SPN Fic: Cat's Game
Title: Cat’s Game
Fandom: SPN
Author: relli86
Rating: G
Words: 1,717
Spoilers: None
Characters/Pairings: Gen, preseries, Bobby, wee!Dean, John
Summary: Bobby tries to take some of the load off of an eight-year-old Dean.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Supernatural or the Winchesters, no matter how much I may want to.
Author’s Note: Thanks so much to gwendolyngrace for the ever-consistent and awesome beta!
The Winchesters had been at Bobby’s not two days before the first sign of blood.
Dean’s outside in front of Bobby’s house, looking impossibly small between the broken down cars and discarded tires.
Bobby watches him through the busted screen door, one hand on the door frame ready to push it open and the other jammed in his pocket.
Dean’s sitting crossed-legged in the dirt, his bony knees protruding from his skinny legs, clad in cut-off jeans and a Batman shirt two sizes too big and two years past its usable wear date. The faded yellow of the Batman symbol is cracked all over and just plain missing in some places. Not to mention the hole in the shoulder that Bobby can see from where he’s standing.
The boy’s not looking at the house; he’s leaning his chin on one hand, elbow digging into his knee. He seems to be fixated on the point of the stick he’s using to draw in the dirt.
Bobby makes to open the door, but hesitates - again. He doesn’t want to step on John’s toes, knows it’s not really his place. Kid just looks so damn dejected that Bobby but can’t help but be tempted, more than a couple times.
That morning, both boys had been out in the yard, playing and running, just being boys. Sammy had taken a nasty fall right into the rusted edge of a ’60 Buick. The little guy had cried out, brought John and Bobby running. When they got there, Dean was already kneeling in the dirt next to his brother, inspecting the long cut in his arm with practiced ease. He was whispering what Bobby assumed were assurances, but the kid wanted none of that. Tears and snot ran down his face, and he howled like he was being ripped apart by a zombie. John scooped him up, brought him inside. Dean hovered, apologizing at first then growing absolutely silent at one look from John. With Sammy encased in John’s arms, Bobby had given the trembling little boy a tetanus shot in his thin, fragile arm.
Sammy’s sleeping now, thumb in his mouth and John by his bedside, reading. And Dean’s out here, not doing much of anything. Bobby’s not sure if this is John’s punishment or the self-imposed kind. Given the way Dean minds his little brother, Bobby thinks it would have taken more than a look from John to keep the boy away. He knows the look though, been the recipient of it more times than he liked in the three short years he’d known the Winchesters. Most of the time, it just makes him want to reach for the shotgun, knife, or whatever’s handy. But he’s not a little kid whose father is training him to be a soldier.
Dean’s seven or eight - Bobby can’t remember which. He feels kind of bad about that. Kid like him don’t got a lot of people remembering exactly how old he is - Sammy, probably, when he’s not focused on salvage huntin’ up his own nose and John when he’s being less . . . John.
Bobby watches the stick in Dean’s hand go round and round in the dirt. There’s no point to what he’s doing, but Bobby can see his mind going a mile a minute, going over the same things like a hyperactive hamster in a plastic wheel.
Bobby recognizes the signs; the boy’s beating himself up and that pushes Bobby forward.
The door creaks when Bobby opens it, but Dean only stills his hand for a minute, the stick pivoting in the dirt, before beginning again. He doesn’t raise his head or look to see who’s approaching. Bobby figures he knows someone’s been watching him for a while now, and John’s probably taught him all about recognizing footsteps.
Bobby walks over slowly, jamming the toes of his boots into the ground as he approaches and sending up dirt. He stands over Dean for a minute, not sure of what to say. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He looms awkwardly for another minute, before sinking down into the dirt beside Dean and mirroring his position with a grunt. The legs don’t take kindly to the forced Indian-style position, but he holds it anyway.
He adjusts the sweaty hat on his head and runs his hand over its mesh backing. They sit in silence: Bobby staring at the house and Dean drawing circle after circle.
Watching Dean out of the corner of his eye, Bobby finally has enough of the repetition and reaches over to take the stick out of Dean’s hand. “Gimme that,” he says good-naturedly.
Dean relinquishes the twig without complaint, and Bobby takes it, drawing two vertical lines a few inches apart and then two more perpendicular lines. “Circle or X?” Bobby asks, but Dean just shrugs.
Bobby chooses “O”; Dean has had enough practice with it. He puts his circle in the center square as he always does. Ever since he was a kid, he’s always chosen that square first, even though it gives him no strategic advantage that he can decipher
He hands the stick back to Dean, who puts his “X” on the upper right-hand corner. They play for a while, game after game. Dean wins the majority of them; he seems to have some kind of strategy. Bobby mostly loses, but it doesn’t bother him; he’s not playing to win.
Halfway through their eleventh, twelfth - Bobby’s stopped keeping count - game, Bobby speaks, softly and hesitantly, “Sammy’s gonna be fine.”
Dean tenses at the words and then seems to melt into himself, shoulders slumping. He doesn’t say anything. The twig in his hand hovers over a square, but he doesn’t mark it.
The words, ‘It’s not your fault,’ die on Bobby’s lips. He’s pretty sure it’ll just make Dean shut down even more. Phrases like that - ‘not your fault,’ ‘proud of you, ‘miss you,’ ‘love you’ - just hurt too much when someone’s gone so long without hearing them. And Bobby knows he’s not the one Dean needs to hear it from anyway. Doesn’t mean he can’t try to show him some other way.
“Lots of rusty stuff out here, Dean,” Bobby forges ahead, hopes he’ll see the shoulders rise at some point, “I cut myself damn-near every day.”
Dean’s marked his “X,” and Bobby takes the stick, chooses his square, and knows he’s lost the game.
Dean doesn’t even bother marking the last square. He wipes away the game board and holds onto the stick, not drawing a new one. Bobby sees a small handprint in the dirt - the poor man’s version of plaster and paint.
“My fault really,” Bobby says, “shouldn’t have let you boys out there without checking things out first.”
Dean shakes his head at that, the first significant physical reaction that Bobby’s gotten from him so far.
“Well,” Bobby says, “I feel bad about it just the same.”
The kid’s holding the twig tightly in his fingers, not moving.
“It was just an accident,” Bobby tells him, itching to lay a hand on the boy’s back, but resisting. “Like my mama used to tell me, ‘It’s no use crying over spilt milk.’”
Dean looks up at him, green eyes boring into Bobby’s. He stares for a long minute, the silence stretching time between them. “My mom . . .” he says, soft in his little-boy voice, “she used to say that too.”
Bobby smiles sadly, sees everything Dean can’t say in his eyes. His own mama’s death - ten years ago, Alzheimer’s and organs that just stopped working - didn’t put him in this life, not like Dean’s, but it sure as hell didn’t make things better.
Dean’s drawing a new game board. When he’s done, he hands the stick to Bobby, giving him first move even though he’s won the last three games.
Bobby chooses the middle square, sneaks a look at Dean and sees a slight grin on the kid’s face at his predictability. He draws the circle, traces it one time, two, three, fascinated by its limitless.
“It’s weird,” Dean says, his voice almost a whisper and Bobby stops, listening, “how it doesn’t end. It goes round and round, always the same.” Dean’s voice trails off at the end, like he’s reached his daily - hell, weekly - word limit.
Bobby’s not sure what to say; Dean’s not a talkative kid - he usually leaves the questions for Sammy - so Bobby doesn’t even know if he wants a response. He mulls it over, thinks of half a life of hunting different evils while the stakes stay the same, the things on the line never ones he can bear losing.
“Some things are like that,” Bobby says and hands the stick back to Dean. Bobby watches as he makes his “X,” precise and clear, just like his daddy taught him.
They play a little bit longer, until John comes out, looking for his boy. “Sammy’s asking for you,” he tells Dean. In a flash, the boy’s gone, bounding up the steps and through the door.
Bobby rises, almost topples over as he tries to stand on his sore, angry legs. He stretches the creaks out of his knees slowly and stands to face John. They stare at each other, Bobby resisting the urge to squint into the setting sun and John half-hidden in the shadows.
After awhile, John nods, and that’s all Bobby needs to understand. John doesn’t think he can be the father and the general, and Bobby reckons he’s already chosen one. Bobby nods back. He’ll pick up some of the slack; the Winchesters don’t got a lot of people John will let them trust.
When John retreats inside, Bobby stands still and looks at the tic-tac-toe board. As Bobby goes to wipe it away with his workman’s boots, he hesitates, reluctant to erase the innocence that Bobby’s pretty sure went up in flames with a blonde-haired woman.
Boot raised over the area, but not touching, Bobby stares down at the board. It’s a cat’s game, the Xs and Os battling each other to a standstill. There’s no pattern or strategy. It’s block the move and hope the other guy doesn’t hit where no one’s looking.
As Bobby’s boot print replaces the board, he thinks, There are no winners in this.