Pivot Point
Story Name: Pivot Point
Pen Name: ElenaRoan
Disclaimer: Don't own any of them, written purely for enjoyment.
Warnings:
Summary: What if Anna decided to derail the apocalypse by intervening to help rather than trying to make the brothers never having existed.
Timeline: Season 5
Note: I'm Australian and I can't bring myself to use USA spelling, sorry.
Also a language note: Jelly over here is what American's call jello
.
Chapter 93: Family Fun
"You sure this is a good idea?"
Dean glanced at his little brother as he led the way to the impala, "they are expecting us, and there's been more than enough time for Vin to have second thoughts and tell us not to come. He wants to know about his family, the team were looking for information also."
"Just because he's foolish enough to still want to know me doesn't make it a good idea."
"Well, how about, I think it's a good idea? That good enough for you?" Dean closed the boot on their duffle bags and gave Sam a look. His little brother just sighed.
"How is it a good idea?"
"Vin wants to know about his family, for one." Dean replied, "for another, don't even think of trying to pretend if he or any of them sent an SOS that you wouldn't be going hell for leather to help."
"But…"
"But nothing. Claiming to do crap because of you is just an excuse for the damn demons, you know that."
Sam looked away.
"Sammy…"
"I know…"
Didn't really sound like his little brother actually knew, but Dean let it drop. For now.
"Come on, time to hit the road if we want to get there before early morning."
Sam hopped in the passenger side without further protest, then settled into meditation once they were moving. Thankfully, for Dean's worry and irritation, he brought himself back out of it an hour down the road. Admittedly, 10 hours was a meditation marathon that even Sam hadn't ever done, but he wouldn't have put it past him to actually try.
They drove straight through aside from the prudent stops for food and coffee along the way, receiving a text message about lunchtime about meeting up at Chris' ranch.
"The rest of the team are here too." Sam commented softly as they pulled in amongst the eclectic collection of vehicles.
"He did mention that his only family had been those he'd chosen until finding out about us." Dean replied, grabbing the journal before hopping out of the impala.
Chris met them at the door as they reached it.
"Vin's just updating the others." He explained, "hope you don't mind the extras, few of us have much in the way of family, and we've ended up thinking of each other as such."
"As Bobby says, family don't end with blood." Dean agreed.
Sam nodded his agreement before saying softly, "backup isn't needed to tell me to go away, though."
Chris actually gave him a glare, "we already counted you as friends, that you're family of Vin's makes you our family too."
Despite the glare, he gave Sam's shoulder a squeeze as he let them in, prompting a grateful glance from Dean. From the somewhat surprised looks they received from the team it appeared they'd not long been given the information about the familial connection.
Sam crossed the distance between him and Vin in just a couple of long strides to pull him into a firm hug, Dean relaxing a little to see his little brother's love come to the forefront. Though he could easily guess there was also going to be an apology involved.
"Sorry." Sam all but whispered.
"Not your fault." Vin replied, continuing when the middle brother gave a disbelieving huff of laughter, "I mean it. None of it is your fault, not the demon killing our family, not the psileech, none of it."
Dean noted almost surprised that the wiry sniper had already claimed the family as his, and wondered if his little brother had noticed.
Sam pulled back, "but…"
"I mean it." Vin told him, "now come on, join us as now known family."
Buck handed the brothers a couple of beers as Vin led them over, Dean giving the sniper a grateful clap on the shoulder as he did so.
The eldest brother waited until everyone had at least begun to relax, Sam hadn't truly relaxed since he found out about Vin being their cousin, before he opened the journal up to the appropriate page. He saw sober expressions settle on the faces of the team as they looked over the family tree and could well imagine the knowledge that was sinking in at the starkly documented facts. He'd been the one to put it together after all, while Sam had dealt with the case. Those that they didn't know for sure had died had been mere hints at their existence, and marked with question marks in the tree, of Vin's own there hadn't been any clue before that phone call even if his mother was documented there.
Vin picked up the other piece of paper that was kept with the family tree and frowned, it didn't take a genius to guess what he was wondering.
"All our mum's friends." Dean told him before he could ask, "anyone who ever knew her. From the doctor who delivered her, to her school teachers, to the priest who married her and dad."
One of the team swore softly.
"She can't have taken that lying down…" Vin said softly.
"She was a Hunter, even if she wanted out of that life, I doubt she did." Dean replied, frustration rushing through him again. Their mum had wanted out, so had Sam, and who knew how many others. Neither had escaped, "we're reasonably sure she was able to get a warning out to her family at least, after the first burst, it took a lot longer for them to kill the rest."
"Elizabeth was the last." Sam stated, picking up where he'd stopped, "dropped even further off the grid than Hunters usually are and ran. Stayed ahead of them a good 10 years from what we could tell, she must have met your dad during that time."
"She wasn't the last." Dean corrected sadly, hesitating a little, "Jess was the last."
"Jess wasn't…" Sam started, remembered pain racing through him that he didn't quite manage to keep off his face.
"She would have been family if that bastard hadn't killed her, I wasn't blind enough to miss that." Dean refuted gently.
"Yeah… she was dead the moment she fell in love with me." Sam retorted caustically, self hate racing through him before he closed his eyes and firmly brought it back under control. He excused himself softly and headed out to the back veranda to centre himself away from curious eyes. Undoubtedly he'd need to answer their questions later.
Dean swore at himself quietly, shot an apologetic glance at the team while silently kicking himself. He knew he shouldn't have said anything even with this entire thing being about family. He'd desperately wanted to not only tell the new members about her, along with acknowledge that he'd long considered his little brother's dead girlfriend family. Then he started for the door to follow Sam, Chris stepped in his way.
"Let me."
"But…" Dean started to protest, much as they trusted the blond and his team. This was his brother. And they'd only just got his head back on relatively straight. And he'd idiotically endangered all the hard work Sam had done.
"I know what it's like to have a loved one torn from you violently. I'm guessing that's what happened with Jess?" Chris asked.
"Yellow-eyed bastard pinned her to the ceiling and set her on fire on the anniversary of our mother's death in the same manner." He answered, the ATF Hunter was more perceptive than most. But both of their pasts were filled with landmines.
"Damn. Okay, we'll be back soon. I know you didn't mean that to hurt and I'm betting he knows that too."
"Chris… he blames himself… he never seems to actually have it sink in that he was another victim of that bastard, that what they did wasn't his fault. I should…" It was both a warning and an attempt to get him to leave it to him. The blond didn't take the out.
"More people saying the same thing will reinforce it." Chris stated, he glanced behind Dean before heading to the door.
A hand landed gently on Dean's shoulder before he could start to follow, and he barely contained a jump. It took a moment for him to place the owner of the hand as Josiah
"I'm an idiot." He mumbled.
"You didn't know. You wanted to acknowledge her as family even if it hadn't been official. You can't have known he blamed himself for it." Josiah rumbled.
Dean snorted, angry at himself, "yeah, I did. I shouldn't have pushed it."
"Looks like blaming themselves for something they're not responsible for isn't confined to Sam." Buck pointed out gently.
Dean just shrugged, as far as he and his brother were concerned that was like stating that water was wet. Even with the Shaman's efforts in that area.
After a moment Dean shook himself and turned back to the rest of the team, stewing on it wasn't going to help Sam any faster and there was something he hadn't done yet. Returning to the journal he flipped to the next page and pulled out the folded piece of paper that was there, this he turned and handed to Vin.
"Here, you might want this too."
Vin opened it and froze as he took in what was recorded on it.
"Bobby had it in his records. He was a Hunter." Dean stated, hoping he wasn't devastating yet another person tonight.
"What is it?" Buck asked.
"My dad…" Vin told him a little shakily, not looking up from the page where Bobby had scrawled the few lines about Vincent's entrance and exit to Hunting.
"There might be some more out there on his side of the family…" Dean told him, not really sure Vin would want his input right now, "we didn't go digging yet."
"Given he was a teenager when his parents and siblings died, that's not particularly hopeful." Vin stated.
JD popped up from his seat and came over to look at the information, "I can see what I can turn up if you'd like?"
Vin nodded and let the youngest member of the team take the slip of paper.
"Didn't mean to cause pain." Dean commented softly, wondering if he would stop screwing up anytime soon.
"You didn't." Vin told him, "just… wasn't expecting to get information on him also. We hadn't been able to track him back from my birth certificate… probably should have twigged then that it was a deliberate attempt to hide me."
"Doesn't detail the information of exactly what you were being hidden from. Can just as easily be extrapolated that they were seeking to hide your connection to your parents from the authorities." Ezra put in, "which could happen for any number of reasons, not all of which are nefarious."
"Let me guess… you DID spot that." Buck commented.
"And without further information, it was impossible to speculate as to the reasons. Indeed, some people are so bad at spelling that it may have occurred purely by accident. Though with the information we had available regarding the cousin before the happy discovery of the connection to the brothers Winchester I was inclined towards thinking that Mr Tanner's parents had escaped imprisonment at the hands of criminals. Which would handily explain the duality of hiding him yet registering his birth."
Dean relaxed slightly, and Ezra raised an eyebrow at him in question.
"I'm glad you think finding the connection to us is a good thing." The eldest brother told him, wishing he wasn't such an open book to the more observant members of the team.
"You were worried we wouldn't?" Josiah asked.
"Well… leaving aside that we're not exactly anyone's first choice for long lost family…"
"No one bothered to ask me then." Vin put in.
Dean hesitated, a little disconcerted that their new cousin would take issue with simple reality, before continuing, "some of the most powerful beings in existence are hunting us, they've already killed most of the family. And even if you didn't blame us for it, I certainly wouldn't have been surprised if you'd decided you wanted nothing to do with us."
Vin moved forward to stand in front of the older brother and glared up at him, "one, it's not your fault. Neither of you. Two, running and hiding wouldn't stop them if they knew about me anyway. And three, with you, is the best chance of survival. And that's without even touching on the fact that you're family. I don't have many. Until that agent showed up at the office, the entirety of my family were those I'd chosen. Getting actual blood family, and them already being folks I count as friends, is not something I would discard. No matter who is fucking with them."
Dean bit his lip for a moment, forcing himself to actually accept what Vin was saying, then pulled the slim sniper in for a rough hug, "think you could repeat that when Sam gets back in here? First thing he jumped to when I told him was how the psileech had to have been set deliberately by Zachariah, and that the only reason either of you were there to cross paths was because he'd used that Enochian exorcism on Lilith."
"As often as the two of you need." Vin replied, before pulling back from the hug and patting his arm.
Dean managed a slight chuckle, none of the eight Hunter agents seemed to realise that he was mild compared to Sam on the subject, "and I'm not the one the fucking demons keep outright telling that they're the reason they're doing the crap they are. At least the damn angels don't do that, just get annoyed we're not falling in line with their carefully ordered plans."
"Can't be easy, especially for a good man like Sam." Josiah rumbled.
Dean winced a little, his mind flashing back to how his little brother's abilities had turned on him because of it, "no… it isn't."
Vin and Josiah shared a brief look, he could only guess at what was going through their minds. None of the team were unobservant, and their instincts had to be on alert.
Sam didn't go far once he was outside, just over to the railing where he leaned on the fence and watched the horses in the night as he tried to centre himself. His senses alerted him to company and that it wasn't his brother.
"Sam?" Chris asked softly.
The middle brother gave him a resigned yet quizzical look, his brother wasn't one to let others take over usually, "I'm okay, just need a moment to gather my thoughts. Dean send you out?"
"I overrode him. I know what it's like to have a loved one torn from your life violently."
Sam gave a half laugh that had very little amusement in it, seeing again the flames that had torn her from any hope at life with or without him, "that's one way of describing seeing the love of your life burnt to death in front of your eyes."
"That would have been horrible. At least I didn't see it with mine."
"What happened?" Sam asked softly, hating that someone else was revisiting pain on his behalf.
"Appeared to be a car bomb, though they couldn't find any components of it. Then the team and I found out that it was a witch with an obsession about me. Had a nutty idea that with them out of the way I'd realise I was madly in love with her." Chris told him blandly.
"Crazy isn't confined to regular humans." Sam agreed, wishing that type of cruelty would just cease to exist. At least many of the supernatural creatures they had to deal with could blame the nature of what they were. Even choose to fight that nature. Humans, even powerful ones like witches, it was all their choice. Even with delusions like the one the other Hunter had mentioned it was still a choice.
"That's for sure. Had some bad days where I'd think I should have seen it, should have been able to protect them. Then would drink myself stupid until someone poured me into bed."
"Definitely know that feeling. But… a lot of alcohol and telekinesis doesn't really mix well." He replied sympathetically, "of course… feeling crap about yourself and telekinesis doesn't mix well either."
"What happened?"
"It backfired on me, nearly killed me." Sam shrugged, not really wanting to go into detail, "Dean found a solution, wasn't easy, but it worked."
"Self-destruction is a hard habit to break."
"True."
"Combination of Josiah and Buck for me. All but sat on me to stop me drinking myself stupid and made me talk. Unconventional for sure, but the team isn't the most conventional at the best of times. Kept it from ending up on my record and getting the team broken up also."
Sam stayed quiet for a moment, it would be easy to just let the conversation dwindle into silence. But he had to know, "why don't you hate me?"
"Why would I?" Chris shot back.
"My existence puts his life in danger."
"Not your existence that does that, the blame for that falls directly on the beings that want you to be something you aren't. Bad guys target the people around their main target all the time, it's not the target's fault, it's the bad guys."
Sam forced himself the acknowledge the truth of that statement, much as it didn't feel like it. As far as it applied to him anyway. He'd be first in line pointing it out if it was Dean or any of their circle of Hunters for that matter. Pot meet kettle as Dean would have said.
The silence didn't stretch into uncomfortableness before Chris evidently decided it had gone on long enough and guided him back towards the liveliness that was his home with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Once he was back inside, it seemed that the team had made some silent agreement that serious topics were to be shelved for the rest of the night.
Dean tried to relax, he really did, but his brother just wasn't relaxing, even with JD trying to draw him out about some of the things he'd done as a Hunter.
"Any tips on getting him to relax?" Buck asked softly from just behind his shoulder, and he pulled a face; obviously, his unease wasn't as hidden as he'd hoped.
"Well, it's obvious you're not going to relax unless he does. So how do we do that?" The big agent continued when Dean looked at him.
"Not going to make sense." The eldest brother replied with a wry grin.
"So? We're all atypical in case you missed it. Of course family of Vin's is going to be also."
"Get him to demonstrate his telekinesis."
It took Buck a moment to figure out why.
"Because he only uses it openly in front of people he trusts… and he'll relax once he consciously acknowledges that."
Dean nodded, the agent might come across as being the densest of the bunch, but he was no more stupid than any of them. Henriksen had managed to capture them when they weren't trying to get caught after all, and from what he could tell the rest of the team had a reputation in law enforcement circles that left him in the dust.
With a grin, Buck wandered off. Several minutes later, Dean saw him reappear from the kitchen with a beer in his hand, then amble over to Sam and JD.
"Hey Sam, been wondering. Can you juggle?"
If he'd been drinking Dean probably would have spat it out at that. Sam just looked at him, bafflement plain on his face.
"With your telekinesis, I mean, not the regular stuff." Buck explained, taking a swig of his beer.
A slow smile formed on the middle brother's face, "probably."
"You mean you've never tried? Can't let that continue." Buck looked around and grabbed a couple of empty glasses, then tossed them in his direction.
They stopped as if they'd hit a giant invisible wall of jelly. Dean heard the general buzz of conversation behind him just stop.
"Do you want cartoon-like or reality?" Sam asked with a grin.
"Got a feeling circles would be real simple for you, so how about the actual reality of juggling movement?" Buck challenged.
The glasses started moving slowly, tracing out the twin arcs that actually juggled items followed. Then gradually sped up.
Dean started laughing at the amazed expressions, particularly after catching glances out of the corner of his eyes that indicated several of them weren't sure they could, or should, join in. He picked up an empty bottle that he'd put down not that long ago.
"Sammy." He didn't even wait for his brother to acknowledge the word. Instead tossing the bottle in the join the collection. His brother rolled his eyes at him but grinned as he smoothly added the bottle to the dance.
Hesitantly, as if not quite sure how much would tax the middle brother, various other items were added by the team. Including an expensive-looking teacup by Ezra that had Chris tensing up and glaring at the southerner, though he didn't voice any misgivings. The challenging look Ezra shot back at his nominal boss suggested he knew precisely what he had done.
"There a bottle of water I could use?" Dean asked softly of an agent by him, which turned out to be Josiah.
"This straining him?" The big profiler asked just as softly, worry in his tone.
"Hell no. But if I go get something, he'll notice, and I'd rather not put him back on edge."
The look the other Hunter gave him told Dean Josiah wasn't following what he meant. But he slipped, surprisingly quietly for such a bulky man, into the kitchen and came back with the requested bottle of water.
Dean twisted off the lid, then tossed it into the mix with no more than a word of warning even as it was already in flight.
Sam flicked a single droplet of the water back in his big brother's face, prompting laughter from more than just Dean, then worked the now empty bottle and the water into the pattern.
"How strong is he?" Josiah asked after a moment of watching the mesmerising display.
"Upper limit?" Dean replied, "no clue. So far, he gets stronger as time goes by. He did push himself into collapse at one point, though that was before we knew to up his food intake if he's using his abilities. He was holding me, himself, and the siren we were up against immobile all at the same time. Plus keeping the siren's venom out of his mind."
"A siren?"
"Straight out of the Greek myths, yeah. What caught our attention was a rash of devoted family men suddenly up and killing their wives. Had no clue what we were up against to start with."
"How did you figure it out?"
"Tossed the details we'd established once we figured out it wasn't a ghost or demon to Bobby, he came up with it being a siren then ploughed into his books trying to figure out how to kill it while we tried to figure out how to find the damn thing. In the end, it came to us. Switched to using brotherly love instead of romantic love like it had been."
"That sounds like it could have been dicey."
"It was. Dosed me first, and trust me… siren venom is like nothing I'd ever dealt with before. Can make you believe the exact opposite of what you would normally. It's in their saliva just so you know. Sammy figured out what was going on right as he was dosed."
"Hence why he was keeping all three of you immobile and the venom out of his mind. I take it he took it out?"
"No. Probably would be able to now, but he didn't have anything to spare at that point. Bobby came bursting in the door, jammed a bronze dagger into my arm then into the siren. Getting the venom it had got into us was the reason behind that, by the way, getting a dose of its own poison kills it."
"Here's hoping that was the only one."
"They're not exactly social creatures from what we saw, outside of convincing men to kill loved ones anyway. You're probably in more of a position to spot the defining attribute than we are though; the men who killed their loved ones? They had massive doses of oxytocin in their blood."
"You're right, that's definitely something we'd be in a better position to spot. That can't have been all it was though, oxytocin is a potent hormone, but it doesn't have that sort of effect even in large doses."
"Doubt it was, but that's what the coroner picked up. At the very least it had the siren's own abilities driving it also since the compulsion died the instant it was dead."
Josiah nodded, and the conversation lapsed into silence as they both watched the display.
Maybe 10 minutes later Sam wrapped it up. Arranged the glasses neatly on a table, dropped the empty beer bottles into the recycling bin, refilled the water bottle and placed it on the table, and floated the teacup over to Chris. Who took it out of the air gently.
Nathan disappeared into the kitchen now that the display was over. He reappeared some minutes later with a plate of scrambled eggs that he handed to Sam. Which prompted a laugh from both brothers.
"Was the only high energy type food I could think of that we would have on hand." The medic explained almost self-consciously.
"Good option." Dean agreed with a grin.
Sam rolled his eyes but dug into the small meal without vocalising an objection.
The atmosphere in the house did relax after that.
"You let me catch you those times, didn't you?" Victor spoke up softly to Dean as people were starting to drift off to the various rooms they were spending the night in.
The eldest brother looked around at the agent and hesitated before answering, "the first time, yeah. There was a ghost in the jail killing people. The second, nope."
"There's no way I'd have kept you there if you didn't want to be, not with that kind of power." The agent pointed out.
"Maybe." Dean conceded, "but that would have required endangering your lives at the very least. And trust me, we hate that that happened regardless."
"And if I'd managed to get you to the high-security prison?"
Dean remembered the threat the agent had voiced when he had them locked up in the police station and smiled slightly. It had barely been a blip on their radar knowing demons were coming and quite happy to take the law enforcement folks apart with or without their presence, "don't need lockpicks when you have telekinesis available. And I doubt anything could prevent Sam from knowing where I was outside of sedation or something."
Unspoken was the knowledge that even if Victor had believed them capable of such, there was no way he'd have been able to specify that or something similar without appearing to be nuts. And he would have balked at knowingly getting the middle brother given something he would react badly to even back then when he'd thought they were the worst type of murderers possible.
"I never came across that information about your mum and her family." He added, "found that she was dead after a fire in your childhood home and that your dad apparently went off the deep end afterwards, but not that her friends and family were systematically wiped off the map. That… is something else."
"What would you have done if you had?"
"I'd have kept an eye on the locations of the deaths like I did your old home in Lawrence, most likely."
"Think it would have made it harder or easier?" Dean asked with a grin.
"Probably would have made no more difference than keeping an eye on Lawrence did." Victor looked down for a moment, "would like to say it would have made me realise something odd was going on, but…"
"But before you experienced possession you honestly thought we were batshit crazy." Dean finished when he trailed off, "we didn't find out the true extent until not long before you caught us, might have thought you were in league with the demons if you'd suddenly come out with that. Though after your partner revealed himself as a demon, we'd probably have figured that was where the information came from."
The agent shook his head, "I'm surprised how relieved I am to know you wouldn't have cut and run."
"You weren't the only innocent in there, would have saved your partner if we could. Not sure how long he'd been dead, demons can ride corpses for years with no decay. It's worse when they keep the person in there even though the body should have died long ago, you get them free just to have them die in your arms."
"That must be hell."
"For both Hunter and meat suit, yeah." Dean shook himself and looked around, noting most people had already disappeared off to various guest rooms. Including his brother, "looks like it's bedtime."
"Looks like." Victor agreed, evidently picking up that it wasn't a very happy topic for the eldest brother.
"See you in the morning." Dean told him before disappearing into the room Chris had set aside for them.
Sam was still awake, but only long enough to note that his big brother had finally decided to come to bed and sleepily wish him good night before dropping off.
Next morning Chris insisted that they enjoy a leisurely breakfast before they headed off.
The day was completely uneventful as they drove, Dean opting to take a break early in a random motel rather than drive all the way to Bobby's. So he nearly did a double-take when his phone rang, since last they'd heard things were pretty quiet. Of course, that could change in an instant for any Hunter, not just them.
"Bobby?" He answered worriedly, switching to speaker automatically, Sam looked over at him with concern in his eyes.
"Don't get your knickers in a knot." The older Hunter grouched at him, "no emergency has appeared that I'm aware of. Anna showed up here looking for you, though, asked you to call her."
"Okay." Dean replied, not that that was particularly reassuring, "thanks for letting us know. I'll give her a call."
"Why didn't she just call us herself?" Sam asked as he hung up.
"Beats me, guess we'll find out." Dean returned as he hit the contact for the angel and popped it on speaker.
"Hello?" Anna answered.
"Gohol laiad." Sam stated immediately.
"The hierarchy has got it wrong. Emotions are amazing." Came the expected reply.
"Sorry about that." Dean told her, "we got a message you wanted us to call."
"It's no problem. And yeah… I… uh… I need to talk to you. In-person."
The two brothers shared a worried look as they heard the hesitancy in her voice.
"Okay." Dean grabbed up the motel stationery and read off the address and their room number. There was a knock on the door a moment later.
Sam disengaged the wards and let her in. She hung up the phone as she stepped inside, pocketing it automatically.
"What's the problem?" Dean asked.
Anna sighed, "wish there was an easier way to do this…"
"Want a coffee? Or a beer?" Dean offered, it often made giving lousy news easier. And receiving for that matter, he reminded himself as he grabbed a couple of beers out for himself and Sam, waiting for her to reply.
"Thank you, but no. Food and drink… not only have no effect any more they… don't taste nice."
"Okay." Dean handed the beer to his little brother before sitting and taking a swig himself, "okay… shoot. What's so bad you feel you need to deliver it in person."
Anna sighed again, "there's no easy way to say this… so… Castiel's dead."
Sam froze.
Dean swore, "I was hoping he'd be okay after rebelling… you were…"
"Raphael… isn't the most… compassionate angel ever. Not anymore." Anna replied, looking at the floor, "I… I didn't end up on his personal shit list."
"What about Jimmy?" Sam asked softly, his eyes apparently riveted to the bottle in his hands.
"He's in heaven." Anna answered, "I… uh… called in a favour with a reaper to make sure."
"That's something… I guess." Dean commented, glaring at his drink.
"I'm sorry… I…"
"You couldn't intervene without suffering the same fate, we know." Sam replied, "Cas… wouldn't have wanted you to throw away your life when no one could have saved him from it."
"I know… but I hate that I couldn't." Anna replied with a sigh.
"Thank you for letting us know." Sam told her, "are you going to be okay?"
She nodded, "yeah. You?"
"Raphael can't find us to splat us." Dean put in caustically.
"It's not your fault."
"Should have tried harder to talk him out of it. Damn fool."
"Still not your fault."
Hesitantly she took her leave after that, leaving the brothers to their grief.
They sat in silence for a moment, then Dean abruptly got up and punched the wall.
"Dean!" Sam scolded, and he felt cushioning telekinesis wrap around his hand. The small dint also smoothed out.
"I'm a selfish bastard."
"Not from where I'm standing. But why do you say that?"
"Cas is dead. And for nothing. And my mind just keeps snagging on that I'm not going to get my amulet back."
"Not selfish. Grief is just weird like that. Brain can't cope with the bigger stuff, so it focuses on the little." Sam soothed, "can't tell you the number of times I ended up crying because Jess would never make me cookies again or something equally trivial after the fire."
There were tears in Dean's eyes when he finally looked back at his little brother, then roughly pulled him into a hug.
"Fuck the apocalypse."
16