Rating: M (to be on the safe side-rating will probably go down in future chapters)

Main Character: Sam

Pairing: none

Genre: angst

Warnings: This story deals with the issue of self harm. Some of this stuff could be quite graphic and may upset some readers. This is a warning to all people who do not want to read about this topic. And to those who want to flame me by saying that I don't know what I am talking about, I do, so leave me alone.

Concrit and reviews welcome.

Thank you to every one who reads this, I know I haven't updated it in about a year but there is such a thing called 'trying to get year 12 valedictorian (or Dux as the Aussies call it). I am so close and there is only six weeks left of school… another chapter is on the way hopefully in the not to distant future.

There is actually a hunting sequence in this chapter plus a confrontation that turns really nasty.

Title: Emptiness and Razor Blades

"Dean." Sam motioned with his hand for him to get on the other side of the door. Dean drew his gun, back flat against the wall watching Sam's hand for the countdown of three, two, one…

Sam wrenched open the door and Dean leapt in; pointing the small semi-automatic at the black dog crouched in the center of the room. It growled and turned to face them, yellow teeth bared in a sinister snarl.

"Well that is not what I thought would be in here."

"Sammy, once again, masters the art of understating. I thought you said this was a run of the mill poltergeist!"

"I did! The woman didn't mention the claw marks on the walls! This isn't the way Black Dogs usually act. They hunt and kill, not tear up an apartment!"

"No shit Sammy-"

It lunged for them and Dean slammed the door shut on its nose. But instead of a crash and a splintering of wood and metal, there was silence.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but black dogs are corporeal, aren't they?"

"Pretty certain…" Sam said as he edged towards the door, "but that did not sound corporeal; it was coming right at us." He cracked the door open a fraction and peered inside.

"What, dude, is it still there?"

Sam pushed the door open wider, "where the fuck did it go? Dean, the last time I saw, Black Dogs can't disappear."

"For some reason Sam, I don't think we're dealing with a Dog anymore. Let's get the hell out of here and figure this shit out." He tucked his gun in the waist band of his jeans and turned his back on his brother.

"I don't know where the hell it's gone Dean. There's no sulfur, no gapping hole in the wall; there's nothing. What the hell is it?"

"Not a Black dog." Dean reached the front door of the dilapidated house before he leaned on the frame to face his brother. Broken chairs were strewn around the room, once fine bone china smashed into a fine powder beneath his feet, larger chunks imbedded in the plaster cracking away from the walls and the ceiling. It was dusty and dank with a weird sense of nervous energy crackling through the air, almost palatable through the grit of age that the house gave off. "I don't know, vengeful spirit maybe?"

"Could be. They don't usually take the shape of animals though." Sam crouched down to inspect the claw marks in the wall, deep gouges slashing out the plaster board and etching into the bricks, placing his gun beside him.

"Sam, lets go; I don't want to be here when it gets back."

"You don't know it's going to come back any time soon. Let me figure this out, I gotta have something to do."

"To stop you from cutting yourself?"

"Just to take my mind off it."

Dean sank into the nearest stable chair, letting his brother continue to work his way through the room, examining every nock and cranny. "Do you want to cut yourself now Sam?"

"No, because I'm not focused on my shit. Just leave it Dean."

"We gotta talk through this man. It won't get any better if you just jam it up. You'll over think shit; it'll take over your brain-"

"Just shut it Dean." Sam leaned back on his haunches, staring at a blank point on the wall. "If I talk you'll need to get me a straight jacket."

"So I'll get you a damn jacket if it will make it easier for you to talk to me. I don't want to find you bleeding out in the bath of a seedy motel Sammy. Dad would never forgive me if I let you die."

"I thought we got past the concept that self harm isn't suicide."

"I know, but the longer it goes on, the harder it gets to stop, the deeper you go, the closer you get to the veins and you end up dead, intentional of not. I don't want to see that happen to you."

"I don't want to do this Dean. Let's just get this hunt done, find dad, and sodding get back how it used to be."

"You know, I thought this was about Jess-"

"Dean."

"But you were cutting while you were with her. She would have known."

"She did."

"Six years; that's about the time that you walked out."

"Dad chucked me out." He placed his fingers on the gouges in the wall, watching them twitch as he tried not to snap at Dean.

"He told you if you left that you couldn't come back, you were the one who chose to leave."

"Fuck you Dean!"

"Is this why you do this to yourself Sam?! Because you didn't think we loved you?"

"It wasn't just six years Dean! That was just a convenient number that I pulled out of my head!"

"How long then! How long have you torn your arms to pieces!?"

"Since I was twelve Dean! I tried to kill myself when I was twelve!" The words hung in the thick air, suspended by the emotion it portrayed.

They stared at each other, Dean tense, coiled on the rickety seat; Sam still crouched on the floor, waves of distress pouring off him.

"I took a handful of sleeping pills before we went out on a hunt. I feel into a grave we desecrated remember? Dean, we desecrate graves, we kill people, and things try to kill us. Dad didn't even take me to a hospital or anything; he just poured charcoal down my throat and told me how stupid I was."

"I don't remember him-"

"When I woke up he shook me by the shoulders and told me how stupid I was. He didn't get that I had tried to commit suicide; he thought it was an accident. You know what he said? 'I don't care how tired you are, you don't take sleeping pills when there is even a remote possibility of a hunt.' I wanted to die Dean and he called me stupid."

"If he had known he would have dropped everything to make you better. And I would have too Sammy." Dean got up and started towards him.

"Don't Dean." Said Sam as he flopped down onto his rear-end and drew his knees up towards his chest. "I don't…"

"Okay." Dean sank to the dusty, bone china strewn floor and sighed.

"There were days when I would plunge my arms in an ice bucket up to my elbows and just cut. Some days I did it just to see if this life was anything other than one hellish nightmare. I would fantasies about suicide, how I would run the blade down to the bone, through the muscle to see just how easy it would be to fillet myself like one of those glass eyed fish. I would think about stabbing myself over and over, watching my blood splash on the floor. I would draft fucking suicide notes in the middle of class and press staples into my flesh to get a release during exams. I'm a junky Dean; I have been for a long time, and I have no reason for doing this, and don't move, it's behind you."

Sam reached to his left where he had dropped his gun. The dog growled and took a step close to Dean who was frozen in his spot. "You better have damn good aim Sammy." He hissed and the dog snarled louder.

Sam clicked off the safety and aimed just over Dean's shoulder. "On the count of three, dive to the right." He muttered. "One, two, three!"

Dean threw himself to the floor as the dog hurled itself towards Sam at the same time as the gun roared into life. It fell to the ground with a thud in mid-leap. Dean removed the arms he had instinctively thrown around his head and looked up. Sam toed the massive bulk with his sneaker, then placed the muzzle of the gun to its skull and fired another round. The body jerked from the impact but lay still when the reverberation ceased.

"Well, at least it's corporeal now." Dean jibbed as he pulled himself to his feet.