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“I’m going to take a shower,” you said to the boys. They nodded, exhausted. You had all just gotten back from a vampire hunt and were all tired, bloody and ready to get some rest. Sam especially had just had a close call where a vamp had gotten too close and almost bit him before Dean had managed to cut its head off. You were disgusted with yourself for not getting there sooner.
“Why didn’t I get there sooner?! Sam could have died!” You wrestled with yourself as you headed down the hall to your bedroom. Sure Dean got there in time and you were so grateful. But it still left you feeling like you weren’t good enough. You hadn’t been in the hunting life nearly as long as Sam and Dean and it showed. Some of your moves were still sloppy even though the boys were both training you and had been doing so for a few months. You didn’t feel like you were ever going to get the hang of things. No matter how hard you tried it didn’t work. And one of these days it was going to get one of the boys hurt. They shouldn’t have to worry about protecting you on a hunt. They should be able to relax and trust that you were going to be fine and that they could concentrate on the job at hand.
Your thoughts tumbled over each other as you got into your room and closed the door behind you. You got some clean clothes out of your dresser and went into the adjacent bathroom and turned on the hot water. You threw your old dirty clothes into the hamper and stepped under the hot spray and tried to calm your thoughts. But unlike some of the other times the warm water didn’t help to calm you down but rather made it even worse. You growled, frustrated and defeated. Only one thing was going to help. You wished that it didn’t but it was the only thing that would clear your head.
You stepped out of the shower and after you dried off you made your way over to one of your dressers. You pulled out a small box hidden underneath your clothes that had your razors in it. You took one out and made your way to the sink. You looked at yourself in the mirror, the voices in your head telling you awful, awful things again.
~“Come on (Y/N)! Just do it already. You’re weak and you know it. You know you’ll feel better if you do!”~
You took the razor in your hand and made one short cut. It stung like crazy but you kept going. Two, three, four, you kept going. It hurt so bad but you kept going until you couldn’t hear the voices anymore. Then you carefully washed off your blade and your arm and wrapped a long, clean bandage around it. The boys would hopefully just think that it was caused by the hunt and your long sleeved shirts would hide the scars when they healed. You always wore long sleeved shirts and when the boys asked or teased you about it you would just tell them that you got cold really easily. Which technically wasn’t a lie. You did get cold easily. But this way it was also an explanation to keep your secret hidden. You returned your clean razor to the box with the others and covered it with your clothes. Nobody would ever know. The boys didn’t really go in your room that often and even when they did they wouldn’t go around snooping in your drawer. Your secret was safe.
*a few weeks later*
You, Sam and Dean were studying in the bunker’s library trying to figure out what you were dealing with for the next case. Suddenly you sneezed. Ugh. Your allergies were acting up again.
“Dean?”
“Yeah (Y/N)?”
“Could you go to my room and get my allergy medicine for me? I think I forgot it today. It’s in the top drawer of the left dresser.”
“Sure (Y/N). I needed a break anyways from reading through all of this crap.”
He got up and left you and Sam to work on the research.
“Okay Sam so I’m thinking that if-”
Your voice trailed off and your mouth went immediately dry. Dean was back. But that wasn’t what had you scared. It was the small familiar box in his hands. The box that had all of your razors in it was now clenched tightly in his hands.
“Dean. I thought I told you it was the LEFT dresser.” Your voice was hoarse and as you looked into his bright green eyes you were stunned to find that yes there was slight anger there but more overwhelming sadness. His eyes were glistening.
“Was he. Was he tearing up? No. No way.”
“(Y/N),” he said with a slight quiver in his voice. “What are these for?” He said pulling one of your razors out of the box. There was still some blood on it that you had somehow not gotten off all the way.
“Umm. They’re. They’re for. Umm.” You couldn’t finish your sentence. You couldn’t lie to Dean to his face.
“(Y/N) are these for you?” He asked with a growl. But it wasn’t too angry sounding. More like it had suddenly gotten harder for him to talk.
“(Y/N).” You turned around to look at Sam who had a stunned look on his face. “What’s going on?”
“Umm. Well.” You couldn’t do it any more. Sam and Dean were both looking at you with shocked and sad looks on their faces. “Fine. They’re mine. And yes Dean they’re for me.”
“But why (Y/N). That’s what I don’t understand. Why would you do this to yourself? And how long has this been going on?!”
You sighed. “For a few years Dean.”
“A FEW YEARS?! And you never once thought that maybe you should talk to us about it?!” He ran his hand over his face and through his hair.
“It’s not something that I wanted to talk about Dean! What do you think I should’ve said?! Hey guys so basically I think I’m worthless, ugly and not good at anything. And oh yeah! I cut myself to get rid of the voices in my head who keep telling me that this is a good idea.”
“How bad is it.” Sam cut in, jaw clenched like he wasn’t sure of what to do. “How bad has this gotten?”
You closed your eyes and opened them slowly letting out a huge breath of air. Then you slowly rolled up both of your sleeves showing them the multiple scars crisscrossing your arms all the way from your wrists to past your elbows.
A gasp came from both of the boys as they looked in horror at your scars, some of them so old that you could barely see them to fresh marks that you had made from last night when you got really stressed out.
“(Y/N),” whispered Sam in a shocked tone. “What the hell,” breathed Dean in a horrified tone.
“So there you have it boys,” you said rolling your sleeves down again. “What now? Are you going to yell at me? Tell me what I already know? That I’m a freak and messed up for even doing this in the first place?”
“NO (Y/N)!” Dean exclaimed. You looked up in surprise.
“We would never say that to you (Y/N),” Sam said firmly. “(Y/N) you’re our family. You’re no more a freak than Dean or I. Why would we yell at you? We care about you so much. Just tell us how we can fix this. Please tell us what we can do,” his voice breaking a bit at the end.
You didn’t now what to say. Out of all of the outcomes you had never thought that this was the one. At best you had envisioned the boys being disgusted with you and not talking. At worst they would have yelled at you for being so stupid and who knows? Maybe kick you out of the bunker. But this was unexpected. They were both staring at you with such hurt on their faces that it made your heart ache. You had never wanted this to happen. You had never wanted to hurt them. They were the only family that you had left.
“I-I thought that you would hate me,” you whispered in a low voice, picking at your sleeve not daring to look at them.
“(Y/N) we could never hate you! Whatever this is, wherever it came from, we’re going to help you as much as we can okay?”
You looked up and saw that they were both sitting in front of you now.
“Okay.” You said wiping a tear from your eyes. You were so tired of this. You wanted it to end but it was so hard. But you didn’t have to go it alone anymore. You had family who would help you. “Okay, I’ll try. Just. Just don’t expect too much okay?”
“(Y’N) we’re not going to expect anything from you. We just want to help. It’s dangerous enough in this life, we don’t always know what’s going to happen. But what I do know is that we care about you. And we want to help you in any way that we can, right Dean?”
“Damn straight. Anything at all. you name it.”
You gave them a small smile raising out your arms for a hug which they instantly reciprocated. You relaxed in their arms. You didn’t have to go it alone. You had help. It wasn’t going to be easy. You were probably going to slip up more than once. Years of doing this weren’t going to be erased overnight. You knew that you had a long journey ahead of you. But at least with this you could see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel that you hadn’t seen in a long time. And for once you felt a ray of hope. You could beat this. It would take a while but you could do it.