Fic; Failure
Title: Failure
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Dean, Bela, Alastair, Sam (mentioned)
Pairing: Dean/Bela
Rating: Pg-13
Warnings: mentions of torture
Notes: My first Supernatural fan fic.
Dean Winchester had failed Bela Talbot three times.
I.
He has no idea why he feels guilty; the bitch deserved what she got.
She had been a thorn in his since the day they met; she had manipulated him; she had sold him and Sam out to Gordon; she had stolen and sold the Colt; and, if things had gone according to her plan, she would have killed both him and his brother.
Part of him is bitter that he hadn't killed her himself.
But the larger part of him, the part he would just love to be able to beat down and ignore, felt an almost absurd amount of guilt, which was ridiculous. Bela's inability to trust them was what had truly sealed her fate; if she had just let him and Sam in, she might have lived to bother him another day.
He wonders what that reassurance isn't enough to set his mind at ease.
It wasn't my fault.
He really doesn't know why he cares.
It wasn't my fault.
Maybe the guilt stems from how similar their positions were; like her, he had sold his soul and was just biding his time until Hell decided to collect him. Maybe it was because he knew her old life (when she was some kid named Abby) hadn't been sunshine and rainbows if she had sold her soul to kill her parents.
Or maybe, and he didn't like this train of thought at all, it was because even though she was a cutthroat bitch, who had screwed him over more than once, he cared about her a little more than he should.
It wasn't my fault.
He wonders how many times he'll have to tell himself that before he believes it.
II.
When he sees her bloody and beaten on the rack, he wants to scream so bad that it hurts.
But he can't.
Alastair is hovering over his shoulder and he knows that if he even so much as breathes wrong the demon will waste no time in putting him back on the rack. So, he tightens his hold on the knife and leans over the barely conscious woman.
She looks up at him, angry, sorrowful, and hurt all at once, and he nearly drops the knife.
But she closes her eyes and his hold is sure again.
He works on Bela for days cutting, stabbing, burning, and eviscerating.
All the while, he pushes down the part of himself that wants nothing more than for him to shoot Alastair with the Colt and climb out of Hell with Bela in tow.
But he can't.
Deep inside himself, he screams.
III.
The guilt he feels is completely irrational, even more so than what he felt after Bela had been taken to Hell.
There had been no way he could have known that he had been ordained to play some big role in the fight between Heaven and Hell; he couldn't have known that some angel named Castiel was going to bust his ass out of Hell; there was no way he could have grabbed Bela as he was pulled out.
There was no way.
But that's not good enough, and it never will be for him.
Because every time he closes his eyes now, he sees Bella the way she was on the rack and it breaks his heart.
He had failed her. There was no way around that.