'Cause I'm losing my sight, losing my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Dean stares at his wrist. It's mangled and bloody. It makes him sick to look at it but it also fascinates him too. He can't fully explain why he likes hurting himself so much – not when he gets so close to dying in his every day soldier's life. But he can't stop now. It has been going on for almost a year and he's come to treasure what he does to himself.
It's the only time when he doesn't have to think. He's free to close his eyes and feel the pain; feel the release that pain brings. He doesn't have to be worried about Sammy; he doesn't have to feel his father's absence; he doesn't have to feel his disappointment in himself.
It doesn't matter that this is a dirty little secret. It doesn't matter the Dean knows it's wrong and he knows he should get help for it. In a world that is constantly shaped by others – by his father's selfish desires, the whims of supernatural evils, and Sam's needs - in a world that Dean has to share with others (car seats, meals and hotel rooms) and he never gets a second on his own, this is all his.
Dean picks up his bloody razor in his bloody fingertips before lowering it to his destroyed wrist. He knows it should hurt like hell but all it does is make him smile.
Losing my sight, losing my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Nothing's alright, nothing is fine
"DEAN!" Sam leaps onto his older brother with all the force of a ten-year-old.
Dean freezes, Sam clinging to him. "What?"
"Talk to me!" Sam demands, sliding off his brother's shoulder and standing in front of the hotel room door barring his way.
"Sam, Dad is waiting for me."
Sam growls. "I don't care. I'm your brother and I need your attention!"
"I'll give you all the attention you need when we get back," Dean says quickly, trying to dispel the guilt that was building within him. What the hell is he doing? Sammy needs him and he's talking about going on a damn hunt?
But he's hunting for Sam – he no longer receives any enjoyment out of helping people, out of being at Dad's side. He hunts so that Sam doesn't have to. He hunts so his brother will have a way out when he chooses to take it (Dean knows it's when now, not if but he doesn't know if he will ever be okay with the fact that it means giving up his brother). He just can't explain that to the boy. He's much too young to understand that Dean is planning for a future that's nearly a decade away – Sam lives for the moment and, in this moment, that means he has to plead for his big brother to pay attention to him.
"Now," Sam shrieks, voice shrill. "I've tried to talk to you before but you just pushed it to the side and I just … Dean, do you not love me anymore?"
Dean is shell-shocked into silence. Not love his brother? It was unthinkable. The only thing on this Earth that matters to Dean is the ten-year-old in front of him, accusing him of the worst crime that Dean could ever imagine.
"You don't!" Sam mistakes Dean's silence, tears brimming in his eyes. "You hate me, don't you? That's why you're always leaving me alone, going off hunting with Dad. That's why you don't talk to me anymore and you spend all your time alone in the bathroom and you sit in the front seat with Dad instead of in the backseat with me. What did I do? Why do you hate me all of a sudden?"
"Sammy," Dean breathes, taking a step forward, arms outstretched. His throat is clogged and he can feel tears coming.
He's never thought this. He's never thought that Sam could take his actions this way. He thought that everything was fine between him and his little brother. Dean has just been forcing himself into growing up, taking on responsibilities in order to keep his younger brother young and innocent.
"Don't Sammy me!" Sam shouts, going red in the face. "If you hate me than I hate you. I wish you weren't my brother and I wish I didn't have to wake up in the morning to your stupid face! Go on your stupid hunt with Dad that you love more than me!"
Dean can pinpoint the exact moment that his heart shattered inside his chest. Yes, Sam had always worn his emotions on his sleeve, allowing them to overwhelm him at times. Never, however, had those emotions been railed toward Dean in a negative way. Sam was usually exploding at their father, at the unfairness of the universe, finding comfort with his big brother. Dean doesn't know how to deal with the fact that Sam hates him. Sure, he's a ten-year-old and kids that age say things they don't mean all the time but Sam isn't other kids. Sam says what he means and he sticks to his word.
And Dean can see the hatred blazing in Sam's eyes – the angry energy pointing straight at Dean.
"I'm not going anywhere with Dad," Dean decides quietly. "I'm going to stay here with you."
"I hate you." Sam roars again. He turns away from the door, jumping into the bed and pulling the blankets up over his chest.
"I love you, Sammy," Dean calls, hearing the hopelessness and desperation in his own voice. Sam can't hate him because if Sam hates him then Dean truly has nothing left.
Sam swears for the first time in his life. "Go fuck yourself, Dean. I fucking hate you. I wish you were out of my life for good."
I'm running and I'm crying
I'm crying
I can't go on living this way
Dean stands, frozen to the spot, for a very long time. He stands there as tears carve rivers into his suddenly aged cheeks. He stands there as the pieces of his broken heart fall out of his body, never to be retrieved. He stands there as Sam's breathing turns from harsh – a product of anger – to soft – a product of sleep.
Sam doesn't love him anymore. Sam: his responsibility, his little brother, the person who counted on him, the person who loved him unconditionally, and the person he loved unconditionally. Since the night of the fire, when Sam was placed in his arms and he had bolted from their house, Dean has never been apart from his brother. A bond was born that night – something much stronger than the ones normal siblings harboured – and Dean had thought it unbreakable.
Yet, he had broken it. In doing what he thought was best for Sammy, he had unintentionally hurt the young boy. Dean couldn't take that thought. He had hurt his little brother. It's his fault Sam lashed out. It's his fault Sam feels such anger. Sam hates Dean because Dean deserves it.
Dean steals to Sam's bedside. He pulls back the covers and looks down upon his brother – peaceful in sleep. Dean feels his heart swell with pride and love. He leans down and kisses the top of Sam's head – he doesn't even stir.
Dean has dedicated his life in doing what's right for Sam. And, if what's right for Sam is disappearing, Dean can do that.
He walks into the bathroom and shuts the door. He locks it. He knows that Sam won't break the lock but Dad will when he comes back from the hunt. He slides to his knees and reaches up under the sink and grasps his plastic bag. He rocks onto his backside, making himself comfortable against the edge of the porcelain tub. He pulls his razors out of the bag, studying each of them. He picks up the sharpest blade – thanks to his father's training, he knows exactly which one that is.
He pulls off his bracelets, surveying the unhealed damage he had done just the night before. He presses the razor down, finally letting himself go to that tempting place of too far.
He doesn't stop to think about his decision. He doesn't stop to think about the consequences. He lets the nostalgic agony of the should-have-been life rise in full force. He lets the intoxicating, denied, possibilities of the "normal life" guide his hand. He lets the pain and pressure of the soldier life run thick through his veins.
Still, though, it is not a selfish act of escape. Dean Winchester doesn't do selfish things. He lives for his little brother and whatever desires the young boy has. It's for Sammy that Dean is doing this. Sam wants him gone, and like the dutiful big brother, Dean will give him everything he wants.
A smile lights his face as he thinks of Sam and not the hot rivers of blood (too much blood; the blood of one who is too far gone now) cascading down his wrist.
And that's how his father finds him: a smile on his face, slumped against the bathtub with blood fingers, a piece of metal buried in his wrist.
Cut my life into pieces
This is my last resort, suffocation, no breathing
Don't give a fuck if I cut my arms bleeding
Do you even care if I die bleeding?
Would it be wrong, would it be right?
If I took my life tonight, chances are that I might
Mutilation out of sight and I'm contemplating suicide
John Winchester is not, in this moment, a happy fucking camper. His eldest son abandoned him on the hunt, he has a nasty gash on his arm, his youngest is snoring like the devil himself, and the aforementioned eldest son has barricaded himself in the bathroom and John needs to piss. Still, he knows better than to wake Sammy – the child won't go back to sleep after being woken and he gets cranky if he doesn't get enough rest.
He raps once on the bathroom door. "Dean," he hisses, "Open up!"
There's no response.
Teenagers, John groans to himself with an eye roll. He twists the doorknob, finds it locked and indulges himself to another eye roll.
He quickly unlocks the door and hopes that Dean isn't naked. He wants to spare them both the embarrassment of that encounter, though it would be Dean's fault, not answering John's knock. He pushes open the door and finds it completely dark.
Confusion overtaking him, John grapples at the wall for a moment in search of the light switch. He locates it, steps further in, and shuts the door behind him before he turns on the light. He doesn't want to wake Sam up with the sudden brightness.
John blinks once, eyes adjusting from the dark. Once he does, a swift scope of the bathroom ends with his heart falling to the floor. He's a seasoned hunter; he knows how to react in bad situations; he knows what to do under pressure. Yet, all of the hunting in the world, all of the horrors in the universe, could never prepare him for finding Dean with dead eyes and bleeding wrists.
"Mother of fuck," John squeaks before instinct kicks in.
He does the best he can to push his heart out of the situation. If he lets himself get emotional now, it could spell the end for Dean Instead, he lets his hands take over. His body knows what to do. He reaches for the first aid kit, tying bandages tight around Dean's wrists to stem the blood flow.
He takes off his jacket, forcing the boy's arms through the sleeves. This is an action of his heart – he doesn't want to see the blood and he doesn't want Sam to see it either. Though Sam is still too young to understand the full implications of the word suicide, it always pains the boy to see his brother hurting and John doesn't want to put Sam through anything more than he must.
He hefts Dean in his arms and kicks the bathroom door down, not having the patience to turn the knob.
A combination of the noise and the light sends Sam bolting upright in bed, one hand rubbing at his eyes and the other automatically searching for his brother. Strange noises in the middle of the night means danger and danger means Dean, protect me.
"Dad?" Sam rasps, registering the outline of his father who is holding something big in his arms. He hopes it's not the body of something or other.
"Get in the Impala. Not another word."
"Dad," Sam whines, "I don't want to leave. I'm sleeping."
"We're not leaving," John snarls, panic rising within him. Dean doesn't have time for him and Sam to have an argument. "Dean needs to go to the hospital."
Sam goes white as a sheet. He doesn't even pause to put shoes on. He bolts to the front door and opens it for his father. Once John and Dean are outside, Sam slams the door shut, running for the Impala.
John finishes securing Dean in the front seat (his boy who hasn't moved, who hasn't given any indication he knows what's going on around him but is still breathing) before running to his own seat. The engine roars to life and John hits the road, knowing the route the nearest hospital (something he always checked into as they migrated to a new town).
"Is he going to be okay?" Sam's voice sounds, weak and uncertain, from the backseat.
John's throat tightens. "Yes," he forces out.
Because anything else is unthinkable.
'Cause I'm losing my sight, losing my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Losing my sight, losing my mind
Wish somebody would tell me I'm fine
Nothing's alright, nothing is fine
"Dean, I know you're awake. C'mon, buddy."
Dean doesn't want to be awake. He knows he shouldn't be. Sam asked him to go away. He was only trying to do what was right for his brother. That's all he ever tried to do. Unbidden, a tear slips down Dean's cheek, born of emotional pain and not the physical pain of his sliced wrists.
"Hey there, little fighter," John tries to sound comforting. He doesn't know what to do in this situation. He loves his boys but that doesn't mean he's the nurturing type. Mary was the one to kiss away Dean's bruises. John was just the one that carried him to her.
But it's been a decade since Dean has felt Mary's kiss and John doubts that all of the kisses in the world could help Dean if he was feeling enough pain to try to end his life.
Dean's eyes flick open briefly before closing again.
"I saw that," John says softly. "I don't know what you're going through Dean, and I'm not going to pretend I do. But I am here for you, and I do need you to talk to me."
Dean slowly opens his eyes again, looking to his father. He doesn't know what he's expecting – disappointment, maybe, because his son is so weak. It's not what he gets. John doesn't look disappointed in the least. His father is concerned and maybe a little heartbroken. There's a pain in his face, deep and real, something that Dean hasn't seen in full force since the week Mary died.
"Thank God you're okay," John murmurs. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd have lost you too."
Suddenly, Dean is ashamed. He has let his father down, but not in the ways he'd thought he had. John doesn't care if his boys have a weakness – John cares that his boys trust him enough to tell him about it, to take their weakness and let it better them.
John reaches out a hand, brushing it against the side of his son's head. "I was so scared, Dean. Not a lot of things scare me anymore, but the thought of losing you boys terrifies me to death. I love you more than anything and I'm going to be by your side the entire time you're getting better."
Dean nods carefully. But there's still a holdback. He survived, his father isn't angry, and Sam still hates him.
Sam, he realizes with a clench to his heart, I almost never saw you again.
Just because Sam is ready to let go of Dean doesn't mean that Dean will ever ready to let go of him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" John asks.
"No," Dean answers, voice firm. "I don't want to talk about it. I promise you this is the end and I promise I'll come to you if I ever feel this way again, but I never want to mention it again."
The lines at the edges of John's eyes harden. On one hand, he knows that the only way to get through something is to talk about it. He never spoke to anyone about Mary's death and it's still eating him up on the inside, turning into bitter anger. On the other hand, Dean needs to recover in his own way and the boy did promise to come to John if it ever came back up again. If there's one thing that John knows about his boys is that they always keep their promises.
"All right," he agrees grimly. "If I find out you're hurting yourself again, though, I am throwing your ass into therapy."
"To talk about how my dad makes me fight Wendigos?" Dean scoffs and John cracks a smile.
"You may have a point there," John admits and his face softens again. "Damn though, Dean, you've had Sammy and I terrified all night."
Dean's eyes widen at the mention of his little brother. "Where is he? What did you tell him happened to me?"
"A nurse took him down to the cafeteria on her lunch break," John explains. "I didn't tell him anything about what you did though. I said we needed the hospital because you had a bad fever. I didn't know how to explain anything else to him and I figured, if the moment ever came up, that it was your job, not mine."
Dean's thankful for his father's decision. He doesn't want Sam to know about this – not now, not ever. He's dedicated his life to being strong for his little brother and in one single moment, an anger filled moment in which no one was thinking straight, he let it all slip away. He's never going to make that mistake again; not now, not ever.
"Can you go get him?" Dean requests.
He doesn't have long to wait, which he's thankful for because that would lead to thinking and that's something he really doesn't want to do, before his hospital room door creaks open and Sam steps inside, still dressed in his pyjamas. He pauses just inside the doorway, staring at Dean.
"Come here," Dean invites and Sam doesn't need to be told twice.
He hurtles across the room, burying himself in his brother's side. Dean wraps his arm around the kid, whose face is hidden against his ribs. Sam's shaking with tears, and Dean is stunned.
"Hey, Sammy, whatcha crying for?" He asks casually.
"You're in the hospital."
"You've seen me in the hospital before," Dean points out.
"We only come to the hospital for really bad things," Sam voice picks up speed as he rambles, like young children are wont to do, "and I was sleeping and then Dad just burst down the bathroom door. I was so scared; I didn't even realize anything was wrong with you. And if something really had happened to you the last thing I said to you was just so awful and so wrong. I don't hate you, Dean, I've never hated you. I'm so glad you're my brother and there's nowhere else I'd want you to be, never ever. I love you."
"Sammy, I love you too." Dean feels tears brimming at his cheeks. He had been so dumb. Sam loved him and nothing would ever change that, especially not petty anger.
Sam peaks at him. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm just really glad you love me."
Sam sat up before throwing his hands around Dean's neck, lips just under his ear. "No, Dean, I'm really glad you love me."
I'm running and I'm crying
I can't go on living this way
"Damn," Sam sighs as he saunters into a hotel room, throwing his large duffel down on the floor. "It's been a long time since we've been here." He looks to his brother who's salting the windows and doors.
"Yup," Dean agrees swiftly, knowing Sam's waiting for an answer.
"Like what, twenty years?" Sam guesses.
It's been exactly twenty years. Dean's wrist aches with phantom wounds as he remembers what he did in this little town – something Sam is still ignorant to.
"I guess," Dean agrees vaguely.
"I wonder what hunt we were here on," Sam muses, folding his long limbs up on his bed.
"Who knows?" Dean throws himself down on his own bed, wishing Sam would stop reminiscing about their childhood. It just makes Dean think of what he did to himself – something he's been pushing out of his mind for years. "Dad dragged us all over."
Sam frowns. "Yeah, but something about this place is making me think."
"You can think?" Dean takes a shot.
"Did one of us end up in the hospital or something?" Sam guesses, looking at Dean for confirmation. "That's the only thing that would make this thing stick out to me."
"It would've been you or me," Dean points out. "Dad rarely, if ever, went into a hospital for himself."
"This wasn't the place where you suffered the 'bear attack' and we almost got Child Protective Services called on us, was it?"
"Nah," Dean shakes his head. "There's not enough woods around here for that."
Sam continues to ponder this and Dean continues to wish he wouldn't. He knows Sam will eventually come to the answer and thirty-year-old Sam just isn't as gullible as ten-year-old Sam. And thirty-four-year old Dean hates lying to his little brother even more than fourteen-year-old Dean did. He hopes Sam won't get it into his head to start questioning the story that John and Dean fed to him all those years ago.
Sam snaps his fingers. "I've got it. This is the place where you got that bad fever, which seemed weird to me because I can never remember Dad taking us to a hospital for a fever before or after that."
Dean shrugs, hiding his face. "Must've been bad."
"Dean," Sam says questioningly, "What are you hiding?"
Dean stands up and goes to the mini fridge, bending down and grabbing one of the beers that he just stored there. As he reaches, his eyes are drawn to his left wrist which still bears faint scars from the damage he'd caused himself. He straightens up, having forgotten Sam's question, and pops the top off the bottle.
"Dean," Sam repeats, standing up. "It wasn't a fever, was it?"
"What it was, was twenty years ago. You think I've catalogued every injury? If we didn't tell you the truth, it's because we didn't want to scare you."
Under any other circumstances, Sam probably would have bought this. But he notices the way that Dean is overly focused on his beverage, the way he's deflecting, the way he won't look Sam in the eye. He knows Dean has his fair share of secrets – Sam does too – but he's never seen Dean be so dodgy about one.
"C'mon, man, tell me the truth."
"Why do you care about something that happened decades ago?" Dean asks.
"'Cause it's still upsetting you," Sam points out. "I'm your brother, all I'm trying to do is help you."
"Just drop it, Sam. That's the most helpful thing you can do right now."
"Talk to me," Sam pleads.
"I don't want to tell you the truth," Dean admits quietly. "I know you'll see me differently afterward and that's the main reason why I didn't want to tell you the truth when it happened. Another reason was that you were too young to understand."
"Dean, I'm not going to see you differently. We've been through so much together and you think one little fact from twenty years ago is going to change my perception of you forever?"
"Yes," Dean growls. "I haven't been the brother to you that I should have, though I tried. I know I've let you down in a lot of places, in a lot of ways. But this is my biggest failure, Sam. And no matter how big you get, no matter how old you get, I will still be your older brother; I'm still going to want to be strong for you. So please, just let it go."
"That's not the truth! You've been the best brother imaginable. We've been equally shitty to each other so don't even worry about that. And you don't need to always be strong for me. Sometimes, though I can be strong for you – even if it is over something that happened when I was ten. So please, confide in me."
"You want to know the truth?" Dean asks quietly, submissively. Sam wants to know and he could never deny his little brother knowledge, especially not when he's so stubborn over getting it.
"Yes."
"Do you remember what happened that night?"
Sam's brow furrows as he thinks. "We got into an argument. I said I hated you." He remembers with shame.
"Your speech was a lot longer and a lot angrier, but that was the gist, yeah. The night you yelled at me I wasn't … right. I had been unstable for a long time; I had been putting too much pressure on myself."
"What do you mean by unstable?"
Dean's eyes – deep with emotion – came to meet Sam's. He hadn't thought of that night, in such detail, in twenty years, and never has he spoken about it. He had kept his promise to John and had been clean from then on – determined not to relapse and take himself away from Sam.
"I was cutting myself," he reveals, "And that night I tried to commit suicide by slicing my wrist open."
"Dean, I –"
"Don't say anything, Sammy," Dean begs. "I don't think I can handle hearing it."
So Sam stays silent. He moves across the room to his brother's side. He puts his hand around Dean's left arm and tried to flip it over so that he could see the underside. Dean tenses, resisting for a moment, before giving the limb over to his brother. Sam turns it so that he could see Dean's wrists, and the harsh, faded scars that lingered there.
Sam swallows. He's been by Dean's side for years and he's never taken any stock of the scars. Dean's body was littered with scars – both of theirs were – and he's probably brushed it off as inconsequential, just another fight against the supernatural. Shouldn't he have noticed the location? Shouldn't he have stopped and thought it suspicious that there was such a smattering of scars, tight and close together, on the wrist? And what about when he was younger? What was he doing when Dean was hurting himself? What was he thinking when Dean had been healing from his attempt, his left wrist bandaged despite the fact that he only went into the hospital for a fever?
"Can I ask you a question?" Sam wonders.
"One," Dean allows, hoping to move on as quickly as possible. This is it. Sam knows his most vulnerable moments now.
"What stopped you from trying again?" Sam knows pain doesn't disappear. Pain is always within you, festering, waiting to break free again.
"The morning after you were in my hospital room with me, scared to death over losing me. For about a year afterward, you told me you loved me every time I walked out of a room and after that it was every time we woke up and every time we went to bed. I never doubted you again, which was my problem in the first place. I was so consumed with the weight I had put on my shoulders and doing what was best for you, doing what you wanted, I didn't stop to think that maybe you needed me around, even if you had said otherwise in anger. I couldn't try again because I knew you'd need me."
Sam pulls his now shorter brother into a hug, squeezing him as tightly as possible. Even though neither of them are fond of physical contact, Dean is holding him back just as hard.
Sam whispers into his brother's ear, something he hasn't said in years, but something that has never stopped being true. "I'm really glad you love me, Dean."
"No," Dean says with absolute conviction, "Sammy, I'm really glad you love me."
Can't go on, living this way, nothing's alright
Voila! The last chapter!
I don't own anything recognizable. The song is Last Resort by Papa Roach. Thanks to my beta: ImagineYourself65.
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