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The Hunter and The Witch~ Dean Winchester x f!reader

Description: Since you’ve resurrected Sam, everything’s gone wrong, direct continuation of last chapter

Warnings: A lot of angst, some comfort, POV switches, lore, Sam may be a little OOC, grief, love-sick Dean, cursing, let me know if I missed anything.

Word Count: 22.4k

All Hell Breaks Loose (Pt.2): Golden Slumbers

(Masterlist, Previous Chapter)

I blink slowly, bright light hitting me square in the eyes. So, through barely opened eyes, I slowly push myself up to a sitting position.

I blink at my surroundings, squinting through the bright sun shining on me. Grass tickles my palms, warm, spiky, and all around me. I shake my head, trying to make sense of the sight.

I must be dreaming.

I look up, finally noticing the great big weeping willow I lie beneath, the sun breaking through the canopy of drooping branches. I press my hand to my head as if doing so would right my vision. But nothing changes.

Wait.

I look down at my arms, at the sleeves that are so significantly different from what I was just wearing. Long white, cotton, and lace sleeves drape down my arms in dramatic heaps, like the sleeves of a medieval princess. Bell sleeves, to be exact. It makes me jump to my feet quickly. I look down at myself, at the strange full white dress I now wear. It’s gorgeous, long and dragging. Seemingly made to fit me perfectly. How curious.

I turn slowly. There’s a field of grass and flowers all around me, going on infinitely. There are no other trees, no insects, not even the chirping of birds.

I wander forward, bare feet treading carefully along the flowers, my dress held in great handfuls at my side. I look up at the sky, perfectly blue, clouds fluffy, and the sun in perfect view. It’s all so…perfect.

I pause, looking away from the sky; only something’s changed. Less than twenty feet away is a woman sitting amongst the flowers, looking out into the continuous field. She wears a lilac dress, the style similar to mine from what I can see.

“Hello!” I call out, gathering my dress again so I can trek forward.

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even flinch. I move quicker, flowers dragging against the train of my dress.

“Hello?” I try as I get closer, just two feet away.

She turns in time, looking over her shoulder.

I freeze, eyes widening.

“…Mom?”

Adeline slams her fists against the countertop, swiping her arms clean across, knocking the salt canister to the floor, spilling it in a sweep of white.

“Fuck!” she roars, hitting the counter again, her fists aching.

She had one job. One job. And she couldn’t do it. You’re gone.

You were stumbling, collapsing to the floor, and before she could try and catch you, before you could even hit the floor, you were gone. Vanished.

Her chest twists in ugly knots, a snarl etched onto her lips. This was supposed to be a happy moment. An amazing feat, because you did the impossible. Sam Winchester is alive because of you—whatever you did. She doesn’t understand it. By all means, you shouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing. But of course, you’d find a way, with all your optimism and all the love you carry because to you there is no other way.

So, yes, this should be a happy moment even though she didn’t know the youngest Winchester well; it’s hard not to be relieved, especially when his brother is holding him in a bear hug in just the other room. But instead of happiness, her heart churns in ugly hatred, pumping her veins with the black sticky stuff.

She should leave them behind, hop on her bike and search the Earth until she finds you. But you’d give her a disappointed, knowing look. You’d want her to make sure they didn’t do anything stupid; she could practically see the order in your eyes before you performed whatever messed-up spell you did.

“Where is she?” Dean asks from somewhere behind her, voice rough and raw.

She turns quickly, that hatred boiling over onto her face, glaring at him.

“Oh, now you’re worried,” she spits.

Looking at him, she can only see the man that stood there and watched you come apart to save his brother. The man who crowded around Sam, hands on his shoulder, checking if he was okay even as you were nowhere to be seen. And through him, she sees herself. She didn’t do anything either.

Her jab lands the way she wanted it to. He physically flinches, face pinched into a grimace. He steps forward, boots thumping against the wood, his green eyes wild, his jaw set in controlled anger.

“Where is she?” he repeats, harsher this time.

“I DON’T KNOW!” she screams, throat rubbed raw in pain she can understand.

Her chest heaves rapidly, grey eyes filled with panic. She’s cracking at the seams.

“We’ll find her,” he decides, nodding once as if it were that simple. As if you couldn’t be anywhere in the goddamn world.

“She did this for you!” she yells, getting closer to him with an accusatory finger. She should hit him, make him feel even a fraction of the pain she does. But if you found out, which you would somehow, you’d be mad at her, and that’s worse than anything she feels now.

“I KNOW!” he screams, loud voice booming against the walls. “You don’t think I know that?”

“No, I don’t think you do,” she challenges, cruelly. She knows he loves you; it’s always been painfully obvious. But it doesn’t seem to matter now. “You let this happen. You begged her!”

She knew Sam was one of your best friends, but all it took was one look from Dean to get you to attempt the impossible.

“Hey!” Bobby yells from behind them, standing in the doorway. Her eyes snap to him, this old man she only met today, his face pinched in a permanent, sour look. “Would you two quit your hollerin’, somethin’ weird ‘s goin’ on outside.”

She breaks away from Dean’s personal space, storming to the front door. She slams it open, the old wood cracking against the wall, the hinges whining pathetically. She freezes in the doorway, eyes widening at the sight. For as far as she can see, everything is dead. The grass is dried and yellow, even in the rain. The trees have lost all their leaves, the trunks grey, the branches curled inward. Overhead, the clouds are still dark grey and angry; the occasional lightning lights up the sky, thunder rumbling loudly.

“Did she—“

“We have to go,” Adeline cuts Dean off, pushing past him. “Get your things, we have to leave right now.”

“What’s happening?” Bobby asks.

“We’ll have hunters on us within the hour, and that’s only if we’re lucky,” she spews, shoving their discarded guns into their arms. “We need to get as far away from here as possible.”

She leaves them standing there dumbfounded, peeking her head into the room where the ritual happened to yell: “C’mon, Sam, we’re going!”

She doesn’t wait to see if he moves into action, already heading for the front door again. She storms out into the night, cold rain pouring down, soaking her to the bone almost immediately. She makes it five feet before turning back, arms wide out as she shouts: “I’m not kidding, come on!”

Only then do they snap into gear, following after her into the storm, mud clinging to their boots as they trek back to the vehicles. They manage to lift her bike onto the back of Bobby’s truck so that she doesn’t have to ride in the pouring rain. Instead, she makes the horrible decision of riding with the Winchesters, glaring at the back of Dean’s head as they ride off.

“Look outside,” Sam says, forcing her gaze out the window.

The damage continues the further away they get, the land completely devastated. The lush green forest they had passed on the way in is history now; you wouldn’t even think it was the same place. But she knows they didn’t take a wrong turn. You’re responsible for the destruction of acres of land. Maybe it’s best you aren’t around to see this, she thinks, because the acre of land earlier in the day had brought you to tears multiple times, but this? This makes that acre look like a joke. It’s miles and miles of land, seemingly never-ending as the car drones forward. If one made you cry, the knowledge of this might actually break you. So, when they find you, she won’t mention a thing.

“Where’re we headed?” Dean asks after a while, his thoughts on all this devastation lost on her.

“I don’t know,” she answers.

“Where would she go?” Sam asks, attempting to be helpful.

“I don’t think she made the choice,” she says through gritted teeth. “And we have to find her before some hunter does. They’ll be looking for her too.”

“Well, what about her brothers’?” Sam suggests.

“If you want to call him and break the news that we lost his little sister, then be my fucking guest,” Adeline spits.

“We’ll need to tell him eventually,” he reasons. “Maybe we can ask him to check her house? He’ll get there quicker than we will.”

Her teeth grind together in concentrated thought. It was unfortunately a good idea. But she knows how he’ll react, can see his face clearly in his head, and she’s sure the disappointed, frightened, and saddened expression will immobilize her. It was both their jobs to protect her. It might as well be their only job. At least the only one that mattered.

“How long would it take for us to get to Maine?” she asks, nails biting into her palms.

“A day if we drive straight through,” Dean answers, fingers flexing against the steering wheel, his knuckles white.

“Okay, okay,” she nods. “I’ll call him.”

********

The hours drone on in complete silence. There’s nothing to talk about, nothing that won’t erupt into an argument. Bobby went his own way, taking Adeline’s motorcycle with him—she’d get it back some other time. She wasn’t worried about it either.

The only “conversation” that did arise was Sam suggesting Dean take a nap while he takes over driving. Of course, that started an argument. Sam should rest; he went through a lot (including dying), but no, Dean should rest because he’s been driving all day. It went on for about four minutes. At some point they even looped Adeline into it. In the end, Dean stayed exactly where he was; after all, this involved you.

His silence was perhaps the worst, especially because he hadn’t dared to put any music on. She never did learn to read him, not unless it came to identifying when he was flirting with you, back when you weren’t together yet. She liked to rub that fact in often.

Before today, and other than the occasional text, the last time she talked to you, heard your voice, was when you called to give her the news about Dean and you. You sounded timid and yet excited as you told her, though of course she knew it was only a matter of time. And, yes, she rubbed being right in, too.

She wishes you were here now.

The call came in when they were stopped at a gas station, her back pressed against the wet and cold exterior of the Impala. For a long moment, she stared at her blaring phone, because in those stretched-out seconds you get to exist in a liminal space between safety and tragedy. What she doesn’t yet know keeps you there, where she could assume the answer herself. It’s safe. Plus, the initial call hadn’t been great. His frightened voice had simply gaped: “What?” then transformed into immediate action. She heard his quick movement, the scraping of his keys off of a surface, and his barking of orders to who she assumed to be your sister-in-law. All in all, it was no surprise he got to your place quicker than expected. Six hours shaved down to four and a half.

Finally, she gives in, silencing her Rob Zombie ringtone. She doesn’t get to say “hello.” She doesn’t get to say anything. He’s panting on the other side of the line as if he ran a marathon—unable to catch his breath.

“She won’t wake up,” he pants. “She won’t wake up!”

Her phone slips from her hand, crashing to the damp asphalt. Still, her hand stays positioned by her ear as if she were still clinging to the device. Her eyes wide, staring off into the distance, face paler than the moon.

Dean whips around, shouting something she can’t hear, his voice muddled and distorted. He picks her phone off the floor, throwing a look at Sam over the roof of the car, wiping the grime onto his shirt before pressing the phone to his ear.

“She isn’t responding,” B/N says, continuing as if the conversation hadn’t been abruptly disturbed. “She won’t wake up! She won’t—“

“Hey!” Dean yells, trying to snap him out of it even though it feels like someone is choking his heart, squeezing until the red muscle loses color. “Hey. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Dean,” he mutters, swallowing roughly, sounding younger than he is. For a moment he’s a kid again, not nearly thirty. “She—She’s breathing, her heart's still beating, but she isn’t responding to anything. I blared her alarm, sprayed her with water…nothing, it’s like she’s not really there. ‘Like she’s in a coma.”

Dean exhales slowly, all the air in his lungs pushed out. You were alive. That’s all that mattered; they could figure the rest out. You were probably just in a deep sleep. You excreted yourself, of course you did, so it’s only natural that you’d be sleeping hard. Plus, you weren’t always easy to wake up anyway. This is fine. It’s manageable.

“Look, I-I’m gonna bring her to the hospital. You can meet me there,” B/N continues.

“No, no,” Dean answers. “Just keep her there, alright? We’re comin’.”

“Dean—“

“Trust me,” he cuts him off, hanging up on him before he could argue. He had to believe your brother would listen. He had to believe you were only in a deep sleep.

He clutches the phone tightly in his hand, knuckles white. He ignores the burning gaze of his brother, looking instead at Adeline, who has never looked more lost. She always appeared tough and unbothered, but now, here, she is stripped of that armor.

“She’s alright,” he grunts, trying to believe in his own words. Adeline sighs, head dropping forward. “She’s just…we’ll figure it out, okay?”

“Mommy?” I sigh, feeling like a child again. Tears well up in my eyes, blurring her into a lilac and h/c mess.

“There you are,” she smiles. Her voice is barely like I remembered; the memories had become distorted over the years, but now her voice echoes through each one, restoring the missing pieces.

But she’s as beautiful as I remembered, just like the photos of her too. She hasn’t aged a minute since the day she died, though she looks like herself—not sick, tired, and weak like she was in her last week on Earth.

A sob bubbles up from my chest, spilling hideously from my lips, raw and loud. I collapse to my knees beside her, arms thrown around her shoulders. She’s real and warm beneath my hands, not a ghost or a distant memory. She smells like a fresh breeze and the thick floral perfume she always wore. I hold her tightly, fingers curled into the sheer of her dress, tears soaking the crook of her neck, my shoulders racking uncontrollably with shaky sobs.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” she coos, one hand rubbing my back in soothing circles while the other pets my hair. “C’mon, let me see you.”

Reluctantly, I pull away from her embrace, though I still cling to the crook of her elbow as if the absence of touch will make her disappear. She smiles at me softly, the corner of her eyes crinkling, her e/c eyes filling with pure warmth.

“Look at you, you’re so beautiful,” she whispers, hands cradling my face, thumb wiping away my falling tears. I cling to her wrists, only crying harder. I never thought I’d get to see her again; I always assumed I would lose the memories of her to time no matter how hard I tried to keep them intact. And, yet, here she is.

“You’ve grown so much,” she continues, tears welling up in her own eyes. “And look how wonderful you already are. I always knew you were bound to be incredible.”

“How is this possible?!” I gape, sniffling and choking over ugly tears.

“Don’t ever question the limitations of the impossible, my dear,” she murmurs, nose scrunching as she ‘boops’ my own.

I laugh weakly, brushing away the tears from my damp cheeks.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I admit. “B/N too.”

“I know,” she nods sympathetically. “And I’m so sorry this is how it’s all turned out.”

“Nothing's been the same without you, I—“

“Oh, that’s not true,” she cuts me off softly. “Look at how you and your brother turned out. I’m so proud of you both. You’ve done so well without me.”

I shake my head rapidly, trying to swallow back a new wave of tears, my throat burning and tightening.

“We’ve done so well because of you,” I correct.

She laughs, and it’s as nice as windchimes singing in the wind.

“My sweet girl, it’s always been you,” she smiles, finding and squeezing my hands. “You know, even as a little girl you never seemed to understand the reflections of your heart. You aren’t good or kind because of me. It’s always just been who you are.”

She directs my hand to press over my heart, the muscle thumping steadily beneath my palm. The soothing wind brushes against us, sliding her hair off her shoulder, letting it hang gently in the breeze. There are sparkles in her eyes, holding me gently.

For a long moment, there is only the silence of the wind and our breathing, and for a moment I see myself in her as if looking into a mirror that has nothing to do with exterior presentation but everything underneath. My entire life I’ve been trying to be good, like her—like she wanted. I’d spent so long perfecting the way I held myself, the flow of my words, the tone in which each syllable had to be said to appear like a normal girl—to appear kind–that I had forgotten it was always there. I ignored its natural existence in an attempt to prove I could be merely capable of being good, like if I could just reflect what people wanted, then it would be enough to convince them.

I have no response, no words as pretty and poetic as she deserves, so, instead, I go into her embrace, wanting to be held by her again.

Gravel crunches beneath the tires of the Impala following the road up to your secluded house. The car rolls up the small hill just like it’s done countless times before, slotting smoothly into your driveway.

The Victorian house stands tall at the center of your property, the grass around it perfectly green, and the flowers in the bed in front of the windows in perfect bloom despite how long you’ve been away. Through the windows, they can see only one light on, warm light visible through one of the front windows, which she knows to be your living room.

It’s still decorated for Halloween, string lights strung around your porch, jack-o-lanterns on either side of the stairs, fake bats hanging from the ceiling, and that’s only the exterior. It’s as if your house has been frozen in time, paused the moment you went away, keeping perfectly still until you’d return. Though she’s certain you’d find immense joy in the decorations still being up, even though it’s early May.

You had been able to buy this house and this land quite young thanks to the money inherited from your parents' death, especially your mother, who had come from a very long lineage. After coming of age to collect the shared inheritance, you bought your dream house while your brother got his dream farm. It all worked out.

And being who you are, you insisted on making a guest room specifically for Adeline. You made sure she decorated it the way she liked so she’d feel at home whenever she’d stay, which you both liked to happen quite often. Then not very long after, you had a room set up for Dean, though you did it more discreetly. He just happened to keep picking the same guest room when he was around, so, naturally, you started to keep things he liked in it. She plays this memory in her mind as they get out of the car. It’s just how you are; you open your home and yourself to others without blinking, wanting to make everyone happy and comfortable.

Grass crunches beneath their shoes, Dean not so discreetly rushing, his long legs carrying him. But the door swings open, B/N standing there, eyes wide and breathing heavy. He storms down the steps of the porch, jaw set tightly.

“You did this!” he booms, eyes locked on Dean, vision narrowing solely on him. “This is your fault.”

Dean stands there, frozen, even as his friend barrels towards him with a clenched fist. He sees the punch coming long before it happens; he’s been a soldier too long not to notice when he’s going to be attacked—not that B/N is exactly being discreet about it either. Still, he stands there, feet rooted in the grass, almost welcoming the hit.

His fist collides with Dean’s nose, pain erupting across his face. He stumbles back, hands coming up to cup his nose rather than fight back, though he was very capable of that too. Shouts erupt from Sam and Adeline, grabbing onto your brother, shoving and holding him back, telling him to “calm down.”

Dean chuckles quietly to himself through gritted teeth as he straightens, hands falling from his nose, warmth beginning to trickle down his nostril. The pain is good. It makes his eyes sting harshly, a tingly feeling scattering across his nose, which could be broken for all he knew. But he didn’t care. This pain was palpable, traceable, easy to detect and explain. Much easier, in fact, than the storm raging behind his skull as violently as the furor buried in his chest cavity.

And he can feel that pull in his chest, trying to tug him up those stairs and closer to you. To find you. His brain won’t stop screaming it, pleading and begging every cell in his body to push forward, to just get to you. He’s been restless, especially now that he’s so close. His hands clench into fists at his side; this would be the part where he’d throw a punch back, but, for once, he has no interest in making things even.

“‘S alright, it’s alright,” Dean says, sounding faintly nasal as he waves the others off. “‘Can hit me ‘much as you want later, just let me see her.”

Sam and Adeline back off your brother, letting him go and stare daggers into Dean. Meanwhile, the two stare at Dean, eyes wide with shock, eyebrows shot straight up. This wasn’t like him. Normally, he’d say something clever and mean because he could be so good at being cruel, but how could he manage anything of the sort when you're a couple hundred feet from him, hurting, and he’s not allowed to see you? Plus, you’d be upset with him if he hurt your brother regardless of who started it, though you’d certainly lecture your brother too. Worst of all, you wouldn’t even truly be mad, at least not down to your soul or so that your bones would turn brittle. You’d forgive him in minutes, maybe an hour or two if he’d really messed up (longer if he royally screwed up), so he’d have to wonder for the hundredth time how you could love someone as cruel as him.

Maybe the unexpected reaction throws your brother off too, because the fight is pushed right out of him, deflating his shoulders like a balloon. He tries to keep his furious expression, but even that flickers too, because he knows Dean, and right now, they’re just people who love you so much they’d rather gnaw off their own limbs than ever lose you. For a moment, they are the same: scared to lose the one person they never quite fathomed could be gone forever. So, B/N moves off to the side, standing down, head hanging heavily.

Dean’s legs move quicker than his brain can register, but it catches up quickly. He shoves past your brother, shooting up the porch steps, barrelling into your house. Immediately he is hit with the scent of sage, cinnamon, and something sweet like vanilla, it makes his brain lag back to the last time he was here: standing on your doorstep, noting your hair had looked different from the last time he had seen you (which was way longer than he had wanted), you hugged him like it had been years and not a month or two. Then, he asked you to come with him, find his missing father like you’d drop the life you had created just to help him. Selflessly, you did. He had been selfish to ask of you something so big, and, now, he can track the exact moment that got you into this situation.

He storms up your stairs, taking them two at a time, the banister rattling beneath his hand. He takes the corner too quickly, nearly clipping his shoulder into the wall. He stumbles down the hallway, knowing the way to your bedroom without thinking. He’d been here countless times; he knows your house in and out; he knows every secret; he knows where you keep the extra towels, or that snack he liked, and he knows which floorboards creak.

He pushes your half-closed door open, eyes zeroing in on your sleeping form. The remaining air in his lungs gets sucked right out. You're lying in your bed, wearing a strange long white dress he’s never seen before, your hair splayed out on the pillow beneath you, your hands folded over each other resting on your waist like you're in a fairytale rather than here with him, and yet your chest rises and falls like normal.

His knees wobble as he strides to your bedside, your name on his tongue like him saying it will make a difference when your brother has already tried everything.

Of course, you don’t answer; you don’t even stir. His knees give up for good, forcing him to sit at the edge of your bed, feeling out of place in your colorful sanctuary.

“C’mon, sweetheart, you gotta wake up now,” he says softly, his fingers gently brushing against your cheek. His eyes flicker across your face, catching on the white streak of hair framing the left side of your face. It stands out against the rest of your hair even though it’s just a singular thick piece. It’s further proof of what you’ve done, of what this means. It makes this all real—seeing you makes this real. On the drive over, he could pretend you were just exhausted and stubborn, but now? Now a big, ugly part of him knows you won’t be waking up, no matter how long he sits here and pleads with you.

“Hey, you gotta wake up,” he tries again, words firmer.

He doesn’t have to listen to that ugly part of his brain; he can convince himself you’ll open your eyes, confused and grumpy but alive and awake.

“Y/N. C’mon,” he repeats, growing desperate with each word. But again and again you don’t react. It’s like you aren’t there.

“No, no, c’mon,” he pleads, gently nudging your shoulders. Yet, his chest churns and aches, panic clawing its way right to the surface as his heart and brain try to understand the truth. “Please. Y/N.”

“Please, not you too. You gotta wake up, alright? ‘Need to hear your voice again. You…you gotta tell me one of those ridiculous fun facts of yours, or—or lecture me about somethin’, anythin’, baby, please.”

“Dean!” Someone snaps.

His head whips to the door, Sam filling up the doorway, looking at him with his puppy dog eyes, silently asking him what they already know. But he doesn’t see his little brother; he sees the choice he made, the lives he traded—him over you.

Adeline shoves right past Sam, pushing the tall man into the doorframe.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she spews, tears already rolling down her cheeks. She falls to her knees beside your bed, hands hovering by your face like she wasn’t sure if touching you was a good idea. “Please, please! You can’t leave me,” she begs, voice breaking terribly. Her face is stricken with horror as if her heart had been ripped right from her chest by someone she trusted dearly. That probably would hurt less than this. You were the reason for her existence. You were a sad, scared kid that needed someone—needed her. She was supposed to protect you.

Anger bubbles in her veins, grief turning sour. Her nails dig into her palms. She wants to scream, wants to blame Dean again because it’d be so easy. But that waning anger ebbs back into that void of sadness, leaving as quickly as it came.

“You know what’s worse?” She asks quietly, not looking away from you. “The fact that she’d be happy with this. She’d want it to be Sam over her; she’d make this choice over and over again even knowing the outcome.”

“Am I…?” I ask hesitantly as I pull away from her embrace. I know she said to not question the impossible, but that’s hard when none of this makes sense.

“No,” she says, shaking her head like I asked a ridiculous question. And perhaps it is stupid, because over the last year I’ve come back from death twice, a phenomenon I couldn’t begin to explain. Though I can’t explain this either.

“So what is this place?” I ask, looking around at the endless flower field. It’s nice, sure, but it also doesn’t reveal anything useful.

“I don’t know,” she answers.

“Is this a dream?” I ask just above a whisper and squint a little, like it’s some sort of secret and if I say it too loud then the whole charade will come crashing down.

“The best things usually are,” she muses with a little lopsided smile.

“You're cryptic,” I laugh, almost enjoying the infuriating mystery.

“You’re not dreaming,” she finally reveals. “Nor hallucinating. It’s something else entirely.”

There’s another question hanging on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back, hold it in and swallow it down, because there’s a corner of my mind kicking myself for all the questioning, begging me to just accept whatever this is, asking me to bask in this gift—asking for just a moment with my mother. This is all I’ve ever wanted. She’s been gone for twelve years, and I’ve spent each one missing her like I was losing her all over again. So can’t I have this, whatever this is? Can’t I make up the minutes?

I think after all this time, after everything I’ve been through, I deserve this peace. So, yes, I let myself have it, even if it means ignoring natural curiosity.

“This would be a very pretty dream, if it were one,” I say softly.

“Yes, it would be.”

Crickets chirp outside, sitting in the grass, the moon high in the sky. He can hear them from your window. It’s the only other sound besides your combined breaths.

He hasn’t left your side since they got here the day before. The others tried to pull him away, get him to eat, or shower, or sleep, anything but wallow at your bedside in the chair he pulled closer. But how could he? What if you wake up? What’s more important than you? ‘Cause it’s certainly not sleep or food.

Except, the last time he saw you when you were awake had only been for a handful of minutes, and in that time, he could only focus on his brother. You had become an afterthought. The knowledge sits in his throat like a lodged stone. You’re one of the most important people in his life; you’re his everything, you’re his first thought in the morning and the last before bed, and yet, he handled your life—your comfort and safety like it never mattered. Adeline was right too; you would want it to be this way, you’d say something like “at least Sam is alive.” Which is worse. Because you shouldn’t have to be an afterthought, ever. You aren’t meant to be. You don’t deserve it.

Now, you lie asleep with no end in sight.

He never should’ve involved you in finding his Dad. Or, he should’ve made you leave when he said he would, instead of letting you stay because he liked having you around, and because you looked so hurt when he brought it up. He would take you hating him any day over whatever this was.

God, he misses you even as he sits in the same room as you. He misses your smile, your voice, the way your eyes light up, your laughter, your touch. Every time he allows himself to stare at you, his heart sinks and churns, a new wave of guilt dragging him beneath the tide of darkness as his mind tortures him with sweet memories of you.

“You remember that time back in high school when I smoked cigarettes?” he asks you despite the inevitable silence that follows. “I thought they made me look cool, ‘made me tougher. I barely smoked for a month before you found out and told me to stop. Sam had told me to quit, teachers did, principals, whatever…But you asked—told me to, and I did because it was you askin’.”

He leans forward, elbows propped up on his knees.

“You had that look on your face like your whole world was shatterin’ just ‘cause you were worried ‘bout me. Me,” he laughs, humorless. “I never smoked again, never picked up another damn cigarette, never even looked at one again.”

He sighs, wetting his lips, head dropping low. The silence is too loud, the gap missing your sweet voice or your contagious laughter.

“I need you, sweetheart,” he admits. “I can’t do this without you, ‘don’t want to.”

He looks up from the rug, finding your peaceful expression in sleep. The silence is like hands wrapped around his throat. He wanted to shake you until you woke up. You always came back; why did this have to be different? It didn’t make sense. None of this did.

To think a couple of days ago he was saying he was going to marry you someday, and now you’re…gone. You had looked at him like he was offering to lasso the moon, all the constellations, and the sun, eyes wide, teary, and filled with longing. If he wasn’t sure before, he was at that moment. Maybe he shouldn’t have told you that, because it allowed him to see a future he liked; it gave him hope–the one thing he should’ve learned by now he didn’t get to have. Maybe the universe saw his hope, his love, and had to remind him that his life wasn’t his own.

“You know, she’d want you to take care of yourself,” Sam says from the doorway, somehow always there to interrupt him at his lowest. Yet, for once, he doesn’t try to pretend he wasn’t on the verge of tears, or that he had been laying out his heart for you. It’d be pointless.

“You don’t get to say that,” he grumbles, jaw flexing.

“No?” Sam challenges, stepping further into the room. “Cause she’s my friend too. And this is my fault more than it is yours. I’m the reason she’s like that.”

Dean shakes his head, forming fists so tight his palms and knuckles hurt. “I asked her to.”

“She would’ve tried regardless, you know how she is,” he counters.

“Yeah…” Dean mumbles, looking over you again. Sometimes he thinks your selflessness can make up for his selfishness, though; this time he almost wishes it hadn’t. But if he thinks about it too long, his chest starts to feel all tight until it twists around his lungs and he can’t breathe. If he had to do it again, he doesn’t know what he would do. Sam or you. An impossible choice. And yet, he knows deep down in all the ugly parts of him, he’d choose this—Sam alive and you in this stupid fucking coma. He knows it’s wrong. He hates himself for thinking it—for knowing it. It’s an endless loop in the trenches of guilt and darkness, and ultimately, forever knowing you’d want him to make the same choice. Maybe this would’ve all been easier if you were more selfish, and yet you wouldn’t be you if you were.

“Dean,” Sam repeats softly.

He pulls his gaze away from you, jaw clenched tightly.

“Go eat,” Sam orders. “Clean up your nose, you still got dried blood stuck to it.”

“‘M not leaving her,” he murmurs, wiping at his nose, sparking pain to vibrate up towards his eyes until they sting.

“She isn’t going anywhere.”

“Don’t.”

Sam sighs. “I’ll watch over her.”

“No.”

“Dean,” he warns.

“What am I supposed to do without her, huh?” Dean snaps, standing quickly. “I don’t give a crap about eating or sleepin’. She's not here! None of it matters!”

“You have every right to be upset. I get it, but you can’t kill yourself over this!” Sam argues calmly.

“No, you don’t get it,” Dean shakes his head, something akin to disgust curling on his lips.

“I lost Jess!” Sam yells. “But forever. Y/N is still here. She’s alive. We’ll figure this out, she’ll wake up soon, and when she does she’s—“

“Figure this out how?” Dean roars, doubling down despite the twinge of guilt twisting in his gut. But he can sink his claws into the familiarity of anger, can burrow himself deep in it, let it drag him out of that wave of darkness to make it his home. “We don’t know a damn thing about her magic! She barely understood it!”

“Yeah, well, while you’ve been wallowing up here, the rest of us have been going through her books for an explanation and a solution,” Sam reveals, swallowing his own frustrations.

“What?” Dean asks, the anger suddenly whipped right out of him, his emotions stuttering. His eyes flicker across his brother's face, trying to look for a silent answer. “‘You find something?”

“Not yet,” Sam answers, crossing his arms against his chest. “But Adeline thinks it might be worth checking out her grandparents' house. ‘Got B/N looking for the address in the will.”

“She thinks there’s somethin’ there?” he asks.

“No idea. None of us know anything, but we’re trying. They might have an explanation that her books don’t.” Sam says softly. “You know, you aren’t the only person who cares about her, right?”

“I know…” he mumbles. Your heart is too big and filled with too much love for other people not to be attracted to the light you emit.

“So, go shower and eat something,” Sam tries again. “In case we have to hit the road in the morning.”

The fight is snuffed right out. He knows Sam is right; you would want him to take care of himself. And he’ll need the energy to fight for you. He’ll get you back if it’s the last thing he does.

“Alright, alright,” he gives in. “But you stay with her and yell for me if she so much as twitches.”

“Deal,” Sam answers.

Dean takes one last long look at you before leaving the room, trying to ignore the way his heart attempts to tug him back towards you. Sam shakes his head, occupying the empty seat his brother left.

For a moment he surveys you silently. It’s weird being in your room like this without your permission. It’s weird watching you sleep. Still, he stays, if only for his brother's sake.

His hands are folded loosely in his lap, making a good steady point to stare at.

“You know, I don’t think you should’ve brought me back, however you did it,” he admits. “You don’t know it—Dean doesn’t know it yet either, but things are going to get worse. I’m…worse than we thought.”

There’s demon blood in him, all to make him some soldier in some war he wants no part in. Andy. Ava. Jake. Lily. Max. And a handful of other people he may never learn the name of. All of them are forced to be pawns, forced to bear blood and powers they shouldn’t have, and ultimately forced to kill each other.

“You’re my favorite,” the Yellow Eyed Demon told him. His skin crawls at the memory.

Your predicament isn’t the only thing that’s his fault, and maybe that’s worse of all. His Mom died merely because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then Jess, just to ensure he’d have no one to “hold him back.”

His fault.

And for what? How many more people will he lose or hurt because of this? Apparently, you had to be the next addition.

“I wish you were around to talk about it. I think you’re the only one who’d understand,” he continues. “Even then…it’s not…good.”

You’d convince him it wasn’t his fault. That destiny isn’t real, or that it doesn’t matter. Maybe that’s true; maybe he’d believe you, but he’ll never get to know because you're gone, and that’s one thing he’s sure is his fault. He tried blaming Jake, the man who stabbed him—killed him. But he could only manage the hatred for so long, because in a twisted way he understood, it was Jake or him. Just like it was Andy, or Lily, or Ava. Yeah, he thought they could’ve made it out together, but how long would that have lasted? That Demon wouldn’t allow it.

“Whatever you're dreaming. Wherever you are…you gotta come back to us,” he adds slowly. “Dean's a wreck. Actually, everyone is. ‘Never seen Adeline or B/N like this before. So…wherever you are, come home.”

********

Dean slept by your bedside the whole night, whenever sleep came to him, that is. In the morning, sun breaking through your curtains, reflecting off your hair, he didn’t complain about the ache in his bones or the stiffness in his neck. None of it mattered or was worth complaining about with you in the same state as the previous two days.

Your brother brought him a cup of coffee, a peace offering for punching him, which he also muttered an apology for and admitted that, no, this wasn’t quite his fault. Though, he didn’t believe or accept that last part. Still, your brother broke the news that in an hour or two Dean and the others would be hitting the road, searching for a solution. Your brother would stay and watch over you, make sure no hunters would come near if it came to it.

He didn’t want to leave you like he hadn’t last night, and that had been for a mere ten minutes. This would be longer. He’d be gone a day, maybe two. The only thing that kept him pushing forward was the hope that they’d find something there that would allow them to wake you. So, he kissed your forehead, lips lingering before reluctantly leaving.

Now, (too many) hours later, they pull into Pownal, Vermont, the left corner of the state, sitting between New York and Massachusetts. Apparently, this is where your grandparents lived and where your mom spent most of her life, that is, until she met your father. He’s not sure how much you know about this place, though he’d figure not much, especially because your brother had to go digging for information. You didn’t talk much about your grandparents; he knows you didn’t know much either—only what your mom had told you.

So, none of them expected to roll up to a gated house, tucked into the forest. Adeline had gotten out of the car to unlock and push open the black gate, vines and shrubbery overgrowing on and around it. She volunteered “just in case.” If he had to guess, he figured this land was protected like yours.

When you first got your house almost three years ago, you covered the place in sigils, and then you spent a whole day lining the entire perimeter of your land with every protective measure you could think of and find. Nothing bad would ever get in. No one would find you or that place unless you wanted them to, including hunters, which you worried the most about. It’s why he offered to help you with it all…among other reasons, which included staring at you. He had no idea what you were doing or what any of it actually did or how it worked; he just liked hearing you explain every little detail, looking up every other minute to make sure he was listening. He’d hum and nod, hoping he didn’t look like an idiot. You’d laugh, looking away bashfully, softly apologizing for talking so much. He’d shake his head, ask you to continue, say he was listening, though in truth he wasn’t retaining a thing. Maybe you knew, but he didn’t care because you never called him out on it, so he’d just sit there listening to you, watching you, and handing you something if you asked. He really enjoyed that day. He enjoyed every day he’s ever spent with you, even the really bad ones, simply because you were there.

The back door slamming shut after Adeline hops back in pulls him from that memory. Sam clears his throat, giving him a questioning look. So, he shakes his head, pressing forward.

The Impala rolls slowly up the paved path, a large, dark mansion imposing on the land.

“Don’t look like anyone’s ever left,” he remarks, staring up at the place through the windshield. Other than some vines and moss growing across the grey stones, it didn’t look abandoned. Somehow, after all these years, there wasn’t any visible decay, no tree breaking through a window or collapsing through the steep roof, though he’s sure several storms had to have passed through the area in the last three or so decades.

“Well, everyone’s dead, so…” Adeline answers simply.

Yeah, he knew that. He knew the story well. Which only makes it more odd that the mansion looks perfectly kept.

Whatever.

He kills the engine, getting out of the car and pocketing his keys.

There are a couple of leaves on the porch, a large spiderweb occupying the space between each column, and another in the empty lanterns hanging from the beams.

The brass door knocker stands out against the black painted door. There’s a strange allure to the simple feature, the iodized green tint calling to him like an insistent whisper, pulling him forward. His hand nearly rises to knock as if there’d be anyone home, but Adeline pushes right past him, twisting the doorknob open with certainty.

“Be careful not to touch anything,” she warns, leading them in.

A stale scent of old books and sage hangs in the air, absorbed into the dark red velvet runner going down the hall and the dark green painted walls. There’s a painting on the wall, a portrait of a woman veiled in white lace, her features obscured by the cover. It hangs above a table with a candelabra and an empty purple glass plate. A chill runs down his spine. Whereas your home is cozy and welcoming, even with all its witchy elements, this place is just creepy.

“Let’s split up,” Adeline announces, turning to face the two men. “Shout if you find the workroom or a library.”

“Alright,” Dean answers simply. He moves past her, ignoring their burning gaze. He goes up the grand stairs, staring at the photographs on the wall. There are some older ones in black and white of women alone, and some of what looks like a family gathering, then newer ones in vibrant color. He stops halfway up the stairs, taken aback by one colored photo in particular. It’s a woman looking off to the side, eyes sparkling with mischief; there’s a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, a long necklace hanging down her neck, and a teasing smile on her lips. She looks a lot like you. And of course she does because it’s a photograph of your mother looking younger than the first time he met her. He remembers you two looked alike, but this is different; it’s almost uncanny. Still, the glimpse of you shakes him from his thoughts, reminding him exactly why he’s here.

He trudges up the rest of the stairs, floorboards creaking beneath the dark rug. He passes by large windows, plants hanging in the space, somehow very much alive despite all the years no one’s lived here to water them. It’s as if this house was paused in time, growing not a second older from the last time someone stepped foot inside.

He opens one door, finding a heavily decorated bathroom, and then another door to find a bedroom. He wanders in, barely taking in the space as he runs his fingers along each shelf and book, looking to find a hidden compartment. Your workroom was hidden, so he figured your family must’ve had the same idea. But when he finds nothing, he leaves, going on to the next room.

Neatly painted in yellow on the next dark wooden door is your mother's name, written in pretty script. He didn’t think the room would be hidden here, but curiosity gets the better of him, especially because he knows you would love the opportunity to know more about your mom. So, he wanders in, immediately being hit with a burst of bright colors that contradict the rest of the dark, gloomy house.

The bed is draped in pinks and yellows, while darker oranges and purple curtains hang by the windows. Candles cover just about every surface, trinkets and lace tacked to the walls and the dresser. He steps in deeper, surveying some photos taped to the wall, particularly a close-up of two smiling girls with the side of their heads pressed together, one of them he recognizes as a much younger version of your mother and the other person he has no clue. Maybe it’s your aunt? Or a friend? Regardless, he carefully peels the photo from the wall, tucking it into the pocket of his jacket to show you when you wake up. Maybe you’ll know who the other girl is.

He wants to take more for you, to give you this insight into a family you know nothing about. You probably would’ve really liked the opportunity to come here. So, he looks around the room more, pulling open a nightstand drawer. Inside is a book covered in swirly doodles. He flips through the yellowed pages quickly, catching the dates on the top. It’s a journal, your mother's journal to be exact. You have her spell book, and a journal from her life after this house, but not one during. So, he tucks this too into the inside of his jacket, grateful for the deep and large pockets.

“Hey! I think I found something!” he hears Sam shout from downstairs. His mind switches back into gear, focusing on the most important task at hand: getting you back. So, he leaves the room behind, softly shutting the door behind him before beelining for the stairs, swiftly descending them, the dark green walls nothing but a blur.

“In here!” Sam shouts again, directing him into a large sitting room.

There are velvet sofas and curtains in matching shades of deep purple. Like the rest of the house, everything is heavily decorated, from the oval coffee table with another candelabra to the mirror on the wall with paintings on either side of it. Then there’s Sam standing over by the left wall.

“Check this out,” he says, simply pressing the wall. With a subtle click, the wall pulls open, taking the shape of a door.

“Huh,” Dean hums, mildly impressed.

Sam pushes the door open more, revealing a stone passageway with steps leading downward. This is where Dean would normally say something snarky, but with your life on the line, he couldn’t be bothered to crack a joke. So, with no other option, he snatches the candelabra from the coffee table, flicking open his lighter to put the damn thing to use.

Silently, he takes the lead, boots thumping softly against the stone stairs. He ignores the abundance of cobwebs and the moist, mossy smell of the tunnel. But it seems to go on forever, the rough and jagged stone walls stretching on, so when they reach the end he’s already irritated, especially at the sight of a large opposing door with a little keyhole. Your work room was far more convenient than this. He’s about to grumble and kick down the door when Sam simply tries the doorknob, finding it unlocked. Sam gives him a knowing look before taking the lead inside.

There’s a large workbench in the center of the room, empty glass bottles littering the surface. The far wall hollows out as a sort of fireplace, a cauldron hanging just above where the fire would be. Just above the fireplace hang upside-down herbs and plants dried out in different bundles. The walls are covered with tall shelves, jars filled with strange liquids, eyeballs, and crushed dried things he couldn’t begin to name. There are skulls of various animals beside them, books, little statues, a crystal ball, and various half-burnt candles of different colors.

Now he understood what Adeline meant by not touching anything.

“Carry up any books you see!” Adeline shouts down the stairs and long corridor. Speak of the devil.

He shares a look with Sam before doing exactly what was demanded. They pull books from the countless shelves, including the ones on the bookshelf behind the door. It takes them both three trips to bring everything up to the sitting room, and when they do, they find Adeline sitting on one of the velvet couches with books already scattered around her.

“Where’d you find those?” Dean asks, placing his last pile onto the floor. The coffee table was already occupied with the others.

“Basement,” she answers. “Whole fucking archive down there.”

“Great,” he remarks, sitting across from her on a different couch, which he has to admit was pretty comfortable.

“It is great,” Sam adds. “It means we have a better chance at finding something.”

Alright, he had to give him that. It is a good point.

“Better find something, ‘think they have diaries, spell books, and other crap from every ancestor in the family line,” Adeline responds. “So, if you find any in Latin, hand them over.”

“You know Latin too?” Sam asks.

“Barely,” she answers. “But that’s why we have the internet.”

“No one’s lived here since ‘77, there’s not gonna be any internet,” Dean says.

“Fuck.”

“Do you remember what happened before you woke up here?” My mom asks suddenly. So much for ignoring the weirdness of this situation.

“Yeah…I was, um, Sam. He…Do you remember Sammy? He’s John Winchester’s youngest son.”

“I remember the Winchesters, silly,” she smiles, laughing softly.

“Right,” I mumble, cheeks warming up. “Well…he died. I-I couldn’t—I had to do something. I didn’t think it’d even work. I just—I mean, it’s Sam.”

“I know,” she coos softly. “You did good, you did so good…It’s just…things will be different from now on, you have to understand that.”

I laugh softly. “Mom, things are always different. You couldn’t even imagine the things we’ve been learning. It always changes everything.”

“This is different from that,” she sighs, eyes drooping with unspoken emotion.

“I’ve died twice, you know,” I say. “That’s pretty different and crazy.

She doesn’t say anything; instead, her gaze falls back to the horizon.

“Why am I able to do that?” I ask, scooting closer in an attempt to catch her eyes. “Why weren’t you?”

I watch her throat bob, eyebrows pinched together.

She knows something.

“It’s because you're different,” she reveals, finally looking at me.

I laugh nervously. “You’re saying ‘different’ a lot.”

“I know you’ve felt it before,” she continues anyway.

My face drops, something churning deep in my chest, my fingers fidgeting together. Sure, I know I’m different—I’m a witch, which is the exact opposite of being a normal person. But, with the way she’s looking at me, like this whole thing has been a weight on her shoulders, the secret kept tight behind her lips, I know she means something else.

“What are you talking about?” I mumble. “How am I different?”

“You’re capable of such greatness,” she explains, meeting my eyes with wide hope and adoration. “If only you’d let yourself. It’s why you’ve done the impossible time and time again.”

I shift uncomfortably; suddenly the dress is itchy, the sun too warm, and the grass too spiky. But most of all, I hear his words play in my mind.

“The most powerful Witch in history…” the Yellow-Eyed Demon had told me. I knew he was lying the moment he said it. He had to be. And yet, the memory comes to me now.

“That—that doesn’t really explain anything,” I stammer, panic rising and wrapping itself around my throat. “How am I different? Why am I different?”

“I don't know why,” she answers calmly. “Maybe it’s fate. Or a prophecy. Or just random luck.”

“No, no,” I shake my head. “I don’t want to be any different than I already am.”

“It isn’t a bad thing!” She reasons quickly, finding my hands, putting my fidgeting to an end. “It’s just who you are.”

“How?” I snap, cruelly, guilt chewing up my intestines. “Is…am I that powerful? A-am I the—“

“More than you could ever imagine,” she whispers.

If this were any other situation, any other hunt or case, Dean would’ve made up an excuse to not do research. Or, he’d get distracted five minutes in. But this isn’t any other case; it’s for you. So, he sat through hours of reading boring journal entries he couldn’t care less about. Only occasionally did he get wrapped up in an entry filled with drama. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he did enjoy some good gossip, but who didn’t?

The rest of the day blurred by like that, only paused by the need to eat or use the bathroom. Still, gossip aside, it irritated the hell out of him (to be fair, in the three days you’ve been gone, everything’s been pissing him off). As much as he knew there could be something useful here, all he could think about was being away from you, and more so being unaware of your state. What if something happened? What if you got worse? For all he knew, this could be a waste of time which he could be spending at your bedside.

Then night passed by too, the heavy smell of coffee in the air as they all tried to push through exhaustion. So, by ten the next morning, he was beyond a live wire, ready to snap. His eyes ached from staring at small words, his back hurt, and he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Not once.

“If I read one more goddamn entry ‘bout gardenin’, I swear to God, I’ll start punching things,” he threatens, leg bouncing up and down restlessly, tossing the leather-bound journal to the side with all the other useless books.

“Holy shit, I think I got something!” Adeline exclaims, suddenly, sitting straight up from where she was lying on the rug.

“What? What?”

“Shut up! Shut up!” She yells. “It’s from someone named Margaret. It’s her last entry. Listen:

“November 1744,

My boy is gone. My sweet, Theodore.

He was still in my arms. He hadn’t cried.

They tried to take him from me, my darling sisters. They wanted to protect me from such a sight. But I knew. I know.

My boy, born on the 10th of November and set to return to the Earth the same day.

I’ve been calling out for retribution.

Do not take my boy. Take me instead! Not my boy. I cradle his cold body as I write.

Finally, in the sixth hour, I know what I must do. I have not told the others. I mustn’t, in fear they will try to stop me, for they do not know pain like this. I cannot catch my breath knowing he never got to breathe at all.

I’m sorry, Theodore. You will not understand this, not until you’ve lost someone dear to you. I wish you never do. You will grow up loved by your family. You must treat them well, and know that I loved you.

My sweet boy, if only there was time.”

“That’s it?!” Dean exclaims when she’s finished reading.

“No, look, it’s similar!” Adeline tries to explain. “Look for Agatha’s journal, 1744. That’s her sister, so maybe she picked up where Margaret left off.”

Desperation and loss. That’s the similarity between you and your ancestor. But through the wave of time, a thin line connects even them to her, for what is love if not an act of desperation?

Books thump to the floor one by one, the crisp sound of pages turning loudly as they scramble for the next piece of this puzzle.

“I got it!” Sam announces. “Agatha, November 15th, 1744:

My sweet Margaret,

Theodore is doing well. He sleeps through the night, and takes milk well—“

“I thought Theodore was stillborn,” Dean cuts him off abruptly.

“Exactly,” Sam says, sitting straighter. “But somewhere between the tenth and the fifteenth, he came back. He lived because of her–sound familiar?”

“Keep reading!” Adeline demands, tossing a pillow at Sam’s leg.

“Okay, okay,” Sam nods.

“…And he takes milk well. He misses you. I can tell, for he has the same look in his brown eyes as I, James, and everyone else. Mother is so distraught, she keeps running out in the night, screaming at the moon. The moon! Never in my days did I think she’d betray her belief like that!

I’m thinking of joining her.

What am I supposed to do without you? What of Theodore? What of your husband, James? I have no one to turn to to complain about the girl down the road, though she’s been kinder to me lately. I think she senses the loss amongst us. Oh, how she doesn’t know!

I write to you though I know you are unable to answer. I know not what to do. You haven’t waken in five days. Mother won’t explain it to me. She says you’ll be like this forever. But how does she know? Did the moon finally yell back? I think not. You’ll wake one day, I know.”

His reading hangs in the air, confirming this has happened once before. Silently, he flips through the pages.

“October 1749,” Sam continues reading.

“Mother has died today. We felt it coming, all of us, since the day you left us, Margaret. Is she with you now? I hope so. She has missed you so!

On her deathbed, she finally told me the truth she has kept all this time. She heard you that night Theodore was still in your arms. She waited outside your door when you pushed us all out, listening to you cry. She felt hopeless. She said she heard you moving around, saw the light from beneath the door, and the words you murmured. She said you made it up, that spell. She memorized the words, found nothing like it, and was too afraid to write them down when she saw you asleep at the desk, Theodore wailing in your lap.

I thought she was joking. How would you be capable of that? She said love is a powerful thing. I know this, of course, but this is different!

How foolish I had been to underestimate you, Margaret.

Mother says we are strongest when we feel the most. I think I understand now.

You gave your future to him. You gave more than that. Theodore misses you. We let him see you, but he does not understand. Perhaps, one day he will. Sometimes, even I do not understand. We do not know when you will wake. Mother suggested a lifetime. No matter how long, we will write for you and about you. You will not be forgotten…”

The air is heavy, pressing them to their seats.

“Margaret made it up,” Dean repeats, staring ahead at the dark green wall, his gaze even further away. “How the hell did Y/N learn it then?”

“She didn’t,” Adeline corrects. “Didn’t you see how her eyes rolled back? That was something else…like it came to her.”

“So what, Margaret possessed her to lend a helpin’ hand?” he snaps, unconvinced.

“No, idiot,” Adeline grumbles right back. “M-maybe it was some sort of ancestral connection. Look, Margaret created a whole spell solely from grief, love, and want—Y/N did the same thing, both in an act of desperation. She tried to do the same for you, Dean, but she got cut off by a nurse.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he exclaims, gaze snapping to her.

“That stupid car crash, you don’t remember your time as a fucking ghost thing?” She presses.

“No,” he bites. “Now, what the hell are you talking about?”

“She wanted to help you so bad, she couldn’t let you die,” she explains. “Her eyes rolled back, she started mumbling that thing—same thing she said the other day, the flowers at your bedside wilted just like the field around the house. And she passed out at the end; nurses had to carry her back to her room.”

“She woke up from that,” Dean says, something itching at the back of his brain. Sam had told him you kept trying to heal him when he was in his coma, but he hadn’t told him that.

“She also got interrupted,” She points out.

“So…so she’s able to bring people back from the dead, or close to death, just because she wills it?” Sam asks, trying to connect the dots. At least Dean wasn’t the only one lost. “She just knew it because she did?”

“I don’t know!” Adeline exclaims. “Maybe! Look, I know just as much as you guys do!”

“No, we’ve seen someone brought back from the dead, and that didn’t turn out pretty,” Dean shakes his head, running his hand down his jaw. “Now, Sammy’s no zombie, and it didn’t sound like Theodore was one either.”

“No one said anything about zombies!” Adeline says, looking between the boys with a confused snarl.

“He means, reanimation is possible, sure, but not without the consequence of losing your soul,” Sam explains.

“Like the Lazarus pit,” Dean adds.

“What? Like from Batman?” Adeline asks.

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck are you two on?” She exclaims. “Maybe it’s different cause it was so soon after they died? I don’t know. It’s just different. Why does the logistics matter?”

“Because ‘different’ doesn’t wake her up!” Dean shouts, his voice rattling off the walls. “It doesn’t bring her home. It’s not a real answer!”

“Look, Agatha said they’d keep writing, so let’s keep looking through the journals for Margaret’s name,” Sam cuts in, trying to soothe the tension.

Now, hope is hard to hold onto. Agatha knew, and now so do they.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Dean grumbles, standing from the couch.

He paces the width of the room, fists balled at his side. Maybe he should’ve expected this answer: you loved so hard and so big you changed the fabric of time just because you needed to. You and your big heart. You try to save everyone before yourself, not out of obligation, but because you want to. You tried to save him from his coma, and if you were successful, you would’ve been in your own, just like now.

He hates that he hadn’t known. He hates that you're so careless with yourself. It burns in his mind, all those times he let you heal him, let you give a piece of yourself to him. You’ve never seen it that way. He knows you don’t; he knows you genuinely want to help, especially knowing you can. But now all he can think about is any one of those moments pushing you to where you are now.

“200 years,” Sam announces softly from behind him.

Dean freezes.

“What?”

No, no, he had to have heard that wrong.

“She woke up in 1944. 200 years later,” Sam continues. “The entry is from Mariam. She said she heard about the tale loosely, that no one was supposed to go in her room. Then one day she just walked out, not looking a day older.”

His vision spins, ears buzzing with a loud droning.

“…She killed herself the next day,” Sam adds solemnly. “She couldn’t live without Theodore. In saving him, she missed his whole life.”

He would be dead by the time you woke up. They all would be.

“T-that can’t be it,” Dean mutters. “There has to be something we can do.”

Frantically, he looks between the two, silently begging them to agree with him. But he only finds frowns and downturned eyes.

Acceptance.

He shakes his head rapidly. How could they just accept this? Why was he the only one fighting?

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam murmurs.

“No, no, no, no, no, no—“

The floors are covered in eggshells, everyone tip-toeing around the inevitable crunch. One wrong word and either Dean or Adeline would be set off, their anger nearly matching each other's ferocity, Sam stuck in the crossfire. He’s grown sick of it, really sick of it, so today is the day he’s decided to put an end to it.

He finds Dean outside working on your car, the Beetle that’s been unused for two years while you’ve been on the road with them. That should’ve been his first sign not to try this today, especially because it’s the first time Dean’s left your side. He spent three weeks and four days at your bedside when they returned from Vermont. He looked like a ghost, unable to meet your brother's eyes for an explanation as he trailed up those stairs to reach you, his gaze a thousand miles away.

“Hey,” Sam greets.

He barely grumbles a response, let alone spares him a glance up from beneath the hood of your car. The stubble on his face has grown into a beard. He hasn’t shaved all this time, couldn’t be bothered to pick up a razor. He couldn’t be bothered to do a lot of things.

“I called Bobby before…” Sam continues anyway. “He, um…We think it’s time to get back to work. Whatever the Yellow Eyed Demon is up to, we have to stop.”

Dean laughs, humorously, as he tosses his tool to the side, standing tall.

“You givin’ up on her too?” He accuses, glaring at him.

“No one’s given up on her, Dean.”

“No? Well, tell that to her brother,” he spits, bitterly getting back to work before he can do something he’d regret.

“He had to go back to the farm. He couldn't leave his wife to do the work all alone,” Sam reasons. Your brother stuck around as long as he could, and even then he didn’t want to leave when he did.

“Don’t matter,” Dean grumbles. “‘M not leaving. I don’t care what that demon does anymore.”

“Dean, come on, this isn’t like you at all,” Sam scoffs.

Metal slaps against metal, the tool forgotten for good as he fully turns to his brother, taking a step closer.

“I don’t got anything more to give,” he says. “She’s gone. ‘N we keep fightin’ this I’ll lose you and Bobby, too. I’m done.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I am,” Sam answers, hand pressed to his chest in sympathy. “But there’s nothing we can do. We went through every damn book, we tried everything. There’s no way to wake her up. You can’t just sit here waiting till she does; you’ll die before that happens.”

“Fine,” Dean shrugs.

Sam scoffs, studying him with worried eyes. “Look at you, Dean! You think she’d want this? She’d want us to keep going.”

“You don’t know a damn thing ‘bout her!” Dean spits, stepping close enough to get up in Sam’s personal space, challenging him. You wanted out of this life; you saw a future past this disaster.

“I know she wouldn’t want you to waste your life away like this!” Sam yells right back.

“‘S not a life,” he agrees, shaking his head. “‘Cause she’s not here. None of this is worth it.”

“Dean!” Sam snaps, grabbing him by his shirt, shaking him like it’ll bring back the person he knew. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“What you want me to say, Sammy?” he asks, weakly, not bothering to fight back.

Sam studies him then, the closest he’s been to him all month. He has dark bags under his eyes, and his green eyes are hollow, any spark that was there gone. He’s a shell of himself.

“You’ve had a month to grieve b—“

“‘ts not enough,” Dean cuts him off weakly.

“I know this is hard, so I’ll give you three more days, but after that we’re leaving. I won’t let you rot here. We have to keep going,” Sam orders.

********

That night, Dean watches the way your chest rises and falls in rhythmic beats like he’s done every day before this.

Your brother may have given up, Sam may have given up, but he wouldn’t. It seems like just Adeline and him care, though she’s pulling back in her own way. She spends most days looking for a solution, and the other days in cat form, sleeping at the end of the bed by your feet. They never say anything to each other when she’s like that, a silent agreement. But tonight she isn’t here; she’s in her bedroom down the hall, her boss yelling at her over the phone.

200 years.

He’s turned it over in his mind over a thousand times, twisting and working through it until it made sense. It hasn’t.

That’s four lifetimes, assuming he’d make it to 50 in each. Would he be able to find you then? Would he have remembered you enough to beat the perils of time as you’ve done so easily? Would you accept him then, in his new form?

Funny, isn’t it, how hopelessly in love he is with you to start dreaming foolish dreams? For one, he’d never make it to 50, and secondly, reincarnation probably isn’t real. He only has this lifetime; it’s all he’s ever had, and he’s messed it up time and time again.

You told him there was always time. It had been a different version of you that said it, but he hears the echo of those words nonetheless. And he remembers telling you “maybe in another life,” because even then he wanted to believe something so good could exist far away from all the messed up parts of this life. Then you said something better to him than “there’s always time”; you said you’d wanted it all in this life. You believed in time, you believed in hope. He’d laugh now if his chest didn’t hurt so much, if it felt like he wasn’t being crushed beneath an invisible current. You’d never get it in this lifetime, not really, unless you count 200 years from now with someone else. The very idea pushes him beneath that dark current, water filling up his lungs until he chokes on a sob.

If only things were different. If only he told you he loved you sooner, you’d have more time. If only his mom didn’t die, or his father never dragged him on hunts, or he kept a better watch of Sam so he’d never have gotten taken in the first place. If only his dad didn’t go missing, or he never asked you for help. And worse of all, if only he’d never met you at all, then he wouldn’t have this suffocating tightness swallowing him whole, and you’d be safe, though he’d never know it. But he doesn’t want that—wouldn’t want that even in a hypothetical. Maybe he should’ve kept pushing you away all these years, kept pushing down the feeling that would float to the surface and scatter through his body at the mere sight of you; he’d love you from afar, and you’d be safe.

He stands abruptly from the chair at your bedside, pacing around your room. 200 years. Two hundred.

He rubs his hands roughly down his face, agony burning in his veins. This is a different pain from losing his Mom, or when his Dad died, or even for the minutes he thought he lost Sam for good; this feels like half his heart—half of his very being has been ripped away.

He raises his arm in a great big arch, about to swing it across every knick-knack on your dresser, push it all to the floor, hear it all crash down in a sound he’d understand, but before his hand can come close to making contact, he freezes, eyes locked on a framed photograph of you and him.

He’s wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt, acoustic guitar in his hands, mid-strum, smiling faintly. You're sitting right next to him, knees pressed to his, hands crossed together in your lap nervously, leaning towards him, smiling wildly. In the photo, he’s too focused on where his fingers are on the frets to notice the way you’re looking at him, eyes soft and filled with a longing he now recognizes.

It was the first night you moved into your dorm. He was there that day to help you move your stuff in; he volunteered even though he knew your brother would be there to help. He didn’t mind it, especially not when he got confused as your boyfriend twice. But that day passed, and that night, you texted him, admitting you were kind of scared to be there in a new place, not having really known your roommate. He had never been more glad to have lingered in town, getting a motel there instead of driving off to the next state. He answered your texts, of course, but he didn’t tell you he was coming.

He surprised you by knocking at your window, something that would later become a habit every time he visited you at college. You let him in with wide eyes and hushed whispers that fell into laughter. He stole your guitar off the wall, threw your sweater, shoes, and camera at you, and then swept you out of there.

He drove some distance away from the campus, parking in a nice field. You sat in the grass together, just talking as he absentmindedly strummed your guitar, adding his own bits of conversation in now and then. This wasn’t uncommon either; sometimes you’d just do this: talk about everything and nothing, sometimes with him stealing your guitar. He didn’t and couldn’t have one of his own, so he toyed with yours. You never minded, or said a thing about it.

That night, for the first time (but not the last), he convinced you to sing while he played, settling on “Going to California.” He set your camera up to record it, said you could look back at it any time you got scared or anxious at college again, though really it was just a convenient excuse to hear you. You were so nervous, falling into giggles at the start, him unconsciously joining in. Eventually, with all the laughter out, you focused enough to start and get through the song, matching his speed, smiling when he joined in in harmony. You must’ve gone back to the video, paused it at this moment to keep it as a photo.

His anger gets tucked away, retreating from his fists so he can pick up the picture frame gently. You must’ve kept the video. You kept this this whole time, sitting on your dresser. He’s never noticed it before. He clutches the photo, teeth clenching tightly together. How could he ever accept 200 years? How would he ever move on? He wouldn’t.

Photo still in hand, he shuffles back to his seat, slumping into it.

“I miss you, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.”

********

The Impala’s engine revs loudly, Dean’s foot pressing the pedal all the way down, whipping through long winding roads. He skids to a rough stop, tires kicking up dirt in a plume of smoke.

He doesn’t allow himself time to hesitate. He kills the engine, goes to the trunk, opens the little box he stole to throw in small bones, a jar of graveyard dirt, both he also stole from your workroom, and one of his many fake IDs. He grabs his shovel, carrying it all to the center of the crossroads, sweat beading down the back of his neck before he even starts digging.

He tosses the box into the small hole he’s made, lazily covering it back up. You’ll be mad with him if you ever found out; you’d be so mad. But he can take you being angry at him; at least you’d be around to be angry at all.

The seconds tick by like minutes, his skin flaming up in insistent clawing. He couldn’t regret this. He wouldn’t.

“Oh, come on already. Show your face, you bitch!” He roars into the empty night sky, chest heaving rapidly.

“Easy sugar, you’ll wake the neighbors,” she purrs. He whips around to face the demon, her eyes flashing a dark red. She wears a little black dress, dark hair framing her pretty face. “Dean, it is so, so good to see you.”

She inhales sharply, settling into a wicked smile. “I mean it. Look at you. Gone and got your family killed, and now your little girlfriend is…comatose. It’s too sweet. Excuse me, you’re gonna have to give me a moment.”

She steps closer to him, real close, barely a breath away.

“Sometimes you gotta stop and smell the roses,” she teases, nimble fingers reaching up to brush his cheek. “I like the beard.”

He grips her wrist, pulling her hand away.

“I should send you straight back to hell,” he spits, holding her wrist hard enough to hurt. She only smiles bigger.

“Oh, you should,” she nods, toying with him. “But you won’t. And I know why.”

“Oh yeah?” he challenges, releasing her hand with a rough toss.

“Yeah, following in Daddy’s footsteps. You wanna make a deal,” she purrs. “Wake your girlfriend up from her deep slumber, and, let me guess, you’re offering up your own soul?”

“There are a hundred other demons who’d love to get their hands on it, and it’s all yours,” he answers. It’s an offering on a silver platter, everything in exchange for his everything. “All you gotta do is wake her up, and give me ten years—ten years, and then you come for me.”

“You must be joking,” the demon laughs.

“That’s the same deal you give everybody else,” he pushes.

“You’re not everybody else.” She leans in, lips by his ears, whispering smoothly, “Why would I want to give you anything? Keep your gutter soul. It’s too tarnished, anyway.”

Dean nods, looking off to the side, working his tongue over his teeth. “Nine years,” he offers.

“No.”

“Eight.”

She laughs loudly. “You keep going, I’ll keep saying no.”

“Okay, five years. Five years, and my bill comes due,” he gambles, grasping for straws. “That’s my last offer—five years or no deal.”

She leans in, lips brushing his. He flinches back, skin burning. “Then no deal,” she mutters.

“Fine,” he spits.

“Fine,” she replies, walking away. “I’ll say hi for you when she wakes up in a couple hundred years.”

Fuck.

He flinches.

“Wait.”

“It’s a fire sale, and everything must go,” she teases, turning back around.

“What do I have to do?” He begs, struggling to catch his breath.

“First of all, quit groveling. Needy guys are such a turnoff.” She sighs, eyes flickering over his frame. “Look…Look, I shouldn’t be doing this. I could get in a lot of trouble. It’s easier for all of us without her around. But what can I say? I got a blind spot for you, Dean. You’re like a…puppy. You’re just too fun to play with. I see why she likes you.”

She sighs again, eyebrow quirking. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll bring her back?” He says a little too quickly.

“I will, and Sam will stay right as rain,” she agrees. “And because I’m such a saint, I’ll give you one year, and one year only. But here’s the thing: if you try and welch or weasel your way out, then the deal is off. She goes back to sleep. So…it’s a better deal than your dad ever got. What do you say?”

“Deal,” he mutters.

“Perfect,” she smiles. She grabs the front of his shirt, pulling him in until her lips crash against his, sealing the deal.

He pushes away, stumbling back, every nerve in his body burning and screaming because those lips were not yours.

The demon doesn’t seem offended; if anything, she smiles wider.

“She’ll wake up in an hour. Gives you time to clean up. Aren’t I nice?”

He sped the whole way home, something akin to hope bubbling in his heart. Perhaps he should’ve felt regret too, but he couldn’t, not now.

Luckily, everyone’s asleep when he returns, bursting through the front door. He takes the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping halfway up. He skids to a stop outside your door. You're still asleep. Just like the demon said.

Okay. Okay. This was manageable, he tells himself.

He showers, shaves his stupid beard, returns your photograph to your dresser, and sits at your bedside for what should be the last time.

His knee bounces rapidly, elbows pressed to his thighs, leaning forward, waiting for you.

The heart-shaped alarm clock at your nightstand ticks forward, striking 4 am.

Your fingers twitch. His eyes widen, leaning even closer.

Your eyelids flutter, bedroom a bleary blur, consciousness slowly returning.

“Hey, hey,” he whispers, heartbeat spiking. He transfers himself to sit at the edge of your bed.

“Dean?” You mumble, eyebrows furrowing, as you push yourself to sit up a little.

“Yeah, yeah,” he nods, eyes flickering all over your face. “It’s me, sweetheart, it’s me.”

He cups your face, every ugly, dark spot in his heart igniting to life, the storm in his mind breaking away. You’re beautiful, you’re so goddamn beautiful he can’t breathe.

He can’t help himself; he peppers your face in kisses. Your cheeks, your forehead, over your nose, your chin, your jaw, above your eyes, beside them, over the eyelids themselves. He can’t stop, even when you break into a fit of easy laughter, clinging to his wrists but not pushing him away.

“Dean, what’s gotten into you?” you laugh, cheeks warm.

He pauses.

You don’t know.

He presses your palm flat against his chest, making you feel the rapid, frantic thumps of his heart.

“Dean?” you mumble.

“What do you remember?” he asks gruffly, thumb brushing back and forth against your hand.

“Well…Sam, and I—I brought him back somehow. I passed out, and I had the strangest dream…” Your eyes wander past him, sweeping over your room. Your eyebrows furrow. “You brought me home?”

He shakes his head, a knot lodged in his throat. You really don’t know.

“No, baby, that was all you,” he explains, brushing your hair back, unable to stop touching you. “You did pass out, you, um, before you hit the ground you disappeared. ‘Found you here like this.”

You laugh nervously, searching his eyes for a sign that he’s joking. But you find none, only desperation and dark bags beneath his eyes. Your hand wanders away from his wrist, thumb gently dragging beneath his eye. He leans into your touch even though he can see the worry written all over your face, in your little frown. A question is on the tip of your tongue when your eyes flicker down to the lace sleeves hanging off your arms.

“That’s so strange,” you mumble, more to yourself than anything, taking in the rest of your dress. “I was wearing this in my dream.”

“We found you in it,” he explains, hand dragging from your face, down your neck, over your shoulder, feeling the lace beneath his fingers. They trail down your waist, then to your hips where he grips the fabric, bunching a great handful in his fist. “It’s pretty,” he says, looking from his hand of fabric back to you. “You're pretty.”

He knows he sounds like a lovesick idiot, but he doesn’t care.

“Dean,” you laugh softly. It really is the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. “Are you okay?”

“I’m perfect,” he admits. “Can’t compliment my girl now?”

“You're acting like you haven’t seen me in years,” you answer with a smile and a little tilt of your head. If only you knew. “How long was I sleeping, hm? 8 hours?”

You really don’t know.

“Longer,” he shakes his head. He nudges you closer, throwing your legs into his lap so he can press forward, your arm wrapping around his shoulders, nose nudging yours.

“Ten?” You ask, pressing a little kiss to the corner of his mouth. His eyes flutter shut, fingers digging into the fabric at your hip. He doesn’t want to tell you, even though you deserve the truth.

He shakes his head again, swallowing roughly.

“Twelve?”

“A month,” he whispers.

“What?” you laugh, pulling back enough to scan his face. He won’t meet your eyes, stares at your shoulder instead. “Are you…You’re not joking, are you?”

“I wish I was,” he mumbles, eyes flicking to your face in time to catch the smile slip away. You cup his face between your hands; he leans in, forehead resting against yours. “‘Missed you so much.”

“I don’t understand,” you mumble. How would a month even be possible, and surely you’d know.

“I don’t really, either,” he admits. “‘Just know it was ‘cause of what you did for Sam. Don’t care anymore than that, you’re awake now.”

“A month?” you repeat just above a whisper. “I missed a whole month?”

If only you knew it would be a lot longer if he hadn’t intervened. It’s here now, between your touch and your worry that confirms he did the right thing. If you’re this upset over a month, then 200 years would destroy you.

“Didn’t miss much,” he answers, attempting to be comforting. “Fixed your car up for you.”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with it,” you laugh, kissing the corner of his mouth again, and then his cheek right over one of his many freckles. He wouldn’t lie about a month, and he’s clearly acting like it’s been that long with being extra touchy and the bags beneath his eyes.

“Needed an oil change, tires were a little flat,” he lists out. “And—“

“Dean,” you cut him off. Sure, this is a tough pill to swallow, missing an entire month. You missed Sam’s whole birthday month, let alone his actual birthday. But now you missed the whole thing, and any number of things that Dean might not be telling you. So, yes, this is an impossible idea to wrap your mind around, but it’s clear: Dean needs you, needs comfort more than you do. He looks pale and exhausted. You couldn’t imagine what he’d been putting himself through while you were…gone. Actually, you could, because you knew he didn’t cope well after his Dad died.

“Kiss me,” you add, begging softly. It’s more for him than it is for you, not that you don’t want him every minute of every day.

It throws him off his rambling, blinking hard before his mind catches up.

“Happily,” he murmurs before finally, finally closing the remaining distance.

He tries to be soft and slow, but he’s missed you so much that it winds up being desperate and thorough, open-mouthed kisses. He squeezes your hip; you hum, letting him lick into your mouth. He groans, your very being filling his senses until he’s happily drowning in it. It doesn’t erase this past month, but it gets damn near close, filling the space where you were meant to be. It does, however, erase that demon, the guilt rising to the surface. He pushes it down, kissing you harder.

Reluctantly, he pulls away, needing to fill his vision with only you. Your eyes flutter open, your lips a little red; he brushes his thumb over your bottom lip, enthralled with the sight. This is all he’s wanted for the last month, only you.

“Gonna show you how much I missed you, later,” he murmurs. “Want you to eat and drink somethin’ first.”

“Not hungry,” you shake your head, hand slipping down to his jaw.

“Too bad. ‘Haven’t eaten anything in a month, haven’t even used the goddamn bathroom. So you’re eating, alright?” He orders, getting into his gruff leader voice that makes you smile. He acts so tough while he does the most caring things.

“Okay,” you give in, eyes falling to his lips. Then your eyes narrow, “Have you been eating?”

“Yeah,” he answers. You give him a knowing look. “…A little,” he corrects. “Sam was on my ass about it.”

“Good,” you nod. “Will you eat with me, then?”

“I’ll do anything you want me to.”

********

“Here, come sit your pretty ass down,” Dean teases, gesturing towards the kitchen counter. You give him a knowing look; he laughs, crowding in close enough to lift you onto the countertop even though you don’t need the help.

You chew on your bottom lip as you watch him move around your kitchen with purpose, knowing exactly what cabinets to pull open to find the frying pan, a bowl, and a spatula. Every other second, he steals a glance at you, making sure you’re still there.

He seems different in a way you can’t quite place. What could’ve happened in a month?

A month. You roll it over in your mind, angling it each way like a kaleidoscope, trying to place it, make sense of it. Thirty days. 720 hours, give or take the exact time. You don’t just lose that, let alone sleep that. How could that much time pass without your knowledge—without you? And how did that affect your family? You can only tell so much or guess so much about Dean. He hadn’t slept, only ate a little, and busied himself with fixing your car. But what about inside his head? Was he okay? Really? Because right now he’s got pancake mix, milk, and eggs out like his life depends on it. And he’s set up shop right beside you, as distance would kill him. But you can’t read his mind.

“Let me help you,” You offer, nudging your knee against his hip.

He places his hand on your inner leg, thumb resting on your knee.

“What’d I say about your ass?” He asks, a stupid smirk playing on his lips as he cracks an egg with his free hand.

“That it was pretty,” You tease back, laughing softly.

“Mhm, that’s true,” he answers, giving your leg a little squeeze. “And that it’s gonna stay right there while I make you somethin’ to eat.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you mock.

His eyebrow quirks, head tilting just so to throw you a playful glare. “How ‘bout you tell me about your dream?”

“Mm, it was so strange,” you explain, finding his hand with both of yours, fingers brushing over his own. “I was in this flower field, and my Mom was there. It felt so real; she looked, sounded, felt real. You know, in a regular dream the sensations are muddled like a memory of the action or feeling rather than the real thing. But it wasn’t like that; it was like we were both really there. I thought we were, thought I was in an afterlife. She said I wasn’t dead, which I guess you can attest to, and she said it wasn’t a dream either. But now I’m not so sure.”

He doesn’t pull his hand away as he finishes up the batter, mixing with his free hand, looking up to let you know he’s listening. All he’s wanted for the past month was to hear your voice.

“It kind of felt like she was trying to warn me about something. I mean, she was saying I’m this, like, all-powerful witch, more than I could ever conceive,” you tell him. “And, you know, she told me this story about, I guess, some great-aunt, way down the line. She said that woman did what I had done for Sam, but for her son.”

He freezes, spine straightening, tensing. Do you know what he’s done, then? Have you figured it out?

“She was explaining that I'm so…powerful, so easy to…react because my powers aren’t just my own; it’s everyone that’s come before me piled up or something. That’s why I’ve died and come back like nothing happened, and why I knew what to do for Sam without ever hearing the story before,” you continue, missing the way his shoulders deflate again. “I don’t really understand it, I mean it’s probably not even true, right? ‘Just my subconscious coming up with a good answer to comfort me.”

Butter sizzles on the pan, yellow glob spreading out.

“It doesn’t even really make sense,” you shake your head. “Wouldn’t that insinuate that I’m them in some way? But I’m not, I’m me. See? Weird fricking dream.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a dream,” he murmurs, pouring some of the pale batter onto the sizzling pan.

“Really?” You ask, perking up. You didn't think he’d even entertain the idea. Why would he? “You think?”

“Wouldn’t put it past you,” he half-shrugs.

“What?” You laugh. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“‘Means there’s no one else like you,” he answers, green eyes leaving the pan to meet yours with the kind of certainty that makes your breath hitch. “‘Means you’re incredible.”

He doesn’t know how you don’t see it. Maybe it’s because you refuse to be even a little self-centered. But he sees it: all the things you’re capable of. Sometimes he thinks he’s supposed to be scared of it, what you can do, but all he can feel is amazement. You’ve healed him countless times; you saved his goddamn little brother! How could he be scared of you? How could he think of you as anything but the most incredible person to walk this Earth?

“Now you’re just sweet-talking me,” you tease, smiling in that big, warm, contagious way that makes his mind go all soft and dumb.

He flips the pancakes on the pan, the tops golden brown.

“Trust me, this ain’t sweet talkin’, baby,” he drawls, lowering the heat and abandoning the spatula to step between your legs. “I mean it.”

His big hands cup your face, silver ring chill against your warming cheek. He kisses you softly, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth, pressing his body as close as your long and heavy dress would allow.

“‘Never told it to you enough,” he mumbles between kisses. “You’re so, so amazing. ‘Love you so much.”

“I love you,” you breathe into his mouth, breathing life right into his soul.

He pulls away, slowly, pressing one last quick kiss to your perfect lips. Your eyes are lidded, giving him that little desperate look of yours that says you want him to kiss you again, again, and again. And he wants to, he really does, but he needs to make sure you’re okay, well taken care of. He moves to pull away, go back to the pancakes so that they don’t burn. But you cling to his shirt, the desperation in your eyes flickering away to worry, and not being able to deny you anything, he lingers.

“Is it bad that I don’t want it to have been a dream?” You ask just above a whisper, searching his expression like his response matters most.

“No,” he shakes his head, rubbing his thumb over the apple of your cheeks. “No, it’s not bad. You don’t want it to be a dream, then let it be real.”

“You’re not worried?” You ask.

He smiles; if only you understood how much worrying he’d already been doing with you gone. This was nothing. Yes, he was sure it wasn’t a dream, perhaps more sure than you because the detail about the story you were told wasn’t one you made up, but one he had proof existed. And, no, he doesn’t know what it was then, if not a dream, but it’s the least worrisome thing on his mind.

He shakes his head. “It was your mom, nothin’ bad about that,” he admits. “‘You want me to make some tea?”

“Oh, yes, please,” you answer with a growing smile. He’s so cute and caring, and you’re not even sure he’s aware of it.

“So polite,” he mumbles, thumb brushing over your lips, eyes dragging down your frame.

He pulls away slowly, moving across the kitchen to the cabinet where he knows you keep your kettle. He moves smoothly, muscles in his back flexing as he takes the kettle out, fills it with water, takes the pancakes off the pan, and pours more batter in. He’s good at this, likes the purpose, likes getting to take care of you. He doubles back for the kettle, placing it on the stove. You freeze, eyes widening.

You scramble off the counter quicker than he can ask what’s wrong, crouching down to look at yourself better in the reflection of the kettle.

“My hair!” You gasp, touching and moving through the white streak. White. Half an inch or an inch wide of white hair right there in the front on the left side of your head. White!

“What the hell happened!” You shriek. Your reflection might be a bit warped in the kettle, but it certainly isn’t creating this illusion; it’s real. “I’m too young to have white hair!”

He chuckles softly; you glare at him, and he drops his smile.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner!” You exclaim.

“I got used to it,” he shrugs, pulling you away from the stove. “‘Think it looks cool.”

“Um, no, I look like an old person,” you remark. “And not in a fun way.”

“You don’t look old,” he laughs, brushing your hair back, feeling the white strands beneath his fingers. It’s a physical reminder of what you did, the sacrifice you had made. “Kinda look like Rogue.”

“Are you doing that being a nice boyfriend white lie thing?” You ask, searching his face for a sign of a lie. While you wouldn’t blame him for trying to spare your feelings, you also wanted genuine honesty about this. So much for trying to hide your difference; now you’d stick out like a sore thumb wherever you went. But you find no such sign of lying on his face, because his eyes are soft and filled to the brim with endearment.

He shakes his head. “You still look very, very pretty,” he assures, lips finding yours again as if to prove he means it. “Always so pretty, ‘n gorgeous.”

“You're biased,” you say between kisses, letting him guide you backwards until your back hits the edge of the counter.

He tilts your head back, letting his tongue slip between your lips, tasting you like it’s the first and last time he will.

“Barely biased,” he corrects, mumbling against your lips, fingers curling into your hair.

********

You toy with the radio in the kitchen, turning the knobs to adjust the volume and toying with the station until you find one you like. The Velvet Underground plays smoothly from the device, humming soothing music into the room.

Dean carries two plates of pancakes and cutlery to the dining room table, a big smile on his face. You brush by him to double back for the drinks, carrying a cup of tea in one hand and a steaming mug of coffee in the other.

He takes his mug from you the moment you're at his side. He lifts the dark green mug to his lips, taking a sip while his eyes linger on you, crinkling at the edges. You mimic him, taking a sip of your tea with a shy smile and fond eyes meeting him over the rim of the cup.

This is what he gave up his future for, moments like this. You look so sweet, just perfect. If he had a camera on him, he’d capture the way you look right now, the way you’re looking at him; he’d keep it in his wallet, show you off to people, but mostly just keep it for himself. It was worth it, he decided. He’d give his soul up over and over again for a million moments like this one.

He puts his mug down to pull out your chair; you laugh softly, cheeks warm as you put your cup down and tease him about being “such a gentleman.” He scoffs and rolls his eyes, but you catch the little smirk on his lips as he pushes a chair closer to yours.

The pancakes are warm, a faint buttery smell mixing with the strong smell of roasted coffee. You pour some syrup over your pancakes, the sweet smell wafting into your nose, before Dean steals the bottle, practically drowning his own stack in the sticky liquid.

You stare out the window, at the tall trees and the hummingbird zipping past, as you take your first bite, humming around the fluffy goodness, shoulders melting like the pancakes on your tongue. In truth, you haven’t felt this relaxed and peaceful in a long time.

“Forgot you're such a good cook,” you mumble.

He should probably be mildly offended and make a sarcastic joke about it, but his chest is too busy swelling with pride to tease you.

“Just don’t get the opportunity to show off,” he reasons, nudging your arm before shoving a big forkful of pancakes into his mouth.

“Can I ban you from diners so you’ll have to make more pancakes?” You ask.

He chuckles, shaking his head at the absurdity. “Don’t gotta ban me for that.”

“Just making sure,” you tease, giving him your best serious look before falling into easy laughter. You’re giggly this morning, and he’s eating it up.

“Mhm,” he hums, draping his arm across the back of your chair, fingers toying with your hair, a sappy smile on his lips.

A loud meow breaks you from your trance of peacefulness. You manage to turn in the direction of the sound just quick enough to see a black ball of fur round the corner quickly, nails skittering against the floor for purchase. She launches herself into your lap, standing up on your legs, her soft little arms resting on your shoulder. You push your chair back so you can hold her properly, placing kiss after kiss to her soft little head and cheek.

“Oh, my kitty!” You coo. In turn, she presses her head against your jaw, rubbing against you firmly.

Her grey eyes glow brightly, her little body of fur vanishing to that of a grown woman. Your chair nearly tilts back at the added weight of the woman sitting across your lap and the mixed laughter between you two.

“That never stops being weird,” Dean mumbles to himself.

“How are you here?!” Adeline shouts, hands clutching your shoulders. Her grey eyes are wide, a wild smile on her face, both a rarity. She’s still in her pajamas, black and white plaid pants and a black t-shirt with a large skull adorning a cute bow.

“What are you talking about?” You ask, searching her face. There are dark bags beneath her eyes too. You guess no one has been sleeping well. “I thought I was always here?”

A range of emotion passes over her face: confusion, surprise, more confusion, and then acceptance. You misunderstood her question for one, and secondly, you clearly knew nothing. And knowing nothing meant nothing good. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Maybe you were just different from Margaret, or maybe one of her futile attempts at waking you had finally caught up.

“It doesn’t matter,” she shakes her head, shaking your shoulders with excitement. “You’re here!”

“I am!” You nod just as enthusiastically, though clear confusion is written across your eyes. “Did I miss a lot?”

“Just pathetic moping,” she answers, hands moving to your face to turn it side to side as if to look for something.

“It wasn’t pathetic,” Dean corrects.

“Yeah, sure,” she brushes him off.

“Well, at least your bickering is still the same,” you tease.

She scoffs. “Don’t start that, or I’ll remember why I should be angry with you.”

“Can I have a one-day grace period before my lecture?” You ask, using your most convincing voice and smile.

“Fine,” she agrees.

“Great,” Dean adds dryly. “Can you get off my girlfriend now?”

Adeline laughs, but for once without a fight listens to what Dean says. She stands from your lap, collapsing into the seat across from you, stealing a forkful of food from your plate.

“Why didn’t you come wake me?” She asks through a mouthful of food, though it’s unclear who the question is for.

In truth, Dean hadn’t even thought about it. You were awake, you were back, he had you again; what else mattered?

“I didn’t really think anyone else was here. I only assumed Sam would be,” you answer, saving him from coming up with a response. “I mean, I still don’t really know what’s going on.”

“Yeah, welcome to the great mystery,” Adeline remarks, slumping back in her chair. “We never got anywhere either.”

“Oh…” You mumble. “At least we’re confused together…?”

“What’s going o—“ Sam pauses in the archway. You hadn’t heard him come downstairs. His hands fall away from rubbing his tired eyes, face paling at the sight of you.

You shoot up from your chair, practically launching yourself at him in a tight hug. You saw him rise before it all went dark; you knew you completed the job, and yet seeing him in the flesh is different than knowing. He hugs you back, big arms just barely hesitating. You don’t notice it, nor the way he looks over your head at his brother, giving him wide eyes. He drops the look as you pull away enough to study him, eyes jumping around his face, examining his body as if a hidden injury may still be there.

“I should be thanking you,” he mumbles, a mix of feelings sloshing around in his chest. He knows something is wrong because you shouldn’t be awake, and yet he’s glad you’re awake because you’re his best friend, you saved his life, and only you would be able to understand even a fraction of what he experienced. Even so, he’s still not sure he should be alive. Does he thank you for sacrificing yourself for him? Or does he resent what it may have cost and caused? He can’t reconcile these thoughts, not now, so he settles for the easy one: his best friend is back.

Your eyes settle on his, face scrunching into a look of pure confusion, like the mere idea of him being thankful for you is blasphemy. “Don’t thank me, that’s stupid,” you answer simply. “Actually, you can thank me by not dying again, that would be great.”

It’s like he expected. What they all expected, really. Of course you wouldn’t see what you’ve done as an obligation or a thing worthy of glory; you saved him because he was family and that’s what you do for people you love. It’s as simple as saying the sky is blue.

“I’ll…I can do that,” he smiles boyishly, chuckling softly.

“Oh!” You perk up. “I owe you your birthday gift! It’s in my bag, wherever that is.”

He laughs again, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

His birthday hadn’t been on his mind at all; it passed in a blight of travel and pain, and much more important things to deal with. He turned 24, and it hadn’t mattered, not compared to what the yellow-eyed demon had told him, or the people that died, or dying himself, and least of all being resurrected by you.

“Later then,” You decide for him. “But don’t let me forget!”

“Okay,” he agrees, eyes wandering back to his brother. Dean’s eyes are on you, soft and admiring, the warmth he feels in his heart spilling over all around him.

“Um, Dean,” he calls, breaking him from his trance. “Can I talk to you real quick?”

Dean’s spine straightens, his satisfied expression dropping away. Sam knows, he realizes quickly, or he’s close enough to knowing. But he can play this off. He can lie, he’s good at lying.

“Sure,” he answers casually.

All the while, you study Sam with furrowed brows, trying to understand why he’s acting weird, because no one singles someone out and asks to talk to them privately without something weird going on.

“Are there any more pancakes?” Adeline asks suddenly, temporarily stealing your attention away.

“Yeah, Dean made a lot,” you answer, gesturing towards the kitchen. Luckily, you follow after her, but not before throwing the Winchesters a worried look.

They disappear out of the dining room, trailing down the hallway until Sam was sure no one else would hear.

“What the hell happened?” Sam whisper-shouts between gritted teeth.

“I don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout,” Dean lies, shrugging lazily.

“Really?” He deadpans.

Alright, maybe playing stupid wasn't the best option.

“‘Cause unless two-hundred years passed without me knowing, she should still be asleep!” Sam exclaims, hand extended out to gesture to you through the walls. Point made.

“Well, we got lucky,” Dean figures. “She’s different from Margaret, didn’t need all that time.”

Sam scoffs, face scrunched as he studies his brother, seeing through his tall tales. They weren’t the lucky type; you were never going to wake up, he had accepted that even if Dean couldn’t.

Wait.

His face pales, eyes widening. “What did you do?” Sam asks carefully, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you…”

And just like that, his perfect morning comes crumbling down.

“What did you want me to do?” Dean presses, giving in to the truth, teeth gritting together. “There was no other choice!”

“Yes, there was!” Sam snaps.

“What? Let her sleep for hundreds of years?!” Dean exclaims, gruff and loud. “Never get to have a life with her?!”

“This isn’t any better!” Sam shouts. Panic has twisted its way around his lungs like barbed wire, every breath a sharp reminder of the cost. This was his fault, wasn’t it? If he didn’t die, you wouldn’t have sacrificed your future for his, and so Dean wouldn’t have given his soul up. He runs his hands through his hair, stress keeping them there.

“Oh my god, Dean,” he half yells, half gapes. “How long do you have?”

Dean sighs, looking off to the side like the wallpaper could save him. His jaw works in tight circles. There’s no easy way to say this. Hell, he doesn’t want to say it at all. Not too long ago, he was poking fun at the idiots who sold their souls, but they did it for money or fame; he did it for his girl, that had to matter, didn’t it? Even so, if it makes him an idiot, then so be it.

“One year…” He finally answers, daring to look his brother in the eyes.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sam mutters, eyes prickling with hot tears. “What's wrong with you? Does she know?”

“No, and she won’t,” Dean replies firmly. He didn’t want Sam to know, but that was always going to have an expiration date; he couldn’t have hidden the obvious forever. “You can’t tell her.”

“No. No, she deserves to know,” Sam utters, shaking his head, swallowing back those tears. “God, Dean, how could you be so selfish?”

“Selfish?” He echoes, scoffing a mocking laugh. “I did this for her!”

“No, you did it for yourself!” Sam snaps. “You think she’s gonna be happy when she finds out you gave up your goddamn soul for her?”

“That’s why she can’t know,” he utters.

Sam shakes his head. “She’ll figure it out eventually, and it’ll be worse than just telling her. God, Dean, I can’t believe you! After everything we went through with Dad?!”

“I had to!” Dean roars, voice bouncing off the walls, no doubt reaching you in the next room.

“No. No, you didn’t have to do anything,” Sam corrects. “You threw your life away, just like that…If you don’t tell her by the end of the night, Dean, I will.”

“Don’t,” he pleads, eyes wide.

“It’s for your own good,” Sam decides, swallowing roughly. “Both of yours.”

The train and hem of your dress drag against the grass; your hair flows behind you, catching the golden rays of the afternoon sun. You lead the way down the path to the back edge of your property where a large lake sits. He follows right behind you, carrying a mixed container of bird feed and dried oats for you.

You stop a couple of feet away from the lake's edge, overlooking the expanse of the glittering water. Dragonflies hover from rock to rock, and brown ducks float across the cool water. The sun pours through the branches of the trees, reflecting the treeline into a blur across the rippling water.

He hands you your collection of food for them, watching the small smile that graces your face as you throw great handfuls into the water. The ducks quack loudly, zooming over to the source of food. The sight only makes you smile wider.

Was what he did selfish? He gave his soul up for you, so that you wouldn’t be forced to sleep your life away in a coma. But it had also been for him, because he didn’t want to live without you—he couldn’t. He’d never make it. So, perhaps, in a way he was selfishly unselfish. He could live with that sentiment. Look at you, glowing and content just being in nature, feeding the ducks, and watching the swans round the river bend. You were meant for life; you enjoy the simple things, you see the good in people, and you see the beauty in nature—in everything.

“Did you know swans mate for life?” You ask, looking over your shoulder at him. “And if their mate dies, they’ll experience grief in a similar manner as we do. Sometimes, it leads to their own deaths, too. They don’t want to live without each other. It’s pretty macabre, but I think it’s also kind of pretty.”

Would you understand his choice? Would you see that, like a swan, he couldn’t live without you? Could you forgive him in time?

You turn back to face the lake, ears perked up to not miss his response. Maybe he’d poke fun at the randomness of your fun fact, or say he didn't know it. He does neither.

“We went to your grandparents' house to figure out how to wake you,” Dean reveals, the words spilling from his lips before he could think better of it. You deserve the truth, and from him no less. If he doesn’t do it now, he’ll wait forever, and time isn’t on his side. “We didn’t find an answer, just that someone had done the same thing before, a lady named Margaret. She did it for her son.”

You freeze, spine straightening, shoulders locking up. You face him slowly, a sickly expression on your face.

“Like in my dream,” you mumble.

“Yeah, except you didn’t make it up,” he exhales, nodding, his heart twisting uncomfortably in his chest. He’s hardly said a thing, and yet you already look like a cold bucket of water has been dropped on you. “She woke up 200 years later…I-I couldn’t accept that. We tried everything.”

Your lips twitch, laughing quietly, breathless, and without humor. “Wh-What do you mean? What are you say…”

Your expression drops, face paling, eyes somehow both widening and sinking in simultaneously. The container slips from your grasp, spilling birdseed across the grass; you don’t blink or frown at the accident, only stare at him like if you look away you’ll stop understanding him.

“I don’t understand…” You mutter, shaking your head. Except, you do. Your stomach twists and sinks violently in your gut, bile curdling beneath the weight in your chest. “Dean, what did you do?”

Still, you know.

You know.

Dean wouldn’t mess with you like this. Two hundred years didn’t just pass by itself, and everyone was acting weird this morning, especially towards Dean. He did something to change your fate, and those kinds of things don’t come without a price.

“You can be mad at me all you want, it’s alright,” he answers instead, hands raised carefully in surrender, like you're some scared animal ready to split on a second's notice. “You can hate me all you want.”

It's all the confirmation you don’t want. Your bottom lip wobbles harshly, chest rising and falling unevenly, glossy tears coating your eyes, eyebrows pinched together in a silent plea—it’s the same look you gave him all those years ago, like your world was crumbling around you. And it’s a punch to the gut for him, taking the air straight from his lungs. He hates being the reason why you cried, why you were upset, but this is a whole new level. He never meant to make his girl cry.

“No,” you shake your head, taking a step back, words muddled and shaky. “That’s…that’s not fair. Tell me you're lying, please.”

“Not fair” might as well be the story of his life. He didn’t get to have “fair,” as much as he didn’t get to have luck or safety. Those kinds of things just aren’t in the cards for the Winchesters. This, of course, could be no different.

“I’m not,” he confirms, subconsciously stepping closer to you, wanting to pull you into his embrace. “I sold my soul for you, Y/N. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

You meet him more than halfway, jabbing your finger into his chest as tears spill down your cheeks.

“You don’t pick me over you, ever!” You shout over the tightness in your throat.

He stays rooted in place, not flinching or pushing back. He can take your anger. He’d rather see the fire in your eyes than the tears he caused. Anger is familiar to him; he wears it just beneath his skin. He’ll sit here and let you take it out on him if it’ll make you feel better. Except, you won’t, and he knows that just as well. You’d never hurt him, never lay a hand on him, and never say something cruel and twisting just to make him feel small. He’s gotten that all before, but never from you, and this time would be no different. He almost wishes it would, at least then he’d know what to do.

“I pick you every day,” he bites softly, meeting your hurt gaze with a hardened expression. “You think I wake up for me?”

“Don’t,” you mumble, hand slipping away.

He catches your wrist, pressing your hand flat to his chest, his heart beating frantically beneath your palm. “You feel that? That’s for you, baby. Only you. I couldn’t live without you. Couldn’t do it without you. I’ve been on borrowed time for a while now, we both know that. Might as well give you what you already own.”

“I don’t want it,” You shake your head rapidly, hair brushing your face, strands sticking to your tear-stained cheeks, trying to shrink away from him. “I want you. I need you. Didn’t you think about that? What am I supposed to do without you?”

He says nothing, trying to steel himself against your hurt, clenching his jaw tightly.

“H-How long do you have?” You ask.

“One year.”

Your heart drops out of your body, a broken whimper escaping through your lips.

365 days. Every minute boils down into seconds. 8,750 hours. 31,536,000 seconds.

31,535,999…

31,535,998…

31,535,997…

Your knees give way as a sob racks through your whole body, uncontrollable tears pouring from your eyes. He catches you before you can fall, hands firmly gripping your forearms, keeping you up, holding you to him. For a brief moment, you let him touch you, let him hold you and bring you both carefully down into the grass, grasping him tightly in fear of the inevitable.

How could he do this? To You? To Sam? For You? That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. This couldn’t be what your mom was warning you about. You finally got what you wanted; everyone was safe, the job was almost done, it was supposed to end well.

So, just as quickly, the anger returns, boiling up beneath the grief, trying desperately to cling to something to claw its way out.

“That’s not fair!” You cry, pushing at his chest. “That’s not fair, you promised! You said you wanted a life with me!”

The knife in his heart twists violently, tears glossing over his eyes. He tries to cup your face between his palms despite the way you keep pushing at him. His beautiful girl. In another life he’d be able to give you whatever you wanted. In another life he’d keep his promise: his promise to not leave you, and his promise to marry you someday. But in this life, he doesn’t get the right, and that’s a burden far bigger than the death sentence hanging on his shoulders.

“I do,” he urges, gruffly. ‘Don’t ever doubt that,’ he wants to add, but he doesn’t. Instead, he hurts you both more by saying, “But it was never gonna be in the cards for us.”

“That’s not fair,” you repeat yourself, shaking your head. What else is there to say?

He holds your face in his hands, trying to make you see him, and understand this was for the better. “Me for you. You for Sam. One year. Two-hundred years. It wouldn’t have mattered,” he continues.

There was never going to be a happy ending. Someone had to get hurt; that’s just how the game works—it’s how the story goes.

“It does matter!” You argue, fruitlessly, the anger in you melting beneath his palms, pulling away from the shore to wash itself away with a tide of grief. “That’s your problem, Dean. You think you don’t matter, that no one will miss you! And you’re wrong. It does matter! It matters!”

“So, I just let you sleep for ‘couple hundred years, that’s it?” He challenges, squeezing your cheeks, thumbs pointlessly wiping away the tears that keep coming. “You’d wake up alone, and everyone you knew and loved would be gone. Your brother, Adeline, Sam, me? You’d hate it. You’d be so alone, a-and so scared and confused.”

He’s right. And you hate it. You wouldn’t want to wake up years later with everything you knew changed and everyone gone, but you don’t want this either. Someone was always going to be hurt by this; it was just a matter of you or him. You with the deal he’s made, and him if he never went through with it at all. But you’d handle it better, he thinks, because you have a future, you see things in a way he can’t, you could get out of the hunting life, you can find someone else to love and take care of you. Him? It wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m going to be so alone without you,” you argue.

“That’s not true,” he shakes his head, his throat burning. “You’ll have—“

“You don’t get it,” you cut him off through your sobs. “You don’t get it! I won’t have you! I want you!” You poke his chest harshly with every desperate plea. “I’ve only ever wanted you!”

His hands drop to your wrists again, seizing your flailing anger. Staring at your tear-stained face, he can see his past mapped out before him: the day he met you, the laughter shared over milkshakes and fries, comforting you after your first break up, the first time you silently held him after a bad argument with his Dad, every holiday celebrated together, and all the times he went out of his way to visit you. Every happy, fearful, sad moment together led to this, hadn’t it? And so he sees every mistake he made, remembers all the words he should’ve said, but mostly he sees you and all the love you’ve offered him for as long as you’ve known him.

“I’m sorry,” he says sincerely.

“You’re not,” you accuse in the midst of your anger, lips pulled into a quivering pout.

“I’m sorry for making you cry,” he continues anyway.

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry for giving you hope.”

“Dean—“

“But I will not apologize for the deal. I won’t,” he drawls. “There was never going to be enough time for me to love you the way you deserve.”

“Don’t say that,” you cry, hiccuping over your words, every new tear adding to the agonizing pain behind his ribs.

“It’s true,” he says, releasing your wrists, voice breaking.

You reach for his face, wiping at his tears with a gentle touch, one he doesn’t deserve as he sits here hurting you over and over again.

“I wanted it to be you,” You mumble.

“I know,” he sighs, leaning into your touch. “I’m sorry.”

‘Don’t leave me,’ you want to beg him, but there’s no use, he gave up that choice. He couldn’t stay even if he wanted to. All you have is this moment, holding each other in desperation as if the act alone can change fate. He did this for you. An act of love.

“W-we have time,” you decide, scrambling for scraps of hope. Grief can wait, you can shove it down into the cavity of your chest and morph it into something useful. You swallow roughly, trying to hold off the broken sobs. “We can figure this out.”

Time. The invisible clock seems to follow him around everywhere now, counting down the minutes till the next shoe drops.

“We can’t,” he admits, turning his head to press his lips to your palm.

“No, we’ll find a loophole. We’ll reverse the deal,” you argue, harshly wiping away your tears with the back of your hands before he knocks your hands away to do it for you with a softer touch.

His girl, sweet as ever, trying to do another thing for him.

“I can’t,” he repeats, thumbs pressed just beneath your eyes. “If I try to back out, you’ll go back to sleep.”

“Good thing I’m not you,” You correct, forcing yourself to your feet on shaky legs beneath a heavy dress. “So, I’m going to find that demon, and make her wish she never made that deal.”

You step away from him, grabbing handfuls of your dress for a swift pace. He shoots up to his feet, trailing after you.

“Wait!” He calls after you. He lunges forward, grabbing your arm, pulling and spinning you to face him, your chest brushing his, his other hand coming to rest on your hip to keep you from running. “You’re not listenin’ to me.”

“I won’t accept this,” you declare, breathing quick and hard. “I won’t let you do this for me, Dean.”

“It’s done, ‘no changin’ it now,” he shakes his head, tightening his hold on you. “Don’t want to.”

“No. No, I’ll find another way!” You press, determination fizzling out with a new wave of tears hanging on your waterline.

“Y/N, you have to let this one go.” He cups your face, holding you firmly, forcing you to hear him.

“I can’t. I won’t,” you spit.

“You have to,” he repeats. Like it’s that simple.

“I don’t want to!” You yell, trying to shove his hand away, but he stays there anyway, unmoving.

“I love you,” he says, green eyes burning into yours, eyes red and sincere.

“Don’t,” you warn, trying to stay angry with him, trying to find it in yourself to hate him. But you can’t. Not when he’s looking at you like this, not when he’s saying things like that, not when he sacrificed himself for you, not when you would’ve done the same. “Don’t say that.”

“You know it’s true,” he challenges, stepping closer, his breath fanning over your face, holding your face in both hands now. “You know it’s true. I love you, ‘can’t change that.”

You lose your fight, standing there breathing hard as everything you could’ve had gets ripped away in front of you, silently and unchangeable. It weighs you down. So, you don’t push away when he presses his forehead to yours, his tears dripping onto your cheeks to join your own. You were never going to have it all.

“Dean,” you cry just above a whisper. “Please, I don’t want to lose you.”

“I know,” he swallows roughly, voice trailing off. “I know.”

Then his lips are on yours, tasting salt and every unspoken word. It’s all the pain and love created between two souls finally getting to intertwine again. The kiss quickly turns messy and rough, desperation seeping from each other's skin, trying to make up for every lost moment and every moment that will be lost in a year's time.

Quickly, you find yourself lying in the grass, him over you, hands pushing the hem of your dress up so he can press in closer, thighs settling around his hips, as you kiss and kiss until you're breathless. You become as intertwined and connected as two people can become, silently pleading for the universe to see what you have and grant you kindness. Could you make up for a lifetime just like this? Could it ever be enough?

(Next Chapter)

A/N: I think this may be not great but idk because i’ve spent too much time with it. So i hope it’s okay. Idk if im fully happy with it, but it was already being really long and I unfortunately can’t project the images in my mind exactly onto the screen.

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