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It wasn’t anyone’s fault, he hears Sam say, but it’s distant, like a shout from a cliff across the valley that you’re expecting. Maybe it’s not even what he’s saying, but Dean knows it’s close enough.
He looks toward Cas, clutching a too-still Samandriel. The blood on his face is already dried, he’s turned paler and bluer since they first came in, and he’s realizing that the muffled noise he registered while Sam was talking is Cas sobbing, rocking the dead boy. Dean looks towards Sam, Anna clutching to his brother’s side as if he was an island in a vast ocean full of sharks. There’s dried blood on her pants and top- a shirt of Samandriel’s, he thinks as he squints to get a better look at her. It doesn’t help his wavy vision.
He feels Sam’s hand on his arm, the arm with Cas’ handprint, and he flinches. The weapons are in the car and the creature nests near the lake. Fueled by the laughter of the monster ringing in his ears, he double checks his pistol as he walks out the door. He’s vaguely aware of Sam shouting behind him- and is that Cas, too? He knows the laughter isn’t real, but it’s propelling him forward, his anger heating this resolve, his revenge. He doesn’t care what happens, he just knows he needs to kill something. And that something is going to be the son of a bitch who killed his son.
When he gets back, the pre-furnished apartment is deserted. Not cleaned up- there’s blood from Samandriel, maybe even Anna? Shit, he hadn’t even checked her, and he knows there’s a pang of guilt flaring up, of ache to touch his daughter’s face for reassurance, but it barely registers. Sam had found her, hiding in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom. She screamed and cried and wouldn’t let go of him as Dean and Cas stood over Samandriel. Dean now fidgeted in the kitchen, emptying the shelves. When the alcohol in the house proved nowhere near enough, he wiped the blood and guts from his face, washed his hands and went to the nearest bar.
-----
He woke up to a kick in the ribs. Hungover though he was, he sat up, grabbing the gun from under the pillow and pointing it. Sam, he thought as his vision came to, and lowered the gun. Far, far from the bunker, he was in the bed in the rented room Anna and Samandriel had been sharing. It was deceivingly clean for a kids’ room, and there had been no blood split in it. His brother sat next to him, explaining you wouldn’t wake up, sorry, I took care of the babysitter’s body, Cas got us a motel room for the next week, he’s with Anna there, and how did you even get back here last night?
Dean wished he knew. Everything hurts, more than the worst fight he could think of, and there was this ache in him, one he hadn’t felt in years. Memories had invaded his dreams last night, and he felt like he was swimming in quicksand, visions of his mom burning on the ceiling, grabbing Sam and running out of the house- only Sam was how he had always imagined Samandriel had looked as a baby, a period he and Cas hadn’t gotten to see as they found him and his sister in the rubble after a demon fight. Visions of the last time Dean had seen his dad alive; of holding Cas as he withered in pain as his grace was taken from him; fragments of Hell, of Purgatory, of all the times he thought he had lost Cas, lost Sam, even the small panic when Anna had gotten lost in a store, only this was nothing compared to all that.
The past 4 years had been as perfect a life as he could have hoped for and now everything was gone. Maybe not everything, but enough that it wouldn’t ever be the same so it might as well have been everything. He needed his brother. He wanted Cas there right now, wanted to hold Anna, wanted Samandriel to come up and ask what’s wrong, dad?, but he needed Sam. A sob escaped his throat and he felt Sam hold him, Dean’s body completely out of his control and Sam sounded like he saying something reassuringly, over and over again, but Dean was drowning and eventually he passed out again.
-----
Cas blamed himself, blamed his human-ness at not being able to bring back Samandriel, shook the bed with his sobs almost every night. Dean suspected it wasn’t just Cas’ sobs, but the days and nights blurred together, he barely registered anything happening to his body, sober, drunk, no matter what he and Cas did, it was pretty much the same, and he didn’t stop crying enough to wonder when he started up again. Sam took Anna most days, and only brought her back when they were both sober. The nights with Anna were the only ones that were clear, Cas and him staring at her in the middle of them, kissing her forehead, touching her arms to reassure themselves that she was still there, still alive, still somehow in one piece. They woke her up when nightmares started, put her back to sleep after a little water and maybe some cartoon time, watched the sunrise as she laid there. It was the only times they touched, reassured each other they could get through this, whispered about the years they had had with her, occasionally mentioning Samandriel and crying with each other, not just next to each other. Sam would pick her up for breakfast and they’d start the cycle again. When Dean saw Sam, he could see the feelings fighting to get to the surface of his face. Sometimes pity would be most prevalent, sometimes anger, sometimes mourning, sometimes hope, it was always something and it made Dean want to drink more, he needed to wash his eyes out, cleanse his heart with fire, stomp out all the thoughts in his brain.
-----
“Yeah, well, if you were still an angel you could have brought him back! And why’d you pick that stupid ass name, anyway? You doomed him.” Dean slurs at Cas, pissed off at his self-righteous face, those big blue eyes he just wants to turn away from these days, that fucking stance he has after yanking the liquor bottle out of Dean’s hand. Briefly, something inside of him yells at him to stop, but it’s lost in a rumble of pain and he is like a wounded animal, striking out at everything nearby. He wonders if any of the things he’s killed has felt like this, towards the end. And an ending seems so blissful right now.
Right now, Cas’ eyes are the saddest things he’s ever seen, and he can’t look at them. Can’t look at him. Dean grabs his coat and walks out.
“I’m taking Anna and going to stay with Sam for a while,” Cas quietly says behind him. Dean pauses at the door frame, the hurt on his face turned outside the room, and he wants so badly to reach out to him, to yell that Cas can make this right, that Dean can make this right, that someone somewhere somehow can make this OK, but it’s not true. Dean doesn’t even know how he can take the little breaths he’s managing with all this pain welling up inside of him, and he chokes a sob, covering up the sound by slamming the door behind him. The Impala is his bed that night, and he finds Samandriel’s favorite book on the floor of the car, a collection of monster-themed jokes he never stopped telling while they were on the road. He hugs it to his chest and doesn’t cry for the first time in weeks.
-----
“Daddy!” squeals Anna, running up to him, a piece of paper in her hand. “I drew you a picture while you and Uncle Sammy were gone. Papa got me bright colored paper!” Dean scoops her and suddenly feels almost weightless. His little girl is fine, he saved some people, had time alone with Sam. Maybe things are getting better. He sees Cas get up from the table and leave the room out of the corner of his eye. Sam follows him- they’re always talking now, hushing conversations when Dean walks into the room, clearly discussing him. Punching down the sadness welling up in his stomach, he focuses on Anna. The scent of her soap, her clothes, the crayon smell that followed her everywhere, and he was pretty sure she had some breakfast smeared on her face and possibly in her pigtails.
Cas hadn’t liked that Sam and him had decided to do a job, but he didn’t say no. It had been two months, and Dean needed it, everyone could tell. He talked to Anna on the phone every night, while Sam talked to Cas about logistics. Somehow, this was an improvement and when they got back, sometimes Cas and him were so comfortable in each other’s company, falling back into their little habits gathered after Cas fell, after the kids came into their lives, it was just like old times. But something would always happen. Some little kid on the playground would remind them of Samandriel, someone would drink a little too much one night, Anna would have a nightmare and pick a favorite to sleep with, some little disagreement would turn into threats and broken dishes. Sam would mediate between the two, try to get them to talk to each other, but it was usually to no avail. Dean was living in a motel room, Cas and Anna in a small furnished apartment, Sam switched between the two but mostly slept in the motel because most nights Dean just wasn’t there.
-----
When Anna started 1st grade a little while later, she was immediately sent to the counselor, who suggested a specialized child’s psychologist. It hurt Dean to know he’d been ignoring the warning signs of trauma in his baby almost as much as when Cas wouldn’t let him drop her off unless the psychologist asked them both to be there. She needs stability, routine, Cas would always say as if Dean didn’t already realize that, and the quick-witted remarks that might have once been flung back at him never surfaced. Dean could feel himself giving up. Cas was clearly the more responsible one of the two of them. Dean was an alcoholic, a high school drop out with a history of violence, a fuck up who couldn’t save his own son and didn’t deserve that bright little girl already struggling with so much. Fallen though he was, Cas was a fucking angel, he won the parenting lottery. So Dean took more jobs, even did solo ones because Sam was getting unbearable to be around. That pity, that need to talk. Cas just focused on Anna. Dean and him had their moments of making up, passionate post-fight-fueled nights or teary remembrances on the couch, but Dean couldn’t bear the naked hope in Anna’s eyes the mornings after, them eating breakfast together like no one was missing. Or the look in Cas’ face. He was tired of hurting them. She just did better with Cas, he decided.
He called every night, she’d tell him about her day, he’d make up a funny story before she went to bed. She always picked up, never Cas. Sam would get on the phone if he was with Dean, but he, too, was drifting, a thing with a girl somewhere along the line becoming serious. Dean didn’t stop himself from suggesting that Sam spend more and more time with her, less time on the road. After Sam got a job, one with decent hours that wasn’t short-term shit work and not too far from his niece, Dean stopped calling him about cases unless he knew he would need backup. He’d get pictures from Cas, but nothing would be in the message body except to tell him the context of the scene. His little girl was growing up without him. He’d pick up little gifts from the road, sending them to Anna, stopping by the bunker and the cemetery whenever he was nearby- sometimes, in better times, Cas would convince him to stay for a little while. They were needy those days, desperately trying to fix what was once so natural, but Dean always convinced himself that he broke everything he touched, and that they were safer away from him. So he’d say goodbye to Anna and hit the road. Cas wouldn’t talk to him as he made his way out, but sometimes they left little mementos for each other tucked away in a spot for the other to find later. There was a box in the Impala, with Samandriel’s book, drawings from Anna, and few tokens from Cas. It was better this way, Dean convinced himself. This was better for everyone.