He was tired, and no amount of sleep, natural or sedative-induced, was going to do a thing about it. God, he could hardly remember what life was like before he was tired.
Sure, most of his life had been easier than this, but that wasn't to say that he hadn't always been a little drowsy around the edges. Hell, he'd started wearing out the night he heard the yells, felt the weight of his baby brother in his arms as the fire raged and his father yelled for him to run. After that, life had been an endless blur of waiting for answers, answers it turned out he didn't really want to know, after all. He took care of Sam, because somebody had to do it. He wanted revenge, because his dad wanted it, and what boy didn't want to be just like dad?
It grew worse that night he was burning some vicious fugly with his father. Sam was in the car. Dad was staring down at the corpse. He looked down and saw the flames licking the monster's flesh, knew he was tired, but it was like the sort of high you got when you didn't sleep at all. He could live with that.
He learned to keep his distance, sabotage relationships before they turned into anything. Sleepwalking through life, guided only by two unchanging truths; Look after Sam, Listen to dad. Easy, right? He could do that.
Sam and dad fought, and each time Dean felt himself wanting to lie down and block it out, but he couldn't do that. It wouldn't do anyone any good if he didn't try to go in there and break up those two blockheads. So he joined the fight. Heard some nasty things directed at him, and more than once came out of it with a bruise or two, but he slept peacefully, knowing that the fighting was done for the time being.
Then Sam left. He didn't want to be looked after or taken care of. He didn't want anything to do with either of them. After that, Dean couldn't sleep. Late at night, he left messages on Sam's phone. Checking up on him, making sure everything was okay. Pretending he wasn't a total insomniac. Sam didn't make a regular habit of calling back and, eventually, Dean gave up. It was easier to stay awake distracting himself with booze and women.
After that, it was all jobs and orders, with the occasional night on the side. Dad would leave and return, never smiling. There was this girl, boy was she something. Took his breath away, really she did, especially when she called him crazy and told him never to come back. Nothing could knock the wind out of him like that sucker punch.
One night, dad left and didn't come back, so he found Sammy and brought him back to the hunt. Didn't mean to keep him away from Jess, didn't mean to rob his little brother of his last few days with his girlfriend. Next thing he knew, he was on the hunt with another selfish, obsessed bastard bent on revenge. Felt good, like the sleep-deprived high was back. It was easy to forget what rest felt like when he had Sammy to look after again.
Then the visions started. Dead God, how he wanted to end them. He didn't want to see his brother in pain. Hell, he didn't want to see his brother turning into some kind of…
Then there was mom's ghost, sacrificing herself to stop that poltergeist. Sam liked to think that, when she and the poltergeist cancelled each other out, she went to heaven. That was good. It meant he still had good dreams; all Dean had anymore were nightmares.
Pastor Jim died. Caleb died. Dean began to waver on his feet when his dad returned, and then it all went to hell in a handbasket.
Seeing his father staring at him, his eyes yellow as he pinned him to the wall. All Dean could think was that he just wanted it to end, wanted all this insanity to stop. But it only got worse.
Dad died; died to save the worthless sack of filth that was his older son. And why? What was he supposed to do? Save the goddam world? Kill his brother? Kill Sammy? No way. Sorry, why not take a vacation instead?
But there were no vacations. Not for hunters. Dean stumbled and tripped, trying to stay on his feet. Bobby, Ellen, Jo, Ash… they tried, they did, but they couldn't let him have the rest he needed. And Sam wouldn't let him. Leave it to that sasquatch to go all gung-ho about hunting when, for the first time, Dean actually wanted to stop.
Gray began to seep into the black and white of the world, poisoning everything he had once held to be true. The company of a woman couldn't make him forget his waking nightmares. The sting of whiskey couldn't take the bitter taste of grief from his mouth. The roadhouse burned. The yellow eyed demon was still evading him. Things were bad, and they weren't getting any better.
Then Sam died.
Dear, God. His baby brother. The little bundle in his arms. The wonderful, bratty kid who'd given him an amulet for Christmas and whined until Dean gave him the last bowl of lucky charms. The uncomfortable freshman, the determined senior, the stubborn man who had left and returned, fought for beliefs and feared what might become of him.
Going cold and gray, limbs growing stiff.
And damned if all that weariness didn't come crashing into him all at once. Bobby wanted him to leave, to continue fighting the good fight, to go on grieving and stumbling without any rest. Screw Bobby. End of the world? Screw the world, what more did it want from him?
Yeah, the deal had been a jackass move. Pressing his lips against the crossroad demon's, getting her hellish spit all over his mouth, stomach roiling as he felt the impact of what he'd done, he didn't care anymore. He was tired, and if this was what it took to get a little rest, then fine.
It all seemed worth it, seeing Sam up and about again. He hadn't screwed up so badly if it meant his brother was alive, right? And boy, had it felt good to put a bullet in the yellow eyed bastard's brain. Too bad about the janitor he'd been inhabiting, but there were casualties in war. Important thing was that Sam was alive, and he still had one glorious year.
Boy, had he been a dumbass.
There was nothing quite like a deadline to make a man take perspective. Dean approached his last year with ease and enthusiasm. It was so easy to pretend nothing had changed. Sure, he caught a glimpse of what he could have had. It was almost like a djinn had caught him all over again, seeing that kid and being in that house. In another lifetime, it would have been nice to have a wife and a kid and a white picket fence.
But whatever.
Demon had come, playing around with Sam. Boy had that gotten his blood boiling. He was going to kill that bitch if she didn't… stop helping, or whatever the hell she was up to.
The year began to wane, and he was too nervous to be tired. Hell hounds ripping you to shreds? That'll wake you up in the morning.
Then hell was, well… like so many demons had said. It was hell. And right when he'd been on his way to becoming hellspawn himself, he woke up in a pine box. Why? Because now God decided he didn't get to rest.
He had to stop the apocalypse. The goddam apocalypse that he had started. He had to save his baby brother again, stop him from sucking down the demon blood and turning into the same sort of sick thing they hunted. He had to listen to a bunch of pompous dicks tell him that God said this, God said that, and whoops! That angel was really bad, but they were sure they had the right orders.
He came back from hell, got a second chance at life. What was so great about living, anyway? Cause boy, was it ever fun to bury more good people. To burn the corpse of another baby brother he'd never even really met. To go back to that dark place in his soul again and again, and watch while the angels callously walked around in still-inhabited meat suits, spewing righteous orders they couldn't even guarantee came from God.
It was getting harder and harder to fight. Seemed like the more he did, the more tangled everything got. It was all he could do to grip onto that one thing he had held onto his whole life, that one thing keeping him awake and lucid. Sam might hate him for it, but at least he could save Sam, right?
So yeah. As bluntly as Bobby put it, he threw Sam in demon-blood rehab, cold turkey, and went off to become heaven's bitch. He felt his brother's pulse racing under his fingers as he bound him to a bed.
He felt the blow of his brother's fist as Sam chose to follow a demon instead of him, felt the whack of his own brother's cheekbone under his own hand as everything came crumbling down.
There was a shattering sound, a pain in his head. Sam had thrown him against a mirror.
There was a crash, wood sticking into his back. Sam had thrown him across the room.
There were fingers around his throat, choking the air out of him, and for the life of him he couldn't fight back. What was the point? He'd been fighting all his life, wearing himself out because his dad had told him do, because Sam had needed him. Dad was gone. Sam… he was as good as gone. Technically, he still had the angels, but they were a bunch of dicks who could go screw their asexual selves for all he cared.
Sam released his neck and made to leave. Even though he would have given anything to stop fighting, old habits died hard.
"You walk out that door," he gasped. "Don't you ever come back."
If that didn't stop the bastard, nothing would. Sam turned and looked back at him, pain and anger flickering across his face.
Then he walked out the door. And he wasn't coming back.
And suddenly, Dean wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and curl up into himself.