Dean's lips were insistent on yours as he ran his hands through your hair. He was slow and lingering, kissing you like he had all the time in the world, like neither of you had anywhere else to be. He was surrounded by you, wrapped up in your embrace.

You pulled back and smiled at him.

"We have to stop meeting like this," you teased.

"No, we don't," he replied and gathered you in again, running his tongue lightly along your lips, tracing the curve of them. You pushed back gently, keeping your hand on his chest.

"Dean."

He shook his head at you, covering your hand with his own.

"You have to wake up."

"No. Don't go. Don't go," he said quietly. You moved close to his ear, your hair brushing against his cheek, and he shut his eyes.

"Wake up, Dean."

Dean brought his hand hard and fast over his phone, slamming into it and finding the 'dismiss' button, stopping the shrill chirping of the alarm. It was the only way he was able to wake now, without you beside him. He slept until noon most days, sometimes not able to drag his feet from the bed at all. He moved now, though, letting his booted feet hit the floor. The taste of dream root lingered in his mouth and he washed it away with a long pull of whiskey from his flask.

He looked at his phone, still blinking even though it was silent now. Six missed calls, and that voicemail icon that had been lingering there accusatorially for about three days now…or was it a week? He sat heavily at the motel room's small table and dialed into his mailbox while he rubbed at his bleary eyes.

"Dean, it's me. Can you just call me when you get this? Send a carrier pigeon? Anything. I caught word about that nest you cleared out, man. It's too much. It sounds like you're getting out of control again. Just…call me."

Dean pressed a button on his phone.

"Message deleted." There were three more, all very similar, all went deleted as well until the icon disappeared. Dean stood and walked stiffly out of his room towards the lobby, waiting until the overweight man at the desk turned his attentions to him.

"Another week," Dean said, putting some cash down on the counter.

"Good idea to hunker down right now with the storm coming," the man said, beginning to type at his computer.

"What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Rain. There's a big rain storm coming. It's supposed to be bad," he replied. Dean ran a hand over his face. Not rain. Not a storm, not now.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. He pulled the cash back towards him and pocketed it. "Never mind. I'm checking out. Now."

"Scared of a storm?" the man joked, but stopped immediately under the look Dean gave him. Scared wasn't the right word.

Not fifteen minutes later, Dean was back in the Impala, gunning it down the two-lane road, unsure of where the hell he was going. He felt tired. Sleeping with dream root didn't lend itself much to the way of actual rest. Dean thought to himself that he wouldn't mind having a dreamless sleep, one that he didn't have to wake up from.

Death, he thought wryly. That's called death.

It was that thought alone, the thought that he wasn't actively trying to kill himself but that he wouldn't mind just not being alive anymore, that pushed him to take the next turn onto the highway and head home for the first time in a year.

It felt strange to be going back, traveling those same roads without having to think about it; the muscle memory helping him drive by habit, leaving the dark storm clouds behind him, flashing lightning in the distance. Dean pulled up in front of the bunker, unchanged, and knocked on the door around eight that night. It felt strange to knock, but he felt it would be stranger not to after so long away.

Sam answered the door hesitantly, pulling it open a few inches at first. Dean noticed him put his gun away quickly, his face melting into a look of relief as he recognized the haggard face of his older brother. He pulled him into a tight hug, but Dean kept his arms at his side, his face expressionless.

"It's good to see you," Sam said, putting him at arm's length and taking in the sight of him. If he was shocked by what he saw, he gave no indication. Dean clenched his jaw and walked past Sam, down the stairs and looked around.

"See you've kept the place up," he remarked as he made it to the bottom.

"Yeah. Yeah. It's weird to be here alone, it was really weird at first. It feels a lot bigger when you're the only one here," he said. Dean nodded. "Are you…I mean, are you back for good, or…"

"I'm not staying," Dean replied, his back turned to Sam.

Sam shifted a bit on his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you came tonight."

Dean let out a breath through his nose, closing his eyes.

Grey dust was settling in the air, his ears ringing from the explosion. He ran to it, heart pounding harder than it ever had. He searched through the debris to find you…lying motionless. Your eyes were glazed, back broken…everything broken. Thunder rumbled outside distantly. A storm coming.

"Dean, we have to go." Your strangled words, your chest moving almost imperceptibly, working towards its last breath until…

Dean cleared his throat and shouldered his duffel bag a little higher up.

"Yeah. Me too," he said.

He walked through the library and down the hall, unable to wait for Sam to say anymore about it, afraid he might bolt back through the door if he did. Sam followed a few paces behind as Dean came to a stop in front of his old room, standing in the doorway and looking in.

His leather jacket was hanging now on the back of the desk chair, and the mess he'd left was cleaned up, the photos he'd ripped from the walls stacked neatly on the nightstand. But everything else was the same.

"I didn't do much," Sam said behind him. "I didn't want to throw anything out."

Dean laughed humorlessly, shaking his head slightly.

"What?" Sam asked.

"You didn't have that problem with her body, though, did you?" Dean asked, and walked into the room, shutting the door behind him.

He ventured out about an hour later, finding Sam sitting in the library, just as he had that night a year ago. He nearly stopped, overwhelmed with the memory of it, crawling under his skin; a parasite. But he continued on and sat across from his brother. Sam poured him a glass of whiskey to match his own, and pushed it towards Dean. Neither spoke about the exchange in front of Dean's room, sitting in silence for a moment as they sipped their drinks.

"Have you seen Cas?" Sam asked when the quiet became too heavy.

"No," Dean replied. "Not since…"

"Since you broke his nose?" Dean was silent. "He wouldn't have been able to help. The fact that you were able to break his nose at all showed that."

Dean took another swig of his drink and set it down in front of him, turning the glass around on the wooden table. Sam waited but Dean said nothing, so he tried again.

"I can't believe it's been a year," he said quietly.

"Sam." Dean said sharply, looking at him with heavy eyes. "Can we skip the whole reminiscing thing? Just don't."

Sam stared at his brother a moment before nodding. Dean drank the rest of his glass in one go, draining it before standing up once more. He couldn't do this.

"Hey, man. Don't go. We can talk about something else," Sam implored.

"I'm tired, Sammy. I drove all day. I'm going to bed, we can catch up tomorrow," Dean said, and walked away before Sam could argue.

He got to his room, shutting the door before going to rummage through his bag for his dream root.

"Dammit," he muttered, pulling out the empty bag. He hadn't been out in weeks; he hadn't been paying attention. Had other things on his mind. Like the date. It was the only way he'd been able to see you, though. The only way he'd been sleeping.

He eyed that old leather jacket on the desk chair and wondered… He walked to it, clutching it in his hands, and brought it to his face, breathing in deeply. Barely perceptible, but there you were. Your shampoo, your smell still clinging to it. He had to back up and sit down on the edge of the bed as he held it in his shaking hands. He pulled it swiftly on, wrapping it tightly around himself, and glanced over at the stack of photos sitting nearby.

There was that smile of yours shining up at him, the one that sent an ache through Dean that nothing else compared to. The top photo was the two of you sitting in his car, your arm stretched out in front to take it, and he could feel that familiar lump rising in his throat, sticking there painfully.

"Hey, baby," he whispered, touching his finger to the corner of the picture. His vision blurred with tears and he wiped at them, turning away.

He went back to his bag and pulled your ipod from it; he'd kept it charged every day, scrolling through it like a habit. His thumb lingered over the playlist you'd marked 'Dean', trembling so close to pressing it, finally seeing what songs you'd picked for him. A playlist for everything. But he scrolled on. He couldn't open it; he knew how the songs inside would be ruined for him if he did. They would send him reeling if he were to hear them in a Gas'n'Sip some inconsequential Tuesday, or in some small-town's convenience store. He just couldn't do it.

He laid down in bed, on top of the covers, holding the ipod in his hands, and sank into his first sleep without the aid of dream root in months, thinking as he drifted off how easy it had actually been.

"Dean." He turned. He would always respond to that voice, he had no other choice.

"Y/N. What are you doing here?" he asked. He was used to seeing a glow around you when he dreamed, fuzzy on the edges. That had been happening for a few months now and he worried it meant he was losing your memory. But here, now, you were as sharp as ever. Almost real.

"You tell me. This is your dream, dummy," you smiled at him.

"I can't dream of you without the dream root," he insisted.

"Guess you can," you shrugged. "You've been working that lucid dreaming muscle of yours. Highly underrated muscle in guys," you continued with a wink and a grin. Dean shook his head.

"God, I miss you."

"I'm still around."

"No. You're not. One god damn year and it still hurts the same."

"Hey. It'll get easier," you said, bringing your hand to cup his face. He leaned into it; the only thing he ever wanted, the only thing he ever had. "I swear it will. Remember that with every piece of you."

"That's the problem," he said, taking your hand in his own. "I'm in pieces. I don't want it to get easier. I want you."

"Dean," you said softly.

"I'm constantly on the edge of losing it, Y/N. What do I do? What do I do without you?" he asked, voice thick with unshed tears.

"Well, for one, you stop living in the shadows. You stop killing yourself," you said firmly. Dean watched you, unblinking, taking in as much of you as he could. He lived for these short, dreaming moments. Though you'd never been this harsh with him.

"And you have to let me go," you said.

"No." He squeezed your hand a little tighter. His dreaming heart beat wildly at the thought. You'd never told him this before. He didn't want this. "I won't do that. Not ever. What's my other option here?"

"You could wait for me to come home."

Dean shook his head, feeling tears streak down his face. "You're not coming home. So what do I do?" he asked again, more desperate.

You leaned forward and kissed him, pressing your lips to his firmly as he shut his eyes as tightly as he could, trying to hold onto you, trying to get to you somehow. He held onto the feeling of your lips, missing it like a place he was homesick for. It was a place he knew so deeply within himself that all roads led back to his own beating heart. A tear ran quickly down his face.

You pulled away, wrapping your hand around the nape of his neck, and brought your lips to his ear. He knew what you were going to say and his stomach twisted at the thought. It was too soon. He didn't want to hear you telling him to wake up; it was his least favorite part of every night.

Your lips brushed against his ear.

"Make a wish," you whispered.

Dean bolted upright in bed, sweating. He was always too hot, always, without you beside him. He was shaking; he'd never had a dream end like that. He'd never had a talk with you like that. He rubbed his hand over his face roughly. He needed more dream root.

He scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and looked around to see that he'd knocked your ipod off the bed in his startling awakening.

"Dammit." He got down on his knees and looked underneath, seeing it just under the bed beside an old photo of the two of you. Sam must have missed one. Dean pulled both items out; the photo had collected some dust, but he knew it well. It was your birthday, both of you in front of the cake he'd baked you. The photo had been in a frame once, before he'd thrown it against the wall and shattered it to pieces. He moved to rub it against his shirt to dust it off and noticed writing on the back. He turned it over in his hands and his breath caught as he took in your handwriting, dark and deliberate there in sharpie.

Make a wish

That hadn't been there before. Had it? He would have remembered; he'd been the one to put the photo in a frame as a gift for you. But it couldn't be new and he couldn't remember you ever having taken it out later to write on the back. He ran his thumb over the letters.

Dean glanced at his watch, lighting it up in his dark room. A little after eleven. He stood, thinking he'd find Sam and ask him; waking up if he needed to. He'd ask him why the hell he hadn't seen this photo when he'd cleaned up, if he'd noticed it at all. He started towards the door, but nearly tripped over his own feet when he saw the silhouette standing in the shadows by the door, and heard a voice he knew very well.

"Hello, Dean."