#love is transformative

Or at least, that's what I've been told...

I was curious when she led me to the woods, practically skipping through the underbrush with an enthusiasm I'd never seen from her before. Every now and again she would turn her head to look at me, starry-eyed and making sure I was keeping pace. When she finally stopped dead in her tracks, my feet nearly catching at the suddenness and crashing into her frame, we stood between a flurry of unremarkable conifers. I couldn't think to ask her of the significance of this place; not when she looked at me like that.

There's a wild dance of muscles across her face, revealing sharp whites behind dark rosy lips, and eyes converging the pin-prick lights of the evening heavens peeking between crisscrossing foliage into a singular amber-hue light, dead-center to her pupils. Myself, wading in the softly glowing energy of the moment, brought forward the stunning conclusion to me that I am the light in her eyes.

She stayed me in place with a gentle hand to my shoulder, a nigh-redundant request to put trust in this woman I already look up to as if her eyes are the reason the stars exist, for which they can have something worthy enough to reflect. Redundant, but all the more meaningful that she would ask this of me. I obeyed readily.

It felt more natural than anything to watch her shed her lightly-furred coat to reveal more fur hidden underneath where I expected to see her lovely freckled brown skin. She takes delicate steps backwards, as if showing me a tender secret. The coat pools at her ankles, carefully choreographed to draw my attention to black glossy flats being kicked off to the side. At this point, my total attention was shifted to odd fascination. She always struck me as the type to have somewhat dainty, well cared for feet, and she shatters that image I had with twisting sinew and muscle, and protruding bones leading to curling nails... What?

I race to meet that delicate amber-hue in her eyes again only to be met with striking, radiant gold. She towers over me a bit now—not the negligibly small height she used to have on me. My mouth attempts to beckon for answers, but no sound comes out. I don't know if I should fear what's happening before my eyes, as beastly claws tip her fingers and her remaining attire shreds away in tatters as if designed for this very purpose. I'm back to her eyes, looking for answers to questions which I cannot speak. I am struck again in her godly gaze: I am the light in her eyes.

The question of fear does not return again.

The rest of this hauntingly graceful display finds her standing before me, four paws firmly planted into earth. I finally breathe, and she huffs through her maw in return. One paw forward, and I hold my ground. Two paws forward, and something primal and instinctual tenses my muscles. Three paws forward, and I'm steadying my breath. Four paws forward, and by now I know before looking that I am still the light in her eyes.

The tension releases completely and she barrels into my chest, our bodies tumbling into the underbrush as my arms wrap around her fur-lined nape. When we settle, I have her lupine head rested upon my chest, fingers finding purchase behind fuzzy ears. Next time our eyes meet, it's hers searching for mine. There's a question within a question I could see, clear as day.

It reads initially as, "do you want this?"

My fingers trace beneath her muzzle. I know I would answer in the affirmative.

I catch the quieter part behind those words, something slightly desperate and anxious, "do you want me?"

A gleeful whine comes from her when I drop my answer in the form of my lips upon her head. Gazing into her eyes, knowing I am her light, I can just tell already that I've got a light in mine too.

I hope my eyes convey to her, as our heads bump together, "we'll run together soon, my dear."

“When Jack was dying, I made a deal to save him. The price was my life. When I experienced a moment of true happiness the Empty would be summoned and it would take me forever.

“I always wondered, ever since I took that burden, that curse, I wondered what it could be. What my true happiness could even look like. And I never found an answer because the one thing I want is something I know I can’t have.

“But I think I know. I think I know now.

“Happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just being. It’s in just saying it.

“I know—I know how you see yourself Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You’re destructive and you’re angry and you’re broken and you’re daddy’s blunt instrument.

“And you think that hate and anger that’s—that’s what drives you, that’s what you are, but it’s not. And everyone who knows you sees it and everything you have ever done, good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love, you fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are.

“You’re the most caring man on Earth, you’re the most selfless loving human being I will ever know.

“You know ever since we met ever since I pulled you outta hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared.

“I cared about you, I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack. But I cared about the whole world because of you.

“You changed me, Dean.

“I love you.

“Goodbye, Dean.”