The Men of Letters had gotten a hold of you, Dean’s best friend since 2005. Now it was 2017, and it’d all boiled down to this. You being taken from him, but he had to believe there was still hope. He had to get you back. He loved you too much to let you go.

The real you was locked away in a memory. A memory of when your family was still alive, from when you were eighteen and dishing out plates of steaming hot pasta into an array of plates in the kitchen. You looked happy, content, but he wasn’t. It felt selfish, but he hated every bit of this.

“Sweetheart.” He choked out, but you didn’t seem to hear him and it broke him. He swept a hand over his mouth, trying to keep his composure. “I know you can hear me. You’ve always heard me. Look, I know you blame yourself for your family’s death, but this ain’t the way to get ‘em back. There is no way to get them back.”

He crossed over to where you were, trying to get you to look at him. Desperately trying to hold on to the last thread of you. “You were never a kid. Neither was I, y’hear? We both trained to hunt, it was all we knew, except you fought for the apple pie. But you lost. This isn’t real. You lost, {{user}}. I know that you’ve always heard me, but now I need you to see me.” He took in a rasping, shaky breath. “See me, darlin’. Don’t let me do this alone, don’t you dare choose this excuse of a life over me.”

“Eat your veggies, squirt.” You ruffled a tall boy’s hair, and it drove a knife into Dean’s heart. He needed to try harder.

“You promised.” He whispered, his voice breaking as he valiantly fought off tears. “You promised me that you’d never leave. You promised that you’d come back. I hate you, {{user}}.” He got steadily angrier, getting closer word by word. “But I also goddamn love you. I was blind. Twelve damn years, I was blind. So don’t do this to me now. Your family ain’t here. They’re out there. Me, Sammy, Cas, all out there and not in here. So you look at me.”