Work Text:
There was an entry in John’s journal written in tidy black ink, two paragraphs on the inside of the back cover, on a page that would never fall out.
Two paragraphs where John implored anyone reading to burn his remains to ash and dust and smoke-filled air. Dean had hoped he’d never need to refer to those two small paragraphs, never have to look at them as an epilogue, never have to palm his father’s journal as a relic.
He’d always been terrified to be the last one reading, the last one, left behind. As it turned out, Sam sat two inches away from him on the bed when he’d flipped through the pages, when he’d handed it over, when Sam’s face crumpled as he read.
It turned out that being one of two left behind wasn’t any easier.
--
They burn John’s bones at the edge of Appalachian wilderness. It takes a day to set up the pyre, gather material to burn from damp log piles, collect the driest materials and lay their father out east to west. Sam’s hand shakes, hesitates, before he pours the salt. And when he hands the container over, Dean scatters a little more. Bobby brings with him a bundle of sandlewood and, before leaving, silently lays a hand on each of the boys’ shoulders.
By the time they finish, the sun has set, leaving the ground as cold as the body wrapped tightly in strips of cotton canvas.
They both light the fire, crouching bent on either side of the dry wood, allowing the flames to lick at the tinder and only standing back when the heat becomes too fierce to bear.
Dean moves away more slowly. His skin is flushed, slightly sunburnt from the day’s work, scarified by the heat. His eyes are dry now, have been all day. Sam’s blinking, wishing he could close himself off, just for a while; just until the pain isn’t as centred, isn’t clutching at his chest and making it difficult to breath. Just until he discovers a way to let it out. But he opens his eyes and there’s nothing but fire, Dean rock-solid but still as death itself by his side, the smell of wood and night falling around them, slow and dewy.
They’re silent together for a long time, move back a little further as the flames reach John’s body, curl welcomingly around it. It’s the only light for miles, bright and harsh this close, but only a flicker on the rolling landscape.
Sam chokes on his words, can’t help it, and is powerless to stop the dampness on his face. He blinks away invading images, struggles to focus, scuffs his boots into the dusty earth to rediscover gravity.
“Before,” he says.
And he’s helpless to relate the ridiculous enormity he’s feeling, get his lips to move over one stupid word. To ask the question. Finally. It’s taken him days to ask, and if he doesn’t he knows it’ll stay with him for an eternity of days after. Sticky and hard in his gut like so many little lies and imagined betrayals, so many missing pieces of his childhood.
“Before he… Did he say anything to you?” He’s desperate. If only to hear his brother’s voice again, desperate for the one chance in a million that it might offer reassurance. When he was little, that was all that it took.
“Bout anything?” he almost whispers, but manages to make it sound stronger than it feels.
Dean’s so still for a moment it’s as if he’s trying to disappear again.
“No.” It’s raw and it’s as final as the molecules in the air, the smoke blowing in their faces, the stinging in their eyes.
“Nothin’.”
They stay at the edge of the clearing until dawn, taking the last warmth their father has to give. And when the sun rolls above the horizon to the east, Bobby arrives with a flask of dirt-black coffee, splashed with his best whiskey, and three empty mugs.
--
end.