MAJOR SPOILERS FOR 7:10!
Here's another one for Bobby Singer, because he had a hard life – harder than pretty much everyone – but he never stopped trying.
The first time he shot a gun, he was eleven years old. He saved his mother's life as well as his own. She never thanked him, though. She could never even look him in the eye after that night.
The first time he fell in love, he was seventeen, and she was beautiful. He married her, you know, and he couldn't stop saying 'Karen Singer' in his head, over and over, because it made her his.
The first time he killed a person (because he killed monsters all the time, and his father counted as a monster), he was thirty-two. It was on a hunt, with Rufus, and it saved his life. He never thanked him, though. He didn't speak to him for fifteen years.
But he breaks everything he touches – he shot his father dead when he was just eleven years old. And his mother hated him for that. Because she'd loved her husband, despite the bruises and he broken bones.
He breaks everything he touches, and he doesn't want to end up like his father, so he tells Karen 'no', because he'll only break their children too. But he'd already touched her, so he had to watch her break. And she didn't fall apart subtly, no, she smashed like that wine glass, leaving sharp, angry shards which cut him, which made him bleed.
He forgave himself for that eventually. Rufus never did. It was his daughter, and god he loved her so much. She was all he had left, she was only fifteen, but he had to. He had to or Rufus would have died, and then what would he have done?
He had to fend for himself after that, you know. An eleven year old murderer, abandoned by his mother – it's a wonder he made it to where he did. But he was a hard worker, so he worked as hard as he could, and then he worked a little harder.
He never forgave himself for that, you know. That fight. Because it was the last thing he ever said to her. He never got to apologise, to explain, and that haunted him. It haunted him more than the images of her with coal black eyes, of him smashing her head against the wall, of her blood on his hands, of Rufus chanting and her screaming.
Trying to earn Rufus' trust again was an impossible task, and it hurt so bad, seeing him look at him like that. It was worse when they forgot, though. It was worse when they forgot and they acted like friends, like before Omaha. And then one of them remembers, and the icy walls snap up again. That was before Bobby killed him too.
He did good too, though. It wasn't all bad. He adopted these two boys, see. Even when their daddy was alive, he was more their father than he was. John taught them salt rings and guns and how to cover their tracks. Bobby taught them baseball, how to drive, how to dress warm in winter. It was Bobby who read the bedtime stories, Bobby who gave them their first drink. It was Bobby who taught Sam how to cook and Dean to fix a car.
The whole time he was so scared he would do something wrong, hurt them, but he saw John breaking them, and he couldn't stand by and watch. So, slowly, slowly, he mended them, as painstakingly as he would his truck. When he was done with the messy engine bits, his hands were stained black, but he knew he was doing it right, so he closed them up and polished them until they were shining like stars, until he could see his own reflection in them. And he smiled at what he saw.
He watched them grow up and he watched as everything they touched fell apart. He saw their family, their friends, the people they could have built lives with, angels all crumble down, and he felt their pain.
He saw how they touched each other more than anyone, and he shuddered at the thought of the day when Dean's matches would meet Sam's gunpowder. Because they wouldn't fall apart, no, they would explode. It would be fiery, beautiful, and then it would be gone. They would be gone. And there would be nothing left to live for.
One day he realised just how much they touched him. How he would do anything for them, be anything for them, die for them. He did, you know. He died for them. But he didn't think of that blazing, destructive beauty as he went out, no. he thought of their spark, of the chemistry which only they could share- so intense yet so effortless and easy for them, more natural than breathing.
He saw them in his house, relaxing on his sofa, beers in hands, gently bickering. Arguing about Chuck Norris with no real sting behind their words and no force behind their shoves. And he knew, watching them, that neither side would ever back down – eventually, they would just agree to disagree because it was trivial. But if it had been anything of even the slightest significance, they would have been fighting to please the other, to keep the other happy. Or to keep the other alive, depending on just how serious the situation was. Just two brothers, messing around.
And, by God, if it wasn't the most beautiful thing he ever saw.
A/N this is kind of a re-write of my fic 'Ghost' after 7:10, because that kind of changes thing a bit, ya know? Hmm, and I'm not entirely sure if this makes sense… but review anyway! :)