Dean sat. He just sat. Where he’d crumpled. He didn’t know for how long. It could’ve been minutes. It could’ve been hours. The horror of what’d just happened was so great his mind couldn’t grasp it. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t move. So he just sat. Sat staring at Kevin. His burnt out eyes, boring into Dean’s soul. Carving another notch deep into his bones. Where all his guilt lived.
Dean just sat.
When the cold of the bunker floor started to reach into his blood, Dean got up, every joint creaking. He stood looking down into the face of the young man he’d grown to think of as family. The eyes had stopped smouldering. The skin was pallid. Dean knew with out even touching him that Kevin was cold.
Dean took a deep breath and ran a hand back through his hair, closing his eyes as he swayed back and forth. Then he turned and strode from the room.
When Dean returned he had a sheet. He shook it out and gently laid it over Kevin’s body, dropping to a crouch to pull the edges down, so that the young prophet was covered. There Dean stayed until the muscles in his thighs burned and screamed out in pain.
Pain. Pain was good. He deserved pain, he thought.
Pushing up he span on his heel, walked up the bunker stairs and out the door.
When Dean returned it was dark. He was covered in dirt, his hands were scratched and bleeding, but he didn’t notice. He walked over to what had once been Kevin and dropped some rope to the floor that he’d retrieved from the trunk of the Impala. He crouched down and hefted Kevin into his arms. Walking to the large table in the middle of the room he laid Kevin out gently. Dean then went and got the rope and proceeded to wrap Kevin in the sheet, tying the rope around his legs and torso, around his head, to keep the sheet, now acting as a shroud, secure.
Dean pulled Kevin from the table and gently placed him over his should. He walked up the stairs and back out the door, staggering under the weight of the body. He traipsed down the road to a crop of trees. He walked through the trees, stumbling in the dark until he reached a clearing. In the middle of the clearing, stood a pyre.
Dean laid Kevin across the wooden structure and stood back breathing heavily from exertion and emotion.
“Kevin,” he said, “I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I brought the enemy into our home. Whether I knew it or not…well, I shoulda known better. I left you unprotected. You were my responsibility and I left you unprotected and it got you killed. I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve…”
Dean stopped and shook his head, his eyes were blurring as silent tears rolled down his cheeks.
Dean reached down and picked up the kerosene tin at his feet, moving forward and splashing the liquid across the pyre.
“I let you down. I let you down, man. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Dean fumbled around in his pocket for his lighter.
“Kevin, you deserve this. A hunter’s burial. You went out doing the job.”
He stepped forward in the dark.
“Kid, you were family. You are family. Sam and my family. Always will be.”
And with that Dean tossed the lighter onto the pyre and watched as the flames danced and grew, as the wood crackled and burned and as the fire engulfed Kevin.
Dean stood there in the dark until the last ember had stopped glowing. He dug a hole and buried what remains were left. Covering where the fire had burned. Making sure he left no evidence behind. And as the sun started to rise, Dean made his way back to the bunker.
As he walked in the door, the enormity of it all hit him. The silence was palatable. He could feel the emptiness creep into his heart and set up shop there.
He dragged his feet down the stairs bone weary and covered in dirt but he didn’t head to wash up, instead he headed to Sam’s room.
He almost knocked on the door, part of him hoping that this nightmare was just that, a nightmare but instead, he pushed the door opened and looked inside feeling as if the space was a vacant cavern.
Rage suddenly gripped him. He lashed out, sending books and files half way across the room. He grabbed Sam’s mattress and tossed it with all his strength against the wall. He screamed at the top of his lungs, “SAMMMMMMMM”, before folding down onto his knees, his head against his chest as violent sobs wracked his body. He threw his head back, teeth clenched as anguished sounds that even he didn’t recognise rose in his throat.
He breathed in and whispered, “Sammy”.
Dean sat there on the floor crushed and broken until he wasn’t. Then he got to his feet. He picked up the mattress and laid it back down on the bed frame. He made Sam’s bed. “Kid never could make a bed for shit” he mumbled to himself. He picked up the books and files scattered across the floor and neatly stacked them back on the shelves. He left the room without looking back, closing the door behind him.
As he walked down the hall of the bunker, Dean prayed out loud. “Cass, I know you can hear me now, man. I screwed up. Big time. Sam’s gone and I need to get him back. I need your help. Just get here, as soon as you can. I need you Cass.”
Dean walked into the room where he’d last seen his brother. Where he’d watch an angel he didn’t know, kill Kevin and walk out wearing Sam as a suit. He stood absorbing the desolation, gaining strength from his grief.
“I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch,” He yelled, knowing full well that the angel holding his brother hostage could more than likely hear him.
“I’m going to get you back, Sammy,” he whispered.
Wavering for only a moment, Dean walked into the Men of Letters library, grabbed a stack of books and tossed them on the table. He was filthy and exhausted and emotionally spent, but that didn’t matter. Somewhere out there was his brother and Dean wasn’t going to rest until he got him back.
He grabbed a beer, grabbed a book and set about trying to find away to bring Sam home. He could sleep later because, right now, he had work to do.
THE END
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