Chapter Text
The emergency parking lot was full of cars but nearly empty of people. Ahead, a few nurses moved with the shift-change shuffle and visitors clung to each other in the glow of the entrance.
Back here, though, behind it all, Dean was alone.
He sat in the Impala with the engine off and his hands clenched tight around the wheel. He couldn’t let go, not yet. The silence in the car pressed in on him and his eyes burned from crying. He hadn’t meant to cry; honestly, the tears had caught him by surprise when he’d slid into the car. He’d managed to hold it together in the hospital, but the moment he’d slammed the door shut something inside him collapsed and the tears came.
Now, he was just empty. It felt like standing in the ashes of a house he was never allowed to build. Dean had harbored some idiotic hope that maybe, at the end, John would say ‘thank you,’ or ‘sorry,’ or ‘son,’ like everything he’d done had meant something. All he got was silence, and now there was only this weight in his chest and no words to shift it off so he could breathe.
The hospital smell still clung to his skin, so thick he could practically taste it in the confines of the car. It was antiseptic, sweat, and grief. One of the nurses had been kind enough to hand him a towel and point him toward the shower after his second day there. He’d scrubbed himself raw, but the place stuck to him. He couldn’t wash any of it away.
For three days, Dean had sat by John’s bedside and watched him fade. Dean hadn’t spoken, had been afraid to move lest even that small sound might be too loud. John had cursed at him the first day, calling him a slur, but then hadn’t talked again, not ever.
And still, Dean stayed, because that’s what you did for your family, even if the family in question had never, would never, do the same for you.
He wiped at his face with the sleeve of his jacket and took a breath. It took several more before he was able to pull himself together. The Impala’s old leather seat creaked beneath him, a small comfort and reminder of better times.
When he finally managed to unclench his hands, he reached for his phone and dialed Sam.
It rang twice before his brother answered. “Dean?”
His voice came out quiet and hollow. “Dad’s dead.”
There was a moment of silence and Dean checked to see if the call had been dropped, but then Sam finally spoke, “Good.”
Dean jerked back in his seat. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means maybe now you’ll live your life,” Sam said. He wasn’t cruel, just matter-of-fact, like they were talking about the weather.
“He was our father.”
“He may have been our father,” Sam said, “But he wasn’t a dad. You know who raised me? You did. You were the one who made dinner. You were the one who helped with homework. You were the one who took me to school when he was too drunk to drive.”
Dean bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to push back, wanted to argue, but honestly, he was just too tired. Besides, lashing out was what his dad would have done and Dean didn’t want to be like his dad.
Sam continued on. “He made your life smaller, Dean. And you let him because you kept hoping he’d come back around. You thought that the man he used to be, the man he was before Mom died, was still buried in there somewhere.”
Dean stared out of the windshield at the dull, heavy sky. “He did his best.”
There was a pause on the line, long enough to make him think Sam might let the comment slide.
“And his best fucked you up,” Sam said, voice hard and brittle. Then, quietly and almost tenderly he added, “The best thing he ever did for you was die.”
Dean flinched again at how easy those words came. It was like Sam had been waiting to say them. Sam had already made peace with their dad being dead while Dean was still peeling hospital wristbands off his arm.
“Don’t,” Dean said. He knew the more he protested, the more it sounded like he was admitting Sam was right.
And Sam was right; Dean knew that, but hearing it was like watching someone take a match to the only photo left after the fire.
He didn’t want to defend John. He was just trying to hold onto something that used to matter, it was something he’d bled for. Maybe it didn’t make sense. Maybe it never had. But it was his. And Sam letting go so easily felt like getting left behind all over again.
He swallowed. “I know he messed up, but he wasn’t always like this. He was a good man, before Mom—”
“I never met that man, Dean. If he existed, it was in your memories, not mine. I’m not trying to hurt you,” Sam said. “I just—Dean, you don’t owe him anymore. You don’t have to be the good son. Or the one who holds everything together. You can stop surviving and start… I don’t know. Living.”
Dean said nothing.
“Come to California,” Sam added. “Go back to school. Get a dog. Fall in love. Or don’t. Just… do something that’s yours.”
Dean still didn’t say anything. What could he even say? He hadn’t even thought about what he’d do after his dad was gone. All that had mattered for years was taking care of him. Thinking about what he might do when there was no John left to take care of was akin to wishing him dead.
“I love you,” Sam added, voice going soft around the edges, “I just wish you loved yourself, too.”
“You coming to the funeral?” Dean asked, his voice dull and tired.
“I’ll be there for you,” Sam said.
Dean nodded, then remembered Sam couldn’t see him. “Yeah. Thanks. I’ll let you know when.”
“Take care of yourself, Dean.”
The line went dead.
The silence that followed was heavier than the call. It was too quiet, without someone to worry about.
He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know how to want anything at all.
But he couldn’t sit here forever.
He turned the key and the Impala rumbled to life beneath him, steady and familiar. He could always count on Baby.
He pulled out of the parking lot with no real plan. He didn’t head home. He didn’t call anyone. He just drove. Dean didn’t have a purpose; he just needed motion. For years, he’d been taking care of his dad. He hadn’t been to work in a week, didn’t even know if he still had a job at this point. There was nothing and no one waiting for him anywhere.
He drove past the hardware store with the cracked front window, the old movie theater that hadn’t updated its marquee in over a year, and the elementary school he and Sam had both attended, though not at the same time. The whole town looked worn out.
The sun was low, but not yet setting, bathing everything in that flat gray light that made it all look like it had been left out too long. Even the trees looked tired with their bare branches like bones through the sky.
He passed by a fast food joint and considered stopping, but his stomach churned at the thought of food.
The radio hummed, something slow and almost familiar. He didn’t recognize the song, but it felt like something his mother might’ve liked… maybe he was just imagining it. It was hard to tell these days what was real and what he just wanted to remember.
The streets blurred. Stop signs came and went. A kid rode by on a bike, bundled in red and gold, her scarf trailing like a comet. She didn’t look at him.
He could’ve been invisible, for all it mattered.
He gripped the wheel tighter. His fingers ached from it, but he didn’t let go.
It felt like the whole town was running on autopilot, or maybe it was just him. He kept expecting something to break the spell…a car horn, a call from Sam, or the sudden snap of a thought worth following but nothing came. He kept driving, because he didn’t know what else to do.
It was just the road and the gray sky until he noticed something tucked between a pawn shop and an abandoned pharmacy… a storefront he was almost sure hadn’t been there yesterday. It was a brick building with big glass windows and the words Chuck’s painted in peeling gold script. A light flickered inside, softly insistent, pulling his gaze.
Dean pulled over without meaning to. He parked and turned off the ignition. He sat for a moment and the engine ticked as it cooled.
A man stood behind the front desk and a cat watched him from the window, swinging its tail back and forth. He didn’t know why he got out or why he walked to the door, but when he reached for the handle, it was unlocked.
The bell chimed when he opened the door and stepped inside. Not some pre-recorded jingle, but a real bell, the kind they didn’t make anymore. It must be brass or some kind of metal, something out of the past. It rang clear and slow, like a call to prayer or an old hotel lobby. Dean hadn’t heard a sound like that in years, maybe ever. It felt familiar, like something borrowed from a half-remembered movie or a dream he wasn’t sure was his.
Inside, the air was warm, soft and thick, the way a good blanket feels on a rainy day. The store smelled like leather and old paper, and under that, something sweeter, almost cloying. A little vanilla, maybe or honey. Whatever it was, it made him want to take a deep breath and let it out slow.
The place felt lived-in, the kind of warmth that made you want to kick off your boots and stay awhile. Dean didn’t, but his shoulders eased a fraction. The back of his neck tingled, like someone had laid a gentle hand there.
It felt like a memory, but of the crafted kind from a favorite story or movie, rather than real life.
The cat jumped down from its perch in the window and trotted past him, tail flicking against his jeans. It didn’t stop to greet him, running past and disappearing deeper into the stacks.
Dean stood, caught in the hush. The light was gold and gentle, glowing from shaded lamps and sconces, pulsing faintly like candlelight, though he couldn’t see any flames. There were no overheads, nothing harsh, just that soft glow, as if the room itself wanted to keep you safe.
He didn’t even know why he came in.
He hadn’t read for fun in years, not since high school. Even then, it was mostly dog-eared paperbacks Sam pushed into his hands and said, “Just give it a chance, Dean.”
But this place seemed like maybe it wouldn’t mind if he stayed a while. Honestly, the thought of finding a book and sinking into a quiet corner was dangerously tempting. He almost laughed at himself: since when had that ever been his idea of comfort? But the urge was there, calling to something restless inside him.
At first glance, the teeming shelves crawled in wavy lines to the depths of the store, interrupted here and there by rickety tables stacked high with more books. Little curated piles, spines soft with use. The air was clean, not musty. Dean took a deep breath, blinking as the soft glow of the lights brightened slightly on his inhale.
He realized, after a minute, that his shoulders had dropped, and his jaw had unclenched for the first time in a week. The ache in his chest eased a little, just enough to notice its absence. He wasn’t bracing himself for the next blow. The weight he’d been carrying for as long as he could remember slipped off his back.
He brushed his hand over a table perched near the entry. It was solid wood, the grain warm beneath his palm. He’d guess it was handmade, probably an antique. It wobbled slightly under his attention, balancing its own load of books over the uneven surface of the old floor and faded runner.
He glanced around again. How the hell had he never noticed this place before?
It was the kind of bookstore that should’ve closed down years ago, forced into extinction by Amazon and strip mall chain stores. It shouldn’t have lasted in a town this size. Hell, it shouldn’t have existed at all.
His watch said it was just before eight.
He looked toward the counter. The man behind it was bent over a ledger with actual paper, the pages yellowing slightly at the edges. It wasn’t an antique, exactly, just… unstuck from time. Like it had always belonged here, whether the shop was open or not.
The door finally eased shut behind Dean with the soft tinkle of the bell. The sound settled, quiet and final. The faint hum of evening traffic disappeared with the whispered click of the latch and all that remained was the warm, faint breath of the waiting books.
Dean shuffled his feet against the old runner, conscious of the winter dirt on his boots. Under the soles of his feet, the threadbare rug was surprisingly spongy, like it was covering one of those carpet pads.
The old floorboards creaked when Dean took a few steps further in, causing the man behind the counter to look up in surprise. For a moment, he was impossibly still. There was something timeless about him, like he’d just stepped out of a black-and-white photograph and hadn’t figured out how to move in the present. Dean had a fleeting thought about the figures in a wax museum, who always seemed to him to be trapped in that exact moment in time.
He raised a hand tentatively. “Sorry—were you about to close? I can come back.”
The man hesitated, mouth opening and closing before he answered. “No,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, “We’re open.”
His tone was neutral, but his eyes lingered on Dean, watchful. Not unfriendly, just… attentive, in a way most people weren’t.
Dean nodded and took him in. The man was tall, with that golden-age-of-Hollywood thing. He wasn’t pretty, but striking, the sort of face that stuck in your memory. His dark hair was slicked back neatly. He wore khakis, a crisp white shirt, and a waistcoat that set off blue eyes like sea glass, once sharp but softened by time and tumbles in the ocean. Stubble shadowed his jaw, as if he’d meant to shave and had gotten distracted with his books.
Dean couldn’t place him. He didn’t look like anyone local, nor even like he belonged in this decade. There was a strange stillness to him, like an actor waiting for his line. His thumb pressed tight to the edge of the ledger, close to tearing the page.
“Cool place,” Dean said, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “I’ve lived here most of my life and somehow never noticed it before.”
The man tilted his head. “That’s not unusual.”
Dean blinked. “Yeah? Well. Guess I must’ve had my head up my ass.”
A faint smile ghosted across the man’s lips. “Or perhaps you weren’t ready to see it.”
Dean didn’t have a response to that, at least, not one that wouldn’t sound defensive, so he said nothing.
The man didn’t ask Dean’s name, didn’t offer his own. He turned back to the ledger, as if it didn’t bother him whether Dean needed help or not.
Dean began to browse, feeling the man’s gaze settle on him every few seconds. Was he worried about shoplifting, or just… strange? Dean should have left, but something about the place pulled him deeper. He let himself wander, the faint pulsing hum of the store pressing gently at his back, pushing him further in.
There was no map to the place, not that he’d expect one, but it didn’t matter. Somehow the layout made sense, each turn opening up into more shelves, more books. The store went on farther than it should, but he didn’t mind. Dean couldn’t shake the sense that this maze of shelves would go on precisely as far as he needed it to; that if and when he wanted to discover more, then there would be a new turn at the end of the aisle.
He passed a table marked Science Fiction and, for the first time in years, paused to look. Dune, The Stars My Destination, Stranger in a Strange Land, I, Robot. They all had battered covers, the spines softened by countless hands.
He used to read these late at night, after Sam had fallen asleep and the house had gone quiet. Back then, he’d loved stories where the hero got to explore, maybe even save the day.
His hand hovered over a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. The cover was almost exactly like the one he’d had in high school. It had the same bent corner, same faded letters. He ran his thumb along the edge, feeling the memory surface. He’d never been the smart one, not compared to Sam, but he’d finished that book early, even liked it. He’d been excited to talk about it in class, but the teacher had never called on him. When he turned in his paper, she’d accused him of cheating, held him back after class and grilled him about the plot. Eventually, she’d let it go and given him a C+. It hadn’t felt like much of a victory.
He put the book back.
Somewhere behind him, the shopkeeper called, “Let me know if you need help finding your book.”
Maybe the guy wasn’t worried about him stealing after all. Dean didn’t answer. He let the store pull him further in.
The next shelf was labeled History. The letters were brass, real engraving, not some cheap decal. His eyes landed on a leather-bound book about JFK. Something about the title made him stop: John F. Kennedy: The Eight-Year Legacy.
That wasn’t right. Not even close.
He pulled the book free and flipped it open. He expected the motorcade, the pink suit, the blur before the shot. The pages told a different story: second-term legislation, speeches from 1967, a post-presidency memoir released in the ’70s. Black-and-white photos showed an older Kennedy beside Jackie, both of them gray at the temples, smiling for the camera.
Dean stared, caught on the ease of it, how simple it seemed to rewrite tragedy as fortune. He thought of his father, the way grief had made John bitter and silent, and wondered what their lives might’ve been like if someone had flipped just one page differently.
He held his breath and slid the book back carefully, like it might burn him.
Next one: The Titanic: A Triumph. It was a glossy hardback. He thumbed through dense praise for feats of engineering, luxurious innovations, and immense cultural impact. There was no mention of the iceberg. There were photographs of headlines and press releases, smiling passengers on the deck captioned with “Second class travelers greet their waiting families as they arrive in New York ahead of schedule.”
Fiction, he told himself. It was probably some alternate-history display, except nothing about these books felt like a ploy.
There were no “What if?” taglines. No clever covers. No author bios. They looked… real.
He picked up another: Apollo 13: Mars Mission Success. His brow furrowed. Apollo 13 didn’t go to Mars. Hell, it barely made it back from the Moon.
The book had full mission logs with crew photos. There was even a signed letter from Nixon congratulating the astronauts on planting the flag in Martian soil. Dean turned pages, half expecting them to dissolve under his thumb.
Dean stepped back and scanned the shelf. The Wall that Almost Divided Berlin. The World without Wars. The Era of American Peace: 1910–Present.
Every title was a window into some other world, close enough to touch and taste, but settling wrong in the gut. His skin prickled. He rubbed the back of his neck, shoulders tensing with unease.
Something here didn’t add up.
He went back for the JFK book and carried it to the counter. The man was still behind the desk, precisely where Dean had left him as if he hadn’t moved at all.
Dean set the book down. “What’s with all the alt-history stuff?”
The shopkeeper looked up blinking, confusion flickering across his face. He glanced at the book like it had materialized out of thin air, as if even he didn’t quite know how it ended up there.
“There are lots of options for books,” he said eventually. His tone was polite, neutral. “Maybe if you keep looking, you’ll find something more to your liking.”
Dean squinted at him. “That’s not—” He shook his head, letting it drop. “Whatever.”
He picked the book up, walked it back to the shelf, and slotted it into place, wherever “place” was in this store. Weird place. Weirder guy.
He scoffed under his breath and turned back to the main aisle. That’s when he saw the cat.
It was perched at the end of the row, perfectly still, tail curled around its paws. Its green eyes watched him move.
Dean rubbed his nose out of habit, except… nothing. There was no itching, no tightness in his throat and no creeping pressure behind his sinuses.
Huh.
He’d been allergic to cats his whole life. Just walking into a house with one usually set him off. Maybe this one was hypoallergenic. Or maybe the strangeness of the place was just getting to him.
He glanced back toward the front counter but the man was gone and the counter sat empty. Dean turned back to the cat again but it was gone, too. He turned in a slow circle, aware of the silence closing in. It was as if the whole store was holding its breath.
Dean shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, uneasy. The floor had more give to it than he expected, the boards bowing slightly beneath his boots like something underneath had gone soft or rotted. Every step made him think of waterlogged wood, liable to collapse if he stepped too hard.
He took a few steps and turned a corner. There were shelves to his left and stacked tables to his right. Another aisle opened beyond them, one he was sure hadn’t been there before. That aisle ended with a short, freestanding shelf. No label. Just a row of books that tugged at his sense of the familiar.
One of them had his name on the spine.
Dean stopped walking.
The air felt heavier here, like the walls had squeezed in, or maybe the floor would tip out from under him if he stood still too long.
He took a step forward anyway. The shelf stood alone. No brass label. Just a row of books lined up and waiting.
The one with his name wasn’t subtle: thick, leather-bound, no dust jacket. Dean Winchester embossed in gold down the spine.
He pulled it free. The cover was an old photograph. The four of them were all standing in front of the Impala. Mary was cradling baby Sam and beaming. Dean was in a striped shirt, maybe four or five, standing stiffly in front of John. His father’s hand on his shoulder.
Dean’s breath caught. “What the fuck.” He looked around for the shopkeeper, his throat tight. He hadn’t meant to go this far, not this deep. The store shouldn’t be this big and this silent.
“Hello?” he called, and his voice seemed to vanish between the shelves, swallowed up by the endless paper and heavy quiet.
He turned toward where he thought the counter had been, but the aisles just bent and curved, the light dimming, shelves multiplying at the edges of his vision. Every turn brought him back to the same spot—the shelf, the book with his name.
He frowned. This had to be a dream. It felt like one with logic slipping and space folding in on itself. He pinched the inside of his arm, hard enough to leave a mark. It stung, but nothing changed.
He looked down at the book again. He almost shelved it, then hesitated. His thumb hovered over the edge of the cover, heart hammering.
Slowly, he opened it.
Dean Winchester: An Unfinished Life
Dean’s fingers trembled around the book as his breath snagged in his throat. This wasn’t just surreal; it felt personal and cruel. It was as though someone had peeled him open and laid out all the soft, hidden things he’d never said aloud. He wanted to close it, throw it, forget it, but the photographs felt heavier than paper should.
Chapter One: Birth. January 24, 1979.
Chapter Two: Early Childhood.
Chapter Three: The Car Accident. November 2, 1983.
He kept flipping.
Chapter Five: Sam’s High School Graduation.
Chapter Nine: The Hospital Room.
His chest tightened as he skimmed chapter 9. It wasn’t a summary… it was memory. Word for word. The doctor’s voice. The smell of antiseptic. His father’s thin hands on the sheets. The fight in the hallway. The things Dean hadn’t told anyone. Thoughts he’d had, but never said out loud.
It ended with him turning off the Impala’s engine on a street he didn’t remember choosing and walking toward a bookstore he swore had never been there before.
He turned the page.
Chapter Ten: Choose Your Own Adventure.
The text was centered in the middle of the page. It felt like a challenge or maybe a command.
He took another breath, the lights around him flickering brighter for a moment, and flipped the page with a shaking finger.
Blank.
He looked up and scanned his surroundings. “Hello?”
Nothing.
“Hey, shop guy?” The shelves seemed to smother his words, offering nothing back. “Is this some kind of joke?”
He got no response.
Dean took a step back, turned the corner, and the front desk wasn’t there like he expected, just more shelves. He scanned the plaques and none of them were familiar. History. Mythology. Self-Help. He doubled back and turned left this time, thinking he must have just gotten himself turned around. When he entered the new aisle, his shelf was still there, like it was waiting for him. That… wasn’t possible. He spun, dizzy for a moment, and went in the opposite direction.
His pulse kicked up, pounding in his ears in rhythm with the flickering lighting that he could no longer source. “Okay,” he muttered, “what the hell is going on?”
He turned in a slow circle, looking all around him. He couldn’t see the man or the cat. He couldn’t hear anyone or anything, either. Even his own footsteps were dulled by the runner beneath his boots, the sound muffled into nothing.
Reluctantly, Dean returned to the shelf and as he did so, the titles began to change. Right in front of him, the gold lettering on the spines shimmered, liquid-smooth, like oil on water. One name dissolved and another took its place.
He held his breath as he watched, and pressure crowded in, heavy as a stormcloud. The hairs on the back of his neck rose with an electric charge that traveled from his head to his toes.
The spines rearrange themselves, one after another.
Dean Winchester, President of the United States
Hollywood’s Darling: The Dean Winchester Story
Dean Winchester: Hero of Flight 93
He didn’t dare touch them, his heart thudding fast and uneven.
One title caught his eye. It wasn’t anything grandiose but it was the one that caused his stomach to lurch and twist painfully. The Life Without the Car Accident. The spine was worn and the font delicate.
He pulled it down with trembling fingers. The cover was a photo of a woman with blond hair and a wide smile, her eyes bright with laughter and haloed with the gentle lines of age. His mom.
He opened the book.
Chapter One: Pancakes in the Shape of Dinosaurs.
In this version of his life, there was no car crash that took hers. There were bike rides and birthday parties and long, drowsy summers where no one yelled and no one went to bed hungry because John had been too hungover to feed them.
His throat closed up. He went back to the cover and stared at it. It was just a picture, ink and paper, but it hit like a sucker punch. His fingers went numb and the book slipped from his hands. Maybe he threw it; he couldn’t tell. It landed spine-first on the floor, the pages flapping open and settling smoothly the only sound.
He staggered back a step.
Pancakes in the shape of dinosaurs. He didn’t remember that. He didn’t remember her laugh, he barely remembered her. And yet here she was, a life with her packaged in a book. A life he could’ve lived. One where no one died. Where no one became something small and angry in the name of survival.
He wanted to scream, or cry, or pick the damn book up and press it to his chest like it might rewrite something inside his heart. Instead he just stood there, unsure of what to do. His hands were shaking, and he tried not to think what that life would have been like. Maybe the grief would pass if he didn't give it a place to land.
The book didn’t feel like fiction. It felt like theft.
Dean grabbed another, this one titled The Winchester Brothers Win the Lottery. He and Sam won the lottery and lived a life full of luxuries. He had a garage full of classic cars.
He took another book off the shelf: in this one he opened a bar in Texas. The next one he married a woman and had three kids.
The stories were endless. Each were lives Dean had never lived, joys he’d never known, losses he’d never endured. Every book was another door he’d never opened. He stopped putting them back. He let them fall, one after another, the spines cracking against each other, pages bending, covers folding under the weight. The sound was dull, swallowed by the hush. There was no satisfying thud, just a papery shuffling.
One showed him happy and married, laughing, with a kid on his shoulders. He flung it aside, sick and angry. In another he was old, safe, and living somewhere bright and slow, the kind of peace he’d never believed he’d deserve. Every book peeled him raw. Every story was a skin he could almost wear, until he remembered that none of them was his.
He wanted to scream. The sound in his chest felt too small, like the store was swallowing that, too.
The shelf never emptied. More titles flickered into existence the second his fingers grazed a spine. His name, Dean Winchester, glimmered in gold, endless and serene, as if daring him to keep going, as if maybe the next one would be the one he kept, and if not that one, then the next.
No matter how many times he said no, the store just made more.
Dean backed away, step by step, heart pounding. The shelf stayed in his line of sight, waiting. He kept retreating, desperate for distance; like if he could just look away, it would all disappear and he could wake up.
That’s when he felt it, a hand on his back. It was the barest brush of fingertips, but it hit him like a shot. He whirled, choking out a ragged yell.
The shopkeeper stood there, too close. There’d been no footsteps, no warning.
He was smiling, but it was wrong: his lips curved, but his eyes were flat and lifeless. Not a man at all. It was more like one of those old photos in the books he’d flipped through, frozen and waiting to come to life.
“Ah,” he said, voice smooth but hollow, as if reading a line he didn’t care about. “I see you found your bookshelf.”
The words rattled in Dean’s skull, too neat, too rehearsed. The shopkeeper’s smile didn’t move. The pulse of the store paused, holding its breath.
“Do you need help choosing a book?” the man asked. His voice remained empty, like the choice was a trick, a trap, nothing real at all.
Dean’s skin crawled. He stood frozen, every muscle screaming for him to run. But he knew, whatever choosing meant here, it was something he’d rather reject than obey.