Nicholas: Yo, guys. I haven't been posting on this site lately. Most of my stuff is going to LiveJournal, but that's beside the point. This is all Spacey's fault for once. I asked he for a challenge to Scar Tissue, by RHCP, but she was already writing one, so I felt crushed. To make myself feel better, I wrote this. When I reread it, I realised that it didn't really stand on it's own, thus the part two in the next chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Would you like to add insult to injury and assume that I also own this song? Yes? Well, FUCK YOU!! (*giggles* I love you)

Rating: M...this chapter is mild, just mentions of sex and wincest...the next one...sex, real sex...mentions of torture...

"Other Side"

How long, how long
Will I slide?
Separate my side
I don't, I don't believe
It's bad
Slitting my throat
It's all I ever…

I've been there and I have to admit: it's not a nice place. I know exactly where it started, too. I remember distinctly that I grew up to love women. There's hardly been a woman I've known that I haven't loved. Of course, Ellen is a mom so she's not really what I'd consider the gender. This is probably a very "Alfie" thing for me to say. No one has quite understood the need to just take a few hours away from the world and love a body like you'll never love again. Then when the night is over, the pain is back and the memories are already fading.

Sam was always there when I got home. I would come in whatever cheap-ass motel that Dad had left us in and my baby brother would be there, no matter how crappy I felt having left Jane or Mary or whatever her name was off on a street corner, Sammy's wide smile would make me feel better. We would sit, talk and watch TV until he fell asleep. I would look at him and know exactly where I was going.

I heard your voice through a photograph
Thought it up and brought up the past
Once you know you can never go back
I gotta take it on the other side.

Dad never got a picture where Sam wasn't scowling at the lens so hard you would think he was trying to break it. I knew that it was because Sam didn't like cameras. Still, I always managed to coax him into a photo shoot during the few rare times that Dad had gotten his hands on a camera that still worked. The most recent one was when Sam had hit puberty and was growing like a weed. I was eighteen and at fourteen, he was almost my height. At the time, I didn't quite understand the importance the picture would have on me, but now…

Now when I come home and I remember that Sam isn't there, I look at the picture. I think of the pouty, whiny child who was standing next to me with his arms crossed over his chest. Looking at it made me think of how he must be at college, and it hurts a bit. What I wouldn't give for just a picture of him smiling and happy, but…the dumb fuck was just so stubborn. It was so hard to remember him the way he was, but what I wouldn't have given to have those happy images in mind. As I laid back in bed, picture held above me, free hand over my crotch, I knew exactly where I was going.

Centuries not what it meant to me
The cemetery where I married the sea
Stranger things have never changed my mind
I gotta take it on the other side
Take it on the other side
Take it on…Take it on…

Dad had ditched me. I bet the jerk-off was off getting drunk somewhere. No word, no call, he'd just up and left before I got back from that banshee down in New Orleans. As the days passed, I was starting to worry. I had had time to work a haunting without any word from the man and I was standing beside a burning grave when my hand slipped into my pocket. Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled out my wallet and that photo that Dad didn't know I still kept with me.

I missed Sam so much. If he were here, I would have someone to talk to, to badmouth the old man and lay clever pranks in his bed to await his return. Looking at Sammy's young face, forever immortalized on paper, I let the dread seep in that Dad wasn't coming back. He'd left me, like Sam had left me. The betrayal was just too much to be normal. I picked up the shovel to start refilling the hole, but then I couldn't help it. I slammed the metal tip in the ground and fell to my knees. The bastards…How could they leave me alone? They wouldn't if they knew where I was going.

How long, how long
Will I slide
Separate my side
I don't, I don't believe
It's bad
Slitting my throat
It's all I ever…

I hadn't expected—or wanted—it to go down like it had. When Sam had agreed to give me a weekend of his life at school to help me find Dad, I almost jumped for joy. It was true, we made on hell of a team now that we were both older and able to hold our own. But then how that weekend ended, neither of us had been prepared. The smell of burning flesh had brought back what little memories I had of Mom.

As I stood beside him, looking into the trunk of the car Dad had left me, I gave myself deep breaths. Sam was practically quaking so hard I could fell the air move. I wanted to turn and tell him how bad I felt that he'd lost his girlfriend like that, but I couldn't lie to him. I wasn't overjoyed that she was out of the picture—I mean, hell, that was a horrible way to die—but I had my Sammy back now. God, if he only knew where I was going.

Put my life into a paper cup
The ashtray's full and I'm spilling my guts
She wanted to know am I still a slut
I gotta take it on the other side.

I never thought Sam minded it when I took over the motel room for a few hours or left for a night. I had to get some relief, and since the preferred way was off-limits, a hooker was good. About once a week, the rhythmic breathing of my baby brother as he slept next to me was just a bit too much. Quickies in the shower with my own hand had stopped helping a while ago, so this was a bit of a necessity. I just never thought he was so annoyed by it until he yelled at me.

"You're such a slut," he'd accused one night when I'd returned. I was caught off-guard and wide-eyed. This wasn't the Sam I knew from so long ago when I used to share my stories of busty beauties. "What was her name this time?"

I coughed awkwardly. Nowadays, "she" was a loose term, so I turned a bit red under his gaze. I had to look away. "Michael," I replied flatly.

He scoffed, but didn't poke fun like I'd expected him to. In fact, he took the fact that his big brother just got done fucking a man pretty lightly. Maybe that meant that he was…nope, I'm not going to go there. Sam wasn't gay, he was mourning a dead girlfriend. Still, I knew that tonight while he was either sleeping or having a nightmare-induced fit, I would be busy with one hand and myself. Wherever I'm going, I'm running there.

Scarlet Starlet and she's in my bed
My candidate for a soul mate bled
Push the trigger and I pull the thred
I gotta take it on the other side
Take it on the other side
Take it on…Take it on

"So Dean…" he began lightly, over a newspaper and nasty, black coffee in a Styrofoam cup. "When did you decide that you're gay?"

I stopped in the middle of pulling my boot on. Being that he hadn't brought it up for a week, I thought it was completely dropped. Apparently it wasn't as long as he was searching for something other than awkward conversation. "I'm not." Looking sharply at him, I tried not to sound so angry.

"Who was it last night? Jake would disagree." I hadn't seen that happy grin for so long that I didn't want to spoil it with a comeback.

Instead, I just laughed to myself and yanked my boot over my heel. "I'm not gay for just anyone, you know. I still like chicks. It's just when I see tall, lean, hard-bodied and fuckable, I take advantage." We shared a laugh in good humor for the first time in a long time, but I chased away the thought of who I had just described. He hadn't noticed how damned I am.

How long, how long
Will I slide?
Separate my side
I don't, I don't believe
It's bad
Slitting my throat
It's all I ever…

I knew it had been risky as soon as I found out the guy's name. I just couldn't resist the beautiful irony of it. My brother had developed a hobby of keeping track of my lovers. Every week he'd ask me and I think he was keeping a poll of male vs female. I knew he'd ask this time, so why had I been so stupid? Still, man had I enjoyed screaming "SAM!" at the top of my lungs as that one-night stand swallowed me whole.

"You serious?" my little brother asked me when I'd told him. "You didn't find that just a bit creepy? or even a slight turn off?" He wasn't being pushy or hot-headed, just dangerously curious.

"No, Sam, I didn't." I'm going to hell.

Turn me on, take me for a hard ride
Burn me out leave me on the other side
I yell and tell it
That it's not my friend
I tear it down, I tear it down
And then it's born again

I have no idea when, how or why it had happened. It had been more than a year since Sam had lost his interest in my love-life and we had already been through so much. When he'd disappeared, I'd freaked. My body ached from his absence and then when I found him just in time to see him die like that, something audibly snapped. It's an unhealthy obsession I have with my baby brother, and I knew I was going to hell. What difference did it make whether or not I sold my soul before I got there?

It was some time during the week before I was supposed to die for saving Sammy. I'm pretty sure he had instigated the whole pressing me against a wall, tongue-fucking my mouth and holding me so hard hell-hounds wouldn't be able to rip me away. God, how he had made love to me that night was everything I'd fantasized and more. Afterwards, I tried not to cry like a baby at the thought that I wasn't going to get this again once the deal was done. For the first time in a long time I said those words. "I love you, Sammy." I went to hell before I could say them again.

How long, how long
Will I slide?
Separate my side
I don't, I don't believe
It's bad
Slitting my throat
It's all I ever had

They ripped and carved and tore at me in ways that you…till there was nothing left. And then, suddenly, I would be whole again…like magic; so they could start in all over again. God, all the times I died and died again; all of the agonizing torment, rape and dismemberment and mind-fucks; I hadn't been prepared to come back. I was just starting to get back the dignity I had lost when I tortured all of those others. I can still hear Alistair laughing in my head, feel those sickening claws hold me down and rip me to shreds. Like I said before, I've been to the other side, and it is not a nice place.

I'm back now, I'm alive. I never thought it would hurt so much to look at Sammy with all of that weighing down on my conscience. But then, he held me, kissed me, and I told him to never let go again.

I don't, I don't believe
It's sad
Slitting my throat
It's all I ever…