When Dean woke the next morning it was to an empty room. A loud bang came from the bathroom, telling him his sister was probably the one in there, she tended to drop things when she was trying to be quiet. His head was thumping with pain from the blows he had taken to it the previous night. He made a move to sit up and take some painkillers but was met only with a sharp pain shooting through his ribs and left hand. He groaned and laid back against the pillows.
A few minutes later, Kate stepped out of the bathroom and looked over Dean. His face had several cuts, some looking quite deep, a cut on his lip and a black eye. "You alright?" She asked him casually, it was like that was all she ever seemed to say to him anymore.
"Oh yeah, I'm just awesome." He muttered sarcastically. She didn't say anything else to him, just sat down at the table and picked up a magazine. He watched her for a couple of minutes. "I take it you're still pissed at me then?"
She sighed and put the magazine back to the table. "I'm not pissed Dean. I just want to understand what's going on in your head. You're not making it all that easy you know."
He looked at her blankly. He didn't know how he could answer that one when he honestly didn't know what was going on in his head himself. "I know I screwed up, and I freaked you out and I'm sorry okay."
"You don't have to apologise to me Dean. I told you already, I'm not mad." She stood up and walked over to him, sitting cross-legged at the bottom of his bed. He sat up properly to look at her. "You just scare me when you do stuff like this."
"Stuff like what?"
"Like letting a bunch of guys beat you up."
"So you've been talking to Sammy huh?"
Kate sighed heavily and looked him in the eyes. "Dean look, I can't begin to imagine what you went through downstairs, but whatever it is you're trying to do here, with the drinking and the fighting or whatever.. It's not the way to make things get better."
"Yeah? What the hell do you know about it huh? I was the one in hell Kate, not you, so don't try and headshrink me. You've no idea what I saw down there, you could never understand it. So just quit trying." He snapped at her, mentally slapping himself for it. She looked away and bit her lip, he knew it was to stop herself saying anything back to him. The silence was broken as Sam walked into the room. He looked between Dean's slightly annoyed, slightly guilty face and Kate who looked as through she was taking breaths to calm herself down, her hands gripping the bed sheets.
"What's going on?" He asked timidly.
"Nothing." Kate said quickly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and putting her back to them.
"Kate come on, please. I didn't mean to snap." He said quietly. She knew that, she knew that he would never deliberately want to hurt her or Sam.
Sam sat on the other bed and looked between them curiously. "Dean, this needs to stop."
"Excuse me?"
"The lying. This behaviour. You could have gotten yourself killed last night. I know full well you remember everything that happened to you in hell but you're not talking about it and I'm not pushing but seriously, you need to sort yourself out, before you get hurt. I'm not going to watch you die again Dean, I wont do it."
Dean sighed and stayed silent for a minute. "It wasn't four months, you know."
"What?"
"It was four months up here, but down there.. I don't know. Time's different. It was more like 40 years."
"My god." He whispered.
"They uh.. They sliced and carved and tore at me in ways that you.. Until there was nothing left. And then, suddenly.. I would be whole again.. like magic.. just so they could start in all over. And then this demon, Alastair.. at the end of every day.. every one.. he would come over. And he would make me an offer. To take me off the rack.. if I put souls on.. if I started the torturing. And every day, I told him to stick it where the sun shines. For 30 years, I told him. But then I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't. And I got off that rack. God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls.'' He let a tear roll down his cheek. "The things that I did to them.." His breath hitched as he let the tears fall.
"Dean look, you held on for thirty years.. That's longer than anyone would have."
Dean was fully crying now. He looked up at Kate who still had her back to them. From the side he could see that she had a hand over her mouth but her face was covered by her hair. "I need to go." She suddenly said, standing up and walking quickly from the room, refusing to look at either of them.
The door slammed closed, leaving Sam and Dean in silence. Dean made another attempt to get out of bed only to be stopped by Sam. "You're not going anywhere in that state."
"Come on Sam-"
"Dean, your ribs. You're staying put."
"Well then you go find her."
"She'll be fine Dean. It's you I'm worried about right now."
"I'm-"
"Dean please, don't shut me out now."
"What do you want from me? Huh?"
"I want you to look after yourself. That girl is terrified of losing her brother again. And so am I.."
Dean looked at the pleading look in his brother's eyes and looked down. "Okay Sammy."
Sam sighed and nodded, standing and heading towards the bathroom. When he came back, Dean was out of bed and dressed, pulling on his jacket. "Whoa, where the hell do you think you're going?"
"Where do you think I'm going?"
"Dean-"
"Look, I appreciate you're worried Sammy but she's just found out that I spent ten years torturing people. For all I know, she thinks I'm a freaking monster."
"She'd never think that about you, you know that."
"Well she sure didn't look impressed when she walked out did she?" He picked up his keys and headed for the door. "I'll see you later."
It didn't take long for him to find her. She was sitting on a wall overlooking a lake, her legs swinging over the side and a bottle of whiskey hanging loosely from her hand. He walked across the wall and painfully sat down beside her with a grunt, causing her to jump. "Not a particularly safe place to be sitting when you're drinking whiskey is it?" He muttered, looking down at the long drop to the river. He could easily see that she'd been crying.
"What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." She said blankly.
"Hmm, you sure look it. Look about what I said, I know what you probably think of me for what I did down there, and I don't blame you. I mean, it's enough to make anyone sick-"
"Wait, you think I left because of what you did?"
"Come on, I saw your face. You looked like you were about to throw up."
She thought about it for a minute. "I didn't leave because of what you did Dean. It's not what you did that makes me sick."
"Then why'd you walk?"
"It's what they did to you, I can't listen to that. I mean, I spent long enough imagining it without-" She shrugged. "And I'm tired of you watching me cry. You were the one in hell not me."
"Hey, you know you don't have to hide it from us. You can cry all you want." She nodded without giving him an answer. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Why doesn't it bother you? What I did. I mean I was.. I was like the things we hunt. I was a monster." He shook his head and looked away from her.
"Dean, you were in hell. You did what you did there.. But that's not you. You're nothing like what we hunt, you never will be."
"Yeah, you're right. I wasn't like them. I was worse.. That's them right? It's who they are. Me? I did it for the sheer pleasure."
"You what?"
"I enjoyed it Kate. They took me off that rack and I tortured souls and I liked it. All those years, all that pain. Finally getting to deal some out yourself. I didn't care who they put in front of me. Because that pain I felt, it just slipped away. No matter how many people I save, I can't change that. I can't fill this hole. Not ever." Kate didn't say anything to him. She drank the last of the whiskey from the bottle, held it out in front of her for a second before letting go and watching as it fell down into the river. Dean raised his head to her hesitantly. Her face was completely unreadable, she showed no emotion at all. "Kate.." He pressed softly. Again she didn't say anything for a couple of minutes.
"It's okay Dean." She said calmly.
"No. It's not okay." She shouldn't feel sorry for him. That's not what he wanted. That's not what he deserved. She should yell at him or be angry or scared. He didn't deserve her sympathy. Or Sam's.
"It will be, you just need to let it go. You were in hell bro, you had no choice." This time Dean didn't answer. "Come on, we should get back." He agreed silently, standing with her and walking back to the car.
That night, Kate was once again woken by her brother bolting upright in bed next to her. She sat up and moved towards him, putting an arm around his shoulders. He sighed deeply and leaned the back of his head against the front of her shoulder as she ran a hand through his hair. Kate glanced over at Sam's empty bed and tightened her arm around her brother, unsure of which one of them she was trying to make feel better. "What happened to it getting easier huh?" He said lightly, sounding like he was only half joking.
"It will get better Dean. Eventually they'll go away." She said softly, resting her cheek against the top of his head. "And until then, I've got you." She whispered. He closed his eyes and thought about going back to sleep, not sure on whether he could face another one of the nightmares. "Go back to sleep Dean. You'll be fine. And if you're not, I'll be here when you wake up." He was sure sometimes she could read his mind. He shifted himself back to lying down and quickly drifted off to sleep. Once he was sleeping, Kate climbed out of bed and headed straight for the whiskey, something she tended to go for a lot lately. She picked up the bottle and walked outside.
She shivered as the cold air hit her, she was cold but needed some fresh air to help clear her head. "You should put a jacket on, you'll get sick."
She jumped and turned around quickly, almost dropping the bottle. A tall man with brown hair and bright blue eyes was standing almost nose to nose with her. "Jesus Christ! You scared the hell out of me."
"Apologies." He said, taking a step back from her.
"You're Cas right? The angel?"
"Yes. Nice to see you again Kate." He smiled lightly. "How is your brother doing?"
"Which one? The one with the demon blood pumping through his veins, who may or may not be using his freaky powers and sleeping with a demon.. Or the one who's suffering insomnia and is well on his way to drinking himself into an early grave because he liked to torture people in hell?" She snapped at him harshly. He blinked hard and stared at her blankly, apparently slightly taken aback by her angry answer. She sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Look I'm sorry, it's just been a rough few nights. I don't mean to take it out on you."
He gave her a warm smile, somehow making her feel a little better. "That's quite alright Kate."
The two of them stood in silence for a few minutes until Kate turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "So was there something else you wanted or.."
"No, I should be leaving. Remember, if you should need any assistance, just pray for it. Help will come." He told her before vanishing in front of her.
She blinked hard and shook her head. "That was weird." She muttered to herself, taking another drink of the whiskey.
"Who're you talking to?" She turned around quickly to see Dean standing in the doorway, looking around.
"What? No one." She replied.
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. "So that wasn't your voice I heard talking to some guy then?" He narrowed his eyes. "Unless you were talking to yourself?"
"Oh, right. It was just Cas."
"What did he want?"
She thought back and frowned. "You know what, I'm not actually sure." She said slowly.
"Right." He closed the door and walked over to her, taking the whiskey from her hand and taking a long drink. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, you're standing outside at three in the morning drinking whiskey. That usually means something's up." She didn't answer him. "You're worried about Sam aren't you?"
"You think he's stopped right? I mean he wouldn't.." She trailed off.
He knew what she meant. The truth was he'd been thinking the same thing lately. "I don't know Kate, I don't know what goes on in his head these days.. Or yours for that matter."
"Or your own." She added.
He gave her a small smile. "Right." He muttered, looking over the parking lot and downing the last of the whiskey.