"The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."
Dean wakes from a dream suddenly, seconds before his alarm clock begins to buzz.
He reaches over to slap the off button and drag himself from bed. He can hear Sam in the bathroom down the hall, the shower running; and he can hear dad in the kitchen, whistling lowly as he fries up bacon for his sons.
Dean pulls socks and underwear from the top drawer, trying to recall the dream he just had.
But all he can remember is standing on the edge of something very high and looking down. He doesn't even remember what he saw as he looked.
Dean dresses quickly, his mind elsewhere, his body on autopilot.
Soon, he's sitting at the kitchen table, bacon, eggs and hash browns in front of him with a glass of orange juice to the side.
He murmurs a 'thanks' to his dad before eating. Sam comes in, feet squeaking against the tile floor and still toweling off his wet mop.
"Ooh, dad, this smells amazing." Sam plops into a seat and practically shovels food into his gullet.
Then Dean's at school, with his friends in the commons where everyone hangs out before first bell. He swears he doesn't mean to keep blanking out, but it just happens when he's not invested in paying attention.
"…forward to this Summer, Dean?"
Dean looks up into the wide, blue eyes of his friend Castiel. He's quiet for a moment, "What?"
"I said, 'What are you looking forward to this Summer?'." the boy repeats with infinite patience.
"I…don't really have anything to look forward to." He answers flatly and shrugs.
Castiel gives him this…look. This look as if something's not right with Dean.
And Dean agrees. There's something not right.
The first bell rings and he heads to his psychology class.
—
"Today, we're continuing work on the final drafts of our papers. That's what today and tomorrow are going to look like. Get crackin'." Mr. Shurley grins from the front of the class room.
Dean stares at his paper.
Dean Winchester
Shurley Psychology
Period 1
Title: Thanatology, the study of death and dying.
Dean stares at his paper and then the bell for the end of the period is ringing and he crams his things into his bag and leaves.
—
Dean hates English Lit. and doesn't even know why he signed up for the stupid shit in the first place. Probably because of Sam's fixation on Shakespeare.
He writes absent-mindedly in the margins of the notebook he's supposed to be taking notes in.
The teacher rambles on about Steinbeck and the implications of blah blah blah and Dean writes stupid little things that he knows would never amount to any brilliant Robert Frost kind of stuff.
Besides. 'Grim Reaper' only kind of rhymes with 'time keeper'. Whatever.
—
Dean stares at his tray as Castiel talks to Jo about some dumb thing his older brother, Gabriel, did.
"Hey, Dean, what's your paper in Shurley's class about again?" Jo asks, taking a bird-sized bite out of her pizza.
"Um, Thanatology."
Jo begins to ramble on about the Thanatology unit they'd gone over last month but Dean doesn't listen. He's memorized that unit inside and out. He knows because it was one of the only units that really caught his attention. He's been really thinking about it, anyhow. Maybe, he might be a thanatologist or something. But there's no way he'll be anything. He's trapped here…
—
The final bell rings and dismisses everyone from their classes. The halls are filled nearly to capacity with students.
Dean slowly makes his way from the building to the student parking lot where his car awaits him, just as shiny and beautiful as the day his dad handed him the keys.
Storm clouds roll across the horizon looking for all the world like a bruise on the sky. Dean gazes at them before climbing into his car and driving home.
—
It's almost like their fight is predestined, because when Dean walks in and throws his well-worn leather jacket and backpack to the floor, his dad is on him.
"Dean, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, don't do that. Someone could trip and hurt themselves. Like me or Sammy."
"Jeez, dad. Calm down. It's just my jacket."
And it escalates from there until they are shouting at the top of their lungs at one another while Sam stands in the doorway, helpless.
He doesn't know what to do, Dean and dad never fight.
The fight ends abruptly when Dean yells, "Well, maybe everyone would be better off without me! Then I wouldn't be such a burden!"
He turns on his heel, strides passed Sam and stomps up the steps.
Sam and John exchange concerned glances.
—
The next few days go almost the same way; Dean blanking nearly half the day, thinking about things that he doesn't normally think about and forgetting his dreams even though they fill him with a sort of longing so strong it hurts.
He snips at his dad about little things and drifts further and further away during conversations with his friends.
One day, Dean just stops sitting with Jo and Cas altogether. Dwelling at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria, on his own.
He withdraws more into his thoughts, so consumed by them and the shadow they cast on his life that when he comes home, he doesn't even talk to his father or brother, anymore.
—
It's a sunny Thursday morning when Dean knocks on Sam's door.
"Come in." Sam calls.
Dean enters a little awkwardly, carrying a folded up bundle. He closes the door behind him and approaches Sam, who is piling schoolwork into his bag.
"I want you to have this, Sammy." Dean holds out the bundle.
Sam looks up from his task to Dean, then looks at the bundle, and back up to Dean.
"But- that's your favorite leather jacket!"
"I don't need it anymore and I want you to have it." He offers no other explanation and gestures for Sam to take it.
"Thanks!" Sam says, grabbing it and gazing up at his brother curiously.
Dean smiles tightly, turns and heads toward the door.
It's when he's halfway out the door that he stops, swivels back and says, "Sam. I want you to know…I love you. Don't you ever forget that. Okay?"
"Okay, Dean. I love you too."
—
Castiel is standing with Jo in the commons that morning when Dean comes to stand with them, awkwardly.
"Hey, guys."
"Hey…" Jo says slowly.
"Where've you been the past two weeks?" Castiel asks, tilting his head to the side.
"I've been thinking. And I want you guys to have some things of mine. I'm going somewhere and I won't need them." Dean digs in his pocket, in search of something.
"Where are you going?"
He does not answer.
Instead, he pulls a rabbit's foot keychain from his pocket and hands it out to Jo, who gives it a bewildered blink and takes it.
Then, he pulls his necklace off- some old, gold thing Sam had given him forever ago- and stuffs it into Castiel's hands.
"I love you both and I'll miss you." Dean has to swallow to keep his throat from closing up.
He leaves his friends standing there, confused.
—
Jo and Castiel scour the cafeteria in search of Winchester. They'd seen him at his locker, just before lunch, talking to a fellow senior, Ash, and handing him a few tattered books.
No matter how hard they search, they do not see Dean. Not in the spot he'd been sitting in for the past two weeks and not in the spot they would normally have sat in. Nowhere.
They were afraid.
—
Sam gets home later than usual that day, having hitched a ride with a friend. Dean hadn't been at the middle school to pick Sam up. Dean was always there. But not today. And that scares Sam for some reason. When his friend drops him off a few houses away, Sam can see the Imapala sitting in the driveway.
"What…?" he murmurs softly to himself.
The house is quiet when Sam unlocks the door.
"Dean?" No answer.
So, Sam decides to sit down and watch the discovery channel while he does homework. Maybe his brother is at a school activity?
He does stay behind frequently to work on essays or talk with teachers.
—
When 6 o' clock rolls around and John comes home but not Dean, Sam doesn't know what to do.
"I've called his phone five, maybe ten times. Dad, I don't know where he is and I'm scared."
"It's okay, it's okay. I've got the Novak's number, I'll give them a call and see if Dean stopped by." John reassures his distraught son. But, truth be told, he's just as worried.
Dean is not at the Novak's. Nor is he at the Harvelle's. But Jo said his car had been gone when school got out. Why had it been home when Sam arrived, but not it's owner?
—
It is 8 o' clock when John's panic has built to a tumultuous clanging that he asks Sam if he'd searched the house. To which the youngest Winchester replied that he hadn't.
"You check the upstairs." John said, "I'll check the basement."
It is Sam's screaming that brings John sprinting upstairs.
He finds Sam, back against the wall opposite Dean's open doorway, still screaming, tears running down his face.
And with his youngest boy's cries sounding behind him, John ventures to the doorway only to find Dean.
There is blood everywhere. All over the floor and bedsheets and walls and even a little sprayed onto the ceiling.
One of John's old guns is laying on the floor, partially overtaken by the blood.
There is no note