have an indistinct someone who doesn’t mean anything. You could never let them warm your bed without making yourself feel ill and blue - you had tried it before and it didn’t work out well. 

But he really doesn’t understand that you could go on a hundred dates with Jeremy or with anyone else and you still wouldn't end up anywhere but right here. Following Dean around like a slobbering puppy. Because your sick, stubborn heart decided what it wanted years ago and has not forgotten.

Dean must mistake your silence for something else, because he watches you wearily, frustration falling away from his face and giving way to a panicked sort of concern. “Unless that’s…” he coughs nervously. “Unless that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I want,” you confirm glibly. You don’t mention that it could be what you want, if he decided that it was what he wanted too. It’s your turn to avoid his eyes now. You watch the rain stream down the car window.

“C’mon, I’m tired of fightin’ with y’, sweetheart,” he says and the designation of ‘sweetheart’ is once again yours to claim. He is speaking to you sweetly, coaxing you out of your corner. But tears are springing to your eyes so you keep them trained away from him.

It’s mostly for his benefit, that you hide this from him. It’s not his fault that your world is moved by his hands alone. It’s not his fault that all his attempts to take care of you have worked so well that they backfired and hurt you.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve-” he sighs and you can hear him running his hand through his hair, even though you can’t see it. You can smell a burst of your shampoo when he does it. “I don’t know how to… Did I upset you?”

You don’t say anything for a moment, and he seems ready to speak again. 

“I don’t want the… picket fence and porch,” you say, tracing raindrops with your fingers. There’s a wobble in your voice. “But it would be nice to just have someone, maybe.”

That ‘someone’ is Dean, obviously. But you can still dream of someday breaking free of these feelings - finding someone else. You won’t feel a fraction of this intensity for them but that would be ok, that would be alright. And they wouldn’t look at you the way Dean does and they wouldn’t be able to make you laugh like he can but you would learn to live with that, maybe even learn to numb your feelings for Dean from this fire into a dull ache.

Because what good is your love for Dean when you’ve had to debase it so many times? You’ve tried to bastardise it - to turn it platonic, to turn it familial, even to get rid of it altogether and none of it ever works. It returns to you, defiled and wounded but no weaker, every single time.

“You could have me.”

Even the tears in your eyes can’t stop you from looking over at Dean now. You’re searching for any sign that he might be making some sort of joke, but you can’t find it. His eyes are trained firmly on the road, a worried pinch between his brows. You almost feel like you imagined it.

“I… What?”

“If you wanted to have someone. You could have me.”

Your breath feels stuck in your lungs. Dean has no idea what he’s saying; how unintentional cruel he is being to you. You have no idea whether he means as a friend or as a warm body to satisfy some part of your longing. You don’t want to think too long about whether he means the latter - because you’re deathly afraid that you are weak enough to accept his offer and then the whole thing really will fall apart.

“I didn’t mean it in that way. I meant-”

“I know what you meant. I want to be that. For you.”

He is speaking so uncharacteristically soft. It’s not the same soft that he offers you when you’re scared or upset, the confident arm around your shoulder while he coos and comforts. This is another kind of soft. He always looks tired, but right now he looks exhausted. You’ve only seen him look this vulnerable a handful of times and you feel a strange discomfort when you realise each time has been when he was speaking about his dad.

You are soaking in his words as he puts the car in park outside the motel. Crickets croak to fill the silence between you. He is sneaking glances and you know him well enough to know that he is trying to get a read on you.

“Why?” you land on eventually.

He frowns. “The hell do you mean why?”

“Why are you offering to-? You don’t need to feel sorry for me, or whatever-”

Dean laughs, more angry than amused. “You really think I’d tell you I want to be with you because I feel sorry for you? I’m fuckin’…” Dean sighs, face twitching with discomfort and awkwardness. “I think if you just gave it a chance, I could maybe be the someone you’re talkin’ about. Maybe.”

Your face flushes with heat and your brain feels like the scrambled eggs you had for breakfast. Your mind is racing to make sense of what you’re hearing - he could ‘maybe be your someone’? “What…”

Dean shuts down, as if a sudden door slams over that vulnerability he had shown you just a minute ago. “Y’know what, forget it-”

“No!”

He pauses, his hand going still on the car door. Your thoughts aren’t making sense at this point but you’re desperate to say something - anything - that might stop him from leaving.

“I want to-” you stutter, clumsy as a baby goat. “I want you to be my maybe-someone too, but I want to know for sure that you… I don’t know how to talk about this, but please don’t leave.”

Dean is skittish when he looks back over to you. You see a flicker of something masked by a cloud of doubt. Slowly, he reaches his hand out for yours. You clutch it with urgency, holding it tight against your own. His hands feel big and rough against your skin. Your thumb glides along all the little ridges and bumps and callouses; the results of the dirty work he never lets you do. He looks as if he is almost afraid you’ll bite when he reaches the other hand out, hesitantly moving up to your face, and his throat bobs a little bit when you lean in to his touch. His pretty green eyes are watching you carefully while his thumb works its way slowly along your cheekbone and you wonder for the briefest of seconds if this is another one of your dreams.

But the next second he’s kissing you and you know it can’t be a dream. Because even in your dreams, you don’t allow yourself to imagine it would be like this to kiss Dean. In your dreams, his kisses are hot and rough, the same way you had seen him dole them out to an endless carousel of girls in dark corners of bars, while you and Sam play solitaire and try to ignore what’s happening in your eye-line.

Dean’s lips are warm and unsure, like he doesn’t know whether he is really allowed to do this. You melt into him slowly, because you had thought about this moment too often for you to freeze up when it is finally happening. He takes your bottom lip into his mouth, pulling you up against him, and chokes a broken sigh into your mouth, as if he was the one who had been waiting on this for years. As if he was the one who had to suffer all this longing, had to wield his love carefully so it wouldn’t pour out of him like water from a faucet.

You have gone astray in the feeling of his lips, of his large hands gripping your waist with such painstaking gentleness. Your heart is aching in your chest and you know it’s lost to him forever when he runs a careful hand through your hair, holding you with the same tenderness that he treats you with in all regards.

You’re not even thinking when you press yourself closer to him, clasping your hands around his shoulders and pushing your chest to his urgently. Your need for him - to just be close to him - is growing rapidly inside you like a fire. You shake a bit as Dean kisses you harder, mouth moving against yours, hot and messy.

Gone is the sweet gentleness from just a moment ago, but this is still not quite how you have seen Dean kiss strangers in bars. He’s holding you a bit tighter, kissing you with a bit more exigency. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but you’re sure you had never seen him kiss anyone like this. Heat is pooling low in your stomach and you’re squirming, legs twitching as you try to get closer to him. Eventually Dean grunts, the sound sending sparks in your stomach and between your thighs. He splays a hand over your thigh and shifts it over his own. In this position, you become aware of how hard he is. You can feel it even through the layer of jeans and it makes you gasp.

“Dean,” you breathe, struggling for air. He’s undeterred. One hand moves to gently caress the side of your neck as his mouth moves to kiss you there, soft but insistent.

“Hm?” he hums against your neck. You feel its vibration.

Your brain is failing you. The need for him is catapulting you off the edge of sanity and all your focus is garnered towards that bulge below you. You press down without even meaning to and Dean groans at the contact.

“Hey now, slow down, sweetheart,” he says, pulling away from your neck and looking up at you with half-lidded, blown-out eyes. You make a noise that you don’t even hear. You think it’s a protestation. 

“F’you think I’m gonna take you in the front seat of Baby out in some scabby parking lot for our first time, you’re crazy,” he says, thumb reaching up to pull at your bottom lip. 

Your heart soars. First time.

“What, you think that mangy motel room is better?”

Dean laughs. “Maybe not. But ‘least there I can lay you out all pretty. Take my time with you like I always pictured.”

His words go straight to your abdomen in a strange, pleasant mix of love and desire. You clamber off his lap in record speed.

You frown. “Are you sure?”

“Am I - fuck - what the hell are you talkin’ about right now?”

Dean is sitting up against the headboard of the bed. His gaze is dark and unfocused, sweat dripping down his brow and on to his naked chest.

“Are you sure that you want to be my maybe-someone?”

He gives you a strange look, eyes squinting and corners of his mouth poking up in that Dean-is-very-bewildered way. “Huh?”

“I just want to make sure that you’re sure, because I don’t think I’ll be able to- Oh…”

Your mind trails off the subject as Dean uses his grip on your waist to thrust his hips up just a bit, hitting that sweet spot you had just recently (tonight) discovered. His cock is deep inside you, stretching you out in a way that is almost enough to make you want to drop the subject. If you cared about him any less, you probably would.

“I don’t wanna be your maybe-someone, sweetheart. I wanna be your someone. I love you.”

That brings you back. Your heart thuds painfully in your chest, and you have the odd compulsion to cry. Your body is experiencing a lot right now. “You love me?” The barbed wire is tightening again, but this time in a good way. That steamy grin Dean had been wearing crumbles into something softer. He nods.

“But what about the girls?”

“What girls?”

You flush. “Y’know. The girls you… in all the bars…”

His hands palm your hips with a bruising grip, flexing there as he bounces you on him experimentally, like he’s trying to get you to forget that any girls ever existed. Your cunt clenches tight around him, entire body buzzing, and black spots dance behind your eyes, but you sit still because you have really fucking great self-control. 

“Shit, baby,” he groans, head rolling back. “I don’t wanna talk about any damn girl except you right now.”

“Dean.”

His face scrunches up in exasperation as he fights to keep his eyes on yours. They keep travelling down to your tits. “I wasn’t lying when I said they didn’t mean anything, sweetheart,” he says, dropping down to press kisses to your neck. Your eyes flutter shut and you unintentionally grind down at the wonderful tingly feeling it gives you. Dean grunts. 

“Tried to go on as normal for a while. Thought I could get over you, ‘cause I didn’t wanna burden you with my shit. Didn’t work. Just ended up with a loada pissed off girls who kicked me out after I said the wrong name. That’s it.”

You barely notice that you had begun to grind down on him again until Dean wraps his lips around one of your nipples and you let out a desperate moan. His right hand moves down, feather-light, to stroke up and down your thigh.

“How- how long?”

“Dunno. Kinda sleep-walked into it,” he says, gasping between sentences as you leisurely ride him. “Think I realised when we were at Bobby’s house that one time and I heard you bangin’ around in your room for at least twenty minutes. Walked in and saw you wrapped up in that bedsheet like a ghost ‘cause you couldn't get it on and wouldn’t ask anyone for help. ’S stupid but it made me laugh so damn hard.”

He laughs shakily as he remembers it. You try to recall, but the angle he’s hitting inside you is turning any thought into a tough feat. “I don’t remember that. Must have been years ago.”

He just nods and leans up to kiss you, pretty and desperate. You pull away, even if you would much rather not. 

“You’ve loved me for years?”

“Probably longer than that too, sweetheart. Everyone else seemed to figure it out before I did. Everyone except you.”

He’s trying to distract you again with his lips on your neck, but your brain is working too fast now.

“Everyone- Dean, does Sam know?”

He grunts and you can feel it rip through his chest under your fingertips. When he looks up at you, his pretty green eyes have gone a shade darker.

“Please don’t say another man’s name while I’m fuckin’ you ever again, sweetheart,” he damn-near growls. “ ‘Specially not my brother’s.”

You’re being flipped over then, your skull narrowly avoiding the headboard, until you’re under him, knees pressed up and he’s sliding into you at his pace this time.

“But yes. Everyone means everyone.”

He rolls his hips into yours and you can’t stop the breathy moan that escapes at how he feels inside you. He’s so deep and you’ve never been this full before, but there’s no pain to it because it’s Dean and he had made sure you were ready for him - of course he did. He had played with your pussy; rubbed it and fingered it and licked it in ways you didn’t even know were possible before sliding into you with a slow, loving reverence that made your legs tremble and your heart quake. He’d eased in slowly, despite you whining that you wanted to take him all the way. Dean has always taken care of you and he always will, especially now.

“And since you clearly can’t be trusted on top yet,” he says, punctuating his point with a brutal thrust that has you gasping and clenching around him. “I’m just gonna have to fuck all those thoughts outta your clever little head. Maybe then I’ll let you get back on top. When you can’t treat this like a job we’re workin’ on and all you can think about is me and how good I’m fuckin’ you.”

God, his voice is travelling right through your body and you still can’t quite believe that this is really happening. Your hips jerk up to meet his thrust as he turns you to ruins below him. You’re still fighting to hold on to your line of questioning, but he’s making it so hard.

“Dean, I- oh-”

His hand goes down to find your clit, gives it a rub with his thumb without losing any of his rhythm.Your eyes squeeze shut and your body moves against his as if your mind doesn’t have any say or involvement in the matter. 

“That’s it, let me fuck you stupid. Forget about everything else. I’ll sort you right out, baby.”

It shouldn’t be possible for him to fuck you like this. One hand still under your knee and the other playing with your clit, still maintaining a bruising rhythm that sends stars to your eyes. 

It’s not fair. 

Because for as many times as you had pictured being fucked by Dean, as much as you had known that nobody else could compare, you still had no concept of just how good the real thing could be. How thoroughly it would destroy you for anyone else.

“So pretty and dumb when I’m splitting you open like this,” he whispers, fucking himself so deep in that you can feel the tip pushing against your cervix. “Can’t believe you’re letting me have you like this. Knew you’d feel this good, sweetheart. Thought about you like this every goddamn day.”

You have already come twice. Once on his fingers, once on his tongue. And now he’s about to make you come with his cock. You love every woman he has ever been with for showing him exactly the ways to touch you in order to make pleasure flash in every nerve, and you hate them for ever having him like this before you did. But it doesn’t matter now, because Dean seems as far gone as you and his face makes you think that maybe he’s destroyed for anyone else too.

The noises you’re making are barely coherent - something about how good it feels, how deep he is inside you - but they make Dean smile at you, sly and patronising as his tip keeps hitting that spongy spot inside you.

“Yeah, baby?” he coos at you, and all you can do is nod, even if you’re not sure what exactly he’s asking you. “Doin’ so good. Tight pussy’s suckin’ me in.”

Your eyes flutter, fighting the instinct to close only because you want to keep watching Dean - you don’t want to miss a second of how sweet and wrecked he looks above you. He’s got the control now, but you can tell he’s close to losing it by the way his eyebrows furrow just a little and his face goes unfocused. His drooping eyes travel around your body quickly, shooting from your face to your tits to where you’re being split open by him, like he can’t decide where to look.

“Please, Dean. Need more,” you whine, just centimetres from coming. You’re not even sure you could take more at this point, but you want to see what he’ll do.

“Nuh-uh, sweetheart,” he says, even as he slams his hips into yours harder. Your eyes roll back. “Takin’ you nice and sweet right now. Gonna make you come apart real pretty for me. Enjoy it ‘cause next time I’m not gonna be this nice.”

Your brain stutters at the thought that this is him being nice. This feels utterly filthy to you.

There’s an overwhelming pit of pleasure in the bottom of your stomach and it seeps low into your pussy. You twitch once, clenching down on him, and with one more brutal thrust you’re falling over the edge, grinding right down on him. You’re spewing out words incoherently, babbling in tongues. One thing that is coherent, though - one thing that is entirely unmistakable - is how you gasp out; “I love you” in a broken moan.

You hadn’t really noticed that you hadn’t said it back when Dean first admitted it. It had felt obvious to you, like a fact of life. The sky is blue, the grass is green and you love Dean Winchester. You didn’t really think about the fact that he didn’t know.

But you think about it now. When Dean’s half-lidded eyes suddenly shoot open and he’s marvelling at you with such open awe that it makes you feel like maybe you’re something sacred to him too. His face crumbles and he seems to lose control while you’re still riding your high, spilling so deep inside you that you can feel his warmth in your tummy.

Once he’s spent, he slows his hips down and thrusts shallowly while you twitch and jerk around him, his body folding over your own in a way that makes you feel wholly and completely surrounded by him. You feel lax and satisfied as you had never been before.

“You mean it?” he asks against your neck, lips pressing a small kiss there. You know that that kiss means; it’s ok if you don’t.

You shudder out a breathless laugh and your chest moves against his because of how closely your warm bodies are pressed together. 

“You really don’t understand. I’m crazy in love with you, Dean.”

His head lifts up and he searches your eyes with the same expression he uses to investigate a haunted house or look for evidence in some abandoned warehouse. “Since when?”

“Since forever,” you say, heat flooding your face. “Even when I was just some dumb kid you didn’t want tagging along with you and Sammy.”

He goes soft. He melts to a puddle and wraps himself around you even tighter, hand going to your face while he presses a hot, gentle kiss to your lips. “My girl,” he murmurs against your lips.

“You girl?” you repeat, pulling back even though you still feel like you’re floating. “Are you sure? I know you don’t really-”

Dean groans. “Sweetheart. You gonna make me fuck all those doubts outta your head again?”

You smile. “Maybe later.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about New York.

This feels different.

You’d spent years imagining what it might feel like to hear Dean Di Laurentis confess his feelings to you. You just never imagined you’d be the one he practiced them on before saying them to somebody else.

You weren’t jealous of Allie. You were jealous of the version of Dean she’d gotten to meet.

You didn’t want her life. You wanted the words he’d chosen for it.

The worst part was that the words sounded just as beautiful as you’d always imagined, but they weren’t yours. They were Allie’s.

“I get it now. You love love.” Dean smiles as he admits it, watching her closely. Allie stands almost perfectly still in front of him, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag before loosening again.

She glances up at him, biting her cheek, her eyes going wide before they dart away. He mistakes the color rising into her cheeks for something sweet—like maybe he finally understands what she’d been trying to tell him all along.

“That’s what you said you wanted, right? That night at the fire pit.”

He moves closer to her, the confidence he’d carried out of the house still holding despite his nerves. His hand rests on her hip and her shoulders turn away slightly.

“So, I came here to tell you that, uh… I didn’t complete the assignment.”

“What?” she asks, her expression changing so quickly he nearly misses it. Her lips part, but nothing comes. There aren’t any words that make this better, not when Dean matters to her and she already knows this is going to break his heart.

He sees the confusion but not the panic underneath it. Even now, with her staring at him like he’s said something impossible, he only thinks he’s caught her off guard.

“Why?” Her voice breaks around the word, her head tilting as she tries her best not to cry.

“Because I like you. I like us,” he answers surely, his thumb rubbing absently against her skin. “I know that’s not what we said, but I was hoping—”

“Hey, no, Dean. You can’t,” she blurts as he steps so close she can feel the warmth of his body, the smell of his cologne amplified with the heat of his anxiety.

Her hand comes up slightly between them, but Dean’s too caught up in the rush of finally saying it to notice how rigid her shoulders have become.

He thinks she’s scared. He is too, and somehow that only makes him more certain they’re standing in the same place. Both of them nervous. Both of them trying to figure out what comes after the agreement they’d made. His eyebrows lift as he looks down at her, the confidence returning to his voice before he says, “And yet, I am.”

Allie blinks up at him, her tears balancing on her waterline as the bar rages around them.

But she’s silent.

Dean feels a wave of unease, his eyes drifting around the bar as he realizes just how many people are there, everything closing in a little tighter.

“No, I mean, like, you have to complete the assignment,” Allie whispers, her voice barely carrying over the music. She draws in a shaky breath before finally forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Because—”

“Because why?” he asks quietly, his eyebrows pulling together.

His heart pounds so hard he can feel it in his throat. He’d been terrified she would laugh it off. Terrified he’d stumble over the speech he’d practiced with you. You had cried. You’d called it beautiful. You’d told him to tell her. Somehow, being here now, he realizes there had been one outcome he never once prepared himself for.

She nods once, looking sick to her stomach. “Because I did. I swear, it didn’t mean anything. I—Joanna set me up with this guy, like a total stranger at a bar.”

He stares at her, waiting for her to say there was more to it—that she hadn’t wanted to, that it didn’t matter, that she’d stopped before anything happened.

“You…” His voice comes out quieter than he means it to. “You actually did it?”

“I’m sorry.” The words barely leave her mouth before fresh tears gather in her eyes.

Nothing else comes. She doesn’t take it back. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t tell him she misspoke.

Every sound in the bar swells until it becomes one unbearable roar. Somebody bumps his shoulder walking past, muttering an apology he doesn’t hear. A loud bark of laughter cuts clean through the noise.

Dean glances over his shoulder, watching as Hunter steps through the front door, eyes drifting across the room.

Hunter finds Allie almost immediately, a smile tipping at the corner of his mouth as he nods in her direction. The look of someone who’s on the receiving end of an assignment she completed.

Hunter’s smile falters for only a second as his eyes finally land on Dean standing beside her.

They’d spent years trying to get under each other’s skin. Dean sees it the moment it clicks. Hunter understands why Dean’s standing beside her. He doesn’t know the whole story, but the smile curling on his lips tells Dean Hunter’s enjoying every second of it.

Dean turns back to Allie, meeting her gaze. He doesn’t even need to ask—but he needs to hear it.

“Him?”

“No,” she croaks, eyes pinching shut as she shakes her head. “Yes—do you know him?”

And for the first time all night, Dean takes a step back, then another. His hand reaches up, raking through his hair as every sound around him crashes together like a freight train. The rose-colored glasses he’d walked in wearing had been ripped clean off, and all he could see now was red.

His skin crawls with the thought of it, heartbreak clawing at the back of his throat as his stomach sinks. How could he be so stupid? How could he possibly think either one of them would come out unscathed?

Maybe it’s because he never thought it would end like this when he agreed…

Maybe he thought the only person she could see herself with was him. He’d never even been the only option. And it broke his heart because he’d been the only one falling in love.

I like us. Not enough…

I haven’t stopped thinking about New York. I have.

This feels different. And it still isn’t enough.

None of this mattered.

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Allie whispers, taking one careful step toward him before stopping herself. “Dean…”

Dean doesn’t even look at her. His jaw flexes hard enough to ache as he turns away, forcing the people lingering nearby to shuffle out of his way.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Dean asks, grabbing onto the anger before the sadness can split him open in front of everyone as he turns to Davenport.

“I heard your team needs saving,” Hunter says, taking a beer from the bartender’s hand.

He takes a slow drink without taking his eyes off Dean, leaning his body against the edge of the bar like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Yeah?” Dean laughs bitterly. “Get the fuck out.”

Hunter huffs out a laugh, the corner of his mouth pulling higher as he sets his beer back down. Dean can see Garrett and Tucker already closing in.

“Hey,” Hunter scoffs, putting his hands up in surrender, his demeanor anything but. “Logan said this was your idea—”

Dean doesn’t answer him. His eyes drift past Hunter instead, landing on Garrett standing a few feet away, confusion written all over his face.

“You weren’t there. Logan had to make a call,” Garrett mumbles.

“I’m not skating with this prick.” Dean squares up to him, stepping closer as Hunter studies him. A crooked grin spreads across his face. Neither one of them looks away.

“Aww. What, are you scared I’m gonna dust your ass again?” Hunter closes the distance until they’re nearly chest to chest.

“You wanna try?” Dean asks, shoving Hunter backward with both hands.

Hunter plants his feet, catches himself, then steps right back into Dean’s space. “Yeah? Yeah, I do.”

Dean grabs the front of Hunter’s shirt, hauling him close enough that their foreheads nearly touch. “I’d like to see you fucking try.”

“Get the fuck out of my face,” Hunter shoots back.

Dean buries both hands in Hunter’s shirt, shoving him hard enough that he crashes into a high-top table. Glasses shatter and beer spills, the crowd parting as he surges forward, driving both palms into Dean’s chest.

Dean stumbles backward into the bar rail, his lower back slamming into polished wood. His fist connects with Hunter’s jaw almost on instinct, snapping his head sideways before Hunter answers with one of his own that catches Dean beneath the eye.

The two of them crash sideways into another cluster of people, chairs scraping violently across the floor as somebody dives out of the way.

Hunter lands a punch deep into his ribs that drives the air straight out of his lungs. Dean grabs onto him as he folds, dragging Hunter down until both of them hit the sticky hardwood in a tangled heap.

Hunter’s elbow catches the corner of Dean’s mouth—his lip splitting, blood flooding his mouth.

“Dean!” Garrett shouts. “Break it up!”

People reach for both of them from every direction, but neither man lets go. Dean tears free long enough to throw another punch that lands against Hunter’s ribs before Hunter answers with one across Dean’s cheekbone, his vision blurring again as people shout over one another.

Beau finally hooks both arms around Dean from behind, hauling him backward across the beer-slick floor while Garrett and Tucker wrestle Hunter the opposite direction. Dean strains against Beau’s grip anyway, shoes scraping against the bar floor as blood drips steadily from the corner of his mouth onto the front of his shirt.

“Enough!” Garrett barks into the space between, breathing hard himself.

Dean glances back, and Allie’s standing exactly where he left her, crying hard enough she has to cover her mouth. He tears himself out of Beau’s grip and storms toward the front door without another word.

“…Hey.”

Your stomach twists. You hadn’t even considered somebody else might still be here.

Logan’s leaning against the kitchen counter, dressed for the bar, absentmindedly eating a bowl of cereal. His eyes squint, taking a better look at you through the dark house, before his expression immediately changes.

Logan lowers the spoon back into the bowl, his eyebrows pulling together as he straightens away from the counter. “Hey, sweetheart…” he says carefully, his gaze moving over your face for less than a second before all the color drains from his own. “What’s wrong?”

You pull your bag a little closer against your side as you force yourself to look anywhere but at him, swallowing hard around the lump already sitting in your throat.

You open your mouth, fully intending to tell him you’re fine, but the words refuse to come, leaving you standing there in complete silence while another tear slips free despite your best efforts.

Logan sets the bowl down without taking another bite. “Hey,” he says again, this time much softer as he walks around the counter toward you. “C’mere.”

You suck in one sharp breath, another tear sliding down your cheek before you can stop it. You shake your head, blinking hard as you try to pull yourself back together.

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

He reaches for you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as carefully as if he thinks you might fall apart in his hands, and for the first time since Dean walked out that front door, you let yourself cry.

The front of his t-shirt grows damp beneath your face while one of his hands rubs slow circles across your back, his other resting gently against the back of your head.

You don’t remember the last time someone held you while you cried. Dean never had to. He’d always made sure you laughed before it got this bad.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs quietly. “I’ve got you.”

The cool night air hits Dean like a slap the second he shoves through the front doors.

His shoes pound against the sidewalk as he puts as much distance between himself and Allie as he can, dragging the back of his hand across his split lip.

Every breath stings his ribs—his left eye’s already swelling shut—but none of it hurts as much as the pressure sitting in the middle of his chest.

“Dean!” He doesn’t look back as he hears her voice. “Dean, wait!”

Allie hurries after him, weaving around the crowd standing outside Malone’s. She reaches for his arm, fingers barely brushing the sleeve of his jacket before he jerks away so fast it startles both of them.

He shakes his head, breathing hard through his nose. “Don’t.”

Her hand falls back to her side as she searches his face, tears continuing to roll down her cheeks. If she’d reached for him five minutes earlier, he would’ve melted into it.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine. Go back inside,” he huffs, turning back around to walk away.

He only makes it a few steps before she reaches for him again, her hand wrapping around his arm. “How is this fine, Dean? You’re not okay. We’re not okay—”

“We? We’re not okay?”

“Yes we—us, Dean.”

“Why are you acting like there’s a fuckin’ we here when you clearly… you—you just. Fuck! You weren’t supposed to say that,” Dean cuts her short, the words sounding almost childlike, leaving him mortified.

“…What?” she asks breathlessly, staring up at him.

“You weren’t supposed to say that.” His voice cracks this time. “I was supposed to come here.” He gestures back toward the bar with one bloody hand before letting it fall uselessly to his side. “I was supposed to tell you how I felt.”

“Dean…”

“You were supposed to tell me you felt the same way.” His breathing grows more uneven with every word, his chest rising sharply as he struggles to keep himself together. “You were supposed to tell me I’d been an idiot for waiting this long. We were supposed to laugh about that stupid fucking assignment. We were…”

His voice disappears completely. He swallows hard, looking away for a second before forcing himself to meet her eyes again.

“How do you not feel the same way? How, Allie? I don’t get it. And that's my issue to work through, not yours—”

“I never wanted this to happen.”

“Neither did I,” Dean whispers, his eyes glassy despite how hard he’s trying to keep himself together.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are.” He presses his lips together for a second, his jaw flexing as he tries to steady his breathing. “I just… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this now.”

He’d spent so long wondering how good it would feel when he finally told her how he felt that he’d never once thought about what came after she said no.

Allie’s eyes drift back to the cut beneath his eye, another thin line of blood working its way down his cheek. “You’re bleeding.”

Dean reaches up, touching the corner of his mouth before looking at the blood on his fingertips, completely numb.

“It’s nothing.”

“Dean, it’s not nothing.” She fumbles through her purse until she finds a bar napkin, unfolding it with shaky hands as she steps closer again. “Just… hold still for one second.”

She barely gets close enough to lift her hand before Dean takes another step backward. “Please don’t.”

Dean holds her gaze for a moment before letting out a shaky breath, his gaze dropping to the cracked sidewalk.

“Forget it.”

She says something else. He sees her lips move. Another apology, maybe. Another explanation. He doesn’t hear a word of it because the thoughts in his head are so, so much louder.

She never asked him to come tonight.

…Hunter was there.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly where Allie wanted him to be. His throat burns as he swallows hard, his vision blurring again.

The front doors of the bar burst open behind them, music spilling out onto the sidewalk along with a chorus of raised voices. Allie looks back toward the entrance as tears of frustration stream down her cheeks.

“Where is he?” Beau asks, already looking past her.

Allie whips around toward where Dean had been standing, but he’s gone. “He…” Her voice catches before she manages to finish. “I don’t know.”

“You really don’t wanna tell me?” Logan asks against the rim of his beer bottle before he takes a sip.

You shake your head almost immediately, your head resting heavy on his shoulder as you look out onto the empty street.

Logan nods like he’d expected that. He glances down at the porch beneath his feet for a second, tapping the toe of his boot lightly against the wood before looking toward you. “…Alright,” he says quietly. “Then don’t.”

You let out a long breath through your nose before quietly agreeing.

“Mind if I take a guess?” he asks gently.

Your fingers tighten around your sleeve until the fabric bunches in your fist.

You keep your eyes fixed in front of you, blinking quickly as another sting builds behind them, but you can’t quite bring yourself to answer, so you nod.

“It has something to do with Dean?”

Your chin trembles as you try your hardest to stay still, telling him everything he needs to know anyway.

“Mhmm,” he hums. “…Dean and Allie?” The names hang in the cool night air swirling around you.

You draw in another shaky breath, staring out at the emptiness for another second before the words finally leave you. “I just…” You swallow hard. “I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

Logan shifts toward you, pressing a kiss against your hair before he rests his chin on the top of your head. He draws in a deep breath, letting it out nice and slow.

“That’s not gonna happen,” he whispers.

You shrug helplessly, your voice barely rising above a whisper. “Everything changes when people fall in love.”

He chuckles breathily. “Nah… It’ll change some things,” he admits honestly. “Life always does.”

He turns toward you, brushing a tear away with his thumb.

“You’re not gonna lose Dean.”

His arm tightens around your shoulder, headlights sweeping briefly over the porch, and your heart plummets—the thought of Dean and Allie stumbling out of an Uber, laughing and kissing, tearing away at your last thread of sanity. The car disappears and you blow out a breath, nodding because Logan is waiting for some kind of response.

“You can talk to me, you know? It’s me.”

“How are you so sure?” you whisper.

Logan’s lip pouts a little, so slight you barely catch it out of the corner of your eye, when he hears just how broken you are. He takes another drink from his beer. “You two have been attached at the hip since freshman year. One girl isn’t gonna change that.”

“One girl,” you breathe, the words leaving your lips like you can’t believe he could possibly think that’s all she is—but he doesn’t know Dean like you know Dean.

Like Allie’s no different from the dozens of girls that have walked in and out of that door behind you. Like she isn’t the first one who made him nervous enough to ask for your help—caring enough to ask you for the first time if what he was offering someone else was enough. If he was enough.

Another car turns into the neighborhood and chills fall down your spine. “She’s not just some girl.”

The ring on his finger clinks against the bottle before he speaks. “I just mean Dean’s had people come and go before,” he continues. “You haven’t. He trusts you more than anybody. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” you manage.

“And he’s always gonna need you.” Logan dips his head, trying to catch your eyes. “That idiot barely knows what he’s feeling until he talks it through with you first. You really think he’s gonna stop calling because he has a girlfriend?”

The word settles between your ribs, sharp and heavy.

“He talks about you constantly,” he adds. “Half the time somebody asks him a question, he starts with, ‘Well, she said—’ like we don’t already know who he means.”

You shake your head quickly, trying to get Logan to stop being so kind because each comforting word he offers to “Dean’s best friend” just pulls the woman who would do anything to mean what he means to her deeper underwater.

“Besides…” Logan huffs quietly, shaking his head. “They’ve been… whatever this is… for what? Five minutes?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you press the words past your lips.

“Exactly. I mean… they literally made a deal to hook up with other people.”

“No,” you whisper. “I mean—I just,” you stumble over your words, trying to put your misery into something coherent but it’s too fucking much. “I’m being stupid.”

“No, c’mon.” His hand slips from your shoulder, lifting to cup your cheek, turning you gently so you finally have to look at him.

His expression softens, his eyebrows pulling together with worry.

“If you think Allie’s gonna have some issue with you being close to him, she won’t,” Logan says, like it should be obvious. As though the possibility is so unreasonable it doesn’t require more than a sentence to dismiss.

“Okay,” you whisper, wanting the honesty to stop, hating how small your voice sounds.

“She knows you.” He gives you a confused little smile, like he can’t figure out how you’ve managed to scare yourself this badly over something so simple. “She knows what you and Dean are like.”

And how is that?

Your breath catches in your chest and your lashes flutter anxiously. A tiny part of you waits for him to say you’ve got it all wrong.

That Dean’s just taking the long way around. That one day he’ll realize he’s been looking at you all this time and finally understand why he could never let you go.

He doesn’t.

“You’re not competition, sweetheart.”

His expression softens when he says it, like he’s finally found the sentence that should make all of this better. The tears fill your eyes, blurring him so much that you can barely see.

“Thank you,” you whimper. You turn away from his touch, face crumpling before you can stop it, wiping away your tears with the heel of your hand.

“Hey.” Logan’s voice drops. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to make it worse.”

“No.” You shake your head, drawing in a trembling breath as you stand up, crossing your arms tight over your chest. “I appreciate it.”

“She’s not gonna want to take away somebody who’s like family to him.”

“You’re right,” you whisper.

“Hell, you’re probably gonna end up with one of us anyway,” Logan laughs quietly before shaking his head. “I mean…” His cheeks redden ever so slightly as he scratches the back of his neck. “We all love you.”

You barely hear the first part. The last three words only make the ache inside your chest that much harder to bear because you know exactly what kind of love he means.

You nod, forcing the corner of your mouth upward, tight and unsteady, but Logan’s shoulders lower slightly in relief when he sees it.

“I don’t need to go to the bar,” Logan mumbles. “You wanna come back inside? Watch a movie or somethin’?”

And be here when he comes home? You try to keep your expression from changing, terrified that the question is painted all over your face anyway.

“No, you should go.” Your voice cracks at the end, so you clear your throat. His eyes search yours, moving over your tear-streaked cheeks before he finally lets out a quiet breath. “Everybody’s probably wondering where you are—”

“They’ll survive,” Logan stops you, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees as he looks up at you.

Silence stretches between the two of you.

Finally, Logan pushes himself to his feet, studying your face as he slips his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

He watches you for another long moment, and for one awful second you think he can see straight through it. You think he’s going to pull you back into his arms and keep asking questions until the truth spills out of you, but his shoulders slowly loosen.

“Text me when you get home.”

“I will.”

“And if you’re still upset, call me.” He reaches up, rubbing away a tear. “Don’t care what time it is, alright?”

Logan draws you into one last hug, and you let yourself sink into it as the pressure in your chest starts building again. “You’re not gonna lose him,” he whispers once more, pressing another kiss against the top of your head before giving you a final squeeze and letting you go.

He stays near the doorway, watching while you cross the yard, so you keep your shoulders straight and your steps steady. You even lift a hand when he reminds you to text him, pretending you can hold yourself together for another ten steps.

You make it out of sight before your hand flies over your mouth, a sob breaking through as the strap of your bag slips down your shoulder and you struggle to drag air into your lungs.

You were his best friend. His safe space. His family. Close enough to stay beside him through every part of the life he was about to build with someone else.

You weren’t going to lose him.

Dean was still going to choose you.

Just never the way you’d dreamed he would.

Dean runs until his lungs start burning.

His shoes hit the pavement as his heart pounds in his chest. He stumbles off the curb at the end of the block, catching himself before he goes down completely, his hands still trembling with adrenaline.

His phone vibrates against his thigh, but he doesn’t reach for it. He doesn’t want to know if it’s Allie. He doesn’t want to hear Garrett asking where he went or Beau telling him to come back. He can’t go back.

He gasps for a breath, his split lip tearing open more as the cold air bites at his skin. He’s a little drunk, and he hates to admit it. Those beers he threw back to calm his nerves are catching up with him at the worst possible time.

His shoe catches against a raised crack in the sidewalk and he stumbles forward, one palm scraping hard against the concrete. His knee drops to the wet ground, and he stays there for a moment, head hanging between his shoulders.

“Fuck,” he chokes out, shoving himself upright before his body can decide to stay down.

He makes it another block before the street opens in front of him, the familiar intersection finally slowing his feet.

His hands rake through his sweaty hair. He looks to the right, then the left toward the hockey house, before he glances back to where he wants to go.

Dean’s phone vibrates angrily in his pocket. He tugs it out, seeing a string of notifications, and a list of text messages stacked on top of each other. The latest one hits him like a gut punch.

Just talk to me please. Allie Hayes.

What if she comes looking for him? He doesn’t want to fold if she tells him she regrets what she did. He knows he will.

He doesn’t want to cry in front of her. He doesn’t want her to pity him while she patches him up after this stupid fuckin’ fight with Hunter. He doesn’t want to pretend it’s not shattering him while she tries to explain how it meant nothing.

He doesn’t want to fall asleep in sheets that smell like the two of them.

“I can’t fucking do it,” he whispers, because he knows the boys aren’t far behind. He doesn’t want Garrett or Beau. He doesn’t want Allie. He just wants you.

There’s nowhere else he goes.

He hopes you’re home.

You always know how to make things better.

But it’s gonna hurt. He can already picture the look on your face when he tells you he wasn’t enough. He can already hear your voice soften when he tells you Allie chose somebody else. He can already feel the way you’ll fit in his arms when you hug him and tell him he’s gonna be okay. He just wants to be okay…

He just wants to go home.

And so do you.

You keep your head down, not trusting yourself to look up if anyone passes by. Another tear falls, disappearing against the dark concrete before the next one follows.

Your sneakers scuff quietly against the sidewalk while you try not to think about what Dean’s doing or whether he’s already made it back to the house.

And, even though you don’t wanna know, you’re hyper aware of the phone weighing heavy in your pocket. A text from Dean—a social media update from Allie. Some public display of affection that will surely ruin you. But this limbo of knowing and not knowing what happened makes your stomach twist in knots.

What if you turned around right now? What if you went to Malone’s? Would that help? Maybe seeing them together would be the push you’d need to let that want go.

What’s a little more heartbreak?

You stop walking and in that moment you hear footsteps echo behind you. At first, you don’t think much of it. Briar’s campus is never completely empty, even this late, and somebody’s probably headed home just like you are.

You glance over your shoulder, the hair on the back of your neck standing straight as you catch a man walking toward you fast, too fast, so you move.

Your feet pound against the sidewalk as you look over your shoulder just as a pair of headlights rounds the corner.

For half a second, the headlights catch the face of the man behind you, and your heart nearly stops—his split lip, cheeks stained from tears and blood, his eye already swollen beneath blonde locks plastered to his forehead. He’s breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling with every jagged breath.

Your stomach drops and your voice breaks as you call out for him.

“Dean?”

Even from where you’re standing, you watch his head lift before tipping back toward the dark sky for a second, his shoulders sagging as another broken breath escapes him and his eyes squeeze shut.

“Dean…” You try again, your voice catching as you hurry the last few steps toward him. The streetlight finally catches his face, and your chest tightens. “Dean, what the hell happened?”

He doesn’t answer. The second you’re close enough, he reaches for you. His arms wrap around you so suddenly they almost knock you off balance, pulling you against his chest with enough force that you stumble into him.

Before you can even think to hug him back, he’s buried his face against the side of your neck, another broken sob tearing through him as his whole body shakes in your arms.

“Hey… hey,” you whisper, choking back tears of your own.

Your fingers tangle through the hair at the back of his head while your other arm wraps around his waist, holding him as tightly as you can.

“I’ve got you.”

His hands bunch the back of your sweatshirt in his fists. You can feel every tremor that moves through him, his forehead pressed against your shoulder while you continue stroking his hair over and over, your own heart breaking right alongside his.

“What happened?” you whisper. He draws in a deep breath, blowing it out slow.

You pull back just enough to look at him again, your thumb brushing carefully beneath the eye that hasn’t swollen shut.

His lashes lift slowly and the tears on his bruised cheeks shimmer. And, at this moment, you can’t remember a time when you’ve ever seen him this sad… but you know the feeling. You’ve been living it all night.

For a second, all you hear is the rustle of leaves and the uneven sound of the two of you trying to hold yourselves together.

“Just give me a minute,” he whispers.

“Okay,” you nod. “Where were you going?”

His lips draw to the side, his eyebrows softening as he looks at you like you shouldn’t even have to ask. Dean’s hand slips into yours, his fingers closing tightly around your own before he begins pulling you toward your place.

The two of you walk side by side without another word, your hands still linked between you. Dean keeps his head down, staring at the sidewalk as it passes beneath his feet.

You sneak another look at him beneath the streetlights, taking in the blood drying beneath his nose and along the corner of his mouth. He lifts his free hand, wiping at his mouth, hissing in pain before he pulls away.

Dean must feel you looking because his head turns slowly toward you, his bruised eyes finally meeting yours.

And still, he can’t bring himself to speak. Not yet. Normally, he wouldn’t have let the silence last this long. He would’ve made some joke about you staring at him or squeezed your hand until you finally looked over and smiled. He would’ve told you the other guy looked worse, even if you hadn’t asked.

You wish there was something you could say that would make any of this better.

Dean lifts his eyes, staring toward your place before letting out a long, unsteady breath. You fish your keys from your sweatshirt pocket as the two of you make your way up the short walkway.

You unlock the door and pull it open, holding it for him as he steps inside ahead of you.

The apartment is almost completely dark when the two of you step inside. You quietly push the door shut behind you, the soft click of the lock sounding impossibly loud in the silence.

He starts toward the staircase without saying a word, and you follow him just as silently. The steps creak softly beneath your weight as the two of you climb toward the second floor.

You can’t stop checking on him. Every few steps your eyes drift back to his face, the physical pain and heartbreak painted so clearly across it.

And even so, you hate yourself for the relief that’s settled somewhere deep inside you, quiet enough that you tried to keep it buried.

Dean’s heart is in pieces, and somehow a part of you is grateful that he isn’t spending tonight somewhere else. Grateful that he came looking for you instead of her. Grateful that he’s here.

The realization makes you feel sick.

That’s not what best friends are supposed to think. They aren’t supposed to find comfort in someone else’s heartbreak, no matter how desperately they’ve wished for them.

You swallow hard, forcing your eyes back to the steps beneath your feet as another sting settles behind them. This isn’t about you. Whatever’s left of your own heart can wait. Right now, Dean needs someone to put him back together.

The two of you step into your place and Dean kicks off his shoes, still refusing to let go of your hand, leading you toward the bathroom at the end of the hall, nudging the door open before stepping inside.

The room stays dim, lit only by the soft amber glow from the hallway and the faint wash of moonlight filtering through the small window above the shower.

He reaches up for the collar of his jacket, and slowly eases it from his shoulders, wincing in pain as he drags it off one arm then the next.

He nods toward the shower, waiting for your answer before he reaches for the handle. “Of course,” you whisper. He twists the metal handle until hot water begins pounding against the tile, steam slowly filling the small bathroom.

“…I got blood everywhere,” he whispers, and your eyes flick up to the mirror, the corners already fogging over from the heat.

His t-shirt is stained across the collar, dried streaks trailing down the front where he’d wiped at his face over and over throughout the walk home. There are rusty fingerprints smeared across the sleeves of your sweatshirt too, little reminders of how tightly he’d held onto you in the middle of the street.

“You’re okay,” you whisper.

He reaches for the hem of his shirt first, pulling the bloodstained fabric over himself before dropping it onto the bathroom floor. You quietly do the same with your sweatshirt, leaving it beside his before slipping out of your jeans.

Neither of you says anything about it. By the time the two of you step beneath the spray, he’s wearing nothing but his boxers, and you’re standing in your panties and bra.

The hot water runs over Dean’s hair, wetting dried blood, sending it ribboning down the side of his face. The chain on his chest flickers with every shaky breath, the tanned skin on his ribs a watercolor of purple and blue bruises.

Pink water circles lazily around the drain, carrying away blood and fresh tears.

He simply stands there with his eyes closed while you carefully press the damp cloth beneath the cut at his eyebrow, your other hand resting lightly against his shoulder to steady him. Every now and then he whimpers, but he never pulls away.

You rinse the washcloth beneath the spray before pressing it against the corner of his mouth. Dean’s head tips down slightly to give you better access, his eyes staying closed while you wipe away the blood still caught along his jaw.

“Who did this to you?”

He swallows hard enough that you see the movement in his throat. For a second, you think he might avoid the question but he doesn’t.

“Hunter.”

Your brows pull together in confusion. There are probably a dozen Hunters somewhere on campus, but there’s only one who could make Dean say it like that.

“Davenport?”

He nods, and the answer only leaves you with more questions. You look over his bruised face again, the cut at his eyebrow, the swelling already darkening beneath his eye, and the fresh scrape across his cheekbone that hadn’t been there when he left the house.

Hunter and Dean had never needed much of an excuse to get under each other’s skin, but this wasn’t the aftermath of another stupid chirp taken too far. Dean hadn’t run across campus crying because Davenport made some comment about hockey.

“Why?”

His lips part, but nothing comes out. Dean blinks a few times, unable to put his disappointment into words.

“Do you want me to guess?” you whisper. The question sounds painfully familiar the moment it leaves your mouth. A few minutes earlier, Logan had offered you the same mercy while the two of you sat on the porch, quietly filling in the spaces around everything you couldn’t bring yourself to admit.

Now Dean is standing in front of you with the same helpless look you must’ve worn then, and somehow you already know where to begin.

“She did the assignment?”

Dean bites down on his split lip, turning his face away from you before he nods.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

His jaw locks so tightly you can see the muscle jump beneath his skin.

And suddenly, everything starts to fall into place. Allie had completed the assignment. Dean had found out after telling her everything. Hunter had ended up with blood across his fists. But your heart still resists placing the last one where it belongs.

“With who?” you ask.

His nostrils flare and his arm circles your waist, pulling you closer beneath the water.

“No,” you breathe, but you can see Hunter stepping through the bar doors without having been there. You can see the look Dean must’ve caught between him and Allie, the one answer neither of them would’ve needed to say aloud. Your free hand rises to cover your mouth, but it does nothing to hide your emotions. “She couldn’t have known.”

“She didn’t,” he says, his voice breaking beneath the steady rush of the shower. “She had no clue.”

Dean lets out a slow breath, his forehead lowering until it rests against yours. “It…” His voice catches, forcing him to stop before he can get the rest out. “It could’ve been anybody. Would’ve hurt either way,” he whispers. He draws in another shaky breath, his lips flattening into a thin line before he finally forces himself to finish. “It just…” Another pause. “It being him fucking hurts.”

Your palm slides slowly over his shoulder before settling against the back of his neck, pulling him closer when a tremor moves through his body. “I’m sorry,” you whisper again, because there isn’t anything else you can give him.

“I really thought it was gonna go well.” Dean says it so quietly that the words almost disappear beneath the water, but you hear every one.

He had walked into that bar convinced the words he’d practiced with you would be enough to make Allie choose him. And fuck, if those same words had ever left his mouth for you, you think you could’ve lived on them for the rest of your life.

You can’t tell him that. You can’t admit that while he’s standing here broken over somebody else, not when he trusts you to be the one person who will hold him without asking for anything in return.

So you don’t.

“I love you,” he whispers, his voice cracking when he speaks as your fingers continue moving gently through his hair.

“I love you too.”

Your eyes burn all over again. The last traces of blood disappear down the drain beneath your feet, but neither of you makes any move to step away.

“You’re the only person I can count on.”

“Always,” you whisper.

He steps close enough that the tip of his nose nearly brushes yours. His hands slide from your waist, lifting between you to hold your face, his bruised knuckles resting beneath your ears while his thumbs sweep over your cheeks. Your mouth trembles when you try to give him a reassuring smile.

He’d been too consumed by everything that had happened to realize you’d already been crying long before he found you.

And after he’d left you crying on his bed, you’d probably never stopped.

Dean’s thumb slides along your bottom lip, feeling it tremble under his touch. The fact that you’re holding your breath to keep from sobbing makes his heart start to race all over again.

“Babygirl,” he whispers. “Hey.” He stops you when you look away, searching your face for another long moment, looking at you like he’s only just beginning to realize that he wasn’t the only person whose heart was broken. “What’s wrong?”