Spoiler Alert: Massive spoilers from Season 7, up to episode 11. If you haven't seen it yet, steer clear. Song-chapter (like many of my other chapters). Long drabble, angsty to boot. The song is centered around the inner turmoil of everybody on Team Free Will.

Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

The older Winchester was spending more of his time drinking these days. It seemed like the only thing left to do, and the only way to close his eyes at all, fading into some kind of black sleep in which dreams never came anymore. He'd considered starting to pull himself away from Sammy, for fear that his brother might be taken away, too. He'd been fine lately, and Lucifer wasn't haunting his steps in past weeks, but that knock Sam took to the head, causing another one of his seizures had been a nightmarish threat to Dean's comfort in his brother's existence.

Cas was gone, slipped down into nothingness without so much as a goodbye, Ellen and Jo had been gone for what seemed like decades. Rufus, Ash, Gabriel, hell EVERYBODY that helped them along the way was gone. Any of that, he could have walked through, not easily, but he could have managed, if the goddamn Leviathan didn't take Bobby away. That was the icing on the cake of misery. Maybe it wasn't so bad for Sam, but Dean felt himself falling apart at this new blow to the world around him. It was like a bad dream, and Dean wondered how in the Hell he got himself locked in a nightmare instead of his life. Bobby couldn't be gone. But he was. And why? To stop the Leviathans? To be the father of the entire world, where God turned away.

Father can you hear me?
How have I let you down?
I curse the day that I was born
And all the sorrow in this world

Sam remembered the look on his brother's face when the monitor flat-lined. The younger man had prepared himself for what he was 90% sure was going to happen, but his brother didn't. Dean couldn't handle anymore loss, but it was going to happen anyway. No amount of suffering in the world could promise them that there wouldn't be more right around the corner. Such was life. Sam loved Bobby, and it hurt to see him laying there in the hospital, struggling to pull through with a gunshot wound to the head. But Bobby was a hunter, and hunters didn't live to a ripe old age. Bobby and Rufus had actually been the oldest hunters that Sam knew. But he was like their father, especially to Dean, setting him right wherever he wronged himself. John died, and that was tough, but now Bobby? He was their pillar of support and when he passed, everything about Dean crashed to the ground. Sam tried to comfort himself in the idea that Bobby may be in Heaven. Sam saw Heaven and knew it was real, but Dean shot that to the ground, saying "Sammy, Bobby helped us and helped Cas rebel against angels. Angels run Heaven…the ones that Cas didn't sentence to death. Do you think the likes of any of us would be welcome there?"

Let me take you to the herding ground
Where all good men are trampled down
Just to settle a bet that could not be won
Between a prideful father and his son

Sam suffered right along with his brother. He understood what this must have been like, and he wasn't the kind of man to tell anybody to 'toughen up' when they'd experienced loss of this magnitude. He knew this story would have no happy ending, but Dean used to have hope. He tried so hard, along with his friends, his family. Together they'd all fought the battle of Heaven and Hell. As mere mortals, they'd thrown the end of the world up into the sky. They'd settled a score that an absent God laid upon them. Human beings, just bugs on the face of the Earth. They'd bound Death, absorbed the Devil, and become Gods themselves, just to save their world, and nobody even knew their sacrifice. Something in that suffering brought them together. Each one had fallen from their father. Their good friend Cas was forsaken by the father that never knew him, for aiding the humans that did. Sam remembered his friend asking why it was that one angel and a group of humans were responsible for righting the wrongs that those above them had caused. That thought was one of the first steps on the road to his fall.

For me, Dean thought, for a worthless human that didn't follow the divine plan set before me. They took Cas in, broken and torn apart and they made him one of their group. They were all broken in the same way. All had Daddy-issues if every anybody had them. Cas's father might not have beat him within an inch of his life like Bobby's dad did, or John had done many times before, but he'd allowed the other angels to cast him down. God allowed torture and death. Cas was punished just like Bobby had been, with this life, on Earth. Why? Because he cared for God's most prized possessions, humans. This planet. Team Free Will fought for lives that they hated, fought it all out for each other. They'd lost everybody else they loved. Bobby lost his wife, his parents, any woman he ever loved, his friends. Dean and Sam collectively lost their parents, any girlfriends along the way, the only true family they'd managed to land within. Unbeknownst to Sam, Dean lost the only person he'd given his heart to. Cas lost his brothers and most of the grace he carried as an angel. They were alone, but they were together in that sense. And now there was two of them left. Dean didn't blame Lucifer in his own dark mind. Had he not threatened their home, he would have let the Devil fight with God until the cows came home. This was supposed to be their fight. So why haven't they lost anything yet?

Will you guide me now for I can't see
A reason for the suffering and this long misery
What if every living soul could be upright and strong?
Well then I do imagine

The last time Dean spoke to Bobby privately…it played over and over in his head. The old man was setting him straight about his foolishness again. He always did, this time with a promise, saying, "If you die before me, boy, I'll kill you." Spoken like a true dad. That was the same day that Bobby left this world, having gathered information from Dick the Leviathan. He went along with the boys as he always did when they needed his help. And he lost his life because of it. So suddenly in fact that so much was left unanswered. Dean hadn't been ready to say goodbye, not letting himself accept what had just happened and refusing to cry, or properly mourn, refusing to even admit to himself that it was the end, and that Bobby Singer left forever. Where would he go when he needed to talk to somebody? When he didn't know where to turn?

He recalled the time before that, when that odd sandwich he ate made him momentarily chill. For a time, nothing hurt. Not losing Cas, not the Leviathans, not the idea of Sam's inner torments from his time in Hell. Nothing mattered. Sam had gone outside for what Dean could only guess was 'fresh air' and Bobby took time to ream the chemical coolness right out of him. Bobby, bless his soul, had been a loving man at one time. Dean didn't know it at the time, and had never seen the soft side of him, but it came out in a burst of bitterness. Something about Dean saying that he no longer cared that Cas was gone had set the old man off. As soon as Sam was out the door, he turned burning eyes on his adopted son.

"What in the Hell is wrong with you? Are you that much of a selfish dick?"

Dean had been taken back by this, surprised for a minute before Bobby continued, waving him off as he opened his mouth to reply.

"Shut up, Dean. I don't want to hear it. I don't care what you have floating around in your system right now, how could you even think like you do? That kid thought the sun rose and set on you. Literally loved you more than his own kind, thought God and Heaven were shit compared to the stars in your damn idiot brain. And you're so damn hung up on a wall of crap that John put in your head that you won't just man up and accept the way things are, the way you are. You don't think I notice how much you been drinkin, boy? I'm not blind. I know what you had, because I had that same emptiness when Karen…look, you don't just stop caring when somebody you love is gone.""

He betrayed us, Bobby."

"You dumb son of a bitch. Betrayed us? How about 'saved our asses' but not in the way you wanted? You're gonna hold that against all the good he did, because your little pride is damaged? Jesus Christ. Yes, I was mad, too. I didn't want it that way. He should have known to come to us for help, but do you think he wanted what ended up happening? Kid would have never done anything to lose you unless he had no other choice. Purgatory has all manner of nasty things in it, and you think he'd be in control of himself after taking them in? It was an army. An army inside of one man that was damn fool enough to befriend us, befriend you. That was sacrifice, and it was to protect you, whether you see it or not. Things don't always go just like you want them to, princess. Had he lost his fight with Raphael, you'd have been the first person to die."

"I don't know what you're trying to say, but Cas and I-"

"Boy, don't shit on my steak and tell me it's French. I'm not about to analyze the nature of that relationship, but it aint platonic. Do I look like Dr. Phil to you? Even better, do I look like John? Do I look like I hold judgment over who my boy is and who he loves? For a year, you were gone, and after that year was up, he was right there to help you, all the while fighting a bigger damn battle."

"Bobby I'm not into men, if that's what you're going for." Dean stated, insulted.

"Oh please. You think you're so damn special that the future should present itself to you wrapped up in ribbons and colored tissue? Picky, picky, picky. You take what's right for you, and don't putz around with the details. All I know is, he was someone you connected with, and that's all I cared about, seeing you happy, kid. Besides Sam, I never saw you more comfortable with another person. You were in peril, but pretty damn close to happy. I'm pretty damn sure that Heaven, friggin Heaven, was a lot better than being around your sorry ass all day, but guess who'd rather have hung out with you?"

"Cas." Dean said quietly in a moment of clarity.

"Dean, I'm not gonna go all Nancy on you. But the look that's been on your face when you were with him, same damn look to a T that Karen used to give me. You're my kid. I don't care who you are."

How did he know? Did he actually know? Did I just come out to Bobby without saying anything at all? Better yet, did he just tell me that it was completely okay to have loved Cas like I did?

Dean looked up for a moment, and then back down at the floor, unable to meet the old man's eyes. He's been staring at me for a while. Should I say something? Why is my lip quivering like that? No, Dean. You're not gonna turn sappy in front of your old man. That conversation was awkward, and it put Dean into a haze until Bobby yelled at him in the van that day. The last day. The hell of the thing was, how did he know what was going on? Dean didn't tell anybody. Maybe it was that old worldly wisdom that the old man possessed. But he knew, at least Dean thought that he knew. The two of them didn't speak of it again. At all, and before he could bask in the acceptance, Bobby was gone.

When all soldiers lay their weapons down
Or when all kings and all queens relinquish their crowns
Or when the only true messiah rescues us
From ourselves it's easy to imagine

There will be (sorrow)
Yeah there will be (sorrow)
And there will be sorrow no more

Dean thought about throwing in the towel around that time, until crazy Frank told him about how he managed to hold on as long as he did, one week at a time. That little moment they had opened Dean's eyes a bit. His struggle would never be done, not until he dropped his gun and laid down to die. Such was the life he'd been reduced to. Looking at Frank, he could almost see himself becoming something like that, a recluse. But a drunken, violent recluse, parts of John still seeping through the cracks. Just like Bobby, who never wanted to become a violent drunk like his own father had been. No, Bobby was not a violent drunk. He was a grumpy drunk. Was a grumpy drunk.

When he managed to fall asleep for the first time in weeks, and slept for over a full day at Frank's house, he actually had dreams. Each dream was more beautiful than the last, and they gave him hope when he opened his eyes again.

With Frank, he found out that Bobby was trying to tell them that the Leviathans were building something before he died. The numbers he'd managed to write down were coordinates, which Frank discovered after weeks of attempts. Now, it was time to rescue Sam from his current case, two man-eating bitches that were nabbing truckers left and right. That rest, the dreams, all of it. It filled Dean with a little more juice, just to keep going and bring his spirit to the top of its game.

He'd slid back in time again, and met THE Elliot Ness, who was a hunter as well as a legendary detective, believe it or not. Hunting beside him was one of the biggest rushes Dean felt in a long time, and almost forgot about Bobby being gone. This here was what the old man would have wanted. He'd have desired for them to carry on and keep fighting the good fight. When he brought down another God, the God of Time, it fueled him for the next fight, and when he finally made it back to his time with said God, he and Sammy teamed up on that monster like it was the old days. His recent losses made him all the more powerful. Yes, he was suffering inside, suffering deeply, but his own pain made it to where his sympathies didn't lie with Cronos and his desire for love with a human woman. On one of his softer days, he might have understood, but today, he was a killing machine, right along with Sam and Sheriff Mills who decided to help out.

The Winchesters were going to make it. They were going to live through the damages another day, another week. One step at a time, one fight for their lives after another. Just like Frank said. They were hunters, just like Bobby. They weren't people, they didn't have the lives of people. At least I have Sammy. As long as I have Sammy, I can keep this up. As long as I have him, I have a reason to live, and a million reasons to die.

There will be (sorrow)
Yeah, there will be (sorrow)
There will be sorrow no more.

ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo

SONG CREDITS:

Sorrow- Bad Religion