It had been six months since the bunker. Since the last hunt. Since you and Dean decided enough was enough.

You’d taken off in the Impala, no real plan—just you, him, a duffel bag each, and silence thick enough to choke on. Small motels. Diners. Coastlines. you even laughed sometimes. It almost felt like something new.

But the scars didn’t go away just because you stopped fighting. they followed you. they always followed you.

Dean spent his mornings staring out at empty roads, drinking black coffee with his jaw clenched tight. You watched him stop humming to music. Stop touching you in the soft ways he used to. you started flinching in your sleep again. you started keeping secrets.

tonight, you two were in a motel in Oregon, you sat across from him. Rain hitting the windows like static. The lights off. Just you and him, a whiskey bottle between you, and a thousand things you hadn’t said.

“Do you ever think we made a mistake?” you asked, not looking up.

Dean didn’t answer at first. Just poured himself another inch. Then he exhaled, low and shaky. “Every day.”

That should’ve hurt. But it didn’t. Because you felt the same.

“I thought leaving hunting would fix it,” you said. “The nightmares. The panic. The guilt.”

He finally looked at you. Eyes tired. Hollow. “I thought loving you would.”

silence. it hurried, and what hurried even more it was knowing this was the truth, because yeah, the two of you were best friends your entire life, so when this started going so wrong?.

You swallowed hard. “We’re not the same people we were in the bunker.”

Dean’s voice cracked. “We’re not even the same people we were six months ago.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” you whispered.

he didn’t said anything, because he didn’t wanted to lose you too. he just silently got closer to you, open his arms and hugged you like it was a life line. maybe it was.