His Brother's Bones
In response to Hallucifer's graphic: hallucifer .tumblr .com/post/5047805926
By Superantinatural at tumblr
Dean puts a wrapped little flat package on the table in front of Sam. "Sorry, Sammy. It was the best I could get for you."
It sounds like he's apologising. Sam does not know why; he has never thought there was anything wrong with the things Dean gave Sam.
Dean puts the package back in his own pocket, stands and leaves the table, leaves the house. Sam follows like he always does. He does not ask for the package so he can open it, because he thinks it is not time for that yet. Instead he wallows secretly over how Dean will not look into his eyes anymore.
Outside it rains. Sam wonders at how Dean does not seem to notice. He has to notice; the drops are flying into his face with the wind, Sam can see them rolling off his cheeks without Dean blinking. Sam wonders at how he does not feel the rain himself.
They drive for hours. Sam would have expected Dean to put on music, but all that fills the silence is the engine and the rain on the roof. Sam wants to speak, but he feels he should not. Instead he extends his hand towards Dean, because he cannot say in words how worried he is that Dean is not noisy as usual. Dean just shrugs, rolls his right shoulder shortly without looking at Sam, so Sam lets his arm fall again.
They stop the car in the middle of the woods. Sam would have found woods cosy if he did not by default associate them with bestial monsters. They walk a seemingly random route through the trees. Sam wants to walk closer and closer to Dean, but Dean keeps trembling more and more. They walk up a steep hill, and Dean is panting like it is somehow physically straining. Sam is about to take off his jacket to give it to him, yet somehow that does not feel right either. He keeps it on.
They end up at a pile of soil that looks like it has been thrown there with a shovel. It is so familiar because – Sam thinks – they have been digging so much, the two of them, on other rainy days, other times. Dean has not brought a shovel this time, however.
"They won't find you here, that's for sure," Dean says. He is talking to Sam, and that feels weird. Not wrong, but weird. Dean straightens his shoulders for the first time, and the dark circles under his eyes become clear. Sam looks back at the pile of dirt, this time with understanding.
It is funny. He never even knew he was dead.
Dean reaches into his pocket and takes out the little package. "Sam?" he asks, looking anywhere but at Sam.
Contradicting his brother's ingrained wrinkle between the eyes, the harrowed look on his face, Sam laughs freely. It is the sudden realisation that all he has to do to stop his brother from freezing, is to step further away. There is a distant locked-away logic in the back of his mind that – despite it being dead apparently – still knows the symptoms and signs of ghosts. It is the rushing relief of suddenly understanding how to remove the discomfort from Dean. Sam walks to the other side of the grave and wishes he could call Dean's name in return.
"Promise you won't make fun of me, Sam," Dean gives a shaky smile, fiddling with the package. Sam soaks up that smile like a thirsting man does water, because it is the only thing he has wanted to see all day. "Hell, I should be the one making fun of you, you ass," Dean laughs, sounding like he cannot breathe properly. "It's not like it's weird going through your dead brother's stuff. You're the one who always carried it around." He waves the package a bit. "You're the one being a sentimental moron," Dean says while crying.
Sam does not need Dean to open the package to know what is in it. Of course he knows; knows every crinkle and smudge on that folded together photograph. He should know, he has had it in the back pocket of his jeans the last couple of years, ever since Dean went to hell. Sam had thought he might never see his brother again, and he needed something that would never let him forget.
"It's… a picture of me." Dean sounds almost surprised, like he still does not really understand why his brother has needed a photograph all this time, why Sam had to remind himself every morning that he had lost Dean once, and he had to never let that happen again. The photograph is like an external memory storage for Sam, he has never not carried it on him, he checks that before he checks his knives and guns.
Sam is way too egoistical to be sorry that he died first.
"So listen up." Dean puts on his business attitude; he does not have to wipe the tears away from his cheeks to make it look like they were never there. "This is what we're going to do, Sammy. This is going to be your memento, right? So you just hold onto this, yeah, and then you don't… then you never leave."
Sam knows Dean is way too egoistical to feel sorry for craving this from Sam.
Sam thinks he should be crying, but he cannot remember how to. Maybe the assurance that he is never leaving Dean is so much comfort that he would normally not have cried anyway.
Maybe now Dean is crying for both of them. "It's okay," Dean says on the other side of Sam's grave. "We're okay."