Shotgun Friendship - Part Four
“What? No.”
Leaving Dean sputtering his denial, Sam scooted out of the room, stopping in front of his father.
“You ready?” John asked quietly.
“Yessir.”
“Good boy.” John gave Sam a wink, ruffled his hair in approval and nudged him on down the hallway. When Sam was gone and Dean’s argument had pittered out, John leaned into the bathroom, propping himself up against the doorway.
“You’re gonna have your hands full with him,” John warned and grinned unashamedly when Dean jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Dad,” he gasped, clutching his chest dramatically.
“One of these days, Dean, he’s gonna be bigger than you and you’re gonna find yourself on the wrong side of the teasing.
“Naw,” Dean scoffed. “I don’t know what you saw, but that was nothing. Just a little friendly banter between brothers.”
“Sure it was,” John smiled knowingly.
“Besides, I let him have that one. It’s good for his ego to let him win one every once in a while, you know?”
“Uh huh. Are you ready to go?”
“Yessir,” Dean answered sharply, his eyes flashing with excitement. The boy was always ready for the job, and John loved that about his kid. Dean moved to leave, but before he could, John had wrapped a hand around his son’s arm, stopping him at the doorway.
“Just so you know, when you were little and your mom used to let your hair grow out…”
“Yeah?” Dean squirmed uncomfortably in John’s gentle grip; not liking the direction this story was headed.
“I used to braid your hair.”
Dean’s mouth fell open in shock and he protested vehemently, “Dad, that is not true!”
John shrugged, grinning. “Well okay, maybe I didn’t braid it, but you loved for me to run my fingers through your hair and twirl it about. It relaxed you; put you to sleep. You were a hard little bugger to get down for a nap.”
“You better not tell Sammy,” Dean warned, bravely wagging a finger in his father’s face. John threw his head back and laughed, the rolling sound filling every empty space of Bobby’s house to brimming.
“That’s not funny, Dad. Stop laughing.” Which only made John laugh more. Without another word, Dean stomped off down the hall.
Minutes later they were packed up and in the car, waving goodbye to their host. Bobby was stood on his porch, arms folded and mouth tight. John met his eyes and nodded a silent promise to drive carefully on the icy roads. He glanced across at Dean, happy and eager beside him, and then looked into the rear view mirror and watched Sam sprawl across the back seat, his latest book in his hand. Bobby was right to be worried. John had precious cargo.
“No.”
John walked quickly through the motel room, out the front door and to the car; followed immediately by an ever persistent fourteen-year-old Sam, who had to jog to keep up with John’s long steps.
“Dad please. It’s only six weeks and I promise, whatever Pastor Jim needs, I’ll do it. Please can I go?”
John popped open the trunk and lowered his duffle bag into the over-sized compartment. “We’ve been over this, Sammy. The answer is no. I told you; you’re not enrolling in summer school this year. I need you and your brother along on this hunt.”
“But Dad-”
“That’s enough, Sam,” John barked. “I don’t wanna hear another word about it.” He slammed the trunk lid closed. “Now get inside and pack your crap. We’re leaving in ten.”
He watched Sam swallow a cry of rage, turn on his heal, and stalk back into the motel room, pushing roughly past his brother in the process.
“Watch it, brat,” Dean chided. He carried his bag out to the car and adeptly caught the car keys when John threw them to him. Dean slotted the key into the lock and lifted the trunk lid.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do with that kid,” John groaned, stepping up beside his eldest son.
Dean shrugged. He lowered his bag into the trunk, carefully closed the lid, and then turned to look at his father. He leaned his hip against the rear end of the car, “He’s just gonna keep whining about it, you know. I don’t get why you’re so dead-set against Sammy doing this summer school thing.”
“You know why, Dean,” John frowned. Sam had a natural proclivity towards school, and although John could appreciate that, what he needed was for his youngest to develop the same appetite for hunting that Dean had. He was old enough now to be truly involved and it was important, not only for his safety, but for the safety of the entire family, that Sam was one hundred percent committed to the job. One wrong step, one failed attempt and someone could end up dead, and John wasn’t going to have that on his watch if he could help it.
“Yeah, I understand,” Dean acknowledged. “You need me and Sammy there on this job, but I don’t really think you do. I mean, I heard you on the phone last night, Dad. You said there’s gonna be a dozen other hunters on this one. Hunters with a hell of a lot more training and experience than Sam’s got.”
“He’s not gonna get any better unless he puts the time in. Maybe if you didn’t baby him so damned much-”
“I don’t baby him,” Dean argued. “Listen. All’s I’m saying is he’s green. The only thing he’s gonna do is get in the way, and this job is too big, too important for you or me to have to be worrying about what Sammy’s doing. It’s not like he’s never been left alone before. And he wouldn’t even be alone; he’d be with Pastor Jim.”
“Not you too,” John groaned.
“It’s important to him, Dad,” Dean cut him off before John could say anything further. “Plus…it’ll shut him up. He’s been nothing but a bitch for the last three days.”
“Dean,” John admonished. He’d always allowed his boys the freedom of expression, to a point anyway, but he could not abide them using foul language on each other. He depended on them to be a team, and being a team meant having respect for one another. Being respectful did not, however, mean that they didn’t have normal, big brother-little brother issues.
“It’s true, Dad,” Dean defended. “If I’d wanted this much drama, I’d have asked for a little sister.”
John rolled his eyes and swallowed down the smile that threatened to break across his face. “What exactly do you suggest I do, Dean? Let him run off for a month, playing pretend like he’s some normal kid?”
“Isn’t he?” Dean shrugged and John could feel his resolve giving way when Dean added, “Let him have this one thing, and I promise when it’s all over, I’ll work on him; make him understand that he belongs here with us.”
“Fine. I’ll let him have this; under one condition…you’re staying with him.”
“What?! Dad, no!”
“That’s the deal, Dean. You want Sammy to have this, you gotta stay and look after him. He stays, you stay.”
“What do you know about Banshees?”
There was a sense of urgency in John’s voice that made Bobby roll his eyes, because everything was urgent to John. Bobby sighed, slumping further into the couch with the phone pressed between his shoulder and ear. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Florida,” came John’s clipped reply. “What’s it matter?”
“It matters because depending on which folklore you’re goin’ by, you could be dealing with any number of things.” Bobby climbed to his feet and went to one of his many bookshelves. He ran his fingers over the leather bindings and gilded titles until he found the volume he was looking for, pulling it down from the shelf. “Historically,” he said, flipping through the pages, “a banshee is a death omen; a female spirit, sometimes a faerie who wails when someone’s about to buy the farm.”
“How do I kill it?”
“You don’t. It’s just an omen. It’s not actually causing the deaths, but now that’s Irish or Scottish folklore. Here on this side of the pond, we have a whole different variation of the lore. In The Americas, banshees tend to be viewed as -”
“Bobby! I don’t need a friggin’ history lesson! I just need to know how to kill the bitch. It’s taking kids, Bobby. It skins them and then eats them, and I need to stop it before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” Bobby asked when a shiver ran down his back. “What aren’t you telling me? John?”
“He’s missing, Bobby.”
“What?! You mean Sam?”
“We had a fight last night and he locked himself in his room. This morning, he was just…gone. Vanished. I thought maybe he’d run away again or needed to blow off some steam, but when he didn’t come back, I got to looking around and I found blood on his window sill.”
“What the hell is wrong with you two that you can’t get along? Didn’t you learn your lesson when he ran off this summer? You get him back, John,” Bobby demanded.
“I’m workin’ on it, dammit, but you gotta tell me how to kill this thing first. I’ve only got one chance. Screwing up is not an option.”
“Okay. Okay. Worst case scenario. You said it’s skinning the victims; these kids.” Bobby dove back into his book, scouring the pages for something that fit the M.O. “And eating them…like a ghoul? That makes sense. Here. Here. A Black Annis. It’s a type of banshee that feeds on children.”
He ran his finger over the words, speed reading through the available material, spitting out bits and pieces of information he felt might be important.
“S’gotta blue face, lives in an oak tree, steals the kids at night, sometimes right outta their own beds, and takes them back to her tree. But she doesn’t eat ‘em right away. She’s gotta fatten them up first; think Hansel and Gretel. She skins them before eating them. Hangs the skins out to dry in the tree; that oughta be easy to find.”
“But how do I kill it?”
“They call it a ghoul, so you treat it like a ghoul. Destroy the brain and then burn the bitch. Better safe than sorry.”
John grunted a response right before the line went dead. “You’re welcome,” Bobby complained to the empty room. “Better bring that boy back alive.”
He spent the next eighteen hours wearing a path into the faded floral rug that adorned his library floor. In the nine years that he’d known them all, there’d only been a handful of times in which he’d truly felt this worried; this out of control; this helpless, but twice in one year? That seemed a bit extreme.
-O-o-o-O-
It had all started in February after a hunt gone wrong. John had left Sam behind in Lincoln to do what Sam did best: research. What John hadn’t expected was for Sam - quite on his own - to stumble across the monster that John and Dean had been unsuccessful in tracking. Sam had made up some cock-n-bull story about how he’d found and dispatched the thing; none of which John believed of course, and afterwards John tightened the leash on Sam a bit. He didn’t know how Sam had come across the Kitsune, but he wasn’t willing to let it happen again. Not without backup. Sam was forced to come on each hunt after that, which put a big crimp in Sam’s plans.
At fifteen, the boy had already been preparing for high school and every missed day of class, was a missed opportunity and set Sam further and further behind. When John had broached the subject of Sam dropping out of school like his brother had done, Sam went ballistic. After the smoke had cleared, Sam was left grounded in their extended stay motel room, Dean was appointed babysitter, and John went off on a weeklong hunt alone.
Less than twenty-four hours later, Sam was gone. Two weeks they spent looking for him. Two hellacious weeks. Dean had about as close to a nervous breakdown as Bobby had ever witnessed and John was worse. When he hadn’t been out searching, John poured over the maps until he was passed out from exhaustion, only to be up and searching again in a few hours. He wouldn’t eat, barely slept, and hadn’t said a word to anyone in days.
Bobby meanwhile had talked to every contact in his book, called in every favor to aid in the search, but Sam had learned from the master and was virtually untraceable. It wasn’t until a convenience store clerk outside of Flagstaff copped to having seen a kid matching Sam’s description, that they had their big break.
The boy had been into the store on a regular basis buying junk food and paying cash, but as the days had worn on, the cash had dwindled until the boy had just stopped coming in altogether. The clerk had pointed in the direction that he’d seen him come and go and guessed that it had been about four days since he’d seen him last.
At that news, Dean had come unglued. What if Sam had moved on? Or worse, what if something had happened to him? Bobby was made to physically restrain Dean to keep the boy from going after his father, because there were some things that just had to be handled by an adult…just in case.
Two hours later, John returned; his hand gripped tight over the shoulder of his youngest son, afraid to ever let him out of his reach again. Sam had been found holed up in some ramshackle shed in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a dog for companionship. Out of money and out of food, Sam had been understandably - though cautiously - relieved to see his father. When they’d entered the motel, Dean pulled free of Bobby and bum rushed Sam, swamping him in a crushing hug. John followed suit, wrapping his long arms around both his sons, pulling them into his broad chest; his nose buried deep in Sam’s hair, breathing him in. The sight had pulled sharply at every heartstring Bobby had left in his careworn body and he collapsed down onto one of the room’s beds in relief.
Despite the seemingly happy reunion, their situation did not improve. As Sam had grown older, his relationship with his father had disintegrated into one of constant head butting. They’d argue about anything and everything, from the way Sam tied his boots to the way John demanded obedience without question. Sam was a stubborn child, a trait he no doubt inherited from his father. He was also a young man with dreams and goals, none of which included becoming a hunter, but none of this seemed to matter to John. The thing John didn’t understand about his youngest son was that Sam was inquisitive. He had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and had John just taken the time to explain things and teach his son rather than demand and order him about, Sam’s teen years would have started a helluva lot smoother than they had. Had he used an ounce of patience with the boy, John would have found himself fronting what could have possibly been the best hunting team out there. Instead, he had a son with one foot constantly out the door and another son who regularly put himself in the middle of his two remaining family members, trying like hell to uphold the peace.
-O-o-o-O-
For that reason, Bobby was more than a little anxious when he saw a familiar black car tearing up the road and in the drive, spraying rock and dust everywhere. Bobby snatched up his phone, dialing John’s number as quick as his fingers would let him and pressed the receiver to his ear while watching Dean out the front window.
“Come on. Come on!” Bobby complained into the phone.
Dean climbed out of the car and twisted at the waist, stretching the stiffness out of his back. He then reached into the back seat, pulled out a cloth and set about wiping off the road dust from the car’s glossy black shine. John had ‘given’ the Impala to Dean late that summer, buying himself an ’81 GMC pickup. It was a beast of a truck; a powerful 350 4x4 and John was enamored by it, but it was obvious to Bobby that the Impala would always hold a special place in the man’s heart, because he was constantly berating Dean about her upkeep.
“Answer the damn - John?”
The line connected and John’s voice cut through Bobby’s words, “Winchester.”
“About damn time. Please tell me you found him.”
“What? Oh…yeah, no. I’m sorry. I completely forgot to call you back. Yeah, I found him. He’s right here with me. Why? Did you wanna talk -”
“You…you forgot to call?” Bobby stammered.
“Yeah. Bobby, I’m sorry. I was just a little busy, what with the head bashing and brain splatter and God, if that ain’t the funkiest smell you’ve ever tried to wash off of your skin. I’m gonna be breathing that in for weeks. And…hey, Bobby? Are you still there?”
“You forgot to call.”
“Yeah. Wait. Are you alright?”
Bobby scoffed into the phone. “Nah. Everything’s fine…I guess.”
“Okay. If you say so. By the way, Dean oughta be showing up in the next twenty-four hours.”
“He’s here now,” Bobby replied. He starred dumbfound out the window, wondering how anyone could be as dense as John Winchester.
“Oh good. How’s my car? Is it in one piece?”
“From what I can tell.”
“That’s good. That’s good. Alright, well tell Dean, if you would, we’re on our way. We’re about 3 hours out of Orlando, gonna stop somewhere this side of the Georgia/Tennessee line and we’ll pick up again in the morning.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
“You sure you’re alright?”
“Never better,” Bobby deadpanned. He hung up without a word of goodbye, tossing the phone on the sofa. He grabbed his keys and a jacket off a hook on the hallway wall and stormed outside. Dean met him coming up the sidewalk, grinning from ear to ear and looking well satisfied.
“Hey Bobby!”
Bobby stalked right on passed, making a beeline for his Chevelle. “House is yours,” he tossed over his shoulder.
“You goin’ somewhere? Wait, Bobby.” Dean dropped his gear and turned to follow the older man down the walk. “Hold up. Where’re you goin?
Bobby turned the ignition over and the car rumbled to life, drowning out Dean’s voice. The young man leaned in the driver’s window and said, “I just got here.”
“Yep. And I’m just leavin’. Your daddy n’brother will be here tomorrow sometime. Don’t wreck my house and lock it up when you’re gone.”
“But where are you goin’?”
“Away.”
Bobby slid the car into gear and gave Dean just enough time to push himself clear of the vehicle before Bobby pulled away.
He left; going the way Dean had arrived, and didn’t spare the rubber on the tires as he peeled up the road. It was a cruddy thing to do to poor Dean - leaving him standing there, not knowing what had happened or why Bobby was leaving or where he was going - but the way Bobby figured, it was better to leave now than have to fill Dean in on a situation that he didn’t properly know the outcome of. It was better to leave before John returned, because Bobby couldn’t promise to hold his tongue. In fact, the way he was feeling towards John Winchester right then, he was pretty damn certain that if he did stick around he might even punch the man in the mouth. He’d get at least one clean shot in before being overwhelmed by the rest of the Winchester family.
All Bobby needed was some time to cool off and a bit of separation that would allow him to get his thoughts together and his head on straight. The problem was, he’d made a promise to himself a long time ago, on his knees beneath the American Elm tree his wife had loved so much. A promise to never love as deeply as he had loved her. To never again open himself up to the kind of heartache that seemed to follow his every footstep in life. And yet somehow he’d managed to do exactly what he’d set out not to do.
He hadn’t meant for this to happen; to let them in, this man and his sons. They had wormed their way into Bobby’s life and wrapped themselves around his heart not unlike the Virginia Creeper vines that were snaking their way up that Elm. They would dig their tendrils into his skin and bones until there came a time when he would no longer be able to cut himself free of them.
Bobby could admit now that that time may have already come and gone, because try as he might, he could not imagine his life without them. And didn’t that just burn his ass nine ways from Sunday? He was just going to have to make a concerted effort to curtail his time with that bunch. Step back. Don’t let himself get so involved. Reduce the risk of his heart getting broken, because it was bound to happen. Sooner or later one of them would get hurt, or worse, killed, and what would he do then?
Previous - Master - Next
Leaving Dean sputtering his denial, Sam scooted out of the room, stopping in front of his father.
“You ready?” John asked quietly.
“Yessir.”
“Good boy.” John gave Sam a wink, ruffled his hair in approval and nudged him on down the hallway. When Sam was gone and Dean’s argument had pittered out, John leaned into the bathroom, propping himself up against the doorway.
“You’re gonna have your hands full with him,” John warned and grinned unashamedly when Dean jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Dad,” he gasped, clutching his chest dramatically.
“One of these days, Dean, he’s gonna be bigger than you and you’re gonna find yourself on the wrong side of the teasing.
“Naw,” Dean scoffed. “I don’t know what you saw, but that was nothing. Just a little friendly banter between brothers.”
“Sure it was,” John smiled knowingly.
“Besides, I let him have that one. It’s good for his ego to let him win one every once in a while, you know?”
“Uh huh. Are you ready to go?”
“Yessir,” Dean answered sharply, his eyes flashing with excitement. The boy was always ready for the job, and John loved that about his kid. Dean moved to leave, but before he could, John had wrapped a hand around his son’s arm, stopping him at the doorway.
“Just so you know, when you were little and your mom used to let your hair grow out…”
“Yeah?” Dean squirmed uncomfortably in John’s gentle grip; not liking the direction this story was headed.
“I used to braid your hair.”
Dean’s mouth fell open in shock and he protested vehemently, “Dad, that is not true!”
John shrugged, grinning. “Well okay, maybe I didn’t braid it, but you loved for me to run my fingers through your hair and twirl it about. It relaxed you; put you to sleep. You were a hard little bugger to get down for a nap.”
“You better not tell Sammy,” Dean warned, bravely wagging a finger in his father’s face. John threw his head back and laughed, the rolling sound filling every empty space of Bobby’s house to brimming.
“That’s not funny, Dad. Stop laughing.” Which only made John laugh more. Without another word, Dean stomped off down the hall.
Minutes later they were packed up and in the car, waving goodbye to their host. Bobby was stood on his porch, arms folded and mouth tight. John met his eyes and nodded a silent promise to drive carefully on the icy roads. He glanced across at Dean, happy and eager beside him, and then looked into the rear view mirror and watched Sam sprawl across the back seat, his latest book in his hand. Bobby was right to be worried. John had precious cargo.
“No.”
John walked quickly through the motel room, out the front door and to the car; followed immediately by an ever persistent fourteen-year-old Sam, who had to jog to keep up with John’s long steps.
“Dad please. It’s only six weeks and I promise, whatever Pastor Jim needs, I’ll do it. Please can I go?”
John popped open the trunk and lowered his duffle bag into the over-sized compartment. “We’ve been over this, Sammy. The answer is no. I told you; you’re not enrolling in summer school this year. I need you and your brother along on this hunt.”
“But Dad-”
“That’s enough, Sam,” John barked. “I don’t wanna hear another word about it.” He slammed the trunk lid closed. “Now get inside and pack your crap. We’re leaving in ten.”
He watched Sam swallow a cry of rage, turn on his heal, and stalk back into the motel room, pushing roughly past his brother in the process.
“Watch it, brat,” Dean chided. He carried his bag out to the car and adeptly caught the car keys when John threw them to him. Dean slotted the key into the lock and lifted the trunk lid.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do with that kid,” John groaned, stepping up beside his eldest son.
Dean shrugged. He lowered his bag into the trunk, carefully closed the lid, and then turned to look at his father. He leaned his hip against the rear end of the car, “He’s just gonna keep whining about it, you know. I don’t get why you’re so dead-set against Sammy doing this summer school thing.”
“You know why, Dean,” John frowned. Sam had a natural proclivity towards school, and although John could appreciate that, what he needed was for his youngest to develop the same appetite for hunting that Dean had. He was old enough now to be truly involved and it was important, not only for his safety, but for the safety of the entire family, that Sam was one hundred percent committed to the job. One wrong step, one failed attempt and someone could end up dead, and John wasn’t going to have that on his watch if he could help it.
“Yeah, I understand,” Dean acknowledged. “You need me and Sammy there on this job, but I don’t really think you do. I mean, I heard you on the phone last night, Dad. You said there’s gonna be a dozen other hunters on this one. Hunters with a hell of a lot more training and experience than Sam’s got.”
“He’s not gonna get any better unless he puts the time in. Maybe if you didn’t baby him so damned much-”
“I don’t baby him,” Dean argued. “Listen. All’s I’m saying is he’s green. The only thing he’s gonna do is get in the way, and this job is too big, too important for you or me to have to be worrying about what Sammy’s doing. It’s not like he’s never been left alone before. And he wouldn’t even be alone; he’d be with Pastor Jim.”
“Not you too,” John groaned.
“It’s important to him, Dad,” Dean cut him off before John could say anything further. “Plus…it’ll shut him up. He’s been nothing but a bitch for the last three days.”
“Dean,” John admonished. He’d always allowed his boys the freedom of expression, to a point anyway, but he could not abide them using foul language on each other. He depended on them to be a team, and being a team meant having respect for one another. Being respectful did not, however, mean that they didn’t have normal, big brother-little brother issues.
“It’s true, Dad,” Dean defended. “If I’d wanted this much drama, I’d have asked for a little sister.”
John rolled his eyes and swallowed down the smile that threatened to break across his face. “What exactly do you suggest I do, Dean? Let him run off for a month, playing pretend like he’s some normal kid?”
“Isn’t he?” Dean shrugged and John could feel his resolve giving way when Dean added, “Let him have this one thing, and I promise when it’s all over, I’ll work on him; make him understand that he belongs here with us.”
“Fine. I’ll let him have this; under one condition…you’re staying with him.”
“What?! Dad, no!”
“That’s the deal, Dean. You want Sammy to have this, you gotta stay and look after him. He stays, you stay.”
“What do you know about Banshees?”
There was a sense of urgency in John’s voice that made Bobby roll his eyes, because everything was urgent to John. Bobby sighed, slumping further into the couch with the phone pressed between his shoulder and ear. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Florida,” came John’s clipped reply. “What’s it matter?”
“It matters because depending on which folklore you’re goin’ by, you could be dealing with any number of things.” Bobby climbed to his feet and went to one of his many bookshelves. He ran his fingers over the leather bindings and gilded titles until he found the volume he was looking for, pulling it down from the shelf. “Historically,” he said, flipping through the pages, “a banshee is a death omen; a female spirit, sometimes a faerie who wails when someone’s about to buy the farm.”
“How do I kill it?”
“You don’t. It’s just an omen. It’s not actually causing the deaths, but now that’s Irish or Scottish folklore. Here on this side of the pond, we have a whole different variation of the lore. In The Americas, banshees tend to be viewed as -”
“Bobby! I don’t need a friggin’ history lesson! I just need to know how to kill the bitch. It’s taking kids, Bobby. It skins them and then eats them, and I need to stop it before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” Bobby asked when a shiver ran down his back. “What aren’t you telling me? John?”
“He’s missing, Bobby.”
“What?! You mean Sam?”
“We had a fight last night and he locked himself in his room. This morning, he was just…gone. Vanished. I thought maybe he’d run away again or needed to blow off some steam, but when he didn’t come back, I got to looking around and I found blood on his window sill.”
“What the hell is wrong with you two that you can’t get along? Didn’t you learn your lesson when he ran off this summer? You get him back, John,” Bobby demanded.
“I’m workin’ on it, dammit, but you gotta tell me how to kill this thing first. I’ve only got one chance. Screwing up is not an option.”
“Okay. Okay. Worst case scenario. You said it’s skinning the victims; these kids.” Bobby dove back into his book, scouring the pages for something that fit the M.O. “And eating them…like a ghoul? That makes sense. Here. Here. A Black Annis. It’s a type of banshee that feeds on children.”
He ran his finger over the words, speed reading through the available material, spitting out bits and pieces of information he felt might be important.
“S’gotta blue face, lives in an oak tree, steals the kids at night, sometimes right outta their own beds, and takes them back to her tree. But she doesn’t eat ‘em right away. She’s gotta fatten them up first; think Hansel and Gretel. She skins them before eating them. Hangs the skins out to dry in the tree; that oughta be easy to find.”
“But how do I kill it?”
“They call it a ghoul, so you treat it like a ghoul. Destroy the brain and then burn the bitch. Better safe than sorry.”
John grunted a response right before the line went dead. “You’re welcome,” Bobby complained to the empty room. “Better bring that boy back alive.”
He spent the next eighteen hours wearing a path into the faded floral rug that adorned his library floor. In the nine years that he’d known them all, there’d only been a handful of times in which he’d truly felt this worried; this out of control; this helpless, but twice in one year? That seemed a bit extreme.
-O-o-o-O-
It had all started in February after a hunt gone wrong. John had left Sam behind in Lincoln to do what Sam did best: research. What John hadn’t expected was for Sam - quite on his own - to stumble across the monster that John and Dean had been unsuccessful in tracking. Sam had made up some cock-n-bull story about how he’d found and dispatched the thing; none of which John believed of course, and afterwards John tightened the leash on Sam a bit. He didn’t know how Sam had come across the Kitsune, but he wasn’t willing to let it happen again. Not without backup. Sam was forced to come on each hunt after that, which put a big crimp in Sam’s plans.
At fifteen, the boy had already been preparing for high school and every missed day of class, was a missed opportunity and set Sam further and further behind. When John had broached the subject of Sam dropping out of school like his brother had done, Sam went ballistic. After the smoke had cleared, Sam was left grounded in their extended stay motel room, Dean was appointed babysitter, and John went off on a weeklong hunt alone.
Less than twenty-four hours later, Sam was gone. Two weeks they spent looking for him. Two hellacious weeks. Dean had about as close to a nervous breakdown as Bobby had ever witnessed and John was worse. When he hadn’t been out searching, John poured over the maps until he was passed out from exhaustion, only to be up and searching again in a few hours. He wouldn’t eat, barely slept, and hadn’t said a word to anyone in days.
Bobby meanwhile had talked to every contact in his book, called in every favor to aid in the search, but Sam had learned from the master and was virtually untraceable. It wasn’t until a convenience store clerk outside of Flagstaff copped to having seen a kid matching Sam’s description, that they had their big break.
The boy had been into the store on a regular basis buying junk food and paying cash, but as the days had worn on, the cash had dwindled until the boy had just stopped coming in altogether. The clerk had pointed in the direction that he’d seen him come and go and guessed that it had been about four days since he’d seen him last.
At that news, Dean had come unglued. What if Sam had moved on? Or worse, what if something had happened to him? Bobby was made to physically restrain Dean to keep the boy from going after his father, because there were some things that just had to be handled by an adult…just in case.
Two hours later, John returned; his hand gripped tight over the shoulder of his youngest son, afraid to ever let him out of his reach again. Sam had been found holed up in some ramshackle shed in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a dog for companionship. Out of money and out of food, Sam had been understandably - though cautiously - relieved to see his father. When they’d entered the motel, Dean pulled free of Bobby and bum rushed Sam, swamping him in a crushing hug. John followed suit, wrapping his long arms around both his sons, pulling them into his broad chest; his nose buried deep in Sam’s hair, breathing him in. The sight had pulled sharply at every heartstring Bobby had left in his careworn body and he collapsed down onto one of the room’s beds in relief.
Despite the seemingly happy reunion, their situation did not improve. As Sam had grown older, his relationship with his father had disintegrated into one of constant head butting. They’d argue about anything and everything, from the way Sam tied his boots to the way John demanded obedience without question. Sam was a stubborn child, a trait he no doubt inherited from his father. He was also a young man with dreams and goals, none of which included becoming a hunter, but none of this seemed to matter to John. The thing John didn’t understand about his youngest son was that Sam was inquisitive. He had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and had John just taken the time to explain things and teach his son rather than demand and order him about, Sam’s teen years would have started a helluva lot smoother than they had. Had he used an ounce of patience with the boy, John would have found himself fronting what could have possibly been the best hunting team out there. Instead, he had a son with one foot constantly out the door and another son who regularly put himself in the middle of his two remaining family members, trying like hell to uphold the peace.
-O-o-o-O-
For that reason, Bobby was more than a little anxious when he saw a familiar black car tearing up the road and in the drive, spraying rock and dust everywhere. Bobby snatched up his phone, dialing John’s number as quick as his fingers would let him and pressed the receiver to his ear while watching Dean out the front window.
“Come on. Come on!” Bobby complained into the phone.
Dean climbed out of the car and twisted at the waist, stretching the stiffness out of his back. He then reached into the back seat, pulled out a cloth and set about wiping off the road dust from the car’s glossy black shine. John had ‘given’ the Impala to Dean late that summer, buying himself an ’81 GMC pickup. It was a beast of a truck; a powerful 350 4x4 and John was enamored by it, but it was obvious to Bobby that the Impala would always hold a special place in the man’s heart, because he was constantly berating Dean about her upkeep.
“Answer the damn - John?”
The line connected and John’s voice cut through Bobby’s words, “Winchester.”
“About damn time. Please tell me you found him.”
“What? Oh…yeah, no. I’m sorry. I completely forgot to call you back. Yeah, I found him. He’s right here with me. Why? Did you wanna talk -”
“You…you forgot to call?” Bobby stammered.
“Yeah. Bobby, I’m sorry. I was just a little busy, what with the head bashing and brain splatter and God, if that ain’t the funkiest smell you’ve ever tried to wash off of your skin. I’m gonna be breathing that in for weeks. And…hey, Bobby? Are you still there?”
“You forgot to call.”
“Yeah. Wait. Are you alright?”
Bobby scoffed into the phone. “Nah. Everything’s fine…I guess.”
“Okay. If you say so. By the way, Dean oughta be showing up in the next twenty-four hours.”
“He’s here now,” Bobby replied. He starred dumbfound out the window, wondering how anyone could be as dense as John Winchester.
“Oh good. How’s my car? Is it in one piece?”
“From what I can tell.”
“That’s good. That’s good. Alright, well tell Dean, if you would, we’re on our way. We’re about 3 hours out of Orlando, gonna stop somewhere this side of the Georgia/Tennessee line and we’ll pick up again in the morning.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
“You sure you’re alright?”
“Never better,” Bobby deadpanned. He hung up without a word of goodbye, tossing the phone on the sofa. He grabbed his keys and a jacket off a hook on the hallway wall and stormed outside. Dean met him coming up the sidewalk, grinning from ear to ear and looking well satisfied.
“Hey Bobby!”
Bobby stalked right on passed, making a beeline for his Chevelle. “House is yours,” he tossed over his shoulder.
“You goin’ somewhere? Wait, Bobby.” Dean dropped his gear and turned to follow the older man down the walk. “Hold up. Where’re you goin?
Bobby turned the ignition over and the car rumbled to life, drowning out Dean’s voice. The young man leaned in the driver’s window and said, “I just got here.”
“Yep. And I’m just leavin’. Your daddy n’brother will be here tomorrow sometime. Don’t wreck my house and lock it up when you’re gone.”
“But where are you goin’?”
“Away.”
Bobby slid the car into gear and gave Dean just enough time to push himself clear of the vehicle before Bobby pulled away.
He left; going the way Dean had arrived, and didn’t spare the rubber on the tires as he peeled up the road. It was a cruddy thing to do to poor Dean - leaving him standing there, not knowing what had happened or why Bobby was leaving or where he was going - but the way Bobby figured, it was better to leave now than have to fill Dean in on a situation that he didn’t properly know the outcome of. It was better to leave before John returned, because Bobby couldn’t promise to hold his tongue. In fact, the way he was feeling towards John Winchester right then, he was pretty damn certain that if he did stick around he might even punch the man in the mouth. He’d get at least one clean shot in before being overwhelmed by the rest of the Winchester family.
All Bobby needed was some time to cool off and a bit of separation that would allow him to get his thoughts together and his head on straight. The problem was, he’d made a promise to himself a long time ago, on his knees beneath the American Elm tree his wife had loved so much. A promise to never love as deeply as he had loved her. To never again open himself up to the kind of heartache that seemed to follow his every footstep in life. And yet somehow he’d managed to do exactly what he’d set out not to do.
He hadn’t meant for this to happen; to let them in, this man and his sons. They had wormed their way into Bobby’s life and wrapped themselves around his heart not unlike the Virginia Creeper vines that were snaking their way up that Elm. They would dig their tendrils into his skin and bones until there came a time when he would no longer be able to cut himself free of them.
Bobby could admit now that that time may have already come and gone, because try as he might, he could not imagine his life without them. And didn’t that just burn his ass nine ways from Sunday? He was just going to have to make a concerted effort to curtail his time with that bunch. Step back. Don’t let himself get so involved. Reduce the risk of his heart getting broken, because it was bound to happen. Sooner or later one of them would get hurt, or worse, killed, and what would he do then?
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