Decomposition

Sam sat silently glaring at his brother, Dean, as he slept fitfully, turning on the almost too small motel bed. Needless to say, the younger brother was concerned, extremely so.

Over the span of his life, Sam had loved and admired his older brother as more of a god than just another human being. In most ways, he'd practically worshipped the ground that Dean walked on, praised his every honorable trait and ignored his every defect. But in all of this time, he'd seen the changes, tiny cracks spreading in the façade that he presented to the rest of the world. He could see his brother slowly decomposing around him. Every fight, every monster, every woman. He'd watched them all take their toll on Dean, leaving permanent scars and eroding the confident surety of who he'd always been.

He'd seen his brother as the sands in the hourglass of his life trickled downwards, and he prepared for an eternity of pain and torture, the likes of which he'd never even imagined. The jokes and the sarcasm were his mask as he hid his fear of what hell would be like behind all of that glamour. Until the very end, he'd denied his fear, choked it down to the deepest part of him and refused to even acknowledge it. When he finally did, it was too late, and there was nothing left to do to save him. He was gone, taken, and dragged away with the hellhounds ripping at his flesh, his green eyes full of tears and the very clear signs of pain and fear.

Four months. He spent four months in hell, and there it was like forty years of torture. Every part of him was mutilated and destroyed day after day without even the slightest break. There was such an agony there that even words could not describe how it felt, the most he could say was that it was hell, the epitome of what that word meant. Blades ripped apart his skin, acid was poured on his gaping wounds, he was poked, prodded, and emotionally destroyed without even the possibility of the sweet relief of death. All around him, he heard the screams of other tortured souls, and as much as he tried to resist, his own yells forced themselves out of his mouth. His own agonized howls echoing for hours until his voice was gone completely and all he had left were tear stained cheeks and a heaving chest, covered in his own crimson blood. Then, he would open his eyes and find himself whole again just so they could tear him apart one more time. Day after day after day for thirty years, he suffered, the only thing keeping him sane was the knowledge that he'd saved Sammy at least for that small moment of time.

After that, he wasn't the same. Even after he came back, in many ways, he was nothing more than a husk, an empty shell and a shattered vessel that took on more alcohol, more cases, more distraction. It was there in his posture, the tight way that he held himself, the way he jumped at the slightest sound, and in those bright green eyes that no longer shone, but now hung dimly in their sockets as all light had been extinguished in the pit.

He was forced to deal with the fact that he'd began the apocalypse. That was one of the worst times in his life as he struggled to hold together the pieces just long enough to divert the end. All the while, he was forced to hold Sam together through all of his addiction and struggles. But Dean never complained. It was his duty, and his penance to be strong for everyone around them. While, they could break, he couldn't afford to, and chose instead to ignore all of his roiling emotions for the greater good.

He may have ignored them, but they didn't go away. They stuck with sharp claws in his belly, clinging to the walls and slowly destroying their host. His only moments of calm came in the form of liquid courage. The hot burn of the alcohol as numbness swept his system, he could breathe again. He could almost forget that he was Dean Winchester. Couple that liquor with the equally relaxing body of a strange woman, and he could almost pretend that he someone else, that his life had never been haunted by the devil, by angels, demons, ghosts, monsters, or anything else that went bump in the night.

Drink after drink, he erased himself, but at end of the day, he always had to return to his world and all that came with it. There was no end to being the hero, no chance to gracefully bow out as hunters were always dogged by the creatures that they had slain.

Just when, they thought they were finding some sort of solid ground beneath them, some strange variation of normality, the other shoe dropped. Cas's betrayal stung them all, but none so much as the elder Winchester. Ever since his exit from hell, the man had felt a certain debt to the angel. That debt that quickly became an alliance and then a friendship as Castiel made the ultimate sacrifice and rebelled against all that he'd ever believed in. This sacrifice, this devotion was something that he couldn't ignore, and as they battled side by side, he knew that Castiel was one of the few people who he allowed himself to care about, a permanent fixture in the confusing jumble of his life.

But in the end, he'd been betrayed. His trust, his confidence had been shattered in the most shameful way. Because he dared to hope, because he dared to believe, it had all been shoved in his face, and had all come to nothing.

Even Sam had had his part to play in his brother's erosion. When he came back from hell, soulless and emotionless, Dean had done all he could. He'd been willing to fight from one end of the earth to the other to restore his brother, and no matter what or who stood in his way, he would. He loved Sam more than anything, and had taken care of him since he was a child. The thought of losing his brother to this sick, and frankly terrifying monster hurt him to his core. He could feel it boiling inside of him, turning and changing everything that he'd ever believed in.

He loved Sam, and he'd admit that his actions were selfish and arrogant as he'd wrangled Death and demanded this exchange, the consequences be damned. Even now, he often wondered if he'd done the right thing. Seeing Sammy writhing in pain as his brain fell apart from the emotional and physical strain that it was maintaining nearly destroyed him. Watching Sammy struggle to ignore the literal devil in his mind was taking a worse toll on him than he'd imagined. He'd like to think he was right in his decision, that he'd done what was best, though he often doubted it when he took the time to really consider it. Jamming that broken, fragile soul back into him just for the sake of saving him when he could never be sure that he had, in fact, done anything to help him. Every day, he watched his brother closely, watching his every eye flicker, at his every move as he strove to prevent any relapse or the inevitable breakdown that he could feel coming, leaving himself drained and emotionally drawn.

But the final straw, the final nail in the coffin was the loss of Lisa and Ben. Sam could see it, everything draining out of him on the hunt and afterwards in gloomy oppressiveness of the car. In his thirty years, Dean had lost so much, given up so much for them all and the cost only seemed to rise exponentially around him. Because, now, he'd just lost his family, the people who'd taken him in when he was nothing, who'd loved him past his nightmares, and tolerated the screams that ripped out of his mouth every night. He'd had to willingly give away everything and everyone that mattered to him, because people who loved him only suffered. He was a curse, a blight, but the suffering never affected him. It was always those that he loved the most that had to shoulder the pain while he was left to watch them all crumble and die around him.

The hunter's agony was palpable, a crushing wall bearing down on them all, but it was Dean who was falling, crashing to the ground. And not even Sam knew how to put him back together, how to seal a lifetime's worth of cracks. Maybe it was truly impossible, maybe Dean was supposed to be left as this decaying building with rotted timbers and rusty pipes. He was supposed to crumble into so much debris. And as much as Sam wanted to stop it, to fix him, he realized that it was beyond his power and perhaps even that of the angels. Only time would tell, but as far as he could see, his brother was condemned, sentenced to a life of perpetual misery until, at last, he would meet his final end.

A/N:

Whoo-hoo! Here's yet another of my short, Supernatural story drabbles down (If you haven't figured it out, I'm kind of a bit beyond obsessed right now)! I've really been cranking them out lately. Seriously, you should see my notebook. Soooo many Supernatural stories and prompts. Well, anyway, I hope you at least kind of liked it.

Anyway, thanks for reading all of this kind of long note. Tell me what you think about the story (and Dean Winchester {because I love him so much})! Remember, reviews feed me (And I'm starving) and I'm not afraid of the flames.

Remember: Reviews= happy camper. Happy camper= quicker updates. Quicker updates= you reading more. It's a cycle keep it going!

Yours truly, madly, and deeply,

Einstinette