Chapter Text
Normal day, normal hunt.
You’d taken out a rogue werewolf in Wyoming, even if just to spend your time doing something other than sulking. Since John died and you’d been throwing yourself into hunts more and more. It was the only thing keeping the emptiness from swallowing you whole. It burned you up inside and made you feel hollow - you’d almost considered going back to New York, to hide away where you were safe. But there was a reason you'd left and you weren’t changing your mind anytime soon. Even if they would protect you. Even if you missed a few of them.
You knocked back a drink in some crummy bar. A High School state championship game played on the TVs, leaving the room full of cheering and angry locals. It was filled with more people than a place like this should get in a week. Every other second someone in an annoyingly cheery color of yellow knocked into you. Some high schooler made you spill your drink and you scowled. Fucking teenager wasn't even supposed to be there.
The whole reason you'd chosen this place was because you thought it would be funny - it was a country themed joint lauded by locals as a good time. Mechanical bulls, line dancing, a Texas flag on the wall made of beer cans. You'd hoped to see some horrible drunken dancing but you got this mess instead.
Your life was ever the series of disappointments.
You fought back a yawn and slid a twenty to the bartender; you needed to get some sleep if you were going to hit the road tomorrow. You’d stayed in town too long already. You let out a sigh - you had no idea where you were going to go. You didn’t have another case yet.
Maybe you would stop by Bobby's. It'd been a long time since you'd seen him. Since before you got the news John died. You hoped he was doing alright and not drinking too much. You would have to check up on him, make sure he wasn’t destroying his liver. You owed him that much.
You slid off the wobbly stool and began the ordeal of shoving your way through the sardine can crowd and towards the door.
You felt sick.
And the more you moved the worse you felt, goosebumps rushing along your skin and a pit of dread pooling like tar in your chest. You shouldered your way past a frat guy and almost face planted - tunnel vision closing in on you. Your ears echoed with the sound of rushing water and static. You tried to shake out of it but the room was spinning.
Something was horribly wrong.
You looked for signs something was off, that maybe you were making a mistake. But nothing was out of place; not the people or the exits, the lights, the TVs. There was no tell-tale flickering lights and electrical interference. But the all too familiar acid-burn of a demon’s presence snaked through your senses nonetheless - like something acrid was crawling through your ribs and crushing your heart.
There was no way.
He couldn't have found you so soon.
You’d been so careful.
You felt a gun press against your back. The smell of sulphur and cheap cologne invaded your nose.
Cold metal bit into your spine and hot breath fanned against your jaw. His hand snaked onto your hip and dug in hard enough to break skin with his nails. You fought back a flinch at the feel of his body pressed against your back. Static encroached on your vision and ringing pierced your ears.
His lips touched the shell of your ear and you shuddered. His touch felt like burning ice.
His voice was like nails on a chalkboard, even when it came out as a low, smooth murmur. You were reacting violently to his presence just as you always had; you were close to passing out. You closed your eyes tight and tried not to give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry.
"Come with me or I start shooting civilians."
--
The ringing of a phone woke Dean up at half past three in the morning.
Because of fucking course it did.
He groaned, blindly reaching over for his phone on the nightstand. What the hell? This was the first decent night's sleep he'd gotten in a week and a half.
"There better be good reason for this, Bobby." He mumbled out, sleep clinging to his voice and slurring his speech.
"You still in Wyoming?" He said, as if there was nothing wrong with calling someone in the middle of the night.
"Yeah,” Dean grunted and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t like where this was going. “And?"
"Gotta case. I'm three hours out from a town called Ridgeview. And you two are gonna meet me there.” Bobby’s tone was tense and left no room for argument. “So get your sorry ass out of bed and on the road."
Dean rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the bed, shaking off the tangled sheets. He flicked Sam on his nose to wake him up. How had the phone not bothered him? He ignored his brother's indignant look and started getting dressed. "So what's such a big deal it can't wait till morning?"
"(Y/n)(L/n). She's a hunter. And a friend," There was a pause on the line and a long, tired sigh. His voice somehow sounded both exhausted and extremely pissed off. "She's in the ICU. Some son of a bitch nearly killed her, and I plan on kickin’ its ass."
Dean shrugged on some flannel and smacked Sam's leg. He was being slow as hell. "We know what she was hunting?"
"She called me yesterday and said she'd just finished up with a werewolf case. Open and shut, nothing left to do. And her injuries, from what I’ve heard, don’t line up with a wolf attack. Naw, it was somethin’ else. Somethin’ pissed off."
Sam was finally rolling out of bed as Dean threw what few belongings he had into his duffel. "You don't have to keep me in suspense, Bobby, just lay it on me."
"I think the demon she's been running from caught up with her."
Fifteen minutes later the boys were in the Impala, Dean turning up the radio to keep himself awake. Sam sat in the passenger seat, fighting back yawns and flipping through John’s journal. “Bobby said this demon’s name is Alioth?”
“Yeah. Dad should have an entry or two in there, apparently he and this (Y/n) chick exorcised it more than once.” Dean let out a huff of breath, annoyed. “Don’t know why I’ve never heard of her though, if they were so close.”
Sam scoffed. “Right, because we know every single person Dad’s ever hunted with.”
Dean flicked him on the ear. It was too early for sarcasm!
“Jerk,” Sam let out under his breath.
Dean rolled his eyes and focused on the road. “Just do the damn research.”
The car was quiet but for the blaring radio and tires on asphalt. He was on edge and tired and restless all at once. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, clenching and unclenching his jaw.
Maybe this bastard would lead them to Yellow-Eyes.
Not long later Sam sat up straight in his seat. “Found something.” He turned down the radio and Dean had to stop himself from smacking his hand away from the knob. Sam lay the journal flat in his lap and sighed. “Okay, so…”
Dean waited for Sam to say something but he was quiet. “Okay, what’d you find?” He spared a quick glance at his brother, whose eyebrows were knitted together and eyes narrowed.
It took Sam a moment to respond, still looking at the journal. “Dad first met this thing all the way back in ‘86. Ran into it another half dozen times since then. It keeps going after the same person - (Y/n).”
“Great, she has a demon stalker.” Dean started, gears in his brain working through the new information. “Do we know why?”
His brother was quiet.
“Sam?”
“She’s Psychic.” Sam breathed; Dean could barely hear him over the guitar solo playing low on the radio.
Huh.
“Like Missouri psychic or freaky, ‘Special Kids’ psychic?”
Dean didn’t catch Sam’s offended look. “I’m not sure. Dad didn’t seem to know what was up either.” He heard shuffling paper and a surprised hum. “Check out these polaroids. She was eight.”
“Dude, I’m driving.” But Dean caught a glimpse of them anyway. It was a devils trap scrawled on a children’s bedroom wall in blue crayon. He furrowed his brow. “Huh. That’s not something you see every day.”
“No kidding.”
They got to Ridgeview, Wyoming four hours later, checking into a motel room before meeting Bobby at a diner. The older hunter looked run ragged, dark circles harsher than usual and a sour look on his face. They ordered their food before talking about the case. Bobby rested his face in his hand.
“Dude, you look like shit.” Dean said, worry prickling his nerves and festering in his chest. Bobby was the only family they had left. He hated seeing him so bothered.
“Thanks,” he grumbled. “I try.”
Sam shifted in his seat, pulling out John’s journal and ignoring their exchange. “So you think it was the demon that attacked her, right? What makes you say that?”
Bobby let out a drawn-out sigh and took a long drink of his coffee. “We’ll have to visit her in the ICU to be sure, but this’s got ‘Sadistic Bastard’ written all over it. This wasn’t something lashing out or defending itself. Something worked her over.” His knuckles were white against his coffee mug. If anybody noticed the tremors they didn’t say anything. “She was tortured, Sam.”
The brothers looked at each other. Well, shit.
Dean leaned forward with a whisper. “Like how bad are we talking here?”
“She nearly flatlined.”
And in the hospital, after arguing with the receptionist to let all three of them in instead of just Bobby, Dean was pissed. He swallowed and tried not to think of his own time trapped in a hospital bed, dying - how John had sacrificed himself. But he forced those thoughts away like he'd been doing for the past few months. It wasn’t the time for that. It was never the time for that.
The nurse had been happy some family had shown up, said that it was the worst crime to happen in town in twenty years. The whole staff of the tiny emergency center was on edge, they were used to hunting injuries, not… this.
Sam was in the hallway interviewing the paramedics while he and Bobby went to see you. Only two people could be in the room at once, at least until you said otherwise.
You were unconscious - partially sedated for the pain. Dean couldn’t tell if you were asleep or hovering in a drugged in-between; every once in a while you would move, apparently trying to get comfortable. An IV lead was right under your collarbone, your arms were wrapped in thick bandages. The rest of you, from what he could see, was covered just as thoroughly. The only part of you without bandages was your face, and that was a deep, bruised purple underneath the oxygen mask.
Dean narrowed his eyes as he looked over the doctor’s report. Over a hundred shallow lacerations, more than a few blunt force injuries, a broken leg and three broken fingers. Areas where your skin had been cut off altogether, leaving bare patches of muscle exposed. There were third degree burns over the soulmark on your ribs, like someone had tried to burn it off you for good. A tattoo on your leg had been burned through. You’d needed a lot of grafts and it’d been hard to find intact skin to use.
Your heartbeat had been dangerously slow when they found you. You’d been in shock and went into cardiac arrest two times. You were stable now, but only just.
Bobby pulled up a chair and sat next to you, mumbling apologies under his breath. Dean felt like he was intruding on something, but stayed still nonetheless. “We’re gonna find the son of a bitch that did this, Bobby. I promise.” He moved to stand at your other side, hands clenching on on the railing and looking over your form. God, sometimes this job got to him. He was pissed off and nauseated at the same time. You would think after all he’s seen on hunts, he’d react better - but he was used to monsters… not this. He’d only encountered a few demons before, and it was mostly quick deaths and destruction, plane crashes or house fires.
He really fucking hated demons.
He didn’t know when you drifted awake, but your half-lidded eyes were on him, mouth moving underneath your oxygen mask. He didn’t know what you were saying, all that was coming out of your mouth was raspy mumbling, too quiet and jumbled for him to make out. Your hand twitched toward his.
Bobby put a hand on your hair, one of the few parts of you not beat to hell, and stole your attention. Your eyes were glassy and unfocused, and Dean wondered if you even knew where you were. Bobby just hushed you, voice gentle like when Dean was nine and having nightmares. One of the few times Bobby Singer was ever soft was when one of his kids was hurt.
Now Dean really felt like he was intruding.
He went to leave but felt shaky fingers wrap around his hand. He fought the urge to flinch away. Your touch felt like warm static, making goosebumps rush over his skin. But you weren’t looking at him. Your eyes were off on the distance, classic hundred-yard stare, half-shut, but your hand held onto his. Dean didn’t have the heart to pull away.
Damn.
Bobby stayed with you when Dean eventually left. He had enough holy water to drown a full grown man in - he wasn’t leaving you alone until they found the demon. Sam and Dean went to the crime scene.
And, boy, was that place a mess - the abandoned paper mill had seen better days, and was in a quiet part of town. The room was dark and smelled of mold and metal and sulphur. Rust coated machinery sat silent and unused, leaky pipes on the walls making the only noise. On the floor lay a marker for where the local police found a body - probably the thing’s meatsuit, a bloody knife not too far away. It was a small thing, skinny and only about two inches long, but a knife is a knife is a knife. Dean knew better than most that you didn’t need a giant blade to fuck someone up. A few feet behind where they found the dead guy was a blow torch.
“So,” Sam started, examining a strange symbol drawn on the floor in blood. Your blood. “Paramedics say they heard a high-pitched ringing so horrible, it made their ears bleed. There was a flash of pure white light, and all the lightbulbs for about three blocks exploded.”
Dean grunted in response, staring at the intermittent pools of blood on the floor and what looked to be singed ropes. It must’ve been where you were restrained. “So what stopped it?”
“What?” Sam looked at him oddly.
“What stopped the demon? Looks like it cut and run.” Dean moved to look over at some exploded lamps on the ceiling. “If it wanted to kill (Y/n), it could’ve. But the paramedics found the scene just like this, right?” He gestured to the blood and broken glass. “So why did it stop? Why did it let her go?” He fixed Sam with a pointed look.
All Sam had for him was a shrug. “Maybe it was looking for information and it got what it wanted.”
“Maybe.” Sam took a photo of the symbol as Dean looked at the ropes closer. It was like they’d been burned through from the inside out. “But wouldn’t it kill her afterward anyway?”
That night Dean's dreams were scattered.
There was fire burning his house. He could only watch from the outside in John’s arms as it burned to ash with his parents inside. Then he was face to face with a demon in a motel, hiding behind John's legs and clutching at his coat. He was only eight. The demon wanted something from him. Its white eyes looked at him like he was a lab rat. Then there were nuns. A church and Catholic School. He lived in a group home with other orphans. The nuns were angry with him for something. Then he was alone in the church that was far too big. The stained glass windows cast ominous light into an empty, echoing vastness of the church. No matter how much he ran he ended up back in the pulpit.
But then you were there, in a navy blue private school uniform. Younger, with different hair. He couldn't make out your face but he somehow knew it was you. There was warmth. You were trying to tell him something, something important, but he couldn’t understand you. It was like you were speaking another language entirely. One that spiked in his ears and made his head hurt. You were frustrated. Were you crying? Yelling? He didn’t know. You sighed and drew something on his hand in sharpie.
The marble tile beneath him cracked and fractured, opening up to the void underneath. It crumbled away completely.
The two of you fell.
Dean woke up a little past six in the morning with a sigil scratched bright-red into his palm.