Carry On My Wayward Son

We were so close. I was so close. You should have heard him, Crowley. The King of Hell, begging for forgiveness. Love. Something I never thought I would ever see. Never thought I would hear. But I did. And I was so ready for it. For it to be over. We were so damn close.

I was prepared for what it would cost me. I knew that this... this purification would come with a steeper price than the one I was already paying. I knew that the sickness was nothing compared to what I would receive as an end result. I'd braced myself for it. Talked myself through every scenario, even convinced myself it wouldn't hurt. After all, why would God make a death like that painful? I was trying to save the world. You know, as usual.

I also told myself Dean would be better off without me. Like we tell ourselves and each other at the end of everything, right? He would be better off without me, and I him. It's a vicious pattern we follow, and we've never strayed from this self-sacrificing bullshit. It always happens one way or another, for the past eight years or so. And here I am again, a sucker for family traditions whether I like it or not. Story of my life.

But really, I don't bring very much... positivity to Dean's life. He's constantly having to look out for me, clean up my messes. Ruby, Lilith, Lucifer. Even stuff from when I didn't have my damn soul, like the stuff I did with Samuel. All those people I killed in cold blood. But he would always forgive me. Every time, almost immediately. He would take me back in, call me Sammy. Tell me it's be okay. I'd be his little brother again.

Not anymore.

Maybe I've failed him one too many times. Maybe too often. Whatever the reason, we aren't what we used to be, me and Dean. These days, sometimes I feel like, for him, his protectiveness of me is habitual. Something he does because it's what he's been doing for me my whole life, since Mom and then Dad died. An endless and objective-less quest that he can't let go of. Knowing that Dean wouldn't have to deal with that burden anymore made my impending sacrifice easier to accept.

I was almost excited for him. He could go back to when things were simple; I wasn't going to make him have a normal life this time. He and Cas could pick up where me and him left off. Before I released Lucifer from his cage and started this whole mess. They could start from the beginning. Saving people, hunting things. The 'monster a week' jobs that we used to run. I laugh now. That seems so long ago. But it was only eight years. Less than a third of my life. How can something so short seem to last so long?

The words of the spell were on the tip of my tongue even after he confirmed what I already knew. That I was going to die if I cured Crowley. And, like I said, I didn't care. I was ready. I'd braced for it. I'd talked myself out of listening to Dean before he even ran in on me, telling me to stop. Because if there's one thing you can count on with Dean, it's that he'll show up just at the climax of events. I was going to ignore him. I was just going to finish it whether he wanted me to or not.

But then when he did come, I couldn't stop myself. I had to tell him. Let him know so that, if I did die, he would know that I was sorry for letting him down. And that I'd repented my sins. Maybe he would understand why. Why I needed to finish this so badly.

Maybe he would understand that the world would be so much better without me and all those black-eyed sons of bitches.