Back in Black

Back in Black

Dean awoke to a room embedded in of silence. He was in the bunker, stretched out  haphazardly on his own bed. Everything was just the way he had left it. There was a mess of weapons cluttering the walls. Each was hung delicately on its respective stretch of plaster with the care that most people would associate with a piece of expensive art. Dean was proud of it. They gleamed like Christmas lights in December, all polished carefully, poised for anything that should come within shooting distance, just way he liked them. On his desk lay an old Polaroid photograph. It was at least thirty years old, softened at the edges from years of wear and tear. It was him and his mother. He wished he could remember what had made them smile that brightly. He couldn’t. Dean could picture his father’s writing, carelessly scrawled on the back, “Dean and Mary 1982.”

Looking at the photograph had always provided a sense of comfort to dean. At the moment, it seemed to be eliciting the exact opposite. In its place he felt guilt. A deep feeling of dread welled in the pit of his stomach, though he wasn’t sure why just yet. He felt somehow violated. Memories swirled at the edges of his consciousness, dark and brooding, none quite within his reach. Usually, not remembering certain things was a godsend, given his profession, not to mention the life he’d led so far. It felt like sugarcoating to say that his life sucked in a major way. For Dean, the hits had just kept coming from the age of four. For some reason, this time it felt different. He didn’t like forgetting, not when he knew it was important. This time, he knew for sure. His current state of amnesia was unsettling to say the least.

The silence was broken by a discordant symphony of shattering glass and the splash of spilling liquid. Knowing his current environment, Dean figured it was liquor (blood seemed equally likely, but he chose to believe liquor was the culprit,) and the shattering of its respective container. “God damn it Crowley.” Sam’s voice was low, barely audible, slurred by alcohol and wrought with pain that made it unbearable to hear. Dean cringed at the sound of it.  Even from this distance, he could practically smell the Jack Daniel’s on Sam’s breath.

Dean wanted to remember. More than that, he wanted to know what the hell was going on. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. He pressed his fingers to his temples, wiling himself to remember. And then he did. It hit him full on, like a battering ram to the ribcage, nothing then everything, all at once, exploding like a supernova.

He could remember everything.

He remembered Metatron’s blade sinking slowly into his stomach> Dean remembered the hot pain racing up his spine the second it made contact and the smug grin on his face as Dean’s face contorted with agony. He hoped Cas had torn him a new one by now. God knows, you don’t mess with the nerd angels. He’d learned that lesson at Cas’ hands pretty early on. A couple of years back, when Dean had been poised to make some particularly unwise decisions, Cas had straightened him out good and proper. For such a funny little guy, he sure could hold his own when things got messy(and he was more than a little bit terrifying when they did.)

He could remember the look on Sam’s face the second he realized that he couldn’t save Dean because Dean didn’t want saving. He knew that face and he knew it well. Though he’d only seen it a number of times, it had burned its way into his mind permanently. He’d seen it when Dad died, he’d seen it the moment Sam jumped into the pit, and he’d seen it then. He couldn’t stand it. Dean was raised to protect his brother, little Sammy, at all costs. When he saw that face, he saw reflected in it his own failures. There were so many.

He remembered his last words. “I’m proud of us.” In that moment he had been. He and Sam had been through some pretty hell one to many times (both literally and figuratively,) and through it all they’d never lost sight of what really mattered. That was something he could be proud of. Towards the end, he’d been pretty convinced that Sam had let go of that. He’d gone so far as to say that they weren’t even brothers anymore. The words had stung, but he refused to believe that Sam had really meant it. He hadn’t. “I lied,” Of all the words his brother had said that night, these stuck. They brought a smile to his lips, even though at a time like this, it seemed virtually impossible for him to smile at all.