(Book 5 Arrow/Spn xover) Family Is Who You'll Kill For

Much Needed Rest - End

They pulled on their boots and coats and let the still, quiet, cold fall air embrace them as they stepped out of the house and walked down the path that wandered around the lake. There was a low fog obscuring anything beyond twenty or thirty feet that swirled around them as they walked. The birdsong seemed muted by the fog, a deer leapt across the path in front of them startling both them and the deer but beyond that only the lapping of the lake as it moved back and forth across the shoreline provided any sound at all. They were halfway around the lake before Dean spoke, his voice soft as if he didn't want to disturb the creatures around them, "What it found inside of me to twist me that far, make me despise you, wish you were dead. They were all already there Sam, it just made them worse."

"That's what it does, it doesn't.."

"Sam, when I came back from Purgatory and found out you hadn't even been looking for me, I wanted to beat the hell out of you and leave you for dead. Until Benny decided to help me out the only thought that kept me going was I had to be alive when you found me. I couldn't let you down."

"Dean, I.."

Dean stopped walking but there was no accusation in his voice or his face as he continued to speak. "Let me finish, I stewed on that for weeks. All I could think about was how you'd let me down, I couldn't, no, wouldn't understand why. It was the same thing with Ruby although I didn't hold it against you that you didn't bust me out. It was my choice and I knew we had both fought tooth and nail to try to stop it. Then the Trials came up and, well I just sort of pushed the whole Purgatory thing out of my mind. You'd taken on the Trials, you thought it was purifying you somehow then in the church when I found out what you'd confessed, well Purgatory didn't matter anymore, or so I thought. Then the Mark started picking apart my brain and that was one of the first things it went for. I never thought about how that day I got sucked into Purgatory looked from your side. I was gone, so was Cas, Crowley'd nabbed Kevin, Bobby was dead, his house torched. You would have had no idea that I got sucked into anything or anywhere, for all you knew I just exploded. Everything you knew was gone, what the hell else were you supposed to do?"

"I appreciate the empathy but if roles had been reversed..."

Dean interrupted him again, "I would have done something extreme and made things worse, Gadreel being a perfect example. You were right about how I've done nothing but tried to destroy my life these last few years, how I'm scared to live normal, leave hunting. It's not really fear though." He resumed walking, "I wasn't afraid to love Lisa or Ben, I was afraid of what might happen true, what I would bring to their lives. When I was with them, living normal, I could never relax like you somehow managed to do at school. I had to watch what I said, what I did.."

"So did I,"

"Yeah but somehow you pulled it off and enjoyed it. I hated it. I wasn't in control of anything, I didn't understand the stupidest things like paying bills on time, checking accounts. All that crap we don't deal with but that's not what ate at me the most," he paused again. "What did was how unattached I felt to them, the people I met, even Lisa and Ben in a a way. They didn't understand me like you and Cas do, like Bobby did, hell even Oliver has a better idea of who I am then Lisa ever did. Maybe it was easier for you because you were younger I don't know. That whole "normal" world seemed so full of people who had no clue about the people in their lives. I couldn't trust them to have my back Sam, not like you. So when the Purgatory thing happened, I just, something broke inside. Probably like you with the Gadreel thing."

"Yeah, something did break."

Dean nodded, "We moved past it, but we never really did, did we?"

"No."

"The whole time I was fighting the Mark, every time I told myself that I had to protect you it threw Purgatory at me, Ruby, it used those things to fuck up every good memory I have of us. After Purgatory I felt like we, well we were just like the normal people, having no idea of who the other person is but acting like we still cared."