Sunday November 2nd
Dean is on his way to pretty drunk as he stands elbow-deep under the hood of an old Ford pickup truck. It's not abnormal; was drunk yesterday, too, and the day before that, and... as for the day before that, he can't really remember that far back. But he's a man of consistency, so Dean has to assume that he was.
He knows it's bad, knows that Bobby would have fired him a long-ass time ago if the guy hadn't practically raised him, but he can't deal with the anxiety, the sense of failure, and the crippling grief that sobriety brings. So yeah, he gets hammered at work, but he still does a damn good job at fixing cars.
Dean's bobbing his head and singing along to "Back in Black" when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He turns down the music and pushes the button on his old, battered phone to answer the call, without looking to see who it is.
"Triple X Adult Entertainment, how can I help you?" he slurs.
"Dean." It's his brother, so he expects the usual lecture on the irresponsibility and danger of drinking on the job, but it doesn't come.
"Sammy, what's wrong?"
Please don't be calling from a hospital.
There's a pregnant pause during which Dean nearly goes into cardiac arrest before Sam mumbles something Dean can't make out.
"Can you repeat that?"
Sam waits another few seconds before clearing his throat. "I'm in jail."
Dean's all but takes a nosedive off of the Grand Canyon. This conversation just went downhill. Down a completely different hill than he had expected.
"What happened?" Dean takes a long swig from his flask. He's not nearly drunk enough for this.
"It started when Ruby, you know, my girlfriend Ruby, she, uh..."
"Spit it out."
"She totaled my car."
Fuck. He knew that girl was no good for Sam. He told him.
"Go on."
"And then I was arrested for possession."
Dean's throat tightens as he struggles to breathe. He slides down to the floor of the garage, leaning his back against the tire of the truck. Out of all the reasons his brother could have been arrested, vandalism, theft, streaking through the goddamn Stanford campus, he would have never thought possession.
"Possession of what?"
Sam mumbles something again, but this time Dean hears it.
"I'm sorry, did you just say meth?" He pounds his head back against the truck hard enough he's scared he may have just dented it. "What the hell were you thinking?"
This time there is no slowness in Sam's response. "Dean, I'm so sorry. It was stupid, I know. Fuck, I know. And now Ruby's in the hospital and I need you to come bail me out."
"Jesus Christ, Sam." His baby brother on drugs. To say he's having trouble processing that is an understatement.
Sam tells him what his bail is set at and Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He'll have to skimp on groceries. For, like, a month.
"I'll have to get time off of work. And you're gonna be the one to tell Bobby why."
"Please, Dean, I can't face him." As much as he wants to tell his brother that fine, he'll take the weight of the world for him, he can't.
"This is your mess, Sam, you're gonna have to fix it."
Dean lowers the phone before his brother can start groveling and possibly change his mind. He walks into the small office where Bobby is on his ancient computer, banging on the monitor and cursing.
"Phone for you," Dean tells him, holding out the cell. He hopes Sam hasn't hung up on him.
"This better be important, boy."
"It is."
Bobby takes the phone and Dean starts pacing the room. He can tell that Sam's procrastinating judging by the lack of anger on Bobby's face during the first minute or so. But then that face finally turns a vibrant shade of red and he starts yelling. Dean almost feels bad for Sam. Almost.
"Have you lost your mind, you damn idjit? Do you have any idea what this does to me, to your brother?" There's a pause as Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose. "Just shut up and give me the address." He grabs a piece of scrap paper and scribbles the location down, telling Sam he'd better get his act together when he gets out.
He hangs up the phone and throws it, and Dean watches helplessly as it shatters against the wall.
"What the fuck, Bobby? I need that!" He grabs the pieces and tries to push them back together, but there's no use. It's destroyed.
Bobby shrugs but at least has the decency to look ashamed. "That thing was a fossil anyways. I'll get you a new one."
"You're a fossil." As far as insults go, it's not Dean's best. Still, he presses on. "The only thing in here older than you is that computer. But you don't see me chucking it across the room."
"Finish that truck out there and I'll take you to the Sprint store."
True to his word, he gets Dean a new phone. A touch-screen one, much fancier than what he wanted, but hey, he's not complaining. Dean refuses the flirty sales girl's attempt to download the Angry Birds app, but finds a cool one that involves dragons. Bobby gives him crap about it the entire drive back to the garage, but Dean still has fun picking out the different breeds and decorating his island. So what? Sue him.
He waits a few hours to sober up, eating a sandwich Bobby makes him, before the older man claps him on the back in a masculine half-hug and tells Dean to bring Sam back so he can beat some sense into him. Bobby even made him a sack dinner, because as much as he is a hard-ass he's always been way too good to him. Dean sets his dinner in the front seat, even buckles it in so it doesn't spill on the leather upholstery, pushes in a Metallica cassette tape, and hits the road.
Tuesday November 4th
Okay, so Dean may have stopped at a liquor store on his way to California, but he doesn't drink enough to put him over the legal limit, just enough to stave off the symptoms of withdrawal that were starting to creep up on him. He knows Sam would disapprove, worried he would wreck not only the Impala but Sam's life all over again like dad had, so he swishes his mouth with mouthwash as he parks in the parking lot of the county jail.
Dean's not sure what he was expecting, but he never expected Sam to look so thin, or to have purple splotches under his eyes. Those tired eyes well up with tears, and even though Dean is rightfully pissed at him, he's not heartless, so he grabs his brother and pulls him into a hug.
"I'm so, so sorry Dean, I really am."
They pull away before the hug can hop the fence into 'uncomfortable.'
"I know you are, Sammy. I'm pissed, sure, but on top of all that I'm glad you're okay." Dean really doesn't know what he would have done if he'd lost his brother. No doubt drink himself into an early grave. "Come on, let's get something to eat."
The diner they find is quaint, but not quaint enough that they don't have beer. Sam frowns at Dean as he nurses his third one, fidgeting and scratching at his arms,
"What's up with you?" Dean asks, plucking a fry off of Sam's plate. Sam actually ordered a healthier steamed broccoli dish, but didn't bother dealing with the cranky waitress when she got his order wrong, so he really didn't seem to mind Dean stealing them all.
"I feel like bugs are crawling under my skin."
Dean stifles the urge to tell him that maybe he shouldn't have started taking methamphetamine, because Sam would probably call him a hypocrite. And he'd be right.
"So," Dean runs a hand over his face, a signature nervous habit. "What are we gonna do about this?"
Sam just shrugs and scratches at his arms again. Helpful.
"I think you should end things with Ruby. She's no good for you."
Dean expects an argument but all he gets is an "Okay." Well, that was easy.
"And I think you need to get help. There's that place Ellen works at, River-something or other."
"Okay." Too easy. There has to be a catch.
"But you have to go, too." There it is.
"No."
Sam sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "Dean, you can't keep living like this. Bobby says you drink half a bottle of Jack a day. You'll destroy your liver, if you don't find someway to get yourself killed in an alcohol-related accident at the garage. I can't lose you." Sam levels him with his heartbreaking kicked puppy look and Dean's resolve crumbles. The "I can't lose you" certainly didn't help, either.
"Fine." Dean pushes his half-eaten food away and flags down the waitress to get the check. "I can't guarantee it's gonna work." After all, it didn't help his father, who hit the bottle the day he got home. "But I'll try."
There's a blond woman in a white dress standing outside of Ruby's room at the hospital, and Dean's gut tells him he should hate her. His gut proves to be right when Sam tells him it's Ruby's dealer, Lilith, and Dean glares at her as his brother steps inside the room, wishing that if he only glared hard enough, the bitch would drop dead on site. As soon as the door closes behind Sam she laughs at him, a cold, cruel sound, and Dean balls his hands into fists, focusing on the bite of his fingernails and trying to lower his heart rate so he doesn't commit justifiable homicide.
When Sam comes out a few minutes later, looking surprisingly calm, Dean drags Lilith by the arm into the room, where Ruby is sitting on the bed, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks wet. The dealer wrenches away from him but stays in the room.
"Listen here, ladies, cause I'm only gonna say this once. Stay the hell away from my brother."
Lilith laughs again but Ruby's face remains blank.
Dean looks at the latter. "I know you're probably facing jail time already." And he hopes she isn't lucky enough to have someone there to bail her out. "But you, " he points to the blond. "If you ever even look at Sam again, I will get the cops involved, got it? I'm sure Sam knows where you live, who else you have under your belt, and he'll tell me, I don't doubt it. I will tear it all down. Understand?"
Lilith's snide smile fades and she sneers at him. Dean will take that as a yes.
He's about to leave when a small voice stops him.
"I loved him, you know."
Dean doesn't grace her with a response, just stalks out of the room and slams the door behind him.
They drive to Sam's campus so he can talk to the dean, who allows him a leave of absence as long as he brings back proper paperwork after his treatment, telling him he's a wonderful student and he hopes his attempts at recovery are successful.
Sam tells him his boss at the law firm told him something along those lines, too, before he leans over into Dean's space.
"You smell like a bar."
"Yeah, well, we ain't in rehab yet."
So Sam takes the wheel and drives them over to his dorm to pack his things, where he asks Dean to come in with him.
"Why?"
Sam blushes and thumps his head on the steering wheal. "I need you to help me get rid of it."
"Get rid of..." And then his alcohol-ridden brain catches up. "Oh! Uh, yeah, good. Good for you."
Sam's dorm room is tidy, like Dean expected. Dean didn't expect, however, just how much of the drug his brother had. As he watches it all go down the toilet, Dean wishes he had the courage to go back to the car and grab his bottle of whiskey, but that's just the kind of shitty person he is.
And the worst part is, the shittier he feels about himself, the more he tries to drown that sense of self-hatred until he's not coherent enough to care. So that's how he spends his trip, getting plastered, while his brother, who just gave up something huge, drives them home.
Wednesday November 5th
After Sam drags Dean out of the car, Bobby pulls the younger Winchester into a long hug before smacking him upside the head with a newspaper and once again calling him an idjit.
"I'm getting help, Bobby," he tells him, rubbing the sore spot on his head. "Dean, too."
The older man glances at Dean, who sways on his feet slightly, and then hits him, too, before huffing and crossing his arms over his chest.
"You damn well better. Now come inside, I made sloppy joes."
After dinner Dean sobers up enough to not sound like a complete idiot and calls the number on the back of the card Bobby handed him, the card for Riverside. The woman he speaks to, Layla, is kind as she explains what to bring and what not to bring, like non-electric razors, and tells him there will be two beds available next Wednesday.
So that gives Dean a week. A week to take the coward's approach to this whole situation and drink away his nervousness before it's all taken away from him.
Thursday November 6th
He should have known Bobby would find his stash and pour it out. Dean also should have known that Harvelle's Roadhouse (yes, as in Ellen Harvelle, who works at the rehab center Dean is about to check himself into) was the very last bar he should try to obtain a drink at. His stupidity is rubbed in his face when Ellen's daughter, Jo, slides a Coke across the bar top with a self-satisfied smirk.
"What's this?" He stares at the drink, and then at Jo, blinking at her in disbelief.
"No booze for you, Winchester. Mom'll tan my hide if I serve you alcohol."
"And why is that, exactly?" he asks, though he knows exactly why.
Jo drops a straw into his drink and pushes it closer to him, clearly enjoying his plight. "She told me that Bobby told her that you're going to Riverside."
He's going to kill Ellen. Or Bobby. Or Jo, although he doesn't really blame her; her mother is one terrifying woman when angry. He really shouldn't blame any of them, and death wishes are pretty harsh for people he knows are just trying to look out for him.
So Dean slaps a ten on the bar top, tells Jo to keep the change, and goes to find a liquor store.