Sam dies in the spring.

Dean crouches down they're in some apartment ensnared in on the edge of a broke-back tobacco town. There were spirits and Dean should remember them but his memory's been dislocated, cracked by the way his brother is strewn crooked on a bed of splinters. A breeze blows in from the window ringed with shattered glass and two AM darkness that runs down the walls.

He can't even touch his brother's wounds, you're in ribbons, Sammy, ribbons, his eyes just probe and study Sam the midst of wet messy death (your hands won't let you touch him Dean, you sad son of a bitch).

His ears catch the roar of cars on the road outside, people going places. Dean reels in the absence of breath he's known for twenty odd years. He shudders.

His left hand slowly gropes out in the darkness, it's ringing thicker then cold water, and latches onto Sam's shoulder. Sam's old hunting jacket is rough, familiar, and Dean desperately wishes he could divine some perfect memory of his brother from the smoky fibers but it's impossible. Nothing jumps to mind, not even a terrible fear drenched moment from a hunt burned clandestine in his eyes.

Death wasn't designed to be this worn out.

Dean's eyes get wet because almost all the significance has dissolved from Sam's body lying derelict on the floor, ten-inch slitted eye blown bloody and open through his chest like something tried to eat his heart.

He curls his fingers deeper to feel slack muscle and bone, still warm. It nearly breaks him.

You've. You've done good Sam, he says to the empty bedroom because it might be the right thing to say after all the time they had together. Because it's true. His voice doesn't echo in the night space and Dean rises up, like a vengeance, he's got a job to do now. Born a little earlier so he'll follow Sam a littler later, bracket his life around his little brother's because it's been Dean's job to protect him since day one.

So he burns the complex down then drives away with the sky on fire in his rear view mirror.

Dean dies in the summer, under sweet gum trees bursting greener than his eyes.

It's lovely.