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They put up a headstone. Not because Dean wants it, but because he thinks Sam would have appreciated it. He thinks it would have meant something to Sam to have a plot of his own, in remembrance, like Mom's.
Dean doesn't need a marker. There's no spot, no need for an X. There's only the place he last saw Sam before the earth swallowed him up. And Sam isn't there. No body, no bones. Just dead grass and soil dry as dust. Dean's staying away from Lawrence, for the rest of his life if he can help it. Home has become synonymous with death. Yet if that's the case, Dean wants to go home. He wants to curl up in a bed of Kansas dirt. But he promised Sam. He promised.
It's a simple slab of concrete — no marble, no gloss, no figurines or filigree. Better than Dean got: the wooden cross like a cowboy grave. But then, that was meant to be temporary. Sam hoped, hunted demons to distract himself when the hope waned. Maybe he kept hoping anyway. Maybe he forgot to come back and replace the rickety cross with something more permanent. Maybe he wanted it there for something to burn when he couldn't bring himself to burn Dean's bones. And then he couldn't even bring himself to do that. Unless that's why Sam had been in Illinois when Dean came back. He never said.
That's what Dean would've done. Except now, this time, there are no bones to burn or leave to crumble. A cross would just make a mockery of that. When the real mockery is: Sam died for Dean's sins. The ones he racked up after thirty years in Hell. The ones that tipped that first domino into the next domino into the next, click-clacking like teeth chattering, with Sam at the end. Those, and the sin of throwing away his own soul to rip his brother back from whatever facsimile of peace he'd had in heaven. Selfish sin. Who should die for that but himself?
But he can't. So he lives. The living death of life without Sam.
Lisa helps him pick it out. This rough rectangle of gray with Sam's name on it. All harsh lines and sharp angles. Too real.
Dean throws up in the bushes after they set it into the ground. Lisa runs a hand over his forehead afterward, places another hand against the small of his back, pushing the material into his skin where it soaks up the cold sweat, encouraging him gently toward the house. He staggers backwards, watches as she arranges the branches so they half-obscure the stone. So the neighbors won't see.
It's in their backyard.
He'd insisted. Didn't want Sam's headstone in some serenely-named cemetery with everybody else. Maybe Sam always wanted to be normal and fit in. But he didn't belong there. He belonged with Dean. So if there's going to be a fake grave it's going to be with his real family.
Even though Dean is faking it, playing house with a family where he doesn't belong.
From the upstairs bathroom window, he sees Lisa wipe over the stone with a wet rag, dig with her fingernails into the engraving to get out the grime. When she's done, she fusses over the branches again. She's doing this for him. Dean doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve her. Lisa deserves someone who isn't lost in a dash between 1983 and 2010 — that small straight line separating Sam's birth and death, reducing his life to a punctuation mark.
When Dean has brushed his teeth and rinsed his raw throat with the burning alcohol-based mouthwash, he heads back downstairs. He pauses at the top of the staircase, runs his fingers over a painting on the wall. Ben made the painting in art class, won 3rd place at the end-of-term show. Lisa and Dean had framed it themselves, tacking the black ribbon to the corner of it, and hanging it at the top of the stairs where they could see it every day. It's of the backyard. A naturalistic landscape of smartly trimmed trees and manicured shrubs set against the neatly fenced perimeters of suburbia. Only there's the one tree left of center, the knobby old weeping willow, standing in sharp contrast to the pleasant green around it. Its mostly dead branches slouch toward the ground, black-brown tendrils clawing at the grass. Lisa's been at Dean to chop the actual tree down. But there's still some sap left in it. And now its shaded spill of viney branches makes the perfect hiding place for Sam's headstone, like its weeping was waiting for just such a thing.
Such a thing, that is right there, listing beneath the tree in cold gray brushstrokes on the painting in front of him.
Dean blinks, slowly opening his eyes, knowing the stone won't be there. It's just a trick of his grieving mind.
It isn't. He reaches out with his fingers, grimacing at their shakiness, toward the small block of gray paint. He presses against the rough weave of canvas, bowing it until it bounces back. The paint is dry, scratchy and ridged with hardened oil. The miniscule upraised lines read like braille on the pads of his flesh. He lifts he fingertips to see: Sam Winchester 1983-2010. Tiny but unmistakable. His jaw clicks on a hard swallow.
He bellows Ben's name.
Ben's door stays shut. Dean yells again, and Lisa's inside now, bolting up the stairs, asking him what's wrong.
"What's wrong is your son's new addition to the decor," he says, yanking open Ben's bedroom door. He points down the hallway. "Why did you do this?"
Ben startles, his headphones going askew, the tinny screech of guitars and thump of bass bleeding out of the earpieces. "What?"
"What did he do?" Lisa's by his side now, glancing between them, a firm hand on Dean's arm.
"This." He shoulders past her, trudging back down the hall. Lisa follows, and Ben emerges from his room, following a few feet behind. "Do you think this is funny?" Dean asks.
"What? I don't—" Ben begins.
Dean stabs a finger at the headstone in the painting.
Ben leans in closer. His eyes go wide. "I. I didn't do that. Mom, Dean, I swear. I wouldn't."
Lisa sighs. "Ben, I thought we had the talk about lying when you were five. You know better."
"Mom, I'm not! I didn't."
"Enough. Give me your iPod." She holds out her hand. Ben's eyes are still darting between her and the painting and Dean as he pulls his headphones off and places them and the iPod in her palm. "No music and no games for a week. And I want you to paint over this later. Now go to your room."
"Okay, but I—"
"Now, Ben."
Lisa watches as Ben shuffles back to his room. When the door clicks, she turns back to Dean, who's leaning against the wall by the painting, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I'm so sorry. I don't know what got into him."
Dean shakes his head. His eyes flicker toward the painting, honing in on the headstone. He opens his mouth, closes it, then starts again. "I'm going to the store. Think we're out of bread. Do you want anything?"
"Dean." Lisa looks at him, that gaze that cuts right through, leaving him nothing to hide behind.
"I just." He tries for a grin. "Thought I'd make French toast tomorrow. We need bread for that."
"Okay." She kisses his shoulder through his t-shirt. He kisses the top of her head. A twig scratches against his cheek, and he pulls it from her hair and shows it to her. She rolls her eyes, mouth quirking up at the corner.
He taps the twig lightly against the tip of her nose and says, "Okay." Then turns to go.
"Maybe some milk too?" she says as he's making his way down the stairs. He wiggles the twig in his hand in acknowledgment and continues, through the kitchen and out to the garage, his head turned away from any windows facing the backyard the entire way.
When Dean gets back from the store, the painting's missing from the wall. By the time he goes to bed, it's back and there's a fresh splotch of paint on it in the shape of a headstone. But it's just grass now, all green covering the place that was a grave.
The next morning, Dean wakes up thinking of French toast and thinking about making it up to Ben since he did good, did the right thing. Maybe he can talk Lisa into reducing his punishment, take them all out for ice cream later. Maybe go see that new movie Ben's been bugging about. It sounds gory and violent. Dean's not sure if Lisa will go for it, but he kind of wants to see it too.
He gets out of bed quietly, showers quickly to save as much hot water as possible for Lisa, kisses her awake, tugs on a clean t-shirt and pair of sweats and goes off to make Sunday breakfast. Pausing at the top of the stairs, he automatically reaches out to adjust Ben's painting where it's titled off kilter. He's smoothing his fingers down over the ribbon when he sees it.
The headstone. And a dark, precise rectangle stretching out in front of it.
He stumbles back, scrubs a hand over his face. But, when he lowers it, it's there. The headstone's still there. Same as yesterday, but now with the gaping hole in the ground in front of it. An open grave. And then he notices the pile of dirt beside it, as if it had been freshly dug.
Dean rubs his fingers over the stone and grave, expecting the paint to smear. It doesn't budge, solid and dry as though it had been painted days ago, months or years, not overnight. Ben's name forms on his lips, but no sound comes out. He remembers the look on the kid's face yesterday. He remembers the paint under his fingers when he touched it for the first time, dry as now, even though they'd only just put up the stone.
When Lisa and Ben come down for breakfast, they find the stove cold and Dean burning sage in the living room.
"You didn't do it, did you?" Dean asks Ben.
"Dean, what—" Lisa begins.
"The painting," he says.
Ben's craning his neck toward the staircase, eyes wide as saucers. "I fixed it," he says. Then he's climbing the stairs, Lisa close behind.
When they return, the sage is smoldering close to Dean's fingertips as he waves it toward the ceiling and down along the corner. Ben's face is pale, Lisa's resolute. "What do we do?" she asks.
Dean hands them each a stick. "We burn these. In every room in the house." He lights Ben's for him, watches him scurry upstairs, Lisa fast behind him again, her hand pressed dead center in his back.
Later, he asks them about cold spots, flickering lights, strange smells — none of which he's felt or seen or smelled. But they've been here longer than Dean, so he asks anyway, anticipating the answer.
"No, nothing like that," Lisa says.
"Is it a ghost?" Ben says. He's hunched over the dining room table, swiping quick strokes at the painting, masking the black hole with new green blades of grass.
"I don't know."
"Will this work?" Lisa asks.
Dean watches the headstone disappear under Ben's fingers, notices the way they match up to the finger-like branches of the willow tree in the painting, resists the urge to pull Ben's hand away. "I don't know."
The next morning, Dean wakes to a knocking at their bedroom door. His fingers scrape the floor as he gets up, tracing along the rock salt-loaded shotgun beneath the bed.
Ben's at the door, eyes hard set.
"Burn it," he says.
"Ben, what?"
"It's okay, Dean." Ben walks down the hall, lifts the painting off of its hook, ribbon dangling. "I don't care. Just burn it."
Lisa crowds in behind Dean, tense and alert. They stop short of the end of the hall, where Ben's still holding the painting in his hands. Dean feels Lisa's fingers clutch at his shirt, her other hand circling around his forearm, kneading like she's trying to reassure him.
Where Ben's fresh brushstrokes of grass were there only the night before, the headstone now stands again. The open grave is there too, with its mound of dirt once more at the lip of the hole. And behind the pile of dirt, shadowed by the willow tree, is a figure. The dark figure has no features, is merely a shade barely distinguishable from the background. But its shape is the tall, lean outline of a man.
Dean would recognize that silhouette anywhere.
They burn the painting in the fire pit on the patio.
Dean tries to remove the ribbon before they pour the salt and set the flame, but Ben insists he doesn't want it anymore. They stand in a tight half-circle facing the house while the fire snaps and sends smoke into the air until the canvas has curled up into char and ash. On their way inside, Dean spares a glance for Sam's headstone, cold gray a contrast to the warm morning sun. The willow rustles and jerks in the breeze.
That day, Ben stays home from school and they watch Tom and Jerry cartoons on the couch under a blanket that's barely big enough to cover all three of them.
Before bed, Dean tears the hook from the wall where Ben's painting hung, drops it in the waste can by Lisa's dresser. It's close to dawn when he finally falls asleep, one arm around Lisa, one arm hanging over the bed, knuckles compulsively caressing the barrel of his shotgun.
The next day starts with a crash.
Dean jumps out of bed and runs into the hallway to find Lisa standing at the end of it, two hand weights rolling around on the floor and a yoga mat unspooling from the overturned workout bag at her feet.
On the wall in front of her is the painting.
Dean ushers Lisa and Ben off to work and school, tells them they'll be safer there.
"And what about you?" Lisa asks. Her eyes are fixed with fear.
"It's all right," he says. "I know what I'm doing."
He doesn't.
He calls Bobby. It goes directly to voicemail. He scrolls down to Rufus's number, hesitates then flips the phone closed. He'll wait and see how long it takes Bobby to get his message before he takes this outside of the family. Slowly, he climbs the stairs, pausing before he mounts the top step. From here, he can still see the painting, unmarred in its wooden frame, black ribbon attached as though none of it had ever been ash.
It's the same as yesterday morning. Only, now, the figure has emerged from beneath the willow tree. It stands in front of the pile of dirt beside the open grave, still as black and featureless as before, save for its two eyes: nothing more than slits of white, scratched right out of the paint, straight through to the canvas.
Dean's eyes trail over the outline of its hair, the slope and slouch if its shoulders, the length and width of its stance.
He runs down the stairs and out the sliding glass doors.
On the patio, the fire pit sits empty and clean of debris, save for a stray leaf. There's no sign of the fire they lit, no residue or scorch marks. In the far end of the yard, the headstone remains untouched, nothing but grass in front of it. Dean notes how it's getting long, needs to be cut. He walks to the garage.
When he returns, he's holding a shovel. There's a moment when he pauses in the middle of the yard. But then he's stalking forward again, stopping in front of the headstone, bending over the handle of the shovel as he plants it roughly into the ground.
"Sam?" he says.
There's nothing but wind, birds and cars going by on the streets around him.
He shakes his head, scrubs a hand through his hair, scratches at the back of his neck. Slinging the shovel over his shoulder, he turns to go. Then he turns back, quickly scans the neighbors' yards, and starts to dig.
Six feet down, there are only worms and clay, so he tries seven.
Sweating and panting with exertion, he chops the shovel into the hard, damp earth and leans over it. He's found nothing, done nothing but dig himself a hole in the ground. When he hoists himself out, he looks over the pile of dirt, the hole he crawled out of—a narrow rectangle, so much like an open grave. It does not resemble the chasm in the ground where Sam fell, pulling Adam with him, and Michael, and Lucifer too. It's just an empty space. He fills it with the dirt he shoveled out, tamps it down hard. His back aches, his muscles scream at him, rent and sore. He longs to just drop down right here and rest. So he does, falls to his knees, sinking into the disturbed soil.
The wind stirs the branches. One spindly end of the willow scritch-scratches against Sam's headstone. Dean wonders if it's a sign. He tilts his head, listening to the tapping, straining to decipher some sort of code. The wind dies down and the branch settles over the top of the stone, bobbing slightly.
Reaching out tentatively, Dean brushes the branch away. He smoothes his hand over the stone. "Sam," he says, the name catching in his throat, so he clears it. "Is—is this you?" He shakes his head, huffs out a short laugh that stutters against his lips. Rubbing his hands down his thighs, he closes his eyes and lowers his head. "I did what you wanted," he whispers. "I'm doing exactly what you asked me to do. But, Sammy, I wanted to find a way to get you out. I wanted it—" He breaks off, forces a hard swallow. "Are you doing this? Are you trying to tell me to come get you? Because I will. I'll do whatever it takes. I just gotta know if this is a sign."
Dean stares at the stone in front of him, eyes locked on the branches around it, waiting for them to move and tap the stone again. He listens, but it's still just cars, birds, wind. He sits and waits anyway.
He's still sitting there when Lisa comes home from her day classes.
She coaxes him inside, undresses him and starts the shower for him while she goes downstairs to the kitchen. Afterward, he towels off, eyes fixed on the backyard. Nothing has changed except the slant of light from morning to midday. Downstairs, he has a sandwich at Lisa's urging. He barely tastes it against the burn of whiskey he uses to wash it down.
By night, Bobby still hasn't returned Dean’s call. In the back of his mind, worry creeps in. But he has something to take care of first.
He sends Lisa and Ben off to bed in the room he and Lisa share. Ben doesn't scoff and say he's too old to sleep in the same bed as his mom. Lisa watches silently while Dean pours a ring of salt around the bed, lines the windows. He hands her the bag to finish, stepping out of the room and pulling the door shut behind him. He hovers over the threshold until she finishes the salt line, waits for the creak of the bedsprings as she gets back in, but still says, "Are you in?"
"Yeah, Dean, we're okay." She doesn't sound okay, doesn't ask if he is.
"What if I have to pee?" Ben calls out, trying for a joke, but his voice breaks in the middle.
Dean rolls his forehead against the door. "Then I'll come and get you," he says. He runs his hand down the door along the wood grain, then walks to the other end of the hall, opposite the painting that still hangs there, that still shows the headstone, the pile of dirt and the open grave. And the figure that he's certain is Sam.
He settles onto the floor, knees drawn up and his shotgun set over them. One finger curls near but not on the trigger. Another curls against his chest, fumbling for a necklace that's no longer there.
There's a thermos on the floor beside him filled with coffee. He plans to wait this out all night.
Sometime before daybreak he nods off.
He knows this because his bladder wakes him up, pressing at him with the thermos-worth of coffee that failed to keep him awake. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the painting. He's been facing it all night, waiting for it to change, waiting to see what makes it change, and his eyes lock onto it instantly.
His shoulders fall. He curses so quietly, defeated.
Pushing against the wall, he gets up and walks closer to the painting.
The figure within it is closer too.
Closer than before, but still an outline of the man he's supposed to be, the figure consumes the foreground in a flat, muted sheath of black. The eyes, though larger, appear no more distinct, still no more than empty sockets against the crusted edges of paint.
It still looks like Sam. Dean knows that it is Sam. That exact shape of him — but empty of him, just like Dean.
But Dean asked for a sign, and isn't this a sign? This brother-like figure coming closer. Coming back from the dead. Reaching out to him. So close, like he's right there, in the backyard, coming in. Coming home.
There's a click and the familiar scrape of the sliding glass door pushing open. Dean twists at the top of the stairs.
"Sammy?"
He doesn't know he's falling until halfway down. Each jut of each step collides with his elbow, his knee, his spine. He doesn't even feel it, not really. Just thinks, "Sam. I've got to get to Sam."
He hits the bottom head first. There's a crack, sharp in his ears, and everything goes dark.
Footsteps near Dean, quickening. They stop by Dean where he lays at the base of the stairs.
A hand reaches out, thumb brushing over Dean's forehead.
"Dean?"
Fingertips trace the curve of Dean's cheek, cradle his jaw. "Dean."
Two fingers tremble along Dean's chin, slip down to his neck, stilling.
"No."
Dean doesn't blink.
The figure crouches over him, but Dean doesn't move.
"No, no, nonono."
The figure stands.
Along the wall, at the bottom of the stairs, there is a mirror. In it, Sam sees himself, hand shoved into his hair, gripping tight, eyes wild and red and wet. Then the reflection changes.
It smiles slow and thoughtful. In its hand it holds a rose and raises it to its smirking lips.
Sam's arms hang at his sides, clutching at air.
In the mirror, the face that looks like his stares back at him and says, "Did you really think you could leave without me, Sam?"