Word Count: 2719 words

Warnings: past abusive relationship, yelling and cursing, drinking, and all that good stuff that goes with those three

AN: This was a request sent to me from fanfiction from a user with the pen name of . I hope you enjoy this one, hon! :). The request is: 'you're ex boyfriend was abusive and yelled a lot. You finally get out of the relationship and you meet Dean. You're together for a few months and go on hunts together. After a bad hunt, Dean starts getting drunk and yells. You shrink back in the corner and try to avoid him. The next day, you avoid Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean start yelling at each other then notice you like shrinking back into yourself and so on and so forth...'

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural

Don't Break Me Down

It was a bad hunt, a really bad hunt. They had no leads or ideas as to how things were breaking into homes and killing whole families in their sleep. That night, Dean left Sam and her at the motel and went to the local bar, drinking away his frustration with the current hunt. She could understand his need to distance himself from the hunt. She and Sam had to do it sometimes, too - although Sam chose to run now and she opted to vent through watching a television show or reading a book until she fell asleep from exhaustion to distance herself from some of the ugly parts of her lifestyle. Yeah, her way to cope wasn't really healthy, either. Sometimes - when the hunts got really ugly - she'd stay awake for days on end, throwing herself into anything that she could to forget about what happened.

She did the same thing with her last boyfriend - the one before Dean. Her last boyfriend liked to yell and throw punches at the things closest to him when a hunt went bad. And she was usually - and unfortunately - the nearest thing to him, so she was on the receiving end of a lot of his 'venting'. And she had believed that it was all her fault. She started to believe that she truly was 'weak' and 'a terrible hunter' and 'a useless piece of shit'.

But that was before she decided that enough was enough. That she didn't deserve his abuse - both verbal and physical.

She remembers that day as if it was yesterday. The hunt was a bad one. They couldn't save the group of children that had been taken by a demon with a mother's complex. When the two came back to the motel, he had gotten horribly drunk and they fought. She had actually retaliated this time and he wasn't very happy about it. Their screaming match stopped momentarily when the motel's night manager asked about the noise. She made up her mind as she reassured the manager that everything was alright, silent tears leaving tracks down her reddened and sore cheeks. She had packed up her car with her meager amount of possessions and left after he had passed out. She never once looked back as she sped down the highway and into the night, going nowhere in particular.

She had been alone for a while, hunting things and saving people, until she met up with the Winchester brothers on a demon hunt in rural Montana. The three had hit it off quickly, working as if they had been together their whole lives. The brothers had asked - Dean practically begged - her to live with them in their Bunker since she was living in the back of her small car. She agreed, of course - How could anyone say no to these boys? - and joined them in their home. Soon, she and Dean started to go out. She could honestly say that she was happy.

Anyways, she was channel surfing on the television set in their motel room when Dean barged in, swaying in his drunken state. She looked up and instantly went to his side, helping his stumbling feet to the bed.

"Dean," She said softly as she sat him down on the bed that they shared. "You need to get some sleep. It's already after three in the morning." She placed her hand gently on his cheek and looked him in the eyes, hoping to convey her concern and every other emotion she was feeling with her gaze.

"Don't touch me." He growled out angrily and she hastily brought her hand back to her chest, stung by his tone of voice.

"What's wrong?" She asked, trying to get through to him.

"It's this fucking case!" He yelled and shot up out of bed, pushing past her to an open space in the room where he started pacing from wall to wall. She sat on the bed and flinched at his yelling as snapshots of her life before the Winchesters piled over her vision - her ex shouting at her, him hitting her, and then him falling unconscious near her sore body. She pushed those memories back, reminding herself that this was Dean and he would never hurt her.

"We have nothing! Fucking nada on whatever the hell it is that's doing this to people!" He threw his hands up in the air and she shrunk up against the headboard of the bed, trying to avoid his outbursts of anger.

"Dean, please calm down." Her voice became quiet as she tried to console him. She didn't want him to see her like this. His pacing only grew faster.

"No!" He roared. "Not until we gank this bastard." She shrunk further into the bed, instinctually trying to make herself invisible. What was worse was that she couldn't stop herself from reacting like this.

He quickly paced up to their bed and she flinched, her body preparing for a blow that her mind was trying to say wasn't going to happen. After a few moments, she opened her screwed shut eyes and hesitantly looked up at Dean. Guilt trickled into her heart when she saw the look on his face. It was an expression of hurt and confusion.

He stared at her for a long time. "Do you really think I'd hurt you?" He asked quietly, searching her eyes for something - anything - to let him know that he was wrong in his assumptions.

"It's just a reflex, Dean." She tried to explain, her voice just as soft as his was. He looked at her for a moment longer before grabbing a pillow and one of the blankets at the bottom of the bed before laying down on the couch across from the bed. She had done such a good job of hiding her past to these boys, and it was all going downhill now.

"Dean," She said, hoping that he'd come back to the bed and sleep next to her.

"Goodnight."

"Baby," She tried again. She knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep well that night without him there.

"I said 'goodnight'." He said shortly before turning his body away from her. After a shaky breath, she slipped under the covers and turned off the lamp on the bedside table. She shifted around for a couple minutes until she got as comfortable as she could on the cold bed and fell asleep.

The next morning she woke up, her body in a fetal position. She really wasn't able to sleep well last night, waking up from nightmares full of pain and depression. She stretched from her position and looked over to the now empty couch, wondering where Dean was. She heard voices from the room next door and figured that he was in there with his Sam, nursing his hangover while his younger brother was filling him in on what he had found while researching.

She really didn't want to be in the same room with the brothers after what had happened between her and Dean the night before, so she stayed in her room, reviewing the case and doing her own research on her laptop and with the books she had gotten at the local library the day before.

She stayed in the motel room the whole morning, isolating herself from the Winchester brothers. Sam had popped in to ask if she wanted to join him and Dean at the diner for lunch. She had let out a high pitched noise and had jumped five feet in the air when she heard his voice. She could have sworn that he had noticed, but he didn't comment on it. She refused, saying that she really felt like she was on to something with this case - which wasn't a lie, but she couldn't face Dean after how she reacted last night. Feeling guilty, she told him to get her a burger with some fries and a soda and to bring it back to her.

Half an hour later, Dean slowly opened the motel room door and set the bag down carefully on the bed next to her. She looked up from her laptop to find that he was still there, looking at her as if he wanted to say something.

"Thanks." She said, her voice coming out quieter that she would have liked. She tried to smile at him, but it became harder than smiling at Dean should have been. He just looked at her for a moment - a really long moment - before nodding and swiftly striding out of their room, closing the door behind him.

She let out a deep breath and felt like crying. She was regressing into herself from before. And she felt like she couldn't stop it. She hated the fact that it was happening again after something so trivial, but it was happening.

She stayed on her bed the rest of the day, nibbling on her burger and fries every so often as she worked, not really noticing the food getting cold or the fact the the voices from Sam's room were getting louder and louder as time went on.

So, anyone could understand the startled gaze she gave the two when Sam and Dean barged into her quiet escape, right? They were bickering about what to do next when Dean opened the door and stalked in, Sam following him explaining why research was so important. They were louder than they usually were when they fought and she found herself cowering into the headboard again.

Just the sheer volume that the brothers were exuding reminded her of her last boyfriend. She shrunk herself further into the bed, trying to shield herself from the traumatic memories before she could stop herself.

She clutched at the sheets under her and took multiple uneven gasps as she started to drown in the nightmares of days past. Her ex anything he could get his hands on at her. She tried to shut her eyes so that Sam and Dean couldn't see the personal hell she was reliving, but she was frozen in fear. It was like a play by play review of each blow, each pathetic attempt she had made to cover up the bruises the next morning, and of each time she begged him to stop.

"Please stop." It was barely a whisper, but the brothers heard her. They stopped arguing and looked over at her, concern painted on both their faces. But she didn't see that. Her eyes seemed glazed over. She was still trapped in the throes of her past.

Dean carefully walked over and Sam followed suit, sitting next to his brother on the edge of the bed and avoiding all the papers astrewn on the comforter.

"Babe,"Dean said quietly and slowly reached out for her.

She pulled away from him and moved up farther into the bed. "Don't hurt me." She whimpered, tears building themselves up in her eyes. She still wasn't looking straight at him. She didn't realize that Dean was the one talking to her, not her ex boyfriend.

"It's me." Dean said, tried to get her to snap out of whatever was happening. It broke his heart to see her like this.

Her eyes focused on him and she let out a strangled breath before curling up into herself and letting out all the emotions that she had forced herself to push back for a while now. Dean and Sam vowed to themselves that whoever - or whatever - had done this to her would suffer at the hands of the Winchester brothers.

Dean gently laid a hand on her shoulder and with a "Come here" he brought her closer to his chest, running his hands through her hair and down her back as he gave her time to get it all out of her system. He gave her words of encouragement and she sobbed into his chest.

When she had quieted down enough - and after some motivation from Sam - Dean asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at him, tears clinging onto her eyelashes, and she told them. She told them everything. She told them about how she and her ex met, how he chose to vent after and sometimes during a hunt, and she told them how she got away, sniffing and shedding a tear here and there.

She waited nervously as the brothers processed everything. Would they ask her to leave after figuring out how broken she was? Would they laugh at how weak she was? Would they wonder if she was still as weak as before? These doubts ran through her mind as she looked from Dean to Sam and back to Dean, anxious about what would happen to her.

Dean opened his mouth to say something as she prepared for the worst. "If we ever run into that man, tell me." He looked down at her earnestly.

"So, you're not going to ask me to leave?" She asked, incredulous. She really thought that they would.

"Why would we do that?" Sam asked, surprised drawn all over his face. Dean's expression mirrored his brother's exactly.

"You guys don't really need a broken hunter with you." She looked down into her lap, trying to explain to the boys what they would be getting into if they kept her.

Dean laughed and she looked up, confused. "Have you met us?"

"Yeah, we're like textbook definitions of broken." Sam added.

"Then I guess we'll all be broken together, huh." She smiled at them both.

"You bet your ass, sweetheart." Dean smiled down at her and caressed her cheek. He leaned forward, aiming for a kiss. She rose to meet him halfway, still smiling.

Their lips were almost touching when Sam coughed from beside Dean. She turned from Dean to look at the younger brother. "It's not like I'm here or anything, you two."

"Wanna join?" She asked jokingly the same time Dean commented, "You do have your own room."

Sam ignored her question, but she noticed him blush slightly in embarrassment. "Just use protection." Sam advised humorously, walking to the door and leaving the two alone.

"'Use protection.' What kind of nerd says that?" Dean rolled his eyes.

"The kind of nerd that's only looking out for you." She supplied, chuckling at his expression.

"I wasn't even planning on sex tonight." He said, smiling playfully before he leant down and kissed her. She smiled against his lips and instantly felt better, like her past before she met the Winchesters was just a dream. And she could honestly say that she was was happy again.

AN: I hope you liked this one, ! I didn't give the reader's ex-boyfriend a name because I just didn't feel like that kind of character deserves something important like a name. If this goes over well, though, I may consider writing a follow up where we might meet the ex! Tell me what you think! Thanks to everyone who read this story and all my others ones! Seriously, you guys are the best! Comments, questions, concerns? Just drop me a review or a PM on fanfiction or an ask on my blog.

Remember to Smile :)

~Becca