Title: ABOUT A BOY
Chapter One: KINDERGARTEN BODYGUARD
Notes: If you've ever lost someone, you might have experienced those sort of channel flipping moments when your mind just wanders around from memory to memory with no real pattern or purpose. These are some of those moments—one possible glimpse of what might have gone on in Sam and Bobby's heads in the hours following Dean's demise before the full enormity of what happened truly hits them. It's just some simple, short rambling thoughts and memories filling the time before the shock wears off enough to let the real grief and anguish hit.
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Singer's Salvage, Sioux Falls, SD
May 2, 2008
Bobby Singer had been around for few thousand sunrises, but the one that bled over the horizon that morning marked a first for the last 29 years. It was the first one in which his boy wasn't anywhere on the Earth to know about it. It didn't seem right. Bobby had buried people before; his father (gratefully) and his mother; his wife; more than a few friends too, but he took those in stride. Losing his wife Karen was the hardest to understand. Her death opened his eyes to a darkness he didn't dare believe existed, but somehow now, even after all the innocents he'd seen ripped apart by evil, this loss was different. Even though he'd seen it coming—had a whole year's warning and knew right down to the damn minute it would happen, it was still too sudden.
It was also colder.
Harsher.
Wrong.
Bobby knew all about how life ain't fair and had spent a fair amount of time preaching that damn line to the idgit in question during the last two decades, but the truth was that the boy didn't really need to hear it. He knew. He knew it from the time he was just dropping the description of toddler. It was funny, sad really, that after all that gruff talk and teaching of lessons to the idgit that it was Bobby himself who wanted to bitch and complain that this shouldn't have happened.
But it did.
His boy was gone. Dean Winchester was dead.
The horrible words stuck in his throat and stabbed at his eyes. Bobby knew pain. God, yes, he knew what it was like to have his bones broken, his skin burned and slashed open. He'd been kicked and punched and stabbed. Hell, his old hunting partner Rufus shot him once (possibly on purpose—there was still a lot of wondering and debate about that one), but nothing felt quite like this. It was kind of like losing Karen again, but somehow it was a little worse. With her, he knew nothing. The hell bitch jumped her bones and hurled her to her death at the hands of a hunter just trying to put her out of her misery.
Dean was another story. He wasn't an innocent who crossed paths with the big bad. He was a hunter himself, a damn good one, with a huge and deadly flaw: He cared too damn much.
Hunters were known for loving the chase and the kill; they were known for loving their weapons and saying they loved the smell of burned corpses after a job well done. They loved the lying and subterfuge that helped them fly under the radar of the local po-po, and they loved their cars (beat up and rusty or sleek, classic and shiny; either choice, the adoration was eternal). They also loved whoever it was that they lost which dragged them into the deadly game. That was it for hunters. No room in their scarred and hardened hearts for anything more. Just skill, tools, satisfaction, secrets and sorrows.
Except Dean.
No, he cared too damn much. He loved his dead relatives (his mother and father); he loved his unofficial uncles (the hunters John allowed meet his kids as they were springing up like weeds); he loved his surrogate father, Bobby himself; and by all things holy and damned, he loved his little brother so much that he threw his life away when he sold his soul to save the kid.
The persona of the bad-assed, reckless warrior and hunter, with the cock-sure smart mouth and a penchant for pretty waitresses, collided devastatingly with the truth of his character: protective and doting big brother. His heart was just too big for a life with too few reasons to care like that, and it certainly didn't fit in the life of a hunter.
People often remarked to Bobby how of John Winchester's two boys, Sam was the one who wouldn't cut it in the hunting life. They all thought Sam was the liability. To them he seemed too soft, too vulnerable and too distracted. He was meant for something else than the craft. Dean, they would say, was a natural. He was fearless and creative. He was dedicated and devoted to the unofficial creed: Do whatever it takes to kill the evil SOB's before they kill an innocent.
They were wrong about both boys, in Bobby's opinion. Sam wasn't no pansy or helpless geek by any stretch of the imagination; and yeah, Dean was a lot of what they saw, but that wasn't all he was.
Sure, Sam was more academic. He was aloof and questioned things when he was engaged in a hunt. Those didn't make him less capable or less dedicated; it just made him rebellious. Sam liked to do things his way and (more than once) his way was the better way. Bobby knew people didn't like when others succeeded more easily than they themselves did. It pissed them off; Sam pissed people off (hunters especially). Doing the math for the reasons wasn't hard. No, those things that people disliked about Sam certainly weren't weaknesses. No, those were his strengths. Sam didn't follow orders blindly. He considered his moves and plotted his actions accordingly. He didn't accept the mantra "because it's always this way" until he was convinced that was the right way. It was kind of ironic how the one hunter with the most patience for that was his brother, the one man who should have been the biggest foil for him. That right there was all the proof anyone should have needed that Sam was a damn fine hunter and well up to the job. Those things that made him different served him well and made Sam the kind of hunter more hunters should trust.
Not that many would.
Sam was a research junkie and could articulate himself better than most hunters, which made him stand out in a way that gave others an inferiority complex. He never tried to be a show off or to one up anyone. He just liked knowing what he needed to know, and he wasn't afraid if it rattled some cages or some toes got stepped on in the process.
He was perfect material for a hunter—when his mind was in it. Sam just didn't like being told what to do. That was his biggest issue. He was headstrong and while not one to generally fly off the handle without some provocation, he did have a temper and could get a little self-righteous. Unlike most of the hunters Bobby knew, Sam was raised in the life. He learned about the nasty, toothy things that went chomp in the night on a lonely, dark Christmas Eve around age nine. It gave the kid a different perspective, he supposed, that came off as a chip on his shoulder to those who weren't paying attention.
No, Sam was a good fit for hunting. He was a role model for a new generation of hunter that was tech savvy and could more easily blend in with the civilians when needed. He was college-educated and well-mannered. It made him a lethal combination on the side of the good. Hunting was something he certainly was cut out for.
It was Dean who was a bad fit.
People would think Bobby insane for that thought. Dean, they would cry, was a natural, the hunter's own version of an Alpha. He had a ruthless and dogged streak in him. He was fearless and skilled with various weapons. He was deadly with a knife and machete and a crack shot with both gun and bow. He could also make the hard decisions and follow through. He was the kind of guy other hunters understood and wanted watching their backs because he was fearless. He could talk like them and stalk like them. He could hustle pool and cards and women; he could converse about cars and evil critters with equal gusto. He was a good soldier, disciplined, well-trained and determined.
Of course, folks who thought that summed him up didn't know Dean at all. They knew the role he played, the image he let them see. And Bobby knew it was 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag.
Yeah, Dean was each of those things, but those were just the surface; those were the armor he wore so he could hide and pass among them like he belonged.
What Dean was, first and foremost, was a brother, a loving and devoted brother who identified himself primarily in terms as they pertained to his dear and beloved younger sibling. Where other hunters only loved their trade and the details filling their journals, Dean loved something else so much more: Sam. Or, in the parlance of his larger than life heart: Sammy.
If the need for hunters disappeared one day, most in the trade would be lost for what to do with themselves. They'd wander aimless across the country-side bemoaning their lack of purpose and searching for some way to ply their skills once more. They'd become a ragtag band of mercenaries in search of something to kill, like a pack of Hell's Angels who couldn't find a hog to ride or a fight to pick.
Not Dean, though, Bobby was certain. Dean would have fallen to his knees and thanked whatever power of the universe made hunters obsolete because it would mean that he didn't have to worry about some big and awful f'ugly hurting his precious Sammy. The real reason he remained in the life was to look out for his kid brother, and now, that love had cost Dean his life.
Bobby didn't hold Sam responsible. It wasn't Sam's fault his idgit of a brother made that horrible deal. It was Dean's choice—if you could call being raised with a pathological need to save his brother at all costs a choice. Still, no one could argue that Dean hadn't consciously and purposefully summoned that demon. His death was in his own hands. Not that Sam felt that way. He felt guilty and nothing could alleviate that pain. Losing his brother was like having his own heart ripped out.
Bobby shuddered as he recalled the scene that assaulted is eyes just hours earlier: walking into that house to see Sam cradling his very bloody and very dead brother. He wasn't sure he could make Sam release Dean's body. Sam gripped him tight, sobbing and rocking back and forth with vengeance burning his eyes worse than the tears. It took five times of Bobby telling Sam to let go before he realized the kid couldn't. The Winchester boys didn't know how to let go—not of each other anyway. Finally, Bobby shifted his tone and changed his words: Let me take care of him, Sam. Then, as if like magic, he let Bobby pull the body away and wrap it up in a sheet so they could disappear before they lost the cloak of darkness.
It was a terrible and predictable end to the longest year Bobby could recall—a year that, despite the arduous hunts and foreboding forecast of evil yet to come, seemed to be over too quickly. Bobby, like Sam, had spent the previous year trying to slow down time as they looked for a way to break the raw and lopsided crossroads deal.
In the end, they failed.
It didn't seem real that he'd wrapped Dean's body in that sheet, his chest torn to ribbons and life all oozed out of him, just twelve hours ago. Part of Bobby's brain, the part that kept replaying the horrible sight of his boy torn to shreds on the floor, refused to believe it was real. Considering the truck load of crazy he saw in his life, that was saying something.
The aging hunter ran a shaking hand over his face and whipped off his grimy trucker's cap. In fury and futility he flung it onto the desk, where it bounced and skidded softly, almost comically to the floor then rolled under the couch without a sound. He cursed quietly under his breath at the unfulfilling results of his pathetic tantrum then knelt down to snatch it off the floor. His knees protested the action. He grimaced as the twinge shot through him, a physical pain that was still no match for the unrelenting ache in his heart. He eased himself wearily on the couch and stared at the worn and scarred surface of the rolled arm. He rubbed his hand over it wistfully. There had once been a fine, velvety cloth upholstery there, but was worn thin and shiny now by too many hands running over the surface and too many heads using it as a pillow. The memory of one such melon perched there gripped his throat.
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September 8, 1984
"He's kind of scrawny," Bobby noted to Pastor Jim Murphy as he stood on his sagging porch watching a child struggle out of the sleek black car while carrying a duffle bag that was nearly as big as he was.
It was a humid day threatening thunderstorms as tree frogs were whistling up an opera. The thick and moist air clung to everything like melting butter. Bobby rubbed his neck with a rueful shake of his head and looked down at the motley band that had just pulled up to his house.
"Don't tell him that," the part-time preacher, part-time hunter chuckled. "That's Dean, the oldest. His younger brother is Sammy."
No sooner had the words been spoken than the little boy flopped the bag carelessly on the ground and scrambled back into the car. A moment later, he hauled out a package he treated more gingerly. His younger brother, just over a year-old, was held around the waist then placed on his feet steadying him. The older boy took him gently by the hand and kept him from falling as he toddled toward the steps grinning excitedly. His caretaker wasn't so eager. He looked at the house and the man standing in front of it warily.
"I'll take him up the stairs," Murphy offered and snagged the little one. "Grab your bag and bring it inside, Dean."
The boy simply nodded, casting a quick glance at the stranger in beside the pastor. He returned to the duffel and slung it over his shoulder, nearly toppling over but leaning forward with all his might to keep balanced.
"Need some help with that, sport?" Bobby asked.
"No, I got it," he mumbled, keeping his eyes on his shoes has he hiked up the stairs.
"Dean?" John Winchester called, breaking from his intense discussion with fellow hunter Caleb. "Is that the proper way to address an adult?"
The child turned and looked at his father with a pale and scared face. He shook his head then took a shaky breath as he looked up at Bobby.
"No, I got it, sir," Dean said.
"No need to salute me, kid," the gnarled homeowner replied with a nod. "Just Bobby's fine."
"Uncle Bobby," Murphy said lightly and clapped Bobby on the arm while offering a tight grin. "This is Dean."
Bobby nodded and rolled his eyes as Murphy then carried the chubby-cheeked and drooling one into the house. The mobile child, sporting messy locks of dirty blond hair and a spattering of freckles over his pale face, gave him a sad and suspicious look, as if he knew Bobby's lack of comfort with his new boarders.
"Pleasure," Bobby said flatly.
"If you say so," the boy shrugged and continued past him as Murphy held open the door to the house.
"Bobby," John called from the side of the car, "thanks again. Jim can explain everything. I've talked to Dean. He knows what to do. I won't be gone long. Dean, listen to Pastor Jim and Bobby and look after your brother."
The child nodded mechanically and fought to keep the sadness out of his expressive green eyes. Bobby looked down at the kid and felt an unexpected pang of pity him. He looked at John and gave him some reassurance that the little boy didn't need to play babysitter.
"Take your time," Bobby called to his fellow hunter. "I'm covering Allard's ass on the phone seeing as he got himself thrown in the clink last night in Chickasaw. Can't leave until he's got them convinced he's not a flight risk. You and Caleb cut this SOB to pieces then head back. Oh, and bring back a buck of extra crispy with you when you do."
John nodded and headed to Caleb's '79 leprous Chevy pickup with his own bag slung over his shoulder, toting it with greater ease than his little boy had done just moments earlier. Bobby watched John go and shook his head. He'd hunted with John Winchester a few times within the last year and thought he was a solid man on the job but occasionally a bastard as a person. It was like that with a lot of new hunters—especially those with military training. They fell back on what their drill sergeants screamed at them and expected the rest of the world to follow suit. Bobby had known the man had family, young kids in fact, but he had always been told by Murphy that John was devoted to them. Now, he was dumping his two little ones with a stranger (at least to them) and leaving without so much as a goodbye. Funny thing was, the older boy, didn't act like it was strange. That, Bobby thought shaking his head, was a bucket of sad.
Throughout the afternoon, the two boys sat on the floor of the library. The younger one pawed and clawed over his brother like a puppy playing with its favorite toy. The older boy allowed himself to be tackled and chewed; he didn't do much more than yelp in surprise when he got head-butted by his baby brother resulting in his lip splitting open. He simply pushed the younger one back, blinked back tears in his smarting eyes and sucked his bottom lip for a moment until the worst of the bleeding stopped. Bobby stared anxiously, waiting for the wailing and tears and crying for someone to kiss it and make it better like little snot-nosed kids were supposed to do, but it never came. Bobby looked at Murphy, who was casually watching as well while he read through one of Bobby's older texts. The preacher merely shrugged as if to say 'they do this all the time.'
An hour or so later, Bobby had lost all interest in research and was spending most of his time watching the two boys like some exotic exhibit at a zoo. The baby began rubbing his eyes and fussing. With a frustrated but bored sigh, his brother muckled onto him, pulling his baby brother into his lap and held him for several minutes, simply rubbing his back and softly saying 'it's okay, Sammy.' Bobby again looked to Murphy who simply murmured 'it's fine.' Not long after, the baby's whimpering stopped. The older boy then stood up and hefted/dragged his brother to the couch. He boosted the baby into the corner and pulled a dingy blanket out of the duffle he had carried into the house, which he then draped it over his brother's sleeping form.
"I told you, most of the hard stuff is done for you," Murphy grinned and got up from his chair. "Something tells me you don't have any milk in your fridge, Bobby. I'll run to the store. Dean, will you be okay here if I go?"
The child nodded, but slid his eyes warily to Bobby. He then took a tentative step to put himself between his brother and the stranger.
"Don't take this personally," Murphy explained to Bobby in mild tones. "Dean's always protective of his brother. Oh, and don't read anything into the fact he will probably glare at you like that and probably won't speak to you. He takes his time trusting people. In fact, he was with me for three weeks the first time before he ever spoke to me."
"Probably just good sense on his part," Bobby remarked. "I wish I had been as reluctant to know you."
Murphy flashed a smile at his friend and clapped him on the shoulder jovially, whispering their shared joke of 'bless you, child,' then turned to the surly boy guarding his sleeping brother. Murphy knelt down as he addressed the boy. He placed his slender palm on Dean's shoulder as spoke reassuringly to him.
"Dean, Bobby won't hurt Sam or you," Murphy assured him. "Your father wouldn't have left you here if it wasn't safe and neither would I. I will be back in a little while."
Dean nodded again but did not shift from his place. Murphy chuckled and walked out of the house. The crunch of his tires on the gravel outside signaled his departure a few minutes later. Dean remained standing in place, blocking his sleeping brother from Bobby's view. Bobby shook his head and sighed then returned to his reading.
It was unnerving, being stared at like that. He'd looked into the eyes of creatures stronger and more deadly than a five-year-old, but there was something about his stillness and the intensity of his mossy green gaze that niggled at Bobby. It broke his concentration and prevented him from finishing his translation of the archaic text, which he needed to complete to save Allard's worthless ass (if he ever got his trespassing issue squared away with the cops in Alabama). He found himself staring back at the kid for several long minutes, his eyes feeling dry and on the verge of popping out when he lost his patience.
"You can go play on the porch if you like," Bobby said, looking hard into the eyes peering across the edge of the desk at him.
He didn't expect an answer from what Murphy had said about the kid's quiet nature so when he did respond, Bobby was intrigued.
"Sammy's sleeping," Dean replied, his own eyes looking drowsy. "I gotta watch him."
"He's right there, and technically it ain't watching him if your back is to him," Bobby pointed, wondering if maybe the boy was slow and Murphy was being kind in not putting it in those words. Worried the kid might be, Bobby softening his tone a bit. "Look, he's sleeping. That means he ain't going anywhere. Besides, I'm here."
"I know," the brother nodded. "I gotta watch him. In case something happens. It's my job to take care of Sammy."
"You ain't old enough to wipe your own nose," Bobby observed. "Now, get whatever toy you've got in that bag out and go play on the porch. Kids who stay inside on nice days… grow rot in their ears and never learn to tie their shoes."
The child swallowed and turned his back as he reached into the bag. He pulled a dirty looking stuffed toy out (might have been a cat or a octopus; damn thing was so mangled, whether it had limbs or tentacles wasn't clear) and tucked it under his sleeping brother's arm. It was the gentle way that he did it which struck Bobby. In his estimation, five-year-olds weren't tender or gentle creatures. Bobby stared at the boy, who then tugged the blanket covering his brother a little higher, placing the little one's small arms under the covering. Dean then took up a sentry post on the opposite end of the couch, wedging himself into the corner and hugging his knees as he leaned his head against the arm of the couch.
Bobby gave him a questioning look that just asked: What are you doing?
"I can wipe my nose myself," Dean replied in a slightly surly tone. "Ears don't rot just from being inside, and I already know how to tie my shoes."
"So you're just gonna sit there?" Bobby asked. "Not even gonna play with a toy?"
"Toys are for babies," Dean replied. "Sammy's the baby."
The frankness of his tone caught Bobby off-guard. The kid wasn't slow. He was wary. He didn't know Bobby, and he was sticking close to his little brother. Bobby nodded. He could respect that.
"Your Daddy left you here because he knows I'm gonna watch you," Bobby said. "Nothing you can do sitting there watching your brother sleep. If he needs anything, I'll take care of it."
"I watch Sammy," the boy said firmly. "I carried him out of the fire. I take care of him. It's my job."
Dean turned his eyes determinedly away from Bobby and fixed his gaze on his sleeping brother. He remained at his guard post for another 30 minutes, not moving, until Bobby watched the boy's shoulders droop and his head loll backward, his jaw hanging slack. His arms were no longer wrapped tightly around his knees, but he was in a half-fetal position with his head resting on the arm of the couch and appeared to shiver. Sighing, Bobby passed into the kitchen and retrieved his field coat. He checked to pockets and disarmed it of sharp and explosive goodies before returning to the library.
Bobby never wanted kids. In fact, that was the topic of the final talk (well, screaming fight) with his wife before she got possessed and had to be put down. Karen wanted rugrats. He didn't. His own father was a horrible man, as bad as any evil SOB Bobby ever turned to charcoal, and the last thing the world needed was another father like that. He always knew he'd be a terrible parent and never spent time around kids as a result. Now, here he was, saddled with afternoon naptime for a drooling, diaper-wearing larval human and his distrustful Kindergarten bodyguard of a brother.
Still, this recent exposure didn't feel too dangerous.
The little one wasn't any trouble. He sat; he babbled; he mauled his brother; he slept. So far, he didn't smell and wasn't leaving a puddle on the couch so that was a bonus, too. It was the older one that concerned Bobby. He admired the pluck on the older kid, sticking his toes in and shielding his brother despite (or perhaps because of) his own gut telling him to be wary. Murphy said Dean was five, going to be six a few weeks after Christmas, but the look in his eye wasn't that of a child. It certainly didn't belong on any kid who wasn't old enough to take his driver's test. It was a mixture of distrust and isolation that he more often saw in hunters or the victims who survived the crap hunters had to put down for them. The boy had seen things, heard things, knew things—the kind of things no child should.
Bobby looked down as he held his coat over the kid and saw tears matted in the thick eyelashes. A more careful inspection revealed a stream of saline cascading from the outside corners of his eyes toward his ears and getting lost in his hair. Somehow, right in front of Bobby as he read, the little critter had silently cried himself to sleep. That raised an unexpected lump in the crusty hunter's throat. He shook his head and lightly draped his coat over the thin, pale, bare arms and curled up legs of the boy.
He didn't know what prompted him to do it, but he then gently pet the boy on the head.
"You're gonna be fine, son," Bobby said softly. "You and your brother are safe here, Dean."
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