(no subject)
Chain
by whereupon
Gen, PG, a season two story (with minor spoilers for 5.15), 3,145 words.
There comes a time when you've got to cut your losses or go crazy trying to keep up.
For paxlux, who wanted a Bobby story.
Bobby wouldn't have thought it'd been quiet long enough that the ringing of the telephone would startle him, but the noise nearly caused him to upset the table and drop the revolver he was disassembling. He swore, and he took his time getting up, but the caller was persistent or desperate, or maybe both; the phone continued to ring.
"Singer," Bobby said when he picked it up. Curt, maybe, but good enough for anybody who knew what they were looking for; anybody else would get the hint to quit talking.
He was good at keeping telemarketers at bay. Other people, too, but most days, he didn't miss them so much.
The voice on the other end was familiar, though Bobby hadn't heard it in years. "Bobby?" Dean asked. His voice was low, rough; he took after his father like that, going for gruff when he was afraid, like that would fool anybody.
"What's wrong?" Bobby asked. There was no use in thinking about the possibilities, flipping through fates; there were too many to waste time wondering.
It had to be bad, for Dean to call him instead of calling his dad, and with that, Bobby realized that he already knew exactly why Dean had called.
"Our dad," Dean said. "It has our dad. The demon, the one he was hunting, it's got him, he's missing."
"Slow down," Bobby said. "What happened?"
There was a pause, a rasp like somebody's breath too close to the phone. A muffled curse, choked and almost unintelligible, followed by an instant of silence in which Bobby counted the seconds and could have sworn he aged nearly double that amount, and then, "Hi, Bobby." Less familiar, that one; it had been longer since Bobby had heard it, and he sounded older, now, but then, damn near everybody did who was still alive.
"Sam," Bobby said. "Is one'a you boys gonna tell me what happened, or do I gotta guess?"
Sam drew a breath; it sounded like it hurt. "This demon, Meg, it was gonna kill everybody he knew, so Dad went to meet with it, to give her this, uh, the Colt, it's a gun that kills demons, it--"
"I know what the Colt is," Bobby said, and damned if he wasn't the one who told John about it all those years ago. "Your dad went to meet with it and things went sideways?"
Which was something any fool, anybody with enough sense to breathe, could have seen coming, but John never had sense when it counted. Not that Bobby did, either, but at least he kept his head down when the bullets started flying; at least he didn't run at the guy with the gun, or in this case, the demon without.
"He gave her a fake," Sam said. "And she, uh, it found out, and it called Dean, it said we're never gonna see him again, and Dean said he's probably still alive, the demon probably wants to trade for the gun, and we don't know where he is, but it knew where we were, and we thought maybe, uh, we thought maybe you could help."
"Take a breath," Bobby said, and then. "You remember how to get here?"
"Yeah," Sam said, though he didn't sound entirely sure about that. If he didn't, his brother would; Bobby had faith.
"Okay," Bobby said. "Get here as soon as you can. We'll go from there."
"Okay," Sam said.
"And tell your brother to drive safe," Bobby said. "Neither a' you are gonna be any help to John if you're reckless." If you're dead, he thought, but he didn't need to say that part aloud.
"Okay," Sam said again. "Thanks, Bobby. We'll see you soon."
"Yeah," Bobby said. After hanging up, he stared at the phone in his hand; he'd had his fill of this a long time ago. There comes a time when you've got to cut your losses or go crazy trying to keep up, and that was why he kept to himself these days, why he'd startled when the telephone rang.
He'd always known it would go like this, always knew John was going to get himself killed and leave his boys behind, if they were lucky. Or maybe if they weren't, because it's a hell of a lot harder for the ones left behind.
But they were John's boys, and Bobby would do what he could to help. He was a hunter, still, maybe not as much as their dad, but he'd do what he could.
It was his fight, too, after all, and if they were lucky, maybe they'd even win. Dean had said John was probably alive, and the kid was smart; maybe he had a point.
Bobby knew not to expect things to turn out well; it was a great day if somebody got saved, a good day if they all made it out alive, and a bad day when they lost somebody.
But maybe this would be a good day.
And if not, Bobby wasn't so good at picking up the pieces, but he was good at learning to pretend that they didn't exist.
--
For a moment, for a few hours, it looked like it was going to be a good day.
The price for hope, Bobby thought, was paid in the instant you realized the extent of the mistake you'd made.
They almost lost Dean, almost watched him go in his father's place, but in the end, John paid the toll, John went down so that his son could live.
No parent should have to live to watch their child die, Bobby thought, but when he saw the look on Dean's face, he almost wondered.
And when he saw the look on Sam's, the bright flare beneath the grief, the relief as stubborn as his brother's sorrow, Bobby had to turn away. Those boys didn't need his tears, and he'd be damned if he was gonna be anything less than what they needed, now that they had no one else left.
--
He'd watched them grow up, those boys. Not day by day, but every so often, when John would stop by, stay a few days. He always brought the boys; the woods out back were a welcome change from the four walls of a cramped motel room, he'd said, and Bobby had let it go at that, because there was no use saying the other thing.
No use saying in case something happens. No use saying family.
No need, either. They both got it, even if the boys didn't back then. And Bobby hoped to God that they didn't; kids that young didn't need to know, and these kids in particular deserved whatever breaks they could catch.
Innocence's a thing impossible to regain; Bobby knew all about that. He'd lost his fair share, and even back then he could see that both of them had already lost far too much.
But there's never any such thing as too much, really, never any such thing as a fair share, and he knew that, too. You lose what you have to lose, and you make the best of what you have left, even if you never learn to look at shadows quite the way you used to, or sunlight, when you know it can go away any goddamn minute.
And he'd watched them, watched them as they lost what they had to, little by little. Watched them grow up, Dean doing his damnedest to take after his daddy, to prove something to the world. Bobby'd wanted to tell him that he'd prove something by living in it, but there'd have been no use, then; he wouldn't have heard it. So instead Bobby kept quiet, watched the way that leather jacket hung on those skinny shoulders, over-large even as Dean grew into it, trailed by his brother. And Sam, always quieter, hanging back; he was cautious, thoughtful, and at first it was because he wanted to see what his brother did: things were okay if Dean did them, they were okay as long as Dean did them first, and then, Bobby thought, they were okay in spite of what Dean did, in spite of what Dean said, in spite of what Dean believed.
Those boys were headed for heartbreak all along; it hurts that much more when it's your own family that turns away.
--
They weren't that different now. Sure, they were older, had a few more scars, more weight to carry, but Bobby could see exactly who they used to be. It was there in the way Dean flinched away from both of them, in the way he held his shoulders, defensive and angry. It was there in the silences Sam left at the end of his sentences, like he was waiting for a reply that never came, and in the way he drifted like a tethered ghost from room to room in Dean's wake, like he was afraid to go anywhere his brother wouldn't be.
It was there in the way, now, that Dean wouldn't look either of them in the eye, the way he kept his gaze lowered as Bobby poured them all another round, and in the way that Sam sat at his brother's side, as close as he could get without Dean pulling away.
"How's the car coming along?" Bobby asked.
Dean shrugged. "Fine," he said.
"You need a new back window, there's a couple out by the bench," Bobby said.
"I know," Dean said.
"Thanks, Bobby," Sam added. Dean glanced up, then, his eyes like stormwrought seaglass, and knocked back the contents of his glass. Sam did the same, though there was something hesitant in the way he lifted the glass to his mouth.
"You boys know you can stay as long as you need," Bobby said. "Not to mention as long as you want."
"We'll try to be out of your hair as soon as we can," Sam said. "Once the car's up and running again."
Bobby shrugged. "It's good to have other people in the house, voices that ain't my own."
"There's still work to do," Sam said, and the way his hair slid across his eyes, the way the shadows fell, he looked just like his father; it was almost John looking back at Bobby. "Where he left off."
Dean smiled like his ribs were broken. "Car's not even running, Sam, hold your damn horses."
"You'll get it working again," Bobby said. "I know it ain't easy, but you gotta have faith."
"Faith?" Dean said. Sam moved as though to touch Dean's shoulder, to reassure him, maybe, or to quiet him, but Dean knocked him away. "Right. Like maybe if I pray hard enough, God'll give him back, and hey, maybe he'll take away Layla's cancer, and hell, maybe there'll be peace in the Middle East, too, God bless us every last damned one."
"Layla?" Bobby asked. He knew they'd passed the point of drinking too much a few rounds ago, but that was a new one.
Sam glanced at Dean, but Dean didn't meet his gaze, only raised his eyebrows. Go ahead, maybe, or I dare you. "There was a girl, on this hunt we were working," Sam said. He toyed with his empty glass as he spoke; the rawness of his knuckles matched the bruises on his face, testaments to the wreck he'd survived. "She, um. She had cancer, and she was gonna be cured, but we had to unbind the reaper before it killed somebody else."
"Me, Sammy, if you're gonna tell it, tell it right," Dean said, and the bitterness seething black splintered his casual tone. "You had to unbind it before it killed me."
"It would have killed other people, too," Sam said. "But yeah, before it killed you, and I'm not gonna apologize, Dean."
"If you'd let it kill me, he would still be alive," Dean said.
"And you know how many people wouldn't be?" Sam said.
"You know what? I don't care," Dean said. "Okay? I do not fucking care."
Sam flinched at that, and Bobby didn't wait to see what he would say. "Shut your mouths, both of you." He didn't yell, didn't need to; the cold anger in his voice silenced both of them. "Do either of you care what your daddy would think if he could hear you talking like this? Did either one of you dumbasses even think about what he'd say? You both know he raised you better than this, better'n to tear each other apart. Yeah, John's dead, and maybe in another world, he wouldn't be, and hell, maybe I'd be Bo Derek's twin sister. Sam's right, Dean. You're alive, and other people are alive 'cause of that. And you two are the only ones you got, and if you tear each other to shreds, there ain't gonna be anybody left to make that right."
They both stared at him. Dean swallowed. Sam licked his lips.
The chair scraped across the floor as Bobby pushed back from the table. "I'm going to bed. You do whatever the hell you want."
--
When he went back down to the kitchen the next morning, the bottle was still there, empty as the glasses beside it. The house was quiet; Bobby could hear the clock ticking on the wall, and the pipes sighed tiredly in the walls.
Sam and Dean were collapsed at opposite ends of the couch, sleeping hard. They'd made it there without killing each other, and it looked like they might have shed a few tears in the process, which Bobby thought was a good sign.
If they were grieving, they were still alive. If they grieved together, there was a greater chance they'd live to tell about it.
He was frying eggs over the stove when they appeared in the doorway, ragged-edged and weary, bloodshot and rumpled.
"Sleep well?" he asked.
Sam stifled a yawn. "You were wrong," he said.
"Yeah?" Bobby said. "About what?"
"We got you," Dean said. He ran a hand across his jaw, winced. "You didn't think we were gonna let that go, did you?"
"I should be so lucky," Bobby said. "Now are you gonna sweet-talk me all damn morning, or are you gonna clean up? 'Cause breakfast ain't gonna wait forever, and the way you look now'd make a blind man lose his appetite."
He glared at them and turned back to the stove. He waited until he heard their footsteps on the stairs before he smiled.
--
Bobby had his books; there was protection enough in those, and when that failed, he had his guns. The doors were warded, the walls blessed; the cars that surrounded his property had sigils etched on their undercarriages.
He had his home, and sure, maybe it was too large for just one man, and some days, it was too quiet, but most of the time, he didn't mind.
He went into town for supplies, when he needed them, and sometimes when he grew weary of the sound of his own footsteps, of the wind rattling through the scrapyard wrecks, he went into town for company, a few drinks at one of the bars that didn't mind the guy in the corner who maybe said some things he shouldn't have when he'd had a few too many.
He was content, he told himself, and most days, he believed it. Most days, if he turned a corner and remembered the way the light had fallen on her hair as she'd stood in front of the window, or if he took a breath and could swear for a second that there was apple pie baking in the oven, he could dismiss it, could let it go. It wasn't ever easy, but some days, it was easier than others.
And some days, memory tore at him like a bullet burning hot from the barrel of a gun, like the way she'd looked at him that last day, that instant in which it was her, not the thing inside her, that knew what he was going to do, the terror in her eyes as he pulled the trigger. Those days were lost days, spent with a bottle in hand and the guns locked behind doors he was too numb to open.
That was what it meant to survive, but surviving wasn't the same as living.
Sam and Dean had each other, and that was something to live for. And so they would live, goddamnit, if there was a damn thing Bobby Singer could do about it.
--
The sun reflected cold and bright on the glossy black of the Impala, the morning they left. Bobby was up at dawn, and since he was awake anyway, he made them breakfast a few hours later. He'd eaten by then, but there was coffee, and he shook his head when Dean talked with half-chewed bacon in his mouth. "Dude, gross," Sam said.
"Behave, boys," Bobby said, and took a sip of coffee so that they wouldn't see his expression.
Now he stood on his front porch, watching them load up the car. Dean had done good work, and so had Sam; through all the nights he'd spent searching for answers among those dusty books, he never once stopped keeping watch on his brother.
The car was finished, now; it looked new again, flawless.
Bobby only hoped that it was as strong as it looked. If not, he thought, it soon would be. Grief was a forge; the metal, newly worked, would be stronger still, though it might take awhile to cool enough to touch.
That would be all right.
"You boys better keep in touch," he said, his hands in his pockets against the chill. There'd been frost on the ground when he'd woken.
"We'll send a postcard," Dean said. "Hi from sunny Montana, weather's here, wish you were beautiful."
"I mean it," Bobby said. "Don't make me come looking for you."
"We will," Sam said. "Keep in touch, I mean."
Dean bit his lip. "Thanks, Bobby."
Bobby rolled his eyes. "You're family, moron. Goes with the territory."
Dean blinked; Sam smirked. Neither of them spoke, but they lingered for a moment all the same, until Dean swallowed and turned to smack Sam's arm. "C'mon, man, daylight's burning."
Bobby waited on the porch until he heard the engine start, but he went inside before the car disappeared from sight.
It would have been bad luck to watch them drive away. Not that he was sentimental, but he had work to do, and a business to run.
He had better things to do than wonder if that would be the last time he saw them.
--
They came back.
They lived.
They lived, and that was everything.
Bobby had never had sons, had only talked once about wanting children, but he thought that if he'd had, it might have felt something like this.
--
end
by whereupon
Gen, PG, a season two story (with minor spoilers for 5.15), 3,145 words.
There comes a time when you've got to cut your losses or go crazy trying to keep up.
For paxlux, who wanted a Bobby story.
Bobby wouldn't have thought it'd been quiet long enough that the ringing of the telephone would startle him, but the noise nearly caused him to upset the table and drop the revolver he was disassembling. He swore, and he took his time getting up, but the caller was persistent or desperate, or maybe both; the phone continued to ring.
"Singer," Bobby said when he picked it up. Curt, maybe, but good enough for anybody who knew what they were looking for; anybody else would get the hint to quit talking.
He was good at keeping telemarketers at bay. Other people, too, but most days, he didn't miss them so much.
The voice on the other end was familiar, though Bobby hadn't heard it in years. "Bobby?" Dean asked. His voice was low, rough; he took after his father like that, going for gruff when he was afraid, like that would fool anybody.
"What's wrong?" Bobby asked. There was no use in thinking about the possibilities, flipping through fates; there were too many to waste time wondering.
It had to be bad, for Dean to call him instead of calling his dad, and with that, Bobby realized that he already knew exactly why Dean had called.
"Our dad," Dean said. "It has our dad. The demon, the one he was hunting, it's got him, he's missing."
"Slow down," Bobby said. "What happened?"
There was a pause, a rasp like somebody's breath too close to the phone. A muffled curse, choked and almost unintelligible, followed by an instant of silence in which Bobby counted the seconds and could have sworn he aged nearly double that amount, and then, "Hi, Bobby." Less familiar, that one; it had been longer since Bobby had heard it, and he sounded older, now, but then, damn near everybody did who was still alive.
"Sam," Bobby said. "Is one'a you boys gonna tell me what happened, or do I gotta guess?"
Sam drew a breath; it sounded like it hurt. "This demon, Meg, it was gonna kill everybody he knew, so Dad went to meet with it, to give her this, uh, the Colt, it's a gun that kills demons, it--"
"I know what the Colt is," Bobby said, and damned if he wasn't the one who told John about it all those years ago. "Your dad went to meet with it and things went sideways?"
Which was something any fool, anybody with enough sense to breathe, could have seen coming, but John never had sense when it counted. Not that Bobby did, either, but at least he kept his head down when the bullets started flying; at least he didn't run at the guy with the gun, or in this case, the demon without.
"He gave her a fake," Sam said. "And she, uh, it found out, and it called Dean, it said we're never gonna see him again, and Dean said he's probably still alive, the demon probably wants to trade for the gun, and we don't know where he is, but it knew where we were, and we thought maybe, uh, we thought maybe you could help."
"Take a breath," Bobby said, and then. "You remember how to get here?"
"Yeah," Sam said, though he didn't sound entirely sure about that. If he didn't, his brother would; Bobby had faith.
"Okay," Bobby said. "Get here as soon as you can. We'll go from there."
"Okay," Sam said.
"And tell your brother to drive safe," Bobby said. "Neither a' you are gonna be any help to John if you're reckless." If you're dead, he thought, but he didn't need to say that part aloud.
"Okay," Sam said again. "Thanks, Bobby. We'll see you soon."
"Yeah," Bobby said. After hanging up, he stared at the phone in his hand; he'd had his fill of this a long time ago. There comes a time when you've got to cut your losses or go crazy trying to keep up, and that was why he kept to himself these days, why he'd startled when the telephone rang.
He'd always known it would go like this, always knew John was going to get himself killed and leave his boys behind, if they were lucky. Or maybe if they weren't, because it's a hell of a lot harder for the ones left behind.
But they were John's boys, and Bobby would do what he could to help. He was a hunter, still, maybe not as much as their dad, but he'd do what he could.
It was his fight, too, after all, and if they were lucky, maybe they'd even win. Dean had said John was probably alive, and the kid was smart; maybe he had a point.
Bobby knew not to expect things to turn out well; it was a great day if somebody got saved, a good day if they all made it out alive, and a bad day when they lost somebody.
But maybe this would be a good day.
And if not, Bobby wasn't so good at picking up the pieces, but he was good at learning to pretend that they didn't exist.
--
For a moment, for a few hours, it looked like it was going to be a good day.
The price for hope, Bobby thought, was paid in the instant you realized the extent of the mistake you'd made.
They almost lost Dean, almost watched him go in his father's place, but in the end, John paid the toll, John went down so that his son could live.
No parent should have to live to watch their child die, Bobby thought, but when he saw the look on Dean's face, he almost wondered.
And when he saw the look on Sam's, the bright flare beneath the grief, the relief as stubborn as his brother's sorrow, Bobby had to turn away. Those boys didn't need his tears, and he'd be damned if he was gonna be anything less than what they needed, now that they had no one else left.
--
He'd watched them grow up, those boys. Not day by day, but every so often, when John would stop by, stay a few days. He always brought the boys; the woods out back were a welcome change from the four walls of a cramped motel room, he'd said, and Bobby had let it go at that, because there was no use saying the other thing.
No use saying in case something happens. No use saying family.
No need, either. They both got it, even if the boys didn't back then. And Bobby hoped to God that they didn't; kids that young didn't need to know, and these kids in particular deserved whatever breaks they could catch.
Innocence's a thing impossible to regain; Bobby knew all about that. He'd lost his fair share, and even back then he could see that both of them had already lost far too much.
But there's never any such thing as too much, really, never any such thing as a fair share, and he knew that, too. You lose what you have to lose, and you make the best of what you have left, even if you never learn to look at shadows quite the way you used to, or sunlight, when you know it can go away any goddamn minute.
And he'd watched them, watched them as they lost what they had to, little by little. Watched them grow up, Dean doing his damnedest to take after his daddy, to prove something to the world. Bobby'd wanted to tell him that he'd prove something by living in it, but there'd have been no use, then; he wouldn't have heard it. So instead Bobby kept quiet, watched the way that leather jacket hung on those skinny shoulders, over-large even as Dean grew into it, trailed by his brother. And Sam, always quieter, hanging back; he was cautious, thoughtful, and at first it was because he wanted to see what his brother did: things were okay if Dean did them, they were okay as long as Dean did them first, and then, Bobby thought, they were okay in spite of what Dean did, in spite of what Dean said, in spite of what Dean believed.
Those boys were headed for heartbreak all along; it hurts that much more when it's your own family that turns away.
--
They weren't that different now. Sure, they were older, had a few more scars, more weight to carry, but Bobby could see exactly who they used to be. It was there in the way Dean flinched away from both of them, in the way he held his shoulders, defensive and angry. It was there in the silences Sam left at the end of his sentences, like he was waiting for a reply that never came, and in the way he drifted like a tethered ghost from room to room in Dean's wake, like he was afraid to go anywhere his brother wouldn't be.
It was there in the way, now, that Dean wouldn't look either of them in the eye, the way he kept his gaze lowered as Bobby poured them all another round, and in the way that Sam sat at his brother's side, as close as he could get without Dean pulling away.
"How's the car coming along?" Bobby asked.
Dean shrugged. "Fine," he said.
"You need a new back window, there's a couple out by the bench," Bobby said.
"I know," Dean said.
"Thanks, Bobby," Sam added. Dean glanced up, then, his eyes like stormwrought seaglass, and knocked back the contents of his glass. Sam did the same, though there was something hesitant in the way he lifted the glass to his mouth.
"You boys know you can stay as long as you need," Bobby said. "Not to mention as long as you want."
"We'll try to be out of your hair as soon as we can," Sam said. "Once the car's up and running again."
Bobby shrugged. "It's good to have other people in the house, voices that ain't my own."
"There's still work to do," Sam said, and the way his hair slid across his eyes, the way the shadows fell, he looked just like his father; it was almost John looking back at Bobby. "Where he left off."
Dean smiled like his ribs were broken. "Car's not even running, Sam, hold your damn horses."
"You'll get it working again," Bobby said. "I know it ain't easy, but you gotta have faith."
"Faith?" Dean said. Sam moved as though to touch Dean's shoulder, to reassure him, maybe, or to quiet him, but Dean knocked him away. "Right. Like maybe if I pray hard enough, God'll give him back, and hey, maybe he'll take away Layla's cancer, and hell, maybe there'll be peace in the Middle East, too, God bless us every last damned one."
"Layla?" Bobby asked. He knew they'd passed the point of drinking too much a few rounds ago, but that was a new one.
Sam glanced at Dean, but Dean didn't meet his gaze, only raised his eyebrows. Go ahead, maybe, or I dare you. "There was a girl, on this hunt we were working," Sam said. He toyed with his empty glass as he spoke; the rawness of his knuckles matched the bruises on his face, testaments to the wreck he'd survived. "She, um. She had cancer, and she was gonna be cured, but we had to unbind the reaper before it killed somebody else."
"Me, Sammy, if you're gonna tell it, tell it right," Dean said, and the bitterness seething black splintered his casual tone. "You had to unbind it before it killed me."
"It would have killed other people, too," Sam said. "But yeah, before it killed you, and I'm not gonna apologize, Dean."
"If you'd let it kill me, he would still be alive," Dean said.
"And you know how many people wouldn't be?" Sam said.
"You know what? I don't care," Dean said. "Okay? I do not fucking care."
Sam flinched at that, and Bobby didn't wait to see what he would say. "Shut your mouths, both of you." He didn't yell, didn't need to; the cold anger in his voice silenced both of them. "Do either of you care what your daddy would think if he could hear you talking like this? Did either one of you dumbasses even think about what he'd say? You both know he raised you better than this, better'n to tear each other apart. Yeah, John's dead, and maybe in another world, he wouldn't be, and hell, maybe I'd be Bo Derek's twin sister. Sam's right, Dean. You're alive, and other people are alive 'cause of that. And you two are the only ones you got, and if you tear each other to shreds, there ain't gonna be anybody left to make that right."
They both stared at him. Dean swallowed. Sam licked his lips.
The chair scraped across the floor as Bobby pushed back from the table. "I'm going to bed. You do whatever the hell you want."
--
When he went back down to the kitchen the next morning, the bottle was still there, empty as the glasses beside it. The house was quiet; Bobby could hear the clock ticking on the wall, and the pipes sighed tiredly in the walls.
Sam and Dean were collapsed at opposite ends of the couch, sleeping hard. They'd made it there without killing each other, and it looked like they might have shed a few tears in the process, which Bobby thought was a good sign.
If they were grieving, they were still alive. If they grieved together, there was a greater chance they'd live to tell about it.
He was frying eggs over the stove when they appeared in the doorway, ragged-edged and weary, bloodshot and rumpled.
"Sleep well?" he asked.
Sam stifled a yawn. "You were wrong," he said.
"Yeah?" Bobby said. "About what?"
"We got you," Dean said. He ran a hand across his jaw, winced. "You didn't think we were gonna let that go, did you?"
"I should be so lucky," Bobby said. "Now are you gonna sweet-talk me all damn morning, or are you gonna clean up? 'Cause breakfast ain't gonna wait forever, and the way you look now'd make a blind man lose his appetite."
He glared at them and turned back to the stove. He waited until he heard their footsteps on the stairs before he smiled.
--
Bobby had his books; there was protection enough in those, and when that failed, he had his guns. The doors were warded, the walls blessed; the cars that surrounded his property had sigils etched on their undercarriages.
He had his home, and sure, maybe it was too large for just one man, and some days, it was too quiet, but most of the time, he didn't mind.
He went into town for supplies, when he needed them, and sometimes when he grew weary of the sound of his own footsteps, of the wind rattling through the scrapyard wrecks, he went into town for company, a few drinks at one of the bars that didn't mind the guy in the corner who maybe said some things he shouldn't have when he'd had a few too many.
He was content, he told himself, and most days, he believed it. Most days, if he turned a corner and remembered the way the light had fallen on her hair as she'd stood in front of the window, or if he took a breath and could swear for a second that there was apple pie baking in the oven, he could dismiss it, could let it go. It wasn't ever easy, but some days, it was easier than others.
And some days, memory tore at him like a bullet burning hot from the barrel of a gun, like the way she'd looked at him that last day, that instant in which it was her, not the thing inside her, that knew what he was going to do, the terror in her eyes as he pulled the trigger. Those days were lost days, spent with a bottle in hand and the guns locked behind doors he was too numb to open.
That was what it meant to survive, but surviving wasn't the same as living.
Sam and Dean had each other, and that was something to live for. And so they would live, goddamnit, if there was a damn thing Bobby Singer could do about it.
--
The sun reflected cold and bright on the glossy black of the Impala, the morning they left. Bobby was up at dawn, and since he was awake anyway, he made them breakfast a few hours later. He'd eaten by then, but there was coffee, and he shook his head when Dean talked with half-chewed bacon in his mouth. "Dude, gross," Sam said.
"Behave, boys," Bobby said, and took a sip of coffee so that they wouldn't see his expression.
Now he stood on his front porch, watching them load up the car. Dean had done good work, and so had Sam; through all the nights he'd spent searching for answers among those dusty books, he never once stopped keeping watch on his brother.
The car was finished, now; it looked new again, flawless.
Bobby only hoped that it was as strong as it looked. If not, he thought, it soon would be. Grief was a forge; the metal, newly worked, would be stronger still, though it might take awhile to cool enough to touch.
That would be all right.
"You boys better keep in touch," he said, his hands in his pockets against the chill. There'd been frost on the ground when he'd woken.
"We'll send a postcard," Dean said. "Hi from sunny Montana, weather's here, wish you were beautiful."
"I mean it," Bobby said. "Don't make me come looking for you."
"We will," Sam said. "Keep in touch, I mean."
Dean bit his lip. "Thanks, Bobby."
Bobby rolled his eyes. "You're family, moron. Goes with the territory."
Dean blinked; Sam smirked. Neither of them spoke, but they lingered for a moment all the same, until Dean swallowed and turned to smack Sam's arm. "C'mon, man, daylight's burning."
Bobby waited on the porch until he heard the engine start, but he went inside before the car disappeared from sight.
It would have been bad luck to watch them drive away. Not that he was sentimental, but he had work to do, and a business to run.
He had better things to do than wonder if that would be the last time he saw them.
--
They came back.
They lived.
They lived, and that was everything.
Bobby had never had sons, had only talked once about wanting children, but he thought that if he'd had, it might have felt something like this.
--
end