Chapter 17: Bonding

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I want to make something clear right from the start. If you read the rest of my journal you're going to find stories of me doing heroic things. I saved people. A lot of people. I risked my life. More than once I sold being happy for other people's lives. I will be the center point of parades and festivals and celebrations. But I want you, you out of anybody to remember that I am not a hero. I can't ever be. How can I be a hero with that boy, my boy's blood on my hands. I told him I would protect him and I cracked open his sternum and fed on his heart. Sometimes I think I still taste the blood. Where would I even start to look for forgiveness?

My boy though, my brave little boy, who was mine so briefly, the fourth person I ever spoke to and the first who was mine to care for. He was in the charge of a monster, but he was great, he was a hero.

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From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

The air pushed in on me, grasping through my mouth and down into my lungs, cold and empty. Crowley's hand was still clutching mine. I have not words for what was around us. My ill equipped eyes weren't made to distinguish it. The curling bursts around us were, had to be from the way they were moving, alive. I arched in pain. The cold pierced my flesh in sharp punctures. Shards of my flesh stripped from my body and burned away in the air. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't' move. I shuddered and shook, unsure that I would make it any longer.

The ground came at me like an attack. I couldn't even tell we were really moving and then the ground smashed against my back. I lay there dazed and shaking, my body in tremors of pain. I turned my head and looked at Crowley. He seemed better off than I was, he was already sitting up. At least he had fallen over too. I couldn't imagine living through the smirk he would have if he had landed on his feet.

I tried to move but my body didn't want to receive any commands. Crowley hoisted me into a sitting position and, slumping, I looked around me. We were in the bright sunlight. The really bright sunlight. I shielded my eyes. There was a river in front of us, a wide sloping river, green grass was under us. I could hear birds chirping. It sounded oppressively loud to me. I tried to push myself to my feet and whimpered. The skin across my whole body was cracked and burnt. More than a few of my ribs felt little less than shattered, and my wrist was still broken. I looked down at my wrist to assess the damage and saw my hands, crimson to the elbows. I hunched over, sick to my stomach. The ground spun under me. I could still taste Ethan's heart in my mouth. I puked on the ground, it came up red.

Crowley sighed and tugged me upwards. "Not really the time for this, darling. I understand the boy was close to you but –" he cut himself off and looked down at me, then, after a moment of silence he let me back down gently, he had been holding me up by the back of my shirt, my legs weren't up to the task of keeping me aloft. He continued, but his voice was much softer, "He was the first human you've ever killed isn't he."

I looked up at him. I could feel the blood crusting around my mouth and down my chin. The rest of my face was burnt and blistered. Blood ran all the way down my shirt. Covered my hands. My vision blurred. He walked down to the river and, after a brief contemplative pause took off his shirt which, under his jacket, remained rather clean. He submerged the cloth in the water and walked back up the bank to me. He crouched in front of me and starting to wipe the blood clean. I remained still, despondent. As he was cleaning the blood from my face he murmured consolingly, "Oh, kitten, no one's first time should be like that. You are supposed to hate them with your whole heart."

I was quiet for a long time and let him wash the blood from me.

Then I smiled, I think, and said in a little and crackling voice, "Tell me about yours."

He scrunched his face at me, "My first? The first person I ever killed? This is what you want to bond over?"

I nodded.

He looked at me sort of fondly, "As a human or as a demon?"

I considered the question, "Human."

The blood cleaned off, he took out a knife and starting cutting down a small stick, making a splint, I thought. He had sized it to my arm. He thought for a moment, "Are you sure you want to hear about me as a human? I wasn't as impressive as I am now."

I blinked and said in a tone trying hard to be sarcastically surprised, but I didn't quite make it, it sounded hollow, "Wow, you must have been so unimpressive!"

He tapped my nose with his forefinger, "Hush."

He tore his shirt into strips and starting wrapping it around my arm, tethering it to the splint. "Malcome Gilmore."

I interrupted him, "Did you kill a lot of people as a human?"

He furrowed his brow, "No, Kitten, just the one, and he had it coming."

"Is that why you went to hell?"

"No, I sold my soul to a crossroads demon." His voice was so gentle and soothing.

I laughed, "Really? For what?"

"Do you want to hear my story or not?" He snarked, looking uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, go on." He finished tying the splint and started feeling his way down my ankles, checking for damage.

"So, Malcome Gilmore. He-" he cut himself of and looked at me for awhile, his hands temporarily still, "He was sleeping with my wife."

"You were married?"

"Of course I was, it was the 1600's everyone was married."

"Did you love her?"

He shrugged, "Not particularly. She had a nice dowry though."

I scrunched my eyes at him, "So why did you care?"

"I wasn't going to pay for someone else's squalling brat."

I felt uncomfortable, but let it slip passed, "How did you do it?"

"I jumped him from behind, hit him with a whiskey bottle until he stopped moving." He switched his tone suddenly, "That's all I can do, I can't help your ribs. I can't carry you, can you stand?"

I nodded and pushed myself slowly to my feet. "What was your name?"

"You know that's very privileged information, do you know what you could do with knowledge like that?"

I laughed at him, and it even sort of sounded like a laugh, "I grew up in the Men of Letters' Bunker, of course I know what I could do with that."

"Fergus MacLeod."

We started walking, very unsteadily. The silence pressed against me and I thought of Ethan. My throat constricted and I tried desperately to stave it off. Brashly, it felt so important to know, I asked, "Do you remember all of them?"

He steadied his grip around me, "All of whom?"

"The people you've killed?"

"Of course not, darling, I was the King of Hell, I have killed people I have never even looked at."

"Right…" The silence pressed in again, it burned in my chest, "I wish I knew his name."

"What? Whose name?" he looked a little concerned.

"The Hellion I killed to rescue you. I just wish I knew his name."

He shrugged, "I can tell you the name of the angel he was inhabiting, if that helps."

"That helps."

"Jegudiel."

I repeated it to myself until I was sure I wouldn't forget it.

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From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I wrote them down. They're in the back. All of them. Everyone I ever stole from the earth. I wrote them down so you could see them. I don't need the list. I burned it into my mind one name at a time. I stole the right to kill them, but there isn't a being powerful enough to give me the right to forget who they were. There were no gray lines between monster or angel or human. I wrote down everyone who didn't want die and everyone who did. Could you add Castiel for me? I didn't have the time.

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From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I walked with Crowley's arm supporting me. The wind off the river cut into my burnt skin. I wasn't sure where we were. The plants weren't familiar to me, the air smelled strange and foreign. We walked for hours. I was exhausted and broken, but desperate to find others. This would be my real chance. People. I shivered in excitement. I wondered how far back we had gone. Fifty years? A hundred?

Crowley perked up suddenly, "Do you smell that, Bobs?"

I gave an experimental sniff. "Yeah, is that smoke?"

"Yes, smoke, civilization. We've made it!" He looked down at me with a broad and genuine smile. It lit up his face, he looked almost boyish.

It took us upwards of three hours to find it. I moved at a snail's pace and we were upwind. I expected that Crowley would have gotten irritated but he seemed concerned over my well being.

It was in the third hour of heading toward the smoke, probably heading toward the smoke, it was hard to follow just a scent. Crowley glanced at me and said, "Your ribs are only broken because you came for me. If you had just gone alone you would be nearly fine."

"You came back for me."

He laughed shortly, "So this was reciprocity?"

I nudged him with my elbow, "Yeah, just paying my debts. Come on, Crow, wouldn't you have snagged me?"

He stopped moving for a moment and looked at me searchingly, his eyes glanced at my burned and broken skin, my splinted wrist, the smears of blood I'm sure were still across my face. "If you live, I live, kitten."

He readjusted his arm around me and we continued on our way, sniffing out civilization.

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From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

We found them. We came up over a ridge and were greeted with a village. A smattering of huts really, with a fire pit in the center, fire roaring. Evening was settling in by now, and we could see people thronging around the fire, spears and axes clutched in their hands. I could hear them shouting from our distance but I'm not sure what they were saying, it wasn't a language I knew. At that point it meant it wasn't English. Not surprising I suppose.

I drew a little closer to Crowley, "We won't get away if they decide to attack." I whispered.

"You won't make it far without some medical attention, we're going in. I'm the King of Hell, darling, I can protect you from some third world brutes."

We hobbled, well I hobbled and Crowley put up with me, down toward the village. We were seen almost immediately and probably heard, I wasn't particularly sneaky. Three men with spears came out to meet us, a number of others standing warily behind them. The women and children remained by the fire. I looked at all of them, they were beautiful. It really was, seeing living and breathing other people. God, I had dreamed about this moment. I was shaking a little. Nervous.

As the men got closer I could see that they were dressed in sort of a thick knit material, loose skirts tied with wide belts around their waists, no shirts. I had never seen anything like this, despite the clothing shops I had raided. I crouched a little closer to Crowley. "When are we?"

His arm tightened around me. He raised his other hand in greeting. I fought to impulse to curl my face into Crowley's jacket. The man in the middle was entirely focused on us, but the other two switched their focus methodically between us and gazing intently into the dark to their sides. They were bunched together. I watched the smallest of them shudder. They wore both their hair and beards long.

The middle man barked at us in not English. Crowley frowned and shook his head at me briefly. He gestured to them at my obviously worse for wear condition. I tried to look hurt and innocent. They looked uncomfortable. Hurriedly, as though they would risk whatever harm we could do in order to have this done quickly, the older man, in the middle made a gesture with his head at the ones next to him. They circled around us and motioned for us to come with their spears. We led the way, spears at our back. They were obviously nervous, and were moving us faster than was comfortable for me. I could feel my broken ribs jostling.

We maneuvered into the village and were taken immediately to the fire. Everyone, it seemed was gathered there. There were pallets for sleeping pulled up on the ground. This struck me as odd. There were houses. But I wasn't in a position to comment. A few of the women came toward us. Like the men, they wore high waisted skirts, with nothing covering their upper torso. They had long hair as well, tied up in intricate twists. I thought that I had maybe underestimated Ethan when I guessed 100 years. An old woman with a lined face looked at me. She exchanged unintelligible words with the man who led us here then, with a dismissive tone, she gestured to two other women. They tried to pries me away from Crowley, he gave them a look filled with fury.

I glanced up at him, "It's okay. I'll be ok."

Unhappily he released me. I felt like I should be more concerned with how absurdly primitive everything was but half my skin was burnt off, my wrist was broken, my ribs were essentially decimated. They laid me down on a mat and starting coating my skin with a cool paste. I sighed in relief. They were afraid too, I could tell, their hands shook. I wondered if they were afraid of us, or of something else. One of the women handed me a warm bowl of liquid and motioned for me to drink it. Assuming poisoning me would be a lot harder and more expensive than it would have been to stab me with a spear or just not tend my wounds, I drank.

In a few moments my vision started to blur. I felt the ground twisting underneath me. I lifted my hand and called out for Crowley, I thought I was going to be sick again. My brain wasn't working very well. A warm and familiar hand pushed me down and pulled its fingers through my hair. I slept.

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From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I woke up dizzy. There were people running everywhere. Children were screaming, women were screaming. Men were arming themselves. I sat up and looked around for Crowley. He wasn't in my field of vision. I looked around, trying to see what was making them yell. What did regular people yell about? Was it an invasion? A cold wind ruffled me despite my proximity to the fire. A ghost? I wasn't sure if I was assuming that because of my closeness to the supernatural, or even if that's what ghosts felt like. I had only read about them.

There was a girl with me, about my age, heavily pregnant. That drew my attention from the danger; I had never seen a pregnant person. She was beautiful. I thought about Crowley and his wife and I wondered if she loved her baby's father. I hoped so.

She was trying to get me up, I pushed myself to my feet and looked where she was pointing. There were people approaching, a hoard of them. A heterogeneous mix of men, women, and children. Some were old and bent, some young. Toddlers, infants. One by one, scattered amongst the crowd of them at no particular interval they flickered. I felt my body go cold. They were ghosts. An army of ghosts. They were seizing people as they came across them. Ripping them apart.

I tore off, well I creaked off very quickly. I vaguely remembered the woman bringing me the sleeping warm drink from one of the nearer houses.

The girl was trying to pull me the other way, away from the ghosts. I pushed her off and went into the house, hut really. I yelped in excitement. There were jars lining the walls, little and big, I started opening them hurriedly, peering inside. Useless. Useless. Useless. I tore through more of them. Useless. Everything was useless. Hopefully I pulled the seal off of a large urn sitting on the ground and in utter glee I shouted at the ceiling. White grains filled the urn. Salt. To make sure, perhaps unwisely, I took a big and poured it into my mouth. SALT! I was powering my actions through instinct. I had spent my entire life preparing for what to do against ghosts.

I hefted the urn and cried out as pain split my torso. Giving up, I poured out the contents of one of the other jars. The girl was shouting at me by now. I filled the little cup with salt and dashed out of the hut. I ran straight at the ghosts. It wasn't easy, everyone else was going the other way. I pushed passed Crowley who grabbed my wrist.

"What the hell are you doing, Bobs!" He shouted, his voice gravely.

I grinned at him, the salt discovery triumph still spiriting me, "Salt!" I yelled jubilantly. He released my wrist. "Where?"

I pointed and continued toward the ghosts. I could barely feel my wounds, adrenaline was coursing through me and I laughed into the dark skies. How could this have scared me? If they killed me, I was only dead. How was that a threat to me?

A young man, dark beard still short, broad and rippling torso, slammed me in the chest with a spear haft, pushing me backward. I laughed again and spun under him. I felt my ribs protest, but they were far away. I spun up right in front of a leading ghost and tossed the salt in his face. He spluttered out.

The man grabbed my shoulder and forced my hand to his face, he looked at the salt I still had and went tearing off. I hoped to get more.

I was almost dancing. Tossing salt at ghosts, dodging their attacks. I was immersed in the thrill of it. Men started to join me, hands filled with salt, throwing it at the ghosts. We were driving them back. I wasn't so concerned about the long term. I knew full well that salt wouldn't destroy them, but hell it was fun. I ducked under an attack and rolled to my feet, dousing it in salt. I rolled again, to the side and came up next to a body of a man who had not been so agile. A spear lay next to him.

Struck by inspiration I seized the spear and, with no water in sight, coated the spear head in the blood pooling beneath him. I took the last of my salt and smeared in across the blade.

Really armed now, I assaulted the ghosts with abandon, swinging happily at them, shouting in ecstasy. I tore through their ranks. Laughing and striking. The ghosts couldn't touch me. I felt alive. I spun and struck and laughed, crying out at the stars in fervent jubilation.

Three boys, young, no more than fifteen were trapped against a wall, ghosts penning them in. I released a war cry and vaulted the ghosts and landed before them, swinging through them cleanly. They flickered out. I turned to the boys and gave them a toothy grin. They stared at me in amazement. I twirled the spear in my hand.

"BOBBY!" Crowley yelled across the melee. "We have a salt line, get back."

Disappointed I loped back toward the line. The others being called home by their own language. They had indeed made a salt circle surrounding the fire pit. I wondered what on earth they needed this damn much salt for. Which I remember wondering before I wondered why there was an army of ghosts.

I got back to Crowley, I was grinning from ear to ear, my bloody spear in one hand, urn of salt tethered to my belt. He shook his head at me, but was smirking.

"Whatcha got there, Bobs?"

I was a little breathless, but I smiled at him broadly, "Salt Spear."

He laughed, "Salt spear. So you were running around, ribs torn apart, missing half your skin, laughing like a psychopath, fighting ghosts and you just thought, 'There is a better way to weaponize this.'"

I looked at him a little blankly, "I mean…yeah."

He laughed, "You would look good with black eyes, darling."

My adrenaline was running its course and my pain was redoubling. I waivered on my feet. Crowley put a steadying hand on my shoulder. "This, darling," he said with condescension, "Is why you shouldn't go around laughing at ghosts and improvising weaponry when you're injured."

I laughed a bit and leaned on my spear.

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We passed the night on edge. The ghosts circled but they couldn't get through Crowley's circle. He spent the night drawing sigils in the dirt. The light rose in the morning and as it gained intensity, the ghosts disappeared, fading into nothing.

As the last ghost faded, a cheer rose up. I didn't need their language to interpret it, and I sorely wished I could have been in on the hugging and chest beating that the other warriors were swept up in. But I had been out of adrenaline for hours and was entirely unable to rise.

I was sitting in a shady spot, leaning against a wall, a large older man, hair turning gray, although he was still well built, approached me. I grimaced up at him. It seemed like the situation where I should get up, but I really could not. He hit his chest with his fist clutching his spear and nodded at me. Sans spear, I mimicked the gesture. Hitting my chest fiercely despite the pain. Then I laughed. His face split into a grin and he pulled me to my feet.

AN: Thanks for reading everybody! It's getting to the fun part!