This is just a short tag from the finale on Wednesday that I couldn't get out of my mind.
As the Darkness swarmed over the Impala, choking Dean's lungs and filling him with a dark sense of impenetrable chaotic void, Dean Winchester felt three things. He was probably dying now, with the untamed Darkness billowing its way across planet Earth and taking over everything the light touched, but three solitude feelings ran across his mind before he gave way to the Darkness that was consuming his baby and filling him with a gothic, primordial evil.
Relief.
Anger.
Fear.
Before everything went black, Dean made eye contact with Sam's beaten and bloody, and he could tell that they shared that final emotion. The pure fear that came with a new evil being unlocked, an evil that was totally ancient and untapped since the beginning of time, was filling both brothers. Dean might have said something, a false promise that they'd be okay, but in that moment the Darkness filled the Impala and he was choking on the blackness, yet another evil beginning to claw slowly at his soul even after he'd gotten rid of the Mark of Cain. But this evil was different. The Mark had been a nuclear warhead waiting to blast off and vaporize everyone in a hundred-mile radius. The Darkness was evil, but to Dean it seemed different. It didn't want to destroy or devour, just to simply take over and overtake the light with amoral motivation. Dean heard it chanting in his head Free free free free. It scared the crap out of Dean, because this thing was here since before God. It had been trapped ever since then, and now it was freed. The Darkness was going to seek out vengeance.
Then it was gone.
Just like that, the light returned, an Dean could breathe again. He gasped in relief, relishing in the fact that there were lights here and that the Darkness was gone. There was no evil here, no Mark, no Darkness, just light and peace and sanity and Sam.
Dean collapsed.
There was something about the lack of a murderer's brand on his forearm that physically exhausted him. He'd been running on fumes and copious amounts of alcohol for day now, he realized, and the only thing that had kept him up and kicking was the Mark of Cain. Now that it was gone, his body needed rest and recuperation, just like it had after he'd been cured of being a demon. His arms were shaking as they tried to prevent him from falling face-first into the floor of wherever they were, but they soon gave out and Dean found himself sprawled out on the ground, breathing through his nose and convincing himself that It's gone. The Mark is gone. I'm safe.
Relief. Overwhelming relief, coupled with pure exhaustion to his very core and a heartfelt feeling of deliverance. Just like the Darkness, he was freed from his bondage that had been crippling him for so long.
But, wasn't it the curing of the Mark which had freed the Darkness in the first place?
Dean didn't want to think about it. He wanted to sleep and eat a fatty burger and maybe down a few glasses of whiskey, because in his mind he was safe, and whatever was out there could wait.
"Dean! Okay, Dean, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"
Ah, Sammy. Dean felt his little brother's arm support him as he was dragged into a sitting position. From his new perspective, he could see that they had somehow been transported to the Bunker.
"How?" he asked numbly, ignoring the fact that his arms were still shaking with fatigue.
Sam shrugged, looking just about as worried as Dean was tired. "I don't know… Cas? Some other angel?"
Dean slowly scanned the room; he didn't see Cas anywhere. A lump formed in his throat. Was the angel all right? Had the Darkness caught him?
"Let's not worry about that," Sam said. "We're safe now, that's all that matters." He eyed Dean warily. "How 'bout you? You good?"
"Peachy."
"Right." Sam sighed. He rubbed a weary hand over his bruised face. Dean cringed, remembering that he'd put those bruises there. "Me too."
Now that Dean studied him closer, he could see the bags under Sam's eyes. Poor guy had been giving all he had to get the cure for Dean, and that probably excluded sleeping or eating properly. So that makes two of us.
That's when the anger hit him like a stack of bricks.
He didn't want to be angry. He'd been angry for too long when the Mark branded his arm. He can still feel the cruel words that have leapt off his tongue in this past year:
You notice I tried to get as far away from you as possible?
Or maybe—maybe it was the fact that my mother would still be alive if it wasn't for you!
You know what I think? I think it should be you up there and not her.
So much anger… Dean wanted to be done with it. But the anger that coursed through his veins right now would not be silence, had to be voiced.
"This is all your fault, you know."
He was angry that Sam had continued to use the Book for a cure even after Charlie died. He was angry that they got one moment of calm before the whole world spiraled back into hell. He was so angry—
But at the same time, he wasn't.
Sam's breathing hitched slightly, hardly noticeable, and he merely said, "I know."
Dean turned his eyes downcast. The pain in those two, simple words wounded Dean. Instantly, he hated himself for being angry, because there was no way Sam could have known. That was the difference between Dean with the Mark and Dean without the Mark. He could regret his anger, whereas with the Mark he'd been constantly angry, no matter who he was hurting. "I'm sorry," Dean murmured softly, palming his eyes because he had a growing headache from the overwhelming combination of just everything. "I shouldn't have said that, I just—"
"I know," Sam affirmed, voice smooth and emotionless. "You're just stressed and exhausted—hell, I am too…"
His voice trailed off, and both brothers sat in silence for a moment while the world broke outside of the solitude of their Batcave. The anger slowly faded, and Dean was overtaken by his final emotion.
Fear.
"What are we going to do?" Sam whispered before Dean could voice anything.
Dean swallowed down a lump in his throat. What were they going to do? For once, big brother didn't have an answer. He was scared, really scared. This was something he'd never been prepared for, something he hadn't even heard about before today. He doubted that even Bobby with all his lore books would have had anything on the Darkness. How do you fight Darkness? How do you kill Darkness? Answer: you don't. There was nothing they could do. This thing was worse than Lucifer; it had ultimately caused the archangel to fall. It was bigger than anything they'd ever faced before, and there was no way they could defeat it.
But instead of voicing his fear, Dean merely gave Sam what he wanted to hear. "We'll search the Men of Letters' archives. Then we'll fight it until we go down."
"Dean, it was hard enough to find lore on the Mark. Do you really think we'll be able to find anything?"
No. "Who knows what these old guys had in their stores?" Dean shrugged in feigned nonchalance. "We'll beat this like we beat everything else."
Sam sighed. "Yeah," he conceded.
Dean knew he didn't believe a word he'd said. Well, that was all right.
Dean didn't believe himself either.
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