Dark eyes snapped open, taking in the unfamiliar room before them bathed in the gray half light of pre-dawn. With a groan he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, defiantly trying to grasp hold of the last bit of sleep on the far edges of his mind, but his attempts were in vain. It seemed, that despite his best efforts, sleep was not going to come to him again today, and he was going to be stuck waking up before half of the city had even gone to bed. Still groggy from his less than restful sleep, Bobby lifted his wrist and looked at the dials on the watch he wore - four thirty in the morning. He who didn't like to wake up before noon, or even the sun, rolled onto his back with his arm across his forehead. He was motionless and thinking, trying to pin point what had woken him up, for the apartment was silent enough to hear a pin drop on the floor.
His ears strained against the silence, listening for any penetration of the quiet in the dark, but hearing none. Bringing his hands to rest behind his head Bobby allowed his mind to wander, wondering how it had gotten this far. His life had been decent, not great or okay by anyone's measure but decent, yet here he was back in Detroit. His mother, a saint by anyone's standards, was gone and he was sleeping on a couch in the apartment of a person he had grown up around. A girl no less, and one he wasn't even sleeping with. But he was wishing that some punk would come through the door, the perpetrator in this situation or his mother's, he didn't care, just someone to release his pent up frustrations on. Though Bobby knew that wasn't a good thing, that was what had gotten him in trouble the first time and part of the reason he had left town. That and his need to be on his own, to survive by himself. But he sort of wished now he had stayed, then his mother wouldn't have gone to the quickie mart, and he wouldn't be here. Or maybe he would, he recalled everything his mother had ever told him when she was alive. Not that he had wanted to listen, or even talk to her about it, but that never stopped Evelyn Mercer. Nothing did.
When he was sure sleep would not come, he dropped his feet to the floor and sat up right. Telling himself she was sleeping anyway, that it would never be known, he walked the short distance to the bedroom across the apartment from the living room. He had done this to his mother, and even his younger brother's before to be sure that even in sleep they were all right. The door was cracked and the room was near black, save for the small beam of the street light that cast a warm glow across the door. But the sight that met his eyes wasn't exactly what he had pictured, and he found what had woken him up.
Halfway across the floor, as if it had rolled from the unconscious hand that hung over the bed, was a bottle of amber liquid he was sure was some kind of hard alcohol. He would have guessed beer, but he knew better and the bottle was shaped quite unlike any he had seen. The contents had soaked a spot in the carpet, and the room smelled of whiskey. Bobby wasn't a guy who cleaned by nature, but the situation was so…..he wasn't even sure what it was, and while he watched her face contort into various looks of deepest displeasure, he grabbed the dirty towel from the floor and busied himself with the carpet. How long he sat there letting the alcohol soak up, or watching her less than peaceful sleep, Bobby wasn't sure. But he wasn't worried about being caught either, he knew that she wouldn't wake up, his best guess was she had passed out from the drinking. It wasn't something he had known her to do, but he couldn't be angry at her either. Trauma had never affected Caroline well, she had always needed help, someone to put the pieces together for her. Evelyn Mercer had been good at that and Bobby wished she were here now, to offer words of wisdom or perhaps tell him what to do. Unfortunately, if she had passed her trade to anyone it was Jack or maybe Jeremiah but definitely not him.
For a moment Bobby just stood there, waiting for what he didn't know, but before long he left. He didn't mind standing in her room, it might have been invasive for anyone else but then, he knew her better than most people. Or maybe it was the other way around, she knew him better than most, and she had hid things from him because of it. He remembered when she had been in high school, he had graduated two years prior, and his mother had gone to get her in the middle of the night. He'd been left with the task of watching his brother's, making sure no harm came to them while she was gone, but nobody hated Evelyn Mercer and he had known none would. At least, they hadn't hated her then. But she had come home with Caroline, and he had been locked out of the kitchen for the night, at least until the two of them had left it. She had stayed with Evelyn that night, no sneaking in his bedroom window - though his mother always seemed to know about that too. It wasn't until later, when he had overheard a conversation from his mother that he realized the cause. And he had been furious at twenty, furious enough to want to go after her father, but he had left before then. That was the last Bobby remembered hearing about him, the man had never come back and Bobby had always hoped his drunk ass never would. That is, unless their paths crossed by some twist of unfortunate fate for the elder. Two years later Bobby had left.
He removed himself from the room and walked to the kitchen where he got himself a glass of water. He dialed the number to his mother's house and waited for an answer. Bobby knew there was a chance nobody would pick up, but there was also a chance he would wake them up, and he didn't care about waking them up. He had done that enough when he had been around, not coming home drunk but coming home noisy. It was only by luck for him that Angel picked up the phone. Of all people he would rather tell Angel, despite his best intentions he just wasn't as close to Jack.
"It's five in the god damn morning," Angel said by way of greeting and Bobby could only assume that he knew who had called. He didn't ask questions though and Bobby somehow knew that he wouldn't.
"Listen Angel, I got some things I gotta take care of this morning," Bobby told him all business even here. "I ain't gonna be back till this afternoon."
"What business you got?" He knew why Angel questioned him, but it was also nothing like that. This didn't concern their mother and he didn't exactly want to share the truth. It was no business of his brother's, if it was the call would have been to a different person.
"None of your damn business, that's what kind of business." Bobby told him in the same manor he had used as teenagers when he didn't want to divulge what he was doing. Of course, if his brother had known Caroline was in town again it might have been a different conversation. He only thanked his luck that he didn't, because he didn't want the same taunting he had given about La Vida Loca, as he so kindly called her, because it was nothing like that. Though, he realized, his brothers had known her too, it probably wouldn't come.
"What you mean it ain't my damn business? There's only one kind of business Bobby." Angel was talking about their mother he knew that. But it wasn't that kind of thing, he suppressed the urge to yell at him, only because of the sleeping girl in the other room.
"What do ya mean it ain't my damn business? There's only one kind," Bobby mocked in his over the top, high pitched girl voice. "This ain't that kind Angel. You ain't my keeper, quit asking me damn questions. Yeah I know we got business. You think I forgot? I'm coming home later, we can't deal with that till later anyway."
He hung up the phone after that not waiting for a response. That had always been the pain in the ass thing about having younger brothers. He hated being questioned. Bobby turned around to find himself not alone anymore. How long had he been in the kitchen? For the life of him Bobby couldn't say, but he knew it wasn't long. He wondered how much of the conversation had been overheard. He hoped not a lot, his mother had used to say Caroline was special, he had always told his mother she was a special pain in his ass. Particularly when it came to his doing "stupid" things. He remembered another instance, another unpleasant one, where he had been looking for the punk who had thrown a brick through his back windshield. It had blown into a huge deal, and he remembered very distinctly having his own possessions thrown at his head. But it had always been like that, that was why they had never stuck, it was very black and white, loving or fighting, never in between.
"What was that about?" Caroline asked, and he noted her hoarse voice presumably from the alcohol she was only beginning to realize she had been drinking. "If you need to go…."
The word lingered and he understood what she was saying, but he also understood that she pretended to be stronger than she was. Caroline had always been like that. It was that strong will that drove him nuts, but her utter inability to be controlled that had done other things. Bobby didn't want to think those things now though, he pushed them out to the far reaches of his mind, back where they belonged.
"Nothing," He told her. "Just the safety deposit box."
She nodded her head in an 'oh' sort of way and he knew she didn't really believe him. But he also knew that she wouldn't question him either. She had her own troubles, and she would take care of those first and foremost. Or, she would take care of what she could, Bobby knew she wouldn't take care of it all. She couldn't, even if she liked to pretend so. Then again, he realized that the Caroline in front of him was different. She had grown up somehow without his realizing it. Despite her bruised and battered appearance there was something different about her, different and almost terrifyingly so.