The next day Dean could barely move. He had made himself sick, just as Sam said. He laid there, barely able to breathe, and watched Sam who now lay in a comatose daze.
Bobby came in after a while. He handed Dean a bottle of water.
"Drink it. The whole thing. Then you can have a beer." Bobby grinned. Dean laughed and drank it as he'd been told. Bobby watched him, eyes tender, as he forced himself to sit up.
"I...uh...kinda lost it on you yesterday..."Dean stated, not sure if he should apologize for caving as he did.
"Well, I kinda lost it on your Daddy. So we're even." Bobby shrugged. He then looked at Sam.
"I really should give him a spit bath. He's got blood caked into his hair..."Dean felt his stomach flip flop.
"Yeah...Well, for now, you just try to get your bearings." Bobby smiled. Dean's eyes crossed as the horrible image of the other day came back.
"Mm...I'll get back to you on that." Dean's voice cracked.
"You know I won't let him put him down. I won't." Bobby's face turned pale even saying it.
"You know he wasn't kidding though. In his mind, Sammy's good as dead now. He thinks he's doing him a favor..."Dean held his mouth and looked down at his baby brother whose mouth was twisted in pain, and a tiny sliver of blood dripped from it... He reached and pushed that off with his sleeve.
The silence was all-consuming. Dean shivered at it.
"The question is if he even can...You know, if he even could put him down. I mean, we don't know what this is..."Dean shivered.
Bobby swallowed.
"We're not gonna let him do that, Dean. I promise. And we won't stop until we do find out what the hell caused this and if we can save Sam." Bobby nodded.
All the while Dean studied Sam he heard the cutting words of the phone argument biting back. John had been shouting so loud that his son could hear him through the receiver, that Bobby had accidentally switched to speaker for some of their fight.
If he's not human anymore, then putting a bullet to him is what we gotta do! Wouldn't let an animal suffer like that, we're not letting Sam suffer like that...
"Do you think I can outrun them both?" Dean looked at Bobby in earnest.
Bobby sighed.
"I think you've got some hard choices to make, son." Bobby nodded slowly.
"You know he'll come here..." Dean shuddered. He idolized his absent father, now he was going to flee from him like a fugitive.
"I can hold him off for a little while..." Bobby sighed. The thought of moving Sam again was painful for both of them.
"Then, we can't stay here, Bobby. I appreciate everything you've done for us, but...We've got to go..." Dean reached down and lifted his brother to a sitting position. The boy woke up, blinking.
"You and me...we have to git. Like last century, man." Dean frowned. Sam blinked, processing.
"Okay..."
It was upsetting how resigned he was, sounding older than Time as tired as he was.
"Think you could climb in the shower by yourself? You've still got that blood in your hair?" Dean swallowed bile again.
"I'm okay, Dean. Do what you gotta do. He's probably halfway here by now, and no telling how close Yellow Eyes is..."
Sam wasn't stupid. Neither of the other two was surprised he'd put this together.
Dean looked Bobby dead in the eyes.
"I might not see you again for a long time." His voice cracked and he smiled.
"I know."Bobby bit his lip, white shade turning to a deep sort of periwinkle.
So it was that Bobby Singer helped the two boys he'd loved as his own children pack up and get ready to go on the run from their own mentally unstable biological father. He would never forget the haunted, hunted look in Dean's eyes as he led Sam to the car. Nor would he forget how Sam's head rolled, and he passed out again from the effort of moving him.
Bobby sighed as he saw Dean smile at him one more time in the bright of daylight. Dean nodded, and that told Bobby everything he needed to know, to know the boy would keep fighting as long as he could. Then the brothers were gone in a cloud of dust. Bobby had no idea that he would not see them or hear from them again for two solid years.
He watched until the car was a speck at the edge of the Singer's Auto Salvage backlot. John came tearing in the front not more than five minutes later and leaped out of his truck, shotgun at the ready to attempt and dispatch the Sam he thought was now a monster. Bobby didn't shed a tear when he filled John so full of rock salt he knocked him unconscious for a solid day. He just sat there praying that something or someone was watching over his boys as he knew what was out there after them and what kind of Highway to Hell they were rolling down now.