Fic: "Singer Salvage"
Written for a long overdue request for girlguidejones who asked for a happy Bobby and the boys fic. This is that... eventually.
Title: Singer Salvage
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG (Language)
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Words: 4,600
Category: Gen
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Summary: Bobby thought he was done with being surprised considering the life he led.
Bobby thought he was done with being surprised considering the life he led. After meeting John Winchester and his sons, he decided he had to change his way of thinking on that, especially when six year old Sammy was left on his doorstep with a note pinned to his shirt and a toy horse clutched in his hands. The note simply said, do what's best, I know I have.
Bobby remembered sitting down to a beer with John weeks earlier and saying, this ain't no life for a child so young, watching Sammy rolling along the floor with two new pups and Dean, all of ten, watchful but serious, cleaning guns.
He usually made a habit of keeping his own business and he should've done so that night too.
Might not have ended up with a boy who was old enough to know his daddy had left him behind.
000
"He's still just a kid."
Jeb and Seth were twin boys that Bobby had watched grow up in their parent's shadow learning the trade, so to speak. Their mother had been killed only that winter when a town had been taken by four demons and six vampires that had teamed up. It was a small place cut into the side of a mountain, one Starbucks, a drive-in theater and only a single road in and out. Their daddy had passed six years before from a heart attack and nothing supernatural but their mother wasn't so lucky.
Their mother had died trying to get into the town and her boys had only made it out because she'd sacrificed herself.
The tiny town of Keating was a hunter's Waterloo, taken so long now that it was now a trial by fire. Some had never even made it in all the way, no matter how many hunters hit it at once. No one had ever come out, neither bad guy nor good which is why most hunters let it sit unmolested. The darkness wasn't creeping further than the town limit and they figured that whoever had lived there would be long dead. Every now and again some glory hound got it into his head to take a run at it, make a name for him or herself.
Jeb and Seth were just such idjits and they'd heard about the gifted kid that Bobby had taken in, fifteen years old with a dead-on aim with a knife and a head for Latin and spells. Bobby had tried to steer Sam away from all that but Sam had been determined, heart-breakingly sure that if he proved himself useful, the man he couldn't even remember the face of would come back for him one day.
Bobby had a curse word or two stored up for John Winchester if he ever showed that face again.
"I'll go."
Bobby turned to see Sam hovering in the doorway of his kitchen, hands wringing the bottom of his shirt that was too short. The kid had shot up over the winter months, faster than Bobby could have believed. He knew how tall John Winchester was and it looked like this kid was determined to surpass him in everything, including height.
"You finished that history assignment?" Bobby barked.
"Bobby-"
"Don't make me kick your butt. It's embarrassing for both of us," he warned.
"He wants to go," Jeb interjected.
Bobby turned his narrow gaze on Jeb and Seth and simply pointed to the loaded shotgun he had over his mantle and then his door. They got the picture and scurried, having heard that Bobby wasn't shy about putting rock salt in asses that weren't quick enough if he had a mind to. When they were gone, Bobby turned to see Sam still in the doorway but this time he had his arms crossed and a petulant expression on his face.
"Do I have to nail your windows shut and lock your door tonight?" Bobby asked, arching an eyebrow and the petulant expression dropped off Sam's face. Instead he looked guilty and Bobby knew he'd guessed right.
Damn brat had been planning to sneak out.
Sam looked at his toes for a long time before he finally grumbled, "No."
"Good. Don't make me regret putting a roof over your head."
"No, Sir," Sam said, sounding more contrite.
Bobby knew this particular war was far from over but he'd have to be happy winning just this one battle, for now.
000
Bobby knew the matter wouldn't be dropped so wasn't that surprised when Sam came to him two days later with dust on his clothes and one of the books Bobby knew he kept in the attic for the express purpose of not being touched in hand. "They want to make a Halyin Triangle," Sam announced with no preamble.
"I know what they wanted to do," Bobby said gruffly, snatching the book from Sam and checking it over before slapping it down on the table behind him. "What did I say about the upstairs books, huh?"
"Something about on pain of death," Sam said, rolling his eyes so hard Bobby was surprised they didn't drop out and scatter across the floor. "It's a good way to go in."
"There ain't no good way to go into Keating," Bobby snapped. "Damned fool's errand for damn fools."
"Somebody's got to make it in sometime," Sam said with all the logic of the very young.
"Why is that? No one's heard a peep from in there in years. Probably nothing more than a ghost town by now."
"That people die trying to get into."
"Exactly right. Hunting's about saving people. There'd be no one left to save in that place."
"How do you know that?" Sam challenged.
"Because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. Means that some poor schmucks have been alive and unable to escape in that place for eight years."
"Burying our heads in the sand doesn't make it any less possible," Sam argued and Bobby sighed. Reason didn't work with teenagers, that much was obvious.
"Okay, fine. There's a way we can check without actually going in," Bobby finally relented because he knew he wouldn't get a moment's peace otherwise. "We just have to get close enough."
"Really?" Sam said, eyes going round with barely suppressed glee at the prospect.
"Just need some stuff I got here and a full moon," Bobby explained.
"That's four days. Think we can make it?"
"You know, there's another full moon next month."
"Bobby," Sam whined, jigging from foot to foot.
Damn generation why not now or whatever they called it.
"Alright, fine, but when we find a whole lot of nothing I don't want to hear another word about it."
000
The closest motel to the town limits was a run-down affair called the Sea Shell Inn. The name was weirdly appropriate because despite the utter lack of being even close to any ocean or even so much as a pond, there was definitely an odd briny smell to everything.
Bobby left Sam to his research to snag coffee and a danish from a place just down the road and when he got back there was a young guy leaning on his truck. Bobby was about to tell him to move his ass when something rang familiar about the guy's face. "I know you?" Bobby asked warily, shifting his pastry and the tray of two coffees to one hand so he had one free if he needed it. The guy was looking thunderous and Bobby wondered if he'd pissed off anyone enough lately to follow him across the country.
Wouldn't be the first time.
"Please tell me you're not making a goddamn Keating run?" the guy barked, slapping a hand down on the hood of Bobby's truck and that was it.
"You wanna tell me who you are?" Bobby snapped.
It was annoying as hell, the way the guy was glowering at him was something he'd seen before, just couldn't place it like a name on the tip of his tongue. Bobby shifted how he looked at the guy, separated the familiar from the face and then he had it. This wasn't someone he'd met before, this was someone who reminded him of someone he'd met before.
"You're John Winchester's boy, aren't you? Dean?" Bobby said slowly, testing it out and when Dean shifted and looked down before his expression hardened again, Bobby knew he had him pegged. "I'll be damned," he whispered to himself, because Dean didn't look much like Sam but somehow they both looked like their father. "What are you doing here, boy?"
"Making sure you don't march Sammy off a cliff," Dean said and his eyes flicked away again, his mouth tightening up when he said his brother's name. Bobby watched the bravado Dean was trying to carry off slip as his shoulders came up under Bobby's scrutiny. "Keating's a fucking suicide mission."
"You watch your fucking mouth," Bobby said. "Just why exactly are you here?" Sam had never spoken of his father or his brother after he'd been left even though his sorrow at their lack had been written in every line of his body for years, drove him to want to be a hunter and prove himself some kind of worthy. Bobby watched Dean start to pace in front of his truck. He wasn't as tall as Sam was promising to be having left six foot behind already but he was broader, stocky and compact in his movements.
"I've been keeping tabs," Dean admitted, sounding strangely sheepish. "My dad doesn't know and I'd appreciate if you didn't tell him."
"Haven't spoken to your daddy since he dropped Sam off like a stray," Bobby said and watched the sheepish expression fall off Dean's face. He looked stunned like he'd been kicked and even clutched at his chest for a moment.
"No he... he stayed in touch. He said it was your idea we didn't see Sam. Said you thought it was for the best," Dean said slowly and Bobby thought possibly not to him. Dean was shaking his head, brow furrowing. "He said Sam didn't even remember us."
Bobby grimaced, watching grief, anger and denial all play across Dean's features, clear as day. He knew the expressions because even though Sam and Dean hadn't grown up together, somehow their faces pulled out of true the same way when they were hurting.
Bobby thought it might have been kinder to reel back what he said, try to make out that maybe John Winchester had been in contact but he figured Dean had been lied to enough. Bobby didn't know John Winchester that well but he didn't believe he was an evil man, maybe just misguided about what was the right thing to do for his sons. Maybe he'd thought he'd been protecting both children or started believing his own gospel, thinking there'd be no way a regular six year old would remember them given enough time but Sam had left regular behind a long time ago, perhaps before he'd been born.
"Bobby?"
Both Bobby and Dean startled at Sam's voice. Sam was standing just outside the motel room doorway, looking between Bobby and Dean with a small frown. Sam had a hand behind him and Bobby knew he was most likely touching the blade strapped against his spine, mistaking the tenseness between Dean and Bobby for something hostile.
"Hey Sam. Sorry, your coffee's probably cold," Bobby said, stalling lamely because he didn't quite know how to broach the subject of Sam's missing brother who had miraculously turned up out of nowhere. "This here's-"
"David," Dean interjected. "David Mustaine."
Sam merely raised an eyebrow at that and said, "Really?" in a deadpan voice that had pull the other one written all over it.
"What?" Dean said, fanning his hands out.
"Dave Mustaine? Guy who left Metallica to form Megadeth?" Sam asked incredulously.
Dean blinked and then a brief smile touched his lips. Bobby looked between the two boys and damned if Dean didn't look pleased he'd been busted. He didn't try to elaborate any though and after Sam and he stared at each other for a few seconds, Sam finally rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, whatever David." His attention switched to Bobby. "He a friend of yours?"
"Kind of," Bobby finally said and then eyed Dean for a moment. "He just came to make sure we weren't heading into Keating."
"We aren't," Sam confirmed, looking for all the world like he'd been told he couldn't go to the movies with his friends on a school night and wasn't it just so unfair and unreasonable. "Bobby said we could check for survivors but the city limits is as close as we go."
"Oh, well, that's alright then," Dean allowed and everything in him relaxed.
"You sticking around? We gotta wait till tomorrow night to perform the ritual but you're welcome," Bobby invited, seeing how everything in Dean had angled towards Sam as soon as he'd appeared. This was a boy who'd kept his distance because he'd been told to and it looked like it physically hurt to do it. Bobby thought the least he could do was let Dean bridge the distance between them, get to know Sam a little and maybe gather the courage to tell Sam just who he was.
"Yeah," Dean said a little too quickly and then swallowed hard. "I mean, I'm in between jobs so I guess I could," he amended, wincing when he'd sounded too eager.
"Whatever," Sam huffed. He leaned back into the room, snagged his coat and then shrugged it on. "I'm going for coffee since mine never made it back to the room." Sam eyed the cups Bobby was still holding onto and Bobby ducked his head, smiling at the fifteen year old that looked so exasperated. "You want something?"
"Yeah, coffee would be good. Strong and black," Dean said. Sam made a face but nodded, checking his pockets for change before heading in the direction of the diner. Bobby and Dean both watched him go before Bobby turned back to Dean who ducked his face, ears turning pink.
"Dave Mustaine?" Bobby prodded.
"Yeah alright, I panicked. I'll tell him who I am, I just need to work up to it."
"Fine, but that kid doesn't need to be abandoned again. If you tell him who you are, you'd better not be disappearing. Can you say that you won't?"
Dean looked away for a moment, his eyes skimming Sam's retreating figure before they returned to Bobby's stern gaze. "Not for sure," Dean finally admitted.
"You figure it out then before you decide to tell him," Bobby said and Dean nodded once, looking at his shoes.
000
"Man, this stinks. Plus, it looks like a little old man."
"It's mandrake root. Be careful with that," Bobby snapped, smacking at Dean's hands as he juggled the three pieces of mandrake Bobby had laid out. Dean dropped them and rolled his eyes.
"Aren't they supposed to like, scream or something?"
"Not outside of the Harry Potter movies you idjit," Bobby said in exasperation and Dean blushed red to the tips of his ears as Sam laughed.
"I'm sure that's not where I heard that," Dean hedged, shoulders going up around his ears again in a gesture Bobby was starting to recognize as a mix of embarrassment and defensiveness.
"If you can't behave, I'm turning this ritual around and we're going home," Bobby grumbled, pointing the one mandrake root he'd picked up at Dean and then Sam in turn.
"What did I do?" Sam demanded, his eyes going large and round.
"You're encouraging him," Bobby said and gestured for both boys to scoot out of the way. "Now, once I burn this it will settle in the circle and any living souls in the radius will show up green. Any demons or the like will show red. What we're going to see is either a lot of red or better yet, a lot of nothin'," Bobby explained as he shaved a piece of the mandrake root off and dropped it in the copper bowl that was set in the middle of his circle. He struck a match and sat back.
"Ah... Bobby...?"
"Holy crap..."
"Is that...?"
All three stared as the smoke settled. It was true that the outer edges of the town of Keating were ringed in red, but further towards the center of the circle were two single spots of green.
"Did you say eight years?" Sam asked slowly, breaking the silence they'd all lapsed into.
000
"We've got three people. It's like... fate or something."
Bobby had gotten he and Sam separate rooms because Sam seemingly overnight had become temperamental about personal space. Now though, they were forced to share since Dean was staying and the Sea Shell Inn had a total of four rooms, two of which had semi-permanent residents.
This all simply meant that instead of sleeping, he was getting brow-beaten by a teenager with the crazy notion that he was invincible, like all teenagers believed.
"Eighteen months ago a group of twelve went in, Sam. All seasoned hunters, all who knew what they were doing. Only one survived and that guy didn't even make it over the border all the way. To this day he still needs someone to dress and feed him."
"It's because everyone's tried to just barge in. Tried to take the town by force, but the demons have had a chance to fortify, probably set traps," Sam argued. There was a tentative rap on the door and Sam who was closer reached sideways and wrenched it open.
"I was just packing up," Dean said, looking hesitantly from Sam to Bobby and back again. "Everything okay?"
"We can't just leave now we know there's survivors in there," Sam said, flinging his arms wide.
"What are we talking about?" Dean asked, face darkening.
"I have a way to get us into Keating," Sam implored, sensing a willing audience. Dean, however, held up his hands, palms out.
"Hey kid, no way. One day there's going to be this big crater in the ground where Keating used to be. It's the way these things play out. No one's surviving this."
Bobby looked at Dean. He sounded much older than his years, worn down in a way that a boy shy of twenty shouldn't have been. He had to wonder if maybe it would have been better if he'd had two kids on his doorstep all those years ago. Way he'd heard it from other hunters, John had been the worst sort of driven, taking risks not only with his own life but with anyone he teamed up with. A good friend of Bobby's, Ellen Harvelle, had lost her husband when he'd been working a job with John and there was still the bad kind of speculation about exactly what happened.
"Not if we just stand around with our thumbs up our asses," Sam growled, stalking across the motel room and gathering up his books. "There's three of us and with a Halyin Triangle the demons won't be able to see us."
"What about the vampires?"
"Mix some dead man's blood into the rock-salt rounds?" Sam suggested and even though Bobby knew Sam had pulled that one out of his ass, it was still a solid idea. He could see by Dean's expression that he was starting to come around to Sam's way of thinking and any hunter worth his weight would have a hard time walking away from people in need.
"Okay, maybe, maybe this is possible," Bobby allowed but when Sam's face lit up Bobby shook his head quickly. "But you're not going."
"What-?"
"You said we need three, right? I'll call Ethan Williams or Harris Stodger. Last I heard they were in the area."
"Bobby," Sam started but Dean interjected with a, "He's right. It's too dangerous."
"Oh my god, I don't need an extra mom!" Sam snapped, eyes narrowing in Dean's direction. "What's it to you anyway, Megadeth?"
"Because you're my kid brother and I'm not going to let you-!" Dean stopped himself, smacking a hand over his mouth but it was too late to take the hastily spoken words back. Sam took a step away like he'd received a physical blow and just stared at Dean who was blinking owlishly back at him. "Sammy-" Dean started to say but Sam held up a hand.
"What are you talking about?"
"Our dad dropped you at Bobby's because he wanted to keep you safe, stop this life sucking you in but here you are, a fucking carbon copy of the old man," Dean said and he sounded equal parts hurt and disgusted. "I just wanted to see you, make sure you were going to school and had friends... had a life. Instead I get to see you trying to kill yourself just like he does."
"Dean," Bobby said gently, reaching out a hand that Dean ducked.
"Don't!" Dean snarled, pointing a finger in Bobby's direction. "You were supposed to keep him out of this."
"Knowing what we know, I couldn't leave him defenseless," Bobby said. "I thought about it. I had a cousin in Maine that would've taken him but if anything had ever happened to him..."
"Can you please stop talking about me like I'm not here?" Sam asked coldly before shrugging past them both and out the open motel door.
000
"Could be hunters," Dean mused. They were both sitting on the hood of Bobby's truck, sucking down warm beers he'd found rolling around his foot well. There was no sign of Sam but Bobby had learned long ago that the kid had to cool off on his own. "Probably why they've survived."
"True," Bobby agreed, because it was logical but also because it was too horrible to contemplate civilians having been trapped in a town full of demons for going on eight years.
"Should we try and find him?" Dean asked, changing the subject and Bobby shook his head.
"You won't be able to. Hell, I stopped being able to before he was twelve. Kid took to wilderness training like no one's business. With the scrub out back of this place, if he doesn't want to be found he won't be."
Dean looked at Bobby in the dying light of the day and grimaced. "Maybe I should go. You said there was two hunters close by. You can still make your three if I bail." When Bobby just raised an eyebrow at him Dean's grimace turned into a resigned frown. "I messed this up. He won't want me here."
"Nah," Bobby said, dropping a fist on Dean's shoulder. "Sam would be devastated if you disappeared again. He just got a shock is all. Give him a little time to come back."
"Hey, do you actually need three people for that Halo thing?" Dean asked, concern crossing his features.
"Halyin Triangle? It's stronger with three but I've known a hunter or two who's used it by themselves in a pinch. If you use it on a single person you don't get the full invisible effect but you kinda go dim to demons. They won't notice you unless you make a fuss or they walk right into you, or they're actually trying to find you," Bobby explained. "Why?"
"How long's Sam been gone?"
"About two hours... aw hell!"
000
"Yep, it's gone," Bobby growled, tipping Sam's duffel up just to make sure the book with the ritual in it was definitely missing. Dean tossed the room, but half-heartedly because they both knew exactly where Sam had gone. "Must have snuck back in the bathroom window while we were waiting for him, little shit."
"What was he thinking?" Dean demanded, tossing pillows and bedding aside in his frustration.
"Trying to save the day, be the big, bad hunter," Bobby sighed in frustration and not a small measure of affection. "Sam's been trying to prove himself since he turned up on my doorstep, always thought he'd failed in some way and that's why your Daddy left him behind."
"What? That's crazy," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his head. "Sometimes I wished Dad had dropped me off on some doorstep somewhere. Might have showed me he cared, even just a little."
"He loved the both of you like crazy," Bobby said, even though he wasn't sure why he was defending someone who'd been able to screw up two boys so completely in such different ways. "Any fool could see that. He just made some lousy choices."
Dean stood frozen for a few moments, clenching and unclenching his fists and then his jaw firmed. "You know that ritual?"
"Nope, not a lick. Sam could always keep stuff in his head like that but I never had the knack, especially these days. If we go in after him, we go in cold."
Dean nodded once. "Okay."
000
Bobby didn't know what he was expecting but it wasn't Sam standing at the edge of the town with two people by his side when they arrived. Bobby shouldered his pack and grunted, sparing just a sideways look for Dean. There was a woman with Sam, probably in her forties if Bobby had to guess and a boy, no more than Sam's age. They were both filthy and hollow-eyed, standing in the middle of the road together and a little apart from Sam like they were still wary.
Sam was standing with his arms folded and his chin tucked down which was a posture Bobby recognised, it was the same way Sam stood whenever he knew he'd done the wrong thing and was waiting for his punishment. Bobby figured he didn't really have the ability to ground Sam anymore even though he damn sure would've liked to. Instead he herded the two survivors back towards where he'd left his truck, glancing back just the once to see Sam with his stance relaxed and Dean with his hands in his pockets and shuffling his feet.
000
Bobby settled Lisa and Jeremy, the survivors, into Dean's room, moving Dean's belongings to the room he and Sam had been sharing. They seemed attached and Bobby wasn't about to try and pry them apart when they were still scared. He gestured towards his own room and told them to feel free to come on over when they got cleaned up and had a chance to rest.
He wouldn't have been surprised if they both took it upon themselves to disappear.
Sam and Dean eventually showed up two hours later, both looking a little out of sorts. Dean hovered in the parking lot while Sam came into the room, chewing on his lip. "I'm not sure what to do."
"You don't have to do anything," Bobby said, sitting on one of the beds and gesturing for Sam to take the other. When Sam didn't, just paced instead, Bobby let out a long, tired breath. "You always got a home with me but if you wanna get to know your brother, that's okay too. You know that, right?"
"I'm coming home," Sam said quickly. "I just... maybe Dean could come and stay for a little while?"
"Yeah, sure. You know we always have a spare bed," Bobby agreed readily, feeling strangely relieved and more than a little pleased that Sam had said home.
Sam smiled and nodded, darting back outside to tell Dean that Bobby had agreed, most likely. Bobby didn't know why, but he got the very strong feeling that after all these years he was going to end up with two strays instead of just the one.
The idea didn't bother him at all.
Title: Singer Salvage
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG (Language)
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Words: 4,600
Category: Gen
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Summary: Bobby thought he was done with being surprised considering the life he led.
Bobby thought he was done with being surprised considering the life he led. After meeting John Winchester and his sons, he decided he had to change his way of thinking on that, especially when six year old Sammy was left on his doorstep with a note pinned to his shirt and a toy horse clutched in his hands. The note simply said, do what's best, I know I have.
Bobby remembered sitting down to a beer with John weeks earlier and saying, this ain't no life for a child so young, watching Sammy rolling along the floor with two new pups and Dean, all of ten, watchful but serious, cleaning guns.
He usually made a habit of keeping his own business and he should've done so that night too.
Might not have ended up with a boy who was old enough to know his daddy had left him behind.
000
"He's still just a kid."
Jeb and Seth were twin boys that Bobby had watched grow up in their parent's shadow learning the trade, so to speak. Their mother had been killed only that winter when a town had been taken by four demons and six vampires that had teamed up. It was a small place cut into the side of a mountain, one Starbucks, a drive-in theater and only a single road in and out. Their daddy had passed six years before from a heart attack and nothing supernatural but their mother wasn't so lucky.
Their mother had died trying to get into the town and her boys had only made it out because she'd sacrificed herself.
The tiny town of Keating was a hunter's Waterloo, taken so long now that it was now a trial by fire. Some had never even made it in all the way, no matter how many hunters hit it at once. No one had ever come out, neither bad guy nor good which is why most hunters let it sit unmolested. The darkness wasn't creeping further than the town limit and they figured that whoever had lived there would be long dead. Every now and again some glory hound got it into his head to take a run at it, make a name for him or herself.
Jeb and Seth were just such idjits and they'd heard about the gifted kid that Bobby had taken in, fifteen years old with a dead-on aim with a knife and a head for Latin and spells. Bobby had tried to steer Sam away from all that but Sam had been determined, heart-breakingly sure that if he proved himself useful, the man he couldn't even remember the face of would come back for him one day.
Bobby had a curse word or two stored up for John Winchester if he ever showed that face again.
"I'll go."
Bobby turned to see Sam hovering in the doorway of his kitchen, hands wringing the bottom of his shirt that was too short. The kid had shot up over the winter months, faster than Bobby could have believed. He knew how tall John Winchester was and it looked like this kid was determined to surpass him in everything, including height.
"You finished that history assignment?" Bobby barked.
"Bobby-"
"Don't make me kick your butt. It's embarrassing for both of us," he warned.
"He wants to go," Jeb interjected.
Bobby turned his narrow gaze on Jeb and Seth and simply pointed to the loaded shotgun he had over his mantle and then his door. They got the picture and scurried, having heard that Bobby wasn't shy about putting rock salt in asses that weren't quick enough if he had a mind to. When they were gone, Bobby turned to see Sam still in the doorway but this time he had his arms crossed and a petulant expression on his face.
"Do I have to nail your windows shut and lock your door tonight?" Bobby asked, arching an eyebrow and the petulant expression dropped off Sam's face. Instead he looked guilty and Bobby knew he'd guessed right.
Damn brat had been planning to sneak out.
Sam looked at his toes for a long time before he finally grumbled, "No."
"Good. Don't make me regret putting a roof over your head."
"No, Sir," Sam said, sounding more contrite.
Bobby knew this particular war was far from over but he'd have to be happy winning just this one battle, for now.
000
Bobby knew the matter wouldn't be dropped so wasn't that surprised when Sam came to him two days later with dust on his clothes and one of the books Bobby knew he kept in the attic for the express purpose of not being touched in hand. "They want to make a Halyin Triangle," Sam announced with no preamble.
"I know what they wanted to do," Bobby said gruffly, snatching the book from Sam and checking it over before slapping it down on the table behind him. "What did I say about the upstairs books, huh?"
"Something about on pain of death," Sam said, rolling his eyes so hard Bobby was surprised they didn't drop out and scatter across the floor. "It's a good way to go in."
"There ain't no good way to go into Keating," Bobby snapped. "Damned fool's errand for damn fools."
"Somebody's got to make it in sometime," Sam said with all the logic of the very young.
"Why is that? No one's heard a peep from in there in years. Probably nothing more than a ghost town by now."
"That people die trying to get into."
"Exactly right. Hunting's about saving people. There'd be no one left to save in that place."
"How do you know that?" Sam challenged.
"Because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. Means that some poor schmucks have been alive and unable to escape in that place for eight years."
"Burying our heads in the sand doesn't make it any less possible," Sam argued and Bobby sighed. Reason didn't work with teenagers, that much was obvious.
"Okay, fine. There's a way we can check without actually going in," Bobby finally relented because he knew he wouldn't get a moment's peace otherwise. "We just have to get close enough."
"Really?" Sam said, eyes going round with barely suppressed glee at the prospect.
"Just need some stuff I got here and a full moon," Bobby explained.
"That's four days. Think we can make it?"
"You know, there's another full moon next month."
"Bobby," Sam whined, jigging from foot to foot.
Damn generation why not now or whatever they called it.
"Alright, fine, but when we find a whole lot of nothing I don't want to hear another word about it."
000
The closest motel to the town limits was a run-down affair called the Sea Shell Inn. The name was weirdly appropriate because despite the utter lack of being even close to any ocean or even so much as a pond, there was definitely an odd briny smell to everything.
Bobby left Sam to his research to snag coffee and a danish from a place just down the road and when he got back there was a young guy leaning on his truck. Bobby was about to tell him to move his ass when something rang familiar about the guy's face. "I know you?" Bobby asked warily, shifting his pastry and the tray of two coffees to one hand so he had one free if he needed it. The guy was looking thunderous and Bobby wondered if he'd pissed off anyone enough lately to follow him across the country.
Wouldn't be the first time.
"Please tell me you're not making a goddamn Keating run?" the guy barked, slapping a hand down on the hood of Bobby's truck and that was it.
"You wanna tell me who you are?" Bobby snapped.
It was annoying as hell, the way the guy was glowering at him was something he'd seen before, just couldn't place it like a name on the tip of his tongue. Bobby shifted how he looked at the guy, separated the familiar from the face and then he had it. This wasn't someone he'd met before, this was someone who reminded him of someone he'd met before.
"You're John Winchester's boy, aren't you? Dean?" Bobby said slowly, testing it out and when Dean shifted and looked down before his expression hardened again, Bobby knew he had him pegged. "I'll be damned," he whispered to himself, because Dean didn't look much like Sam but somehow they both looked like their father. "What are you doing here, boy?"
"Making sure you don't march Sammy off a cliff," Dean said and his eyes flicked away again, his mouth tightening up when he said his brother's name. Bobby watched the bravado Dean was trying to carry off slip as his shoulders came up under Bobby's scrutiny. "Keating's a fucking suicide mission."
"You watch your fucking mouth," Bobby said. "Just why exactly are you here?" Sam had never spoken of his father or his brother after he'd been left even though his sorrow at their lack had been written in every line of his body for years, drove him to want to be a hunter and prove himself some kind of worthy. Bobby watched Dean start to pace in front of his truck. He wasn't as tall as Sam was promising to be having left six foot behind already but he was broader, stocky and compact in his movements.
"I've been keeping tabs," Dean admitted, sounding strangely sheepish. "My dad doesn't know and I'd appreciate if you didn't tell him."
"Haven't spoken to your daddy since he dropped Sam off like a stray," Bobby said and watched the sheepish expression fall off Dean's face. He looked stunned like he'd been kicked and even clutched at his chest for a moment.
"No he... he stayed in touch. He said it was your idea we didn't see Sam. Said you thought it was for the best," Dean said slowly and Bobby thought possibly not to him. Dean was shaking his head, brow furrowing. "He said Sam didn't even remember us."
Bobby grimaced, watching grief, anger and denial all play across Dean's features, clear as day. He knew the expressions because even though Sam and Dean hadn't grown up together, somehow their faces pulled out of true the same way when they were hurting.
Bobby thought it might have been kinder to reel back what he said, try to make out that maybe John Winchester had been in contact but he figured Dean had been lied to enough. Bobby didn't know John Winchester that well but he didn't believe he was an evil man, maybe just misguided about what was the right thing to do for his sons. Maybe he'd thought he'd been protecting both children or started believing his own gospel, thinking there'd be no way a regular six year old would remember them given enough time but Sam had left regular behind a long time ago, perhaps before he'd been born.
"Bobby?"
Both Bobby and Dean startled at Sam's voice. Sam was standing just outside the motel room doorway, looking between Bobby and Dean with a small frown. Sam had a hand behind him and Bobby knew he was most likely touching the blade strapped against his spine, mistaking the tenseness between Dean and Bobby for something hostile.
"Hey Sam. Sorry, your coffee's probably cold," Bobby said, stalling lamely because he didn't quite know how to broach the subject of Sam's missing brother who had miraculously turned up out of nowhere. "This here's-"
"David," Dean interjected. "David Mustaine."
Sam merely raised an eyebrow at that and said, "Really?" in a deadpan voice that had pull the other one written all over it.
"What?" Dean said, fanning his hands out.
"Dave Mustaine? Guy who left Metallica to form Megadeth?" Sam asked incredulously.
Dean blinked and then a brief smile touched his lips. Bobby looked between the two boys and damned if Dean didn't look pleased he'd been busted. He didn't try to elaborate any though and after Sam and he stared at each other for a few seconds, Sam finally rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, whatever David." His attention switched to Bobby. "He a friend of yours?"
"Kind of," Bobby finally said and then eyed Dean for a moment. "He just came to make sure we weren't heading into Keating."
"We aren't," Sam confirmed, looking for all the world like he'd been told he couldn't go to the movies with his friends on a school night and wasn't it just so unfair and unreasonable. "Bobby said we could check for survivors but the city limits is as close as we go."
"Oh, well, that's alright then," Dean allowed and everything in him relaxed.
"You sticking around? We gotta wait till tomorrow night to perform the ritual but you're welcome," Bobby invited, seeing how everything in Dean had angled towards Sam as soon as he'd appeared. This was a boy who'd kept his distance because he'd been told to and it looked like it physically hurt to do it. Bobby thought the least he could do was let Dean bridge the distance between them, get to know Sam a little and maybe gather the courage to tell Sam just who he was.
"Yeah," Dean said a little too quickly and then swallowed hard. "I mean, I'm in between jobs so I guess I could," he amended, wincing when he'd sounded too eager.
"Whatever," Sam huffed. He leaned back into the room, snagged his coat and then shrugged it on. "I'm going for coffee since mine never made it back to the room." Sam eyed the cups Bobby was still holding onto and Bobby ducked his head, smiling at the fifteen year old that looked so exasperated. "You want something?"
"Yeah, coffee would be good. Strong and black," Dean said. Sam made a face but nodded, checking his pockets for change before heading in the direction of the diner. Bobby and Dean both watched him go before Bobby turned back to Dean who ducked his face, ears turning pink.
"Dave Mustaine?" Bobby prodded.
"Yeah alright, I panicked. I'll tell him who I am, I just need to work up to it."
"Fine, but that kid doesn't need to be abandoned again. If you tell him who you are, you'd better not be disappearing. Can you say that you won't?"
Dean looked away for a moment, his eyes skimming Sam's retreating figure before they returned to Bobby's stern gaze. "Not for sure," Dean finally admitted.
"You figure it out then before you decide to tell him," Bobby said and Dean nodded once, looking at his shoes.
000
"Man, this stinks. Plus, it looks like a little old man."
"It's mandrake root. Be careful with that," Bobby snapped, smacking at Dean's hands as he juggled the three pieces of mandrake Bobby had laid out. Dean dropped them and rolled his eyes.
"Aren't they supposed to like, scream or something?"
"Not outside of the Harry Potter movies you idjit," Bobby said in exasperation and Dean blushed red to the tips of his ears as Sam laughed.
"I'm sure that's not where I heard that," Dean hedged, shoulders going up around his ears again in a gesture Bobby was starting to recognize as a mix of embarrassment and defensiveness.
"If you can't behave, I'm turning this ritual around and we're going home," Bobby grumbled, pointing the one mandrake root he'd picked up at Dean and then Sam in turn.
"What did I do?" Sam demanded, his eyes going large and round.
"You're encouraging him," Bobby said and gestured for both boys to scoot out of the way. "Now, once I burn this it will settle in the circle and any living souls in the radius will show up green. Any demons or the like will show red. What we're going to see is either a lot of red or better yet, a lot of nothin'," Bobby explained as he shaved a piece of the mandrake root off and dropped it in the copper bowl that was set in the middle of his circle. He struck a match and sat back.
"Ah... Bobby...?"
"Holy crap..."
"Is that...?"
All three stared as the smoke settled. It was true that the outer edges of the town of Keating were ringed in red, but further towards the center of the circle were two single spots of green.
"Did you say eight years?" Sam asked slowly, breaking the silence they'd all lapsed into.
000
"We've got three people. It's like... fate or something."
Bobby had gotten he and Sam separate rooms because Sam seemingly overnight had become temperamental about personal space. Now though, they were forced to share since Dean was staying and the Sea Shell Inn had a total of four rooms, two of which had semi-permanent residents.
This all simply meant that instead of sleeping, he was getting brow-beaten by a teenager with the crazy notion that he was invincible, like all teenagers believed.
"Eighteen months ago a group of twelve went in, Sam. All seasoned hunters, all who knew what they were doing. Only one survived and that guy didn't even make it over the border all the way. To this day he still needs someone to dress and feed him."
"It's because everyone's tried to just barge in. Tried to take the town by force, but the demons have had a chance to fortify, probably set traps," Sam argued. There was a tentative rap on the door and Sam who was closer reached sideways and wrenched it open.
"I was just packing up," Dean said, looking hesitantly from Sam to Bobby and back again. "Everything okay?"
"We can't just leave now we know there's survivors in there," Sam said, flinging his arms wide.
"What are we talking about?" Dean asked, face darkening.
"I have a way to get us into Keating," Sam implored, sensing a willing audience. Dean, however, held up his hands, palms out.
"Hey kid, no way. One day there's going to be this big crater in the ground where Keating used to be. It's the way these things play out. No one's surviving this."
Bobby looked at Dean. He sounded much older than his years, worn down in a way that a boy shy of twenty shouldn't have been. He had to wonder if maybe it would have been better if he'd had two kids on his doorstep all those years ago. Way he'd heard it from other hunters, John had been the worst sort of driven, taking risks not only with his own life but with anyone he teamed up with. A good friend of Bobby's, Ellen Harvelle, had lost her husband when he'd been working a job with John and there was still the bad kind of speculation about exactly what happened.
"Not if we just stand around with our thumbs up our asses," Sam growled, stalking across the motel room and gathering up his books. "There's three of us and with a Halyin Triangle the demons won't be able to see us."
"What about the vampires?"
"Mix some dead man's blood into the rock-salt rounds?" Sam suggested and even though Bobby knew Sam had pulled that one out of his ass, it was still a solid idea. He could see by Dean's expression that he was starting to come around to Sam's way of thinking and any hunter worth his weight would have a hard time walking away from people in need.
"Okay, maybe, maybe this is possible," Bobby allowed but when Sam's face lit up Bobby shook his head quickly. "But you're not going."
"What-?"
"You said we need three, right? I'll call Ethan Williams or Harris Stodger. Last I heard they were in the area."
"Bobby," Sam started but Dean interjected with a, "He's right. It's too dangerous."
"Oh my god, I don't need an extra mom!" Sam snapped, eyes narrowing in Dean's direction. "What's it to you anyway, Megadeth?"
"Because you're my kid brother and I'm not going to let you-!" Dean stopped himself, smacking a hand over his mouth but it was too late to take the hastily spoken words back. Sam took a step away like he'd received a physical blow and just stared at Dean who was blinking owlishly back at him. "Sammy-" Dean started to say but Sam held up a hand.
"What are you talking about?"
"Our dad dropped you at Bobby's because he wanted to keep you safe, stop this life sucking you in but here you are, a fucking carbon copy of the old man," Dean said and he sounded equal parts hurt and disgusted. "I just wanted to see you, make sure you were going to school and had friends... had a life. Instead I get to see you trying to kill yourself just like he does."
"Dean," Bobby said gently, reaching out a hand that Dean ducked.
"Don't!" Dean snarled, pointing a finger in Bobby's direction. "You were supposed to keep him out of this."
"Knowing what we know, I couldn't leave him defenseless," Bobby said. "I thought about it. I had a cousin in Maine that would've taken him but if anything had ever happened to him..."
"Can you please stop talking about me like I'm not here?" Sam asked coldly before shrugging past them both and out the open motel door.
000
"Could be hunters," Dean mused. They were both sitting on the hood of Bobby's truck, sucking down warm beers he'd found rolling around his foot well. There was no sign of Sam but Bobby had learned long ago that the kid had to cool off on his own. "Probably why they've survived."
"True," Bobby agreed, because it was logical but also because it was too horrible to contemplate civilians having been trapped in a town full of demons for going on eight years.
"Should we try and find him?" Dean asked, changing the subject and Bobby shook his head.
"You won't be able to. Hell, I stopped being able to before he was twelve. Kid took to wilderness training like no one's business. With the scrub out back of this place, if he doesn't want to be found he won't be."
Dean looked at Bobby in the dying light of the day and grimaced. "Maybe I should go. You said there was two hunters close by. You can still make your three if I bail." When Bobby just raised an eyebrow at him Dean's grimace turned into a resigned frown. "I messed this up. He won't want me here."
"Nah," Bobby said, dropping a fist on Dean's shoulder. "Sam would be devastated if you disappeared again. He just got a shock is all. Give him a little time to come back."
"Hey, do you actually need three people for that Halo thing?" Dean asked, concern crossing his features.
"Halyin Triangle? It's stronger with three but I've known a hunter or two who's used it by themselves in a pinch. If you use it on a single person you don't get the full invisible effect but you kinda go dim to demons. They won't notice you unless you make a fuss or they walk right into you, or they're actually trying to find you," Bobby explained. "Why?"
"How long's Sam been gone?"
"About two hours... aw hell!"
000
"Yep, it's gone," Bobby growled, tipping Sam's duffel up just to make sure the book with the ritual in it was definitely missing. Dean tossed the room, but half-heartedly because they both knew exactly where Sam had gone. "Must have snuck back in the bathroom window while we were waiting for him, little shit."
"What was he thinking?" Dean demanded, tossing pillows and bedding aside in his frustration.
"Trying to save the day, be the big, bad hunter," Bobby sighed in frustration and not a small measure of affection. "Sam's been trying to prove himself since he turned up on my doorstep, always thought he'd failed in some way and that's why your Daddy left him behind."
"What? That's crazy," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his head. "Sometimes I wished Dad had dropped me off on some doorstep somewhere. Might have showed me he cared, even just a little."
"He loved the both of you like crazy," Bobby said, even though he wasn't sure why he was defending someone who'd been able to screw up two boys so completely in such different ways. "Any fool could see that. He just made some lousy choices."
Dean stood frozen for a few moments, clenching and unclenching his fists and then his jaw firmed. "You know that ritual?"
"Nope, not a lick. Sam could always keep stuff in his head like that but I never had the knack, especially these days. If we go in after him, we go in cold."
Dean nodded once. "Okay."
000
Bobby didn't know what he was expecting but it wasn't Sam standing at the edge of the town with two people by his side when they arrived. Bobby shouldered his pack and grunted, sparing just a sideways look for Dean. There was a woman with Sam, probably in her forties if Bobby had to guess and a boy, no more than Sam's age. They were both filthy and hollow-eyed, standing in the middle of the road together and a little apart from Sam like they were still wary.
Sam was standing with his arms folded and his chin tucked down which was a posture Bobby recognised, it was the same way Sam stood whenever he knew he'd done the wrong thing and was waiting for his punishment. Bobby figured he didn't really have the ability to ground Sam anymore even though he damn sure would've liked to. Instead he herded the two survivors back towards where he'd left his truck, glancing back just the once to see Sam with his stance relaxed and Dean with his hands in his pockets and shuffling his feet.
000
Bobby settled Lisa and Jeremy, the survivors, into Dean's room, moving Dean's belongings to the room he and Sam had been sharing. They seemed attached and Bobby wasn't about to try and pry them apart when they were still scared. He gestured towards his own room and told them to feel free to come on over when they got cleaned up and had a chance to rest.
He wouldn't have been surprised if they both took it upon themselves to disappear.
Sam and Dean eventually showed up two hours later, both looking a little out of sorts. Dean hovered in the parking lot while Sam came into the room, chewing on his lip. "I'm not sure what to do."
"You don't have to do anything," Bobby said, sitting on one of the beds and gesturing for Sam to take the other. When Sam didn't, just paced instead, Bobby let out a long, tired breath. "You always got a home with me but if you wanna get to know your brother, that's okay too. You know that, right?"
"I'm coming home," Sam said quickly. "I just... maybe Dean could come and stay for a little while?"
"Yeah, sure. You know we always have a spare bed," Bobby agreed readily, feeling strangely relieved and more than a little pleased that Sam had said home.
Sam smiled and nodded, darting back outside to tell Dean that Bobby had agreed, most likely. Bobby didn't know why, but he got the very strong feeling that after all these years he was going to end up with two strays instead of just the one.
The idea didn't bother him at all.