Chapter 5: The Distraction
I remember. We were sitting in one of those bars at one of those nights, where the hunt had been so easily done, so fast and successfully ended, that it wasn't even worth telling about. Sam was playing with the bottle in his hand and listened to you and Rick reminiscing the story we had all lived. And me, I could only observe. You laughed and joked and looked at each other again and again, whenever you couldn't decide who talks first. Your eyes met so often, I didn't even feel like being actually here anymore. The glow in your eyes wasn't meant for me anymore, not even for the vampires you had just defeated, only for him.
I tried to count how often you two were touching each other, because, whatever, I convulsively tried not to jump at his throat. Over and over again your hand touched his shoulder, settled there, until you slit it off him softly. And I was boiling, I was boiling so much, I couldn't even admit it to myself. Because it was so irrational and illogical and I didn't want to be that way. I knew who I was and what I meant to you. But the sheer presence of this person made me forget about it all and I was scared that it wasn't important anymore that I was here in your life, forever and for such a long time already, and he only now and in this moment.
We had left a mark, we had. Our kiss, as long ago it felt, left a mark of us belonging together, of us being one. And above all, of you also knowing that, not only me. And no matter how much we had been through, no matter how much we were and did for each other, no matter what we shared, this simple short moment of your distraction seemed to, at least inside my head, undo it all. I couldn't hold you, if you didn't do anything for it, and if that Rick did everything for our bond to threaten to break.
And I really wondered, what was the matter with you? I was holding you, protecting you, did everything for you. I was here to save you, from all the fear and panic, from the disaster of your life, from your nightmares and not least from yourself. From you, your life, and from all of it. While you, inevitably and evidently, thought that you were not worth saving. Instead you seemed to have decided that it was easier to abandon yourself to someone, who couldn't save you. Because much more important was that you didn't have to save him as well. And it destroyed me that I was here to watch over you and you didn't let me.
"The marks humans leave are too often scars."
(John Green, "The Fault in Our Stars")
Far too many hours later we finally said goodbye to Rick and drove to our motel. Tomorrow we would go back home and all this would hopefully be forgotten. You and Sam, you were done with Rick, at least you were done with working with him. Me on the other hand, I wasn't. I couldn't let him get in our way again somewhere in the future. I couldn't let you jump into something so frivolously and blindly once more, which might be easy for you and made many things easier, but could never be as good and important as the thing we had. It wasn't healthy for you to let yourself get distracted by something that didn't help you, but only put it all in a grey disguise in a misleading kind of way, like an illusion of comfort, from which you just had to break out again sooner or later. Because that's how illusions are, they give you a good feeling for as long as it takes you to realize that they're not real. And then, inevitably and evidently, you come back into reality and get the false realization that it is all much worse than it actually is. I had to prevent that. I did it for you. I did it because of you.
So when I was sitting in your room and you were sound asleep, you and Sam, I took the chance and quietly sneaked outside. I knew where to find Rick, and the alcohol in his blood would make it all even easier for me. Everything went as planned, and really, that plan was the only thing that had kept me from interrupting and fake shorten the night at the bar together with him, as much as it had disputed me. I wanted you to have that moment, give you the happy memory of Rick you could keep forever. I owed you that much.
I was standing in the middle of his hut in a room that was supposed to be his living room, and stared at him. Clouded and tiredly he was sitting on the couch and looked into the TV. When he eventually noticed me, I had already thought of every of his possible motions and was perfectly prepared. Really, he didn't have the slightest chance. Confused and visibly irritated he stood in front of me, when I put my hand on his cheek. He fell to his knees, in his eyes naked horror and panic and pain. And it wasn't fun for me, not even a little bit.
"I'm sorry," I said. It's almost absurd, the fact that only, when we know that someone is about to die, find the true greatness and courage to say all we think. And I could do that, I could tell him everything, because he wouldn't be able anymore to tell anyone about it. I told him that it wasn't about him, but that he still was a problem for me and you. I told him that I had to sacrifice him, so you and me would be able to grow. And I told him that there was nothing he could have done to change anything about that fact. Shortly after that his eyes closed. Dead. As painless as I was able to. The jealousy inside me said let him suffer, the heart, though, said let him go. I knew his soul would rest in peace in heaven and that he, someday, would probably understand that his death wasn't the worst part of his life.
A part of me knew that it wasn't right to kill. But I couldn't help myself. Like they, so many of my brothers and sisters, had said, I have this one weakness. I like you. I did from the start. It was always only about saving that one special human. You. I wanted to save you, and I would do anything for that. No matter how crazy and chaotic and confusingly screwed up it would get, I would never back down and never back off. And I had always known that it was a weakness, that I lost power and respect and so much more than that, that I lost my entire world around me and was falling and falling and couldn't go back and had burdened myself with so much pain and weight, and all of that only to be with you. And yet, the true nature of that weakness revealed itself only now. I was in love. So incredibly and utterly in love, that I never wanted to feel anything else.
I knew sooner or later you would find out that Rick is dead. And you would look into it, you would try to find all the answers waiting for you out there. And it would hurt to know he's dead, to know that you've lost him. And then I would be here again, like always, here for you and would catch you and comfort you and listen to you not being able to stop getting worked up about it and yelling and being angry and realizing your own mortality. And it would get horrible and difficult, but I would be there. Because good things do happen, Dean. They do. And you would say words and be scared and fear, for everything and everyone, and for you and for me, and for the world itself. But it would die away. Because you still had me. Without any distraction and without easy illusions you could turn to. Because in the end I am the only thing you really need.
"Maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because it matters."
(John Green/David Levithan, "Will Grayson, Will Grayson")