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There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
Bobby goes to see Sam on Friday. He used to go every Friday. It’s Sam, and Sam’s alone now, which isn’t good for him, and he’s half crazy, which nobody can really blame him for, so maybe Bobby feels a little bit like he owes the kid. Like maybe he’s all Sam’s got, but sometimes it’s like Sam’s all he has, too. He can’t stand to stay long because Sam makes him so fucking uncomfortable with all his shit about what he laughingly calls “Ground Zero” and his daily trips there to sift through the rubble picking bone fragments out of the ashes and those goddamn blobs of colored glass everywhere.
Bobby thinks maybe that’s the most disturbing part, all those little pieces of colored glass that used to be beer bottles and gin bottles and shot glasses. There’s one that sits on the windowsill in Sam’s kitchen by the table that has a Blue Willow china pattern on it, all twisted up and stretched from the heat. That one was probably an old woman’s teacup. How it ended up anywhere near the bar where Dean died is something best not thought about too much.
A person could go mad thinking about that shit. Just look at Sam.
Look at Sam and how he forgets to brush his hair most days, how he talks to himself in the broken speech of a lunatic who can never find the right words, how he taps his fingertips one by one to his thumb in the repetitive hand gesture he’s picked up only God knows where, how he goes around his apartment in a terrycloth bathrobe with a frayed hem that drags the floor and a pair of ratty sweats like some homeless bum. As tall as Sam is, Bobby wonders about that bathrobe. It’s baby blue with patches of faded smiley faces all over it and it must be six feet long all on its own. The only thing he can think is maybe Sam made it himself.
And the paper. The paper in the locks of every single door. Bobby knows about the paper. He knows that Sam’s only telling him half the truth when he says it’s to keep out the demons. Maybe it is, but sometimes when the little rolls of parchment fall out, Bobby picks them up and they’re blank. No spells, no notes, just a blank slip of paper waiting for someone to come along and leave a message on it.
Bobby even has a pretty good idea who that someone is supposed to be.
Leave it to Dean Winchester to not go quietly into that good night. Bobby doubts that Dean’s actually haunting Sam, he doubts that he’s actually a spirit, but he’s haunting Sam just the same because Sam can’t let him just go. Maybe that’s Sam’s fault, some misfiring synapses or badly stimulated neurons, but he rolls those bits of paper up in the locks of all the doors and Bobby wonders if sometimes he sees writing there where there’s nothing. Does he see Dean’s blocky letters there on the blank space? If he does, what does Dean tell him?
He wonders all of this, but he never says any of it aloud. He wouldn’t want to encourage Sam in his delusions. They aren’t healthy and somehow, some way, the boy needs to move on.
Sam’s wearing one of those pieces of glass on a cord around his neck when he answers the door for him and Bobby frowns at it. It’s pale blue, clear and round, the size of a silver dollar. He’s also wearing the smiley face bathrobe and looks like he hasn’t shaved in a week.
He doesn’t smile or say hello, he just stands back for Bobby to pass through the door, then closes it and works a piece of paper back into the keyhole.
Bobby expects the apartment to be a mess, but it’s remarkably clean and tidy. Everything in its place, everything just so, all the little glass blobs that are usually scattered across the surface of every table and shelf have been scooped up and put in mason jars. All except the ones Sam fashioned into wind chimes that hang in front of the windows to catch the breeze.
Sam walks by him into the kitchen and Bobby follows him, then halts in the doorway to stare. The walls last time Bobby was here were white and cracking, the table and chairs were old, unpolished wood discards that Sam found at the Goodwill store. They’re the same table and chairs, but they’ve been painted Easter egg colors and the wall is a funny shade of lavender. The whole thing looks like something from a child’s dollhouse. A very bizarre set up for Sam’s very own mad tea party.
“Sit down, sit down,” Sam says, waving Bobby toward the table. He’s got a cup of coffee and he pushes it into Bobby’s hands as Bobby sits. “One sugar, that’s all. That’s right?”
Bobby sips the coffee under Sam’s watchful gaze and nods. “Thanks.”
Sam smiles at him and sits down in the yellow chair. He taps his fingers on the tabletop and Bobby notices pink paint under his fingernails.
“Saw Chuck the other day. He said you were by,” Bobby says, thinking that’s as safe a topic as any right now.
Sam frowns and rubs a hand against the side of his neck. “He’s writing about us again.”
“I know that, but it ain’t his fault. He can’t help it,” Bobby says.
“I don’t care,” Sam says. “I don’t need him in my head. I don’t want him there. I got enough shit going on up here already without someone else poking around.”
Bobby’s quiet for a minute, just staring down at the black surface of his coffee, thinking maybe he should know when to shut up. “He said you and that angel boy, that Castiel, you’re getting close,” he says because he’s a fool and he doesn’t know when to shut up.
“See?” Sam says, and he knocks his fist against the tabletop once. “That’s my business. Mine.”
“Hey now, I ain’t saying nothing against it,” Bobby says, holding up his hands. “I worry about you, son. That’s the truth.”
“Well, don’t,” Sam says petulantly. “I’m fine.”
“You ain’t even a little bit fine,” Bobby says. “Don’t glare at me like that. Use your head and that big fat brain God give you and look around, Sam.”
Sam stares down at the tabletop and scrapes at the purple paint with his fingernail, saying nothing.
“Not many people gonna get you, Sam, you know that? Not many people gonna understand where you’ve been,” Bobby says. “You can tell them, sure, but that don’t matter. It ain’t something you can tell to a body that weren’t there.”
“So?” Sam says. “So what?”
“So nothing. So I think if you getting close to the angel, then that’s fine. Might even be good. Can’t really believe I’m saying that, but he sure could be,” Bobby says. “Ain’t anyone in the world gonna get what you’re going through better than him though, are they?”
“Shut up!” Sam shouts, his voice cracking as he slams his fist down on the table and gets to his feet. “Just stop it, okay? I’m not a fucking baby, Bobby. I don’t need… I don’t need to hear this. What are you, Doctor Phil now? Doctor Ruth? Just stop it.”
Bobby stares at him in surprise. He blinks, says nothing more, and sips his coffee.
Sam paces away from the table and stands in front of the window, looking out. He drags his hands through his hair, pulling it back from his face, and his elbow hits the wind chime over his shoulder, making the glass tinkle and sway.
“He’s gone,” Sam says.
“You sure?” Bobby says.
Sam shoots him an irritated glare. “I made him leave. He’s gone.”
Bobby thinks about that. “Okay,” he says carefully.
“I can’t,” Sam says. “I can’t be… I can’t do… I just… I’m so fucked up, Bobby. I just can’t. I can’t.”
Bobby nods and lets him talk. Strangely enough, this is probably the most sane conversation he’s had with Sam in a long time.
“Maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t have made him go,” Sam says. He turns around, his hip on the windowsill, and crosses his arms over his chest.
He’s hunched in on himself defensively and Bobby takes all that in and it breaks his heart a little. Sam used to be bigger than life. He was calm under fire and a hell of a force to be reckoned with, but not anymore. These days, he’s the cracked wall left over after the bombs have dropped, the one no one quite knows how to put back together.
“I can’t sleep,” Sam says. “It used to be because it was so cold all the time, but it’s not anymore. It… he… it stopped that. But now… now it’s because it’s different. I got used to it, Bobby. To him. How could I do that?”
“Nothing wrong with that, Sam. You’re moving on and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Bobby says.
“Yes there is,” Sam says. “There is. What about Dean? It’s supposed to just be that easy, to just… just move on?”
Bobby sits forward in his chair and puts his hands flat on the table, staring hard at Sam. “Yes,” he says. “It’s supposed to be just that easy and just that fucking hard, but either way, you do it. Dean ain‘t got no business here anymore. His business is done. Now you can either roll over and die or you can accept that.”
“Make him accept it then,” Sam says. “He won’t. He won’t stop and he won’t leave and he’s driving me crazy, Bobby, but he’s still here. And he’s sorry. He said he was, you know, after. Cas, he said… he said put the paper back in the locks and he’d say he was sorry, and he did. He did, so how can I… I can’t want him to go after that, can I?”
“Boy, listen to me and listen up good,” Bobby says, tapping his finger on the table for emphasis. “You listening?”
Sam nods and huffs out a tired breath. “Yeah.”
“Your brother is dead,” Bobby says. “Only thing keeping him alive is you. That ain’t about Castiel, that’s all you.”
“Chuck says I’m giving him migraines,” Sam mumbles. He smiles a little at that and shakes his head. “He called the other night when I couldn’t sleep. He was really pissed.”
Bobby raises his eyebrows and picks up his coffee again to drink. It’s turning cold, but he does it mostly to have something to do besides talk. Sam makes him feel like he’s doing nothing but talking out his ass most of the time anyway. “I imagine so,” he says. “You keep on, his heads likely to pop something.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He sounds defeated, but he looks worried and Bobby thinks to himself that this isn’t over. This thing, Castiel or Dean, it’s not done. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Bobby says.
“For being so nuts. I know… I know you don’t come over because of that,” Sam says. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be crazy, Bobby, you know? But I think… it was probably always going to happen anyway.”
They, Sam and Dean both, had held onto their shredded sanity a lot longer than even Bobby had expected them to, so he kinda figures Sam’s right. But it does bother him to see it, he’s right about that, too.
“I’m sorry then, too,” Bobby says. “I should come by more.”
Sam rubs a hand over his nose and shrugs. “It’s okay.”
Bobby gets up, the legs of his pink chair scraping on the floor as he stands too quickly. He stands there looking down at Sam, who just looks back at him and doesn’t get up. Then he clears his throat. “I should get going,” he says.
Sam doesn’t ask him why or try to make him stay, he just nods and finally gets up to go with him to the door. He has to put the paper back in the lock when Bobby’s gone.
Bobby opens the door and passes the paper to Sam, who takes it.
They both stop and stare at Castiel standing there in the hall on the other side of the door. He looks haggard and uncomfortable, dark circles around his bright blue eyes and his trench coat full of holes and tears he hasn’t bothered to fix. He only gives Bobby a passing glance before his eyes settle on Sam and somehow seem to sharpen.
Bobby looks over at Sam and there’s a stunned expression on his face. It quickly fades and right before his eyes, everything about him changes a little. His tense and rigid body language dissolves and he looks relived and glad in a way Bobby hasn’t seen him look in years.
“Can I come in?” Castiel asks. His hands are in his coat pockets and he is clenching and unclenching them in a nervous gesture. One that looks real and not like a human habit he’s imitating. “Sam? Please. I’m very tired.”
Instead of answering, Sam reaches for him and Bobby hurries to get out of their way. Castiel just seems to slump into his arms when Sam touches him and Sam catches him, holds onto him, and both of them have forgotten that Bobby is even standing there. Sam’s dropped the curl of paper from the lock to the floor and Bobby looks down at it and can just barely make out the blocky printed letters of Dean Winchester’s handwriting.
It could be from something old. A note Dean left Sam one night in a motel room somewhere when they were on the road because he wanted a drink and maybe a girl for the night, but didn’t want Sam to worry if he woke up and found him gone. A list of supplies, perhaps. Something to cast a spell or maybe just groceries with a little extra salt thrown in just in case.
It could be a lot of things, Bobby knows, but he doesn’t think so. He thinks maybe Dean wrote something on that piece of paper for Sam while they were in the kitchen.
Sam doesn’t see it. He leaves it on the floor and his hands are holding Castiel’s face and he’s whispering something to him. Something that sounds like, “What do you want?”
Castiel shakes his head and pulls him closer with his hands gripping the open folds of Sam’s bathrobe. “Don’t ask stupid questions. The answer hasn’t changed.”
Bobby suddenly feels like an intruder. He starts to tell Sam goodbye, then realizes it’s unnecessary. He isn’t even there to Sam anymore. He’s already gone. Instead of saying anything, Bobby just leaves. As he reaches the stairs, he hears the door close and when he looks around, both of them are gone and the little curl of paper lays forgotten on the carpet.
XXX