A/N: Hooray, I got another chapter done today! They're tiny, but vignettes take a lot of effort, I swear! :P Writing short pieces is just as hard as longer ones, making them poignant is tough! At least for me. 3 Please R&R, I love to hear from you guys, even if it's just a hey! ^^
"Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone."- Paul Tillich
Sam can see the loneliness that has started to infect his older brother with its crippling debilitation. And for a while he does nothing, he ignores the problem as his upbringing has taught him to do. When he catches Dean staring into the distance, or reading a book without turning the pages he simply makes an excuse for leaving and heads out into the city. More often than not he finds himself in the nearly desolate library at its heart. Once there he buries his nose in the musty pages of some forgotten tome and hides away from the troubles of the world.
Unlike his brother, Sam does not feel the loneliness of the world, it does not weigh him down and pull at his insides like it does so many others. He finds a kind of solitude in it all and quietly revels in it. This glory at a situation that makes so many others miserable causes him considerable guilt, but doesn't change the way he thinks. He spends many an hour with the two feelings warring inside him, but there is never a question to which one will win out.
For this, he has come to a decision. It is terrifying and he only ever mulls it over in the strictest privacy of his mind, but it is always there just beneath the surface. He has begun to prepare for the inevitable and he only hopes that it doesn't affect those who have grown close to him. He doesn't think that he could bear knowing he caused more pain for his older brother than was already present. But he feels as though it is out of his hands at this point. In a few months' time he's not going to be here anymore and he hopes Dean won't have to deal with being alone.