WARNING: Suicidal ideation. It's a basic tenet of this story, and I don't write about mental health for giggles, but because it's real and affects hundreds of thousands of people every day. If you find the topic difficult or painful, please do not read this fic. And if you struggle with depression or anxiety or any other mental health issues, please know that you're not alone.

With that said, this idea comes from Bell1408, who posted a list of prompts under the title Supernatural Story Prompts. Thanks to them for the idea/prompt! I will post the specific prompt at the end of the story.

Also, Bell1408 very kindly pointed out that I completely failed to mention the boys' ages. (Mea culpa.) This takes place in the summer after Sam's 16th birthday.

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Sam took a deep breath and flipped his long knife out from its position against his forearm. He was supposed to stay back and not engage the oreads unless Dad and Dean ran into problems, but he had other plans. The nymphs were hardly the sexy women some mythology made them out to be, but were fearsome monsters equipped with six-inch claws and voracious appetites. They were responsible for a spate of gruesome deaths in the area; the bodies they left were eaten down to the bones. In addition, just one swipe from their bacteria-laden claws was often fatal.

They were perfect.

Sam had fought with his Dad about hunting and school and pretty much everything for a long time. For the first few years, it was all about anger. But somehow that had changed a year or so ago. Maybe it was when Dean started being gone more, sent off by Dad. Or the first time Sam had thrown away a report card and nobody had commented on it. In his mind, he knew that Dean believed (or maybe just hoped?) that it was because Sam was starting to care less about school. He probably thought that Sam was finally falling into line with the family. He probably thought Sam didn't see how relieved he was.

Now the arguments left Sam feeling empty, hollow. He spent days trying to remember what it felt like to care. To believe in the future. To see something beyond the death and blood and horror of hunting. He used to think he'd go on to school and Dean would live down the street and maybe they'd have lawns and neighbors and a neighborhood that was theirs. And that the world would be safe someday.

All of that hope had drained away and Sam hadn't missed it until it was gone.

In the dark of one too many nights spent alone, Sam made a plan to escape the relentless dimness of his life, the incessant hopelessness. He thought about the weapons he'd trained with, the knives and machetes, and of course the loaded guns. Scenarios began to play through his mind in technicolor detail and instead of feeling horrified at his own thoughts, all he could feel was relief that he was finally admitting his own absolute despondency. The relief felt so good.

But there was one little hitch. Actually, one very big hitch. His brain didn't stop at his own release from life. It continued on, imagining Dean finding his body. Imagining the devastation he'd feel knowing that Sam chose death.

That was when Sam came up with a new plan. Dad wanted him to hunt? He would hunt. It was a dangerous occupation and deaths happened all the time. He'd start to volunteer for the most dangerous hunts and put himself on the front line. He knew was a lousy hunter – one of the big bads was bound to get him sooner or later.

Decision made, Sam felt such peace that not only did Dean notice, Dad did too. With Sam wanting to hunt and no longer caring about the stuff he and Dad normally clashed over, the fights faded away. His focus improved, too. School, friends, whatever, sort of faded into the background, subsumed by his goal.

The oreads gave him the opportunity he'd been waiting for. One could easily take out a "scrawny, pathetic excuse for a hunter" like him. Sam waited impatiently for Dad and Dean to move ahead far enough, feeling a macabre excitement fill him. Dean cast one concerned, assessing look over his shoulder, and Sam kept his expression as flat as he could. Though the reduction in the number of arguments and Sam's newfound devotion to hunting pleased the older boy, he sometimes seemed to sense that all was not right with Sam's world. Sam was unused to keeping things from Dean. He knew that only the fact that the new family harmony was what Dean had so desperately wanted kept the latter from pushing harder to figure out Sam's true motivation. When he shot those sharp looks at Sam, Sam feared he'd see right through him. Or worse, Sam would crack and spill the beans. He held his breath, hoping Dean would chalk up his nervous excitement to the danger of the hunt.

Dad made a sharp gesture to urge Dean forward and the moment was gone. The older two Winchesters moved in sync to catch the group of oreads between them and attacked with skill and precision. Sam waited, his body as tight as a bow string. There. One oread moved a little away from the main fight, in his direction. Sam burst from his hiding place at her, deliberately coming from her side so she would see his approach. But as she spun and slashed her claws at him supernaturally fast, something strange happened. Sam's training took over, and he no longer felt unskilled or slow. With the fear missing, he didn't feel anything at all except the instinct of the fight, of all his training.

Without a thought, Sam deflected the blow with the forearm of his left hand and stepped inside the monster's guard. He slashed across her throat, then her chest, doing a gruesome amount of damage. He ducked her attempt to grab him with her other hand and kicked in the general vicinity of her knee. She howled again – she'd been doing that since his first hit – and slid in her own blood as her leg collapsed under her. Spinning on his heel to maximize his force, Sam beheaded her in a brutal backhand stroke.

He didn't pause to wonder at his own prowess, but used his momentum to bury the knife in the desiccated chest of an oread who was going for Dean's unprotected back. Sam barely recognized the war cry that erupted from his own throat, much less the surprise on Dad's and Dean's faces. He violently pulled the knife free and shook the blackened heart off the end of it. He felt as much as saw an oread charging him from his right, but he'd moved before she had her claws in place to eviscerate him. By the time he'd beheaded this new threat, the only beings alive in the derelict house were Winchesters.

Sam panted lightly, spattered in dark blood and blinking at the carnage. He wasn't touched. He'd brutally dismembered and slaughtered the monsters – and yes, they deserved it, but he'd never been so savage. He'd rarely made any kills up close, and he struggled to reconcile what had just happened with his own sense of self.

Sam wasn't sure what disappointed him more. The fact that he was the efficient killer his father had been trying to mold him into for eight years, or the fact that he'd survived the fight.

Dad was as close to giddy as Sam had ever seen him. He was thrilled with the size of the kill and the way both his sons had acquitted themselves. He damn near whistled while they burned the bodies, and he splurged on pizza on the way back to the motel. He even skipped the normal post mortem he put the boys through after any hunt to talk about what went right and what they needed to do better or improve upon for the next time. He finally had everything he wanted, Sam thought with a great deal of bitterness.

Only the thought that there would be other hunts, other monsters to face, other chances to end it all by claw or tooth, cheered Sam. It was twisted but true.

Dean was happy too, at first, but his ebullience was tempered. He kept shooting narrow eyed looks at Sam as if trying to categorize this new iteration of his younger brother. Sam had to be careful to avoid Dean's suspicions. Dean was the only person in the world who could possibly stop him, and Sam couldn't let that happen.