Carry On
Chapter 27
Summary: It was just a simple hunt, found on a pie festival. It was supposed to be easy. Something they’d all done one hundred and one times a million. No one could have told Y/N, Dean, and Sam that nothing from that point on would ever be the same again.
Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader x Sam Winchester
Warnings: Shit’s a bit tense....
Due to the graphic nature of this fic, and the fact that it will eventually contain Smut. This fic is an 18 + only fic! If you’re under 18 DO NOT read this fic!
A/N: This fic is beta’d by @kazsrm67 Thanks so much love! Please do not copy my work! Feedback is golden! I hope you all enjoy this ride with me!
Y/N took a deep breath as she trudged her way through the kitchen and into the utility room where there had been an air mattress set up for Dean and herself. Her hands were shaking, and she was more than a little sick to her stomach. Of all the shit they would have their first fight about, it would be this, and on the weekend that they were due to go and meet his nephew.
She wasn’t ignorant that some of this WAS her fault. She could have at least mentioned the fact that she was on birth control. It wasn’t like Dean was with her every waking second of the day anymore; in hindsight it would have been something very easy to miss. She just didn’t think about telling him, it wasn’t like it was something she was hiding from him. It was just legitimately something that didn’t cross her mind. She was more of a caretaker than girlfriend for so long. Sex wasn’t something that was the primary focus. When it did happen, and the progressive year to come, she was caught up in life. She was focused on fixing the house, getting Dean’s shop all lined up. It wasn’t something that even crossed her mind, and she felt more than a little horrible that she didn’t think about the fact that it had crossed his.
She also knew that the silent treatment that she’d been giving him all day was probably also a mistake. She let her own anger at him and her emotions get the better of her. She let hurt do the talking, or lack thereof; instead of opening up to him, accepting his apology, and working together to move past this like she should have. Now, she was afraid she’d hurt him even worse.
When she finally got the nerve up to sit down in the room that was their makeshift bedroom, she found Dean, laying on his back, fists balled up, eyes shut tight, and jaw set firmly.
Slowly, Y/N made her way over to the air mattress, and sank down on it, careful not to jostle him, because he looked more than a little uncomfortable. “Dean?” she ventured, and even though she barely said his name above a whisper, his green orbs shot open like someone had fired a gun at him, and he turned to face her like he was shocked she spoke to him at all. “Are you okay?”
Dean’s eyes closed tightly again, and a single tear rolled down his face. “Not really,” he admitted, and she had to fight against the ‘caregiver flight or fight instinct’ that screamed for her to rip him up, panic, and take him to the nearest hospital. “My back is killing me, and I just want to go home.”
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Y/N questioned, still worried because of the tumble he took earlier that day. It was as if she had to ask or she might burst. Dean just shook his head without opening his eyes or even bothering to look in her direction, which she found concerning. Usually, he would do that when he didn’t want her to know just how badly he was hurting.
“No,” he said after a while. “I just… this mattress and laying on the floor isn’t as easy as it used to be before the accident. Once the pain pills kick in, and I get some sleep, I’ll be fine.”
Everything, every fiber in her being, wanted to gather him up off of that floor, load him up in Baby, and take him to a hotel where he could at least lay down in a bed. It never crossed her mind that he wouldn’t be able to do this anymore. They’d all slept in some pretty strange places while hunting. An air mattress would have been like a fucking California King pillowtop for him at one point; but now, after his injuries, his body was different, and things didn’t come as easy as they used too, but he kept it hidden so well, that it was easy to forget.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted suddenly, his voice strained as he attempted to make himself a little more comfortable. “I don’t know how else to say it, or what to say to make what I said to you any better, other than I’m really sorry. I was wrong. I already told you all of that. But judging by the silent treatment you’ve given me all day, and the fact that you’re only talking to me now because you can tell I’m uncomfortable, tells me you’re still mad at me, and I don’t know how to fix it, but I’m trying.”
“It’s not just you Dean, it’s me too. I should have talked to you. Hell, I should have said something to you a year ago. We’re both at fault. Neither of us reacted the way we should have, neither of us communicated the way we should have. It was both our fault, and it wasn’t fair for me to shut you out the way I did.”
Dean shifted again, still uncomfortable, and she wished she could just fix it for him. Just take all the pain and discomfort away.
“Do you want too… you know… try to have a kid with me?” Dean questioned, keeping his gaze focused on the blanket in his balled-up fist. She could almost feel the tension in the room suddenly escalate to an alarming rate. “I mean, I would totally understand if you don’t. I wouldn’t be upset or anything.”
That was a lie, Y/N could tell by how tense he was that this was something his heart was set on. Still, ever true to his own destructive nature, the man would swallow whatever it was he wanted as long as others around him were happy. Always with the self-sacrificing of his own happiness.
“I wouldn’t mind it. I’ve never really thought about it honestly. The life we lived up until now… it really didn’t ever cross my mind that this could be possible. But now? We’re stable. All of heaven and hell aren’t after our asses. Things are going pretty good. So why not? I could totally get used to a little Dean Winchester running around.”
Dean sat himself up slightly, giving up completely on trying to get comfortable and finally met her gaze. She could see it now. The tiredness, the tension in his broad shoulders. The way he almost seemed like a dog that had been kicked too often as he stared back at her with almost doe like eyes. Like a deer caught in headlights that she even agreed to try and have a child with him.
It really made her sick to think that so often and for so long Dean had given up on the things he deserved in life; a home, a job, a family of his own, that he thought he deserved to not have those things. So it totally takes him by surprise to even think that someone would want to have them with him, and want all good things for him, instead of what they can use him for, and what he can do for them.
“Really?” he questioned. “Do you really mean that or are you just saying that on my account? Because if you don’t really want this with me- I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Dean Winchester,” Y/N sighed in aspiration. “You of all people should know by now that if I don’t want to do something, there’s no force in hell or earth that can make me do it. You aren’t twisting my arm to do anything that I don’t want to do. I WANT a family with you Dean. There’s nothing attached to that. No hidden agendas. It’s the truth. If you want to try, I’m down with whatever happens. If it’s not meant to be, and we never have a baby, that’s fine. If we do, great. But I would love to start a family with you. White picket fence, we already have the dog and the house. Soccer games and school functions. The whole bit. I’ll be a total suburban mom. Minivan and all.”
Dean smiled in spite of himself.
“You know I could totally see you rocking the whole minivan thing,” Dean chuckled softly.
Then just as quickly as it started, the moment faded, and he was looking off into the distance with a strange look on his face. She wondered what it was he was seeing, what it was that had suddenly popped up to bother him all at once like that, and every time he did something like this, it sent her anxiety through the ceiling. Like it or not, there were some monsters she couldn’t chase away, and those were usually the ones that reared their ugly head from his past.
Y/N reached for his hand, uncurling it with surprisingly little resistance judging by the death grip he still had on the comforter.
“Hey,” she said, grabbing his attention. “Next time, let’s talk about things like this with one another, instead of avoiding it and ending up in a fight. I hate fighting with you Dean. I really, really do. More than anything, I don’t want to see you hurt over something that could have been easily fixed over a conversation. Again, I take half the blame for this one, but please, next time, talk to me.”
“Okay,” Dean agreed with a heavy sigh, before turning and looking back at the pile of pillows behind him.
“Are you gonna be able to do this?” Y/N questioned with a nod towards his pillow pile. Dean’s lips formed a thin line and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head.
“I really don’t know. I’m trying. I am. I don’t want to hurt their feelings or anything. Maybe if I hadn’t fallen earlier it wouldn’t be this bad, but fuck if this isn’t kicking my ass just sitting here right now.”
Y/N’s lips tightened as she tried to come up with anything, anything at all to make this easier for Dean. But really, there was only one solution, and that was get up and go get a hotel. She knew good and damn well that she wasn’t going to be able to get him to agree to that.
“Why don’t you try going and laying down on the couch?” Y/N suggested after a moment. “Everyone else has gone to bed already, so it’s quiet in there.”
“Yeah, but Sam’s ass is gonna be up at like, four in the fucking morning to go jogging like a moron,” Dean countered, and Y/N had to admit that he wasn’t wrong there.
“Fuck,” Dean grumbled into his hands, she noticed they were shaking when he brought them up to his face, and that sent a spark of concern through her chest. She’d been taking care of him for over a year before things really morphed into a relationship. She knew his tells. He was in pain, yet he was downplaying it.
“How long has it been since you took the medication?” Y/N questioned, getting up to riffle around in the duffle bag on the floor opposite of him.
“Bout forty minutes ago,” Dean’s muffled voice answered from behind his hands. “I’ll be fine baby, lay down and get some sleep. Pain is something I’m well acquainted with.”
Y/N’s jaw tightened so fast her teeth audibly clicked together, and Dean slowly lowered his hands from his face, the look of a man that knows he fucked up; just like that, what little bit of annoyance she had left in her towards him and how he acted faded away.
Dean had made a lot of progress over the time they were together. He was more open than he’d ever been. He’d made a lot of emotional changes and boundaries were crossed. Things he let go of and opened up weren’t easy at all to let go of. Still, Dean was Dean, and he had some things that were always gonna fight him. The ability to admit when he wasn’t feeling well, or needed help, well, that was just something she would always have to fight with him on.
It was just his ‘MO’, his go too.
“It should have kicked in by now,” Y/N voiced aloud as she sat back down in front of him, Dean was doing all he could to pretend to be very interested in picking at the blanket in his hand, avoiding her gaze.
“Did the pain start when you fell earlier?” Y/N questioned, and Dean shook his head no.
“Bout three hours before we got here,” he admitted, and honestly, he could have reared back and took a swing at her face and it would have hurt less that the absolute mental kick she gave herself for shutting down on him. He needed her, and he felt like she was giving him the cold shoulder and he couldn’t talk to her, so he pushed himself too hard.
This felt very much like her fault all of the sudden.
“Dean, you should have woken me up,” she said, but Dean didn’t look at her, just sniffed heavily through his nose.
“I shouldn’t have had to wake you up; I should have been able to do something as simple as drive a goddamn car.”
“Hey,” Sam’s voice cut her off from behind her before Y/N could get anything out to rebuttal him, and fuck if she didn’t want to murder him right there on the spot,be cause as soon as Dean heard his brother’s voice, he straightened up, and cleared his face as if nothing was wrong at all. She’d never seen a wall go up that fucking fast. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Dean lied, clearing his throat as he forced himself back onto the pile of pillows behind him. “I just over did it a little bit today. I’ll be okay.”
The look on Sam’s face read every bit of bullshit. Y/N was pretty sure that her face screamed the truth Dean was trying to cover up, and that had a lot to do with his disbelief.
“Liar,” Sam challenged. “What’s wrong dude, spill.”
Dean signed heavily and rolled his eyes dramatically.
“My back hurts,” Dean said simply. “This is nothing new. My back usually always hurts. It’s a little worse today because I slipped when I got out of the car. It’s not some emergency. I’m not gonna die from it. I’ll be fine.”
Y/N watched as Sam’s eyes traveled to the air mattress that they were sitting on. Sam was no idiot. It didn’t take him long to come to the conclusion that this air mattress really wasn’t helping him at all.
“I can call around and get you guys a room,” Sam offered sincerely. “I didn’t even think about the air mattress being on the floor and—”
Dean held up his hand to stop his baby brother’s worrying. Sam made a face, but didn’t argue with Dean either.
“It’s okay,” Dean assured him. “I will take something else to help with the discomfort, and I’ll eventually go to sleep. I’m sure I'll be fine in the morning. Eileen has all kinds of shit she wants to do as a ‘family’ tomorrow, and I’m not going to let my discomfort ruin that for anyone. Now, back to bed before she sends out a search party for that bottle you're holding.”
Sam looked down at the milk bottle that he was still clutching in his hand, and nearly jumped when he realized that Eileen probably was still waiting for it, and he’d gotten distracted along the way.
“Y/N, if he doesn’t get any better come get me, and we will work something out,” Sam insisted, and Y/N nodded as she watched Sam’s hair bounce as he retreated back to his room.
“You should have told him the truth and let him rent the room,” Y/N insisted, but Dean barely blinked as he stared out of the door his brother had just disappeared from.
“I did tell the truth,” Dean admitted. “It’s not the first time I’ve had pain like this over the years I’ve been recovering, it won't be the last; there’s no reason to freak out, and I definitely don’t want them to have to rent a room in the middle of the night for me. I’ll be okay.”
This was not a battle Y/N was gonna win, she knew that. You could set the man on fire and he’d tell you it tickled. She felt like some of this was absolutely her fault. That in just a matter of 48 hours, the trust she built with him was broken, and she was partially to blame for that.
Was Dean wrong for yelling and blaming her for not telling him that she was on birth control? Yes.
Did that warrant her the right to give him the silent treatment after he apologized? No.
Did her hurt feelings become invalid because he apologized? Hell no. Still, that didn’t mean she had to totally shut him out, when she knew Dean well enough to know that doing something like that could or might trigger this behavior, and that she should have handled this a lot differently.
Apparently Dean wasn’t the only one in the room with communication issues.
Without a word, Y/N moved behind him as Dean sat up again to try and adjust himself. Seating herself behind him with her legs spread out on either side of his trim waist, and Dean turned slightly to look at her with a questioning gaze.
“Lean back,” she insisted, and he did, albeit, very slowly.
“What are you doing?” He questioned again, refusing to relax even when she pulled him against her, and wrapped her arms around him.
It took a minute of deep breathing, but finally, Dean leaned his head back to rest against her shoulder, and closed his eyes. The tense muscles in his body gave way, and he loosed up enough to rest his weight against her. Which was something she didn’t mind at all, in fact, she always found it comforting.
“Does this position help any?” she asked once silence fell heavily again in the room, and Dean nodded, refusing to speak.
“Then get some sleep, and in the morning, after we’re done with the shit Eileen has planned, I’m going to drive us either to a hotel, or back home.”
Dean took a deep breath, stress once again setting in his tight jaw.
“No, I’m sure after tonight I’ll be fine,” Dean insisted. “I just over did it today, once I get some sleep, everything will be okay. I promise. I don’t want to ruin this for them. This is a big deal for them, and they’re doing the best they physically can with what they have. I’m gonna be just fine.”
“Okay,” Y/N relented, knowing once Dean had his mind made up about something, there was no changing it. She just hoped that he was right, and after a night’s sleep, he’d be okay again for the rest of the trip. “But I’m doing some of the driving home. Cause we’re not gonna let you over do it again, and if we have to, we will stop and get a hotel so that you can rest in between.”
Dean nodded, and this time he didn’t argue with her.
“And… even though I’m not going to take anymore birth control, it might take almost a month to get out of my system, maybe longer, I’ve been on it a long time. In fact, when we get home, I’m going to make an appointment with my doctor to get myself checked out, just to make sure that I’m physically okay, and we’re all set to go.”
She felt the tension return to Dean’s shoulders, stress was almost radiating throughout his body, and she immediately kicked herself for shutting him out all day, because she just knew that it was going to take him forever to open up to her again about it all.
“It’s okay Dean, nothing is wrong,” she insisted to try and calm his fears. “It’s just the smart thing to do, that way you’re prepared for anything that MIGHT pop up. It’s just a precaution.”
Dean swallowed thickly, before forcing himself to relax again. “Let’s just get through tonight,” he voiced after a while. “Once we get home we can figure the rest out, okay?”
“Okay,” Y/N agreed, then started to run her fingers through his hair, absently humming Hey Jude until he finally started to drift off to sleep.
It was easy to forget that even though Dean was a man, and was bullheaded on a lot of things. He got scared and needed reassurance too. This was still a learning curve for them both, but a lesson learned. From now on, she was going to make sure he was okay, just as she expected him to make sure she was okay. Relationships are a give and take thing, especially when you’ve been through as much trauma as the pair of them had.
