Supernatural Fic: Life Is Bigger
Title: Life Is Bigger
Author: Mistress Kat / kat_lair
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Category: Bobby & Castiel, Gen, post 5.15 Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~2,500
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: It’s the end of the world and Bobby Singer is baking pie with an angel.
Author notes: This is for lolabobs, who asked for Bobby and Castiel Gen and gave ‘okay’ as the prompt word. I know you’ve been going through some rough times babe, and I hope the fic cheers you up at least a little. Beta by cosmic, who is awesome. Title is of course the first line from Losing My Religion by R.E.M. because I’m that much of a dork and the song came up on the mediaplayer while I was writing.
Three days after killing his wife for the second time, Bobby wheels himself into the kitchen and finds Castiel at the table, eating one of her cherry pies.
He has his gun out before he realises who it is, and doesn’t let his aim drop after he recognises the angel.
”This isn’t a goddamn roadside diner,” Bobby says.
Castiel looks at him mildly. ”Yes, I know,” he says. “It is an automobile workshop.”
Bobby doesn’t have enough energy left to roll his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“I am eating pie. It is delicious.” Castiel shovels another forkful into his mouth.
Bobby leaves him to it. What does he care if there is an angel in his kitchen, eating a pie his dead wife baked. He’s done with it all.
***
Bobby hasn’t let go of the gun since. He hasn’t cleaned it either. It sits just like it was, tugged next to him in the chair or under his pillow at night, the safety on and new bullets in the chamber.
The downstairs bathroom has a large walk-in - ha, irony - shower, with wide doors and non-slip handles to help him move himself from the wheelchair to the shower chair. He got it installed after getting home from the hospital. Took a large chunk out of his savings; that and the ramps and a lower stove to cook on, a lower sink to wash at, and... Yeah, cleared him right out it did. But what the hell, it’s not like he’s going to need the money where they’re all headed.
He’d drawn a line at a stair lift though; nothing upstairs but his clothes and uneasy memories. The former he’d told Dean to bring down and the latter were best left alone anyway.
Bobby sits in the shower at least an hour every day, the water cranked as hot as he can bear it, the dirty gun resting on the closed toilet lid. He’s cleaned the house too; the ruined bed sheets burned with Karen, the floors scrubbed. He’s put the pies in the freezer; can’t bring himself to throw them away even though he knows he’ll never eat so much as a crumb.
***
Castiel apparently has no such qualms. After a few days he’s back, slowly working through another slice - apple, Bobby can tell from the smell.
He thinks about going over to the back wall, where the Enochian symbol is still hiding under a large map of the world, cutting his palm open, slapping it against the portal and sending Castiel to the other end of the solar system.
He thinks about it and thinks about it and then lets it go. He doesn’t care enough to actually do it.
Instead, Bobby puts the coffee on, waits for the pot to brew and then pours them both a cup.
Castiel accepts the drink readily. The angel’s clearly spent too much time with the Winchesters, judging from the way he’s clutching the mug like it’s something his immortal soul depends on.
Do angels even have souls or is that a human thing? Bobby doesn’t ask, just drinks his own coffee silently.
***
Grief is no easier the second time around. It’s not like you get used to it. Maybe that’s something he should be grateful for, but right now Bobby would welcome the numbness, the ability to forget, to move on. It’s damned unfair, that for all he’s seen, all he’s done, his heart still hasn’t hardened enough not to break.
It wasn’t any less his fault this time around, either. Quite the opposite, in fact. The first time, he’d been young, clueless - innocent, and isn’t that a joke - and the demon had picked Karen for no other reason than that she was there and it could. This time...
He told me to give you a message.
He got it, alright.
The Death had come for Bobby Singer of Sioux Falls, all special like. It was personal; every walking, breathing, killing dead man, woman and child was a grotesque gift with Bobby’s name on the tag. Because of who he is, what he has done. Because of the people he helps, the war he fights.
No more. Bobby is done.
He doesn’t put the gun down, though.
***
Dean keeps calling, every few days. He updates Bobby on the weather (rain and more rain), hunts (plentiful), and the apocalypse (still happening), even though Bobby doesn’t ask or really want to know. Occasionally, Sam shouts comments from the background, but he never takes the phone to talk to Bobby in person. Kid always had more sense out of the two of them.
“Are you okay, Bobby?” Dean asks at the end of each phone call. “You’re okay though, right?” He says it not like a question, but more like something he’s trying to convince himself of.
Bobby closes his eyes and pretends he doesn’t hear the uncertainty in Dean’s voice, the way it cracks and wavers - like a child asking for reassurance and knowing he’s asking for too much.
Bobby hangs up without a word. Surrounded by books and manuscripts and papers full of them, it feels like he’s got none left to give.
These days Bobby understands John much better than he ever wanted to.
***
“Why do humans ask that?” Castiel is sitting cross-legged on Bobby’s sofa and reading a Barbara Cartland novel. There’s plate full of crumbs on the side table.
Bobby blinks, somehow not surprised. “That was Karen’s,” he says automatically, and then feels annoyed. It’s not like he needs to justify anything about himself to the angel.
“Ask what?” he changes the topic, wheeling fully into the room. He parks near the window, the glass blurry with the constant rain. Bobby wonders if the weather is supposed to make people long for some hellfire and brimstone. At least it would be dry.
“‘Are you okay?’” Castiel clarifies. “Why do you ask that even when the answer is obvious?”
“I guess...” He’s actually thinking about it, which is kind of unexpected since he’s spent the last week or so trying not to. “I guess it’s because we’re hoping to hear an answer other than the obvious.”
Castiel nods, solemn, like he’s satisfied with the reply, like he’s learned something.
“I need a base,” he says then. “Winchesters travel around too much.”
“Right,” Bobby says. It doesn’t sound like Castiel is asking for permission. Besides, Bobby doesn’t care.
They sit in silence for a while; Castiel is still reading while Bobby watches the rain hammer the car roofs outside. The low steady rhythm of water on metal sounds like drums.
It’s surprisingly non-awkward.
“Is there more pie?” Castiel asks finally, book back on the shelf and hands neatly folded in his lap.
“In the freezer,” Bobby says. “Help yourself.”
***
As far as he can tell Castiel doesn’t sleep, which is weird since he seems to have adopted a lot of the other human habits, like eating and asking a lot of questions and being surprisingly sarcastic at times. Bobby suspects the last two are Sam and Dean’s influence, respectively.
It’s okay. Bobby doesn’t sleep much himself nowadays, so he doesn’t mind.
Sometimes Castiel lies down though, curled up on the sofa or the downstairs guest bed.
“The vessel needs to rest,” he explains, eyes alert and open. “I do not.”
Castiel never uses the bedrooms upstairs, or at least Bobby doesn’t know about it if he does.
He doesn’t ask either.
***
“What is this?” Castiel is standing next to a rusty Camaro, and holding a socket wrench with a puzzled expression.
Bobby comes to a halt a few feet away. The sky has finally cleared and Bobby is out surveying the storm damage. What for, he’s not entirely sure. It’s not like it’s going to make a difference if his junkyard is destroyed now or a little later when the Devil decides to come and play kick-ball with his livelihood.
“It’s a ratchet,” he says. “For tightening or loosening bolts.”
Castiel blinks, the words clearly meaning nothing to him.
“Give it here,” Bobby sighs. He goes over and pops the Camaro’s hood, leaning sideways so Castiel can see. “That’s the engine,” he says, pointing. “You see the...”
Bobby spends the rest of the afternoon explaining the miracle of internal combustion, Castiel listening with rapt attention.
It’s not a bad day.
***
One evening when Dean calls he has some actual news.
“I think we’ve got a lead,” he says. In the background Bobby can hear Sam packing up. “There’s a mystery illness killing people in Omaha. You saw it on the news, right?”
“Right,” Bobby says, even though he hasn’t opened the TV or his computer for weeks.
“There are signs too. Lightning. Glossolalia,” Dean continues. “Well, it quoted ‘extreme delirium’ as one of the symptoms, but we think it’s more than that. I got to call Cas, get him in on this.”
“Right,” Bobby says again. “I’ll just put him on for you.”
There’s a stunned silence at the other end of the line, which Bobby ignores.
“Castiel!” he shouts through the open window. The angel is outside, either testing another ritual he’s found in Bobby’s books or taking apart one of his cars, Bobby hadn’t asked. “Phone for you!”
He leaves the handle on the side table and goes to take a shower. All this talk of Pestilence makes him feel like he needs one.
***
“What were Sam and Dean like as children?” Castiel asks one day when they’re making soup. Well, Bobby is making soup and Castiel has covered the kitchen table with books and maps, and is doing a complicated locating spell. Pestilence has proven to be a slippery son of a bitch.
Bobby is mentally cataloging the ingredients. Some habits are hard to break. “I thought you knew everything about them,” he says.
“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “But I do not know them.” He pauses, carefully crumbling myrrh into a large bowl. “Not like you do.”
Bobby considers this, adding more thyme to the soup.
“Why do you keep asking these questions?” He rummages the drawers and places four long candles onto the table before Castiel has a chance to ask for them.
“Because I want to know the answers,” Castiel says.
Bobby shakes his head, irritated. “You know what I mean. Why do you keep asking me? Why not Dean or Sam?”
Castiel lights the candles, arranging them equidistant from each other to mark the cardinal directions. “They don’t know everything,” he says.
And well, ain’t that the truth.
Castiel recites the incantation, the strange, stretched out syllables dropping easily off his tongue. The flames flicker red as he throws a handful of sand onto the map. For a moment it looks like the grains will coalesce into a definable pattern, but then the spell falls apart and they scatter uselessly.
“It did not work,” Castiel says. He has a talent for stating the obvious.
Bobby watches his slumped shoulders for a while, before remarking conversationally: “When Dean was eight, he wanted to be an astronaut and fly to the Moon.”
Castiel’s head comes up. “The Moon?” he asks, and somehow it comes out speculative.
Bobby nods. “Yeah. Spent the whole summer wearing a space helmet made out of cardboard.”
He turns the stove off, picks up the pot. “The soup’s ready. Clear the table,” he tells Castiel, who obediently starts tidying up. “I think I got some pictures, I’ll show you after dinner.”
***
It’s not like Castiel moves in, not really. Except for how he kind of does.
His research takes over every available surface, parchments cascading onto the floor. The walls of Bobby’s library are covered in symbols and even though he’s loath to admit it, he has to ask Castiel to explain most of them.
The stuff sparks some ideas so Bobby goes to pull down even more books and then when he can’t find what he’s looking for, he calls a couple of his contacts, and then a couple of more, and before he knows it, it’s six a.m. and Castiel is trying to work the coffee maker.
They get into a routine, as much as you can with an angel that appears and disappears at random intervals. Castiel goes off wherever, searching for God, searching for clues, pulling the Winchester boys out of trouble. Bobby picks up the research again, only a little, not much he can do that Castiel doesn’t already have covered. He starts writing, finally updates the diary he hasn’t touched since Carthage. It was too hard, to chronicle Ellen and Jo’s death, like writing it down made it finally true.
He writes about Karen, too, about what happened in his town, and his hands don’t tremble once.
“Living Scripture,” Castiel says. He touches the worn pages lightly.
Bobby doesn’t argue. He puts the diary back into his desk drawer, locks the gun in with it.
***
Castiel comes and goes as he pleases, bringing news and souvenirs ranging from a rare 16th century silver chalice to a plastic hula dancer with ‘Made in Taiwan’ stamped at the bottom. Usually his trips last no more than a couple days, and often Bobby watches him blink out of existence in the library only to find him already seated at the kitchen table thirty seconds later.
One time he doesn’t return for a whole week, though, and Bobby is kind of... well, not worried. That would be ridiculous.
He does, however, ring Sam and Dean, casually asking if they’ve seen the angel lately. Sam comes to the phone this time, wrestling it away from his brother judging by the sound of a brief tussle and indignant ‘Sam, goddammit!’ as Dean loses his hold on the cell.
“Hey, Bobby.” Sam’s voice is tired but calm. “Yeah, Cas dropped off some stuff yesterday. Said he was in the middle of something.”
“Good, good. That’s good.” Bobby raps his knuckles against that table, feeling relieved despite himself.
He listens to Sam’s quiet breathing for a few seconds. “So,” he finally clears his throat. “How are you boys holding up?”
***
Castiel comes back two days later. Bobby finds him on the porch, wearing several layers of coloured beads.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demands, inwardly cringing at the choice of words.
“Rio de Janeiro,” Castiel says. Absently, he brushes glitter off his trench coat.
Bobby gapes at him. “You think God is in Rio?”
Castiel just looks at him and doesn’t say anything.
Right.
Even if Castiel did think God was in Rio, it’s clear that he didn’t find him. Bobby sighs, turns around and starts wheeling towards the kitchen.
Castiel follows him, going straight for the freezer. He opens the door and stares at the shelves for a long minute. “There is no more pie,” he finally informs Bobby, voice serious.
Bobby rolls his eyes, at Castiel or himself or the whole goddamn universe, he’s not sure. Probably all three.
“Come on, then. We’ll bake some more,” he says, already pulling out the flour. “You can tell me all about Rio.”
Fin.