where do you think you're going (dean winchester)

2002

fandom: supernatural

tw: self harm, suicide attempt, physical/verbal abuse, blood/injury, depression

set: 2002

category: gen

word count: 9,318

summary: With Sam at Stanford and John no-contact, Dean spirals-and finds himself back on Bobby's front porch.

notes: When I tell you that I've been trying to write this final part for 2 years, I am not exaggerating. I kind of wrote myself into a corner and agonized over it for an absurd amount of time, but I genuinely just want it off my desk at this point, so it's not great, but it's here, and on the bright side, I don't think anyone's expecting it, so it's hard to be disappointed lol.

That said, I've been dealing with some intense writer's block in general, so any feedback you can give me is desperately needed. Love y'all. Sorry for disappearing. - Line

Dean really hadn't been trying to kill himself.

Not that it hadn't ever crossed his mind.

It had been crossing his mind for a decade now.

And not that he'd never tried to get himself killed.

As John had run off for longer and longer periods of time and sent him on more and more solo hunts over the past year since Sam had left, it would be safe to say that on the majority of those hunts, he'd had a moment where he'd moved a little too slow on purpose, given whatever he was hunting the chance to hunt him back. Then instinct and training took over and he walked away with another win and another scar.

But this time, he really wasn't trying to kill himself.

He beat a demon a few casualties too late. Poured whiskey down his throat, but it didn't help. So he'd locked himself in the bathroom and done what did help.

He knew doing it drunk wasn't a good idea, but that'd never stopped him before.

Apparently, this time had been once too many.

Trying to cut through a fog of alcohol to feel the pain, he'd sliced a little too deep... or maybe just in the wrong place. Or maybe both.

Honestly, he didn't remember.

He just remembered staring dully at the crimson liquid flowing much too fast from his wrist and thinking how ironic it was that he was going to kill himself without even trying.

Sure, he'd felt a weight be lifted from his shoulders, relief throb through the pain in his soul, but that didn't change the fact that he hadn't been trying to do it.

Spotty blackness had been interrupted by a voice he hadn't heard except in a pre-recorded voicemail in over two months.

He wondered now if his father had really been as broken and devastated as he remembered, or if that had been a fever dream and he'd been angry from the start.

Pounding on the motel room door.

"Dean?"

In his hurry to get to his whiskey and his knife, he'd failed to lock either of the doors that had stood between him and his father.

Darkness. Pounding on the bathroom door.

Anger jumping immediately into Dad's voice. When had Dad gotten there?