Dean x Reader255Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIW9PPuGBtq
Warnings: language, some graphic description, and allusions to violence, angsty content255Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡztMciEZZgd
Summary: Dean isn’t getting anywhere with Luther. And when Y/N is suddenly gripped by a horrible feeling of dread, she and Bobby must rush back to the bunker before it’s too late…255Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTkF8Iq6XhS
255Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtVvHZ37vxC
”Hand me that socket wrench would you, Y/N?” Bobby’s voice drifted out from underneath the car he was working on. “Y/N… The socket wrench?”
You didn’t hear him. You were leaning your chin on your hand, staring inattentively at the condensation dripping down the sides of the glass of ice water on the workbench. The fingers of your free hand were drumming anxiously on the arm of your wheelchair, and your bottom lip was pulled in between your teeth where you could chew at it nervously.
Bobby slid out from underneath the car, wiping his hands on a rag. He stood with a groan and grabbed the socket wrench out of the toolbox before giving you an appraising look. “Y/N…” Bobby snapped his fingers in front of your face, finally startling you out of your numb state.
”What? Oh,” you looked at the wrench in Bobby’s hands. “I’m sorry, Bobby. I’m being a lousy assistant.”
”It’s alright. You’re still better than some I’ve had,” he said, turning the wrench over in his hands with a small smile. “When Dean was—“ he stopped himself, suddenly biting his tongue at the look on your face. Your eyes had snapped up at the mention of Dean and the creases near your eyebrows, already present from your constant worry, had deepened.
You hadn’t heard from Dean since you’d left the bunker. Sam called daily to check-in and to assure you that they were both fine. He didn’t tell you specifics about how things were going with Luther… He’d recite prepared vague sentences like “We’re making progress, Y/N,” or “Things aren’t going so well today but we’re both fine. We’re okay.”
You’d ask how he was and eventually, you would get around the tightness in your throat and ask about Dean. Sam generally let the silence on the phone stretch for a long moment as he formulated some sort of response. Usually, you could tell he wasn’t giving you the full story. He’d assure you that Dean wasn’t angry with you for leaving, more so angry at himself, and a bit obsessed with dealing with Luther… “I’m sure he’ll call you soon, Y/N,” Sam would lie through his teeth. He knew it. And you knew it. “Okay, Sam. Thanks. Stay safe,” you’d say. And that would be it; until the next day, when you would both do it all over again. Each time you felt like the emptiness in your chest grew and expanded and you worried that one day it would just push out all the air in your lungs and you’d suffocate under it.
Bobby cleared his throat and you snapped back to the present again. “I was gonna go into town today for a supply run. We’ve put a real dent in the whiskey over the last week or so. You want to come with?”
You shook your head. “No. Thanks…” your eyes slid out of focus again as you sat with the achy feeling in your chest.
Bobby heaved a sigh and tossed the wrench in his hands down into the toolbox. He leaned heavily against the workbench. “You know I’ve been in your shoes, Y/N. I know what it’s like to go from two legs to two wheels; how useless you suddenly feel, how vulnerable. Hell, most days I figured it was worse than just being dead,” he trailed off in the candid sort of way that only Bobby could pull off.
You gave him a perplexed look. “Is this supposed to be making me feel better? Because it really isn’t.”
”I’m just saying that I know what you’re going through, at least a little piece of it. Just take it from me, it gets better.”
”Says the man who can walk again,” you said, failing to keep the bitterness out of your voice. You wheeled your chair towards the open garage door and looked out into the blinding sun. “Does it make me a coward that I couldn’t stand to stay in the bunker with Luther there?” It was a rhetorical question but Bobby answered anyway.
”No. Of course not.”
“And it’s not like I’m okay with being stuck in this chair, but I don’t think that’s even really what this horrible, empty, sick feeling is about, Bobby.”
He heaved a sigh and went and put a fatherly hand on your shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I know.”
You turned your eyes up to him and were surprised to find understanding there. It occurred to you that he knew Sam and Dean better than almost anyone. Perhaps he had guessed that there was something between you and Dean… even before either of you had.
_ _ _ _ _ _
”Yeah, I will. I’ll call you tomorrow. Ok. Bye, Y/N.” Sam hung up the phone and stared down at it in his hands, his brow furrowed in discomfort and concern.
He heard Dean’s heavy footfalls approaching from down the hallway and rounded on him.
”Dean…” he started seriously.
”Sam.” Dean was wiping his hands on a towel, which was already stained with previous days of work (torture) with the demon.
”You need to call Y/N.”
Dean turned away immediately, hiding his face from his brother. “I told you, Sam—“
”I don’t care. You don’t have to hear how miserable she is every day! You have to call her.”
He rounded on Sam. ”I can’t, Sam! Alright! I can’t, dammit! Not until I have good news.”
”She doesn’t care about good news, Dean. She just wants to know that you’re okay,” Sam said, much more gently.
”Yeah, well. I’m pretty goddamn far from okay,” he said, tossing the towel angrily down onto the table.
Sam sighed heavily and again allowed the silence to stretch. The tension in the air felt like electricity that thickens before a thunderstorm. “So? No progress.”
Dean rubbed a hand at the rough stubble on his chin. “No.”
Sam nodded. “Maybe tomorrow.”
”How many times have we said that now, hmm?” He shook his head. “It’s not enough.” He stood and began to head back up the hallway.
”Give it a rest for today, Dean!” Sam called after him.
”I’m fine!” Dean argued back.
”Just—just don’t do anything until I’m there. Give me five minutes to return this call about the vamps in Ohio. I’ll be right there!”
Dean waved a hand vaguely at Sam and disappeared around the corner down the hallway.
Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head at the obstinacy of his brother.
_ _ _ _ _ _
You and Bobby sat in the front room of his house, surrounded by dusty books and old newspapers. The old television had a baseball game coming in, grainy though it was. Bobby was drinking a beer and trying to pretend like he was enjoying watching the game when really he was fretting over you and the boys and the demon locked up in the bunker.
You were alternating between staring detachedly at the TV screen and out through the dirty windows. A chill suddenly crept up your spine and you shuddered, despite the warm day. The hairs on the back of your neck suddenly stood up.
You suddenly saw a flash of Luther grinning, baring his teeth at you in your mind’s eye. His face was stained crimson and his eyes were bloodshot, but it only served to make him more terrifying.
There was no stopping the gasp that escaped your lips as you clutched a hand to your head.
”Y/N?” Bobby was instantly rushing over to you. “What is it? Are you alright?”
You shook your head. “No. I think something is wrong. Bobby, get the car.”
_ _ _ _ _ _
Dean stepped back into the iron room and shut the heavy door behind him. The latch slid into place with a grinding sound that reverberated against the walls. Dean scowled with disgust at Luther, seated and chained in the center of the Devil’s trap.
”Have you changed your mind about my offer? Or should I keep carving?” Dean asked, twirling his knife in his hand.
Luther let out a raspy chuckle and spit blood onto the floor. “What deal was that again? Oh right, the one where I fix Y/N’s legs and you still kill me? You seem to have forgotten how negotiation works. There’s nothing in it for me. So at least if I’m going to die, it will be with the knowledge that I’ve screwed you Winchesters and that little bitch for life. I’ve left my mark on her. And it’s one that doesn’t ever wash off…” he finished in a raspy whisper.
Dean crossed into the Devil’s trap and punched Luther hard across the face. “You son of a bitch!”
Luther only laughed and spit more blood onto the floor. “Good, Dean. Give into it. The rage makes you stronger! Doesn’t it feel good to give in to it?” He studied the curling of Dean’s lip and bloody knuckles. “What would Y/N say if she could see you now?”
”Shut up,” Dean said warningly.
”Do you think she’d be proud of what you’re doing here, Dean? Do you think she’d be impressed? You tell yourself that you’re doing it all for her but really, you know deep down that you’re only doing it because you can’t bear to live with the crushing guilt that it’s YOUR FAULT SHE CAN’T WALK!”
”I said shut the hell up!” Dean roared, his hand shaking around the hilt of the knife. “You fix it! Fix what you did to her. I swear I will keep torturing you every single day until you undo it.”
”Go ahead. It won’t do you any good,” he hissed back with a cruel smile.
Dean clenched his jaw tighter and resumed his sickening job.
_ _ _ _ _ _
”Are you sure about this?” Bobby asked as he loaded the bags into the car.
”No, but do you really want to not go on the chance that this is nothing?” you said from the passenger seat. “I just have this horrible feeling, Bobby,” you said. You pressed your phone to your ear again and hit the speed dial for Sam’s number. “Dammit!” Busy signal again. “What the hell is he doing? Who does he have to talk to besides the people in this car and Dean?” you said in an exasperated rush.
”And you tried Dean’s phone?”
”Bobby—“
”Now isn’t the time to pussyfoot around, Y/N! Dial the damn number!” he scolded you while throwing the car into gear and tearing off down the dirt road.
”Fine! Ok…” you hastily dialed Dean’s number and pressed the phone to your ear again. It rang once and then gave you a series of three beeps, signaling that it was out of range. “Dammit!”
You ended the call and clutched the phone in your hands. “Drive faster, Bobby.”
Bobby glanced at you uneasily out of his peripheral vision and pressed down firmly on the gas pedal.
You stared at the darkening countryside whizzing past, endlessly wringing your hands and turning your phone over in them. It occurred to you suddenly how similar this road looked to the one you had your accident on. The road was clear. The ditches were grassy. There wasn’t another car for miles. Your stomach tightened.
You jumped as your phone suddenly rang in your hands. Your heart was pounding as you answered. “Sam?”
”Y/N, hey. I saw I missed a couple of calls from you. Are you alright?”
”Yes. Are you?” you pressed urgently.
”What? Yeah, fine. Why?”
”Where’s Dean?”
”He’s in the other room. What’s going on?” Sam’s voice was bewildered.
”Is he with Luther?”
”Yeah, I think so. I mean he headed back that way again. I had to make a call—“
You interrupted him. “Sam, you need to go check on Dean, now.”
You heard the scrape of his chair on the hard floor and heard him moving through the bunker. “Y/N. What is going on?”
”Just hurry, Sam!”
Sam reached the heavy iron door and gripped the handle firmly. He attempted to turn it but nothing happened and he swore under his breath. It was latched from the inside. Sam pounded on the door. “DEAN!” you heard him call. “Dean! Open the door!”
You were feeling lightheaded. Your heart was pumping as fast as it could and still, there wasn’t enough oxygen. “Sam, what’s happening?” Your voice came out barely a whisper. “Sam!”
”I’ll call you back!” Click.
Your mouth was completely dry. You felt like you were going to be sick.
Bobby glanced over at you. “Y/N? Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet…” his face too was paler than usual, although his hands were steady on the wheel.
You cranked down the window for some air. “Just drive faster, Bobby.”
It was only five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Your phone rang again and you answered it immediately. “Sam?” You were holding your breath. How was he going to sound like? Oh, God. Were you going to hear tears in his voice?
”Y/N, everything is fine. Dean’s fine. He was just interrogating Luther. Luther is still trapped. We’re both okay.”
You let out an audible breath. “Okay. Okay…” You passed a shaky hand over your face.
”What the hell is going on? Where are you?”
”I just—I had a really bad feeling. I just felt like something horrible was happening and—Bobby and I are on our way to you.”
There were a couple of beats of silence. “Okay. Do you feel better now?”
”Yeah. I think so. I mean… it’s a little hard to tell because I still sort of feel like I’m gonna be sick,” you said with a dry laugh. “And my heart might be changing the curve of my ribs it’s beating so hard against them…”
Another beat of silence before Sam answered. “Alright,” there was obvious concern in his voice. “But you’re still coming back here?”
You let out another audible breath. “Yeah. I think this just made me realize I would rather be in close proximity to whatever you two are doing.”
”Okay. Right. Well, that’s good news. At least we get to see you,” Sam said.
You smiled and let out another tiny laugh. “Always finding the bright side, aren’t you Sam?”
_ _ _ _ _ _
The crunching of gravel under the tires signaled that you were almost there. Bobby directed the car onto the familiar last lane and you could almost see the concrete structure of the bunker looming in the distance. It was late. The darkness had closed in around you as you drove. Now the headlights were beaming through it, shining a beacon on the road ahead.
”I guess we’re back,” you said, as Bobby slowed the car to a crawl.
”Yep.” He shoved it into the park, grinding the gears a little but not seeming to care.
In just a few minutes you were tapping on the metal door, and Sam was greeting you, pulling you into a tight hug, and helping you inside. Once you were in the main room, Bobby clapped Sam hard on the shoulder and went to stow his and your bags in your respective rooms.
Sam looked at you, shoving his hands into his pockets and unsure what to say. “It’s good to see you. Although, I’m sorry it stems from such a terrifying situation.”
You only nodded in response. You glanced around the room. Things looked pretty much the same… though had you really expected them to change in just over a week? It felt like much longer than you had been away. You attempted to swallow the lump in your throat. “So, where’s Dean?” Your heart skipped a beat as you said his name.
”I’m here,” came the gruff voice from behind you. Dean stepped into the room, a glass of whiskey clutched in his hand. He set it down on the table with a clanging of the glass on wood that sang in the cavernous entrance space.
”H-hey,” you managed, looking at him.
He approached you and swept you into as good a hug as he could with you seated in your wheelchair. You noticed that Sam crept out of the room at that exact moment. “I’m glad you’re back,” Dean said as he withdrew from you.
You cleared your throat. “Yeah. It’s good to see you anyway.”
He nodded and rubbed a hand anxiously across the back of his neck. “Look, I was gonna call I just—I was hoping it would be with good news.”
You chewed your bottom lip anxiously. “You should have anyway.”
He stared down at his boots and tilted his head a little. “I suppose. Sorry. This thing has got me a little occupied.”
”Right. Sam said it has you practically tied up in knots.”
Dean scoffed out a laugh under his breath and picked up his glass of whiskey again. “Yeah, well… Sam always was a drama queen,” he replied, taking a sip of the dark amber liquid.
You studied Dean’s face for a moment. He looked tired and worn. You weren’t sure where to go next with the conversation and as that thought flew through your brain all the fatigue that was a result of the adrenaline rush earlier and subsequent crash suddenly hit you at once. “I think I’m just going to head to my room. Feeling pretty tired after today…”
”Yeah, what happened there?” Dean said in an attempt to get you to stay. He had been starved for your face and for your voice since you had left.
You shrugged. “I don’t know. I just had a really bad feeling all of a sudden. I guess it was nothing.” You took a final look at Dean and drank in the sight of him in one piece, and how his green eyes were peering so unwaveringly back at you. “Goodnight, Dean.”
”Night,” his low voice returned. It was just the thing you needed to hear to soothe the paranoia that had taken hold of you and to send you off to sleep. You didn’t even think about the fact that Luther was chained in the Devil’s trap only walls away.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Dean stared into the fire that was slowly dying in the library. He was on his fourth whiskey. There was little chance of sleep arriving tonight. He was still bothered by the words he had exchanged with Luther earlier in the day and absolutely sick of how little progress he had made.
And now that you were back, he felt even more that he had to make things happen, had to make progress. He needed to fix things if he could and if that meant more torture for that bastard of a demon, then so be it…
He downed the dregs of his last drink in one gulp and set it on the side table before making his way through the bunker to the iron room.
He pulled the door open slowly, trying to avoid the hinges and their noisy creaking, and slipped inside. The light was dim. Luther was illuminated slumped in the chair by just one flickering old fluorescent bulb.
Dean grabbed the demon knife and the blade sang as it vibrated from being dragged ever so slightly across the table surface.
Luther lifted his head and looked at Dean. His face cracked into a familiar wicked smile. His teeth were a little bloody still from Dean’s work on him earlier.
”Burning the midnight oil are we, Dean?” he rasped.
”I’m sick of this. So you’re going to give me what I want and you’re going to do it tonight.”
For some reason, this seemed to amuse Luther even more than usual. “Your timing is really impeccable,” he said.
Dean couldn’t prevent the brief flickering question as to what he meant from showing on his stern brow for a fraction of a second. He didn’t really have to ask.
”Y/N is back. I can feel her. I can smell her,” he hissed.
”Don’t you dare say her name! You don’t get to talk about her. You don’t even get to think about her,” Dean’s fist clenched more tightly around the hilt of the knife.
”Actually,” Luther suddenly stood up from the chair and the chains that had been binding him fell with a rattling clatter. “I get to do whatever I want.”
Dean’s heart jumped into his throat and he stared in disbelief.
”How in the hell—“
Luther pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, giving no notice to the slick blood he smeared across his skin from the numerous wounds Dean had inflicted on him earlier. “You underestimate me, Dean.” A twitch of his fingers had Dean thrown against the wall with ease. He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders back.
Dean felt a crushing force on his chest and on his windpipe, pinning him helplessly against the wall. The demon-killing knife was feet away on the ground now and his green eyes focused on it desperately.
”The thing about iron-built Devil’s traps from the era of those stupid, meddling, whiny Men of Letters is that back in those days the technology wasn’t as good at setting the metal with no defects as it is today. This often produced weaknesses in the structures, of course,” Luther began casually. “In addition, it wasn’t always guaranteed that you were getting 100% pure Grade-A iron.” He scratched at an itch on his nose as if he was the most comfortable he had ever been, just relating some fascinating history lesson. “Obviously these issues generally weren’t too catastrophic for normal uses. But for Devil’s traps, do create some weaknesses that a demon might exploit. Especially one as powerful as me with a lot of time on their hands to gnaw away at them.”
Dean struggled to maintain consciousness, looking desperately from the knife to the table full of salt and holy water.
”Now, this is how this is going to go. I’m going to kill you. And I’m going to send an image of it straight into little Y/N’s head. And then she and Sam and dear old Bobby Singer are going to come busting in here. And then I’m going to kill all of them. Deal? …Well, that’s my only offer so I think you’ll take it.” Luther made another small motion with his hand and Dean felt the pressure on his chest decrease slightly.
”You still can’t get out of this room, you son of a bitch,” he choked out. “That door really is solid iron. And salt at the door.”
”Yes, well. No matter. I can still kill everyone even though I’m stuck in here,” Luther said carelessly. He flicked his fingers again and Dean was sent hurtling across the room onto the floor.
“This feels familiar…hmm.” Luther pressed a finger to his lips like he was trying very hard to recall something. “Oh right. We’ve been here before. This is basically what happened in Las Cruces, isn’t it? You lost the knife. You were under my thumb. And then little Y/N came rushing in to save you.” He paced around a little. “Oh, but she can’t really come to save you this time very easily, can she? I mean the whole not being able to walk thing. Hate to mention it… awkward,” he said with a vindictive smile. “I guess this ending will be a departure from the way the prologue ended then.”
_ _ _ _ _ _
Just down the hall, through only a few walls, around a couple of corners, you were ripped from a deep sleep and shot up stock straight in bed, gasping for air as you had emerged from underneath a blanket of cold water. “Dean,” your harsh whisper penetrated the inky silence and your heart felt like it was suddenly gripped by an icy fist.
Something horrible was happening. The feeling in the pit of your stomach was all too familiar. The same sick dread that had gripped you before was back. And beyond that, you had just seen it.
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