Dean's got a strong enough grasp on time now that he knows two minutes is about the limit that one man is allowed to spend crying in another man's arms (though he's not sure where those rules come from), so after about two minutes he pulls away from Bobby and fists his hand in his sleeve, drags it across his eyes and sucks in a few shuddering breaths.
"Sorry," he says thickly, "sorry."
"Don't," Bobby says gruffly, one hand still cuffed around the back of Dean's neck like he's one of Bobby's unruly puppies. "Jesus. Dean. I can't tell you—I can't—" and Dean realizes he's not the only one who's been crying.
"God," Dean says, coughs a wet laugh. "What a fuckin' mess."
"Yeah," Bobby says, looks down at himself ruefully. "So's my damn shirt."
"Sorry."
"It's all right, I got more where this came from."
"Where's Sam?" Dean asks, because he's not quite sure how one segues gracefully between shirts to missing brothers. "What'd he do? How the fuck did he – how did he get me out? Where is he? You said he – you said he was – carrying? What the fuck does that mean? And why did you shoot him? Did you shoot him?"
It's the most he's said since he came back, and it sends him into a coughing fit that has Bobby thwacking his back in alarm, strong palm coming down square in the center of his shoulderblades. The sudden contact scares him so badly that he sucks in a shocked breath and chokes on it, lurches forward trying to get his wind back and ends up on his knees on the floor, Bobby cursing a blue streak above him, hovering uncertain hands towards his face that do nothing but freak Dean out more, enhance the press of claustrophobia and lack of air.
"Get away," Dean gasps, "just," and he scuttles backwards for a moment before the bad shoulder gives out and buckles his arm, sends him thudding onto his back – and just like that the fight goes out of him and he lies flat, knees up, stares at the stained motel ceiling and just breathes.
After a moment he becomes aware that Bobby is on the floor about five feet away from him, sitting on his heels, baseball cap in one hand.
"Fuck," Dean says, pushes himself up and scoots so that he's got his back leaning against one of the beds, clenches his fiercely trembling hands into his armpits and closes his eyes.
"What the hell was that?" Bobby asks without preamble, and Dean can hear the fear in his voice.
Dean shakes his head. "I'm… sorry. I'm not… it's..."
He hears Bobby shift a little, hears the floorboards creak. "You okay?"
He croaks a laugh. "I don't fuckin' know. Probably not."
There's silence and then Bobby says, "Dean, you were –"
"In Hell," Dean finishes, because he needs to say it out loud. His realities are blurring together and he needs to keep them separate, needs to keep himself in this world. He was in Hell. He isn't anymore.
"Right. You're allowed to—"
"Is that where Sam is?" Dean asks, opens his eyes. "Is he in Hell? Did he –" his voice cracks, and he clears his throat, tries again. "Did he switch us, Bobby?"
Bobby fits his cap back onto his head, considers Dean from underneath the brim. "I don't know where Sam is."
"What do you know?" Dean demands, hand going to grip Sam's fucked-up shoulder. "Why'd you shoot him?"
"Well, I didn't shoot Sam," Bobby says. "I mean – he wasn't your brother, at the time."
"Bobby," Dean says, frustration and fear building tight inside of him like white noise. "Please, just – don't make me ask questions. Just tell me."
"All right," Bobby says, glances around, wrinkles his nose. "You mind if we have that conversation somewhere that ain't this dump?"
Dean hesitates, and Bobby looks at him.
"Are you okay to go outside?"
"Yes," Dean snaps. "I went – I had grilled cheese. Yesterday. Before I slept."
"Yesterday?" Bobby says at the same time Dean's stomach emits a low, hollow growl.
"I'm hungry," Dean realizes, and it seems strange to need to eat again so soon.
"Tell you what," Bobby says, smiles a little. "I'll buy you breakfast. I passed a place in town that looked quiet, and we'll sit down and I'll tell you everything I know."
"Not O'Gara's," Dean says, thinking of the waitress and the way she stared. "It's not O'Gara's?"
"O'Ga—no, it's called—hell, I don't remember the name, but—"
"Okay," Dean says. "Fine." He hesitates, then says, "Listen… other people – I'm not real good with –" he waves a hand, swallows.
"All right," Bobby says quietly. "I'll do the talking, how's that sound? You just sit there and eat."
Dean nods, and Bobby climbs to his feet, reaches down to pull Dean up, and Dean can't help but flinch away from the quickness of his hand.
"Sorry," Bobby says, backs up a step, and Dean hoists himself to his feet, goes for the door.
"Dean." Bobby's voice is careful. "You need some shoes, and something warmer than just that t-shirt."
"Right," Dean says. He knew that. He would have realized that. He sits to put on his boots and when he stands Bobby hands him Sam's coat.
"Thanks," he says, shrugs carefully into it, Sam's shoulder stiff and uncooperative.
"He usually uses those heat packs," Bobby says as Dean opens the door to a gust of freezing air.
"Huh?"
"Sam. For the shoulder, so it doesn't seize up."
"Oh." Dean rolls it a little, feels the spike of familiar pain and finds himself relaxing into it. "I like it."
He realizes this was the wrong thing to say when Bobby's eyes go wide under the cap.
"I mean—" he tries, but it would take too many words to explain himself, so he amends, "I mean I don't mind. I mean – I'll use them."
Bobby nods, mouth a thin line. He looks out over the parking lot, over the snow-capped cars and icy pavement.
"I've gotta do something, Dean, all right?"
"What?"
"Christo," Bobby says, and it feels like someone's shoved a red-hot poker into Dean's brain, blinding pain for one split second and then it's over and Dean is still hissing.
Holy motherfucking shit, he's hissing.
Dean looks up, readies himself for a bullet to the head – but Bobby is nodding, looks relieved. Dean stares at him, shocked and bewildered.
"What -- what was --?"
"Your eyes," Bobby says. "You remember how demon's eyes go black, when you say -- that word?"
Dean nods. Not fuckin' likely he'd forget that.
"Your eyes stayed the same," Bobby tells him. "You're not a demon."
"No shit," Dean says, annoyed, because wouldn't he know if he was a demon?
"Dean," Bobby says seriously, "you're a soul from Hell, in someone else's body. You're burned by Holy water. The name of God is painful to you. What does that sound like?"
"Demon," Dean admits unhappily, then bites his lip. "But my eyes were—"
"Your eyes were fine. You're – I don't know what you are. But you're not a demon."
"So, don't kill me," Dean says confusedly. "You're not gonna—"
"I'm not gonna kill you, dumbass," Bobby says. "I woulda done it already. I may not know what you are, but I know you're you. You answered my questions – Sam's questions. You're the only one coulda answered them, he said."
"Sam—Sam told you he—"
"I'll explain," Bobby says, "but I've been up all night, and I need some coffee first. I need to be sittin' down. You good to drive?"
Dean looks down at his hands, still shaking like someone's put batteries in his fingers and then cranked them to vibrate. "Haven't tried yet. I think – no. But – would you –" He digs the Impala's keys out of his jacket pocket and offers them up.
"You want me to drive the Chevy?"
"Yes," Dean says. "I wanna… ride." What a fuckin' dumbass he must sound like.
"Well, shit," Bobby says, plucks the keys from his palm. "Like I'd ever say no to a chance behind her wheel."
Dean grins, and Bobby gives him a gentle nudge, ushers him towards the car, shining black and brilliant under the bright grey sky.
"The hands," Bobby says after Dean's settled himself onto the cold leather of the passenger seat and is smoothing his fingers over her dashboard. "That you, or Sam?"
"What?"
Bobby gestures, and Dean follows his gaze to where his hands rattle against the dash.
"Sam hasn't exactly been on the straight-and-narrow since you –" Bobby starts, swallows. "Been drinking. I didn't think – he goes for weeks without touchin' a drop, didn't seem like it was – I mean, it was bad, but –"
"Oh," Dean says, gets it, finally, what Bobby's asking. "It's – me, I think." He's not sure how he knows, but it's true, and once he realizes it he pauses to see what else he knows. He can feel the weariness of Sam's body as separate from himself, separate from the Dean-in-Sam, and even the sharp ache of Sam's shoulder is separate from Dean. But he can feel that it's Dean's hands, his hands, that are shaking. He doesn't know what this means, that he can feel Dean as separate from Sam's body, but it gives him chills.
Bobby starts the car, and the disgruntled rumble of the Impala revving her freezing engine to life makes Dean grin unexpectedly. Dean, grinning with Sam's mouth.
Bobby glances over, a smile starting under his beard. "You miss her?"
"Fuck yeah," Dean says. "God, yeah."
There's silence for a moment as Bobby pulls the Impala out of the parking lot, jounces over a bright yellow speedbump and jolts forward out onto the road. Warm air starts blowing through the vents, and Dean leans into it, watches how fast the yellowed fields go by outside his window, how the unbreaking silver of the sky stays in the exact same place. The sun a burning, constant glow behind layers of cloud.
"So," Bobby says after a moment. "Do you remember –"
"Kind of," Dean says. "Yeah." Bobby opens his mouth again and Dean adds quickly, "I can't – talk. About it. I'm not gonna talk about it."
"All right," Bobby says. "If you want—"
"I don't."
Bobby's mouth quirks a little. "Got it."
The road has led them into a residential neighborhood, full of big, old houses with snowblown driveways and lopsided snow-people on the front lawns. Dean stares as they pass a couple of kids bundled into brightly-colored snow gear, spilling out down the steps of their yellow house.
Bobby eases up on the gas and they turn onto a road that leads them to the fringes of a quaint downtown, railroad tracks threaded through the green awnings and shingled rooftops of small businesses. Concord Teacakes. Debora's Natural Gourmet.
Bobby pulls into the parking lot of the small train station, kills the engine and turns to Dean.
"You all right?"
"I'm fine," Dean says, doesn't want to admit how overwhelmed he feels. How alive the world seems, quivering with life even with the still whiteness of the snow and the emptiness of the town's narrow streets.
Bobby looks at him for another moment then turns and opens the door, pushes himself out, waits while Dean does the same and then locks the car, heads towards the door to the station.
Inside it's shockingly warm, a snug, booth-filled train-themed café with a bored-looking teenage girl at the counter and an old man half-asleep over his coffee in the back. Classical music plays on the speakers.
"You still serving breakfast?" Bobby asks as the bell over the door jingles weakly.
"Every day 'til three," the girl intones. "You can sit anywhere."
Dean doesn't wait for Bobby to lead, just charges over to a booth in the corner, where he can have his back to the wall and still see everything.
"You guys want coffee?" the girl calls, and the strength of her voice in the quiet café makes Dean flinch back into the padded seat of the booth.
"Yes, please," Bobby calls back, quieter, but it's still loud, and Dean forces himself still.
"I don't want –" Dean tries. "Nothing that's gonna – mess with my head."
"You don't want coffee?" Bobby asks, cocks an eyebrow.
"It's got…" What's that fuckin' word. "Coffee-een. Coffine."
"Caffeine."
"That," Dean agrees. "Don't want it."
"Listen," Bobby says. "Trust me on this one, Dean. You love coffee. You want coffee."
Dean's not sure, but he takes Bobby's word for it and lets the girl pour him a mug full, inhales the hot, slightly bitter steam, and for a moment it's just any other scent – and then it's not. It's coffee.
Coffee smells like cracked formica, like sitting at a shitty kitchen table and watching Sam eat cereal. Smells like the curve of his father's back as he hunched over stacks of red-marked newspapers, like the infinite groan of the Impala's engine and the pressing exhaustion of 2 a.m., Sam asleep in the passenger seat, his mouth wide open and his hair a mess. Fist curled under his chin like a child, trusting Dean to drive and drive and drive.
"Dean," Bobby says. "Shit, Dean. Are you—"
"I'm okay," Dean says, wipes the heel of his hand across his cheek. "It's okay. It's just…" he huffs a weak laugh. "I keep remembering."
Bobby blanches, and Dean shakes his head quickly, knows what Bobby thinks. "No, not – not Hell. Just – about before." He cups his hands around the mug, feels how warm it is. "Sorry. But… it's probably gonna… happen again."
Bobby nods, slow. "Okay."
"So don't keep askin' me if… if I'm okay. I'm not. I mean, I keep crying, and shit. I'm not okay. But I am. Okay?"
Bobby half-smiles. "Roger that."
Dean manages to take a sip of the coffee without tearing up again as an older guy comes out from the kitchen and moseys up to their table, tugging on the pen tucked behind his ear. He's got a long, melancholy face and short grey hair, a stained apron wrapped around his spare frame. His nametag says Greg.
"Hey there," Greg says, smiles down at them, gaze lingering for a moment on Dean's damp face. "How are you guys today?" His voice is pitched low, gentle.
"Good," Bobby says shortly. "We're good."
"You need a couple menus?" he asks.
Bobby glances at Dean. "You guys have eggs and bacon, right?"
"Sure we do."
"That's what I'll have. Throw some toast on there." He leans forward. "Dean?"
"Uh," Dean says, mind going furiously.
"Eggs," Bobby says. "Bacon? Hashbrowns? You like all that stuff."
It's meat. Dean knows it's all gonna be meat and the thought makes him cringe.
"The jacks," Dean says, knows he's getting it wrong, but can't remember the right word. It's on the tip of his tongue. "The flat cakes. Flap cakes. Fuck."
"Flapjacks," Greg supplies, grins suddenly, and it's a kind smile, warm and unexpected. "Pancakes?"
"Yes!" Dean says, can't help but laugh, because, yes. Pancakes.
"You want plain? Or chocolate chip?"
"Chocolate chip," Dean says immediately. Chocolate – oh, fuck yes. That he remembers.
"Okay," Greg says, glances down at Bobby and hesitates for a moment, looks like he wants to say something else, but then just smiles at Dean again and turns to go.
But not before Dean sees it. The flash of hunger in his eyes. The desperation, seething behind the surface.
"Did you see that?" Dean hisses once the waiter is back in the kitchen. "He knows us. He's watching us." He leans back, can feel his whole body start up the slow quake again, and he yanks his hands away from his coffee mug before he knocks it over.
"Woah," Bobby says, "woah, Dean. Just, take a deep breath, okay?"
"He's watching us," Dean says again, "they're all watching me," and he knows he sounds crazy, but he doesn't know how to say it in a normal way, so he tries again, "everyone is staring, when I come in, when I, when they see me, they look and they—"
"Dean," Bobby says, reaches across the table and clamps a strong hand down around Sam's bad shoulder, sends a jolt of pain through the arm and up Dean's neck that has Dean wincing and gasping.
"Shit," Bobby says, instantly contrite, "sorry, I—"
"No, it's good," Dean says, rolls his shoulder to get the pain back, that white-hot flash that grounds him, settles his head into more familiar paths. He takes a deep breath, forces himself calm. No one's gonna listen to a madman, he knows this.
"I think people are watching me," he says in a steady voice. "Can we – can we please – can we do something –"
"Yeah," Bobby says, "Dean, shh, it's okay. There are things we can do, to make sure. You're safe with me, all right? There's nothing that's gonna hurt you, not right now, not right here. I'm prepared."
Dean nods, lets himself be soothed, watches the violent shiver of his fingers calm to an erratic tremble, twitching against the table. He wonders if they'll ever be still again.
"Okay," Dean says, takes a deep breath through his nose. "Tell me about Sam, now."
Bobby eyes him for a moment, gauging.
"I can tell you're having some trouble – gettin' your words out," Bobby says bluntly. "But you understand me good enough, right?"
"Yeah, I understand you," Dean says, affronted.
"All right," Bobby says, almost chuckles. "I'll tell you what I know then, Dean, but I already said, I don't know where your brother is, or what, precisely, he did to get you out. I haven't… I haven't spoken to him for almost a year, now."
"A year?" Dean repeats, too-loud, and he twitches as his voice hits the air.
"We had some words," Bobby admits, rubs a hand over the back of his neck.
"Is that when you shot him?"
Bobby winces. "No. That was about a year and a half ago. Let me start at the beginning, though, will you?"
Dean nods, takes a swallow of his coffee. "I'm all ears." It's funny how clichés come so easy to him. All ears. He snorts suddenly at the image and Bobby eyes him warily. "I'm listening," Dean clarifies, wonders if he got the words wrong. All ears. Heh.
"All right," Bobby says, takes a deep breath, leans forward and speaks quietly, though there's no one around to listen. "After – after you died – Sam stayed with me for a while. He wasn't in a good place – slept all day, had these nightmares, and when he wasn't sleeping he was drinking, or reading every book he could get his hands on. Had to force him to eat. He lost a lot of weight, those first few weeks, and—"
"Okay," Dean says, because this hurts too much, imagining Sam alone after he watched Dean die. He knows too well how it feels, to know that you've failed someone, to know that you have nothing left, that you've fucked it up and can never have it back and forever is stretched out in front of you filled with no one but yourself. "What did you do with my body?" he asks instead. "Did you burn me?"
Bobby winces. "No. No, Sam wouldn't – he buried you. He wouldn't say where. Didn't want anyone else goin' after you."
Dean nods, digests that information. He's out there, somewhere, rotting. Rotted. The thought makes him sick.
"Tell me about – after," Dean says, kind of wants to skip anything relating to the fact that he died. "Why did he leave?"
"He stayed with me for about four months," Bobby says, and Dean tries to figure out if that's a long time. "After about a month he started coming with me on hunts, but most days he was just plugged into that laptop, or going through my library. He took the Impala out for weekend trips, sometimes, and he'd always come back with new books, new theories." Bobby takes a sip of his coffee, and Dean has a feeling that whatever comes next – it's gonna be worse than hearing about Sam's grief.
"Raising someone from the dead," Bobby says hesitantly. "It's strong magic, Dean. And raising someone out of Hell, when someone else has the contract to their soul…? Well. That's about the strongest stuff there is. And it's… dark. Really dark."
Dean shivers, sees again, unbidden, the image of his body rotting somewhere deep below the earth, skin falling away from his jaw, eyesockets gaping.
"I couldn't…" Bobby shakes his head. "Dean, you know how I – when you died – I've known you since you were a kid, and…"
"You were sad," Dean supplies.
Bobby snorts, but he's blinking rapidly. "Yeah, Dean. I was sad. I was really goddamn sad. But I couldn't get behind the kind of shit Sam was looking to do, not even if I thought it'd bring you back. He was looking at blood magic, at sacrifices, and I'm not saying he was gonna go kill some virgin, but I'm not saying he wasn't reading about it, either. And I caught him… doing some unnatural things. Moving shit with just his eyes. Saw him kill a bird from twenty feet away – raised his hand and it dropped dead. Little stuff, like that."
Dean drops his head into his hands, thinks about how his little brother cried when he stepped on a bird's egg at age ten. How he was silent for a day when they ran over a cat at age twenty-two. How he sliced off Gordon's head with a razor wire without blinking when he was twenty-five.
Sammy.
"I told him I didn't want that in my house," Bobby continues. "I told him – I'm sorry, Dean, but I told him he had to either lose it, or get lost."
"He left," Dean says.
"He left," Bobby confirms. "Still called pretty regularly, every few weeks or so. Didn't talk about what he was doing, what he was finding. But I know he was – he was hunting. Really hunting. Hunters started talking, and honestly, most of the shit they said was good, 'cause he was killing every evil thing he came across and who can argue with that? But some people said some other stuff. About how he was – "calling on ungodly forces," or some such shit like that. I didn't get into it, just told everyone that as far as I knew, Sam Winchester was still on the good side of things. But, you know, Dean – I wondered, same as the rest. People called – they call him The Scourge."
Dean surprises both of them by laughing.
"Sorry," Dean says, "sorry, it's not – funny – but – Sam? The Scourge? He's just – a kid. A geeky kid."
Bobby smiles, too, but it doesn't move to his eyes. "Your brother's a powerfully good hunter, Dean. He went through nests of vampires like I might step on a cluster of ants, blew through half the werewolves in the Midwest, and demons – way people talk, demons started avoiding him. Running from him. That's – not exactly normal."
"Right," Dean says. Sammy the Scourge. Jesus.
"Anyway," Bobby says, but is interrupted when Greg appears by their table, slides the plate of pancakes under Dean's nose and then hands Bobby his bacon and eggs.
"You look like an extra syrup kind of guy," the waiter says, plonks an enormous pitcher down in front of Dean, golden maple syrup dripping slowly down the metal side.
"Thank you," Dean says, stares up at Greg, searching his face, and finds himself being stared at right back, bright blue eyes boring into him, like they're looking through Sam's skin to the person coiled underneath.
"You look like my friend," Bobby says suddenly. "My friend Christo."
Dean does everything in his power not to let the pain show on his face, grips the table and tries to breathe through it -- but the guy doesn't even blink, just swings his head around slowly to focus on Bobby. "Yeah?"
"Uh, yeah," Bobby says lamely.
"Can't say I know anyone by that name," Greg says, and turns to look back at Dean. "Enjoy your pancakes," he says, and Dean feels, bizarrely, as if he means it –and it's almost more off-putting than that deep, un-nameable thing burning from behind his pupils. The man turns, then, and Dean watches him go back into the kitchen, clenches his teeth in fear and confusion.
"He seems all right to me," Bobby says as soon as he's out of earshot. "A little intense, maybe, but—"
"He knows me," Dean says, half to himself. "We should go. We need to go."
"Dean," Bobby says, reaches out a slow hand and wraps it loosely around Dean's wrist, doesn't constrain him, just holds him in place. "Listen, kid, I know where you've been, okay? I can't even begin to understand what they did to you, but whatever it was, wasn't nothing' pretty about it. I know that. But I swear, Dean – right now? You're okay right now. I don't know what else to say that's gonna convince you, but you've gotta believe me. If I thought for one second that this wasn't safe, I'd yank you out of here so fast your head would spin. But it's okay. You're okay."
Dean tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and he breathes deep, mouth closed. Nods.
"All right," Bobby says, and Dean feels him release his wrist. "Now, eat your flapcakes."
Dean smiles at that, and lets himself relax a fraction, looks back at Bobby.
Bobby's holding a strip of bacon halfway to his mouth, and Dean knows before it hits his teeth exactly what kind of sound it's going to make, and he's doubling over before he can control himself, bile rising in the back of his throat as he gags, fights to keep his insides where they belong.
"Oh, for the love of – what, Dean?" Bobby says, and it's the simple exasperation in his voice that brings Dean back from the brink. "What is it?"
"You can't," Dean says, shakes his head furiously, can't even look at it. "Bobby, I'm sorry, man, but – no meat, okay? Fuck, please, don't eat that shit in front of me, please please please don't do it."
There's silence, and then, out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Bobby carefully scoop something from his plate onto his napkin, stand up and head for the trashcan in the corner of the room.
He comes back, sits down.
"That better?" he asks, and Dean swallows, chances a glance at the plate.
Two eggs, two slices of bread.
"Yeah," Dean says. "Thank you."
Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, Dean. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Dean says, feels a little weak in the aftermath of so much panic all at once. He feels a hysterical laugh bubble up in his chest, and wants to hold it in, but suddenly it's funny, so funny, the fear and revulsion he felt at a strip of bacon, it's fuckin' ridiculous, and then he's laughing, imagines what Sam would say if he could see him, frightened of fucking bacon, terrified of the horrible breakfast monster of DOOM, and Dean drops his face into his hands and laughs and laughs.
After a while he looks up, wipes his streaming eyes.
"I'm done," he says to Bobby. "Keep talking."
Bobby's got his hands folded under his chin, like he's a tried-upon psychiatrist who's been waiting patiently for Dean to finish with his psychotic break, and it almost sets Dean off again – but he presses his smile closed and regards Bobby as seriously as he can.
"I'm okay," he says. "Really. Tell me… you were saying… about The Scourge."
Oh, fuck, he's gonna crack again.
"Your brother was practicing voluntary possession," Bobby says abruptly, and all the laughter dries up as quickly as it came.
"It was about a year after you died, that I found out," Bobby continues.
"Voluntary… is that…"
"It's exactly what it sounds like," Bobby nods. "He – that tattoo you boys got – he burned it off himself."
Dean's hand goes automatically to his chest, and he remembers seeing a new scar there. Hadn't remembered what it might cover.
"I don't know the whole story. All I know is what he told me – which is that he was taking in demons, like any ordinary possession, but he was controlling them, not the other way around. Taking them for a ride in his body, is how he put it."
"Why would – did they give him power? Did he have –"
But Bobby is shaking his head. "No – from what he told me, they didn't do anything to him. They were just there."
"Why would he do that?"
Bobby looks straight at him. "Practice."
Dean rocks back, searches for breath, for words. "For me," Dean says. "He knew he was gonna – but you said I'm not a demon."
"You're not." Bobby pauses. "Like I said, Sam and I stopped talking about a year ago. About six months before that, he showed up at my house out of the blue one night, all strung-out, pale as a ghost, wouldn't come inside. So I gave him the usual god-spiked beer – and he wouldn't drink it. That's when he told me what he'd been doing."
"And you…"
"Tore him a new one, is what I did," Bobby said. "What was I supposed to do? He shows up, tells me he's got a goddamn demon inside of him, that he's been doing this for a while, now – of course I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind. What he hadn't told me is that this demon – this particular demon was more powerful than what he'd been takin' on before, and he'd come to me for help, because he didn't think he could handle it."
Bobby takes a sip of his coffee, digs a thumb into his temple. "He explained this to me later – after my little rant screwed up his guard and let the demon take control. That's when I shot him – one second he was Sam, all freaked-out and trying to get me to listen, the next second he's coming at me with his Beretta and his eyes are black as ink. That's when I shot him, near blew his shoulder off altogether. It was a near thing for both of us – he came this close to killing me. Probably would have, but Sam – he's strong, your brother, and he managed to rein it in long enough for me to perform an exorcism. We took him to a hospital, after, and they did what they could, but…"
Dean curls a hand over the shoulder, moves it a little, feels the grind of bone-on-bone, the way his hand goes numb. Sam's hand.
"I let him stay on, after that," Bobby says. "Just for a few weeks, 'til he could drive again. He told me he'd been taking in demons for months – he would summon them, accept them into his body, carry them around for a while, then perform a goddamn exorcism on himself. He wouldn't tell me exactly why he was doing it, but I knew it had something to do with you. I was imagining he'd pull you up out of Hell as a demon, then tote you around 'til you finally took over and – " Bobby shakes his head. "I don't know what. But Sam swore that wasn't his plan. Wouldn't tell me what the plan was, but…"
"Sam," Dean says, can't really say much else. "Fuck."
"Anyway," Bobby says heavily, adjusts his hat. "He stopped calling after that, wouldn't answer my calls. I knew he was still at it, despite what had happened, and when I finally did get a hold of him – well, it wasn't exactly a friendly conversation. It was the last I'd heard from him, until three weeks ago."
Dean sits up straight. "Three weeks ago?"
"Yes," Bobby hisses. "Keep your damn voice down."
"Sorry," Dean says, quieter. "But… three weeks is soon…"
"It's recent," Bobby says, is digging in his pocket for something. "He left me a message from a number I didn't recognize, and when I called back it had already been disconnected. But – here, listen for yourself."
Bobby pushes a few buttons in the phone and hands it over to Dean, who practically snatches it out of his hand, so eager for his brother's voice he barely waits for Bobby to hit talk before he's pressing the phone to his ear, trying to keep his hands steady.
"—we haven't talked in a while," Sam is saying, and for a moment Dean can't make sense of the words, is too focused on Sam, Sam's voice, the uncertainty in his tone, the familiar, sheepish huff of breath – but then he listens. "I just called to say – if you – god, this is going to sound crazy, but – if you meet someone, and they say – they say they're my brother – I need you to ask them three questions. Doesn't matter who you think they are – just ask, okay? Please." There's a ragged intake of breath, and Sam says, "One: Ask him the name of the turtle I brought home as a pet in third grade. The answer is, um," Sam laughs a little. "The answer is Alfred C. Hardshell the fourth. God, no wonder he always called me a geek, huh? I mean… seriously, it's "the fourth" that does it. Anyway, the second question – you gotta ask what Dad's secret password was when Dean was… he was thirteen, I think, and we were in Bamidji. And the answer to that is sail boat shoo-fly. 'Cause apparently Dad was a geek too."
Dean snorts a little. He was not.
"The third question," Sam says, "oh man, Dean's gonna – Dean would kill me for this one – but the third question is, what does Dean have tattooed on his inner thigh, and you have to ask why. Mostly 'cause it's funny. The answer is it's a daisy, can you believe it – and it's because Daisy Parker took his virginity when he was fifteen. He told me thirteen, and I believed him for years, 'til he got drunk one night and…" Sam trails off. "Anyway," he says, and there's a long pause. Dean holds his breath, waits, but Sam just says, all in a rush, "Dean's the only one who can answer those. You gotta do it, Bobby. I'll – bye." And then he hangs up.
Dean sits back, stares at the phone. Bobby reaches over, takes it gently out of his hand.
"Now you know what I know," Bobby says.
Dean stares down at his hands, at Sam's hands, at Sam's knees, feels around inside, hoping, praying that he'll find Sam in there with him, that Sam didn't give up his body for Dean's soul – but there's nothing. Dean knows he's the only one there.
"Where the fuck did he go," Dean whispers. "Where the fuck, Sam."
Bobby picks up his fork for the first time, presses the tines into the yellow yolk of the egg, and Dean watches it break, start to run, soak the edge of the toast.
"I don't understand," Dean says. "If I'm not a demon – if –"
"It doesn't make sense," Bobby agrees, chews a slow, thoughtful mouthful. "He musta figured something out in the year we didn't talk. But… I don't know what, Dean."
Dean drags a hand over his face, tries to think, but he feels exhausted, hopeless. Hearing Sam's voice had made him seem that much further away, rather than closer. Made him seem – unreachable. A tinny voice on a crappy speaker.
"You should eat something," Bobby says. "This is a lot to take in, considering you just… considering. Let it sit for a while. Eat your pancakes."
Dean looks down to where they sit on the plate, dotted with chocolate, a pat of butter half-melted in the center.
"You're eatin' for two now," Bobby tries, a lame joke, but Dean smiles a little. It's true. Sam has left his body in Dean's care. The least he can do is feed it pancakes.
He picks up the tin jug of syrup and pours it liberally, likes the way it looks pooling amber on the plate, slow and sweet, and he picks up his fork, circles it around and finally hacks off a bite.
His hands have picked back up, are shaking badly, and it's difficult to bring the fork to his mouth, to aim correctly – but he manages, after a few false starts, to get the pancake into his mouth instead of alongside it – and it's amazing.
"Holy shit," he says, and some pancake falls out of his mouth.
"Good?" Bobby asks.
Dean swallows. "Holy shit."
He has the next bite poised halfway to his mouth, anticipating how fucking spectacular it's going to be, when there's a huge, metallic crash from the kitchen, like all the pots fell over at once.
Dean drops his fork, muscles seizing in terror, and even Bobby whirls his head around to look.
There are muffled voices, one of them clearly shouting, and then a woman emerges, white-aproned and dialing a cell phone.
"Oh my god," the teenaged girl says, cranes her neck around to look through the doors of the kitchen. "What happened?"
The woman rolls her eyes, pauses in her dialing. "I think Greg's having a panic attack," she says, quietly, but loud enough that Dean can hear. "I mean, he was fine one minute, then he just – falls, straight into the drying dishes. Broke like, half our plates. Starts hollering that he's had a—a stroke or something, said he couldn't control his body – like his body blacked out – I don't know, he's not really making any sense. But he told me to call an ambulance, and even if they are just gonna give him some Valium and tell him to chill out, I'm not gonna say no, 'cause what if he's right, you know?"
"Oh, god," the girl says. "I had a panic attack once, it was like, the most horrible feeling. I thought I was gonna die. I totally know what he's going through."
Dean thinks he might be on the verge of his very own fuckin' panic attack, and he turns his head to look at Bobby so fast he can hear his neck cramp. If Bobby tries to tell him there's nothing to worry about, he's gonna –
But Bobby is peeling bills out of his wallet, smacking them down on the table, face grim.
"Come on," he says. "We're goin'."
They fuckin' go.
