Supernatural 1. Chapter 1: Unconcious Selection

**Opening Note: **Hi there! Welcome and thanks for giving this little experiment a go! This story was previously posted under the same title, however, I found that I wanted to take it in a slightly different direction from what I had written in the previous version and rather than going back and re-editing it, I decided to redo certain aspects that weren't necessarily fitting my original vision and re-upload altogether.

If you're anything like me and want to know what you're committing your time to before you begin reading, this is a Dean/OFC story. There will be romance and the classic "trapped in TV land/trapped in another world" tropes are what this story heavily relies upon. The story technically begins following the conclusion of episode 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked, but is set into motion with 4.01 Lazarus Rising. The idea is to follow this story through with seasons 4 and 5 of Supernatural. I'll be honest, the plan is to make it pretty romance-heavy because I'm not interested in rewriting episodes of the show just to jam my original character in them; I'm interested in developing the relationship between Dean and said OC while exploring how it affects the unhealthy dynamic between Sam and Dean.

If you hate Mary Sues, then hopefully you will find yourself enjoying this piece because that is the biggest thing I've tried to avoid here, in addition to capturing Sam and Dean's characters accurately. This is my first time writing a fanfiction in general so I'm expecting there to be slips and definitely aspects of this story that could be heavily improved, but hey, first time for everything right? (Also, I am doing some beta searching and if anybody has any recommendations/would like to beta then that would be wonderful, as I do wish to put out my _best _work possible.)

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Supernatural, its characters or anything associated with it. I only own the protagonist of this story and have merely taken liberties with the universe Eric Kripke created.

**Trigger Warning: **Much like the show, this story does heavily reference and explore religion within some chapters and while the female protagonist of this story is agnostic, the character does contemplate the idea of religion and the beliefs of different religions during Dean Winchester's time in hell and following the introduction of the canon character, Castiel, within this story. Religion vs. science is also a recurrent theme – if exploring the reality of such things makes you uncomfortable, then this story may have a similar effect. This story is not, however, about exploring either religion or science. The themes are present due to the nature of the show and the protagonist's own background.

Specific triggers for this chapter are descriptions of torture, mutilation, gore, etc., as Dean's time in hell will be described.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1: Unconscious Selection<strong>

_August 1__st__, 2008_

_Toronto, Ontario_

I honestly regret a lot of things on a daily basis. I mean, by the time I'm in bed at night I can list the top ten most regrettable deeds I've committed in just one day, but hell even I couldn't have predicted _this. _Admittedly, I am an embarrassing person. That much I can and am willing to accept. My tongue works before my brain does and I have a bad tendency to phrase things in an awkward or insensitive manner and only realize how bad I sound after I have already said them. Just about any time I open my mouth is followed by me wishing there was some kind of ctrl + alt + delete button for life and most of my day is spent verbal backspacing. I sure don't make the best choices either but does that really warrant the crap my brain has flung at me these past three months?

Out of all the bad choices I made, this one definitely takes the cake for the worst one. Boy do I regret watching that stupid show. I mean there were some pretty heavy influences, but neither my friends nor my mother taped me to a chair and forced me to commit the awful chore of having to watch two hot men driving across the country in a '67 Chevy, slaying whatever supernatural creature crossed their paths. Nope, that decision was all me. Mom might have made me watch the pilot with her, but I'm the moron who finished the other 59 episodes that were out and liked them. Definitely nobody forced me to care about the protagonists, yet here I am. An embarrassingly dedicated Dean girl who allowed the television to get to her brain – literally.

The Bible calls Hell a conscious torment that is eternal and irreversible. The Quran states that Hell is a real place, not a state of mind nor a spiritual entity. The horrors, pain, anguish, and punishment a soul faces within its fiery depths are all real. Religion has always been a huge part of my family and the very possibility of eternal damnation ingrained into my mind by my so very conservative parents. Yet there was no Book of Revelation or Psalms that could have prepared me for what I saw in my dreams every time my eyes closed. Each night the same picture would paint itself within my unconscious mind. A prison made of bone and flesh; of blood and fear.

Like any other fan, I was pretty torn about my favourite character being ripped to shreds and sent to Hell. However, I doubt many other fans actually have nightmares about what happens to said favourite character, in Hell, each night. I keep blaming it on either the show, my intense dedication to fictional characters, or my brain. In all honesty, I don't know what else to think of this whole ordeal. It took me about 0.2 seconds to fall in love with the classic rock obsessed martyr as he hit on his younger brother's girlfriend and proclaimed his love for The Smurfs in those first ten minutes of the show, but even _I _wasn't that dedicated? Sure, my tumblr mostly consisted of his face and text posts proclaiming my adoration for him, but he had never made an appearance in my dreams prior to the season three finale. Nothing like this had _ever _ happened before and I practically drowned myself in fiction, from the TARDIS to the world of Ice and Fire, and never has my mind conjured up any form of unconscious thoughts or images about the characters in those worlds.

It all began with that season finale. Sleep had quickly become something I dreaded. What was once a relief from the hours spent studying and drowning myself in textbooks had now become something I tried my best to evade. Peacefulness is a feeling that is even more foreign to me nowadays, along with a good night's rest. For three consecutive months, I've drowned cups of coffee like shots and popped stimulants as if I would not live to see the next day. No way is any of this helping my health or my academics, but what other choice did I have? I would become a prisoner to my own mind each time I lost consciousness and it is always the same cycle each night. The psychoactive drugs lose their effect and the caffeine in my system fades as my eyes lose yet another battle.

In my unconscious state, I drift back to that awful place. Nothing about it ever changes aside from the level of fear that arises within me with each visit I unwillingly make. My ears hear the screams of the tortured before I see the long dark chains that are connected to the bodies from which the voices come. The noise of the red sky is thunderous – but never loud enough to drown out the cries of agony – and the sky itself is always full of lightning and chains, while the poisonous green fog in the air is suffocating and the strong scent of sulphur overcomes my senses. It is always the same, this setting of my nightmares, as well as the man within them. Interestingly enough, the show never showed much of Hell, other than a single image of Dean attached to multiple chains, fear marring his features. I try to push this little fact to the very back of my mind because it certainly doesn't help the theory of my nightmares being induced by what I've seen on the show.

His green eyes – that were striking once and one of my favourite parts of him, I can't help but think – are clouded with pain and there must be more blood on his body than in it. Yet the blood and the pain cannot mar the beauty he possesses. Were it not for the fact that hooks are in his ankles, wrists and chest, or that his shoulders stretch far beyond what is physically possible, I imagine I would find myself staring at him for entirely different reasons. The same entranced expression on my face that would be present each time his face graced my television screen would be the expression I would wear, yet the blood and hooks and torture can't disfigure his appearance. Nobody _enjoys _watching their favourite character hurt is the justification I would give myself every time Dean endured a stab wound and I felt the pain as if I had been the one harmed.

The two sub-categories of torture are physiological methods and physical methods: in my dreams, I have seen all two thousand and sixty five physical methods that may be used to make a man's insides his outsides. Each one is demonstrated upon him. The other man, who calls himself Alastair, mercilessly tortures Dean without hesitation. He's new. I can tell that Alastair is a demon from his black eyes, yet I have never been able to understand why he's a recurring character in my nightmares. The demon rips Dean apart and then puts him back together at the end of each "session", only to tear him apart once more. Alastair is not a character that has ever been on the show and why my brain would conjure up such an awful apparition with the sole purpose of hurting somebody I loved – no matter his status as very fictional and definitely not real – is beyond me. Some scientists say that dreams are our unconscious desires making themselves known to us or our most private fantasies. I have no desire to hurt Dean and the only fantasies I have involving him are of a very different nature.

Despite his obvious pain, Dean merely howls a single name at the sky with each incision inflicted upon him. I can only watch with an ache in my chest and an increasing need to hug Dean close to me, while whispering in his ear that Sam is safe and alive on Earth.

* * *

><p>"Have you changed your mind yet?"<p>

"No."

* * *

><p>Time passes differently within the Hell my subconscious has conjured up. This is something I realize halfway through the second month. It is actually one hundred and five times faster there than it is on Earth. This makes three days on Earth roughly equivalent to a year in Hell. I did the math. For twenty years I saw Dean get tortured in unimaginable ways before I realized how long he had truly been in the Pit and the thought creates a pit of unease within my stomach for some odd reason. Nothing I ever saw on Supernatural ever made my stomach knot this way and hell, I've read every A Song of Ice and Fire book to date. That world is crueller and yet I don't blink an eye as I read those books. Perhaps my adoration for Dean as a character was merely stronger?<p>

Tonight marks three months since my recurrent nightmares began and in Dean's case, thirty years spent in hell. Thirty years spent watching him fall apart and being built up again to only be torn down once more. Dean has never seen me and is not even acutely aware of my existence. At least, that's my hypothesis. I see the hooks pulling at him; I hear the taunts that leave Alastair's mouth and my protests ring loud in my ears, but never his. It's as if a two way mirror separates us. I am invisible to him as much as he is visible to me. There are times when I will be directly standing behind Alastair and Dean's eyes never hold any recognition of the fact that a stranger is standing behind his torturer, begging him to stop.

Each night it is the same cycle. Dean is strung up like a prisoner and Alastair is the predator who stalks towards his prey with a glint in his eyes that makes shivers run down my spine.

It baffles me – it truly does – as to why my subconscious would create such a terrifying individual. Henry David Thoreau stated once that "dreams are the touchstones of our characters." I'm not in a cult or anything, my horror movie choices are limited and I definitely have no interest in torturing _anybody_. Despite this, my dreams were full of a stranger inflicting pain upon somebody I adored. I wonder what Thoreau would say about me.

The only new development in my dreams has been Alastair's offer, which he now makes at the end of every day. Dean would be granted freedom for his torture if he would start torturing souls himself. The very thought of Dean doing to others what Alastair does to him makes bile crawl up my esophagus. No. The word repeats like a mantra inside my head and I tell myself that he would never. If there was one thing that Dean Winchester was, it was a well-intentioned extremist. The one thing that three seasons of Supernatural had taught me is that Dean is willing to do whatever it takes to kill demons and monsters as long as it means he saved somebody in the end. _Saving people, hunting things. The family business. _I had faith in Dean; he has refused Alastair for thirty years, his resolve won't break now. These are the words I tell myself each time Alastair makes the offer and they sound much more convincing than they feel.

Tonight marks three months of my nightmares and thirty years of Dean's torture. Anxiety has riddled me since I woke this morning and I am unable to rid myself of the feeling that something terrible will happen tonight.

* * *

><p>The day had started off more peacefully than others, I realize wearily as I drown my morning coffee. The liquid does little for me now, but I haven't been able to give up my dependency on it just yet. Since my dreams had started, I would wake up screaming more often than not and sweat would have drenched my clothes. Thank god I wasn't one of those living-at-home university students because there was no possible way to explain my current state to my family. What was I supposed to say? <em>'Hey mom, that show you showed me? Yeah, I watched the rest of it and now I have nightmares about the main character in Hell!' <em>I would be lucky if I _only _ended up with a therapist with that one and knowing my superstitious mother, she would probably think somebody cast the evil eye on me and have a complete exorcism performed. These nightmares were the entire reason I had avoided visiting home this summer – it's easier to wake up screaming your lungs out when you're alone. I had lied about wanting to take the summer for tuition and spend it studying for the MCAT. The only good thing to come out of my deteriorating mental state was that I was staying up longer and studying more during that time.

This morning, there was no screaming and only a thin layer of fluid had dried on my skin by the time I had pushed back my desk chair. It had been half-way around the second month that I had completely renounced sleeping on the bed, opting instead to spend my nights drowning coffee and studying until my body decided it couldn't go on. I could have sworn that I had once again passed out in my desk chair with my head on my biology textbook, yet I woke up in my bed. It was almost peaceful, a feeling that I haven't been familiar with since these night terrors began.

These little changes in habit and causes of confusion should have set off one or more warning bells within my mind, but I let the alarming thoughts go much easier than I should have and reveled instead in the fact that my nightmare the previous night had been rather short-lived before it completely faded to black.

My days are no more peaceful than my nights. In the darkness of the night I see Alastair carving up Dean in every way humanly and inhumanly possible, while during the light of the day the unimaginable pain in Dean's lifeless eyes flashes before my own and his cries echo in my ears.

I keep reassuring myself repeatedly that nothing my brain showed me at night was real. This should be the easy part, considering the man in the starring role of my nightmares wasn't real and his actor was probably hitting up cons or something in LA; not being tortured in Hell. I felt stupid for even considering the possibility in the first place, but stupidity I blamed on fear and fear I blamed on shock. The first night, with the dream that began it all, my shock had stupefied me to the point where any screams I might have wanted to let out were caught in my throat and all I could do was watch. As Dean struggled against the chains and the hooks and cried out for Sam again and again, I stood there frozen in shock, but that first night was also the easiest to recover from. The scene of Dean attached to chains, it was one that _was _in the show and I was able to blame it on the shock induced from the episode. The rest of the nightmares have been, and are, much harder to recover from. Its a lot harder to admit that the screwed up things you're seeing were created by your brain rather somebody else's.

Researching into dream psychology became one of the healthier habits I have obtained out of this whole ongoing ordeal, as I pondered the purpose of my dreams. There was none, as far as I'm concerned, and some research agreed with me. Other research told me I was an idiot and that all dreams had a function. Whether that function be coping or warning. This one I couldn't explain. What possible reason could there be for me having nightmares about somebody that I knew was not real? I never had nightmares about Chucky the Doll and that movie freaked me out more than any episode of Supernatural ever has. Why couldn't I be a normal person and have nightmares about the MCAT like every other student taking that exam?

* * *

><p>Dean Winchester refused Alastair for ten thousand nine hundred fifty-seven point three days before he broke.<p>

* * *

><p>The revolting scent of sulphur invades my senses before I even open my eyes. It is always the same scene; the last thing I remember is reading a passage in my textbook on amino acids, the next everything is black and then I am standing. I'm always standing before Dean, but he is never aware of my presence. Sometimes I arrive before the torture begins, times when Dean's head is hung low and tears drip down his face, and other times I arrive when Dean is already bloody and bruised. Today it is the former. His arms are strung up and his head is hung too low for me to see those magnificent green eyes that have lost their life. Scarlet stains his shirt – one spot in his chest, another in shoulder and the further I go down his body, the more blood I see where the hooks meet his skin. I never know which is worse: the chains or the table. Alastair straps him down sometimes, but he never covers Dean's mouth. He enjoys hearing him scream and cry out for Sam too much.<p>

For a rare moment it is only Dean and I in the private torture chamber. No Alistair, no screaming souls begging for peace. Of all the sarcastic text posts I reblogged and made on tumblr of what I would do if I ever met Dean Winchester hypothetically, I never imagined that it would be in this manner. Of course, Dean doesn't know I am there. He never does. At times like these, where Alastair hasn't arrived yet, whenever I enter this place I can never look at Dean. Not in the eye, despite his ignorance to my presence. My feet shift and I nervously rub my arm; I always feel too much like an invasive outsider, which is ridiculous considering these nightmares are figments of my own imagination and brain.

The sound of heavy footsteps meets both of our ears and while Dean keeps his head down, I turn due to my own anxiety. He has arrived and he is going to hurt Dean again. Whether it's the screech of the old door opening that makes me cringe or the thought of Dean being in pain again, I don't know. I do know that I fear those awful eyes as much as he does and hate those hands that have inflicted so much pain upon an already broken soldier. '_His smile is the worst_,' I think to myself as he stalks into the room like a predator, that arrogant smirk I know all too well gracing his features and a rusted knife twirling between his fingers. Dean winces and so do I; we both know what is coming.

"Ready for another day, Dean?"

The question is too casual, as if he's discussing something as insignificant as the weather. Dean usually responds to Alastair's taunts with his own verbal attacks, the only defense he has left here – they've already used Sam against him – but today there isn't even a disgusted smirk in response. Dean stays silent while my heartbeat picks up its pace. Somewhere in my mind it briefly registers that my hands are sweating and slipping against one another, but I can't breathe. There is no oxygen for me to take in, only one word ringing through my head like a mantra. _No, no, no, no._

Alastair's voice lowers to a whisper as his lips close in on Dean's ears and I barely hear what he is saying over the sound of blood rushing in my ears, but I don't have to strain my hearing to know what it is. It's the same speech he gives Dean each day, the one with the taunting and constant reminders that he was damned.

"You know that refusing me does you nothing. Nobody is coming to save you. Not Sammy, not daddy. You can continue saying no, but nothing good will come of it."

Chills going up and down my back make me shiver and there is numbness in my shaking hands as anger flares up within me once he begins tracing the knife along Dean's jugular vein. He pricks it and the blood begins to trail out like water out of a cracking dam as Dean's eyes begin to close from the lack of oxygen. _I can't watch this anymore_, but I can't bring myself to look away either. _He's hurt, he's hurt._ The injuries gained here do little to sever the body in any way; I've learned that from my time spent watching Alastair torture Dean. The demon knows the human body as well as I do. He knows every weak spot, which muscles to puncture and which bones to break. I have seen him practice all of his knowledge on Dean, but the fact that Dean's body will regenerate itself never stops me from wincing each time Alastair moves closer to him. Be it with or without a weapon of torture.

"What do you say, Dean? This can all stop. I'll never touch you again." He trails the knife against Dean's left cheek now. "All you have to do is accept your turn." Another cruel smile. "You know you deserve it, after the thirty years you've spent on the rack." The knife is no longer touching his face, instead, Alastair is extending it towards him.

_No, no, no! _

My mind is screaming and my heart is racing. I know it before Dean responds. _T__hey've broken him_.

Dean does not speak nor does he raise his head to meet Alastair's eyes. Words are caught in my throat once more and the fear blooms in my chest as Dean slowly raises his hand and grabs on to the hilt of the knife. I no longer think about my racing heart – I'm surprised that nobody else can hear its rhythm drowning out the sound of everything else –, but the terror overcoming my body as it overrules any other senses I possess. This time, despite the frog caught in my throat, I can't hold back the scream. Not anymore.

The piercing sound rips through the air before I know that I am the one making it.

I can't remember the exact moment my mouth opened and the sound left my vocal cords, but I do remember a distinct feeling of glass breaking, as if the two way mirror that separated me from them had broken. Both men turn to me in an instant and Dean's hand instantly drops from the knife, his head shooting up.

Now that I look back upon the moment, I realize that it was his eyes – I mean, it was everything, but it was his eyes first. Even in that awful place, his eyes had the power to make me feel as if I were being swallowed into a storm that spoke my name and swept me from my home and ate me up and knew every single one of my flaws, yet still managed to sing so loud that I couldn't block it out. For the first time in the three months I have been seeing this man, his eyes meet mine and I am no longer invisible to him. He didn't need to call me. Not then or ever because that first time that I met his gaze, I was already too far gone.

Shock clouds his features and I'm certain that our expressions must be mirroring one another's. Faces red from fear and eyes bugged out like some cartoon character. I am distinctly aware of the demon still in the room and the fact that I am still in some form of Hell, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm dreaming and despite every cell in my body calling for me to do so; every survival instinct evolution ever gave me telling me to look away and be aware of my environment, I can't tear my gaze from him.

"Well, now what do we have here?" It is the demon's menacing voice that finally forces my eyes away from Dean's, only to be met with terrifying black ones. Dean is not the only one who can see me, I realize, and my heartbeat increases once more if that is even possible at this point.

He begins stalking towards me with the rusty knife raised and a threatening look on his face and fear strikes my heart once more.

_Its just a dream, its just a dream. Count your fingers, its just a dream!_

I'm only half aware of the heavy panting that is echoing throughout the room as I quickly look down at my hands. _Five fingers on each hand. Ten in total. _No, no, no! There was always an unequal number of fingers in dreams! I shouldn't have been able to count them so easily, it was meant to be difficult while dreaming!

I can only look up in terror before the demon is in front of me and there is a burning pain in my left forearm.

* * *

><p><strong>Closing Note: <strong>Thank you for reading! I hope liked this chapter and where this story is headed. Feedback would be greatly appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2: Natural Selection

**Opening Note: **First off, I would like to thank everybody who reviewed, followed and favourited this story! I honestly didn't expect to receive such a positive response for the first chapter, but I'm glad that people are interested in this idea and that they're liking Daisy. _Big _shoutout to norfintroll, YoullJustHavetoDeal, MaddieLB and Isabella Poulous; my first reviewers! Your positive feedback and wonderful comments really made me feel better about this being my first story and encouraged me to write more, so thank you for that!

This chapter ended up being _very _different from what I initially planned, but I can't say I'm all that displeased with the final result as it did end up being quite smooth and I didn't want to prolong Dean and Daisy's "official" first meeting until the third chapter. I would really appreciate it if I could get some feedback on whether or not I'm making Dean sound like canon-Dean because that's what I'm mostly worried about. I'm not a member of the Supernatural writers' team, but I do want the characters to stay in character and relatively within the realm of realism with this.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Supernatural, its characters or anything associated with it. I only own the protagonist of this story and have merely taken liberties with the universe Eric Kripke created.

**Trigger Warning: **Much like the show, this story does heavily reference and explore religion within some chapters and while the female protagonist of this story is agnostic, the character does contemplate the idea of religion and the beliefs of different religions during Dean Winchester's time in hell and following the introduction of the canon character, Castiel, within this story. Religion vs. science is also a recurrent theme – if exploring the reality of such things makes you uncomfortable, then this story may have a similar effect. This story is not, however, about exploring either religion or science. The themes are present due to the nature of the show and the protagonist's own background.

Specific triggers for this chapter are descriptions of injuries, torture and cursing.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2: Natural Selection<strong>

_August 2__nd__, 2008_

_Toronto, Ontario_

I awoke with a gasp, my mind alert as images of Alastair flashed before my eyes. My heart continued to race like it had in the nightmare - if it could even be called that anymore - and suddenly the sheets around me became far too suffocating. I hear the blood pounding in my ears like a drum as I struggle against my soaked clothing and blankets, fighting to break out of the soft restraints as panic continued to set into my mind. _The fingers_. Why had I been able to count the fingers? The amount of clarity I had in that moment, when I was looking down at my hands with anxiety making its way through every cell in my body, still terrified me. Every research paper, book or article that I had ever read about dream psychology and nightmares mentioned the hands reality check. The instructions were simple and I had followed them to a tee, that much I was certain of.

Step 1:

Look at your hand or both hands and focus on them.

Step 2:

Count the fingers in your head or out loud. They may have the wrong number of fingers or the number may change as you attempt to count them. The fingers may also appear to be deformed and keep on changing when you look at them. Your hands could also be the wrong colour, or have other abnormalities.

Not only were my hands their usual brown colour, shape and size, but they also had the same amount of fingers as they usually did and they had stayed that way when I had attempted to count them. It had occurred to me quite early on, after the first couple of nights, that my nightmares were more vivid than any average dream I had ever had. In fact, according to ever reliable doctor – whose research I had read – claimed that my nightmares were unusually clear. I had passed this off as being a 1 in 100 thing that probably happened to like five percent of the population, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to convince myself now.

The burning pain in my left forearm was what tore my thoughts from this alarmingly not-so-little epiphany, although it did next-to-nothing to stop the tears from running down my already soaked face. Maybe it was the pain or maybe it was the demon-induced fear that still ran rampant through me, but I refused to look down and inspect the source of the fire making its way through my veins, opting to squeeze my eyes shut instead. It didn't escape me that the pain I was currently feeling was in the exact same area as it was in my dream. One of the very first things that I had been taught in my highschool Sports Medicine class was to never ignore pain. That was a rule that I lived by since tenth grade and what I told every fellow student who came to me with a sprain, fracture, or meningitis.

_Never ignore pain. _

Yet there I was, ignoring the pain as I attempted to push the burning sensation out of my mind. Instead, I blindly reach over in the dark – using my good arm – to turn on the lamp that rested on the small table beside my bed, frantically turning its knob. Relief flooded through me as the light simultaneously flooded the room. I barely registered what had occurred within those sixty seconds of my body leaving the mattress and my feet touching the cold floor. Usually, it was my lack of blood circulation that could be held accountable for my exaggerated response to the icy air that would stab every surface of my skin – penetrating each nerve until the very strands of DNA were frozen – upon exiting my bed.

This time, it was the memory of Alastair that froze me to the very core. It was one thing seeing a demon inflicting pain upon somebody I was very fond of and it was a whole other thing to finally be an active participant in his little game, but to be the one on the receiving end of his blade? Well that was just fifty shades of terrifying and the very memory had me frantically rubbing my shoulders in an attempt to stop the chills that made me shake as I paced my bedroom, the hair sticking to my sweaty forehead making it nearly impossible to see the foot of my bed in time.

"Shit!" I cursed out as the piercing pain made itself known in the big toe of my right foot. That was just what I needed on an already crappy night – to stub my toe.

An exasperated sigh left my lips as I pushed my hair back to assess the damage, _finally_ not feeling like I was _that_ blind without my glasses. My eyes travelled up from my now red toe, lips pursed in annoyance, only to be met with a sight that made me want to faint on the very spot. Crimson stained my sheets, bright and fresh. My first thought was to look down at my pajama pants before I remembered that my period had ended the day before. It was only when the burning pain in my forearm made an appearance again that I pried my eyes from my sheet and acknowledged my left arm for the first time in that night.

Where there had been smooth skin less than an hour ago was now home to a gruesome incision with blood trickling out of it and staining the skin around the wound.

* * *

><p>I mumbled a thank you to my friend as he handed me my cup of coffee, directing my attention back to the triglyceride structure of fats as I tapped my pen nervously against the textbook. It had been three nights since the bloody sheets and I was running out of ways to keep my mind off of the white bandage that covered nearly my entire forearm. I had tried everything: coffee, loud television and music and anything else that would normally keep me up, but the coffee had run out of my apartment and my friends were beginning to demand why I had been avoiding them for almost two months. How was I supposed to respond to that? <em>'Sorry. I've been a little busy having nightmares about our favourite character and being tortured by demons.' <em>Yeah, that would work out incredibly well. So here I was, swallowing what little pride I had left and socializing like a contributing member of society.

"Daisy?"

"Hm?"

"Are you okay? You've been distant since June…and quiet?"

Damn it. I guess I wasn't as discreet as I had originally thought after all. Sighing, I smile up at him as genuinely as I'm able to right now.

"Yeah, Seb. I'm fine. Just trying to study for the MCAT," I replied, tapping the textbook again. It wasn't completely a lie. I would be writing the test in September and anybody who knows me also knows that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my grades. It really isn't unusual to find the source of the bags under my eyes to be late nights spent studying. Still, he is unconvinced and I know it, but he doesn't push me and just nods.

The truth was that I was the farthest thing from okay. I was scared; frightened. No, frightened was an understatement. I was terrified, horrified, petrified and every other synonym for it in the Oxford English Dictionary. Seriously, _what the hell?_ Random cuts don't just appear on your skin. They especially don't appear on areas where scary demons cut you in your nightmares. Did that mean my nightmares weren't just some really weird lucid dreaming trip? _'But that would be impossible.' _I don't refute the idea of Hell, never have, but if I accepted there to be even a slight possibility of my nightmares not just being some weird hallucinations created by my brain, then that would imply the acceptance of demons. Furthermore it would imply the acceptance of Dean being real, but that was one thing I could not get behind. Dean Winchester was as fictional as they got. Jensen Ackles was real and he most definitely was not in Hell.

My nightmares were just nightmares and the cut on my arm was some anomaly. Therapy might actually be a good idea at this point. Or maybe I could speak to one of the Health Sciences majors who were going into psychiatry, in September. Either way, I couldn't accept there to be a reality behind what I would experience as soon as my thoughts stopped being voluntary.

* * *

><p>I managed to stay up for four days before I finally collapsed with my head buried in A Feast for Crows. I may have gone to sleep with dragons and direwolves in my mind, but they sure as hell weren't what I woke up to. No, what I woke up to was a sight I could have gone my entire life without seeing. A woman was strung up – her head hung low, tears in her eyes and cries leaving her mouth – as a figure that I knew all too well gleefully carved into her abdomen with a knife. I caught the scream before it could leave my mouth, clamping my hand over it as my own eyes widened in terror.<p>

'_I should have known. Holy crap, I should have known!'_

Last time, before I had distracted him with my scream, Dean had reached for the razor Alastair had offered him. I should have known that one interference from me wouldn't stop him from accepting it again. Or maybe these were my conscious thoughts creeping into my nightmares. From the moment Alastair had begun to make his offer a part of me had worried that Dean would actually accept it. Perhaps what I was seeing now was that fear coming to life because I knew there was a possibility that it could. Still, _I should have known_.

"Please stop," the woman sobbed. "I'll tell him you did everything you had to, just please stop!"

"Sorry lady, can't do that," Dean grinned in response. That was all I could take. My hand left my mouth and I threw up the contents of my stomach on the ground beside me. The sound of retching probably filled the room, if the two heads that snapped towards me– a sense of déjà vu was overtaking me at this point– and the four pairs of eyes that were burning holes into my crouched over form were any indication. Once I was sure that I had seen the last of my dinner from last night, through the water in my eyes I managed to look up just in time to see Dean ripping the hooks out of the woman's body as he proceeded to shove her towards a door.

"Get out," he growled and she didn't need to be told twice, as she ran back into what I presumed to be some kind of cage or something. That seemed like the kind of thing you would find in Hell.

My eyes widened as Dean abruptly spun on his heel and began stalking towards me. The expression on his face could only be described as murderous and the uneasy feeling made its way back into my stomach and as I began to back up. Big mistake, I realized as he now had me pinned against the wall. A fangirl's dream, really, but the Hell factor squashed any butterflies I might have felt at any other opportunity in which me, him and this position might have been involved.

"Who are you?" he demanded as he held the blade up to my throat. He didn't have the same broken or defiant expression on his face that I had been seeing for the past three months nor was he wearing the immaturely flirtatious grin that had adorned his face almost permanently before he entered the pit. As Dean Winchester stared down at me, there were zero traces of either his pleasant or depressant demeanor. His face had contorted to an expression that held an explosive and consuming anger; nostrils flared, eyes closed into slits and a growl erupting from his lips as he spoke. His furious eyes held a challenge in them, daring me to speak and promising to drive the blade he held in his hand through my throat if I gave the wrong answer.

The blade that had just sliced clean through another woman's abdomen only seconds before.

I swallowed any excess saliva that had accumulated in fear as the realization hit me like a truck. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of Dean Winchester. Dean Winchester – the man who was a good and righteous man, who had risked his life for strangers and traded his soul for his brother's. The same Dean Winchester who decreased his life expectancy with every slice of pie and sip of alcohol, who had wandering eyes and flirted with any woman who caught his eye, who was harmless to humans but a feared whisper among monsters. I now understood their fear, for Dean Winchester – this Dean Winchester – would not hesitate to follow through with the unspoken promise he was making with the razor in his hand. If I answered wrong, he would kill me.

Panic began to arise within me as it usually did during these nightly visits, but this time it wasn't induced out of fear for Dean. This time, the anxiety making its roots in my chest and blooming throughout my body was caused by Dean; it was born out of the fear I felt _because _of him and that thought was more difficult to wrap my head around than the idea that my nightmares might not just be dreams. I could feel my pulse beating in my ears, blocking out any sound other than our combined breathing. He stared at me in fury – nothing else – waiting for the answer I would give him as I stared right back at him. I couldn't tear my gaze from his, not because his fanfiction-green eyes were still the most beautiful pairs of human eyeballs that I had ever seen, but because I knew that the second this petrifying connection broke, I could die. I had never felt more certain of anything else in my life and so I kept staring, despite the fear in my heart and terror in every nerve, willing whatever this was to hold.

"_What the hell are you?!_" He roars and I physically flinch at the tone, my eyes snapping shut as I try to control my heavy breathing. Lord knows I did not do well under pressure. Of all the times I fantasized about being pinned against a wall by Dean Winchester, this scenario had not come to mind. Ever.

"D-Daisy…" I trail off nervously.

"Okay, what kind of a demon are you then, _Daisy _and why the hell are you following me?" He sneers, eyes still glaring at me in anger and suspicion.

"O-oh I'm – I'm not –"

Another growl erupts from his throat and I can't even enjoy him doing the jaw thing thanks to the fact that I might die in the next ten seconds. Death by Dean Winchester; what a way to go.

"I'm – I'm –" He presses the blade harder into my skin and I feel the first drop of blood making its way down to my chest as his scowl grows. For once, _I_ am at a loss for words. Nervously, I take as deep of a breath as the razor against my throat will allow, wincing as the scent of sulphur enters my nose and lungs, mixed with what little oxygen this place has to offer. This time, I start slowly though my voice still shakes with fear. "I'm a biomedical sciences student…" His brow furrows at my confession. "And I'm a human. A living human. Like still alive, you know? Not dead." I laugh nervously, trying to break the ice as much as the erm…_circumstances_ will allow. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. What a shocker.

"The hell do you mean you're still 'alive'? Everyone here is dead, sweetheart. Kind of comes along with the whole Hell thing," he sneers again, shaking his head at how ridiculous I must sound to him before his expression changes to a more forlorn one as he looks at me with more pity than anger. Nostrils no longer flaring, the scowl slowly disappears as he looks down at the ground. "Did uh – did Alastair send you?" His tone is quiet and I understand what he's asking as soon as the words are out. _'Are you my next victim? Do I have to torture you next?'_

"What?! No!" I am trembling now as the idea of a slow, painful death quickly passes through my mind and I don't even need to think it to know it; there is no way I could ever endure anything even minimal in comparison to what Dean or the woman Dean had been torturing mere seconds ago had. A quick death was much more preferable. Besides, I wasn't like him and every other soul down here. The wounds I acquired here were real, as Alastair had proven with the last and only souvenir he had ever given me. "I told you, I'm not from here! I – I don't belong here, okay?"

He chuckles almost sadly.

"Yeah, that's what they all say." His force on my throat weakens and his eyes cautiously dart between me and the blade before he completely drops it and steps back from me. This time, when his eyes meet mine once more, the green irises hold more question than suspicion. "How come they're letting you wander around like this? All the souls are supposed to be caged up."

I sigh in exasperation.

"I told you, I'm not dead. I'm still alive, okay? Soul and body are both intact."

"I think you're in denial, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that…" I shift my weight as I begin to twiddle my thumbs, feeling my cheeks heat up, which are no doubt a dark red by now. He raises an eyebrow, a small smirk on his amused face. I feel flustered and he knows it. I fail to realize that this is the first him he's smiled since he's ended up down here. "No, I'm not in denial…I…" How could I prove it to him? How was I supposed to convince him that I wasn't like the others here? It was pretty clear that he suspected me, considering my spectatorial role in his last two torture sessions. What reason did he have to trust me? I knew he was a cynic from the show and that he would call bullshit on any story I tried to feed him. Still, I had to try. Just because he had backed away didn't mean that blade wouldn't end up piercing my skin for a second time that night.

_I'm not like the others here…_

_I'm not like the others here…_

_I'm not like the others here…_

…

Jesus Christ, am I stupid or _what_?

Relief floods through me as I make my way towards him this time. He raises his eyebrows in question yet again as I come to a stop directly in front of him. Ignoring the look on his face, I pull up sleeve on my left arm, until it reaches the top edge of the white bandage, covering the wound Alastair gave me. Next, I reach over to the edge of his t-shirt and pull it up to his chest before his hand clamps around my wrists.

"Not really in the mood, darlin'," he states dryly. My head snaps up at his words and I stare at him in confusion for a moment before I realize what he means as heat floods my face again.

"_What?! _You think I? That I? N-no, god no! S-shut up!" I stammer nervously as my eyes become increasingly interested in the floor. "Just hold this up," I mumble, passing on the task of holding up his shirt to him and proceeding to unravel my bandage, too embarrassed to look him in the eye just yet. The bandage falls off my arm to reveal a cut, still bright red with the clotting process only having begun. "See this? Alastair, he cut me here last time…" I trail off, finally looking up with him. I don't want to bring up painful memories and torture him mentally after what has happened to him.

His face remains stoic and he nods.

"I heard you scream."

I snort.

"Pretty sure everybody did," I mumble to myself, though I'm sure he manages to hear. "Point is," I begin again, voice rising once more. "People here heal." I gesture to his uncovered abdomen to prove my point further. "I didn't. I woke up in my bed with a bloody arm _exactly _where he cut me. Believe me now?"

His face pales a little and the stoic expression begins to fall as he realizes that I am right – the wound is still there. I can see it in his face that he wants to deny it, but the evidence is in front of him. Souls heal no matter what is inflicted upon them here, humans don't.

"I…" I trail off, wondering if I really wanted to tell him the whole truth. He was still a cynic and a cut on the arm might be unnerving, but telling the guy that he was a fictional character I had dreams about? Even if it was all in _my _head, I have watched enough of Supernatural to know that he wouldn't believe me. So I settle for the partial truth. "I go to sleep and this is where I end up," I gesture to the space around us. "I don't know why, how, or even what, but it's been happening every single night for the past three months and I don't know how to make it stop. I don't know why you can see me all of the sudden. All I know is that I'm only here when I'm asleep and that I'm _very _much alive."

I dare to look at him after my little ramble, but he remains silent. Eyebrows furrowed and eyeing the ground. It is a long time before he speaks again.

"So what, you keep having 'Nightmare on Elm Street' trips?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Something like that."

"You…" he stays quiet for a moment before speaking up again. "You just vanished. After he cut you, I mean."

I nod.

"I know. I mean, I always eventually leave but I don't know what triggers it. One second I'm here and the next I'm waking up back there."

He nods in response but he doesn't speak again. I look up at him, examining his features. He seems…better than usual somehow and I can't help but think how utterly wrong that is as I stare at the blood that covers most of his clothing. For once, it isn't his but rather the woman's. Briefly, I wonder how many other victims he had before her but I don't manage to finish the thought before internally flinching at it. No…the idea of Dean hurting people – even if they were not innocent, though I had an inkling that Alastair was picking out good souls for the sake of mentally torturing Dean further – was unimaginable for me. The only thing I was familiar with seeing him do up until this point was help people. He saved them and protected them – he was too good to hurt them.

"You said you've been having these dreams for three months?" It's his voice that breaks me out of the dangerous train my thoughts were on.

I nod in response.

"So you…you saw everything." It's no longer a question, but rather a statement. I refuse to answer, though my silence surely says yes, knowing that the idea of me having any knowledge of what happened to him and what he did here shakes him to the core. This is something I can't imagine him telling Sam. In what world would he be comfortable with _me, _a stranger of all people, knowing any of this?

Another silence follows and I find myself desperately wishing this conversation was taking place in the impala. Not because she was quite possibly more valuable to me than my own car and I would do anything to even see it up close like any other fan, but because his loud music would at least drown out the awkwardness of this silence. The tension in the air is almost as thick as the sulphur and ironically enough, for the first time I feel as if I'm suffocated by it. The unspoken agreement is there; he doesn't want to talk about it, I won't bring it up. I have no intention of hurting him.

This time it is not Dean's voice, but footsteps that bring both of us back to reality.

"Alastair," Dean mutters. He grabs my right arm and despite the circumstances my brain still short circuits as I realize that he is voluntarily touching me. "You need to go. _N__ow_."

I stare at him for a second like he has two heads.

"Did you miss the part where I basically said that I can't control when or how I leave?" I hiss back at him.

The pressure around my arm increases as his grip tightens and he scowls.

"Look, if he finds you here then that means trouble for _both _of us. Now I don't know what he's going to do to you, but the fact that you only have a part-time membership for the Hell club tells me nothing good."

"That doesn't change the fact that I still can't control when I leave! I don't even know how too!"

"Damn it, woman then hide somewhere!"

"Seriously? Where am I supposed to hide _in Hell_? I haven't exactly gotten a lot of opportunities to explore, but I imagine security is pretty tight! Besides, what does it matter if he finds me? None of this is real anyway." The words feel bitter on my tongue because it does matter. It matters a lot. Alastair terrifies me to the core and I don't even want to _imagine _another confrontation with him, but it was Alastair who managed to send me back last time and maybe he could do it again. My brain definitely seemed to currently have zero plans of exiting out of sleep mode.

Dean's grip on my arm slightly loosens and his eyebrows are furrowed again.

"What do you mean none of this is real? How the hell can you say that after what you've seen? How can you say that after _that_?" he points to the wound on my arm, disbelief colouring his voice and face.

"I mean none of this is real, okay?! Not this place, not him and not you! None of it is! They're all nightmares that are a result of _me _not being able to tell fiction from reality!"

He sighs before his hand completely lets go of my arm. Before I know it his hands are cupping my face and I'm fairly certain I've lost all ability to move, think or speak at this point. I'm completely incapable of doing anything other than staring into those impossibly green eyes of his.

"Daisy," he's lowered his voice to a whisper now. "You need to listen to me. This is all very, very real and that man out there, the one who hurt you last time? He's dangerous and he _will _hurt you again, especially if you're really still alive. Now please, _think_. There has to be a way out of here, one you haven't thought of yet."

Despite the fireworks pounding in my skull and the oceans rushing in my ears, I manage to respond somehow. To think, all of this because he's touching me. My death really would be at the hands of Dean Winchester if my brain or the demon outside didn't beat him to it.

"Last time," it comes out breathy and I must sound like my lungs have given up on me, "when he cut me, I woke up immediately after."

Realization sparks in his eyes and he holds out the blade towards me.

"Oh no, no, no! You want me to…really?!" I take a step back from him.

"Daisy," he sounds exasperated now and I feel a stab of guilt hit me. He's trying to protect me, a stranger who has been seeing some of the most intimate details of his life for _months, _and I'm being difficult by throwing a fit. He _is _asking me to hurt myself, though. Most people would throw a fit at something like this. "It might be the only way."

My heart is pounding once again, for entirely different reasons now, however, and I slowly take the blade from him.

"Like that time with the Djinn?" I ask softly, despite my brain telling me that I already know the answer to this one, and his eyes widen.

"How did you – "

He is cut off by me abruptly making a very small cut on my left forearm, above the other one. If I was seriously going to do this then it had to be now.

Dean's shock-filled eyes are the last thing I see before I wake up once more with a burning sensation in my left forearm.

* * *

><p><strong>Closing Note: <strong>Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter; feedback is _always _appreciated!


End file.
