Trigger warning: conversation about suicide/self harm
Sam yanked a shotgun out of the bag on the floor and took a carefully aimed shot at the nightmare leaning over his brother. The salt round had no effect. He then pulled out a pure iron bar and spun to hit the spirit in the head, and as it flowed through the air the spirit lurched toward him, screaming, and dissipated.
Dean sat up gasping, eyes wide open. Sam dropped the bar on the floor and tried to approach him, but as he got closer Dean shrank away towards the wall. Sam backed away and sat on the other bed. As Dean's breathing slowed, he stared at the bar on the floor, then at Sam, and back at the bar. He seemed to lose himself somewhere behind his eyes as he stared.
"Dean?" Sam asked gently. Dean started and glanced up at him.
"Don't, Sam," he said. He grabbed the blanket crumpled at the bottom of the bed and pulled it over his shoulders, curling into a ball. He didn't look at Sam again.
Sam stood, walked over to the fridge and pulled out a beer, thinking it was best to let Dean get some sleep instead of talking. He popped open the beer and took a sip, getting ready to do some research until Dean woke up, but then he heard a small sob. Quietly he walked back over to the beds. Dean was still facing the wall, but as Sam leaned over to check on him, he saw that his eyes were wide open. He was crying. Sam touched his shoulder and felt his body shuddering.
"Hey, hey," Sam said quietly as he sat next to Dean.
"You said I deserved it, Sammy," he said, his voice shaking. "How could you ever say that?"
"Dean. It was a dream. It wasn't me."
Dean just curled more tightly around himself and kept crying. Sam rubbed his shoulder, trying to calm him. It didn't seem to work.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Tell me what happened."
Dean's eyes went wide and he shook his head.
"I just want to help you…"
"No. I can't," Dean whispered.
"Please?"
Dean had nearly stopped crying now. He stared at the wall as a few tears traced down his scruffy face.
"You cut my arm," he said. "You said I deserved it."
"Dean, I'm sorry…"
"No, you don't understand." He took one long, shuddering breath. "You weren't just killing me, it was…" He closed his eyes and bit down hard on his lip. "It's my plan for killing myself."
Sam went very still. Dean started stumbling over his words.
"I only tried once," he said, "and you were just a kid, you thought I'd gone to the hospital for a hunting wound, but it wasn't, it was because Dad found me before I bled out and I think about doing it again every fucking day, but I don't because I remember Dad yelled at me when I got back because what if Sammy found you instead of me…"
Sam had closed his eyes and leaned over to awkwardly hug his brother.
"I can't ever do that to you, Sammy, I can't. But some days it's so fucking hard not to do it, and sometimes I just need to feel the pain."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked, his voice muffled by the blanket.
"What I'm trying to say is, sometimes I hurt myself because I need to feel the pain to keep going."
Sam stayed silent, scared to think it might be over, because he had thought it couldn't get any worse and it had. He didn't know if he could take any more worse. By the time he felt he might be ready to talk again, he leaned over Dean's shoulder and saw that he was already asleep.
Sam stayed leaning against his brother for hours after, tears streaming down his face without a sound. He was surprised that Dean's wet shirt didn't wake him, but it dried by the time he woke up in the morning, and by then Sam was sitting across the room, drinking coffee.
A/N: I'm sorry it wasn't longer AND ALSO THAT IT WAS SO PAINFUL. I didn't plan this amount of pain and angst and bleh. Sorry. I don't like it either. I'll try to pick up some of Dean's pieces by the end of the fic (but this is Dean, guys… he never really gets a happy ending, does he?)