Dean

He took a long swing of his beer.

He was sitting in another nameless dive bar in a long string of dive bars along the highway; filled with the same drunken locals and the same tired bartender who didn't give a shit about what was going on inside the bar as long as the drunks paid their tab and nothing broke. He didn't know what to do. Sammy was in the motel room with Anna, coaxing her into fresh clothing and getting her into bed. They'd stolen extra stores of her medication on the way out of the hospital, and he'd left it to his brother to figure out what to give her. Dean internally raged that he wasn't making sure she was fine himself, but another more cowardly part of him needed to escape.

To get away from her. No, not her, to get away from what she reminded him of.

It made him feel incredibly guilty, but once he'd pulled her out of the hospital he couldn't bring himself to even look at her. Long repressed memories just kept crashing down on him. The way she'd laugh, the low rumbled of her motorcycle, the way her whole body was weapon. How she used to look so tired after cases involving kids, or how her monster knowledge rivaled his dad's or how her smile would light up his day. How she saved his and Sammy's asses more than once, the way she would carefully stitch him back together after he'd get hurt or how infuriatingly hard it was to get her to let him do the same.

Then the less good memories came. Dean took another long pull of beer even as he tried to block it out. The way her face had glowed in the light of hellfire. The way she screamed in pain as she was tortured. The way her blood flowed wet and sticky over his hands. The way she'd looked when she'd fallen over that ledge; when he'd seen her last. Into the final circle of Hell.

Her body had still been alive down there, Dean remembered. It had been warm, with a beating heart and blood had pumped through her veins. He shuddered at the memories.

In Hell, all he'd been was a soul. Sure he'd had the feelings of a body, and sometimes he even looked like it too. His shade would regain form so that Alastair could hurt him over and over and over again. Hurt him until Dean's soul got off the rack and took up the blade himself. At first he'd tell himself it was all imaginary, that he couldn't hurt because he was nothing more than a ghost; nobody to harm. But as time passed and the pain increased it got harder and harder to say no. Then the hallucinations came. Visions of Sam dying; of Anna being hurt. Phantom whispers of his dad saying he should have let him die, whispers of all the people he couldn't save murmuring accusations into his soul. When he'd first seen Anna he had thought she was nothing more than yet another in a long, painful, line of hallucinations.

But then, she'd cut him free. And together they had fled through the halls of Hell looking for the exit. An exit he didn't think existed. But he'd gone anyways because it was Anna and he trusted her with every ounce of his being.

Dean took another long drink from the beer bottle, glaring into the nearly empty bottle. He waved at the bartender to bring him another beer. He picked up the bottle and moved to a booth as the next set of memories washed over him.

They'd gotten caught the first time. And the second and third and fourth and the twentieth. But they kept trying; exhaustion slowly overtaking them, but Anna never looked any less determined to make it back to the surface. Overtime the demons had learned to move their cells further and further apart; made it harder for them to get away. He knew Anna broke out nearly everyday since the first capture. And that she could escape without him. That no matter how tired or injured she was, Dean was the reason they never got away. Then one day, Alastair dragged her back to him in chains, half dead. He gritted his teeth as he flashed back to that horrible day.

He slumped in his chains. Oddly enough nothing had happened to him that day; nothing at all. And it put him on edge. The waiting was almost worse than the inevitable pain. Then he heard the clanking of chains, and the sound of a dragging body. The door to his own personal torture chamber flew open, leaving the terror inducing form of Alastair framed in the light of the hellfire just outside. Dean couldn't find the energy to move his head. With a soft grunt, the chained body was thrown the ground in front of him.

Dean felt his imaginary heart stop.

Anna sprawled across the floor, covered in blood. Bronze chains that glowed wound around her body like sick jewelry. Her arm was clearly broken in at least two places, and she had a long slash running down her cheek. His non existent breath (it was a habit that his soul never seemed to shake) caught in his throat when he finally finally saw her chest rise and fall with her shallow breathing.

She was still alive.

Dean had never really believed in God. Not with everything he'd seen. But he sure as hell believed in the devil; after all Dean seemed to be his favorite guest. And here was a new way for the devil to hurt him.

Dean dragged his mind away from the memories. He knew what happened next. He knew that Alastair would take Dean down, let him slump against the wall as Anna was chained in his place. How he was left untouched for days as Alastair tortured her in his stead for unending hours. It just went on and on and on until Dean finally said yes. She'd screamed at him to say no, begged him not to touch her, to let Alistair hurt her for him.

But Dean couldn't take it. It should have been the right thing to do, take the blade himself so when she hurt, it would hurt that much less. But somehow she'd taken that away, fear and hopeless defeat had filled her.

And in the end, the gesture had been pointless anyways. After that first day or torture, of him taking that fucking blade to her, he never saw her again. Not until she tried to rescue him that final time. Not until they made it to the very edge of the Pit, the one she called Tartarus. All they had to do was cross the narrow gap between the horrible gravitational like pull of Tartarus and the Final Circle of Hell. But Alastair caught them, and gave Dean a choice. One of them would have to fall. And when he picked himself; the demons shoved Anna into Tartarus. She hadn't screamed when she fell, just looked up at him as she disappeared from view.

Into the lowest reaches of hell, where not even demons always returned from.

And it had been his fault.

Anna had warned him before he made his deal that there would be a price to pay. And that he wouldn't be the only one to pay it when his debt came due. Anna had halved his price, taking it onto herself. There was nothing he could do to change that. And Anna had paid, with more than her life.

Dean took another swing of his beer only to find that it was empty. He stood up, tossing down enough cash to cover his tab before stumbling out to his car. No way he was driving back tonight. Not in this state. He dragged out the extra blanket he kept in the car, and wadded up his jacket to use as a pillow before crashing. He was asleep even before his head hit his coat.