A loud crash sounded in the bunker's kitchen, waking Sam with start. The little clock on the nightstand blinked with the time: 2:48 am. Dean had gone to bed hours ago.
Sam grabbed his Glock and, as quietly as he could, racked the slide, flipping the safety of. He crept down the hall, slowly, trying not to let his footsteps sound against the cold cement. Sam thought about waking Dean for backup. Just in case something went wrong, but his brother hadn't slept in a while and Sam thought it best to let him sleep. He could handle this on his own. No problem.
Sam finally reached the kitchen door. Silently counting down from three, he flung the door open and aimed the barrel at the intruder. The man turned around, and revealed himself to be… Dean.
"Dean what the hell are you doing in here?" he demanded, dropping the weapon to his side. The answer was pretty obvious, the man smelled like a bar.
"Whassit look like t'you?" Dean slurred, raising his arms out to his sides, bottle in one hand, "'M gettin' shitfaced."
Sam shook his head and set the gun on the counter, "What's this about?" he asked gently. This job came with a thousand downsides, alcoholism only being one. Sometimes everything came back at once, and Dean tended to turn to whiskey to forget.
"Th' kid. 'Memb'r? Djinn got'er," he took a swig from the bottle, "I coulda saved'er."
Sam hung his head, remembering the incident. A djinn had discovered it had a taste for child's blood and kidnapped a little girl. She couldn't have been more than eleven, and she died in Dean's arms. Sam hadn't seen his brother as heartbroken as he was when they hid the girl's body to be found by police in a very long time. It was always tough when kids got involved.
"I coulda gott'n th're soooner. I shoulda s'ved 'er," Dean slurred, draining the bottle and stumbling over to the cabinet to find another. In doing so, he dropped the empty container, letting it shatter on the floor, "Ooops," he muttered.
Sam stepped forward, grabbing his brother's shoulder in an attempt to stop him, "Dean I think you've had enough."
"No, S'mmy. I'ven't h'd 'nuff till I cn't 'member it. 'S still th're," he turned to Sam too fast and would've fallen had the taller man not steadied him, "C'n still see'er, S'mmy. Sh'was cryyin'. Di'n't wanna die," Dean sounded close to tears. This was driving him crazy, and Sam knew it.
The older man turned around again and rifled through the cabinet for another drink, but Sam wasn't having it, "Dean, get out the booze and talk to me. Drowning this in liquor won't help a damn thing."
Dean turned back to his brother, anger mixing with the despair in his heavy lidded eyes, "Youuu d'n't h'va daaamn righta t'll mee whatta do. Whu f'ckin rais'd ya? 'Sryght, I did. S'y'c'n cr'm yerr s'lf h'lp b'llsh't 'nd fuck off," he pronounced the last two words slowly, exaggerating each sound like he was trying desperately to sound authoritative. Sam didn't budge an inch.
"Pickling your liver isn't going to fix what happened, and if you just drink yourself to sleep, you'll just feel worse about it in the morning. My 'self help bullshit' is the what lets me go to bed at night without drinking myself into oblivion."
If there was one thing that the brothers were identical on, it was their stubbornness. Once they had made up their minds, neither one would budge. This typically worked to their advantage, allowing them to form multiple hypotheses on a case and not abandon one until it'd been disproven. But tonight, it was only frustrating them both.
Dean stumbled into his brother's chest, his index finger extended at the ceiling, "I 'm no' thaaaat d'runk. 'M j'st a lil tpsy."
He promptly tipped forward into unconsciousness.