AN: Ahhhh! Finally, I'm getting my Dean/Haley stories out there. In case any Outskirts of Nowhere fans are reading this, I just wanted to say I am sooo very sorry that story hasn't been updated in awhile, but what can I say? My muse for that story escaped. Yep, she snuck out the window while I was sleeping. Hopefully, this is where you can all get your Dean/Haley fics. Oh! And also, I'm working on a collection of Sam Winchester/Brooke Davis stories too. It's going to be called Haven, so you should definitely look out for that.

Title: Swallowing Razorblades

Summary: He has scars on his soul, she has scars on her wrists.....

Words: 4, 705

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Haley James

Timeline: SPN: Pre-series, OTH: Alternate Universe.

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Romance

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, One Tree Hill, or any of the characters. Even though I wish I owned Dean Winchester so he could be my private slave...ahem....*coughsexcough* slave. Oh yeah, and I do not own the songs featured in this oneshot.

WARNING: This story has mentions of self mutilation and strong angst. You might need your tissues.

Swallowing Razorblades

Written by Becks Rylynn

a fragile flame aged
is misery
and when our hearts meet
i know you see

i do not want to be afraid
i do not want to die inside just to breathe in
i'm tired of feeling so numb
relief exists i find it when
i am cut

-plumb, cut

--

The first time he sees Haley James, her father has just died a mysterious death that later turns out to be the work of an angry spirit. There's something about her that he just can't put his finger on. Something very sad, something very frightening. Her eyes are hollow and empty and for a second before he leaves, he hesitates, almost as if he senses what she is thinking about. Almost as if he knows what she is going to do. Almost like he can see through her mask and straight inside to the black mass that is her soul. Why can he see right through her? Simple.

He's just like her.

He's empty inside too, he's got scars that won't heal, he's got pain, he's tired, (so tired) he wants to give up too. The only difference is she is brave enough to try.

The second time he sees Haley James, she is bleeding to death on her bathroom floor, wrists slashed sloppily, dried tears marking her face. She looks up through blurry eyes and asks him to let her go. He doesn't listen.

When she opens her eyes in the hospital and he's still there, slumped in a chair, eyes blank and emotionless, she only has one question for him. It's not why did you save me? It's not why are you here? It's not even who the fuck are you? No. When Haley James opens her chocolate eyes, she looks at him, really looks at him, searching deep in green eyes and she asks, ''Don't you want to know what it was like?''

He closes his eyes and remembers his mother. He remembers his father's drunken ramblings about how his mother burned on the ceiling. He remembers Sammy leaving. He remembers a lot of things he wishes he forgot. He remembers yellow eyes. And he shakes his head and lies, ''No.''

The third time he sees Haley James, it's two months later and the head shrinkers have told her she is sane enough to be on her own. They believe she can be on her own and not cut herself open just to watch herself bleed. He knows better. He's not stupid.

She'll try it again.

Just like he'll dream of trying it.

He waits for her outside the hospital, leaning against his car and trying to think of the words to say. When she comes out, sleeves over her hands, eyes shifting around nervously, he takes a breath that doesn't feel like it reaches his lungs and stands straight. Her eyes land on him and she freezes, her terrified eyes meeting his. She moves closer, crossing the street and when she's close enough, she breathes and asks him why he's here.

He pauses, tries to say something and after a moment, he shakes his head and says, ''Get in the car, Brown Eyes.''

She listens, he's not sure why, but she does. Before she climbs in the car, she asks him why he cares and the wind catches her hair, pulling auburn strands away from her face.

He says he doesn't know. He says there's just something about her.

She quietly accepts that answer and gets in the car.

They're both broken beyond repair, they're both just waiting until the day death comes for them, whether it's by their own hand or something out of their control. They both have past sins to cry over. They both have scars too deep to ever fade. They both have things they need to be punished for. Or things they believe they need to be punished for. The truth is, none of the things that have happened in their pasts are their fault. But they won't believe you if you tell them that, so don't try.

For now, they'll wait for death together.

--

She'd be fine without training. Hello, we're talking about a suicidal chick here, of course she doesn't want to learn to stay alive. He ignores her protests and teaches her everything she needs to know to stay alive. She soaks it in like she was born to be.....

...one of them.

That makes him feel sick inside, because a girl like her, with a light so bright even hidden under the dark, shouldn't be doomed to shadows. He almost tells her this once, but can't make the words come out. She looks at him and speaks, like she can read his mind. ''You didn't doom me, Dean.''

''What did I do?''

She blinks and looks straight into his eyes. ''You saved me.''

Her first hunt is a wendigo. It hides deep in the woods and they follow it into the cold and dark wilderness. And guess what?

She doesn't die.

She's been on the road with him for six months and she hasn't died yet when he finally asks her what's keeping her from sneaking out while he's asleep and offing herself. It's insensitve and probably the stupidest thing he could have said, not to mention the wording could have been a hell of a lot better. But he says it anyways, because sometimes she just seems so sad that he really doesn't understand what's keeping her here.

''You're asking me what's keeping me alive?'' She asks, her voice low, her eyes out the window.

He nods and his hands curl tight around the steering wheel. ''Yes, Haley, I'm asking you what's keeping you alive.''

She pauses, he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Her lips purse and finally, she smiles a smile that isn't really a smile and looks at him. ''You.''

He takes that in for a moment and then clears his throat, because he's not sure what to say to that. Her smile widens, but it's not pleasant, and she leans a little closer to him, whispering in his ear. ''What's keeping you here, Dean?''

Honestly? He has no fucking clue.

--

It's raining when he breaks.

She's told him how much she loves the rain, she's told him how she used to dance in it with her father. It rains one night and he goes outside to find out what she loves about it. All he feels is freezing bullets raining down on him, but he doesn't have the will to go inside and get warm. He likes the cold. He always feels cold anyways, so it's not much of a difference. So he stands outside in the pouring rain, listening to the voices in his head until he starts to shiver.

It's not from the cold.

It's from something else.

His mother loved him once. When she was alive. She was beautiful, with blonde waves and the kindest smile in the world. She was gentle and soft and the opposite of his father and she wanted him to have a good life. He remembers his mother like Sam never will, and wishes he didn't. He thinks maybe it would be easier if he didn't remember his mother. He thinks it would be easier if she was just a blurry memory in his head. That's not how it is. He can see her in his mind and the image is perfect and not blurred at all. That stings like salt in an open wound.

His father loved him once. Before the ceiling and the flames and the yellow eyes. He had a nice, strong, gentle smile and he wanted his sons to grow up to be like their mother, because she was the best thing he had ever had. His father is not like that anymore. All his father is now is a shell of bitterness and grief and all he wants is perfect little soldiers to fight in his army, to destroy the yellow eyed son of a bitch that took away the most important thing to him. That hurts like a bullet wound. Because Dean's sure if his father loved Dean, if his father loved Sam, he could find a better reason to live then just revenge. He guesses his father never really loved him.

His brother loved him once. Sam. The name rolls around in his head and hurts the worst of all. His brother wanted it all. A normal life, an education, a girlfriend, a family. He didn't want guns and knives and motel rooms. He didn't want revenge. He just wanted to move on. Sam. A voice in his head says the name again and he jerks, like a fish out of water. Sam Winchester had meant everything to his brother. Sam Winchester had been the only thing keeping Dean Winchester from blowing his brains out some days. And now he was gone. Off to live normal life, off to forget all about the brother who would have done anything for him. He should hate Sam with everything he has because Sam left him all alone. But he doesn't know how. Sam, that voice whispers. He had done everything for that boy. He had fed him and clothed him, he had protected him, kept him alive, he had taken everything his father dished out on him for one reason and one reason only. So his baby brother could be spared. Sam. He wants to scream, but his voice gets caught in his throat. He raised that kid, he was more of a father then John Winchester ever was. And this is what he gets in return? This is how his brother repays him?

Sam.

Dean falls. Crumpling like a toy and wishing he had a blade to take it all away. To dull the pain and make him forget his brother's name. She finds him, drowning in his own tears and his own regret. He looks up at her through blurry eyes and asks her to let him go. She doesn't listen.

Later on, after hours of endless silence, she speaks up and her voice is cold and hard and her eyes are angry. ''So now you know what it feels like. Does that make you feel better?''

He looks at her with blank eyes, ''No.''

--

She kisses him first.

All his life, he's never had a girl kiss him first. He is Dean Winchester for god's sake. That's all he's good at. It's dark out and it's cold. He thinks it could be December, but to be honest, the days and weeks and months all blend together into indistinguishable blurs, passing by in dull colors.

He has a nightmare - a very common occurrence - and jerks awake to breathe, trying to push away the house on fire and the yellow eyes. When air returns and he can forget about the sight of his home burning, when he can ignore the smell of burnt flesh that he just knows is his mother's, he turns his eyes to the bed next to him and finds she's not there and there's light spilling into the darkened room from the bathroom door. She hasn't done anything for months, hasn't even tried, so normally, he'd go back to sleep and ignore it. He doesn't tonight. Because in the shadows, he hears something. He hears her crying.

He moves slowly, dreading what he knows he'll see. Sure enough, when he opens the bathroom door, all he sees is the red of her blood. She looks up through eyes blurred with tears and asks him not to let her go. He listens.

She bleeds on him, she bleeds on bed sheets, she bleeds on his shirt, the one she stole from him without apology, the one she wears every night, just to make him look her up and down, eyes lingering on the bare skin of her legs, but tonight he doesn't care. It's not deep enough for stitches, but it bleeds a lot and he knows he'll have to clean the bathroom before they go or the maid will think a murder has taken place. That would be bad. Amusing. But bad.

''I think I realized something tonight, Dean,'' she says, in a relatively calm voice as he cleans her up.

''Mmmhmm, and what's that, Hales?''

''I don't think....'' She pauses and he feels her hands on his face, bringing his eyes up to hers. She moves a little closer to him and her lips curve upwards in a barely there smile. ''I don't think I want to die. That's....That's good, right?''

He blinks and tries to form words. Finally, he clears his throat and stutters out an answer, ''Y-Yes, I think that's good.'' She looks at him for a moment and searches his eyes in an all too familiar way. He's not sure what she'll do next, he can't read her like he can read others. She's a mystery. Before he can ponder this more, she moves forwards with startling speed and crushes her lips onto his. He wonders for a moment if he should be doing this, if she's ready, if he's ready, but then she deepens the kiss and he kisses back. She's different then other girls (the understatement of the year) but he decides he likes that.

They don't go back to sleep tonight, (no, they don't do that, geez, get your mind out of the gutter) instead they spend all night talking. No...seriously. That really is what they do. He tells her everything about....everything. His father, his mother, his brother, everything he keeps inside. The Demon and it's yellow eyes, the fire that took it all away. She tells him of her father, the only person she had left, and her family, who abandoned her and her father when she was little. She tells him of her hometown, with it's drama and horribly gossipy townspeople, part of the reason she just wanted to escape.

And as the sun rises, she looks at him intently and asks him, ''Do you want to die, Dean?''

He waits a long time before he answers. ''I'm not sure.''

She smiles and tilts her head to the side. ''We'll have to work on that, won't we?''

--

The first time Haley James meets John Winchester, she pulls a gun on him. Really. Not her fault. The man broke into the room in the middle of the night, she was perfectly justified.

She was alone and when Dean checked his voicemail to find a message from his father saying he was ''coming for a visit'', he muttered a few choice swear words and high tailed it back to the motel room, barging into the room to find his girlfriend with a gun trained on his father. He'd be lying if he said he didn't think it was hot.

''Haley, it's okay, that's my Dad.''

She smirks and cocks her head to the side. ''I know,'' she says and then she pulls the trigger.

Once again, really. Not as bad as it sounds. Just a flesh wound. Just an arm graze, he'll be fine. She just doesn't like the stories her boyfriend has told her. Simple as that. To her, John Winchester may be a hero, but he is not a good father.

When John starts telling his son all about a new case, she speaks up, her voice laced with irritation. ''That's why you're here? To give him orders?''

''Who asked you?''

''Haley,'' Dean says, pinching the bridge of his nose. ''It's fine.''

''No, Dean, it is not fine.'' She purses her lips in a way only she can and takes a step closer to him. ''Are you really going to sit here and take this crap? You don't let anyone tell you what to do! You are Dean Winchester!''

He shakes his head and can't look at her, staring down at the floor like a child being scolded. He'd like to stand up to his father. You know what he'd really like to do? He'd really like to punch his father's lights out and tell him to go to hell, he'd like to take the orders his father gives them and shove them where the sun don't shine, but he doesn't do that. He's faced a lot of things in his life. None of them scare him like his father does.

''Come on!'' She stomps her foot and then grimaces like she can't believe she just stomped her foot. ''You're stronger than this. You're stronger than him.''

''Dean, kindly tell your girlfriend to keep her nose out of things that don't concern her.''

She lets out a bitter bark of laughter and whirls around to face John. ''Things that don't concern me? Your son concerns me. Obviously a lot more then he concerns you.'' She shoves a finger in his face, ''In case you haven't noticed, Johnny, I don't like you. I think you're a terrible excuse for a father. I'm amazed your boys aren't more fucked up than they already are!''

The elder Winchester scowls, ''What do you know, girly? You don't know us, you don't know my son.''

''I know him better than you do.''

Dean closes his eyes and clenches his fists. There's this feeling growing in his chest that he hasn't felt for awhile. He doesn't like it. In his head, he sees her red blood and feels rain and two voices blend together as they beg someone to let them go.

His father speaks through his son's mini breakdown and brings the younger Winchester back to feeling something other than pain. ''This is your new girl?'' John asks, dryly, eyebrow raised, clearly unimpressed. ''Huh. I don't like her.''

''Dean,'' her voice says, ''you can't stay silent forever.''

''Boy,'' his father's voice is rough and hard, not kind and gentle like a father's voice should be and now he remembers. His father never loved him like he should have. His father was never a father. His father was a drill seargent. His father was horrible. His father is the reason his Sammy left him all alone. ''Are you even listening? Look, you need to check out this case in Colorado. I don't have time.'' Time. Yeah. Right. His father never had time for anything. Never had time for Sammy's soccer games, or high school graduations, his father's time was spent looking for The Demon with yellow eyes, on the hunt, lost in revenge and cold, hard, dead eyes. ''Dean, you and your...girlfriend will go. That's an order.''

The magic words.

Green eyes snap open and he swallows, anger rising inside like fire as he looks his father straight in the eyes and takes a stand. For the first time in...ever. ''No,'' he folds his arms across his chest and smirks, tilting his head to the side. ''Sir.''

''Hmm,'' she beams and sits down on the bed, crossing her legs primly.

He gets the distinct impression that she's trying very hard not to stick her tongue out at the eldest Winchester.

John looks at his son for a moment, no doubt trying to decipher if the boy is simply bluffing. ''What do you mean no?''

''What do you think I mean? I mean no. Haley and I aren't going to Colorado. You want the case done? Go yourself, Dad. I'm tired of this.''

His father sighs and rubs his forehead, ''Dean, if this is some kind of game....''

Dean rolls his eyes. ''It's not a game.'' He takes a breath and looks at Haley. She doesn't give him anything. He has to do this on his own. Theoretically, it would be easier to stick to the life he knows, but he doesn't want to do that anymore. It's too hard. All he wants to do is feel like he's okay, like he belongs and so far the only place he knows he belongs is with Haley. Shaking his head, Dean looks at John and thread keeping their fragmented relationship is cut, when Dean decides to save himself and not his father. ''I'm tired of being afraid of you, Dad.''

He'd like to say his father made an emotional speech and said he was sorry, he'd like to say John Winchester vowed to be a better father. He'd like to say his father accepted Haley and gave up revenge to give his sons a better life. But that would be a lie. The truth is, that was the last time Dean saw his father.

He'd like to say that bothers him.

Truthfully, he can't.

--

One Year Later:

He remembers their conversation in the hospital vividly. To this day. It's hard to forget, it will never be forgotten, it's something that is burned into his brain forever. Her wrists were cut and bleeding through bandages, his soul was shattered into a million pieces because of the way he lived. She said, ''Don't you want to know what it was like?''

He lied and answered, ''No.''

There are a lot of bad things he remembers about those first months. Bleeding on bathroom floors, breaking in the rain, her suicidal tendencies, his father. But he wouldn't give any of it up because it's what got him....

....here.

The sound of the phone ringing is not what awakens him from his slumber. He could easily ignore that. He cannot, however, ignore her slapping him. Groaning, he buries his face in his pillow and mumbles something incoherent.

''Dean, get the phone before I beat you with it.''

Oh, he's so lucky he's got her. Isn't she a charmer?

He grunts in response, but reaches over and grabs his cellphone anyways, mentally cursing whoever is calling at this time of day. ''What?'' His voice is sharp and cold, but he figures he has a right, considering he has been very rudely awakened.

''Dean?''

He sighs and runs a hand over his face, sitting up. ''Bobby? What's wrong? You sound like something's wrong.'' Beside him, she grabs his pillow and puts it over her head with a groan. The morning sunlight glistens on her skin and he sees the scars on her wrists, but he's so used to them by now, they don't make him feel anything.

On the other side, Bobby sighs and Dean just knows this is going to be bad. ''It's your father, Dean. He's missing.''

And so it begins again....

Well.....

....she has always wanted to meet his brother.

--

So....

....They both have scars that run very deep. He has scars on his soul, she has scars on her wrists. But sooner or later, all scars fade, and all you're left with is a memory and a light at the end of the tunnel.

In their cases, their light was each other.

No matter how deep the cuts, no matter how bad the damage, no matter how bad the pain.....

....Everyone heals eventually.....

--

so i'll hold tight to what i know
you're here and i'm never alone

-barlowgirl, never alone

end

AN: And there you have it. I actually cranked this one out in, like, ten minutes. So if it seems rushed, that's why. But, hey, this was originally just supposed to be a drabble and this is way more then a drabble, don't you think? Originally, I had planned for it to be far more angsty and dark, but I couldn't resist giving them a happy ending. Oh, and sorry if there are any spelling mistakes, I did edit it, but everytime I re-read it, I kept finding more.

Now, I just have to say this. If anyone out there has an idea for a story to put in this collection (this collection will have drabbles, oneshots and possibly even some short stories) then I will be glad to give your ideas a shot.

Don't forget to review (because they inspire me) and stay tuned for the next D/H adventure!

Kisses, Becks