Title: Helicopters

Author: Oldach's Dream

Summary: It was a second nature, an instinct. Get in car. Close door. Reach for belt

buckle. It was automatic. It wasn't supposed to save his life. It wasn't supposed to be the reason his best friend was inches from death.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Supernatural.

Rating: T or PG 13

Chapter Seven: I'm haunted by a story and I do my best to tell it

There was about twenty minutes worth of prayers, and Sam barely heard any of them. He could focus on nothing except the pounding of his heart. It's quickened rate slowly drawing blood away from his head.

When he was finally introduced by the old man, he thought fleetingly about bolting out the doors of the church and never looking back. But he knew he wouldn't do that, so he simply took a deep breath and tried to forget about all the people that would soon be starring at him, listening to him intently. His gulp was almost audible.

He felt his big brother squeeze his shoulder reassuringly, but Sam could not meet his eyes.

He walked up the stage on shaking legs, very sure that at any moment he was going to collapse. He gripped the side of the podium tightly with his good hand once he got there. Clenching and unclenching his fist nervously and wishing it didn't hurt to do so with the other hand.

"I...ah," Sam cleared his throat awkwardly, why in the hell had he agreed to do this?

Oh yeah, guilt.

"I met Alex in a graveyard, about six months ago. Which seems horribly ironic right now."

Okay, so that was a bad way to start, but at least he had a vague idea of where he was going now. Deep breath.

"This thing, this person, was attacking him."

"HELP!"

Sam's head swerved in the direction of the frantic scream. A graveyard entrance stood a few feet away. Someone needed help. That's all that mattered to Sam. The fight he and his dad had just gotten into, the fact that he had stormed out like a brat, his anger about having to move once again, all of it was forgotten.

Someone needed his help.

"I fought it, the person, off. I saved his life that night. He was thankful, you know? Really grateful. He was kind of embarrassed too, that he couldn't defend himself from a mugger. He told me never to tell anyone about that night. So I hope he forgives me for this."

He saw a few people smile small watery smiles, and he caught Dean's eye and half smirked at him. Adding humor to a situation that has no right being humorous.

It was official, he was turning into his big brother.

"We went out that night, after I saved him, got a couple hot dogs. His treat. We talked a lot. It turned out that we had some things in common."

"So what are you even doing out this late anyway?" Alex asked, taking a big bite out of his hotdog as they walked down a crowded main street.

"Me, my dad and my brother just moved to town." Sam shrugged.

"That seems like more of a reason to not wonder around aimlessly in the middle of the night." Alex pointed out lightly.

Sam shrugged, not used to divulging personal information about himself. He dodged the question. "I can take care of myself."

Alex laughed. "Yeah, I know."

Right. Good point.

"You've got to lighten up." Alex said. He sounded so carefree, Sam envied him. "You act like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders."

"And you act like you don't care about anything." Sam hadn't meant for it to sound so accusing, but really, he didn't know how to deal with personal conversations. He'd never had anything even resembling one with anybody except Dean, and that was his brother. Those were few and far and far between anyway.

"Sometimes, you can't control everything."

"You can't control everything." Sam repeated the words. "It was the first insightful thing Alex ever said to me. He was an insightful guy. Something I never really have been. I have a job that's very, literal, I guess, for lack of a better word. I do things and things happen, and there's not a lot of room to wonder why or question it. Alex always had a lot of questions."

"You never answered me." Alex prodded before Sam had even finished his hotdog.

"About...?"

"Your out so late by yourself, because?"

Sam sighed. Hey, what the hell? "Me and my dad got into a fight. It's something we do a lot."

"About what?" he questioned, generally interested.

"Just the way we live." He may have just saved the guy from a lower level, demonic, vampire servant, but he wasn't about to tell him that. "We travel around a lot. He's an ex-marine, he doesn't like to stay in one place for too long."

"What about your mom?" Alex asked the question very guardedly, he was already expecting a tragic answer.

"She died when we were kids." Sam answered without thinking, then shrugged at Alex's sympathetic smile. "I don't even remember her."

"My parents died when I was five." he said simply, and Sam looked at him, surprised. He had not pictured this carefree young man on the victimizing end of such a tragedy. "In a plane crash. They were rich, had their own private jet. You think they could afford to hire a pilot who wasn't an alcoholic."

"He also had this way of, accepting everything. He was completely at peace with everything that life dished out at him. An admirable quality, if you ask me."

Which they had, obviously, or he wouldn't be up here. He hated funerals. He hated churches. He hated ties, and states where the average temperature was over a hundred and no one knew how to turn on a goddamned air conditioner. And right at this moment, he really, really hated himself for agreeing to stand up and talk about Alex. His best friend, who had died all of four and a half days ago.

He let out a shaky breath and wondered if, under normal circumstances, people actually wrote these things out before they stood up and talked their dead loved ones. Sam didn't know if having a cheat sheet for this would be a good or bad thing at this point.

Eulogies.

That's what he was doing. He was eulogizing his best friend. He hadn't been able to put his finger on the correct terminology before just now.

It's amazing the stupid things your mind will come up with when you actually should be focusing on something much more important.

"I learned a lot from Alex." he pressed on. "I...well, I had some unresolved anger, over certain things in my life. Alex taught me how to deal with it, in a way no else ever had."

"Can you change who your dad is?" he asked patiently, after one of Sam's bitch fests about his father.

"What?" he asked confused.

"Can you change who he is? Or the way he thinks?"

"I don't want to change him." Sam protested. "I don't!" he defended, when Alex gave him a disbelieving look. "I just want him to... I don't know, understand me? That seems stupid now that I say it out loud."

He collapsed on the couch behind him, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"It's not stupid to want your dad to understand you." Alex assured him. "But it is kind of stupid to get mad and throw a tantrum every time he doesn't."

"Thanks." Sam exclaimed, but his voice held laughter. He understood what his friend was saying. What he'd been trying to explain for months now.

"It's also a little stupid to let it come between you and your brother." he continued. "As far as I can tell, you guys are really close. It seems like a pointless argument."

"You know, your making me feel self-conscious over here." Sam joked, but something in his expression had changed. And after a beat he said seriously, "Maybe your right."

"Man, I'm always right."

"Shut up, you pig-headed asshole." Sam laughed, and the serious conversation was thus abandoned.

"Sometimes life sucks." Sam said with a shrug. For the first time since he started, he had confidence in what he was going to say next. "Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good people die. Alex was a good person, he was a great person, and his life is over because he forgot to put on his seatbelt that night."

He took a deep breath, and for a moment, he cold see no one. He pretended he was talking to his best friend.

"If we only focus on the bad stuff that happens... Well, then, what's the point? People live and people die. It isn't always fair, but that's the way it is. And if we," He gestured with his arm slightly, taking no notice of how sweaty his palms were. "The people that get left behind, if we don't do anything but obsess about the things, the people,we've lost...that's not really living anymore, is it?

I can't speak for everyone who's ever died. But I knew Alex. I know he'd want us to keep living our lives without him, and to be happy. He'd want me, he'd want us, to wake up every morning and just live. Don't fake it, hurt if you have to, but live."

Sam paused for a second. Something felt different, lighter. He felt at peace somehow.

Or he was about to pass out from heat stroke.

Either way, he couldn't stop the next words that came out of his mouth. His final words;

"That's what should be on his headstone. That's what anybody who thinks about Alex Brecken should remember. He was in love with life."

End Chapter.