My inspiration for this story comes from the song My Demons by Starset. The words in italics at the start of this chapter are actually lines from the song. This was also inspired by me wanting to see more of the immediate reaction to the events of the mid-season finale, which apparently the writers just wanted to skip over for some reason.

Many thanks to my awesome beta/proofreader Amanda (aka Dancing_Adrift on Twitter) for editing this and giving suggestions. I did edit it slightly after making the changes she suggested, so any mistakes in this are mine.

Mayday! Mayday! The ship is slowly sinking.

They think I'm crazy, but they don't know the feeling.

"Tell me it was you or them!"

I feel Sam's hands on either side of my face as he practically begs me to lie to him. My little brother is begging me to make him believe I didn't just murder humans senselessly. Sam knows the truth though. The Mark of Cain took over, and I couldn't stop it. We've both been trying to ignore the fact the Mark was still there, still threatening to turn me back into the demon who would have bashed his own brother's skull in with a hammer a few weeks ago if it hadn't been for some timely angelic intervention from Cas.

Sam asks me again to lie to him, to tell him those humans didn't have to die by my hand. I want to say the dead men lying around me deserved their deaths, especially the one who had wanted Claire to rob a convenience store just so he could have the money to pay off some loan sharks. And even the son of a bitch who had gone upstairs after Claire. I don't want to think about what would have happened to the girl if we hadn't come back here.

But I can't think about anything right now other than the sound of my brother begging me again to tell him I had no choice but to kill those men.

"I didn't mean to," I finally manage to speak. And I really didn't mean to kill them. I tried to warn them that they were making a mistake by attacking me.

Sam's hands fall away from my face. I still won't look up, and I can't think of anything else to say. Really, what else can I say in this situation? The evidence is all around us. Sam doesn't need me to actually tell him the truth. I look down to the knife I'm still holding. My focus zeroes in on the blood on my hands.

Human blood. These men weren't even monsters. Well, maybe not monsters in the sense of the ones I swore I'd hunt down whenever I had a chance. Still, no matter what they did, I shouldn't have killed them. I should have been stronger than the Mark. I can still feel it burning, urging me to cause more blood to spill.

I thought I could control things and find a way out of my own mess without dragging Sam down with me. Yet here he is, witnessing the downfall of the brother he should have let go when he had the chance.

"Dean," Sam's voice is barely a whisper, the complete opposite of the frantic voice he used a minute ago when he ran back into the house to find me kneeling here on the floor, surrounded by dead men and covered in their blood. "We need to get out of here."

I don't move. I'm not sure I can. All I can focus on are the lifeless bodies in the room. The blood. And Claire's scream I can still hear echoing in my mind. It's bad enough that I lost control with Sam and Cas both nearby, but for that poor girl to have also witnessed what I did?

Add Claire's name to the list of people whose lives will never be the same after meeting me. I'm sure what she witnessed will haunt her forever.

Sam's voice suddenly sounds like it's further away. I don't know what he's saying, but I'm sure he's no longer talking to me. Maybe he's telling Cas to come back in here and smite me so all of this will be over. I couldn't blame him if he ever asked for that to happen. And Cas? I already told him to put an end to me if I went "Dark Side" again. Although, at the time, I was referring to me becoming a demon again.

I never expected to lose control and kill human beings while actually still a human myself. Or maybe I really am no longer a human. Might as well admit the truth. I'm a monster now.

Sam is suddenly kneeling in front of me again, but I'm too far gone looking at the mess I made to know what he's saying. The walls feel like they're closing in. A weight settles on my chest that makes it difficult for me to breathe, let alone try to reply to whatever Sam is saying. I feel him gently take the knife from my hand before he grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.

I stumble forward a couple steps before I realize I need to be a little more cooperative. Leaning heavily on Sam, I allow him to almost drag me to the Impala. I'm not surprised when I don't see Cas or Claire anywhere in sight. Sam guides me to the passenger side of the Impala. I want to comment on the fact that I still have blood on me, and throw in something about messing up the seats in the car, but my voice seems to have gone.

I stop him as he opens the door. The Mark is still burning beneath my skin. I can't take any chances...

"Dean?" He studies me, trying to figure out why I'm in no hurry to get into the car.

I hold my hands out, palms up with my wrists touching. Sam looks down at my hands then looks me in the eyes.

"No, I'm not putting the cuffs on you," He says defiantly, perfect impression of that typical younger brother attitude he had as a teenager. The attitude he never really grew out of even all these years later.

Just do it, Sammy. I don't want to be responsible for you getting hurt because I can't control what's happening to me.

Of course, I don't say that out loud. I don't have to. Sam and I have lived with each other long enough to know what the other is thinking. Under other circumstances, I imagine he would give me a trademark bitch face for making him do something he really doesn't want to do. Slowly, he pulls the cuffs from his jacket pocket. Really, I shouldn't be surprised to know he is carrying them where he has such quick access to them. Still, I'm surprised he does it without more of a fuss.

Unlike the last time he had to do this, his movements are slow as he fastens the cuffs. His hands are shaking, and I can't remember a time when I have seen him this upset. I almost laugh at how he struggles to do this while I'm compliant when he did all of this with one arm in a sling the last time he used the cuffs on me.

He helps me into the car because I still can't seem to get my brain to send the right signals to the rest of my body to properly move. Once the door shuts and he gets into the driver's seat, Sam looks at me like he wants to say something, but he just sits there for a minute before finally starting the car.

"Cas took Claire back to the group home," He informs me just as the Impala's engine roars to life. I get what he means though. Claire was traumatized by what she witnessed. Her scream echoes through my mind again. She must have been begging Cas to get her away from that house, away from me. I can't blame Cas for zapping her away.

Sam should have done the same thing. He should have left me there to deal with everything on my own. Sometimes I don't understand my little brother. He made it clear he didn't want to be my brother months ago, and then I died by Metatron's hand. I guess that changed everything. Or maybe he just wanted to hurt me because of everything that happened after I tricked him into letting Gadreel possess him.

He refused to let me go when I was a demon and stuck with me, trying to save me, after I nearly smashed his brains in. Sam has seen my inner demon, but he's still here. I've spent my life protecting him, and I have given him so many reasons to hate me. So many reasons to walk away from me and never look back.

He comes back every time I need saving. I've always tried to be brave and do what a big brother is supposed to do. Big brothers aren't supposed to need their little brothers to protect and save them. But I know this time I can't do this alone. I need Sam's help, even if I won't admit it out loud.

If there's anything in this world I don't deserve, it's having Sam for a brother. He was right all those months ago after he found out about Gadreel. I was desperate. I couldn't let him die, even though I knew that's one reason he had taken on the Trials. He'd found a way out of this life permanently, and I couldn't let him have it.

He was right to call me selfish. Sam has proven multiple times that he could live a life without me. He took off to Flagstaff and survived two weeks on his own when he was a teenager. He left for Stanford and had a good life there until I showed up. He met Amelia while I was in Purgatory, and had a life with her too. Of course, that life he had with her didn't end because of me.

Still, the point remains that he has always been able to survive on his own. Me? I could barely survive without Sam. I rarely went on hunts by myself without Dad while Sam was at Stanford. The few I went on turned out to be the easiest hunts Dad could find or I would find an excuse to have Dad, or sometimes Bobby, come help me.

I know it's an unhealthy attachment to Sam, but when he is the only constant I've ever really had in my life, I find it difficult to function without him.

I did that once, after Sam went to Hell. If it hadn't been for Lisa Braeden, I probably would have been dead by the time he was freed from Lucifer's grasp. She was a saint for putting up with the things I put her and her son Ben through. All the nightmares and the sleepless nights she spent just holding me until I could fall asleep again, only to have the cycle to repeat itself the next night. I'm still surprised she didn't throw me out permanently the day I pulled a knife on Ben. I didn't know the kid had gotten out of school early, and he thought it would be funny to sneak up behind me in the kitchen. So when he tackled me, I knocked the kid to the ground and had a knife against his throat before I even realized it was him. Lisa, of course, let me have it that day when Ben told her what happened. I spent that night alone in a hotel room. She called the next morning after Ben had convinced her he wasn't hurt and that he should have known better than to try and sneak up on me like that.

I still think about them. The woman who gave me a chance for a normal life. The kid who might not have been mine but could have been.

I miss the days when things were simpler. Back when we were just kids and Sam had no idea about the things that lurked in the dark. I miss the days my baby brother looked at me like I could do anything and solve any problem either of us was facing. Truth is, I'm not the hero Sam always thought I was. I've always just been a soldier.

No. That's not right either now that I think about it. I've always been a pawn in a screwed up chess game that will eventually end with me dying before I ever know peace in my life.

At least I still have Sammy though. Having him around is the closest thing to peace I'll ever have in this world.

"Dean," Sam's voice breaks my thoughts. "Are... Uh, you okay?"

To anyone else, the question would seem pretty straightforward. Coming from Sam, it means something different. He probably knows I'll give him the usual answer to that question. And as usual, he will let it slide even though he knows that I'm lying through my teeth.

I still don't look at him. I can't bring myself to see the fear in his eyes that reflects in his voice. My little brother is afraid, and for the second time in our lives, he's afraid of me. Probably afraid I'm sitting here silently plotting how to kill him with another tool I could crush his skull with.

"Actually, I know you're not," He cuts me off before I can even say a word. "We'll find a way to fix this. There has to be something out there that can help us figure all of this out. You will be okay though."

I expect him to say more, but he doesn't. Instead, he just turns on the radio. As classic rock music fills the car, I can't help but wonder why I'm the one who's falling apart when Sam is the one who has been through a whole hell of a lot more than I have.

The miles blur by as Sam shows no signs of stopping. He'll drive until we're back at the bunker, where he'll ensure that I'll be okay for the time being before he spends hours in front of his laptop scouring the Web or turning the pages of a book looking for any clues he might have missed on how to save me from the Mark.

And ever so faintly, just barely audible over the sound of Highway To Hell blaring from the speakers, I hear Sam speak again.

"I'll save you this time." His voice cracks slightly. I finally look at him. He has a death grip on the steering wheel and a look on his face that tells me he means what he said with everything he has. "I've always let you down when you've needed someone the most. I won't do it this time. I'm going to save you, big brother."

You've never let me down, Sammy.