You break everything you touch.
Flagstaff.
The boy before him is broken, but this time, it's not Bobby's fault.
He knows that.
It's John's fault, and John will pay for it this time. No one, no one, is allowed to hit around Bobby Singer's boys, not even John Winchester.
Dean staggered a little, and John's hand closed roughly under his arm, dragging him back up.
Sam trailed behind, his dark eyes wide, and Bobby follows them into the house.
"Sam, go upstairs," John ordered the second they were inside. "Dean, with me."
"John," Bobby said, and his voice is sharp and icy and it made all three Winchesters stop cold in their tracks.
John wheeled around, his face hard. "Bobby, if you're"—
"Boys, go upstairs," Bobby interrupted, his voice the same sharp, cold tone. "John, we have to talk."
Sam mounted the stairs immediately, relief plain on his young face, but Dean turned to his father, waiting.
"Go," John said irritably, and Dean followed his brother.
The moment they were gone, John wheeled around on Bobby. "If you're have something to say about the way I carry out discipline"—
"Oh, is that what you've been calling it?" Bobby snarled, his face inches from John's. They're toe to toe, now, savage and angry and ready—and god, Bobby hopes those boys aren't crouched at the top of the stairs hearing all this.
"What are you talking about?" John drew himself up to his full height, his eyes flashing.
"I saw Dean's bruise," Bobby hissed. "Or should I say bruises?"
John was pale. "He left Sammy alone," John said sharply. "He had one job, and he knows what it is, and he failed it."
"And you were scared," Bobby continued for him. "Scared that Sam wouldn't come back. You wanna tell me why the hell it's Dean's fault that Sam's a fool kid?"
John clenched his fists. "Dean knows better. He should never have left Sam."
Bobby leaned forward and shoved John backwards, his eyes flaming. "You should never have left Sam. You should never have left those two kids alone."
John went white, staggering backwards, and Bobby knew the words had struck home.
"How dare you"—
"Tell me," Bobby said icily. "Tell me what Mary would say if she saw the welts you left on her baby boy."
John opened his mouth and shut it again, and Bobby could see tears shining suddenly on the man's pale face.
Bobby straightened. "Don't lay a hand on that boy again, ya hear me?"
John rubbed the back of his hand across his face, and then he nodded, turning away from Bobby.
"You should go talk to them," Bobby said. "I'm going home. And if I come back tomorrow and find a mark on either of those boys, I'll beat your sorry ass myself." His tone softened suddenly. "Those boys need you, ya idjit. They need you."
John nodded, still looking away from Bobby, and Bobby turned to go, hoping to God his boys—all three of them—would be okay.
You break everything you touch.
The words echo in his head as he leaves. Was he making it worse? Was he wrecking things for those boys? Making John angrier?
No, he tried to tell himself. No. This is how you fix things.
Several years later.
"Please, just go," Dean says raggedly, looking away from Bobby.
Sam's body is lying on the bed opposite them, cold and still and so unutterably, awfully lifeless.
Dean is ashes.
"I don't want you to be alone."
Dean just shakes his head and downs his beer the way John used to, and Bobby feels sick.
"I won't let you, boy," Bobby says. "I won't let you do this alone."
But Dean does what he does, anyway—sells his precious soul as if it was nothing, and Bobby wishes he could reach out and fix all the shattered pieces of his boy.
But he can't, he knows he can't, so he does the only thing he knows how: he stays with them, stays through everything.
Bobby's there for all of it—all of the arguments and the good days and the bad and the drinking and the battles and every bitter day when they lose a fight. His boys are heroes, and he treats them as such.
Some of the things he does for them are done quietly, and they never find out.
There's a night Dean doesn't remember, when he drank until he was puking and staggering, and he calls Bobby, drunk and sobbing and mumbling about the souls he had seen in hell.
Bobby takes him home, takes care of him, and puts all the booze out of reach of both of them.
He gets sober for Dean.
And there's the day when Sam crashes in his house after a fight with Dean, and he falls asleep on Bobby's couch the way he used to when John would leave him there—Sam's long limbs spread out over the whole couch, mouth open, snoring occasionally.
And Bobby just grins.
Those boys have never had a home, moving day in and day out and trekking halfway across the country all their lives, but by god is he glad that at least his place came close.
Hammonton Regional Hospital, present day.
Sam and Dean are together, at least, worried and exhausted and not as happy or carefree as Bobby had always wished they could be. But they're together, and they're strong, and they're good and courageous and bold and Bobby knows he's done right by them.
So in that last, fading moment, when the words hound him one last time—you break everything you touch—Bobby Singer opens his eyes wide and smiles at the light ahead of him.
Not everything, he says, and he falls into the memories again, the best memories, of two boys—his boys—grinning up at him from the past; from this good, good life he's lived. Not everything, you old son of a bitch,he tells his father one last time. Not everything.