A/N: I can't sleep. So, I shot this off.
Disclaimer: Don't own it. And, again, especially since I've been watching old MST3K episodes on Hulu and YouTube, I want to invoke the MST3K motto.
Fights with Monsters
Dean wanted to put as many miles as possible from the hospital. He wanted to be at least two states away from Oklahoma by the time the sun rose. He didn't exactly care which direction to go.
Probably not south, because maps never did Texas justice.
He wanted to salt and burn these awful blue robes so they would never haunt anyone again.
He wondered what was going to happen to Martin. Dean hoped the older hunter would be fine.
Dean sped up some more, trying to outrun everything. Especially his thoughts. He glanced over at Sam, who just stared out the window.
Dean wished he knew the words to say that would make Sam feel better. Of course, Dean wished he had the words to make himself feel better.
The advice he gave Sam was Dad's advice. Dean could almost hear Dad's voice coming out of his own mouth. Walk it off; you're all right. As long as they had their arms and legs, they were all right. As long as they weren't on fire, they were fine. As long as they weren't knocking on death's door, everything was fine.
So, he wondered where Sam got this emo. No, Dean corrected himself. Both of them wore their feelings openly displayed. While Sam embraced his emotions, particularly his anger, Dean always tried to hide his emotions.
Some days were better than others.
Dean knew that his advice wasn't all that terrific. Burying feelings would make both of them ticking time bombs. However, it was better to deal with figuring out a way to stop the Apocalypse before their own breakdowns.
Too many people were depending on them.
They had to be like sharks. Keep moving, or they were going to get swallowed up by these stupid feelings.
Dean wondered why Sam and he had problems with opposite emotions. Anger was never hard for Dean to bury. He knew he had a naturally slow-burning fuse. He never remembered ever having overwhelming feelings of sheer anger. He had been upset, frustrated, mad. But, as far as he could remember, he never had problems with fury.
Anger was easy to bury. He just focused his attention on something else, and that feeling usually went away. Grudges were stupid things to carry around. Especially since he desperately relied on the people who frustrated him the most. Previously, it was Dad. Now it was Sam. If he nursed grudges, he couldn't be in the same vehicle that either one of them were in.
Anger was like fire. You have to keep it nursed in order for it to keep going.
Sam's anger came as no surprise to Dean. He wasn't exactly intelligent, but he was pretty sure he knew when Sam was angry. Because it seemed like Sam was always angry. He liked to fan those flames. Of course, Dean could think of a reason why Sam could be angry at Lucifer. The whole vessel thing might do it. After all, Dean was pretty frustrated at the idea that he was tapped to be Michael's vessel.
And, Dean knew that he would like to punch Zachariah in the face. Just because.
Grief was also that Dean was usually eventually able to bury. With effort. He had problems dealing with grief. The only thing that kept him going was knowing that grief fades in time.
He missed Ellen and Jo. They were friends, and they died. If he hadn't asked them to come—if Jo hadn't gone back to rescue him from the Hellhounds—they wouldn't have died.
There was really no point in grieving over things that couldn't be changed.
Now, if Dean could figure out how to bury guilt and fear, he would be fine.
Dean knew one of his many shortcomings was his ability to feel guilty about everything. He couldn't help it. Everything felt like his fault. He broke the first seal. He asked Jo and Ellen to come as backup. Bobby was in a wheelchair because of him.
And, yes, he had 6 billion lives that depended on him. He had to figure out a way out of the mess that he created. Even if the only reason was to lessen his own guilt.
Fear was his biggest problem.
Everything scared Dean. He could handle the things that went bump in the night, the things that would send most people running. He knew he was crazy, because those were fine. The idea of a wraith didn't send him freaking. He could dig up dead bodies with relative ease. Shooting bad dudes in the face was something that came as easily as breathing.
It was other things…
He was scared of Sam. Not just the idea of what Sam could become. He was scared of Sam's rage and anger. He had felt that rage and anger directed at him, and it wasn't a good feeling.
He was scared of their dependence on each other. He knew that was what got them into this mess in the first place. If he hadn't made a deal when Sam had died… Dean knew he could think in this cycle until he went crazy.
However, he was mostly frightened of himself. He had seen what he could become—someone so hard he could coldly allow his friends to walk into traps to become sacrifices. Someone who could easily pick up torturing again, just to get information.
Dean always had one nagging thought in the back of his head since he came back from Hell. There wasn't too much that separated him from the monsters he fought.
He knew how black his heart could be. He always tried to stay on the side of, well, angels. But, not dicks, like Zachariah. The side that good angels, like Cas, walked. Because, just in case he had to agree to accept Michael, he wanted to remain a good person.
Dean felt he was failing that.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Sam turned to Dean. "What did you say?"
Dean looked over at him "Nothing. I was just muttering to myself."
"It sounded a little bit like you were quoting Nietzsche."
Dean shrugged. "I was just muttering to myself. It must still be the affect of the wraith's influence, huh?"
Sam smiled sadly. "Yeah. I'm having the same problem."
Dean turned on the radio. It was far too quiet in there. Leaving him alone with his thoughts was obviously not a good thing.
The best thing he could do was bury them in order to go forward.
End
A/N: I liked the episode, but, honestly, I wasn't in love with that last scene. Because we've seen this same discussion many times on this show. We didn't learn anything we didn't already know about the guys. I thought the scene where Sam is fighting those imaginary people while Dean was in the corner semi-catatonic was striking. It was well done. But, that last scene—the heart-to-heart—pretty much said everything that scene was saying without words. Sam's angry; Dean suppresses. We knew this. It would be different if there were some realization, some growth, and they could get on with it. Other than that, good episode.
And I hope you… well… tolerated this.
I've used that Nietzsche quote before. I don't necessarily agree with Friedrich Nietzsche, but I think that's such a powerful quote. It's from Beyond Good and Evil.