September 3, 2007

The cemetery felt different than it had crowded with people there to pay their last respects. It was quiet in a pervasive way. Dean had never realized that you could feel the quiet, but he felt it now. It was as if the living world understood that this was not its place, that it was just a visitor here in the realm of the dead and was, therefore, making an effort to be as unobtrusive as possible.

He stood alone, looking down at Sam's marker, hands buried in his pockets. He'd avoided coming back here before now. Something about the idea just set wrong with him. Even if there was an after-life, Sam certainly wouldn't spend it hovering around this place. There was nothing out here but a chiseled hunk of rock and six feet of dirt covering what used to be his little brother.

"Hey Sammy," he began uncertainly, feeling silly for standing out in the open basically talking to himself. "I bet if you ever pictured this you figured it'd be the other way around. I mean, if either of us was going to die young, let's be real, the odds were on me."

Whether imagination or memory Dean could almost hear Sam's familiar heartfelt chuckle, the one that marked the all too rare occasions when the kid would relax and enjoy himself.

"So, I guess there's no point in asking how you're doing." he fumbled on. What was he even doing here? He had no idea what he was supposed to say and felt like an idiot.

He stood unspeaking for a time, rejoining the silence as it moved back in to fill the space his words had created. Every fiber urged him to end this charade and walk away, back to the living world, the real world, and the long list of very real demands on his time and attention. Somehow, the switch that would have made him act on those urges didn't get flipped and he was left stranded on the very spot he least wanted to be in the world.

"Man, things are messed up here." he heard himself blurt out. Saying it out loud brought an unexpected rush of relief.

Things were messed up, and Dean needed his brother, which he couldn't deny, was what had driven him to be standing here now. Even if all that was here was a marker and a memory, it was all Dean had so he would take it.

Suddenly everything was just pouring out of him, naturally, without thought or effort. "So, I don't know if you know, Mom took off right after we buri..., you know, right after the funeral. Don't panic, she didn't leave Dad or nothing. She went to visit family. I guess she felt like she needed to get away from everything."

He blinked against welling tears, "Man kid, I don't mind saying, you left some kind of hole when you left." Silly or not, Dean was starting to feel more comfortable. Maybe there was something to this visiting the dead stuff after all.

"She calls every few days." he went on. "At least she did at first. Dad never was cool with her going. Guess she got tired of fighting about it all the time, cause it's more like once a week now."

His pause was almost instinctive. That was the point where Sam would have had something to say, some babble about human psychology or marital dynamics.

"It sucks too." Dean continued, slowly coming to terms with carrying both sides of the conversation. "Like, you could tell, when he came into work, right away it was obvious if he'd heard from her. He'd be happy. Well, not happy. Guess none of us has really been happy since you, you know, had to leave. But he'd be better. That damned stubborn streak of his, pushing her, he's just pushing her away, cause who wants to call just to have a fight? Trust me, I know. That's why I hardly ever called Bren from California."

"She misses you too, by the way, and Little John." he rushed to confirm while a small part of his mind wondered why he felt the need to state the obvious to a patch of grass. "Sorry I haven't brought them out to see you. It's just, I don't think the kid is old enough to really get what death is. He'll probably have a whole lot of questions that I got no idea how to answer. You'd have known just what to say to him, some psycho-babble out of a fancy college book. I'm having a tough enough time with 'where's grandma?'"

"I mean, how the hell do I know?" momentum was starting to drive him. Emotion bled into his voice as the words tumbled out on there own and he just went with it.

"We've got no idea where she's at, just 'at Uncle Robert's'. Well, where the hell's that? Dad thinks somewhere in Illinois, but that's all we know."

"Did she ever even mention an Uncle Robert to you? No of course not, I only knew about him because I overheard something when I was just a kid. I always figured he was that uncle nobody ever talks about because he's bad news. The way Mom went off as soon as he called, especially now, considering, you know, your thing, man I just don't know what to think anymore."

"If Dad would just stop badgering her...I mean, I get why he's pissed. She said she wouldn't be gone that long, and it's already been like six weeks. I don't understand why she won't just be straight with him, tell him another week, or two, or six months, but every time it's 'just a little longer'. You know how Dad is, likes to be in the loop and have all his ducks lined up. It's eating him up not knowing what's going on. The whole thing just sucks in spades."

The agitated monologue came to an abrupt end. Dean felt drained, physically and emotionally. It wasn't his nature to be this verbal, and certain not this emotional.

"Sam, Dad's not taking it good." the words were soft. Dean struggled to even drag them out of himself. It had been hard enough to watch as cracks began to form on the monolith that had been John Winchester. To actually talk about it, to acknowledge it, went against his grain hard.

"I'm worried about how much he's been drinking. Yeah, yeah, I know," he interrupted the comment that he knew Sam would have made. "I've been throwing 'em back pretty good myself, so who am I to talk? But if I'm saying it, that's gotta tell you how bad it is."

"He missed work today. Dad missed work. He gave me some flap about not feeling well. I may not know much, but I know a hangover when I see one."

Now Dean felt in too deep. He'd wandered too far away from his comfort zone and scrambled back towards it like a mouse caught out in the open darting for its hole. "God, listen to me. I sound like a chick, come all the way out to see you and end up spewing all this support group crap on you. Like you need that."

He shuffled uncomfortably, unsure as to how to proceed from there. "Hey, remember when we were kids and I took you out to Stull for the first time?" He wasn't sure where that had come from. He was just talking about anything that wasn't the bad soap opera that his family had become. "Man, Mom was pissed, remember? Good thing she never heard the whole story or we'd still be grounded. Can't figure how she never found out the way you were running your mouth about it. Guess most of your friends didn't repeat it cause they didn't really believe it."

"He didn't fight the soft tears that splashed over his lashes. "I wish this was like that, that I could just carry you out of here to the car, and you'd wake up so I could bawl you out for pulling such a stupid stunt and scaring me half to death."

"Of course, you turned out to be such a gigantor that if I tried that now I'd bust something." The emotions felt and processed, in true Dean Winchester fashion, he was hiding them behind a joke so that he could ignore them.

"I'm gonna get out of here now. I'll bring the family out real soon. I promise." He'd come full circle, looping right back around to the same uncertain discomfort that he'd felt at the start. His steps were slow as he walked away. It didn't feel right to hurry to leave.

Several steps in he stopped decisively and turn back to face Sam's grave. "Hey bro, in case I didn't say it enough when we were growing up, I love you, man. Nothing's ever going to change that, not you dying, not me dying, so you save me a seat. When I get there, we're gonna celebrate, and it's going to be epic."

Now it felt all right to leave. As the sound of living footsteps faded into the distance the silence settled back over the grave of Sam Winchester and took it back into its embrace.