You’re sitting on the hood of the Impala, legs crossed, cigarette burning low between your fingers—not because you smoke, but because Dean handed it to you like a peace offering after yet another disaster wrapped in denim and charm.

His knuckles are split again. There’s blood on his jaw. None of it’s his.

He’s pacing. You’re seething.

“Dean. Please. Can you go one week—one damn week—without getting arrested or punching some idiot in the face?”

He looks at you, half smirk, half shame, all goddamn frustrating.

“They were talkin’ about you. What was I supposed to do? Let ‘em?”

You roll your eyes so hard it hurts.

“Yes, Dean. That’s exactly what people with self-control do.”

He closes the distance in three slow, swaggering steps. You feel the heat of him before he touches you.

“You love it,” he mutters. His voice is low, worn. Like whiskey poured over gravel.

“I love you, idiot,” you snap, voice catching. “Not the mugshots. Not the bruises. Not the constant fear that one day you won’t walk out of whatever hellhole you stumble into next.”

And then it’s quiet.

Just the sound of cicadas, your heart pounding, and the subtle creak of leather as he pulls you into him. Not rough. Not desperate.

Just real.

“I don’t wanna make you worry,” he says, forehead against yours. “I just… don’t know how to be soft. Not with this life. Not with these hands.”

Your fingers trace the line of his jaw, where the bruise is already blooming.

“You don’t have to be soft for them, Dean. Just for me. Just—please, please, please don’t make me regret this.”

He kisses you like it’s a vow. A rough, shaking, sacred promise.

And for a second— you believe he means it.

Even if you know he’ll probably break it.