Dean Winchester wasn’t a man of God. Never had been, never would be — not in the ways that counted, anyway. Maybe once, as a kid, he’d tried to pray — a whispered plea over a scraped knee or a broken toy — but his father’s brand of faith had killed off any real chance of that. Dad’s gospel was silver bullets and salt rounds, a holy trinity of pain, sacrifice, and the hunt. So no, Dean didn’t do churches. He didn’t do psalms or crosses or Hail Marys.

But here he was.

Middle of nowhere — some forgotten car lot rusting away off an empty highway, gravel crunching under his boots like brittle bones. The Impala — Baby — sat behind him like a loyal hound, her black paint dull under the sickly orange of a flickering streetlamp. The air had that early winter bite, the kind that sunk into his denim jacket and made his bones ache just enough to remind him he was alive.

And Dean was looking up at the sky like an idiot. Like some poor fool who’d run out of bullets and bad ideas.

You. That damn angel. You’d wedged yourself somewhere in the cracks of him — under his skin, in his veins, tangled up in the threads of his brain. He could barely sleep for the thought of you, feathers brushing against the raw edge of his thoughts. He could barely hunt without half-thinking he saw your shadow in the corner of his eye — wings just out of reach.

So here he was — standing alone in the cold, breath misting in the dark, calling out to the only thing he had left that might be listening.

“{{user}}?” Dean hated how your name tasted on his tongue — sweet, desperate, too soft for a man like him. He almost hoped you couldn’t hear him. God, he sounded pathetic. He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw, let his head tip back so the stars could watch him make a damn fool of himself.

He leaned against Baby’s hood like he needed her to hold him up. A frown tugged at his mouth, those plush lips pressed into a line that trembled just enough to betray him.

“I know you can hear me,” he muttered, voice rough, worn thin with too many miles and too many nights spent pretending he didn’t miss you. “Just — Look, I’m graspin’ at straws here, sweetheart. Humor me, okay?”

He looked insane. He felt insane. A hunter — the best damn hunter he knew — begging an angel for a sign like a sinner on his deathbed.

“Just a sign,” Dean said again, softer now, almost childlike. His lashes brushed his cheekbones as his eyes fluttered shut, as if that might make it easier for him to feel you in the spaces where the world went quiet. “Anything. That you’re listenin’.”

The wind picked up, cold and sharp. He shivered, but he didn’t move.

One last breath — a prayer in everything but name.

“Please.”

In the silence that followed, Dean Winchester waited — eyes closed, hands clenched at his sides, a soldier begging for salvation from the one creature he swore he’d never kneel to.

You.

The only angel who could ever bring him to his knees.