The Bad Days

The Bad Days

Dean Winchester, who holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, who is self-sacrificial, who hides his anguish between snarky sarcastic jokes and a flirty, I-know-I'm-hot smirk, who is protective and loyal to those he loves to a fault, is not immune to bad days. In fact, Dean has them frequently, but the bad days, and I mean the really bad days, where the weight he holds and tries to shoulder alone finally comes crashing down on him, and all he can think about are the people he couldn't save, and the people he thinks he's failed all flash through his mind, and all the ways he's let down the people that matter most to him are all that he can see when he takes in his desolate reflection, are the days that he falters, and the days where he needs you the most. Those days that he pushes everyone away the most, those are the bad days I'm talking about.

Sometimes they'll start off ordinarily, or as ordinarily as a day in the life of a Winchester, or of a hunter, can. Those are the days when the angish sneaks below his feet, circling in the shadows and ensnaring him on Sam's pointed jab, or a flash of deja-vu as he catches a glimpse of a face that looks like someone he couldn't save. The days that start off mundane for Dean are the ones where the hair trigger could be anything from a misinterpreted joke, to a hunt gone sour, could send him into a spiral that would take even the strongest archangel out of commission for months at a time. Other times, the days will start with a heart-stopping jolt, with a cold sweat drenching the back of his shirt. On days when his morning starts with a anxiety-riddled, gasp as he stretches his arm across the bed, desperate to find the grounding comfort of your sleeping form beside him, he is surly and mean, and does everything in his power to isolate himself and push everyone away. Not out of a vindictive anger, but out of a deep-rooted self-loathing that makes him believe that he deserves this pain, that he deserves to be forgotten, abandoned, and hated by the people he holds dearest.

These are the days where he needs you most. Don't get me wrong, he wants you, and needs you every day, but when he's in a spiral, on the days where even basic kindness seems like something he doesn't even deserve to dream about, these are the days that he needs all of your love and concern. All of the worry that he teasingly tells you is wasted on a strong man like him, that he gets into shouting matches with Sam and Castiel over because damnit he is not an incapable child!

So on days like that, hold him a little tighter. Dote on him a little more. Tell him that you love him, and that he deserves kindness and love and he is not evil, hell he's not even bad. Remind him that for every mistake he's made, he's fixed a hundred others, and for every person he feels he's failed, he's save a thousand more.

On days when Dean Winchester feels like the world would be better off had he never been born, remind him how glad you are that he was. Remind him of how loved he is, and cuddle a little closer to him, and pretend not to notice the way your shirt grows damp when he buries his head in your shoulder and finally, finally lets himself feel, lets himself cry.