A/N: I based this fic off a prompt I saw on Supernatural Imagines' Tumblr: Imagine Sam and Dean finding out about your self harm scars. No spoilers nor tags to specific episodes. Also, I do not own Supernatural…or do I? I'll never tell.
Trigger Warnings: Self harm/cutting
X~x~X
It was hot as hell out there. Not that I know exactly how hot hell actually is. I've never been there- not yet at least. Ask me again after I die, and I might know.
Mid-July in the Arizona desert. One hundred and six degrees without even thinking about the heat index. And whose bright idea was it to do a salt-n-burn in the hottest part of the day? Sure wasn't mine.
"Hey, kid, you doing okay?" Dean asked, squinting his trademark green eyes at me.
"Yeah, course I am," I replied, shooting him my best reassuring smile. Truth is, I felt a little unsteady in the legs and my mind kept wandering in random directions, but I'd never tell him that. I took a quick swig from my water bottle and gestured at the grave he and Sam were working on digging out. "The faster you get to work, the quicker we can be gone from this God-awful place."
"Yes, boss." The older man jauntily saluted me.
"Are you sure?" This time it was Sam who was checking on me. "You'd probably be cooler if you took your jacket off," he suggested. His mop of dark hair was plastered to his forehead and the back of his neck, and truth be told, he looked way worse than I felt. His grey tee shirt was soaked clear through with sweat and bits of the blowing sand was beginning to stick to his skin.
"I'm fine," I insisted sharply, tugging at the long sleeves of my pale blue linen button-up. "You, on the other hand…" I shook my head at Sam. "Let me take over. You look half-dead."
"No, I'm okay."
"She's right, Sammy." Dean assessed his little brother in a glance. "Don't want you getting heat stroke this far from a hospital."
With a soul-deep sigh, Sam hopped out of the grave in one smooth motion of his long legs. I tossed him a bottle of water and grabbed the shovel out of his hands. "Are you sure you're doing good?" His voice was low, almost inaudible. I'm tempted to think that he cares about me, but I know he doesn't. I just met the Winchesters- this was originally my case, but apparently Bobby didn't think I could handle it by myself.
Matthew Johnson was a miner in the late 1800's, though the exact year was impossible to pin down. He was in the Arizona back country looking for gold, and most reports say that he found a massive deposit, maybe worth millions on today's market. He was allegedly murdered- someone found his journal later and Johnson's last entry was a hastily written note about being tracked by a mysterious person. Ever since, his ghost has been haunting this region, occasionally murdering hikers when they got too close to his gold. The latest murder, the one that caught my attention, was two weeks ago- a couple on their honeymoon was found brutally mutilated. The coroner said it looked like someone had taken a pick-axe to their bodies.
We're the first Hunters to find his grave. And we're going to salt-n-burn his sorry ass so he won't hurt anyone else.
Sam's hand was on my arm, squeezing gently. I started at the sudden flare of pain…goddammit! He noticed instantly of course- nothing got passed his eyes. "Are you hurt?"
"From my last Hunt," I explained tersely, casually twisting out of his grasp. I turned toward Dean…and the shadowy figure standing above him. "Dean, duck!" I ordered.
Thank God he stowed his snarky attitude and didn't reply with "Where?" He hit the bottom of the grave not an instant too soon; a ghostly pick-axe went through the space his head had been occupying only seconds before.
The shovel in my hands was iron; at least I hoped so, based on the amount of rust accumulated on it. I ran at the ghost, begging whatever higher powers who happened to be listening at the time to not let Johnson notice me. Thankfully he was too busy striking at Dean, hissing something about protecting his gold.
"Some help would be nice!" the older Hunter shouted at the same time I swung the shovel like a baseball bat. The iron cut through the apparition, and it disappeared without a sound, for the next few seconds at least.
Dean was out of the grave, pouring salt and lighter fluid onto the now-exposed bones. "Hurry!" He spared a couple of seconds to glare at Sam and that was all the time the ghost needed to rematerialize.
"Light 'em up!"
The Zippo seemed to fall into the grave in slow motion, the wind trying in vain to extinguish the flame. Sam was screaming something…my name? I reacted instantly with reflexes that years of training had given me, bringing up the shovel to defend myself and Dean.
My arm exploded in white-hot agony, vision instantly darkening at the edges. I fell onto my knees, instinct driving me to clamp my hand over the wound to stem the bright flood of crimson spilling out of my arm. The ghost laughed and prepared to strike again, this time to kill.
The bones caught fire with a strangely muted whoosh, and the ghost followed instantly, howling thinly as he was eaten by the flames.
"Eyes on me, kid." Dean was at my side, lifting me to my feet.
"Not…a kid," I ground out, trying in vain to pull away from him. He chuckled a little, muttering something that sounded like 'wildcat' under his breath. I adjusted my grip slightly on the wound, my fingers slicked by my own blood. I could feel the ragged edges of the wound pressing against my palm, sharp daggers of pain shooting up the limb into my shoulder. My teeth were digging into my bottom lip as I fought the urge to cry out. I couldn't look weak in front of the Winchesters, no matter what.
"Mighta nicked a vein." For some reason I found that hilarious and I began to laugh. Right around then is when I lost consciousness, I think. So much for showing no weakness. I remember bits and pieces of what happened next- my feet leaving the ground as Dean lifted me into his arms, hands tearing the sleeve of my shirt off.
I came to a bit later in the back seat of the Impala. Sam and Dean had my arm bandaged tightly, though blood was starting to seep through the white gauze. It looked a little like a flower, I mused absently, until a shadow blocked the bright desert sunlight that streamed through the car's open door and I started, my uninjured hand flying to the knife I kept at my side.
"She's awake." I instantly knew something was wrong- Sam's tone was off, like he'd been yelling or even crying, but that couldn't be unless…
"Am I dyin'?" I rasped, trying to sit up. "It's n'that bad of a wound. I've had worse."
Dean opened the opposite door of the Impala and crouched at my feet, his face twisted slightly by anger, and maybe a bit of sadness. "What happened to your arms?" he asked softly.
"Th…the ghost. You just saw it happen."
"No. The other scars. The cuts. Did you," Dean's voice broke slightly and he coughed once, twice. "Did you do that to yourself?"
My arms were bared to the harsh sunlight, the sleeves of my shirt cut and torn away from my skin and showcasing the pale scars that stood out brightly against my otherwise dark tan. A legion of horizontal scars, some layered several deep, but I could still tell you what brought on each and every one. Some I had marked into my skin with a razor, others a knife. I sliced the largest, most jagged of them all across my left wrist with a piece of a broken beer bottle. "Yeah, I did," I whispered, the shame in my voice resonating strongly even in my own ears.
"Why?"
"My parent's divorce. Hunts gone wrong. People I've hurt. People who hurt me." I answered honestly, listing the reasons on my fingers, still not even coming close to scratching the surface of why. "Because I'm a disappointment."
"But why do you take it out on yourself?" Dean was trying to understand, he really was, but I knew he couldn't see why anything, no matter how traumatic or damaging would make me take a sharp object to my body, cut through the skin until I saw the blood and felt the pain that reminded me that I'm still alive.
"Pain keeps me going," I said simply. I knew that he couldn't see what I meant, that though he'd been through so much more that I have he would never contemplate hurting himself.
"Does Bobby know?" Sam asked quietly. He got the concept more than Dean had; he was tracing a v-shaped scar on one palm with the fingers of the opposite hand, his eyes darkened by a memory playing out in his mind.
"Hell no." I choked out an unamused laugh. "He'd lock me in the panic room in a straightjacket til I promise not to cut again."
"Look, we're going help you with this." I started to protest, but Dean cut me off with a sharp shake of his head. "No arguments. We're gonna go back to base camp now and get you patched up, then we can work everything out."
I didn't argue, I didn't protest. I just nodded and laid my head back down on the seat. They really did care about me, and that was a beautiful feeling-the best feeling in the world. The brothers, Dean driving and Sam riding shotgun, slammed their doors at almost the same instant, and the comforting purr of the Impala's engine followed soon after. It seems weird now, that this gave me peace. That the sound of an engine would lull me to sleep, that when I feel the urge to cut even now I bring up memories of my time with Sam and Dean. But it's so much more than simply a noise made by a car- it's Sam and Dean's love for each other, how they'd never give up no matter how much the odds were stacked against them. Even death couldn't keep them apart. I think about them, and I have hope. I can pull myself together and go on another day.
X~x~X
Final note: Thanks for reading and don't forget to leave a review: tell me what you think, ask any questions, share your opinion of my writing. Feel free to point out any grammatical errors, as I do not have a beta. Have a fantastic day, friend!
Update: the sequel is now up: Breathing Underwater.
If this story touched you, please tell me! Every time I get a review saying how this fic helped someone, I want to cry. Writing this, getting these feelings out of my system, was very cathartic for me, and I'm glad that some of you are touched by this as well. Feel free to P.M. me if you need to talk. I understand about self harm- I've been there (hell, I'm still there) and I am glad to talk things out with you.
If there are any prompts you'd like to see written out, feel free to include them in your review or just PM them to me. I'm always looking for new stories to write, but often times my own mind leaves me stranded with no story ideas. Alright, that's all!