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Dean had become something of an expert on fullness over his lifetime. There are ways and there are ways of being full, and some are better than others.
Once, after finishing up a solo hunt when Sam was already away at Stanford, he won big at poker. He had been eating lean for days before, with money going to his Baby and the job, eating just enough to keep his hands steady and his mind where it needed to be.
That night, flush off the successful close of the case and a Royal Flush, he decided to eat steak until he was well and truly full. He wasn't going to eat bread or salad or home fries or even drink a soda and waste space on something other than meat.
One steak after another came out perfect, seared and caramelized. Even the fat was rendered clean through in gustatory dehiscence. The meat was pink, friable, and wet with fond from deglazing.
He ate steaks until he was no longer hungry and the thought of eating more made him feel vaguely sick, but he never felt truly full.
There's something in sides—foods that feel like an afterthought that actually makes him feel like his stomach is as full as he can get. There's a lot he can live without, even if it leaves him lean and hungry.
Being full isn't the same as being safe, but it feels close enough most days.
When his belly is a little distended and he feels he couldn't eat another bite, it's like he has a way to ward off the next lean and hungry time.
When his stomach is full, he can remember days when he gave Sammy the last of the food. Full, he can even do it without wincing away from those memories in pain.
It's not like hunger is all that painful, not compared to being slammed into a wall and held there by a ghost or having his side clawed open by a kitsune.
Hell, compared to the way his dad looks at him when he doesn't follow an order right away, hunger burns a lot less than the shame that lingers in his belly.
At first, hunger pangs are sharp and more like nausea than pain. As that fades, there is a startling sense of clarity after a few days. He still feels empty, but he also starts to feel untethered.
He can smell so clearly after a few days without. Ambient temperature matters more. The cold slips up his sleeves and down his collar to touch him.
That shivery feeling that makes hair stand on end has a name. Sammy told him once. Piloerection. It sounds dirty, but it just means that bodies are dumb. Those hairs stand on end whether people are cold or horny or scared. They're indiscriminate.
His mind wanders more, gets lost more. All that emptiness gives it more room to roam.
It started because it had to. There was never enough money or enough food to cover him and Sammy until whatever thing that needed killing was dead and dad could come home.
Now, though, he thinks about the Bible when he's on his own for too long and lets a few days pass between meals. Dean realized a long time ago that if there was a god, he checked out quick, so it isn't that.
John. His dad. He'd make Dean and Sammy learn verses and stories. The Bible is lore that gets referenced all the time. In their line of work, only an idiot doesn't have a working knowledge.
Practically at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis 41, the Pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows. Hunters aee always scanning local papers for cattle mutilations, missing organs, and alleged animal attacks. We spend a lot of time looking into cows dying unplanned.
Anyway, these fat and healthy cows are eating by the river, and seven lean and hungry cows come up and eat them. When they're done eating all seven of those healthy, sleek cows, the lean and hungry cattle don't look any different than they were at the start.
Dean feels like another one of those lean, ugly cows. He can eat until he aches with it or eat nothing, and nothing that matters changes.
When cows turn up dead in weird ways, hunters figure out why and kill whatever's eating 'em before it starts going after people, but it's already too late for the cows.
He'd get hungry before bed as a real little kid, and before the fire, that dad he used to have would tease him about having a hollow leg. Now Dean feels as hollowed out as a dead tree, but Sammy isn't even around to tease him anymore.
Somebody told him once that forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. He can accept that a different or better past is off the table, but he thinks it might be too late to be anything but hollow.