Chapter 9
"Dean, we should get out of here."
Bobby's tone was gentle and apologetic and Dean couldn't have cared less. His brother was dead. He stayed curled up against the corner of the Devil's Gate feeling numb and empty. He'd never cried so hard or for so long in his entire life. He figured some of Sam's girly hormones must be working on him through his borrowed body -- as if.
He heard Bobby shift in front of him, but Dean didn't move, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed, his foreign body coiled. Only hours had passed yet they felt like lifetimes. The night continued to fold in around them, stared at by the dead still clinging to this awful place.
His throat hurt. He might have screamed and cursed at the top of his lungs but didn't rightly remember. It was all just a blur of hurt. As if a piece of him had been ripped off his body. (Sam Sam Sammy Sam) He wanted nothing more than to sit here and rot. But he owed Bobby more than that, owed Sam more than that. So he tried.
When he finally spoke, his voice came out raspy and sounded abused. "And where exactly…is there for me to go, Bobby? What…am I supposed to do now?"
He pretty much expected his friend to bring up the fact Lilith was still loose and needed to be brought down, her and the other two hundred or so demons that were running around after the first time the Devil's Gate got opened. Bobby would bring up how they should work to try and stop yet another possible impending End of the World. Problem was he didn't give a shit about any of it. Dean pulled at his hair (not yours not yours) just wanting everything to go away, for the whole freaking world to explode and take him with it.
Instead, Bobby didn't say anything right away and when he did, there was sadness, pain, and strangely enough love coating his response. "My home. Your home, too, if you'll let it. And we'll grieve and grieve till we're done with it…if ever."
The gentle words somehow hurt more than all the yelling from before. It was madness.
"But what's the point, Bobby? What is the point?" He'd pushed Sam's throat too far, his voice cracked at the end.
If only he'd been a little faster. If he'd pressed the drive a little harder, jogged a tiny bit quicker down the wooden trail a year ago, then, maybe then he would have gotten to Sam before Jake could get up behind him and kill him. He could have saved Sammy from dying in the first place and not set in motion everything that came after -- every blasted ugly thing.
He heard the sound of jeans moving and bones popping as Bobby crouched down beside him. "To honor him. To not waste his sacrifice. To spite the bastards that brought us to this. To live."
Dean felt his breath rattle inside him. It wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough. As fiercely as he loved his brother, he also hated him right now. Hated him for putting him through this, hated him for not leaving things alone, for putting himself into a situation Dean had no hope of saving him from. And he was scared. Scared of being here, scared Alistair wanted him back, scared of caring, scared of Sammy coming back within his lifetime riding another person's body, his eyes black from end to end, looking for him to thank him for all he'd done.
"Dean, I'd really rather not do this alone." Bobby spoke so softly, he almost didn't hear him. "I need your help, boy. Please?"
He groaned at the request. It was a low blow. Yet a part of him was glad of it. The part that liked to be needed that liked to have focus, that wanted to be able to lie to himself and make him think he had some worth. He'd lost the ones who were his responsibility before -- first his father, then Sam. Did he dare do it again? To fail again? But dare he not? This man, this man who'd risked his life on more than one occasion on their behalf, did he not deserve that from him? He was more than just a friend. As Bobby had told them when Dean tried to leave him behind before going to that possible final fight in Indiana, there was more to family than blood.
Bobby was family. The only family Dean had left.
And his family needed him. It needed him to carry on, to live. Whether he wanted to or not. He just wasn't sure he could manage it.
"Fine. You win…" He hoped Bobby would never regret it. Dean had just committed himself to this new path and he already did.
Bobby's ensuing relief was almost palpable. "We can hole up somewhere for the day. Get our strength back. Then drive home and go from there."
Dean barely nodded not having anything to say to that.
Parts of his borrowed body screamed in protest when he tried to move. Blood flowed back into his hands, legs, fingers and toes and it hurt like shit. None of them were happy. He was sure they would mutiny if they could, throw the usurper out. He would have gladly obliged them if there'd been a way for him to do it.
Shaky at first, he used the metal door to push himself up to his feet. Bobby hovered just out of direct view, looking half poised to leap in to the rescue if he needed it. No effing way. He might not have much left that belonged to him, like a freaking body, but he still had his pride. Bobby had asked Dean for his help, Bobby hadn't asked if he could give it.
Dean pushed off from the gate and headed toward the nearest tombstone. He focused on the slab of stone and only it. He had no desire to see the cemetery around him – the dead grass, the ugly weeds, the ancient markers, the spawning locale of several Winchester failures. If he never saw the place again, it'd be too soon. So he shuffled from stone to stone until he finally reached the exit.
He could feel the Devil's Gate behind him, mocking him silently as he left.
As he shuffled toward the Camaro it struck him that Bobby had parked in pretty much in the exact spot Dean had put the Impala at over a year ago. It'd been here that Sammy had figured things out for himself, figured out that he'd died and that Dean had made a deal to bring him back. It was also here they celebrated the defeat of their mother's and Jess' murderer. It was here where they'd recommitted themselves to the family business. And look how far all that had gotten them. Sammy was gone. Dead. Thrown down to the pit.
Bobby had seemingly put all their stuff back into the car long before, because once Dean settled into the passenger seat they were out of there.
He didn't know where the old hunter was taking them and didn't care. Though everything out the windows was an unfocused dark blur, he kept twitching back away from it, every few minutes the realization pounding into him again and again that he had failed and Sam was gone.
