I met up with Winchesters by coincidence in North Platte. They were doing an easy salt and burn on their way from a shapeshifter in Denver to a poltergeist in Cleveland. I invited myself along, and my shovel too, to make the job and the night go by faster for them.
Sam was thirteen and had been going on jobs for about a year. He didn't seem to be taking to hunting the way Dean and John did. John always got the job done with a kind of grim, determined resignation to, and acceptance of, self-imposed duty. Dean was always excited to go on a job, no matter what it was. He'd swagger into a salt and burn just the same as he'd swagger into a bar or a brawl or the company of a pretty girl.
But Sam – this was the first job I'd seen him on, involved or not. He didn't look happy, he didn't look sad. He had him some resignation, but not grim, not determined, just – resigned.
John and Dean and I hefted our shovels and Sam carried the salt and accelerant, and we made our way into the cemetery to put a vengeful spirit to rest.
"And we have a winner." Dean announced, flashing his flashlight across the headstone. "Cara Melanie Jamieson. Well, Cara-Mel," and he jabbed his shovel into the soil. "You've thrown your last baseball bat into your old teammates' heads."
"She was just a kid." Sam said, flashing his own flashlight across the headstone. "She was born just a week before I was."
"How long has she been dead?" I asked. I'm all for silencing vengeful spirits, but torching a fresh corpse can be a gut-chucking experience.
"Nine months." John said.
"Hmm. Juicy."
John caught my meaning and nodded toward the boys.
"We got this covered. Sam, you go back and wait at the car."
"I'm okay."
"Dad's right." Dean joined in. "We don't need you on this. Go back and study something."
Sam grumped in his throat and straightened his shoulders.
"I said I'm okay." He didn't like it, this salt and burn, but he wouldn't back down from it either. Guess he was determined as well as resigned, after all.
So, we got to work. It takes a lot of work digging up a grave, but having four backs and four sets of hands pitching in gets it done a lot quicker. It wasn't long – as far as grave digging goes – it wasn't long before it was time to open the coffin.
"What can make a thirteen year old girl vengeful?" Sam asked, probably rhetorically, but the three rest of us answered as one,
"Puberty."
He looked a bit baffled, but didn't say anything else and John popped the lid.
Ewweee, she was ripe. And still pretty fleshy. Next to me Sam was swallowing fast and repeatedly, but that was his only reaction.
In a little while 'Cara-Mel' was ash, and we were filling the grave back in. A little while after that, we were back at the motel.
"Thanks for the help." John said. The boys were carrying their duffels into their room, I was just getting ready to open the door to mine. "See you for breakfast tomorrow?"
"Yep." I said. "Enjoy what's left of the night."
So, we went in our rooms and I unpacked the little I was going to need for the night. Before having a shower and tucking in, I went down to the alcove for some ice.
And that's where I found Sam Winchester chucking his guts into the shrubbery.
While he chucked, I bought him a 7-Up.
"First one's always the worst." I told him when he stood back up from the shrubs. I pulled the tab on the pop can and handed it to him.
"That wasn't my first body…thank you." He took the can from me and took a long swallow of it.
"She was your first gristly body. First one your own age. That's gonna be tough."
"Yeah. I guess."
"Ain't no guessing to be done." I gave him a look over. He seemed to be keeping the 7-Up where it belonged. "Your Daddy know you're feeling this poorly? Or Dean even?"
"No." He shook his head. "No. I don't want them thinking I can't do this."
"Kid, no thirteen year old should have to be able to do this."
He nodded and drank some more soda pop, and his hands were shaking.
"Uncle Bobby?" He asked, and his voice cracked high. "What's it like?"
"What's what like?"
"Not doing this. What's it like to not do this?"
I didn't have an answer for him. It'd been so long since I hadn't done this, I didn't have a simple, easy answer for him. I sure didn't have the answer he maybe wanted to hear.
"It's hard in its own way."
He nodded. I was chickening out and he knew it.
"But I'll tell you, Sam. It's the life I wish you had."
He tried to give me a smile of gratitude. I could tell he tried, but it broke apart. The whole rest of his life was a black hole of misery and he'd been trying to think it wasn't, but I'd just confirmed for him that it was.
He sniffed and scrubbed his face and straightened his shoulders the second time that night, getting himself ready to head right back into the maw of that life that was already grinding his bones.
"Thanks for the soda pop." He said. He took a couple of steps and just as I was planning to walk him back to his room, he surprised me in a fast, strong hug.
"Thank you."
And then he was gone back to his room and his life and that life that none of us really wanted.