46. Out of Reach

This is the one thing that Dean is really good at, reducing the world to the required inhale-exhale. He curls up, closes his eyes, and listens to his breathing, how it gets louder and drowns Sam out, pushes everything away until Sam’s warmth vanishes and Dean sleeps. When he wakes up it’s dark like only the middle of the night is dark and he has to use the bathroom, but he can’t face moving.

Getting up has become difficult. If he is being honest with himself, he needs Sam to help him up if he’s to do it with any level of comfort. He needs Sam to be near him but that’s unreasonable, to expect Sam to hang around him when all he knows is how to push people away.

If he keeps very still the baby will sleep. Keep sleeping until... until Dean is a stronger, better person, until he is sure he’ll be able to cope.

That day will come. Someday he’ll grow up and be capable. The baby sort of shifts inside him, a quake of reality. It isn’t like before, when he was smaller and he moved around all the time, when Sam used to stare at Dean’s stomach all entranced. Now that their son is larger, almost ready for the world, there is just slight movement, but it is enough to reassure Dean that he’s still two people.

It’s only a matter of seconds before he realizes he’s going to have to move or else he’s going to be lying in a wet bed. Dean manages to roll and push and rock himself into a sitting position but it worries him how he is out of breath, hands on his knees.

“Dean?” Sam pushes the bedroom door open and light comes spilling in from the hallway – he’s still fully dressed, alert, and Dean wonders what Sam has been doing for the hours he’s been sleeping. He rushes forwards in long strides. “Here, let me give you a hand...”

“I can stand up, Sam.” He sounds so defensive and nasty, Dean can’t stand it. He clamps his mouth shut to avoid hearing himself anymore, strokes his hand down his stomach to soothe his son. I’m sorry. He wants to say it aloud, to his brother. Something keeps him from doing it.

“Dude, don’t be a hero.” There is a sort of forced humour in Sam’s voice, as he puts his hand onto Dean’s shoulder. “I’m meant to be helping you. Keeping an eye on you.”

“Says who?”

“Ruthie for one. And Dad.”

“Dad?”

“Uh huh, that’s right,” Sam helps Dean to his feet while he’s speaking, and Dean just lets him because it’s easier than arguing, easier than having any pride, “he told me to make sure I take care of you. You’re officially on bed rest.”

“I don’t need to...” he doesn’t even bother to finish. He can feel it all through him, the nerves strung tighter than they have ever been, every part of him ready to snap. Dean knows he has to stop, just pause, if he wants to have the rest of his life safe in his arms, if he wants...

Sam strokes the back of his head and he realizes he’s standing still. “Midnight snack?”

“Just gotta... y’know. Little Sammy says I gotta pee.”

“Did you just call our son...”

“Don’t start with me,” Dean says, flinching. His neck hurts and his feet hurt even though he has been off them for hours. “Have to call the little guy something.”

“Dean...” Sam puts his arm around Dean’s back and gives him a small squeeze. It’s so gentle that he barely feels it. “Can we talk?”

“You might want to wait.” He draws away from Sam to head for the bathroom. “Two minutes.”

Sam catches him by the hands and pulls him close again. “Hey.”

“Uh. Hey?” It’s unnerving. Sam seems to be examining his eyes, like he’s checking for a concussion, very carefully, as if taking in every detail. Then he smiles and kisses Dean’s hairline.

“I’ll wait.”

Sam fixes some spaghetti and insists that Dean eats it, actually places the plate on his lap and sits down next to him on Bobby’s couch. It’s not right. Being here without Bobby, it feels like they’re intruding, invading on his space. Trespassing.

“Maybe... we should go home...” Dean suggests quietly, twirling a strand of spaghetti on his fork. He isn’t hungry. Isn’t really anything except... low. He’s so low down he can’t feel his way back to those brief minutes when he felt special and blessed.

Special is a word reserved for other people.

“It’s better we stay here.” What Sam means is safer. He means that Bobby has all sorts of protective charms laid out on his land, all sorts of blessings said in advance of anyone being here. They are in the safest place they could possibly be, and Dean just has to get over feeling like they should be anywhere else.

Dean puts a forkful in his mouth and the taste runs blandly across his tongue. “You said Dad called?”

“Bobby’s doing good.”

He wants to perk up at that, but he can’t. There is a weight inside that keeps it away from him, the hint of happiness he needs just to keep going, just to function. “That’s great. He awake?”

“They’re keeping him under until he’s... in less danger.” Sam is more concerned than he is letting on, but Dean can tell. He can tell it from how their conversation is so stilted, so unnatural, almost unreal. Like a bad dream. This is the worst sort of nightmare, not being able to just lay it out there and say to Sam... something. Something that will put across that all Dean needs is for his whole personality to be rewritten.

I’m not a bad person. All Sam could possibly tell him is some logic that won’t be comforting and won’t bring him around.

“Dad said some other stuff,” Sam puts his plate on the floor and checks his watch, turns to face Dean. “Are you done? Could you maybe eat a little more? I made a lot. Stupid amounts. Bobby only owns huge cookware.”

Dean shakes his head and puts his own plate down next to Sam’s. “What else did Dad have to say?”

“It’s late.”

“Late ain’t a problem for us. I got nowhere to be tomorrow.”

Sam looks like he was expecting this. “You have an appointment with a mattress right now.” It sounds like the lousiest pick up line in history, and Dean can’t find it within himself to point this out. Sam nearly smiles at him, a subtle twitch of the lips. “You’re not going to tell me how lame that sounded?”

He gulps more than swallows, something hard and sharp in his throat. His mouth tastes of blood and the bruises on his back are aching.

“Here,” Sam puts his hand on Dean’s thigh, “why don’t you just lie down here? Let me rub your feet, huh?”

That sounds preferable to walking upstairs again, but Dean shakes his head. He breathes and the air seems to... it just squelches into him. “Sammy.” Here it is. The damn hormones shaking him up inside, getting the better of him. Yet he can’t just put it all down to that, down to his son messing up his circuitry. This is him, with his own sense of self-blame and his own doubts.

In a moment he tries to catch in his hand, he can see his mother as clear as if she were only with him yesterday and he wants her to tell him whether she was scared. When she knew she had to let go of him, of her baby... Did it scare her? Or do women just know that it’s okay, that the time is right, that... Dean is surely lacking some deep knowledge. That’s why he’s such a mess.

Can’t look after the family you got already. Something makes you think you can give some poor kid a chance in hell at a good life?

Sam is gripping him. “I’ll take your socks off. Pretty soon you’ll be reaching your own feet again.” He laughs, very tightly, and rubs down to Dean’s knee. This is how things come unstuck, every time. It’s Sam. How hard he tries, how dedicated he is.

Dean inhales and riding out on the exhale there is a wash of tears. He can’t. He is done crying his guts out like a girl, done with it. Still it emerges, a couple of tears gathering in his eyes.

I don’t know how to do this, Mom.

“Hey,” Sam puts his arm around Dean’s shoulders, “you know you’re gonna be great. You know. Dean. You raised me. You took care of me. I’m still breathing. You can do it again.”

It’s different now. As a kid, Dean was cocky, he was young and full of the certainty that he was on the right path. His whole thought process was never die, never fail. Now he’s got the taste of failure, so it’s just... stay alive. At any cost. At the cost of anyone, right?

Not deliberately. Never, never on purpose.

“Just need to sleep,” he mumbles, rubbing his fingers across his eyes. “What did Dad say?” the focus has to be on anything else but him.

“Just that Bobby...” His little brother takes a moment and Dean has to look at him, to see the hurt, before he’ll carry on. “The demon. When it was in Bobby...”

I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. Dean steels himself.

“Told him you’d gone outside.”

Dean jumps. “But Dad knew we were upstairs, Sammy. He could hear us.” But is it that much of a stretch, to imagine Dean would be that stupid? To wander off.

Don’t be a hero.

Sam rubs the back of his own neck and scowls. “That’s the thing. That’s why it was smart. The demon possessing Bobby. Dean, come on. Like any of us was going to think it was in him? So Dad just believes him, heads off, opens the front door... next thing he’s coming to hearing you screaming.”

“So... so what happened?”

“Truth? Truth is, I’m not sure Dad’s even sure.”

“That’s... really goddamn helpful.”

“Dean. Who’s it meant to be helping? Me telling you this? Lie down.” Sam taps Dean’s knee, not as gently as they usually touch. This time, Dean can’t think of any more questions to ask, anything that will make him feel remotely better.

The slightly more than uncomfortable pain in Dean’s lower back, where he guesses the bruises are, gets worse when he relaxes into Sam’s instruction, but he disguises it with a yawn, puts his feet into Sam’s lap and watches his brother pulling his socks off for him.

“My feet itch,” he says, and he sounds pitiful.

Sam’s nails rake down the bottom of his right foot. “I can make that better.”

Dean is almost sure he has programming in the depths of his mind, because he goes through the next two days without knowing what he’s doing, what is going on around him, and yet he’s functioning at a much higher level than he has been. He eats what Sam puts in front of him, he sleeps through half of the daytime and all of the night time, he pretends to read books that tell him giving birth is beautiful and natural without even thinking what a load of crap that is, especially given his situation. When he is conscious, he spends a lot of time tidying Bobby’s house up, trying to make it look good and habitable.

Dean’s ideas of what is habitable have changed so much over the past few months. It would make him smile on another day.

He talks to John on the telephone a couple of times, but the conversations seem... weird. Worse than the ones he tries to have with Sam. Dean’s answers sound flat because John’s questions are too searching, too caring. They make his whole body want to curl away and yearn forwards at the same time.

Once, only once, Dean asks, “How’d the demon get in, Dad?”

And there is no answer. One of those stupid little things, too much confidence, too much cockiness.

“You think it tried possessing you?” he presses.

John sighs. “It’s possible. Dean. But the possession wouldn’t be. Put your brother on.” That stings, but Dean understands, he figures that his dad doesn’t think he can handle hearing about Bobby. So he passes the phone over to Sam and goes back to bed.

Getting comfortable is impossible. No matter which way he lies, it hurts and he’s too hot all the time. Whenever Sam touches him it’s like he sizzles. Dean doesn’t want to be left alone, but he does... Nothing has any clarity.

On the third day, Sam comes upstairs and from the slant of the sun Dean works out that it’s almost noon.

“Bobby’s coming round,” Sam says quietly. “Dad thinks we should head to the hospital, hang out there a while. If you want to.” The suggestion – well, it isn’t so much a suggestion as a fact – lies heavily over everything Sam says: I’m not going anywhere without you. They’ve barely been out of each other’s sight recently.

Dean opens his eyes and the world seems... wrong. Like the bed frame has collapsed and he’s on the floor, except he is totally sure that hasn’t happened. His throat feels cracked. “Could you get... Sammy, think you could get me some water?”

It must be something in his voice, because Sam crouches down next to him and touches his forehead, then his cheek. His eyes are big. “Crap. Dean.”

“Just. The water? Then we’ll head out.”

“No. Stay here. Stay right here.” Sam stands and watching him makes Dean dizzy, watching his legs unfold all long. “I’ll be back in a minute. Lie still.”

Dean makes an effort to speak before Sam leaves the room. “Sammy. What’s the matter?”

He stops. Sam stops dead and raises his shoulders in what might be a shrug, what might be dismissal, all oh it’s fine just I forgot something, except it’s not. He looks back over his shoulder at Dean, eyebrows bunched with incredulity. “You can’t tell? Dean, you’re burning,” he flinches at the word and Dean keeps his eyes steady. “Your face. I’m just gonna make a couple of calls. I’ll be right back.”

Dean watches his brother walk out and touches his own face. He feels fine. A little sick, a little dizzy, nothing to write home about. Sam is just worrying too much. Dean closes his eyes and wishes. Wishes quietly that he was in a nice house where everything could be clean and neat. He can see himself living somewhere like that now, a real home, somewhere with neighbours who smiled at him and a good sized front yard. A comfortable couch and a huge bed for him and Sam to crash into at the end of a long day. A room for their son, somewhere he can draw on the walls and go nuts and have fun. A safe haven.

Damn.

His eyes snap open. Maybe he’s delirious. There is always going to be salt around the doors and rituals performed in the attic. A shotgun in the kitchen cupboard, up high where the baby won’t be able to reach.

So many things feel out of his limited reach, just at the point when he wants to settle down the most.