A headless snake bleeding on the floor. Chalk lines drawn in sharp angles on the wood.
Bobby scrubbed, the scent of cleaner so strong he could taste it. On his knees, both hands clenching an old wooden scrub brush, the bristles flared outwards as they scraped back and forth across the pitted floor. His fingers ached but there was still a dark shadow on the floor, blood from wounds dug by hellhound claws.
Nonsense. Bobby shook his head, grunting in frustration. This was no different than any of the other multitude of stains that dotted the hardwood around him, no one would notice. No one but him.
He dumped a bucket of sudsy, reddish water in the bathroom, then swept candles and books and a container of dried hemlock off the table and into a drawer near the floor. His eyes swept the room, searching for materials yet needing to be put away, and his gaze fell on the sofa against the far wall of the room. This wasn't his spare room, too many memories there, no sense taking chances.
Sam was stretched out there on the too small couch, feet hanging over the arm, all pale skin and dark scars. Dark crescents hung under his eyes, his hair was messy and unkempt, too loose clothing spoke of weight lost over the course of many weeks. Before he'd fallen asleep it'd been mumbled words, hitched breaths, and distant looks. Wild pendulum swings of violent anger and intense sadness. All were signs of pain, all part of Sam's ritual of mourning. But maybe now there was hope, maybe now it was all over.
Bobby'd never felt so sick at the thought of hope.
Nudging an overflowing drawer closed with his boot, he left the room.
Before Sam wakes Bobby scours the house, top to bottom, removing and rearranging. The Impala's hidden away in a storage unit in town. He's confiscated Sam's laptop until the password can be cracked. He's made a list of things he needs to avoid ever mentioning. It's as painful for him as he's sure it was for Sam, except now Sam's not feeling anything and Bobby feels guilty as hell.
There are good points, yes, Sam's eating, he no longer looks like half a corpse. He's stopped shuffling everywhere, stopped acting like he's walked barefoot a road too long, a mile too far. He's still hesitant, but now he's not sure why, and that hesitant smile's broken Bobby to pieces. The boy's hollow, emptied out. No anger, no pain, no joy. And he's responsible, the one that's supposed to be a father to him. For once Bobby thinks, the cure is worse than the disease, and reaches for the ever-present bottle, trying to decide whom it's actually harder on.
But it's a messily weaved web with one tangled strand. A moment of negligence on his part and he tosses his wallet to Sam, tells him to take some money, take the truck, and go grab lunch. He leaves the room for something, walks back in, and feels his insides twist. Sam's holding that picture, the one of himself and Dean fishing, so old and so faded it might be centuries old instead of mere years.
Sam taps one long finger on the picture and looks him in the eye. "Bobby, who's this?"