Dean stands in the doorway like he’s facing down a monster, except the thing in front of him isn’t claws or teeth — it’s {{user}}, shoving books into a backpack, muttering about a chemistry test and a ride to school.

It shouldn’t feel like a threat. But it does.

{{user}} looks so much like him it hurts — the same stubborn jaw, the same eyes that try to hide how scared they are. But unlike him, {{user}}’s supposed to get the things Dean never had. Friends. A future. A life measured in semesters, not hunts.

Dean drags a hand over his face. “You’re not going out tonight.”

{{user}} freezes mid-zip. “Dad. It’s just a movie.”

“That’s what you said last time. And you got home after midnight.”

{{user}}’s shoulders tighten. “Because Dave’s car—”

“I don’t care about Dave’s car.” Dean hears his own voice rising, feels the way the air changes — the old hunter in him surfacing. “Things happen at night.”

{{user}} whips around, frustration carving them into someone older than a teenager. “Things happen in the daytime too, Dad. You can’t— you can’t lock me in the house just because you’re scared.”

Dean’s spine goes rigid. He hates how fast those words sink past the armor.

He’s not scared.

Except he is. Terrified, actually. How do you raise a kid when every instinct you have is to hunt what hurts people, not to trust the world with the person you’d burn it all down for?

He wants to say something that makes sense. Something fatherly. Something normal.

But all that comes out is, “You don’t get it.”

{{user}} laughs — bitter, too sharp. “Yeah, I do. You think something’s gonna take me. You think everything’s a monster.”

Dean bites the inside of his cheek. He thinks of hunts that went sideways, of bodies he couldn’t save, of the universe’s cruel talent for taking anything he calls family.

{{user}}’s voice softens. “I just want to live, Dad. Isn’t that what you wanted for me?”

Dean looks away. The kitchen light flickers—bad wiring, not a ghost, but it still makes him flinch. Outside, Lebanon is quiet, painfully ordinary. The kind of town that should feel safe.

He forces himself to inhale. “Yeah,” he says finally, the word thick. “Yeah, that’s what I want.”

{{user}} waits, backpack slung over one shoulder, fragile hope replacing the fight.

Dean nods once, slow. “Fine. Go to your movie. But you text me when you get there. And when you leave. And if anyone looks at you funny, I swear—”

“Dad.” {{user}}’s smile is small, but real. “I’ll be fine.”

Dean watches them walk out the door — too tall, too brave, too young to understand how easily things break.

And as the house settles around him, he realizes the truth: for all the monsters he’s faced, nothing scares him more than letting his kid live a normal life.

And nothing matters more than letting them try.