You moan in your sleep, slowly coming to consciousness. You can't remember when you drifted off. The bed beneath you is hard and uncomfortable, definitely not your own. You try to stretch, only to realize in blind panic that you're restrained again.
You can hear the sounds of blades and instruments scraping and clinking together on the table beside you. You whimper and try to fight down your growing terror.
You feel him lean down over you, feel his lips brush your ear, hear his voice, low and deadly. His blade comes down across your stomach, and...
You jackknife upright, muscles rigid, gasping, and looking around yourself wildly. Your heart is hammering in your ears as you try to focus on your surroundings.
Everything is too bright. Far brighter than the Hell of your nightmare.
You continue gasping for air as you gradually become aware of the fact that you're in the bunker. You're in the war room, surrounded by concerned faces. But it all seems miles away. The sounds are muted, the worried questions muffled as if you're hearing them under water.
There are large, heavy hands on your shoulders. You instinctively try to yank free of their reach, try to escape, only to be grabbed more firmly.
Before panic can take hold, before you start frantically fighting off whoever is restraining you, Sam calls your name forcefully, giving your shoulders a shake. Your eyes widen as you finally focus on his face. Just that quickly, everything slides into place. You take a deep, staggered, relieved breath. Your nightmare loses its hold as Sam talks you through it.
"Easy. That's good. Just look at me. Try to slow your breathing. You're okay. It's over."
You fight to calm down, and as the fear fades, the embarrassment surges. Your eyes wander from Sam, to Cas, to Kevin. You wonder what you said or did in your sleep to cause such a team effort to wake you up.
You close your eyes and wince. You can't remember dozing off... You know you had soup (to avoid catching hell from Sam), but you barely remember sitting down in this chair. You're not even sure at this point how long you've gone without more than a few moments of fitful sleep. Has it been two days since the torture? Three? It's all blending together.
When your breathing is finally back to normal, when you've nodded for the fifth time to Sam that you're okay, you stand up.
"I'm gonna... go lay down in my room," you mutter, desperate to get away from them all.
Sam eyes you appraisingly, but reluctantly nods and moves out of your way.
As you shuffle unsteadily to the hallway, you're too out of it to notice the fourth set of eyes watching your retreat from the far side of the room. You don't know that Sam wasn't alone when he came looking for you.
The walk back to your room is almost impossible. Each step takes a herculean effort. You can feel an all-out breakdown coming on, but there's no way in hell you're doing it within earshot of the guys.
It takes all of your strength, but you manage the long trek without losing it. When you finally close your door and press your back against it, however, it's like the whole world comes crashing down on your shoulders.
Your legs crumple beneath you. The floor is cool under your palm as you struggle to hold yourself up, your other hand covering your mouth as you sob. You somehow manage to crawl to your bed and pull yourself on top of it, but you're crying so hard that you're barely aware of the movement.
You lose track of time as you bawl unabashedly. You try to reign in your emotions, to once again slap a bandaid over your broken heart and mind, but it won't work. So you figure maybe this is what you need. To let it out for a little while... alone, with no one to pipe down for...
And no one to comfort you...
At that thought, you curl in on yourself even tighter and sob even harder, missing Dean with all of your heart. You can't remember the last time you held him properly. Not since before you left for the hunt. It's definitely been days.
Fear grips you tightly that this is it, that you've really lost him. You tried so hard to be okay for him, to help him get past this, but it was no use. He's pushed you so far away, you don't know what you can ever do to bring him back.
You're so involved in your hopeless sorrow that, at first, you think you're imagining the familiar dip of the mattress beside you. The feeling of strong arms wrapping around you, holding you close. The lips pressing to your brow. The soft, rumbling words of comfort.
You whimper when you catch his scent, strong and real, and you find yourself breathing in Dean.
You look up at him slowly through your tears, trying (with little success) to calm yourself for his sake, to protect him from witnessing the extent your pain, to slow your breathing enough to say something witty or sarcastic for his benefit.
With his hands framing your face and his calloused thumb tenderly swiping through the tear tracks on your cheek, he meets your gaze. His tearful green eyes convey an overwhelming level of regret and adoration. He shakes his head, urging you not to speak. Not to hide this from him. There's no need.
He presses his lips to yours, and you press back desperately, inhaling deeply through your nose as you reach up and grip the backs of his hands. You deepen the kiss almost frantically, eagerly seeking the pleasure and peace his touch always brought you. He kisses back with just as much fervor, giving and receiving comfort from the contact in equal measures.
When you pull apart long enough to breathe, he presses his forehead to yours and soothes, "I'm here, baby. We're gonna get through this."
You close your eyes tightly, nodding your fervent agreement with the words you had so desperately needed to hear. Even as your tears flow freely, you kiss him hungrily again. This time you grip his shoulders, run your hands down his back, and press your body flush with his. All you want is to be closer, to feel him, to feel that connection you've come to rely on.
He gets the message and is apparently of the same mind. His hands move over your body roughly, possessively. He doesn't treat you as if you're fragile because of what happened - thank God - but rather, shows himself that you're still with him. That you're still whole and solid and strong and alive. That you're not leaving him.
The room fills with the sounds of your desperate kiss, your combined panting, your occasional whimpers, his occasional groans. You paw and grope at one another, frantic and fumbling, pulling at clothing, clumsily shoving aside layers to reach skin.
He slides your pants off quickly, but you're both in too much of a rush to remove the rest of one another's clothing. You roll over onto your back, pulling him along with you, letting him settle into his reserved and rightful place between your thighs. You hurriedly unbuckle his belt, unfasten his jeans, and slide both pants and boxers down his hips just far enough to grant you access. He simply pushes your panties aside and out of his way.
He slides into you quickly, finding your body eager to receive him. You both groan appreciatively into the continuous starved kiss you're sharing.
You settle into a hard, slow, and measured rhythm together, moving as one, gaining so much more from this than the intense sexual gratification. It's something tangible. Something to hold onto. A physical act that proves that you're together, that you're both okay, that you're not going to lose one another to the horror you've both endured.
The closer you get to your ends, the harder you both thrust against one another, the louder you moan for one another. Your entire bed is rocking with the force of your combined movements.
Dean pulls away from your kiss just far enough to nip at your lips and start his familiar, gruff, pre-orgasmic rambling against your mouth. You often wonder whether he's even aware he's doing it, because ofttimes he speaks more open truth in those moments than any other time you're together.
"God, baby girl... Feel so good... So tight... Gonna make me come so fast..."
That's standard, but there's more to be said this time.
"Thought I was gonna lose you, baby... So sorry I hurt you... Was so scared you'd never let me touch you again... I love you, baby..."
That's definitely new.
You moan and wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him down on top of you tightly and whispering in his ear, "I love you, Dean. So much, babe."
He comes with a choked cry and buries himself inside you as his body goes rigid. You grind against him, frantically chasing your own orgasm. As it breaks, you throw your head back, crying out for him and panting his name.
"That's it. Come for me, baby. So beautiful like this," he rumbles as he watches your features twisting in pleasure. He rocks his hips for you, grinding down against you to help you ride out the aftershocks.
Once your body has given every ounce of pleasure it's willing to, Dean settles down atop you, kissing your face and wrapping his arms around you.
After a moment, you nuzzle under his chin, hiding away from the world there as you sob softly, equally as broken as you are relieved. You shake your head and whimper against his throat, "I'm so tired, babe. I'm just so damned tired."
He strips you both down quickly and shifts you to a more comfortable position, running his hand through your hair as he whispers, "Then sleep."
"I can't, Dean," you manage in a choked whisper. "I keep seeing... The nightmares are just so..."
He shushes you and shakes his head. "They're just dreams. It's over. I'm right here. And I'll still be right here when you wake up, okay? I've got you."
For several moments, you try to do as he says. You try to nod off, but you keep catching yourself and jolting awake - terrified of whatever new horror awaits you in your nightmares. His voice jars you from your dread.
"You're thinking too much," he declares with a reassuring smile that you can hear in his voice. "Hey... Remember the first night I slept in here with you?"
He cranes his neck to peer down at your face, waiting for you to smile weakly and nod. Satisfied, he settles back down on the pillow and returns to his favored pre-sleep ritual of running his hand through your hair.
"I wanted you so damned bad, girl. You just don't even know," he chuckles. "Walking around with those tight jeans, that sweet little ass lookin' good enough to bite... Mmm. Daydreamed about you just about every day. Would've sat up and begged for it if I'd thought it'd get me anywhere with you. But you weren't having any of it. Thought you'd sworn off sex or something, the way you kept shooting me down.
"And then you went and made it sound like you'd been hooking up on the sly... Like, rather than be with me, you'd slept with nameless barflies...without me even knowing about it? Ooh, you had better believe that pissed me off. Almost got in my car and retraced our route for the past year just to kick the ass of every guy who had ever so much as looked at you.
"But I couldn't believe, even if I wasn't there, that Sam would've ever let you out of his sight with some random dude. Then I thought... Oh shit! Maybe you and Sammy... But that just didn't fit. I'd have believed you two braided one another's hair while watching Pride and Prejudice before I'd have ever believed you were screwing. You two are like best girlfriends or something."
You laugh at that and he gives you a little squeeze, appreciative of the sound. Your heart warms as you realize that you're getting Dean's version of a bedtime story. You snuggle closer, resting your ear against his chest, listening to the beating of his heart and the soft rumble of his voice.
"I didn't know what to do," he admits with a sigh. "I was so crazy about you, but you didn't seem at all interested. So that night, after a lot of liquid courage, I decided to give it one last shot. If you didn't want me for whatever reason, I figured I'd just have to deal with it.
"And then you said you wouldn't sleep with me because it wouldn't be enough. Not that you didn't want me, but that you wanted more than that with me..." He exhales slowly, recalling the apparent emotional impact your words had on him.
"I didn't even know what to say. How was I supposed to make you understand that I felt the same way? That every chick I'd been with since we'd met had been a poor substitute? And you damned sure wouldn't have believed me if I told you any of that after I'd been drinking.
"Once you fell asleep, I stayed awake that whole night. Did you know that? Just watching you, falling even harder for you, wondering how the hell I was ever gonna convince you to give me a chance... You looked so gorgeous, baby. So perfect, just like you do now. Curled up against me. Hair all down for me. I never wanted to leave this bed. Had to sabotage those hair ties the next morning. There was no way I was letting you pull it back up all tight after seeing you like this.
"The next night, I tried to stay in my room, but even my memory foam was crap in comparison to being with you. Didn't know whether or not you were gonna kick my ass for coming in here again, especially when I was sober, but I had to try. And when I slid in beside you, and you sat up and just about blew my head off before your eyes were even all the way open? It was settled. I just had to have you, baby.
"You're everything I ever wanted, all wrapped up in a damned near edible little body. Every second I waited was worth it. I'd wait all over again for you if I had to."
He leans down and kisses you slowly and deeply. You sigh contentedly into his kiss, your tears now long-since forgotten as sleep slowly takes you.
"We're gonna be fine, baby," he whispers. "I'm not letting you go that easy."
"And I'm not running," you reply with a drowsy smile before drifting off to sleep in his arms.
A/N: Aaannddd that's a wrap - at least for this story. Thoughts? Favorite parts or lines? Love or hate this 'verse? Love or hate my take on Dean, Sam, Cas, and Kevin? Want to read another installment (that I may or may not already be 70% finished writing)? Were you able to see everything clearly? Take a moment and let me know what you think! I absolutely love hearing from readers. :)