Chapter 12: On the Nature of Companions
From the Journal of Bobby Winchester
I hadn't planned on falling asleep curled up with Crowley. I knew he didn't sleep so I expected that even if I did he would get up and do whatever he did while I slept. Sleeping is something that had greatly improved since I had begun traveling with Crowley. I had mostly disregarded my danger while I had been alone, but I had been unable to allow myself to risk dying while I was asleep. I had slept for snatches of hours at a time, it wasn't comfortable, but I had survived. But Crowley didn't sleep, he would wake me up if something happened, I could sleep through the night.
I woke up the morning after our night on the roof, I was still curled up in the blanket on the relocated office waiting room couch. I was still underneath Crowley's arm. I had shifted down while I was sleeping, so that my head was resting on his lap. He had his hand on my elbow. The sun was just coming up at our backs, I could feel it on my cheek. Crowley's warmth bled into my skin.
He looked down at me, "Good morning, darling, did you sleep soundly?"
He lifted his hand from my elbow and let it brush passed my hair, barely grazing it. His voice was always low and gravely, but his soft and gentle tone whispered in the morning air sunk through my whole body. I shivered in a way I was unfamiliar with.
I sat up. I could feel my hair sticking up at odd angles, I had grown out a bit since the last time I had cut it, it was getting floppy.
Crowley laughed, I tried to flatten it. He reached out and pushed a piece of it down and tucked it behind my ear. Goosebumps fled down from my ear to my fingertips.
I stifled a yawn behind my hand. "Lets get out of Chicago, it's getting cold, we should head south."
He smiled, "We should head for New Orleans, I loved New Orleans."
"My dad had a friend from around there he fought with in Purgatory, Benny the Vampirate."
Crowley made an odd face at me, "Benny the what?"
"Vampirate. He was a vampire pirate...vampirate...get it?"
He scoffed, "Yes, darling, the question wasn't whether I got it, I just thought it was idiotic."
I bared my teeth, "Hey, he told me about him when I was about five, it wasn't idiotic."
He held up his hands, "Alright, alright, kitten, but regardless, I hadn't known your father was friends with a vampire."
"It's not like you guys were friends."
"You're wrong , love, we were besties."
I shoved him playfully in the shoulder, "Lets go."
We left Chicago, and we went south. It was immeasurably more fun to travel with Crowley. We stopped in every city now and raided expensive stores. He loved nice clothes, he would scoff and sneer his way through store after store until he could find a single thing he would put on. Even then he was irritated that there were no tailors to make his suits fit right. Then he would roll his eyes at whatever I was holding and choose something for me. Once I had it on his cruelty would give way to compliments which were usually much closer to compliments on his ability to choose clothing. When he got irritating enough I would dirty his sparkling new clothes, or once when he got truly terrible I cut off his tie and threw it at him.
When his clothes survived his attitude we looted wealthy wine cellars and drank them, cloaked in riches, overlooking what must have, at one point, been majestic vistas. He would give me long and detailed monologues about the finest wines. I had a hard time telling the difference but the expressions he would give me if I said that made me loathe to admit it.
I wasn't entirely submissive in this, sometimes, when I tired of elegant clothing, I made him find leather jackets with me, sturdy boots, and dark jeans. He looked good in them, he said that I did too. Which made me go warm.
We did these things to distract us. Because it was closing in. Especially for Crowley, I think. If I lived, I would have to survive for sixty more years, at the very most. He would go on forever, alone after me. Alone forever. It weighed on us. Watching the world get dustier and dustier.
So I cajoled and teased Crowley into leather jackets and he charmed me into silk. And we made our way south.
XXXXX
From the Journal of Bobby Winchester
We were in the middle of Missouri. I was just waking up, the sun was bright already. Crowley was on the ground, leaning against a tree, I was laying down with my head in his lap. It's how we spent most of our nights. We liked the proximity He had been sitting there all night. He was combing is fingers through my hair softly. I was letting myself wake up slowly. Crowley was talking in a low voice. I think he talked through the night, while I slept. I was listening to what he was saying. They were disjointed stories. Sometimes they were nothing, just words that disappeared on the wind. Sometimes I thought that they were just sounds. He had not remained untouched by the madness of solitude. When I was asleep, not there to keep it in check, he drifted back.
I heard a crackling of leaves. I can't imagine a normal person with a history filled with life and creatures wouldn't even have noticed. But my life was silence. And I had heard a crackle.
I wrenched Crowley forward and rolled to my feet. I stood in a crouch. Crowley had sworn loudly and was scrambling away. I hadn't put him in an excellent position for getting to his feet, but he had avoided the slashing Hellion claw that had been aimed at the back of his head. I charged at the Hellion and rolled to the side as it swiped. It was between me and my backpack. I needed my claw dagger or we were dead. Worse than dead. I glanced at Crowley then looked back and forth between the bag and him. I continued to feign lunges at the Hellion while he crawled toward my bag.
He was going to have to get pretty close to the Hellion, I was trying to draw the Hellion away but it wasn't taking the bait as well as I had hoped it would. I wasn't sure how much danger he was willing to put himself in. If he ran the Hellion would go after me first, he would probably get away. I remembered that he had once abandoned his companions. I knew he preferred to keep me around, but I didn't know if he would choose to risk his life for mine. I preferred to avoid learning.
He had made it to the bag and dug out the knife. I raised my hand so he could throw it to me. I didn't know how well he could throw, I hoped he was at least ok. His eyes slid behind me and he shouted, "BOBBY, NO!" His voice was high and scratched with terror.
I felt a claw wrap around my wrist from behind. I flinched and another curled around my throat. I froze, not daring to breath lest the claw dig into my neck. I felt hot breath tickling my ear.
"You managed for so long, Bouncing. Baby. Bobby." It was Cas' voice. His snarling and animalistic voice. I looked up to Crowley. He was standing there, gripping the claw, looking at me with devastation. Then he was gone.
Time did a funny thing then. It stretched out before me, the sound of my breath echoed around me and filled my ears with noise. He had abandoned me. The cold aloneness pummeled my skin. Cas was still in my ear.
"I'm going to devour you. I'll eat you slowly, savor every morsel. I wonder if you'll taste like your Dear. Dead. Daddy." I wriggled. There were tears welling in my eyes. They weren't from fear. I was going to die alone. Cas uncurled his claw from my throat and dragged it slowly down my clavicle. I felt my skin part underneath it, it hurt. Hell below it hurt. The flesh wound wasn't deep but the pain underneath it was such that I couldn't even feel the damage in my skin. I was coming apart. Blue light slipped like smoke from my skin, wrapped around his claw. He laughed in my ear. I screamed. I could feel my memories slide. They were water in a bag with a cut on one end, sliding away. He placed his hand over my heart and curled his fingers. His claws torn into me. He pressed them in, they sunk deep into me. Blue light spurted. My scream ratcheted from my lips. I was going to be devoured. I had survived for so long. I had been so alone. And then I wasn't. But I still had to die alone. It wasn't fair.
Cas yelled and stumbled back away from me. I fell. My legs didn't work. They wouldn't hold me. The pain was intolerable. Immense. Consuming. Something picked me up. We were flying maybe or moving very fast. It must have been Cas. He was going to devour me someplace else. The other Hellion had attacked him, hungry. But I couldn't handle the pain. Black stars were sprinkled in my eyes. I fought, but I wasn't sure my body moved. I was having a hard time feeling anything but how much it hurt.
These were the things I thought were happening while I was ferried away. But I didn't know. I couldn't comprehend the world that surrounded me on all sides. My entire consciousness was the pain in my chest and the slipping away.
I couldn't rightly say if I was still moving. I didn't know how to separate what was happening from what had happened before. Time cycled. My father tucked his arms around my little ribcage and told me about Uncle Sammy and I tried to reconcile the hero hunter and this sad and aching voice. I thought that perhaps, being a hunter meant becoming a sad and aching voice. And my father was being ripped apart while I stood by. Covered in blood until you're covered in your own blood. He told that to me once. I never really listened. How could someone invincible ever be covered in his own blood? Then he was.
I was waking up under Crowley's arm feeling warmth I had never felt and I was waking up tethered to a tree after two hours of rest in the rain, aloneness burning icy across my skin.
I was everything I had ever done leaking forward and slipping out. There had been a pattern to this once, hadn't there. Had one thing come after another in a neat progression? It sloshed and churned.
XXXXX
From the Journal of Bobby Winchester
I opened my eyes. I didn't think I ever would. Time seemed to have stopped, or slowed down. I was only in one place. The pain was still in my chest, but it was duller. I was dizzy, I wasn't sure if the world was spinning or I was. I sloshed in my own body. I closed my eyes to ease the spin and felt the ground I was on with my fingertips. It was a bed. I was on a bed. This surprised me. I didn't sleep on beds. I didn't think. I had been attacked. Or had I dreamed? My father would come with breakfast. I shook my head. He was dead. My father was dead. I was alone again. How was I on a bed?
I pulled my eyes open. I was in my room. My room. My room in the bunker. Was Dad alive? Had he saved me? Who else would take me here? Maybe I was confused. Maybe I was only a child and Dad would come in with pancakes and kiss me on the head and put my hair in pigtails and he would pick me up and tickle me until I cried and he would carry me to the library and tell me stories. I looked down at my bandaged woman's body.
I was in the bunker. But I was not a child and my father was not alive. I coughed and my throat scratched. It was so dry. Then there was water in front of me. My vision was dark on the sides still. I looked. Crowley stood there with water in his hand, concern on his face. But relief also.
"Bobby." he said. He said it like it had some inherent power, like a spell. "You're awake."
I was lost. Hadn't he abandoned me. That's what I remember.
"You ran away." I sounded accusatory. I didn't mean to. I did mean to. I meant to sound accusatory. To accuse him of running away and leaving me to die. I didn't think you could let someone curl up with you for months, or wake them up by playing with their hair then let them die alone. I wouldn't have let him die alone. I didn't let him die alone. Even when I didn't know who he was.
He scowled, "I didn't run away, pay attention. Who do you think stabbed Cas? But I did have to get behind him, didn't I? Do you want me to apologize for not standing sadly staring at you while you were murdered?"
His voice was rageful, I was willing to forgive him immediately. I would have been scared too, if it were me watching him not wake up, "No. No. Sorry. I just. You left your other companions." Then I touched my chest. It still burned. "So you killed Cas?"
"No." he replied shortly, he seemed to be ignoring my first comment, "No, he was slowed down but he didn't die."
I felt bad. He had never left me. He stabbed Cas, he carried me a state over. I scooted to the other side of the bed. His voice was making me feel crushingly alone. He took the cue correctly. He sat on the bed and leaned against the headboard. I turned over and curled up, my head on his stomach. His hand dropped into my hair. It was easy.
I wanted to sleep again. I was so tired. My eyes didn't stay open. I murmured to him, right before I dropped away again, "Crowley, Cas was so strong..."
He started a comforting platitude, "Yes, Kitten, you never could have - "
I ignored him and forged ahead, "What has he been eating?"
"Worry about that later."
I sat up and faced him, "No, Crowley, listen. He wasn't starving. He was playing with me. If he had just killed me to devour me, I'd be dead. They can kill in a heartbeat, I've seen it. I wavered, unsure for a moment where I was. I focused on Crowley and took a few breaths.
"He was playing with me, he was, the scratching, the teasing. If we were starving wouldn't have have just eaten me? He's been eating."
"You don't know that, the first generations are different from the others. You don't know how much he has to eat."
"What about the other one, that was a few generations down judging from its claws, but there were no ribs sticking out, it was still strong and smart. Crowley, I think they have people they're still eating."
"No. No they don't."
I snarled at him, "How do you know!"
He snarled right back, "BECAUSE WE WANT THEM TO HAVE PEOPLE THEIR STILL EATING! Don't you understand, Bobby? The world is empty, we're the last ones left, its going to be us then its going to be no one."
He said this with a tone of finality, and I thought he was used to people letting him do this, saying something final and letting it be final because he wanted it to be or he was scary enough to keep them quiet. I could have flinched and looked away. I could have laid my head back against him and allowed him to touch my hair. Its what he wanted me to do, and what would be easiest.
But I was the Queen of the Earth, damnit. But I calmed down. If I just got mad he would win, and this was the most important disagreement we had ever had. He was better at being full of emotion and vigor and talking his way out of things. So I would keep so calm that he would lose his edge. That was, at least, my theory.
So I sat back and looked at him with even eyes. I took a slow and soothed breath. "The Hellions were well fed, Crowley. Logically, since they didn't eat us, that means they have eaten something in the near past. That means other living things, other souls. We thought we were alone but we have new information now. I'm going to hunt them down. I have to hunt them down. They are in trouble and I am a Winchester. You can do as you like."
He looked at me for a long time, the anger was slipping out of his eyes, he looked scared. "We can't go looking for them. The claw didn't work on Cas, we don't have a single weapon against him."
I reached up and touched his cheek, "I have to go. I have to look. Come with me."
He raised his hand and pressed it against my fingers. "Sometimes I forget whose daughter you are."
AN/ Thank you all for reading! I hope you're all enjoying it
Last chapter I was met with some overwhelmingly sweet reviews! I tried to respond to the ones logged in to spread how warm and cozy they made me but for all of you who weren't logged in THANK YOU! You're all so lovely!
TaTa Till Next Time!
