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By now, I'd learned to keep my pain quiet. Learned from the best and from the epic mess I'd been the past year. That wasn't going to be me again. I was dying inside, but still, I forced my smiles and laughs and enjoyed every second I had with my brothers as we took a hunter's vacation.
I smoked like chimney now, and drank like a fish whenever it was available, but neither of them bothered me over it. In fact, they did and said anything they could to keep me smiling. Spoiled me rotten, when they got the chance. Somehow I'd gone from a terrifying, unstable force of nature, to their personal pampered princess.
As for my actual state of mind...it was complicated.
There wasn't a word for how I felt about there being no pearly gates for me to cross someday. Rejected. Discluded. Mournful to an extreme of what I had ripped away from me. That wasn't the complicated part. What was, is that I couldn't decide if I was even afraid to die or not. The empty, dark hole in me begged to die. But terror of the unknown put up a wall whenever I thought of it.
How I felt about Castiel, was even more complicated. After everything he'd done, I think I finally hated him for this. And I hated him because I still loved him and he hurt me in a way that I could not see myself ever getting past. It would've been better if it was something simple. Like cheating. Or scheming behind our backs again. Hell...I'd be better off if he'd tried to kill me again.
To summarize, I was quiet. Quietly dying and yet forcefully living and laughing for my family. After a couple weeks of traveling to different places within the immediate region for fun and relaxation, we ventured further away. Landing on this day at a lake in the state of Washington.
There we sat propped up lazily on the beach side by side in camping chairs, complete with sunglasses and beers, with Dean in the middle. Oldest to youngest and vice versa. After every beer, which I was going through faster than the boys, I lit up a smoke, turning in my chair to keep it from blowing their way. Such was the routine for the past few hours.
"Ey," Dean barked softly at me as I set my sixth beer down, "slow down. It's like one o'clock."
I shrugged, dragging on my cigarette before responding. "I know, I'm running behind today."
I could tell by the rising brows, that he rolled his eyes under his shades before he decided to bother Sam instead. "Hey, something I gotta ask ya..."
"Shoot," Sam accepted.
"You've been... Kicked, bit, scratched, stabbed, possessed, killed... " Dean went on, amused "And you sprain your friggin' elbow?"
"Dude, it was more than a sprain. All right? And it was a friggin' demon, but..."
"What? That sling come with a slice of… crybaby pie on the side?" he teased some more, managing to get me to giggle now too, "please.."
