He hates her.

Hates her with every fibre of his being.

Black eyed bitch, abomination, her cruelty knew no bounds.

He hates her, but he understands her too.

And that scares him more than anything.

The empathy.

She feels it as well.

He's seen it in tiny flickers that cross her vessels face, they'll catch each others eye and there it is, that bond.

Cas always said he had a profound bond with Dean, but Dean thinks it pales when held up to the one he shares with Meg.

She always maintained that after leaving Sam's body, that she'd simply found another meat suit to wander around in until Lucifer was set free.

But Dean knows better.

Somehow she was dragged back to hell.

She never told him how it happened.

Could have been another hunter maybe, but if he were a betting man, he'd say that hell wanted her back, and so it simply took her.

When every day in hell seemed like a hundred on earth, you get to know your fellow souls pretty well.

She was on the table as much as he was.

Punishment for fleeing after Azazels death.

More than once he'd turned his head to see her lying parallel to him a few feet away, her eyes black with fear and pain as Alistair carved her up.

….. And after?

They'd taken the knife to each other.

….. And liked it.

God he'd liked it.

He hated her because she knew the truth.

They'd found a spark of comfort in each other in Hell. Like two enemies flung together during a war, you deal with it, you work with it…. Then you realise you admire them, even love them a little.

Because horror does that.

It draws you closer than happiness ever could.

He hated her because she understood that he was turning into a better demon than she had ever seen.

He'd had some poor guy on the rack and had glanced up at her to see her smiling in delight.

"Your eyes!" She'd said breathlessly.

Black as pitch.

And he'd been so happy about it.

They'd held each others twisted souls and made their Hell a place they wanted to be.

Nothing had mattered anymore.

Not Sam.

Not his soul.

Nothing.

If this was eternity then he'd make the very best of it.

With her.

But Cas had dragged him back.

Kicking and screaming, wrenched from her grasp and thrown back into the light.

God it had hurt.

All the feelings, the emotions that flooded back.

They burned him up.

So when he saw her again, when she tried to have Bobby kill him, he hated her.

Not because she'd had Bobby possessed, or even that she wanted him dead, but because she reminded him of what he had been.

What he had wanted to be.

He hated her.

He envied her.

He might even still love her a little.