SPN FIC - Teeth and Claws
Another look back for you: one of my earliest fics, and the first one featuring Bobby, when he was still awesome and hadn't yet fallen victim to Whiny Princess Syndrome.
Sometime in 1992, after Sam found John's journal and put most of the pieces together. When Dean's duties have just (barely) begun to shift from Taking Care of Sammy and cleaning weapons to being an actual participant in the hunt. You know teenagers: they're invulnerable. Trouble is, that's only true in their minds, not the real world.
Now there was good news. Since they'd come back to the motel, a visit to the hospital obviously wasn't in the cards, and the idea of Bobby stitching those gashes together without the benefit of painkillers made Dean want to upchuck.
CHARACTERS: Dean (13), Sam (9), Bobby, John
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 2851 words
TEETH AND CLAWS
By Carol Davis
Sammy smelled like peanut butter and jelly.
He was crouched close enough to the bed that Dean could smell him - could hear him, too, because Sam's cold hadn't gone away yet and every breath he took had a snuffly sound to it.
Maybe it wasn't the cold.
And that just took the cake. Tonight had gone to hell in enough different ways that adding a big blubbering session from Sam into the mix was the last thing Dean wanted. A good snarky comment would throw Sam off the track, but Dean couldn't put together enough energy to come up with one. So he settled for not looking at his brother. If he didn't make eye contact with Sam, maybe Sam would hold it together.
Yeah, and maybe tomorrow they'd win a million bucks in the lottery.
"Doesn't look too bad," Bobby said.
It felt bad. The damn thing had torn his jacket, his favorite sweatshirt and his t-shirt all to shreds, like somebody had gone at 'em with scissors. He'd gotten one good look at the thing's claws before it grabbed him - they had to be three or four inches long, and sharp. Leave it to Bobby to be cool about all this, because Bobby always sounded like he had things under control. To distract himself, Dean tried to remember if he'd ever seen Bobby go ballistic.
"Does he need to get stitches?" Sammy asked.
"Don't think so."
Now there was good news. Since they'd come back to the motel, a visit to the hospital obviously wasn't in the cards, and the idea of Bobby stitching those gashes together without the benefit of painkillers made Dean want to upchuck.
"They're just scratches," Bobby mused.
Scratches?
"But they might get infected." That from Sammy, sounding very science-class. Like Dean was a frog pinned to a board, waiting to get flayed open and dissected.
"They might. Need to get 'em all cleaned out."
Could you not talk about me like I'm not here?
"Do you want the peroxide?" Sam asked.
"Nooooo," Dean said into the bedspread.
Bobby said with a note of humor, "Soap and water'll do it. They're not deep. But those things have all kinds of crap under their claws. They tear their food apart and then it rots underneath their claws. Must be a million different kinds of bacteria. Some steel wool ought to clean it out good."
"Not funny," Dean gritted out.
"Maybe we'll just go for the peroxide." Bobby chuckled softly. "Sammy, go out and tell your dad to run over to the drugstore and get a bottle of that spray antiseptic stuff. There's an all-night Rexall out on Route 18. Unless you want to sit and fingerpaint the genius, here, with Neosporin."
There was a long silence. Then Sam said, "I'll tell Dad."
After the door had creaked open and shut, with Sam presumably on the far side of it, Bobby said quietly, "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done."
"You killed it," Dean told him.
"Still."
Bobby got up off the bed. A moment later Dean could hear him running water in the bathroom. When he came back, Dean sighed, "I could wash in the shower."
"You gonna wash your own back?"
"You could -"
"What, get in the shower with you? You know I'm not gonna do that. You need your daddy or Sam. And your dad's likely to wring your neck if he gets within arm's reach of you."
"I'm old enough to help." Dean opened his eyes. Bobby was standing close to the bed with an armload of white motel towels and a wet, soapy washcloth. He looked wiped out, not surprising considering that he'd spent most of last night going over maps and old newspaper clippings instead of sleeping, and none of the four of them had had any sleep yet tonight.
"Not my place to take a stand in that debate," Bobby said.
"How old were you? When you started hunting?"
"Not thirteen."
"Bobby…"
"Mr. Singer," Bobby corrected.
"Nobody calls you Mr. Singer except that guy at the bank. You said that."
"I can change my mind."
Dean insisted, "It worked out okay."
Bobby sat down hard enough on the bed to make the springs shriek in protest. With a scowl painting his face, he jammed towels against Dean's sides to catch dripping water, then set about bathing the thing's claw trails with the soapy washcloth. "Ought to take the steel wool to you," he growled. "That was a stupid move, Dean, and you know it."
"I can - ow."
"Hold still."
"I can't hold still if you're gonna - dammit, that hurts."
"That one there might need stitches."
"You're not gonna sew me up. You said it didn't need…" Tears welled up in Dean's eyes. Before Bobby could see them, Dean turned his face into the bedspread and let them leak into the musty green chenille.
Bobby stopped his ministrations for a minute. When he started up again, his touch was considerably lighter. "There's a reason they don't let thirteen-year-olds drive."
"I can drive."
"Not legally. You get what I'm saying?"
"I can shoot. I'm a good shot. There's no reason why I can't -"
"Yeah, there is, Dean."
"Because Dad wants to keep me locked up in the room like I'm some five-year-old girl. All he wants me to do is babysit Sam."
"There's that," Bobby conceded.
"I'm smaller and faster than you are. I can get into places that you can't."
"True."
"Then I can be a part of this. I can hunt."
"Dean -"
Before Bobby could say anything more, the door creaked again and Sam came back in. "He's gone," Sam announced as he climbed up onto the bed and arranged himself near Dean's head. "He said he'll be back in a few minutes."
The bed, Dean thought, was getting mighty damn crowded.
Bobby switched washcloths and began sponging away the trails of soap with a cloth that Dean assumed was soaked with plain water. That one dripped, and in a way the tickle of the now-cold water running down Dean's sides into the towels was worse than the scrubbing.
"Bobby," Sam said. "How come you never had any kids?"
"Not for lack of wanting," Bobby told him.
"Huh?"
"You need another party in that equation, Sam."
"What? Oh, you mean a wife."
"It's helpful."
"You've never had a wife?"
Bobby was silent for a moment. Then he said softly, "Not for lack of wanting that, either."
"You could still have kids," Sam offered helpfully. "There was a guy in the newspaper the other day who had a baby, and he was ninety-three."
"God love him," Bobby said.
"What?"
Dean snorted softly into the bedspread. "You be quiet," Bobby told him firmly.
Sam pondered things for a minute, then made the "uh" noise that meant the lightbulb had come on. "You mean because he's ninety-three and he still has sex."
Then he made the noise that meant another question was coming.
"I'm forty-one," Bobby grunted. "You ask me if I still have sex and I'm gonna crack you one upside the head. Take this in the bathroom and wring it out. Wait, here. Take all this stuff." He pulled the towels away from Dean's sides, wiped what was left of the dribbles, and passed it all to Sam, who hopped off the bed and headed for the bathroom. "You're done, genius," Bobby said to Dean. "When your dad gets back, we'll paint you with that spray stuff, then you can get some sleep."
"Thanks," Dean muttered.
"Say again?"
"Thank you."
"It won't scar. But maybe that's a disappointment. Maybe you figured girls would think you were hot if you had battle scars all over you." Bobby paused and let out a long breath that wasn't quite a sigh. "You don't want all that. You don't want to end up looking like me. It's not romantic. It's -" He paused again. "Thirteen. 'You could've got yourself killed' doesn't mean squat. Didn't for me, doesn't for you, won't for Sam."
"I can be careful."
"Doesn't cut it, sometimes."
"If Dad doesn't want me to help, then why is he training me?" Carefully, Dean shifted himself around so he could sit up. Without a shirt, and still a little damp, he shivered in the cool air of the motel room. Bobby took note of that, leaned over to the clanking heater under the window and turned it up a notch. "He says it all the time: we're in this together," Dean insisted.
"You got any idea what it's like to be in the service?"
Sam, back from the bathroom, piped up, "They yell at you a lot."
Bobby shrugged an acknowledgment. "They set things up so that if you're green, you've got somebody in charge of you. A bunch of somebodies. They yell at you to get your attention. And they tell you what to do, and when to do it, because there was a time when they were green and they remember it. Because they've made mistakes and they remember it. They yell at you to keep you safe, because a dead solder is no use to anybody. And because unless they're an absolute grade-A son of a bitch - and there's a few of those - seeing a kid get killed hurts. Seeing anybody get killed hurts. That make any sense to the two of you, or am I talking to myself?"
He didn't give the boys time to answer. "There's a reason they don't let thirteen-year-olds in the service," he told Dean.
"This isn't the service," Dean said stubbornly.
"It's the same goddamn thing, without the uniforms."
"Bobby?" Sam said. "Have you ever seen somebody die?"
"Yeah," Bobby told him. "And it wasn't like the movies. They don't flutter their eyes and go limp. It ain't neat. It's not something you look at and go, 'wow, awesome.'"
"I'm sorry," Sam said.
"About what?"
"About whoever it was that you saw die."
Bobby stared off into space for a second, then sighed, "Yeah. Me too."
None of them said anything after that for a good couple of minutes. Trying not to be obvious about it, Dean shifted a little on the bed so he could see his back in the mirror over the room's low dresser. The thing had caught hold of him, dug its claws in, dragged, lost its grip a little, then grabbed again. The claw marks looked like someone had drawn on his skin with a broad-tip red marker. Alongside his spine, about midway down, was the gouge Bobby had said looked worse than the rest.
"I don't want to see you or Dad get hurt either," Dean said finally. "But you hunt anyway."
"We do it because we've thought it through, and it's the only choice there is."
"Then why can't I decide the same thing?"
"Because you're not ready."
"I am."
"Feels that way, from inside that box you're in. But thirteen…they don't let you vote. Or get married, or drink alcohol, or smoke. Drive a car, rent an apartment, or hold a job without a work permit. There's a reason, and it's not just because we think it's a hoot to crimp your style. Your brain's not wired to make the right kind of decisions. It will be, but it's not now."
"That's a bunch of crap," Dean said. "That thing got me because I slipped."
"That's crap."
"Is not."
"You figured you could go in there and do the duck-and-weave like some character in a video game. You didn't spend ten seconds figuring out the psychology of that thing you waved the red flag at. It's faster than you, and it's smarter than you, and if your daddy hadn't had that gun ready, you'd be minus a head right now."
Sam's eyes got wider. "It could -"
"Bite your head right the hell off. Yes."
"Is its mouth that big?"
"Sam," Dean said.
Bobby frowned a little. "It unhinges its jaws like a snake. Yes, it'll take your head clean off in one bite."
"Did you ever see -" Sam began.
The throaty rumble of the Impala out in the parking lot cut him off. From the sound of it, Dad had pulled up right outside the room rather than take the same spot he'd had before, over by the trees. The three of them stared at the door until it opened.
Dad had a plastic spray bottle in his hand that he tossed to Bobby. He looked more tired than mad, too worn down to start yelling. Or maybe he'd used up all the yelling he had in him, back at the old farmhouse. He circled around until he could see Dean's back and took a long look at it, then nodded without saying anything.
"We'll keep an eye on it," Bobby suggested.
"Take Sam for a walk," Dad said. Bobby raised an eyebrow. "There's a soda machine down at the end of the row. Go down there, get a soda. Drink it. Then come back."
Neither Bobby nor Sam bothered to protest - not that it would have gotten them anywhere - and went on out. After the door had clicked shut behind them, Dad waited a few seconds, and ran a hand through his hair. "You made the wrong choice," he said to Dean.
"Bobby already told me that."
"Bobby's not your father."
"I won't do it again."
"Dean -" Dad's gaze wandered around the room for a minute. With a long sigh he sat down on the edge of the bed, reached down to unzip one of the duffels they'd tossed onto the floor and pulled out a flannel button-up shirt that he draped around Dean's shoulders. "Son -"
"I thought I could help."
"I don't -" He didn't seem to be able to finish a thought. His eyelids were drooping and there were lines cut into his forehead and around his eyes. He reached up and rubbed at both temples with his fingers like he had one of those headaches that made your eyeballs throb.
"Dad, I'm sorry."
Rather than answer, Dad picked up the spray bottle Bobby had laid on the bed before he left and gestured for Dean to turn around. Dean gingerly shrugged the shirt off and flinched a little when the cool spray hit his skin. When Dad had finished, Dean slid his arms into the sleeves of the shirt and pulled it around him. It was Dad's, way too big for him.
"I know what you want," Dad said after a while. "I know what you think."
"I want to be -"
"I know."
"Dad -"
Something made Dad turn away. He was looking at the blank face of the TV when he said, "When you were little, you loved to come to work with me. You loved to come down to the garage and look at all the tools. You said, 'I want to fix cars, Daddy. I want to be like you.' And I was looking forward to when you could get in there and help me. I couldn't think of anything better than for you to help me, if that was what you wanted." His voice caught. It took him a moment to go on. "I get it, Dean. I did then and I do now. But this is different. This isn't fixing cars."
"I know that."
He turned back then, and to Dean's surprise his eyes were glistening. With an odd look on his face he cupped Dean's head between his hands and said softly, "Not yet, son. Please. Not yet."
It hurt to see him like that. Yelling would have been better. Easier to take. "Dad?"
"Promise me."
"I -"
"You're my boy, Dean. Promise me."
"Okay."
"You'll wait."
"Yeah. I will. Okay."
Dad took one of his hands away but left the other one where it was, his palm warm against Dean's cheek. Then, as if he had closed the door on something, he got up from the bed. "You boys need to get some sleep. Shouldn't have said soda. Sam'll be awake all night from the sugar."
"I don't let him have soda after supper."
"Next time I'll check with you first."
As if they'd been summoned, Bobby and Sam came back in. Neither one of them was holding a can, and Sam looked sleepy, not wired. "Couldn't hear you," Bobby said. "Figured it was safe to come back. We better get some sleep, if we're headed for Victorville in the morning."
"I can -" Dean began. Bobby and Dad and Sam all looked at him. "Go through the weapons and stuff," he said. "Make sure everything's clean."
Dad looked at Sam, then back at Dean. He tipped his head back and forth, working kinks out of his neck, taking in the worn surroundings of the motel room, the heap of duffel bags, his sons, and his friend as he did it. He seemed sad at first, then resigned, then something else. Finally, quietly, almost dismissively, he said, "Family business. When it's time."
"Yes, sir," Dean told him.
* * * * *
Sometime in 1992, after Sam found John's journal and put most of the pieces together. When Dean's duties have just (barely) begun to shift from Taking Care of Sammy and cleaning weapons to being an actual participant in the hunt. You know teenagers: they're invulnerable. Trouble is, that's only true in their minds, not the real world.
Now there was good news. Since they'd come back to the motel, a visit to the hospital obviously wasn't in the cards, and the idea of Bobby stitching those gashes together without the benefit of painkillers made Dean want to upchuck.
CHARACTERS: Dean (13), Sam (9), Bobby, John
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 2851 words
TEETH AND CLAWS
By Carol Davis
Sammy smelled like peanut butter and jelly.
He was crouched close enough to the bed that Dean could smell him - could hear him, too, because Sam's cold hadn't gone away yet and every breath he took had a snuffly sound to it.
Maybe it wasn't the cold.
And that just took the cake. Tonight had gone to hell in enough different ways that adding a big blubbering session from Sam into the mix was the last thing Dean wanted. A good snarky comment would throw Sam off the track, but Dean couldn't put together enough energy to come up with one. So he settled for not looking at his brother. If he didn't make eye contact with Sam, maybe Sam would hold it together.
Yeah, and maybe tomorrow they'd win a million bucks in the lottery.
"Doesn't look too bad," Bobby said.
It felt bad. The damn thing had torn his jacket, his favorite sweatshirt and his t-shirt all to shreds, like somebody had gone at 'em with scissors. He'd gotten one good look at the thing's claws before it grabbed him - they had to be three or four inches long, and sharp. Leave it to Bobby to be cool about all this, because Bobby always sounded like he had things under control. To distract himself, Dean tried to remember if he'd ever seen Bobby go ballistic.
"Does he need to get stitches?" Sammy asked.
"Don't think so."
Now there was good news. Since they'd come back to the motel, a visit to the hospital obviously wasn't in the cards, and the idea of Bobby stitching those gashes together without the benefit of painkillers made Dean want to upchuck.
"They're just scratches," Bobby mused.
Scratches?
"But they might get infected." That from Sammy, sounding very science-class. Like Dean was a frog pinned to a board, waiting to get flayed open and dissected.
"They might. Need to get 'em all cleaned out."
Could you not talk about me like I'm not here?
"Do you want the peroxide?" Sam asked.
"Nooooo," Dean said into the bedspread.
Bobby said with a note of humor, "Soap and water'll do it. They're not deep. But those things have all kinds of crap under their claws. They tear their food apart and then it rots underneath their claws. Must be a million different kinds of bacteria. Some steel wool ought to clean it out good."
"Not funny," Dean gritted out.
"Maybe we'll just go for the peroxide." Bobby chuckled softly. "Sammy, go out and tell your dad to run over to the drugstore and get a bottle of that spray antiseptic stuff. There's an all-night Rexall out on Route 18. Unless you want to sit and fingerpaint the genius, here, with Neosporin."
There was a long silence. Then Sam said, "I'll tell Dad."
After the door had creaked open and shut, with Sam presumably on the far side of it, Bobby said quietly, "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done."
"You killed it," Dean told him.
"Still."
Bobby got up off the bed. A moment later Dean could hear him running water in the bathroom. When he came back, Dean sighed, "I could wash in the shower."
"You gonna wash your own back?"
"You could -"
"What, get in the shower with you? You know I'm not gonna do that. You need your daddy or Sam. And your dad's likely to wring your neck if he gets within arm's reach of you."
"I'm old enough to help." Dean opened his eyes. Bobby was standing close to the bed with an armload of white motel towels and a wet, soapy washcloth. He looked wiped out, not surprising considering that he'd spent most of last night going over maps and old newspaper clippings instead of sleeping, and none of the four of them had had any sleep yet tonight.
"Not my place to take a stand in that debate," Bobby said.
"How old were you? When you started hunting?"
"Not thirteen."
"Bobby…"
"Mr. Singer," Bobby corrected.
"Nobody calls you Mr. Singer except that guy at the bank. You said that."
"I can change my mind."
Dean insisted, "It worked out okay."
Bobby sat down hard enough on the bed to make the springs shriek in protest. With a scowl painting his face, he jammed towels against Dean's sides to catch dripping water, then set about bathing the thing's claw trails with the soapy washcloth. "Ought to take the steel wool to you," he growled. "That was a stupid move, Dean, and you know it."
"I can - ow."
"Hold still."
"I can't hold still if you're gonna - dammit, that hurts."
"That one there might need stitches."
"You're not gonna sew me up. You said it didn't need…" Tears welled up in Dean's eyes. Before Bobby could see them, Dean turned his face into the bedspread and let them leak into the musty green chenille.
Bobby stopped his ministrations for a minute. When he started up again, his touch was considerably lighter. "There's a reason they don't let thirteen-year-olds drive."
"I can drive."
"Not legally. You get what I'm saying?"
"I can shoot. I'm a good shot. There's no reason why I can't -"
"Yeah, there is, Dean."
"Because Dad wants to keep me locked up in the room like I'm some five-year-old girl. All he wants me to do is babysit Sam."
"There's that," Bobby conceded.
"I'm smaller and faster than you are. I can get into places that you can't."
"True."
"Then I can be a part of this. I can hunt."
"Dean -"
Before Bobby could say anything more, the door creaked again and Sam came back in. "He's gone," Sam announced as he climbed up onto the bed and arranged himself near Dean's head. "He said he'll be back in a few minutes."
The bed, Dean thought, was getting mighty damn crowded.
Bobby switched washcloths and began sponging away the trails of soap with a cloth that Dean assumed was soaked with plain water. That one dripped, and in a way the tickle of the now-cold water running down Dean's sides into the towels was worse than the scrubbing.
"Bobby," Sam said. "How come you never had any kids?"
"Not for lack of wanting," Bobby told him.
"Huh?"
"You need another party in that equation, Sam."
"What? Oh, you mean a wife."
"It's helpful."
"You've never had a wife?"
Bobby was silent for a moment. Then he said softly, "Not for lack of wanting that, either."
"You could still have kids," Sam offered helpfully. "There was a guy in the newspaper the other day who had a baby, and he was ninety-three."
"God love him," Bobby said.
"What?"
Dean snorted softly into the bedspread. "You be quiet," Bobby told him firmly.
Sam pondered things for a minute, then made the "uh" noise that meant the lightbulb had come on. "You mean because he's ninety-three and he still has sex."
Then he made the noise that meant another question was coming.
"I'm forty-one," Bobby grunted. "You ask me if I still have sex and I'm gonna crack you one upside the head. Take this in the bathroom and wring it out. Wait, here. Take all this stuff." He pulled the towels away from Dean's sides, wiped what was left of the dribbles, and passed it all to Sam, who hopped off the bed and headed for the bathroom. "You're done, genius," Bobby said to Dean. "When your dad gets back, we'll paint you with that spray stuff, then you can get some sleep."
"Thanks," Dean muttered.
"Say again?"
"Thank you."
"It won't scar. But maybe that's a disappointment. Maybe you figured girls would think you were hot if you had battle scars all over you." Bobby paused and let out a long breath that wasn't quite a sigh. "You don't want all that. You don't want to end up looking like me. It's not romantic. It's -" He paused again. "Thirteen. 'You could've got yourself killed' doesn't mean squat. Didn't for me, doesn't for you, won't for Sam."
"I can be careful."
"Doesn't cut it, sometimes."
"If Dad doesn't want me to help, then why is he training me?" Carefully, Dean shifted himself around so he could sit up. Without a shirt, and still a little damp, he shivered in the cool air of the motel room. Bobby took note of that, leaned over to the clanking heater under the window and turned it up a notch. "He says it all the time: we're in this together," Dean insisted.
"You got any idea what it's like to be in the service?"
Sam, back from the bathroom, piped up, "They yell at you a lot."
Bobby shrugged an acknowledgment. "They set things up so that if you're green, you've got somebody in charge of you. A bunch of somebodies. They yell at you to get your attention. And they tell you what to do, and when to do it, because there was a time when they were green and they remember it. Because they've made mistakes and they remember it. They yell at you to keep you safe, because a dead solder is no use to anybody. And because unless they're an absolute grade-A son of a bitch - and there's a few of those - seeing a kid get killed hurts. Seeing anybody get killed hurts. That make any sense to the two of you, or am I talking to myself?"
He didn't give the boys time to answer. "There's a reason they don't let thirteen-year-olds in the service," he told Dean.
"This isn't the service," Dean said stubbornly.
"It's the same goddamn thing, without the uniforms."
"Bobby?" Sam said. "Have you ever seen somebody die?"
"Yeah," Bobby told him. "And it wasn't like the movies. They don't flutter their eyes and go limp. It ain't neat. It's not something you look at and go, 'wow, awesome.'"
"I'm sorry," Sam said.
"About what?"
"About whoever it was that you saw die."
Bobby stared off into space for a second, then sighed, "Yeah. Me too."
None of them said anything after that for a good couple of minutes. Trying not to be obvious about it, Dean shifted a little on the bed so he could see his back in the mirror over the room's low dresser. The thing had caught hold of him, dug its claws in, dragged, lost its grip a little, then grabbed again. The claw marks looked like someone had drawn on his skin with a broad-tip red marker. Alongside his spine, about midway down, was the gouge Bobby had said looked worse than the rest.
"I don't want to see you or Dad get hurt either," Dean said finally. "But you hunt anyway."
"We do it because we've thought it through, and it's the only choice there is."
"Then why can't I decide the same thing?"
"Because you're not ready."
"I am."
"Feels that way, from inside that box you're in. But thirteen…they don't let you vote. Or get married, or drink alcohol, or smoke. Drive a car, rent an apartment, or hold a job without a work permit. There's a reason, and it's not just because we think it's a hoot to crimp your style. Your brain's not wired to make the right kind of decisions. It will be, but it's not now."
"That's a bunch of crap," Dean said. "That thing got me because I slipped."
"That's crap."
"Is not."
"You figured you could go in there and do the duck-and-weave like some character in a video game. You didn't spend ten seconds figuring out the psychology of that thing you waved the red flag at. It's faster than you, and it's smarter than you, and if your daddy hadn't had that gun ready, you'd be minus a head right now."
Sam's eyes got wider. "It could -"
"Bite your head right the hell off. Yes."
"Is its mouth that big?"
"Sam," Dean said.
Bobby frowned a little. "It unhinges its jaws like a snake. Yes, it'll take your head clean off in one bite."
"Did you ever see -" Sam began.
The throaty rumble of the Impala out in the parking lot cut him off. From the sound of it, Dad had pulled up right outside the room rather than take the same spot he'd had before, over by the trees. The three of them stared at the door until it opened.
Dad had a plastic spray bottle in his hand that he tossed to Bobby. He looked more tired than mad, too worn down to start yelling. Or maybe he'd used up all the yelling he had in him, back at the old farmhouse. He circled around until he could see Dean's back and took a long look at it, then nodded without saying anything.
"We'll keep an eye on it," Bobby suggested.
"Take Sam for a walk," Dad said. Bobby raised an eyebrow. "There's a soda machine down at the end of the row. Go down there, get a soda. Drink it. Then come back."
Neither Bobby nor Sam bothered to protest - not that it would have gotten them anywhere - and went on out. After the door had clicked shut behind them, Dad waited a few seconds, and ran a hand through his hair. "You made the wrong choice," he said to Dean.
"Bobby already told me that."
"Bobby's not your father."
"I won't do it again."
"Dean -" Dad's gaze wandered around the room for a minute. With a long sigh he sat down on the edge of the bed, reached down to unzip one of the duffels they'd tossed onto the floor and pulled out a flannel button-up shirt that he draped around Dean's shoulders. "Son -"
"I thought I could help."
"I don't -" He didn't seem to be able to finish a thought. His eyelids were drooping and there were lines cut into his forehead and around his eyes. He reached up and rubbed at both temples with his fingers like he had one of those headaches that made your eyeballs throb.
"Dad, I'm sorry."
Rather than answer, Dad picked up the spray bottle Bobby had laid on the bed before he left and gestured for Dean to turn around. Dean gingerly shrugged the shirt off and flinched a little when the cool spray hit his skin. When Dad had finished, Dean slid his arms into the sleeves of the shirt and pulled it around him. It was Dad's, way too big for him.
"I know what you want," Dad said after a while. "I know what you think."
"I want to be -"
"I know."
"Dad -"
Something made Dad turn away. He was looking at the blank face of the TV when he said, "When you were little, you loved to come to work with me. You loved to come down to the garage and look at all the tools. You said, 'I want to fix cars, Daddy. I want to be like you.' And I was looking forward to when you could get in there and help me. I couldn't think of anything better than for you to help me, if that was what you wanted." His voice caught. It took him a moment to go on. "I get it, Dean. I did then and I do now. But this is different. This isn't fixing cars."
"I know that."
He turned back then, and to Dean's surprise his eyes were glistening. With an odd look on his face he cupped Dean's head between his hands and said softly, "Not yet, son. Please. Not yet."
It hurt to see him like that. Yelling would have been better. Easier to take. "Dad?"
"Promise me."
"I -"
"You're my boy, Dean. Promise me."
"Okay."
"You'll wait."
"Yeah. I will. Okay."
Dad took one of his hands away but left the other one where it was, his palm warm against Dean's cheek. Then, as if he had closed the door on something, he got up from the bed. "You boys need to get some sleep. Shouldn't have said soda. Sam'll be awake all night from the sugar."
"I don't let him have soda after supper."
"Next time I'll check with you first."
As if they'd been summoned, Bobby and Sam came back in. Neither one of them was holding a can, and Sam looked sleepy, not wired. "Couldn't hear you," Bobby said. "Figured it was safe to come back. We better get some sleep, if we're headed for Victorville in the morning."
"I can -" Dean began. Bobby and Dad and Sam all looked at him. "Go through the weapons and stuff," he said. "Make sure everything's clean."
Dad looked at Sam, then back at Dean. He tipped his head back and forth, working kinks out of his neck, taking in the worn surroundings of the motel room, the heap of duffel bags, his sons, and his friend as he did it. He seemed sad at first, then resigned, then something else. Finally, quietly, almost dismissively, he said, "Family business. When it's time."
"Yes, sir," Dean told him.
* * * * *