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The funny thing was, they weren’t even hunting anything. They had finished up a job in southern Cali and were just driving through Nevada, on their way to stay with Uncle Bobby for a few days. Minding their own business, not that it made any difference.
Dean was staring out the window, bored as hell with the flat, unchanging scenery but with nothing better to do. Not even the Zeppelin Dad had on loop helped with the monotony, and Sammy was an annoying presence in the backseat, leaning up and breathing in Dean’s ear and spouting off stupid facts that he’d learned about the desert from his second grade teacher, Mrs. Keaton.
One minute Dean was contemplating turning around and giving Sammy a noogie, and screw the argument that would cause—at least it’d be a change, for crying out loud—and the next moment the radio was blaring static. Dean glanced at it, startled. Dad frowned, reached for the knob, and the sound cut off before he could touch it.
So did the engine.
The highway ran straight as an arrow—had for the last two hours—so they weren’t in any danger as they coasted to a stop. Dad’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, though, and Sammy had gone still and quiet in the back seat. Dean’s stomach was knotted with something that felt suspiciously like fear.
When the car finally rolled to a stop, they all sat there for a moment, and then Dean offered, “It doesn’t have to mean anything. We probably just overheated.” Dad didn’t say anything and he added, with a touch of wounded indignity, “It’s the middle of the day!”
Dad gave him a glance and, even though there was no censure in it, Dean flushed, ducking his head. Dad’s hand immediately settled on the back of his neck. The touch was uncomfortably warm now that the engine was off and the AC gone.
“We’re gonna play it safe anyway, tiger,” Dad said.
“Yes, sir,” Dean muttered.
“Now, I want you to stay in here while I check things out, okay? Keep an eye on Sammy?”
There was a soft rustle from the backseat. Sammy wasn’t quite old enough to protest being passed off from one minder to another like a sack of potatoes, but he didn’t like it much either. Well, it was his own damn fault for not even bothering to try learning anything that Dad tried to teach him. Still sulking over that missed Christmas last year, the brat.
“Yes, sir.”
“If everything’s clear, I’ll give you the high sign and you can come help me fix the engine, okay?”
Dean brightened a little at that. He wasn’t smart like Sammy, but engines he got. Even Bobby said he had a way with them. He bet he’d be able to fix whatever was wrong in a few minutes, tops.
“Sure.”
The hand on the back of his neck slid up to ruffle his hair and then Dad got out of the car, leaving the door open behind him so that they could catch the slight breeze. There wasn’t any immediate attack, but Dean knew from experience that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He watched as his father headed around to the trunk and pulled out both tool kit and salt container. Man, there had to be an easier way to dispel spirits than by tossing handfuls of salt at them.
With one arm hiked up on the back of the seat, Dean watched as his father started to lay a circle around the car. He hadn’t gone more than a few steps before the driver’s-side door slammed shut, and Dean jumped at the loud noise. Dad jerked too, spilling salt everywhere, and Sammy yelped in the backseat.
“That was the wind, right?” Sam asked in a little voice.
Dean tried his own door and it wouldn’t budge. He slid across the seat and grabbed the driver’s side handle. It wouldn’t move either.
“It won’t open!” he shouted, heart tripping over itself. Nothing was even hurting them and Dean was so terrified he was sweating. Or maybe that was just from the heat.
Dad shook himself free from his paralysis and dropped the salt on the ground. Taking two long strides, he grabbed the handle from the outside. His shoulder jerked, muscle bunching with the effort, and nothing happened.
When Dad raised his head to look at Dean, Dean could see his own fear reflected ten-fold in his father’s eyes. And anything that scared Dad was deep shit indeed. He could hear Sammy yanking at the back doors: Sammy’s breathing going ragged and panicked. Dean should be comforting him, doing the big brother thing, but he was too busy trying to get the front door open himself.
“Dad!” he pleaded.
Dad’s mouth firmed in a determined line. “Get back from the window, Dean.”
Dean swallowed, tongue three sizes too big and sticking to the roof of his mouth, and crawled back to his own seat. He watched as Dad picked up the wrench from the toolbox, came back over to the car, and brought it down on the window with a grunt of effort.
The window thunked dully and didn’t break.
That was it: no more pretending that this was just a case of mechanical failure and a strong wind. Dean could see from his father's increasingly stormy expression that Dad knew it too, but he hit the window a few more times anyway before chucking the wrench off into the desert. Then, dropping his hand down on top of the car heavily, he shouted, “Goddamn it!” in a voice that made Dean cringe.
“Dean,” Sammy whispered from the backseat. “Dean, I’m scared.”
It was enough to bring Dean out of his own fear. He crawled into the backseat, where Sammy had curled himself into a ball, and put his hand lightly on his brother’s sweaty back. “It’s okay. Dad’s here. He’s gonna kick Casper’s ass and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Sammy asked, lifting his head. His eyes were wet and swimming, but he wasn’t crying. Not yet, anyway.
“He will,” Dean repeated. “You gotta trust him.”
Sammy twisted so that he was clinging to Dean—way too hot for that kind of shit, but the kid was scared so Dean didn’t complain—and didn’t say anything. Probably for the best, since Dean was well aware that ‘trust’ and ‘Dad’ weren’t really things that Sammy was putting in the same category these days. That was okay; Dean had enough faith for both of them.
“Dean,” Dad called hoarsely from the driver’s side.
It took a moment, but Dean managed to detach himself from Sammy’s grip and climbed up front again. “Yes, sir?”
Dad was leaning down so that he could look Dean in the eye, and there was a wild gleam to his father’s gaze that Dean didn’t like. “There’s two bottles of juice underneath the back seat.”
Dean remembered, now that Dad had brought it up. One apple and one grape. In case he and Sammy got thirsty on the drive. And he was thirsty, he realized. Thirsty and hot.
Sitting in a locked, black car in the middle of the desert with the engine off and the windows rolled up.
Suddenly, the air seemed heavier, and Dean had to struggle for breath. “Dad,” he said, and it came out a whimper.
“I need you to focus, son,” Dad told him. “You with me?” His gaze slid from Dean’s face toward the backseat—toward Sammy—and Dean knew what his father was really asking him for. It was a struggle, but his chest loosened and the air came a little easier. Dean could do this. He could be brave for Sammy.
“Yes, sir,” he said. This time his voice didn’t waver.
“Good. Now I want you to go into my duffle and get some shirts. Use the tape in the glove compartment to block out the windows. And you keep them blocked out until I come back here and open the door, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Dean agreed, although the thought of sitting in the hot, close dark and being unable to see what Dad was doing was almost unbearable.
“When you’re done with the windows, you boys drink that juice and you sit still and quiet. You can take your clothes off if it gets too hot, but otherwise don’t move. And for fuck’s sake, don’t cry.”
Dean stiffened, wanting to protest that he wouldn’t, he would never, but then he heard a stifled sniff from the behind him and knew that last hadn’t been directed at him.
Dad stared at him for another moment, so intent that Dean was left with the prickling sensation of being looked through (or being memorized, which was even worse), and then said, “You mind me, boy.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean said one last time, softly.
“Get going,” Dad ordered, straightening, and Dean heard Sammy unzip the duffel in the back seat. He slid over to the glove compartment himself, opening it and reaching in past Dad’s phony IDs for the duct tape. The handyman’s cure-all, Bobby called it.
It took some effort getting the shirts to stay with nothing more to work with, and it didn’t help that Dean was having trouble keeping his mind on what he was doing. He was too distracted by the dryness in his mouth, and the steadily rising temperature in the car, and the wretched panic in Sam’s eyes, and Dad’s movements outside as he stripped off his shirt and did something to the gas tank.
Dad was moving off down their back trail by the time Dean worked his way around to the rear window. Dean paused with all but the last corner taped up, watching as his father moved away at a steady jog without looking back. His shirt was a sopping, dripping weight in one hand; the hammer from the tool kit and the salt canister held awkwardly in the other.
Sammy pushed up next to him, hair plastered damply to his head. “Where’s he going?” he whispered, and Dean could tell from the quiver in his voice that he was about to start with the waterworks.
Pounding the last corner of the shirt into place, he turned around in the sudden gloom of the car and felt for his brother. Found Sammy’s cheek, the skin there too wet for it to just be from sweat.
“Hey, don’t cry, man. Okay? We’re gonna be fine. Dad’s taking care of it.”
“Dad left!” Sam protested. “Dean, he l-left us here, and—”
“He’s coming back, Sammy. Now stop it, okay? You’ve gotta … Dad said not to cry.”
“B-but I’m s-scared, D-Dean. We’re gonna d-d—”
Dean didn’t want to hear his little brother say that word, it was bad freaking luck to say shit like that, so he clapped one hand over Sammy’s mouth and hissed, “If you don’t stop right now, I’m gonna tell Uncle Bobby what a sissy you are.”
That did it. He could tell from the way Sammy’s mouth twisted determinedly behind his hand. Dad was in Sammy’s shit books, but Bobby was still awesome as far as he was concerned.
Licking his dry lips—pointless, no saliva on his tongue either anymore—Dean lowered his hand. “I’m gonna get the juice,” he said. “Stay here and don’t move.”
“Kay.”
Dean could see a little better now that his eyes were adjusting, but the inside of the car was still mostly a jumble of shadows. By the time he located the juice—rolled all the way to the front when the car came to a stop—he wasn’t sweating anymore, which was weird, and his head was starting to pound. That couldn’t be a good sign.
He wondered morbidly how hot it was in here now. Ninety degrees? Ninety-five? One hundred? Hotter? There was no real way to tell, and Dean didn’t really want to know anyway. Ignorance is bliss and all that crap.
There wasn’t quite enough light for him to see which bottle was Sam’s apple juice and which was his grape, so he just passed one of them over and said, “Here.”
Twisting the cap off of his own bottle, he discovered that he’d lucked out and chosen right. As warm as it was, the grape juice tasted like crap, but the liquid felt like heaven on his parched tongue and throat. He could hear Sammy drinking greedily beside him, pausing occasionally to draw in a gasping breath, and when he glanced over Sammy’s face was screwed up and so desperate that Dean’s chest gave a funny little clench.
He drank until he was halfway through his own bottle and then made himself stop. Sammy continued to gulp down his own juice, choking a little in his haste. Reaching out with one hand, Dean patted his brother on the back.
“Hey, man, take it easy, okay?”
Sammy coughed and shrugged away, but Dean could tell from the grimace on his brother’s face that was just because it was too hot in here for any kind of physical contact. Too hot for clothes, too, really.
While Sammy finished his juice, Dean recapped his and set it carefully next to him on the seat. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it into the front, then followed with his shoes and socks and shorts. He considered throwing his boxers over, too, but he wasn’t quite that desperate. Not yet. Even though his head was pounding worse than ever.
Sammy dropped his own, empty bottle on the floor and then, casting a quick glance in Dean’s direction, started stripping his own clothes off. When he was down to his own underwear, he sat gingerly back against the seat with a wince. Dean wondered if it would’ve been more comfortable if the seats were cloth instead of leather, and then decided that they’d pretty much be in hell either way.
“How’s your head?” he asked.
“Hurts a little.” Sammy paused, letting his eyes fall shut, and then offered, “I’m still thirsty.”
Dean had figured he would be. He knocked his fingers against the bottle of grape juice for a few seconds, considering, and then picked it up and held it in Sammy’s direction. His knuckles brushed his brother’s bare chest and Sammy jumped. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Dean couldn’t resist snorting out a laugh.
“You’re such a baby,” he said.
“Am not,” Sammy protested, glaring. It was reassuring. He couldn’t be too badly off if he felt up to arguing.
Dean bumped his chest again. “Take it.”
Sammy looked down at the bottle and frowned. “No. That’s yours.”
Dean clenched his jaw—sometimes Sammy could be so damned stubborn—and then schooled his face. In a light, bored tone, he said, “I’m cool. Tastes like shit warm anyway.” Sammy still looked dubious, but he was close to breaking now. Dean could see his hands twitching. “Just take it already, bitch.”
“Not a bitch,” Sammy muttered, but he took the bottle.
Thank God, because Dean wasn’t sure how much longer he could have resisted the urge to toss it back himself. Letting his hand fall, he dropped his head back against the seat.
The car was silent for a moment and then Sammy started, “Dean, you should—”
Dean interrupted him with a frustrated grunt and snapped, “Jesus Christ, Sammy, just drink the fucking juice!”
Sammy flinched and slid a little further away and Dean flushed guiltily. He didn’t apologize, though. Mostly because then he’d have to admit that he was upset because he was thirsty as hell, damn it, and he wanted his juice back. But people in Hell wanted ice water (God, don’t think that now), and Dean had a job to do here.
He averted his eyes while Sammy drank in near silence, just the sound of his throat working to tell Dean where the rest of his too-warm (but so wet) grape juice was going. Then there was the dull sound of the empty bottle hitting the floor and it was done.
After a few moments, he heard Sammy edge closer again. “Now what, Dean?”
“Now we wait,” Dean said, trying to sound confident. He couldn’t look at Sammy, though: didn’t trust himself not to give away the lie with his eyes.
Hurry up, Dad, he thought. Please.
“Dean?”
Sammy’s voice. Coming from far away.
“Dean!”
He sounded scared. Dean wanted not to care, but couldn’t quite make himself. He lurched back toward wakefulness: toward his body, which ached and felt swollen and bone dry, and his head that was stuffed full of cotton and a deep-seated throbbing.
“Sammy?” he groaned.
“Dean, there’s. I heard something.”
Dean blinked. It seemed darker in here now: he could hardly make out anything. It wasn’t any cooler, though, so it probably wasn’t night falling. Just a trick of the eyes, like the white, fuzzed splotches that kept dancing through his field of vision.
Geez, how much time had passed? And how hot was it now? How hot could it get in here? Dean didn’t know, couldn’t think straight, just wanted to go back to sleep.
“Dean,” Sammy said again, insistent, and pulled on his arm.
Dean forced his eyes open again and saw it. A darker shape looming up over the outline of the front seat. Felt a chill that touched not his feverish (don’t feel good, Daddy) body, but his mind and soul.
Shit.
Terror gave him the strength to move. Giving Sammy a shove that tumbled him over against the door (muffled complaint from Sammy), he scrambled after and all but sat on his brother, twisted around so that he could face off against the thing that was slowly killing them both. He wasn’t going to let Dad down. Not this time.
“You can’t have him,” Dean said.
“Dean!” Sammy shouted, squirming behind him. “Dean, what’s going on?”
Dean didn’t answer. He was too busy making out details he wished he couldn’t see in the dark: desiccated lips, skin like parchment over bone, patchwork hair. Hot, hungry, dry eyes.
It was just a kid. Maybe Sammy’s age. Maybe a little older.
No, it had been a kid. Now it was just a dead son of a bitch that was trying to kill them.
The shape leaned forward, over the seat. Reached out with a spindly arm that was nothing more than parched bone with a few leathery flaps of skin.
“Back the fuck off,” Dean rasped, trying to press back further himself.
Sammy made a weak noise of protest as he was squished against the door. Dean both heard the sound and didn’t hear it, head spinning and too filled with pain and confusing thoughts to leave room for anything but the ghost and doing his job.
The dead boy kept reaching, and Dean had never wanted Dad so much in his life. Or salt. Or anything he could use to keep it from touching him.
He twisted his head to one side, panting, and bone scraped his cheek. Dean couldn’t keep a panicked, disgusted sob from escaping his cracked lips and Sammy was babbling nonstop beneath him in a hoarse voice: what’s going on, let me up, it’s too hot, Dean Dean Dean
Dean. That wasn’t Sammy’s voice: too creaking and dry and in his head. Be my friend.
It was an order, not a question. Dean didn’t take orders from anyone but his dad.
Go fuck yourself, he thought, unable to make his mouth work. The hand left his cheek, but the withdrawal was immediately followed by a slithering noise that made Dean think of snakes and he knew that the thing was in the back seat with them now. He could smell it—could taste it: a sickly sweet scent like cloves and arid dust clinging to his parched throat.
Dean’s face was already averted, but now he shut his eyes as well. He didn’t shut them because he didn’t want to see the thing again (but he didn’t, Jesus he didn’t), but because the white explosions against the darkness had just multiplied into a supernova that made the pain in his head skyrocket. It was better in the dark. Not much, but enough that he could string a thought together.
Dean, the voice came again. I’m so lonely.
A hand closed around his bare ankle, hard enough that it hurt, that Dean could feel the grooves in the ghost’s bones, and Dean’s stomach clenched in a wave of nausea so strong it left him cramped and whimpering. God, he wanted to puke so bad but his body couldn’t seem to remember how.
Dean tried to kick free and couldn’t make his muscles work. His ankle was freezing where the thing was touching him, but the rest of him was burning up. His insides were dust dry, and there was so much pain, everywhere, like his bones were on fire.
“… stop …” he managed to croak, and then his voice crumbled to a fine powder.
There was a cruel titter of laughter in his head that sounded like a scorpion scraping over rocks. The hand around his ankle tugged, dragging him closer. He tried to cling to Sammy, tried to conceal him, keep him hidden, but he was being pulled free. In a moment, Sammy would see the thing and it would see Sammy and it would hurt him the way (Dad, Daddy, please help it hurts) it was hurting Dean.
Don’t hurt Sammy, he thought, half dazed. You can have me but don’t hurt him.
The dead boy laughed again. Come with me down in the ground in the dark in the heat won’t touch him if you come so lonely come with me come.
Dean would have been sobbing if he had the strength. As it was, all he could manage was another rasping breath as the thing’s other hand clamped down on his right calf, fingers digging in and drawing a trickle of blood that actually felt refreshing against his parched skin.
Come play, the thing insisted.
Dean could feel himself slipping. His hands worked without his permission, grabbing at the warm, living body beneath him and holding on.
“Dean!” Sammy cried out—could either see the thing now or was just protesting the clutch—and Dean thought, sorry, Sammy, sorry, and made himself let go.
He slid across the seat, impossibly long in this darkness, and heat was crawling through him, burning him dry and ramping the pain up to impossible levels. The Impala fell away from around him and he was in another car, smelling strongly of old pizza and cigarettes and booze. No, in the trunk, banging his fists against the metal until they were bloody and broken and screaming to be let out, he’d be good, he was sorry—
Then there was a high, agonized wail and Dean dropped back into the present, into the Impala. His eyes fluttered open in time to see the ghost disintegrating in a flash of cinder and smoke. He could smell his skin cooking where it still hung onto him, but thank God, it was going, going, gone.
“Dean!” Sammy was sobbing, and plucking weakly at his hair and arm. “Dean, are you okay? Dean!”
“… Dad said … don’ cry …” Dean rasped, and then some switch inside his body got flipped and he was shaking uncontrollably, head pushing back into the seat and legs and arms going wherever the fuck they wanted and he was cold, so fucking cold …
“Dean!” Sammy screamed, and then Dean was falling into the darkness where it was still and painless and safe.
He hurt again when he woke up: entire body aching like he’d been beaten. It was bright and he winced against the overhead lights, lifting one hand to shade his eyes.
“Dean, hey, son,” Dad said instantly, and large, calloused fingers closed over his wrist gently. “Relax.”
Squinting into the light, Dean gradually made out Dad’s face, his cheeks slightly damp and his eyes red. He let Dad put his hand back down onto the bed. Blinked in confusion at the bandages covering his father’s knuckles: at the raw, scraped tips of his fingers. Like Dad had spent a while clawing at rocks … or beating against the trunk of a car.
Dean turned his mind away from that thought, but not quite fast enough. He remembered everything now. The car, and the heat, and the ghost, and—
“Where’s Sammy?” he asked, struggling to sit up. “Is he okay, is he—”
“Shh,” Dad said, holding him down. “Stay still, Dean. He’s fine. He’s sleeping right next to you.”
Dean turned his head and found his brother curled up on the bed next to his. Sammy was lying on his side facing Dean, one hand up to his face and thumb in his mouth like he hadn’t done for years now, but he was alive. Dean hadn’t fucked up. He stared at Sammy for a moment, drinking it in, and bits and pieces of his surroundings started to filter in at the edges. He frowned, focusing more strongly on the white walls, and the rails around the beds, and the TV hung up by the ceiling.
“We’re in a hospital?” he asked, confused. He didn’t think that the ghost had gotten his legs that badly, burning smell aside. But now that he looked down at himself, there was an IV stuck in his arm and—he shifted his legs—bandages around his ankle and calf.
“You were pretty sick,” Dad told him. “Been out for about a day.”
“Oh,” Dean said, and moved his legs a little again. Mostly to make sure he could. “Sammy’s okay though, right?”
Dad had said yes, but Dean wasn’t quite ready to believe it. He wasn’t sure he’d believe it until he got over there and got his hands on his brother to check him over himself. Turning his head again, he tried to see if Sammy was hooked up the way he was.
“He’s fine,” Dad told him again, and it felt good hearing it. Dad’s hand came down on Dean’s head and soothed through his hair clumsily.
Dean knew he was a little old for that kind of thing, but his chest gave a happy little pulse of warmth anyway, so he relaxed into it, looking back up at his father and offering him a smile. “I told him you’d save us.”
Dad’s hand trembled on Dean’s head. “Yeah, Dean. Always.” Then he took a shaky breath and added, “Sam told me what you did,” in a completely different tone of voice: one that made Dean cringe down a little inside.
“What?” he muttered, dropping his eyes.
Dad took his hand off of Dean’s head and sat back in his chair. “Sam said you gave him your juice.”
Dean was startled into looking back over. If there was anything he was going to get in trouble for, he hadn’t thought it would be that.
“You didn’t say I was supposed to—”
“Bullshit,” Dad cut him off. “Don’t you play dumb with me, Dean. You knew I meant for you two to split that evenly.”
Dean fidgeted a little, twisting his fingers in the bed sheets. He felt guilty, because Dad was obviously angry with him, and yeah, he’d known what Dad meant, but …
But there was a standing order to protect Sammy, wasn’t there? That was Dean’s job. And it wasn’t one he was ever going to screw up again, not after the way Dad looked at him when he almost got Sammy killed in Fort Douglas.
He’d take any number of rebukes if it meant never seeing that look on Dad’s face.
“Sorry, sir,” he muttered.
Dad’s face twisted into an expression Dean couldn’t ferret out and then he sighed, leaning forward and rubbing his eyes with one hand. “I just—Dean, sometimes I just don’t understand the shit that goes on in your head.”
Dropping his hand into his lap, he fixed Dean with a look Dean read just fine. It was the one Dad always wore when he was giving orders he expected obeyed. “Don’t you ever do something so reckless and stupid again, you hear me? Number one rule: don’t get killed.”
The number one rule actually seemed to change quite a bit, depending on Dad’s mood, but Dean got the message.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
It was the first time he’d ever tried lying to his father, and it made him feel horrible inside, but he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t make that kind of promise, not when he knew that it would probably come down to a choice between obeying orders and doing his job. Sammy was always going to come first, that was just the way it was.
Thankfully, Dad didn’t seem to notice the lie. He grunted and gave a nod and said, “Good. Now what happened to your legs? Sammy said he couldn’t see.”
“The ghost showed up,” Dean admitted. Just thinking about those dead, dry hands made his heart beat a little quicker, but Dad was here, and it was bright in the hospital room, and his tongue felt like the right size in his mouth, and it wasn’t so bad he couldn’t make his report. “I pushed Sammy over so it couldn’t get him, but it grabbed me. It was holding on when it went up.”
Dad’s jaw tightened.
“Do you—do you know who it was?” Dean asked hesitantly. It didn’t matter, not really, but he sort of wanted to know anyway.
Dad shook his head. “Might never know. I’m just glad whoever dumped the body didn’t bury it too deep.”
“You fried his ass,” Dean said. He’d guessed as much when he saw the ghost go up, but it was reassuring to say it out loud.
“Toasted,” Dad agreed with a small smile, and laid his hand on Dean’s shoulder again. His smile deepened in a warm, proud way that lit Dean up from the inside out, and then he started to rise. “I’m gonna get the doctor in here to look at you.”
“No,” Dean protested, fumbling for his father’s hand. “Stay. Please. Just for … just for a few more minutes?” He felt like a baby asking for it, but … he didn’t want Dad out of his sight just yet.
Maybe some of his desperation showed in his eyes because Dad sat back down and put his hand back on Dean’s forehead.
“It’s okay, son. I’m not going anywhere.”
Dean closed his eyes and tilted into his father’s roughened fingertips and sighed. Five minutes later, he was half-asleep and sinking fast when lips brushed his cheek—scratch of beard—and Dad whispered, “God help me, but I can’t stop and I can’t give them up. I can’t.”
Dean wanted so badly to say that it was okay, he didn’t mind, he could be strong enough and brave enough, but he was already drifting off again, lulled to sleep by the low, muffled noises of his father’s sobs.