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It starts with the two phone calls. Some dumb-ass son of a bitch playing a really nasty prank, claiming to be a live version of a dead man. And Bobby damn well knows the man is dead because he'd helped bury the mutilated body.
Though he tries to dismiss them, the two calls rouse painful memories, drive him to the bottle of Jack. A few glasses in, drinking gets him to thinking. And it carries him to mourning.
Four months of abiding grief. Not since Karen died has he felt so lost.
Bobby's never been good with words, he doesn't think. He's always done a lot more ruminating than speaking, though he's more than best pleased to explain spellwork, myths and legends, all things supernatural. But he never truly gets long-winded with anyone in general about most things, because it just isn't his way.
But write, he can. And does. And so now, because he so badly needs to ease the desperate ache in his heart, the sorrow in his soul, he sits down at his desk with more Jack at his elbow, picks up a pencil, and writes a letter he will never send.
Dammit, boy, you weren't supposed to die.
Well, yeah—you were, because you made that damn deal with a crossroads demon to bring Sam back. And yeah, I know if you'd tried to get out of it, Sam would've end up downstairs for good. But dammit , Dean, you just weren't supposed to die! Not you. There was too much life in you, boy!
I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on you. I'd heard about your daddy before I met him, caught wind of his—well, guess you'd call 'em 'exploits,' knew his rep. He called me a few times with questions, then one day actually showed up on my doorstep. I'd heard he had two boys of his own, but he never said anything about you to me, and it didn't come up much in my conversations with other hunters. But the day he came, he brought you and Sam along, and I saw those big eyes of yours wondering who the hell I was and whether I should be trusted.
And now I've buried you.
I know why. I know , Dean. You told me, that day in the yard, how you couldn't let your brother go. And I get it. I got it that day. Hell, I saw it in your eyes before you even said anything, standing in my doorway. I know how you loved him. And I know you just couldn't face a life without Sam in it.
But did you never think that a whole lot of us couldn't face the idea of a life without you in it?
It grieves me that you never had any inkling of what you meant to people. People loved you, Dean—and I don't mean John when he was alive, or Sam. That's a given. There's me, too. Ellen and Jo. Even Rufus thought you were okay. Any number of others.
You never gave yourself any credit. And that grieves me, too. I mean, what you said to me in the yard, that something good could come out it, that your life could mean something . . . kid, I told you then you were wrong. Dead wrong.
And now, well—now you're just dead.
Dammit , Dean.
I loved you, boy. You were a son to me in all the ways that count, even when we butted heads. And I might be just a crazy old broke-down drunk having what you'd for damn-sure call a chick-flick moment here, but you had a fire in you like no other I've ever seen. Hell, even that yellow-eyed son of a bitch recognized it.
Your daddy was larger than life. You were larger than him. I swear it, boy.
I don't know where Sam is. We buried you—he insisted, said he'd find a way to get you back and you'd need your body—and he spent that night here with me, and the next morning he was just gone. Vamoosed. I think it hurt him too much to be in a place where you'd both spent so much time. Haven't heard from him since. I know he's hunting, but that's it.
There's a hole in my heart, Dean. Nothin's ever gonna to fill it.
I should have said all this when you were alive. I'm sorry I never did. But I hope you knew anyway. That you mattered. That I loved you. Because
But what he means to say is interrupted by a knock at the door.
He contemplates not answering; wants to finish the letter. But his train of thought is gone.
He stares at the page a moment, thinks maybe he's just drunk enough to be maudlin—something no one would ever believe of Robert Steven Singer—and considers balling up the page, throwing it away.
Instead he rises, walks to the front door, opens it.
The man on his doorstep offers a tentative, hopeful smile, looking far younger than his twenty-eight years.
And far more alive than when Bobby'd helped bury him.
"Surprise," Dean says.
And when, after a flurry of tests are passed and the truth is finally known, Bobby envelopes the boy—dammit, his boy—in a hug, he thinks that maybe instead of giving Dean the letter, he'll just say all those words instead.
~ end ~