All Your Troubles Soon Be Gone
Title: All Your Troubles Soon Be Gone
Characters: Bobby, Sam, Dean
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2100
Summary: Bobby gives Sam the amulet - he has no use for the thing anyway, and lord knows those boys could use the extra protection. (or, a coda to A Very Supernatural Christmas, with daemons style.)
A/N: Part of my with daemons verse. Thanks to alwaysenduphere for the beta. Title from "Christmas Lights" by Coldplay. Merry Christmas everyone!
John drops the boys off on a Saturday, two weeks before Christmas, with promises to be back by Monday. Bobby doesn’t expect him until Friday, at the earliest.
Dean gets right out of the car. Saskia, currently a hare, follows, and her white fur blends with the light dusting of snow coating the ground. She runs circles around Brynn, who watches bemusedly, ears flopping down her back as she follows Saskia around and around and around.
Sam gets out of the car more slowly, shifting his pack from one hand to the other. His shoulders are slouched, empty hand shoved into the pocket of his hoodie while Astrid keeps close, an arctic fox, her tail twitching slightly.
Dean grins, scooping a handful of snow off the hood of a beat-up Ford pickup Bobby has been attempting to restore for weeks. He packs it into a snowball, which he throws at his brother.
Sam scowls but he doesn’t retaliate, scooping Astrid into his arms instead. Saskia shifts into a tall, lean wolf, her auburn pelt shot through with white. She takes that form more and more often as of late, staying a wolf for hours, sometimes days at a time. Dean looks at her out of the corner of his eye, smiling fondly.
Bobby shouldn’t be surprised she’s already settling. In all the years he’s known the boys, Dean never really acted like a kid. Probably hasn’t since his momma died.
Saskia howls softly before loping over to Sam, then tries to coerce Astrid into playing. She jumps up, paws against Sam’s chest so she can lick at Astrid’s face, and even after five years, since that first night the boys spent in his home, Bobby can’t help the jolt that goes through him at the easy manner in which they touch each other’s daemons.
“No, Saskia,” Astrid says, a white ermine now, winding around Sam’s neck. She burrows her face into his hood, and Saskia sits back on her hind legs, tail wagging a little slower.
Sam shuffles silently into the house, and Bobby watches with his eyebrows raised. Dean annoys Sam, sure, practically always does for one reason or another. Bobby’s broken up more scuffles between them and their daemons than he cares to count, but he’s never seen Sam outright ignore his brother.
Dean drags his feet, drawing furrows through the snow, and Saskia noses at his hand so he can scratch at the fur behind her ears.
“They’ve been like this for days, Bobby,” Saskia says softly, “Won’t tell us anything.”
Dean glances up at him, wide-eyed and young. “Can you talk to him?” he asks and when Saskia shifts into a German Shepherd, big eyes pleading, Bobby can’t help but agree.
“Yeah, all right. Though if he hasn’t told you anything, I don’t know why in hell he would ever tell me.”
Dean grins, and Brynn at least waits until he and Saskia turn away from them to say, “You’re getting soft, old man.”
Bobby rolls his eyes and snorts, but he doesn’t disagree. Brynn laughs, hopping ahead of him into the house.
--
Sam barely says a word all through dinner, picks at his food - though that isn’t really all that unusual; he never developed the appetite his father or brother has, and unlike Dean, he actually eats the vegetables stuck under his nose. Rumsfeld is curled up at his feet, ignoring the faces Saskia makes at him in favor of begging for table scraps.
“Make yourself useful,” Bobby says when Dean finally stops eating, tossing a dish towel at him. He deliberately misses so it falls onto Astrid’s head.
She wriggles out from under it, shifts into a large, orange tabby cat and hisses, baring her teeth. Rumsfeld growls, then takes off running.
“Quit it, Dean,” Sam snaps, scooping Astrid into his arms and storming out of the room.
Dean looks at Bobby helplessly. He squeezes Dean’s shoulder, then follows Sam into the study, shutting the door.
“Spill kid,” he says, and Sam’s head snaps up from his hands in his lap. Astrid pokes her head out from under his chair. “What’s eatin’ at you?”
He shrugs, holding up the object in his hands instead of answering. Bobby squints until it comes into focus, a gold amulet he bought from the wife of a shaman down in Tampa. He honestly forgot he had the thing lying around.
“What’s this, Bobby?” he asks, and Bobby sighs. He didn’t actually expect this to be easy.
“What’s the rule, Sam?” Bobby asks, raising an eyebrow and holding out a hand.
Sam huffs, blowing his bangs out of his face. “Don’t touch it if you don’t know what it is,” he grumbles, dropping the amulet into Bobby’s waiting palm.
Bobby implemented this rule as soon as Sam learned how to read and started sticking his nose in any books he could get his grubby hands on. Most of them are fairly innocuous; the more dangerous ones are kept on shelves and in hidden corners out of reach. Sam knows better than to start reciting incantations off the cuff, but Bobby doesn’t want to risk him picking up the one book that could bring back the newly dead if read under the light of a full moon on a Saturday.
Knowing the Winchester luck, Bobby would walk outside and straight into a zombie army.
“Stop changing the subject, Sammy,” he says, and Sam glares.
“It’s Sam,” he snaps, and Bobby bites back a triumphant grin, because an angry Sam is a talking Sam.
Astrid winds around Sam’s ankles before gracefully jumping onto the desk. “He read John’s journal,” she says, flopping onto her back.
Ah, hell. That certainly explained a lot.
Sam scowls, says, “Astrid,” and lets the one word carry all of his annoyance, but she isn’t even the slightest bit concerned. She bats at Brynn as she hops across the desk. Brynn twitches her tail, but otherwise ignores her.
“And?” Bobby asks, prodding Sam into saying more.
Sam shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And what?”
Bobby narrows his eyes. “Don’t play stupid with me, boy, I know better. You gotta have questions.”
“Not really,” he grumbles, but Astrid rolls over, scratching at him with a paw. “Ow! Astrid!”
“He wants to know if John really hunts monsters,” she says, rolling her eyes at him, but she flips onto her belly, staring at Bobby with wide, yellow eyes that tell him Sam isn’t the only one.
Bobby hesitates, glances at Brynn, who stares back through hooded eyes. He decides on the truth. “Yeah, Sam, he does.”
“You too?”
“Me too.”
Sam nods, but he slumps in his chair, hands twisting restlessly. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he asks softly. Astrid hops into his lap, licking at his knuckles.
You’re still a kid, Bobby wants to say, but he knows that would be taken as well as the inevitable screaming that will occur when John finds out. “You didn’t need to know. Not yet,” he amends, but as he pointed out earlier, Sam isn’t stupid, not by a long shot.
“I’m not a baby, Bobby. Dean knew when he was younger than me.”
Astrid sits up straight, chin high with defiance.
So that was what this was all about.
Bobby’s knees crack as he sits down on the couch, leveling with Sam. “I ain’t gonna speak for your father, but I expect if he didn’t tell you, he had his reasons.”
“He always has his reasons,” Sam grumbles.
“Sam,” he says, a clear warning, and Sam drags his foot across the floor, muttering an apology Bobby barely makes out.
“Apologize to your brother, not me. You’re worrying him.”
Sam bites his lip, and Astrid hides her head against Sam’s shoulder, fittingly chastised.
Bobby sighs; these boys will be the death of him yet.
--
He isn’t sure what Sam tells Dean exactly, but when Bobby next checks on the boys, they’re out in the yard together, peering into the engine of the Ford pickup. Sam stands on his toes behind his brother, watching over Dean’s shoulder while he putters with the engine. He points out various parts, and Sam nods furiously, darting from one side of the car to the other to get a better look.
Saskia and Astrid lie at their feet, two lions lounging in the snow beside the front wheel. Astrid swipes at Dean’s leg, growling playfully, and Dean laughs as he jumps out of the way.
“Sam,” Bobby calls from the kitchen door, and Sam glances up, scampering across the yard when Bobby waves him over. Astrid takes her time, slowly stretching before loping to Sam’s side.
“Want to give you something,” Bobby says, and Sam tips his head to the side as he follows Bobby into the study.
Bobby opens the top drawer of the desk and gives Sam the amulet - he has no use for the thing anyway, and lord knows those boys could use the extra protection.
Astrid shifts into a squirrel, climbing up Sam’s leg to perch in the crook of his arm, sniffing at it inquisitively.
Sam’s eyes widen with disbelief as Bobby drops it into his palm. “Really? I can have it?”
Bobby shrugs. “Don’t see why not. The woman I bought it from says it’s a protective charm.”
Those seem to be magic words, because Sam’s eyes light up like Christmas has, literally, come early. “I’ll give it to Dad then,” he says firmly, “For Christmas. He’ll be home for Christmas, right?” he asks quickly, his attempt at nonchalance betrayed by the faint trembling along Astrid’s back.
Truth is, Bobby hasn’t got a clue, but he’d put his money on no. “Course,” he lies, “Why wouldn’t he be?”
Sam grins, then bites his lip. “Dad’s gonna kill me isn’t he?” he says quietly, winding the amulet around his palm. He looks up, eyes wide and hopeful. “Maybe this’ll surprise him so much that he’ll forget.”
Bobby laughs outright, ruffling his hair. “You never know, kid. You never know.”
--
John shows up on Monday, as promised.
Sam bolts out of the house laughing, Dean racing after him, equally happy. Astrid and Saskia are hot on their tails, both of them wolf shaped, sleek, powerful, and fast; Rumsfeld barks at all of them from the porch. John’s face relaxes when he sees them, noticeably happier than they were two days ago. He shakes his head when the boys start a snowball fight on the way to the car.
John lets them have at it for a few minutes, making small talk with Bobby about a new case, turning only when a rogue snowball smashes into Delilah’s side. Sam and Dean freeze, unsure what to do or how to react. Both of their daemons are on the cusp of an apology when Delilah, in a show of playfulness Bobby has never seen from her, takes off, chasing Astrid and Saskia across the yard.
John’s lips twitch into a smile, and Bobby blinks, shocked to hell.
When the boys finally stop to catch their breath, chests heaving with exertion, Delilah rubs up against both daemons in turn before returning to John’s side.
“Let’s go, boys,” he says, gesturing to the car, “I want to be in Broken Bow by nightfall.”
Dean says goodbye, opening both doors on the passenger side of the car. Sam gives Bobby a quiet smile before climbing into the backseat. He kicks Dean in the shin on the way, grinning with feigned innocence as he closes the door. Dean scowls, reaching over the seat back to slap at Sam’s shoulder while their daemons tussle in the footwell.
John raises an eyebrow, and the fight immediately ceases.
“Huh,” Bobby says into the cold winter air; Brynn echoes his thoughts with a snort, loud enough that Bobby still hears her over the rev of the Impala’s engine.
--
Bobby doesn’t see the boys again until a week after New Years, when John drops them off before leaving for a hunt in Dallas.
He arches an eyebrow as Sam enters the house, stamping the snow from his boots. “Still alive, I see,” he says wryly.
Sam laughs and says, “Barely.” Astrid shifts into a small rabbit, and her slow, hesitant movements give away the wariness he tries to hide. He doesn’t elaborate further, though.
Bobby is only mildly surprised when Dean shrugs out of his jacket, showing off the amulet around his neck.
“Like it, Bobby?” Dean says, while Saskia, wolf again, touches noses with Brynn in greeting. “Sammy gave it to me.” He grins over his shoulder at his brother.
Sam smiles back, hands clutching Astrid’s fur. He shrugs at Bobby, gazing at his shoes.
Bobby almost asks the question on the tip of his tongue, but then Saskia and Astrid tumble and skid across the floor and around Sam’s legs until he laughs. Bobby lets him be.
Characters: Bobby, Sam, Dean
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2100
Summary: Bobby gives Sam the amulet - he has no use for the thing anyway, and lord knows those boys could use the extra protection. (or, a coda to A Very Supernatural Christmas, with daemons style.)
A/N: Part of my with daemons verse. Thanks to alwaysenduphere for the beta. Title from "Christmas Lights" by Coldplay. Merry Christmas everyone!
John drops the boys off on a Saturday, two weeks before Christmas, with promises to be back by Monday. Bobby doesn’t expect him until Friday, at the earliest.
Dean gets right out of the car. Saskia, currently a hare, follows, and her white fur blends with the light dusting of snow coating the ground. She runs circles around Brynn, who watches bemusedly, ears flopping down her back as she follows Saskia around and around and around.
Sam gets out of the car more slowly, shifting his pack from one hand to the other. His shoulders are slouched, empty hand shoved into the pocket of his hoodie while Astrid keeps close, an arctic fox, her tail twitching slightly.
Dean grins, scooping a handful of snow off the hood of a beat-up Ford pickup Bobby has been attempting to restore for weeks. He packs it into a snowball, which he throws at his brother.
Sam scowls but he doesn’t retaliate, scooping Astrid into his arms instead. Saskia shifts into a tall, lean wolf, her auburn pelt shot through with white. She takes that form more and more often as of late, staying a wolf for hours, sometimes days at a time. Dean looks at her out of the corner of his eye, smiling fondly.
Bobby shouldn’t be surprised she’s already settling. In all the years he’s known the boys, Dean never really acted like a kid. Probably hasn’t since his momma died.
Saskia howls softly before loping over to Sam, then tries to coerce Astrid into playing. She jumps up, paws against Sam’s chest so she can lick at Astrid’s face, and even after five years, since that first night the boys spent in his home, Bobby can’t help the jolt that goes through him at the easy manner in which they touch each other’s daemons.
“No, Saskia,” Astrid says, a white ermine now, winding around Sam’s neck. She burrows her face into his hood, and Saskia sits back on her hind legs, tail wagging a little slower.
Sam shuffles silently into the house, and Bobby watches with his eyebrows raised. Dean annoys Sam, sure, practically always does for one reason or another. Bobby’s broken up more scuffles between them and their daemons than he cares to count, but he’s never seen Sam outright ignore his brother.
Dean drags his feet, drawing furrows through the snow, and Saskia noses at his hand so he can scratch at the fur behind her ears.
“They’ve been like this for days, Bobby,” Saskia says softly, “Won’t tell us anything.”
Dean glances up at him, wide-eyed and young. “Can you talk to him?” he asks and when Saskia shifts into a German Shepherd, big eyes pleading, Bobby can’t help but agree.
“Yeah, all right. Though if he hasn’t told you anything, I don’t know why in hell he would ever tell me.”
Dean grins, and Brynn at least waits until he and Saskia turn away from them to say, “You’re getting soft, old man.”
Bobby rolls his eyes and snorts, but he doesn’t disagree. Brynn laughs, hopping ahead of him into the house.
--
Sam barely says a word all through dinner, picks at his food - though that isn’t really all that unusual; he never developed the appetite his father or brother has, and unlike Dean, he actually eats the vegetables stuck under his nose. Rumsfeld is curled up at his feet, ignoring the faces Saskia makes at him in favor of begging for table scraps.
“Make yourself useful,” Bobby says when Dean finally stops eating, tossing a dish towel at him. He deliberately misses so it falls onto Astrid’s head.
She wriggles out from under it, shifts into a large, orange tabby cat and hisses, baring her teeth. Rumsfeld growls, then takes off running.
“Quit it, Dean,” Sam snaps, scooping Astrid into his arms and storming out of the room.
Dean looks at Bobby helplessly. He squeezes Dean’s shoulder, then follows Sam into the study, shutting the door.
“Spill kid,” he says, and Sam’s head snaps up from his hands in his lap. Astrid pokes her head out from under his chair. “What’s eatin’ at you?”
He shrugs, holding up the object in his hands instead of answering. Bobby squints until it comes into focus, a gold amulet he bought from the wife of a shaman down in Tampa. He honestly forgot he had the thing lying around.
“What’s this, Bobby?” he asks, and Bobby sighs. He didn’t actually expect this to be easy.
“What’s the rule, Sam?” Bobby asks, raising an eyebrow and holding out a hand.
Sam huffs, blowing his bangs out of his face. “Don’t touch it if you don’t know what it is,” he grumbles, dropping the amulet into Bobby’s waiting palm.
Bobby implemented this rule as soon as Sam learned how to read and started sticking his nose in any books he could get his grubby hands on. Most of them are fairly innocuous; the more dangerous ones are kept on shelves and in hidden corners out of reach. Sam knows better than to start reciting incantations off the cuff, but Bobby doesn’t want to risk him picking up the one book that could bring back the newly dead if read under the light of a full moon on a Saturday.
Knowing the Winchester luck, Bobby would walk outside and straight into a zombie army.
“Stop changing the subject, Sammy,” he says, and Sam glares.
“It’s Sam,” he snaps, and Bobby bites back a triumphant grin, because an angry Sam is a talking Sam.
Astrid winds around Sam’s ankles before gracefully jumping onto the desk. “He read John’s journal,” she says, flopping onto her back.
Ah, hell. That certainly explained a lot.
Sam scowls, says, “Astrid,” and lets the one word carry all of his annoyance, but she isn’t even the slightest bit concerned. She bats at Brynn as she hops across the desk. Brynn twitches her tail, but otherwise ignores her.
“And?” Bobby asks, prodding Sam into saying more.
Sam shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And what?”
Bobby narrows his eyes. “Don’t play stupid with me, boy, I know better. You gotta have questions.”
“Not really,” he grumbles, but Astrid rolls over, scratching at him with a paw. “Ow! Astrid!”
“He wants to know if John really hunts monsters,” she says, rolling her eyes at him, but she flips onto her belly, staring at Bobby with wide, yellow eyes that tell him Sam isn’t the only one.
Bobby hesitates, glances at Brynn, who stares back through hooded eyes. He decides on the truth. “Yeah, Sam, he does.”
“You too?”
“Me too.”
Sam nods, but he slumps in his chair, hands twisting restlessly. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he asks softly. Astrid hops into his lap, licking at his knuckles.
You’re still a kid, Bobby wants to say, but he knows that would be taken as well as the inevitable screaming that will occur when John finds out. “You didn’t need to know. Not yet,” he amends, but as he pointed out earlier, Sam isn’t stupid, not by a long shot.
“I’m not a baby, Bobby. Dean knew when he was younger than me.”
Astrid sits up straight, chin high with defiance.
So that was what this was all about.
Bobby’s knees crack as he sits down on the couch, leveling with Sam. “I ain’t gonna speak for your father, but I expect if he didn’t tell you, he had his reasons.”
“He always has his reasons,” Sam grumbles.
“Sam,” he says, a clear warning, and Sam drags his foot across the floor, muttering an apology Bobby barely makes out.
“Apologize to your brother, not me. You’re worrying him.”
Sam bites his lip, and Astrid hides her head against Sam’s shoulder, fittingly chastised.
Bobby sighs; these boys will be the death of him yet.
--
He isn’t sure what Sam tells Dean exactly, but when Bobby next checks on the boys, they’re out in the yard together, peering into the engine of the Ford pickup. Sam stands on his toes behind his brother, watching over Dean’s shoulder while he putters with the engine. He points out various parts, and Sam nods furiously, darting from one side of the car to the other to get a better look.
Saskia and Astrid lie at their feet, two lions lounging in the snow beside the front wheel. Astrid swipes at Dean’s leg, growling playfully, and Dean laughs as he jumps out of the way.
“Sam,” Bobby calls from the kitchen door, and Sam glances up, scampering across the yard when Bobby waves him over. Astrid takes her time, slowly stretching before loping to Sam’s side.
“Want to give you something,” Bobby says, and Sam tips his head to the side as he follows Bobby into the study.
Bobby opens the top drawer of the desk and gives Sam the amulet - he has no use for the thing anyway, and lord knows those boys could use the extra protection.
Astrid shifts into a squirrel, climbing up Sam’s leg to perch in the crook of his arm, sniffing at it inquisitively.
Sam’s eyes widen with disbelief as Bobby drops it into his palm. “Really? I can have it?”
Bobby shrugs. “Don’t see why not. The woman I bought it from says it’s a protective charm.”
Those seem to be magic words, because Sam’s eyes light up like Christmas has, literally, come early. “I’ll give it to Dad then,” he says firmly, “For Christmas. He’ll be home for Christmas, right?” he asks quickly, his attempt at nonchalance betrayed by the faint trembling along Astrid’s back.
Truth is, Bobby hasn’t got a clue, but he’d put his money on no. “Course,” he lies, “Why wouldn’t he be?”
Sam grins, then bites his lip. “Dad’s gonna kill me isn’t he?” he says quietly, winding the amulet around his palm. He looks up, eyes wide and hopeful. “Maybe this’ll surprise him so much that he’ll forget.”
Bobby laughs outright, ruffling his hair. “You never know, kid. You never know.”
--
John shows up on Monday, as promised.
Sam bolts out of the house laughing, Dean racing after him, equally happy. Astrid and Saskia are hot on their tails, both of them wolf shaped, sleek, powerful, and fast; Rumsfeld barks at all of them from the porch. John’s face relaxes when he sees them, noticeably happier than they were two days ago. He shakes his head when the boys start a snowball fight on the way to the car.
John lets them have at it for a few minutes, making small talk with Bobby about a new case, turning only when a rogue snowball smashes into Delilah’s side. Sam and Dean freeze, unsure what to do or how to react. Both of their daemons are on the cusp of an apology when Delilah, in a show of playfulness Bobby has never seen from her, takes off, chasing Astrid and Saskia across the yard.
John’s lips twitch into a smile, and Bobby blinks, shocked to hell.
When the boys finally stop to catch their breath, chests heaving with exertion, Delilah rubs up against both daemons in turn before returning to John’s side.
“Let’s go, boys,” he says, gesturing to the car, “I want to be in Broken Bow by nightfall.”
Dean says goodbye, opening both doors on the passenger side of the car. Sam gives Bobby a quiet smile before climbing into the backseat. He kicks Dean in the shin on the way, grinning with feigned innocence as he closes the door. Dean scowls, reaching over the seat back to slap at Sam’s shoulder while their daemons tussle in the footwell.
John raises an eyebrow, and the fight immediately ceases.
“Huh,” Bobby says into the cold winter air; Brynn echoes his thoughts with a snort, loud enough that Bobby still hears her over the rev of the Impala’s engine.
--
Bobby doesn’t see the boys again until a week after New Years, when John drops them off before leaving for a hunt in Dallas.
He arches an eyebrow as Sam enters the house, stamping the snow from his boots. “Still alive, I see,” he says wryly.
Sam laughs and says, “Barely.” Astrid shifts into a small rabbit, and her slow, hesitant movements give away the wariness he tries to hide. He doesn’t elaborate further, though.
Bobby is only mildly surprised when Dean shrugs out of his jacket, showing off the amulet around his neck.
“Like it, Bobby?” Dean says, while Saskia, wolf again, touches noses with Brynn in greeting. “Sammy gave it to me.” He grins over his shoulder at his brother.
Sam smiles back, hands clutching Astrid’s fur. He shrugs at Bobby, gazing at his shoes.
Bobby almost asks the question on the tip of his tongue, but then Saskia and Astrid tumble and skid across the floor and around Sam’s legs until he laughs. Bobby lets him be.