Dean was still contemplating regret two hours later but not just that but everything he'd been through in the past year and a half. He sat at Bobby's desk finishing off the last of a fresh bottle of whiskey in silence and feeling that there was no amount of drink that was going to ease the tension that was ripping though him. It had been building for months.
This morning's little indiscretion had been the closest he'd come to easing the tension and that brought up a whole new set of concerns and questions. Ones he hadn't touched on since the incident last year with the Siren.
Now in the silence with nothing to distract his mind that whole night played itself out in his head. From the moment he'd realised he'd been set upon by the Siren in the form of a friendly male FBI agent with great taste in music and cars to the moment he'd beaten the hell out of his kid brother. To the moment Bobby had told him and Sam it wasn't their fault the creature had gotten to them. But Bobby hadn't known just how much that thing had gotten into his head? At least he hoped he didn't. It was hard enough for him to deal with.
It had been a terrifying experience that night for more reasons than one. Dean had never told anyone what had happed before Sam had returned to the Hotel room. The things the Siren had said to him. The things he'd made him feel. The things he'd done.
A shiver rushed down his back and his stomach tightened.
The thing had told Sam that Dean had wanted a brother who looked up to him. That listened to him. That would do what he was told. But that had only been part of what the Siren had tapped into. He'd wanted more than that; the Siren had been everything he'd wanted in some ways…. But there was something in Dean that he hadn't even admitted to.
Dean threw back another gulp of whiskey as his mind continued to torment him.
The Siren had said they would be together if only he got rid of Sam. That Sam didn't trust him, didn't understand him, didn't love him, and all these things had hurt, had made Dean angry, but it hadn't made Dean love, which had surprise the bastard.
But the thing with Sirens was they could get into your head. Deep. Rummage around for what they needed to control you, and he'd found it.
He'd found that need Dean had, and it had nothing to do with his brother. The bastard had used what he'd found.
Sirens were no better than shape-shifters, taking on any form they desired, any form their prey desired, and so gone where the green eyes, replaced with innocent shining blue. Gone was the short cropped hair to be replaced by a wind ruffled mess. Gone was the natural male timbre replaced with one impossibly deep and gravelly one. Gone was the tall figure that met him eye to eye to be replaced with one that Dean had to look down at.
Then he had him. - Completely and without question or doubt. - After that it had only been a matter of time before Sam returned and the Siren used that power against his brother.
The only things Dean had been grateful for that night was that the thing had reverted to his FBI form and hadn't told Sammy just what it had taken to bend Dean to his will. He'd used their sibling rivalry issues to set the two hunters against each other and not Dean's repressed emotional state.
Dean closed his eyes against the memories that flooded his mind. He'd become an expert had pushing away unwanted memoires. - Hiding from them. - So after that he'd forced the experience into the dark recesses of his mind right next to those of his time in hell. He hadn't allowed them to intrude on his life, even when they tried to pry their way back whenever Cas was around.
But when it was silent and there was nothing to stop his mind from wondering that was when they rooted their way into his consciousness.
Everyone was asleep. Ellen and Jo had taken Bobby's room while the old man was crashed out on the cot beneath the bay window. Sammy was out cold on the floor a few feet away. Dean was sure most normal people would find it strange that they were able to sleep soundly with everything that was hanging over them. But that was the thing about hunters, they faced danger every day and so they slept peacefully whenever they could, because they knew that without it, they could be the ones dying. Dean would usually be asleep himself if his mind wasn't tormenting him.
Dean stared across the deck, across the room and into the kitchen. On a chair in the dark sat Cas, the only other person in their world still awake. Of course Cas didn't need to sleep so it wasn't so strange.
The angel sat completely surrounded by darkness; in fact the only light in the house was coming from the small desk lamp beside Dean. Yet he could feel the angels stare and in the dark he knew that their gazes had locked.
With the silence surrounding them it was as if they were the last two people in existence and Dean found that idea strangely inviting, after all there were worse people to spend your life with. Ruby, Meg…. Alastair all came to mind along with a couple of dickless angels. But Cas, he wasn't like any of them, Dean had known that from the beginning despite what he'd said to the contrary.
There had been a bond from the instant Dean had crawled out of his grave, he'd felt something different inside him, a humming feeling that had freaked him out, especially when he'd had no idea how he'd escaped the pit. He'd feared that feeling, scared that his practices in hell had been enough to change him into what he fear becoming the most…. A demon.
Then Castiel had walked through those barn doors, met his gaze with one of heavenly blue innocence, told him he was an angel of the lord and Dean's terror had magnified.
It wasn't knowing that the man upstairs had a big plan for him. It wasn't even the idea that angels existed. It was that the instant Castiel had turned those blue eyes on him, he'd felt a change beginning. Something in his soul had warmed like it had never done before, reaching out to Cas, wanting something in return.
He'd tried to ignore it, Hell had he tried, but there was that humming in his mind, a charge beneath his flesh, so insistent that had become now such a part of him that Dean didn't even notice it was there until it was silenced.
And only one thing silenced it…. Cas.
Whenever he was within ten feet of the angel the humming eased. The closer he got the better he felt and though he was always complaining to the angel about personal space, when it was invade the noise was practically gone…. - Though not completely. Dean actually believed it would never be silenced completely – but it was enough to give him a few moments of peace to breathe, to think.
But that hadn't been the only thing that told Dean that Castiel wasn't like Uriel, Zachariah or Raphael. No, Cas had something those dicks didn't have, faith, compassion and loyalty…
Faith in his father even when everything said the 'man' had abandoned them, compassion for humanity and everything it represented, even when it fell short of his expectations, and then there was loyalty…. A loyalty that not even Dean could understand, because that loyalty wasn't to heaven, or his brothers or even God, it was to Dean and that was a terrifying prospect.
Because if Dean and his brother failed, Cas was going to be the one to pay for that failure.
That thought had Dean gut tightening and his heart pounding against his ribs with such force that it hurt. He didn't want Castiel to suffer because of him. He found his throat tightening at the idea of what the other angels, what Lucifer, would do to him.
The angel had been dragged back to bible camp once before and he'd come back a little different, Dean had known it the moment he'd set eyes on him again. It wasn't that Cas had told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to be his bitch. No it was a feeling Dean had gotten the instant Cas was back in his vessel, back in his life, facing him with cold eyes. He'd known then that something truly horrific had happened to the angel back in heaven, because he'd seen that look before - in the mirror - and the idea that Cas had gone through anything close to what he had both wounded and petrified him in equal measure.
And it had been those feeling, that humming, that the Siren had tapped into and used against Dean that night. It had brought to light what Dean had been hiding from. Something he needed to face one way or another.
The question of regrets reared its head again as he sat meeting the angels unflinching stare in the darkness. He still hadn't figured out if Cas regretted anything but he knew there were more than a few things he regretted.
He regretted giving the demon bitch Ruby the ways and means to get into Sammy's head. He regretted not killing the bitch before he went to hell. He regretted everything he'd done while he was there. He regretted not spotting that there was something wrong with Sam and then pushing him right towards Lilith. He regretted allowing Sam to walk away all those months ago without a fight. – At least that one had been fixed before it led to an even bigger and more disastrous regret.
Dean regretted a lot of things he realised, both because they were direct his fault or because he just thought they were.
But there was one thing he wasn't going to go to his grave regretting - he thought to himself as he continued to stare into invisible blue eyes, his body's constant humming echoing though his mind - even if it meant doing what he swore he would never do… again.
