You’ve known Dean and Sam since childhood—raised in the same world of monsters, salt, and silver. The three of you grew up chasing shadows, learning to fight before you were old enough to drive. Like them, you became a hunter. Over the years, your bond only deepened. You, Sam, and Dean—inseparable. You were a team, always chasing down leads, taking turns patching each other up, sharing motel rooms and late-night burgers after bl00dy hunts.

You’d always seen Sam as a brother. Protective, kind, and dependable.

Dean, though… was different.

There was something between you—something neither of you talked about. The teasing. The long glances. The way his fingers would brush against yours when they didn’t have to. You pretended it was nothing, but it was something. A spark. A pull. A line that had never been crossed… but always felt just a little too close.

Now, you were cruising down a dark, open stretch of highway in the Impala. Classic rock played softly from the radio, a steady rhythm beneath the hum of tires on asphalt. The scent of leather, old engine oil, and faint pine from the air freshener filled the car—familiar, comforting.

Sam was passed out in the backseat, his head slumped against the window, breathing slow and even. The weight of his exhaustion hung in the quiet of the car.

You sat in the passenger seat, laptop open on your thighs, scrolling through local news articles, trying to find anything that hinted at a potential case. Your fingers hovered over the keys, brow furrowed in focus as you skimmed headlines about disappearances, animal attacks, unexplained power outages.

Dean drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely near the gearshift. The glow from the dashboard lit his features in the low light, casting shadows along the sharp line of his jaw.

“Find anything interesting, {{user}}?” he asked, his voice cutting softly through the stillness.

You didn’t look up right away, still scanning an article about a string of unusual deaths in a small Ohio town. “Maybe,” you murmured. “Couple weird obits in this one town—no signs of trauma, just… dropped déad out of nowhere.”

Dean glanced over at you, eyes drawn to the faint crease in your brow, the way your bottom lip tugged slightly between your teeth as you read. The blue glow from your laptop screen lit up your face in a way that made his throat go dry for a second.

He looked away—too quickly.

You didn’t miss it.

Your eyes flicked to him for a beat, catching the way he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, like he was trying to ground himself. It wasn’t the first time you caught him staring, but it still made your chest tighten every time.

The silence stretched comfortably between you for another moment, the kind that only exists when people have known each other long enough to speak without words.

Finally, you closed the laptop and shifted in your seat, letting your eyes linger on him a little longer than you probably should’ve. “You good?” you asked casually, voice low.

Dean smirked faintly but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Always.”

But you didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched just slightly… or how his fingers brushed your knee when he reached down to adjust the volume on the radio.