If Dean thought about it at all- which he didn't, ever—Dean would probably have to say that he was suicidal, and had been for a very long time. That is, if it still counts as suicidal if you wouldn't ever act on it. At least, not as long as the person you cared about the most was still breathing.

Honestly, Dean probably hadn't been happy since he had gotten Sam from school and they had first started hunting together, just the two of them. For a while that had been good, great even. But even that had started from a dark place. He'd gone to get Sam less because he though he would help him find Dad, and more because he just couldn't be alone for one more goddamn second. There was no place worse for Dean then alone.

So yes, if someone had put a gun to his head and asked Dean if he was suicidal, he probably wouldn't have said yes-not out loud-but he may have leaned into the barrel a little bit. But the closest he ever got to letting himself even think about it was worrying about Sam and if Sam was suicidal. You'd have to be, to be a hunter. But Dean didn't really allow himself those thoughts either.

Dean had an iron grip on his brain, mostly, but sometimes when he couldn't sleep and wasn't quite drunk enough yet, little bits filtered through.


Dean was restless, pacing the hotel room. What he wanted more than anything was to get in the car and drive. Drive to another city, another state, another job. But he'd been drinking since they got back to the room a few hours ago, hunt completed, and though he knew he could probably still drive better than anyone else, he didn't have a destination yet, and he knew from experience that bored cops loved to pull over cars as pretty as Baby at 4am, just so they could see inside her.

So, no driving. They'd already paid for the room, anyway. Sam had gone to bed an hour ago, thrilled at the prospect of seven or eight good hours of sleep; he'd have been pissed. And Sam had looked tired and been quite—he needed to sleep more than Dean needed to be on the road. Sam had looked hollow lately. He'd been taking more risks. Dean's chest tightened. Sam needed more than just sleep, but at least sleep Dean could give him.

Dean poured himself another whiskey. He knew he could just finish the bottle and be asleep himself within fifteen minutes, but Dean had drinking down to a science. Enough to sleep, enough to silence his brain, but not so much that he wouldn't hear if the motel door snicked open. Not so much that he'd fumble if he had to grab for his gun.

Besides, he'd wind down and his brain would shut up and he'd get to sleep, eventually. Or he wouldn't, and the sun would come up and he'd wake up Sammy a little too early and Sam would ask if he was all right and Dean would lie but when they went and got breakfast it would almost, for a moment, feel like the truth.

Yet Dean needed to do something now. He flipped on the computer to search for a case, but his head wasn't in the game. Tonight it felt less like "What evil shall we rid the world of?" and more like "What nightmare should I subject my kid brother to next?" It wasn't good to pick a case when his head was in that space. The world couldn't afford him that luxury.

He slid off the chair and pulled his gun cleaning kit out of his duffle bag. None of his guns needed to be cleaned, but Dean found it soothing, and at least it was something to do with his hands. You could tell a lot about Dean's state of mind from how often he cleaned his guns. Lately, they were sparkling.

He slid out the magazine and double checked to make sure he didn't have one in the chamber. It would have been easy, but the world couldn't afford Dean a gun cleaning accident, either. Dean Winchester didn't get to die stupid. Dean Winchester would get to die one day—sometimes, that thought was the only thing that got him out of bed in the morning-but it was going to mean something.