Tentative faith.

Dean Winchester could not have called it anything else, while it had lived. God. Demons. Angels. They were all starting to look the same to him. Jesus Christ. Jimmy! That poor bastard. That poor bastard who housed Castiel, angel of the fucking lord, in his body and blood.

He was no fool. Dean was many things but idiot was not one of them. So with all this damn talk of 'in your blood' and Cas taking only Jimmy and his daughter. Well, it was looking to him that angels needed something special. Something that the regular joes, the hunters and other poor fuckers on this planet didn't have.

Then Sam. Dean did not want to open that can of worms yet. Watching your brother drink demon blood like a fucked up version of Dracula? No, not going there. And he sure as hell didn't want to think about Cas's parting words.

So he sat, here, in the driver's seat of the impala. Staring out the windshield as Sam was put soundly into the motel room. He was not confronting Sam right now. No way in hell, because as much as it bothered him, he was dealing with something else.

Dean Winchester. Skeptic extraordinaire, was not having a crisis of faith. And hell, the simple thing was, he was losing it. Cas had been the one stable thing in his life up til that point, besides knowing evil was comin' along at a regular rate, and well… Cas had been good. Sam had been something of unreliable lately. Cas had been good as clock work, had become, dare he even think it since his mind was being listened in to, a friend. An ally. Someone to goddamn trust.

Then heaven got its hands on him, straightened Cas right on out, and Dean. Dean didn't want to lose him. There was no fighting it though. You can't fight heaven and win, and when you lose something. You fucking lose it forever.

Taking in a deep breath he thought, maybe, maybe it would work out in the end.

That sort of delusional hope for a better future is what got him in the Pit. Sam would still be able to go on after he was gone. Fight the good fight, hell return to normalsville and finish up, find a woman, and have babies. Name one Dean. Feel nostalgic and hell, they'd never get to meet again, but that was okay, because little Sammy would be in heaven. Now Sam was turning darkside, he had maybe himself to blame for that one (and a skanky demon bitch), he was in debt to douche angels, and well, fuck, Sammy wasn't Sammy.

Sammy was a demon hybrid thing, and maybe he was following his big brother afterall, and Dean didn't want that. He had secretly, in his heart, hoped that if he did fight (even if he kicked and screamed all the way) that maybe Sammy would be fine. No, Sam, was not going to be fine. Sam was going to probably end up being Lucifer, then either kill Dean and send him back to the pit for all eternity before raising hell on earth, or Sam was going to get killed by angels and be sent for hell for all etnerity.

Life sucked.

Life sucked hard.

And he did not want to even mention he'd been jealous.

Of Jimmy.

Or of more specific persuasion, Jimmy's wife.

Jimmy's wife, hot, blond, for a short time demonically possessed, but she had Jimmy. Who loved her so much he'd leave. Forever. To protect, to love, Dean knew something like that. Dean knew it so well, but when had he ever experienced that devotion? When had he been loved so much, that a person would rather leave forever than put them in danger?

John Winchester was not what he would think of when he thought of that. John was that to Adam, to Sam, but to Dean? Dean never had that. Even after realizing his father had sold his soul to save him, it didn't mean a damn thing, because John was making up for his own mistakes, not trying to protect Dean. He wasn't trying to help Dean, not really, he was looking for absolution.

Sometimes Dean mused he was loved by two things in this world. Number one, Impala. His baby loved him more than anything else, but his baby wasn't exactly something one went to for comfort. No, they had a special relationship, and they'd saved eachothers hides so many times, but his special girl couldn't hold him at night or soothe away dreams of hell. Two was Bobby, the gruff mechanic was sure as hell the best father figure Dean had ever had, and the old mechanic was, well the only safe harbor left. Still, one didn't go to Bobby when you realized you were fighting against Heaven and Hell. Because Bobby would want to help and Dean loved the old man too goddamn much to even consider it. This wasn't no hunt, this was the fucking apcolypse and who was right or wrong wasn't clear anymore. Humans were on their own now, with no angelic cavalry to save their hides, because angels were willing to kill to maim and tear apart lives to win against their dark brothers.

Dean wanted to laugh. What he wouldn't give for a Jimmy. A good hearted person who loved him wholly. Who saw the black smears and said 'I love you'. Who…fuck… He felt like he was four again and had woken up from a nightmare. He wanted nothing more than his mommy or daddy to come in and make it go away. But no one was going to come in and make this fucking shitastic nightmare go away. He had to do it all by himself, and if he couldn't, well, either way he was going back to hell. Why fool himself into believing there was a reward for all this sweat, blood, and tears? What sort of stupid did he want to play himself to be, to believe, for one more instant, that he, Dean Fucking Winchester, was going to end up in Heaven? He was Dean Winchester, and good things don't happen if you're named Dean Winchester.

What would happen if he blew his brains out right there? He'd go to hell. He'd go to hell and then he'd be airlifted back to his body to finish 'God's Work'. Who believed that anymore? He didn't. Something was fucked up with the angels, and demons…they were always fucked up. God, if he was up there, didn't give a damn anymore. He didn't give a damn, and now Dean was going to have to clean up his own (and many generations before him) messes.

Roll up your sleeves and get a mop, huh?

Righteous man.

That phrase echoed in his mind and it made him want to hurl. He was no righteous man, the righteous one had been Sammy. Now he'd fucked up, made a deal, and the world was going to hell in a Handbasket carried by the Winchester brothers.

"I used to pray."

His voice was hoarse and tight. His eyes glittered and he tried to hold back the storm of emotions that rose within him.

"I used to pray every goddamn night. Prayed and prayed and prayed. 'Angels are watching over you Dean'." His hands slapped against the dash as he stared upwards. He would not cry, not in front of whoever the hell was listening.

"What good have you done? What sort of good are you doing? You wanna know why I lost faith? Why I know it ain't worth it?"

Dean took a deep breath. "Because you don't listen to nothin' if it don't convience you. Your angels, they don't save people. They don't give a damn about anything. Your demons, all they want is revenge for the whole giving us free will. They're like fuckin' angry children, whiny bastards with superpowers and a fucked up dimension all their own. You made everything good in this world, but you made everything bad as well. You made pain and suffering, you made sunshine days and alcohol. You made everything and that's why, when I saw that beat up broken little girl who was killed by her own father for some sort of ritual to invoke an angel I lost faith. Someone so good and pure had to have an angel watching out over them, right? So where were your angels when she was killed? Where were your angels when millions of little children are hunted down by things that aren't demonic? If you're really all that awesome they say you are, then you wouldn't let those innocent people suffer."

"Then Castiel, you know, you almost had me there. You almost had me believe you were giving a damn about us. That you were listening."

Dean choked back hysterical laughter. "Then this shit? Ripped out of Jimmy? That poor poor bastard's never going to see his family again. His wife and daughter will be watching over their shoulders for the rest of their lives wondering if a demon's going to get them. And Sam, a fucking vampire? Jesus fucking Christ, do you want me to work for you? Do you want me to fight? Because you aren't giving me much incentive big man."

Resting his forehead against the steering wheel Dean closed his eyes.

"You know I'll still do it. I'll fight this because there are others out there who need someone to fight for them. I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for them, the happy families, the little kids, the crazy old people in the park feeding pigeons. I'll fight for the future Sam should've had, so that there is one for sasquatches everywhere."

Chuckling humorlessly at his own joke he sat up and stared into the rearview mirror, seeing the dead look in his eyes.

"Looks like we're both dead God, I wonder if we're both in hell."