"Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred."

Robert Frost, 'Now Close the Windows'

Summary: There is a Sammy-shaped hole in Dean Winchester's heart.


Dean isn't completely ok when Sammy goes away to college one fine summer day.

He'd known for a while now that Sammy was planning something. He could see it in the way Sam had been skulking and sneaking around and evading questions (snatching mail away before Dean can see the name on the envelope corner) and generally being a giant pain in the ass; but the argument, when it comes in the form of disembodied shouts floating up from the floorboards, still hits him like a big motherfucking fist to his gut, no mercy, and leaves him stunned and betrayed and so goddamned furious.

Dean doesn't go down to mediate this time, unlike all the other times. He just sits on his rumpled bed with its flowery bedspread, fists curled tightly and clutching the fabric of his pants (still smeared with soil and loose tufts of soft green grass from training), and stares blankly at the door. He forgets about the long, hot shower he was planning to have and listens instead to the sound of his world crumbling. He can hear the normal Sammy is shouting, and the hunting Dad barks in reply, and the Stanford-Stanford, Dad that Sammy bites out and the following my dreams spears him straight through the heart. He winces woodenly, more in habit than in empathy, when Dad ups the ante and roars abandon and betray and this family and no son of mine, and when Sam screams back fine, the silence that follows is more than Dean can bear.

It lasts for a few seconds, like Sam and Dad are both shocked, and then someone comes thumping up the stairs so heavily that Dean can feel his bed shivering under him. The slam that comes after shakes the yellowing walls and sounds too final.

.

When Dean opens his bloodshot eyes in the morning, he expects it to be cold and grey and howling, expects there to be thick, black thunderclouds rolling ominously and a poetic lightning bolt sundering the sky, tearing it apart like his family is being torn apart now; but it isn't. The blue summer sky smiles down on him treacherously as sunshine spills in through his window like liquid honey, and it promises to be the balmiest day they've had yet.

He lies on his bed, cursing silently first in English, then in Latin, then in Aramaic and then again in English. He curses every god he knows in every language he can speak, and because he is Dean Winchester, this takes him a while. Once he runs out of gods and beings, he switches effortlessly back to his true-and-tried phrases and every combination thereof that he can think of.

He is halfway through goat-fucking cock-mangling douchebag when his lanky little brother bursts in, the largest duffel bag in existence slung over his shoulder, and announces, "Dean, take me to the bus station."

Dean sees bright spitting red at the request, so casually said and sounding more like "Dean, take me to the grocery store," or "Dean, sparring session now,", and not at all like goodbye, freaks. And as quickly as the red floods his vision, it bleeds out and leaves him numb and tired and rather miserable, and he thinks see ya, Sammy instead of where the fuck are you going and why are you leaving us, me, us?

He pulls himself out of bed, saying nothing, and dresses himself. He can feel Sammy's eyes, hot on his back, the whole damn time, not-quite-sorry yet not-quite-hostile. He brushes past Sam on the way out the door and doesn't stop to look into his little brother's face to see the finality there, because Dean has had enough heartbreak to last him a while.

Dad is nowhere to be seen, the kitchen conspicuously empty and clean, and Dean's heart clenches painfully at the thought that this is how his family ends.

He drops Sammy (Sam.) off at the Greyhound station and doesn't wait with him, his own little punishment for his wayward little brother. He is still angry and frustrated and scared (the long drive and its stony silence didn't help), and the crowd of eager, expectant people at the station, all waiting to go away, grates on his frayed nerves. He does nothing but gives Sam a tight-lipped smile and a clockwork jerk of his hand, before he's roaring back the way he came, pretending that it's Sam being left in the dust of Dean's future.