Work Text:
The first time Sam tries to kill himself he is 26 years old... but that’s a lie.
If Sam were honest with himself, he would say that the first time he tried to kill himself was when he was 14.
They were on a hunt, it was somewhere between Phoenix and Arizona in the middle of Springbreak. They had been in the trail of a skinwalker for about a week, which just meant that the three of them were tired, and in an awful mood... and Sam had a sheet of paper full of college information that weighed him in his very soul.
It was his first year of high school, which meant that while there was time to still consider college if he wanted even a chance to get to... any of them, he had to start planning. AP classes, extra credit, and extracurriculars; the whole high school experience.
He couldn’t really have those. He could try, but between moving and the whole family business of going hunting monsters, his life was too erratic to even stand a chance. To even be allowed to consider applying.
It felt like walking to the dead end of the road. There was no future for him besides dirty motels and a life that could fit into a duffel bag. He was fourteen and could see the rest of his days as the same miserable routine he had had since he could remember.
Or maybe, somehow he made it to college... then what? Expect his dad or for Dean to understand? To support him? To just let him leave?
He knew that it was either family or college. Family or safety... family or happiness. If he wanted one, he had to give up the other, there was no other option.
And Sam couldn’t do it. He couldn’t choose.
Later, Sam would blame his teenage and melodramatic brain, the fact that he wasn’t thinking straight, the fact that he was tired and got sloppy.
But, when he saw the monster jump out from the shadows of the trees, straight at him, instead of taking the shot like every instinct in his body shouted at him to do so, he just closed his eyes and braced himself.
After that, he doesn’t remember a lot. He faintly heard Dean yell, his dad’s hands pressing at his side in a painful manner, flashes of lights, and the Impala racing.
He does remember waking up. He remembers opening his eyes and feeling nothing but crushing disappointment. But he also remembers his brother’s concerned face, the shadows under his eyes, and the relief he showed at seeing him awake.
He remembers Dean hugging him, something wet on his shoulder as his brother whispered words of relief against him.
They never realized what Sam had done that night. It all became nothing more than a good scare, a too close call and Sam intended to keep it that way.
He could never make Dean go through that, would never do anything to hurt his brother so much.
He had been selfish, too busy wallowing in his own misery to realize the type of consequences his actions would have on Dean.
He watched his brother fall asleep on the chair next to his hospital bed and promised to never do that again.
--
The second time Sam tried to kill himself he is 26 years old and is five minutes after his first attempt... that is also a lie.
The second time he tries to kill himself, the real one, it’s when he is 18 and has been two months into his first semester at Stanford.
One thing that a lot of people say to freshmen when they first arrive on the campus is that getting into college is the easy part, staying in college is the hard one.
For Sam, getting into Stanford had been nearly impossible already.
He remembers countless nights studying in the backseat of the Impala, reading under motel bedsheets, and completing assignments with busted ribs and torn knuckles.
He thinks of the fight that broke when he told his dad and brother about his full ride, he thinks of the fist to the jaw, his father’s harsh words, and his brother’s sad eyes, but silent mouth.
He remembers the sound of the door closing as he left the motel room, the long and silent bus ride to California, and his silent phone as he waited for his brother to call only for it to never happen.
So, Sam can say that getting into college was almost impossible, because while his mind yelled freedom as he walked into the campus, a part of him longed to go back home.
But, they were right. Staying in college is the hardest part. The routine and the monotony of it all is unfamiliar, the coursework is harder and the small talk with other students about their childhoods feels hollow when Sam can never tell any true story without having them all stare at him with pity and concern.
So, when Sam receives his grade on one of his papers and realizes he is failing the class, it feels like the last nail in the coffin.
Suddenly, he fears having his scholarship taken away and having to go back to his family like a dog with its tail between his legs. It feels like defeat.
It feels as if life is telling him he has nowhere to go, he didn’t belong with family and hunting, but he didn’t belong in college with a normal life. He doesn’t belong anywhere.
There is something wrong with him.
Sam crumbles the paper as he takes a long look at the sleeping pills he bought from another student at the welcoming party. For a moment he takes the orange tube with the pills inside and imagines himself swallowing them all.
But he knows it would all end with his dad finding out and saying something along the lines of ‘I told him so’ and ‘I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it’. He knows that when Dean found out it would kill him.
He would blame himself. Sam couldn’t let his brother spend the rest of his life carrying that guilt.
He threw the pills away and prepared to go speak to his professor for some extra credit activity.
--
Somewhere between finding out about the demon blood inside of him and Dean’s deal, somewhere between the aftermath, Sam considered it again.
It was for more than a couple of days that that idea danced along his brain. Would the deal still be on if he was dead?
He didn’t know.
And he could risk checking out if there was still a chance his brother would end up being dragged down to hell anyways.
So he didn’t.
Even if a part of him wanted it.
--
When Sam died... for the first time, he was 24, barely. He had died on his birthday after all.
But, when he died, a part of him had been relieved. Dying meant no more fearing what the demon’s big plans for him were, it was freedom.
He doesn’t remember what happened to him after he died. He doenst remmeber hell nor heaven.
It felt like sleeping in some ways.
He remembers waking up after. He remembers feeling disappointed.
He remembers falling asleep after and missing the peace he had felt in his supposedly final moments.
He remembers missing it.
--
If Sam kept on being honest with himself, he would admit that his third attempt was walking inside that church to kill Lilith.
A part of him thought he would die alongside her. A part of him hoped so.
Dying a hero was way better than surviving and having to deal with Dean’s disappointment and disgust.
It would be better than forcing Dean to kill him.
But, it didn’t work out that way.
He killed Lilith, but he was not a hero. He was a monster, the one who had ended the world.
And the worst part? He was still alive at the end of it all.
--
His...
He doesn’t know.
Between all the dying and Lucifer bringing him back, he lost count.
He tries everything.
And every time he opens his eyes to something cold touching what feels like the foundations of his very soul.
He hates it every time.
But, he is anything but stubborn. He takes the pills, blades, bullet, and rope to try it all again.
And he keeps opening his fucking eyes.
--
His second to last attempt it’s accidental, so he is not sure if it would count.
After Famine and the blood. After the worst Valentine's Day that could exist, Sam walks into the panic room at Bobby’s, in defeat.
Dean and Castiel watch him enter, unable to meet his gaze, but so is Sam. He walks into the room and tries not to flinch when the door closes behind him with a loud thud.
He sits on the bed and waits for the tremors, the hallucinations, and the pain. He waits for death.
He knows how detoxing for normal drugs works, he knows the dangers of going cold turkey, and he supposes that a supernatural drug can’t be much better.
And he knows how close he was to dying after his first detox.
He lays on the bed and feels the first symptoms start, then he is screaming until his voice gives out, then there is nothing.
He wakes up and knows what happened. Knows that the only reason he opened his eyes again it’s because of Lucifer.
He could have told Dean, Bobby, or even Castiel, what would happen when they locked him in this room. That detox would kill him.
But he didn’t want to.
Maybe because he was scared that they would make him go through it anyways, or because he hoped that daying while in detox would make Lucifer unable to bring him back.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He still opened his eyes after dying.
As always.
--
The thing is, Sam never was one to back away from a challenge.
There was nothing in this world that inspired Sam Winchester more than spite.
It's what got him to college and what kept him there.
So, when Lucifer tells him that he is his vessel, his true one, the one made and bred for him only, Sam’s first instinct it's to find a way to not be it.
He is more than ready to die if that ensured that Lucifer would not win, but the devil only smile and told him he would just bring him back.
That was the challenge.
Sam awoke with one mission on his mind.
He had breakfast and then put a bullet in his head.
He did not hesitate or leave a note behind.
He was testing Lucifer’s promise. Testing a theory.
It wasn’t like when he was 14 or 18, when he knew that him dying would break Dean. Because Dean no longer cared, had actually promised he would kill him after all. He had driven him away, had become a monster beyond saving and his brother was a hunter after all. It was nature.
But Sam had always tried to make his big brother’s burdens a little lighter, and while he had always failed at doing so, he still tried to.
When he woke up and spit out a single, unmarked bullet, he scoffed.
Then he swallowed a whole packet of sleeping pills.
He woke again.
So, he then slit his wrists in the bathtub of the dirty motel room.
Then he tried to hang himself from the ceiling.
Crashing a stolen car into a tree.
Jumping from the bridge of the town.
But he always died to open his eyes after.
--
His final and successful suicide attempt is when he is 27, a week after his birthday.
It's truly a miracle he lived to that age... well, not exactly a miracle since it's all thanks to Lucifer and his demons.
Apparently, his whole life had been full of those.
It doesn’t matter now, though.
He has the devil inside of him and the keys to his prison in his hands.
For the first time in his life, he can say that he is in control. This is probably the first decision he is going to take in his life that does not have the manipulation of others affecting it.
His first act of free will, and his last.
Maybe he doomed himself when he tried to kill himself at fourteen, suicide is a sin after all. So maybe, all that has happened ever since is his punishment, atonement.
Or maybe, this is the closest to salvation a creature like him can have.
His first decision and his last. Dying.
It’s salvation, damnation, and redemption all in one, in the way that it could only make sense in the fucked up mess that is Sam Winchester’s life.
It fits him.
A part of him believes it’s more than he deserves. Another, the younger part of him that used to stand up to his dad, says that it’s unfair. That he deserved at least a choice, a chance at the happy ending, the safe one.
But, the truth it’s, that he wants it to just end.
Ever since he killed Lilith he has wanted nothing more than to have stayed dead after being stabbed in the back. He used to feel guilty about thinking that, felt ungrateful at even thinking that when Dean exchanged everything for him.
But that was before.
Because now he knows that Dean regrets it too... he told him so in that voicemail.
He looks at his brother's bruised and battered face and takes a step toward hell. Then two.
Then three.
He closes his eyes and lets himself fall.
He hopes, prays, and begs that he does not get to open his eyes again.
But he does, he always does. There is no rest for the damned.