Who: Sam Winchester ( closed ) When: Morning Where: Hotel room Rating: TBA
He'd finally convinced Dean to go have breakfast with Bobby. Honestly, Sam wasn't that hungry, and there were some things he wanted to do in his brother's absence. His excuse had been that he'd wanted to grab a shower first. He figured 'I just need a few minutes alone' would've sounded a little suspicious to the two older and wiser men circling the premises, so it was best to go with something practical. He did plan on following through, though. Therefore it hadn't been a total lie, but he'd probably end up taking longer than he'd led them to believe. He just needed a breather to sort through some things, that's all. Frankly, he had no idea everything would escalate the way it did. Because really, he'd felt fairly confident when he'd woken up that morning that he was going to do okay at respecting Dean's decision to keep things to himself. He'd promised to let it go, and he was: letting it go. That's what he'd fooled himself into believing anyway.
Mistake number one had been sitting down at his computer and googling testimonials of people who had supposedly died, gone to Hell, and come back. You could easily say that Sam was obsessed with trying to understand what his brother was going through, and if they couldn't talk about it, this seemed like the best way to get a grasp on the situation. Of course, every individual was different. No two experiences were exactly the same, but there were similarities. Graphic, horrible, gut-wrenchingly painful similarities. Everything basically went downhill from there as he became more and more consumed with reading all he could find on this sort of thing. Not exactly the type of stuff you wanted to roll out of bed and start your morning off with if you planned on getting through the day. 'Cause there was no way anyone could look at these documentaries and not feel physically ill while picturing these images.
He couldn't stop them from flooding into his brain once he'd opened himself up to it. But it wasn't until he began seeing Dean in the middle of it all that he sprang from his chair, bolted to the bathroom, and threw up. Not a pleasant feeling, but in comparison, this was nothing.
Obviously he didn't know what happened. He might never know, which left an eternity, basically, for him to run down a mile long list of endless possibilities, each one more torturous than the last. That's what was going on inside his head right this very minute, as he remained stooped over the toilet. One palm was pressed against the floor to help keep himself balanced until he was sure the worst was over. But he still got up a too fast and was forced to fight the dizzy spell that struck him as soon as he got to his feet. Both hands were then placed on each side of the sink for support as he closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. It usually worked. Typically, when he reopened them, he was fine.
Thing is, today wasn't like all the other days. This time it wasn't the medication making him sick. It was the sight of his own reflection. It stared back at him mercilessly. For a brief moment, it took him back. It was no longer him returning the gaze, but the cold, empty eyes of someone that he met in a brutal stand-off not that long ago. Someone who's words still echoed relentlessly within the confines of his own mind when things were quiet enough ... like now, for instance. Every bit of his current line of thinking was irrational, because it was just a reflection. A part of him knew that. But there was enough hate for the person in the mirror to cause him to physically lash out and roughly thrust his fist into the glass.
He instantly regretted the action when the shards shattered and pierced his flesh. Not a shining moment for him. Though the reality of the situation didn't really kick in until he thought about the confrontation that would result from Dean finding the bloody, broken mirror. Instinct was to cover it up, and there were a lot of steps he had to go through to do that. First and foremost, he had to pull out the glass that had become embedded in his skin and discard the pieces into the trash. That in itself was a tedious and agonizing task. With every pull, he'd wince sharply, then slip his hand under the faucet to wash away the blood that gushed from the fresh wound. Once he finished, he applied a bandage. Hopefully, he could convince Dean and Bobby that it'd been there the whole time. They couldn't possibly recall every cut and scrape he'd received during the Challenge, right? The trick was to make sure it didn't start bleeding, because if the blood seeped through the gauze, they'd know it was recent. Questions would ensue. Questions he didn't want to answer.
Step two was to sweep the floor and get rid of all the evidence. To do that, he plucked each individual piece of glass up off the tile and threw it away. Then he took the garbage around back to where there was a dumpster and poured it all in.
Every move he made seemed carefully thought out, minus the part where he'd decided slamming his fist into a mirror was a good idea. What did that prove? That he hadn't lost his mind. He had made a clear, conscious choice. A poor one, but he'd made it with his own free will, and he couldn't promise that even though his hand was throbbing with pain right now, that he wouldn't have done the exact same thing if he could go back and call a do-over. However, none of that prevented him from grimacing every time he swung his arm a little too far or tried to bend his fingers, but it was nothing he couldn't live with. Nothing at all compared to the war that was going on inside him.
His next move was to swipe his meds from the bedside table, but he had a hard time twisting off the cap. That probably had a lot to do with his newly tore up hand. It was practically useless right now. It hadn't stopped stinging from the hit, but he did manage to finally force the lid off the bottle - just in time to decide he was tired of doping himself up, as if that was going to help. As if he deserved the aid of modern medicine. Dean had gone to Hell. There was no amount of 'i'm sorry's' that could make up for that. There was also no way to explain how desperately he needed to hear it: how badly he wanted to suffer alongside his brother - if it had to be this way. And God he wished it didn't. He wished so much that there was some kind of treatment or wonder drug that could cure it all, but there wasn't. So until the night terrors stopped tormenting Dean in his sleep, Sam deemed it only fair that he should feel everything, good or bad.
The contents of the bottle were poured down the drain, each remaining tablet disappearing from sight once he turned the nozzle. The bottle itself, despite being empty, was slid inside his pocket for the time being, before he suddenly erupted into a fit of sobs. The water was left running as he collapsed to his knees, tears pouring down his face. All that he'd been holding back had come bubbling to the surface, refusing to be suppressed any longer.
It was a combination of everything now. Everything. He'd been pretending to be okay ever since they'd left the hospital. He wanted to stay strong for his brother, and now it was like the walls were all crashing in on him. He couldn't do this ... he couldn't do this with Dean around, so he had to get it out of his system now. He had to get rid of all the negativity and snap back into the swing of things, but he just didn't see how. Crumpled up on the bathroom floor, he felt like his entire world had just been ripped to pieces. And not because of what was wrong with him, but because of what was wrong with Dean ... Though he probably would've been a little tougher had his own body not been so beaten up and broken inside and out. The pain could mess with your head. So could the drugs, but neither of those were what he'd consider his biggest problem.