Work Text:
Early, before Sam had woken up, Dean slipped outside and took a deep breath of fresh morning air. The nightmares had awoken him, as they always had. Except they weren’t nightmares. Memories, fresh, vivid, almost as painful as if he were still down there, still living in perdition, were always with him but at night he couldn’t distract himself with focusing on the job. He raised his flask and took a drink, more out of habit than out of any expectation that the alcohol would help in any way to dull the pain.
He had a few more hours before it would be decent to wake Sam up. Sleep might be his enemy, but his brother still found peaceful refuge in dreams. He just needed to distract himself before they could move on to the next job.
Dean’s glance travelled around the parking lot before landing on the Impala. The slightest hint of a smile pulled at his lips. His baby. He walked over and ran a hand along her hood and up the roof, caressing her as tenderly as any lover he’d ever taken. Opening the door, he slid into the driver’s seat and took another long swig from the flask before closing it and setting it down. “Hi baby,” he said, running one hand along the door, admiring every curve, every countour; the feel of her underneath his hand as familiar to him as his own face. He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent before leaning back and sighing.
He knew Sam suspected something was up; knew Sam didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t remember his time in Hell. He kept asking. He has asked again last night. Begged, more like.
“How can I tell him?” he asked the car. “He would just feel like it was his fault…like he was to blame. And it wasn’t him. It was my choice.” The car didn’t say a word, but Dean could swear he felt her purr as one finger trailed lightly over the wheel. “I’m supposed to tell him I spent 40 years down there? Not 4 months, baby…40 years…”
Dean dropped his hand and took another drink from the flask. “Every single damn day they cut me to shreds, literally, there was nothing left of me. I had no body but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t feel the pain. Couldn’t feel that knife tearing into my flesh…” He threw the flask aside. “He doesn’t want to know that. And for 30 years I endured that torture. For HIM. It isn’t his fault, but he would feel guilty anyway and he can’t handle that guilt." Dean laughed and took another drink. “I have enough guilt for the two of us. Dad spent a year down there for me.”
He reached over and opened the glovebox, rifling through it and then selecting a tape. He turned the car on and put the cassette in and sat back as the strains of AC/DC filled the car. “There, that’s better than the iPod he fitted you up with, isn’t it babe?” Dean sat back, hands behind his head, relishing the curve of the seat beneath his body. “He doesn’t want to know that every day they offered me the chance to get off the rack if I would take the knife…that I did it…That I wasn’t strong enough. Godammit he doesn’t want to know that shit!”
Once again Dean’s hand found the flask, tipping it to his lips, the sensation of alcohol burning down his throat. He closed his eyes again, letting the music soothe his ragged nerves, wondering if the memories would always be this sharp, this fresh.
“Why did he even save me, huh baby?” Dean asked the car. There was no answer. None that would satisfy him, anyway. Especially since no small part of him felt like maybe he had been better off back there. “I enjoyed the work, didn’t I? Ran my thumb along that knife as lovingly as I’m touching you right now…Didn’t I become a demon when I was down there? At least I was no better than…So why me? Why didn't he just leave me down there until I had forgotten myself? Lost myself completely? Might have been a blessing."
As always, the car didn’t say a word. She just let him yell, let him scream and punch and do whatever he needed to do so that he could walk inside that hotel room and wake his brother up. So he could get through the day without dumping all this on Sam. She just sat there, engine idling, singing to him. He may not be the same person he was before the hellhounds had dragged him under. Sam might be different, more distant, colder…but his girl, she never changed. She was there for him, just like always. At least he still had that.