Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the boys, but I do own my thoughts about them.
Author's Note: I am picking up from where I left off in my very first piece, Objects Are Heavier than They Appear. I wasn't looking to do that, but that's what happened. But you don't need to have read that first in order for this to make sense. Hope you enjoy!
Nia was just what the doctor ordered. After yet another fight for his life with yet another righteous entity, Dean needed the kind of quality time found in the arms of a beautiful, willing woman. Usually when these deadly deals go down, the damsel gets forgotten on the sidelines and even if Dean wanted to make good on whatever temporary promises he whispered in their ear, there would rarely be someone to go back to. But Nia had worried about him when he didn't show for their rendezvous. She didn't know what to think when Sam arrived instead looking even more worried. So when Dean called, Nia was quick to answer and so glad to know he was ok that she wasn't even looking for an explanation; just him in her bed for as long as she could have him. Nia was just the right mix of listener and lover, not too much of the first, of course, but just enough mental connection to make the physical that much more satisfying. Dean could see himself spending more time with her, if he allowed himself that kind of comfort anymore – which he didn't. Because it was just too dangerous for the woman of the moment and too taxing on his heart.
Dean could have stayed the night with Nia, but he figured why prolong the inevitable. When she fell asleep, he wrote her a note of thanks, apologizing for not being the kind to stay the night, but promising if he's ever in town again…. Hopefully that would suffice. Dean made his way quickly back to the room he shared with Sam, the sky still an onyx cover overhead as morning remained a couple of hours away. Nia lived within the downtown area, so his walk was blissfully short. He and Nia had performed a few tricks to impress each other, accenting those acrobatics with the various drinks she concocted to help further lower their inhibitions. Now the expended energy was starting to wear on his battery.
The hotel room was quiet and dark. Dean could make out Sam's considerable shape on the bed ahead of him and from the sound of it, Sam would not be easily awakened. Closing the door gently, Dean moved deftly but quietly to the table as he removed his jacket and tossed it on the chair. Sam shifted in his sleep as he did so, causing Dean to freeze mid-step. The drinks from earlier made it a little hard to keep his balance, but Sam adjusted quickly and Dean was able to catch himself before he crash landed on the floor.
Despite the cleansing nature of sex and libations, Dean found himself nursing a headache as he came back to the room, so now was a good time to find an aspirin before he fell into bed, clothes and all. He remembered who had the aspirin last and of course it would be Sam's duffle that he'd need to rifle through to find them. Heading back toward his brother's side of the room, Dean shakily tip-toed to the other side of Sam's bed. Thankfully, Sam was facing the other way, which should make it easier to slip in and out of the bag undetected.
Spotting the lumpy bag, Dean kneeled down to drag it toward the foot of the bed, peeking up to keep an eye on his brother's movements. Sam continued to snore, the rhythm as steady as Dean heard when he first entered the room. He moved the bag slowly at first, in case something inside shifted. And once he felt confident that the bag would not betray his position, he slipped it quickly toward himself, reaching in to find the bottle while keeping his eye on Sam. He knew Sam normally kept items like aspirin inside a smaller travel bag and Dean blessed his luck that it was relatively close to the top, most likely because Sam had used it right before turning in.
Pulling out the travel bag, Dean alternated between watching Sam and trying to visually locate the desired aspirin so he wouldn't have to make too much noise rifling through. He spotted the white bottle. "Ah ha!" he said in a slightly heightened victory, causing Sam to stir once more. He put his finger to his lips, shushing no one in particular. He kept his eye on Sam as his fingers opened the bottle with some difficulty, the night's alcohol effects still wreaking havoc with Dean unaware. Quickly he downed what he poured out in his hand, replacing the cap with a noticeable snap and evoking yet another Sam response. "Damn it, Sammy. Stop moving," he whispered to himself. Rather than risk the noise, he opted to replace the travel bag and leave the duffle where it laid.
Dean crawled back to his bed, feeling the aspirin taking root in his throat and deciding one more drink will help loosen them. His flask was still in his jacket pocket, so he slowly made his way back to the table, staying on his knees because now it was getting hard to find the strength to rise and was it his imagination or was he starting to feel a little dizzy too? Reaching the chair where he threw his jacket, he opened it to find the flask, sitting up just enough to take the drink he needed as quickly as he could. He shook his head as the chilled liquid burned its ways down his throat, a quiet "ahhh" escaping his lips before he remembered he was trying not to wake his brother.
Now that that was settled, Dean opted to try to stand where he was so he could take the final steps to falling out on his bed. It seemed light years away from the rickety table and the dizzy feeling was adding to his disorientation. Placing both hands on the floor, Dean struggled to stand like an infant preparing to take his first steps. Balancing himself on the uneven table, he worked to keep the effort silent while keeping his sights on Sam, who had still managed to not be too disturbed by Dean's antics.
Finally he was ready to take those last sneaky steps to the bed, discovering a loose floorboard that made him pause yet again in mid-air, but finally reaching the holy grail of his hotel bed. Putting one knee on the bed to test its squeakiness, Dean allowed himself to finally free fall once he didn't hear a sound coming from the bed. Falling onto the stiff blanket, he almost as quickly fell into the haze that was rapidly winning its battle to overtake Dean's conscientiousness. The dizziness seemed to get worse and Dean held his head trying to orient himself and regain a mental foothold on his feeling of stability. "I just wanna go home," he said to himself, the day's exhausting events playing out all over again in his mind. The trial. The almost-death at the hands of Jo. The guilt. The talk with Sam. The temporary relief and the return of the guilt in spades. Even Nia couldn't keep the guilt away for long enough to keep Dean from starting to feel completely hopeless. When he began to succumb to those feelings, the little boy in him would remember his mother and mourn her all over again, wishing she were there to make him tomato rice soup, hug him with that warm, mom hug and remind him that angels were watching over him – even though he had lost respect for them almost as soon as he had discovered they were real.
Truly there was no place like home and now he was once again wishing he could go there, if only for a little while. Times like now he remembered the gift with strings attached that the djinn once gave him and he wonders if he really could have stayed and been happy. All he had was the idea of a mom he had only known for four years, but it was enough. It could be enough if he could have her back just for a little while, even if she did treat him like a child again because that too was all she knew of him before she was heinously taken away.
Dean drifted deeper into sleep, the darkness seeming to swell even more than expected. He gave in to the weight of fatigue. If he couldn't have his mom, maybe he could have a good night's sleep that was so deep that he wouldn't think of anything at all. Maybe he could actually rest and things would be different in the morning. Maybe. But in his intoxicated and weary state, he didn't realize what he had done. While sneaking around his brother's bed to get the headache reliever, he didn't realize just how much alcohol was in his system and just how many pills had joined it. He couldn't have known Sam had slipped a few rouge sleeping pills into the aspirin bottle as well for supposed safe keeping until morning, not thinking Dean would get into them. Dean didn't know that he had gone a little too far, wiping away not only the headache but his tomorrows as well.
Thus ends this brief chapter 1, which didn't feel so brief when I wrote it, but the ending felt natural here. This will most likely just be a two-chapter work, and that will be up before too long. I edited this a tad afterward because I still wasn't convinced ODing on aspirin was enough to do damage so I added a bit to the bottle. Thanks for reading!