Chapter 6: The Sadness

I remember. It was a couple of days later, perhaps a week. Everything was back to normality, even when not all was as I wanted it to be. We spent our days inside the bunker, sometimes one went to get us a meal from outside, mostly Sam, sometimes also one of us. You were reading books upon books and somewhen I had decided to do so as well. Sometimes we were sitting next to each other for hours, without a single word, and reading stories of people from past times, rituals and facts and things we someday could even perhaps be using. It had become quiet around us. But I was patient, I really was. We were like two lines, not parallel to each other, sooner or later our ways would cross again, not literally, locationally, but figuratively. Because as it's said in the Corinthians, love is patient.

Every now and then you would look at me, and even when there didn't seem to be much declaration in these gazes, they showed one thing for sure: affection. An implied smile, or the slight deepening of the wrinkles around your eyes, the hold of my attention, until eventually it would be interrupted, but not abruptly and bullheadedly, only soft and lovingly. I could see a lot of life in you, I could see how much you shared it with me. Because love is kind and does not envy. It was no sprint, it was a marathon, and we would both win it.

Yet, I was waiting for the day to come, when all your calmness and kindness would suddenly disappear, with the annihilating knowledge of the death of a friend. And even when I was to blame for, or at least the cause of, this coming annihilation, I was armed for it. It wouldn't be nice, it would be ugly and sad and hard. But I would be here. And even when love does not boast, is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs; no matter how many bad things I had done, I knew it was okay to do something stupid, if I do it for the right reasons. And it was paradox and strange that just that love, how it is described, but seemed to be so different to the kind of way I was feeling it, was the reason and trigger for my wrong actions.

And even when it does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth, it still always protects. It always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. And here was I and hoped for all of it, hoped the truth would never be unearthed, and if it would, that we would get through it, that you would understand my point and would persevere me the way I was. But then again, you had done that once already, even several times. I had failed you often, and I always managed to get back into your life and back into your heart. And sometimes I wondered, if not really you were the one, who had lost his head and had fallen for me. Over and over again.

Like it's said in the Corinthians: Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass way. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Your phone rang and I startled out of my train of thoughts back into here and now. You answered it and your expression changed from calm and relaxed, and perhaps even a bit tired, to confused, to shocked, to devastated, within a few seconds. I assumed annihilation and in the inside prepared for it, came around and to a decision. Until you looked at me, with the phone still at your ear. Your lids briefly implied a tired closing, as if they tried to make the said words easier, but weren't allowed to. As you ended the call with a rough sound, I found tears in your eyes, which disappeared again so fast that I could have never noticed them, if I wouldn't be staring at you without blinking. As if you had sucked them back into your skull with all your will power, something that seemed impossible to me, and yet I could witness it all the time.

"You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile."

(John Green, "The Fault in Our Stars")

I discovered how fake your smile was. I discovered its sheer falsehood behind all this mask and wall, and looked deep into you and your eyes and discovered all the pain and loss in there. Minutes passed, where I was staring at you in expectation, and you again and again couldn't bear how much my gaze knew what you were feeling, and so you looked away, at your hands, at the coated wood of the table, at the ceiling, and everywhere else where I was not. It took a little, until I dared to speak.

"What's the matter?"

You looked at me again and your eyebrows made your facial expression to something suffering, as if you had finally decided to give up on the unsuccessful charade.

"It's Rick," you whispered and stared back at your hands, which were shaking and still holding the phone, "he's dead."

Luckily it had never been my nature to react to bad news with loud outrage and shock, because those were things my talent of acting wouldn't have been enough for. Instead I could react like I always did. With quiet dismay and silence. My hand settled on your shoulder, so close to your neck that one of my fingers touched it.

"What happened?" I asked, not unknowing what had actually happened, but not knowing which version was told in the community.

"Doctors say it was a heart attack," you said and barely noticeable shook your head, while I saw an idea developing in your head, "but that… that's not how we die, right? I mean hunters don't die of something like that, we die bloody and messy and… supernatural"

"Sometimes things are what they seem to be, Dean," I said calmly and found your upset look on me.

"Nothing's what it seems, Cas," you gave back and I felt anger rising inside you, "never!"

I lowered my head and it was hard not to take that anger personally. You weren't mad at me, you were mad at the situation. At the fact that you had lost someone once again, that life was unfair to you. At the world, at the injustice, at the universe perhaps even. Not at me.

"I'm sorry, Dean," I said therefore, meaning my actual action you didn't know about, but pretending to mean something else.

"What you're sorry for?"

"That was a well-worn phrase and…," I paused for a moment and then managed to look into your eyes, "… and I'm sorry your friend is dead."

You ran your hands over your face and with that motion also stripped my hand off your shoulder. You briefly covered your eyes, as if it helped with bearing your pain and the desperation, then you took a deep breath and seemed to pick up courage.

"I know it's a setback. A massive one even. And I'm not even close to being able to imagine how you feel right now, but…," I said, although I knew exactly how you felt, "… you will get through this."

"Yeah," you gave, but I heard a clear No, "you've said that so often, I lost count"

"Because it never ceases to be true, Dean"

For a moment you just looked at me and I found the anger disappearing and doubts coming up. And you said, "What if someday it ceases?"

I didn't know, if you meant It, the truth of what I had said, or It, that you would get through it, or perhaps even a fully other It. There were infinite possibilities inside your words, so that it seemed impossible for me to find words that could answer to them. So I put my hand on your cheek, my thumb slightly stroking the rough skin, and answered with my eyes. You would get over it. Because love is kind and above all but more healing than anything else in this world. And it was almost funny that something so sad would get you so much closer to me.