Chapter 7: 36 hours

Dean woke up. He lifted his head. He put his head back down. His head fucking hurt. Where was he? The room looked familiar. He carefully rolled onto his back and let his eyes rove around the room. That was Jess' painting; he was at home. Relieved, he sighed. His throat was damn dry. He had a week off; vacation days he needed to burn through before the end of the year or they'd be gone. The plan had been to spend most of that time with Castiel. Take him to visit Bobby, do some artsy, academic shit with Jess and Sam and have lots of sex. Try not to think about it being December, the month he hated most in the world after, possibly, November.

Then he remembered the two boys and it knocked the wind out of him. He'd gone drinking. One of Dean Winchester's infamous benders, but somehow this one's aftermath felt a little worse than the previous ones. Trying to grab the alarm, he knocked something of the nightstand. It landed with a soft thud on the carpet. The alarm clock said it was a little after eight a.m. The alarm clock also said it was Tuesday, which wasn't possible because he had gone to that bar on Sunday evening. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Dean thought and tried to remember.

(***)

36 hours earlier. Sunday. A little after eight p.m.

That first scotch. The really extraordinarily crappy music they were playing in the bar. Indie chick music. Music from whiny women with names like Natalie, Patty, Brandi or Lizzie. Names that for some obscure reason all ended in a y-sound. Dean didn't care, though. He wasn't there for the ambiance, but for the alcohol. Slowly, as the booze warmed his body his memories smoothed out and his hurt slipped to the background.

After about five drinks, the two boys were gone. He was starting to feel better and took his time sipping his sixth scotch. The bar was filling with twenty something girls and boys. A football match was playing on the tiny TV hanging above the bar, but only a few guys seemed to be paying attention to it. The din in the place had gotten so loud that Dean couldn't hear the music anymore, which was fine with him.

He turned his barstool slightly and frowned at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. He fashioned little stacks of coasters and thought about the stacks of books in Castiel's apartment. A small smile tugged at his lips as he remembered how Castiel had said he loved him. Ignoring Sam's voice in his head warning him about the dodgy hygiene of peanuts in bars, he took a couple from a nearby bowl and thought about what would happen to all those books of Castiel if they moved in together. Whoa, boy, he said to himself; you're getting ahead of yourself.

The football game seemed to have spiked new interest, because the cheers grew more plentiful and the silences in between them became more profound. 'You're covered in ashes, you're covered in rain,' the radio almost whispered, but he heard it nonetheless. Strangely, that didn't make him think of fires or tragedies. It was soothing even. In between the hoots and curses, Dean tried to listen to the song. He actually started to kind of like the music, which was a sure sign of his advanced state of drunkenness.

'She's always there.' It was all so on exactly on the nose, yet it didn't bother him in the least. He thought about Castiel some more. The crowd roared and clapped. Why were they so excited? The game wasn't even on live; not at this time of night. Dean debated whether or not to order a seventh scotch and swirled the last of his drink in his mouth as the noise abated.

'You're covered in ruins, you're covered in secrets.'

It had been going according to plan. Price for forgetting: massive hangover in the morning, but then something had gone wrong. The shock was overwhelming when the female singer crooned her name. Three times in a row.

Dean nearly choked on that last mouthful of scotch and the liquid burned in his throat. And then something horrible had happened: it came back up. Not the liquor. Hell, Dean wished it was just the liquor. The one memory he tried his hardest to repress. He didn't talk about that and he didn't think about that. As he sat there at the bar, coughing and spluttering, everything blended together.

The glass he was holding felt cool, like the glass statue, which was ridiculous, because nobody remembers what something they touched when they were four feels like. Plus, the glass statue had been coarse, because he had done a hack job of painting it and the glass was smooth.

The air in the bar was hot, almost too hot to inhale. He felt like he was suffocating. Stop it, he told himself. Fucking stop it right now.

The two boys were back again, but this time they were a lot younger. One was just a baby.

'No. I'm not doing this,' he whispered at his reflection. His hands shook as he paid for his drinks and went outside. The air was crisp and cold, but that was not better. It was cold like that night 22 years ago. The first thing he thought of was getting behind the wheel of the Impala and driving this feeling away, but he was too drunk to drive. Instead, he began the long walk home. Eventually, he started to run.

(***)

His headache was only getting worse and he felt like he was going to vomit. He managed to get out of bed and stumbled over an empty bottle of whisky. It wobbled and bumped into another bottle on the carpet. Vodka. Also empty. Apparently, he'd gotten home and gone right on drinking. As he focused on his hands, because the room was spinning, he noticed that the skin covering the knuckles of his right hand was broken. Did he get into a fight?

His elbows felt sore too. That must have been some fight if he'd used them. He leaned against the wall, because the room kept going round and round. Swallowing was hard. Supported by the wall, he made it into the kitchen and took a glass from the cabinet above the fridge. He filled it to the brim with water and drank thirstily. On the kitchen counter, his cell lay, blinking.

Its screen was cracked, but it was still working. Around thirty or so missed calls flickered at him. Then the phone rang and Dean dropped the glass. The bit of water that had been left in it splashed against his bare feet.

'Fuck!' he cursed loudly. 'Castiel,' the display read. Dean pushed the call away, feeling guilty as hell. Bile rose in his throat. Quickly but cautiously, trying to avoid the shards of glass, he made his way to the bathroom.

(***)

30 hours earlier. Monday. Around 2 a.m.

Alcohol and anger got him lost. He thought about calling a cab, but his cell fell when he took it out of his pocket. There was a spider web of tiny cracks on the screen when he picked it up. Two missed calls. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know whether he had enough money and he didn't have the number of a cab company in his phone. Lesson for a future bender, he thought as he put his cell away again.

He felt dreadfully sober, yet he kept tripping. Several times he had to break his fall with his elbows, because he simply did not get his hands up fast enough. Memories of that night kept flooding his mind. In an alley, in what looked like a bad neighbourhood, he thought he could smell a burning nursery. Baby oil and talcum powder and a flowery perfume surrounded by acrid smoke. He let out a primal scream of fury and punched the wall until he didn't smell it anymore.

Eventually, by a combination of reading street signs and pure luck Dean found his apartment. As he closed the door behind him, the memories swamped him. Sammy crying. That peculiar crackling sound. He went straight for the liquor cabinet and pulled out the first bottle he saw. Whisky. He unscrewed the top and raised the bottle to his mouth and drank. Nope, still there. Quickly, he brought the bottle to his lips again.

Never in his life had he wanted a cigarette as much as he wanted one now. His hands trembled as he took another sip and searched for his favourite Metallica album. He was going to play it so loud that he wouldn't be able to hear his thoughts. If that got him kicked out of his apartment he didn't give a shit. In his panic to find it, he smashed a lamp. When he realised he'd left the CD in the Impala he felt like crying. Instead, he seared his throat with ever bigger and faster swigs. The memories stayed.

So, he had kept drinking, hoping with every new gulp that this was the one that was going to wipe them away.

(***)

'You're not going to vomit. Deep breaths. The memory is gone now. Everything's fine,' Dean whispered to himself and he was glad to discover he was telling the truth on both accounts. The memory was gone and, thankfully, the feeling of nausea also passed.

He was on hands and knees in the living room, never having reached the bathroom. Man, was he in a bad state. The headache and the urge to vomit were nothing new, but he felt bad. Bad like he'd never felt bad before.

(***)

19 hours earlier. Monday. Around 1 p.m.

Dean located Led Zeppelin II and decided it would do the trick just as good as Metallica. He forwarded to number seven and put Ramble on on repeat. By now he was drinking vodka. He'd put the empty bottle of whisky on the nightstand and was lying on the bed. The music streamed from the speakers and he couldn't hear anything else. Unfortunately, it didn't drive away the feelings. The smoke stinging his eyes. The heat coming off of everything. The lawn underneath his feet.

(***)

14 hours earlier. Monday. Around 6 p.m.

Someone knocked on the door, but he didn't hear it. His head was hanging over the edge over the bed and he liked the feeling of being weightless. Ramble on was still on a loop.

'And to our health we drank a thousand times,' Dean said and laughed as he drank the last of the vodka. For the first time in years, he really listened to the song and he didn't appreciate what he heard.

'Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear.
How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air.
T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair.
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her.'

Her hair was blonde and she had been taken away. The feelings were gone, but occasionally there were still flashes of her smile.

'Nobody's fault but mine,' Dean whispered and the bottle rolled over the edge of the bed and unto the carpet.

'I'll never get over you. 22 years gone. When the levee breaks. Let's have a party,' Dean summed up. Good old Zepp, Dean thought. You can always count on them to have the answers. He forced himself upright and grabbed his wallet as he made for the door. Let's have a party indeed.

(***)

There was a sound in the bathroom. The tap was running. Calm down, Dean told himself, you probably just forgot to turn it off. Quietly, he walked to the bathroom and opened the door.

(***)

8 hours earlier. Monday/Tuesday. Around midnight.

Groping in the dark.

(***)

There was a man already in the bathroom. He was naked except for a towel around his waist. His back was to Dean: he was shaving. Dean's chest fluttered painfully at the sight. The man turned and smiled at him.

'Good morning, lover.'

Dean sprinted to the toilet bowl, lowered his head and emptied his stomach of its contents. The man was not Castiel.

(***)

Lyrics from the song in the bar are from the song Mary by Patty Griffin.

'And to our health we drank a thousand times,' is a line from Ramble on by Led Zeppelin.

Nobody's fault but mine, I'll never get over you, Ten years gone, When the levee breaks, and Let's have a party are all songs by Led Zeppelin.