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November 2nd almost passes without issue. But late at night, Sam feels the wild anger he’s always had turn back on himself. And he is helpless to fight it.
He tries. Jess and him watch movies the next day, taking a study break. He feels her breathing beside him, her warmth bleeding into his and vice versa and tries to convince the anger to turn away. But it sours the warm moment and the kiss Jess plants on his lips curdles.
He’s always prided himself on his methodical thinking. He’s logical, empathetic sure, but logical all the same - it’s that mix that young him was sure would make him a great lawyer. It’s that analytical ability that made him of any use to his father. It’s always been what gave him what small amount of merit he had. He shouldn’t lose that quality now.
There are tasks. Tasks in different categories and they all have a certain order they must be completed in. His death will be messy - endings always are - but he’ll tie up the loose ends. It will be the emotions that are messy, but the boxes? The boxes will be checked. It’s the one thing he’s good at. So it’s the tasks he’s focused on. Without those anchors, he’d lose his edge like he had so many times before. And, besides, there’s a lot to do.
Afterall, he hadn’t really been planning this for a while. It had always been lingering, but he’d always ignored it. But that date rolled around again, just like it always did. And he… slipped. His heart didn’t burn because of the creature that took his mom and ruined his family or even at Dad or Dean, it twisted and dug deep into the pre-existing well of self-loathing. It's like drowning.
He can’t stop hearing his father in his head, yelling at him, scolding him. Can’t stop hating himself for leaving them, can’t stop hating himself for missing them, for ruining Jess. She’s so good. She doesn’t need pills or doctors or salt lines to be sane. He’s ruining her, like he ruined his already broken family, like he ruined Mom.
Jess was going to be so disappointed.
The first task is to message his dad and his brother. They’ll want to at least come to the funeral, or maybe they’ll get together for a drink at one of those skeezy bars (to mourn or to celebrate is unable to be determined). He sends his dad a short voicemail, to the one number that he’s sure his dad still has. It’s not exactly loving, but that’s fitting. He apologizes, calls his dad a bastard - for old times sake. He only retakes it once.
Dean’s is… harder. It’s an emotional issue. He has a lot of those, but shouldn’t he be able to at least do these simple goodbyes. The message is longer this time, it includes the most rarely spoken words in the Winchester family (closely followed by “I’m sorry”), “I love you.” He thanks him for raising him, for being the parent Dad was too busy hunting to be. He tells him not to blame himself, it’s Sam’s fault - everything has always been his fault. He ends the message.
He ends the message, leans his head back against the wall and tries desperately not to hyperventilate. There’s so much more he needs to do.
There are other tasks.
He needs to do this. To stop this endless list, to stop making good things sour. Just do this right. Complete the tasks, he tells himself. Everything will be over tonight.
And this task is a necessity.
He writes Jess a letter. It’s tear stained and he shakes through the hoops of his ‘p’s and ‘g’s. He explains everything to her. She knows most of it, knows his compulsions, how his family didn’t support his decision to go to college, how they don’t talk anymore. He tells her not to blame herself, just like he did with Dean. She did the best she could, found him a good therapist, helped him through panic attacks. Some people are just unsavable.
He explains November 2nd.
“If you were to ask my brother, he’d tell you Mary Winchester was the best woman who ever lived. He’d tell you about how she used to sing him Beatles songs instead of lullabies. Her favorite, according to him, was “Hey Jude.” He might, if you were lucky, tell you about how he watched the house go up in flames, knowing she was in there dying while I was screaming and crying in his arms.
If you were to ask my father, even at his drunkest, you probably wouldn’t get a response. On the rare chance that you would, he would say that she was the most beautiful woman there ever was. A goddess among women. He would also say that her death can’t go unsolved. That “the son of a bitch creature that killed her would face his wrath before he died, so help him God.” He wouldn’t tell you anything else. Not for a school project, not for family bonding. Not for anything. He devoted his life to her and never even said what her favorite color was to his sons.
If you were to ask me, I don’t know what I would tell you. I mourn a woman I don’t remember and know nothing about every year on November 2nd. There is one thing I can tell you. I wish she would have made it out of that house fire instead of me. I think the family would have been happier, you know. I think I’ve been paying for the mistake of not dying then my entire life.
I hope this puts it right - with my family or with God, if any of them care at all.”
And finally, he tells her how he loves her. He loves her like the moon loves the sun, like the rings of Jupiter love their planet, like the shore loves the waves that wash up on it. He tells her that maybe in another life, one where he's not paying for sins he doesn’t remember committing, they could be happy. He tells her that she deserves an apple pie life. With a picket fence and all.
After he folds the letter, he places it carefully on the center of his desk and creates a steady salt ring around it. It’s too important for the supernatural to mess with. It’s the afternoon now, so he gets started packing his stuff. It’ll be easier to toss or donate then. He scrubs his room, the floors, the table tops, he packs up his homework. He checks his email - his professors are wishing him well in response to his message that he was feeling unwell.
The soapy water becomes salty after a time, but the tears refuse to stop flowing and there isn’t really any harm done.
When his hands are pink and blistered and his eyes achy and dry, he stops cleaning. Everything is neat and tidy, there’s not a spec out of place.
He grabs the salt. Steady, practiced hands lines the windows, the doorways, and along the walls. He gets out his jug of holy water and washes his hands with it. Bowed on his knees, begging for a God that’s never responded, it is his form of church.
Despite only using it to contact his family, his phone has been buzzing continuously on the table. It makes his eyes twitch and he turns it off without looking at the messages and missed calls. Likely it’s one the study groups he’s joined, texting about meeting up again. There’s no need to respond to that.
The sky has turned a streaky pink and gray, so he grabs his coat and leaves his apartment. The cool November breeze ruffles his jacket and tussles his hair as he walks around campus, towards the tallest building on campus. His childhood was rotten through and through, but it still helps him out every now and then.
It allows him to walk through the doors to the building easily, his eyes forward and his pace calm - not hurried or too slow. He knows where he’s going and as long as he knows where he’s going, then he shouldn’t be stopped. Getting up to the roof is harder, but only marginally.
The door is locked, but he’d come prepared for that. Afterall, picking locks is like riding a bike: once you do it once, you never forget how.
It’s colder on the roof, windier. The back of his neck prickles as he walks forward and looks around.
The sky is dipping towards darker colors. It sends the shadows sprawling out. His reaches out longingly across the space to the ledge, but now that he’s here, his heart is pounding. This is the farthest he’s ever gotten. The tasks are dwindling.
It’s weird. Even though he’s always kind of hated the tasks, being without them, even in death, seems frightening. Like sky-diving without a parachute. It’s almost enough to startle him away, but the medicine Dr. Harr is recommending is supposed to do the same thing. At least this way he’ll be dead.
He steps up on the ledge. Takes a breath, though his chest is tight and his face is streaked with even more tears, and spreads his arms out wide. The drop would be so easy, so complete. He can almost imagine it. How his body would fall, hurtling towards the concrete below. Death would be instant. He just needs to pitch forward.
Sam drops his arms, closes his eyes, and -
“SAMMY!”
Rough hands grab his shoulders and toss him away from the edge. He stumbles and ends up skidding across the roof. His hands are skinned and sting from where he tried to catch himself. He’s sobbing, snot clogging his nose, mouth gapping and gasping, cheeks wet and dripping.
Through his blurred vision, he sees Dean kneeling in front of him.
His hands are still on his shoulders. Their grip is bruising. And though his ears are ringing, he can see Dean’s lips moving and only barely make out the words.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
He must unfocus, because Dean shakes him and he’s able to hear him clearly this time.
“Sammy, what the hell were you thinking?”
His tongue feels fuzzy and heavy in his mouth, so he just shakes his head. There’s an answer, he just can’t find it right now.
Dean doesn’t ask again, he just envelopes him in a bone crushing hug. His whole body is shaking.
In the distance, a siren goes off.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he whispers, “You’re my baby brother. Don’t you ever think I don’t want you. You’re my kid, Sammy.”
The door to the roof busts open again - it must be the paramedics.
Dean resists letting go, but eventually he seems to be convinced because he lets Sam be loaded on a stretcher. He’s still clinging to his hand, a desperate, wild look in his eyes. He’s never seen Dean so afraid.
His older brother used to tell him stories about the people they passed, made up lives for them, complete with names and family drama. He once looked down the barrel of a gun without flinching. He’s fought ghosts and witches and other supernatural being that can kill without even trying. He’s never been shaken then. But there’s no mistaking his pale face, the blacks of his eyes blown wide, the tremor running down through his hand.
He stays by his side until they enter the hospital. And he’s sitting by Jess’s side when he’s first allowed to see them.
They look exhausted, worried, and just slightly crazy and while he hates that he made them feel that, he can’t help but be warmed by the sight of the love of his life and his big brother in the same room.
When they see him, it’s like they’re being shocked into motion. They both stand, relief flooding over their faces. Jess swallows him up into her arms, firm reassurance, but Dean waits, watching him with an aggressive attentiveness. While Jess has taken him up in her arms, Dean drinks in the sight of him, still, but deeply invested.
Sam knows he looks horrible. The doctors haven’t let him see much of his reflection, but he can feel the knots in his hair, the way the hospital gown hangs too loosely around him. Despite his height, he feels small in the presence of the two of them.
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Sam says.
Jess interrupts immediately, “Don’t. It’s not… It’s not okay, but we’re here for you.
“And I swear to God, Sammy,” Dean says, “don’t you ever do that again.”
“I thought… that it would be better, you know.”
Dean looks one second away from blowing a gasket, but exhales heavily before replying, “There’s no way in hell that’s true. The only reason I could handle you leaving the first time was because I knew I could I always find you.”
“Dad thought it was better.”
“Don’t talk about shit you don’t know,” Dean snaps. There’s some of his token eldest brother finality in that sentence. It makes him shrink back. It’s been a few years, he’s become accustomed to his brother’s method of handling emotions. His anger must be exhausted, though, because it’s characteristic rise doesn’t come.
Jess distracts him, taking his hand and leading him to sit down next to her. She talks slowly, gently. About different things. They’re all exhausted and he knows both of them have a right to be upset, to be hurt, but they’re still here, still waiting.
He leans into Jess’s hand as she cups his cheek. She whispers lowly, almost indistinguishable from the hum of the hospital, “Don’t try to take yourself away.”
It’s for the best. He doesn’t understand how she can’t see it - how much better everything would be without him staining her. She’s so clean, so pure. She finds God in the simple parts of life, peace in existence. He has to search, to scrape up answers on the smoke stained walls of shitty motel rooms, he has to purge. He taints her, even now. Especially now.
“I’m hurting you,” he whispers. The admission aches in the center of his stomach, but it’s true. Her hand is still on his cheek, her finger tracing invisible lines on his face. And yet, he can’t pull away. “My being here hurts you.”
“Not as much as you leaving would. It would, it would destroy me.”
“ Please , Jess,” he pleads, tears trailing down his cheeks, wetting her hand as she wipes them away, “You’re too good for me, you know that.”
“Sam,” she says. The way she says his name, like he’s something to be preserved, it sits in his chest - warmth. Her eyes are hard, but her voice is soft, “Your beauty never, ever scared me.”