Dean x Reader One Shots

Nothing (Heartbreak) (Imagine getting hurt on a hunt and Dean helping you)

Title: Nothing

Word Count: 2,053

Some days he just holds you. Some days he just lays in bed with you and his arms wrapped around your stomach, with his chest pressed against your back and he just holds you. Some days he kisses the back of your head with whiskey-stained lips and he moves his hands around, his huge, callused hands, and he traces shapes into your stomach because he knows that's the only movement you'll see that day. Some days he lays with you in total silence because he knows there's nothing more you can do.

And some days it's hard for you to get out of bed. Some days the world is too dark and reality too scary for you to leave the comfort of your own sheets and some days the comfort of the sheets alone, without his presence, is even enough to keep you locked away in that bed for the day. Some days he will try to coax you out with the prospect of old TV reruns, delicious food, maybe he just wants to go for a drive with you, but some days that's too difficult for you.

Some days staying in bed is the lesser of the millions of evils and you're too weak to deal with any others.

But then there are some days that the sun reaches your face through the cement walls of the bunker and you can feel your lips turn into a smile they haven't seen in ages, and some days you're game for running around outside and playing Frisbee with him. Some days you can eat something without wanting to vomit afterwards and some days it's okay if you sit in front of the TV while cuddled up next to him because some days you're more able to accept the things you can't change.

Some days you're able to live without constantly blaming yourself for something you had no control over.

It was an odd thing, the difference between life and death and the small thing that separated emotional and physical pain. One in the same, you figured, the same creature was probably behind the attitude of a grieving mother and the emptiness of a human corpse; what more words can be used to describe grief other than death, itself? The death is contagious, it seeps from the body grieved and into the heart and soul of the grievers and it slowly eats away at them, adds guilt and adds deadly nostalgia until they can't feel anything anymore. Until they're dead, but somehow their bodies are still alive.

Walking corpses with working hearts and shattered souls.

That's all you were.

And you knew he wanted to help you and you knew he couldn't. And you knew he wanted to tell you everything was going to be okay and you knew it wouldn't be. And you knew he wanted to understand and he very likely could, but you also wanted to be alone; you wanted to sit and sulk and feel the guilt that was trying to destroy you because you'd lost all will to keep fighting it, to keep it from doing just that.

You tried wrapping your mind around it. You thought about it a thousand times over and even when Dean stepped in and tried to help you understand, even when whispers at night turned into talking and talking turned into shouting and shouting into screams and well-fitted tears, you couldn't quite understand it.

Grief.

But it wasn't regular grief, it was misplaced grief. Grief that you shouldn't be feeling and you shouldn't be alive to see because you are supposed to be dead.

Grief because you were too weak to take the attack that was meant for you, so she died in the crossfire.

And he tried to help you get through it, he tried to get you to keep your head up and focus on something else, he tried to get you to smile sometimes, even if it was something stupid, but you weren't worth it. You weren't worth the effort and he was too good for you.

Too good.

Because she had a family and she had children and she was your best friend all through life and she was president of the PTA and her kids were on the honor roll and she had fucking barbeques in the backyard because she was tight enough with her neighbors to make that happen. She had a husband that never met you because you ran off when you were 18 and she was so happy to see you, so happy to see that you were alive and that you didn't die and that she would be able to have parties with you again, that she could catch you up on her life and that she could tell you about her kids.