A/N: I am fascinated with this time period. Oh, boys.
When Sam cries, it's silent and shaking, and Dean doesn't know what to do. He's wearing a borrowed suit, and they stand alone, not really belonging. Sam is done with this place, these people. Dean can see that, if no one else can.
It's cloudy, the day of the funeral. California, Dean thinks, almost emptily. It's supposed to be a land of gold and sunshine. He wonders how long it took Sam to see right through that postcard lie.
Jess's parents keep to themselves. Sam might as well be a stranger to them, for all their attention to him. If Sam seemed hurt by it, Dean would be bitter on his behalf. But all Dean is left to wonder, dirt caking to the soles of his cheap dress shoes, is if maybe Jess was what linked Sam to everything.
And there wasn't even enough left of Jess to fill a coffin.
...
Sam, at eleven, asked if they were cursed.
And Dean, at fifteen, called him a baby and said, of course we're not, and meant, maybe we are but you're not, you can't remember, you're the one who makes it out.
...
Sam, at eighteen, leaves, and Dean doesn't stop him. He can't. He is a broken half, but maybe, he thinks for Sam's years at Stanford, maybe he can live with that if Sam is whole.
...
The day after the funeral, they leave, because it's been a week and Sam has nothing more to do, nothing even left to bury. He wants to go back to the apartment one more time, though, and Dean would rather pull his own teeth out than do it, because God knows it's not going to help Sam, but he drives. Rolls down the window and hangs his arm out the driver's side door, a show of solidarity even though Sam insisted he take the last look alone.
Sam's crying when he comes back out. Sam's always been a crier. A whiny toddler and a snotty nine-year-old and a fifteen-year-old whose eyes started watering when he got pissed off. But this is different, not Sam spilling over so much as it is Sam falling apart.
He doesn't get back in the car for a long moment. Dean gets out and walks around the other side, thinking stupidly that it's warm for November. They lean against the dusty metal flank of the car.
The sun is out today, and it shimmers in the tear-tracks on Sam's face.
The land of gold and sunshine.
Dean thinks, much good it did.
...
The demon waited until Sam had something to lose. Something that was Sam's, and only Sam's.
And if Dean hates anything about this most, it's the thing he hates selfishly, how he can't share the burden of grief. This grief belongs to Sam and Sam alone. Dean's hands and heart are useless, peripheral.
He pulled Sam out of the fire, that's true.
They drive to Colorado and Sam has nightmares and Sam is the keeper of his memories with Jess, and it's something Dean can't reach or find.
He pulled Sam out of the fire.
But this time, he couldn't save him.