All the Reasons Why
Disclaimer – you know it's not mine
Summary – Even the good guys make mistakes. Gen, pre-series (spoilers for A Very Supernatural Christmas).
Bobby hadn't seen the boys for six months. Christmas, Easter, the dreaded Mother's day had all passed before he heard from the Winchesters again. John pulled up in a cloud of summer dust; the Impala looking like it could use a little TLC. Bobby clapped a hand to John's shoulder, told the boys there was stuff for fixin' sandwiches in the kitchen, and helped John haul their gear in.
John ruffled Sammy's hair as he went past and Bobby swallowed down a swell of guilty, pleased triumph. He hadn't seen John do something so fatherly in a while. It looked good on the man.
Dean put together deli-roast sandwiches for all of them and they sat around the kitchen table, talking about hunts and what the boys had been doing and the places they had been since Bobby had seen them last. Bobby would never admit it out loud but he loved having the boys around. They filled the house up with their presence and saved him from being alone with his ghosts. Once upon a time he had imagined this – a house full of children and noisy with family. John Winchester, despite being an obsessed son of a bitch, was a lucky, lucky man. Some days Bobby wanted what he had so desperately it filled him with aching.
So whenever John deigned to stop by Bobby welcomed them in and gave the boys a place to stay and sometimes even got to pretend to do the fatherly things he never had a chance to give to anyone else. Bobby was very careful not to step on John's toes. John was very conscious of the critical way people thought of him as a father. He could be a prickly bastard when it came to his parenting and Bobby didn't want to loose the connection he had.
Still, he couldn't help being disappointed when John finished up his sandwich, brushed off his fingers and informed Bobby he as heading out. He would be back for the boys in a couple weeks, and he would check in every couple of days. Not that Bobby minded having the boys stay. Rather, he had expected a little more improvement in John's parenting.
John ran down the usual list of expectations with the boys, look after your brother, be good, and was gone. Bobby washed up from lunch and let the boys run loose in the yard. He watched them from the kitchen window fondly. It wasn't until Dean slipped off his jacket and left it dangling over the porch railing that Bobby saw it.
For a moment all the sound, all the motion, seemed to get sucked out of the world. His heart stopped. In his hands, the glass he was scrubbing cracked.
He dragged the book out again but the spell had not been designed with a release-catch. He hadn't thought he'd need it. It had never even occurred to him. He dragged himself out of the library long enough to fix the boys a dinner of pancakes and eggs and then buried himself in the dusty, lonely sanctuary again. Sometimes he looked around his house and felt like he was being buried alive, like he had crawled into this grave-pit of personal history and pulled the dirt over his own head. Sometimes he thought living like this was making him insular, too involved in his own logic to recognize the real world damage that could be done. Bobby broke out the whiskey.
He didn't drink much. Just enough to depress himself into fatalism then he went out front and ordered the boys to bed. He drew Sam aside when Dean went into the bathroom to wash up.
"Thought you were looking for a present for your Daddy," Bobby said. He tried to keep all the accusation he was feeling out of his voice. This wasn't Sam's fault. This was his fault. His doing. Sam looked at him blankly, then his face cleared.
"Dad didn't come home for Christmas," Sam told him defiantly, "It was just Dean and I. Dean cared, so I gave it to Dean."
Bobby closed his eyes, swallowed hard. "Okay," he said, "okay," and shoed Sam off to bed.
Dean came out of the bathroom, the collar of his shirt wet with water, a spot of white toothpaste drying in the corner of his mouth. Bobby couldn't help himself. He reached out and caught Dean in a one armed hug, and pressed a kiss to the top of the boy's head.
"You're a good brother, Dean. A real good kid." Dean stared up at him, surprised, and then gave him a sweet, bewildered smile.
"K, Bobby. You had your head in the books too long. Time to stop thinking, man."
Bobby laughed, "Yeah, kid. I think too much. Sweet dreams, Dean."
Dean made a face but he slipped quietly into the room he was sharing with his brother. Bobby scrubbed a hand over his face.
The amulet had been meant for John. Bobby had spent weeks designing the spell and weaving it into the little trinket. It couldn't force a person to do something they weren't already inclined towards, but it heightened those inclinations tremendously. He had seen John slip further and further from the role of parent. He watched John manipulate the boys into assuming the roles of soldiers without apparent care for their young ages. The man had a good reason for needing the boys to be capable, competent. But, God, he could be a better parent, too. There were so many things Bobby would have done for those boys if he…
He had just meant to remind John. Just meant to make sure that Dean and Sam would be John's first priority, always. Sam's request for a Christmas present had been the perfect opportunity. The ritual required that it be given and accepted willingly to be completed. When Sam gave the amulet to John, and John put it on, the compulsion would settle over him invisibly. It wasn't anything that shouldn't come naturally to a parent anyway. Just a desire to see to the giver's wants and needs, an inclination to put the giver first. The spell required love and once activated would be fueled naturally by the wearer's own energy. It was binding.
Bobby scrubbed a hand over his face again and felt sick. He had never meant it for Dean, never meant to force any more out of the boy then he already gave. He would have to watch out for him now. He couldn't break the compulsion, hadn't thought he'd need to, and in the process Dean had been wronged. Bobby owed him. Bobby was accountable.
He couldn't tell anyone. If he told John the man would never bring the boys by again and then how would he repay his guilt? No, he would have to keep quiet and just do his best to look out for Dean. Make sure the boy didn't go too far. Yeah. He could do this. He could make it right.