Fic: Stacking Bones, 1/5
Title: Stacking Bones
Category: Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
Spoilers: Up to and including 3.16
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, nothing too horrible in this chapter
Disclaimers: Not mine, blah blah blah
Summary: Sam never gave up on Dean, but he didn't save him either.
Notes: Once again, not betaed. Only human. All mistakes are my own. If you see something wrong, don't be shy.
Feedback is welcome.
Prologue
Fic: Stacking Bones
1/5
Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
When Dean wakes up the car has stopped moving and he’s alone.
It’s darker now, and not just because of the tree branches that crowd the windshield. The sky is more purple than blue. The air is still and quiet and very, very cold.
He’s curled up in the same cramped position he was in when he went to sleep except that now there’s something covering his torso, an old plaid coat with a quilted lining, pulled right up under his chin like a blanket. In spite of that he’s so cold that he aches. Dean can see his breath in the stagnant air but he can’t move. He can’t even shiver. It’s like his body doesn’t remember how.
Dean doesn’t know how long he lies there, maybe minutes, maybe hours. Time is too abstract a concept for him to wrap his tired mind around.
The back door of the car opens, and the sudden noise is like an explosion. Dean flinches.
There’s a man towering above him, the driver. Dean can only see his blue-jeaned legs and the hem of a red and white flannel shirt.
“Shit,” the driver swears. He kneels down to Dean’s height, starts rubbing Dean’s back shoulders. “Meant to come back sooner. Chimney’s cold. Took longer than I thought to get a fire started. Jeez…your lips are blue…”
The driver’s touch awakens something, some long forgotten instinct of self-preservation, and Dean starts shaking uncontrollably.
“That’s it. That’s the ticket. You’re not dead.” The driver’s voice catches. “You’re not dead,” like he’s saying it as much for himself as he is for Dean. Like he needs the reassurance. Dean kind of needs the reassurance too.
Through chattering teeth Dean tries to speak, but it comes out quiet and broken, like he’s never spoken before in his life. The driver leans his ear closer to Dean’s mouth. “What?”
“Sam,” Dean says again.
The driver looks at him for a moment. His rough hands freeze where they are.
“I’m sorry, boy. ” He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but closes it again with a shake of his head. He adjusts the weathered cap on his head, shielding his eyes. “Let’s get you inside.”
Bobby. Bobby is the driver. The name swims up from some darkened corner of Dean’s memory. It’s like lighting a candle in a room full of dusty old relics, things that he thought he’d lost forever. Then Bobby’s rough hands are under Dean’s arms, pulling him out of the back seat. The coat slips off of his shoulders and onto the floor. Dean hadn’t realized how much it really was protecting him from the cold until it was gone. The chill soaks right through him, down to his bones.
“Can you-?” Bobby starts to ask, but whatever it is, it’s clear that Dean can’t. As it turns out, the Bobby is a lot stronger than Dean ever realized. When Dean’s legs refuse to take his weight, Bobby scoops an arm under his knees and lifts him like a child. Dean’s left arm falls across his chest, his right arm is a useless hunk of meat and bone, a dead weight swinging from his shoulder.
There are trees all around them, dark and sinister in the fading light. In the midst of this wilderness there stands a single, modest wooden structure, an old cabin.
Bobby carries Dean a dozen yards up a leaf-covered gravel path, then up a set of creaky wooden stairs and through the cabin’s open doorway. In that short time it’s all Dean can do to keep his head from lolling backward, right off Bobby’s flannel shoulder and into open space. This close, Bobby smells like sweat and gunpowder and engine grease. He smells like every man that Dean’s ever looked up to.
The only light inside the cabin comes from a roaring fire. The air is dusty, smoky and stale, but warmer, marginally warmer than the pine-scented stuff outside.
Bobby’s knees crack when he lays Dean down on a braided rug near the fireplace. Dean watches with detachment as the Bobby prods the fire with a wrought iron poker, sending glowing embers into the air. Dean’s eyes follow them until they wink out in the darkness.
Bobby crouches in front of him, talks to him in a low, soothing voice. Dean tries to make sense out of what he’s saying but the words keep sliding away from him like greased rope, just going faster and faster the harder he tries to hang on.
The heat from the fire feels unbelievably good, and Dean loses himself in the flames. When he comes back, there’s a blanket on top of him and the side of him that’s closest to the fire is almost painfully hot. It feels wonderful.
The orange glow throws long black shapes on the walls and the floor. Dean can’t see or hear much, but he knows he’s not alone. He can feel Bobby moving around just outside of his peripheral vision, can hear the rustle of paper bags and plastic sacks, the clunking wood-on-wood sound of furniture being moved. There’s a creak and a sigh, the sound of an old man easing himself into an old chair.
The steady scrape, scrape, scrape of Bobby sharpening his Natchez Bowie is like a lullaby, and it leads Dean into the dark.
XXXXX
“Sam.”
“Sam.”
Dean comes awake to the word, spoken over and over again. Only when he’s fully awake does he realize that it’s his own voice calling for Sam, and that Sam’s not coming.
The windows are thrown open and the room is filled with bright, cold light. Dean can pick out details of this place that he couldn’t by the soft glow of the fire. The cabin is small: one room only with a kitchenette in one corner, one door besides the one he came in through. Could be a bathroom or a closet. The walls are made of natural wood, no plaster or paint, and Dean can see the dusty crossbeams holding the roof up. The floor is the same dark wood, sanded smooth, varnished once upon a time, but worn now and covered in dust except for where the tread of Bobby’s boots has disturbed it. There are leaves and cobwebs in the corners. From above the fireplace the mounted head of an elk looks down at him with soulless glass eyes.
The room smells like cooked meat, but whatever meal was prepared in the tiny kitchenette has already been eaten. The smell fails to arouse any kind of response in Dean beyond recognition. He doesn’t remember his last meal.
There are slow, heavy footsteps coming up the front steps. Dean feels them as a vibration in the floor. The front door squeaks on its hinges when Bobby shoulders it open, arms full of firewood.
“Hey,” the Bobby says with a note of relief, “You’re awake.”
Dean shivers. The motion awakens every small ache in his body and makes him aware of a damp patch underneath him and an earthy smell that he hadn’t noticed before, but which is suddenly overwhelming.
Dean makes a noise in his throat, a sound like a distressed animal, his cheeks burning with shame.
Bobby keeps his eyes on Dean as he sets down his load and dusts the splinters off of his sleeves. Without pulling back the blanket he seems to already know what’s happened.
“Oh…it’s okay. Don’t worry about that, son,” Bobby tells him. “I shoulda thought about that sooner I guess. But it’s fine. I’ve got some clothes for you in the trunk.”
Bobby looks at him then, like he’s waiting for something. Dean sees the hope shift to disappointment when Bobby realizes that whatever he’s waiting for isn’t coming.
“C’mon, son, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Turns out the second door leads to a bathroom. It’s small, which seems to be a running theme for this place. There is a sink, with two knobs and a faucet trailing orange rust stains into the white ceramic basin, a toilet without a lid, and a combination shower and bathtub. One of the knobs is missing. Bobby has to use a wrench to turn on the flow. Pipes rattle in the walls, and when the water first sputters out of the tap it’s thick with rust.
Bobby lets it run for a while, tries to hide the silver flask behind the flap of his jacket and the pretense of testing the temperature of the water. Dean sees him empty the flask’s contents into the bath anyway, and can’t find it in himself to panic like he knows he should, because that’s not whiskey he’s got there.
Bobby helps Dean undress, meaning that he does almost all of the work. It’s uncomfortable and it takes a painfully long time. Dean can’t raise his arms. He’s wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxer shorts, and the shorts are soaked through. They stick to his legs and they smell. Thank God it’s only piss. He sees Bobby grimace, but he soldiers on, draping the blanket over Dean’s lap to save him some shred of dignity while he peals the sopping cotton away from Dean’s skin. By the time Bobby manages to get him into the bathtub there are tears running down Dean’s cheeks.
“Too hot?” Bobby asks, wary.
Dean finds out that there’s more than one word in his vocabulary.
“No,” he says. It’s easier than shaking his head.
Bobby makes sure that Dean can keep his head out of the water before he leaves to get another fire started and retrieve some fresh clothes. Once he’s gone Dean lets the tears come, not tears of pain or humiliation, but tears of gratitude. He hasn’t been able to cry for a very long time.
Under the murky water there are deep scars on his legs, chest and arms. Dean hadn’t even realized how badly they’d been pulling on the skin around them until they start to soften in the heat. He doesn’t try to remember how he got them, but he remembers anyway.
Oh, God, he remembers anyway…
Dean sucks up his tears before Bobby comes back with a small stack of clothes: just underwear and a t-shirt. Anything more would be reaching. When he finds that Dean hasn’t drowned yet he gives him a cursory once-over with a soapy washcloth and then sets him on the edge of the tub and uses an old blanket to dry him off. Dean can’t do anything but endure it.
He must have made some kind of unhappy sound or given Bobby a dirty look because at one point in the middle of drying his hair, Bobby pulls back, looks him square in the eye and points an accusing finger at Dean’s nose, “I’m tryin’ to help you, boy. You can’t do it for yourself right now so don’t you give me any grief. I’m not gonna let you sit around in your own filth, stinkin’ up my cabin. Put a sock in it.”
It’s the longest, angriest stretch of words Dean’s heard out of the man yet, and it awakens something inside of him. Before he’s aware that he’s done anything, Dean’s right hand worms out from under the blanket, headed for Bobby’s jaw. It stalls on its way there, lands on Bobby's shoulder, flops back down and smacks against the side of the tub.
Bobby looks shocked for a second, and then his face splits open in a wide grin. He wraps one of his big, callused hands around the side of Dean’s neck. “Knew you were still in there.” Bobby gives him a brisk shake, like he’s congratulating him. Dean feels his body rock back and forth, head wobbling on his neck like a ball on a rubber stick.
Dean feels one corner of his mouth twitch in response.
“I thought-” Bobby cuts himself off, shaking his head, but his smile doesn’t completely go away. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get you dressed.”
Bobby has a white cotton t-shirt and a set of boxer shorts for him. Brand new. The clothes still smell like the plastic wrappers that they came in.
Bobby lays the boxers out on the floor, puts Dean’s feet into them one at a time and slides them up Dean’s legs past his knees as high as they will go. He has to stand Dean up to pull the boxers on the rest of the way. The shirt is the easiest part of the transaction, but Dean’s arms are still rubbery and they weigh a thousand pounds. He tries to lift them but only makes things harder for Bobby in the long run. Bobby doesn’t seem to mind.
Bobby carries Dean the short distance to the main room. Bobby doesn’t seem to like the arrangement any more than Dean does, but there’s no way around it.
The smell lingers but the soiled rug is gone, replaced by an old army cot that’s seen better years. Its brother is in the corner of the room with a rolled sleeping bag on top: a place for Bobby to sleep, Dean realizes. Dean is too pathetically grateful for the heat from the fire to mind that he’s taking the best bed in the house. He’s shivering, teeth chattering.
“I’m too old for this shit,” Bobby tells the room, arching his back. “We should try to get some fluids in you. You got a favorite flavor of Gatorade?”
Whatever Dean’s favorite flavor might have been, all Bobby has is beer or water, and Bobby’s not about to waste beer on a man who can’t hold his own head up, so water is what he gets.
Bobby hauls Dean into a sitting position and holds him against his chest. Dean can feel Bobby’s heart beat through all the layers of cotton and flannel, slow and steady and reassuring.
“Don’t exactly know how we’re gonna do this…” Bobby admits, unscrewing the cap from the plastic bottle.
Bobby tips the bottle toward Dean’s lips, and Dean nearly drowns in a capful of water. Seems like he’s out of practice at swallowing. Two or three more tries and he’s not any closer to getting the hang of it. By then Bobby’s starting to look worried. He raises the bottle one more time and Dean finds the energy to turn his head away.
“Okay,” Bobby says. He re-caps the water and lowers Dean onto the cot, where Dean coughs miserably. “Maybe we’ll try again later.”
Bobby takes his cap off and runs his fingers nervously through his hair. He’s looking down at Dean like he’s a puzzle that Bobby can’t solve…or like he’s a broken down car that Bobby can’t fix.
“You just rest for a while.”
Like there’s another option. At Bobby’s suggestion Dean feels his body sinking, like it’s trying to drag him down into the floor.
Dean doesn’t want to be tired. He doesn’t want to sleep anymore. He feels like he’s been asleep for a hundred years or like maybe he’s never been awake in his entire life.
Bobby puts the water away with the rest of the supplies in the tiny kitchenette, moves slowly around the room like he’s not sure what to do with himself next. Dean can hear his footsteps, pacing. He can’t turn his head to look.
“B’by.”
Bobby doesn’t stop. The old fart is losing his hearing.
“Bobby,” Dean tries again, embarrassed that his voice is so weak but at the same time amazed that he got the word past his lips at all.
Bobby pulls up short. He comes to kneel by Dean’s head, puts his ear close to Dean’s mouth.
“How long…?”
Close up, there are more white whiskers in Bobby’s beard than red. The lines on his face are deep grooves.
Two words are all that Dean has the strength for. When that becomes clear to Bobby, he sits back on his haunches. When Dean hears Bobby’s joints crack, the sound is louder than Dean’s question.
“A year,” Bobby says it flat, no sugar coating. “A year and some change. Sam could tell you how much, probably down to the minute.”
“Sam…where’s Sam?”
“Sam’s not here,” Bobby tells him. And there’s no apology under those words. It is how it is. “He can take care of himself. Worry about yourself for once in your damn life.”
Bobby gets up and crosses to the small kitchenette. Dean hears the sound of glass bottles clinking together and a hiss of pressurized air escaping. Bobby tosses his the bottle cap into the fireplace, where the flames turn it black.
“I’d offer you one, but I don’t think that’s the best idea right now.”
Bobby tips the bottle up and swallows. Dean’s throat feels so dry. He remembers the taste of beer, can almost feel it in his throat.
Bobby runs a hand nervously down his beard. Dean’s eyes follow every movement. Bobby reads the question in them. He says, “Sam’s coming. He’s just not coming right away.”
Bobby takes a long drink out of his bottle, drains it by half. When he comes up for air he says, “Sorry, kid, but that’s all I got for you.”
Dean looks up at Bobby, who’s frowning at the fire like it’s done something to piss him off.
Dean has to wait for a while before Bobby looks at him again, but when he does, Dean tells him, “Thank you.”
tbc...
Part 2
Category: Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
Spoilers: Up to and including 3.16
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, nothing too horrible in this chapter
Disclaimers: Not mine, blah blah blah
Summary: Sam never gave up on Dean, but he didn't save him either.
Notes: Once again, not betaed. Only human. All mistakes are my own. If you see something wrong, don't be shy.
Feedback is welcome.
Prologue
Fic: Stacking Bones
1/5
Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
When Dean wakes up the car has stopped moving and he’s alone.
It’s darker now, and not just because of the tree branches that crowd the windshield. The sky is more purple than blue. The air is still and quiet and very, very cold.
He’s curled up in the same cramped position he was in when he went to sleep except that now there’s something covering his torso, an old plaid coat with a quilted lining, pulled right up under his chin like a blanket. In spite of that he’s so cold that he aches. Dean can see his breath in the stagnant air but he can’t move. He can’t even shiver. It’s like his body doesn’t remember how.
Dean doesn’t know how long he lies there, maybe minutes, maybe hours. Time is too abstract a concept for him to wrap his tired mind around.
The back door of the car opens, and the sudden noise is like an explosion. Dean flinches.
There’s a man towering above him, the driver. Dean can only see his blue-jeaned legs and the hem of a red and white flannel shirt.
“Shit,” the driver swears. He kneels down to Dean’s height, starts rubbing Dean’s back shoulders. “Meant to come back sooner. Chimney’s cold. Took longer than I thought to get a fire started. Jeez…your lips are blue…”
The driver’s touch awakens something, some long forgotten instinct of self-preservation, and Dean starts shaking uncontrollably.
“That’s it. That’s the ticket. You’re not dead.” The driver’s voice catches. “You’re not dead,” like he’s saying it as much for himself as he is for Dean. Like he needs the reassurance. Dean kind of needs the reassurance too.
Through chattering teeth Dean tries to speak, but it comes out quiet and broken, like he’s never spoken before in his life. The driver leans his ear closer to Dean’s mouth. “What?”
“Sam,” Dean says again.
The driver looks at him for a moment. His rough hands freeze where they are.
“I’m sorry, boy. ” He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but closes it again with a shake of his head. He adjusts the weathered cap on his head, shielding his eyes. “Let’s get you inside.”
Bobby. Bobby is the driver. The name swims up from some darkened corner of Dean’s memory. It’s like lighting a candle in a room full of dusty old relics, things that he thought he’d lost forever. Then Bobby’s rough hands are under Dean’s arms, pulling him out of the back seat. The coat slips off of his shoulders and onto the floor. Dean hadn’t realized how much it really was protecting him from the cold until it was gone. The chill soaks right through him, down to his bones.
“Can you-?” Bobby starts to ask, but whatever it is, it’s clear that Dean can’t. As it turns out, the Bobby is a lot stronger than Dean ever realized. When Dean’s legs refuse to take his weight, Bobby scoops an arm under his knees and lifts him like a child. Dean’s left arm falls across his chest, his right arm is a useless hunk of meat and bone, a dead weight swinging from his shoulder.
There are trees all around them, dark and sinister in the fading light. In the midst of this wilderness there stands a single, modest wooden structure, an old cabin.
Bobby carries Dean a dozen yards up a leaf-covered gravel path, then up a set of creaky wooden stairs and through the cabin’s open doorway. In that short time it’s all Dean can do to keep his head from lolling backward, right off Bobby’s flannel shoulder and into open space. This close, Bobby smells like sweat and gunpowder and engine grease. He smells like every man that Dean’s ever looked up to.
The only light inside the cabin comes from a roaring fire. The air is dusty, smoky and stale, but warmer, marginally warmer than the pine-scented stuff outside.
Bobby’s knees crack when he lays Dean down on a braided rug near the fireplace. Dean watches with detachment as the Bobby prods the fire with a wrought iron poker, sending glowing embers into the air. Dean’s eyes follow them until they wink out in the darkness.
Bobby crouches in front of him, talks to him in a low, soothing voice. Dean tries to make sense out of what he’s saying but the words keep sliding away from him like greased rope, just going faster and faster the harder he tries to hang on.
The heat from the fire feels unbelievably good, and Dean loses himself in the flames. When he comes back, there’s a blanket on top of him and the side of him that’s closest to the fire is almost painfully hot. It feels wonderful.
The orange glow throws long black shapes on the walls and the floor. Dean can’t see or hear much, but he knows he’s not alone. He can feel Bobby moving around just outside of his peripheral vision, can hear the rustle of paper bags and plastic sacks, the clunking wood-on-wood sound of furniture being moved. There’s a creak and a sigh, the sound of an old man easing himself into an old chair.
The steady scrape, scrape, scrape of Bobby sharpening his Natchez Bowie is like a lullaby, and it leads Dean into the dark.
XXXXX
“Sam.”
“Sam.”
Dean comes awake to the word, spoken over and over again. Only when he’s fully awake does he realize that it’s his own voice calling for Sam, and that Sam’s not coming.
The windows are thrown open and the room is filled with bright, cold light. Dean can pick out details of this place that he couldn’t by the soft glow of the fire. The cabin is small: one room only with a kitchenette in one corner, one door besides the one he came in through. Could be a bathroom or a closet. The walls are made of natural wood, no plaster or paint, and Dean can see the dusty crossbeams holding the roof up. The floor is the same dark wood, sanded smooth, varnished once upon a time, but worn now and covered in dust except for where the tread of Bobby’s boots has disturbed it. There are leaves and cobwebs in the corners. From above the fireplace the mounted head of an elk looks down at him with soulless glass eyes.
The room smells like cooked meat, but whatever meal was prepared in the tiny kitchenette has already been eaten. The smell fails to arouse any kind of response in Dean beyond recognition. He doesn’t remember his last meal.
There are slow, heavy footsteps coming up the front steps. Dean feels them as a vibration in the floor. The front door squeaks on its hinges when Bobby shoulders it open, arms full of firewood.
“Hey,” the Bobby says with a note of relief, “You’re awake.”
Dean shivers. The motion awakens every small ache in his body and makes him aware of a damp patch underneath him and an earthy smell that he hadn’t noticed before, but which is suddenly overwhelming.
Dean makes a noise in his throat, a sound like a distressed animal, his cheeks burning with shame.
Bobby keeps his eyes on Dean as he sets down his load and dusts the splinters off of his sleeves. Without pulling back the blanket he seems to already know what’s happened.
“Oh…it’s okay. Don’t worry about that, son,” Bobby tells him. “I shoulda thought about that sooner I guess. But it’s fine. I’ve got some clothes for you in the trunk.”
Bobby looks at him then, like he’s waiting for something. Dean sees the hope shift to disappointment when Bobby realizes that whatever he’s waiting for isn’t coming.
“C’mon, son, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Turns out the second door leads to a bathroom. It’s small, which seems to be a running theme for this place. There is a sink, with two knobs and a faucet trailing orange rust stains into the white ceramic basin, a toilet without a lid, and a combination shower and bathtub. One of the knobs is missing. Bobby has to use a wrench to turn on the flow. Pipes rattle in the walls, and when the water first sputters out of the tap it’s thick with rust.
Bobby lets it run for a while, tries to hide the silver flask behind the flap of his jacket and the pretense of testing the temperature of the water. Dean sees him empty the flask’s contents into the bath anyway, and can’t find it in himself to panic like he knows he should, because that’s not whiskey he’s got there.
Bobby helps Dean undress, meaning that he does almost all of the work. It’s uncomfortable and it takes a painfully long time. Dean can’t raise his arms. He’s wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxer shorts, and the shorts are soaked through. They stick to his legs and they smell. Thank God it’s only piss. He sees Bobby grimace, but he soldiers on, draping the blanket over Dean’s lap to save him some shred of dignity while he peals the sopping cotton away from Dean’s skin. By the time Bobby manages to get him into the bathtub there are tears running down Dean’s cheeks.
“Too hot?” Bobby asks, wary.
Dean finds out that there’s more than one word in his vocabulary.
“No,” he says. It’s easier than shaking his head.
Bobby makes sure that Dean can keep his head out of the water before he leaves to get another fire started and retrieve some fresh clothes. Once he’s gone Dean lets the tears come, not tears of pain or humiliation, but tears of gratitude. He hasn’t been able to cry for a very long time.
Under the murky water there are deep scars on his legs, chest and arms. Dean hadn’t even realized how badly they’d been pulling on the skin around them until they start to soften in the heat. He doesn’t try to remember how he got them, but he remembers anyway.
Oh, God, he remembers anyway…
Dean sucks up his tears before Bobby comes back with a small stack of clothes: just underwear and a t-shirt. Anything more would be reaching. When he finds that Dean hasn’t drowned yet he gives him a cursory once-over with a soapy washcloth and then sets him on the edge of the tub and uses an old blanket to dry him off. Dean can’t do anything but endure it.
He must have made some kind of unhappy sound or given Bobby a dirty look because at one point in the middle of drying his hair, Bobby pulls back, looks him square in the eye and points an accusing finger at Dean’s nose, “I’m tryin’ to help you, boy. You can’t do it for yourself right now so don’t you give me any grief. I’m not gonna let you sit around in your own filth, stinkin’ up my cabin. Put a sock in it.”
It’s the longest, angriest stretch of words Dean’s heard out of the man yet, and it awakens something inside of him. Before he’s aware that he’s done anything, Dean’s right hand worms out from under the blanket, headed for Bobby’s jaw. It stalls on its way there, lands on Bobby's shoulder, flops back down and smacks against the side of the tub.
Bobby looks shocked for a second, and then his face splits open in a wide grin. He wraps one of his big, callused hands around the side of Dean’s neck. “Knew you were still in there.” Bobby gives him a brisk shake, like he’s congratulating him. Dean feels his body rock back and forth, head wobbling on his neck like a ball on a rubber stick.
Dean feels one corner of his mouth twitch in response.
“I thought-” Bobby cuts himself off, shaking his head, but his smile doesn’t completely go away. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get you dressed.”
Bobby has a white cotton t-shirt and a set of boxer shorts for him. Brand new. The clothes still smell like the plastic wrappers that they came in.
Bobby lays the boxers out on the floor, puts Dean’s feet into them one at a time and slides them up Dean’s legs past his knees as high as they will go. He has to stand Dean up to pull the boxers on the rest of the way. The shirt is the easiest part of the transaction, but Dean’s arms are still rubbery and they weigh a thousand pounds. He tries to lift them but only makes things harder for Bobby in the long run. Bobby doesn’t seem to mind.
Bobby carries Dean the short distance to the main room. Bobby doesn’t seem to like the arrangement any more than Dean does, but there’s no way around it.
The smell lingers but the soiled rug is gone, replaced by an old army cot that’s seen better years. Its brother is in the corner of the room with a rolled sleeping bag on top: a place for Bobby to sleep, Dean realizes. Dean is too pathetically grateful for the heat from the fire to mind that he’s taking the best bed in the house. He’s shivering, teeth chattering.
“I’m too old for this shit,” Bobby tells the room, arching his back. “We should try to get some fluids in you. You got a favorite flavor of Gatorade?”
Whatever Dean’s favorite flavor might have been, all Bobby has is beer or water, and Bobby’s not about to waste beer on a man who can’t hold his own head up, so water is what he gets.
Bobby hauls Dean into a sitting position and holds him against his chest. Dean can feel Bobby’s heart beat through all the layers of cotton and flannel, slow and steady and reassuring.
“Don’t exactly know how we’re gonna do this…” Bobby admits, unscrewing the cap from the plastic bottle.
Bobby tips the bottle toward Dean’s lips, and Dean nearly drowns in a capful of water. Seems like he’s out of practice at swallowing. Two or three more tries and he’s not any closer to getting the hang of it. By then Bobby’s starting to look worried. He raises the bottle one more time and Dean finds the energy to turn his head away.
“Okay,” Bobby says. He re-caps the water and lowers Dean onto the cot, where Dean coughs miserably. “Maybe we’ll try again later.”
Bobby takes his cap off and runs his fingers nervously through his hair. He’s looking down at Dean like he’s a puzzle that Bobby can’t solve…or like he’s a broken down car that Bobby can’t fix.
“You just rest for a while.”
Like there’s another option. At Bobby’s suggestion Dean feels his body sinking, like it’s trying to drag him down into the floor.
Dean doesn’t want to be tired. He doesn’t want to sleep anymore. He feels like he’s been asleep for a hundred years or like maybe he’s never been awake in his entire life.
Bobby puts the water away with the rest of the supplies in the tiny kitchenette, moves slowly around the room like he’s not sure what to do with himself next. Dean can hear his footsteps, pacing. He can’t turn his head to look.
“B’by.”
Bobby doesn’t stop. The old fart is losing his hearing.
“Bobby,” Dean tries again, embarrassed that his voice is so weak but at the same time amazed that he got the word past his lips at all.
Bobby pulls up short. He comes to kneel by Dean’s head, puts his ear close to Dean’s mouth.
“How long…?”
Close up, there are more white whiskers in Bobby’s beard than red. The lines on his face are deep grooves.
Two words are all that Dean has the strength for. When that becomes clear to Bobby, he sits back on his haunches. When Dean hears Bobby’s joints crack, the sound is louder than Dean’s question.
“A year,” Bobby says it flat, no sugar coating. “A year and some change. Sam could tell you how much, probably down to the minute.”
“Sam…where’s Sam?”
“Sam’s not here,” Bobby tells him. And there’s no apology under those words. It is how it is. “He can take care of himself. Worry about yourself for once in your damn life.”
Bobby gets up and crosses to the small kitchenette. Dean hears the sound of glass bottles clinking together and a hiss of pressurized air escaping. Bobby tosses his the bottle cap into the fireplace, where the flames turn it black.
“I’d offer you one, but I don’t think that’s the best idea right now.”
Bobby tips the bottle up and swallows. Dean’s throat feels so dry. He remembers the taste of beer, can almost feel it in his throat.
Bobby runs a hand nervously down his beard. Dean’s eyes follow every movement. Bobby reads the question in them. He says, “Sam’s coming. He’s just not coming right away.”
Bobby takes a long drink out of his bottle, drains it by half. When he comes up for air he says, “Sorry, kid, but that’s all I got for you.”
Dean looks up at Bobby, who’s frowning at the fire like it’s done something to piss him off.
Dean has to wait for a while before Bobby looks at him again, but when he does, Dean tells him, “Thank you.”
tbc...
Part 2