The thing about monsters, Dean’s learned, is that the quiet ones are never the problem.

It’s the ones who get comfortable—sloppy, satisfied—that leave a trail you can follow with your eyes half-closed and a hangover splitting your skull. Three weeks of drained bodies, torn throats cleaned up just enough to be deliberate, not feral.

Three weeks of late-night stakeouts and witnesses who all said the same thing: no struggle, no screams; just smiles frozen stiff on dead faces. Dean steps out of the tree line with the weight of the night pressing in around him, boots crunching softly against gravel and bone, machette ready in his hand.

He doesn’t rush: rush gets you killed.

You’re exactly where he expected you to be; right there beside the latest corpse, sprawled out like a bad crime scene photo. The body’s still warm, blood drying dark and tacky against the dirt. Not torn apart but used. Dean’s eyes flick to your mouth, your hands, the way your posture is relaxed, almost lazy, like you’ve just finished a good meal and might light a cigarette if you had one.

No guilt, no hunger left clawing at you, just that unsettling calm that makes his jaw tighten. Monsters aren’t supposed to look… content.

He shifts his stance, widening it slightly, grounding himself the way John and Bobby taught him; control the room, control the outcome. His gaze drags over you, cataloguing details without thinking: no visible injuries, no panic, no rush to flee. You’re not running, that alone tells him more than most autopsy reports ever could.

A vampire who doesn’t bolt when a hunter shows up means one of two things—either you’re arrogant, or you’re waiting. Dean swallows, breath steady, pulse loud in his ears. He’s killed vampires before, plenty of them; but something about this scene crawls under his skin, sets off every instinct he has.

He takes another step closer, careful not to cross whatever invisible line you might’ve drawn for yourself, and tilts his head, eyes sharp but not wild. There’s a flicker of something in his expression; not sympathy, not mercy, but curiosity edged with frustration.

He’s tired: tired of the hunt, tired of the blood, tired of monsters who don’t fit neatly into the boxes he was taught to shove them into. But tired or not, this is his job. And jobs don’t stop just because the monster looks pleased with themselves.

Dean tightens his grip on the machette, voice cutting through the night. “Funny thing is, I kept expecting you to run,” he says, tone low and even, eyes never leaving yours.

“So tell me—are you stupid, suicidal, or just really proud of yourself?”