A/N: It's the one you've been waiting for. Warnings for just a really, really traumatized kid.

If You Dare Challenge - #965 (Every breath)

Are You Crazy Enough To Do It Challenge - #600 (word) deserving

Fanfiction Writing Month: November [1497]

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

On the fifteenth night without Sam, Sonny was shaken awake by a frightened Castiel. "It's Dean," he stammered. "He's gone."

Sonny jumped out of bed, throwing his robe on. "He's not in bed?"

"No!" Cas' hands shook. "Come on, Sonny, we have to find him. Come on!"

After waking Kathy, Rosa, and Amina, they went down the stairs. Amina grabbed her keys off the counter. "Sonny, you drive west; I'll drive east. Kathy, can you head for the police station? See if they've got anything. Rosa, check the hospital. Jaime, Andy—check the field, the barn, anywhere outside on this property. Okay?"

"I want to help," Cas declared.

Amina shook her head, shrugging her jacket on over her pajamas. "You're not going out there, Castiel. It's not safe."

"I love him," he growled. "I need to help. I can drive, I can—"

Amina glared. "You're not in a stable state of mind; I'm not letting you—"

"Sonny!" The voice came from the kitchen; it was Kathy. The whole group rushed into the room and found the boy they'd been looking for.

Dean Winchester was kneeling on the kitchen floor, dressed in nothing but his underwear, shivering and crying. Like the first night he was at Sonny's, he kept his arms behind his head, his fingers laced together.

Dean's skin was a battlefield of fights and near-misses. His hands, face, and neck had only touched on his suffering; the boy had been extraordinarily careful with keeping his scars away from prying eyes. Now, almost all of his skin was exposed, and it was terrifying.

Whimpering echoed through the deadly silence, every breath drenched in terror and trepidation. "Dean," Cas gasped, but when he tried to step forward, Amina held him back.

"Wait," she warned. The sound reminded her of a wounded dog: low and even whining.

Sonny stepped towards Dean, treading carefully so as not to scare him. "Dean?" he called gently, signing as he spoke. Sonny had never been so frightened for one of his kids. The anguish inside of Dean at the moment was breaking him, splitting him apart. This boy, deserving of safety and security and love, had learned how to accept affection and even return it, but now... Now, he had reverted back to a terrified boy again. DEAN? DEAN?

Dean had more scars than Sonny had ever seen: Sonny now saw the whip marks that Dean had spoken of. His entire back was covered with long, curved, thick lines that made Sonny shudder. Claw marks lined most of his body, and there were dozens of puckered gunshot scars in his upper arms and torso. There were some bite scars as well: some human, some animal. There was one bite on his neck that was deep and particularly disconcerting. There were more knife scars and then...ones that Sonny recognized. These marks covered his arms, hands, and back: scars from a belt. There were also burn marks all over his empty skin, some patches as large as his hand. His legs and feet were scarred as well; pale ridges criss crossed over his legs, some leftover from his back. Sonny didn't know how he'd never noticed how Dean was missing four toes: three on his right and one on his left. His knees and elbows were rough with uneven flesh and repeated scrapes; his ankles had been broken so many times that they were knobby and large. There were surgical scars as well; they lined his chest and legs. His calves were covered in stab scars, and there were odd, chemical-like burns covering his entire left leg from the knee down. He saw a strange brand on his upper right shoulder repeated multiple times on his skin: his thigh, his foot, his neck. And these were only the scars he recognized. Some of them were in strange shapes; he didn't know what could have made those horrible scars on his right leg, and he didn't want to think about why he was missing the tips of his pinkie fingers, four of his toes, and a significant chunk above his hip. He felt bile rising in his throat; why were there so many scars on the eldest Winchester? There was barely a patch of unblemished skin on the boy. He realized then that he had been mistaken before. Dean Winchester has not only been abused. He had not only been in unfortunate situations. He had not only been attacked by creatures. Dean Winchester had been tortured.

Castiel let out an anguished whimper at the sight of Dean, his knees buckling. Amina caught him, shushing him.

Dean was stammering something between every sob; his face was wet and shiny with tears. "I-I-I'm-m s-so-orry-ry." He choked through his words, every muscle trembling. "P-p-please." He flinched violently as Sonny approached him.

All of the ASL lessons he'd had with Amina came flooding back. "Dean, listen to me." DEAN, LISTEN. "You have nothing to be sorry for." NO SORRY, OKAY? "I'm not going to punish you. I'm not going to hurt you. You've done nothing wrong." NO PUNISH YOU. NO HURT YOU.

Dean shook his head, crying harder, his eyes squeezed shut tightly. "N-n-no…"

"Dean, listen. You're safe. Your father is not here to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you." LISTEN. SAFE YOU. J-W NOT HERE. I PROTECT YOU. I NOT-HURT YOU.

Again, Dean sobbed. "N-n-no—i-it's m-my fa-fau-ault-t."

WHAT, DEAN? "What is, Dean?"

"Th-tha' Sam-m-my's g-gone." He bit his lip so hard that it drew blood in the spot and tried to stifle his cries.

NO. "No, Dean," Sonny said, and Dean winced, expecting a blow. "It's not your fault." NOT YOUR-FAULT.

Dean shivered; his muscles tensed.

"It's not your fault, Dean." NOT YOUR-FAULT. Dean looked at him this time, confused and terrified. "It's not your fault."

"N-no," Dean whimpered. "No…"

"It's not your fault. It's not your fault." Dean's green eyes sparkled with fear. "It's not your fault." The Winchester boy jerked away from Sonny, afraid.

"No," he repeated; the word dragged out in a low moan.

Sonny shuffled closer to Dean. "It's not your fault." He repeated those words until Dean finally broke, sobbing and falling into Sonny's arms, crying like a baby. "It's not your fault, Dean. It's not your fault."

That night, Dean fell asleep in Sonny's arms; he slept violently and fitfully, whimpering and crying out like someone was hurting him. Sonny tried to console him, but Dean's mental state was atrocious. Everything Sonny had done in the past two years to help the Winchester boy had been reversed; he never ate unless ordered to, never allowed anyone to get anywhere near him, couldn't sleep for more than an hour without waking up screaming… He rarely spoke unless coming directly out of a nightmare; sometimes he signed to himself or tapped on the table in Morse code, but Amina told Sonny that most of it was gibberish: random words, letters, or odd phrases. The only things she could understand were phrases about Sam or extreme fear related to his father. It was a little better than Dean when he'd been in complete soldier mode, but not much. He still obeyed every order given to him, but it was more fear-driven than anything else. He was frightened of everything, and it was obvious. They couldn't take him back to school, because when he was in a room with more than five people, he curled up in a ball and began chanting in Latin. The same happened if he was left alone in a room for more than thirty seconds. Sometimes, he would sit and stare at the wall for hours at a time or pull up his fists at nothing in particular. Shadows frightened him. People frightened him. Even Cas couldn't calm him down.

And he wasn't just affected psychologically; physically, he was a wreck as well. He grew thinner and thinner, eating barely a bite per meal, sustaining himself mainly on water. He looked like a skeleton: his face was gaunt, and every bone was visible beneath the skin. His muscles grew weaker, so some of his old injuries returned; he limped nearly all the time. He could barely make it up a set of stairs without trouble. His breathing problems also resurfaced, and Sonny had to increase his medication heavily to keep him out of the hospital. His skin took on a grey, pallid color, and his eyes grew dull. More than once Sonny had found him vomiting in the bathroom, retching what little he had eaten that day. Due to his medication, he found it hard to keep food down, so they had to give him dietary pills, as well as sleeping pills. Dean didn't like taking pills, either; generally they had to order him to take them. Sometimes he would snap, screaming and begging for mercy, and they had to hold him down just to make him take them.

Dean Winchester was broken.

Without Sam in his life, Dean couldn't function.

A/N: What do you think? I know I just tore all your hearts apart, sorry! I'll be posting again in a few days.