Fic: Stacking Bones, 2/5
Title: Stacking Bones
Category: Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
Spoilers: Up to and including 3.16
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, some bodily fluids and medical things in this chapter
Disclaimers: Not mine, blah, blah, blah
Summary: Sam never gave up on Dean, but he didn't save him either.
Notes: Not betaed. All mistakes are my own. If you see something wrong, please don't be shy.
Prologue
Part 1
Fic: Stacking Bones
2/5
Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
At night Dean dreams, and in his dreams the Hellhounds come for him, great black beasts with three snapping heads made of exposed muscle and bone. Their jaws are dripping with blood and bits of gore. Their yellow teeth tear open his skin like it’s sausage casing and they swallow his soul.
Dean wakes up in pitch-blackness, soaked with sweat and breathing hard. One of his hands creeps under his shirt, across the deep scars in his chest, and finds a smaller, thinner line of raised flesh. This one is straight and deliberate, carved in one single vertical stroke, like a slash from a knife, and it neatly bisects the pentagram tattooed over his heart.
The nightmare images fade from his mind, replaced by the warm smells and of the cabin and the soft sounds of Bobby’s snoring and the wind in the trees outside.
Dean lies awake the rest of the night, and by morning he’s running a fever.
“Don’ feel s’good, Bobby.”
“I can see that, kid. At least your vocabulary’s improving.”
Dean’s limbs are starting to obey him, too. He’s managed to curl himself up on his side, knees tucked up, arms folded across his chest, and he’s watching Bobby rip open plastic pouches from a first-aid kit the size and shape of a tackle-box. It’s something that a paramedic might carry, and probably did at one point, but outside of the props, Bobby’s got nothing in common with any medical professional Dean’s ever seen.
“Gonna need your arm, Dean.”
It’s like moving underwater, but Dean unfolds his right arm and lays it out for Bobby, palm up. It leaves behind a cold patch of skin on Dean’s chest.
“That’s it,” soothing.
Bobby ties a strip of stretchy plastic around Dean’s forearm, starts prodding with thick fingers around Dean’s wrist. There’s a pull-snap sound as Bobby puts on sky-blue latex gloves.
“This ain’t exactly a sterile environment, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
Dean’s spent too much time in the ER not to know what’s happening. “Don’ like needles, Bobby,” he confesses.
“Never met anybody who did. Hold still.”
Before Dean even realizes what’s happening Bobby has swabbed the injection site and inserted a needle. He removes the tourniquet with a snapping sound. Dean feels the injection as a bone-deep ache that travels all the way up his arm and across his chest.
Dean’s eyes find the ceiling while he tries to ignore the tiny tugs and pricks while Bobby tapes the tubing in place and attaches the IV bag.
Bobby empties a small syringe into the injection port in the IV tubing.
“Antibiotics,” Bobby explains, sliding the used syringe into a sharps tube. “For the fever. Not gonna risk you choking to death on pills.”
Bobby tapes the IV in place, re-checks the tubing, and for a second Dean sees his father in the man leaning over him.
“Bobby,” Dean begins. He has to pause to lick his lips. “Hurts.”
Bobby glances at the bag. “Just saline, kid.”
Dean swallows his complaints. He doesn’t have the breath to voice them anyway.
There’s a stretch of silence, the kind that happens when one person can’t speak and the other is used to spending most of his free time alone.
“You want me to tell you a story or somethin’?”
Dean makes a sound halfway between a groan and a laugh. “God, no.”
Dean couldn’t have been any more than six years old when he met Bobby. He doesn’t remember what monster gave Dad the concussion, or maybe he never knew in the first place. All he remembers is sitting on Bobby’s sofa, legs too short to reach the ground, baby Sammy squalling in his little arms. Bobby had come out of the back room, cleaning Dad’s blood off his hands and looked at the boys like they were aliens. After Bobby recovered from the initial shock of having children in his house for the first time ever he made up the couch for them with some old pillows and quilts. It was past midnight and Sammy had cried himself into two-year-old sleep coma but Dean just stared quietly at the ceiling. Bobby asked if there was anything he could get for Dean, to help him get to sleep. After some hesitation, Dean asked if Bobby could tell him a story. It was the first time he’d wanted one since Mom died. Except that the only fairytales Bobby knew were of the early European folklore variety rather than the watered down Disney adaptations and not exactly age-appropriate for a six-year-old.
“Pied Piper.”
It takes a second for Bobby to catch on. “Crap. Can’t believe you remember that.”
Dean wants to say more, but all of his snappy comebacks are buried inside of his broken body, so he just smiles, and as the warm old memory fades his smile becomes a grimace.
“Hurts,” Dean says again, like the thought is new and just occurred to him.
Bobby lowers his head to examine the injection site. “I’ve seen you complain less about a gunshot wound.”
“Not complainin’,” Dean says, has to take a huge pause for breath before he continues, “Just sayin…”
Bobby sits up straight, shaking his head, corners of his mouth turned down. “No lumps, no bleeding, no bruising. It’s all in your head, kid,” he says. Then he lays the IV bag on Dean’s stomach. “Hold tight for a second. Gonna scoot you closer to the wall.”
The cot’s wooden frame bends and creaks in protest when Bobby drags it across the floor. Dean thinks it might break before Bobby maneuvers it flush with the wall next to the fireplace. It’s colder there, but only on the outside of Dean’s body. Feels like everything inside him is burning.
Bobby leaves him for a minute, and while he’s gone Dean finds the energy to scratch at his arm, like he can dig the needle out, but Bobby comes back before Dean can do any damage. Bobby brought a rusty old hammer with him, bleached wood for a handle, and he uses it to drive a nail into the wall a few feet above Dean’s head.
There’s a cross-shaped split in the plastic near the top of the bag, made for hanging the bag on an IV pole. In this case a nail through the wall works just as well.
Dean’s eyes follow the length of tubing from the injection site on the back of his hand to the hanging bag of clear liquid, still swaying a little where it hangs. He doesn’t see a fragile strip of plastic. He sees a chain, red with rust. Instead of a piece of clear tape and a bright green cap he sees a hook piercing the meaty part of his hand.
He tastes blood.
He takes a deep breath.
“SAM!” the scream burns in his throat. “Help me! Please!”
Over the pounding of his heart Dean can hear a man swearing, shouting his name over and over again. There’s a callused hand on his face, squeezing the sides of his jaw, and one wrapped around his right arm, an iron vise.
“Hey! Hey! Stop it!”
Dean gulps air, chest heaving like he’s just surfaced after being underwater for too long. Bobby’s face is inches from his, angry and shocked.
Bobby doesn’t let go of him, doesn’t ease up even a little until Dean is perfectly still and breathing evenly. Bobby’s hands will leave bruises and half-moon fingernail marks where they dug into Dean’s skin.
“Sam!” Dean hears himself say, panicked. It’s his knee-jerk reaction to everything, the word that’s always on the tip of his tongue and has been since he was four years old and “Mom” wasn’t an option anymore. “Sam…” he repeats only softer, with less hope. He’s begging.
“That’s it, calm down” Bobby says, calm and certain, a rock. His hand slides away from Dean’s face, pats his shoulder reassuringly. “You with me now?”
Dean focuses on Bobby and nods slightly, blood pounding in his ears. He breathes deep, forcing himself to take in the sights and smells of his surroundings: the aroma of burning wood, the sweat smell coming off of Bobby, the tiny wrinkles in his own hands. He’s trying to convince his subconscious that this is real, that Bobby and the cabin and the fucking IV aren’t going to disappear in a breath of smoke and flame.
“Never knew you had such a big problem with needles.”
“Bobby. Get it out.” Dean tells him. His free hand finds the injection site and starts to peel back the tape.
“Don’t do that, kiddo.” Bobby says, and he pries his hand away like Dean is two years old. “It’s just the fever talking.”
Bobby looks down. Dean sees him checking the injection site, following the tubing up to the hanging bag.
Dean sucks in a breath, tries to force his heart to slow down and grips the cot to keep from pulling the IV out. It’s then that Dean realizes Bobby’s not just fiddling around with the IV tubing. He’s got another little syringe. Bobby’s fingering the injection port and Dean knows that’s not B12 he’s got there.
Dean makes a grab for Bobby’s wrist and Bobby brushes him off like he’s two years old. “Sorry, kiddo. Can’t have you tearing the line out.”
“Bobby, don’t,” Dean says breathlessly. “Nonononono. Don’t.”
Bobby’s hand drops a little, but he’s still got the syringe at the ready. He says evenly, reasonably, “It’s what you need.”
Mind made up, Bobby inserts the needle into the port and presses the plunger.
“I’m sorry,” is the last thing that Dean hears before the black dog opens its dripping jaws wide and swallows him whole.
XXXXX
Tap tap tap, a soft clicking noise fills the cabin.
“S’infected, Bobby,” Dean mumbles.
“It’s not infected.”
“Burns, Bobby.”
“Don’t touch the needle, kid. You pull it out, I’ll put it right back in.”
Tap tap scratch
“Burns...”
“Nothin’s burning you, kid. It’s just your imagination.”
“Thirsty…”
“I know, kid.”
Tic tic tap
“Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s Sam?”
“He’s not here.”
Dean grimaces. “It hurts, Bobby.”
“Okay, kid.”
“Really hurts Bobby.”
“Uh huh.”
“Means it’s working, right?”
“Huh?” Bobby looks up at him from where he’s crouched on the floor, shoulder working like he’s scrubbing at a stain. Tap tap tap. Or like he’s drawing…
“S’what Dad would say. Hurts. Mean’s it’s working. Must be okay…heart’s still beating.”
“Yeah. Okay. Somethin’ like that.”
Bobby’s head drops out of sight and the tap tap tap noise resumes. A few moments pass, filled with nothing but that sound, the crackling sound of wood in the fireplace and Dean’s strained breathing.
“Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“I was dead.”
“You were dead,” Bobby agrees, standing up, dusting off his knees.
“Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Stop talkin’ and go back to sleep.”
Dean bites his lip.
There’s a piece of chalk in Bobby’s right hand and a worn old leather-bound book in his left. The edges of the pages are gilded and there’s a red satin bookmark trapped between them, a soldier at the ready.
There chalk lines on the floor, all the way around Dean’s cot.
“Am I awake?” Dean asks.
“You’re awake.”
Bobby notices where Dean is looking.
“I didn’t come back right, did I?” Dean gives him a weak half-smile. “S’okay. You can tell me.”
There’s a long, dangerous pause.
“Dean,” Bobby says, harsh. “Quit your whining and go to sleep.”
Dean’s eyes drop again to the book in Bobby’s hand. He knows what’s on the marked page. He never could make himself memorize the words. Latin and all of that other geeky shit was Sam’s territory. Now the words float up out of nowhere: Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas…
Dean doesn’t realize he’s saying the words out loud until Bobby says, “Okay, kid. That’s enough of that.”
Then Bobby reaches over and starts to do something to the IV, but Dean catches his wrist, holds on with strength he didn’t know he had.
“No,” Dean says. There’s a syringe in Bobby’s hand, the free one, and not a damn thing that Dean can physically do to stop him. “The dogs.”
“Dogs…” Bobby repeats slowly.
“Hounds.” And Dean can’t do any better than that.
He’s going to do it anyway. That’s what Dean thinks until Bobby sets the syringe down and wags his finger at him. “Shut up. Stay still.”
Dean nods.
Bobby reads. Latin falls from his lips and the wind kicks up like a tornado has torn the roof off of the cabin. The flames in the fireplace flicker and nearly die, pitching the cabin and Bobby into near-blackness.
Dean discovers that his lips are moving, following along with the Latin passages he half-remembers from the days Dad tried to pound them into him and Sammy. Dad had more luck getting Sammy to remember things like that. Sammy, who never wanted to be a Hunter, Sammy, who tried half as hard as Dean and always did twice as well. Had Dean been jealous? Fuck yeah, but Dean was more proud than jealous, and more scared than proud, because someday Sammy wasn’t going to need him or Dad anymore. He was going to leave and Dean was never going to see his brother again.
When the wind dies down and the fire starts to burn brighter he looks over and sees the syringe gone and familiar warmth spreading through his veins.
“Sonofabitch,” Dean drawls.
The lights go out. Dean falls into pitch-blackness. For the first time in a long time he can’t hear the dogs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
XXXXX
“Asshole.” That’s the first word out of Dean’s mouth once he’s sure he’s awake, before he’s even opened his eyes, before he’s even sure that Bobby’s in the room.
“Glad to see you’re awake.” Bobby sounds amused by the insult. He doesn’t even look up. “Feelin’ better?”
Dean’s t-shirt is glued to his chest with sweat. He doesn’t feel feverish. He can’t see the book anywhere. The chalk lines on the floorboards are gone and the wood is spotless, wiped clean.
“I thought-”
“You thought?”
“Never mind. Gotta piss,” Dean says. Sounds sulky even to him.
Bobby gets up, puts his magazine down on the chair behind him and makes his way to Dean.
“That’s a good sign. Means your fluid levels are up.”
Dean groans.
The IV is still in his hand, but the hanging bag on the wall is labeled as glucose, not saline. Bobby must have changed it while he slept. The plastic needle itches under his skin.
Bobby takes the bag down and puts an arm under Dean’s back to lever him up.
“I think I can…”
Bobby’s arm retracts. Dean pushes himself up through a haze of black dots, puts his feet on the dirty cabin floor one at a time. Then he has to sit for a moment with his head between his knees, fighting the urge to pass out. No way he’s making it to his feet on his own, and the bathroom might as well be on the other side of the Rockies.
Dean feels something being pressed into his left hand. It’s his IV bag. Dean curls his fingers around it, making a basket, and gratefully loops his right arm over Bobby’s shoulders.
“One, two…” and on three they’re up, staggering like tequila-soaked Americanos on a weekend bender in Tijuana.
Once they reach the bathroom and Dean’s staring down into that rust-stained porcelain maw that Bobby calls a toilet, Bobby is still hovering like this is a restaurant and Dean’s about to skip out on the check.
“Little space, Bobby,” Dean says. When Bobby doesn’t move, “You’ll hear a splash if I fall in.”
Bobby grunts. “Just don’t expect mouth-to-mouth if you do.”
Dean hears the bathroom door shut. He counts to two in his head, then sits down on the toilet and pees like a girl. He feels light-headed when he starts, and he damn near goes for a swim when he stands up and turns around to flush. Bobby’s ready to catch him when he opens the bathroom door and falls through.
“You’re killin’ my back here,” Bobby complains.
“Serves you right…givin’ me roofies…”
“I shoulda put a catheter in while I was at it.”
Standing up, Dean can see where part of the floor in front of the fireplace is conspicuously cleaner than the rest. He goes a little pale.
“I did a little cleansing ritual,” Bobby explains. “Figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“Yeah,” Dean says stiffly, hating Bobby for telling the truth most of the time and for his innate ability to flawlessly cover a lie the rest, hating himself for not being able to tell the difference.
By the time Bobby drops him back on his cot, Dean’s picking at his IV. “Want this out…”
Bobby slaps his hand away. “Quit that. God only knows what’s under your fingernails. Don’t even try to tell me you washed after you pissed, ‘cause I know you didn’t.”
Bobby’s got the first aid kit cracked open and Dean can see what’s inside: sterile instruments sealed in paper and plastic pouches, syringes, little bottles of clear fluid that look like water but aren’t, rubbing alcohol, bandages in little rectangular boxes, latex gloves, lots of sharp objects that make Dean’s heart beat faster just looking at them. The blood pressure cuff is on its way out.
“Can you stay sitting up?” Bobby asks him.
As soon as the words are out of Bobby’s mouth, Dean is overcome by a powerful urge to be any angle but vertical. Instead of doing what his body wants, Dean nods and braces his hands on the cot on either side of himself.
“Did you rob a paramedic?” Dean asks to take his mind off of his complaining body and the tightening blood pressure cuff on his left arm.
“Called in a favor. A buddy of mine works up at the hospital in Sioux Falls. Now shut up for a minute.”
The stethoscope is cold where Bobby presses it to the inside of Dean’s elbow. The blood pressure cuff is painfully tight on his upper arm.
After what seems like forever Bobby presses the release valve and the blood rushes back into Dean’s arm.
“I won’t bore you with the numbers but your blood pressure’s pretty low. You feel dizzy?”
Dean hates himself for nodding but it’s not like Bobby’s going to fall for a bullshit lie.
“Can we take this thing out now?” Dean asks, tilting his head toward his right hand.
“Still bothering you?”
Dean quirks a small, tired smile and tries for a casualness that he doesn’t feel. “Just don’t like foreign objects sticking out of me is all.”
“I’ll make you a deal: You keep some water and a little breakfast down and the IV comes out.”
Dean feels thirsty just hearing the word “water”. He doesn’t have enough spit to swallow.
“Deal.”
XXXXX
The breakfast Bobby has in mind isn’t exactly ham and eggs with toast on the side, but that’s probably for the best anyway. That shit would have hurt a lot worse coming up than strawberry-flavored Ensure. Now not only is Dean still thirsty and starving, but his stomach muscles are cramping from trying to expel his internal organs into the old Igloo Playmate cooler that Bobby shoved under his jaw.
After dumping Dean’s recycled breakfast out in the woods, Bobby comes back inside and immediately stabs a finger in Dean’s direction, “I’m gonna tape a sock over that hand if you don’t stop scratchin’ your IV.”
Dean’s lying down on his cot, spent. He drops his hands to his sides, hoping that he looks less pathetic than he feels.
“How’d you find this place, Bobby?” he asks.
“Belongs to a buddy of mine. I helped him build it back in the seventies.”
“He a hunter?”
Bobby shakes his head. “Dentist. Got a practice out in St. Paul. He ain’t been out here in years. Don’t think he’ll mind the guests.”
“What’re we hiding from?”
“We’re not hiding. We’re just keepin’ our heads down.”
“Same thing.”
“Call it whatever you want. I call it being cautious.”
“Is there something after us?”
“Isn’t there always?”
“Humans? Demons?”
Bobby shrugs. “Little of both. Can’t raise the dead without pissing somebody off.”
Dean looks up, meets Bobby’s eyes. Bobby drops his gaze and clears his throat.
“Sammy’s okay, isn’t he?”
Bobby thinks over his answer a few seconds too long and Dean starts to shiver.
“I’m sure Sam’s fine.”
“He’s-” A coughing fit interrupts Dean’s question. Bobby helps him sit up, gives him a sip of water from a bottle of Arrowhead. Dean takes the bottle from him. It’s only a half-liter but as weak as he is it might as well be a fifty-gallon drum. He drinks just enough to wet his throat. Once he’s got his breath back, Dean says, “He’s coming. You said he was coming.”
“Yeah. I did,” guilty, like a man who’s been caught in a lie.
“Where is he?” Worry and anger make his voice sharp.
Bobby gives him a look that says he’s not crazy about Dean’s tone, and if he were any other guy on any other day Bobby would smack the smart right out of his mouth.
Dean takes a breath, tries again, “Where is he, Bobby?” Forced calm, still desperate. “Please, I gotta know.”
“I wish I could tell you,” Bobby says, and the sincerity in his words catches Dean off-guard. “Truth is, Sam and I haven’t been in touch for a while. He's sort of hard to reach these days.”
Dean feels an ominous burning in his throat. Before he can ask, Bobby’s got the Igloo cooler shoved between Dean’s knees. Then the next few seconds are all white plastic and the smell of bile wafting up at him. There’s barely any liquid to bring up, and when he’s done his body just keep trying and trying. It hurts so fuckin’ much that it brings tears to his eyes. Bobby gets up and comes back with a cold, wet washcloth. He lays it on the back of Dean’s neck and just holds it there with the patience of a saint while Dean heaves and cries over that cooler like a fucking five-year-old girl over a broken tricycle.
When the tide of nausea finally ebbs, Dean wipes his face with the back of a shaky arm, shoots for casual, “Well, that sucked,” but he couldn’t sound any more pathetic if he tried.
Bobby sets the Igloo aside and shrugs. “It’ll pass, but it’s gonna be a while before you’re good for more than holding a cot down. In the mean time, it's important that you trust me and do what I say. Our situation's a little...touchy right now.”
Bobby's tone of voice reaches something deep inside of him. Dean responds the way his Dad trained him to: “Yes sir.”
“Glad we understand each other.”
Suddenly Dean feels…really not so good. He moves to lie down. Bobby helps by getting out of the way.
“I think we’ll keep the IV in for now.”
And Dean can’t bring himself to care one bit.
“If I was dying, you’d tell me, right?” Dean doesn’t like to be caught off-guard by that kind of shit. Likes to have a little warning.
“You’re not dyin’, kid,” Bobby tells him. “Just the opposite.”
tbc...
Notes: I'm not a nurse, but after all of the research that I did to write about how Bobby would start an IV I feel like I could probably start an IV myself.
Part 3
Category: Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
Spoilers: Up to and including 3.16
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, some bodily fluids and medical things in this chapter
Disclaimers: Not mine, blah, blah, blah
Summary: Sam never gave up on Dean, but he didn't save him either.
Notes: Not betaed. All mistakes are my own. If you see something wrong, please don't be shy.
Prologue
Part 1
Fic: Stacking Bones
2/5
Gen, Angst, AU after 3.16
At night Dean dreams, and in his dreams the Hellhounds come for him, great black beasts with three snapping heads made of exposed muscle and bone. Their jaws are dripping with blood and bits of gore. Their yellow teeth tear open his skin like it’s sausage casing and they swallow his soul.
Dean wakes up in pitch-blackness, soaked with sweat and breathing hard. One of his hands creeps under his shirt, across the deep scars in his chest, and finds a smaller, thinner line of raised flesh. This one is straight and deliberate, carved in one single vertical stroke, like a slash from a knife, and it neatly bisects the pentagram tattooed over his heart.
The nightmare images fade from his mind, replaced by the warm smells and of the cabin and the soft sounds of Bobby’s snoring and the wind in the trees outside.
Dean lies awake the rest of the night, and by morning he’s running a fever.
“Don’ feel s’good, Bobby.”
“I can see that, kid. At least your vocabulary’s improving.”
Dean’s limbs are starting to obey him, too. He’s managed to curl himself up on his side, knees tucked up, arms folded across his chest, and he’s watching Bobby rip open plastic pouches from a first-aid kit the size and shape of a tackle-box. It’s something that a paramedic might carry, and probably did at one point, but outside of the props, Bobby’s got nothing in common with any medical professional Dean’s ever seen.
“Gonna need your arm, Dean.”
It’s like moving underwater, but Dean unfolds his right arm and lays it out for Bobby, palm up. It leaves behind a cold patch of skin on Dean’s chest.
“That’s it,” soothing.
Bobby ties a strip of stretchy plastic around Dean’s forearm, starts prodding with thick fingers around Dean’s wrist. There’s a pull-snap sound as Bobby puts on sky-blue latex gloves.
“This ain’t exactly a sterile environment, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
Dean’s spent too much time in the ER not to know what’s happening. “Don’ like needles, Bobby,” he confesses.
“Never met anybody who did. Hold still.”
Before Dean even realizes what’s happening Bobby has swabbed the injection site and inserted a needle. He removes the tourniquet with a snapping sound. Dean feels the injection as a bone-deep ache that travels all the way up his arm and across his chest.
Dean’s eyes find the ceiling while he tries to ignore the tiny tugs and pricks while Bobby tapes the tubing in place and attaches the IV bag.
Bobby empties a small syringe into the injection port in the IV tubing.
“Antibiotics,” Bobby explains, sliding the used syringe into a sharps tube. “For the fever. Not gonna risk you choking to death on pills.”
Bobby tapes the IV in place, re-checks the tubing, and for a second Dean sees his father in the man leaning over him.
“Bobby,” Dean begins. He has to pause to lick his lips. “Hurts.”
Bobby glances at the bag. “Just saline, kid.”
Dean swallows his complaints. He doesn’t have the breath to voice them anyway.
There’s a stretch of silence, the kind that happens when one person can’t speak and the other is used to spending most of his free time alone.
“You want me to tell you a story or somethin’?”
Dean makes a sound halfway between a groan and a laugh. “God, no.”
Dean couldn’t have been any more than six years old when he met Bobby. He doesn’t remember what monster gave Dad the concussion, or maybe he never knew in the first place. All he remembers is sitting on Bobby’s sofa, legs too short to reach the ground, baby Sammy squalling in his little arms. Bobby had come out of the back room, cleaning Dad’s blood off his hands and looked at the boys like they were aliens. After Bobby recovered from the initial shock of having children in his house for the first time ever he made up the couch for them with some old pillows and quilts. It was past midnight and Sammy had cried himself into two-year-old sleep coma but Dean just stared quietly at the ceiling. Bobby asked if there was anything he could get for Dean, to help him get to sleep. After some hesitation, Dean asked if Bobby could tell him a story. It was the first time he’d wanted one since Mom died. Except that the only fairytales Bobby knew were of the early European folklore variety rather than the watered down Disney adaptations and not exactly age-appropriate for a six-year-old.
“Pied Piper.”
It takes a second for Bobby to catch on. “Crap. Can’t believe you remember that.”
Dean wants to say more, but all of his snappy comebacks are buried inside of his broken body, so he just smiles, and as the warm old memory fades his smile becomes a grimace.
“Hurts,” Dean says again, like the thought is new and just occurred to him.
Bobby lowers his head to examine the injection site. “I’ve seen you complain less about a gunshot wound.”
“Not complainin’,” Dean says, has to take a huge pause for breath before he continues, “Just sayin…”
Bobby sits up straight, shaking his head, corners of his mouth turned down. “No lumps, no bleeding, no bruising. It’s all in your head, kid,” he says. Then he lays the IV bag on Dean’s stomach. “Hold tight for a second. Gonna scoot you closer to the wall.”
The cot’s wooden frame bends and creaks in protest when Bobby drags it across the floor. Dean thinks it might break before Bobby maneuvers it flush with the wall next to the fireplace. It’s colder there, but only on the outside of Dean’s body. Feels like everything inside him is burning.
Bobby leaves him for a minute, and while he’s gone Dean finds the energy to scratch at his arm, like he can dig the needle out, but Bobby comes back before Dean can do any damage. Bobby brought a rusty old hammer with him, bleached wood for a handle, and he uses it to drive a nail into the wall a few feet above Dean’s head.
There’s a cross-shaped split in the plastic near the top of the bag, made for hanging the bag on an IV pole. In this case a nail through the wall works just as well.
Dean’s eyes follow the length of tubing from the injection site on the back of his hand to the hanging bag of clear liquid, still swaying a little where it hangs. He doesn’t see a fragile strip of plastic. He sees a chain, red with rust. Instead of a piece of clear tape and a bright green cap he sees a hook piercing the meaty part of his hand.
He tastes blood.
He takes a deep breath.
“SAM!” the scream burns in his throat. “Help me! Please!”
Over the pounding of his heart Dean can hear a man swearing, shouting his name over and over again. There’s a callused hand on his face, squeezing the sides of his jaw, and one wrapped around his right arm, an iron vise.
“Hey! Hey! Stop it!”
Dean gulps air, chest heaving like he’s just surfaced after being underwater for too long. Bobby’s face is inches from his, angry and shocked.
Bobby doesn’t let go of him, doesn’t ease up even a little until Dean is perfectly still and breathing evenly. Bobby’s hands will leave bruises and half-moon fingernail marks where they dug into Dean’s skin.
“Sam!” Dean hears himself say, panicked. It’s his knee-jerk reaction to everything, the word that’s always on the tip of his tongue and has been since he was four years old and “Mom” wasn’t an option anymore. “Sam…” he repeats only softer, with less hope. He’s begging.
“That’s it, calm down” Bobby says, calm and certain, a rock. His hand slides away from Dean’s face, pats his shoulder reassuringly. “You with me now?”
Dean focuses on Bobby and nods slightly, blood pounding in his ears. He breathes deep, forcing himself to take in the sights and smells of his surroundings: the aroma of burning wood, the sweat smell coming off of Bobby, the tiny wrinkles in his own hands. He’s trying to convince his subconscious that this is real, that Bobby and the cabin and the fucking IV aren’t going to disappear in a breath of smoke and flame.
“Never knew you had such a big problem with needles.”
“Bobby. Get it out.” Dean tells him. His free hand finds the injection site and starts to peel back the tape.
“Don’t do that, kiddo.” Bobby says, and he pries his hand away like Dean is two years old. “It’s just the fever talking.”
Bobby looks down. Dean sees him checking the injection site, following the tubing up to the hanging bag.
Dean sucks in a breath, tries to force his heart to slow down and grips the cot to keep from pulling the IV out. It’s then that Dean realizes Bobby’s not just fiddling around with the IV tubing. He’s got another little syringe. Bobby’s fingering the injection port and Dean knows that’s not B12 he’s got there.
Dean makes a grab for Bobby’s wrist and Bobby brushes him off like he’s two years old. “Sorry, kiddo. Can’t have you tearing the line out.”
“Bobby, don’t,” Dean says breathlessly. “Nonononono. Don’t.”
Bobby’s hand drops a little, but he’s still got the syringe at the ready. He says evenly, reasonably, “It’s what you need.”
Mind made up, Bobby inserts the needle into the port and presses the plunger.
“I’m sorry,” is the last thing that Dean hears before the black dog opens its dripping jaws wide and swallows him whole.
XXXXX
Tap tap tap, a soft clicking noise fills the cabin.
“S’infected, Bobby,” Dean mumbles.
“It’s not infected.”
“Burns, Bobby.”
“Don’t touch the needle, kid. You pull it out, I’ll put it right back in.”
Tap tap scratch
“Burns...”
“Nothin’s burning you, kid. It’s just your imagination.”
“Thirsty…”
“I know, kid.”
Tic tic tap
“Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s Sam?”
“He’s not here.”
Dean grimaces. “It hurts, Bobby.”
“Okay, kid.”
“Really hurts Bobby.”
“Uh huh.”
“Means it’s working, right?”
“Huh?” Bobby looks up at him from where he’s crouched on the floor, shoulder working like he’s scrubbing at a stain. Tap tap tap. Or like he’s drawing…
“S’what Dad would say. Hurts. Mean’s it’s working. Must be okay…heart’s still beating.”
“Yeah. Okay. Somethin’ like that.”
Bobby’s head drops out of sight and the tap tap tap noise resumes. A few moments pass, filled with nothing but that sound, the crackling sound of wood in the fireplace and Dean’s strained breathing.
“Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“I was dead.”
“You were dead,” Bobby agrees, standing up, dusting off his knees.
“Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Stop talkin’ and go back to sleep.”
Dean bites his lip.
There’s a piece of chalk in Bobby’s right hand and a worn old leather-bound book in his left. The edges of the pages are gilded and there’s a red satin bookmark trapped between them, a soldier at the ready.
There chalk lines on the floor, all the way around Dean’s cot.
“Am I awake?” Dean asks.
“You’re awake.”
Bobby notices where Dean is looking.
“I didn’t come back right, did I?” Dean gives him a weak half-smile. “S’okay. You can tell me.”
There’s a long, dangerous pause.
“Dean,” Bobby says, harsh. “Quit your whining and go to sleep.”
Dean’s eyes drop again to the book in Bobby’s hand. He knows what’s on the marked page. He never could make himself memorize the words. Latin and all of that other geeky shit was Sam’s territory. Now the words float up out of nowhere: Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas…
Dean doesn’t realize he’s saying the words out loud until Bobby says, “Okay, kid. That’s enough of that.”
Then Bobby reaches over and starts to do something to the IV, but Dean catches his wrist, holds on with strength he didn’t know he had.
“No,” Dean says. There’s a syringe in Bobby’s hand, the free one, and not a damn thing that Dean can physically do to stop him. “The dogs.”
“Dogs…” Bobby repeats slowly.
“Hounds.” And Dean can’t do any better than that.
He’s going to do it anyway. That’s what Dean thinks until Bobby sets the syringe down and wags his finger at him. “Shut up. Stay still.”
Dean nods.
Bobby reads. Latin falls from his lips and the wind kicks up like a tornado has torn the roof off of the cabin. The flames in the fireplace flicker and nearly die, pitching the cabin and Bobby into near-blackness.
Dean discovers that his lips are moving, following along with the Latin passages he half-remembers from the days Dad tried to pound them into him and Sammy. Dad had more luck getting Sammy to remember things like that. Sammy, who never wanted to be a Hunter, Sammy, who tried half as hard as Dean and always did twice as well. Had Dean been jealous? Fuck yeah, but Dean was more proud than jealous, and more scared than proud, because someday Sammy wasn’t going to need him or Dad anymore. He was going to leave and Dean was never going to see his brother again.
When the wind dies down and the fire starts to burn brighter he looks over and sees the syringe gone and familiar warmth spreading through his veins.
“Sonofabitch,” Dean drawls.
The lights go out. Dean falls into pitch-blackness. For the first time in a long time he can’t hear the dogs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
XXXXX
“Asshole.” That’s the first word out of Dean’s mouth once he’s sure he’s awake, before he’s even opened his eyes, before he’s even sure that Bobby’s in the room.
“Glad to see you’re awake.” Bobby sounds amused by the insult. He doesn’t even look up. “Feelin’ better?”
Dean’s t-shirt is glued to his chest with sweat. He doesn’t feel feverish. He can’t see the book anywhere. The chalk lines on the floorboards are gone and the wood is spotless, wiped clean.
“I thought-”
“You thought?”
“Never mind. Gotta piss,” Dean says. Sounds sulky even to him.
Bobby gets up, puts his magazine down on the chair behind him and makes his way to Dean.
“That’s a good sign. Means your fluid levels are up.”
Dean groans.
The IV is still in his hand, but the hanging bag on the wall is labeled as glucose, not saline. Bobby must have changed it while he slept. The plastic needle itches under his skin.
Bobby takes the bag down and puts an arm under Dean’s back to lever him up.
“I think I can…”
Bobby’s arm retracts. Dean pushes himself up through a haze of black dots, puts his feet on the dirty cabin floor one at a time. Then he has to sit for a moment with his head between his knees, fighting the urge to pass out. No way he’s making it to his feet on his own, and the bathroom might as well be on the other side of the Rockies.
Dean feels something being pressed into his left hand. It’s his IV bag. Dean curls his fingers around it, making a basket, and gratefully loops his right arm over Bobby’s shoulders.
“One, two…” and on three they’re up, staggering like tequila-soaked Americanos on a weekend bender in Tijuana.
Once they reach the bathroom and Dean’s staring down into that rust-stained porcelain maw that Bobby calls a toilet, Bobby is still hovering like this is a restaurant and Dean’s about to skip out on the check.
“Little space, Bobby,” Dean says. When Bobby doesn’t move, “You’ll hear a splash if I fall in.”
Bobby grunts. “Just don’t expect mouth-to-mouth if you do.”
Dean hears the bathroom door shut. He counts to two in his head, then sits down on the toilet and pees like a girl. He feels light-headed when he starts, and he damn near goes for a swim when he stands up and turns around to flush. Bobby’s ready to catch him when he opens the bathroom door and falls through.
“You’re killin’ my back here,” Bobby complains.
“Serves you right…givin’ me roofies…”
“I shoulda put a catheter in while I was at it.”
Standing up, Dean can see where part of the floor in front of the fireplace is conspicuously cleaner than the rest. He goes a little pale.
“I did a little cleansing ritual,” Bobby explains. “Figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“Yeah,” Dean says stiffly, hating Bobby for telling the truth most of the time and for his innate ability to flawlessly cover a lie the rest, hating himself for not being able to tell the difference.
By the time Bobby drops him back on his cot, Dean’s picking at his IV. “Want this out…”
Bobby slaps his hand away. “Quit that. God only knows what’s under your fingernails. Don’t even try to tell me you washed after you pissed, ‘cause I know you didn’t.”
Bobby’s got the first aid kit cracked open and Dean can see what’s inside: sterile instruments sealed in paper and plastic pouches, syringes, little bottles of clear fluid that look like water but aren’t, rubbing alcohol, bandages in little rectangular boxes, latex gloves, lots of sharp objects that make Dean’s heart beat faster just looking at them. The blood pressure cuff is on its way out.
“Can you stay sitting up?” Bobby asks him.
As soon as the words are out of Bobby’s mouth, Dean is overcome by a powerful urge to be any angle but vertical. Instead of doing what his body wants, Dean nods and braces his hands on the cot on either side of himself.
“Did you rob a paramedic?” Dean asks to take his mind off of his complaining body and the tightening blood pressure cuff on his left arm.
“Called in a favor. A buddy of mine works up at the hospital in Sioux Falls. Now shut up for a minute.”
The stethoscope is cold where Bobby presses it to the inside of Dean’s elbow. The blood pressure cuff is painfully tight on his upper arm.
After what seems like forever Bobby presses the release valve and the blood rushes back into Dean’s arm.
“I won’t bore you with the numbers but your blood pressure’s pretty low. You feel dizzy?”
Dean hates himself for nodding but it’s not like Bobby’s going to fall for a bullshit lie.
“Can we take this thing out now?” Dean asks, tilting his head toward his right hand.
“Still bothering you?”
Dean quirks a small, tired smile and tries for a casualness that he doesn’t feel. “Just don’t like foreign objects sticking out of me is all.”
“I’ll make you a deal: You keep some water and a little breakfast down and the IV comes out.”
Dean feels thirsty just hearing the word “water”. He doesn’t have enough spit to swallow.
“Deal.”
XXXXX
The breakfast Bobby has in mind isn’t exactly ham and eggs with toast on the side, but that’s probably for the best anyway. That shit would have hurt a lot worse coming up than strawberry-flavored Ensure. Now not only is Dean still thirsty and starving, but his stomach muscles are cramping from trying to expel his internal organs into the old Igloo Playmate cooler that Bobby shoved under his jaw.
After dumping Dean’s recycled breakfast out in the woods, Bobby comes back inside and immediately stabs a finger in Dean’s direction, “I’m gonna tape a sock over that hand if you don’t stop scratchin’ your IV.”
Dean’s lying down on his cot, spent. He drops his hands to his sides, hoping that he looks less pathetic than he feels.
“How’d you find this place, Bobby?” he asks.
“Belongs to a buddy of mine. I helped him build it back in the seventies.”
“He a hunter?”
Bobby shakes his head. “Dentist. Got a practice out in St. Paul. He ain’t been out here in years. Don’t think he’ll mind the guests.”
“What’re we hiding from?”
“We’re not hiding. We’re just keepin’ our heads down.”
“Same thing.”
“Call it whatever you want. I call it being cautious.”
“Is there something after us?”
“Isn’t there always?”
“Humans? Demons?”
Bobby shrugs. “Little of both. Can’t raise the dead without pissing somebody off.”
Dean looks up, meets Bobby’s eyes. Bobby drops his gaze and clears his throat.
“Sammy’s okay, isn’t he?”
Bobby thinks over his answer a few seconds too long and Dean starts to shiver.
“I’m sure Sam’s fine.”
“He’s-” A coughing fit interrupts Dean’s question. Bobby helps him sit up, gives him a sip of water from a bottle of Arrowhead. Dean takes the bottle from him. It’s only a half-liter but as weak as he is it might as well be a fifty-gallon drum. He drinks just enough to wet his throat. Once he’s got his breath back, Dean says, “He’s coming. You said he was coming.”
“Yeah. I did,” guilty, like a man who’s been caught in a lie.
“Where is he?” Worry and anger make his voice sharp.
Bobby gives him a look that says he’s not crazy about Dean’s tone, and if he were any other guy on any other day Bobby would smack the smart right out of his mouth.
Dean takes a breath, tries again, “Where is he, Bobby?” Forced calm, still desperate. “Please, I gotta know.”
“I wish I could tell you,” Bobby says, and the sincerity in his words catches Dean off-guard. “Truth is, Sam and I haven’t been in touch for a while. He's sort of hard to reach these days.”
Dean feels an ominous burning in his throat. Before he can ask, Bobby’s got the Igloo cooler shoved between Dean’s knees. Then the next few seconds are all white plastic and the smell of bile wafting up at him. There’s barely any liquid to bring up, and when he’s done his body just keep trying and trying. It hurts so fuckin’ much that it brings tears to his eyes. Bobby gets up and comes back with a cold, wet washcloth. He lays it on the back of Dean’s neck and just holds it there with the patience of a saint while Dean heaves and cries over that cooler like a fucking five-year-old girl over a broken tricycle.
When the tide of nausea finally ebbs, Dean wipes his face with the back of a shaky arm, shoots for casual, “Well, that sucked,” but he couldn’t sound any more pathetic if he tried.
Bobby sets the Igloo aside and shrugs. “It’ll pass, but it’s gonna be a while before you’re good for more than holding a cot down. In the mean time, it's important that you trust me and do what I say. Our situation's a little...touchy right now.”
Bobby's tone of voice reaches something deep inside of him. Dean responds the way his Dad trained him to: “Yes sir.”
“Glad we understand each other.”
Suddenly Dean feels…really not so good. He moves to lie down. Bobby helps by getting out of the way.
“I think we’ll keep the IV in for now.”
And Dean can’t bring himself to care one bit.
“If I was dying, you’d tell me, right?” Dean doesn’t like to be caught off-guard by that kind of shit. Likes to have a little warning.
“You’re not dyin’, kid,” Bobby tells him. “Just the opposite.”
tbc...
Notes: I'm not a nurse, but after all of the research that I did to write about how Bobby would start an IV I feel like I could probably start an IV myself.
Part 3