Running on Empty
Chapter 1
"I've taken myself to the edges of life my way, and I'm still here. Whether or not I deserve to be is another story." - Slash (Guns 'n'Roses)
"Hey, Mikey, runnin' low on beer here."
Michael Roper gets up from the table, shrugging off his irritation at the shortening of his name. He doesn't mind so much when his brother Joe calls him Mikey, but it rubs him the wrong way when Slam does it.
He starts to make his way across the barroom, sighing. The roadies are like a family though, good and bad, and Michael's smart enough to know that showing the nickname bothers him is the surest way to make the problem a hundred times worse.
So right now he's headed to the bar to fetch the road crew another round, which he always volunteers to do even though it makes him feel like a dog retrieving a stick. Because, again…not stupid here. He thinks most of the guys like him all right, but Joe's position as crew chief is the only reason he's on the road with an awesome band like Night Shayde, instead of being stuck back in Kerrville working at The QuikWay, nothing to look forward to but getting high on the weekends.
Michael puts in his order and leans on the bar to wait. There's a wide-shouldered guy in a black t-shirt sitting on a barstool next to him. Michael wants to ask him about the weird-looking gold amulet hanging on a cord around his neck, but he's holding a phone to one ear and plugging the other against the noise with a finger, green eyes scanning the room as he listens. He doesn't look too happy about whatever he's hearing. The bartender brings Michael the beer just as the guy hangs up.
"Bad news?" Michael asks. He tries to make conversation for a minute or two, just being friendly, but the guy doesn't seem to want to talk. In fact, he's kind of a dick about the whole thing. Michael shrugs it off and heads back to their table, thinking about the night before.
Michael figures he's going to be remembering last night, and Sherri, for quite a while. Despite what everybody thinks about the rock and roll life—hell, what he'd thought when he got into the business—it's not all one long orgy. Well, maybe if you're actually in the band, but for the road crew, not so much.
Sherri is the prettiest girl Michael's ever been with (even though she was only the second one, after Sandy Vick on prom night), but he doubts he'll ever see her again. They're leaving town right after the gig tomorrow evening. And maybe that's just as well, because Michael is a little scared of Sherri's big brother, Neal.
Michael's pretty sure Neal's kind of a dick, too.
**
Council Bluffs, Iowa is a short distance east of Omaha and it's not exactly a major city, but you'd think at least Omaha would be big enough for somebody to stock a Powerglide for a '67 Impala. Apparently that would be way too easy, because Dean's called every auto parts store, body shop and salvage yard in a hundred-mile radius and his last hope just hung up on him.
Dean closes his phone in his fist and knocks it against his forehead like he can pound away the headache that's starting up there. Fuck, why is he even bothering? It's not like he has a thousand bucks to pay for the goddamned transmission anyway. He can't exactly conjure up a new credit card on a few days' notice. He really only came into this place hoping to pick up some cash, but the bar's a bust and he's just wound up spending more of what he can't afford to lose.
Dean sighs and massages his forehead with his fingertips. He's really not sure how he got in shit this deep this quick. It's not like he hasn't been on his own before, but everything seems to cost a lot more than he expects. And of course, this little road trip wasn't exactly a model of forethought and planning.
Sam had been gone for three weeks—three weeks of Dad working the two of them into the ground every minute he could wrangle it. He mostly drank during the little down time that was left and Dean was doing it with him more often than not. He didn't like leaving his dad alone for too long, especially at first.
But the silence began to wear on Dean after a while. John had ever been much on talking about anything other than the stuff he could see right in front of him; he wasn't about to change now. And hell, it wasn't like Dean didn't get it. It was hard enough to even breathe, the air all seemingly sucked into the black hole left behind when a third of their substance suddenly evaporated. It was the only thing that mattered and the last thing either of them wanted to talk about, and what good would it do anyway? Sam was gone and he wasn't coming back.
The thing was, it wasn't a complete surprise. Dean had known Sam was leaving because Sam had told him. He's still not sure whether that had been Sam's original intention, or if it was entirely the fault of the bottle of tequila Dean had liberated from the QuikWay and pressed into service as Sam's high school graduation gift. Dean would like to think it was the former, but either way, he'd known.
He just thought he'd have more time to say goodbye.
"You walk out that door…don't bother coming back," John had said.
It was the last thing Dean was expecting to come out of his father's mouth—the last thing he should have said—because goddamnit, didn't the man know Sam at all? Dean was completely speechless, helpless in the stretching moment between the fall of the words and the wreckage of impact.
Sam had been pretty fucking far from speechless, though, and Dean hasn't even begun to wrap his mind around how he's going to glue all these tiny broken pieces back together into anything resembling a family.
So yeah, there was a screaming scene when Sam left. But when Dean walked out three weeks later with nothing but the clothes on his back and the crap in the Impala's trunk, there wasn't even a whimper. It was like Sam had yanked the linchpin that locked Dean and his father together when he left, and after that Dean just drifted further and further down the tracks, helpless to close the gap.
Dean watched John from the darkened doorway. He was pretty sure his dad didn't even know he was there. Dad was slumped sideways against the kitchen table, eyes glassy and bloodshot from too much Jack and too little sleep. Dean looked at him sitting there and he didn't know him, and something inside Dean just gave way in that moment, silently and too easily, like it had been dissolving slowly, eaten away by the corrosive passage of the long days spent remembering how things used to be, stupidly wishing they could change the past, as though their whole lives hadn't been a lesson in the futility of that dream.
So in the end, they still didn't talk. Dean just slipped silently out the door. Dean's not sure when John realized he was actually gone, but by the time he called three days later, Dean was already crossing the Nebraska state line.
"Where are you?" John demanded, voice rough like he just woke up. Or never went to bed.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut briefly, swallowed past the raw feeling in his throat.
"Not there," he managed. He half-expected his father to call him a smart-ass for that, but he wasn't being insubordinate. More like stating a desire, really.
John was quiet so long that Dean began to think he'd lost the connection.
"Maybe it's just as well," John said finally. His phone started to cut out for real then. Dean heard him say "…call…" before it died completely. He still doesn't know which of the two of them John meant the word for.
"Bad news?" a voice asks, and Dean swivels his head to find a scrawny kid at his elbow, long, bony fingers looped around the curves of six opened longnecks. Dean gives him an intimidating look designed to send him packing as quickly as possible, but the guy just grins sympathetically, oblivious to the warning.
"Sorry, man, I don't mean to pry, but…that phone call. You look like your dog died or something," he continues, surprising a short laugh out of Dean. Because it's not like he's ever actually owned a dog, but he was feeling kind of gut-punched, so he guesses it's close enough.
The laugh apparently just encourages the kid, because he nods his head at Dean in lieu of a handshake and says, "Michael Roper."
Dean takes a closer look. The guy is slightly built, probably in his late teens, and even with the ragged scruff he's sporting, Dean can't imagine how he passed for old enough to get into the bar in the first place. Dean's not sure what the kid expects from him, but he's already trying to figure a way to extricate himself from this awkward little…whatever. He really needs to take care of his business.
"Okay, well Mike…"
"It's Michael."
"Whatever. Listen, Mike, I'm flattered, but I really don't swing that way, and I have things to do so you should really…"
It's nearly a given that when a stranger of either gender speaks to Dean first, they're hitting on him, especially in a bar, so he figures he's got an excuse for the assumption, but the kid just throws his head back and laughs out loud. And yeah, that much innocence really shouldn't be allowed out in public without a minder of some sort.
"Dude, I'm not…" Michael starts, blushing. The kid is actually red enough Dean can see the blush under his half-assed attempt at a beard. Unbelievable. "It's not like that, really. I'm not from here. Just trying to be friendly, is all."
"Barking up the wrong tree for that, too," Dean says.
"No problem, man. I'll leave you alone with your dead dog problems, or whatever," Michael says, as he moves away. "Nice to meet you, anyway," he says, nodding again and trotting off to a noisy table in the back.
Dean briefly wonders what part of the whole conversation was "nice," but his mind soon returns to more pressing matters. Like how the hell he's going to survive for the next few days and weeks.
No miracle fix shows itself as Dean nurses one beer after the other as slowly as he can. When last call comes, he's no closer to an answer than he was when he came in. He's bone-tired from too much driving and not enough sleeping, most of the latter in the car too. He gets up and pays his tab, noting the remaining cash in his wallet as he does. He figures it'll just about cover morning coffee and a crappy breakfast and that's it. Bedding down in the Impala might become a regular gig. He scratches his head, finally decides to try to get some sleep and figure things out tomorrow.
Dean reaches the door ahead of the last few stragglers and pushes through it into the darkened parking lot. His first impression as his eyes adjust is that there are a lot more people outside than in, but it doesn't occur to him that it's a problem for him until he nears his car. A tingle runs through him when he's a few yards away, his body having reacted before his brain processes what it all means: a small clot of men standing too close to his baby, hard edge to the voices and aggressive tension pouring off them in waves.
Someone's about to get his ass kicked.
Dean's never been less interested in getting involved. He's got way bigger things to worry about than some stupid townie pissing contest. If they'd just get the fuck away from his car…
But the bozos seem fully occupied with their little beef anyway, mostly sounds like you took it and I don't have it back and forth, and Dean figures drunken stupidity of this magnitude might take a while to exhaust itself, so he starts looking for a way around it. He thinks there's enough space between the nearest guy and the driver's door for him to ease between and slide in.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Dean mutters, and makes his move.
They don't appear to notice Dean at all and he's got his hand on the door handle, figuring he's got this made when the biggest guy pushes the one closest to Dean. He staggers back into Dean, knocking him against the Impala. Dean growls a curse and shoves back. The guy isn't big and maybe Dean put a little more strength behind it than he meant to, but he's tired and pissed and defending his baby, and that's just how it goes.
Or actually, it goes like this: The guy Dean pushed bounces back onto the apparent ringleader of the little herd, a muscle-run-to-fat guy covered with biker tattoos, who punches him square in the face. Dean steps out of the way and the smaller man hits the gravel of the parking lot with a rattle and a crunch. The biker turns a glare on Dean that makes it obvious he's going to have to fight his way out of this. Dean takes a quick head count and he's not sure how many of them it would take to kick his ass, but it looks like they're planning to try it with four.
Scrawny Dude is back on his feet by this time, but he isn't much of a fighter, shockingly, and Dean doesn't have any attention to spare him anyway, just picks out the biggest mouth-breather and swings with everything he's got. It barely fazes him and he advances on Dean with a grin, blood dripping down his chin. Another one grabs Dean around the shoulders from behind and Dean curls his arms and lifts his lower body, kicks the big man in the chest with both feet, knocking him on his ass. The guy holding Dean reacts quickly, using Dean's momentum to slam him headfirst into a pickup truck.
Dean's ears are roaring, but he manages to tuck his legs under him and roll away, getting to his feet in time to meet another punch. He stays up and swings another time or two, trying to get the Impala's body or anything solid behind him, but it's too late. Something slams into the back of his head and the lights go out.
**
Dean returns to consciousness like swimming, like he's rising slowly through deep water; he can even see the sun shining down through it from above. The bright light ignites a searing pain inside his skull, making him squint hard and try to turn his face away.
He's clued in to the fact that he's in a hospital now, the smells and sounds of an emergency room unfortunately well within his experience. He opens his eyes to a tiny flashlight shining square into his pupil and lasering straight on into his brain.
"Hey, I saw that, no hiding anymore, I know you're awake," a woman says. "Mr. Winchester…Dean…wake up. Need you to talk to me."
He cracks his eyes open just a slit then, wary of the light, but it doesn't come back. The doctor smiles down at him and he thinks she'd be kind of attractive if she'd just hold still, stop blurring at the edges, morphing from two bodies to one and then back again.
Okay then… today's menu special: concussion.
He's lying on a gurney, needle in the back of his left hand the only problem he can actually visualize, and he starts a physical inventory from the feet up, gingerly moving each body part to see how bad off he is.
"…rib fracture," the doctor is saying, just as Dean shifts and that condition becomes so painfully evident that he instantly stops breathing. A cold sweat breaks out across his forehead. Moving is completely out of the question.
"It's not displaced or I'd be worried about a punctured lung…lucky," she's apparently still speaking and Dean gives his head a little rolling shake on the pillow, trying to clear his vision, shake off the ringing in his ears, something.
That genius maneuver causes his abused brain to slosh around inside his skull some more, which generates an epic wave of nausea.
No, no, no…fuck, Dean, broken rib…don't vomit, he orders his stomach uselessly.
Everything hurts and he's not thinking straight, of course he isn't, but he suddenly knows one thing for sure: he's going to puke right the fuck now and he instinctively turns his body to reroute the now-inevitable vomit onto the floor.
"Whoa, hey…you need to stay still, don't…Jesus H. Christ!"
Dean screams, realizing too late he rolled the wrong direction, right onto his busted rib. There's more cursing from the doctor and a lot of activity around him, but he barely hears it over his own loud groaning. He's curled around himself, a giant ball of fiery pain, still puking while trying not to take a deep breath, wrapping his arms tight around his chest when that proves impossible.
He finally purges everything he's got and mostly controls the follow-up heaves by force of will, alternately swallowing hard and spitting out what he can't choke back. Tears are streaming down his face and Dean can't give a fuck, just concentrates on breathing as shallowly as possible, beyond caring that it sounds like sobbing.
Someone's reaching over him from behind, pawing at the hand with the IV, but he can't let go of his ribs for fear he'll explode with the force of the pain, that pieces of him will start fucking flying off in all directions.
"Here, hey…hey…this'll help. Compazine and morphine for the pain and nausea," a female voice says soothingly.
Better late than never, he thinks, right before he passes out.
**
Light stabbing into his eye sockets wakes Dean a second time and he twists his head away from the source of the torture, but the motion just makes it throb like a motherfucker. He waits a second before opening his eyes a crack and peering around the room. He shifts his body carefully against the raised head of the hospital bed. The injured rib flares a warning, but nothing else seems to be damaged. The doc was right; he was lucky.
Dean rethinks that assessment when a movement near the door catches his attention and he jerks his head toward it, setting up waves of dizziness and aggravating his headache again. His vision is still blurring on and off, but he recognizes the person walking toward his bed. It's what's-his-name, from the bar. Matthew?
"Hey, you're awake. Dean, right? Remember me? I'm Michael."
Christ, the kid is like a damned puppy or something. Push him away, and before you know it he's right back in your lap.
"Dude, if you lick my face right now, I'll kill you, swear to God," Dean says, or tries to. His mouth is so dry he half expects a dust cloud to fly out of it when he talks. His bottom lip is swollen and sore and his tongue is bitten nearly through on one side, so he's really got no idea how intelligible his speech actually is.
Michael either doesn't understand him or wasn't listening in the first place, because he just keeps talking.
"Man, I'm glad you're okay. I was worried when you were out for so long. Some fight, huh? You were awesome, by the way, and your car…dude. I think there's something going on with the transmission though; it was shifting pretty rough. It's a '67, right? I got my eye on this sweet '67 Mustang, man…"
He talks in one continuous stream and Dean's not really following, but he catches one word just fine.
"My car? Where is she?" Dean grunts out, every breath catching sharp under his right arm.
"Oh, yeah, I took care of it. It's outside, safe and sound. Sweet ride, man…"
Dean's eyes open fully for the first time that day. He tries to speak and winds up coughing instead, which is another delightful voyage to the outer limits of his pain tolerance. When he finally manages to get words out, he does his best to sound threatening.
"You drove my car?"
"Um, yeah? I followed the ambulance here. Called the cops, too," Michael mumbles, finally seeming like he's paying attention to Dean, so some inkling of the murder Dean's contemplating must have gotten through to the kid, which pleases Dean. That shit is tricky with your ass hanging out of a hospital gown.
Then the word "cops" soaks in.
"That's it," Dean mutters.
He fumbles for the back of his left hand, pulls off the tape and slides the IV tubing out. The trickle of blood is negligible, so he ignores it in favor of working the bed rail down. The mechanism is a lot more difficult to figure out than it should be, so it's not that Dean doesn't recognize the fact that Michael's freaking out—it's more that he doesn't really have any attention to spare for it.
"Whoa, what the fuck…shit, don't pull on that…leave that alone, no, no, no…you can't get up, man. Doc says you need to stay a few days, for observation or whatever."
"Fuck that, and what's it to you anyway? Why are you even here…Mike, is it?" Dean asks between soft grunts, as he finally gets the cranky railing down and levers his way upright.
"It's Michael. And you helped me, so…I'm just, you know…helping you," he trails off.
"Well, Michael…if you really wanna help me, go find my clothes," Dean says, clutching at the edge of the mattress for balance and fighting off several successive waves of dizziness.
Michael looks at him doubtfully, but then starts opening cabinets and sliding back drawers until he finds a plastic bag containing what Dean had on him when they brought him in, or most of it. He didn't have much money anyway, but what little there was is still there, including his driver's license and the one credit card. The only thing missing is his good knife—which pisses him off royally because Sam gave it to him, goddammit—but Dean learned early that getting attached to possessions, to things, is a waste of energy, so overall he figures it could have been a whole lot worse.
Dean starts getting dressed carefully, fending Michael off when he tries to help and barking an order to "just watch the fucking door." There's a fair amount of cussing and shallow panting involved, but Dean finally gets himself together, or at least feeling reasonably competent again with his pants and boots on.
"Dean, I don't think this is a good idea. I mean, you're all busted up and you should probably stay, or…something," Michael says, eyes darting nervously.
"You're absolutely right, Mike, this is a really fucking terrible idea, but this luxury suite costs about a thousand bucks a minute and that's money I don't have," Dean says.
He's pretty sure they haven't run his credit card yet, with him being unconscious—hospital's are sticklers for that consent shit—but they'll get around to it soon enough. Besides, he can't leave the car and the weaponry in the trunk to chance, and especially not unsupervised with the village idiot, here.
He makes Michael check the hallway before he sticks his head out. Dean's lucky they're only a couple of doors from the exit stairwell, because he's still walking like he's drunk and when he steps off the landing onto the first stair, he's sure he's never been this glad to see a handrail before.
The parking lot isn't too large and the Impala stands out, calling him in like a homing beacon. Dean only stumbles once on his way. He braces one hand against her shining, black side and holds the other palm out in Michael's direction, mouth tight.
"What…you can't drive, man, seriously. You got hit pretty hard,"
"Give me my fucking keys or I will punch you in your face," Dean grits.
Michael still looks dubious, but he hands them over. Dean jabs the key into the door lock a little more forcefully than he should, but he climbs into his seat carefully, trying not to jar his rib or bend over too far and intensify the beating of the drums in his head. He's still catching his breath when there's a noise at the passenger window, followed by that door opening.
Dean's head snaps to the right and he comes face to face with Michael as he slides into the shotgun seat. If his head hadn't already been hurting so much, Dean would swear he was popping an aneurysm.
"You left my car unlocked?" Dean asks, squinting against the spikes of bright sunlight from over Michael's shoulder.
"Um, just this door," Michael mumbles, looking down at the floorboard.
"Get the fuck out," Dean rasps, trying to slow his breathing so it won't hurt any more than it already does. The nausea's starting to come back and the last thing he needs is to get the pain/puke cycle rolling again. If he wasn't fighting his own body so hard, he might even feel bad about the hurt on the kid's face. On the other hand, the little moron had the nerve to not only drive the Impala, but to leave her unlocked, so…no.
Michael's saying something, but Dean's ears are ringing and he can't make much sense of it. Not that he has any interest in the little shit's opinion. Of course, he did make sure Dean got to a hospital and didn't bleed out in the parking lot. Not that that would have been a problem in the first place if he hadn't run into…
"Enough!" Dean growls. He's not used to all this waffling; it's making him dizzy. Or maybe he's just dizzy, but whatever. "What. The fuck. Do you want?"
"Can you give me a ride back to the venue?"
**
Dean's always said he could drive as long as he was conscious, and this isn't the worst off he's ever been, for sure, but the trip across town is still an endurance test. The kid yammers the whole way, but Dean can mostly tune it out. He had years of practice on the road with Sammy after all.
When they started the trip, Dean wouldn't have bet a dime on Michael actually knowing where they were going, but they pull up to the Mid-America Center after only one wrong turn.
"So really, Dean, what do you think?" Michael says, blinking at him.
Dean completely lost the thread of what the guy was saying about thirty seconds into the drive. The blow to his head hasn't done his short-term memory any favors even if he was interested, and the kid spouts bullshit as easy as breathing.
"I say it's time for you to go," Dean says. Any other time he'd reach over and pop the passenger door handle as in invitation to evacuation, but the driving has aggravated his rib, which is warning him with a hot, sickening throb not to even try anything that wildly athletic.
"Look, you said you need money and this is a really good gig. Night Shayde is on the rise, man. Plus, Joe had to give Travis an FOH pass last week and he's been complaining about the extra work ever since."
Dean frowns at him for a while, trying to recall the rest of what this person who won't fucking leave him alone has been saying for the past twenty minutes, then waiting for his bruised brain to catch up.
"Are you offering me a job as a roadie?" Dean asks, finally. "What the hell is an FOH pass?"
"FOH—Fuck Off Home. It's like…well…it's roadie talk for 'useless.' And fired, basically," Michael says. "But yeah, the pay is decent and you get per diem. And free beer, usually…that's in the rider and…"
"Forget it," Dean says, shaking his head slightly. He's feeling physically worse by the minute and he just needs to get rid of this leech so he can deal with everything, but it does occur to him that he's been maybe a little more of a dick about this than he has to be. Besides, kicking this puppy hasn't done the job; maybe the soft brush-off will work better.
"Look, Mike, I appreciate the help and the offer and everything, but I don't think it's for me. I've got things to do and places to be, okay?"
He gives a disappointed nod, finally opening the door to get out.
"I understand. But if you change your mind, we'll be in town until tomorrow night."
Dean raises his hand—let the pain in the ass take it as a wave goodbye or a fuck-you or however he wants—just as long as he leaves. Dean waits for the creak of the door, eyes closed, concentrating on not breathing any more than he has to, steeled against the band of stretching pain in his ribcage. Michael gets out, but then Dean feels him lean down to peer into the car one last time.
Jesus Christ.
"Hey, Dean?"
Dean turns to look at him, raising an eyebrow.
"It's Michael."
**
Dean drives pretty aimlessly for a few minutes, his only mission to get further away from the arena and Michael, but he's got to find someplace to stop before much longer. It's getting dark and he really doesn't know this town well anyway. Fighting the pain and blurred vision, trying to keep it together enough to drive, is wearing him out.
He finally passes a park and it looks like an okay neighborhood which is good, because the way his luck's been running, Dean's pretty sure if he got mugged right now, the son of a bitch wouldn't even have the decency to put him out of his misery. He pulls over and gets out carefully, walks as steady as he can to the Impala's trunk. It's an effort of will just to stay on course. His head feels swollen with pain, the kind of throbbing pressure that makes him think having his brain start to leak out of his ears would be a huge relief. His busted rib is doing its best to keep up, heat slicing across his side every time he moves. He's dizzy and starting to feel nauseated again, too.
And he's thirsty, he realizes suddenly. It's warm enough that he's probably dehydrated. Dean opens the trunk and a cool breeze ruffles his damp shirt, making him shiver. He stands there staring blankly at the trunk's contents for long minutes. He really has no idea why he came back here.
Another slight gust of wind kicks by him and it must stir something up, because it tickles his nose and he tries to suppress the sneeze, but…oh Jesus fucking Christ that hurts…especially the follow-up heave, and he swallows back bile. At least now he remembers what he wanted from the trunk: painkillers.
He paws through the mess, winds up even hotter and sweatier than before, laboring to breathe, by the time he digs out the med kit. There are maybe twenty Vicodin and he wants those right now—all of them at once would be good, actually—but he's still got enough sense to think maybe they aren't the best idea until he gets the head injury a little further behind him. It's not like there's someone to wake him up if he goes under too far. It might be a near thing, but he doesn't think he's quite ready to die. He opts for half a handful of ibuprofen.
There's a functioning water faucet not too far from where he's parked. The water is warm and has a harsh metallic taste, but Dean swallows the pills and drinks until his stomach clenches. He staggers back to the car.
The back seat looks like heaven right now, he's so fucking tired, and he eases himself down onto his good side. He stays there for about a second and a half before it becomes crystal clear that he's not going to be doing much lying flat until he has time to heal a little. He hauls himself upright again and goes back to spelunk the trunk again, coming back with a couple of blankets of dubious origin and sanitary condition, and his extra jacket.
It's going to be a long night.
**
Dean does manage to sleep a little, wedged into the corner of the seat and the door with his jacket for padding behind him, but it's not even in the same universe as comfortable. He wakes for the twentieth time just after sunrise, sweaty, stiff and disoriented. He carefully works his way back to a full sitting position and it doesn't take long for the realization to hit that he's still in the same shitty situation as yesterday. So much for things looking better in the morning.
He's thirsty again, and that's something he can change, so he pries himself out of the car. The more minor insults from the fight are starting to make nuisances of themselves—stiff left knee, sore right shoulder—and he trudges to the water tap moving like he's eighty.
He washes down some more ibuprofen with a few mouthfuls of water and it does make him feel better, or at least like he might survive the trip to the convenience store across the street. He buys himself some coffee and some sort of sandwich. He's never liked to eat alone and it's a sorry excuse for breakfast, but he's not hungry anyway, just figures he needs it. It doesn't taste like much but he watched the clerk make it, so it likely won't poison him and his stomach doesn't try too hard to reject it.
It only takes him a couple of minutes to finish and then he can't put off figuring out what to do any longer. The car won't make it very far in this condition and he's got nowhere to go, but Dean starts driving anyway. He always thinks better behind the wheel.
He's clearly not in any shape to get hold of the money to fix the car, or even enough to live on. He might still be able to run a game of pool with his rib like it is, even though it's on his right side. Poker would be easier on him, but finding a good game when you don't know anybody is iffy, at best. He's just going to have to face the facts.
Less than a week on his own and he's all busted up and flat broke, and so is the Impala. Great job, Dean. You worried about taking care of Sammy all those years and now you can't even take care of yourself.
His thoughts keep circling back to the same conclusion and eventually it cuts through the fog in his skull that he's getting nowhere. He can't keep driving around like this, either, because he's going to run out of gas and the only thing likely to help his concentration at this point is recovery from the concussion. That's going to take time he doesn't really have. He pulls over next to a curb in what passes for the downtown area of Council Bluffs and gets out, leans one hip against the car and stares blankly at the activity in the street at his side.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, when Dean thought about after—after he was grown, after Sam was out of school—he'd always thought they'd go on hunting together, only better, because they didn't have to worry about what Sammy was missing anymore, finally all three of them working together, a team. Dean snorts softly. Too good to be true.
And now he's really fucked, which is a lot closer to business as usual in his world than his stupid little dream ever will be. He's skirted around the reality, denied and waffled, but he's not only going to have to call his dad for money, he's going to have to beg for money in order to go crawling back. How's that for whipped?
Dean gets his phone out and rests his thumb on the "send" button, takes a deep, painful breath to steady himself. As he hesitates, he looks at the building across from him again. Then it hits him, why it looks so familiar. He puts his phone back in his pocket.
The lighted marquee is flashing a repeating message:
MID AMERICA CENTER and KIWR Radio Present NIGHT SHAYDE in Concert!!!!