[h3] Dean [/h3]

Dean let the air hang around himself and Lexi as she took in the words he had spilled onto her. He hoped that his words didn’t come across as too scared, although in reality…he was terrified. He didn’t feel like himself, if he was anywhere near the first blade. He felt like all there was…was rage. As the silence hung heavy in the room, he suddenly heard the wheels of her chair rolling across the concrete floor and then her arms were around him and Dean melted into her touch a bit. Every part of his brain told him to push her away, to tell her to run or to break her heart to where she didn’t have a choice but to leave. It was his way of spiraling right back into the mode he needed to be, in order to get things done. If there was no one for him to hurt, he could handle being reckless. He could handle dying, if it was necessary. But knowing that he would possibly leave someone to deal with the same grief that had eaten him alive, it complicated things.

Lexi saying that she wasn’t leaving caused Dean to bury his face in her shoulder with a shuddered sigh. This was his time to force her to go, but he didn’t. He just let her talk. She said what he had kind of feared she would say. She wasn’t leaving. She wanted to help him, although that was the last thing he wanted. He wanted her on the moon, if it would keep her away from all of this.

As she pulled back, Dean’s eyes scanned between hers, and he swallowed down emotion that was threatening to bubble up and roll down his cheeks, right in her hands, “I don’t um…I don’t want you to help. I don’t want you anywhere near this, Lexi. You have to understand. This is…this is probably not going to end well. And if this goes wrong, I don’t want you to watch me die. Understand?”

He took a deep breath, and leaned his head forward, pressing his forehead against hers, “And I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt…or worse. I think it would kill me, at this point. I don’t think I would survive losing someone else I love.”