Work Text:
"Another year has passed me by
Still I look at myself and cry,
What kind of man have I become?
All of the years I've spent in search of myself
And I'm still in the dark
'Cause I can't seem to find the light alone--
Sometimes I feel
Like a man in the wilderness
I'm a lonely soldier off to war
Sent away to die,
Never quite knowing why . . .
Sometimes it makes no sense at all-- Makes no sense at all!
[. . .] I spend my life and sell my soul on the road
But I'm still in the dark
'Cause I can't seem to find the light alone . . .
Sometimes I feel
Like a man in the wilderness!"
A year passed while I was in Purgatory with pure hunting: monsters on every side. If I was searching for something I found it there--it was dangerous, dark, and primal, but it was real and true and I learned the measure of people. I learned the nature of friendship; I had a friend who'd kill for me--Benny--and one who would die for me--Castiel. And it was there that I was a guy always in the wilderness, a soldier in a never-ending war. I never knew why I'd been sent there after the exploding of Dick . . . to die?
It makes no sense at all, unless maybe I was supposed to repent like Cas decided to do. But if that was true, how did Benny find me? Why would he choose to help me leave if I deserved to stay? (I realize it's because I was his only ticket out but I'm rationalizing. Let me rationalize, dammit!)
But, more importantly, why would it be meant for him to come up only to go back down again? Why did I have to kill him for a Trial that didn't even get us to the end because Sam wouldn't finish what he started?! I could--I DID! But Sammy has always been more heart than head. I tried to do what had to be done. To make the hard decision, to take care of him. But sometimes I can't DO that, for whatever reason . . . and then my baby brother nearly winds up dead.
And the best friend I have gets hoodwinked into giving up his Grace and causing a lot of angels to fall.
And with all that's happened since then and up til now, I wish I'd stayed there. In Purgatory with Benny and Cas--Sammy could've kept his life on Earth; no demons, no ghosts, no Leviathan, no shifters . . . nothin' but apple-pie bliss. And I could keep hunting, the way it was always meant to be. No undue thought or sentiment, just me and every damned monster out from under the bed.
Fighting forever.