I Really Messed Up, Guys: A Supernatural Self Harm Fic

Boundaries, Cas, Boundaries

She squeezed her brother tighter before letting go. "Casey, we wouldn't do that to you unless we really had to. You know that, right?" Sam looked earnestly at Casey. She nodded slowly. "We want to keep you safe by ourselves. But you have to work with us. If it's just me and Dean trying it's not gonna work. We'll end up frustrated and you'll just be pissed. Nothing will change. You have to help too," he pressed.

Casey nodded again and looked at the ground. "Is everything going to change now?" she whispered. She knew the answer already, but maybe, if she hoped enough, she would discover she was wrong and the boys would be content to keep pretending everything was alright and nothing had happened.

"Yeah, kiddo. It is. This obviously isn't working, so we've gotta change some things before we figure out our next move," Dean confirmed. He rubbed his free hand against the back of his head, taking comfort in the prickly buzz of his hair.

"How do we know what is going to work?" she asked.

"Trial and error probably," Sam interjected. "We know this doesn't work. So we can put this on the error list and figure out something different. How about we start our trials with having you talk to us?" His hint wasn't subtle, but he wanted to get the point across. There was no point in having family if you were going to walk the road alone anyway. Casey had family. It was small, but it was full of more love than the Bradys had. She had two brothers and an angel of the Lord on her side. If she couldn't talk to one of them, who was there to talk to?

Casey let out an exasperated huff and walked back into the room, dropping onto one of the beds. "I don't want to talk. About any of this. I just want things to be normal again."

The three followed her lead into the bedroom. Sam sat beside her, Dean rested on a chair, and Castiel stood awkwardly by the door.

"That's too bad, sister. You got three pairs of ears waiting for you, right here." Dean rested his ankle on top of his other knee and leaned back, waiting for her to speak.

There was a strong thirty seconds of silence before Castiel decided he should begin. "Would you rather speak to one of us individually?" Casey shook her head. "Would you prefer me to not be here? I understand that this is a family matter. I won't be offended if that is the case."

Casey shook her head fiercely. "Castiel, you are family."

Castiel smiled softly. "I consider you to be my family as well, Cassandra. Why don't you want to talk, though? We aren't going to judge you. We only want to know what's going on. What's making you so sad that you feel the need to hurt yourself?"

Casey paused for a moment and fiddled with her thumbs. She shrugged. "I don't know, I guess. I get overwhelmed. And this helps. It always has," she replied. She seriously did not want to have this discussion. Hadn't the day been long enough already? Why drag it out even more? And what was the point of explaining what they wouldn't understand? It would only end up making somebody mad or hurting somebody's feelings, probably both.

"How long has this been happening, Casey?" Sam asked coolly, trying to detach himself from the conversation before he became too full of emotion.

She pursed her lips. "Six years." The room went stone still. If it was quiet before, it was like the bottom of Mariana's trench with the voidance of sound in the room. The first noise to break the tension was the creak of the desk chair spinning. Everybody's heads snapped up to see that Dean had twirled it to face the wall. One hand went up to his face briefly, then he tilted his head toward the sky, like he was praying. It took Casey a moment to realize that he wasn't praying, but trying to pull tears back into his eyes before they had the chance to fall. An invisible bocce ball was blasted into her stomach, taking her breath away and making her gasp sharply to find some air to fill her lungs. Dean was crying. She'd made Dean cry.