Prompt 14 : Memory
Everything's Falling Apart (Part Two)
Eliot moved closer, dropping on to the step beside Dean. "Tell me about it," he said quietly. It was years since he and Dean had sat together down by the lake and shared their hopes, dreams and troubles. They'd grown up since then, a world of experience and machismo coming into play in the men they had become but somehow at this moment, putting it all aside felt like the right thing to do.
Dean looked regretfully over his shoulder at the Pastor's house, "He – he shouldn't have gone like that."
Eliot agreed with him softly. The Pastor had been a good man, and Eliot knew well there were few people in the world who deserved the violent end he'd suffered. "I couldn't come then . . . I couldn't come," Dean continued.
Eliot lifted a hand to his friend's shoulder and squeezed it in support, saying, "Dean, if anyone would have understood why you couldn't be here and understood that you did want to be here, it was the Pastor."
"Everything's a mess," Dean said quietly.
"So tell me about it, let me help," Eliot said plainly. "We're still friends, Dean."
"You – you don't want to be my friend. It's all so fucked up . . ." Dean shifted on the step and Eliot saw as he grimaced, clearly in pain.
"Dean, are you hurt? We could go see Ava, she could check you over." Eliot wasn't surprised when Dean shook his head, claiming to be fine. "Tell me then . . . reassure me that you're not badly hurt."
Dean held out his hands, showing Eliot the scuffs and cuts from his own attack on the Impala. "So what did you do?"
Dean waved a hand in the direction of the car. "She looks in pretty bad shape, what happened to her?" Eliot asked.
Dean snorted derisively. It was odd how Sam had never really understood his attachment to the car, had plagued him about it for years but in hindsight he didn't know that Eliot understood it, but he had always accepted it in a way his own brother never had. "We got hit by a semi . . ." Dean's voice was quiet, "I'm never letting Sam drive again."
"I got you on that one, dude," Eliot agreed, suspecting there was more that Dean wasn't saying.
Dean shook his head, "Wasn't really his fault . . . He was trying to get me to the hospital. Funny that . . . it worked! Fucking airlifted, I hate flying and they fucking flew me to the hospital." Eliot's eyes widened in surprise. "Never been so glad to be unconscious as when I found out."
Eliot smiled, imagining his friend's reaction after the event. "So what are you doing out here on your own? Where's Sammy? Didn't realize he was back with you? He finished school and everything?"
Dean seemed to crumple against the railings. He rubbed a hand wearily over his face, looking away into the surrounding trees before answering, "No, he . . . he left, came with me . . . Dad's dead."
The seemingly off-hand finishing remark caught Eliot so much by surprise that he almost missed it. "Shit . . .Dean I'm sorry . . . You . . . Fuck! When? How?"
"I dunno, I'm not counting . . ." Dean fell silent and Eliot waited. "It's been 35 days," he finally admitted. "He died saving me."
"Dean, I'm sorry, but you know he'd have wanted that . . . you to survive I mean. I know it sucks now, I know it hurts and I'm not going to promise you that it'll stop hurting, only that it won't be so bad. Does Sammy know this is where you are?" Dean shook his head. Eliot could see the bone-deep exhaustion, the fine edge he was walking. "Come with me, back to Ava's. She won't mind, dude. Get some sleep, recoup, give Sam a call and . . ."
"No." The word was quiet but final.
"Dean?" Eliot urged him to give a proper answer.
"I should go . . . I shouldn't be here and I – I can't go and see Ava . . . tell her I said hi though."
"Dean, I'm not going to let you hit the road in this state. If you won't go to Ava's, then we're getting a room in the motel in town and you're getting some sleep there. I am not letting you back behind the wheel of that car without some sleep. Now get up and get in the passenger seat before I put you there myself."
Dean nodded, his hand digging in his pocket for the keys and handing them over, before resignedly pushing himself up and walking over to the passenger side of the car and struggling with it for a moment before getting it open with an almighty shriek of metal. He looked at Eliot, shrugged and said quietly, "I'll fix it up eventually."
Eliot moved to the driver's side and as he opened the door and got in, he said, "It looks like you've started already, dude, if she's gone ten rounds with a semi."
"I was doing well and then . . ."
"Dean? Then what?" Eliot looked across at his friend seeing the way he was biting his lip as if to hold inside all the stuff that wanted out. "Okay, look we'll go get a room and you will get some sleep."
Twenty minutes later, Eliot had checked them into a twin room in the motel and Dean was already flaked out in bed sleeping soundly. Eliot reached across to the chair on which Dean had left his jeans and fished in the pocket for Dean's phone. He then stepped quietly outside the room, pulling the door closed behind him, although he didn't think anything would wake Dean from his current exhausted slumber.
He used his own phone first to call Ava, explaining quickly that he was spending the night with Dean at the motel and that Dean wouldn't come to visit her although he said hi. She asked if he was okay, and on hearing Eliot's sigh, she had all the answer she needed. "Eliot, if you need me to come to you, just call, if there's anything I can do, just ask."
"Ava, thanks. Right now, he's grieving and yeah . . . it's Dean . . . He hasn't changed that much since we were kids." He was grateful for Ava's reassurances, warmed by her support, wished he could have persuaded Dean to see Ava, wished Dean could have felt her care for himself.
The next call he made on Dean's phone. It wasn't that surprising when Sam's opening comment was "Dean? Where the fuck are you? What are you playing at, dude?"
"Sam, it's not Dean. It's Eliot, but he's here with me and he's safe. We're in Blue Earth."
"Fuck! God! He's an idiot! Is he in the Impala?"
"Yeah, he is . . . was. We're at the motel, he's sleeping now," Eliot clarified. "He was tired."
"Tired! Are you kidding? He has barely slept in weeks, he's not eating. For Fuck's sake, he's trying to kill himself!"
"I was sorry to hear about your Dad. . ." Eliot said only to hear Sam let out a deep sigh. He could hear the same weariness in Sam's voice as in Dean's, the same hopelessness. "I know it's hard right now. Sam, I'm looking out for him. I don't know if that makes it any better, but I can do that while he's here. I'm gonna put your number in my phone, not sure I'll get another hold of his after this. Where are you?"
"I'm at Bobby's. It's . . . it's not that far . . . I dunno exactly, ten maybe twelve hours from Blue Earth, it's in North Dakota. You want me to come to you, come and get him?"
"Give me tonight, Sam. I'll call you tomorrow. I think . . . I think he just needed to come see the Pastor maybe. I'll take him to the cemetery tomorrow and see how he is then or maybe the church."
"Not . . . not the church, Eliot. Don't take him to the church. It's where Jim died, where he was murdered, that'll hurt him too much. I dunno if . . . is there someone at the house? Maybe he could go there . . . or the woods . . . the pond?"
"Sam, I'll do that . . . in the morning, okay? I'll call you tomorrow, let you know whether to come up here or whether he'll be coming back to you. Take care, Sammy." Eliot closed the connection and let himself back into the room. He set Dean's phone down beside the bed and went to get himself ready to sleep. Tomorrow would be early enough to try to deal.
