A/N: OK, I've been telling people there's only 1 chapter left but I was mistaken. And this one ends in a kind of awkward place, but it's long enough to be its own chapter so here it is. There shouldn't be more than 1 more chapter, but that could change. Again.
Time passed, Sam tried to not count every individual minute as they updated in the corner of his computer screen, and he tried to not look, stare, or even glance at Dean.
Finally, when Dean's chair squeaked three or four times within a minute or so, Sam knew something was coming. He still didn't look up until Dean spoke.
"Turns out, it wasn't your darkness after all. It was mine."
His voice was so soft, so unsure, so pained, it didn't even sound like him.
"What're you talking about?" Sam couldn't even begin to imagine what Dean was talking about. "How was it yours?"
"Um - it - um - see -." Dean rubbed the side of his nose and gestured vaguely and kept his eyes on his boots. "In the hospital, when I was in the hospital, you were - I think you went to get coffee, or use the bathroom, you weren't there for a few minutes and Cas showed up -."
Just the sound of that name pissed Sam off.
"He had a lot of nerve coming back there."
"He had to something to tell me. Something he had to tell me."
And just like that, Sam knew - whatever Castiel had told Dean, it was the reason Dean was so dead right now.
"What did he say to you?" Sam demanded. "Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you? I swear to God, I will hunt him down and rake his feathers across the galaxy if he so much as looked at you sideways."
"No, Sammy, that wasn't it." Dean said, sounding like it took all the breath in his body. He looked up and around and anywhere but Sam. "He told me - he told me - do you know what the first Seal to fall was?"
"Yeah, the Witnesses. What did Cas -?"
"No, not the Witnesses. The first Seal - the first Seal -."
Sam leaned toward Dean, intent on every word, every gesture, every nuance. He knew Dean enough to know that whatever was wrong, whatever was devouring Dean from the inside out, he was about to find it out.
Dean cleared his throat and scrubbed his face and looked just as devastated as he had those first few minutes after Dad died. He finished his thought in a hoarse whisper.
"The first Seal was when a righteous man shed blood in hell."
Sam heard Dean. He heard him and he waited for him to say more, while he spun what Dean had just said through his brain, trying to piece Dean's shame out of it, and sooner than it took to take a breath -
"You were the first seal."
"I broke the first seal." Dean said. "And the angels - they didn't haul me out of hell because I'm special, or important, or worthy. They pulled me out because the guy who started it all has to stop it all."
Sam was trying hard to get his brain to process everything Dean was saying, but it wasn't making sense. And then Dean said,
"I'm only breathing again so I can clean up the mess I made."
"Hey, if there's a mess, then we made it." Sam said, gesturing between Dean and himself. "I don't know what crap Castiel told you, but -"
"He told me that when all the seals fall and the Apocalypse starts, it'll be because of me. Because I started it. There's no 'we' in there."
"You didn't start it."
"I broke the first seal."
"No, you were the first seal."
"I BROKE the first seal and the whole world is going to burn because of it unless I stop it. I have to stop it."
"No. No. Whatever needs to be done, we do it together." Sam insisted.
"I have to stop it." Dean insisted back. Then his voice and his eyes dropped and Sam knew he was about to hear Dean's shame. "And I can't. I know I can't. The fate of the world is resting on a guy who'd rather just curl up and die." He finished in a hoarse whisper. "Sammy - I can't do it."
"You don't have to." Sam said, his tone matching Dean's. Why wasn't Dean getting it? "You don't have to stop it."
"Yes, I have to."
"Why? Because a couple of dick angels say you have to? When did we start taking their word for anything?"
"They're angels."
"SO?"
"So? Since when do you diss angels"
"Since I realized they're all dicks."
By now, they were yelling at each other and that wasn't what Sam wanted. He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face.
"Dean -."
"No, Sam. I mean it. You need to get as far away from me as you can. You don't need to be part of this. If I can't take care of it, or even if I can - who knows what happens after that? Maybe I just go back to the pit."
Just the thought of that drove Sam to his feet.
"No. They don't touch you. Not-ever-again."
"You can't stop them, Sam. Nobody can." Dean huffed and gestured to himself, his healing ribs, the fading bruises. "This is proofofthat."
"No." But even as he said that, Sam knew it was true. Angels could zap Dean out, right here, right now, and there wasn't one damn thing he could do about it except hunt Dean down again and hope he got there before it was too late.
He sank back down into his chair.
"Just - don't even say that."
Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Doesn't change it being true." He said. And then, quieter, he added, "Doesn't change anything. I broke the first seal."
"You were the first seal." Sam said again, he really hoped it was for the last time. "You were the first seal, and they broke you."
Dean's expression changed in an instant, from sorrowing to a snarl.
"They didn't break me." He said, sharp and fast. "I chose to get off the rack and pick up that knife. They didn't break me. I didn't break."
"Yes, you did."
Dean shoved away from the table, shaking his head like Sam was the stupidest person alive.
"I didn't break."
He stormed away from the table toward the front door. Even half dead and hardly able to stand up straight, that was typical Dean defense against Sam - turn his back and ignore the situation. Normally, Sam might just let him go and wait to sort things out. But Sam was tired and in pain and just about at the end of his rope. He stood up and shouted after Dean.
"Why? Because you're Dean Winchester, and Dean Winchester doesn't break? I got news for you - you did. You BROKE."
Almost to the motel room door, Dean turned back.
"You don't know what you're talking about. I didn't break. I chose it. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed torturing souls."
"I do know what I'm talking about." Sam answered him back. "I know you. I know those last ten years did more damage to you than anything that happened to you the first thirty. And I know that if you make yourself believe you enjoyed it, then you can make yourself believe you didn't break. Because Dean Winchester doesn't break. But you did - you broke."
Sam stopped yelling. He was exhausted and in pain and at the end of his rope, and - he realized - so was Dean.
"And the only thing wrong with that," he finished, "Is that you were in hell at all."
He turned back to the kitchenette, he threw out the styrofoam bowls he'd crushed and tossed onto the floor, he tied the plastic bag of bowls shut and pushed them into the cupboard. He rearranged the cheap cans of cheap soup and propped the bag of oyster crackers between a couple of them.
Behind him, he heard Dean come back to the table, but it didn't sound like he sat down. If he was back, then at least he wasn't angry anymore.
to be continued