Aberdeen, Ohio smelled wrong.

Dean noticed it the second he stepped out of the Impala, that coppery tang clinging to the night air like it had soaked into the asphalt itself. The case file had said animal attack at first, then cult; but he and Sam thought maybe a ghoul, maybe a wendigo, maybe something new wearing an old face.

Bodies found half-hidden along the outskirts of town, bones cracked open, meat torn away with hands instead of claws. No hex bags, no symbols, just pure hunger.

Dean had seen monsters do worse and he’d also seen humans do worse, and that was the part that crawled under his skin.

Days of canvassing turned up nothing useful. Locals shut down the moment the questions got specific, eyes sliding away when the word eaten came up; no one had seen anything, no one knew anything. The sheriff drank too much coffee and lied badly and Dean could feel the case slipping sideways, the way it always did when the rules stopped applying.

Whatever was doing this wasn’t sloppy—but it wasn’t clean either. It felt… personal. So that night, he took the Impala out alone, letting Sam go researches on his laptop.

He drove slow, windows cracked, radio off. Headlights cut through empty streets and stretches of woods where the trees leaned too close, branches clawing at the dark like they wanted something back. Dean followed instinct more than logic, the same pull that had guided him into trouble since he was a kid with a shotgun too big for his hands.

He passed the edge of town, tires crunching over gravel, until the smell hit again, stronger this time. Fresh. Like the blood was calling for him.

Dean killed the engine and listened; somewhere ahead, something wet tore and gave way. His hand tightened around the gun before he even realized it, boots hitting the ground without a sound. He moved through the trees like he’d done a thousand times before, breath steady, heart loud. Moonlight broke through the canopy just enough to show the shape ahead: human, unmistakably so.

You.

Almost crouched like an animal, but not transformed, not snarling. Just a person on their knees in the dirt, hands red, mouth stained darker than the shadows. A body lay slumped nearby, ribs opened like a door someone had forced too hard. The scene wasn’t frantic; it was intimate, reverent, almost.

Dean froze.

Every instinct screamed monster, but nothing else lined up. There was no glowing eyes, no teeth where teeth shouldn’t be. Just a human being eating another human being, like it was the only way they knew how to breathe. His chest tightened with something ugly and familiar—recognition. Was it need or guilt? Or only survival twisted into something unholy.

A branch snapped under his boot.

Your head snapped up, eyes wide and feral and terrified all at once, and Dean knew the moment had locked itself into place. Whatever you were, whatever this was, it wasn’t ending with a clean shot and a closed case file. This was the kind of wrong that stayed with you, like a sin graved into your bones.

Dean lowered the gun just enough to show he hadn’t fired yet, jaw clenched, voice rough when he finally spoke. “Easy,” he said quietly. “I’m not here to shoot you... unless you make me.”

“So tell me what the fuck is happenin' here?”

He waited, eyes never leaving yours, fully aware that whatever you said next was going to change everything he ever believed in.