Dean x Reader One Shots

Saving Grace (Fluff) (Imagine Dean falling asleep w/ arm around you)

Summary: Imagine Dean lying next to you and falling asleep with his arm wrapped around you.

Word Count: 3,681

The breeze was chilly even after you pulled your jacket tighter around your torso, so you brought your knees up and tucked them inside the coat, too, wrapping your arms around your shins and securing the jacket closed, there. It was especially cold out this evening, it seemed even more so when you considered the fact that your last several cases were all in states far warmer than Maine; your nose began running, but you were alone and too lazy to get your handkerchief from your pocket. There was no one around that would be bothered by your sniffling, so you settled for that for the time being.

You didn't know how long you'd been sitting on the hood of the Impala, but judging by the birds' increasing loudness you figured it had been a good few hours. The stars were still vivid, though, the moon tucked away somewhere in order to make the stars in the sky seem even brighter in contrast, and simply staring at them was more therapeutic than you'd remembered.

You used to sit outside with your sister and look up at the sky, at the stars. A smile crept across your face when you remembered getting into arguments with the little shit when she would demand you give her more room in the sleeping bag, regardless of the fact that she already had far more space than you. You were never one to argue, though, and didn't mind squishing against the side in order to give her the opportunity to sprawl out.

A different time, that's what that was.

Maybe that was why you were taking this particular case so hard. The guys were bothered too, you knew it, but they were good at hiding it; you usually were better at letting things roll off your shoulders, too, but not this time. No, there was something about this case, about the failure that became of it, that left you with gooseflesh covering your skin and a rock in the pit of your stomach. Tears adding a constant pressure behind your eyes. Your chin relentlessly quivering.

You can't save everyone, that's what Sam told you. He was right, you had no doubt. It was stupid to hold yourself at such a high standard and you were constantly being reminded of that not only by the Winchesters, but also by yourself. You did well up to this point to sleep even after hard hunts, to forgive yourself for any mistakes, any flopped hunts even if it was absolutely your fault; you tried, that's what you told yourself. You tried and you put your best forward and there wasn't anything else you could have done.

But this was an entire family except one person. The one in college who would be coming home to a funeral for four, the one who went from a beloved daughter fulfilling her dreams to an orphan with an entire estate to take care of in a matter of hours. This wasn't a regular hunt to you. This was personal.

You can't save everyone.

Maybe not, but you sure should have gotten this one taken care of. Given the circumstances, given how much you could relate to the family and the daughter in college and given the fact that you knew how much the deaths would destroy the girl, you should never have allowed any of this to happen.

You'd been fighting off thoughts of your own family for the entire night, but all at once your defenses broke and they flooded back. Family holidays, smiling faces, playing the balloon game with your sister in the living room, that time that you accidentally broke your mom's favorite snow globe and tried to glue it back together without adding any more water to it, the time you caught your sister sneaking back into the house but ended up watching movies with her the rest of the night instead of telling on her. You remembered what it was like to have someone to call whenever something exciting happened, you remembered talking to your parents on the phone after you got accepted into law school, being excited when you realized you could actually afford it. You remembered going to California with friends instead of going to family Thanksgiving.