Title: Family Only
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating/Warning/Notes: Gen. PG-13. Written for the spn_nostalgia season one ficathon. Betae'd wonderfully by angelsdee and iamzulma. 2,300 words.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. No money is made out of this.
Summary: Bobby thinks the Winchester brothers are nothing like he remembers them when they show up on his doorstep.



Family Only
by Steffi

The phone rings at a little past three in the morning, and Bobby grabs the cell phone from the nightstand with a huff. In the dark, the screen of the phone blinks, “Caller ID Unknown” in neon blue letters. Bobby rolls his eyes and sighs.

People he knows? They can call him up any time of day or night. Whether they need advice, information, meds or a place to lay low for a while, that’s fine with him. The hunter community is a small one, built on support and helping hands, and being able to find refuge the minute they show up on a fellow hunter’s doorstep. Business don’t work otherwise.

But random people calling him in the middle of the night when he’s just exorcised the 27th demon this year? He hates that.

His greeting is gruff, and he does not bother to hide his annoyance. Whoever the freak at the other end of the line is, Bobby doesn’t know him, and so he really doesn’t care what they think of him. Come to think of it, he probably wouldn’t care if he knew the caller. Not at this late hour.

“Bobby Singer?” The voice is male. Deep. Bobby doesn’t recognize it, but he sits up in bed when he hears rustling in the background. Sounds like a car engine, like someone’s calling from a car, which means that it’s either a hunter or a cop. Not that Bobby has anything to hide; he doesn’t do scams and covers his tracks well.

“Who wants to know?” Bobby asks, switching the lamp on.

“Dean Winchester.”

The answer drowns out everything else. Talk about unexpected calls.

“Dean?” Bobby repeats like a first-class parrot. He scowls at himself for that, but the kid—and Bobby realizes in that moment that he still thinks of John Winchester’s son as a kid—has caught him completely off-guard.

“Yeah.”

Another voice mutters something that Bobby can’t understand, but it sounds like someone giving directions.

“Is that John?” Bobby asks. As happy as he is to hear from Dean, the fact that John might be nearby makes him uneasy. Actually, it makes him angry. That John Winchester is one old self-centered bastard and Bobby telling him exactly that is one of the many reasons why they’ve stayed out of each other’s way the past ten years.

“No, Sam,” Dean answers, his voice tense. The words come as a surprise because the last Bobby heard through Pastor Jim was Sam had had the fall-out of the century with his dad. In the end, Jim had told him, Sam went off to Stanford, never to talk to his family again.

“Where’s John, then?” Bobby wants to know. When Dean doesn’t answer, he knows the boys are in trouble.

***

Bobby tries to get back to sleep after he’s hung up, but he just lies awake until five, before he gets up. Dad’s been missing, Dean told him, and now some demons got him and the boys don’t know what to do.

Bobby Singer and John Winchester may not have talked to each other in ten years, but that doesn’t mean John can’t count on Bobby to help him when he’s in trouble.

Solidarity. Hunters keep alive on solidarity. John Winchester may be an asshole but he’s a hunter, one of them, and they need to take care of their own, even if it’s a jackass that needs their help, an egoistic son of a bitch who probably has been holding the Worst Dad of the Year award for the last twenty years. John Winchester’s a damn good hunter and a great drill-sergeant, but a terribly bad father. He spent his life trying to keep his sons safe, and that’s really all that he did.

John’s a bastard, a masochistic idiot who likes to see himself as a loner, who does things his way or not at all. He accepts no criticism, and he accepts no mistakes. Least of all from his sons.

Bobby can’t recall John ever telling Dean or Sam that he was proud of them. He doesn’t remember a single time when John came back from a hunt and brought his sons something fun, a toy or cool shoes or a videotape with a family flick. Most of all, he doesn’t remember John ever really listening to Sam and Dean when they were talking to him. John was generally distracted, planning new hunts, and only paid attention when Dean addressed him quietly and when it concerned Sam, or dinner, or moving.

True, Bobby doesn’t know what things were like when the Winchesters were on their own in some run-down motel. Maybe John behaved differently, but Bobby doubts it. The way the boys reacted to John’s absent-mindedness and his gruff orders always felt like daily routine.

More than once, Bobby wanted to yell at John, “Look what you’re doing to your kids, you fucking idiot!”

One time, he actually said it.

Bobby’s glad Dean called him. The idea terrifies him that one night he might wake up to Ellen Harvelle calling him to tell him that John Winchester’s sons died trying to save their dad. Trying to save him when they didn’t have a clue what they’d be.

He hasn’t seen the Winchester boys in twelve or maybe thirteen years. He remembers a freckled boy who’d just hit puberty, and a rapidly growing, inquisitive boy.

Dean said they’re in Iowa. They can make it to Bobby’s junkyard in six or seven hours. Bobby answered, I’ll have coffee ready.

***

The roar of the engine as Dean pulls into the driveway sounds like thunder rolling across Bobby’s property, but he waits until the boys knock before he rises from his chair and opens the door. His stomach is doing curious somersaults and Bobby scolds himself, dammit, but he can’t help being a little nervous about seeing them again.

There are two guys standing outside, and Bobby isn’t really sure what he’ expected because logically, he knew all along that Dean and Sam had grown older and taller, had grown into men. Just seeing them now, with their bulky shoulders and stubble on their faces and wearing clothes that every kid would brand as uncool—it’s strange.

Sam twitches his lips and mutters a “Hi,” in a deep and husky voice that sounds so different from the light chatter Bobby used to know. Boy’s grown tall, but he’s still got that hair like someone put a pot over his head and cut around it. Dean’s shorter than Sam now, and still has freckles all over his face. But he’s outgrown the chubby cheeks, and his voice no longer breaks when he talks. His face is more defined, edgy you might say, and the look in his eyes suggests someone who was forced to grow up too fast.

Dean greets Bobby with a nod. He is pale, with his jaw set tight as if he’s trying to keep it together, and only barely managing. Bobby steps aside and gestures them to come in.

***

In some ways, Sam and Dean still resemble the boys that used to chase one another through Bobby’s house and the junkyard. If Bobby listens closely, he can almost hear their laughter and voices yelling for each other. He can see Dean, a thirteen-year-old, preparing dinner for Sammy and Bobby, or squatting next to Bobby while Bobby worked on a car, listening to Bobby’s explanations. He sees Sam by the coffee table, coloring or slouched on the couch, watching TV.

He remembers endless hours of playing cards. Sam was never particularly good at it, but he didn’t mind to losing to Dean if it meant his big brother would spend time with him. Dean, on the other hand, was a good card player, because he picked up things quickly and enjoyed perfecting his cheating skills. Bobby never caught him using those tricks on Sam, though.

Unlike Sam, Dean was a quiet boy, even after he hit puberty. He just never chattered like Sam did, maybe because he’d learned early that nobody would listen to him. Or at least John wouldn’t. Sam was different, because he demanded John’s attention even though John barely granted it, and when John wouldn’t listen, Dean did. But Dean himself stayed a pretty quiet kid who mostly kept to himself and responded with comments that became constantly snarkier as he grew up.

Dean liked sandwiches, anything homemade that wasn’t heated up in the microwave or fast food. Sam needed to have at least one kind of vegetable on his plate because he’d learned in school that vegetables were healthy.

Bobby remembers that Dean suffered from nightmares more than Sam did, which didn’t come as a surprise to Bobby. John had never been clear on exactly how much Dean had seen the night Mary had died, but he’d been four years old, and seeing his home go up in flames and knowing his mom never got out must have been traumatizing. Sam was a sound sleeper, who dozed off the moment his head hit the pillow. Dean needed more time to fall asleep and sometimes when he couldn’t, he got up and came shuffling into the living room, where Bobby would watch old black and white movies with him until long after midnight.

Even now, Bobby can detect the boys in the two men that are now sitting in the kitchen, sipping coffee and explaining to Bobby that John left Dean behind and went missing, and is now in the hands of demons. Possibly the demon.

Some things don’t change. Like the way Sam interrupts Dean when he’s talking, corrects him and rolls his eyes at Dean’s jokes, but when he looks at Dean there’s nothing but trust in his eyes. He’d follow Dean anywhere.

Like the way Dean lets Sam interrupt him, as long as it distracts Sam from his worries for the moment. Sam is Dean’s first priority, always will be.

But the years haven’t come without changes. Bobby supposes that it’s just the way life goes. Still, he fears the changes aren’t for the better.

Sam had never been interested in the hunt. When John dropped the boys off at Bobby’s place, Sam usually had a bag filled with coloring books or later, novels that other kids his age only read when required to for class. Sam always ignored talks about spirits and Wendigos, pretended the Winchesters were a normal family. Now, Sam wanders around in Bobby’s house, admiring his collections on the occult, and talks about revenge and wasting the demon that killed his mom and his girlfriend. He reminds Bobby so much of John Winchester that Bobby has to bite his tongue a couple of times.

Dean, on the other hand, used to be on his feet all the time, doing push-ups even when his dad wasn’t ordering him to, and cleaning his weapons and sharpening his knives. He had a tendency to talk about shotguns and salt lines like a hunter who’d been on the road for thirty years. Bobby always wondered whether that was because Dean was mature for his age or wanted to be older, or because, aside from his brother, he was only surrounded by adults. Maybe it was a combination of the three.

Thirteen years later, Dean sits by the kitchen table, quiet and still, and all he wants is to have his dad back and his brother safe. He lacks vigor, as if he hunts for the heck of it, for a sense of duty and because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t mention revenge once, or killing the demon. He just wants John safe, plain and simple.

He glances up at Bobby almost shyly, like a little lost boy left in the wilderness, because he does remember the fight between Bobby and John. In that moment, Bobby can’t see anything of the cocky, self-confident boy in the man sitting across the table. Sam doesn’t seem to remember that fight. Dean was always good at shielding Sam from the bad things, even if it was only a fight between John and Bobby.

Bobby can see Dean’s freaking out inwardly. His features are carvings in stone, unmoving, and he drinks the coffee wordlessly, but his shaking fingers betray the effort of concealing just how scared he is.

He wants John back, needs to know he is safe. Bobby can’t wrap his mind around why Dean still clings to John so desperately, or maybe Bobby just wishes he couldn’t. Fact is, Dean depends on John a lot, probably will until his dying day, and if they don’t get John back in one piece, Bobby’s not sure what Dean will do. He might fall apart completely, either shatter instantly or slowly, piece by piece.

Bobby wishes he could help, could do more than assist in trapping a demon, but he isn’t sure Dean and Sam will accept his help beyond trying to find their dad. It’s been a while, after all. And it’s not like he’s family; the times when Sam used to call him ‘Uncle’ are long gone. The Winchesters are big on dealing with everything within the family. Looking at Sam and Dean now, it seems that John succeeded in drilling that mentality into his sons.

One thing’s for sure though—if anything happens to the boys, Bobby will never forgive himself. Never. They came here for help, and if Bobby’s help isn’t enough, then…he doesn’t want to think about it.

“I have a book you should check out, Sam,” Bobby says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “Let me show it to you. And then, we better try to come up with a plan for when that demon shows up here.”

No way are the boys walking into this unprepared.


-end-