Summary: AU Wheelchair user Bobby needs a helper so he uses a spellbook to create a slave he calls Dean. When hunter Sam turns up, however, Dean begins to look beyond the salvage yard. Sam/Dean unrelated slash.
From Steel And Lightning (Part 1: Bobby Geppetto) by frostygossamer
Bobby Singer was a lonely middle-aged guy, who used to be a hunter of all nasty things supernatural. He now kept a salvage yard. He lived there all on his lonesome, as his dear wife was long dead and they had had no children. Both things he bitterly regretted.
To top it off, he had lately ended up in a wheelchair, following a self-inflicted accident with a loaded shotgun. This particularly riled Bobby, because he was a fiercely independent man. He hated to ask anyone for help, even though living alone in a junkyard was hardly convenient for an invalid.
One day he had an urgent phone call from an old friend of his, Rufus. He was a fellow hunter, who needed Bobby to research him some lore on an obscure supernatural scarebaby that had been terrorising some little town in the South West.
Bobby poked around in his extensive library of dusty old tomes. Some of these books were upwards of two hundred years old. He'd bought many of them from shady rare book dealers of his acquaintance. A lot of his titles had just been dumped there by old hunter friends, And a few he had even ordered off of the internet. A hell of a lot of them he had never gotten around to indexing, or even shelving properly.
Climbing up to get books from the higher bookshelves was beyond him right now, so he was forced to ferret around in the random titles left in piles at floor level. That was how he came across a tatty old spellbook he'd never seen before. Glancing through it, his eye lighted on some detailed instructions for creating a 'Humanoid Slave Creature', no less.
Bobby snorted in disgust and tossed the shabby volume aside. After a half hour spent failing to hook down an important reference book from a high shelf with a walking cane, however, he was beginning to feel like he could really have done with a humanoid slave creature, supernatural or not.
So, after he had finally identified Rufus' required information and called him back to pass it on, he picked up the discarded volume. He gave it a second idle look-over, while sipping a mollifying finger of his favourite whiskey. He was a little surprised when he realised that he actually had all the elements that he would need for the spell. Bobby was tempted. He stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"Maybe I could try this out", he muttered to himself. "I could sure as hell do with a little help around the yard."
He didn't want to admit it, but he needed a little help with practically everything. It was pretty damn hard managing in a wheelchair in a house that had in no way been adapted for a wheelchair user.
"Damn it. I'ma gonna do this", he declared, after his third whiskey. "I know it kinda goes against the hunter's ethos, but it's only white magic. What could it hurt? I'll just keep the thing around until this damn gunshot wound heals the hell up, and then I'll unspell it. Who'll ever know?"
Bobby propped the old book up on the kitchen table, like it was his momma's old recipe book, and began to gather the bits and pieces he needed for the spell. Basically it said he had to start by making a sort of mannequin. It was important, apparently, to built the mannequin out of items of sentimental value and fine craftsmanship. If it didn't look good you'd end up with some ugly-ass, worthless gargoyle of a thing.
Well, Bobby didn't want to be sharing his home with some twisted little Chucky doll, so he went and searched his yard for parts for his 'artwork'. Out in the yard an idea struck him, and he sought out his cache of valuable classic car and truck parts. These little beauties he had been treasuring until the right repairs came along.
Hauling them indoors one at a time on his lap, he set about creating his sculpture out of some fine tooled pieces engineering and sleek chrome, right in the middle of the den. It looked pretty good. Bobby felt damn proud of his efforts. A fine thing like that could have almost gotten him into art school, he thought. It looked kinda abstractionist but it had a certain... something.
That only left the actual ceremony. He had to burn a few special rare 'herbs' in a silver bowl, a few of them technically illegal in South Dakota. Then he had to chant some incantations in an ancient Native American tongue. Once Bobby had googled a few pronunciations he felt pretty confident.
Bobby set the whole thing up inside a big old salt ring, just in case the thing he was going to create should turn out dangerous. And then he began.
As the last words left his mouth and vanished into the silence of his lonely house, Bobby released a sigh. Nothing happening. This wasn't going to work. Disappointed, Bobby spun his wheelchair away. He was wondering if he should have used fresh oregano after all, when there was a sudden flash like lightning behind him.
Bobby froze, for a moment almost scared to turn around and look at his metal construction. When he finally forced himself, he gasped as he saw that it was gone. Then he noticed, curled up on the floor, where the thing had been standing just a moment before, the shape of a guy, a naked guy, curled into a ball.
Bobby wheeled on over to the new arrival. Tentatively, he leaned down and grabbed the guy by his arm and dragged him up into a sitting position. He looked dazed and kept opening and shutting his mouth wordlessly, like a fish. While averting his eyes from his nakedness, Bobby did notice that the guy's stomach was smooth. He had no navel. Thankfully, he seemed otherwise completely human.
"Welcome home, boy", Bobby greeted him cheerily. "How ya doing?"
.oOo.
A couple weeks later, Bobby's new helper was responding well to training. Bobby had decided to name him Dean, a name he picked at random. Luckily he was one hell of a fast learner. In fact, he soaked up information like Johnny Five.
Not only did Dean help the old man around the house, he also turned out to be useful around the junkyard. He quickly picked up a little engine maintenance. Actually, he seemed to have an affinity for it. Not a big surprise really, considering what he was made of.
"Snips and snails and freaking puppy-dog tails be damned", Bobby chuckled. "Steel and lightning. Who knew?"
Dean was a good-looking boy, well-built too. After all he'd been conjured from some very high quality parts. Bobby had expected his creation might be a little on the robotic side, but far from it. He was fast, he was smooth and he was goddamn sleek.
Bobby's slave could have passed for human anywhere. The old hunter suspected he maybe was human, certainly he couldn't tell the difference. Dean ate, drank, slept and used the john, just like regular folks. Sometimes Bobby almost forgot he wasn't a real person.
He gave the guy his own room. He couldn't just stand him in a corner until he needed him, like an unwanted vacuum cleaner. So he gave him his best guest room. The one that would have been the nursery. Soon Bobby was starting to think of Dean as the son he never had.
A real son couldn't have been more helpful or useful. Dean seemed perfectly contented with his lot, taking care of the old hunter. But then, after all, it was all he knew. He cleaned Bobby's house, cooked, did laundry and generally wheeled and carried Bobby around the place, never complaining.
Dean also helped out in the junkyard. He was pretty damn strong, agile and very fit. Plus he was good with his hands. Bobby taught him how to maintain his truck and how to drive. He was a natural. Pretty soon Bobby was having Dean drive them both into town for supplies every week.
When they went to the local store, Bobby always made Dean wait for him in the truck. He didn't want his neighbours asking him any questions about his visitor, or Dean to let slip anything that would give him away as not exactly human. Also he didn't want to have to make up any stupid explanations, when his temporary helper eventually needed to disappear.
Dean was a little disappointed that he never got to speak to anyone but Bobby. He knew nothing of the world outside the junkyard and he was curious. Visitors to Bobby's yard were rare, and those few were mostly hunters. When they came, Bobby would explain Dean away as a relative of some old non-mutual friend, just in case they got suspicious.
Bobby had explained to Dean what hunters were. He had warned him that some, if not most, hunters would say that someone like him was inherently evil and should be destroyed. He told Dean to be very careful around these guys and watch his words.
That was a shame because Dean would have loved to chat with them about their lives, lives that sounded pretty damn exciting to him. Bobby had told him some great stories about his life as a hunter and he wanted more. Bobby felt a little sorry for Dean. It seemed a shame that his short life was going to be all work and no play.
And then, one day, someone new came to the salvage yard.
TBC
A/N: Guess who? Well it is a Sam and Dean romance, so...