Epilogue.
Ben and Adam parked in Bobby's yard on Saturday morning. On Sunday evening, the canine Tara died. She had been quiet and sleepy most of the weekend, which wasn't unusual in her old age, took to her basket on Sunday morning, went to sleep, and didn't wake up again.
"She had a good life here," said Jane awkwardly the next day. Her mother, the human Tara, had turned up unexpectedly in the morning, offering condolences and bringing a small bunch of purple heather, which they scattered on the pyre when they burned the body.
"That she did," said Bobby gruffly, with his cap pulled low over his eyes. They didn't know her age, Adam told Ben, but she had been old – he remembered the day they had found her, shortly after he came to Bobby - a thin, flea-infested stray sheltering under an old Firebird, alternately whimpering and snarling at them whenever they tried to approach. They had fed her on raw ground beef that night, to hold her over until the pet store opened – she'd taken up the basket of Bobby's previous dog, and from that day she'd known dog happiness: plenty of food, space to run, and the near-constant companionship of her person. Tears trickled down Adam's face as he watched the pyre, and Ben knew they weren't just for the peaceful death of an old dog. He and Jane stood on either side of Adam, the older people on the other side of the flames.
That night, Adam went to see Bobby, and the two of them stayed up late in his study, drinking and talking quietly. Ben knew his place wasn't there – he couldn't sleep, but he sat up and waited for Adam, studying a book of vampire lore from nineteenth century Europe.
Adam came up about 1.30. He was drunk, but not totally wasted. He lay down on the bed and made a gesture for Ben to come lie down next to him.
"You okay?" Ben asked.
"Yeah," said Adam. "You?"
"Yeah."
"We're okay," Adam confirmed, and fell asleep.
* * *
Of course, Ben dreamed about Dean.
It wasn't a memory, exactly, so much as a blur of part-memories, imagination, and older dreams: shoreline, winter, and seabirds, unseen but their calls penetrating the depth of the illusion. Grey surf rumbled. Endless. He was partly himself, partly watching the two of them from outside – Dean half-turned and gave him that look of conspiratorial humour, the one for when they were keeping something from Mom together. There were no words of wisdom, no conciliation, no confirmation that whatever Ben had done, it was okay, and he was doing alright, and would be alright. Dean in the dream didn't talk – and Ben knew, with surprise and sadness, that he had begun to forget what Dean sounded like, the exact cadences of his voice. He was fading. Perhaps there would come a day when he faded entirely, except for the odd abrupt flicker of memory, or deliberate recall. 'I'm still young', Ben thought, 'And I won't die for a long time'.
He woke first, in the pale morning.
The end, and the end of The Libation Bearers.