Sometimes the pain is an old friend. He wakes up to Journey on the radio, stretches a little, feels the familiar pull of a frayed rotator cuff in a shoulder that's been dislocated too many times. He sits up in the half-light of another cheap hotel room, the twinge in his lower back reminding him that he's not 25, or even 35, anymore. He knocks back a swig of last night's stale beer, warmed to room temperature on the night stand, and the flat, skunky taste does nothing for the cotton in his mouth or the pounding in his head.

Sometimes the pain throbs. The heat of the shower loosens the sullen stiffness in his neck and he stands, head down, one hand resting on the mildewed tile, letting the water stream down his back until it begins to cool. The thought of Sam's bitch-face when he got stuck with the cold shower twists in his chest like a knife, and he slams the faucet off. Nine years, and it might as well have been yesterday. Time has worn the edges of his grief, but his brother's death is wound that will never stop bleeding.

Another day, another job. Angry spirits. Monsters less frightening than the ones in his memories and in his nightmares. He's getting too old for this. With Sam buried, and Bobby long gone, and Cas burned to ash in holy fire years ago, though, the days of rest he needs to keep going hurt more than his prematurely aging body does. He chews mechanically through day-old gas station donuts and burned coffee as he drives on. Sometimes he's not sure which will be more painful, finding what's ahead or letting what's behind catch up with him.

He knows what's back there. He's always been willing to gamble.

Between jobs he drowns himself in women and whiskey. With the booze blurring the edges of his thoughts and some warm, soft thing moving under and around him in the dark, he can almost push the pain to the back of his mind. He can find the closest thing he's known to relief. The deep ache that never leaves him feels almost good for a while.

He could have died with his brother. He would have sacrificed himself without a thought for his family or his friends. (He did, actually, and it burns when he remembers that it didn't help.) But eating a bullet isn't his style, and he has no taste for what comes next, whether it's the attic or the basement. He's seen both and doesn't much care where he ends up—they're both hell, as far as he's concerned. What he wants—an end, a dark and quiet oblivion—is a fairy tale.

Sometimes the pain stabs. Another night in a cold hotel room, vision constricting to black as he forces his shoulder back into joint against the door frame. Gritting his teeth, he bites off words that would curl a sailor's hair as he carefully stitches a gash on his arm with dental floss. The dull needle punches through scar tissue in the shape of a friend's open hand. He looks away. Takes a swig of Johnnie Walker. Keeps sewing.

Every hour wounds. The last one kills. He's pretty sure he read that somewhere, or maybe Sam did. There's truth in those words, and it's a truth he understands a little more every day.

Until that hour comes, there's nothing to do but stand up under the weight and walk on.