Tired
A/N: Hey y'all! This is my first fic ever, so reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated. I can't personally bake you cookies, but I can send you the idea of them! I have a couple chapters of this written, so I may or may not continue this... Let me know what you think!
Dean had never been so tired before. Yeah, he had been on his fair share of crazy hunts with Dad, especially when Sammy had left. But that had been before Cas, the Apocalypse, and the friggin Leviathans. Dean had been bone-tired before, but never like this.
Even with all of his self-loathing episodes before and after Hell, he had never felt tired all the time. He had never been this empty all the time. He had never been this... depressed, starved, lacking all the time. Sure, he and Sam had seen their fair share of "down" hunters, taking on suicidal cases solo because there was no other way out for them. But Dean had never thought it would be him.
He knew Sam had started to notice- dammit, he was supposed to stay strong for his baby brother. Even though Gigantor had enough of his own issues to worry about (didn't they all?), Dean could still feel his gaze every time Sam thought he wasn't looking. But honestly, Dean just didn't care. He didn't care much about anything anymore, except for the bottom of a whiskey bottle night after night and the thrill of pain every time a blade touched his skin- no, every time his blade touched his skin.
He knew it was bad. Stupid, even. He knew he should stop. But what was one more cut on his arms, his legs, his goddamn puppy belly, when he got beat up regularly on the job as it was? What was one more bruise, one more scab, one more scar, when he had a thousand others littering his body? Why should he feel bad about it when just being able to feel pain through this endless haze of exhaustion was an achievement? He covered up the extra cuts with layers upon layers of clothes- never enough to make him feel warm again, but enough to hide them from Sam. "It's just cold, Sammy."
Oh God, Sam can't know. He's just gotten back from Hell, still seeing Lucifer, we've just lost Bobby- can't put him through any more. He can't know.
Dean knew it was dangerous the first time he went looking for something more. He had been off of sex for months, constantly declining waitresses, bar maids, even the hot girls they rescued. His knife had been good, trusty, by his side, but he was having to cut deeper and deeper, more and more, see increasing amounts of red decorating his skin before he could feel alive again. Alcohol had been a decent fix, working fine back when he was still with Dad, hunting with Sam, before Hell and Castiel, but pickling his liver every night had started losing its appeal. So when Dean was hunting a pack of vampires who also happened to sell a lovely assortment of mood- and mind-altering drugs, instead of beheading all of them on sight, he listened. These sons-of-bitches sure knew what they were doing, because Dean almost bought some (actually got them to lead him to their storehouse) before beheading the lot. He told himself it couldn't hurt. You're already an alcoholic, Sam's been addicted to demon blood, and God knows what Dad's fix to this fucking life was. One hit can't hurt, and I can handle my own goddamn problems.
TBC