Words: 2273280Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKDdXYxGXo2
Dean x Reader280Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX3tv4kavQH
Warnings: angst, grief, mild language280Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR8WnRh4bRL
Summary: In the wake of the stand-off with Luther, Y/N struggles with any purpose at all… until she decides on a course of action280Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSzgqauayL4
Nothing had passed your lips since… since Dean… Not a morsel, not a sip of water or liquor, not a sigh, not a word.
You could walk again but every twitch of every muscle, every step, every feeling in your legs, which felt just as strong as if it had all never happened, reminded you of what this had been bought with, and you hated yourself.
But at the same time, you would find yourself standing or walking instead of sitting. You would awake as if out of a trance, always numb, always cold, and you would look around to realize you had been standing unmoving in the middle of your room for God only knows how long. Or you’d find that your feet had carried you to the mirror and you would stand there staring at your own reflection, no thoughts passing, no change in expression, just frozen, standing, hardly noticing the shifting of the shadows around you as another day waxed and waned. It felt like you could stare unblinkingly for hours, hoping that as your vision unfocused somehow you would also begin to blur at the edges and fade away. The pain you felt when Dean had been taken from you had given way to a hollowness that defied description.
Bobby had been the one to move Dean. He had carried him out of the room with the useless Devil’s traps and laid him on his bed. You had wandered in, not even sure how much time had passed since you had walked out on the wreckage, to find Sam kneeling at the bedside, broken, his face shining with tears and his eyes red and puffy. Bobby was sitting at the foot of the bed, his hat in his hands, tears streaming down his face and sticking in his beard.
They both turned to look at you as you entered. You weren’t crying anymore. You didn’t have any tears left. You had moved into the numb trace that you would remain in for many days…
Bobby stood, turning his hat in his hands, and approached you. “We should—we should give him a hunter’s funeral,” he said hesitantly, noticing how your eyes were fixed on Dean’s head resting on the pillow.
As you registered his words you turned your eyes to Bobby and there was no mistaking the cold reception you were giving the idea.
”Y/N,” Bobby started, a pained expression on his face, “it’s what Dean would have wanted—“
The icy stare you were giving Bobby did not falter. You held your ground. Sam sniffed and watched the interaction, looking utterly lost and devastated without his big brother.
Bobby half reached a hand out for your shoulder but through better of it as you continued to stare at him. “I know this is hard, but it’s the right thing to do and—“
You reached into your waistband and extracted your pistol, holding it limply at your side, your eyes still fixed on Bobby in that unfeeling gaze. The message was clear: no one was going to burn Dean. Bobby gulped and a look of fear for you and disbelief flashed through his eyes.
”Alright. Alright, child,” he said, holding his hands up, palms out, hoping to talk you down, snap you out of this trance. But there was no recognizable spark in your eyes. They remained dark.
Sam watched the interaction between you and Bobby and felt a renewed pang in his chest that clenched at his heart, sinking its teeth in.
_ _ _ _ _ _
It was raining. Of course, it was. You had just buried Dean in a field behind the bunker. Sam had helped you, resigned to the fact that at the moment you shooting him or Bobby in the kneecap wasn’t out of the realm of real possibility if they tried to give Dean a hunter’s burial, send him off in flames. There was nothing for it. He had given in. Of course, you had still taken precautions, burying him with salt and sprinkled with holy water, consecrating the ground…
You had marked the place with a simple polished stone, some piece of granite you had found and cleaned up, making it suitable as a headstone, carving in his initials and across. Sam had stood with you in silence as you had placed the last shovelful of dirt on the mound. He remained there with you for a short time, allowing the silence to stretch between you, still painfully aware that you hadn’t eaten, hadn’t spoken, maybe hadn’t slept since Dean had died. Sam had done the opposite. He drank too much and slept too much now, though he couldn’t choke down any real food.
Sam finally turned his sad eyes to you, soft with concern and worn with grief, and he heavily placed a hand on your shoulder, his eyes growing misty again as he turned away from his brother’s grave and headed back to the bunker, hauling the dirty shovels with him, leaving you standing alone, staring down at the raindrops making patterns in the fresh earth.
It began to rain harder and still, you didn’t move. You stood there beside the mound like a ghost, not really part of this world and not part of the next. As the raindrops soaked your hair and your clothes grew sodden and heavy, goosebumps rising on your skin, a burning was kindled in the hollowness of your chest. You gritted your jaw, hardened your gaze, and took one last look at the headstone bearing Dean’s initials before striding back into the bunker purposefully.
Bobby and Sam looked up as the heavy metal door slammed behind you and the expressions on their faces were questioning as you rushed down the stairs, moving faster and looking suddenly more present than they had seen you in days. Bobby and Sam exchanged a look of concern and worry as you strode through the room and headed down the hallway to your bedroom.
”What’s this about?” Bobby asked.
Sam gulped. “I don’t know,” he said, watching your retreating figure. “Come on.”
They appeared in the doorway as you were hauling ammo and weapons out of your armoire and placing them hastily into your canvas duffel bag, splayed open on the bed.
Sam and Bobby now exchanged another look of anxiety and Sam dared to step into the room. “Y/N?”
You ignored him, your hands moving quickly to settle your knives into the duffel.
Sam cleared his throat. “Uhh, Y/N. What’s going on?” He stared at you as you continued to rush around your room, packing this and that. “Y/N!”
Still, you said nothing. Now you hauled another bag out from underneath your bed and moved to pull some clothes out of your dresser. Sam suddenly caught your wrist as you reached out to grab a sweatshirt. You raised your eyes to meet his, which were intense with concern and questions he was burning to ask.
He felt a lurch in his stomach at the hardened look in your eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing…. don’t.”
You pulled your arm away. “I’m going, Sam. Don’t follow me.” The first words you’d said since… Your voice was hoarse from disuse.
You returned to the bed and zipped your bags closed, looking up at Bobby standing in the doorway, half pissed and half sick with worry. “Y/N, we need you here,” he said.
It was like a punch in the gut, and you leaned heavily on your hands resting on your duffel. “Why, so you have a constant reminder of why Dean’s soul is in Luther’s pocket for all of eternity? So you can remember that the reason Dean is dead is that I wasn’t fast enough to get there.”
Bobby’s face turned red. “Don’t be an idjit! You didn’t kill Dean! That demon did!” he yelled.
You froze, your eyes widening as you looked at Bobby, a little caught off guard by the sudden outburst.
”Now we’re all we’ve got left! And you’re just gonna run off to go and get yourself killed doing something stupid! We need you here! Sam needs you! He just lost his brother!”
Your breathing was a little faster than it should be. You averted your eyes back to your packed bags. “Don’t try and guilt trip me, Bobby. I’m sorry. I have to do this.” You swallowed down the lump in your throat and went to your closet. Your hands found it easily. They had clutched onto that familiar fabric many times over the last few days.
You pulled it from the hanger and reached into one of the pockets, extracting the familiar set of keys. Now you approached Sam and offered it to him without a word; Dean’s leather jacket, which had been their dad’s before him.
Sam studied your expression, jaw set and eyes sincere as you held it out to him. He took it from you, swallowing the emotion that was threatening to well up again. He looked down at the soft leather in his hands furrowing his brow with the effort of choking back the glassy tears in his eyes. “You’re really going.” It wasn’t a question.
”Yes,” you said simply.
”What are you going to do?” Sam asked, his voice pleading.
”Everything I can.” You couldn’t stand to look at the pain in his eyes and you turned away again, still holding the keys to the Impala tightly in your hand, the teeth of the jagged keys digging into your palm. You didn’t care. It was better than feeling nothing.
Sam knew there were so many things he wanted to say, maybe that he should say, but he was fairly certain they would make no difference. You were stubborn. And you would do, what you would do. Instead, he just swallowed the lump in his throat and pulled you into a tight hug, tears forming again in both of your eyes. You wrapped an arm around him in return, your hand flat on his back, feeling miserable like you had let him down and were doing so again. “I’m sorry,” you choked out in a raspy whisper.
Sam held you at arm’s length. “You come back. In one piece. Got it?” His voice and eyes were adamant.
You just gave him a stiff nod and shouldered your bags.
Bobby was standing blocking the doorway, still looking mad as hell, arms crossed over his chest. “If you get killed, I’ll kill you,” he said.
You stared at him and he still didn’t move from the doorway. There was an intense moment where you weren’t sure he was going to let you pass without a fight, but he finally sighed heavily and his expression softened. “If I don’t let you go now you’re either go to shoot me or wait and sneak out later,” he said.
You continued to stare at him. He knew the answer. He straightened and grabbed you into a tight hug, so tight that he squeezed a little of your breath from your lungs.
Now you moved through the underground garage to the spot where you knew she was sitting, waiting. There she was: the Impala. You supposed in a way that this was poetic… it had all started with her, after all. Maybe now it would all end with her help. You didn’t like it though. It felt wrong, made you feel sick, but you loaded your bags in the trunk and slid into the driver’s seat anyway as the overhead door revealed the gravel drive outside. The key was in the ignition and then the engine was roaring to life. You left the bunker behind in a lazily drifting cloud of gray gravel dust.
_ _ _ _ _ _
It was dead silent and you rubbed anxiously at the concealed knife on your hip. Above you the stars twinkled in the inky blackness that only comes from being away from all glowing orbs from porch lights and streetlights, being isolated in the little-traveled places.
You glanced left and right again. Then over your shoulders… Nothing. You gritted your teeth. Come on, you son of a bitch.
”Ciao bella,” a deep, bassy voice.
You snapped your head back to look forward and narrowed your eyes at the figure. A tall man in an all-black suit, hands slid comfortably into his pockets, flashed his pearly whites at you. A blink and his eyes went completely red.
”What was with the delay? Service isn’t what it use to be with you crossroad demons,” you remarked.
He laughed and blinked again, returning his eyes to a more human-like appearance. “You’re a special case. I almost didn’t come at all,” he said, starting to pace a wide circle around you.
”Oh yeah? Why’s that?” you pressed.
He stopped and glanced over at the Impala parked up the road. He gave you a tight-lipped little smile. “Aww. That’s cute… you’re driving around in dead-Dean-o’s precious hunk of metal. The same one that paralyzed you, right?”
You clenched your jaw. “Luther paralyzed me.”
”Whatever. To-may-to, to-mah-to,” he said, resuming his circle. “I suppose you want to make a deal,” he said.
”Yes. Bring Dean back. With his soul …and Luther can have me instead.”
The demon stopped again and raised his eyebrows at you, giving you another amused smile. He tilted his head back and began to laugh quietly. “Are you serious?”
You swallowed hard, fingers again going to the concealed demon knife at your belt. “Yes.”
There was greed in the demon’s eyes as he looked at you. “We need to have a nice long chat.”
ns 15.158.61.21da2
