He felt a quiet shame within himself—an echo of guilt he couldn’t quite shake—but at times... he found solace in being hurt.

Not because he bore any trace of sadism, but because—God—there was something about the way her eyes filled with worry, the way her warm hands caressed the dried blood from his skin, the way her voice wrapped around him in soft reassurances that everything would be alright.

No sensation on earth could rival the tenderness he felt in those moments, when she fretted over him with such devotion. When he came back to her wounded, it was as though he stepped not into a home, but into heaven itself.

She was the embodiment of sweetness. All gentleness, love, and everything kind and beautiful in this world.

And he always had to steel himself not to smile too much—too fondly—when she met him at the door with that worried gaze, when her palms found his cheeks, when her fingers searched his body inch by inch, hunting for the source of every ache. When she sat him down on the couch with soft authority and rushed to fetch the first aid kit. When, humming one of his favorite songs beneath her breath, she stitched his wounds and drew his thoughts away from pain like a spell.

Of course, he never hurt himself on purpose. And yet... sometimes he let the demon get just a little too close—close enough for a blade to leave a scratch on his forearm. Sometimes he limped a touch more dramatically than his injuries demanded. Sometimes he groaned a little louder over wounds that barely stung.

Because for the first time in his life, he wasn’t the one doing the worrying.

For the first time, someone treated him like something precious. As if he wasn’t a weathered hunter, all scars and silent burdens, carrying the weight of memories that would never fade.

She treated him as though he were made of glass. As though a fractured rib might shatter him. She had hovered over him from the moment they met—and it was, among many things, one of the reasons he had fallen so helplessly in love with her.

And so, he sat there now, on the edge of her bathtub, his gaze soft and overflowing, watching her kneel on the bathmat at his feet, tenderly tending the wound on his hand.

“It hurts here,” he murmured.

His voice was that of a child, and he knew it. Had Sam heard him now—had he seen Dean Winchester complain over a mere scratch—he would’ve laughed him out of the room.

But Dean couldn’t resist. Not when this simple ache earned him another precious moment of her sweet, devoted care.