The decrepit wooden door swings slowly open, emitting a loud series of high pitched creaks, the very hinges protesting at the weight of the words that still cling to the notches and crevices woven through the aged oak. The small booth inside that becomes unveiled is almost completely bare, with only a simple bench running along the far wall. The length of it is almost laughable when considering the size of the man that towers in the doorway - once sat, he will be doubled over with every joint in his body at an uncomfortable angle. But then, he supposes, confession isn't meant to be painless. That would defeat the point.
It takes a moment for the large man to tear his eyes away from the innards of the booth. He pauses on the brink of entry to cast a cursory glance around the lofty interior of the decaying church behind him. Satisfied that his only companions were the trussed-up Demonic King of Hell and the metallic echoes of his brother releasing his stress onto the contents of their trunk, he nods smartly and moves to take his next step forward.
Once inside the small box, he finds that he cannot stand completely erect - even in the centre of the space - almost as if it were his sins forcing him to bow his head and upper torso and not the humble ceiling. Turning slowly, he sinks down onto the bench and folds the rest of his body in around himself. He tangles his fingers together in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees, and bows his head in order to lower his gaze right down to the dust-ridden floor.
Okay, he thinks. If anybody's listening, here goes.
"God?…" He starts in a wavering voice, his uncertainty plain in his body language too. "Father?…" His cheeks flare red with embarrassment - whether at the stumble in addresses or at the notion of speaking to an empty room, it's unclear - and he hastily continues. "It's been a while since I last did this, so please bear with me."
He shakes his head, eyes crunched up in agonising chagrin. Stupid, he thinks. Taking in a ragged breath, he exhales slowly in an attempt to calm his rattling nerves.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." Good. That's how it normally starts, right?
He clears his throat and forces himself to take a flying leap. A man of science by nature in more cases than most, he still finds it difficult - even after everything that he has seen, everything that he has come to believe - to speak openly to the seemingly dead space.
"It's Sam Winchester here." He chuckles slightly at the overt sense of idiocy that rages through his veins. Right, like the all-knowing wouldn't already know that. Idiot.
"I'm hoping that this is a direct link to you. My brother and I, we haven't made too many friends upstairs and I'm still not sure whose side their on when it comes to this whole closing the Hell Gates forever…" That's right. Lead with how all the angels hate you; it's a solid start with the guy who made them.
Again, he shakes his head vehemently, as if hoping to release the fog of nerves that has descended around his brain, blocking his comprehensible neurones from interacting.
"I was seven, I think, when I last tried this. It was just after the Shtriga in Fort Douglas. I don't remember much about the actual attack, but I remember how hard Dad laid into Dean about leaving me unprotected."
He pauses, wondering just how relevant all that rests on his tongue is to the situation at hand, but he can find no other way to begin.
"I lay there that night and couldn't help but listen to Dad just yelling, telling Dean how useless he was, how selfish, and I couldn't help but wonder if I was so bad that I had forced even good, kind, selfless Dean to stop caring. I prayed to you right after that, asking if you could help me become better, become a brother that Dean deserved, the son that my Dad needed.
"I guess I knew what to say back then. My thoughts were simpler, so it was almost easy to put them in to words. But now… I've been churning it all around my head for days now, trying to form coherent sentences from all the thoughts but - after everything - I just don't know where to start.
"I don't think there are words big enough or ingenious enough to begin to apologise for what I've done, what I've caused. But I also know that I don't have the time here to wonder if I can do it all justice."
He scrubs a hand roughly down his face in frustration before scoring his nails through his hair in an attempt to tame it a little. There have been very few times that this so-called "Man of Letters" has been at a loss for words, but he can feel his throat working to push out bubbles of silence as he fiercely searches for his next opening line.
"I have a shot at saving the world, saving everything you've created, and I know that I have no choice but to take it. "
His features contract into an expression of irritation when these words refuse to fulfil his meaning, but he's finally in motion so he ploughs on, leaving the blunders to one side.
"The third trial involves purifying myself, which we think means confessing..."
His cheeks expand a little as he sucks in a sharp breath and keeps it captive in his lungs for a long minute, before releasing it all in a sudden gust.
"So... The beginning's always a good place to start right?"
One of the corners of his lips turns up, exploiting the dimple that lies nestled in his cheek muscle, as this last comment sparks a flashing memory of himself and Dean holding down the fort in the bunker. They had both been spread eagled in the library, takeout boxes abandoned haphazardly around them; Dean had fought for a long time to have a chance to reattempt the childhood that had passed right by the both of them - starting, of course, with the aspects that could be explored from the comfort of their new fond home inside the Men of Letters Bunker. In this particular snapshot, Julie Andrews was filling the screen of Dean's laptop, surrounded by an adoring crowd of children and she's teaching them to sing to their hearts' content. If he listened hard enough, he's that he would still be able to hear the whispers of Dean humming along under his breath.
He takes courage from the snapshot, reminding himself that that is what he is fighting for, for Dean and that content smirk he gets with a full belly, a beer in hand and some crap television show playing in the background. For the gruff snort that resounds as his brother attempts to cover a laugh that he's a little embarrassed to be humouring.
The beginning, he thinks. That should be simple enough.
"I've done some damage, I know that. And it started the day that I was born."
He forces his head down further to rest his brow against his thumbs; if he stretches any further forward, he knows that he will hit the floor of these constrictive four walls.
"I am the reason that my own mother is dead. God… She was so beautiful, so virile. She saw so much hope in the future - for her family, for herself. And then, for whatever reason, I was born and my life cancelled all of that out."
He pinches the bridge of his nose between the pads of his two thumbs, his eyes slammed tightly, and an expression of pain riddles his face.
"I am the reason that Dad hit the road with me and Dean in the backseat and never looked back; he drove himself into the ground with grief and pain because of me. I am the reason that Mom's fantasy of her sons growing up in a normal, supernatural-free life was trashed, the reason that we've spent our entire lives bouncing around the States. It's because of me that we became hunters and couldn't follow the life that Mom had laid out for us.
"But regardless of the fact that it was all my fault, I was never capable of trying to soften the blow - for anybody. I let my father down countless times: disobeying his orders, questioning his motives, constantly throwing a spanner into the works. I never gave him the respect that I should have done. He laid down his life for me so many times over and all I ever did was hate him for what he wasn't, for what he couldn't give me. I never really saw all that he had sacrificed to keep me safe until after he was gone. He gave up the role of 'father' and 'caregiver' and adopted 'drill sergeant', handing to us every piece of information he could get his hands on that might possibly help to keep us alive. Maybe he wasn't always there for dinner or to tuck us in at night, but he never once abandoned us the way that his father had him. He gave us everything; a home - albeit a movable one - and when he no longer felt capable of taking care of us how he wanted to, he gave us Bobby.
"Dean was right back then, all those years ago, when he said that I only started to listen to what Dad wanted after he was dead. It was only when he couldn't fight back that I began to see his side.
He ran a hand swiftly down his face, catching the rogue tears in the cupped palm of his hand. "I never have truly appreciated what I've got until it's gone.
"All I did was run away. I had people who cared, who wanted the best for me, and all I could dream about was the day when I could pack a bag and hit the road in the opposite direction - get away from it all.
"And that's exactly what I did. I packed up and I went. I left Dean alone to fight the battles that we had been taking on together, left him to take the brunt of Dad's disappointment at my leaving.
"That should have been the end of it, me removing the catalyst from their lives; but instead, the focus just moved on to the next person that I grew close to."
By now, the large man is completely doubled over in anguish, with his forehead nearing the worn-out toes of his tired work boots. His shoulders begin to quake as the first of the sobs escapes, releasing a little of the absurd amount of pressure that has been steadily expanding against his ribcage.
"Oh, God, Jess… There isn't a day when I don't think about her, miss her. It was all my fault and I will never stop hating myself for what happened to her. All I can hope is that she's up there with you. I, of all people, know how good she was, how pure. She held all of my shadows and darkness at bay, even without knowing what they were. She kept me close even after learning more about my past. And I left her to Brady."
His breaths are forcing themselves out in tiny hiccoughs, his eyes wide as he raised his gaze a little to stare upwards into nothingness. His fingers inadvertently knotted themselves into the roots of the hair that hung closest to his face, seeming to pull at them with the thoughtless desire to cause himself pain.
"I knew - I knew - that something was going to happen, but I left anyway; convinced myself that the dreams were just that - dreams, nightmares. I left and I let her down and I will never - never - stop being sorry for that."
He closes his eyes and attempts to regulate his breathing. It wouldn't be the first time that he had flown into hyperventilation at the thought of Jess and all that he's lost, but he's determined for it not to be so this time. He has an agenda here, and only so much time to play with.
After taking a certain number of more regular breaths, he leans back against the wooden panel behind him, barely able to wonder if it will be sturdy enough to take his exhausted weight.
"So I came in full circle, back to torment the person who built me from the ground up, the man who did nothing but give up everything he had to give me more. I can't begin to count the number of times that I've let Dean down. I can't even tell when it all started. I'm the reason that our mother died, that our father went insane with grief. I was the catalyst in the toxic family makeup that we grew up in; I forged arguments with Dad over nothing, simply to fill the spaces in our damaged relationship, because there was no way that he could ever forgive me for what I had caused. And Dean was left to pick up the pieces and try to find some way to stick us all back together again. He was the glue that held everything together, even as the pieces shattered into even smaller fragments with every fall out. He was my hero for so long and then, all of a sudden, it became glaring obvious that we were two very different people; that, try as I might, there wasn't a chance in hell that I would ever be like him. So I decided that I needed to leave.
"First there was Flagstaff, and then Stanford… I did nothing but push him away and he was the only one that I ever felt was truly in my corner. It never even crossed my mind what my leaving would do to him, what fresh hell he would catch from Dad - on either occasions! - I couldn't see past the end of my nose."
His hands were slowly gaining on the locks that hung down to his shoulders as he spoke, first twisting themselves together in his lap, then messing with the buttons on his dark plaid flannel shirt and finally reaching up to nervously rub the back of his neck.
"But even after all of that, I was the first person he came to when he needed help. After all the hurt that I caused him, he drove through the night to turn up on my doorstep - not Bobby's, mine. And I dared to hope that this time I could make it all up to him, but it just got worse."
He feels a rush of emotion swelling in his veins, impatiently pawing, waiting for its chance to flood. Swirling in the midst is such a raw combination of feelings that he's not entirely sure that he's prepared to allow it to spill over: there's pain and joy, apprehension and pride, hate and love. But the ones that dominated, towered above the rest as they sat in their wave, were regret and a strong internally directed shame.
Once again leaning forward over his knees, he remains silent for a moment as he ponders how best to put such things in to words.
"People say that their families are broken or torn apart, but there can't be many that actually watched their brothers be slashed and pulled limb-from-limb by hellhounds. Even less that can say they know it was all because of them. Everything that Dean suffered in Hell, and all of the aftermath on his return… that's all on me. I couldn't stop it after he made the deal to bring me back, I couldn't stop the monsters from flaying him alive, and I couldn't save him. I wasn't the one to rescue him, regardless of how hard I tried. And from then on, all I did was let him down."
His right hand raises to rush through the stray strands that have fallen during his expression, releasing them from their captive teardrops. He can feel the tears drying on his skin as he remains there in the dark and can't help but hope that these salty drops will be enough to purify him from his sins, because he's not sure that he would have the strength to repent again.
"I let my relationship with a demon destroy the one that I had with my brother; I chose my enabler over the one person who could have saved me. I allowed her to mess with my head; she had me believing that my brother was the one holding me back.
"And even after coming to realise first hand what a mess I became without him before, I let Dean push me away after Bobby got hurt. Without him there to order my priorities and worries, I let everything that I hate twist me up into something that I barely recognised, and I said 'yes' with Dean yelling at me not to."
He hastily covers his face with his hands, palms against his lips, trying to rein back the sobs that are once again threatening - but his tear ducts betray him.
"Christ, every time I leave him, I come back to make it worse. I didn't go back to him after I was saved and I should have done - soul or not - and when it was him that was gone, I didn't even look for a way to find him. Again, I chose a girl over my own brother."
His breathing hitches as the weight of the words that have just slipped through his lips hits him. The shame and the mortification, the self-resentment and the regret that rage through his blood are seemingly boundless. They charge in waves, rushing through his system with such force that he is thrown into a lightheaded state. Propping his elbows on his knees, he cradles his head as we waits out the high-pitched ringing in his ears and the undulating black spots that veil his vision.
How? He wonders, perplexed at his own actions and motives. How the fuck did I let that happen?
"I think, out of everything that I regret, it's Dean that will always haunt me the most. He gave me everything, all that he had to spare and more, chose me over himself so many times. And I've never been able to put him first once."