Fragile

Fragile XI

(Warning this chapter goes over some very dark topics.)

Fragile XI

"Don't you want to say something?" Sam whispered, his eyes rimmed with red as he stared down at our father's tombstone. We had gone with the granite, something that I knew that I would be struggling to pay off for the next fifteen years. But Sam said our dad deserved the best and I couldn't have him believe otherwise.

Couldn't have him question why I was so calm about this whole thing.

"Like what?" I asked flatly, flickering my gaze over to his.

He shrugged, more silent tears running down his face. "Whatever you want."

"Why? It's not like he can hear us." He pursed his lips. "What?"

"Why do you have to be such an asshole?" he snapped, "Our father is dead. Our mother is dead. And I haven't seen you shed a single tear!"

"Sam..."

"You want to know why I keep making us visit?" He interrupted, not waiting for me to answer. "It's because of you. You, Dean. I've already said my goodbyes to dad. I've already said my piece. Now it's your turn."

"But he won't even-"

"I don't care if he won't hear it! That's not the point! The point is for you to let out all your pain. Our father died less than a week ago, Dean. How come you seem so okay without him?" His voice broke at the end and before I knew it, Sam was crying again. Tears dripping off the end of his chin and plopping onto the ground below us.

And as much as I wanted to scream at him the things that our father had done, the pain that he had put me through while Sam remained oblivious, I couldn't do that because John had never hurt Sam. He had only hurt me.

And I refused to be the one who hurt Sam.

I dropped my gaze, staring down at the white chrysanthemums that laid infront of us."I'm just better at hiding it, Sammy," I muttered, and I could feel his eyes flickering across my face, searching for something I wasn't sure I wanted him to find, before he gave up and sighed, wiping furiously at his tears, like he was embarrassed about how he exploded on me like that.

"Yeah, well...I wish I was," he said softly, stepping closer to me to lay his head against my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around him and squeezed him tight against me.

A bitter smile spread across my lips. "No, Sammy, you don't."

That was problem with being alone. You had too much time to think - too much time to remember. My parents weren't the only people I've lost. They were just the ones that hurt less. Sam leaving for college was one of the hardest things I ever had to go through. It didn't help that his phone calls slowly stopped and his text messages usually consisted of four words or less. It wasn't until he caught me when he started talking to me again, something that hurt more than I wanted to admit. And Castiel...well, I had grown closer to him then I had realized. Hearing those words out of his mouth, seeing the accusation in his eyes as he blamed me for his problems...it hurt. It all hurt. It was like no matter how hard I tried, people just kept hurting me. They kept doubting me.

I guess I had a problem.

That's how these things usually worked, right? I say I have a problem, I work on said problem, and then that problem is no longer an issue for me anymore. Easy, right?

But what if by saying that I have a problem made that problem worse? What if by admitting that problem, I was proving everyone else right? That I really couldn't handle this. That I really was the pathetic loser everyone else saw me as?