And there sat this girl, pouring her heart out to him and admitting what she'd be willing to do for him and it didn't matter to him that he didn't love her that way, or that she was the double of his brother's girlfriend, or that she had a boyfriend sitting at home that he liked and respected.

Dean Winchester had had a lot of women want him in his life. A helluva lot. A seemingly unending stream of them.

What he hadn't had was a woman who wanted him.

Who honest to god knew him, because he hadn't been trying to hide anything, hadn't had a reason to. He'd spilled so much to Claire in these past couple months, and she knew some of the goddamn worst about him. She knew him, in a way not very many people did.

And here she was still, staring at him with wide eyes, still wet with tears that she was shedding on account of him.

He didn't really bother to think through this next part. If he had, he might have hesitated, or managed to think back to one of the millions of reasons this was a bad idea.

Instead, he just reacted, and instead of answering her, his hand came up suddenly to gently but insistently turn her face towards him again, and his lips bent to hers, not allowing even a moment for her to react. His hand kept her face locked there, as he kissed her, rather firmly, edged with so much of the desperation that had prompted the move in the first place.

It was another thing that he just had to try.