Bobby Singer stared at the two idiots sitting in front of him. Bleeding, bruised, and befuddled, they kept scuffing their feet, one against the other. Sam couldn't seem to raise his gaze from the floor, while Dean seemed to be finding something fascinating on the ceiling. There was a good five feet of space between the two chairs.
"So Lucifer got out," Bobby said, his voice as flat and emotionless as possible.
"Uh. . ." Sam glanced nervously at his brother, but clearly there was some damn interesting stucco up there. Sam licked his lips, looked back at Bobby. "Yeah."
"And you two are sitting in my living room instead of hunting him down because. . ." Bobby raised one eyebrow. The effect, of course, was lost on the Winchesters, who clearly still had their heads stuck up their asses. Bobby let out a long breath. They'd only been kids when he'd accepted that they were sorely lacking a father-figure. . .John had been a good friend, a damn good hunter, and a shit-sack father. Not, Bobby thought ruefully, that he'd been any better. Maybe it was just a fact of life. Hunters shouldn't have kids.
"We need help," Dean said, finally, breaking the silence. Obviously. Dean had always been less comfortable with silence. Sam was looking at his shoelaces now. Bobby noted idly that one was untied.
"I'll say you need help," Bobby said, standing up. He was irritated. The Apocalypse was right on their doorstep, and the boys were still too caught up in their personal dramas. Obviously, he'd have to do what he'd been putting off for years. He'd have to start traveling with them.
"Fine, ya idiots, let's hit the road. You got a trail, right?" He stared expectantly at Dean. Surely the angels would have clued them in.
"I haven't heard from Cas," Dean said, his tone uncomfortable. Now Bobby's eyes rolled skyward as well. These were the two buffoons who were supposed to save the world?
"So we have no idea where he is. No idea what he's going to do." Bobby sighed. Screw this. When the trail was dead, it meant time for the boys to start the search. Hours on the road, seedier motels than usual. . .he was getting too old for this.
Wait a second. . .he was getting too old. . .
"I'll look into signs," he said gruffly. "You boys head over to Lincoln. There's someone there I want you to meet."
It was a sign of how disheartened the boys were that they didn't argue, or say a word at all. They just stood and, still without a look at each other, slouched out the door toward the Impala. Bobby paused with his hand on the phone. He'd thought this was a good idea. He hoped it was.
* * * * *
Leslie was getting very irritated, and it showed. She knew it showed. She knew her shoulders were hunched over, tight, and that her face was constricted into a very unattractive mask of annoyance. She knew her breath must reek of alcohol, and she knew the constant drumming of her knee underneath the table was pissing off everyone in the room. Fine, she thought. Let them be pissed off. She sure was.
And then, finally, the door opened and they came in. Leslie glanced at her watch. Only two hours late. Swell. Bobby was lucky that she owed him her life. She didn't wait this long for anyone. Ever.
They didn't look anything like brothers, she thought critically as they ambled toward her table. They didn't act like it either. They looked more like magnets, whose polarity had been reversed. The one was absolutely huge. Leslie was a tall girl, but she was pretty certain that if she stood up she would only come up to his shoulders. If she was lucky.
She hadn't worn heels. That meant she would be staying seated.
The other one was shorter, but clearly older. She sensed a bit of a defeatist attitude in him – like he'd given up. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just hung-over.
They stopped just in front of her, Andre the Giant peering at her with pleading puppy dog eyes behind overgrown bangs. She thought her heart skipped a beat. The other one just lifted an eyebrow.
"Leslie?" he asked, and his voice was a low rasp. There it was. . .her heart had caught its cadence again.
"The one and only," she said. "take a seat."
They did so, the shorter one instantly signaling the bartender for a beer. Hatchback tweaked an eyebrow at Leslie. She looked at the half pint left in front of her, considered for a second, then threw it back and nodded. A moment later Hatchback had placed two foaming mugs on her table and headed back behind the bar.
"So," Andre said. She took a fortifying sip, looked at him again. Oh, thank God, the puppy dog eyes were gone, replaced by perfectly normal hazel eyes. For a moment she wondered if she was hallucinating again, then figured not. They'd both be wearing firefighting gear if she were.
"So. Bobby sent you, huh?" she asked. They nodded. She took another sip of beer. They continued to just sit, Andre the giant patiently, the short one seemingly engrossed in his drink. Leslie continued to watch them.
Bobby hadn't told her why he'd sent them. That wasn't unusual – Bobby had inherited the apparent Hunter disease of being cryptic. At least he was usual better about it than most Hunters. It was just occasional. . .lapses. The way he'd sounded, she'd assumed that he was sending her a pair of green babies, who hadn't seen anything more on a hunt than a wimpy ghost. Obviously that wasn't the case. The two men in front of her were young, but not that young. The older one had to be around her age, maybe a year or two younger – less if she was wearing foundation.
Plus there was the way they walked. . .feet spread apart, braced for attack, like rugby players or pit bulls. Their faces were busted up, recently – probably on a hunt. Their shoulders hung low – the weight of the world, and their eyes were shadowed. They'd seen things. They knew. Light scars, barely visible – she saw them because she was looking. Lucky they were young. In a few years, those scars wouldn't disappear so easily. It would be pretty hard for them to hang on to those pretty faces then.
She kept looking at them. She was good at reading people – Bobby had always said so, and Bobby wasn't a slacker himself. A bit of a hillbilly, a redneck yokel, but not an idiot. She'd learned a lot from him. Just like she was learning a lot from Batman and Robin. The older one seemed more haunted, somehow. She focused her attention on him. Green eyes, eyelashes to die for. . .and there it was. The way he held his shoulder. He'd been marked. She tried not to show her surprise, turned her gaze to the other one, and it was so obvious now, she didn't know how she hadn't seen it the minute they'd walked in. Both marked. The pawns in a chess game, one white, one black, and it was equally obvious that the poor fools didn't even know it.
"You're Sam and Dean Winchester," she said. They didn't seem surprised that she recognized them.
"In the flesh," the older one, Dean, said, and his mouth tilted up in a half smile. His teeth were blindingly white. Leslie closed her eyes, shook her head. Bobby was going to pay for this one. Slowly. With his beard, maybe.
"Great," she said, almost seething. "Fantastic."
"Is something wrong?" Sam asked.
"Of course not," she said. "Everything's just peachy. You're the two idiots who let Lucifer free. Idiots."
"Hey!" Dean protested. Sam looked a little apologetic, at least.
"We're sorry," he said, his tone a little earnest. "We didn't know."
"I'm going to kill Bobby," Leslie seethed. Pissed didn't begin to describe how she was feeling. "Sixty-six seals. Sixty-six in the whole world. And, let's see, there were only two that had to be broken. Only two specific ones. And you idiots broke those."
"We didn't mean to," Sam said plaintively, but Leslie was on a roll. She stood, slammed her drink down on the table.
"Fuck off," she said. "Because of you two we've got the whole Apocalypse breathing down our throats. I'll give Dean a freebie on the whole breaking in Hell thing, but Sam Hain? Really? And Lilith? No. I don't care what Bobby thinks, I'm not having anything to do with you."
She considered throwing the pint in their faces and storming off – it seemed like an appropriate motion – but she knew the drink was already on her tab, and there was really no reason to waste perfectly good beer, so instead she just grabbed it and headed to the bar. One glare at Hatchback assured her that he wouldn't bother her.
Damn Winchesters. Damn, fucking Winchesters.
