Title: Behind Closed Doors
Rating: K
Character/Pairing: Team Free Will (Gen)
Prompt: Behind Closed Doors
Summary: They all know it even if they've stopped talking about it. Their lives are messed up. And they all have different ways of dealing with it when the case is done and the doors are closed.
A/N: For Rhanni. Unbetaed.
When Sam stops to think about it, the three of them have the most screwed up lives he can imagine. They've started and stopped the apocalypse, been vessels for angels and demons, gone to heaven and hell and always bounced right back into hunting. Sometimes he wonders if there's supposed to be a message in all the chances they get, if someone or something is trying to tell them to take a chance at life. It's so very tempting to just throw in the towel at times, give up trying to deal with Dean and the drinking, stop worrying about the trails of bodies that never seem to end even when they catch the monster, let go of the guilt that plagues him about every wrong decision he's made that has lead to death.
But guilt isn't that easy to let go of. Dean is the last person he could abandon. And to try and ignore the fact that people are dying and they can do something is harder than facing the fact that people are always going to be dying of supernatural causes. So Sam deals with the cases as best he knows how, he digs and digs until he finds something, he charges in with Dean in a last ditch attempt to save someone, he deals with Cas as best he can to get the most out of him. Jokes become rarer as he tries to work out the best way to stop hurting after every new death and Sam eventually begins to block away the guilt. He blocks it away and pretends not to realize that his main concern with Dean is rapidly becoming his own issue.
When Castiel thinks about the life he is now living, there is something right about it in a way that Heaven, though great and glorious and righteous, lacked. Human life is not better. There is no unconditional, total love, no singular sense of belonging, none of the power that comes with being one with the Host. But everything is so much more real and vivid and in the present. Sensations crash over him almost overwhelmingly, even though he is far more accustomed than any of his brethren.
But things are also much darker, much more lonely and pain and fear and guilt are so much more powerful when you have to deal with them alone. Castiel is no Dean; he cannot drown out the darkness with alcohol, no matter how he tries. Nor is he Sam, finding solace in the lives they save. Alcohol doesn't have the same influence over angels. He's not in this to protect the innocent. So when the day has ended, case closed and monster dead and Dean and Sam are fighting their nightmares, Castiel sits. He sits and watches over the hunters and fights in silence to quell his own darkness that rages in his mind.
When Dean ventures into the land of semi-deep thought, he knows hunting is the only constant in his life. Knowing about djinn and demons and ghosts and vampires and all the other terrors that should belong in storybooks, Dean could never leave it behind. That space under the bed, the dark shadows in the closet, that furtive looking guy across the road, to Dean they will always be dangerous, potential hidey-holes for supernatural monsters. And no matter how many he kills, no matter how fast the adrenaline pumps or how many people they save this time, nothing is enough to erase that knowledge.
He seeks to drown it out, in women and booze and junk food. Especially, of late, the booze. He's perfectly happy to leave Sam to dig up a new case or research some obscure mythology in the silence and safety of a motel room. Give Dean the rowdy bar and an endless supply of decent alcohol and he's happy. By the time he reaches the women stage of the night, his mind is so fogged that it's hard to remember that someone actually died today and that he always needs to check for monsters under the bed and in his arms. And when he finally sleeps, either alone in a pleasant haze or sharing the comfort of someone else, there's finally a little quiet in his world.