Broken Minds, Broken Souls

Chapter One

The monitors beeped away and slowly turned into a long whining sound. Nurses flew into the room shoving the Winchesters outside while they tried desperately to resituate the old man. Sam stood by the door watching his older brother pacing up and down. He didn't think either of them could cope with another loss right now. Dean was shell shocked, he knew that Bobby wasn't going to make it deep down, but he had to keep on hoping that the gruff old man would come walking out that room and laugh at their sombre faces.

The nurse came out to them and shook her head. Dean sunk down into a nearby chair, head in his hands. Sam wanted to reach out and comfort him, but his own pain was too much to ignore. After a short time Dean stood, and said to no one in particular said, "I'm gonna go grab a beer."

Sam nodded and followed his brother to the nearest bar, where they sat in silence for several hours choking back the strongest drinks they would get their hands on. It didn't help in the slightest, but Dean didn't know what else to do right now. He'd already written down the numbers Bobby had died to protect and was staring at them laying in the middle of the table in front of him.

"What do we do now?" Sam asked in a broken voice.

Dean couldn't meet his brother's eyes, "I don't know Sammie, I just don't know anymore." He screwed up the paper and rammed it in his jacket pocket, draining his glass before indicating to the waitress to bring them two more.

She stroked his hand as she gave him a fresh drink, "Oh the house sugar" She drawled. Leaning over so that he could see right down her bra to her 38 dd chest.

Dean barely glanced at her, "Any other time I wouldn't think twice, but not right now, not today." He said dropping the bills on her tray.

The waitress sulked off in a huff, glaring at him as she went. "Gay!" she whispered to the other bartender.

Sometime later when they both could barely walk, they fell into their beds back at the hotel to sleep it off for a few hours. The next few days didn't change much from that pattern, drink 'til you pass out, wake up and drink some more. The room was littered with empty and half empty bottles and the odd take out container.

Sammie, poor boy, couldn't hold his ale, and was snoring on the sofa while Dean finished up draining the rest of the bottle. All he could think about were those special soya burgers from the black ooze, even though he knew what they would do to him long term. He could really do with a few doses of their 'don't give a crap, the pains all gone' magic. Anything to block out the agony in his chest tearing him apart.

Right now with his Dad and Castiel gone, and now Bobby dead, Sammie still on the fast track to a padded room and a back fastening shirt. Even Lisa and Bobby were out of his life, he wished he had never asked that favour of Castiel now. Dean was broken….

Broken so badly he didn't think it could be mended anymore. He had nothing left but pain, loss and whisky. He poured another glass looking over at his brother. Sam had never been like him, or like Dad, he'd never used the bottle as a way of escaping. Look at him now though, trying so hard to match Dean drink for drink. Somewhere inside Dean knew that should concern him, but he couldn't find the strength.

Sipping (gulping) the brew down he looked at the numbers for the millionth time trying to work out what they could be. But they could be anything or nothing, Bobby had been in such a bad way that it could be sheer nonsense. Or given his sick sense of humour, a joke from beyond the grave. Absently he picked up Bobby's phone and dialled the voicemail. Sometimes hearing the voice of the dead man, made the darkness seem a little less black.

He pressed the wrong button, and accidently got Bobby's saved messages. Dean heard his own voice on the recording. "Bobby, if you are gone, I swear I'm strapping myself and my beautiful mind brother into the car and drive it off the pier!" Dean snapped the phone shut, and stared at it. That message had been from when Bobby's house had been torched and they didn't know if he had survived. That had been rough enough for hours not knowing, but now just months later for it to be real and for it to be forever…..

Normally Dean would open up a crossroads deal in the family's tradition, he couldn't do that this time. Now Death had shown him what happened to the rest of the world, every time they pulled a trick like that. Now he knew what he was causing he couldn't do it, no matter how much he wanted to. The message just made it all the worse, cause he really did feel like giving up. Like driving that car off of the pier. For the first time since he had lost Castiel and the world had gone to hell, Dean wept, slowly at first, but he couldn't hold it back any longer how he felt coming out in wracking sobs all alone.

The spirit of Bobby Singer stood right behind Dean as he cried, he reached forward to put a hand on the boys shoulder forgetting it would just pass right through. "Balls!" Bobby muttered, as he stood there waiting for the tears to end. "I KNEW you weren't fine, I knew it was all a pile of horse crap!" he snapped.

"Why couldn't you have just talked to me, opened up about some of this crap while I was still alive? I offered you the chance a hundred times, IDJET!" Bobby shook his head, "I could have helped you, and then you wouldn't be in this damn mess now!" He knew that Dean could neither see nor hear him, but it made Bobby feel a little better.

Eventually Dean wiped his eyes, and tried to pull back up his hard uncaring face, "Damn you for leaving us behind Singer!" he muttered taking a huge swig of the whisky before falling into his unmade bed.

"Damn you for caring," Bobby replied with a half smile on his face as he watched his boys sleeping. Silently he took up the remainder of the bottle and poured it down the sink placing the bottle back where Dean had left it. Then looking at the number string, he picked up a red pen from the table and added it the list.

He had died before he had managed to give the full number string. That's why he hadn't gone with the reaper, he had unfinished business here, he could never leave the boys. He hoped he could finish helping them before he went completely off the reservation as a restful spirit. He looked across out the window at the Impala and thought about the lock of hair he had stashed deep in the glove box. He knew that Dean was planning to have his body cremated and he needed something to tie him to them, to keep his spirit here. Frustrated he settled down to see what they would do next.