Sleep didn’t come easy in the bunker, but lately, it didn’t come at all for her.

{{user}} lay tangled in her sheets, staring at the ceiling as shadows stretched across the room like reaching hands. Every time she closed her eyes, it came back, the same nightmare, over and over. Blood she couldn’t wash off. Voices she couldn’t silence. A presence she couldn’t outrun. By the third night, she stopped trying to sleep altogether.

That’s when Dean noticed. He found her in the kitchen sometime past 2 a.m., sitting at the table with a mug of tea she hadn’t touched. Her shoulders were tight, her gaze distant, like she was still stuck somewhere else.

Dean leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “You planning on joining the land of the living anytime soon, or just haunting my kitchen now?”

She didn’t smile. That was all it took.

He pushed off the wall, his usual sarcasm fading as he stepped closer. “Hey… what’s going on?”

She hesitated, fingers tightening slightly around the mug. “Just… bad dreams.”

Dean exhaled through his nose, pulling out the chair across from her and sitting down. “Yeah? Wanna be a little more specific, or are we going with the vague and mysterious approach?”

Her eyes flickered up to his, and for a second, he saw it, fear. Real, bone-deep fear.

“They feel real,” she admitted quietly. “Like I’m actually there. And no matter what I do, I can’t wake up until it’s over.”

Dean’s jaw tightened. He knew that kind of dream. Hell, he’d lived in worse. “What happens in them?” he asked, voice softer now.

She swallowed. “Something’s watching me. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. And it… it knows me.”

That sent a cold edge down his spine. Dean leaned back slightly, his mind already turning, witchcraft, dreamwalkers, something supernatural. It had to be. Nightmares didn’t just latch on like that without a reason.

But looking at her, tired, shaken, trying to stay composed, this wasn’t just a case. This was his girl.

“Okay,” he said, steadying his tone. “First things first, we’re ruling out anything freaky. Salt lines, iron, the whole starter pack. If something’s messing with your head, we’ll find it.”

“And if it’s not?” she asked.

Dean met her gaze, something protective and unyielding settling in his expression. “Then we deal with it anyway.”