Unsung Heroes
A slick of sweat ran down the gutter of Dean's spine. He twitched against the tickle. Thought about stripping out of his plaid flannel shirt, but discarded the idea; that would leave him clad in only a damp t-shirt, and it wasn't fitting. It would be—disrespectful, in this place and on this day.
He'd elicited a promise from Sam to not ask any questions, to just accompany him. His brother had been puzzled, but acquiesced. During the drive—just three-and-a-half hours from Lebanon; a quick trip for them—Sam cast him sidelong glances, but he stuck by his vow. And now, as he walked just off Dean's right side, orienting his own strides to the unknown path his older brother made through a field of headstones, he asked no questions as well. But Dean could feel Sam's curiosity and bafflement as emotions made tangible.
His vast experience with cemeteries was pretty much limited to nighttime excursions to dig up graves, break into coffins, and salt and burn remains. On two occasions only did he recall visiting one to pay respects.
He stopped before two headstones. Felt Sam halt, the shift in posture and alertness; heard him make a short, almost choppy exhalation. "Dean, what—? Dad didn't have a headstone." Then Sam turned toward him stiffly. "You did this?"
Dean shrugged. "It just seemed right. I wanted to tell you. Thought it was better to show you. Especially on this holiday."
He gazed at the headstones. Matched in granite, as the people to whom the names belonged had been matched in flesh. So much had gone right for John and Mary Winchester.
So much had gone wrong.
Dean cleared his throat. "I once told you it was stupid to visit her grave, that her body isn't even here, and you told me it was about her memory."
Sam nodded. "I remember. Long time ago."
"And you buried Dad's dog-tags. Said it felt like the right thing to do."
Sam nodded again. "Still does."
Dean glanced at him, saw the stippling of sweat above his brother's top lip. Kansas was nothing if not hot and sticky in May. No wind, not even a whisper of a breeze. He heard the drone of an insect, birdsong from the trees. Caught snatches of quiet voices at other graves, saying things about God and country and sacrifice and honor.
And heroes.
"I was wrong," Dean said. "I knew it then, when I said it was stupid and irrational. "
Sam hitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. "People feel things differently."
It was permission. It was forgiveness.
Dean wanted neither, but he understood the impulse to say it. That's what Sam did: forgave his brother all his trespasses.
And Dean thought, I have made so many. "Sammy, I'm sorry—"
"It's okay, Dean." Sam reached out an elbow, briefly bumped his brother's. "It was enough for me to come here that day, even if you did think it was stupid. Even if you didn't think it was stupid, not deep down, but had to say it was. Because, you know, that whole macho, tough-guy persona, big brother thing." He flashed quick dimples. "Emo little brother standing all sad at his mother's headstone when he never even knew the woman. Yeah. I get why you said it. But we're here for Dad today, aren't we? Memorial Day. To honor the fallen."
Dean rolled his shoulders, tried to release tension. "Look, I know you were never on the best of terms. I know he drove you nuts most of the time, and God knows you drove him nuts. You should have tried standing between the John Winchester rock and the Sammy Winchester hard place when you two collided. I had bruises on my bruises." Dean paused. "Metaphorically speaking."
"Dean—"
"He loved you, Sam. And he wanted to save you. That's why he was so tough, so hard on you."
"He was hard on you, too."
"No harder than I could bear," Dean said. "No harder than he needed to. Because it was all about you, Sam. Azazel went into the nursery to stake his claim on your soul. Mom was collateral damage, but that's all it took for Dad. He was a soldier, Sam. His wife was murdered and his youngest was at risk. He didn't know why that night, or who, but he found out, and he found out that if he didn't act, you'd end up dead, or, well . . ."
"Worse," Sam put in. "And it would have been. Far worse."
"So he made his oldest a soldier, too," Dean went on. "Daddy's blunt little instrument—and all meant to safeguard Sam. To save him—or to stop him." He shook his head, aware of a tightening in his throat. "It wasn't fair, Sam. We both know that. But life just isn't, and Winchester lives are screwed more than most."
Sam nodded wordlessly.
"The first time I stood before his headstone I asked him Why? Why us? Why is it our jobs to save people, to be heroes? To always make the sacrifice." Dean felt the quiet thump of a chuckle deep in his chest. "I asked him things, dead, I never could alive."
Sam leaned close. They did not touch often except in teasing, in pranks, occasionally in anger. But a physical closeness, a simple positioning of the body, could be as eloquent as a Shakespearean play.
"It was the djinn's world," Dean explained, "not the real world. And maybe that's why I could ask him those things. Of course he didn't answer; even in the djinn's false reality, he was dead." He drew in a breath. "But I'm pretty sure I'd know what the US Marine would have said to me, standing all weepy at his headstone. 'Straighten up, son. Time for tears later. We've got a war to win.'" He paused, dropped the cadences of John Winchester. "And it is a war, Sammy."
"Dean—"
"He fought in two of them, you know. Vietnam. Then came home to another kind of war. And that one killed him. But how many of us know it? You. Me. A handful of hunters. It's a secret war, Sam. With secret deaths—and unseen, unsung heroes."
He caught his brother's gaze a moment, saw the dawning of understanding. Saw endless compassion.
Dean reached underneath his shirt to a back jeans pocket, drew out what he had tucked there before departing the bunker. Two small, furled American flags. He handed one to Sam, who took it. Nodded. Spun the slender staff to unwind the cloth.
As one they knelt, leaned forward, pierced the soil before the headstone with the wooden staves.
Dean looked at chiseled granite. He'd taken the image from the djinn's world and made it real.
JOHN E. WINCHESTER
1954-2006
LOVING HUSBAND & FATHER
REMEMBERED FOREVER
Sam's hand came down on the back of his neck. Cupped and squeezed briefly, then fell away.
As they rose and walked back toward the Impala, boots crunching on gravel pathway, they passed other visitors, other headstones; passed, too, other flags placed this Memorial Day in tribute to fallen soldiers.
~ end ~
I remember feeling so sad for Sam in "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," because he never knew his mother but wanted to pay his respects. And being so moved by Dean's speech before his father's headstone in "What Is And What Should Never Be." When I watched the S11 finale, I was equally moved by the scene in the cemetery where Sam kisses his finger, then touches it to his mother's headstone; and Dean's instructions about a funeral and his ashes. It struck me as very poignant that on the cusp of what could only lead to Dean's death (so we believed), they returned to the gravesite.
Today is Memorial Day. I wanted to pay my respects in a very small way with a Supernatural story, because hunters are soldiers, too.