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I remember being rather horrified one summer morning long ago, when a burly cheerful labouring man, carrying a hoe and watering pot came into our churchyard, and as he pulled the gate behind him, shouted over his shoulder to two friends "See you later, I'm just going to visit my Mum." He meant he was going to weed and water and generally tidy up her grave. It horrified me because this mode of sentiment, all this churchyard stuff, was simple and hateful, even inconceivable, to me. But in the light of my recent thoughts I am beginning to wonder whether, if one could take that man's line (I can't), there isn't a good deal to be said for it. A six-by-three foot flower-bed had become Mum. ~ A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis
Notes:
It's been a really long time since I have written anything in the fandom scope, any thoughts appreciated.
This is inspired by a Bob Wess prompt.
The bunker had always been an eerie place.
But it had been something they could skip over, when they were together, and it was a home.
Sam couldn’t bring himself to be there right now.
It felt like a tomb. To empty, and too full, of everything gone.
Instead he fled, hit the road. Drove in remembrance, some kind of homage. Dean was with him anyway, riding in his own personal hearse, scooped up into an old tea box.
Dean died on a Thursday.
And he found it hard to remember much more, with any level of coherency. He had said goodbye to his brother, and everything after had felt wrong. Like some thick blanket had settled upon him, separating him from reality.
Logically he knew what must of happened, but pulling his brother's limp body off a 10-inch piece of rebar was not a memory he scrutinized the loss of too closely.
It was the other memories that had begun to worry him.
He remembered reading that the first thing you forget about a person is their voice.
The idea was overwhelming. How was he supposed to accept that, how long did he have or was it already too late? Were his memories already lying to him?
How long was it going to take, before every memory of Dean was corrupted by his own mind.
Sam had found the book after Jess, he found recognition in the words. They had helped him, to feel some small level of composure. Pain shared, even with something as simple as a dusty old book lends a sense of comradery. Misery shared, especially with words, a comfort.
They say that the people we love live forever in our memory.
That’s bullshit. The people we love are slowly killed by our memory, replaced by our own mind.
Sam had seen it firsthand, among the living.
Hunters he had known his whole life, time on the road, in close quarters. Comrades, close friends, you think you know a person. Think you are remembering their mannerisms and general disposition quite well, and then you meet them again and suddenly it all comes back to you.
and they have not changed. But it becomes swiftly apparent, memories taken as fact are in need of some revision.
Because how do you remember a smile wrong? Flung towards you with a blast of gunpowder and smelling of salvation. To forget someone without even noticing, and live without recognition of the loss, it’s abhorrent.
He can’t do it.
He thinks he knows what Dean would say, what he might do. But how can he ever be certain again? That slowly his own impressions and opinions won’t settle over Dean, and obscure him. Until he no longer exists, just a shallow imagining projected from Sam’s own mind.
The photos don’t seem to help either. None of them quite capture the obnoxious charm, steadfast loyalty and love wrapped around an imperfect man, a brother who taught Sam everything that had ever mattered. He can’t picture Dean’s face clearly, he's seen too many versions of it to settle on just one. The memories crowd around each other.
He's not quite sure what he is looking for.
Dean had found Cas a meadow. Sam wanted to find Dean a spot. Because he couldn’t just burn him in those woods alone, leaving him amongst the enemy.
He had to find the right place, and if that meant driving further and further away from the bunker, so be it.
He had briefly considered spreading him in Lebanon. Maybe even plant him, with some prissy flowers. Just because he would have hated it, and Sam hated him, for leaving.
But he couldn’t do it, let some patch of sad flowers in a forgotten field become his brother.
He thinks instead he might take Dean all the way to the Sea. Let him become endless.
Notes:
I'm sorry this is very much an 'all hurt, no comfort' prompt!