Keeping up with the Joneses

Part Twenty Two

**** WARNING. mention of suicide. feel free to skip this part if it would upset you!****

In the next couple weeks, Sara's hallucinations progressed rapidly. Not only was she seeing Avery, but she began to see others as well. She saw the demon that killed her brother, she saw her parents. Worst of all, she saw Joey. It started off relatively harmless, he would talk about missing Sara and he seemed to have forgotten how he died.

It was two weeks before Dean's birthday that Sara seemed to break.

She was sitting on the bathroom floor, hands to her ears as Joey screamed for her. Tears squeezed out of her eyes as he recounted the whole experience of his death, how much it hurt, how badly he wanted Sara to save him. It was late at night; the boys, Bobby and Danielle were fast asleep, Dean sleeping on the couch next to Sara's bed as per usual. He hadn't been sleeping well as it would seem, and this made him sleep right through Sara's stumbling to the bathroom.

Sara wanted to scream as Joey spoke. The words became more and more vile. It seemed to continue for centuries, and after a long time he began to repeat a phrase.

"Just kill yourself. Be with me. You deserve it." He chanted it over and over and it got louder and louder until Sara was positive her brain would explode. She stood shakily, looking to the medicine cabinet with dull eyes.

--

Something shattering in the bathroom woke Dean abruptly. His heart clenched when he saw that Sara was missing from her bed, and walked quickly to the small bathroom's door.

He pounded on it, to no response. He could hear the muffled tinkling of glass shards as it sounded like someone brushed them away. His vision grew sharp with panic, looking with dismay at the doorknob that didn't have a pickable lock.

"Sara. Sara. Talk to me," he said, crouching to try to look under the door. He couldn't see anything but the thick bath mat pushed up against the slit, and looked around desperately as Sam came jogging down the stairs. Sam looked between the bathroom door and his brother's panicked face.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know, but I have a bad feeling." He looked around the door, trying to find weak spots before he spoke again. "Where are Bobby and Danielle?"

"Both room's doors open. Maybe they're rendezvousing?"

"Oh, well, good for them."

Sam knocked on the door then, speaking quietly. "Sara? What's happening in there? Whatever it is, we'll figure it out, okay?"

They looked at each other when they heard a soft groan from the other side of the door, Dean pushing Sam back before he kicked down the door.

"Sara!" Both boys said when they saw her, laying curled in a ball on the ground with blood pooling around her wrists. Dean pulled her up by her shoulders, head lolling around but eyes fluttering giving the impression that she was still conscious.

"Sara. Sara," Dean shook her slightly, and her eyes lazily found his. Sam ran to get something to stop the bleeding with, trying to hold back tears.

Sara groaned in response, and Dean let her fall back to lean against his chest. "Let me look at you." He grabbed her wrists, studying the deepness of the cuts and how the blood poured steadily with her heartbeat.

"I didn't--" She gasped.

"Shh, it's okay. It's okay." Sam arrived just then, tossing handfuls of gauze to Dean who began to press on the wounds.

"Wait..." she muttered weakly. Dean looked down at her questioningly.

"I'm going to help you, Sara."

"No," she grunted, gesturing with her head toward the counter where an empty medicine bottle was lying. Sam grabbed it, looking at it and back to Sara with wide eyes.

"Sleeping pills."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, then hoisted Sara over to the toilet. Considering what she had just done, she was very compliant and willing to let Dean do what he needed to do.

"Okay, baby, this is gonna be gross. It will help, though." Gingerly, he stuck two fingers to the back of her throat and pressed. She vomited almost immediately, and didn't stop until there was nothing left. Dean pulled her back to his chest then, stroking her hair and rocking her back and forth. She cried weakly for a few minutes, then passed out.

Dean took her over to her bed so they could begin to stitch up the wounds. With Danielle gone, they didn't have the first person they'd go to but they'd done their fair share on each other.

Bobby and Danielle came in not even an hour later, talking in hushed voices. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Sara, exchanging worried glances with the boys.

"What happened?" Bobby asked as he and Danielle set down their things.

"We don't really know," Sam said, eyes sticking to Sara's unconscious face.

"It looks like she... Well, you know what it looks like. But she seemed like it wasn't what she wanted? I don't know," Dean shook his head, still trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Danielle grabbed some of her things to check on Sara, asking both boys questions which they answered immediately. When she seemed satisfied, she walked from the room after telling the boys to get some rest. Both stayed put, however, falling asleep with each of their heads on the bed.