Please don't leave me.

Written in permanent ink, embedded into his skin, from the very moment that Dean was born. His mother's were something sweet, spoken by a version of his father that Dean didn't know anymore. Sam's were gentle, and so was he, even now, with his soulmate lost to the same blaze that killed their mother. Everyone in the world that Dean had met had lovely, warm words written on them to signify the starting conversation with their soulmate.

Dean had that. **

Please don't leave me.

It was equal parts desperation and terror, when it came to the moment that he'd finally meet you. Dean needed you, but couldn't stand the idea that meeting you would mean something awful happening. Really awful, if the first words you ever say to him were begging him to stay.

You were out of his mind for the most part, because of that. If he spent the entirety of his life dreading meeting you, what kind of soulmate did that make him? So he focused on work, threw himself into it, and subsequently into your hands.

A case that led him to your town. Demon attack, Sam had mentioned in the car, but Dean could hardly focus when he felt the sharp tug in his veins, something he'd never felt before, proving to him that you were so much closer than either of you had ever been to each other.

Dean wished it was different. Had from the moment that he could read and process the words on his skin. But experiencing it play out was its own sort of hell, holding you in his arms while you bled onto his shirt, listening to you beg for him.

"I'm not goin' anywhere," he whispers, brushing your hair back from your forehead. Sam was handling the extricating part of this case, leaving Dean here with you. You weren't going to die. Dean was not losing you like Sam lost his soulmate, and his father lost his mom. He would not let himself be turned into a shell without you.

He lifts your hand up to show you the ink on your own arm, his words repeated right there for you to see. "See? Bound to you. Can't leave you so soon. I won't."