NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
Dean sighed as he slid into the booth. It had been two months since the accident that took his father's life. The car accident had been horrible. The pain of healing from his own wounds took a toll on his body while dealing with his brother's grief with losing their father from the accident left him worn and exhausted in the endless cycle of grief.
"Can I get you anything to drink, sweetie?" the faceless waitress asked.
"Not yet, I'm waiting on my brother," Dean replied.
"Alright, I will be watching. I will come back when he gets here." She slid two menus onto the table and walked to her next station.
Dean closed his eyes as he remembered waking up in the hospital room after the car accident.
The smell of antiseptic was the first thing that Dean noticed as he opened his eyes. The squeak of a nurse's shoes on the floor helped to center him as he remembered the squeal of metal on metal, the sound of shattering glass, a bone jarring crash, and the smell of gasoline. There was a sticky feeling on his face, trying to move his arm he was overwhelmed by pain blossoming across his arm and chest. Dean turned his head and found Sam slumped over in a chair next to his bed. "Sam," Dean rasped. Sam jumped and opened his eyes. He turned his eyes and found Dean awake.
"Hey, man. You're awake. I will call the nurse," Sam spoke up before dashing out of the room.
Sam hurried back in just a few moments later. "The doctor will be here soon."
"What happened? Where is dad?" Dean asked.
Sam flinched. "An eighteen wheeler ran a red light and slammed into us. You are going to be fine. Give it a few days and you will be out of the hospital."
"Sam, where is dad? Is he okay?"
A tear slid down Sam's face, "He didn't make it, Dean."
Dean looked up as the chair slid out across from him.
"Sorry I took so long, have you ordered?" Sam asked as he took his seat.
"No, I didn't know how long you would be. I wanted to eat with you."
"Well, I am here now. Let's see what they have," Sam replied, picking up his menu.
Silence fell between the brothers as they began perusing the choices. The waitress suddenly appeared by the table, notepad and pen in hand, "Are we ready to order, boys?"
Sam looked up at her, smiling. "Yeah, I will have a sweet tea and the southwest chicken salad."
"Really, dude. You are ordering a salad!" Dean smirked. "I will have a double cheeseburger, fries, and a coke."
Smiling at them the waitress collected the menus and said, "I will have your orders here in just a few minutes."
Sam looked across the table at Dean, "You were late getting in last night. Where did you go?"
Dean raised his eyes from the tabletop, "I went to visit Dad and then I was at that bar outside of town. What did you get into last night?'
"I was up late studying for a test in my ethics class. The closer that I get to the end of the semester the more intense my classes are getting."
"I am sure that you are going to do fine. Just relax and take your classes in stride," Dean replied. "I am worried about you. You have thrown yourself into your schoolwork with hardly a break after the wreck."
Sam stared across the table with pain in his eyes. "I have tried to keep myself busy. It has been a struggle some days just to get out of bed. If it was not for me…"
"What? That dad would still be here! What happened was not your fault, Sam." Dean stated in a sharp voice.
"How do you know that? If I had not been fighting with him that night, if I had not been speeding, then I never would have wrecked the car. You are lucky to be alive yourself."
"It was an accident, Sam. Dad knew that and so do I. You have to forgive yourself¸ man. This guilt is eating you alive."
Sam shook his head and glanced across the table at Dean. "I think that we need to get out of town for the weekend. It is Friday night; I don't have class until Monday. You don't have to work tomorrow. We can be at Uncle Bobby's house in just a few hours. It will give us a chance to regroup and come to terms with what has happened."
Dean was thoughtful. The trip would give them a break from the stress of the last couple of months. "That sounds like a good idea. We can throw some clothes in a bag and leave tonight. Let's eat dinner real quick and then get ready to go. I will gas up the car before I go back to the apartment. "
The waitress appeared at Sam's elbow with their orders.
"Thank you, this looks great. May we have the check now? We want to leave as soon as we are finished," Dean said.
"Certainly, I will bring it to you momentarily," the waitress replied.
Dean parked the car on the street and walked up to the apartment. Dean could hear Sam in his room packing a few changes of clothes. "Sam, I'll be ready to go in just a few minutes. The car is parked right outside."
Dean walked into his room and grabbed a backpack out of the closet. He threw three pair of pants, underwear, and shirts in the bag. In the bathroom he grabbed his toothbrush and a stick of deodorant to throw in the bag.
"Sam, I'm ready. Let's go. We can call Bobby from the car," Dean called as he walked into the living room.
Sam walked out of the kitchen with his backpack on his shoulder and a bag of snacks and drinks for the trip in his hand. "Okay, I'm ready."
The car was silent save for the classic rock playing softly in the background. The soothing sounds of Kansas' Carry on Wayward Son filled Dean with a sense of home. The group had been one of his father's favorites; he played it constantly in the car.
"I am so glad that Bobby was able to fix the car, we don't really have anything else that belonged to dad. It is nice to be able to remember him somehow," Dean said, looking at Sam.
"Yeah, he was never one to hang on to stuff, he was always trying to lighten his load," Sam replied.
"I wish that we had been on better terms when we were in the accident. I was never angry with dad; I just wanted to go to school. I wanted to be a lawyer so bad. I just never thought that it would alienate me from dad," Sam said.
"Dad was just afraid that you would be hurt and he would not be there to protect you. He was scared that people would take advantage of you by yourself."
"Why could he not just say so? Why did he have to kick me out of the house?" Sam asked. The confusion in his voice shook Dean to his core. He had no idea that Sam was so concerned that his father had never spoken to him about the argument they had before Sam left for school.
"You know, dad never really talked about how he was feeling. Most times he just reacted and dealt with the consequences later," Dean told him. "Dad was proud of how well you did in school and getting into Stanford. He knew that you had the best chance for a future of both of us."
"What? How about you, Dean?" Sam was incensed on his behalf. "There were many opportunities for you; he didn't think that you deserved those chances?"
"Come on, Sam, you know that I had to be there to take care of you and make for sure that dad remembered to eat and paid the bills. That was my job since the time I was four years old."
"That was not fair to you, man. You were just a kid yourself, how could he expect you to care for a six month old?" Sam asked.
"I can't pretend to know what was going through his head. He had just lost his wife and had two kids to feed and clothe. He did the best he could with what he had," Dean replied.
The car was silent for a while. Dean glanced at Sam and saw that he was sleeping. The kid is hiding something from me; maybe I can get it out of him this weekend at Uncle Bobby's.
"Sam, wake up. We are here," Dean shook Sam's shoulder gently, trying to wake him. "Bobby has waited up for us."
Sam blinked and sat up, looking out the front window at Bobby's house. "What time is it, Dean?"
"It's a little bit after 1:00 AM. I called Bobby a couple of hours ago and let him know that we were on our way. I did not want him to be surprised when we showed up unexpected." Dean looked across the seat at Sam. "Let's go say hi."
Sam seemed to shrink into himself; he opened his mouth as if to say something. After a moment he snapped his mouth closed and climbed out of the car.
Bobby was waiting on the front porch, two beers in his hands. "Hey boys, it is good to see you. I have been worried about you since John has been gone. Come inside and we will sit down. I am sure that you need to unwind after being on the rode the last six hours."
It felt nice to be in Bobby's home, when we were little we used to spend hours here in the summer playing cops and robbers and army men in the car graveyard behind the house. Bobby never made any strange demands from us, he just expected us to be kids. He knew the stress that our dad, John, was under trying to raise two boys alone after his wife died in a house fire. John was a good father, he always provided for them; sometimes he would forget that we were children in need of a parental figure. Many times he would expect Dean to take care of Sam; feed him dinner, get him in the bath, help him with his homework, and get him in bed at a decent hour before taking care of his own schoolwork. John loved both of his children but treated Dean as if he were Sam's parent.
Sitting at Bobby's kitchen table both brothers had a beer in front of them. Bobby looked between Dean and Sam and grew concerned. Neither boy would look at each other; they seemed to be lost in their own thoughts. The tension between the two was thick; it was as if all of their unspoken words hovered in the air between them.
"Sam, how has school been going? Do you like your classes?" Bobby asked, trying to engage Sam in conversation to drag him out of his shell.
Sam raised his head, eyes vacant as he answered. "Good, do you mind if I go on to bed? I am pretty beat. "
"Go on, son. I know that you had a long drive," Bobby answered. There was a tone of confusion in his voice. Sam got up from the table and left the room. Dean heard him walking up the stairs. He waited until he heard a door close upstairs before he turned to Bobby.
"He has been like that since the funeral. I have tried everything that I could think of to draw him out. I…I just don't know what to do anymore," Dean told him.
Bobby looked across at Dean; there was a look in his eyes of sadness and failure. This kid had always tried to protect his brother; he had given up his future to be able to send his brother to college. To Dean there is no one more important than Sam and what will make his brother happy.
"Has he said anything?"
"No, he doesn't talk to me at all. The only thing he does, when he is not in class, is to sit and stare at the wall," Dean replied.
"That sounds like he is trying to find a way to handle losing your father. I know that you don't remember much of that night, maybe he is having a problem with what all happened."
"I know he is hurting, but he is not even talking to me. I cannot help him fix this if he won't talk to me," Dean replied. The need to make things right for his brother shone in his eyes.
"Dean, sometimes Sam has to handle things on his own. He has to find a way to deal with his own feelings, whatever they may be," Bobby said. There are many layers to the boys and their feelings. Neither of them wants to talk about their feelings, Sam is normally forthcoming when the issue is pushed. But if he feels very strongly about something he clams up. "Why don't you go on to bed, I will talk to Sam tomorrow."
"Alright, I am just so worried about what he is thinking. I will see you in the morning," Dean said while leaving the room.
When Sam came down the stairs and into the kitchen he saw Bobby at the stove. The smell of biscuits and frying sausage tickled his nose, "Morning Uncle Bobby. How did you sleep?"
"Morning, Sam. I did okay, how about you?"
"Better than I have since the accident. I have been running on nerves, I guess. It is good that I got away from there," Sam replied. Moving across the kitchen, Sam poured himself a cup of coffee.
Bobby brought two full plates to the table. "Let's eat. You need to get a good meal in you."
Picking up his fork, Sam smiled. "All of my classes are getting more intense the closer we get to the end of the semester. It keeps me busy, but I enjoy it."
"That's good. But tell me something. What is really bothering you?" Bobby asked. "Dean has been worried about you. He says that you just sit and stare at the wall, when you are not in class."
Sam set his fork down and took a breath. "I could not say anything to Dean, he does not remember much about the wreck. I…I was driving the car that night. Dad and I had been arguing he wanted me to drop out of school and move back home. Every time he would bring up the subject we would end up fighting about it. That is what was happening then. We were yelling at each other, Dean was in the back seat trying to get us to stop. The next thing I knew an eighteen wheeler slammed into us. Dad was killed instantly; Dean was in the hospital for a week. I cannot put this on his shoulders."
"Sam, what happened was not your fault. It was just an accident," Bobby told him. "There was no way that you could have guessed what would have happened."
"If I had not been fighting with him, I would have been more alert and could maybe have stopped the car before the truck hit us. Dad would still be alive." There were tears in Sam's eyes.
"Look at me, Sam. It was not your fault. Your father would be the first to tell you that, he loved you and wanted you to be safe. It is time for you to let go of this guilt and get on with your life. Go to school, get your degree and make your father and brother proud," Bobby told him. "That is all they want for you. I want you to go upstairs to your brother and tell him what you just told me. Dean knows that something has been bothering you, understanding will help him deal with his own feelings."
Sam looked at Bobby, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Alright," Sam stood up from the table and walked out of the room.
Bobby heard the door to Dean's room open and close.
A couple of hours later found Bobby walking upstairs to check on the boys. He had not seen them since he sent Sam upstairs to his brother. Hopefully they had worked through Sam's guilt. That would ease Dean's mind to understand what was causing his brother's issues. He cracked the door open to Dean's room and stopped in his tracks. The boys were slumped against each other, sound asleep, or so he thought.
Dean opened his eyes, "Thank you."
Bobby nodded and backed out of the room.