In the smothering darkness of moonless night, Sam slowly builds the pyre, carefully and methodically stacking the wood in the right formation to hold the body and guarantee that it would burn hot and long enough to reduce everything to ashes. It's tedious work, but Sam is glad for the labor, something he can do with his hands that doesn't involve his brain.
An eternity later and all too soon, the platform is finished and the supplies are gathered. Sam drags himself back to the Impala, a solid black shadow near indistinguishable from the pervasive darkness that wraps around him. He's not sure whether this is natural night, or only in his mind, but it doesn't really matter. He can't do this in the light of day. It would make it too real, too harsh under the sun's ever-seeing eye.
Besides, for as bright as Dean burned, he'd always walked in the shadows.
Steeling himself, Sam opens the Impala's back door and leans in, carefully gathering his precious blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. It's heavy, so heavy and cumbersome, yet lighter than it should have been. Staggering briefly as he adjusts the weight of his burden, he cradles it to him tightly, not wanting to let go. He wishes, oh, he wishes . . .
But now he has to fulfill other wishes.
He carries it back to the platform, gingerly picking his way across the rough ground, not wanting to trip and accidentally drop his bundle. Panting a bit, he gently places it down on the platform. Sam heaves in a deep breath, fighting back the ache in his chest as he gathers his resolve. This is his duty, and he has to see it through.
Gentle hands don't shake as he pulls the blanket away, revealing marble-pale skin and rust-red splotches. Dean's face is smoothed out, unlined and peaceful, and Sam almost deludes himself into thinking his brother is merely sleeping. Any minute he'll wake, hair mussed and eyes bleary as he demands coffee like it's the Elixir of Life.
But the truth glares harshly out from the gaping wounds and slashes revealed as Sam removes the blanket entirely. Blood will out. The hellhounds had been vicious, unrelenting, shredding cloth and flesh in equal measure as they fought to extricate the precious soul hidden within. Dean's face is blood-smeared, but was spared the ravages of his body.
Sam doesn't want to look too closely. He'd been witness to the attack, too late, unable to do anything but rush to his brother's side and hold him as his last breath rattled out of his chest. But every wound on Dean's body is screaming evidence of his failure, the blood coating both of them stinging, burrowing deep in his skin, marking his guilt forever.
He can't think about that now. He has a duty to perform. Taking out his sharpest knife, he carefully cuts the remains of Dean's clothes off the body, tugging the material away and casting it down to the bottom of the pyre on top of the gathered sage branches to be burned. Picking up the hands – so cold and lifeless, should be warm and strong – he removes the bracelets and ring, feeling familiar calluses trail limply over his skin.
The gold amulet is still around his neck, gummy with blood. Sam unsticks it, then lifts Dean's head forward with one hand as he reverently pulls the cord up and off. He rubs it briefly with his thumb, feeling the tacky blood smear in the ridges, the sharp points of the carved face dragging against his flesh. For protection, supposedly, yet it hadn't protected Dean when he really needed it.
Next, Sam takes out a bottle of vodka and one of his shirts. Splashing the alcohol onto the cloth, he passes it over the stains on his brother's skin, washing away the blood with tender strokes, soothing. Tracing the familiar contours of Dean's face, Sam removes every trace of violence he can – there's nothing he can do about the obscene rips in pale flesh, but without the dark paint they somehow seem both more obvious and less monstrous.
Even in such darkness, Dean almost glows, bone-white skin reflecting what little starlight is available. Sam stops, steps back to just look at him, heart clenching as threatening tears burn. Dean looks so young, so vulnerable, fragile and ethereal, nothing like the strong figure that had figured so prominently throughout Sam's life. For a wild moment Sam wonders what this figure is, because it's certainly not his brother. This can't be Dean.
Steady. Keep going. Dropping the soaked rag, Sam produces a bottle of holy water. Using a clean towel, he gently bathes his brother, cleaning and purifying the body, making sure no evil taint remains. The wounds sizzle briefly, but subside with another splash of holy water. Sam rubs the towel through Dean's hair, removing the last traces of blood and ruffling the short damp strands.
He slides one hand beneath Dean's head to lift it up, wiping at the blood spattered across his neck and ears. It's weird, he suddenly realizes, that his one hand can cup the whole back of Dean's head. His hands are huge; every girl he's known has commented on it. Dean has even teased him a time or two about his paws. But he'd never made the size comparison before between him and Dean. To Sam, even when he'd shot up those last three inches to surpass his brother in height (much to his delight and Dean's chagrin), Dean has always been his big brother, larger than life. He always had the ability to make Sam feel downright tiny at times.
That illusion is gone now, dissipated along with Dean's last breath, and driven home by the reality of Dean in his hands. He's small. Dean's never small. Sam may have finally grown taller around his 17th birthday, but that only made Dean shorter than him. Not smaller. This body, lying still and helpless on the pyre, is small, seemingly breakable when cradled in Sam's giant hands. Everything that made Dean fill a room, that had cast a long shadow for his brother to walk in, is gone.
Reality sinks its sharp claws into Sam, and he swallows hard against the bitter sting and carries on. He can do this, finish this. He just has to hold it together a bit longer. As he leans over his once-proud and strong brother, he looks down into Dean's face. It's a face he knows as well as, no, better than his own. He knows every line, every freckle, every expression that Dean has. Except now it's blank, empty, like Dean never is.
That's when his failure hits full force. The tears he has been fighting back ever since he managed to drag himself to his feet, clothes soaked with blood, and wrap up Dean in a blanket to avoid bloodstains on the upholstery, come flooding out. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't, not until he was done, but he can't hold back his sobs now.
Sam hovers over Dean, weeping, hot tears falling thick and fast to wash Dean's face in benediction, in apology. This is his mistake, his debt, that his brother willingly paid for him, and now this is all Sam can offer him in return. A tear for every sacrifice, every protection, every bit of love Dean had ever and always given so freely.
He tried, oh he had tried. He had searched for a year, scouring every source, burning through favors, ransacking every bit of lore about demons, trying desperately to find some way to save his brother. But every lead panned out, every source dried up, and hope flickered and died. Dean knew it, and even with a sword of Damocles hanging over his head, counting down, he still tried to protect Sam, to reassure him.
Sam had only found one thing, one way to fight, tenuous and vague, and in the end his desperation drove him to try it. As the baying of the hellhounds drew closer, Sam had waged an uncertain war for his brother's soul. In the end, he's not even certain if he succeeded, or what had happened. He might have managed to save Dean's soul from an eternity in Hell, there's no way to know for sure, but he'd been too late to stop the hellhounds from their hunt.
Sam may or may not have saved Dean's soul, but he couldn't save Dean's life.
He lost his brother.
Broken sobs hitching his chest, Sam places one hand on Dean's still chest, flesh prickling at the cold stiffness. How many times as a child had he crawled into bed with his big brother, falling asleep to the soothing sound of Dean's heartbeat against his cheek? How many times after a bad hunt had they touched just like this, reassuring that each was alive, proof the rhythm of life felt by questing hands?
Sam longs for those times past, for when he could bury his face in Dean's shoulder and hide from the world in the strength of his brother, protected and safe. He wants to now, to slump down and curl up against his brother, to take refuge. But that safe haven is gone now, this deserted cenotaph all that's left.
Now it's Sam's turn to be strong for Dean, to finish his duty, to fulfill this last wish to give his brother this one last dignity. He just never knew that it would be so incredibly hard to find the strength. He'd never truly appreciated how much Dean was his strength, how much he'd relied on his big brother, how many burdens he'd placed on those broad shoulders. Now he feels the weight of every single one of them, and doesn't know if he can go on.
Sam looks down into the face of the only person who loved him unconditionally, even if he never could say the words or stand to hear them said. Which is a pity, since Dean deserved to hear it every day. But now Sam could say it, when Dean couldn't stop him, and maybe, if he's lucky, Dean could hear him.
Sam leans closer, lets his breath waft over the tears he's cried onto Dean. "Dean . . ." he chokes, then swallows hard. "Dean, I love you. I always have, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you, big brother." He brushes his lips over Dean's, and a brief spark of wasted hope, fairy tales of the beloved awoken from death's cold sleep by a kiss of life, spins bright through his mind only to be extinguished in cold despair. In their experience, the only true fairy tales are the bad ones. There are no happy endings.
A night breeze rustles the nearby trees, and Sam shivers. Dean's exposed out here, and Sam can't bear that. He has to finish. Passing the cloth one last time over Dean's perfect face, Sam withdraws. He digs through Dean's duffle, pulls out a pair of jeans and his favorite Metallica shirt, a concert special. It takes a little maneuvering, but Sam dresses him again, covering up the mortal wounds. That's better. He can do this.
With sanctified oil, he traces the sign of the cross on Dean's forehead, the back of his hands, murmuring a blessing in Latin. He sprinkles a canister of rock salt over the body, the white crystalline shards glinting as they settle like fresh snow over dark folds. Finally he shakes out the blanket and rewraps his brother, tenderly bestowing one last kiss before tucking the shroud around him.
It takes a whole bottle of lighter fluid to soak the blanket and the wood of the pyre. Sam stands back, looking at the shrouded figure one last time, then strikes the match. He watches the tiny flame dance in his fingers for a long moment, remembering, then drops it at the base of the pyre.
It goes up quickly, dry wood and flammable liquid catching and spreading until the entire pyre is ablaze. The light hurts his eyes after so long in the dark, but Sam doesn't dare look away. In silence he stands, determined to watch his brother as he has for the majority of his life, ignoring the tears running freely down his face. It's easier than fighting them, even though it does nothing to lessen the sharp ache in his chest, the unrelenting pressure that makes it difficult to breathe.
Sam watches the fire burn, consuming everything he holds dear in his life. He clings to that faint hope that maybe he managed to do one thing right by his brother, that maybe he kept the demon from dragging him down into Hell, that the light at the end of the tunnel could have signaled peace after a hard-fought life. Maybe Dean's with Mom and Dad now, happy, like they had been before Sam came along and condemned them all to burn.
He watches until the fire burns out, everything reduced to ashes. By then the night is slowly peeling back, the faintest hint of approaching dawn lightening the darkness. Sam couldn't care less if sunrise never comes, if the earth from now on is perpetually shrouded in shadow. Because for him, the world is darker without Dean's light.
He clenches Dean's amulet in his fist, feeling the metal dig into his skin as he turns away from the ashes and wearily heads back to the Impala. Sam will take the amulet to Lawrence, tuck it in the ground with Mom's headstone and Dad's dogtags, the only physical monument to their memory.
After that . . .
What do I do? Where do I go from here?
Sam stops, one hand braced against the cold metal of the car as he hangs his head. He has nowhere to go. He's alone, and homeless. Permanently.
This is the third time his home has burned to ashes in front of his eyes. Because of him. But this one hurts the worst.