A little late to the party here, but it feels like it's been forever since I've written a new story that wasn't already sitting around somewhere on my computer. So here it is. This one takes place near the end of 10x03 after that final vial of blood is injected. Dean's POV.

Is This My Deliverance

I know where I am. Right away, I know exactly where I'm sitting, wrists bound to the arms of this wooden chair, feet also tied, shoes scraping against the dirty dungeon floor. My blood is singing, burning, on fire, the needle-marks on my arm still making themselves known, pulsing violently against my skin. There is a heat inside me, one I've grown familiar with over these past few months. It is dark and it is ugly and I feel it bubbling up against the backs of my eyes now, can't stop the blackness that envelops my pupils. It rushes in so fast, and for a moment I am almost relieved. Because maybe it means I can forget again.

But then, miracle of miracles, the darkness fades out.

And just like that, my eyes are clear.

It feels like something tears, somewhere deep inside me. Whatever it is seems to wriggle its way out through my pores like an intestinal worm, has me blinking hard against the vehement push and pull as it squirms beneath my skin, searches for an opening. And then it finds one. And then it's gone.

I breathe.

I see Sam first. God he looks so tired. So beaten down and small and sad and...scared. Cas is standing next to him, and he isn't looking much better. But he's alive. I think I thought about it in these past few months, at least somewhere deep in the back of my mind. I think a small part of me still wanted to wonder what had become of the angel with the fading grace, the one who had been on the brink of death on the day I faced my own. If I think about it, I can almost still feel Metatron's angel blade as it sank into my chest, the overwhelming smell of all that blood. The distinct screams of my little brother. So much red...

I'm not sure why these are the thoughts that find me now, tied to this chair in this dungeon with my little brother and my best friend standing in front of me. Maybe it's the fact that Cas is holding an angel blade identical to Metatron's in his hand now. It glints in the dull light of the dungeon, as if winking at me. Unsettling.

I don't know what to say, how to form all the questions that are sliding around inside my brain. It's foggy and it's clear and I'm confused and I'm awake, and I haven't seemed to have questions like these in a long time. I wonder what that means. I wonder if it's a good or a bad thing. I realize the two men in front of me are waiting for something. Waiting for words. I give some, the first pathetic ones that pop in my head, and I try for a smile, but I don't really remember how:

"You look worried fellas."

The splash of holy water against my skin is a surprise. A surprise and nothing more. There is no burning, no simmering or searing or blistering as it makes contact, droplets sliding slowly down my cheeks. This. I know what this means.

It's over. I'm cured.

Sam.

I look for him again, desperate for reassurance, for some kind of gravity or certainty that has been synonymous with his presence for my entire life. He's there and there's something in his expression that has me believing this could really be the end of it. I think these past months were the worst kind of nightmare. I think it was the lightest I had ever felt. I wonder if I will still be able to hold all this familiar weight that has suddenly found me again, has settled itself decidedly across my shoulder blades as though it missed me in the time I was away. I wonder if I'm grateful.

"Welcome back, Dean," Sam says.

Yes. Yes, I'm grateful. Grateful for those words and for the things I can now remember when I look at the man standing in front of me, the one who did everything in his power to bring me back again. To bring me home. I look at him and I look at the angel next to him and I drink in their faces and I want to forget about everything else for now.

It's all there, stirring around inside the confines of my mind. All the things I've done, the blood I've shed and the people I've ruined and the drowning; all that drowning. It doesn't come back to me in waves the way you'd expect. Instead it's just suddenly there. And I'm just...here. I'm really here, for the first time in over four months. Four months. It seems to be the magic number. Four months in Hell. Four months as a demon.

I need a second. I take it. I let my head drop, just for a moment. Just to push it all back beneath the surface again before I can look up and find their faces staring back at me. Because it's all a little fuzzy and I'm still a little more than shaky, but the one thing I can see clear as day is that Sam and Cas are watching and they are waiting for the punchline or the breakdown or the collapse. And I cannot let them see it.

It happens though.

It happens between blinks and breaths and realizations as I sit there in that chair and I shift beneath the ropes that bind me. My heart constricts in my chest and I wonder if it's worth feeling again if this is how I feel. I think 'cured' is the wrong word because this seems like the opposite of salvation, the enemy of healing, and the beginnings of destruction.

The walls are collapsing and the dam is breaking, but Cas and Sam do not see it.

And they won't. They won't. I will protect them from that.

Thanks for reading! I appreciate all comments and feedback- even if it's just to PM me about season 10 so far- are you freaking out? Are you loving it? Is the fact that Hannah and Cas are technically brother and sister weirding you out a little bit? =P