CHAPTER 1
Dean Winchester was drunker than he'd been in years. The number of shots he'd guzzled probably added up to over a fifth of cheap whiskey at this point, but he didn't give a rat's ass. Moreover, he was feeling fine. FINE. Sure, he'd betrayed his only living family and fucked over the world and helped kill the last prophet of God, and he was pretty sure there was no forgiveness to be had from anyone, but he'd drunk enough whiskey to corrode the guilt down to a dull ache. Fuck it all. Fuck my brother, fuck the world, fuck my life; just fuck everything and burn it. He was fine now, though. Sure, he was drinking himself into honest-to-god alcohol poisoning to avoid doing something that would kill him, and he'd spent the previous night hunched sobbing over the Impala's steering wheel in the parking lot of a campground that was closed for the off-season, but somewhere around his dozenth shot he had reached a numb, ashen point of fuck-it-all that was just FINE, dammit.
He rapped his knuckles on the bar for another shot, and the greasy, be-mulleted ginger biker who tended bar in this godforsaken hellhole of a Nebraska dive bar rolled his eyes, but poured him another and slid it across the counter with no comment. Dean tossed it back, relishing the burn of the ethanol as it bit his pharynx on the way down. Hell yes. Burn all this stupid bullshit out of me. Gonna kill me some brain cells. He planned to drink himself far enough under the table that the rest of his evening would be spent either on the floor of a public restroom or in the drunk tank. This was almost a necessity, because if he spent too much time alone and conscious, the temptation to eat a .45 hollowpoint might be too much to resist. The look of bitter disgust on his brother's face as he hurled those vicious but truthful sentences in Dean's face like a religious terrorist flinging a thermos of acid at restaurant patrons, still lingered behind his eyelids, branding itself into his hippocampus along with Sam's wrathful words. His brother hated him, and who could blame him? For Christ's sake, Sam's body had been used by a rogue angel to murder poor Kevin in some kind of twisted angelic political hit, and Dean was the one who'd not only invited the bastard in with no questions asked, but had actually conned his brother into saying "yes" to another goddamn angel even though he knew it was probably a sensitive issue for Sam after the whole Lucifer debacle.
Dean rapped his knuckles on the bar again, but this time the barman shook his head. "Uh-uh, dude. You're fucking wasted. C'mon, now. Pay the tab and go sleep it off."
That was not an option for Dean, not in the least, and he slammed his shot glass down on the bar with a clink that was meant to sound more intimidating than it actually did. "Jus' wummo' dubbl' an' I pay. Shwear." If he hadn't left the last possible shit he could possibly give back at the motel with the empty six-pack and suicidal thoughts, Dean would have winced at how drunk he sounded. His voice was almost unrecognizable, like he'd been to the dentist for Novocaine and a lobotomy.
"Nope. Sorry, buddy. Five double shots, four-fifty each, ten single shots, two-fifty each. That'll be forty-seven dollars and fifty cents."
Dean wanted to argue, but thought better of it. He wasn't in a state to make any kind of rational or even coherent argument. He rummaged around in his jacket for his wallet, his fingers stiff and clumsy, then nearly dropped it twice in his effort to take a fifty out of the billfold and place it the counter. It was a damn good thing he'd chosen a bar that was less than a quarter of a mile down the street from the fleabag motel at which he was crashing, so there was no need for him to drive. Getting behind the wheel in this state was a good way to plow Baby straight into the side of the bar while trying to reverse. That actually sounded great, now that he thought about it, but after a few seconds more consideration he realized that it would probably wreck the car and fail to kill him.
He stumbled on his dismount from the barstool, and his journey to the door was a hell of a long way from a straight line. He could see the barman shaking his head as Dean struggled to negotiate the heaving floor with his wooden feet and noodly legs. It was eleven in the morning and nobody else was in the bar. They were probably at work, like normal people. He felt the door hit him in the side of the head as he shouldered it open, but the pain was dulled almost into nonexistence by the vast amounts of whiskey he had consumed. Wobbling and weaving like a kid learning how to ride a bike, Dean lurched out the door and across the parking lot. He tripped over the curb at the edge of the lot where it met the sidewalk and nearly fell, taking the skin off his left palm where he reached out to catch himself. He was bleeding, but he didn't feel anything.
The only thing that mattered was that he STILL wasn't drunk enough to pass out, but he was in no condition to find the liquor store and buy more. He wished he had some pain pills or something to put him fully under, but he knew he didn't. As he careened nauseously down the sidewalk toward the triangular neon sign that announced the Meadowlark Motel (Free Wifi!), he knew that there would be no blissful unconsciousness waiting there for him, only the nervy suffocation of being alone with his guilt and grief. And as the alcohol wore off, it would become more and more difficult to deal with it. Oh, he wouldn't kill himself, even though a bullet through his medulla sounded like the sweetest damn release in the world right now. After all, it was his job to find Gadreel and neutralize him, and to stop Abbadon and Metatron in their respective dystopian plans. It would be pretty chickenshit of him to shirk his responsibilities like that. There would be tears, though, and most likely puke, and probably blood at some point as well, although not life-threatening amounts of the latter.
The sidewalk billowed like a concrete-colored rug stretched over a sea of Jello, and Dean's stomach lurched. The sign was getting closer, and soon the concrete sea became black asphalt with yellow lines as he reeled into the motel parking lot. Number 8. The fuck is Number 8? Squinting in an attempt to clear his double vision, he scanned the row of doors for the one that was his. It took longer than should be expected for any person who wasn't blind, but eventually Dean found the right door. Getting the key in the lock was the next trial, and he bumbled about like a teenage boy losing his virginity; first trying to find the key, then trying to insert it into the lock. After some fumbling and cursing, the door swung open with an angry squeal and a belch of motel air that smelled of ancient cigarettes, recent booze, and dust bunnies frying in the radiator. Bile began to back up into Dean's throat, and he forced it back down, loathe to lose the liquor that was the only thing keeping his emotions from completely overwhelming him.
Exhausted and hoping that he could rest a bit even if he couldn't pass out entirely, Dean slammed the door awkwardly behind him and staggered across the room in chaotic strides, stopping only when his knees came into contact with the side of the bed. This was his cue to collapse obliquely onto the bed, and with a pained groan he did so. He was puke-drunk, but it wasn't enough to keep the thoughts and memories out. "Don't go thinking that's the problem, because it's not." The fuck did he mean? He can't mean I'm not poison, because it's pretty obvious what happens to anyone I get close to. So what's he mean? I'm selfish? I'm a psychopath? I'm weak? Christ, what's it even matter? I'm a fucking walking disaster. Hell, I left to look for that Gadreel sonofabitch, but I'm so fucking weak and drunk and fucked up that I haven't done jack shit about it. God, what a fucking waste of space I am. What the fuck is my problem? Yeah, Sammy hates me. Boo-fucking-hoo. What the fuck right do I even have to be upset about it, anyway? I mean, is it supposed to be some kind of goddamn surprise, after what I did? Shit, I hate me. Well, I'll be out of his hair as soon as I can, if that makes him feel better. Just got these messes I made with Heaven and Abbadon and shit to clean up, and if I'm lucky I'll die in the process. If not, I'll eat a bullet; either way we'll both breathe a goddamn sigh of relief. And hey, if I can clean up my messes all right, maybe I'll get to go to Heaven. Ha! Yeah, who the fuck am I kidding? I was never NOT bound for the pit.
Dean's eyes burned, and he bit back the tears, mentally chastising himself for his weakness. Fuck, look at me. Blubbering like a fucking teenage girl. What a fucking selfish, entitled-ass crybaby piece of shit. He rolled onto his side and pressed his fists into his eyes as if to force any potential tears back into his eyeballs, and blood from his injured hand made streaks like war paint down his unshaven cheeks. He felt supremely nauseous, but he was too dependent on the poison he had ingested to risk losing it. Over a fifth of Jack on an empty stomach may not have been quite enough to knock him out given Dean's alcohol tolerance, but it was still a bad idea, especially given how worn out his body was. He hadn't slept in three days. Any attempt to sleep was interrupted after less than an hour by the image of Kevin's eyeless face opening its dead mouth to accuse him of murder while Alistair chuckled and taunted in the background. His attempts at eating were similarly unsuccessful. He'd had a cup of instant coffee and one of those miniature, packaged cherry pies from a gas station on his first day out, but that had gone poorly and he hadn't tried again since. The pie had tasted like erasers, the coffee like lacquer thinner, and to make matters worse they had sat in his gut like a pile of razorblades for about an hour, until he'd had to make an emergency stop at a Circle K and deal with what felt like a very brief case of dysentery. Now, on day four of trying to follow up on leads regarding the rogue angel while attempting to drink himself into emotional equilibrium, Dean was bone-tired, underfed, drunk but not drunk enough, and so sunk into his pit of guilt and self-loathing that the only light he could see at the end of this tunnel was his own death.
He dug his knuckles deeper into his eye sockets and clenched his teeth. His stomach and esophagus were on fire; his head was pounding. Don't puke don't puke don't- Fuck. Apparently there was no avoiding it. His esophagus was burning for a reason, and Dean wasn't too keen on lying in a puddle of vomit, so he rolled awkwardly off the bed, falling heavily to his knees on the threadbare orangeish-greyish-mauve carpet as he scramble-crawled for the bathroom. He only made it as far as the wastebasket next to the bathroom door, but that was good enough. Virulent nausea crashed over him like one of those big North-Atlantic waves that sneak up behind unwary children on the beach and club them in the head, dragging them bruisingly across the shingle as the undertow pulls them out to their deaths, and he could feel the sharp metal edge of the dented bin digging into his Adam's apple as his body rejected a fifth of hard ethanol all over the tiny landfill of whiskey bottles, beer cans, empty shotgun shells, and used Kleenex.
His stomach empty, Dean let himself fall sideways onto the carpet and scrubbed a shaking hand over his sweaty face. He stared dully up at the cracked plaster of the ceiling, wishing it would collapse in on him and crush the life out of him. He imagined huge chunks of asbestos-y drywall, rusted steel beams as thick as his thigh, rotting beaverboard planks full of tetanus-dealing roofing nails, buckets of itchy spun-fiberglass insulation; all raining down on his head, cracking his skull and smashing his ribs and being inhaled as corrosive particulates into his punctured lungs until his consciousness faded to black. Of course that didn't happen, but it was a nice thought. Shame and self-hatred began to filter in through his rapidly dissipating drunken stupor, building in his throat until he wanted to scream, hit things, tear his heart and lungs out of his chest. It was choking him, his breath coming in gulps, but it was only when he tasted salt that Dean realized he was crying. Enraged with himself, he swiped the back of his sleeve across his face. Fuck fuck fucker stupid motherfucker stop this shit!
Dean sat up and put his head between his knees, massaging his aching head with the heels of his hands. He tried to take long, slow breaths in precise rhythm with his heartbeat, like someone trying to recover from a panic attack, but realized he was making horrible whimpering sounds on the exhale, which was even more embarrassing. He gritted his teeth in thwarted machismo; loathing himself for failing to meet the ingrained cultural mores that told him he should be solving this with a drunken brawl even though he didn't have the energy to start a fight, or people in the vicinity who were drunk and unemployed enough to engage in bar fights at 11 AM on a Wednesday. Man the fuck up, don't be a goddamn pussy, boys don't cry- But he was so tired, body and mind and soul worn into flaking reddish Swiss cheese like a bit of sheet metal so rusted that it had ceased being malleable and now broke when bent. He didn't have the energy to stand or breathe, let alone attempt to control himself. Defeated, Dean let his head sink into his arms, his body convulsing with painful sobs of complete physical and emotional prostration.