Pull Me Up (a destiel au fanfic)

chapter 26

*smut warning for this chapter*

*throws it at you*

HAVE IT YOU SAVAGE BEASTS. Okay enjoy lol

***

"Oh my god," David's hands were in his hair the moment we got outside, and he tugged at the roots. "Oh my god!"

I wanted to respond, to comfort him but I was still in major shock and confusion over what had just happened. Claire had been doing so well, Cas even said so. She was calming down, feeling comfortable at home.

Then she had to go and do a total one eighty. It didn't make a lick of sense. There wasn't anything that had occurred in the past few days to turn her around and make her ditch all of her hard work for nothing. She seemed to be getting better; her happiness was practically seething through her.

But what did I know?

I expected that Sam was happy and content when he'd overdosed.

There I went again.

She was right. I thought of her as a replacement for Sam. I'd said many times that she filled the gaping hole in me caused by the loss of a sibling. She was my new Sammy, different but the same. And in the brief three months that I'd known her, it was as if she'd adapted to filling that void with ease. Maybe I was just completely oblivious to her thoughts and feelings, but it seemed like she was glad to join our family.

Suddenly I was on my hands and knees on the grass of her front yard, my breath completely knocked from my lungs. It was happening again; a panic attack. My arms were shaking and my breath hitched in my throat. I tried to do what Cas had taught me, really I did, but I couldn't. I had not only witnessed the fall of a teenager, but it was my fault. It was all my fault.

David wasn't much help, seeing as he was having his own panic attack a few mere feet from me.

Eventually, my arms gave out from under me, and I flipped so I was laying on my back in the snow, looking up at the sky. It was only a few moments between day and night, where the sky was streaked with all the colors of the rainbow. It was incredibly calming, and I was able to focus on the movement of the fluffy clouds sliding through the atmosphere.

When I looked back to David he was sitting on the sidewalk, long legs spread out in front of him. I stood on incredibly shaky legs and kneeled next to him, urging him to stand up. After minutes of coaxing, he lifted himself from the cold concrete, shivers wracking through his whole body.

"I should have known," he murmured, over and over. We got into my car, and I blasted the heat. I was feeling incredibly dysphoric. Like my body was on autopilot and I didn't belong to myself. Like I wasn't the one who'd caused Claire's relapse.

"Stop, David," I replied, shifting the car into drive. "You wouldn't have known that she would relapse."

"No," he shook his head. "I should have known she didn't actually care about me. I'm such an idiot."

I recalled when he had first come home with Claire, that day I had first noticed a small shift in her personality. I had been so concerned for Claire, that David wouldn't be who he said he was in rehab. That he would be too good to be true for her. I'd warned her that he would change as he got used to not having Oxycontin, and here he was, broken to pieces by the very girl I was protecting. I swallowed thickly.

"How could you have known?"

"She was too good for me. I knew it the whole time, I knew Claire wouldn't actually care about me," he shook his head again. "She was... this whole thing was way too good to be true. And now-" he sniffled, wrapping his arms around himself in the passengers seat. "Now I don't have anything. I don't have a house or a family or her."