Author's Note 1: This is a missing scene to Girl Next Door, what happened between their harrowing escape from Sioux Falls General and their arrival at Rufus' cabin. Or, to be honest, a shameless attempt at some blatant angst and comfort between the boys, with some fatherly Bobby thrown in for good measure.
This is multiple chapters, 90% of which are done, so I'll post new chapters every few days or so.
Author's Note 2: This was a collaboration between myself and my best friend Riathe Mai, who I've gotten hopelessly hooked on Supernatural and even tempted her back into writing. Thanks for all the advice, editing, late night texts and channeling your inner Dean when he just wouldn't cooperate...in other words...thanks for everything, sweetie.
Warning / Spoilers: Warnings for language, because we are dealing with Dean after all, and know how he can get. Spoilers up through and including Girl Next Door.
Disclaimer: Sadly, Supernatural and the boys don't belong to me. But, oh, if they did...
spn
Darkest Before the Dawn
He was numb.
He was still in the same slouched position he had ended up in when he had thrown himself into the passenger seat of the ambulance as Bobby had sped away. He leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, staring at the lights that wavered and danced in his vision from the oncoming passing vehicles.
The last remnants of the adrenaline that had coursed through his system in the dizzying, frantic escape from Sioux Falls General had long since faded.
And he felt nothing.
It wasn't the residual morphine that the doctors had pumped him full of hours earlier. The effects of that left his limbs feeling like leaded weights at his sides and his head fuzzy and disconnected from the rest of his body.
This was not the warm, welcomed friend that he embraced with open arms and savored long after the burn of the whiskey had faded away.
No.
This one was unrelenting; suffocating in its merciless pursuit to pull you down into its dark oblivion. It wrapped around you and grabbed tight, sinking its jagged teeth soul deep and holding on, tearing at you until you shattered.
Hope gone. Faith evaporated. Trust in yourself and in those around you splintered, exploded into tiny fragments and scattered into the wind.
Faith. Hope. Those were never really his things. Too much had happened. He had seen and experienced too much in his short lifetime for those things to hold much importance to him anymore. If they ever did to begin with.
Sammy though, despite all the shit that had been thrown at him, his brother had always been the one to pray, to keep a higher faith.
To hold onto hope of a better…something.
Dean had to wonder if he still felt the same way.
He rolled his head lethargically to the left and he gazed at the unmoving body of his younger brother. His neck felt boneless, and even that small movement was sluggish and uncoordinated.
Strapped down to the gurney, Sam still hadn't moved or regained consciousness since the terrifying seizure he had suffered hours earlier. Dean let out a dispirited sigh as a pang of regret and sadness tugged at his heart. He looked asleep; for the first time since Dean couldn't remember, his younger brother looked peaceful and serene. The lines of pain, of intense concentration that constantly marred his features from the second to second fight to keep the torrent of Hell's memories at bay were gone. He looked younger, and for a moment, Dean saw the wide-eyed innocent kid he had raised instead of the broken man that lay in front of him.
"Hey, you back with us?"
Dean's gaze shifted slowly in response to the gruff inquiry, a voice he had known almost his entire life; it meant safety and security, strength and guidance. The voice of reason, the anchor that kept him grounded while everything around him was in chaos.
Another voice he had thought lost to him forever, another soul he couldn't save; one that, if it had indeed been silenced…well, Dean crushed that thought immediately, not even wanting to imagine what the outcome would have been. He opened his mouth to respond, but all he could do was stare; his brain still processing what his heart had thought lost.
"Dean? You all right, boy?"
"I thought I lost you."
The words were broken, and lost and vulnerable, spoken on a hoarse whisper, but they cut through the dark and silent vehicle like a shotgun blast.
"Gonna take more 'an ick-filled creatures from the black lagoon to take out these old bones," Bobby replied with gruff confidence. "Thought I was being followed," he explained with a shrug. "So I doubled back a couple'a times to make sure. By the time I got back to the house…"
Yeah, more pleasant memories to add to the iron lockbox and bury deep, Dean thought.
Bobby had one of the best poker faces around, but Dean saw right through it. He heard the slight quaver in his voice as he spoke, and could see the fear and anguish that still lingered in his eyes at the site that had greeted him in his Salvage Yard.
Emotion welled up in Dean as he recalled the look of shear relief he had seen in Bobby's eyes when he had stepped into his hospital room and found him alive. If seeing him walk through the door, alive and kicking, hadn't been enough to send Dean into shock, then Bobby's uncharacteristic pat on his cheek had just about finished the job.
As much as he teased Sam on being all girly, none of them were big on warm, mushy displays of affection. Their feelings came out in a slap on the back, a playful punch to the shoulder, well-timed jokes and pranks at the others' expense, or the clink of cold bottles after a successful hunt.
Every once in a while though, that just wasn't enough.
In that one gentle touch, Dean had known that Bobby had felt that same heart-stopping panic: the world coming to an abrupt stop at the notion that maybe this time had really been it.
Dean felt the moisture tickle the backs of his eyes. It never failed to touch him just how much the grizzled, ornery, gruff old hunter thought of him and Sam as his own.
And the feelings were overwhelmingly mutual.
Dean swallowed hard against the gut-wrenching panic of the 'what if's' that wanted to claw there way out.
Bobby's alive. Sam's…Dean glanced again at his brother, Sam's alive, the rest….
The rest…Dean dropped his head against the back of the seat. His heart sank at the thought of 'the rest': Bobby's house—his home—full of memories of happier times, his previous life with Karen; hundred upon hundreds of irreplaceable books and manuscripts lost forever.
"They destroyed everything, Bobby."
"Not everything, son. We all walked away, more like hobbled in your case, but we have all our parts and pieces pretty much intact. We hang back, lick our wounds, and live to fight another day. I'm just glad that you and Sam were able to get outta the house in time."
Dean huffed out an ironical breath. Certainly didn't have to worry about that last part, he thought wearily.
"How's the leg?" Bobby asked.
"Still broke," Dean quipped dryly.
"Ha, ha. Don't give up yer' day job, kid. George Carlin you ain't." Bobby shook his head in exasperation. "How 'bout the rest of ya," he asked slowly. "Doin' okay?"
Dean rubbed his hands over his face, taking a deep breath and blowing it out. "I'm fine."
"Uh huh. Right. You're fine, and I'm the Queen of England."
Dean rolled his eyes. "I gotta say Bobby, for an eighty-six year old British chick, you look fantastic."
"Shuddap, ya smartass," Bobby groused. "You really have to get yourself a new Merriam-Webster, you know that? Cuz' you Winchesters really don't know what that word means."
"Bobby." It came out as a tired whine, and Dean really couldn't have cared less. He leaned his head against the cool window, watching the flat landscape as it passed by, hoping that Bobby would drop it.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot. You're fine."
Dean closed his eyes for a moment. He was bone tired; his leg throbbed in time with the passing trees. He wanted quiet, he wanted to be left alone, but most of all, he wanted to not deal with anything.
"So that little Thelma and Louise drive you were gonna bring your brother on…?"
Crap. The message. Dean could feel Bobby's eyes practically burning a hole in the back of his head as he waited for an explanation. He had forgotten all about it, and it was certainly at the top of his list of items that he didn't want to deal with.
Ever.
"What kind of dumbass do you take me for boy? Checkin' my messages was the first thing I did when I found the Impala abandoned and no sign of you two yahoos."
In terms of pure stubbornness, Bobby Singer stood toe to toe with the Winchesters. Even half drugged and exhausted, Dean knew that there would be no getting out of this conversation.
"Bobby, it was nothing. No big deal. Forget about it," Dean tried casually, downplaying the entire event.
"No big deal!" Bobby bellowed incredulously. "I listen to a message…with you panic-stricken and outta yer mind on the other end, by the way…telling me you're gonna grab yer' brother and drive off a friggin' cliff, and I'm supposed to forget about it? Dean…"
The older Winchester held his tongue, watching as the man he considered his surrogate father took a deep, calming breath before he continued. Dean swallowed against the emotions that choked his throat at the concern he saw in Bobby's eyes.
"Dean," Bobby began again calmly. "I've known you since you was a kid. You don't make idle threats. I wanna know what's goin' on in that crazy ass brain of yer's, so out with it."
Bobby's gentle, caring tone shattered the thin veil of resolve he had built. "Your house was a pile of smoldering cinders, Bobby," Dean said quietly. "We tore the place apart looking for you. You didn't answer your phone. You weren't anywhere. There just wasn't enough of anything left…"
Dean took a shaky breath, his hands fisted in his lap as the memories replayed. "I thought they got you. I couldn't…I didn't…I've lost too many damned people I care about already. I can't handle anymore. Losing you….I can't do this alone. So…yeah, taking a one way drive to nowhere sounded like a great plan."
"Well, boo hoo hoo for you. You think that just because you've had a little bad luck you can just go and cash in your chips? Hell, no! You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and you start again."
Dean stared slack-jawed, eyes wide in shock at Bobby's outburst; the hopelessness and despondency that had been threatening to overtake him turned to anger at Bobby's seemingly casual dismissal of his emotional admission. "Bobby —"
"I ain't done yet, boy," Bobby barked. "I get it. I do. So you can go ahead and stow all that anger I know you got brewing. This is a thankless, sucky job and one way or another it all ends bloody. But that don't give you any right to just end it, you hear me. Yeah, you've lost a lot of people in your short life, folks that you cared about a lot. But you're forgettin' one important thing, Dean…they cared about you too and would never want that for you."
Bobby held Dean's gaze for a moment before turning his eyes back to the road. "You hearing me?"
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose as he simply nodded his head, unable to get words past the lump of emotions constricting his throat.
"Besides, if your daddy didn't find you in the great beyond first, then Ellen would kick your ass from here to eternity for pulling a stunt like that."
Dean huffed out a laugh. "Between you and me, I think I'm more scared of Ellen."
"Smart boy," Bobby smirked. "You and Sam do a lot of good, Dean. Make a big difference to a lot of people. I know it's hard to see most times, but you do. You remember that hunt a few years back, the one were you turned all Grumpy Old Men on us?"
Dean's brow furrowed as he thought back over the years and the many hunts they had done together. "You mean that poker game we played? That smarmy Irish dude who ended up being a witch?"
"That's the one," Bobby said glancing over momentarily at Dean. "You remember that speech you gave me, right before we left?"
"Yeah, I remember," Dean said quietly.
"That goes both ways, you know. I know I don't say it much, but you two chuckleheads are like sons to me."
"We know, Bobby," Dean said softly, his voice trembling with barely-contained emotion.
"Then you know that's not what I'd ever want. If the end comes, it comes. You don't go speeding up the process. You don't get to check out in a moment of crazed grief. You go on fighting, and you take out the sons of bitches that got me. I don't wanna hear that kind of nonsense again. Understood?"
"Yes sir."
"Good. Besides," Bobby remarked offhandedly, "what do you mean, you couldn't do this alone? What do you call the sleeping giant we have back there?"
Dean looked behind him to where Sam lay peacefully unaware. It was hard to believe that just a few short hours ago…was it only hours ago? It felt like days had passed since Dean had followed Sam to that warehouse.
"Sam's…God, Bobby…He's…" Dean broke off with a wet, desperate, slightly manic laugh.
"What? What about Sam?"
Dean glanced over at Bobby and the look he met said it all; he had officially freaked Bobby out.
Hey, I should get a medal for being able to do that, Dean thought. He shook his head a bit to clear it. "I think Sammy has left the building. No lights on. No forwarding address."
"What the hell are you talking about? You're making less sense than usual, boy."
"I'm saying; you didn't have to worry about Sam and me getting out of the house before it went up, cuz' Sam was long gone way before that."
He didn't mean to raise his voice at Bobby like that. He just couldn't...he just didn't want to...The memory played over in his mind, each time a little different. He squeezed his eyes shut at the what ifs…what if it had taken him longer to get there; what if he hadn't gotten there in time; what if he hadn't been able to talk Sam down, to convince him that he was real and that everything Sam had thought real prior to him showing up was not real?
"Fer cryin' out loud, Dean," Bobby urged. "No story should take longer in the tellin' 'an it did in the doin'. Spit it out already."
"Bobby," Dean warned.
Bobby spared him a quick glance than looked back at the road. Minutes passed in silence, and Dean hoped that meant Bobby was going to drop the subject.
Bobby sighed.
Apparently, not.
"Dean," he said, and his voice was calm, gentle even. "Everything we have is in this here rig. You, me, and Sleeping Beauty, back there. Now, I know you think it's your job to protect him...from the world, from himself, whatever. But, you ain't on your A game...hell, you ain't even on your Z game at the moment."
"Freakin' morphine," Dean cursed under his breath. "Never again."
"You ain't in this alone, ya hear?" Bobby continued, his voice talking on a quality Dean didn't know if he'd ever heard him use. It was almost...fatherly. "You don't gotta do everything yourself. But I can't help you help him if I don't know what needs doin' and what needs watchin' out for. Kapeesh?"
Dean felt tears burn behind his eyes and a pressure build in his throat. For a second he didn't dare speak, not sure what would actually come out if he tried; swears or sobs.
Either was possible, but it was the latter he feared more than the former. If he let himself start, he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop.
He looked at Bobby, but Bobby kept his eyes on the road; probably trying to give Dean a measure of privacy in which to compose himself. Dean took a slow, deep breath, held it for a second, and then let it out.
"When I got back to the house after checking out the school, Sam was gone. No note. No...Nothing. You gave me guff for dickin' with his phone, but...God, Bobby, if I hadn't...I…ah, I tracked him to some old, abandoned warehouse off I-91."
"What the hell was he doin' there," Bobby asked, his voice still quiet, still gentle despite the words.
Dean couldn't help the laugh that gasped out of him. "Apparently, there was something there that needed checking out." Bobby's head snapped over to him, but Dean raised his hand, forestalling him.
"That ain't the worst of it, Bobby. When I got there, I walked in on him yelling at nothing and waving his gun around. He didn't know who I was. Bobby, he thought he'd gone there with me. He thought that I'd brought him there to...to...God knows what."
Dean's vision went blurry and he felt the tears start to run down his face. Now that the flood gates were open, though, he couldn't hold back the words.
"Bobby, he didn't know if I was real or if I was the hallucination; and I gotta tell you, I didn't know who he was gonna shoot first; me, whoever the hell he was seeing standing next to him—"
As if Dean didn't know exactly who Sam had seen standing next to him. "—or himself. I mean, what the hell, Bobby. He thought he was with me. He drove himself there. I don't even wanna think how the hell he managed that. He thought he was with me and that I'd driven us there. How the hell do I fight that, Bobby? What the hell am I supposed to do about that?"
"What the hell are we gonna do about it, Dean," Bobby corrected.
Anger flared but then it ran right out of him. It was as though he was filled with holes, and everything was just draining right out of him.
Like blood from an open wound.
He slumped back in his seat, sore and tired...so very tired.
"Did ya have to knock him out to get him out of there?" Bobby asked then.
"What? No. I...I got through to him. It took some doing, and I had to hurt him to do it, but..."
"That when I called?"
"Yeah. He was himself again, more or less." Dean closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Bobby?"
"Yeah, son."
"What if this is the best we can hope for? What if he's never the same?"
"Of course he's never gonna be the same, Dean,"
Dean snorted out a bitter laugh. "If you're tryin' to make me feel better, Bobby, you're doin' a crappy job."
"Dean, the boy was in hell for a hun—"
"Don't. Don't say it, Bobby," Dean bit out angrily. "I know exactly how long it was. I counted every damn second of every damn day that I left him there. I shoulda' got him out sooner—better yet, I shouldn't've let him do in the first place."
"Wasn't yer' place to decide, son," Bobby said lightly. "He made his decision, accepted what he had to do."
"Are you blaming him, Bobby?" Dean shouted incredulously, pushing himself over in the seat, his anger bringing him as close to the older man as he could get.
"Don't you take that tone with me boy," Bobby cautioned, "and don't go puttin' words in my mouth, neither. Of course, I don't blame him. Now stand down, sit yer' ass back in that seat and listen before you go shootin' first and never askin' questions."
Dean eyed him for a moment, the rage slowly simmering to a dull boil; and really, it wasn't Bobby he was angry at, he just happened to be a convenient target. The intangible…everything…that had caused all of this chaos, was just so far out of his reach.
"Fine." He scrubbed his hands down his face, once again slouching down in the seat. "Your right, I'm sorry. It's just been...ah—"
"Don't worry 'bout it. We're good." Bobby assured him. "I'm just sayin', you can't play the blame game. Chewin' over the 'what if's' and the 'should'ves' is gonna kill you. It's done and over, the damage has been done. Now we fix him."
"I don't think there's any fixin' this," Dean sighed resignedly.
"You're right, there ain't."
"Bobby," Dean replied tiredly. "I'm not up for twenty questions. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly my usual awe-inspiring self. So, less figurative and more literal."
"Alright, then. You didn't exactly come back from your tour down under in pristine condition either."
Dean hesitated, the look on Bobby's face all but daring him to deny it. "No. You're right, I didn't. But my time in the hotbox was Disneyland compared to what we both know he must've endured."
Bobby shook his head in grim agreement. "Dean, we're gonna do everything in our power to help him; turn over every book, every tome until we find something that helps.
"But what he needs-what's really gonna help him-isn't in some archiac spell, or hoodoo remedy, some head shrink, or any nonsense like that. It's what I know finally got through to Sam in that warehouse; his big brother. Plain and simple, and not because you're the only one on this dusbowl who has even the slightest inkling of what he might've gone through."
Bobby turned his attention from the road to glance at Dean. "You know how he beat the Devil in Stull?"
The images of that fateful day came slamming back into Dean's mind; of watching Sam, arms outstretched, falling away from him forever into the cold, black abyss of Hell. "Cause he's strong, Bobby," he said with pride in his voice. "Stronger and tougher than we've ever given him credit for."
"Yeah, he is. When that wall shattered, his mind must've been in a worse mess than Humpty Dumpty. Yet he was able to put himself back together enough to make the drive to find us, and the sense about him to try and take out—"
Dean was grateful that Bobby stopped before the name was said. Whether that was for his sake or his own, it didn't matter, he was thankful just the same. He wasn't prepared to deal with any of the emotions that the ex-angel, former best-friend-honorary-brother invoked.
"To back us up," Bobby provided instead. "Sam fights with everything he has, doesn't give one inch for something he believes in; but that's only one part, and not even the biggest, you know."
Dean looked at Bobby, his brow furrowed in confusion.
Bobby shook his head in fond exasperation. "You, ya idjit. That strength, that will power to beat that son-of-a-bitch, he was able to find that cuz' he knew you had his back.
"You two, you're a matched set. Sure, you've had some knock-down, drag-out fights in your time, but when one of ya's screwed six ways to Sunday and doesn't know which way is up anymore, the other one of you is right there, lendin' strength and a shoulder. Doin' whatever needs to be done, 'till you have yer feet back under ya. Sure, it'll be rough for a while, but you'll both settle in, find that 'Winchester way' to make it all work out."
Bobby glanced quickly at Dean with a smile, "Besides, that brother of yours has never been one to take being told he couldn't do something. He beat the devil once, Dean, you see, he'll do it again. If for no other reason than to stick it to all those Angel and Demons who think they can keep screwing with you two and getting' away with it."