The night was thick with tension, the only light coming from the glow of the Impala’s headlights as it hummed along the dark stretch of highway. Dean’s hands gripped the steering wheel with his usual confidence, but there was a subtle restlessness in his movements tonight.

You sat in the passenger seat, the rhythmic sound of the engine almost soothing, yet there was a tightness in the air that neither of you spoke about.

The hunt had gone well—too well, maybe.

You'd cleared out a nest of vampires without much resistance, and now you were just heading back to the motel. Dean hadn’t said much since the last fight, just the usual banter as you prepped and packed up the gear.

But something had shifted, an unspoken change that was hard to ignore.

You couldn’t help but glance at him every now and then, your heart doing that thing it always did when Dean was close. You tried to convince yourself it was just the adrenaline, the rush of the hunt, but deep down, you knew it wasn’t.

It was Dean. He had this way about him—this charisma that pulled you in, made you want to be around him, laugh with him, fight alongside him.

And sometimes, when he looked at you just a little too long, your chest would tighten with the familiar ache.

Then... there was the age difference.

Dean was in his mid-thirties, had seen things, done things. His history was a complicated mess, filled with more pain and loss than most people would ever know. You... you were young. A decade younger.

And Dean—he was Dean. Confident, sarcastic, always one step ahead. He didn’t exactly wear his feelings on his sleeve, and you had never been able to figure him out.

You didn’t know if he saw you as a partner, a teammate, a kid who could help with the job, or something more. That uncertainty gnawed at you.

"You wanna stop for some food?" Dean’s voice broke through your thoughts, rough but gentle, his eyes flicking to you for just a second before returning to the road.