Dean Winchester was a family man. He always had been. Even when his family was only his baby brother, he threw everything he had into it. Then when his family grew, when the young and beautiful y/n joined it, his heart grew, he cared for that small and broken family even more.
Y/n fit into that family as if she was born into it. She loved both of the Winchesters as fiercely as if they were her own brothers, she knew she'd give her life for them in an instant.
And as family goes, they struggled together, and they grew together and they learned and fought and cried and laughed and loved together.
At the beginning, Dean was constantly telling himself it was too good to be true, that he should avoid attachment and that y/n would only end up dead, just like his mother, like his father, like Kevin and Charlie and Bobby and Ellen and Jo. But then he got caught up in the moment. Y/n became such a part of their family and a part of their hearts that he couldn't avoid it any longer. Sam loved her too much. Dean eventually realized he did too.
Up against good, evil, angels, devils, even God himself, they made their own choice.
They chose family.
But maybe, just maybe, family does end in blood.
It was a hunt like any other. At least, they thought it was. It began, at least, as just another battle against evil. But this time they got cocky. Y/n ended up left alone in the car, while Sam and Dean finished off what should've been simply three average demons. Nothing they couldn't handle.
Unfortunately, there happened to be a fourth. This one was smarter. It could sense the boys' need to protect, and where it was aimed. It discovered y/n, alone and helpless in the car.
Dean had always loved his car. It was his most prized possession, an unhealthy amount of his time was spent on its care and upkeep. But after he saw its insides coated in y/n's still warm blood, after he saw the window broken by the demon breaking into rip out the heart of the girl he loved before she knew she was the girl he loved, he could never see the Impala the same way again. He couldn't stand sitting on the seat where she'd been carved open, or seeing the windshield that had been painted with her blood. He couldn't stand being in the same place where she'd been slain, the last word out of her mouth a desperate cry of his own name, a desperate cry he never heard.
Dean Winchester was a family man. At least he used to be. But a man can only lose his family so many times before it loses him.