Disclaimer: I did not create Supernatural. That was Eric Kripke, I also don't own Supernatural. So anything you recognize is indeed being borrowed.
Trigger Warning: This fic contains thoughts of suicide, loneliness, and self-hatred. If you're not feeling up to that, please do not read any further.
Spoiler Alert! This story deals directly with the events in Season One Episode 13 "Route 666" if you have not watched that far, I do not understand why you're reading fanfiction.
Author's Note: This fic takes place around a year or so after Sam left for Stanford. Dean's been on his own and is feeling pensive. It is completely Dean-centric (Sorry Sam girls!) in that Dean is the only person in it.
Better Off Alone:
Dean sat with his back straight and his hands tightly wrapped around the steering wheel. His head dead straight and looking through the windshield at the abandoned 2 lane ahead of him, that seemed to go to the edge of the world. Here, there be monsters. He thought with a bitter laugh choking out, echoing forever in the silence of the impala. He reached down into a bag of old pork rinds in the middle seat and ate one, trying not to remember his younger brother's lectures.
The passenger seat was empty.
Dean was alone.
The car's interior hadn't heard another voice in close to a year.
Sam had left.
Dad had left.
His mother had died years ago.
The pork rind still unchewed in his mouth was fast disintegrating, and filling his mouth with oozy, porkiness.
Dean was truly alone.
The emptiness of the interior seemed to echo in his chest. He felt empty, cold.
He swallowed the rind, knowing that no matter how much he ate, he'd never be full.
Even on a case, he didn't feel the rush of adrenaline anymore, or pride in the lives he helped to save. Or even the catharsis of having ended another story of evil.
Just nothing.
Maybe it was because he couldn't share it with anyone., for no one to laugh at his lack of grace, falling straight on his ass, running after the ghost of the week. There was no one to shame him for his hook-ups, or to argue with about where they were stopping for food. No one to help peruse through case files, internet pages and dusty old books on folklore and mythology.
Just him.
In the early days, it was freeing. Nice. A weight off his shoulders. No longer having to watch out for the safety of his family.
He could listen to his music as loud as he wanted to, he could eat as much junk without any dirty looks. Hell, he could have sex in his motel room without fear of anyone walking in.
No fights between Dad and Sam. For a little while, Dean had felt like he had found peace. His calling.
But soon, it was too quiet.
His days were spent as a stranger.
He felt invisible.
People would acknowledge him on the street just enough to not walk into him, and then their eyes just slid passed him.
Dean noticed the tears as soon as the first one reached his mouth, leaving a salty bitterness in it's wake. Followed by another, another and another.
He could no longer see the familiar and endless blacktop he had traveled all his life.
His vision blurry enough that he couldn't tell if he stayed in his own lane. He realized with relish, that he didn't care whether he did or not.
Maybe a trip to the hospital was just what he needed, nurses and doctors acknowledging him, and if it ended at the morgue, he'd be done. His job finished. His peace finally found.
His throat had started closing up, and he felt like wailing.
For a second, he thought with relief, he was glad. He wasn't numb. He could finally feel something.
The guilt came soon after, causing him to pull over to the side of the road until he had cried his eyes dry. His sobs following long after. It wasn't worth risking the lives of others.
He couldn't end himself at the same time as other, innocent people. The same reason, he had survived all the jobs he had done alone.
He had to save those whose lives were in jeopardy, ensure that as many families as possible weren't torn up like his had been.
If there'd been a hunter, tracking that demon, his life might've been left intact. It was too painful to think of what might've been.
He could not, and would not allow those spoiled lives to be his fault. He wouldn't assist in the destruction of families when he needed one himself, so badly. A place of belonging. Someone to witness and commiserate with.
He was ashamed of himself. Imagine what his mother would think of him, had she been there to witness those selfish thoughts.
More tears came, surprisingly; he had thought he hadn't a drop left in him, with his dry eyes, dry throat, and no drink in his hand.
He might rightfully hate himself a little more, for those horrible thoughts, and want to cut that part out of him forever, knowing that it will eventually infect the whole of him. But knowing he couldn't. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey that had been rolling around in baby's backseat for lord knows how long, and took a long swig.
But with his decision, he felt a little more at peace. Even if his own mother wouldn't have loved this version of him. He'd live, for them, to stop the darkness in this world from leaving so many victims.
To protect a little corner of the world, that would be untouched by the darkness, as he wished he could have been. So they wouldn't know the state of life he had come to learn so well. The feeling of his selfish heart pumping decay through his veins, rot infecting his brain, and the sick aftertaste of shame on the tongue, guilt sitting on his chest, crushing his lungs until he struggled to breathe, vengeful fire coming up the throat, blistering his lips, his eyes playing back the tragic deaths of so many close friends, and families. The slow beating of his festering heart that still in all that pain and misery, wanted someone, needed someone, to understand him. Even though, loving more people meant losing more people.
He thought back to Cassie Robinson, the only girl he'd ever loved, the only girl who had ever known the truth of him, and how angry she'd been when he tried to show her his black heart. He deserved it, for trying to share his curse. To wish for someone to understand him, is to wish for someone to wade through the same dark slosh.
It is better he is alone.
It is better that Sammy is safe from his corruption.
That he isn't slowing down Dad either.
That his mother hadn't survived to see what a hollow man her son would become.
The tears came more steadily, with the burn of too many shed.
Bile came creeping up his throat, with that thought, that he dare find good in his mother's death. He chased it back down to his vile insides with some whiskey.
He cried out for the mother he had hardly known, wishing desperately for her comfort, for a kiss on a forehead, and a promise of reprieve that he knew now, would only come in death.
He fell asleep to memories of her, curled up in the second home he had ever known, bottle curled in his hand, tears still wet on his cheeks, and for once, without a nightmare filled with blood and fire.