zombic_thoughts: Sleep
Dean was driving.
Sam was asleep, or drowsing, in the passenger seat, his face calmer than it had been for a while. At least Dean had that impression it was calmer, from when he looked sideways to glimpse at him. And that was good. Dean liked that.
Mile after mile after mile, away from the most recent murder and failure to prevent murder as the day grew.
Fucking failure, that's what he was. Three corpses. Human, very really human corpses. All of them died in pain, two of them after having lived tortured, twisted lives as only a human would dole out to them.
(Sleep. Sam wanted him to stop and rest and sleep, but sleep was barely ever restful, even with Cassie so close, alive, safe, and near, and trusting, and hearing the sound of Sam and Sarah sleeping, or trying to, too, on the other bed. He recalled every single day, even if he didn't want to, but when he fell asleep, the last traces of control slipped away and it all returned to him, sounds, sights, stench. How he felt. Some of it, the knowledge of it was with him during the day, or whenever he was doing stuff. But when he slept... it was all there. And he understood it, understood Sam and Cassie and Sarah and everybody telling him he's got to. But it wasn't rest. He didn't really recall a time when he had been truly resting. It had been way too long. Decades.)
He didn't think he knew anything anymore. Do the job, or try to (yeah, Ted had told him it wasn't a ghost. Did it matter? Or maybe if they'd run then, he'd not have died. Maybe something could've been arranged and those two could've...
Could've what, Dean?
Lived.
Ha. Ha.)
Three corpses. Almost half of the civilians present on the job.
Try to save them all. No matter how many he saved, it didn't make up for it. And there were three dead. Three he couldn't save anyway.
Stop the bad things. (But they were tortured, and feral, and no more guilty than animals defending their territory. They weren't... things. At least no more so than what he had been, hulking over those racks--)
Stop Lilith. Stop Lucifer from showing up. Protect people. (The same people who impregnated their daughters and then kept their children/grandchildren locked up for life?)
How, when he couldn't stop a freaking family from bad shit coming their way?
How.
He didn't know.
Sam stirred a bit. Dean bit his lip and drove on. Away. Anyway away.
Sam stuck around. He didn't want to lose him again, and well, for all that was wrong with his own company, Dean understood that. Despite learning all the shit, the girls stuck around too. Despite the way he drove them all onwards. New cases, new places. Always on the lookout. Always one eye behind your shoulder. And one eye on him, he hoped, in case he slipped back into taking pleasure in hurting people (he'd been there before, hadn't he? After their dad died. It was always in him, always, and being out of hell didn't mean it was gone...)
He didn't want any of that anymore. But he couldn't hide from it, no matter how far he ran. In a way, he thought they'd see it all and run from him too. He hoped they wouldn't and he hoped they would and the fact that each day they didn't kept him off-balance... but probably kept him from sliding down into complete self-loathing too, didn't it. Trying to save people was a useless thing, compared to the evil he'd done. (And yes, he had the right to call it evil. He knew, after all.) Trying to be good was useless because it was impossible, he never had been good. Trying to save the world was futile because he'd fail that too.
But trying to at least give his best shot at all of these... for them. Wasn't useless. He'd betrayed all of his expectations of himself, and had nothing to build new ones on the basis of. But theirs...
He'd tried to explain to them. But they insisted on trusting him, and while the rest of the load he could have tried to shake free of... this part, not so much. Their trust was worth something to them, and it was worth something to him.
Had those kids back there trusted their father/grandfather too, once upon a time? Dean shuddered, and then his phone rang, giving him a start. He fished it out of his pocket, then looked and sighed... mostly in relief. Cassie. Meant she's alive, to call him.
He slid the phone open and answered, voice... partly subdued. Partly because Sammy might still be sleeping. "Hey there." He was here, she was there. And she was calling. Him.
Despite it all.
He just hoped to the earth and sky and all between them that he wouldn't end up fucking it all up worse for any of them. As he could.