Set: Pre-Series
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine.
Betas: Jenn and IAmKathastrophe :)
Warnings: Suicide Attempt; Depression; Character Death (Depending on your perspective.)
AU — Sam doesn't go to Stanford.
This is most definitely not my best work. I wrote it about 3 months ago, and was utterly disappointed with it. So, it layed untouched in my documemts...until today. I re-read it, and it's not that bad, but I've done better. Ending is up for interpretation of the reader.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Reviews are freaking phenomenal,
And you are too!
~Lizzie
—————
Sam sat sullenly on the park bench, the buzzing night around him filled with crickets and the numerous calls of the creatures of the dark. He placed his head in his hands, oblivious to the nature's echoes that screamed around him, and whispered the mantra that he had been me be saying to himself his whole life once again. You're okay, you're okay, you're okay. Was he though?
The sounds of the late evening were fuzzy to him; he barely even acknowledged them. He could feel himself slipping...falling...and he didn't know how to fix it. Couldn't somebody catch him? Couldn't somebody care? He laughed maniacally at that. Of course nobody cared.
He had been tumbling for a while, now. It's not like anybody had gave a second thought then. Friends, teachers...family. He was alone and helpless and scared, oh god, was he scared. And yet the night was so peaceful—so normal and serene, but on the inside he was yelling and scratching, fighting and begging, an elemental war raging inside his mind. Why was he here?
He knew he needed to go back. He would eventually have to face his family again. The words, still venomous and lethal, taunted him in his brain, willing him to turn back, to run. No. He was not weak. He would not flee. Not this time.
"If you leave right here, right now, don't you ever come back."
The words themselves harmed enough. But the worst part…The worst part was his brother. Sitting back and standing at a distance, a torn look in his eyes that he knew all too well. Trying to choose between a parental figure and a sibling. Sam had made that choice a long time ago. He thought his brother would make the same decision. He was wrong.
No, the thing that hurt the most was when Dean did nothing but stay silent, an unspoken but useless apology in his expression that Sam didn't even care about anymore. Dean had made his pick. His father over his brother; the soldier over normalcy.
Yet here, next to him, sat the acceptance letter to Stanford, folded neatly and formally along the crease. An overwhelming surge of anger suddenly sprouted through him. Before he could change his mind, he lifted his head and snatched the paper from the bench, tearing and ripping and shredding until the words were just small clusters of single characters on many pieces of torn white. One of the words that was still in-tact was his name. He too scrapped that into tiny fragments.
His eyes burned as tears threatened to fall, the shakey panic rising in exponential amounts that he hated. He despised this feeling of uselessness and vulnerability, not being able to do anything to protect himself against the armies of psychological warfare. Why was he so submissive? Timid? Defenseless? Fearful? He had wanted this his whole life, so why was he this inadequate when the time finally came to have a normal life?
That's when the idea came. His brother and father could drink away their problems, right? Why couldn't he? The thought that both Dean and John knew their limits and had done it for a while never crossed his mind. No, instead he pulled himself to his feet uncaring, and stumbled off to the nearest bar, which, conveniently, wasn't that far from their motel.
Sam had never been one to drink. Sure, he would have a shot here and there at a party, but when he downed his eleventh glass he knew that this time was different. And he liked it. All of his emotions were swirling together, and he giggled at how funny the room looked. So when the bartender, a cute little thing in a high-cut crop top and too-short shorts, told him it was time for him to stop and handed him a glass of water, he picked it up and splashed it all over her. He had never seen someone so shocked.
Grinning drunkenly, he pulled the few bills from his pocket and slammed it on the counter, not caring whether it was enough to pay the tab or not. Slowly, he staggered out of the smoky building and onto the streets, trying to remember his way back to his room.
When he did make it to the motel alas, it took him six tries to get the correct room. 32? No...42? That's not right either...12? 52? Oh. 22.
He fumbled around in his pockets for a few moments, attempting to find the key, but gave up after three minutes. Instead, he raised a fist and knocked four times, only to have a very seriously pissed off older brother standing in the doorway yank him inside.
"Where the hell have you been, Sam?" he fumed, storming angrily inside after his little brother.
"N-Now, which one am I supposed to talk to?" Sam slurred with a smirk on his face. It was weird seeing multiple Deans.
Dean, the real one, cocked his head. "What?" he asked confusedly as all the previous ire left him in a rush.
"I m'n, there's three of you. W-Which one do I answer to?" Sam clarified.
Dean furrowed his eyebrows. "Are you drunk?"
Sam laughed. "M'ybe."
"God, you and Dad are more alike than you think. Both going to the bar to drink away," Dean muttered under his breath. "How much did you have, Sammy?" he asked, turning to face his brother. Sam didn't reply, which Dean didn't take as a good sign, instead walking over to the bed and collapsing face-first into the mattress. "Sam?"
"J'st w'nna sleep, De'." At that, Dean's heart broke. It was one thing for Sam to be drunk, which never happened, but it was another for him to call him by the nickname he used when he was four years old.
The fight must've really taken a toll on his little brother, and Dean felt remarkably guilty for not saying one word to defend him.
Silently, he cursed his father and walked over to the side of Sam's bed. He could hear his breathing settle to slow, deep breaths and knew that Sam was well off to oblivion. It would be a long while before he would wake up, Dean knew, and took his position in the office chair to keep vigil. He gazed over his brother's sleeping form with a fierce protectiveness as he thought back to the inferno of a fight just hours ago. He had screwed up today, and he knew it. He had destroyed Sam's dreams the moment he stood beside his father, and he didn't know if he could fix it.
—————
Two weeks later...
Sam got worse, and all Dean could do was watch. Everytime he tried to talk to him, Sam would just flinch and shrug him off, not wanting Dean to be anywhere near him. It broke Dean, seeing his brother like that.
He would be so focused on hunts, and nothing but. Their father was pleased. Sure, he was making immense progress in training and excelling excessively at his skills, but Dean knew something was wrong. Sam was distant, depressed, yet at the same time a scary, cold-hearted hunter. Where did he go wrong? Probably when he chose his dad over his own brother. He would go back and make the right choice in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity.
He tried one time to get Sam to talk. Sitting him down, he had asked him, "Sam, I need you to tell me what's going on. What can I do?"
Sam had seemed to contemplate for a moment, thinking, before sadly saying, "Nothing."
That one word has shattered his heart into a million pieces. He felt so worthless, so meaningless, so futile.
Standing up, he had pleaded desperately, "Please, Sam! Let me do something! Hell, if you want me to drag your ass out to Palo Alto just say the word! But you've got to give me something, man."
"No."
"No?"
"College isn't me anymore, Dean. I'm not going. I don't want to go.
That was the moment Dean knew he was truly losing his brother.
—————
Three weeks later…
Sam was falling further, if that was even possible. He had stopped eating normal proportions two weeks ago, thinning out considerably and giving him the appearance of a skeleton.
Their dad has begun to catch on a week ago (about damn time, Dean thought) and had stopped the stream of hunts that they had been dealing with for the past month harshly.
"I don't need a break," Sam had persisted tiredly. "I need to hunt."
"It's not for you, it's for all of us," John had answered calmly.
"Yeah," Dean agreed a bit too cheerfully, smiling. "A little RR for a bit."
Sam's devastated face made the grin on his face fall to the floor in half a second, maybe less. He had taken his father's side once again. Nononono…
"Yeah, okay," Sam conceded with a faux happiness, the façade covering his previously betrayed features.
"Sam," Dean began, apologizing.
"No, I get it, Dean. Rest. We'll take a break." With that Sam walked out of the motel.
—————
One month later…
Sam stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, really taking stock of himself for the first time in a long while. He didn't recognize the face starting back at him.
Bags rested under his eyes, his shoulders were hunched, and he was slim to the bone. He looked dead. He felt dead. And worst of all, he welcomed the feeling with open arms as he tore his eyes away from the glass and made his way to the edge of the bathtub.
Sitting down on the floor so he had his back against the metal, he inhaled deeply and ran his hands through his mess of hair. Was he really going to do this? Yes. The answer was yes.
Reaching his hand into his pocket, he pulled out his switchblade Uncle Bobby had given him for his 14th birthday and balanced it in his palm.
"Whenever you feel threatened, or you need to eliminate something to save yourself or others, you can always rely on this knife. Keep it with you at all times."
In one swift motion, before he could have second thoughts, he dragged the sharpened blade down his left forearm. Four more times, two on his left and two on his right, and he was no longer able to hold it. It clattered to the floor along with his arms, as dark patches danced across his peripheral vision.
He was eliminating something to save himself. He was also eliminating something to save his family. It was a win-win situation.
—————
When John and Dean returned to the motel after getting breakfast, they knew immediately something was different. Was wrong. There was no Sam.
Panic rising in his throat, Dean dropped the takeout bags on the bed and stood in the center of the room.
"Sammy?" he yelled, his voice breaking. That was when he noticed the light streaming from under the bathroom door.
"No," he whispered, "Sammy, no…" He didn't want to...he...no. Sam was okay. Just going to the bathroom.
Dean denied his own logic as he thought it.
Sprinting toward the to door, he found it cracked. Gingerly, he pushed it open.
Red. Red everywhere. It blinded him. Redredredredredredred. He didn't even notice when he fell to his knees.
Crawling over to his brother's limp body, he said the one name that ever truly mattered to him. "Sammy?"
Sam's eyes responded feebly, opening to tiny slits.
"I w'nna die. De', le' m' die."
And Dean felt his whole world crumble to nothingness as he cried, holding on to his dying brother.