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It's 6:30 am. August, not July. Nearly September now, though Dean will be damned if he can recall the day. They're in Philadelphia, where the crowds are bigger and the breeze is just a little cooler than it was on the east coast.
They managed to fall asleep maybe half an hour ago, and his bladder is abruptly killing him before he's even fully awake. He stumbles from bed and feels his way across the hall to the bathroom in the dark. He reaches out to brace his arm against the plaster wall, standing over the toilet for five minutes before he realizes his bladder is contracting around nothing. Evidently, he doesn't need to piss, but try telling his kidneys that.
He waits a full minute just to be sure. Long enough for his eyes to adjust to the little bit of light emanating from the bulb mounted over the sink. Long enough to shake. Long enough to lean up on the balls of his feet and slam his heels back on the ground.
Nothing.
Nada.
He really hopes this isn’t the clap. He can live without explaining that to a doctor. Or to Abby. Or to Betty.
With a final sigh of defeat, he tucks himself away and turns back toward the bed room, blinking as the night-blindness recedes and he can pick out the different shapes of the room, objects cast in silvery shadow. The sliver of daylight they have bleeding through a break in the curtains drops off at the window sill before cutting across Jerry’s shifting form on the next bed.
Sleep is usually when he sees the kid relax – fingers still, full lips slack, every limb ceasing to shake, nerve endings called a cease fire.
Not today.
When Jerry dreams, he has a habit of dreaming out loud – Dean had learned that the hard way in Atlantic City. His brow is furrowed, shoulders tense, mouth tense. It’s then that Dean notices he’s twitching – really twitching, each movement more drastic, mumbling now. Whimpering. And getting louder. By the time those lips part on a scream, Dean is already sitting on the edge of the mattress, hands moving to pat his friend's face, the sides of his neck, to grip a bare shoulder.
"Jerry? Jer, wake up. You're having a nightmare, kid, wake up."
He bolts upward and Dean feels a bony chin slam into his cheekbone. His vision swims in the dark and he wraps himself around the flailing body next to his until the wriggling stops and he feels conscious, gasping breaths hitting his face.
"Paul?"
"It's me. Are you okay?" He reaches out tentatively, grabbing an arm just above the elbow, moving around to a sharp shoulder blade (where anyone else might have a some muscle mass and where Jerry has freckled skin over long, spindly bones connected with what Dean's 90 percent sure are rubber bands). He rubs up to the shoulder and down again, soothing. The twitching continues, slowing to a mild tremor.
“Are you okay?”
"I pissed the bed."
Dean’s bladder clenches again sympathetically. He’s abruptly glad they convinced Abby to spring for the double across from the floor’s shared bathroom.
“Oh jeez,” Jerry murmurs, clearly mortified. Dean strokes his back once more before sliding his arms under Jerry's, leaning back to edge off the mattress and pull the younger man with him.
"Go get yourself cleaned up, pally. I'll strip your bed for you."
Jerry stumbles into a standing position and all but runs to the tiny room. No ‘buy it dinner first,’ no jokes about burlesque houses, just more hurried breathing and the slam of a particle board door in an uneven frame – first one, then the other across the hall. He winces at the noise – at least it’s late enough the rest of the hotel is probably already awake.
Dean makes quick work of the sheets, yanking at the corners and bundling them into a single, misshaped lump that can be easily shoved through the laundry chute. He grabs the laundry bag in his other hand, and a set of shorts before stepping out of the room. The hotel hallway is empty as he makes his way, nose wrinkled against the faint whiff of ammonia that makes it up to his face.
He knocks on the bathroom door once once, waits for an answer on the other side. Nothing.
“You ran out without a change of clothes, pally. Let me in,” he says, knocking again.
There's no answer. He can hear water running through the thin door.
"Jer-sy? Kid?" This time, he reaches for the door knob.
The knob turns easily, unlocked. He waits a full ten seconds before pushing the door open, hitting the edge of the sink basin on the way.
Jerry is sitting up in the tub, bony knees up near his chest, still as a statue as water pours from the faucet, eyes down, tousled hair thick with pomade falling stiffly over his forehead. Dean reaches over to turn the knobs, shutting the water off with a scream from creaking pipes. The water is half an inch from the lip of the tub. It’s probably a good thing Jerry’s sitting still – he’d be slipping all over the tiles.
“At least wait for me to build the ark before you flood the place," he says, leaning against the sink basin. "Sorry, that’s an old Sunday School joke, you might not get that one.”
He waits for the comeback, waits for Jerry to remind him that his people were the ones that wrote the book he’s talking about and Dean’s people up in Rome just borrowed and neglected to return it – along with the majority of Europe’s privately-owned art work.
Nothing.
Nada.
Okay, now he’s starting to get worried.
Jerry continues to sit as Dean meanders around the bit of the bathroom the tub doesn't fill. He’s still there when Dean comes back from throwing the sheets down the linen chute, and returning the laundry bag (now with Jerry's clothes) to their room, knees near his chin now with his arms locked around the top of them. His eyes are focused on the surface of the water, not moving. Dean tamps down the urge to pick him up out of the water and carry him back across the hall to their room. He grabs the drinking glass from the bathroom counter and sits down on the floor next to the tub instead.
"Sit forward a bit for me, pally," he says, keeping his tone warm and friendly. Nothing amiss here. No need to be alarmed. "Chin down. I'm going to wash your hair. All right?"
Jerry doesn’t object – he doesn’t even look up. Dean clenches his jaw, resisting the urge to ask again.
The motor mouth isn't talking. He's known the kid for more than two years -- Jerry has never not been talking. He's babbled at him through the bathroom door more than once. Dean laughed his head off the one time Sonny threw a blanket over him, reasoning that it had worked for his mother’s parrot. To ask him a question and not have three answers at the ready, each one fighting to escape… It's more than a little troubling.
He empties his bath kit instead, lining the items up on the cracked tile floor: soap, shampoo, Vitalis, aftershave, baking soda. There’s about five drops of shampoo left in the bottle and, after an initial weak scrub, he finally augments it with the baking soda. He pushes his hands through his young friend’s tussled pompadour, the citrus from the pomade coming off on his fingers and assailing his nostrils.
"I'm going to smell like oranges for days," he sniffs, flicking some of the thicker suds from his fingers and watching them stick to the surface of the water. He’s not complaining. It’s a hook, really. Set up the line and see if his partner follows up with all the other things he smells like that are a lot less pleasant than oranges…
Jerry's scrawny shoulders pull forward in answer, withdrawing. Dean runs a thumb along the back of his neck, soothing in time with his friend's pulse. He does that for a while – his other hand stroking the damp hair rather than scrubbing.
"I don’t really mind,” he says. “I don't think much of the flies, though. You might do better if you switch to Brylcreem."
"It makes my hair go flat," Jerry's voice is thick with disuse (all of twenty minutes since he last said a word).
Dean smiles, relief flooding him with every coarse syllable. He sends a silent 'thank you' toward the ceiling. The suds from the shampoo are gone, choked out by the baking soda worked through Jerry's locks – which are long, even by their industry’s standards.
"So get a haircut," he taps him under his chin. "Head back. We’re rinsing."
Jerry does, giving him an inverted view of eyes closed on a wince, long eyelashes, damp hair pointing stiffly down towards the edge of the tub. He pours the water over his brow line once, twice, finger-combing the clumps of soap suds through the kid's hair.
"I could always cut it for you," he offers. "I learned a few key tricks from hanging around my dad's shop over the years."
"I like my hair." His eyes flutter shut and there’s tension around his mouth as Dean smooths it back from his forehead, pushing a few stray locks off his neck.
"I like it, too – if I ever want to grab something from a high shelf, I can stand on your head for a boost. But, I ain't crazy about the insect sanctuary."
“Will rubbing alcohol keep ‘em away?”
Rubbing alcohol. Dean shudders internally, recoiling from an ancient sense memory. The girls in his junior high class had used it to remove wads of gum from their hair -- one more reminder of just how young his pal really is. And how badly he apparently wants to avoid a haircut.
“Probably,” he finally says. “If you want your hair to dry up and fall out in the meantime.”
“I ain’t going to soak my head in it! Just maybe dab a little bit here,” Jerry draws two slender fingers across his temples and the slope of his forehead. “And here.”
“It’ll take care of your acne,” he refills the glass and pours it back over Jerry’s head, eliciting some comic sputtering. He smiles as he squeegees the last of the suds through, finger-combing them out, tucking some of the longer strands behind his young friend's ear. "But I’m not sitting next to you if you do that.”
“I don’t got acne! Oh...”
"What? What is it?"
"Ears."
Dean frowns.
"One, two,” he counts, tapping either side of his head, grabbing one loosely between his thumb and forefinger. “Same as I’ve got. What? Are yours detachable?”
"Ohhh..." he shudders, water splashing as his knees pull in protectively, a rash of goose flesh breaking out over his neck and down both shoulder-blades.
Not detachable. Sensitive.
Dean drops his hands abruptly.
“I think it might be time to dry off.”
"Yeah, good idea." The kid stands up in the tub, accompanied by a lot of splashing, rivulets of water streaming down his arms and legs. He has the bath towel around his waist and his knotted tightly before Dean can even stand up. When he finally does get to his feet, he grabs a dry hand towel from the ring on the wall and rubs it through Jerry's thick hair, blanching water droplets that spring from the ends, studiously not looking down.
“I've got it,” he says, gripping the towel, shaking Dean’s hands off like a startled horse.
“You’ve got the rest of it?”
"Yeah," he nods.
“Okay. Your shorts are on the sink. I'll leave the door unlocked."
Dean walks back to their room and climbs back under the covers, staring at the hated sun light cutting through the darkness from the break in the curtains. Jerry reappears in the doorway ten minutes later, shorts on, the towel used to dry his hair still around his neck.
"You're bunking with me tonight, pally," Dean says. "Housekeeping will bring us new linens later. Get the curtains?"
Even in a hotel that's a little more upmarket than the one they left in Atlantic City, it's an optimistic assessment. He hopes Jerry is just drowsy enough to go along with it.
He does, throwing the room back into full darkness before falling over on top of the blankets, scooting up and back like an inchworm to pull Dean's sheet over him – all elbows and knees and damp hair. Dean shakes his head before turning over onto the side closest to the wall, giving his partner that extra bit of space.
The kids hand strays underneath the pillow, eyes widening a fraction.
"Where's my--?"
"In the drawer, next to the Gideon bible,” Dean answers. “If it's all the same to you, pally, I'd like to keep it that way."
Jerry sleeping with a gun under his pillow was something he'd heard a few people talk about, but never seen hard evidence of until tonight. When said pillow was this close to Dean's own head, he definitely drew the line.
“Okay,” the kid nods in the dark. Message received.
"What's it for, anyhow?"
"It's an old habit. I was on my own for a while, particularly after Grandma died. Do you know how many times we had a swastika painted on our mail box?"
"You don't carry that thing around on stage, do you?" He was reasonably sure he didn’t anyway. In the handful of years he’d known him, Dean had never stopped to wonder what the funny kid who did the record act wore under his costumes.
Not much, anyway.
"I don't need it out there."
"Just in here?"
Another nod – jerky, instinctive.
"No, you don't.” Dean says it with conviction, giving each syllable weight.
Jerry looks dubious, panicking at the edges, on the verge of launching a vehement retort with fireworks and rattling foundations. He reaches out in the dark, fingers closing around a sharp elbow and pulling his partner over to lay against his side, damp hair under his chin.
“Whoa there, Paul—“
“Shut up. You were about to topple off the edge. What was the nightmare about?"
The moment of hesitation is shorter this time.
"My mom," he answers. "She was playing piano in a bar somewhere."
Mom. Okay, that explained some of it.
Dean knows Jerry spoke with his dad on the phone yesterday. He knows that, after a year and a half of virtual silence for the son who had eloped with a Catholic girl and given them a half-Italian goy for a grand-baby, Ma and Pa Lewis had suddenly reappeared, on the crest of what was looking to be a serious success for both him and Dean, asking for show tickets and accommodation. Or not asking, if the bit of the conversation he’d been able to overhear through the haze of interrupted sleep was any indication.
He knows that it ate at Jerry to say yes and that his father, in particular, has been less than gracious about the whole thing. He also knows shaking the truth out of him will do neither of them much good.
"She’s that bad, huh?" he asks instead, breaking the silence.
Jerry sputters a laugh against his shoulder. He waits until the giggling dies down to ask his follow up question.
"Did she try to sing, too?"
He laughs harder, face turning into the pillow, hand reaching out to grope Dean's shoulder and to comedically paw his face and hair.
"Terrible," he finally manages, lifting his head, out of breath. "Why do you think I play the trumpet?"
Dean slants his lips wetly across his partner’s forehead, arm sliding up to drape across a pair of scrawny shoulders, providing cover as well as comfort.
"Go to sleep, knucklehead."
“Good night, Paul.” he says, voice damp, distorted on a yawn, with the edge of what might be gratitude.