Trigger warnings: Suicide attempt

Prompt by cosmic_medusa: Sam contracts mono early at Stanford and essentially loses the semester, and then his scholarship. With nowhere to go and no way to pay, he attempts suicide. The school contacts Bobby, who tracks down John and Dean. Dean arrives in California to save the day. Gen please. :)

"I'm sorry, Sam. It's been weeks."

"You can't do this. Look, I've been out sick. I e-mailed-"

"Once. Six weeks ago. Usually we work with students, but you've already said you haven't seen a doctor."

"I know. I know, but-"

"I'm sorry, Sam. I really am, but your scholarship was dependent on attendance and grade point average. You being out so long – I'm afraid there's just no way for you to make up for it this semester."

"What can I do?"

"Well, you can retake these classes in autumn. Your admittance isn't being revoked-"

"Just no scholarship?"

"Right. I'm sorry."

Over.

And over. On repeat, constantly. He could hear that woman's voice, hear his own voice, hear the phone call that followed, the "We're very sorry to have to tell you…" and the "We wish you the best of luck with your academic pursuits!"

For a minute there, because of the normalcy of the last year, he considered student loans.

Yeah. Applying through FAFSA, mixing the Feds with the Winchesters? Solid plan.

Sprawled out on a bare mattress, Sam stared at his ceiling.

"-effective immediately-"

No rent money. It was due in three days. And his landlord wasn't the forgiving type. Sam'd been late one time three months ago and every month since the guy had been on his case like white on rice.

Winchesters had pretty solid immune systems. They didn't do sick, not really. Bloody and beaten, sure. Never killed'em. Just made'em stronger.

And he got taken out by mono. Freaking mono.

Sometimes, at night when the past crept into his thoughts and kept him awake, Sam theorized about what it would be that eventually got him. What would be the straw that'd break the camel's back and get him thrown out of school.

A shifter. He always figured a shifter – or maybe a ghost. Ghosts were everywhere.

In the worst-case scenario it'd be a demon. The demon.

Not mono.

It was so normal, so benign and unassuming that he barked out a bitter laugh and felt his eyes sting with tears.

He knew what it was when the fatigue and exhaustion crept in. Bed rest, lots of it. Sam basically hibernated through most of early spring.

Because kind of like student loans, the hospital hadn't been an option. Hospitals meant insurance and insurance meant questions.

No doctor's notes. No scholarship. No loans. No get out of jail free card.

And the kicker? The cherry on top of the crap cake?

He couldn't go home. Sam couldn't ever go home.

Dad made that crystal clear.

Even Dean was… even Dean had been so upset. And he'd been alone with dad for months now and Sam wasn't dumb enough to think they were exactly singing his praises. The two of them were probably better off anyway.

Sam wanted normal and he got normal all right.

It's just normal sucked just as much as the abnormal. Actually, it was worse. Because now he was alone.

Careful what you wish for, he figured. But then what was the other option? Live hard and die young like Dean planned on doing?

At least Dean and dad – at least they were saving lives.

Maybe Sam would… maybe he'd go out on his own? Hunt solo?

It was a pretty surefire way to get killed off quick. Sam was good, he knew his lore, but dad was the expert.

Stanford and the life that came with it was more out of reach than ever. No matter what he did, good grades, working hard, earning the scholarship and impressing professors and administration alike, it was all still ripped away so easily, like it was nothing. So maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Live hard, die young. No light at the end of the hunting tunnel.

Maybe that was the way to get through it.

Sam wanted to live. He wanted life.

But it wasn't going to happen. It would've been ripped away at some point, by something. It was just bitter irony, God laughing, universal karma that it was something as mundane as an illness that did it.

Sam wanted to live for life, but life wasn't going to happen.

Sam would live for his family. But that door was shut. It wasn't going to happen.

Sam didn't want to live to die. And that's where the path, hunting alone, would lead him. Where it forced him to be.

Maybe it would be better for everyone to just duck out. Easy and quiet, like blowing out a candle.

He didn't want to think about it any more.

It was quiet, barely dusk, except for Sam's bare feet padding to the kitchen. He set a pencil and a post it on the counter and stared at it.

A note. It seemed like that was something he should do for this kind of thing, but who was he writing to? What was there to even say?

He had a lot of thoughts, lots of reasons, but really they all just blurred into one big mess, none of it coherent or important. None of it mattered.

He thought of Dean. Thought of dad. Thought of how they left everything between them, how twisted and ugly and angry it all was.

Sorry

Sam frowned at his handwriting. He turned and grabbed one of the sharper kitchen knives and walked back to his bedroom.

He eased onto the bare mattress, stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, and looked down at his wrist. Thick and blue, the knife cut through his vein pretty easy. Sam winced, it hurt, but it left an aftertaste. A weird sense of relief, like a weight on his chest floating away.

He laid back and closed his eyes, tried to relax himself, tried to ignore the pulsing wound, the steady stream of warm blood trickling through his fingers.

Brady found him in the same spot forty minutes later, unresponsive in a red pool that soaked into the mattress.

"Singer Salvage."

"Is this Robert – uh –Singer?"

"Who's askin'?"

"Mr. Singer, we've got you listed as a next of kin emergency contact for Samuel-"

Bobby white knuckled the telephone.

"-Winchester. Sam is one of our students here at Stanford. We've just learned that Sam is in the intensive care unit at Saint Margret's."

"You got any clue what happened?" Bobby asked, a million scenarios coming to mind.

The brief dead air on the other line was tense. Palpable.

"The doctor informed us that it may have been an attempted suicide. We wanted to advise you that Stanford is more than willing to work with Sam – we have numerous resources fo-"

"This hospital got an address?"

They exchanged information, the young man on the other line spewing hurried details, Bobby answering with indifferent grunts. The call met its abrupt end, Bobby hanging up the second he had what he needed.

Possession? Ghosts had pulled things like this before.

10 minutes and a bit of Internet digging didn't reveal hints of any kind of recent hauntings or mysterious murders in Palo Alto.

Demon. Ghoul?

Something. It has to be something, because it couldn't be anything else. It was something supernatural because the normal answer..?

The supernatural Bobby could deal with. Rock salt and a flask. Maybe a little iron for good measure.

Normal. Bobby had nothin' when it came to normal.

Couldn't do nothin'. Not a Goddamn thing.

John was an ornery son of a bitch but if he didn't pick up, well, Bobby could do a Goddamn thing in that case.

The phone rang twice, picked up on the third.

"Bobby," came the gruff, clearly unhappy hello.

"Sam's in the hospital."

And that's all it took.

"Sammy..?"

"Dean-"

"Jesus – dad, look."

Sam

Someone held his hand. His wrist – it hurt. Tender.

"Jesus- what the hell? He's not possessed?"

"I checked."

"Sulfur?"

Silence. Dead quiet but so much said in a glance.

"…Sammy, why… why would you…?"

More silence. The grip on his wrist tightened. He winced.

"Sam?"

He peeled open his eyes. Two blurry silhouettes came into view. Two faces bled out from the shadow.

"Dad?" he croaked, "Dean?"

Relief. Relief and something else in their eyes. Pity? No. Not pity. But something..-

"I'm going to sort out the insurance."

"Dad, c'mon, now? Are you-" Dean's condemnation died on his lips. Dad was out the door.

Dean turned his eyes back on his little brother who looked little, pale and tired and as much a ghost as any they'd ever hunted.

"Sammy… what the hell were you thinking?"

It took Sam a long while, what felt like an eternity, to pull his gaze away from the righteous fury – the ocean of concern in those blazing green eyes. He looked at his wrist. Ugly purple and yellow skin peeked out from under the bandage. He'd cut deep.

Sam was no amateur. He'd cut to kill. So why hadn't he…. Why wasn't he...-

"Sam!"

Dean…was he…? No way, it-

"..are you crying?" Sam rasped.

"Bitch," Dean barked, glaring, gripping his brother tight, afraid if he let go then… "Sammy. You don't get to quit on me. You try it again, I'll kill you myself."

"Jerk," Sam softly replied, eyes back on his wounded flesh.

I love you guys and your comments and you're totally awesome and I also really love having free time because school isn't sucking the life out of my like a shtriga anymore. Anyway, I'll be going back and revisiting some of the other stories I set up in here like Reunion and the Demon Dean one. Main goal is to get Truth Syrup finished as well as my Naruto story.

But I will keep updating this with random prompts because it gets the creative juices flowing and there's just soooo many good prompts on the OhSam LJ comment meme thingy. So... yea! Anyway, part II for this coming soon :)

Pls comment I loooove those notification emails it's like demon blood, so addictive.