![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Summer Of Standing Still
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Rating: G (language)
Category: SPN Gen (Bobby, Winchesters (preseries))
Word Count: 3,590
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Notes: A followup to Where Roads Meet but can be read as a separate story.
Summary: John leaves the boys with Bobby one summer when Dean has a broken leg.
There was a four month gap between when Bobby first laid eyes on John Winchester and when the Hunter darkened his doorstep again, both boys in tow, Dean with a cast on his leg up to his hip.
“Broken in four places,” Sammy announced with glee when Bobby swung the door open and raised his eyebrows. It was promising to be a stinker of a summer and Bobby felt sorry for the boy, stuck without the option of going for a dip through the worst of it if he was only just newly in the cast.
John was looking stricken and Bobby realised what he was faced with. There were duffels by the boys’ feet but John didn’t have a bag with him. They’d only met once before but he was pretty sure he knew what he was about to be asked. Stranger still was the fact that as soon as John had laid out what he wanted, Dean and Sam to be stationed somewhere until Dean healed up, he found himself saying, “Sure thing, glad to have ‘em.”
Bobby didn’t even feel railroaded into it like he was sure he had been and he decided right then and there that John was far more dangerous than he could even imagine.
He stood with the boys, watching the big black monster John was driving peel out of his driveway. Sammy came right in after him but he didn’t hear Dean stump inside, the ka-thump-ump of his crutches distinctive, until an hour later.
His place was big but Bobby put them in the one room and he didn’t miss the small smile of gratitude Dean gave him before he ducked out and left them to get settled.
“Three weeks,” John had said. “Four at the most.”
Bobby wondered just what he’d gotten himself into.
000
Sammy was mystified.
“You ain’t never ridden a bike before?” Bobby asked, watching the small boy circle the bike with a look of apprehension on his face. Okay, so it was pink and had a basket on the front because it had been left behind by his niece the summer before, but once the basket was removed and it was repainted he was sure Sammy wouldn’t find it so offensive.
He hadn’t been expecting Sammy to look so bewildered.
“What’re these?” Sammy asked, hunkering down and touching a finger to the smaller wheels clipped to the back wheel.
“Training wheels. So’s you can stay upright while you learn to ride.”
“It’s a girl’s bike,” Dean added unhelpfully from the porch. He was on the bench swing that was flaking paint and listing to the left, book lying face down on his lap. With his pronouncement, Sammy stepped away completely.
“Don’t wanna ride a girl’s bike,” Sammy said, looking from Dean to Bobby in consternation.
Bobby cut a glare at Dean, annoyed because while Dean’s activities were restricted by his cast, Sammy had no reason to be stuck stir-crazy. Bobby’s lot was pretty big so Sammy didn’t even need to go out onto the street to ride and Bobby had thought a bike would interest him enough to get him out of the house for short bursts of time at least.
“I’ve got some green paint out back,” Bobby assured. He leant forward and unbuckled the basket which had a daisy on it, flicking it aside. “Dash of that and it’s a boy’s bike.”
“Still a girl’s bike underneath,” Dean snorted, putting his nose back in his book and Bobby seethed inwardly. It seemed Dean was determined to be ornery until he was back on his feet. Bobby could understand, but he would only tolerate for so long.
Sammy was still doubtful, especially since his older brother had given the bike the mark of death. Claiming something was feminine in any way was sure to make a young boy go screaming for the hills. Bobby had a last ditch save though.
He pulled a pack of playing cards out of his breast pocket and stuck a couple through the back spokes. When he wheeled the bike forward, the cards made a satisfyingly loud snap-snap-snap that had Sammy’s eyes going wide and interested. “Scrape off the pink before you paint it,” Bobby said. “Then it’s nothing but bike underneath.”
Sammy spared one more glance at Dean before he tore off towards the shed, Bobby’s mutt Jeb at his heels, bringing back a small can of paint and a brush.
Bobby flicked a hand at the back of Dean’s head on his way back in, clipping the boy in the ear. Dean’s scowl deepened but he didn’t look up.
000
“How’d it happen?” Bobby asked after the first week was done, attempting to make conversation while wrapping Dean’s leg in enough plastic to allow the kid to make it halfway into the shower. The sink-baths had gotten old and he knew it probably wasn’t helping Dean’s mood to feel dirty.
Adding insult to injury was that at that very moment, Sammy was a block down, having befriended the Steener kids that sometimes wandered up to Bobby’s in the hopes that they could forage through the yard. He knew their mother barely tolerated their visits, but Eric Steener was thirteen, had a good head on his shoulders and wouldn’t let anything happen to Sophia, same age as Sammy and a true tom-boy. The Steeners had put in an above-ground pool two summers previous and in the afternoon quiet, the joyous sound of other children having fun in the sun could be heard.
Sammy, being a good kid, had almost refused to go when Dean wouldn’t accompany him but Bobby made sure to gently prod Sammy out the door. Dean had been quietly seething ever since.
Dean coloured and mumbled something, looking away from Bobby.
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that,” Bobby said, leaning towards Dean, putting the last of the tape on that would hold the plastic in place.
“I was on the roof of the Impala and Dad screamed at me and I fell off,” Dean said, voice pitched only slightly louder.
“Why were you on the roof?”
“Because Dad was inside the motel paying for the room and Sammy climbed up and I thought he would fall off,” Dean said, tucking his arms across his chest.
Ah Bobby thought. He now knew at least partially why Dean was determined to make those around him miserable, especially Sammy. It seemed the broken leg was at least partially Sammy’s doing and Dean was holding a grudge. Bobby didn’t think Dean was holding onto his anger on purpose and certainly wouldn’t be consciously holding Sammy responsible, but he must have been feeling abandoned and out of sorts and Sammy was the easiest target.
“You must’a bounced,” Bobby said, tapping the cast gently. It was completely white, not scribbled on like most kids casts and even though Sammy had hovered with a pen a time or two that Bobby knew of, Dean had chased him away for the most part.
Dean snorted and slapped a hand to his face, trying to hold onto the smile that had surfaced. It seemed he wanted to stay grumpy. “Passenger side door was open and I hit the edge of it before I hit the ground,” he elaborated and then seemed to remember that he was meant to be monosyllabic because he lapsed back into silence.
Bobby helped him upright and then turned on the shower. “Hold your leg out as much as you can,” he instructed. “But I pretty much mummified your leg so don’t worry too much if you splash it.”
Dean nodded grimly, holding onto the towel he was swathed in and looked pointedly at the door. Bobby nodded and took his leave, hoping the crack he’d seen in Dean’s misery would in some small way break him out of his determination to be moody.
Those Winchesters though, Bobby was finding, were a stubborn lot.
000
The next afternoon, raised voices were Bobby’s only warning before there was an almighty crash and a wail from upstairs. Bobby took his stairs two at a time, having visions of Dean breaking the other leg but it was Sam he found, sprawled on the floor and with a hand to his mouth, blood gushing between his fingers.
Dean was looking pale and horrified, trying to get his feet under him. After the initial screech of protest, Sammy had lapsed into a kind of stunned silence. Bobby realised that with their apparent feud, the bunk beds might not have been such a hot idea, especially Sammy on the top. The beds fit together with a join in the middle and the top one was hanging half off.
Bobby hunkered down in front of Sammy who was blinking big eyes but not crying, yet. He seemed more surprised than hurt and Bobby gently pried his fingers away from his mouth, seeing that the blood had come from Sammy biting through his lip and he’d lost a tooth in the process. Bobby felt around and found it on the floor by Sammy’s knee.
“Sammy?” Dean said in a small, hollow voice, sounding scared and miserable. Bobby realised Sammy’s silence was probably freaking Dean out. As if Dean’s voice was enough to jolt him out of his shock, Sammy took a deep, walloping breath and then screamed.
Dean dropped off the lower bunk onto the floor and then scooted across on his butt, pushing his cast in front like an annoying obstacle. He reached Sammy and Bobby moved out of the way so Dean could gather his younger brother up as he cried. Bobby let them go until Sammy’s cries were tapering off and then hoisted Sammy away.
Once Sammy had been cleaned up and Bobby reassured Dean that he didn’t need stitches, Bobby helped them both down to the living room so they could watch television while they ate dinner, a luxury Bobby hadn’t allowed before because he was a believer in meals being eaten around a table.
He left them to it and checked back on them a few hours later when Sammy was drooping and Dean was halfway to the land of nod himself. There were pens abandoned on a side table and practically every inch of Dean’s cast was covered in pictures and colourful swirls.
It seemed that everything had been forgiven.
000
The next week, Dean was downright pleasant and even agreed to go with Sammy the second time he was invited down the road. Dean seemed a little less willing to socialise than Sammy but he went because he was asked although he accepted a book from Bobby with a grateful smile.
Bobby drove them down so Dean wouldn’t get too tired from making his way with the crutches and he picked them up three hours later as previously agreed. He blinked when Dean pulled himself gingerly into the cab of Bobby’s pickup.
Sammy bounced in after and Bobby could’ve kicked himself. Sammy was nut-brown from the sun but Dean it seemed, hadn’t been blessed with such resilient skin. He was bright red from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, freckles standing out in stark relief. His niece was always accompanied by his sister, Beth and she was the one that wielded the sunscreen, slathering it on until little Anne looked five shades paler than when she’d started.
He hadn’t even thought of it.
It was a nasty burn, the kind that would hurt right up until it peeled and then it would itch like a mother and Bobby grimaced in sympathy. Sammy gave him a gap-toothed grin and he looked from one boy to the other, hoping like hell that John wasn’t going to turn up earlier than expected because Bobby was doing a damn poor job with his sons.
“We’ll pick up some Aloe on the way home and I’ll wrap your leg so we can get you into a hot bath,” Bobby promised and Dean looked aghast.
“A hot bath?” he squeaked.
“Take the sting out,” Bobby promised, but then tapped his lip. Maybe it was a cold bath. He couldn’t exactly remember.
He knew he was overdue for a call to Beth and he figured now was as good a time as any.
Just to make sure.
000
The third week passed less eventfully. Sammy asked for the training wheels to come off the bike and after a number of spills, managed to stay upright. Dean watched him avidly from the back porch, tensing every time Sammy took a tumble, but the younger Winchester kept bouncing right back up.
Bobby wondered if he should be doing something. He’d seen movies where dutiful dads would run behind their sons, hand on the bike seat and holding it upright until the kid was ready for them to let go. Sammy seemed to have missed those types of Hallmark movies though, instead doggedly circling the yard on his own and refusing any attempts at assistance.
“He’s going to be one big bruise,” Dean huffed when Bobby brought him out a glass of lemonade.
“Doesn’t seem to be slowing him down any,” Bobby mused, wincing when he saw Sammy go full speed into the side of one of his junkers. Before he could ask if Sammy was okay, the boy was up, hands held aloft like he’d just done a trick and not lowering them until Dean returned the salute.
“’Course not,” Dean said with a small smile. “Sammy’s tough.”
Bobby had to agree.
000
A rare trip into town had the boys the most exuberant Bobby had seen them. He was a self-sufficiency man, keeping mostly to himself or those fellows who were in the same line of business and only travelled into populated areas when necessity called for it. Two boys bored out of their brains was as good an excuse as any to give up his hermit-like tendencies for one day.
Bobby pulled the truck up to the curb and watched Sammy bounce out the other side. He thought the younger Winchester was heading for the arcade across the street but Sammy angled left at the last moment, ducking into a shadowy bookstore. The windows were mostly obscured with stacks of decrepit looking books and the place had a dingy air about it, almost out of place in the sunlight.
Dean looked resigned as he made his way over, sparing only the barest of wistful glances at the bright lights of the arcade. Bobby put a hand on his shoulder, stopping his progress and grinned down at him. “You go on. I’ll watch Sam,” he said, tipping his chin in the direction of the arcade.
Dean looked torn, caught between his assumed duty as Sammy’s primary guardian whenever John Winchester was not in the immediate vicinity and the prospect of spending hours in a dusty bookstore when he’d been basically forced to read for most of the summer already because of his injury. Bobby gave him a gentle nudge in the direction of the arcade, gentle because he didn’t want to topple the boy off his crutches and smiled. To seal the deal, Bobby dug into his jeans pockets and brought out a satisfyingly large fistful of spare change that he deposited into the pouch at the front of Dean’s sweatshirt.
Dean still looked unconvinced but swung right and disappeared in amongst the noise and lights, looking back to make sure that Bobby was following Sammy and not him.
Two hours later, weighed down by Sammy’s must-have purchases and a few treasures he’d unearthed for himself, Bobby resolutely steered Sammy into the arcade next door, determined that once he was surrounded by the stale smell of popcorn and flashing lights, he would stop looking so morose about having to abandon the bookstore.
They found Dean towards the back in amongst the graveyard that were the dead games and found the kid on his back elbow deep in the guts of a Miss Pacman. “What are you doing?” Bobby hissed, casting about for a staff member who would undoubtedly arrive and bawl them out for touching the machines.
“Guy at the counter said he’d give me twenty bucks if I could get some of these unjammed,” Dean said and Bobby blinked at him. “Most of ‘em just have gum and junk in the coin slots but are okay otherwise.”
“I didn’t send you in here to work,” Bobby exclaimed, supremely frustrated. He had wanted to show the boys a good time and he felt like he’d failed on a monumental level. Sammy had hunkered down by Dean’s feet and was looking fascinated.
“S’okay,” Dean said and Bobby could hear the shrug in his voice.
“Well, finish up. We’re going for pizza.” Sammy looked up and around, big grin on his face and Bobby watched Dean shift and then hump backwards out from under the machine. He was grubby and his hair was sticking up from having run stained fingers through it.
“My treat,” Dean said and Bobby realised it wasn’t so much an offer as a statement. Instead of arguing Bobby nodded and said, “Sure, thanks,” and Dean’s grin matched Sammy’s.
000
They fought like brothers were likely to do, but Bobby got the impression that it was far less than most siblings their age. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company, Sammy dogging Dean’s progress whenever he was moving about the house and always wanting to know what he was doing.
Dean was much more subtle about keeping an eagle-eye on his brother, always knowing exactly where Sammy was at all times without intruding. Bobby had thought that they would see only a rare glimpse of Sammy once he’d made friends with the neighbour kids, but although Sophia seemed like a nice break from the monotony of his house, Sammy was loathe to stray too far away and the invitations dried up.
Bobby watched them on an afternoon of their fourth week with him, out in his yard. They were setting up cans and bottles on the top of a rusted out Lincoln and were taking turns with a BB gun Dean had found Lord knew where. Bobby could see they were practicing rather than playing, both with a kind of intensity he was sure were lost on other kids their age. He knew their lives were different, probably always would be but he hadn’t realised by just how much until now.
Bobby wanted to sit John Winchester down and have a talk to him, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. His quest would swallow his boys whole and leave nothing left.
He watched in the failing light as Dean patiently worked with his younger brother, correcting his stance and his grip, heaping praise when Sammy knocked a green pop bottle off the roof of the car in one shot. He knew it wasn’t his place to intervene but he wished they could be kids.
Just for a little while longer.
000
John turned up the next day, looking exhausted but otherwise whole. Sammy went tearing out into the front yard as soon as he heard the Impala and Dean looked like he wanted to, busted leg or no. Bobby stayed inside while John greeted his boys, hunkering to Sammy’s level and putting a hand on his shoulder while Sammy tried to tell him everything that had happened in about five seconds flat and then pausing briefly to scrub a hand over Dean’s head.
The boys adored their dad, that much was obvious.
“Don’t know how to thank you,” John said as they sipped beers a few hours later. Bobby had dealt with men like John most of his life and he knew John was on the downward curve. He was hunting something specific and taking anything out on the way but he was getting disheartened. Bobby had laid his own personal demons to rest years earlier and he was damn sorry for anybody else that was still caught up in the chase.
“They weren’t any trouble,” Bobby said, waving off John’s gratitude. “You can bring ‘em by any time.” Bobby was only marginally surprised how much he meant it. He supposed the only thing he could offer was to be rest stop for a life on the road and he hoped it was enough. He got the feeling he was going to know the Winchesters a good chunk of their lives and the prospect wasn’t as daunting as he might’ve once thought.
“I appreciate that,” John said, finishing his beer in a couple of long swallows and then standing and stretching until his back cracked. “Boys!” he called and the thumping that heralded their approach could be heard from inside. Dean had gotten pretty fast on the crutches and he beat Sammy out the door by a few good seconds. “Time to go.”
Bobby stayed out of the way as they packed the car up and then laughed when the debate started up about who got to ride up front. It was obvious that it was Dean’s spot by virtue of birth, but Sammy seemed to think he would be able to get it because Dean needed to stretch his leg out and the back seat was easier for that. The ensuing scuffle was short-lived and decided by a quick, “Get in the back, Dean,” by John.
Bobby held a hand up in goodbye and watched them peel out of his driveway and disappear around the bend at the end, dust settling slowly after.
Author:
kellifer_ficRating: G (language)
Category: SPN Gen (Bobby, Winchesters (preseries))
Word Count: 3,590
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Notes: A followup to Where Roads Meet but can be read as a separate story.
Summary: John leaves the boys with Bobby one summer when Dean has a broken leg.
There was a four month gap between when Bobby first laid eyes on John Winchester and when the Hunter darkened his doorstep again, both boys in tow, Dean with a cast on his leg up to his hip.
“Broken in four places,” Sammy announced with glee when Bobby swung the door open and raised his eyebrows. It was promising to be a stinker of a summer and Bobby felt sorry for the boy, stuck without the option of going for a dip through the worst of it if he was only just newly in the cast.
John was looking stricken and Bobby realised what he was faced with. There were duffels by the boys’ feet but John didn’t have a bag with him. They’d only met once before but he was pretty sure he knew what he was about to be asked. Stranger still was the fact that as soon as John had laid out what he wanted, Dean and Sam to be stationed somewhere until Dean healed up, he found himself saying, “Sure thing, glad to have ‘em.”
Bobby didn’t even feel railroaded into it like he was sure he had been and he decided right then and there that John was far more dangerous than he could even imagine.
He stood with the boys, watching the big black monster John was driving peel out of his driveway. Sammy came right in after him but he didn’t hear Dean stump inside, the ka-thump-ump of his crutches distinctive, until an hour later.
His place was big but Bobby put them in the one room and he didn’t miss the small smile of gratitude Dean gave him before he ducked out and left them to get settled.
“Three weeks,” John had said. “Four at the most.”
Bobby wondered just what he’d gotten himself into.
Sammy was mystified.
“You ain’t never ridden a bike before?” Bobby asked, watching the small boy circle the bike with a look of apprehension on his face. Okay, so it was pink and had a basket on the front because it had been left behind by his niece the summer before, but once the basket was removed and it was repainted he was sure Sammy wouldn’t find it so offensive.
He hadn’t been expecting Sammy to look so bewildered.
“What’re these?” Sammy asked, hunkering down and touching a finger to the smaller wheels clipped to the back wheel.
“Training wheels. So’s you can stay upright while you learn to ride.”
“It’s a girl’s bike,” Dean added unhelpfully from the porch. He was on the bench swing that was flaking paint and listing to the left, book lying face down on his lap. With his pronouncement, Sammy stepped away completely.
“Don’t wanna ride a girl’s bike,” Sammy said, looking from Dean to Bobby in consternation.
Bobby cut a glare at Dean, annoyed because while Dean’s activities were restricted by his cast, Sammy had no reason to be stuck stir-crazy. Bobby’s lot was pretty big so Sammy didn’t even need to go out onto the street to ride and Bobby had thought a bike would interest him enough to get him out of the house for short bursts of time at least.
“I’ve got some green paint out back,” Bobby assured. He leant forward and unbuckled the basket which had a daisy on it, flicking it aside. “Dash of that and it’s a boy’s bike.”
“Still a girl’s bike underneath,” Dean snorted, putting his nose back in his book and Bobby seethed inwardly. It seemed Dean was determined to be ornery until he was back on his feet. Bobby could understand, but he would only tolerate for so long.
Sammy was still doubtful, especially since his older brother had given the bike the mark of death. Claiming something was feminine in any way was sure to make a young boy go screaming for the hills. Bobby had a last ditch save though.
He pulled a pack of playing cards out of his breast pocket and stuck a couple through the back spokes. When he wheeled the bike forward, the cards made a satisfyingly loud snap-snap-snap that had Sammy’s eyes going wide and interested. “Scrape off the pink before you paint it,” Bobby said. “Then it’s nothing but bike underneath.”
Sammy spared one more glance at Dean before he tore off towards the shed, Bobby’s mutt Jeb at his heels, bringing back a small can of paint and a brush.
Bobby flicked a hand at the back of Dean’s head on his way back in, clipping the boy in the ear. Dean’s scowl deepened but he didn’t look up.
“How’d it happen?” Bobby asked after the first week was done, attempting to make conversation while wrapping Dean’s leg in enough plastic to allow the kid to make it halfway into the shower. The sink-baths had gotten old and he knew it probably wasn’t helping Dean’s mood to feel dirty.
Adding insult to injury was that at that very moment, Sammy was a block down, having befriended the Steener kids that sometimes wandered up to Bobby’s in the hopes that they could forage through the yard. He knew their mother barely tolerated their visits, but Eric Steener was thirteen, had a good head on his shoulders and wouldn’t let anything happen to Sophia, same age as Sammy and a true tom-boy. The Steeners had put in an above-ground pool two summers previous and in the afternoon quiet, the joyous sound of other children having fun in the sun could be heard.
Sammy, being a good kid, had almost refused to go when Dean wouldn’t accompany him but Bobby made sure to gently prod Sammy out the door. Dean had been quietly seething ever since.
Dean coloured and mumbled something, looking away from Bobby.
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that,” Bobby said, leaning towards Dean, putting the last of the tape on that would hold the plastic in place.
“I was on the roof of the Impala and Dad screamed at me and I fell off,” Dean said, voice pitched only slightly louder.
“Why were you on the roof?”
“Because Dad was inside the motel paying for the room and Sammy climbed up and I thought he would fall off,” Dean said, tucking his arms across his chest.
Ah Bobby thought. He now knew at least partially why Dean was determined to make those around him miserable, especially Sammy. It seemed the broken leg was at least partially Sammy’s doing and Dean was holding a grudge. Bobby didn’t think Dean was holding onto his anger on purpose and certainly wouldn’t be consciously holding Sammy responsible, but he must have been feeling abandoned and out of sorts and Sammy was the easiest target.
“You must’a bounced,” Bobby said, tapping the cast gently. It was completely white, not scribbled on like most kids casts and even though Sammy had hovered with a pen a time or two that Bobby knew of, Dean had chased him away for the most part.
Dean snorted and slapped a hand to his face, trying to hold onto the smile that had surfaced. It seemed he wanted to stay grumpy. “Passenger side door was open and I hit the edge of it before I hit the ground,” he elaborated and then seemed to remember that he was meant to be monosyllabic because he lapsed back into silence.
Bobby helped him upright and then turned on the shower. “Hold your leg out as much as you can,” he instructed. “But I pretty much mummified your leg so don’t worry too much if you splash it.”
Dean nodded grimly, holding onto the towel he was swathed in and looked pointedly at the door. Bobby nodded and took his leave, hoping the crack he’d seen in Dean’s misery would in some small way break him out of his determination to be moody.
Those Winchesters though, Bobby was finding, were a stubborn lot.
The next afternoon, raised voices were Bobby’s only warning before there was an almighty crash and a wail from upstairs. Bobby took his stairs two at a time, having visions of Dean breaking the other leg but it was Sam he found, sprawled on the floor and with a hand to his mouth, blood gushing between his fingers.
Dean was looking pale and horrified, trying to get his feet under him. After the initial screech of protest, Sammy had lapsed into a kind of stunned silence. Bobby realised that with their apparent feud, the bunk beds might not have been such a hot idea, especially Sammy on the top. The beds fit together with a join in the middle and the top one was hanging half off.
Bobby hunkered down in front of Sammy who was blinking big eyes but not crying, yet. He seemed more surprised than hurt and Bobby gently pried his fingers away from his mouth, seeing that the blood had come from Sammy biting through his lip and he’d lost a tooth in the process. Bobby felt around and found it on the floor by Sammy’s knee.
“Sammy?” Dean said in a small, hollow voice, sounding scared and miserable. Bobby realised Sammy’s silence was probably freaking Dean out. As if Dean’s voice was enough to jolt him out of his shock, Sammy took a deep, walloping breath and then screamed.
Dean dropped off the lower bunk onto the floor and then scooted across on his butt, pushing his cast in front like an annoying obstacle. He reached Sammy and Bobby moved out of the way so Dean could gather his younger brother up as he cried. Bobby let them go until Sammy’s cries were tapering off and then hoisted Sammy away.
Once Sammy had been cleaned up and Bobby reassured Dean that he didn’t need stitches, Bobby helped them both down to the living room so they could watch television while they ate dinner, a luxury Bobby hadn’t allowed before because he was a believer in meals being eaten around a table.
He left them to it and checked back on them a few hours later when Sammy was drooping and Dean was halfway to the land of nod himself. There were pens abandoned on a side table and practically every inch of Dean’s cast was covered in pictures and colourful swirls.
It seemed that everything had been forgiven.
The next week, Dean was downright pleasant and even agreed to go with Sammy the second time he was invited down the road. Dean seemed a little less willing to socialise than Sammy but he went because he was asked although he accepted a book from Bobby with a grateful smile.
Bobby drove them down so Dean wouldn’t get too tired from making his way with the crutches and he picked them up three hours later as previously agreed. He blinked when Dean pulled himself gingerly into the cab of Bobby’s pickup.
Sammy bounced in after and Bobby could’ve kicked himself. Sammy was nut-brown from the sun but Dean it seemed, hadn’t been blessed with such resilient skin. He was bright red from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, freckles standing out in stark relief. His niece was always accompanied by his sister, Beth and she was the one that wielded the sunscreen, slathering it on until little Anne looked five shades paler than when she’d started.
He hadn’t even thought of it.
It was a nasty burn, the kind that would hurt right up until it peeled and then it would itch like a mother and Bobby grimaced in sympathy. Sammy gave him a gap-toothed grin and he looked from one boy to the other, hoping like hell that John wasn’t going to turn up earlier than expected because Bobby was doing a damn poor job with his sons.
“We’ll pick up some Aloe on the way home and I’ll wrap your leg so we can get you into a hot bath,” Bobby promised and Dean looked aghast.
“A hot bath?” he squeaked.
“Take the sting out,” Bobby promised, but then tapped his lip. Maybe it was a cold bath. He couldn’t exactly remember.
He knew he was overdue for a call to Beth and he figured now was as good a time as any.
Just to make sure.
The third week passed less eventfully. Sammy asked for the training wheels to come off the bike and after a number of spills, managed to stay upright. Dean watched him avidly from the back porch, tensing every time Sammy took a tumble, but the younger Winchester kept bouncing right back up.
Bobby wondered if he should be doing something. He’d seen movies where dutiful dads would run behind their sons, hand on the bike seat and holding it upright until the kid was ready for them to let go. Sammy seemed to have missed those types of Hallmark movies though, instead doggedly circling the yard on his own and refusing any attempts at assistance.
“He’s going to be one big bruise,” Dean huffed when Bobby brought him out a glass of lemonade.
“Doesn’t seem to be slowing him down any,” Bobby mused, wincing when he saw Sammy go full speed into the side of one of his junkers. Before he could ask if Sammy was okay, the boy was up, hands held aloft like he’d just done a trick and not lowering them until Dean returned the salute.
“’Course not,” Dean said with a small smile. “Sammy’s tough.”
Bobby had to agree.
A rare trip into town had the boys the most exuberant Bobby had seen them. He was a self-sufficiency man, keeping mostly to himself or those fellows who were in the same line of business and only travelled into populated areas when necessity called for it. Two boys bored out of their brains was as good an excuse as any to give up his hermit-like tendencies for one day.
Bobby pulled the truck up to the curb and watched Sammy bounce out the other side. He thought the younger Winchester was heading for the arcade across the street but Sammy angled left at the last moment, ducking into a shadowy bookstore. The windows were mostly obscured with stacks of decrepit looking books and the place had a dingy air about it, almost out of place in the sunlight.
Dean looked resigned as he made his way over, sparing only the barest of wistful glances at the bright lights of the arcade. Bobby put a hand on his shoulder, stopping his progress and grinned down at him. “You go on. I’ll watch Sam,” he said, tipping his chin in the direction of the arcade.
Dean looked torn, caught between his assumed duty as Sammy’s primary guardian whenever John Winchester was not in the immediate vicinity and the prospect of spending hours in a dusty bookstore when he’d been basically forced to read for most of the summer already because of his injury. Bobby gave him a gentle nudge in the direction of the arcade, gentle because he didn’t want to topple the boy off his crutches and smiled. To seal the deal, Bobby dug into his jeans pockets and brought out a satisfyingly large fistful of spare change that he deposited into the pouch at the front of Dean’s sweatshirt.
Dean still looked unconvinced but swung right and disappeared in amongst the noise and lights, looking back to make sure that Bobby was following Sammy and not him.
Two hours later, weighed down by Sammy’s must-have purchases and a few treasures he’d unearthed for himself, Bobby resolutely steered Sammy into the arcade next door, determined that once he was surrounded by the stale smell of popcorn and flashing lights, he would stop looking so morose about having to abandon the bookstore.
They found Dean towards the back in amongst the graveyard that were the dead games and found the kid on his back elbow deep in the guts of a Miss Pacman. “What are you doing?” Bobby hissed, casting about for a staff member who would undoubtedly arrive and bawl them out for touching the machines.
“Guy at the counter said he’d give me twenty bucks if I could get some of these unjammed,” Dean said and Bobby blinked at him. “Most of ‘em just have gum and junk in the coin slots but are okay otherwise.”
“I didn’t send you in here to work,” Bobby exclaimed, supremely frustrated. He had wanted to show the boys a good time and he felt like he’d failed on a monumental level. Sammy had hunkered down by Dean’s feet and was looking fascinated.
“S’okay,” Dean said and Bobby could hear the shrug in his voice.
“Well, finish up. We’re going for pizza.” Sammy looked up and around, big grin on his face and Bobby watched Dean shift and then hump backwards out from under the machine. He was grubby and his hair was sticking up from having run stained fingers through it.
“My treat,” Dean said and Bobby realised it wasn’t so much an offer as a statement. Instead of arguing Bobby nodded and said, “Sure, thanks,” and Dean’s grin matched Sammy’s.
They fought like brothers were likely to do, but Bobby got the impression that it was far less than most siblings their age. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company, Sammy dogging Dean’s progress whenever he was moving about the house and always wanting to know what he was doing.
Dean was much more subtle about keeping an eagle-eye on his brother, always knowing exactly where Sammy was at all times without intruding. Bobby had thought that they would see only a rare glimpse of Sammy once he’d made friends with the neighbour kids, but although Sophia seemed like a nice break from the monotony of his house, Sammy was loathe to stray too far away and the invitations dried up.
Bobby watched them on an afternoon of their fourth week with him, out in his yard. They were setting up cans and bottles on the top of a rusted out Lincoln and were taking turns with a BB gun Dean had found Lord knew where. Bobby could see they were practicing rather than playing, both with a kind of intensity he was sure were lost on other kids their age. He knew their lives were different, probably always would be but he hadn’t realised by just how much until now.
Bobby wanted to sit John Winchester down and have a talk to him, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. His quest would swallow his boys whole and leave nothing left.
He watched in the failing light as Dean patiently worked with his younger brother, correcting his stance and his grip, heaping praise when Sammy knocked a green pop bottle off the roof of the car in one shot. He knew it wasn’t his place to intervene but he wished they could be kids.
Just for a little while longer.
John turned up the next day, looking exhausted but otherwise whole. Sammy went tearing out into the front yard as soon as he heard the Impala and Dean looked like he wanted to, busted leg or no. Bobby stayed inside while John greeted his boys, hunkering to Sammy’s level and putting a hand on his shoulder while Sammy tried to tell him everything that had happened in about five seconds flat and then pausing briefly to scrub a hand over Dean’s head.
The boys adored their dad, that much was obvious.
“Don’t know how to thank you,” John said as they sipped beers a few hours later. Bobby had dealt with men like John most of his life and he knew John was on the downward curve. He was hunting something specific and taking anything out on the way but he was getting disheartened. Bobby had laid his own personal demons to rest years earlier and he was damn sorry for anybody else that was still caught up in the chase.
“They weren’t any trouble,” Bobby said, waving off John’s gratitude. “You can bring ‘em by any time.” Bobby was only marginally surprised how much he meant it. He supposed the only thing he could offer was to be rest stop for a life on the road and he hoped it was enough. He got the feeling he was going to know the Winchesters a good chunk of their lives and the prospect wasn’t as daunting as he might’ve once thought.
“I appreciate that,” John said, finishing his beer in a couple of long swallows and then standing and stretching until his back cracked. “Boys!” he called and the thumping that heralded their approach could be heard from inside. Dean had gotten pretty fast on the crutches and he beat Sammy out the door by a few good seconds. “Time to go.”
Bobby stayed out of the way as they packed the car up and then laughed when the debate started up about who got to ride up front. It was obvious that it was Dean’s spot by virtue of birth, but Sammy seemed to think he would be able to get it because Dean needed to stretch his leg out and the back seat was easier for that. The ensuing scuffle was short-lived and decided by a quick, “Get in the back, Dean,” by John.
Bobby held a hand up in goodbye and watched them peel out of his driveway and disappear around the bend at the end, dust settling slowly after.
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