to build a home

wrong turn

Graveside.

The rain is caught somewhere, awkward, between heavy and light. It's not drizzle; it comes down with too much force for that, stings at Dean's face and eyes too much for that—he has to squint as raindrops hit his eyelashes—but it's not exactly hard enough to be a downpour, either. Most people brought umbrellas; Sammy is sharing one with mom, big and black it hangs like Dean's mood over them as water droplets turn to silver on its surface and slide off one another, chasing themselves down its globed surface. It doesn't cover Dean. Which is fine, actually—the cold makes this strangely real and just distant enough for Dean not to be afraid that he's going to die with grief, and end up in the ground next to Jimmy's lifeless body.

He thinks about what Jimmy thought about death; can't remember the man imparting any kind of comforting words of there being a promised afterlife or peace or rest waiting for everyone who passes from this world. He helped Dean so much when John died—how can Dean not even remember what Jimmy believed about death?

Maybe Jimmy never told him.

Dean lets the rain ground his thoughts.

He wonders how it is that fourteen years, fourteen years of intimacies purer and more sincere than any other he's ever known, any he's seen, felt, seen written of, could end so suddenly. He wonders how it is he let nine years grow and rot at the gap between himself and Jimmy Novak's youngest son. Now the whole universe lies between them, even if Castiel has returned from his new life—one that exists on an entirely separate continent to Dean.

And that's just it—Cas is back, standing a matter of feet away from Dean, but he'll only be here for seven days. After that—well, Dean has no idea. Him and Cas don't talk any more.

He realises, stomach lurching, that he hasn't exchanged a singe word with Castiel in almost a decade. Not one word. He wonders what his first words to Cas will be; if he'll be given the chance to speak to the other man again, if Castiel will let him.

Dean ruined their friendship. If nothing else, he has to say sorry for that.

He considers how much it must have hurt Jimmy to see his son and Dean grow so distant so suddenly. It wasn't something that crept; it was a sudden ripping of flesh away from flesh, heart from heart, soul from soul. It was agony, left Dean wounded as if he'd lost his mind, as if he'd never heal—he wondered if Cas felt the same. Feels the same. Felt anything. Feels anything.

Dean wouldn't blame him if he didn't.

The Rabbi, one of Bobby's old friends, Rufus Turner, prays as the casket is lowered by shimmering white cloths. Dean feels his body lurch in temptation to wretch and convulse again, all at the thought that this is the last time he will see Jimmy Novak.

Well, not really. The last time he saw Jimmy—fuck. When was the last time he saw Jimmy?

He can't remember.

Dean is dust, worse than dust, he can't remember the last conversation he had with one of the most important father-figures in his life, can't recall what was said, how it was said, the circumstances of the words—if Jimmy was happy, smiling that smile like the sun that his youngest child had inherited so perfectly; if he was folorn, for whatever reason, missing his children perhaps, missing Dean...

Dean's breath stutters in his chest the way a child's does when they've been weeping for hours and are trying to stem their tears. Dean feels like a child.

The casket has reached the ground of Jimmy's final resting place.

Is that what he'd call it? A resting place? It sounds too pretentious, too pretentious for humble, gentle Jimmy Novak, who'd laugh affectionately at some of the poems Castiel would show him and inform his youngest son that poets should spend more time outdoors.