#this one goes with the 2013 snippet and yes we have been upset ever since

[cambionverse]

envesseled (3 of 3): funeral

happy end of our 10th cambiversary day (for real this time), and the end—for now���of new envesseled content. but you may see more sneak peeks of envesseled during the writing process to come, because you guys: this one's a doozy. expect both length and angst.

this snippet comes with a big, major, huge spoiler warning - you know the one. it's basically an open secret at this point. content warnings for death and grief (which should be unsurprising, given the title).

thank you all so much for reading along and for joining us on this monumental occasion. we saved the best for last, so let's make you sad! <3

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The new snow covers all but the freshest set of footprints. Even though Claire can't actually see Jesse, following him out of Singer's Salvage is easy. The clouds cover most of the moonlight, but white snow is still white snow, putting the silhouettes of trees into sharp relief. It isn't long before she works out his destination—the palo santo tree.

Where Ben is buried.

Claire could stop, now that she knows. Should stop, and give Jesse his privacy. But she doesn't. Like being unable to tear her eyes from a car wreck—part of her wants to see.

The grace protecting the clearing hasn't stopped the little wildflowers from being buried in white. Ben's grave marker could very well be buried too, Claire thinks—but her eyes land on it immediately, a large pile of stones pushed atop a shallow hole in the ground. Jesse, a black shape against the snow, stands huddled before it, bent against the wind or perhaps the whatever ill feeling he gets from the palo santo tree being so close. He stands there for a long time, without moving or saying a word. Snowflakes gather in his hair.

Eventually, Claire goes to join him. It's better than standing by herself, and—he looks so still, there in the snow. Jesse's indestructible, but she just wants to make sure.

Jesse starts when he hears her footsteps, but the hard line of his shoulders relaxes once she's close enough to make out his face. "So much for sleeping, hm?" he asks.

Claire doesn't say anything. The wind whips through the trees.

"I don't know what to say at funerals," Jesse says finally. "I've never been to one. Not my parents', or any of the Simms family—obviously." He shrugs. "I don't know what to say."

Is this Ben's funeral? A sorry excuse for one. He deserves better—but it doesn't matter, Claire reminds herself. None of this matters, none of it is real, because she's going to bring him back.

Jesse reaches into his pocket and produces a large smooth stone. "I've never really visited a grave, either," he confesses. There are tears frozen on his face. "But this is what you're supposed to do, right?" Carefully, so it doesn't fall, he lays the stone on top of the grave. "I don't know, I've never really known anybody who was Jewish except Ben, and I know he didn't keep kosher or anything like that. But the night before we left Cicero, after everything with the djinn, I found him picking out a rock. He said he wanted to leave it on his mom's grave, because it'd been so long."

They'd hung around in Cicero for a few days after everything happened, but Claire remembers now that Ben had disappeared for about an hour the morning they left, claiming he had some catching up around town to do. It was close enough to the truth that it didn't even set off Claire's grace. She hadn't thought much of it at the time—just another thing about Ben she wasn't paying enough attention to.

Jesse turns his head a little. "Can I ask you something?"

Claire crosses her arms, though even the snow doesn't really make her feel cold. Jesse seems to take it for agreement.

"Earlier today," he starts, and something in his tone sets Claire's teeth on edge. "Castiel said something like—it wasn't the first time he healed you?"

That's right, he did say that—and in front of everyone, because of course they all need to know about every horrible detail of Claire's life, she can't go around sharing things with people on her own fucking terms. Not enough for her to crack herself open and let Castiel back inside, is it? All he knows about her—from their time together, and after that—it's his to keep, and he can divulge it at a whim to whomever he chooses. Maybe that's why he brought it up to begin with: as blackmail.

"I thought you hadn't seen him," Jesse continues, tentative. "Since he...since you were young. I thought that was why you left home?"

Claire says nothing.

Finally, Jesse blows out a sigh that fogs the air around them. "All right," he says. "None of my business, I guess. Sorry." And he must be, for Claire feels no pain behind the word.

Still—Claire hurt his feelings, she can tell. After all, it must have seemed like a nice, private moment to divulge a secret. But he's right: it's none of his fucking business. She never told anyone about that night, not even Ben, and she's sure as hell not about to start now just because Castiel spilled the beans. It doesn't matter anymore anyway. None of it matters except getting Ben back. So that this—the grave, the body beneath it, this mockery of a fucking funeral—none of it has to come to pass.

Jesse lifts his head to look above him. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but seems to think better of it, clamping his jaw shut and shaking his head. He takes a deep breath and holds it—to, perhaps, the count of four—and then at last says, "It'll be all right."

Following his line of sight, Claire spies a dark shape among the branches, swaying in the wind. Ben's bracelet, tied firmly around the lowest, closest branch to the grave. Small wonder she didn't hear it, with the rest of the tree sitting here singing so loudly it covers the sound.

She had wondered where it went.

Jesse turns away from it. "I'm freezing," he says finally, and gives Claire an expectant look. "Coming?"

Claire hesitates.

Something in Jesse's posture changes—the angle of his shoulders, perhaps. It's hard to tell in the dark. "All right," he says again. "I'll, uh. Be inside. If you need me."

She suspects it's Jesse who needs her, at the moment—even with the traps broken, he can't possibly enjoy being back in that house alone—but after a long silence, he goes on ahead without her.

When at last he disappears between the trees, Claire looks back up at the bracelet.

How she used to hate that thing, when she and Ben first met—a constant whining at the edge of her subconscious, reminding her that Dean Winchester's boy was nearby, a son in name whether or not that righteous blood was flowing through his veins. But just as she eventually took a liking to Ben, so too did she learn to like the sound. Some nights, after the grace sickness got bad, it was the only thing that let her drop off to sleep. Now it's entombed here just like Ben is, singing its song to no one.

A funeral. What do you say at a funeral?

Claire has only ever been to one funeral: the one she and her mother held a year after her father's first disappearance, just before Castiel. It was for closure, her mother said—to let go, move on, and leave the rest in the hands of the Lord. Even at age eleven, Claire had understood that the funeral was mostly for her mother, and so she let her mother do the talking.

And not two weeks after they laid her father to rest, he turned back up on their doorstep, Castiel and the Winchesters not far behind. The whole time they were letting him go, he was still out there, chained to a comet, lost inside that screaming light and condemned to a fate worse than death.

Claire didn't go to any more funerals after that, not even her mother's. A funeral isn't just letting go, it's giving up. And Claire's not going to give up on Ben, not when he still needs her help. All the years he stayed by her side when she gave him every reason to go, all the attempts she made to push him away that were met with his steadfast loyalty and patience—to repay that with a funeral is an insult.

Claire turns away from the grave. She will not mourn Ben. She will not.

The song of the palo santo grows fainter with each step she takes away from the tree. In her mind's eye Claire sees Ben's easy grin when he explained it to her for the first time, and then the lonely image of it stuck up among the tree branches, condemned to rot away in the elements after all the hard work Ben put into perfecting it. She thinks of the rest of her life, however many weeks or months she may have of it, spent in silence.

Claire stops.

This is not a funeral. This is not Ben's grave. He isn't gone, because she's bringing him back.

All at once Claire whirls, kicking up snow, and marches back up to the tree. It's nearly too high for her to reach, but after two tries Claire's hand closes around the branch and snaps it off completely. She pulls the bracelet off and tosses the branch carelessly to the ground. Now that she's touching the bracelet, she can differentiate its hum from the rest of the tree, and the song flows right up through her palm and into her bloodstream, momentarily cooling down her anger.

Claire's going to have to start wearing a jacket after all, she thinks, even as she slides the bracelet onto her own wrist. She can't let anyone see her wearing this.

She touches her fingers to the wood, and doesn't cry.

It's just like Jesse said: it'll be all right.

It'll be all right.