Forgetting Any Other Home But This
I woke up with a hangover and a cold that could cripple an elephant, wrote this, and went back to bed. Sometime after that I was dragged to a four-hour brunch and now I am posting this and dragging my ass to the gym. I sincerely hope this isn't terrible, and sincerely apologize if it is.
Title: Forgetting Any Other Home But This
Rating: PG?
Words: ~1,670
Spoilers: Up through "Death's Door."
Warnings: Major character death (sort of implicit in the prompt).
Summary: A perpetual afternoon in the Singer Salvage Yard, spring 1987. Written for this prompt, with sincere hope I did it justice.
Neurotic author's notes: See above, re: hangover and cold, and please accept my apologies if this is awful. The title comes from Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, act II, scene 2: "And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,/Forgetting any other home but this," Romeo to Juliet after she's called him back to the balcony one last time and then forgets why because she's that into him). Cut text is from Joe Pug's "Nation of Heat," just because I like it.
In the beginning, he looks for them.
Heaven for Bobby is at once a massive anticlimax and an incredible relief. No golden gates or city of clouds-but he’d known that, the boys had told him as much-just an unending stretch of cool mid-May afternoon in the salvage yard, interrupted by the occasional burst of blinding, beating sunlight. There are a few scattered dogs, a perpetual beer, and a sense of mostly-pleasant stagnancy. Fear is conspicuous only in its absence, and after a while-and there’s no way to keep time, which drives Bobby crazy at first-it becomes peaceful and sort of nice.
And from the beginning, he can hear them, the distant rustle of Sam and Dean playing just out of sight. Occasionally there’s a scrape of rusty metal moving, or the thump of a little-boy body hitting the packed-hard dirt, but a gruff shout of “Boys!” settles things in an instant, leaving Bobby alone with his echoing voice. They’re nowhere to be found, always just a little ahead, just behind him. Safe, but untouchable. Once or twice, Bobby hears a plaintive whine-De-e-an!-or an exasperated Sam-mee, and it it feels like his heart is trying to crawl out of his throat.
After a while, he works out exactly where he is-it’s the spring of 1987, and it’s the same spring that the spare bedroom became Sam and Dean’s room. It’s the spring that John Winchester arrived bearing two boys, a wiry eight-year-old and a round, serious four-year-old, and Bobby finally met the famous Dean and Sammy. He’d been pissed, at first, and distant with the boys, but something in Dean’s sweet, open face, in the way Sam’s eyes tracked his brother’s movements with a glowing admiration, the way he couldn’t say his ths, began to wear on him. Bobby liked Dean, liked his protectiveness and his goofy streak, liked the way he dispelled Sam’s worries with pratfalls and silly faces. He liked that Dean pushed down extra hard on all his ths, in the hopes Sam might do the same (though it would be another six months before he actually did), and almost everything he liked about Dean contributed to his growing anger with John.
But the days of hollering at John are far away, as are the Sam and Dean who have been through so much, who have been robbed of that easy love they used to carry so easily. Here, it is always around three in the afternoon, the boys are always gentle and just out of sight, John is always off somewhere, and the initial madness of his grief is abating, and things are okay.
And then one day he hears something different, a sustained scream of bending metal, a muted thump, and a quickly choked-off holler. He’s on his feet and moving before he realizes-he remembers this. He’s going to turn the corner and find Dean, crumpled, a filthy gash the length of his whole leg bleeding freely into the dirt. Dean will be keening into his elbow, trying not to cry, looking up at Bobby and whimpering, “Don’ tell my dad,” and then Sam will arrive, bustling in that bossy way he had even as a four-year-old, and Dean will put on the brave face.
His heart is pounding as he weaves his way through the familiar maze of car corpses, and he knows, knows Dean won’t be here but he might be, he remembers this, he’s going to scoop Dean up and stitch him up in the kitchen sink, while Sam bobs around the kitchen and prattles about dogs and Transformers and his big brover, he’s going to round the corner and find those boys, just as they were the spring they wormed their way into his heart, he has to, and-
“Bobby?”
It’s Dean. It’s Dean, solidly, dependably, unshakably Dean. He’s not eight, he’s not bleeding, but he’s there, a little ragged, wary as always, shuffling self-consciously in the middle of the junkyard. It’s all Bobby can do to keep from gathering him up as he had all those years ago. He has to stop, to physically ground himself, to remember this is not a happy reunion. Dean is-if Dean is here, he’s dead, and properly this time, if he’s been around long enough to find this place. The thought fills Bobby with profound sadness and something approaching relief.
“What gotchya?” is what he says, wryly, gruffly, with a rueful affection.
The words seem to snap Dean out of whatever contemplative trance he’s in, and he’s suddenly a whirling dervish, whipping around, trying to get his bearings, looking near to tears. “I-I don’t-there was a-and Cas-and Sam-I have to-Bobby, you gotta get me back, I left Sam-”
Bobby comes to meet him just as Dean pitches forward, catches him round the shoulders, can’t help but hold him a second longer than he has to, because after all this time, he has Dean back, and selfishly, that’s all he can think of.
“Bobby,” Dean rasps, and he’s shaking, “Bobby, I left Sam,” and Bobby’s chest feels like it’s ripping in two. He puts a clumsy hand up to Dean’s face, and though Dean is not a child, he’s older now than Bobby was when Karen died, but in his crumpled, freckled face all Bobby can see is that reedy little boy, sticking his tongue between his teeth, saying “this, brother, another, this is my brother, he’s gonna have another piece of pie.”
Dean’s bottom lip is wobbling, and Bobby pulls himself out of the memory (and Dean never once made fun when Sam replied, “Dis is my brover, he’s gon' have anover piece of pie”) and forces himself to focus only on this moment, this one chance he’s got to build for Dean a little bit of peace.
“That’s the wrong way to think about it,” he says, and tries to starve off the memories of how badly, exactly, Sam has dealt with his brother’s absence in the past, tries not to think of the wild look in Sam’s eyes when he insisted that they couldn’t give Dean a hunter’s funeral, he’ll need that body when he comes back, Bobby, how he’d insisted, shaking a little, swiping blindly at his wet face, he’ll need it. “You’ve never left Sam if you could help it, you know that, and it’s-”
The look on Dean’s face says there’s nothing to be done, no placation that will hold. Dean Winchester is dead, apparently for good this time, and Sam is back on earth, which, to Dean, is unforgivable. There’s still the smallest glimmer of hope, of course-if Cas can pull Sam out of Lucifer’s cage, who’s to say he won’t come fetch Dean in Heaven?-but it’s dwindling, and Cas quite possibly more man than angel these days. Some part of Bobby is glad, used to yearn for the day when the brothers Winchester could simply stop, rest awhile, and if that meant a death unadorned by demon deals or soldierly angels, then so be it. He’d just never imagined the two of them going separately, never really considered it. They were Winchesters. They didn’t do things by halves.
Dean has folded, leaning against Bobby, his face pressed to Bobby’s shoulder, and it’s easy to reach up and cup his head like he’s a child again, to let the truth wash over him, or out of him, let that perpetual spring of 1987 settle over him, gently. He seems a little smaller, a little younger, when he pulls away, and Bobby pats his face with the same awkward affection and it earns him the smallest twist of a smile.
Somehow the afternoon keeps going, endlessly, and as Dean seems to shed the years little by little, it’s often easy to forget what it means-that Dean is dead, that Sam is alone, that the world is left without one of the two men destined to save it again and again, that the brothers are halved, the both of them. Dean is content to walk with Bobby, to drink his own beer, to toss a football, to repair the odd car and, as he gradually, almost imperceptibly shrinks, to play on and among the rusted cars, pretending to drive them, scrambling over them, searching subconsciously for Sam-but the memory of a missing brother clings to him, weighs on him, and he’s not quite the tiny comedian he was. Bobby knows that Dean thinks of Sam often, wonders how much time has passed, if he’s alright, how old he is, if he’s alive. Bobby is fairly confident he is, because, while he’s never said as much to Dean, he has a pretty good idea of where Sam will arrive once he’s dead for good.
Sometimes Bobby thinks of John-imagines he is young and newlywed somewhere, fresh faced and dizzy with love-or of Karen, dreams that she’s somewhere bright and safe and colorful, alive and unburdened, perhaps even considering accepting a dinner invitation from a gangly, twenty-two-year-old Bobby Singer. Sometimes he thinks of Castiel, of Rufus, of Ellen and Jo Harvelle, of a thousand innocents and almost-innocents he never saved or nearly loved. Sometimes his heart hurts for Dean, who is still halved, but mostly he is just there in the sunshine with Dean, content to enjoy the breeze, to watch his boy play, to talk about cars and dogs, and to wait, with a certainty approaching faith, for the day when a voice will float through the warm salvage yard, calling for a brover.
Title: Forgetting Any Other Home But This
Rating: PG?
Words: ~1,670
Spoilers: Up through "Death's Door."
Warnings: Major character death (sort of implicit in the prompt).
Summary: A perpetual afternoon in the Singer Salvage Yard, spring 1987. Written for this prompt, with sincere hope I did it justice.
Neurotic author's notes: See above, re: hangover and cold, and please accept my apologies if this is awful. The title comes from Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, act II, scene 2: "And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,/Forgetting any other home but this," Romeo to Juliet after she's called him back to the balcony one last time and then forgets why because she's that into him). Cut text is from Joe Pug's "Nation of Heat," just because I like it.
In the beginning, he looks for them.
Heaven for Bobby is at once a massive anticlimax and an incredible relief. No golden gates or city of clouds-but he’d known that, the boys had told him as much-just an unending stretch of cool mid-May afternoon in the salvage yard, interrupted by the occasional burst of blinding, beating sunlight. There are a few scattered dogs, a perpetual beer, and a sense of mostly-pleasant stagnancy. Fear is conspicuous only in its absence, and after a while-and there’s no way to keep time, which drives Bobby crazy at first-it becomes peaceful and sort of nice.
And from the beginning, he can hear them, the distant rustle of Sam and Dean playing just out of sight. Occasionally there’s a scrape of rusty metal moving, or the thump of a little-boy body hitting the packed-hard dirt, but a gruff shout of “Boys!” settles things in an instant, leaving Bobby alone with his echoing voice. They’re nowhere to be found, always just a little ahead, just behind him. Safe, but untouchable. Once or twice, Bobby hears a plaintive whine-De-e-an!-or an exasperated Sam-mee, and it it feels like his heart is trying to crawl out of his throat.
After a while, he works out exactly where he is-it’s the spring of 1987, and it’s the same spring that the spare bedroom became Sam and Dean’s room. It’s the spring that John Winchester arrived bearing two boys, a wiry eight-year-old and a round, serious four-year-old, and Bobby finally met the famous Dean and Sammy. He’d been pissed, at first, and distant with the boys, but something in Dean’s sweet, open face, in the way Sam’s eyes tracked his brother’s movements with a glowing admiration, the way he couldn’t say his ths, began to wear on him. Bobby liked Dean, liked his protectiveness and his goofy streak, liked the way he dispelled Sam’s worries with pratfalls and silly faces. He liked that Dean pushed down extra hard on all his ths, in the hopes Sam might do the same (though it would be another six months before he actually did), and almost everything he liked about Dean contributed to his growing anger with John.
But the days of hollering at John are far away, as are the Sam and Dean who have been through so much, who have been robbed of that easy love they used to carry so easily. Here, it is always around three in the afternoon, the boys are always gentle and just out of sight, John is always off somewhere, and the initial madness of his grief is abating, and things are okay.
And then one day he hears something different, a sustained scream of bending metal, a muted thump, and a quickly choked-off holler. He’s on his feet and moving before he realizes-he remembers this. He’s going to turn the corner and find Dean, crumpled, a filthy gash the length of his whole leg bleeding freely into the dirt. Dean will be keening into his elbow, trying not to cry, looking up at Bobby and whimpering, “Don’ tell my dad,” and then Sam will arrive, bustling in that bossy way he had even as a four-year-old, and Dean will put on the brave face.
His heart is pounding as he weaves his way through the familiar maze of car corpses, and he knows, knows Dean won’t be here but he might be, he remembers this, he’s going to scoop Dean up and stitch him up in the kitchen sink, while Sam bobs around the kitchen and prattles about dogs and Transformers and his big brover, he’s going to round the corner and find those boys, just as they were the spring they wormed their way into his heart, he has to, and-
“Bobby?”
It’s Dean. It’s Dean, solidly, dependably, unshakably Dean. He’s not eight, he’s not bleeding, but he’s there, a little ragged, wary as always, shuffling self-consciously in the middle of the junkyard. It’s all Bobby can do to keep from gathering him up as he had all those years ago. He has to stop, to physically ground himself, to remember this is not a happy reunion. Dean is-if Dean is here, he’s dead, and properly this time, if he’s been around long enough to find this place. The thought fills Bobby with profound sadness and something approaching relief.
“What gotchya?” is what he says, wryly, gruffly, with a rueful affection.
The words seem to snap Dean out of whatever contemplative trance he’s in, and he’s suddenly a whirling dervish, whipping around, trying to get his bearings, looking near to tears. “I-I don’t-there was a-and Cas-and Sam-I have to-Bobby, you gotta get me back, I left Sam-”
Bobby comes to meet him just as Dean pitches forward, catches him round the shoulders, can’t help but hold him a second longer than he has to, because after all this time, he has Dean back, and selfishly, that’s all he can think of.
“Bobby,” Dean rasps, and he’s shaking, “Bobby, I left Sam,” and Bobby’s chest feels like it’s ripping in two. He puts a clumsy hand up to Dean’s face, and though Dean is not a child, he’s older now than Bobby was when Karen died, but in his crumpled, freckled face all Bobby can see is that reedy little boy, sticking his tongue between his teeth, saying “this, brother, another, this is my brother, he’s gonna have another piece of pie.”
Dean’s bottom lip is wobbling, and Bobby pulls himself out of the memory (and Dean never once made fun when Sam replied, “Dis is my brover, he’s gon' have anover piece of pie”) and forces himself to focus only on this moment, this one chance he’s got to build for Dean a little bit of peace.
“That’s the wrong way to think about it,” he says, and tries to starve off the memories of how badly, exactly, Sam has dealt with his brother’s absence in the past, tries not to think of the wild look in Sam’s eyes when he insisted that they couldn’t give Dean a hunter’s funeral, he’ll need that body when he comes back, Bobby, how he’d insisted, shaking a little, swiping blindly at his wet face, he’ll need it. “You’ve never left Sam if you could help it, you know that, and it’s-”
The look on Dean’s face says there’s nothing to be done, no placation that will hold. Dean Winchester is dead, apparently for good this time, and Sam is back on earth, which, to Dean, is unforgivable. There’s still the smallest glimmer of hope, of course-if Cas can pull Sam out of Lucifer’s cage, who’s to say he won’t come fetch Dean in Heaven?-but it’s dwindling, and Cas quite possibly more man than angel these days. Some part of Bobby is glad, used to yearn for the day when the brothers Winchester could simply stop, rest awhile, and if that meant a death unadorned by demon deals or soldierly angels, then so be it. He’d just never imagined the two of them going separately, never really considered it. They were Winchesters. They didn’t do things by halves.
Dean has folded, leaning against Bobby, his face pressed to Bobby’s shoulder, and it’s easy to reach up and cup his head like he’s a child again, to let the truth wash over him, or out of him, let that perpetual spring of 1987 settle over him, gently. He seems a little smaller, a little younger, when he pulls away, and Bobby pats his face with the same awkward affection and it earns him the smallest twist of a smile.
Somehow the afternoon keeps going, endlessly, and as Dean seems to shed the years little by little, it’s often easy to forget what it means-that Dean is dead, that Sam is alone, that the world is left without one of the two men destined to save it again and again, that the brothers are halved, the both of them. Dean is content to walk with Bobby, to drink his own beer, to toss a football, to repair the odd car and, as he gradually, almost imperceptibly shrinks, to play on and among the rusted cars, pretending to drive them, scrambling over them, searching subconsciously for Sam-but the memory of a missing brother clings to him, weighs on him, and he’s not quite the tiny comedian he was. Bobby knows that Dean thinks of Sam often, wonders how much time has passed, if he’s alright, how old he is, if he’s alive. Bobby is fairly confident he is, because, while he’s never said as much to Dean, he has a pretty good idea of where Sam will arrive once he’s dead for good.
Sometimes Bobby thinks of John-imagines he is young and newlywed somewhere, fresh faced and dizzy with love-or of Karen, dreams that she’s somewhere bright and safe and colorful, alive and unburdened, perhaps even considering accepting a dinner invitation from a gangly, twenty-two-year-old Bobby Singer. Sometimes he thinks of Castiel, of Rufus, of Ellen and Jo Harvelle, of a thousand innocents and almost-innocents he never saved or nearly loved. Sometimes his heart hurts for Dean, who is still halved, but mostly he is just there in the sunshine with Dean, content to enjoy the breeze, to watch his boy play, to talk about cars and dogs, and to wait, with a certainty approaching faith, for the day when a voice will float through the warm salvage yard, calling for a brover.