The Day Dean Died
Dean has died many, many times. He doesn't keep track anymore. But this time, it's different.
Dean never had the urge to off himself, or anything of the sorts until Castiel pulls him from hell. The things he experienced down there were too much for his little mind. He's coped easily before, he just bottled it all up until he just couldn't feel it anymore.
Sam never liked this. He's always trying to get Dean to talk to him, pushing him to express his feelings. But Dean was never really into that sort of stuff. Too much like a chick thing, he thought.
The nightmares are awful and ugly and terrifying. He doesn't tell anyone about them. He doesn't sleep for what feels like forever. He hates sleep. He hates dreaming. He hates, hates, hates it.
Until Castiel appears one night, startling him. "You haven't slept in days, Dean. You're not going to be able to function if you keep this up," Castiel thinks he knows everything. Like he's God or something. Dean doesn't need to sleep. Doesn't want to sleep.
"Leave me alone."
And with a touch of Castiel's fingers, he's sleeping.
Dean doesn't dream that night.
The next night Dean slits his wrists, lying on the bathroom floor. He wants the nightmares out of his head. Tears threaten to slip from his eyes, but it never happens. He stitches the cuts back up in the morning.
In the morning Castiel gives Dean odd looks and he swears he sees sympathy in his eyes. He convinces himself it wasn't because Castiel is a damn angel and they don't feel like that.
Dean won't sleep that night either because Castiel appears and the room just feels warmer and brighter and less lonely. The angel doesn't speak a word, just sitting there like a statue. He thinks it's a hallucination at first, that Castiel isn't there. But Dean feels his arm, realizing he's definitely real. And it still makes him uncomfortable. That night he sleeps six hours because he knew an angel was watching over him.
Sam yells at him, asking why didn't Dean tell him he was having nightmares, and why a freaking angel had to tell him the truth. Dean just shrugs and doesn't say anything.
Sam stays up with him in the evening, trying to lull or coax him into resting. Dean doesn't buy it. He tells Sam to go away because he doesn't want help and him and Sam fight. He drinks his problems away, passing out drunk.
Dean has slept two nights in a row, which is a record for him. He cuts an X on his wrist because X marks the spot, right?
Dean doesn't want to die but he doesn't want to live.
Castiel is furious at Dean, extremely mad because he doesn't need to pull up his sleeves to see the cuts because he can read minds and he doesn't like what he reads in Dean's. He says that this is not the way to deal and he needs to stop. He just laughs because Castiel is not God and he doesn't know everything. That's all he thinks about the angel these days.
Dean hasn't slept for four days and he starts seeing things. Again. Alastair is standing by his bed, watching him, like he did in hell before ripping his skin, piece by piece. Dean slits a long line up his vein. And this time he sorta hopes he dies.
The floor is stained red, red like the color of hell and he draws a pretty picture in it. It's a drawing of Castiel, who is not God and doesn't know everything.
The people in the hospital give him weird looks like he's crazy and insane just because of the bandage on his arm.
Sam tries talking to him and he tries and tries and tries.
It doesn't work.
Because Dean isn't alive anymore. He might be alive physically, but he's already mentally dead.
That's the word that echoes in Dean's mind, twenty-four seven.
Dead, dead, dead.
And that was the day Dean died.