A/N Well, good news is I'm extremely lucky and this current set of apocalyptic wildfires isn't a threat to my community like some of the ones last year, bad news is the wind has been so bad we've had multiple power outages the past couple of weeks and might have another next week. But, I'll still take it over fires any day. My neighbor is also a literal angel and has a generator so she lets me use her wifi which means I can at least still continue my first time binge watch Criminal Minds and slowly sink into my new obsession with Aaron Hotchner. I can neither confirm nor deny any future fic that might come from this. I'm in season 6. Pray for me.
And if you're in/from the the LA area, I hope you and your family are safe and if you've lost your home, I hope this at least offers you some escapism. I've been there. Escapism is so, so important right now. 3 3 3
Saturday night was tense, but nothing happened. She went to bed, or at least went up to her room. Sam conked out in the guest room and Dean took the couch, unable to sleep. Sunday was spent with her and Sam combing through her collection, hoping she'd found something and just not realized it before. Then came Sunday night, and this time he knew she'd slept because Dean checked in on her several times and found her snoring into her pillow. Maybe…Maybe they were wrong. Maybe all that was happening to her was the after effects of before. Memories, and only that. It seemed overkill to still be bunking in her house, she was starting to side eye them again and he could tell even with everything they knew she was starting to doubt them again. But Dean wasn't ready to let it go that easily, and he wasn't ready to put it beyond this thing to lay low in hopes they'd run off.
So when Monday came, they lied to her. They were probably wrong, it didn't usually take that long for something to happen, here was their number if anything happened. She went to work, and they 'left'.
When night came they went back, parking around the corner so she couldn't see the car and sneaking into the back yard. From behind a row of mature bushes they watched the house, even as she closed the blinds. The air was still and cold, seeping into their pants from the damp ground as they hunched uncomfortably.
"If this thing really is hiding from us then something's changed." Sam muttered. "Its never reacted to us before."
"It never needed to. Until we used that banishment spell on it, nothing we did ever slowed it down."
"Which is good news then, right? It means we might actually be a threat to it."
Sam, trying to raise his spirits as he waited for Jules' screams. Dean shook his head but agreed with a quiet hmph. "Let's hope so."
The lights turned off one by one, then the bathroom upstairs, and the back of the house went dark. She was going to bed, at a reasonable time even. Maybe their lie had given her a sense of security. And there they were, waiting on it to be shattered.
"Come on." He grumbled. "We should get closer."
They crept up onto the back porch and settled into the shadows in case a nosy neighbor looked outside. The old wooden boards were warmer, at least, than the ground had been. Dean was tense, jumping at every creak of the house as it settled in the cold air. It was going to be a long night.
Ten became eleven, and eleven became twelve.
Dean fished around in his jacket pocket for his lockpick kit.
"No, dude, what if you wake her up?"
"What if we just can't hear her? Huh?"
"If she wakes up and she's not having a nightmare yet this whole ruse was a waste of time."
"That's why I'm not gonna wake her up, dumbass." He snapped, bending down to eyeball the lock.
Sam sighed, but he got up anyway.
Right as Dean started to fiddle with the deadbolt they heard the sound of glass breaking, faintly enough that it could've been upstairs. "Happy now?" His heart sped up as he hurried to get the deadbolt turned, hearing a familiar cry as it slid out of the doorframe.
"Screw this." He backed up a few steps and kicked the door in, deciding they could worry about the property damage later.
He charged through the house, thundering up the stairs with Sam on his heels as the cries turned to screams. They burst into her bedroom and he wasted no time kicking the broken lamp aside, glass from the bulb crunching under his boots.
"Jules, come on, wake up!" He bellowed as she writhed on the bed. "Come on baby." His heart was pounding, racing as he saw in his mind's eye what she might be feeling.
He grabbed her shoulders and her head rolled back, choking silently on nothing but her own dream.
"No, no no not this one, Jules, wake up!"
He pulled her up, bringing her into his chest and giving her a firm shake. "Come on you son of a bitch, let go!" He yelled her name and she finally went limp in his arms.
Taking a shaky breath he loosened his hold on her as she started to come to, pressing his cheek against her head and brushing her hair back from her forehead. She tensed and he quickly said her name. "It's Dean, you're okay."
He shifted to sit on the bed and pulled her onto his lap as she started shaking. Old habits. Too old, and too much of a habit. "Shhh, you're okay, I've got you."
Looking over his shoulder he met Sam's worried face. There was no denying it now, and they weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Jules pressed her back into the headboard, holding her knees tight into her chest and hacking into her elbow. Every now and then she could feel something close around her throat again and she pulled at the crew neck of her sleep shirt even though it was stretched and loose around her collar bone already.
The overhead light washed away the shadows in the room, a beacon of reality that made her wonder if she was starting to become afraid of the dark. Sam knelt by the bed, sweeping up the glass from the lamp she'd knocked over in her sleep and Dean sat on the edge by her feet, one hand resting on them as he looked at her.
"I thought you said you were leaving." She wheezed, coughing into her arm again.
"We wanted you to think we were." Dean said. "Thought this thing might be holding out on us, looks like we were right. Sam, grab her a water will ya?"
Standing up with the dustpan full of glass he took the obvious hint. "Yeah, sure."
"What did you do, break in again?"
Deflection was her best and only countermeasure to get out of the headspace of the dream.
He grimaced. "Yeah, don't uh…don't worry about the back door. We'll fix it. You know, you should really put a lock on that back gate, we've snuck in like twice now."
She shook her head and leaned it back against the headboard. "I'm not even gonna ask about the other time."
It wasn't working, she could still feel it. The after effects left her feeling shaky and weak just like always. Which meant she'd be fine eventually, just like always. Right? could still be wrong. He was nuts. Nice, protective, and crazy hot, but nuts none the less. "Guess I'll make the guest room back up. Suppose you'll be around even if I kick you out."
He shot her a grin. "Wild horses, honey. Whatever this thing is, it's stuck with us until we kick its ass."
"It." She repeated wryly, struggling to figure out what she believed anymore.
"Listen, Jules," Dean said, a serious note coming into his tone as he scooted a little closer. "The fact that it was waiting on us to leave is a good thing. It means it considers us a threat."
Or it meant she slept better with some hot guy on her couch in case of real burglars, but who was to say? "Let's just…" She took her first, big full breath since waking up that didn't end in a coughing fit. "Play this by ear, okay? Could still just be that…residual shit you talked about. Or this really is just some psychological shit and they'll therapize it out of me eventually."
Dean sighed with his brows knit together and once again she fully believed that he fully believed his story. "I can't tell you how much I wish that were true. I'd give anything to-" He shook his head. "But there's gonna come a time when you'll have to stop pretending this isn't what it is."
"Even by your story you don't know what this is!"
"I know what it isn't, and it isn't some psychological thing they'll be able to medicate you out of."
So said the two…three…time burglar with the crazy story…the burglar she also trusted in her house for some reason. "Right, Dr. Dean."
"You can't explain away what I know, denial isn't gonna make this go away."
He was right, she couldn't explain it, she'd rather pretend she could. She managed to twist the most convoluted of stories to explain it. Say they did know her when she'd been sick, maybe she'd had nightmares then too and told him about them. But they were just that, nightmares, related to the meningitis or something. She didn't believe that, not really. But she couldn't believe them tonight, either. It was too dark, too cold, too…close to things.
He seemed to take her silence as an end to their argument and stood back up. "Let's go put on a movie or something, huh?"
If he was willing to drop it for the time being, then so was she. He hovered, following her down the stairs like she'd trip at any moment.
She grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and curled up with it against the arm as he hung his jacket off the back of her desk chair. When he flopped onto the couch he stayed close, only a few inches separating them. Maybe it was the late night, or the fear still oozing from her bones, but the gap left her feeling cold. She adjusted under the pretense of getting more comfortable, ending up 'accidentally' closing that distance just enough that her leg was touching his.
If she'd blinked she would've missed his pause as he grabbed the remote and felt her against him. As the TV popped on he flashed her a soft smile and gave her foot a light squeeze over the blanket. "So, infomercials or the classics?"