Insert disclaimers and whatnot here.

This is a companion piece to my story "The Darkness is Here".

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Dean.

It's taken me a really long time to actually have the words for this. I know you're angry. I get it. I do. Just please, read this to the end. That's all I ask. I just want you to know. To understand why I've done what I've done. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't. I can't keep it to myself anymore, though. Not with the way things are between us.

I guess it took me a while to know why things played out the way they did.

When you went to Purgatory, I lost it. I guess it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Everything that we went through in such a short time period. It all hit me harder than I'll admit, I guess. Lucifer scrambling my head was one of the biggest things. I spent a lot of time thinking I was still in the cage.

Not knowing what was real and what wasn't really did a number on me. More than I want to admit. Maybe I won't ever be the same.

I guess that came to a head with the mental hospital. Even after Cas took over the whole situation, and did his thing, I still wasn't quite right. Maybe you never knew that, maybe you did.

There was residual stuff. I had nightmares, and sometimes I'd think I saw stuff out of the corner of my eye. I never flat out hallucinated again. But I'm still not really at peace.

And we lost Bobby. If I let myself admit it, we lost two fathers. Dad, and Bobby. Honestly, I think it was harder to lose Bobby. I don't know, maybe I just think that because it's more recent. Maybe it was equally hard both times.

I don't know man, you going to Purgatory just tipped me over the edge.

I admit, I should have looked for you.

I didn't. Because I couldn't. I really couldn'...t.

(Sorry, broke the pen. I had to get another one)

I think that if I hadn't been able to find you or save you, that would have been the end of me. I was afraid to look for you, because the only thing worse than you being gone would have been me not being able to find you.

So I kind of took the Impala and just drove. Because Cas was gone with you, and Kevin was gone, and Bobby was gone.

I had no one.

Hitting Riot was completely my fault. I mean, yeah, the dumb dog ran out in front of me while I was going down the highway at fifty-something, but it was my fault.

Dean….I was going to kill myself.

For all the reasons I just listed. And don't ever, ever come to me and get mad at me about this. Because I'm right. There wasn't anything left to live for. There was nothing solid for me to hold onto except for the pain, and the pain was too much to live with.

So in that moment, when I got out of the car and saw this big, fluffy dog, just laying there, heaving up and down, he became my life. Like, something that I could save that wasn't lost forever. Something real and solid.

But I really did have to save him. Right then. No fiber of me was willing to let that dog die, too.

That's how I met her. That's how I met Amelia. She's a vet, and so I met her with a ninety pound dog in my arms, covered in its blood, and really out of my mind.

Dean, she was a mess too. I think that's why it worked between us. She understood my crap, and I understood her crap, and we saved each other through our mutual crap appreciation. Like, she lost her husband in Iraq. She knew what loss felt like. And I'd just lost you...I don't know. It worked because we were both so damaged. I would be dead right now if it wasn't for her, I swear.

So I don't know, when you came back and bit my head off for not coming for you, maybe I deserved that. But maybe I didn't. I didn't stand up for myself because I was still too close to it. Defense mechanisms, you know?

I couldn't tell you, so I guess I decided that I needed to show you. You're my brother, and I couldn't lose you again. Couldn't let you get broken again.

That's why it had to be me with the trials. Because I needed to save you, because I hadn't been able to before. And as bad as the trials messed me up, I knew I was doing the right thing. Because I'd failed you so many times, I just had to set it straight, just this once.

So every time I completed another trial and felt the burning in my whole body, and with every migraine, and every day that I just wanted to die so I could stop feeling the pain, it was okay, because I was saving you. It was worth it to me. I was redeeming myself.

Maybe some part of me needed to prove that I cared.

I get it, man. I don't want to throw our brotherhood away. You're all I have. I had hoped that the trials proved that. I mean, that's why I did them in the first place. Because you're important to me.

I want to understand what you did .With Gadreel. I know you were trying to do the right thing.

I just...there needs to be a line somewhere, you know? My life isn't more valuable than anyone else's. I mean, I could have died. I would have died.

Just think about the implications of bringing me back. Do you know what it did to me? You bringing me back? I was yanked out of this possibility of having peace, finally leaving the past and the pain behind and being at peace.

Instead, you jerked me back here. You let an angel play around in my head. I had to come back to this reality where I still don't always know what's real, and I almost wish that I could be completely oblivious. Because I come back to having lost Amelia and Riot. I come back to a world where my hands killed Kevin. He's just gone. Another piece of our family. He's gone, Dean! He was our responsibility.

I come back to a world where I'm still sick. And yeah, I know, Cas is healing me. I'm going to be better eventually. But man, I did not need this.

After everything I've gone through, after everything we've gone through, I was ready for it to be over. Ready to be at peace. But I was jerked back to reality, to more loss, to more agony, to more uncertainty about...everything.

I was ready for you to be at peace. Do you understand that if I had stayed dead, you would have been safe? Safer. You wouldn't have to make sacrifices for me anymore, or dive in front of the proverbial bullet, and no one could use me against you. It would have meant peace for both of us. Man, we could really use some peace.

But you keep screwing yourself over because of me, and that needs to end somewhere. It needs to end. And you could find a light at the end of the tunnel. I know you could. You could go and find Lisa and Ben, or go hunt with Charlie in Oz for a while. Or maybe find someone new, someone else that you can have a life with.

I'm not okay, and you're not okay. The only difference is that I will admit it and that I'm trying to do something about it. You're just going to keep going until you run yourself and everyone around you into the ground.

And I can't let that happen.

Because you're my big brother.

Sam