A/N: Here's to me stepping into another fandom…Eep. Hello angst-filled world of SPN! Yeah, this is my second SPN fanfic. Go easy on me, lol. This is supposed to be based around 10x03. I have yet to see the whole ep. so this is me improvising. DEAN JUST BEING HUMAN AGAIN ISN'T CUTTING IT WITH ME.
"Here's to being human,
All the pain and suffering,
There's beauty in the bleeding,
At least you feel something…"
Three Days Grace— "I Am Machine"
Dean wasn't sure how he felt about anything anymore. All he knew—or wanted to know—was the scotch in his hand; and the burn the alcohol made as it went down his throat. At least that was something, right?
Drinking numbed him for a bit—dulled his senses. But like everything else, it didn't last. Nothing ever did.
"…That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean. Can't fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex."
Dean shakes his head, dispelling the words. They only bring more pain…Why can't his brain just stop, at least for a minute? Why does life just want to screw him over?
Dean presses the cool glass to his burning forehead, not caring when its contents spill down his front. His skull feels like it could split at any moment. It had felt that way ever since Sam had, quote, 'cured him,' and that was a little over a day ago.
Sam wasn't telling him anything more, only that 'everything was going to be okay.' What the hell does that mean? Who does Sam think he is—Dean?
Dean knows what he was—perhaps not all that he did, but he knows enough to connect the dots. He tried to kill Sammy, which is more than enough for him; enough to make him feel even more like shit. What really hurts is, despite it all, Sam was still hanging around; still trying to 'help his brother.' So was Cas, and they both mothered Dean constantly.
To Dean, and to anyone else who had a functioning brain, Castiel had bigger fish to fry, larger and more important issues than the likes of Dean Winchester, and yet the angel still stayed behind; stayed with them just in case, as Sam so gently put it, 'Dean had a breakdown.' And Dean was sick of it all. He was done with it.
Dean doesn't want help. How many times can he say that? He doesn't want anything. Only peace, only silence…He just can't do it anymore, can't they see that? He just doesn't know how to bounce back from this one, and he honestly doesn't care to.
That's all they have ever done; Sammy and he. Fight back, bounce back, and bandage each other's wounds—physically and mentally. Now there's a plus one—Cas, who has risked life and limb for both the Winchester brothers. It's maddening, and only destroying whatever is left of Dean's wretched soul.
How much can one man take before breaking? Dean was destroyed a long time ago, long before any of this happened—when his mom was murdered, and his childhood stolen from him. His life was Hell itself, he had no need to venture any lower.
Dean stares into his glass, the last precious drops of amber beckoning to him. He downs it in less than a second, the hole in his heart seeming only heavier. He feels nothing. No buzz, no tingle. Hell, it doesn't even burn anymore.
"…I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just… keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already…dead."
"Shut up," Dean grunts and hurls his emptiness at the wall. As the glass shatters so does a piece of his crippled soul. The wounded man half swaggers over his to desk—to the rest of the alcohol.
To be perfectly honest, being a demon made everything hurt less. As messed up as that sounds, Dean didn't feel a damn thing and it was a little piece of Heaven he never thought he'd get.
Screw humanity.
Screw living.
Screw everything.
Every emotion that he had run from—every damn thing that killed him before—came back nearly twice as strong when he 'woke up.'
Every fight, every night spent in the arms of someone faceless, and every drink, hurt.
Dean wants it to go away. Go away for good, and if his liver has to suffer in order to accomplish this, well, he just doesn't give a damn.
The alcohol may not burn anymore but his arm sure does—the Mark, it hurts so badly. It's like an itch he just can't scratch, and it is just there, right beneath the surface…burning. It's driving him insane and he knows it. It just won't stop.
Dean drags his nails across the hellish mark, his face pained. If he's 'cured,' why the hell is it still there? What does it mean? And why does it feel like he burned his arm on the stove a few hundred times?
Dean sloppily grabs the bottle of scotch, intent on draining the last of it, but his arm hurts too much and he gives up with a grunt. He wonders if carving it out of his flesh would work, but he just isn't that lucky. The bottle teeters, and before Dean can stop it, it spills onto the floor; a large golden stain upon his tan carpet.
"Awesome," Dean grunts and runs his fingertips over the crimson mark, regretting taking it on in the first place. It didn't even help anything—only kill him, and turn him into a monster.
What did I tell you? An ominously familiar voice laughs and Dean's arm-hair stands on end. His ears start ringing and Dean has the sudden urge to crawl out of his skin—well, more so than he did before.
"Shit, no," Dean growls and wraps his arms around his head, ignoring the voice he has been trying to ignore for years—his own. Black eyes fill his memory and suddenly all he can see is ebony, he has become his nightmare—his past.
"You can't escape me, Dean! You're gonna die, and this—this is what you're going to become!"
"No!" Dean cries and half flings himself to the ground, taking books and his empty bottle of scotch with him.
Come now, his voice implores, we had fun didn't we? Bust a few skulls, screw a few whores…Let's have some more sometime soon, eh?
Dean can't figure out where the voice is coming from, it's everywhere. He scours the whole room with his eyes, the broken man scrambling into a corner, his back pressed against it as if it were the only thing keeping him remotely sane.
"S-Sam," Dean calls, the name barely a whisper, and 'he' laughs. It's wicked, it's broken, and it bloody hurts.
Saaammm, the voice repeats, the octave almost bursting Dean's eardrums.
Dean lets out a sharp cry and covers his ears, the sticky warmth of blood upon his hands. His ears are bleeding! Out of the corner of his eye he sees a flicker of movement. He looks only to see his own reflection.
But it isn't his reflection.
It can't be. He isn't standing.
A demon smiles back at him, and Dean can only stare into the ebony eyes that were once his own; that were once green. Dean completely loses it and lets out a loud cry, the demon in the mirror letting out one of its own—a hellish roar mixing with his own voice. Every glass object in the room shatters, and to Dean's delight, so does the damn mirror.
"Dean?!" Sam calls, loud footsteps approaching Dean's room. Dean doesn't reply; his face pale and remote, his green eyes straining on the thousands of broken slivers that surround him. He only sees green—for now.
Sam throws open Dean's door, the bang the only thing that snaps Dean out of his trance. Dean looks up to see Sam and Cas standing before him, terrified expressions on their face as they locate a pale Dean in the corner of the room, empty bottles and glass shards surrounding him.
"What the hell happened?" Sam cries and surges forward only to be caught by Cas, the angel's eyes wide.
"What the hell, Cas? Lemme go!"
"Look at the wall," Castiel hisses, his cobalt eyes wide in horror. Sam does and about jumps back in fright. There, embedded in the stone wall, is what seems to be thousands of shards of glass—as if more had magically appeared—and they spell out a cryptic message, one obviously meant for Dean:
'LET'S GO HOWL AT THAT MOON.'
A/N: Well, there's that. Poor Dean, he just never gets a break, eh? Leave me a comment? :) Again, this is my second SPN fanfic and I'm still trying to work with the characters and see what I can do. Any tips will help.
Thanks,
Lthien