Author Note: Two weeks in a row I didn't get the tag up before the new ep. Sorry! I'm trying! Just a little missing scene/tag for "Last Call." These past few eps have been really good, methinks.

Someone Has To

I'm just the you that woke up and saw that the world was broken.

Then you fix it. You don't walk away. You fight for it.

Dean stands in the middle of the thrashed bar for what feels like forever, pulse calming, adrenaline fading. He stares down at Lee's body, waiting for his mind to settle so he can work through what's just happened.

He wanted a hunt.

He didn't want this.

Or did he?

I'm gonna take a drive, clear my head.

All things considered, he's fine. Has a hole on the inside of his left wrist, already scabbed over and bruising where he'd yanked out the line before things got dicey, a firecracker of a headache, and too many deep thoughts running through an exhausted mind. The fact he hasn't slept in two days and has hardly eaten more than a handful of peanuts at the bar isn't helping.

By a conservative estimate, he has about two hours before someone shows up, likely Lorna, and it would be best if he's long gone by then. He decides to deal with the easier of the two bodies first, turns away from Lee but does so too fast. The barroom tilts and fuzzes, and Dean's stomach lurches dangerously. He grips the beer-sticky edge of the nearest table and drops to one knee to vomit not much of anything onto the equally sticky floor.

It takes a moment for him to work his way back to his feet, and he nearly trips over the marid's severed head on the way to the basement door. It's a slow trek down the narrow, dark staircase to the creature's cage, in deference to the nauseating pound in his rung skull. He curls his lip in disgust as he gathers the thin line of tubing filled with his blood, but if he's going to leave the bar's owner as a pile of ashes out back, it's probably best he doesn't also leave a slew of DNA evidence inside. Whoever finds the cage is going to have enough questions. The climb back upstairs is even more arduous, as he drags the heavy, headless body of the marid. He's losing steam, limbs feeling heavier and less cooperative by the minute, and there's still Lee.

Broken glass crunches under his boot heel as Dean crosses the dim, chilly barroom toward his friend's body. A barroom that just twelve hours earlier had felt warm and inviting, comforting even.

You deserve a break, bro. Hell, you might even deserve two.

Lee had tried to sell him on it, how easily this all could have been his. Life after and without hunting. Without the weight of the world on his shoulders. The dream. Hell, Dean had this dream. The bar, the cute brunette behind the counter.

You have to try to remember, because the people in your life – in your real life, out there – we need you to come back.

He had the dream once, literally, and turned away from it because it's what he had to do.

Who's gonna look out for the little guy?

Giving Lee a hunter's pyre doesn't feel right even if Dean did have the time to spare, but he can't just leave the man here like this. Lee did a lot of good and saved Dean's ass once or twice, but if he truly turned his back on the life after that cult job in Arizona, he hasn't done good in a long time.

No one cares, Dean.

Well, I do.

He finds a stack of cheap linens behind the bar and wraps both bodies. He hauls them outside, pausing once more to dry heave in the dry grass and gravel behind the he pushes back to his feet, there are sparks at the edge of his vision, and blood dripping from the coiled tube in his jacket pocket.

But all things considered, he's fine.

Once the fire is going, he hesitates only a moment, acknowledging the years of good the man did but knowing the smoke funneling into the sky is bound to bring company coming.

In a closet-sized office off the bar, Dean finds his gun, wallet, and car keys on the desk. Set aside until he was drained and cold so he could end up in his baby's trunk in that junkyard, just like the rest of Texhoma's missing persons.

He pauses at the counter to scrounge up some water, scrawls sorry about the mess on a napkin and sticks the note under the butt of the shotgun next to the cell phone basket. He frowns and pats down his pockets, realizes he doesn't have his cell phone, hasn't since… Shit. He fishes it out of the basket from beneath a couple of others forgotten the night before. The battery is run nearly dead, the lock screen filled with missed calls and voicemails from Cas. Dean only listens to the first message.

"Dean, I need you to call me back. Sam is hurt, and I… Where are you?"

Heart pounding to match the throb in his head, he tries to call back but gets the angel's voicemail. He immediately hits redial, just in time for his phone to die. "Dammit."

It's a six-hour drive back to Lebanon. Dean makes it in four and a half, stopping only long enough to fill the tank, wolf down a gas station hot dog, and clean the blood from his face.

He's too tense for music, drives in silence and replays the entire exchange with Lee in his head, over and over.

Why do you care so much, Dean?

Because someone has to.

Sam's okay, thank…well, certainly not God. He seems strong and resolved, and Dean blows out the breath he's been holding for half the day, feels a dangerous sort of lethargy begin to settle in his stiff, sore body.

"Dean, Chuck is weak. I think we can beat him. I think we can beat God."

Dean wishes he felt his brother's conviction. Right now, he just wants an ice pack, a beer, and to sleep for about four days. "Mind if we start tomorrow?" he asks, with a half-smile that feels like it might slide right off his face.

A frown creases Sam's features, and his shoulders fall. "What's up with the…" His brother gestures to the side of his own head.

Dean reaches up to gingerly probe the tender spot at his split brow. "Uh, lucky shot."

Sam huffs knowingly, turning toward Eileen. "Bar fight."

Dean drops his arm and shrugs. "Yeah, technically."

"Wh…technically?" Sam's a smart guy, and he works it through damn quick. "Did you go on a hunt? I thought you just wanted to clear your head."

"Cleared it. I think."

Sam pushes up from the end of the bed, and the frown is back. "Uh, guys, give us a minute."

Eileen flashes a very different smile at each of them, and Cas leaves with her, but without a word.

His brother really must be okay, because he starts giving Dean that nosey, appraising look, paying close attention to the sore side of his head.

Dean beats him to the punch. "You really good? Cas's message didn't say much. And my phone was – "

"Yeah, I'm good." Sam folds his arms across his chest, gaze narrowing. "How about you?"

"I'm fine," he says quickly. Because he is, all things considered.

Sam nods, taps the side of his head. "What was it?"

"Uh, beer bottle." It's a tired slip of honesty, but Dean catches the rest. Doesn't tell his brother about the pistol whip in the junkyard, or that third hit he'd taken in between when he'd started to rouse on the way to the bar. "You remember Lee Webb?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam screws up his nose, working to unearth the name from memories of a time when he hated every aspect of his life. "He was…" He sees it in Dean's face then, and his expression softens. "Did something get him?"

"Yeah. Me."

"What?"

"The, uh, hunt." Dean shifts his weight. "Lee was the monster. I mean, there was a monster, and I killed that, too. But he was feeding it."

His brother's arms fall from his chest. "God, Dean."

"No, it's okay." Dean fixes his gaze on a spot on the wall over Sam's shoulder, chews his lip. "He gave me a choice. To walk away. Pretend it never happened." He shakes his head. "I couldn't do that."

Sam swallows, nods, but doesn't press the issue further.

The infirmary falls silent, and Dean rolls his head on his shoulders, scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. "So, we really gonna do this? Take on God?"

"Yeah," his brother says with a humorless huff. "I mean, someone has to, right?"

Dean lifts his chin, thinking he just might feel a little of Sam's resolve. "Right."

Hellatus! Nooooooooooooooooooooo. Finally watched this week's ep last night, and at the end I just sat there like, "where's the rest of the ep?"