Sam should call Dean. He knew should, call him or write him a note or something, because Dean was out at the bar and Sam was about to kill himself and the older brother deserved an explanation. But there was nothing Sam could say, no words that would make this okay because it wasn't. None of this was fucking okay. So he didn't call.

Lucifer smiled at Sam as he turned the gun around in his hands. The younger Winchester debated on whether or not he should do this in the bathroom, try to keep it a little neater, but in the end he decided that it didn't matter because keeping it neat wouldn't make it okay. Nothing could make any of this okay.

Sam placed the gun beneath his jaw, but Lucifer shook his head and touched two fingers to his own temple.

"Trust me," he urged.

Sam didn't trust him, wouldn't fucking trust him for anything, but he repositioned the gun anyway because it didn't matter. A small part of his brain reminded him that if he didn't trust Lucifer just a little bit, he probably wouldn't be doing this. He ignored it and unlocked the safety.

Another, bigger part of his mind was screaming at him that he wasn't thinking straight, that if he could just get some sleep he might be able to stop making crazy-ass impulsive decisions like killing himself that were going to seriously get him killed. Except sleep obviously wasn't an option anymore because every time he got anywhere close the Devil was there yelling into his ear.

So Sam silently apologized to Dean, closed his eyes, took a breath, and pulled the trigger.

The usually soft click indicating that the gun was empty reverberated sharply in the otherwise silent room. Sam's eyes flew open in disbelief. He hadn't checked to see if the gun was loaded, but he had assumed that it would be since Dean was adamant about keeping the weapons ready.

Dean.

Of course.

This was the pistol Dean had taken from the table the day he had caught Sam thinking about shooting himself with it. Of course he would have taken the bullets. Of course.

Feeling the guilt he had been almost drowning in flare up, Sam picked up the revolver and held it to his temple, and when that one was empty he tried a different gun and so on and so forth until he had tried every fucking gun they fucking owned and found that they were all fucking empty.

"There are other ways," Lucifer reminded him, but it was too late because suddenly Dean's voice was echoing in Sam's ear from the cell phone Sam had no recollection of touching and Sam was asking him calmly why the hell none of the guns were loaded.

"Come on, Sam, there are other ways to kill yourself," Lucifer said.

"You shut the fuck up," Sam snapped before he remembered that Lucifer was just a figment of his imagination.

"Who are you talking to, Sam?" Dean asked, confused and cautious at the same time.

"Where did you put the bullets?"

"Sammy, what's going on?" Dean questioned. He sounded almost scared.

Sam let out a frustrated breath. "Never mind, I'll find something else," he said, and then hung up. So much for not calling Dean.

"You'd better hurry, Sammy," Lucifer advised from his seat on the bed.

Sam ignored him and his phone that was blaring Dean's ringtone as he exhaled shakily and opened the first-aid kit. He pulled out a bottle of prescription-strength pain killers and uncapped it with trembling hands. He had just tipped half the bottle into his mouth when the door burst open and Dean all but tackled him, making pills fly everywhere and shouting, "Spit them out, spit them out!" over and over again like a mantra. Sam shook his head desperately and tried to swallow them all at once, but he ended up choking and spitting them out anyway.

"Jesus Christ. You selfish fucking bastard! What the hell were you thinking? Huh?" Dean yelled, clenching the collar of Sam's shirt between his fists and slamming the younger man's head against the floor. "What, you thought you were just gonna take the easy way out and leave me here alone? Huh? Answer me!"

"I can't take it anymore!" Sam shouted back, tears streaming down his face. "What about me, Dean? You can be happy and content with me here, but what about me? I can't be happy! I screw up everything I do! I can't sleep, can't think and Lucifer won't leave me the fuck alone! I love you so much it fucking hurts, Dean, but I can't do this anymore. I can't - I can't -"

The younger Winchester suddenly found himself being pressed into his brother's shoulder as Dean held him tightly.
"It'll be okay, Sammy," Dean vowed, nothing but determination in his voice. "We'll fix this. I promise."

It wasn't much, but Sam trusted Dean a whole hell of a lot more than he trusted the Devil sitting in the corner of the room, and it was a start. And for the first time in a long time, Sam could hope that maybe, maybe it would all get better.