Title: Death of a Brother
Author: Ice Cube
Rating: T
Spoilers: For Supernatural's episode Asylum…major spoilers if you haven't watched it…but this is definitely…most likely…AU…so yeah
Disclaimer: Right, if I owned them anywhere outside of my dreams, the characters that are forthwith mentioned in this story would be making me a lot of money and very happy…so no, they aren't mine, and I'm a broke college student who has no money, so if you're going to sue, feel free, you won't get anything.
Characters: Sam, Dean
Archives: Feel free; just let me know where so I can find it again.
Summary: After Asylum, the brothers reflect, and the consequences that come from it…first two chapters happen at the same time, and then the rest is the result…
Warnings: I do not now, nor will I ever condone what is spoken about in this fic, but the plot bunny bit, and so I had to answer. Suicide is a sensitive topic, and if it is going to affect you negatively, I am warning you now that it is discussed in here. I would prefer not to be flamed about using it in a story; if you feel that it was ill-done then please let me know privately and I will be happy to discuss that with you…
To those who think that I am capable of writing a fic that is torture free…I can't, and thus, if you don't want to see h/c, various possible tortures, and other forms of angst, find another story. Also, to those of you looking for slash, when I mean friendship and brotherhood, I take that in the trust you with my life and have no problem telling you about my current crush who is of the opposite sex way. In other words, if you're looking for slash, you won't find it here.
I don't have my stories beta'd, I'm too impatient to wait for someone to proof it after I've written it, so I apologize for any mistakes, and if you email me to tell me that they're there, I'll fix them later. Reviews are always a plus, it's great to know that people are reading my stories and like them, but as I'm a horrible reviewer, I won't hold my breath for them. Flames, however, will be treated with the utmost respect they deserve…they will be ignored completely or poked fun at with friends.
That said, on with the tale…
Yes, I know I'm supposed to be writing Blindsided or working on finals. I swear I will have a new chapter up of that as soon as I possibly can, but I was sitting in the library waiting to meet with someone and this kind of exploded in my head...this one is completely written, so it will be updated regularly, and I promise I'll work on Blindsided as soon as I can, but I didn't have it with me when I felt the need to write...forgive me?
And just another warning if you didn't read it above...this is AU and deals with the concept of suicide...if that bothers you, please don't read it or at least flame me privately...
Oh, and there's a major cliffie ahead, and this is the only time I'll tell you that the first and second chapters take place at the same time...it makes the story a little better if you don't remember that, but I figure I have to warn you about it...you'll see...
Chapter 1
I killed my brother today. I stuck two separate guns in his face and pulled the trigger. The first one was filled with rock salt and must have hurt him like Hell, and the second one…well, the second one I was pretty sure somewhere in my head that it was empty. Dean wasn't dumb enough to give someone he had realized was possessed a loaded pistol, especially after he had been the one to find out what Ellicott had been doing to his patients. So I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to inflict any more damage on his chest or face when I felt myself pull the trigger.
So no, I didn't kill my brother like that. I am fully aware of the fact that he is still alive and breathing, probably slamming his fists on the steering wheel of his precious Impala outside to AC/DC or Motorhead. No, how I killed him was worse. I ripped open his chest with my bare hands and the hatred seeping out of my eyes and very being; ripped it open and pulled out his still-beating heart. I broke my brother and there is nothing I can do to fix him up again. The cuts from the rock salt I can clean, the broken ribs from flying through a rotting door I can bind, but breaking my brother's spirit? That I can't mend, not yet anyway.
There is something about being a younger brother that shields you from what it is like to constantly be the protector. I can't fully understand why it is that Dean always feels the necessity to keep me from falling flat on my face, from getting myself hurt. He did it when we were kids and I tried to take on bullies at least twice my size, he did it against the Wendigo this past year, he did it every time Dad and I fought. Well, at least every time except the one time it mattered, but I was hurting him as much as I was hurting Dad when we argued about me going to Stanford, and I can see why he wouldn't have backed me there.
See, Dean has always been afraid of being abandoned. He's been like that my entire life, probably since Mom was ripped away from him when he was four-years old. He lost his childhood and his mother that day, and since then he's been afraid to lose anything else.
I know all this, and yet I still killed him today. I stole myself away from him when I betrayed him like I did. Sure I didn't want to kill him, not more than any little brother wants to kill their older sibling. I knew as soon as I felt Ellicott's electricity surging through me that something was wrong, and I could feel all of the anger that I had bottled up against everyone, not just Dean, coming to the surface. I think I would have lashed out at anybody I came in contact with, but someone once said that it's easiest to lash out at those you love, and Dean happened to be the first in my path.
In my head, I've always meant every single thing I said to him when he was lying there, but they came out so wrong. It's not that I'm sick of taking his orders; I just wish he didn't have to give the orders all the time. I wish that I was well-ingrained into this life enough that he didn't have to spend all of his time making sure that I knew enough of what we were doing to protect myself and watch his back. I had felt the blood come pouring out of my nose as I raised the shotgun to aim at his chest, and I knew that this was not going to turn out well. Then I shot him, and something that Ellicott had done to me skyrocketed to the surface. I could no longer control anything I was doing, anything I was saying, and he twisted them so that each cut killed my brother a little bit more.
I told him I was normal, and was telling the truth for the first time, but it sounded like another jibe against him. I know that I am far from normal, Hell I have visions of what happens to people I either care about or don't know. I abandoned my brother and father to go to college, knowing full well that they still needed my help. I spent my teenage years wanting more and more to be an orphan. Dean…between the two of us, I'm starting to see that if you look at him in a general sense, he's the more normal one. He idolizes Dad, he wants to find the man, and he listens to his elders. He may be the good little soldier that I taunted him with, but that makes him the good son, unlike me. I yelled at him for always following Dad's orders, for always doing what he said, but the man had never really given either of us reason not to. He wasn't the sweetest man you could have for a father, but he went out of his way to make sure Dean and I could protect ourselves and each other, and had never knowingly put us in harm's way. It was usually me being obstinate and not listening to him that had gotten me and Dean in trouble, but he was never one to lecture us over our mistakes, just made sure that we had learned from them.
I asked Dean if he was that desperate for Dad's approval that he followed him blindly, but it was never Dean that was desperate for that. It was me. I was always looking for Dad to tell me how good of a job I had done, how good I was at getting an A on a paper, how good it was that I had done some extra research and found out what spirit was attacking us. Dean was always content to know that what he had done was right, and didn't need anyone to tell him that. It was me who needed the approval.
I told him I had a mind of my own, and that I wasn't pathetic like him. I couldn't have been more wrong, and the more I thought of it, the more I could see that he was willing to strike out on his own and was comfortable enough with what he did to do so with confidence. Me? I was so scared of being different than the majority that I made sure I wouldn't be accepted as different. So I went off to college and look where it got me. Right back where I had started with some kind of complex that I could have gotten out of this mess. None of this mess would have happened if I had just been glad to have a roof over my head most nights and that I still had a family to speak of, one that cared about me. I needed to abandon all of that and set out with nothing, sure that I could start over and always afraid of my past catching up with me. So who was the pathetic one?
Then Dean gave me the real gun, asked me if I hated him that much, if I could kill my own brother. He was lying on the floor with holes in his chest from rock salt, and had the courage to see what his little brother truly thought. If only Ellicott had let me speak plainly, and hadn't twisted around every one of my thoughts. I'm starting to see now where the good Doctor's treatment had failed. He had been trying to get his patients to express their rage with everyone else and therefore get passed it, but he had failed to let them express their rage at themselves. All of this is my fault, I can see that now. I have hurt my family too many times, and I don't know why.
I hung my father and brother out to dry when I left for Stanford, didn't care what I was doing to them, and what did it get me? Even there I didn't really feel like I belonged, and in the end I just hurt all of them too. I hurt Jess the most of course, but I also hurt Zach and Becky and everyone else who got close to me and I had to abandon when I felt the need to make something up to my brother. I've cut them all out of my life for their own safety, but it still hurts. Them and me. And there's nothing I can do about it now. And they seemed to be able to put that behind them. Becky kept emailing me after I left, and I'm sure even after dragging her into the paranormal, she doesn't blame me, and still emails me. I haven't checked; I'm too afraid of what I'd find.
So Dean gave me his gun and told me to pull the trigger. He goaded me to do it, knowing that he could get me off-guard and save us both. I pulled the trigger three times, and I could see the hurt increasing each time I did. Each pull of the trigger made me hate myself more and more, and then he reacted. He pulled the gun away and knocked me to the ground. I tried to get up, didn't know what I was going to do, but Dean saved me there. He saved me from my own rage by knocking me out. And then he apologized for it. He even called me Sammy, not Sam like when he's mad at me. He didn't care right then that I had tried to kill him, that if he didn't find Ellicott's bones, I would probably try again, he just cared that he had punched me in the jaw and knocked me out.
So which one of us is more in control? What gave me the right to think I was resentful of him and his relationship with Dad? Anything that was ruined in my life was because of me, and everything was all my fault. And everything that was happening was only getting worse as time went on. But I know how to fix it now. I know how to stop everyone getting hurt because of me. The only one this would hurt is my brother, and he's already dead. After all, I killed him.
Sam closed the journal he had been writing in since college had started. He let out a shaky breath and tucked the pen carefully into the spirals. Dean was just outside in the Impala, but Sam knew that he wouldn't come in for some time still. He had seen the carefully checked tears in the corners of the older Winchester's eyes, and knew that he was going to be out of Sam's sight for a while.
Tears fell down Sam's cheeks as he thought over what he had written. He was worthless, he had been so angry with himself that he had hurt Dean more than bullets or buckshot wounds ever could. There was no reason for him to be around his brother anymore, Dean had said that in fewer words. Sam knew that if Dean didn't trust him to have his back in a hunt, then Sam was a liability, and it could get Dean killed. He wouldn't do that. He had already killed Dean's spirit; he wouldn't rip him from the land of the physically living too. Too many people needed Dean around, not that they knew it. So there was only one way he could ensure that he wouldn't be the cause of Dean's death. And if it got rid of his own pain at the same time, well then that was an added perk.
Sam could see now that his life was meaningless now that he had stooped so low as to kill his brother. Thoughts of Ellicott's meddling slowly leaked from his brain and he was left with the self-loathing at all of the things he had said to Dean, all of the things that he had hurt his brother with.
Sam toyed with the gun in his right hand. It had been a present from Dean on his fifteenth birthday, and although he had appreciated the gesture, Sam could remember yelling at his older brother for giving him something related to the ever-present hunt. He laughed grimly now as he realized how many times his brother's gift had saved his life. And now it was going to take it away from him.
Sam raised the gun to the side of his head, shocked at how cold the steel muzzle was against his temple. The bed creaked under him and he closed his eyes, squeezing a few more tears from them before taking a deep breath and starting to pull the trigger.
TBC…
