"If you're trying to kill yourself, cut vertically."

Castiel jumped harshly, the smooth handle of the pocketknife slipping about in his hands, the grip damp from the sweat between his fingers.

"Dean," the fallen angel said in a monotone voice, faint surprise painting his ashen face, his eyes squinting as if he couldn't see more than a few feet in front of his face as he turned to look at the hunter.

Dean stood leaning against the doorframe of the run down motel room, one leg crossed in front of the other, his arms tucked close to his chest. He observed quietly, his breathing level, his eyebrows raised in a cheeky inquiry. He wasn't the slightest bit surprised.

"You're looking at that thing as if you aren't sure if it's your salvation or your damnation."

His tone was neutral, if a bit amused, and he spoke as if he was making a passing comment on the weather and not about a knife in a depressed man's hand.

"I'm…" Cas paused, thinking. He turned back to face the windows, the blue sky taunting him as the clouds sang his name. "I'm not sure what it is."

Dean sighed, moving from his post in the doorway. He made his way over to the armchair that his friend was sitting in slowly and sat on one of the rests, throwing one arm over the back.

"Well," he said contemplatively, reaching out to slip the blade from Cas's fingers. He observed the pressed metal softly, twisting the handle expertly in his scarred hands. "I'll tell you what it's not."

Glancing at the now human man out of the corner of his eye, Dean looked to the clouds, closing the pocketknife with a final click. He placed the offending object on the sill in front of the chair they were perched in.

"It's not a way out, if that was what you were looking for," he said matter-of-factly as the cool wood of the helve tapped on the wood of the window's edge.

"And why's that?" Cas asked in a slightly bitter, slightly curious tone, glancing at his human. Well, they were both human now, not just Dean.

Dean smiled ruefully, positioning himself to better face the man seated in the hard lumber of the chair.

"Because suicide is a sin."

"People sin every day, Dean," Cas said, stating it as if he was breaching a subject they had gone over many times.

"That is true," and Dean chuckled. "But it isn't a sin to your God, or whatever."

"Then what is it?"

Dean looked to the sharpened metal on the sill as if it were an old friend turned enemy.

"It's a sin to yourself. I learned that one the hard way."