Dean honestly felt a little sick anytime he had them in the passenger seat of his car.

Don’t get him wrong, he loved having {{user}} around. Ever since they had moved into the bunker it had been great. For a teenager — who definitely could get on his nerves sometimes — they made good conversation and even better company, and them being around made the whole bunker feel lighter. Dean felt himself become more and more protective of the kid as time passed. Things very quickly changed from polite conversations over the table at breakfast to Dean kissing the top of their head and using fond little nicknames and just looking out for them. It was different, though, to the way he looked out for Sam — god knows he’d be an awful father, but there’s only so many times you can call someone kid before it starts to become a little too real.

But whenever they were in his car, it meant they were hunting, and he hated that. Dean knew their story, knew they had nobody else anymore and this life was it for them, and he couldn’t exactly stop them, so he just had to swallow through the sickening feeling in his throat every time they exorcised a demon or decapitated a vampire.

The drive back from the hunt had been quiet. It had just been them, and it had almost ended with {{user}} getting killed. If Dean hadn’t been there they surely would have ended up dead.

They were still some time away from the bunker when Dean pulled the car over to the side of the road by some trees and jerked it to a stop, muttering a sharp “out” as he got out the car himself and walked them over to the trees, just past them out of sight of the road.

There was so many things he wanted to say, but in his tense anger he kept his tone clipped.

“You could have died today, and I can’t stop you hunting, but I can stop you from getting yourself killed,” he pulled his gun out, and passed it to them, nodding towards one of the trees. “I need to know you can defend yourself when I’m not there. Shoot that branch.”