#confinedspace

Even if those same eyes that Dean had spent countless night dreaming of were now staring defiantly up at Sam and him. Burning with unbridled hatred that he’d never expected seeing in your eyes. At least not past nightmares of you rejecting everything about the broken man that was Dean Winchester.

It wasn’t you. Even if the less logical part of him still sent alarm bells ringing in his ears. Forcing his heart to squeeze painfully every time that monster struggled against the chains that kept her locked to the chair. It was your body, or at least a cheap imitation of it, but that was just physical.

You were more than just that. You were light and fire, soft words and hard as steel power. You had the biggest heart and the strongest will of anyone he’d ever known. The (Y/N) that Dean had fallen in love with was nothing like the shapeshifter currently struggling against her chains in front of him. Where that monster was a cold expanse of empty maybes, you were an endless promise of a better world. You were worth fighting for. That… Thing was just wearing a body that looked like yours, in an attempt to tempt his body to act without his heart.

It was the middle of the night, and even after over 24 hours awake, Dean was buzzing. He had been since Sam informed him that the whole hunt premise was just a fake lure. Just a way for the younger Winchester to test the weak doubts that had been forming in his mind, just like they had been in Dean’s. Sammy always had a good head on his shoulders.

While Dean had been fooling himself with some fake daydream, Sam had been busy putting two and two together. Seeing all the little hints where Dean had just been too lost in his own jumbled mind to connect the dots. Hell, who was he kidding? He’d blinded himself, refused to see the truth. After all, it wasn’t hard to see the signs now that the rose-coloured fog had lifted from his eyes.

Her attitude had been all wrong; you were never that cold or flippant. Even when angry, you ran hot. You didn’t smile with that calculated sharp edge or laugh without that beautifully brilliant bright thrill seeping through each small sound and saturating it in warmth and comfort. When it was you, every single smile and laugh would flood Dean’s senses and leaving him in blissful comfort. Yet, hers had only made him shiver; sounding wrong and fake where yours were always genuine, even when you didn’t feel like smiling and laughing; because you did so out of love. Worried you’d hurt Sam and him, if you showed any sign of weakness.

Then there was your necklace. You normally always wore a small silver chain around your throat, yet it had been missing since you came back. Dean’s fingers had traced the shape of that same bare neck multiple times, yet he hadn’t noticed. Hell, he hadn’t even questioned it. He’d been too lost in the addictive thrill of feeling your warm skin under his fingertips to remember the delicate chain that you never took off. That necklace meant the world to you, and you’d even told him to keep a fucking eye on it. Calling it your ‘insurance’, a way to prove you were really you, instead of a face full of holy water of a silver blade pushed against your arm.

Sam had noticed though.

Which was why he’d fabricated the hunt, in a vain hope that the shifter would prove his doubts wrong. While Dean was lying in bed reeling over thoughts of a kiss he now regretted with every fiber of his being, Sam had been hard at work. He’d littered the table with every single silver weapon they had. Carefully making sure blades and handles were overlapping, so she couldn’t touch any of them without touching silver.

Yet, she’d avoided every single one of them. Fingers gliding through the air above them before settling on the books instead. It had all been circumstantial at that point, but when paired with the more concrete evidence of the hidden video footage Sam had managed to capture as you sorted through books, it had pretty much been a closed case. When (Y/E/C) eyes flashed bright in the camera’s lens, that had been enough to seal the deal. It was a shapeshifter, wearing your form.

At least it had been enough for Sammy. Dean had been more hesitant at calling the monster out on the scam. Too selfishly worried about his own breaking heart.

He’d just been fooling himself, hoping, that his brother was wrong for once. That you’d just lost the necklace, that the picture was just camera glare and that you’d picked the books because you loved the old tomes so much.

Even when presented with all the fucking evidence, he’d been unwilling to believe you were still lost to him, possibly forever. That the words from the night before… The kiss… That none of it had been you. That the little slice of heaven he’d finally found his way to was as fake and flickering as the light at the end of every tunnel he’d ever faced in his dark and messed up life.

So, even when faced with all of Sam’s evidence and his own doubts… Dean had only half believed what Sam had told him. Still holding onto some hope, just to not deal with the fact that you, the real you, were still gone. So, when he snapped those silver cuffs around your wrists he’d half prayed his little brother had been mistaken. But there was no mistaking the way you’d… She had screamed out in pain as soon as silver touched her skin. Your features twisting in an inhuman snarl as (Y/E/C) eyes darkened unnaturally.

It had been a few hours since Dean shouted for Sam to come help him carry the monster to the dungeon, but he was still struggling to wrap his head around it all. There was just… Too fucking much to deal with. His heart was breaking all over again. Just as it had slowly started to patch itself together after that thing had weaselled its way into the bunker, pretending to be you. And he was angry, furious, as protective rage fought against heartbreak and the nauseous guilt that lay heavy in the pit of his stomach.

There were too many damned voices in his head, too many competing emotions, and he couldn’t claw his way back out. He was drowning. Sinking under a sea of fury, grief, shame and guilt; and there was no safe way back to shore. He’d left you out there alone, somewhere, as he allowed himself to believe that monster.

He’d known something was wrong. But he’d been so fucking selfish. He’d just wanted you to be back with him, to love him like he loved you… He’d wished for it so damn hard that it had made him push aside all his doubts. He should have run the tests. Or at least questioned the you that walked through the door all cold and unfeeling. He should have pushed for answers, he should have…

Instead he’d turned a blind eye to it all. He’d let himself believe everything would work out by some miracle. Instead he’d kissed you. No, her. He’d drowned against skin that looked so painfully like yours but wasn’t. All while you were out there somewhere; lost, scared and alone. Or worse… No.

Gritting his teeth, Dean shook away the dark thoughts that threatened to pull him under and chain him to the concrete floor of the dungeon. He could wallow in self-hatred later, but first he had to save you. You had to be alive. You couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t be able to go on if your heart had stopped beating while he fooled himself with the hollow, artificial imitation in a shapeshifter’s chest.

“Dean… It’s all a mistake, I…” In front of him, the monster wearing your shape had changed tactics. (Y/E/C) doe eyes big and wet with laughably false tears. Her voice, which sounded exactly like yours, was still enough to pull Dean out of his own spiralling mind as he set his incredulous eyes in her.

Did that damn bitch really think she could talk her way out of this?

Did she think he was so far gone in the fake temptation she’d offered up that he’d fall for whatever little tricks she still thought she had up her sleeve? He wanted to laugh at her. He wanted to scream. Yet, he couldn’t find his voice. It was lost somewhere under the heavy beat of his breaking heart and hard angry breaths pushed through gritted teeth.

“Save it, we know you’re not (Y/N). We know what you are, and the only thing we want to hear from you is where you’re keeping our friend,” Sam spoke up instead, his voice shaking with the same barely contained rage that was bubbling up in Dean’s chest.

“Dean, please. I might not be her, but I could be. And I could be the (Y/N) you want me to be. One that loves you back, who lets you kiss her, and…” The shifter ignored Sam’s words. Keeping her pleading eyes set on Dean as lips that looked so heartbreakingly like yours dripped honeyed poison that made Dean sick to his stomach as they hit him like a punch to his solar plexus. Each pleading word forcing the air out of his lungs and fanning the flames of rage burning through his nerves.

“You’re nothing like (Y/N)! I don’t even want to hear you say her fucking name,” Once he found it again, Dean’s voice exploded out of him. Echoing against the warded walls of the dungeon and recoiling right back into his chest as her sick empty promises broke his already shattered heart and simultaneously helped him find his footing once more.

Was that what that fucking monster thought he wanted? Some weak parody of you that could warm his bed and fool him into thinking you loved him back? Dean felt sick; bile rising in his throat from the thought that he’d almost let himself fall that far. If he hadn’t been so fucking desperate to do things the right way, he could have already… No. He wouldn’t let her mess with his head. He couldn’t let her derail the conversation.

“You’re nothing but a fake imitation. You’re nothing to me. Just looking at you, pretending to be her, makes me sick to my stomach. I never wanted you. Hell, I can barely stand being near you,” He spat, his fingers curled into shaking fists by his side as he took a step closer to the steel chair bolted into the concrete. The anger rolling off of him in waves, palpable enough to make the bitch of a shapeshifter flinch. Her (Y/E/C) eyes finally dropping from where they’d been trying to plead with him as she resumed her useless fight against the chains.

“Please! I can…”

“The only thing you’re going to do. Is tell us where (Y/N) is. Now,” Dean cut off whatever other weak plea she was trying to offer up. She was wasting her time, and theirs. If you were still… No, you were alive. You had to be. But you were locked up somewhere, and Dean had to save you. You were alone, cold and most likely weak and fading; he had to act fast.

“Tell. Us. Where,” Dean pushed the words out through gritted teeth, his shoulders tense as he took another heavy step forward. The anger burning in green eyes, a forest fire threatening to consume the whole damned bunker, finally making it clear to the monster tied to the chair in front of him that her little tricks wouldn’t work on him.

The only reason he’d let her trick him for so long was because of his own damned selfishness. Now that he knew, without a doubt, that the monster in the chair in front of him wasn’t the woman he loved, she had no hold on him anymore. Even the sight of her barely clad body, dressed in one of his undercover shirts did nothing for him when he knew it wasn’t you. She was just a body. You were everything.

“And why would I do that?” She’s my last bargaining chip, I’m not just going to give her away so you can kill me,” She laughed, the normally beautiful sound twisted and hollow when leaving the monster in front of him. Even if her voice sounded exactly like yours.

“You’ll tell us either way. It’s just up to you if we have to cut it out of you or not. You’re not leaving this room alive. Tell us now, and I’ll make sure to kill you quickly. And, hell, I’ll even try to not make it hurt too much,” Dean shot back, his clenched fist loosening to brush against the silver blade tucked in his belt. The small move a silent full stop to the very real threat. Though he wondered if he’d be able to actually follow through. Even just the thought of hearing those pained screams again, sounding so achingly like you, tore at the very core of him.

Sure, he had no qualms against hurting the shifter. Hell, even if she’d told them everything straight away, he still wanted to hurt her. Like she’d hurt you. But she was wearing your face, your skin… And even if he knew it wasn’t you, the way your gorgeous features and twisted into an agonized grimace when he snapped the silver handcuffs onto your wrists had still pained him. Pulverising his already shattered heart in his chest as the baser, instinctual part of him screamed at him to stop. To stop hurting you.

“You can’t torture me Dean. Not when I look like this. Even if I didn’t see the heartbreak in your eyes when you snapped those handcuffs on me, I know you Winchester. After all, (Y/N)’s mind’s not the only one I’ve gotten a peak at.

“You’re not (Y/N) and it won’t fucking work. Drop the disguise, and tell us,” Dean lied through his teeth. Barely managing to conceal the grimace that followed the weak play. If his mind wasn’t such a fucking mess, he might have been able to trick her into changing, but instead he’d just asked her… Well, maybe not nicely, but definitely ha hell of a lot nicer than he normally would have been to a monster wearing someone else’s face.

“It will. And even if it doesn’t… I’m not changing, I like this body. It suits me,” Lips that looked so much like yours twisted into that parody of a smile; cold and empty as she let her eyes burn into his. Challenging him to prove her wrong.

“If you’ve been inside my mind, you should know; if it’s to save (Y/N), I’ll do anything,” He shot back. And he meant it. Even if it would hurt him, even if he’d probably wake up screaming with nightmares of torturing you until he drew his final breath, he’d sacrifice his sanity to save you. If that’s what if took to get you back home.  

“True… Anything, except hurting your pretty little (Y/N) that is. And as luck would have it, I’m wearing her face right now,” She hummed, stretching her body as much as she could under the layers of restraints binding her to the chair. Pushing her chest out as she arched her back in a way that forced the white dress shirt to ride up against bare thighs.

Yet, where that very action had only hours earlier ignited fire in his veins, it did nothing for him now. Instead he only shuddered, not bothering to hide the disgust on his face as he swallowed back bile and more angry acidic words.

“Awh, don’t be like that baby. You seemed to like it when you were moaning against my neck yesterday. Or hell, even just a few hours ago when you were practically fucking me with your eyes,” She purred, the sound of it grating against Dean’s nerves like nails on a chalkboard as he fought the urge to retch. Both from the viscous tendrils of disgust in the back of his throat and the shadows of shame and guilt that tore at the remnants of his heart from how he’s betrayed you. Because that’s what it felt like. Like he’d betrayed the love he had for you. Even if you, the real you, didn’t feel anything for him; he never wanted to hurt you like that. He’d let her fool him, and he’d drowned in thoughts of you with some cheap stand in. It felt wrong, and he felt sick.

“I thought it was (Y/N). You disgust me,” He spat out, tasting blood on his tongue from where he’d cut into his cheek from biting the inside of it to keep from getting physically sick from the whirlpool of emotions wrecking through his body and mind.

“You know… My little shopping trip? I went to speak to your precious little (Y/N),” The shapeshifter chose to ignore Dean’s jab as she raised her voice to speak over him. Sounding so damn proud of herself that he wanted nothing more than to suck the oxygen out of the room to stop her from uttering another word. To wrap his hands around her throat until the only thing leaving lips that looked so heartrendingly like yours were whimpers for air.

“We had a nice little chat, woman to woman. I told her all about how your body felt pressed against mine, how you taste; like whiskey and sex. How you groaned against my mouth and let your hands tug and pull at me,” She nearly moaned the words as she undulated in her seat. The whole act wrong and repulsive when the body in the chair was yours. Made worse by the guilt that was slowly tearing Dean to pieces in front of her.

You knew.

Letting his rage sear away the grief and guilt that sat heavy in his stomach Dean took another shaky step forward. His trembling fist lifting, wanting nothing more than to shut her up. Yet, just as his arm lifted over his head, she whimpered in her seat, flinching back and looking so damn scared. And even though he knew it wasn’t you in that chair. That it wasn’t you whimpering and flinching away from him… It still broke his heart all over again.

“Dean, please…” She cried out, false tears staining (Y/E/C) eyes as every little saline drop hit him where it hurt. She looked too much like you, and it was fucking torture. Like he was the one chained to the chair in the middle of the room with that monster as his tormentor. He couldn’t hit her, no matter how much he fooled himself into thinking he could. As his fist sank back to his side, defeated, that scared look was gone again. Sad eyes replaced with a cocky, prideful glint as quickly as they had appeared.

“You know, I didn’t lie… (Y/N) did run away from here because of you,” She continued speaking after just a beat of dead silence. That same teasing lilt seeping back into her tone as she crossed her bare legs in the chair. Treating it like a goddamn throne now that Dean had proved her right; that he couldn’t hurt her when she looked so much like you.

“Shut your mouth. You’re a monster, you’re nothing but a filthy liar,” Dean’s voice was low, shaking with anger, though he couldn’t help the breathless gasp that followed them as her words winded him. She was just trying to hurt him, he just had to grit his teeth against the pain. He couldn’t fall apart again, looking for another bottle to hide in. Not when you were out there somewhere, alone and scared.

That monster was just trying to hit him where it hurt. He couldn’t let her see that she’d hit her target dead on.

“No. I’m not lying Winchester. How many times do I have to say it? Shapeshifter’s gain the memories of the people they shift into. And god, it’s all so sickeningly crowded with endless fucking pining in her head. Little miss (Y/L/N), her heart breaking every time you left a bar with another woman on your arm. Too blind to see any of the longing looks you sent her way,” The monster in the chair didn’t listen to Dean’s dangerously low threat. Choosing instead to pile on the hurt as he let his fingers dig into his palms, shoulders shaking as he tried to keep himself from doubling over in pain.

“Shut. Up!” The words exploded out of him, even as the small, ugly part of him whispered in the back of his head. What if she wasn’t lying? What if your heart had been breaking along with his, and he’d done nothing to protect it? Only piling on the hurt every time he left another bar with someone else in a foolish attempt to hide his heart from you. And finally crushing it completely by falling for temptation and kissing a damn shapeshifter. If you really did love him… Then he’d hurt you even more by falling for her little tricks.

“You know… She was so easy to catch,” She hummed. Ignoring the way Dean’s angry shout reverberated off the walls as her voice took on that sing-songy teasing lilt yours always held when you were joking around with Sammy or him in the bunker. The familiar sound enough to force a hollow sob from him, shaped like a sharp, pained exhale.

“I just borrowed your face for a little while and she followed me like a goddamned lovesick puppy. Oh god, the look on her face right before I knocked her out was hilarious. She looked so heartbroken and betrayed. Big (Y/E/C) eyes, all unfocused and hurt,” She cackled. Fucking cackled. A vicious evil sound that should never come from your perfect mouth.

Dean’s jaw clenched as he struggled to breathe around the mix of nausea and pain burning its way through his body and forcing small convulsed shivers from him. His skin breaking out in goose bumps, even in the humid air of the dungeon.

“Why Dean. Why would you huuuurt me,” The shapeshifter was mocking him. Mimicking your pained expression with an over exaggerated pouting bottom lip as her whining tone grated at Dean’s nerves.

“Stop…” The word left him like more of a broken whisper through his clenched jaw. The ache of the strain on his jaw barely even registered with him as his breaths stuck to the shrapnel of his heart in his chest. A poisonous, acrid mix of anger and guilt coursed through his veins as he shook in place.

It was a miracle he was still standing. His body and mind were waging a war against his heart, and hell… With the chaos saturating every damned nerve in him, tearing him apart, he couldn’t even tell which part of him was winning. He couldn’t breathe, he could speak, he couldn’t even swallow down the bitter taste on his tongue. The taste of you that had been so addictive and sweet only hours earlier when he was lying in his bed thinking back on the kiss now tasted rotten and wrong.

“And now she’s dying… Tied up and all alone. Thinking you’re here screwing me,” She wasn’t stopping. Instead she just kept piling on the fucking hurt, nearly moaning around the words as she took some sick pleasure from the fact that you were out there somewhere. Your heart breaking and your body slowly dying.

“I SAID SHUT UP!” The confirmation that you were alive, helped Dean find his voice again. Somewhere under the storm in his chest. Squeezing his eyes shut to shut out the view of her body undulating in the chair, bare thighs rubbing against each other and plump lips parted, like she was fucking getting off on all of this, he letting every ounce of anger and viscous guilt propel the words out of him. And though some small part of him registered the pain, he just couldn’t make himself give a fuck about how the feral scream tore at his vocal cords or burned in his throat.

Dean’s hands were still curled into painful fists at his sides and his body was visibly shaking, but with his eyes closed, he didn’t see that damned monster anymore. No, instead it was all you. Your beautiful smiling face, your laughter, your bright eyes, all dulled and broken. Locked up somewhere dark and damp. Shivering, crying and fading fast. All while he was kissing a damned monster and wanting more.

While he’d been happy. Smiling even. You, the real you, had been in pain, hurting and scared somewhere. All alone.

“You love her Winchester, and she’ll die without ever knowing,” The monster tied to the chair in the dungeon just kept fucking pushing. Her words the final bullet in the chamber that unloaded on his heart. Sounding even more like yours now that his eyes were closed, and your broken and defeated body was the only image in his bruised and battered mind.

Sinking to his knees, Dean barely even noticed Sam’s arms reaching out to keep him from fully collapsing against the cold hard concrete. Your hurt features and (Y/E/C) eyes shining in betrayed tears the only thing he could see. No, he couldn’t hurt her. Not when she was wearing your face.

But he had to. God, he needed to save you. Even if you’d never forgive him.

Start Here | Last Part | Next Part

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You couldn’t even go down in a blaze of glory taking your kidnapper with you. The steel door that separated you from your self-sacrificial revenge had stayed shut since that monstrous bitch had knocked you out to lock you up.

Hell, you didn’t even have much hope of rescue. No heroic Winchester brothers were going to come running to your side to help you clean up your mess this time. You’d lost that privilege the morning you ran away from your feelings, just one week earlier. 

At least you thought it’d been a week. Just like you thought it’d been two days since you’d last seen any sign of light. It could be more… Or less. Time didn’t work right when the room stayed dark around you. Every second seemed to last a lifetime as you had nothing to keep you company but your shattered heart and repeated reruns of the last few days. 

---

You’d been staying in the Men of Letters bunker for close to four years. Three years, nine months and fifteen days to be exact, but who was counting. Silently loving a certain Dean Winchester for… Hell, most of it. 

You’d carried it all. Resolved to just stay his friend. To have his back and keep him safe. To never let your heartbreak crush you enough to force you away from him. Convinced that being by his side, loving him though he didn’t love you, was somehow the right choice. Some fucking righteous sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Just another foot soldier, there to help the Winchesters wage their hidden war for humanity.

But, that day, one week ago, something in you had finally snapped. Waking you up with an explosion of unimaginable heartbreak. As if your heart and mind was no longer able to keep the monsters at bay. Unable to breathe around the pain that forced you to curl up into a little ball on the military cot you’d called your bed for the last few years.

Sure, it wasn’t the first time your unrequited crush had you wallowing in selfish pain and self-pity. But, somehow, that day it’d finally been too much. The final crack in your armour that left you exposed and defenseless.

The night before had been wonderful. Sitting on the couch with Dean, just joking, laughing, and floating weightless in his undivided attention. Hell, you’d even made plans to join the boys at the bar the next night. Yet, as day broke, so did you. 

What little strength you had left shattered, along with your bruised and beaten heart, at the thought of seeing Dean with yet another one-night fling. Another night of reluctantly playing his wingman. Watching him with his arm around someone else who wasn’t you. Because it was always someone who wasn’t you.

And so, you did the one thing you’d told yourself you’d never do. Both when it came to the oldest Winchester and as a hunter in general. You ran away from trouble. 

Thinking that maybe… Just, maybe if you went away for a while. If you got enough distance between him and you. Maybe you’d forget the reason you left in the first place. Maybe your heart could superglue itself back together, and your feelings would numb just enough for you to be his best friend again.  

But of course, it wasn’t that easy. 

Instead you’d just wandered, no more than 20 clicks from the damned bunker. Lost and in pain as you still imagined him with his arms around some other woman. The image repeating endlessly in your mind as waking nightmares replaced rose coloured daydreams. 

His smile, the one that was the sunrise to your endless night, thrown over one shoulder in a victorious grin to his brother and you as he walked out another door of another hole in the wall… That boyish wink that always made you smile at him, no matter how angry or heartbroken you were, thrown across the bar in the opposite direction of where you were sitting… All towards some other beautiful woman. 

There was always another woman. 

You’d left him because the one-sided feelings and constant heartbreak had been too painful. Yet, being away from him just hurt too fucking much. You felt like you were freezing to the bone and stuck six feet under, unable to breathe.

Every minute, every goddamn second, you were away from the bunker hurt more than any other pain you’d ever experienced. And you were a hunter. You’d been beaten, stabbed, burned, shot... You’d suffered broken bones, concussions, curses and torture. 

Name a form of inflicted pain; you’d been there, done that and had the scars to prove it. But none of them even got anywhere close to how it felt to know you couldn’t just walk down the hall and see Dean smile your way. 

That you couldn’t hide another million unspoken feelings in wishes of good nights, bottles of beer or loud laughter as you joked around with the man who was both your best friend and the unwitting accomplice to your self-inflicted torment. Without Dean, there was a hole in your life. A gash too big for any sutures or band aids to cover. 

Hell… 

By day five you’d been just about ready to turn around again and go back to him. Switch your silent phone back on to what was probably an inbox filled with worried messages. Pretend you’d just gotten slightly lost for a while. Smile your best fake platonic smile and be his friend again. 

You’d even started on the journey back. Or at least you’d packed your bag and were arguing with the vicious sadistic devil on one shoulder and the slightly masochistic angel on the other. Trying to decide which option would be the one that finally ground your heart to dust. 

Yet, just as you’d set your mind to it, there Dean was, right in front of you. Smiling that half-smile that always set your heart racing and green eyes the colour of budding spring thawing out the butterflies in your stomach. 

The startlingly soft look in his eyes had confused you at first. You’d expected him to be mad, or worried. Or, hell, a mix of both. But he was smiling, happy even. His eyes shining with some form of hidden heat as you stood still, letting him walk over to you. 

Your shoulders were tense and eyes wide as you watched him approach you. Slowly and carefully, like you were some scared little animal, caught in his trap. Yet, just as your lips had turned into a soft hesitant smile, his had dropped completely. Arms reaching out and wrenching your own behind your back as you cried out in pain.

His strong calloused fingers had a bruising hold on your upper arm as he forced you to move towards a parked car that was definitely not Dean’s Impala. The teasing lilt of what you only later realised was your kidnapper cutting deeper when delivered in Dean’s low rumbled voice that normally always made you feel safe and comforted. 

“And here I thought hunters were supposed to be strong,”

---

It wasn’t until later, after a dizzying blow to the head and a short journey in the trunk of an old Ford, that the shapeshifter had dropped her disguise. Shifting into a tall, tan and gorgeous blonde. Hell, until the very last moment you’d barely even managed to clear your head enough to realise that of course it wasn’t Dean. Dean would never hurt you. Not intentionally anyway. 

Not past the pain you caused yourself with your empty little daydreams. Torturing yourself with things that could never be, by imagining alternate realities where they could. Like you were lost in a desert, tormenting yourself by pretending you really believed in the mirage that always stayed right outside your grasp.

Dean was kind. Hell, he’d probably be hurting if he knew how you felt. Which was part of why you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him. Knowing he would be in pain from having to reject you. Dean would never hurt you. No, your only tormentors were your shapeshifting kidnapper, and yourself.

Your torturer was your own foolish mind, clutching onto a paper heart and pretending it was his. Pretending he would someday notice you and colour it in with his love. But it was just a piece of notebook paper hastily torn into the rough shape of a heart. Just an empty hollow hope that he could love you back. Paper didn’t feel, it couldn’t love you or hold you. But you’d still held it close to your chest for years, ignoring the millions of paper cuts on your heart and soul as you loved him silently.

She, the shapeshifting bastard, had taken advantage of your attachment to that paper heart. Using his likeness to draw you in. Like a moth to a flame. But instead of destroying you, instead of burning you along with notebook paper dreams and brittle tendrils of hope until nothing was left, she’d simply pinned and framed you. Making you a display in your own little cell. As if you were part of some gruesome butterfly collection that she could use to draw in other unsuspecting victims. 

A hostage for the infamous Winchester brothers.

You’d wanted to kill her. You’d begged her to kill you. Anything to stop her from using your likeness to fool the Winchesters. Anything to make her leave them alone. Even if it meant they’d never know you were locked up and forgotten in some damp dark basement. Slowly growing weaker and smaller as you shrunk into the shadows. 

You’d threatened… You’d mocked. You’d lied through your teeth. Saying they’d slaughter you on the spot if they ever saw you again. Making up horrible lie after horrible lie about imagined pain you’d brought into the Men of Letters bunker. Things that tore on your very sanity to even imagine doing to the two men you loved with all your heart. Your family. The home you chose yourself. The family that found you and took you in when you were all alone.

But if you had to make a monster out of your broken pieces and plant it in the shadows of the blonde shapeshifter's mind. Then you would. All to keep her away from them. 

It’d been two days since then. Since she’d shut the door in your face with an angry scowl. Leaving you to your darkness, left with no options but to wait for her to show up again. For her to open the door and taunt you with stories about the Winchesters. To tell you how she’d hurt them. What awful things she’d made hands that looked like yours do to them. Or, hell, to just come finish you off. 

But there was nothing. Just more darkness. More cold silence.

Two days. Your tired and broken mind was finally fooling itself into believing you’d been able to save them. That your (Y/E/C) eyes wouldn’t be looking into Dean’s green ones and fooling him into believing whatever she wanted him to believe. To trick him into a matching cell, right next to yours. Separated by concrete and damp frigid air.

Swallowing the broken sobs and last flickering flames of a desperate scream, you squeezed your eyes shut until little bright spots swam behind them. Your head thudding against the concrete again as you tried to fool your tired and defeated body into believing you were still fighting. That you hadn’t given up after the first 24 hours. 

“Anyone? Please...”

---

Dean: It’d been a week since you left the bunker. No word of warning or explanation given to Sammy or him past a single text message. Not even a note left behind in the room that had been yours for three years, nine months and fourteen… No, fifteen days. 

You’d left him behind, and you’d taken his heart with you. 

You’d tucked the barely beating, broken windup toy of a heart that was all he had into the side pocket of your worn backpack and you walked straight out of his life. Acting like you’d never been part of it. While Dean was left to deal with the (Y/N) shaped hole in his chest and his world falling apart.

It was his fault. It was always his fault. 

No matter how much he’d tried to treat you right. To be your friend and not pull you into the hell that was his life by revealing his feelings for you. He’d fucked up somewhere along the way. Come too close to telling you. And you’d ran away from the imminent explosion that was Dean Winchester. 

Your phone was off, and you hadn’t come back. You’d walked away, and you were still walking. Never coming back to him. No matter how many times he called you. How many times he took the car out, aimlessly looking for you. You were gone. You’d left him, freely and willingly. Not even giving him one clue to go by. 

It’d struck out of nowhere and left him gasping for breath in the chair that had been yours in the bunker library. Clasping a bottle like it somehow held the answer. If he only drank his way to the bottom of it. 

He shouldn’t even be looking for you. Not when you didn’t want to be found… No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to be found. You just didn’t want him to find you. 

You’d run from the tiny mistake that made his secret longing for you show past his mask of meaningless flirting. Women he’d walked out of bars with, only to walk them home and leave them by their door. Unable to move past just kissing strangers and pretending they were you. His own rash decisions had been the crack in the dam of jokes and friendly jabs that was supposed to protect you from him. 

Dragging a tired hand over his worn features Dean drowned another voiceless scream of anguish into the bottle of amber liquid in his hand. Only to glare up at his younger brother as Sam forcefully wrenched that lifeboat from his shaky hand and held it out of his reach. 

“Damn it Dean! Just go bring her back already,” Sam’s anger was dulled at the edges with worry as he replaced the bottle with a cup of coffee. Worry for his brother and his missing friend. Yet, right then and there, it wasn’t worry or pity Dean needed. He needed numbness, he needed oblivion. 

“Don’t you think I’ve tried Sammy?! I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can barely fucking breathe because she’s gone,” Dean’s voice cracked over the words. Raw and rough from too many rambled voicemails left on your phone. Little electronic prayers to you that all went unanswered.

“She’s gone. And it’s my fault. I pushed her away. She somehow… She realised and she ran. Who knows what she’s doing right now, and I can’t chase her. So, I’m left here, doing nothing. Not a damned thing,” The bitter coffee mingled with the sour aftertaste in his mouth as he let it burn the rest of the words out of his throat. Unwilling to go down that path again. Like he’d done too many times to count since you left.

“It’s not your fault Dean. I mean… Maybe she just needed some space from the whole hunting thing? We’ve all been there…” Sam sounded like a broken record to his older brother. Just the same empty promises and lights at the end of tunnels that flickered and died just as Dean got to them. “She didn’t leave because of how you feel about her. She…” 

“You don’t know that Sammy,” Dean cut his brother’s empty words off, not able to listen to any more flimsy hope. His shaking fingers had long since lost the strength to hold on to any of the broken daydreams anyway.

“I do!” Sam’s voice was rising in volume again. Just like it had been doing more and more as Dean drank himself into another bottle or spent full days just… Doing nothing. Just staring at the door and willing you to walk through it. Dean was too tired for another fight. He was just… 

So fucking tired.

“No, you don’t. The night before she… That night I was so close Sam. So damned close to telling her how I felt. I…” Swallowing the lump of pain and vicious self-hatred that rose in his throat, Dean forced himself to continue. 

“I chickened out at the last moment and invited her for drinks instead. I was gonna… At least I was gonna try to tell her at the bar,”

“Then go find her! Tell her! What are you more scared of Dean? Never seeing her again, or her actually fucking responding to how you feel?” His weak attempt didn’t stop Sam in his tracks like he’d hoped for. 

No, instead they gave his younger brother the ammunition to hit him where it hurt. He knew Sammy meant well, his baby brother just wanted him to be happy. But… Damn it, it still stung like a son of a bitch. 

“I want her… I shouldn’t, but I do. And that scares me more than anything else in this messed up world of ours, and we’ve survived hell and apocalypses,” Dean’s voice wavered as he finally owned up to the monsters under his bed. “I’m beyond scared Sammy. I’m terrified,” 

“You need to find her Dean. Sure, maybe it won’t be happily ever after, maybe it will be. Either way it’s better than you slowly poisoning yourself here,” Dean’s straight forward confession finally took the wind out of Sam’s sails. The youngest Winchester’s voice a much more subdued whisper as he begged his brother to climb out of the shadows. Out of the bottle. 

But, Dean wasn’t ready for that yet. Not ready for a world without you. So, instead, he let his actions speak for him. Snatching the bottle back from his brother and clinging to it as he drowned out the world with another generous mouthful.

The real world would just have to wait.

---

The sun had set… 

Dean didn’t know when and he couldn’t make himself care. The bottle in his hand was empty. Left hanging limp and abandoned as he kept his eyes shut. The back of his eyelids morphing into a movie screen as he replayed those last few hours. Remembering that fateful night.

You’d been sitting next to him on the couch. Every small laugh he managed to tease out of you tasted like honey on his lips as his smiles echoed yours. You were gorgeous, perfect, as (Y/E/C) eyes brightened with barely contained laughter since Sam’s early retreat to bed forced you to be quiet. You were always beautiful to him. Like the definition of peace, freedom and everything that was fucking right in his messed-up life. 

But that night he hadn’t been able to just sink into the comfortable buzz that normally enveloped him when you were around. He’d been too nervous. 

His hands played with a lukewarm bottle of beer as he rolled it between open palms. He’d been all nervous energy and awkward fidgeting. Trying to find the courage to finally tell you the words he’d been keeping hidden for what felt like an eternity. 

One too many close calls had finally made him realise that life was too short for his damned cowardice. That if there was even the slightest shot at heaven in your arms, though he knew he was bound for hell down the line, then he had to take it. 

Sometimes when you smiled at him, your smile was so soft. So warm. That he could almost fool himself into believing you loved him too. His mind painting a wonderful love story as he sat still trying to talk around his sudden cottonmouth. Trying to recall words that were practically ingrained into his very bones after holding them so close for so long. Like an indentation of you on the very core of him.

Yet, he couldn’t get them out. Couldn’t find the courage to take the flightless leap before it was, once again, too late. He’d hesitated for just a little too long. Unable to get the words out for a full night of drinks and laughter. Another lost shot, as you’d stretched your body, giving him a tired smile and a mumbled good night. 

And his words. Words that were meant to be a confession. Had turned to cowardice on the tip of his tongue. Offering up a weak plan of a tomorrow that never came. A change of scenery, a stolen moment in a corner booth that he could fool himself into believing was somehow enough to finally make him gain the courage to tell you. 

Before you’d walked away with a promise and a smile. The last he’d seen from you.

Leaving Dean to once more confess his feelings for you to his dark bedroom. Words of love rising and mixing with the countless others from previous sleepless nights, as he secretly painted a rose-coloured Sistine Chapel on his bedroom ceiling until he fell into a restless nervous sleep. Promising himself that he’d do better. That he’d tell you when the sun rose once more.

But, by the time he got up, you’d been gone. Leaving a goodbye message on Sam’s phone, and nothing for him. You’d just disappeared and...

The sound of the bunker door opening shook him out of his self-inflicted misery as he turned unfocused eyes towards the source of the noise. Unwilling to listen to the traitorous little piece of his heart trying to make him believe it was you. Like he’d done whenever any door opened for the last week. 

Yet, as blurry eyes focused on the soft outline of (Y/H/C) hair, his breath hitched in his throat. You’d come back to him… Oh thank God. You were there, you hadn’t run away. Sammy had been right after all. 

“Hello there Winchester,” Your voice sounded colder than he was used to. But Dean could deal with that. If that’s what you wanted. He could go back to just being a hunting partner. An acquaintance. Barely even a friend.

Still, not trusting that his mind hadn’t made you up, he had to ask. He had to be sure you were real. Then he’d let you treat him as coldly or indifferently as you needed to. If that was your answer to his unspoken confession.

“(Y/N)?” His voice was barely a breath. Your name a ghost on his lips. An In Memoriam to feelings he knew he had to push down, if that was what you wanted.

You didn’t speak straight away, instead you smiled. A cold and unnatural smile. One that, unlike all the other smiles you’d ever graced him with, for once didn’t set his pulse soaring or sent tiny shots of electricity through his body. It didn’t feel like your normal smile. But maybe that too was just a side effect of his latest major fuckup...

“Yeah, sure… It’s me,”

Next Part

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