Hi! could you do one with demon dean and daughter! idk maybe he takes her on his 6 week thing w crowley, but hes not the dad she knows but he still kind of cares? and then cure etc. I LOVE YOUR WORK ID LOVE IF U COULD DO THIS

╰┈➤ Familiar Heart With Black Eyes

~ Day One ~

The neon lights of the dive bar cast sickly colors across your face as you nursed your third Coke of the night, the ice long since melted into watery disappointment. The glass was sticky with condensation and your own nervous sweat, and you couldn't stop picking at the peeling label while trying to make sense of the past twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours since your dad had walked out of that room in the bunker with black eyes and a smile that didn't reach them. Twenty-four hours since he'd looked at you like you were a stranger, then a possession, then something in between. Twenty-four hours since he'd grabbed your wrist when you tried to run to Sam—not hard enough to bruise, never hard enough to bruise, but firm enough to stop you dead in your tracks—and said, "You're coming with me, sweetheart."

It wasn't a request. The tone was all wrong—too casual, too cold, like he was commenting on the weather instead of upending your entire world.

Dean—or whatever he was now—sat across the booth from you, laughing at something Crowley had whispered in his ear. The King of Hell himself looked particularly pleased tonight, basking in what he probably saw as his greatest victory. The sound of Dean's laughter made your skin crawl because it was almost right. Almost Dad's laugh, the one that used to bubble up when you'd make a particularly bad joke or when Sam would do something uncharacteristically awkward. But this version had jagged edges that cut, like broken glass wrapped in velvet.

"You're staring," he said without looking at you, taking a long swig from his beer. The bottle looked tiny in his hands—hands you'd watched pull you from burning buildings and teach you how to make friendship bracelets with skill.

"Sorry." You dropped your gaze to the sticky table surface, picking at a loose piece of veneer that was probably older than you were.

"Don't apologize. It's creepy." His voice held that familiar gravel, bourbon and cigarettes and too many years of screaming, but the warmth was gone. Stripped away like paint from old wood. "You've been doing it all day. What's the deal?"

Crowley leaned back in his chair, clearly entertained by the family dysfunction playing out before him. "Oh, this is precious. Family bonding time. Should I get popcorn?"

"Shut it," Dean snapped, and for just a second—less than a heartbeat—you saw something protective flicker across his features. The same look he'd get when other hunters would make comments about you being too young for the life, or when waitresses would ask too many questions about why a teenager was traveling with two grown men. It was gone so fast you might have imagined it, but it made your chest tight with hope.

You looked up at him—really looked this time. Same green eyes that used to crinkle at the corners when he smiled, though they went flat black sometimes when he was angry now. Same constellation of freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks, the ones you used to trace with your finger when you were small and couldn't sleep. Same hands that had taught you how to field strip a pistol and braid your hair and make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

But those hands had killed people now. People who probably didn't deserve it, people who'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the new Dean decided he was bored.

"You're scared of me," he said, and it wasn't a question. His head was tilted slightly, studying you like you were a particularly interesting bug under a microscope.

Your throat felt tight, like you'd swallowed sand. "Should I be?"

He was quiet for a long moment, rolling his beer bottle between his palms in a gesture so familiar it made your heart ache. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, almost thoughtful. "Smart girl. Always were the smart one in the family."

The compliment shouldn't have warmed you, but it did. Even coming from this stranger wearing your father's face, it did.

~ Day Three ~

The motel room smelled like stale cigarettes and industrial disinfectant, with an underlying current of something that might have been mold. You'd stayed in worse places—hell, you'd grown up in places like this—but somehow it felt different now. Lonelier, even with Dean sprawled across the bed next to yours, flipping through channels with the bored efficiency of someone who'd perfected the art of finding nothing worth watching.

You were pretending to read, holding your worn copy of The Hobbit like a shield while stealing glances at him. He'd showered when you got back from dinner—some greasy diner where he'd flirted with the waitress until she giggled and blushed, just like the old Dean used to do, except his eyes had stayed cold the entire time—and his hair was still damp, sticking up in ways that made him look younger. More like the father you remembered.

"Spit it out," he said without looking away from the TV, where some late-night talk show host was making jokes you couldn't hear over the laugh track.

"What?"

"Whatever's rattling around in that head of yours. You've been chewing on something all day." He finally turned to look at you, propping himself up on one elbow. "Might as well get it over with."

You set the book down carefully, buying yourself time to think. "Why did you take me with you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you don't..." You struggled for the right words. "You don't seem to care about anything anymore. Or anyone. So why drag me along?"

His expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes. "Maybe I don't want Sam coming after me with everything he's got. Maybe you're insurance."

The words hit like a slap, and you must have flinched because he continued, voice gentler now. "Or maybe some habits die hard."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Means I've been looking out for you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. Can't seem to shake it, even now." He turned back to the TV, but you could see tension in his shoulders. "Don't read too much into it, kid. I'm not the same person who used to check for monsters under your bed."

But that night, when you woke up screaming from a nightmare about yellow eyes and sulfur and the feeling of being abandoned in an endless corridor, he was there. Sitting on the edge of your motel bed, hand hovering uncertainly over your shoulder like he couldn't decide if touching you was safe—for you or for him.

"Hey," he said quietly, and his voice was almost normal in the darkness. Almost Dad's voice. "You're okay. Just a dream."

Your heart was still racing, sweat cooling on your skin in the air conditioning. The nightmare had been so vivid—Azazel's voice telling you that everyone you loved would leave you eventually, that you were poison, that even your own father couldn't stand to stay human if it meant being around you.

"I want to go home," you whispered, wiping tears from your cheeks with the back of your hand.

His jaw tightened, and for a moment you thought he might get angry. The new Dean seemed to have a hair-trigger temper, especially when it came to things that reminded him of his old life. But when he spoke, he just sounded tired.

"This is home now. Better get used to it."

But his hand finally settled on your shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles like he used to when you were little and couldn't sleep after a particularly bad hunt. The gesture was so automatic, so deeply ingrained, that you could almost pretend nothing had changed. Almost.

It should have been comforting. Instead, it made you want to cry harder.

"Dean," you started, then stopped. What were you supposed to say? Please come back to me? I miss my dad? Why did you have to die and leave me with this stranger?

"Go back to sleep, kid." He stood up, already turning away. "We're moving out in the morning. Crowley's got some business in the next town over."

You watched his silhouette in the doorway, broad shoulders blocking out the light from the parking lot. "Dad?"

He paused but didn't turn around. "Yeah?"

"Are you still in there?"

The silence stretched between you like a chasm, filled with all the things neither of you could say. When he finally answered, his voice was rough, like he'd been shouting. "Go to sleep."

But he didn't leave until he was sure you were breathing steady again, and when you woke up in the morning, there was a cup of coffee on the nightstand—made exactly the way you liked it, with too much sugar and just a splash of cream.

~ Day Ten ~

Crowley had "business" in a small town in Nebraska, which apparently meant terrorizing the local sheriff until he agreed to look the other way while demons used the jail as a halfway house. You sat in the Impala—and God, it felt wrong to be in the passenger seat when Dean was driving, wrong in ways that made your chest tight—while they conducted their meeting.

Dean had left the keys in the ignition and the radio on, classic rock playing softly while rain drummed against the windows. It was almost peaceful, if you ignored the screaming coming from the police station.

When they finally came back, Dean was grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, and there was blood on his knuckles.

"Have fun?" you asked, trying to keep your voice neutral.

"Always do." He caught sight of your expression in the rearview mirror and his smile faded slightly. "What's with the long face?"

"Someone's probably going to die because of what you just did."

"Someone's probably going to die anyway. At least this way, it serves a purpose."

"What purpose?" The question came out sharper than you'd intended, and Crowley chuckled from the backseat.

"Careful, darling. Questioning the new Dean's methods is dangerous territory."

"She can question whatever she wants," Dean said, but his voice had that edge again. "She's not wrong. People are going to die. Bad people, mostly, but some good ones too. That's just how the world works."

"That's not how you used to think." You said.

"The old me was an idiot." He pulled out of the parking lot, tires squealing on wet asphalt. "Spent his whole life trying to save people who were going to die anyway, worrying about casualties he couldn't prevent. What's the point?"

"The point is caring. The point is trying."

"And where did that get him?" Dean's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Dead. Alone. Leaving behind a kid who deserves better than this life."

The admission hung in the air between you, heavy and unexpected. For just a moment, you heard something raw in his voice, something that sounded almost like regret.

"I don't want better," you said softly. "I want my dad."

"Well, you can't have him." The moment was gone, his voice flat again. "But you've got me. That's something, right?"

You didn't answer, and he didn't ask again.

~ Day Eighteen ~

You were getting good at reading the signs. When Dean's jaw tightened in that particular way, when his fingers drummed against his thigh in that restless pattern, when his eyes went flat and cold—that's when you made yourself scarce. Found a corner booth in whatever dive bar you were haunting and nursed a Coke while he worked off his frustration on whoever was unlucky enough to cross him.

Today it was a group of college kids who'd made the mistake of being too loud, too happy, too alive. You watched through the grimy window as Dean cornered them in the parking lot, Crowley standing back with his arms crossed like a proud parent watching his child's first recital.

You should have felt sick. Should have been horrified by the casual way Dean grabbed the ringleader by the throat, the way the kid's eyes went wide with terror. Should have been planning your escape, or calling Sam, or something.

Instead, you just felt numb.

When they came back inside twenty minutes later, Dean slid into the booth across from you like nothing had happened. There was blood on his shirt—not his own—and his knuckles were split, but he looked more relaxed than he had all day.

"Feeling better?" you asked.

"Much." He signaled the waitress for another beer. "You disapprove."

It wasn't a question, but you answered anyway. "Yes."

"Why?"

The simplicity of the question caught you off guard. "Because they didn't deserve it. Because you used to protect people like that. Because..." You trailed off, struggling for words.

"Because I'm not who you want me to be?"

"Because you're not who you were."

"No," he agreed easily. "I'm better. Stronger. Not weighed down by guilt and self-doubt and the crushing weight of trying to save a world that doesn't want to be saved."

"You're also empty."

Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, or recognition. "Empty?"

"The Dean I knew... he felt everything. Too much, sometimes. It nearly broke him more than once, but it also made him... him. It made him care about strangers, fight for lost causes, die for his family." You met his eyes steadily. "You don't feel anything anymore. How is that better?"

For a long moment, he just stared at you. Then he smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Smart girl," he said again, like it was both a compliment and a curse.

Day Twenty-Five

The nightmare was different this time. Instead of yellow eyes and sulfur, you dreamed about Dean—the real Dean—trapped behind glass, pounding his fists against the barrier while his demon self watched with detached interest. You could see his mouth moving, could tell he was screaming your name, but no sound made it through.

When you woke up, Dean was already awake, sitting in the chair by the window with his back to you. For a moment you thought he might have been watching you sleep, and the idea should have been creepy but instead felt almost... protective.

"Bad dreams?" he asked without turning around.

"Yeah."

"Want to talk about it?"

The question surprised you. The new Dean rarely asked about your feelings, seemed to consider emotions a waste of time at best and a dangerous weakness at worst.

"I dreamed about you," you said honestly. "The real you."

"I am the real me."

"You know what I mean."

He was quiet for a long moment, and when he finally spoke, his voice was thoughtful. "What was he doing? In the dream?"

"Trying to get back to me."

"Hmm." Dean stood up, moving to sit on the edge of your bed. Up close, you could see dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't been sleeping well either. "What makes you think he wants to come back?"

"Because he's my dad. Because he loves me."

"Love is just chemical reactions in the brain. Oxytocin and dopamine and evolutionary programming designed to ensure survival of offspring." His voice was clinical, detached. "It's not real."

"It felt real."

"Feelings lie."

"Not all the time."

He looked at you for a long moment, and you thought you saw something struggle behind his eyes. "You really believe that? That love is more than just... biology?"

"Don't you?"

Instead of answering, he reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from your face, the gesture so gentle and familiar that it made your breath catch. For just a second, his expression softened.

"Get some sleep," he said, and his voice was rough again. "We're moving out early tomorrow."

But he didn't leave this time. Just sat there in the dark, watching over you like a guardian angel with tarnished wings.

~ Day Thirty-Two ~

Crowley was getting bored with small-town terrorism and had decided to move on to bigger prey. Something about a nest of angels hiding out in Colorado, playing house and pretending to be human. Dean seemed excited about the prospect of a real fight, but you could see something else in his expression—something that looked almost like anticipation mixed with dread.

"You know them," you said as the three of you sat in yet another anonymous diner, picking at greasy food that all tasted the same.

"Know who?"

"The angels. You've met them before."

Dean's fork paused halfway to his mouth. "What makes you say that?"

"The way you looked when Crowley mentioned Colorado. Like you were remembering something you'd rather forget."

Crowley leaned forward, interested. "Oh, this should be good. Do tell, Dean. Which of our feathered friends have you tangled with?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean said, but his voice was tight. "Dead angels don't hold grudges."

"These ones aren't dead yet," Crowley pointed out cheerfully.

"They will be."

The conversation moved on, but you caught Dean staring out the window with a distant expression, like he was seeing something that wasn't there. When he noticed you watching, he forced a smile.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll keep you safe."

"I'm not worried about me."

"Then what are you worried about?"

You, you wanted to say. I'm worried about what happens to whatever's left of my father when you finish burning away all the pieces of him that made him human.

Instead, you just shrugged and went back to your food.

That night, you woke up to find Dean sitting on the floor beside your bed, head in his hands. For a moment you thought he might be crying, but when he looked up, his eyes were dry.

"Can't sleep?" you asked softly.

"Don't need much sleep anymore. Perks of the job."

"Then why are you sitting on the floor?"

He was quiet for so long you thought he might not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"Sometimes I remember things. Pieces of... before. They don't make sense anymore, but they're... loud."

"What kind of things?"

"Your first day of school. Teaching you how to drive. The time you got food poisoning and I stayed up all night making sure you didn't choke on your own vomit." He laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. "Stupid shit that doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"It shouldn't. That guy... he was weak. Broken. He failed everyone he ever tried to protect."

"He protected me."

"Did he? Because from where I'm sitting, he got himself killed and left you orphaned with an uncle who's too busy playing hero to take care of a kid."

The words stung, partly because there was truth in them. Sam loved you, you knew that, but he'd always seen you as Dean's responsibility first, his second. With Dean gone, Sam had been struggling to figure out how to be a guardian instead of just an uncle.

"He did his best," you said.

"His best wasn't good enough."

"And yours is?"

The question hung in the air between you, sharp and challenging. Dean's expression shifted, cycling through anger, confusion, and something that might have been hurt before settling back into that familiar blankness.

"Go back to sleep," he said, standing up. "We've got a long drive tomorrow."

But as he headed for the door, you called out, "Dad?"

He stopped, shoulders tensing.

"For what it's worth... I think you're still in there somewhere. And I think you're fighting to get back to me."

He didn't answer, but he stood there for a long time before finally walking away.

~ Day Forty-One ~

The angels weren't what you'd expected. Instead of warrior-class soldiers ready for battle, they were a family. A mother, a father, two teenage kids who couldn't have been much older than you. They'd been living as humans for years, running a small bookstore in a mountain town that barely qualified as a dot on the map.

"Please," the woman begged as Crowley's demons surrounded them. "We haven't hurt anyone. We just want to live in peace."

"Peace is boring," Crowley said with a theatrical sigh. "And more importantly, it's not profitable."

Dean stood to the side, watching the scene unfold with that blank expression you'd grown to hate. But when the angel children huddled together, terror written across their too-young faces, something flickered behind his eyes.

"Just kill them and be done with it," he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"Where's the fun in that?" Crowley gestured grandly. "No, I think we'll take our time. Really savor the moment."

One of the demons grabbed the younger child—a girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen—and she cried out in fear. The sound seemed to cut through Dean like a knife, and you saw him flinch.

"Let her go."

Everyone turned to stare at you. The words had come out of your mouth without conscious thought, driven by an anger you hadn't even realized was building.

"Excuse me?" Crowley raised an eyebrow.

"You heard me. Let her go. She's just a kid."

"So are you, darling. Perhaps you should—"

"No." You stepped forward, heart pounding but voice steady. "This is wrong, and you know it. They haven't hurt anyone. They're not soldiers, they're not threats, they're just... people. Trying to live."

Crowley looked amused, but Dean's expression had shifted into something unreadable. "How touching. The little hunter has a conscience."

"Someone in this family should."

The words came out harsher than you'd intended, and you saw Dean's jaw tighten. For a moment, you thought he might actually hit you. Instead, he turned to Crowley.

"Kill them quick. We don't have time for games."

"But Dean—"

"I said kill them quick." His voice carried an edge of authority that made even Crowley pause. "Do it, or I will."

It wasn't mercy, not exactly. But it was something. A concession to the part of him that remembered what it felt like to see innocents suffer.

Later, as you sat in the Impala while Dean disposed of the bodies, you found yourself crying. Not for the angels—though their deaths hurt—but for the look in Dean's eyes when that girl had screamed. Just for a moment, you'd seen your father in there, horrified by what he was becoming.

When Dean got back in the car, his hands were clean but his expression was haunted.

"Don't," he said before you could speak.

"Don't what?"

"Don't try to make this into something it wasn't. They're dead. That's all that matters."

"You made it quick."

"I made it efficient."

But his hands were shaking as he started the engine, and when he thought you weren't looking, you caught him staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror like he was seeing a stranger.

~ Day Forty-Two ~

Sam found you at a bar, probably tracking the Impala's license plate or following the trail of bodies Dean and Crowley had left in their wake. You were in the bathroom when he arrived, so you missed the initial confrontation, but you could hear shouting from inside.

When you came out, Dean was unconscious on the floor, and Sam was standing over him with a syringe in his hand and tears on his cheeks.

"Sammy?" The nickname felt strange on your tongue after weeks of calling him Uncle Sam or nothing at all.

"Hey, kiddo." His voice was rough with emotion as he knelt to check Dean's pulse. "You okay? Did he hurt you?"

You wanted to say yes, wanted to tell Sam about the nightmares and the fear and the terrible, aching loneliness of missing someone who was right there but unreachable. Instead, you just shook your head.

"He kept me safe."

"That's not the same thing."

No, it wasn't. But it was something.

As Sam loaded Dean's unconscious body into the Impala—and it felt so wrong to see him helpless like that, even knowing it was necessary—you found yourself looking around for Crowley. But the King of Hell was nowhere to be seen, apparently having decided that discretion was the better part of valor when faced with a Winchester on a mission.

"Is he going to be okay?" you asked as Sam secured the restraints.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But we're going to try."

The drive back to the bunker felt endless. Dean was unconscious for most of it, but sometimes he'd stir and mutter things that didn't make sense. Once, he said your name so clearly and with such desperate longing that you had to bite your lip to keep from crying.

"He's still in there," you told Sam during one of your stops for gas.

"I know."

"He fought it, sometimes. When things got really bad, I could see him trying to surface."

Sam's expression was grim but hopeful. "Then we'll bring him back. Whatever it takes."

You nodded, believing it because you had to. Because the alternative—that the man who'd raised you, who'd taught you how to be brave and kind and strong, was gone forever—was unthinkable.

The devil's trap carved into the bunker floor seemed to mock you as you helped Sam drag Dean's unconscious body down the stairs. Your dad's—your real dad's—face was peaceful in a way it hadn't been in weeks, slack with whatever sedative Sam had used to keep him under during the trip home. It made your chest ache to see him like this, vulnerable and still, because it reminded you of all the times you'd watched him sleep as a kid, marveling at how young he looked without the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders.

The chair Sam had prepared looked like something out of a medieval torture chamber, all iron restraints and blessed silver chains. You'd helped gather the materials, had watched him carve additional protective sigils into the metal, but seeing it now made your stomach clench with dread.

"You sure about this?" Sam asked as he secured the final restraint around Dean's wrist. His hands were steadier than yours would have been, but you could see the tremor in his fingers, the way his jaw was clenched tight with determination and fear.

You nodded, even though you weren't sure about anything anymore. The past six weeks had taught you that certainty was a luxury you couldn't afford. "He's still Dad. Somewhere underneath all that... darkness, he's still Dad."

"Then let's bring him back."

Sam's voice carried a conviction you desperately wanted to share. You'd done your research during the drive home, had read every book and scroll the Men of Letters had left behind about demon possession and exorcism and the theoretical possibility of curing demonization. The ritual was dangerous, potentially fatal, and had never been successfully completed before. But it was hope, and hope was all you had left.

When Dean woke up, the first thing he did was test the restraints, pulling against the chains with methodical precision. He didn't struggle or panic, just assessed his situation with the cold efficiency of a predator evaluating its cage. Then he looked up at you and Sam, and his mouth curved into that sharp-edged smile you'd grown to hate.

"Well, well. Family reunion." His voice was mocking, but his eyes lingered on you longer than necessary, drinking in details like he was memorizing them. "Miss me, sweetheart?"

The pet name hit you like a physical blow, carrying echoes of bedtime stories and pancake breakfasts and lazy Sunday mornings when the world felt safe. "Every day."

You meant it, and something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, or something that might have been pain. But it was gone so quickly you might have imagined it, replaced by that familiar blank mask.

Sam moved to the table where he'd laid out the ritual components, his movements precise and deliberate. Purified blood, holy water, Latin incantations written in his careful handwriting. "We're going to cure you, Dean. Bring you back."

"Back to what?" Dean laughed, and the sound was bitter. "Back to being a pathetic, broken shell of a man who couldn't save anyone who mattered? Back to carrying the weight of every failure, every death, every time I let the people I love down?" His eyes found yours again. "Including her?"

"You never let me down," you said quietly.

"Didn't I?" His voice dropped to a whisper, intimate and cruel. "I died, didn't I? Left you alone with Sammy to pick up the pieces. Some father I turned out to be."

"You died saving people. You died being a hero."

"I died being a fool. And look what it got me. Look what it got you." He gestured with his chin toward your face, and you realized he was cataloging the changes six weeks on the road had wrought. The weight you'd lost, the shadows under your eyes, the way you held yourself like someone expecting a blow. "You look like hell, baby girl."

The endearment shouldn't have warmed you, coming from this stranger wearing your father's face, but it did. Even twisted by demonic influence, even spoken with casual cruelty, it sounded like home.

Sam started the first injection, sliding the needle into Dean's arm with practiced ease. The purified blood went in slow and steady, and for a moment nothing happened. Then Dean's entire body convulsed, back arching off the chair as a scream tore from his throat—raw and agonized and so human it made you want to cover your ears.

When the convulsion passed, he was panting, sweat beading on his forehead, but his eyes were still that flat, demonic black.

"This is what you want?" he gasped, looking between you and Sam. "This is what you call saving me?"

"Yes," Sam said firmly, preparing the second syringe with steady hands.

"I'm not asking you," Dean snarled, then his gaze found yours. The black faded from his eyes, replaced by green so familiar and beloved that it made your breath catch. "I'm asking her. Is this what you want, baby girl? You want to torture your old man?"

The question was designed to hurt, to make you doubt, to drive a wedge between you and Sam. But underneath the manipulation, you heard something else—a desperate plea, though you couldn't tell if it was coming from the demon or from your father.

"I want you back," you said, voice barely above a whisper.

"I am back. This is me now. Better me." His eyes flashed black for just a second before returning to green. "Stronger. Not weighed down by all that guilt and self-hatred and the crushing, endless need to save everyone."

"You killed people."

"I killed bad people. People who had it coming." His voice was reasonable, almost gentle, like he was explaining something to a child. "The world is full of monsters, sweetheart. I just stopped pretending to be better than them."

"You left me." The words came out strangled, pulled from some deep place you hadn't wanted to examine. "You looked at me with those black eyes and you left me."

Something in his expression shifted, and for just a moment the mask slipped completely. You saw pain flicker across his features, genuine and raw and so familiar it made your heart clench. "I took you with me."

"No, you didn't. You took my body, but you left me behind a long time ago."

The truth of it hung between you, heavy and inescapable. Because it wasn't just about the demon, was it? Even before he'd died, even before the Mark of Cain had started eating him alive, Dean had been pulling away. Building walls, pushing you toward Sam, making decisions about your life without including you in them.

"You were already leaving," you continued, the words coming faster now, like a dam had burst. "Maybe not physically, but emotionally. You were so busy protecting me from the life that you forgot to let me live it. And when you died... part of me was almost relieved, because at least then I knew where I stood."

Dean stared at you, something like shock written across his features. In the corner of your vision, you could see Sam's hands pause in their preparations, clearly not expecting this turn in the conversation.

"You think I wanted to leave you?" Dean's voice was rough, stripped of its usual mocking tone.

"I think you thought it would be easier for everyone if you did."

"Jesus, kid..." He slumped back in the chair, looking suddenly exhausted. "You really believe that?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore. The dad I knew would never have taken me on a road trip with the King of Hell. But he also would never have sat by while innocent people got hurt." You wiped at your eyes, frustrated by the tears you couldn't seem to stop. "So either you're not him, or he wasn't who I thought he was."

Sam administered the second injection, and this time Dean's scream was your name, torn from his throat like it was being ripped out of his soul. The sound echoed off the bunker walls, and you had to grip the edge of the table to keep from running to him.

~ Hour Three ~

The process was taking longer than Sam had anticipated. Each injection of purified blood seemed to chip away at the demon's hold, but it was like watching someone try to break down a wall with a teaspoon. Slow, methodical, exhausting work that left everyone drained.

Dean alternated between periods of lucidity and demonic rage, sometimes mid-sentence. One moment he'd be talking to you in his normal voice, asking about school or whether you'd been eating enough, and the next his eyes would go black and he'd be describing in graphic detail what he planned to do to you and Sam once he got free.

"The worst part," he said during one of the quiet moments, sweat-slicked hair plastered to his forehead, "isn't the pain. It's that I can feel him in here." He tapped his temple with a shaking finger. "Your precious daddy. He's watching all of this, and he's proud of you."

Tears burned your eyes. "Stop."

"He wants to tell you he's sorry. Sorry for leaving, sorry for putting you through this, sorry for being such a monumental screw-up that he got himself turned into a demon in the first place." Dean's smile was cruel now, designed to inflict maximum damage. "But he can't tell you himself because I won't let him. Every time he tries to surface, I push him back down."

"Dean, enough," Sam warned, but Dean ignored him.

"Want to know what that feels like? It feels like drowning. Like being held underwater while someone you love is just out of reach, screaming your name." His voice dropped to a whisper. "He's been drowning for six weeks, sweetheart. And it's all your fault."

You stood up abruptly, chair scraping against the concrete floor. "I need some air."

"Running away?" Dean called after you, his voice carrying that familiar note of disappointment that had haunted your childhood. "Just like daddy taught you, right? When things get too hard, you run."

You spun around, fury blazing in your chest hot enough to burn away the tears. "I'm not running. I'm here, aren't I? I'm watching Sam pump you full of purified blood while you scream, and I'm staying because that's what Dad would do. He never gave up on family, and neither will I."

For the first time since this whole nightmare had started, Dean looked genuinely surprised. The cruel mask slipped, revealing something vulnerable underneath.

"Even when that family disappoints you?" he asked quietly, and for a moment his voice was just Dean's voice—no demonic undertones, no mocking edge, just your father asking a question he was afraid to hear the answer to.

"Especially then."

Sam followed you out and closed the door behind you both. You stood there in the hallway in silence, you staring at the ground trying to push down the overwhelming tide of emotions threatening to break free, and Sam looking down at you with concern written across his features. He knew better than to ask how you were holding up—you'd just say you were fine, deflect with that Winchester stubbornness you'd inherited in spades.

"How about we go get some food," he suggested gently.

You just nodded, not trusting your voice, and he wrapped a protective arm around your shoulders, guiding you toward the kitchen. The walk felt endless, your legs shaky with exhaustion and adrenaline crash. Sam kept his pace slow, matching your unsteady steps.

In the kitchen, he busied himself making sandwiches while you sat at the war room table, staring at nothing. The normalcy of it—Sam cutting crusts off bread the way he knew you liked, the soft sounds of domestic life—felt surreal after hours in that concrete dungeon watching your father scream.

"Eat," Sam said quietly, setting a plate in front of you. Peanut butter and jelly, cut diagonally, with a glass of milk. Kid food. Comfort food. The kind of thing Dean used to make when you were small and the world felt too big and scary.

You managed a few bites before your stomach rebelled, the bread turning to ash in your mouth. Sam didn't comment, just ate his own sandwich and kept you company in the heavy silence.

After what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes, Sam stood up. "Come on. Time for the next dose."

Your stomach dropped, but you nodded and followed him back down to the dungeon. The ritual wasn't over—wouldn't be over for hours yet. Dean needed regular injections of purified blood to completely burn the demon out of his system, and missing even one could allow the darkness to regain its hold.

Sam opened the door to the dungeon and stepped inside, then stopped so abruptly you nearly walked into his back.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was tight with alarm.

The chair sat empty, restraints hanging loose, iron chains pooled on the floor like discarded jewelry. There was no sign of struggle, no indication of how he'd gotten free. He'd simply... vanished.

"No, no, no," you breathed, your heart hammering against your ribs. "He was getting better. His eyes were green, he was himself—"

"The cure isn't finished," Sam said grimly, hand moving automatically to the weapon at his belt. "He's still partially demon. Still dangerous."

A sound echoed from somewhere deeper in the bunker—footsteps, slow and deliberate, like someone taking their time. Like someone who wasn't afraid of being caught.

Sam immediately stepped in front of you, blocking your body with his own. "Stay behind me. Do not leave my side no matter what happens."

"Sam—"

"Promise me." His voice brooked no argument. "Promise me you won't try to reach him if he... if he's not himself."

The footsteps were getting closer now, echoing off the bunker's concrete walls. Steady. Patient. Hunting.

"I promise," you whispered, though every instinct screamed at you to run toward the sound, to find your father and bring him home.

The footsteps stopped.

The silence stretched, oppressive and thick, until you could hear your own heartbeat thundering in your ears. Sam's breathing was controlled but tense, his grip white-knuckled on the blade's handle.

Then Dean's voice drifted through the bunker, sing-song and cheerful in a way that made your skin crawl.

"Sammy? Sweetheart? Where'd you go? I thought we were having such a nice family bonding session."

It was Dean's voice, but wrong—too light, too playful. Like he was enjoying a game instead of recovering from being a full on demon. Sam and you slowly started moving toward the electrical room.

"He sounds..." you started to whisper, but Sam cut you off with a sharp gesture.

"Different," Sam finished quietly. "Not fully demon, but not himself either. The cure isn't complete."

"Come on out," Dean called, his voice echoing from multiple directions now as he moved through the bunker's corridors. "I promise I won't bite. Much."

A shadow flickered past the doorway, there and gone so quickly you might have imagined it. Sam tensed, raising his blade, but nothing appeared.

"He's playing with us," you realized.

"Yeah. The question is how much of it is him and how much is..." Sam trailed off as he heard footsteps coming closer. You guys got to the power box and while he was looking for the right switch, you stood on guard, never taking your eyes off the door.

Then the lights went out.

Emergency lighting kicked in a second later, bathing everything in hellish red. "Okay come on," Sam whispered as he went in front of you, leading the way out the door and down the hallway.

"Smart guys... locking the place down." Dean's voice echoed in the hallway. He was yelling things through the halls. Things that were meant for you and Sam but you blocked it out and tried to put your focus on where Sam was going. You saw Dean go in the electricity room and at first you wanted to run to him but you remembered what Sam said.

Sam put his hand out to you, a signal to wait behind the wall. Sam quickly ran and shut the door, locking Dean inside. "That's your big move?" You heard your dad say through the door.

"Listen to me, Dean! We were getting close okay? Just let me finish the treatments." A chill ran down your spine after a few seconds of silence which made you step out from your hiding space to see what was happening.

Then he started breaking the door with the hammer. Breaking it piece by piece.

"There you are," he said pleasantly. "Miss me?"

His eyes flickered between green and black in the light, the internal war playing out visibly across his features. One moment his expression was soft with concern, the next sharp with predatory hunger.

"Dean, stop!"

"I'm conflicted," Dean admitted with a laugh that sounded almost normal. "Part of me wants to hug my baby girl and tell her everything's going to be okay. The other part wants to see how many pieces I can cut you both into before you stop screaming."

He took a step forward, movement fluid and controlled. "Guess which part is winning?"

"The part that loves us," you said, stepping out from behind Sam despite his protective gesture. "That's the part that's always been strongest in you."

"You think?" Dean's head tilted further, an unnaturally sharp angle. "Because I've got to tell you, kiddo, the violence feels pretty compelling right now. Clean. Simple. No more messy emotions, no more guilt, no more responsibility."

"That's not you talking."

"Isn't it?" He was closer now, just outside Sam's reach. "How do you know where the demon ends and I begin? Maybe this is who I really am underneath all the self-sacrifice and noble suffering. Maybe this is what I've always wanted to be."

Sam shifted slightly, angling himself to keep Dean from getting a clear path to you. "Because you fought it. Even when you were fully turned, you kept me safe. That wasn't the demon—that was you."

"Or maybe I just wasn't ready to break my favorite toy yet."

The words were designed to hurt, to provoke a reaction, but you could see the struggle in Dean's eyes. Green fighting black, love warring with hunger, your father battling something that wanted to wear his skin.

"You're fighting it right now," you observed. "I can see you in there, Dad. You're still fighting."

"Fighting's exhausting," Dean said, and for a moment his voice was purely his own—tired and strained and so very human. "It would be so much easier to just... let go."

"Easy isn't what makes you who you are," Sam said. "You've never chosen easy. Not once in your entire life."

"Maybe it's time to start."

Dean lunged toward you. Sam intercepted him halfway, the two of them crashing into the wall hard enough to crack the concrete. They got back up and Dean took the first swing with the hammer but it got stuck in the wall. Sam swiftly got up and placed the blade underneath Deans chin.

"Sam!" You yelled out, scared that if he made one move it might actually kill your dad.

Dean just chuckled. He didn't look scared at all. "Well look at you. Come on. Do it." Sam's eyes were shaking just like your body was. Until you saw Castiel slowly come up behind Dean. Sam slowly put down the blade surprising Dean slightly but he got his act back together with a smirk.

Dean was about to lunge at Sam but Castiel quickly wrapped his arms around Dean, holding him back. Dean's dark black eyes came back out as he struggled against Castiel's strength. "It's over." Cas said. Sam took a few steps back to you and wrapped you in a hug. "It's over, Dean." All you heard was Dean scream in his demonic tone and then silence.

When you turned your head to Castiel and your dad, you saw him knocked out in Castiel's arms making you finally able to breathe.

"We need to get him back to the dungeon," Sam said, his voice still shaky from adrenaline. "Finish this before he wakes up."

Castiel nodded, effortlessly carrying Dean's unconscious form back through the bunker's corridors. You followed behind them, your legs feeling like jelly but somehow still moving. The emergency lighting cast everything in that hellish red glow, making the whole scene feel like a nightmare you couldn't wake up from.

Back in the dungeon, they secured Dean to the chair with heavy iron chains this time—no more taking chances with supernatural restraints that could fail. His face looked peaceful in unconsciousness, more like your father than he had since this whole ordeal began.

"This is it," Sam said, preparing the final injection with hands that were steadier now. "The last dose. This should burn out whatever's left of the demon."

"And if it doesn't work?" you asked, though you weren't sure you wanted to hear the answer.

"It will work," Castiel said with quiet certainty. "It has to."

Sam administered the injection slowly, watching as the purified blood entered Dean's system. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then Dean's body gave a gentle convulsion, like he was having a bad dream rather than fighting for his soul.

The three of you waited in tense silence as the last traces of demonic essence burned away. When Dean's eyes finally fluttered open, they were completely, purely green—no black veins, no emptiness, just the familiar color you'd missed so desperately.

"Hey," he said weakly, his voice rough but completely his own. He looked around at the three of you with confusion and growing awareness. "What... how long was I out?"

"Long enough," Sam said, relief evident in his voice as he began unlocking the restraints.

Dean's gaze found yours, and his expression crumpled with guilt and pain. "Baby girl... did I hurt you? Please tell me I didn't—"

"You didn't," you said quickly, moving to his side as Sam freed his hands. "You kept me safe, even when you weren't yourself. You brought me home."

When the last restraint fell away, Dean pulled you into a fierce hug, his arms shaking as he held you close. "I'm so sorry," he whispered against your hair. "For all of it. For dying, for leaving you, for putting you through this nightmare."

"You're home now," you said, holding him just as tightly. "That's all that matters. You're home."

And for the first time in months, that actually felt true.

But healing wasn't that simple. Couldn't be, after everything that had happened. You caught him staring at his hands sometimes, flexing his fingers like he was making sure they were his own.

The first time he tried to make you breakfast—such a normal, domestic gesture that it made your throat tight—his hands shook so badly he dropped the pan. He stood there staring at the mess on the kitchen floor like it was a personal failure, like he'd somehow proven he was too broken to take care of you.

"It's okay," you said, kneeling to help clean up the spilled eggs. "We'll make toast instead."

"I used these hands to kill people," he said quietly, not looking at you. "How am I supposed to use them to take care of you?"

"The same way you always have. One day at a time."

He looked at you then, really looked, and you could see him cataloging all the ways the past six weeks had changed you. The weight you'd lost, the new lines of worry around your eyes, the way you held yourself like someone who'd learned not to expect comfort.

"I failed you," he said.

"No, you didn't. You kept me alive. You brought me home. Even when you weren't yourself, you never let anything really bad happen to me." You paused, choosing your words carefully. "Some part of you was always fighting to protect me."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I'm still here. Because I still trust you. Because when I look at you, I don't see a monster—I see my dad, who's been through hell and came back because he loves me too much to stay gone."

Dean was quiet for a long moment, processing this. Then he nodded slowly and reached for another