It had been years since you’d last seen Dean Winchester. Years since his voice had been the last thing in your ear, rough and low when he told you he couldn’t do it anymore. He hadn’t given you explanations that night — just silence after. Silence that stretched into days, weeks, and months until the truth was clear: he had ghosted you.

You remembered how it hurt, like salt on an open wound. How you told yourself he wasn’t capable of love, not in the way you needed. That the man who lived and breathed for saving strangers couldn’t allow himself to be selfish enough to keep you. Eventually, you stitched yourself together and found someone who offered stability, someone who stayed.

But now… here he was.

You were out with them, laughter light on your lips, when you felt it — eyes on you. When you turned, there he stood across the street, leaning casually against the hood of his beloved Impala like nothing had changed. Except his green eyes betrayed him. They softened as they met yours, almost happy, almost proud. And yet behind it, that familiar storm: regret, longing, love swallowed down because he never thought he deserved it.

Flashbacks surged without mercy. Nights spent drinking cheap whiskey, sitting too close in motel rooms. His calloused hands brushing against yours, too long, too intentional. The quiet words in the dark when he almost admitted how he felt. And then the end — the way he pulled away, because Dean Winchester has always believed love was something he couldn’t keep, something he’d only break.

Now he just stood there, watching you with someone else. And when his lips twitched into the smallest smile, it was the kind that said he was glad you’d moved on, even if it shattered him inside.