Dean x Reader One Shots

Three Nights (Fluff) (Imagine Dean telling you his greatest fear)

Title: Three Nights

Word Count: 3,853

This was the third night Dean woke with a jolt, cold sweat lining his brow. This was the third night you'd asked him whether he was okay, told him you were worried that the Mark might still have some slight effect on him since the last time you'd seen him so distraught was when he was still plagued by the beast. This was the third night he denied it, got himself some water, then crawled back into bed.

In no world would this have not been a big deal. In no world would the way that he wrapped his arm around your stomach, the way that his thumbs caressed the wide scar he'd given you years ago, the way you felt his nose nuzzle in the back of your neck while his legs wrapped around, between, among your own, have not been a big deal. His breath was especially sporadic immediately after his jerking awake and you knew the only reason he went out to get a cup of water was because he needed to get his breathing back under control. He didn't want to worry you, that was him, but he should know by now that worrying was what you did. Worrying was your job.

So this particular night, with Dean's arms pulled around your stomach, his bare chest pressed to the back of your tank top while his fingers reached out and intertwined with yours, you elected not to let him breathe softly down your neck until you fell back asleep. One time asking if he was okay, one simple response that yes, he was, was not going to be it. Three strikes.

"Dean?"

He groaned a type of 'hmm?' back to you, his voice just as soft as yours had been. His eyes were likely closed, he was trying to sleep, but you could tell from the slight quivering of his hands and arms that he was still freaked out about something. His body was always his tell, little things he couldn't easily write off.

"Are you okay?"

"I just need to stop drinking before I got to bed," his words were slow, slurred, and you knew his mind was still off, not entirely connected to the conversation from the sole fact that he hadn't even had a lick of alcohol in the last month. He had been trying to stop, especially after everything that happened, and you'd managed to guilt him into it. You only had fifty or so years left on the earth under good circumstances; you weren't about to let the man drink himself off a few years early. "Nothing to worry about."

"You didn't drink, Dean."

"Overtired."

"That wouldn't wake you up."

You felt Dean readjust, unhooking his fingers from yours in order to slip his hands down and up from the bottom of your tank top; his hands were cold, rough when they spread out and felt the entirety of the scar that engulfed a majority of your stomach and you felt your eyebrows scrunch together when he pulled you even closer to him. He was gentle, almost frighteningly so, but never took his hands from the scar. Dean's fingers moved every once in a while, the calluses on his palms from years of fighting, knife work, shooting adding an additional level of sensation that sent the hairs on your torso on edge; you felt some of the heavier scars on his thumbs, the ones that ended up causing small carvings to be forever indented into his skin, felt his hands begin to warm as they absorbed some of the heat from you. He was still breathing down your back, his nose pressed against the very bottom of your hairline when you turned your head and looked up toward the ceiling, disrupting his breathing and forcing him to pull his head back a bit.

"What's bothering you?"

"The fact that I'm not sleeping right now."

You straightened your head back out while rolling your eyes, pulling your hands up and pressing your palms against the tops of Dean's hands to weave your fingers in with his. You didn't squeeze especially hard, didn't try to force his hands from your stomach or, covertly, force him into a harsh conversation, but each of those things may have been your final goals. Softly, smoothly: that's how you knew you needed to ease into this.