AN: A little warning is due, here: there is some self-harm, some references to past drug use, and suicidal thoughts. I just want everyone to know what's in this chapter.
[see end notes]
Cassie fills up her tub with water that's hotter than it needs to be. She kicks off her heels, unzips her dress, and sinks into the bath. The water is scalding, turning her creamy skin into angry pink. She feels like she's being boiled. She grits her teeth, clasps the sides of the tub. Her tears fall into the bath water.
She doesn't know why she did it. She doesn't know why she even agreed to go to dinner. That's a lie. She knows exactly why she went to dinner, why she went with him to his apartment. She missed him, she needed to tell him how sorry she was for fucking everything up. She needed to see him happy one last time, because she'd never been able to get that last image of him out of her head. Of when she walked out of the door, let the necklace drop into the trash bin, and screamed that she wished she would never see him, that she would never have to see his sorry excuse for a man ever again. That she wished they both were dead.
He hadn't been crying then, but his eyes were wet and bright, scared. His hands were in his hair, pulling. His eyes were so dark they were hardly even green at all. 1
But why is she such a coward that she can't even face her own feelings? Here, in the silence of her own house, she can feel the edges of it. But she is still terrified of what's beyond those edges. She knows that she wants to be near Dean, that he takes the darkness away, but what does that even mean?
Cassie feels the guilt, the pain, everything just washing over her, threatening to destroy her. She remembers how she would deal with these feelings five years ago. She'd take a few pills, shoot something into her veins. She'd go on a rampage, peeling the wallpaper off the walls of her mother's house, scratching messages to herself in the wainscoting with her fingernails, clawing up the floorboards in her bedroom. But now she doesn't have any drugs, put herself into her own sort of rehab when she moved to the city. But she wishes she had some, and it's not the first time for that. She wants just a little cocaine, maybe a few LSD tabs. She doesn't want to feel anything. She wants to take her mind off of it all, to do something that is better and more fun than this. Her head is starting to hurt.
She knows she's hurt him again, sweet Dean. She tears them in two, how can she ever hope to make more of this, if this is all she can ever do?
Cassie lowers herself all the way into the water.
I am crying, she thinks. She opens her eyes to stare through the hot, stinging water. I'm crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater. Maybe I'm not crying anymore, then.
She holds her breath for as long as she can, and then holds it for a few seconds longer. Her vision goes white, her lungs are burning. Then she blacks out.
Dean is in his apartment, lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling. His right hand is resting on his stomach, with bruised and bloody knuckles. Two are broken. He's trying to sleep, to get rid of these thoughts he has, the thoughts that are flashing neon signs in his brain, exclaiming, WORTHLESS, CAN'T KEEP IT TOGETHER, NOT GOOD ENOUGH, NEVER BEEN GOOD ENOUGH.
She never loved you, how could you be so stupid to think she could possibly love some idiot like you? You're nothing but a dead-beat son, it's your fault. It's all your fault. You can't do anything right.
He gets out of bed, walks to the kitchen, and grabs the bottle of hydrocodone from when he had his appendix removed. Pops a few into his mouth, followed by two mouthfuls of vodka from the freezer. He goes to lie down, and he's out within moments.
Dean wakes up three hours later, on the floor with a pile of vomit two inches from his face. He groans, tries to scoot himself away from it. His body doesn't want to respond, it's screaming at him, but he is able to roll over so that he doesn't have to smell it.
Some giant mutant person is standing in the doorway of his bedroom, holding a phone to its ear. The voice is too low for Dean to hear anything, or maybe it's just the blood rushing through his ears. Whatever. Scary giant man (he assumes it's a man, because, seriously, what chick is six and half feet tall?) can do whatever he wants. Dean's too numb for anything right now.
His bladder cannot be ignored, though, so he tries to get up. He's tangled up in his bed sheet, so he kicks his legs like a toddler trying to get out. When he realizes he's naked, he gets really, really, confused. He shoots a look over to Jolly Green right as he steps into the room, into the light.
"Sam?"
"Put some pants on."
"Sam."
"Dude, we are not having this conversation with you naked."
Sam throws a pair of jeans at Dean's head. Dean would have caught them, but, well, he's a little out of it. He's pretty sure that he's having some sort of pipe dream, and he wonders if he took the right pills. 'Cause Sam has long hair (really long, like touching his shoulder long) and is taller than Dean, and looks like the poster boy for steroids. Like, seriously. And what's with the v-neck?
Sam looks away while Dean struggles to stand up. When Dean falls for the third time, Sam mutters something and comes to help him. Dean staggers to the bathroom, makes more of a mess peeing than he thinks is worth an empty bladder, and Sam helps him pull the jeans on. Once everything's tucked away and Dean's got a sweatshirt on, too, Sam pushes him onto the sofa.
Dean wants to cry. He doesn't want to sit on this sofa.
"Alright. Tell me what in the hell you were thinking, Dean." Sam is sitting on the coffee table, glaring. The bottle of pills and the vodka are there, watching him, taunting him. Sam has on puppy eyes—which was totally Not Cool, because Dean hasn't seen Sam in like two years, they barely talked on the phone at all, and he pulls out the puppy eyes.
"Dunno what you're talkin' 'bout, Sammy. Hey, aren't you suppos'd to be in California or some'n? Doin' college?" Dean shoves his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. His head hurts.
"What in the hell were you thinking, Dean?! Pills and alcohol? How many of the pills did you take? How much did you drink? Is this gonna be the same crap you pulled when Cassie left?"
"Don't—don't you dare—"
"No! Dean, no! You dropped off the grid for months, man, and then you came stumbling back, sicker than anything. I tried so damn hard to get you to stop destroying yourself, and—god—the only thing that made you stop was her. You swore you were gonna find her. You know damn well she was the only good thing that ever happened to you, so you moved out here, trying to find her. And you were doing good, as far as I could tell. Maybe I was wrong."
"No, man. 'M sorry. I—I'm so sorry, man." Dean's words become unintelligible, more sounds than anything. He's crying now, crying for the first time in years. To be honest with himself, it's the first time he's cried since Cassie first left. Sam's got his giant monster arms around him, squeezing him.
"How long has this been going on? The pills?"
"This is the first time, I swear, Sam. I never ev'n took 'em when I got my 'pendix took out. I dunno how many I took, I just di'n't wanna feel no more."
Sam mumbles something that sounds like a grammar correction, but Dean's too tired to care.
"Don' even know why I still have 'em, been sittin' in the cab'net for a couple months. I di'n't try to kill myself, Sammy, I swear, I wouldn' do that to you. I love you, Sammy, god, I miss you so damn much." Dean wraps his arms around his little (it doesn't matter that Sam's a freaking giant, he's still younger than him, dammit) brother and doesn't want to let go. He's afraid that if he does, he'll fall to pieces that not even all the king's horses and all the king's men can put back together.
Dean alternates between "sorry, so sorry" and "I love you, Sammy" for a good hour before he falls asleep. Sam sighs, throws a blanket over him, and looks for bleach. The tile in the bedroom covered in vomit isn't going to clean itself.
Sam putters around a bit, flushing the bottle of hydrocodone down the toilet (after counting them; if what Dean said is true, then he took six), bleaching and washing the bedroom floor to get the bile off. There were six little white things in the vomit (Sam almost lost his stomach twice just looking at it), the remnants of the large pills.
Sam had planned on surprising Dean by showing up on his doorstep, but his flight from California had delayed, and he hadn't shown up until about two in the morning. He knocked on the apartment door, rang the bell, called Dean's cell. Nothing. Sam, being the worry-wart he is (and rightfully so, thank you) assumed Dean was being held hostage by a robber or had fallen and couldn't get up, so he busted the door down—which he planned on fixing. The door jamb was broken, and currently being held closed with some tape and a chair.
He walked around the apartment, saw the pill bottle and vodka, dropped his bag and ran to the bedroom, where Dean was face down in his bed, wrapped (naked) in a sheet. Sam tried to wake him up, but Dean's eyes wouldn't open of their own accord. His pupils were teeny pinpoints amongst the green—which looked more gray than green—and Sam checked for a pulse. Slow, too slow. His breathing was shallow, and he only took two breaths in thirty seconds.
Sam pulled Dean to the floor, and forced his fingers down Dean's throat. Dean coughed and sputtered after emptying his stomach, his eyes fluttering. Dean groaned and tried to push himself away. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He washed his hands in the sink as his phone rang. Dad—seeing if he'd gotten in okay. They talked for a minute, Sam pretending he was trying to sleep. Dean was awake now.
After Sam cleans, puts his duffel bag by Dean's room, he goes to wake him up. Sam makes coffee and pours two cups. Dean drinks his quickly, eyes wide.
"Tell me why," Sam says, sitting next to him.
Dean, thinking of other things, (namely, what had happened on the very sofa they are sitting on not six hours before) blinks.
"Why what?"
"Why'd you take the pills?"
Dean sighs and looks away.
"I found her. After three years of searching, and waiting, I walked into her at a coffee shop."
"So how did meeting her lead to near-death experience?"
"I'm getting there, shut up. I ran into her at the coffee place, only I didn't know it was her. But then I did, and we didn't even really talk, but I gave her my phone number and told her to call. We ended up going out to dinner, and then we came back to my place to talk and have coffee."
"And?"
"And what?"
"That doesn't sound like something to get you so worked up about."
"Fine! We screwed on the couch, I told her I loved her, and she left!"
Sam considers that for a moment, and then leaps off the couch onto the coffee table. Dean rolls his eyes. "Wait, why did you tell her you loved her?"
"Because I do, dammit! I think I always have. God, and it was more than sex, Sam, it was like we had this bond, like our souls were connected. It was amazing, I—I couldn't help myself, I had to tell her. I had to tell her I love her."
"You really sound like a chick right now, dude." Sam grins at him and nudges his brother's knee with his foot.
Dean growls and shoots off the couch. He sways with vertigo, but Sam's there to catch him. Dean pushes him away and heads to the kitchen. He reaches for a beer, but Sam's glare has him putting it back, and reaching for soda instead.
"I'm serious, Sam. I love her. I've loved her since—shit, probably since eighth grade. But she obviously doesn't feel the same, so what am I supposed to do?"
Sam sighs, and sits at the barstool there. "Go get her. Find her again. Make her listen. It worked for me."
Dean nods to himself, then pauses and turns to look at his brother. "Worked for you?"
Sam smiles a little, reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. He produces a small photo of himself and a blonde woman, posing in a field.
"That's my girlfriend, Jessica. We both did things we regretted, but I figured that I couldn't live without her. Because I loved her, because I'd always loved her, ever since I saw her. It was stupid, and I honestly don't know how I never did, but I'd never told her I loved her. So I chased her down, and told her everything."
"You really sound like a chick right now, dude," Dean imitates in a falsetto. Sam grins, plucking the photo out of Dean's fingers and placing it carefully back in his wallet. He stands.
"Go take a shower, and go after her," Sam instructs, leaving the room.
Dean considers it, replays everything that happened last night. Checks his watch. It's 5:32 am. Replays it again, staggering over his words. Again, stopping to remember Cassie's eyes, how they were the bluest blue he'd ever seen, even with her pupils blown wide. How he could have sworn there was something in there besides lust.
He replays it again and again, until he's left imagining ways it could have gone, if Cassie had just stayed for a minute to let him explain. If he'd even be man enough to say anything, or if he would just sit there like a dead fish with his mouth open.
He makes his decision, and hops into the shower. He's dressed and out the door in record time, walking to the building the Cassie pointed out the night before. As he nears the old brick building, he sees the flashing lights and the crowd.
There are blue and red lights, coming from police vehicles and an ambulance.
His feet stumble a bit as he sees the large van with WYNADOTTE COUNTY CORONER printed on the sides.
AN:
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
This chapter was by far the hardest thing I've ever written, from the sheer emotional aspect of it.
It's taken me seven billion years to finish it, but ta-da.
1: This is the specific image I had in my head: media. tumblr tumblr_lvly9nEdGJ 1qmzwow. gif (take out all the spaces)
Just a bit of reference: I had Placebo's "Because I Want You" playing in my head during Cassie's scene. It's kind of key.
