Sam and Dean should totally shoot IB full of rock salt.
Yeah, so I have exams and they suck. I have a theory that exams are hell demons (from hell) and if there was any justice in the world, Sam and Dean would be at my school tomorrow morning torching them and getting rid of their evilness. The IB program is seriously screwed up--and hell, I only take a few courses in it. Tomorrow, I have IB Spanish and IB Theatre and even the thought of those stupid exams are making me want to jump off a building or something. They are slowly draining my life essence and guh. I will be frigging glad when junior year is over, that's all I have to say.
So, on to brighter matters! I am writing a Bobby fic!
This makes me happy because, a) I really like Bobby (he's so kick-ass), and b)this fandom needs more Bobby fic.
The only problem? It's spiraling totally out of control. I started it and it just...GREW. It was supposed to be a ONE-SHOT. Yeah, well, my stupid muses forced this outta me, and I know, I know, I have other stuff to be updating, but ah well. Bobby's too cool to leave sitting around on my hard-drive. I need some feedback and suggestions, so here's Part One. I have some of Part Two done, but I'm sort of wary about the direction this fic is going in.
Title: This Wayward Son
Author: that_september
Rating: PG-13 for strong language
Pairing/Characters: Bobby-centric, John, Sam, Dean, Ellen, Jo. Mentions of an OFC.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. *shakes fist at Kripke* Yet.
Spoilers: None; Part One is all pre-series.
Summary: No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life. A good long look at Bobby Singer, with glances at four of the people he meets along the way.
A/N: Please please please, I need some feedback/ideas to continue on with this. I really like this fic myself, and it'd be great to get some insight from everyone. Let me know what you think!
PART ONE
No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life.
Bobby Singer’s daddy hurls that comment at his back the day of Bobby’s eighteenth birthday, the day he walks out the door and doesn’t come back.
Goddamn fool! he can hear Daddy shouting. You gonna live to regret this, boy!
But he doesn’t. Regret it, that is.
Bobby never regrets things because he never acts before he thinks. He is always absolutely certain that the decision he makes is the right one, and if it has long-lasting repercussions, well, that’s just the way life crumbles. He ain’t gonna waste time worrying over the past-nobody can change that. Live for the present, that’s what Bobby always says. Do whatcha can now. Make good on your promises. Actions speak a helluva lot louder than words.
Maybe no one truly sane would hunt things that go bump in the night, Bobby doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. If he’s truly crazy, well, ain’t much he can do about it now. Might as well save as many lives as he can.
He knows, deep in his gut, it won’t make what happened to Annie any less real. He can’t save her now, he’s too late. He knows it, he’s not stupid. He doesn’t dwell on the sight of her lifeless face, the way her sightless, staring eyes seemed to silently accuse: You didn’t save me, Bobby. Instead, Bobby honors her memory as best he can by remembering her sunny laugh, the way she’d quirk an eyebrow at him when she knew he was telling her a whopper, how she’d recite her own poetry in perfect Latin.
When he thinks of her, which is often, he does so with a smile on his face. Bobby’s shed his tears. No sense wallowing in his grief; Annie would hate to see him like that.
Still, Bobby is human, and male, and there’s still sorrow and anger in him yet, even if he doesn’t pay either too much mind on a day-to-day basis. He tracks the demon carefully, mechanically. It doesn’t leave an easy trail to follow, but Bobby picks up its scent and keeps it, watches the signs, reads the bylines in the crumpled newspapers. Every moment that thing spends out of Hell (where it belongs) is another moment Bobby closes in for the kill.
It goes for another young virgin, another pretty redhead not a day older than seventeen; possesses a middle-aged, potbellied mechanic and follows her as she walks home from school. The thing strikes when she takes a shortcut through an ally, moving with inhuman speed as it pins her to the wall, gripping her thin wrists with unnatural strength. She shrieks, and the demon, its slitted eyes black as coal, leers, leans in, ready to suck her life essence, drain her dry.
Bobby jumps in then, drenches it with holy water, and the demon howls angrily, momentarily releasing its hold on the girl.
“Run!” Bobby calls to her as he leaps onto the writhing body of the mechanic and holds him down, turning his flask of holy water upside down over its head. “Get outta here, go home!”
She’s a good, brave kid, and even though she’s in shock she looks at Bobby hard, half-hesitating even as she starts to run, like maybe she should stay and help. It’s so much like what Annie would have done, his heart half breaks before he centers himself.
Stay in the moment, Singer, he chides himself mentally, bringing out the other flask and tossing more blessed water onto the demon, just to keep it restrained for another few seconds.
“I can handle this!” he roars. “You get outta here, and don’t look back.” He thinks the girl might’ve said thank you, but when he glances her way a second later, she’s gone.
Grimly satisfied, Bobby begins chanting the Latin he so carefully memorized. The demon’s roars start afresh and it lashes out at him with one huge fist; Bobby’s head almost spins as he gasps with pain, stumbling over a word.
“You should have listened to your father, boy,” the demon hisses. “Avenging precious little Annie won’t do anything except get you killed.”
Bobby starts chanting again, determined, stoic. He’s studied this thing long and hard-he knows what it wants from him, how it operates, and he won’t be swayed, refuses to falter.
“Postem dictat: Ant. Ne reminiscáris, Dómini, delicta nostra, vel paréntum nostrórum: neque vindíctam sumas de peccátis nostris!” Bobby nearly shouts. The demon fights, claws at him, hurls brutal, terrible truths his way, but he coldly finishes the Rite of Exorcism, watches with a mixture of relief and contentment as the demon is banished to the very pits of Hell, funneling out of the mechanic’s mouth in what seems like an endless, horrible roar.
The calm quiet that follows is broken only by the mechanic’s shallow, terrified gasps as he returns to consciousness. He sits up, gets a good look at Bobby, who is leaning against the dirty wall of the ally, his head lolled back, eyes shut.
“Oh…oh God,” the guy says in a broken sort of voice. “I-what happened? Are you okay, man?”
“Yeah,” Bobby grunts out. “It’s gonna be all right.”
“That…that thing,” the mechanic says uncertainly. “What…?”
“Demon.” Bobby opens his eyes and meets the man’s gaze steadily. “Pretty nasty one. I’ve been tracking it since it killed my little sister.” The mechanic’s face pales.
“Demon?”
“Yup.” Bobby stands matter-of-factly, then offers a hand to the mechanic. “Your truck’s a couple blocks thatta way,” he adds, thumbing over his left shoulder. “Best of luck.”
“I…look, kid-“ the guy begins, but Bobby has already set off in the opposite direction, done with this conversation, the exorcism, all of it. It’s just another thing in the past now; one less worry to think on. One less monster lurking out there in the shadows.
That one was for you, Annie-girl, Bobby thinks to himself as he heads for his truck. This time, I wasn’t too late.
+++
Harvelle’s Roadhouse already looks old, even though it can’t have been open for more than a couple of years. New as it is, hunters from all over already turn to it as a kind of home base-a place for a beer, the latest gossip on the annual number of possessions or vampire slayings or banshee sightings or God knows what else. In this atmosphere, even the most out-casted, rejected hunter can find a place among his own kind.
Bobby learns of the roadhouse from a guy called Daniel Elkins, a slightly crazy, completley obsessed vampire hunter who’s already getting on in his years but has the spirit of a much younger man. He taught Bobby all he knows about vampires, introduced him to Joanna Kingston, the most experienced hunter Bobby has ever had the honor of meeting. She died only three days after they chatted. Kelpie got her, that’s the word on the street.
It feels like a chilling little reminder that in this business, no one is ever too good or too prepared.
Anyways, Bobby walks through the door of the Roadhouse, and immediately feels a little more at ease. Hunters are everywhere: sharpening knives, drinking beer, putting quarters into the juke box and playing oldie after oldie. The warm air in here smells of smoke, of sorrow, of adrenaline, and when Bobby sits down at the bar, he’s glad he took Elkins’ advice and made a pit stop here.
”What can I getcha?” asks the pretty blonde bartender. She’s young still, but her face is already careworn, worry lining her forehead and darkening her eyes. She slides a beer down the bar to a grizzled old guy who looks like he went a few rounds with a wood chipper and lived to tell the tale, and balances a little girl, five-years-old at most, on her hip all the while.
“Whiskey,” Bobby decides, nodding. “Whiskey’d be real good.”
“Coming right up.” The woman sets down the child and murmurs, “Stay put right there, sweetie. I’m just gonna go out back and get this gentleman here something to drink.” She hurries off, and immediately the little girl pokes her head over the counter to peer intently at Bobby, pigtails bobbing as she stands on tiptoe.
“Are you a hunter?” she asks curiously.
“Yup,” Bobby says, always a little uneasy around kids.
“Like my daddy,” the girl says, nodding brightly. “That’s good. You keep away the boogeyman, too.”
“I try, kid.”
“I’m Joanna Beth Harvelle,” the girl announces. “Who’re you?”
“Bobby Singer.” He wonders if you’re supposed to shake hands with five-year-olds.
“Bobby,” Joanna Beth Harvelle repeats, looking pensive “I like it.”
“Jo, you bothering this poor man?” The woman is back, a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler in hand, a big frown plastered across her face.
“Nu-uh,” Jo says defensively. “Just talking, that’s all, Mama.”
“We were gettin' acquainted,” Bobby adds, smiling a little despite himself.
“Really?” The woman looks almost surprised for a moment as she pours out the whiskey. “Don’t get a lot of kid-friendly souls around these parts. This makes for a nice change.”
“He’s like daddy, Mama,” Jo explains plaintively. “He hunts the bad things.”
“’Course he does, sweetheart. He’da been long gone by now if he was any kind of normal.” She smiles wryly at Bobby and winks.
“Nice to meet ya,” Bobby declares, deciding he likes this woman, likes her no-nonsense-that’s-just-how-it’s-gonna-be sort of attitude.
“Ellen Harvelle,” she introduces herself, holding out a hand. Bobby accepts and shakes it, opening his mouth to give his own name.
“He’s Bobby Singer,” Jo announces knowledgably, beating him to the punch.
“Well, nice to know ya, Bobby,” Ellen says, rolling her eyes at her daughter’s irrepressibility.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Bobby says graciously, taking a swig of whiskey and grinning.
+++
Bobby’s working a case, tracking a particularly nasty spirit two towns over from where he lives now, in South Dakota. The spirit haunts an old farmhouse the local kids have a habit of breaking into, and a string of violent deaths has consequently resulted. It seems that the ghost is a farmer called Jack Guire who went insane during the Depression and cut his kid’s throats before slitting his own-and of course, he did this in the barn. Recently, some of the teens had inadvertently set fire to the barn and burned about half of it down, which not only disturbed Guire’s spirit but pissed it off, too.
Anyone who went near the place after that wasn’t able to tell the tale, thanks to the vicious, fatally deep slashes across their throats.
Finding out where Guire’s buried is the real challenge, but double-checking that it’s actually his spirit and not some creepy-ass serial killer is more important at the moment.
The first thing Bobby sees as his beaten pickup sputters to a stop outside the farmhouse is the sleek black car parked outside, a true classic.
Goddamn kids, he thinks with a frown, hopping out of the truck. He’s just not in the mood to deal with saving stupid-ass, hormonal brats who think it’ll be cool to provoke the murderous spirit. Ready to yell his head off if necessary, Bobby calmly marches up to the car to check and see if anyone’s still in it…and okay, maybe he’s a little curious about the build, the model, the year. From far away it was hard to tell, but oh yeah, this baby is definitely an Impala, obviously restored, ’67 model and by the look of things in perfect working condition-
And by the way, there’s a kid curled up on the backseat, writing busily and perusing a text book. Not a teenaged kid either, oh no, a real kid, barely over four feet tall, probably just shy of his tenth birthday.
Hell.
“Hey!” Bobby bangs a couple of times on the car window, and the kid’s head jerks up, his eyes wide, expression defensive.
“What do you want?” he calls cautiously through the glass, hand almost immediately going inside his jacket pocket and closing over something.
“I want you to get the hell outta this car,” Bobby says angrily. “This place is dangerous, boy. Not for the likes of a tyke like you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the kid says, and now his eyes suddenly narrow. “Hey…I’ve got salt, I’m warning you!” Bobby blinks.
“What?”
“You’re not fooling me!” the kid hollers, and now he scoots away, eyes wider than ever, clearly panicking despite his bold words. “You think I’m that stupid? I know what you are!” Dumbfounded, Bobby opens his mouth to reply, but before he knows what’s hit him the kid’s bolted out of the other car door and is leveling a pistol on him.
“I-whoa there, take it easy now,” Bobby says calmly, raising his hands in surrender, mind furiously working to figure out a way to disarm the little guy. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“Yeah right,” the kid snaps. He puts a finger cautiously to the trigger, looking uncertain, scared. “DEAN!” he calls hastily over his shoulder, eyes never leaving Bobby for a moment. “Hurry up!” There’s a muffled shout of,
“Sammy?” and then the crunch of dead leaves under heavy boots. Unsurprisingly, a scrawny, teenaged kid is the first to appear out of the half-burned down barn, his clothes two sizes too big for him, youth practically rolling off him in waves. At first glance, he looks about twelve, but when Bobby gets a better look, he sees a maturity, a determination in the boy’s eyes. Fourteen, Bobby decides (he thinks the strangest things when someone’s got a gun on him), and not a day younger.
“What’re you doing to my brother?” the kid demands, coming up behind the little one-Sammy?-and immediately taking the pistol and stepping in front of him, angling himself so he’s shielding his little brother.
“It’s the ghost, Dean!” Sammy’s scared little voice pipes up as he peers around his brother’s side. Dean reaches an arm around and yanks him back.
“What? I’m not a ghost,” Bobby cries in disgust. “I’m here hunting the ghost.” Dean eyes him levelly, judging him.
“You don’t look like a dead farmer,” he decides. “But you don’t look like a hunter, either.”
“Neither do you,” Bobby points out.
Dean seems to consider this, eyes narrowed, then turns and bellows, “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!”
“What-oh for the love of Christ,” Bobby mutters, completely fed up. “Look, I’ve got salt.” He takes out the lump of rock salt in his jacket pocket, and tosses it up and down a couple of times for effect. “Do I look like I lived during the Depression to you, kid?” Dean regards Bobby’s baseball cap and flannel shirt, and smirks.
“Well,” he begins in a smarmy sort of tone, but he’s cut off at once when a tall, dark-haired man approaches from the opposite direction, calling,
“Dean, I thought we agreed that-hey! What the hell is going on?”
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Bobby says as the man draws nearer. “I scared your littlest boy there. Thought he might not be safe.”
“Of course he’s safe,” Dean snaps, eyes angrily settling on Bobby. “I wouldn’ta left him if he wasn’t.”
“Yeah!” Sam’s voice calls helpfully. Dean takes a step backwards, treading on his brother’s foot purposefully, hissing something under his breath Bobby can’t quite make out, and Sam yelps indignantly.
“Boys, that’s enough,” the man orders as he jogs to a stop next to Bobby, and instantly the older one’s shoulders straighten and his mouth snaps shut. “Who’re you?” the man now demands, rounding on Bobby defensively.
“Bobby Singer,” Bobby says, a little fed-up. “I’m a hunter, too.” The man’s eyes suddenly light up.
“The Bobby Singer?” the man asks, grin splitting his face. “Well, I’ll be damned. Elkins told me a lot about you. Dean, put that gun down!” His son lowers the gun warily, eyeing his father and Bobby with curiosity, and little Sammy pokes his head around his brother again to gaze at Bobby with renewed interest. The man holds out a hand and says gruffly, “John Winchester. Pleasure to meet ya.”
“Winchester?” Bobby shakes his hand, grins a little. “Yeah, old Daniel told me plenty about you too. Says you’re one of the best hunters he’s ever known.” John seems almost pleased for a moment, a strange look on his worry-lined face; Bobby decides he won’t add that Elkins also told him John Winchester is the most reckless, intense son-of-a-bitch he’s ever met, way more obsessed than any hunter should be.
“He says the same and more of you,” he tells Bobby, smiling again. “I didn’t realize we were in your neck of the woods.”
“Yup,” Bobby says, and nods over his shoulder. “I live a couple towns over.”
“Well!” John continues to grin. “Dean, Sam-come say hello to Mr. Singer.” The two boys approach cautiously walking around the side of the car to stand by their daddy.
“Sorry for thinking you were a ghost,” Sam says sheepishly, beaming up at Bobby winningly. Damn if that kid doesn’t have the sort of smile that’ll break a thousand girl’s hearts when he’s old enough.
“No offense taken,” Bobby grunts.
“I’m Dean,” Dean says, and shakes Bobby’s hand with a firm, practiced grip. “Glad you’re not Jack Guire, that’s for sure.”
“Dean.” His father eyes him pointedly.
“Sorry,” Dean mutters. “Uh, nice to meet you, sir.”
“Bobby’ll do fine,” Bobby says. “No need for formalities.”
“So, Bobby,” John says, “feel like working with us on this one? Might be quicker.”
“Sure,” Bobby says, even though his policy is to work alone. Something bothers him about the way Dean was by himself in the barn, despite the fact that he barely knows the kid. From what Bobby’s heard about John Winchester, the man is better than excellent, ruthless and unforgiving and good in a tight spot. He’ll always get the job done, and he saves more lives than ten hunters put together.
But if the man is so all-fired brilliant, why would he send his young son into a barn where a malevolent spirit lurks, waiting to kill kids exactly Dean’s age? He couldn’t possibly have been using the boy as bait,could he? Bobby privately thinks any hunter who brings kids into this is fucking insane, but he ain’t one to judge the way folks raise their children.
Just a little observation, that’s all.
--
Bobby salt-and-burns Guire’s bones (which happen to be buried right outside the barn) while John holds off the spirit; Dean is old enough to serve as back-up with the rock salt-loaded shotgun, but Sammy waits in the car and finishes his homework.
The job goes by quickly and Bobby can see these Winchesters have a routine when Sam jumps out of the car and Dean and John toss him their shotguns. Sam unloads the guns, laboriously wipes them down, and then stores them in the trunk of the Impala, muttering to himself irritably the whole time. John gives Dean a thorough once-over for injuries, but the boy doesn’t have a scratch on him-at least, not this time around-and then says,
“Want to join us for dinner, Bobby?”
Bobby says yeah, he’d like that-he knows a place; it has a good bar for him and John, good food for the kids. The Winchesters follow his pickup through the town until they pull up to Abraham’s, the restaurant/bar/pool hall, and he leads them inside.
Dean and Sam devour their cheeseburgers like they haven’t eaten in months and then split a milkshake while John and Bobby talk and drink at the bar. Neither are hungry.
“How’d you get into hunting?” John asks Bobby, taking a swig of his Jack with coke.
“My grandpa on my Mama’s side,” Bobby says after a moment, taking a gulp of Heineken. “Never knew how he found out about what’s out there himself, but he taught me and my little sister everything he knew. He was a helluva hunter in his day.” Bobby turns the beer bottle in his hands and, without exactly knowing why he’s opening up to this stranger (but sensing it’s the right thing to do just the same), adds, “When we were kids, we lived with him for a while after times got tough for Daddy and he didn’t think he had enough to get by. He raised us himself, see, after Mama died in childbirth with Annie…never did quite figure out how to balance bringin’ up a coupla rowdy kids and running a business.” Bobby grins reminiscently. “Well, anyways, Grandpa showed us how to hunt demons, mostly, ‘cause he knew ‘em best, and taught us Latin. Annie-my little sister-got really fluent. When we went back home to Daddy after a year or two, she used to speak it to me or write in it any time she wanted to pull one over on the old man.” John laughs quietly, appreciatively.
“Sounds like she’s a pistol.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agrees. “She was.” John’s eyes meet his, and Bobby can feel the unspoken question. “A demon…it killed her,” he says then. “On her seventeenth birthday. I probably wouldn’ta been a hunter, woulda just stayed and worked in Daddy’s junkyard…but when she was gone, I just knew. I didn’t have no business being a simple mechanic when I could be out there saving people’s lives, protecting them.”
“Avenging her,” John whispers, understanding and compassion brimming in his dark, haunted eyes.
“Yeah,” Bobby murmurs, a little surprised. “I think she woulda liked that. Always said this is what she wanted to do with her life, even when I told her she was a goddamned fool.” John’s chuckle isn’t forced, but his voice breaks a little with sorrow even in his amusement.
“You and me, Bobby Singer, we’re two of a kind,” John says. “You understand how it is.”
“Who’d you lose, John?” Bobby asks in his typical point-blank way, but he says it gently, quiet and understanding. He can feel pain in this man-no one hunts the way he does, with two growing kids, just for the hell of it.
“My wife,” John says after a careful moment, his eyes drifting over to his boys. Dean is flirting with a waitress three years too old for him and his little brother is rolling his eyes, shoving French fries into his mouth by the handful. “When Sammy was a baby.” He clears his throat, then mumbles, “There was a fire in his nursery and something…pinned Mary to the ceiling. Never did find out what it was.”
“You hunting it?” Bobby asks.
“Yeah.” John takes another gulp of his drink. “I’m about as close to killing it as I was ten years ago.”
“How do the kids handle it?” Bobby asks carefully, nodding towards the boys, careful to keep his tone light. “The hunting?”
“Dean’s a natural,” John says, a hint of pride tugging at his voice. “Follows orders, always gets the job done. He’ll be a damn fine hunter when he grows up.”
“And Sammy?”
“He’s more…” John pauses, considering. “Sensitive,” he finally decides. “He trains just like Dean, knows how to handle weapons, chant in Latin…but he doesn’t have the spirit for it. Not really.”
“Must be hard on him. Moving all the time.” Bobby winces as John looks up sharply.
“He manages,” he says shortly.
“I’m sure he does.” Bobby leans back in the chair, smiles disarmingly. “Didn’t mean no offense, John.” John relaxes a little, smiles.
“I didn’t take any,” he says, spreading his arms, then quickly changes the subject. “Hey, I heard you know Pastor Jim Murphy.”
They chat about their mutual acquaintances for a little longer before Dean comes over and politely inquires when they’ll be heading home, ‘cause Sam is practically asleep at the table, and aren’t they supposed to go to that lame-ass school tomorrow?
“Watch your mouth,” John barks. “And don’t tell Sam,” he adds, more quietly, “but we’re heading out tonight. Florida’s our next stop-you boys can finish the school year there.”
“He’ll want to say goodbye to-”
“Dean.” John’s gaze falls heavy and commanding upon his oldest. “That was an order. Now, say goodnight to Bobby and take your brother out to the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”
”Goodnight, Bobby,” Dean says obediently, then turns and goes back to the table, picking the now fast asleep Sam up and carrying him out of the restaurant, rubbing slow easy circles on his brother’s back.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Bobby,” John says, holding out a hand. “I hope we’ll see each other again soon.”
”If you guys ever need a place to stay when you’re up here,” Bobby says, genuinely, “there’s always a couple of cots for you at my place.”
“Thank you,” John says, smiling. “I appreciate that, Bobby-I need all the friends I can get.”
Bobby gives him his number and his address and then John stands up and waves, sauntering out of the bar.
Bobby watches him go, cap pulled low over his eyes, and wonders if he’ll even ever see him again.
+++
Ellen calls him crying one night.
”Bobby,” she says, her breathing choked just a little.
“Ellen? Ellen, what’s goin’ on?” He fumbles upright in bed, hand wrapped around his knife instinctively as he tries to blink back the exhaustion.
”Bill-he’s…he’s…” A muffled sob. “He’s dead, Bobby.”
“Oh, Ellen.” A sort of grief rises in his chest. Bill Harvelle was a damn good hunter, a damn good husband and father-and over the years, he and Bobby had been friendly. “I’m so sorry. Do you want me to-?”
“Please,” she manages. “Please come.”
So he does.
He gets in his truck and he drives all night and half the day, and when he gets to the Roadhouse it’s early afternoon. The lights are all off and the closed sign is hanging in the window, but the door’s open, so he lets himself in.
“Hullo?” he calls.
“Bobby?” Jo stands before him, her face pale and tear-streaked, blonde braids unkempt. “Daddy’s not coming back.” She’s ten now, but he still can’t shake that first memory of her, a bright-eyed, smart mouthed five year old peeking at him from behind the bar.
“I know,” he says gently. “I’m sorry, Joey.” Jo takes two steps forward and wraps her arms around Bobby as best she can, buries her face in his chest and sobs-and mostly because he’s never been too good with weeping females, he pats her tentatively on the top of the head and makes soothing noises. When she draws away and sniffs mightily, he asks, “Where’d your Mama get to?”
“She won’t come out of the bedroom,” Jo says, looking a little frightened. “She’s been crying since Mr. John came to tell us...”
“Mr. John?” Bobby glances up. “John Winchester?”
”I dunno.” She half-shrugs. “I just call him Mr. John.”
”He a big, tall guy? Scruffy beard, dark hair? He’d probably have two boys taggin’ along after him.”
“I didn’t see any boys, but I think that’s him.”
“Okay,” Bobby says. “Okay, Jo, why don’t you take me to your Mama. She’s gonna be real sad for a long time.”
“I know.” Jo hiccups. “Me too.” More tears brim in her eyes, and he wants to say something, anything to take the pain away from her young face.
No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life.
His father’s words ring in his ears as he approaches Ellen’s dark bedroom, when she rises from the bed and falls into his arms much the way her daughter did, inconsolable, shaking with grief. Seeing such a strong woman fall apart is terrifying, but he understands her pain, at least a little. He was much the same way after Annie.
Hunting is the worst kind of job. It tears apart families, leaves widows and fatherless children wrecked; devastates husbands and crushes siblings in its wake. As his shirt slowly wets with Ellen’s tears and she falls to pieces in his arms, Bobby begins to wonder if his daddy didn’t have a fair point after all.
+++
Bobby is gonna take a fucking holiday.
About time, too. He hasn’t taken a break for years and it’ll feel good-great-to lounge around the house, fix cars, live regular for a while.
He imagines a life without Devil’s Traps and circles of salt and for the first time ever, he longs for it, just a little.
He’s in the process of having a beer and watching some idiotic and yet mildly entertaining TV show when the dog starts barking and there are a couple of knocks on the door. When he goes to see who’s come calling, at first he doesn’t recognize the kids standing on the stoop. The older, taller one is wearing leather, looks like some punk kid with a bad attitude, green eyes intense and strangely mature, freckled features set in a permanent, unreadable poker face.
The younger one is gangly and not that much shorter than the other boy, despite the obvious age difference, and has dark hair that flops into his eyes. He also has the pudgy look of pre-adolescence about him, along with a sullen frown.
“Bobby Singer?” asks the older one. “Um, I don’t know if you remember us. We’re John Winchester’s sons.”
Dean and Sam.
He’s seen John plenty over the past two years and by now he likes and trusts the man enough to call him a friend, despite the business with Bill, despite the recklessness and the obsession. John Winchester might be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch but he’s a good man, an honorable one. He’s a good listener, too, a good talker, a good drinker, and as brilliant as the reputation that precedes him. Bobby’s older than him and has been hunting for much longer, but he’s called John in for a consult more times than he cares to count.
Strangely, though, the last time he saw the boys was that night at the bar when Dean carried his sleeping brother outside. The first couple of times he saw John, Bobby would ask where they were, how they were doing. Usually they were by themselves, sometimes they were with Pastor Jim or Caleb, and they were always doing, “Just fine, thanks.” After awhile, Bobby quit asking.
“’Course I remember you,” Bobby says gruffly after a moment, smiling. “You sure did shoot up like a coupla weeds. Come in, boys.” It’s only when they murmur their thanks and shuffle inside that he notices the duffle bags they’re lugging.
“Um, we’re sorry to barge in on you like this without calling first,” Dean says sheepishly. “No change for a payphone…and anyways, all we had was your address.”
“What’s going on?” Bobby asks, frowning. “John okay?”
“He’s fine.” Dean smiles thinly. “He’s…um, he sort of took off. There’s been a string of really violent deaths, nasty stuff, and then some things that involved abused little kids…so, he left us with Pastor Jim for the summer. Something came up-some sort of family emergency and Jim had to leave, so he gave us two addresses and some money for bus tickets, said either you or Caleb would probably be able to take us.”
”Caleb busy?”
“Not home.” Dean stares down at his boots again. “Look, I could take care of us myself if my dad would let me. He’s okay with leaving us alone for a few days, but he gets worried if it’s for more than a week and he’d be really pissed if he found out we were by ourselves. We won’t get in the way, and we’ll do as much as we can to help you out with hunting or work around the junkyard or whatever.”
“I told your daddy once that if any of you Winchesters ever needed one, you have a home with me,” Bobby says. “Can’t say I’m the best of company, but you two are welcome to set up camp here until your daddy’s back. Will he know where to find you?”
”Jim sent him a letter.”
“Right then,” Bobby says. “I guess that settles it.” Dean half-smiles, Sam continues to look sullen, and Bobby thinks, So much for that holiday.
+++
Bobby doesn’t know who died and made him king of the babysitters, but over the next couple of years, Dean and Sam end up at his place more than once or twice.
Not that doesn’t like them, or anything-they’re good boys, for the most part, loyal to each other and hardworking and funny-but dammit, he does have a life.
“Again?” he asks when he opens the door and sees Sam standing there. Then he adds, “Hell, Sam, you been chugging MiracleGro?” The kid, now fourteen, runs a hand nervously across the back of his neck; his dimples flash.
“Nah,” he says, and then adds, apologetically, “I’m really sorry, Bobby. Dad and Dean had some sort of thing they had to take care of themselves. Didn’t want me caught up in it.” He sounds a cross between bitter and relieved. “I swear, you won’t even know I’m here.”
“Doubt it, Sasquatch,” Bobby snorts, hardly able to believe he has to look up at Sammy. “Well, come on in. You know the drill.”
--
Over the next few days, Bobby watches Sam. The kid does what he’s told without a fuss, inhales food, reads everything he can with an intensity that’s startling, and expresses absolutely no interest when Bobby asks him if he feels like sparring or practicing Latin.
John Winchester’s youngest isn’t going to be a hunter, Bobby realizes all at once, not without a little surprise. Sammy had always been more sensitive, sure, but when he was younger, they’d all figured it was just…a phase or something. He’s been raised a warrior, Bobby’s been witness to that. It’s just not in the kid; he’s too gentle, too bookish.
No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life.
Bobby winces.
Oh, this does not bode well for John Winchester. Not at all.
--
Bangbangbang!
“OPEN UP!”
Bangbang. Bang!
Bobby’s eyes fly open, and he sits up, breathing hard. The pounding on his front door continues and he scrambles out of bed, struggling to wake up fully.
“Hold the hell on!” he hollers, grabbing his gun and loading it (just in case). Sam is already at the door when Bobby gets there, halfway through pulling it open.
“Dad?” Sam gasps before he’s roughly shoved aside and John Winchester is inside, panic all over his face.
“It’s Dean,” he says, voice cracking. “I-he’s hurt real bad. Can’t take him to the hospital.”
“What?” Sam demands, his voice going high and anxious. “What happened?”
“Where is he?” Bobby asks quietly.
”Back of the car,” John says. “Can you help me get him inside?”
Wordlessly, Bobby follows John out to the Impala, and bites back a gasp. There’s blood literally covering the interior of the car, and Dean is propped up in the backseat, breathing raggedly, barely conscious.
“It’s okay, son,” John says to the boy, carefully taking hold of his shoulders as Bobby wrangles his lower body. “We’re gonna patch you up just fine.”
“Hurts,” Dean grunts, face pale under a sheen of sweat. “Can’t breathe.”
“Hang on, Dean,” Bobby says, stumbling as he helps John haul the kid out of the car. “You’re gonna be just fine.”
Together, he and John half-carry, half-drag the long-limbed eighteen-year-old into the house; Sam wordlessly backs out of the way as they hurry to stretch him out on the living room floor over one of the cleaner rugs.
Bobby opens his mouth to yell for Sam to get the kit, but before he can blink, Sam is at his side, handing him the black duffle he keeps full of supplies.
“Thanks,” he tells the boy roughly.
“Is Dean gonna be okay?”
“Sam, come hold your brother’s head,” John calls from his position on the floor beside his oldest son. “Help keep him steady.” Sam turns, hurrying to obey, and Bobby rips open the kit.
“Give him this,” Bobby directs Sam, holding out a flask of whiskey. “Talk to him. Keep him awake, got it?”
“Yessir,” Sam says without a moment’s hesitation, immediately doing as Bobby asked.
“It’s his stomach, I think,” John pants, cutting away Dean’s shirt. “It slashed him right down his front-oh God.”
“Wha’?” Dean slurs, just barely. “Wha’s wron’?” A pause. “Agh, it hurts.”
“Hey, Dean, it’s okay,” Bobby hears Sam reassuring him quietly. “Don’t worry about it, Dad and Bobby will take care of it. Have some more whiskey, it’ll make you feel better.”
“He needs a hospital, John,” Bobby hisses to his friend, staring in horrified shock at Dean’s torso and the four jagged slashes that cut a diagonal, dangerous-looking path from his left shoulder to his right hip. “He says he can’t breathe-that might have punctured a lung-and holy shit, look how deep these are. He needs serious medical attention.”
“How the hell are we gonna explain this?” John whispers back, hurrying to try to stem the blood flow again. “This doesn’t look like an accident, does it?”
“Make something up like always,” Bobby says flatly, unrolling lengths of bandages. “He’s gonna need a transfusion and this is way out of my league.”
John stares at him.
“John, you hear what I’m saying to you?” Bobby’s voice rises. “You don’t get this boy to a hospital, and now, he is going to die.” Dean’s breathing hitches a little and Sammy goes absolutely still.
“Dad,” he says. When he doesn’t get an answer, he says, very loudly, “DAD! Call a fucking ambulance!”
“Okay,” John manages. “All right.”
As Bobby helplessly wraps more bandage around Dean’s chest and tries to staunch the unrelenting flow of blood, John dials 911 and Sam calmly soothes his brother, his hands shaking the entire time. At first, Bobby thinks Sam’s scared, but when the paramedics burst through the door, get Dean on oxygen and load him up, Bobby gets a good look at the kid’s face.
He’s furious, absolutely enraged, and just before John turns to go to the ambulance, Sam grabs his arm.
Bobby can’t hear the words the two of them exchange, but John looks like he’s about to backhand the boy and Sam has angry tears on his cheeks. Then he turns around and stomps away towards the backroom, slams the door, and John buries his face in his hands before turning to go ride with Dean to the hospital.
Without quite realizing what he’s doing, Bobby closes his fingers around the amulet in his pocket and mumbles a prayer. He ain’t the religious type, but if any family ever needwd some mercy from the big man upstairs, it’s John Winchester and those boys.
+++
Dean shows up at his house one day and says, without so much as a hello,
“Sammy went to college.”
The boy has dark circles under his eyes; his arms are wrapped around himself like he might be holding himself together. Bobby claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder and says,
”Come on in.” He can practically feel the loneliness in Dean, the pain and the confusion, and he adds, “Dean, it ain’t your fault. You done right by the kid; he’s just testing the waters. Wants to make his own way in the world.”
“What if he doesn’t come back?” Dean sounds way younger than he is, less certain, less cocky, less himself than Bobby’s ever heard him.
”He will.” Bobby sets a beer down in front of Dean. “One way or another, Dean, he’ll won’t stay away long. Sammy ain’t gonna forget who his family is. Just…just give him a little while; he’ll come around. A man needs to learn how to stand on his own two feet, you know what I’m saying?”
Some of the tension lifts from Dean’s face and Bobby hopes that for once, a lie will do him a friggin’ favor and come true.
He honestly does.
+++
Annnnd now it's 12:57 and I am so. Screwed.
*facepalm*
So yeah. Going to bed now, finally.
So, on to brighter matters! I am writing a Bobby fic!
This makes me happy because, a) I really like Bobby (he's so kick-ass), and b)this fandom needs more Bobby fic.
The only problem? It's spiraling totally out of control. I started it and it just...GREW. It was supposed to be a ONE-SHOT. Yeah, well, my stupid muses forced this outta me, and I know, I know, I have other stuff to be updating, but ah well. Bobby's too cool to leave sitting around on my hard-drive. I need some feedback and suggestions, so here's Part One. I have some of Part Two done, but I'm sort of wary about the direction this fic is going in.
Title: This Wayward Son
Author: that_september
Rating: PG-13 for strong language
Pairing/Characters: Bobby-centric, John, Sam, Dean, Ellen, Jo. Mentions of an OFC.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. *shakes fist at Kripke* Yet.
Spoilers: None; Part One is all pre-series.
Summary: No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life. A good long look at Bobby Singer, with glances at four of the people he meets along the way.
A/N: Please please please, I need some feedback/ideas to continue on with this. I really like this fic myself, and it'd be great to get some insight from everyone. Let me know what you think!
PART ONE
No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life.
Bobby Singer’s daddy hurls that comment at his back the day of Bobby’s eighteenth birthday, the day he walks out the door and doesn’t come back.
Goddamn fool! he can hear Daddy shouting. You gonna live to regret this, boy!
But he doesn’t. Regret it, that is.
Bobby never regrets things because he never acts before he thinks. He is always absolutely certain that the decision he makes is the right one, and if it has long-lasting repercussions, well, that’s just the way life crumbles. He ain’t gonna waste time worrying over the past-nobody can change that. Live for the present, that’s what Bobby always says. Do whatcha can now. Make good on your promises. Actions speak a helluva lot louder than words.
Maybe no one truly sane would hunt things that go bump in the night, Bobby doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. If he’s truly crazy, well, ain’t much he can do about it now. Might as well save as many lives as he can.
He knows, deep in his gut, it won’t make what happened to Annie any less real. He can’t save her now, he’s too late. He knows it, he’s not stupid. He doesn’t dwell on the sight of her lifeless face, the way her sightless, staring eyes seemed to silently accuse: You didn’t save me, Bobby. Instead, Bobby honors her memory as best he can by remembering her sunny laugh, the way she’d quirk an eyebrow at him when she knew he was telling her a whopper, how she’d recite her own poetry in perfect Latin.
When he thinks of her, which is often, he does so with a smile on his face. Bobby’s shed his tears. No sense wallowing in his grief; Annie would hate to see him like that.
Still, Bobby is human, and male, and there’s still sorrow and anger in him yet, even if he doesn’t pay either too much mind on a day-to-day basis. He tracks the demon carefully, mechanically. It doesn’t leave an easy trail to follow, but Bobby picks up its scent and keeps it, watches the signs, reads the bylines in the crumpled newspapers. Every moment that thing spends out of Hell (where it belongs) is another moment Bobby closes in for the kill.
It goes for another young virgin, another pretty redhead not a day older than seventeen; possesses a middle-aged, potbellied mechanic and follows her as she walks home from school. The thing strikes when she takes a shortcut through an ally, moving with inhuman speed as it pins her to the wall, gripping her thin wrists with unnatural strength. She shrieks, and the demon, its slitted eyes black as coal, leers, leans in, ready to suck her life essence, drain her dry.
Bobby jumps in then, drenches it with holy water, and the demon howls angrily, momentarily releasing its hold on the girl.
“Run!” Bobby calls to her as he leaps onto the writhing body of the mechanic and holds him down, turning his flask of holy water upside down over its head. “Get outta here, go home!”
She’s a good, brave kid, and even though she’s in shock she looks at Bobby hard, half-hesitating even as she starts to run, like maybe she should stay and help. It’s so much like what Annie would have done, his heart half breaks before he centers himself.
Stay in the moment, Singer, he chides himself mentally, bringing out the other flask and tossing more blessed water onto the demon, just to keep it restrained for another few seconds.
“I can handle this!” he roars. “You get outta here, and don’t look back.” He thinks the girl might’ve said thank you, but when he glances her way a second later, she’s gone.
Grimly satisfied, Bobby begins chanting the Latin he so carefully memorized. The demon’s roars start afresh and it lashes out at him with one huge fist; Bobby’s head almost spins as he gasps with pain, stumbling over a word.
“You should have listened to your father, boy,” the demon hisses. “Avenging precious little Annie won’t do anything except get you killed.”
Bobby starts chanting again, determined, stoic. He’s studied this thing long and hard-he knows what it wants from him, how it operates, and he won’t be swayed, refuses to falter.
“Postem dictat: Ant. Ne reminiscáris, Dómini, delicta nostra, vel paréntum nostrórum: neque vindíctam sumas de peccátis nostris!” Bobby nearly shouts. The demon fights, claws at him, hurls brutal, terrible truths his way, but he coldly finishes the Rite of Exorcism, watches with a mixture of relief and contentment as the demon is banished to the very pits of Hell, funneling out of the mechanic’s mouth in what seems like an endless, horrible roar.
The calm quiet that follows is broken only by the mechanic’s shallow, terrified gasps as he returns to consciousness. He sits up, gets a good look at Bobby, who is leaning against the dirty wall of the ally, his head lolled back, eyes shut.
“Oh…oh God,” the guy says in a broken sort of voice. “I-what happened? Are you okay, man?”
“Yeah,” Bobby grunts out. “It’s gonna be all right.”
“That…that thing,” the mechanic says uncertainly. “What…?”
“Demon.” Bobby opens his eyes and meets the man’s gaze steadily. “Pretty nasty one. I’ve been tracking it since it killed my little sister.” The mechanic’s face pales.
“Demon?”
“Yup.” Bobby stands matter-of-factly, then offers a hand to the mechanic. “Your truck’s a couple blocks thatta way,” he adds, thumbing over his left shoulder. “Best of luck.”
“I…look, kid-“ the guy begins, but Bobby has already set off in the opposite direction, done with this conversation, the exorcism, all of it. It’s just another thing in the past now; one less worry to think on. One less monster lurking out there in the shadows.
That one was for you, Annie-girl, Bobby thinks to himself as he heads for his truck. This time, I wasn’t too late.
+++
Harvelle’s Roadhouse already looks old, even though it can’t have been open for more than a couple of years. New as it is, hunters from all over already turn to it as a kind of home base-a place for a beer, the latest gossip on the annual number of possessions or vampire slayings or banshee sightings or God knows what else. In this atmosphere, even the most out-casted, rejected hunter can find a place among his own kind.
Bobby learns of the roadhouse from a guy called Daniel Elkins, a slightly crazy, completley obsessed vampire hunter who’s already getting on in his years but has the spirit of a much younger man. He taught Bobby all he knows about vampires, introduced him to Joanna Kingston, the most experienced hunter Bobby has ever had the honor of meeting. She died only three days after they chatted. Kelpie got her, that’s the word on the street.
It feels like a chilling little reminder that in this business, no one is ever too good or too prepared.
Anyways, Bobby walks through the door of the Roadhouse, and immediately feels a little more at ease. Hunters are everywhere: sharpening knives, drinking beer, putting quarters into the juke box and playing oldie after oldie. The warm air in here smells of smoke, of sorrow, of adrenaline, and when Bobby sits down at the bar, he’s glad he took Elkins’ advice and made a pit stop here.
”What can I getcha?” asks the pretty blonde bartender. She’s young still, but her face is already careworn, worry lining her forehead and darkening her eyes. She slides a beer down the bar to a grizzled old guy who looks like he went a few rounds with a wood chipper and lived to tell the tale, and balances a little girl, five-years-old at most, on her hip all the while.
“Whiskey,” Bobby decides, nodding. “Whiskey’d be real good.”
“Coming right up.” The woman sets down the child and murmurs, “Stay put right there, sweetie. I’m just gonna go out back and get this gentleman here something to drink.” She hurries off, and immediately the little girl pokes her head over the counter to peer intently at Bobby, pigtails bobbing as she stands on tiptoe.
“Are you a hunter?” she asks curiously.
“Yup,” Bobby says, always a little uneasy around kids.
“Like my daddy,” the girl says, nodding brightly. “That’s good. You keep away the boogeyman, too.”
“I try, kid.”
“I’m Joanna Beth Harvelle,” the girl announces. “Who’re you?”
“Bobby Singer.” He wonders if you’re supposed to shake hands with five-year-olds.
“Bobby,” Joanna Beth Harvelle repeats, looking pensive “I like it.”
“Jo, you bothering this poor man?” The woman is back, a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler in hand, a big frown plastered across her face.
“Nu-uh,” Jo says defensively. “Just talking, that’s all, Mama.”
“We were gettin' acquainted,” Bobby adds, smiling a little despite himself.
“Really?” The woman looks almost surprised for a moment as she pours out the whiskey. “Don’t get a lot of kid-friendly souls around these parts. This makes for a nice change.”
“He’s like daddy, Mama,” Jo explains plaintively. “He hunts the bad things.”
“’Course he does, sweetheart. He’da been long gone by now if he was any kind of normal.” She smiles wryly at Bobby and winks.
“Nice to meet ya,” Bobby declares, deciding he likes this woman, likes her no-nonsense-that’s-just-how-it’s-gonna-be sort of attitude.
“Ellen Harvelle,” she introduces herself, holding out a hand. Bobby accepts and shakes it, opening his mouth to give his own name.
“He’s Bobby Singer,” Jo announces knowledgably, beating him to the punch.
“Well, nice to know ya, Bobby,” Ellen says, rolling her eyes at her daughter’s irrepressibility.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Bobby says graciously, taking a swig of whiskey and grinning.
+++
Bobby’s working a case, tracking a particularly nasty spirit two towns over from where he lives now, in South Dakota. The spirit haunts an old farmhouse the local kids have a habit of breaking into, and a string of violent deaths has consequently resulted. It seems that the ghost is a farmer called Jack Guire who went insane during the Depression and cut his kid’s throats before slitting his own-and of course, he did this in the barn. Recently, some of the teens had inadvertently set fire to the barn and burned about half of it down, which not only disturbed Guire’s spirit but pissed it off, too.
Anyone who went near the place after that wasn’t able to tell the tale, thanks to the vicious, fatally deep slashes across their throats.
Finding out where Guire’s buried is the real challenge, but double-checking that it’s actually his spirit and not some creepy-ass serial killer is more important at the moment.
The first thing Bobby sees as his beaten pickup sputters to a stop outside the farmhouse is the sleek black car parked outside, a true classic.
Goddamn kids, he thinks with a frown, hopping out of the truck. He’s just not in the mood to deal with saving stupid-ass, hormonal brats who think it’ll be cool to provoke the murderous spirit. Ready to yell his head off if necessary, Bobby calmly marches up to the car to check and see if anyone’s still in it…and okay, maybe he’s a little curious about the build, the model, the year. From far away it was hard to tell, but oh yeah, this baby is definitely an Impala, obviously restored, ’67 model and by the look of things in perfect working condition-
And by the way, there’s a kid curled up on the backseat, writing busily and perusing a text book. Not a teenaged kid either, oh no, a real kid, barely over four feet tall, probably just shy of his tenth birthday.
Hell.
“Hey!” Bobby bangs a couple of times on the car window, and the kid’s head jerks up, his eyes wide, expression defensive.
“What do you want?” he calls cautiously through the glass, hand almost immediately going inside his jacket pocket and closing over something.
“I want you to get the hell outta this car,” Bobby says angrily. “This place is dangerous, boy. Not for the likes of a tyke like you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the kid says, and now his eyes suddenly narrow. “Hey…I’ve got salt, I’m warning you!” Bobby blinks.
“What?”
“You’re not fooling me!” the kid hollers, and now he scoots away, eyes wider than ever, clearly panicking despite his bold words. “You think I’m that stupid? I know what you are!” Dumbfounded, Bobby opens his mouth to reply, but before he knows what’s hit him the kid’s bolted out of the other car door and is leveling a pistol on him.
“I-whoa there, take it easy now,” Bobby says calmly, raising his hands in surrender, mind furiously working to figure out a way to disarm the little guy. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“Yeah right,” the kid snaps. He puts a finger cautiously to the trigger, looking uncertain, scared. “DEAN!” he calls hastily over his shoulder, eyes never leaving Bobby for a moment. “Hurry up!” There’s a muffled shout of,
“Sammy?” and then the crunch of dead leaves under heavy boots. Unsurprisingly, a scrawny, teenaged kid is the first to appear out of the half-burned down barn, his clothes two sizes too big for him, youth practically rolling off him in waves. At first glance, he looks about twelve, but when Bobby gets a better look, he sees a maturity, a determination in the boy’s eyes. Fourteen, Bobby decides (he thinks the strangest things when someone’s got a gun on him), and not a day younger.
“What’re you doing to my brother?” the kid demands, coming up behind the little one-Sammy?-and immediately taking the pistol and stepping in front of him, angling himself so he’s shielding his little brother.
“It’s the ghost, Dean!” Sammy’s scared little voice pipes up as he peers around his brother’s side. Dean reaches an arm around and yanks him back.
“What? I’m not a ghost,” Bobby cries in disgust. “I’m here hunting the ghost.” Dean eyes him levelly, judging him.
“You don’t look like a dead farmer,” he decides. “But you don’t look like a hunter, either.”
“Neither do you,” Bobby points out.
Dean seems to consider this, eyes narrowed, then turns and bellows, “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!”
“What-oh for the love of Christ,” Bobby mutters, completely fed up. “Look, I’ve got salt.” He takes out the lump of rock salt in his jacket pocket, and tosses it up and down a couple of times for effect. “Do I look like I lived during the Depression to you, kid?” Dean regards Bobby’s baseball cap and flannel shirt, and smirks.
“Well,” he begins in a smarmy sort of tone, but he’s cut off at once when a tall, dark-haired man approaches from the opposite direction, calling,
“Dean, I thought we agreed that-hey! What the hell is going on?”
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Bobby says as the man draws nearer. “I scared your littlest boy there. Thought he might not be safe.”
“Of course he’s safe,” Dean snaps, eyes angrily settling on Bobby. “I wouldn’ta left him if he wasn’t.”
“Yeah!” Sam’s voice calls helpfully. Dean takes a step backwards, treading on his brother’s foot purposefully, hissing something under his breath Bobby can’t quite make out, and Sam yelps indignantly.
“Boys, that’s enough,” the man orders as he jogs to a stop next to Bobby, and instantly the older one’s shoulders straighten and his mouth snaps shut. “Who’re you?” the man now demands, rounding on Bobby defensively.
“Bobby Singer,” Bobby says, a little fed-up. “I’m a hunter, too.” The man’s eyes suddenly light up.
“The Bobby Singer?” the man asks, grin splitting his face. “Well, I’ll be damned. Elkins told me a lot about you. Dean, put that gun down!” His son lowers the gun warily, eyeing his father and Bobby with curiosity, and little Sammy pokes his head around his brother again to gaze at Bobby with renewed interest. The man holds out a hand and says gruffly, “John Winchester. Pleasure to meet ya.”
“Winchester?” Bobby shakes his hand, grins a little. “Yeah, old Daniel told me plenty about you too. Says you’re one of the best hunters he’s ever known.” John seems almost pleased for a moment, a strange look on his worry-lined face; Bobby decides he won’t add that Elkins also told him John Winchester is the most reckless, intense son-of-a-bitch he’s ever met, way more obsessed than any hunter should be.
“He says the same and more of you,” he tells Bobby, smiling again. “I didn’t realize we were in your neck of the woods.”
“Yup,” Bobby says, and nods over his shoulder. “I live a couple towns over.”
“Well!” John continues to grin. “Dean, Sam-come say hello to Mr. Singer.” The two boys approach cautiously walking around the side of the car to stand by their daddy.
“Sorry for thinking you were a ghost,” Sam says sheepishly, beaming up at Bobby winningly. Damn if that kid doesn’t have the sort of smile that’ll break a thousand girl’s hearts when he’s old enough.
“No offense taken,” Bobby grunts.
“I’m Dean,” Dean says, and shakes Bobby’s hand with a firm, practiced grip. “Glad you’re not Jack Guire, that’s for sure.”
“Dean.” His father eyes him pointedly.
“Sorry,” Dean mutters. “Uh, nice to meet you, sir.”
“Bobby’ll do fine,” Bobby says. “No need for formalities.”
“So, Bobby,” John says, “feel like working with us on this one? Might be quicker.”
“Sure,” Bobby says, even though his policy is to work alone. Something bothers him about the way Dean was by himself in the barn, despite the fact that he barely knows the kid. From what Bobby’s heard about John Winchester, the man is better than excellent, ruthless and unforgiving and good in a tight spot. He’ll always get the job done, and he saves more lives than ten hunters put together.
But if the man is so all-fired brilliant, why would he send his young son into a barn where a malevolent spirit lurks, waiting to kill kids exactly Dean’s age? He couldn’t possibly have been using the boy as bait,could he? Bobby privately thinks any hunter who brings kids into this is fucking insane, but he ain’t one to judge the way folks raise their children.
Just a little observation, that’s all.
--
Bobby salt-and-burns Guire’s bones (which happen to be buried right outside the barn) while John holds off the spirit; Dean is old enough to serve as back-up with the rock salt-loaded shotgun, but Sammy waits in the car and finishes his homework.
The job goes by quickly and Bobby can see these Winchesters have a routine when Sam jumps out of the car and Dean and John toss him their shotguns. Sam unloads the guns, laboriously wipes them down, and then stores them in the trunk of the Impala, muttering to himself irritably the whole time. John gives Dean a thorough once-over for injuries, but the boy doesn’t have a scratch on him-at least, not this time around-and then says,
“Want to join us for dinner, Bobby?”
Bobby says yeah, he’d like that-he knows a place; it has a good bar for him and John, good food for the kids. The Winchesters follow his pickup through the town until they pull up to Abraham’s, the restaurant/bar/pool hall, and he leads them inside.
Dean and Sam devour their cheeseburgers like they haven’t eaten in months and then split a milkshake while John and Bobby talk and drink at the bar. Neither are hungry.
“How’d you get into hunting?” John asks Bobby, taking a swig of his Jack with coke.
“My grandpa on my Mama’s side,” Bobby says after a moment, taking a gulp of Heineken. “Never knew how he found out about what’s out there himself, but he taught me and my little sister everything he knew. He was a helluva hunter in his day.” Bobby turns the beer bottle in his hands and, without exactly knowing why he’s opening up to this stranger (but sensing it’s the right thing to do just the same), adds, “When we were kids, we lived with him for a while after times got tough for Daddy and he didn’t think he had enough to get by. He raised us himself, see, after Mama died in childbirth with Annie…never did quite figure out how to balance bringin’ up a coupla rowdy kids and running a business.” Bobby grins reminiscently. “Well, anyways, Grandpa showed us how to hunt demons, mostly, ‘cause he knew ‘em best, and taught us Latin. Annie-my little sister-got really fluent. When we went back home to Daddy after a year or two, she used to speak it to me or write in it any time she wanted to pull one over on the old man.” John laughs quietly, appreciatively.
“Sounds like she’s a pistol.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agrees. “She was.” John’s eyes meet his, and Bobby can feel the unspoken question. “A demon…it killed her,” he says then. “On her seventeenth birthday. I probably wouldn’ta been a hunter, woulda just stayed and worked in Daddy’s junkyard…but when she was gone, I just knew. I didn’t have no business being a simple mechanic when I could be out there saving people’s lives, protecting them.”
“Avenging her,” John whispers, understanding and compassion brimming in his dark, haunted eyes.
“Yeah,” Bobby murmurs, a little surprised. “I think she woulda liked that. Always said this is what she wanted to do with her life, even when I told her she was a goddamned fool.” John’s chuckle isn’t forced, but his voice breaks a little with sorrow even in his amusement.
“You and me, Bobby Singer, we’re two of a kind,” John says. “You understand how it is.”
“Who’d you lose, John?” Bobby asks in his typical point-blank way, but he says it gently, quiet and understanding. He can feel pain in this man-no one hunts the way he does, with two growing kids, just for the hell of it.
“My wife,” John says after a careful moment, his eyes drifting over to his boys. Dean is flirting with a waitress three years too old for him and his little brother is rolling his eyes, shoving French fries into his mouth by the handful. “When Sammy was a baby.” He clears his throat, then mumbles, “There was a fire in his nursery and something…pinned Mary to the ceiling. Never did find out what it was.”
“You hunting it?” Bobby asks.
“Yeah.” John takes another gulp of his drink. “I’m about as close to killing it as I was ten years ago.”
“How do the kids handle it?” Bobby asks carefully, nodding towards the boys, careful to keep his tone light. “The hunting?”
“Dean’s a natural,” John says, a hint of pride tugging at his voice. “Follows orders, always gets the job done. He’ll be a damn fine hunter when he grows up.”
“And Sammy?”
“He’s more…” John pauses, considering. “Sensitive,” he finally decides. “He trains just like Dean, knows how to handle weapons, chant in Latin…but he doesn’t have the spirit for it. Not really.”
“Must be hard on him. Moving all the time.” Bobby winces as John looks up sharply.
“He manages,” he says shortly.
“I’m sure he does.” Bobby leans back in the chair, smiles disarmingly. “Didn’t mean no offense, John.” John relaxes a little, smiles.
“I didn’t take any,” he says, spreading his arms, then quickly changes the subject. “Hey, I heard you know Pastor Jim Murphy.”
They chat about their mutual acquaintances for a little longer before Dean comes over and politely inquires when they’ll be heading home, ‘cause Sam is practically asleep at the table, and aren’t they supposed to go to that lame-ass school tomorrow?
“Watch your mouth,” John barks. “And don’t tell Sam,” he adds, more quietly, “but we’re heading out tonight. Florida’s our next stop-you boys can finish the school year there.”
“He’ll want to say goodbye to-”
“Dean.” John’s gaze falls heavy and commanding upon his oldest. “That was an order. Now, say goodnight to Bobby and take your brother out to the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”
”Goodnight, Bobby,” Dean says obediently, then turns and goes back to the table, picking the now fast asleep Sam up and carrying him out of the restaurant, rubbing slow easy circles on his brother’s back.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Bobby,” John says, holding out a hand. “I hope we’ll see each other again soon.”
”If you guys ever need a place to stay when you’re up here,” Bobby says, genuinely, “there’s always a couple of cots for you at my place.”
“Thank you,” John says, smiling. “I appreciate that, Bobby-I need all the friends I can get.”
Bobby gives him his number and his address and then John stands up and waves, sauntering out of the bar.
Bobby watches him go, cap pulled low over his eyes, and wonders if he’ll even ever see him again.
+++
Ellen calls him crying one night.
”Bobby,” she says, her breathing choked just a little.
“Ellen? Ellen, what’s goin’ on?” He fumbles upright in bed, hand wrapped around his knife instinctively as he tries to blink back the exhaustion.
”Bill-he’s…he’s…” A muffled sob. “He’s dead, Bobby.”
“Oh, Ellen.” A sort of grief rises in his chest. Bill Harvelle was a damn good hunter, a damn good husband and father-and over the years, he and Bobby had been friendly. “I’m so sorry. Do you want me to-?”
“Please,” she manages. “Please come.”
So he does.
He gets in his truck and he drives all night and half the day, and when he gets to the Roadhouse it’s early afternoon. The lights are all off and the closed sign is hanging in the window, but the door’s open, so he lets himself in.
“Hullo?” he calls.
“Bobby?” Jo stands before him, her face pale and tear-streaked, blonde braids unkempt. “Daddy’s not coming back.” She’s ten now, but he still can’t shake that first memory of her, a bright-eyed, smart mouthed five year old peeking at him from behind the bar.
“I know,” he says gently. “I’m sorry, Joey.” Jo takes two steps forward and wraps her arms around Bobby as best she can, buries her face in his chest and sobs-and mostly because he’s never been too good with weeping females, he pats her tentatively on the top of the head and makes soothing noises. When she draws away and sniffs mightily, he asks, “Where’d your Mama get to?”
“She won’t come out of the bedroom,” Jo says, looking a little frightened. “She’s been crying since Mr. John came to tell us...”
“Mr. John?” Bobby glances up. “John Winchester?”
”I dunno.” She half-shrugs. “I just call him Mr. John.”
”He a big, tall guy? Scruffy beard, dark hair? He’d probably have two boys taggin’ along after him.”
“I didn’t see any boys, but I think that’s him.”
“Okay,” Bobby says. “Okay, Jo, why don’t you take me to your Mama. She’s gonna be real sad for a long time.”
“I know.” Jo hiccups. “Me too.” More tears brim in her eyes, and he wants to say something, anything to take the pain away from her young face.
No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life.
His father’s words ring in his ears as he approaches Ellen’s dark bedroom, when she rises from the bed and falls into his arms much the way her daughter did, inconsolable, shaking with grief. Seeing such a strong woman fall apart is terrifying, but he understands her pain, at least a little. He was much the same way after Annie.
Hunting is the worst kind of job. It tears apart families, leaves widows and fatherless children wrecked; devastates husbands and crushes siblings in its wake. As his shirt slowly wets with Ellen’s tears and she falls to pieces in his arms, Bobby begins to wonder if his daddy didn’t have a fair point after all.
+++
Bobby is gonna take a fucking holiday.
About time, too. He hasn’t taken a break for years and it’ll feel good-great-to lounge around the house, fix cars, live regular for a while.
He imagines a life without Devil’s Traps and circles of salt and for the first time ever, he longs for it, just a little.
He’s in the process of having a beer and watching some idiotic and yet mildly entertaining TV show when the dog starts barking and there are a couple of knocks on the door. When he goes to see who’s come calling, at first he doesn’t recognize the kids standing on the stoop. The older, taller one is wearing leather, looks like some punk kid with a bad attitude, green eyes intense and strangely mature, freckled features set in a permanent, unreadable poker face.
The younger one is gangly and not that much shorter than the other boy, despite the obvious age difference, and has dark hair that flops into his eyes. He also has the pudgy look of pre-adolescence about him, along with a sullen frown.
“Bobby Singer?” asks the older one. “Um, I don’t know if you remember us. We’re John Winchester’s sons.”
Dean and Sam.
He’s seen John plenty over the past two years and by now he likes and trusts the man enough to call him a friend, despite the business with Bill, despite the recklessness and the obsession. John Winchester might be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch but he’s a good man, an honorable one. He’s a good listener, too, a good talker, a good drinker, and as brilliant as the reputation that precedes him. Bobby’s older than him and has been hunting for much longer, but he’s called John in for a consult more times than he cares to count.
Strangely, though, the last time he saw the boys was that night at the bar when Dean carried his sleeping brother outside. The first couple of times he saw John, Bobby would ask where they were, how they were doing. Usually they were by themselves, sometimes they were with Pastor Jim or Caleb, and they were always doing, “Just fine, thanks.” After awhile, Bobby quit asking.
“’Course I remember you,” Bobby says gruffly after a moment, smiling. “You sure did shoot up like a coupla weeds. Come in, boys.” It’s only when they murmur their thanks and shuffle inside that he notices the duffle bags they’re lugging.
“Um, we’re sorry to barge in on you like this without calling first,” Dean says sheepishly. “No change for a payphone…and anyways, all we had was your address.”
“What’s going on?” Bobby asks, frowning. “John okay?”
“He’s fine.” Dean smiles thinly. “He’s…um, he sort of took off. There’s been a string of really violent deaths, nasty stuff, and then some things that involved abused little kids…so, he left us with Pastor Jim for the summer. Something came up-some sort of family emergency and Jim had to leave, so he gave us two addresses and some money for bus tickets, said either you or Caleb would probably be able to take us.”
”Caleb busy?”
“Not home.” Dean stares down at his boots again. “Look, I could take care of us myself if my dad would let me. He’s okay with leaving us alone for a few days, but he gets worried if it’s for more than a week and he’d be really pissed if he found out we were by ourselves. We won’t get in the way, and we’ll do as much as we can to help you out with hunting or work around the junkyard or whatever.”
“I told your daddy once that if any of you Winchesters ever needed one, you have a home with me,” Bobby says. “Can’t say I’m the best of company, but you two are welcome to set up camp here until your daddy’s back. Will he know where to find you?”
”Jim sent him a letter.”
“Right then,” Bobby says. “I guess that settles it.” Dean half-smiles, Sam continues to look sullen, and Bobby thinks, So much for that holiday.
+++
Bobby doesn’t know who died and made him king of the babysitters, but over the next couple of years, Dean and Sam end up at his place more than once or twice.
Not that doesn’t like them, or anything-they’re good boys, for the most part, loyal to each other and hardworking and funny-but dammit, he does have a life.
“Again?” he asks when he opens the door and sees Sam standing there. Then he adds, “Hell, Sam, you been chugging MiracleGro?” The kid, now fourteen, runs a hand nervously across the back of his neck; his dimples flash.
“Nah,” he says, and then adds, apologetically, “I’m really sorry, Bobby. Dad and Dean had some sort of thing they had to take care of themselves. Didn’t want me caught up in it.” He sounds a cross between bitter and relieved. “I swear, you won’t even know I’m here.”
“Doubt it, Sasquatch,” Bobby snorts, hardly able to believe he has to look up at Sammy. “Well, come on in. You know the drill.”
--
Over the next few days, Bobby watches Sam. The kid does what he’s told without a fuss, inhales food, reads everything he can with an intensity that’s startling, and expresses absolutely no interest when Bobby asks him if he feels like sparring or practicing Latin.
John Winchester’s youngest isn’t going to be a hunter, Bobby realizes all at once, not without a little surprise. Sammy had always been more sensitive, sure, but when he was younger, they’d all figured it was just…a phase or something. He’s been raised a warrior, Bobby’s been witness to that. It’s just not in the kid; he’s too gentle, too bookish.
No one in their right mind chooses this kind of life.
Bobby winces.
Oh, this does not bode well for John Winchester. Not at all.
--
Bangbangbang!
“OPEN UP!”
Bangbang. Bang!
Bobby’s eyes fly open, and he sits up, breathing hard. The pounding on his front door continues and he scrambles out of bed, struggling to wake up fully.
“Hold the hell on!” he hollers, grabbing his gun and loading it (just in case). Sam is already at the door when Bobby gets there, halfway through pulling it open.
“Dad?” Sam gasps before he’s roughly shoved aside and John Winchester is inside, panic all over his face.
“It’s Dean,” he says, voice cracking. “I-he’s hurt real bad. Can’t take him to the hospital.”
“What?” Sam demands, his voice going high and anxious. “What happened?”
“Where is he?” Bobby asks quietly.
”Back of the car,” John says. “Can you help me get him inside?”
Wordlessly, Bobby follows John out to the Impala, and bites back a gasp. There’s blood literally covering the interior of the car, and Dean is propped up in the backseat, breathing raggedly, barely conscious.
“It’s okay, son,” John says to the boy, carefully taking hold of his shoulders as Bobby wrangles his lower body. “We’re gonna patch you up just fine.”
“Hurts,” Dean grunts, face pale under a sheen of sweat. “Can’t breathe.”
“Hang on, Dean,” Bobby says, stumbling as he helps John haul the kid out of the car. “You’re gonna be just fine.”
Together, he and John half-carry, half-drag the long-limbed eighteen-year-old into the house; Sam wordlessly backs out of the way as they hurry to stretch him out on the living room floor over one of the cleaner rugs.
Bobby opens his mouth to yell for Sam to get the kit, but before he can blink, Sam is at his side, handing him the black duffle he keeps full of supplies.
“Thanks,” he tells the boy roughly.
“Is Dean gonna be okay?”
“Sam, come hold your brother’s head,” John calls from his position on the floor beside his oldest son. “Help keep him steady.” Sam turns, hurrying to obey, and Bobby rips open the kit.
“Give him this,” Bobby directs Sam, holding out a flask of whiskey. “Talk to him. Keep him awake, got it?”
“Yessir,” Sam says without a moment’s hesitation, immediately doing as Bobby asked.
“It’s his stomach, I think,” John pants, cutting away Dean’s shirt. “It slashed him right down his front-oh God.”
“Wha’?” Dean slurs, just barely. “Wha’s wron’?” A pause. “Agh, it hurts.”
“Hey, Dean, it’s okay,” Bobby hears Sam reassuring him quietly. “Don’t worry about it, Dad and Bobby will take care of it. Have some more whiskey, it’ll make you feel better.”
“He needs a hospital, John,” Bobby hisses to his friend, staring in horrified shock at Dean’s torso and the four jagged slashes that cut a diagonal, dangerous-looking path from his left shoulder to his right hip. “He says he can’t breathe-that might have punctured a lung-and holy shit, look how deep these are. He needs serious medical attention.”
“How the hell are we gonna explain this?” John whispers back, hurrying to try to stem the blood flow again. “This doesn’t look like an accident, does it?”
“Make something up like always,” Bobby says flatly, unrolling lengths of bandages. “He’s gonna need a transfusion and this is way out of my league.”
John stares at him.
“John, you hear what I’m saying to you?” Bobby’s voice rises. “You don’t get this boy to a hospital, and now, he is going to die.” Dean’s breathing hitches a little and Sammy goes absolutely still.
“Dad,” he says. When he doesn’t get an answer, he says, very loudly, “DAD! Call a fucking ambulance!”
“Okay,” John manages. “All right.”
As Bobby helplessly wraps more bandage around Dean’s chest and tries to staunch the unrelenting flow of blood, John dials 911 and Sam calmly soothes his brother, his hands shaking the entire time. At first, Bobby thinks Sam’s scared, but when the paramedics burst through the door, get Dean on oxygen and load him up, Bobby gets a good look at the kid’s face.
He’s furious, absolutely enraged, and just before John turns to go to the ambulance, Sam grabs his arm.
Bobby can’t hear the words the two of them exchange, but John looks like he’s about to backhand the boy and Sam has angry tears on his cheeks. Then he turns around and stomps away towards the backroom, slams the door, and John buries his face in his hands before turning to go ride with Dean to the hospital.
Without quite realizing what he’s doing, Bobby closes his fingers around the amulet in his pocket and mumbles a prayer. He ain’t the religious type, but if any family ever needwd some mercy from the big man upstairs, it’s John Winchester and those boys.
+++
Dean shows up at his house one day and says, without so much as a hello,
“Sammy went to college.”
The boy has dark circles under his eyes; his arms are wrapped around himself like he might be holding himself together. Bobby claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder and says,
”Come on in.” He can practically feel the loneliness in Dean, the pain and the confusion, and he adds, “Dean, it ain’t your fault. You done right by the kid; he’s just testing the waters. Wants to make his own way in the world.”
“What if he doesn’t come back?” Dean sounds way younger than he is, less certain, less cocky, less himself than Bobby’s ever heard him.
”He will.” Bobby sets a beer down in front of Dean. “One way or another, Dean, he’ll won’t stay away long. Sammy ain’t gonna forget who his family is. Just…just give him a little while; he’ll come around. A man needs to learn how to stand on his own two feet, you know what I’m saying?”
Some of the tension lifts from Dean’s face and Bobby hopes that for once, a lie will do him a friggin’ favor and come true.
He honestly does.
+++
Annnnd now it's 12:57 and I am so. Screwed.
*facepalm*
So yeah. Going to bed now, finally.