Title: On the Outside
Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader (Y/N)
Word Count: 2195
Summary: To get Dean to say yes to Michael, they sent him to the Endverse. And when that didn’t work, they turned to you.
Warnings: Time travel, time jumps, ANGST. Language. Endverse!Dean.
Bingo Squares Filled: @howbadcanitbebingo – which character is speaking?
Writing Challenge Prompts: “And maybe it'll be enough if you know that in the few hours we had together we loved a lifetime's worth.” (The Terminator) & Supernatural Season 5 Episode The End for @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior-warrior ‘s 500 Follower Celebration. “It must be nice to love someone who puts you first.” For @negans-lucille-tblr ‘s N-L-Threenager Writing Challenge.
A/N: This is one of those stories where, while it was all very clear in my head, I could not get it down into words. Then life happened, I had a break down and now bon appétit. Bee, I do apologize, I tried very hard to get this down to an even 2k. The characters just weren’t having it.
Dividers provided by @talesmaniac89
2014. Endverse.
Fire lit up the darkness in small explosions. A live inferno that devoured everything in sight. Heat licked at your fingertips through the linked fence, smoke splashed your cheeks and watered your eyes.
Dean had failed.
And the demons celebrated.
Three Days Earlier.
Chuck hurried up to you, his clipboard in hand and a string of worries on the tip of his tongue.
The last mission’s duffle was still slung across your shoulders, the rifle at your back, and the blood of a comrade still splattered across the front of your jacket. You sidestepped the prophet, fully intent on reaching your cabin and decompressing before hearing more bad news.
“…and you know how Cas is. By the way, Dean wants you on tomorrow’s caravan to the second camp. They’re going over their supplies now, which isn’t a lot, but they plan to head out at dawn.”
You stopped in the middle of the dirt path so suddenly that Chuck narrowly avoided walking into you.
Reading the confusion on your face, Chuck backtracked as if suddenly realizing that you were returning from a week-long mission.
“Right, so the plan is to help reinforce a fledgling camp on the other side of the state. We discovered them on the radio four days ago and Dean thinks,” he didn’t get to finish his thought as you unceremoniously shoved your duffel into his arms and started to take off in the direction of Dean’s cabin. “So, we’ll talk later?”
“Oh, you’re back,” Risa drawled. She stood outside the door to Dean’s cabin, arms crossed, and a foot kicked back to rest against the wall. Her mood seemed to match your own, which was fine, it was hard to find any sane person who wasn’t even a little bit irritable these days. But you didn’t appreciate the welcome.
“Is he in?” You asked.
“That depends…”
In no mood to play games, you pushed through to the door, ignoring her heated “hey!” and letting it swing wide on it’s hinges to slam into the wall behind it before stepping inside.
“Hi honey, I’m home,” you seethed.
Dean stood from the table, turning to you with an expression that was less than pleased. And though it was twisted, it felt good to know that you could still evoke an emotion out of him, even if that emotion was annoyance.
“Y/N?”
At the second voice, you tore your eyes away from Dean to the second person seated at the table behind him. In the next breath, you reached for the rifle at your back, but Dean had already braced himself against you, a hand on yours, staying the weapon.
The world seemed to be crashing around your ears as you kept a hard gaze on the person at the table, not really hearing Dean at your ear until he called your name.
“I checked, okay? He’s good. He’s…me.”
Holding your breath, you pulled your gaze back to Dean’s, violating every instinct that shouted against it. His expression was grim, but he stared deeply into your eyes, willing you to believe him.
It was the seated man’s slow, uncertain wave of the hand and awkward smile that had you slowly exhaling. Because you could see that it was him. Dean, before the end of the world.
“What are you doing here?” You asked while stepping away from Dean, your hand sliding out from under his. And if his jaw tightened in response, you ignored it.
“Risa, will you…” Dean trailed off, but the order was clear. With a stiff lip, she pulled the door back shut, obediently waiting outside for further orders.
The Dean at the table looked at the one behind you, as if waiting for his permission to speak.
“Angels,” the Dean behind you said. “From his time, not ours. He’s here to learn a lesson.”
The Dean at the table shrugged as if that were the gist of it. But you could feel that there was something they were holding back. And that reeked of your present-day Dean.
“And you’re going to teach him, are you?” You turned back to him, still nonsensically itching for a fight.
Sensing this, Dean refrained from answering. But the confusion as to why you persisted was visible on his face.
“Do you two need a moment? I can step outside.”
“No,” Dean answered without looking away from you. “I’m not teaching him anything. He’s going to see for himself.”
There was your opening.
“What is he going to see?”
The silence became deafening as suddenly your Dean refused to speak. When you stepped back to have both in your sight, the contrast was utterly jarring. You had been there, before the apocalypse, had been apart of the inner circle to defeat the devil. You were there when everything went wrong and helplessly watched as Dean became the jagged shell of who he used to be. After so many losses, you were on the outside now. And you didn’t know how to get back in. If there was anything to get back into.
The fire in your voice faded as you pushed, “What’s the deal with the second camp? Is that a real mission or are you purposefully sending me away so that I’m not apart of whatever this is?”
“It’s real and I need you on it.” His tone had hardened into that veteran soldier giving orders. “Now will you please go help them and we will talk about this later.”
Grinding your teeth, you couldn’t help the instinct to adhere to his command. He wasn’t about to budge and you were losing energy trying. Without a word, you stalked back out of the cabin, slamming the door behind you for good measure. A snark comment from Risa on the porch had you halting on the stairs.
“What did you say?”
She pushed off from the wall, staring down at you with all the anger and hurt that you felt.
“I said it must be nice. To love someone who puts you first. It’s an evacuation.”
You stared at her, not trusting yourself to speak.
“Look at the roster if you don’t believe me. He’s getting everyone out. Including you.”
The camp continued to move around you as you digested her meaning until realization dawned, quickly followed by disbelief.
“He found it.”
“He sure did.”
“And you’re going with him tomorrow.”
“Like a sheep to the slaughter.”
And somehow, that hurt more. You kept from looking back at the cabin and continued down the steps. It didn’t take long for Chuck to find you again, still carrying your duffel bag and talking in a fluster, before ushering you towards the people you would be escorting to the second camp. And damn it, but Risa was right. Women, children, and the wounded were slated for the caravan.
An evacuation.
You didn’t get back to your cabin until nightfall. Weighted by exhaustion both physically and mentally, you barely reacted when you walked in to find a visitor seated on your bed.
“I’m exhausted, Dean. Is this you or past you?”
“I’m offended you have to ask.”
Finally shrugging out of your bloodied jacket, you threw it down onto the nearest surface and rested your hands on your hips.
“Well, right now, I’m offended by your face.”
And damn him, that your response only made him smile. It wasn’t the full bloom smile that you had fallen in love with all those years ago, but it was the closest he had come to in a long time.
“I thought you liked my face.”
“Not right now.”
He shut his eyes and sighed, as if that exchange alone caused him a great effort. “Will you come here?” He pat the bedspread beside him.
In defiance, you pulled a wobbly chair from the wall, dragged it two feet from the bed and fell into it with crossed arms. He watched you with pursed lips but said nothing on it.
“You have questions, so let’s hear it.”
“Where’s the other Dean?”
His mouth dropping open was the only sign that you had caught him off guard. Licking his lips he cocked his head to the side and tried to play it off.
“He’s safe.”
You raised your eyebrows and remained silent.
“Is this really what you want to talk about?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you found Lucifer’s hideout?”
“I was a little preoccupied…”
“Not too preoccupied to make arrangements to send me away.”
“That…” and for a moment he appeared to struggle to find his next words. “…was a calculated decision.”
“Based on what?"
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” he scoffed at that, but you kept going. “I need you to let me in. Were you really just going to send me away with no word of warning? Without so much as a goodbye?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I die, I need to know that you’re nowhere near him. I need to know that you’re far away and safe. I,” he took a deep breath. “I need to know that he won’t touch you. And this…”
His eyes went far away, lost in his plans for what was to come. But you leaned forward in your seat, searching for his gaze, to bring him back and let him know that you weren’t buying it.
“This doesn’t ensure that. You dying, alone doesn’t protect me, Dean.” His eyes narrowed and lifted as if he were about to argue. But he didn’t. Because your face gave it away before your words. “All it’s going to do is break my fucking heart.”
Tears trailed down your cheeks and your hands gripped your arms tighter because you wanted so badly to still be mad at him. To kick, yell, and scream at him that this was the wrong choice. He was making the wrong choice.
He moved forward, helped you to stand then encircled you in his arms, pressed your head into his chest. Your body trembled with every breath as you tried to keep the tide at bay.
“Is there anything I can say to change your mind?”
He pressed you tighter against him.
He didn’t answer.
But that was answer enough.
He was done fighting. You had lost him the second Sam said yes.
You wrapped your arms around his waist, thumbs rubbing into his back.
“Can I stay here tonight?” He asked, with a slight tremor in his timbre.
You held him tighter, breathed him in and responded in the lightest voice you could muster: “I’m offended you have to ask.”
Three Years Later.
The burning ache around your wrists dulled as she concluded her story.
Because that’s all it could really be, right? A story? Within this maddening dream?
The sadness that pulled at her face, weighted her shoulders, and glistened her eyes argued otherwise.
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
A deep breath as she continued to stare into the past.
“After my convoy reached the other camp…” she trailed off, interrupted by your clanging the handcuffs against the radiator.
“Answer me,” you growled, like a caged animal.
“I am,” she returned coldly. “Once the convoy reached the other camp, I headed back to Camp Chitaqua on my own. But there was no one left. Dean failed and the demons had celebrated.
“And now you’re here. Which makes me think the angels still haven’t persuaded Dean to say yes.”
“He won’t.”
She looked at you, firmly back in the present and seemed for a moment to marvel. All the fire within you, the aggressive certainty in a man you believed in and trusted, were flames that had extinguished within herself the day Dean died.
“No,” she said. “Of course, he won’t.”
She stood from her chair and set to releasing your wrists from the cuffs. Once you were free though, you found you could not move. You watched, transfixed as she contemplated her next words.
“Maybe…maybe it’ll be enough if you know that in the few hours we had together,” she paused at the sudden vulnerable expression on your face and smiled as if sharing a secret. “We loved a lifetime’s worth.”
A bright light shone through the cabin windows then, blinding you even as you raised your hands to cover your eyes.
“Knew they would come looking for you,” she said from above.
“What’s going on?”
“If you still think this is a dream, then we are more delusional than we think we are. The angels are looking for you. I kind of stole you, did I mention?”
You pushed yourself to your feet but were only successful in backing yourself into a corner.
Then you heard a shotgun being cocked and her calling out from a much farther distance, “Don’t stop fighting for him. Don’t you stop fighting for him ever.”
When finally the light disappeared, you slowly dropped your hands and peered into the darkness. You were back in the cheap motel room that you had passed out in the night before.
The red digits of the alarm clock glowed up at you from the nightstand.
Three thirty-three in the morning.
The year: 2009.
