Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long! I've been waiting for my beta to get this chap back but she's been ill and I couldn't make you wait any longer, so here it is; spelling mistakes and all.
I hope you enjoy it :)
As always I don't own anything but wish I did!
Chapter Twenty Seven
Consequences
Dean sat with his back against the sofa as I played with his hair, his beer and mine finished a while ago. Dean had started breathing heavily a few minutes ago, asleep and in need of it. He'd been through so much the last three days, he needed to rest, he was running on pure adrenaline I could see. I carried on playing with his hair as he slept, relaxing further as I listened to his soft breathing.
I heard someone knocking at the door and tensed up. Friend or foe? I hoped it was the former, cause busted up like I was I wasn't exactly gonna be much help if this was someone wanting to tear us to pieces. And I hated to be helpless.
I heard the sound of heavy footsteps move to the porch door off the kitchen and then the sounds of talking. Bobby and a woman. I let out a sigh of relief. Bobby's tone was his normal gruffness, it must have been a friend, maybe the nurse lady stroke hunter that Charlie had rang.
"She's through here, thanks for coming so quick." I heard Charlie speaking quietly as he lead the woman through to Bobby's study.
"Anytime Charlie. You know that, but if you pull a stunt like you did back there again, then I'm gonna kick you up the ass so hard your momma's gonna feel it. Got it?" A voice replied with a smile as the woman came into the study. I didn't need to look to know it was Ellen though, I'd recognised her voice.
"Hi." I whispered over to the woman, glad to see her, even though it had been less than a week. I loved Ellen to pieces, just from my brief stay with her. She was the perfect mixture of caring mother and don't take no shit hunter.
"Well blow me down, look who it is!" Ellen smiled at me, a wide smile that touched her eyes. It seemed that she was happy to see me as well, or she was until she took in my injuries. "What have you been doing? You look like you been ten rounds with death himself, and lost honey."
"Eve got hold of me. Tried torturing me to say yes. The usual Friday." I said trying to come off casual, but wincing at the word torture, it had become real to me over the last day or two. And I couldn't say I was a fan.
"Damn." Ellen's face paled as she kept taking in new injuries, the ones that were visible. "Right, we're gonna need to get rid of that guard dog you seem to have picked up, then we're gonna need to get those clothes off ya honey, see what we're dealing with."
"Can't we wait for Dean to wake up, he's beat." I pleaded, my hand still stroking his soft brown hair, relishing having it between my finger tips again.
"Depends. You want those bones to start setting how they are? You've waited too long as it is sugar. And I really don't fancy having to re-break them. It's a waste of my time and energy, and you don't look like you can go through much else sugar." Ellen said in a stern voice, a small frown on her beautiful face.
"Fine." I muttered, not wanting to wake Dean, but Ellen was right, I really didn't want to go through more pain than necessary. I'd been through enough to last me the rest of my life recently.
"He came to his senses then?" Ellen frowned as I gently started shaking the hunter awake.
"Eventually." I smirked up at Ellen before leaning down and whispering in his ear. "Wake up D."
"Huh! What's up!? Bella!" Dean shot up and took a defensive stance in front of me, his hand going to his gun in his waistband.
Ellen and me started giggling, and even Charlie was trying hard not to smile. "It's okay D, Ellen just needs you to move so she can get to me. Go get some sleep, you need it." I said with a soft smile for the sleep ridden man.
"I'm okay." Dean muttered looking like he was gonna fall asleep where he stood.
"Go on, go sleep. I'll be fine, Ellen will take care of me." I tried reassuring Dean, who was still looking like he wasn't sure if he needed his gun or not. I wondered when the last time he'd slept actually was, he was normally much more with it when he first woke up than this.
"No. I'm not leaving you again, look what happened last time. I'll be right here sweetheart." Dean said, his face hardening as he sat on the arm of the sofa. Then he looked up at Ellen and Charlie who were watching the exchange, both with frowns on their faces. "Ellen?!" Dean exclaimed with a mixture of disbelief and happiness.
"In the flesh." Ellen smiled at Dean before opening her arms. "Come here boy, let me get a look at you." Dean stood with a smirk on his face and ventured over to the woman, a cocky swagger to his walk that I was pretty sure wasn't going to go down well. If I was Ellen I'd have smacked him upside the head.
As soon as Dean reached Ellen's side the woman pulled her hand back and slapped him with force. The resulting sound, flesh on flesh made me wince and my heart rate pick up. "What's wrong with you boy!? You don't ring and let me know you and you're idiot brother are ok? You better put me on speed dial kid!" Ellen glared at Dean before lifting her hand and slapping him again. "That one's for Bella, cause I'm guessing she didn't clock you one herself! You do that to her again I'm coming after you with a gun. Okay?" Ellen said with force.
"Ouch!" Dean muttered while raising his hand and rubbing at his flame red cheek.
My heart rate had picked up again, I wanted to move, to go to Dean, to stop Ellen's attack on him. Didn't she know how much he'd been through? And more pain, more violence was not what we needed right now.
"Actually she did clock me one. Punched me right in the face." Dean muttered while smiling at Ellen. I rolled my eyes and relaxed a bit. I didn't get men. Any of them, they were a complete mystery to me.
"Good one sugar." Ellen winked at me. "Now, you." She pointed a finger at Charlie and looked stern. "Go back and let Bobby finish patching you up! And you." She pointed a stern finger at Dean. "Go get some sleep, you're no good to anyone if you're dead on you're feet are ya?"
"I'm not leaving!" My dad protested at the same time Dean spoke up.
"I'm not leaving her side!"
"Errr... Guys!" I called making all eyes in the room dart to me. "I'm still here remember. Dad, go get yourself taken care of. You know Ellen will look after me." I told him with a small smile that I wasn't feeling, the thoughts and feelings that I'd had with the shifter dad had started coming back. But I'd have to wait to deal with them, Charlie needed taking care of first, and as much as it pained me to admit it so did I.
"Dean, go get some sleep. Please." I begged the hunter with my eyes, but his face was remained hard and he crossed his arms. I sighed as I realised that was one battle I was going to lose. Dean wasn't going to leave.
"I'm not leaving you again Bella." Dean repeated his words from earlier, sadness hidden deep in his eyes.
"You didn't leave. I did." I said softly. "My choice remember?"
"I could have gone with you." Dean said in a voice so small that it was almost a whisper, his eyes staring into mine, trying to tell me what his voice couldn't. I'd got so good at reading him, at reading both of the brothers that I understood. He thought this was his fault, every bump, every bruise, cut and broken part on me he blamed on himself. And he wanted to show me he wouldn't let it happen again. But he was wrong, so wrong. It wasn't his fault, none of this was, what happened to me or Sammy. I just didn't know how to get through to him. He was pig-headed at the best of times.
"You didn't have a choice D. You had to be there and you know it. And I had to face my past." I told him, my voice soft as my heart ached for him.
"As cute as this is and all, I really need to start taking care of those injuries." Ellen replied, her voice blunt and to the point. "Charlie get out of here! And Dean if you're gonna stay get over there and stay there." She barked at the two men. Both pulled faces but followed her instructions anyway. Ellen was a formidable woman at the best of times, but she was almost angry now.
"Right let's see what we're dealing with here honey." Ellen said sitting in front of me and pulling out a pair of scissors from a bag that I hadn't noticed dangling from her arm amidst all the drama. It was a faded leather black medicine bag that looked like it had seen it's fair share of war wounds, actually in wars. It was beat up to hell, but it had still been taken care of. Patches darker than others stood out where it had been fixed time and time again, and one handle had obviously been replaced looking almost brand new next to it's dull and faded partner.
"Don't move sugar." Ellen said as she leant down and cut my shirt straight down the middle from top to bottom, the noise of fabric breaking under the steel blades loud in my ears.
As my injuries started showing through the ripped fabric of my shirt Ellen took in a shaky breath. "It's okay honey, it's okay. I'll give ya something for the pain." Her voice was shaken and her face had turned pale, her hands shaking as she reached into her bag for something else.
"No!" Dean said sitting up from his chair where I thought he'd fallen reluctantly back to sleep. The force of his body rocking the chair forward so fast that it made a ominous groaning noise that would have worried me if I'd have been the one sat on it.
"No what?" Ellen asked as she pulled out a syringe full of clear liquid from the depths of her bag.
"No drugs. Eve pumped her full of something, cocaine and caffeine that we know of. You give her more drugs..."
"Dean I've got to give her something, the pain..." Ellen said, looking back over my body and taking in another shaky breath. "Honey, how the hell you aren't screaming blue murder is beyond me."
"It's not so bad anymore. Honest." I said after she'd given me a pale, disbelieving look. "Whatever Eve gave me has taken the edge off." I smiled up at her then Dean.
Dean got up off his chair and started walking towards us, his face curious but still wrapped in a deep frown.
"Kid, you don't wanna look trust me. Sit back down. I'll call ya if she needs her hand holding." Ellen frowned at Dean before looking back at me. She took one more look at me and sighed. "I'm gonna need to fix these little wounds and those burns, and those cuts will need stitching before I can tape up those broken ribs. Okay honey?" She told me, trying to reassure me but the worry in her eyes did anything but.
"Yeah. Sure." I said.
Ellen nodded and went back to work cutting off the rest of my top and my bra so that I was completely naked from the waist up. I went to move my left arm to cover myself up but Ellen shook her head at me. "Ain't nothing I haven't seen before. But you carry on moving that arm and I'm gonna get Dean over here to hold it still. And I'm not so sure it's nothing he hasn't seen before. Got it?" I nodded and smiled at her, understanding what she was saying, but still blushing furiously as my chest lay bare in front of the woman.
"Okay, let's get started then." Ellen said with another frown. She pulled out some cotton wipes and some foul smelling solution that she doused them in before bringing one down on to one of the worse cuts, just over my right breast.
I tried to hold still as the solution bit into my tender flesh, making the wound burn and sting. "Shit!" I called gritting my teeth, but my body tried moving away from the burning hot pain, causing all my other injuries to move and for me to scream.
"Dean!" Ellen called over to him. Dean shot out of his chair and was holding me down faster than should have been possible in his fatigued state.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean raged, disgust pure on his face as he took in the injuries on show.
I looked away, trying to hide the pain and hurt in my eyes. The look of disgust on his face hurt. Hurt worse than the sting of the antiseptic did.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean shouted again, fury hardened his shout as he looked even more closely at the small wounds covering me. "Jesus B...!" He took a sharp breath in that made me turn back to look at him. His beautiful face had paled with a green tinge to it. He looked like he was gonna hurl everywhere.
"Hey! If you're gonna toss your cookies watch the material, Bobby will kick your ass." I tried joking with him, and trying hard to hide how much his reaction hurt me behind humour.
"How the hell are you still even alive?" Dean whispered to me, his hands firmer on my body as I tried to move away from the sting of Ellen's needle as she started fixing the gaping hole in my chest.
"Couldn't leave you and Sammy could I? Look what happened last time I did." I smiled through the pain.
"Sweetheart..." Dean obviously didn't know what to say, so he shut his mouth again and turned his head away from me. But not before I caught sight of his amazing eyes filling with unshed tears.
~0~
It took three hours for Ellen to stitch up, disinfect and clean all my cuts and bruises on my top half before wrapping my broken ribs so tightly that I could barely breath and then putting a cast onto my broken arm. Her face when she'd finished was haunted and bone weary tired.
"Okay I'll get you a top and then we'll start on your legs honey." Ellen said in the softest voice I'd ever heard her use. Something that didn't sit right in the tough woman's mouth.
"You're tired. You both are." I said shooting Dean a look as I did. He hadn't left my side the entire time and eventually the tears from his eyes had started falling as I screamed. After that he'd become hard, cut off from it all, the only soft thing about him was his hands that remained holding me down. "Why don't you sleep before then?" I suggested to both of them, my voice hoarse from screaming, my eyes tired as the drug cocktail finally started wearing off.
"I told ya Bella, I'm not leaving." Dean told me, his voice monotone as he spoke, his face and eyes still hard as he refused to look at me.
"We'll get Bobby or Sam to come hold me down. Please at least try to sleep in a chair or something." I asked, I didn't think I could take looking at his eyes anymore. Eyes which were normally so bright with life but were now hard and dead.
"No." Dean simply said, still not looking at me.
"Bella, those wounds are gonna get worse the longer I leave them. Don't worry about us sugar." She tried to smile at me but it fell flat.
"Fine." I huffed, knowing that these two people wouldn't be swayed, even if I begged.
~0~
"B... C'mon B wake up sweetheart. It's okay. I'm here. I've got you." Soft yet urgent words brought my out of my medically induced sleep.
Sweat covered my body, my body which currently was swathed in so much material and casting that I looked like a hammer horror mummy reject. My heart was thumping loudly and tears were drying on my face.
A light snapped on in the pitch dark room lighting my surroundings and Dean who'd obviously woke me from my nightmare. But I didn't have to look at my body casing to know it had been real, all I had to was look into Deans haunted eyes.
"You're okay sweetheart, I've got you." Dean whispered to me climbing gently onto the familiar bed with me and holding me softly in his muscular arms, his worn calloused fingers softly stroked my hair and brought down my furiously beating heart. I'd been put to bed in the spare room that I'd always used when I came to Bobby's, the room I'd started to think of as mine. "You're okay." Dean kept repeating the mantra as he held me, but I think he was trying to reassure himself more than me.
Just as I started to relax into Deans arms the door to my room crashed open so fiercely that it hit the wall with a bang, the handle ripping a chunk of plaster from the wall.
"Bella! What's wrong?!" Charlie ran into my room, Ellen, Bobby and Sam right behind him. They all look worried for a brief second before Ellen, Bobby and Sam relaxed on seeing me in Deans arms, the tears drying on my face.
Dad though was a bit slow on the uptake. "Get off of her!? What did you do!?" He shouted furiously, his face turning a mottled red as his eyes flashed at Dean.
"Dad, it's okay, I had a nightmare. Dean woke me up." I told Charlie, my voice hoarse from screaming and crying.
"Oh... sorry kid." Charlie managed to look a bit shame faced before his anger quickly returned. "I don't like him in here with you." He huffed out as Ellen, Sam and Bobby quickly retreated with sad looks at Dean and me. They obviously didn't want to get caught up in the family row. Not that I blamed them.
"And what do you thinks gonna happen with me like this dad?" I asked while raising my eyebrows. "Cause I'm pretty sure this look isn't a turn on. Though the sooner the better."
"Shut up!" Dean whispered in my ear, obviously not appreciating my attempt at a joke. But his hands hadn't left me yet, his fingers still gently wound in my long brown hair.
"That's not the point Bella." Charlie said, a deep frown carved into his forehead.
"Dad, I'm twenty. I'm a woman and I've been sharing a room with Dean and Sam for the past few months. I think we'll be fine. Now if you don't mind I'd like to at least try and get some sleep." I told my dad.
"I don't like this kid." Charlie said to me reproachfully.
"You don't have to like it." I told him simply before yawning and closing my eyes, still in Deans strong but gentle embrace.
I heard a deep sigh and then the closing of a door, or more like the slamming of a door before Dean relaxed a little.
"This is the reason I've never met parents before. They don't like me." He whispered into my ear, I could hear the smirk in his voice and smiled.
"Sorry." I apologised to Dean, this must be awful for him. Not only was his girlfriend injured so badly that she looked like a poster child for not drinking and driving but now he also had to put up with his girlfriends over protective father who was also a damn good shot.
"Not your fault sweetheart." Dean said before placing a kiss on my hair.
"So, my last few days have been pretty action packed. What about yours?" I asked, not ready to go back to sleep and face my demons just yet and needing to know just how fucked we were.
"Smooth B." Dean chuckled, but I could feel the tension spring to his limbs and I could hear the reluctance to speak in his voice.
"D, you haven't told me anything yet. What happened? How fucked are we?" I asked.
"I'd say we were screwed. And not in the good way." Dean told me with a sigh. I sat in silence and waited for him to continue. "Okay." He said before moving so that he could see my face and I could see his. His face was lined with fatigue even through the hard mask that he put on. "Short version?" I nodded, if that's all he wanted to tell me then I'd accept it. Just as long as I knew something.
"Sam and I ganked Ruby who was just stood laughing her evil bitch face off as Lucifer started to leak out of his cage. Then just as I thought me and Sam were really done for. Poof." Dean said, his voice was trying for light and open but failing.
"Poof?" I asked with a giggle, not use to hearing him speak like that. And really, coming out of the hard faced hunters mouth it was kind of funny.
"Yeah poof." Dean smiled at me while rolling his eyes. "Sam and I were on an aeroplane. Flying away from the huge shining light that was leaking into the sky where Lucifer was breaking free."
"You must have loved being on that plane. But how did ya get there? Cas?" I asked confused.
"No. Cas is..." Dean sighed and suddenly his mask broke, all the pain he felt, his fatigue, his heartache it was all on show for me to see and my heart broke just a little for the man in front of me. He took a deep breath before speaking again. "Cas is dead sweetheart. So we haven't even got the angel up our sleeve anymore."
"Damn." I said with real sadness. I couldn't believe it. Cas. Cas always seemed unreal to me, a robot almost, and robots didn't die, they couldn't be killed. I'd believed that Cas had been invisible and it really sucked to have my reality shattered like that. It must have sucked worse for Dean though, him and Cas were really close, seeing as Cas was the one who dragged Dean back from hell and all.
A lump started forming in my throat, one that was so hard to swallow. Everything was so fucked up; all of it. Sam and Lucifer, Eve, Charlie, being tortured and now Cas. What more could we all take? What more could be thrown at us?
"Balls." I said softly, sadness leaking into my voice. That one word that Bobby was so fond of seemed to sum everything up.
"I know sweetheart. Balls." Dean repeated not even trying for a smirk or smile. It was too much right now.
I sighed before smiling slightly. "Well, we won't have to worry about one thing as soon as these damn casts are off." I told Dean.
"What?" He frowned at me, obviously not seeing where I was going with this.
"Eve." I replied with a mischievous grin.
"Either you're speaking in riddles or I'm too tired to trudge through the shit. What do you mean?" Dean asked me trying for stern but hiding a smile in response to my own.
"As soon as these casts are off we can work on making me 'un-pure'." I told him still grinning and raising my eyebrows.
Dean feigned looking hurt and raised a hand to his chest as though wounded. "Is that what this is all about? You're using me!?"
I laughed at that, a proper laugh, something that had been missing for a while from our lives. "Do you mind?" I giggled while fluttering my eyelashes at the gorgeous man sat next to me, feeling his muscles press into my back and almost salivating. I never quite got use to just how sexy Dean was. I hoped I never would.
"Surprisingly no." Dean smirked at me before lowering his head to mine and kissing my lips softly. "Not at all." He muttered before kissing me harder, his tongue licking gently across my bottom lip. I shivered with desire as I opened my mouth and let him in. Kissing Dean was perfect. Like every christmas and birthday ever coming as one.
"Is this a bad time?" A deep monotone voice rang out making Dean and me spring apart and Dean move so that he was blocking me protectively. We turned as one to look from where the voice had come from.
"Cas!?" Dean and I exclaimed together.
"Yes. Sorry, I heard my name. I thought that perhaps you wanted me." Cas said, obviously not taking in the fact that Dean and I were both stunned and amazed to see him stood in front of us when he should have been dead. I knew he was invincible!
"But... You're dead?" Dean asked sounding stunned but I could hear the hope in his voice. The hope that maybe we weren't so alone in this after all. The hope that his friend really was here and he wasn't dreaming.
"I was. Now I'm not." Cas said sounding underwhelmed with his whole ordeal.
"It's good to see you Cas!" Dean said getting off the bed carefully and clapping a manly hand to the angels shoulder.
"Thank you. I'm happy to see you too Dean. Perhaps we should talk, heaven's awash with activity now Lucifer has been raised. We need to stop him. Where is Sam?" Cas asked.
"On the sofa probably. Hang on and we'll go find him. And Bobby, he'll want to hear this too." Dean said, his eyes wide and happy as he looked at Castiel once more. Finally something was playing in our favour. Things were looking up.
Dean came over to the bed and very gently and carefully slid me to the edge so he could lift me and carry me downstairs.
"Bella. What happened?" Castiel asked me with a frown. His startling blue eyes taking in my casts and my generally beaten appearance.
"Eve, she got me and tortured me." I told the angel with a smile, glad to see him back with us again.
"But still you did not say yes. Free will." Castiel mused looking faintly happy. Well as happy as something with no emotion could look anyway.
"Nope. And look I've got some shiny new casts to show me just how impressive I was." I said with an eyeroll.
"I take it that you do not enjoy those things stuck to your appendix's." Cas asked with a small frown.
"No." I replied, sarcasm was wasted on him so what was the point.
Cas stepped forward and placed a finger to my forehead. Instantly everything stopped hurting. Every bruise that I could see vanished as did the cuts and the stitches. I loved having an angel on side!
"You shouldn't need them anymore." Cas informed me while trying to smile but failing, still it was almost an emotion so I smiled wide for him. And for me.
"Thanks Cas!" I said trying to stand up and give the guy a hug but falling over as the stupid casts were still on and prevented me from actually walking.
"Yeah. Maybe we should get those off first B?" Dean suggested with a lift of his eyebrows and a snigger. I flipped him off but was smiling wider than before as I did.
My casts would be coming off and that could only mean one thing to me; I'd finally not be of any use to Eve.
So, what did you think of that chapter? Let me know! And next it's the one you've all been waiting for... Until then, love always Tametiger xx
P.S.
I've just found the Vampire Dairies! (I know, I know, I've been living under a rock) watching it I had sooo many ideas and have already started writing them down, I'm desperate for a Beta so if anyone's interested give me a PM or tell me in a review! Xx